Hildegard wants to make music, while Bernie finds out who, or what, is driving the bus. Stars Amanda Donohoe and Karl Minns.

How Brahms' German Requiem, written as a tribute to his mother and designed to comfort the grieving, has touched and changed peoples lives.

Stuart Perkins describes how the piece arrived at the right time in his life, after the death of his aunt.

Axel Körner, Professor of Modern History at University College London, explains the genesis of the work and how the deaths of Brahms' friends and family contributed to the emotional power of the piece.

Daniel Malis and Danica Buckley recall how the piece enabled them to cope with the trauma of the Boston marathon bombings.

Simon Halsey, Chief Conductor of the Berlin Radio Choir, explores how Brahms' experience as a church musician enabled him to distil hundreds of years of musical history into this dramatic choral work.

For Imani Mosley, the piece helped her through a traumatic time in hospital. Rosemary Sales sought solace in the physical power of Brahms' music after the death of her son. And June Noble recounts how the piece helped her find her voice and make her peace with her parents.

Producer: Melvin Rickarby.

C. J. Sansom's bestselling Tudor crime novel, adapted for radio by Colin MacDonald.

Winter, 1537, the South Kent Coast. Lawyer-detective Matthew Shardlake's investigation into the murder of a King's Commissioner is further complicated by the discovery of another suspicious death at Scarnsea Monastery.

Produced and directed by Kirsteen Cameron.

Antoinette and Rochester's honeymoon develops into an intense love affair in Dominica. Read by Adam Godley.

On the 150th anniversary of the birth of Claude Debussy, Richard Langham Smith relishes the lyrical riches of Théodore de Banville, Alfred de Musset, Paul Bourget, Théophile Gautier and Paul Verlaine, the poets Debussy chose to express his love for an older, married woman, Marie Blanche Vasnier.
Hearing her sing moved Debussy, then an impressionable young student, to create a treasury of songs specially with her voice in mind. Among the many songs he wrote for Madame Vasnier, is the unpublished "La fille aux cheveux de lin". It was the starting point of Debussy's fascination with setting words to music, an obsession that reached a high point in "Pélleas et Mélisande" some twenty years later. But it's Madame Vasnier Debussy acknowledges as "the only muse to ever inspire musical feelings", and that's he confesses, "only to talk of the musical ones!".

'Life is only worth living because we hope it will get better and we'll all get home safely"

When beautiful Kitty Finch lands in the middle of what seems a conventional holiday set up - two couples, one teenage daughter and a villa in the south of France - no-one quite knows the effect she will have, though at once the ground shifts.

In the fierce heat of July, fissures yawn open, prised apart by Kitty's unsettling presence. Is she benign? What does she want? Is she an admiring fan or a darker foe? And who is keeping secrets, most of all from themselves?

Deborah Levy's first novel in fifteen years has garnered much praise. Witty and acute by turn, its deceptively simple setting belies the fractured relationships and the sense of imminent chaos that threatens all the characters. In today's episode: 'Especially when it rains'.

Abridged by Sally Marmion
Produced by Di Speirs
Directed by Elizabeth Allard
The Reader is Juliet Aubrey.

In 1900 three papers by three botanists, unknown to each other, appeared in the same scientific journal. Each had independently "rediscovered" the rules of inheritance that Gregor Mendel had found four decades earlier in his solitary investigations of pea plants.

Kathy Willis reassesses Mendel's famous pea experiments in the light of his attempts to uncover what happens over several generations when hybrid plants are created. As historian Jim Endersby explains, Mendel's initial results may have stunned him and shown what plant breeders might have suspected for decades, but science now had mathematical laws to create new varieties.

Historian Greg Radick sheds light on how Mendelism, in the years leading up to the First World War, became heavily promoted by Cambridge botanist William Bateson and was put into action by the first Professor of Agricultural Botany, Roland Biffen. His success in creating new wheat hybrids is explained by a unique international assembly of wheat ears from the early 1900s, curated by Mark Nesbitt, Head of Kew's economic botany collection.

Producer Adrian Washbourne.

By Alexander Pushkin

Adapted by Duncan Macmillan

Drama based on one of Russia's best loved poems, and the life of the man who wrote it. Pushkin and Onegin have both fought their duels and everyone must now struggle with the consequences.

Directed by Abigail le Fleming

About the adapter
Duncan Macmillan is an award winning writer and director. Former Writer in Residence at Paines
Plough and the Royal Exchange Theatre, he has written extensively for theatre in addition to
working in radio and television.

Duncan is currently writing new plays for the National Theatre, Soho Theatre, Paines
Plough and BBC Radio and is adapting George Orwell's 1984 with director Rob Icke for
Headlong/Nottingham Playhouse.

Writer and poet Gwyneth Lewis visits the remote island in the Bristol Channel as she contemplates a change in direction in her life. She considers the satisfaction of adventure close to home.

Helen Schlegel is unhappy that her sister Margaret has agreed to marry Henry Wilcox.

Starring John Hurt as the Narrator, Lisa Dillon as Margaret Schlegel, Jill Cardo as Helen Schlegel, Tom Ferguson as Tibby Schlegel, Alexandra Mathie as Aunt Juley, Malcolm Raeburn as Henry Wilcox, Ann Rye as Ruth Wilcox and Joseph Kloska as Charles Wilcox.

EM Forster's classic English novel adapted for radio in two parts by Amanda Dalton.

Produced in Manchester by Susan Roberts.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2009.

Martin Young hosts the famous people quiz, with team captains Francis Wheen and Fred Housego and guests Vivienne Parry and Jonathan Meades. From November 2000.

A civil servant's dull existence is transformed when he overhears two dogs talking. With Griff Rhys Jones. From May 2002.

Pam Ayres returns with a new series packed with poetry, anecdotes and sketches.

Poems include Toaster, about Pam's son's dog and its phobia; I'm the Dog Who Didn't Win a Prize, written by Pam after she was asked to be a judge at a competition; and Tippy Tappy Feet, about the things you miss when your best friend goes to the great kennel in the sky.

Pam is joined on stage by actors Geoffrey Whitehead and Felicity Montagu for sketches on what dogs talk to each other about and how a new puppy can cause more excitement in some families than a new baby.

The cast of TV's hugely popular sketch show return for their second series on BBC Radio 4. Pete Baikie, Morwenna Banks, Moray Hunter, Gordon Kennedy and John Sparkes revisit some of their much-loved sketch characters, while also introducing some newcomers to the show.

In 2013, the group that made their name on Channel Four in the 1980s and 90s got back together for Radio 4's Sketchorama: Absolutely Special - which won the BBC Audio Drama Award for Best Live Scripted Comedy. The first series of The Absolutely Radio Show picked up a Celtic Media Award nomination for Best Radio Comedy.

Cast:
Peter Baikie
Morwenna Banks
Moray Hunter
Gordon Kennedy
John Sparkes
Gus Beattie
Gordon Kennedy

Produced by Gordon Kennedy and Gus Beattie.
An Absolutely/Gusman production for BBC Radio 4.

England, 1947: Rationing and austerity seem to have fostered opportunism, escapism and confrontation within the Linden family.

Professor Linden wants only to continue teaching in a world that no longer seems to share his quiet ideals. His family urge him to retire from the fight, but the Professor is not so easily deterred...

JB Priestley's stage play made its debut in 1947. Adapted for radio by Mollie Greenhalgh.

Starring Geoffrey Banks as Professor Linden, Kathleen Helme as Isabel, Christopher Godwin as Rex Linden, Carole Hayman as Dr Jean Linden, Joanna Wake as Marion de Saint Vaury, Penelope Reynolds as Dinah Linden and David Mahlowe as Alfred Lockhart.

Cellist: Rosalind Gonley
Directed at BBC Manchester by Kay Patrick.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1997.

Jazz musician and broadcaster Humphrey Lyttelton explores the world of British dance band leaders in the 1940s. From November 2005.

An exploration of the blackout on 13 July 1977 that plunged a sweltering and near-bankrupt New York City into chaos as the lights went out at 9.27pm. Music stations switched to rolling news and the sound of store alarms was the prelude to a night of fear and unprecedented lawlessness.

Made for 4 Extra. The poet and cultural icon Dr John Cooper Clarke has been given Complete Control of Radio 4 Extra to select three hours of his favourite programmes from the BBC Radio Archives.
This Includes;

Stand-up from Bob Hope, recorded at the London Palladium in 1953
A collection of comedy from the golden age of radio variety with Vic Oliver, Al Read and Jimmy 'Wheel 'em in' Wheeler.
Some audio interference from the pioneering DJ Jack Jackson.
An episode of 'The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole 13 ¾
A creepy reading of Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Black Cat’ by James Stewart (yes, that James Stewart)
Vincent Price and Peter Cushing coming face-to-face in ‘The Price Of Fear’
The classic Western ‘The Shootist’, starring Brian Cox and Michelle Fairley

So enjoy three hours of thrills, chills and laughs, all introduced by the man who is in Complete Control, Dr John Cooper Clarke.

Stuart Maclean regales a theatre audience in Canada with tales of rabbits who live in the glove compartment.
From the Empire Theatre in Belleville, Ontario.
With John Sheard, Joe Grass, and Harmony Trowbridge.

First broadcast by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation from 1994, the variety show Vinyl Cafe sadly lost its host, author and humourist Stuart McLean, after his death in February 2017.

First broadcast by CBC in 2007.

Omnibus: Anna Madrigal is now 92, but key ghosts in her past are troubling her. Is she prepared to confront them? Stars Kate Harper.

Comedian Russell Kane inherits Barry White 'Can't Get Enough of Your Love, Babe' and wants to pass on Einaudi's 'The Waves'.

"To be perfectly honest, I had never even heard of Workington," admits actress Sheila Hancock, but after a visit with the Royal Shakespeare Company, she took the town and its people to her heart.

On her return in 1988, she discovered the community - devastated by closures in the steel industry - was fighting back. She also found time to indulge in Workington's passion for rugby league...

Down Your Way was a schedule staple for decades - starting on the BBC Home Service in 1946 and ending its run on BBC Radio 4 in 1992. Using a variety of hosts, including Richard Dimbleby and Brian Johnston, the programme toured villages, towns and cities across the UK. At the height of the series' success in the 1950s, it was attracting ten million listeners a week.

Producer: John Holmes
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 1988.

The Sixth Doctor and his companion Peri are taken for eco-warriors by hunters of space whales.

An adventure originally written for the BBC's Doctor Who TV series but never made.

Colin Baker stars as the Sixth Doctor.

With Nicola Bryant as Peri, John Benfield as Captain Greeg, Neville Watchurst as Stennar, John Banks as the Caller, Susan Brown as the Chief Engineer, Toby Longworth as Stafel and Alex Lowe as Axel.

Written by Pat Mills.
Director: John Ainsworth
Producer: David Richardson
Made by Big Finish and reversioned for broadcast by BBC Radio 4 Extra.

4 Extra Debut. The cast, writer and director describe how a story originally called 'The Song of the Space Whale' finally came to be recorded.

Stephen Fry hosts humorous banter and sketches with Hugh Laurie, Jim Broadbent, Emma Thompson and Phyllida Law. From June 1988.

John Finnemore, the writer and star of Cabin Pressure, regular guest on The Now Show and popper-upper in things like Miranda and Family Guy, records a second series of his hit sketch show.

The first series was described as "sparklingly clever" by The Daily Telegraph and "one of the most consistently funny sketch shows for quite some time" by The Guardian. It featured Winnie the Pooh coming to terms with his abusive relationship with honey, how The Archers sounds to people who don't listen to the Archers and how Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde decided whose turn it was to do the washing up.

This episode doesn't feature any of those things, but it does feature an awkward celestial relationship, surprisingly easy contract negotiations, and a trailer for a film about the only mode of transport that hasn't had a film made about it yet.

John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme is written by and stars John Finnemore. It also features Margaret Cabourn-Smith, Simon Kane, Lawry Lewin and Carrie Quinlan. It is produced by Ed Morrish.

Radical proposals to improve our lives, with the comedian's legal shake-up. From October 1992.

John Humphrys gives 28 performers 60 seconds each to entertain. With Phil Cornwell and John Finnemore. From January 2008.

As Pushkin prepares to fight a duel, his wife begs to hear his most famous story. Based on the poem. Stars Geoffrey Streatfeild.

Young maid Sarah poses for a famous 19th-century photographer. But how long can her enchantment last? Read by Elizabeth Conboy.

When the lights from a new zebra crossing outside Tom's parent's house causes insomnia in the Wrigglesworth household, Tom's dad is forced to take matters into his own hands and cause a fuss. Not perhaps in the way everyone else would though...

Meanwhile, Tom is down in London preparing himself for a visit from the bailiffs.

A rare Australian outing for schoolboy Archie Andrews and his mentor Peter Brough.

Radio ventriloquism recorded in Sydney. With Ronald Chesney, Reg Quartley, Ray Barrett, Betty Parker, June Salter, Wendy Blacklock and Reginald Goldsworthy

Running from 1950-1958, Educating Archie introduced a number of soon-to-be household names to listeners, including Tony Hancock, Benny Hill, Harry Secombe, Dick Emery, Hattie Jacques, Bruce Forsyth and Max Bygraves - all taking a turn in tutoring Archie.

Music by from the ABC Dance Band
Producer: Harry Freeman

From a series made by ABC in Australia and also first broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in September 1957.

Professor Jimmy Edwards' plans to bribe the boys with a sumptuous meal are all washed up. With June Whitfield.

Starting life on BBC TV before transferring to radio, Chiselbury School is run "for the sons of gentlefolk".

Headmaster, Professor James Edwards, M.A. never misses a trick when it comes to exploiting the students and their parents. Sports pitches are given over to growing vegetables, which the boys nurture for their head to sell. Classes never exceed 95 pupils - 50 if private tuition is paid for at five guineas extra. It's only thanks to the efforts of the devoted deputy head, Mr Pettigrew, that the school exists at all.

Written by Frank Muir and Denis Norden and adapted for radio by David Climie.

Producer: Edward Taylor

First broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in July 1961.

A story of increasing attachment between an author and two pigs in France and the ethics of meat eating. Read by Imogen Stubbs.

Fi Glover introduces a conversation about musical roots, getting used to success, and the allure of writing your own songs rather than covering someone else's.

The Listening Project is a Radio 4 initiative that offers a snapshot of contemporary Britain in which people across the UK volunteer to have a conversation with someone close to them about a subject they've never discussed intimately before. The conversations are being gathered across the UK by teams of producers from local and national radio stations who facilitate each encounter. Every conversation - they're not BBC interviews, and that's an important difference - lasts up to an hour, and is then edited to extract the key moment of connection between the participants. Most of the unedited conversations are being archived by the British Library and used to build up a collection of voices capturing a unique portrait of the UK in the second decade of the millennium. You can learn more about The Listening Project by visiting bbc.co.uk/listeningproject

Producer: Marya Burgess.

4 Extra Debut. From Handel to Strauss, the influential teacher and literary critic shares his castaway choices with Sue Lawley. From September 1997.

Radiolab with stories of foolhardy flipping and derring-dos. Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich explore the world of risk-taking.

Radiolab is a Peabody-award winning show about curiosity. Where sound illuminates ideas, and the boundaries blur between science, philosophy and the human experience.

First broadcast on public radio in the USA.

Fireman Guy Montag loves his job. But as his life unravels he begins to question all his beliefs. Read by Alex Jennings.

The triumph and the tragedy of The Titanic are keenly remembered by people in Belfast, where the ship was built.

In 1941 Orson Welles' film Citizen Kane, now regularly voted top in critics' and audience polls, picked up nine Oscar nominations and was already being spoken of as a work of genius. But there were powerful forces lobbying hard against it, not least among them William Randolph Hearst, the media mogul on whom the story is based, and FBI supremo J Edgar Hoover.

As the Oscar nominations are announced, Welles suffers an uncharacteristic attack of anxiety. And not without cause: FBI supremo J.Edgar Hoover has tasked a small-time FBI agent, Special Agent RB Wood, with making sure the film doesn't triumph at the Oscars ceremony. Hearst has banned any mention of the film across his media empire, RKO, the distributor, is looking shaky, and while the movie plays to capacity houses in art-house cinemas, no major theatres or cinema chains will take it. A chance encounter in an elevator leads to a highly charged head-to-head between Hearst and Welles when the two men lay their cards on the table. At the ceremony in February 1941 the film only wins one Oscar, and Welles' reputation in America never recovers.

Only the character of Agent Wood is imagined, although he is based on a documented but shadowy figure mentioned in the FBI archives. And it is Wood who finally confronts Welles with the uncomfortable truth about the film: in hijacking Hearst's life for Citizen Kane, Welles has replaced it with his own.

Orson Welles.........Jeff Harding
J. Edgar Hoover........Toby Jones
Herman Mankiewicz.....John Guerrasio
William Randolph Hearst...Peter Marinker
George Schaefer.......Garrick Hagon
Agent Wood..........Val Jobara
Radio Interviewer.......Paul Mundell

Written by Jonathan Holloway
Producer: Sara Davies.

BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry with 'Between the Ears: Crex, Crex', featuring a poem to a special bird.

Kathleen Jamie, poet and birder, travels to the Isle of Coll to hear male corncrakes as they "crex crex" their way through the Hebridean summer night. She enlists the help of the birds themselves, the island's RSPB warden Sarah Money and the Coll Drummers.

Producer: Tim Dee
First broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in 2004.

by Katie Hims. It's 1914, and Clara Tully, a Leeds baker's wife and the proud mother of four beautiful boys, knows the war won't be over by Christmas. And she knows a much darker secret besides.

Directed by Jessica Dromgoole.

Uncle Frank is coming to visit his young nephew Jamie. But Jamie is a sensitive soul, and his governess has watched a strange obsession growing in him, and an unexplained terror at the forthcoming visit.

Stories abridged by Robin Brooks

Read by Ruth Gemmell

Producer: Clive Brill
A Pacificus production for BBC Radio 4.

Uh-oh - Marcus Brigstocke has been put in charge of a thing!

Each week, Marcus finds he's volunteered to be in charge of a big old thing and each week he starts out by thinking "Well, it can't be that difficult, surely?" and ends up with "Oh - turns out it's utterly difficult and complicated. Who knew...?"

This week, glory be, Marcus Brigstocke has decided to form his own religion - based on peace, loving, kindness and probably war.

Among his acolytes and apostates are Rufus Jones (W1A, Holy Flying Circus), William Andrews (Sorry I've Got No Head) and Margaret Cabourn-Smith (Miranda)

The show is a Pozzitive production, and is produced by Marcus's long-standing accomplice, David Tyler who also produces Marcus appearances as the inimitable as Giles Wemmbley Hogg. David's other radio credits include Jeremy Hardy Speaks To The Nation, Cabin Pressure, Thanks A Lot, Milton Jones!, Kevin Eldon Will See You Now, Armando Iannucci's Charm Offensive, The Castle, The 3rd Degree, The 99p Challenge, My First Planet, Radio Active and Bigipedia.

Written by Marcus Brigstocke, Jeremy Salsby, Toby Davies, Nick Doody, Steve Punt and Dan Tetsell.

Produced by David Tyler
A Pozzitive production for BBC Radio 4.

From 10pm to midnight, the Comedy Club has two hours of comedy. Plus the Victorian time-travelling magicians Morgan and West have a trick or two up their sleeve for Arthur Smith.

Aisling Bea and Yasmine Akram become Ais and Yaz and are the very best pals. They are taking their role as Ireland's freshest story-tellers to the British nation very seriously indeed but they haven't had the time to do much research, learn their lines or work out who is doing which parts.

The girls' unconventional way of telling stories involves a concoction of thoroughly inappropriate modern-day metaphors and references to many of the ancient Irish stories.

With a natural knack for both comedy and character voices Yasmine Akram and Aisling Bea will bring you warm, modern re-workings of popular ancient Irish stories.

Today it's Deirdre of Sorrows.

Written and performed by Aisling Bea and Yasmine Akram
Producer: Raymond Lau.

A potential burglary brings out Frank's inner hero.

What do long term partners really argue about? Sharp new comedy from Frank Skinner returns for a second series. Starring Frank Skinner and Katherine Parkinson.

The first series of Don't Start met with instant critical and audience acclaim:
"That he can deliver such a heavy premise for a series with such a lightness of touch is testament to his skills as a writer and, given that the protagonists are both bookworms, he's also permitted to use a flourish of fine words that would be lost in his stand-up routines" - Jane Anderson, Radio Times.

"Writing and starring in the four-parter Don't Start (Radio 4) Frank Skinner gives full rein to his sharp but splenetic comedy. He and his co-star Katherine Parkinson play a bickering couple exchanging acerbic ripostes in a cruelly precise dissection of a relationship" - Daily Mail.

"a lesson in relationship ping-pong".. - Miranda Sawyer, The Observer.
Series 2 follows hard on its heels. Well observed, clever and funny, Don't Start is a scripted comedy with a deceptively simple premise - an argument. Each week, our couple fall out over another apparently trivial flashpoint - the Krankies, toenail trimming and semantics. Each week, the stakes mount as Neil and Kim battle with words. But these are no ordinary arguments. The two outdo each other with increasingly absurd images, unexpected literary references (the Old Testament, Jack Spratt and the first Mrs Rochester, to name a few) and razor sharp analysis of their beloved's weaknesses. Underneath the cutting wit, however, there is an unmistakable tenderness.

Frank says:
"Having established, in the first series, that Neil and Kim are a childless academic couple who, during their numerous arguments, luxuriate in their own, and each other's, learning and wit, I've tried, in the second series, to dig a little deeper into their relationship. Love and affection, occasionally splutter into view, like a Higgs boson in a big tunnel-thing, but can such emotions ever prevail in a relationship where the couple prefers to wear their brains, rather than their hearts, on their sleeves? Is that too much offal imagery?"

Directed and Produced by Polly Thomas
Executive Producer: Jon Thoday
An Avalon Production for BBC Radio 4.

Tom Caine wakes up and hears music everywhere, but it's not the food of love. Stars Suggs and Bob Monkhouse. From July 2001.

C. J. Sansom's bestselling Tudor crime novel, adapted for radio by Colin MacDonald.

Winter, 1537, the South Kent Coast. Lawyer-detective Matthew Shardlake interrogates Brother Jerome, whose hatred for the murdered King's Commissioner, has marked him out as a prime suspect.

Produced and directed by Kirsteen Cameron.

Antoinette and Rochester's intense love affair on the beguiling Caribbean island of Dominica is threatened by rumour and betrayal...

Jean Rhys's most famous novel read by Adjoa Andoh and Adam Godley - tracing the early life of the first Mrs Rochester from Jane Eyre.

Abridged by Margaret Busby
Producer: Claire Grove
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2004.

The golden age of Hollywood, before the 1960s dawned.

American actor, author and film director Peter Bogdanovich shares his views of the movie industry in Hollywood, using his own archive of recordings. Featuring James Stewart, John Ford, Howard Hawks and Alfred Hitchcock in conversation and Cybill Shepherd reveals what it was like to have Orson Welles as a house guest.

Producer Penny Vine

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2007.

by Christopher William Hill. It's 1937 on the remote Scilly Island of St. Martin's, where the islanders are resisting the attempts of the Penzance GPO man to modernise the post office - around which their world revolves.

Episode 3: Movies. Morwenna is bored of island life.

Directed by Mary Peate.

Sound by Jenni Burnett, Anne Bunting and Caleb Knightley
Production Co-ordinator, Jessica Brown.

The 67th series of Radio 4's multi award-winning 'antidote to panel games' promises more homespun wireless entertainment for the young at heart. This week the programme pays a return visit to the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford where regulars Barry Cryer and Tim Brooke-Taylor are once again joined on the panel Andy Hamilton and Jo Brand, with Jack Dee in the chair. At the piano - Colin Sell. Producer - Jon Naismith. It is a BBC Studios production.

It's time to meet the Muppets with President Nixon.

Starring Fred Harris, Jo Kendall, Nigel Rees and Chris Emmett.

Cult sketch comedy series which originally ran from 1976 to 1980.
Scripted by David Renwick and Andrew Marshall.
Producer: David Hatch
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 1980.

Lance Corporal Jones is short of meat at his butcher's shop, so Private Walker arranges a special off-ration supply.

Starring Arthur Lowe as Captain Mainwaring, John Le Mesurier as Sergeant Wilson, Clive Dunn as Corporal Jones, John Laurie as Private Frazer, Ian Lavender as Private Pike, Arnold Ridley as Private Godfrey, Larry Martyn as Private Walker and Frank Williams as the Vicar.

Adapted for radio from Jimmy Perry and David Croft's TV scripts by Harold Snoad and Michael Knowles.
Producer: John Dyas

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in May 1975.

Author of the Week is Gustave Flaubert - French modernist novelist and firebrand, who created perhaps the best novel of all time in the form of "Madame Bovary".

Team captains Sebastian Faulks and John Walsh are joined by comedy writer and author of "May Contain Nuts", John O'Farrell, and literary critic and Guardian journalist, Alex Clark to answer questions about the great Frenchman's life and work.

For the finale of the show, the teams are asked to imagine a 2012 update of Flaubert's "Dictionary of Received Ideas".

As Marcia adjusts to the Paradise Island diet, a ministry man snoops about. Stars Rebecca Front and Joan Sims. From June 1997.

Louis, Bernard, Neville, Jinny, Susan and Rhoda look back on childhood and their first forays into adulthood.

One of Virginia Woolf's most original titles, The Waves charts the lives of six friends from early childhood through to middle age.

Dramatised and directed in two parts by one of the UK's most original film makers, Terence Davies.

With Janet Suzman as the Narrator, Jon Cartwright as Bernard, Geraldine James as Susan, Anna Massey as Rhoda, Peter Guinness as Neville, Jane Lapotaire as Jinny and Don Warrington as Louis.

Producer: Polly Thomas
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2007.

Max Kelada claims to know everything, but will a string of pearls prove his undoing? A bet is placed to see if he knows their real value. But he is not a man who is easily fooled.

Interviewed in 1933, Maugham said "It has always seemed to me that literature can only find its fullest and freest expression in the essay or short story." He wrote more than 100 stories, at least 14 of which he burned on one of his "bonfire nights", after Winston Churchill warned that they contravened the Official Secrets Act. Of the stories that do survive, he said "some of them deal with circumstances and places to which the passage of time and the growth of civilisation will give a romantic glamour....."

What we plan to broadcast over the next year are twenty five of Maugham's best stories with tales from home and abroad. Tales of intrigue from far flung colonial outposts and tales of passion from quintessentially British hearths.

Maugham writes perfect vignettes - snapshots of human life in all its diversity - captured at a moment of crisis or revelation.

Abridged by Eileen Horne
Read by Daniel Weyman
Produced by Clive Brill.
A Brill Production for BBC Radio 4 Extra.

Conor left Ireland at eighteen. He's lived in England ever since, much to the annoyance of his brother Gareth who still lives back in Newry. It's been a year since Gareth and Conor's younger sister died. Gareth's been talking about doing something to raise some money for a cancer charity in her honour for most of that year. But that's just what Gareth does - talk.

So when he turns up on Conor's doorstep and tells him he is going to cycle from Land's End to John O'Groats and he needs his brother driving behind him to carry his stuff, he doesn't believe him at first. But as the two brothers set off on the journey with only the AA route finder to guide them the eight hundred and thirty seven point nine miles, Conor realises that this time his brother might not be just talking.

A story of family, endurance and the power of loss. As the two brothers, devoid of a valid driving licence, any real cash or actual planning, make the journey across the country they are forced to confront their own relationship and the times they have missed together as they have grown up apart.

Kenneth Emson is a first time writer for radio. He won the Old Vic US/UK Exchange in 2009 for his play Sonderkommando, won the Adopt a Playwright Award in 2010, and took part in the Royal Court Supergroup attachment where he developed his new play White.

Written by Kenneth Emson

Producer: Clive Brill
A Pacificus Production for BBC Radio 4.

Bill Nighy reads from the new collection of short fiction by the author of The Reader, Bernhard Schlink.

He begins with a three-part story called The Night in Baden-Baden. An author goes to the first night of his first play, which is being performed in Baden-Baden. To celebrate the occasion he invites Therese to go with him. But Therese is not his girlfriend.

Abridged and produced by Jane Marshall
A Jane Marshall production for BBC Radio 4.

The Nobel prize for Chemistry was awarded to German scientist Richard Willstatter in 1915 for his analysis of the green plant pigment chlorophyll. It marked a significant moment in the long history of piecing together the many elements that contribute to photosynthesis - the process by which plants draw in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and together with light and water can generate their own glucose and release oxygen back into the air. The limits of this process were now clear

Kathy Willis hears from historian Jim Endersby about defining moments in photosynthesis' long history and from Kew's Head of Conservation Biotechnology about how artificially elevating levels of carbon dioxide in the air,a technique long developed by horticulturists to produce bigger fruit and vegetable crops, is now having dramatic effects on successful reintroduction of cultivated endangered plants back into the wild.

And as scientists understand the different methods that plants use to photosynthesise, Kathy Willis hears from Oxford plant scientist Jane Langdale who's part of a network of international scientists who are attempting to mend a fundamental flaw in the process of photosynthesis which could improve future rice yields by 50%

Producer Adrian Washbourne.

The Dogs and The Wolves Episode 1/5
by Irene Nemirovsky, translated by Sandra Smith
Dramatised by Ellen Dryden

Ada Sinner grows up during the Jewish pogroms in the Ukraine in the early 20c. When her Aunt Raisia and cousins come to live with her and her father, she feels more alone than ever. But then Ada discovers another cousin, the rich and distant, Harry Sinner, and a life long passion and love for Harry begins.

FURTHER INFO:
The French title - Entre chien et loup, meaning twilight, the time when the light is too dim to distinguish a dog from a wolf. This is a novel about family, about fate, about the power of love and about money. Of the banking crash that precipitates her novel's final tragedy, Némirovsky writes with eerie resonance. This was Némirovsky's last published novel.

On March 10th, 1983 when her mother was away from home, Carmen Bugan's father Ion put on his best suit and drove his Dacia into Bucharest to display placards and distribute leaflets, demanding freedom from oppression. It was a display of defiance that would change forever his life and the life of his family.

Burying The Typewriter is Carmen Bugan's memoir of growing up in Romania in the 1970s and 1980s when the country was governed by Ceausescu, and his network of agents and informers, the Securitate, exerted a malign influence in every sphere of society.

Carmen Bugan was educated at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) and Balliol College, Oxford, where she was awarded a doctorate. Her first book of poetry, Crossing The Carpathians, was published by Oxford Poets/Carcanet in 2004.

"A beautiful, vivid memoir..."
The Guardian

"It is the more moving and powerful for being so quiet and thoughtful..."
The Independent

"A warm and humane work..."
The Observer

Reader: Anamaria Marinca
(BAFTA award winner for 'Sex Traffic' 2005)

Abridged by Pete Nichols

Produced by Karen Rose
A Sweet Talk Production for BBC Radio 4.

In 22nd-century Britain, the collapse of the pensions system means compulsory euthanasia for all 70-year-olds. But a clerical error sparks implications for George... Smith...

Colin Swash's dystopian comedy stars Stephen Moore as George, Patsy Byrne as Doris, Geoffrey McGivern as O'Connell and Lorelei King as Andrea Sunbeam. Other parts by Melanie Hudson, Christopher Douglas and Lewis MacLeod.

Producer: Richard Wilson.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1998.

Sue MacGregor and her guests - broadcaster Stuart Maconie and actress Rebecca Front - discuss favourite books by Dirk Bogarde, Richmal Crompton and Anita Loos. From 2004.

A Short Walk From Harrods, by Dick Bogarde
Publisher: Penguin

William at War, by Richmal Crompton
Publisher: Macmillan

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, by Anita Loos
Publisher: Penguin.

Award-winning comedy from Justin 'Lofty' Edwards, Neil 'Professor' Edmond and James 'Shortstop' Rawling. From October 2005.

Recorded the day before transmission, the satirical sketch show remains as sharp and topical as ever. Impressions and caricatures are the charming couriers of explosively satirical truth-bombs.

The series is written by Private Eye writers Tom Jamieson and Nev Fountain, together with Tom Coles, Ed Amsden, Sarah Campbell, Laurence Howarth, James Bugg, Laura Major, Max Davis, Jack Bernhardt and others.

The series stars Jon Culshaw, Jan Ravens, Lewis MacLeod, Deborah Stephenson and Duncan Wisbey.

A BBC Studios Production.

Recorded in July 1994, Brian Perkins, Kate Robbins and Tony Hawks find helium in the air and 'Casablanca: The Sound Man's Cut'.

C. J. Sansom's bestselling Tudor crime novel, adapted for radio by Colin MacDonald.

Winter, 1537, the South Kent Coast. The search for a murder weapon has led to the discovery of a third body. When the victim is identified, Shardlake realises that the case is even more complicated than he had realised.

Produced and directed by Kirsteen Cameron.

Antoinette seeks advice, as malicious gossip puts a strain on her marriage to Rochester. Jane Eyre prequel read by Adjoa Andoh.

The Last Picture Show placed Peter Bogdanovich in the vanguard of what was dubbed New Hollywood.

The director and historian looks at the changes in Hollywood since his arrival there in 1961 - from the rise of independent film makers to the influence of television.

Producer Penny Vine

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2007.

16 years ago, Heather's best friend Dawn ran off with Heather's man Joe. Now Dawn has the cheek to ask Heather to check if Joe is having an affair!

Just this side of nosey, Heather is western movie-mad. She's also the Sherlock Holmes of the rundown Sutter Estate.

Sue Teddern's six-part comedy series star Lindsey Coulson as Heather. (Carol Jackson in BBC TV's EastEnders until 2015)

With Tessa Peake-Jones as Dawn, Dearbhla Molloy as Maev, Abigail Hart as Natalie, Ben Crowe as Ryan, Gavin Muir as Joe, Gerard McDermott as Lou and David Holt as the Waiter.

Director: David Hunter
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in March 2000.

The globetrotting, trash-picking, aisle-rolling storyteller is back with more words of wit and wisdom. He opens this series with a new story fresh from the pages of The New Yorker, Untamed, and extracts from his book Theft By Finding, a compilation of diary entries from 1977-2002.

With sardonic wit and incisive social critiques, David Sedaris has become one of America's pre-eminent humour writers. The great skill with which he slices through cultural euphemisms and political correctness proves that he is a master of satire and one of the most observant writers addressing the human condition today.

David Sedaris's first book, Barrel Fever (1994), which included The SantaLand Diaries. was a critical and commercial success, as were his follow-up efforts, Naked (1997), Holidays on Ice (1997) and Me Talk Pretty One Day (2000). He became known for his bitingly funny recollections of his youth, family life and travels, making semi-celebrities out of his parents and siblings.

David Sedaris has been nominated for three Grammy Awards for Best Spoken Word and Best Comedy Album. A feature film adaptation of his story C.O.G. was released after a premier at the Sundance Film Festival (2013). He has been a contributor to BBC Radio 4 since 1996.

Producer: Steve Doherty
A Giddy Goat production for BBC Radio 4.

Harold hopes a brand new bed will impress his girlfriends.

Starring Wilfrid Brambell as Albert and Harry H Corbett as Harold. With Norma Ronald and Michael Burlington.

Following the conclusion of their hugely successful association with Tony Hancock, writers Ray Galton and Alan Simpson wrote 10 pilots for the BBC TV's Comedy Playhouse in 1962. The Offer was set in a house with a yard full of junk, featuring the lives of rag and bone men Albert Steptoe and his son Harold and it was the spark for a run of 8 series for TV.

Written for TV and adapted for radio by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson.

Produced by Bobby Jaye

First broadcast on the BBC Radio 2 in March 1976.

The bumbling bureaucrats take charge of Britain's first space launch.

A weekly tribute to all those who work in government departments.

Stars Richard Murdoch and Deryck Guyler. With Norma Ronald, John Graham and Ronald Baddiley.

Written by Edward Taylor and John Graham.

'The Men from the Ministry' ran for 14 series between 1962 and 1977. Deryck Guyler replaced Wilfrid Hyde-White from 1966. Sadly many episodes didn't survive in the archive, however the BBC's Transcription Service re-recorded 14 shows in 1980 - never broadcast in the UK, until the arrival of BBC Radio 4 Extra.

Producer: Edward Taylor
First broadcast on the BBC Radio 4 in July 1970.

It's out with Farage, Gove, Boris, Hodgson, Chris Evans and David Cameron. And in with the new: Andrea Leadsom?

Pamela has had enough of men, including Merv, so she joins a women's group. Stars Mervyn Stutter. From May 2003.

As the life-long friends each try to come to terms with Percival's death, more secrets are uncovered. Stars Geraldine James.

Macadam works in the museum at Kuala Solor and despite his best intentions attracts the earnest attentions of the curator's Russian wife.

Interviewed in 1933, Maugham said "It has always seemed to me that literature can only find its fullest and freest expression in the essay or short story." He wrote more than 100 stories, at least 14 of which he burned on one of his "bonfire nights", after Winston Churchill warned that they contravened the Official Secrets Act. Of the stories that do survive, he said "some of them deal with circumstances and places to which the passage of time and the growth of civilisation will give a romantic glamour....."

What we plan to broadcast over the next year are twenty five of Maugham's best stories with tales from home and abroad. Tales of intrigue from far flung colonial outposts and tales of passion from quintessentially British hearths.

Maugham writes perfect vignettes - snapshots of human life in all its diversity - captured at a moment of crisis or revelation.

Read by Lucy Robinson
Abridged by Elaine Bedell
Produced by Clive Brill
A Brill Production for BBC Radio 4 Extra.

by Colin Hough.

Glasgow 1906. Theatre manager Arthur Jefferson is training his sixteen year old son in all aspects of front-of-house. But young Stanley hankers for a life on the stage. His father, a former actor, knows of the perils and is vehemently against his son following in his footsteps. The boy has an ally, however, in his mother Madge. Stanley secretly secures a spot at rival theatre, the Panopticon. His first professional job is not an immediate success and the notoriously rough crowd are initially hostile towards the boy. What he doesn't know is that his father is in the front row and by the time he exits the stage, the career of comedy legend Stan Laurel has been born.

Stan's song was composed by Eoin Millar and the pianist was David McGuinness

Producer/Director ..... Gaynor Macfarlane.

A playwright has taken an old friend to the opening night of his first play but, when his girlfriend, finds out she isn't pleased. The more he claims the date was innocent, the more her jealousy escalates and he reflects that it is just this sort of jealousy that prompted his deception in the first place.

Bill Nighy reads from Bernhard Schlink's collection of short fiction..

Abridged and produced by Jane Marshall
A Jane Marshall production for BBC Radio 4.

In 1903 a cluster of evening primrose in an abandoned potato field outside the Dutch town of Hilversum caught the eye of German botanist Hugo de Vries. Its huge blooms and large leaves appeared to suggest the sudden development of a new species. Around the same time in Kew Gardens a mysterious primula hybrid appeared. The new discipline of plant genetics soon revealed that this curious trick was being driven by multiplication of chromosomes inside the plant cell nucleus.

Professor Kathy Willis examines this phenomenon - known as polyploidy ( "multiple forms") - and how insights into this peculiarity can contribute to the evolutionary success of plants. It may also hold the answer to one of the botanical world's greatest mysteries - why so soon after appearing in the fossil record did the flowering plants suddenly explode into the bewildering range of species we see today.

With contributions from historian Jim Endersby, Keeper of Kew's Jodrell Lab Mark Chase, and Jodrell Laboratory geneticist Illia Leitch.

Producer Adrian Washbourne.

The Dogs And The Wolves ep2/5 by Irene Nemirovsky, translated by Sandra Smith
dramatised by Ellen Dryden

Early 20c. We travel from the Jewish Pogroms of the Ukraine to Paris. Ada secretly loves a distant rich cousin, Harry Sinner. When both families move to Paris she doesn't catch sight of him again until several years later when she's a young woman. He's moving in elite French company whilst Ada is a poor seamstress. After a terrible row with her cruel Aunt Raissa, Ada runs away. Ben, Raissa's son, who is hard and cunning but loves Ada, offers her a solution.

Shortages at her father's shop show Carmen a different side to the villagers. At home, her father excites the children by bringing the family a typewriter.

Burying The Typewriter is Carmen Bugan's memoir of growing up in Romania in the 1970s and 1980s when the country was governed by Ceausescu, and his network of agents and informers, the Securitate, exerted a malign influence in every sphere of society.

Carmen Bugan was educated at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) and Balliol College, Oxford, where she was awarded a doctorate. Her first book of poetry, Crossing The Carpathians, was published by Oxford Poets/Carcanet in 2004.

"A beautiful, vivid memoir..."
The Guardian

"It is the more moving and powerful for being so quiet and thoughtful..."
The Independent

"A warm and humane work..."
The Observer

Reader: Anamaria Marinca
(BAFTA award winner for 'Sex Traffic' 2005)

Abridged by Pete Nichols

Produced by Karen Rose
A Sweet Talk Production for BBC Radio 4.

Gyles Brandreth chairs the scandals quiz with Anthony Holden, Stella Duffy, Jenny Colgan and Rosie Millard. From October 2003.

The King acquires a sixth wife, Catherine Parr - now thrice-married - and a near-professional mother-in-law.

An unreliable history, created and written in six parts by Barry Grossman.

Starring Jonathan Coy as Henry VIII, Milton Jones as Thomas Cromwell, Alfred Burke as the Chronicler, Rachel Atkins as Catherine Parr and Sally Grace as Mother. Music by Jim Parker.

Producer: John Fawcett Wilson
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2003.

Lucky old George Smith - it's not everyone who has their own compulsory euthanasia broadcast on national TV at the age of 69.

Colin Swash's dystopian comedy stars Stephen Moore as George, Patsy Byrne as Doris, Geoffrey McGivern as O'Connell and Lorelei King as Andrea Sunbeam. Other parts by Melanie Hudson, Christopher Douglas, Lewis MacLeod and Peter Serafinowicz.

Producer: Richard Wilson.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1998.

Fawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs shares his life-long love of wildlife with Derek Jones,

Gibbons and White Tigers are among his choice of recordings from the BBC Sound Archives.

Produced in Bristol by John Burton.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1980.

A hard decision gets harder thanks to 'favours' being offered. Starring Geoffrey Palmer and Julian Rhind-Tutt. From August 2009.

July & August. School's out for Barack Obama, Frank McCourt and Emma Thompson.

Satirist Craig Brown dips into the private lives of public figures from the 1960s to the present day.

Voiced by Jan Ravens, Alistair McGowan, Lewis McLeod, Ewan Bailey, Margaret Cabourn-Smith and Dolly Wells.
Written by Craig Brown.
Produced by Victoria Lloyd.

From 10pm to midnight, seven days a week, the Comedy Club has two hours of comedy. Plus Jon Holmes chats to Elf Lyons.

On one hand, Ben is on the trip of a lifetime to Sub-Antarctica. On the other, he's trapped in an icy hell with one other person, a dodgy internet connection and a dictaphone. Loneliness is something of a problem. His fellow travelling scientist Graham should alleviate this, but the tragi-comic fact is, they are nerdy blokes, so they can only stumble through yet another awkward exchange. Ben experiences all the highs and lows that this beautiful, but lonely place has to offer but fails miserably to communicate this to Graham. So, Ben shares his thoughts with us in the form of an audio 'log'.

Apart from his research studying the Albatross on the Island, Ben attempts to continue normal life with an earnestness and enthusiasm which is ultimately very endearing. We're with him as chats awkwardly with Graham, telephones his mother and as he tries to form a long distance relationship with a woman through Chemistry.com. In fact, we follow Ben as everything occurs to him. We also hear the pings and whirrs of machinery, the Squawks and screeches of the birds and the vast expanse outside. Oh, and ice. Lots of ice.

EPISDE THREE:

Bird Island is the story of Ben, a young scientist working in Antarctica, trying to socially adapt to the loneliness by keeping a cheery audio diary on his Dictaphone. An atmospheric 15 minute non-audience comedy.

Ben and Graham encounter a seal cub that's been attacked. He takes it home and carefully nurses it back to life and share the pup's progress with his mum and Dad.

EPISDE THREE CAST:

Ben ..... Reece Shearsmith
Graham ..... Julian Rhind-Tutt
Beverley..... Alison Steadman
Robin..... Gerard Mcdermott

Written by ..... Katy Wix

Produced by ..... Tilusha Ghelani.

The country singer and global activist, the comic creation of Christopher Green, searches for her forebears in Ireland. 'Four Bears? Gosh, language is so complicated.' From 2005.

C. J. Sansom's bestselling Tudor murder mystery, adapted for radio by Colin MacDonald.

Shardlake leaves Scarnsea for London, hoping that a contact in the Tower Armoury can identify the markings on the weapon used to kill Commissioner Singleton. While there, he is summoned to Westminster and questioned closely about the progress of his investigation by an impatient Thomas Cromwell.

Produced and directed by Kirsteen Cameron.

Antoinette opens up to her husband Rochester, but the following events lead to a betrayal. Jane Eyre prequel read by Adjoa Andoh.

New Yorker columnist and author Adam Gopnik confesses to 'a perverse love' of his city's subway system. In particular, he likes the two hour run of the A train from the tip of Manhattan to the Atlantic Ocean in the outer borough of Queens.

Along the way he encounters vendors, preachers, rappers, beggars and the homeless passengers who live in the subway cars and in the tunnels.

As a jazz lover, he celebrates Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn's song as an anthem of black migration. which imitates the sound of the train and insists:
"You must take the A train
To go to Sugar Hill way up in Harlem."

In 1932 punters queued to take the first A train ride as it went express along the west side of the city. It opened up suburbs, with a fast commute for workers in the Garment District, Times Square and in the offices and restaurants of Midtown. It also linked the dynamic established community of Harlem with the newer black neighbourhoods in Brooklyn.

Gopnik admits to enjoying the graffiti that spread across the subway cars in the seventies and eighties but acknowledges that this was a sign of how New York had lost control. Since most New Yorkers don't own a car and the subway is the artery of a city, that dysfunctional slide was disastrous.

It's only in the last fifteen years that the system has become safe and comparatively pleasant again. For a reporter like Gopnik, it's a perfect way to indulge in people watching and the best subway line to get a real sense of the city. However, depending on your mood, it can either be enervating or profoundly depressing, because it still reveals the seedy, aggressive, desperate and heartbreaking side of New York.

Producer: Judith Kampfner
A Corporation For Independent Media production for BBC Radio 4.

Job cuts are predicted with circulation dropping, but who will survive the bloodbath? Stars Robert Lindsay. From July 2009.

It's Pidge and Gavin! The old team back together again for one last mission.

Kieran Hodgson and Ethan Lawrence star in another two-hander written by Cabin Pressure's John Finnemore.

Written by John Finnemore
Produced by David Tyler

A Pozzitive production for BBC Radio 4.

CPO Pertwee's stores requisition spirals out of control.

Starring Leslie Phillips as the Sub-Lieutenant, Jon Pertwee as the Chief Petty Officer, Dennis Price as Number One, Richard Caldicot as Captain Povey, Heather Chasen as Heather, Michael Bates as Commander Shaw, Ronnie Barker as AS Johnson and Tenniel Evans as the Warrant Officer Pertwee.

The Navy Lark ran for an impressive thirteen series on BBC Radio between 1959 and 1976.

Scripted by Lawrie Wyman.
Producer: Alastair Scott Johnston.
First broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in April 1959.

The lad and Miss Pugh head to a wrestling match at Cheam Baths - with a shock result!

Starring Tony Hancock. With Sidney James, Bill Kerr, Hattie Jacques and Kenneth Williams.

Written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson.

Theme and incidental music written by Wally Stott.

Producer: Tom Ronald

First broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in April 1958.

Miles Jupp presides over more relation revelations in the show where it's not what you know that matters, but who. And more importantly, how well you know them.

Writer and broadcaster, Emma Freud, stand-up Tom Wrigglesworth and breakfast show host on BBC 6Music, Shaun Keaveny, each nominate one of their intimate circle to answer a series of questions and they then have to second-guess how their nominees responded. Emma picks her son, Jake, Tom his dad, Richard, and Shaun plumps for younger brother, Paul.

Producer: Sam Michell.

Going for a drive through a time anomaly, Robin, Leslie and Dirk end up in Texas.

Hugh Bonneville stars in the third series of the comedy drama about a confirmed bachelor Robin Lightfoot dealing with life in a parallel universe where he has kids and an ex-wife who hates him.

With Josie Lawrence as Lesley, Stephen Frost as Dirk, Julian Clary as Adrian, Ann Gosling as Maxine, Kate Robbins as Doctor/Newsreader/Glop, Christopher Kelham as Alan And Arthur Smith as Arthur Smith.

Written by Tony Bagley.
Producer: Claire Jones
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in July 2001.

Jane Austen's unlikely heroine Fanny Price is plucked from her impoverished family and brought up by her wealthy relatives at Mansfield Park.

Classic tale dramatised in three parts by Elizabeth Proud.

Starring Hannah Gordon as Jane Austen, Amanda Root as Fanny, Michael Williams as Sir Thomas Bertram, Jane Lapotaire as Mrs Norris, Robert Glenister as Edmund Bertram, Louise Jameson as Lady Bertram, Teresa Gallagher as Mary Crawford and Andrew Wincott as Henry Crawford.

Music composed by Anthea Gomez and played by Christian McKay, Jill Heartfield, Audrey Douglas and Katharine Gittings.

Directed at BBC Pebble Mill by Sue Wilson
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1997.

Peregrine's wife has published some poetry. She suddenly becomes a celebrity and all at once he realises he knows nothing about her.

Interviewed in 1933, Maugham said "It has always seemed to me that literature can only find its fullest and freest expression in the essay or short story." He wrote more than 100 stories, at least 14 of which he burned on one of his "bonfire nights", after Winston Churchill warned that they contravened the Official Secrets Act. Of the stories that do survive, he said "some of them deal with circumstances and places to which the passage of time and the growth of civilisation will give a romantic glamour....."

What we plan to broadcast over the next year are twenty five of Maugham's best stories with tales from home and abroad. Tales of intrigue from far flung colonial outposts and tales of passion from quintessentially British hearths.

Maugham writes perfect vignettes - snapshots of human life in all its diversity - captured at a moment of crisis or revelation.

Read by Daniel Weyman
Abridged by Elaine Bedell
Produced by Clive Brill
A Brill Production for BBC Radio 4 Extra.

At the end of the war, Germany's most talented nuclear physicists were brought to England to discover exactly what they knew about the atomic bomb.

Producer / Director - Eoin O'Callaghan

Nuclear Reactions stars Nick Dunning and Nickolas Grace. At the end of WWII, Germany's most talented and formidable nuclear physicists were rounded up and brought to England. The British were keen to discover exactly what they knew about the atomic bomb, but they also wanted to ensure that the powerhouse of German thought remained intact, and capable of regenerating a defeated nation.

A playwright has taken an old friend to the opening night of his first play but, when his girlfriend, finds out she isn't pleased. The more he claims the date was innocent, the more her jealousy escalates and he reflects that it is just this sort of jealousy that prompted his deception in the first place.

Bill Nighy reads from Bernhard Schlink's collection of short fiction..

Abridged and produced by Jane Marshall
A Jane Marshall production for BBC Radio 4.

By the end of the First World War the mysterious sudden death of elms was a common sight across Belgium and the Netherlands. Dutch researchers managed to elucidate the real culprit amidst rumours of drought or wartime gas poisoning. It was a fungus thought to originate from America, carried by a beetle and the disease rather unfairly gained its name Dutch elm disease. Diagnosis produced no cure and it soon advanced across the channel to Britain.

Professor Kathy Willis talks to the head of Kew's arboretum, Tony Kirkham, on the disease's impact amidst complacency, and how the emergence of a vigorous new fungal strain was to completely transform the landscape during its peak in the 1970's.

Now that the principle replacement for lost elms, ash, itself has fallen victim to the latest disease to hitch a ride on incoming nursery stock, Paul Smith, Head of Kew's Millennium Seed Bank, explains why this new disease could be easier to control.

Producer Adrian Washbourne.

The Dogs And The Wolves by Irene Nemirovsky, translated by Sandra Smith
Dramatised by Ellen Dryden
Ep3/5

Paris, 1920's. Ada buys Harry a rare book she's seen him admire in a bookshop and sends it anonymously to his house. Ben is working long hours and Ada has started painting full time. She paints two small pictures of scenes from her childhood in the Ukraine and has them displayed in the bookshop.
Harry, now married for three years, sees the paintings, and becomes enchanted with them.

Produced and directed by Pauline Harris.

With his wife and his youngest daughter away from home, Ion Bugan decides it's time to make his statement. Carmen knows that she cannot dissuade him.

Burying The Typewriter is Carmen Bugan's memoir of growing up in Romania in the 1970s and 1980s when the country was governed by Ceausescu, and his network of agents and informers, the Securitate, exerted a malign influence in every sphere of society.

Carmen Bugan was educated at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) and Balliol College, Oxford, where she was awarded a doctorate. Her first book of poetry, Crossing The Carpathians, was published by Oxford Poets/Carcanet in 2004.

"A beautiful, vivid memoir..."
The Guardian

"It is the more moving and powerful for being so quiet and thoughtful..."
The Independent

"A warm and humane work..."
The Observer

Reader: Anamaria Marinca
(BAFTA award winner for 'Sex Traffic' 2005)

Abridged by Pete Nichols

Produced by Karen Rose
A Sweet Talk Production for BBC Radio 4.

Fresh from incarceration, 69-year-old George Smith finally comes face to face with the evil leader of the OAPs, Mrs Cookson.

Colin Swash's dystopian comedy stars Stephen Moore as George, Patsy Byrne as Doris, Geoffrey McGivern as O'Connell, Edna Dore as Mrs Cookson, Lorelei King as Andrea Sunbeam, Melanie Hudson as Dawkins, Christopher Douglas as Ronnie. With Lewis MacLeod and Peter Serafinowicz.

Producer: Richard Wilson.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1998.

Follow the Yellow Brick Road - three writers discuss heart, courage and brains. With Guardian blogger, Stuart Heritage; Yachtswoman, Dee Caffari, and journalist Neil McCormick.

Stuart hates personal contact so much he moved to South Korea where they're "not huggers. They're not really handshakers. They're not even that fond of eye contact, the travel guide said. Brilliant."

Dee Caffari has solo circumnavigated the globe, braving icebergs in the Southern Ocean along the way: "We surf down huge waves on the edge of control at breakneck speeds - any collision would be the end of the race. Rescue is often days away and our closest chance of survival is a fellow competitor."

Neil talks about how intelligence may be over-rated and that sometimes it's better just to let your mind make itself up.

Producer: Toby Field.

Stephen K Amos' sitcom about his own teenage years, growing up black, gay and funny in 1980s South London.

Written by Jonathan Harvey with Stephen K Amos. Produced by Colin Anderson.

The last in the series of Bridget Christie on the state of modern feminism. This week it's women in comedy as she answers that old chestnut 'Are Women Funny?' Featuring Fred MacAulay.

Tasty monologues and sketches starring Boothby Graffoe. With Stephen Frost and guitarist Antonio Forcione. From February 2000.

C. J. Sansom's bestselling Tudor crime novel, adapted for radio by Colin MacDonald.

Shardlake makes a shocking discovery and rushes back to Scarnsea monastery, ready to confront the murderer.

Produced and directed by Kirsteen Cameron.

Antoinette returns home distressed. Husband Rochester makes plans to leave the island. Jane Eyre prequel read by Adam Godley.

Felicity Finch balances the claims of rival ballet shoe makers who are striving to keep dancers 'on pointe'. From February 2005.

Dick running up a tab in the pub? Strange behaviour from the unimpeachable special agent. With Robert Bathurst. From May 1998.

Comedian and quizzer Paul Sinha returns to Radio 4 for a third series of his award-winning History Revision. In previous series, Paul has told you how Portugal's invasion of Morocco in 1415 lead directly to the 2014 World Cup; how the 1909 launch of an Austro-Hungarian submarine prevented Dr Zhivago winning an Oscar; and the story the black woman who refused to give up a seat on an Alabama bus and ended up changing the law - no, it wasn't Rosa Parks.

This series will once again see Paul shine a light on the important historical moments that you never got taught at school, and explain why so much of what you did learn is wrong. There will also, as ever, be puns.

In this final episode, Paul looks at some political blunders which have not yet been turned into films, and also the history of historical films - from the first ever film, to the least accurate film, to the film that killed off the greatest percentage of its cast and crew, he celebrates cinema's documentation of the otherwise undocumented.

Paul Sinha's History Revision was the winner of the 2016 Rose d'Or for 'Best Radio Comedy'.

Written and performed by ... Paul Sinha
Producer ... Ed Morrish
Production co-ordinator ... Tamara Shilham

A BBC Studios production.

When some friends split up, Kate and George become rather nervous.

A series based on the mutual love and mistrust of two newlyweds. Starring Richard Briers as George Starling and Prunella Scales as Kate Starling.

With Philip Guard, Rosemary Miller, Peter Gilmore, Isabel Rennie and John Baddeley.

This 1960's newlyweds sitcom brought Richard Briers and Prunella Scales to prominence. Originating on BBC TV, it was adapted for radio due to its popularity. A decade later, Richard Briers went on to play Tom Good in The Good Life and Prunella Scales went on to star as Sybil in Fawlty Towers.

Written by Richard Waring.
Producer: Charles Maxwell
First broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in August 1965.

Neddie Seagoon attempts to climb a peak even higher than Everest. Stars Spike Milligan and Harry Secombe. From March 1954.

Simon Mayo hosts the comedy show that pits the comic generations against each other to find out which is the funniest.

Team captains Jon Richardson, Lucy Porter and Adrian Walsh are joined by Kevin Bridges, Jason Byrne and Johnnie Casson.

Caught verbally abusing a client, an angry senior manager faces his HR officer. Stars Jonathan Pryce. From February 2009.

The Crawfords cause confusion for Fanny Price, and her brother William returns. Stars Hannah Gordon and Michael Williams.

The Verger of St Peter's has never learned to read or write. It has come to the attention off the authorities. Can he possibly stay on as verger with such a lack?

Interviewed in 1933, Maugham said "It has always seemed to me that literature can only find its fullest and freest expression in the essay or short story." He wrote more than 100 stories, at least 14 of which he burned on one of his "bonfire nights", after Winston Churchill warned that they contravened the Official Secrets Act. Of the stories that do survive, he said "some of them deal with circumstances and places to which the passage of time and the growth of civilisation will give a romantic glamour....."

What we plan to broadcast over the next year are twenty five of Maugham's best stories with tales from home and abroad. Tales of intrigue from far flung colonial outposts and tales of passion from quintessentially British hearths.

Maugham writes perfect vignettes - snapshots of human life in all its diversity - captured at a moment of crisis or revelation.

Read by Daniel Weyman
Abridged by Eileen Horne
Produced by Clive Brill
A Brill Production for BBC Radio 4 Extra.

A Little Bit of Latitude

When Marie wakes up the morning after a drunken first night at Latitude Festival, the last thing she expects is to be arrested by festival security for a suspected assault. With her boyfriend missing, her clothes soaked in blood and her memory hazy, Marie decides to take drastic action to find out the truth. A comic drama recorded on location at Latitude Festival.

Written by Lindsay Williams
Produced by Charlotte Riches
Directed by Nadia Molinari.

A man sits beside a stranger on an overnight flight to Frankfurt and tells him the story of his life. A bond is formed in the dark cabin - but can either rely on the other or believe what they have been told?

Bill Nighy reads the first part of this haunting two part story from Bernhard Schlink's collection of short fiction.

Abridged and produced by Jane Marshall
A Jane Marshall production for BBC Radio 4.

Agriculture tends to favour the best food varieties but this is often a trade off with beneficial traits such as resistance to disease or tolerance to drought. During the 1920s the Russian botanist Nikolai Vavilov, having witnessed famine on a large scale, became increasingly concerned about the potential loss of locally adapted varieties and spent his life studying crop plants in their wild habitats.

Professor Kathy Willis examines Vavilov's pioneering work and his search for pools of genetic variability - so called "centres of origin" amongst the wild relatives of our domesticated crops that could help sustain future plant breeding for human use.

Vavilov's story has a tragic end but, as we hear, his legacy lives on in seedbanks such as Kew's Millennium Seedbank at Wakehurst Place whose Crop Wild Relatives Project is collecting and assessing new potential amongst the original progenitors of our domestic crops.

With contributions from archaeobotanist Dorian Fuller, Kew's curator of economic botany Mark Nesbitt, Crop Wild Relatives Project coordinator Ruth Eastwood, and head of the Millennium Seedbank Paul Smith.

Producer Adrian Washbourne.

The Dogs and The Wolves by Irene Nemirovsky, translated by Sandra Smith
dramatised by Ellen Dryden
Ep 4/5
Ada and Harry begin an affair. Ben has been working for Harry's uncles for some time making deals for the bank. But when he discovers their affair there is a furious row and Ben runs out and disappears.
Harry's relationship with Laurence has deteriorated, she also knows about the affair, and divorce proceedings are about to begin. At last Ada and Harry can be together.

Produced and directed by Pauline Harris.

The consequences of her father's actions are soon brought home to Carmen, who discovers the insidious methods of the state first-hand.

Burying The Typewriter is Carmen Bugan's memoir of growing up in Romania in the 1970s and 1980s when the country was governed by Ceausescu, and his network of agents and informers, the Securitate, exerted a malign influence in every sphere of society.

Carmen Bugan was educated at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) and Balliol College, Oxford, where she was awarded a doctorate. Her first book of poetry, Crossing The Carpathians, was published by Oxford Poets/Carcanet in 2004.

"A beautiful, vivid memoir..."
The Guardian

"It is the more moving and powerful for being so quiet and thoughtful..."
The Independent

"A warm and humane work..."
The Observer

Reader: Anamaria Marinca
(BAFTA award winner for 'Sex Traffic' 2005)

Abridged by Pete Nichols

Produced by Karen Rose
A Sweet Talk Production for BBC Radio 4.

The Old-Age Paramilitaries have developed a secret weapon to destroy the Central Database computer. George Smith is the man to use it.

Colin Swash's dystopian comedy stars Stephen Moore as George, Patsy Byrne as Doris, Geoffrey McGivern as O'Connell, Edna Dore as Mrs Cookson, Lorelei King as Andrea Sunbeam, Melanie Hudson as Dawkins, Christopher Douglas as Ronnie. With Lewis MacLeod, Dave Lamb and Peter Serafinowicz.

Producer: Richard Wilson.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1998.

Matthew Parris presents the biographical series in which his guests choose someone who has inspired their lives.

David Miliband discusses the life of Joe Slovo, a leading member of the African National Congress and the first housing minister in Nelson Mandela's government. Slovo's daughter, Gillian, joins in the discussion.

In his debut solo Radio 4 show, comedian Thom Tuck recounted heart-rending tales of loves lost while drawing comparisons with 54 Straight-to-DVD Disney movies he'd watched, so we don't ever have to.

Thom now turns his attention to other genres of Straight-to-DVD movies - seeking out further underrated gems and drawing parallels with captivating personal tales from his own life experience, backed by cinematic music, so we can rest easy.

In this first episode, Thom looks at the action film genre. Steven Seagal has made 27 sub-masterpieces of Straight-to-DVD action films. Thom has managed to extricate himself from the same number of scrapes during his life. He grabbed a man's face! Seagal punched a man's face!

"...a seductive experience" The Guardian

Produced by Lianne Coop.

From 10pm to midnight, seven days a week, the Comedy Club has two hours of comedy. Plus Jon Holmes chats again to Elf Lyons.

The sketch show team takes the audience to Margate and asks 'Whose Pencil Line is it Anyway?' With Tim Firth. From March 1990.

Who hasn't thought about running away from it all at some time or other? Throwing caution to the wind, wrenching oneself out of a long established orbit to head for the deep space of the unknown?

In series two of Shedtown, our wooden icon of escape and isolation - the shed - continues to be a symbol of possibility and change. Our Sheddists arrived and survived - and, now waking from a beach-baked slumber, the familiar residents find faces old and new on the sand.

Episode 1:
Deborah Dearden arrives back at the beach. Not such a stranger - yet stranger still.

Barry............................Tony Pitts
Jimmy..........................Stephen Mangan
Eleanor..................Ronni Ancona
Colin........................Johnny Vegas
Deborah.....................Emma Fryer
William..................Adrian Manfredi
Diane....................Rosina Carbone
Dave......................Shaun Dooley
Father Michael........James Quinn
Wes......................Warren Brown
Nell...........................Eleanor Samson

Narrator.................Maxine Peake
Music....................Paul Heaton and Jonny Lexus

Written and Directed by Tony Pitts
Produced by Sally Harrison

A Woolyback Production for BBC Radio 4.