Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchDr Sian Williams nominates Anna Freud
Matthew Parris invites a fellow Radio 4 presenter into the studio to nominate a Great Life. Dr Sian Williams, who as well as a broadcaster is a couns…
3 months, 1 week ago
Pianist and broadcaster Keelan Carew nominates Russian composer Nicolai Medtner
Matthew Paris is joined by the pianist and broadcaster Keelan Carew, who nominates the Great Life of the early 20th century composer Nicolai Medtner.…
3 months, 2 weeks ago
Comedian Helen Lederer on Joan Rivers
Born Joan Molinsky in 1933, Joan Rivers shot to fame on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, who she later infuriated by hosting a late night chat sh…
3 months, 3 weeks ago
John Cooper Clarke on Johnny Green, road manager of The Clash
Johnny Green was a hippy, a driver, a writer, a father and the road manager of The Clash. He wrote about this experience in a memorable book, A Riot …
3 months, 3 weeks ago
Helen Carr picks Christine de Pizan at the Gloucester history festival
Christine de Pizan was born in Italy but most of her life was spent in Paris, where her father was astrologer to the King of France. After her husba…
4 months ago
Alex Wheatle, the Bard of Brixton
After a childhood in care in Surrey, Alex Wheatle was moved to a hostel in Brixton aged fourteen. Later he was involved in the riots and given a pris…
4 months, 2 weeks ago
Spitfire pilot Jeffrey Quill picked by astronaut Tim Peake
"It was brilliant to read some of the old techniques the Spitfire test pilots were using, and in some respects test pilot flying isn't that different…
4 months, 3 weeks ago
Oliver Postgate
"Postgate's work is deep inside me and I think that's true for so many of my generation...His work represents nothing less than a touchstone for our …
6 months, 4 weeks ago
Sylvia Plath
Lucy Jones, author of Matrescence, chooses the writer Sylvia Plath.
Sylvia Plath was a precocious, prize-winning child,. Her mother had high expectat…
7 months ago
Elizabeth Day on Hatshepsut
"One of the things that she claimed was that her mother had been impregnated by the sun god Amon-Ra." Elizabeth Day's interest in the female pharaoh …
7 months, 1 week ago