Lisztomania!

Ricky Martin’s ‘Livin’ La Vida Loca’ was released on 23rd March, 1999 - launching the singer to worldwide superstardom, and kickstarting a Latino pop boom that propelled J-Lo, Shakira, Christina Aguilera, Enrique Iglesias and Santana into the charts. But he wasn’t an overnight su ...  Show more

The bubonic plague was blamed on witches, Jews, God’s wrath, and, on 20th March 1345, in a new theory propagated by the King of France, the rare planetary alignment between Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars in Aquarius. Of course, the real cause of the Black Death lay in the microscopic ...  Show more

Author Will Hodgkinson and actress and director Caroline Catz join Andy and John to discuss James Young's Nico: Songs They Never Play On the Radio, first published in 1992. This is the story of Nico, former model, film actress, erstwhile singer with the Velvet Underground and dar ...  Show more

Curse of the Werewolf, The Brides of Dracula, Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell – films from the height of Hammer Films’ prolific output in the late 1950s and 1960s. Many of the horrific music soundtracks, carefully calibrated to set the pulse racing, were composed by leadin ...  Show more

Mozart occupies a unique place in the history of culture, as his output of over 600 works defined the course of classical music, and remade the face of opera. Mozart’s compositions are staples of our cultural landscape, and his is a name which still, centuries later, sells out co ...  Show more

Winner of eight Academy Awards including Best Picture, Miloš Forman's masterpiece tells the story of Mozart through the envious eyes of his rival Salieri. But how did a Czech director come to make a classic Viennese tale? And what's the real story behind "too many notes"?Join Joh ...  Show more