Free Thinking Folgen

Mike Bartlett talks to Anne McElvoy about his play Bull which takes to the stage at the Young Vic this month and Game which opens at the Almeida in February. Also Dr. Andy Martin evaluates Soumission, the new Michel Houellebecq novel creating controversy in France; Cleo Van Velsen discusses Hans Fallada's 1944 prison diary A Stranger in My Own Country; and the artists Nick Crowe and Ian Rawlinson reveal Song for Coal, their new work about energy which goes on display at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

Lady Antonia Fraser talks to Matthew Sweet about her childhood in Oxford and London in the 30s and 40s, her lifelong fascination with history, and her forthcoming book, My History: A Memoir of Growing Up. Academics Susan Neiman and Robert Pogue Harrison discuss our modern day obsession with youth. And as a major retrospective of the late French director, Eric Rohmer, begins at the British Film Institute, critics Jonathan Romney and Ginette Vincendeau look at the auteur's fascination with characters in the summer of their lives.

In an extended interview, Philip Dodd talks to Clive James whose writing and broadcasting in the last fifty years has made him one of the most distinctive voices in Britain. He confirmed his credentials as a translator last year with his version of Dante's Divine Comedy and his latest book, Poetry Notebook, is a testament to his consuming love of poetry in general. Philip Dodd explores this passion with him and learns how it has informed and illuminated his thinking throughout his life.