Arts & Ideas

The composer and performer Paganini is alleged to have sold his soul to the Devil in order to become a musical prodigy. The Reverend Richard Coles and poet Imtiaz Dharker discuss the Devil in Christia...

24 Aug 201619min

Michael Pennington is a leading Shakespeare actor who co-founded the English Shakespeare Company with director Michael Bogdanov and has performed at theatres across the world. He is the author of seve...

23 Aug 201620min

References to sheep, lambs, fleeces, wool and shepherds are to be found in many of Shakespeare’s plays. From Corin in ‘As You Like It’ who describes himself as a ‘natural philosopher’ to Perdita’s sav...

22 Aug 201642min

No-one attributed more importance to naming the baby than Laurence Sterne's Walter Shandy but his attempts to ensure his son's future success came to naught and all because he couldn't get his trouser...

14 Aug 201619min

HG Wells was born 150 years ago this year. Although a prolific writer in many genres, he is best known today for his science fiction books, ‘The War of the Words’ and ‘The Time Machine’. As the Nation...

9 Aug 201639min

In the third discussion about the way Shakespeare depicted different professions in his plays, veteran sailor Sir Robin Knox-Johnston, the first man to circumnavigate the world single-handed, looks at...

3 Aug 201620min

Novelist Patricia Duncker, discusses George Eliot, her travels in Germany in the 19th century and the German music she refers to in her novels and diaries. Duncker's novel Sophie and the Sybil is a fi...

3 Aug 201620min

Continuing our exploration of the ways in which Shakespeare portrayed aspects of professional life, Geoffrey Robertson QC talks about the law and lawyers, contending that Shakespeare must either have ...

2 Aug 201640min