SATURDAY 21 DECEMBER 2013

SAT 00:00 Midnight News (b03lsdkr)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.


SAT 00:30 Book of the Week (b03ls7xw)
Diana Cooper - Darling Monster

Episode 5

This new book contains the letters sent from aristocrat, society darling and actress of stage and early screen, Lady Diana Cooper, to her only son, John Julius Norwich.

When Lady Diana married rising political star Duff Cooper, they became the golden couple who knew everyone who was anyone. Her letters serve as a portrait of a time, capturing some of history's most dramatic events and most important figures with immediacy and intimacy. But they also give us a touching portrait of the love between a mother and son, separated by war, oceans and the constraints of the time they lived in.

Her letters span the years 1939 to 1952, taking in the Blitz, Diana's short spell as a farmer in Sussex, a trip to the Far East when husband Duff was collecting war intelligence, the couple's three years in the Paris embassy, as well as a great number of journeys around Europe and North Africa.

In the final episode, John Julius Norwich is now a student at Oxford, while his mother Lady Diana Cooper continues to live in France. Her husband Duff is offered a peerage.

Read by John Julius Norwich and Patricia Hodge
Producer: David Roper
Abridger: Barry Johnston

A Heavy Entertainment production for BBC Radio 4.


SAT 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b03lsdkt)
The latest shipping forecast.


SAT 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b03lsdkw)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service. BBC Radio 4 resumes at 5.20am.


SAT 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b03lsdky)
The latest shipping forecast.


SAT 05:30 News Briefing (b03lsdl0)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


SAT 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b03lsdv5)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with the Revd Dr Jo Bailey Wells, Chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury.


SAT 05:45 iPM (b03lsdv7)
'Our voices are part of people's lives' - on the invitation of a listener, we bring together Brian Perkins and Peter Donaldson to discuss the role of Radio Announcer. Email iPM@bbc.co.uk.


SAT 06:00 News and Papers (b03lsdl2)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.


SAT 06:04 Weather (b03lsdl4)
The latest weather forecast.


SAT 06:07 Open Country (b03ls15q)
Royal Haslar Hospital

The Royal Haslar Hospital in Gosport was created in the 18th century to provide care for the sick and injured from naval conflicts. It later treated other military personnel and in the last few decades before its closure in 2009 went on to treat civilian patients.

The site bursts with centuries of history, having seen patients from battles including Trafalgar, the Crimean War, both World Wars and many others. The staff treated allied troops and prisoners of war. Felicity Evans explores the site, hearing from former staff who treated patients at different periods and have become fascinated by its history. She takes in the range of buildings from the Admiral's house, to the medical wards - including G block where those with shell shock were treated - staff quarters and the memorial gardens and she pays tribute to the thousands buried in unmarked graves in the Paddock.

The site is held with high affection locally and Felicity also speaks to the developers behind plans to reopen the site, building on its heritage of health care.

Presented by Felicity Evans. Produced in Bristol by Anne-Marie Bullock.


SAT 06:30 Farming Today (b03m3j6p)
Farming Today This Week

Serious farming or just playing around? Sybil Ruscoe heads to Worcestershire and explores the realities of smallholding. Kate Daniels left a top job as a management consultant in London to become a full-time smallholder - and has made a thriving business out of rearing pigs, sheep and chickens. She shows Sybil around the farm and enrols her help in packing the Christmas boxes. As they pile up the turkey, gammon, pork pies and 'pigs in blankets', Sybil finds out why Kate loves life on the land. They're also joined by Rob Jeffery, a dairy farmer turned consultant who helps 'townies' make a living in the countryside.

And we look at the politics too. As part of the recent reforms to the Common Agricultural Policy, smallholders with fewer than five hectares - that's about 12 acres - are now excluded from claiming Single Farm Payment. It will rule out 16,000 claimants who used to receive subsidy on as little as one hectare. But does it matter? Getting rid of tiny claims will, the Government says, save time and money. Sybil puts that point to Tim Tyne, a smallholder based in Wales. He believes size shouldn't be the deciding factor on who gets subsidies.

Presented by Sybil Ruscoe and produced by Anna Jones.


SAT 06:57 Weather (b03lsdl6)
The latest weather forecast.


SAT 07:00 Today (b03m3j6r)
Morning news and current affairs. Including Yesterday in Parliament, Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.


SAT 09:00 Saturday Live (b03m3j6t)
Lyricist Don Black and Sir Cliff Richard's Inheritance Tracks

Richard Coles and Anita Anand meet Britain's leading lyricist Don Black who has worked with most of the top songwriters and composers including John Barry and Andrew Lloyd Webber and put words in the mouths of everyone from Matt Monro to Michael Jackson. 'Lost' actor Jeff Fahey tells about his work with refugees in Syria, the woman who invented the phrase explains why a dog is for life not just for Christmas, and we hear how the world's wackiest records are checked out in South America. Plus your Thanks and Sir Cliff Richard's Inheritance Tracks.


SAT 10:30 The Playlist Series (b03m3j6w)
The Duke of Wellington's Playlist

The Duke of Wellington's military achievements, including his victory over Napoleon, are well-known. Much less well-known is the Duke of Wellington, the musician.

His father was a composer and music was the only consolation of a lonely, unloved childhood – the only thing he was good at was playing the violin. But as a young man, in a theatrical gesture of renunciation, he burnt his violin and vowed to give up music altogether as too much of a distraction from his military career. But despite the grand gesture, the Duke had a passion for music all his life. And music played an important role in warfare too, with military bands marching into battle and vying for supremacy.

This programme discovers and records the Duke's music, including long-forgotten songs about the Battle of Waterloo. Musician David Owen Norris gives old songs a new twist and sets them for jazz singer Gwyneth Herbert and classical singer Thomas Guthrie. He then plays them to a trio of Wellington experts - Royal historian Kate Williams, military historian Tim Clayton, and the Duke of Douro (the Duke's direct descendent).

The programme is recorded on location in Apsley House on Hyde Park Corner and includes performances on the Duke's own Grand Piano.

David Owen Norris is a pianist and composer and Professor of Music at Southampton University.

Producer: Elizabeth Burke
A Loftus production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2013.


SAT 11:00 The Week in Westminster (b03m3j6y)
Jackie Ashley of The Guardian looks behind the scenes at Westminster.
Why the concern over more Bulgarians and Rumanians coming to this country in January? Can Ed Miliband make housing a key plank of Labour party policy? Plus the empowerment of MPs over the last year, and where you can find true harmony in the Palace of Westminster.

The Editor is Marie Jessel.


SAT 11:30 From Our Own Correspondent (b03m3j70)
Good to See You Again!

Good to see you again! Mark Doyle is reunited with his spectacles, which were lost on a battlefield, and gets to see some of the lesser reported glories of Somalia. The Greek central bank forecasts an end to six years of recession and Mark Lowen, in Athens, talks of the resilience of the Greek people and their love of life. Reasons to be cheerful in the eastern German city of Leipzig too: Chris Bowlby's there talking to locals about a huge transport project ready after lengthy delays; Susie Emmett sees signs of energy, ingenuity, integrity and community in Kenyan farming but is less impressed by the colour of her bath water and James Fletcher is grounded by an Arctic storm while out news gathering in Greenland. Can he make it home in time for Christmas?

From Our Own Correspondent is produced by Tony Grant.


SAT 12:00 Money Box (b03m3j72)
Bye-bye to Bitcoin?; Gender-blender insurance; World's most expensive moneybox

Forget metal, paper and plastic is the future of currency virtual? Bitcoin is the oldest and best known of these virtual payment systems that are outside the banking system and free from state control or backing. That leaves the currency open to wild market fluctuations rising like a rocket then falling like a stick. So is virtuality the future of currency? Or is Bitcoin about to bite the dust? A Money Box listener and bitcoin enthusiast debates the pros and cons with a critic.

A year ago insurers were banned from using sex (or, as they prefer to call it, 'gender') when fixing insurance rates despite the fact that men and women differ in many insurable traits - including road accidents. One year on how have the predictions of major changes in premiums in fact worked out?

Filling in your self-assessment tax return and paying your tax may not be fun but at least the online process itself is free. So how can firms get away with charging people from £100 to £1000 for letting them do it? HMRC explains how it is policing copycat sites.

A moneybox can be anything from a house to a pig to a complex mechanical device. Invented in America after the civil war, down the ages they have been used as promotional devices by banks to get us to save. And with interest rates as low as they are many people think they might as well keep the money in a box as in an account paying next to nothing. But the older moneyboxes might make you money themselves - they can fetch hundreds or even thousands of pounds. So Money Box looks at moneyboxes.


SAT 12:30 The News Quiz (b03lsdgq)
Series 82

Episode 7

A satirical review of the week's news, chaired by Sandi Toksvig.


SAT 12:57 Weather (b03lsdl8)
The latest weather forecast.


SAT 13:00 News (b03lsdlb)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


SAT 13:10 Any Questions? (b03lsdgx)
Michael Portillo, Chris Mullin, Nikki King, Mark Damazer

Jonathan Dimbleby presents political debate and discussion from St Andrew's Church in Middlesex with former Conservative minister Michael Portillo, Former Labour minister now diarist Chris Mullin, business woman Nikki King, and Mark Damazer who's the Master of St Peter's College, Oxford.


SAT 14:00 Any Answers? (b03m3j74)
Heathrow expansion and giving extremists airtime

Heathrow, Gatwick, the Thames estuary, or none of the above? In the wake of the publication of the initial findings of The Airports Commission, led by businessman Sir Howard Davies, your views on the options for expanding UK airport capacity.

And where, if anywhere, do you draw the line when it comes to freedom of speech? Do you believe the BBC was right to give extremist Muslim cleric Anjem Choudary airtime? Is it, as panellist and businesswoman Nikki King suggested, time for leaders of all religions to stand up and find their voice?

The presenter is Julian Worricker. The producer is Alex Lewis.


SAT 14:30 Kneehigh's The Wild Bride (b03m3j76)
Down at the crossroads, the dust-bowl wind blows as the Devil sits in a rocking chair and begins to tell a story. It's a tale of love and war, good and evil; the tale of a young girl, whose father accidentally sells her soul to the Devil. The girl chooses to walk into the wilderness. She rejects not only the Devil, but also her home and must survive the ravages of nature and time. A dark blues infused musical fairy tale, from the critically acclaimed Kneehigh Theatre.

Kneehigh is celebrated as one of Britain's most innovative theatre companies. For 30 years they've created popular and challenging theatre for audiences throughout the UK and beyond. This epic and poetic wondertale is classic Kneehigh: Instinctive storytelling, devilish humour, a uniquely realised other-world and a fantastic blues music score. The show was first produced at the Kneehigh Asylum in Cornwall in 2011, directed by Emma Rice. Since then it has delighted audiences from the West End to Broadway.

Adapted for radio by Carl Grose and Emma Rice

Praise for the original stage show

"Witty, surprising, strange. I dreamt about it all night" The Times

"A feast of timeless story, irresistible music and wildly imaginative theatricality." San Francisco Chronicle

"Bewitching" New York Times

Original text and lyrics... Carl Grose
Adapted for radio by Carl Grose and Emma Rice

The Devil... Stuart McLoughlin
The Wild Bride... Audrey Brisson
Father/King... Stuart Goodwin
King's Mother... Emma Rice
Composer... Stu Barker
Musical Director... Ian Ross
Violinist... Patrycja Kujawska
Sound Design... Simon Baker and Nigel Lewis

Directed by James Robinson
A BBC Cymru Wales Production


SAT 15:30 Soul Music (b03lpfww)
Series 17

Brahms' German Requiem

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.


SAT 16:00 Woman's Hour (b03m3j78)
Weekend Woman's Hour: X Factor's Sam Bailey; Powerlister Nicola Sturgeon; Jack Monroe

X Factor's Sam Bailey on the win that's changed her life. How being broke and unemployed spurred on Jack Monroe to challenge complacency about food poverty. We talk to her in her Southend kitchen. The feminist appeal of Gone With the Wind seventy five years on with Professor Helen Taylor and journalist Hannah Betts. Anne-Marie Cockburn on losing her only child, Martha, to drugs and her struggle with the gap left by her daughter's death. A young woman describes her experience of reporting being raped to the police, and we discuss how specialist police teams are working to improve the way allegations of sexual violence are dealt with. MSP and Powerlister Nicola Sturgeon on the political career that's led to her becoming deputy first minister of Scotland and playing a central role in the independence referendum. Former Great British Bake Off contestant James Morton and his Cook the Perfect festive stollen.

Presented by Jane Garvey.
Producer: Katie Langton.
Editor: Anne Peacock.


SAT 17:00 PM (b03m3j7b)
Saturday PM

Full coverage of the day's news.


SAT 17:30 iPM (b03lsdv7)
[Repeat of broadcast at 05:45 today]


SAT 17:54 Shipping Forecast (b03lsdld)
The latest shipping forecast.


SAT 17:57 Weather (b03lsdlg)
The latest weather forecast.


SAT 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b03lsdlj)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


SAT 18:15 Loose Ends (b03m3j7d)
Sting, Harry Hill, Nick Lowe, David Quantick, Orla Brady

Clive finds a Message In A Bottle from singer-songwriter Sting, who talks about fronting The Police and his successful solo career. He performs the title track to new album 'The Last Ship', which draws upon his memories of growing up in the shadow of the Swan Hunters Shipyard in Wallsend and explores the complexity of relationships, community and the passage of time. An intimate live performance, recorded in New York 'Sting: When The Last Ship Sails' is on 22nd December at 22.55 on BBC One.

Clive takes off in the Tardis with actress Orla Brady, who's starring in the Christmas episode of Doctor Who. Orbiting a quiet backwater planet, the massed forces of the universe's deadliest species gather, drawn to a mysterious message that echoes out to the stars - and amongst them, the Doctor. 'Doctor Who - The Time Of The Doctor' is on Christmas Day at 19.30 on BBC One.

David Quantick talks to musician and Jesus of Cool, Nick Lowe. A pivotal figure in UK music, Nick has recorded a string of solo albums. 'Quality Street - A Seasonal Selection For All The Family' is a twinkling blend of traditional hymns, forgotten gems and Lowe originals that conjure up all the nostalgia, good cheer and warmth of the season. Nick also performs 'Christmas At The Airport'.

It's Sausage Time for Clive, who has a festive mash-up with comedian Harry Hill, now in a cinema near you with 'The Harry Hill Movie'. Under the mistaken impression that his pet hamster, Abu, is ill, matters deteriorate when Harry and his Nan are wrongly informed by the Vet that Abu's days are numbered. Unbeknownst to them, the Vet is the henchman of Harry's evil twin brother Otto, who plans to kidnap Abu for a plastinated hamster world he's creating in his evil lair

Producer: Sukey Firth.


SAT 19:00 Profile (b03m3j7g)
Vitali Klitschko

As the drama of street protests in Ukraine continues, Mark Coles profiles 'Dr Ironfist', the world boxing champion turned opposition political leader Vitali Klitschko. He's the son of a Soviet air force officer, one of two top boxers with a PhD (the other is his brother Vladimir) and he's nice to his mum. But can he make it in the murky world of Ukrainian politics?

Producers: Chris Bowlby, Laura Gray.


SAT 19:15 Saturday Review (b03m3j7j)
New novel by Christos Tsiolkas; Stephen Ward the Musical; Death Comes to Pemberley; Anchorman 2; M R James ghost story

Australian novelist Christos Tsiolkas' previous book The Slap became an international best seller. His latest 'Barracuda' explores the mind of a young competitive swimmer who won't countenance the idea of failure; how does his obsession affect all those around him?
Andrew Lloyd Webber's 'Stephen Ward The Musical' tells the story of 1963's Profumo Affair, from the point of view of the man who many believe was scapegoated to protect The Establishment - 50 years later transcripts of the court proceedings are still not available to the public, is a musical the right medium to address a very old miscarriage of justice?
Death Comes to Pemberley- the BBC's sumptuous Boxing Day costume drama - is PD James' detective story based around the characters from Pride and Prejudice. The programme has an ensemble cast and a look to die for, but does it work as a whodunnit for modern TV viewers?
9 years ago the US comedy film Anchorman became a cult hit - fans eagerly repeating phrases voiced by the idiotic characters. And now a sequel Anchorman 2 The Legend Continues returns to Ron Burgundy and his team as they begin work on a brand 24 hour news channel. As Ron says "that is the dumbest thing I ever heard"- could the same be said of this sequel?
The Tractate Middoth is a ghost story written by MR James - the master of the ghost story according to its director Mark Gattis. He has adapted and directed this new TV version as part of "A Ghost Story At Christmas". Does his track record with Dr Who, Sherlock and many many more audience-delighting TV programmes mean he can make this a ratings-grabbing success?


SAT 20:00 Archive on 4 (b03m3j7l)
When Comedy and Politics Collide

Satire is supposed to be a cleansing force - but is comedy now harming rather than helping our politics? In a journey through 50 years of broadcasting archives since the satire boom took off, Matthew Flinders explores how comedy and politics have affected each other - for better and for worse - in the modern broadcasting age.

The programme hears from those who have created and moulded the comedy - from Sir Antony Jay, who helped develop That Was the Week that Was and created Yes Minister, to John Lloyd, creator of Spitting Image, and performers like Rory Bremner. Presenter Matthew Flinders also hears from politicians who have been the butt of satire and who have tried to fight back.

Producer: Jonathan Brunert.


SAT 21:00 Roddy Doyle on Radio 4 (b03lknpn)
The Commitments

Jimmy Rabbite is on a mission - he wants to spread the gospel of soul to Dublin. Barrytown is about to become Motown as Jimmy decides to put a band together.

The first of Roddy Doyle's Barrytown series of novels, all to be dramatized by BBC Radio 4. Roddy Doyle's ground-breaking classic is the story of a working class Dublin band -The Commitments.

With Joey the Lips Fagan on trumpet, Billy The Animal Mooney on drums, Derek the Meatman Scully on bass, Dean Good Times Fay on sax, L. Terence Foster on guitar, James the Soul Surgeon Clifford on piano and - not forgetting the singers - Declan Blanketman Cuffe and The Commitmentettes, Sonya, Sofia and Tanya. This Dublin band are ready to bring some serious soul, the working man's rhythm, to Dublin's Northside.

Dramatised by Eugene O'Brien. Directed on location in Dublin by one of Ireland's finest filmmakers, Jim Sheridan (In the Name of The Father, In America, My Left Foot, The Field.)

The young cast is comprised of a new generation of talented young Irish actors and the music is by the emerging Dublin band, The Riptide Movement.

THE BAND
Guitar ..... JP Dalton
Bass ..... Gerard McGarry
Drums ..... Garrett Byrne
Sax ..... Ciaran Sutton
Trumpet ..... Robert Grant
Piano ..... Enda Collins

Written by Roddy Doyle
Dramatised by Eugene O'Brien
Producer: Gemma McMullan
Director: Jim Sheridan.


SAT 22:00 News and Weather (b03lsdll)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4, followed by weather.


SAT 22:15 Whatever Happened to Community?: The Debate (b03lrzjk)
Giles Fraser, former Canon Chancellor of St Paul's Cathedral, is now the priest of a run-down parish in Elephant and Castle. This has set him thinking about the nature of community, which he's been exploring in Radio 4's three-part series Whatever Happened to Community?

Now, he now brings together four key players to debate the nature of community and what's happening to it in 21st century Britain. Baroness Warsi is Minister for Faith and Communities and Hilary Benn is Shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. Jane Wills, Professor of Human Geography at Queen Mary, University of London, and writer and philosopher Roger Scruton complete the panel.

In front of an audience of local people at his church in South London, Giles askes whether communities are in crisis. What should the Government do to strengthen community bonds - or must change come from grass roots and local organisers? The audience will also put their own questions to the panel.

Polemical, refreshingly candid, and unafraid to ask uncomfortable questions, Giles and his guests will get to the heart of how we live now. Do we really want to live together like this?

Recorded on location at St Mary's Church, Newington, South London.

Produced by Jane Greenwood and Jo Coombs
A Loftus production for BBC Radio 4.


SAT 23:00 Brain of Britain (b03lpbzt)
(2/17)
Competitors from Oxfordshire, West Sussex, London and Kent join Russell Davies for the second heat in the current series of the longest-lived general knowledge quiz on British radio.

The eventual winner after heats, semi-finals and Final will be named the sixty-first Brain of Britain in the spring of 2014.

As always, the contestants will also pool their brainpower to tackle questions from a listener hoping to win a prize by 'Beating the Brains'.

Producer: Paul Bajoria.


SAT 23:30 Poetry Please (b03lknps)
Poetry Please Special: Edge

'Edge' is an extraordinary new poem that brings together two major talents in a confluence of science and art. The poem is a journey through space, in words by Katrina Porteous, and music for computer by the pioneering composer Peter Zinovieff. It was recorded, live, in front of an audience in the planetarium at the Centre for Life in Newcastle during this year's British Science Festival.

'Edge' visits four moons, each representing one of the primary elements: Water, Fire, Earth and Air. They are Jupiter's fiery moon Io; two of Saturn's moons, icy Enceladus and methane-rich Titan, which could possibly host primitive life. The fourth is Earth's own Moon, that witness to life on Earth.

The poem is performed by Katrina Porteous and the actor David Seddon. It draws on a range of dramatic voices - whispers, chants and incantations. Peter Zinovieff's music incorporates sounds collected from space - from Sputnik, the Apollo and Voyager missions, and the landing of the Cassini-Huygens probe on Titan.

'Edge' follows a tidal structure, visiting and revisiting each 'world', exploring the relation between chaos and cosmos. Along the way, we pick up clues to the possibility of the first stirrings of life, and finally, from Earth's Moon, we catch sight of our own planet, distinguished by the emergence not only of life but of consciousness and imagination.

'Out of the stuff of stars -
Gas, dust, ice -
Someone is painstakingly
Threading a necklace.'

Extract II (Saturn's moon, Titan)

At the Centre for Life 'Edge' was accompanied by a sequence of images of the moons and the cosmos beyond compiled by planetarium supervisor Christopher Hudson. This will be streamed on the Radio 4 website as 'Edge' is broadcast.

Producer: Julian May.



SUNDAY 22 DECEMBER 2013

SUN 00:00 Midnight News (b03m38w7)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.


SUN 00:30 O Henry Stories (b018fmtr)
The Gift of the Magi

The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry.
A young couple struggle to find the money for a really special Christmas present for each other.

A Christmas classic by a cherished American writer, to warm the soul and intrigue the listener with satisfyingly unexpected plot twists.

Reader...John Guerrasio
Abridger...Annie Caulfield
Producer...Mary Ward-Lowery.


SUN 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b03m38w9)
The latest shipping forecast.


SUN 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b03m38wc)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service. BBC Radio 4 resumes at 5.20am.


SUN 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b03m38wf)
The latest shipping forecast.


SUN 05:30 News Briefing (b03m38wh)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


SUN 05:43 Bells on Sunday (b03m3kqp)
The bells of Durham Cathedral.


SUN 05:45 Profile (b03m3j7g)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Saturday]


SUN 06:00 News Headlines (b03m38wk)
The latest national and international news.


SUN 06:05 Something Understood (b03m3kqr)
Walking and the Mind

John McCarthy explores the effects of walking on the mind - on our creative and spiritual well-being.

We all know that a good walk is physically good for us, but we rarely stop to consider its impact on our mental states. Was Friedrich Nietzsche right when he said, "all truly great thoughts are conceived by walking"?

Walking, especially walking in countryside, has been important to many creative artists and writers. Beethoven, Erik Satie and Benjamin Britten all used their daily walks for inspiration, as did William Wordsworth as he tramped the paths of the Lake District with his sister Dorothy.

John McCarthy looks at the act of walking as inspiration and also considers its spiritual function. Why do so many people, from a wide variety of religious beliefs, walk to display their devotion and increase their spiritual understanding? Around the world, millions set out each year along the great pilgrimage routes, and often travel on foot.

John McCarthy talks to the British artist Richard Long, whose work often describes walks he has undertaken or imagined. He also talks to Colin Thubron - one of our finest writers about discovery and place - who recently made the arduous journey on foot around Mount Kailash in Tibet, sacred to both Hindus and Buddhists.

Produced by Anthony Denselow.
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.


SUN 06:35 On Your Farm (b03m3kqw)
Reindeer Herd

In 1952, a herd of reindeer from Scandinavia was brought to live in the Cairngorms, a habitat remarkably close to the one they left behind. Today, the herd is 150-strong, still roaming the hills, and teams of specially-trained 'Christmas reindeer' become an integral part of many families' festivities at this time of year, travelling from their home near Aviemore to make public appearances around the country. Caz Graham greets one team as they return to the hills and hears how their temperament and training allow them to greet excited Christmas crowds and hostile winter conditions with the same patient equanimity.

Reindeer herding is in the blood for the family which owns and manages them: Tilly and Alan Smith have worked with the reindeer for well over thirty years, and bought the herd after the death of the original owners, Dr Ethel Lindgren and Mikel Utsi. Now their daughter Fiona and son Alex are continuing the tradition: it's as if, says Fiona, a giant bungee drags her back whenever she goes away. This won't be hard to understand for those visitors who bring their children to glimpse the reindeer which, they hope, might pull Santa's sleigh towards their homes on Christmas Eve: the only difficulty for Tilly's staff comes when those children ask how reindeer fly ...

Presented by Caz Graham and produced by Moira Hickey.


SUN 06:57 Weather (b03m38wm)
The latest weather forecast.


SUN 07:00 News and Papers (b03m38wp)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.


SUN 07:10 Sunday (b03m3kqy)
History of Father Christmas; Winter Solstice; Tackling Islamic extremism

What kind of Bishop is a 'Pope Francis Bishop'? Following the Pope's first swathe of appointments Catholic Commentator John Allen talks to Edward Stourton about what it all means.

From Travelodge to Prof Brian Cox, Edward hears how 1000 people interpreted the nativity for 21st century Britain.

As the conflict continues in Syria, Dorian Jones reports from Turkey on the Syrian Christians seeking refuge with the country's small Christian community.

As Christmas approaches, the head of the Chaldean Catholic Church in Iraq, Patriarch Sako, describes the desperate situation facing the countries dwindling Christian minority.

Edward visits the spot where a Salford cleric born 250 years ago preached the virtues of vegetarianism, laying the foundations for the Vegetarian Society.

Trevor Barnes sees the sun rise over Stonehenge and its new visitor centre for the Winter Solstice and finds out why not everyone is happy with what's on display.

Two European countries have staked claim to the original Father Christmas this week - so who was he really? Rev Canon Jim Rosenthal Founder of the St Nicholas Society joins the programme.

And what next in the battle against Islamic extremism post the murder of Lee Rigby: Shaykh Ibrahim Mogra of the MCB and Dr Brooke Rogers, lecturer in Risk and Terror from Kings College London, discuss.

Producers: Catherine Earlam and Rosie Dawson.


SUN 07:55 Radio 4 Appeal (b03m3kr0)
Mind

Stephen Fry presents the Radio 4 Appeal for Mind.
Reg Charity: 219830
To Give:
- Freephone 0800 404 8144
- Freepost BBC Radio 4 Appeal, mark the back of the envelope 'Mind'.


SUN 07:57 Weather (b03m38wr)
The latest weather forecast.


SUN 08:00 News and Papers (b03m38wt)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.


SUN 08:10 Sunday Worship (b03m3kr2)
The Coming of Christ as a Child

The coming of Christ as a Child - Singing Mary's song today...
The Advent season continues with a service live from St Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square, London. The news of the coming of Christ as a child caused Mary to sing a prophetic song of justice. But how can we sing Mary's Song today? Readings: Isaiah 7.10-16, Luke 1: 46-55
Preacher: The Revd Dr Sam Wells. With the Choir of St Martin-in-the-Fields, directed by Andrew Earis.
Producer: Clair Jaquiss.


SUN 08:48 A Point of View (b03lsdgz)
Islamo-Christian Heritage

In the week when Prince Charles has drawn attention to violence against Christians in the Middle East, William Dalrymple says it's time to remember the "old and often forgotten co-habitation of Islam and Christianity".

"Christmas time is perhaps the proper moment to remember the long tradition of revering the nativity in the Islamic world. ...There are certainly major differences between the two faiths, not least the central fact, in mainstream Christianity, of Jesus' divinity. But Christmas - the ultimate celebration of Christ's humanity - is a feast which Muslims and Christians can share without reservation.".


SUN 08:58 Tweet of the Day (b03k5bwv)
Shelduck

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs.

David Attenborough presents the shelduck. Shelducks are birds of open mud and sand which they sift for water snails and other tiny creatures. They will breed inland and they nest in holes. Disused rabbit burrows are favourite places and they'll also settle down in tree cavities, sheds, out-buildings and even haystacks.


SUN 09:00 Broadcasting House (b03m3nhf)
Sunday morning magazine programme with news and conversation about the big stories of the week. Presented by Paddy O'Connell.


SUN 10:00 The Archers Omnibus (b03m3nhh)
For detailed programme descriptions please see daily episodes.


SUN 11:15 Desert Island Discs (b03m3nhk)
Miranda Hart

Kirsty Young's castaway is Miranda Hart.

She writes and stars in the hit sitcom "Miranda" and has congaed her way to the top of TV comedy by exploiting the universal truth that awkwardness lies at the heart of the human condition. Slapstick and misunderstanding underpin her work along with the impression that she's just a really, jolly, lovely 'girl': her father was a naval commander and her mother has devoted much of her life to tending a glorious garden.

Making her mark has been something of a slog. After her first appearance at the Edinburgh Fringe it was another 11 years before she could give up her job as a P.A. - for a good while she was photocopying scripts rather than performing them.

She says: "I started writing comedy because it was more fun inside my head than the real world, but that's no longer true."

Producer: Cathy Drysdale.


SUN 12:00 I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue (b03lpc02)
Series 60

Episode 6

Back for a second week at the Milton Keynes Theatre, regulars Barry Cryer, Graeme Garden and Tim Brooke-Taylor are joined on the panel by David Mitchell, with Jack Dee in the chair. Piano accompaniment is provided by Colin Sell.

Producer - Jon Naismith.


SUN 12:32 The Food Programme (b03m3nhm)
Nutmeg: The Smell of Christmas?

For cook and author Nigel Slater, 'Nutmeg and citrus are the scents of Christmas' but Sheila Dillon needs convincing.

Together they look at the versatility of nutmeg as a spice that can bring life to mulled wine, egg custards, meats and puddings.

People take it for granted now but nutmeg was highly prized in the kitchens of 16th and 17th century Europe. Traders ventured to the ends of the earth to secure it because of its value. The Dutch and the English vied for nutmeg supremacy and, in December 1616, Nathaniel Courthope and his small army saw off all competitors to gain control of the valuable nut so it could be shipped back to Britain for the culinary elite to enjoy.

Today in Grenada the spice is so important it features on the national flag. But when Hurricane Ivan struck in 2004 it devastated the entire crop and hit the economy with a vengeance. Almost ten years on the nutmeg crop seems to be well on its way to recovery and we find out how it is used on the island.

Producer : Perminder Khatkar.


SUN 12:57 Weather (b03m38ww)
The latest weather forecast.


SUN 13:00 The World This Weekend (b03m3nhp)
The latest national and international news, including an in-depth look at events around the world. Email: wato@bbc.co.uk; twitter: #theworldthisweekend.


SUN 13:30 Hardeep's Sunday Lunch (b03m3nhr)
Series 2

Fisherman's Friends

Hardeep Singh Kholi continues his gastronomic story telling journey across the UK. This week he visits the picturesque fishing village of Port Isaac on the north Cornish coast. There he finds nine men known as the Fishermen's Friends, whose regular performances on the harbour side caught the attention of a major record label in 2010, catapulting them to unexpected fame and commercial success. But at the start of 2013 a terrible tragedy changed their worlds forever and the voices of the Fishermen's Friends fell silent. With Christmas approaching Hardeep gathers the men together for an evening of freshly caught and cooked seafood which he offers up in return for the their story and, he hopes, a song.

Producer: Catherine Earlam.


SUN 14:00 Gardeners' Question Time (b03lsdgc)
1870s Special at Beamish

Eric Robson chairs a special 1870s themed episode of GQT from Beamish, The Living Museum of the North. Answering the audience's historical gardening questions are Chris Beardshaw, Bob Flowerdew and Christine Walkden.

The panel travels back in time to explore a fascinating moment in the horticultural history which still influences the way in which we garden today. Eric Robson visits Gravetye Manor to find out how William Robinson's influential book, The Wild Garden, set English gardening on a new and exciting course.

Produced by Howard Shannon
Assistant Producer: Darby Dorras
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4

This week's questions:
Q. Could the panel make some recommendations for plants and flowers to be used in gentlemen's buttonholes and ladies' personal adornment?

A. Flowers with bells look very attractive, such as the highly fragrant Lily of the Valley. Similarly, London Pride provides white and pink bells and can be contrasted with Ivy leaves. For gentlemen, the Rose is a very popular buttonhole. You can also try Ixia in electric blue. It usually grows in Africa, so it would need a hot, sunny position and you may need to lift the bulb at the back end. The fragrant navy blue Lord Nelson Sweet Pea also works well as a beautiful buttonhole.

Q. Could the panel recommend fruits and vegetables that require little attention but provide good results?

A. Try growing the climbing Nasturtium Tropaeolum Tuberosum. It is easy to grow and an attractive specimen. All you need to do is to plant and lift it. Plant the tubers in April at about 4 inches (10cm) deep. The clover-like growth will get to about 6ft (1.8m) tall and produce yellow and orange flowers throughout the summer. Let the first frost get to it and then dig up the tubers. Skirrets grow well on dry, impoverished soil. Sow them out in March, giving them plenty of space. Again, allow the frost to affect them and leave the roots to sit in the ground. They are similar to Jerusalem Artichokes in appearance.


SUN 14:45 The Listening Project (b03m3nht)
Sunday Edition - Children's Voices

Fi Glover introduces children's views on having a sister with Down's Syndrome, pursuing a career in ballet, being a twin, and silencing a younger brother with imaginary gaffer tape, proving yet again that it's surprising what you hear when you listen.

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 upload your own conversations or just learn more about The Listening Project by visiting bbc.co.uk/listeningproject

Producer: Marya Burgess.


SUN 15:00 Roddy Doyle on Radio 4 (b03m3nhw)
Roddy Doyle's The Van

The third of Roddy Doyle's Barrytown series of novels, all to be dramatized by BBC Radio 4.
Jimmy Rabbitte is unemployed and at an all-time low. Even Ireland qualifying for the 1990 World Cup has not pulled him out of the doldrums, he needs money and fast. So when his best mate Bimbo buys a dilapidated "chipper" van and offers him the chance of a partnership, this might well be the opportunity Jimmy has been waiting for.

What could be better than working with your best mate?

Written by Roddy Doyle
Dramatised by Eugene O'Brien
Producer: Gemma McMullan
Director: Eoin O'Callaghan.


SUN 16:00 Open Book (b03m3nhy)
Year of the Women Writers

In a special programme Ellah Allfrey, Sally Gardner, Sarah Hall, Lennie Goodings and James Runcie discuss with Mariella Frostrup why 2013 has been the Year of the Women Writers

Producer: Andrea Kidd.


SUN 16:30 Poetry in Translation (b01sdnqh)
Just how do you translate a poem? Daljit Nagra explores the different approaches that poets take, and there's more to it than just knowing another language. The Magazine Modern Poetry in Translation was founded by Ted Hughes and Daniel Weissbort in 1965. It's hard to believe that before this British poetry had no real access to work beyond its borders. Modern Poetry in Translation has just changed editorship, and we hear from outgoing editor David Constantine and new editor Sasha Dugdale about the magazine's history and future. Daljit speaks to poets Jo Shapcott, Pascale Petit, WN Herbert and Yang Lian, who share the pleasures and pitfalls of their methods of translation.

Presenter: Daljit Nagra
Producer: Jessica Treen.


SUN 17:00 Lines in the Sand (b03lph8y)
Mark Doyle charts the challenge from Islamist militants in Europe's backyard, and asks if a series of separate conflicts are becoming part of a wider front.

In January this year armed extremists in Mali took over a large swathe of the country before being beaten back by French forces. The Islamists were killed and dispersed - but they were far from beaten. Across the edge of the Sahara, a large number of other violent, Islamist-related incidents followed or came into focus. One of the men who had led the occupation of northern Mali, Mochtar Bel Mochtar, audaciously attacked a BP oil installation in southern Algeria, across Mali's northern border. Islamists attacked a uranium mine and a military barracks in Mali's neighbour, Niger. Suicide bombers began operating in both countries for the first time. And most significantly, the conflict in Northern Nigeria intensified. The Boko Haram group, which has reported links to the Mali insurgents, occupied significant parts of the most populous country in the region. The lines in the Saharan sand are much broader than we thought - and they are shifting. The wider international community has now followed the French. A United Nations peacekeeping force is on the ground in Mali. European soldiers, including British, are retraining the Malian army. It has been decided that the fight against Saharan threat is worth blood and treasure.

BBC International Development Correspondent Mark Doyle is a veteran reporter of the continent. He gives listeners a visual picture of this new battleground, and investigates what the fighting is really about. Through on-the-ground reportage in Libya, Mali, Nigeria and Somalia, and interviews with African and European players, he asks if the tactics the domestic and international forces deploy will work.

Producer: Neal Razzell.


SUN 17:40 Profile (b03m3j7g)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Saturday]


SUN 17:54 Shipping Forecast (b03m38wy)
The latest shipping forecast.


SUN 17:57 Weather (b03m38x0)
The latest weather forecast.


SUN 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b03m38x2)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


SUN 18:15 Pick of the Week (b03m3ntt)
Gerry Northam chooses the best of the previous seven days of BBC Radio.


SUN 19:00 The Archers (b03m3ntw)
The preparations for Ruth's surprise anniversary party for David are going well. David gets in from work and has forgotten they are going to Elizabeth's for drinks. After a long day he is unenthusiastic. Ruth ignores his grumbles.

Elizabeth reminds Jill to make her doctor's appointment for her cataracts.

David is surprised by the party and the effort everyone has gone too. Ruth is touched by the fantastic cake Jill has made. The iced flowers matched those from her wedding bouquet. David makes a heartfelt speech of thanks for the wonderful party and to Ruth for being his wife.

Shula finds Darrell living in the Grundys' cider shed. Eddie hopes that he will talk to Shula, as he has shut himself off from everyone. Shula makes it clear to Darrell that she will let him do things his way but if he needs anything he just has to ask.

Darrell believes Rosa was right. It would be better if he were dead. Eddie tries to rationalise her comments to him. Rosa is just a kid who is hurting. Eddie tries to convince Darrell that it is not too late to get his life back on track. He insists that Darrell has Christmas lunch with them. If he doesn't he'll upset Clarrie - and we can't have that.


SUN 19:15 Meet David Sedaris (b03m3nty)
Series 4

Episode 4

One of the world's funniest storytellers is back on BBC Radio 4 doing what he does best.

This week, the pros and cons of being grown up enough to have a guest room in "Company Man", and some more extracts from his hilarious diary, which he has kept nightly for over 30 years.

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


SUN 19:45 Modern Welsh Voices (b03m3nv0)
The Eyas

The Eyas by Jim Perrin. The second of our original stories by modern Welsh writers.
When a young boy becomes obsessed with taming wild birds nature finds a way of retaliating.

Read by Stefan Rhodri
Directed by Helen Perry

A BBC Cymru Wales Production.


SUN 20:00 More or Less (b03lsdgj)
Britain's 80,000 homeless children

Eighty thousand children will wake up homeless on Christmas Day, according to the housing charity Shelter. Tim Harford explores this statistic.

It's been reported that there's a global wine shortage. But there seems to be plenty of wine available for the More or Less Christmas bash. Tim Harford fact-checks the claim.

Mathemagical mind-reading: Jolyon Jenkins, amateur magician and presenter of BBC Radio 4's Maths and Magic programme, reveals the maths behind a classic long-distance mind-reading card trick.

It's said that the four Christmas football fixtures are crucial to Premier League teams. But do the numbers back this up?

As Economics Editor Stephanie Flanders leaves the BBC, More or Less airs what is perhaps her finest broadcasting moment.

Presenter: Tim Harford
Producer: Ruth Alexander.


SUN 20:30 Last Word (b03lsdgg)
Peter O'Toole, Lord Roberts of Conwy, Colin Wilson, Joan Fontaine, Ronnie Briggs

Matthew Bannister on:

The actor Peter O'Toole, acclaimed for his performances as Lawrence of Arabia and Jeffery Bernard and notorious for his hell raising exploits.

The long serving Welsh Office minister Lord Roberts of Conwy - a passionate champion of the Welsh language.

The author Colin Wilson, who was hailed as a major new talent when he published The Outsider at the age of 24, but, despite writing many other books, never repeated his mainstream success.

The Hollywood star Joan Fontaine, best known for playing the second wife in Hitchcock's Rebecca, who carried on a long term feud with her sister Olivia De Havilland.

And the Great Train robber Ronnie Biggs.


SUN 21:00 Money Box (b03m3j72)
[Repeat of broadcast at 12:00 on Saturday]


SUN 21:26 Radio 4 Appeal (b03m3kr0)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:55 today]


SUN 21:30 In Business (b03ls167)
Curtain Up

Pantomime is a very British tradition, still as popular as ever with audiences. But it's also an important annual cash cow for regional theatres and big production companies. In Business goes to Nottingham to follow the progress of the city's two rival pantomimes: one made in-house at the Nottingham Playhouse, with a much-loved dame on his thirtieth (and last) pantomime and the other at the Theatre Royal, bought in from a big pantomime making production company starring the American Baywatch actor, known as "The Hoff". Peter Day finds out what's involved and why pantomimes matter so much to regional theatres.

(Image Robert Day).


SUN 22:00 Westminster Hour (b03m3p7k)
Preview of the week's political agenda at Westminster with MPs, experts and commentators. Discussion of the issues politicians are grappling with in the corridors of power.


SUN 22:45 What the Papers Say (b03m3p7m)
Kevin Maguire of the Daily Mirror looks at how papers covered the week's biggest stories.


SUN 23:00 The Film Programme (b03ls15s)
The Secret Life of Walter Mitty; American Hustle; All Is Lost; Location scouting

Francine Stock talks to Ben Stiller about The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Based on a short story by James Thurber, he both stars as Walter and directs. Walter daydreams his way through life, while yearning for his co-worker, played by Kirsten Wiig. Stiller describes what attracted him to this tale and why his 2001 comedy Zoolander remains close to his heart.
American Hustle, a grifters story set in the 1970s, has already been nominated for awards including the Golden Globes. It's directed by David O Russell, whose last outing Silver Linings Playbook picked up an Oscar for Jennifer Lawrence who also appears in American Hustle. Russell explains why he finds the 1970s an era of innocence.

Steve Mortimore is the man you need to call should you require an aircraft carrier to film on at a few weeks notice.. As a location manager, he has worked on World War Z starring Brad Pitt and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy among others. The Film Programme went along to his latest set in Sussex where he's working in a railway tunnel on The Secret Service, a comic book adaptation directed by Matthew Vaughn.

And the director who has been dragging Robert Redford underwater. JC Chandor's All Is Lost stars Redford as a man lost at sea as he battles to survive. He gives an insight into the actor's dedication to authenticity and doing his own stunts as much as possible, though he's now in his 70s.

Producer: Elaine Lester.


SUN 23:30 Something Understood (b03m3kqr)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:05 today]



MONDAY 23 DECEMBER 2013

MON 00:00 Midnight News (b03m38y3)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.


MON 00:15 Thinking Allowed (b03lpjy0)
Couples and Chronic Illness; Fashion and Dress in Later Life

Fashion and dress in later life: Laurie Taylor talks to the sociologist, Julia Twigg, about her study into the links between clothing and age. Throughout history certain forms and styles of dress have been deemed appropriate for people as they get older. Older women, in particular, have been advised to dress in toned down, covered up styles. Drawing on fashion theory and cultural gerontology, Professor Twigg interviewed older women, fashion editors, clothing designers and retailers. She asks if the emergence of a 'grey market' is finally shifting cultural norms and trends. The broadcaster, writer and fashion enthusiast, Robert Elms, joins the discussion.

Also, Research Student, Eloise Radcliffe, discusses her study into how couples cope when one develops a chronic illness.

Producer: Jayne Egerton.


MON 00:45 Bells on Sunday (b03m3kqp)
[Repeat of broadcast at 05:43 on Sunday]


MON 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b03m38y5)
The latest shipping forecast.


MON 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b03m38y7)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


MON 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b03m38y9)
The latest shipping forecast.


MON 05:30 News Briefing (b03m38yc)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


MON 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b03pzytx)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with the Revd Dr Jo Bailey Wells, Chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury.


MON 05:45 Farming Today (b03m40zd)
Wildlife groups are concerned that not enough money will be given to environmental schemes in England as part of the reforms to the Common Agricultural Policy. Defra say there'll be the same amount of money in the pot for farmers who ensure suitable habitats for wildlife, but as part of the reforms they'll have to do more work to get the money.

The song goes, 'On the second day of Christmas my true love gave to me, two turtle doves...' But next year you may struggle to see one let alone two. The RSPB says numbers have plummeted to a record low this year and the celebrated bird is now in danger of extinction in Britain.

And this Christmas it turns out pigs in Yorkshire are enjoying Bing Crosby's version of 'White Christmas'.

Presented by Sybil Ruscoe and produced by Lucy Bickerton.


MON 05:56 Weather (b03m38yf)
The latest weather forecast for farmers.


MON 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b03k5cbg)
Lesser Redpoll

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs.

David Attenborough presents the lesser redpoll. You can spot Lesser Redpolls hanging like tiny acrobatic parrots among the slender twigs, while a rain of papery seeds falls down around them. They're lively birds which allow you to get fairly close, and then sometimes flocks will explode en masse for no apparent reason and fly around calling.


MON 06:00 Today (b03m40zg)
Morning news and current affairs. Including Sports Desk; Weather; Thought for the Day.


MON 09:00 Start the Week (b03m40zj)
Clive James

In a special programme Andrew Marr looks back over the long career of Clive James. Even at the height of his fame as the star of weekend television, Clive James was always writing: poetry, essays and a series of memoirs. Now in his 70s and suffering from serious illness, he has been nominated for an award for his translation of Dante's The Divine Comedy. James explains how this last phase of his life has brought him a new seriousness; 'a late sublime'.

Producer: Katy Hickman.


MON 09:45 Book of the Week (b03m40zl)
Love, Nina: Despatches From Family Life

Being a Nanny Is Great

Mary Poppins meets Adrian Mole in Nina Stibbe's letters from the heart of 1980s literary London.

Nina writes hilarious letters home to her sister Vic in Leicester describing her trials and triumphs as a nanny to a London family. Fascinating insights into their domestic life emerge including illuminating suppertime chats about life, love and food, regular visits from the playwright up the road who's surprisingly good at fixing things and in episode one, Nina is faced with the problem of an 8 ft Christmas tree too big for the house.

Read by Rebekah Staton
Abridged by Penny Leicester
Produced by Gemma Jenkins.


MON 10:00 Woman's Hour (b03m40zn)
French and Saunders; Fern Britton; Sara Khan

An advent treat with French and Saunders. The sister of UK doctor Abbas Khan on her family's struggle to come to terms with his death in Syria and establish the truth about his alleged suicide. As North by Northamptonshire returns to Radio 4, writer Katherine Jakeways on what has been described as 'the bleakest sit-com ever'. Liliane Lijn, the artist who's hoping her work will make it to Trafalgar Square's Fourth Plinth. What might you find in Fern Britton's kitchen? We take a rare peek inside.

Presented by Jane Garvey.
Producer: Louise Corley.
Output Editor: Anne Peacock.


MON 10:45 15 Minute Drama (b03m40zq)
The Tales of Beatrix Potter

1. The Tale of Pigling Bland

Beatrix Potter's famous tales are celebrated this Christmas.

Her love of the British landscape and its inhabitants - coupled with her world famous ability for storytelling - means she has been one of the most celebrated children's authors of the last hundred years.

This suite of five of her tumultuous tales, including some of the lesser-known stories, brings comedic surprise, comfort and joy to the Christmas audience.

Their timeless wonders pit the delight and childlike innocence of the very human characters against the dark and dramatic ruthlessness of the food-chain-led underbelly of Cumbria's fields and hedgerows.

In this episode Johnny Vegas stars as Pigling Bland and Morwenna Banks as Pig-Wig.

Adapted and Directed by Sean Grundy

Produced by Sally Harrison
A Woolyback production for BBC Radio 4


MON 11:00 Mr Cole Comes to Kensington (b03m40zs)
Christopher Frayling explores the legacy of Henry Cole, dynamic founder of London's Victoria and Albert Museum and the vibrant design partnership with the Royal College of Art.

At the time of the Great Exhibition in 1851, British design was fast losing out to the Continent. But by 1871, the South Kensington Museum (now the V&A) with its pioneering public restaurant, free admission days and evening openings, had become a blueprint for design museums worldwide.

The man behind this remarkable achievement was Henry Cole, inventor of the commercial Christmas card, who had helped introduce the Penny Post. A bustling, rotund figure with a mane of white hair, 'Old King' Cole transformed what had been a teaching collection of plaster casts into a world-leading museum of art and design. But despite the patronage of Prince Albert, it proved an arduous journey, often fraught with opposition from a suspicious Establishment.

Christopher Frayling is a former Rector of the Royal College of Art and former V&A Trustee.

Contributors include British fashion designer and RCA graduate Zandra Rhodes and former V&A Director Sir Roy Strong.

Producer: Catriona Oliphant
A Chrome Radio production for BBC Radio 4.


MON 11:30 North by Northamptonshire (b03m40zv)
Series 3

Episode 1

Relationships have come and gone but life continues in Wadenbrook and Ken and Keith have a birthday to celebrate.

Sheila Hancock narrates the bittersweet adventures of the residents of a small town in Northamptonshire.

Written by Katherine Jakeways.

As is well-known: Yorkshiremen wear flat caps and Essex girls wear short skirts; Liverpudlians are scallies and Cockneys are wideboys. Northamptonians gaze wistfully at these stereotypes and wish for an identity of any kind and a label less ridiculous than Northamptonians. Northamptonshire, let us be clear, is neither north, nor south nor in the Midlands. It floats somewhere between the three eyeing up the distinctiveness of each enviously.

Katherine Jakeways gives Northamptonshire an identity. And she waits, eagerly, for her home-county to thank her. And possibly make her some kind of Mayor.

Narrator ...... Sheila Hancock
Rod ...... Tim Key
Frank ...... Rufus Wright
Mary ...... Penelope Wilton
Jonathan ...... Kevin Eldon
Esther ...... Katherine Jakeways
Keith ...... John Biggins
Norman ...... Geoffrey Palmer
Jan ...... Felicity Montagu

Producer: Steven Canny

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2013.


MON 12:00 You and Yours (b03m40zx)
RSPCA spending, FM Radio, Spark Energy, Singles holidays

The RSPCA has been criticised for spending its money in the wrong places. Now it's launched an independent review into its prosecution work. Winifred debates whether it should be concentrating its funds elsewhere. Singles holidays are booming, but increasingly married people are leaving their spouses behind and signing up. Plus, earlier in the year we featured problems with the online retailer, Brand Alley. We were told they were fixed, but the complaints keep coming in. The company explains why.


MON 12:57 Weather (b03m38yh)
The latest weather forecast.


MON 13:00 World at One (b03m38yk)
National and international news. Listeners can share their views via email: wato@bbc.co.uk or on twitter: #wato.


MON 13:45 One to One (b038xrj7)
Frank Gardner talks to Tim Rushby-Smith

After a life changing injury or incident one of the things that makes a huge difference on how you then move on with the rest of your life is what you can still do and can't do.

The BBC's Security Correspondent Frank Gardner regards himself lucky that he was able to carry on doing journalism after being shot 9 years ago in Saudi Arabia by terrorists. Some of those bullets hit the core of his body and damaged his spinal nerve - he can no longer use his legs and is in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. However, being able to return to work and continue with his profession has been one of the biggest factors in his own recovery.

In this second programme for the series 'One to One', Frank meets Tim Rushby-Smith who fell from a tree and had to face the fact he would no longer be able to carry on with his profession and livelihood.

Producer : Perminder Khatkar.


MON 14:00 The Archers (b03m3ntw)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Sunday]


MON 14:15 Drama (b03m7tlk)
The Christmas of Inspector Steine

Written by Lynne Truss.

Brighton, Christmas 1957 was memorable in all sorts of ways. It was the year of the Queen's first Christmas broadcast for one thing, as well as Mrs Groynes' first Christmas married to Captain Hoagland of the Royal Engineers.

A happy time then? Well, apparently not!

Music by Anthony May

Sound design by David Thomas.

Producer: Karen Rose
A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4.


MON 15:00 Brain of Britain (b03m43fs)
(3/17)
Russell Davies is in Salford this week, for the third heat of the contest to find the 61st Brain of Britain champion. The competitors come from Sunderland, County Durham, Cheshire and Greater Manchester. As always, there will also be the chance for a listener to challenge the contestants with questions of his or her own, in the 'Beat the Brains' feature.

Producer: Paul Bajoria.


MON 15:30 The Food Programme (b03m3nhm)
[Repeat of broadcast at 12:32 on Sunday]


MON 16:00 Signs Taken for Wonders (b03m43fv)
Science writer and broadcaster Vivienne Parry explores the meeting point between classic fiction and scientific discovery.

The dialogues and debates that occur in both the emerging sciences and the literary fiction of the period of the novel are fascinating. Take, for example, the creative and psychological power of electricity in Mary Shelly's Frankenstein.

Vivienne Parry considers the literary imagination's response to marginal sciences such as mesmerism, galvanism and spiritualism, and literature's interrogation of scientific sites and conflicts, from the laboratory to the séance room.

With authors, scientists and critics, Vivienne also opens up the changing nature of literary vision as engineered by scientific discovery, and reflects on how the boundaries of classic fiction were continually breached by scientific and technological innovation - from Mary Shelly, Wilkie Collins and HG Wells to present-day writers, like Ian McEwan, who champion a renewed dialogue between science and fiction.

Producer: Simon Hollis
A Brook Lapping production for BBC Radio 4.


MON 16:30 The Infinite Monkey Cage (b03m43fx)
Series 9

Science and Spin

This week on the Infinite Monkey Cage, Brian Cox and Robin Ince take to the stage at Manchester University, to discuss the state of science communication. Is the public engaged enough with the complexities of science? Are scientists engaging enough with the hoi polloi or still stuck in their ivory towers? And when was the 'golden age' of TV science, if it ever existed? Joining our presenters are scientists Matthew Cobb and Sheena Cruikshank, comedian Helen Keen and legendary science TV presenter and writer, James Burke, whose classic series 'Connections' captivated audiences around the world. Producer: Rami Tzabar.


MON 17:00 PM (b03m43fz)
Coverage and analysis of the day's news.


MON 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b03m38ym)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


MON 18:30 Just a Minute (b03m43g1)
Just a Christmas Minute

Nicholas Parsons ho-ho-hosts a Christmas edition of the deviously, divine linguistic panel show with Pam Ayres, Stephen Mangan, Gyles Brandreth and Paul Merton being challenged to talk on Christmas themed subjects without hesitation, deviation or repetition for Just A Minute.


MON 19:00 The Archers (b03m43g3)
Leonie is struggling with morning sickness. Lynda realises that Robert would love another grandchild. She suggests he shouldn't allow his feelings to influence a delicate situation. All they can do is support her whatever she decides.

Leonie confess to Robert that she is unsure and confused. She's not ready to tell James about the baby. She doesn't think he's the kind of guy to be a father and she is not sure if she's the sort of girl to be a mother.

Tom feels the pressure when he hears from Robert that Lynda thinks he will be the star of her panto. It seems Jess and Rob's disastrous party is the talk of the village. Helen overhears Tom telling Rob he saw Jess packing up her car earlier.

At rehearsals, Tom teases Kirsty about her Christmas present. He hopes she like surprises.

Kirsty tries to convince Helen not to jump the gun. Jess could have gone off for any number of reasons. Helen confides in Kirsty that Rob has tried to call her. She has heard from Lynda that Jess has gone back to Hampshire. Kirsty doesn't want Helen to get her hopes up but Helen can't get it out of her head. She just needs to know if Rob and Jess have spilt up.


MON 19:15 Front Row (b03m43g5)
People of the Year 2013, part 1

With Mark Lawson, who in the first of two special programmes, talks to Front Row's People of the Year : our choice of the artists who have made headlines in the world of arts, culture and entertainment in 2013.

Tonight's selection is :
David Suchet - for his portrayal of the detective Poirot who appeared for the last time this year
Zawe Ashton - star of Fresh Meat on Channel 4
Lucy Kirkwood - award winning playwright for "Chimerica"
Hilary Mantel - winner of the Costa book of the year for "Bringing Up The Bodies"
Marin Alsop - the first woman to conduct Last Night of the Proms
Eleanor Catton - youngest winner of the Man Booker Prize

The second programme is on Christmas Eve.

Producers: Dymphna Flynn and Rebecca Armstrong.


MON 19:45 15 Minute Drama (b03m40zq)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:45 today]


MON 20:00 Return to Angola (b03m43g7)
Luanda, the capital of Angola, is currently the most expensive city in the world. Along the seafront, recently revamped at a cost of $350 million, Africa's most expensive one-bedroom apartment was snapped up for $9million, and a hamburger will set you back $30.

Yet forty years ago it was a war zone. Angola won its independence and hundreds of thousands of Portuguese colonialists fled in panic.

Now they're coming back and BBC Africa Editor Mary Harper finds out why. She meets some of the Portuguese who are leaving the economic crisis at home to cash in on Angola's oil-driven boom, and uncovers the tensions this reversal of fortunes is creating between the once-colonised and their former rulers. The migrant flood has been recent and rapid. In 2006, only 156 Portuguese emigrated to Angola. In 2012, there were 30,000.

Among the Portuguese returnees, is a scuba diving instructor from the Algarve, now earning double in Luanda, and a young family from Portugal raising their children as Angolans.

As well as providing jobs, and lucrative construction and engineering contracts, Angolans are also propping Portugal up by investing heavily on Portuguese soil - in the banking, energy and telecoms sectors. But just days before the Radio 4 team arrived in Luanda, the usually taciturn Angolan president, Jose Eduardo dos Santos, gave an outspoken speech, saying all was not well with Portuguese relations.

Producer: Eve Streeter

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.


MON 20:30 Crossing Continents (b03ls15d)
Bangladesh: Trials of Strength

Farhana Haider investigates the prosecution of alleged war criminals and asks if the trials are being used to target the opposition.

There were numerous reports of atrocities during the brutal war of 1971 between Pakistan on one side and the new state which was to become Bangladesh, which had support from India. The Pakistani Army and Islamic sympathisers in Bangladesh were accused of rape and of mass killings which some have described as genocide. In 2010 the governing Awami League set up war crimes trials which have started to hand down convictions this year, attracting strong public support. However, many international observers have criticised the conduct of the trials as less than free and fair. And supporters of the largest Bangladesh's largest Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami have reacted furiously to the conviction of several of their leaders, saying the process is politically motivated.

Farhana Haider asks whether the legal process will really enable Bangladesh to come to terms with its bloody beginnings.

Producer: John Murphy.


MON 21:00 Shared Planet (b03lpfwt)
Noise in the Environment

Before the arrival of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th Century many believe the planet was largely a silent place. However what this overlooks is that the natural world is an incredibly noisy environment as species communicate between each other sometimes over vast distances. What has changed is that from around 1800 one species on the planet is arguably losing its ability to hear the presence of natural sound, and that species is Homo sapiens. Today the amount of anthropogenic noise 7 billion people produce across this planet is for many resulting in a disconnection with our natural neighbours and an inability to experience silence. If we can no longer hear the natural world, are we possibly becoming disconnected from everything around us? Monty Don explores this question through the difficulty of hearing natural sounds in the countryside without the interference of human noise.

Producer : Andrew Dawes.


MON 21:30 Start the Week (b03m40zj)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]


MON 21:58 Weather (b03m38yr)
The latest weather forecast.


MON 22:00 The World Tonight (b03m443r)
Severe weather across much of the UK;
Pussy Riot band members released from Russian jail;
South Sudan collapses into civil war.
With Ritula Shah.


MON 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b03m443t)
The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed out of the Window and Disappeared

Episode 1

A picaresque tale of a centenarianpolice and thieves, and moments in world history. As his mother put it, "Things are what they are, and whatever will be will be."

At 100 years-old, Allan Karlsson is a reluctant birthday boy. In the old people's home they've prepared a party for him. The Mayor and the local press will be there. But this party never gets started. Still in his bedroom slippers, Allan makes his getaway through the window and begins an unlikely adventure.

Allan is no stranger to adventure, as the stories of his earlier life reveal - a life in which he dined with world leaders such as Franco, Truman and Stalin and found himself behind the scenes during major events of the twentieth century.

Jonas Jonasson was born in 1961 in Vaxjö, Sweden. After starting up and then running the successful media company OTW for twenty years, he sold the business and moved to Switzerland. There he completed The Hundred-year-Old Man Who Climbed Out Of The Window And Disappeared. Jonas lives on the island of Gotland in Sweden.

Translated by Rod Bradbury.

Episode 1:
It's 2 May 2005 and, at the old people's home in Malmköping, it is Allan Karlsson's one hundredth birthday.

Reader: Martin Jarvis
Abridger: Jeremy Osborne

Producer: Rosalynd Ward
A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4.


MON 23:00 Word of Mouth (b03lph1g)
Prime Suspects

Michael Rosen has just 24 minutes to crack the case of the police interview. His hard-bitten squad of investigators includes top crime authors Peter James and John Harvey and the writer of ITV's 'Scott and Bailey', Sally Wainwright .

Until the 1980s the police had no formal training in interviewing techniques. When a suspect entered the interrogation room he could have faced a barrage of foul language, veiled threats and downright lies. There was usually no solicitor present and no recordings of the interview. A successful interrogation was one where the suspect 'coughed', admitting to the crime as quickly as possible.

Today things are considerably more restrained. The word 'interrogation' has been banned in England and Wales. Every 'investigative interview' is captured electronically and every policeman gets training in the latest psychological techniques to draw out suspect and witness testimony. The changes might be good for justice but they're a nightmare for novelists and dramatists.

Without the threats, the bullying and the violence what's left for the crime writer who enjoys the language of villains and crimefighters under extreme pressure? Michael talks to best-selling novelists Peter James and John Harvey and TV writer Sally Wainwright about the delicate path they tread between the dull reality of police official language and the tempting darklands of their violent imaginations.

Producer: Alasdair Cross.


MON 23:30 Down the Line (b03mjp26)
A Tribute to Felix Dexter

A tribute to incomparable 'Down The Line' actor, Felix Dexter who died in October 2013.

Rhys Thomas (Gary Bellamy), Charlie Higson and Paul Whitehouse along with other cast members talk about working with Felix and revisit many of his unforgettable characters.

Felix's collaborators from other TV projects and the comedy circuit talk to Rhys Thomas about their memories of Felix.

Starring Felix Dexter and Rhys Thomas with Amelia Bullmore, Simon Day, Charlie Higson, Lucy Montgomery and Paul Whitehouse.

With special guests: Vince Atta, Judith Jacobs, Leo Muhammad and Keith Palmer.

Producers: Charlie Higson/ Paul Whitehouse

A Down The Line Production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2013.



TUESDAY 24 DECEMBER 2013

TUE 00:00 Midnight News (b03m390d)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.


TUE 00:15 Food for Thought (b018g3n6)
Series 2

David Sedaris

Over takeaway sushi in his London kitchen, American essayist and humorist David Sedaris talks to Nina Myskow about being greedy, good at dieting - for his regular book tours - and how he stopped wanting to eat the condiments after he gave up smoking drugs.

David's large, idiosyncratic family must play some part in his obsession with second helpings. From a thrifty father who hoarded titbits and clipped money-off coupons for the weekly grocery shop to a mother who spent hours in conversation with her six children around the dinner table, he still worries that there'll never be enough.

His boyfriend orders for him in restaurants and cooks elaborate meals like rabbit in mustard and cream sauce but he still relishes the thought of a huge hamburger called the 'Widow-maker' and a side order of spinach that comes in a dish the size of a mixing bowl.

"The hard thing about being on a diet is getting off of it" he explains, before recounting the unpleasant side effects of some French pharmacy diet pills he took, in order to get into his 'tour pants.' Eating on tour can be difficult so he orders supper at each venue and takes a bite in between signing books.

He also tells Nina about his love of Mr Whippy ice cream, sticky toffee pudding and why eating chocolate is like eating drain cleaner.

What would he choose for his last meal on earth? A comforting dish his mother used to make.

Producer: Tamsin Hughes
A Wise Buddah production for BBC Radio 4.


TUE 00:30 Book of the Week (b03m40zl)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:45 on Monday]


TUE 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b03m390g)
The latest shipping forecast.


TUE 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b03m390j)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


TUE 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b03m390l)
The latest shipping forecast.


TUE 05:30 News Briefing (b03m390n)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


TUE 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b03m74r2)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with the Revd Dr Jo Bailey Wells, Chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury.


TUE 05:45 Farming Today (b03m74rb)
British hop farming has been in long term decline but the industry is on the brink of a renaissance, according to growers Ali and Richard Capper. Ali tells Sarah Swadling that 2013 has been a tricky year, with the late spring and hot July hampering growth. Ali's long term view is that British hops could find exciting new export markets. She says that brewers in America, Germany, and New Zealand are beginning to discover the subtle flavours that only British hops can deliver. The Cappers also grow eating, cooking, and cider apples. Ali tells Sarah that niche export markets could also await the fruit.

Produced and presented by Sarah Swadling.


TUE 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b03k6rrj)
Dipper

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs.

David Attenborough presents the dipper. On a cold winter's day when few birds are singing, the bright rambling song of a dipper by a rushing stream is always a surprise. Dippers sing in winter because that's when the males begin marking out their stretch of water, they're early breeders.


TUE 06:00 Today (b03m74rd)
Morning news and current affairs. Including Sports Desk; Weather; Thought for the Day.


TUE 09:00 The Making of the Modern Arab World (b03m79cg)
The Rise of Islamism

Egyptian author Tarek Osman uncovers the history of the modern Arab world by tracing some of the great political dreams that have shaped it, from the nineteenth century to the Arab Spring.

Throughout the series, he focuses on two countries that are currently high on the news agenda: Egypt and Syria. As Tarek discovers, these are also the states from which many of the crucial characters and ideas in this story emerged.

In the third programme, he explores the many forces which converged and led to the unexpected rise of Islamism or political Islam from the 1970s onwards, a force which came to fill the vacuum left by Arab Nationalism.

Tarek examines the reasons for the re-emergence of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and across the region, and the gradual cultural shift that changed the landscape of the Arab world .


TUE 09:45 Book of the Week (b03m79cj)
Love, Nina: Despatches From Family Life

Alan Bennett's Cookery Tips

Mary Poppins meets Adrian Mole in Nina Stibbe's letters from the heart of 1980s literary London.

Nina exchanges cookery tips with Alan Bennett and finds Thomas Hardy irritating.

Read by Rebekah Staton
Abridged by Penny Leicester
Produced by Gemma Jenkins.


TUE 10:00 Woman's Hour (b03m79cl)
Christmas traditions; Digital nun; Childless by circumstance

Call Woman's Hour on 03700 100 444 to share your favourite Christmas traditions. We want to hear about the little rituals and customs, however strange or unconventional, that make your Christmas so special.

Time for something a little more spiritual in our kitchen series as we meet Sister Catherine Wybourne, also known as the digital nun, who lives in a community of Benedictine nuns in Herefordshire.

And how to make the most of Christmas as a childless woman with Jody Day, who runs a support group for women who wanted children but have none. She has suggestions on coping with family assumptions and pressures, including how to enjoy being an aunt without turning into a childcare martyr and how to think about your own sadness at a time when you might be continually told 'it's all about the children'.

Presenter: Jane Garvey
Producer: Ruth Watts
Editor: Karen Dalziel.


TUE 10:45 15 Minute Drama (b03mt4k8)
The Tales of Beatrix Potter

2. The Tale of Peter Rabbit

Beatrix Potter's famous tales are celebrated this Christmas.

Her love of the British landscape and its inhabitants - coupled with her world famous ability for storytelling - means she has been one of the most celebrated children's authors of the last hundred years.

This suite of five of her tumultuous tales, including some of the lesser-known stories, brings comedic surprise, comfort and joy to the Christmas audience.

Their timeless wonders pit the delight and childlike innocence of the very human characters against the dark and dramatic ruthlessness of the food-chain-led underbelly of Cumbria's fields and hedgerows.

In this episode Chris Addison stars as Peter Rabbit and John Henshaw as Mr McGregor.

Adapted and Directed by Sean Grundy

Produced by Sally Harrison
A Woolyback production for BBC Radio 4


TUE 11:00 Shared Planet (b03m79cn)
Are There Too Many People for Wildlife to Thrive?

"Are there too many people on earth for wildlife to thrive?" This is the question we will be asking in a special edition of Shared Planet recorded with a live audience in the Great Hall of the University of Bristol. Together with questions asked by Shared Planet listeners and members of the public in the Great Hall, Monty hosts guests Fred Pearce, an environment writer and author of The Last Generation: How nature will take her revenge for climate change and Kierán Suckling, Executive Director of the Center for Biological Diversity. And of course Shared Planet correspondent Kelvin Boot will make an appearance.

Producer Mary Colwell.


TUE 11:30 Soul Music (b03m79cq)
Series 17

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

The story behind the song, 'Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas'.

It was first performed by Judy Garland in the 1944 MGM musical Meet Me In St Louis', for the now famous scene in which she and her seven year old sister, played by Margaret O'Brien are downcast about the prospect of moving away from their beloved home.

Garland asked the composer, Hugh Martin to modify his original lyric, explaining it to be too depressing for her to sing, or the audience to hear.

Martin's collaborator and friend, John Fricke, explains the importance this song had for the composer and the joy he experienced in hearing it covered by every major artist since, from Frank Sinatra to Chrissie Hynde, Punk band Fear to Cold Play, Rod Stewart to James Taylor.

It's clear that the song's enduring power lies in a beautiful melody with a melancholic feel that sums up our emotional ambivalence to the Christmas season.

We hear from those who have a special connection to the song.

Soul Music is a series exploring famous pieces of music and their emotional appeal.

Producer Lucy Lunt

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2013.


TUE 12:00 You and Yours (b03m79cs)
The value of giving away money and time

Radio 4's consumer programme normally looks at the way we spend money, but this programme is purely about giving things away.

Antz Junction in Swinton, Greater Manchester, was created by Martin Ainscough after selling his crane hire company for 255 million pounds. It's a centre for anyone interested in running a small business or charity to help people back into work.

The office space and bills are paid for, but anyone who uses Antz Junction has to give something back, in skills or time.

Winifred Robinson visits to see how it works and speak to some of the people being pulled back into life after thinking they were finished.

To discuss the effect and motivation of giving away time and money, Winifred is joined by one of the UK's wealthiest entrepreneurs, a social historian and a charity pioneer.

John Caudwell made his personal fortune from mobile phones. He's thought to be the UK's highest individual taxpayer, and has taken the Gates Foundation Pledge of giving away the majority of his 1.5 billion pound wealth through philanthropic projects.

Camila Batmanghelidjh founded her first charity in her early twenties, and runs Kids Company, which works with neglected and abused children in London and Bristol.

Hugh Cunningham is Emeritus Professor of Social History at the University of Kent and has studied the history of charitable giving.

Presenter: Winifred Robinson
Producer: Joel Moors.


TUE 12:57 Weather (b03m390q)
The latest weather forecast.


TUE 13:00 World at One (b03m390s)
National and international news. Listeners can share their views via email: wato@bbc.co.uk or on twitter: #wato.


TUE 13:45 One to One (b039cbsq)
Frank Gardner talks to Deborah Impiazzi

Frank Gardner was shot several times by terrorists in Saudi Arabia in 2004, and suffered damage to his spinal nerve. He lost the use of his legs and is in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

It was a catastrophic change to his life but having a supportive partner and being able to go back to work and continue with his career as a journalist for the BBC has been a key factor in his own recovery. In his third and final interview for the series 'One to One ', Frank meets Deborah Impiazzi who lost her sight and with it her job and her husband and explores how she is coping with this life changing trauma.

Producer: Perminder Khatkar.


TUE 14:00 The Archers (b03m43g3)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Monday]


TUE 14:15 Drama (b01fjz31)
Daniel Davies - Is Anything Broken?

by Daniel Davies

A real-time comedy drama about modern life, set during one of the most stressful journeys known to humanity - the trip from Arrivals Hall to Departure Gate.

Directed by Marc Beeby

Patrick, an architect en route to a major pitch, is negotiating the airport obstacle course when he learns that his son has had an accident at school.

Already running late, Patrick and his assistant Oriane must now juggle multiple simultaneous phone calls and security scans, Blackberry emails and duty-free queues, as they cope with Patrick's over-complicated work and home life. The emotional rollercoaster of arranging childcare, managing a marital breakdown, call centre delays and emergency conferences are added to the gruelling airport triathlon - a circle of hell newly opened for the super-connected of the 21st century.

This is Daniel Davies' first play for radio.


TUE 15:00 A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols (b03m79cv)
Live from the Chapel of King's College, Cambridge

Hymn: Once in Royal David's City (desc. Cleobury)
Bidding Prayer read by the Dean
Ding, Dong! merrily on high (arr. Williamson)
First lesson: Genesis 3, vv 8-19 read by a Chorister
Jesus Christ the apple tree (Poston)
Hear the voice of the Bard (Musgrave - first performance, commissioned by King's College)
Second lesson: Genesis 22 vv 15-18 read by a Choral Scholar
Love came down at Christmas (Morris, arr. Cleobury)
Joy to the world (Holford, arr. Keyte and Parrott)
Third lesson: Isaiah 9 vv 2, 6-7 read by a Member of the College Staff
Illuminare, Jerusalem (Weir)
Hymn: Unto us is born a Son (arr. Willcocks)
Fourth lesson: Isaiah 11 vv 1-3a, 4a, 6-9 read by a Representative of the City of Cambridge
The Lamb (Tavener)
A New Year Carol (Britten)
Fifth lesson: Luke 1 vv 26-35, 38 read by a representative of the sister College at Eton
Angelus ad Virginem (arr. Cleobury)
Hymn to the Virgin (Britten)
Sixth lesson: Luke 2 vv 1, 3-7 read by the Chaplain
Away in a manger (arr. Willcocks)
A Boy was born (Britten)
Seventh lesson: Luke 2 vv 8-16 read by the Director of Music
The Shepherd's Carol (Chilcott)
Hymn: While shepherds watched (desc. Cleobury)
Eighth lesson: Matthew 2 vv 1-12 read by the Vice-Provost
Susanni (Bennett)
I saw three ships (arr. Preston)
Ninth lesson: John 1 vv 1-14 read by the Provost
Hymn: O come, all ye faithful (arr. Willcocks)
Collect and Blessing
Hymn: Hark, the Herald Angels Sing (desc. Cleobury)

Organ voluntaries:
In dulci jubilo (BWV 729) (Bach)
Dieu parmi nous (Messiaen) [broadcast on Radio 3 on Christmas Day only]

Director of Music: Stephen Cleobury
Organ Scholar: Douglas Tang
Producer: Simon Vivian

For many people around the world, A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, live from the candlelit Chapel of King's College, Cambridge, marks the beginning of Christmas. It is based around nine Bible readings which tell the story of the loving purposes of God. They are interspersed with carols old and new, sung by the world-famous chapel choir who also lead the congregation in traditional Christmas hymns.


TUE 16:30 Great Lives (b03m79cx)
Series 32

Meg Rosoff on Isabella Bird

At home in Edinburgh Isabella Bird was the very picture of the ailing Victorian spinster but the moment her tiny feet hit the gangway of a steamer or squeezed into the stirrups of a horse she was transformed. Taking a doctor's advice to travel for the sake of her health Isabella headed for Australia, Japan, Korea and Hawaii before finding her spiritual home amongst the most rotten scoundrels of America's West.

In 'Great Lives' the award-winning author of novels including 'How I Live Now' and 'The Bride's Farewell', Meg Rosoff explains why Isabella's transformation has inspired her books and her love of horses.

She's joined by David McClay from the National Library of Scotland who maintains an archive of Isabella's colourful correspondence from the farthest flung corners of the Earth.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2013.


TUE 17:00 PM (b03m79w8)
Coverage and analysis of the day's news.


TUE 17:57 Weather (b03mfrv3)
The latest weather forecast.


TUE 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b03m390z)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


TUE 18:15 15 Minute Musical (b03m79wb)
Series 8

It's a One-Hit-Wonderful Life

A series of satirical, barbed, bittersweet fifteen-minute comedy musicals.

With over thirty musicals selling out in the West End night after night - the British public (and the Radio 4 audience) cannot get enough of them, therefore ...

In true West End style, artistic licence is well and truly taken and stretched, as easily identifiable public figures are dressed up, gilded, fabricated and placed against a random musical backdrop for sugar coated consumption. The stories are simple and engaging but with an edge - allowing the audience to enjoy all the conventions of a musical (huge production numbers, tender ballads and emotional reprises) whilst we completely re-interpret events in major celebrities' lives.

Beautifully crafted with astronomically high production values 15 Minute Musical does for your ears what chocolate does for your taste buds. All in fifteen minutes!

Winner of the Writers Guild of Great Britain Radio Comedy Award this series provides an energy boost and a seasonal treat at 1815 over the Christmas week.

It's A One-Hit Wonderful Life

Cast: Richie Webb, Dave Lamb and Pippa Evans.
Written by; Dave Cohen, David Quantick and Richie Webb
Music Composed, Performed and Arranged by: Richie Webb
Music Production: Matt Katz
Producer: Katie Tyrrell

Other episodes include:

Ra Ra It's Puti
A camp look at Russia's greatest love machine.

The Last Days of Farage
Nigel Farage goes to Europe with a Britpop soundtrack.

Half A Sixth Form
Michael Gove has a licence to teach.

Julian And The Assanging Technicolour Download
An overly dramatic and musical look at Julian Assange.


TUE 18:30 Old Harry's Game (b00wqfn8)
Christmas Special

Christmas Spirit

Satan decides to ban Christmas in Hell.

Two-parter written by and starring Andy Hamilton.

With Annette Crosbie as Edith, Robert Duncan as Scumspawn, Jimmy Mulville as Thomas.

And Felicity Montagu, Nick Revell, Philip Pope and Michael Fentons Stevens.

Producer: Paul Mayhew-Archer

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2010.


TUE 19:00 The Archers (b03m7ffw)
Lynda manages to coax a downbeat Leonie to accompany her to the nativity play at the church. After the production, Leonie reveals she found the show very emotional and admits she needs time to think. Lynda reiterates that Leonie can stay for as long as she likes. But she will eventually have to tell James about the baby.

Disappointed Ed gets word that all the puppies from a litter over in Darrington have been sold. Emma refuses to be defeated. While everyone is getting ready for the nativity play, she makes her excuses and pops out on a mission. Emma turns on her charm and manages to win over the farmer who had previously said they'd have to wait. He eventually agrees to let them have a puppy.

Secretive Emma just makes it to the nativity in time to witness George's performance. Afterwards Emma reveals she has a surprise for them. George cannot contain his excitement when he sees the puppies. Susan has reservations about bringing a puppy home on Christmas Eve.

George picks a female pup and names her Holly. He excitedly exclaims this is the best Christmas ever. Ed is impressed with Emma's resourcefulness.


TUE 19:15 Front Row (b03m7ffy)
People of the Year 2013, part 2

In new interviews, Mark Lawson talks to the people who have had exceptional years in the world of arts, culture and entertainment in 2013, in the second of two special programmes.

David Tennant talks about his roles in the two most highly anticipated television events of 2013 - the Doctor Who 50th anniversary special and the final episode of Broadchurch. He discusses which accent he decided on for his roles in The Escape Artist, the Politician's Husband and to play Shakespeare's Richard II on stage.

Dame Helen Mirren, who won the Evening Standard Best Actress award for her role in The Audience, talks about playing Queen Elizabeth II for the second time.

Olivia Colman remembers the night she won two Bafta Awards, for Accused and Twenty Twelve, and reveals her strategies for avoiding unwanted attention from the paparazzi.

Stephen Frears talks about working with Judi Dench and Steve Coogan on his hit film Philomena and why he is drawn to make films about real people and events.

Director Clio Barnard won critical acclaim for her second film The Selfish Giant, an adaptation of an Oscar Wilde fairy tale. She discusses taking The Selfish Giant to the Cannes Film Festival and explains why she will always work with children and animals.

Producer: Olivia Skinner.


TUE 19:45 15 Minute Drama (b03mt4k8)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:45 today]


TUE 20:00 Shared Experience (b03m7fg0)
Series 1

Saving a life

Fi Glover brings together a disparate group of people all with one thing in common. This week people who have saved someone's life discuss the experience and how it affects them afterwards.
Producer: Maggie Ayre.


TUE 20:30 In Touch (b03m7fg2)
Blind identical twins Dan and Michael Smith

In a special edition Peter White talks to Dan and Michael Smith, identical twins who both have a rare genetic eye condition which caused them both to lose over ninety per cent of their sight within eighteen months of each other.

They talk to Peter about the impact their rapid sight loss had on their studies, their families and their relationships.


TUE 21:00 All in the Mind (b03m7fg4)
Claudia takes a musical journey inside the brain looking at the very latest neuroscientific research on everything from how we notice patterns in music to why the beat can be so powerful.

We're not born with musical ability, but the brain is an efficient machine that lets us learn the rules. But what about the people who can't understand music? And how can our emotional responses to music be used therapeutically?

When it comes to understanding the mind and the brain, the beauty of music is that there are so many dimensions to it - there's pitch, rhythm, melody, our memories and that all-important emotional element. These are rich pickings for those using it to try to understand the workings of the mind better and to develop new therapies.


TUE 21:30 The Making of the Modern Arab World (b03m79cg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]


TUE 21:58 Weather (b03lkmdd)
The latest weather forecast.


TUE 22:00 The World Tonight (b03m7fg6)
2013 was a year when feminism, or women's issues, were in the media spotlight - from the serious to the bizarre.

There was Lily Allen's feminist anthem (or not), the Jane Austen banknote, and Mylie Cyrus twerking. Also, female genital mutilation, where to wear the Niqab, twitter trolls and growth of campaigns like The Everyday Sexism Project and No More Page Three. So, have British women rediscovered feminism? If so, is there a connection to the more obviously revolutionary times of the late 60's and early 70's, when young women fought for equal rights?

Sheila Dillon went to Leeds to try and find answers. She meets a woman whose campaigning was inspired by the murders committed by Peter Sutcliffe, the so-called Yorkshire ripper and discovers how much has changed in 30 years. She meets students at Leeds university and even attends a pole dancing class. She also talks to women footballers who play for the Millwall Lionesses

A distinguished panel of feminists - journalist, Dame Ann Leslie, writer Shelina Zahra Janmohamed, and campaigner, Laura Bates who runs the Everyday Sexism website - reflect on the issues facing women in the UK.


TUE 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b03m7fg8)
The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed out of the Window and Disappeared

Episode 2

A picaresque tale of a centenarian, police and thieves, and moments in world history. As his mother put it, "Things are what they are, and whatever will be will be."

At 100 years-old, Allan Karlsson is a reluctant birthday boy. In the old people's home they've prepared a party for him. The Mayor and the local press will be there. But this party never gets started. Still in his bedroom slippers, Allan makes his getaway through the window and begins an unlikely adventure.

Allan is no stranger to adventure, as the stories of his earlier life reveal - a life in which he dined with world leaders such as Franco, Truman and Stalin and found himself behind the scenes during major events of the twentieth century.

Jonas Jonasson was born in 1961 in Vaxjö, Sweden. After starting up and then running the successful media company OTW for twenty years, he sold the business and moved to Switzerland. There he completed The Hundred-year-Old Man Who Climbed Out Of The Window And Disappeared. Jonas lives on the island of Gotland in Sweden.

Translated by Rod Bradbury.

Episode 2:
Allan and his new friend Julius receive an unwelcome visitor at the station house in Byringe.

Reader: Martin Jarvis
Abridger: Jeremy Osborne

Producer: Rosalynd Ward
A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4.


TUE 23:00 The Infinite Monkey Cage (b03m43fx)
[Repeat of broadcast at 16:30 on Monday]


TUE 23:30 Midnight Mass (b03m7fgb)
Live from The Metropolitan Cathedral and Basilica of St Chad in Birmingham. The Most Rev'd Bernard Longley, Archbishop of Birmingham celebrates the First Mass of Christmas and gives the homily. The choir of St Chad's under the direction of David Saint sings carols to welcome the birth of Christ. Organist: Nigel Morris.

Producer: Stephen Shipley.



WEDNESDAY 25 DECEMBER 2013

WED 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b03m3938)
The latest shipping forecast.


WED 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b03m393b)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


WED 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b03m393d)
The latest shipping forecast.


WED 05:30 News Briefing (b03m393g)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


WED 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b03m7md5)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with the Revd Dr Jo Bailey Wells, Chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury.


WED 05:45 Farming Today (b03m7md7)
Spring 2013 saw some of the worst snow the UK has seen in decades. Thousands of farm animals were buried under drifts. The only way to rescue them was by digging them out, by hand, with a spade. Gareth Wyn Jones, a Welsh sheep farmer became the public face of the disaster, after using social media to highlight the desperate struggle to rescue animals trapped deep beneath the snow. He was seen by TV audiences worldwide and earned the nickname the 'tweeting farmer'. He lost 80 of his Welsh Mountain sheep in total, but managed to rescue just as many. Caz Graham has been to visit Gareth on his farm near Conwy in North Wales to see how he - and his sheep - have recovered.

Produced and presented by Caz Graham.


WED 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b03k6slx)
Robin

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs.

David Attenborough presents the robin. Christmas cards became popular around 1860 and robins often featured, carrying letters in their beaks or lifting door-knockers and were often referred to as the 'little postmen'. Until 1861, postmen wore red coats and were nick-named redbreasts or Robins, so the association between a familiar winter bird and the person who brought Christmas greetings was irresistible.


WED 06:00 Archive on 4 (b01pf5sv)
What Big Teeth You Have...

Children's author Anthony McGowan examines the tangled story behind the beloved children's stories.

Once upon a time in Kassel, two brothers set out to record the traditional oral tales of their country. To their horror, they realised that the stories - full of sex and violence - were happily being devoured by children in nurseries all over Germany. The first people to police the stories of the Brothers Grimm were the brothers themselves, as they sanitised the stories over seven editions.

This bowdlerising trend continued throughout the 19th century, when children's literature was used as a didactic tool to encourage moral behaviour. Right into the 20th century the tales were used to reinforce the moral beliefs of the day. From the prim and proper 'Listen with Mother', to Walt Disney's first foray into big screen animated features - 'Snow White' complete with seven dwarves - the fairy tales reinforced the ideals of the day.

Then in the 1930s, films were released in Germany - stories where the huntsman in Little Red Riding Hood wears an army uniform and Snow White's father leads a heroic charge into Poland.

After the war there was a policing of the Grimms, this time by the Allied Commanders - complete removal. But, like Snow White in her glass coffin, they were only waiting to be revived. In the 1960s there was a resurgence of interest in the Grimms. Acclaimed analyst Bruno Bettelheim claimed that the stories were not vehicles for human evil - but that the tales were essential in the development of children's minds.

Coinciding with, or because of Bettelheim's work, there soon came a rush of new versions of the stories reclaiming them for a post-war world, from Angela Carter to acclaimed fantasy writer Jane Yolen who expressed the horrors of the Holocaust through Sleeping Beauty, Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods and Philip Pullman's new tales.

Yet, as Anthony discovers, the various interpretations of these classic tales belie the true origins of the tales that were not, as we have been led to believe, spoken stories told by the good German peasant folk to their children at bedtime.....


WED 07:00 Frost on 4 (b03mjlk1)
Over a period of more than forty years, David Frost moved from the forefront of the 60s satire boom, to make his mark as one of the UK's most prominent journalists, and latterly became the politicians' favourite interviewer.

In recent years Frost celebrated his long career on BBC Radio 4 in three series where many wise and respected guests joined him to reflect on his memorable interviews.

In this special tribute to the veteran broadcaster we feature selected highlights from these remarkable programmes exploring the symbiotic worlds of comedy, journalism, religion and politics with lively discussions and fascinating archive.

Frost's career spanned journalism, comedy writing and daytime television presenting, including That Was The Week That Was, The Frost Report and Frost On Sunday. Since the mid-1960s, he has interviewed almost every prominent statesman, leader, dictator, entertainer and otherwise influential figure. He was perhaps the first interviewer of the television age to become as famous as the people he interviewed. His series of filmed encounters with former President Richard Nixon, over twelve days in 1977, made worldwide news; they, and the events leading up to them, have recently been the subject of the Hollywood movie Frost/Nixon.

As Frost and guests discuss favourite moments from television interviews from the past forty years we reveal many other moments just as compelling as Nixon in the dozens of other interviews in his canon of work.

Producer: Stephen Garner


WED 07:30 Stig at Fifty (b03m7mdc)
The classic children's book 'Stig of the Dump' has never been out of print since it was first published 50 years ago. At the heart of the story is an unlikely hero, a filthy caveman who communicates only in grunts and lives in an unstable chalk pit beyond the adult world of rules and conventions. He is the perfect friend for bored and restless eight year old Barney, a boy on the margins, nagged by his grandmother, lectured to by his bossy sister and ambushed by a gang of ruffian older boys, the Snargets.

The award-winning children's author David Almond, whose own book 'Skellig' also features a grubby and inarticulate other-worldly hero, explores the appeal of Stig half a century after publication. He meets the book's author Clive King, who turns 90 next year, and discovers why readers are still so fascinated by Stig the prehistoric part-man/part-boy.

Almond recalls the electrifying effect the book had on his class of Tyneside children when he worked as a teacher and acknowledges the profound influence on his own fiction. He meets children for whom Stig is still a natural hero, and adult devotees like the poet and author of 'Edgelands' Paul Farley, natural history writer Patrick Barkham, and the former chair of the National Trust Dame Fiona Reynolds, who all acknowledge the influence of Stig on their own lives and careers.

And in an age where children are rarely allowed to roam free, as Barney once did, he considers what contemporary children have lost fifty years after Stig first emerged from the dump.

Producers: Caroline Beck, Andy Cartwright
A Soundscape production for BBC Radio 4.


WED 08:00 Radio 4 Comedy Advent Calendar (b03m7mdf)
On Christmas Day gorge on a bumper edited compilation of all 24 'windows' from the Radio 4 Comedy Advent Calendar featuring some of your favourite presenters, performers and comedians.

Produced by Lyndsay Fenner and Sam Michell.


WED 09:00 Christmas Service (b03m7mdh)
Shepherds' Delight - A Christmas celebration from Chester Cathedral reflecting on the enthusiasm of the shepherds despite their lowly reputation in the eyes of the world. Their haste to get to the place of Jesus's birth testifies to their spiritual preparedness and eagerness for the coming of the Messiah. With meditations from the Rt Revd Peter Forster, Bishop of Chester, and traditional and modern carols by Peter Warlock, David Willcocks, Carl Rutti and Bryan Kelly sung by the Cathedral Choir with the Phoenix Brass Ensemble under the direction of Philip Rushworth. Organist: Benjamin Chewter. Producer: Stephen Shipley.


WED 09:45 Book of the Week (b03m7mdk)
Love, Nina: Despatches From Family Life

Sometimes You Just Have to Lie

Mary Poppins meets Adrian Mole in Nina Stibbe's letters from the heart of 1980s literary London. Alan Bennett's handyman skills come to the rescue and Nina finds herself in a situation where she just has to lie.

Read by Rebekah Staton
Abridged by Penny Leicester
Produced by Gemma Jenkins.


WED 10:00 Woman's Hour (b03m7mdm)
Nigel Slater; Evan Davis; Puppini Sisters

Jane and Jenni open up the Woman's Hour studio and invite you in to spend Christmas morning with them and other Radio 4 presenters Evan Davis, John Humphrys and Sheila Dillon. They're joined by Nigel Slater to give last-minute tips for a tasty Christmas dinner. Gyles Brandreth leads the party games, while Victoria Moore gives advice on some cocktails to help the day go with a swing and there's music from the Puppini Sisters. We'll also be hearing from the woman in charge of a British Antarctic Survey research base about her Christmas at the South Pole and we visit The Reverend Canon Katrina Scott at her parish in Coventry. And David Attenborough introduces Tweet of the Day...the robin.

Presenters: Jane Garvey and Jenni Murray
Producer: Steven Williams
Output Editor: Jane Thurlow.


WED 10:45 15 Minute Drama (b03mt7l4)
The Tales of Beatrix Potter

3. The Tale of Jemima Puddleduck

Beatrix Potter's famous tales are celebrated this Christmas.

Her love of the British landscape and its inhabitants - coupled with her world famous ability for storytelling - means she has been one of the most celebrated children's authors of the last hundred years.

This suite of five of her tumultuous tales, including some of the lesser-known stories, brings comedic surprise, comfort and joy to the Christmas audience.

Their timeless wonders pit the delight and childlike innocence of the very human characters against the dark and dramatic ruthlessness of the food-chain-led underbelly of Cumbria's fields and hedgerows.

Starring Janine Duvistki, Morwenna Banks and Seymour Mace.

Adapted and Directed by Sean Grundy

Produced by Sally Harrison
A Woolyback production for BBC Radio 4


WED 11:00 Woman's Hour (b03m7pzl)
Nigel Slater; Evan Davis; Puppini Sisters

Jane and Jenni open up the Woman's Hour studio and invite you in to spend Christmas morning with them and other Radio 4 presenters Evan Davis, John Humphrys and Sheila Dillon. They're joined by Nigel Slater to give last-minute tips for a tasty Christmas dinner. Gyles Brandreth leads the party games, while Victoria Moore gives advice on some cocktails to help the day go with a swing and there's music from the Puppini Sisters. We'll also be hearing from the woman in charge of a British Antarctic Survey research base about her Christmas at the South Pole and we visit The Reverend Canon Katrina Scott at her parish in Coventry. And David Attenborough introduces Tweet of the Day...the robin.

Presenters: Jane Garvey and Jenni Murray
Producer: Steven Williams
Output Editor: Jane Thurlow.


WED 11:30 Believe It! (b03m7p12)
Series 2

Danger Man

Jon Canter's "radiography" of Richard Wilson returns for a second series.

Celebrity autobiographies are everywhere. Richard Wilson has always said he'd never write one. Based on glimmers of truth, Believe It is the hilarious, bizarre, revealing (and, most importantly, untrue) celebrity autobiography of Richard Wilson.

He narrates the series with his characteristic dead-pan delivery, weaving in and out of dramatised scenes from his fictional life-story. He plays a heavily exaggerated version of himself: a Scots actor and national treasure, unmarried, private, passionate about politics, theatre and Manchester United (all true), who's a confidant of the powerful and has survived childhood poverty, a drunken father, years of fruitless grind, too much success, monstrosity, addiction, charity work and fierce rivalry with Sean Connery and Ian McKellen (not true).

The title - in case you hadn't spotted - is an unashamed reference his famous catchphrase.

Written by Jon Canter

Produced and Directed by Clive Brill
A Pacificus Production for BBC Radio 4.


WED 12:00 With Great Pleasure (b03m7p14)
With Great Pleasure at Christmas 2013

John Lloyd is joined by Hugh Laurie, Miriam Margolyes, Julian Rhind-Tutt and Howard Goodall to perform his favourite pieces of writing, comedy and music. A special Christmas edition of With Great Pleasure recorded in front of an audience at the BBC Radio Theatre.

John Lloyd is a comedy guru, the brains behind QI and the producer of Blackadder - and Hugh Laurie revisits his sublime portrayal of the Prince Regent from Blackadder the Third in a couple of previously unperformed pieces written by John. His other choices include a performance by all the cast of a scene from Hay Fever by Noel Coward, in which John made his stage debut while at school.

Taking us through John's life in comedy are sound archive extracts from Julian and Sandy from Round The Horne and Peter Cook from Beyond the Fringe.

Books that have been important in John's life include The Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff, How The Mind Works by Steven Pinker and poetry collections ranging from Auden to ee cummings. Words of wisdom from Douglas Adams and Viz Top Tips are also quoted.

Howard Goodall plays the song he composed for John's wedding, which is sung by John's daughter.

Producer Beth O'Dea.


WED 13:00 News (b03mygp9)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


WED 13:13 Weather (b03m393q)
The latest weather forecast.


WED 13:15 Lives in a Landscape (b03m7p16)
Series 15

Christmas at Sandringham

As the Royal Family sit down to their festive dinner on the Queen's Norfolk estate, Alan Dein invites Radio 4 listeners to spend Christmas at a rather different Sandringham - the Sandringham Hotel in Weston super Mare.

Alan joins the seafront hotel's 'Turkey & Tinsel' celebrations as three coachloads of revellers - mostly retired people - head south to celebrate Christmas in November.

"We're not the bees' knees, we're not the finest hotel in Weston super Mare..." says Ken Perrett, the hotel's owner. And it's true - the hotel is a little rough around the edges. Yet Ken must be getting something right - nearly a hundred people have checked in for five days of early festivities.

Amidst the laughter, turkey and tinsel, a bittersweet story emerges - as Alan discovers many are here celebrating without the ones they love.

Producer: Laurence Grissell.


WED 13:45 One to One (b01s89mk)
Ritula Shah talks to Satish Kumar

Ritula Shah was brought up as a Jain, which has renunciation as one of its central tenets. Ritula has always been fascinated by this idea and in this series she wants to explore what it means to give up something that still has value to those around you. Why do it? Where does it leave your relationships with those people whose choices you will have contradicted or undermined by your own? What happens when you waver (as surely you must)?

In this first programme she explores the theory with ex-Jain monk, Satish Kumar. He explains his own personal journey to renunciation of both the material and the spiritual while still a young man and why he ultimately rejected it as a way of improving the world.

Producer: Maggie Ayre.


WED 14:00 The Archers (b03m7ffw)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Tuesday]


WED 14:15 Drama (b03m7p9z)
Enid Bagnold - National Velvet

Episode 1

Fourteen year old Velvet is mad about horses. She knows 'there are pleasures earlier than love. Earlier than love, nearer heaven' in the form of horses.

When she wins a piebald horse in a raffle, she recognises he's something special. He can easily clear five-foot fences, and he'll do anything for her. Soon, she and butcher's assistant Mi have their sights set on the biggest race in England. But how can a girl in 1930s England get near Aintree?

Peter Flannery rescues National Velvet from Hollywood, returning 14 year old Velvet to her Sussex butcher's family in the 1930s. A welcome return for Enid Bagnold's strange, inventive fairytale about a young amateur girl rider who takes an untrained horse over the stiffest course in the world and wins.

Sound design: Eloise Whitmore

Author: Enid Bagnold

Dramatised by Peter Flannery
Director/Producer: Melanie Harris
Executive Producer: Polly Thomas

A Sparklab production for BBC Radio 4.


WED 15:00 HM The Queen (b03m7plk)
The Queen's Christmas message to the Commonwealth and the nation, followed by the national anthem.


WED 15:05 News (b03mygpc)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


WED 15:15 Pick of the Year (b03m7plm)
Pick of the Year 2013

The BBC in London has moved to a brand new building and Sandi Toksvig unpacks the boxes of BBC Radio, choosing her favourite moments from 2013.

Her choices include a newsreader's nightmare with a tongue twister of a name containing 36 letters and 19 syllables; an inspirational 16 year old; an unwelcome studio pest; a love story and a tennis player, a man's ear and Morecombe and Wise making beautiful music together.

In Britten's Footsteps - Radio 4
The Chris Evans Breakfast Show: Yodelling Woman - Radio 2
News read by Neil Sleat - Radio 4
The Unsent Letters of Erik Satie - Radio 4
Shelagh Fogarty - 5Live
Mark Thomas: The Manifesto - Radio 4
The Danny Baker Show - 5Live
Today Programme: The Reduced Shakespeare Company - Radio 4
Hello, I'm Half-Caste - Radio 4 Extra
Saturday Drama: Air Force One - Radio 4
That Mitchell & Webb Sound - Radio 4
Who is the Doctor? - Radio 2
Afternoon Drama: Love, War and Trains - Radio 4
Return to Japan - Radio 4
PM: Malala Yousafzai - Radio 4

If there's something you'd like to suggest for next week's programme, please e-mail potw@bbc.co.uk.


WED 16:00 Thinking Allowed (b03m7plp)
Santa Helpers; Christmas Tradition

A Thinking Allowed special on our construction of Christmas tradition. What does Christmas mean to you - a visit to Santa's grotto with the little ones, the opening of presents before breakfast, a house festooned with sparkly lights and wreaths of ivy? Or is your Christmas an understated and low key affair? Perhaps you don't even recognise it for cultural or religious reasons.

Professor Philip Hancock discusses his study into the 'elite' squad of Santa helpers who dispense seasonal cheer and gifts to children in department stores up and down the country. How do they maintain their 'ho, ho hos' in the face of 500 length queues? What special challenges does this unique branch of interactive service work present? Also, Professor Jennifer Mason talks about her research into how people create the Christmas experience, drawing on the rituals of their childhoods and negotiating conflicting traditions. The writer, Antony Lerman, joins the discussion.

Producer: Jayne Egerton.


WED 16:30 Ed Reardon's Week (b01pfwhg)
Ed Reardon at Christmas

It Started in August

Celebrate Christmas with Radio 4's favourite curmudgeonly author, Ed Reardon, and his faithful companion Elgar.

It's Christmas Day and where is Ed Reardon spending it? The scepticism of his writing class back in August about where Ed would be hanging his stocking, wasn't entirely misplaced, and receiving a Christmas card from one's girlfriend signed without a kiss and her surname added in brackets probably doesn't bode well. However, all is not lost as Ed's jocular round robin email to his family inviting himself to join their Christmas celebrations wasn't all in vain - there was at least one member of the family who didn't bounce it back. So, following assurances that his requirements would be minimal, his levels of merriment would be Dionysian and a small caveat about what he regards as permissible Christmas viewing Ed is encouraged to think that he won't be spending Christmas alone. Or he could be looking at a day with only Elgar, an Oxo cube and a cinnamon stick.

Written by Andrew Nickolds and Christopher Douglas
Produced by Dawn Ellis.


WED 17:00 Radio 4 Comedy Advent Calendar (b03m7mdf)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]


WED 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b03m393n)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


WED 18:15 15 Minute Musical (b03m7pzp)
Series 8

Julian and the Assanging Technicolour Download

A series of satirical, barbed, bittersweet fifteen-minute comedy musicals.

With over thirty musicals selling out in the West End night after night - the British public (and the Radio 4 audience) cannot get enough of them, therefore ...

In true West End style, artistic licence is well and truly taken and stretched, as easily identifiable public figures are dressed up, gilded, fabricated and placed against a random musical backdrop for sugar coated consumption. The stories are simple and engaging but with an edge - allowing the audience to enjoy all the conventions of a musical (huge production numbers, tender ballads and emotional reprises) whilst we completely re-interpret events in major celebrities' lives.

Beautifully crafted with astronomically high production values 15 Minute Musical does for your ears what chocolate does for your taste buds. All in fifteen minutes!

Winner of the Writers Guild of Great Britain Radio Comedy Award this series provides an energy boost and a seasonal treat at 1815 over the Christmas week.

Other episodes include:

Ra Ra It's Puti
A camp look at Russia's greatest love machine.

The Last Days of Farage
Nigel Farage goes to Europe with a Britpop soundtrack.

Half A Sixth Form
Michael Gove has a licence to teach.

It's A One-Hit-Wonderful Life
Simon Cowell contemplates ending his career until his guardian angel Susan Boyle appears to show him life without Cowell - It's A Wonderful Life.

Heaven Knows I'm Middle-Aged Now
Morrissey looks for a new musical collaborator.

Cast: Richie Webb, Dave Lamb and Jess Robinson
Written by: Dave Cohen, David Quantick and Richie Webb
Music Composed, Performed and Arranged by: Richie Webb
Music Production: Matt Katz
Producer: Katie Tyrrell.


WED 18:30 What Does the K Stand For? (b03m7pzs)
Series 1

The First Noel

The Amos family plan to fly out to celebrate Christmas in Lagos, Nigeria.

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

Written by Jonathan Harvey with Stephen K Amos.

Himself ... Stephen K Amos
Young Stephen ... Shaquille Ali-Yebuah
Stephanie Amos ... Fatou Sohna
Virginia Amos ... Ellen Thomas
Vincent Amos ... Don Gilet
Miss Collins ... Gemma Whelan
Fola ... Kathryn Drysdale
Check-in attendant ... Harry Jardine

Producer: Colin Anderson

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2013.


WED 19:00 The Archers (b03m7pzv)
It's Christmas Day in Ambridge and Joe is thrilled with the handles Eddie has attached to the trap. Darrell comes out to wish the Grundys a merry Christmas and is promptly invited in to celebrate the day with them.

When Darrell receives Christmas presents from the Grundys - a shirt and jumper - he is very touched. He's sorry not to have got them anything in return, but they are just happy he's there. Darrell is quiet throughout the meal and, despite Eddie's kindness, he leaves.

Tom admits to Peggy that he is nervous. But Kirsty is really excited at the prospect of the promised surprise.

During the family Christmas meal, Helen receives a call from Rob. Tom follows her. He overhears the end of the conversation and has his suspicions about who is on the phone.

Tom pulls one last cracker with Kirsty. A jewellery box falls out, and Tom follows it up with a proposal of marriage. Delighted Kirsty says yes. Everyone - including Helen - is thrilled for Tom and Kirsty and they crack open champagne. They've all had a very happy Christmas.


WED 19:15 Front Row (b03m7pzx)
Sir Derek Jacobi

In conversation with Mark Lawson, Sir Derek Jacobi looks back over a career that has spanned half a century.

It was the role of the damaged Roman emperor Claudius, in the 1976 BBC television drama serial, I Claudius, that brought Sir Derek public fame. However he had already attracted attention in theatrical circles when in the early 1960s, at the age of 23, he was invited to become one of the founder members of Laurence Olivier's National Theatre.

Sir Derek talks to Mark about the support he received from his non-theatrical parents when he decided to make a life for himself on the stage. He reflects on the advice he's been given by distinguished directors, and why he thinks his face came between him and the role of Hannibal Lecter. He shares the experience of being struck by stage fright at the height of his success in the theatre, and discovering over dinner with Margaret Thatcher that the then Prime Minister felt that when it came to connecting with an audience they had much in common.

Producer Ekene Akalawu.


WED 19:45 15 Minute Drama (b03mt7l4)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:45 today]


WED 20:00 Start the Week (b03gv7xm)
Andrew Marr on poet George Herbert

Andrew Marr returns to Start the Week for a special programme on the early 17th century poet George Herbert. His English poetry was never published in his lifetime, but he hoped it would act as consolation 'of any dejected poor soul', and his latest biographer John Drury argues that with its focus on love over theology, his poetry still speaks to and for modern readers. The composer Sir John Tavener and the writer Jeanette Winterson discuss prayer in a secular age, and the power of music and words to soothe the soul.

This programme was recorded before the sad announcement of Sir John Tavener's death.

Producer: Katy Hickman.


WED 20:45 Jared Diamond: How Geography Creates History (b03mtcvj)
In this talk, recorded in his study in Los Angeles, the geographer and polymath Jared Diamond argues that apparently slight differences in geography can have profound consequences for the culture and history of nations.

He takes as his examples Britain and Japan. "When one examines a globe," he says, "one's first impression is that no country would be more similar to the United Kingdom than is Japan. Japan and the British Isles look like mirror images of each other, as the big archipelagos flanking the Eurasian continent respectively to the east and to the west."

And yet, he argues, "it would be hard to find two modern industrial societies more dissimilar to each other than are Japan and Britain." The comparison, he argues, "reveals the big effects of even modest geographic differences."

Producer: Sheila Cook.


WED 21:00 Archive on 4 (b015bj1z)
The Oldest Music Hall

"A palace of entertainment" - so Paul Merton, Presenter, describes the Leeds City Varieties music hall .
He delves into the BBC archives to examine the life and death of Britain's music hall tradition in a funny and affectionate look at the City Varieties - once one of the most famous theatres in the world - as a result of 30 years transmission of The Good Old Days TV show.

With fresh interviews with former Good Old Days stars Ken Dodd, Barry Cryer and Roy Hudd, plus original archive clips of music hall stars and Good Old Days celebrities - this Archive on 4 documentary examines how the City Varieties mirrored the rise and fall of variety - and with a new multi million pound facelift - discovers whether such Yorkshire optimism in the future of this particular variety theatre is well founded.

Paul Merton is an enthusiastic and knowledgeable guide to the subject - not only has he performed at the theatre - he also is a fan of variety and its more rumbustious, red blooded predecessor, music hall. He discovers how the City Varieties launched the careers of international stars such as Frankie Vaughan and Ken Dodd - and also what made the iconic "Good Old Days" a staple of BBC tv schedules for three decades. He hears showbiz anecdotes, scandals and finds out just why twenty first century theatre-goers are enjoying a new appetite for variety as a result of the current TV talent shows.


WED 21:58 Weather (b03m393q)
[Repeat of broadcast at 13:13 today]


WED 22:00 The Reunion (b03m7slh)
The Fast Show

The first episode of The Fast Show in 1994 had twenty seven sketches in just half an hour. Charlie Higson and Paul Whitehouse, former writers for Harry Enfield, created a concept which re-invigorated the sketch show format and crammed it with catch-phrases.

In this special Christmas night edition of The Reunion, Sue MacGregor brings the cast back together to reflect on the series which launched their careers.

Higson and Whitehouse recruited young stand-up comedians whose worked they liked, such as Caroline Aherne , John Thomson , Simon Day and Felix Dexter, alongside actors such as Mark Williams and Paul Shearer. This process involved each 'auditioning' their proposed character in front of the ensemble.

Competitive Dad, the obscene Suits You tailors, Jazz Club, Does My Bum Look Big in This?, and the touching repressed romance of Ted and Ralph, scored a very high strike rate for introducing catchphrases and comedy characters to schools and work places around the country.

Some characters prompted spin-offs, such as Swiss Tony (Higson) the coiffed car salesman who compares everything to 'making love to a beautiful woman', and football pundit Ron Manager (Whitehouse).

We also hear from collaborators such as Kathy Burke, Harry Enfield, Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer, as well as TV critic Matthew Norman who wrote a famously fierce review of the first series.

Producer: Peter Curran
Series Producer: David Prest

A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.


WED 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b03m7slk)
The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed out of the Window and Disappeared

Episode 3

A picaresque tale of a centenarian, police and thieves, and moments in world history. As his mother put it, "Things are what they are, and whatever will be will be."

At 100 years-old, Allan Karlsson is a reluctant birthday boy. In the old people's home they've prepared a party for him. The Mayor and the local press will be there. But this party never gets started. Still in his bedroom slippers, Allan makes his getaway through the window and begins an unlikely adventure.

Allan is no stranger to adventure, as the stories of his earlier life reveal - a life in which he dined with world leaders such as Franco, Truman and Stalin and found himself behind the scenes during major events of the twentieth century.

Jonas Jonasson was born in 1961 in VaxjÃ, Sweden. After starting up and then running the successful media company OTW for twenty years, he sold the business and moved to Switzerland. There he completed The Hundred-year-Old Man Who Climbed Out Of The Window And Disappeared. Jonas lives on the island of Gotland in Sweden.

Translated by Rod Bradbury.

Episode 3:
At the station house in Byringe, Allan and Julius's troubles are only just beginning.

Reader: Martin Jarvis
Abridger: Jeremy Osborne

Producer: Rosalynd Ward
A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4.


WED 23:00 Neil Gaiman - Neverwhere (b01r527b)
London Below

Beneath the streets of London there is another London. A subterranean labyrinth of sewers and abandoned tube stations. A somewhere that is Neverwhere.

An act of kindness sees Richard Mayhew catapulted from his ordinary life into a subterranean world under the streets of London. Stopping to help an injured girl on a London street, Richard is thrust from his workaday existence into the strange world of London Below.

So begins a curious and mysterious adventure deep beneath the streets of London, a London of shadows where the tube cry of 'Mind the Gap' takes on new meaning; for the inhabitants of this murky domain are those who have fallen through the gaps in society, the dispossessed, the homeless. Here Richard meets the Earl of Earl's Court, Old Bailey and Hammersmith, faces a life-threatening ordeal at the hands of the Black Friars, comes face to face with Great Beast of London, and encounters an Angel. Called Islington.

Joining the mysterious girl named Door and her companions, the Marquis de Carabas and the bodyguard, Hunter, Richard embarks on an extraordinary quest to escape from the clutches of the fiendish assassins Croup and Vandemar and to discover who ordered them to murder her family. All the while trying to work out how to get back to his old life in London Above.

A six part adaption of Neil Gaiman's novel adapted by Dirk Maggs, sees James McAvoy as Richard lead a stellar cast which includes Natalie Dormer, David Harewood, Sophie Okonedo, Benedict Cumberbatch, Christopher Lee, Anthony Head, David Schofield, Bernard Cribbins, Romola Garai, George Harris, Andrew Sachs, Lucy Cohu, Johnny Vegas, Paul Chequer, Don Gilet and Abdul Salis.



THURSDAY 26 DECEMBER 2013

THU 00:00 Midnight News (b03m394q)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.


THU 00:15 Christmas Meditation (b03m7twp)
A reflection on the meaning of Christmas with author and columnist Peter Hitchens.

For many, Christmas Day is a special time of celebration with family and friends after weeks of excited preparation. For others, it's a time of solitude to be dreaded following weeks of commercial and social pressures.

As another Christmas Day draws to a close, Peter Hitchens draws on his own memories and experiences as he reflects on the questions: What was it all for? and Was it all worth it?


THU 00:30 Book of the Week (b03m7mdk)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:45 on Wednesday]


THU 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b03m394s)
The latest shipping forecast.


THU 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b03m394v)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


THU 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b03m394x)
The latest shipping forecast.


THU 05:30 News Briefing (b03m394z)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


THU 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b03m7twr)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with the Revd Dr Jo Bailey Wells, Chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury.


THU 05:45 Farming Today (b03m7twt)
After snow and freezing temperatures hit farms in Cumbria and Wales at the height of lambing season in the Spring, Andrew Ward was moved to help farmers who were running desparately low on feed. From his Lincolnshire farm he co-ordinated collections of forage and straw, calling the project 'Forage Aid'. He shares his experiences with Sarah Swadling and describes how it felt to meet some of the people he helped.

Produced and presented by Sarah Swadling.


THU 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b03k6t6c)
Red Kite

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs.

David Attenborough presents the red kite. After centuries of persecution red kites were almost wiped out but in 1989 a project to restore the red kite back into the wild began. Since then kite numbers have soared, so that now these birds are foraging even around the outer suburbs of London.


THU 06:00 Today (b03m7z06)
Creator of the world wide web Sir Tim Berners-Lee guest-edits the programme.


THU 09:00 In Our Time (b03m7z08)
The Medici

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Medici family, who dominated Florence's political and cultural life for three centuries. The House of Medici came to prominence in Italy in the fifteenth century as a result of the wealth they had built up through banking. With the rise of Cosimo de' Medici, they became Florence's most powerful and influential dynasty, effectively controlling the city's government. Their patronage of the arts turned Florence into a leading centre of the Renaissance and the Medici Bank was one of the most successful institutions of its day. As well as producing four popes, members of the House of Medici married into various European royal families.

With:

Evelyn Welch
Professor of Renaissance Studies at King's College, University of London

Robert Black
Professor of Renaissance History at the University of Leeds

Catherine Fletcher
Lecturer in Public History at the University of Sheffield

Producer: Victoria Brignell.


THU 09:45 Book of the Week (b03m7z0b)
Love, Nina: Despatches From Family Life

Being a Student Is Great

Mary Poppins meets Adrian Mole in Nina Stibbe's letters from the heart of 1980s literary London. Nina starts college, has an uncomfortable theatre trip and frets about a romance.

Read by Rebekah Staton
Abridged by Penny Leicester
Produced by Gemma Jenkins.


THU 10:00 Woman's Hour (b03m7z0d)
The Woman's Hour Archive Collection

Jenni Murray presents highlights from the new Woman's Hour online archive, outstanding women from sixty three years of the programme. From a young Mary Quant and Judi Dench, to Marguerite Patten, Winnie Mandela, Nina Simone and Hillary Clinton. Jenni and her guest, Sue MacGregor, discuss their memories of presenting the programme. Sue recalls drinking gin with Bette Davis and borrowing Margaret Thatcher's heated rollers and you can hear Jenni's interview with Mrs Thatcher which one reviewer described as 'the only time ever my radio had frozen over'.

Presenter: Jenni Murray
Producer: Louise Corley.


THU 10:45 15 Minute Drama (b03mtfrj)
The Tales of Beatrix Potter

4. The Tale of Mr Tod

Beatrix Potter's famous tales are celebrated this Christmas.

Her love of the British landscape and its inhabitants - coupled with her world famous ability for storytelling - means she has been one of the most celebrated children's authors of the last hundred years.

This suite of five of her tumultuous tales, including some of the lesser-known stories, brings comedic surprise, comfort and joy to the Christmas audience.

Their timeless wonders pit the delight and childlike innocence of the very human characters against the dark and dramatic ruthlessness of the food-chain-led underbelly of Cumbria's fields and hedgerows.

Seymour Mace is Mr Tod and John Henshaw is Tommy Brock. Morwenna Banks is Beattie.

Adapted and Directed by Sean Grundy

Produced by Sally Harrison
A Woolyback production for BBC Radio 4


THU 11:00 Crossing Continents (b03m7z0g)
Brazil: Fighting Slavery

Brazil's anti-slavery hit-squads are unique. Since 1995, these committed bands of labour inspectors, accompanied by heavily armed police, have rescued 46,000 people deemed to be working as slaves. But Brazil's legal definition of slavery is contentious. It includes degrading conditions of work, which campaigners say amount to coercion. Some employers reject that. And now the stakes have been raised by proposals to confiscate land from bosses found to be flouting the anti-slavery standards. In a journey that takes her from cattle country on the edge of the Amazon, to the parched, rocky badlands of the north-east, Linda Pressly meets the campaigners, employers and politicians on both sides of the argument, and hears powerful testimony from the workers trapped in the middle.

Producer: Stephen Hounslow.


THU 11:30 The Lost Tapes of Orson Welles (b03m7z0j)
Episode 2

This two-part programme is a revealing series of informal conversations with the man best known as America's great cultural provocateur and one of the finest of filmmakers.

Director Orson Welles was asked to write his life story in his later years. He declined but was convinced by his friend Henry Jaglom to discuss his life over a weekly lunch at their favourite Hollywood restaurant, Ma Maison. The hundreds of tapes, recorded from 1983 to 1985, reveal extraordinary, frank, conversations between Welles and the independent director Jaglom.

The tapes gathered dust in a shoebox in the corner of Jaglom's production office for over thirty years - until now, but this programme provides an opportunity to hear the amazing material they contain for the first time.

Welles talks intimately, disclosing personal secrets and reflecting on the people of the time. At times the tapes display the great film maker as a world champion grudge keeper, rather different from the amiable character who appeared in interviews when he was alive. As we hear, he hated the way Charlton Heston always called Touch of Evil (directed by Welles) a 'minor film'. Welles also found the work of fellow directors, Woody Allen, Charlie Chaplin and Alfred Hitchcock, difficult to embrace. But, as we hear, he had some unexpected enthusiasms.

Presenter Christopher Frayling reveals the great director free to be irreverent and Welles is sometimes cynical and romantic, sentimental but never boring, and often wickedly entertaining. The programmes also feature the thoughts of fellow diner Henry Jaglom, film author Peter Biskind, as well as actor and Welles scholar Simon Callow.

Producer: John Sugar
A Sugar production for BBC Radio 4.


THU 12:00 You and Yours (b03m7z0l)
It's Boxing Day and a time to draw breath.

You've done the big Christmas thing and we thought maybe your mind is on the future - thinking about the year ahead.

Could this be the year you fulfil that dream of setting time a side to improve yourself.

You might want to turn your wilderness into a garden of eden, perhaps you'd like to play an instrument:

Or you might learn a language, or sort out your finances or get fit, or learn how to cook.

Today - we've got together some people who've managed to learn something new, something that has really changed their lives for the better - and we'll be hearing from the fertility specialist Professor Robert Winston, the historian Sir Max Hastings and Alvyn Hall the financial expert.

We think they'll inspire you...


THU 12:57 Weather (b03m3951)
The latest weather forecast.


THU 13:00 World at One (b03m3956)
National and international news. Listeners can share their views via email: wato@bbc.co.uk or on twitter: #wato.


THU 13:45 One to One (b01sdg27)
Ritula Shah talks to Mark Boyle

Ritula Shah was brought up as a Jain, which has renunciation as one of its central tenets. Ritula has always been fascinated by this idea and in this series she wants to explore what it means to give up something that still has value to those around you. Why do it? Where does it leave your relationships with those people whose choices you will have contradicted or undermined by your own? What happens when you waver (as surely you must)?

In this second episode in a series of three programmes, she talks to Mark Boyle who lived without money for almost three years. What did he think it could achieve?

Producer: Maggie Ayre.


THU 14:00 The Archers (b03m7pzv)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Wednesday]


THU 14:15 Drama (b03mtfrl)
Enid Bagnold - National Velvet

Episode 2

Fourteen year old Velvet is mad about horses. She knows 'there are pleasures earlier than love. Earlier than love, nearer heaven' in the form of horses.

When she wins a piebald horse in a raffle, she recognises he's something special. He can easily clear five-foot fences, and he'll do anything for her. Soon, she and butcher's assistant Mi have their sights set on the biggest race in England. But how can a girl in 1930s England get near Aintree?

Peter Flannery rescues National Velvet from Hollywood, returning 14 year old Velvet to her Sussex butcher's family in the 1930s. A welcome return for Enid Bagnold's strange, inventive fairytale about a young amateur girl rider who takes an untrained horse over the stiffest course in the world and wins.

Author: Enid Bagnold
Dramatised by Peter Flannery

Director/Producer: Melanie Harris
Executive Producer: Polly Thomas
A Sparklab production for BBC Radio 4.


THU 15:00 Open Country (b03m7z9z)
Doddington Hall, Lincolnshire

Helen Mark visits Doddington Hall in Lincolnshire to talk about how the estate's shoot forms part of the landscape management and a desire for locally-sourced produce. It also provides the farm shop and restaurant with festive fare, including pigeon burgers.

James Birch is Doddington's owner, (his wife's family have owned the estate continuously for around four hundred years). Shooting has always been part of life here and even now there's a full-time gamekeeper, who doubles as security guard and fly-tipping preventer.

The game from the shoot is used in the restaurant and is cooked by Chris Maclure, senior sous-chef, who makes sure nothing goes to waste. Helen talks to university lecturer- turned-florist Rachel Petheram, who loves the challenge of using only locally-grown flowers and herbs in her Christmas displays.

Helen also goes beating with Will Birkett, a young gamekeeper preparing for a day's shooting with his gun dogs.

Producer...Mary Ward-Lowery.


THU 15:27 Radio 4 Appeal (b03m3kr0)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:55 on Sunday]


THU 15:30 Open Book (b03m3nhy)
[Repeat of broadcast at 16:00 on Sunday]


THU 16:00 The Film Programme (b03m7zb1)
Teenagers on Film

Francine Stock explores the spirit of the teenager on film through the decades with Kim Newman, Pamela Hutchinson, Hadley Freeman and Charlie Lyne. From Andy Hardy to The Hunger Games' Katniss Everdeen, the programme charts the rise of the teenager from pre-war in-betweeners to fully fledged rebels. The director Matt Wolf discusses his documentary Teenage which takes a look at adolescence in the first half of the 20th century. There's debate about the conservatism of teen film guru, the director John Hughes whose work includes The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Weird Science. And we unpick why 1995 marked the beginning of a ten year boom in teen flicks, from Clueless to Mean Girls.


THU 16:30 BBC Inside Science (b03m7zb3)
Bacteriophages; Breath-detecting disease; Our bees electric and DNA Barcoding

Professor Alice Roberts talks bacteriophages: viruses that infect the bacteria that infect us. With the rise of antibiotic resistance they are a potential weapon against infection.

We hear from Paul Hebert, the biologist behind the International Barcode of Life project – a global effort to classify the entire world’s species according to their DNA.

Bristol researchers have discovered that it is more than scent and colour that draws a bee to a flower – there is also an electric field.

Claire Turner from the Open University shows us the instrument she uses to detect disease. It can sense when a heart transplant patient is rejecting their new organ, purely through monitoring their breath.


THU 17:00 PM (b03m7zb5)
Full coverage and analysis of the day's news.


THU 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b03m3958)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


THU 18:15 15 Minute Musical (b03m7zb7)
Series 8

The Last Days of Farage

A series of satirical, barbed, bittersweet fifteen-minute comedy musicals.

With over thirty musicals selling out in the West End night after night - the British public (and the Radio 4 audience) cannot get enough of them, therefore ...

In true West End style, artistic licence is well and truly taken and stretched, as easily identifiable public figures are dressed up, gilded, fabricated and placed against a random musical backdrop for sugar coated consumption. The stories are simple and engaging but with an edge - allowing the audience to enjoy all the conventions of a musical (huge production numbers, tender ballads and emotional reprises) whilst we completely re-interpret events in major celebrities' lives.

Beautifully crafted with astronomically high production values 15 Minute Musical does for your ears what chocolate does for your taste buds. All in fifteen minutes!

Winner of the Writers Guild of Great Britain Radio Comedy Award this series provides an energy boost and a seasonal treat at 1815 over the Christmas week.

Other episodes include:

Ra Ra It's Puti
A camp look at Russia's greatest love machine.

Half A Sixth Form
Michael Gove has a licence to teach.

Julian And The Assanging Technicolour Download
An overly dramatic and musical look at Julian Assange.

It's A One-Hit-Wonderful Life
Simon Cowell contemplates ending his career until his guardian angel Susan Boyle appears to show him life without Cowell - It's A Wonderful Life.

Heaven Knows I'm Middle-Aged Now
Morrissey looks for a new musical collaborator.

Cast: Richie Webb, Dave Lamb, Jess Robinson and Pippa Evans.
Written by: Dave Cohen, David Quantick and Richie Webb
Music Composed, Performed and Arranged by: Richie Webb
Music Production: Matt Katz
Producer: Katie Tyrrell.


THU 18:30 The Secret World (b03m7zb9)
Series 4

Episode 5

Bishop Rowan Williams gets in deep water after deciding to celebrate Boxing Day with a game of knock down ginger.

William Hague finds himself stranded in a snowdrift with only some Belgian truffles for food.

And John Lydon ends up killing Sir Anthony Hopkins.

It can only be the weird goings on in the show that imagines the private lives of public people:

A seasonal edition of The Secret World with:

Margaret Cabourn-Smith
Jon Culshaw
Julian Dutton
Lewis MacLeod
Jess Robinson
Duncan Wisbey

Written by Bill Dare, Julian Dutton and Duncan Wisbey.

Produced and created by: Bill Dare.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2013.


THU 19:00 The Archers (b03m7zmn)
James catches Leonie off her guard while she is walking Scruff. She's furious. James is keen to talk but Leonie really doesn't want to. James follows her, needing an explanation. She finally reveals she's pregnant.

Ed has a talk with Rosa. He explains that Darrell was only shoplifting in an effort to make sure he had a present for her. Upset by this news, Rosa runs off.

Susan gathers some food to take to Darrell. But as she walks into the utility room she finds her new pashmina has been ruined by George's new puppy, Holly. Susan is distraught but promises George that Holly is part of the family now. They won't send her back.

Rosa turns up, and Ed cautiously tells her to go and say hello to Darrell. Rosa is unsure and just can't bring herself to see him.

James heads to the Dower House, needing some motherly advice. But as Lilian is not in, it falls to Matt. He is sober and sensible, and draws on his own experiences. Although he is insistent it's up to Leonie and James to make the decision, he reminds James that the chance to have a family might not come round again.


THU 19:15 Front Row (b03m7zmq)
Front Row Special on Buffy the Vampire Slayer

With Naomi Alderman.

The last episode of cult TV series Buffy The Vampire Slayer was broadcast in Britain ten years ago. At the time, Naomi believed that the show would lead to the creation of a host of other strong and complex female leads - who would inspire young women in the same way Buffy had inspired her. So where are all the "daughters of Buffy"? Naomi explores Buffy's legacy with the help of Buffy's creator Joss Whedon, and with actor Anthony Head, writers Neil Gaiman and Rhianna Pratchett, TV executives Jane Root and Susanne Daniels, and mega-fans Blake Harrison and Bim Adewunmi.

Producer: Rebecca Nicholson.


THU 19:45 15 Minute Drama (b03mtfrj)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:45 today]


THU 20:00 The Report (b03m7zms)
Banking IT crisis

The 'Cyber Monday' computer meltdown that affected RBS and NatWest customers as they tried to bag bargains in the run-up to Christmas was just the latest in a string of IT glitches that have plagued the big UK banks in recent years.

But is there a greater problem than the inconvenience caused for shoppers? Melanie Abbott talks to those who have worked on the huge, ageing computer systems at the heart of the UK banking system and finds out that banks like RBS face a massive dilemma - spend billions replacing their 'mainframes' or risk bigger, more serious problems in the next few years.

Melanie finds out about the scale and size of the IT systems behind our everyday transactions as she becomes the first journalist allowed access to one of the secret data centres that power the banking payments system at Vocalink. And she hears from Andrew Tyrie, chair of the Treasury Select Committee, about the urgent need to solve the banks' IT problem before they damage the entire financial system.


THU 20:30 In Business (b03m7zmv)
Kenya's Mobile Money Revolution

Kenya is the surprising world leader in high-tech mobile money. Almost a third of the country's economy now goes through the mobile phone-based system M-Pesa. Even the company that launched it six years ago, Safaricom, didn't anticipate the gusto with which Kenyans would adopt its virtual currency.
In a country with fewer than 10,000 credit cards and where four-fifths of the population does not have a bank account, M-Pesa has emerged as a secure and easy way to pay and transfer money to anyone, anywhere across the country, and even abroad.
Now the system has morphed from a method of payment into a platform for all sorts of businesses. In Nairobi there are startups aiming to boost fundraising for funerals and weddings, help landlords collect rent, loan mobile phone credit, and much more, all based on the M-Pesa system. And alongside the flowering of new businesses, the Kenyan government has pinned its hopes on the high-tech sector for the future of the country's economic growth.
Peter Day talks to traces the story of how a mobile payment experiment kick-started an emerging tech economy.

Contributors:
Bob Collymore - chief executive, Safaricom
David Mark - co-founder, M-Changa
Kamau Wanyoike - director, MoVAS
Nancy Wang - co-founder, M-Kazi
Duncan Muchangi - co-founder, Manyatta Rent
Nikolai Barnwell - director, 88mph Nairobi
Joe Mucheru - Sub-Saharan ambassador, Google
Tony Mwai - general manager, IBM East Africa
Sam Gichuru - co-founder and director, Nailab
Kate Kiguru - co-founder and chief innovator, Ukall
Will Mutua - founder, Afrinnovator.


THU 21:00 BBC Inside Science (b03m7zb3)
[Repeat of broadcast at 16:30 today]


THU 21:30 In Our Time (b03m7z08)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]


THU 21:58 Weather (b03m395b)
The latest weather forecast.


THU 22:00 The World Tonight (b03m7zmx)
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.


THU 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b03m7zmz)
The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed out of the Window and Disappeared

Episode 4

A picaresque tale of a centenarian, police and thieves, and moments in world history. As his mother put it, "Things are what they are, and whatever will be will be."

At 100 years-old, Allan Karlsson is a reluctant birthday boy. In the old people's home they've prepared a party for him. The Mayor and the local press will be there. But this party never gets started. Still in his bedroom slippers, Allan makes his getaway through the window and begins an unlikely adventure.

Allan is no stranger to adventure, as the stories of his earlier life reveal - a life in which he dined with world leaders such as Franco, Truman and Stalin and found himself behind the scenes during major events of the twentieth century.

Jonas Jonasson was born in 1961 in Vaxjö, Sweden. After starting up and then running the successful media company OTW for twenty years, he sold the business and moved to Switzerland. There he completed The Hundred-year-Old Man Who Climbed Out Of The Window And Disappeared. Jonas lives on the island of Gotland in Sweden.

Translated by Rod Bradbury.

Episode 4:
With both the police and the Never Again gang on their trail, Allan and Julius are heading soutg, driven by their new chauffeur, Benny.

Reader: Martin Jarvis
Abridger: Jeremy Osborne

Producer: Rosalynd Ward
A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4.


THU 23:00 Alice's Wunderland (b03m7zn1)
Series 2

Episode 3

A trip to Wunderland, a poundland of magical realms. This week, the Wunderlanders' thoughts turn to the future and all that it could bring.

Sketch show by Alice Lowe.

Also starring Richard Glover, Simon Greenall, Rachel Stubbings, Clare Thompson and Marcia Warren.

Produced by Lyndsay Fenner.


THU 23:30 Neil Gaiman - Neverwhere (b01rb2c1)
Earl's Court

Beneath the streets of London there is another London. A subterranean labyrinth of sewers and abandoned tube stations. A somewhere that is Neverwhere.

An act of kindness sees Richard Mayhew catapulted from his ordinary life into a subterranean world under the streets of London. Stopping to help an injured girl on a London street, Richard is thrust from his workaday existence into the strange world of London Below.

So begins a curious and mysterious adventure deep beneath the streets of London, a London of shadows where the tube cry of 'Mind the Gap' takes on new meaning; for the inhabitants of this murky domain are those who have fallen through the gaps in society, the dispossessed, the homeless. Here Richard meets the Earl of Earl's Court, Old Bailey and Hammersmith, faces a life-threatening ordeal at the hands of the Black Friars, comes face to face with Great Beast of London, and encounters an Angel. Called Islington.

Joining the mysterious girl named Door and her companions, the Marquis de Carabas and the bodyguard, Hunter, Richard embarks on an extraordinary quest to escape from the clutches of the fiendish assassins Croup and Vandemar and to discover who ordered them to murder her family. All the while trying to work out how to get back to his old life in London Above.

A six part adaption of Neil Gaiman's novel adapted by Dirk Maggs, sees James McAvoy as Richard lead a stellar cast which includes Natalie Dormer, David Harewood, Sophie Okonedo, Benedict Cumberbatch, Christopher Lee, Anthony Head, David Schofield, Bernard Cribbins, Romola Garai, George Harris, Andrew Sachs, Lucy Cohu, Johnny Vegas, Paul Chequer, Don Gilet and Abdul Salis.



FRIDAY 27 DECEMBER 2013

FRI 00:00 Midnight News (b03m3968)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.


FRI 00:15 Food for Thought (b018g6wz)
Series 2

Yoko Ono

Yoko Ono discusses the virtues of vegetables with journalist Nina Myskow .

Although reluctant to let even the tiniest piece of inferior confectionery pass her lips, artist and musician Yoko Ono reveals why she finally fell in love with one particular food. She explains that one of husband, John's pleasures was chocolate and how it came to comfort her.

A long time devotee of macrobiotics, Yoko tells Nina about the experiences that shaped her tastes: from a Japanese diet low in animal fat to the years, during World War II, when she was evacuated from Tokyo. She made rice and miso soup for her siblings, longed for butter and was forced to barter for food.

Odd then perhaps that several years later she would go on a forty day fast with John Lennon.
She explains why.

Yoko also shares her passion for fish and chips, as well as Korean pickles. And how did she make John eat sushi?

Producer: Tamsin Hughes
A Wise Buddah production for BBC Radio 4.


FRI 00:30 Book of the Week (b03m7z0b)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:45 on Thursday]


FRI 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b03m396b)
The latest shipping forecast.


FRI 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b03m396d)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


FRI 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b03m396g)
The latest shipping forecast.


FRI 05:30 News Briefing (b03m396j)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


FRI 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b03m80qk)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with the Revd Dr Jo Bailey Wells, Chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury.


FRI 05:45 Farming Today (b03m80qm)
This time last year farmer's daughter Caryl Hughes was working 40 hours a week in a hotel. Twelve months on and at the age of just 23, she's now running one of Wales most iconic farms. Llyndy Isaf is a 615 acre chunk of Snowdonia, just below the slopes of Snowdon. It's said to be where the victorious red Welsh dragon slew the white English one. It was bought by the National Trust after a celebrity-led public appeal in 2012 and now the Trust is offering year long scholarships to Welsh young farmers to give them valuable experience of farm management.

Caryl is the first recipient of the Llyndy Isaf scholarship and it's down to her to buy the livestock and set the foundations for the way this land will be farmed for generations to come. Caz Graham went to see how she's getting on.

Produced and presenter by Caz Graham.


FRI 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b03k7177)
Knot

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs.

David Attenborough presents the knot. Knot are dumpy waders which breed in the high Arctic but winter in hundreds of thousands on our estuaries and salt-marshes. Crammed together shoulder to shoulder at the water's edge, you can see how they got their scientific name Calidris canutus...a tribute to King Canute who discovered, despite his best attempts, that he didn't have the power to turn back the tides.


FRI 06:00 Today (b03m80qp)
Former MI5 chief Baroness Eliza Manningham-Buller guest-edits the programme.


FRI 09:00 Desert Island Discs (b03m3nhk)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:15 on Sunday]


FRI 09:45 Book of the Week (b03m80qr)
Love, Nina: Despatches From Family Life

Dissertations, Romance and Subterfuge

Mary Poppins meets Adrian Mole in Nina Stibbe's letters from the heart of 1980s literary London. Dissertation crises, spotting Samuel Beckett and employing subterfuge to save face.

Read by Rebekah Staton
Abridged by Penny Leicester
Produced by Gemma Jenkins.


FRI 10:00 Woman's Hour (b03m80qt)
Older people living together; Gender-based toys; Family films; Women who inspired you

A growing number of older people are living together rather than marrying. The latest figures released by the Office of National Statistics show that the number of over 85s cohabiting doubled in the last decade to 16,000. So why are more older people reluctant to commit to marriage? Sheila is joined by Dr Julia Ryan, Director of Pre-Qualifying Nursing Education at Salford University and by agony aunt, Denise Robertson.

It's that time of year when Christmas lists get written, and one toy which has lasted through the generations is Lego. But, back in January 2012 the toy giant came under fire when it released Lego Friends, a new range aimed specifically at girls. The blocks come in pastel pinks and lilacs, and sets include a beauty salon and a café. Now Lego have also made changes to its monthly magazine, sending different editions to boys and girls - with the girls version focussing specifically on Lego Friends. 10 year old Sakura Gibson from the town of Groomsport in Northern Ireland was so unhappy that her magazine has less choice than her brothers that she decided to write to Lego to get some answers. Mary Harte went to meet her and her family - Dad Stuart, Mum Kirsten and 6 year old brother Jude. We contacted Lego who said: "All LEGO Club members receive a free magazine. We want our Club members to be happy with their choice of magazine and if for any reason, they are not, we are more than happy to send an alternative version as soon as possible if they call our customer services number, which is provided in the magazine." Sheila McClennon speaks to neuroscientist and business coach Dr Laura Nelson who two years ago successfully campaigned to remove boy and girl labelling in the London toy shop Hamleys, and now works to end the gender stereotyping of children. Also joining Sheila is Dave Williams, the European sales director for the toy company Wooky Europe.

For many households, sitting down together to watch a good film on the television is an integral part of celebrating Christmas. Or at least it used to be - increasingly it seems parents bemoan the fact that the family is spread out around the house drawn to watch different films on separate screens. So what qualities make a classic family film at Christmas - which titles, new and old, still have the appeal to get everyone bunched up on the same sofa? Sheila is joined by film critic Antonia Quirke.

All this year we've been celebrating powerful women with our first ever Woman's Hour Power List. You've heard about their achievements and what they've done to get where they are today - there have been some truly inspirational stories. As 2013 draws to a close we've been hearing from you about the woman in your life who inspired you. Professor Helen Berry, professor of history at Newcastle University & organiser of the Inspirational Women of the North East exhibition and Jacqueline Hughes Lundy, founder & organiser of the Inspiring Women Awards join Sheila to discuss what makes someone inspirational.


FRI 10:45 15 Minute Drama (b03mthnm)
The Tales of Beatrix Potter

5. The Tale of Ginger and Pickles

Beatrix Potter's famous tales are celebrated this Christmas.

Her love of the British landscape and its inhabitants - coupled with her world famous ability for storytelling - means she has been one of the most celebrated children's authors of the last hundred years.

This suite of five of her tumultuous tales, including some of the lesser-known stories, brings comedic surprise, comfort and joy to the Christmas audience.

Their timeless wonders pit the delight and childlike innocence of the very human characters against the dark and dramatic ruthlessness of the food-chain-led underbelly of Cumbria's fields and hedgerows.

Stars Reece Shearsmith stars as Ginger with John Henshaw as Pickles.

Adapted and Directed by Sean Grundy

Produced by Sally Harrison
A Woolyback production for BBC Radio 4


FRI 11:00 Extreme Commuting (b03m80qw)
The word 'commuter' was coined in the United States during the early days of rail travel, when reduced or 'commuted' fares were made available to people travelling from outlying areas to work in cities.

This programme tells the story of the modern-day extreme commuters - people who spend more than 3 hours a day travelling to and from work. For some, there is no option but to go where the work is, for others it's a lifestyle choice.

Marcus has chosen to live in deepest Suffolk so his children can have a rural childhood. This means his journey to work can take him up to 6 hours a day involving two trains and a twenty five minute walk.
Meanwhile Marion, a single mother, has no choice but to make a daily, 5 hour return journey from Essex into London.

Some people do it for the work, some for the lifestyle; some hate it, others love it for the freedom and time alone it gives them.

As the numbers of people who are doing extreme commuting looks set to rise, what is the impact on their lives?

Producer: Karen Gregor.


FRI 11:30 The Stanley Baxter Playhouse (b01pt9nc)
Series 5

Hector's House of Windsor

Hector's House of Windsor
By Colin Hough

A warm hearted comedic tribute to the Queen's jubilee year.

The Queen's Scots gillie aids her in a cunning plan to put her unruly prime minister and deputy firmly in their place when they visit her at Windsor and she invites them to join her on a canter round the park.

Her own superior wisdom, cunning and diplomatic skills are revealed while Her Majesty's wise and wily old Scots gillie looks on and enters into the fun.

Stanley Baxter plays the gillie and Phyllida Law takes the imperial role in this affectionate fictional account of what just might have happened when the prime minister of the day and his deputy pay Her Majesty a visit.

Written by Colin Hough
Directed by Marilyn Imrie
A Catherine Bailey production for BBC Radio 4.


FRI 12:00 You and Yours (b03m819w)
Housebuilding and landbanking, foie gras, consumer trends for 2014

Labour Party Leader Ed Miliband is accusing builders of buying and retaining plots of land and so slowing the availability of new homes. NHS England calls for 7 day healthcare to cut mortality rates at weekends; one hospital tells us it's already working. What were the big consumer stories of 2013 and what could happen in 2014? A new scheme to help people with disabilities understand their mobile phones tariffs. And are the French revolting over foie gras?

Presenter: Winifred Robinson
Producer: Pete Wilson.


FRI 12:52 The Listening Project (b03m819z)
Eileen and Amanda - Costume Drama

Fi Glover introduces a conversation between a wardrobe mistress and her assistant about the costumes they sew and their current preparations for The Snow Queen.

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 upload your own conversations or just learn more about The Listening Project by visiting bbc.co.uk/listeningproject

Producer: Marya Burgess.


FRI 12:57 Weather (b03m396l)
The latest weather forecast.


FRI 13:00 World at One (b03m396n)
News and current affairs, presented by Shaun Ley.

As the UK faces more stormy weather, we find out how the transport networks are affected.
A former Lebanon government minister is believed to be among at least five people killed by a bomb in Beirut. We'll hear from the city and ask what may be behind the attack.

The former BP executive - Lord Browne - tells us of his "secret life" as a gay man in the oil industry.


FRI 13:45 One to One (b01sj1sr)
Ritula Shah talks to Dr Michael Irwin

In the third of her interviews on the concept of renunciation, Ritula Shah talks to Dr Michael Irwin about the idea of renouncing life in old age or when faced with a terminal illness. Dr Irwin is a retired GP who campaigns for voluntary euthanasia and has accompanied people to the Swiss clinic Dignitas when they have chosen to end their lives. He talks to Ritula about his belief that people should have a choice as to when and how to die and about his thoughts on the end of his own life.

Producer: Maggie Ayre.


FRI 14:00 The Archers (b03m7zmn)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Thursday]


FRI 14:15 Drama (b011vhdc)
Lavinia Greenlaw - The Chess Girls

The emergence of the Polgar sisters in the 1970s and 80s rocked the chess world. In a heavily male dominated game, the three Hungarian girls broke record after record. The youngest, Judit, was talked of as a potential world champion.

The Chess Girls is the story of their parents, Laszlo and Klara Polgar, and how they defied the Communist authorities to conduct a remarkable educational experiment. Laszlo Polgar, convinced that any healthy child can be trained to become a genius, set out to prove his theory with his own children.

This is a drama-documentary with excerpts from an interview with Laszlo and Klara Polgar recorded for the play. The writer, Lavinia Greenlaw, takes their account and re-creates the lives of the young Polgar family in their tiny Budapest flat. The fictional Laszlo is played by Kerry Shale, and Klara by Sally Orrock.

Director: Chris Ledgard.


FRI 15:00 Gardeners' Question Time (b03m81b1)
The Met Office, Exeter

Peter Gibbs presents a special edition of GQT from The Met Office in Exeter, with Pippa Greenwood, Bunny Guinness and Anne Swithinbank.

As well as answering questions from local gardeners, the panel poses its own questions to scientists who provide weather data for gardeners across the country.

Produced by Howard Shannon.
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.

Questions this week:
Q. Could the panel suggest a slow growing grass requiring a minimum amount of cutting?

A. You could try a grass free lawn. It can be a mixture of up to thirty varieties of low-growing plants. Combine plants such as Thyme, Sedum, Achilleas and low Mints. To start with you may have to cut it eight times across the year. In the second year, you can trim it as little as three times per year. You will have colour throughout the matrix and it will attract many insects. Alternatively, reduce fertility by adding a sandy top-dressing to a fine grass seed mix.

Q. What sort of low maintenance planting would the panel recommend for a manmade, sloping bank in full sun?

A. Make sure that the site is completely weed free, so perhaps leave it fallow for a while.
You can get a lovely ground cover effect with the golden flowering Hypericums or the Potentillas. You could add some bulbs, such as Daffodils, which won't need separating for a number of years.

If you want more of a challenge, sow a perennial meadow that produces a density of ninety plants per square metre. They are designed so that you get a succession of colour from June right through until December. Alternatively, plant hundreds of Lavender cuttings or simply add sheets of Vinka and Ivy. Try planting Aubretia early in the year, followed by Osteospermum flowering for the rest of the summer.


FRI 15:45 Saki (b03m81b3)
The Seventh Pullet

by Saki (Hector Hugh Munro)

When his boring stories of unusually large potatoes fail to elicit any interest at all from fellow travellers on the daily commute, John Blenkinthrope begins to invent increasingly ludicrous and elaborate fantasies. A gently funny story about the diminishing rewards of the daily grind.

Read by Richard Greenwood.

Produced by Allegra McIlroy.


FRI 16:00 The Inheritance Collection 2013 (b03nh34g)
The Revd Richard Coles presents a selection of the stories and music featured on Saturday Live's Inheritance Tracks throughout 2013 from Queen of clean Aggie McKenzie, comedian Graham Fellowes aka John Shuttleworth, soul guitarist George Benson, singer Maria Friedman, musician Gary Barlow, Baroness Doreen Lawrence of Clarendon, Kite Runner author Khaled Hosseini, composer Django Bates, MOBOs founder Kanya King and baking supremo Mary Berry.

Producer: Lizz Pearson.


FRI 16:30 More or Less (b03m81b7)
Numbers of the year

A guide to 2013 in numbers - the most informative, interesting and idiosyncratic statistics of the year discussed by More or Less interviewees.

Contributors: David Spiegelhalter, Winton professor for the public understanding of risk at Cambridge University; Linda Yueh, BBC chief business correspondent; Simon Singh, author of The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets; Dr Pippa Malmgren, president and founder of Principalis Asset Management; Paul Lewis; presenter of BBC Radio 4's Money Box programme; Dr Hannah Fry, Centre of the Advanced Spatial Analysis at University College London; Merryn Somerset-Webb, editor-in-chief of MoneyWeek; Helen Arney, comedian.

Producer: Ben Carter.


FRI 16:56 The Listening Project (b03m81b9)
Antonio and Leondre - Father's Footsteps

Fi Glover introduces a conversation between a 12-year-old rapper with a social conscience and his father, who has passed on his passion for music, family life and social justice.

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 upload your own conversations or just learn more about The Listening Project by visiting bbc.co.uk/listeningproject

Producer: Marya Burgess.


FRI 17:00 PM (b03m81bc)
Full coverage and analysis of the day's news.


FRI 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b03m396q)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


FRI 18:15 15 Minute Musical (b03m81bf)
Series 8

Heaven Knows I'm Middle-Aged Now

A series of satirical, barbed, bittersweet fifteen-minute comedy musicals.

With over thirty musicals selling out in the West End night after night - the British public (and the Radio 4 audience) cannot get enough of them, therefore ...

In true West End style, artistic licence is well and truly taken and stretched, as easily identifiable public figures are dressed up, gilded, fabricated and placed against a random musical backdrop for sugar coated consumption. The stories are simple and engaging but with an edge - allowing the audience to enjoy all the conventions of a musical (huge production numbers, tender ballads and emotional reprises) whilst we completely re-interpret events in major celebrities' lives.

Beautifully crafted with astronomically high production values 15 Minute Musical does for your ears what chocolate does for your taste buds. All in fifteen minutes!

Winner of the Writers Guild of Great Britain Radio Comedy Award this series provides an energy boost and a seasonal treat at 1815 over the Christmas week.

Other episodes include:

Ra Ra It's Puti
A camp look at Russia's greatest love machine.

The Last Days of Farage
Nigel Farage goes to Europe with a Britpop soundtrack.

Half A Sixth Form
Michael Gove has a licence to teach.

Julian And The Assanging Technicolour Download
An overly dramatic and musical look at Julian Assange.

It's A One-Hit-Wonderful Life
Simon Cowell contemplates ending his career until his guardian angel Susan Boyle appears to show him life without Cowell - It's A Wonderful Life.

Heaven Knows I'm Middle-Aged Now

Cast: Richie Webb, Dave Lamb and Pippa Evans.
Written by: Dave Cohen, David Quantick and Richie Webb
Music Composed, Performed and Arranged by: Richie Webb
Music Production: Matt Katz
Producer: Katie Tyrrell.


FRI 18:30 Chain Reaction (b03m81pm)
Series 9

Terry Christian talks to Kevin Bridges

Manchester's very own Terry Christian talks to Scotland's comedy superstar Kevin Bridges.

Chain Reaction is the long-running host-less chat show where last week's interviewee becomes this week's interviewer.

Producer: Carl Cooper

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2013.


FRI 19:00 The Archers (b03m81pp)
Despite her nerves about the show, Lynda shares her joy at Tom and Kirsty's news, asking for details. Tom hints at a Spring wedding.

Helen's hanging by her phone. Kirsty asks if she's ok and Helen plays it cool.

Leonie's angry at James for ambushing her yesterday. Lynda tells her she must speak to James. She's unhappy that Leonie isn't coming to see her production tonight.

James visits Leonie, who reluctantly lets him in to say his piece. To her surprise, James has made a decision. Despite his apprehension about being a father, he'll support her in whatever she wants to do. They can face the challenge together.

There's a full house at the village hall for Robin Hood. Helen's distracted by a call from Rob, who asks Helen to meet him after the show. As the curtain falls, Lynda's full of praise for her stars Kirsty and Tom. Leonie and James show up, fully reconciled. They tell thrilled Lynda their plan to become parents.

Rob shocks Helen with the news that it's all over between him and Jess. He wants a divorce and to be with Helen. Helen asks why she should believe him. Rob pleads with her to give him another chance.


FRI 19:15 Front Row (b03m81pr)
The Young Popstars of 2013

John Wilson presents a special programme in which he talks to leading young performers about the commercial and creative pressures of starting out in the industry. Including James Blake, Laura Marling and Jake Bugg.


FRI 19:45 15 Minute Drama (b03mthnm)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:45 today]


FRI 20:00 With Great Pleasure (b03m7p14)
[Repeat of broadcast at 12:00 on Wednesday]


FRI 20:50 A Point of View (b03mckql)
Two Cheers for Human Rights

John Gray gives only two cheers for human rights. We are in danger, he argues, of turning them into a "comforting dogma through which we try to escape the painful dilemmas of war and politics."

"Rather than thinking of rights as a militant creed that can deliver the world from its conflicts, we should recognise rights for what they are - useful devices that quite often don't work.".


FRI 21:00 Saturday Drama (b01pgnbt)
Red Shoes

This dark tale collected by Hans Christian Andersen is reimagined for radio by Frances Byrnes and stars Lizzy Watts as the teenage Karen whose vanity and skittishness compel her to demand a forbidden pair of red shoes. But as she had been warned on countless occasions, the red shoes are so imbued with sin and lasciviousness that they utterly destroy her both spiritually and corporally. In so doing, this version of The Red Shoes shirks none of Anderson's ruthlessness or darkness. Fairytale this may be but its bleak warning against wanton behaviour under threat of a violent and bloody demise, holds nothing back from young and old alike.

In The Red Shoes is reimagined for Radio by Frances Byrnes.

The Red Shoes was directed in Belfast by Eoin O'Callaghan.


FRI 21:58 Weather (b03m396s)
The latest weather forecast.


FRI 22:00 The World Tonight (b03m820c)
With Philippa Thomas

The assassination of a moderate voice in Lebanon

Transport chaos and power cuts in the UK

A Greenpeace protestor home after 2 months in a Russian prison tells us it was all worth it.


FRI 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b03m820f)
The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed out of the Window and Disappeared

Episode 5

A picaresque tale of a centenarian, police and thieves, and moments in world history. As his mother put it, "Things are what they are, and whatever will be will be."

At 100 years-old, Allan Karlsson is a reluctant birthday boy. In the old people's home they've prepared a party for him. The Mayor and the local press will be there. But this party never gets started. Still in his bedroom slippers, Allan makes his getaway through the window and begins an unlikely adventure.

Allan is no stranger to adventure, as the stories of his earlier life reveal - a life in which he dined with world leaders such as Franco, Truman and Stalin and found himself behind the scenes during major events of the twentieth century.

Jonas Jonasson was born in 1961 in Vaxjö, Sweden. After starting up and then running the successful media company OTW for twenty years, he sold the business and moved to Switzerland. There he completed The Hundred-year-Old Man Who Climbed Out Of The Window And Disappeared. Jonas lives on the island of Gotland in Sweden.

Translated by Rod Bradbury.

Episode 5:
Allan, Julius and Benny have found temporary refuge at Lake Farm with The Beauty, her dog and her elephant. But Chief Inspector Aronsson is on their case. We also learn about Allan's contribution to the Manhattan Project in the 1940s.

Reader: Martin Jarvis
Abridger: Jeremy Osborne

Producer: Rosalynd Ward
A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4.


FRI 23:00 Great Lives (b03m79cx)
[Repeat of broadcast at 16:30 on Tuesday]


FRI 23:27 Neil Gaiman - Neverwhere (b01rbsc4)
The Angel Islington

Beneath the streets of London there is another London. A subterranean labyrinth of sewers and abandoned tube stations. A somewhere that is Neverwhere.

An act of kindness sees Richard Mayhew catapulted from his ordinary life into a subterranean world under the streets of London. Stopping to help an injured girl on a London street, Richard is thrust from his workaday existence into the strange world of London Below.

So begins a curious and mysterious adventure deep beneath the streets of London, a London of shadows where the tube cry of 'Mind the Gap' takes on new meaning; for the inhabitants of this murky domain are those who have fallen through the gaps in society, the dispossessed, the homeless. Here Richard meets the Earl of Earl's Court, Old Bailey and Hammersmith, faces a life-threatening ordeal at the hands of the Black Friars, comes face to face with Great Beast of London, and encounters an Angel. Called Islington.

Joining the mysterious girl named Door and her companions, the Marquis de Carabas and the bodyguard, Hunter, Richard embarks on an extraordinary quest to escape from the clutches of the fiendish assassins Croup and Vandemar and to discover who ordered them to murder her family. All the while trying to work out how to get back to his old life in London Above.

A six part adaption of Neil Gaiman's novel adapted by Dirk Maggs, sees James McAvoy as Richard lead a stellar cast which includes Natalie Dormer, David Harewood, Sophie Okonedo, Benedict Cumberbatch, Christopher Lee, Anthony Head, David Schofield, Bernard Cribbins, Romola Garai, George Harris, Andrew Sachs, Lucy Cohu, Johnny Vegas, Paul Chequer, Don Gilet and Abdul Salis.


FRI 23:55 The Listening Project (b03m820h)
Abi - Talking to Catherine

Fi Glover introduces a mother who is finally able to put into words all that she wishes she'd said while her daughter was still alive.

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 upload your own conversations or just learn more about The Listening Project by visiting bbc.co.uk/listeningproject

Producer: Marya Burgess.