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BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

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Something Understood

Religion & Ethics

Ethical and religious discussion that examines some of the larger questions of life

Ethical and religious discussion that examines some of the larger questions of life, taking a spiritual theme and exploring it through music, prose and poetry

BBC Radio 4 LW

Something Understood: Running with the Crowd

Running with the Crowd

06/11/2011

BBC Radio 4 - Something Understood, Running with the Crowd

Mark Tully examines the relationship between the individual and the crowd.

Mark Tully examines crowds and considers the positive and negative behaviour that being part of such large groups brings out in people.

Mark Tully considers the idea of 'Running with the Crowd' from the Gordon Riots in the eighteenth century to Woodstock in the 60s or the Arab Spring a few months ago. He asks why it is that being part of a crowd moves individuals in different ways than the same event experienced alone, and examines the positive and negative aspects of being part of a crowd. 

With the help of the work of Peter Ackroyd, Dannie Abse, V.S. Naipaul and Shakespeare and with music by J. S. Bach, Malcolm Arnold, Joni Mitchell and Aaron Copeland, Mark Tully picks his way through different crowds and asks whether they are destructive or empowering.

The readers are Hattie Morahan and Dan Stevens. 


Producer: Frank Stirling
A Unique production for BBC Radio 4.

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

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