Russell Kane on Iris Murdoch
Iris Murdoch was born in Ireland in 1919, grew up in London and was educated in Bristol and Oxford. She's famous both as a novelist and a ph...
Radio and PodcastLive Radio & PodcastsSociety & Culture
Great Lives
Biographical series in which guests choose someone who has inspired their lives.
Episodes
20 of 413 episodesRuby Tandoh on Brian Jacques author of the Redwall series
Brian Jacques was a docker, sailor, boxer, trucker, milkman, poet and a folk singer too. Then he wrote his Redwall series of children's fant...
Eric Ashby, Silent Watcher of the New Forest
Eric Ashby was a quiet pioneer. He lived in the New Forest in the south of England, where he painstakingly filmed the local wildlife, partic...
Pauline Black of The Selecter on Poly Styrene of X-Ray Spex
Poly Styrene was born Marie Joan Elliot-Said in 1957 and went on to become front woman of X-Ray Spex. When Pauline Black first saw her on To...
Actor Laurence Olivier with Derek Jacobi and Tim Walker
Laurence Olivier, Baron Olivier of Brighton, was born in Dorking in 1907. He's best known these days for roles in films ranging from Wutheri...
Cartoonist Naji al-Ali
Naji al-Ali was one of the best known cartoonists in the Arab world. His creation, a little boy called Handala, always stands with his back...
Cleopatra picked by Kate Williams
"Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale her infinite variety." She's the most famous character in antiquity, made more famous by Shakespear...
Ade Edmondson on singer Sandy Denny
Ade Edmondson - star of The Young Ones, The Comic Strip Presents, Bottom and much more besides - chooses the singer Sandy Denny. "I think a...
Tony Garnett picked by Harry Bradbeer
Tony Garnett was born in Birmingham and, after a brief career as an actor, found a new role behind the scenes of The Wednesday Play. These r...
Peter Cook picked by Jon Harvey aka Count Binface
Peter Cook was at the centre of the satire boom of the early sixties, both on stage with Beyond the Fringe and with his Soho club, The Estab...
Coco Khan picks Edith Garrud, the jujitsu fighting suffragette
Writer and podcaster Coco Khan nominates the little-known but formidable Edith Garrud, a woman who turned Edwardian expectations on their he...
William Gladstone, four-time PM
"Gladstone became prime minister at 82, and not as a figurehead. That is the Gladstone who has inspired me." Trevor Lyttleton. Born in 1809,...
Alistair McGowan on HE Bates
HE Bates is probably best known for the Darling Buds of May and Fair Stood the Wind for France, but Alistair McGowan is surprised that he is...
Beverley Knight on Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the godmother of rock and roll
She influenced Elvis, Johnny Cash, Churck Berry, Little Richard and host of British blues acts of the 1960s. Sister Rosetta Tharpe, with her...
Daisy Dunn on Marcus Agrippa, ancient Rome's king of cement
Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa was a Roman general best known for his military victories, but he also helped rebuild Rome, providing aqueducts, st...
Dr Sian Williams nominates Anna Freud
Matthew Parris invites a fellow Radio 4 presenter into the studio to nominate a Great Life. Dr Sian Williams, who as well as a broadcaster i...
Pianist and broadcaster Keelan Carew nominates Russian composer Nicolai Medtner
Matthew Paris is joined by the pianist and broadcaster Keelan Carew, who nominates the Great Life of the early 20th century composer Nicolai...
Comedian Helen Lederer on Joan Rivers
Born Joan Molinsky in 1933, Joan Rivers shot to fame on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, who she later infuriated by hosting a late nigh...
John Cooper Clarke on Johnny Green, road manager of The Clash
Johnny Green was a hippy, a driver, a writer, a father and the road manager of The Clash. He wrote about this experience in a memorable book...
Helen Carr picks Christine de Pizan at the Gloucester history festival
Christine de Pizan was born in Italy but most of her life was spent in Paris, where her father was astrologer to the King of France. After h...