Understand

What’s it like being a man in your 60s? In Episode 3 of Michael Rosen’s series about manhood and masculinity, comedian and writer David Baddiel shares his experience.
Like all of us, David has always ‘known’ he was going to die, but it’s only now that he truly believes it. As he considers what sort of man he wants to be in his old age and what mark he’ll leave on the world, he realises it’s family that comes above everything else. But what does being a ‘father’ really mean?
Presenter: Michael Rosen
Producer: Rich Power
Executive Producer: Dave Anderson
Sound Mixer: Dan King
Editor: Kirsten Lass
Production Manager: Emily Duffy
Commissioning Editor: Dan Clarke
A Loftus Media Production for BBC Radio 4

What is it like being a man in your 70s? In Episode 2 of Michael Rosen’s series about manhood and masculinity, celebrated author and poet Colm Tóibín shares how he feels less and less sexual energy as he ages, especially after surviving testicular cancer. But he’s far from depressed about it. In fact, he’s busy putting that energy to other uses.
In this episode, Colm speaks to the visceral realities of aging, but also the new opportunities for physical and creative self-discovery.
Presenter: Michael Rosen
Producer: Rich Power
Executive Producer: Dave Anderson
Sound Mixer: Dan King
Editor: Kirsten Lass
Production Manager: Emily Duffy
Commissioning Editor: Dan Clarke
A Loftus Media Production for BBC Radio 4

Michael Palin doesn’t feel like a ‘man’ anymore in his 80s. But what does that mean and does it bring a new freedom?
In conversation with Michael Rosen – who has recently turned 80 himself – Palin reflects on the fading of those competitive instincts that motivated him as a young star of Monty Python. And how he has learned to embrace an entirely ‘unmale’ worldview in his later years.
The two Michaels discuss how, as we age, the things that feel so important to many young men are put into stark perspective by grief. Just as he entered his 80s, Palin lost Helen, his wife of 60 years. Together they consider how to hold onto the sense of who we are in the face of such world-shaking blows.
Presenter: Michael Rosen
Producer: Rich Power
Executive Producer: Dave Anderson
Sound Mixer: Dan King
Editor: Kirsten Lass
Production Manager: Emily Duffy
Commissioning Editor: Dan Clarke
A Loftus Media Production for BBC Radio 4

What does being a ‘man’ really mean? From Michael Palin in his 80s to comedian Vittorio Angelone, just turned 30, seven men share their deeply personal experiences of manhood.
After almost dying of covid-19, our host and guide Michael Rosen has just reached the ripe old age of 80. It’s got him thinking about what kind of man he’s been so far across his long life, and what that label even means to him anyway.
Because today we’re surrounded by many conflicting ideals of manhood. Men should be strong and silent, but also in touch with their emotions. They should be aggressive and competitive, while shielding those weaker than them from harm. They should be radiating sex appeal, while setting an example as a family man. The older Michael gets, the more confusing he finds it.
So in this series he’s putting aside all the notions of what a man ‘should’ be, to look at the real thing. The awkward thing. The funny thing. The tender thing we don’t quite know how to talk about.
Michael speaks to seven men, each in a different decade of life, from wise elders Michael Palin and author Colm Tóibín, to sprightly middle-aged youngsters comedian David Baddiel and journalist Matthew Todd, right down to veritable toddlers - singer Lias Saoudi, former footballer Marvin Sordell, and comedian Vittorio Angelone.
Presenter: Michael Rosen
Producer: Rich Power
Executive Producer: Dave Anderson
Sound Mixer: Dan King
Editor: Kirsten Lass
Production Manager: Emily Duffy
Commissioning Editor for BBC Radio 4: Dan Clarke
A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4

In this episode, Ros Atkins asks whether AI is solving our ‘value crisis’, or making it worse.
He takes the optimistic case seriously - that AI could deepen our relationship with the world around us, unlock new forms of creativity, strengthen human intimacy, and help us solve big problems.
Then he tests each claim. If AI brings us closer to each other, what happens when that closeness is manufactured rather than real? If it can make us more creative, what happens when it's built on other people's work, taken without payment or consent? If it can solve our biggest problems, who benefits when the technology itself is owned by a handful of companies? And if it does our thinking for us, what becomes of the expertise we spent years building?
Featuring economist Daniel Susskind, futurist Amy Webb, businesswoman Alex Mahon, New Yorker writer Kyle Chayka, writer John Lanchester, research adviser Roberta Pierfederici, musician Holly Herndon, Baroness Beeban Kidron, digital anthropologist Caia Hegel and sociologist Sherry Turkle.
A Tempo & Talker production for BBC Radio 4