Free Thinking

Original version

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

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

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: Lost cities, 20s divas and 2011 uprisings

Lost cities, 20s divas and 2011 uprisings

BBC Radio 4 - Free Thinking, Lost cities, 20s divas and 2011 uprisings

Anne McElvoy explores the past and present of the transcontinental nation of Egypt.

Ten years after the popular protests in Tahrir Square, Anne McElvoy discusses Egypt, past and present, with Dina Rezk, Raphael Cormack and Edmund Richardson.

Singer Umm Kulthum, Mounira al-Mahdiyya, Badia Masabni. These are the names of the pioneering performers working in Cairo's dance halls and theatres in the 1020s whom Raphael Cormack has written about in his new book.  From that period of cosmopolitan culture to the uprising in 2011 - how has Egypt shifted ? New Generation Thinker Dina Rezk lectures at the University of Reading and she's been reading the new novel by Alaa Al Aswany - The Republic of False Truths.  Edmund Richardson researches Alexander the Great and he's written about a Victorian pilgrim, spy, doctor, archaeologist Charles Masson who found a lost city in Afghanistan.  Anne McElvoy presents.

Raphael Cormack's book is called Midnight in Cairo: The Female Stars of Egypt's Roaring '20s 

Dina Rezk is a New Generation Thinker and Associate Professor of History at the University of Reading. Her recent research has focused on the upheavals of the 'Arab Spring' across the Middle East.  

Edmund Richardson is a New Generation Thinker and Associate Professor of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Durham.  His book is called Alexandria: The Quest for the Lost City

Producer: Ruth Watts

Image: People celebrate at Tahrir Square, Cairo on 3rd July 2013
Credit: BBC (Abdel Khalik Salah)

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.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Free Thinking

Lost cities, 20s divas and 2011 uprisings

Genres

Brand

BBC Radio 3

About BBC Radio 3