Free Thinking

Disney's The Little Mermaid and a musical adaptation of a Caribbean version of the story kick off our conversation as Shahidha Bari is joined by director Ola Ince, historian and Sarah Peverley, who is writing a cultural history of mermaids. "Mermaid hunter" Sacha Coward considers mermaids as queer icons and Claudy Op den Kamp talks us through Disney copyright history.

Producer: Sofie Vilcins

Once On This Island directed by Ola Ince runs at the Regent's Park Theatre until June 10th. It's the story of peasant girl Ti Moune and a boy called Daniel, and it's based upon a novel by Rosa Guy called My Love, My Love or The Peasant Girl which takes its inspiration from the Hans Christian Andersen story The Little Mermaid

Martin Amis, whose death has been announced at the age of 73, was noted for his writing style and literary voice. His novels included The Rachel Papers, Money and London Fields and a series of works exploring figures including Stalin (in Koba the Dread) and the Holocaust in Time's Arrow and The Zone of Interest. On publishing this in 2014, he joined Radio 3's Philip Dodd and recorded a discussion in front of an audience at a Prom Plus event. Their conversation centres on ideas of evil, culpability and Jewish history.

Thanks in part to the birth of those enduring caricatures - Essex Man & Essex Girl - in the 1990s, this is a county that has struggled to break free from a whole raft of stereotypes and assumptions. Matthew Sweet and his guests - all Essex residents - are here to present a more nuanced, complicated and historically rich vision of this woefully misunderstood part of England.

Tim Burrows has written The Invention of Essex: The Making of an English County

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Composer William Byrd has strong Essex connections - and you can hear his music daily on Essential Classics between 9am and 12 as part of Radio 3's Byrd spotting series to mark the anniversary of his birth in July 1623

Premiered to 63 people at the Royal Court back in 1973, the Rocky Horror Show is marking its anniversary with a production touring the UK. New Generation Thinkers Louise Creechan and Joan Passey explore its links with Frankenstein and the Gothic tradition and Paul Baker discusses its place in a history of camp. Shahidha Bari presents.

Camp: The Story of the Attitude that Conquered the World is out now. Paul Baker is a Professor at Lancaster University.

A '70s London squat was home to the writer Dambudzo Marechera when he was writing his first novel The House of Hunger (1978), which was published in the Heinemann African Writers series and has now been issued as a Penguin Classic. Tinashe Mushakavanhu is researching his story and writings. Mufaro Makubika has adapted the coming of age story published by NoViolet Bulawayo in 2013 as a play, which is now touring England. Jocelyn Alexander is involved in creating an archive and oral history documenting Southern Africa's liberation armies and has researched experiences of political imprisonment over 50 years in Zimbabwe. Rana Mitter hosts the conversation.

Producer: Ruth Watts

We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo, in a new adaptation by Mufaro Makubika is a Fifth Word and New Perspectives co-production directed by Monique Touko.

"Not so much a fear of going out as a fear of something dreadful happening whilst being out" - writer Graham Caveney talks to Matthew Sweet about his own experience of agoraphobia and also how the condition has been reflected in the work of other writers, including Shirley Jackson and Emily Dickinson. Writer Kate Summerscale and New Generation Thinker Joan Passey trace the shifting ideas about sources of phobias in the 19th century and the explosion of interest in naming and cataloguing them. Film critic Christina Newland explores Alfred Hitchcock's portrayal of phobias in films including Frenzy and Marnie.

Graham Caveney's book 'On Agoraphobia' is available now.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Overcoming grief, historian Rachel Hewitt's new book mixes recent personal history and her experiences of fell running and lockdown with her research into the pioneering mountain climber known as Lizzie Le Blond (1860 – 1934). In 1907, Le Blond set up the Ladies' Alpine Club and over her lifetime made 20 first ascents of different peaks. Chris Harding is joined by Rachel Hewitt, Dr Ben Anderson from Keele University, and science writer Caroline Williams to discuss alpine sports, running, risk and research into health and fitness ahead of Mental Health Awareness Week.

Producer: Julian Siddle

Rachel Hewitt and Ben Anderson were both chosen as BBC/AHRC New Generation Thinkers in the scheme which turns research into radio.

Radio 3 has a series of programmes exploring different music for Mental Health including special episodes of the Classical Mixtape

650 years since the visions of Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe's birth in King's Lynn, two novels have been published which explore these influential medieval mystics. Shahidha Bari brings together Claire Gilbert - author of I, Julian - and Victoria MacKenzie - author of For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy On My Little Pain - and New Generation Thinker Hetta Howes to discuss these very different characters and what we know of their lives and faith.

Producer: Robyn Read

You can find other conversations about medieval figures including Chaucer's Wife of Bath, and Melusine in a collection on the Free Thinking programme website on BBC Radio 3 called Women in the World. All the episodes are available as the Arts and Ideas podcast to download and on BBC Sounds

Luxury and Power is the title of a new British Museum exhibition focusing on the politics of display used by rulers in Persia and Greece. Ahead of the coronation, Anne McElvoy hears from the curator, from academics researching past royal rituals in Tudor and Medieval England and about power and royalty on the operatic stage from Verdi's Don Carlos and Aida and to Philip Glass's Akhnaten and Britten's Gloriana.

Dr Jamie Fraser is curator for the Ancient Levant and Anatolia at the British Museum and has curated Luxury and power: Persia to Greece

Dr Joanne Paul is a writer, historian and broadcaster working on the history of the Renaissance, Tudor and Early Modern Periods.

Professor Sarah Hibberd is Stanley Hugh Badock Chair of Music at the University of Bristol. Her research focuses on nineteenth century opera and music theatre in Paris and London.

Dr Julia Hartley is a BBC Radio 3/AHRC New Generation Thinker who writes about Dante, Proust and representations of Iran. She lectures at the University of Glasgow School of Modern Languages and Cultures.

Producer: Ruth Watts

Luxury and power: Persia to Greece runs at the British Museum in London from 4 May 2023 - 13 Aug 2023

Music:

Meyerbeer, Le Prophète, The Coronation March,

Verdi, Don Carlos, Act II, Cejour heureux est plein d’allgègresse!

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967) tackled inter-racial relationships. In the Heat of the Night won the Best Picture Oscar in 1967. For Love of Ivy (1968) satirised white liberal attitudes and treated audiences to the indelibly suave image of Poitier eating sushi and talking Japanese. A new play at the Kiln Theatre in London explores the decisions Poitier had to make in his film career. The playwright Ryan Calais Cameron joins Matthew Sweet with film critic Jan Asante and biographer Aram Goudsouzian to look at the acting career of Sidney Poitier, the first Black actor to win the Best Actor Academy Award.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Retrograde is at the Kiln Theatre, London until May 27th 2023 - a Sidney Poitier film season runs alongside.