Private Passions

Nick Lane is a scientist who peers down microscopes at incredibly small cells in order to ask really big questions. How did life on Earth begin? Why is life the way it is? Why do we have sex? Why do we die?He is Professor of Evolutionary Biochemistry at University College London and the Co-Director of UCL’s Centre for Life’s Origins and Evolution. He is also the award-winning author of five books, and his next – Transformer: The Deep Chemistry of Life and Death – is due out in May.Nick Lane tells Michael Berkeley about his youthful ambition to be a violinist and how he funded his biochemistry studies by busking on the streets of London. He explains how his passion for the music of Janacek helped win him a place to study for his PhD, and how he unwound each evening to the sound of the early-twentieth-century American folk and blues musician Lead Belly.Nick Lane still plays the fiddle with his band in pubs and now also busks with his teenage son. He chooses folk music inspired by Handel; Bach played by his hero

In a special edition of Private Passions for COP26, Michael Berkeley talks to Dr Tamsin Edwards about her career as a climate scientist and her lifelong passion for music. As a child, Tamsin wanted to be a concert pianist and she went on to play the clarinet, saxophone and double bass, and to sing in choirs. Music is still a vital part of her life but now she is one of our leading climate scientists, at King’s College London, studying the uncertainties of climate model predictions, particularly in relation to rising sea levels. In 2018 she joined the author team for the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the UN body responsible for assessing the science related to climate change. Instantly recognizable with her trademark cropped blue hair, she is a passionate science communicator, blogging, writing for newspapers and frequently appearing on radio and television. Tamsin tells Michael how performing music helped her to develop the confidence to speak about science to governments, corporat

In this special programme for Radio 3’s Twilight Season, Michael Berkeley’s guest is the sleep scientist Professor Matthew Walker.So many of us have trouble sleeping, and are longing to find the secret of a good night’s rest, that when Matthew Walker goes to parties he is more likely to tell people he is a dolphin trainer than the world’s leading expert on sleep science. Otherwise, he says, ‘for me the evening is over’.Matthew began his career in Britain, training as a doctor, but he is now Professor of Neuroscience and Psychology at the University of Berkeley, California and the founder and director of the Centre for Sleep Science. He is the author of more than 100 scientific papers and his best-selling book Why We Sleep has been translated into over 40 languages. Matthew tells Michael about the ‘global sleep crisis’, the sleep deficit that is costing individuals their health and economies billions. He explains why it is so important to get at least seven hours of sleep a night and the dangers to our physica

Diplomat, Soldier, Explorer, Politician, Academic – Rory Stewart defies easy labels. By his own admission, his identity is complicated: he describes himself as “a Scot, born in Hong Kong and brought up in Malaysia”. After Eton, he went on to Oxford and to the Diplomatic Service, but then abandoned this conventional career path and spent two years walking across Afghanistan and Iran. He became a deputy governor in Iraq after the 2003 invasion, and then ten years later entered British politics as a Tory MP, serving under both Cameron and May, and finally making a bold bid to become Party Leader and Prime Minister. When Boris Johnson won the election in 2019 he resigned, and threw his hat into the ring to become the new London mayor. After that contest was delayed by Covid, he left politics, and indeed left the country; he now teaches international relations and politics at Yale University. In conversation with Michael Berkeley, Rory Stewart reveals that he feels nothing but relief at leaving politics behind. He

Mark Solms is a neuroscientist who has spent his whole career investigating the mysteries of consciousness. His research throws light on some of the most difficult questions of all: how does the mind connect to the body? Why does it feel like something to be you? Born in Namibia and educated in South Africa, he came to Britain in his late twenties to avoid military service under the apartheid regime. He made his name with research into what happens in the brain when we’re dreaming; then he startled his scientific colleagues by training as a psychoanalyst, something which, he says, “put me at odds with the rest of my field”. He’s now very unusual in holding eminent positions within both psychoanalysis and scientific research. He’s the author of six books – his latest is "The Hidden Spring" – and he divides his time between London and Cape Town, where he also pursues his other career... as a winemaker. In conversation with Michael Berkeley, Mark Solms reveals the traumatic childhood event which made him determi

Esther Freud talks to Michael Berkeley about her extraordinary childhood and her passion for story telling in both words and music. After attending drama school and making appearances in The Bill and Dr Who, Esther Freud changed direction at the age of 20 and turned to writing. She found instant success with her first novel, Hideous Kinky, which drew on her experience of living in Morocco as a very young child with her mother and sister Bella. She was named as one of Granta’s Best Young British Novelists and has gone on to write eight more books, the latest being I Couldn’t Love You More. Esther tells Michael about her childhood passion for telling stories and how her experiences in Morocco dominated her imagination for years afterwards. She conjures up memories of life in North Africa with a song by the legendary Egyptian singer Umm Kulthum.As she grew older she grew closer to her father, the painter Lucian Freud, partly by sitting for him and partly by their sharing a rare holiday. We hear Lotte Lenya singi

Walter Iuzzolino is an Italian television presenter who has become well known on our screens thanks to Walter Presents, Channel 4’s free streaming service of European television dramas. He’s a man with a mission to open up European culture to the British, and he has now begun a specially curated publishing list too, so that we can read the latest European fiction. Alongside that latest venture, he’s created special playlists – because together with his passion for European television and literature, Walter Iuzzolino is a classical music fan, with a love of Chopin. In conversation with Michael Berkeley, Walter reflects on the challenges of opening up British culture to “foreign” influences, and explains why he’d actually rather live in London than Genoa. A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 3 Produced by Elizabeth Burke

Francesca Stavrakopoulou is fascinated by the Bible, and she’s a leading scholar of those ancient texts which have so profoundly shaped how we see the world. She’s Professor of Hebrew Bible and Ancient Religion at the University of Exeter; she’s also a convinced and passionate atheist. She is the author of several books about the Bible, and her most recent is her most daring: called “God: An Anatomy”, it draws on the Bible to describe the body of God, from head to foot, in a way she herself describes as “very controversial”. In conversation with Michael Berkeley, Francesca talks about how her early fascination with Greek gods has inspired her to think differently about the God of the Bible. She talks movingly too about her partner, who served as a marine in Afghanistan, and how difficult it is to adjust to life after the army. Music choices include Tallis, Beethoven, Elgar, and Handel’s portrayal of her favourite Biblical heroine, Athalia.Produced by Elizabeth Burke A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 3

The writer Helena Attlee transports Michael Berkeley to the sounds, smells, tastes and music of Italy. Helena has spent most of her life immersed in Italian culture, and she has written two bestselling books that take her readers to the heart of Italy via unexpected avenues: The Land Where Lemons Grow tells the story of citrus-growing in Italy, from the Medici to the Mafia; and Lev’s Violin recounts her obsessive search in Italy and beyond to discover the history of a battered but beautiful old violin. Helena chooses music by Paganini that takes her to the Tuscan garden once owned by Napoleon’s sister; a folk song from Sicily, the heartland of Italian citrus farming; and a moving recording of singing from the windows of Siena during the lockdown. She tells Michael how for much of her life she felt excluded from classical music until one evening, and one violin, transformed her relationship with music and changed the direction of her life.Producer: Jane Greenwood A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 3

Peggy Seeger’s extraordinary musical career spans six and a half decades. Since the age of 17 she has been writing, performing and recording songs pretty much non-stop. At the age of 80 she won the BBC Radio 2 Folk Award for Best New Song with her son Calum and earlier this year, at the age of nearly 86, she released her latest album. Peggy tells Michael Berkeley about her complex 30-year love affair with Ewan McColl, which was at the heart of the British folk revival; together they produced more than 40 albums, the revolutionary Radio Ballads for the BBC – and three very musical children. Peggy describes her surprise and joy at falling in love with a woman 30 years ago; she chooses contemporary a cappella music that reminds her of her wife, Irene. And we hear a piece of extraordinary complexity by Peggy’s mother, Ruth Crawford Seeger, one of the most important modernist composers of the 20th century, whose early death changed the course of Peggy’s life.Producer: Jane Greenwood A Loftus Media production for B

Michael Berkeley’s guest is the theoretical physicist Dr Michio Kaku - without doubt the only guest ever to have built a particle accelerator in their garage while still in high school. After that auspicious start Michio went onto become the co-founder of string theory in the 1970s; a professor at The City University of New York; and one of the world’s most prominent scientists.He is also a great science communicator, so alongside his hundreds of scientific papers, he has written bestselling science books and appears regularly on television and radio all over the world. His latest book, The God Equation, describes his quest to continue Einstein’s search for a ‘theory of everything’.Michio tells Michael how that particle accelerator drove his mother to distraction by blowing every fuse in the house and how his parents survived internment as Japanese-Americans during the Second World War. And he shares his passion for ice dancing to opera arias and his life-long love of the trumpet. Producer: Jane Greenwood A L

Carole Boyd is an accomplished theatre actress: she has recorded some three hundred audio books, and she does all the female voices in Postman Pat. But all this pales into insignificance compared with the role she has played on radio for thirty-five years, as Archer's character Lynda Snell. More than five million Archers listeners have been listening to her as the snobbish but good-hearted Lynda since she first arrived in Ambridge, in 1986. Lynda is the Archers’ theatre director, putting on pantomimes and musicals; and Carole Boyd too is musical, creating words and music shows. In conversation with Michael Berkeley, Carole Boyd tells the story of how she became an actress, despite the opposition of her family (she applied to drama school secretly) and how she was inspired to create the inimitable grating speech of Lynda Snell by the voice of her husband’s secretary. She concedes that her identity has become somewhat blurred with Lynda’s, and that channeling Lynda’s assertiveness is very useful when doing bat

One of the things that stands out, over more than 20 years of Private Passions, is the very strong connection between music and memory: as people choose music, which takes them way back, vividly evoking pivotal moments in their lives, it can be deeply emotional. Veronica O’Keane is perfectly placed to explain that response: as a practising psychiatrist, she’s spent many years observing how memory and experience are interwoven, working with patients whose memories are often broken or disrupted through brain tumours or mental illness. She’s Professor of Psychiatry and Consultant Psychiatrist at Trinity College Dublin, and the author of The Rag and Bone Shop: How we Make Memories and Memories Make Us.In conversation with Michael Berkeley, Professor O’Keane explains the latest research on memory, and why unreal experiences such as psychotic delusions can leave people with lasting traumatic memories, even when they know they’re false. She chooses music that evokes a series of “memory snapshots” from her own life,

For almost a decade, Alastair Campbell was Tony Blair’s right-hand man, first as Press Secretary and then as Downing Street Director of Communications. He was at the heart of power through the Good Friday Agreement, the 9/11 attacks and the Iraq War, which involved him in the greatest controversy. These days he’s a writer and mental health campaigner, and he’s recently published a very frank book, “Living Better: How I learned to survive depression”.In conversation with Michael Berkeley, Alastair Campbell talks about how music helps him manage depression, and reveals his lifelong passion for the bagpipes. His father, who was from the Hebrides, played, and he and his brother Donald learned as boys. Donald was diagnosed with schizophrenia when Alastair was only nineteen: “a defining event in my life”. Donald left Alastair his bagpipes when he died, too young; and he also left recordings of himself playing – one of which we hear in the programme. Alastair himself played the pipes as a busker in the South of Fran

Comedian and classicist Natalie Haynes talks to Michael Berkeley about her favourite music, making the classics funny and the joy of running.Just like the ancient Greek dramatists she loves, Natalie excels in both tragedy and comedy. She has written three novels, which retell stories from Greek myth, and she has had a long-running parallel career as a stand-up comedian, including her hugely popular Radio 4 series, Natalie Haynes Stands up for the Classics. Central to all her work is her focus on the much-neglected stories of women in the ancient world and particularly in Greek myth. Natalie talks to Michael about why stories and myths from the ancient world continue to resonate so powerfully today and how classics is changing as women scholars and novelists reclaim ancient stories and retell them from a female perspective. She chooses music by Elgar, by Cole Porter, and by two contemporary women composers, Annelies van Parys and Calliope Tsoupaki, who have been inspired by women in Greek myth. And we hear on

If you’ve ever wondered why you love blue and hate the colour khaki, or have spent hours arguing over a colour chart because you and your partner can’t agree on how to paint the bedroom, you’ll be fascinated by Professor Anya Hurlbert. She’s a neuroscientist and a leading researcher into how the brain perceives colour, and why we feel so strongly about it. Brought up in Texas, studying at Princeton and Harvard, she is now Professor of Visual Neuroscience at the University of Newcastle; she’s also spent years advising the National Gallery on how to show their pictures so we can see the colours most vividly. She’s married to the science writer Matt Ridley.In conversation with Michael Berkeley, Anya Hurlbert discusses the scientific research that reveals the world’s favourite colour: blue. She talks about how the brain processes colour, and why colour perception is so individual and so bafflingly complex. A few years ago for instance, ten million people took to Twitter to argue about the colour of ‘The Dress’ –

The writer and art critic Laura Cumming talks to Michael Berkeley about the music and art she loves and the extraordinary story of her family. Laura has been writing about art for The Observer for more than two decades, but her books suggest that at heart she’s really a detective. All three have unravelled mysteries: a missing Velázquez painting; the inner lives of great artists revealed through their self-portraits; and the secrets and lies which lay behind the kidnap of her mother, aged three, on a Lincolnshire beach in 1929.She describes how her mother overcame childhood trauma and neglect to become an artist and the lynchpin of her own loving family. Her mother introduced Laura to classical music and she chooses a Chopin Nocturne and a performance by Andrés Segovia to remind her of the music they listened to together when she was growing up in Edinburgh. Laura describes the emotional power of art and music, from the overpowering effect of her favourite painting by Velázquez to the music of Bach, Shostakov

With her shocking pink hair and extravagantly colourful clothes, Dame Zandra Rhodes has been an instantly recognisable figure on the British fashion scene for more than fifty years. An artist as much as a clothes designer, she tells Michael Berkeley about her experiences dressing everyone from Jackie Kennedy Onassis, Elizabeth Taylor and Princess Diana, to Freddie Mercury and Marc Bolan. As well as fashion, she has developed a passion for opera, designing productions for San Diego Opera and for Houston, in America, and for the English National Opera. She chooses music from operas by Bizet, Mozart, Verdi and Puccini, and talks about her admiration for singers, and the particular challenges of designing costumes for the stage.Zandra describes her evolution as a fashion designer, in particular how her screen-printed fabrics are at the heart of her designs. And how, at the age of 80, every morning she puts on brightly coloured clothes, jewellery and full make-up, and heads to her studio – with no intention of ret

George Szirtes arrived in Britain at the age of eight, wearing only one shoe. It was 1956, and as the Soviet tanks rolled into Budapest, George and his family fled on foot across the border to Austria, eventually ending up (with many others) as refugees in London. It was such a hasty journey that one of his shoes got lost on the way. From a very early age, he wanted to be a poet – and he has certainly fulfilled that ambition over the last forty years, publishing close to 20 books of prize-winning poetry, and as many translations from Hungarian literature. His moving memoir, The Photographer at 16, won the James Tait Black Prize and was recently broadcast on Radio 4.George talks to Michael from his house in Wymondham, an old butcher’s shop which he and his wife, the artist Clarissa Upchurch, have decorated with dramatic murals. He discusses his memories of leaving Hungary, walking across the border, and about how he then went further back, reconstructing his mother’s incarceration in concentration camps during

Diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder at the age of eight, Camilla Pang struggled to understand the world around her; in fact, she asked her mother if there was an instruction manual for humans that could help. Twenty years on – after taking her PhD in biochemistry and embarking on a career as a scientist – Camilla has herself has written that manual. She’s called it “Explaining Humans” and it won the Royal Society Prize in 2020 for the best science book . A highly original blend of scientific theory and personal memoir, it gives a real insight into what it’s like to live with autism.In a fascinating conversation with Michael Berkeley, Camilla Pang talks about how she’s learned to thrive in a world which can seem very overwhelming. One of the issues for her is the sensory overload that people with autism spectrum disorder can experience. She’s very sensitive to certain sounds, and the morning commute to work can jangle her senses to such an extent that it takes much of the morning to recover. Music, on the