Arts & Ideas

Philip Dodd considers the importance of 'play' in the way our city centres are designed, built, look and feel in the 21st century with architect Stephen Witherford, social anthropologist Clare Melhuish, urban planner Ben van Bruggen, and Jonathan Glancey author of 'What's So Great About the Eiffel Tower?'. Plus, Durham poet Gillian Allnutt discusses a life in words and receiving the Queen's Gold M...

Matthew Sweet talks to poet and writer Elizabeth-Jane Burnett, environmental scientist, Jules Pretty and geologist, Andrew Scott, and historians Matthew Kelly and Philip Coupland about Soil and Culture and Survival Stories For some Soil is where they come from, for others it is an object of aesthetic beauty, for most of us it is the means by which we get what we need to live. Poet and writer Eliza...

MP Jess Phillips on life in the public eye. Plus Ned Kelly, Lady Macbeth, one once flesh and blood, the other imagined into being, yet both have done sterling work as ciphers to the human condition. Anne McElvoy talks to Rebecca Daniels, curator of an exhibition marking the centenary of Australia’s great myth-maker, the artist Sidney Nolan and to David Taylor, curator of an exhibition at the Royal...

Matthew Sweet visits Hull - the city where he grew up - and seeks out Basil Kirchin's sound world, Richard Bean's version of Hull during the Civil War and the re-opened Ferens Art Gallery where he used to spend Saturday mornings. You can hear more of Basil Kirchin's music for films in tonight's Late Junction which follows at 11pm and Radio3 is recording Mind on the Run featuring Goldfrapp's Will G...

Its 500 years since the German friar, Martin Luther, challenged the authority of the Pope and sparked the Reformation. The violent upheavals that followed have tended to obscure his character, his beliefs and his legacy. Nowadays when we think of him we usually conjure up the image of a jowly zealot. To uncover a truer likeness Anne McElvoy was joined at the London School of Economics by Luther's...

Dubbed the "godfather of British pop art", Eduardo Paolozzi (1924-2005) is the subject of an exhibition at London's Whitechapel Gallery. Philip Dodd and his guests art historians Richard Cork and Judith Collins, philosopher Barry Smith and writer Iain Sinclair discuss Paolozzi's legacy. Plus an interview with American philosopher Professor Daniel Dennett Co-Director Center for Cognitive Studies at...

Neil Gaiman on his enduring attraction to the world of giants, gods and rainbow bridges of Norse myths and why he's produced his own version; plus research into the ugly side of Valentines from classical times to the 19th century with Annebella Pollen and Edmund Richardson, and, as the RSC prepares to bring Snow in Midsummer to the stage, the first of a planned series of Chinese classics, Frances...

30 years ago There Ain't No Black in the Union Jack: The Cultural Politics of Race and Nation was published. Philip Dodd talks to the author Professor Paul Gilroy about its impact and whether discussions about race and culture in Britain have moved on or not. Producer Eliane Glaser.

Matthew Sweet meets Eric the UK's first robot, built in 1928 now at the Science Museum as part of a big display exploring robotics. He's joined by Kathleen Richardson who is Senior Research Fellow in the Ethics of Robotics at De Monfort University, Murray Shanahan - Professor of Cognitive Robotics from Imperial College - and Ryan Abbott from the University of Surrey School of Law to discuss the le...

As the Royal Academy unveils its huge new show of work produced in Russia between 1917 and 1932, Anne McElvoy and her guests - the film maker and actor, Dolya Gavanski, novelist Charlotte Hobson and the historians Stephen Smith and Victor Sebestyen - assess the role played by artists in the revolution and the relevance of their paintings, sculptures, films, books and music today. Revolution: Russi...

Garrett Carr travelled by foot and canoe along Ireland's border. Kapka Kassabova journeyed to what she calls "the edge of Europe". Frank Ledwidge's army career took him to the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq, Nikolas Ventourakis is fascinated by how to capture the abstract notion of borders in photographs. They talk to Anne McElvoy about the essence of edges, notions of the other and the challenges...

The Indian writer and essayist, Pankaj Mishra believes we are living in an age of unprecedented anger - one that liberal rationalists struggle to comprehend. He joins Philip Dodd to consider the long term impact of these fervent times. Elif Shafak talks about her latest novel, Three Daughters of Eve, which looks at love, friendship and religion set in Oxford and Istanbul. They are joined in the Fr...

Join Matthew Sweet in the Caribbean -- well, not literally but certainly intellectually. He'll be discussing the region's history with the cultural commentator, Joshua Jelly-Schapiro, whose new book, Island People, is already being compared to V S Naipaul. Does it make sense to think of the Caribbean as a cohesive region rather than a collection of very individual islands? To help settle this ques...

Peter Bazalgette, former Arts Council England chair and TV executive, discusses why we need to become more empathetic. Neuroscientist Daniel Levitin has given the Proms Lecture exploring the mind and music. He talks about lies and statistics and how we can make better decisions. James Bartholomew believes the Welfare State may be holding us back. Together they explore with Philip Dodd, how to buil...

Anne McElvoy explores topics discussed at the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum held in Davos - she's joined by former Shadow Foreign Secretary Douglas Alexander, economist Liam Halligan and MIT scientist Andrew McAfee. Ahead of Holocaust Memorial Day on January 27th, New Generation Thinker Seán Williams discusses his research into barbers in the camps. Choreographer Shobana Jeyasingh dis...

On the day of the Oscar nominations, Matthew Sweet is joined by critics Dana Stevens and Ryan Gilbey and writer Christopher Frayling to survey the last year in film. Also, does T2 make any sense if you haven't see the original Trainspotting? Young journalist Stevie Mackenzie-Smith reports back. And Deborah Lipstadt, the American historian who took on the Holocaust denier David Irving in a landmark...

Rana Mitter talks Victorian bodies with Kathryn Hughes from Darwin's beard to whether George Eliot had milkmaid's hands. Stanley Price explains how James Joyce and Italo Svevo forged a firm friendship when they met in Trieste. Poet and New Generation Thinker Sandeep Parmar and writer Lauren Elkin discuss the Citizens of Everywhere art project which will see commissioned writing, art, workshops in...

Artists Sonia Boyce, Isaac Julien, Eddie Chambers and Harold Offeh talk to Anne McElvoy about their art and the influence of the British Black Art movement - which began around the time of the First National Black Art Convention in 1982 organised by the Blk Art Group and held at Wolverhampton Polytechnic. Eddie Chambers has written Roots and Culture: Cultural Politics in the Making of Black Britai...

Matthew Sweet talks to Stephen Baxter about his sequel to HG Wells's novel War Of The Worlds, which was first serialised in 1897 and imagined an England invaded by Martians. Stephen Baxter's novel, which has been authorised by the HG Wells estate, is called The Massacre of Mankind and it sets the action 14 years after a Martian invasion. Eimear McBride's novels are noted for their 'experimental' a...

Anne McElvoy talks to Nadeem Aslam and Chibundu Onuzo about their novels set in Pakistan and Nigeria which follow characters who have to find safe places to live following violent uprisings; Alex Evans joins them to explore myth-making plus we hear from Julius Bryant, the curator of an exhibition at the V&A about Lockwood Kipling art teacher and father of Rudyard. Nadeem Aslam is the author of...

We've been runnning for two million years give or take. Shahidha Bari and Laurence Scott explore contemporary running as solitary inspiration and communal activity with the Geographer and 1999 Scottish Hill Running Champion, Hayden Lorimer, the artists Kai Syng Tan and Angus Farquhar, and the literary scholar and bare-foot artiste, Vybarr Cregan-Reid. Conversation ranges from feeling empowered on...

Agent to stars including Humphrey Bogart, Clancy Sigal looks back at the absurdities of the 1950s movie business. Catherine Wheatley and Larushka Ivan Zadeh discuss the new musical La La Land starring Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling which is picking up many of the prizes in the film awards season and look at Hollywood's preoccupation with its own back yard. Authors Dennis Bartok and Jeff Joseph lift t...

American author Jonathan Franzen's interest in the Austrian satirist and journalist resulted in him publishing The Kraus Project. He joins Philip Dodd, novelist Lawrence Norfolk and literary historian, Heide Kunzelmann for a programme exploring the writing and politics of Karl Kraus (1874–1936) - whose artistic achievements include 700 one man performances of works by Brecht, Goethe, Shakespeare a...

Anne McElvoy explores the history and possible future of the Union Jack or Union flag in a year which has seen the Brexit Vote. With: Graham Bartram - chief vexillologist at the Flag Institute, who grew up in Scotland, Northern Ireland and West Africa John Bew – professor of history and foreign policy at Kings Afua Hirsch – Sky News correspondent, writing a book called Brit(ish) which will be publ...

Rana Mitter debates the meaning of patriotism in Russia, China, Japan and Latin America with guests including historian and policy analyst Michael Auslin, David Priestland who is Professor of Modern History at Oxford University, Chinese-British novelist and filmmaker Xiaolu Guo (whose autobiography is published in January) and Oscar Guardiola-Rivera, lawyer and author of What If Latin America Rule...