Melvyn Bragg reveals his exciting new project as he explains 'retirement' decision and whether he's had doubts

“I feel the same myself,” the 85-year-old broadcaster says. “But, one way or another, we’ve all got to go sometime. And I just thought, I’ll go now. I’ll go before I’m pushed, I suppose.”

Hopefully, there were no plans to push Lord Bragg out. Certainly, Radio 4 controller Mohit Bakaya was lavish in his praise after Bragg announced his departure, saying, “His fierce intellect, coupled with a wonderful curiosity and extraordinary passion for knowledge, marks him out as one of the broadcasting greats.”

Bakaya is right; Bragg’s show, where leading academics are brought together to discuss a wide spread of subjects – episodes have included explorations of Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, the evolution of crocodiles and Ovid’s Metamorphoses – in ways ordinary listeners can understand, is the epitome of the Reithian ideal.

“So many people have written in, saying, ‘I went to a state school, I didn’t know this, I didn’t know that, but this is providing education,’” says Bragg. “I can’t tell you how pleased I am about that. It’s immeasurable; it’s worth my whole broadcasting career.”

In Our Time has also offered the BBC much-needed credibility when it has often been accused of dumbing down. In an age of anti-science conspiracy theories on social media and campaigns against “experts”, it has been a counterbalance to the sidelining of genuine intellectual curiosity.

“I hope so,” says Bragg. “Because that is disastrous, utterly stupid and destructive. It’s disappointing that quite a bit of our public life is ignorant – but we’re not ignorant.”

Back in 1998, the BBC told Bragg – who had been obliged to leave his berth at Start the Week when he entered the House of Lords as a Labour peer – that the new show could have six months and they would see how it went. “They offered me what was cheerfully called ‘the death slot’,” he says, of the Thursday 9am broadcast time.

The very first episode was called War in the 20th Century. Executives had no idea what would happen but then, as he admits, neither did Bragg. “I had not the slightest inkling. It was just a sort of shot in the dark.”

It turned out that ordinary listeners were hungry for knowledge. Within a year, the show was getting an audience of 1.5 million and today it is heard by more than two million people a week.

The premise of In Our Time is disarmingly simple. Bragg is the everyman asking three academics, leaders in their field, questions on our behalf. A key part of the show’s continuing success has been Bragg’s unflagging curiosity and delight in finding things out.

“I’ve been surprised, enchanted and baffled,” he says. “I hope that I’ve had the nerve to ask them what they really mean by that. In other words, can they say it in simpler terms, so ignorant people like me can understand.”

This approach reached a wider audience than expected partly, says Bragg, because people missed things at school and regret it.

“I missed science because I stopped doing it at 14, so the science episodes are a wonderland for me. Then you discover that people all over the country feel the same way, they want to learn about science. So, we all go away with a real increase in our knowledge, in our comprehension of what’s going on in the world.”

All those thousands of questions have been delivered in that unmistakeable quizzical, northern, working-class accent – Bragg’s parents ran a pub in Wigton in Cumberland – albeit one tempered by six decades in London.

Bragg was part of the 1960s generation that headed south, broke down class barriers and re-energised broadcasting, most notably with his long-running ITV/Sky Arts programme, The South Bank Show.

Did he ever think of taking In Our Time on to TV? “I did think about it in the early days, for about five minutes. And I thought what would happen would be everybody taking part would become self-conscious, and it wouldn’t work as well, so I dropped the idea.”

Instead, In Our Time was at the forefront of the corporation’s entry into podcasting, first on the BBC website and iTunes in 2004. “Some people wondered whether In Our Time was good enough, or grand enough, or important enough,” says Bragg of the switch to online that would attract a global audience. “But we just did it, and the audience came to us in millions, and it came to us from around the world. Though, obviously, I’m very surprised.”

When the last series’ final episode, on civility, was broadcast in July, had he already made up his mind to leave? “No, I hadn’t. I found it quite a tricky one to do and later in the summer I had one of those moments where you think, ‘Well, which path do you take through the woods?’ Then you take one, and that’s it,” says Bragg, who has had several health issues recently.

Has he regretted his decision? “Sometimes I’ve thought, ‘What a stupid thing to do,’ but mostly I think this is the right path for me.”

Now there is the question of who can possibly replace him. It has been reported that the job was offered to Mishal Husain (who spoke to Bragg for the 1,000th edition of In Our Time, in 2023) to try to persuade her to stay at the BBC.

Does he think it matters if it’s a woman? “No, not in the slightest.” So, who would Bragg want to see in the role? “It’s a good question,” he laughs. “I haven’t thought because it’s none of my business any more.”

Bragg laughs again when I ask if he has a favourite episode. “Well, we’re talking about more than 1,000 shows. That’s not so much a sprinkle of shows as a shower, a downpour, a storm. I just can’t answer that, I wish I could.”

Perhaps he can decide over the coming months, because rather than retiring he will be marshalling his energy for one more project around In Our Time, building on the work of the last 27 years.

“Mohit very generously said, ‘Well, we’re going to do more stuff.’ I hope it’s going to be based on the archive, which is extraordinary,” Bragg reveals. “There is nothing like it in the world. It’s an oral encyclopaedia, the like of which exists nowhere else.

“A lot of young people now prefer to listen than to read, so I’m going to devote myself to doing something special with that. I hope it will be a contemporary encyclopaedia.” An exciting prospect for Bragg? “Oh, it’s going to be great fun.”

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