The mermaid-like Mélusine
The legend of Mélusine emerges in French literature of the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries in the texts of Jean d’Arras and Coudrette. A beautiful young woman, the progeny of the union b...
3 Feb 202344min
Crossroads and TV soaps
Russell T Davies has written a 3 part mini-series - Nolly - about Crossroads star Noele Gordon. He joins Matthew Sweet along with screenwriter Paula Milne who wrote for Crossroads and Coronation Stree...
2 Feb 202344min
The English Civil War
If the Tudors are the soap opera of English history, the restless years of the mid 17th century, often called the English Civil War, are more like a seminar in political and religious theory with an a...
31 Jan 202345min
Holocaust Memorial Day 2023
Romani history and how mass murder is intertwined with a modern day pilgrimage site and the experiences of Portuguese Jewish communities are discussed by Matthew Sweet and his guests. Richard Zimler's...
26 Jan 202345min
William Stukeley
Stone circles, Roman Britain, a fossil crocodile and the flood described in the Book of Genesis, the 1755 Lisbon earthquake, a fake monk's manuscript: these were all studied by William Stukeley, Engli...
25 Jan 202344min
Audrey Hepburn
Matthew Sweet marks the 30th anniversary of the death of this icon of film and fashion who was also an EGOT (winner of an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony Award) and a noted humanitarian. Born in Belgium...
19 Jan 202345min
Higher Education for women and working class students
Over the last two hundred years, working class and women students, have found a place insides universities. Anne McElvoy hears about some of the stories behind the social expansion of higher education...
18 Jan 202345min
The Wife of Bath
Chaucer's widow and clothmaker is one of three characters given a longer confessional voice than other pilgrims in his Canterbury Tales and she uses her narrative to ask who has had the advantage in s...
17 Jan 202344min
