Free Thinking

Poet Paul Muldoon explores the history of Ireland in his new collection, One Thousand Things Worth Knowing. Historian Roy Foster's latest book is Vivid Faces: the Revolutionary Generation in Ireland 1...

4 Feb 201544min

Andrew O'Hagan talks to Matthew Sweet about identity, capturing memories and the impact of war in his new novel The Illuminations. Eddie Marsan talks about creating his character in the new film Stil...

3 Feb 201544min

Joyce Carol Oates new novel The Sacrifice depicts an act of racial violence which shocks a New Jersey town. Selma dramatises on film the life of Martin Luther King. Timberlake Wertenbaker's new play J...

29 Jan 201543min

Surgeon Henry Marsh and critic Susannah Clapp review the opening of Tom Stoppard's 'The Hard Problem' at the National Theatre tonight. Matthew Sweet is also joined by musician and neuroscientist Dani...

28 Jan 201544min

Rana Mitter talks to Richard J Evans' about his new book The Third Reich in History and Memory which reflects on how racist theories of Empire, promulgated over centuries, provided fertile ground for ...

27 Jan 201545min

New Generation Thinker Daisy Hay talks to Anne McElvoy about the relationship between Disraeli and his wife. Judith Rodin discusses cities and disaster planning with Ricky Burdett. Glass artist Brian ...

22 Jan 201544min

Philip Dodd plus guests David Reynolds, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Simon Heffer and David Edgar discuss Winston Churchill and Englishness, in the week of the 50th anniversary of his death

21 Jan 201543min

Author Michael Dobbs, dramatists James Graham and Paula Milne and TV producer Trudi-Ann Tierney join Anne McElvoy in the BBC Radio Theatre as part of BBC Democracy Day. They debate whether dramas like...

20 Jan 201544min