Saturday Morning
1,297 episodes - English - Latest episode: 2 days ago - ★★★★★ - 16 ratingsA magazine programme with long-form, in-depth feature interviews on current affairs, science, modern life, history, the arts and more.
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Episodes
Jesse Eisenberg on playing mime artist Marceau in "Resistance"
June 12, 2020 21:36 - 22 minutes - 21 MBActor Jesse Eisenberg is best known for his portrayal of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg in the 2010 movie The Social Network. In his latest role he's playing Marcel Marceau in a little-known episode of the mime artist's life story: a daring attempt to rescue 120 Jewish orphans from the Nazis in the Second World War. Resistance opened in New Zealand cinemas on Thursday June 11th.
Economist Robert Frank: The positive power of social pressure
June 12, 2020 21:07 - 26 minutes - 24.1 MBAmerican behavioural economist Robert Frank is interested in the power of peer pressure to influence our behaviour. So with the world facing a deadly pandemic and potentially catastrophic climate change, in his book Under The Influence he considers how the power of social pressure can be harnessed for the general good.
Historian Charlotte Lydia Riley: Is it OK to topple statues?
June 12, 2020 20:35 - 20 minutes - 18.7 MBThe call to remove statues and place names that honour racist figures from history is gaining momentum. In Bristol last weekend a statue of slave merchant Edward Colston was thrown into the harbour by Black Lives Matters protesters. And here in New Zealand a statue of Captain John Hamilton was removed from Civic Square in Hamilton after pressure from local iwi. Kaumatua Taitimu Maipi, who had threatened to remove the statue himself, described the battle of Gate Pa leader as a "murderous ...
Will US protests prompt NZ police reform?
June 12, 2020 20:12 - 28 minutes - 26 MBCould the #BlackLivesMatter protests, spurred by the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis Police, be a catalyst for police reform here in Aotearoa? It's long overdue, according to Khylee Quince, associate professor of law at Auckland University of Technology (AUT). Justice advocates say evidence of institutional racism is clear: in the last 10 years, two-thirds of all victims of fatal police shootings have been Maori or Pasifika, and compared with Pakeha, Maori are much more likely to ...
Playing Favourites with Tamatha Paul (Podcast version)
June 05, 2020 23:05 - 41 minutes - 37.9 MBGrowing up in Tokoroa, Tamatha Paul's eyes were opened to what was going on elsewhere in the world when she started listening to hip-hop. She went on to become her school's Dux, the first person in her family to go to university - the first M�ori woman to be president of Victoria University's student association, and last year became a Wellington City Councillor - at the age of 22. While she was part of the 'youthquake' that swept the local elections last year, Ms Paul wants to focus on...
Former Vogue UK editor Alexandra Shulman on why clothes matter
June 05, 2020 22:30 - 34 minutes - 31.2 MBAlexandra Shulman was editor of British Vogue for 25 years before resigning in 2017. It not surprising then that clothes are at the centre of her new memoir. Clothes... And Other Things That Matter, explores the personal and cultural meaning of what we wear. From the little black dress to the bikini, Shulman takes pieces of clothing and examines their role in her own life and the lives of women.
Imagining decolonisation in Aotearoa
June 05, 2020 22:05 - 17 minutes - 15.8 MB“What does decolonisation actually mean? and how does the concept inspire Māori and Pākehā New Zealanders' vision for Aotearoa? We'll ask Mike Ross (Ngati Haua) and Amanda Thomas (Pākehā), both academics at Victoria University, who have contributed to a new book Imagining Decolonisation”.
Ruth Shaw - Manapouri's "Two Wee Bookshops"
June 05, 2020 21:30 - 24 minutes - 22.4 MBRuth Shaw has lived life on the high seas, worked with sex-workers in Sydney's infamous King's Cross, and spent decades fighting for the environment. She and her husband Lance spent 16 years operating the Breaksea Girl in Fiordland, helping raise awareness of the conservation happening on the country's first pest-free islands. The pair has since retired, and live in Manapouri, where Ruth has opened two tiny bookshops - one for adults, the smaller, for children.
Dr. Kari Nadeau: fighting to end food allergies
June 05, 2020 21:05 - 28 minutes - 26 MBThousands of New Zealanders live in fear that a peanut could kill them or their child. Food allergies result in huge personal and societal costs and they are on the rise, with the rate of milk and peanut allergies doubling every decade. Dr. Kari Nadeau is Director of the Sean N. Parker Center for Allergy and Asthma Research at Stanford University. Her groundbreaking work focuses on developing methods to retrain allergy sufferers' immune systems.
Chris Smith: Covid-19 Q and A
June 05, 2020 20:30 - 19 minutes - 17.5 MBCambridge University consultant clinical virologist Dr Chris Smith returns to answer questions about the emerging science around the novel coronavirus pandemic. This week: Sweden's state epidemiologist admits they got it wrong, the dodgy data company behind a big hydroxycholorquine study, a former head of MI6 believes the virus accidentally escaped from a Chinese lab, and the perplexing question of why Germans are less likely to get, and die from Covid-19.
How does cannabis use affect New Zealanders' health?
June 05, 2020 20:10 - 29 minutes - 27.2 MBAs the general election draws closer, so too does a referendum on legalising cannabis. The issue has long been debated, often on moral or political grounds rather than scientific. Professor Richie Poulton is the director of the Dunedin Study which follows the lives of 1037 people born between April 1972 and March 1973. Based on data from this study, and also the similar Christchurch study, he has co-written a report on the health impacts of recreational cannabis use here in New Zealand. ...
Professor Elizabeth Loftus: how memory is made
May 30, 2020 04:55 - 39 minutes - 35.8 MBProfessor Elizabeth Loftus is an authority on the power and limitations of human memory - but her ideas about the accuracy of our memories and the shortcomings of eyewitness evidence have proved highly controversial.
Listener Feedback for Saturday 30th May
May 29, 2020 23:59 - 4 minutes - 4.13 MBListener Feedback for Saturday 30th May
Pete Paphides: playing favourites
May 29, 2020 23:05 - 45 minutes - 41.8 MBBritish journalist, author and music lover Pete Paphides' new book "Broken Greek" is a memoir of his childhood and the important role music played in it. Paphides' parents arrived broke in Birmingham in the 1960s from their native Cyprus in the hope of a better life. The family fish and chip shop, The Great Western Fish Bar in Acocks Green, is where Pete learned about pop music, being a bloke, Britishness, and belonging. Now married to journalist Caitlin Moran, he shares some musical fav...
Mary Kisler: artists' gardens
May 29, 2020 22:40 - 14 minutes - 13.5 MBCan a garden be an artistic medium? Curator and writer Mary Kisler examines the gardens of three well-known artists- Cedric Morris, Derek Jarman and Andy Goldsworthy- to see what we can learn about them and their work.
Architect Judi Keith-Brown: the future of NZ homes
May 29, 2020 21:40 - 17 minutes - 16.3 MBStaying home during lockdown has made New Zealanders intimately aware of our houses features and flaws. Wellington architect Judi Keith-Brown is the newly appointed President of The New Zealand Institute of Architects She takes over at an interesting time for the profession. Her mainly residential practice is having to get to grips with the changing design demands posed by more clients working from home.
Director Kitty Green on her new film, The Assistant
May 29, 2020 21:05 - 28 minutes - 26 MBDirector of The Assistant Kitty Green says her new movie is much more than a portrayal of sexual harassment in the wake of disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein's prosecution.
Director Kitty Green on her new film, 'The Assistant'
May 29, 2020 21:05 - 28 minutes - 26 MBAustralian writer/director Kitty Green's new film The Assistant presents a day in the life of a female assistant to a powerful executive. It is a work of fiction, but its portrayal of insidious office relationships and workplace power imbalances is very much a product of the #MeToo age. Starring Julia Garner (who won an Emmy for playing Ruth Langmore in the Netflix series Ozark) and Matthew Macfadyen (Frost/Nixon, Pride and Prejudice and Tom Wambsgans in the acclaimed HBO series Successi...
Chris Smith - Covid-19 - testing and treatment
May 29, 2020 20:30 - 25 minutes - 23.4 MBConsultant clinical virologist Dr Chris Smith returns to answer questions about the emerging science around the novel coronavirus pandemic. This week, the WHO suspends clinical trials of hydroxychloroquine over safety fears, testing accuracy (and how China's been able to test nearly 7 million Wuhan residents inside 2 weeks), is the anti-viral remdesivir our best available treatment option, and does Covid-19 cause eye problems?
Evan Osnos - US/ China relationship dangerously unstable
May 29, 2020 20:10 - 21 minutes - 20.1 MBWhat does the deteriorating state of the US's relationship with China mean for the two countries, and for the rest of the world? Could the added stress of the Covid-19 pandemic tip an already fragile relationship towards armed conflict? Evan Osnos covers the US-China relationship for the New Yorker and is the author Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China .
'The Wire' creator David Simon: 'America finds itself in a very ugly place'
May 23, 2020 01:05 - 38 minutes - 34.8 MBThe Wire is regarded as one of the best drama series ever made, and a herald of the new golden age of television. Its creator and showrunner David Simon started his working life as a journalist at The Baltimore Sun newspaper before taking a year's sabbatical to research a book shadowing the Baltimore Police Department. The book spawned a TV show Homicide: Life On The Street and Simon has gone on to create a run of acclaimed shows including; The Corner, The Wire, Generation Kill, Treme, a...
Doug Wilson: how older people are feeling about the pandemic
May 22, 2020 23:35 - 16 minutes - 15.4 MBDoug Wilson is back to report from the front lines of ageing. This week he's talking about the impact Covid-19 is having on older people. From the positives of a rise in contact and help from neighbours and friends, to the dark side, of ageism, the casual devaluing of their lives, and the devastating toll it's taking in countries with widespread outbreaks. He'll also look at the role and responsibilities of aged care facilities in protecting those most vulnerable from harm
Photographer Judith Crispin - death and beauty
May 22, 2020 23:05 - 37 minutes - 34.4 MBSince 2011, Australian poet, writer and photographer Judith Nangala Crispin has spent part of each year living and working with Warlpiri people in the Northern Australian Tanami desert. Her work centres on the concept of connection with "Country" and includes themes of displacement and identity loss, and reflection on her own lost Aboriginal ancestry. Her exhibition "Unseen - The Dingo's Noctuary", features at this year's Auckland Festival of Photography. It will be outside on lightboxes...
Photographer Judith Crispin: exposing life and death
May 22, 2020 23:05 - 37 minutes - 34.4 MBSince 2011, Australian poet, writer and photographer Judith Nangala Crispin has spent part of each year living and working with Warlpiri people in the Northern Australian Tanami desert. Her work centres on the concept of connection with "Country" and includes themes of displacement and reflection on her own lost Aboriginal ancestry. Her exhibition "Unseen - The Dingo's Noctuary", features at this year's Auckland Festival of Photography. It will be outside on lightboxes near the Ellen Mel...
Ian Wedde on his new novel "The Reed Warbler"
May 22, 2020 22:35 - 19 minutes - 18.2 MBFiction writer, critic, essayist, art curator and former NZ Poet Laureate, Ian Wedde has a new book out. The Reed Warbler is his eighth novel and is being billed as a masterpiece. A work of fiction, it's reminiscent of a family history, and calls into question the reliability of our memories, and the stories we tell about each other.
Virologist Dr Chris Smith: Covid-19 update
May 22, 2020 22:05 - 30 minutes - 27.8 MBConsultant clinical virologist at Cambridge University Dr Chris Smith returns to answer questions and examine and explain the latest news and science around Covid-19. This week: the hunt for a vaccine, the fuss over hydroxychloroquine, and what antibody tests can and can't tell us.
Wendy McCulloch: Kiwi vet helping New York pets
May 22, 2020 21:45 - 10 minutes - 9.97 MBBefore becoming a vet, New Zealander Wendy McCulloch worked as a caterer for some of the biggest acts in music, including Tina Turner and the Rolling Stones. Now based in New York, she's been offering home-based vet visits to city residents as the founder of HomeVetsNYC. Her house calls have become even more complex and demanding during the Covid-19 outbreak in the city, especially as many of her clients are elderly or immuno-compromised. She's also a board member of the South African wi...
Robert Fisk: reporting from the frontline
May 22, 2020 20:10 - 48 minutes - 44.4 MBJournalist Robert Fisk has spent the past 40 years living in war zones, covering conflict in the Middle East. He's dedicated to being on the ground and on the frontlines, and this commitment has landed him several scoops including face-to-face interviews with Osama Bin Laden. His sometimes controversial career is the focus of This Is Not A Movie, a new documentary by Canadian director Yung Chang. The film is playing at the Doc Edge Festival, which will be online only this year and runs b...
Toby Ord - What is the greatest threat to humanity?
May 16, 2020 03:00 - 26 minutes - 24.5 MBAt the same time as the Covid-19 pandemic began sweeping the world Australian moral philosopher Toby Ord released his book calculating the possibility of the end of humanity. In The Precipice he weighs up scenarios that could contribute to our downfall. From the man-made threats of climate change and nuclear war, to the potentially greater, more unfamiliar threats from engineered pandemics and advanced artificial intelligence. A research fellow at the Future of Humanity Institute, and a ...
Peter Warner: 'Lord of The Flies' rescuer
May 15, 2020 23:45 - 17 minutes - 15.8 MBPeter Warner is part of an extraordinary story that made global headlines over the past week, despite it being decades old. It's the tale of a real life 'Lord of the Flies' scenario, six Tongan boys who were marooned on a desert island and rescued 15 months later. In 1966 Peter Warner was the captain of a fishing boat that sailed past the island, called 'Ata, and found the teenagers there. Students at a Catholic boarding school in Nuku'alofa, the boys had stolen a boat, and set sail for ...
Barbara Ewing on her coming of age memoir
May 15, 2020 23:06 - 33 minutes - 30.7 MBNew Zealand actor and novelist Barbara Ewing has written a memoir about life as a young woman in Wellington and Auckland in the 1950s and early 1960s, before she headed off to study in London. One Minute Crying Time documents her early experiences of anxiety, fraught family life, and what at the time was a controversial romantic relationship with a young Maori man.
Keke Brown: disability as artistry
May 15, 2020 22:40 - 16 minutes - 14.9 MBPelenakeke (Keke) Brown has recently returned to Aotearoa after being based in NYC for six years. An interdisciplinary artist, her work spans art, writing, and performance. She's become the interim artistic director of Touch Compass, a professional performance company showcasing work from artists, writers, and actors with and without disabilities. A founding member of the company, she's now the first artist with a disability to lead it. Among the subjects up for discussion, how her art p...
Keke Brown: disability and the arts
May 15, 2020 22:40 - 16 minutes - 14.9 MBPelenakeke (Keke) Brown has recently returned to Aotearoa after being based in NYC for six years. An interdisciplinary artist, her work spans art, writing, and performance. She's become the interim artistic director of Touch Compass, a professional performance company showcasing work from artists, writers, and actors with and without disabilities. A founding member of the company, she's now the first artist with a disability to lead it. Among the subjects up for discussion, how her art p...
In defence of bats: disease ecologist Jonathan Epstein
May 15, 2020 22:08 - 45 minutes - 41.2 MBWidely blamed for being a disease vector in the spread of the novel coronavirus, bats have a bit of a PR problem at the moment. It's resulted in overzealous individuals burning their colonies, and slaughtering them in large numbers. Disease ecologist Jonathan Epstein has stepped up to go into bat for his creepy and cute little animal friends. From pollination to pest control, he says bats do an awful lot of good for us. Jonathan's work as a disease ecologist for The EcoHealth Alliance in...
Shaun Bythell: Scotland's biggest second hand bookshop
May 15, 2020 21:40 - 18 minutes - 17.4 MBShaun Bythell lives in Wigtown, Scotland, where he runs The Bookshop - the largest second hand bookshop in Scotland. Its shelves span nearly 2 kilometres and contain over 100,000 books, Shaun has written two hit books, laced with his trademark grumpy good humour, about his shop and its clientele: The Diary of a Bookseller and Confessions of A Bookseller He's currently putting the finishing touches to a third book. We check in on him, his wife, and their 11 month old to see how their book...
Virologist Chris Smith answers Covid-19 questions
May 15, 2020 21:06 - 30 minutes - 28.3 MBVirologist Dr Chris Smith is back to answer more questions about the emerging science around the novel coronavirus pandemic. A consultant clinical virologist at Cambridge University, and one of BBC Radio 5 Live's Naked Scientists, he's been digesting all the latest Covid-related science and research for us each week, as we come to understand more about the virus and how it's spreading.
Kashmir Hill - Police use of software Clearview AI
May 15, 2020 20:10 - 21 minutes - 19.6 MBThis week RNZ exposed an unapproved police trial of controversial facial recognition software Clearview AI. Described as a "search engine for faces" the technology is used by hundreds of police forces across the US and the world to help identify criminals and their victims. Founded by Australian Hoan Ton-That, Clearview has assembled a database of 3 billion images scraped from social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. So why does Clearview AI cause disquiet among...
Julie Leask: How to talk to anti-vaxxers
May 08, 2020 23:35 - 20 minutes - 19.1 MBConspiracy theories are nothing new, and it's not surprising many have sprung up around Covid-19. Julie Leask is a professor in the Susan Wakil School of Nursing and Midwifery at the University of Sydney. She has spent decades studying how people approach vaccination, why those who oppose it do, and how to communicate with anti-vaxxers. She discusses how to speak to someone who seems to be touting a conspiracy theory, and what pushes people towards believing those theories in the first p...
Vanessa Beavis: How NZ hospitals prepared for Covid-19
May 08, 2020 23:05 - 34 minutes - 31.7 MBDr Vanessa Beavis was on the frontline of the planning and preparation that took place in New Zealand hospitals as they readied themselves for Covid-19 patients. She's a consultant at Auckland hospital the new president of the Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists (ANZCA). From training hundreds of medical personnel to put on and take off PPE, to preparing operating theatres for procedures that could not be put off, she was ready to face a overwhelming wave of patients. Now...
Maria Ressa: Filipino journalist vs Rodrigo Duterte
May 08, 2020 22:05 - 46 minutes - 43 MBFilipino journalist Maria Ressa's work exposing government corruption and the misdeeds of the powerful has put her on a collision course with the 'strongman' government of President Rodrigo Duterte. She spent nearly 20 years working as CNN's lead investigative reporter in Southeast Asia before setting up the 'social news' network Rappler in her homeland. Now, in what critics describe as a politically motivated prosecution, she's being accused of cyber libel and tax evasion. The prominent...
John Grant: US singer's Iceland life
May 08, 2020 21:30 - 23 minutes - 21.1 MBAmerican singer-songwriter John Grant, once of the alternative rock band the Czars, has now forged a flourishing solo career. His 2010 debut Queen of Denmark was named best album of the year by Mojo. This has been followed by Pale Green Ghosts (2013), John Grant and the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra: Live in Concert (2014), Grey Tickles, Black Pressure (2015), and his last album Love Is Magic (2018). Now based in Iceland, the coronavirus has just forced him to reschedule a UK, Ireland and E...
Chesa Boudin - progressive DA and 'de-carceration' advocate
May 08, 2020 21:05 - 24 minutes - 22.4 MBSan Francisco's recently-elected district attorney Chesa Boudin has a unique perspective on the legal system: his 75-year-old father David Gilbert (a former member of the radical left wing group the Weather Underground) is in prison serving a life sentence for murder. Boudin is a lawyer, writer, and lecturer specializing in the U.S. criminal justice system and Latin American policy. His mission is to reform the American criminal justice system and reduce incarceration rates. His policies...
Anil Seth: exploring the complexities of consciousness
May 08, 2020 20:35 - 20 minutes - 18.6 MBHow does our brain dictate the way we see the world? And how can we hack this process in the quest to design better, smarter technology? Anil Seth has devoted his career to studying questions like these. He is a Professor of Psychology at the University of Sussex, the co-director of the Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science and the Editor-in-Chief of the journal Neuroscience of Consciousness. He's doing a live online event The Neuroscience of Consciousness, on Sunday 17 May at 9pm NZ ...
Donald McNeil: US facing a dystopian Covid future
May 08, 2020 20:10 - 25 minutes - 23.1 MBIn early March fellow journalists were bemused by Donald McNeil's glove wearing and surface-sanitising ways. The New York Times' health and science reporter saw the pandemic coming and took personal action early. He's now looking towards to the next big challenge for the US - how the country will navigate its way out of the lockdown. His reporting's building up a picture of a dark and somewhat dystopian future, with economic opportunities for the immune leading to people deliberately exp...
Graham Swift: Booker prize winner's latest novel
May 01, 2020 23:45 - 49 minutes - 45.1 MBGood literature retains a magical quality that is both enlightening and subversive, offering an authentic inner experience of life, English Booker Prize-winning novelist Graham Swift says.
Climate scientist Andrea Dutton
May 01, 2020 23:05 - 37 minutes - 34.5 MBClimate scientist Professor Andrea Dutton has already been tipped by Rolling Stone as being a name to watch in her chosen field. She forged her reputation at The University of Florida, in a state with a ringside seat to future sea level rise. Now a professor at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, she's over in New Zealand on a Fulbright and is marooned here for the foreseeable future (until July at least when she may or may not be able to fly home). We'll talk about the pandemic and ...
Deborah Feldman: inspiring Unorthodox
May 01, 2020 22:05 - 49 minutes - 45.4 MBThe German-American writer Deborah Feldman's 2012 memoir Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots tells the story of her escape from an ultra-religious Hasidic community in Brooklyn, New York. It's the inspiration for Unorthodox, a new drama series that's become one of Netflix's most popular shows so far this year.
Dr Chris Smith: Sustained immune response 'likely'
May 01, 2020 21:25 - 27 minutes - 25.2 MBVirologist Dr Chris Smith returns to answer more questions about the emerging science around the novel coronavirus pandemic. A consultant clinical virologist at Cambridge University, and one of BBC Radio 5 Live's Naked Scientists, he's become something of a regular on the show over the past few weeks. This week, what is our growing understanding about Covid-19 telling us about symptoms and potential treatments?
Rory Truell: social work through the pandemic
May 01, 2020 21:05 - 18 minutes - 16.7 MBAs Secretary-General of The International Federation of Social Workers, New Zealander Rory Truell leads an organisation responsible for representing and supporting five million professional social workers in 141 countries worldwide. Beyond the medical and scientific challenges posed by Covid-19, and with levels of domestic violence spiking under lockdowns, social workers are also saving lives. He discusses how social workers are having to adapt to working in the pandemic, and how things ...
Adam Rutherford: How To Argue With A Racist
May 01, 2020 20:30 - 23 minutes - 21.2 MBBroadcaster, science writer and 'recovering geneticist' Adam Rutherford has also just recovered from something else: Covid-19. We'll speak to him about the experience and about his new book How To Argue With A Racist.