Home  >  The History Hour  >  Cult films and a 'rockstar' philosopher
The History Hour
Cult films and a 'rockstar' philosopher
The History Hour
Feb 8, 2025

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History interviews from the BBC World Service. Our guest is film critic and journalist Helen O'Hara who dissects what makes a cult film classic, after we hear about the making of the 1989 American film Heathers.

We also learn about the French philosopher behind the theory of deconstruction and how the world first became aware of coral bleaching in the 1980s.

As the climax of the American Football season approaches we look back at one of the most memorable moments from Super Bowl history.

Contributors: Lisanne Falk - American star of the film Heathers.

Helen O'Hara - film critic and journalist.

Helene Cixous - lifetime friend of French philosopher Jacques Derrida.

Agathe Hébras - granddaughter of Robert Hébras, survivor of the Oradour Massacre.

Clive Wilkinson - the former co-ordinator for the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network.

Osi Umenyiora - two-time Super Bowl winner with the New York Giants.

(Photo: Winona Ryder, Kim Walker, Lisanne Falk, and Shannen Doherty on the set of Heathers 1988, New World Pictures/Getty Images)

More Episodes

Aug 15, 2026
The Mau Mau uprising and man-eating lions

Max Pearson presents a collection of the week's Witness History episodes focussing on Kenya.

We hear about Muthoni Kirima, one of the last Mau Mau fighters to come out of hiding and lay down her arms.

Caroline Elkins, Professor of History at Harvard University, discusses the brutality of the conflict between Kenya’s Land and Freedom Army, the British and Kenyan loyalists.

Next, when Princess Elizabeth became queen while staying at the Treetops Hotel, a lodge in the Aberdare National Park.

In 1997, scientists travelled to Kenya, in search of a cave believed to have been the den of the man-eating lions that terrorised railway workers in 1898.

Plus, we hear how Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki and his rival Raila Odinga signed an unprecedented power-sharing deal to end a wave of violence that left more than 1,200 people dead.

And the heartwarming story of the friendship between a baby hippo and a 130-year-old giant tortoise.

Finally for our Sporting Witness story, we head to the first Ultimate Frisbee World Championship in Gothenburg, Sweden in 1983.

Contributors: Caroline Elkins - Professor of History at Harvard University, and author of Britain's Gulag: The Brutal End of Empire in Kenya. Muthoni Kirima - Field Marshall in the Kenya Land and Freedom Army. Frank Gillard - BBC correspondent. Thomas Gnoske - Scientist. Alan Patterson - British Lieutenant Colonel John Henry Patterson's grandson. Maina Kiai - Chair of the Kenya National Commission on Human Rights in 2008. Maini Schildt - Swedish Ultimate Frisbee player.

(Photo: Mau Mau suspects are rounded up by police outside the camp in Manyani, Kenya, 1955. Credit: Getty Images/Authenticated News)


01hr 00min



Cult films and a 'rockstar' philosopher

--:--
--:--