SATURDAY 29 NOVEMBER 2014

SAT 00:00 Midnight News (b04pr5g3)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.


SAT 00:30 Book of the Week (b04snl1n)
My Life in Houses

Inside My House, I Can Cope

As Margaret Forster's struggle with cancer continues, she reflects the importance of home, and why, inside her own home, she can cope.

I was born on May 25, 1938, in the front bedroom of a house in Orton Road, on the outer edges of Raffles, a council estate. I was a lucky girl.'

So began Margaret Forster's journey through the houses she's lived in, from the sparkling new council house, built as part of a utopian vision by Carlisle City Council, to her beloved London house of today, via Oxford, Hampstead and the Lake District. As well as a poignant reflection on home and the effect of home on us, My Life in Houses is also a sideways look at the life of one of the greatest contemporary British novelists.

Concluded by Sian Thomas.

Writer: Margaret Forster
Abridger: Sally Marmion

Producer: Justine Willett

First broadcast on BBC Radio in November 2014.


SAT 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b04pr5g5)
The latest shipping forecast.


SAT 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b04pr5g7)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service. BBC Radio 4 resumes at 5.20am.


SAT 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b04pr5g9)
The latest shipping forecast.


SAT 05:30 News Briefing (b04pr5gc)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


SAT 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b04pvq0g)
Spiritual reflection to start the day with The Revd Alison Jack.


SAT 05:45 iPM (b04pr5gf)
'I have been a hermit now for 8 years.' Eddie Mair goes to North Wales to visit a listener in his hermitage to find out about his life and what he's searching for. Presented by Eddie Mair and Jennifer Tracey. iPM@bbc.co.uk.


SAT 06:00 News and Papers (b04pr5gh)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.


SAT 06:04 Weather (b04pr5gk)
The latest weather forecast.


SAT 06:07 Open Country (b04pvdhh)
Brownsea Island, Dorset

After a trip to Brownsea Island in 1818, George, the Prince Regent declared "'I had no idea I had such a delightful spot in my kingdom'. It may only be 1.5 miles long and 0.75 miles wide but this 500 acre island is full of history, mystery and wildlife.

Felicity Evans takes a boat across and meets Claire Dixon of The National Trust, who took over the island in 1963.

As Claire explains, many previous inhabitants have left their mark on Brownsea. Colonel Waugh and his wife Mary were walking along the beach in the early 19th century when she got her umbrella stuck in the sand, pulled it out and discovered clay. They built the village of Maryland and started a pottery. At a newly excavated site, you can see some of the cottages that were built for the potters. She also tells the story of the eccentric recluse, Mrs Mary Bonham Christie who threw all the inhabitants off the island and patrolled the beaches with a shotgun. She handed it back to nature and for 45 years, animals, birds and the rhododendron ran wild.

Then it's a walk to spot red squirrels with ranger John Lamming, who's lived on the island for over 30 years. Brownsea is one of the few places you can see this highly protected animal and in autumn they are easy to spot, burying food on the woodland floor.

Felicity then heads to a low hide over the saltwater lagoon, to meet Reserve manager, Chris Thain, of the Dorset Wildlife Trust to see and hear about the huge diversity of birds that frequent this area.
Finally, to the flattest part of the island where Lord Baden Powell hosted his first experimental Scout camp in 1907. Next to a huge memorial stone to the movement, Scout Commissioner, Kevin Philips explains how Brownsea is still visited by thousands of Scouts and Guides every year. Youth group leader and Girl Guide, Amanda Shorey encourages Felicity to have a go at den building, low ropes and archery, just some of the activities going on in The Outdoor Centre.

Presenter: Felicity Evans
Producer: Julia Hayball.


SAT 06:30 Farming Today (b04stc5q)
Next Generation

Sybil Ruscoe meets some of the next generation of farmers at the Fertile Minds event in Cumbria. 150 young farmers meet to discuss ways into the industry, the support available and how to tackle the thorny issue of succession. We hear from a couple who've won the opportunity to take on a starter farm in Scotland, and from apprentices in East Anglia. And Environment Minister Lord de Mauley explains what the government is doing to help the next generation into the agriculture industry.


SAT 06:57 Weather (b04pr5gm)
The latest weather forecast.


SAT 07:00 Today (b04stc5s)
Morning news and current affairs. Including Yesterday in Parliament, Sports Desk, Thought for the Day and Weather.


SAT 09:00 Saturday Live (b04stc5v)
Listener Week with Steve Backshall

In a special programme for Saturday Live's Listener Week, wildlife presenter Steve Backshall joins Aasmah Mir and Richard Coles to talk intricate animal communities, how he earned his nickname 'manure boy' and whether his sequined onesie is to be retired forever.

Also with us are listener Simon Digby who got in touch about a series of stories about things he got up to when he was young that he never told his mother. David Heydecker told us that he usually spends his Saturday mornings listening to Saturday Live whilst elbow deep in bread dough. This week he's sharing with us the fruits of his labour and also how his community benefits. Martin Greenough also wrote to us about how his Saturday mornings, evangelising about his local ParkRun meet. We sent reporter Geoff Bird off to see if he would be similarly inspired.

JP Devlin has been to visit the extraordinary Pembrokeshire community of Llangwm who have come together to create and perform an opera to celebrate the centenary of WW1. As a military wife Cat Williams has lived in countless different communities and countries. As well as being a listener she is also a trained counsellor.

Su Chard is an independent celebrant who is passionate about encouraging fellow listeners to pass down family stories to get the send-off you want. We also have an Inheritance Tracks from listener Ailsa Harris. She chooses Que sera sera by Doris Day and Sir Duke by Stevie Wonder.

Deadly Pole to Pole with Steve Backshall returns to your screens Saturday on BBC 2 between 10-11am.

Producer: Alex Lew
Editor: Karen Dalzie.


SAT 10:30 The Frequency of Laughter: A History of Radio Comedy (b04stc5x)
1995-2000

The Frequency of Laughter is a six-part history of radio comedy, covering 1975-2005, presented by journalist and radio fan Grace Dent. In each episode she brings together two figures who were making significant radio comedy at the same time, and asks them about their experiences. This is a conversational history that focuses on the people who were there and the atmosphere within the BBC and the wider comedy world that allowed them to make great radio - or not.

This penultimate edition features producer Paul Schlesinger, who spent the late 1990s making shows such as the Sunday Format, People Like Us and Absolute Power before leaving to make television, returning in 2005 to become Head of Radio Comedy; it also features Meera Syal whose Radio 4 sketch show Goodness Gracious Me was the first British Asian comedy hit, later transferring to BBC Two. Grace asks them about the atmosphere within the Radio Comedy department and the attitude of TV Comedy department towards it; they discuss the BBC's reaction to the wide range of Black and Asian talent breaking through; and they discuss what it is about media parodies that works so well on radio.

The Frequency of Laughter is presented by Grace Dent, a journalist for The Independent, and is a BBC Radio Comedy production.

Presenter ... Grace Dent
Guest ... Paul Schlesinger
Guest ... Meera Syal
Interviewee ... Andrew Caspari
Interviewee ... Peter Fincham

Producers ... Ed Morrish & Alexandra Smith.


SAT 11:00 The Week in Westminster (b04stc5z)
Helen Lewis of the New Statesman considers politicians and promises. What's the new SNP leader, Nicola Sturgeon, like? And a paean of praise by the former speaker, Betty Boothroyd, for the Palace of Westminster.

The editor is Peter Mulligan.


SAT 11:30 From Our Own Correspondent (b04pr5gp)
The Buckwheat Barometer

Despatches. Steve Rosenberg sets out to discover who the Russian public holds responsible for rising prices and the ailing rouble? Owen Bennett Jones has a series of encounters in Tunis which offer clues to the direction in which the country's heading. Germany takes in more refugees than any other EU country - Jenny Hill in Munich says it's costing a huge amount and there's uncertainty over who will pay the bills. The giant tortoises on the Galapagos Islands may be used to playing a long game but Horatio Clare, who's just been visiting, says the islands' human residents are having to prepare for change. And Carolyn Brown has been finding out why a steady stream of travellers is choosing to stop off at a small town in the north of France.


SAT 12:00 News Summary (b04pr5gr)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


SAT 12:04 Money Box (b04stc61)
Falling savings interest rates; New tax powers for Scotland

Net Interest Margin (NIM) is something which features more and more often in the financial reports of our banks. That's because it represents the difference between the interest rate financial institutions charge on loans and the interest rates they offer to savers. The higher NIM is, the more likely it is that banks' profits will be high too. With Quantitative Easing, and then Funding for Lending, banks don't need to attract the funds of ordinary savers which explains why saver accounts pay such low levels of interest. So NIM is high, you can guess the rest.

More than a dozen listeners tell us that their credit card has been used by fraudsters shortly after they have reserved a hotel room through booking.com. We talk to a security expert about problems of keeping data secure in the travel industry.

The Financial Conduct Authority says it has three worries about credit cards: Is there effective competition? Are all different types of cardholders being treated fairly? Is there anything to stop credit card firms providing expensive and unaffordable lending? Christopher Woolard, the FCA's director of policy, risk and research, explains why it's embarked on a study of the credit card market and we ask when the findings will be implemented.

Scotland will get almost full control over income tax under devo-max plans by the Smith Commission published this week which all main parties are committed to implementing after the General Election (now barely five months away). Other things will devolve too, including some social security benefits, other taxes and voting age. The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland tells us how leaky they think the the border will be?


SAT 12:30 The News Quiz (b04pvp89)
Series 85

Episode 6

A satirical review of the week's news, chaired by Sandi Toksvig, who is joined by Rebecca Front, Hugo Rifkind and Andrew Maxwell, alongside regular panellist Jeremy Hardy.


SAT 12:57 Weather (b04pr5gt)
The latest weather forecast.


SAT 13:00 News (b04pr5gw)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


SAT 13:10 Any Questions? (b04pvp8h)
Natalie Bennett, Alan Johnson MP, Mark Reckless MP, Baroness Stowell

Jonathan Dimbleby presents political debate and discussion from the Skegness Academy School in Lincolnshire with the Leader of the Green Party Natalie Bennett, former Home Secretary Alan Johnson MP, the new UKIP MP for Rochester and Strood in Kent, Mark Reckless, and the Leader of the House of Lords Baroness Stowell.

If you would like tickets to Any Questions in Skegness on 28th November 2014 then please email any.questions@bbc.co.uk.


SAT 14:00 Any Answers? (b04pr5gy)
Immigration, C of E, green energy

Listeners have their say on the issues discussed on Any Questions? with Anita Anand.

Your views on David Cameron's immigration speech, should readings from the Qur'an be included in Prince Charles' coronation, and the cost of green energy.


SAT 14:30 Saturday Drama (b04stc63)
The Havana Quartet by Leonardo Padura

Havana Red

by Leonardo Padura
adapted by Jennifer Howarth

Lieutenant Mario Conde's fondly held prejudices are tested by this case involving a man found strangled in Havana Woods wearing a beautiful red dress. A dramatisation of the third story in the Havana Quartet.

Cast:

Mario Conde ..... Zubin Varla
Rangel ..... David Westhead
Manolo ..... Lanre Malaolu
Fatman/ Salvador K ..... Shaun Mason
Miki ..... Jude Akuwudike
Matilde ..... Elaine Claxton
Dulcina ..... Lorna Gayle
Alberto Marques ..... Michael Cochrane
Father Mendoza ..... David Acton
Faustino ..... Sam Dale
Alquimio/ Lab Man ..... Ian Conningham
Polly ..... Roslyn Hill

directed by Mary Peate

Leonardo Padura is a novelist and journalist who was born in 1955 in Havana where he still lives. He has published a number of short-story collections and literary essays but he is best known internationally for the Havana Quartet series, all featuring Inspector Mario Conde.

In 1998, Padura won the Hammett Prize from the International Association of Crime Writers and in 2012 he was awarded the National Prize for Literature, Cuba's national literary award.


SAT 15:30 Soul Music (b04ps556)
Series 19

Gracias a la Vida

Gracias A La Vida - thank you to life - is a song that means a lot to many people around the world. Recorded by artists as diverse as Joan Baez and the magnificent Mercedes Sosa, the song reflects the bittersweet nature of life's joys and sadnesses. To the people of Chile where it was written in 1966 by Violetta Parra, it has become an anthem that brings people together in times of trouble. One man who was tortured and imprisoned under the Pinochet regime in 1973 recalls how playing the song on guitar in prison for other inmates helped keep their spirits and hopes alive under the most brutal circumstances. Australian writer and actor Ailsa Piper recalls being gifted the words to Gracias A La Vida by a fellow walker along one of the holy routes in Spain, and how the song has become a poignant reminder of the fragility of life.

Producer: Maggie Ayre.


SAT 16:00 Woman's Hour (b04stc65)
Weekend Woman's Hour: Listener Week

A week of programmes inspired by our listeners. One woman tells us of the devastating impact pornography is having on her marriage - Paula Hall gives advice. 15 year old Immie on her body confidence campaign. Adam asks how he should tackle sexist attitudes at work on building sites. Lawyer turned country singer, Rebecca Bains sings Passing Us By. Three social workers discuss why they love their job. Paula McGuire on how trying all the Commonwealth Sports has boosted her confidence. Listeners Jane and Nicola review the Woman's Hour Listener Week.

Presented by Jane Garvey.
Produced by Sophie Powling
Edited by Jane Thurlow.


SAT 17:00 PM (b04pr5h0)
Saturday PM

Full coverage of the day's news.


SAT 17:30 iPM (b04pr5gf)
[Repeat of broadcast at 05:45 today]


SAT 17:54 Shipping Forecast (b04pr5h2)
The latest shipping forecast.


SAT 17:57 Weather (b04pr5h4)
The latest weather forecast.


SAT 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b04pr5h6)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


SAT 18:15 Loose Ends (b04stc67)
Emma Freud, Ronan Keating, Rafe Spall, Jack Thorne, Sara Pascoe, Andreya Triana, Asgeir

RONAN KEATING talks to Clive about playing the lead in 'Once'; the musical about a chance encounter between a girl and guy from different worlds but with a shared love of music. RAFE SPALL explains how he relates to his role as ex-con Steve, in Christmas feel-good movie 'Get Santa'. Emma Freud chats to theatre and screenwriter JACK THORNE about his latest play 'Hope', a scathing fable which attacks the squeeze on local government, examines our disillusionment with the current political parties and asks where we go from here. And comedian SARA PASCOE, star of Live at the Apollo, QI, Never Mind The Buzzcocks, Mock The Week, W1A and Twenty Twelve tells Clive why her first nationwide tour is called Sara Pascoe V History. With music from Asgeir who performs 'King and Cross' from his album 'In The Silence - Deluxe Edition' and from Andreya Triani who performs 'Everything You Never Had Pt. II'

Producer: Sukey Firth.


SAT 19:00 Profile (b04stc69)
Arminka Helic

One of the less likely political partnerships of recent years has been that of the Conservative Foreign Secretary William Hague and the Hollywood actor and director Angelina Jolie.

They joined forces three years ago to campaign against rape as a weapon of war, and jointly hosted an international conference in London last summer.

This week Mark Coles profiles the woman who brought them together; a refugee from Bosnia who has just taken her seat in the House of Lords. She is Arminka Helic, for ten years a special adviser to William Hague.

Hague himself tells us how in 2011 Helic brought Jolie's film "In The Land of Blood and Honey" to him, a film that portrays the tactical use of mass rape against civilians. Helic told him it was a film he needed to watch.

Producers: Tim Mansel and Hannah Moor.


SAT 19:15 Saturday Review (b04pr5h8)
William Gibson; Marco Polo; Chimera; Conflict Time Photography; Concerning Violence

William Gibson's novel The Peripheral is set in 2 dystopian futures filled with drugs, 3D printers, high-tech surveillance and various legally dubious practices. When readers are immersed in a complete universe of newness, how do they orientate themselves?
Netflix newest production is an epic adventure series (10 x 60 minutes) telling the story of Marco Polo; full of spectacle, does it have substance or is it an Oriental Game of Thrones?
London's Gate Theatre is staging Chimera - a play about DNA, genetic inheritance and kitchens
Tate Modern's exhibition Conflict Time Photography looks at the relationship between photography and sites of conflict over time - eschewing chronological arrangement, it is displayed instead according to how soon after the event the photograph was taken - from moments to a century later.
Concerning Violence is a documentary that deals with the struggle for independence of former colonies - how can they free themselves from the yoke of oppression?
Tom Sutcliffe is joined by Bidisha, Jim White and Alice Jones. The producer is Oliver Jones.


SAT 20:00 Archive on 4 (b04stc6c)
Singing Together

Jarvis Cocker sets out on a musical journey to trace the history of Singing Together, the long-running BBC Schools radio programme which got generations of children singing. He uncovers the stories of those who made the programme, listened as children, and used it in their classrooms. Together they remember Monday mornings at 11am, when pupils up and down the country opened their song books and gathered round as teachers wheeled out their classroom radios.

He delves into the archive to uncover the origins of the programme, hearing the first presenter, Herbert Wiseman, describe how he started the series at the outbreak of the Second World War as a way of reaching out to children at a time when many had been evacuated. Wartime teacher Brenda Jenkins, who used Singing Together with her class of evacuees, remembers how 'singing always helped'

Jarvis explores the power of singing to bringing people together. He also uncovers the origins of the folk songs used in the programme and traces how it changed though the 1960s and 70's, opening up to musical traditions from around the world. He reflects on the impact of the long running series - which gave many their first introduction to folk heritage- with award winning musician Eliza Carthy.

And he asks why recordings of this hugely popular series were not preserved for posterity. Only a handful of episodes survive in the BBC archive but, with the help of a small community of collectors, he sets out to find some of the missing episodes.

Producer: Ruth Evans
Editor: David Ross.


SAT 21:00 The Once and Future King (b04pr7k0)
The Queen of Air and Darkness

Brian Sibley's dramatisation of T. H. White's classic retelling of the King Arthur story continues. Rebels led by King Lot and Queen Morgause of Orkney challenge Arthur's claim to the throne. As war draws nearer, darker more personal motives for bringing Arthur down emerge.

Other parts are played by members of the cast.

Original music by Elizabeth Purnell
Directors: Gemma Jenkins, Marc Beeby and David Hunter.


SAT 22:00 News and Weather (b04pr5hb)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4, followed by weather.


SAT 22:15 The Reith Lectures (b04bsgvm)
Dr Atul Gawande: The Future of Medicine

Why Do Doctors Fail?

Surgeon and writer Atul Gawande explores the nature of fallibility and suggests that preventing avoidable mistakes is a key challenge for the future of medicine.

Through the story of a life-threatening condition which affected his own baby son, Dr. Gawande suggests that the medical profession needs to understand how best to deploy the enormous arsenal of knowledge which it has acquired. And his challenge for global health is to address the inequalities in access to resources and expertise both within and between countries.

This first of four lectures was recorded before an audience at the John F Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Dr. Gawande's home town of Boston in Massachusetts. The other lectures are recorded in London, Edinburgh and Delhi.

The series is introduced and chaired by Sue Lawley. The producer is Jim Frank.


SAT 23:00 Counterpoint (b04prj0x)
Series 28

Semi-Final 1, 2014

(10/13)
Paul Gambaccini is back in the questionmaster's chair as the 2014 season of the annual music quiz reaches the semi-final stage. Three heats winners from earlier in the series return to compete for a coveted place in the Counterpoint Final.

The competition may get stiffer but the rules don't change: and each of the semi-finalists will have to choose a special musical topic on which to answer individual questions, with no prior warning of what the subjects are going to be.

This week's contestants are from the London area and from Derbyshire.

Producer: Paul Bajoria.


SAT 23:30 Woods Beyond a Cornfield (b04prbfc)
A beautiful, dark poem by Stanley Cook - a Yorkshireman - about events in the edgelands where he grew up. It evokes the translucent beauty of South Yorkshire and its harshness - especially the inhabitants' hard working lives. Threaded through it is the murder of a local girl who, "lost for something to do", plays truant one day, only to be killed by a local man.

Cook couldn't abide poverty being romanticised. He cared about people who suffered hardship and returned home from his Oxford scholarship with clear-sighted passion. He has influenced Yorkshire writers including his publisher, Peter Sansom of the Poetry Business in Sheffield, who was mentored and taught by Cook.

Liz White (Chrysothemis in Electra at the Old Vic and star of TV's Our Zoo and Life on Mars), Richard Stacey (Alan Ayckbourn regular), young Ruby-May Martinwood and the folk musician and political activist, Ray Hearne, read Stanley Cook's heartfelt poem - with a soundtrack recorded in South Yorkshire through the Autumn.

Produced by Frances Byrnes
A Rockethouse production for BBC Radio 4.



SUNDAY 30 NOVEMBER 2014

SUN 00:00 Midnight News (b04stdrk)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.


SUN 00:30 A Shepherd in London (b03s6jv9)
Looking for Angels

Episode 2: Looking for Angels by Sarah Salway

In the 1920s and 30s, sheep were used in London parks to keep the grass down. Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens, Clapham Common and Hampstead Heath all had sheep grazing on them, and there was much competition between shepherds to get their flocks chosen for the privilege. There was considerable profit to be made too - for when they were good and fat, the sheep were herded to Smithfield Meat Market to be prepared for the table.

In Looking for Angels, writer Sarah Salway has George Donald, a shepherd from Aberdeenshire, visit an Open Air School for children with TB, which existed on Clapham Common in the 1920s. Accompanied by his flock (and his faithful dog Birk), George befriends both staff and pupils, including a young schoolmaster suffering from shell shock, and a Cockney girl who proves herself an able shepherdess.

Reader: Bill Paterson
Producer: David Blount
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.


SUN 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b04stdrn)
The latest shipping forecast.


SUN 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b04stdrs)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service. BBC Radio 4 resumes at 5.20am.


SUN 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b04stdrv)
The latest shipping forecast.


SUN 05:30 News Briefing (b04stds0)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


SUN 05:43 Bells on Sunday (b04stgy8)
The bells of the Church of St Mary and St Benedict, Buckland Brewer in Devon.


SUN 05:45 Profile (b04stc69)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Saturday]


SUN 06:00 News Headlines (b04stds4)
The latest national and international news.


SUN 06:05 Something Understood (b04stgyd)
As I Was Young and Easy

John McCarthy explores the sense of timeless wonder that we can experience in childhood. Unravelling Dylan Thomas's poem Fern Hill, where delight and joy run carefree alongside the poignant tension of time's relentless force, John asks if these temporary moments of grace are mere fleeting illusion or whether they have a deeper significance.

Is a sense of being immersed in one's surroundings the preserve of a child growing up in a rural idyll, or can city children experience this too?

John joins the former Children's Laureate and author of War Horse and Private Peaceful, Michael Morpurgo, in Devon where he runs Farms for City Children. He shares his insights into what moments of escape from time can give children and how they can sustain us for the rest of our lives.

And Camila Batmanghelidjh, psychotherapist and founder of Kids Company (an organisation that provides support to vulnerable children and young people), reveals the emotional and environmental conditions that allow children's imaginations to flourish - where a state of 'merger' becomes 'the start of spiritual life'.

Readings range from Ted Hughes to Raymond Carver, and Arthur Ransome to Arundhati Roy. Music includes excerpts from Debussy, Catrin Finch and Seckou Keita, and Yann Tiersen.

Picture credit: Nick Hedges

Readers: Guy Masterson and Chetna Pandya

Produced by Ruth Abrahams

A Whistledown Production for BBC Radio 4.


SUN 06:35 On Your Farm (b04stgyg)
The End of an Era in Dairy

It's the end of an era at Cherry Oaks Farm in Shropshire, as Neil and Jayne Madeley say goodbye to their dairy herd after thirty years of milking. They've been forced to sell their prize-winning cattle because of the falling price of milk. The ripples caused by the volatile global commodity market have hit their 150 acre farm at the foot of the Shropshire Hills, and they can no longer balance the books. Sybil Ruscoe meets the Madeleys as they dismantle a lifetime's work as dairy farmers.


SUN 06:57 Weather (b04stds6)
The latest weather forecast.


SUN 07:00 News and Papers (b04stds8)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.


SUN 07:10 Sunday (b04stgyn)
Pope in Turkey, Lord Fowler and Silent Night

Caroline Wyatt reports from Istanbul on the Pope's visit to Turkey and Dorian Jones looks at what the Pope's efforts for unification mean for Christians on both sides of the divide.
Kevin Bocquet reports on four Black churches in London who have opened HIV testing clinics to help diagnose Black African men and women who currently have the highest rate of HIV infection in the UK. Followed by Lord Fowler who says all churches should be doing more in the fight against HIV/AIDS.
William Crawley talks to Bishop Larry Jones from St Louis about the events in Ferguson this week as the US comes to terms with some of the worse civil rights unrest in years.
This week the House of Lords debated the role of religion in public life as part of the public consultation for the Commission for Religion and Belief in British Public Life. Commission members Andrew Copson and Ed Kessler discuss.
As The Simpson celebrate 25th years, William explores the theological highlights of the show with Mark Pinsky the author of author of "The Gospel According to The Simpsons: The Spiritual Life of the World's Most Animated Family."
Football stadiums and other venues are preparing to hold Silent Night Carol Services in December to remember the Christmas day truce in 1914 , and we reveal the new version of Silent night.

Producers
Carmel Lonergan
David Cook

Editor
Amanda Hancox

Contributors
Lord Norman Fowler
Andrew Copson, The British Humanist Association
Ed Kessler, The Woolf Institute
Roy Crown, The Christian charity HOPE Together
Matt Baker, Sports Chaplaincy UK
Mark Pinsky, Author and religious journalist
Bishop Larry Jones from St Louis.


SUN 07:55 Radio 4 Appeal (b04stgyr)
Motivation

Michael Palin presents The Radio 4 Appeal for Motivation, a charity working mainly in developing countries, to support disabled people to stay healthy, get mobile and play an active part in their communities.
Registered Charity No 1079358
To Give:
- Freephone 0800 404 8144
- Freepost BBC Radio 4 Appeal, mark the back of the envelope 'Motivation'
- Cheques should be made payable to 'Motivation'.


SUN 07:57 Weather (b04stdsb)
The latest weather forecast.


SUN 08:00 News and Papers (b04stdsf)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.


SUN 08:10 Sunday Worship (b04stgyt)
For the first Sunday in Advent and St Andrew's Day.
From St Salvator's Chapel in the University of St Andrews.
Theme: 'We are the clay and you are our potter' With the University Chaplain, The Revd Donald MacEwan
St Salvator's Chapel Choir directed by Thomas Wilkinson
Readings: Isaiah 64:1-9
Mark1: 16-20
Hymns: O Come, O come Emmanuel
God is our refuge and our strength (Stroudwater)
Sing of Andrew, John's disciple (Nettleton)
Lo, he comes with clouds descending (Helmsley)
Anthems: I look from afar (Matin Responsory)
A spotless rose (Howells)
Producer: Mo McCullough.


SUN 08:48 A Point of View (b04pvp8k)
Thinking the Unthinkable

John Gray argues that "thinking the unthinkable" as a way of making policy does nothing more than extend conventional wisdom to the point of absurdity and fails to take account of the complexities of reality. "Capitalism has lurched into a crisis from which it still has not recovered. Yet the worn-out ideology of free markets sets the framework within which our current generation of leaders continues to think and act."

Producer: Sheila Cook.


SUN 08:58 Tweet of the Day (b04mlvyz)
Great Snipe

Tweet of the Day is the voice of birds and our relationship with them, from around the world.

Chris Packham presents the superbly camouflaged great snipe of Eastern Europe. A thin drizzle of tinkling notes mingled with rhythmic tapping drifts across a Polish marsh in spring a sign that great male snipes are displaying. Great snipe are wading birds with short legs and very long two-toned bills, which they use to probe bogs and wet ground for worms. Across much of Europe having newly returned from its sub-Saharan wintering grounds a number of northern and eastern European marshes, set stage as breeding sites for the larger, great snipe. They court females at traditional lekking or displaying grounds where several males vie for attention. Perched on a small mound, males gather at sunset to fan their white outer tail feathers, puff out their chests and produce a medley of very un-wader-like calls. The females, looking for a mate, are attracted to the dominant males at the centre of the lek.


SUN 09:00 Broadcasting House (b04stgyw)
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 (b04stgyy)
Writer ..... Keri Davies
Director ..... Rosemary Watts
Editor ..... Sean O'Connor

Jill Archer ..... Patricia Greene
David Archer ..... Timothy Bentinck
Ruth Archer ..... Felicity Finch
Kenton Archer ..... Richard Attlee
Helen Archer ..... Louiza Patikas
Brian Aldridge ..... Charles Collingwood
Jennifer Aldridge ..... Angela Piper
Lilian Bellamy ..... Sunny Ormonde
Susan Carter ..... Charlotte Martin
Joe Grundy ..... Edward Kelsey
Eddie Grundy ..... Trevor Harrison
Emma Grundy ..... Emerald O'Hanrahan
Shula Hebden Lloyd ..... Judy Bennett
Jim Lloyd ..... John Rowe
Adam Macy ..... Andrew Wincott
Elizabeth Pargetter ..... Alison Dowling
Fallon Rogers ..... Joanna Van Kampen
Oliver Sterling ..... Michael Cochrane
Rob Titchener ..... Timothy Watson
Carol Tregorran ..... Eleanor Bron
Roy Tucker ..... Ian Pepperell
Peggy Woolley ..... June Spencer
Johnny Phillips ..... Tom Gibbons
Charlie Thomas ..... Felix Scott
Richard Grenville ..... Pip Torrens
Tod Foster ..... Ben Hull.


SUN 11:15 Desert Island Discs (b04stgz0)
Damian Lewis

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the actor, Damian Lewis.

As part of the wave of British talent that's crashed onto America's shores in recent years his impact has made a deep impression on the creative landscape. His role as Sergeant Brodie in Homeland saw him win both an Emmy and Golden Globe and along with Band of Brothers, The Forsyte Saga and a long list of other credits, he now ranks as one of our most well recognised and highly regarded performers.

Things didn't always look so peachy: aged 11, and in the school production of Princess Ida, he forgot the entire third act and stood mute in front of a packed auditorium. Tellingly, rather than scuttling into the wings with shame he soldiered on and by 16 he knew performing was, more than anything, what he wanted to do.

He says, "I am a person who is ambitious. I'm ambitious to get the very best from every moment and even if that's just taking my children to the zoo ... I want it to be the best it can be.".


SUN 12:00 News Summary (b04stdsk)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


SUN 12:04 I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue (b04ps15r)
Series 62

Episode 2

The 62nd series of Radio 4's multi award-winning antidote to panel games promises more homespun wireless entertainment for the young at heart. This week the programme pays a return visit to the Richmond Theatre. Regulars Graeme Garden, Barry Cryer and Tim Brooke-Taylor are once again joined on the panel by Jo Brand with Jack Dee in the chair. At the piano - Colin Sell.

Producer - Jon Naismith.


SUN 12:32 The Food Programme (b04sthgq)
A Bronx Food Tale

New York's south Bronx is still one of the city's most deprived areas; low incomes, unemployment and health problems abound. In the 1970's it captured headlines for a "burn for hate" policy that appeared to have taken hold; abandoned (and sometimes occupied) buildings were set on fire and raised to the ground. Entire blocks were destroyed giving the borough, in some eyes, the look of a war zone.

In recent years the changes that have unfolded in the Bronx have been significant. In part the progress made, making the area more desirable to live in, and home to a more united community, can be put down to food. New York City has had a network of public gardens where food can be grown dating back to the 1880's but in recent years, this resource has taken on new meaning, and in the Bronx it's changed lives.

Sheila Dillon meets Karen Washington a woman who's using food and farming to transform her part of the Bronx through "the Garden of Happiness", a three-quarter acre abandoned lot that she turned into an "urban farm" back in 1988. It's gone from strength to strength and this garden, in which Mexicans, African-American, Asian and Caribbean neighbours come together to grow food, has changed a part of the south Bronx for good.

In the programme Karen Washington explains why the garden has not only become a valuable source of fresh food but has also helped solve many of the social issues in the neighbourhood.

Sheila also speaks to Marcel Van-Ooyen, head of Grow NYC, a part of the Mayor's office in New York, to hear how the city's gardens have also become part of an anti-obesity strategy.

Producer: Dan Saladino.


SUN 12:57 Weather (b04stdsn)
The latest weather forecast.


SUN 13:00 The World This Weekend (b04stlcb)
Global news and analysis; presented by Mark Mardell.


SUN 13:30 Hardeep's Sunday Lunch (b04stlcd)
Series 3

The Kemp Family

The final programme in the series takes Hardeep Singh Kohli to Bath where he meets the Kemps - a family more connected than most. Barnaby Kemp is recovering from a kidney transplant. The donor was his sister. But its not the first time he has received a kidney from a family member and it may not be the last. As Hardeep gets busy cooking the family lunch he hears about a long journey from shock diagnosis to transplant surgery from father to son and sister to brother.
Producer: Catherine Earlam.


SUN 14:00 Gardeners' Question Time (b04pvp7x)
North Wales

Eric Robson hosts the horticultural panel programme from North Wales. Toby Buckland, Bob Flowerdew and Anne Swithinbank take questions from the audience.

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

This week's questions and answers:

Q Can you tell me what it the secret of success with Florence Fennel? Ours looked spectacular but the stem has not swollen.

A. Florence Fennel is difficult to grow - requiring warmth and rich soil that never dries out. Taking off the older leaves can encourage swelling at the base, keep the plant warm, well watered and well fed. However, you can still use the stems for flavouring. Sow the plant after the longest day of the year so that it produces the bulb at the base. Use a mulch of newspaper sheets to keep it warm.

Q. Can you cut back Phormiums? What is the best way to do this? How should I feed the plants?

A. Toby suggests using secateurs. Anne suggests digging up the clump and separating it out to reduce the size. If you would like a less vigorous species, try the 'Alison Blackman' variety. Don't feed the plants as growth is vigorous enough. They require a lot of watering though.

Q. Why do my Courgette plants produce loads of male flowers, very few female flowers and thus very few courgettes?

A. The plants tend to produce lots of male flowers at the beginning of the season and then later on female flowers and fruits - so if the plants are somewhere cool, you're less likely to get fruit. Likewise, if the plants are too hot or too dry, you'll only get male flowers. Mulching could help to keep the moisture in. It's important to sacrifice the first fruits for a bigger crop.

Q. I'm having trouble growing plants in my rockery. I've heard that ferns can poison other plants - could this be the problem?

A. Bob isn't sure it's true that ferns can poison other plants but ferns tend to thrive in places that other plants don't. The problem might be more to do with the lack of soil in your rockery. You might be better trying to grow alpines in the little niches in the rocks. Alternatively, you could dismantle the rockery, kill off the ferns, improve the soil and reassemble the rocks so that plants have enough room to put their roots down below ground level.

Q. This year my lettuce sowings went straight to seed despite regular thinning.

A. They flower when they are stressed - drought and heat can cause stress. Iceberg Lettuce is a good variety to grow in hot summers where heat and drought are likely. In future, plant thinner and thin out in the early stages of growth and water regularly to prevent this from happening.

Q. None of my Camellias grown from seed have flowered - what can I do to encourage flowering?

A. The plants flower well in the warmth. Some plants take a long time to flower.

Q. I've fallen in love with many different plant families, what plant families have the panel fallen for and are they still together?

A. Anne loves Irises, particularly bearded Irises - one called 'Celebration Song' is particularly lovely. She also loves Asclepiads, the Hoyas, Stephanotis and the Stapeliads. Toby loves the Labias and the Indian Bean Tree for its Latin name - Bignoniodes. Bob loves the Rosaceae family.


SUN 14:45 The Listening Project (b04stlcg)
Sunday Omnibus

Fi Glover with conversations about moving up to secondary school, walking on and caving beneath limestone, and volunteering on the Talyllyn railway, from Devon, Cumbria and Wales in the Omnibus edition of the series that proves 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 learn more about The Listening Project by visiting bbc.co.uk/listeningproject

Producer: Marya Burgess.


SUN 15:00 The Once and Future King (b04stlcj)
The Ill-Made Knight

Brian Sibley's dramatisation of T. H. White's classic retelling of the King Arthur story continues. Full of zeal for Arthur's new chivalric order, Lancelot rides into Camelot.

Original music by Elizabeth Purnell
Directors: Gemma Jenkins, Marc Beeby and David Hunter.


SUN 16:00 Open Book (b04stlcl)
Mal Peet on The Murdstone Trilogy

Mariella Frostrup talks to Mal Peet about his latest book The Murdstone Trilogy, his first novel for adults.

Beta Life is an experiment which sets out to discover what happens when you mix writers and scientists in a creative laboratory, the result is a diverse collection of short story stories all set in 2070.

And novelist Tomas Gonzalas, author of In The Beginning Was The Sea, delivers his literary postcard from the foothills of Colombia.


SUN 16:30 The Echo Chamber (b04stlcn)
Series 4

Extinctions

Paul Farley listens to old and new poetry of extinction one hundred years after the death of Martha, the last ever passenger pigeon. With poems from Fleur Adcock, Sean O'Brien, W.S. Merwin and David Harsent and the sounds of X-ray audio, the samizdat music of the Soviet Union that used black-market plates of skulls and ribcages to capture the beginnings of rock and roll. Producer: Tim Dee.


SUN 17:00 Afghanistan: The Lessons of War (b04pshdh)
A former commander of British and Coalition forces in Helmand embarks on a personal journey to find out what has been achieved by the thirteen-year campaign in Afghanistan. It is a quest that leads Former Major General Andrew Mackay to some of the key military and political figures of the past decade.

He puts searching questions to former US General David Petraeus and ISAF Commanders General John McColl and General David Richards, to discover if there ever was a coherent strategy for coalition troops.
He reflects on what was achieved in Afghanistan with leading politicians including former US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and former UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband.
And he looks to the future of the country with a senior figure from the current Afghan government - Mohammad Mustafa Mastoor, Deputy Minister for Finance.

General Mackay also believes that any future interventions should be based on lessons learnt in the Afghanistan campaign. But what are those lessons? He hears from experts who have studied the campaign to help him consider the role he played and to find out what conclusions can be drawn.

Andrew Mackay : "I think whoever you are when you go to an extreme environment such as Helmand, you are never the same person when you come back. I was interested in considering the role that I played as the commander of British forces in Helmand and the journey that it had taken me on."

Producer: Ian Muir-Cochrane
Editor: David Ross.


SUN 17:40 Profile (b04stc69)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Saturday]


SUN 17:54 Shipping Forecast (b04stdsv)
The latest shipping forecast.


SUN 17:57 Weather (b04stdsy)
The latest weather forecast.


SUN 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b04stdt1)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


SUN 18:15 Pick of the Week (b04stlcq)
This week's Pick of the Week features actor Sam West on why he's the number one fan of the shipping forecast; Radio 3 goes in for a spot of triple-tonguing with a trombone that thinks it's in its third trimester; and there's a salute to one of the most popular radio programmes of all time – it had millions of listeners during its half-century on air – and yet how many editions are kept in the BBC archive? Just three. Join John Waite then to hear some rare radio “gold".


SUN 19:00 The Archers (b04stlcs)
Shula's the first of David's siblings to make a decision about her share of Brookfield: she wants to cash it in and explains that she plans to upgrade her business with the money, improving facilities and employing more staff. Being the main bread winner should take some pressure off of Alistair as well.

Unaware of Shula's decision, Elizabeth confides in her sister that she (rather guiltily) also wants to cash in her own share. Elizabeth's amazed to learn that Shula has already asked for hers. They've no idea what Kenton will decide. Elizabeth tells David and Ruth her decision - the money will help with her debt from the dairy conversion. She's also keen to safeguard Freddie and Lily's future.

Tom tells Helen that Tony's not improving as quickly as the doctors would like, following his tracheostomy. Helen's so relieved to have Tom home, although Rob and Johnny are doing sterling work. Tom's also happy to be reunited with his own pigs. Helen tells him not to beat himself up for going away.

Helen and Tom agree that, on Pat's advice, there's no point worrying Peggy with an update on Tony's condition - they just hope for some good news soon. Let's wait and see, says Tom.


SUN 19:15 Hal (b04stlcv)
Series 1

Crime

Hal Cruttenden stars as a 40-something husband and father who, years ago, decided to give up his job and become a stay at home father. His wife, Sam, has a successful business career, which makes her travel more and more. His children, Lilly and Molly, are growing up fast, and his role as their father and mentor is diminishing by the day.

So what can Hal to as he reaches a crossroads in his life? Help is (sort of) at hand in the form of his eager mates - Doug, Fergus and Barry - who regularly meet at their local curry house for mind expanding conversations that sadly never give Hal the core advice he so desperately needs.

Hal is confused even further as he regularly has visions of his long dead and highly macho father, who he's forced to engage in increasingly frustrating conversations.

In this episode, Hal becomes the latest victim to a series of car crimes that have happened near his home. Not only has his own personal car space been invaded, but his beloved CD collection has been stolen - including Abba, Dolly Parton and The Pet Shop Boys.

How can Hal survive this tragedy?

In the process of trying to cope with this crime, Hal also tries to find the real man in himself - but in attempting to do this, only scares his young daughters and reduces them to tears.

The cast includes co-writer Dominic Holland, Ed Byrne, Ronni Ancona, Anna Crilly, Gavin Webster, Dominic Frisby, Samuel Caseley and Emily and Lucy Robbins.

Produced by Paul Russell
An Open Mike production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in November 2014.


SUN 19:45 Shorts (b04stlcx)
Writing West

Adrift at the Athena

SHORTS: New writing. New writers.

The first of three Midlands Odysseys: short stories written in response to The Odyssey - transplanting episodes from Homer's epic to contemporary Midlands settings.

Ulysses Tate has been away for a long time and is trying to get home. At the Athena launderette, he meets a woman who shows him great kindness.

By Kit de Waal.

Producer: Mair Bosworth.


SUN 20:00 Feedback (b04pvp83)
The BBC World Service is now funded by the licence fee which means the UK public is now paying for a service that many rarely use. Roger Bolton talks to the service's outgoing director, Peter Horrocks, about the challenges facing his successor.

Radio 4's PM programme continues to keep its audience up to date with Michael Buerk's progress on I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here. Many listeners love these light-hearted jungle moments; many others feel they have no place in a serious news programme. PM's editor Joanna Carr defends the programme's character and explains why the esteemed presenter of the Moral Maze is fair game for a bit of leg-pulling.

As part of Listeners' Week, Radio 4's In Our Time asked for suggestions for the topic of this week's programme. Roy Bailey and Lauren Hall's idea of Franz Kafka's The Trial was chosen from over 900 entries. They give their verdict on the programme, and Melvyn Bragg and his producer Tom Morris talk to Roger about what made Roy and Lauren's Kafkaesque proposal stand out.

Produced by Will Yates
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.


SUN 20:30 Last Word (b04pvp81)
PD James, 'Mad' Frankie Fraser, Glen A Larson, Medlin Lewis-Spencer, Arthur Butterworth MBE

Matthew Bannister on

Baroness James of Holland Park - the crime novelist P.D. James - who was also a Governor of the BBC.

Then a real life criminal: 'Mad ' Frankie Fraser - an East End gangster noted for his violence who spent a total of 42 years in prison.

Also: TV director Glen A. Larson who brought us Quincy, Magnum PI and Battlestar Galactica.

Medlin Lewis-Spencer, the Mayor of Hackney who defected from Labour to the Conservatives

And the composer Arthur Butterworth who was often inspired by the British landscape.


SUN 21:00 Money Box (b04stc61)
[Repeat of broadcast at 12:04 on Saturday]


SUN 21:26 Radio 4 Appeal (b04stgyr)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:55 today]


SUN 21:30 In Business (b04stlw4)
A Tale of Two Sanctions

Peter Day talks to companies affected by economic sanctions imposed against Russia, and by retaliatory sanctions imposed by Russia, and asks how they cope when they suddenly lose a key market. He also asks how effective sanctions are and who they hit the hardest.

Producer: Caroline Bayley.


SUN 22:00 Westminster Hour (b04stdt5)
Weekly political discussion and analysis with MPs, experts and commentators.


SUN 22:45 What the Papers Say (b04stlrg)
Dennis Sewell of The Spectator analyses how the newspapers are covering the biggest stories.


SUN 23:00 The Film Programme (b04pvdhk)
2001: A Space Odyssey Special

As 2001: A Space Odyssey is re-released in cinemas, Francine Stock presents a special edition on Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece.
'My God, it's Full of Stars' were the last words of Dave Bowman before he journeyed through the Stargate, according to writer Arthur C. Clarke but it's an apt description for this edition of The Film Programme. Francine journeys through time and space to uncover the mysteries of this 1968 classic. Searching for the mind of H.A.L. and lost alien worlds among the delights of the Stanley Kubrick Archive at London's University of the Arts. Joining Francine on her voyage of discovery are 2001 chronicler Piers Bizony, former urbane spaceman Keir Dullea and the woman who built the moon! Other voices include production designer Harry Lange, make-up genius Stuart Freeborn, editor Ray Lovejoy, all now so much stardust, as well as those of lead ape 'Moonwatcher' (Dan Richter) & Stargate deviser Douglas Trumbull. Open the Pod Bay Doors HAL!

Producer
Mark Burman.


SUN 23:30 Something Understood (b04stgyd)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:05 today]



MONDAY 01 DECEMBER 2014

MON 00:00 Midnight News (b04stdwb)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.


MON 00:15 Thinking Allowed (b04pss4x)
Creative Britain - Sexology

Creative Britain: Laurie Taylor explores its rise and fall with the British historian, Robert Hewison, who provides an assessment of the cultural policies of New Labour and the Coalition. Why has culture failed to escape class? Also, a new Sexology exhibition prompts an analysis of the changing field of sex research. Kaye Wellings, Professor of Sexual & Reproductive Health Research at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, charts a history involving book burning, scandal and shame.
Producer: Jayne Egerton.


MON 00:45 Bells on Sunday (b04stgy8)
[Repeat of broadcast at 05:43 on Sunday]


MON 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b04stdwg)
The latest shipping forecast.


MON 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b04stdwj)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


MON 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b04stdwm)
The latest shipping forecast.


MON 05:30 News Briefing (b04stdwp)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


MON 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b04tvql9)
Spiritual reflection to start the day with The Revd Alison Jack.


MON 05:45 Farming Today (b04sttd1)
Christmas food producers, Wheat research, Wolf attacks in France

Scientists at the National Institute of Agricultural Botany are working with colleagues in India to develop wheat which can thrive in hotter climates. They hope their research will eventually result in crops varieties which may be more resilient to climate change.

Farmers in France have taken their sheep to the Eiffel Tower to protest about the impact wolf attacks are having on their flocks.

This is the busiest time of year for farmers producing turkeys, sprouts and other festive specialities. Farming Today meets the people growing our traditional Christmas meals.

Presented by Charlotte Smith and produced by Emma Campbell.


MON 05:56 Weather (b04stdwt)
The latest weather forecast for farmers.


MON 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b04sttd3)
Wedge-tailed Shearwater

Tweet of the Day is the voice of birds and our relationship with them, from around the world.

Chris Packham presents the wedge-tailed shearwater of the Indian and Pacific oceans. Wedge-tailed shearwaters are large sepia brown seabirds with long wings and streamlined bodies. They feed mainly on fish and squid which they scoop from the surface or catch by diving. While the parents are careering over the open seas, their solitary chick squats alone in its island burrow. The return of the adults means a welcome feast for the chick. Its reward is a mouthful of warm and waxy stomach oil, the digested remains of the adults prey. It may sound revolting to us, but this oil is rich in energy and allows the chick to grow even bigger than its parents before losing weight again prior to its first flight, which happens a few weeks after the adult birds have abandoned it to its fate.


MON 06:00 Today (b04sttd5)
Morning news and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.


MON 09:00 Start the Week (b04sttd7)
Evolution and Extinction

Tom Sutcliffe discusses evolution and extinction with Jules Pretty, who's been travelling to meet "enduring people in vanishing lands" and is concerned about their future; with Andreas Wagner on solving what he calls evolution's greatest puzzle - how can random mutations over a mere 3.8 billion years solely be responsible for eyeballs; poet Ruth Padel on what we can learn from animals and Chris Stringer who's been looking at ancient human occupation of Britain and how homo sapiens may have driven other humans to extinction.


MON 09:45 Book of the Week (b04sttd9)
Discontent and Its Civilizations

Episode 1

These timely 'dispatches from Lahore, New York and London' encompassing memoir, art and politics, collect the best essays of the award-winning author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Mohsin Hamid.

Hamid makes a compelling case for recognising our common humanity while relishing our diversity, for resisting the artificial mono-identities of religion or nationality or race, and for always judging a country or nation by how it treats its minorities as 'Each individual human being is, after all, a minority of one'.

In this first episode Hamid muses on his fractured youth, growing up in Lahore and California, and the creation of language, art and identity in different locations.

Read by Sanjeev Baskhar

Abridged by Eileen Horne
Producer: Clive Brill

A Brill production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in December 2014.


MON 10:00 Woman's Hour (b04sttdc)
Hormones Special

To what extent, if any, are women affected by hormones during their lives?

Girls in a Birmingham secondary school talk about mood fluctuations.

Norwich GP Dr Amanda Howe discusses what brings women to see her in their adult, childbearing years.
Psychiatrist Dr Michael Craig who works at the Female Hormone Clinic at the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust talks to Jane about the relationship between hormones and mental health.
Women in their forties onwards could find themselves feeling agitated, confused and unable to sleep. Dr Annie Evans explains that these symptoms are possible signs that women are entering the perimenopause part of their lives.

GP Amanda Howe explains what women need to consider when thinking about taking HRT. And Dr Jan Toledano from the Marion Gluck Clinic explains what the difference is between conventional HRT and Bio-identical hormones.

Writer Helen Lederer talks about taking HRT, why she had to stop taking testosterone and life after the menopause.


MON 10:45 15 Minute Drama (b04stvbm)
Patricia Highsmith - Carol

Episode 1

A struggling, young theatre designer – 19-year-old Therese Belivet – takes a temporary Christmas job in a New York store. A week before Christmas, a glamorous stranger comes into the toy department to buy a doll for her daughter – and suddenly Therese's life will never be the same again.

A tender and unsettling love story about two women – one of them married, and the other 19 - who risk everything to be together.

Written by Patricia Highsmith, who is best known as one of the 20th-century's most accomplished thriller-writers - a role she assumed overnight when Alfred Hitchcock turned her sublimely disturbing first novel, Strangers on a Train, into a hit movie in 1951.

Written a year later, Carol broke all the rules for the portrayal of lesbians in American fiction. Despite warnings from her publisher and her agent that a lesbian novel would ruin her new-found reputation, the book became a major best-seller, with over a million sales when it was released in paperback – and Highsmith went on to write 30 more books before her death in 1995.

Carol is a genuinely groundbreaking classic – and a truly modern love story.

Carol..............Miranda Richardson
Therese...........Andrea Deck
Mrs Robichek....Beverley Klein
Miss Davis........Liza Ross
Richard.............Gunnar Cauthery
with Barbara Barnes and David Jarvis

Written by Patricia Highsmith
Adapted and directed by Neil Bartlett

Producer: David Blount
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in December 2014.


MON 11:00 Lives in a Landscape (b04stvxt)
Series 18

Last Port of Call

Alan Dein visits an old mariners' home on the banks of the River Mersey. Mariners' Park in Wallasey is home to over 150 former Merchant Navy seamen and their wives or widows. Many of them set off on their maiden voyage as young sailors from Liverpool, passing the home on their port side as they embarked on a life of discovery, adventure and hard work at sea. Now, having "swallowed the anchor", they settled here in retirement and watch the occasional vessel pass up and down the river.

But, as Alan discovers, life on dry land has given many of these sailors a new lease of life. They track ships on the internet, take the ferry across the Mersey and throw themselves into a sports day. But he also finds a reflective side to the Park and a very strong attachment to its own history. The Merchant Navy is often overlooked in Remembrance services, but not at Mariners' Park.

Producer Neil McCarthy.


MON 11:30 Start/Stop (b04stvxw)
Series 2

David's Villa

Hit comedy about three marriages in various states of disrepair.

This week the three couples are invited to David's villa in Italy. Barney and Evan go out early to help David with some renovations. Meanwhile Fiona tries to help Cathy to get bikini-ready. Alice, of course, is already bikini-ready...which Barney is looking forward to confirming.

Barney ...... Jack Docherty
Cathy ...... Kerry Godliman
Evan ...... John Thomson
Fiona ...... Fiona Allen
David ...... Charlie Higson
Alice ...... Sally Bretton

Producer ..... Claire Jones

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2014.


MON 12:00 News Summary (b04stdwx)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


MON 12:04 Home Front (b04sty1h)
1 December 1914 - Sylvia Graham (Season 2 start)

In the first episode of Season 2, the Graham household prepares for an arrival.

Written by Sarah Daniels
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole
Sound: Martha Littlehailes


MON 12:15 You and Yours (b04sty1k)
Hidden Uni Costs; Help to Downsize; Cutting-edge Cinema

New research shows that one in five students find university to be poor value for money - and its not just the fees that leave students struggling. As the Competitions and Markets Authority reviews consumer regulation for higher education, You and Yours investigates what the hidden charges are for students, how they arise and what can be done about them.

A group of MPs wants to the government to introduce measures to help elderly homeowners to downsize. They say better planning and assistance would make the process easier and free up housing for younger buyers. Will it work?

Cinema audiences are falling and ticket prices are rising. We take a look at the cutting edge technologies that the industry hopes will tempt us back to the movie-houses.


MON 12:57 Weather (b04stdx1)
The latest weather forecast.


MON 13:00 World at One (b04sty1n)
Analysis of current affairs reports, presented by Martha Kearney.


MON 13:45 Terror Through Time (b04sty1q)
Beirut: City of Terror

Beirut became a crucible of terrorism in the 1980s. Fergal Keane revisits the time of kidnap, chaos and the birth of Hezbollah. He drops into Hezbollah's Mleeta 'theme park' and discusses the period with Paul Salem of the Carnegie Institute, Matthew Levitt of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and Timur Goksel of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force.

Producers: Alasdair Cross and Ghadi Sary.


MON 14:00 The Archers (b04stlcs)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Sunday]


MON 14:15 Behind Closed Doors (b04sty1s)
Behind Closed Doors: Series 2

A Bad Night Out

Behind Closed Doors: A Bad Night Out
By Clara Glynn

The first in a series of three dramas following London barrister Rebecca Nyman. Following a drunken altercation in a town centre a man has been arrested and held in police custody overnight. But the events of that night are disputed and the case explores whether the police acted improperly and gave evidence that was not entirely accurate. Is there a case for paying compensation?

Producer/director: David Ian Neville.


MON 15:00 Counterpoint (b04sty1v)
Series 28

Semi-Final 2, 2014

(11/13)
Who wrote the original James Bond theme as first heard in the film Dr No? And which Renaissance artist wrote poems which have been set to music by both Benjamin Britten and Shostakovich?

Paul Gambaccini asks the questions in the second semi-final of the general knowledge music quiz, with another place in the 28th Counterpoint Final up for grabs.

This week's semi-finalists, from the Vale of Glamorgan, Wiltshire and Cheshire, have all won their heats with impressive scores, and the competition is sure to be tough. As always, they will each have to choose a special musical topic on which to answer individual questions, with no prior warning of the categories offered.

Producer: Paul Bajoria.


MON 15:30 The Food Programme (b04sthgq)
[Repeat of broadcast at 12:32 on Sunday]


MON 16:00 Catacombs of the Mind (b04sxxsx)
Bruce Lacey has been a mischievous and radical presence in British culture for more than six decades. Now aged 87, he reflects on his life and work.

He's made an epic breadth of work as a satirical performer, assemblage artist, filmmaker and creator of earth rituals.

After studying painting at the Royal College of Art in the 1950s, he made props for TV comedy - combining a love of variety theatre and mechanical know-how to create effects like Footo the Wonder Boot Exploder for The Goons and Michael Bentine's performing fleas.

He became part of London's satire boom, performing with neo-Dadaist jazz band The Alberts in the hit madcap cabaret show, An Evening of British Rubbish. Lenny Bruce was so impressed he tried to become their manager.

Later Lacey created assemblages like The Womaniser, which expressed feelings about the dehumanising effects of Cold War society. His robot Rosa Bosom still has pride of place in his parlour - she was 'best man' at his wedding and was once crowned the Alternative Miss World.

Moving to Norfolk, Lacey concentrated on performance work from the late 70s, committing himself to becoming a transmitter of nature's force in almost shamanistic community arts and ritual action performances. He still lives in the same Norfolk farmhouse, surrounded by his extraordinary personal archive and collections.

Contributions from Jeremy Deller, Andrew Logan, Julian Spalding, Lynda Morris, William Fowler, Jonny Trunk and Ashley Hutchings of Fairport Convention, who wrote the song "Mr Lacey" about him.

Produced by Caroline Hughes
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.


MON 16:30 Beyond Belief (b04stzf1)
Plague narratives and Ebola

How are religious plague narratives affecting the responses to the Ebola outbreak?
Throughout history, people have sought explanations for such deadly epidemics. Pre scientific societies thought that plagues were a punishment from the gods who were displeased with human behaviour. We have a better understanding of the causes and effects of disease today, but such ideas persist in many quarters and can still have a subconscious influence on contemporary attitudes to illness.

Ernie Rea is joined by Dr Jane Stevens Crawshaw, Leverhulme early careers research fellow in History at Oxford Brookes University; the Rev Monsignor Robert J Vitillo, special Advisor on Health and HIV at the Catholic organisation Caritas International; and Joel Baden, Professor of Hebrew Bible at Yale University.

Producer: Rosie Dawson.


MON 17:00 PM (b04stzf3)
PM at 5pm- Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.


MON 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b04stdx4)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


MON 18:30 I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue (b04stzf5)
Series 62

Episode 3

The nation's favourite wireless entertainment pays a visit to the Victoria Hall in Stoke-on-Trent. Regulars Barry Cryer, Graeme Garden and Tim Brooke-Taylor are joined on the panel by Omid Djalili, with Jack Dee in the chair. Colin Sell provides piano accompaniment.

Producer - Jon Naismith.


MON 19:00 The Archers (b04stzf7)
Thinking about Kenton's possible Brookfield windfall Jolene speculates on the idea of spending next Christmas in her own new home. Or if Kenton can buy Lilian out, they'd own the Bull - maybe they could even do both. Kenton's unaware that Shula has already been over to claim her share, thinking that she's still reeling from the idea of selling Brookfield.

Kenton's amazed to find out he's the last in line to ask for his money, and a bit put out that his twin sister Shula didn't tell him her plans. David's acknowledgement that it's a great opportunity for him and his siblings is tinged with sadness. Kenton's still not particularly keen on the idea of Jill going with David and Ruth.

Helen warns Peggy to prepare herself before seeing Tony. Peggy says there's no need - she knows how bleak the situation is. Sitting by Tony's side, Peggy opens up to her son and tells him how much she loves him. She admits she has been overcritical, but has always had his best interests at heart. Peggy's biggest regret, for which she is so sorry, is leaving Tony out of her will. She couldn't bear the idea of losing him. But if she does, he should know that he couldn't have been a better son to her. And no mother could have loved a son more than Peggy loves Tony.


MON 19:15 Front Row (b04stzf9)
St Vincent; Mark Thomas; Evening Standard Theatre Awards

Kirsty Lang reviews the film St Vincent, which stars Bill Murray as a reluctant babysitter.

She talks to the winners at last night's Evening Standard Theatre Awards, including Tom Hiddleston and Gillian Anderson.

Mark Thomas on his new stand-up show about Surveillance.

And Jeff Park chooses his favourite crime books of the year.


MON 19:45 15 Minute Drama (b04stvbm)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:45 today]


MON 20:00 Republican Rehab (b04stzfc)
For many, Texas epitomises Tough on Crime, with a vast prison population and high numbers of executions. Probably not the first place you would think of looking for innovative approaches to criminal justice reform, but that's what happened with conservatives adopting a new Right on Crime approach, cancelling construction of prisons and putting the money into treatment and rehabilitation instead.

Danny Kruger, a former speechwriter to David Cameron of 'hug a hoodie' fame, who now runs a charity working with ex-offenders, finds out how it works.

In Austin he meets Marc Levin, head of the Right on Crime campaign at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, who has signed up prominent conservatives like Newt Gingrich, Jeb Bush, Grover Norquist, David Keene, and Pat Nolan.

Heading into Dallas, Danny visits an empty prison, a visible sign that the prison population is going down.

Then he attends a drugs court presided over by Judge Francis in jeans and cowboy boots. In the evening Danny attends a graduation ceremony for former felons who have completed a course with the Prison Entrepreneurship Program preparing them to put their skills to legitimate use on the outside.

Texas senator Jerry Madden tells Danny how he was made Chair of the Corrections Committee and told not to build more prisons and managed to persuade his fellow conservatives and liberal colleagues to vote for the reforms.

Whilst a new political consensus may be forming around the need to reduce re-offending, fundamental differences remain over the causes of crime and mass incarceration, as Marc Mauer of The Sentencing Project explains.

With British prisons expanding in an age of austerity, Danny asks David Davis MP if the Right on Crime approach in America could work for conservatives in the UK.


MON 20:30 Crossing Continents (b04cfhm1)
Searching for Annie in Liberia

Gabriel Gatehouse reports from the Liberian capital Monrovia on the devastating impact of Ebola upon its people. In one case, a patient called Annie, 38, was discovered in her crowded shared house in harrowing conditions. She was taken away to hospital but disappeared into the system. Gabriel and his team go in search of Annie and along the way meet the medics and families on the front line of the Ebola crisis.


MON 21:00 Shared Planet (b04ps554)
Snapping Turtles - Taking the Long View

What do elephants, snapping turtles and guillemots have in common? They are all examples of 'long-lived' animals with some species living longer than the careers of the scientists who study them. In this episode of Shared Planet Monty Don talks to Tim Birkhead and Phyllis Lee, both scientists who have studied the behaviour of long-lived species and both argue that you discover insights into long-lived animals can will help their conservation and our ability to share the planet with them.


MON 21:30 Start the Week (b04sttd7)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]


MON 21:58 Weather (b04stdxc)
The latest weather forecast.


MON 22:00 The World Tonight (b04stzff)
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.


MON 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b04stzfh)
In Love and War

Episode 6

"He [...] unfolds a portrait of himself in gouache [...] It is a good likeness, he thinks, if a little tragic, and big-eared. She has drawn a man - given him something to grow into."

Esmond Lowndes's father is a leading light in the British Union Of Fascists. In 1937, Esmond is sent down from Cambridge in disgrace and dispatched instead to Florence to set up Radio Firenze - an English-language radio station aiming to form closer ties between Fascists in Italy and England.

Esmond finds love and loss, and his journey of self-discovery becomes increasingly and - as Italy moves into war - more tightly intertwined with the fortunes of Florence, the city he has made his home.

And at every turn, he comes up against the local Blackshirt leader, the brutal Mario Carita.

Episode 6 (of 10)
Esmond receives bad news from England and learns more about Father Bailey and, especially, Ada.

Alex Preston lives with his family in London. His first novel, This Bleeding City, was selected as one of Waterstones New Voices 2010. His second, The Revelations, was shortlisted for the Guardian's Not the Booker Prize. Alex is a journalist and a Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Kent.

Abridger: Jeremy Osborne

Produced by Rosalynd Ward
A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4.


MON 23:00 Mastertapes (b04stzfk)
Series 4

The Boomtown Rats (the A-Side)

John Wilson continues with the series in which he talks to leading performers and songwriters about the album that made them or changed them. Recorded in front of a live audience at the BBC's iconic Maida Vale Studios. Each edition includes two episodes, with John initially quizzing the artist about the album in question, and then, in the B-side, the audience puts the questions. Both editions feature exclusive live performances.

Programme 7, A-side. 'A Tonic For The Troops'

Named after a gang in Woody Guthrie's autobiography, The Boomtown Rats had a series of hits between 1977 and 1985. Signed by Mercury records the same year that punk rock exploded in Britain, it was their second album 'A Tonic for the Troops', with tracks like "She's So Modern", "Like Clockwork" and "Me and Howard Hughes", that brought them their first Number 1 hit with "Rat Trap".

It's an album that treats dark themes like suicide and euthanasia in an often upbeat, pop-punk style - one critic described the track "Eva Braun" as "the happiest, cheeriest, best upbeat song about Hitler ever written." And another said "Vintage superstars who look like eyesores and sound like dinosaurs should carefully study this album."

The band broke-up in 1986, but reformed in 2013 to tour the UK. This will be a unique opportunity not only to hear them talk about their album but also to see them perform exclusive versions of key tracks.

Producer: Paul Kobrak.


MON 23:30 Today in Parliament (b04stzhs)
Susan Hulme reports from Westminster.



TUESDAY 02 DECEMBER 2014

TUE 00:00 Midnight News (b04stdyq)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.


TUE 00:30 Book of the Week (b04sttd9)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:45 on Monday]


TUE 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b04stdys)
The latest shipping forecast.


TUE 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b04stdyv)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


TUE 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b04stdyx)
The latest shipping forecast.


TUE 05:30 News Briefing (b04stdyz)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


TUE 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b04tvqmc)
Spiritual reflection to start the day with The Revd Alison Jack.


TUE 05:45 Farming Today (b04sv1rz)
Animal Deaths, Dairy Crisis, Turkeys

A new report from the campaign group Animal Aid claims that 43 million farmed animals die before they even reach the slaughter house - through disease, accidents, or neglect. Anna Hill talks to their director Andrew Tyler about how they reached that estimate, and what they would like to see done about it. She also hears from the NFU, who insist that farmers do take their responsibility for animal welfare seriously.

The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs committee in the House of Commons has been hearing evidence about the problems facing the UK's dairy farmers, as milk prices continue to fall. Last week they heard from Farmers for Action, and later today it will be the turn of the farming minister George Eustice to give his views.

And for turkey farmers, this is the busiest time of the year. Anna Hill visits Charlotte and Robert Garner at Godwick in Norfolk, and meets their flock of free-range turkeys.

Presented by Anna Hill and produced by Emma Campbell.


TUE 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b04sv1s1)
Greater Rhea

Tweet of the Day is the voice of birds and our relationship with them, from around the world.

Chris Packham presents the greater rhea roaming the South American pampas. Greater rheas are the largest birds in South America and look like small brown ostriches. They're flightless, but can avoid danger by sprinting away on sturdy legs reaching speeds of up to 60 kilometres per hour. Gauchos, the horsemen of the pampas, used to hunt them on horseback using a bolas; a well-aimed bolas would wrap around the rhea's legs or neck and bring it down in a tangle of feathers and limbs. In the breeding season males call loudly to proclaim territories, and to woo potential mates the male runs around erratically, spreading his wings and booming. He mates with several females who lay their eggs in the same nest. Then the females depart to mate with another male leaving the first male to incubate the clutch and rear the huge brood of chicks on his own.


TUE 06:00 Today (b04sv1s3)
Morning news and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Yesterday in Parliament, Weather and Thought for the Day.


TUE 09:00 The Reith Lectures (b04sv1s5)
Dr Atul Gawande: The Future of Medicine

The Century of the System

The surgeon and writer Atul Gawande argues that better systems can transform global healthcare by radically reducing the chance of mistakes and increasing the chance of successful outcomes.

He tells the story of how a little-known hospital in Austria managed to develop a complex yet highly effective system for dealing with victims of drowning. He says that the lesson from this dramatic narrative is that effective systems can provide major improvements in success rates for surgery and other medical procedures. Even a simple checklist - of the kind routinely used in the aviation industry - can be remarkably effective. And he argues that these systems have the power to transform care from the richest parts of the world to the poorest.

The programme was recorded at The Wellcome Collection in London before an audience.

The Reith Lectures are chaired and introduced by Sue Lawley and produced by Jim Frank.


TUE 09:45 Book of the Week (b04t6wrg)
Discontent and Its Civilizations

Episode 2

Peripatetic author Hamid relocates to London to pursue his career and eventually finds love in the city with his wife and baby daughter. But Lahore, city of his birth, is calling...

These timely 'dispatches from Lahore, New York and London' encompassing memoir, art and politics, collect the best essays of the award-winning author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Mohsin Hamid.

Hamid makes a compelling case for recognising our common humanity while relishing our diversity, for resisting the artificial mono-identities of religion or nationality or race, and for always judging a country or nation by how it treats its minorities as 'Each individual human being is, after all, a minority of one'.

Read by Sanjeev Baskhar

Abridged by Eileen Horne

Producer: Clive Brill

A Brill production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in December 2014.


TUE 10:00 Woman's Hour (b04sv2gs)
Valerie Trierweiler; Tracy Chevalier on Laura Ingalls Wilder; Hillary Clinton and the White House

The former first lady of France, Valerie Trierweiler has been in the UK to give her side of the very public break-up with President Francois Hollande following allegations he was having an affair. She tells Jane that she did not write her book, Thanks for this Moment, to revenge herself after the President was photographed on the back of a scooter at another woman's apartment. Jane also hears about the campaign run by the charity, Mosac, to stop parents who've abused their children continuing to disrupt their lives even after they've been convicted. Hilary Clinton is the most famous female politican in the world and she could be poised to win the White House in 2016 but the political representation of women in national and state legislatures still lags far behind. At under 20 per cent, fewer women sit in the US Senate and House of Representatives than do here in the UK parliament. And some fear that things could be going backwards. Sue Carroll, Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University, gives her views on how things look after last month's mid-term elections. Those of a certain age will be familiar with the TV series A Little House on the Prairie It was based on a series of children's books by Laura Ingalls Wilder The Annotated Autobiography Pioneer Girl has just been published and goes back to her original mansucripts. Jane talks to the editor-in-chief, Nancy Tystad Koupal and to the author, Tracy Chevalier about the enduring appeal of the original books.


TUE 10:45 15 Minute Drama (b04sv2gv)
Patricia Highsmith - Carol

Episode 2

In the week before Christmas Mrs Carol Aird, a married housewife, has met Therese Belivet, a would-be theatre designer, across the counter of the toy department in a big New York store. It's now two days later, and Therese has accepted an invitation out to Carol's home in New Jersey. She hasn't told her boyfriend.

Patricia Highsmith's tender and unsettling love story about two women – one of them married, and the other 19 - who risk everything to be together.

Highsmith is best known as one of the 20th-century's most accomplished thriller writers - a role she assumed overnight when Alfred Hitchcock turned her sublimely disturbing first novel, Strangers on a Train, into a hit movie in 1951.

Written a year later, Carol broke all the rules for the portrayal of lesbians in American fiction. Despite warnings from her publisher and her agent that a lesbian novel would ruin her new-found reputation, the book became a major best-seller, with over a million sales when it was released in paperback – and Highsmith went on to write thirty more books before her death in 1995.

Carol is a genuinely groundbreaking classic – and a truly modern love story.

Carol..............Miranda Richardson
Therese...........Andrea Deck
Hargess...........Colin Stinton
Richard...........Gunnar Cauthery
Abby..............Lorelei King
with David Jarvis, Beverley Klein and Liza Ross

Written by Patricia Highsmith
Adapted and directed by Neil Bartlett

Producer: David Blount
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in December 2014.


TUE 11:00 Shared Planet (b04sv2gx)
Wildlife and Drought in East Africa

As East Africa gets hotter and drier livestock are increasingly being grazed inside wildlife reserves. Inevitably this leads to predation by big cats. What does the future hold for the pastoralists, wildlife and the way of life of the Samburu? Monty Don explores this increasingly difficult issue with a field report from Samburu where a severe drought is taking its toll. Climate change predictions show that conditions will get worse and wildlife experts discuss the challenges ahead for nature and people.


TUE 11:30 Soul Music (b04sv2gz)
Series 19

There Is a Light That Never Goes Out

The Smiths' 'There Is A Light That Never Goes Out' is explored through personal stories. Released in 1986 on 'The Queen Is Dead' album, it has become an anthem of hope, loss and love. As a teenager, Andy listened to it with his father, as he drove him to work. They had a moment of connection, and when his father died suddenly a few weeks later, the song took on huge significance. When her young son was ill, Sharon Woolley drew strength from this music as she sat by his bedside in the small hours of the morning. For comic artist Lucy Knisley, the song got her through a bad break-up with her long-term boyfriend - and it's meaning changed for her when unexpected events unfolded.


TUE 12:00 News Summary (b04stdz1)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


TUE 12:04 Home Front (b04sv2l0)
2 December 1914 - Kitty Lumley

No news is good news, but for Kitty, good news is devastating.

Written by Sarah Daniels
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole
Sound: Martha Littlehailes


TUE 12:15 You and Yours (b04svd0f)
Call You and Yours: Are we obsessed with getting the best deal?

Is it absolutely necessary to get something for the lowest price? Is it justified when money is tight?
Expecting a bargain may make us smarter consumers, but has it stripped us of our decency?

Footage of people fighting in supermarkets for discounted TVs has served as a wake-up call for Christmas shoppers.
Perhaps you're someone who hates the idea of paying any more than necessary, and devotes time to researching the best price.

Maybe you're a business owner or trader, with experience on the receiving end of people who insist on a discount? Or someone who witnessed the chaos of Black Friday?

Tell us your stories - email us at youandyours@bbc.co.uk
Phone lines open at 11am on Tuesday - 03700 100 444
Presenter: Winifred Robinson
Producer: Joel Moors.


TUE 12:57 Weather (b04stdz3)
The latest weather forecast.


TUE 13:00 World at One (b04svd0h)
Analysis of current affairs reports, presented by Martha Kearney.


TUE 13:45 Terror Through Time (b04svd0k)
Death Wish: Battling Suicide Bombers

Fergal Keane visits Tel Aviv and Jerusalem to discover how Israeli society reacted to a wave of suicide bombers. He's joined by Assaf Moghadan, a researcher at the International Institute for Counter Terrorism, former Israeli Army commander Nitzan Nuriel and by Professor Rashid Khalidi of Columbia University.

Producer: Alasdair Cross.


TUE 14:00 The Archers (b04stzf7)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Monday]


TUE 14:15 Behind Closed Doors (b04svd0m)
Behind Closed Doors: Series 2

Excluded

BEHIND CLOSED DOORS: Excluded
By CLARA GLYNN

The second in a series of three dramas following London barrister Rebecca Nyman. Thirteen year-old Cassius Young has been excluded from his Academy school in Croyden. He has been accused of bringing a knife onto the premises and persistently breaking school rules. This drama takes us into a 'School Exclusion Hearing' where the school governors hear testimony from Cassius, his mother, the headmaster and other staff. The school will decide whether the exclusion should be permanent. Rebecca represents Cassius at the hearing.

Producer/director: David Ian Neville.


TUE 15:00 The Design Dimension (b04svfs1)
Series 2

Ageing Gracefully

Tom Dyckhoff, the writer about architecture, looks at the world we inhabit through the lens of design.

In today's episode, he talks to Sir Kenneth Grange about his ideas on designing furniture for older people, for whom the shiny surfaces and minimal comfort of much modernist design poses challenges.

He visits a retro-fitted 'Fifties home in Staffordshire and the site of the soon-to-be restored vintage-style amusement park, Dreamland in Margate, asking at what point a building, object or experience should become monumentalised.

And from Brooklyn, New York Tom hears about 'creative caring' and the need to 'respect age' for the objects in our lives, from participants in the Fixers' Collective.

Produced by Alan Hall and Hana Walker-Brown
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4.


TUE 15:30 Mastertapes (b04svfs3)
Series 4

The Boomtown Rats (the B-Side)

John Wilson continues with his new series in which he talks to leading performers and songwriters about the album that made them or changed them. Recorded in front of a live audience at the BBC's iconic Maida Vale Studios. Each edition includes two episodes, with John initially quizzing the artist about the album in question, and then, in the B-side, the audience puts the questions. Both editions feature exclusive live performances.

Programme 8, the B-side. Having discussed the making of "A Tonic For The Troops", their 1978 hit album (in the A-side of the programme, broadcast on Monday 1st December and available online), Bob Geldof and the Boomtown Rats respond to questions from the audience and performs acoustic live versions of some of the tracks from the album which brought them their first Number 1 single with 'Rat Trap'.

Producer: Paul Kobrak.


TUE 16:00 Trauma Medicine (b04svfs5)
The Fight for Life

In the first of two programmes Dr Kevin Fong looks at how wars and conflicts have helped to drive emergency medicine in the 21st century, both on and off the battlefield. Drawing on his own experiences as a junior doctor at the scene of a terrorist bombing in 1999, through to his current job, flying on the UK's air ambulance service, Kevin discovers how the challenges of the past continue to shape the future.

Kevin meets one of the fathers of emergency medicine - James Styner, an American orthopaedic surgeon, now in his 80s. His realisation - in the 1970's - that trauma care was in desperate need of revolution didn't come out of research or clinical trials, but in the wake of tragic and terrifying events. It began with a plane crash: Jim as pilot, his wife beside him and his four young children sleeping in the rear. When bad weather caused him to lose altitude, the plane crashed into trees at 168 miles per hour. The resulting scene was horrific: His wife was killed on impact, three of his four children lay unconscious and Jim himself was badly injured. In the dark and with temperatures dropping rapidly, Jim dragged his kids out of the plane, searched for his wife's body and then made his way through the woods to the road where he eventually flagged down a passing car.

However, as Randy and James explain, once at the local hospital, their problems continued. Horrified to discover that the local doctors were largely unprepared to deal effectively with the traumatic injuries his children had suffered he vowed there and then to make amends. "When I can provide better care in the field with limited resources than my children and I received at the primary facility, there is something wrong with the system and the system has to be changed". James Styner went onto develop the first systematic approach for dealing with severe injuries - ATLS or Advanced Trauma Life Support. This approach has transformed trauma medicine and is now taught in over 50 countries. It has undoubtedly saved countless lives and was what Kevin, as a junior doctor, relied upon to get him through the shock of attending the scene of the London Soho pub bombing, 15 years ago.

It was those experiences that again came to mind when Kevin met medical workers in Boston who attended to the victims of the marathon bombing in 2013. One of those on duty that day was Ricky Kue of Boston Medical Center: "After the blast, I had this gut-wrenching moment where everything just sank in my body and I realised what we'd always trained for and what we thought would never happen, just did".

In the course of the programme, Kevin speaks to other trauma specialists who have attended horrific events, such as terrorist bombings or major railway disasters. What becomes clear is that whilst these incidents as awful as they are, don't always drive the evolution of trauma care as in Styner's case, they do nevertheless, serve a purpose. They benchmark the system, revealing its strengths and weaknesses, showing us from a medical standpoint, what the state of the art in trauma care at that time is capable of and asking whether we have learnt the difficult lessons of the past.

Please note: both programmes in this series have been re-versioned and were originally broadcast on the BBC World Service earlier this year.


TUE 16:30 A Good Read (b04svfs7)
Sean Lock and Roisin Conaty

Comedians Sean Lock and Roisin Conaty discuss their favourite books with Harriett Gilbert. One of the novels on the agenda is Margaret Atwood's dystopian classic The Handmaid's Tale, which changed a young Roisin's whole world view. Sean's choice is the Getaway by Jim Thompson with its weird ending, and Harriett chooses Beryl Bainbridge's novel set on the Titanic, Every Man for Himself.


TUE 17:00 PM (b04svfs9)
PM at 5pm- Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.


TUE 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b04stdz5)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


TUE 18:30 Tom Wrigglesworth's Hang-Ups (b04svfsc)
Series 2

The Separatists

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

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

With Kate Anthony, Paul Copley and Judy Parfitt.

Written by Tom Wrigglesworth and James Kettle. With Miles Jupp.

Producer: Katie Tyrrell

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2014.


TUE 19:00 The Archers (b04svfw9)
George is poorly, but looking forward to playing a Wise Man in the school nativity - Keira's only a snowflake. Tilly Button is playing Mary (perfect casting as Alan sees Mary as a bit of a rebel). Emma reflects that she's been living at her mum and dad's with Ed for 2 years. Clarrie encourages Emma to speak to Will about renting them 1 The Green, which is lying empty.

David breaks it to Brian that he's selling Brookfield to Justin Elliot's company, so there's no need for the telephone auction. Shocked, Brian admits he'll never get a better opportunity to expand Home Farm in his lifetime. But he understands, staggered to learn the price Justin has offered.

Jennifer's worried about Tony. Brian reassures her Tony's a stubborn cuss and won't give up. Jennifer's furious to learn about Brookfield - David has betrayed his community, but Brian's more concerned about Home Farm. Jennifer knows Adam will be devastated - they had big plans. They may have to let staff go. Adam's annoyed with Charlie, who clearly knew about the sale and didn't say anything over lunch. Adam vows to show those Brookfield Archers what solidarity really means.


TUE 19:15 Front Row (b04svjbg)
Sondheim's Assassins, Albums of the year, Jeremy Deller, Royal Photographic Society

Suzy Klein, Kate Mossman and Greg James make their picks from pop, classical and alternative for a Christmas wishlist of albums.

The artist Jeremy Deller discusses curating an exhibition of work by his artistic heroes - William Morris and Andy Warhol.

David Benedict reviews the latest revival of Stephen Sondheim's Assassins; the darkly comic musical depicting the lives of the 13 people who have tried to assassinate a President of the United States.

The Royal Photographic Society was founded in 1853. 'Drawn by Light' is the RPS' first major London exhibition showcasing a selection from the treasures of its 250,000 strong collection.


TUE 19:45 15 Minute Drama (b04sv2gv)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:45 today]


TUE 20:00 Teaching Economics After the Crash (b04svjbj)
At universities from Glasgow to Kolkata, economics students are fighting their tutors over how to teach the subject in the wake of the crash. The Guardian's senior economics commentator, Aditya Chakrabortty, reports from the frontline of this most unusual and important academic war.

The banking crash plunged economies around the world into crisis - but it also created questions for economics itself. Even the Queen asked why hardly any economists saw the meltdown coming. Yet economics graduates still roll out of exam halls and off to government departments or the City with much the same toolkit that, just five years ago, produced a massive crash.

Now economics students around the world are demanding a radical change of course. In a manifesto signed by 65 university economics associations from over 30 different countries, students decry a 'dramatic narrowing of the curriculum' that they say prefers algebra to the real world and teaches them there's only one way to run an economy.

As fights go, this one is desperately ill-matched - in one corner, young people fighting to change what they're taught; in the other, the academics who've built careers researching and teaching the subject. Yet the outcome matters to all of us, as it is a battle over the ideas that underpin how we run our economies.

Aditya meets the students leading arguing for a rethink of economics. He also talks to major figures from the worlds of economics and finance, including George Soros, the Bank of England's chief economist Andy Haldane, and Cambridge author Ha-Joon Chang.

Produced by Eve Streeter
A Greenpoint production for BBC Radio 4.


TUE 20:40 In Touch (b04svjbl)
Paralympic skier Jade Etherington; Tony Shearman on dating

Paralympic ski-racer Jade Etherington made history at the 2014 Winter Paralympic Games, by winning a medal in each of her four ski events. She holds the record for the highest number of medals in a single Paralympic Games making her the most successful winter paralympian the UK has ever produced. Jade talks about her recent decision to retire from the sport, partly due to the debt she has accrued and the lack of funding. Jade is now focused on her teaching career and speaks of some of the challenges she faces as a visually-impaired teacher.

Tony Shearman finds himself back on the dating scene and presents a personal column about his experience thus far.


TUE 21:00 All in the Mind (b04svjbn)
Driving and distraction from mobile phones - a new study from Canada shows that if someone phoning a driver can see the driver's road ahead the driver is far less likely to have an accident. The programme explores why using mobile phones while driving, even if they are hands free is so distracting and dangerous. Claudia talks to Nick Grey about an intensive 7 day course for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. He explains why it is just as effective as giving the same course of cognitive behavioural therapy over 3 months. But can this method work for everyone? Claudia finds out about two new potential drugs to treat symptoms of psychosis, one hopes to improve memory and thinking, the other could target the delusions and hallucinations and is based on compounds found in older varieties of cannabis. Also in the programme, guest Catherine Loveday from the University of Westminster discusses recent research on the effect of music on people in a vegetative state and why some professions may keep your memory more robust later in life.


TUE 21:30 Document (b04cbbls)
The Saur Death List of Afghanistan

David Loyn investigates how a lost document is helping Afghanistan come to terms with its painful past.

It revolves around the lesser known moment when Afghanistan began to fall apart: 1978, two years before the Soviet invasion. Lesser known, partly because the world wasn't really paying attention but also because evidence of state murder and disappearance was covered up after the co-called Saur Revolution. That is, until now. A war crimes trial in the Netherlands has unearthed a list of 5000 prisoners detained, tortured and killed by the radical communist regime in 1978 / 79.

This 'Death List' has less than half the total number of people unaccounted for during that period but it has finally given families of the disappeared confirmation of the fate of their loved ones and allowed them to mourn. The reverberations of this are being felt strongly in Afghanistan. This story is told through the eyes of a remarkable survivor of these purges whose name is on the list of the dead.

This 'Death List' leads us to the issue of justice and accountability for war crimes in Afghanistan, not just from 1978 but over the following three decades. Post 9/11 the West dealt with warlords whose very poor human rights records went unquestioned and many of them now hold powerful government positions in Afghanistan. It raises the question: when will the country be able to face the crimes of its recent past and bring the perpetrators to justice? It's a question on the lips of many ordinary Afghans.

Producer Neil McCarthy.


TUE 21:58 Weather (b04stdz8)
The latest weather forecast.


TUE 22:00 The World Tonight (b04svjbq)
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.


TUE 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b04svjbs)
In Love and War

Episode 7

"He [...] unfolds a portrait of himself in gouache [...] It is a good likeness, he thinks, if a little tragic, and big-eared. She has drawn a man - given him something to grow into."

Esmond Lowndes's father is a leading light in the British Union Of Fascists. In 1937, Esmond is sent down from Cambridge in disgrace and dispatched instead to Florence to set up Radio Firenze - an English-language radio station aiming to form closer ties between Fascists in Italy and England.

Esmond finds love and loss, and his journey of self-discovery becomes increasingly and - as Italy moves into war - more tightly intertwined with the fortunes of Florence, the city he has made his home.

And at every turn, he comes up against the local Blackshirt leader, the brutal Mario Carita.

Episode 7 (of 10)
As the world is plunged even deeper into war, Esmond and Ada travel to the coast on a mission for the Resistance.

Alex Preston lives with his family in London. His first novel, This Bleeding City, was selected as one of Waterstones New Voices 2010. His second, The Revelations, was shortlisted for the Guardian's Not the Booker Prize. Alex is a journalist and a Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Kent.

Abridger: Jeremy Osborne

Produced by Rosalynd Ward
A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4.


TUE 23:00 What The Future? (b04svjbv)
Series 1

Living longer

As we all live longer, soon the elderly population outnumbers the young. The multiplexes are crammed full of sex romps starring Bill Nighy and soluble ham is a big seller. Soon, the Baby Boomers take over.

While young people starve and suffer, the old blow billions on sending Danny Baker to the moon. But the population shrinks, and the elderly take drastic measures to solve the problem, creating something called a Sentient Organ Sac. It doesn't go well.

Kirsty Wark presents a documentary from the future...

Starring:

Nadia Kamil
Geoffrey McGivern
Kieran Hogson
Alistair McGowan
Alice Scott-Gemmill
Ewan Bailey
Roslyn Hill
Hannah Genesius
Monty d'Inverno
Paul Heath.

Recorded 30 years from now, What the Future plunges into the world of tomorrow and investigates how decisions and actions from today’s headlining issues could have massive repercussions on our later lives.

Written by Madeleine Brettingham, Steve Burge and Dale Shaw.

Producer: Victoria Lloyd.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2014.


TUE 23:30 Today in Parliament (b04svjbx)
Sean Curran hears MPs react angrily after China bans them from visiting Hong Kong. The Home Secretary argues her case for temporarily blocking suspected British fighters from returning to the UK. And why antifreeze is fatal for pets.

Editor: Peter Mulligan.



WEDNESDAY 03 DECEMBER 2014

WED 00:00 Midnight News (b04stf0h)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.


WED 00:30 Book of the Week (b04t6wrg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:45 on Tuesday]


WED 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b04stf0k)
The latest shipping forecast.


WED 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b04stf0m)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


WED 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b04stf0p)
The latest shipping forecast.


WED 05:30 News Briefing (b04stf0r)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


WED 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b04vwr3s)
Spiritual reflection to start the day with The Revd Alison Jack.


WED 05:45 Farming Today (b04svjxd)
Organophosphates in sheep dip, Christmas geese, Tidal surge

The Shadow Health Secretary, Andy Burnham, is calling for more information on how farmers may have been affected by using sheep dip in the 1970's and 80's when twice-yearly dipping of the 44 million sheep in Britain was compulsory. Many farmers argue that the practice caused them severe long term health problems and government advice on protective clothing was inadequate.

This week marks one year since a tidal surge affected thousands of acres of farmland along the east coast of England. In Lincolnshire, hundreds of acres of crops were destroyed when the sea breached a privately-owned defence at Friskney Marsh. Hugh Drake who farms there speaks to BBC Radio Lincolnshire's Rod Whiting.

And as Farming Today continues to hear from farmers who produce the food for our Christmas plates, Caz Graham visits a small hill farm in the Lake District where they produce free-range geese.

Presented by Anna Hill and produced by Lucy Bickerton.


WED 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b04svjxg)
Atlantic (Island) Canary

Tweet of the Day is the voice of birds and our relationship with them, from around the world.

Chris Packham presents the Atlantic canary singing in the Tenerife treetops. The ancestor of our cage-bird canaries is the Island or Atlantic Canary, a finch which is native to the Azores, Madeira and Canary Islands which include Tenerife. The Canary Islands were named by early travellers "the islands of dogs from 'canis', the Latin for dogs, because of the many large dogs reputedly found there. And so the common and popular song-bird which is now a symbol of the islands became known as the canary. Unlike their domestic siblings, wild Island canaries are streaky, greenish yellow finches: males have golden- yellow foreheads, females a head of more subtle ash-grey tone. But it's the song, a pulsating series of vibrant whistles, trills and tinkling sounds; that has made the canary so popular. They were almost compulsory in Victorian and Edwardian parlours; a far cry from the sunny palm -fringed beaches of the Atlantic islands.


WED 06:00 Today (b04svjxj)
Morning news and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Yesterday in Parliament, Weather and Thought for the Day.


WED 09:00 Midweek (b04svjxl)
Lucy Cooke; Angie Marchese; David and Ben Crystal; Keith Ball

Libby Purves meets musician Keith Ball; wildlife expert Lucy Cooke; writers David and Ben Crystal and Angie Marchese, director of archives at Graceland.

Angie Marchese is the director of archives at Graceland, the former home of Elvis Presley. She is curating a new exhibition in London which showcases over 300 artefacts from the Presley family's archives, some of which have never been exhibited outside of Graceland in Memphis. Objects on display include Elvis's American Eagle jumpsuit; the red 1960 MG Roadster from the film Blue Hawaii and the star's personal wallet containing photos of a young Lisa Marie Presley. Elvis At the O2: The Exhibition of His Life is at the O2 Arena.

Father and son David and Ben Crystal are writers with a keen interest in language. Their latest collaboration is You Say Potato, a witty look at the differences between our many accents. Ben is an actor, producer and writer and David is a writer, editor and lecturer who is honorary professor of linguistics at the University of Wales. You Say Potato - A Book About Accents is published by MacMillan.

Lucy Cooke is an award-winning presenter, writer and founder of the Sloth Appreciation Society. She is a panellist on A Wild Audience with...an event in which five natural history experts share some of their life-changing wildlife experiences. Lucy's talk celebrates the sloth and she reveals why the planet's laziest animal is in fact the true king of the jungle and why she believes being fast is overrated. Her book, The Power of Sloth, is published by Franklin Watts and A Wild Audience with... is at the Lyric Theatre, London.

Keith Ball is the son of the late jazz trumpeter Kenny Ball. Kenny Ball and his Jazzmen were famous for hits such as Midnight in Moscow and Samantha. Under the stage name Kenny Ball Junior, Keith now fronts the Jazzmen and pays tribute to his father's legacy. Kenny Ball Junior and his Jazzmen are on tour.

Producer: Paula McGinley.


WED 09:45 Book of the Week (b04t6xcz)
Discontent and Its Civilizations

Episode 3

Back in Lahore, rising young author Mohsin Hamid gets to grip with the writer's solitary life, and, inspired by writers he loves, develops both his craft as a writer - and his fitness.

These timely 'dispatches from Lahore, New York and London' encompassing memoir, art and politics, collect the best essays of the award-winning author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Mohsin Hamid.

Hamid makes a compelling case for recognising our common humanity while relishing our diversity, for resisting the artificial mono-identities of religion or nationality or race, and for always judging a country or nation by how it treats its minorities as 'Each individual human being is, after all, a minority of one'.

Read by Sanjeev Baskhar

Abridged by Eileen Horne

Producer: Clive Brill

A Brill production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in December 2014.


WED 10:00 Woman's Hour (b04svjxn)
Activist Professor Angela Davis

Professor Angela Davis was known as a radical activist and member of the Black Panthers in the 1960s-1970s. 40 years on she talks to Jenni Murray about the journey from a place on the FBI's ten most wanted list to a place in the 100 'cool' Americans exhibition earlier this year in Washington's National Portrait Gallery.

Former Vogue editor and founder of the charity OAfrica Lisa Lovatt-Smith talks about her new book Who Knows Tomorrow and her work in Ghana which has been inspired by her own upbringing.

Mosac are an organisation which tries to offer support to the non-abusing parents of children who've been sexually abused. Following Jane's interview with Luci Coffey, an advocacy manager from Mosac, we hear from a woman the programme calls Jackie who has two daughters, both of whom were abused by their father. Her testimony is spoken by an actor.

And the Scottish-Zambian singer songwriter Namvula performs live and talks to Jane about her new album, Shiwezwa, and the women who inspired it.


WED 10:41 15 Minute Drama (b04svjxq)
Patricia Highsmith - Carol

Episode 3

Carol is battling her husband for custody of their daughter, Nerinda. Three weeks after their first meeting, Therese has agreed to escape New York and accompany Carol on a car trip. Her boyfriend isn't happy.

Patricia Highsmith's tender and unsettling love story about two women – one of them married, and the other 19 - who risk everything to be together.

Highsmith is best known as one of the 20th-century's most accomplished thriller writers - a role she assumed overnight when Alfred Hitchcock turned her sublimely disturbing first novel, Strangers on a Train, into a hit movie in 1951.

Written a year later, Carol broke all the rules for the portrayal of lesbians in American fiction. Despite warnings from her publisher and her agent that a lesbian novel would ruin her new-found reputation, the book became a major best-seller, with over a million sales when it was released in paperback – and Highsmith went on to write thirty more books before her death in 1995.

Carol is a genuinely groundbreaking classic – and a truly modern love story.

Carol..............Miranda Richardson
Therese...........Andrea Deck
Richard...........Gunnar Cauthrey
with David Jarvis

Written by Patricia Highsmith
Adapted and directed by Neil Bartlett

Producer: David Blount
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in December 2014.


WED 10:55 The Listening Project (b04svjxs)
Gee and David - A Literary Marriage

Fi Glover introduces a successful writer and her physicist husband as they embark on writing a novel together, proving once again 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 learn more about The Listening Project by visiting bbc.co.uk/listeningproject

Producer: Marya Burgess.


WED 11:00 Disabled and Broody: My Impossible Choice (b043x48s)
Award-winning presenter Julie Fernandez draws on personal experience to explore an agonising decision: whether to have children, if it means passing on disabilities?

Julie's children would have a 50/50 chance of inheriting her brittle bone disease and she and her husband decided not to take the risk. It was a painful choice - at odds with Julie's strongly-felt beliefs about disability equality.

In this programme she talks with disarming honesty to others faced with a similar choice, including actor Warwick Davis and wife Sam who have two children - both have inherited Warwick's condition, a rare form of dwarfism. She also follows a couple embarking on a complex form of reproductive medicine. Pre-implantation Genetic Diagnosis is a type of IVF treatment which involves screening embryos for genetic defects at only 8 cells. It offers many disabled parents their only chance of having the healthy baby they long for. But making the choice not to pass on disability raises complex issues. As Julie herself says, "If my parents had made that choice, I would not be here."

Whilst some fear the recent developments in genetic screening are a form of eugenics, contributors also talk about the painfully raw feelings passing on a disability can evoke.

Julie Fernandez asks the big questions about a philosophically challenging issue which divides disabled people in this country; and reveals our attitudes to disability generally.

Presenter: Julie Fernandez

Contributors: Roberto Ruiz, Sophie Ruiz, Mike, Aurelia, Micheline Mason, Lucy Mason, Warwick Davis, Sam Davis.

Producers: Elizabeth Burke Hilary Dunn
A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4.


WED 11:30 Hobby Bobbies (b04svjxv)
Series 2

Vice

The tiny Haling police force is thrown into confusion when The Guv orders a crackdown on vice in their patch. Can social media help unveil the mysterious Big Brenda?

The characterful sitcom where Britain's longest serving PCSO -and Britain's laziest - make quite a pairing.

Written by Dave Lamb (the voice of Come Dine With Me) and starring Richie Webb (Horrible Histories), Nick Walker, Chris Emmett and Noddy Holder.

Geoff...............Richie Webb
Nigel...............Nick Walker
The Guv..........Sinead Keenan
Nina................Pooja Shah
Bernie.............Chris Emmett
Geoff's Dad.....Noddy Holder

Producer: Steve Doherty

A Top Dog production for BBC Radio 4 in December 2014.


WED 12:00 News Summary (b04stf0t)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


WED 12:04 Home Front (b04svjym)
3 December 1914 - Dorothea Winwood

All is not well in the Winwood household, but Ralph cannot fathom why not.

Written by Sarah Daniels
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole
Sound: Martha Littlehailes


WED 12:15 You and Yours (b04svk10)
Care 'Auction'; Heated Clothes; Violent Images in Shops

The councils putting people in need of care up for "auction".

Don't heat your home; wear electrically heated clothes!

The violent images 'invading' our supermarkets.

What lies behind the soaring cost of pet care?

The charity magazine whose sellers admit they could use proceeds to fund their drug habit.

Producer: Kevin Mousley

Presenter: Winifred Robinson.


WED 12:57 Weather (b04stf0x)
The latest weather forecast.


WED 13:00 World at One (b04svk12)
Analysis of current affairs reports, presented by Martha Kearney.


WED 13:45 Terror Through Time (b04svk14)
Mujahideen On Tour

Foreign Islamic fighters flocked to Bosnia during the Balkan wars of the 1990s. Fergal Keane visits Sarajevo to ask if they helped kickstart a new wave of terrorism. He's joined by the former United Nations High Representative for Bosnia, Paddy Ashdown and by a local journalist who lived through the conflict, Sabina Niksic.

Producer: Alasdair Cross.


WED 14:00 The Archers (b04svfw9)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Tuesday]


WED 14:15 Behind Closed Doors (b04svk27)
Behind Closed Doors: Series 2

Catastrophic Injury

BEHIND CLOSED DOORS: Catastrophic Injury
By CLARA GLYNN

The last in a series of three dramas following London barrister Rebecca Nyman. Jane Gibson is fighting for compensation from an NHS Hospital, claiming that because of negligence by the midwife during childbirth her baby was born with Cerebral Palsy. Set in court, Rebecca Nyman is representing the hospital in what is an emotionally charged hearing for both sides. The compensation award is crucial for the mother to offset the additional costs she will have to ensure the best care for her son.

Producer/director: David Ian Neville.


WED 15:00 Money Box Live (b04svk29)
Saving and Investing

Saving and investing dilemma? For the best rates on cash accounts or to ask about investing, call 03700 100 444 from 1pm to 3.30pm on Wednesday or e-mail moneybox@bbc.co.uk now.

Will Chancellor George Osborne have any good news for savers when he delivers his final Autumn Statement of this parliament on Wednesday?

In his March budget the Chancellor announced that cash and shares Isas would become a new single ISA, with an annual tax-free savings limit of £15,000. If you haven't used your annual ISA allowance you may want to ask about the best interest rates?

If you would rather have instant access to your money or a monthly income from your savings, what are the best options for you?

Can you receive interest without tax already taken off?

If you can afford to take a risk and don't need access to your money in the short term how do you find out about investing?

What are the pros and cons of investing through a platform or paying a financial advisor?

Whatever you want to know, Lesley Curwen and guests will be waiting for your call. Joining Lesley will be:

Brian Dennehy, Chartered Financial Planner, FundExpert.co.uk
Claire Walsh, Chartered Financial Planner, Aspect 8
Sylvia Waycot, Editor, Moneyfacts

Call 03700 100 444 between 1pm and 3.30pm on Wednesday or e-mail moneybox@bbc.co.uk now. Standard geographic charges apply. Calls from mobiles may be higher.


WED 15:30 All in the Mind (b04svjbn)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Tuesday]


WED 16:00 Thinking Allowed (b04svk2y)
Port Cities; Middle Class Alcohol Use

Port cities in the global age; from Marseilles to Liverpool and New Orleans. Laurie Taylor talks to Alice Mah, a sociologist at the University of Warwick, about her study of transformation along city waterfronts. What happens when world harbours are relegated to minor seaports? Can they ever return to their former greatness? Also, middle class alcohol use often exceeds safe levels but little research explains why. Lyn Brierley-Jones, a Research Fellow at the University of Sunderland, explores the meaning of drinking amongst professional workers.

Producer: Jayne Egerton.


WED 16:30 The Media Show (b04svk30)
Christopher Jefferies; The Times turns a profit; Front page newspaper content

Retired teacher Christopher Jefferies was wrongly named in the press as the suspect accused of the murder of his neighbour Joanna Yeates in December 2010. His life was turned upside down. He later sued several newspapers for libel, received an apology from the police, and gave evidence to the Leveson inquiry. A new ITV two part drama 'The Lost Honour of Christopher Jefferies' is to be aired next week. Steve talks to Christopher about his involvement in the production process and what it's like being the star of a factual crime drama.

Times Newspapers, which owns both The Times and The Sunday Times, has delivered a profit for the first time in more than a decade. The News Corp-owned company posted an operating profit of £1.7 million for the year; just 5 years ago, it suffered losses of £72 million. So what's driven such a big turnaround? Steve Hewlett asks Douglas McCabe from Enders Analysis whether this is proof the paywall subscription model is working, or are there other forces at play?

Following a decision by two of the UK's leading supermarkets to change the way they display newspapers, after concerns were raised about children being exposed to sexual images, Steve Hewlett discusses the nature of front page tabloid content and whether it should be toned down. Claire Fox, director of the Institute of Ideas, and Stephanie Arai Davies from No More Page 3, join him to talk about whether the message being sent by Tesco and Waitrose - that tabloid front pages are not 'family friendly', is a welcome step towards more respectful representation of women in the media, or a step away from press freedom.


WED 17:00 PM (b04svk36)
PM at 5pm- Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.


WED 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b04stf11)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


WED 18:30 Paul Sinha's History Revision (b04sxr8s)
Series 1

Food

Paul Sinha looks through all of human history and examines how we came to be where we are.

He starts with something every day, something we all know to be true; he then reveals the quirks of history and the fascinating stories that led up to this point.

This time it's food. Paul’s starting point is his own high street in south London. What historical events gave his hometown its name? But more than that - how did it end up being culinarily dominated by Chinese and Indian restaurants?

The story starts in 1600 and takes in trade, invasion, opium, a bloody civil war that left 30,000,000 people dead, giant greenhouses and the cultivation of saffron.

Paul Sinha is an acclaimed stand-up who was nominated for the Edinburgh Comedy award for his show Saint or Sinha? He frequently appears on The News Quiz, The Now Show, and Fighting Talk. He is a resident 'chaser' on the ITV quiz show The Chase with several of his own series on BBC Radio 4.

Written and performed by Paul Sinha.

Producer: Ed Morrish.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2014.


WED 19:00 The Archers (b04sxr8v)
Elizabeth and Shula wonder whether Jill really wants to leave Brookfield - however, she always did support the child in the most need - in the case, David. Jill's rather taken aback to learn that all the siblings want to cash in - and keen not to have to referee any family feuds. Jill remembers Phil's wish to keep Brookfield part of the family. However, Shula points out that once Brookfield's gone things change for all of them. Jill also reports from Ruth that Heather's much better.

Helen's feeling the pressure at work - Tom tells her to look after herself. The doctors want to get a stronger antibiotic into Tony as soon as possible. Helen's had an unexpected text from Kirsty, saying she's thinking of them.

Peggy tells Jill she has to stay strong, for Tony's sake. She also understands David and Ruth's decision to sell to Justin Elliot - Brian would have sold to the highest bidder as well. Peggy admits her regret at leaving Tony out of her will, and feels the accident is her fault as Tony bought the cows to prove something to her. Jill tells Tom she fears Peggy is near breaking point.

Tom's surprised to see a lorry delivery of stock feed - clearly ordered by Rob. Tom doesn't have time to be annoyed, but points out that he'll take charge of the orders from now on.


WED 19:15 Front Row (b04sxr8x)
Peter Jackson; Philip Pullman on William Blake; Memoirs of the Year

Director Peter Jackson and co-writer Philippa Boyens talk to John Wilson about their final instalment of The Hobbit film franchise; the author Philip Pullman reflects on one of his heroes, William Blake, as a new exhibition at the Ashmolean in Oxford explores his formation as an engraver; and historian Kathryn Hughes makes her selection of biographies and memoirs of the year.


WED 19:45 15 Minute Drama (b04svjxq)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:41 today]


WED 20:00 Moral Maze (b04sxr8z)
Devolution

It's been clear since the vote on Scottish independence that far from ending the question on devolution it was the start of a much bigger debate on how the country is run. Plans for more Scottish tax raising powers have this week been matched by demands from more than 100 English councils for more powers to be devolved from Westminster. And we're not just talking about how often the bins are emptied, or grass on the verges cut. A recent report said that Greater Manchester, the UK's second largest metro area, should not only be able to decide its own independent planning policies, but should also be able to raise taxes and set immigration levels. There's even been talk this week of responsibility for the criminal justice system being devolved to local control in London and Manchester. This isn't just an argument about who pulls the political levers. At its heart is profoundly moral question that has exercised philosophers for centuries. How do we create a civic society in which people can flourish? Is there such a thing as too much democracy? The first big experiment in this area was the creation of elected police commissioners, which, with an average turnout of 15%, can only be described as being greeted by resounding apathy. Is devolving power a moral imperative that enables more people to be involved in making moral choices about the good society and how to create it? Or will increasing devolution fracture our nation of the common good? Do national institutions like the NHS bring more than just economic efficiencies? Are they a way of binding us in to a set of values beyond self-interest? By devolving power over fundamental core services are we just creating a system where people can not only express their local preferences, but their local prejudices?

Panellists: Jill Kirby, Melanie Phillips, Matthew Taylor, Giles Fraser

Witnesses: Andrew Harrop, Ed Cox, Tim Stanley, Peter Hitchens

Producer: Phil Pegum.


WED 20:45 Four Thought (b04tc6pp)
Series 4

Writing for a Living

Elizabeth Wurtzel, author of the seminal memoir book Prozac Nation, revisits the process of writing the book. And on the twentieth anniversary of its publication, she explores the relationship between writing and the need to pay the bills.

Speaking in front of an audience at McNally Jackson Books in New York City, Elizabeth argues that people have lost their minds trying to write great literature. Instead, she says, "If your whole thing is 'I can't starve', you'd be stunned with what you come up with. You'll be thinking of what you need, not what you want. You'll definitely come up with the next right thing."

The host is Amanda Stern.

Producer: Giles Edwards.


WED 21:00 Frontiers (b04sxr93)
New Space to Fly

As our skies become more crowded Jack Stewart examines the long awaited modernisation of air traffic control. With traffic predicted to reach 17 million by 2030 more flights will mean more delays. For many a new approach to controlling flights is long overdue since aircraft still follow old and often indirect routes around the globe, communication between the ground and air is still by VHF radio, and any flexibility is heavily constrained by a fragmented airspace operated by many national authorities.

Jack Stewart examines how aviation technologists have come up with a radical solution: it enables pilots once airborne, to choose their own route. "Free Routing ", it's argued, will allow more direct flights, no planes to be caught up in holding patterns, reduced fuel emissions and flights departing and arriving on time. Crucially, free routing will enable a tripling of flights than currently we're capable of controlling.

But will the ability of pilots to choose their own routes increase the risk of collision? Researchers argue it will in fact produce even safer skies. Jack Stewart visits NATS air traffic control centre that annually looks after the safety of over 2 million over British airspace to hear how such a system could evolve.

Jack finds out how free routing could work from the engineers at Indra UK - who're trialling such a system in airspace controlled by the NATS Prestwick air traffic control centre. In a new approach they're turning "reactive" air traffic control into a more strategic approach with computer designed flight trajectories utilizing much of the currently underused satellite navigation that is fitted on modern aircraft. It will enable aircraft to be safely spaced closer together and at the same time predict potential "conflicts" of spacing much further ahead of the routes being taken, leaving less room for human error.

And as automation begins to play a greater role in all aspects of flight planning and control is the era of pilotless planes moving a step closer?

Producer: Adrian Washbourne


WED 21:30 Midweek (b04svjxl)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]


WED 21:58 Weather (b04stf15)
The latest weather forecast.


WED 22:00 The World Tonight (b04sxr95)
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.


WED 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b04sxr97)
In Love and War

Episode 8

"[He] unfolds a portrait of himself in gouache [...] It is a good likeness, he thinks, if a little tragic, and big-eared. She has drawn a man - given him something to grow into."

Esmond Lowndes's father is a leading light in the British Union Of Fascists. In 1937, Esmond is sent down from Cambridge in disgrace and dispatched instead to Florence to set up Radio Firenze - an English-language radio station aiming to form closer ties between Fascists in Italy and England.

Esmond finds love and loss, and his journey of self-discovery becomes increasingly and - as Italy moves into war - more tightly intertwined with the fortunes of Florence, the city he has made his home.

And at every turn, he comes up against the local Blackshirt leader, the brutal Mario Carita.

Episode 8 (of 10)
With Florence now under occupation by the Germans, the Resistance steps up its operations to get the Jewish population to safety.

Alex Preston lives with his family in London. His first novel, This Bleeding City, was selected as one of Waterstones New Voices 2010. His second, The Revelations, was shortlisted for the Guardian's Not the Booker Prize. Alex is a journalist and a Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Kent.

Reader: Carl Prekopp
Abridger: Jeremy Osborne

Produced by Rosalynd Ward
A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4.


WED 23:00 The Lach Chronicles (b04sxr99)
Series 2

Sally's Gone Blue

Lach was the King of Manhattan's East Village and host of the longest running open mic night in New York. He now lives in Scotland and finds himself back at square one, playing in a dive bar on the wrong side of Edinburgh.

His famous night, held in various venues around New York, was called the Antihoot. Never quite fitting in and lost somewhere lonely between folk and punk music, Lach started the Antifolk movement. He played host to Suzanne Vega, Jeff Buckley and many others. He discovered and nurtured lots of talent including Beck, Regina Spektor and the Moldy Peaches - but nobody discovered him.

In this episode, entranced by the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Lach harvests his extraworldy experiences and starts a new adventure into an unexplored world - comedy.

Producer: Richard Melvin

A Dabster production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in December 2014.


WED 23:15 Tim Key's Late Night Poetry Programme (b01dht2y)
Series 1

Egypt

Tim Key is on a cultural pilgrimage to Cairo, as he grapples with the meaning of 'Egypt'.

Tom Basden plays guitar, while wearing a fez.

Written and presented by Tim Key

With Tom Basden

Producer: James Robinson

First broadcast on BBC Radio in March 2012.


WED 23:30 Today in Parliament (b04sxr9c)
Susan Hulme hears George Osborne and Ed Balls clash in the last Autumn Statement before the General Election:- stamp duty reform, questions over the deficit, and jibe and counter jibe.

Editor: Peter Mulligan.



THURSDAY 04 DECEMBER 2014

THU 00:00 Midnight News (b04stf31)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.


THU 00:30 Book of the Week (b04t6xcz)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:45 on Wednesday]


THU 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b04stf33)
The latest shipping forecast.


THU 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b04stf35)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


THU 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b04stf37)
The latest shipping forecast.


THU 05:30 News Briefing (b04stf39)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


THU 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b04vwrhn)
Spiritual reflection to start the day with The Revd Alison Jack.


THU 05:45 Farming Today (b04sxv23)
Rural Coalition, Stilton, Goats

The Rural Coalition say the government must do better for those living in the countryside. The coalition was formed of 13 rural groups and launched its original Rural Challenge in 2010. Its now reviewed the Government's progress, and its chairman, the Liberal Democrat peer Lord Teverson told Charlotte Smith that more needs to be done in terms of access to rural healthcare and affordable housing. Farming Minister George Eustice argues that the government are coming up with imaginative solutions and they wont ignore their rural electorate. A new study at Queen Mary University is studying the behaviour of goats. Dr Alan McElligott who led the study says it could have an impact on agricultural practice. Ben Jackson reports on the race to get stilton cheese on to the supermarket shelves in time for the Christmas feast. Presenter Charlotte Smith. Producer Ruth Sanderson.


THU 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b04sxv25)
Red-necked Nightjar

Tweet of the Day is the voice of birds and our relationship with them, from around the world.

Chris Packham presents the nocturnal red-necked nightjar of the Spanish countryside. Like others in the family, red-necked nightjars are nocturnal birds which feed on large insects, snapping them up with huge bristle-lined mouths. A summer migrant, the red-necked nightjar breeds mainly in Spain, Portugal and North Africa. It is closely related to the common European nightjar, but it sounds very different. By day they hide on the ground among scrub where their cryptic patterns provide excellent camouflage. They're the colour of mottled bark and as you'd expect from their name, have a rusty-red collar. As the sun sets, they emerge from their hiding places to glide and turn on slender wings through scrub and pinewoods, occasionally warning rivals by clapping their wings together over their backs with a sound like a pistol-shot. Between bouts of moth-chasing, they settle on a pine branch and pour forth their repetitive, but atmospheric song.


THU 06:00 Today (b04sxv27)
Morning news and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Yesterday in Parliament, Weather and Thought for the Day.


THU 09:00 In Our Time (b04sxv29)
Zen

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Zen. It's often thought of as a form of Buddhism that emphasises the practice of meditation over any particular set of beliefs. In fact Zen belongs to a particular intellectual tradition within Buddhism that took root in China in the 6th century AD. It spread to Japan in the early Middle Ages, where Zen practitioners set up religious institutions like temples, monasteries and universities that remain important today.

GUESTS

Tim Barrett, Emeritus Professor in the Department of the Study of Religions at SOAS, University of London

Lucia Dolce, Numata Reader in Japanese Buddhism at SOAS, University of London

Eric Greene, Lecturer in East Asian Religions at the University of Bristol

Producer: Luke Mulhall.


THU 09:45 Book of the Week (b04t6xtm)
Discontent and Its Civilizations

Episode 4

Hamid recounts his experience of Islamaphobia both pre and post 9-11, and considers the fearsome consequences of terrorism and the death of Bin Laden on his country.

These timely 'dispatches from Lahore, New York and London' encompassing memoir, art and politics, collect the best essays of the award-winning author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Mohsin Hamid.

Hamid makes a compelling case for recognising our common humanity while relishing our diversity, for resisting the artificial mono-identities of religion or nationality or race, and for always judging a country or nation by how it treats its minorities as 'Each individual human being is, after all, a minority of one'.

Read by Sanjeev Baskhar

Abridged by Eileen Horne
Producer: Clive Brill

A Brill production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in December 2014.


THU 10:00 Woman's Hour (b04sxv2c)
Girlguiding; Adela Raz; Foetal Alcohol Syndrome

This programme includes a mix of items including an explicit discussion of pornography. Each item is available to listen to individually via the Chapter buttons on the website.

Jane Garvey discusses the impact of new regulations on online pornography. The working-life of Adela Raz - deputy spokesperson to the Afghan president. We discuss today's Court of Appeal judgement on Foetal Alcohol Syndrome. Free Being Me - the new girlguiding badge helping girls to cope with the pressures they face to look a certain way. And we hear about the life of Bevis Shergold, Olympic sportswoman and the first woman posted abroad by the British intelligence services.


THU 10:45 15 Minute Drama (b04sxv2f)
Patricia Highsmith - Carol

Episode 4

Driving West across America from New York, Carol and Therese have become lovers in a motel room in the town of Waterloo. By the time they reach Utah, Carol's battle with her husband for custody of their daughter seems very far away. However, everything they've left behind is just about to catch up with them.

Patricia Highsmith's tender and unsettling love story about two women – one of them married, and the other 19 - who risk everything to be together.

Highsmith is best-known as one of the 20th century's most accomplished thriller-writers - a role she assumed overnight when Alfred Hitchcock turned her sublimely disturbing first novel, Strangers On A Train, into a hit movie in 1951.

Written a year later, Carol broke all the rules for the portrayal of lesbians in American fiction. Despite warnings from her publisher and her agent that a lesbian novel would ruin her new-found reputation, the book became a major best-seller, with over a million sales when it was released in paperback – and Highsmith went on to write thirty more books before her death in 1995.

Carol is a genuinely groundbreaking classic – and a truly modern love story.

Carol..............Miranda Richardson
Therese...........Andrea Deck
Lobby Clerk......Colin Stinton
Landlady.........Liza Ross
with Barbara Barnes and David Jarvis

Written by Patricia Highsmith
Adapted and directed by Neil Bartlett

Producer: David Blount
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in December 2014.


THU 11:00 Crossing Continents (b04sxv2h)
Yemen's Swap Marriages

'I'll marry your sister if you marry mine. And if you divorce my sister, I'll divorce yours.' That is Yemen's 'Shegar', or swap marriage, an agreement between two men to marry each other's sisters, thereby removing the need for expensive dowry payments. But the agreement also states that if one marriage fails, the other couple must separate, too, even if they are happy.
BBC Arabic's Mai Noman returns to her native Yemen and hears the stories of two women who have loved and lost because of Shegar.
Nadia lives in the village of Sawan on the outskirts of the capital Sana'a with her family. She was married off at the age of twenty two and has three children. But because of her family's decision to marry her in the Shegar tradition she was forced to divorce when the other couple's marriage failed. Now she and her mother have to live with the stigma attached to divorce, and she only has limited access to her children, who remain with her ex-husband's family.
Nora and her brother Waleed had little say in marrying their cousins through Shegar. But when one marriage failed, hard choices had to be made by everyone. Mai asks why an old tradition that forces you to love only to force you to part, is still practised in Yemen.

Producer: Arlene Gregorius.


THU 11:30 Theatre of the Abused (b04styb4)
A radical wave of feminist theatre has taken the subject of sexual violence to a new level - depicting attacks against women in explicit, visceral and disturbing detail. In this programme playwright April de Angelis examines if it has gone too far.

Is there really a need to show so much violence on stage? From feminist comedy to verbatim theatre so powerful it leaves you reeling, women are getting their stories seen like never before. April asks if acting out sexual violence in all its gory detail, moves women forward in the debate or does it run the risk of becoming simply voyeuristic? She speaks with four women theatremakers whose plays all take a very different approach to the subject.

Yael Farber's "Nirbhaya" gave voice to previously silent victims in a devastating look at the breadth of violence perpetrated against women in India, reflected through the lens of the tragic death of Jyoti Singh Pandey. "A Girl is A Half Formed Thing" powerfully examined the lifetime of abuse a young girl was subjected to in a gut-wrenching and shattering monologue. "Freak" led us through the sexual journeys of aunt and niece, in a world where the line between sex, violence and ownership of one's own sexuality is dangerously fragile. The National Theatre takes on feminism with their play "Blurred Lines" which angrily questioned the objectification and victimisation of women, as depicted in pop videos.

April also speaks with Dr Lucy Nevitt, author of 'Theatre and Violence', cultural sociologist Dr Tiffany Jenkins who believes the portrayal of sexual violence onstage is too often demeaning and to Lyn Gardner, the theatre critic who has written extensively on the subject.

Producer: Susannah Tresilian.


THU 12:00 News Summary (b04stf3c)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


THU 12:04 Home Front (b04sxxsz)
4 December 1914 - Jessie Moore

In a town where recruitment is in the air, Jessie is determined to do her bit for the war effort, but can't seem to find anything to do.

Written by Sarah Daniels
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole
Sound: Martha Littlehailes


THU 12:15 You and Yours (b04sxxt1)
Venice's battle with pull-along luggage; the longest switch; Supermarket price wars

Waiting to switch: A couple who started changing energy provider two years ago are paid compensation by nPower. In January energy companies will be obliged to process switches within 17 days.

It has been the year of the Supermarket Price War, but how much is it saving us? One report suggests it could be as little as £2 per month.

Venice attempts to un-invent the wheel as it considers a crack down on pull-along luggage. Simon Calder is there to discover what truth there is in the claims that they destroy the quiet atmosphere, and ruin delicate marble pathways.

Plus, the solar panel promise that has failed to deliver. A £9000 eco investment that has become un-affordable for one couple.

Presenter: Winifred Robinson
Producer: Natalie Donovan.


THU 12:57 Weather (b04stf3f)
The latest weather forecast.


THU 13:00 World at One (b04sxzqg)
Analysis of current affairs reports, presented by Martha Kearney.


THU 13:45 Terror Through Time (b04sxzqj)
Laying Down the Law

After 9/11 the United Nations demanded that all member states tighten their laws to fight terrorism. Fergal Keane asks if freedom was threatened in the rush to legislate.

He's joined by former Mossad chief, Efraim Halevy, Brian Jenkins of the Rand Corporation, Conor Gearty from the London School of Economics.and the UK Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, David Anderson QC.

Producer: Alasdair Cross.


THU 14:00 The Archers (b04sxr8v)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Wednesday]


THU 14:15 Drama (b04sxzql)
Tongues of Fire

Dublin's Abbey Theatre in 1913. W.B. Yeats plans to stage a play by the mystical Bengali poet and Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore. But he doesn't reckon on the disruptive antics of the young, ambitious playwright-to-be Sean O'Casey. David Pownall imagines the fireworks between the two legendary Irishmen.

Director ..... Peter Kavanagh.


THU 15:00 Open Country (b04sxzqn)
Belfast Hills

Helen Mark makes a trip to the Belfast Hills and hears from the people who live and work in the landscape to discover how their lives have been shaped by the tough environment.

The Belfast Hills form an arc around the edge of the city, visible from virtually anywhere in Northern Ireland's capital.

Largely ignored by many of those living just a few miles in the city, the hills have always been a bustling centre of life. In fact without the linen industry that thrived in the Belfast Hills, the city would not have prospered.

Farming was common, mainly dairy and beef cattle, along with pigs and sheep, and the flax that grew in the hills fed the linen industry. Mills sprung up along with vast 'bleaching greens' to weave and finish the linen before it was taken down to the city to be sold.

Helen Mark meets with several local voices that have contributed to the Belfast Hills Spoken History Project: Roy Thompson has farmed in the area all his life; Joan Cosgrove and Rosalind Shaw provide memories of their childhood growing up and running riot in the Belfast Hills.

And how has the area changed? Helen finds out how the Belfast Hills are now a destination for those hoping to enjoy walking and the views across the whole of the city.

Presenter: Helen Mark
Producer: Martin Poyntz-Roberts.


THU 15:27 Radio 4 Appeal (b04stgyr)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:55 on Sunday]


THU 15:30 Open Book (b04stlcl)
[Repeat of broadcast at 16:00 on Sunday]


THU 16:00 The Film Programme (b04sxzqq)
Kevin Macdonald on Jude Law, Jason Reitman, Ewoks

With Francine Stock.

Director Kevin Macdonald on Jude Law's Scottish accent in his submarine drama Black Sea. And how geo-politics caught up with a film that's partly set in Crimea.

Jason Reitman discusses the moral panic about social media in his ensemble piece Men, Women And Children. And reveals his 70 year old mother's texting habits.

FX maestro Ben Burtt reveals the identity of the language that the Ewoks speak in the Star Wars saga.

Neil Brand shows us the part that music played in dramatising the final showdown between Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker in Return Of The Jedi.


THU 16:30 BBC Inside Science (b04sxzqs)
Orion Launch; Fake Mars trip; XDNA; Richard the Third's skeleton

A NASA space capsule, Orion, that could transport humans to Mars is due to make its maiden flight. Given that this is a first outing, there will be no people aboard. The capsule will orbit the earth twice in four and a half hours, before splashing down in the Pacific. BBC correspondent Jonathan Amos is on location at Cape Canaveral and gives Adam the latest news.

This is a step towards a crewed mission to Mars. But how do humans cope with being confined for the 8 months it takes to get there? The European Space Agency studied this question in 2010. 6 volunteers were shut up in a replica space shuttle for over a year. Engineer Diego Urbina was one of them. He shares his thoughts on taking part in a fake Mars mission.

Philip Holliger from the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge heads the team that two years ago built XNA, a set of genetic molecules that behave just like DNA, but are man-made. Like DNA, those XNAs didn't actually do that much, but this week, the team has published a paper where they have got them working. These are the first synthetic enzymes on Earth.

Back in 2012, a shallow grave was uncovered underneath a car park in Leicester. Evidence suggested the skeleton in it was King Richard the Third. Finally this week, the DNA confirmation by geneticist Turi King is in. And something is rotten in the state of his lineage. Kevin Schurer, historian, and Richard Buckley, the lead archaeologist on the dig, talk us through the DNA anomaly that hints at infidelity in the royal line.


THU 17:00 PM (b04sxzqv)
Full coverage and analysis of the day's news.


THU 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b04stf3h)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


THU 18:30 My Teenage Diary (b04sxzqx)
Series 6

Chris Difford

Rufus Hound is joined by the musician and Squeeze founder member Chris Difford. His 1974 diary talks about the very early days of the band and describes life behind the scenes - including a wild ride down the A20 on the back of a motorbike.

Produced by Harriet Jaine
A Talkback production for BBC Radio.


THU 19:00 The Archers (b04sxzqz)
Alice wants to be Lynda's assistant director for Blithe Spirit, pointing out that Lynda needs help securing their most important missing ingredient - a leading man. Alice suggests Douglas Herrington, a key member of rival company Felpersham Light Operatic Society, who looks like storming out of FLOS due to recent disagreements. Lynda may lose Helen too. She instructs Alice to make no offers to Douglas without consulting her.

Tom finds Rob sorting veg boxes, rather than going on the planned hunt (avoiding the heat from the hunt sabs). Tom takes charge at Bridge Farm and politely puts Rob in his place over his recent stock feed order. Rob has ordered some new cattle (Simmentals) to replace some of the Angus cows. Tom firmly points out that the cattle is not Rob's call - he'll be cancelling the order.

Emma talks to Will about Number 1, The Green, which he could surely rent to Emma and Ed (for a reduced rate). Will points out Ed's lack of funds, but Emma plays the family card and eventually persuades Will to agree a six-month let. Emma asks for the keys.

Lynda plans to meet Usha regarding a legal challenge to the new road. Lynda laughingly tells Ruth that she's heard a ridiculous rumour that David and Ruth are selling to Damara Capital. She's stunned when Ruth confirms that it's true.


THU 19:15 Front Row (b04sxzr1)
Harrison Birtwistle; The Grandmaster; Christmas boxset recommendations; Wonder Woman's historical significance

The composer Sir Harrison Birtwistle discusses his music as a season celebrating his 80th birthday begins at London's Southbank Centre.

Iain Lee reviews The Grandmaster, the new film from Hong Kong director Wong Kar Wai, which traces the life of the Wing Chun grandmaster Ip Man, who taught Bruce Lee.

Boyd Hilton receommends the boxsets that should be making their way into stockings this Christmas.

"Great Hera!" - Jill Lepore, author of The Secret History of Wonder Woman, discusses the strange origins of this female superhero inspired by early 20th century feminism and created by man.

Producer: Ellie Bury
Presenter: Samira Ahmed.


THU 19:45 15 Minute Drama (b04sxv2f)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:45 today]


THU 20:00 The Report (b04sy0ht)
Derby Jihadist

Suspected suicide bomber Kabir Ahmed left Derby to fight for IS. He is the second Islamist extremist in a decade to travel from the small suburb of Normanton to die abroad. Simon Cox looks at the sinister networks connecting the two men and investigates whether their leaders are still active in Derby.

Producer: Ian Muir-Cochrane
Researcher: James Melley
Additional reporting: Sajid Iqbal.


THU 20:30 In Business (b04sy0hw)
Sovereign Wealth Funds

Government owned Sovereign wealth funds are treasure troves of money earned by oil resources and mighty export earnings, vast nest-eggs for the future when overseas earnings dry up. Obscure though they may be, SWFs have extraordinary flows of cash to invest and potentially enormous international clout. This programme investigates SWFs: who they are and what they're doing.


THU 21:00 BBC Inside Science (b04sxzqs)
[Repeat of broadcast at 16:30 today]


THU 21:30 In Our Time (b04sxv29)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]


THU 21:58 Weather (b04stf3k)
The latest weather forecast.


THU 22:00 The World Tonight (b04sy0hy)
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.


THU 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b04sy0j0)
In Love and War

Episode 9

"[He] unfolds a portrait of himself in gouache [...] It is a good likeness, he thinks, if a little tragic, and big-eared. She has drawn a man - given him something to grow into."

Esmond Lowndes's father is a leading light in the British Union Of Fascists. In 1937, Esmond is sent down from Cambridge in disgrace and dispatched instead to Florence to set up Radio Firenze - an English-language radio station aiming to form closer ties between Fascists in Italy and England.

Esmond finds love and loss, and his journey of self-discovery becomes increasingly and - as Italy moves into war - more tightly intertwined with the fortunes of Florence, the city he has made his home.

And at every turn, he comes up against the local Blackshirt leader, the brutal Mario Carita.

Episode 9 (of 10)
As the struggle for Florence becomes bloodier by the day, so does Esmond and Ada's work for the Resistance.

Alex Preston lives with his family in London. His first novel, This Bleeding City, was selected as one of Waterstones New Voices 2010. His second, The Revelations, was shortlisted for the Guardian's Not the Booker Prize. Alex is a journalist and a Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Kent.

Reader: Carl Prekopp
Abridger: Jeremy Osborne

Produced by Rosalynd Ward
A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4.


THU 23:00 Another Case of Milton Jones (b0132p8h)
Series 5

Royal Speech Therapist

As the royal Speech Therapist, Milton Jones helps a Prince find his voice and a king find his pomegranates. He also starts three wars in one afternoon, and another three a little later on.

He's joined in his endeavours by his co-stars Tom Goodman-Hill ("Camelot"), Dave Lamb ("Come Dine With Me") and Lucy Montgomery ("Down The Line").

Milton Jones returns to BBC Radio Four for an amazing 9th series - which means he's been running for longer than Gardeners' Question Time and answered more questions on gardening as well.

Britain's funniest Milton and the king of the one-liner returns with a fully-working cast and a shipload of new jokes for a series of daffy comedy adventures

Each week, Milton is a complete and utter expert at something - brilliant Mathematician, World-Class Cyclist, Aviator, Championship Jockey...

... and each week, with absolutely no ability or competence, he plunges into a big adventure with utterly funny results...

"Milton Jones is one of Britain's best gagsmiths with a flair for creating daft yet perfect one-liners" - The Guardian.

"King of the surreal one-liners" - The Times

"If you haven't caught up with Jones yet - do so!" - The Daily Mail

Written by Milton with James Cary ("Think The Unthinkable", "Miranda"), the man they call "Britain's funniest Milton," returns to the radio with a fully-working cast and a shipload of new jokes. The cast includes regulars Tom Goodman-Hill ( "Spamalot"), Lucy Montgomery ("Down The Line"), Dave Lamb ("Come Dine With Me") and Ben Willbond ("Horrible Histories")

David Tyler's radio credits include Armando Iannucci's Charm Offensive, Cabin Pressure, Bigipedia, Another Case Of Milton Jones, Jeremy Hardy Speaks To The Nation, Giles Wemmbley Hogg Goes Off, The 99p Challenge, The Castle, The 3rd Degree and even, going back a bit, Radio Active. His TV credits include Paul Merton - The Series, Spitting Image, Absolutely, The Paul & Pauline Calf Video Diaries, Coogan's Run, The Tony Ferrino Phenomenon and exec producing Victoria Wood's dinnerladies.

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


THU 23:30 Today in Parliament (b04sy0j2)
Sean Curran hears MPs approve changes to stamp duty. There's a debate on sport. And fears about cuts to legal aid.

Editor: Peter Mulligan.



FRIDAY 05 DECEMBER 2014

FRI 00:00 Midnight News (b04stf56)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.


FRI 00:30 Book of the Week (b04t6xtm)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:45 on Thursday]


FRI 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b04stf58)
The latest shipping forecast.


FRI 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b04stf5b)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


FRI 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b04stf5d)
The latest shipping forecast.


FRI 05:30 News Briefing (b04stf5g)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


FRI 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b04vws6l)
Spiritual reflection to start the day with The Revd Alison Jack.


FRI 05:45 Farming Today (b04sy3qf)
Tidal surge, Christmas pork

A year on from the devastating tidal surge that hit the East Coast, an organisation representing landowners says they need more freedom from red tape to rebuild their flood defences. Thousands of acres were flooded in the biggest tidal surge in sixty years. We also hear from a nature reserve in Lincolnshire where livestock is helping to restore the land after the flood. Presented by Anna Hill and produced by Sally Challoner.


FRI 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b04sy3qh)
Brown Thrasher

Tweet of the Day is the voice of birds and our relationship with them, from around the world.

Chris Packham presents the brown thrasher, usually seen in North America. Brown thrashers are related to mockingbirds which breed across most of eastern and central North America. They're famous for their vast repertoire which can include over 1000 song types. They spend much of their time skulking in dense shrubs at woodland edges and in parks and gardens. They're russet on top, white below and heavily streaked like a large thrush but with much longer tails and stout curved bills. Their name comes from the noisy thrashing sound they make as they search the leaf litter for food. Normally, brown thrashers are short distance migrants within North America but in 1966, in November of that year, in Dorset, birdwatchers almost dropped their binoculars in disbelief when they heard the call of a brown thrasher coming from a coastal thicket. It remained here until February 1967 and is the only British record.


FRI 06:00 Today (b04t6t5t)
Morning news and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Yesterday in Parliament, Weather and Thought for the Day.


FRI 09:00 Desert Island Discs (b04stgz0)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:15 on Sunday]


FRI 09:45 Book of the Week (b04t6yln)
Discontent and Its Civilizations

Episode 5

These timely 'dispatches from Lahore, New York and London' encompassing memoir, art and politics, collect the best essays of the award-winning author of The Reluctant Fundamentalist, Mohsin Hamid.

Hamid makes a compelling case for recognising our common humanity while relishing our diversity, for resisting the artificial mono-identities of religion or nationality or race, and for always judging a country or nation by how it treats its minorities as 'Each individual human being is, after all, a minority of one'.

In two essays, author and journalist Mohsin Hamid considers his country's – and its Asian neighbours' – history and progress, on the occasions of Pakistan's 60th and 65th birthdays.

Read by Sanjeev Baskhar

Abridged by Eileen Horne

Produced by Clive Brill
A Brill production for BBC Radio 4


FRI 10:00 Woman's Hour (b04t6t5w)
Sheila Scott; Symphysiotomy; Feminism and Men

The extraordinary life of female aviator Sheila Scott, who was the first woman to fly around the world in a light aircraft. The Irish Government has announced that it will be giving payments to some women who underwent a process during child birth called symphysiotomy, a surgical procedure involving sawing through a woman's pelvic bone to deliver her baby. But are these women being offered a fair deal? Men in the feminist movement; we ask if there is a place for them. And why do wills have the power to destroy families? We hear from a woman whose life was derailed by a family dispute over inheritance.


FRI 10:45 15 Minute Drama (b04sy3qm)
Patricia Highsmith - Carol

Episode 5

In an attempt to retain custody of her daughter, Carol has abandoned her 19 year-old lover, Therese, after her husband obtained evidence of their affair.

Therese has returned to New York to try and pick up her career as a theatre designer – and to forget the woman who has torn her life apart.

Conclusion of Patricia Highsmith's tender and unsettling love story about two women – one of them married, and the other 19 - who risk everything to be together.

Highsmith is best-known as one of the 20th century's most accomplished thriller-writers - a role she assumed overnight when Alfred Hitchcock turned her sublimely disturbing first novel, Strangers On A Train, into a hit movie in 1951.

Written a year later, Carol broke all the rules for the portrayal of lesbians in American fiction. Despite warnings from her publisher and her agent that a lesbian novel would ruin her new-found reputation, the book became a major best-seller, with over a million sales when it was released in paperback – and Highsmith went on to write thirty more books before her death in 1995.

Carol is a genuinely groundbreaking classic – and a truly modern love story.

Carol...................Miranda Richardson
Therese................Andrea Deck
Abby...................Lorelei King
Genevieve Cranell...Felicity Dean
Mr Bernstein..........Colin Stinton
With David Jarvis, Barbara Barnes and Gunnar Cauthery

Written by Patricia Highsmith
Adapted and directed by Neil Bartlett

Producer: David Blount
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in December 2014.


FRI 11:00 Hot Gossip! (b04sy3qp)
2. Brains

In the second of two programmes, Geoff Watts continues to explore the science, history and cultural implications of gossip.

Gossip has a bad reputation and for the most part, deservedly so. Yet, on-going research appears to suggest that gossip does serve a useful purpose. Not least because our brains may be hard wired for it. Researchers in Boston have used a technique known as binocular rivalry (showing different images to left and right eye at the same time) to suggest that gossip acts as an early warning system, that the brain automatically redirects your attention onto people you've heard negative remarks about. Even though this process happens at a sub-conscious level, your brain is sifting through and weeding out anyone in your surroundings that you may be have good reason to distrust.

Elsewhere, researchers in Manchester have been analysing what makes gossip memorable and are now scanning subjects brains to see if there are specific gossip networks which light up. From preliminary results it appears gossip activates areas in the brain similar to those that produce feelings of pleasure and reward. Next they plan to scan their subjects' brains as they tweet.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, in many of these experiments, it is celebrity gossip that tends to produce the largest response. Thanks to what one commentator calls the perfect storm of 24-hour news, reality TV and social media, the all-pervasive celebrity gossip industry exploits our endless appetite for information about people we will never meet. But could even celebrity gossip serve a purpose? Or are we gorging ourselves on trivia whilst ignoring the plight of those closest to us? And can and should anything be done to stem the negative impacts of gossip in a digital age?

Producer: Rami Tzabar

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 2014.


FRI 11:30 The Stanley Baxter Playhouse (b01pz5jd)
Series 5

The Hat

By Colin MacDonald.

Sheriff Finlay travels from Scotland to York for the funeral and cremation of his older brother William, with whom he didn't get on. When he gets there he is greeted with barely disguised hostility by William's widow.

She tells him arrangements for the funeral are all made: it is going to be a Humanist service and the family heirloom fireman's hat, which was worn with pride by the brothers' grandfather, is in the coffin and is going to be incinerated along with William.

Alistair decides to get the hat before the coffin makes its final journey into the flames. This will take him into dangerous territory, breaking into a funeral parlour at night and braving the criminal underworld to retrieve Grandad's hat and make a final peace with his brother.

Coronation Street veteran Thelma Barlow stars as his sister-in-law Louise and Stanley Baxter is Sheriff Alistair Finlay in this black comedy with a warm heart about death, brotherly love and saying goodbye.

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


FRI 12:00 News Summary (b04stf5j)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


FRI 12:04 Home Front (b04sy3qr)
5 December 1914 - Joe Macknade

Joe Macknade dearly wants to enlist, but is it for glory, or to escape home?

Written by Sarah Daniels
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole
Sound: Martha Littlehailes


FRI 12:15 You and Yours (b04t6t5y)
Pensions; Pubs; Supermarket politeness

Pensions - An update on You and Yours investigations into pensions mis-selling. We uncover a multi-million pound hole in people's pension pots

Pub food - the pubs turning to "grow their own" to supply their kitchens

Waitrose - the boss of Waitrose tells us his plans to see off challengers in the battle of the supermarkets

Tumours - a mum calls for families to donate the tumours that killed their loved ones

Shopworkers - what happens when the customer is clearly in the wrong?

Presenter Peter White.


FRI 12:57 Weather (b04stf5l)
The latest weather forecast.


FRI 13:00 World at One (b04vwtby)
Analysis of current affairs reports, presented by Mark Mardell.


FRI 13:45 Terror Through Time (b04sy3qt)
The New Face of Terror

Has the nature of terrorism and the way we respond to it changed since 1800? To complete his journey through the history of terrorism Fergal Keane is joined by Professor Margaret Macmillan from Oxford University and the academic advisor to the series, Professor Richard English of St Andrews University.

Together they consider the evolution in the response of politicians and public to the bomb and the bullet and the lessons those 200 years of history should have taught us.

Producer: Alasdair Cros.


FRI 14:00 The Archers (b04sxzqz)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Thursday]


FRI 14:15 Drama (b01k9wfn)
Lavinia Murray - The Beautiful Ugly

The Beautiful Ugly
by Lavinia Murray

This is an imagined day in the life of Hans Christian Andersen as a child. Combining fact with fantasy we explore the remarkable roots of Andresen's magical creativity and enter an icy, snowy, surreal landscape.
Christian finds himself on a quest to save his father's life from the chilling grip of the Ice Maiden.

Christian ..... Ellis Hollins
Merman ..... Jonathan Keeble
Mother ...... Fiona Clarke
Ice Maiden ..... Kathryn Hunt
Father ...... Seamus O'Neil
Producer/Director - Pauline Harris

Further info:- H.C.A. is an awkward, wonderful, off-kilter child, preparing to reach out into the world - unable to reconcile the poverty and dullness into which he was born. And this is the day he becomes aware of his tremendous and exquisite gift for storytelling.

Hans Christian's father has just returned, tired and debilitated, from a two year stint in the Napoleonic Army. He points to the ice patterns on the window. 'See, the Ice Maiden is coming for me!' he laughs. Hans Christian can indeed see the faint silhouette of a woman draped in ice flowers with an icicle crown with her hand held out towards them. Hans Christian's mother, becomes fearful. When her husband has dozed off she tells Hans Christian that the Ice Maiden will surely visit, freeze his father's heart and eyes, and take his soul. She sends Christian on a trip for a talisman from the wise woman. Christian is on a quest - to save his father's soul - from the chilling grip of the Ice Maiden.
The writer - Lavinia Murray - very experienced radio writer, wrote The Tyger Hunt - a drama about an imagined day in the life of William Blake as a child. Other work for Radio 4 includes The Opium Eater, Man of All Work.


FRI 15:00 Gardeners' Question Time (b04sy3qw)
Bournemouth

Eric Robson hosts the horticultural panel programme from Bournemouth. Chris Beardshaw, Matt Biggs and Christine Walkden answer questions from an audience of local gardeners.

Produced by Howard Shannon
Assistant Producer: Hannah Newton

A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4

This week's questions and answers:

Q. I can't work out why I can't get my Pansies to continue flowering through the seasons, please help!

A. They flower better in warmer temperatures so after the autumnal equinox even deadheading won't be able to keep the plants flowering through the colder months. Stick with Violas if you want flowers in poorer conditions.

Q. Some of our neighbour's trees have been removed and this has exposed our garden. Could the panel recommend some tall, evergreen, colourful and quick-growing varieties that will restore our privacy?

A. Elaeagnuses are all good, things like the 'Quick Silver' could work, especially if some of the sprawling branches were removed and the others taken up. The variegated Eleagnuses have good evergreen foliage and small scented flowers. The Photinia 'Red Robin' would provide colour. Stransvesia would also work. It's also worth considering growing climbers up through those plants.

Q. My young Spring Cabbages have been chewed, what is it?

A. This looks like a caterpillar has nibbled the edges - you can tell by the crisp nature of the damage. The holes in the middle look like slugs have been at it but the majority of the damage is due to cabbage white caterpillars.

Q. What else could be grown in a prairie garden with very sandy soil that would add colour?

A. Digitalis Lutea would work and the Lisa Macchias are well worth a try, but avoid Nummularia and go for Atrapo Perera. Eupatoriums 'purple bush' would work well. Don't be afraid to throw in a few annuals like Leucanthemums.

Q. Is there any way I can restrict the growth of a Koelreuteria Paniculata 'Golden Tree' to 15 feet (4.57 metres)?

A. They don't take pruning very well, so just 'tip-prune'. Just as the buds are swelling but before they have burst prune back the principal boughs by a couple of inches (5cm). Enjoy it while it lasts, but remove it when it is really getting too big. Get something smaller that will do well in that space.

Q. I'm confused - should we be digging in egg shells and grit to encourage drainage or digging in compost to retain moisture?

A. Both are correct depending on the situation. Gardeners want good structure, good air concentration and good drainage. Those qualities are largely aided by the addition of organic matter. However, if the basic structure of the soil is heavy use coarse materials to open up the soil.

Q. I have a Magnolia Grandiflora in my garden. It's in magnificent health but doesn't flower - can you
help me?

A. They can take a while to get flowering but they sometimes need the extra shelter and warmth of a south-facing wall to get flowering.

8.Q. Do members of the team have a favourite orchid, and if so, why?

A. Christine adores the Cypripedium Calceolus 'Lady's Slipper Orchid' and the orchids of Patagonia. Matt loves the tiny Neo Falcata Orchid, known as the 'Japanese Wind Orchid'. Chris loves the Pyramidal Orchid and the Common Spotted Orchid as well as Cymbidiums.


FRI 15:45 Short Rides in Fast Machines (b04sy3qy)
About Time by Tania Hershman

A multi-contributor series of specially-commissioned radio stories about speed.

Every generation observes that life is getting faster - the pace of change, of action, or communication. Our cars, trains, boats and planes are faster than ever. And as every world-record on the athletic track confirms, we're still getting faster ourselves. The title is inspired by the minimalist composition by John Adams ('Short Ride In A Fast Machine').

Episode 3:
"About Time" by Tania Hershman
A writer's research for a story about time machines takes him in some unusual directions.

Tania Hershman is the author of two story collections - 'My Mother Was An Upright Piano: Fictions' and 'The White Road and Other Stories'. Her award-winning short stories and poetry have been widely published in print and online and broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and 4. Tania is founder and curator of ShortStops, celebrating short story activity across the UK and Ireland. She is a Royal Literary Fund fellow at the faculties of science at Bristol University and is studying for a PhD in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University, exploring the intersection between fiction and particle physics. She is co-writer and editor of Writing Short Stories: A Writers' and Artists' Companion which will be published in December 2014.

Produced by Jeremy Osborne
A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4.


FRI 16:00 Last Word (b04t6t60)
Jeremy Thorpe, Ian McLagan, Viktor Tikhonov, Trevor Pharo and Sabah

Matthew Bannister on

Jeremy Thorpe who was a charismatic leader of the Liberal Party, but fell from grace after facing trial on charges of conspiring to murder a former male model who claimed to have had a sexual relationship with him. Although he was acquitted, Jeremy Thorpe's political career was over.

Also Ian McLagan, the keyboard player with the Small Faces and the Faces. Billy Bragg pays tribute.

Viktor Tikhonov the ruthless coach of the Soviet Ice Hockey Team,

Trevor Pharo - the South Coast sales executive otherwise known as Bingo the Clown,

And the celebrated Lebanese singer Sabah.


FRI 16:30 Feedback (b04t6t62)
What do you really think of Radios 4 and 5 and their extra bits? The BBC Trust wants listeners' input for a major review it's conducting. But will your views change anything? Trustee Elan Closs Stephens tells Roger Bolton why reviews like this matter.

Radio 4's World War 1 drama Home Front is set to run for four years and a total of approximately 600 episodes. Roger goes on a behind-the-scenes tour of the epic production and puts listeners' questions talks to the series editor Jessica Droomgoole and producer Lucy Collingwood.

Jarvis Cocker took the Radio 4 audience back to primary school with his Archive on 4 on the well-loved programme "Singing Together". It was a weekly broadcast that started in 1939 and quickly became a treasured musical memory. But most of the broadcasts have been lost. We hear from Feedback listener Christopher Goodman who has succeeded where the BBC failed - in saving a little bit of our musical heritage for posterity.

And Archers Addicts question the point of a radio drama where the actors' voices are far too similar.

Produced by Will Yates
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.


FRI 16:55 The Listening Project (b04sy3r0)
Richard and Chris – On The Street

Fi Glover introduces friends who met via The Connection at St Martin in the Fields and have both been helped to find a means of breaking the cycle of homelessness. The Radio 4 Christmas Appeal helps fund the work of The Connection.

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

Producer: Marya Burgess


FRI 17:00 PM (b04t6t64)
PM at 5pm- Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.


FRI 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b04stf5n)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


FRI 18:30 The News Quiz (b04sy3r2)
Series 85

Episode 7

A satirical review of the week's news, chaired by Sandi Toksvig, who is joined by Fred MacAulay, Holly Walsh and Bob Mills, alongside regular panellist Jeremy Hardy.


FRI 19:00 The Archers (b04sy3r4)
The Christmas Lights Switch On

Three weeks of themed programmes from the last two decades revisiting key moments from the characters’ lives and the events that make Ambridge unforgettable. This episode forms part of the third week when we take a look at five different occasions that mark unmissable dates in The Ambridge Calendar.

As the residents of Ambridge gather on the green for the traditional Christmas Lights switch on, rumours abound. It seems that David and Ruth Archer have agreed to sell Brookfield to Justin Elliot’s firm, Damara Capital, which has a vested interest in the council approving plans for a new road that would impact hugely on the village. The residents have been mounting a campaign against the building of the road believing David and Ruth to be on their side, but instead it looks like they’re about to betray their community.

Not everyone is unhappy though as Emma has a surprise for Ed.

This programme was originally broadcast on Friday 5th December 2014.

Adam Macy ..... Andrew Wincott
Charlie Thomas ..... Felix Scott
Jennifer Aldridge ..... Angela Piper
Brian Aldridge ..... Charles Collingwood
Lynda Snell ..... Carole Boyd
Ed Grundy ..... Barry Farrimond
Emma Grundy ..... Emerald O'Hanrahan

Writer, Mary Cutler
Director, Julie Beckett

Cast from earlier episodes this week:
David Archer ..... Timothy Bentinck
Ruth Archer ..... Felicity Finch
Phil Archer ..... Norman Painting
Jill Archer ..... Patricia Greene
Eddie Grundy ..... Trevor Harrison
Will Grundy ..... Philip Molloy
Emma Grundy ..... Felicity Jones
Tim Hathaway ..... Jay Villiers
Siobhan Donovan ..... Caroline Lennon
Nigel Pargetter ..... Graham Seed
Clarrie Grundy ..... Rosalind Adams
Neil Carter ..... Brian Hewlett
Alice Aldridge ..... Hollie Chapman
Justin Elliott ..... Simon Williams
Lilian Bellamy ..... Sunny Ormonde
Shula Hebden Lloyd ..... Judy Bennett
Matt Crawford ..... Kim Durham
Nic Grundy ..... Becky Wright
Ian Craig ..... Stephen Kennedy
Adam Macy ..... Andrew Wincott
Kenton Archer ..... Richard Atlee
Peggy Woolley ..... June Spencer
Jack Woolley ..... Arnold Peters
Elizabeth Pargetter..... Alison Dowling

Writers in earlier episodes this week, Carole Simpson Solazzo, Caroline Harrington, Gillian Richmond,
Directors in earlier episodes this week, Marina Caldarone


FRI 19:15 Front Row (b04sy3r6)
Jim Broadbent; Young Adult Fiction; Tena Stivicic; Comedy DVDs

Jim Broadbent talks to Kirsty Lang about playing Father Christmas for the third time in his new film Get Santa; Matt Haig and Katherine Woodfine on Young Adult Fiction; Croatian playwright Tena Stivicic discusses her play 3 Winters at the National Theatre; Stephen Armstrong brings us his pick of the year's comedy DVDs; and following the news that the British Museum has loaned one of the Elgin Marbles to the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, Peter Aspden considers the role museums and galleries can play when political harmony between nations breaks down.

Producer Jerome Weatherald.


FRI 19:45 15 Minute Drama (b04sy3qm)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:45 today]


FRI 20:00 Any Questions? (b04sy4ts)
Mark Littlewood, Eric Pickles MP, Rachel Reeves MP, Mark Serwotka

Jonathan Dimbleby presents political debate and discussion from Felsted School in Essex with Mark Littlewood the Director General of the Institute of Economic Affairs, Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, Eric Pickles MP, Rachel Reeves MP the Shadow Secretary of State for Work and Pension and Mark Serwotka the General Secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union.


FRI 20:50 A Point of View (b04sy4tv)
Faking It

Philosopher Roger Scruton reflects on the difference between original art that is genuine, sincere and truthful, but hard to achieve, and the easier but fake art that he says appeals to many critics today.

He argues that original artists from Beethoven and Baudelaire to Picasso and Pound tower above those contemporary artists whose pieces push fake emotion - and who, by focusing on avoiding cliche, end up cliches themselves.

Producer: Arlene Gregorius.


FRI 21:00 Home Front - Omnibus (b04sy4tx)
1-5 December 1914 (Season 2 start)

Epic drama series set in Great War Britain. In the first omnibus edition of Season 2, everyone is looking to do their bit for the war effort. With Deborah Findlay, Rachel Shelley, Katie Angelou.

Written by: Sarah Daniels
Story-led by: Katie Hims
Consultant Historian: Professor Maggie Andrews
Music: Matthew Strachan
Sound: Martha Littlehailes
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole.


FRI 21:58 Weather (b04stf5q)
The latest weather forecast.


FRI 22:00 The World Tonight (b04t6t96)
The UK's leading policeman on child abuse - Simon Bailey - suggests that at least 50% of people who view images of children online should not go to prison - and need to be dealt with by the NHS.

Jeremy Bowen on the olive tree wars between Palestinians and Israeli settlers.

What the Russians are making of the British Museum's loan of part of the Elgin Marbles

The collapse of the case in the International Criminal Court against Kenya's President Kenyatta

and the controversial 24 hour tv channel in France that's been accused of pandering to the FN.

In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective. With David Eades.


FRI 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b04sy4tz)
In Love and War

Episode 10

"[He] unfolds a portrait of himself in gouache [...] It is a good likeness, he thinks, if a little tragic, and big-eared. She has drawn a man - given him something to grow into."

Esmond Lowndes's father is a leading light in the British Union Of Fascists. In 1937, Esmond is sent down from Cambridge in disgrace and dispatched instead to Florence to set up Radio Firenze - an English-language radio station aiming to form closer ties between Fascists in Italy and England.

Esmond finds love and loss, and his journey of self-discovery becomes increasingly and - as Italy moves into war - more tightly intertwined with the fortunes of Florence, the city he has made his home.

And at every turn, he comes up against the local Blackshirt leader, the brutal Mario Carita.

Episode 10 (of 10)
With the Allies getting ever closer to Florence, Esmond and Bruno attempt a daring rescue mission at Blackshirt headquarters.

Alex Preston lives with his family in London. His first novel, This Bleeding City, was selected as one of Waterstones New Voices 2010. His second, The Revelations, was shortlisted for the Guardian's Not the Booker Prize. Alex is a journalist and a Lecturer in Creative Writing at the University of Kent.

Reader: Carl Prekopp
Abridger: Jeremy Osborne

Produced by Rosalynd Ward
A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4.


FRI 23:00 Jeremy Thorpe: The Silent Conspiracy (b04wz633)
Jeremy Thorpe, the former Liberal leader, led a life which combined major political achievements with persistent rumours of scandal, culminating in a trial for conspiracy to murder and his acquittal. But was there an establishment cover-up to protect him during his political career? Tom Mangold has been investigating, in a programme containing both new evidence and material from the 1970s that has never previously been broadcast.

Producer: Martin Rosenbaum.


FRI 23:40 Today in Parliament (b04sy4v1)
Mark D'Arcy reports from Westminster.