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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

Maria Konnikova

Larushka Ivan-Zadeh

Gary Lachman

Kevin Jackson

Laura Thomas

Free Thinking: Con Men, John Dee, F for Fake

Con men, John Dee, F is for fake

26/01/2016

Con Men, John Dee, F for Fake

BBC Radio 4 - Free Thinking, Con Men, John Dee, F for Fake

Matthew Sweet explores the art of the con with Maria Konnikova. Plus a John Dee exhibition

Maria Konnikova joins Matthew Sweet to explore the art of the con. Plus a review of a new exhibition celebrating Elizabethan alchemist and scholar John Dee.

Matthew Sweet and guests explore the art of the con.... If you've ever fallen for a scam, you'll be reassured by
Maria Konnikova's new book The Confidence Game, in which she explains why most of us are easy prey to con artists.

Orson Welles was infamous early in his career for a radio broadcast of HG Wells' War of the Worlds which - it's said - caused genuine panic that aliens were invading earth. For Free Thinking Larushka Ivan-Zadeh discusses Welles's last film, F For Fake, which tells the tangled story of art forger Elmyr de Hory.

And Gary Lachman and Kevin Jackson visit a new exhibition about Elizabethan alchemist, philosopher and mathematician John Dee - a mysterious figure who during his long career was sometimes a con-artist, and sometimes the conned.

Scholar, courtier, magician: the lost library of John Dee is on at the Royal College of Physicians in London until July 29th. Entry is free.

Main Image: Cicero - Opera omnia, vol. 2. Ship drawing in margin and annotations by John Dee. Photograph by Mike Fear. (c) Royal College of Physicians.

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.

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