Free Thinking Folgen

Lady Antonia Fraser talks to Matthew Sweet about her childhood in Oxford and London in the 30s and 40s, her lifelong fascination with history, and her forthcoming book, My History: A Memoir of Growing Up. Academics Susan Neiman and Robert Pogue Harrison discuss our modern day obsession with youth. And as a major retrospective of the late French director, Eric Rohmer, begins at the British Film Institute, critics Jonathan Romney and Ginette Vincendeau look at the auteur's fascination with characters in the summer of their lives.

In an extended interview, Philip Dodd talks to Clive James whose writing and broadcasting in the last fifty years has made him one of the most distinctive voices in Britain. He confirmed his credentials as a translator last year with his version of Dante's Divine Comedy and his latest book, Poetry Notebook, is a testament to his consuming love of poetry in general. Philip Dodd explores this passion with him and learns how it has informed and illuminated his thinking throughout his life.

Matthew Sweet on Pantomime past to present with writer Jeffrey Richards and actor/director Tony Lidington. Bryony Lavery talks stage writing ahead of her double-Christmas offerings of Treasure Island at the National Theatre in London and The One Hundred and One Dalmatians at Chichester's Festival Theatre. American biologist EO Wilson on the meaning of human existence.