Arts & Ideas Folgen

Church Historian Diarmaid Macculloch joins Anne McElvoy to discuss the role that silence has played in the development of Christianity. David Dewing, director of The Geffrye Museum, argues that the museum sector neglects a focus on the middle classes; historian Selina Todd joins him to debate this idea. Actor Edward Petheridge and gerontologist Raymond Tallis discuss the neurological impact of the two strokes Petheridge suffered whilst rehearsing for the role of King Lear, which is the subject of a new play My Perfect Mind. And film critic Ian Christie remembers the novelist and screenwriter Ruth Prawer Jhabvala.

Is nostalgia for an idea of the NHS is inhibiting clear-eyed debate? Samira Ahmed is joined by columnist Ian Birrell and campaigning GP Jonathon Tomlinson to discuss. Alexandra Harris reviews an exhibition of Paul Nash's work at the Pallant House Gallery. Geneticist and writer Adam Rutherford discusses his latest exploration of the origin and future of life. And the television commissioner and producer John Yorke, whose work includes Life on Mars, Shameless and EastEnders, explores television and storytelling.

What history should children learn and be able to contextualise? And what do they know? Rana Mitter enters the Great British History debate with the historian David Cannadine, Tristram Hunt MP, Sheila Lawlor of the think tank Politeia, Stephen Drew, headmaster of Brentwood County High School in Essex and Professor Dinah Birch of the Universitry of Liverpool.