I love what’s behind you-look at these paintings you have! He was at home, in London, with his wife, in a cheerful domestic mode: when he said “Hello,” it was followed not by astrophysics or the Interregnum but by “I want to take the dog out of the room.” Our conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity. and the BBC.ĭuring the pandemic, Bragg has been working on a memoir and continuing to host “In Our Time.” I recently spoke with him via Zoom. Throughout, he’s been a champion of popular culture-on July 19th, he hosted the South Bank Sky Arts Awards, recognizing artists such as Dua Lipa, Michaela Coel, and Grayson Perry-and of the robust funding of public institutions, including the N.H.S. His professional life has been as wide-ranging as the contents of “In Our Time”: he hosted the ITV arts-documentary series “The South Bank Show,” which he created in 1978 and led for more than three decades he’s written twenty-two novels, and fifteen nonfiction books on subjects including Richard Burton, the King James Bible, great scientific discoveries, and the history of the English language he was chancellor of the University of Leeds from 1999 to 2017 he’s a Labour peer in the House of Lords. He attended Oxford on a scholarship, continued on to the BBC, and quickly began producing cultural programs. Bragg chooses the subjects with his producer, Simon Tillotson, and, as host, he’s shrewd and self-effacing, occasionally sprinkling in genial phrases like “comes a cropper” or “we’re going before our horse to market.” It’s an entirely refreshing listening experience, subtly reminding you of the boundlessness of your own ignorance while gamely helping to mitigate it.īragg, who is eighty-one, grew up in the small factory town of Wigton, in Cumbria, where his parents ran a pub. It’s also one of the most popular programs in the U.K.-and, in the podcast era, widely heard internationally.
“ Hello, Paul Dirac, 1902-1984, made some of the greatest discoveries in twentieth-century physics, second only to Einstein.” “ Hello, when Athenians first saw Euripedes’ play ‘The Bacchae,’ in 405 B.C., they were on the point of defeat in a long war with Sparta, their fate beyond that unknown.” “ Hello, some mass extinctions happen instantly, as when an asteroid hits the Earth. . . .” The show is relevant to the human experience but not to the current news cycle or culture calendar it respects the listener by being clear, serious, and curious.
as the host of “In Our Time,” his long-running BBC Radio 4 program and podcast, in which he vigorously guides three academics through a particular subject of their expertise, beginning with his distinctive let’s-get-right-to-it introduction.
The renowned British radio and television broadcaster Melvyn Bragg is perhaps best known in the U.S.
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