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Press Releases
Phil Redmond, Tim Smit and Alan Bleasdale join Radio 3's Free Thinking line-up
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Professor Phil Redmond, founder of Mersey TV, television writer and producer, is to deliver the opening lecture at
³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Radio 3's festival of ideas, Free Thinking, which takes place between Friday 9 and Sunday 11 November 2007.
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Held in association with ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Radio Merseyside, Free Thinking 07 returns to Liverpool for the second year running for a weekend of debate, conversation, film and performance, with over 30 events taking place.
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Freedom is a major theme at this year's festival, but there are a host of other issues for audiences to tackle throughout the weekend including equality, childhood, education and the state of the arts.
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Phil Redmond, one of Liverpool's leading voices on the city's creative, media and technological future, was recently appointed deputy chairman of the Liverpool Culture Company, responsible for delivering the cultural programme for Liverpool, European City of Culture 2008.
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He launches Free Thinking 07 with a personal and wide-ranging exploration of the competing political and cultural forces redefining our personal identities: "Whose Identity Is It Anyway?"
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Tim Smit, co-founder and Chief Executive of the multi-award-winning Eden Project, joins the Free Thinking line-up delivering a speech on "Inspiration In Education", maintaining that only bold thinking will tackle Britain's education needs.
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Chief Constable of Merseyside Police, Bernard Hogan-Howe, joins Tony Blair's former aide, Philip Collins, and Justice Albie Sachs, from South Africa's Constitutional Court, in a public debate to consider, "Are We Freer Than We Think?"
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John Zarnecki, Professor of Space Science at the Open University, draws on over 30 years experience of space missions in an attempt to answer, "Space: Why Are We There?"
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Other speakers already announced include Oscar-nominated film director, Mike Figgis; Chief Inspector of Prisons, Anne Owers; award-winning dancer and choreographer Siobhan Davies; and Peter Butler, the surgeon due to perform Britain's first face transplant.
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Also joining the festival bill is acclaimed television dramatist Alan Bleasdale.
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One of the most influential television writers of the last 30 years, Alan Bleasdale joins a roundtable of guests for a special Night Waves Landmarks re-assessing one of his most important and memorable dramas – Boys From The Black Stuff – 25 years since its first broadcast.
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The festival actively invites audience participation:
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- Speed Dating With A Thinker returns with Liverpudlian experts trying to seduce members of the public with their ideas in face-to-ace encounters;
- Liverpool's pioneering group Philosophy In Pubs joins the festival, taking the discussions out of the debating chambers and into the bar;
- Books At Breakfast is the festival's very own book club with writer and psychoanalyst Adam Phillips;
- and artist Jean Grant leads a guided walk through the stories of Liverpool's past – Freedom Of The City looks below the city's modern surfaces to discover the forgotten characters who shaped city's history.
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Performance features strongly throughout the festival schedule, including a new play, Yesterday An Incident Occurred, by Mark Ravenhill, and three short plays specially commissioned for the festival, in which the writers dissect our contemporary experience of freedom.
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There will also be live recordings of Radio 3's The Verb, with a host of Liverpool writers celebrating new writing and the spoken word, including Paul Farley and Eleanor Rees, and Words And Music, in its first venture outside the studio.
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Liverpool's Ensemble 10/10, singer Jennifer John and saxophonist Tim Whitehead join Radio 3 New Generation Artist Gwilym Simcoc at the piano performing a wide-range of music accompanied by readings from actors, including Cathy Tyson, for a special evening of live music and poetry inspired by freedom.
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Other events throughout the weekend include:
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- Free Thinking Film, three international classics shown over the weekend reflecting the festival's key themes, freedom, equality and childhood;
- a student debate, featuring NUS President Gemma Tumelty and Shameless actress Gillian Kearney, questioning the value of university education;
- and ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ Big Screen Liverpool in Clayton Square, featuring a series of films, videos and interactive from artists working in response to the huge expansion of CCTV in Liverpool and around the theme of freedom.
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For the full festival programme, broadcast information and details of how to get involved in Free Thinking visit bbc.co.uk/freethinking.
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Free Thinking will be held at FACT (Foundation for Arts and Creative Technology), Radio Merseyside's performance space and the recently refurbished Small Concert Room at St George's Hall.
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The festival will be recorded for broadcast on Radio 3 and Radio Merseyside.
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An evening of programmes will be broadcast on Radio 3 on Sunday 11 November, followed by a week of special programmes every night.
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All the broadcasts will be available to listen again online at bbc.co.uk/radio3.
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