Great Lives Folgen

Professor Colin Blakemore was a famous communicator of science, the youngest ever Reith lecturer on the BBC. He was also targeted by members of the animal rights movement, which sent bombs and letters lined with razor blades to his home address. Born in 1944 and brought up in Coventry, Colin Blakemore was committed to brain research and the connection between vision and early development of the brain. Nominating him is the author and neuroscientist Dr Hannah Critchlow, who knew him before he died in 2022.The programme includes contributions from his friends and colleagues, including Professor Barbara Sahakian and David Nutt; plus moving archive of his daughter, Professor Sarah-Jayne Blakemore and reports from the animal rights campaigners who protested outside his Oxford house.Dr Hannah Critchlow is the author of Joined Up Thinking and The Science of Fate. She's based at Cambridge University.Presented by Matthew Parris and produced for BBC Studios Audio by Miles Warde

Captain Jacques-Yves Cousteau was an oceanographer, filmmaker and explorer who made the seas a subject of fascination for millions.During his time in the French Navy, Cousteau co-invented the Aqua-Lung: the first self-contained kit that allowed a diver to breathe underwater. This and his fascination with capturing images of the subaquatic world paved the way for a career filming the first underwater documentaries. Travelling the seas with his trusty crew on their boat, the Calypso, Captain Cousteau in his trademark knitted red cap became a household name; thanks to shows including his TV series ‘The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau’. He came across as a charming and eloquent showman - but his life wasn't without its tragedies and controversies...Nominating Cousteau is wildlife cameraman and and trained biologist Doug Allan, whose career filming animals, primarily in polar regions and underwater, was hugely inspired by the Frenchman. Doug says: "There's a mischievousness about him that he carried thorugh his whole life... I think he was just a really powerful, charismatic character."The presenter is Matthew Parris and the producer for BBC Studios Audio is Lucy Taylor.

In 1981 Brian Clough paid £1 million pounds to bring Justin Fashanu to Nottingham Forest. It was the climax of a meteoric career, but within months the goals had dried up, he'd been going to gay nightclubs, and Fashanu had also become become a born again Christian. Four decades later Justin Fashanu remains top flight English football's only openly gay player. From his beginnings in care with brother John as Barnardo's boys, via adoption, boxing, football and failed pop star, this is an extraordinary life, beautifully highlighted by his nominator, Ekow Eshun."He was a pioneer - he broke ground. He was a prominent black footballer at a time when to be black and a footballer was fraught territory, when players were barracked from the terraces for no other reason than the colour of their skin." Ekow EshunAlso in studio is Richard Williams of the Guardian, who saw Fashanu play on the way and on the way down. Plus there is moving archive of Fashanu himself, and also from his niece, Amal Fashanu, talking at the time of the release of her documentary, Britain's Gay Footballers.The producer for BBC Studios Audio is Miles Warde