Great Lives

Was Robinson Crusoe real? According to the book it was 'written by himself'.To establish the facts, Matthew Parris is joined by two notable desert island survivors to discuss Crusoe’s life and strange adventures, during 28 years on an uninhabited island near the mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque. Crusoe's nominator is Lucy Irvine, who spent a year on Tuin Island with a man called Gerald. Her exploits resulted in a book and a film called ‘Castaway’. The second guest is journalist Martin Popplewell, who was inspired as a teenager to try desert island life by Brooke Shields in the film ‘The Blue Lagoon’.As Martin points out, "There's no mention in the entire Crusoe book of coconuts" in this entertaining dissection of both Crusoe and his creator, Daniel Defoe.Producer: Miles WardeProduced in Bristol and first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in July 2019.

Former Member of Parliament Ed Balls chooses the 20th-century English composer, organist and teacher, Herbert Howells. With the biographer of Herbert Howells, Paul Spicer. Presented by Matthew ParrisProducer: Polly WestonFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in August 2019.

Kamila Shamsie champions the life of the Pakistani human rights lawyer Asma Jahangir. Author of award-winning novel 'Home Fire', Kamila says she was only ten years old, growing up in Karachi, when Asma became her hero even before she really knew her name. She remembers her mother and her aunts all talking about this amazing woman lawyer and social activist who was standing up against many of the laws that Pakistan's President General Zia ul Haq had introduced in the 1980s. Jahangir was always making the news headlines or giving radio interviews. Here was a woman who was determined to speak her mind and stand up for women and the human rights of all its citizens - it seemed she feared no-one, recalls Shamsie. Kamila Shamsie is joined by Asma's daughter Sulema Jahangir, a lawyer working in London and Pakistan who shares some personal stories and anecdotes about her mother - and Saqlain Imam, BBC Urdu journalist and broadcaster - part of the BBC World Service. Presenter: Matthew Parris Producer: Perminder KhatkarFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in May 2019.

The prolific and most significant of American song-hunters - Alan Lomax - is the choice of English folk singer Shirley Collins. She's joined by singer-songwriter and activist Billy Bragg. Lomax did whatever was necessary to preserve traditional music and take it to a wider audience. He was the first to record towering figures like Lead Belly, Muddy Waters and Woody Guthrie. He was instrumental in the revival of U.S. and UK folk. Shirley Collins met Lomax in 1954, after he'd moved to England to avoid the U.S. McCarthy witch-hunt. She tells the story of how they fell in love and describes their recording trips around Europe and in America's Deep South, on the cusp of the civil rights movement. Lomax's ambition was to give a voice to the voiceless, and that took him from fisherman shacks to prisons, farmyards to cotton mills. His steadfast drive to capture cultures before they disappeared resulted in a staggering amount of recordings we can listen to today, from gospel choirs to Cajun fiddling, country blues to calypsos and Haitian voodoo rituals.Presenter: Matthew Parris. Producer: Eliza LomasFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in May 2019.

Turner Prize Winner Jeremy Deller believes the music entrepreneur and The Beatles' manager Brian Epstein, has never been properly credited for his role within popular culture.He's arguing that if Brian hadn't have lived, The Beatles might never have left Liverpool.Jeremy and presenter Matthew Parris are joined by The Beatles' historian Mark Lewisohn, author of 'Tune In’, to discuss the deeply turbulent - but highly successful life of Brian Epstein, who died aged just 32. Producer: Eliza LomasFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in May 2019.

In 2013, Caroline Criado-Perez successfully campaigned for a woman to be featured on a banknote. The Bank of England chose Jane Austen. Caroline joins Matthew Parris and Dr Paula Byrne, author of three books about the novelist, to challenge some of the myths which surround the life of one of history's most famous writers. Matthew discovers how Jane Austen's teenage writings shocked and entertained her family and learns about her grit and determination to be published. He finds out whether there was ever a Mr Darcy in the author's real life and hears why Caroline thinks Austen might just be the Georgians' answer to Fleabag. Producer: Camellia SinclairFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in May 2019.

Pianist Kirill Gerstein chooses the conductor and composer Ferruccio Busoni. Matthew Parris presents.When Busoni died in Berlin in 1924, his pupil Kurt Weill said, "We did not lose a human being but a value." Unravelling exactly what this means is the pianist Kirill Gerstein, a great admirer of Busoni and also a performer of his work. Busoni was a thinker as well as a composer. His book from 1907, Sketch of a New Esthetic of Music, has influenced generations of musicians. With contributions from Erinn Knyt and Anthony Beaumont Producer: Miles Warde.First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2019.

Matthew Parris meets the poet Ian McMillan to find out about the life of his literary hero Malcolm Lowry. Ian first discovered this 20th century writer's work as a young sixth former searching for literary inspiration. He stumbled by chance upon the writer's most famous novel, Under the Volcano, and Lowry's lyrical lines have remained with Ian ever since. Joining Matthew and Ian to discuss the life of this Merseyside writer is the artistic director of Liverpool's Bluecoat Theatre, Bryan Biggs. Together, they discuss the biography of this complex and intense man, a life that was full of sea-voyaging, shack-dwelling and heavy drinking. Producer: Camellia SinclairFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 April 2019.

Journalist Helen Lewis rehabilitates the reputation of the ‘Black Queen’ of France, Catherine de Medici. Helen and presenter Matthew Parris are joined by Dr Estelle Paranque, history lecturer at the New College of Humanities and author of a book on the relationship between Catherine and Elizabeth I.Catherine’s life is a remarkable story of female resilience in the face of adversity. Born and immediately orphaned in Florence, Catherine’s Medici name meant she was married off to the French King’s second son. When she arrived in France, she was shunned. Her new husband was already completely in love with another far older, more beautiful woman and showed little interest in her. No one expected her to come to the throne. But, following a series of unfortunate deaths, Catherine would go on to become one of the most powerful women in Europe – Queen regent, and mother to three kings across decades of a volatile period in French history. Helen became fascinated by her aged 10 when she realised with a kind of horror that had she been a medieval princess she was the right age to be shipped off to a strange land to marry some duke she’d never met. Helen Lewis - associate editor at the New Statesman - argues that Catherine was a savvy political operator, and that her reputation as ‘the serpent of Paris’ was largely due to the fact she was a female in power at a very difficult time. A fascinating insight into a major character little known in the UK. Producer: Polly WestonFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 2019.

She's the most influential woman that English history forgot, says Tom Holland - Aethelflaed, Lady of the Mercians, daughter of Alfred the Great. Living and ruling at a time when the Anglo-Saxons were fighting back against the Vikings, Aethelflaed became a key figure in the construction of what we know today as England. But how much do we actually know?Joining Tom and Matthew Parris in the studio is Sarah Foot, the Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical history. Together they pick though the life of an astonishing character recently recreated in Bernard Cornwell's series 'The Last Kingdom' and played by Millie Brady; and who also might have inspired Eowyn in Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings.Producer: Miles WardeFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 2019.