Great Lives

Oscar Wilde, author of The Importance of Being Earnest and The Ballad of Reading Gaol, is proposed by Will Self, a writer once described as a 'high powered satirical weapon'. In 1895, and at the height of his success, Wilde began libel proceedings against the Marquess of Queensberry, sparking a disastrous sequence of trials, prison, exile and disgrace. A century later Oscar Wilde is often listed a...

Dylan Thomas, arguably Wales's most famous poet, comes under scrutiny on Great Lives. A man famous both for his linguistic exuberance and his chaotic, alcohol-fuelled private life, Thomas is proposed by another Welsh poet, Owen Sheers. Owen, the author of ‘Resistance’, is one of Britain's brightest young writers and keen to bust some myths about his fellow Welshman's reputation. Joining Owen and p...

Co-chairman of the Conservative party, Baroness Warsi recalls her Pakistani-born father during her Yorkshire childhood telling her about the heroic martial deeds conducted by a thirteenth century Indian princess, Razia Sultana. Descended from humble stock, the much mythologized Sultana ruled for less than four years in the 1230s, but has long been celebrated as the first female Indian Muslim leade...

The writer and pacifist Vera Brittain is discussed by her daughter Baroness Shirley Williams and Dr Clare Gerada, Chair of the Royal College of GPs. Vera Brittain's life was shaped by the grief that followed the loss of her fiance, her brother and two good friends. She candidly conveyed the toll of the First World War on her generation in the best-selling 1933 book, Testament of Youth. Matthew Par...

Matthew Parris is joined by the actress Emma Kennedy to explore the life of the American comedienne Gracie Allen. George Burns and Gracie Allen were a hugely successful stage act who went on to conquer the new media of radio and television. But, unusually for the time, it was Gracie who was getting all the laughs, whilst George played the straight man. For actress and comic Emma Kennedy, Gracie wa...

Astronomer Royal Sir Martin Rees tells Matthew Parris why his hero, physicist Joseph Rotblat, lived a "great life". Rotblat was a brilliant physicist who was the only scientist to resign from the Manhattan Project once it became clear that Germany would not make an atomic bomb. Rotblat believed that all scientists have a moral obligation to work for the benefit of mankind, and spent his life campa...

Downton Abbey actor Jim Carter tells Matthew Parris why skiffle king Lonnie Donegan is his hero. Lonnie Donegan is probably best remembered for the novelty hits "My Old Man's a Dustman" and "Does Your Chewing Gum Lose its Flavour? " However, early hits like "Rock Island Line" were instrumental in inspiring the likes of John Lennon, Brian May and Roger Daltrey to perform. Donegan played a decisive...

Brian Sewell on his long-standing love of "Mad" King Ludwig II of Bavaria, who built the ultimate fantasy castle at Neuschwanstein. From his first fateful glimpse of one of Ludwig's palaces, Brian's been fascinated with the eccentric King, and his mysterious death, and has become personally involved in the story of his life. Presenter Matthew Parris and contributor Simon Winder find out more... Pr...

Thomas Hobbes: the writer and psychologist Steven Pinker joins Matthew Parris to discuss the life of the great English philosopher. Noel Malcolm from All Souls College, Oxford provides the expert analysis. Power and violence are themes of the discussion of Hobbes who, Steven Pinker argues, was "perhaps the first cognitive psychologist." Although he was born in the late sixteenth century, we are fo...

Ludwig Wittgenstein, the fascinating and misunderstood genius who changed the course of philosophy, is chosen by writer Raymond Tallis. With biographer Ray Monk, he brings alive this most enigmatic of men and his singular life. And to make sure that they don't get lost in Wittgensteinian thought, presenter Matthew Parris brings along a whistle to blow whenever he feels in danger.. Producer Beth O'...

Actor Michael Sheen (Frost/Nixon; The Queen; Midnight in Paris) explores the life of Philip K. Dick with Matthew Parris, and explains why he had such a big influence on his recent production of Hamlet. Michael first discovered Philip K. Dick through the film Bladerunner, and moved onto his short stories which got him thinking about science-fiction in a new way. Whilst reading about philosophy, qua...

No less a figure than the national bard, William Shakespeare, is nominated for great life status by poetry curator and TV producer, Daisy Goodwin. Dominic Dromgoole, Artistic Director of the Globe Theatre joins Matthew Parris to put flesh on the life that is remarkably light on known and verifiable facts. How and why did this son of an illiterate glovemaker from Stratford on Avon come to bestride...

Former England footballer Graeme le Saux champions the life of writer, broadcaster and conservationist Gerald Durrell. Graeme and presenter Matthew Parris are joined in the studio by Durrell's widow, Lee. Gerald Malcolm Durrell (1925 - 1995) was a pioneering conservationist who took on the established "zoo community" by emphasising the need to preserve endangered species, rather than just repeated...

When the singer Cerys Matthews first played the music of the 12th century nun, Hildegard von Bingen, on her BBC 6 music show, she said she felt she could hear the tumble weed rolling through the listeners' houses. Matthew unravels Cerys's admiration for the woman who was given by her parents as a 'tithe' to the church at the age of eight and who became one of the most influential people of her tim...

If Edwin Lutyens, the architect behind New Delhi, the Cenotaph, and the British embassy in Washington, sounds an austere, imperial figure then think again. He was fun and almost child-like - he loved to dance and doodle, and he told terrible jokes. But his great grand daughter, Jane Ridley, believes it was Lutyens' shockingly miserable marriage that inspired his greatest work. Simon Jenkins, forme...

The Fast Show comedian Simon Day tells Matthew Parris why he's fascinated by the life and work of German author Hans Fallada. Matthew is also joined by Fallada's biographer Jenny Williams. Hans Fallada (real name Rudolf Ditzen) was an alcoholic, a thief, a morphine addict and, prone to depression, attempted suicide twice. He lived and worked in the Germany of the 1930's and, although declared an "...

This week's Great Life, Sir Eduardo Paolozzi, hated being tagged as the father of pop art, yet his representations of images from popular culture came almost two decades before Warhol and Lichtenstein. Prolific and generous, his public sculptures populate many cities across the country, yet his name is not as well known as Moore, Hepworth or Gormley. The diversity of the forms that he worked in, a...

Broadcaster Janice Long tells Matthew Parris why singer-songwriter Kirsty MacColl led a "great life" despite her tragically early death in a boating accident in Mexico in 2000. Kirsty MacColl was a supremely gifted singer-songwriter in the "English" tradition, often compared to Ray Davies or Morrissey for her kitchen-sink realism and sardonic wit. She loved pop but insisted on witty and literate w...

The Third Man, Brighton Rock, Travels With My Aunt - the books of Graham Greene all still have a definite ring. But the the man himself was an enigma. He worked both as a spy as well as a foreign correspondent, and wrote endlessly about shady characters and secret affairs. This programme opens with him talking about his love of playing Russian Roulette - it turns out that Graham Greene was easily...

Matthew Parris is joined by Diane Abbott MP and biographer and critic Michael Billington to explore the life of playwright and Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter. His name - if you add an "esque" to it, as in Thatcheresque or Ortonesque - defines that which is 'marked especially by halting dialogue, uncertainty of identity, and air of menace'. But today's great life is not an easy man to encapsulate. He...

It was the fight of the century, July 4th 1910, when Tim Jeffries, the so-called Great White Hope, was stopped by Jack Johnson in the 15th round. Suddenly white supremacy didn't seem so self-assured. In America there were riots, while a follow up fight in Britain - between Johnson and the British champion, Bombardier Wells - never took place. A leader in the Times newspaper had urged the promoter...

Matthew Parris presents the biographical series in which his guests choose someone who has inspired their lives. Green MP Caroline Lucas nominates German Green politician Petra Kelly. Kelly was one of the first Green parliamentarians to be elected anywhere in the world. Intense, charismatic and beautiful, she became an international political superstar who rejected the idea of conventional politic...

Writer Lynne Truss chooses the creator of Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll. Famous for the Alice books, Carroll was also a brilliant mathematician and early photographer. But his reputation has been clouded by allegations, never substantiated, that he was a repressed paedophile. Lynne and presenter Matthew Parris try to discover why, despite the millions of words written about him, Carroll still...

Kathleen Ferrier was a British contralto singer who died in 1953 from breast cancer. Her professional career had lasted just 14 years but in that time she had had become an international star, singing at Covent Garden, Glyndebourne and Carnegie Hall; and had worked with such luminaries of post-war music as Benjamin Britten, Sir John Barbirolli, and Bruno Walter. Not bad for someone who had no form...

Actress Diana Quick tells Matthew Parris why she believes that existentialist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir lived a great life, despite living in the shadow of Jean Paul Sartre. Simone de Beauvoir was a brilliant writer and philosopher in her own right. Her study, The Second Sex, made her an iconic figure for the feminist movement, and she remained true to her intellectual honesty until her death...