Arts & Ideas

Thanks in part to the birth of those enduring caricatures - Essex Man & Essex Girl - in the 1990s, this is a county that has struggled to break free from a whole raft of stereotypes and assumptions. Matthew Sweet and his guests - all Essex residents - are here to present a more nuanced, complicated and historically rich vision of this woefully misunderstood part of England.Tim Burrows has written The Invention of Essex: The Making of an English County Elsa James is an artist whose work includes the Forgotten Black Essex project Simon Heffer is a historian and journalist who first coined the term 'Essex Man' Dan Taylor is a New Generation Thinker. He lectures in Social and Political Thought at the Open University and his most recent research has taken him along the route of the A13, from east London to Southend on SeaProducer: Torquil MacLeodComposer William Byrd has strong Essex connections - and you can hear his music daily on Essential Classics between 9am and 12 as part of Radio 3's Byrd spotting series to mark the anniversary of his birth in July 1623 In the Free Thinking archives you can find Matthew Sweet talking to Essex born author Sarah Perry in conversations about spookiness and fear and her book The Essex Serpent https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000kk2 and a Covid conversation about Melmoth the Wanderer https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000jgcs

Premiered to 63 people at the Royal Court back in 1973, the Rocky Horror Show is marking its anniversary with a production touring the UK. New Generation Thinkers Louise Creechan and Joan Passey explore its links with Frankenstein and the Gothic tradition and Paul Baker discusses its place in a history of camp. Shahidha Bari presents.Camp: The Story of the Attitude that Conquered the World is out now. Paul Baker is a Professor at Lancaster University. Rocky Horror runs at Sadlers Wells Peacock Theatre in Holborn, London until June 10th and then moves on to venues including Crewe, Leeds, Truro, Belfast, Nottingham and Eastbourne. For more details https://rockyhorror.co.uk/tour-dates You can find other conversations about LGBTQ+ culture and history in the Free Thinking collection of episodes called Identity Discussions on the programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06jngzt Programmes include The politics of fashion and drag https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b09zcjch Polari Prize winners from 2020 https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000nmrl Queer Histories https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000f74j New Thinking: Raiding Gay’s the Word & Magnus Hirschfeld https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0ff53xv

A '70s London squat was home to the writer Dambudzo Marechera when he was writing his first novel The House of Hunger (1978), which was published in the Heinemann African Writers series and has now been issued as a Penguin Classic. Tinashe Mushakavanhu is researching his story and writings. Mufaro Makubika has adapted the coming of age story published by NoViolet Bulawayo in 2013 as a play, which is now touring England. Jocelyn Alexander is involved in creating an archive and oral history documenting Southern Africa's liberation armies and has researched experiences of political imprisonment over 50 years in Zimbabwe. Rana Mitter hosts the conversation.Producer: Ruth WattsWe Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo, in a new adaptation by Mufaro Makubika is a Fifth Word and New Perspectives co-production directed by Monique Touko. It tours to Derby, Manchester, Newcastle, Peterborough, and Bristol The House of Hunger is available as a Penguin Classic You can find more discussions about African writing and history in a collection called Exploring Black History on the Free Thinking programme website https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p08t2qbp They include Pettina Gappah on African Empire Stories https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000fgxm Louise Egbunike on Pan-Africanism and Nana Oforiatta Ayim on her African encyclopedia https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000c4mf A focus on Wole Soyinka's writing with novelist Ben Okri, academic Louisa Egbunike and playwright Oladipo Agboluaje https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000k35s An exploration of the politics and writing of Amílcar Lopes da Costa Cabral https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m001ghhz

"Not so much a fear of going out as a fear of something dreadful happening whilst being out" - writer Graham Caveney talks to Matthew Sweet about his own experience of agoraphobia and also how the condition has been reflected in the work of other writers, including Shirley Jackson and Emily Dickinson. Writer Kate Summerscale and New Generation Thinker Joan Passey trace the shifting ideas about sources of phobias in the 19th century and the explosion of interest in naming and cataloguing them. Film critic Christina Newland explores Alfred Hitchcock's portrayal of phobias in films including Frenzy and Marnie.Graham Caveney's book 'On Agoraphobia' is available now. Kate Summerscale is the author of 'The Book of Phobias and Manias'.Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Overcoming grief, historian Rachel Hewitt's new book mixes recent personal history and her experiences of fell running and lockdown with her research into the pioneering mountain climber known as Lizzie Le Blond (1860 – 1934). In 1907, Le Blond set up the Ladies' Alpine Club and over her lifetime made 20 first ascents of different peaks. Chris Harding is joined by Rachel Hewitt, Dr Ben Anderson from Keele University, and science writer Caroline Williams to discuss alpine sports, running, risk and research into health and fitness ahead of Mental Health Awareness Week.Producer: Julian SiddleRachel Hewitt and Ben Anderson were both chosen as BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinkers in the scheme which turns research into radio. Rachel's book In Her Nature How Women Break Boundaries in the Great Outdoors : A Past, Present and Personal Story is out now. You can hear more from Dr Ben Anderson in an episode called Simplify your life - ideas from 20th-century radicals https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000d826 Caroline Williams is the author of Move ! The new science of body over mind. You might be interested in other Free Thinking discussions all available as Arts & Ideas podcasts, on BBC Sounds and the programme website Running https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b087yrll Tacita Dean, Mountains, John Tyndall https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b3fkt3Radio 3 has a series of programmes exploring different music for Mental Health including special episodes of the Classical Mixtape

650 years since the visions of Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe's birth in King's Lynn, two novels have been published which explore these influential medieval mystics. Shahidha Bari brings together Claire Gilbert - author of I, Julian - and Victoria MacKenzie - author of For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy On My Little Pain - and New Generation Thinker Hetta Howes to discuss these very different characters and what we know of their lives and faith.Producer: Robyn ReadYou can find other conversations about medieval figures including Chaucer's Wife of Bath, and Melusine in a collection on the Free Thinking programme website on BBC Radio 3 called Women in the World. All the episodes are available as the Arts and Ideas podcast to download and on BBC Sounds Radio 3's weekly Early Music Show broadcast every Sunday focuses on music of the period

Luxury and Power is the title of a new British Museum exhibition focusing on the politics of display used by rulers in Persia and Greece. Ahead of the coronation, Anne McElvoy hears from the curator, from academics researching past royal rituals in Tudor and Medieval England and about power and royalty on the operatic stage from Verdi's Don Carlos and Aida and to Philip Glass's Akhnaten and Britten's Gloriana.Dr Jamie Fraser is curator for the Ancient Levant and Anatolia at the British Museum and has curated Luxury and power: Persia to GreeceDr Joanne Paul is a writer, historian and broadcaster working on the history of the Renaissance, Tudor and Early Modern Periods.Professor Sarah Hibberd is Stanley Hugh Badock Chair of Music at the University of Bristol. Her research focuses on nineteenth century opera and music theatre in Paris and London.Dr Julia Hartley is a BBC Radio 3/AHRC New Generation Thinker who writes about Dante, Proust and representations of Iran. She lectures at the University of Glasgow School of Modern Languages and Cultures.Producer: Ruth WattsLuxury and power: Persia to Greece runs at the British Museum in London from 4 May 2023 - 13 Aug 2023 On BBC Radio 3 you can find a discussion about recordings of Coronation Anthems on Building a Library, part of Record Review and music by Royal composers featured on In Tune and Radio 3 is broadcasting the music commissioned for the coronation before the ceremony begins. You can find that on BBC Sounds Music:Meyerbeer, Le Prophète, The Coronation March, London Symphony Orchestra, Richard Bonynge, Decca – SXL.6541Verdi, Don Carlos, Act II, Cejour heureux est plein d’allgègresse! Coro del Teatro alla Scala di Milano, Claudia Abbado, Deutsche Grammophon – DEF058231107

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) tackled inter-racial relationships. In the Heat of the Night won the Best Picture Oscar in 1967. For Love of Ivy (1968) satirised white liberal attitudes and treated audiences to the indelibly suave image of Poitier eating sushi and talking Japanese. A new play at the Kiln Theatre in London explores the decisions Poitier had to make in his film career. The playwright Ryan Calais Cameron joins Matthew Sweet with film critic Jan Asante and biographer Aram Goudsouzian to look at the acting career of Sidney Poitier, the first Black actor to win the Best Actor Academy Award.Producer: Torquil MacLeodRetrograde is at the Kiln Theatre, London until May 27th 2023 - a Sidney Poitier film season runs alongside. You can find other Free Thinking episodes exploring actors including Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Asta Nielsen, Marlene Dietrich all available on BBC Sounds and as the Arts & Ideas podcast.

Recordings in sub-zero temperatures and the hottest day on record have fed into the sound of Erland Cooper's latest composition. Ahead of a performance at the Barbican Centre, he discusses the way his Folded Landscape piece thaws through seven movements.New Generation Thinker Sam Johnson-Schlee is researching the social history of central heating, how its changed what we do in the home, and why climate change and global geopolitics are leading to questions about its' future.Sarah Jilani has suggested reading for the Nigerian take on the impact of the oil industry, which has produced a new style of literature 'Petropoetry'.And in her new book 'Nomad Century' science writer Gaia Vince looks at how global temperature changes are raising the prospect of mass migration in response to climate change .Matthew Sweet presents.Producer: Julian SiddleFolded Landscapes by Erland Cooper is released as an album in May and performed with the Scottish Ensemble at the Barbican Centre from May 11th-13th Sam Johnson-Schlee is a 2023 New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to put research on the radio. He teaches at London South Bank University and has written a book called Living Rooms Dr Sarah Jilani is also on the scheme. She teaches at City University London You can find out about books and articles from science writer Gaia Vince at https://wanderinggaia.com/about-me/

From Mary Queen of Scots - about whom her mother was going to write until she intervened - to her most recent biography of Caroline Lamb, out in mid May, Lady Antonia Fraser has had a career publishing prize winning books exploring historical figures. In this conversation, recorded at her London home with historian Rana Mitter, she reflects on what she calls "optical research", the crime fiction she has written, meeting figures from history including Clement Atlee dressed as Santa and the prize, established by her daughter Flora, in memory of her mother - The Elizabeth Longford Prize for historical biography.Producer: Torquil MacLeodThe shortlist for the 2023 Elizabeth Longford Prize for historical biography is announced in May Lady Antonia Fraser's books which are discussed include Mary Queen of Scots, Cromwell our Chief of Men, The Weaker Vessel: Woman's Lot in Seventeenth-century England, The Case of the Married Woman: Caroline Norton: A 19th Century Heroine Who Wanted Justice for Women, The King and the Catholics: The Fight for Rights In May 2023 Lady Antonia Fraser publishes Lady Caroline Lamb: A Free SpiritYou can find other episodes hearing from historians who have been nominated for the Wolfson History Prize, the Cundill History Prize and the British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding on the Free Thinking website and available on BBC Sounds.