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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

Radio 3

Free Thinking

Discussion & Talk

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.

Free Thinking: 2014 Festival: The Free Thinking Essay

Free Thinking: 2014 Festival: The Free Thinking Essay: Part 5: Beards and Whiskers

Beards and Whiskers

Part 5 Part 5: Beards and Whiskers

2014 Festival

BBC Radio 4 - Free Thinking, 2014 Festival, The Free Thinking Essay, Beards and Whiskers

Alun Withey explains what shaving tells us about medical advances and military strategy.

Historian Alun Withey argues that shaving is about more than fashion and that beards can shed light things from medicine to the military.

Jeremy Paxman made headlines when he grew a beard, taking his place alongside actors Jake Gyllenhaal and George Clooney, Eurovision winner Conchita Wurst, folk-rocker Marcus Mumford and hipster model Johnny Harrington.
Historian Alun Withey from Exeter University says beards can shed light on a whole range of things from medicine to the military. Pogonotomy - or the art of shaving - is about more than fashion.

Recorded in front of an audience at BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival of Ideas at Sage, Gateshead. New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the AHRC to find the brightest academic minds with the potential to turn their ideas into broadcasts.

All the discussions and essays from the Free Thinking festival are available as Radio 3 Arts and Ideas downloads.

Producer: Georgia Catt.

Free Thinking: 2014 Festival

The Free Thinking Essay

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Events from the 2014 Free Thinking festival. The theme is 'the limits of knowledge'

Series of events from the 2014 Free Thinking festival. The theme is 'the limits of knowledge'

Radio 3 New Generation Thinkers give talks in front of an audience at Free Thinking 2014

Series in which Radio 3 New Generation Thinkers give talks in front of an audience at Sage Gateshead for the 2014 Free Thinking festival of ideas. The theme is 'the limits of knowledge'

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Part 5: Beards and Whiskers

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