Start the Week

Gillian Slovo, novelist exploring memory and political violence, discusses family secrets and apartheid’s legacy in Inheritance. Edith Hall, a classics scholar, reimagines Medea and the ancient roots of rage, revenge and maternal violence. Geneticist Pontus Skoglund reveals how ancient DNA traces migration, disease, Neanderthal ancestry and forgotten lives. Together, they explore what the past leaves in our stories, bodies and families.

Jon Ronson, investigative journalist and author, explores men searching for purpose amid collapsing identities, internet drama and public shaming. Writer Roisín Kiberd examines beauty rituals, Botox, masking and the pressure to appear normal. Artist Michael Landy discusses drawing faces, aging and imagined architectural ruins. Together, they consider belonging, social structures, capitalism and the allure of decay.

Poet Laureate Simon Armitage explores Gilgamesh, grief and mortality through his vivid new translation. Poet and academic Jade Cuttle delves into cuneiform, mudlarking, mysterious objects and the earthy power of language. Acoustic engineer Trevor Cox reveals how spaces shape hearing, why quiet matters, and how Stonehenge may have amplified ancient voices. Poetry, archaeology and sound collide in Salford.

Theoretical physicist and writer Carlo Rovelli explores reality through physics, philosophy and competing perspectives. Poet Lavinia Greenlaw considers why difficult poetry, specialist language and metaphor reward sustained attention. Playwright James Graham discusses John Maynard Keynes, economics, art and the ingredients of a good life. Their wide-ranging conversation connects complexity, disagreement, imagination and value.

Psychiatrist and novelist Daniel Mason, philosopher Lani Watson, and physician and broadcaster Xand van Tulleken explore life without easy answers. They examine wellness marketing, collagen and supplements, menopause care, and the value of asking better questions. Mason discusses folklore, false beliefs, and his novel Country People, while the group considers how fiction and curiosity can make uncertainty more bearable.

Gordon Brown, former UK Prime Minister, joins political scientist Francis Fukuyama and Bronwen Maddox, Chatham House director, to explore democracy’s retreat and the future of global order. They discuss China’s rise, America’s strategic missteps, populist anger, civic renewal, online isolation, Britain’s choices, digital regulation and whether liberal democracy can adapt to a multipolar world.

Katherine Dunn, business journalist who probes GPS's ubiquity and fragility. Meena Kandasamy, novelist and poet who tackles caste, gender and online misogyny. Baroness Beeban Kidron, filmmaker and campaigner for children’s online safety and tech accountability. They discuss how platforms captured the internet, attention-driven harms, deepfakes and digital mob violence, and the hidden risks in everyday GPS dependence.

What has happened to working-class identity in Britain? On Radio 4's weekly discussion programme, Adam Rutherford explores the political fractures within families and communities.Nicola Wilding discusses These Wild English: A Family, a Class, a Country on Fire, tracing three generations of her family and the pull of belonging, nationalism and far-right politics amid economic decline. Natasha Carthew draws on her personal experience of growing up poor in Cornwall in her latest work. Rough Edges brings to light the inequalities shaping coastal communities, where austerity, second homes and seasonal work deepen divisions and marginalisation. The poet Daljit Nagra reflects on his upbringing in a predominantly white working-class town for his latest collection, Yiewsley, exploring race, migration and the cultural shifts that have reshaped Britain from the post-war years to the present.Producer: Katy Hickman

Andrea Wulf, historian reviving explorer George Forster; Saira Hameed, endocrinologist decoding hormones; Kathryn Paige Harden, behavioral geneticist on heredity and responsibility. They discuss how science gets made and corrected. Conversations range from hormones shaping mood and appetite to genetics and moral blame, and a traveler's anti-racist observations from Cook's voyages.

Patrick Fowles, FT contributing editor and scholar on globalisation; Mariana Mazzucato, UCL professor and advocate for mission-led public investment; Jeremy Hunt, former Chancellor focused on fiscal policy and growth. They debate growth vs inequality, mission-oriented investment, fiscal rules and tax design, AI’s economic role, energy policy trade-offs, and how national strategy responds to shifting globalisation.