Free Thinking

Playwright James Graham talks to Anne McElvoy about his new comedy which puts Screaming Lord Sutch on stage. Graham's previous plays include The Vote, The Angry Brigade, This House.

Historian Margaret MacMillan explores the question 'what difference do individuals make to history?' in her book History's People: Personalities and the Past. Figures include Bismarck, Babur and Roosevelt.

Steve Furber, Professor of Computer Engineering at the University of Manchester, talks about his work on neural networks - constructing machines which work like parts of the human brain. He is joined by Tom Standage, digital editor at The Economist.

New Generation Thinker Sam Goodman previews the BBC spy drama series The Night Manager, adapted from John Le Carre's 1993 novel.

Monster Raving Loony is on at the Drum, Plymouth, from February 10th to 27th.

Producer: Torquil Macleod.

Matthew Sweet looks at the founding of the Dada movement 100 years ago in Zurich, as the city celebrates the anniversary with a series of exhibitions and cabarets which run throughout the year.

New Generation Thinker Will Abberley visits an exhibition in Oxford that plays with our notion of time as Modern Art Oxford begins a year-long celebration of 50 years, Kaleidoscope, with a show called The Indivisible Present.

Janet Street Porter and Michael Grade debate when does a celebrity become a 'national treasure', and what exactly does the term mean?

Matthew Sweet looks at the founding of the Dada movement 100 years ago in Zurich, as the city celebrates the anniversary with a series of exhibitions and cabarets which run throughout the year.

New Generation Thinker Will Abberley visits an exhibition in Oxford that plays with our notion of time as Modern Art Oxford begins a year-long celebration of 50 years, Kaleidoscope, with a show called The Indivisible Present.

Janet Street Porter and Michael Grade debate when does a celebrity become a 'national treasure', and what exactly does the term mean?

Long Matthew Sweet looks at the founding of the Dada movement 100 years ago in Zurich, as the city celebrates the anniversary with a series of exhibitions and cabarets which run throughout the year.

New Generation Thinker Will Abberley visits an exhibition in Oxford that plays with our notion of time as Modern Art Oxford begins a year-long celebration of 50 years, Kaleidoscope, with a show called The Indivisible Present.

Janet Street Porter and Michael Grade debate when does a celebrity become a 'national treasure', and what exactly does the term mean?

Anne McElvoy profiles the painter Joseph Crawhall (1861-1913). Born in Northumberland, he exhibited alongside Degas and Whistler and has been credited as the leader of the young radical Scottish painters The Glasgow Boys. His father was also an artist who published "A Beuk o' Newcassell Sangs Collected by Joseph Crawhall" in 1888 - a pictorial book illustrating the lyrics and music with woodcuts. Anne will be joined in her quest by the director of the Fleming Collection in London, James Knox, where a new Crawhall show has opened and by the art critic, Bill Feaver.

Anne will also be hearing from the director, Gemma Bodinetz who with the touring theatre company, Peepolykus, is staging a comic version of Madame Bovary at the Liverpool Everyman and from Laurie Sansom, who's directing a revival of Rona Munro's acclaimed trilogy of James plays. And in the week that sees the publication of a life of the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, Matthew Parris discusses the art of political biography.

Joseph Crawhall: Masterworks from The Burrell Collection which runs from 4 February – 12 March 2016 is on at the The Fleming Collection in London and it's the first time in 25 years that an exhibition of his his works is on show in London.

Rona Munro's James Plays are on at the Edinburgh Festival Theatre from February 3rd to 13th and then the UK and international tour stops in Glasgow, Inverness, Newcastle, Salford, Birmingham, Leicester and Plymouth

Madame Bovary performed by Peepolykus is touring. Liverpool Everyman 5th to 27th February and then on to the Nuffield Theatre Southampton, Bristol Old Vic, Royal & Derngate, Northampton.

Producer: Zahid Warley

Image Credit: The Flower Shop, by Joseph Crawhall c.1894-1900. The Burrell Collection © CSG CIC Glasgow Museums Collection

Philip Dodd interviews John Irving - author of novels including The World According to Garp, The Cider House Rules, A Prayer for Owen Meany. His new book is called Avenue of Mysteries and imagines the life of a crippled street-child from Mexico, Juan Diego, and his sister Lupe, who can read minds. The action cuts between Diego's present as a globe trotting, best selling writer visiting the Philippines, and his memories of his childhood in Mexico and working at a circus.

The Avenue of Mysteries by John Irving is out now.

Producer: Robyn Read

As Dad's Army inspires a new film, Matthew Sweet looks at the history of the fifth column with historians Juliet Gardiner and Steven Fielding. He also meets robot designer Lola Cañamero who, along with writer Laurence Scott, talks about modelling emotions and how interacting with AI affects us. New Generation Thinker Jonathan Healey explores utopia in sci-fi as a series of events mark the 500th anniversary of Thomas More's text Utopia.

Dad's Army is directed by Oliver Parker and includes performances from Catherine Zeta Jones, Michael Gambon, Tom Courtenay, Toby Jones, Bill Nighy, Mark Gatiss and Ian Lavender amongst others.

States of Mind: Tracing the edges of consciousness runs at Wellcome Collection in London from 4 February - 16 October 2016

Utopias is the theme of this year's LSE Space For Thought Literary Festival. In a discussion on Friday 26 February 2016 Toby Litt, Patrick Parrinder, Samantha Shannon explore the history of the utopian genre in literature and its present state.

Radio 3's Free Thinking explores Utopia in politics past and present in a debate recorded at LSE on Wednesday February 17th at broadcast on Thursday February 18th.

Getting Real about Utopia

Producer: Torquil MacLeod.

As Radio 3 broadcasts Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun as the Sunday Drama hear theatre directors Kwame Kwei-Armah, Yael Farber and Dawn Walton and historians Kit Davis and Althea Legal Miller on her life, work and its resonances today.

Gardening writer Anna Pavord visits the Royal Academy exhibition Painting the Modern Garden and talks to Anne McElvoy about her new book Landskipping. New Generation Thinker Peter Mackay joins the conversation about landscapes and - as Radio 3 marks the Celtic Connections Festival in Glasgow with a focus on folk - he explores the way folk traditions have fed into Scottish poetry.

As arguments about whether the statue of Cecil Rhodes at Oriel College, Oxford should be allowed to remain in place continue to divide students and alumni, journalist Nick Cohen and former Rector of Exeter College, Oxford Dame Frances Cairncross discuss how present day funding of colleges and universities can also be a contentious issue.

New Generation Thinker Peter Mackay explores the contrasting folk traditions in Irish and Scottish poetry as Radio 3 begins a weekend exploring folk connections.

Philip Dodd presents a programme for Holocaust Memorial Day. Howard Jacobson discusses reinventing Shylock and exploring anti-semitism as he publishes his new novel. Historian Karen Leeder has been reading about Stefan Zweig and Joseph Roth in Ostend 1936 - and a collection of Zweig's writings Messages From a Lost World: Europe on the Brink. Sculptor Michael Sandle is known for creating memorials. He shows Philip Dodd round his new exhibition which marks his 80th year. Key works of his include St George and the Dragon at Blackfriars, the International Maritime Organization Seafarer's Memorial on the Albert Embankment in London, and the Malta Seige Memorial, in the Grand Harbour of Valletta, Malta which includes one of the largest bells ever forged which rings at Noon each day.