THIS year’s theme to BBC Radio 3’s Free Thinking Festival is Who’s In Control. Do workers or their bosses suffer the most stress? Has Twitter given voters power over politicians? Who is in control of our appetites and body image; of our moods and minds; of disease, of public taste?

Sean Rafferty kicks off the festival weekend on Friday at 4.15pm with a live broadcast of Radio 3’s drive-time programme In Tune from The Northern Rock Foundation Hall. Rafferty will be interviewing guests who are appearing at the Free Thinking Festival weekend, and jazz trio Eyes Shut Tight will play their own elegant compositions live on the show.

Internationally renowned medical researcher Sir Michael Marmot will set the tone of the festival in Hall One at 7.15pm with the opening lecture Self Control – The Key To a Long Life? Marmot explores the traits that determine a healthy life and suggests that we may need to rethink the relationship between health, wealth and and self-control.

Things get under way on Saturday morning in the Northern Rock Foundation Hall with writer Patrick Ness and Charles Fernyhough, professor of psychology at Durham University with Who’s Got Hold of Children’s Imaginations? Presented by Matthew Sweet, expect a lively discussion about how children cope in an unstable world.

Free thinking isn’t always about the future as the Radio 3 festivals demonstrate with their New Generation Thinker series. On Saturday, Durham University’s Eleanor Rasamund Barraclough looks at the Viking Age with those famous Vikings Boneless, Bloodaxe and Hairy Breeches and the bloodsoaked battles of the Anglo Saxons and Vikings. Sarah Peverley explores The Real Game of Thrones and how power was understood in 15th Century England. Another New Generation Thinker, Rebecca Steinfield from the School of Oriental and African Studies, looks at the recent debates among medical ethicists and lawyers about male infant circumcision in Cutting Tradition.

Poet Ian McMillan hosts Radio 3’s unique cabaret of the spoken word and new writing in Letting Go is Good For You.

He’s joined by singer, song writer Nadine Shah and a pair of poets, Daljit Nagra and Kate Fox. who has been poet in residence for the 2013 Glastonbury Festival website and will perform a specially commissioned piece on whether letting go is good for you.

Controlling Moods and Minds: Depression and smart drugs – presented by Rana Mitter (Saturday, 2pm) asks what it means to be depressed? Are we over-prescribing drugs?

Psychoanalyst Darian Leader believes we are living in what he calls “a bipolar age”; Professor Barbara Sahakian questions the ethics of smart drugs and whether they should be available as a panacea for the healthy. Writer and columnist Clare Allan draws on her own experience of being a psychiatric patient and discusses her novel Poppy Shakespeare Free.

Next door, in St Mary’s Church on Sunday is Radio 3’s award-winning Words and Music programme inspired by the festival theme.

Readers Kevin Whately (Inspector Morse, Auf Wiedershen Pet) and Madelaine Newton (When the Boat Comes In) appear alongside their daughter, Kitty Whately, the mezzosoprano and BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist. The North-East’s very own Northumbrian piper, Kathryn Tickell, will join the Whately family with her stirring music.

Watching radio work live is an amazing experience and with so much more to see and hear, the Free Thinking Festival hopes to inspire lively debate in Geordie land. Tickets are free, however you will need to book in advance (booking opens on October 6). Some standby tickets will be available on the day.

  • BBC Radio 3 – Free Thinking Festival at Sage Gateshead , from Friday, October 31 to Sunday, November 2. Visit bbc.co.uk/ radio3/free-thinking or sagegateshead.com/free for full list of events or call 0191-443-4661