Arts and Ideas

How much self-knowledge do you need to be happy – and what are the limits to what you can achieve alone? Paul Dolan, Vincent Deary and Beatrix Campbell ask why everybody from governments to therapists want us to be happy. Chaired by Rana Mitter.

Knowing Your Characters. Matthew Sweet talks to playwright David Greig and actor Siobhan Redmond about their approaches to drama. How much do you have to know about the characters and the story before you begin? How has theatre contributed to the recent discussions about Scottish identity? This event was recorded in front of an audience at the Free Thinking Festival at Sage, Gateshead on 01.11.14.

A hundred years ago, Ernest Shackleton set out on his Trans-Antarctic expedition which ended when his ship Endurance became trapped in packed ice. The lure of this polar region remains strong both in our imaginations and in terms of understanding what is happening to the planet. Rana Mitter discusses the Antarctica of our imaginations and the reality of the landscape with writer Meredith Hooper, polar explorer Ben Saunders, architect Hugh Broughton and glaciologist Jonathan Bamber.

The Spin Doctors of 19th-Century America. Embracing the emerging sciences of the age, 19th-century Americans thought they might be able to combine physiognomy (the science of reading faces) and the techniques of photography to uncover the true characters of leaders and statesmen. Joanna Cohen from Queen Mary, the University of London explores their efforts and the lessons for voters now. This event was recorded in front of an audience at the Free Thinking Festival at Sage, Gateshead on 01.11.14.

Drawing on Shakespeare's plays and Indian translations of them from recent times - and on writing by Saadat Hasan Manto and Rabindranath Tagore, the voices of partition and independence - Preti Taneja from Jesus College Cambridge explores the power of gibberish to upset fixed notions of language and identity. This event was recorded in front of an audience at the Free Thinking Festival at Sage, Gateshead on 01.11.14.

Animals: Watching Us Watching Them Watching Each Other. Rana Mitter talks to the primatologist, Andrew Whiten, Professor of Evolutionary and Development Psychology at St Andrews, to Dr Katie Slocombe of York University and to the social anthropologist, Professor Alex Bentley of Bristol University, about chimps and imitation, culture and evolution - from the deep past to our digital present. This event was recorded in front of an audience at the Free Thinking Festival at Sage, Gateshead on 02.11.14.

Naomi Paxton from the University of Manchester explores the international movement for a Women's Theatre from the 1890s to the start of the First World War, and considers how their ideas may have changed how theatre is experienced today. This event was recorded in front of an audience at the Free Thinking Festival at Sage, Gateshead on 02.11.14.

Karen Armstrong, one of the world's leading thinkers about religion, gives the Free Thinking Lecture, arguing that, in the current global situation, a recognition of how little we know is the only way to peace. She talks to Rana Mitter and takes questions from the audience. Recorded on 31.10.14 in front of an audience at BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival of Ideas 2014 from Sage Gateshead.

Choreographer Akram Khan talks to Anne McElvoy about curating a festival at the Lowry, the relationship between dance and visual art and his interest in flamenco. Professor Diane Purkiss reviews Eileen Atkins performance at the RSC in The Witch of Edmonton. Deanna Petherbridge discusses an exhibition of prints showing witches that she's curated at the British Museum.

Orhan Pamuk talks to Philip Dodd about his writing career and his views of modern Turkey. Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature 2006, his novels include The Black Book, Snow, My Name is Red and The Museum of Innocence - a book and a real building created by the author which earlier this year was awarded the European Museum of the Year award.

Orhan Pamuk talks, in an extended conversation with Philip Dodd, about his writing career and his views of modern Turkey.Winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature 2006 his novels include The Black Book from 1990, the magisterial Snow marinaded in politics and religion and set in a remote Turkish town and The Museum of Innocence a book and a real building created by the author. There’s also his nonfiction including the memoir Istanbul.

Mike Leigh discusses his film about Turner. Steve Connor and Matthew Sweet discuss an exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge which brings together 180 paintings and models to explore the way mannequins have been used by artists - from a technical tool to a fetishised object. And New Generation Thinker Naomi Paxton discusses Guy Fawkes traditions.

Anne McElvoy talks to celebrated Canadian novelist Margaret Atwood whose most recent novel MaddAddam completed her dystopian trilogy that began a decade ago with Oryx and Crake and continued six years later with The Year of the Flood. Originally broadcast on 17.09.2013.

How history can help to shape policy making? Rana Mitter is joined by The History Manifesto's co-author, David Armitage, Chris Skidmore MP and historian, and Lucy Delap, Director of Cambridge University and Kings College London’s History and Policy Unit. And one of Australia’s most prominent novelists Peter Carey is back with a new book ‘Amnesia’. He talks to Philip Dodd.

This Free Thinking is devoted to one of the landmarks of European literature -- Marcel Proust's gigantic novel, A la recherche du temps perdu which is perhaps best known in English as In Search of Lost Time. Matthew Sweet gathers together four Proust fans from very different backgrounds - the Pulitzer prize winning novelist, Jane Smiley, the psychotherapist, Jane Haynes, Christopher Prendergast, who has edited the latest translation of the book and from France, the writer, Marie Darrieussecq. The actor Peter Marinker tackles the difficult task of giving an English voice to Proust.