Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchRicky Ross on Hank Williams
The life of the 'Hillbilly Shakespeare' Hank Williams is the choice of Deacon Blue singer Ricky Ross.
Williams is regarded as being the prototype ro…
12 years, 5 months ago
Nina Simone
The chanteuse, pianist, composer and civil rights activist Nina Simone is the choice of another female musician who has made a career of defying conv…
12 years, 6 months ago
Nancy Mitford
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 unconventi…
12 years, 8 months ago
Al Murray on Bernard Montgomery
"In defeat, unbeatable; in victory, unbearable" – so said Winston Churchill on this week's Great Live, Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery. Many wou…
12 years, 8 months ago
Sir Brendan Barber on John Steinbeck
Trade unionist Sir Brendan Barber nominates American author, John Steinbeck as his Great Life.
The author of The Grapes of Wrath aimed to fight th…
12 years, 8 months ago
Konnie Huq on Ada Lovelace
From Banking, to air traffic control systems and to controlling the United States defence department, there's a computer language called 'Ada'.
It's n…
12 years, 8 months ago
Peter Bowles on George Devine
Matthew Parris is joined by actor Peter Bowles who nominates George Devine, groundbreaking artistic director of the Royal Court Theatre. Devine battl…
12 years, 8 months ago
Paul Mason on Louise Michel
TV journalist and writer Paul Mason talks to Matthew Parris about the 19th Century French anarchist, Louise Michel, heroine of the Paris Commune. The…
12 years, 8 months ago
Julie Burchill on Ava Gardner
The writer Julie Burchill talks to Matthew Parris about the Hollywood star Ava Gardner. They're joined by Ava's biographer Lee Server.
Often describe…
12 years, 9 months ago
Tanika Gupta on Rabindranath Tagore
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 w…
12 years, 9 months ago