Mary Beard examines our rapidly changing language. A stand-off between grammar sticklers and language radicals has fuelled the culture wars: texts and Twitter versus the Queen’s English. Mary talks to Shuggie Bain author Douglas Stuart on how his clever use of language won him the Booker Prize last year, with Game of Thrones star Kate Dickie reading excerpts from her Glasgow home.

Journalist Ian Hislop shows us how we’ve been communicating in a social media style for two hundred years, and there’s heated debate about how our language is changing with John Humphrys, Kit de Waal and Helen Zaltzman. Key to the programme is Dame Evelyn Glennie, the musician who is profoundly deaf and communicates powerfully through her music. She’s sent Mary a beautiful waterphone so they share over zoom what it means to literally feel the music, and Glennie give us an exclusive performance to play out the programme. Show less