The Essay

In today's essay shedding light on key figures of the Georgian era, historian Amanda Vickery explores the life of gentlewoman Elizabeth Parker Shackleton, member of the lesser gentry and mercantile elite of 18th-century Lancashire. Producer: Mohini Patel.

In today's essay shedding light on key figures of the Georgian era, actor and writer Ian Kelly explores the life and times of David Garrick - actor, playwright and one of the most influential theatre managers of his generation. Producer: Mohini Patel.

In the first essay of the week, shedding light on key figures of the Georgian era, biographer Claire Tomalin explores the life of Dora Jordan, the greatest comic actress of her day and renowned for being lover to the future king. The rest of the essays in this series are by the actor and writer Ian Kelly on actor, playwright, and theatre manager David Garrick; historian Amanda Vickery on Lancashir...

dNovelist and academic Ian Sansom explores the symbolism of beds in literature, art and film, and asks what beds reveal about human nature. 'Beds are where we are most physical, most elemental, and where we experience the great highs and lows of life. Everything significant that happens to us tends to take place in bed'. Certainly many of history's greatest thinkers and writers are thought to have...

Novelist Ian Sansom delves into cupboards and cabinets to explore what they reveal about human nature. Le Corbusier didn't approve of the clutter cupboards encourage, wanting to free our lives of 'junk'; whereas artist Herbert Distel filled a cabinet with trinkets donated by Man Ray, Annette Messager, Andy Warhol, and John Cage - 'a roll-call of twentieth-century conceptualists, creatives, collagi...

Are you sitting comfortably? Despite his bad posture, novelist and academic Ian Sansom explores our complex physical, mental and emotional relationship with the chair. Chairs can symbolise who we are, like Ian's comfy old overstuffed armchair, and in 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears', the little bear asks 'Who's been sitting in my chair?' which Ian reads as "Who am I?" Van Gogh painted two empty ch...

Novelist and academic Ian Sansom steps into the history of wardrobes, to discover not only how and why we store clothes in large upright wooden boxes, but also why wardrobes feature so largely in fairy tales, memoirs and stories. From E. Nesbit's 'The Aunt and Anabel' to C.S Lewis's 'The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe', via Guy De Maupassant's tragic tale of a child in a wardrobe, Rimbaud's poem...

Five writers set out on foot to sample the transforming qualities of Spring. They report back with tales that are climatically confused - it could be warm or chilly out there ... 5. Philip Hoare is quickly at the water's edge in Sholing, well before the waking hour. Then meetings with many animals are recalled. Producer Duncan Minshull.

Five writers set out on foot to sample the transforming qualities of Spring. They report back with tales that are climatically confused - it could be warm or chilly out there ... 4. Kirsty Gunn is in Sutherland, debating whether to ford the chilly River Brora on an afternoon hike. Producer Duncan Minshull.

Five writers set out on foot to sample the transforming qualities of Spring. They report back with tales that are climatically confused - it could be warm or chilly out there ... 3. John Walsh reckons that 'below' it feels wintry; yet ascend near a village called Steep and spring beckons. But where is he? Producer Duncan Minshull.

Five writers set out on foot to sample the transforming qualities of Spring. They report back with tales that are climatically confused - it could be warm or chilly out there ... 2. Ross Raisin recalls the Yorkshire Wolds, getting greener all the time, and scene of some famous new paintings by David Hockney. Producer Duncan Minshull.

Five writers set out on foot to sample the transforming qualities of Spring. They report back with tales that are climatically confused - it could be warm or chilly out there ... 1. Michele Roberts pounds the pavements of Poznan and is reminded of Persephone under scudding clouds. Producer Duncan Minshull.

Radio 3 presenter Sara Mohr-Pietsch celebrates a composer whose music has particularly inspired her: the remarkable twelfth-century abbess and mystic Hildegard of Bingen - perhaps the earliest actual "composer" in the history of Western music.

Radio 3 presenter Martin Handley celebrates a composer whose music has particularly inspired him: Malcolm Arnold, creator of symphonies of great emotional depth and complexity - as Martin discovered as a teenage violinist, playing Arnold's Second Symphony with the composer conducting.

Radio 3 presenter Lucie Skeaping celebrates a composer whose music has particularly inspired her: the Elizabethan Thomas Ravenscroft, a contemporary of Shakespeare who wrote songs that became incredibly popular - or, like Shakespeare, borrowed from the popular imagination and made it his own.

Radio 3 presenter Tom Service celebrates a composer whose music has particularly inspired him - Arnold Bax, whose music reflects his love of the remarkable landscape of northwest Scotland, where Tom spent his childhood summer holidays.

Radio 3 presenter Sarah Walker celebrates a composer whose music has particularly inspired her: 'English Experimentalist' John White - who, as well as being a dedicated opponent of "seriosity" in classical music, is the spitting image of Hollywood actor Jack Nicholson. This is the first of five editions of The Essay in which Radio 3 classical music presenters celebrate lesser-known composers whose...

A series of five essays from writers around the Commonwealth which start on Commonwealth Day 10th March and tackle the past, present and future of this unique international organisation. Tolu Ogunlesi, poet and author from Nigeria looks at whether young people in Lagos can relate to the Commonwealth.

A series of five essays from writers around the Commonwealth which start on Commonwealth Day 10th March and tackle the past, present and future of this unique international organisation. Farah Ghuznavi from Bangladesh has been Writer in Residence for Commonwealth Writers. She saw the Commonwealth as an irrelevance in her early life. Here she explains what changed her mind.

A series of five essays from writers around the Commonwealth which start on Commonwealth Day, 10th March, and tackle the past, present and future of this unique international organisation. Author Noah Richler writes from a Canadian perspective. The Queen still appears on the bank notes of Canada as she is the head of state. The role is largely ceremonial, so why the need for ties like the Commonwe...

A series of five essays from writers around the Commonwealth which start on Commonwealth Day, 10th March, and tackle the past, present and future of this unique international organisation. Fakir Aijazuddin, author and historian from Lahore, comments on Pakistan's chequered relationship with the Commonwealth. He reflects on his own dealings with what he describes as a typically British invention, t...

The first of five Essays from writers around the Commonwealth which start on Commonwealth Day, 10th March, and scrutinise the destiny of this unique international body. Dr Sue Onslow of the School of Advanced Studies, University of London looks at the history of the Commonwealth and its web of committees and forums. She asks whether they have made a difference in world politics in the past and whe...

The Islamic Golden Age (c. 750-1258 CE) rediscovered through portraits of key figures and events. In tonight's essay, award-winning writer Kamila Shamsie looks at the life of Lubna of Cordoba. She leaves traces in fragments of records: one says she was the royal library acquisitions expert, another suggests she was private secretary to al-Hakam II. What's not in doubt is that she had a fine and pi...

Radio 3 continues its twenty-part series looking at the five-hundred-year period, the Islamic Golden Age. We've heard about some of the great architects, philosophers, scientists and leaders of the period. In this evening's essay, Narguess Farzad explores the life and work of the Persian poet, Al-Rumi. Producer: Mohini Patel.

'Men grieved for him as they grieve for prophets. I have seen no other ruler for whose death the people mourned, for he was loved by good and bad, Muslim and unbeliever alike.' 'Abd al-Latif, 1193 Historian Jonathan Phillips reassesses the influence of 12th-century hero Saladin - a man whose legacy has been admired and appropriated by an extraordinary range of people through the ages. In the past...