Month: November 2013

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Start the Week - Gandhi’s Early Years

Bridget Kendall looks back at the formative years of Gandhi with the historian Ramachandra Guha and opera director Phelim McDermott. At the turn of the twentieth century Gandhi spent more than twenty years in South Africa and England: Guha argues that these early experiences shaped his future ideas, while McDermott stages Gandhi's spiritual progress towards nonviolent protest in his production of the opera Satyagraha. Gandhi returned to India just after the outbreak of the First World War and the international historian David Reynolds looks at the legacy of the Great War, and its impact on the decision-makers of the future. The Editor of Prospect Magazine, Bronwen Maddox, explores its legacy.

Producer: Katy Hickman.

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More or Less: Behind the Stats - WS MoreOrLess: Sachin Tendulkar – best batsman of all time?

Sachin Ramesh Tendulkar has amassed 15,847 test runs, which is 2,500 more runs than any other batsman. But other ways have been devised to calculate cricketing greatness and the Little Master, as he has become known, does not feature as prominently in a lot of them. More or Less crunches the numbers. This programme was first broadcast on the BBC World Service.

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Start the Week - Andrew Marr on poet George Herbert

Andrew Marr returns to Start the Week for a special programme on the early 17th century poet George Herbert. His English poetry was never published in his lifetime, but he hoped it would act as consolation 'of any dejected poor soul', and his latest biographer John Drury argues that with its focus on love over theology, his poetry still speaks to and for modern readers. The composer Sir John Tavener and the writer Jeanette Winterson discuss prayer in a secular age, and the power of music and words to soothe the soul.

This programme was recorded before the sad announcement of Sir John Tavener's death.

Producer: Katy Hickman.