These podcasts are like getting free college courses! With top-notch professors from Cambridge, Exeter, Holy Cross, and Oxford-your mind will soar! Melvyn Bragg is the consummate host, giving each speaker, thought provoking questions, and ample time for each response. I enjoy listening and learning about new subjects on the daily !

thoughtful & engaging discussions with wonderful contributors

The topics and guests are wonderful, but why does Melwin so often Interrupt the guests midstream?

Just, might need to add TV and video games now, considering they’ve matured as art forms as of late

I just went back all the way to the show’s archives to 1999. There are two PHENOMENAL episodes, one with Germain Greer and the other with Eric Hobswam. Such fantastic debates - well done and thank you!!!!!

With over 1000 episodes this show brings the best scholars from all fields of knowledge to BBC radio for 45 minutes of rapid discussion each week. Then, using the reading list that comes with the show listeners can get a more extensive look if they choose.

This podcast is intelligent and thought-provoking and the guests are very knowledgeable. Melvin can be a bit abrupt and frequently interrupts but I think of him as a curmudgeonly grandfather character and it’s bearable.

I'm going to add to the review, entitled "a lot of work." I listen to In Our Time regularly. In fact, I listen, and re-listen, and then listen again. The guests are always knowledgeable about their field, and Melvin is by far and away the best interviewer/mediator I have ever heard. I don't know how he does it, but I hope he keeps on doing it. with every episode, I can be assured of learning something.

In Our Time is one of only 3 podcasts I listen to regularly. I come back because I am guaranteed to hear people who are intelligent, informed and passionate share what they love. Wow! Great! Sometimes the host can hector a bit, but I think he is trying to be the conductor of an orchestra rather than a bully. He also must do a tremendous amount of prep work to shape all these many and varied conversations.

I agree with previous posts. The moderator has a tendency to interrupt frequently. He does this in the other podcast as well. It really makes it sound confusing and rather disrespectful. It is almost as though he has some real control issues and needs to establish that somehow he knows as much or more than his experts. I thought of the real turn off.

Great information, but as many others have said, the host is rather frustrating due to his extreme tendency to dismiss and interrupt the experts invited on the show. For example, during the episode on Emily Dickinson, the host interrupts the three guests (especially the two female experts) and redirects them while they are mid-thought and mid-sentence. He also seems to condescend Emily Dickinson in this episode and continues to undermine the guests’ expertise and diminish Dickinson’s accomplishments and legacy. The guests are incredibly knowledgeable if they were only allowed to speak.

long time listener. in fact, i often relisten to older shows, and dig through the archives to find topics i may have missed. the depth and breadth of this show is unrivalled. the guests are almost always experts in the their fields. if there’s a subject, it’s almost surely been covered or discussed as an aside or in an episode. not sure where the hatin’ on Melvyn is coming from, and i’ve never noticed him especially interrupting women. the man is from northern england and may mumble a bit, but he sure isn’t unintelligible. it’s called an accent. rather hear him talk than the obnoxious vocal fry that gushes forth from every american under the age of 40. this is a one hour format show with three guests. the amount of information flying around is substantial, and sometimes my boy Melvyn has to step in and get the show back on track. all the woke b.s. hating on this show is absurd….just like the people posting their worthless views…vacuous mouthbreathing drones. clearly, many of these posters have not listened enough to encounter the eye-rolling leftist ideas from some of the guests. typical. soooo…dive into the massive library of shows this podcast offers, and your intellectual curiosity will be both satiated and aroused.

I do love this podcast, but I have come to believe the host really is much more obnoxious with women. He’s no charmer even with the men, but his interruptions and almost aggressive badgering is definitely hyper focused on the women guests.

My favorite podcast, hands down.

Awesome topic, but the host is extremely hard to understand because he mumbles, and interrupts the guests and sounds very condescending. You can tell the guests feel uncomfortable and not at ease. The host is supposed to guide the conversation, but I can feel the tension when they talk because of the hosts disposition. Stop interrupting your guests, especially the women.

Insightful commentary, would appreciate a more advanced summary of the works evaluated so we aren’t scratching our heads trying to distinguish Antonio from the Merchant of Venice and Antonio in the Tempest! Keep it up!

The men on this show have a tendency to interrupt and speak over the women guest. Perhaps learn to learn exercise some common courtesy instead of perpetuating the narrow white male perspective prevalent in academia.

Love getting new information. Love learning more in depth perspectives on topics and works of interest. A real gift to access such scholarship freely and on my own time. Thank you.

Really fascinating range of topics and speakers. The host is normally fine, except when he starts interrupting the speakers and derailing the conversation to focus on some narrow point he doesn’t understand or agree with. If these sidebars were clever or added something interesting to the discussion, that would be one thing, but they’re just not. Instead, he can be quite rude and incredibly annoying. Unfortunately, it can occasionally be bad enough to drag down an entire episode. My suggestion, if you’re new to the series and run into one of these episodes, is just skip it and find another one.

This podcast is a gift, and the scholars are generous to share their stores of knowledge with us. Melvin Bragg is a great soul in a petty world.

Great podcast, but in the episode on Joyce’s Ulysses, wherein I believe the host, Bragg, has guests discuss Joyce (multiple male guests, 1 woman), I couldn’t I un-hear the overwhelmingly frequent times the host interrupted the only female guest (Jeri Johnson, I believe). He did not do this nearly as much for any other guest. She was knowledgeable and a highly competent Joyce scholar, and he interrupted, “clarified” (which was more like correcting), contradicted, and annotated her comments as she spoke. If I were her as a guest, I would have found it incredibly hard to even follow my train of thought and prepared research, let alone retain enough confidence in order to continue speaking on such a platform. This was especially true in her opening remarks; it was as if he was conducting a cross examination on her instead of letting her make introductory remarks (as an expert I the field). Example 1 of many: Jeri, when explaining a device of interior monologue, pointed out that after all, “we don’t think think in full sentences.” The host (Bragg) interrupted her and retorted, “We KNOW we don’t think in complete sentences.” He then actually scoffed- his laugh was audible on the podcast. I only hope this comment makes some small nudge of change, because I think often men don’t realize how much this behavior, where they speak over or interrupt women. This is a small way of belittling women, but it would mean so much if more people thought about how they outwardly considered and valued women’s idea... Thank you, and I hope fo enjoy future episodes of this interesting podcast series.

Melvin Bragg is a host from a different era: knighted for his public radio work, a writer himself, he prepares extensively for each program and holds the guests to a much higher standard than do hosts in almost all other podcasts around these days. Yes he is direct and sometimes rude, probably more so to female guests than male guests (although it’s obvious that some of his favorites are women, eg Angie Hobbes), but at least some instances are actually maneuvers whereby he keeps the guests on topic and in check. The intelligence and articulateness of some of his repeating guests are stunning: I can spend all day listening to Marcus du Sautoy and Ian Stewart on math, Edith Hall on Ancient Greece, or Anthony Grayling on philosophy, and he brings on sometimes independent researchers with extremely unconventional and yet interesting ideas. I take notes on each program as they are so dense in contents. Dislikers can go listen to politically correct hosts politely interview a carefully curated list of racially and ethnically diverse guests (I say this as a colored woman academic), but I take In Our Time with its actual focus on intelligent inquiry and genuine curiosity any day.

Great show. Topics are diverse and sometimes take surprising and edifying tangents. Enjoy the host’s manner. Challenges the guest and is very self aware of his tone and is clearly in on the joke.

All these people complaining about Melvyn cutting people off must have a screw loose. What makes this enduring program so good is that he’s smarter than most of the academics present and cuts them off when they start to drone on or talk nonsense. He doesn’t necessarily know as much as the invited speakers, and he’s there to learn, but he’s often wiser. If you ever read this, Melvyn, please don’t listen to the petty-minded critics.

I was so excited when I found this podcast to see the topics it was covering, but I quickly found that the host is an unbearable pedant who interrupts and talks over his guests–especially if they're women (nevermind that the guests [of all genders] are experts in their fields). Yes, if you're a female guest on this show–expect to be interrupted, talked over, and corrected ON YOUR OWN WORK by this host. To make it worse, he even tries to talk about feminism in some podcasts, which is such a joke given his treatment of the women on this show. Some episodes are better than others, so I'm glad I gave it a chance, but my criticism remains. If you still want to support this podcast, I would definitely recommend listening to it in small doses (rather than doing a binge-listen) if you have any respect for the many people on this earth who are not men.

Loved this conversation. Thank you.

This podcast contains quite a few interesting topics, but I found the host rude to his guests. He often cuts them off when answering questions, and he speaks with a condescending tone. He even sounds demeaning at times. Sadly, I have to unsubscribe after giving it a multiple tries.

I listened to several podcasts today for the first time. Subjects were quite interesting & the guests are really tops in their field of knowledge. BUT the host is annoying to listen to as he asks his guests questions, then interrupts them far too often & sometimes rudely (contradicting them in a less-than polite way), & sometimes sounds like he is trying to one-up his guests in his knowledge of the subject. Better manners (& more silent listening) from the host would make this a more enjoyable listen.

The only time I ever enjoy a multi guest podcast, polite, non bickering show that stays on topic. Host and others in my opinion do quite well.

I am enjoying the podcast about Hamlet with the exception of the host frequently interrupting his guests to tell them how to answer his questions. Ugh. Just let them talk.

Very thorough explanations of subject matter from scholars given without political commentary. Love Melvin who is always well versed in the subject matter as well. My favorite all time podcast.

Let me start off by saying I enjoy this podcast. I listen to it quite often before I go to sleep at night. The subjects explored are interesting and the discussions are in-depth. Something I have noticed and cannot ignore, however, is Melvyn Bragg’s patronizing tone to his female guests. I tried to gloss over it and just let myself enjoy it for a while, but one episode in particular, Sappho, he was quite annoying. He continued to interrupt his female guests and challenge all of their points, as if it were a debate. I was under the impression that his guests were chosen because of their expertise on the subject matter, and that it was somewhat of an interview style, where he asks questions to learn more about the topic. I’m not sure he knew anything about Sappho prior to this podcast, but by the way he spoke to the women you would think he has studied her for years. I am going to take a break from this podcast for now; but if I pick it back up it will be with caution. Female listeners, I think it’s important for you to know all this before listening so you’re able to make an educated decision.

These presentations are always well curated, usually fascinating, and with well spoken expert interviews. I never fail to be intrigued.

I love listening to pretty much every single episode of In Our Time. Melvyn is always fantastic & and I always end up learning something from him and his wonderful guests.

I want to love this show. I REALLY want to. The topics are great, albeit somewhat esoteric at times (but that is often what makes them great). But my god, the host. Melvyn Bragg just cannot help himself interrupting his guests and especially mansplaining every woman who comes on the show. Makes me want to reach through my phone and slap him. I would learn a lot more if he would shut up and let them talk!

I just came across the podcast a few days ago, and I'm absolutely thrilled with it so far. The topics are just superb - so good that I hardly even knew where to start. I've only gotten to listen to a few episodes so far, but I really appreciate the consideration Mr. Bragg shows for the listeners, moving things along if they threaten to bog down, making sure the nominal topic actually gets addressed, and demanding clarification or specification from panellists when they become incomprehensible (to me, at least). Thanks for a great show! Looking forward to hearing more!

Very informative and entertaining!!!!

This is one of the best podcasts I have found thus far. The conversations, topics, and moderation by Melvin are all superb, every single episode. The back catalog is massive and full of intriguing topics. I recommend this podcast to everyone I know!