logo
episode-header-image
Apr 2021
27m 39s

The Talented Mr Ripley author, Patricia ...

Bbc Radio 4
About this episode
Director Jonathan Kent was friends with Patricia Highsmith. He'd been playing Tom Ripley for a tv show, and staying in the hotel suite next door to her. She took a shine to him. Now he repays the debt with this revealing and intriguing programme to celebrate a hundred years since her birth in 1921. Although best known for the Ripley books, she first broke t ... Show More
Up next
Jun 30
Sir Seretse Khama, first president of Botswana
Seretse Khama was born in 1921 in Bechuanaland when it was still a British Protectorate. In 1966 he became Botswana's first president. In between he married a white Londoner, Ruth Williamson, was exiled by the British, and made to renounce his interest in succeeding as head of th ... Show More
27m 43s
Jun 23
Emily Williamson, co-founder of the RSPB
For over a hundred years no one thought too much about the origins of the RSPB, but among its founders was a woman in Didsbury opposed to the use of feathers in fashionable hats. Emily Williamson was outraged by the widespread slaughter of egrets and the crested grebe. She had tr ... Show More
27m 32s
Jun 16
Tina Turner
Rock Icon Tina Turner proposed by the actress and author Rebecca Humphries. Tina Turner began life as Anna Mae Bullock in Nutbush, Tennessee, joining Ike Turner's band in St Louis at the age of 17. Her presence, her performances and her voice captivated audiences, but this is rea ... Show More
27m 43s
Recommended Episodes
Jul 2021
Quentin Tarantino, YA Fiction, Report from Cannes, The Vegetable Seller
Filmmaker Quentin Tarantino is a Hollywood veteran and it was the ending of Hollywood’s golden age that was the subject of his last film – Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. He’s now returned to the story of that film for his debut novel. In his only UK broadcast interview, he explai ... Show More
41m 28s
Jan 2016
The Danish Girl, War and Peace, Deutschland 83, Angela Clarke Follow Me, Fallout 4 and Her Story
The Danish Girl is the remarkable love story inspired by the lives of Lili Elbe and Gerda Wegener, portrayed in the film respectively by Academy Award winner Eddie Redmayne (The Theory of Everything) and Alicia Vikander (Ex Machina), and directed by Academy Award winner Tom Hoope ... Show More
41m 43s
Apr 2024
Dakota Fanning
Dakota Fanning joins the show to talk about her role in the limited series, Ripley. Based on Patricia Highsmith’s bestselling novels, the series follows Tom Ripley (Andrew Scott), a grifter scraping by in early 1960s New York, who is hired by a wealthy man to travel to Italy to t ... Show More
33m 58s
May 2015
Mad Max, Cornelia Parker, Pirates of Penzance, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, TC Boyle
Artist Cornelia Parker's contribution to The British Library's Magna Carta octocentennial exhibition is an embroidery interpretation of the Wikipedia page for this cornerstone of the British constitution. What does it add to the commemorations?There's a new Mad Max film, "Fury Ro ... Show More
41m 47s
May 2024
The Talented Mr. Ripley
With the recent release of Ripley on Netflix, Brian welcomes Max and Nick to discuss all things Tom Ripley. Since the novel was released in 1955, audiences have been captivated by the murderous exploits of this charming sociopath. Every generation, filmmakers bring their own pers ... Show More
1h 42m
Sep 2023
Review: ‘The Fraud’, Zadie Smith
In more than two decades since Zadie Smith burst onto the literary scene with her debut novel, ‘White Teeth’, her books, essays and short stories have continued to enjoy commercial and critical success. Her latest novel brings to life the story of the Tichborne case – one of the ... Show More
29m 39s
Mar 2021
John Halifax, Gentleman
Dinah Mulock Craik achieved fame and fortune as the author of the 1856 bestselling novel John Halifax, Gentleman. New Generation Thinker Clare Walker Gore reads this rags-to-riches tale of an orphan boy who rises in the world through sheer hard work and sterling character and her ... Show More
13m 41s
Jan 2022
Writer Agatha Christie: Murder and mystery
Agatha Christie put her decision to become a writer down to a lack of education and a capacity for day-dreaming. Her murder mysteries, full of ingenious plot twists, are still regarded by many as the finest examples of crime fiction and have sold in their billions in the English ... Show More
39m 24s
Jul 2022
English Rose - Episode 3: Tending the Wounds
by Helen Cross Rose has come from Whitby to Manhattan to work as a nanny for power couple Austin and Maya. Their baby Gulliver is... unusual. But then, so is Rose. Bloody revenge is her speciality. The body count is rising and she still has to work out where the dangers lie. Also ... Show More
28m 16s
Jan 2019
Mary Queen of Scots, Approaching Empty, Leila Slimani, Fausto Melotti, Ride Upon The Storm
A new film telling the story of Mary Queen of Scots and her relationship with Elizabeth I, stars Saiorse Ronan and Margot Robbie as the 2 queens Approaching Empty is a new play by Ishy Din just opened at The Kiln Theatre in London. Set in a run-down minicab office in the north of ... Show More
50m 9s