| Series | Episode | Title | First Broadcast | Description |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2006 | 01 | 20061103 | Artist, musician and man of ideas Brian Eno opens a weekend dedicated to free thinking with a lecture at Liverpool Hope University. | |
| 2006 | 02 | 20061105 | 8.10pm Playwright Mark Ravenhill explores the public role for the artist in the future. 8.45pm The vivid imaginations of playwright Jeff Young, singer Jennifer John and composer Skyray come together to create Complications - the strange tale of the ultimate advance in medical science, the transplantation of a human soul - recorded in front of a live audience at BBC Merseyside. 9.30pm Roger Philips is joined by Frank Field MP, director of the Centre for Policy Studies Ruth Lea, multi-faith leader Zia Chaudhry and neuroscientist Dr Mark Lythgoe to debate the question: 'Who Will Decide What?s Right and Wrong in the Future?' Plus a report on festival fringe events such as Speed Dating with a Thinker. | |
| 2006 | 03 | Will Our Grandchildren Be Robotic? | 20061106 | The debate is Will Our Grandchildren be Robotic?, exploring the future for the human body and including a demonstration from the UK's first registered 'cyborg'. Plus a report from the Liverpool Schools Parliament on their debate speculating on what Liverpool and other cities would look like if they were run by young people. |
| 2006 | 04 | 20061107 | Tonight, pioneer of the pill Carl Djerassi asks if sex and reproduction are heading for divorce with his guide to Sex in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. And Piers Gough and Jonathan Glancey speculate on the future of the city and ask whether they are part of the problem or the solution to the challenges facing the human race. | |
| 2006 | 05 | 20061108 | Novelist AS Byatt, Professor of Citizenship Lord Alton, philosopher and computer games enthusiast Andy Martin and techno writer Tim Guest discuss whether the 21st century will be the lonely century. Plus a chance to hear Esther Wilson's specially commissioned short drama The Writing of Harlots, which examines the isolating impact of internet pornography. | |
| 2006 | 06 | 20061109 | Professor Doreen Massey, winner of Geography's Nobel prize, presents the first Open University Radio Lecture as part of Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival from Liverpool. In 'Is the World Really Shrinking?', she challenges those globalisation gurus who tell us that local places are all becoming homogenous and lays out a manifesto for an alternative global vision. | |
| 2006 | 07 LAST | 20061110 | Loyd Grossman chairs the debate It's Not Where You Come From, It's Where You're Going to That Matters. Novelist Howard Jacobson, historian Joanna Bourke, writer Kenan Malik and Professor of Innovation James Woudhuysen hold a debate in front of an audience at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool. They debate topics ranging from family trees to national grievances, asking whether we too obsessed with the past and if this to the detriment of our engagement with the future. Plus a performance of Jim Morris' short drama Fused Rice Bowl, a meditation on science, ethics and the connections between Hiroshima and Liverpool. | |
| 2007 | 01 | 20071111 | Matthew Sweet presents an evening of programmes from BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking festival of ideas in Liverpool. Matthew and guests discuss some of the issues which have arisen during the weekend of debates, interviews, drama and lectures. He introduces reaction and commentary from the audience at the festival, recordings from some of the main events and the response from his studio panel to the new ideas and intellectual exchanges that have been aired. 8.30pm Drama on 3 Yesterday an Incident Occurred By Mark Ravenhill. Specially commissioned for Free Thinking and recorded in front of a live audience in the atmospheric Victorian civil court of St Georges Hall. The play looks at our relationship with the War on Terror and takes the moral temperature of a nation unsure of itself. What do the mostly totally normal citizens have to do to protect themselves? 9.40pm Sunday Feature Backwash Writer Gavin Scott Whitfield returns to his native Liverpool to decode the city's cultural DNA and find the source of its vitality. From once great second city of empire to post-industrial decline, Liverpool has always been famed for its creative energy. But what exactly has gone into the make-up of this most un-English of English cities? 10.30pm Words and Music A special event from St George's small concert room in Liverpool where Dickens gave his legendary Penny Readings. Liverpudlian actor Cathy Tyson reads a selection of poetry and prose on the theme of freedom. With music from Ensemble 10/10, the saxophonist Tim Whitehead, pianist Gwilym Simcock and singer Jennifer John. Including new improvisations on the Beatles' Free as a Bird and the Declaration of Human Rights. | |
| 2007 | 02 | Are We Freer Than We Think? | 20071112 | Philip Dodd chairs one of the keynote debates recorded at Radio 3's Free Thinking festival of ideas, asking 'Are we freer than we think?' On stage in Liverpool, Philip is joined by Tony Blair's former chief speechwriter Philip Collins, ANC activist and now South Africa's Constitutional Court Justice Albie Sachs, and Chief Constable of Merseyside Police Bernard Hogan-Howe. Are our traditional freedoms in peril from smoking bans, CCTV and anti-terror laws? Or, in an individualistic and deference-free age, are we freer than we've ever been before? |
| 2007 | 03 | 20071113 | More highlights from this year's Radio 3 Free Thinking festival of ideas in Liverpool. Tim Smit, co-founder and Chief Executive of the multi-award winning Eden Project in Cornwall, outlines his bold vision for 'Inspiration in Education', tackling what he sees as Britain's education crisis. There's a report from Free Thinking's student debate 'What's the point of university?' which pitches students, academics and businessmen against each other at Liverpool University. Plus we hear one of the specially commissioned Free Thinking dramas. | |
| 2007 | 04 | Have We Destroyed The Dream Of Equality?' | 20071114 | From Radio 3's Free Thinking festival of ideas in Liverpool, Roger Philips of Radio Merseyside asks 'Have we destroyed the dream of equality?'. The gap between the rich and poor gets wider, Nobel prize-winning scientists make claims about the inferiority of different races, and today's fragmented culture seems to value differences as much as shared experience. In these circumstances, is there any hope left for the dream of equality? Bishop of Liverpool James Jones, bio-ethicist Tom Shakespeare, and writer Munira Mirza are on the platform to discuss. Plus a report from Free Thinking's 'Freedom of the City' history walk around Liverpool. |
| 2007 | 05 | Space - Why Are We There? | 20071115 | A keynote lecture delivered before an audience at BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking festival of ideas. Professor of Space Science John Zarnecki asks 'Space. Why are we there?'. The 21st century has brought renewed vigour to space exploration, there's even been serious talk of Britain sending an astronaut to the moon. But have we yet answered the fundamental questions of why we want to be there in the first place? John Zarnecki draws on over 30 years of involvement in space missions to attempt an answer. |
| 2007 | 06 | 20071122 | Isabel Hilton talks to Justice Albie Sachs in an interview recorded before an audience in Liverpool for BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking festival. Albie Sachs came to prominence as one of the most influential members of the ANC in the days of apartheid. After solitary confinement and exile, he was the victim of an assassination attempt by South African security agents which cost him an arm and an eye. He now sits as Justice Sachs in South Africa's Constitutional Court. He talks about his remarkable past and his hopes for the future, and discusses his understanding of freedom with the audience. | |
| 2007 | 07 | Is There Too Much Culture? | 20071129 | As part of BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking festival of ideas, film director Mike Figgis delivers a lecture entitled 'Is There Too Much Culture?'. Mike Figgis is the Academy Award-nominated director of films such as Leaving Las Vegas and Timecode, and one of the most innovative and successful British film-makers working today. |
| 20071205 | Matthew Sweet introduces a special edition of Night Waves' Landmarks monthly exploration of a classic work of culture, recorded in front of an audience as part of BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking festival of ideas in Liverpool. Aldous Huxley's famous 1930s novel Brave New World foresaw a disturbing future society where unhappiness has been eliminated by technology. Set in London in 2540, it anticipates developments in reproductive technology and biological engineering that change society. Humanity is carefree, healthy and technologically advanced. So now, 70 years later, have we finally surpassed Huxley's predictions? Matthew is joined in Liverpool by a roundtable of guests to argue over the book's continuing relevance. | |||
| 20071206 | Tony Blair's former speech writer Philip Collins discusses the apparent decline in rhetoric in a speech given at Radio 3's Free Thinking festival earlier this year. Isabel Hilton and guests respond to his remarks about Aristotle, Cicero, Tony Blair, David Cameron, Gordon Brown and the art of political oratory. | |||
| 20071213 | Matthew Sweet introduces a debate recorded in front of an audience in Liverpool as part of BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking 07. In an age when the political agenda is often pre-occupied with debates over civil liberties and the meaning of human rights, have we forgotten that the most powerful freedom we possess is in our heads? Why do so many people feel that the main obstacle to their personal freedom is, quite simply, their own outlook? Psychoanalyst and writer Adam Philips and motivational speaker Jane Kenyon join the Rev Richard Coles, Chaplain to the Royal Academy of Music, to ask 'Are you a prisoner of yourself?'. |