Culture
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245 episodes
Handel's Messiah
Misha Glenny and guests discuss Handel's great sacred oratorio from 1742, his collaboration with librettist Charles Jennens, and the first performances in Dublin and then London.
9 April 2026
Featuring: Donald Burrows, Ruth Smith, Larry Zazzo
Dadaism
Misha Glenny and guests discuss the spirit of the art phenomenon that began in Zurich in 1916 inspired by what the Dadas saw as the absurdity of the war then consuming the world.
19 March 2026
Featuring: Dawn Ades, Ruth Hemus, Stephen Forcer
John Keats
Misha Glenny and guests discuss the short, brilliant life of one of the most celebrated Romantic poets and the works of his most intensely creative year from autumn 1818.
19 February 2026
Featuring: Fiona Stafford, Nicholas Roe, Meiko O’Halloran
Henry IV Part 1
Misha Glenny and guests discuss why Shakespeare's play with Falstaff, Hotspur and Prince Hal was so popular with his Tudor audience with its theme of what makes a ruler legitimate.
5 February 2026
Featuring: Emma Smith, Lucy Munro, Laurence Publicover
On Liberty
Misha Glenny and guests discuss John Stuart Mill's celebrated work from 1859 arguing that the sole end for which mankind may interfere with anyone's liberty is self-protection.
15 January 2026
Featuring: Helen McCabe, Mark Philp, Piers Norris Turner
Barbour's 'Brus'
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss ideas of chivalry and freedom in John Barbour's c1375 epic on Robert the Bruce and Bannockburn, the earliest surviving poem in Older Scots.
19 June 2025
Featuring: Rhiannon Purdie, Steve Boardman, Michael Brown
The Vienna Secession
A discussion of the aesthetic movement that emerged in Vienna at the end of the nineteenth century.
5 June 2025
Featuring: Mark Berry, Leslie Topp, Diane Silverthorne
Molière
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and work of the great French playwright and actor whose best known plays include Tartuffe, Le Misanthrope and Le Malade Imaginaire.
24 April 2025
Featuring: Noel Peacock, Jan Clarke, Joe Harris
Thomas Middleton
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the star writers for the London stage in the age of Shakespeare, much in demand for his own work and for rewriting the work of others.
20 March 2025
Featuring: Emma Smith, Lucy Munro, Michelle O’Callaghan
Oliver Goldsmith
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the author of She Stoops to Conquer, The Vicar of Wakefield and The Deserted Village who was a great populariser of science and history in his time.
20 February 2025
Featuring: David O’Shaughnessy, Judith Hawley, Michael Griffin
CultureAlumni of Trinity College DublinStreathamitesIrish AnglicansIrish male dramatists and playwrightsAlumni of the University of Edinburgh18th-century Anglo-Irish people, 18th-century Irish male writersIrish male novelists18th-century Irish novelists, 18th-century Irish poetsIrish essayistsIrish male poets18th centuryIrelandSir John Soane
Melvyn Bragg and guests explore the life and work of John Soane, architect of the old Bank of England and collector of the antiquities displayed in his home which became a museum.
6 February 2025
Featuring: Frances Sands, Frank Salmon, Gillian Darley
Vase-mania
Melvyn Bragg and guests explore why eighteenth century collectors became so enthusiastic about ancient vases, especially Greek ones, and how Josiah Wedgwood reimagined these for consumers.
26 December 2024
Featuring: Jenny Uglow, Rosemary Sweet, Caroline McCaffrey-Howarth
Plutarch's Parallel Lives
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the work of the influential Greek biographer Plutarch who compared and contrasted famous Romans and Greeks in pairs to reveal their inner lives
19 December 2024
Featuring: Judith Mossman, Andrew Erskine, Paul Cartledge
Nizami Ganjavi
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the 12th-century Persian writer of epic romantic poetry whose fame spread from his hometown of Ganja across the Persian-speaking world and beyond.
5 December 2024
Featuring: Christine van Ruymbeke, Narguess Farzad, Dominic Parviz Brookshaw
Italo Calvino
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the author of Invisible Cities, Cosmicomics and If on a Winter's Night a Traveller and collector and translator of Italian fables.
21 November 2024
Featuring: Guido Bonsaver, Jennifer Burns, Beatrice Sica
George Herbert
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the author of 'the most beautiful poem in the world' whose works on his relationship with God offered comfort to Charles I when he faced execution.
7 November 2024
Featuring: Helen Wilcox, Victoria Moul, Simon Jackson
CulturePoet priestsAnglican poetsAnglican saintsTuberculosis deaths in England17th-century English poets17th-century Christian mysticsPeople celebrated in the Lutheran liturgical calendarAlumni of Trinity College, CambridgeProtestant mysticsAnglo-Welsh poets17th-century deaths from tuberculosisSonneteers17th-century English male writersEnglish male poets17th-century English Anglican priestsAnglican writersPeople educated at Westminster School, LondonLutheran saints17th centuryWalesLittle Women
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Louisa May Alcott's much-read and much-adapted story of Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy March which is credited with starting the genre of young adult fiction
24 October 2024
Featuring: Bridget Bennett, Erin Forbes, Tom Wright
Robert Graves
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and works of the author of I, Claudius, especially his love and war poems and his ideas on the source of all creativity.
10 October 2024
Featuring: Paul O'Prey, Fran Brearton, Bob Davis
CultureBisexual poetsEnglish literary criticsEnglish male novelists20th-century English non-fiction writersEnglish World War I poetsBisexual novelists20th-century English memoiristsOxford Professors of Poetry20th-century English male writersPeople with post-traumatic stress disorderBisexual memoirists20th-century atheistsEnglish male poetsEnglish people of Irish descentEnglish LGBTQ poetsEnglish short story writersJames Tait Black Memorial Prize recipientsEnglish bisexual men, English bisexual writers, Royal Welch Fusiliers officersEnglish male short story writersEnglish writers with disabilitiesEnglish atheists20th-century translatorsBisexual male writers20th-century English novelistsEnglish historical novelistsPrix Italia winnersBritish Army personnel of World War I20th-century English poetsPeople educated at Charterhouse SchoolEnglish male non-fiction writers20th-century English LGBTQ people20th centuryMonet in England
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss why the French impressionist Claude Monet painted the foggy Thames in central London more often than water lilies, haystacks or Rouen Cathedral.
27 June 2024
Featuring: Karen Serres, Frances Fowle, Jackie Wullschläger
Fielding's Tom Jones
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Henry Fielding's influential comic novel in which the hero Jones has such a fundamentally good nature that even his critics forgive his faults.
13 June 2024
Featuring: Judith Hawley, Henry Power, Charlotte Roberts
Sir Thomas Wyatt
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Tudor courtier who found a way to write extraordinary and enduring poetry while under the intense scrutiny of Henry VIII's machinery of state.
9 May 2024
Featuring: Brian Cummings, Susan Brigden, Laura Ashe
Bertolt Brecht
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the works and ideas of this great German playwright from the Weimar Republic to his exile under the Nazis and return to Berlin after World War Two.
25 April 2024
Featuring: Laura Bradley, David Barnett, Tom Kuhn
CultureNaturalised citizens of AustriaGerman male dramatists and playwrights, German male poetsGerman literary criticsModernist theatreProtestants in the German ResistanceBurials at the Dorotheenstadt CemeteryGerman Marxist writersExilliteratur writersMarxist theoristsGerman theatre directorsGerman opera librettistsGermanyLysistrata
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Aristophanes' outrageous comedy from 411BC in which the women of Athens and Sparta bring their warring husbands to peace by staging a sex strike.
11 April 2024
Featuring: Paul Cartledge, Sarah Miles, James Robson
The Kalevala
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Finnish epic poem, compiled by Elias Lönnrot in 1835 from runic songs, which helped the cause of Finland's independence from the Russian Empire.
28 March 2024
Featuring: Riitta-Liisa Valijärvi, Thomas A. DuBois, Daniel Abondolo
The Waltz
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how the waltz changed the relationship between music, people and the wider culture in Britain from its arrival in the early 19th century onwards.
14 March 2024
Featuring: Susan Jones, Derek B. Scott, Theresa Buckland
Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Lewis Carroll's work published in 1865 and inspired by telling stories to Alice Liddell and her sisters on picnics and boating trips in Oxford
15 February 2024
Featuring: Franziska Kohlt, Kiera Vaclavik, Robert Douglas-Fairhurst
Twelfth Night, or What You Will
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the great comedies of world literature in which love and desire in Illyria sit uneasily alongside thwarted dreams and compromise.
28 December 2023
Featuring: Pascale Aebischer, Michael Dobson, Emma Smith
Vincent van Gogh
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the career of the Dutch artist celebrated after his death for his paintings of sunflowers and starry nights but selling only one work in his life.
21 December 2023
Featuring: Christopher Riopelle, Martin Bailey, Frances Fowle
Edgar Allan Poe
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the writer of The Raven and Gothic horror stories such as The Tell-Tale Heart and The Fall of the House of Usher.
30 November 2023
Featuring: Bridget Bennett, Erin Forbes, Tom Wright
CultureHall of Fame for Great Americans inducteesUnited States Military Academy alumniAmerican literary critics, American male dramatists and playwrightsAmerican male essayists, American male poetsSurrealist writersRecreational cryptographers, Writers from Boston, Writers from PhiladelphiaAmerican male non-fiction writersEpic poetsAmerican people of English descent19th-century pseudonymous writersRomantic poets19th-century American short story writers, Ghost story writers19th-century American poets19th-century American non-fiction writers19th-century American novelists, Novelists from New York (state)Writers from Baltimore19th-century American male writers19th-century American essayistsAmerican male novelistsWriters of Gothic fiction19th centuryAmericaMarguerite de Navarre
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Marguerite, Queen of Navarre (1492 – 1549), author of the Heptaméron, a major literary landmark in the French Renaissance.
23 November 2023
Featuring: Sara Barker, Emily Butterworth, Emma Herdman
The Theory of the Leisure Class
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Thorstein Veblen's critique of wasteful capitalism, as he saw it, in America's Gilded Age with conspicuous leisure and conspicuous consumption.
16 November 2023
Featuring: Matthew Watson, Bill Waller, Mary Wrenn
Germinal
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Emile Zola's thirteenth and most successful novel in his Rougon-Macquart series, in which a strike breaks out in a destitute French mining village.
26 October 2023
Featuring: Susan Harrow, Kate Griffiths, Edmund Birch
The Seventh Seal (1000th program)
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Ingmar Bergman's influential film from 1957 in which a knight plays chess with Death in the hope of living long enough to do something meaningful
21 September 2023
Featuring: Jan Holmberg [sv], Laura Hubner, Claire Thomson
Death in Venice
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Mann's infamous novella of 1912, exploring the link between creativity and self-destruction.
15 June 2023
Featuring: Karolina Watroba, Erica Wickerson, Sean Williams
Oedipus Rex
Melvyn Bragg and guests on Sophocles' tragedy, sometimes called the best play ever written. With Edith Hall, Nick Lowe and Fiona Macintosh.
8 June 2023
Featuring: Nick Lowe, Fiona Macintosh, Edith Hall
Virgil's Georgics
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Roman poet's celebration of agriculture and rural life composed in 29BC after a civil war, when questions of land ownership were contested.
18 May 2023
Featuring: Katharine Earnshaw, Neville Morley, Diana Spencer
Walt Whitman
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the innovative 19th-century poet, who broke away from European literary traditions to become a key figure in the development of American culture.
27 April 2023
Featuring: Sarah Churchwell, Peter Riley, Mark Ford
CultureHall of Fame for Great Americans inductees19th-century American poets19th-century American male writersAmerican spiritual writersAmerican people of Dutch descentAmerican nationalists, American religious skepticsAmerican people of English descent19th-century American essayistsAmerican male journalistsAmerican male essayists, American male poets19th-century pseudonymous writersAmerican LGBTQ poetsAmerican male novelists19th-century American novelists, Novelists from New York (state)Pantheists19th-century mysticsWar writersAmerican humanists19th centuryAmericaA Room of One's Own
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Virginia Woolf's highly influential essay about women and literature: "a woman must have money and a room of her own if she is to write fiction."
30 March 2023
Featuring: Hermione Lee, Michèle Barrett, Alexandra Harris
The Ramayana
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ancient Sanskrit epic, one of the greatest works of world literature, which is still seen as a sacred and influential text by Hindus today.
9 March 2023
Featuring: Jessica Frazier, Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad, Naomi Appleton
Stevie Smith
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the writer best known for her poem Not Waving But Drowning, whose success has arguably overshadowed her wider work as a poet and novelist.
16 February 2023
Featuring: Jeremy Noel-Tod, Noreen Masud, Will May
John Donne
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the extraordinary life and work of one of England's finest love poets and, as Dean of St Paul's Cathedral, most remarkable preachers.
12 January 2023
Featuring: Mary Ann Lund, Sue Wiseman, Hugh Adlington
CultureCritics of the Catholic ChurchAlumni of Hart Hall, OxfordPhilosophers of religionLiteracy and society theoristsEpigrammatistsEnglish people of Welsh descentIndependent scholars17th-century English poets16th-century English male writersMetaphor theoristsWriters about activism and social changeChristian poetsSonneteersEnglish male poets17th-century Anglican theologiansLutheran saintsAnglican poetsAnglican saints16th-century English poetsPeople celebrated in the Lutheran liturgical calendarWriters from LondonPeople from the City of London17th-century English male writersLiterary theoristsMetaphysical poetsEnglish satiristsPoet priestsEnglish male non-fiction writersPamphleteers17th-century English Anglican priests16th century17th centuryTheologyPersuasion
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Jane Austen's final completed novel: the story of Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth, their broken engagement and their chance meeting 8 years later.
22 December 2022
Featuring: Karen O'Brien, Fiona Stafford, Paddy Bullard
Citizen Kane
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Orson Welles' 1941 film, long celebrated as one of the greatest ever made, which went on to influence generations of film-makers
15 December 2022
Featuring: Stella Bruzzi, Ian Christie, John David Rhodes
The Nibelungenlied
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the epic German poem of Siegfried and Kriemhild against Gunther and Brunhilda, two powerful couples whose friendship turns to rivalry and revenge.
1 December 2022
Featuring: Sarah Bowden, Mark Chinca, Bettina Bildhauer
Bauhaus
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the short-lived German combined art and crafts school founded by Walter Gropius in 1919 which became highly influential around the world.
10 November 2022
Featuring: Robin Schuldenfrei, Alan Powers, Michael White
Wilfred Owen
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of Britain's greatest war poets, who published only 5 poems in his short life yet whose works became seen as a warning of the futility of wars.
27 October 2022
Featuring: Jane Potter, Fran Brearton, Guy Cuthbertson
CultureEnglish people of Welsh descentRecipients of the Military CrossPeople with post-traumatic stress disorderArtists' Rifles soldiersBritish Army personnel of World War I20th-century English poetsEnglish World War I poetsLost Generation writersEnglish male poetsEnglish LGBTQ poetsWar writersEnglish writers with disabilities20th-century English LGBTQ people20th-century English male writers20th centuryBerthe Morisot
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the daring and innovative work of the French woman at the heart of the impressionist movement, capturing the domestic world and life in the open air
13 October 2022
Featuring: Tamar Garb, Lois Oliver, Claire Moran
Nineteen Eighty-Four
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Orwell's dystopian novel where the state rewrites history, war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength - and Big Brother is watching you
15 September 2022
Featuring: David Dwan, Lisa Mullen, John Bowen
CultureBritish science fiction novelsNovels adapted into radio programsNovels adapted into balletsDystopian novelsBritish novels adapted into television showsEnglish novelsNovels set in fictional countriesBritish novels adapted into filmsNovels adapted into operasCensored booksSocial science fictionBritish political novels, Novels about propaganda, Novels about revolutionaries, Novels about totalitarianism, Novels by George Orwell, Secker & Warburg booksNovels set in LondonBritish novels adapted into playsBookJohn Bull
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss John Arbuthnot's satirical figure, created in 1712 as an anthropomorphised bull, and its role as a representation of an English or British everyman.
30 June 2022
Featuring: Judith Hawley, Miles Taylor, Mark Knights
Dylan Thomas
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the works and ideas of this celebrated Welsh poet, from his teenage success to his tours of America via Under Milk Wood.
16 June 2022
Featuring: Nerys Williams, John Goodby, Leo Mellor
Tang Era Poetry
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the most celebrated poets of 8th-century China, Li Bai and Du Fu, and their influence from the Tang Era to the present day.
12 May 2022
Featuring: Tim Barrett, Tian Yuan Tan, Frances Wood
Olympe de Gouges
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life, ideas and works of the Frenchwoman who wrote The Declaration of the Rights of Woman in 1791 during the French Revolution
21 April 2022
Featuring: Catriona Seth, Katherine Astbury, Sanja Perovic
Culture18th-century French women writers18th-century philosophersFrench deistsWomen in the French Revolution18th-century French philosophersFrench abolitionistsWomen religious writersFrench women philosophersDeist philosophersExecuted French women, French people executed by guillotine during the French RevolutionExecuted writersExecuted philosophersFrench political philosophersFrench women dramatists and playwrights18th centuryFrancePolidori's The Vampyre
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the myths that gave rise to this novella from 1819 by Byron's physician, John Polidori, and the works such as Bram Stoker's Dracula it inspired.
7 April 2022
Featuring: Nick Groom, Samantha George, Martyn Rady
Culture19th-century English non-fiction writersBritish people of Italian descent, English people of Italian descent, Polidori-Rossetti familySuicides by cyanide poisoningAlumni of the University of EdinburghBurials at St Pancras Old ChurchEnglish male non-fiction writersWriters of Gothic fiction19th-century male writers19th-century British short story writers18th century19th centuryThe Sistine Chapel
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss this extraordinary achievement of Michelangelo in the Vatican with frescoes from Genesis on the ceiling and The Last Judgement on the altar wall.
31 March 2022
Featuring: Catherine Fletcher, Sarah Vowles, Matthias Wivel
Antigone
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Sophocles' tragedy of dilemmas, where King Creon threatens death to anyone who buries a traitor and that traitor's sister, Antigone, defies him.
24 March 2022
Featuring: Edith Hall, Oliver Taplin, Lyndsay Coo
Romeo and Juliet
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the poetry and power of Shakespeare's tragedy of two young lovers in Verona, their families divided by a bitter feud
17 February 2022
Featuring: Helen Hackett, Paul Prescott, Emma Smith
Colette
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the novels and life of one of the most remarkable writers of the last century, whose Claudine series was first published under her husband's name.
27 January 2022
Featuring: Diana Holmes, Michèle Roberts, Belinda Jack
CultureFrench bisexual women, French bisexual writersBisexual memoirists19th-century French women writersGrand Officers of the Legion of HonourBisexual journalistsFrench women novelistsBurials at Père Lachaise Cemetery19th-century French LGBTQ people, 20th-century French LGBTQ people20th-century French novelists20th-century French women writersBisexual novelists19th-century French novelistsBisexual women writersFrench LGBTQ novelists19th century20th centuryFranceThomas Hardy's Poetry
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Hardy's poems, which he prized far above the novels which made him famous and rich, and his ambition to be ranked alongside Shelley and Byron.
13 January 2022
Featuring: Mark Ford, Jane Thomas, Tim Armstrong
CultureFellows of the Royal Society of LiteratureBritish male poetsEnglish short story writersAlumni of King's College London20th-century English male writers19th-century English poets19th-century English novelistsEnglish male novelistsEnglish male short story writersMembers of the Order of MeritPantheistsVictorian novelists19th-century British short story writersBurials at Westminster AbbeyVictorian poets19th century20th centuryPoetryFritz Lang
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Fritz Lang, the director behind films such as Metropolis, Mabuse the Gambler and M in Weimar Germany and Fury and The Big Heat in Hollywood.
30 December 2021
Featuring: Stella Bruzzi, Joe McElhaney, Iris Luppa
Culture20th-century American male writersCommanders Crosses of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of GermanyAustrian people of Jewish descentAustrian atheistsEyepatch wearersNaturalized citizens of the United StatesAustro-Hungarian military personnel of World War IAustrian emigrants to Germany20th centuryWarA Christmas Carol
From Bah Humbug to God Bless Us Every One: Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Charles Dickens' story of Scrooge's salvation by the ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Yet To Come.
16 December 2021
Featuring: Juliet John, Jon Mee, Dinah Birch
CultureNovels adapted into balletsVictorian novelsBritish novels adapted into television showsBritish novellasBooks illustrated by Arthur Rackham1840s fantasy novels, Ghost novelsBritish novels adapted into filmsNovels adapted into operasChapman & Hall booksNovels about time travelNovels set in the 19th centuryNovels set in LondonBritish novels adapted into plays19th centuryBookThe Decadent Movement
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the influence of Baudelaire and Walter Pater on writers and artists in Britain in the 1890s, pursuing art for its own sake and not with moral aims.
18 November 2021
Featuring: Neil Sammells, Kate Hext, Alex Murray
The Song of Roland
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the epic reimagining of the Battle of Roncevaux Pass in 778AD when Charlemagne's rearguard was ambushed and his knight Roland fought and died.
4 November 2021
Featuring: Laura Ashe, Miranda Griffin, Luke Sunderland
Iris Murdoch
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the growing prominence of the philosophy of one of the most celebrated novelists of the 20th century, who developed her ideas in response to WWII.
21 October 2021
Featuring: Anil Gomes, Anne Rowe, Miles Leeson
CulturePhilosophers of cultureBritish historians of philosophyVirtue ethicistsAnalytic philosophersPlatonistsBritish atheists20th-century atheists20th-century British non-fiction writersBritish socialistsAlumni of Somerville College, OxfordPhilosophy writersJames Tait Black Memorial Prize recipients20th-century British philosophersFellows of the American Academy of Arts and SciencesPhilosophers of historyBritish ethicistsAtheist philosophersBritish women philosophersAlumni of Newnham College, CambridgeBritish parodistsBritish people of Irish descentPhilosophers of literature20th centuryThe Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Anne Bronte's story of the mysterious Helen Graham who seeks a new independent life as an artist after escaping her abusive, alcoholic husband.
30 September 2021
Featuring: Alexandra Lewis, Marianne Thormählen, John Bowen
Herodotus
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Greek writer whose Histories aimed to 'preserve the great and marvellous deeds of Greeks and barbarians, especially why they fought each other'.
23 September 2021
Featuring: Tom Harrison, Esther Eidinow, Paul Cartledge
Shakespeare's Sonnets
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the 154 sonnets collected and printed in 1609 of which some are famous, many are glorious, most are inspiring and several are unsettling.
24 June 2021
Featuring: Hannah Crawforth, Don Paterson, Emma Smith
Edward Gibbon
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and ideas of the writer of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, one of the most celebrated works of its kind.
17 June 2021
Featuring: David Womersley, Charlotte Roberts, Karen O'Brien
Culture18th-century English male writersBritish male essayistsEnglish essayists18th-century English non-fiction writers18th-century English historiansBritish MPs 1780–1784, Members of the Parliament of Great Britain for English constituenciesBritish MPs 1774–1780Alumni of Magdalen College, OxfordFreemasons of the Premier Grand Lodge of EnglandEnglish male non-fiction writersBritish critics of religionsEnglish rhetoriciansRhetoric theoristsIrony theoristsPeople educated at Westminster School, LondonFellows of the Royal SocietyEnglish ProtestantsTheorists on Western civilization18th centuryJourney to the West
Melvyn Bragg discusses the much loved Chinese novel from 1592, featuring Monkey, Tripitaka, Sandy and Pigsy, as they travel to India to bring back Buddhist texts.
20 May 2021
Featuring: Julia Lovell, Chiung-yun Evelyn Liu, Craig Clunas
Ovid
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Roman poet whose influence is arguably greater than any poet of the classical age, besides Homer, even though his writing led to his exile.
29 April 2021
Featuring: Maria Wyke, Gail Trimble, Dunstan Lowe
The Bacchae
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the great tragedy by Euripides, where Dionysus takes revenge on Thebans who denied his divinity, their king torn to shreds by his mother.
18 March 2021
Featuring: Edith Hall, Emily Wilson, Rosie Wyles
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Coleridge's poem of a grim voyage in which a sailor shoots an albatross and is forced to tell the story of his crime forever.
4 March 2021
Featuring: Jonathan Bate, Tom Mole, Rosemary Ashton
The Rosetta Stone
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the role of Champollion in deciphering the hieroglyphs on The Rosetta Stone, when the written culture of ancient Egypt opened to the modern world.
11 February 2021
Featuring: Penelope Wilson, Campbell Price, Richard Bruce Parkinson
The Great Gatsby
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the great American novels of the 20th Century, where inexplicably rich Jay Gatsby aims to win Daisy Buchanan from her millionaire husband.
14 January 2021
Featuring: Sarah Churchwell, Philip McGowan, William Blazek
CultureAmerican novels adapted into films, American novels adapted into plays, American novels adapted into television showsNovels adapted into radio programsNovels adapted into balletsMurder–suicide in fictionMetafictional novelsModernist novelsNovels adapted into operasNovels about adulteryNovels adapted into comics20th centuryBookFernando Pessoa
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the works and life of one of Portugal's greatest poets, who wrote in his own name and in those of several rounded characters he created.
3 December 2020
Featuring: Cláudia Pazos-Alonso, Juliet Perkins, Paulo de Medeiros
Albrecht Dürer
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Dürer, the creator of some of the most memorable images in the late Renaissance from his woodcut of a rhinoceros to his stunning self portraits.
12 November 2020
Featuring: Susan Foister, Giulia Bartrum, Ulinka Rublack
Piers Plowman
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Langland's exploration of what it means to live a good life, written when the Black Death had overturned many of the old certainties.
29 October 2020
Featuring: Laura Ashe, Lawrence Warner, Alastair Bennett
Macbeth
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Shakespeare's tragedy of ambition where Macbeth saves his King from one revolt only to murder and replace him, to fulfil a witches' prophecy.
1 October 2020
Featuring: Emma Smith, Kiernan Ryan, David Schalkwyk
George Sand
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the work and life of Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin who in C19th France wrote many extremely successful novels, under the name George Sand
6 February 2020
Featuring: Belinda Jack, Angela Ryan, Nigel Harkness
CultureWriters from Paris19th-century French letter writersFrench bisexual women, French bisexual writers19th-century French women writersLegion of Honour refusalsFrench socialistsPseudonymous women writersFrench women novelists19th-century pseudonymous writers19th-century French novelistsFrench LGBTQ novelists19th centuryFranceCatullus
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the poetry of Catullus - some of the greatest verse of his time, and some of the most scurrilous - and his influence on Roman and later poetry
9 January 2020
Featuring: Gail Trimble, Simon Smith, Maria Wyke
Auden
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss WH Auden's life and poetry from Europe before WWII, reflecting on his travels to Spain, China and Germany and the rise of totalitarianism.
19 December 2019
Featuring: Mark Ford, Janet Montefiore, Jeremy Noel-Tod
CultureEnglish literary criticsAmerican literary critics, American male dramatists and playwrightsEnglish emigrants to the United StatesAmerican male essayists, American male poets20th-century English non-fiction writersAmerican lecturersMembers of the American Academy of Arts and LettersOxford Professors of Poetry20th-century English male writersAmerican male non-fiction writersBritish male essayistsEnglish essayistsAlumni of Christ Church, OxfordFormalist poetsEnglish male dramatists and playwrightsEnglish male poetsEnglish LGBTQ poets20th-century American essayistsGay dramatists and playwrights, Gay poets20th-century American male writersAnglican poetsModernist theatreLGBTQ AnglicansAmerican LGBTQ poetsGay academicsNaturalized citizens of the United States20th-century English poetsEnglish male non-fiction writers20th centuryCrime and Punishment
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Dostoevsky's novel in which Raskolnikov is mediocre but thinks he's superior and his future more important than the lives of the women he kills
14 November 2019
Featuring: Sarah Huspith, Oliver Ready, Sarah Young
Robert Burns
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Ayrshire farmer whose 'Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect' (1786) set him on the way to a worldwide reputation as one of the great poets.
24 October 2019
Featuring: Robert Crawford, Fiona Stafford, Murray Pittock
The Time Machine
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas and anxieties in late Victorian London, explored by HG Wells in his story of time travel, evolution and a planet unfit for humans.
17 October 2019
Featuring: Simon Schaffer, Amanda Rees, Simon James
Lorca
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the work of Federico Garcia Lorca, author of Blood Wedding, Yerma and The House of Bernarda Alba, executed by Franco's forces, his body unrecovered.
4 July 2019
Featuring: Maria Delgado, Federico Bonaddio, Sarah Wright
Sir Thomas Browne
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life, ideas and language of Browne (1605-82), a doctor sharing his personal views on science, history and religion at a time of great change
6 June 2019
Featuring: Claire Preston, Jessica Wolfe, Kevin Killeen
Frankenstein
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Mary Shelley's story of Victor Frankenstein and the creature he makes from cadavers and then rejects - only for the monster to take his revenge
16 May 2019
Featuring: Karen O'Brien, Michael Rossington, Jane Thomas
CultureEpistolary novelsCensored booksBritish novels adapted into playsFrame stories1818 British novelsDisability in the artsWorks published anonymouslyNovels adapted into balletsNovels set in GermanyNovels adapted into comicsNovels adapted into video gamesBritish science fiction novelsNovels adapted into radio programsBritish Gothic novelsBritish novels adapted into filmsNovels set in the 18th centuryNovels about revengeVegetarianism in fictionBritish novels adapted into television shows18th century20th centuryBookA Midsummer Night's Dream
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas behind Shakespeare's comedy with its intertwining plots of royal marriage, crossed lovers, quarreling fairies and rude mechanicals
18 April 2019
Featuring: Helen Hackett, Tom Healy, Alison Findlay
Gerard Manley Hopkins
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the works of Hopkins, unpublished in his lifetime, who FR Leavis called 'the only influential poet of the Victorian age and the greatest'.
21 March 2019
Featuring: Catherine Phillips, Jane Wright, Martin Dubois
Antarah ibn Shaddad
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the poetry of Antarah (525-608AD), his historical context before Islam, how his work relates to other poets in that period, and his legacy
28 February 2019
Featuring: James Montgomery, Marlé Hammond, Harry Munt
Judith beheading Holofernes
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss how artists such as Gentileschi, Caravaggio and Klimt responded to this Bible story of the widow who killed an enemy general to save her people.
14 February 2019
Featuring: Susan Foister, John Gash, Ela Nutu Hall
Samuel Beckett
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and work of the author of Waiting for Godot, who lived in Paris and wrote in French as he found that more difficult than writing in English
17 January 2019
Featuring: Steven Connor, Laura Salisbury, Mark Nixon
CultureIrish male dramatists and playwrightsIrish Nobel laureates, Irish modernist poetsFormer Anglicans20th-century Irish novelists, 20th-century Irish short story writers, Irish male short story writersPeople with Parkinson's diseasePhilosophers of pessimismIrish writers in French, People educated at Portora Royal SchoolAlumni of Trinity College DublinIrish male novelistsIrish essayistsScholars of Trinity College DublinModernist writersBurials at Montparnasse CemeteryIrish expatriates in FranceAcademics of Trinity College DublinAnti-natalistsAbsurdist writersFrench Resistance membersNobel laureates in LiteratureFellows of the American Academy of Arts and SciencesWriters from Dublin (city)20th-century Irish dramatists and playwrights, 20th-century Irish male writers, 20th-century Irish poetsPrix Italia winners20th-century essayistsExistentialists20th centuryIrelandMedicineSir Gawain and the Green Knight
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the poem of the knight who interrupts King Arthur's Christmas celebrations, challenging someone to chop off his head if he can do the same in return
13 December 2018
Featuring: Laura Ashe, Ad Putter, Simon Armitage
Horace
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Horace, one of the greatest poets of his age, the origin of phrases such as carpe diem, nil desperandum and dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.
15 November 2018
Featuring: Emily Gowers, William Fitzgerald, Ellen O'Gorman
Is Shakespeare History? The Romans
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Shakespeare's treatment of Roman history, where he had scope to explore ideas too threatening for English histories.
18 October 2018
Featuring: Jonathan Bate, Catherine Steel, Patrick Gray
Is Shakespeare History? The Plantagenets
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Shakespeare's treatment of English Plantagenet history from Richard II to Richard III and all the Henrys in between, written under Elizabeth I.
11 October 2018
Featuring: Emma Smith, Gordon McMullan, Katherine Lewis
Edith Wharton
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Wharton's novels, which explore the world of the privileged in America's Gilded Age, in which she lived, written in hindsight and with little mercy.
4 October 2018
Featuring: Hermione Lee, Bridget Bennett, Laura Rattray
Culture19th-century American poets20th-century American women writersGerman–English translatorsGilded Age19th-century American women writers, American women poetsKnights of the Legion of Honour19th-century American novelists, Novelists from New York (state)19th-century American short story writers, Ghost story writersMembers of the American Academy of Arts and LettersAmerican autobiographers19th century20th centuryAmericaThe Iliad
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the story of a crucial 40 days in the 10-year battle for Troy, framed by Achilles' anger first at his leader Agamenmon and then at his enemy Hector.
13 September 2018
Featuring: Edith Hall, Barbara Graziosi, Paul Cartledge
William Morris
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss some of the many aspects of William Morris: his activism, poetry and prose and his ideas on arts, crafts and work in an industrial world.
5 July 2018
Featuring: Ingrid Hanson, Marcus Waithe, Jane Thomas
CultureEnglish fantasy writersEnglish male novelistsSocial Democratic Federation membersMythopoeic writersEnglish libertariansVictorian poetsBritish male poetsEpic poetsArtists' Rifles soldiers19th-century English poetsEnglish printers, Translators of VirgilBritish socialistsVictorian novelists19th-century British short story writersBritish botanical illustratorsEnglish short story writersTranslators of HomerEnglish male short story writers19th-century English architectsPeople educated at Marlborough CollegeEnglish atheistsLibertarian socialistsArts and Crafts movement artistsEnglish socialistsArtist authors19th century20th centuryHenrik Ibsen
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the great Norwegian playwright whose middle-class tragedies include A Doll's House, The Wild Duck, Hedda Gabler and An Enemy of the People.
31 May 2018
Featuring: Tore Rem, Kirsten Shepherd-Barr, Dinah Birch
The Mabinogion
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Welsh stories of Arthurian romance and Celtic mythology created in the oral tradition for centuries before being written down in the Middle Ages.
10 May 2018
Featuring: Sioned Davies, Helen Fulton, Juliette Wood
Middlemarch
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss George Eliot's Study of Provincial Life, set before the Reform Act 1832 in a small, fictional town in the Midlands surrounded by farmland.
19 April 2018
Featuring: Rosemary Ashton, Kathryn Hughes, John Bowen
Anna Akhmatova
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the poetry of Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966) whose work was banned under Stalin and who lived under constant threat of the gulags.
18 January 2018
Featuring: Katharine Hodgson, Alexandra Harrington, Michael Basker
Hamlet
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the inspiration for Shakespeare's Hamlet, the play's context and meaning, and why it has fascinated audiences from its first performance.
28 December 2017
Featuring: Jonathan Bate, Carol Rutter, Sonia Massai
Moby Dick
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Moby-Dick (1851) by Herman Melville, the story of Ahab and the white whale, the most popular of around 1,000 ideas that listeners submitted.
7 December 2017
Featuring: Bridget Bennett, Katie McGettigan, Graham Thompson
Germaine de Staël
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the ideas, works and life of Germaine de Stael (1766-1817), a literary critic, author, opponent of Napoleon and developer of Romanticism.
16 November 2017
Featuring: Catriona Seth, Alison Finch, Katherine Astbury
CultureFrench literary criticsConversationalistsPeople of the First French Empire19th-century French novelistsFrench travel writers19th-century French women writers18th-century French women writersFrench feminists18th-century philosophersConverts to Roman Catholicism from Calvinism, Romantic philosophers18th-century French letter writersFrench salon-holders19th-century French philosophersWomen in the French RevolutionWriters from ParisFrench Roman Catholics19th-century French letter writersFrench women novelistsFrench women philosophers18th century19th centuryFrancePicasso's Guernica
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Pablo Picasso's Guernica, which he painted in 1937 soon after the bombing of that Basque town in the Spanish Civil War, and its wider context.
2 November 2017
Featuring: Mary Vincent, Gijs van Hensbergen, Dacia Viejo Rose
Aphra Behn
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and work of Aphra Behn, known for her plays for the Restoration stage such as The Rover and for her novel Oroonoko.
12 October 2017
Featuring: Janet Todd, Ros Ballaster, Claire Bowditch
CultureEnglish feminist writers, English feministsEnglish women novelists17th-century English women writers17th-century English poetsEnglish women dramatists and playwrightsTory poetsFeminism and historyEnglish women poets17th-century English dramatists and playwrights17th-century English writersEnglish spiesBurials at Westminster Abbey17th century18th centuryWuthering Heights
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Emily Bronte's story of Heathcliff and Cathy, of love, hatred, revenge and self-destruction across two generations in a remote moorland home.
28 September 2017
Featuring: Karen O'Brien, John Bowen, Alexandra Lewis
CultureNovels adapted into balletsFiction about suicideBritish Gothic novelsVictorian novelsBritish novels adapted into television showsNovels set in YorkshireFiction with unreliable narratorsBritish novels adapted into filmsNovels adapted into operasNonlinear narrative novelsNovels set in the 18th century1847 British novelsLove stories1840s fantasy novels, Ghost novelsNovels about revengeFrame storiesWorks published under a pseudonym18th century19th centuryBookEugene Onegin
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin (1799-1837), often described as his masterpiece, which tells the tragic story of Onegin, Lensky and Tatyana.
22 June 2017
Featuring: Andrew Kahn, Emily Finer, Simon Dixon
Christine de Pizan
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Christine de Pizan (c1364-1430) who, according to Simone de Beauvoir, was the first woman to 'take up her pen in defence of her sex'.
8 June 2017
Featuring: Helen Swift, Miranda Griffin, Marilynn Desmond
Emily Dickinson
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and work of Emily Dickinson, the now-celebrated poet of Amherst, who was prolific yet chose to publish few of her poems.
11 May 2017
Featuring: Fiona Green, Linda Freedman, Paraic Finnerty
Hokusai
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849), whose views of Mt Fuji such as The Great Wave off Kanagawa (pictured) are some of the most iconic in world art.
30 March 2017
Featuring: Angus Lockyer, Rosina Buckland, Ellis Tinios
North and South
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell, who set her 1855 novel in a version of Manchester she called Milton in the county of Darkshire.
9 March 2017
Featuring: Sally Shuttleworth, Dinah Birch, Jenny Uglow
Seneca the Younger
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Seneca: philosopher, playwright, tutor to Nero, one of the first great writers born in the new Roman empire after the fall of the Republic.
23 February 2017
Featuring: Mary Beard, Catharine Edwards, Alessandro Schiesaro
CultureRoman-era Stoic philosophersAncient Roman satiristsPeople from Córdoba, Spain1st-century RomansForced suicidesLetter writers in LatinMale essayistsAncient Roman encyclopedistsSuffect consuls of Imperial RomeSuicides in Ancient RomeExecuted writersExecuted philosophersSilver Age Latin writers1st-century writers1st-century executionsPeople executed by the Roman Empire1st centuryRomeJohn Clare
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss John Clare, the 'Northamptonshire peasant poet', whose writing was as celebrated as his life was humble.
9 February 2017
Featuring: Jonathan Bate, Mina Gorji, Simon Kövesi
Four Quartets
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss TS Eliot's Four Quartets, written just before and during World War II as meditations on humanity's relationship with time.
22 December 2016
Featuring: David Moody, Fran Brearton, Mark Ford
The Fighting Temeraire
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss The Fighting Temeraire, JMW Turner's painting of a famous ship from the Battle of Trafalgar on its way to a breakers' yard on the Thames.
10 November 2016
Featuring: Susan Foister, David Blayney Brown, James Davey
Epic of Gilgamesh
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Gilgamesh Epic, often described as the earliest surviving great work of literature, with origins in Mesopotamia in the 3rd millennium BC.
3 November 2016
Featuring: Andrew George, Frances Reynolds, Martin Worthington
The 12th Century Renaissance
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the origins and impact of the philosophical, scientific, religious and architectural changes of the 12th century in western Europe.
20 October 2016
Featuring: Laura Ashe, Elisabeth van Houts, Giles Gasper
Animal Farm
4 Extra Debut. Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss George Orwell's Animal Farm, which he struggled to publish in WW2 as the USSR was an ally. From 2016.
29 September 2016
Featuring: Steven Connor, Mary Vincent, Robert Colls
CultureDystopian novelsNovels adapted into radio programsRoman à clef novelsBritish novellasBritish novels adapted into television showsEnglish novelsBritish novels adapted into filmsCensored booksBritish political novels, Novels about propaganda, Novels about revolutionaries, Novels about totalitarianism, Novels by George Orwell, Secker & Warburg booksNovels adapted into comicsBritish satirical novelsAllegoryBritish novels adapted into playsBookSongs of Innocence and of Experience
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss William Blake's illustrated collection of poems, Songs of Innocence and of Experience, Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul.
23 June 2016
Featuring: Jonathan Bate, Sarah Haggarty, Jon Mee
The Muses
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Muses in Greek mythology, goddesses who presided over the civilised arts and the life of the mind including poetry, song, music and dance.
19 May 2016
Featuring: Paul Cartledge, Angie Hobbs, Penelope Murray
Tess of the d'Urbervilles
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy, which challenged Victorian morality and made Hardy's fortune when published in the 1890s.
5 May 2016
Featuring: Dinah Birch, Francis O'Gorman, Jane Thomas
Aurora Leigh
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Aurora Leigh, Elizabeth Barrett Browning's novel-poem published in 1856, three years before her death in Florence.
24 March 2016
Featuring: Margaret Reynolds, Daniel Karlin, Karen O'Brien
Rumi's Poetry
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the poetry of Rumi, the Persian scholar and Sufi mystic of the 13th century, whose great poetic works are the Masnavi and the Divan.
11 February 2016
Featuring: Alan Williams, Carole Hillenbrand, Lloyd Ridgeon
Tristan and Iseult
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Tristan and Iseult, as told by Thomas of Britain and Beroul in the 12th century and reworked by Gottfried of Strasbourg and others, including Wagner.
31 December 2015
Featuring: Laura Ashe, Juliette Wood, Mark Chinca
Emma
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Jane Austen's novel Emma, which features, according to Austen, 'a heroine whom no-one but myself will much like'.
19 November 2015
Featuring: Janet Todd, John Mullan, Emma Clery
Holbein at the Tudor Court
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Hans Holbein's role in the Tudor Court, painting Henry VIII as he asserted himself as supreme head of the Church during the Reformation.
15 October 2015
Featuring: Susan Foister, John Guy, Maria Hayward
Frida Kahlo
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the work, life and times of the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo.
9 July 2015
Featuring: Patience Schell, Valerie Fraser, Alan Knight
Jane Eyre
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, first published in 1847 under the pseudonym Currer Bell.
18 June 2015
Featuring: Dinah Birch, Karen O'Brien, Sara Lyons
CultureNovels adapted into balletsFiction about suicideBritish Gothic novelsVictorian novelsBritish novels adapted into television showsHarper & Brothers booksBritish bildungsromansBritish novels adapted into films1847 British novelsLove storiesFemale characters in literatureNovels set in the 19th centurySmith, Elder & Co. booksBritish novels adapted into playsWorks published under a pseudonym19th centuryBookFanny Burney
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the life and work of the 18th-century writer Fanny Burney, also known as Frances D'Arblay and Frances Burney, best known for her novel Evelina.
23 April 2015
Featuring: Nicole Pohl, Judith Hawley, John Mullan
Culture19th-century English women writersEnglish essayistsEnglish women novelistsEnglish satiristsStreathamites19th-century English novelistsWriters from King's LynnConversationalistsBritish women essayistsEnglish women dramatists and playwrightsWriters from London18th-century English diarists19th-century English dramatists and playwrightsEnglish women poets18th-century English women writersEnglish pamphleteers18th-century English novelists18th century19th centurySappho
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Greek poet Sappho, one of antiquity's greatest exponents of lyric poetry.
9 April 2015
Featuring: Edith Hall, Margaret Reynolds, Dirk Obbink
Beowulf
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the epic poem Beowulf, one of the masterpieces of Anglo-Saxon literature.
5 March 2015
Featuring: Laura Ashe, Clare Lees, Andy Orchard
Bruegel's The Fight Between Carnival and Lent
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Bruegel's painting The Fight Between Carnival and Lent.
15 January 2015
Featuring: Louise Milne, Jeanne Nuechterlein, Miri Rubin
Kafka's The Trial
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Franz Kafka's novel The Trial.
27 November 2014
Featuring: Elizabeth Boa, Steve Connor, Ritchie Robertson
CultureMagic realism writersModernist writersJewish socialistsJewish atheistsJewish existentialistsAustrian atheistsAbsurdist writers20th-century deaths from tuberculosisAphoristsFabulists20th-century Austrian male writers, Jewish novelists, Jews from Austria-Hungary, Writers from Austria-HungaryCharles University alumni20th centuryLawAesop
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Aesop, legendary author of the famous collection of fables.
20 November 2014
Featuring: Pavlos Avlamis, Lucy Grig, Simon Goldhill
Rudyard Kipling
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the life and work of Rudyard Kipling, a writer sometimes described as the poet of empire.
16 October 2014
Featuring: Howard Booth, Daniel Karlin, Jan Montefiore
CultureFellows of the Royal Society of LiteraturePeople of the Victorian eraEnglish male novelistsDeaths from ulcersMythopoeic writersEnglish science fiction writersFreemasons of the United Grand Lodge of England20th-century English memoirists20th-century English male writersEnglish hymnwriters19th-century English poets19th-century English novelistsEnglish anti-fascistsVictorian novelistsMaritime writersEnglish-language poets from IndiaEnglish male short story writers19th-century English short story writersEnglish Nobel laureatesNobel laureates in LiteratureRectors of the University of St AndrewsEnglish children's writers19th-century English non-fiction writersBritish Nobel laureates20th-century English novelistsEnglish people of Scottish descent20th-century English poetsBurials at Westminster Abbey19th century20th centuryLanguageMrs Dalloway
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Virginia Woolf's novel Mrs Dalloway, published in 1925.
3 July 2014
Featuring: Hermione Lee, Jane Goldman, Kathryn Simpson
The Bluestockings
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Bluestockings, a group of prominent women intellectuals in 18th-century England.
5 June 2014
Featuring: Karen O'Brien, Elizabeth Eger, Nicole Pohl
The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, a collection of Persian poetry translated into English in the 19th century by Edward FitzGerald.
22 May 2014
Featuring: Charles Melville, Daniel Karlin, Kirstie Blair
The Tale of Sinuhe
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss The Tale of Sinuhe, one of the most celebrated works of ancient Egyptian literature.
1 May 2014
Featuring: Richard B. Parkinson, Roland Emmarch, Aidan Dodson
Tristram Shandy
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Laurence Sterne's comic novel Tristram Shandy.
24 April 2014
Featuring: Judith Hawley, John Mullan, Mary Newbould
CultureNovels adapted into radio programs1759 novelsMetafictional novels18th-century British novelsSelf-reflexive novelsNovels adapted into operasNonlinear narrative novelsNovels adapted into comicsBritish satirical novelsIrish novels adapted into films, Irish novels adapted into playsPicaresque novels18th centuryBookThe Tempest
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss The Tempest, one of Shakespeare's last and richest plays.
14 November 2013
Featuring: Jonathan Bate, Erin Sullivan, Katherine Duncan-Jones
Pascal
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the life and work of the French polymath Blaise Pascal.
19 September 2013
Featuring: David Wootton, Michael Moriarty, Michela Massimi
CultureChristian humanistsFrench physicistsPeople with hypochondriasisCritics of atheismRoman Catholic mysticsChristian apologistsCatholic philosophersFrench fluid dynamicists, French mathematicians, French probability theoristsAphoristsFrench Roman Catholic writersCartesianism17th-century Christian mysticsConverts to Roman Catholicism17th centuryFranceMathematicsThe Invention of Radio
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the invention of radio.
4 July 2013
Featuring: Simon Schaffer, Elizabeth Bruton, John Liffen
Romance of the Three Kingdoms
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Romance of the Three Kingdoms, widely regarded as one of the greatest works of Chinese literature.
27 June 2013
Featuring: Frances Wood, Craig Clunas, Margaret Hillenbrand
Queen Zenobia
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Queen Zenobia, Empress of the Palmyrene Empire and leader of a rebellion against Ancient Rome.
30 May 2013
Featuring: Edith Hall, Kate Cooper, Richard Stoneman
Lévi-Strauss
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the work of French anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss.
23 May 2013
Featuring: Adam Kuper, Christina Howells, Vincent Debaene
CultureAcademic staff of the Collège de FranceFrench sociologistsLycée Condorcet alumniFrench philosophers of educationThe New School facultyJewish atheistsPhilosophers of mindWriters about globalizationWriters about religion and scienceFrench essayistsMetaphilosophersPhilosophers of religionLiteracy and society theoristsUniversity of Paris alumniCorresponding fellows of the British AcademyPhilosophers of languageFrench male non-fiction writersMetaphysics writersGrand Cross of the Legion of HonourPhilosophers of linguisticsFrench philosophers of scienceMembers of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and SciencesWriters about activism and social change20th-century atheists20th-century French philosophersIntellectual historyMembers of the Académie FrançaiseJewish historiansCritical theoristsMetaphysicians20th-century French male writersFrench philosophers of historyWriters about communismTheorists on Western civilizationJewish philosophersWriters from ParisFrench epistemologistsAtheist philosophersPhilosophers of social scienceForeign associates of the National Academy of Sciences20th-century French memoiristsMembers of the American Philosophical SocietyPhenomenologistsLinguists from France20th-century essayistsFrench atheistsOntologistsFrench philosophers of culture20th centuryFranceLanguageMedicineIcelandic Sagas
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Icelandic sagas.
9 May 2013
Featuring: Carolyne Larrington, Elizabeth Ashman Rowe, Emily Lethbridge
Montaigne
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and work of Michel de Montaigne. Best known for his influential Essays, Montaigne is regarded as the father of modern sceptical thought.
25 April 2013
Featuring: David Wootton, Terence Cave, Felicity Green
The Amazons
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Amazons, formidable female warriors of classical myth.
11 April 2013
Featuring: Paul Cartledge, Chiara Franceschini, Caroline Vout
Japan's Sakoku Period
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Japan's Sakoku period, the years when the country chose to isolate itself from the rest of the world.
4 April 2013
Featuring: Richard Bowring, Andrew Cobbing, Rebekah Clements
Chekhov
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the life and work of the great Russian writer Anton Chekhov.
14 March 2013
Featuring: Catriona Kelly, Cynthia Marsh, Rosamund Bartlett
CulturePositivistsModernist theatre19th-century non-fiction writers from the Russian Empire20th-century deaths from tuberculosisRussian atheists19th-century dramatists and playwrights from the Russian Empire, 19th-century short story writers from the Russian Empire, 20th-century Russian dramatists and playwrights, 20th-century Russian short story writers, Novelists from the Russian Empire, Philanthropists from the Russian Empire, Russian male dramatists and playwrights, Russian male novelists, Russian opinion journalists, Russian-language writersBurials at Novodevichy Cemetery19th century20th centuryLanguageRussiaDecline and Fall
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Evelyn Waugh's comic novel Decline and Fall, published when the author was 25.
21 February 2013
Featuring: David Bradshaw, John Bowen, Ann Pasternak Slater
Romulus and Remus
Melvyn Bragg and guests Mary Beard, Peter Wiseman and Tim Cornell discuss Romulus and Remus, the foundation myth of Rome.
24 January 2013
Featuring: Mary Beard, Peter Wiseman, Tim Cornell
Le Morte d'Arthur
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Le Morte d'Arthur, Sir Thomas Malory's epic medieval tale of King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table.
10 January 2013
Featuring: Helen Cooper, Helen Fulton, Laura Ashe
Shahnameh of Ferdowsi
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the epic poem the Shahnameh of Ferdowsi, the 'Book of Kings', which has been at the heart of Persian culture for the past thousand years.
13 December 2012
Featuring: Narguess Farzad, Charles Melville, Vesta Sarkhosh Curtis
The Anarchy
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss The Anarchy, the period of bloody civil war that took place in 12th-century England.
1 November 2012
Featuring: John Gillingham, Louise Wilkinson, David Carpenter
Caxton and the Printing Press
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss printer William Caxton and the impact of the printing press in England.
18 October 2012
Featuring: Richard Gameson, Julia Boffey, David Rundle
Gerald of Wales
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the medieval scholar Gerald of Wales, the author of colourful and influential works about his journeys around Ireland and Wales.
4 October 2012
Featuring: Henrietta Leyser, Michelle Brown, Huw Pryce
The Druids
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Druids, the mysterious priests of ancient Britain, Gaul and Ireland.
20 September 2012
Featuring: Barry Cunliffe, Miranda Aldhouse-Green, Justin Champion
Annie Besant
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the life of 19th-century writer and campaigner Annie Besant.
21 June 2012
Featuring: Lawrence Goldman, David Stack, Yasmin Khan
CultureEnglish feminist writers, English feminists19th-century English women writersVictorian women writersBritish women's rights activistsEnglish activistsEnglish women activistsEnglish socialistsNew Age predecessorsSocial Democratic Federation membersBritish reformersWomen mysticsEnglish people of Irish descentFormer AnglicansEnglish suffragistsVictorian writersFounders of Indian schools and collegesEnglish non-fiction writers19th centuryJames Joyce's Ulysses
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss James Joyce's celebrated novel Ulysses.
14 June 2012
Featuring: Steven Connor, Jeri Johnson, Richard Brown
The Trojan War
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Trojan War, one of the central events of Ancient Greek mythology.
31 May 2012
Featuring: Edith Hall, Ellen Adams, Susan Sherratt
Voltaire's Candide
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Voltaire's satirical novel Candide, first published in 1759.
3 May 2012
Featuring: David Wootton, Nicholas Cronk, Caroline Warman
Moses Mendelssohn
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the work of Moses Mendelssohn, one of the greatest thinkers of the German Enlightenment.
22 March 2012
Featuring: Christopher Clark, Abigail Green, Adam Sutcliffe
Vitruvius and De Architectura
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Vitruvius's De Architectura, the first major treatise on architecture.
15 March 2012
Featuring: Serafina Cuomo, Robert Tavernor, Alice König
Lyrical Ballads
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Lyrical Ballads, the 1798 volume of poems by William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
8 March 2012
Featuring: Judith Hawley, Jonathan Bate, Peter Swaab
Benjamin Franklin
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the life and work of the scientist, writer, printer, diplomat and American founding father Benjamin Franklin.
1 March 2012
Featuring: Simon Middleton, Simon Newman, Patricia Fara
CultureHall of Fame for Great Americans inducteesPeople associated with electricityAmerican philosophers of educationHumor researchersActivists for African-American civil rightsAmerican philosophers of cultureCreators of writing systemsWriters about religion and scienceAmerican slave ownersRhetoric theoristsRecreational cryptographers, Writers from Boston, Writers from PhiladelphiaAmerican male non-fiction writersIndependent scientistsIndependent scholarsAmerican people of English descentAmerican deistsWriters about activism and social changeSimple living advocatesAmerican political philosophers18th-century American politicians, American Freemasons, Signers of the United States ConstitutionPhilosophy writersAmerican autobiographersAmerican philosophers of religionHonorary members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of SciencesPhilosophers of technologyMasonic grand mastersFellows of the American Academy of Arts and SciencesTheorists on Western civilizationPhilosophers of sciencePhilosophers of historyRecipients of the Copley MedalPolitical activists from PennsylvaniaPhilosophers from Massachusetts18th-century American writers, Founding Fathers of the United States, People of the American EnlightenmentAmerican male journalistsSocial philosophersMembers of the American Philosophical Society18th-century pseudonymous writersAphoristsAge of EnlightenmentPhilosophers of literatureFellows of the Royal Society18th centuryAmericaThe Kama Sutra
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Kama Sutra, one of the most celebrated and often-misunderstood texts of Indian literature.
2 February 2012
Featuring: Julius Lipner, Jessica Frazier, David Smith
The Safavid dynasty
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Safavid Dynasty, the rulers of early modern Persia, who had a profound impact on the cultural and religious identity of Iran.
12 January 2012
Featuring: Robert Gleave, Emma Loosley, Andrew Newman
Robinson Crusoe
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Daniel Defoe's seminal novel Robinson Crusoe. Published in 1719, it was an immediate success and is considered the classic adventure story.
22 December 2011
Featuring: Karen O'Brien, Judith Hawley, Bob Owens
CultureNovels adapted into radio programsMaritime folkloreBritish novels adapted into television shows18th-century British novelsMale characters in literatureBritish novels adapted into filmsAtlantic slave tradeAdventure film charactersNovels adapted into comicsBritish novels adapted into plays18th centuryBookEconomicsChristina Rossetti
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and work of the Victorian poet Christina Rossetti.
1 December 2011
Featuring: Dinah Birch, Rhian Williams, Nicholas Shrimpton
CultureEnglish hymnwriters19th-century English women writersBurials at Highgate CemeteryWriters from the London Borough of CamdenAnglican saintsVictorian women writersEnglish fantasy writersPoets from LondonSonneteersEnglish women poetsBritish people of Italian descent, English people of Italian descent, Polidori-Rossetti family19th-century British writersVictorian poets19th centuryDelacroix's Liberty Leading the People
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Eugene Delacroix's painting Liberty Leading the People, his celebrated depiction of the events of the 1830 July Revolution.
20 October 2011
Featuring: Tim Blanning, Tamar Garb, Simon Lee
The Etruscan Civilisation
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Etruscans, an ancient civilisation which flourished in central Italy for five hundred years before the emergence of the Roman Republic.
29 September 2011
Featuring: Phil Perkins, David Ridgway, Corinna Riva
Tennyson's In Memoriam
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem In Memoriam.
30 June 2011
Featuring: Dinah Birch, Seamus Perry, Jane Wright
The Anatomy of Melancholy
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss a masterpiece of 17th-century medicine and literature: Robert Burton's The Anatomy of Melancholy.
12 May 2011
Featuring: Julie Sanders, Mary Ann Lund, Erin Sullivan
The Medieval University
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the medieval universities: why they were founded and what they taught.
17 March 2011
Featuring: Miri Rubin, Ian Wei, Peter Denley
Aristotle's Poetics
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Aristotle's Poetics, the first and arguably most influential work of literary theory in history.
27 January 2011
Featuring: Angie Hobbs, Nick Lowe, Stephen Halliwell
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, the poem that made Byron famous.
6 January 2011
Featuring: Jonathan Bate, Jane Stabler, Emily Bernhard Jackson
History of Metaphor
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the history of metaphor - the device of using one thing to describe another.
25 November 2010
Featuring: Steven Connor, Tom Healy, Julie Sanders
The Unicorn
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the history and mythology of the unicorn.
28 October 2010
Featuring: Juliette Wood, Lauren Kassell, David Ekserdjian
Sturm und Drang
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the 18th-century German artistic movement known as Sturm und Drang, whose best-known exponents included Goethe and Schiller.
14 October 2010
Featuring: T. C. W. Blanning, Susanne Kord, Maike Oergel
Al-Biruni
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Central Asian polymath al-Biruni and his 11th-century book India, one of the first scholarly works about the country.
10 June 2010
Featuring: James Montgomery, Hugh Kennedy, Amira Bennison
CultureAstronomical instrument makersIslamic philosophersAstronomers of the medieval Islamic worldMedieval Iranian pharmacologists, Transoxanian Islamic scholarsPsychology in the medieval Islamic worldAlchemists of the medieval Islamic worldExplorers of AsiaAsharis, Muslim critics of atheismCritics of deism11th centuryAstronomyIslamPsychologyGiorgio Vasari's Lives of the Artists
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Lives of the Artists, the great biographer Giorgio Vasari's study of Renaissance painters, sculptors and architects.
27 May 2010
Featuring: Evelyn Welch, David Ekserdjian, Martin Kemp
The Great Wall of China
Melvyn Bragg and guests Julia Lovell, Rana Mitter and Frances Wood discuss The Great Wall of China.
29 April 2010
Featuring: Julia Lovell, Rana Mitter, Frances Wood
Roman Satire
Melvyn Bragg and guests Mary Beard, Denis Feeney and Duncan Kennedy discuss Roman satire.
22 April 2010
Featuring: Mary Beard, Denis Feeney, Duncan Kennedy
The Rise and Fall of the Zulu Nation
Melvyn Bragg and guests Saul David, Shula Marks and Saul Dubow discuss the rise and fall of the Zulu Nation.
15 April 2010
Featuring: Saul David, Saul Dubow, Shula Marks
Munch and The Scream
Melvyn Bragg and guests David Jackson, Dorothy Rowe and Alastair Wright discuss the work of the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch, focusing on his painting The Scream.
18 March 2010
Featuring: David Jackson, Dorothy Rowe, Alastair Wright
Boudica
Melvyn Bragg and guests Miranda Aldhouse-Green, Juliette Wood and Richard Hingley discuss the life and mythologisation of Boudica.
11 March 2010
Featuring: Juliette Wood, Richard Hingley, Miranda Aldhouse-Green
Silas Marner
Melvyn Bragg and guests Rosemary Ashton, Dinah Birch and Valentine Cunningham discuss George Eliot's 1861 novel Silas Marner.
28 January 2010
Featuring: Rosemary Ashton, Dinah Birch, Valentine Cunningham
The Samurai
Melvyn Bragg and guests Gregory Irvine, Nicola Liscutin and Angus Lockyer discuss the history of the Samurai and the role of their myth in Japanese national identity.
24 December 2009
Featuring: Angus Lockyer, Nicola Liscutin, Gregory Irvine
The Silk Road
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Silk Road, the trade routes which spanned Asia for over a thousand years, carrying Buddhism to China and paper-making and gunpowder westwards.
3 December 2009
Featuring: Frances Wood, Tim Barrett, Naomi Standen
Joyce's A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce's groundbreaking 1916 novel about growing up in Catholic Ireland.
26 November 2009
Featuring: Roy Foster, Katherine Mullin, Jeri Johnson
CultureIrish satirists20th-century Irish dramatists and playwrights, 20th-century Irish male writers, 20th-century Irish poetsModernist writersTrope theoristsHumor researchersIrish expatriates in FranceIrish male dramatists and playwrightsMetaphor theoristsDeaths from ulcersIrish male novelistsSurrealist writersEyepatch wearersModernism20th-century letter writersIrony theorists20th-century Irish novelists, 20th-century Irish short story writers, Irish male short story writersIrish male poetsLiterary theorists20th centuryIrelandSparta
Melvyn Bragg and guests Paul Cartledge, Edith Hall and Angie Hobbs discuss Sparta, the militaristic Ancient Greek city-state, and the political ideas it spawned.
19 November 2009
Featuring: Paul Cartledge, Edith Hall, Angie Hobbs
The Death of Elizabeth I
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the death of Queen Elizabeth I and its immediate impact, as a foreign monarch became King in the face of plots and plague.
15 October 2009
Featuring: John Guy, Clare Jackson, Helen Hackett
CultureEnglish people of Welsh descent16th-century English womenEnglish AnglicansPrisoners in the Tower of LondonHouse of TudorPeople excommunicated by the Catholic ChurchFounders of English schools and colleges16th-century English translatorsPeople of the Elizabethan eraEnglish women poets16th-century queens regnantBurials at Westminster Abbey16th centuryAkhenaten
Melvyn Bragg and guests Elizabeth Frood, Richard Parkinson and Kate Spence discuss Akhenaten, the ruler who brought revolutionary change to ancient Egypt.
1 October 2009
Featuring: Richard Parkinson, Elizabeth Frood, Kate Spence
Elizabethan Revenge
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss why revenge tragedy was so popular with Elizabethan theatre goers, from Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy to Shakespeare's Hamlet.
18 June 2009
Featuring: Jonathan Bate, Julie Sanders, Janet Clare
The Augustan Age
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the political regime and cultural influence of the Roman Emperor Augustus.
11 June 2009
Featuring: Mary Beard, Catharine Edwards, Duncan Kennedy
CulturePeople in the canonical gospelsAncient Roman adopteesJulii CaesaresDeified Roman emperors1st-century BC Roman augurs, 1st-century BC Roman consuls1st-century RomansPeople of the War of MutinaFounding monarchsAugustusAncient Roman military personnel, Burials at the Mausoleum of AugustusShipwreck survivorsCharacters in Book VI of the AeneidRoman pharaohs1st-century Roman emperorsJulio-Claudian dynasty1st century BCRomeWarThe Whale - A History
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the evolutionary history of the whale, examining how this leviathan of the deep evolved from a small land-based mammal with cloven hoofs.
21 May 2009
Featuring: Steve Jones, Eleanor Weston, Bill Amos
The Magna Carta
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Magna Carta, the charter issued by King John in 1215 that is often seen as the basis of English liberties.
7 May 2009
Featuring: Nicholas Vincent, David Carpenter, Michael Clanchy
The Building of St Petersburg
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the building of St Petersburg, Peter the Great's showcase city for a modern, European Russia.
23 April 2009
Featuring: Simon Dixon, Janet Hartley, Anthony Cross
Aldous Huxley's Brave New World
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Aldous Huxley's dystopian 1932 novel Brave New World and its vision of a future of test tube babies, free love and round-the-clock surveillance.
9 April 2009
Featuring: David Bradshaw, Daniel Pick, Michèle Barrett
CultureEnglish agnosticsEnglish male novelistsEnglish emigrants to the United StatesAlumni of Balliol College, OxfordBritish philosophers of culture, English pacifistsEnglish science fiction writersEnglish essayists20th-century British essayists20th-century mysticsPeople educated at Eton CollegeEnglish male poetsEnglish short story writersJames Tait Black Memorial Prize recipientsAnti-consumeristsPhilosophers of technologyEnglish male short story writersMale essayistsNew Age predecessorsBritish philosophers of mindLost Generation writersEnglish satiristsDuke University faculty20th-century English novelists20th-century English philosophersEnglish travel writersPhilosophers of literature20th centuryThe School of Athens
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Italian Renaissance artist Raphael's depiction of Plato and Aristotle and what it tells us about both the subjects and the painter.
26 March 2009
Featuring: Angie Hobbs, Valery Rees, Jill Kraye
The Waste Land and Modernity
The Brothers Grimm
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the fairy tales collected by the Brothers Grimm and what they can tell us about the German imagination and 19th-century romantic nationalism.
5 February 2009
Featuring: Juliette Wood, Marina Warner, Tony Phelan
Swift's A Modest Proposal
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Jonathan Swift's satirical 1729 pamphlet A Modest Proposal, which reveals much about attitudes to the Irish and the poor in 18th-Century Britain.
29 January 2009
Featuring: John Mullan, Judith Hawley, Ian McBride
CulturePeople educated at Kilkenny College18th-century Irish writersEnglish fantasy writersNeoclassical writersEnglish male novelistsAlumni of Hart Hall, OxfordEnglish pamphleteersAlumni of Trinity College DublinEnglish AnglicansEnglish male poetsIrish satiristsEnglish short story writersEnglish male short story writers18th-century Irish novelists, 18th-century Irish poetsAnglican writers18th-century English novelists17th-century Anglo-Irish peopleEnglish satiristsJonathan SwiftEnglish political writers18th-century Anglo-Irish people, 18th-century Irish male writers18th-century pseudonymous writersAnglo-Irish artists, Irish fantasy writersIrish male poets17th century18th centuryIrelandThe Baroque Movement
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the culture of the Baroque, from Bach and Caavaggio to the Colonnades of St Peter’s.
20 November 2008
Featuring: T. C. W. Blanning, Nigel Aston, Helen Hills
Dante's Inferno
Melvyn Bragg discusses Dante’s ‘Inferno’ - a journey through the nine circles of Hell. Dante was a medieval Italian poet and the Inferno, his greatest work, is a masterpiece of world literature.
23 October 2008
Featuring: Margaret Kean, John Took, Claire Honess
Tacitus and the Decadence of Rome
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Roman historian Tacitus, whose portrayal of Roman decadence influences the way we see Rome today.
10 July 2008
Featuring: Catharine Edwards, Ellen O'Gorman, Maria Wyke
The Metaphysical Poets
Melvyn Bragg discusses the Metaphysical poets John Donne, Andrew Marvell and George Herbert, examining their rich and strange metaphors of sex, death and love.
3 July 2008
Featuring: Thomas Healy, Julie Sanders, Tom Cain
The Music of the Spheres
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the music of the spheres, the idea that the revolution of the planets generates a celestial harmony of profound beauty
19 June 2008
Featuring: Peter Forshaw, Jim Bennett, Angela Voss
The Riddle of the Sands
Melvyn Bragg discusses the prescient thriller ‘The Riddle of the Sands’ and the decline Anglo-German relations before the First World War.
12 June 2008
Featuring: Richard J. Evans, Rosemary Ashton, T. C. W. Blanning
The Library at Nineveh
Melvyn Bragg discusses one of the greatest archaeological finds ever discovered – the Assyrian Library at Nineveh.
15 May 2008
Featuring: Eleanor Robson, Karen Radner, Andrew R. George
The Enclosures of the 18th Century
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the 18th and 19th century enclosure movement which divided the British countryside both literally and figuratively.
1 May 2008
Featuring: Rosemary Sweet, Murray Pittock, Mark Overton
Yeats and Irish Politics
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the poet W.B. Yeats and Irish politics from the suspension of home rule to the division of Ireland.
17 April 2008
Featuring: Roy Foster, Fran Brearton, Warwick Gould
CultureFellows of the Royal Society of Literature19th-century Irish dramatists and playwrights, 19th-century Irish poets, Symbolist dramatists and playwrightsAnglican poetsAnthologists20th-century Irish dramatists and playwrights, 20th-century Irish male writers, 20th-century Irish poetsModernist theatreIrish AnglicansFormalist poetsIrish expatriates in FranceIrish male dramatists and playwrightsIrish Nobel laureates, Irish modernist poetsAnglo-Irish artists, Irish fantasy writersSonneteersNobel laureates in LiteratureVictorian writersIrish male poetsAbbey Theatre, Alumni of the National College of Art and Design, Burials in the Republic of Ireland, Butler Yeats family, Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Independent members of Seanad Éireann, Irish Dominion League, Irish folklorists, Irish occult writers, Irish occultists, Members of the 1922 Seanad, Members of the 1925 Seanad, Members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, People educated at The High School, Dublin, People from Sandymount, People from West Kensington, Protestant Irish nationalists, Symbolist poets, W. B. Yeats, William Blake scholars19th century20th centuryIrelandThe Norman Yoke
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss ‘the Norman Yoke’ – the idea that the Battle of Hastings sparked years of cruel Norman oppression for the Anglo Saxons.
10 April 2008
Featuring: Sarah Foot, Richard Gameson, Matthew Strickland
The Greek Myths
Melvyn Bragg discusses the Greek myths from Achilles to Zeus.
13 March 2008
Featuring: Nick Lowe, Richard Buxton, Mary Beard
Lear
Melvyn Bragg discusses Shakespeare’s King Lear, a shocking and violent vision of a broken family in a godless world.
28 February 2008
Featuring: Jonathan Bate, Katherine Duncan-Jones, Catherine Belsey
The Statue of Liberty
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Statue of Liberty, given by France to America as a token of revolutionary kinship.
14 February 2008
Featuring: Robert Gildea, Kathleen Burk, John Keane
Rudolph II
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the coterie of brilliant thinkers gathered by Holy Roman Emperor Rudolph II at his court in Prague.
31 January 2008
Featuring: Peter Forshaw, Howard Hotson, Adam Mosley
The Fisher King
Melvyn Bragg and guests will be delving into the world of medieval myth and legend in pursuit of the powerful and enigmatic Fisher King.
17 January 2008
Featuring: Carolyne Larrington, Stephen Knight, Juliette Wood
Camus
Melvyn Bragg discusses the Nobel Prize winning Algerian-French writer and existentialist philosopher Albert Camus.
3 January 2008
Featuring: Peter Dunwoodie, David Walker, Christina Howells
Culture20th-century French dramatists and playwrightsFrench socialistsPhilosophers of pessimismFrench male essayistsLegion of Honour refusals20th-century atheistsFrench anarchists, French anti-capitalists, French anti-fascists20th-century French philosophersAnti-Stalinist leftModernist writers20th-century French male writers20th-century French novelistsAbsurdist writersFrench humanistsNobel laureates in LiteratureFrench Nobel laureatesAtheist philosophersLibertarian socialistsPhilosophers of death20th-century French essayists, 20th-century French short story writersExistentialistsFrench atheists20th centuryFranceBismarck
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the original Iron Chancellor, Otto Von Bismarck, one of 19th Century Europe’s most influential statesmen and the founder of modern Germany.
22 March 2007
Featuring: Richard J. Evans, Christopher Clark, Katharine Lerman
CulturePeople from the Province of SaxonyIndependent politicians in Germany, Recipients of the Iron Cross (1870), 2nd class, Recipients of the Pour le Mérite (military class)University of Göttingen alumniGrand Cross of the Legion of HonourHumboldt University of Berlin alumniGerman LutheransGrand Crosses of the Order of Saint Stephen of Hungary, Knights of the Golden Fleece of SpainMilitary personnel from Saxony-AnhaltGerman monarchistsGerman nationalists19th centuryWarThe Roman Republic
Melvyn Bragg discusses the rise and eventual downfall of the Roman Republic which survived for 500 years.
30 December 2004
Featuring: Greg Woolf, Catherine Steel, Tom Holland
Washington and the American Revolution
Melvyn Bragg discusses the first President of the United States, George Washington, and the people and ideas that saw the American Revolution overthrow British rule in 1775.
24 June 2004
Featuring: Carol Berkin, Simon Middleton, Colin Bonwick
CultureHall of Fame for Great Americans inductees18th-century American male writers, American foreign policy writers18th-century American writers, Founding Fathers of the United States, People of the American EnlightenmentAmerican people of English descentCongressional Gold Medal recipientsCommanding Generals of the United States Army, Presidents of the United StatesMembers of the American Philosophical Society18th-century American politicians, American Freemasons, Signers of the United States ConstitutionAmerican slave ownersFellows of the American Academy of Arts and SciencesAmerican male non-fiction writers18th centuryAmericaBabylon
Melvyn Bragg discusses the truth behind Babylon, the world’s oldest and most enigmatic of empires; from the the Tower of Babel and the Hanging Gardens to the Whore of Babylon.
3 June 2004
Featuring: Eleanor Robson, Irving Finkel, Andrew George
Tea
Melvyn Bragg discusses tea, the first truly global commodity which helped define class and gender, and perhaps more than any other substance has created the culture of modern Britain.
29 April 2004
Featuring: Huw Bowen, James Walvin, Amanda Vickery
The Alphabet
Melvyn Bragg discusses the feat of astonishing intellectual engineering which provides us with millions of words in hundreds of languages. How did it develop and conquer three quarters of the globe?
18 December 2003
Featuring: Eleanor Robson, Alan Millard, Rosalind Thomas
The Aristocracy
Melvyn Bragg discusses the emergence, power and influence of the British aristocracy, what made it one of the most successful power elites in the world and what brought about its decline.
19 June 2003
Featuring: David Cannadine, Rosemary Sweet, Felipe Fernández-Armesto
Roman Britain
Melvyn Bragg discusses the Romans in Britain, a history of 400 years of occupation. Do those four centuries still colour our national life and character today?
1 May 2003
Featuring: Greg Woolf, Mary Beard, Catharine Edwards
The Aztecs
Melvyn Bragg discusses the creation, power and legacy of the Aztec Empire, arguably the most ruthless, pre-Hispanic empire in North America which, at its zenith, ruled over 6 million people.
27 February 2003
Featuring: Alan Knight, Adrian Locke, Elizabeth Graham
Heritage
Melvyn Bragg discusses the interconnections between heritage culture and the study of history, and the role they have both played in the formation of the British national identity.
18 July 2002
Featuring: David Cannadine, Miri Rubin, Peter Mandler
The American West
Melvyn Bragg discusses the 19th century American pioneers and examines whether our ideas about the frontier owe more to the mythology of John Wayne movies than to the history of the real trailblazers.
13 June 2002
Featuring: Frank McLynn, Jenni Calder, Christopher Frayling
Bohemia
Melvyn Bragg discusses the history of the ancient kingdom of Bohemia containing myriad religious, national and ethnic ideologies, and how it was divided up to form the states of modern Central Europe.
11 April 2002
Featuring: Norman Davies, Karin Friedrich, Robert Pynsent
The Celts
Melvyn Bragg discusses the culture and legacy of the Celts of pre-Roman Britain and examines what we know of them through archaeology and the records of their enemies.
21 February 2002
Featuring: Barry Cunliffe, Alistair Moffat, Miranda Aldhouse Green
Rome and European Civilization
Melvyn Bragg discusses the role Rome has played in European civilization, from republicanism and imperialism to being the Catholic Heart of the Christian Church.
20 December 2001
Featuring: Mary Beard, Catharine Edwards, Greg Woolf
The British Empire
Melvyn Bragg discusses the British Empire, what drove Britain to follow the imperial road and what was its legacy?
8 November 2001
Featuring: Maria Misra, Peter Cain, Catherine Hall
Byzantium
Melvyn Bragg discusses the culture, history and legacy of the eastern Byzantine Empire, and examines why it has so often been sidelined and undermined by historians.
19 July 2001
Featuring: Charlotte Roueché, John Julius Norwich, Liz James
Money
Melvyn Bragg examines whether economic factors are really behind all historical events.
1 March 2001
Featuring: Niall Ferguson, Richard J. Evans, Jane Humphries
The Enlightenment in Britain
Melvyn Bragg examines the part British thinkers played in the Enlightenment in the 18th century, and examines whether the shifts of thought in those years provided the platform for the modern world.
18 January 2001
Featuring: Roy Porter, Linda Colley, Jeremy Black
The Tudor State
Melvyn Bragg discusses the role of the Tudor dynasty in reshaping the British state and whether their government of England laid the political foundations of our own age.
26 October 2000
Featuring: John Guy, Christopher Haigh, Christine Carpenter
Africa
Melvyn Bragg discusses the roots of Africa's current political, economic and social crises and explores likely outcomes. Are western ideas of democracy at odds with Africa's patriarchal structures?
8 July 1999
Featuring: Henry Louis Gates Jr, Anthony Sampson
