Free Thinking

Latest Episodes:

Free Thinking - Stefan Zweig, Howard Jacobson, Michael Sandle Jan 27, 2016

Show notes

Philip Dodd presents a programme for Holocaust Memorial Day. Howard Jacobson discusses reinventing Shylock and exploring anti-semitism as he publishes his new novel. Historian Karen Leeder has been reading about Stefan Zweig and Joseph Roth in Ostend 1936 - and a collection of Zweig's writings Messages From a Lost World: Europe on the Brink. Sculptor Michael Sandle is known for creating memorials. He shows Philip Dodd round his new exhibition which marks his 80th year. Key works of his include St George and the Dragon at Blackfriars, the International Maritime Organization Seafarer's Memorial on the Albert Embankment in London, and the Malta Seige Memorial, in the Grand Harbour of Valletta, Malta which includes one of the largest bells ever forged which rings at Noon each day.

Free Thinking - Con Men; John Dee; F For Fake Jan 26, 2016

Show notes

Matthew Sweet and guests explore the art of the con.... If you've ever fallen for a scam, you'll be reassured by Maria Konnikova's new book The Confidence Game, in which she explains why most of us are easy prey to con artists.

Orson Welles was infamous early in his career for a radio broadcast of HG Wells' War of the Worlds which - it's said - caused genuine panic that aliens were invading earth. For Free Thinking Larushka Ivan-Zadeh discusses Welles's last film, F For Fake, which tells the tangled story of art forger Elmyr de Hory.

And Gary Lachman and Kevin Jackson visit a new exhibition about Elizabethan alchemist, philosopher and mathematician John Dee - a mysterious figure who during his long career was sometimes a con-artist, and sometimes the conned.

Free Thinking - The Arab Spring, Sahar Assaf, Owen Hatherley, Social Media and Language Jan 21, 2016

Show notes

Anne McElvoy looks at what happened to the Arab Spring five years on, talking to Egyptian novelist Alaa Al-Aswany - whose new novel is called The Automobile Club of Egypt - and to satirist and critic Karl Sharro. They will be joined by Lebanese actress Sahar Assaf talking about performing in Dario Fo and Franca Rame's monologue An Arab Woman Speaks.

Also in the programme, Owen Hatherley discusses his latest book The Ministry of Nostalgia.

And, lexicographer Tony Thorne and writer Hannah Jane Parkinson discuss how social media is affecting language.

The English premiere of Dario Fo and Franca Rame's An Arab Woman Speaks is on at the New Diorama Theatre in London until 6th February.

Producer: Luke Mulhall

Free Thinking - Holes in the Ground Jan 20, 2016

Show notes

Rana Mitter goes underground to discover a world which long fed the human imagination and which fulfils all humanity's practical needs outside of food and yet which has become something we like to ignore, hide, conceal and forget. Counting the potential costs for all our futures, three enthusiasts for all that lies beneath, the engineer Professor Paul Younger from Glasgow University ; Ted Nield editor of the bi-monthly magazine Geoscientist and MIT's Rosalind Williams.

Professor Paul Younger from Glasgow University is the author of Water: All That Matters and Energy: All That Matters Ted Nield is the author of Underlands: A Journey Through Britain's Lost Landscape Rosalind Williams is the author of Notes on the Underground' and 'The Triumph of the Human Empire'.

Producer: Jacqueline Smith.

Free Thinking Landmark: The Picture of Dorian Gray Jan 19, 2016

Show notes

Merlin Holland, Will Self and Fiona Shaw join Matthew Sweet for a discussion about Oscar Wilde's novel which was published in Lippincott's Monthly Magazine in the July 1890 issue and then as a book 121 years ago in 1891. It prompted discussions about censorship and hedonism and went on to play a considerable part in the writer's downfall. Endlessly filmed, The Picture of Dorian Gray seems to communicate directly to successive generations - but how much about its writer can it really tell us.

Merlin Holland, Oscar Wilde's grandson, has adapted it for a new stage version which runs at The Trafalgar Studios in London from January 18th to February 13th. Will Self's novel Dorian: An Imitation updated the story to the late 20th century. Fiona Shaw played Agatha in the 2009 film version, Dorian Gray.

Producer: Jacqueline Smith

Free Thinking - The Oscars Jan 14, 2016

Show notes

Matthew Sweet is joined by Professor Christopher Frayling to look at the revival of Westerns and Bryony Hanson and Laurence Scott consider the 2016 Oscar contenders.

Free Thinking - French thought and politics. Jan 14, 2016

Show notes

Philip Dodd wrestles with an especially knotty question – does France have to stop being French to survive? Its a question which owes its urgency to recent events from the massacres of last year to the rise of the Right and an apparent erosion of the secular values that underpin the Fifth Republic. What price the France of Camus and New Wave Cinema in the face of globalisation? To answer these questions Philip is joined by the political commentator Anne-Elizabeth Moutet, the historian Liz Buettner, the Muslim scholar, Ziauddin Sardar and Andy Martin, an expert in 20th century French literature which did so much to fix the features of modern France in our minds.

Producer: Zahid Warley.

Europe After Empire by Elizabeth Buettner is published in April Islam Beyond the Mad Max Jihadis by Ziauddin Sardar is published in February

Free Thinking - TS Eliot poetry prize winner. Lisa Randall on dark matter. Jan 12, 2016

Show notes

Anne McElvoy talks to the winner of this year's TS Eliot poetry prize Sarah Howe - who won for her first collection; Anne talks to leading physicist Lisa Randall - author of Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs and explores new architecture with Douglas Murphy and Owen Hopkins. New Generation Thinker Jonathan Healey looks at what history can tell us about coping with flooding.

Free Thinking - Velasquez; John Bratby; Pan Haggerty Jan 08, 2016

Show notes

Anne McElvoy looks at changing fashions and values in the art world as she talks to Observer critic Laura Cumming about her researches into a 19th-century court case involving a Velázquez portrait. New Generation Thinker Joe Moshenska joins the conversation to explain more about the trip to Spain during which the future Charles I was painted by the Spanish artist.

Curator Liz Gilmore and dealer Julian Hartnoll discuss the British painter John Bratby who was celebrated and seen as an enfant terrible of the art world in the '50s and '60s. He is believed to have painted over 1500 works and an exhibition at the Jerwood Gallery in Hastings has drawn upon paintings brought in by members of the public.

Artist Gayle Chong Kwan is working on a project based upon the North Eastern food dish Pan Haggerty. She talks about the walks, videos and photographs she has been creating as part of her residency in East Durham.

Laura Cumming's book is called The Vanishing Man: In Pursuit of Velázquez John Bratby: Everything But The Kitchen Sink Including The Kitchen Sink runs at the Jerwood Gallery in Hastings from January 30th to April 17th. The Pan Hag Project is being produced in conjunction with Forma Arts.

Producer: Ella-Mai Robey

Laura Cumming on Velazquez, John Bratby, The Pan Hag Project Jan 07, 2016

Show notes

Laura Cumming's book is called The Vanishing Man: In Pursuit of Velázquez

John Bratby: Everything But The Kitchen Sink Including The Kitchen Sink runs at the Jerwood Gallery in Hastings from January 30th to April 17th.

The Pan Hag Project is being produced in conjunction with Forma Arts.

Producer: Ella-Mai Robey

(Main Image: Still Life, John Bratby (c)The Artist's Estate).