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BBC Radio 4 FM

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

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The Design Dimension

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Factual

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Series that looks at the world we inhabit through the lens of design.

BBC Radio 4 LW

The Design Dimension: Series 3

The Design Dimension: Series 3: Episode 1: Playing 'God'

Episode 1

Episode 1: Playing 'God'

Series 3

Playing 'God'

BBC Radio 4 - The Design Dimension, Series 3, Playing 'God'

Tom Dyckhoff looks at the design of dolls and how we represent ourselves.

Tom Dyckhoff explores the doll and how we represent ourselves individually and socially. He questions gender and stereotypes and looks at the design features of successful dolls.

In the first of a new series, Tom Dyckhoff looks at the doll and how we represent ourselves both individually and socially. He goes from the doll's ethnographic roots in stylised fertility to a future of personalised dolls - demonstrated as he has a life-like model created of himself through 3-D printing in a supermarket booth.

He questions gender and stereotypes, looking at the design features of successful dolls and meeting the voice of talking Barbie from the 1960s. 

Not all dolls are for children, and Tom visits the workshop of a doll-maker who designs for adults with her re-born babies, also discovering how dolls can be used in education as well as therapeutically, with dementia patients in care homes.


Produced by Sara Parker
A Falling Tree 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.

Tom Dyckhoff looks at the world we inhabit through the lens of design.

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The Design Dimension

Series 3

Episode 1: Playing 'God'

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