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 46 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 saw about two minutes of his show with Stacey S the other night – I was paralyzed in front of the screen by how godawful it was. Unbelievably, she was apparently greatly aggrieved she didn’t get a BAFTA for her efforts
The Light is a fan of that programme. I have to leave her to it and retreat to my study with a book. (See also Sewing Bee, anything with Alan Carr in it and so on. For a woman with such awful taste it’s astonishing that she ended up choosing me.)
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.
Why?
Alice Roberts would be good.
How about Hannah Fry? Or Helen Czerski? I really don’t mind either. Or both. I’d best shut up now…
How about Emma Barnett? 😉
Good grief.
Please, God, no.
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?
Oooh, chippy! 🙂
FWIW, I also find Melvyn Bragg insufferably pompous – and it’s nothing to do with his roots. As per Salwarpe below, I think Anita Anand would not only be a good replacement, but would actually be an improvement.
I rather suspect that getting into Oxford in the 50s from Cumbria, the son of a pub keeper, suggests he’s not short in the intellectual deparrtment.
And I loved his book on the history of English
They are just jealous of his hair
Baldy arf!
Anita Anand would be my choice – unlike Bragg, who sometimes comes across as a bit tetchy, thin-skinned and overbearing, she does a superb job on Any Answers of steering adeptly and with patient good humour between the uninformed and opinonated boomers who call in, be they retired Guardian, Mail or Telegraph readers. She also does the rather impressive Empire podcast with William Dalrymple, so she’s clearly got the depth as well as the breadth of knowledge to hold her own with pioneers of academe.
Another vote for Anita here. I think she’s one of the best broadcasters around today for all the reasons you highlight.
I remember some years ago, the parent of a severely disabled child called Any Answers following the preceding hour’s debate around abortion rights. She was in floods of tears and told Anita she was revolted and ashamed to admit at times she wished she’d had an abortion instead of giving birth.
Anita Anand was wonderful. She spoke gently and kindly to the very distressed caller, allowed her to calm down enough to make her point, listened quietly with only gentle interjections and refrained from mawkishness, gushing or emoting. Then with a tact and sensitivity I’ll never have, she moved ahead to the next caller without being abrupt.
I Tweeted her after as I thought her handling of the call had been extraordinary and AA replied thanking me and saying they’d kept the caller on the line and were connecting her with people who could assist and help. She’s a class act.
If I haven’t heard that episode, I’ve heard many like it, where her genuine empathy for the caller comes through.
If you listen carefully, you can hear the words held back, as she gives people the space to say what they want to say, sometimes then feeding them lines to let them trip themselves up with their own illogic.
One of the innovations she introduced was to get two callers with diverging views to talk to each other. It quite often doesn’t work, which isn’t surprising given the randomness of who’s calling, and the shortness of the programme, but it’s a gamble which I think is always worth trying.
I think I’m a little obsessed with the show…
She’s a real professional. One episode, the whole phone system crashed and she couldn’t get a single caller through to the studio. She kept on trying, and in between, read out all the texts and messages instead. It felt like the whole R4 audience was with her, willing her on to the end.
Oh yes I remember that episode! I was half listening that afternoon and ended up sort of gripped by the chaos
Great idea. I agree.
To my shame, I’d never heard of this programme.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/sep/05/the-guardian-view-on-in-our-time-melvyn-bragg-has-proved-that-media-can-be-both-serious-and-popular
Looks like I’ve got some very enjoyable catching up to do…
1088 episodes.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qykl/episodes/player
Massive, mahooosive backlog in my Podcast library – I burn ’em thirty at a time onto CDs and listen on long drives.
Guy Garvey?
His voice is perfect for the people who want a calm sound to fall asleep to! It’s a kind sound, isn’t it..?
Yes, his 6 Music show is/was lovely to nod off to.
I could imagine Al Murray doing it; he’s a good presenter with wide ranging interests.
That’s an interesting choice – I’ve been impressed with him on the “We Have Ways…” podcast (on the episodes that I’ve heard). Very knowledgeable.
I was just thinking of AM! Degree in Modern History from Oxford too.
But… won’t he be fully occupied in the pub?
Bill Bailey?
Won’t you please come home?