PODCAST

Great Lives

BBC Radio 4

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

society & culture documentary

All Episodes

27:45

Rachel Johnson on Ottoline Morrell

Great Lives ·

2015/04/14

Rachel Johnson author and journalist champions the life of Ottoline Morrell. The Bloomsbury hostess, a mistress, a dominant figure in the arts without being an artist herself was often mocked and ridiculed. Rachel tells Matthew Parris why her extraordinary life was a great life. They are also joined by author and one of Lady Ottoline's biographers Miranda Seymour. Producer : Perminder Khatkar.First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2015.

24:29

Sir Trevor McDonald on Learie Constantine

Great Lives ·

2015/04/07

The veteran broadcaster Sir Trevor McDonald chooses the life of Learie Constantine, the Trinidadian cricketer, politician and broadcaster who championed the rights of West Indians in Britain during the war years and afterwards. Producer: Maggie AyreFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2015.

28:04

Mervyn King on Risto Ryti

Great Lives ·

2015/01/27

Mervyn King, former Governor of the Bank of England tells Matthew Parris why the life of the Prime Minister of Finland Risto Ryti was so remarkable. They are also joined by expert and biographer Martti Turtola. Producer: Perminder Khatkar.First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2015.

27:59

Eve Pollard on Nora Ephron

Great Lives ·

2015/01/26

Former newspaper editor and writer Eve Pollard tells Matthew Parris why Nora Ephron, the screenwriter of hit films such as 'When Harry Met Sally', 'Heartburn', and 'Sleepless in Seattle', is a Great Life.They are joined by Dr Jennifer Smyth, an historian whose teaching includes women in Hollywood at the University of Warwick. Producer: Perminder Khatkar

27:42

Michael Dobbs on Guy Burgess

Great Lives ·

2015/01/13

Michael Dobbs champions the life of Guy Burgess - journalist, diplomat and spy. Between 1935 and 1951, Guy Burgess worked for a Conservative MP, the BBC, MI6 and the Foreign Office. Brilliant, flamboyant and apparently shambolic, he also shot like an arrow to the heart of the Establishment and secretly and systematically betrayed its secrets to the KGB. Matthew Parris chairs as Michael explains why he believes that Guy Burgess was a Great Life. Burgess’s biographer Stewart Purvis, who uncovered the

27:49

Philippa Langley on Richard III

Great Lives ·

2015/01/06

When Philippa Langley and other members of the Richard III Society helped to discover the body of the king in a Leicester car park, Richard's life once again became a hotly contested debating point. Philippa joins Matthew Parris to defend Richard III as a Great Life, with expert witness and Richard biographer Annette Carson. Can the man who may have been responsible for the disappearance of the Princes in the Tower really be described as "great"? Or was he the victim of Tudor propaganda and

27:48

Tom Solomon on Roald Dahl

Great Lives ·

2014/12/30

Writer Roald Dahl is well known as the author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Fantastic Mr Fox and The BFG, but he was also fascinated by medical science. Professor Tom Solomon, who looked after him during his last illness, spent hours discussing medicine with Dahl.Tom talks to Matthew Parris about Dahl's life and work, through the prism of his forensic interest in the workings of the human body. With them is Donald Sturrock, Dahl's biographer.Producer Christine Hall. First broadcast on BBC

24:26

Brian Eno on Lord Young of Dartington

Great Lives ·

2014/12/23

Brian Eno has worked with David Bowie, David Byrne and U2 but his choice of Great Life is not a rock star but the sociologist Lord Young of Dartington. Michael Young wrote the Labour Party's 1945 election manifesto, researched slum clearance in the East End of London, set up the Consumers' Association, coined the word "meritocracy", co-founded the Open University and planned the colonisation of Mars. With the help of Michael's son Toby, Brian considers the life and work of one of the architects

27:51

Laura Bates on Louisa May Alcott

Great Lives ·

2014/12/16

Laura Bates, journalist and curator of the Everyday Sexism Project, explains to Matthew Parris why the 19th century children's author Louisa May Alcott has her vote for a Great Life. They are joined by Sarah Churchwell, Professor of American Literature at the University of East Anglia. Louisa May Alcott is best known as the writer of "Little Women", the story of four sisters growing up during the Civil War in America. Generations of girls have read the book, which at first sight seems to be an

27:41

Arthur Smith on Emil Zátopek

Great Lives ·

2014/12/09

Matthew Parris – himself current holder of the House of Commons marathon record time – meets comedian Arthur Smith, who also turns out to have been a runner when he was younger, and whose choice for a Great Life is an athlete whom he has admired since his childhood.Emil Zátopek emerged onto the international stage in 1948 when he became a sensation at the Olympics in London, but it was his performance in the 1952 Helsinki Olympics which put him in the record books. Already an established distance

27:36

Professor Edith Hall on Lucille Ball

Great Lives ·

2014/10/02

Matthew Parris discovers that Edith Hall, Professor of Classics at King’s College, London, has a surprising nomination for a Great Life.She's chosen Lucille Ball, the vivacious redhead, who in the 1950s and 1960s was one of the best-known and best-loved actresses on TV, both in the United States and here. What makes a professor of Greek and Roman writing such a great fan of a zany American actress? What was Lucy like behind the TV persona? Matthew finds out in the company of Carole Cook, Lucy’s

27:48

Andrew Adonis on Joseph Bazalgette

Great Lives ·

2014/10/02

Matthew Parris hears from Labour peer Lord Adonis why Joseph Bazalgette, the Victorian engineer, has his nomination as a Great Life. Bazalgette, the grandson of a French immigrant who made a fortune lending money to the Hanoverian royal family, is one of the most important of the great Victorian engineers. He not only built a sewage system for London which wiped out cholera in the city, he also built the famous Embankments, laid out several of the main thoroughfares and built or improved many of the

27:50

Stella Rimington on Dorothy L Sayers

Great Lives ·

2014/09/10

Dame Stella Rimington, former director of MI5 and a celebrated crime writer herself, nominates for a Great Life that of Dorothy L Sayers. Sayers' first Lord Peter Wimsey novel was published in the 1920s, the Golden Age of crime fiction, and he is still very much with us, appearing often on BBC Radio 4 Extra. She went on to enjoy a huge popularity with her crime novels and then turned to writing Christian essays and plays, most notably the series for the BBC on the life of Christ – which stirred up a

27:45

Labi Siffre on Arthur Ransome

Great Lives ·

2014/09/09

Singer-songwriter Labi Siffre discusses the life and work of Arthur Ransome. Siffre says that the Swallows and Amazons books taught him responsibility for his own actions and also a morality that has influenced and shaped him throughout his life.Series in which Matthew Parris invites his guests to nominate the person who they feel is a great life. Producer: Maggie AyreFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September 2014.

28:00

Tom Shakespeare on Gramsci

Great Lives ·

2014/09/02

Dr Tom Shakespeare is a lecturer at the Medical School in the University of East Anglia and prominent campaigner for the rights of the disabled.He explains to Matthew Parris why the life and work of the Italian left-wing revolutionary Antonio Gramsci means a great deal to him personally. They're joined in the studio by Professor Anne Sassoon. Producer: Christine HalFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September 2014.l

27:35

Ray Mears on Rommel

Great Lives ·

2014/08/26

The life of Erwin Rommel, for a time Hitler's favourite general is nominated by Ray Mears. Matthew Parris hears why this German soldier was a "great life". They are also joined by Dr Niall Barr, Reader in Military History, Defence Studies Department at Kings College, London. Producer: Perminder Khatkar.First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2014.

27:55

Baroness Oona King on Ida B Wells

Great Lives ·

2014/08/19

Matthew Parris leads a discussion on Ida B. Wells the African American civil rights and women's rights activist who was a political trailblazer. She is the great life chosen by Baroness Oona King. Throughout her life, Wells was militant in her demands for equality and justice for black Americans and she encouraged the African American community to fight for positive change through their own efforts. She was an investigative journalist who highlighted the practice of lynching in the United States,

27:50

Jazzie B on James Brown

Great Lives ·

2014/08/12

Soul II Soul’s Jazzie B tells Matthew Parris why he nominates James Brown, the “Godfather of Soul”, for this series.Jazzie B, who was awarded a CBE for services to black British music, spent time latterly with James Brown and he became “like a big brother.” He shares personal reflections on Mr Brown’s life and legacy, with help from the music journalist Charles Shaar Murray.Producer: Maggie AyreFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in August 2014.

27:55

Jonathan Meades on Edward Burra

Great Lives ·

2014/08/05

Writer Jonathan Meades nominates the English artist Edward Burra, who died in 1976, for "great life" status, arguing that he deserves to be better known. Burra painted sailors, drinkers and prostitutes in Toulon; jazz musicians in Harlem; surreal wartime pictures of soldiers in terrifying bird masks; and, in his later years, landscapes in which anthropomorphic and malevolent machines bite chunks out of the countryside. Disabled with rheumatoid arthritis from an early age, Burra barely went to

27:42

Ernest Hemingway

Great Lives ·

2014/05/27

Michael Palin first came across his Great Life when he was studying for school exams, and his love of Ernest Hemingway has never gone away. He, along with expert Naomi Wood, tells Matthew Parris why this twentieth century legend is a Great Life.Producer: Perminder Khatkar.

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