A message from Stephen Fry

A message from Stephen Fry

Author: Festival of Dangerous Ideas February 24, 2026 Duration: 1:48

Heading into its 13th festival, FODI exists thanks to supporters who don't flinch at difficult topics. Brave minds. Bold hearts. Dangerous conversations. We've built a reputation for dragging the world's sharpest provocateurs and thought leaders to Sydney IRL.

From 21–23 August 2026, FODI returns. Our Opening Night event with Salman Rushdie will ignite a jam-packed weekend, where global thought leaders, trail-blazing artists and fearless experts converge upon some of Sydney's most iconic venues.

But a festival with global reach doesn't come cheap. To keep tickets accessible and to stay fiercely independent, FODI relies on people like you.

Big ideas don't fund themselves. Donate to help us lock in extraordinary speakers and artists for this year's program at festivalofdangerousideas.com.au.


For more than a decade, the Festival of Dangerous Ideas has curated a space where provocative thinking isn't just welcomed, it's the entire point. This podcast is a direct line to that stage, offering an archive of talks that deliberately unsettle comfortable opinions and interrogate the stubborn problems we often agree to ignore. Each episode captures a live conversation from Australia's original disruptive ideas festival, presenting arguments that can be exhilarating, uncomfortable, and vitally important. You’ll hear from a compelling roster of festival alumni-including leading experts, intellectual troublemakers, and visionary authors-who share perspectives that conventional discourse frequently sidelines. The discussions here aren't theoretical exercises; they grapple with the pressing and difficult issues shaping our society and culture right now. Tuning in means granting yourself access to a decade-long tradition of intellectual courage, where the core assumption is that some truths are only reached by first entertaining a dangerous idea. It’s a chance to listen as boundaries are pushed, not for shock value, but for clarity. The result is a consistently challenging and refreshing audio experience that complicates simple narratives and expands what feels possible to talk about.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

Festival of Dangerous Ideas
Podcast Episodes
Speaking Bluntly (2024) - Antoinette Lattouf, Andy Mills & Josh Szeps [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 1:03:13
Journalists play a vital role in a democracy, holding power to account. The traditional model of journalism sees journalists as disinterested seekers of the truth, striving for 'objectivity' and suppressing their own opi…
David Runciman (2024) - Votes for 6 year olds [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 45:40
When it comes our most divisive political, economic and social issues there is a fracture between the views of the old and the young. As older generations continue to monopolise wealth and how policy is shaped, younger g…
Jem Bendell (2024) - Breaking Together [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 39:32
The process of global collapse has begun – driven by the damage we have caused to the Earth's natural systems. And governments and corporations aren't going to save us. So are we going to cling to our old individual ways…
Masha Gessen (2024) - The War of the Narratives [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 58:25
In an age of creeping authoritarianism, anyone who questions the logic of competing narratives when it comes to historical conflicts risks being silenced. Russian American journalist Masha Gessen says however, in order t…