Arts & Ideas Folgen

From Lady Macbeth to Portia, Viola and Rosalind - Shakespeare's female characters continue to hold the highest appeal for actors, but less is known about the women in his own life. The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust is embarking on a year of events and exhibitions looking a the women who made Shakespeare, many of them forgotten, exploring their influence in his lifetime and the women who shaped his legacy beyond. Anne McElvoy hears about the latest research looking at the women in Shakespeare's life, his plays and his legacy. Sophie Duncan has looked at this first tragic heroine and the actress who did so much to promote his legacy, Ellen Terry. Hailey Bachrach has examined how Shakespeare used female characters in deliberate and consistent ways across his history plays. Emma Whipday has written Shakespeare's Sister, a play which follows Virginia Woolf's Room of One's Own in reimagining Shakespeare's sister as the playwright 'Judith Shakespeare'. And, Anouska Lester has looked at the role of Marie Corelli in Shakespeare heritage.Sophie Duncan is a Research Fellow at Magdalen College, University of Oxford and the author of Searching for Juliet: The Lives and Deaths of Shakespeare's First Tragic Heroine. Hailey Bachrach is a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at the University of Roehampton, drama critic and dramaturg who has worked at Shakespeare's Globe. Her book is called, Staging Female Characters in Shakespeare's English History Plays. Emma Whipday is a BBC Radio 3 AHRC New Generation Thinker and author of Shakespeare's Domestic Tragedies. Anouska Lester is researching the role of Marie Corelli in preserving Shakespeare's legacy and has recently completed a PhD at the University of Roehampton.Producer: Ruth WattsYou can find a collection of Free Thinking episodes exploring Shakespeare on the programme website and available to download as Arts & Ideas podcasts and Radio 3 also has podcast versions of some of the dramas to listen to as The Shakespeare Sessions.

What is the composition dirt and dust? Is there a better place to hang the washing? And how can I make my home more comfortable? These are all questions which preoccupy our guests.Jay Owens first became interested in the nature of dust around fifteen years ago. Her book entitled ‘Dust’ considers its global significance as a factor in both the dirt in our homes and major economic and political events from the dustbowls of the 1930s to the fallout from nuclear testing.Architect Marianna Janowicz is thinking about what we do with our laundry, how buildings are not well designed to help dry it. The water vapor produced causes indoor mould and damp and yet in many places outside drying is banned. In an era where there’s great interest in finding low energy solutions to a range of humanity’s problems what can be done to alleviate the burden, the domestic drudgery of the washing cycle? More on Marianna's work here ; https://www.editcollective.uk/And are you comfortable with gas central heating, maybe you’d prefer a wood burner? How we heat our homes and what this means for the way we live is a long term research theme for Sam Johnson Schlee, but with increasing cost of fossil fuels and their role as key drivers of climate change what is the future for home comfort?Producer: Julian SiddleYou might also be interested in Free Thinking episodes (available as the Arts and Ideas podcast) looking at Mid Century Modern and changes in the home; sneezing, smells and noses; Housework (and Hannah Gavron's The Captive Wife); and an episode called Breathe brought together writer James Nestor, saxophonist Soweto Kinch, Imani Jacqueline Brown of Forensic Architecture and New Generation Thinker Tiffany Watt Smith.

"A hermit in the middle of Los Angeles" is one way she described herself - born in 1947, Butler became a writer who wanted to "tell stories filled with facts. Make people touch and taste and know." Since her death in 2006, her writing has been widely taken up and praised for its foresight in suggesting developments such as big pharma and for its critique of American history. Shahidha Bari is joined by the author Irenosen Okojie and the scholar Gerry Canavan and Nisi Shawl, writer, editor, journalist – and long time friend of Octavia Butler.Irenosen Okojie's latest collection of short stories is called Nudibranch and she was winner of the 2020 AKO Caine Prize for Fiction for her story Grace Jones. You can hear her discussing her own writing life alongside Nadifa Mohamed in a previous Free Thinking episode https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000k8sz Gerry Canavan is co-editor of The Cambridge Companion to American Science Fiction. Nisi Shawl writes about books for The Seattle Times, and also contributes frequently to Ms. Magazine, The Cascadia Subduction Zone, The Washington Post.Producer: Luke MulhallYou might be interested in the Free Thinking episode Science fiction and ecological thinking https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000h6yw and on Ursula Le Guin's The Word for World is Forest https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0b6yb37 and a playlist exploring Landmarks of Culture including Frantz Fanon's Black Skin, White Masks and the writing of Audre Lorde, and of Wole Soyinka https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p01jwn44