Great Lives

By BBC Radio 4

Personal Journals Society & Culture

What's Great Lives about?

Biographical series in which guests choose someone who has inspired their lives.

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Mohammad Mossadegh, PM of I...

12.05.2023

Walter Murch picks Mohammad Mossadegh, prime minister following the nationalisation of the Anglo-Iranian oil company in 1951. Mossadegh was ousted in a coup in 1953. Murch became fascinated in Mossadegh's life while working on a Sam Mendes film about the ...

Great Lives episodes:

12.05.2023 Mohammad Mossadegh, PM of Iran ousted in a coup Walter Murch picks Mohammad Mossadegh, prime minister following the nationalisation of the Anglo-Iranian oil company in 1951. Mossadegh was ousted in a coup in 1953. Murch became fascinated in Mossadegh's life while working on a Sam Mendes film about the ...
09.29.2023 Ludwig Koch The award-winning Sound Recordist and Musician, Chris Watson nominates his hero, Ludwig Koch. In 1889, German-born Koch was the first person ever to record birdsong (at the age of 8) onto a wax cylinder recorder, given to him by his ...
09.29.2023 Lady Eve Balfour An aristocrat in an eye patch, a jazz saxophonist, a crime novelist and a pioneering organic farmer. Lady Eve Balfour was born in 1898 into the political elite - her uncle was A J Balfour, who was Prime Minister from ...
09.29.2023 Ken Loach on Gerrard Winstanley Veteran British film director Ken Loach nominates the 17th century radical pamphleteer and and leader of the Diggers, Gerrard Winstanley. Born in Wigan in 1609, Winstanley began writing religious pamphlets after his cloth selling business in London went bankrupt and ...
09.19.2023 Chi-chi Nwanoku on Jessye Norman On the 11th June 1988 Jessye Norman performed a spine-tingling rendition of 'Amazing Grace' to a packed Wembley Stadium, bringing to a close a concert marking the seventieth birthday of Nelson Mandela. By this point her career Jessye Norman was ...
09.05.2023 Ninette de Valois The Godmother of English - and Irish - ballet, Dame Ninette De Valois or ‘Madam’ as she was known to those around her. She is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of ballet. She ...
08.15.2023 Sophie Scott on Hattie Jacques Born in 1922, Hattie Jacques began her career in music hall before graduating onto the radio comedies of the 1950s such as Educating Archie', 'It's That Man Again' and 'Hancock's Half Hour' where she became a star. TV and films ...
08.08.2023 Stamford Raffles, founder of Singapore and London Zoo It's a famous name - there's Raffles Hotel and Raffles Hospital, plus the rafflesia, the largest flowering plant in the world, an ant, a butterflyfish and a woodpecker, as well as the Raffles Cup, a horse race in Singapore. He ...
08.01.2023 Susie Dent on Thomas Mann Thomas Mann was a German writer whose books explored themes around family, beauty and the creeping threat of fascism in Europe. Mann's best-known 'Death in Venice' revealed the author's attraction to young boys and it was turned into a film ...
06.01.2023 Tony Benn "It's the complicated ones I enjoy the most." Matthew Parris Tony Benn, MP from 1950 to 2001, packed so much into a long career. He renounced the peerage inherited from his father, served in the Labour governments of both Harold ...
05.16.2023 Jon Ronson picks Terry Hall of The Specials When Jon Ronson was growing up, he went to see The Specials play in Cardiff. "I went on my own to Sophia Gardens," he says. "The crowd was fantastically wild. There’s a lot to not like about the feral nature ...
05.10.2023 Sir Edward Coke, prosecutor of Guy Fawkes Edward Coke was born in Norfolk in 1552. He's best known as a judge and Parliamentarian, the link says Jesse Norman between Magna Carta and the English Bill of Rights. He was also, the programme claims, an occasionally appalling human ...
05.02.2023 Kofi Annan In 1997 Kofi Annan became the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations. The nineties were a turbulent period for the organisation and it had received criticism for a lack of action in both Rwanda and Bosnia leading to thousands of ...
04.25.2023 Frank Zappa "The most important thing to do in your life is not to interfere with somebody else's life." Frank Zappa was born December 1940 in Baltimore, USA. Comedian John Robins - who is obsessed - reckons that it was his subsequently ...
04.11.2023 Frederick the Great of Prussia Frederick the Great had a brute of a father. When young Frederick was captured trying to run away, he was locked up and forced to watch his friend - possibly his lover - being beheaded in front of his eyes. ...
04.04.2023 Arthur Ashe Broadcaster Qasa Alom chooses the first African American tennis player to win the US Open and Wimbledon, Arthur Ashe. Arthur Ashe was born in Richmond, Virginia, a state in the US that in 1943 was still part of the segregated ...
02.20.2023 Astrid Lindgren, creator of Pippi Longstocking The best-selling author of How to Train Your Dragon, Cressida Cowell, explains her love for the Swedish author, Astrid Lindgren. Born in 1907, Lindgren invented the Pippi Longstocking stories to tell to her children during the war years, only writing ...
01.24.2023 Adjoa Andoh on Zora Neale Hurston Actor Adjoa Andoh has a list of TV, theatre and film credits as long as your arm. She's best known worldwide as Bridgerton's Lady Danbury, and is due to direct - and star in the title role - in a ...
01.17.2023 Comedian Chris McCausland on Kurt Cobain ‘For me, it’s all about his authenticity’. Chris McCausland Kurt Cobain, lead singer, guitarist and songwriter of the band Nirvana became the voice of a generation and is to this day considered one of the most influential musicians in the ...
01.09.2023 Roger Deakin, wild swimmer and author of Waterlogged Matthew Parris travels along the Thames to meet Nick Hayes - illustrator and author of The Book of Trespass - to discuss the life of Roger Deakin. They also enjoy a naked swim. Joining them, in his pants, is Patrick ...
01.03.2023 Minette Batters on Henry Plumb "I was born an Englishman but I'll die a European." Those are the words of Henry Plumb, Lord Plumb, a farmer who was President of the National Farmers Union in the 1970s and who became the first British person to ...
12.20.2022 Noddy Holder on Chuck Berry In 1972 Chucky Berry was onstage in Coventry. Seeking some audience participation Chuck launched into a cover of an unusual novelty record called 'My Ding-a-Ling'. One of the men who can be heard in the crowd singing about their "Ding-a-Ling' ...
12.13.2022 Olivia Laing on Christopher Lloyd, Gardener and Writer Known to his friends as Christo, Lloyd spent his whole life, from childhood until his death aged 85, at work in the same garden: Great Dixter in East Sussex. He wrote a weekly column for Country Life for 42 years ...
12.09.2022 Olia Hercules on Alla Horska, Ukrainian painter "Cooking is like therapy to us. I grew up where my big extended family would come together in summer under the walnut tree. The adults would drink and we’d eat, stories would be told and we'd break into song. It ...
09.28.2022 Bonnie Greer on the Women of the Morant Bay Rebellion Bonnie Greer OBE, playwright and critic, joins Matthew Parris to make a case for seven women from Jamaica who were hung or shot in 1865 after the Morant Bay Rebellion. Bonnie makes a case that this peasants' uprising was a ...
09.13.2022 George Lascelles, 7th Earl of Harewood nominated by Lesley Garrett As Grandson of George V, George Lascelles was a first cousin to Queen Elizabeth II and with his distinguished beard and Nero style jackets, he was the very image of aristocracy, moving in the highest of royal circles, yet it ...
09.06.2022 Romy Gill on poet Amrita Pritam Chef Romy Gill remembers her Mother reading Amrita Pritam's poems to her when she was growing up. Romy was drawn to Amrita's fierce independent spirit and began to learn about her importance as a Panjabi writer whose work was heavily ...
08.30.2022 Rosalind Franklin picked by Kate Bingham, former head of the UK government's vaccine taskforce Rosalind Franklin was born in 1920 and studied Natural Sciences. After working in Paris at the Laboratoire Central - where she became an x-ray crystallographer - she moved to King's College London. Here she helped to take the famous Photograph ...
08.23.2022 Dame Kathleen Ollerenshaw, Educationalist Dame Kathleen Ollerenshaw was born Kathleen Timpson in 1912. Deaf from an early age, she went on to have a brilliant career and is best known for her contribution to pandiagonal magic squares. She was also heavily involved in the ...
08.16.2022 Ravi Shankar, India's famous sitar player Ravi Shankar was born in India in 1920 and came to prominence just as India gained independence from Britain in 1947. He was initially a dancer and then a virtuoso sitarist and composer, and became famous internationally because of his ...
08.10.2022 Holly Walsh on BS Johnson BS Johnson was born in Hammersmith in 1933. A wartime evacuee, he never quite shook a sense of dislocation for the rest of his life. Holly's favourite book, she calls it the gateway drug to his work, is Christie Malry's ...
08.02.2022 Pat Nevin on Johan Cruyff Pat Nevin chooses Johan Cruyff who was part of the Dutch revolution of the 1970s. He burst onto the international stage at the 1974 World Cup with an incredible piece of skill against Sweden later dubbed the 'Cruyff turn'. Cruyff ...
05.31.2022 Judy Garland Susie Boyt picks Judy Garland, the child star who became one of the most famous entertainers of the twentieth century. June 2022 will be the centenary of her birth. "All people ever said to me was, ‘You have got to ...
05.24.2022 Joan Rhodes, strongest woman in the world Joan Rhodes picked by Anna Maxwell Martin, star of Line of Duty and Motherland. Her choice is a lovely surprise, a strongwoman who could rip up phone books and bend nails. There's archive of her holding up 14 stone cricket ...
05.17.2022 Rob Newman on Franklin D Roosevelt Comedian and writer Rob Newman is a long-time fan of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who "saved the United States, just in time for the United States to save the world". When FDR came into office in 1933, at the height ...
05.10.2022 Mr Manchester Tony Wilson nominated by Terry Christian He was a broadcaster, music mogul, social activist, local celebrity, publicity seeker, loud mouth, surreal politician, showman and, according to Paul Morley, "a great resourceful man of the north." Now Terry Christian provides a passionate account of why he was ...
05.03.2022 Gil Scott-Heron Described by those who knew him as a 'Revolutionary Man of Peace' Gil Scott-Heron transformed the musical landscape of the 1970's. In 2021 he was posthumously inaugurated into The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, honoured with an Early Influencer ...
04.26.2022 Lolita Chakrabarti on actor Ira Aldridge Award-winning playwright and actor Lolita Chakrabarti celebrates the life of Ira Aldridge, an icon of theatre who rose to fame at the height of the movement to abolish slavery and brought Shakespeare to audiences across the world. He made his ...
04.19.2022 Janet Ellis on Puffin editor Kaye Webb Writer, broadcaster and Blue Peter presenter Janet Ellis champions the life of Kaye Webb, who burst on to the children's publishing scene in 1961 and changed the industry forever. With no publishing experience whatsoever, Kaye persuaded renowned authors like Roald ...
04.12.2022 Tom Hopkinson, editor of Picture Post What does it take to be a great news editor? Tom Hopkinson was sacked by the proprietor of Picture Post for trying to run a true story during the 1950 Korean War. Later he also sent a photographer - Ian ...
04.08.2022 Brian Cox on Lindsay Anderson Actor Brian Cox chooses his one-time mentor and fellow Scot, Lindsay Anderson. "His effect is still on me to this day, and I can't throw him off. He taught me how to think. He triggered something off in me that ...
01.25.2022 Spike Milligan Henry Normal thinks Spike Milligan changed his life, in particular with his 1973 poetry collection, Small Dreams of a Scorpion. Spike's other work - The Goon Show, the books about the war (Adolf Hitler: My Part in his Downfall and ...
01.18.2022 Roma Agrawal on Mrinalini Sarabhai Mrinalini Sarabhai was an Indian classical dancer specialising in Bharatanatyam and becoming the first woman to perform Kathakali. She was very successful and performed around the world, with one reviewer in Paris calling her the 'Hindu atomic bomb'. She married ...
01.11.2022 Lady Hale on Lady Rhondda Judge and former President of the Supreme Court, Lady Hale, chooses to nominate the suffragette, businesswoman, and founder of Time and Tide magazine, Margaret Haig Thomas, also known as Lady Rhondda. Born in 1883, Lady Rhondda was brought up an ...
01.10.2022 William Lever, Lord Leverhulme, founder of Unilever William Lever was a grocer's son who went on to make a fortune selling soap. Lifebuoy, Lux ... and eventually Unilever are just some of his creations. Picking him for Great Lives is Richard Walker, managing director of Iceland. Joining ...
12.28.2021 Noor-Un-Nissa Inayat Khan Noor-Un-Nissa Inayat Khan was an Indian muslim princess who became an under-cover agent for the ‘SOE’ – Churchill’s Special Operational Executive. She’s one of only a handful of women in the second world war awarded The George Cross, the highest ...
12.21.2021 Jeanne Baret, first woman to sail round the globe It all began with a small portrait in the Greenwich museum - of a sexless looking character in wide stripey trousers. Actor Nina Sosanya says she was immediately intrigued. Who was this? Why was she here? And did she really ...
12.14.2021 Rory Sutherland on Johnny Ramone Johnny Ramone is a founding member of the seminal New York punk band, the Ramones. Famed for their blisteringly short songs played at breakneck speed, the Ramones burst onto the scene in 1976 with tracks like 'Blitzkrieg Bop', 'I Don't ...
12.07.2021 JRR Tolkien, creator of The Hobbit John Ronald Reuel Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein in 1892. Orphaned before he was a teenager, he fought at the Somme in the First World War before going on to become one of the best-selling authors of all time. Bilbo, ...
09.28.2021 Ruth Rogers on James Baldwin The chef and co-founder of The River Cafe, Ruth Rogers, picks the life of the writer and activist James Baldwin. A writer, poet, playwright and activist, Baldwin was known as a trailblazing explorer of race, class and sexuality in America ...

Older episodes

Great Lives

What's Great Lives about?

Download our free app to listen on your phone

Great Lives episodes:

Mohammad Mossadegh, PM of Iran ousted in a coup

Ludwig Koch

Lady Eve Balfour

Ken Loach on Gerrard Winstanley

Chi-chi Nwanoku on Jessye Norman

Ninette de Valois

Sophie Scott on Hattie Jacques

Stamford Raffles, founder of Singapore and London Zoo

Susie Dent on Thomas Mann

Tony Benn

Jon Ronson picks Terry Hall of The Specials

Sir Edward Coke, prosecutor of Guy Fawkes

Kofi Annan

Frank Zappa

Frederick the Great of Prussia

Arthur Ashe

Astrid Lindgren, creator of Pippi Longstocking

Adjoa Andoh on Zora Neale Hurston

Comedian Chris McCausland on Kurt Cobain

Roger Deakin, wild swimmer and author of Waterlogged

Minette Batters on Henry Plumb

Noddy Holder on Chuck Berry

Olivia Laing on Christopher Lloyd, Gardener and Writer

Olia Hercules on Alla Horska, Ukrainian painter

Bonnie Greer on the Women of the Morant Bay Rebellion

George Lascelles, 7th Earl of Harewood nominated by Lesley Garrett

Romy Gill on poet Amrita Pritam

Rosalind Franklin picked by Kate Bingham, former head of the UK government's vaccine taskforce

Dame Kathleen Ollerenshaw, Educationalist

Ravi Shankar, India's famous sitar player

Holly Walsh on BS Johnson

Pat Nevin on Johan Cruyff

Judy Garland

Joan Rhodes, strongest woman in the world

Rob Newman on Franklin D Roosevelt

Mr Manchester Tony Wilson nominated by Terry Christian

Gil Scott-Heron

Lolita Chakrabarti on actor Ira Aldridge

Janet Ellis on Puffin editor Kaye Webb

Tom Hopkinson, editor of Picture Post

Brian Cox on Lindsay Anderson

Spike Milligan

Roma Agrawal on Mrinalini Sarabhai

Lady Hale on Lady Rhondda

William Lever, Lord Leverhulme, founder of Unilever

Noor-Un-Nissa Inayat Khan

Jeanne Baret, first woman to sail round the globe

Rory Sutherland on Johnny Ramone

JRR Tolkien, creator of The Hobbit

Ruth Rogers on James Baldwin