Classicist Mary Beard picks Tacitus as a figure who still has relevance if we're thinking about satire, power and celebrity. Shahidha Bari is joined by Mary, historian Helen Carr, who co-edited What is History Now? political sketch-writer from The Times newspaper Tom Peck and Konnie Huq, writer and former presenter of the children's TV show Blue Peter. On April 21st 1964, the tv channel BBC 2 launched with an episode for children of Play School and programmes like Bluey and Peppa Pig, have been making headlines so what do we want from kids TV? Plus - poet Lord Byron died 200 years ago this week - scholar Dr Corin Throsby has been reading the fan mail he received.
Listen out for Mary Beard and the new series of Being Roman coming to BBC Radio 4 in May - and the first series is available on BBC Sounds. And if you're a fan of Oliver Postgate - The Clangers, Bagpuss and Noggin you can find a Free Thinking episode exploring those programmes.
Producer: Lisa Jenkinson Studio Manager: Tim Heffer
Life expectations, philosophy in the world, protest
Winning & Losing, Plato Scroll, the Decline of Nightlife
Kant today, Spice Girls Reunited, Impersonating an Animal
New Thinking: Exploring the local
Change, scrabble and cultural christianity
Hobbes, Abba, Waterloo and margarine
Unravelling plainness
Pranks
What does feminist art mean?
New Thinking: Light and Darkness
Approaches to death
New Thinking: East West artistic connections
Rock, Paper, Saints and Sinners
Writing Place
Arteries of tomorrow
New Thinking: How water shapes our history and environment
The Legacy of the Laundries
Gas, oil and the Essex blues
Weird Viking Bodies
Create your
podcast in
minutes
It is Free
The Modern West
Global News Podcast
Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4
The Infinite Monkey Cage
You’re Dead to Me
Elis James and John Robins