Programme
| “ | Bragg gives short shrift to pretension of any kind, while remaining stalwart in his search for knowledge. His methodology in In Our Time is... not unlike that of a man throwing a stick for a dog: he chucks his questions ahead, and if the chosen academic fails to bring it right back, he chides them. He retains enough of his bluff Cumbrian origins not to be taken in by gambolling and tweedy high spirits. | ” |
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—Will Self, from a February 2010 issue |
The series, devised and produced by Olivia Seligman (with others) and produced by Charlie Taylor and James Cook, runs weekly throughout the year on BBC Radio 4, except for a summer break of approximately six weeks between July and September. Each programme covers a specific historical, philosophical, religious, artistic or scientific topic. Melvyn Bragg, hosts discussion of the week's subject featuring what Bragg has characterised as "three absolutely top-class academics" on the subject. The programme is normally broadcast live and unedited on Thursday mornings at 9am, lasting around 42 minutes, and is then available on-line. Bragg begins each episode with a short summary of the week's topic, then introduces the three guests. He guides the discussion along a generally chronological route. Bragg then either concludes the programme himself or invites remarks summation from one of the specialists. The programme is normally broadcast weekly (on a Thursday) from September to July. It takes a summer break after early July.
The programme is considered one of the BBC's most successful projects, acknowledged to have "transformed the landscape for serious ideas at peak listening time". Frequent contributors to the programme since 1998 include A. C. Grayling, Angie Hobbs, Ian Stewart, Simon Schaffer, Martin Palmer and John Mullan.
Read more about this topic: In Our Time (BBC Radio 4)
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