Great Lives

HE Bates is probably best known for the Darling Buds of May and Fair Stood the Wind for France, but Alistair McGowan is surprised that he is not known for his short stories, which he believes are the best ever written. "To me it's a minor literary tragedy that he is so little known and so little trumpeted."
Joining him in studio is HE Bates' granddaughter, Vicky Wicks; and from South Africa his son, Richard Bates who was executive producer of the wildly successful tv adaptations of the Darling Buds of May starring David Jason. The programme also includes Bates own voice plus an extract from Fair Stood the Wind for France, his second world war novel about a British plane that crash lands in German occupied France.
Produced in Bristol for BBC Studios by Miles Warde

She influenced Elvis, Johnny Cash, Churck Berry, Little Richard and host of British blues acts of the 1960s. Sister Rosetta Tharpe, with her Gibson SG and wondrous voice, was a pioneer, and she's been nominated for Great Lives by Beverley Knight, singing star turned west end actress. The programme also features the great Joe Boyd, who was tour manager of the Blues and Gospel Caravan that came to Britain in 1964 with Sister Rosetta and Muddy Waters too. This is a show you have to hear.
Also features archive of Little Richard, Dionne Warwick, and Sister Rosetta's biographer Gayle Wald, author of Shout, Sister, Shout!
Beverley Knight's hits include Shoulda Coulda Woulda and she won an Olivier award for her role as Emmeline Pankhurts in Sylvia at the Old Vic in London; she is currently appearing in Marie and Rosetta in the West End. The presenter is Matthew Parris, the producer Miles Warde.
Future guests on the series include Alistair McGowan, Coco Khan, Ade Edmondson and Count Binface who has picked Peter Cook.

Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa was a Roman general best known for his military victories, but he also helped rebuild Rome, providing aqueducts, statues and the original Pantheon. Nominating him is Dr Daisy Dunn, author of The Missing Thread, who dubs him ancient Rome's king of cement. Joining her is Dr Shushma Malik from Cambridge University who throws light on the man who won the battle of Actium and was for many years second in command to the emperor Augustus.
The programme is presented by historian Helen Carr and was produced in Bristol by Miles Warde.

Matthew Parris invites a fellow Radio 4 presenter into the studio to nominate a Great Life. Dr Sian Williams, who as well as a broadcaster is a counselling psychologist chooses Anna Freud, daughter of Sigmund and considered by many to be the founder of psychoanalytic child psychology.
Anna Freud was born in Vienna in 1895, the youngest child of Sigmund Freud and Martha Bernays. She was brought up in a city alive with pioneering culture and with a father at the forefront of new work in psychoanalysis. Although the youngest of the family, Anna had a close relationship with her father, sitting in on his psychoanalysis meetings from a young age before the conservative limitations of the time lead her into teaching. After the trauma of the 1st World War she started a nursery in VIenna that sought to help the young children of the poorest members of society. With the Anschluss of Austria in 1938 she was arrested by the Gestapo but freed. It was enough to persuade her father, who was dying of cancer, to take the family out of the country. They settled in London but Sigmund died soon after.
With the onset of war, and in a completely new environment, Anna rekindled her work with the launch of the Hampstead Nurseries. Again the aim was to provide support and help for very young children who's parents had either been killed or were away in the armed forces. The nurseries pioneered a supportive, observational system, giving children the space to express themselves in play and without the threat of punishment.
Her reputation survives her in the form of the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families.
Matthew and Sian are joined by Nick Midgley, Professor of Psychological Therapies for Children and Young People in the Research Department of Clinical, Educational, and Health Psychology at University College London as well as working at Anna Freud.
Producer; Tom Alban

Matthew Paris is joined by the pianist and broadcaster Keelan Carew, who nominates the Great Life of the early 20th century composer Nicolai Medtner.
It’s often the case that in a world of strong contenders, there are 'Great Lives' hidden by the scale and success of their contemporaries. That’s certainly a case that can be made in the case of Nicolai Medtner. Born towards the end of the 19th century in Moscow he followed in the immediate footsteps of Sergei Rachmaninov who would state later in life that 'in my opinion, [Medtner] was the greatest composer of our time.' Many have begged to differ since, but Medtner's was undoubtedly an extraordinary life and he has a particular hold over pianists stretching back over the last hundred years. After the Russian revolution Rachmaninov himself would help and support Medtner as he tried to establish himself in the west. However, where Rachmaninov acceded to the requests made of him, Medtner was fiercely conservative in his tastes at a time when modernism held sway in Europe.
To help tell his story Matthew and Keelan are joined by pianist and composer, Francis Pott, another Medtner enthusiast who has explored a life that took Nicolai from pre-revolutionary Russia to a house in north London where he eventually settled in the 1930s. His reputation and output might have languished were it not for the support of the Maharajah of Mysore, who founded the Medtner society and funded the recording of many of Medtner's works including his piano concertos and songs, the former played by the now elderly composer.
As well as the music, illustrated from the keyboard by Keelan himself, Nicolai's personal life involved marrying the wife of his brother. The three lived together for many years. We also hear from the last person who knew Medtner and recalls taking the composer on countryside trips in the 1950s where he loved nothing better than to sit by the river Thames eating ice-cream.
Producer: Tom Alban