Tables turned

It was odd listening to Jim Al-Khalili being interviewed on Radio 4 on Tuesday morning rather than the other way round. In his series The Life Scientific, Al-Khalili has developed his own brand of interviewing, encouraging his guests to talk about their work in science by leading them from personal biography —how they came to study science, what they were like at school, who influenced them — to the intricacies of their research and why we should know about it. He makes this sound so easy and natural, setting his interviewees at ease, and his listeners, too, with stories from school and university before delving into the complex ideas behind their work. Very often, it turns out, the route to achievement in science is not necessarily dependent on initial aptitude, or rational explanation, but owes much to serendipity and always a good deal of determination.

Odder still on Tuesday’s edition (produced by Anna Buckley), we could hear an audience laughing and applauding and punctuating the conversation as Al-Khalili faced his inquisitor, Adam Rutherford (his science colleague on Radio 4). The celebratory programme was recorded at the Royal Society where Al-Khalili is a fellow. This completely changed the character of the programme, making it apparent that much of the success of The Life Scientific (now in its eighth year) lies in the way it feels so intimate and individual, so private almost, as if we were sitting in the same room chatting with Al-Khalili and his guest.

He grew up, we discovered, in Iraq in the 1960s and 70s, speaking Arabic at school and English at home (his father was an engineer with the Iraqi air force), but the family left Iraq just weeks before Saddam Hussein came to power and arrived in Portsmouth when he was just 16.