Dante's visions
Descending into the nine circles of Hell is one of the key ideas set out in Dante's Inferno. Today's Free Thinking looks at the way his thinking and imagery have been taken up by other artists and wri...
14 Sep 202144min
Saint John Henry Newman
Catherine Pepinster, Kate Kennedy, Tim Stanley and New Generation Thinker Dafydd Mills Daniel join Rana Mitter to look at the poet, theologian and now Saint John Henry. The programme explores Newman's...
29 Juli 202144min
Revisit Shoes
From Roman sandals to trainers and stilettos. Shahidha Bari looks at the shoe trade, with guests including Thomas Turner, who has written about sneakers in his book The Sports Shoe, A History From Fie...
28 Juli 202144min
Revisit The influence of the British black arts movement
Artists Sonia Boyce, Isaac Julien, Eddie Chambers and Harold Offeh talk to Anne McElvoy about their art and the influence of the British black arts movement - which began around the time of the First ...
27 Juli 202144min
Revisit: Tokyo Idols and Urban Life
Tokyo used to be presented as the ultimate hyper-modern city. But after years of economic recession the Tokyo of today has another side. A site of alienation and loneliness, anxiety about conformity a...
23 Juli 202144min
Revisit Rashōmon
Who can you trust? That's the question posed in Rashōmon. In today's programme Rana Mitter's guests David Peace, Natasha Pulley, Yuna Tasaka and Jasper Sharp look at both the book and the film.Ryūnosu...
22 Juli 202143min
Bette Davis
A spinster dominated by her mother in Now Voyager (1942), a strong-willed Southern belle in Jezebel (1938) which won her an Academy award for best actress, a Broadway star in All About Eve (1950): jus...
20 Juli 202144min
Connecting with nature
Music from Orkney thunderstorms, dog walks in the Yorkshire Sculpture Park that have inspired a set of tiles, essays about the seasons from a diverse collection of writers: Eleanor Rosamund Barracloug...
19 Juli 202144min
