Stephen Fry's 7 Deadly Sins

Stephen Fry previews his epic new documentary podcast series entitled Stephen Fry’s Great Leap Years – the stories behind inventions. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Far out in the ocean of discovery huge swells have been gathering and combining to create the great tsunami that will soon engulf us, We look back at how innovation in technology has, from the first, changed our ways of living, our sense of who we are and what we are to expect from life.Researched, written & read by Stephen Fry. Music composed and conducted by Guy Farley with The Chamber Orchestra of London.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A medieval tech start-up led by serial entrepreneur Johannes Gutenberg and his invention that unleashed a societal revolution.As Europe recovered from the scourge of the Black Death, a young man from a family that had made its name in metalwork, specifically in gold and silver smithing pondered a new invention, It would combine his knowledge of working hot and molten metals with other technologies that had yet fully to coalesce in his mind. He believed that if he got it all right it would make him a staggering amount of money.Researched, written & read by Stephen Fry. Music composed and conducted by Guy Farley with The Chamber Orchestra of London.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The spark that Napoleon sent across the century from Paris to New York with the prize fund that seeded the Bell Labs energised the next century's, in ways that the emperor could never have guessed at.Researched, written & read by Stephen Fry. Music composed and conducted by Guy Farley with The Chamber Orchestra of London.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The sperm whale, Bell Labs, vacuum tubes and the dawning age of information at the speed of light.Researched, written & read by Stephen Fry. Music composed and conducted by Guy Farley with The Chamber Orchestra of London. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The War of the Currents and a new type of person arises, an almost wholly American invention - the salesman. The foundations are set for the rise of one of the mightiest company's the world had ever seen - International Business Machines. Or as we all know it today, IBM.Researched, written & read by Stephen Fry. Music composed and conducted by Guy Farley with The Chamber Orchestra of London Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Series 1 Finale! Across the ocean of discovery the swells are building with ever increasing mass and speed. The swells of robotics, AI, nano science, the internet of things, quantum computing, genomics, gene editing, bio-augmentation, bionics, autonomous weaponry and transport, brain machine interfacing – all these existentially transformative developments are gathering pace and momentum now and a remarkable future beckons.Researched, written & read by Stephen Fry. Music composed and conducted by Guy Farley with The Chamber Orchestra of London. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Stephen Fry's 7 Deadly Sins is coming in early 2020 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

An exploration of the human heart.In this new series I will take each one of the Seven Sins in turn, lay them out on the surgical table and poke, prod, pry and provoke in an attempt to try to anatomise and understand them; I hope and believe it will be, if nothing else, delicious fun and something of a change from the usual run of podcastery.Researched, written & read by Stephen Fry. Music composed and conducted by Guy Farley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For two thousand years Pride has stood at the very top of the list of the Seven Deadly Sins. Perhaps no longer. Perhaps a new sin is rising to replace it. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Avarice, or Greed as we would call it today, now there’s a proper vice, one we can all surely identify with, claim and confess to. One of the defining quotations of the materialistic 1980s came from the fictional character Gordon Gecko, the junk bond pirate played by Michael Douglas in the Oliver Stone film, Wall Street. “Greed,” he tells a dinner of fellow financiers, “for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works”. It’s easy to dismiss this. Your instinct might be to shake your head sadly, or scoff angrily. Yet... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You know you want it. You know you do. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I confess. I’ve been guilty of envy. It’s not a pretty vice. And now I envy YOU - all the pleasure of this fresh new podisode ahead of you. You lucky lucky people... Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Loosen your waistbands and gorge with me until you gasp. It’s Gluttony - the devil that drives us to all kinds of addiction and excess *burp*. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mister ANGRY has been unleashed from his rage cage. Let’s drink together some of the wine from his grapes of wrath. Furious to know more? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Yes, we’ve come to the seventh of the seven deadly sins. Sloth. Is it sloth as in both, or sloth as in moth? Whichever, sloth lives inside us all. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I have been charmed and delighted to find that the comments that have come in for this series have been sound, friendly, helpful and informed. In this final episode for this series, I’ve singled out one or two. Thank you for your questioning, your listening — go on searching, asking and wondering. Wondering in both senses: wondering by wanting to know and wondering by marvelling. And here’s to madmen, hermits, heretics, dreamers, rebels and sceptics. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.