Free Thinking

Latest Episodes:

Free Thinking – Landmark: Lorraine Hansberry Jan 07, 2016

Show notes

With two plays by Lorraine Hansberry being staged in the UK in 2016, Philip Dodd looks at her writing and its resonance today. When A Raisin in the Sun opened in 1959 it was the first play written by a black woman to be performed on Broadway. It is now touring the UK and being broadcast at the end of January on BBC Radio 3. Les Blancs - written 11 years later - is set in an African country on the brink of civil war and is staged at the National Theatre in Spring. The new production of Raisin in the Sun is being directed by Dawn Walton and Yael Farber is in charge of the National's account of Les Blancs - both directors will be joined by the playwright, Kwame Kwei Armah to discuss Hansberry. Kwame Kwei-Armah, who runs Baltimore's Centre Stage, put on what he called the Raisin Cycle in 2013 which included Bruce Norris's Clybourne Park and his own Beneatha's Place, both responses to Hansberry. Philip's other guests are the historian Dr Althea Legal- Miller and the anthropologist, Kit Davis.

Les Blancs directed by Yael Farber opens at the National Theatre on March 24th. A Raisin in the Sun directed by Dawn Walton artistic director of Eclipse Theatre company opens at the Sheffield Crucible Studio Theatre on Jan 28th and tours to New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich; Nuffield Theatre, Southampton; Liverpool Playhouse; Watford Palace Theatre; The Albany, Deptford ; The Belgrade, Coventry. A BBC Radio 3 production of A Raisin in the Sun is being broadcast on Sunday January 31st.

Producer: Zahid Warley

Free Thinking -Teenage life: David and Ben Aaronovitch, Viv Albertine, Iroise Dumontheil, Simon Stephens Jan 05, 2016

Show notes

Storm up the stairs and slam your bedroom doors, because Matthew Sweet and guests are considering The Teenager on Free Thinking tonight.

David Aaronovitch remembers the trials of growing up in a Stalinist household as his new book Party Animals is published. He's joined in the studio by his brother Ben - who is also an author. Plus, Matthew Sweet considers the social history of those difficult years talking to the neuroscientist Iroise Dumontheil of Birkbeck University of London and musician Viv Albertine and comparing different decades of teenage life. And Simon Stephens talks about the revival of his play Herons which explores the impact of gang bullying on a 14 year old boy.

Party Animals by David Aaronovitch is out now. Ben Aaronovitch is the author of Rivers of London. Herons by Simon Stephens is at the Lyric Hammersmith from January 21st to February 13th.

Producer: Laura Thomas

Free Thinking - Star Wars. Les Liaisons Dangereuses. Ruth Scurr on John Aubrey. Beowulf. Dec 17, 2015

Show notes

Ruth Scurr discusses her biography of the 17th-century antiquary and biographer John Aubrey - which has appeared on many of the newspaper selections of Books of the Year. Christopher Hampton and actress Adjoa Andoh talk to Anne McElvoy about a new production of Hampton's version of Les Liaisons Dangereuses which opens at London's Donmar Warehouse. New Generation Thinker Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough reviews a new TV version of Beowulf and how it compares to the poem she teaches. And the science writer and broadcaster, Marcus Chown, will be sharing his thoughts about his close encounter with Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

Producer: Zahid Warley

Free Thinking - Cities and Safety Dec 16, 2015

Show notes

Tonight, Philip Dodd and guests reflect on safe cities, past and present - on how literature, technology, law and social engineering imagine safety and its absence in cities - and whether safe cities are in the end an oxymoron.

Philip is joined by senior urban fellow at LSE Cities, Adam Greenfield, writer Beatrix Campbell, criminologist Peter Fussey, director of The Runnymede Trust Omar Khan, and historian of London Jerry White, who will be discussing Joseph Conrad's terrorist novel, The Secret Agent.

Free Thinking - Northern Lights Landmark: Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries Dec 15, 2015

Show notes

Long As part of Radio 3's Northern Lights season, Matthew Sweet discusses Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries with the writer Colm Toibin, the film critic Larushka Ivan-Zadeh and the Swedish cultural attache Ellen Wettmark.

Released in 1957 and inspired by Bergman's own memories of childhood holidays in a summerhouse in the north of Sweden, Wild Strawberries tells the story of elderly professor Isak Borg, who travels from his home in Stockholm to receive an honorary doctorate. On the way, he's visited by childhood memories. The film stars veteran actor and director Victor Sjostrom, Bibi Andersson and Ingrid Thulin.

With additional contributions from the film historian Kevin Brownlow and Jan Holmberg from the Ingmar Bergman Foundation, which administers Bergman's archives.

Free Thinking - Must The Arts Be Relevant? Dec 10, 2015

Show notes

Matthew Sweet chairs the British Academy of Song Writers, Composers and Authors debate about relevance and the contemporary across art forms. He is joined by Mark Baldwin Artistic Director of Rambert Dance Company, Catherine Wood curator at Tate, Jennifer Walshe composer and vocalist, Vayu Naidu storyteller and Sarah Kent art critic and performer.

Recorded in front of an audience at the studios of Rambert on London's South Bank.

Part of BBC Radio 3's coverage of the BASCA awards which you can hear broadcast on Saturday's Hear and Now.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod.

Free Thinking - Northern Lights: crime fiction and cold settings Dec 09, 2015

Show notes

Margaret Atwood, Arnaldur Indriadason and MJ McGrath talk to Rana Mitter about crime fiction and cold settings as part of Radio 3's Northern Lights Season.

It's 100 years since Freud published his seminal paper The Unconscious. Rana Mitter and guests New Generation Thinker Shahidha Bari, psychotherapist Mark Vernon and Dr Suzanne O'Sullivan - author of It's All in Your Head - discuss the role notions of the unconscious have played in psychology and culture ever since.

New Generation Thinker Naomi Paxton shares her research.

Margaret Atwood is the author of books including Stone Mattress and the MaddAddam trilogy. Arnaldur Indriadason's novels include Strange Shores, The Draining Lake and Oblivion. MJ McGrath's novels include The Bone Seeker, White Heat and The Boy In The Snow.

Producer: Luke Mulhall.

Free Thinking Festival: Northern Lights: Joanne Harris on the Norse god Loki Dec 08, 2015

Show notes

Long Joanne Harris, the multi-million selling author of Chocolat, discusses her new novel, The Gospel of Loki, inspired by the Norse god of trickery, mischief and deception, a shape-shifter whose cultural manifestations range from 13th-century legends to Marvel comics and video games. She’s joined by Radio 3 New Generation Thinker Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough.

They debate the enduring power of Norse mythology in conversation with Free Thinking presenter Anne McElvoy recorded in front of an audience at the Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead and broadcast as part of The Northern Lights season.

Free Thinking - Mein Kampf; Larissa MacFarquhar; Julia Margaret Cameron Dec 07, 2015

Show notes

Anne McElvoy discusses Mein Kampf coming out of copyright with Ben Barkow of the Wiener Library in London, Heinrich von Berenberg – a publisher based in Berlin and Nicholas Stargardt, author of The German War and a professor of Modern European History at Oxford.

Photographer Anna Fox and painter Chantal Joffe discuss an exhibition of Julia Margaret Cameron photographs at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

New Yorker journalist Larissa MacFarquhar talks to Anne McElvoy about altruism.

Free Thinking - Kenzaburo Oe, Artist and Empire at Tate Britain, Japan and Cool Now Dec 02, 2015

Show notes

Philip Dodd and New Generation Thinker Christopher Harding review the newly translated novel from Nobel prize winner Kenzaburo Oe; historian Naoko Shimazu and curator Mizuki Takahashi discuss the chequered history of the concept of Cool Japan; British Bangladeshi writer Tahmima Anam reviews the new exhibition Artist and Empire at Tate Britain. Artist Hew Locke and curator and art historian Sarah Thomas investigate how Empire creates complexity and difficulty around the question of what is British Art.

Artist and Empire: Facing Britain's Imperial Past runs at Tate Britain from 25 November 2015 – 10 April 2016

Death By Water written by Kenzaburo Oe is translated by Deborah Boliver Boehm.

Producer: Jacqueline Smith

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