The Culture File Weekly No. 93 (Desperate Optimists, Harry Christophers & The Sixteen, old school Intersectionality, and Peter Hook)

This weekly, we take a walk through London Fields with Desperate Optimists, plus Harry Christophers on why The Sixteen are quite like the Rolling Stones, Maureen O'Connor on animal rights in the fight for human freedom and Peter Hook on the ostensibly inadvisable job of reworking acid house anthems in a classical style

Culture File: Animal Rights & Human Freedoms

Maureen O'Connor on animal rights in the fight for human freedom

Culture File: How Not to Tell The Story of Ambrose O'Higgins

Desperate Optimists, Christine Molloy and Joe Lawlor, on truth, lies and documentary making

Culture File: Are You On One?

A seamless setlist of rave bangers played by full orchestra? Got just the right thing for you, Hacienda Classical

Culture File: It's Only Baroque 'n' Renaissance Polyphony (But I Like It)

At first, similarities between The Rolling Stones and the choral magic of The Sixteen are not completely obvious

Culture File: Wolves in the Octagon

Sculpture, Catherine Greene creates new work for the oldest purpose-built exhibition gallery in these islands

Culture File: How important is the label in art?

Curator, Louise Foott, on who is in and who is out of the art world, and who gets to decide

The Culture File Weekly no 92 (Ryan Estep, Organ Reframed, Claire Singer, Irene Buckley, Spire, Philip Jeck)

We get experimental this weekly as we attempt to tour a Dublin exhibition of artist, Ryan Estep, with its creator, while he remains on the other side of the Atlantic. Then we'll spend some time in the flickering half-light of Union Chapel, where the inaugural Organ Reframed festival, curated by chapel organist, Claire Singer, has been taking place

Culture File: A Knowing Space

Around the stairwell at Union Chapel, sound artist Bill Thompson has wired a flock of salvaged organ pipes

Culture File: A Dating Agency for Organs

Hooking up a roster of experimental musicians with some of the world's great pipe organs is the aim of Spire

Culture File: A Dating Agency for Organs (Organ Reframed 2)

Organising hook ups for a roster of experimental musicians with some of the world's greatest pipe organs is the business of Spire. The latest Spire took place as part of Union Chapel's Organ Reframed festival.

Culture File: A Knowing Space (Organ Reframed 3)

Around the stairwell at Union Chapel, Islington, sound artist, Bill Thompson has wired a flock of salvaged organ pipes to create a ringing, resonant installation at this year's Organ Reframed festival.

Culture File: The Organ gets Reframed at Union Chapel

Organ Reframed is a three-day festival of contemporary music and sound, for and about the organ

Culture File: Ryan Estep's New Tools

Invoking the shaky magic of the internet, we tour Ryan Estep's latest Dublin show in the artist's company

Culture File: Love after Death at FutureFest

The artists, techies, Instagram deities and purveyors of grasshopper power bars consider death at Futurefest 2016

The Culture File Weekly No 81 (FutureFest 2016)

This weekly, we join the crowds at FutureFest in London's Tobacco Dock, meet the Swede who runs chip insertion parties, look at the future of death, say hi to computer games "story paramedic" Rhianna Pratchett and of course, we'll walk the corridors of FutureFest, listening to the calls of the future barkers boosting their future wares

Culture File: Futurefest 3 "Chipping for Freedom"

Can inserting microchips in our own bodies be a resistance strategy?

Culture File: FutureFest 2

Narrative designer / story paramedic, Rhianna Pratchett, on the growing sophistication of storytelling in gaming

Culture File: At FutureFest 2016

Play future games, get chipped, die and scoff sci-fi ice-cream at the FutureFest, the funfair of "what's next?"

Culture File: Ali White's Timeless Tunes

Belfast-born Ali White is the latest in a growing line of actors to make their jazz debuts thanks to Shakespeare

Culture File: SP McCardle's Magical Travel Fiction

Spotting a gap in the market or inventing a genre? SP McCardle on developing a franchise of magical travel books

The Culture File Weekly No 90 (Paul Kelly's fishing trips, Japanese Ink, Yair Neuman, SP McCardle)

This weekly, we meet a designer who is using the skills of Stoke-on-Trent in the service of personal audio; author and publisher, SP McCardle explains the art of getting words on the page; Brian Ashcraft wanders in the world of Japanese tattoos; and we visit the secret hideaway of Paul Kelly and his gang. Or band, as they prefer to be known

The Culture File Weekly no 89 (Grandbrothers, Aisling Kelliher's "computational thinking")

This weekly, we visit Amsterdam to share the secrets of time and space with ceramist, Deirdre McLoughlin; set about a grand piano alongside Germany's Grandbrothers; Prof Aisling Kelliher offers some coaching on "computational thinking" and we get woke with French activist, Maria Canabal, who is struggling for equality in the food world

Culture File: Japanese Ink

While Japan has an ancient tattooing tradition, getting inked is often seen as backward, shameful, even criminal

Culture File: How Irish literature stopped worrying and love the bog

How bogs shaped Irish writing, from Bram Stoker to Marina Carr, Deirdre Kinahan - and of course, Seamus Heaney

Culture File: Paul Kelly's Ancient Rain

Some call him the Australian Springsteen, but in reality, the songwriting troubadour is the world's Paul Kelly

Culture File: Josiah Wedgwood in the Age of Bluetooth

How designer, Yair Neuman, is firing up Stoke-on-Trent's great ceramic tradition with...a china bluetooth speaker

Culture File: The underground scene at 10-Z

A former nuclear shelter buried deep beneath a 14th century castle in Moravia gets reopens - as a hotel

Culture File: Deirdre McLoughlin's Amsterdam

Eleanor Flegg goes to Amsterdam in search of the magical transformations of ceramist, Deirdre McLoughlin

Culture File: Equality in the Kitchen

Food activist, Maria Canabal, is fighting for a rethink of the human side of the restaurant and its kitchen

Culture File Xtra: Computational Thinking At Length

The XXL version of our conversation with Prof. Aisling Kelliher on "computational thinking". Will it be a fundamental skill used by everyone by the middle of the 21st century?

Culture File: Culture Night Ambassador, Ronan O'Snodaigh

Culture Night ambassador, Ronan O'Snodaigh, on the magical mystery tour that is Culture Night

Culture File: Aisling Kelliher on the future of thinking

Computational thinking will be a fundamental skill used by everyone. Discuss. With help from Prof. Aisling Kelliher

Culture File: Grandbrothers

Grandbrothers features one piano and two musicians who "play" it at the same time - but only one touches the keys

Culture File: Steve Cooney's harp sounds

Why 17th century Irish harp music maybe sounds better on the guitar, with genre busting musician, Steve Cooney

Culture File: Ester Havlová's Fragments

Straddling Wenceslas and Merrion Squares, with a new exhibition by Czech architectural photographer, Ester Havlová

Culture File: The Recession Percussion

New uses for milk frothers, jam jars, velcro and car spares with percussionist extraordinaire, Alex Petcu

Culture File: Lucan House

Through the parlours and salon of Lucan House, with Italian Ambassador and resident, Giovanni Adorni Braccesi

Culture File: Telmo Pievani on Earth's ongoing sixth Mass Extinction (part 2 of 2)

Prof Pievani on the place where biology, philosophy and the future of life on Earth touch.

The Culture File Weekly No. 87 (Telmo Pievani, samba autopsy, the San Patricios Battalion and Daniel O'Connell)

This weekly, Telmo Pievani, Italy's first chair in the Philosophy of Biological Sciences has some suggestion for saving planet earth, Swedish-Brazilian duo, Magnus Lindgren/Nelson Faria perform a samba autopsy, painter-cum-war artist, John Ratajkowski follows the San Patricios Battalion and we (monster) meet a new graphic life of Daniel O'Connell.

Culture File: Telmo Pievani on ethics, evolution...and music (part 1 of 2)

Italy's first chair in the Philosophy of Biological Sciences on how music evolved and homo sapiens remade the planet

Culture File: Anatomy of a Samba

Swedish-Brazilian sax-guitar duo, Magnus Lindgren and Nelson Faria, cut open one of their compositions

Culture File: Ratajkowski's San Patricios

Images by Mathew Brady and other early war photographers find their way into the work of the San Diego artist.

Culture File: Daniel O'Connell

A history book published in 2016? Not about 1916? Jody Moylan courageously turns his attention to Daniel O'Connell

The Culture File Weekly No 86 (Tom McCarthy Pret A Manger Special)

In the winter of 2014 Culture File went to meet Tom McCarthy. It took place in a branch of the sandwich chain, Pret A Manger. Pret, the Booker-prize nominated author suggested, was an emblematic London non-place - an ideal unlocation in which to discuss contemporary London, the art of Hergé and Cocteau and the palatability of Pret salads

The Culture File Weekly No 85 (LA Stories)

Luke Clancy sets "pickup location", hits "Tap and Ride" and takes an Uber through Los Angeles, meeting magic shows and exhibitions, graveyards and beaches, perfumes and butterflies - and of course, lots of Uber drivers.

The Culture File Weekly No 84 (Truffling Special)

Dublin-based restaurateur, Giorgio Casari guides us through the foothills around the Northern Italian town of Alba, where each year the Truffle Festival draws thousands of fans of the white fungus.

The Culture File Weekly - August 2016 Promo

Feel all the colours, with the weekliest show of culture and creativity, The Culture File Weekly. Saturdays, 6.30pm, @RTElyricfm

The Culture File Weekly No 83 (Billy Elliot Summer Special)

Jon Finn, a producer and instigator of Billy Elliot, on the struggle to turn a tale of ballet and British politics into a globally successful musical.

Culture File: The best uses of "yes" and "no" with composer, Neil Martin (part 2)

.@KilkennyArts composer, Neil Martin, learnt the importance of "no" from his friend, Seamus Heaney. Now he is creating a soundtrack for Heaney's Aeneid: Book VI at this year's Kilkenny Arts Festival, alongside another of the poet's former collaborators, Stephen Rea.