Harriet Beveridge says we don't take humour seriously enough and thinks it's a "woefully misunderstood and underused tool". She extols its power in managing human relationships, dealing with adversity and overcoming prejudice. "Cracking a joke is a hugely effective way to hold up a mirror, to challenge fixed ideas, because jokes shatter assumptions." Recorded in front of a live audience at Womad, the World of Music, Arts and Dance festival in Wiltshire. Presenter: Mark Coles Producer: Sheila Coo...
Aug 14, 2019•19 min
Bex Burch, who plays and composes for the Ghanaian xylophone, explores the difference between 'doing' and 'being' as a source of creativity, and shows how it works in her music. "A great example of the difference between doing and being is that I don’t be, or become my teacher. I learn their way of doing something and still have to figure out who I am and what those tools are working with in me." Recorded in front of a live audience at Womad, the World of Music, Arts and Dance festival in Wiltsh...
Aug 07, 2019•16 min
Kevin Carr charts the agony of the first-time house buyer: is it worth the pain to avoid a lifetime of paying rent? "As you know, a mortgage is a loan where property is used as collateral. The first part of the word 'mort' is French for death, so named because trying to understand the process of getting a mortgage makes you want to die". Recorded in front of a live audience at the Kelburn Garden Party festival in Ayrshire. Presenter: Olly Mann Producer: Sheila Cook
Jul 31, 2019•19 min
Millennial Harleen Nottay says we should stop snooping and spying via social media on our partners, past and present, for the sake of our mental health. "It's clear that we are creating a culture where we are normalising these toxic behaviours...behaviours that only a couple of decades ago would have classed us as stalkers." Recorded in front of a live audience at the Kelburn Garden Party festival in Ayrshire. Presenter: Olly Mann Producer: Sheila Cook
Jul 24, 2019•20 min
R.M. Sánchez-Camus describes how art can be used as a language with which to communicate the fear of death and dying. Drawing on his experience as a Social Practice Artist working in a hospice, he reveals how art-making can create a space where individuals can mentally remove themselves from the state of dying, and produce a lasting testament to their lives. He believes death anxieties over global extinction can similarly be approached through making art. "It’s urgent to break the taboo of speak...
Jul 17, 2019•24 min
Author Zoë Strachan charts her journey of self-discovery through reading. She describes how fiction helped her to find her identity as a gay woman and explains why she believes that access to books is vital for human flourishing. "While I was reading Swallows and Amazons, booksellers were being arrested for making available the kind of texts that changed my life. When we start banning books or censoring them from school libraries, we deny people the chance to read themselves into being." Recorde...
Jul 10, 2019•24 min
The Last Poets discuss why they're still performing after 50 years. The Last Poets were borne out of the origins of the civil rights movement in the United States. They have been writing and performing together in various formations ever since the late 1960s. Abiodon Oyewole and Umar Bin Hassan reveal the motivation behind the collective's work and why they feel they're message about black empowerment is as relevant today as it was in 1968. Recorded at the Shambala Festival. Producer: Peter Snow...
Oct 11, 2018•21 min
Sunday league football is played up and down the country. The writer Ewan Flynn says that forging a team spirit against the odds can bring out the best in people. Recorded at the Shambala Festival. Producer: Peter Snowdon
Oct 03, 2018•20 min
Julia Unwin asks whether we've lost the human touch in a world of automation and technology. Touch screens, contactless cards and e-tickets are supposed to make our lives so much easier and more convenient. Julia Unwin, former chief executive of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, asks whether technology and automation and the loss of those everyday human connections are harming the way we interact with each other. Producer: Peter Snowdon.
Sep 26, 2018•21 min
Ian Brennan is a Grammy award-winning music producer. He and his wife have travelled the world discovering music that most people have never heard. He argues that the 'West' and in particular English speaking countries have dominated music for so long they have drowned out voices from around the world. This includes the incredible story of the Tanzanian Albinism Collective, from one of the most isolated places on earth. The members have suffered persecution for years for their condition. Brennan...
Sep 12, 2018•14 min
John Connell speaks about how the connection to land and animals can heal the modern urban soul John Connell returned home to his native Ireland after years abroad living and working in cities. He had experienced a breakdown and was in the depths of depression. For an urbane young man a return to the farm that he grew up in could have been seen as a failure but it turned out to be anything but. The birth of a calf and the life cycle of his family's cattle helped to show him how he could finally ...
Sep 05, 2018•18 min
Mari Kalkun comes alive in forests. The folk singer and Estonian native has been inspired and revived by them from a young age. Estonians are connected to the forest in a way most other nations can barely imagine, she says, they are a part of both the birth and death of it's citizens. Mari's ethereal music reflects this special bond and takes the listener to a calmer place and suggests that if we listen hard enough the forest might just speak. Recorded in-front of a live audience at WOMAD world ...
Aug 29, 2018•18 min
Clare Pooley was a working mum and loved a bottle of wine...or three. Her love of drink began to get in the way of her love of life. The realisation that alcohol was no longer her best-friend caused her to break up with it. This wasn't easy she says in a society that celebrates, commiserates and procrastinates using alcohol. But the ensuing breakup showed her how being sober can be just as much fun if not more than being drunk.
Aug 22, 2018•14 min
Sophie Howe explains how she tries to get politicians in Wales to put the future first. Sophie is the first Future Generations Commissioner for Wales, an independent role in which she has to keep politicians thinking about the future. In this talk, recorded in front of an enthusiastic audience at the Volcano Theatre in Swansea, she explains how she does it. And as she does, she reveals how her own history motivates her to think about future generations, and how politics can better serve them. Pr...
Jul 18, 2018•21 min
Ann John examines the current discussion around young people's mental health. A Professor of Public Health and Psychiatry at Swansea University, Ann thinks the current focus is welcome in many ways, but also poses dangers. Is it possible, she asks, that it could turn into a moral panic - like the one she remembers when she first became a doctor, around the MMR vaccine? Do we risk medicalising normal human emotions? And who is getting access to treatment - is it those who most need care, or those...
Jul 11, 2018•22 min
Author Lloyd Markham shares a dystopian tale about belonging - and not belonging. Recorded at Swansea's Volcano Theatre as part of the BBC's Biggest Weekend, Lloyd has the audience hanging on every word as he shares the story of his relationship with the Department for Work and Pensions. Producer: Giles Edwards.
Jun 27, 2018•23 min
Belfast blogger Gemma Louise Bond better known as 'That Belfast Girl' thinks about how we grieve the end of friendship, why we have no words or traditions for this process when it can completely change our lives. For many of us our friends have been around longer than our partners. They have helped us grow and been present at the most important times in our lives, yet when they leave we rarely talk about it. "It's not a 'break up", Bond say, "we don't eat ice cream to mourn it, in-fact as a soci...
Jun 13, 2018•21 min
Maura Campbell asks us to think differently about difference, she argues now is the time to retire the village 'idiot' and think about the language around learning disabilities. For example; the stereotypes of people with autism as cold, emotionless automatons and the medical community using words like 'diagnosis', 'risk' and 'symptoms' all have a negative narrative. But what about the positives? These often include honesty, directness, loyalty, a strong sense of natural justice, excellent memor...
Jun 06, 2018•26 min
Actress and comedian Diona Doherty says we need a big rethink about who we allow to make a speech at weddings. She tells us why if we want true equality it all starts with letting the bridesmaids speak. Recorded in front of a live audience at the Palm House in Belfast as part of the BBC Music Biggest Weekend Festival 2018. Presenter: Olly Mann Producer: Jordan Dunbar.
May 30, 2018•19 min
Chris Warhurst reveals how good looking you are may determine whether you get a job. Should looks be relevant to your employment prospects if you're a plumber or a shop assistant? As Director of the Institute for Employment Research at the University of Warwick, Professor Chris Warhurst has spent much of his career examining trends in the labour market. He discusses whether 'aesthetic labour' is becoming an established form of discrimination in the work place and asks whether 'lookism' can be ad...
May 23, 2018•22 min
Laiba Husain discusses life before, and after, marriage. A Fulbright Scholar from Michigan, Laiba studies at Birmingham University and has recently got married. She discusses how educated women in her family were expected to stay at home after marriage rather than pursuing careers and higher education. But how much is this due to patriarchal culture and religious misconceptions? Laiba argues that marriage and religion do not impede her ambitions; instead, she feels empowered. And she calls on Mu...
May 16, 2018•21 min
David Baker asks what happens to the families of people shot by the police. Over the years, he has spent time with many such families - bereaved, grieving, often angry - in the UK and overseas. In this powerful talk David reflects on his time with three families in the United States, and asks whether their experience - not just the loss of a relative but what happened afterwards - was exceptional, or sadly not. Producer: Peter Snowdon.
May 09, 2018•21 min
Felicity Boardman discusses genetic screening for 'serious conditions'. But what, she asks, is a 'serious condition'? The answer to that question will vary, and might increase as genomic medicine expands. The answer, too, will have dramatic consequences for which people we will accept as future members of our society, and which we will not. As a medical ethicist, and an Assistant Professor at Warwick Medical School, Felicity believes that individuals and families living with inheritable and scre...
May 02, 2018•25 min
Zia Chaudhry reflects on his role as a Muslim Dad to help his children to feel British, recalling his own father's focus on education as the path to success and integration. Schools could help, he believes, by including Muslim Spain in the history curriculum. "I am not advocating the teaching of Pakistani history to the children of Pakistani immigrants but rather the teaching of a chapter of European history in which Muslims co-operated with Christians and Jews to create a society that flourishe...
Apr 25, 2018•22 min
Julie White shares her passion for young children learning outdoors in the natural world as the best way for them to achieve wellbeing and develop resilience. "I think there is a big divide between the older generation and a lot of millennials in terms of our outdoor experiences growing up - whilst we had the freedom to explore our surroundings, younger generations have been accompanied by adults doing more structured and supervised activities. The result is a more fearful mentality, which we ar...
Apr 18, 2018•24 min
David Reid warns of the dangers of encoding unconscious bias into artificial intelligence. "It's tempting, but extremely perilous, to outsource our moral responsibilities to machines...I believe it's important to keep people in the loop, but it may also be important to evolve nurturing AI to guide the underlying AI. When we link this to emotional awareness, we may be able to develop empathy, and this empathy may be able to mitigate bias." Recorded in front of a live audience at Leaf in Liverpool...
Apr 11, 2018•23 min
Maggie O'Carroll calls for action to encourage more women to become entrepreneurs. She contrasts the "palpable positive culture towards entrepreneurship and for female entrepreneurs" of the US with a lack of organised support in the UK. Recalling her mother's success as a farmer in the West of Ireland, she feels sure there were other powerful women behind the scenes. "We need these invisible entrepreneurs to step out into the spotlight and become the role models and the inspiration for others to...
Apr 04, 2018•24 min
Theatre maker Raquel Meseguer, who lives with chronic pain, has a vision for public resting spaces. Challenging our etiquette and perceptions of people lying down, she imagines how our cultural spaces might embrace 'Cloudspotters', her euphemism for people with hidden conditions like her own. "It was a lightbulb moment to realise that I am able, but I am also disabled by a built environment and vertical culture that is simply not designed for me... my lying down invariably proves problematic, an...
Jan 31, 2018•20 min
Young entrepreneur Bejay Mulenga tells the story of his youthful business success and shares his vision for helping other young people overcome the barriers to achieving their dreams. "I believe we'll have more entrepreneurs if talent can be unleashed earlier and helped to thrive." Recorded in front of a live audience at Somerset House in London. Presenter: Olly Mann Producer: Sheila Cook.
Jan 24, 2018•17 min
Former army intelligence officer Andy Owen explains why he thinks philosophy can help soldiers cope in complex war zones like Iraq and Afghanistan. "There's much on the counter-insurgency battlefield not fully covered by the law...philosophy provided arguments to support the law and navigate issues not covered by it." Recorded in front of a live audience at Somerset House in London. Presenter: Olly Mann Producer: Sheila Cook.
Jan 17, 2018•22 min
