The Brains Trust was an informational BBC radio and later television programme popular in the United Kingdom during the 1940s and 1950s, on which a panel of experts tried to answer questions sent in by the audience.
During the early war years it helped raise morale, and the verbal sparring between panel members, especially Julian Huxley and Cyril Joad, made it one of the most popular programmes.
It featured a variety of guests, including Theodore Zeldin, Ian Stewart, A.S. Byatt, Richard Dawkins and Angela Tilby.
Later participants included: Edward Andrade, Noel Annan, A. J. Ayer, Michael Ayrton, Isaiah Berlin, Robert Boothby, Jacob Bronowski, Collin Brooks, Violet Bonham Carter, Alan Bullock, Anthony Chenevix-Trench, Kenneth Clark, Margery Fry, Commander Rupert Gould, Gilbert Harding (as chairman), Herbert Hart, Will Hay, Bishop Joost de Blank, Marghanita Laski, C. S. Lewis, Rose Macaulay, John Maud, Malcolm Muggeridge (chairman), Anna Neagle, Egon Ronay, Bertrand Russell, Sir Malcolm Sargent, Hannen Swaffer, Gwyn Thomas (novelist), Geoffrey Crowther (as chairman), Lord Dunsany, Sir Ivone Kirkpatrick,[5] Walter Elliot,[6] Jennie Lee,[6] Ellen Wilkinson, Aldous Huxley, A. J. P. Taylor,[7] Harold Nicolson,[8] Barbara Ward Jackson,[9] Philip Guedalla[10] and Tom Wintringham.
Listeners or viewers sent in questions on subjects ranging from practical conundrums to moral dilemmas for the panel members to answer.
In June 1941 the Controller of Programmes instructed the panel to 'avoid all questions involving religion, political philosophy or vague generalities about life'.
An American version of this programme, devised and produced by television producer/director Jeff Smith, aired on WTTW Channel 11, the PBS television outlet in Chicago in the early 1960s with an original revolving "cast" of Alec Sutherland, Director of Continuing Education at the University of Chicago; Paul Haggerty, a former vaudevillian, musician and raconteur; Robin Pearce, an artist, filmmaker, lecturer on the fine arts and a world traveller; Paul Schilpp, a professor of philosophy at Northwestern University; Dick Applegate, foreign correspondent, TV newsman and commentator; Daniel Q. Posin, DePaul University Professor and host of his own television programme on WTTW, Dr. Posin’s Universe; Nathan Schwartz, philanthropist and raconteur; Ralph Eisendrath, lawyer and civic leader; and moderator DJR Bruckner, at that time a labour writer for the Chicago Sun Times and for many years after that, a theater critic for The New York Times.