Free Thinking

Susannah Clapp and Cleo Van Velsen join Anne McElvoy to review the musical stage adaptation of American Psycho, starring Matt Smith. Doris Kearns Goodwin discusses the turbulent politics of US President Theodore Roosevelt, the subject of her new book The Bully Pulpit. New Generation Thinker Sarah Peverley outlines Christmas traditions of the Medieval period. Charles Hind, Gavin Stamp and Tanya Sengupta discuss Britain’s colonial architecture.

The Science Museum in London is staging Mind Maps, an exhibition on the history of psychology and Philip Dodd discusses it with psychologist Keith Laws and Clare Allan. Lisa Appignanesi joins Philip to put a new volume of correspondence between Freud and his daughter Anna in context. As religion has declined, has psychotherapy come to take its place in how we think about what it is to be human? Giles Fraser joins Philip along with New Generation Thinker Christopher Harding to discuss. And playwright Howard Brenton and the poet Moniza Alvi discuss writing about Partition.

As Andrew Lloyd Webber prepares to open his new musical about Profumo and Stephen Ward, Matthew Sweet explores 1963 - the year that 'sexual intercourse began' according to Philip Larkin's poem. Joining Matthew are Lord Hutchinson who defended Christine Keeler; journalist and campaigner Bea Campbell; actress and singer Lynda Baron; Don Black, lyricist for the musical Stephen Ward; Richard Davenport-Hines, author of An English Affair; and Geoffrey Robertson QC, leader of a campaign to clear Stephen Ward's name.

In a change to our usual programme and podcast, Philip Dodd introduces two interviews with Athol Fugard and Janet Suzman on the day that Nelson Mandela died, aged 95.

Has "business become a dirty word?" Stefan Stern and Linda Yueh join Samira Ahmed to look at whether business has separated itself from society and lost the confidence of its customers. Acclaimed children's author Meg Rosoff discusses one of the most eagerly awaited films of the year - Alexander Payne's Nebraska. And Samira will also be discussing art and the Middle East with the British Museum's Venetia Porter, the critic Godfrey Barker, and Saudi Arabia's best known artist, Abdulnasser Gharem.

Matthew Sweet has a first night review from Susannah Clapp of Jude Law as Henry V directed by Michael Grandage. He also talks to maritime geographer Phil Steinberg and expert in international public law, Steve Haines, about what the Freedom of the Seas means now and how maritime governance may develop this century. And Hughes biographer Bonnie Greer and the writer Fred D'Aiguiar have watched a new version of Langston Hughes' 1961 retelling of the nativity story; Black Nativity and talk to Matthew about Langston Hughes' enduring legacy.

Art critic for The Times Rachel Campbell-Johnston profiles the work of Laure Prouvost, winner of the Turner Prize 2013. Theatre critic Mark Shenton and Dr Caroline Warman review a new staging of Leonard Bernstein's Candide, choreographed by former Royal Ballet star Adam Cooper. Writers Hermione Lee and Simon Garfield discuss the insight personal letters give into writers' lives and creative processes. And Night Waves reflects on how experimental band Can melded the ideas of Karlheinz Stockhausen and free jazz to revolutionise 60s' German pop.

Bestselling writer Amy Tan joins Anne McElvoy to discuss her new novel, The Valley of Amazement. Choreographer Shobana Jeyasingh's latest work, Strange Blooms, is inspired by the visual flamboyance of flowers; she is joined by fashion historian Caroline Cox to explore the changing depictions of flowers in fashion and culture. Writer Philip Short discusses his biography of one of the key architects of modern Europe, François Mitterrand.

Rana Mitter looks forward to an Age of the Happy City with innovative urban scholar, Richard Burdett, and journalist and urban experimentalist, Charles Montgomery. One of India's leading historians Ramachandra Guha tells Rana about Gandhi before India. He traces the friendships, set-backs, struggles and events which shaped Gandhi's thinking and honed skills he would take back into India's struggle for independence. And Jacky Klein reviews a major retrospective of artist brothers Jake and Dinos Chapman's work opening this week at London's Serpentine Sackler Gallery.

As Scotland and England consider the future of the United Kingdom, Philip Dodd discusses what Orwell and his version of Englishness might have to offer the debate, with Robert Colls, author of 'George Orwell: English Rebel', historian Selina Todd, and singer and author Pat Kane. As an exhibition of glasswork by contemporary British artists opens in London, Philip talks to two of the contributors Gavin Turk and Sue Webster about working in the medium. Philip is joined by Radio 3 New Generation Thinker Jules Evans who is one of the organisers of Stoic Week and by classicist Professor Edith Hall, and philosopher and journalist Mark Vernon to discuss the concept.