Free Thinking
BBC RADIO 3

It must be all of 20 years since Matthew Sweet first took up residence on Radios 3 and 4, but through all that time his demeanour has remained exactly the same: the boyish enthusiasms; the learning lightly worn; the cheerful chivvying of his guests; a fascination with minutiae so intense that interviewees can sometimes be forgiven for thinking that their interlocutor knows more about their lives than they do themselves.

All this makes for a potent combination, and never more so than on the rocky terrain of Sweet’s special subject, or rather, the most special of his special subjects – film history.
Neatly timed to coincide with the Golden Globes – and sufficiently up to date to mention Meryl Streep’s rebuke of the Donald – an instalment of “Free Thinking”, La La Land and Hollywood – past and present (10 January), addressed the perennial topic of Tinseltown’s obsession with itself.