Start the Week

Adam Rutherford, Tom Sutcliffe

podcast.support@bbc.co.uk

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Booking Overview

A weekly, agenda-setting program that blends science, history, politics, and morality through high-profile authors and experts. It’s a strong booking target for thinkers who can translate complex ideas into public-facing cultural debate.

Metrics

Episodes: 654

Frequency: Weekly

Rating: 4.5/5.0

Estimated listeners: 1k-10k

Gender skew: Male

Location: United Kingdom

Contact Information

podcast.support@bbc.co.uk

For verified host and producer emails, sign up to view.

Host

Adam Rutherford - Hosts the weekly discussion programme on Radio 4 that starts the week, asking about the nature of scientific discovery, understanding, and changing our mind.

Tom Sutcliffe - Leads the weekly Radio 4 discussion programme which starts the week and explores solutions to major economic and political questions; also hosts segments themed around mythmaking and social narrati...

Booking Intelligence

Booking Requirements

high
Typical Credentials:  
Well-known authors, subject-matter experts (e.g., professors, scientists/medical specialists), and prominent public figures (e.g., former senior politicians), typically with a new book or timely research/interpretive work.
Required Achievements:  
Authorship of a major non-fiction book, Academic leadership (e.g., professorships/directorships), Senior public policy experience (e.g., former chancellor), Notable media/public communication profile (broadcaster/performer status)

Recent Guest Discussions

Saira Hameed - Hormones As The Signalling System; Separating Medical Breakthroughs From Wellness Misconceptions

Kathryn Paige Harden - Blame, Punishment, Moral Responsibility; Genetics And Wrongdoing; Free Will And Accountability

Andrea Wulf - Scientific Misunderstanding And How Perceptions Change; George Forster And The Search For Humanity

Patrick Foulis - How Globalisation And Economic Narratives Have Changed

Mariana Mazzucato - Rethinking Economics Via Government-business Collaboration; Inequality, Climate, And Public Trust

Recent Topics

Science, Economics, History, Ethics, Genetics

Episodes

Here's the recent few episodes on
Start the Week
:

Life Online: Power, Risk and Resistance

June 22, 2026

How has life online reshaped society in real life? On Radio 4's weekly discussion programme, Tom Sutcliffe is joined by 3 guests who are investigating the digital sphere, and in some cases resisting its ubiquity.The filmmaker Baroness Beeban Kidron exposes how digital platforms exploit and divide in her book, Users: How Big Tech Took Control and How to Fight Back. She argues for more political and civic action to counter their unchecked influence. The business journalist Katherine Dunn explor...

Working-Class Lives: Identity and Political Fractures

June 15, 2026

What has happened to working-class identity in Britain? On Radio 4's weekly discussion programme, Adam Rutherford explores the political fractures within families and communities.Nicola Wilding discusses These Wild English: A Family, a Class, a Country on Fire, tracing three generations of her family and the pull of belonging, nationalism and far-right politics amid economic decline. Natasha Carthew draws on her personal experience of growing up poor in Cornwall in her latest work. Rough Edge...

Scientific discovery and misunderstanding

June 08, 2026

How have we made discoveries about the world around us and how has our understanding changed when we got it wrong? Adam Rutherford hosts Radio 4's discussion programme which starts the week, asking about the the nature of scientific discovery, understanding and changing our mind. Andrea Wulf's latest book is The Traveller: The Revolutionary Life of George Forster and his Search for Humanity. She has reassessed the botanist and ethnologist who accompanied Captain Cook's second voyage, taking h...

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