Off The Page

BBC Radio 4 FM

BBC Radio 4 LW

Original version

BBC Radio 4 Extra

Your digital radio entertainment station showcasing the best in comedy and drama

Your digital radio entertainment station showcasing the best in comedy and drama. With recent favourites from BBC Radio 4.

Off the Page

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Series featuring new writing and stimulating discussion.

Off the Page: My Own Private Utopia

My Own Private Utopia

BBC Radio 4 - Off the Page, My Own Private Utopia

Amanda Mitchison, Rob Penn and Tobias Jones reach for a perfect world. From 2010.

Dominic Arkwright, Amanda Mitchison, Rob Penn and Tobias Jones discuss their ideas of making a perfect world. From December 2010.

How, and where, and with whom, do you want to lead your life? 

Most of us don't ask ourselves this very often, preferring instead to slide along, taking what may be acceptable and conventional as enough. But what if you do pursue an answer, as one of our guests, Tobias Jones, is trying to do, in a ten acre wood?

The full title of Thomas More's work Utopia included the words, "A truly golden little book, no less beneficial than entertaining, of a republic's best state ...." But has Utopia ever been achieved? Rob Penn and Amanda Mitchison think definitely not. The problem is the presence of other people, and so a private Utopia is the best that can ever be achieved. Rob Penn, presenter of a recent tv documentary about building the perfect bike, outlines very clearly what it means to him. 

But Tobias Jones, author of the Dark Heart of Italy and Utopian Dreams, argues very clearly that the woodland life he is now establishing with his family and guests should not be so easily dismissed. As Kurt Vonnegut said, "Human beings will be happier not when they cure cancer or get to Mars ... but when they find ways to inhabit primitive communities again."

Presented by Dominic Arkwright.   

Producer:  Miles Warde

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2010.

BBC Radio 4

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

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.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Off the Page

My Own Private Utopia

Genres

Brand

BBC Radio 4 Extra

About BBC Radio 4 Extra