Past Present Future

Today’s episode was recorded in front of a live audience at the Regent Street Cinema in London: David talks to the geneticist and science writer Adam Rutherford about Mark Romanek’s 2010 film of Kazuo Ishiguro’s 2005 novel Never Let Me Go. A story of cloning and organ donation that explores the meaning of mortality, is it science fiction, speculative fiction or something else entirely? How can a film set in a wholly familiar version of late 20th-century Britain feel so otherworldly? And are we ultimately meant to pity the donors we are watching or to identify with them?

Out now on PPF+: part 2 of David’s conversation with Robert Saunders on the 10th anniversary of the Brexit referendum exploring how we got from there to here: is the state of British politics today a direct result of what happened in June 2106? To get this and all our bonus episodes plus ad-free listening sign up to PPF+ now https://www.ppfideas.com/join-ppf-plus

You can find out everything you need to know about this podcast – who we are, what we do, plus merch, events and full lists of all episodes including PPF+ bonus episodes on our website https://www.ppfideas.com

Next Time In Where Are We Going?: The History and Future of the Future w/Ivan Krastev
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Today’s episode in our occasional series looking at significant political anniversaries explores the causes and consequences of the Brexit Referendum, which took place 10 years ago this week. David talks to historian Robert Saunders about why the referendum was called, how the vote was won and how it was lost, and what made it such a difficult decision to implement. Did the referendum change who we were or did it reveal who we are? And is it too soon to know what it all meant?

Out tomorrow on PPF+: part two of this conversation in which David and Robert explore how we got from there to here, looking at the twists and turns of British politics over the last ten years and asking whether the state of British politics today is a consequence of what happened in June 2016. To get this and all our bonus episodes plus ad-free listening sign up to PPF+ now https://www.ppfideas.com/join-ppf-plus

You can find out everything you need to know about this podcast – who we are, what we do, plus merch, events and full lists of all episodes including PPF+ bonus episodes on our website https://www.ppfideas.com

Next time: Live Film Special – Never Let Me Go w/Adam Rutherford
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Today’s episode was recorded in front of a live audience at the Cheltenham Science Festival: David talks to Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales about what we can learn from the astonishing success of an encyclopaedia built by its users. When and how did people realise they could trust Wikipedia? What makes Wikipedia different from Uber, Airbnb and other online businesses that depend on public trust? Are there wider lessons for how we might do democracy differently? And what will happen to Wikipedia in the age of AI?

Jimmy Wales’s book The Seven Rules of Trust is available now https://bit.ly/3Q4KuWT

You can find out everything you need to know about this podcast – who we are, what we do, plus merch, events and full lists of all episodes including PPF+ bonus episodes on our website https://www.ppfideas.com

Next Time: Now & Then with Robert Saunders – The Brexit Referendum 10 Years On
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Our final great political fiction (for now!) is a meta-fiction and auto-fiction that is also a compelling work of historical reconstruction. Laurent Binet’s HHhH (2010) tells the story of Operation Anthropoid, the mission that led to the assassination of Reinhold Heydrich, the architect of the Final Solution. Why was Binet so eager to recast history as a struggle between good and evil? How does he deal with all the evil that followed from this heroic attempt to do good? What makes his Nazis different from the ones to be found in other twenty-first century novels?

 

Join us on Friday 19th June at the Regent Street Cinema in London for the final film in our current season: a screening of Never Let Me Go followed by a live podcast recording with geneticist and science writer Adam Rutherford. Tickets available now https://bit.ly/4x641XC

 

You can find out everything you need to know about this podcast – who we are, what we do, plus merch, events and full lists of all episodes including PPF+ bonus episodes on our website https://www.ppfideas.com

 

Next Time: PPF Live – Jimmy Wales on the Lessons of Wikipedia
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The penultimate great political fiction in this series is not strictly a fiction: it’s Annie Ernaux’s retelling of her own life in The Years (2008), thereby recapturing the story of France in the second half of the twentieth century. How can one woman’s story stand in for all the others? What does this book tell us about the passing of political time? Why do the years 1968 and 1981 mark the end of idealism? What comes next?

Join us on Friday 19th June at the Regent Street Cinema in London for the final film in our current season: a screening of Never Let Me Go followed by a live podcast recording with geneticist and science writer Adam Rutherford. Tickets available now https://bit.ly/4x641XC

You can find out everything you need to know about this podcast – who we are, what we do, plus merch, events and full lists of all episodes including PPF+ bonus episodes on our website https://www.ppfideas.com

Next Time in Great Political Fictions: HHhH
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