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Eccentrics & Outsiders

Leading thinkers discuss the ideas shaping our lives - looking back at the news and making links between past and present.

How has the figure of the outsider or eccentric has been used to explore English culture, history, politics, and our relationship with nature and the countryside? Matthew Sweet discusses, including a re-reading of Sylvia Townsend Warner's 1926 novel Lolly Willowes, in which a middle aged woman leaves her suburban life behind to become a witch. With literary historian Jade Munslow Ong and political philosopher Sophie Scott Brown
Producer: Luke Mulhall

Release date:

57 minutes

On radio

Fri 19 Jun 2026 21:00

Broadcast

  • Fri 19 Jun 2026 21:00

The Arts & Ideas Podcast

The Arts & Ideas Podcast

You can download all the past episodes of Radio 3's Free Thinking

Discussions and talks from the Free Thinking Festival 2019

Discussions and talks from the Free Thinking Festival 2019

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Click to listen to discussions, talks and music as the Free Thinking Festival 2019 Gets Emotional

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