Free Thinking

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

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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: Stories of Love

Stories of Love

BBC Radio 4 - Free Thinking, Stories of Love

Romeo and Juliet reworked, Proust and Rita Mae Brown's coming-of-age tale Rubyfruit Jungle

Naomi Paxton is joined by New Generation Thinkers Diarmuid Hester and Julia Hartley, playwright Gary Owen and novelist Tom Crewe for a discussion about depictions of love.

Proust as an agony uncle, Romeo and Juliet rewritten as 21st-century Welsh teenagers in a new drama by Gary Owen, the lesbian coming-of-age novel by Rita Mae Brown that inspired the lead character in Willy Russell's Educating Rita to change her name and a new book inspired by the historical figures who collaborated on the first English medical textbook on homosexuality. Tom Crewe's novel The New Life depicts the married lives and love triangles of John Addington Symonds and Henry Havelock Ellis and the impact of Oscar Wilde's trial on their attempts to publish their study of what they called "inversion".  Naomi Paxton is joined by Tom Crewe, Gary Owen and New Generation Thinkers Julia Hartley and Diarmuid Hester. 

Romeo and Julie by Gary Owen runs at the National Theatre in London until April 1st and then moves to the Sherman Theatre, Cardiff.

Rubyfruit Jungle by Rita Mae Brown was first published in 1973 and is available now as a paperback.

On the Radio 3 website you can find an Essay from Diarmuid Hester about the writing of Dennis Cooper and a Sunday Feature about the radical life of suffrage pioneer Edith Craig. 

New Generation Thinker Julia Hartley has published a book looking at reading Proust and Dante. 

Tom Crewe's novel is called The New Life. 

Other conversations about love in the Free Thinking archives include 
Sappho, Jonathan Dollimore and a Punjabi version of Romeo and Juliet 
A quartet of researchers exploring dating, relationships and stories from the National Archives to London's gay bars.
Free Thinking, Being Human: Love Stories 
And we’ve discussions of poetry, philosophy and novels about love with the likes of AL Kennedy and Andrew McMillan, Alain de Boton and Tahmima Anam 
And a discussion and article about Rude Valentines' cards https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/34JCKJtrl07f5kY3G9kFNpd/eight-incredibly-offensive-victorian-valentines

Producer: Robyn Read

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