Great Lives

The date is June 18 1963, the final seconds of the fourth round of a boxing match. In the ring, Henry Cooper, eight years older and 26 pounds lighter than his opponent, Cassius Clay. And then Cooper h...

31 Juli 201228min

Lynn Barber first met Sebastian Walker at Oxford. "He was the first person I'd ever met who was gay...quite funny looking with a big adam's apple and bespeckled face...he dressed in a very dandy way....

22 Maj 201227min

Diana Athill joins Matthew Parris to explore the life of the Spanish painter, Francisco de Goya, who has been called the last old masters and the first of the moderns.The literary editor and memoirist...

15 Maj 201227min

John Ford had a monumental Hollywood career - over 140 films, Oscars he never turned up to receive, and a blunt way of approaching the business that made him enemies as well as friends. He stood up on...

8 Maj 201228min

Edward Said was a man, who, in his own words, lived two quite separate lives. First there was the scholar and literary critic of Columbia University, and then there was the fierce critic of American a...

26 Apr 201228min

The musician and broadcaster Tom Robinson nominates educationalist George Lyward in this episode of Great Lives.Aged 15 and struggling with his sexuality, Tom Robinson attempted to take his own life a...

24 Apr 201228min

Gertude Stein, American poet, writer and art collector, lived most of her life in France. She was one of the first people to spot the genius of Picasso, Cezanne and Matisse, and she believed she was a...

17 Apr 201227min

Oscar Wilde, author of The Importance of Being Earnest and The Ballad of Reading Gaol, is proposed by Will Self, a writer once described as a 'high powered satirical weapon'.In 1895, and at the height...

10 Apr 201228min