Great Lives
Biographical series in which guests choose someone who has inspired their lives.
- Update frequency
- every 6 days
- Average duration
- 27 minutes
- Episodes
- 384
- Years Active
- 2010 - 2025
Hans Fallada
The Fast Show comedian Simon Day tells Matthew Parris why he's fascinated by the life and work of German author Hans Fallada. Matthew is also joined by Fallada's biographer Jenny Williams.
Hans Fallad…
Eduardo Paolozzi
This week's Great Life, Sir Eduardo Paolozzi, hated being tagged as the father of pop art, yet his representations of images from popular culture came almost two decades before Warhol and Lichtenstei…
Kirsty MacColl
Broadcaster Janice Long tells Matthew Parris why singer-songwriter Kirsty MacColl led a "great life" despite her tragically early death in a boating accident in Mexico in 2000.
Kirsty MacColl was a s…
Graham Greene
The Third Man, Brighton Rock, Travels With My Aunt - the books of Graham Greene all still have a definite ring. But the the man himself was an enigma. He worked both as a spy as well as a foreign cor…
Harold Pinter
Matthew Parris is joined by Diane Abbott MP and biographer and critic Michael Billington to explore the life of playwright and Nobel Laureate Harold Pinter.
His name - if you add an "esque" to it, as…
Jack Johnson
It was the fight of the century, July 4th 1910, when Tim Jeffries, the so-called Great White Hope, was stopped by Jack Johnson in the 15th round. Suddenly white supremacy didn't seem so self-assured.…
Petra Kelly
Matthew Parris presents the biographical series in which his guests choose someone who has inspired their lives. Green MP Caroline Lucas nominates German Green politician Petra Kelly. Kelly was one o…
Lewis Carroll
Writer Lynne Truss chooses the creator of Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll.
Famous for the Alice books, Carroll was also a brilliant mathematician and early photographer.
But his reputation has bee…
Kathleen Ferrier
Kathleen Ferrier was a British contralto singer who died in 1953 from breast cancer. Her professional career had lasted just 14 years but in that time she had had become an international star, singin…
Simone de Beauvoir
Actress Diana Quick tells Matthew Parris why she believes that existentialist philosopher Simone de Beauvoir lived a great life, despite living in the shadow of Jean Paul Sartre.
Simone de Beauvoir w…
Leonard Bernstein
The conductor Charles Hazlewood chooses the great American composer Leonard Bernstein, music director of the New York Philharmonic and creator of West Side Story, Wonderful Town, and Candide. The cha…
Thomas Edison
Matthew Parris presents the biographical series in which his guests choose someone who has inspired their lives. Here, Sir Clive Sinclair nominates fellow inventor Thomas Edison. Edison invented soun…
Marcus Garvey
Playwright Kwame Kwei-Armah is a passionate advocate of Marcus Garvey, the inspirational black leader of the early twentieth century. Long before Martin Luther King or Malcolm X, Marcus Garvey was tr…
Mary Stott
The writer Katharine Whitehorn chooses Mary Stott, the great campaigning journalist and the first editor of the Guardian women's page. She's the journalist who more than anyone started the revolution…
Gertrude Bell
Gertrude Bell was a British woman who arguably founded the modern state of Iraq. Explorer, mountaineer and archaeologist, this extraordinarily talented woman travelled widely across Arabia in the yea…
Aneurin Bevan
In his time, Aneurin Bevan was, according to one biographer, "the most colourful and controversial, most loved and most loathed political personality in Britain".
The founding father of the NHS is the…
Sammy Davis Jr
Lionel Blair chooses his friend and dancing partner Sammy Davis Jr. Sammy described himself as a 'one-eyed black Jew' - and he was described by others as one of the greatest all-round entertainers of…
Samuel Beckett
Business guru Sir Gerry Robinson was born in Ireland but moved to England in his teens, and he chooses Samuel Beckett, another Irishman who lived away for much of his life - in Paris. Gerry, a late c…
DH Lawrence
DH Lawrence was, in the words of Geoff Dyer, a man with thin wrists and thick trousers. He was also the author of Women in Love, Sons and Lovers and Lady Chatterley's Lover. But poet and performer Jo…
Malcolm McLaren
Matthew Parris presents the life of the great rock and roll swindler, Malcolm McLaren, who died earlier this year.
'I've been called many things,' McLaren wrote as advance publicity for his one man s…