Vigée Le Brun
Misha Glenny and guests discuss the French portrait painter Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun (1755 - 1842). From her teens she delighted her high soc...
Radio and PodcastLive Radio & PodcastsSociety & Culture
In Our Time: Culture
Popular culture, poetry, music and visual arts and the roles they play in our society.
Episodes
20 of 207 episodesJoseph Roth
Misha Glenny and guests discuss one of the great writers on Central Europe after the first world war and on the dying of the old orders with...
M.C. Escher
Misha Glenny and guests discuss the work of Maurits Cornelis Escher (1898-1972), the graphic artist and printmaker best known for his imposs...
Handel's Messiah
Misha Glenny and his guests discuss the most famous oratorio of George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) and his librettist Charles Jennens (1700-...
Dadaism
Misha Glenny and guests discuss the provocative artistic phenomenon that first startled audiences in 1916 in Zurich. There, at the Cabaret V...
John Keats
Misha Glenny and guests discuss the short life and lasting works of Keats (1795-1821), who in one year wrote some of the most loved poems in...
Henry IV Part 1
Misha Glenny and guests discuss one of the most successful of Shakespeare's plays in his own time. Written with no Part 2 in mind as 'Henry...
On Liberty
Journalist, author and historian Misha Glenny presents his first edition of In Our Time, succeeding Melvyn Bragg who retired from this role...
Barbour's 'Brus'
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss John Barbour's epic poem The Brus, or Bruce, which he wrote c1375. The Brus is the earliest surviving poem i...
The Vienna Secession
In 1897, Gustav Klimt led a group of radical artists to break free from the cultural establishment of Vienna and found a movement that becam...
Molière
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the great figures in world literature. The French playwright Molière (1622-1673) began as an actor, a...
Thomas Middleton
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the most energetic, varied and innovative playwrights of his time. Thomas Middleton (1580-1627) worke...
Oliver Goldsmith
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the renowned and versatile Irish writer Oliver Goldsmith (1728 - 1774). There is a memorial to him in Westmi...
Sir John Soane
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the architect Sir John Soane (1753 -1837), the son of a bricklayer. He rose up the ranks of his profession a...
Vase-mania
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss eighteenth century 'vase-mania'. In the second half of the century, inspired by archaeological discoveries,...
Plutarch's Parallel Lives
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Greek biographer Plutarch (c46 AD-c120 AD) and especially his work 'Parallel Lives' which has shaped the...
Nizami Ganjavi
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss one of the greatest romantic poets in Persian literature. Nizami Ganjavi (c1141–1209) is was born in the cit...
Italo Calvino
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the Italian author of Invisible Cities, If On A Winter's Night A Traveller, Cosmicomics and other celebrated...
George Herbert
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the poet George Herbert (1593-1633) who, according to the French philosopher Simone Weil, wrote ‘the most be...
Little Women
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Louisa May Alcott's 1868 novel, credited with starting the new genre of young adult fiction. When Alcott (18...