Podcasts

15 March 2024

Desert Island Discs: A rare interview with reclusive Oscar winner Cillian Murphy. The Cork-born Oppenheimer star explains how he only got into acting after his parents vetoed a career in music, even when his band, Sons of Mr Green Genes, was offered a five-record recording deal. 36m.

On the Road with Penguin Classics: Henry Eliot visits Philip Pullman in his book-lined sitting room to discuss William Blake’s most loved works of poetry and prose: Songs of Innocence and of Experience, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell and Auguries of Innocence. 56m.

The Daily: New York Times economics reporter Conor Dougherty delves into the mysterious company that has spent years – and close to a billion dollars – buying up farmland on the outskirts of Silicon Valley, gradually amassing a plot twice the size of San Francisco. The group behind it turns out to be a who’s who of tech investors trying to build a spanking-new city from the ground up. 28m.

And in case you missed it… The Rest is History: Tom Holland and Dominic Sandbrook discuss Britain in 1974. It’s a useful reminder, says Josh Glancy in The Sunday Times: fifty years ago, the country was deep in crisis with miners’ strikes, a three-day week, IRA bombs and even a plot to kill the PM’s top aide. “All of a sudden 2024 doesn’t seem so bad.” Four parts, around 45m per episode.

Elsewhere in The Knowledge Premium:

🏝️ Book Talk with William Boyd
📺 Book Talk with Mary Killen
🎭 Book Talk with Tom Stoppard