Dave Gibbons

John Gibbons is an environmental journalist and commentator who has been speaking about climate change in Ireland for over a decade. The Lie of the Land is his first book.

John Gibbons

Stella Gibbons was born in London in 1902. She went to the North London Collegiate School and studied journalism at University College, London. She then worked for ten years on various papers, including the Evening Standard. Stella Gibbons is the author of twenty-five novels, three volumes of short stories, and four volumes of poetry. Her first novel Cold Comfort Farm (1932) was an immediate success and won the Femina Vie Heureuse Prize for 1933. Among her works are Nightingale Wood (1938), The Bachelor (1944), Westwood (1946), and Starlight (1967). She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1950. Stella Gibbons died in 1989.

Stella Gibbons

Edward Gibbon

Lewis Grassic Gibbon

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Brian Cox

Robin Ince

Four more series of the multi-award-winning science/comedy show 
 
Celebrating the wonders of the universe since 2009, The Infinite Monkey Cage combines wit and wisdom to explore scientific concepts in an entertaining, accessible way. In these four series, physicist Brian Cox and comedian Robin Ince are back to 'put a smile on the face of science' (The Independent). They're joined by a wealth of boffins, brainiacs and celebrity science enthusiasts, all keen to share their hard facts, soft theories and bold comic deviations. 
 
Beginning with the end of the universe, they tackle topics including black holes, the human brain, Neanderthals and the science of cooking - and attempt to answer profound philosophical questions such as 'What is life, and how did it start?', 'Is time an illusion?' and ''What is reality?' There's also an astronaut's guide to isolation, featuring Helen Sharman, Chris Hadfield, Nicole Stott and Apollo 9's Rusty Schweickart; a look back at 60 years of chimpanzee research with Jane Goodall; and a history of rock (not in the Rolling Stones sense, but actual rolling stones). 
 
Plus, the duo play Animal Top Trumps to find out whether we should prefer beautiful bats to much-maligned flies; travel deep below the ocean waves to see what lies beneath; discover how trees communicate using the Wood Wide Web; and learn why two brains are definitely better than one... 
 
Among their special guests are Eric Idle, Steve Martin, Matt Lucas, Tim Minchin, Bill Bailey, Mark Gatiss, Steve Jones, Ross Noble, Sara Pascoe, Prof Alice Roberts, Carlo Rovelli, Harold McGee, Dr Janna Levin, Dave Gorman, Brendan Hunt and Katy Brand. 
 
Production credits 
Presented by Brian Cox and Robin Ince 
Producer: Alexandra Feachem 
 
© 2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. (P) 2022 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

The Infinite Monkey Cage: Series 22-25

Four more series of the multi-award-winning science/comedy show 
 
Brian Cox and Robin Ince are back to take a witty, irreverent look at life, the universe and everything in between in these four engaging series. From the tiniest molecules to the most distant stars, the inquisitive monkeys break down the science to reveal intriguing insights into the world around us and what lies beyond. 
 
Joined by a panel of scientists, experts and celebrity science enthusiasts, they delve into topics ranging from the wonder of trees and the science of board games to hedgehogs, elasticity and the sound of music. They also raid the archives of the Royal Society to uncover some surprising and wacky scientific endeavours, search for alien life at Glastonbury, venture to Bletchley Park to decode cyberwarfare and are put to the test by an audience of curious children in a ‘Beastly Bodies Kids’ Special’ from Cheltenham Science Festival. 
 
Additionally, the duo investigate where babies come from, ask if extinction is really the end, journey to the centre of the earth to unveil the high-pressured world beneath our feet, and embark on a cool adventure to the mysterious realm of ice. And as Saturn and Jupiter are pitted against each other in a planetary face-off, Brian and Robin referee the battle of the gas giants. Who will be awarded the coveted Kuiper Belt? 
 
Among the special guests in these entertaining episodes are Dame Judi Dench, Marcus du Sautoy, Steve Backshall, Adam Kay, Anneka Rice, Dave Gorman, Alan Davies, Pam Ayres, Maggie Aderin-Pocock, Sara Pascoe, Adam Rutherford, Ria Lina, Jo Brand and Brian Eno. 
 
Production credits 
Presented by Brian Cox and Robin Ince 
Produced by Melanie Brown 
Executive Producer: Alexandra Feachem 
Researcher: Olivia Jani 
A BBC Studios Audio production 
 
© 2025 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. (P) 2025 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

The Infinite Monkey Cage: Series 30-33

David Christian

How did we get from the Big Bang to today's staggering complexity, in which seven billion humans are connected into networks powerful enough to transform the planet? And why, in comparison, are our closest primate relatives reduced to near-extinction? 
 
Big History creator David Christian gives the answers in a mind-expanding cosmological detective story told on the grandest possible scale. He traces how, during eight key thresholds, the right conditions have allowed new forms of complexity to arise, from stars to galaxies, Earth to homo sapiens, agriculture to fossil fuels. This last mega-innovation gave us an energy bonanza that brought huge benefits to mankind, yet also threatens to shake apart everything we have created. 
 
This global origin story is one that we could only begin to tell recently, thanks to the underlying unity of modern knowledge. Panoramic in scope and thrillingly told, Origin Story reveals what we learn about human existence when we consider it from a universal scale.

Origin Story

A Big History of Everything

Buzz Aldrin

Neil Armstrong

James Burke

A collection of BBC radio documentaries celebrating the lunar landings and their legacy 
 
On July 20th 1969, for the first time in history, man walked on the moon. Over 50 years later, this 'giant leap for mankind' still captures our imagination, and in this 4-part collection, we bring together some of the most fascinating and insightful BBC documentaries about our ever-changing relationship with our only natural satellite. 
 
In Part 1: The Moon Landings, we hear personal accounts of what it was like to be part of some of the defining moments of the 20th Century. Walking on the Moon sees Buzz Aldrin reliving the perilous final moments before touchdown, while in Last Word, Matthew Bannister hears the story of that historic voyage, with contributions from friends, colleagues and old classmates of Neil Armstrong. The History Hour: Exploring Space features recollections of five landmarks in space travel, and in Seriously: Apollo 8, Helen Sharman hears about the first mission which took human beings beyond the earth's orbit. 
 
Part 2: Legacy ranges from 1969 to the present day, and analyses the enduring significance of the moon landings. In James Burke: Our Man on the Moon, the key voice for the BBC coverage of the event revisits that dramatic time in front of a live audience. Give Me the MoonLITE finds Richard Hollingham examining British plans to return to space, and two episodes of The Infinite Monkey Cage - The Infinite Moonkey Cage and Astronaut Special - feature an extraordinary gathering of space explorers. 
 
Part 3: Why the Moon? considers how the moon has long been an object of fascination for humanity. The Why Factor investigates the moon in culture, and how it affects life on Earth. In Discovery: The Making of the Moon, Lucie Green asks 'Where does the Moon come from - and are we going back'? Meanwhile, in The Forum: The Moon from Earth, Rajan Datar and guests contemplate how our understanding of what the moon is and what it means has changed over time. 
 
Part 4: The Future probes the current state of space exploration. In Brainwaves: The Moon, Pennie Latin looks at the race to return to the moon, and in Tulips on the Moon, Richard Hollingham finds out whether it's really possible to grow plants in space. Finally, In The Real Story: The Future of Space Exploration, Celia Hatton and guests discuss where we go next in our quest to understand our place in the universe. 
 
Copyright © 2021 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. (P) 2021 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

One Small Step: A BBC Moon Landing Collection

The Apollo missions, their lasting significance, and our age-old fascination with the moon

Robin Ince explores how authors, artists and astronomers have told the story of the cosmosFrom Shakespeare and Milton to Alan Moore and Douglas Adams, writers have striven to convey the enormity and wonder of our universe. In this enlightening three-part series, Robin Ince, aided by special guests including his fellow Infinite Monkey Cage presenter Brian Cox, appraises the great communicators past and present, who have captured our imagination and advanced our knowledge.Beginning with the birth of the universe, he reveals that Fred Hoyle’s famous phrase ‘the big bang’ was actually a derogatory expression, coined to satirise a theory he didn’t believe in. Now, it is part of our everyday language – but how helpful is it in explaining how the cosmos came about? Physicist Carlo Rovelli uses metaphor to clarify this mind-bending concept, while for cosmologist Carlos Frenk, the time before time existed is best illustrated by Dalí’s melting clocks.Investigating the mysteries of black holes, Robin looks at how they have inspired science fiction authors and filmmakers. First conceived of by Einstein in 1915, these vast tears in the fabric of spacetime exist at the centre of every galaxy: and thanks to Nobel Prize-winning author Kip Thorne (who consulted on the movie Interstellar), we have an idea of what they might actually look like.But what of the ultimate destiny of the universe? Will it end in a ‘big crunch’, a ‘big rip’, heat death or vacuum decay? And as they speculate around the fate of the cosmos, how careful do scientists and writers have to be to avoid arousing anxiety and bringing on ‘cosmological vertigo’? Contemplating the final chapter of the universe’s story, Robin wonders whether their predictions will be accurate – or whether there will be a twist in the tale...Production creditsPresented by Robin InceProduced by Marijke Peters and Adrian WashbourneExecutive Producer: Alexandra FeachemSoundscape Designer: Jane WatkinsWith contributions from: Brian Cox, Sean Carroll, Katie Mack, Carlos Frenk, Carlo Rovelli, Janna Levin, Paul Murdin, Kip Thorne, Paul Franklyn, Fay Dowker, Paul Sutter, Louisa Buck, John Lloyd, Adam Riess and Mike TurnerFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4, 10-24 June 2024© 2024 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. (P) 2024 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

Writing the Universe

A BBC Radio 4 Science Series

Helen Keen

Miriam Underhill

Helen Keen, Peter Serafinowicz and Susy Kane star in this funny, off-beat but factual expedition through the universe, boldly going where no Radio 4 comedy show has gone before. 
 
 
“A pithy sweet programme … with a joke stuffed script” Miranda Sawyer, The Observer 
“Beautiful...A gem” The Sunday Express 
“Informed, enthusiastic and funny” Daily Mail 
“A sort of stand up version of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” The Times 
 
This “shamelessly nerdy…deeply silly” (Radio Times) space extravaganza features fewer close-ups of Professor Brian Cox looking cool in front of a rocket than Wonders of the Universe, but more weird, wonderful and occasionally woeful stories about the geniuses, Nazis and Satanists who plotted to propel humankind to the stars. Find out the many and varied ways to leave the planet as It Is Rocket Science! takes you on a “gleefully irreverent” (The Scotsman) whistle-stop comic tour of the Great Brains who put monkeys, ladies, dogs and gentlemen into orbit. 
 
Discover the daring Mercury 13 women - the astronauts and moonwalkers that never were, hear the adventures of Felix the French Space Cat, raise your eyebrows at the career trajectory of Wernher von Braun, from Nazi to Disney to NASA, meet the man who (metaphorically) connects rocket fuel to Aleister Crowley, explore your options in case an asteroid is heading directly your way, and discover some of the more surprising suggestions scientists have advanced for how to get in touch with life on other planets, from giant burning parallelograms in the Sahara to sending nude pictures into space.... 
 
“Factually accurate yet funny” (The Telegraph), the show won several major awards including The Association of British Science Writers’ Royal Society Radio Prize. 
 
“Harnessing a sharp comedy sensibility to an arsenal of fascinating facts, she’s a treat for anyone who matches a sense of humour with an inquiring mind” The Guardian [on Helen Keen]

It Is Rocket Science: The Complete Series 1-3

A BBC Radio 4 comedy show

Tony Padilla

For particularly brilliant theoretical physicists like James Clerk Maxwell, Paul Dirac or Albert Einstein, the search for mathematical truths - via ever more mind-boggling numbers - led to strange new understandings of reality. But what are these mysterious numbers that explain the universe? 
 
In Fantastic Numbers and Where to Find Them, leading theoretical physicist and YouTube star Antonio Padilla takes us on an irreverent cosmic tour of nine of the most extraordinary numbers in physics. These include Graham's number, which is so large that if you thought about it in the wrong way, your head would collapse into a singularity; TREE(3), whose finite value could never be reached before the universe reset itself; and 10^{-120}, which measures the desperately unlikely balance of energy the universe needs to exist. . . 
 
Leading us down the rabbit hole to the inner workings of reality, Padilla demonstrates how these unusual numbers are the key to unlocking such mind-bending phenomena as black holes, entropy and the problem of the cosmological constant, which shows that our two best ways of understanding the universe contradict one another. Combining cutting-edge science with an entertaining cosmic quest, Fantastic Numbers and Where to Find Them is an electrifying, head-twisting guide to the most fundamental truths of the universe.

Fantastic Numbers and Where to Find Them

A Journey to the Edge of Physics

Bruce Benamran

How do magnets work? 
What is the theory of relativity all about? 
Is light made of waves or particles? 
And how on earth can a levitating goat teach us about atomic structure? 
 
In this age of smartphones, artificial intelligence, supercolliders, supercomputers and other cutting-edge technology, we’ve lost touch with many of the most basic science concepts that launched our information age. For Bruce Benamren, science is about stories and characters. Why, for instance, did pirates wear eye patches? That's all to do with how the retina processes light. Pirates running down to the gun deck would have no time to let their eyes get used to the dark, so they kept one eye gun-deck ready. 
 
Bruce isn’t pretending that science isn’t tricky, but in simple, maths-free explanations and just-the-good-parts historical recaps, he shows us that the greatest scientific discoveries and theories don’t have to remain beyond our grasp. 
 
Whether you haven’t picked up a test tube since school and feel like you’re missing out on something marvellous, or you’re a professor who wants to look at the world with starry-eyed wonder again, How to Speak Science is a witty yet deeply revelatory exploration of the essential mysteries of the universe. 
 
Because if a goat can explain scientific theory, you can too.

How to Speak Science

Gravity, relativity and other ideas that were crazy until proven brilliant

John Lewis-Stempel

At night the senses become reordered. 
Hearing, touch, smell are privileged over vision. It is after dark that we humans become more sensitive to nature, more ‘animal’. But the lights of the modern world are obliterating any meaningful connection to the night. We have lost touch with its wonders as well as its terrors. 
 
In this enchanting follow-up to Nightwalking, John Lewis-Stempel once again ventures out into the night to discover the natural world after dark, its rarely seen spectacles and curiosities. There are hares boxing under stars, night jars hunting moths in the summer wood, wintry moons with halos, rock-pool creatures glowing neon under UV light, barley fields shimmering in moonshine … 
 
In Night Life, Lewis-Stempel wanders his familiar farmland, and goes further afield too, exploring the Lake District, the Welsh coast, London’s Thames. Everywhere, he shows us why the night is precious, and what it is to be human in the dark.

Night Life

Walking Britain’s wild landscapes after dark

Daniel Lavelle

From Orwell Prize-winning journalist Daniel Lavelle comes a wild road trip chasing aliens through the UFO heartlands into the soul of America 
 
The US government has been investigating unidentified aerial phenomena in a secret division of the Department of Defence. A former intelligence official urged the US to disclose evidence of UFOs after saying the government has possession of ‘intact and partially intact’ alien vehicles. And what about those sightings of Tic Tac, Gimbal, Go Fast and the infamous Oumuamua? Had an alien invasion been going on right under our noses? 
 
Danny Lavelle, our charming, borderline-bewildered investigator, sets out on a road trip through America’s UFO heartlands to get some answers (thankfully around 41% of Americans believe aliens have made contact, so he has plenty of sources to choose from). Talking to those in the know in government and the wider UFO scene – often the same thing – Danny follows everyone from Lue Elizondo to Jeremy Corbell, whilst attending sky watches (sometimes falling asleep in the American desert), listening to the stories of alien abductees and chatting with Starseeds (those human beings who claim to be actual aliens). 
 
Whether he’s smoking weed whilst holding dumortierite crystals to access his interdimensional past, or discussing the make-up of ‘space beads’ with the Harvard astrophysicist who’s convinced he’s found evidence of alien life, or investigating the clandestine Skinwalker Ranch, Danny’s journey becomes a deeper story about our unshakeable fascination with little green men – and our deepest wishes not to be alone in the universe. 
 
Encountering a fair amount of religiosity, conspiratorial thinking and plain old magical thinking, Chasing Aliens is a wild journey into the heart of America – where aliens are as American as George Washington and warm apple pie. This is a book for anyone who’s interested in our (possible) neighbours in the universe, and our ongoing search for meaning and answers to life’s great mysteries, trapped as we are in the uncertainty of our short, mortal lives.

Chasing Aliens

Faith and Conspiracy in the UFO Heartlands

Dr Lucy Rogers

'Entertaining and unusual' Tristan Gooley, author of The Walker's Guide to Outdoor Clues and Signs 
 
'Lucy Rogers’s book, Up, does something genuinely amazing: she changes your perspective on life by encouraging you to tilt your head backwards and look – really look – at what is going on above us ... I learned so much from this book.' Tim Minshall, author of Your Life is Manufactured 
 
 
The sky is a world of endless wonder. From the intricate dance of clouds and the vibrant hues of the aurora borealis to the marvel of effortless soaring birds and the silent majesty of the stars, it is a living storybook. 
 
In Up, inventor and engineer Dr Lucy Rogers explores the beauty, science, and surprises of the world above. 
 
Join her on a marvellous adventure through a kite market in India, creep through the Borneo jungle to witness millions of bats pour out of a cave at dusk, venture to Tornado Alley to chase the raw power of storms, and journey to Mexico to stand in awe of a total solar eclipse. 
 
Up is for anyone who has ever paused to marvel at a shooting star, wondered about the ingenuity of human flight, or dreamed of touching a rainbow. Bringing rich insights, personal stories, and a very real sense of awe for the natural world, Dr Rogers explores the science behind these phenomena and reveals all there is to discover if you look Up. 
 
'My only complaint about the writing of Lucy Rogers is that there isn't enough of it' Tim Radford, Guardian

A scientist's guide to the magic above us

Stephen Hawking

ON THE SHOULDERS OF GIANTS tells a compelling story, using original papers from Einstein, Copernicus, Galilei, Kepler and Newton. Theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking explains how these works changed the course of science, ushering astronomy and physics out of the Middle Ages and into the modern world.

On the Shoulders of Giants

The Great Works of Physics and Astronomy

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