Other Media
Podcasts
Listen to my appearance on the Trapped History podcast in December 2023 discussing the sinking of a boat of pilgrims on their way to Mecca. In discussion, I draw on wider aspects of pilgrimage, the subject of my 2021 book.
Trapped History also invited me to make nominations for their Hall of Fame. I picked nineteenth-century explorer Richard Burton, and Father Stanley Rother, an American priest martyred in 1981 in Guatemala’s civil war
Visual Media
In March 2020, I was meant to be in New Zealand talking about my book on Angels at the Auckland International Writers Festival. Covid put paid to that trip, but here is the replacement online discussion.
In May 2013, I took part part in an Intelligence Squared debate in London, chaired by Jonathan Freedland (right) on the question of whether the Catholic Church is “beyond redemption”
Marking the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation in October 2017 with a talk about Martin Luther in St Paul’s Cathedral, London
Radio Appearances
In June 2020 I appeared on BBC Radio 3’s Private Passions, discussing with Michael Berkeley my upbringing in Liverpool, my books, my journalism, my work for prison reform - and the music that has accompanied it all.
Assessing the legacy of Martin Luther with Diarmaid MacCulloch, in front of a live audience for BBC Radio 3’s Free Thinking in 2017
Discussing my chosen book on BBC Radio 4’s A Good Read with Carol Drinkwater and presenter Sue MacGregor, before a live audience at the Ways With Words Festival at Darlington Hall, in Devon, in the summer of 2003