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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

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Free Thinking

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Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

BBC Radio 4

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

The ideas shaping our lives today - with artists and thinkers in debates and interviews.

The ideas shaping our lives today - with leading artists and thinkers in extended interview and debate.

Matthew Sweet

Bryony Dixon

Lucy Porter

Stephen Horne

Peter Buwalda

James Lovelock

Laura Thomas

Free Thinking: Betty Balfour Profile, James Lovelock, Peter Buwalda

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08/04/2014

Betty Balfour Profile, James Lovelock, Peter Buwalda

BBC Radio 4 - Free Thinking, Betty Balfour Profile, James Lovelock, Peter Buwalda

Lucy Porter and Bryony Dixon profile silent film star Betty Balfour with Matthew Sweet.

Matthew Sweet discusses silent film star Betty Balfour with BFI curator Byony Dixon and comedian Lucy Porter. Plus Dutch novelist Peter Buwalda and author James Lovelock.

Matthew Sweet presents an edition of Radio 3's arts and ideas programme. 


Betty Balfour

Comedian Lucy Porter and British Film Institute Curator Bryony Dixon reflect on the short-lived stardom of Betty Balfour, whose 1923 film Love, Life and Laughter has just been rediscovered in Holland, after decades in which it was thought lost. Called 'Britain's Mary Pickford' and 'the world's greatest film comedienne', she was a much loved silent film actress in the 1920s, making the popular Squibs series with director George Pearson and Champagne with Alfred Hitchcock, before the coming of sound relegated her to a disappointed retirement in the home counties. 

There's also a chance to hear the Life, Love and Laughter Overture, by Haidee de Ranse, played live in studio by pianist Stephen Horne.

Peter Buwalda: Bonita Avenue

The Dutch novelist joins Matthew live in studio to discuss his multi-award-winning fictional debut, about a liberal Dutch academic pushed towards insanity by the discovery that certain vices that he might tolerate in the public sphere have roots close to home. 

Bonita Avenue, by Peter Buwalda, is published by Pushkin Press. 

James Lovelock

Inventor, scientist, and writer James Lovelock has had a profound impact on our understanding of climate change. In the 1960s he invented a device that detected CFCs in the atmosphere, proving beyond doubt for the first time that pollution was global, not local. His Gaia theory, meanwhile, postulated that the earth should be seen as a single self-regulating organism, in which the living and non-living elements interact. In tonight's programme he talks to Matthew about whether humans face the same fate as the dinosaurs. 

Unlocking Lovelock: Scientist, Inventor, Maverick, is at the Science Museum in London until next year. 

A Rough Ride to the Future, by James Lovelock, is out now, published by Allen Lane. 

Producer: Laura Thomas.

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