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BBC World Service radio will broadcast live from the grounds of Worcester College as part of the BBC’s Life Stories season. Presenters Anu Anand, John Simpson and Sahar Zand explore questions about the natural world and our own human nature with international authors and thinkers, performers and festival audiences.

* Is human nature fixed – or is it ever changing? John Simpson discusses with geneticist Adam Rutherford, psychoanalyst Coline Covington and philosopher Luciano Floridi.

* World-renowned Nigerian novelist and poet Ben Okri is in conversation with John Simpson.

* Anu Anand looks at how our environment shapes our natures with shepherdess Amanda Owen, Mexican poet Alberto Alvaro Rios and American urban planner Jonathan Rose.

* Global environmental expert and director of the Oxford Martin School Achim Steiner and writer and Provost of Worcester College Jonathan Bate discuss how we shape our environments – for better or worse.

* Sahar Zand explores issues of loneliness, sociability and freedom for children to play in our public spaces with environmental journalist George Monbiot and Scottish folk singer Ewan McLennan.

* Syrian musician Maya Youssef performs the kanun – and talks about her work with Syrian child refugees.

Tickets for this live BBC World Service radio event are free but must be booked through the festival box office. This event will last two hours. Once enough people have registered to to fill the venue, standby tickets will be available. The BBC will aim to get as many people as possible into the event but those with standby tickets will not be able to enter once the venue is full.