Lucy Jones, author of Matrescence, chooses the writer Sylvia Plath. Sylvia Plath was a precocious, prize-winning child,. Her mother had high expectations for her. Her father had died when she was 8 (but could have been saved if only he'd gone to see a doctor). When she was well, Plath was energetic, fun, bright, attractive, funny and incredibly smart.Her first depressive episode at the age of 20, was 'treated' with botched electric shock therapy. She was awake throughout the ordeal, which left her terrified and traumatised.Lucy Jones believes that Plath has an unfair reputation as a depressing writer, because of the shadow that her suicide casts backwards over her life. But Jones finds Plath's poetry incredibly alive, brave, comforting and inspiring. "I don't think I would have been able to write Matrescence without Plath's work"Both Lucy Jones and Plath's biographer, Heather Clark, believe that at the end of her life, recently separated and struggling through a particularly bad winter with two very small children, she may have been suffering from post-natal depression.With archive recordings of Sylvia Plath reading her poems Daddy and Mushrooms, as well as being interviewed with Ted Hughes.Produced in Bristol by Ellie Richold and presented by Matthew Parris
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27:06
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27:06
Elizabeth Day on Hatshepsut
"One of the things that she claimed was that her mother had been impregnated by the sun god Amon-Ra."
Elizabeth Day's interest in the female pharaoh Hatshepsut was sparked by a trip to Egypt less than a year ago. What intrigued her was how this woman survived and thrived as ruler in a traditionally male role. Joining her in discussion is Professor Joyce Tyldesley, recent winner of archaeologist of the year. She says that Hatshepsut changed her life when she wrote her biography. Matthew Parris presents.Elizabeth Day is the author of six novels and host of How to Fail.
The producer for BBC Studios in Bristol is Miles Warde
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27:40
Comedian Stewart Lee on Derek Bailey
"The area I mostly work in is generally known as free - the free music area. And free is one of those four letter words, like rock or jazz or punk maybe. It started out meaning something." Derek BaileyBorn in 1930 in Sheffield, Bailey worked as a session musician in dance bands and orchestras before turning his back on that world. Free improvisation was where he made his name, and he took inspiration from whatever he heard. Stewart Lee first heard him in the 1990s and spoke at his funeral in 2005."Are there any parallels between his approach and yours?"
"There probably are ... in that I've copied him."Also contains the voices of Ian Greaves and Tim Fletcher, a brief clip of Mastermind, and a recording of Derek Bailey's collaborator in the Joseph Holbrooke Trio, Gavin Bryars. Stewart Lee is a comedian and writer, the presenter is Matthew Parris and the producer for BBC Studios is Miles Warde. We regret that this description barely scrapes the surface of the wonder of this episode - the ideas, the music, the archive, the brief row.
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Jock Stein, first British football manager to win the European Cup
Jock Stein, first British football manager to win the European Cup, picked by composer Sir James MacMillan and aided by Jock Stein’s biographer, Archie MacPherson. Jock Stein was manager of Celtic FC when they won the European Cup in Lisbon in 1967. He later died while managing Scotland in a world cup qualifier against Wales – the date, September 1985, exactly forty years ago."I saw in my grandfather and my father certain characteristics that I saw in Jock Stein." Sir James MacMillanIncludes archive of Jock Stein, Gordon Strachan and Billy Connolly, a big fan of the European Cup winning Celtic team.Archie MacPherson is the author of Jock Stein: The Definitive Autobiography, and a familiar face to viewers of Scottish football in the eighties and nineties and beyond. The presenter is Matthew Parris and the producer for BBC Studios is Miles Warde
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27:41
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27:41
Benjamin Franklin
Matthew Parris heads to the house where Benjamin Franklin lived for almost 17 years to meet banker and philanthropist John Studzinski.Franklin was born in Boston when it was still a part of the British empire, ran away to Philadelphia and lodged near Charing Cross at 36 Craven Street in London for over a decade. He was an agent for the Pennsylvania assembly, and also an ambassador to Paris where he helped persuade the French to join the breakaway American states in their war against the British. His nominator John Studzinski is chair of the board that runs the Benjamin Franklin House in London and says that he would have loved to have been the great man's apprentice. Joining the conversation is Professor Kathleen Burk who admires Franklin the enlightened writer but is less sure about his treatment of his wife. Kathleen Burk is author of Old World, New World: Great Britain and America from the Beginning.The producer for BBC Studios Audio in Bristol is Miles Warde
Ireland