Great Lives

Former newspaper editor and writer Eve Pollard tells Matthew Parris why Nora Ephron, the screenwriter of hit films such as 'When Harry Met Sally', 'Heartburn', and 'Sleepless in Seattle', is a Great Life.They are joined by Dr Jennifer Smyth, an historian whose teaching includes women in Hollywood at the University of Warwick. Producer: Perminder Khatkar

Michael Dobbs champions the life of Guy Burgess - journalist, diplomat and spy. Between 1935 and 1951, Guy Burgess worked for a Conservative MP, the BBC, MI6 and the Foreign Office. Brilliant, flamboyant and apparently shambolic, he also shot like an arrow to the heart of the Establishment and secretly and systematically betrayed its secrets to the KGB. Matthew Parris chairs as Michael explains why he believes that Guy Burgess was a Great Life. Burgess’s biographer Stewart Purvis, who uncovered the only known audio recording of Guy Burgess, is the expert witness. Producer: Julia JohnsonFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2015.

When Philippa Langley and other members of the Richard III Society helped to discover the body of the king in a Leicester car park, Richard's life once again became a hotly contested debating point. Philippa joins Matthew Parris to defend Richard III as a Great Life, with expert witness and Richard biographer Annette Carson. Can the man who may have been responsible for the disappearance of the Princes in the Tower really be described as "great"? Or was he the victim of Tudor propaganda and Shakespearian slander? Producer Christine HallFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2015.

Writer Roald Dahl is well known as the author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Fantastic Mr Fox and The BFG, but he was also fascinated by medical science. Professor Tom Solomon, who looked after him during his last illness, spent hours discussing medicine with Dahl.Tom talks to Matthew Parris about Dahl's life and work, through the prism of his forensic interest in the workings of the human body. With them is Donald Sturrock, Dahl's biographer.Producer Christine Hall. First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2014.

Brian Eno has worked with David Bowie, David Byrne and U2 but his choice of Great Life is not a rock star but the sociologist Lord Young of Dartington. Michael Young wrote the Labour Party's 1945 election manifesto, researched slum clearance in the East End of London, set up the Consumers' Association, coined the word "meritocracy", co-founded the Open University and planned the colonisation of Mars. With the help of Michael's son Toby, Brian considers the life and work of one of the architects of post-war Britain. Producer: Julia JohnsonFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2014.

Laura Bates, journalist and curator of the Everyday Sexism Project, explains to Matthew Parris why the 19th century children's author Louisa May Alcott has her vote for a Great Life. They are joined by Sarah Churchwell, Professor of American Literature at the University of East Anglia. Louisa May Alcott is best known as the writer of "Little Women", the story of four sisters growing up during the Civil War in America. Generations of girls have read the book, which at first sight seems to be an improving tract on growing up and becoming a good Christian wife.Both Laura and Sarah have a very different reading of the book and believe Louisa May Alcott to have been a remarkable woman and a dedicated feminist. Producer Christine HallFirst heard on BBC Radio 4 in 2014.

Matthew Parris – himself current holder of the House of Commons marathon record time – meets comedian Arthur Smith, who also turns out to have been a runner when he was younger.His choice for a Great Life is an athlete whom he has admired since his childhood.Emil Zátopek emerged onto the international stage in 1948 when he became a sensation at the Olympics in London, but it was his performance in the 1952 Helsinki Olympics which put him in the record books. Already an established distance runner, he bagged gold in the 5000 and 10000 metres and then, having previously given no hint that he would be a champion marathon runner, he also won that race.The expert witness is Pat Butcher, writer and ex-runner, who is working on a biography of Zátopek, and he argues that no-one is likely ever to equal Zátopek's achievement in winning gold in three different distance events.Zátopek retired from competitive running in 1957 and later fell heavily out of favour with the post- Dubcek regime in Czechoslovakia.But he was rehabilitated after 1989 and remains a much-cherished hero in Czech Republic and among the running community.Producer Christine Hall. First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2014.

Matthew Parris discovers that Edith Hall, Professor of Classics at King’s College, London, has a surprising nomination for a Great Life.She's chosen Lucille Ball, the vivacious redhead, who in the 1950s and 1960s was one of the best-known and best-loved actresses on TV, both in the United States and here. What makes a professor of Greek and Roman writing such a great fan of a zany American actress? What was Lucy like behind the TV persona? Matthew finds out in the company of Carole Cook, Lucy’s long-time friend and protégée. Producer: Christine HallFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September 2014.

Matthew Parris hears from Labour peer Lord Adonis why Joseph Bazalgette, the Victorian engineer, has his nomination as a Great Life. Bazalgette, the grandson of a French immigrant who made a fortune lending money to the Hanoverian royal family, is one of the most important of the great Victorian engineers. He not only built a sewage system for London which wiped out cholera in the city, he also built the famous Embankments, laid out several of the main thoroughfares and built or improved many of the city's landmark bridges. Yet he is far less well-known than his flamboyant contemporary Brunel and less celebrated than the creators of the railways. With the help of Joseph Bazalgette's great-great-grandson Sir Peter Bazalgette, the man responsible for Ready Steady Cook and Big Brother and now Chairman of the Arts Council, Matthew pieces together the story of Sir Joseph Bazalgette, "The Sewer King." Producer Christine HallFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2014.

Dame Stella Rimington, former director of MI5 and a celebrated crime writer herself, nominates for a Great Life that of Dorothy L Sayers. Sayers' first Lord Peter Wimsey novel was published in the 1920s, the Golden Age of crime fiction, and he is still very much with us, appearing often on BBC Radio 4 Extra. She went on to enjoy a huge popularity with her crime novels and then turned to writing Christian essays and plays, most notably the series for the BBC on the life of Christ – which stirred up a great controversy as no-one had before impersonated Jesus on the radio. Dame Stella tells Matthew Parris why the paradoxes and contradictions in Dorothy Sayers' life fascinate her, and explains how Sayers' writing influences her own. With Seona Ford, chairman of the Dorothy L Sayers Society.First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2014.