Free Thinking - Bella Bathurst. Mike Figgis. Birds in British literature. 2017 New Generation Thinker Daisy Fancourt.

Arts & Ideas

BBC

Society & Culture

4.2 • 599 Ratings

🗓️ 23 May 2017

⏱️ 45 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Author and photojournalist Bella Bathurst suddenly began to lose her hearing as an adult in 1997. Twelve years later, an operation enabled her to recover it. She has written a book about her experience, insights gained about listening and the science behind deafness.

2017 New Generation Thinker Daisy Fancourt researches the effect of the arts on immune response and public health.

New Generation Thinker Will Abberley has curated an exhibition exploring birds in British literature.

Director, screenwriter and composer Mike Figgis encourages writers to rethink plotting in his new book, The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations.

Sound: Stories of Hearing Lost and Found by Bella Bathurst is available now. Stories on the Wing: British Birds in Literature runs at the Booth Museum in Brighton from 19 May to 21 September 2017. Free admission. The Thirty-Six Dramatic Situations by Mike Figgis is published on 1 June 2017.

New Generation Thinkers is a scheme run by the BBC with the Arts and Humanities Research Council to work with academics to turn their research into radio and television. You can find more broadcasts and films on the Free Thinking website.

Producer: Karl Bos

Transcript

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0:00.0	Can I just say?
0:01.5	You're about to listen to a BBC podcast.
0:04.0	It's such a wonderful listen.
0:05.6	So nice.
0:06.5	There are loads more like it on BBC sounds.
0:08.8	Different paces, different heights.
0:10.6	The roof is buckling.
0:11.9	Where you can also listen to live sports commentary.
0:14.2	It's right foot goes for goal.
0:16.7	And then enjoy even more podcasts full of analysis and reaction to the big stories.
0:21.7	The stat that is astonishing is they ended with the lowest amount of possession.
0:25.2	And she's had to live with that.
0:26.8	So if you love sport, a passion, it's almost like a religion.
0:29.7	Listen on BBC Sounds.
0:31.7	Sort of expecting that every week now.
0:34.7	This is the BBC.
0:43.2	A room full of stuffed Victorian birds, a woman slowly losing the faculty of hearing, a piece of music that exerts a drug-like effect upon the brain. I'm Matthew
0:48.8	Sweet and these are the elements of this edition of free thinking. They correspond to the
0:53.6	interests of our guests,
0:55.1	the writer Bella Bathurst, who's here to narrate her journey into silence and back.
0:59.9	The academic Will Abbey, who's here to talk about hoopoos and larks and sawdust and beady glass
1:05.9	eyes. And our new, new generation thinker, Daisy Fancourt, who's here to tell us how music is better than morphine.
	...

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