Gulliver and the wonders of science.

The conventional wisdom would have it that Gulliver's Travels is at its best in books one and two in which Gulliver is a giant in a small world and then the opposite. Book three is more problematic, not least because it involves a very detailed assault on the scientific community of the early 18th century, centred around the members and experiments of the Royal Society. But Swift's uneasy relationship with scientific development is echoed in our own time with the relentless advances of AI, genetic modifcation and the like. Ian ventures into hallowed halls of today's Royal society to examine the contemporary targets of Swift's satire, chief amongst them Sir Isaac Newton, and the extent to which he was acting as both a moral conservative and a prescient observer of scientific discovery. He talks to Sir Mark Walport, Foreign Secretary and Vice President of the Royal Society, and discovers a much more sympathetic attitude to Swift's criticism and humour.
Ian also concedes that Swift didn't always hit the mark, particularly in his relationship with music. But that didn't stop the great European composer Georg Philipp Telemann composing a Gulliver Suite for two violins just two years after Gulliver was published. The music, including the movement inspired by book three, demonstrates that Telemann understood the satire and was keen to both cash in on and contribute to its Europe-wide popularity.

Producer: Tom Alban