The Brains Trust was a popular informational BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 radio and later television programme in the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 during the 1940s and 50s.

History

The series was created by BBC producers Howard Thomas

Howard Thomas

Howard Thomas CBE was a Welsh-born British radio producer and television executive.-Early career:Thomas began his career typing invoices for a firm of wire-drawers in Manchester. While doing that job, he taught himself to write newspaper articles and short plays...

 and Douglas Cleverdon

Douglas Cleverdon

Douglas James Cleverdon was an English bookseller and radio producer, in both fields associated with numerous leading cultural figures in the United Kingdom.-Early life:...

. The first series started on the Forces radio service in January 1941. The Brains Trust continued for 84 weeks continuously from its initial broadcast and became one of the most popular informational programmes ever. Due to its popularity, it was moved to the peak time on Sunday afternoons. It was typically heard by around 29% of the UK population and generated four to five thousand letters each week from the general public.

The radio programme ended in May 1949 and transferred to BBC television

BBC Television

BBC Television is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation. The corporation, which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927, has produced television programmes from its own studios since 1932, although the start of its regular service of television...

 in the 1950s. The soundtrack was broadcast on the Home Service during the week following the television broadcast.

Revival in the early Zeroes

The programme enjoyed a brief revival in the late 1990s and early zeroes, when it was broadcast on BBC Radio 3

BBC Radio 3

BBC Radio 3 is a national radio station operated by the BBC within the United Kingdom. Its output centres on classical music and opera, but jazz, world music, drama, culture and the arts also feature. The station is the world’s most significant commissioner of new music, and its New Generation...

. It was then presented by Joan Bakewell. It featured a variety of guests, including Theodore Zeldin

Theodore Zeldin

Theodore Zeldin CBE , President of the Oxford Muse Foundation, is an English philosopher, sociologist, historian, writer and public speaker....

, , A.S. Byatt, Richard Dawkins

Richard Dawkins

Clinton Richard Dawkins, FRS, FRSL , known as Richard Dawkins, is a British ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author...

 and Angela Tilby

Angela Tilby

Angela Tilby is an author and Anglican priest, who works in Cambridge. She has made fairly regular appearances on television and radio, including "Thought for the Day" on BBC Radio Four. She has also appeared on The Brains Trust, when the programme was presented by Joan Bakewell...

.

Members

The original three members of the broadcasting team were C. E. M. Joad

C. E. M. Joad

Cyril Edwin Mitchinson Joad was an English philosopher and broadcasting personality. He is most famous for his appearance on The Brains Trust, an extremely popular BBC Radio wartime discussion programme...

 (a philosopher

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

 and psychologist

Psychologist

Psychologist is a professional or academic title used by individuals who are either:* Clinical professionals who work with patients in a variety of therapeutic contexts .* Scientists conducting psychological research or teaching psychology in a college...

), Julian Huxley

Julian Huxley

Sir Julian Sorell Huxley FRS was an English evolutionary biologist, humanist and internationalist. He was a proponent of natural selection, and a leading figure in the mid-twentieth century evolutionary synthesis...

 (a biologist

Biologist

A biologist is a scientist devoted to and producing results in biology through the study of life. Typically biologists study organisms and their relationship to their environment. Biologists involved in basic research attempt to discover underlying mechanisms that govern how organisms work...

) and Commander A. B. Campbell (a retired naval officer). The chairman was Donald McCullough

Donald McCullough

William Donald Hamilton McCullough was a British writer and broadcaster. He was the first question-master of The Brains Trust radio programme from its foundation in 1941.-Career as a writer:...

. Later participants included: Noel Annan, Alfred Ayer

Alfred Ayer

Sir Alfred Jules "Freddie" Ayer was a British philosopher known for his promotion of logical positivism, particularly in his books Language, Truth, and Logic and The Problem of Knowledge ....

, Michael Ayrton

Michael Ayrton

Michael Ayrton was an English artist and writer, known as a painter, printmaker and sculptor, and also as a critic, broadcaster and novelist...

, Isaiah Berlin

Isaiah Berlin

Sir Isaiah Berlin OM, FBA was a British social and political theorist, philosopher and historian of ideas of Russian-Jewish origin, regarded as one of the leading thinkers of the twentieth century and a dominant liberal scholar of his generation...

, Jacob Bronowski

Jacob Bronowski

Jacob Bronowski was a Polish-Jewish British mathematician, biologist, historian of science, theatre author, poet and inventor...

, Collin Brooks, Violet Bonham Carter, Kenneth Clark

Kenneth Clark

Kenneth McKenzie Clark, Baron Clark, OM, CH, KCB, FBA was a British author, museum director, broadcaster, and one of the best-known art historians of his generation...

, Commander Rupert Gould

Rupert Gould

Rupert Thomas Gould , was a Lieutenant Commander in the British Royal Navy noted for his contributions to horology .-Life:...

, Will Hay

Will Hay

William Thomson "Will" Hay was an English comedian, actor, film director and amateur astronomer.-Early life:He was born in Stockton-on-Tees, in north east England, to William R...

, Bishop Joost de Blank

Joost de Blank

Joost de Blank was the Archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa from 1957 to 1963 and was known as the "scourge of apartheid" for his ardent opposition to the whites-only policies of the South African government. He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School, King's College London, and Queens' College,...

, John Maud, Herbert Hart, Malcolm Muggeridge

Malcolm Muggeridge

Thomas Malcolm Muggeridge was an English journalist, author, media personality, and satirist. During World War II, he was a soldier and a spy...

 (chairman), Anna Neagle

Anna Neagle

Forming a professional alliance with Wilcox, Neagle played her first starring film role in the musical Goodnight Vienna , again with Jack Buchanan. With this film Neagle became an overnight favourite...

, Egon Ronay

Egon Ronay

Egon Ronay was a Hungarian-born food critic who wrote and published a famous series of guides to British and Irish restaurants and hotels in the 1950s and '60s. He was an innovator when Britain had little appreciation of foreign cuisine.-Early life:Born in Budapest, Austria-Hungary, in 1915, he...

, Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had never been any of these things...

, Sir Malcolm Sargent

Malcolm Sargent

Sir Harold Malcolm Watts Sargent was an English conductor, organist and composer widely regarded as Britain's leading conductor of choral works...

, Hannen Swaffer

Hannen Swaffer

Hannen Swaffer was a British journalist and drama critic.Swaffer was educated at Stroud Green Grammar School, Kent.He joined the Daily Mail in 1902. He was editor of Weekly Dispatch and helped develop the Daily Mirror into a popular newspaper. In 1913, he initiated "Mr Gossip" for the Daily Sketch...

, Geoffrey Crowther

Geoffrey Crowther, Baron Crowther

Geoffrey Crowther, Baron Crowther was a British economist, journalist, educationalist and businessman. He was editor of The Economist from 1938 to 1956.-Early life and education:...

 (as chairman) and Barbara Ward

Barbara Ward

Barbara Mary Ward , in later life Baroness Jackson of Lodsworth, was a British economist and writer interested in the problems of developing countries. She urged Western governments to share their prosperity with the rest of the world and in the 1960s turned her attention to environmental...

.

Format

The concept was simple. Viewers would send in questions on subjects ranging from practical conundrums to moral dilemmas and the panel members would answer them. The questions chosen for any given show were precisely that kind of mix and the panellists were chosen for the unique contributions each could bring to the subject matter - from the most erudite and serious to the most irreverent and comedic. One question which has become a classic example of its kind was 'How does a fly land on a ceiling? Does it loop the loop, or what?'. Although questions on religion and politics were initially included, these were banned as the programme progressed, following complaints from the Church and Government. It appeared that the typical intellectual appearing on the Brains Trust was likely to be both agnostic and socialist.

The conversation was free wheeling and totally unscripted or rehearsed, relying on the skills of the presenters to fashion a cogent response in the time available. This produced an 'edge-of-the-seat' feel to the performance which did much to add to its popularity.

American version

An American version of this programme, devised and produced by then television producer/director Jeff Smith, aired on WTTW Channel 11, the PBS television outlet in Chicago in the early sixties with an original revolving "cast" of Alec Sutherland, Director of Continuing Education at the University of Chicago; Paul Haggerty, a former vaudevillian

Vaudeville

Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...

, musician and raconteur

Storytelling

Storytelling is the conveying of events in words, images and sounds, often by improvisation or embellishment. Stories or narratives have been shared in every culture as a means of entertainment, education, cultural preservation and in order to instill moral values...

; Robin Pearce, an artist, film maker, lecturer on the fine arts and a world traveller; Paul Schilpp, a professor of philosophy at Northwestern University

Northwestern University

Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....

; Dick Applegate, foreign correspondent, TV newsman and commentator; Dan Q Posin, DePaul University

DePaul University

DePaul University is a private institution of higher education and research in Chicago, Illinois. Founded by the Vincentians in 1898, the university takes its name from the 17th century French priest Saint Vincent de Paul...

 Professor and host of his own television programme on WTTW, "Dr. Posin’s Universe"; Nathan Schwartz, philanthropist

Philanthropy

Philanthropy etymologically means "the love of humanity"—love in the sense of caring for, nourishing, developing, or enhancing; humanity in the sense of "what it is to be human," or "human potential." In modern practical terms, it is "private initiatives for public good, focusing on quality of...

 and raconteur; Ralph Eisendrath, lawyer and civic leader; and moderator Don Bruckner, at that time a labour writer for the Chicago Sun Times and for many years after that, a theater critic for the New York Times. Only four panellists plus the moderator appeared on each programme.

In contrast to the British programme, the questions for the American spin-off were revealed to the team beforehand so that they could have some time to think about them.

External links

• The Brains Trust by A. J. Ayer