Great Lives Folgen

Ivor Cutler is hard to categorise. Whimsical and uncompromising, depressive yet joyful, childlike and curmudgeonly, an 'outsider', championed by insiders like Paul McCartney, he's perhaps best known for his collection 'Life in a Scotch Sitting Room Volume Two" (there is no volume one) or his much-covered 1983 indie hit 'Women of the World'.Cutler often referred to himself as a 'humourist', though his work spans music, poetry, children's books, performative and visual art. A sensitive soul and keen member of the Noise Abatement Society, he loved the small, quiet things in life - bugs, flowers, birds, small kindnesses and cups of tea. He hated chemical smells, loud noises and cars and always rode his bicycle to get around - whether peddling his harmonium to a gig to support Soft Machine or heading to London’s Hampstead Heath to sit quietly with his notebook under a tree.The Scottish eccentric had a distinctive style - wearing plus fours and often with a flower adorning his hat. He would approach strangers offering small sticky labels with 'cutlerisms' on like "Never Knowingly Understood", "Illiterates Against the Nizis" or "Funny Smell". He was convinced that the world was absurd and met it with a unique blend of dark and daft humour, refusing to let it crush his child's eye view.John Peel, who recorded many sessions with Ivor Cutler, once remarked that Cutler was probably the only performer whose work had been featured on BBC Radio 1, 2, 3 and 4. He continues to inspire a cult following 15 years after his death – and is still regularly heard on BBC Radio 4 Extra.Matthew Parris and nominator KT Tunstall are joined by Bruce Lindsay, currently at work on a biography of Ivor Cutler.We also hear excerpts from interviews with Ivor's partner Phyllis King and his son Jeremy Cutler, conducted by the producer, Ellie Richold.Image: Courtesy of Jeremy CutlerProducer: Ellie RicholdFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 2021.

Kenny Lynch was born in Stepney, East London in 1938. He toured with the Beatles, wrote best-selling songs, was a champion boxer in the army, and a regular face on British TV. He was also - at the start of his career - one of the very few black and British singers in the UK, but he's not really remembered as a pioneer. Out to change that is his nominator, broadcaster and record producer Eddie Piller who first liked Kenny for his effortless style, but loves his records too. "Kenny Lynch was no victim," he says. Features extensive archive of Kenny talking about his East End childhood plus the music he sang and produced.Presenter Matthew Parris Producer Miles Warde

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown picks Nigerian novelist, Chinua Achebe, the author of Things Fall Apart. With archive contributions from Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Chinua Achebe himself. He was born in Nigeria in 1930 and Yasmin Alibhai Brown met him twice in Uganda in the 1960s and remains deeply impressed by both his books and his life.The presenter is Matthew Parris, the producer is Miles Warde