Great Lives

In 1914, a self-taught Mathematics student named Ramanujan left India for Trinity College Cambridge.Here, alongside the celebrated English mathematician GH Hardy, he completed some extraordinary work on Pi and prime numbers. What was even more extraordinary was that he couldn't prove a lot of his work, and attributed many of his theories to a higher power.For the renowned UK choreographer Akram Khan, there is a beauty in patterns and maths, and he sees Ramanujan's genius as a clash between Eastern and Western cultures. Together with presenter Matthew Parris, he explores the mathematician's life. Guest Professor Robin Wilson, who once visited Ramanujan's home, takes them through some of the maths, and explains why you'll never look at the number 1729 in the same way again.Producer: Toby Field.First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 2017.

Step though the wardrobe - as historian Suzannah Lipscomb selects the creator of the Narnia Chronicles, CS Lewis. The writer was a fascinating and extremely complicated man. Born in Northern Ireland, his mother died when he was a child, and his university career was interrupted so he could fight in the Great War.Suzannah views his writings as deeply moving, as they have influenced her faith.Presenter Matthew Parris is less convinced by the religious influence in his work. But contributor to the Cambridge Companion to CS Lewis, Malcolm Guite sits firmly on Suzannah Lipscomb's side.Produced in Bristol by Miles Warde.First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 2017.

Ruth Holdaway - the former Chief Executive of Women in Sport - picks pioneering sports broadcaster Helen Rollason. Helen trained as a teacher, but after stints in community and local radio moved to the BBC to report for and later present the BBC’s 'Newsround' for children. She kept her hand in with sport and made history in 1990 when she was appointed as the first female presenter of BBC TV’s flagship 'Grandstand'. Sport was largely a male-dominated world at the time and there were plenty both inside and outside the Corporation who would have happily have seen her fail.Presented by Matthew Parris, with John Caunt who helped Helen write her autobiography.Plus contributions from Clare Balding, James Pearce and Deb Crook.Producer: Toby FieldFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2016.

For many piano music lovers, Dinu Lipatti [1917-1950], the Romanian concert pianist, stands head and shoulders above others. Dinu lived during a time of great turbulence, leaving his native Romania for Switzerland at the outbreak of the Second World War. He left behind a wealthy family but they subsequently lost everything under communism.Food writer and former chef, Orlando Murrin explains his love for Lipatti's music and his fascination with his life. It has led him to spending time trying to save Lipatti's family home from demolition in Bucharest.He joins Matthew Parris and the London based Romanian concert pianist Alexandra Dariescu to champion the life and work of one of classical music's greatest 20th century talents.Producer: Maggie AyreFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2016.

Actor Sir Ben Kingsley tells Matthew Parris why he regards Elie Wiesel as his great life. A writer, a Nobel laureate, a holocaust survivor, Elie had to endure the worst horrors of mankind and survive the darkest of crimes. In the Holocaust he lost his mother, his father and his youngest sister. He once said: “To forget the dead would be to akin to killing them again a second time”.Sir Ben Kingsley regards Wiesel as was one the great voices of the holocaust and says he should never be forgotten. This was a promise he made to Wiesel.To help tell Elie’s story, the expert witness is Robert Eaglestone, Professor of Contemporary Literature and Thought and an expert in Holocaust Literature at Royal Holloway, University of London.Producer: Perminder KhatkarFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2016.

Comedian and writer Lucy Porter champions Cary Grant as her Great Life finding that, despite his troubled relationships with women off screen, his on screen charm and generosity towards his female co-stars redeems him. With Grant's biographer, Geoffrey Wansell, who discusses the troubled screen icon's humble beginnings in Bristol and the following glamour and wealth of Los Angeles.Presenter: Matthew Parris Producer: Maggie AyreFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2016.

Chef Cyrus Todiwala chooses Dadabhai Naoroji, the 'Grand Old Man of India' who in 1892 became Britain's first Asian MP for Finsbury Central. He later returned to India and petitioned for the country to be self-governing. Gandhi, who was Dadabhai's mentee, would later refer to him as the Father of the Nation. Matthew Parris presents and Zerbanoo Gifford is the expert.Producer: Toby FieldFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September 2016.

The writer and critic AA Gill nominates Neville Chamberlain as his great life. But his choice is someone who is regarded as one of the worst Prime Ministers Britain has ever had. Chamberlain is someone entrenched in popular legend, as the man who failed to stand up to Hitler. So will AA Gill’s choice stand up to the scrutiny and will he be able to convince presenter Matthew Parris that this was a great life? To help tell the story of Arthur Neville Chamberlain they are joined by Stuart Ball, Professor of Modern British History at the University of Leicester.Producer: Perminder KhatkarFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September 2016.

Eliza Carthy chooses the life of 19th-century poet and campaigner Caroline Norton to discuss with Matthew Parris. Following separation from her controlling husband, Norton fought to gain access to her three children. She campaigned for 30 years resulting in changes to English Law that gave women a separate legal identity for the first time.Eliza first discovered Caroline Norton when she was researching broadside ballads and came across Norton's verse ' Love not! love not! ye hopeless sons of clay'. It stood out, becoming the inspiration for her track 'Fade and Fall' and sparking an interest in Norton and her extraordinary life. The expert is Dr Diane Atkinson, author of 'The Criminal Conversation of Mrs Norton'.Producer: Toby FieldFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September 2016.

Actress and writer Maureen Lipman chooses the end-of-life care campaigner, Dame Cicely Saunders. Dame Cicely Saunders was known as ‘the woman who changed the face of death’. At almost 6 foot tall, she could be intimidating, tiresome and relentless as she devoted her life to ensuring that terminally ill people could die with dignity and without pain. Championing the life of Cicely Saunders as her great life is the actress and writer Maureen Lipman. The expert witness is, Professor David Clark, from the University of Glasgow. Presenter: Matthew Parris Producer: Perminder Khatkar. First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September 2016.