Join Nuala McGovern and the BBC World Service for a weekend of special broadcasts during the Oxford Literary Festival. The BBC will return to Worcester’s Sultan Nazrin Shah Centre to record four episodes of Forward Thinking, asking some of the biggest questions facing today’s society. Free tickets are available to all but must be booked in advance through the Oxford Literary Festival box office for each individual programme.

Who Wants to Live Forever? Venki Ramakrishnan talks to Nuala McGovern

Sunday 24 March at 10.45am

Scientific advance means we are tackling diseases that were seen as incurable just a few years ago. But if this means we can live longer, is it ethical to do so? The Nobel prize-winning scientist Professor Sir Venki Ramakrishnan outlines incredible advances in our understanding of the aging process and the medical science now capable of halting and reversing changes.

Image credit: The Royal Society

BOOK FREE TICKETS FOR Venki Ramakrishnan

Can Feminism Fix the Internet? Kerry McInerney talks to Nuala McGovern

Sunday 24 March at 1.45pm

Tech companies dominate the planet, with social media an all-pervasive source of unchecked and often inflammatory information. Solutions to these problems tend to be technical, workarounds designed by predominantly male techies. Research fellow Dr Kerry McInerney argues that wider society needs to be involved. It might be unfashionable, but as the web is an amplifier of many pre-existing societal issues, how about listening to the organisations that deal with those?

BOOK FREE TICKETS FOR Kerry McInerney

BBC World Service on Saturday 23 March