Great Lives Folgen

Writer Jonathan Meades nominates the English artist Edward Burra, who died in 1976, for "great life" status, arguing that he deserves to be better known. Burra painted sailors, drinkers and prostitutes in Toulon; jazz musicians in Harlem; surreal wartime pictures of soldiers in terrifying bird masks; and, in his later years, landscapes in which anthropomorphic and malevolent machines bite chunks out of the countryside. Disabled with rheumatoid arthritis from an early age, Burra barely went to school and so escaped the Edwardian upper class upbringing that would otherwise have been his destiny. At once camp yet apparently celibate, Burra was intensely private and disliked talking about either himself or art - or, as he called it, "fart". Matthew Parris chairs the discussion, and is joined by Burra's biographer Jane Stevenson. Producer: Jolyon JenkinsFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2014.

Michael Palin first came across his Great Life when he was studying for school exams, and his love of Ernest Hemingway has never gone away. He, along with expert Naomi Wood, tells Matthew Parris why this twentieth century legend is a Great Life.Producer: Perminder Khatkar.

Countryfile presenter John Craven proposes Victorian Engineer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, as a great life. He's joined by engineering historian Julia Elton and presenter Matthew Parris.And where better to discuss Brunel's achievements than by the harbour in Bristol in the shadow of his magnificent steam ship the SS Great Britain. But should his creator of great machines himself be considered a great man or is finest achievement the engineering of his own reputation?Recorded at the Food Connections Festival in Bristol.First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2014.