Podcast Episodes

Craftivism and gentle protest. A conversation with Sarah Corbett

Handicrafts, including knitting, sewing, cross-stitching, as a form of activism?

Speaking with Mark Vernon, Sarah explains how this quiet, multi-senso…

10 hours ago

Local myths transform lives and how they do it. A conversation with Kim Willis

There is another world that is also here and it can empower people in times of trouble. Kim Willis tells Mark Vernon that she stepped outside, bringi…

1 week ago

How Business Can Be Sacred. And Why. Nikki Trott at Realisation 2026

Can businesses today become a source of healing and regeneration? What shifts are required in our appreciation of money and wealth to make commercial…

2 weeks, 5 days ago

Why Edges Very Much Matter. Charles Foster at Realisation 2026

Why does politics feel increasingly frantic, economics increasingly deluded, culture increasingly empty - even when led by seemingly good people? 

Cha…

4 weeks ago

The Power of Story. Sharon Blackie on her themes for Realisation 2026

How can myths and fairytales help us, personally and collectively? What stories, often almost lost, can aid us with contemporary crises? Why does the…

1 month ago

A Whole Other Story. A conversation on the shape of Realisation 2026.

The Realisation Festival is a soulful response to the crises of our times. So, with two months to go before this year’s gathering, Nick Shaftesbury, …

1 month, 2 weeks ago

Reviving the Education Commons and Speaking Truth to Power. A conversation with Guy Standing

Guy Standing is an economist whose new book Human Capital: The Tragedy of the Education Commons has much to say about a key theme of the festival: bi…

2 months, 1 week ago

The alchemy of music and improvisation. A conversation with Pippa Evans and Christopher Ash

The Realisation Festival is much to do with perspective and gaining fresh takes on current issues. That widening of horizons is greatly aided by comb…

2 months, 3 weeks ago

The intelligence of molecules. A conversation with Pauline Rudd

A new paradigm is beginning to emerge in biology, though for some biologists, the new is, in fact, the old. The reductive treatment of living organis…

2 months, 4 weeks ago

Storms make the oak grow deeper roots. A conversation with Benedict Pollard, the "acorn man"

Oak trees lend themselves to proverbs and expressions of wisdom. The poet, George Herbert, is said to have written about these mighty trees sinking d…

3 months, 2 weeks ago