The Drawing Room

This time last year Alexander Campbell, walked out his front door and just kept walking. He walked through Sydney to Katoomba, up through Lithgow, Muswellbrook and Toowoomba through to Karumba then Katherine and Darwin. 

In the beginning, there was Adam and Eve. This is where humans and their reproduction systems began, fully formed and ready to go. So says the big book anyway. Author and researcher Cat Bohannon has other ideas about who Eve is and how her body contributed to the continuation of humanity. 

Before critically acclaimed actor Phillip Seymour Hoffman died, he developed a play called  ‘7 Captiva Road’ and before it’s world premiere in Melbourne, two of the actors will bring a scene to life here in the studio.

Spies, Russian moles, stolen documents, double agents and a case never properly solved - all the hallmarks of your dad's favourite spy novel ... the incredible true story of how ASIO was infiltrated by the KGB in the new podcast ' Secrets We Keep:  Nest of Traitors '. Guest: Joey Watson, podcast host 

Imagine what it would be like playing a grand piano on an iceberg in the Arctic ... composer and musician Ludovico Einaudi can tell you, he's done it. 

Imagine finding out that your parents, their extended family and friends played a major part in India’s fight for independence and acquaintances of a leader like Mahatma Gandhi.

The American singer-songwriter and creative force, Amanda Palmer wears many hats... she's a  musician, has presented a Ted talk, she's a New York Times best-seller, and a former street performer.

Andrew Blanch and Emily Granger are a pioneering guitar and harp duo. Both celebrated soloists in their own right the two combine forces in this dreamy instrumental album Suite mágica which celebrates Australian composers.

It’s common to see court cases depicted on TV and in movies or written up in the news; a guilty or not guilty verdict is often where the story ends but we rarely get to see and hear about another part of the prison system... parole.

The documentary A Compassionate Spy explores the life and love story behind the youngest scientist on the team behind the atomic bomb Ted Hall, who risked everything to do what he thought was right.

When Mo moved across the seas to Europe he brought South Africa’s AfroHouse music with him. Running Afroelectronic club nights and inviting all sorts of African DJ’s to play bringing sounds and communities together in Paris and London.

What happens when you sit down with 16 directors and ask them about the future of cinema and do the answers differ when you revisit that same question 40 years later? We speak to the director of a documentary, about a documentary, about film.

We're a nation obsessed by houses and one woman has tapped into our fascination with ‘other people's homes'  with her passion project and new book.

At a time of growing concern about plummeting birth rates, the number of babies born to surrogates is rising globally. But what kind of woman is willing to give over her body to create another human life out of the goodness of her heart?

Imagine trying to use voice activation like Siri with a stutter. It’s just another reminder of the aspects of modern life that aren't made for everyone.

A selection of the choristers from The Australian Girls Choir joined Andy in the studio to sing some Christmas songs.  They sang Jingle Bell Rock, The Man With The Bag and Carol of the Bells. Guests:Tanya RomeoIsabelle OgierMiranda ChargeLucy ChisholmSophie CrookshanksAlannah DundasApril FordSarah FyvieSienna HazellMelanie HigginsLauren HirstEmily LathamIsabelle OgierIsabel OsbonReya Ramanujachari

In the 1890’s the pianola was the biggest case in copyright law. Musicians and writers were worried it would make them redundant. Well, there’s another similar copyright case underway at the moment that will have a huge effect on the way we use generative A.I platforms from music and art to coding. Guest:Matthew Butterick, lawyer

They’re often derided, ignored, and under-loved. They’re in almost every city, they are buildings in the Brutalist architectural style - affectionately known as 'The Brutes'. A chance encounter outside Sydney’s famous Sirius building, led author Heidi Dokulil to investigate everything about this architectural style for her new book, Sydney Brutalism. Guest:Heidi Dokulil, design writer and author

Opera is often as much about the venue and the occasion as the music. Think of the sumptuous opera houses of Europe filled with black ties, dainty ladies with binoculars, and the chink of champagne flutes. But one opera company has broken the rules by performing in the public toilets in the Queen Victoria Building. Their new performance Track Works goes even further, taking up a wonderfully histor...

Why have you got a chin? Why can you dance, when other bipeds can’t? Did you know that your DNA has fragments of ghostly code from early hominids for whom we haven't found any other physical evidence? Go back in time to when there were at least nine different hominins roaming the earth at the same time ...  Human Origins: A Short History  outlines our fellow hominins and thinks about how we became...

The Ten Tenors join Andy live in the studio to chat about what makes a Tenor, life with the group, and sing a couple of their favourite tunes.  Guests: Michael EdwardsCameron BarclayBoyd OwenJared NewallAdrian LiDonniJoseph NaimAmmon BennettJesse LaytBenjamin Clark

Maybe you’ve heard the expression “being a bit too cute”? Someone pushing the boundaries, going a bit far, maybe even being a bit pushy or cunning. Joshua Paul Dale studies the psychological and biological reactions to cute things like puppies and babies and how the digital world and AI is preying on your very human reaction to these stimuli in his new book Irresistible: How Cuteness Wired our Bra...

How strongly do you believe in your political convictions? Strong enough to whisk your family away to the other side of the world to pursue your communist ideals? Boris Frankel was ten when his dad decided to move to the Soviet Union - they were already on an ASIO watch list at the time due to their red-coloured friends in the 1950s. But did the Frankel’s find a perfect communist dream in Russia?...

Like in the hit series Breaking Bad, Dale Francis Drake's entrepreneurialism not only went unnoticed by law enforcement but became a blueprint for the methamphetamine business worldwide. Australia's obsession with the drug is the focus of the new book Meth Road . Guest:Conor Woodman, Author and journalist

Look around you right now ... wherever you are, you're likely to be surrounded by glass ... windows, reading glasses, device screens, drinking glass or maybe a vase. Despite making glass for thousands of years, we still don’t fully understand what type of material it is and what happens to it over time. Guest:Peter Harrowell, Professor of Theoretical Chemistry at the University of Sydney