Melvyn Bragg has announced that he’s stepping down from presenting In Our Time, a programme much admired, if not loved, by quite a few of us in this online community.
I am fairly sure that the programme will continue, given how prestigious it is and its listenership, not just here in the UK but worldwide. The BBC would be stupid not to continue with it (though today’s BBC leadership seem prone to acts of gross stupidity, so there are no guarantees).
My question to you all is “Who could possibly step into Melvyn’s shoes?”.
One thought that occurs to me is Dara Ó Briain. He seems to be a polymath with an inquisitive mind and a strong personality. I think they could do worse.
Please make suggestions below.
In Our Time – the future
by 18 Comments
A few suggestions at the end of this piece
https://inews.co.uk/culture/radio/no-one-replace-melvyn-bragg-in-our-time-3897367?srsltid=AfmBOoqEunleuIszlVWmkruen9PMza5eNy0ZDKUnaCpQ7bmIrwUFdNt
This is the BBC, might end up with Graham Norton or Paddy McGuiness
Or the inevitable Amol Rajan.
Anyone but the insufferably smug Stephen Fry-Upp
Well I like Amol Rajan, but this being the BBC we’re more likely to get Joe Swash.
I can’t stand the Lebedev stooge.
The subjects are so esoteric I have never made it through an episode.
My loss I am sure.
Do the Michael Faraday one. Superb.
Gregg Wallace is at a loose end.
Talking of Loose Ends, Clive Anderson would be an awful choice.
It’s a brilliant programme and I hope it does continue. It has to be someone with some credentials in at least one academic area – literature, history , science, etc. I’m sure the BBC would like it to be a woman as well. So maybe Mary Beard?
Bound to be a woman I’d guess.
It is my go to for insomnia and love it to bits. I cue up 3 or 4 and Melvyn and guests sonorous tones gently through the pillow on behavioural ecology or
the diet of worms send me off. Like Andrew Hickey IOT needs to be grade one listed in the public
Interest.
I heard Frank Skinner mentioned.
Not sure.
Absolutely not how am I going to get to sleep?
It won’t happen, but Matt Lewis who hosts “The Medieavalists” would be great.
He did an episode about the formation of the English state and laws under the Plantagenets, and it was a masterclass in how to interview experts to draw out their knowledge in a way that it becomes a good experience for the listener.
Possibly unfairly, but maybe not, I’ve always had an aversion to Melvyn. I heard him described decades ago as ‘a fake intellectual’ – not even a pseudo-intellectual – and it just had a ring of truth about it. Strangely, I can recall a poster on a lamppost near Queen’s University in the 80s, when I attended, announcing ‘Wherefore the arts? A public lecture by Melvyn Bragg’. It just sounded so unutterably pompous and pointless – Partridge before Partridge.
Yeah, those plebby Cumbrian grammar school boys should really know their place, right?