The Essay

The annual Arts Over Borders festival reaches into rural and urban communities on both sides of the Irish border. Curated with a strong sense of place and extending across four counties – from Fermanagh to Donegal, Tyrone to Derry/Londonderry- the border itself looms large in the festival. Recorded in front of live audiences at the 2019 Arts Over Borders festival in Enniskillen and Derry/Londonder...

The annual Arts Over Borders festival reaches into rural and urban communities on both sides of the Irish border. Curated with a strong sense of place and extending across four counties – from Fermanagh to Donegal, Tyrone to Derry/Londonderry- the border itself looms large in the festival. Recorded in front of live audiences at the 2019 Arts Over Borders festival in Enniskillen and Derry/Londonder...

The annual Arts Over Borders festival reaches into rural and urban communities on both sides of the Irish border. Curated with a strong sense of place and extending across four counties – from Fermanagh to Donegal, Tyrone to Derry/Londonderry- the border itself looms large in the festival. Recorded in front of live audiences at the 2019 Arts Over Borders festival in Enniskillen and Derry/Londonder...

The annual Arts Over Borders festival reaches into rural and urban communities on both sides of the Irish border. Curated with a strong sense of place and extending across four counties – from Fermanagh to Donegal, Tyrone to Derry/Londonderry- the border itself looms large in the festival. In this series of The Essay, recorded in front of live audiences at the 2019 Arts Over Borders festival in En...

There’s a shadow creeping across the forest in the works of JRR Tolkien. Nature may be incorruptible but the creatures of the forest cannot withstand the relentless march of evil. Slowly but surely the songbirds are replaced by giant spiders, black squirrels and rampaging goblins. Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough is joined by Mark Atherton from Oxford University for a walk through Tolkien’s forest, un...

Lose yourself in a forest of fair maidens and knights with suspiciously shiny armour. This is a forest where the romantic couplings may be fantastical but the backdrop is meticulously drawn. Each leaf, each clump of moss is taken directly from nature. This is the mediaeval forest as reimagined by late Victorian aesthetes aghast at the grit and grime of industrialisation. Eleanor Rosamund Baracloug...

As he enters a woodland, perfumer, Roja Dove can be overwhelmed. This legendary nose of the perfume industry can identify 800 different scents blindfolded. Place him in a forest and he can sense narratives of sex, birth, decay and death. Roja joins Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough for a walk in the woods to discuss how the base notes of the forest scent inspire him. The foundation of damp moss and rot...

Forests are the perfect place for outlaw artists to enact their vision. Just fourteen stops from Soho on the Central Line, Epping Forest provides a particularly convenient place to lose yourself and hide from worldly distractions. Sculptor, Jacob Epstein used Epping as artistic inspiration and venue for innumerable affairs. But was he lost in the forest or hiding there? John Clare was incarcerated...

The folk singer, Nancy Kerr joins Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough for a walk in the woods. Forests play a vital role in folk music, as a refuge for romantic outlaws, as a metaphor for freedom and as a space for sexual couplings, usually with the traditionally tragic ending. Nancy explains how the early folk song collectors such as Cecil Sharp and Ralph Vaughan Williams found a vibrant folk vocabulary...

Radio 3 presenter Kate Molleson celebrates a composer whose music is particularly important to her: the Frenchwoman Eliane Radigue, whose calm and long-form sense of perspective Kate finds inspirational.

Radio 3 presenter Andrew McGregor reflects on the powerful Lamentations of English composer Thomas Tallis and their special place in his life.

Radio 3 presenter Kathryn Tickell celebrates a composer whose music is particularly important to her: the Australian-American folksong fanatic Percy Grainger.

Radio 3 presenter Tom McKinney celebrates the birdsong-inspired music of the twentieth-century French composer Olivier Messiaen and its special place in his life.

Radio 3 presenter Penny Gore celebrates a composer particularly important to her: the Moravian, Leoš Janáček, whose music is shot through with the uncertainties of life.

Radio 3 presenter Petroc Trelawny celebrates a composer whose fascinating life story and music are particularly special to him: the Englishman Lennox Berkeley.

Radio 3 presenter John Toal the French composer Maurice Ravel, whose music had a special place in his life long before he discovered an unexpected connection.

Clemency Burton-Hill celebrates the Romanian composer George Enescu, whose philosophy of the profound importance of music in all areas of life has been a particular inspiration to her.

Radio 3 presenter and poet Ian McMillan celebrates the English composer Ralph Vaughan Williams, whose music has been particularly special to him ever since he first heard The Lark Ascending at the age of eight.

Radio 3 presenter Fiona Talkington celebrates the French composer Joseph Canteloube, whose famous Songs of the Auvergne have become particularly important to her during her experience of cancer.

The author Natasha Carthew on Rame Head Chapel, near Whitsand Bay, in south east Cornwall. 5/5 Natasha describes how she would write here in the wild as a child and how the chapel symbolised hope. This week's Essays are celebrating British architecture. Each writer has a passionate connection with the building featured, revealing how our long past and complex present have led to a built environmen...

The writer Bridget Collins takes us backstage to Trinity Theatre, Tunbridge Wells. 4/5 Bridget reflects on repurposing old buildings and the links between church and theatre. This week's Essays are celebrating British architecture. Each writer has a passionate connection with the building featured, revealing how our long past and complex present have led to a built environment unlike anywhere else...

Author James Rebanks, the Lake District shepherd, talks about Malcolm's place, Taigh na Trathad (The Beach House) in Uig on the Isle of Lewis. 3/5 James describes how the history and sense of community on Lewis has informed the buildings and that it is "not the ‘edge of the world’, but the centre of another that we have chosen not to see". This week's Essays are celebrating British architecture. E...

Novelist Beth Underdown on Rochdale Town Hall. 2/5 Beth describes how her family's personal history is tied up with the building and how Hitler reputedly admired it so much that he ordered it spared during the Second World War. This week's Essays are celebrating British architecture. Each writer has a passionate connection with the building featured, revealing how our long past and complex present...

Author Louise Welsh reflects on Charles Rennie Mackintosh’s Glasgow School of Art. 1/5 Louise describes her memories of the building before it was ravaged by two fires. This week's Essays are celebrating British architecture. Each writer has a passionate connection with the building featured, revealing how our long past and complex present have led to a built environment unlike anywhere else on th...

A song about a Glaswegian tough guy begins this Essay from New Generation Thinker Alistair Fraser. Recorded with an audience at the York Festival of Ideas. To hear audience questions download the Essay as an episode of the BBC Arts&Ideas podcast. The image of the hard man runs like an electric current through Glasgow's history. Unafraid, unabashed, with outlaw swagger, he stalks the pages of c...