Free Thinking

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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: Essex

Essex

BBC Radio 4 - Free Thinking, Essex

Looking beyond the stereotypes of the county that's often described as 'much maligned'.

Looking beyond the stereotypes of the county that's often described as 'much maligned', Matthew Sweet is joined by guests including Simon Heffer who first wrote about 'Essex Man'.

Thanks in part  to the birth of those enduring caricatures - Essex Man and Essex Girl - in the 1990s, this is a county that has struggled to break free from a whole raft of stereotypes and assumptions.  Matthew Sweet and his guests - all Essex residents - are here to present a more nuanced, complicated and historically rich vision of this woefully misunderstood part of England.  

Tim Burrows has written The Invention of Essex: The Making of an English County.

Elsa James is an artist whose work includes the Forgotten Black Essex project.

Simon Heffer is a historian and journalist who first coined the term 'Essex Man'.

Dan Taylor is a New Generation Thinker.  He lectures in Social and Political Thought at the Open University and his most recent research has taken him along the route of the A13, from east London to Southend-on-Sea.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Composer William Byrd has strong Essex connections - and you can hear his music daily on Essential Classics between 9am and 12 as part of Radio 3's Byrd spotting series to mark the anniversary of his birth in July 1623.

In the Free Thinking archives, you can find Matthew Sweet talking to Essex born author Sarah Perry in conversations about spookiness and fear and her book The Essex Serpent https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0000kk2 and a Covid conversation about Melmoth the Wanderer https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000jgcs

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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