Free Thinking

Amma Asante's film Belle depicts an illegitimate mixed-race girl brought up in eighteenth-century London in Kenwood House, the household of Lord Mansfield. Director Amma Asante and Dr Kit Davies talk to Matthew Sweet about the issues raised in the film. Writer Rosamund Bartlett has a first night review of Brian Friel's stage version of Turgenev's Fathers and Sons which opens at London's Donmar Warehouse tonight. There's the first column from the 2014 Radio 3 New Generation Thinkers: Tom Charlton brings those who would question the value of a research library to book. Plus Andrew Pendleton

Philip Dodd discusses Kenneth Clark's Civilisation and arts broadcasting with Janina Ramirez, Kim Evans, Gus Casely-Hayford and Charles Uzzell-Edwards, aka artist Pure Evil.

Rana Mitter remembers what happened in Tiananmen Square on June 4th 1989 with people who were there. He also asks what the sociological background to events on that day was. And how has the memory or even the truth of that day and what lay behind it faired in the 25 years that have followed?

Matthew Sweet discusses online identity theft and religious belief with American novelist Joshua Ferris, as he publishes his new novel To Rise Again at a Decent Hour. As the London Festival of Architecture opens with a debate on whether London needs more tall towers, Matthew talks to Sir Terry Farrell, Owen Hatherley, Nicholas Boys Smith, Angela Brady, about how London should look in the future. And we head to the Foundling Museum, whose latest exhibition marks the 250th anniversary of the death of William Hogarth to find out how artist Jessie Brennan has re-imagined ‘A Rake’s Progress’ without people, just a famous London tower block.

Arianna Huffington talks to Anne McElvoy about measuring success using The Third Metric. Richard Hytner and Kerrie Fleming look at stress in business and the nature of leadership. Zia Haider Rahman on his debut novel In the Light of What We Know which contains elements of his own Bangladeshi background, a scholarship to Oxford and time spent as an investment banker on Wall Street. Plus Anne pays tribute to the late Maya Angelou's influence and humour.

Presenter Rana Mitter, is joined on the BBC stage at the Hay Festival by writer and provocateur, PJ O'Rourke and the Freakonomics authors, the economist Steven D Levitt and journalist Stephen J Dubner to discuss decision-making, how emotional and economic stability leads to self-absorbtion, how difficult it is to stop and think about anything and why there is such a gulf between the economic and political and personal rationales for the nature of health care provision here in the UK, the US and around the world.

Rana Mitter talks to historian and MP Tristram Hunt about how Britain's experience of Empire shaped today's global cities. Plus a discussion about the future of India with Lord Bhikhu Parekh, Dr Shruti Patel and the writer, Pankaj Mishra.

Anne McElvoy looks at the resurgence of non-fiction writing and the essay as a form hearing from Jonathan Freedland, Wayne Kostenbaum and Maia Jenkins. Novelist Tim Winton talks about his new book Eyrie. Political commentators Robert Ford and Peter Kellner explore when does populism becomes extremism.

As the British Library launches a website devoted to writers' notebooks and manuscripts, Discovering Literature, novelist Lawrence Norfolk takes a look at his own notebooks, and talks to AS Byatt, John Cooper Clarke and David Mitchell about theirs.

Matthew Sweet talks to Iain Sinclair and New Generation Thinker Dr Greg Tate about a walk to mark John Clare's death 150 years ago. Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, Professor of Internet Governance and Regulation at the Oxford Internet Institute, discuss how privacy vs expression and remembering vs forgetting clash in the internet age. Plus Cherry Potter and Daniel Bird give us an assessment of Polish filmmaker Walerian Borowczyk.