Great Lives

“We’re talking here about a woman who was Mexican, dark skinned, disabled and queer, who produced art and didn’t allow her disabilities to define her. She defined who she was on her own terms," So say...

12 Aug 202027min

September 1943, and German troops have just landed in gliders to rescue Benito Mussolini from the mountain resort where he was being held. “I knew my friend Adolf Hitler would not desert me,” he said ...

4 Aug 202029min

Dolly Alderton's love of Doris Day began when she watched Calamity Jane as a young child. And for Dolly, the incandescent film star was as much of a poster girl as The Spice Girls. But Dolly's view of...

2 Jun 202027min

Sara Wheeler first read Sybille Bedford in her early twenties, and discovered a dazzling writer. The book she read was called A Visit to Don Otavio. It's set in Mexico, a country Bedford wanted to vis...

26 Mai 202027min

Anand Menon, director of the UK in a Changing Europe, chooses the life of infamous Leeds United Captain, Billy Bremner.Billy Bremner played for Leeds as a midfielder from 1959 until 1976. He scored 11...

19 Mai 202027min

When actress Sally Phillips first saw Myrna Loy, she burst into tears. It was in a film called The Best Years of Our Lives, about three veterans returning to their wives after the Second World War. ...

13 Mai 202027min

Actor and comedian Daniel Rigby chooses the creator of Acorn Antiques, As Seen on TV and Dinnerladies, Victoria Wood.Victoria grew up in a bungalow high up on the moors in Lancashire. The rooms were p...

5 Mai 202027min

Maya Angelou was born Marguerite Johnson in 1928. She was a mother, writer, dancer, director, performer, friend of presidents, and author of seven volumes of memoir. The very first - I Know Why the Ca...

29 Apr 202027min