It seems everyone is talking about the Reith Lectures - but hardly anyone actually knows much about them. In order to fulfill our pledge to public service broadcasting (ok, ok, public service listicle making) here's an 8 point bluffers guide to what they are all about.
Reith Lectures
Good Lord (01 of08)
John Charles Walsham Reith AKA 1st Baron Reith AKA Lord Reith was the top boy the BBC and the radio lectures were started in 1948 to mark his tireless commitment to public service broadcasting. During Reith's time the BBC did not broadcast on Sunday before 12:30 PM. Why? To allow listeners time to attend church. How times have changed!
This chap(02 of08)
Philosopher Bertrand Russell (who liked to smoke his pipe, as evidenced by this picture) was an expert on mathematics and philosophy. He won a nobel prize winner for literature in 1950 and had the enviable task of kicking off the Reith Lectures. His lecture entitled 'Authority and the individual' can be listened to here.
This lady(03 of08)
By 1961 it was decided women were ready to have a crack and so Margery Perham was handed the microphone to talk listeners through colonialism. Her lecture, 'The Colonial Reckoning' made her the first woman to deliver a Reith Lecture.
Sex, sex, sex, sex(04 of08)
By 1962, as the swinging 60s were about to arrive, anthropologist George Carstairs took to the stage. According to the BBC is lecture (This Island Now) outraged the printed media "by dismissing the moral panic surrounding chastity, suggesting "pre-marital sexual exploration" might be healthy for relationships."
The first black lecturer(05 of08)
In 1965 Robert Gardiner, executive secretary of the United Nation's European Commission for Africa, became the first black Reith Lecturer when he spoke about the 'World of Peoples'. The issue of colonial rule, as today, was a hot political topic.You can listen to him speak here.
In 1992, nobody spoke(06 of08)
Why? Well, it's pretty simple. According to the BBC, nobody could be found. End. Of.
Aung San Suu Kyi (07 of08)
By 2011 the world was changing and so were the Reith lectures. Now seen as a premier PR opportunity for the BBC bigger names were signed up, including Burmese pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. She spoke about freedom - something which she had been denied for standing up to the Burma's military rule.
Grayson Perry(08 of08)
Which brings us to 2013 and artist Grayson Perry who even featured on the front of Time Out next to the headline 'Frock star'. His lecture discussed the limits of contemporary art entitled: 'Democracy Has Bad Taste' and highlights can be heard here.