Great Lives

Catherine the Great assumed power in a St Petersburg coup, extended the empire into Crimea, Ukraine and Alaska. is Russia's longest lasting female ruler, and wasn't even Russian herself. All of this intrigues Dame Barbara Stocking, former head of Oxfam, who admires Catherine's leadership style. Biographer Virginia Rounding provides the details of her background and her lovers, and Matthew Parris presents. The producer in Bristol is Miles Warde.

Hedy Lamarr was described by her studio as the most beautiful woman in the world. A recent film, called Bombshell, argued that she was a brilliant inventor as well. But what was going on behind that wonderful face? Suzy Klein, host of the BBC Proms, tells Matthew Parris that this was an intriguing woman who continually reinvented herself. She left her native Austria before the Second World War but, despite a successful Hollywood career, what she really wanted was to be known for being clever. Recent newspaper headlines - including 'Sex Symbol by Day, Scientific Trailblazer by Night' - suggest her wishes may have finally come true. But Professor Hans-Joachim Braun isn't so sure. Film critic Antonia Quirke joins Matthew Parris in the studio to discuss a truly extraordinary life.The producer in Bristol is Miles Warde.

For soul singer Mica Paris, when she first dreamt of becoming a singer it was Josephine Baker who inspired her most. Baker was a young black American dancer who became an overnight sensation in Paris in 1925 after performing wild, uninhibited routines in the skimpiest of costumes.So can Mica Paris make the case for Baker who wore a string of bananas and little else while performing the 'banana dance? Joining presenter Matthew Parris to help tell the story of Josephine Baker is author Andrea Stuart.Producer: Perminder KhatkarFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 May 2018.

Actor Simon Callow nominates one of the giants of the golden age of Hollywood, Orson Welles. He once said of himself he 'started at the top and worked his way down' never managing to recreate the film success he had aged 26 with Citizen Kane, which he wrote, directed and starred in. Welles's friend and collaborator Henry Jaglom talks about knowing him for the last years of his life when the movie industry had turned its back on him and he was strapped for cash and looking for work.Presented by Matthew Parris. Producer: Maggie AyreFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in May 2018.

Stand up comedian and political commentator Ayesha Hazarika's hero is Jayaben Desai.Jayaben led a two year strike at Grunwick Film processing factory in North London. The majority of the workers were migrant women and they became known as the 'strikers in sarees'. Matthew Parris remembers the strike in 1976 as he was working in Margaret Thatcher's office at the time, but only recalls the violence at the picket line and the fact that the strike failed.Can Ayesha convince Matthew Parris that Jayaben Desai deserves the accolade of a great life?With Dr Sundari Anitha, co- author of 'Striking Women'. Producer: Perminder KhatkarFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 2018.

Richard Feynman was a physicist who helped design the atomic bomb and won the Nobel Prize. He is the great life choice of businessman Tej Lalvani CEO of his family business Vitabiotics and the newest Dragon on the BBC show Dragon's Den. Feynman was also regarded as something of an eccentric and a free spirit who had a passion for playing the bongos. Helping to make the case for this great life Tej is joined by the expert witness David Berman, Professor of Theoretical Physics at Queen Mary University of London. Presenter: Matthew Parris Producer: Perminder KhatkarFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2018.

Professor of Nursing, Laura Serrant, chooses the life of the black, gay poet and activist Audre Lorde who still inspires the women's movement today. She tells Matthew Parris why Audre has meant so much to her both personally and professionally. Professor Akwugo Emejulu of Warwick University is the expert witness.Presented by Matthew Parris. Producer: Maggie AyreFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 2018.

Miles Davis - trumpeter, composer, bandleader - is championed by Adrian Utley of Portishead."He's always been really important in my life, right from early on when my dad used to play him. It was part of the atmosphere of our house."From the early years with Charlie Parker via Kind of Blue to playing in front of 600,000 hippies on the Isle of Wight, Miles Davis was a musician who never stood still. "Always listen for what you can leave out," he used to say.Portishead's seminal 1990s album Dummy seems to have taken advice from the man. As Adrian Utley explains to presenter Matthew Parris: "The darkness and the sense of space is the thing that I have assimilated from Miles ... he's in my DNA."With Richard Williams, author of The Blue Moment: Miles Davis's Kind of Blue and the Remaking of Modern Music.Producer: Miles WardeFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 2018.

Comedian, actor and artist Jim Moir aka Vic Reeves chooses the life of Don van Vliet - the Dadesque musician and painter Captain Beefheart who has influenced many musicians since the 1960s. Jim joins Matthew Parris to discuss the bizarre and complex persona developed by the Californian eccentric who died from MS in 2010.With Beefheart's biographer, Mike Barnes. Producer: Maggie AyreFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2018.

Gisela Stuart, former MP for Birmingham Edgbaston champions Joseph Chamberlain to be nominated as her great life.But can she really make the case for this former industrialist who made it to the cabinet, but had a knack for splitting political parties and switching allegiances? Jo Chamberlain was first a Liberal then a Liberal Unionist and finally formed an alliance with the Conservative party but fell out with them too. Gisela argues he was a man who wasn't afraid to take action, a radical who shouldn't simply be remembered for his failures but as "the man who made the weather" and for making Birmingham the best governed city in the world.The expert witness is Peter Marsh, Honorary Professor of History at the University of Birmingham and author of 'Joseph Chamberlain, Entrepreneur in Politics.' Presented by Matthew Parris. Producer: Perminder Khatkar.First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 2018.

Actor and broadcaster Liza Tarbuck chooses the extraordinary life of the Serbian-American scientist, Nikola Tesla.Nikola founded the Tesla Electric Light Company and was responsible for the introduction of the AC current in America - seeing off competition from his rival and former hero, Thomas Edison. Liza explains to Matthew Parris how his inventions were ahead of their time. Despite the fortunes and misfortunes of this brilliant and eccentric man, he died virtually penniless in a hotel room in New York. With the help of Professor Iwan Morus from Aberystwyth University.Producer: Maggie AyreFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 2018.

Herodotus - father of history or father of lies? Matthew Parris introduces a sparky discussion about a writer whose achievements include a nine book account of a war between east and west - the Persian invasions of Greece. Justin Marozzi proposes him not just as an historian, but as geographer, explorer, correspondent, the world's first travel writer, and an irrepressible story teller to boot. Backing him up is Professor Edith Hall, who sees Herodotus as the author of a magnificent work of prose. But Matthew Parris wrestles with whether he was historian or hack.* Justin Marozzi is the author of the award winning Baghdad: City of Peace, City of Blood. * Edith Hall is Professor in the Centre for Hellenic Studies at King's College London.Herodotus of Halicarnassus - modern day Bodrum in Turkey - wrote about Croesus, Darius, Xerxes and Leonidas, plus the battles of Marathon, Thermopylae and Pl ataea. His books also embrace much of the rest of the known world.Producer: Miles WardeFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 i

Helen Arney is a self-confessed science nerd, stand-up entertainer, and once nicknamed a "geek songstress". Matthew Parris discovers why she's chosen Hertha Ayrton (1854-1923), the pioneering Victorian physicist, inventor and suffragette, as her great life. Ayrton was the first woman to be admitted into membership of what is today known as the IET, the Institution of Engineering and Technology. Their archivist Anne Locker knows Ayrton's life and works and fields questions from Matthew and Helen. They discuss how Hertha overcame considerable obstacles to be the first woman who was proposed for the fellowship of the Royal Society. Her candidature was refused on the grounds that as a married woman she had no legal existence in British law. This did not stop her from patenting over 20 of her inventions, which included a large electric fan designed to disperse mustard gas from the Trenches during the First World War. Fascinated by electricity, her achievements also ranged across mathematics and physics. Hertha's f

Former Chief Crown Prosecutor for North West England Nazir Afzal was responsible for convicting the men who sexually abused young girls in Rochdale.Matthew Parris invites him to nominate a great life. He's chosen Mahatma Gandhi, also a lawyer, whom he says inspired him to speak out on behalf of those who were marginalised and ignored by the rest of society.Producer: Maggie AyreFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2017.

On a field outside Dublin, Daniel O'Connell met and shot a former royal marine in a duel.John d'Esterre had been outraged when O'Connell, the later hero of Catholic emancipation, described the mainly Protestant Dublin corporation as a 'beggarly corporation'. O'Connell later claimed that he had practised with two pistols every week, knowing that one day he would be challenged to a duel.Nominating O'Connell is the vice chancellor of Oxford and terrorism expert Louise Richardson. It's not the violence of the duel that appeals, but O'Connell's revolutionary way of marshalling huge support for his causes, which were always conducted in a remarkably non-violent way. "The altar of liberty totters when it is cemented only with blood," O'Connell said. He took his seat in Westminster in 1830 and thereafter fought for the abolition of slavery and the repeal of the union, a cause in which he failed. Patrick Geoghegan, O'Connell's biographer and special advisor to the new Irish prime minister, adds the colour to a truly e

Marcel Duchamp - the father of conceptual art, and responsible for that famously provocative urinal signed 'R Mutt, 1917' - is the great life choice of fellow artist Cornelia Parker.She explains to Matthew Parris why he's influenced not only her work but that of so many other artists since his death in 1968. As an art student in the 1970s she recalls the attraction of Duchamp's 'readymades', such as a bicycle wheel or suspended wine bottle rack - manufactured items that the artist selected and modified, antidotes to what he dismissed as conventional 'retinal art'.They are joined by Dawn Ades, Professor of the History of Art at the Royal Academy. She recalls an occasion when she saw him completely absorbed in a game of chess in a café in the Spanish seaside town of Cadaqués, whilst visiting Salvador Dali. They also discuss Duchamp's intriguing female alter ego, Rrose Selavy (Eros, c'est la vie or "physical love is the life") Man Ray's photographs of whom featured in some Surrealist exhibitions.We hear how D

Goldfrapp's Will Gregory is centre-stage at the Colston Hall in Bristol to tell Matthew Parris why he feels a kinship with Flann O'Brien.The Irish writer's books 'At Swim-Two-Birds' and 'The Third Policeman' are now hailed as literary masterpieces, but only came to prominence after the author's death. Carol Taaffe, who has written about Flann, helps make sense of the man who wrote under three pseudonyms - Brian O'Nolan, Flann O'Brien, and Myles na gCopaleen. They look more closely at the novels and newspaper column he wrote alongside his job in the Civil Service, whilst maintaining a steady presence in Dublin's pubs. Will reads extracts he believes illustrate the brilliance with which O'Brien slips between realism and surrealism, and Carol sheds light on who said that 'At Swim-Two-Birds' "....was just the book to give your Sister if she's a loud dirty boozy girl." Producer: Toby FieldFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2017.

City boss Dame Helena Morrissey champions the life of Rachael Heyhoe Flint, the pioneer of women's cricket.Regarded as a ground breaker, Baroness Heyhoe Flint ruffled feathers and shook up a male dominated sport.Helena Morrissey makes the case for why Heyhoe Flint is a great life.With Matthew Parris and Dr Raf Nicholson who teaches history at Queen Mary University of London and is a writer on the women's gameDame Helen has also made it to the top of her career in a male dominated word of the City. She is founder of the 30% Club, a campaign group whose aim is to get a minimum of 30% women on FTSE-100 boards. Now working as Head of Personal Investing with Legal and General Investment Management. Producer: Perminder KhatkarFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September 2017.

Constance Markievicz led an amazing life - a leading figure during the Easter Rising of 1916, she was the first woman elected to Parliament though she never took her seat.Markievicz was born into a wealthy Anglo-Irish family and gained her exotic surname from marriage to a Polish count. She was adventurous, flamboyant, committed to woman's rights, court-martialled and nearly shot. Nominating her is Andrea Catherwood, ex-ITN correspondent who made her first documentary for BBC Radio 4. Presented by Matthew Parris.With Lindie Naughton, author of Markievicz - A Most Outrageous Rebel. Producer: Miles WardeFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September 2017.

Nicholas Stern is IG Patel Professor of Economics and Government at the London School of Economics, among other positions, and former Chief Economist at the World Bank. He is also a massive boxing fan and chooses the life of Muhammad Ali to explore with Matthew Parris and sports journalist and boxing commentator Ronald McIntosh. Not only does Stern admire Ali's prowess in the ring, but more so his fearless stance against the Vietnam War which cost him dearly both personally and professionally.Ali's humanitarian work in later life has also been a huge source of inspiration to him.Producer: Maggie AyreFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September 2017.