Whatever happened to James Burke?

"There is always a connection, but if the link has never been made before, nobody knows it's there."

The latest connection? Oh yeah, there he was again last night, bang in the middle of Channel 4's "Britain's Most Watched TV" countdown, hosting those sequences about Apollo 13 in particular. For many kids at the time, he probably WAS Mr Apollo.

James Burke, the brainy guy on the TV (as opposed to James Burke, the web designer for the Bagenalstown Floral Festival Committee)
was born in Derry, did an MA in English at Oxford University, taught English at the Universities of Bologna and Urbino, and collaborated on the production of a major Italian-English dictionary (Zanichelli) and edited sections of the Wiedenfeld & Nicholson Encyclopedia of World Art.

Then he started working on Italian radio and as interpreter at Vatican II. In 1965 he moved to telly, as a reporter for Granada's Rome bureau. The next year he moved to the Beeb in London and produced, wrote and presented various TV documentaries, was co-host of Tomorrow's World and - that space bit again - anchored all the BBC's coverage of the Apollo moon flights. From 1972-1976 he did a weekly one-man science show, The Burke Special.

In 1979 came Connections, the prize-winning ten-part science history series that was filmed in over 19 countries and 150 locations. It was like the best bits of Marshall McLuhan, but completely understandable. He'd take a series of apparently unrelated events/people/situations and fitted them into a puzzle that helped to explain the fundamental process of social and technological change. When it was first broadcast in the US (on PBS of course), it achieved the highest-ever audience for a documentary series in the States. The series is on the curriculum of some 350 colleges and universities in the US.

Then he examined the brain and the nature of human perception in a six-part BBC series, The Real Thing.

There were more award-winning programmes in the 1980s, such as The Day the Universe Changed, and After the Warming, a mini-series about the greenhouse effect, and a programme on Renaissance painting.

From 1991 to 1994, there was Connections 2, the sequel. And he co-wrote The Axemakers Gift.

He has contributed to loads of mags (Vogue, Harper's, New Scientist, Atlantic Monthly, Scientific American), founded the Knowledge Web to nurture new ways of thinking, and is on the international lecture circuit for the likes of IBM, Nasa, MIT, SETI, the UN and the European Parliament.

Yes, Burke is a true renaissance man - presenter, director, producer, lecturer and best-selling author, with a wonderfully infectious, idiosyncratic view of knowledge, technology and culture.

Now, the final connection: what better person for the next President of Ireland? The campaign starts here and now.

Posted by mick cunningham at May 2, 2005 01:41 PM | Email a friend this entry | TrackBack