Is the Law keeping up with our changing world?Is the Law keeping up with our changing world?

Free Thinking

Orwell's 1984 - a Landmark of Culture

Matthew Sweet explores what fed into Orwell's future vision and how our own is shaping up.

• 44 mins

Free Thinking

Breaking Down the Barriers

The cultural contribution of Muslim women, and Rana Mitter talks to artist John Keane.

• 44 mins

Free Thinking

Michael Rakowitz, Archaeology Now, Epic Journeys and Facial Disfigurement

Artist, archaeologists, a writer and a historian of the face make the invisible visible.

• 44 mins

Free Thinking

Afropean identities, Filming the Arab spring

Johny Pitts and Caryl Phillips discuss the idea of Afropean identity with Matthew Sweet.

• 44 mins

Free Thinking

Landmark: Finnegans Wake

Matthew Sweet discusses James Joyce's groundbreaking novel of 1939.

• 44 mins

Free Thinking

Catch 22, Recycling fashion, Fred D'Aguiar, Wu Mali

Anne McElvoy watches George Clooney in Catch-22 on TV and looks at recycling fashion.

• 44 mins

Free Thinking

Jane Goodall, Elif Shafak

Matthew Sweet talks to two campaigning women: a writer from Turkey and an animal expert.

• 44 mins

Free Thinking

Cindy Sherman, Laura Cumming

The art of Cindy Sherman plus art critic Laura Cumming on the days her mother disappeared.

• 44 mins

Free Thinking

Amitav Ghosh. Layla and Majnun. Islam Issa.

Amitav Ghosh on linking refugees, climate change, Venice & Bengali forests in his fiction

• 44 mins

Free Thinking

Language and Belonging

With Guy Gunaratne, Dina Nayeri, Michael Rosen, Momtaza Mehri and Deena Mohamed.

• 44 mins

Free Thinking

Russia and Fear.

Rana Mitter considers fearing Russia past and present with Mark B Smith & Tamar Koplatadze

• 44 mins

Free Thinking

Reinventing the 'Mistake on the Lake'.

Philip Dodd visits the US rust-belt city of Cleveland.

• 44 mins

Free Thinking

Landmark: Iris Murdoch's The Sovereignty of Good

Matthew Sweet and guests on Iris Murdoch's thought and writing 100 years on from her birth

• 44 mins

Free Thinking

Caine Prize, Ivo van Hove, Female desire

Shahidha Bari looks at staging Ayn Rand's ideas and meets the 2019 Caine Prize winner.

• 44 mins

Free Thinking

An insider's view of war

Ex-marine and journalist Elliot Ackerman on al-Qaeda and the Iraq War.

• 44 mins

Free Thinking

Camille Paglia

Camille Paglia in conversation with Philip Dodd about free speech and feminism.

• 44 mins

Free Thinking

New angles on post-war Germany and Austria

Anne McElvoy with Florian Huber, Sophie Hardach, Adam Scovell and Tom Smith

• 44 mins

Free Thinking

Book Parts and Difficulty

Matthew Sweet looks at frontispieces, titles and marginalia, and hard texts.

• 44 mins

Free Thinking

James Ellroy

Philip Dodd is in conversation with American author James Ellroy.

• 44 mins

Free Thinking

Tolerance, censorship and free speech

Susan Neiman, Ursula Owen and Christopher Hampton join Anne McElvoy.

• 44 mins

Free Thinking

Landmark: Susan Sontag's Against Interpretation.

Lauren Elkin, Lisa Appignanesi and Ben Moser debate Susan Sontag's life and ideas.

• 44 mins

Free Thinking

Back to the '80s

From Stranger Things to Stephen King's It - Matthew Sweet and guests revisit '80s culture.

• 44 mins

Free Thinking

Surveillance and Secrets from the Archives

Matthew Sweet on surveillance capitalism, The Third Man and Stieg Larsson's archive.

• 44 mins

Free Thinking

Anxiety

Comedian Sofie Hagen, Colombian novelist Héctor Abad & Isabel Hardman join Shahidha Bari.

• 44 mins

Free Thinking

Myth making, satire and Caryl Churchill

Interviews w/ illustrator Gerald Scarfe & artist Kiki Smith+ Caryl Churchill's new plays.

• 44 mins

Free Thinking

Mark Haddon

Anne McElvoy talks to Mark Haddon about his career and latest novel The Porpoise.

• 44 mins

Free Thinking

From the Spains to Latinx, including Iain Sinclair's Peruvian Journey

Rana Mitter talks to Jason Webster, Ed Morales, Iain Sinclair and Iwona Blazwick.

• 44 mins

Free Thinking

Rebecca Solnit, Truth, National Poetry Day

Who holds the power? US activist and author Rebecca Solnit talks to Shahidha Bari.

• 44 mins

Free Thinking

The Frieze Masters Free Thinking Conversation about Art

Director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art Michael Govan talks art with Philip Dodd.

• 44 mins

Free Thinking

Modern Dutch Writing

Laurence Scott looks at the way Dutch writers are addressing history and contemporary life

• 44 mins

Free Thinking

East Meets West

Historian Tom Holland, critic Fatima Bhutto, Ziauddin Sardar, and artist Inci Eviner.

• 44 mins

Free Thinking

2019 Booker Prize, The Power of Ancient Artefacts

Anne McElvoy talks prehistory with archaeologist Mike Pitts and artist Renee So.

• 44 mins

Free Thinking

The Woolly episode.

From Sean the Sheep & Damien Hirst to clothiers & a knitted bikini. Shahida Bari presents.

• 44 mins

Free Thinking

Dictators

Matthew Sweet and guests on Chaplin's 1941 film, The Great Dictator, and rising populism.

• 44 mins

Free Thinking

The 2019 Frieze Free Thinking Museums Debate

Museum directors from Asia and France join Anne McElvoy and an audience at RIBA.

• 44 mins

Free Thinking

What to Believe

Rana Mitter and guests look at the history of atheism and morality.

• 44 mins

Free Thinking

Landmark: The Yorkshire Feminist Winifred Holtby

Matthew Sweet is joined by Rachel Reeves MP, Jane Thomas and Katie Cooper in Hull.

• 44 mins

Free Thinking

Writing Real Life from Brexit to Grenfell

Ali Smith, Jay Bernard and James Graham join Matthew Sweet at the British Library.

• 44 mins

Free Thinking

Cars, Parking and Motorways.

A discussion reflecting on automobiles, AI and the 60th anniversary of the M1 motorway.

• 44 mins

Free Thinking

Halloween. Ghost Stories

Haunting stories with Kirsty Logan, Jeremy Dyson and host Shahidha Bari.

• 44 mins

Free Thinking

Quatermass

Matthew Sweet celebrates the classic TV sci-fi series with Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat.

• 44 mins

Free Thinking

The changing image of masculinity

Writers Ben Lerner, JJ Bola and Derek Owusu on images of masculinity in fiction and life.

• 44 mins

Free Thinking

The 2019 Free Thinking Imperial War Museum Remembrance Debate

Carrie Riechardt, Peter Bazalgette, Zahed Tajeddin and Rebecca Newall with Anne McElvoy.

• 44 mins

Free Thinking

Weimar and the Subversion of Cabaret Culture

Le Gateau Chocolat, Lucy McCormick and Gaylene Gould with Matthew Sweet at the Barbican.

• 44 mins

Front Row

Lorna May Wadsworth, Marriage Story, My Mother Said I Never Should, I Feel Pretty

Lorna May Wadsworth, Marriage Story, My Mother Said I Never Should, I Feel Pretty

• 28 mins

Arts & Ideas

Weimar and the Subversion of Cabaret Culture

Willkommen, bienvenue, welcome... Cabaret and club culture, recorded at the Barbican.

• 57 mins

The Essay

The Weimar Years

Episode 2

Camilla Smith looks the the art of the Weimar Republic.

• 14 mins

Mobeen Azhar

Life Changing Diagnosis

A show dedicated to exploring what it’s like to live with a life changing illness.

• 120 mins

Sarah Brett

12/11/2019

Sarah Brett with late night discussion on the issues and stories that matter to you.

• 150 mins