In Our Time - Welcoming Misha Glenny

Episode Date: February 5, 2026

Misha Glenny introduces himself to you ahead of his first episode on 15th January, answering some questions from producer Simon Tillotson and sharing what's coming up in the first few weeks.In Our Time is a BBC Studios production

Simon, welcome. Well, no, you welcome. Tell everybody who you are. So, my name is Misha Gleney, and I am the new presenter of In Our Time. I have to say, I have to pinch myself sometimes when I tell people that I'm the new presenter of In Our Time, because certainly from my perspective, this is the best job in radio. There's nothing to compare with it. And you know where you're sitting, don't you? I do. I'm sitting in the studio where Melvin Bragg himself.

broadcast almost all of the over 1,000 episodes of this programme hitherto. I'm very grateful to Melvin's support, by the way. I've talked to him since I was appointed. He was incredibly supportive and he gave me his blessing when it was announced that I was taking on this job. So I'm very grateful to him. Okay, I'm going to ask, why do you think you're the right person for this role? Well, you'll have to ask. other people for that, but it may be to do with my background. I have a humanities degree in drama. I was a BBC foreign correspondent for many years covering the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and then the fall of Yugoslavia. And after that, I wrote a variety of books, including

a big history of the modern Balkans. I wrote a book about the favelas of Brazil. And more Recently, I've been looking a lot at technology and science. I wrote a book on hacking. So I've been following scientific innovation developments in technology in particular very closely. So I think it might have to do with that cross-disciplinary interest and ability that I may have, I can only presume. It sounds like you're very busy already. So why do you want this role? I'm dropping things in order to take this role on because there is nothing better. Look, every week I come into the studio and it'll be a different subject. It could be plate tectonics. It could be the rise of Adolf Hitler. It could be dragons. It could be anything under the sun, really. And over the space of a week,

I do a deep dive into that subject and then I am privileged to quiz three great experts, academics, who always really know their stuff on this, so that the key points of a subject are highlighted but put together in a form which makes them comprehensible because one thing we never want to do on in our time is dumb down. At the end of the programme, after 48 or 50 minutes, whatever it is, I am much the wiser and I hope that I will be able to bring the listeners along with me so they too will be much the wiser.

I see myself as being the voice of the listener in the studio surrounded by this extraordinary body of knowledge. I've got my own answer to this, but I wonder, why does it matter to win our time that it's not simply you talking, doing your research, but you've got three really great people in the room with you? Well, because there's not much I can learn in a week compared to a lifetime of the three guests around me. And what's interesting for me is when those guests who are all steeped in a subject actually disagree about something. And with that we can have a creative civilized conversation, dispute, argument, so that we come out all the wiser. And in fact, that interestingly, that relates to the first topic that I'll be dealing with in our time, on Liberty by John Stuart Mill. because John Stuart Mill argues early on that there is no monopoly on truth and you always get closer to the truth if you listen to different opinions.

So we'll be listening to different opinions, but ones which are expressed in a civilized and constructive fashion, I hope. What else is coming up after that? Well, after John Stuart Mill, we've got the Mariana Trench, which is, of course, the deepest point of the ocean, two kilometers deeper than Mount Everest is high. Then, of course, we've got the Roman Arena, which is great fun because it's all about lions and gladiators and Russell Crow.

Well, actually, we don't mention Russell Crow. But it's really fascinating to hear, actually, what Hollywood got right and what Hollywood got wrong about the Roman arena. But the thing that really struck me about that subject is these games, lasted for over 500 years. That's half of a millennium of people beating the hell out of each other and being devoured by lions or killing leopards and baboons. So when can people listen? So people can start listening to the new series of In Our Time first on BBC Sounds with our first episode available on Thursday the 15th of January. Please join me then.

Very good. Do you want to tea a coffee? It'll be a tea for me, thank you, Simon. Just put your headphones on and immerse yourself in a gripping thriller. A guy you've never seen before offers you 10 grand to look after an envelope and you take it? Are you crazy? A chilling mystery. Your lady! There, can't you see her?

A heart-stopping adventure. I'm going to kiss you now. I'm Kim Katrall and you can hear me in limelight from BBC Radio 4, where drama serials take center stage. I know that it wasn't an accident. They were murdered, weren't they? Search for Limelight on BBC Sounds.

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