Great Lives Folgen

Director Jonathan Kent was friends with Patricia Highsmith. He'd been playing Tom Ripley for a tv show, and staying in the hotel suite next door to her. She took a shine to him. Now he repays the debt with this revealing and intriguing programme to celebrate a hundred years since her birth in 1921. Although best known for the Ripley books, she first broke through with Alfred Hitchcock's film adaptation of her novel, Strangers on a Train. She was, says Kent, not so interested in murder as in what happens to a character after the crime is done. "I read sometimes how odd she was - I didn't find her odd at all. She was shy, very shy. She had a fringe, a sort of hank of hair that would fall over her eyes and I would catch her sneaking looks at me. But there was nothing odd about her. Perhaps my standards of oddness are different." Jonathan KentThe programme features extensive archive of Highsmith, plus the film director Anthony Minghella; at least one other Tom Ripley actor; and her award winning biographer, Andrew Wilson, who has a few Highsmithian novels on the way. This is the first in a new series which also features the African novelist, Chinua Achebe; the Plantagenet king Edward III; and the British entertainer Kenny Lynch.The presenter is Matthew Parris, the producer is Miles Warde.

In 1960s California, Mexican-American Civil Rights Leader, Cesar Chavez led the United Farmworkers union in a series of strikes, boycotts and semi-religious processions, which inspired farmworkers, students and celebrities to join him in what he called 'La Causa' 'The Cause' was his struggle to force the landowners and growers - and the system in which they operated - to recognise farmworkers as human beings who deserved dignity, respect and basic rights. Senator Robert F Kennedy was a fan, describing him as a "heroic figure". Joan Baez sang at his rallies. Years later, President Obama stole his slogan and opened a national monument to his memory. And yet he is little known internationally or even outside latino communities in the US. The lawyer and founder of Foxglove, Cori Crider, tells Mathew Parris why she is inspired by his legacy and why the lessons from his life are needed now more than ever.Matthew and Cori are joined by Miriam Pawel, the author of The Crusades of Cesar Chavez. Clips of Eliseo Medina were taken from an interview conducted by the producer.Producer: Ellie Richold

Actor Caroline Catz chooses Delia Derbyshire, the musician and composer best known for her work at the BBC Radiophonic Workshop where she realised the TV theme tune to Doctor Who.Presented by Matthew Parris.With Dr David Butler from the University of Manchester who looks after Delia's archive.Delia was born in Coventry in 1937 and describes her earliest recollections of sound as the sound of the German blitz and the air-raid sirens. She studied music and maths at Cambridge and joined the BBC Radiophonic Workshop where she could create sounds that had never existed in the world before.Her 'realisation' of Ron Grainer's theme tune to Doctor Who brought both her and the Workshop to greater prominence, but she later left the BBC and London and moved to Cumbria where she worked on a series of projects, as well as being briefly employed as a radio operator at the Gas Board.She was a pioneer of sound and her work is celebrated each year by Delia Derbyshire Day.Caroline was terrified by the Doctor Who theme tune as a child but fascinated by the woman, and later discovered tracks like 'Ziwzih Ziwzih OO-OO-OO' and 'Blue Veils and Golden Sands' from Radiophonic Workshop mix tapes.The discovery of 267 tapes in Delia's attic provided another portal into the extraordinary sonic world of Psyche-Delia and the mystery surrounding both how she created her music and the choices she made in life provided the inspiration for Caroline's film 'Delia Derbyshire: The Myths and the Legendary Tapes' in which she plays the lead.Delia appears in archive recordings to give Matthew his first taste of a Wobbulator.Producer: Toby FieldFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 2021.