Free Thinking
Free Thinking
BBC Radio 4
Eccentrics & Outsiders
56 minutes Posted Jun 19, 2026 at 8:00 pm.
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Show notes

How has the figure of the outsider or eccentric been used to explore English culture, history, politics, and our relationship with nature and the countryside? Matthew Sweet discusses, including a re-reading of Sylvia Townsend Warner's 1926 novel Lolly Willowes, in which a middle aged woman leaves her suburban life behind to become a witch. With philosopher Charles Foster, literary historian Jade Munslow Ong, political philosopher Sophie Scott Brown, and psychotherapist Mark Vernon.

Producer: Luke Mulhall