SATURDAY 31 DECEMBER 2016

SAT 00:00 Midnight News (b085hsgh)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.

SAT 00:15 Shakespeare: Love Across the Racial Divide (b07bkcxm)
Antony and Cleopatra

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown explores five Shakespeare plays which cross the racial divide. In this edition, she focuses on the relationship between Antony and Cleopatra. Power is one of Cleopatra's most dominant character traits and the main theme of the play. She represents the lure of the East. In the Queen of Egypt, who oscillates between being a astute political leader and a manipulative seductress, Shakespeare has penned perhaps his most complex and most dazzling of female characters.

No one has ever captured the joy and lunacy and power of love better than William Shakespeare. And his transgressive depictions of love in particular, remain unsurpassed. Othello, Titus Andronicus, The Merchant of Venice, Antony and Cleopatra and A Midsummer Night's Dream - in these five plays there's so much more to love than love. These are not tidy tragedies. Shakespeare apparently never left England except through his plays yet he embraced interracial relationships and relationships supernatural relationships into thrilling, dangerous drama. We bring together scholars, directors and actors to explore how the compulsions and fears, joys and sorrows, very much part of everyday life for many in Britain today, were so consummately showcased by Shakespeare more than four hundred years ago.

Producer Mohini Patel.

SAT 00:30 Book of the Week (b0868wnv)
Snow, Transformations

The final episode of a meditation on snow by author Marcus Sedgwick. Five years ago, he moved to an old chalet d'alpage high up in the Haute-Savoie (an alpine department of the eastern France bordering both Switzerland and Italy). In this final episode, he studies the nature of its 'whiteness' and welcomes in the spring thaw.

Marcus Sedgwick is best known as a children's author. He is the winner of many prizes, most notably the Michael L. Printz Award 2014, for his novel Midwinterblood. Marcus has also received two Printz Honors, for Revolver in 2011 and The Ghosts of Heaven in 2016. Other notable awards include Floodland, Marcus' first novel, which won the Branford-Boase Award in 2001, a prize for the best debut novel for children.

His books have been shortlisted for over forty other awards, including the Carnegie Medal (six times), the Edgar Allan Poe Award (twice) and the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize (four times). He has twice been nominated for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award, in 2016 and 2017.

The reader is Jonathan Firth. The producer was Julian Wilkinson and the abridger was Katrin Williams.

SAT 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b085hsgk)
The latest shipping forecast.

SAT 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b085hsgm)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service. BBC Radio 4 resumes at 5.20am.

SAT 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b085hsgs)
The latest shipping forecast.

SAT 05:30 News Briefing (b085hsgv)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.

SAT 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b085z6fl)
Spiritual reflection and prayer to start the day with the Rev Duncan MacLaren, Healthcare Chaplain at Ninewells Hospital, Dundee.

SAT 05:45 iPM (b085z6fn)
The husband

A husband explains why he cheated on his wife of 28 years. Colin Blane reads Your News. iPM@bbc.co.uk.

SAT 06:00 News and Papers (b085hsgy)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.

SAT 06:04 Weather (b085hsh0)
The latest weather forecast.

SAT 06:07 Open Country (b085xs50)
The Changing Face of Wind in the Willows Country

Helen Mark heads to Cookham Dean, on the edge of the Berkshire Downs, to explore the landscape that inspired author Kenneth Grahame - giving rise to the magical world of The Wind In The Willows.
After his mother died when Grahame was just six, he and his siblings moved from Scotland to Berkshire, to live with their grandmother. She allowed the youngsters to play freely in the surrounding countryside, feeding their imaginations and introducing Kenneth to the woodlands, meadows and river banks that would reappear years later in his most famous book.
As an adult, Grahame returned to live in Cookham Dean with his own family, where the stories he told his young son were eventually turned into The Wind In The Willows.
Today, changes abound: Grahame's former home is a school; the National Trust has plans to revert an area of woodland back to grassland; and the river rowers are racers rather than picnickers. But the charm of the rural setting that was home to Ratty, Mole, Toad and Badger lingers on...
Produced by Lucy Taylor.

SAT 06:30 Farming Today (b085hsh3)
Farming Today This Week: Agricultural Policy Post-Brexit

Charlotte Smith hosts a panel of expert guests to discuss what a British Agricultural Policy might look like post-Brexit: They are Neil Parish MP, Chair of the Environment Food and Rural Affairs Committee; Caroline Drummond, Chief Executive of Linking Environment and Farming (LEAF); and Guy Smith, Vice Chair of the National Farmers Union.
We also hear from listeners who've responded to our calls for ideas. Many say farmers should still receive subsidies post-Brexit, but in return for environmental stewardship work.

SAT 06:57 Weather (b085hsh5)
The latest weather forecast.

SAT 07:00 Today (b086kf14)
Morning news and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.

SAT 09:00 Saturday Live (b085hsh7)
Lucy Porter

Comedian Lucy Porter joins Aasmah Mir and Kate Silverton to discuss why she originally wanted to follow in the footsteps of Kate Adie, the pleasures and perils of setting up a Mums and Babies comedy club and the influential women in the early days of Hollywood slapstick films.

Motivational writer and speaker Chris Barez-Brown will teach us how to switch off our inner auto pilots and become more creative in the New Year.

Pyrotechnician Jon Culverhouse explains the secrets behind putting on an award-winning firework display.

And Francesca Brown, who started out playing for Manchester City girls' team, but has since founded an all girls football academy, Goals4Girls.

Plus Alan Carr shares his Inheritance Tracks and 13 year old Joey Alexander reveals the secret to becoming a world famous virtuoso pianist.

Lucy Porter is taking part in the Bristol Slapstick Comedy festival from 18-22 Jan 2017.
Wake Up! By Chris Barez-Brown is out now.
Alanatomy, by Alan Carr is out now.


Producer: Steven Williams

Editor: Louise Corley.

SAT 10:30 Remembering Ronnie Corbett (b086kf16)
A tribute presented by Liza Tarbuck.

Ronnie Corbett CBE had a career in entertainment spanning 60 years - from early days in Danny La Rue's West End Nightclub, through The Frost Report, The Two Ronnies and Sorry! to his popular Radio 4 sitcom When The Dog Dies. He achieved national treasure status in the 1970s and never lost it.

His death at the age of 85 in March of this year was marked by tributes from the Prime Minister, the First Minister of Scotland, his fellow entertainers old and young, and by his many friends and fans.

Liza Tarbuck acted with him in When The Dog Dies from 2010 to 2014 and knew him all her life. She's joined by Barry Cryer whose friendship with him started when they met at Danny la Rue's nightclub in the 1960s, David Renwick who wrote Ronnie's famous monologues on The Two Ronnies, and Ian Davidson and Peter Vincent who wrote his hit BBC1 sitcom Sorry! as well as When The Dog Dies.

They reminisce and listen to clips of Ronnie talking about his early days and career with Roy Plomley, Michael Parkinson and Kirsty Young, as well as picking favourite clips from When The Dog Dies.

The programme also contains also contributions from a couple of stars who knew him well and admired him greatly - Harry Hill and Michael Palin.

Presenter: Liza Tarbuck
Writers: Ian Davidson and Peter Vincent
Producer: Liz Anstee
A CPL production for BBC Radio 4.

SAT 11:00 The Forum (b086kf18)
The New Curators: Who Decides What's Culturally Important?

Some of us live in an age of super abundance - more things are being made and more information and goods are offered online than ever before.

Yet the internet also means that we no longer have to leave our selections to other people. If we want, we can sift through options to make our own choices, personalise our preferences, and even enlist the help of machine recommendations to highlight what we might like.

So in this brave new world, what is the role of a curator? Indeed, what does curation actually mean? With Bridget Kendall to explore the role of the modern curator, digital publisher Michael Bhaskar, the artistic director of the Serpentine Gallery in London, Hans Ulrich Obrist and Tasneem Zakaria Mehta, the director of one of India's most iconic museums, the Dr. Bhau Daji Lad Mumbai City Museum in Mumbai.

Photo: Early 20th century, ornate porcelain vases on display at an exhibition. (Getty Images).

SAT 11:30 From Our Own Correspondent (b085hsh9)
Cooking up 2016

By any standard, 2016 has been a momentous year, right across the world: unexpected election results, disastrous wars, huge flows of migrants and refugees, major terrorist attacks, the death of memorable people. Some of our correspondents reflect on their region. The BBC's Middle East Editor, Jeremy Bowen, comes across - of all things - a cookbook that, for him, sums up so much of what has been lost in Syria. Carrie Gracie, the BBC's China Editor, is struck by the growing number of Chinese who seem prepared to go against the government's flow and to take the consequences. Nick Thorpe, who has reported extensively on Europe's migrant crisis, and who lives in Budapest, examines Hungary's reaction to the crisis. Karen Allen has been reporting from Africa for 12 years but she's now leaving; she describes some of the memorable changes she's seen. Cuba is one place that's seen a lot of change - and not just because of the death of Fidel Castro. Our man in Havana, Will Grant, goes fishing for what it all means to ordinary Cubans.

SAT 12:00 News Summary (b085hshc)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

SAT 12:04 Money Box (b086kf1b)
The death of the single price?

If you've caught a train recently or booked a hotel or even taken an Uber minicab you'll be familiar with the idea that a fixed price for a single product is fast becoming a thing of the past. This practice of charging different prices based on how much people are willing to pay rather than the cost of production is known as price discrimination. The rise of online retailing and associated information on how we shop means that it is spreading.

Whilst being able to charge people exactly the amount they are prepared to pay for a product is obviously good for business but is it also good for the consumer? Philosophically, how does it affect our relationship with goods, services, and other customers, especially when there could be a difference of hundreds of pounds between what you've and your neighbour have paid? And how best to play the businesses who price discriminate at their own game?

Presenter: Adam Shaw
Producer: Alex Lewis
Editor: Andrew Smith.

SAT 12:30 Dead Ringers (b085z40h)
Series 17, Episode 2

The team look back at the year that never was, imagining what life would be like had Remain won, Trump lost and a host of other events that just might have happened.

PRODUCED AND CREATED BY
Bill Dare

A BBC Studios production.

SAT 12:57 Weather (b085hshg)
The latest weather forecast.

SAT 13:00 News (b085hshp)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.

SAT 13:10 Correspondents Look Ahead (b085z5jp)
Correspondents Look Ahead

Owen Bennett-Jones is joined by a group of senior BBC journalists to forecast what is likely to happen over the coming year. Last time they got together they were firmly predicting that Marco Rubio would become the Republican presidential candidate - and that Britain was likely to vote to stay in the EU. So as the saying goes, making predictions is a tricky business...especially about the future. Yet our experts can at least lay out the parameters for what is likely to happen in the spheres of geopolitics, economics and society more widely - and give us essential tips on what and who to look out for in 2017.

SAT 14:00 Country Down Under (b085851g)
Country music is commonly associated with downtrodden, lovelorn, white inhabitants of America's rural south - but it has also long been a significant form of expression for Australia's Aboriginal peoples.

Country music became popular Down Under during the first half of the 20th Century. Thanks to gramophone recordings, wind-up radios and touring bands, it even reached the bush where most Aboriginals lived, often more or less imprisoned on missions and government-controlled reserves. At a time when their own cultural heritage was being systematically erased, country music became a medium through which they could maintain their practice of sharing stories via the oral tradition.

Its resonance was enhanced by melodies which tended towards the melancholic. As one musician put it "country music was all about loss, and we'd lost everything".

Through country music, Aboriginal people were able to give voice to their personal experiences and ongoing struggles for justice. For example, songs describe the stealing of babies and land, incidents of racism, poor living conditions and high levels of incarceration.

And so country music, far from its origins, has become a deeply moving and powerfully activist Aboriginal art form.

Produced by Rachel Hopkin
Mixed by Robin Wise
Consultant: Clinton Walker
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4.

SAT 14:30 Drama (b086kjgq)
The Mysteries of Udolpho

by Ann Radcliffe
Dramatised by Hattie Naylor

Directed by Sally Avens

Emily St Aubert is forced to leave France and go and live with her Aunt and her new husband, Count Montoni, in his isolated castle in Italy.
Before long Emily discovers that the castle is a place of nightmares and Montoni a desperate man who will stop at nothing to terrorise both his wife and his niece.

Ann Radcliffe's Gothic romance revelled in both terrorising and titillating its readers. This was the sensational novel of its era, filled with dark deeds, dastardly villains and supposedly supernatural events. Jane Austen took great pleasure in satirising The Mysteries of Udolpho and the craze for all things Gothic in her novel Northanger Abbey. Radio 4 have dramatised both novels and you can hear Austen's comic satire in the 15' Drama slot, featuring the same cast.

As with many other Gothic novels, The Mysteries of Udolpho has at its centre a powerless young heroine often trapped in a mysterious location and pitted against an evil villain; the book revels in exploring the politics of power, pleasure and pain and sexual desire. Ann Radcliffe felt that terror was superior to horror, which nullified the senses, whereas she preferred to write about the psychological experience of being full of fear and dread manifested through the art of suggestion. Radcliffe was also unusual in always giving a rational explanation for the strange goings on in her novels.

In this dramatisation Hattie Naylor has taken the core of the four volumes of the novel to explore those edicts most at the heart of the Gothic Novel.

SAT 15:30 Soul Music (b085trlz)
Auld Lang Syne

It's gone from being an 18th century song about impotence to one of the best known songs all over the world. Most of us have sung Auld Lang Syne at some point in our lives on New Year's Eve, but how many of us know more than a few of the words and anything of its origin and meaning? Soul Music hears the stories behind the song, how it went from being a reflective melancholic Scottish air about the parting of the ways, to the jaunty tune we know today. There are also stories of love, sorrow, hope and joy, emotions that are especially heightened at this time of year.

Producer: Maggie Ayre.

SAT 16:00 Woman's Hour (b085hshs)
Andi Osho, Sofie Hagen and the Scummy Mummies help us celebrate 2016

Singer Sophie Ellis-Bextor and her mother the broadcaster and author Janet Ellis discuss how their bond has developed through the years and how Sophie becoming a mother of four has affected their relationship. But what happens when you confound your mother's expectations? Campaigner Nimco Ali discusses her decision to speak out against FGM and how it has affected her relationship with her mother.

Andi Osho, Sofie Hagen and the Scummy Mummies - Helen Thorn and Ellie Gibson - help us celebrate the 2016 by taking part in out festive quiz. They discuss being 'difficult' women.

And when Jo Cox became the Labour MP, she decided that tackling the problem of loneliness would be a key priority in her new political role. She reached out across party lines to the Conservative MP Seema Kennedy, who had also spoken out passionately on the issue. Together they devised a plan to launch a commission into loneliness, which would represent a call to action. Since Jo's murder in June, Seema Kennedy has taken the plans forward with the help of Cox's friend and fellow Labour MP Rachel Reeves. They talk about their hopes for it's launch in January.

Are the family courts failing vulnerable women? Civil hearings can allow abusive ex-partners to represent themselves in court and cross-examine their former victims. We discuss how and why this can happen with the family solicitor Elspeth Thomson from David Grace Solicitors in Newcastle, and Polly Neate the Chief Executive of Women's Aid.

And we have a masterclass in small talk and surviving New Year's Eve parties from comedian Pippa Evans. Apparently, improv has all the answers.

Presented by Jane Garvey
Editor: Beverley Purcell
Producer: Sophie Powling.

SAT 17:00 PM (b086kms4)
Saturday PM

Full coverage of the day's news.

SAT 17:30 iPM (b085z6fn)
[Repeat of broadcast at 05:45 today]

SAT 17:54 Shipping Forecast (b085hshv)
The latest shipping forecast.

SAT 17:57 Weather (b085hshx)
The latest weather forecast.

SAT 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b085hshz)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

SAT 18:15 Loose Ends (b085hsj1)
Dame Edna Everage, Rob Brydon, Leslie Caron, Micky Dolenz, Chris Difford, Tamsin Greig, Bridget Christie, Gregory Porter

Clive Anderson with a sparkling array of some of the best guests and music from Loose Ends in 2016: Dame Edna Everage, Frank Skinner, Anohni, Rob Brydon, Leslie Caron, Alexei Sayle, Nikki Bedi, Arthur Smith The Eskies, George Monbiot, Micky Dolenz, Chris Difford, Tamsin Greig, Bridget Christie, Buena Vista Social Club, Gregory Porter, Golden Rules, Cuba Gooding Jr., Mary Beard, George Egg, Christopher Eccleston, Shalamar, George Monbiot, Jon Ronson, Tom Allen, Squeeze.

Producer: Sukey Firth.

SAT 19:00 Profile (b086kn3m)
David Davis

David Davis will be a major figure in the coming year as minister in charge of Brexit. In this week's Profile, Chris Bowlby hears how he was was shaped by a council house upbringing, SAS training, a turbulent political career and a significant love of sugar.

Producer: Smita Patel
Researchers: Sarah Shebbeare & Serena Tarling
Editor: Penny Murphy.

SAT 19:15 Saturday Review (b085hsj3)
Highlights of 2016

A look at the highlights of 2016 according to our panel and our listeners. And there are some delightful surprises.
Tom Sutcliffe is joined by Kerry Shale, Sarah Crompton, Sarfraz Mansoor and listeners from around the UK with their suggestions.

Saturday Review's Picks of The Year

Films

The Revenant Alejandro Inarritu
Spotlight Tom McCarthy
I Daniel Blake Ken Loach
Queen of Katwe Mira Nair
Nocturnal Animals Tom Ford
Deadpool starring Ryan Reynolds
Snowden starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt
Sausage Party
Hell or High Water David Mackenzie
Arrival Denis Villeneuve
Fire At Sea Gianfranco Rosi
A United Kingdom Amma Asante
Anomalisa Charlie Kaufman
Julieta Pedro Almodovar
Finding Dory
A Bigger Splash Luca Guadagnino

Theatre

A Streetcar Named Desire Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester
King Lear Talawa co-production Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester
King Lear starring Glenda Jackson at Old Vic, London
Harriet Martineau Dreams of Dancing Live Theatre Newcastle
This Restless House Glasgow Citizens Theatre
Any Means Necessary Nottingham Playhouse
Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour National Theatre, London
Midsummer's Night Dream The Globe Theatre, London
Imogen The Globe Theatre, London
Shakespeare Trilogy, Donmar Warehouse, London
No Man's Land, National Theatre, London (NT live performance)
Backstage in Biscuit Land, Soho Theatre, London
Groundhog Day (musical) Old Vic, London
Flowers for Mrs Harris, Sheffield Crucible
Richard III, Almeida Theatre, London
Faith Healer, Donmar Warehouse, London
Travesties, Menier Chocolate Factory, London

Television

Stranger Things - Netflix
Westworld - HBO
The Young Pope - Sky
The Crown - Netflix
War and Peace - BBC
The Night Of - HBO
Black Mirror - Netflix
Planet Earth II - BBC
Happy Valley - BBC
Transparent - Amazon
Fleabag - BBC
The Missing - BBC
Flowers - Channel 4
National Treasure - Channel 4
Angie Tribeca - E4
Motherland - BBC

Exhibitions

Georgia O'Keeffe, Tate Modern, London
Picasso Portraits, National Portrait Gallery, London
Abstract Expressionism, Royal Academy, London
Hieronymus Bosch, Het Noordbrabants Museum, Holland
Towards Night, The Towner Gallery, Eastbourne
In Reading Prison, Artangle
Winifred Knights, Dulwich Picture Gallery
Inside: Artist and Writers in Reading Prison - Artangel
The Infinite Mix, The Store in the Strand, London
Stan Douglas, The Secret Agent, Victoria Miro Gallery, London
Victor Pasmore, Towards A New Reality, Nottingham Lakeside Gallery
Russia and The Arts, National Portrait Gallery, London
The Shchukin Collection, Icons of Modern Art, Louis Vuitton Foundation, Paris

Books

Mothering Sunday by Graham Swift
Golden Hill by Francis Spufford
Swing Time by Zadie Smith
Hotels of North America by Rick Moody
The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry
The Sellout by Paul Beatty
The Glorious Heresies by Lisa McInerney
Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen
The Good Immigrant ed. Nikesh Shukla
1971 - Never a Dull Moment: Rock's Golden Year by David Hepworth
Missing Presumed by Susie Steiner
Days Without End by Sebastian Barry

Also mentioned:

Lemonade (album/film) Beyonce
We're Here Because We're Here Jeremy Deller
Bob Dylan, winner of Nobel Prize for Literature
Horace and Pete Louis C.K
David Bowie's Art Collection
Blackstar David Bowie
You Want It Darker Leonard Cohen




The producer is Hilary Dunn.

SAT 20:00 Archive on 4 (b086knhm)
Bathrooms Are Coming: An Internal History of Corporate Comms

From in-house journals to industrial musicals, from opinion research to email cascades, the actor and communications expert Vincent Franklin explores the archive to chart the different ways in which companies have talked to their workers - and how staff have talked back.

He investigates the first in-house journals from the "Lowell Offering", written by American female mill workers in the 1840s, to the magazines for British Nylon Spinners a hundred years later.

He hears how American corporations developed the Industrial Musical in the 1950s, getting top class songwriters to pen numbers extolling things like the virtues of tractors, in order to galvanise their workforce.

Drawing on the contorted corporate language spoken around his character in the Olympic comedy Twenty Twelve, Vincent talks to its creator John Morton about the use of language in staff communication - when it works and when it doesn't.

During the programme, he explores how workforces have been addressed by their managers, whether to tell them good news or bad.

And he also hears about the new techniques in corporate comms being used today. With a profession numbering around 45,000 people, how have the demands of the job of doing internal communications changed?

Along with the voices from the archive, we hear other new interviews with Tom Watson, Emeritus professor at Bournemouth University's Faculty of Media and Communication, Jennifer Sproul Chief Executive of the Institute of Internal Communication, Kathie Jones, archivist and former member of the British Association of Industrial Editors ,Steve Young who co-wrote the book "Everything's Coming Up Profits" about the age of the Industrial Musicals and Amol Rajan, former Editor of the Independent newspaper.

Producer: Emma Kingsley.

SAT 21:00 David Sedaris: Death Knows No Season (b086kp8n)
A very special evening of stories from David Sedaris alongside music from the BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Giancarlo Guerrero and featuring a medley arranged by Gary Carpenter.

No matter the time of year, the Grim Reaper could be just around the corner.

This sequence of stories and music was recorded at The Barbican, London on 20th December 2016. The full length concert was broadcast previously on BBC Radio 3 and is a joint venture between the BBC Symphony Orchestra, BBC Radio 3 and Giddy Goat Productions.

Music:
Santa Baby, Javits & Springer. Arr: Carpenter
Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf, Rachmaninoff orch: Respighi
Front Row Center Overture, Carpenter.

A Giddy Goat production for BBC Radio 4.

SAT 22:00 News and Weather (b085hsj7)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4, followed by weather.

SAT 22:15 FutureProofing (b085xcfp)
Intimacy

Presenters Timandra Harkness and Leo Johnson investigate how intimacy will change in the 21st century. Can intimacy survive the erosion of privacy within our culture? FutureProofing reveals how new technology offers opportunities to support and develop close personal relationships, but also how it threatens to radically change what we understand as intimacy and how we manage it in future.

Producer: Jonathan Brunert.

SAT 23:00 Round Britain Quiz (b085x7vn)
Programme 9, 2016

(9/12)
Why might the writers of 'Orientalism', 'Carry On Cleo' and 'How I Found Livingstone' all need to move to the left?

Only Round Britain Quiz could ask a question like this, and Tom Sutcliffe has no shortage of such puzzles in the latest contest which pits Northern Ireland against the Midlands. Both teams could very much use another victory to stop them from sliding too far down the league table in this year's series. The winners, as always, will be the team who can display the widest range of ostensibly useless knowledge and string it together in ways which require as little intervention and correction as possible from the chair.

Tom will also be supplying the answer to his teaser question, left unanswered at the end of last week's contest. The programme contains the usual scattering of ingenious ideas suggested by RBQ listeners.

Producer: Paul Bajoria.

SAT 23:30 A Vision on Peckham Rye (b082wwlm)
"Sauntering along the boy looks up and sees a tree filled with angels, bright angelic wings bespangling every bough, like stars"

When Levi Roots was 15, a teacher read out William Blake's The Tyger to the class. For Levi, it was a life-changing moment. The singer and entrepreneur had only just learned to read and describes the poem as exploding into his brain the way no words ever had before.

Levi returns to South East London to find out more about his favourite poet and uncover the story of Blake's supposed first vision of angels bespangling the branches of a tree on Peckham Rye at the age of "8 or 10".

Writers, poets and artists continue to draw inspiration from this idea and we hear from some of them about why Blake, and especially this story, continues to have such powerful resonance.

David Almond, explains how Blake crept into his novel Skellig and why he thinks that childhood imagination is different from that of adults. Chris McCabe has been researching the poetic vibrations of the area across the centuries for a book about the lost poets of Nunhead Cemetery, Cenotaph South, and accompanies Levi on a quest to find Blake's tree. The filmmaker Sarah Turner recreated the angel incident for her film Public House, about the successful community takeover of a local pub. Levi, his guests, and students from Harris Girls Academy, a school that sits on the Rye take some time to look into the trees and see if they can find any traces of Blake's angels. What could those angels be and why does Blake, despite his difficulty, seem to ignite the passions of young people?

The programme includes readings by Peter Marinker, Chris McCabe, Levi Roots, Georgia Peskett, Barnaby Steed, David Almond and the students of Harris Girls Academy East Dulwich.

The choral piece, Criers of Peckham Rye, was for the film Public House by Duncan Macleod and performed by Dulwich Folk Choir and Duncan Macleod. The programme features other extracts from the film Public House made and sound designed by Sarah Turner.

Producer: Natalie Steed
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.


SUNDAY 01 JANUARY 2017

SUN 00:01 Midnight News (b086kyns)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.

SUN 00:15 Thinking Allowed (b0858mlp)
Musicians Union - women heavy metal fans

The Musicians Union: Laurie Taylor explores the history of musicians efforts to be seen as workers, as well as entertainers.
Martin Cloonan, Professor of Popular Music Politics at the University of Glasgow, drew on extensive archive and interviews with Union employees and members to provide a comprehensive assessment of the role of the MU in the nation's ballrooms, orchestras, recording studios and radio stations. They're joined by Caspar Melville, Lecturer in Global Creative and Cultural Industries, SOAS, University of London.
Also, women heavy metal fans. Rosemary Hill, Lecturer in Sociology at University of Leeds, examines the tensions between being a 'metal' fan and being a woman. From the media representation of women rock fans as groupies to the widely held belief that hard rock and metal is masculine, being a music fan is an experience shaped by gender. How do female fans negotiate their place in a male dominated music scene?
Producer:Jayne Egerton.

SUN 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b086kxhb)
The latest shipping forecast.

SUN 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b086kxhg)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service. BBC Radio 4 resumes at 5.20am.

SUN 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b086kxhj)
The latest shipping forecast.

SUN 05:30 News Briefing (b086kxhl)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.

SUN 05:43 Bells on Sunday (b086kz26)
St Anne's, Denton

Today's Bells on Sunday comes from the Church of St Anne's Denton, Greater Manchester. With a construction date of 1881 the church is built of brick but the belfry, spire and bell frames are made entirely of wood. The tower contains a ring of six bells also cast in 1881 by Taylors of Loughborough. The Tenor weighs 15 hundredweight and is tuned to A flat. We hear them now ringing Grandshire Doubles.

SUN 05:45 Profile (b086kn3m)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Saturday]

SUN 06:00 News Headlines (b086kxhn)
The latest national and international news.

SUN 06:05 Something Understood (b086kxhq)
In My Room

"Memory is sticky" says author and screenwriter Dr. Frank Cottrell Boyce in his reminiscences of his childhood. "I worry about what will happen in the future when our reading and our music comes digital and non-stick."

In a whimsical and intensely personal reflection, Cottrell Boyce indulges in the music, poetry and prose that made and makes him tick. He does all this sat in his boyhood bedroom, in the house where his parents still live, and where he visits each week to look after them.

He remembers moving out of Liverpool city centre - destroyed by the Blitz - to a new housing estate where his hopes and dreams were forged and where, inspired by the moon landings, he became certain that one day he and his brother would be camping there.

There is much in this programme about the meaning of "home" and the journey to get there, and he pays tribute to his mum and dad for creating a home out of the bricks and mortar in to which they moved. "They created rhythms and rituals that seemed as unalterable and ancient as weather ... the walk to school, the Friday night chippy supper, Saturday Grandstand, Sunday mass and of course that great litany - with its contradictory mixture of reassuring rhythm and emotional unpredictability ... the football scores as read by Len Martin".

The programme features the music of David Bowie, Benjamin Britten, Paul Simon and the Magnetic North, with poetry from Les Murray, RS Thomas and Seamus Heaney. Cottrell Boyce wonders about the nature of memory and where home really is, concluding with St Augustine, that God has made us for himself "and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee."

Presenter: Frank Cottrell Boyce
Producer: Michael Wakelin
A TBI Media production for BBC Radio 4.

SUN 06:35 The Living World (b086kzmx)
Fieldfares in a Winter Orchard

Chris Packham relives programmes from The Living World archives.

An exceptionally rare breeder to Britain, the arrival in early winter of one of the largest members of the thrush family, the fieldfare is for many a sign that the first snows may not be far away. In this programme from 2007 Lionel Kelleway finds himself in a frost laden Worcestershire orchard before dawn in the company of Steve Dodd and Dave Cocker as they await the arrival of early fieldfares to a mist net. Their aim is to capture as many birds as they can as part of a study to learn more of the habits and behaviours of these Scandinavian visitors.

Fieldfares, sometimes known by their evocative colloquial name of slate backed throssel, can be very nomadic in winter and there is a certain amount of anticipation in the air. The first chattering calls heard overhead soon relieve the tension. these fieldfares are being caught as part of a scientific study into fieldfare behaviour and needs, however as the programme discovers it is not just fieldfares that can be caught in a mist net, but something much larger.

Producer Andrew Dawes.

SUN 06:57 Weather (b086kxhs)
The latest weather forecast.

SUN 07:00 News and Papers (b086kzqk)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.

SUN 07:10 Sunday (b086kxhv)
Look ahead to 2017, Bishop James Jones, Hull's Year of Culture

Caroline Wyatt presents a special New Year edition of Sunday, looking ahead to some of the issues likely to affect faith communities in 2017.

Former Bishop of Liverpool James Jones reflects on his work with the families of the Hillsborough victims.

And Bob Walker reports from Hull, where religious groups are preparing for the city's year of culture.

Producer: Dan Tierney
Series Producer: Amanda Hancox.

SUN 07:54 Radio 4 Appeal (b086l1l5)
Arthritis Care

Broadcaster and Radio 2 DJ Jo Whiley makes the Radio 4 Appeal on behalf of Arthritis Care.

Registered Charity Numbers 206563 and SC038693
To Give:
- Freephone 0800 404 8144
- Freepost BBC Radio 4 Appeal. (That's the whole address. Please do not write anything else on the front of the envelope). Mark the back of the envelope 'Arthritis Care'.
- Cheques should be made payable to 'Arthritis Care'.

SUN 07:57 Weather (b086kxhx)
The latest weather forecast.

SUN 08:00 News and Papers (b086l1l7)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.

SUN 08:10 Sunday Worship (b086l1l9)
On New Year's Day, John Bell of the Iona Community considers how to embrace the uncertainty of the future as he reflects on the spiritual impact of world events over the past twelve months. Drawing on biblical precedent he considers how God always goes before us, and how we can become part of God's redemptive creativity. Live from Emmanuel Church, Didsbury, in South Manchester, the service is led by the Vicar, the Revd Dr Nick Bundock, with choir and musicians directed by Helen Leach. Organist: Simon Leach. The producer is Andrew Earis.

SUN 08:48 A Point of View (b085z5jr)
The Shape Of Our Time

Adam Gopnik revisits a much explored subject - the differences between patriotism and nationalism.

In the light of the events of the past year, he questions why the politics of nationalism appear irresistible today.

He wonders "if we cannot now see that patriotism and nationalism have a more fluid, a more organic, a more connected relationship that we might want to imagine".

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

SUN 08:58 Tweet of the Day (b038qhyz)
Robin

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

Brett Westwood presents the robin. The autumn song of the Robin is the soundtrack to shortening days, gathering mists and ripening fruit. Robins sing in spring but their autumn song is different. It may sound melancholy to us but for the Robin it has clear purpose - to defend the winter territories that male and female robins establish separately after they've moulted.

SUN 09:00 Jeremy Irons Reads TS Eliot (b086l220)
Prufrock and Other Observations

Join us for an extraordinary journey at the turn of the year, as Jeremy Irons reads the complete collection of T.S.Eliot’s English poems, almost in their entirety, across New Year’s Day. This celebration of Eliot’s work comes in five parts, each of which are introduced by Martha Kearney and special guests, including the actress Fiona Shaw, the writer Jeanette Winterson, Rory Stewart MP, and the lawyer Anthony Julius. At the end of a year in which so much that had been taken for granted seemed to fragment, our guests explain why Eliot, himself a poet of fragments, can steady us for a journey into the unknown, and for transformation. Our journey includes the ‘The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock’ with its exquisite depiction of the loneliness of young man, the post-war turmoil of ‘The Waste Land’, the spiritual struggle of poems like ‘Ash-Wednesday’ - and concludes with the lucent imagery of time and possibility in the ‘Four Quartets’; there may be no better preparation for the coming year.

Part One
Martha Kearney talks to award-winning novelist Jeanette Winterson about her first experience of reading T.S.Eliot and the transformative impact of his language on her as a teenager. She explains why the turn of the year is a good time to read Eliot’s work.

Jeremy Irons reads:
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
Portrait of a Lady
Preludes
Rhapsody on a Windy Night
Morning at the Window
The 'Boston Evening Transcript'
Aunt Helen
Cousin Nancy
Mr. Apollinax
Hysteria
Conversation Galante
La Figlia Che Piange

With contribution from Jeanette Winterson

SUN 09:45 Drama (b086l4zb)
Reading Europe: Scandinavia, Denmark: The Buddhist

By Dorthe Nors. A spiritual awakening helps a man who fears he has lost control over events in his life. Things can only go well when The Universe is on your side.

Dorthe Nors' insight into the strange nuances of human interactions, especially those rooted in violence or sorrow, is keenly observed in her short story collection, Karate Chop. She is able both to build and to unmake a character, achieving the same complexity that other writers require entire novels to establish. What's more, her protagonists are familiar and unsettling, with characteristics that echo in our psyches and ask us to call into question all we assume about ourselves and others.

Karate Chop is the first of Nors' books to be translated to English.

Written by Dorthe Nors
Translated from Danish by Martin Aitken
Read by Aoife McMahon
Abridged by Jill Waters
Produced by Lizzie Davies

A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4.

SUN 10:00 The Archers Omnibus (b086kxhz)
Lilian's plans are scuppered, and Kenton is in full creative flow.

SUN 11:15 Desert Island Discs (b086l4zd)
Sir Kenneth Grange

Sir Kenneth Grange is a designer. He's been designing elements of our everyday lives for the past six decades. Born in London in 1929, he went to Willesden art school aged fourteen and four years later he left and embarked on a remarkable career. He is still working today at 87 years old. "Why would I stop? I mean, if a bloke can play the piano, you don't stop him playing it, do you?"

His long career stretches from the early days of modernism to the digital age. One of his first big jobs was working for the Festival of Britain in 1951. He was co-founder of the design studio Pentagram, led a life with strong echoes of TV's "Mad Men" for a while, and his work has infused the texture of the UK. His designs include the first parking meter, the Intercity 125 train, the Kenwood mixer, the Morphy Richards iron, the Wilkinson triple razor, bus shelters, the black cab, the Parker 25 pen and the Anglepoise lamp. He's also the reason we no longer get wet when we fill our cars with petrol: he designed petrol station forecourts with roofs.

In 2013 he was knighted for his services to design, and in 2016 an Intercity 125 was named Sir Kenneth Grange.

Producer: Sarah Taylor.

SUN 12:00 News Summary (b086kxj1)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

SUN 12:04 The Tim Vine Chat Show (b085tn6j)
The Tim Vine Christmas Chat Show

Fresh from a critically acclaimed Radio 4 debut in 2016 ("A delightful show full of laugh-out-loud moments in which Vine's razor sharp wit and warmth shine through" Radio Times) The Tim Vine Chat Show returns for a one-off Christmas Special. Polish off your Boxing Day leftovers and tune in for an early evening treat as Tim talks to the Great British Public about their favourite Christmas memories.

Expect a brand new house band taking over from The Conkers ("they had a string of hits") and some more preposterous games to play along with at home. The guests (who are plucked from the audience on the night of recording) include a former air hostess from the land of Santa Claus, a budding Widow Twanky and a man with a nail-biting story about brussels sprouts.

Join internationally acclaimed stand-up Tim for the one sure-fire way of topping up your quota of cracker jokes this Christmas.

Producer: Richard Morris
A BBC Studios Production.

SUN 12:32 Food Programme (b086l5c1)
Loch Fyne: Celebrating Food Tradition

In this series of four programmes broadcast over the Christmas period, Sheila Dillon explores the link between tradition and food.

Food can bind a community together, and give it new life. In this third programme of the series, Sheila travels to Loch Fyne to see how this rural Scottish community has preserved its food traditions, with recipes handed down for generations. She discovers how local food businesses have become international, working together to sell their fish in the Far East - despite the frustrations of poor broadband connections. And she eats dinner with a group of local food producers, feasting on mutton - a traditional dish for the Christmas holiday.

Producer: Elizabeth Burke.

SUN 12:57 Weather (b086kxj3)
The latest weather forecast.

SUN 13:00 The World This Weekend (b086l5hj)
Global news and analysis.

SUN 13:30 Jeremy Irons Reads TS Eliot (b086l8ly)
Poems (1920)

Join us for an extraordinary journey at the turn of the year, as Jeremy Irons reads the complete collection of T.S.Eliot’s English poems, almost in their entirety, across New Year’s Day. This celebration of Eliot’s work comes in five parts, each of which are introduced by Martha Kearney and special guests, including the actress Fiona Shaw, the writer Jeanette Winterson, Rory Stewart MP, and the lawyer Anthony Julius. At the end of a year in which so much that had been taken for granted seemed to fragment, our guests explain why Eliot, himself a poet of fragments, can steady us for a journey into the unknown, and for transformation. Our journey includes the ‘The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock’ with its exquisite depiction of the loneliness of young man, the post-war turmoil of ‘The Waste Land’, the spiritual struggle of poems like ‘Ash-Wednesday’ - and concludes with the lucent imagery of time and possibility in the ‘Four Quartets’; there may be no better preparation for the coming year.

Part Two
Martha Kearney talks to Anthony Julius ( the new Chair of Law and the Arts and University College London) and writer Jeanette Winterson about the enduring power and beauty of the opening lines of Eliot’s poem ‘Gerontion’ – ‘Here I am, an old man in a dry month, Being read to by a boy, waiting for rain.’ and explore references in the poems that have been judged anti-semitic. They consider how we should read these poems now, and what we can learn from Eliot’s ‘ugly’ references’.

Jeremy Irons reads:
Gerontion
Burbank with a Baedeker: Bleistein with a Cigar
Sweeney Erect
A Cooking Egg
The Hippopotamus
Whispers of Immortality
Mr Eliot's Sunday Morning Service
Sweeney Among the Nightingales

With contributions from writer Jeanette Winterson and lawyer and academic Anthony Julius

SUN 14:00 Jeremy Irons Reads TS Eliot (b086l8m2)
The Waste Land

Join us for an extraordinary journey at the turn of the year, as Jeremy Irons reads the complete collection of T.S.Eliot’s English poems, almost in their entirety, across New Year’s Day. This celebration of Eliot’s work comes in five parts, each of which are introduced by Martha Kearney and special guests, including the actress Fiona Shaw, the writer Jeanette Winterson, Rory Stewart MP, and the lawyer Anthony Julius. At the end of a year in which so much that had been taken for granted seemed to fragment, our guests explain why Eliot, himself a poet of fragments, can steady us for a journey into the unknown, and for transformation. Our journey includes the ‘The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock’ with its exquisite depiction of the loneliness of young man, the post-war turmoil of ‘The Waste Land’, the spiritual struggle of poems like ‘Ash-Wednesday’ - and concludes with the lucent imagery of time and possibility in the ‘Four Quartets’; there may be no better preparation for the coming year.

Part Three
Martha Kearney explores the resonance and the contemporary appeal of ‘The Waste Land’ with award-winning novelist Jeanette Winterson. Jeanette explains why this poetry of fragments can still speak to us so powerfully, whilst the former Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams and the Scots Makar Jackie Kay, both make contributions to explore the emotional and creative impact of the poem.

Jeremy Irons reads:
The Waste Land

SUN 14:45 The Listening Project (b086l8m4)
Sunday Omnibus: Jo and Andy - Divorce

Fi Glover with three excerpts from a conversation between a divorced couple who reflect on their marriage, the role her newly diagnosed autism played, and the friendship they enjoy, 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 Drama (b086l8m9)
Reading Europe - Sweden: Britt-Marie Was Here, Episode 1

Exploring the best in contemporary literature, Reading Europe reaches Scandinavia and begins with Sweden.

Britt-Marie needs purpose in her life and she takes the brave step of going out to look for it. She ends up in Borg, a typical Swedish, run-down, small town. Her part-time job leads her to an extraordinary turn of events, beyond anything she might have imagined. But she finds that bringing people into her life also brings problems and she's soon in the midst of a football drama, involved in a family crisis and at the corner of an unexpected love triangle, in this warm and humorous drama.

In part one, Britt-Marie finds herself in a new town, with a job and a lot of things to clean. She soon finds a way to let people know she's here and is thrust unexpectedly into the heart of the community, thanks to a game she doesn't understand.

Adapted for radio by Charlotte Jones
From a translation by Henning Koch

Directed by Janine H. Jones
A BBC Cymru/Wales Production

Fredrik Backman is the New York Times bestselling author of the novel A Man Called Ove and his books are published in more than thirty-five languages worldwide.

SUN 16:00 Bookclub (b086l8mc)
John Lanchester - Capital

John Lanchester talks to James Naughtie and a group of readers about his novel Capital, which was a major BBC TV drama in 2015.

The residents of an affluent street in London are busy getting on with their lives when one day something strange happens. Every house in the street has an identical, mysterious postcard pushed through their letterboxes that simply states "'We Want What You Have.'

At first, the residents of Pepys Road, who are from mixed racial and social backgrounds, dismiss the notes as some sort of marketing campaign but gradually as events begin to escalate it becomes clear that there is more to this strange occurrence.

John Lanchester is a successful financial journalist as well as novelist. The novel covers multiple contemporary issues in British life including the financial crisis of 2007-08, immigration, radical Islam, celebrity, and property prices. In Capital, there is always mystery at the back of the reader's mind.

Presented by James Naughtie with contributions and questions from a group of invited readers.

Presenter : James Naughtie
Interviewed guest : John Lanchester
Producer : Dymphna Flynn

February's Bookclub Choice : The Travelling Hornplayer by Barbara Trapido (1998).

SUN 16:30 The Echo Chamber (b086l9h6)
Series 8, Tom Pickard and Denise Riley

New year, new poems, veteran poets: Tom Pickard and Denise Riley. Paul Farley opens up the Echo Chamber. Producer: Tim Dee.

SUN 17:00 Jeremy Irons Reads TS Eliot (b086l9pb)
The Hollow Men, Ash Wednesday and Ariel Poems

Join us for an extraordinary journey at the turn of the year, as Jeremy Irons reads the complete collection of T.S.Eliot’s English poems, almost in their entirety, across New Year’s Day. This celebration of Eliot’s work comes in five parts, each of which are introduced by Martha Kearney and special guests, including the actress Fiona Shaw, the writer Jeanette Winterson, Rory Stewart MP, and the lawyer Anthony Julius. At the end of a year in which so much that had been taken for granted seemed to fragment, our guests explain why Eliot, himself a poet of fragments, can steady us for a journey into the unknown, and for transformation. Our journey includes the ‘The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock’ with its exquisite depiction of the loneliness of young man, the post-war turmoil of ‘The Waste Land’, the spiritual struggle of poems like ‘Ash-Wednesday’ - and concludes with the lucent imagery of time and possibility in the ‘Four Quartets’; there may be no better preparation for the coming year.

Part Four
Martha Kearney is joined by the acclaimed actress Fiona Shaw, who has performed ‘The Waste Land’, to explore the impact of Eliot’s language on her own life and to consider the imagery and the seductive music of his poems of spiritual struggle.

Jeremy Irons reads:
The Hollow Men
Ash Wednesday
Journey of the Magi
A Song for Simeon
Animula
The Cultivation of Christmas Trees

SUN 17:40 Profile (b086kn3m)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Saturday]

SUN 17:54 Shipping Forecast (b086kxj5)
The latest shipping forecast.

SUN 17:57 Weather (b086kxj7)
The latest weather forecast.

SUN 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b086kxj9)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

SUN 18:15 Pick of the Week (b086kxjc)
Liz Barclay

With the chimes still ringing in our ears Pick of the Week is celebrating strong women, classic poetry, the Welsh language and the adventures of Mr Toad and friends. ......with appropriate musical interludes - all aimed at making us forget the events of 2016.... There'll be no analysis of Brexit or the policies of next US President .... It's fun and frivolity without the future forecasting.

Last week's Pick of the Week mistakenly identified the character of Mr Cooper in Deceit, Desire and The Viking Helmet as John Shuttleworth. The part was in fact played by the actor Graham Fellows, sometimes better known as John Shuttleworth.

SUN 19:00 The Archers (b086lc0q)
Johnny is keen to party, and Lilian cannot be cheered.

SUN 19:15 Jeremy Irons Reads TS Eliot (b086ldlr)
Four Quartets

Join us for an extraordinary journey at the turn of the year, as Jeremy Irons reads the complete collection of T.S.Eliot’s English poems, almost in their entirety, across New Year’s Day. This celebration of Eliot’s work comes in five parts, each of which are introduced by Martha Kearney and special guests, including the actress Fiona Shaw, the writer Jeanette Winterson, Rory Stewart MP, and the lawyer Anthony Julius. At the end of a year in which so much that had been taken for granted seemed to fragment, our guests explain why Eliot, himself a poet of fragments, can steady us for a journey into the unknown, and for transformation. Our journey includes the ‘The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock’ with its exquisite depiction of the loneliness of young man, the post-war turmoil of ‘The Waste Land’, the spiritual struggle of poems like ‘Ash-Wednesday’ - and concludes with the lucent imagery of time and possibility in the ‘Four Quartets’; there may be no better preparation for the coming year.

Part Five
Martha Kearney and Rory Stewart MP, ( and author of ‘The Places in Between’ – an account of a six thousand mile trek from Herat to Kabul ) discuss Rory’s unusual encounter with what Eliot regarded as the culmination of his achievement: the sequence he called the ‘Four Quartets’. Rory learned the entire poem whilst walking through Nepal. He explains why he also used language from the poem when he was campaigning in his constituency, and the importance to him of Eliot’s sense that ‘soil’ and roots matter, even in an poem about time and timelessness.

Jeremy Irons reads:
Four Quartets

With contribution from writer and MP Rory Stewart

SUN 20:30 Last Word (b085z34d)
Last Word End of Year Special

This week Last Word departs slightly from its usual format, when Matthew Bannister and the BBC obituary editor Nick Serpell return to the beginning of 2016 and recall a time when obituarists were in huge demand. Together they discuss the challenges and processes involved in commemorating so many big names in so short a time; David Bowie, Alan Rickman, Terry Wogan, Paul Daniels, Ronnie Corbett , Victoria Wood and Prince.

Producer: Neil George.

SUN 21:00 Money Box (b086kf1b)
[Repeat of broadcast at 12:04 on Saturday]

SUN 21:26 Radio 4 Appeal (b086l1l5)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:54 today]

SUN 21:30 In Business (b085xvdv)
Transforming Trains?

Work on HS2 is finally due to start next year. And those whose housing will be affected have dominated the headlines. But what will it mean for business? For some it seems a huge opportunity if high speed rail kick starts much broader regeneration. Other businesses face major challenges during construction, or fear they'll lose out when the new railway changes the way people work. And what does it all tell us about how the UK copes with major infrastructure? Maryam Moshiri visits Sheffield and north London to test business opinion

Producer: Chris Bowlby.

SUN 22:00 The Year in Politics (b086lfyd)
James Naughtie and guests look back on an extraordinary year in politics for the UK and the USA. Few were predicting at the beginning of this year that Britain would vote to leave the EU and that developer Donald Trump, a man who's never held public office, would triumph in the race to the White House. 2016 has been dubbed the year voters hit back at political elites and expressed their frustration that not all have benefited from globalisation. James and the panel analyse the complex factors that have led to these political earthquakes.
Producer: Lesley McAlpine.

SUN 23:00 The Film Programme (b085xtcp)
Francine Stock talks to Andrew Garfield, the star of Martin Scorsese's religious drama Silence, who explains why trained as a Jesuit priest for his role. She hears from the director's long-term friends and colleagues Thelma Schoonmaker, his editor, and writer Jay Cocks, who introduced Marty to Robert DeNiro in a Christmas party in 1971.

SUN 23:30 Something Understood (b086kxhq)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:05 today]


MONDAY 02 JANUARY 2017

MON 00:00 Midnight News (b086kxl3)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.

MON 00:15 Thinking Allowed (b085x7vv)
Laurie Taylor discusses the relationship between literature and sociology.

What is the relationship between literature and sociology? Laurie Taylor discusses fiction and the real world with crime writer Denise Mina, criminologist Dick Hobbs and English literature lecturer Nick Bentley.

From Charles Dickens' "Oliver" to Alan Sillitoe's "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning", literary descriptions of the social world - and working class life in particular - have often been called "realistic". But how has 'real life' been misrepresented by scholars and novelists alike? Can ethnography produce fictions of its own? And what skills are vital for any writer who wants to capture the complexity of everyday life?

Plus, is it really true, as WH Auden once suggested, that "poetry makes nothing happen"? Laurie and guests discuss the influence of literature and sociology on attitudes and policy, reflecting on how both can make a meaningful impact.

Producer: Alice Bloch.

MON 00:45 Bells on Sunday (b086kz26)
[Repeat of broadcast at 05:43 on Sunday]

MON 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b086kxl5)
The latest shipping forecast.

MON 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b086kxl7)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.

MON 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b086kxlb)
The latest shipping forecast.

MON 05:30 News Briefing (b086kxld)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.

MON 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b087l4m7)
Spiritual reflection and prayer to start the day with the Rev Duncan MacLaren, Healthcare Chaplain at Ninewells Hospital, Dundee.

MON 05:45 Farming Today (b086kxlg)
Oxford Farming Conference

Caz Graham finds out what some farmers are doing to 'thrive' in 2017. It's the theme of this year's Oxford Farming Conference, one of the biggest events in the agricultural calendar.

Young farmers' clubs in Scotland have been holding meetings to help members focus on how best to future-proof their businesses. Nancy Nicolson has been to the Borders to meet two young farming friends who've been making changes to their contrasting livestock and arable enterprises in order to make them profitable.

And Ben Jackson meets Wil Armitage, who'll tell the Oxford Farming Conference that looking after your soil makes financial sense too.

Presented by Caz Graham and produced by Sally Challoner.

MON 05:56 Weather (b086kxlj)
The latest weather forecast for farmers.

MON 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b038qk3x)
Mistle Thrush: Part One

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

Brett Westwood presents the Mistle Thrush. Loud rattling calls, like someone scraping a comb across wood, tell you that Mistle Thrushes are about. From midsummer to early autumn, bands of Mistle Thrushes roam the countryside, where they feed on open pastures, among stubble or on moorland. These birds are very fond of the white sticky berries of mistletoe and spread the seeds into cracks of tree bark when they wipe their bills or defecate.

MON 06:00 Today (b086ly6q)
News and current affairs. Includes Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.

MON 09:00 The New World (b086nzlg)
Nothing but the Truth

Are we really living in a post-truth world? It has been an extraordinary year for the concept of veracity. Brexit. Trump. Experts have taken a beating, facts have apparently taken second place to emotion and feeling. And what about truth? It seems like fewer and fewer people, whether voters or politicians, care what's true anymore. Step forward the Oxford English Dictionary's word of 2016: "post-truth". Is this just shorthand to help liberals make sense of a world they don't like? Or does it mark something more meaningful? Are we really no longer interested in truth or is our toxic political climate clouding our ability to agree on what the facts are? In a series of special programmes as 2017 begins, Radio 4 examines inflection points in the world around us. In the first programme, Jo Fidgen explores how our brains process facts when they become polluted by politics.
Producer: Gemma Newby.

MON 09:45 Imagining the New Truth (b086lyss)
Ece Temelkuran

Ece Temelkuran is a Turkish poet, novelist and journalist whose outspoken opinions about the governance of her native land has made it expedient for her to find safe haven in the Croatian capital Zagreb. In the quiet of her own flat and in the cold of the winter streets of a city she finds increasingly sympathetic, she ponders the new world order and its fleeting shadows of half-truths, extremism and rapid erosion of old norms.

She talks about the pressures on her to become either an heroic voice or a silent witness and why that dichotomy is demeaning to her. Over a coffee and a cigarette she wrestles with the writer's role and whether it's time to reflect the context of her time or to continue to try and establish splashes of beauty in what her experience of the English language has made her describe as 'interesting' times.

Producer: Tom Alban.

MON 10:00 Woman's Hour (b086kxlq)
Phone-in: Family Festivities - fun or fraught?

It's all over now, so how was it for you? We want to hear from you about the festive time with your families. How did you get on, were rifts healed, difficult subjects avoided, was it one of your best, and if so what did you do right? Phone lines open at 0800 on Monday: 03700 100 444. Jane Garvey will be taking your calls from 1000 alongside her guest Lowri Turner.

Presenter: Jane Garvey
Producer: Anne Peacock

Guest Lowri Turner.

MON 10:45 Drama (b086lzc7)
Curious Under the Stars, The Water Horse

By Meic Povey

The return of the comedy drama about a couple struggling to run a pub in mystical West Wales.

Gareth and Diane set off in a blizzard on a quest to stock up on crisps for the Druid's Rest. But when a beautiful white horse blocks the mountain road, their journey takes on a magical dimension.

Starring Elis James (Crims), Amy Hoggart (Almost Royal), Ifan Huw Dafydd (Gavin and Stacey), and Aimee-Ffion Edwards (Detectorists) Curious Under the Stars takes us deep into a Welsh landscape of myth, magic and mayhem.

Directed by James Robinson
A BBC Cymru Wales Production.

MON 11:00 The Untold (b086nzfy)
Feeding an Army

Grace Dent tells the story of Corpus Christi church in Oldham which faces an uncertain future. The Diocese has plans to close a quarter of its churches and Corpus Christi is on the shortlist. The parishioners are unhappy about this and have appealed. Due to a shortage of priests and lack of attendance in certain parishes, the Bishop has decided to "prune for regrowth"

Father Dermot Heakin (a windsurfer and a musician) leads a busy parish life. We follow him around the community on his pastoral activities. But as Christmas approaches, apprehension grows as both priest and congregation await the Bishop's final verdict on the future of their church.

Producer Neil McCarthy.

MON 11:30 Tom Wrigglesworth's Hang-Ups (b04ntvv9)
Series 2, Lost and Found

When Tom makes his weekly phone call to his parents in Sheffield he discovers they've been flooded. As his parents manage the clear up operation, Tom reflects on what is important to keep and what isn't.

MON 12:00 News Summary (b086kxls)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

MON 12:04 Home Front (b083lch8)
2 January 1917 - Phyllis Marshall

On this day in 1917, the Ministry of Munitions met unions in London to discuss pay and in Tynemouth, Marshalls' munitions factory is busy with visitors.

Written by Claudine Toutoungi
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole.

MON 12:15 You and Yours (b086kxlv)
Dreaming the Dream in the Third Age

Is that all there is? How should you prepare if you want to live a vibrant and interesting life as you get older. Listeners tell us about changes they have made as they enter what's likely to be the last third of their lives - the so -called Third Age. We'll also hear from a philosopher, a psychologist and author on something we all hope to experience but once there rather wish we weren't!

MON 12:57 Weather (b086kxlx)
The latest weather forecast.

MON 13:00 World at One (b086kxlz)
Analysis of news and current affairs.

MON 13:45 Book of the Week (b082x79j)
Labyrinths, Episode 1

The story of Emma Jung, her marriage to Carl and the early years of psychoanalysis.

Emma Jung was clever, ambitious and immensely wealthy, one of the richest heiresses in Switzerland, when she met and fell in love with Carl Jung, a handsome but penniless medical student. She was only 17, too young to understand Carl's complex personality or conceive of the dramas that lay ahead.

It was a highly unconventional marriage with many labyrinthine twists and turns. Emma was forced to fight with everything she had in order to come to terms with Carl's brilliant but complicated character and to keep her husband close to her. His belief in polygamy led to many extra-marital involvements with women he met when they became his patients. A ménage a trois with a former patient, Toni Wolff lasted some thirty years. But the marriage endured and Emma realised her ambition to become a noted analyst in her own right.

In the first episode, Carl meets Emma and breaks down her resistance to marriage - a seduction by intellect.

Readers: Deborah Findlay and Henry Goodman

Written by Catrine Clay
Abridged and produced by Elizabeth Burke
A Loftus production for BBC Radio 4.

MON 14:00 The Archers (b086lc0q)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Sunday]

MON 14:15 Drama (b086nzg4)
The Exception, The Email

Office politics become deadly serious in this tense Danish thriller. Set in a fictitious genocide research centre, the story focuses on Iben, Malene and Anne-Lise, three co-workers in a small office. When Iben and Malene receive death threats, suspicion turns to a Serbian war criminal who they are investigating. Or could it be someone closer to home?

Recorded on location in Copenhagen, The Exception includes some of Denmark's leading actors such as Lisbeth Wulff, a regular character in Borgen; award winning television and stage actress Stine Stengade; Charlotte Munck, a regular in Follow the Money; and Jakob Oftebro, rising star of Nordic cinema and and television with lead roles in The Bridge and the hit Danish television series, 1864.

In this Danish/English collaboration for BBC Radio 4's Reading Europe series, radio drama producers Anders Lundorph and Polly Thomas co-dramatise the book as well as co-producing it. Anders and Polly have worked together before for BBC Radio 4, on The Unexpected European in 2006 and Borgen: Outside the Castle in 2013.

The original music is by Halfdan E, the award winning film and television composer in Denmark, whose work includes Borgen.

Episode 1: The Email
Iben and Malene receive death threats at work. The police investigate and the most likely culprit seems to be Mirko Sigic, a Serbian war criminal they have both researched. However, tensions build in the office and, as mysterious accidents occur, no-one is safe from suspicion.

Original music: Halfdan E
Sound design: Eloise Whitmore
Script editor: John Dryden

Thanks to Helga Prip for additional location sound

Written by Christian Jungerssen
Dramatised and produced by Anders Lundorph and Polly Thomas

Executive Producer: Robert Abel

A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.

MON 15:00 Round Britain Quiz (b086nzgd)
Programme 10, 2016-17

(10/12)
'Why might Richard Wilson be incredulous at a motorbike, a boys' comic, Dr Frankenstein and the Radio Corporation of America?'

This, and other even more impenetrable puzzles, are among Tom Sutcliffe's challenges for the teams in this tenth contest of the current series. It's the last chance for Scotland and the South of England to add to their final tally of victories this season. Last time these two teams met it was a victory for the Scots - can Marcus Berkmann and Paul Sinha of the South turn the tables on Val McDermid and Alan McCredie this time?

As usual, the programme includes several questions suggested by RBQ listeners hoping their ingenious ideas will wrong-foot the panellists. Tom will also have the answer to the question he set for listeners at the end of last week's edition.

Producer: Paul Bajoria.

MON 15:30 Food Programme (b086l5c1)
[Repeat of broadcast at 12:32 on Sunday]

MON 16:00 With Great Pleasure (b086nzhh)
Sir Trevor McDonald

Veteran broadcaster Sir Trevor McDonald chooses his favourite words and poetry for With Great Pleasure, including Robert Frost's The Road Not Taken which brought him comfort far from home in a war zone.

Producer: Maggie Ayre.

MON 16:30 Beyond Belief (b086nzhk)
Martin Luther and the Reformation

This year sees the 500th anniversary of the moment when Martin Luther sparked the Reformation by - tradition has it - nailing his 95 theses to a church door in Wittenberg. Ernie Rea and guests discuss what led Luther to take this step, how his thought and personality affected the course of the Reformation and whether - were he to walk into the 21st century - he might actually find himself to be a good Catholic.

Producer: Rosie Dawson.

MON 17:00 PM (b086kxm1)
Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.

MON 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b086kxm3)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

MON 18:15 Just a Minute (b085pxyj)
Just a Minute Does Panto!

2017 marks Just A Minute's 50th year, and what better way to kick off the celebrations by combining the longest-running panel show with another great British institution - the pantomime!

In Just A Minute Does Panto! Nicholas Parsons is joined by Just A Minute regulars, Paul Merton Sheila Hancock and Gyles Brandreth, as they journey through Panto-land in search of the missing Just A Minute Golden Whistle! Their companions on their quest include, Tom Allen, Pippa Evans, Tony Hawks, Rufus Hound and Julian Clary.

The show flits between the scripted pantomime sections when the team are on their quest and the usual off-the-cuff game of Just A Minute.

There'll be adventure! Genies! Panto dames! Goodies! Baddies! Audience Participation! But above all, at the heart of it, a cracking game of the nation's favourite comedy show - Just A Minute!

CREDITS

Just A Minute was chaired by Nicholas Parsons

The panel were:
Paul Merton
Sheila Hancock
Gyles Brandreth
Tony Hawks
Tom Allen
Rufus Hound
Pippa Evans

The Genie was played by Julian Clary

The pantomime script was written by Gyles Brandreth with additional material by Paul Merton and Matt Stronge

The Composer was Susannah Pearson

The lyrics to 'All About You' were written by Jenny Laville

The Musical Director was Tim Sutton

The live band was:
Tim Sutton - Piano
Katie Punter - Flute/Alto Sax
Mark White - Trumpet/Flugelhorn
Tim Maple - Guitar
Tim Weller - Drums
Nick Allen - Cello

The Production Coordinator was Hayley Sterling

The Producer was Matt Stronge

Just A Minute was devised by Ian Messiter

Just A Minute Does Panto! is a BBC Studios production.

MON 19:00 The Archers (b086nzhp)
Helen wants today to be perfect, and Rex has news for Toby.

MON 19:15 Front Row (b086kxm5)
US Composers: Steve Reich, Philip Glass and John Adams

Philip Glass, Steve Reich and John Adams are America's greatest living composers. Between them, they have helped change the way music is made and heard, repeating rhythms, highlighting melodies and overlapping time signatures to create new musical languages that are widely heard in the looped and sampled soundtrack to the 21st century. As they reach milestone birthdays, they talk to John Wilson about their work, and about the musical movement that links the three of them - Minimalism.

Playlist:

Philip Glass - Closing
Steve Reich - Clapping
John Adams - Phrygian Gates
Bartok - Concerto For Two Pianos, Percussion and Orchestra, 3rd movt
Stravinsky - Rite of Spring
Bach Brandenburg 5
Charlie Parker - Be Bop
Tchaikovsky's - 1812 Overture
Bozo the Clown
Philip Glass - Dance 8
Steve Reich - Livelihood
John Adams - On the Transmigration of Souls
Steve Reich - Different Trains
Philip Glass - Floe
Philip Glass - Facades
Steve Reich - Clapping
Steve Reich - Piano Phase
Steve Reich - Drumming
Steve Reich - Clapping
John Adams - Grand Pianola Music
Philip Glass - Knee Play 1 from Einstein on the Beach
Philip Glass - Evening Song from Satyagraha
John Adams - The People Are The Heroes Now from Nixon in China
Steve Reich - The Cave
John Adams - Hallelujah Junction
Philip Glass - The Hours
Steve Reich - Music for 18 Musicians

Producer: Rebecca Armstrong.

MON 19:45 Drama (b086lzc7)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:45 today]

MON 20:00 Exonerated (b084wzjx)
John Toal meets former death-row inmates Sunny Jacobs and Peter Pringle at the retreat they have set up in rural Ireland to offer restorative treatment to other victims of wrongful conviction in order to help them back to a normal life.

Peter Pringle was sentenced to be hanged in Ireland in 1980. Sonia 'Sunny' Jacobs was sentenced to the electric chair in the United States in 1976. Sunny was accused of killing two police officers at a highway service area in Florida. Peter was accused of killing two police officers in rural Ireland during a botched bank robbery. Both had their sentences commuted to life and were later exonerated of their crimes. Peter and Sunny spent over 15 years each in prison for crimes they didn't commit.

After their release, life in the outside world was tough. They struggled to re-integrate into society. Practical things like crossing roads, opening doors or even being touched joined a long list of everyday challenges. Neither could escape the feeling that they had re-joined a society that had moved on without them.

In 1998 Peter heard Sunny give a talk about her death-row experience. Traumatised by her story and shocked by how similar their experiences were, Peter offered to drive Sunny to her next speaking engagement and their relationship grew from there.

Now married, Peter and Sunny run the Sunny Centre in rural Connemara, a retreat for people from around the world who have been wrongfully convicted and who are trying to retrace a path back into normal life.

For this programme, John Toal travels to the depths of the Irish countryside to hear Sunny and Peter's story. He hears how a combination of yoga, meditation, healthy food and the freedom to share their experiences with people who have been through similar trauma can assist those exonerated of dreadful crimes on their path back to normality ...and whether or not an exoneree can ever truly feel free again.

Producer: Jennifer Goggin.

MON 20:30 Crossing Continents (b085xpzk)
Mexico - The Town That Said, 'No!'

The Mexican state of Michoacan was the birth place of the Mexican drug war. The town of Cheran is much like other mainly indigenous communities, but it is unique - Cheran has no mayor, no police, and political parties are banned. There are no elections here. Cheran governs itself, after it fought and won a legal battle for political autonomy. The people of Cheran used to suffer as much as their neighbours - extortion, kidnap and murder. But by 2011 they'd had enough. That's when the community - led by women - rose up. They threw out the paramilitary loggers and organised criminal groups who had devastated their forests, then chased away the mayor and the municipal police who were colluding with them. Five years later, the town still runs itself, and the forces of law and order have been replaced by an armed, community militia. Serious crime has plummeted, and the town is re-planting its devastated forest. So how has Cheran survived - and thrived -in such a harsh environment?

Reporter: Linda Pressly
Producers: Tim Mansel & Ulises Escamilla.

MON 21:00 The Science of Dr Seuss (b085z058)
Comedian Robin Ince enters the wonderful wacky world of Dr Seuss, and uncovers some surprising real world science hidden within these childhood classics. He's joined by scientists and fellow Seuss fans Sophie Scott, Andrea Sella, Mark Miodownick and Adam Rutherford who reveal some of the very real scientific ideas hiding within the seemingly nonsensical worlds and rhymes of Dr Seuss. From "The Cat in the Hat comes Back" to "The Lorax" and "Oh the Places You'll Go" Robin and his team of scientists reveal how ideas about the environment, scale, chemistry, genetics and psychology, can all be found within some very well known favourites, and why they think Dr Seuss, perhaps surprisingly, thought like a scientist.

Producer: Alexandra Feachem.

MON 21:30 The New World (b086nzlg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]

MON 21:58 Weather (b086kxm7)
The latest weather forecast.

MON 22:00 The World Tonight (b086kxm9)
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.

MON 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b087ksvf)
Persuasion, Episode 6

Jane Austen's last fully completed novel, published six months after she passed away - 200 years ago next year.

The novel concerns the fortunes of 27 year old spinster Anne Elliot, whose family have fallen on hard times and are forced to rent out their family home and move to Bath.

Anne finds the superficiality of Bath society hard to take - although we are treated to a pleasant gallery of eccentric characters. Anne meets Captain Wentworth again, a man to whom she was engaged some seven years previously until she was persuaded to drop the attachment.

The novel is a story about second chances. Anne - considered "on the shelf" by some - gets another opportunity to contemplate love and a future with a man she thought was lost forever.

Written by Jane Austen
Produced by Clive Brill
Abridged by Elaine Bedell

A Brill production for BBC Radio 4.

MON 23:00 Mastertapes (b086s6j4)
Series 6, Laura Marling (A-side)

John Wilson returns with another edition of Mastertapes, the programme 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.

A-side. "Once I was An Eagle " with Laura Marling.

Laura Marling was only 18 when she released her first album... only 21 one when she won the Brit Award for the Best British Female solo Artist... and only 23 when she released the album described as "a masterpiece, and... she's still only getting started" (The Daily Telegraph).

Produced by Ethan Johns, Once I Was An Eagle included tracks like Master Hunter, Where Can I Go? and Saved These Words, deemed to be "her most lyrically mature work... also the most musically satisfying" (The Independent). On the strength of this album she's been referred to as one of the "greatest singer-songwriters of both her generation and generations before it" (Clash Magazine)

The B-side of the programme, where it's the turn of the audience to ask the questions, can be heard tomorrow at 3.30pm

Complete versions of the songs performed in the programme (and others) can be heard on the 'Mastertapes' pages on the Radio 4 website, where the programmes can also be downloaded and other musical goodies accessed.

Series Producer: Paul Kobrak.

MON 23:30 Shared Experience (b083n94f)
Series 6, Twins

The Wonderful World of Identical Twins: A new series of Shared Experience delves into the lives of twins, the pros and cons of having someone who looks and acts just like you. Twins Gillian and Tracy, and one half of twin sisters, Jasmine share their stories with Fi Glover, from instinctively knowing when the other is in danger, to managing occasional envy and jealousy.

Producer: Maggie Ayre.


TUESDAY 03 JANUARY 2017

TUE 00:00 Midnight News (b086kxny)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.

TUE 00:15 Four Thought (b085xchy)
Digital Millennial

Jonnie Bayfield reflects on being the last generation to grow up in an analogue childhood.

"Looking back, I can see that no-one had any idea what the chemical, biological, or social ramifications of this burgeoning technology might be. In my school we had computer classes, but no-one ever suggested that intense use would lead to anything other than a personal and global liberation."

Producer: Sheila Cook.

TUE 00:30 Imagining the New Truth (b086lyss)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:45 on Monday]

TUE 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b086kxp4)
The latest shipping forecast.

TUE 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b086kxp6)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.

TUE 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b086kxp8)
The latest shipping forecast.

TUE 05:30 News Briefing (b086kxpb)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.

TUE 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b08891x8)
Spiritual reflection and prayer to start the day with the Rev Duncan MacLaren, Healthcare Chaplain at Ninewells Hospital, Dundee.

TUE 05:45 Farming Today (b086kxpd)
Oxford Real Farming Conference

Caz Graham explores some of the issues at this year's Oxford Real Farming Conference, which aims to offer agro ecological solutions to common farming challenges. Sally Challoner visits Devon to see the progress on a cooperative smallholding leased to three families by the Ecological Land Cooperative; And we hear from Graham Harvey - agricultural advisor to the Archers - on why the story farmers tell from field to fork matters now more than ever.

Presented by Caz Graham and produced by Sally Challoner.

TUE 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b03mzv81)
Blue Tit

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

Chris Packham presents the story of the blue tit. The perky blue tit is a stalwart of garden bird-feeders. This popular British bird has a blue cap and wings, olive green back and yellow belly. The male and females look identical to us but blue tits can clearly tell each other apart, find out how in this episode.

TUE 06:00 Today (b086s608)
Morning news and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.

TUE 09:00 The New World (b086tfbh)
Axis of Power

Gideon Rachman examines the changing balance of power in today's global politics.

The world is witnessing a long-term and emphatic shift of wealth and influence towards China and the rest of Asia. The USA's role as the one true superpower is under threat. In this programme Gideon explores the implications of changing international geo-politics and asks how world leaders, including President Trump, will respond.

Gideon Rachman is chief foreign affairs commentator of the Financial Times and author of "Easternisation: War and Peace in the Asian Century".

Producer: Martin Rosenbaum.

TUE 09:45 Imagining the New Truth (b08892br)
Daniel Kehlmann

The highly-acclaimed novelist and playwright Daniel Kehlmann has spent the last year in the US and his native Germany, where the fast-changing currents of political and social change have inspired and shaped his writing. The fall-out from mass migration, the appeal of the far-right and the fear of terrorist attack all fuel his imagination and are reflected in his latest work. Kehlmann talks to us on a winter's day in New York about truth, paranoia and his response to a world in flux.

Producer: Julia Johnson.

TUE 10:00 Woman's Hour (b086kxpg)
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.

TUE 10:45 Drama (b086s60d)
Curious Under the Stars, Under Every Stone

By Annamaria Murphy.

Episode two of the comedy drama about a couple struggling to run a pub in mystical West Wales.

Diane searches for relief for her morning sickness, but up on the hills above Glan Don she unearths a magical secret. Meanwhile, back at the pub, Gareth discovers a secret of his own.

Starring Elis James (Crims), Amy Hoggart (Almost Royal), Ifan Huw Dafydd (Gavin and Stacey), and Aimee-Ffion Edwards (Detectorists) Curious Under the Stars takes us deep into a Welsh landscape of myth, magic and mayhem.

Directed by James Robinson
A BBC Cymru Wales Production.

TUE 11:00 Human Hibernation: The Big Sleep (b086s64v)
Ever wished you could miss an entire cold dark winter like bears or dormice? Kevin Fong explores the possibilities than humans could hibernate. This ability could help us recover from serious injury or make long space flights pass in a flash.

The first report on human hibernation in a medical journal was in the BMJ in 1900. It was an account of Russian peasants who, the author claimed, were able to hibernate. Existing in a state approaching "chronic famine", residents of the north-eastern Pskov region would retreat indoors at the first sign of snow, and there gather around the stove and fall into a deep slumber they called "lotska". No-one has ever found these peasants but there is serious research into putting humans into suspended animation, for long distance space travel or for allowing the body to recover from major injury.

The greatest clues into how to pull off hibernation comes from the American Black Bear. Dr Kevin Fong, an expert in trauma medicine, talks to Dr Brian Barnes, Director of the Institute of Arctic Biology at the University of Alaska. He's done the most extensive study of black bears and observed how they slow down their metabolism. Fat-tailed lemurs are the only primates to hibernate. Duke University's Lemur Research Centre has discovered that they breathe just once every 20 minutes at their deepest torpor. These lemurs live longer than other animals of similar size. Could we find a way to use this trick of suspended animation? We could slow down out physiology ,cool down our bodies and hibernate during long space journeys. NASA too is working on how humans can survive trips to other solar systems.

Kevin Fong goes to the lab of Professor Robert Henning at the University Medical Centre in Groningen where he's worked out how animals protect their organs when they slow their body metabolism , enter a state of torpor and then return to normal physiology. Rob Henning wants to apply this to humans, on earth and in space. Already doctors use cooling in patients who have serious head injuries. Could this technique be applied further to allow us to fight disease and buy time for surgeons in the hospital trauma unit?

Producer: Adrian Washbourne.

TUE 11:30 Shakespeare: Lord of Misrule (b086s64x)
As part of a day of celebrations of Twelfth Night, this programme explores the power of Shakespearian misrule, seeking out the origins and power of the Twelfth Night festivities.

TUE 12:00 News Summary (b086kxpj)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

TUE 12:04 Home Front (b083lchg)
3 January 1917 - Gabriel Graham

On this day in 1917, there was especially heavy German bombardment of the French at Verdun and the people of Tynemouth feel badly shaken.

Written by Claudine Toutoungi
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole.

TUE 12:15 You and Yours (b086kxpl)
Call You and Yours: What have you done to change your life in later life?

Have you changed direction in life - perhaps you're young and you've reinvented yourself lots of times already.
According to academics, the key to happiness in the third age of life is planning ahead.
It's about getting out and doing more - asking yourself questions like what do you want to do, what do you want to be, and what do you want to learn.
But what's been your experience?
Email us at youandyours@bbc.co.uk and please include a telephone number so we can call you back - or call us on 03700 100 444 from 11am on Tuesday, January 3rd.

Presenter: Winifred Robinson
Producer: Jess Quayle.

TUE 12:57 Weather (b086kxpn)
The latest weather forecast.

TUE 13:00 World at One (b086kxpq)
Analysis of news and current affairs.

TUE 13:45 Book of the Week (b082ymp1)
Labyrinths, Episode 2

The story of Emma Jung, her marriage to Carl and the early years of psychoanalysis.

Emma Jung was clever, ambitious and immensely wealthy, one of the richest heiresses in Switzerland, when she met and fell in love with Carl Jung, a handsome but penniless medical student. She was only 17, too young to understand Carl's complex personality or conceive of the dramas that lay ahead.

It was a highly unconventional marriage, with many labyrinthine twists and turns. Emma was forced to fight with everything she had to come to terms with Carl's brilliant but complicated character and to keep her husband close to her. His belief in polygamy led to many extra-marital involvements, with women he met when they became his patients. A ménage a trois with a former patient Toni Wolff lasted some thirty years. But the marriage endured and Emma realised her ambition to become a noted analyst in her own right.

In the second episode, Emma moves into the lunatic asylum with Carl and begins a new life as the wife of an asylum doctor. She learns from Carl about the powerful force of the unconscious mind, and prepares to be a 'good wife' as recommended by the books and magazines of the time. But it is not easy.

Readers: Deborah Findlay and Henry Goodman

Written by Catrine Clay
Abridged and produced by Elizabeth Burke
A Loftus production for BBC Radio 4.

TUE 14:00 The Archers (b086nzhp)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Monday]

TUE 14:15 Drama (b087tghn)
The Exception, The Dream

Office politics become deadly serious in this tense Danish thriller. Set in a fictitious genocide research centre, the story focuses on Iben, Malene and Anne-Lise, three co-workers in a small office. When Iben and Malene receive death threats, suspicion turns to a Serbian war criminal who they are investigating. Or could it be someone closer to home?

Recorded on location in Copenhagen, The Exception includes some of Denmark's leading actors such as Lisbeth Wulff, a regular character in Borgen; award winning television and stage actress Stine Stengade; Charlotte Munck, a regular in Follow the Money; and Jakob Oftebro, rising star of Nordic cinema and and television with lead roles in The Bridge and the hit Danish television series, 1864.

In this Danish/English collaboration for BBC Radio 4's Reading Europe series, radio drama producers Anders Lundorph and Polly Thomas co-dramatise the book as well as co-producing it. Anders and Polly have worked together before for BBC Radio 4, on The Unexpected European in 2006 and Borgen: Outside the Castle in 2013.

The original music is by Halfdan E, the award winning film and television composer in Denmark, whose work includes Borgen.

Episode 1: The Dream
The atmosphere in the office worsens as suspicion now falls on Anne Lise as the source of the threatening emails and other alarming incidents. When Malene and Rasmus split up, no one could forsee the terrible consequences.

Original music: Halfdan E
Sound design: Eloise Whitmore
Script editor: John Dryden

Thanks to Helga Prip for additional location sound

Written by Christian Jungerssen
Dramatised and produced by Anders Lundorph and Polly Thomas

Executive Producer: Robert Abel

A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.

TUE 15:00 Manto: Uncovering Pakistan (b07fl5br)
Sa'adat Hassan Manto was a writer who confronted social taboos in Indio-Pakistani society. Even though he died in 1955, an alcoholic and penniless, his work still speaks to 21st century Pakistan.

"If you find my stories dirty, the society you are living in is dirty. With my stories, I only expose the truth" (Manto)

Born in Punjab in what was then British India on 11th May 1912, Manto died aged only 42 in Punjab, by then Pakistan. As a film and radio script writer, a journalist and most significantly as short story writer in Urdu, he chronicled the chaos that prevailed in the run up to, during and after the Partition of India in 1947. Manto was tried for obscenity six times - three times in British India and three times in Pakistan, but he was never convicted.

"A writer picks up his pen only when his sensibility is hurt" (Manto)

Often compared with DH Lawrence, Manto (much like Lawrence) wrote about topics considered to be social taboos in Indio-Pakistani society. With stories such as 'Atishparay' (Nuggets of Fire), 'Bu' (Odour), 'Thanda Gosht' (Cold Meat) and 'Shikari Auratein' (Women of Prey), he portrayed the darkness of the human psyche and the collective madness of the social and political changes around him.

"If you cannot bear these stories then society is unbearable. Who am I to remove the clothes of this society, which itself is naked. I don't even try to cover it, because that is not my job. That is the job of dressmakers" (Manto)

With the help of Manto's three daughters, Nusrat, Nighat and Nuzhat, as well as writers and scholars like Ayesha Jalal, Suniya Qureshi, Preti Taneja and Mohammed Hanif, presenter Sarfraz Mansoor tells Manto's story and assesses his legacy.

Producer: Paul Kobrak.

TUE 15:30 Mastertapes (b086s6y5)
Series 6, Laura Marling (B-side)

John Wilson returns with a new series of Mastertapes, 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.

B-side): Having discussed the making of "Once I Was An Eagle" (in the A-side of the programme, broadcast on Monday 2nd January and available online), Laura Marling responds to questions from the audience and performs live versions of her yet to be released new album

Series Producer: Paul Kobrak.

TUE 16:00 Don't Log Off (b07h6zgc)
Series 7, Taking Flight

Alan Dein embarks on a new series of nocturnal excursions via Facebook and Skype, hearing the real life dramas of random strangers.

Alan holes himself up in a studio through the night and invites the online world to talk to him. Knowing nothing about the people he is about to talk to, he settles down for an evening of intriguing encounters.

Tonight he connects with a Nigerian trapped in Abu Dhabi, a Hungarian woman who found salvation in the birth of her son, a Dutch man who believes he's a reincarnated slave and a grounded Canadian test pilot coming to terms with the fact he'll never fly again.

Producer: Laurence Grissell.

TUE 16:30 Great Lives (b086s76k)
Series 41, Suzannah Lipscomb on CS Lewis

Step though the wardrobe on Great Lives as CS Lewis - creator of the Narnia Chronicles - is this week's choice. Lewis was a fascinating and extremely complicated man. Born in Northern Ireland, his mother died when he was a child, and his university career interrupted so he could go off and fight in the Great War. Historian Suzannah Lipscomb, who tweets as sixteenth century girl, says she finds his writings deeply moving and that they have influenced her faith. Matthew Parris is less convinced by the religious influence in his work. Malcolm Guite, contributer to the Cambridge Companion to CS Lewis, sits firmly on Suzannah Lipscomb's side.
The producer in Bristol is Miles Warde.

TUE 17:00 PM (b086kxpt)
Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.

TUE 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b086kxpw)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

TUE 18:30 John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme (b086s7dk)
Series 6, Episode 2

John Finnemore, writer and star of Cabin Pressure and John Finnemore's Double Acts and regular guest on The Now Show and The Unbelievable Truth, returns for a sixth series of his multi-award-winning Souvenir Programme, joined as ever by Margaret Cabourn-Smith, Simon Kane, Lawry Lewin, and Carrie Quinlan.

John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme was described by The Radio Times as "the best sketch show in years, on television or radio", and by The Daily Telegraph as "funny enough to make even the surliest cat laugh". Already the winner of a BBC Audio Drama Award and a Radio Academy Silver Award, John was named the 2016 Radio Broadcaster of the Year by the Broadcasting Press Guild for his work on Souvenir Programme.

2/6
This week on Souvenir Programme, John makes a decision on behalf of the nation; delivers an unusual rhythm; and has a bright idea about money. And, well... Since you ask him for a tale of strange transformations...

Written by & starring ... John Finnemore
Cast ... Margaret Cabourn-Smith
Cast ... Simon Kane
Cast ... Lawry Lewin
Cast ... Carrie Quinlan

Producer ... Ed Morrish

A BBC Studios Production.

TUE 19:00 The Archers (b086s7dm)
Tom wants to make changes, and Roy notices something is up.

TUE 19:15 Front Row (b086kxpy)
Arts news, interviews and reviews.

TUE 19:45 Drama (b086s60d)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:45 today]

TUE 20:00 Climate Change: The Trump Card (b086s95f)
In April delegates from 171 delegates, including the US and China, signed the Paris climate agreement at UN headquarters in New York. The agreement is to limit the rise in global temperatures to less than 2C.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said: "Paris will shape the lives of all future generations in a profound way - it is their future that is at stake."

Speaking at the opening ceremony, he said the planet was experiencing record temperatures: "We are in a race against time. I urge all countries to join the agreement at the national level. Today we are signing a new covenant for the future."

China and the Obama administration took the lead in endorsing Paris, and it came into force with astonishing speed.

Then, in the follow up meeting in November in Marrakesh, whilst delegates met to celebrate a remarkable year of progress and to thrash out ways of implementing the Paris accords, something happened that briefly took the wind out of many sails. Donald Trump was elected the next president of the United States.

Mr Trump and his cabinet nominees to the offices of environment, energy and state, are all confirmed Climate skeptics, or currently work for fossil-fuel industries.

Will the next US government undo what the rest of the world has been trying to do? With political unease in many member states, is the EU backsliding and what is the current UK government doing about climate change?

Roger Harrabin gets some answers to these questions and asks if it really can all unravel.

TUE 20:40 In Touch (b086kxq4)
News, views and information for people who are blind or partially sighted.

TUE 21:00 Inside Health (b086s7jr)
Prostate Cancer

One in 8 men in the UK will develop prostate cancer at some stage, but deciding who needs treatment - and when - is still far from clear. Mark Porter reports on two landmark trials that could provide some clarity, and hears from men and their doctors, faced with the dilemma of choosing the right course of action.

TUE 21:30 The New World (b086tfbh)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]

TUE 22:00 The World Tonight (b086kxq7)
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.

TUE 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b087kt7d)
Persuasion, Episode 7

Jane Austen's last fully completed novel, published six months after she passed away - 200 years ago next year.

The novel concerns the fortunes of 27 year old spinster Anne Elliot, whose family have fallen on hard times and are forced to rent out their family home and move to Bath.

Anne finds the superficiality of Bath society hard to take - although we are treated to a pleasant gallery of eccentric characters. Anne meets Captain Wentworth again, a man to whom she was engaged some seven years previously until she was persuaded to drop the attachment.

The novel is a story about second chances. Anne - considered "on the shelf" by some - gets another opportunity to contemplate love and a future with a man she thought was lost forever.

Written by Jane Austen
Produced by Clive Brill
Abridged by Elaine Bedell

A Brill production for BBC Radio 4.

TUE 23:00 Desolation Jests (b086s7jt)
Episode 4

David Jason stars in the final episode of David Renwick's post-apocalyptic comedy alongside John Bird, Jan Ravens and Rory Bremner.

Each week J P Doom interviews an iconic cultural behemoth about the comic moments they would most like by their side as they face their own mortality. This week Sydney Pynchlink, the innovative director behind some of the country's most admired weather forecasts chooses the laughs that would comfort them most during the extinction of all life on the planet; including a joke too dangerous for parliament, a horse with three legs, and a lobster with a rather crucial piece of evidence.

Cast:
David Jason
John Bird
Jan Ravens
Rory Bremner
Adie Allen
James Lailey
Nick Underwood

Produced by Gareth Edwards

Production Coordinator: Sophie Richardson
It was a BBC Studios Production.

TUE 23:30 Shared Experience (b084bmf3)
Series 6, Shattered

Shattered: "I'm existing, not living" is how one woman describes the effect of the parasomnia that causes night terrors and insomnia, which she says are wrecking her life. Three people tell Fi Glover how they cope with a chronic sleep disorder, something that affects many of us at some point in our lives.

Producer: Maggie Ayre.


WEDNESDAY 04 JANUARY 2017

WED 00:00 Midnight News (b086kxs3)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.

WED 00:30 Imagining the New Truth (b08892br)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:45 on Tuesday]

WED 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b086kxs6)
The latest shipping forecast.

WED 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b086kxsb)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.

WED 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b086kxsd)
The latest shipping forecast.

WED 05:30 News Briefing (b086kxsk)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.

WED 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b088dbxg)
Spiritual reflection and prayer to start the day with the Rev Duncan MacLaren, Healthcare Chaplain at Ninewells Hospital, Dundee.

WED 05:45 Farming Today (b086kxsm)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.

WED 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b03thsbj)
Dunnock

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

John Aitchison presents the dunnock. You'll often see dunnocks, or hedge sparrows, as they were once called, shuffling around under a bird table or at the bottom of a hedge. They're inconspicuous birds being mostly brown with a greyish neck and breast. They aren't, as you might imagine, closely related to sparrows, many of their nearest relatives are birds of mountainous regions in Europe and Asia.

WED 06:00 Today (b088dbxj)
Morning news and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.

WED 09:00 The New World (b086s60b)
Us Versus Them

Political movements which proclaim themselves as anti-elitist challengers to the mainstream establishment have been achieving success, from Brexit campaigners to Donald Trump and various European parties. John Harris explores the reasons behind this international phenomenon, examines the motivating forces for the anxiety and anger of voters, and considers the response of the political establishment in this new era.

Producer: Martin Rosenbaum.

WED 09:45 Imagining the New Truth (b088ddjs)
Dayanita Singh

The images created by the Indian photographer and book-maker Dayanita Singh tell powerful stories of a fast-changing world. Through the portable museums she creates, she opens up lost worlds of family life, workplaces battered by globalisation and abandoned paper archives made obsolete by technological change. The textures of a changing material world fire Singh's imagination and she finds beauty in both people and the objects all around her. Reflecting on the changes transforming India, including the government of Narendra Modi and the withdrawal of vast quantities of Indian banknotes from circulation, Singh talks to us about her vision of a new world.

Producer: Julia Johnson.

WED 10:00 Woman's Hour (b086kxsr)
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.

WED 10:41 Drama (b086s833)
Curious Under the Stars, Child at Heart

By Meic Povey

Episode three of the comedy drama about a couple struggling to run a pub in mystical West Wales.

With a baby on the way, Diane has decided they should move back to London. Struggling to deal with the idea of leaving Glan Don, Gareth goes night fishing with Emlyn. But in the dark of Madwch Woods lurks a sleeping giant.

Starring Elis James (Crims), Amy Hoggart (Almost Royal), Ifan Huw Dafydd (Gavin and Stacey), and Aimee-Ffion Edwards (Detectorists) Curious Under the Stars takes us deep into a Welsh landscape of myth, magic and mayhem.

Directed by James Robinson
A BBC Cymru Wales Production.

WED 10:55 The Listening Project (b07yszwr)
Elisha and Charlotte - The Best Thing That Ever Happened

Fi Glover introduces a conversation between sisters who were adopted and who share a positive outlook on their lives. Another in 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.

WED 11:00 Exonerated (b084wzjx)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 on Monday]

WED 11:30 The Write Stuff (b04l06m0)
Jilly Cooper

Radio 4's literary panel show, hosted by James Walton, with team captains Sebastian Faulks and John Walsh and guests Mark Billingham and Lynne Truss.

This week's author - Jilly Cooper

Produced by Alexandra Smith.

WED 12:00 News Summary (b086kxst)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

WED 12:04 Home Front (b083lchm)
4 January 1917 - Edie Chadwick

On this day in 1917, the Russian battleship "Peresvyet" sank after hitting a German mine, and Edie Chadwick surveys Tynemouth's own wreckage.

Written by Claudine Toutoungi
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole.

WED 12:15 You and Yours (b086kxsw)
Consumer affairs programme.

WED 12:57 Weather (b086kxsy)
The latest weather forecast.

WED 13:00 World at One (b086kxt0)
Analysis of news and current affairs.

WED 13:45 Book of the Week (b0832rj4)
Labyrinths, Episode 3

The story of Emma Jung, her marriage to Carl and the early years of psychoanalysis.

Emma Jung was clever, ambitious and immensely wealthy, one of the richest heiresses in Switzerland, when she met and fell in love with Carl Jung, a handsome but penniless medical student. She was only 17, too young to understand Carl's complex personality or conceive of the dramas that lay ahead.

It was a highly unconventional marriage, with many labyrinthine twists and turns. Emma was forced to fight with everything she had to come to terms with Carl's brilliant but complicated character and to keep her husband close to her. His belief in polygamy led to many extra-marital involvements, with women he met when they became his patients. A ménage a trois with a former patient Toni Wolff lasted some thirty years. But the marriage endured and Emma realised her ambition to become a noted analyst in her own right.

In the third episode, Emma becomes a mother - and brings up her baby in the asylum. Carl's career forges ahead and he becomes a celebrity, attracting the attention of many Zurich ladies. One young woman, a patient in the asylum, presents a more serious challenge to the marriage. And Emma is forced to threaten divorce.

Readers: Deborah Findlay and Henry Goodman

Written by Catrine Clay
Abridged and produced by Elizabeth Burke
A Loftus production for BBC Radio 4.

WED 14:00 The Archers (b086s7dm)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Tuesday]

WED 14:15 Drama (b087tgt0)
The Exception, The Reality

Office politics become deadly serious in this tense Danish thriller. Set in a fictitious genocide research centre, the story focuses on Iben, Malene and Anne-Lise, three co-workers in a small office. When Iben and Malene receive death threats, suspicion turns to a Serbian war criminal who they are investigating. Or could it be someone closer to home?

Recorded on location in Copenhagen, The Exception includes some of Denmark's leading actors such as Lisbeth Wulff, a regular character in Borgen; award winning television and stage actress Stine Stengade; Charlotte Munck, a regular in Follow the Money; and Jakob Oftebro, rising star of Nordic cinema and and television with lead roles in The Bridge and the hit Danish television series, 1864.

In this Danish/English collaboration for BBC Radio 4's Reading Europe series, radio drama producers Anders Lundorph and Polly Thomas co-dramatise the book as well as co-producing it. Anders and Polly have worked together before for BBC Radio 4, on The Unexpected European in 2006 and Borgen: Outside the Castle in 2013.

The original music is by Halfdan E, the award winning film and television composer in Denmark, whose work includes Borgen.

Episode 3: The Reality
Iben and Anne Lise have become close, while Malene is increasingly isolated after the mysterious death of her boyfriend Rasmus. The police close their investigation into the threatening emails and the office goes back to normal - until Mirko Zigic, Serbian war criminal, gets in touch.

Original music: Halfdan E
Sound design: Eloise Whitmore
Script editor: John Dryden

Thanks to Helga Prip for additional location sound

Written by Christian Jungerssen
Dramatised and produced by Anders Lundorph and Polly Thomas

Executive Producer: Robert Abel

A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.

WED 15:00 Money Box (b086s8yn)
Money Box Live: Credit Reports

Email your comments and questions about credit scores and reports to moneybox@bbc.co.uk From 1pm to 3.30pm on Wednesday 4 January you can also call 03700 100 444, standard geographic charges from landlines and mobiles will apply.

Credit checks underpin many significant personal finance activities such as applying for a loan. Your credit score plays a part in determining not only whether your request is accepted, but also the rate of interest you'll have to pay. Credit scores can also be used to decide whether energy customers will be allowed to switch from prepayment meters in order to pay on a monthly or quarterly basis instead. What does the credit scoring process involve, what other factors do lenders consider and how can a score be improved?

Adam Shaw is joined by Professor Jonathan Crook, Director of the Credit Research Centre at the University of Edinburgh Business School, Dr Steven Finlay, Head of Analytics at Computershare Loan Services and James Jones, Head of Consumer Affairs at Experian.

Presenter: Adam Shaw
Producer: Charmaine Cozier
Editor: Andrew Smith.

WED 15:30 Inside Health (b086s7jr)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Tuesday]

WED 16:00 Thinking Allowed (b086s8yv)
Super Rich: the 1% of the 1%

The 'Super Rich' - Laurie Taylor presents a special programme on the 1% of the 1%. Rowland Atkinson, Research Chair in Inclusive Society at the University of Sheffield, Roger Burrow, Professor of Cities at Newcastle University and Emma Spence, PhD Researcher at Cardiff University explore the origins of this wealthiest of elites and their impact on our cities and lives.

Producer: Jayne Egerton.

WED 16:30 The Media Show (b086kxt3)
Topical programme about the fast-changing media world.

WED 17:00 PM (b086kxt5)
Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.

WED 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b086kxt7)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

WED 18:30 State of the Nations (b086s8z1)
England

Star of BBC3's Josh and Radio 4 News Quiz regular Elis James hosts four stand-up shows from the four nations of the United Kingdom which explore what it means to be variously Welsh, English, Scottish and Northern Irish in today's United Kingdom.

This week Elis is in The Stand Comedy Club in Newcastle where he's joined by Rahul Kohli, Suzi Ruffell and Tom Allen to get a comedy snapshot of England and Englishness.

Producer: Richard Morris
A BBC Studios Production.

WED 19:00 The Archers (b086s8zt)
Susan asserts herself, and Kenton is taken for a ride.

WED 19:15 Front Row (b086kxtd)
Arts news, interviews and reviews with John Wilson.

WED 19:45 Drama (b086s833)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:41 today]

WED 20:00 FutureProofing (b086s90c)
Work

Presenters Leo Johnson and Timandra Harkness discover how our society will change when machines do most of the work. What happens when automation becomes very widespread at work?
Current economic forecasts from even cautious places like the Bank of England and the World Bank suggest that very large numbers of people will be affected when many jobs are automated in the next 50 years. FutureProofing examines the big shifts in our societies that may follow widespread adoption of machines in every category of jobs in future. The programme visits Singapore to learn how their ambitious plans could soon convert many jobs into ones done by robots.

Producer: Jonathan Brunert.

WED 20:45 Four Thought (b086s90f)
The Goodness of Ghosts

Writer Jonathan Stroud explains why he thinks ghost stories are good for you.

"While it may seem odd that it's pleasurable to be frightened, it's actually - like other activities that get the heart racing - a celebration of being alive. While so much around us is frankly mind-numbing, there's something pure and bracing about a nicely delivered scare."

Producer: Sheila Cook.

WED 21:00 Science Stories (b087p0cy)
Series 4, Jumping Genes

Geneticist Barbara McLintock won the Nobel prize in 1983 for work on jumping genes. Philip Ball asks if it is really true that her work was initially ignored by other scientists.

WED 21:30 The New World (b086s60b)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]

WED 21:58 Weather (b086kxtg)
The latest weather forecast.

WED 22:00 The World Tonight (b086kxtj)
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.

WED 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b087kvcd)
Persuasion, Episode 8

Jane Austen's last fully completed novel, published six months after she passed away - 200 years ago next year.

The novel concerns the fortunes of 27 year old spinster Anne Elliot, whose family have fallen on hard times and are forced to rent out their family home and move to Bath.

Anne finds the superficiality of Bath society hard to take - although we are treated to a pleasant gallery of eccentric characters. Anne meets Captain Wentworth again, a man to whom she was engaged some seven years previously until she was persuaded to drop the attachment.

The novel is a story about second chances. Anne - considered "on the shelf" by some - gets another opportunity to contemplate love and a future with a man she thought was lost forever.

Written by Jane Austen
Produced by Clive Brill
Abridged by Elaine Bedell

A Brill production for BBC Radio 4.

WED 23:00 Sam Simmons Is Not a People Person (b086s95h)
Magicians

Comedian. Writer. Ex-Zoo Keeper. Bird Watcher. Definitely NOT a people person.

Sam and Henry are making a series about birds, and every week - armed with Sam's 'Big Book of Birds' they're looking for a different one. Sadly, and despite Henry's very best efforts, Sam keeps being distracted by the people they run into. Each encounter sparks an investigation into Sam's past, because once they've sorted out his issues, then they'll really be able to focus on the bird-watching.

This week they're on the island of Patos, trying to find a very rare heron.

The unique talents of the multi-award winning Sam Simmons have landed on BBC Radio 4.

Written by and starring SAM SIMMONS
With:
HENRY PAKER
SARAH KENDALL
MIKE WILMOT
FREYA PARKER

Sound design by CRAIG SCHUFTAN

Producers JOSEPH NUNNERY
ALEXANDRA SMITH

A BBC Studios Production.

WED 23:15 15 Minute Musical (b085xtct)
Xmas 2016, Lady and the Trump

The US Elections are given a much needed Disney-style fairy tale make over. The most loved songs for the least loved candidates. With Richie Webb, Dave Lamb and Jess Robinson in Lady and the Trump.

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

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

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

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

WED 23:30 Shared Experience (b084x6m3)
Series 6, Don't Feed The Trolls

Three people who chose to defend themselves and others against abuse and bullying talk to Fi Glover about their experiences. They include Ashley who defended a woman wearing a hijab from racist abuse on the tube, Jayde who was 'trolled' over her appearance on a business networking site, and Victoria who faces regular abuse because of her facial disfigurement.

Producer: Maggie Ayre.


THURSDAY 05 JANUARY 2017

THU 00:00 Midnight News (b086kxw7)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.

THU 00:30 Imagining the New Truth (b088ddjs)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:45 on Wednesday]

THU 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b086kxw9)
The latest shipping forecast.

THU 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b086kxwc)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.

THU 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b086kxwf)
The latest shipping forecast.

THU 05:30 News Briefing (b086kxwh)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.

THU 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b088ddts)
Spiritual reflection and prayer to start the day with the Rev Duncan MacLaren, Healthcare Chaplain at Ninewells Hospital, Dundee.

THU 05:45 Farming Today (b086kxwk)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.

THU 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b03dwsb7)
Jackdaw

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

Martin Hughes-Games presents the jackdaw. Jackdaws are scavengers with a reputation for stealing shiny or glittering objects. Martin Hughes-Games tells the story of a tame jackdaw he had as a child, which became a very colourful member of the family, with her very own store of costume jewellery to play with.

THU 06:00 Today (b086t0m8)
Morning news and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.

THU 09:00 The New World (b086t0mb)
It's the Demography, Stupid!

How is population change transforming our world? Think of a python swallowing a pig: a big bulge makes its way slowly down the snake from the head end to the other end. That's a bit like what's happened to the UK demographically. The baby boom generation - which has changed Britain politically, culturally and economically - is now retiring. That means a large bulge of pensioners with big implications for the generations that come behind them. Other advanced economies face a similar challenge and emerging economies - most notably China - will be dealing with an ageing bulge themselves soon. But in Africa, the bulge is at the other end. A very young generation is about to make its way through the snake. Former government minister David Willetts, now executive chair of the Resolution Foundation, wrestles with this python of population change. What will these challenges of both ageing and very young populations mean for the world? What are the implications for future migration patterns, for geopolitics and for global economic growth? This programme is part of a special week of programmes for the first week of 2017, examining major forces which are changing the world around us.

Producer: Rob Walker.

THU 09:45 Imagining the New Truth (b088fxsm)
Tania Bruguera

Tania Bruguera is a performance and installation artist who uses art not just to comment on society but to change it. Working and exhibiting in her native Cuba, the US and around the world, she tells us about her artistic practice, the death of Fidel Castro and her response to the seismic changes reshaping her homeland and the wider world.

THU 10:00 Woman's Hour (b086kxwm)
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.

THU 10:45 Drama (b086t1xf)
Curious Under the Stars, The Changeling

By Annamaria Murphy

Episode four of the comedy drama about a couple struggling to run a pub in mystical West Wales.

Diane thinks that the baby growing inside her belongs to somebody else. Meanwhile, Gareth attempts to convince Diane that they can make the Druid's Rest a success, but a hidden secret threatens to derail his plans.

Directed by James Robinson
A BBC Cymru Wales Production.

THU 11:00 Crossing Continents (b086t1xh)
Poland: Behind the Black Protests

Millions of women took to the streets in Poland recently in protest against attempts to ban all abortions-and the issue seems to have crystallised a growing unease with the country's move to the right and the power of the Catholic Church. 'We are not putting our umbrellas away' went one of the slogans as women stood in the pouring rain to voice their concerns. The size of the protest surprised even the participants; organised by the feminist movement, it attracted women and men from many different backgrounds. Where did this surge of activism come from? Some argue that the revolution that began with Solidarnosc in the 1980s ignored the needs and voices of Polish women. Communism may have been defeated, they say, but it's been replaced by a different kind of repression. Maria Margaronis investigates. Mark Savage producing.

THU 11:30 Hull Before Culture (b086t7f4)
Episode 1

Playwright John Godber takes a drive around Hull in the company of the artists, actors, musicians and writers who live and breathe the city's culture, to explore the challenges and liberations of creating art in a 'working class city'.

Hull's big year is here: UK City of Culture 2017. But as well as ships, white phone boxes and renewable energy, there has been the odd bit of culture in Hull before now.

Playwright John Godber has been absorbing and interpreting the city's culture in his work at Hull Truck and in his plays for over thirty years. One of the most-performed playwrights in the English language, his work has travelled all over the world, but it is perhaps most fiercely loved by people in Hull: 'you're not proper 'ull if you 'ent seen 'Bouncers'.

John is well-placed to take a closer look at the city he's made his home in this series of conversations with the people who make culture happen in Hull. Hull is a sprawling sliver of a city, built along the banks of the Humber, so it makes sense to talk and drive, visiting key places in the cultural life of the place along the way. It's like carpool karaoke but without the karaoke, although there is a bit of singing.

John discovers why Hull is 'defensively self-deprecating' with a BS alarm which means that you can't get away with talking about things you don't really understand, why so many people would turn out to see shows in a freezing cold theatre where you got wet if it rained, how you reach audiences that see theatre as alien as the moon. And he finds a beating, passionate heart determined to keep on making culture in Hull even when the City of Culture circus has left town. Restlessly sharp, charismatic and funny, John is a breath of fresh air as a presenter.

Producer...Mary Ward-Lowery.

THU 12:00 News Summary (b086kxwp)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

THU 12:04 Home Front (b083lcht)
5 January 1917 - Kenny Stokoe

On this day in 1917 the Hidden Hand Committee recommended giving to the Home Secretary powers to revoke naturalisation and in Tynemouth, Kenny's allegiances come under scrutiny.

Written by Claudine Toutoungi
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole.

THU 12:15 You and Yours (b086kxwr)
Consumer affairs programme.

THU 12:57 Weather (b086kxwt)
The latest weather forecast.

THU 13:00 World at One (b086kxww)
Analysis of news and current affairs.

THU 13:45 Book of the Week (b0832rn1)
Labyrinths, Episode 4

The story of Emma Jung, her marriage to Carl and the early years of psychoanalysis.

Emma Jung was clever, ambitious and immensely wealthy, one of the richest heiresses in Switzerland, when she met and fell in love with Carl Jung, a handsome but penniless medical student. She was only 17, too young to understand Carl's complex personality or conceive of the dramas that lay ahead.

It was a highly unconventional marriage, with many labyrinthine twists and turns. Emma was forced to fight with everything she had to come to terms with Carl's brilliant but complicated character and to keep her husband close to her. His belief in polygamy led to many extra-marital involvements, with women he met when they became his patients. A ménage a trois with a former patient Toni Wolff lasted some thirty years. But the marriage endured and Emma realised her ambition to become a noted analyst in her own right.

In this fourth episode, Emma considers delivering Carl an ultimatum. They rescue their marriage by moving out of the asylum into a house of their own - complete with a tower designed by Jung. But Carl's former patient, Sabina Spielrein, has not gone away, and decides she wants a child with him.

Readers: Deborah Findlay and Henry Goodman

Written by Catrine Clay
Abridged and produced by Elizabeth Burke
A Loftus production for BBC Radio 4.

THU 14:00 The Archers (b086s8zt)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Wednesday]

THU 14:15 Drama (b086t7f6)
Bound

Gripping drama Bound by Cat Jones and Erin Carter

Frankie desperately wants to keep baby Lewis with her after he's born but she's not the only one. Across town, over breakfast with her husband and coping with her own difficult father, social worker Julia prepares for her first prison case. It's down to her to weigh up the evidence and recommend whether this baby should stay in prison with his nineteen-year-old mother or go to his young Dad and grandparents.

They all want Lewis but what would Lewis want?

Bound is the result of a unique collaboration between the Prison Radio Association (Exec Producer Phil Maguire) and BBC Radio Drama North (Exec Producer Susan Roberts) and was the first radio drama to be broadcast on National Prison Radio. The original script by Cat Jones and Erin Carter was inspired by women prisoners' workshops. The prison scenes were recorded on location at HMP Styal, a women's prison near Manchester which meant the supporting cast and crew could include women serving sentences in Styal.

Directed and Produced by Sharon Sephton

The Prison Radio Association is a specialist education charity that reduces reoffending using the power of radio.

THU 15:00 Open Country (b086t7tz)
Surfers in Cayton Bay

Helen Mark goes in search of the best surfing beach in England.

Forget Cornwall, she's off to Cayton Bay in Yorkshire, from where you can see Scarborough just to the north. It's a bit colder, a bit grittier and the water, though clean, is not so blue as down south. But there are waves to fall in love with, and a passionate collection of surfers who've done just that. There's even one, Steve Crawford, who was brought up overlooking the beach at Newquay. He moved north years ago, drawn by two specific waves and the lack of crowds. Those waves are still here, but now there are crowds too, as other surfers have begun to discover this hidden gem.

But don't imagine that surfing culture is new in this part of the world. There's recently-discovered evidence that the first surfing ever in the UK was demonstrated near here by two Hawaiian princes being educated in Yorkshire in 1890. All they needed was some bits of four-by-two and an extensive woolly bathing suit and they were off! As Helen discovers, surfing takes such a hold of some people that even the chilly waters of the North Sea do not deter them.

Producer...Mary Ward-Lowery.

THU 15:27 Radio 4 Appeal (b086l1l5)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:54 on Sunday]

THU 15:30 Bookclub (b086l8mc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 16:00 on Sunday]

THU 16:00 The Film Programme (b086t7v1)
Alejandro Jodorowsky

Francine meets Alejandro Jodorowsky, the cult director, mime artist and graphic artist, who was discovered by John Lennon and who once attempted to make a version of Dune in which Salvador Dali was paid one million dollars a minute to play a hyper-realistic robot.

THU 16:30 BBC Inside Science (b086kxwy)
Adam Rutherford explores the science that is changing our world.

THU 17:00 PM (b086kxx0)
Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.

THU 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b086kxx2)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

THU 18:30 The Cold Swedish Winter (b04dk87p)
Series 1, Spring

A sitcom from Danny Robins, writer of the Lenny Henry comedy Rudy's Rare Records. This series is set and recorded in Sweden and stars Adam Riches, Danny Robins and some of Sweden's most popular TV comedy actors.

Geoff, a marginally successful stand-up comic from London, is moving to the tiny, cold and unpronounceable village of Yxsjö in northern Sweden - a culture shock forced on him by his Swedish girlfriend Linda's decision to move home to raise their child.

Geoff has to contend with snow, moose, pickled herring, unemployment, snow, Maypole dancing, snowmobiles, snow, meatball rolling, saunas, social democracy, snow, the weirdest pizzas in Europe, bears, deep forests, death metal, illegal alcohol, snow.

Above all, he has a new family to contend with. The Andersson's bewilder him - from father Sten who has a worrying tendency to growl like a bear and threaten him with any blunt instrument to hand, to Gunilla who threatens him with naked folk-dancing.

It's worth it all for Linda, of course - apart from her new found urge to conform with everything and except for her brother, a Goth with a propensity to set fire to things.

Episode 2: Spring
In which Geoff attempts to bond with his new family and embarks on a potentially hazardous fishing trip with the two most taciturn men in Sweden. Will he survive the alcohol? Or the fish?

Writer: Danny Robins
Director: Frank Stirling
A Unique production for BBC Radio 4.

THU 19:00 The Archers (b086t9n4)
Brian sets out his vision, and Alan has cause for concern.

THU 19:15 Front Row (b086kxx4)
Arts news, interviews and reviews.

THU 19:45 Drama (b086t1xf)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:45 today]

THU 20:00 The Kids Who Decide What All the Other Kids Talk About (b08503d2)
Journalist Paul Mason reports on a group of university dropouts who are using social media to influence young people on a huge scale.

In an old cotton mill in Manchester, the one-time students have created a new kind of business. They claim to be able to make any topic the number one trend on Twitter in under 30 minutes.

The CEO of this company - Social Chain - is Steve Bartlett. At 24 years old he's one of the oldest at the company. He appears to have cornered a new market, buying up social media accounts with enormous numbers of followers, and then using them as a means to advertise.

Most of these accounts were started by students in their bedrooms - doing it for the fun of it. But Steve realised their influence was enormous and went about persuading the owners of the accounts to join him in growing his business.

Unlike traditional advertising, the message comes through a secondary source. It's 'word-of-mouth marketing' - the Holy Grail for advertisers. Nothing has more impact on our shopping habits than a friend or someone we trust recommending a product to us.

Social Chain now owns over 400 of the most popular Twitter, Instagram and Facebook accounts. Collectively they have over 300 million followers. After just two years, the company now employs over a hundred young people in offices in Manchester, Berlin and New York. The average age of staff is just 22.

£1.25 billion went on marketing on social media alone in 2015. Paul Mason examines this new economy - the commodification of influence. He considers the ethics of this way of advertising and how it affects trust in the information we're given. Social Chain closely follows regulations laid down by the Advertising Standards Authority, but Mara Einstein, author of Black Ops Advertising, argues that just as the military has moved from face to face action to covert operations, so advertising has moved from being obvious to more hidden - in particular through social media.

Paul explores the concerns with some of the people who use social media more than any other - the so-called 'millennial generation'.

A PRA production for BBC Radio 4.

THU 20:30 In Business (b086t9n8)
Mexico and Mr Trump

How is Mexico preparing for the presidency of Donald Trump?
During the election campaign Mr Trump promised to tear up trade agreements with Mexico, build a border wall and send back millions of illegal Mexican immigrants. Caroline Bayley travels to Mexico to find out how the country feels about the US's new president and what impact his policies might have on Mexico.

Producer: Anna Meisel.

THU 21:00 BBC Inside Science (b086kxwy)
[Repeat of broadcast at 16:30 today]

THU 21:30 The New World (b086t0mb)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]

THU 21:58 Weather (b086kxx6)
The latest weather forecast.

THU 22:00 The World Tonight (b086kxx8)
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.

THU 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b087kwwz)
Persuasion, Episode 9

Jane Austen's last fully completed novel, published six months after she passed away - 200 years ago next year.

The novel concerns the fortunes of 27 year old spinster Anne Elliot, whose family have fallen on hard times and are forced to rent out their family home and move to Bath.

Anne finds the superficiality of Bath society hard to take - although we are treated to a pleasant gallery of eccentric characters. Anne meets Captain Wentworth again, a man to whom she was engaged some seven years previously until she was persuaded to drop the attachment.

The novel is a story about second chances. Anne - considered "on the shelf" by some - gets another opportunity to contemplate love and a future with a man she thought was lost forever.

Written by Jane Austen
Produced by Clive Brill
Abridged by Elaine Bedell

A Brill production for BBC Radio 4.

THU 23:00 Wondermentalist Cabaret (b01s0dfd)
Series 2, Episode 4

Matt Harvey is joined by fellow poets Caroline Bird and Mark Gwynne Jones for more comedy, poetry and music from the Ways with Words festival at Dartington Hall in south Devon. The appreciative audience contribute a crowd-sourced poem, whilst one man band Jerri Hart snipes from the sidelines.

Producer: Mark Smalley.

THU 23:30 Shared Experience (b08587ns)
Series 6, Lost

What's it like to get seriously lost? Fi Glover meets four people who have experienced being lost in a dangerous wilderness, in some cases for days, including Benedict who walked for days in the Amazon rainforest, Geoff who swam down the wrong river in Australia, Bim who wandered off piste in the Himalayas and Lois who got lost in the Sahara.

Producer: Maggie Ayre.


FRIDAY 06 JANUARY 2017

FRI 00:00 Midnight News (b086kxyw)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.

FRI 00:30 Imagining the New Truth (b088fxsm)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:45 on Thursday]

FRI 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b086kxyy)
The latest shipping forecast.

FRI 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b086kxz0)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.

FRI 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b086kxz2)
The latest shipping forecast.

FRI 05:30 News Briefing (b086kxz4)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.

FRI 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b088g3x7)
Spiritual reflection and prayer to start the day with the Rev Duncan MacLaren, Healthcare Chaplain at Ninewells Hospital, Dundee.

FRI 05:45 Farming Today (b086kxz6)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.

FRI 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b01s89gk)
Song Thrush

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. David Attenborough presents the Song Thrush. The male's song in the dawn chorus includes a repertoire of over a hundred different phrases making it one of the richest songs of any British Bird.

FRI 06:00 Today (b086tfbf)
Morning news and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.

FRI 09:00 The New World (b086s822)
Fixing Globalisation

Jim O'Neill asks if new challenges mean an end to the era of globalisation? As chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, Lord O'Neill was seen as one of the high priests of globalisation - coining the term BRICs to describe the economic rise of Brazil, Russia, India and China. Now, many see the UK's vote to leave the EU, alongside the election of Donald Trump as indications that the world is turning away from globalisation. A stalling in the increase in global trade is seen as another significant indicator. Lord O'Neill believes that globalisation can be a positive force, lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. But can this economic engine take care of those left behind by rapid, wrenching change?
Producer: Helen Grady.

FRI 09:45 Imagining the New Truth (b088g3xk)
Oksana Zabuzhko

Oksana Zabuzkho writes and works in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv. The central streets of the city and the now famous Maidan square have seen their share of protest, violence and upheaval in recent years. Oksana revisits those sites of heady national fervour and bitter dispute and tells us about her hopes and fears as the new shape of the international political community takes shape. How will old allies from the West treat the volatile and proud nation she calls home?

Producer: Tom Alban.

FRI 10:00 Woman's Hour (b086kxz8)
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.

FRI 10:45 Drama (b086tfbk)
Curious Under the Stars, The Stars and the Sand

By Meic Povey

Final episode of the comedy drama about a couple struggling to run a pub in mystical West Wales.

As the sale of the pub looms, Diane discovers Gareth's secret and throws him out of the Druid's Rest to live with Emlyn in his dilapidated caravan. And so Gareth sets out on a desperate quest to prove his love for Diane is infinite - he vows to count every grain of sand on Glan Don's beach.

Directed by James Robinson
A BBC Cymru Wales Production.

FRI 11:00 Freud for Our Times (b084x6m6)
Psychoanalysis is increasingly seen as the preserve of the time- and cash-rich minority, with other, cheaper forms of therapy now favoured by the NHS, but historian and psychoanalyst Daniel Pick argues that we can all still benefit from Freud's legacy - perhaps never more so than today.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and even Mindfulness may now seem to have replaced traditional psychoanalysis, but, in a highly-authored programme, Daniel Pick explores how endlessly adaptable Freud is, and how the language and culture pioneered by Freud are as useful today as ever.

Daniel Pick explores the challenges of adapting the traditional customs of psychoanalysis to our lives today and of where analysts should draw the line: does the word "cure" mean simply getting patients back to work, for example, and how long should we wait before speaking of someone as being cured?

He also looks at how Freud's writing can help us understand some of the most challenging and timely of issues - racism, Islamaphobia, radcialisation and wall-building.

Producer Beaty Rubens.

FRI 11:30 All Those Women (b086tfbm)
Series 2, Episode 2

Comedy series by Katherine Jakeways about four generations of women living under one roof.

It's time for some well-earned relaxing after Maggie won some vouchers to a spa. But what should be the opportunity for a bit of a lie down soon gets a bit fraught. 'There's a fine line between a spa day and a detention centre isn't there?'

All Those Women explores familial relationships, ageing, marriages - it's about life and love and things not turning out quite the way that you'd expected them to. Every week we join Hetty, Maggie, Jen and Emily as they struggle to resolve their own problems, and support one another.

Written by KATHERINE JAKEWAYS
Producer Alexandra Smith

A BBC Studios Production.

FRI 12:00 News Summary (b086kxzb)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

FRI 12:04 Home Front (b083lcj3)
6 January 1917 - Alan Lowther

On this day in 1917, British troops made a successful daylight raid near Arras, taking German positions and in Tynemouth, Alan Lowther finds himself under attack from all sides.

Written by Claudine Toutoungi
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole.

FRI 12:15 You and Yours (b086kxzd)
Consumer news and issues.

FRI 12:57 Weather (b086kxzg)
The latest weather forecast.

FRI 13:00 World at One (b086kxzj)
Analysis of news and current affairs.

FRI 13:45 Book of the Week (b0833x3c)
Labyrinths, Episode 5

The story of Emma Jung, her marriage to Carl and the early years of psychoanalysis.

Emma Jung was clever, ambitious and immensely wealthy, one of the richest heiresses in Switzerland, when she met and fell in love with Carl Jung, a handsome but penniless medical student. She was only 17, too young to understand Carl's complex personality or conceive of the dramas that lay ahead.

It was a highly unconventional marriage, with many labyrinthine twists and turns. Emma was forced to fight with everything she had to come to terms with Carl's brilliant but complicated character and to keep her husband close to her. His belief in polygamy led to many extra-marital involvements, with women he met when they became his patients. A ménage a trois with a former patient Toni Wolff lasted some thirty years. But the marriage endured and Emma realised her ambition to become a noted analyst in her own right.

In this fifth episode, Emma's career forges ahead. Finally feeling confident enough, she takes the decision to train as an analyst herself. She distils a lifetime of research into a book on the Holy Grail legend. Emma saw the legend as the quest of every individual for psychic health and wholeness, using the book as her own quest as she grapples with the labyrinth of her life with Carl.

Readers: Deborah Findlay and Henry Goodman

Written by Catrine Clay
Abridged and produced by Elizabeth Burke
A Loftus production for BBC Radio 4.

FRI 14:00 The Archers (b086t9n4)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Thursday]

FRI 14:15 Drama (b086tfbp)
When Ali Came to Abingdon

By Bethan Roberts.

The year is 1981. Muhammad Ali is about to pay one of his rare and special visits to his friend Paddy Monaghan in Abingdon.

One over-excited fan, Mick, and his son, Luke, allow boxing-fever to overtake them; wife and mother Sandra rebels and finds solace in a local women's group. The two streams come together to make one exceptional day for the family, in this story of boxing, feminism and... eggs.

Sandra ... Katie Lyons
Janet ... Sarah Thom
Ruth ... Janice Acquah
Emma ... Emma Sidi
Mick ... Steve Oram
Luke ... Calum Bonner

Bethan Roberts is an award-winning novelist and daughter of Abingdon.

FRI 15:00 Gardeners' Question Time (b086tfbv)
Somerset

Eric Robson is in Somerset with this week's panellists - Chris Beardshaw, Anne Swithinbank and Bunny Guinness.

The panel trades theses on a mysterious case of missing slugs, offer up reasons for the continual use of classical nomenclature in horticulture, and lay out the best way to prune a wild wisteria.

Also, Chris and Anne enjoy a trip to the beach in order to discuss the best uses for seaweed in the garden.

Produced by Dan Cocker
Assistant Producer: Hannah Newton

A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.

FRI 15:45 Room Service (b086tfbx)
A tale of the unexpected written by Heidi Amsinck and set in Copenhagen during a blizzard. In the small hours, Bent is woken from his vodka-slumbers in the hotel kitchen by a peculiar call from the old penthouse suite.

Heidi Amsinck, a writer and journalist born in Copenhagen, has written numerous short stories for radio including, most recently, the three story set Copenhagen Curios, broadcast on Radio 4 in 2015. Heidi is a graduate of the MA in Creative Writing at Birkbeck, University of London and lives in Surrey.

Writer: Heidi Amsinck
Reader: Tim McInnerny
Producer: Jeremy Osborne

A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4.

FRI 16:00 Last Word (b086tfbz)
Obituary series, analysing and celebrating the life stories of people who have recently died.

FRI 16:30 A Good Read (b070dnqt)
Samantha Bond and Jason Cowley

Actress Samantha Bond and editor of The New Statesman Jason Cowley join Harriett Gilbert for some passionate conversation about favourite books.

Samantha Bond, star of 'Home Fires', 'Downton Abbey' and a one-time Miss Moneypenny, is also a voracious reader. Her choice is Donna Tartt's first novel, the best-selling 'A Secret History', a murder-mystery with a Vermont campus setting and an intriguing cast of characters.

Jason Cowley is credited with revitalising The New Statesman as its editor. He recommends 'The Secret Agent' by Joseph Conrad, a novel about a terrorist bomb-plot devised by a shady Soho shopkeeper who doubles as a spy for the Russians. The story was inspired by the death of a French anarchist who accidentally blew himself up while attempting to plant a bomb in Greenwich Park in 1894, and has, in its turn, inspired many adaptations since its publication in 1907.

Harriett's choice is 'The Dead Lake' by Hamid Ismailov, a haunting fairytale, with hints of Gunther Grass' 'The Tin Drum', about the impact of repeated atomic testing in Soviet-era Kazakhstan on the local people of the Steppes.

Producer...Mary Ward-Lowery.

FRI 16:55 The Listening Project (b07yqp3x)
Norbert and Trish - A Lovely Life Together

Fi Glover introduces a conversation between a couple who met only 5 years ago but have made the most of their twilight romance. Another in 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.

FRI 17:00 PM (b086kxzl)
Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.

FRI 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b086kxzn)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

FRI 18:30 The News Quiz (b086tg0g)
Series 92, Episode 1

New Year, News Quiz. Jeremy Hardy, Danny Finkelstein, and Andy Parsons are amongst the guests joining Miles Jupp to scrutinize the goings-on behind the week's headlines.

Producer: Richard Morris
A BBC Studios Production.

FRI 19:00 The Archers (b086tgyj)
Kirsty is reminded of the past, and Helen wishes things could be different.

FRI 19:15 Front Row (b086kxzq)
News, reviews and interviews from the worlds of art, literature, film and music.

FRI 19:45 Drama (b086tfbk)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:45 today]

FRI 20:00 Any Questions? (b086tgyl)
Alan Johnson MP, Anna Soubry MP

Jonathan Dimbleby presents political debate and discussion from Hymers College in Hul with a panel including Alan Johnson MP and Anna Soubry MP.

FRI 20:50 A Point of View (b086th59)
A reflection on a topical issue.

FRI 21:00 Home Front - Omnibus (b083lh3p)
2-6 January 1917

In the week in 1917 when the Newcastle Journal published a glowing report on the improved conditions at munitions factories, Marshalls Factory tells the other side of the story.

Written by Claudine Toutoungi
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole.

FRI 21:58 Weather (b086kxzs)
The latest weather forecast.

FRI 22:00 The World Tonight (b086kxzv)
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.

FRI 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b087kx4p)
Persuasion, Episode 10

Jane Austen's last fully completed novel, published six months after she passed away - 200 years ago next year.

The novel concerns the fortunes of 27 year old spinster Anne Elliot, whose family have fallen on hard times and are forced to rent out their family home and move to Bath.

Anne finds the superficiality of Bath society hard to take - although we are treated to a pleasant gallery of eccentric characters. Anne meets Captain Wentworth again, a man to whom she was engaged some seven years previously until she was persuaded to drop the attachment.

The novel is a story about second chances. Anne - considered "on the shelf" by some - gets another opportunity to contemplate love and a future with a man she thought was lost forever.

Written by Jane Austen
Produced by Clive Brill
Abridged by Elaine Bedell

A Brill production for BBC Radio 4.

FRI 23:00 The New World (b086s822)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]

FRI 23:30 Great Lives (b086s76k)
[Repeat of broadcast at 16:30 on Tuesday]

FRI 23:55 The Listening Project (b07x5vrn)
Eddie and Jack - Busy Doing Nothing

Fi Glover introduces a conversation between friends in their 80s, who find it relaxing to swap their cars for the bus, and a hectic schedule for an amble about town. Another in 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.