Inside Culture

Episode 2 (3x2)

Air date: May 21, 2021

Mary Beard embraces finally being on the move - whilst acknowledging we are not going very far! What do we lose from arts and culture when we cannot travel? Mary meets James May to discuss grand tours old and new, and in London’s St Pancras station, she asks if it is architecture and art that give train station reunions their romantic edge. Private pilot and singer Gary Numan tells Mary why the ability to travel is so key to a musician’s creativity. And Mary is joined by historian David Olusoga, comedian and Channel 4’s Trip Hazard presenter Rosie Jones and writer William Dalrymple to debate if the traditional genres of travel literature and travel documentaries are slowly dying. Even without a pandemic or climate change, do we need to travel to understand other cultures?