The Possibility Club

PROFESSOR SIR DAVID SPIEGELHALTER on data, counting beans and public trust in numbers -   Full show notes, links, credits and further reading can be found at alwayspossible.co.uk/podcast/David-Spiegelhalter/

DR HEATHER ALLANSDOTTIR   Full show notes, links, credits and further reading can be found at alwayspossible.co.uk/podcast/heather-allansdottir/

In the finale of the After Corona? series, host Richard Freeman is in the interview chair this time.  Chris Thorpe-Tracey asks Richard about what he has learned from the huge number of contributors to the podcast since July 2020, and what he has concluded about what life, business and society might hold in the post-pandemic world. What are the emerging themes? What changed in the way people were s...

The subject that we have explored, possibly more than any other, in the past year of The Possibility Club podcast has been the impact of the pandemic on the music industry.   We've heard perspectives on festivals and clubs from Norman Cook as well as the plight of venues from Mark Davyd and the Music Venue Trust. We spoke to songwriter Fiona Bevan and opera singer Meeta Raval about lockdown throug...

In this episode our focus is the future of Further Education.   Richard's special guest was awarded a CBE in the Queen's birthday honours in 2021, and she will also be taking up the post of FE Commissioner this autumn - the government's most senior advisor on Further Education standards, leading a team of 18 experts to boost leadership and governance across England's post-16 technical education sy...

Of all of the business sectors floored by the COVID-19 pandemic, then surely the events sector has to be one the hardest hit.   From corporate hospitality to car rallies, children's parades to sporting tournaments - for nearly two years the license to gather together in big crowds has been mothballed.   We record this as the Tennis at Wimbledon and the Euros at Wembley gradually climbed to full ca...

There are lies, damn lies and statistics.   In this past 18 months most people have become data nerds, looking at dashboards of figures showing infection, hospitalisation, hope, recovery, vaccination, death, ups and downs. Other people have decided it's a conspiracy, and that numbers are being used to manipulate us, and to take away our freedoms.   Regardless - we've all become closer to numbers a...

Wherever you are, what is around you? And who is around you? Who is your tribe, and has that changed in the past year?   In every single episode of this After Corona? series of podcasts, contributors have spoken of a change to their sense of community. There are clichés of the Blitz Spirit, or more nuanced takes on business being more in tune with food banks; teachers and parents having a more sha...

Mike Fairclough is not an ordinary primary school headteacher. It may be an unassuming state school for 7-11 year olds, at the back of an Eastbourne housing estate - but West Rise Junior, is nationally famous for its focus on risk and resilience, teaching children to use fire, knives and guns, to care for dangerous animals and to be candid about how they are feeling, embracing tricky conversations...

Blue skies, clean air, birdsong, wild animals in town centres, falling back in love with gardens and open spaces - for a moment, the conversation in 2020 was that there are positives to public health lockdowns. Things we might want to keep. And in 2021, the libertarian-leaning, free-market driven, friend of industry UK Conservative government will be hosting one of the most important UN climate ch...

Just before Christmas 2020, on the 10th December, a rather heated meeting of Handforth Parish Council Planning and Environment Committee took place remotely on Zoom video conferencing software. A few weeks later, in January, an edited highlights package of the meeting started gaining some traction on social media. What is this strange pantomime, of parochial public officials tearing strips off one...

There were 241 music festivals planned for 2020, but in the end fewer than 5% actually took place. We are a festival-loving country - from vintage car rallies, to the entire book world descending on the tiny village Hay-on-Wye, community carnivals and colourful civil rights celebrations to big multi-disciplinary months of culture like the festivals in Edinburgh and Brighton - the British know how...

Michael Rosen, or Dr Michael Rosen due to his own PhD and the numerous honarary degrees bestowed upon him, is one of the world's best loved children's writers - with over 150 books, spanning 40 years in publishing. As a poet, broadcaster, performer, teacher, academic, polemicist he has been a consistent ambassador for literacy and imagination, and the value of education - and the spoken word - as...

In a wide conversation at the end of January 2021, we spoke to our special guest, The Baroness Morgan of Cotes about politics and policy, technology, data and accountability in the post-Brexit world. Before being appointed to the House of Lords, Lady Morgan was MP for Loughborough between 2010 and 2019 - and a senior member of Conservative-led government for most of the 2010s, mainly under David C...

The unemployment forecasts are yo-yoing a bit at the moment, but what we do know is that the conservative estimate of 6% of UK adults being unemployed following the Covid-19 pandemic will disproportionately impact those at the start of their career as well as the over 50s, mainly women. Boris Johnson has announced a pledge of life-long learning for all, as well as cash incentives for employers to...

In this After Corona episode, we're returning to look at the music industry, which has had an incredibly tumultuous year, and building on our past conversations with Norman Cook, Amy Lamé and Fiona Bevan who all referred to the work of the man you are about to hear. Mark Davyd is the founder and CEO of Music Venue Trust, the charity that represents hundreds of small and medium-sized venues in the...

Since July 2020 we've been speaking to people who's work and livelihoods have been impacted by the coronavirus pandemic - some of them in devastating ways, leading to moving testimony about radical change, challenge and renewal needed in the coming months and years. And other people who have had more of a calm, philosophical moment of peace in any otherwise chaotic ratrace - with the forced disrup...

Since July 2020 Richard Freeman has been speaking to people who's work and livelihoods have been impacted by the coronavirus pandemic. Some of them in devastating ways, leading to moving testimony about radical change, challenge and renewal needed in the coming months and years. And other people who have had more of a calm, philosophical moment of peace in any otherwise chaotic ratrace - with the...

Like or loathe it - everyone's digital transformation plans got put into warp speed in 2020 and it isn't slowing down anytime soon. Time will tell what impact a life lived online like this is having on our identity and concentration spans. In this episode we're interested in the impact on the smaller tech and digital businesses in the UK, and whether demand hit the roof or whether the technologica...

As you know, we're exploring the impact of Covid-19 and other 21st century traumas on UK life - particularly the worlds of business, culture and education - talking to those working at the coalface. A special area of focus, over a number of episodes, is the music industry. Already a sector facing radical adaptation in a digital age, always treading a fine line between a public devoted to live musi...

In these After Corona? podcasts, we're asking people how their lockdown experiences have shaped their thinking, and what they have learned about their industries and communities. We're curious about post-traumatic growth, and whether this sudden and painful disruption may go down in history as a watershed moment for meaningful change. We're not expecting authoritative answers - just personal testi...

To kick off the new year, we're going to zoom in on politics - most specifically on power and action, and where it comes from when it seems like big, era-defining decisions are needing to be made everyday. Our special guest is Stella Creasy, MP for Walthamstow in north east London since 2010. Early on in her parliamentary career, Stella gained recognition for her successful campaigning on payday l...

The Covid-19 pandemic has been the weirdest and least planned-for social experiment in our lifetimes, and it has exposed what is broken about many of our systems and sectors - as well as what is possible when you allow new ideas to be tested. In this episode, we're looking at the night-time economy. And our very special guest is Amy Lamé. Amy is co-founder of the Olivier Award-winning arts company...

In this episode, to accompany our other interrogations of the creative industries such as theatre and music under pressure, we're looking at visual arts. Some might assume the visual arts world has fared OK in lockdown, nothing like the industry of performance and festivals reliant on people gathering together. We've read commentary on why crises are good inspiration for painters and makers, espec...

These conversations are through the lens of Post-traumatic growth - and seeing if there can be such a thing in UK society, culture and business. The Covid-19 pandemic has been the weirdest and least planned-for social experiment in our lifetimes, and it has exposed what is broken about many of our systems and sectors - as well as what is possible when you allow new ideas to be tested. In this epis...