Slow questions for public life.
Night School treats public ideas as things to be worked through slowly, not reduced to quick positions. Its conversations move from arts institutions and higher education to socialism, social life under movement restrictions, gamelan, and jiu-jitsu.
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Night School is a BFM series that treats the social sciences and humanities as practical tools for reading everyday life. It is interview-driven, but its conversations often feel like roundtables, with hosts and guests testing an idea from several angles before moving on. The show’s subjects are broad, yet the method is consistent. A single question about an art gallery, a music ensemble, a pandemic rule, or a political conference becomes a way to ask what institutions are for and how people learn to live inside them. Episodes on the arts during COVID-19 examine the real precarity behind public assumptions about artists and celebrities. They also question whether production-focused creative-economy models make sense in a local context without the same markets or training infrastructure. Conversations on higher education follow a similar path, looking at online learning, collaboration, and the pressures faced by art and design faculties as borders and classrooms change. The arts are not treated as decorative. They become a site for public education, civic discussion, memory, and access. A gamelan episode moves from childhood exposure and ensemble leadership to repetition, notation, imagination, and how students remember musical cycles. A discussion of Munshi Abdullah frames a 19th-century literary figure through the playful but serious idea of a social media influencer. Political episodes are more direct, especially when socialism, racism, refugees, migrant workers, and party organizing enter the room. The show can also loosen its form, as in conversations about coping, anxiety, work, and socialising under movement control. Even its Brazilian jiu-jitsu episode resists simple hype, asking what grappling is, who trains, how adults learn, and why claims of practicality can become marketing. Night School’s strength is not speed. It works by restatement, comparison, example, and context. It is plainspoken without being thin, serious without becoming sealed off from daily life. The show suits listeners who like ideas explained carefully and placed back into the world that produced them.
Made for: For listeners drawn to cultural criticism, public life, art education, political ideas, and reflective conversation. It suits people who prefer patient context over fast opinion.
What sets it apart: Night School turns arts, education, politics, history, music, and even martial arts into connected social questions. Its conversations are explanatory and willing to let uncertainty remain visible.
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Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Night School makes Brazilian jiu-jitsu approachable by pairing practical training questions with a clear-eyed look at technique, accessibility and gym culture.
Night School treats Brazilian jiu-jitsu as a practice to be understood, rather than an occasion for fight talk. Ahmad Fuad Rahmat's conversation with Eugene Lee, also known as Kenu, moves from the mechanics of grappling and submissions to training pace, rank progression and the…
Gamelan memory tricks and jiu-jitsu realism share a desk here, with your curiosity in the good chair.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
Jo Kukatas turns pandemic anxiety into a grounded look at how artists work, train, and survive.
Jo Kukatas treats the COVID-19 pandemic as a stress test for the arts, showing how public visibility can sit beside job-to-job insecurity when performers lack EPF, pensions, and SOXO.
A warm, specific look at gamelan's repeating cycles, cultural roots, and Belfast ensemble practice.
Night School traces Adam Farhan's path with gamelan, from a childhood encounter at Museum Negara to directing an ensemble at Queen's University Belfast.
A focused art and design education discussion on MOOCs, economic pressure, and collaboration across institutions.
Night School considers the future of higher education after COVID-19, keeping art and design education in view through the institutional perspectives of its guests.
Hanif Baharuddin weighs the worry and relief of going to the office during the MCO.
During the MCO, Night School co-hosts Hanif Baharuddin and Simon Soon talk about what it means to be "okay." Simon asks, and Hanif says he is coping. He feels less anxious than he did when the restrictions began, though worries still arise.
A grounded primer on grappling, training time, and the claims surrounding Brazilian jiu-jitsu.
Brazilian jiu-jitsu is made unusually readable by starting with a simple problem: how to describe grappling when the action itself cannot be seen.
A grounded conference preview linking Malaysian racism with everyday acts of solidarity.
This Night School episode uses PSM's upcoming national socialism conference as a way into how political ideas land in Malaysian public life. Ahmad Fuad Rahmat speaks with Arul and Sharon Raj about the event's local focus, with particular attention to a racism panel on Malaysian…
Art historian Tamar Avishai interviews critics, curators, and writers about single paintings and ideas.
Jennifer Dasal narrates art history's overlooked lives, from Picasso's police file to Rauschenberg and Twombly's romance.
Russell Tovey and Robert Diament interview artists about their materials, biography, and process.
Cinematographer Roger Deakins and James Deakins interview film crew about the craft behind specific shots.
Robert Bound interviews artists and reviews new film, book, and music releases with critics.
Sound art from places, recordings, and memory.
Host Ahmad Fuad Rahmat interviews Arul and Sharon from Parti Socialis Malaysia about their upcoming Socialism 2017 conference.
An interview about an exhibition presenting Munshi Abdullah, father of Malay modern literature, as a social media influencer.
A discussion about the impact of the recent elections on the arts community in Malaysia, featuring two musician-politicians.
A panel discusses ghost stories, Halloween traditions, and cultural beliefs about the afterlife, exploring why people are fascinated by the supernatural.
Host Ahmad Fuad Rahmat interviews Eugene Lee (Kenu) from the Jiu-Jitsu Foundry about Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu basics.
Night School on BFM 89.9 has Hanif Baharudin, Simon Soon, and Jo Kukatas tracing why Malaysia's arts sector feels fragile during COVID-19.
Adam Farhan says tradition is "a bank of knowledge" that grows when gamelan changes.
On BFM's Night School, hosts Hanif Baharudin and Simon Soon discuss the future of higher education under COVID-19 with Dr Khairul Azriel bin Ismail of UCSI University and Professor Dr Ruslan bin Abdulrahim of Universiti Teknologi MARA.
Night School hosts Hanif Baharuddin and co-host Simon Soon, a university lecturer, discuss coping with Malaysia's COVID-19 Movement Control Order (MCO) roughly a month into lockdown, speaking to each other over Skype instead of hosting a guest.
Night School examines how Malaysia's COVID-19 lockdown changed work, education, social life, and public health through historian of medicine Por Hiong Hong's discussion with Hanif Baharudin and Simon Soon.
A discussion about art education and public programming at Ilham Gallery in Malaysia.