Podcast · Society & Culture

Start the Week

by BBC Radio 4 · English · Society & Culture

Weekly discussion programme, setting the cultural agenda every Monday

New episodes: Weekly
Typical length: 42 min
Latest: 12 Oct 2026
Language: English

Latest episode

12 Oct 2026 · 42 minNew

Inheritance – from stories to genetics

What do we inherit from the past and what happens when old stories are told in new ways? On Radio 4's weekly discussion programme, Naomi Alderman is joined by three guests exploring the traces the past leaves behind, in memory, mythology and our DNA. The writer Gillian Slovo discusses her new novel Inheritance, in which her protagonist returns home to South Africa after an unexpected legacy uncovers long-buried family secrets. Moving between London and a country still dealing with the horror of apartheid, the novel explores memory, forgiveness and the burdens passed from one generation to…

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Earlier episodes 29 most recent

5 Oct 2026 · 42 min
Jon Ronson: men unravelling
From crumbling buildings to collapsing certainties, are we living through an age of unravelling? On Radio 4's weekly discussion programme, Tom Sutcliffe is joined by three guests reflecting on the changing cultural forces that shape our sense of self and what happens when those foundations start to fall apart. Jon Ronson discusses The Castle: Adventures in a World of Unravelling Men, an investigation into the lives of men searching for belonging amid confusion about masculinity, purpose and identity. What begins as a mystery becomes a wider portrait of a changing world and those struggling…
28 Sep 2026 · 42 min
Contains Strong Language Festival in Salford
In front of an audience at the Contains Strong Language Festival in Salford Tom Sutcliffe is joined by three guests to celebrate poetry ancient and new and to explore the latest innovations in hearing the spoken word. The Poet Laureate Simon Armitage discusses his new verse translation of the ancient epic poem Gilgamesh, a timeless adventure story of power, love and loss. The poet and academic Jade Cuttle celebrates found objects - from Mesopotamian tablets to mudlarking treasure troves. Professor Trevor Cox from the University of Salford’s world-renowned Acoustics Innovation Institute…
21 Sep 2026 · 42 min
Carlo Rovelli: complexity and value
What can we really know about the world around us and our place within it? On Radio 4's weekly discussion programme, Adam Rutherford is joined by three guests who explore the values that shape our lives and the things that still matter even when they cannot easily be counted, explained or priced. The theoretical physicist and internationally acclaimed writer Carlo Rovelli discusses his new book On the Equality of All Things: Physics and Philosophy (translated by Simon Carnell). Drawing on modern physics and philosophical inquiry, he explores the relationships between minds and matter, ideas…
14 Sep 2026 · 42 min
Living with uncertainty
How do we navigate a world where simple answers are often the most seductive and the least reliable? On Radio 4's weekly discussion programme, Naomi Alderman is joined by three guests who explore how we search for certainty, why we are drawn to stories and what we can learn from doubt. Drawing on philosophy, medicine and fiction, they ask how we can live with uncertainty rather than trying to escape it. Dr Xand van Tulleken - who hosts the Radio 4 podcast What's Up Docs? with his brother, discusses his book Make Me Well: A Quest to Understand the Confusing World of Wellness. As health advice…
7 Sep 2026 · 42 min
Gordon Brown: The Future Starts with Us
How did we arrive at an age of global instability, conflict and political distrust, and can democracy renew itself? On Radio 4's weekly discussion programme, Tom Sutcliffe is joined by three guests to examine the pressures facing the international order and the ideas that might help sustain it. Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown discusses his new book The Future Starts With Us, which argues that the erosion of civic life and the fracturing of the rules-based international system are deeply connected. Drawing on global research and decades of political experience, he makes the case for…
22 Jun 2026 · 42 min
Life Online: Power, Risk and Resistance
How has life online reshaped society in real life? On Radio 4's weekly discussion programme, Tom Sutcliffe is joined by 3 guests who are investigating the digital sphere, and in some cases resisting its ubiquity. The filmmaker Baroness Beeban Kidron exposes how digital platforms exploit and divide in her book, Users: How Big Tech Took Control and How to Fight Back. She argues for more political and civic action to counter their unchecked influence. The business journalist Katherine Dunn explores how GPS shapes so many aspects of everyday life, from dating and supermarket shopping to global…
15 Jun 2026 · 42 min
Working-Class Lives: Identity and Political Fractures
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…
8 Jun 2026 · 42 min
Scientific discovery and misunderstanding
How have we made discoveries about the world around us and how has our understanding changed when we got it wrong? Adam Rutherford hosts Radio 4's discussion programme which starts the week, asking about the the nature of scientific discovery, understanding and changing our mind. Andrea Wulf's latest book is The Traveller: The Revolutionary Life of George Forster and his Search for Humanity. She has reassessed the botanist and ethnologist who accompanied Captain Cook's second voyage, taking him from Antarctica to the tropical islands of the South Pacific. During this time, Forster studied…
1 Jun 2026 · 42 min
Searching for economic solutions
What are the biggest problems facing the economy - and how might we set about dealing with them - from inequality to inflation, domestic growth to geopolitics? On Radio 4's weekly discussion programme, setting the cultural agenda every Monday, Tom Sutcliffe leads a conversation exploring what the solutions might look like. Jeremy Hunt’s new book Can We Be Rich Again?: The Surprising Potential of Britain's Economy makes the case for optimism. The former Chancellor of the Exchequer outlines current problems – low growth, high public debt and taxes, stagnant living standards and divided…
25 May 2026 · 42 min
Mythmaking at Hay: from Medea to Rasputin
In front of an audience at the Hay Festival, Tom Sutcliffe hosts Radio 4's discussion programme which starts the week, bringing together three thinkers who each, in different ways, examine the stories societies tell about themselves, and how those stories become enduring myths. Historian Antony Beevor investigates the life of Rasputin, a figure who has long hovered between fact and legend. His new work asks how a barely literate peasant from Siberia, the so-called ‘mad monk’, managed to bewitch the Romanovs, and how the wild stories that swirled around him, inexorably led to the Tsar’s…
18 May 2026 · 43 min
Farming, food production and rural life
What is the future of farming and rural life? Adam Rutherford hosts Radio 4's discussion programme which starts the week, asking about the future of food production and the communities that support it. Minette Batters was the first female president of the National Farmers’ Union. Born and raised on the family farm that she took over running, she became a committed advocate for the UK farming industry. UK agriculture has faced challenges from Brexit, Covid as well as international conflict and energy crises. Her new book, Harvest, part memoir and manifesto, makes a case for how and why we…
11 May 2026 · 41 min
German history
What can an art exhibition, a concert hall and Classical town tell us about twentieth century German history? On Radio 4's weekly discussion programme, setting the cultural agenda every Monday, Samira Ahmed leads a conversation exploring what inter-war Weimar, the Nazi's obsession with so-called 'degenerate art' and the programming of German music at the Wigmore Hall in London reveal about the course of German history and our responses to it. Katja Hoyer's last book, Beyond the Wall was a history of East Germany which concentrated on the consequences the Nazi rule and the Second World War.…
4 May 2026 · 42 min
Laurie Anderson: Strange and Disorientating Landscapes
What happens when art, fiction and biography take us to places that unsettle, reorient and transform our sense of the world? On Radio 4’s weekly discussion programme, Naomi Alderman moves from science fiction and land art to the landscape of the mind. Pioneering multimedia artist and musician Laurie Anderson discusses The Republic of Love, which she is performing at the Brighton Festival on 6th May. It’s an immersive multi-sensory experience, in which she reinterprets past pieces, including her 80s hit Big Science, to illuminate the political and emotional strangeness of the present moment.…
27 Apr 2026 · 42 min
Chemical Reactions
What can chemistry reveal about what it means to be human? On Radio 4’s weekly conversation programme, Tom Sutcliffe leads a conversation that ranges from the molecules within us to the experimental pioneers who transformed our understanding of the material world. Professor Dame Ijeoma Uchegbu discusses Chain Reaction, her vivid and deeply personal journey into the chemistry underpinning everything we touch, consume and inhabit. She brings to life the chemical bonds that hold our bodies together and the reactions that sustain all life, while recounting her own story, from childhood in post…
20 Apr 2026 · 42 min
Why Stuff Matters: Objects, Power and the Past
What can the things we create, keep and bury tell us about who we are? On Radio 4's weekly discussion programme, Adam Rutherford explores material culture – the power of objects you can touch – and how they connect us to the past. Classicist Mary Beard discusses her book Talking Classics: The Shock of the Old, arguing that everyday remnants of antiquity, from bread to paint pots abandoned at Pompeii, still matter. And that Ancient Greece and Rome continue to shape how we see our own world. Theatre director Greg Doran set himself the task of tracking down the surviving copies of Shakespeare’s…
13 Apr 2026 · 42 min
Challenges and solutions
Is radical change possible to solve some of today’s most intractable problems? In Radio 4's weekly discussion programme, Tom Sutcliffe is joined by three journalists to discuss the challenges of trying to live differently. John Kampfner has travelled the world to find examples of places and people bravely and imaginatively confronting some of our most pressing problems – from climate change to health, housing and education. His book is called Braver New World: The Countries Daring to Do Things Others Won’t. But Nicolas Niarchos questions how we live sustainably when the hidden costs of the…
6 Apr 2026 · 41 min
Zoos, sex and conservation
How have the evolutionary forces that shaped animal sex and behaviour influenced the ways humans conserve, study and coexist with other species? As the Zoological Society of London, the precursor to the zoo, celebrates its 200th anniversary, Adam Rutherford is joined by three guests whose work uncovers the scientific, historical and ethical threads connecting humans with the wider animal world. Biologist Lixing Sun introduces his new book On the Origin of Sex - the Weird and Wonderful Science of how our Planet is Populated, uncovering how mating strategies and reproductive behaviour evolved…
30 Mar 2026 · 42 min
Industrial action: from 1926 General Strike to today
What can past and present struggles over work and power tell us about the future of labour? Tom Sutcliffe and guests examine tensions between workers, employers and the state, from the upheavals of the early twentieth century to today’s shifting workplace. Constitutional specialist David Torrance explores the economic, political and social forces that shaped the General Strike of 1926. His new book The Edge of Revolution explains how Britain came to the brink of constitutional crisis and what the confrontation reveals about national identity, political authority and collective action.…
23 Mar 2026 · 42 min
Growing Up
How do the stories we inherit, and the ones we tell, shape our journey from childhood into adulthood? In Radio 4's weekly discussion programme, Naomi Alderman and guests examine the shifting boundaries between youth, experience and societal expectation across memoir, history and fiction. Booker Prize winner David Szalay talks about Flesh, his stark, propulsive novel tracing one boy’s path from adolescence in Hungary to adulthood among London’s super rich, exploring desire, power, class and the ways childhood experiences reverberate across a lifetime. Filmmaker and writer Penny Woolcock grew…
16 Mar 2026 · 42 min
Consciousness and Identity
What makes us who we are? In Radio 4's discussion programme to start off the week, Tom Sutcliffe and guests explore consciousness and identity, and whether the face reveals our inner thoughts and character. American science writer Michael Pollan is celebrated for his work on food and psychedelic drugs. His new book A World Appears, is a sweeping investigation into consciousness - examining where our sense of self comes from, how it is experienced across species, and what new theories from neuroscience, philosophy and plant biology reveal about awareness. Cultural historian Fay Bound-Alberti…
9 Mar 2026 · 42 min
Under the sea
What lies beneath the world's oceans? From the phenomenal infrastructure of telecoms cables to shipwrecked galleons and treasure and the sea creatures of the literary imagination - we explore the mysteries of the deep. Adam Rutherford chairs Radio 4's discussion programme which starts the week. His guests are: The writer Julian Sancton is the author of Neptune's Fortune which tells the story of Roger Dooley, a diver who went in search of a lost ship. An accidental discovery in the archives led the unlikely treasure hunter to search for the shipwreck of an eighteenth century galleon, the San…
2 Mar 2026 · 42 min
Reading and storytelling
The UK government has declared 2026, the National Year of Reading. The numbers suggest that reading needs all the public relations it can get. Under a third of school children say they read for pleasure and the number going on to read English Literature at University has shrunk by over a third in the last fifteen years. Their parents are not doing much better, with some surveys suggesting that any where up to half of adults have not read a single book in the last year. So, how can the case for the value of reading and the simple pleasure of picking up a book cut through? Tom Sutcliffe chairs…
23 Feb 2026 · 42 min
Thinking about war
How do we think about war? How do we imagine it, picture it and explain it? Adam Rutherford hosts Radio 4's discussion programme which starts the week, asking what we can learn about ourselves from our varied intellectual and cultural responses to conflict. Sir Lawrence Freedman is one of the world's leading scholars of warfare. In his new collection of essays, On Strategists and Strategy, he considers some of the key strategic thinkers of the last century and thoughts about the significance of political calculation, military tactics, organisational behaviour, character and psychology. A new…
16 Feb 2026 · 42 min
Breakage and repair
When society, financial systems and human beings fall short, how can we repair the damage? Tom Sutcliffe hosts Radio 4's discussion programme which starts the week, exploring the social, moral and political contradictions of the world we face today, with US novelist George Saunders, Turkish writer Ece Temulkuran and investigative journalist Oliver Bullough, The Booker Prize winning novelist, George Saunders new book Vigil deals with the moral ambivalence of a greedy oil executive; the death bed reckoning of a man who resists facing his life and legacy. The Turkish writer, Ece Temulkuran's…
9 Feb 2026 · 42 min
Fun and games
Games are supposed to be fun — so what happens when the logic of games, points and competition escapes the playground and starts reshaping everyday life? The novelist and games-writer Naomi Alderman and her guests explore how the joy of play collides with the pressures of a gamified society. Philosopher C Thi Nguyen introduces The Score, his examination of how ranking systems and numerical targets can both sharpen and warp our values, revealing how life becomes less playful when everything is reduced to points. Journalist and critic Keza MacDonald discusses Super Nintendo, her cultural…
2 Feb 2026 · 42 min
Censorship
A lawyer, artist and curator discuss different examples of censorship and self censorship in Radio 4's weekly discussion of ideas to kick off the week. Tom Sutcliffe's guests are: Ai Weiwei: a major name in contemporary art and for decades a leading voice for freedom of expression in his native China – and the wider world. In 2011 he was detained for eighty-one days in a secret location, unable to communicate with the outside world. His new book, On Censorship moves from authoritarian regimes to the pervasive influence of corporate power, social media and dominant interest groups in…
26 Jan 2026 · 42 min
Biology, technology and the future
Adam Rutherford and guests discuss intelligence, genetics and the nature of reality. How are scientific advances in AI, cognitive science and genetics changing our understanding of the material world and what it means to be human? Adrian Woolfson argues that we must transform biology into programmable engineering material. To do this, we must decode the generative grammar of DNA, the language of life itself, so we might create or change genomes – possibly including our own. In his book, 'On the Future of Species Authoring Life by Means of Artificial Biological Intelligence' he imagines a…
19 Jan 2026 · 42 min
Rethinking politics
If trust in politicians is broken and the political system isn't delivering, then how might we go about fixing things? Can we revive faith in democratic government by doing things differently? The political scientist Hélène Landemore argues that electoral politics is broken and that the answer lies in doing away with career politicians. She imagines dismantling a system that is biased in favour of the special interests of big money, propelled by the constant quest for re-election and the jaded proffering empty promises. In her new book, Politics without Politicians she posits that, among…
12 Jan 2026 · 41 min
The arts and health
What is the purpose of the Arts? Can music, literature and visual art change our lives physically and socially, as well as personally? Adam Rutherford explores the power of the arts and how it might be defined and explained. Engaging with the arts is one of our most powerful tools for unlocking health and happiness argues Daisy Fancourt. She is is Professor of Psychobiology and Epidemiology at University College London and Director of the World Health Organisation Collaborating Centre on Arts and Health. In her new book, Art Cure, she shows how songs support the development of children's…

About Start the Week

Weekly discussion programme, setting the cultural agenda every Monday

Start the Week is a English society & culture podcast from BBC Radio 4. Melo plays each episode straight from the publisher's own feed — no ads added, no account needed — and remembers where you stopped, in this browser only.

Publisher: BBC Radio 4
Language: English
Category: Society & Culture
New episodes: Weekly
Typical length: 42 min
Latest episode: 12 Oct 2026
Feed: RSS — paste into any podcast app
Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id131131620
Rights: (C) BBC 2026

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