Start the Week

Laura Tisdall, historian of modern Britain exploring youth under Cold War anxieties. David Szalay, Booker-winning novelist probing adolescence, desire and class. Penny Woolcock, filmmaker whose memoir maps rebellion in a British settler enclave in Argentina. They discuss intense teenage feeling, hidden histories and how formative risks, violence and culture shape identities across time.

Fay Bound-Alberti, cultural historian of the face, traces facehood, physiognomy and selfies. Mary Costello, novelist focused on interiority and memory, explores narrative, dreams and individuation. Michael Pollan, science writer on psychedelics and plant life, surveys theories of consciousness, plant sentience and brain‑body debates. They discuss memory, art, recognition and how selves are seen and told.

Julian Sancton, writer who traced the lost galleon San José; Samanth Subramanian, journalist exposing the world of undersea telecoms; Joan Passy, coastal humanities scholar mixing folklore and literature. They explore shipwreck hunts and archival mysteries. They reveal the hidden web of fiber cables and geopolitical risks. They trace coastal myths, maritime gothic and how seas shape culture.

Sarah Dillon, Cambridge literature professor who studies how stories shape public reasoning. Lottie Moggach, novelist and arts writer who mined Victorian crime for Mrs Pearcey. Margaret Busby, pioneering publisher and editor who champions marginalized writers. They explore Victorian true crime and reading culture, how serials and moral panics shaped tastes, publishing risks and literary hierarchies, and how stories even influence scientists' thinking.

Rebecca Newell, Head of Art at the Imperial War Museum, on wartime London art; Jane Rogoyska, historian and author of Hotel Exile, on the Hôtel Lutetia and refugees in wartime Paris; Sir Lawrence Freedman, Emeritus Professor of War Studies, on strategy and its limits. They discuss how artists recorded war, exile and resilience in Paris, and the nature of strategic thinking and implementation.

Oliver Bullough, investigative journalist on global money laundering; Ece Temulkuran, Turkish writer on displacement and belonging; George Saunders, Booker Prize novelist exploring moral reckoning. They debate moral culpability and denial in a dying oil magnate’s story. They discuss rising unhoming, bureaucratic indignities and how illicit money flows warp communities and property markets.

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 history of the iconic console, tracing how its games, aesthetics and innovations transformed the medium and helped define what play means for generations of players.The Financial Times' commentator Stephen Bush examines the growing role of games and game like incentives in public life, exploring how the techniques of play — from reward structures to competitive framing — are reshaping political behaviour and communication.Producer: Katy Hickman

Ai Weiwei, outspoken artist and activist confronting censorship and surveillance. Baroness Helena Kennedy, human-rights barrister defending press freedom and legal protection for journalists. Rosina Buckland, curator exploring samurai culture and its role in cultural control. They discuss censorship in authoritarian states and democracies, self-censorship and social media, historical cultural control, and threats to journalism and free expression.

Joanna Kavenna, novelist (Seven), brings literary and philosophical imagination. Adrian Woolfson, biologist and author, outlines programmable biology and genome writing. Gaurav Suri, cognitive scientist, explains neural networks and emergence. They discuss how AI reveals biological grammar, the idea of designing genomes from scratch, parallels between brains and genomes, and what emergent intelligence might mean for reality.

Hélène Landemore, a political scientist advocating for deliberative democracy, argues that electoral systems favor special interests and calls for more civic participation through citizen assemblies. Phil Tinline emphasizes the need for politicians to confront issues of power distribution to rebuild public trust. Michael Gove, with extensive government experience, debates the importance of career politicians while acknowledging the potential of citizens' assemblies. The discussion addresses radical reforms, the limitations of expertise, and the unexpected social bonds created through inclusive governance.