Great Lives

The chanteuse, pianist, composer and civil rights activist Nina Simone is the choice of another female musician who has made a career of defying convention; Joanna Macgregor. Presented by Matthew Parris.

Grace Dent nominates Nancy Mitford for her wit, and for the way in which she showed women that it was possible to live your life fully and unconventionally. Nancy Mitford's greatest success came with the novels The Pursuit of Love (1945) and Love in a Cold Climate (1949). Matthew Parris asks what else it is about Nancy that so inspires Grace, with the aid of Mitford biographer Lisa Hilton.Grace Dent is a TV and restaurant critic, newspaper columnist, author, and broadcaster.Producer Beth O'DeaFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 2013.

"In defeat, unbeatable; in victory, unbearable" – so said Winston Churchill on this week's Great Live, Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery. Many would argue that he was Britain's greatest field commander since Wellington - arrogant, hard to like but undeniably successful – one of the most, perhaps the most, conspicuously successful British commander of the Second World War. He was a national celebrity. In this edition of Great Lives - Al Murray - comedian and TV personality best known for his character of 'The Pub Landlord' champions Monty – and Al starts off by showing presenter Matthew Parris his action figure doll of the man. Joining them is expert historian from the Imperial War Museum, Terry Charman.Producer: Perminder Khatkar. First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in October 2013.

Trade unionist Sir Brendan Barber nominates American author, John Steinbeck as his Great Life. The author of The Grapes of Wrath aimed to fight the cause of the common man, was derided by the right as a Communist and by the left as a sell-out for supporting the Vietnam war. Brendan picks through the politics and explains how Steinbeck influenced him as a teenager to look towards joining the trade union movement. After early success, describing the catastrophic effects of the Great Depression and the Dustbowl in Of Mice and Men and The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck became war correspondent, Nobel Laureate, presidential speechwriter, Hollywood scriptwriter, and environmentalist. Presented by Matthew Parris. Professor Christopher Bigsby from the University of East Anglia helps guide us through the life of a man described as 'America's Charles Dickens'. Producer: Melvin RickarbyFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September 2013.

From Banking, to air traffic control systems and to controlling the United States defence department, there's a computer language called 'Ada'.It's named after Ada Lovelace – a 19th century mathematician and daughter of Lord Byron and now championed as a Great Life. She's been called many things.But perhaps most poetically by Charles Babbage - whom she worked with on a steam-driven calculating machine called the Difference Engine - an 'enchantress of numbers'. Lord Byron called her similarly mathematical mother a "princess of parallelograms". Augusta 'Ada' Byron was born in 1815 but her parents marriage was short and unhappy. They separated when Ada was one month old and she never saw her father, who died when was eight years old. Her mother, Annabella concerned Ada might inherit Byron's "poetic tendencies" had her schooled her in maths and science to try to combat any madness inherited from her father. She's championed by TV presenter and writer – Konnie Huq, most well known for presenting the BBC TV's children's programme - 'Blue Peter'.Together with expert– Suw Charman- Anderson, a Social technologist, they lift the lid on the life of this mathematician, now regarded as the first computer programmer. Presented by Matthew Parris. Producer: Perminder KhatkarFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September 2013.

Matthew Parris is joined by actor Peter Bowles who nominates George Devine, groundbreaking artistic director of the Royal Court Theatre. Devine battled against the theatrical establishment, repressive censorship, helped the careers of actors like Laurence Olivier and Peggy Ashcroft, and by discovering writers like John Osborne and other 'Angry Young Men' - he changed British theatre forever. Helping guide us through the post-war landscape of Devine's life, is Philip Roberts, Emeritus Professor of Drama and Theatre Studies at the University of Leeds.Produced in Bristol by Melvin RickarbyFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September 2013.

TV journalist and writer Paul Mason talks to Matthew Parris about the 19th Century French anarchist, Louise Michel, heroine of the Paris Commune. They're joined by historian Carolyn Eichner who says that Michel "expounded action and aggression with a theatrical, infectious elegance."Known as 'the Red Virgin of Montmartre', Michel fought on the barricades in the short-lived revolution of 1871. Captured and tried by the French government, she told her accusers: "Since it seems that every heart that beats for freedom has no right to anything but a little lump of lead, I demand my share. If you let me live, I shall never cease to cry for vengeance and l shall avenge my brothers. If you are not cowards, kill me!"She served seven years in a penal colony in the South Pacific and seven thousand Parisians turned out to welcome her home. She was a school teacher, writer, orator, anthropologist, feminist and cat-lover. She wrote some moving poems – and an opera about the destruction of the world. Producer: Peter EverettFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4in 2013.

The writer Julie Burchill talks to Matthew Parris about the Hollywood star Ava Gardner. They're joined by Ava's biographer Lee Server. Often described as ‘the most beautiful woman in the world’, Ava Gardner made sixty-five movies, ranging from ‘Mogambo' (for which she won an Oscar nomination) to ‘Maisie Goes To Reno' (for which she didn't). She had three husbands - Mickey Rooney, Artie Shaw and Frank Sinatra - and many lovers including Howard Hughes, David Niven, Robert Mitchum and John F. Kennedy as well as numerous playboys, beach-boys and bullfighters. Ava Gardner was, says Matthew Parris, “a hard-drinking, wisecracking, libidinous vamp – a liberated woman before the phrase was invented.”Presented by Matthew Parris.Produced by Peter Everett.First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2013.

Playwright Tanika Gupta chooses as her Great Life, a man who is a hero to Bengali speakers across the World, Rabindranath Tagore.Born in 1861, to a wealthy family in Calcutta, Tagore would be the first non-European to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, his work spanning every genre. He was also a humanist, philanthropist, and thinker, whose friends included Yeats and Gandhi.Tagore began writing in his boyhood, and his work reflects a deep feeling for the landscape of Bengal. His plays, essays, stories and poetry quickly found a ready audience in Bengali speakers. And in 1913, when he won the Nobel Prize for Literature for his poetry collection ‘Gitanjali', or ‘Song Offerings', his reputation was established world-wide.Tagore's brand of humanism, his anti-imperial politics, and his literature, took him around the World. It also convinced him of the dangers of European aggression and the need for Indian Independence. He died just six years before it was achieved.Playwright Tanika Gupta joins Matthew Parris to share her deep love of Tagore's work and her early experiences of performing it. She is joined by Tagore's translator, Ketaki Kushari Dyson, to discuss Tagore's vast legacy to Bengali speakers and beyond.Produced by Lizz Pearson.First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2013.

Poet, playwright, and critic Gabriel Gbadamosi chooses as his Great Life the political maverick and inventor of Afrobeat, musician Fela Kuti, and tells Matthew Parris why his work deserves to be better known. Whether withstanding ferocious beatings from the Nigerian police, insulting his audiences, or demanding a million pounds in cash upfront from Motown records, his strength and stubbornness were legendary, and his gift for controversy unmatched.Fela had more than 25 wives, some of whom he beat, and was President of his own self proclaimed Republic. He smoked dope and was the scourge of the rulers of a corrupt Nigerian state and was acclaimed as having the best live band on earth.Gabriel Gbadamosi is joined by Stephen Chan, professor of International Relations at the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, to discuss the musical and political life of this outspoken force of nature.Presenter: Matthew Parris Producer: Melvin RickarbyFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2013.