Episode 68. Bridget Foreman: The Devising of Plays and Community Theatre
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with the playwright Dr Bridget Foreman, Associate Director of Riding Lights theatre company and Senior Lecturer in Playwriting at the University of York about her career, pioneering experience of devising community theatre and latest co-written play, His Last Report (2025) about the social researcher, Benjamin Seebohm Rowntree.
Episode 67. Prudent Revolutionaries: Portraits of British Feminists between the Wars
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with Sir Brian Harrison, Emeritus Professor of History at the University of Oxford about his major study of the personalities, achievements, and tactics of British feminist leaders between the Wars and associated book, Prudent Revolutionaries (1987).
Episode 65. Ellen Ranyard: Pioneer Social Worker
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with author and co-founder of infed.org, the online encyclopedia of pedagogy and informal education, Mark K. Smith about the Victorian pioneer of social work and district nursing, Mrs Ellen Ranyard.
Episode 64. ‘These Houses Are Ours’: The Co-operative Housing Movement, 1870-1919
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with the author and journalist, Andrew Bibby about the affordable, community-led housing alternatives that grew out of the nineteenth century co-operative movement.
Episode 62. Two Portsmouth Portraits: John Pounds and Robert Dolling
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with the TV writer, novelist, book dealer and publisher, Matt Wingett about the history of his home town, Portsmouth and its two eminent social reformers, John Pounds and Robert Dolling..
Episode 60. Cicely Saunders and the Modern Hospice Movement
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with the distinguished sociologist of palliative care, Professor David Clark, about the founder of the modern hospice movement, Cicely Saunders.
Episode 59. Henry Scott Holland and the Common Good
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with the academic Dr Ralph Norman about the Anglican preacher and social reformer, Henry Scott Holland.
Episode 56. Maude Royden and the Guildhouse
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with the Revd Canon Alison Falby about the life and times of the pioneering Anglican preacher, suffragist, pacifist and public intellectual Maude Royden.
Episode 55. The Ragged School Movement
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with Erica Davies, Director of the Ragged School Museum and the academic Bill Jacob about the Museum’s place in the London Ragged School Movement, before the advent of state education in 1870.
Episode 47. The Suffragettes and Morris Dancing
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with Kathryn Atherton about her 2024 book, Mary Neal and the Suffragettes Who Saved Morris Dancing.
Episode 39. The Two Lives of Christabel Pankhurst
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with Professor Timothy Larsen about the feminist and fundamentalist preacher, Christabel Pankhurst.
Episode 38. Ebenezer Howard and the Garden City
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with Professor Frances Knight about the founding visionary of the Garden City Movement, Ebenezer Howard.
Episode 32. Father Groser and the Royal Foundation of St Katharine
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with the Venerable Roger Preece, the 68th Master of the Royal Foundation of St Katharine about his influential predecessor and Christian Socialist, Father St John Groser, the 58th Master of this retreat centre and oasis of calm in urban London.
Episode 31. Octavia Hill
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with the biographer, speaker and broadcaster Gillian Darley about her biography of Octavia Hill, the social and housing reformer who is best known today for co-founding The National Trust.
Episode 23. Robert Blatchford
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with Dr Martin Wright, about the great crusading journalist Robert Blatchford, the Clarion magazine and movement, and Blatchford’s Merrie England which sold over 2 million copies.
Episode 21. R. H. Tawney
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with Professor Lawrence Goldman about his biography of the academic, historian, socialist and private Christian R. H. Tawney.
Episode 20. Lilian Baylis and Emma Cons at ‘The Old Vic’.
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with Professor Elizabeth Schafer about her biography of Lilian Baylis of The Old Vic theatre, and about Lilian’s aunt, the social reformer Emma Cons.
Episode 9. Father Basil Jellicoe and London’s Slum Priests
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with Father Paschal Worton, team vicar of St Mary’s, Eversholt Street, NW1 about London’s slum priests, including the housng reformer Father Basil Jellicoe and the Christian Socialist, Father Charles Marson.
Episode 4: Mary Neal and the Espérance Club
Dr Simon Machin in conversation with Lucy Neal about her great great aunt, the social reformer and instigator of the Edwardian folk revival, Mary Neal.