Public

From taking the middle ground to the mid-life crisis, Middle England to middle managers, to being a middle child - is occupying a position in the middle out of fashion?

Anne McElvoy hosts Radio 4's ideas discussion programme and her guests this week for a middling conversation are:

Journalist Catherine Carr. Her new book Who's the Favourite?: The Loving, Messy Realities of Sibling Relationships explores being a middle child and the relevance of birth order

Writer and broadcaster Mark Lawson, who has written novels set in middle England

Symeon Brown, home affairs correspondent at Channel 4 news, whose forthcoming book is The Good, the Black and the Boujee: The Story of Britain's New Black Middle Class

Adrian Wooldridge, journalist, author and Global Business Columnist at Bloomberg Opinion. His recent book is entitled Centrists of the World Unite! The Lost Genius of Liberalism.

and

Claire Ainsley, former adviser to Keir Starmer, now at the Progressive Policy Institute.

Producer: Eliane Glaser

This is a catch-up version of James O'Brien's Mystery Hour. To join the game, call 0345 60 60 973, Thursdays at 12pm.

That power sends men mad, is a rule of politics and of history that goes way way back before Dr Freud. When riding in triumph through Rome, Caesar’s slave stood behind him in the chariot whispering into the Emperor’s ear: “Remember - you are a man.” No one as far as we know, is keeping Donald Trump’s pride in check as he parades through Washington in the back of the Beast. He lives surrounded by sycophants who tell him he is indeed the omnipotent leader he imagines himself to be. Fintan O’Toole’s diagnosis is - that while not mentally ill - Trump is in a broader sense, mad. 

• Guest: Fintan O'Toole, regular contributor to the Irish Times and advising editor to the New York Review of Books.
• Producer: Ali Benton

Misha Glenny and his guests discuss the most famous oratorio of George Frideric Handel (1685-1759) and his librettist Charles Jennens (1700-1773). For his libretto, Jennens drew from Old and New Testament texts: prophecies about the coming of Jesus, the Messiah, the nativity, the suffering of Christ and his death and the Day of Judgement and redemption for all. Handel's Messiah had its premiere in 1742 in a secular Dublin music hall to great acclaim with a packed audience and Handel continued to adapt his Messiah for later performances, often shaping the work to the choirs or individual singers available. Messiah proved to be one of his most popular works, becoming a favourite of massed choirs around the world far beyond the scale of Handel’s original.

With

Donald Burrows

Ruth Smith

And

Larry Zazzo

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Reading list:

Donald Burrows, Messiah (full score, 2 vols, Hallische Händel Ausgabe, forthcoming)

Donald Burrows, Messiah (Edition Peters, 1987)

Donald Burrows, Messiah, Cambridge Music Handbooks (Cambridge University Press, 1991)

Donald Burrows, Handel: Master Musicians series, 2nd edition (Oxford University Press, 2012)

George Frideric Handel (ed. Donald Burrows et al.), Collected Documents vol. 3 (1734-42), vol 4 (1742-50), (Cambridge University Press, 2019, 2020)

G.F. Handel, facsimile ‘Messiah’: the composer’s autograph manuscript (British Library, 2009)

G.F. Handel, facsimile the composer’s Conducting Score of Messiah (Scolar Press, 1974)

Charles King, Every Valley: The Story of Handel’s Messiah (Doubleday/Bodley Head, 2024)

Jens Peter Larsen, Handel’s Messiah: Origins, Composition, Sources (Adam and Charles Black, 1957)

Richard Luckett, Handel’s Messiah: A Celebration (Victor Gollancz, 1992)

Watkins Shaw, A Textual and Historical Companion to Handel’s ‘Messiah’ (Novello and Co, 1965)

Ruth Smith, ‘The Achievements of Charles Jennens (1700–1773)’ (Music & Letters, 70, 1989)

Ruth Smith, Charles Jennens: The Man behind Handel’s ‘Messiah’ (Handel House Trust/The Gerald Coke Handel Foundation, 2012)

Ruth Smith, Handel’s Oratorios and Eighteenth-Century Thought (Cambridge University Press, 1995)

Calvin R. Stapert, Handel’s Messiah: Comfort for God’s People (Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2010)

Judy Tarling, Handel’s Messiah: A Rhetorical Guide (first published 2014; Punnett Press, 2025)

In Our Time is a BBC Studios production

Spanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Misha Glenny and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.

Yann Martel is famous for writing "Life of Pi", which wasn't just a standout book but also an Academy Award-winning movie. What stood out to me about him is that he's strikingly well-read, and he's developed a unique approach to storytelling.

Many writers say it's all about character, but Yann says other things are more important. Where other writers obsess over beginnings, it's the endings of stories that he truly falls in love with. If you want to learn about place, plot, people, and prose, you're in the right place.

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Charlotte Metcalf talks to John Tusa, the distinguished journalist and arts administrator about his new podcast, The Best is Yet to Come, interviewing oldies in their nineties about their lives.  He also talks about own his life, from leaving Czechoslovakia on the brink of war to his life in London now.

In this episode Werner Herzog speaks with Robert about the future of truth, which is the subject and title of Herzog’s new book, published in 2025. Songs in this episode: “Moby Dick” by Glass Wave, and “Balena” by Glass Wave.

On Point news analyst Jack Beatty on “the unedifying spectacle of self abasement” from the Moscow show trial of the 1930s, to present-day confirmation hearings for Trump nominees.

***

Whether your stress manifests in your mind, body or behavior (or maybe all three) there are ways to find relief quickly. Clinical psychologist Jenny Taitz talks about some of the 75 evidence-based tips from her book Stress Resets: How to Soothe Your Body and Mind in Minutes. This episode originally published Jan. 15, 2024.

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Continuing on Rameau's Nephew, getting further into Rameau's philosophy and practices and trying to figure out what this anti-hero can tell us about ethics, given that he displays the virtue of being candid about his own vices.

We talk about "trade idioms" (unethical practices that we consider normal), education, and music. How does this reading relate to Hegel (who quotes it directly)?

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