Listen "Anthony David"
Episode Synopsis
Professor Anthony David works at the mysterious interface between the mind, the brain and the body. The Director of the Institute of Mental Health at University College London, he’s published 13 books and more than 600 academic articles, and his work focuses on illnesses at the edge of human understanding. He tells Michael Berkeley about some of the patients he’s tried to help over the years: a man who thought he was dead; a strong teenage boy who appeared to be paralysed despite no detectable physical cause; and the manic patient he bonded with during a piano and guitar jamming session in the hospital gymnasium.Music has been central to Anthony’s life since he played the flute in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony in his primary school orchestra. He chooses that piece and complements it with Dudley Moore’s hilarious homage to Beethoven. And we hear music Anthony loves from Debussy, Copland, Bach and Sondheim as well as from a school friend who went on to become one of our most celebrated jazz pianists.Producer: Jane Greenwood
A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 3
A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 3
More episodes of the podcast Private Passions
Peter Purves
18/01/2026
Vanessa Williams
11/01/2026
Alison Weir
04/01/2026
Pam Ayres
21/12/2025
Louise Penny
23/11/2025
Lea Ypi
16/11/2025
Hugh Bonneville
09/11/2025
Annabel Croft
02/11/2025
The Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer
26/10/2025
Hollie McNish
19/10/2025
ZARZA We are Zarza, the prestigious firm behind major projects in information technology.