Free Thinking Folgen

From Frankie Howerd to Sherlock: Beryl Vertue is the producer of some classic TV shows including Men Behaving Badly. She took Steptoe and Son to America, negotiated for writer Terry Nation to retain some of the rights for his Dr Who Daleks creation, and back when she began in the 1960s, worked with a Who's Who of comedy writing talent at Associated London Scripts as well as representing Tony Hancock and Frankie Howerd as their agent. As chairman of the family firm Hartswood Films, her more recent projects have included revamping Dracula and Sherlock for TV. She discusses the successes and failures she has had in her six decade career with Matthew Sweet and shares with him what it was like working with Ken Russell and Tina Turner on Tommy and what she thinks makes a good deal.Producer: Torquil MacLeodYou can find other conversations about classic TV in the Free Thinking archives including Quatermass: Nigel Kneale's groundbreaking 1950s TV sci-fi series with Mark Gatiss, Steven Moffat, Una McCormack , Claire Langhamer and Matthew Kneale https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000b03y The Goodies: Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graeme Garden, and Bill Oddie talk to Matthew Sweet about how humour changes and the targets of their TV comedy show which ran during the '70s and early '80s https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000hcb British TV and film producer Tony Garnett talks to Matthew Sweet about a career which encompassed the Wednesday Play for the BBC, This Life and Undercover. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07h6r8l

A Bouillabaisse soup inspired hat paraded by the surrealist artist Eileen Agar in 1948 caused raised eyebrows to the passers-by captured in the Pathé news footage on show in the Whitechapel Gallery's exhibition exploring her career. It's just one of many displays showcasing women's art open this summer at galleries across the UK, so today's Free Thinking looks at what it means to put women's art back on the walls and into the way we look at art history. Shahidha Bari is joined by Whitechapel curator Lydia Yee, by Frieze editor-at-large and podcaster Jennifer Higgie, by New Generation Thinker Adjoa Osei, who specialises in studying the contribution of Afro Latin-American women artists, and by the artist Veronica Ryan. Her work runs from a neon crocheted fishing line, to bronze and clay sculptures, and work made from tea-stained fabrics.Veronica Ryan: Along A Spectrum runs at Spike Island, Bristol, from 19 May 19 to 5 September 2021. Her sculptures responding to the work of Barbara Hepworth feature in Barbara Hepworth: Art & Life at the Hepworth Wakefield 21 May 2021 – 27 Feb 2022, and in Breaking The Mould: Sculpture By Women Since 1945 - An Arts Council Collection Touring Exhibition, which opens at the Longside Gallery at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park 29 May–5 Sep 2021.Eileen Agar: Angel Of Anarchy runs at the Whitechapel Gallery 19 May - 29 Aug 2021, alongside another focus on women artists in Phantoms of Surrealism 19 May - 12 Dec 2021.Jennifer Higgie's book The Mirror And The Palette: Rebellion, Revolution And Resilience - 500 Years Of Women's Self Portraits is out now, and she presents a podcast, Bow Down: Women In Art.Adjoa Osei is a New Generation Thinker on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to work with academics to put their research on radio.You can also find exhibitions of The Life And Legacy of Constance Spry at the Garden Museum; Ellen Harvey and Barbara Walker at Turner Contemporary; Infinity Mirror Rooms by Yayoi Kusama at Tate Modern; Charlotte Perriand - The Modern Life at the Design Museum; Paula Rego at Tate Britain; Karla Black at the Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh; Sophie Tauber-Arp coming to Tate Modern; and Joan Eardley's centenary marked at the Scottish Gallery in Edinburgh.Producer: Emma WallaceImage: Veronica Ryan Courtesy: Alison Jacques, London, and Create, London; photo: Lisa Whiting

Is encouraging action still art? What does it mean to make art about the environment? Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough brings together a curator, researchers and artists to discuss these questions. She hears about suggestions from artists, inspired by the forward thinking Gustav Metzger (1926 - 2017), collated by curator Hans Ulrich Obrist. These include the idea from Futurefarmers that we "make an unannounced visit to a farm and take a good long look at the farmer's bookshelf" or Forensic Architecture's call for us to "Look at an air bubble" or Olafur Eliasson's "Look down, look up" and a poetic call to action inspired by the writer Audre Lorde (1934-1992): you can find an episode all about her work in the Free Thinking archives. Lucy Neal describes a project that has involved a forest camp in Coventry looking back at the ideas of the suffragettes. Wayne Binitie shares his experiences of taking photographs of melting ice sheets, recreating them in a gallery and making sound and music. Dr Jenna C. Ashton describes her work with communities in Manchester thinking about how they face up to changes in the climate and reflect those in a pageant planned for next year.140 Artists' Ideas for Planet Earth edited by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Kostas Stasinopoulos is published now - and draws on the environmental programme Back to Earth run by the Serpentine Gallery where Obrist is an Artistic Director https://www.serpentinegalleries.org/art-and-ideas/ You can find out more about his paintings and photographs at http://waynebinitie.com/ and an exhibition of his work is due to open later this year. Walking Forest by the artists Ruth Ben-Tovim, Anne-Marie Culhane, Lucy Neal and Shelley Castle, commissioned by Coventry 2021 City of Culture is one of the 15 Season For Change arts commissions ahead of COP 26 https://www.seasonforchange.org.uk/ Dr Jenna C. Ashton is a Lecturer in Heritage Studies at the University of Manchester and co-founded CIWA, the Centre for International Women Artists, a collective artist studio and gallery in Manchester, UK https://creative-climate-resilience.org/You can find a new podcast series Green Thinking: 26 episodes 26 minutes long in the run up to COP26 made in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council, part of UKRI, exploring the latest research and ideas around understanding and tackling the climate and nature emergency. New Generation Thinkers Dr Des Fitzgerald and Dr Eleanor Barraclough will be in conversation with researchers on a wide-range of subjects from cryptocurrencies and finance to eco poetry and fast fashion. They're all available from the Arts & Ideas podcast feed - and collected on the Free Thinking website under Green Thinking where you can also find programmes on mushrooms, forests, rivers, eco-criticism and soil. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07zg0r2Producer: Sofie Vilcins