Podcast appearances and mentions of Sage Gateshead

Sacred Harp pioneer and former punk frontman, Tim Eriksen, takes us into the hair-raising sound of shape note singing – an American choral tradition experiencing a resurgence across the US and in Europe. All people and all faiths are welcome. As a new edition of the songbook approaches publication, Tim explores why this music is drawing more singers and how it's managing to remain inclusive despite increasing political polarisation in the wider culture.Sacred Harp is sung a-cappella in four-part harmony - a non-performative music where everyone takes a turn to lead and groups gather anywhere from churches to community centers and pubs. Songs were first published in a book of psalms in Georgia in 1844 and in 2025 a new edition will publish a record number of compositions submitted by sacred harp singers from all over the world. For Tim Eriksen this is devotional music, but it will mean different things to different people - what's special about it is the way it ‘transcends differences.' Sociologist Laura Clawson tells us how the forbearers of the music stipulated that religion, and politics should not come into the ‘hollow square.' Historically the Sacred Harp community has continued to sing and build bonds through chapters of political polarisation in the US. But how have recent political divides affected the community and how can it continue to remain an inclusive space? Producer: Sarah Cuddon A Falling Tree ProductionImage: Tim Eriksen teaching at Sage Gateshead's Summertyne Americana Festival

Listen to the fourth episode of our new six-part podcast series, Making Tracks, a podcast from behind the production desk, for songwriters and music producers who are ready to step into the studio. Music leaders Holly and Frankie chat to Joe and Hannah who recently attended the Making Tracks course. Joe plays guitar and sings, does a lot of busking, and has recently completed the advanced Making Tracks course. Hannah is a singer-songwriter and plays flute. They tell us how they got into music technology, what the course is really like and what they're up to next. Making Tracks, is our new six-part podcast series. Music producer and educator Lisa Murphy and team lift the lid on the North East music industry by interviewing people working directly in the industry about how they use music technology in their music making. Making Tracks is a songwriting and music production course delivered by professional music producers in professional recording studios in the North East. Whether you're looking to take your first steps, develop your existing knowledge, or work towards becoming a professional producer, there's a Making Tracks course for you. This podcast series is brought to you by Access Music Production CIC in collaboration with The Glasshouse International Centre for Music. At the time of recording, The Glasshouse was called Sage Gateshead, so you may hear some references to our old name.

For the second last episode in our Making Tracks podcast series, Lisa talks to music producer and DJ Lee Robinson. We find out more about his career, how he got started and his advice to anyone making and performing electronic music. Making Tracks, is our new six-part podcast series, a podcast from behind the production desk, for songwriters and music producers who are ready to step into the studio. Join music producer and educator Lisa Murphy and team as they lift the lid on the North East music industry by interviewing people working directly in the industry about how they use music technology in their music making. Making Tracks is a songwriting and music production course delivered by professional music producers in professional recording studios in the North East. Whether you're looking to take your first steps, develop your existing knowledge, or work towards becoming a professional producer, there's a Making Tracks course for you. This podcast series is brought to you by Access Music Production CIC in collaboration with The Glasshouse International Centre for Music. At the time of recording, The Glasshouse was called Sage Gateshead, so you may hear some references to our old name.

Listen to the sixth and final episode of our new six-part podcast series, Making Tracks. Bradley Kulisic from Singing Light Music talks to music leaders Holly and Frankie about music management, marketing and distribution. Bradley has worked with artists and independent record labels since 2002. His DIY ethic was shaped by working with Dischord, Southern Records, Constellation and Barry Adamson. He has run campaigns for artists like Peaches, The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and Colin Stetson. He manages Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs, Eleni Drake, Holy Moly & the Crackers and more. Singing Light Music was launched 2019 with the intention of bringing all these experiences together under one umbrella, to help demystify the music business and to offer support and guidance on releasing records, physical and digital distribution and rights management for artists, creators, managers and labels. Making Tracks, is our six-part podcast series, a podcast from behind the production desk, for songwriters and music producers who are ready to step into the studio. Music producer and educator Lisa Murphy and team lift the lid on the North East music industry by interviewing people working directly in the industry about how they use music technology in their music making. Making Tracks is a songwriting and music production course delivered by professional music producers in professional recording studios in the North East. Whether you're looking to take your first steps, develop your existing knowledge, or work towards becoming a professional producer, there's a Making Tracks course for you. This podcast series is brought to you by Access Music Production CIC in collaboration with The Glasshouse International Centre for Music. At the time of recording, The Glasshouse was called Sage Gateshead, so you may hear some references to our old name.

In the third episode of our new six-part Making Tracks podcast series, Lisa is joined by Claire Dupree, editor of North East-based monthly alt. music and culture magazine NARC. Claire regularly supports musicians to help them get to grips with the world of marketing, press and promotion. She offers tips on press release writing, the logistics of how to approach press outlets, the importance of joined up campaigns with radio, social media tips and how to stay organised so you can get the best results for your efforts. Making Tracks, is our new six-part podcast series, a podcast from behind the production desk, for songwriters and music producers who are ready to step into the studio. Join music producer and educator Lisa Murphy and team as they lift the lid on the North East music industry by interviewing people working directly in the industry about how they use music technology in their music making. Making Tracks is a songwriting and music production course delivered by professional music producers in professional recording studios in the North East. Whether you're looking to take your first steps, develop your existing knowledge, or work towards becoming a professional producer, there's a Making Tracks course for you. This podcast series is brought to you by Access Music Production CIC in collaboration with The Glasshouse International Centre for Music. At the time of recording, The Glasshouse was called Sage Gateshead, so you may hear some references to our old name.

Making Tracks, is our new six-part podcast series, a podcast from behind the production desk, for songwriters and music producers who are ready to step into the studio. Join music producer and educator Lisa Murphy and team as they lift the lid on the North East music industry by interviewing people working directly in the industry about how they use music technology in their music making. In our second episode, Lisa is joined by singer-songwriter Maius Mollis (Maisie Cowburn-Bannister). Find out about how Masie writes her music, what her influences are and how she's using music technology in her work. Making Tracks is a songwriting and music production course delivered by professional music producers in professional recording studios in the North East. Whether you're looking to take your first steps, develop your existing knowledge, or work towards becoming a professional producer, there's a Making Tracks course for you. This podcast series is brought to you by Access Music Production CIC in collaboration with The Glasshouse International Centre for Music. At the time of recording, The Glasshouse was called Sage Gateshead, so you may hear some references to our old name.

Listen to our new six-part podcast series, Making Tracks, a podcast from behind the production desk, for songwriters and music producers who are ready to step into the studio. In this series, join music producer and educator Lisa Murphy and her team as they lift the lid on the North East music industry by interviewing people working directly in the industry about how they use music technology in their music making. In this first episode, Lisa is joined by fellow music leaders Frankie and Holly who tell us more about music technology and the Making Tracks programme. Making Tracks is a songwriting and music production course delivered by professional music producers in professional recording studios in the North East. Whether you're looking to take your first steps, develop your existing knowledge, or work towards becoming a professional producer, there's a Making Tracks course for you. This podcast series is brought to you by Access Music Production CIC in collaboration with The Glasshouse International Centre for Music. At the time of recording, The Glasshouse was called Sage Gateshead, so you may hear some references to our old name.

Crime writer Ann Cleeves, theologian Mona Siddiqui, deep sea fish expert and podcast host Thomas Linley and poet Jake Morris-Campbell join Matthew Sweet to explore areas beyond the reach of light, both literally and metaphorically, as part of Radio 3's 2022 overnight festival at Sage Gateshead. What darkness makes someone commit a murder? Shetland and Vera are two TV series developed from the crime novels of Ann Cleeves. Her most recent book is The Heron's Cry featuring detective Matthew Venn and his colleague Jen Rafferty, played on TV in an adaptation of The Long Call by Ben Aldridge and Pearl Mackie. Poet and New Generation Thinker Jake Morris-Campbell writes about the mining communities of Northumberland and Durham and the experience of working in darkness. Professor Mona Siddiqui joined the University of Edinburgh's Divinity school in December 2011 as the first Muslim to hold a Chair in Islamic and Interreligious Studies Dr Thomas Linley hosts The Deep-Sea podcast and researches the behaviour of deep sea fish. He's based at Newcastle University. You can read the paper he co-authored 'Fear and loathing of the deep ocean: why don't people care about the deep sea?' here: https://bit.ly/3IBHsPT Producer: Torquil MacLeod You can find a series of BBC Proms concerts broadcast from Sage Gateshead available on BBC Sounds and a conversation about writing and place with North Eastern authors Jake Morris-Campbell and Jessica Andrews in conversation with Ian McMillan.

Money Box takes a look at three innovative energy projects changing the way people heat their homes to try to improve efficiency and reduce bills. First up is the village of Swaffham Prior in Cambridgeshire where residents and the local council have backed a scheme using air source and ground source heat pumps to warm people's homes. A new, multi-million pound energy centre of the edge of the village provides the energy through a newly installed heat network for any residents of the village's 300 homes that want to join. Secondly, Dan Whitworth visits the University of Salford and the researchers behind its 'Energy House 2' project - a scheme which has seen two, modern, full-size, detached homes built by developers Barrett and Bellway inside a science laboratory. This allows scientists to create climate conditions to put the homes to the limit to test how effective they are at being energy efficient. Finally a visit to Gateshead examines a mine water scheme being run by the council which uses the warmed water of disused, flooded coal mines to help heat council buildings and homes. More than a dozen buildings run by the council, including the local college and Sage Gateshead are signed up to the scheme as well as hundreds of homes. We'll examine how practical is it and what kind of a difference the scheme makes to people's bills. Talking us through each of these schemes are Dr Tina Fawcett from the Environmental Change Institute at Oxford University and Ben Whittle from the Energy Saving Trust. Presenter/Reporter/Producer: Dan Whitworth Researchers: Sandra Hardial & Star McFarlane Editor: Jess Quayle (First broadcast 3pm, Wednesday 28th December, 2022)

The music scene of the North-East of England is often overshadowed by, or sometimes even conflated with, the North-West. Everyone knows about the music of Liverpool and Manchester but there are no equivalents of The Beatles or Oasis on Tyneside. Despite that, and putting aside for one moment quite-famous names like Mark Knopfler and Neil Tennant, Newcastle has in recent years produced some of the biggest names in club music, from Patrick Topping to Richy Ahmed. On this week's episode we welcome another native of the region - Geoff Kirkwood, aka Man Power, aka Bedwettter, a dance music expert who recently completed a stint as artist-in-residence at the internationally renowned Sage Gateshead, which included the composition of a symphony in collaboration with Fiona Brice and the Royal Northern Sinfonia. We discuss his journey from self-taught house producer to performance in world-class concert halls, as well as a wide range of topics from the effect of deindustrialisation on music, to speculating what contemporary music might be performed in a couple of hundred years from now. He has releases forthcoming on Nocturne and Echocentric, and can be seen DJing back to back with Paul Woolford at King Street Social Club on 25 Feb. Geoff is a singular character overflowing with insight and stories, and you are going to love this episode. Some release news... one of our favourite producers, Anna Kost drops her full debut Hotflush release, See Life Better EP, this Friday. It's a smasher, get it here.If you're into what we're doing here on the pod then you can support the show on Patreon! We'd be honoured and extremely grateful for your contribution to developing the show. Plus there's a private area......in the Hotflush Discord ServerListen to all the music discussed on the show via the Not A Diving Podcast Spotify playlistFor more links and other info visit the official Scuba websiteFollow Scuba: twitter instagram bandcamp spotify apple music

A dig at Lindisfarne this September aims to find out more about the early Medieval monastery raided by Vikings. New Generation Thinker David Petts from Durham University shares his findings on Holy Island. Professor Michelle Brown has been looking closely at the text and illustrations in the Lindisfarne Gospels and the culture of producing books in Anglo Saxon England. And as the gospels produced by Eadfrith, a monk at Lindisfarne who became bishop in c. 698 until his death in c. 722, go on show at the Laing Gallery in Newcastle, New Generation Thinker Jake Morris-Campbell writes a poem to mark their return to the North East. Anne McElvoy hosts. You can find out more about the dig at https://projects.digventures.com/lindisfarne/ and about the gospels https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/lindisfarne-gospels Michelle Brown is giving a number of talks associated with the exhibition at the Laing Gallery which runs from Saturday 17 September - Saturday 3 December with a host of related exhibitions and events across the region https://laingartgallery.org.uk/lindisfarne-gospels-2022 Jake Morris-Campbell's poetry collection called Corrigenda For Costafine Town is out now from Blue Diode Publishing. You can also hear him talking about mining and dark places in a recording from the After Dark Festival at Sage Gateshead https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0015c8p Radio 3's weekly curation of readings and music Words and Music takes inspiration from Northumbria and can be heard on Sunday September 25th at 5.30pm or on BBC Sounds for 28 days. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006x35f Producer: Ruth Watts

Leeds based Opera company Opera North have been providing access for blind and partially sighted people through audio described performances of their productions for a number of years now and for the up-coming concert staged production of Richard Wagner's Parsifal there will be audio description available for every performance at Leeds Grand Theatre this June.  RNIB Connect Radio's Toby Davey caught up with Alice Gilmour, Access Manager at Opera North and Audio Describer to find out more about the concert staging of Wagner's Parsifal with audio description from Wednesday 1 June to Friday 10 June 2022 at Leeds Grand Theatre. Alice began by giving Toby a bit of background to Opera North and their access offer  for blind and partially sighted people as well as a synopsis of Wagner's Parsifal which features Knights, the Holy Grail and the character of Parsifal himself too. Alice then explained to Toby the difference between a full theatre staged opera and a concert staged production, along with how it is possible for Opera North to provide audio description at every performance of Wagner's Parsifal and other concert staged productions. Alice ended by highlighting a number of highlights from Opera North's 2022/2023 season with some real gems that are not to be missed.   Opera North's production of Wagner's Parsifal will be at Leeds Grand Theatre from Wednesday 1 June to Friday 10 Jun with performances at 4pm, then touring with audio description to;  Bridgewater Hall in Manchester, on Sunday 12 June, Nottingham Royal Concert Hall on Wednesday 15 June, Sage Gateshead on Saturday 18 June, and Royal Festival Hall, London on Sunday 26 June, again all performances starting at 4pm. To find out more about Opera North and their access offer including audio described performances do visit the access pages of their website -  https://www.operanorth.co.uk/access/audio-described-performances/ (Image shows RNIB logo. 'RNIB' written in black capital letters over a white background and underlined with a bold pink line, with the words 'See differently' underneath)

Comrade or "marra" in North East dialect, and the "dharma" or the way - were put together in a portmanteau word by poet Bill Martin (1925-2010). Poet and New Generation Thinker Jake Morris-Campbell reflects on this idea of Marradharma and what it offers to future generations growing up in the post Brexit and post industrial landscape of the North East. In his essay, Jake remembers the pilgrimage he made in 2016 carrying Bill Martin's ashes in a ram's horn from Sunderland (Martin was born in a nearby pit village) to Durham Cathedral. Jake Morris-Campbell teaches at Newcastle University and was selected as a New Generation Thinker in 2021 on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council. You can find him discussing ideas about darkness in a Free Thinking discussion recorded at Sage Gateshead as part of Radio 3's After Dark festival, and looking at mining, coal and DH Lawrence https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000xmjy Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Comrade or "marra" in north east dialect, and the "dharma" or the way - were put together in a portmanteau word by poet Bill Martin (1925-2010). Poet and New Generation Thinker Jake Morris-Campbell reflects on this idea of Marradharma and what it offers to future generations growing up in the post-Brexit and post-industrial landscape of the north east. In his essay, Jake remembers the pilgrimage he made in 2016 carrying Bill Martin's ashes in a ram's horn from Sunderland (Martin was born in a nearby pit village) to Durham Cathedral. Jake Morris-Campbell teaches at Newcastle University and was selected as a New Generation Thinker in 2021 on the scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council. You can find him discussing ideas about darkness in a Free Thinking discussion recorded at Sage Gateshead as part of Radio 3's After Dark festival, and looking at mining, coal and DH Lawrence https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000xmjy Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Hello and welcome to episode 130 of the ACPG podcast. In this episode Ben sits down with the wonderful Rodrigo y Gabriela backstage at the Sage Gateshead in 2019. This is one of the episodes we planned to release earlier but you know, covid and that. Our chat with Rod y Gab was a very special one, two amazing musicians talking about how they went from Mexico to the streets of Dublin to Grammys and beyond. But above all Ben had them playing (not live) at his wedding. Thank you to Rod y Gab, Eoin, and Carlo for making this happen. We hope you enjoy it. See you in two weeks with Ash. GAWA

Matthew Sweet and his guests begin coverage of the After Dark Festival - an overnight extravaganza recorded at Sage Gateshead for the equinox weekend. What meanings and interpretations has humanity given to the equinox moment - when the length of day and night is equal and to other key points of the solar year? Cosmologist Carlos Frenk from Durham University, archaeologist Penny Bickle from the University of York, Kevin Lapping from the Pagan Federation and his wife Kirsten discuss the significance of the changing seasons, what we learn from the solar alignment of Neolithic monuments and the vaster galactic and cosmic cycles that are we are also a part of. Producer: Torquil MacLeod Part of Radio 3's After Dark Festival, a major new live music festival for 2022 in partnership with Sage Gateshead and TUSK Music, featuring some of the biggest names in contemporary, classical and experimental music. For all related content, search “After Dark Festival” in BBC Sounds.

Crime writer Ann Cleeves, theologian Mona Siddiqui, deep sea fish expert and podcast host Thomas Linley and poet Jake Morris-Campbell join Matthew Sweet to explore areas beyond the reach of light, both literally and metaphorically, as part of Radio 3's overnight festival at Sage Gateshead. What darkness makes someone commit a murder? Shetland and Vera are two TV series developed from the crime novels of Ann Cleeves. Her most recent book is The Heron's Cry featuring detective Matthew Venn and his colleague Jen Rafferty, played on TV in an adaptation of The Long Call by Ben Aldridge and Pearl Mackie. Poet and New Generation Thinker Jake Morris-Campbell writes about the mining communities of Northumberland and Durham and the experience of working in darkness. Professor Mona Siddiqui joined the University of Edinburgh's Divinity school in December 2011 as the first Muslim to hold a Chair in Islamic and Interreligious Studies Dr Thomas Linley hosts The Deep-Sea podcast and researches the behaviour of deep sea fish. He's based at Newcastle University. Producer: Torquil MacLeod Part of Radio 3's After Dark Festival, a major new live music festival for 2022 in partnership with Sage Gateshead and TUSK Music, featuring some of the biggest names in contemporary, classical and experimental music. For all related content, search “After Dark Festival” in BBC Sounds.

The Equinox is a time of change, and at a special recording for Radio 3's After Dark Festival, The Verb's master of metamorphosis Ian McMillan presents a plethora of poets from Sage Gateshead. Our contribution to this major new live music festival, it's a feast of contemporary, classical and experimental music too and you can find out more searching "After Dark Festival" in BBC Sounds. We'll have live performances from Mike Garry bringing a flavour of Manchester to the North East and we'll also be joined by local lad Rowan McCabe - who described his "door-to-door" poetry service as "like the Avon lady but with rhymes." And we'll have a performance from the ever eclectic Kate Fox as well as John Challis and Tahmina Ali. If you like your poetry live and loud The Verb at the After Dark Festival has got you covered. Presented by Ian McMillan Produced by Kevin Core

An immersive audio experience from Radio 3's After Dark festival at Sage Gateshead. Five different podcasts are being recorded by award-winning composer and sound artist Rob Mackay at five locations where remains of Hadrian's Wall can be found in Newcastle. A rich audio landscape complemented by the words of writers and poets as they respond to the sounds of Tyne. 2/ The Swing Bridge The first crossing point of the Tyne, the birthplace of the city, where once a Roman bridge stood. With writer Sinéad Morrissey Producer Mark Rickards A Bespoken Media production.

An immersive audio experience from Radio 3's After Dark festival at Sage Gateshead. Five different podcasts are being recorded by award-winning composer and sound artist Rob Mackay at five locations where remains of Hadrian's Wall can be found in Newcastle. A rich audio landscape complemented by the words of writers and poets as they respond to the sounds of Tyne. 1/ In the Dark Segedunum Fort at Wallsend marks the eastern end of Hadrian's Wall. Jacob Polley listens to the sounds of the lamp posts as they rattle through the night. Producer Mark Rickards A Bespoken Media production.

Hair can be intensely personal and equally political. It can be a sign of confidence or beauty, rebellion or activism. But what about wigs? Why do some women choose to wear them and how significant can they be? Throughout this week we'll explore what wigs mean to a range of different women. First: Wearing a wig during cancer. Approximately 65% of individuals undergoing chemotherapy will experience hair loss as a result. Alex Petropoulos and Angelina Hall both lost their hair this way and turned to wigs. Azmina Verjee works for the Macmillan Cancer Information Centre. The subject of this year's BBC Radio 3 Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead is Emotion. One of their debates aims to decide ‘What is the emotion of now?' The academic Hetta Howes argues that shame is the prevailing emotion of our time. We'll be examining the relationship women have with shame in more detail with Hetta, a lecturer in Medieval and Early Modern Literature at City University, London, and with the cultural historian Tiffany Watt-Smith, author of ‘The Book of Human Emotions'.Anne Acheson was a sculptor who changed medical history by combining her knowledge of art and anatomy. During the Great War, many soldiers suffered limb injuries which were treated with splints. However, Portadown-born Anne created an alternative method - using plaster of Paris. As the Millennium Court Arts Centre in Portadown plans a historic exhibition of Acheson's work we discuss her importance as a sculptor and inventor with Rosamund Lily West, Research Curator at the Royal Society of Sculptors, Jackie Barker, director of Millennium Court Arts Centre, and Virginia Ironside, Anne's great-niece.Presenter: Jane Garvey Producer: Helen Fitzhenry

Kit de Waal, Darren McGarvey, Adelle Stripe and Michael Chaplin join Shahidha Bari to examine what we mean by ‘working class writing'. Crowd funding has helped bring a new generation of authors into print but is this because mainstream publishing has neglected diverse voices? What experiences do we want to see on the page and stage? Recorded at Sage Gateshead.Kit de Waal's short stories include “Crushing Big”, “I am the Painter's Daughter” and “The Beautiful Thing” - which was broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Her debut novel My Name Is Leon was shortlisted for the Costa First Book Award 2016. De Waal used some of her advance for My Name Is Leon to found the Kit de Waal Creative Writing Fellowship to improve working-class representation in the arts. Her new novel is called The Trick To Time. Darren McGarvey, author of Poverty Safari, is also known as Loki, a Scottish hip-hop artist, writer and community activist. Darren was rapper-in-residence at Police Scotland's Violence Reduction Unit. Adelle Stripe and written 3 collections of poetry and her debut novel Black Teeth and a Brilliant Smile is inspired by the life and work of Bradford playwright Andrea Dunbar. It was shortlisted for the Gordon Burn Prize and received the K Blundell Trust Award for Fiction. Michael Chaplin has written extensively for TV, radio and theatre. A journalist, TV documentary producer and executive and now full time writer, he created the TV series Grafters and Monarch of the Glen and has written 8 theatre plays and numerous works for radio including Two Pipe Problems and Tommies. He is also the editor of Hame, a collection of essays, short stories and poems by his father Sid Chaplin, the acclaimed writer whose works are mostly set in the North East. Recorded with an audience at Sage Gateshead as part of BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival.Producer: Zahid Warley

The New Generation Thinkers is an annual competition run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council. In this event, recorded with an audience at Sage Gateshead, the 2018 selection make their first public appearance together. Hosted by Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough of the University of Durham and a New Generation Thinker class of 2013.This year's specialisms include explorations into 18th-century masculinity and the medical history of George Orwell, early 20th-century vegetarianism in Britain, and how the Ottoman Empire dealt with piracy. Others in the new intake are exploring more contemporary issues, such as the way globalisation is impacting how films are made around the world, or how the ethics of commercial surrogacy in India can be understood.Dr Ben Anderson Lecturer in Twentieth-Century European History, School of Humanities, Keele University. Dr Gulzaar Barn Lecturer in philosophy at the University of Birmingham, where she is also a member of the Centre for Global Ethics. Dr Daisy Black Lecturer in English Literature at the University of Wolverhampton, who also works as a freelance theatre director, storyteller, writer and arts advisor Dr Dafydd Mills Daniel McDonald Departmental Lecturer in Christian Ethics and Lecturer in Theology Jesus College, University of Oxford Dr Des Fitzgerald a sociologist working at Cardiff university, where he teaches courses on the sociology of science and the sociology of health and illness Dr Sarah Goldsmith Leverhulme Early Career Fellow Centre for Urban History and School of History, University of Leicester Dr Lisa J Mullen Steven Isenberg Junior Research Fellow Worcester College, University of Oxford is writing a book on the novels & journalism of George Orwell Dr Elsa Richardson Chancellor's Fellow Centre for the Social History of Health and Healthcare Strathclyde University, Glasgow Dr Iain Smith King's College London His research investigates the impact of globalisation on popular films made around the world. Dr Michael Talbot Lecturer in the History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Middle East Department of History, Politics and Social Sciences, University of GreenwichProducer: Jacqueline Smith

In a space of less than a mile, seven bridges link Newcastle with Gateshead including the distinctive shape of the Tyne Bridge. But what kind of human endeavour goes into imagining and realising such man-made wonders? Newcastle University's Sean Wilkinson, Erica Wagner author of Chief Engineer, and architect Simon Roberts look at the bond between the visionaries and the grafters with Rana Mitter and an audience at Sage Gateshead. Erica Wagner is the author of Chief Engineer: The Man Who Built the Brooklyn Bridge, a biography of civil engineer Washington Roebling. Erica is former literary editor of The Times, the author of several books and is a lecturer in English and Creative Writing at Goldsmith's University of London. Sean Wilkinson is a Reader in Structural Engineering at Newcastle University whose research includes work on resilient communities, the design of high rise buildings and earthquakes. Architect Simon Roberts works for Wilkinson Eyre who designed the Gateshead Millennium Bridge and has worked solely on bridge projects for the past decadeProducer: Debbie Kilbride

Comedians Alexei Sayle, Jen Brister and Sanjeev Kohli join Matthew Sweet to offer a masterclass in making the many laugh. Recorded with an audience at Sage Gateshead. Jen Brister is a stand-up comedian, writer and actor. She is a regular performer on the UK and international comedy circuits. She has written for BBC Scotland, presented for BBC 6 Music and Juice FM, and has been a regular contributor to magazines and online sites including Diva and The Huffington Post.Sanjeev Kohli is a comedian, writer, actor and broadcaster. Sanjeev co-writes the Radio 4 sitcom Fags, Mags and Bags and has appeared in Cold Feet, River City and as shopkeeper Navid Harrid in the long running Scottish sitcom, Still Game. Alexei Sayle was a central figure in the alternative comedy movement in the 1980s and original MC of London's first modern comedy club, the Comedy Store. As well as writing and performing stand-up and on TV sitcoms, Alexei has also had a hit single, written short stories, novels and non-fiction including Thatcher Stole My Trousers and his series for BBC Radio 4, Alexei Sayle's Imaginary Sandwich Bar. Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Anne McElvoy enlists the help of Diversify author June Sarpong, doctor and medical historian Gavin Francis, performer and transgender activist Emma Frankland and philosopher Julian Baggini to tackle contemporary ideas about the ever changing notions of the self. Recorded with an audience at Sage Gateshead. June Sarpong is the author of Diversify, a celebration of those who are often marginalised in our society including women, those living with disabilities, and the LGBTQ community. A successful TV presenter and an ambassador for the Prince's Trust, June is also the co-founder of the Women: Inspiration and Enterprise Network. Emma Frankland is an international performance and theatre artist. She is the director of None of Us is Yet a Robot, a contemporary performance company that creates work based on 'transgender identities & the politics of transition'.Gavin Francis is a GP, explorer and author whose Adventures in Being Human considered the landscapes, history and myths of the body. His new book, Shapeshifters: On Medicine & Human Change examines the impact of constant change on our minds and bodies. Julian Baggini is a philosopher. His books include his latest A Short History of Truth: Consolations for a Post-Truth World, plus The Edge of Reason: A Rational Skeptic in an Irrational World and Freedom Regained: The Possibility of Free Will.Recorded with an audience at Sage Gateshead as part of BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival.Producer: Fiona McLean

New Generation Thinker Simon Beard, from the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, looks at AI and what the writing of Douglas Adams tells us about questions of morality and who should be in control. This year is the 40th anniversary of BBC Radio 4's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Recorded with an audience at Sage Gateshead as part of BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival. New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who can turn their research into radio.Recorded at the 2018 Free Thinking Festival and includes Questions and Answers from the audience at Sage Gatesthead.Producer: Fiona McLean

As the BBC screens its new arts series, Civilisations, one of the presenters, David Olusoga, joins presenter Philip Dodd, anthropologist Kit Davis and the historian Kenan Malik to consider our different notions of world history from the dawn of human civilisation to the present day. David Olusoga is a historian, writer and broadcaster who has presented several TV documentaries including A House Through Time; The World's War: Forgotten Soldiers of Empire and the BAFTA award-winning Britain's Forgotten Slave Owners. His most recent book is Black and British: A Forgotten History.Dr Kit Davis is a lecturer in social anthropology at the School of Oriental and African Studies who has written about travels across Europe and about Rwanda. She is a regular panellist on BBC Radio 4's Saturday Review. Kenan Malik's books include From Fatwa to Jihad and The Quest for a Moral Compass: A Global History of Ethics. Kenan is a writer, lecturer and broadcaster who presented Nightwaves on BBC Radio 3 and has written and presented radio and TV documentaries including Disunited Kingdom, Are Muslims Hated?, Islam, and Mullahs and the Media.Recorded with an audience at Sage Gateshead as part of BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival.Producer: Fiona McLean

New Generation Thinker Emma Butcher looks at what we learn about war from the writing of child soldiers in The Battle of Trafalgar and the childhood writings of the Bronte family who were avid readers of newspaper accounts of battles and memoirs of soldiers. Does their fantasy fiction show an understanding of PTSD and the impact of battle on fighters before such conditions were diagnosed? Dr Emma Butcher, literature historian at the University of Leicester, uncovers the history of Robert Sands, a powder monkey in the Battle of Trafalgar,. Does his experience muddy our sense of what childhood is ? New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who can turn their research into radioRecorded with an audience at Sage Gateshead as part of BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival.Producer: Torquil MacLeod

From Brighton Rock and Goodfellas to the streets of Glasgow, London's East End and Chicago, what's it really like to be part of a gang and do gangs lead to organised crime? Matthew Sweet calls a meeting with Criminologist Alistair Fraser, journalist Symeon Brown and James Docherty of Scotland's Violent Reduction Unit Symeon Brown describes himself as an 'activist/writer on youth, justice and urbanism' and is a journalist for Channel 4 News. He was senior researcher for The Guardian's investigation team on their in-house study, Reading the Riots about the English riots of 2011. Alistair Fraser researches gang culture with a particular focus on youth ‘gangs', street-based teenagers involved in criminal activity in Glasgow, Chicago and Hong Kong. His book Urban Legends: Gang Identity in the Post-Industrial City, was awarded the British Society of Criminology Book Prize.James Docherty has worked with a leading children's charity helping young people on the cusp of organised crime and with the ‘Violence Reduction Unit' in Glasgow. He advocates for change in the way we address the hidden cost of untreated trauma in our communities.Recorded with an audience at Sage Gateshead as part of BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival.Producer: Jacqueline Smith.

From Monarchs to Presidents. Joanne Paul on satire, flattery and document leaks in the C16 and C17 centuries and the relevance of strategies for telling truth to those who hold power over us now. Five hundred years ago a miscalculation on this front could leave you without a head. Today, the personal stakes may not be as high, but globally, we've never had so much to lose. Renaissance historian and New Generation Thinker Dr Joanne Paul, from the University of Sussex, takes us back to the 16th and 17th century techniques for challenging the establishment and the writings of Gegorge Puttenham, Thomas More and Sir Thomas Elyot and debates over the merits of flattery versus honesty, and whether it was better to lead or to compel. Recorded with an audience at Sage Gateshead as part of BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival.New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select 10 academics each year who can turn their research into radioProducer: Torquil MacLeod

Anne McElvoy hosts Rod Liddle, associate editor of The Spectator; David Runciman, author of How Democracy Ends; Caroline MacFarland, the head of a think tank promoting the interests of ‘millennials' and geographer Danny Dorling in an assessment of the influence of people power. Democracy was the most successful political idea of the last century but can it survive the digital age? Recorded with an audience at Sage Gateshead. David Runciman is Professor of Politics at Cambridge University currently working on a project about the pervasiveness of conspiracy theories in the twenty-first century. David's books include Politics: Ideas in Profile, The Confidence Trap, and the forthcoming, How Democracy Ends.Caroline MacFarland is the founder and director of Common Vision (CoVi), an independent think tank with a mission to ‘inspire civic engagement and policy understanding amongst the millennial generation'. Previously, she was managing director at the think tank ResPublica, one of the founding team members of the foundation Power to Change, and a special advisor to the Big Lottery Fund. Rod Liddle is an associate editor of The Spectator and a columnist for The Sunday Times and The Sun. The author of Selfish Whining Monkeys: How we Ended Up Greedy, Narcissistic and Unhappy, Liddle is a former editor of BBC Radio 4's Today programme. Danny Dorling is Professor of Geography at Oxford University and the author of Population 10 Billion. His research focuses on housing, health, employment, education and poverty. His recent books include Do We Need Economic Inequality?, The Equality Effect and he co -wrote Why Demography Matters.Producer: Luke Mulhall

Author of A Book of Silence Sara Maitland, medievalist John-Henry Clay, and writer Lionel Shriver face the crowd to contemplate the many sides to solitude. Chaired by Rana Mitter with an audience at the Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead. “If you're lonely when you're alone, you're in bad company”. Was Jean Paul Sartre right or are we just hot-wired to prefer the company of others? Is it even possible - as the famous hermit St Cuthbert once did - to experience true seclusion in our age of hyperconnectivity? And as we flock to cities in increasing numbers why do so many of us feel so isolated and alone? Sara Maitland has lived by herself for the last twenty years on an isolated moor in northern Galloway, taking pleasure in silence and solitude. She is the author of numerous short stories, novels and non-fiction books including A Book of Silence. Lionel Shriver's novels include The Standing Chandelier, The Mandibles, and We Need to Talk About Kevin. Her forthcoming collection of stories Property, explores how our possessions act as proxies for ourselves. John-Henry Clay is Associate Professor in the Department of History at Durham University whose main research interests are in Frankish and Anglo-Saxon history and archaeology, and the themes of conversion and religious identity. John is also the author of historical fiction including The Lion and the Lamb and At the Ruin of the World. Producer: Luke Mulhall

April 1916. By the Nile, the foremost poets of the Middle East are arguing about Shakespeare. In 2004, Egyptian singer Essam Karika released his urban song Oh Romeo. Reflecting on his travels and encounters around the Arab world, Islam Issa, from Birmingham City University, discusses how canonical English writers (Shakespeare and Milton) creep into the popular culture of the region today. Recorded with an audience at Sage Gateshead as part of BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival. Islam's Issa's book, Milton in the Arab-Muslim World, won the Milton Society of America's ‘Outstanding First Book' award. His exhibition Stories of Sacrifice won the Muslim News Awards ‘Excellence in Community Relations' prize.New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who can turn their research into radioProducer: Fiona McLean

A fashion show in Buenos Aires was put on for propaganda but football fixtures were deemed too risky. New Generation Thinker Dr Christopher Bannister, from the University of Manchester, looks at attempts to influence opinion about World War II in Latin America. Although relatively untouched by violence, support in such a strategically important region was vital to the British war effort. Bombs and bullets were no use here, so fashion shows, book launches, soap operas and films became the British Ministry of Information's weapons of war as New Generation Thinker Dr Christopher Bannister, from the University of Manchester, explains. Recorded with an audience at Sage Gateshead for BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival. New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who can turn their research into radio.Recorded at the 2018 Free Thinking Festival and includes questions and answers from the audience at Sage GatesheadProducer: Jacqueline Smith

Alastair Fraser talks about teenagers, street life and filling time. Doing nothing has become the mantra of twenty-first century life. In an accelerated world, we yearn for a space where minds are emptied, iPhones left at the door. But doing nothing is not always a choice. For young people, bored on the streets, it's all there is. And for them doing nothing is always doing something. New Generation Thinker Alastair Fraser, from the University of Glasgow, has written books including Gangs and Crime: Critical Alternatives and Urban Legends: Gang Identity in the Post-Industrial City, which was awarded the British Society of Criminology Book Prize.Recorded with an audience at Sage Gateshead as part of BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival. New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who can turn their research into radio.Recorded at the 2018 Free Thinking Festival and includes questions and answers from the audience at Sage Gateshead.Producer: Jacqueline Smith

Author of Fully Connected Julia Hobsbawm, Social Media director at DEMOS Jamie Bartlett, writer Laurence Scott and tech blogger Abeba Birhane switch off their phones to focus on the impact of tech on the way we behave. Social media has allowed us to express our individuality and at the same time to interact like never before. But as the forces behind our digital lives become more sophisticated and powerful, are we in danger of succumbing to mass manipulation? Presented by Anne McElvoy with an audience at Sage Gateshead. Julia Hobsbawm's most recent book Fully Connected explores how to cope in an age of data and deadline overload by proposing new ways to develop healthy connectedness with and without technology. She writes and speaks about Social Health and about how to form satisfying interpersonal relationships with each other. Jamie Bartlett is Director of the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media at Demos with the University of Sussex. His book The Dark Net describes underground and emerging internet subcultures and his forthcoming Radicals looks at how the influence of radical groups on the political fringes is growing. Laurence Scott teaches at Arcadia University and became a Radio 3/AHRC New Generation Thinker in 2011. In his book, The Four–Dimensional Human: Ways of Being in the Digital World, Laurence explores how life is being reframed in a digital age. Abeba Birhane is pursuing a PhD in cognitive science at University College Dublin. She blogs regularly about the evolution of algorithms and the ethical considerations around such technology. Producer Craig Smith.

Army captain turned MP Johnny Mercer, Theatre Director Elizabeth Newman and former footballer Paul Fletcher compare notes on leadership and teamwork - presented by Rana Mitter with an audience at Sage Gateshead. There is no I in Team .. but there's a ME if you look hard enough”, joked David Brent in the BBC sitcom, The Office. But for individuals with a proven track record in leadership, how do you get the best from your group while handling the demands of the individual? Johnny Mercer served three tours of Afghanistan during his military career before retiring from the army to pursue a future in politics. He was elected Conservative MP for Plymouth Moor View in 2015.Elizabeth Newman is the artistic director of the Octagon Theatre in Bolton. Previously she was an associate director at Southwark Playhouse. In 2014, she was awarded the David Fraser/Andrea Wonfor Television Directors' Bursary for experienced theatre directors to work with top UK broadcasters and production companies and has recently completed filming an episode of Doctors for the BBC. In 2017 she was named ‘Bolton's Woman of the Year'. Paul Fletcher played as a striker playing for Bolton Wanderers, Burnley and the England Under 23 team before leg injuries put paid to his playing career. He has been Chief Executive at Huddersfield Town masterminding the building of the Alfred McAlpine Stadium, at Bolton Wanderers when the Reebok Stadium was built, and CEO of Burnley. He has just collaborated with the writer Alastair Campbell on a novel depicting a football manager called Saturday Bloody Saturday and with Ken Sharp he has written The Seven Golden Secrets of a Successful Stadium Producer: Zahid Warley

Gilbert and Sullivan gave university-educated women the English comic operetta treatment in their eighth collaboration, Princess Ida (1884) but why did the most famous musical duo of their day choose to make fun of them? To find out, New Generation Thinker Dr Eleanor Lybeck, from the University of Oxford, looks at protests, popular culture and a group of pioneering Victorian women who saw education as the first step towards emancipation. Recorded with an audience at Sage Gateshead as part of Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival. New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who can turn their research into radioRecorded at the 2018 Free Thinking Festival and includes questions and answers from the audience at Sage GatesheadProducer: Zahid Warley

From schools of fish to starlings to atomic particles. what does group behaviour look like in nature? Rana Mitter is joined by BBC Radio 4's presenter of The Life Scientific Jim Al-Khalili, Melissa Bateson, Andrew McBain and Richard Bevan. Recorded with an audience at Sage Gateshead for the 2018 Free Thinking Festival. Jim Al-Khalili is Professor of Physics at the University of Surrey and presenter of BBC Radio 4's The Life Scientific and TV documentaries including Gravity and Me: The Force that Shapes Our Lives and The Beginning and End of the Universe. His books include Paradox: the Nine Greatest Enigmas in Science, Black Holes, Wormholes and Time Machines, Quantum: a Guide for the Perplexed and he's edited What's Next ? What Science Can Tell Us About Our Future.Melissa Bateson is Professor of Ethology at Newcastle University, an expert in behavioural biology who has studied the behaviour of starlings, hummingbirds and humans.Andrew McBain is a Professor of Microbiology at the University of Manchester. His research focuses on the responses of biofilms to antimicrobial treatments and the interaction of microorganisms colonising the skin, nasopharynx, oral cavity and intestine with the human host in health and disease Richard Bevan is a lecturer in the School of Natural and Environmental Sciences at Newcastle University. His research interests are in animal ecophysiology; the way that animals interact with their environment both physiologically and behaviourally and how this is vital in understanding and interpreting their biology.Producer: Torquil MacLeod

An apple a day is said to keep the doctor away but could a poem, painting or play have the same effect? Daisy Fancourt is a Wellcome Research Fellow at University College London. In her Essay, recorded with an audience at Sage Gateshead for the Free Thinking Festival, she looks at experiments with results which which prove that going to a museum is known to enhance neuronal structure in the brain and improve its functioning and people who play a musical instrument have a lower risk of developing dementia. What does this mean for our attitudes towards the arts and what impact are arts prescriptions having ?Daisy Fancourt has published a book called Arts in Health: Designing and researching interventions .New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select ten academics each year who can turn their research into radio.Recorded at the 2018 Free Thinking Festival and includes questions and answers from the audience at Sage Gateshead. Producer: Zahid Warley

The geographer Danny Dorling; Lionel Shriver, the author and patron of Population Matters; and Stephen Emmott, author of 10 Billion, join Matthew Sweet and an audience at Sage Gateshead to debate whether we should have fewer children. In 1968 a Stanford university professor, Dr Paul E. Ehrlich, published The Population Bomb. This call to arms became a global bestseller, influenced public policy and made its author a celebrity. It predicted mass starvation in the US and an England underwater by the year 2000. It also suggested adding ‘temporary sterilants' to the water supply as a way to stem the ensuing crisis. For decades it has come under fire for its alarmist tone and laughable foresight but with global population set to hit ten billion by 2050, will Ehrlich eventually be proved right? Danny Dorling is Professor of Geography at Oxford University and the author of Population 10 Billion. His research focuses on housing, health, employment, education and poverty. His recent books include Do We Need Economic Inequality? The Equality Effect, and he co-wrote Why Demography Matters.Lionel Shriver's novels include The Standing Chandelier, The Mandibles, and the award-winning We Need to Talk About Kevin. Lionel is a regular columnist at The Spectator and has written for numerous other publications including for The Wall Street Journal, New Statesman, and The Economist. She is a patron of Population Matters.Stephen Emmott is the author of Ten Billion, which he performed as a drama at the Royal Court Theatre. He is a Professor at Cambridge. His work develops new computational methods and ways of thinking about complex living systems. Producer: Craig Templeton Smith.

Leading economic expert, Linda Yueh, delivers her vision for restoring faith in the free market to an audience at Sage Gateshead. Chaired by Philip Dodd. We live in a world where experts of all stripes are struggling to win over the confidence of the general population. Last year, the Bank of England said it was stepping up its efforts to minimise a ‘twin deficit' of public understanding and trust in an area that has come under particular fire recently: economics. In a timely defence of her profession, and by drawing on ideas put forward by several titans of economic theory, Linda Yueh, the former Chief Business Correspondent for BBC News, opens the Free Thinking festival 2018 with a unique take on how we fix the globalised free market to benefit the one and the many. Linda Yueh is Adjunct Professor of Economics at London Business School and Fellow in Economics at St Edmund Hall, Oxford University as well Visiting Senior Fellow at the London School of Economics IDEAS research centre. She is the author of The Great Economists: How Their Ideas Can Help Us Today.Recorded with an audience at Sage Gateshead as part of BBC Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival.Producer: Craig Templeton Smith

Tim Birkhead and Phyllis Lee explore long-lived animal species and their survival strategies. If the modern world is obsessed with short term success, could animals offer a better understanding of the long term state of our planet? Want to sample the health of our oceans? Ask a migratory bird. Or the advantage of becoming a mother later in life? Ask an elephant. Free Thinking presenter Rana Mitter hears how their lives have shaped the minds and emotions of the field scientists who study them over decades. Professor Tim Birkhead is 45 years into his study of the guillemots of Skomer Island. He began his academic career at Newcastle University. A Fellow of the Royal Society he is now based at Sheffield University and specialises in researching the behaviour of birds. His books include Bird Sense: What it is like to Be a Bird and The Most Perfect Thing: the Inside (and Outside) of a Bird's Egg. Professor Phyllis Lee has worked for 35 years on the world's longest-running elephant study in Kenya's Amboseli National Park. An award-winning evolutionary psychologist, she is now based at the University of Stirling, and continues to work on a number of research projects on forest and Asian elephants as well as primates from around the world. She has published widely on this, on conservation attitudes as well as on human-wildlife interactions. Recorded as part of Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival in front of an audience at Sage Gateshead. Producer: Jacqueline Smith

Jay Griffiths, Vincent Deary, Louise Robinson and Matthew Smith discuss our mental health. How do depression and dementia affect our sense of time and the rhythms of daily life? Our body clocks have long been seen by scientists as integral to our physical and mental health – but what happens when mental illness disrupts or even stops that clock? Presenter Anne McElvoy is joined by those who have suffered depression and dementia and those who treat it – and they attempt to offer some solutions. Jay Griffiths is the author of Tristimania: a Diary of Manic Depression and a book Pip Pip which explores attitudes to time across the world. Doctor Vincent Deary teaches at Northumbria University, works as a clinician in the UK's first trans-diagnostic Fatigue Clinic and is the author of a trilogy about How To Live – the first of which is called How We Are. Professor Louise Robinson is Director of Newcastle University's Institute for Ageing and Professor of Primary Care and Ageing. Professor Matthew Smith is a New Generation Thinker from 2012 who teaches at Strathclyde University at the Centre for the Social History of Health and Healthcare. Recorded as part of Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival in front of an audience at Sage Gateshead. Producer: Zahid Warley

Carlos Frenk, Eugenia Cheng, Jim Al-Khalili and Louisa Preston debate time and space with presenter Rana Mitter and an audience at Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead.We can measure time passing but what actually is it? What do scientists mean when they suggest that time is an illusion. Can time exist in a black hole? Is everyone's experience of time subjective? What is the connection between time and space? How does maths help us understand the universe?Professor Carlos Frenk is founding Director of the Institute for Computational Cosmology at Durham University and the winner of the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 2014.Dr Eugenia Cheng is Scientist in Residence at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and an Honorary Fellow of the University of Sheffield. She is trilingual, a concert-level classical pianist and the author of Beyond Infinity: An Expedition To The Outer Limits Of The Mathematical Universe.Jim Al-Khalili is Professor of Physics at the University of Surrey and presenter of BBC Radio 4's The Life Scientific and TV documentaries. His books include Paradox: the Nine Greatest Enigmas in Science, Black Holes, Wormholes and Time Machines and Quantum: a Guide for the Perplexed.Dr Louisa Preston is a UK Space Agency Aurora Research Fellow. An astrobiologist, planetary geologist and author, she is based at Birkbeck, University of London. Her first book is Goldilocks and the Water Bears: the Search for Life in the Universe.Producer: Torquil MacLeod

Poet Simon Armitage and writer Alexandra Harris explore time and place in modern Britain. Presented by Philip Dodd and recorded as part of Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival in front of an audience at Sage Gateshead. Simon Armitage, Professor of Poetry at Oxford University, has been described as ‘the best poet of his generation'. His latest collection The Unaccompanied explores life against a backdrop of economic recession and social division where globalisation has made alienation a common experience. He was born in West Yorkshire and lives near Saddleworth Moor. His work includes his translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and books exploring the South west's coast path and the Pennine Way. Alexandra Harris is Professor of Literature at the University of Liverpool and a New Generation Thinker. She is the author of Weatherland: Writers and Artists under English Skies and Romantic Moderns. Producer: Fiona McLean

‘Is it the world that's busy, or is it my mind?' Haemin Sunim, the multi-million selling author of The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down, discusses East and West and calm in a fast-paced world with New Generation Thinker Christopher Harding and presenter Rana Mitter. Born to Korean-American parents and educated at Harvard, Haemin Sunim is known for books, podcasts and a popular YouTube series exploring Buddhism in the 21st century. He studied at UC Berkeley, Harvard and Princeton before receiving formal monastic training in Korea and teaching Buddhism at Hampshire College in Amherst Massachusetts. He has more than a million followers on Twitter and Facebook and now lives in Seoul. Christopher Harding, one of Radio 3's New Generation Thinkers, is a cultural historian of modern Japan, India and the UK with a particular interest in religion and spirituality, philosophy and mental health, based at the University of Edinburgh. He also runs a blog, The Boredom Project. Recorded as part of Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival in front of an audience at Sage Gateshead. Producer: Luke Mulhall

An introduction to the academics whose ideas will be making radio waves across 2017. The New Generation Thinkers is an annual competition run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to select 10 researchers at the start of their careers who can turn their fascinating research into stimulating programmes. In this event, the 2017 selection make their first public appearance together: their topics include music and health and Shakespeare in Arabic. Hosted by Eleanor Rosamund Barraclough of Durham University, who has just published Beyond the Northlands: Viking Voyages and the Old Norse Sagas. 4 years ago she was one of the New Generation Thinkers. Recorded as part of Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival in front of an audience at Sage Gateshead. Producer: Jacqueline Smith

Tony Sewell and Mike Grenier discuss the challenges of education in the 21st century with Philip Dodd and an audience at Sage Gateshead as part of Radio 3's Free Thinking Festival. Can idle curiosity, slow burning passion and a time for reflection be at the heart of our schools? Or does the increasingly rapid pace of technological change make that sort of teaching a luxury at best - or, at worst, an educational philosophy stuck in a time warp? Mike Grenier is a House Master at Eton College and the co-founder of the Slow Education Movement, educators arguing the need to make time in the classroom for creative teaching and learning. Dr Tony Sewell, CBE is the director of the London based charity, Generating Genius, which aims to help children achieve educational success. He began his career as a school teacher and, in 2012, was appointed to chair the Mayor's Education Inquiry into London schools. He works in both the UK and the Caribbean and helped to set up the Science, Maths and Information Technology Centre at Jamaica's University of the West Indies. Producer: Fiona McLean