Free Thinking at the Hay Festival: Responsibility
Arts & Ideas
BBC
4.2 • 598 Ratings
🗓️ 29 May 2026
⏱️ 57 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Freedom is one of the leading values of our society. But with freedom comes responsibility, which is a much more contested principle. Deciding where responsibility lies, and what it means to take it, is the job of the courts. It is also debated in Parliament and in the media. It is often at issue on the psychotherapist’s couch. For Radio 4’s arts and ideas discussion programme, Shahidha Bari gathers a panel of experts who deal with the concept of responsibility in very different contexts. Recorded in front of an audience at the Hay Festival, Shahidha's guests are:
Baroness Hale served as the most senior judge in the UK. Her books include Spider Woman, and With the Law on Our Side Psychotherapist and artist Philippa Perry. Her books include The Book You Wish Your Parents Had Read, How to Stay Sane and now a crime novel Shrink Solves Murder Philosopher Simon Critchley. His books include On Mysticism, Tragedy: The Greeks and Us, and What We Think About When We Think About Football Former Downing Street Director of Communications Guto Harri
Producer: Luke Mulhall
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts. |
| 0:07.2 | Things just swirling around my head. |
| 0:09.6 | Am I really the product of this? |
| 0:12.1 | Astonishing secrets uncovered by at-home DNA tests. |
| 0:17.0 | Little did I know what more was to come. |
| 0:19.5 | I'm Jenny Clemen, and in the new series of The Gift, we'll hear more stories emerging out of the ever-expanding global DNA database. |
| 0:28.8 | They did know that I was different. |
| 0:31.7 | You had kids together. |
| 0:33.0 | Yeah. |
| 0:33.5 | Then you met. |
| 0:34.3 | Then we met. |
| 0:35.2 | The Gift. |
| 0:36.1 | Listen on BBC Sounds. |
| 0:39.3 | This is the Arts and Ideas podcast with me, Shahidabari. |
| 0:43.6 | Hello, it was me. |
| 0:45.3 | I admit it. |
| 0:46.2 | I murdered him in the kitchen with a candlestick, if you must know. |
| 0:49.7 | Poor old Colonel Mustard. |
| 0:51.9 | Tableware, it turns out, brings out the temper in me. |
| 0:55.2 | Mia Culper. |
| 0:56.3 | In today's program, we're exploring the idea of responsibility of all kinds, |
| 1:01.1 | from minor infractions like a football manager failing to keep his team from relegation, |
... |
Transcript will be available on the free plan in 22 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.

