SATURDAY 13 SEPTEMBER 2025

SAT 00:00 Midnight News (m002j64m)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


SAT 00:30 Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy (m002j62x)
Episode 5: A Declaration of Love

This is the first memoir by the acclaimed Indian writer and political activist Arundhati Roy, best-known for her Booker-prize-winning novel The God of Small Things. It is the account of a remarkable and difficult childhood which was dominated by Arundhati’s formidable mother, Mary Roy.

This was a time in South India when women had very proscribed roles, and Mary Roy challenged them profoundly:
‘In that conservative, stifling little South Indian town, where, in those days, women were only allowed the option of cloying virtue – or its affectation – my mother conducted herself with the edginess of a gangster.’

Mary Roy’s achievements are extraordinary - she founded a co-educational school which challenged sexist gender roles, and she brought a legal challenge which gave South Indian women equal inheritance rights with men. But at home, as Arundhati reveals, she’s cruel and bullying; she hits her children and belittles them constantly. At 18, Arundhati left home and didn’t see or speak to her mother for seven years. But when Mary Roy died in 2022, Arundhati was distraught, and even a ‘little ashamed’ at the intensity of her loss. In an attempt to make sense of their relationship, she began to write Mother Mary Comes to Me.

In this final episode, Arundhati describes her ‘brittle, tentative’ reunion with her mother after a seven-year absence from home. She becomes a published writer and wins the Booker Prize with her first novel, The God of Small Things:
‘The only person I called after the prize was announced was my mother. It would have been about 2am for her in Kottayam. She was up, watching the news on tv. “Well done, baby girl.” An incredible expression of love. I’d caught her on a good day.’
In September 2022, after a period of increasing frailty, Mrs Roy died.
‘I spun unanchored in space with no coordinates. I had constructed myself around her. I had grown into the peculiar shape that I am to accommodate her. I had never wanted to defeat her, never wanted to win. I had always wanted her to go out like a queen. And now that she had, I didn’t make sense to myself any more.’

Read by Shaheen Khan

Produced and abridged by Elizabeth Burke

Studio Production and Sound Design by Jon Calver

Executive Producer: Sara Davies

Photo courtesy of Arundhati Roy

A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4


SAT 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m002j64p)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping


SAT 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m002j64r)
BBC Radio 4 presents a selection of news and current affairs, arts and science programmes from the BBC World Service.


SAT 05:30 News Summary (m002j64t)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


SAT 05:34 Shipping Forecast (m002j64w)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping


SAT 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m002j64y)
Young and Courageous

Good morning.

Today would have been the birthday of the author Roald Dahl, who was born in Cardiff in 1916. For decades, his stories have captured the imaginations of children around the world. Though in recent years both Dahl and his works have faced controversy, the enduring charm of his books remains undeniable. Many of us will be able to recall a time in life when we were impacted by his stories - whether through the pages of his novels or the adaptations on stage and screen. In my own home, I remember when my book-loving daughter took great delight in discovering the character of Matilda - a girl who also has a deep passion for reading.

Amid the fantastical worlds of friendly giants, magical chocolate factories, and giant peaches, one theme surfaces again and again: the courage and resilience of children. Dahl’s young heroes are brave and clever. They stand at the centre of the story, overcoming hardship and, at times, even guiding or challenging the adults around them.

The Bible reminds us that to God, every person has value - no matter their age. Jesus welcomed little children into His presence, showing both His love and their importance in the kingdom of God. The Apostle Paul urged young Timothy, “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young,” encouraging him not to see youth as a weakness but as an opportunity to set an example through faith, conduct, and character. These words remind us that God delights to work through both the young and the old, calling each of us to make a difference in the world.

Lord, thank you for the children and young people in our lives. Open our eyes to their potential, and help us encourage them in faith and life. Strengthen the younger generation to be courageous and wise, shining your light wherever they go. Amen.


SAT 05:45 Uncharted with Hannah Fry (m0022z9f)
19. A Different Kind of Justice

How does a small informal survey lead to shocking truths about the US justice system thirty years later?

Producer Lauren Armstrong Carter
Sound Designer: Jon Nicholls
Story Editor: John Yorke


SAT 06:00 News and Papers (m002jdp4)
The news headlines, including a look at the newspapers.


SAT 06:07 Open Country (m002j751)
The Menai Strait

Martha Kearney visits the Menai Strait - the stretch of water which separates Ynys Môn or Anglesey from mainland Wales. She learns about its treacherous tides and hears about the history of its two bridges, both built in the 19th century to improve travel between London and Ireland. The Menai Suspension Bridge was designed by Thomas Telford and will celebrate its 200th anniversary at the start of 2026. The newer Britannia Bridge had to be completely rebuilt after a disastrous fire in 1970.

Martha meets an academic from Bangor University who explains how ocean physics make the waters of the Strait so dangerous. At low tide she braves the pouring rain to go rock-pooling with a wildlife expert, who explains why the Strait is such a special habitat for marine life. She also visits Church Island - a tiny island in the middle of the Strait which is home to an ancient church - and meets the people who look after it.

Producer: Emma Campbell


SAT 06:30 Farming Today (m002jdp6)
13/09/25: Farmland Birds, Wild Summit, Illegal Meat

Populations of birds which live on farmland have declined sharply since the 1970s, although there are signs the rate of decline is now slowing. We visit projects to improve habitats for Nightjars in Staffordshire and Corncrakes on the Isle of Lewis.

This week a Wild Summit bought together voices from all sides of the debate to discuss how to reverse the biodiversity crisis. Farming Today hears from conservationists and farmers, agreeing that current policies are 'fractured'.

The Commons' Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs committee has published a highly critical report claiming that illegal meat imports are increasing and that the authorities don't have adequate resources to tackle the problem.

And, is the appointment of a new Secretary of State for DEFRA a chance to reset the relationship between farmers and the Government?

Presenter: Caz Graham
Producer: Sarah Swadling


SAT 06:57 Weather (m002jdp8)
The latest weather reports and forecast


SAT 07:00 Today (m002jdpb)
Today (Saturday)


SAT 09:00 Saturday Live (m002jdpd)
Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith, Beekeeping, Basketball, and Dan Brown's Inheritance Tracks

Steve Pemberton and Reece Shearsmith have worked together for three decades on the likes of The League of Gentlemen and Inside No. 9. But, despite creating some of television's most twisted characters the pair are, as far as we can tell, relatively normal off-screen - Reece is a keen home-baker and Steve loves a good cryptic crossword.

Today John Amaechi is a psychologist and leadership consultant, but in a previous life he was an NBA star. But, John spent most of his childhood in Stockport feeling lonely, bullied for his height and weight, he hated sport. But a chance encounter with a basketball coach in the street that saw this 6'10" teenager stars align.

One of Molly Earl's earliest memories as a child is rescuing bees with her amateur beeping father. Today she rescues swarms of bees destined for extermination for a living and has given refuge to millions of bees creating 250 established hives around St Austell - where she turns their efforts into award-winning honey.

All that, plus the Inheritance Tracks of The Da Vinci Code author, Dan Brown.

Presenter: Adrian Chiles
Producer: Ben Mitchell


SAT 10:00 You're Dead to Me (m002jdpg)
Jane Austen: the life of a Regency literary icon

Greg Jenner is joined in Regency England by historian Dr Lucy Worsley and actor Sally Phillips to learn all about the life and works of literary legend Jane Austen on the 250th anniversary of her birth in December 1775. It is a truth universally acknowledged that Austen is one of England’s best-loved authors, and the creator of such indelible characters as Elizabeth Bennet, Mr Darcy, Emma Woodhouse and Elinor and Marianne Dashwood. Whether you have read one of her six books – Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility, Persuasion, Emma, Northanger Abbey and Mansfield Park – or seen one of the many adaptations, most of us have some experience with Austen. But her life story and how it influenced her writing is perhaps less well-known. This episode explores her early life as the daughter of a rural clergyman, takes a peek inside the books a teenage Jane was reading, and delves into her romantic and familial relationships to see what shaped Austen into the formidable literary talent she was. And it asks a key question: was Jane Austen, who wrote such wonderful women characters, a feminist?

If you’re a fan of iconic authors, Regency romances and women succeeding in a man’s world, you’ll love our episode on Jane Austen.

If you want more incredible women authors with Dr Lucy Worsley, check out our episode on Agatha Christie. For more from Sally Phillips, listen to our episode on Fairy Tales. And for more Regency romance, there’s our episode on Georgian Courtship.

You’re Dead To Me is the comedy podcast that takes history seriously. Every episode, Greg Jenner brings together the best names in history and comedy to learn and laugh about the past.

Hosted by: Greg Jenner
Research by: Clara Chamberlain and Charlotte Emily Edgeshaw
Written by: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow, Emma Nagouse, and Greg Jenner
Produced by: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow and Greg Jenner
Audio Producer: Steve Hankey
Production Coordinator: Ben Hollands
Senior Producer: Emma Nagouse
Executive Editor: Philip Sellars


SAT 10:30 The Kitchen Cabinet (m002jdpj)
Series 49

Episode 4

Jay Rayner hosts a culinary panel show packed full of tasty titbits.


SAT 11:00 The Week in Westminster (m002jdpl)
Radio 4's assessment of developments at Westminster


SAT 11:30 From Our Own Correspondent (m002jdpn)
Israel's ultimatum over Gaza City

Kate Adie introduces stories from Gaza, France, the Thailand-Cambodia border, Iraq and Slovenia.

Around a million Palestinians have been told to leave Gaza City ahead of a new Israeli offensive - though many are wary of leaving, saying there is nowhere to go. Lucy Williamson was granted rare access to Gaza by the Israeli army, and was taken to see its planned new aid distribution site.

Days after French PM, François Bayrou, was ousted from office after losing a confidence vote, street protests took place across France as people voiced anger over proposals to remove two national holidays and impose a pensions freeze. Andrew Harding watched events unfold in Paris.

Thailand also has a new prime minister – its third in just over a year - following a political crisis that ignited a short, sudden conflict with Cambodia. Our Southeast Asia Correspondent Jonathan Head has been looking into this catastrophic breakdown of relations.

Ten years ago, 71 migrants from Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan died in the back of a refrigerator truck abandoned on a motorway lay-by near the Austrian border with Hungary. Nick Thorpe travelled to northern Iraq to meet relatives of some of those who died - and interviewed the smugglers convicted for their role in their deaths.

Slovenia has produced some of the best male cyclists in the world today - including Tadej Pogacar. Every year, the four-time Tour de France champ hosts a cycling festival in his home town of Komenda - and Guy De Launey went along for the ride.

Series Producer: Serena Tarling
Production Coordinator: Rosie Strawbridge
Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith


SAT 12:00 News Summary (m002jdpq)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


SAT 12:04 Money Box (m002jdps)
Mortgage Charter and Unclaimed Benefits

New figures reveal that more than a quarter of a million homeowners have temporarily reduced their mortgages payments, or extended their mortgage term, since lenders agreed to offer better support to customers in June 2023 through what was called the Mortgage Charter.

There's been a sharp rise in people taking their tax-free lump sum out of their pension over the past year. Since 2015 people over the age of 55 could take 25 per cent of their pension pots tax-free and then use the rest as they wished. These figures from the regulator the Financial Conduct Authority show tens of thousands more people made that choice - why?

Millions of people are missing out on tens of billions of pounds worth of help ranging from benefits to social tariffs from utility companies. That's according to the latest analysis Policy in Practice suggests. What type of benefits are people missing out on?

And the £100 limit on contactless card payments looks set to be scrapped. The regulator, the Financial Conduct Authority, published plans this week to let banks set their own limit - or indeed have no limit at all.

Presenter: Paul Lewis
Reporters: Dan Whitworth and Jo Krasner
Researcher: Eimear Devlin
Editor: Jess Quayle

(First broadcast 12pm on Radio 4 on Saturday 13th September 2025)


SAT 12:30 The News Quiz (m002j63s)
Series 118

2. Cards revealed and Reshuffle

Andy Zaltzman is joined by Daliso Chaponda, Susie McCabe, Geoff Norcott and Ash Sarkar to break down the week in news. Expect discussion on the Labour Deputy Leader Election, the return of the Mandelson, strikes on Qatar, Russian drones in Poland and telepathic Google searches.

Written by Andy Zaltzman.

With additional material by: Simon Alcock, Carwyn Blayney, Ruth Husko and Alex Kealy.
Producer: Rajiv Karia
Executive Producer: James Robinson
Production Coordinator: Caroline Barlow
Sound Editor: Marc Willcox

A BBC Studios Production for Radio 4.


SAT 12:57 Weather (m002jdpv)
The latest weather forecast


SAT 13:00 News (m002jdpx)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


SAT 13:10 Any Questions? (m002j645)
Lord Deben, Miranda Green, Timandra Harkness, Luke Pollard MP

Alex Forsyth presents political debate from Liskeard Public Hall in Cornwall, with the Conservative peer Lord Deben; Miranda Green of the Financial Times; writer and broadcaster Timandra Harkness; and the defence minister and Labour MP for Plymouth Sutton and Devonport, Luke Pollard.

Producer: Paul Martin
Lead broadcast engineer: Nick Ford


SAT 14:05 Any Answers? (m002jdpz)
Listeners respond to the issues raised in the preceding edition of Any Questions?


SAT 14:45 The Archers (m002j63x)
Writer: Nick Warburton 
Director: Helen Aitken
Editor: Jeremy Howe

Ben Archer.... Ben Norris
Pip Archer.... Daisy Badger
Tom Archer.... William Troughton
Ruairi Donovan.... Arthur Hughes
Amber Gorden.... Charlotte Jordan
Brad Horrobin.... Taylor Uttley
Adam Macy.... Andrew Wincott
Azra Malik.... Yasmin Wilde
Freddie Pargetter.... Toby Laurence
Lily Pargetter.... Katie Redford
Stella Pryor.... Lucy Speed
Fallon Rogers.... Joanna Van Kampen
Lynda Snell.... Carole Boyd
Dane.... Stavros Demetraki


SAT 15:00 The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann (m000v83t)
2. Claudia

Visiting Hugh Casthorpe has now become a patient in the sanatorium.

His rise in temperature may have something to do with the fact that he is utterly, hopelessly besotted with the lovely Madame Claudia.

She is married, she is ill, he's scared to speak to her and Hugh’s companions on the Magic Mountain, are far from happy with the infatuation.

Despite the obstacles - will love find a way?

Thomas Mann’s novel is a literary icon, a tragi-comedy, a masterpiece of deep thought, sly irony, sex, love and death.

Written from a translation by John E Woods

Dramatised by Robin Brooks

Narrator ..... Lucy Robinson
Hugh Casthorpe ..... Luke Thallon
James Simpson ..... Hugh Skinner
Doctor Crowmarsh ..... Sandy Grierson
Professor Jones ..... Richard Harrington
Claudia Civet ..... Genevieve Gaunt
Edie Robinson ..... Keziah Joseph
Marjorie ..... Georgina Strawson
Stour ........... Ed Jones
Nurse ......... Kate Paul

Producer: Fiona McAlpine

An Allegra production for BBC Radio 4


SAT 16:00 Woman's Hour (m002jdq1)
Weekend Woman’s Hour: Davina McCall, Papua New Guinea, Jung Chang, Fawning, Sophie Ellis Bextor

Davina McCall, one of TV’s most popular presenters has a new book out, Birthing, co-written with the midwife, Marley Henry. Davina joined Anita Rani to talk about her stellar career so far, including hosting Big Brother for 10 years, campaigning for better menopause care and building a fitness empire. What makes her tick? And what drives her forward to clear hurdles such as an usual childhood, drug addiction and most recently, brain surgery for a benign tumour that she nicknamed Jeffrey?

As the 50th anniversary of Papua New Guinea's independence from Australia approaches later this month, we hear why the country is currently one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a woman. Two-thirds of women in PNG have experienced some form of sexual violence in their lifetime, which is almost twice the global average. Nuala McGovern was joined by Tahina Booth, a former elite athlete and founder of Grass Skirt Project who is trying to break the cycle of gender-based violence through sport and Joku Hennah, a journalist and activist.

Jung Chang’s Wild Swans, the epic family memoir that followed the lives of Jung, her mother and grandmother through China's 20th century, was banned in mainland China, but was a smash hit worldwide upon publication in 1991. Now Jung’s sequel, Fly, Wild Swans, brings her family’s story up to date and she joined Nuala to talk about its themes.

We’ve all heard of the fight or flight response in the face of danger, but there's also freeze, and then there's fawn, also known as people pleasing, or appeasing. Clinical psychologist Dr Ingrid Clayton has written about this in her new book, Fawning - Why the Need to Please Makes Us Lose Ourselves and How to Find our Way Back. Nuala spoke to Ingrid about her own experiences that made her want to help others overcome this form of trauma response and what fawning looks like in practice.

In 2023 Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s Murder on the Dancefloor went viral on TikTok after Emerald Fennell used it in a key scene in the film, Saltburn. That resurgence, along with her popular Kitchen Discos that got lots of us through the Covid lockdown set the scene for her new album, Perimenopop, which is released tomorrow, a celebration of womanhood in middle age. Sophie joined Anita in the Woman's Hour studio.

Presenter: Anita Rani
Producer: Annette Wells
Editor: Rebecca Myatt


SAT 17:00 PM (m002jdq3)
Full coverage of the day's news


SAT 17:30 Political Thinking with Nick Robinson (m002jdq5)
'Build Baby Build': The new housing secretary, Steve Reed

Steve Reed was given the job of Housing Secretary as the result of crisis, after the resignation of his close friend Angela Rayner.

But he has been part of the inner circle preparing Keir Starmer's rise to power from the beginning, having recruited the man who ended up as the prime minister's Chief of Staff.

In this interview, he gives Nick a behind-the-scenes account of coming to power and the "whirlwind" of an emergency reshuffle.

They also discuss how to reconnect with the voters, putting up flags and who he'll have to fight to succeed in building the homes that Labour has promised

Producer: Daniel Kraemer
Researcher: Chloe Desave
Sound editing: Hal Haines
Editor: Giles Edwards


SAT 17:54 Shipping Forecast (m002jdq7)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping


SAT 17:57 Weather (m002jdq9)
The latest weather reports and forecast


SAT 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m002jdqc)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


SAT 18:15 Loose Ends (m002jdqf)
Moira Buffini, Josh Jones, George Egg, Urielle Klein-Mekongo, Black Country, New Road

Stuart Maconie's guests in Salford include comedian Josh Jones on his new tour 'I Haven't Won The Lottery So here's Another Show'. We find out what happens if he wins the lottery mid-run. Actor and writer Moira Buffini has just won the YA Book Prize for her debut novel Songlight. George Egg is the Snack Hacker, brining us goodies from his kitchen and Urielle Klein-Mekongo is the author of a new musical, Black Power Desk. And there's music from Black Country, New Road from their critically acclaimed album Forever Howlong.

Presenter: Stuart Maconie
Producer: Jessica Treen


SAT 19:00 Profile (m002jdqh)
Peter Mandelson

Peter Mandelson has been sacked from his role as British Ambassador to the US over his association with the late convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. It is the third time he has been forced to leave government.

An instrumental part of Tony Blair’s landslide election victory in 1997, Mandelson was rewarded with a seat in the cabinet. But he was soon forced to resign as Business Secretary after failing to declare a six-figure loan from a fellow minister.

His second resignation came in 2001 after making his way back into the cabinet as Northern Ireland Secretary. Mandelson was accused influencing the passport applications of the wealthy Hinduja brothers, although was later exonerated.

Mark Coles examines how despite these controversies, the man once dubbed the "Prince of Darkness" was able to keep getting himself into powerful positions.

Presenter: Mark Coles
Producers: Ben Crighton, Alex Loftus and Adriana Urbano
Editor: Justine Lang
Sound Editor: Gareth Jones


SAT 19:15 This Cultural Life (m002j74j)
Alicia Vikander

Swedish-born Alicia Vikander won global acclaim in 2015 for playing Vera Britten in Testament Of Youth, and a humanoid robot in the thriller Ex-Machina. The following year she won an Academy Award for her supporting role with Eddie Redmayne in The Danish Girl, along with a Screen Actors Guild Award and BAFTA and Golden Globe nominations. Since then her diverse range of screen roles have included playing a spy boss in the film Jason Bourne, computer game heroine Lara Croft in Tomb Raider, and Gloria Steinem in the biopic The Glorias. The daughter of acclaimed stage actor Maria Fahl, she tells John Wilson how she first performed on stage at the age of seven in a musical written by Benny and Bjorn of ABBA. She also appeared in Swedish television dramas and films as a child actor. In 2025 Alicia Vikander makes her return to the stage in a new version of Ibsen’s The Lady From The Sea at The Bridge in London, her first theatre role since she was a child.

Producer: Edwina Pitman


SAT 20:00 Archive on 4 (m002jdqk)
Nine Votes that Count

The US Supreme Court plays a central role in American political and judicial life and will help define Donald Trump’s presidency. Now, it's confronted by an activist President keen to use his executive powers to transform America.

Mark Damazer asks whether the Court’s nine Justices, with the conservatives a clear majority, will push back against the President. Critics fear that it will roll over and endorse his measures on everything from immigration, the definitions of citizenship, how universities should behave, the sacking of tens of thousands of government employees - and much more.

Using extensive archive recordings of Supreme Court justices, politicians and protestors - and with a contribution from a recently retired Supreme Court justice - Mark shows that the Court has time and again generated electrifying drama. Presidents from both sides have raged about its decisions. None more so than the great liberal, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who in the 1930s was so furious with a conservative court that he devised a plan that convulsed the entire nation - to add extra judges who would support him. He lost.

Mark Damazer also looks at the liberal Warren court of the 50s and 60s – which saw the largest step forward for civil rights in American legal history and met with fierce resistance from those who thought it was trampling over the Constitution – and the rights of individual states. And he sees how the nominations process, once calm and orderly, has now become raucous, deeply ideological and corrosive.

With thanks to Oyez, a free law project by Justia and the Legal Information Institute of Cornell Law School, the Miller Center and the Supreme Court Historical Society.

Producer: Sasha Edye-Lindner
Executive Producer: Robert Nicholson

A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4


SAT 21:00 Moral Maze (m002j5w6)
Is ‘net zero’ a moral pursuit?

The party conference season kicked off with claims and counter claims about the viability of Nigel Farage’s proposals for government. One issue that unites Reform and Kemi Badenoch’s Conservatives is scrapping the 2050 net zero target, echoing US President Donald Trump's pledge to "drill, baby, drill" and embark on new oil and gas exploration.

This is a turbulent time in international politics. The prospect of achieving a global consensus on climate action seems a forlorn hope. What’s more, critics of the UK net zero target argue that the costs will cause a decline in living standards for little overall benefit.

Forget economic arguments: what is the moral thing to do in the face of a warming planet, rising sea levels, more extreme weather, food and water insecurity, and human displacement?

Readers of Immanuel Kant might be tempted to invoke his ‘categorical imperative’, a moral rule that says you should act in a way that you would want to apply to everyone, regardless of your personal desires or the potential outcomes of your actions. In climate terms, it means pursuing net zero as a moral good in itself. Utilitarian ethics, however, says that the right action is the one producing the most happiness and the least unhappiness for the greatest number of people. Therefore, it could be argued that the detrimental consequences of pursuing net zero in the UK, combined with its questionable global benefit, make it immoral.

Is ‘net zero’ a moral pursuit?

Chair: Michael Buerk
Panellists: Matthew Taylor, Ella Whelan, Giles Fraser and Anne McElvoy.
Witnesses: Maurice Cousins, Alice Evatt, Tony Milligan and Sorin Baiasu.
Producer: Dan Tierney


SAT 22:00 News (m002jdqm)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


SAT 22:15 The Food Programme (m002j62v)
Follow the Food: The Rise of Food Tourism

Sheila Dillon investigates the growing number of food tours and trails in the UK as consumers show more and more interest in the provenance of what is on their plate. She heads to Melton Mowbray in Leicestershire – a town that boasts the title of Rural Capital Of Food - and joins a walking tour that spans pork pie producers, stilton sellers, a samosa wallah and a prizewinning brewery.

Produced by Robin Markwell for BBC Audio in Bristol


SAT 23:00 Icklewick FM (m002j89c)
Series 2

3. The Reunion

Icklewick FM are reporting live from Hogan High where the students are anxiously awaiting their A level results. Amy meets a newly qualified teacher on the edge and Chris is shaken when he runs into someone from his past. Meanwhile, Simon gets sent to the Head Master’s office and Mr Patel suffers from stage fright.

Icklewick FM is created and written by Chris Cantrill and Amy Gledhill, with additional material from the cast.

Starring:
Amy Gledhill
Chris Cantrill
Mark Silcox
Colin Hoult
Janice Connolly
Phil Ellis
Lucy Beaumont
Rachel Fairburn
Paddy Young
Molly McGuinness
Sharon Wanjohi
Jin Hao Li
Tom Burgess
Nicola Redman
Tai Campbell
Em Humble
James Carbutt

Series Artwork by Sam O'Leary

Music, sound design and additional material by Jack Lewis Evans.
Line Produced by Laura Shaw
Produced by Benjamin Sutton.
A Daddy’s Superyacht production for BBC Radio 4


SAT 23:30 Nature Table (m001gk81)
Series 3

Episode 6

Celebrating the natural world and all it's funny eccentricities.

Taking the simple format of a 'Show & Tell', in each episode Sue Perkins is joined by celebrity guests from the worlds of comedy and natural history.

Nature Table has a simple clear brief: to positively celebrate and promote the importance of all our planet's wonderfully wild flora and fauna in a fun and easily grasped way... whilst at the same time having a giggle.

Recorded at ZSL London Zoo.

In this episode, Sue welcomes:

* Lead Keeper at ZSL London Zoo Jessica Jones
* Fungarium Curator at Kew Gardens Lee Davies
* Comedian Shaparak Khorsandi

Written by Catherine Brinkworth, Jon Hunter, Jenny Laville and Nicky Roberts

Additional material by Kat Sadler.

Producer Simon Nicholls.

A BBC Studios production for BBC Radio 4.

SUNDAY 14 SEPTEMBER 2025

SUN 00:00 Midnight News (m002jdqp)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


SUN 00:15 Bookclub (m002j5nb)
Paula Hawkins

Presented by James Naughtie, Radio 4's Bookclub, speaks to the writer Paula Hawkins about her debut thriller The Girl On The Train. The book was published by Doubleday in 2015 to great acclaim and has sold millions of copies. Told in the first-person the novel's protagonist is Rachel Watson, a 33-year-old divorcee with addiction issues. The book was made into film in 2016 directed by Tate Taylor and starring Emily Blunt as Rachel. This episode was recorded at the Edinburgh International Books Festival.

Producer: Dominic Howell
Editor: Gillian Wheelan
This was a BBC Audio Scotland production.


SUN 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m002jdqr)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping


SUN 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m002jdqt)
BBC Radio 4 presents a selection of news and current affairs, arts and science programmes from the BBC World Service.


SUN 05:30 News Summary (m002jdqw)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


SUN 05:34 Shipping Forecast (m002jdqy)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping


SUN 05:43 Bells on Sunday (m002jdr0)
The Church of Saints Mary and Gabriel in South Harting, West Sussex

Bells on Sunday comes from the Church of Saints Mary and Gabriel in South Harting, West Sussex. The large cruciform church is mostly early 14th century with some signs of earlier work. The tower houses a ring of six bells which were all cast by the Chapman and Mears foundry of London in 1782. The Tenor weighs twelve hundredweight and is tuned to the note of F sharp. We hear them ringing Norwich Surprise Minor.


SUN 05:45 In Touch (m002j6zp)
Guided Holidays

In Touch visits the Lake District and tags along to Ellie Bennet's holiday. Ellie booked a sighted guide through a free guiding service called Cumbrain Visions. Cumbrian Visions provides visually impaired holiday makers with a guide to accompany them on their various activities. There is also a similar service happening in Cornwall and Devon, called The Cliffden Buddies, which came first. Julian Griffen, of The Cliffden Buddies and Lee Hodgson of Cumbrian Visions tell In Touch about their services and how it all got started.

For more information:
Cumbrian Visions
Founder and Coordinator: Lee Hodgson
Tel: 07976 669708
Email: hodgson@liverdogs.co.uk

Cliffden Buddies
Founder and Coordinator: Jules Griffen
Tel: 07500 206948
Email: cliffden.buddies@outlook.com

Presenter: Peter White
Producer: Beth Hemmings
Production Coordinator: Kim Agostino
Website image description: Peter White sits smiling in the centre of the image and he is wearing a dark green jumper. Above Peter's head is the BBC logo (three separate white squares house each of the three letters). Bottom centre and overlaying the image are the words "In Touch" and the Radio 4 logo (the word ‘radio’ in a bold white font, with the number 4 inside of a white circle). The background is a bright mid-blue with two rectangles angled diagonally to the right. Both are behind Peter, one is a darker blue and the other is a lighter blue.


SUN 06:00 News Summary (m002jghm)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4


SUN 06:05 Heart and Soul (w3ct6vp5)
Freddie’s Second Verse

Freddie once signed to a major record label. He appeared in high-production music videos and looked set for fame. But the pressure and pace of that life left him feeling hollow. In one of the world’s busiest cities, he now follows a very different path - one built on silence, discipline, and spiritual growth.

Freddie reflects on his decision to leave the music industry behind and embrace Buddhism. He now works as a nail technician and shares how his beliefs shape his daily life. Alongside him is Carl, his partner, who offers moving insights into how their shared values deepen their relationship.

The episode captures striking contrasts: the buzz of the city versus the calm of local temples; a nail salon’s chatter against the resonance of monastery chanting. Through honest conversations and ambient recordings, we step into Freddie and Carl’s world, where Buddhist practice offers an anchor amid chaos.

Their story explores what it means to redefine success, maintain spiritual discipline in a hyperactive city, and find peace through faith. It also touches on themes of identity, mindfulness, and how love and belief can thrive under pressure.

Freddie’s journey is not one of retreat, but of radical reorientation - a decision to slow down in a world that keeps speeding up. This is a rare and intimate portrait of life shaped by stillness, purpose, and the search for something more lasting than applause.

Producer/Presenter: John Offord
Executive Producer: Rajeev Gupta
Editor: Chloe Walker
Production Coordinator: Mica Nepomuceno


SUN 06:35 On Your Farm (m002jghp)
Oat Milk Farmers

We meet brother and sister Phil and Rebecca Rayner who grow oats on their Cambridgeshire farm to turn into oat milk and other products. They’re thriving after winning a David and Goliath trademark battle against a multi-million pound business. Oatly had claimed the name of the Rayners’ product – PureOaty – was too similar, but a judge ruled in their favour. Now they use their own and other local farmers’ oats to make gluten free products.

Produced and presented by Sally Challoner.


SUN 06:57 Weather (m002jghr)
The latest weather reports and forecast


SUN 07:00 News and Papers (m002jght)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


SUN 07:10 Sunday (m002jghw)
A look at the ethical and religious issues of the week


SUN 07:54 Radio 4 Appeal (m002jfcc)
Zimbabwe Educational Trust

Writer Africa Brooke makes the Radio 4 Appeal on behalf of Zimbabwe Educational Trust. The charity helps families in Zimbabwe get birth certificates for their children, enabling them to access healthcare, education and have more legal rights later in life.

The Radio 4 Appeal features a new charity every week. Each appeal then runs on Radio 4 from Sunday 0755 for 7 days.

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 'Zimbabwe Educational Trust’.
- Cheques should be made payable to ‘Zimbabwe Educational Trust'.
- You can donate online at bbc.co.uk/appeal/radio4
- Please ensure you are donating to the correct charity by checking the name of the charity on the donate page.

Registered Charity Number: 327519. If you’d like to find out more about the charity’s work visit *https://zimbabweeducationaltrust.org.uk/
*The BBC is not responsible for content on external websites

Producer: Katy Takatsuki


SUN 07:57 Weather (m002jghy)
The latest weather reports and forecast


SUN 08:00 News and Papers (m002jgj0)
The news headlines, including a look at the newspapers.


SUN 08:10 Sunday Worship (m002jgj2)
The Invitation of Heaven

This week’s Sunday Worship comes from the historic Mynyddbach Chapel in North Swansea, home to the Calon Lan Centre. The renowned Morriston Orpheus Choir marks its 90th anniversary with intimate performances that echo decades of Welsh choral tradition. The preacher is Heulwen Davies, Pastor at Century Church in Llanelli. The service is led my musician, songwriter and broadcaster Mal Pope.

Readings:
John 10:1-11 and Psalm 51:1-10

Music:
Amazing Grace - archive recording (taken from 'Morriston Orpheus Choir: 60 Years of Song')
Deus Salutis (Llef)
Y Tangnefeddwyr by Waldo Williams
Calon Lan
Benedictus by Robat Arwyn

Arglwydd Dyma Fi - Cerys Matthews (taken from 'Cockahoop')

The Playout:
'Aberystwyth' arranged by Alan Rees and played by Ieuan Jones.

Accompanist: Helen Roberts
Playout: Ieuan Jones
Music Director: Nathan Jones

Producer: Jonathan Thomas


SUN 08:48 Witness History (w3ct74q5)
President Clinton plays the sax in Prague

In January 1994, two presidents enjoyed a memorable night in the Czech Republic – ending with an impromptu jazz performance.

Five years after the fall of communism, the US president Bill Clinton visited Prague to share his hopes for a new transatlantic alliance.

Key to his vision was his friendship with the Czech president Vaclav Havel, a playwright who had been imprisoned for dissidence during the Cold War.

During the visit, Havel arranged a series of surprises for Clinton including a reunion with the family he had stayed with on a visit to Prague in 1970.

The final surprise took place at the city’s famous Reduta jazz club. Havel presented Clinton with a saxophone and the two friends performed together on stage – a moment which came to symbolise the new partnership between East and West.

Vicky Farncombe uses archive from the Vaclav Havel Center and the William J Clinton Presidential Library to relive the big night out.

Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more.

Recent episodes explore everything from football in Brazil, the history of the ‘Indian Titanic’ and the invention of air fryers, to Public Enemy’s Fight The Power, subway art and the political crisis in Georgia. We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: visionary architect Antoni Gaudi and the design of the Sagrada Familia; Michael Jordan and his bespoke Nike trainers; Princess Diana at the Taj Mahal; and Görel Hanser, manager of legendary Swedish pop band Abba on the influence they’ve had on the music industry. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the time an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at the President of the United States in protest of America’s occupation of Iraq; the creation of the Hollywood commercial that changed advertising forever; and the ascent of the first Aboriginal MP.

(Photo: Presidents perform at the Reduta jazz club. Credit: Office of the President of the Czech Republic)


SUN 08:58 Tweet of the Day (m002jgj4)
Jo Wimpenny on the Moorhen

Standing on a lake edge and eager to spot some wildlife, zoologist and author Jo Wimpenny is disappointed to just find a moorhen. But then she stops herself - why does no one get excited about seeing these birds? From climbing trees to promiscuity and egg dumping, Jo finds out there is far more to moorhen life than its humble status suggests.

Presented by Jo Wimpenny and produced by Sophie Anton for BBC Audio in Bristol

This programme features recordings from Xeno-Canto by Simon Elliott (Common Moorhen - XC572582 and XC572900)


SUN 09:00 Broadcasting House (m002jgj6)
The Sunday morning news magazine programme. Presented by Paddy O'Connell


SUN 10:00 The Reunion (m002jgj8)
Royal Ballet School

In 1926, a young dancer called Ninette De Valois set up a school in London that would become a unique breeding ground for ballet talent. It took generations of the most promising young dancers and moulded them into great performers. In 1955, what became the Royal Ballet School, moved into White Lodge in Richmond Park, a grand, former hunting lodge of George II. At the age of 16, pupils were formally assessed, and, if selected, would go on to “upper school” in Baron’s Court, and, since 2003, in Covent Garden.

From here a lucky few could go on to carve out a career as professional dancers with the Royal Ballet Company. The school’s alumni is a decades long roll call of ballet’s greats - Margot Fonteyn, Darcey Bussell, Antoinette Sibley, Monica Mason, Lynn Seymour, and, for the boys, Anthony Dowell, David Wall, Adam Cooper and Wayne Sleep.

Joining Kirsty Wark are Dame Monica Mason who went to the Royal Ballet School at the age of 14 in 1957, Dame Darcey Bussell, was 13 when she joined the Royal Ballet School in 1982, Jonathan Gray was, briefly, a pupil in the 1970s – he went on to edit Dancing Times. Iain Mackay, current Artistic Director of the Royal Ballet School is another alumni, from the nineties and Vincent Hantam was a young black dancer, sent from Capetown to join the school in the early 70s.

Archive courtesy of Voices Of British Ballet
Presenter: Kirsty Wark
Producer: Natalie Steed
Editor: David Prest
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4


SUN 11:00 The Archers Omnibus (m002jgjb)
Writer: Nick Warburton 
Director: Helen Aitken
Editor: Jeremy Howe

Ben Archer.... Ben Norris
Pip Archer.... Daisy Badger
Tom Archer.... William Troughton
Ruairi Donovan.... Arthur Hughes
Amber Gorden.... Charlotte Jordan
Brad Horrobin.... Taylor Uttley
Adam Macy.... Andrew Wincott
Azra Malik.... Yasmin Wilde
Freddie Pargetter.... Toby Laurence
Lily Pargetter.... Katie Redford
Stella Pryor.... Lucy Speed
Fallon Rogers.... Joanna Van Kampen
Lynda Snell.... Carole Boyd
Dane.... Stavros Demetraki


SUN 12:15 Profile (m002jdqh)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Saturday]


SUN 12:30 Just a Minute (m002j5r5)
Series 95

4. What's that wonderful smell?

Sue Perkins challenges Gyles Brandreth, Tony Hawks, Emma Sidi and Desiree Burch to speak for 60 seconds without repetition, deviation or hesitation. Subjects include Dame Maggie Smith, my favourite pizza topping and Wimbledon.

Production Coordinator: Sarah Nicholls
Sound Editor: Marc Willcox
Producer: Georgia Keating
Executive Producer: James Robinson
Additional material by Eve Delaney

An EcoAudio certified production.
A BBC Studios Production for Radio 4.


SUN 12:57 Weather (m002jgjd)
The latest weather forecast


SUN 13:00 The World This Weekend (m002jgjg)
Radio 4's look at the week's big stories from both home and around the world.


SUN 13:30 Currently (m002j5n8)
Corn Belt People

Amid the crowds and bustle of the 2025 Iowa State Fair, Anna Jones takes the temperature of rural Iowans almost a year into Trump's second term. Anna finds out how the farming constituency - largely Trump supporting in 2024 - are feeling about global trade tariffs and promises to Make America Great Again. She explores their perceptions of America's position in the world - and how they feel the rest of the world views the rural Midwest.

Produced and presented by Anna Jones for BBC Audio Bristol


SUN 14:00 Gardeners' Question Time (m002j63c)
Summer Garden Party: Potting Shed

What is this mysterious vegetable growing in my vegetable patch? Can you identify this mysterious plum? How can I make my cottage garden look full of life?

Kathy Clugston hosts a lively Potting Shed edition of Gardeners’ Question Time, recorded at the vibrant GQT Summer Garden Party held at RHS Garden Hyde Hall in Essex.

Joining her is the show’s renowned panel of horticultural experts — Bob Flowerdew, Christine Walkden, James Wong, Bunny Guinness, Dr Chris Thorogood, Matthew Wilson, and Pippa Greenwood — ready to tackle gardening dilemmas from enthusiastic visitors.

From tackling vine weevils and dealing with contaminated soil, to coaxing supermarket-bought pear trees into fruiting, the panel shares practical advice, clever solutions, and plenty of gardening wisdom throughout the programme.

Junior Producer: Rahnee Prescod
Assistant Producer: Suhaar Ali

A Somethin Else Production for BBC Radio 4.


SUN 14:45 Opening Lines (m002jgjl)
The Cherry Orchard - Episode One

John Yorke looks at The Cherry Orchard, Anton Chekhov’s final play and a landmark in 20th century theatre.

It’s 1903 and Liubov Andryeevna Ranyevskaya is returning to the family estate in southern Russia. As the head of this aristocratic household, she faces a crisis. The family is in serious financial difficulty and it seems inevitable that the estate will have to be sold to pay their debts. A local businessman, Lopakhin, offers a solution, but it would mean the loss of their beloved cherry orchard.

In this first of two episodes, the focus is on these two main protagonists, who embody the tensions between the old aristocracy and the emerging merchant class, and the student Trofimov whose revolutionary ideas point prophetically towards the path that Russia was soon to take.

John has worked in television and radio for 30 years, and shares his experience with Radio 4 listeners as he unpacks the themes and impact of the books, plays and stories that are being dramatised in BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. As former Head of Channel Four Drama and Controller of BBC Drama Production he has worked on some of the most popular shows in Britain - from EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless. As creator of the BBC Writers Academy he's trained a generation of screenwriters - now with over 70 green lights and thousands of hours of television to their names. He is the author of Into the Woods, the bestselling book on narrative, and he writes, teaches and consults on all forms of narrative, including many podcasts for R4.

Contributors:
Benedict Andrews, director of an acclaimed production of The Cherry Orchard at the Donmar Warehouse in London in 2024
Rosamund Bartlett, a cultural historian with expertise in Russian literature, music and art. Her books include Chekhov: Scenes from a Life and she has also translated and edited selections of his stories and letters.

Excerpt taken from the BBC Radio 3/Palimpsest production of The Cherry Orchard, directed by Toby Swift, with Neil Dudgeon as Lopakhin and Saffron Coomber as Dunyasha. It was first broadcast on Radio 3 on 18th November 2018.

Music: Torquil MacLeod
Sound: Sean Kerwin
Researcher: Henry Tydeman
Production Hub Coordinator: Nina Semple
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Executive Producer: Sara Davies

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4


SUN 15:00 Drama on 4 (m002jgjn)
The Yafa Cherry Orchard

Part 1

Chekhov’s timeless masterpiece translates easily to Palestine in 1948 as an aristocratic family try to hang on to their estate during partition.

Madame Selma, (Ranevskaya in the original), arrives at her ancestral home in Yafa just as the British are withdrawing from Palestine and the state of Israel is being established. Armed Zionist militia, soon to become the IDF, are roaming the country and will surely turn their attention to Selma’s house and its beloved Cherry Orchard.

Hassan Abdulrazzak’s adaptation retains Chekhov’s story of a family struggling to cope with the change that threatens to sweep them away and is given an urgent resonance by setting the story against the seismic events of 1948, whose consequences echo down the years to this day.

The Yafa Cherry Orchard adapted by Hassan Abdulrazzak

Selma: Lara Sawalha
Gamal: Sami Abu Wardeh
Yousef: Philip Arditti
Tariq: Ammar Haj Ahmad
Said: Nayef Rashed
Alia: Sara Masry
Widad: Sarah Agha
Colonel Wilson: Joel Samuels
Khalid: Motaz Malhees
Dunya: Sofia Asir
Yassir :Joe Haddad
Salah: Zaydun Khalaf
Firas: Raad Rawi

Original Composition: Kareem Samara
Traditional music performed and arranged by Kareem Samara (Oud and percussion) and Gabriel Polley (Ney Baladi)
Consultant: Gardner Thompson
Production Assistant: Lucie Regan
Sound design by Alisdair McGregor
Produced and directed by Boz Temple-Morris

A Holy Mountain production for BBC Radio 4


SUN 16:00 Take Four Books (m002jgjr)
Ian McEwan

Booker prize winning author, Ian McEwan, speaks to Take Four Books, about his new novel, What We Can Know, and explores its connections to three other literary works. What We Can Know is set almost a hundred years in the future in a Britain much of which is now underwater, and it follows the character of Tom Metcalfe, a scholar of the University of South Downs, who is looking back at the literature of the early twenty-first century.

For his his three influences Ian chose: a poem called Marston Meadows: A corona for Prue by John Fuller, first published in the Times Literary Supplement in 2021; The Immortal Dinner by Penelope Hughes-Hallett from 2000; and Footsteps by Richard Holmes from 1985.

The supporting contributor for this episode is the writer Denise Mina, and it's recorded during the Edinburgh International Books Festival.

Presenter: James Crawford
Producer: Dominic Howell
Editor: Gillian Wheelan

This was a BBC Audio Scotland production.


SUN 16:30 The 3rd Degree (m002jgjt)
Series 15

1. University of Bristol

This episode coming from the University of Bristol, The 3rd Degree is a funny, upbeat and brainy quiz show.

The specialist subjects this week are Environmental Science, Drama, and History, so naturally we’ll be discussing Boron/Calcium pH proxy analysis, Noël Coward’s wartime satire and St Cuthbert’s A-level results. All this and the world’s hottest chili pepper to boot. If not to eat.

The show is recorded on location at a different University each week, and pits three Undergraduates against three of their Professors. The General Knowledge rounds include a quickfire bell-and-buzzer finale and the Highbrow & Lowbrow round cunningly devised to test not only the students’ knowledge of history, art, literature and politics, but also their Professors’ awareness of TV, music and sport. Meanwhile there are the three specialist subject rounds, in which students take on their Professors in their own subjects, and where we find out whether the students have actually been awake during lectures.

In this series, universities include Bristol, Queen Mary University of London, Kent, Worcester College Oxford, and Manchester Metropolitan University.

Producer: David Tyler
A Pozzitive production for BBC Radio 4


SUN 17:00 Witness History (w3ct74jq)
9/11: The generosity of Gander

On 11 September, 2001, a small Canadian town called Gander became a haven for thousands of airline passengers and crew stranded after the 9/11 terror attacks.

The attacks on the World Trade Center had forced the closure of US airspace leaving many flights unable to land. Within hours, 38 planes with 7,000 passengers, had been diverted to Gander, effectively doubling the town's population. But what happened next showcased the extraordinary kindness and generosity of the Newfoundlanders.

For five days, local residents provided beds, food, medicine and clothing for those stranded during the crisis, and didn’t ask for a cent. They even put on music evenings, barbecues and canoe trips to keep their visitors entertained.

Beverley Bass, one of the plane captains, tells Jane Wilkinson about Gander’s extraordinary hospitality during one of the most traumatic events in modern history.

Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there.

For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more.

Recent episodes explore everything from the death of Adolf Hitler, the first spacewalk and the making of the movie Jaws, to celebrity tortoise Lonesome George, the Kobe earthquake and the invention of superglue.

We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: Eva Peron – Argentina’s Evita; President Ronald Reagan and his famous ‘tear down this wall’ speech; Thomas Keneally on why he wrote Schindler’s List; and Jacques Derrida, France’s ‘rock star’ philosopher.

You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the civil rights swimming protest; the disastrous D-Day rehearsal; and the death of one of the world’s oldest languages.

(Photo: Passengers and crew at Gander airfield, 2001. Credit: Town of Gander)


SUN 17:10 En-Gulfed (m002gztm)
Tourism

Activist and satirist Heydon Prowse explores how Gulf countries have become some of the biggest tourism success stories ever, receiving almost 70m visitors in 2024.

From Saudi Arabia’s plans to build their own astonishing new buildings like Neom - a vast walled city in the desert, to Dubai’s Palm Jumeirah, one of the most audacious engineering project the world has ever seen, Heydon asks what’s behind the drive to attract more tourists, and what it means for those who visit.

Written and presented by Heydon Prowse
Producer: Alison Vernon-Smith


SUN 17:54 Shipping Forecast (m002jgjx)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping


SUN 17:57 Weather (m002jgjz)
The latest weather reports and forecast


SUN 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m002jgk1)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


SUN 18:15 Pick of the Week (m002jgk3)
Robin Ince

This week, we’re asking – did the Internet kill off counter culture? That’s what Stewart Lee is investigating on Radio 4. However, it did help spark a secondhand clothing revolution from Lithiuania worth 5 billion euros, and pin down the location of a hiker stranded in remote Norway. Plus we’re hearing a challenging account of motherhood in Arundhati Roy's latest written work, and the little joys of being a mother in the poetry of Holly McNish.

Presenter: Robin Ince
Producer: Anthony McKee
Production Coordinator: Caroline Peddle

A BBC Audio Northern Ireland production for BBC Radio 4.


SUN 19:00 The Archers (m002jgk5)
There's a surprise twist at the Flower and Produce Show, and Lily has to face the music.


SUN 19:15 Illuminated (m002jf5j)
Where the Distance Shimmers

Forty years ago, Route 66, the highway that ran the 2448 miles from Chicago, Illinois to Santa Monica, California, was formally decommissioned, usurped by a more modern, high-speed interstate. But the road has lived on in the collective imagination — a symbol of freedom, adventure, and new beginnings, of America's concept of itself.

In this meditation on the Mother Road, as John Steinbeck christened it, Laura Barton explores 66's shifting identity, from migratory route to America's Main Street.

With contributions from Angel (the "Angel of Route 66") and his daughter Clarissa Delgadillo in Seligman, Arizona; Mike Cowen who set up his own Historic Route 66 museum in Williams, Arizona; Leigh Anne Isbell of the Devil's Rope Museum in Texas and Candacy Taylor, who's written about Route 66 in relation to The Green Book.

Written and presented by Laura Barton
With extracts from John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath read by Corey Johnson.
Location recording producer, Diane Hope
Produced by Alan Hall
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4


SUN 19:45 Just One Thing - with Michael Mosley (m001744m)
Take a Nap

Michael reveals how getting some shut-eye during the day could boost your memory and your heart health - and even help your productivity! Research reveals that a simple daily nap could slash your risk of heart attack by half, and have a noticeable impact on your brain, by helping improve your emotional control and boosting memory. In this episode, our volunteer Caroline catches some Zzzs in between work meetings, while nap expert Dr Sara Mednick delves into the different stages of sleep, telling Michael when to nap, and for how long, for the greatest benefit.


SUN 20:00 Word of Mouth (m002j753)
Crash Bang Wallop: The Sound of Words

Michael Rosen is joined by linguist Dr Catherine Laing to discuss onomatopoeia and other words that sound like their meanings. Not just words for sounds like 'crash' and 'bang', or words for animal noises like 'woof' and 'quack', but also other words which perhaps hold something of their meaning within their form. Is there something rough about the word 'rough'? Does 'smooth' feel smooth? And how can we play with this in everyday speech and in poetry?

Produced by Becky Ripley, in partnership with the Open University.


SUN 20:30 Last Word (m002j63h)
The Duchess of Kent, Giorgio Armani, Valerie Pearlman, Rick Davies

John Wilson on:

The Duchess of Kent, who stepped back from royal duties to teach music in primary schools.

Giorgio Armani whose suit designs help define the look of the 1980s and beyond.

Valerie Pearlman who made legal history by being the first judge in the UK finish a trial via fax machine and video link from her hospital bed.

Rick Davies, who sold millions of records in the 70s and 80 as one of the two singers in the band Supertramp.

Producer: Ed Prendeville

Archive used:
The Royal Wedding: HRH Duke of Kent and Miss Katharine Worsley in York Minster, BBC, 08/06/1961; Real Story, BBC One, 15/03/2004; Royal Wedding, BBC Archives, 08/06/1961; Desert Island Discs, BBC Radio 4, 21/12/1990; Ladies’ Singles, 1993 Wimbledon Championships, BBC Archives; Desert Island Discs, BBC Radio 4, 21/12/1990; BBC Look North Hull, BBC, 06/09/2025; The Clothes Show, BBC; Rick Davies Interview, WLNG 92.1FM, “Lunch on the Deck”; Bark Out Loud Dogs Media, LLC – Supertramp Interview


SUN 21:00 Money Box (m002jdps)
[Repeat of broadcast at 12:04 on Saturday]


SUN 21:25 Radio 4 Appeal (m002jfcc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:54 today]


SUN 21:30 From Our Own Correspondent (m002jdpn)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:30 on Saturday]


SUN 22:00 Westminster Hour (m002jgk7)
Radio 4's Sunday night political discussion programme.


SUN 23:00 Illuminated (m002h9np)
Into the West

The red-billed chough is the most dashing crow in the world. These rare, flamboyant, scarlet-legged, scarlet-billed denizens of Britain’s Celtic coasts are communal and comic, intelligent and daring. They’re also sublime aeronauts, riding the breeze as though they’re made of it.

For writer Horatio Clare, the chough is his totem. He’s loved the bird since he first encountered it in the 1980s during childhood holidays to Pembrokeshire. And more than forty years on from that joyous first encounter he still seeks them out. It’s his annual pilgrimage.

In this episode of Illuminated, we join Horatio on that pilgrimage as he tells the story of a bird with a beak and legs the colour of a saint’s blood… or perhaps a king’s blood; whose cry says its name and whose presence symbolises a nation’s identity. It’s the story of a bird which embodies myths… and creates new ones; a bird which fled into the West over two centuries ago and which is finally returning to a wider world.

Horatio begins his journey on Pen Llŷn, the westernmost spur of North Wales and one of the red-billed chough’s strongholds. His guide as he walks the sea cliffs is naturalist and folklorist Twm Elias. Twm lived alongside chough as he grew up on Llŷn and remembers a childhood visit to Caernarfon Castle, where his friend Dic John made a grab for the Castle’s ‘tame’ chough – and got a painful pecking in return.

Twm sees chough as a symbol of the wild coastal areas of north Wales. But it’s also wrapped up in ideas of Cornish identity too. Dr. Loveday Jenkin grew up on stories of King Arthur becoming a chough when he died. Yet, just as she heard those stories, the very last choughs were dying out in Cornwall.

But then, in 2001, thirty years after the last chough disappeared, three birds from Ireland made landfall in the far west of Cornwall. The following year two of them built a nest and the population grew from there. Hilary Mitchell from Cornwall Birds tells the story of how the avian symbol and spirit of the county returned.

The chough is associated now with the western Celtic coasts. But once upon a time it ranged right across the British Isles. And maybe it will again. Horatio heads in the opposite direction… east… to a place which hasn’t seen chough for at least two centuries, despite the bird being embedded in its iconography.

In Dover he meets Paul Hadaway from Kent Wildlife Trust to discover how a bird which was a symbol of the martyr and saint Thomas a Becket is once again flying in Kentish skies. And Jenny Luddington from the Trust explains how she’s drawn on an old tradition of hooden creatures – carved wooden animal heads on poles – to create a hooden chough and tell the story of the bird’s return to Kent.

Horatio Clare discovers that the chough’s story has come full circle as old myths rehatch and new ones take wing.

Presenter: Horatio Clare
Producer: Jeremy Grange
Editor: Chris Ledgard
A BBC Audio Wales production for BBC Radio 4


SUN 23:30 The History Podcast (m0024bgh)
The Lucan Obsession

10. The Final Act?

Alex trawls through Lord Lucan’s belongings from his speedily abandoned flat.

She finds incriminating books where he’s torn out pages on how to kill your wife, and is taken aback by photos that make her reconsider the story.

She draws together what makes this a compelling crime, and asks what would give it the perfect ending.

And in a remarkable interview with a former Met Police Detective, she discovers that we could perhaps get an answer to one of the two mysteries tomorrow.

Presenter: Alex von Tunzelmann
Content Producer: Becca Bryers
Series Producer: Sarah Bowen


SUN 23:45 Short Works (m002j63f)
Fairy Penguin by Rachel Trezise

Original short fiction by Rachel Trezise.

Keisha tries to survive a school trip to Bristol Zoo. She doesn't have the right hair, the right friends or the latest electronic pets.

Reader: Georgia Henshaw
Sound: Nigel Lewis
Producer: John Norton

A BBC Audio Wales Production

MONDAY 15 SEPTEMBER 2025

MON 00:00 Midnight News (m002jgk9)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


MON 00:15 Crossing Continents (m002j6zr)
Saving Gaza's Past

The history of Gaza dates back more than 5000 years. In antiquity, it was a key port on the Mediterranean coast. Assyrians, Ancient Greeks, Romans, Byzantines and the Ottomans have all left their mark on this small territory. This rich history is seen by Palestinians as central to their identity. Amid the death and destruction of the war, the BBC’s Middle East Correspondent Yolande Knell meets the Palestinians who’ve desperately tried to save what remains of Gaza’s past.

Reporter: Yolande Knell
Producer: Alex Last
Sound mix: Neil Churchill
Production Coordinator: Katie Morrison
Series Editor: Penny Murphy


MON 00:45 Bells on Sunday (m002jdr0)
[Repeat of broadcast at 05:43 on Sunday]


MON 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m002jgkc)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping


MON 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m002jgkf)
BBC Radio 4 presents a selection of news and current affairs, arts and science programmes from the BBC World Service.


MON 05:00 News Summary (m002jgkh)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


MON 05:04 Yesterday in Parliament (m002jgkk)
Alicia McCarthy reports from Westminster as peers debate assisted dying


MON 05:34 Shipping Forecast (m002jgkm)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping


MON 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m002jgkp)
The Search That Satisfies

Good morning.

It’s amazing to think how much technology has advanced within just a few decades. On this day in 1997, the domain name google.com was registered. What began as a simple search engine has grown into one of the most influential tools in modern life. It’s claimed that 9.5 million searches are made every minute. “To Google” has even become a verb, so common is our habit of turning to it whenever we need information. And now, with the rise of artificial intelligence, our ability to search, learn, and discover is expanding faster than ever before.

We live in a world that is constantly searching – looking for information, for connection, for meaning. Yet the deepest questions of life cannot truly be answered by a search engine. Who am I? Why am I here? What is my purpose? These aren’t questions of data but of the heart. And the Bible reminds us that the one who holds the answers is God Himself.

Through the prophet Jeremiah, God speaks this promise: “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart”. Jesus assures us that those who seek will find. Unlike an internet search, which can return countless results of varying accuracy, the search for God leads us directly to truth. In Him we discover love, forgiveness, guidance, and purpose.

Perhaps today, as we type questions into search boxes and scroll through results, we might be reminded of the greater search - the one for God Himself.

Lord, thank you that when we search for you, you promise to be found. Help us to seek you above all else, to know your love, and to live with the purpose you give. Amen.


MON 05:45 Farming Today (m002jgkr)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.


MON 05:57 Weather (m002jgkt)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for farmers


MON 06:00 Today (m002jgnn)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.


MON 09:00 Start the Week (m002jgnq)
Afghanistan and the DRC

Lyse Doucet tells the history of Afghanistan in recent decades through the story of the Inter-Continental hotel, which opened in the capital in 1969. The BBC’s international correspondent stayed there frequently from the late 1980s, and she details how the Soviet occupation, civil war, US invasion and the rise, fall and rise of the Taliban have all left their mark on 'The Finest Hotel in Kabul', and the people who worked there.

There’s plenty of pink champagne and fine dining in Michela Wrong’s study of the rise and fall of Mobutu Sese Seko, the charismatic dictator of Congo/ Zaire at the end of the 20th century. It’s 25 years since her biography, 'In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz', was published, and as the Democratic Republic of Congo appears to be on the brink of another civil war, she reflects on this latest cycle of violence.

There have been calls for international help in the DRC, but just how effective is military intervention in the long run? Ashleigh Percival-Borley served in Afghanistan in 2010 but had to watch from the sidelines as the US and UK abruptly pulled out a decade later, leaving a vacuum filled by the Taliban. Now, as a military historian and one of BBC Radio 4's researchers-in-residence, she’s interested in giving voice to women in war – not just as the victims, but as active participants.
The New Generation Thinkers scheme, which puts research on radio, is a partnership between BBC Radio 4 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Producer: Katy Hickman
Assistant Producer: Natalia Fernandez


MON 09:45 Café Hope (m002jgns)
Wellbeing in the waves

Ian Bennett, from the charity Wave Project, tells Rachel Burden how they make the ocean and surfing accessible to people of all physical abilities, and how surf therapy can improve people's confidence.

Café Hope is our virtual Radio 4 coffee shop, where guests pop in for a brew and a chat to tell us what they’re doing to make things better in big and small ways. Think of us as sitting in your local café, cooking up plans, hearing the gossip, and celebrating the people making the world a better place.

We’re all about trying to make change. It might be a transformational project that helps an entire community, or it might be about trying to make one life a little bit easier. And the key here is in the trying. This is real life. Not everything works, and there are struggles along the way. But it’s always worth a go.

You can contact us on cafehope@bbc.co.uk

Presenter: Rachel Burden
Series Producer: Uma Doraiswamy
Sound Design: Nicky Edwards
Researcher: Maeve Schaffer
Editor: Clare Fordham


MON 10:00 Woman's Hour (m002jgnv)
Women's voices and women's lives - topical conversations to inform, challenge and inspire.


MON 11:00 The Great Influencer Experiment (m002jgnx)
A Catch 22

Emily, Alun and Danyah throw themselves deeper into the experiment — but the excitement of creating soon collides with the realities of being online.

As their journey continues, the emotional toll of social media begins to show. The chase for attention proves relentless, online scrutiny is hard to endure, and the demand to appear authentic becomes its own performance.

Can they withstand the emotional strain that social media demands? How much will the pursuit of visibility end up costing them?

Presenter: Osman Iqbal
Editor: Matt Willis
Sound: Tony Churnside
Production co-ordinator: Brenda Brown


MON 11:45 The Finest Hotel in Kabul by Lyse Doucet (m002jgnz)
Episode 1 - The Golden Years at the Inter-Con, Kabul

Lyse Doucet reads her vivid account of how Afghanistan has survived decades of conflict by telling the stories of the staff who kept the doors of Kabul's Inter-Continental Hotel open. Today, it's 1971 and the hotel boasts luxury, sophistication and breath-taking views across the Hindu Kush.

Lyse Doucet is the BBC's Chief International Correspondent and an award winning journalist who has reported from many of the world's war zones. She has covered stories from Afghanistan since 1988 when she first checked into the Inter-Con, and from where she has witnessed the impact of unceasing conflict that has scarred this nation for half a century.

Her book is a history of Afghanistan told through the lives of the people who have worked at the Inter-Con, some since it opened in 1969. Despite enduring several coups, a Soviet occupation, civil war, a US invasion, and the rise and fall and rise of the Taliban, the Inter-Con is still standing. In telling the stories of the hotel's housekeepers, chefs, managers and engineers Lyse shows how us how ordinary Afghans have managed to live through the destruction and disruption in their workplace and their country.

The music is Wa wa Leili - Leili, how wonderful! from the album Sweet Nomad Girl. Abdul Wahab Madadi (vocal), Veronica Doubleday (vocal and daireh) and John Baily (14-stringed dutar).

Abridged by Julian Wilkinson
Produced by Elizabeth Allard
Image by Paula Bronstein


MON 12:00 News Summary (m002jgp1)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


MON 12:04 You and Yours (m002jgp3)
News and discussion of consumer affairs


MON 12:57 Weather (m002jgp5)
The latest weather forecast


MON 13:00 World at One (m002jgp7)
News, analysis and comment from BBC Radio 4


MON 13:45 The History Podcast (m002jgp9)
The Fort

6. Call Sign: Ugly

For Apache helicopter pilots Tom O'Malley and Ed Macy - the mission has changed.

Their new objective is to prevent the stricken Lance Corporal Mathew Ford from becoming a prisoner of The Taliban. So they take the fight to them.

But Tom is growing increasingly frustrated. With fuel and ammunition limited - how long can they sustain their airborne protection of the fallen marine?

He devises a new plan. Only ever conceived as a last-dtich emergency escape plan for downed pilots, Tom wants to land, pick up four volunteers from HQ, and fly them into the battlezone on the side of their helicopters. They will rush to Mathew, secure him to the helicopter - and they will fly him out.

The volunteers have been chosen. Royal Marines Chris, Gary and Colin and Royal Engineer Dave are now tasked with what their commander Rob Magowan calls - the most dangerous mission these men would ever embark upon.

The Fort is told solely by current and former members of the Armed Forces.

Produced by Kev Core


MON 14:00 The Archers (m002jgk5)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Sunday]


MON 14:15 Alone (m00094lp)
Series 2

A Cry For No Help

Mitch is desperate to have his wedding anniversary pass unnoticed to avoid any awkwardness in the house.

Unfortunately, Will lets the anniversary cat out of the bag.

So Mitch, who is endeavouring to find someone to hold on to his spare keys, encounters very strange reactions to this seemingly simple request.

Sitcom about five single, middle aged neighbours living in flats in a converted house in North London.

Mitch is a widower and part-time therapist, looking to put his life back together now that he is single and living with Will, his younger, more volatile and unhappily divorced half-brother.

Elsewhere in the building is schoolteacher Ellie who is shy, nervous and holds a secret candle for Mitch.

Overly honest, frustrated actress Louisa, and socially inept IT nerd Morris complete the line-up of mis-matched neighbours.

Written and created by Moray Hunter.

Mitch ...... Angus Deayton
Will ...... Pearce Quigley
Ellie ...... Abigail Cruttenden
Louisa ...... Kate Isitt
Morris ...... Bennett Arron

Producer: Gordon Kennedy

Based on an original idea developed in association with Dandy Productions

An Absolutely production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in October 2019.


MON 14:45 Mrs Bridge by Evan S Connell (m0019kf2)
Episode 5

Evan S. Connell's Mrs Bridge is an extraordinary tragicomic portrayal of suburban life and one of the classic American novels of the 20th century.

Mrs Bridge, a conservative housewife in Missouri, has three children and a kindly lawyer husband. Her married life begins in the early 1930s – and soon after she and her young family move to a wealthy country club suburb of Kansas City. She spends her time shopping, going to bridge parties and bringing up her children to be pleasant, clean and have nice manners. The qualities that she values above all else. And yet she finds modern life increasingly baffling, her children aren't growing up into the people she expected, and sometimes she has the vague disquieting sensation that all is not well in her life.

In a series of comic, telling vignettes, Evan S. Connell illuminates the narrow morality, confusion, futility and even terror at the heart of a life of plenty.

First published in 1959 it was perhaps overshadowed by the critical attention paid to contemporaries like Philip Roth and John Updike - although Mrs Bridge was a finalist for the National Book Award in that year. Ten years later Connell published Mr Bridge which follows that same events largely from the point of view of Walter Bridge. In 1990, James Ivory directed the film Mr and Mrs Bridge based on both novels and starring Paul Newman and his wife Joanne Woodward. Fans of the book today include the novelist David Nicholls and Tracey Thorne, author and singer.

Read by Fenella Woolgar
Written by Evan S Connell
Abridged by Isobel Creed and Jill Waters

A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4


MON 15:00 Great Lives (m002jf4c)
Comedian Stewart Lee on Derek Bailey

"The area I mostly work in is generally known as free - the free music area. And free is one of those four letter words, like rock or jazz or punk maybe. It started out meaning something." Derek Bailey

Born in 1930 in Sheffield, Bailey worked as a session musician in dance bands and orchestras before turning his back on that world. Free improvisation was where he made his name, and he took inspiration from whatever he heard. Stewart Lee first heard him in the 1990s and spoke at his funeral in 2005.

"Are there any parallels between his approach and yours?"
"There probably are ... in that I've copied him."

Also contains the voices of Ian Greaves and Tim Fletcher, a brief clip of Mastermind, and a recording of Derek Bailey's collaborator in the Joseph Holbrooke Trio, Gavin Bryars. Stewart Lee is a comedian and writer, the presenter is Matthew Parris and the producer for BBC Studios is Miles Warde.

We regret that this description barely scrapes the surface of the wonder of this episode - the ideas, the music, the archive, the brief row.


MON 15:30 BBC National Short Story Award (m002jgpc)
BBC National Short Story Award 2025

Rain: a history by Andrew Miller

Rain: a history is the first story in contention for the 2025 BBC National Short Story Award. Toby Jones reads this tender and vivid story about a father who, along with his small rural community, is forced to confront a tragedy. The unseasonably warm and wet weather mirrors the unease which permeates everything.

The judges praised Miller’s ‘wonderful’, ‘precise’ and ‘elliptical’ writing which examines ‘the mystery of how we survive when our old structures of faith are eroded,’ and ends with a small, but hopeful act of connection.

Andrew Miller is the author of ten novels, including most recently The Land in Winter, which won the Walter Scott Prize for historical fiction and is longlisted for the Booker Prize 2025. Andrew is an elected fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His novels have been awarded The James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the International IMPAC and the Costa Book of the Year amongst others.

The 2025 BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University (BBC NSSA) shortlist was announced on Thursday 11 September 2025 live on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row, as the prestigious award celebrates its 20th anniversary. The shortlist, featuring multi-award winning writers and ‘astonishing’ new talent, was praised for its ‘intimate,’ ‘elegant’ and ’nuanced’ explorations of relationships, community and the specificities of place set against a world in crisis.

Selected by a panel of previous winners and returning judges from across the Award’s 20-year history, the five-strong shortlist are: Costa Book of the Year 2011 and Booker Prize 2025 longlisted author Andrew Miller; multi-award winning Irish writer Caoilinn Hughes, Desmond Elliott Prize winning novelist and short story specialist Edward Hogan; and new names, British-Lebanese author Emily Abdeni-Holman, and Colwill Brown whose debut novel was published this year.

Set in locations from Derbyshire and Doncaster to Jerusalem and County Kildare, the stories explore ‘self-contained’ worlds often inspired by personal memories and experiences, from the complexities of marriage, to the mysteries of survival in crisis; from newly formed inter-generational bonds, to the quiet tension between people and place, each reveals the short story’s ‘unparalleled’ power to reflect ‘the times we are living through.’

For two decades this award has celebrated writers who are the UK’s finest exponents of the form.  James Lasdun secured the inaugural Award in 2006 for ‘An Anxious Man’. In 2012 when the Award expanded internationally for one year, Miroslav Penkov was victorious for his story, ‘East of the West’. Last year, the Award was won by Ross Raisin for ‘Ghost Kitchen’, a tense, cinematic story narrated by a bicycle courier and inspired by the gig economy and the ‘dark kitchens’ of the restaurant industry.

In its 20-year history, Sarah Hall, K J Orr, Naomi Wood, Jonathan Buckley, Julian Gough, Clare Wigfall, Cynan Jones, Lucy Caldwell, Ingrid Persaud, Saba Sams and David Constantine have also carried off the Award with shortlisted authors including Zadie Smith, Jackie Kay, William Trevor, Rose Tremain, Caleb Azumah Nelson, Naomi Alderman, Kamila Shamsie, K Patrick and Jacqueline Crooks.

This year’s judging panel was chaired by Di Speirs who has sat on every judging panel since the Award’s inception and is joined by the very first chair of judges, William Boyd as well as former winners and shortlisted writers Lucy Caldwell, Ross Raisin and Kamila Shamsie.

In a time when literary awards come and go, and can struggle for funding and airtime, the BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University continues to be a cause for joy

From 15th to 18th September four of the shortlisted stories can be heard at 3.30 each afternoon with the fifth story in contention for the award broadcasting on Friday, 19th September, at 11.30pm. The winner of the 20th BBC National Short Story Award will be announced live on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row on Tuesday 30th September 2025.

Produced by Elizabeth Allard


MON 16:00 Currently (m002j5n8)
[Repeat of broadcast at 13:30 on Sunday]


MON 16:30 The Kitchen Cabinet (m002jdpj)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:30 on Saturday]


MON 17:00 PM (m002jgpf)
News and current affairs, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines


MON 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m002jgph)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


MON 18:30 Just a Minute (m002jgpk)
Series 95

5. Whoopsie-daisy

Sue Perkins challenges Lucy Porter, Paul Merton, Zoe Lyons and Stephen Mangan to speak for 60 seconds without repetition, deviation or hesitation. Subjects include give it 110%, Oasis tickets and I wish I didn’t know that about you.

Production Coordinator: Sarah Nicholls
Sound Editor: Marc Willcox
Producer: Georgia Keating
Executive Producer: James Robinson
Additional material by Eve Delaney

An EcoAudio certified production.
A BBC Studios Production for Radio 4.


MON 19:00 The Archers (m002jf2y)
Ruairi makes an emotional admission, and Justin finds his arm twisted.


MON 19:15 Front Row (m002jgpm)
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music


MON 20:00 Rethink (m002j755)
Rethink: how can flying be less polluting?

Aviation has a problem: it's reliant on fossil fuels which release greenhouse gases when they're burned in a jet engine. Other industries are worse polluters, but in the next few decades, they are likely to decarbonise much faster than the airline sector.

Why? Because kerosene is a light enough fuel for planes to get off the ground, while producing enough thrust for them to do so. Also it enables airliners to carry passengers to the other side of the world.

International flight has only been around for less than 100 years, but research suggests that it's responsible for 4% of total global warming to date. It's not just that airliners pump out carbon dioxide, but they also emit nitrous oxides and soot. Even contrails, which are mostly water vapour, have a warming effect high up in the atmosphere.

Can efficiencies in jet engines, optimal routes and air traffic control lead to less fuel being used? What technologies are available to make flying cleaner? Is the pace of change fast enough to meet net zero by 2050?

Presenter: Ben Ansell
Producer: Ravi Naik
Editor: Lisa Baxter

Contributors:
David Lee, Professor of Atmospheric Science and Director of the Centre for Aviation, Transport and the Environment, Manchester Metropolitan University.
Dr Mark Bentall, Head of the Research and Technology Programme, Airbus
Dr Naomi Allen, Head of Research at the Royal Aeronautical Society,
Alice Larkin, Professor of Climate Science and Energy Policy in the School of Engineering at the University of Manchester.
Duncan McCourt, Chief Executive, Sustainable Aviation

Rethink is a BBC co-production with the Open University


MON 20:30 BBC Inside Science (m002j757)
Could we have evidence of life on Mars?

News broke this week that rocks picked up by NASA’s Perseverance rover on Mars may have found chemical signatures left by living organisms.

With the search for life on the red planet capturing our imaginations for decades, Victoria Gill is joined by science journalist Jonathan Amos to look at what we know about the history of life on Mars, and what could be different about this discovery.

As commemorations take place this week for the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, we hear about the project helping to protect birds in New York from the effects of a giant annual light display in memory of the victims of the tragedy.

Dr Andrew Farnsworth, from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, tells us how they’re working with the organisers of the Tribute in Light memorial to help save the lives of a wide range of birds.

Victoria is joined by managing editor of the New Scientist, Penny Sarchet, to look through this week’s most exciting scientific discoveries.

And in our series profiling the six books shortlisted for this year’s Royal Society Trivedi Book Prize, we speak to neuroscientist and clinical neurologist Professor Masud Husain about his book Our Brains, Our Selves, and what his encounters with patients reveal about how our brains make up who we are.

Presenter: Victoria Gill
Producers: Clare Salisbury, Dan Welsh, Jonathan Blackwell, Tim Dodd
Editor: Martin Smith


MON 21:00 Start the Week (m002jgnq)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]


MON 21:45 Café Hope (m002jgns)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:45 today]


MON 22:00 The World Tonight (m002jgpp)
In depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective


MON 22:45 Mrs Robinson by Helen Cross (m002jgpr)
Episode 1: Temptation

At the height of a TB epidemic, Lydia Robinson lives on her remote North Yorkshire estate, with four children and a preacher husband. Mr Robinson has decreed that the family isolate themselves, in fear of the sickness.
Their only company? Gloomy Anne Brontë, governess to the children.
That is, until Anne’s dissolute brother, Branwell, arrives…

Mrs Robinson's name and story partly inspired the film, The Graduate.

Helen Cross’s five-part original fiction is read by Anne-Marie Duff.
Producers: Fay Lomas and Mair Bosworth


MON 23:00 Tracking the Planet (m001x54d)
A Changing Climate

Our planet is alive. A dynamic, moving, pulsating organism. Air pressure rises and falls, ocean currents meander, and the climate continues, by tiny increments, to warm.

And at the same time, billions of animals are on the move.

All over the planet, animals are fitted with sophisticated tracking devices by teams of dedicated scientists, which tell us so much about what they’re up to. From rhinos in bulky satellite collars, to microscopic chips glued to the back of a bee, they record where the animals go, what they eat, and how and why they migrate across the globe.

But they record so much more than that too – modern trackers can also log local climatic conditions, windspeed, temperature, even some measures of the animal’s own health; heartbeat, or skin temperature. Every tagged animal is transformed into a tiny dynamic weather station, collecting data on climactic conditions and the health of ecosystems, which would be impossible to collect otherwise.

Diving Weddell seals bring back data on the melting speed of a deep water glacier. Roving Tiger Sharks uncover previously unknown sea-grass habitats. High-flying sea-birds on annual migration tell us about changing wind patterns across the tempestuous equator, and farm animals in the mountains of Italy, moving nervously in their fields, give a silent alert: an earthquake is on the way.

In this series, Emily Knight explores some of the stories that can be told about the animals that call this world home, and the much larger over-arching story too: How the changing conditions on this planet are transforming THEIR lives, changing their migration routes, re-positioning their food-stocks, bringing new diseases or challenging weather. We can track how they’re coping with it all, and how, sometimes, they’re not.


MON 23:30 Today in Parliament (m002jgpt)
News, views and features on today's stories in Parliament