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The 25-hour Moby Dick Marathon sails on in New Bedford
Every winter, thousands of fans descend on the New Bedford Whaling Museum to hear the novel out loud.
Listen to previous shows
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May 20, 2026 - Eco-Rhythms on the Tobin Bridge, Boston's Soundscape Tours, and MassArt president Mary Grant
The Tobin Bridge could become a public artwork about the forces shaping the coast around it. Ryan Edwards, a principal at MASARY Studios, joins us to discuss Eco-Rhythms — also called Accumulating Rhythms — a proposed lighting installation that would respond to tides and other ecological patterns along the Mystic River. To learn more, go here. Boston’s music history is hitting the road. Matt Bowker, founder of Soundscape Tours, joins us to talk about the new Mighty Mighty Bus Tour, which traces more than 60 years of local music through the clubs, venues and neighborhoods of Boston and Cambridge. To learn more, go here. It’s time for “AI: Actual Intelligence,” our recurring conversation with Mary Grant, president of Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Each month, Grant joins us for original, algorithm-free observations on art, culture, education and the creative life of the region. To learn more about MassArt, go here. -
May 19, 2026 - Peter Wolf, Megan Hilty, and John Ravenal on the US at the Biennale
Peter Wolf came to Boston to study painting, but quickly became part of the city’s musical bloodstream — performing with The Hallucinations, spinning records at WBCN and fronting The J. Geils Band. As MassArt honors him with an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree, Wolf joins us to talk about art, music — and Waiting on the Moon, his memoir of late nights and unforgettable run-ins with Muddy Waters, Alfred Hitchcock and more.Megan Hilty joins us ahead of An Evening with Megan Hilty at The Umbrella Arts Center in Concord. The Tony-nominated actress and singer brings songs and stories from a career that has moved between Broadway, television and concert stages. To learn more, go here.Independent curator and art historian John Ravenal joins us to discuss History Maker, Robert Lazzarini’s proposed exhibition for the U.S. Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. The project was selected, then collapsed before it was announced, raising questions about art, politics and what America chooses to put on the world stage. To learn more, go here. -
May 18, 2026 - Stephen Moyer and Jack Davenport, Jill Medvedow on "Things that Disappear," and Pedro Alonzo
A sweeping drama on MASTERPIECE brings one of Britain’s most famous literary families back to the screen. In “The Forsytes,” actors Stephen Moyer and Jack Davenport play brothers Jolyon and James Forsyte, members of a wealthy Victorian dynasty whose fortunes can’t shield them from rivalry, ambition, and betrayal. To learn more go here.Jill Medvedow, Director Emerita of the Institute of Contemporary Art, returns for “Read on Arrival,” our series on short books with long afterlives. Her latest pick is Jenny Erpenbeck’s Things That Disappear, a 96-page collection of autobiographical essays.Independent curator and Culture Show contributor Pedro Alonzo joins us with dispatches from Buffalo and Mexico City, where Latino and Chicano artists are getting major museum attention. We discuss Let Us Gather in a Flourishing Way at the Buffalo AKG and Aztlán, túnel del tiempo at Mexico City’s Palacio de Bellas Artes. -
May 15, 2026 - Week in Review: Eurovision, the World Cup halftime show, and Don Colossus
On this edition of The Culture Show, GBH’s Global Correspondent and News Host Jeremy Siegel, Lisa Simmons, and Joyce Kulhawik go over the latest arts and culture headlines on our week-in-review. Lisa Simmons is Artistic and Executive Director of the Roxbury International Film Festival and program manager at Mass Cultural Council. Joyce Kulhawik is an Emmy-award winning arts and entertainment reporter and President of the Boston Theatre Critics Association. You can find her reviews on Joyce’s Choices. The World Cup is getting its first-ever halftime show, set for July 19 at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey. Shakira is returning to the World Cup stage, with Madonna and BTS also part of the spectacle.Cannes is underway with less Hollywood wattage this year, but plenty of awards-season intrigue. The festival is putting more focus on international auteurs and a new Oscar rule that could give Cannes winners a stronger path to the Academy Awards.Eurovision is once again where music, politics and spectacle collide. Israel has advanced to the final, but its participation has become a flashpoint, with several countries sitting out over the war in Gaza and the civilian death toll.A 22-foot gold statue of President Trump now stands at Trump National Doral in Florida. Called “Don Colossus,” it shows him with his fist raised — echoing the Butler assassination attempt photo — and has drawn attention for its mix of politics, spectacle and backlash.Dunkin is returning to Canada, setting up another round in its rivalry with Tim Hortons. The expansion puts an American coffee-and-doughnut chain back into competition with one of Canada’s most recognizable homegrown brands. -
May 14, 2026 - Club Passim's Matt Smith, Bill Lichtenstein on WBCN, and 150 years of the Harvard Lampoon
Matt Smith has spent 30 years at Club Passim, the tiny Harvard Square room with an enormous folk history. We talk with him about starting as a volunteer, booking artists, and helping shape one of the country’s great listening rooms. To learn more about Passim, go here.WBCN wasn’t just Boston’s rock station. In the late 1960s and early ’70s, it became a platform for anti-war politics, civil rights, LGBTQ and women’s rights, and listener-driven radio. We talk with Bill Lichtenstein about his documentary The Airwaves Belonged to the People: WBCN and The American Revolution, now returning to theaters around New England. To learn more about upcoming screenings, go here.The Harvard Lampoon began in 1876 as a student humor magazine and, 150 years later, remains one of American comedy’s most influential institutions. We talk with Geoff Edgers about his recent oral history of the Lampoon, its mythology, its famous alumni, and its long reach into National Lampoon, Saturday Night Live, The Simpsons, late night and Hollywood comedy. To read Edgers’ piece, go here.
