Nazi propagandist William Joyce, best known to British radio listeners as ‘Lord Haw Haw’, was hanged by Albert Pierrepoint at Wandsworth Prison on 3rd January, 1946 - and we're running this episode today as part of the 80th anniversary of VE Day that Europe is celebrating this week.
At the peak of his powers, his anti-Allied broadcasts from Hamburg reached ... Show More
Nov 20
Microsoft's Windows Gamble
Windows 1.0 came out on 20th November, 1985, introducing graphical user interface to the masses for the first time. Well, that was the concept, anyway; in truth, users required mighty hardware by the standards of the time (TWO floppy drives!), and hardly anybody bought it. But it ... Show More
13m 29s
Mar 2025
Douglas Stuart on Shuggie Bain, Storytelling, and the Human Condition (Part Two)
This event is part of Conversations at the Kiln, a new event series at Kiln Theatre programmed by Intelligence Squared. For more events with speakers from the worlds of literature, art, poetry and politics, click here.
Douglas Stuart, Booker Prize-winning author of Shuggie Bain ... Show More
33m 8s
Oct 3
The Thick of It: 20 Years On, with Armando Iannucci, Peter Capaldi, Chris Addison and Rebecca Front (Part One)
Malcolm Tucker. Pet ASBOs. A law requiring everyone in Britain to carry around a plastic bag. It’s been twenty years since Armando Iannucci‘s The Thick of It first brought the chaos and drama of the fictitious ‘Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship’ into our lives. First a ... Show More
37m 26s
Apr 2025
Close Readings: 'Vanity Fair' by William Makepeace Thackeray
Thackeray's comic masterpiece, 'Vanity Fair', is a Victorian novel looking back to Regency England as an object both of satire and nostalgia. Thackeray’s disdain for the Regency is present throughout the book, not least in the proliferation of hapless characters called George, ye ... Show More
33m 7s
Oct 13
740 Mel Brooks and Other Eminent Jews (with David Denby) | War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy (#13 GBOAT)
In this episode, Jacke talks to author David Denby about his new book, Eminent Jews: Bernstein, Brooks, Friedan, Mailer, a group biography (loosely inspired by Lytton Strachey's Eminent Victorians) that describes how four larger-than-life figures upended the restrained culture of ... Show More
1h 3m
Jun 2017
Free Thinking: Churchill, Pocahontas and The Idiot
Anne McElvoy is joined by screenwriter Alex von Tunzelmann who discusses her new film, Churchill. New Generation Thinker Christopher Bannister, an expert on the propaganda unit The Ministry of Information, reveals the influence it still wields today. Academic Nandini Das and Step ... Show More
44m 13s