Arts & Ideas

Novelist Will Self, shark expert Gareth Fraser and film expert Ian Hunter join Matthew Sweet for a discussion about sharks, whales and the impact of the book and film Jaws. Jaws started out as a novel...

20 Aug 201844min

Christopher Harding talked to the philosopher Mark Vernon and New Generation Thinker Hetta Howes about figures from the past and present who have searched for a sense of transcendence and experienced ...

14 Aug 201821min

Historians Laura Rowe and Saul David discuss the controversy surrounding the 1915 German torpedo attack that sank the RMS Lusitania, killing 1198 passengers and crew. Presented by Anindya Raychaudhuri...

12 Aug 201826min

The Bible has provided much fruitful inspiration to poets, novelists and composers over the past two thousand years. BBC New Generation Thinker Dr Joe Moshenska teaches Milton at the University of Cam...

10 Aug 201832min

A series of classical tales, from the Iliad to the Inferno have been recast by modern poets. Sean O’Brien has written a version of Dante’s Inferno, and, for the stage, Aristophanes’ The Birds; he is...

6 Aug 201834min

Poets Gillian Clarke and Peter Mackay discuss the rich seam of folklore that has influenced their work and the danger of losing our connection to these tales. Gillian is a former National Poet of Wale...

6 Aug 201821min

Novelists John Lanchester and Diana Evans, both chroniclers of contemporary London, discuss the many and diverse communities and villages that make up the UK capital, exploring the differences between...

31 Jul 201836min

The Alps have loomed large in the artistic imagination since the Romantic poets explored them in search of ‘the sublime’. Historian Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough talks to writer Abbie Garrington and cl...

30 Jul 201833min