Free Thinking – Screaming Lord Sutch on Stage. Margaret McMillan. Artificial Neural Networks.
Arts & Ideas
BBC
4.2 • 599 Ratings
🗓️ 11 February 2016
⏱️ 46 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Playwright James Graham talks to Anne McElvoy about his new comedy which puts Screaming Lord Sutch on stage. Graham's previous plays include The Vote, The Angry Brigade, This House.
Historian Margaret MacMillan explores the question 'what difference do individuals make to history?' in her book History's People: Personalities and the Past. Figures include Bismarck, Babur and Roosevelt.
Steve Furber, Professor of Computer Engineering at the University of Manchester, talks about his work on neural networks - constructing machines which work like parts of the human brain. He is joined by Tom Standage, digital editor at The Economist.
New Generation Thinker Sam Goodman previews the BBC spy drama series The Night Manager, adapted from John Le Carre's 1993 novel.
Monster Raving Loony is on at the Drum, Plymouth, from February 10th to 27th.
Producer: Torquil Macleod.
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. |
| 0:34.9 | Hello, tonight on free thinking, the challenge of building a machine that replicates the operation |
| 0:40.3 | of the human brain and where that technology might take us. |
| 0:44.4 | Steve Ferber and Tom Standage will be employing their neural networks on that later on. |
| 0:50.2 | Historian Margaret Macmillan is championing the biographical approach to history against its many detractors. |
| 0:56.6 | And new generation thinker Sam Goodman previews the forthcoming BBC one spy drama The Night Manager |
| 1:03.0 | and rates it against other John Le Carrey adaptations. |
| 1:07.1 | But first James Graham, whose new play, Monster Raving Looney, opened this week in Plymouth. |
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