The BBC has announced that it has a sustainable plan for the future of the BBC Singers, in association with The VOCES8 Foundation.
The threat to reduce the staff of the three English orchestras by 20% has not been lifted, but it is being reconsidered.
See the BBC press release here.

Radio-Lists Home Now on R4 Contact

RADIO-LISTS: BBC RADIO 4
Unofficial Weekly Listings for BBC Radio 4 — supported by bbc.co.uk/programmes/



SATURDAY 20 MARCH 2010

SAT 00:00 Midnight News (b00rbsb0)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.


SAT 00:30 Book of the Week (b00r93vz)
Chopin: Prince of the Romantics

Episode 5

Adam Zamoyski's biography of the brief but eventful life of the great Romantic composer Frederic Chopin, from Polish child prodigy to Paris dandy, his turbulent relationship with George Sand and his early death, penniless in Paris.

As Paris is shaken by revolution, Chopin seeks refuge in Scotland, where he is forced to fend off the attentions of several well-meaning 'Scottish Ladies'. Returning to Paris, his health deteriorates rapidly and, relying on the benevolence and support of his friends, he retreats to his apartment, where he begins to make plans for his own sumptuous funeral.

Abridged by Doreen Estall.


SAT 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b00rbsb2)
The latest shipping forecast.


SAT 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b00rbsb4)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service. BBC Radio 4 resumes at 5.20am.


SAT 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b00rbsb6)
The latest shipping forecast.


SAT 05:30 News Briefing (b00rbsb8)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


SAT 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b00rbsnb)
Daily prayer and reflection with Judy Merry.


SAT 05:45 iPM (b00rbsnd)
The news programme that starts with its listeners. A weekly companion to the nightly PM, the expertise of the Radio 4 audience shapes the programme. Presented by Jennifer Tracey and Eddie Mair.


SAT 06:00 News and Papers (b00rbsng)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.


SAT 06:04 Weather (b00rd3vw)
The latest weather forecast.


SAT 06:07 Open Country (b00rd3vy)
Post-Flood Cumbria

In November 2009, much of the UK experienced some of the heaviest rain for years. One of the worst affected areas was Cumbria, where rivers burst their banks and torrents of water raced through the streets of towns and villages and devastated the surrounding countryside.

For a while, images of the devastation dominated the media. But what happened next? Matt Baker visits the area to find out how the clean-up and rebuilding operation is going and talks to people whose lives and businesses were badly affected. He starts his day in Workington, where the main bridge collapsed, leading to the tragic death of a local policeman and effectively splitting the town in two. Work is now underway on a new temporary road bridge which will finally enable people to travel from one side of the town to the other without an 18-mile detour. Matt joins Chris Tomlin of the Lake District National Park out on the fells to find out just where all the water came from that caused so much damage. He also hears from local farmers about the devastation caused to their land by the thousands of tons of gravel and debris left behind by the water.

Matt visits Wordsworth House, the birthplace and childhood home of William and Dorothy Wordsworth, where he helps out in the clean-up operation in the 18th century-kitchen garden. He is also taken around the streets of Cockermouth by Mike Park, team leader of the Cockermouth Mountain Rescue team who helped to rescue people from their flooded homes and businesses.


SAT 06:30 Farming Today (b00rd3w0)
Farming Today This Week

The UK provides only one fifth of the wood it needs. There is greater demands to plant more trees to offset carbon emmissions, and more people using woods for recreation. Charlotte Smith visits The National Forest when pressure on Britian's woodlands is greater than ever.


SAT 06:57 Weather (b00rd3w2)
The latest weather forecast.


SAT 07:00 Today (b00rd3w4)
With John Humphrys and Evan Davis. Including Sports Desk; Weather; Thought for the Day; Yesterday in Parliament.


SAT 09:00 Saturday Live (b00rd3w6)
Real life stories in which listeners talk about the issues that matter to them. Fi Glover is joined by writer Anthony Horowitz. With poetry from Salena Godden.


SAT 10:00 Excess Baggage (b00rd3w8)
The Tropic of Cancer runs through 17 countries and Simon Reeve visited most of them - and one or two others for good measure - on a journey round the imaginary line. He found a huge variety of climates and landscapes, from deep jungle to vast desert, and an even bigger range of ways of life, from deep poverty to vast wealth. He talks to Sandi Toksvig about his experiences, including sneaking illegally into Burma, and what conclusions he has come to about the way the planet is changing.

The port of Darwin in northern Australia and the region behind it known as Arnhemland is one of the less touristy parts of the country. But it has much to offer in terms of an impressive terrain that hasn't altered for millions of years and which has been home to the aborigine people for many thousands. Sandi talks to travel journalist Wendy Gomersall, who has visited the area and the indigenous people, and Sab Lord, who was brought up there on a buffalo station in what is now a national park the size of Wales and who acts as a guide to the area's natural and human heritage.


SAT 10:30 Ali: Me, My Family and Muhammad Ali (b00rd3wb)
When Deirdre Pascall went with her broadcaster father to the Savoy Hotel in March 1976 she was dreaming of getting a glimpse of her childhood hero, the World Champion boxer Muhammad Ali. Little did she know that once Ali had seen her she would be swept up and spend much of the press conference for the launch of Ali's autobiography 'The Greatest' sitting on the great man's knee.

Surrounded by the great and good of the British press with photographers crammed into the room she remembers the Champ asking her who he was. "You're the greatest" was her reply to his evident delight.

But the next day there were no pictures of her in the newspapers. They chose to stick with the shot of Ali and his book. Perhaps in the London of 1976 a little black girl wasn't felt to be a particularly British image?

Since then Deirdre has wondered much about that day. In this programme she goes in search of a the memories and in particular in search of a photograph of her meeting. But she also asks her father and her father's generation what they made of Ali's trips to the UK back then. He was already a superstar to most British people by that time, even if some of them found his abrasive language and powerful Islamic rhetoric disturbing. As a boxer he had no equals. But how important a figure was he to black Britons who had their own struggles and challenges, often very different from the ones that Ali represented back in the States?

Of course the reason for her trip to the Savoy in the first place was so that her father could get an interview with Ali for his BBC radio show 'Black Londoners'. Deirdre listens again to that recording in which a far more quietly spoken Ali talks to his British brothers. This isn't the showman who appeared on the Parkinson show, although his humour is there. This was an Ali listening and learning and probing and we'll hear it during the programme.

There are other issues for Deirdre as well. How does she feel now about her hero's stance on the place of women, on integration, on religion? And why is that Savoy meeting with a boxer so important to a woman who went on to train as a classical pianist?

Producer: Tom Alban

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in March 2010.


SAT 11:00 The Week in Westminster (b00rd3wd)
Benedict Brogan of The Daily Telegraph looks back at the Week in Westminster.

The last time the Conservatives won an election was in 1992, against the odds and during a recession. The then Conservative Party chairman Chris Patten - now Lord Patten - looks back at the struggles of that campaign and compares it to what might happen this time.

Also involved in that general election was Glenys Kinnock, the wife of the then Labour leader Neil Kinnock and now a government minister and peer. What role did she play then, and does she think women now play a larger part in determining the outcome of elections?

Also in the programme:

With UKIP aiming to field over 500 candidates in the forthcoming general election, what effect will it have on the Conservative vote?

And how do we read the current opinion polls? Stephan Shakespeare of YouGov and Andrew Cooper of Populus discuss how far we can trust them.


SAT 11:30 From Our Own Correspondent (b00rd3wg)
Kate Adie introduces BBC foreign correspondents with the stories behind the headlines.


SAT 12:00 Money Box (b00rd3wj)
Paul Lewis with the latest news from the world of personal finance.


SAT 12:30 The Now Show (b00rbs19)
Series 30

Episode 3

Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis present a satirical review of the week's news, with help from Jon Holmes, Laura Shavin, Mitch Benn and Marcus Brigstocke.


SAT 12:57 Weather (b00rd3wl)
The latest weather forecast.


SAT 13:00 News (b00rd3wn)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


SAT 13:10 Any Questions? (b00rbs1c)
Jonathan Dimbleby chairs the topical debate from Leeds.

The panellists are associate editor of the Daily Telegraph Simon Heffer, secretary of state for children, schools and families Ed Balls, shadow foreign secretary William Hague and Green Party Parliamentary candidate Bea Campbell.


SAT 14:00 Any Answers? (b00rd3wq)
Jonathan Dimbleby takes listeners' calls and emails in response to this week's edition of Any Questions?


SAT 14:30 Saturday Drama (b00rd3ws)
Playing With Trains

Episode 1

Stephen Poliakoff is reunited with leading actor Timothy Spall in a new two-part radio version of his drama Playing With Trains, to be broadcast in March. Spall is joined by Zoe Tapper (whose recent TV credits include lead roles in Survivors, Desperate Romantics and Affinity) and Geoffrey Streatfeild (who recently starred as Hal in the RSC's History Cycle). Poliakoff and Spall previously collaborated brilliantly on the ground-breaking TV dramas Shooting the Past and Perfect Strangers.

The play tells the story of the rise and fall of Bill Galpin (Spall), a flamboyant entrepreneur who pools his fortune into backing risky inventions which are concerned with safeguarding the environment, while at the same time having a very tempestuous but poignant relationship with his two children Roxanna and Danny (Tapper and Streatfeild).

Beginning in the heady days of the late 1960s, Playing With Trains deals with the fact that Britain invents so much, yet manufactures so little. Galpin makes a fortune from a brilliant development in gramophone technology, and then turns himself into a self-appointed patron and champion of inventors and innovators everywhere, clashing with the establishment through the libel courts, speeches to captains of industry, Civil Service offices and even TV shows.

Parallel to his relationship with industry is his even more tempestuous relationship with his children. Roxanna - whom he expects to become a great engineer - drops out of Cambridge and becomes an art student in attempt to escape her father's grip. Danny, meanwhile, turns into the very thing his father despises - a financial expert, but in so doing recognises the shortcomings of his father's enterprises.

Playing With Trains is a moving family drama set over two decades, charting a "love affair" between father and daughter. It's Poliakoff at his very best, telling an intensely private story within a sweeping public drama.

Playing With Trains was originally staged at the RSC in 1989.

The cast is completed by Helen Longworth (Frances), Joseph Kloska (Mick), Nigel Hastings (Vernon Boyce), Michael Fenton Stevens (Gant) and Bruce Alexander (QC). It was produced and directed for BBC Radio Drama Birmingham by Peter Leslie Wild.

Producer/Director Peter Leslie Wild.


SAT 15:30 Soul Music (b00rb2sv)
Series 9

He's Got the Whole World in His Hands

Series exploring famous pieces of music and their emotional appeal.

He's Got the Whole World in His Hands is a spiritual song originating in the United States, but it first caught the public's attention when Laurie London took it to the top of the charts in 1958. In this programme, people describe the place that the song has in their lives. Including the conductor of a choir for refugees and asylum seekers and the minister who led prayers on President Obama's first day in office.

The programme also includes a performance from Washington Performing Arts Society's Children of the Gospel Choir. They sang an arrangement of He's Got the Whole World in His Hands made by their conductor and Artistic Director Stanley J Thurston at the National Prayer Service at the Washington National Cathedral on January 21, 2009. President Barack Obama, Vice President Joseph Biden and their families attended this service and the sermon was given by the Reverend Sharon E Watkins.

Contributors:
John Copley
Ian Bradley
Amy Mclean
Philip Wright
Sharon Watkins
Mike McGrother

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2010.


SAT 16:00 Woman's Hour (b00rd3wv)
Weekend Woman's Hour

Weekend Woman's Hour with Jane Garvey. Prime Minister Gordon Brown gives an extended interview as part of Winning Women's Votes; Oscar-winning costume designer Sandy Powell on her fascination with frocks; should every woman have some running away money; new Children's Commissioner for England Maggie Atkinson on the age of criminal responsibility; Sian Phillips on playing an ageing Juliet to her Romeo; and going bra-less - acceptable or a fashion faux pas?


SAT 17:00 PM (b00rd3wx)
Saturday PM

Full coverage and analysis of the day's news with Carolyn Quinn, plus the sports headlines.


SAT 17:30 The Bottom Line (b00rbnmm)
Evan Davis is joined by a panel of top executives from the worlds of house building, drinking and gambling to find out what they think of their rivals. They also talk about annoying regulations: what would they change if they had the chance?

Evan is joined by Pete Redfern, chief executive of the house builders Taylor Wimpey, Andrew Morgan, president of drinks manufacturer Diageo Europe, and Mark Davies, group director of the betting exchange Betfair.


SAT 17:54 Shipping Forecast (b00rd3wz)
The latest shipping forecast.


SAT 17:57 Weather (b00rd3x1)
The latest weather forecast.


SAT 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b00rd3x3)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


SAT 18:15 Loose Ends (b00rd3x5)
Clive Anderson and guests with an eclectic mix of conversation, music and comedy.

Clive is joined by the actor Jim Broadbent, Legally Blonde's Sheridan Smith, and writer and now presenter of her own food televison series Sophie Dahl.

Jo Bunting talks bread with master baker Tom Herbert.

With music from Dr Rubberfunk.


SAT 19:00 Profile (b00rd3x7)
Lord Saville

Edward Stourton looks at the life and career of Lord Saville of Newdigate, whose report into Bloody Sunday - when British soldiers killed 13 unarmed civilians in Northern Ireland - is expected to be handed to the government shortly. The report has taken 12 years and cost 200 million pounds, and become something of a scandal in its own right.

When Tony Blair announced the inquiry in 1998, 36 years after the killings on the streets of Londonderry (or Derry as nationalists call it), Lord Saville seemed a natural chairman. In this programme friends and colleagues recall his meteoric rise through the ranks of the judiciary while earning himself a reputation as a Bond-like action man, hang-gliding, dinghy sailing and earning his pilot's licence.

He was called to the Bar in 1962, became a Queen's Counsel in 1975 and a Bencher of his Inn in 1983. He was appointed a High Court judge in 1985 and went on to become Lord Justice of Appeal and a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary. He was considered to be young for a judge at the time (aged 61) and a keen advocate of new technology.

But the Saville Inquiry has been bogged down in one delay after another, becoming the longest-running and most expensive public inquiry in British history, and Lord Saville himself has come in for considerable criticism.

The report from the inquiry is due to be handed to the government shortly but it is still not known when the results are likely to be made public.


SAT 19:15 Saturday Review (b00rd3x9)
Tom Sutcliffe is joined by writer David Aaronovitch, historian Kathryn Hughes and comedian David Schneider to review the cultural highlights of the week.

Glenn Ficarra's film I Love You Phillip Morris is based on the true story of con man Steven Russell, who met and fell in love with Morris when he was serving a jail sentence for insurance fraud. Russell's multiple escapes and attempts to fraudulently spring Morris from jail finally resulted in him being handed a 144 year sentence of which he has currently served the first nine. Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor are the star-crossed lovers.

In Lionel Shriver's novel So Much For That, Shepherd Knacker is about to fulfill his dream of using the money he has salted away from years of work to buy a new life on a tropical island. But then his wife is diagnosed with cancer and she can't afford for Shep to give up the health plan that goes with his job. Shriver addresses the shortcomings of the American health system with barely concealed rage and lays bare the indignities of illness and dying.

Jeremy Irons plays the Lear-like figure of Colm in Dennis Kelly's play The Gods Weep. In this RSC production at the Hampstead Theatre in London, Colm is a powerful industrialist who announces that he is stepping down as CEO and dividing his global empire between two of his senior executives. The resulting turmoil descends into civil war with Colm becoming a diminished and increasingly remorseful figure.

The extraordinary story of John Darwin - the man who supposedly went missing in 2002, only to walk into a police station in 2007 claiming to be suffering from amnesia - is dramatised in BBC4's Canoe Man. Bernard Hill plays Darwin who co-opts his wife Anne (Saskia Reeves) into playing her part in the deception, which involves using the insurance money to buy property in Panama and letting their two sons think that their father is dead.

Quilts 1700 - 2010 is the Victoria and Albert Museum's first major exhibition devoted to the craft and art of British quiltmaking. It features around 70 quilts including some by contemporary artists including Grayson Perry and Tracey Emin and some works specially commissioned for the exhibition. Some of the pieces on display were conceived purely for beauty or utility, while others are more didactic or commemorate historical events, such as a quilt from 1805 which shows George III reviewing his troops and other patriotic scenes.


SAT 20:00 Archive on 4 (b00rd3xc)
Soccer, Springboks and Segregation

As South Africa prepares to host the 2010 FIFA World Cup, Allan Little examines the role that sport has played in the republic's internal politics and in forming its international reputation.

South Africa is a country often divided both within itself and from the rest of the world. For decades sport was tarnished by class and racial divides. Two sporting cultures existed - one for whites, one for blacks - each with its own pantheon of heroes, triumphs and tragedies. Archive on 4 explores the role of sport in South Africa's history, from the Gleneagles Agreement that saw the Republic banned from worldwide competition, to the rebel tours in cricket and rugby and the athletes who were forced to leave their homeland in order to compete on the world stage.

Allan Little was there when South Africa won the Rugby World Cup; so too was Nelson Mandela, who was wearing Francois Pienaar's shirt - a highly significant gesture, symbolising the fact that he was not so much a white Afrikaner but the captain of a team the whole nation could support.

Allan charts the events that put South African sport on the front pages and assesses how the end of apartheid, the introduction of the controversial race quota systems in sport and the hosting of international tournaments like the rugby and football World Cups have affected the country's sport and society.


SAT 21:00 Classic Serial (b00r907w)
Samuel Richardson - Clarissa: The History of a Young Lady

The Pursuit

Dramatisation by Hattie Naylor of the 1748 novel by Samuel Richardson.

The beautiful young heiress Clarissa Harlowe is dangerously attracted by the wiles of the notorious libertine Robert Lovelace. Threatened by an imminent marriage arranged with the odious suitor her family have found for her, Lovelace persuades Clarissa to flee with him.

Clarissa Harlowe ...... Zoe Waites
Robert Lovelace ...... Richard Armitage
James Harlowe ...... Oliver Milburn
Solmes ...... Stephen Critchlow
Bella Harlowe ...... Sophie Thompson
Lady Harlowe ...... Alison Steadman
Lord Harlowe ...... John Rowe
Mrs Norton ...... Deborah Findlay
Anna Howe ...... Cathy Sara

Directed by Marilyn Imrie

A Catherine Bailey production for BBC Radio 4.


SAT 22:00 Weather (b00rd3zy)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4, followed by weather.


SAT 22:15 Moral Maze (b00rblxz)
How much choice should people undergoing IVF have in the background of the donors of eggs and sperm? Patients at clinics in America can choose on the basis of ethnicity, hair colour, education and even hear interviews with the donors. Is this inherently immoral? The heart of this issue is that demand for eggs and sperm outstrips supply. So if altruism and generosity aren't solving the problem, why not let the market do the job and pay people the going rate for their gametes?

Witnesses:

Professor Gedis Grudzinskas, ex-medical director of the Bridge Centre Fertility Clinic; now a consultant in infertility and gynaecology

Dr Alexina McWhinnie, ex-senior research fellow at Dundee University Department of Social Work and writer on the subject of the long-term effects of donor insemination. Author of a book called Who Am I?

Professor Janet Radcliffe Richards, professor of practical philosophy at Oxford University

Dr Vivienne Nathanson, head of science and ethics at the British Medical Association.


SAT 23:00 Quote... Unquote (b00rb16j)
Nigel Rees chairs the popular quiz involving the exchange of quotations and anecdotes.

With Mary Beard, Marcel Theroux, Arthur Smith and Ariel Leve.

The reader is Peter Jefferson.


SAT 23:30 Poetry Please (b00r90cg)
Roger McGough introduces listeners' requests, read by Henry Goodman and Selina Cadell.



SUNDAY 21 MARCH 2010

SUN 00:00 Midnight News (b00rd42z)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.


SUN 00:30 Lent Talks (b00rbly1)
Sr Elizabeth Obbard

Series of six talks by eminent thinkers exploring how faith and religion interact with a variety of aspects in society.

Sr Elizabeth Obbard, a Carmelite solitary at Aylesford Priory in Kent, explores how people's personal faith is affected and shaped by formal religion.


SUN 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b00rd431)
The latest shipping forecast.


SUN 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b00rd433)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


SUN 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b00rd435)
The latest shipping forecast.


SUN 05:30 News Briefing (b00rd437)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


SUN 05:43 Bells on Sunday (b00rd439)
The sound of bells from St Petroc, South Brent in Devon.


SUN 05:45 Profile (b00rd3x7)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Saturday]


SUN 06:00 News Headlines (b00rd43c)
The latest national and international news.


SUN 06:05 Something Understood (b00rd43f)
Sweet Surrender

When should we accept our lot and when should we rage against circumstances? Fergal Keane considers the notion that serenity comes when you trade expectations for acceptance.

The readers are Liza Sadovy, Frank Stirling and Don Wycherley.

A Unique production for BBC Radio 4.


SUN 06:35 On Your Farm (b00rd4d4)
Charlotte Smith visits the Sheffield school which is growing its own food to teach pupils where their meals come from. Emmanuel Junior School will use the food in school dinners and sell any excess in local farmers' markets. Charlotte finds out how the project aims to connect youngsters with local city farms.


SUN 06:57 Weather (b00rd4d6)
The latest weather forecast.


SUN 07:00 News and Papers (b00rd4d8)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.


SUN 07:10 Sunday (b00rd4db)
Edward Stourton discusses the religious and ethical news of the week. Moral arguments and perspectives on stories, both familiar and unfamiliar.


SUN 07:55 Radio 4 Appeal (b00rd4dd)
International Alert

Joanna Lumley appeals on behalf of International Alert.

Donations to International Alert should be sent to FREEPOST BBC Radio 4 Appeal, please mark the back of your envelope International Alert. Credit cards: Freephone 0800 404 8144. If you are a UK tax payer, please provide International Alert with your full name and address so they can claim the Gift Aid on your donation. The online and phone donation facilities are not currently available to listeners without a UK postcode.

Registered Charity Number: 327553.


SUN 07:58 Weather (b00rd4dg)
The latest weather forecast.


SUN 08:00 News and Papers (b00rd4dj)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.


SUN 08:10 Sunday Worship (b00rd4dl)
People on the Edge of His Pain

The fifth service in a series for Lent considers the life of St Peter, and comes live from the Church of God of Prophecy, Aberdeen Street, in Birmingham's Winson Green.

Led by Lorraine Oliver with preacher Bishop Joe Aldred.

Music directors: Deseta Davis, Vincent McCalla, Charmain Oliver.


SUN 08:50 A Point of View (b00rbs1f)
Simon Schama looks forward to spring with personal reflections on the changing seasons, and commends Geoffrey Chaucer's upbeat opinion of April compared with TS Eliot's more pessimistic view.


SUN 09:00 Broadcasting House (b00rd4dn)
On today's Broadcasting House, we brought together a Union Baron with a real one to discuss whether it's ever right to strike. Of 1002 members of the public surveyed by ICM for the programme, 36% think the right to stike is unacceptable (with 57% thinking it is acceptable and 7% don't knows). Digby Jones and Bob Crowe had a full and frank exchange of views. And if the planes don't fly and the trains don't leave, why not try Psychogeography, the art of seeing familiar landscape anew? Writer Will Self told us how to walk, and an intrepid rambler, Tom Franklin, put the theory to the test in a live radio experiment. We brought together one trolleybus- obsessed listener with an archive recording of a driver and clippie, and the papers were reviewed by fashion designer Zandra Rhodes, Alain de Botton and John Whiting. And listener Stephen Marchant sent us some pips to make up for the current lack of them at ten o'clock.


SUN 10:00 The Archers Omnibus (b00rd4dq)
The week's events in Ambridge.


SUN 11:15 Desert Island Discs (b00rd4ds)
Frank Cottrell-Boyce

Kirsty Young's castaway is the writer Frank Cottrell Boyce.

His film credits include Hilary and Jackie, Welcome to Sarajevo and 24 Hour Party People. He's also written TV soaps, radio and stage plays and children's novels.

These days children are his main audience and, as a father of seven himself, he should know what they want. He not only tests his ideas on them, but they keep him focused: 'I need them in the house to make sure I'm not watching telly, or having a four-hour bath - the fact that they're there makes me work.'

Record: Miserere by Allegri
Book: The Voyage of the Beagle by Charles Darwin
Luxury: A ferris wheel.


SUN 12:00 Just a Minute (b00rb1xp)
Series 56

Episode 11

Nicholas Parsons chairs the devious word game. With Paul Merton, Jenny Eclair, Pam Ayres and Gyles Brandreth. From March 2010.


SUN 12:32 The Food Programme (b00rd4dv)
Beetroot and Health Legislation

If beetroot juice is good for our blood pressure, should it be left up to the European Union to decide whether or not a food manufacturer can make such a claim? The food industry is reeling at the EU's tightening up of regulations, which make it more difficult to make a health claim for a food.

If precise scientific evidence is required, isn't the EU expecting the same clinical rigour for a food as for a drug? Sheila Dillon meets one beetroot juice producer in Suffolk who, following new scientific evidence for the health effects of his juice, hopes to make a health claim for the product. How difficult might that be? Consumer safety is the paramount concern but is this level of control costly and damaging for small food companies and patronising to the consumer? Sheila travels to Brussels and meets small food companies trying to come to terms with the changes in EU health claims.

In trying to protect the public, could the bureaucrats be throwing the metaphorical baby out with the bath water?


SUN 12:57 Weather (b00rd4dx)
The latest weather forecast.


SUN 13:00 The World This Weekend (b00rd4dz)
A look at events around the world with Shaun Ley.


SUN 13:30 Banishing Eve (b00rd4f1)
Episode 1

Historian of the ancient world Bettany Hughes uses the latest scholarship to take us back to the 2nd century AD, as pagan Europe began to embrace Christianity. What emerged out of this crucible of religious change marked the beginning of the end for women as religious leaders for a millennium and half. Common wisdom would have it that women went from goddesses to flower arrangers in just over a century. But why - and was it that straightforward?

Bettany finds that the history of women in the early church is written more in the fragments of stone left behind than in the scriptures. She visits Rome and traces the activities of women in the early church as they fought hand in hand with men to see their faith survive. Things got more difficult after Christianity became the recognised religion of the Roman Empire and beyond. But this is not just a tale of capitulation and annihilation; women fought doggedly for their positions. From Nicea to Northumbria, Bettany follows the decline - but not quite fall - of women in the early church.


SUN 14:00 Gardeners' Question Time (b00rbs13)
Eric Robson chairs the popular horticultural forum.

Bob Flowerdew, Bunny Guinness and Matthew Wilson answer questions posed by the gardeners in Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex.

The programme visits the UK's first commercial olive growers, and report on new plant varieties from the British Plant Fair.

Includes gardening weather forecast.


SUN 14:45 The Secrets of the Art and the Artist: Caravaggio (b00rd983)
Episode 2

Roger Law investigates the life and work of Caravaggio.

Much heated debate centres on Caravaggio's secretive techniques in the studio; were his great innovations in painting based on smoke and mirrors?


SUN 15:00 Classic Serial (b00rd4p1)
Samuel Richardson - Clarissa: The History of a Young Lady

The Flight

Dramatisation by Hattie Naylor of the 1748 novel by Samuel Richardson.

Clarissa has been persuaded to flee with the notorious libertine Lovelace, escaping an arranged marriage. In London she begins to learn of the darker side of Lovelace's character as he secures her lodgings in a house of ill repute and begins to use lies, trickery and cruel delusions in an attempt to seduce her.

Clarissa Harlowe ...... Zoe Waites
Robert Lovelace ...... Richard Armitage
Anna Howe ...... Cathy Sara
Mrs Sinclair ...... Miriam Margolyes
Dorcas ...... Lisa Hammond
Sally ...... Sophie Thompson
Belford ...... Adrian Scarborough
Tourville ...... Julian Rhind-Tutt
Captain Tomlinson ...... Stephen Critchlow

Directed by Marilyn Imrie

A Catherine Bailey production for BBC Radio 4.


SUN 16:00 Open Book (b00rd4p3)
Mariella Frostrup talks to the novelist DJ Taylor, who explains why in his latest book he's taken on the persona of a 1930s thriller writer. He talks about his fascination with period slang, and why he decided to make up some of his own.

There's also news of a New York exhibition of JD Salinger's letters, containing major revelations about the reclusive writer's life. Declan Kiely of the Morgan Library explains what these 10 letters tell us.

And the writer Rachel Polonsky discusses what browsing the private library of one of Stalin's most notorious henchmen taught her about the life of Vyacheslav Molotov.


SUN 16:30 Poetry Please (b00rd4p5)
Roger McGough introduces poems from 'across the pond'. There's a bus ride in Nova Scotia and a few trips to the cinema, with works by Elizabeth Bishop, Frank O'Hara and Billy Collins. For good measure, there's also a Swedish poem about growing up and a very English poem with a host of bluebells. The readers are Jennifer Jellicorse and Kerry Shale.


SUN 17:00 File on 4 (b00rbkyf)
Children who abuse children

Around a third of all youngsters who have been abused are victims of other children and young people. Jackie Long investigates what is done to help young abusers stop offending and asks why so many are slipping through the net.


SUN 17:40 Profile (b00rd3x7)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Saturday]


SUN 17:54 Shipping Forecast (b00rd4p7)
The latest shipping forecast.


SUN 17:57 Weather (b00rd4p9)
The latest weather forecast.


SUN 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b00rd4pc)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


SUN 18:15 Pick of the Week (b00rd4pf)
Sheila McClennon introduces her selection of highlights from the past week on BBC radio.

Behind the Brel: The Story of a Musical Genius - Radio 2
Ali: Me, My Family and Muhammed Ali - Radio 4
I've Never Seen Star Wars - Jon Culshaw - Radio 4
The Essay - Radio Three
Living Books - Radio 4
Document - Radio 4
Afternoon Play: Hitched - Radio 4
A Guided Tour of the Castle of Otranto - Radio 4
Solar - Radio 4
Jimmy Webb on Guy Garvey's Finest Hour - 6Music - presented by Rob Hughes
Cadbury is our Longbridge - Radio 4
Desert Island Discs - Frank Cottrell Boyce - Radio 4
Book of the Week: Chopin - Prince of the Romantics - Radio 4
Front Row - Monday - Radio 4.


SUN 19:00 The Archers (b00rd4q4)
Pip hears some words of wisdom.


SUN 19:15 Americana (b00rd4q6)
Americana: Presented by Matt Frei from Washington DC.

Matt Frei talks to Carl Bernstein, who along with Bob Woodward did for President Nixon. Carl talks about the value of staking out the truth even if it means going forward alone.

Author Jonathan Raban joins Matt Frei to talk about his most recent escapes and the challenges and benefits of being a lone wolf.

And Matt hears from historian and journalist Ellen Fitzpatrick about her new book Letters to Jackie. The collection of letters sent to Jackie Kennedy on the death of her husband John F. Kennedy highlight the emptiness that loss can bring and how the words of Americans from all over the nation served to abate that pain.

Our email address is americana@bbc.co.uk, follow us on Twitter @bbcamericana.


SUN 19:45 Afternoon Reading (b008khxt)
Treasure Island

The Sea Cook

John le Carre reads Robert Louis Stevenson's classic adventure story, abridged by Katrin Williams.

Jim meets the crippled sea cook Long John Silver and soon discovers that there is much more to him than meets the eye.

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.


SUN 20:00 Feedback (b00rbq34)
Roger Bolton airs listeners' views on BBC radio programmes and policy.


SUN 20:30 Last Word (b00rbs15)
Matthew Bannister presents the obituary series, analysing and celebrating the life stories of people who have recently died.


SUN 21:00 Money Box (b00rd3wj)
[Repeat of broadcast at 12:00 on Saturday]


SUN 21:26 Radio 4 Appeal (b00rd4dd)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:55 today]


SUN 21:30 Analysis (b00rb1xt)
Minds of Our Own?

Policy-makers have long looked to science to help understand human behaviour and to influence it. But what if science could actually read people's thoughts and intentions? That's the promise of the latest research from neuroscientists, who claim to be able to scan our brains for lies, broken promises and violent intentions. But how reliable is the science of 'mind-reading'? How might it change our ideas about free will, responsibility and rehabilitation? And should we not be able to keep the thoughts in our head private? Presented by Kenan Malik.

Deborah Denno, professor of law at Fordham University in New York

Steven J Laken, president and CEO, Cephos Corp

Professor Hank Greeley, director, Center for Law and the Biosciences at Stanford University in California

Ray Tallis, philosopher and doctor

Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP, chairman of the Centre for Social Justice

Professor Julian Savulescu, director of the Wellcome Centre for Neuroethics at Oxford University

Professor Geraint Rees, director of the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, University College, London

Paul Root Wolpe, Asa Griggs Candler professor of bioethics at Emory University in Atlanta.


SUN 21:58 Weather (b00rd4r5)
The latest weather forecast.


SUN 22:00 Westminster Hour (b00rd4r7)
Reports from behind the scenes at Westminster. Including Make 'Em Laugh.


SUN 23:00 The Film Programme (b00rbs17)
Francine Stock travels to Ealing studios to visit the set of Gurinder Chadha's new film, It's a Wonderful Afterlife.

Australian Aboriginal director Warwick Thornton on his debut film Samson and Delilah.

A tour of the oldest working cinema in the UK, The Electric in Birmingham.

Colin Shindler looks back at a key year in British cinema, 1960, which saw the release of films such as Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and Peeping Tom.


SUN 23:30 Something Understood (b00rd43f)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:05 today]



MONDAY 22 MARCH 2010

MON 00:00 Midnight News (b00rd782)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.


MON 00:15 Thinking Allowed (b00rbltf)
The latest British Crime Survey statistics show 744,000 domestic burglaries in England and Wales. This may seem a lot, and though it is no consolation to anyone who had their house ransacked last year, it actually represents a drop of more than a million since 1995. So why is burglary less appealing to criminals? Are they turning to a life without crime or are they simply taking up something else? Laurie Taylor hears from James Treadwell, whose ongoing research seems to present the answer, and it is part of a story involving the plummeting cost of a DVD player and the rising popularity of the iPod.

Also on the programme: milk and modernity. What part has the wonderful white nectar had in the development of cities, the separation of urban and rural and our notions of what is pure and natural? It is a surprising story in which ideas of what is natural are constantly being inverted. Laurie speaks to Peter Atkins and Harry West.


MON 00:45 Bells on Sunday (b00rd439)
[Repeat of broadcast at 05:43 on Sunday]


MON 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b00rd78n)
The latest shipping forecast.


MON 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b00rd7gd)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


MON 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b00rd7l0)
The latest shipping forecast.


MON 05:30 News Briefing (b00rd7mk)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


MON 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b00rd7rc)
Daily prayer and reflection with Judy Merry.


MON 05:45 Farming Today (b00rd7wy)
With spring approaching Farming Today looks for signs of new life in the countryside and Charlotte Smith discovers that the native UK daffodil is in decline.

Also, should the Common Agricultural Policy be rebranded to include the environment in its remit? A European Union commissioner thinks farming and the environment should sit side by side.


MON 05:57 Weather (b00rdvqy)
The latest weather forecast for farmers.


MON 06:00 Today (b00rd84r)
With John Humphrys and Sarah Montague. Including Sports Desk; Weather; Thought for the Day.


MON 09:00 Start the Week (b00rdvr0)
Andrew Marr discusses how the key moments of the last century were reported by the British press with veteran journalist John Simpson. Director Rob Lemkin talks about the mission to bring unreported atrocities to light in his film about the Khmer Rouge. Emilie Bickerton looks at how film critics became great directors via French film journal Cahiers du Cinema. And academic John R Bowen asks, 'can Islam be French?'.


MON 09:45 Book of the Week (b00rd84t)
FS Saunders - The Woman Who Shot Mussolini

Episode 1

Sinead Cusack reads from Frances Stonor Saunders' account of the troubled life of Violet Gibson, the daughter of an Anglo-Irish lord, who attempted to assassinate Mussolini in Rome in 1926.

On Wednesday 7th April 1926, in front of a crowd of cheering Fascist supporters, Benito Mussolini is shot at close quarters. The bullet nicks the bridge of his nose and the bleeding is profuse. Who shot him and why did they do it?

Abridged by Jill Waters

A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4.


MON 10:00 Woman's Hour (b00rd85f)
Regulation of home schooling; Time alone for mothers

Is time alone essential or a luxury for mothers? Plus, the regulation of home schooling, female solar engineers in Asia, and the art of quilt making.


MON 10:45 15 Minute Drama (b00rd9cq)
Susan Hill - The Beacon

An Author in the Family

Dramatisation by Anita Sullivan of the novel by Susan Hill.

The Prime siblings have grown up on a remote farm. May has stayed at home to look after her mother, and Colin and Berenice live locally; only Frank has left the area, to become a journalist in London. Then Frank has an idea which will bring him fame and fortune but have disastrous consequences for the rest of the family.

May Prime ...... Manon Edwards
Frank Prime ...... Steffan Rhodri
Colin Prime ...... Iestyn Jones
Elsa ...... Eiry Thomas
Berenice Prime ...... Siriol Jenkins
Radio Interviewer ...... Mark Lawson
Doctor Ford ...... Richard Mitchley
TV Interviewer ...... Sian Williams
TV Interviewer ...... Kirsty Wark
Taxi Driver ...... Dick Bradnum

Produced and Directed by Kate McAll.


MON 11:00 Captured by Pirates (b00rdwm5)
Kate Silverton uncovers the story of the English schoolgirls who were captured by pirates off the China coast, and later ended up in a Japanese concentration camp with Eric Liddell.

In 1935, the SS Tungchow was taken over by a dozen Chinese pirates as it emerged from the Yangtse River. They were expecting a cargo of gold bullion but instead found three lady teachers and seventy British missionaries' children, on their way to Chefoo boarding school on the North China coast.
Six years later, in 1941, these same children became enemy aliens when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbour. They were imprisoned in the Weihsien Internment Camp, Shantung Province, along with 500 other children, half of them without parents. The morale of the girls and their teachers was greatly improved by two Brownie packs and a Girl Guide Company. Their sports were organised by Eric Liddell, (Chariots of Fire) until he died.

This is an extraordinary tale, and it's told by those who were there:
Margaret Holder, née Vinden.
Beryl Goodland, née Welch.
Kathleen Foster, née Strange.
Mary Previte, née Taylor.
Evelyn Heubener, née Davey.

Producer Beth O'Dea
Programme consultant Janie Hampton.

First broadcast on BBC Radio in March 2010.


MON 11:30 Sneakiepeeks (b00pkbmh)
Echo

When the members of the Beagle Team take on their next mission, they find themselves in competition with old rivals, the Terrier Team.

Comedy by Harry Venning and Neil Brand about a team of inept, backstabbing surveillance operatives.

Bill ...... Richard Lumsden
Sharla ...... Nina Conti
Mark ...... Daniel Kaluuya
Mrs Davies ...... Tessa Nicholson
Customer 2 ...... Ewan Bailey
Edward Barraclough MP ...... Paterson Joseph
Norris ...... Joe Thomas
Ros ...... Lucy Montgomery
Customer 1 ...... Harry Venning
Customer 3 ...... Neil Brandr

Other parts played by the cast.

Producer: Katie Tyrrell

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 2010.


MON 12:00 You and Yours (b00rd8mk)
The millionaire offering gas and electricity at cost price, and should the taxman sponsor a TV show to help small businesses?

Customs and Revenue is sponsoring a new TV show to help small businesses. Should the taxman be spending our money making TV programmes, or is it good commercial sense?

Taking on the big energy companies: the millionaire who says he can offer consumers gas and electricity at cost price.


MON 12:57 Weather (b00rd8r2)
The latest weather forecast.


MON 13:00 World at One (b00rd8tg)
National and international news with Martha Kearney.


MON 13:30 Counterpoint (b00rdwrf)
Series 24

2010 Heat 1

Paul Gambaccini chairs the general knowledge music quiz.

The questions cover every aspect of music - from the classical repertoire to world music, show tunes, film scores, jazz, rock and pop.

Three contestants battle it out in the BBC Radio Theatre, London:

David Walker from London
Paul Webster from Tyne & Wear
Judy Woolfe from Kent

Producer: Paul Bajoria

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in March 2010.


MON 14:00 The Archers (b00rd4q4)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Sunday]


MON 14:15 Drama (b00rdwrh)
Judith Somerville - Listening to Time

By Judith Somerville. Hans and Anna meet by chance when visiting one of the remote Aran Islands, the extraordinary beauty of which leads to them developing an unexpected and intense bond. For Hans, it is part of a journey of emotional recovery.

Anna ...... Kate Buffery
Hans ...... David Troughton
Mrs O'Flaherty ...... Joanna Monro
German voices ...... Michael Shelford

Directed by Cherry Cookson.


MON 15:00 Archive on 4 (b00rd3xc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 on Saturday]


MON 15:45 On the Map (b00rd8yv)
The Map Makers

Self-confessed map addict Mike Parker explores modern cartography. If a picture paints a thousand words, a map can paint a million. They help us navigate our way through unfamiliar landscapes and cities, entice us into new places and give us a bigger picture of the world we inhabit.

Mike considers the maps he first fell in love with as a teenager - Ordnance Survey maps.


MON 16:00 The Food Programme (b00rd4dv)
[Repeat of broadcast at 12:32 on Sunday]


MON 16:30 Beyond Belief (b00rdxlx)
Ernie Rea and guests discuss the place of Islam in Europe. How do different religious traditions coexist alongside each other and what happens when tensions arise?


MON 17:00 PM (b00rd92d)
Full coverage and analysis of the day's news with Eddie Mair. Plus Weather.


MON 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b00rd93w)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


MON 18:30 Just a Minute (b00rdxlz)
Series 56

Episode 12

Nicholas Parsons chairs the devious word game. With Sue Perkins, Graham Norton, Tony Hawks and Paul Merton. From March 2010. Episode 12 of 12.


MON 19:00 The Archers (b00rd8tv)
Vicky shows her sentimental side.


MON 19:15 Front Row (b00rd95m)
Emma Thompson returns to the role of the supernatural Nanny McPhee in the sequel to 2005's hit film. This time Nanny McPhee uses her powers to help a young mother struggling to run the family farm while her husband is away at war. Kate Saunders reviews.

Australian playwright and screenwriter Andrew Upton discusses his latest project with the National Theatre, a new version of Mikhail Bulgakov's The White Guard; and the Australian theatre he co-runs with his wife, actress Cate Blanchett.

The big success story of last night's Olivier Awards is the triumph of 28 year-old American playwright, Katori Hall, whose play The Mountaintop was the surprise winner of Best New Play - beating tough competition from Enron, Jerusalem, and Red. The play follows Martin Luther King on the night before his 1968 assassination, and - as Katori Hall explains to Kirsty Lang - she was inspired to write it by a family story about her mother.

Kirsty talks to the Booker shortlisted author Mick Jackson about The Widow's Tale, a novel written in the voice of a recently bereaved woman who runs away from home and confronts the secrets in her past.

There have been a spate of cover album releases so far this year, Alexis Petridis reviews offerings from Craig David, Sharleen Spiteri, Peter Gabriel and The Hot Rats, a group made up of Supergrass members Gaz Coombes and Danny Goffey.


MON 19:45 15 Minute Drama (b00rd9cq)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:45 today]


MON 20:00 Document (b00rdxm1)
Propaganda in Northern Ireland

Mike Thomson presents the series using documentary evidence to throw new light on past events.

With the Bloody Sunday Inquiry due to submit its report to the secretary of state for Northern Ireland, Mike investigates how the tragic events of 30th January 1972 sparked a murky propaganda battle which was fought in the world's media. Mike discovers how a secretive foreign office department working alongside a covert army intelligence unit spun stories against Republicans and Loyalists in the years after Bloody Sunday: stories which are now known to be untrue. He hears how this black propaganda campaign included tall tales of devil-worshipping among paramilitary groups and deliveries of Soviet weapons to the IRA. Through documents from the time and eyewitness testimonies, Mike finds out just how far this blending of fact and fiction went to distort what was really happening in Northern Ireland during the Troubles.


MON 20:30 Analysis (b00rdxm3)
Who Are The Taliban?

While the fighting in Afghanistan continues there is talk, too, of a negotiated peace. But do we really understand who the Taliban are, what they want and how they fit into Afghan society? Edward Stourton discovers what dealing with the Taliban would really mean.

Contributors:

Ahmed Rashid, Pakistani writer

Professor Malcolm Chalmers, Royal United Services Institute

Sam Zarifi, Asia Pacific director, Amnesty International

Thomas Ruttig, former UN political director, Kabul

Alex Van Linschote, Dutch writer

Michael Semple, regional specialist on Afghanistan and Pakistan

Felix Kuehn, writer

Horia Mosadiq, Afghanistan researcher, Amnesty International.


MON 21:00 Costing the Earth (b00rdxm5)
Turbines in the Back Garden

Can you make money from electricity? New rules are designed to make it profitable for individuals to erect wind turbines and put solar panels on their roofs, using the electricity for their own use and selling the surplus to the grid.

Tom Heap is planning a turbine for his home on the windy Isle of Mull. If anyone can make a packet from the wind racket, then surely it's Tom. He crunches the numbers to discover just what kind of income he can expect from his new turbine. Is it reliable, low maintenance and highly profitable? If it stacks up for his home, how do the figures look for urban dwellers? Could we all be giving power rather than taking it? Could we all be making a little pocket money from the sun and the wind?


MON 21:30 Start the Week (b00rdvr0)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]


MON 21:58 Weather (b00rdtb0)
The latest weather forecast.


MON 22:00 The World Tonight (b00rdtbf)
National and international news and analysis with Ritula Shah.

A new BBC investigation into abuse of Parliamentary rules by MPs.

How tense are US-Israeli relations?

The reclusive maths genius.

Sarkozy loses heavily in weekend poll.

Brazil's economic fortunes.

The fate of Serbian asylum seekers.


MON 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b00rm54r)
Solar

Episode 6

Hugh Bonneville reads from Ian McEwan's new novel.

After divorcing his fifth wife, Nobel Prize-winning physicist Michael Beard has a new girlfriend, Melissa, but she is behaving differently towards him. Then he receives some unwelcome news.

Abridged by Barry Johnston.

A Heavy Entertainment production for BBC Radio 4.


MON 23:00 Rory Bremner's International Satirists (b00rdxm7)
Victor Giacobbo - Switzerland

Rory Bremner engages topical comics, satirists and comedians from different countries about their cultures and how they relate to ours - if at all.

Victor Giacobbo has been a satirical presence in Switzerland for the best part of 30 years and uses a variety of comic character creations to illustrate the subtle but active social differences in this well-behaved country. The fact that Switzerland is the oldest culturally integrated, openly democratic country in Europe cannot conceal the absurdities and contradictions found in the political classes and the people of this cheerful, mildly repressed, law-abiding nation.

A Curtains for Radio production for BBC Radio 4.


MON 23:30 Today in Parliament (b00rdvkn)
News, views and features on today's stories in Parliament with Sean Curran.



TUESDAY 23 MARCH 2010

TUE 00:00 Midnight News (b00rd76l)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.


TUE 00:30 Book of the Week (b00rd84t)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:45 on Monday]


TUE 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b00rd784)
The latest shipping forecast.


TUE 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b00rd7fc)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


TUE 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b00rd7gg)
The latest shipping forecast.


TUE 05:30 News Briefing (b00rd7l2)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


TUE 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b00rd7mm)
Daily prayer and reflection with Judy Merry.


TUE 05:45 Farming Today (b00rd7rf)
Anna Hill finds out about a new parliamentary report, revealing why a dairy co-op collapsed last year. Dairy Farmers of Britain, which produced a billion litres of milk, went into receivership last June. Farming Today also hears from one of the 1813 farmers who were left with big loses. And after one of the coldest winters in decades fruit farmers tell Anna Hill about the problems the late spring has caused.


TUE 06:00 Today (b00rd7x0)
With John Humphrys and Justin Webb. Including Sports Desk; Weather; Thought for the Day; Yesterday in Parliament.


TUE 09:00 Between Ourselves (b00rdyg6)
Series 5

Episode 1

Olivia O'Leary presents the series which brings together two people who have had profound and similar experiences, to hear their individual stories and compare the long-term effects on each of their lives.

Two women who went completely blind in a matter of weeks tell their stories. Julie Coakley was studying art as a mature student when what she describes as 'man flu' laid her low for a couple of weeks. One day she collapsed and was rushed to hospital, where she was diagnosed with meningitis. As a result she completely lost her sight and some of her hearing. At the age of 19, Jill Daley was living in Switzerland, working as an au pair, when complications with diabetes began to interfere with her vision. Very quickly her sight was completely destroyed.

Jill has had 14 years to adjust to her sight loss, while Julie is just two years into her journey. Both discuss the impact that going blind has had on them and their families. Have they been able to embrace the 'blind world'? How have they coped practically and psychologically with this huge upheaval? What have been the biggest challenges?


TUE 09:30 The Public Meeting (b00mbhyk)
Sparsely attended, frequently heckled, the public political meeting fell out of favour in the television age. John Beesley investigates the contribution of public meetings to democracy, and asks if they are due a resurgence.


TUE 09:45 Book of the Week (b00rmpwd)
FS Saunders - The Woman Who Shot Mussolini

Episode 2

Sinead Cusack reads from Frances Stonor Saunders' account of the troubled life of Violet Gibson, the daugher of an Anglo-Irish lord who attempted to assassinate Mussolini in Rome in 1926.

Violet Gibson was the daughter of an Anglo-Irish peer. Her circumstances were comfortable financially, but her quest for spiritual comfort was troubled. What led her to raise a pistol at the Fascist dictator Mussolini?

Abridged by Jill Waters

A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4.


TUE 10:00 Woman's Hour (b00rghvy)
Teenage mothers; Selfish society; Sue Richardson

Woman's Hour explores what needs to be done if more teenage mums are to stay in education. Plus, why we need more empathy in public life. Music from Sue Richardson.


TUE 10:45 15 Minute Drama (b00rkdgt)
Susan Hill - The Beacon

Taking Flight

Dramatisation by Anita Sullivan of the novel by Susan Hill.

Frank's misery memoir has been published and is a huge success. Back at the farm, now that mother has died, May must inform her siblings.

May Prime ...... Manon Edwards
Frank Prime ...... Steffan Rhodri
Colin Prime ...... Iestyn Jones
Elsa ...... Eiry Thomas
Berenice Prime ...... Siriol Jenkins
Radio Interviewer ...... Mark Lawson
Doctor Ford ...... Richard Mitchley
TV Interviewer ...... Sian Williams
TV Interviewer ...... Kirsty Wark
Taxi Driver ...... Dick Bradnum

Produced and Directed by Kate McAll.


TUE 11:00 The Alps (b00rdygc)
Episode 3

The Alps form a vast mountain barrier stretching from Vienna to Nice, dividing German north from Latin south. Misha Glenny tackles our shared European history in a totally unexpected way, exploring the impact of the Alps on our culture, our economy and the formation of eight European states.

Misha travels to Switzerland and France in pursuit of a myth - that it was the British who invented alpine sports. At the launch for the 125th anniversary of the Cresta Run, he discovers that the first British travellers to the Alps were either very rich or very ill. With interviews from Fergus Fleming, Jim Ring - author of How the English Made The Alps, and Swiss hotelier Art Furrer who confirms that, yes, it is all true.


TUE 11:30 Wild Billy Childish (b00rdygf)
John Wilson meets a prolific and unique British artist.

For someone who professes that 'art can achieve nothing' and who claims to detest hard work, Billy Childish has been an artist of extraordinary industry and influence. In 30 years of activity he has written 40 collections of poetry, recorded more than 120 albums and painted 5,000 pictures. He has founded art movements, created self styled non-art movements and been credited by Tracey Emin as her greatest influence. Peter Doig calls him 'one of the most outstanding, and often misunderstood, figures on the British art scene'.

But despite all the output, acclaim and influence, Billy Childish remains a total outsider. His punk rock band recently did a session for Marc Riley's programme on BBC 6Music. 'I can't believe this is only the second session that you've done in 30 years', said Marc, 'why is that?'
'Because nobody will bloody touch me' said the charmingly polite Childish with a bemused smile.

Now the ICA in London has given its three galleries over to Billy's work, the first time a mainstream gallery has ever opened its doors to him.

John Wilson speaks to artists, musicians and poets about his work and in a long interview at Billy's Kent home, he discovers why Billy thinks his work upsets and enthralls people in roughly equal measure and why this artistic, eccentric, mustachioed, tea-drinking poet regards himself as totally un-English.


TUE 12:00 You and Yours (b00rd8kh)
In an internet and health conscious age many of us expect to feel good all of the time and look for cures for minor illnesses where in the past people might have put up and shut up.

A group of leading doctors and specialists this week claimed the 'worried well' account for a fifth of GP appointments - wasting doctors' time and money that could be spent on those who need it more.

While most local surgeries out-source out-of-hours care, GPs are earning more than ever before; and patients group National Voices has launched a campaign for a better complaint and feedback system.

So are you sympathetic to GP stress? Is your surgery full of time wasters? Or perhaps you feel that you are getting a raw deal and that your surgery is never open at the right time? Can you ever get hold of a doctor in the evening or at the weekend? We want to hear your views for our phone-in.

Julian Worricker chairs our phone-in every Tuesday. To take part on the day call us on 03700 100 444. (Calls are answered between 10am and 1pm every Tuesday: standard geographic charges apply and calls may be included in your telecom provider's call package. Calls from mobiles may be higher).


TUE 12:57 Weather (b00rd8mm)
The latest weather forecast.


TUE 13:00 World at One (b00rd8r4)
National and international news with Martha Kearney.


TUE 13:30 Soul Music (b00rdyrb)
Series 9

Bach's Goldberg Variations

Series exploring famous pieces of music and their emotional appeal.

Bach wrote his Goldberg Variations for harpsichord in the 1740s, but today it's performed by pianists all over the world. People describe the place these pieces have in their lives, including a neuroscientist from New York, pianist Angela Hewitt, a father driving his family through the night in the Australian Outback, and a woman from Oregon whose life was transformed, perhaps even saved, by this music.

Produced by Sarah Conkey

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2010.


TUE 14:00 The Archers (b00rd8tv)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Monday]


TUE 14:15 Drama (b00rdz0s)
Crime and Trial Rage on the Road

Documentary drama by John Taylor investigating the complex anatomy of a crime and trial. The headlines were dramatic: a desperate car chase along winding country lanes, a vicious attack on two innocent lovers and the brutal murder of a young man. But it soon became apparent that the killing of Lee Harvey outside Keeper's Cottage was an incident even more astonishing than it first appeared.

Tracie Andrews ...... Sian Brooke
David Crigman QC ...... Kim Wall
DC Brian Russell ...... Michael Higgs
Superintendant Ian Johnstone ...... Roderick Smith
Pathologist ...... John Rowe
Sister Hadley ...... Penelope Freeman
Child witness ...... Brittany Skye-Parnaby

Produced and directed by Alan Hall and John Taylor

A Fiction Factory production for BBC Radio 4.


TUE 15:00 Home Planet (b00rdz1r)
Climate change is one of the most complex, and controversial, topics in science at the moment. We take a long, hard look at the realities of climate change: what's known and, more importantly, where the uncertainties lie. What will the farmers of the future be planting? Will their crops be subtle variations of the ones we see today or, you ask, is there something surprising waiting in the wings to feed the world's growing population? As technology improves it will produce more efficient energy sources and less power hungry devices. So is it really going to cost trillions of pounds to ameliorate the effects of climate change? And how much electricity could we generate if we put a tiny hydroelectric plant in every body of moving water in the country?

Join Richard Daniel and his guests, climate change expert Prof Mike Hulme, environment scientist Dr Ros Taylor and plant geneticist Prof Denis Murphy.

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.


TUE 15:30 Afternoon Reading (b00bvq5k)
Spy Stories

The Rocking-Horse Spy

Classic tales of deception and betrayal.

By Ted Allbeury.

A chance encounter at the Science Museum leads to subterfuge and a disturbing moral dilemma.

Read by Alfred Molina.

A Jarvis and Ayres production for BBC Radio 4.


TUE 15:45 On the Map (b00rghjm)
Mapping the Metropolis

Self-confessed map addict Mike Parker explores modern cartography.

How do you make sense of a strange city and turn a bewildering maze of streets into a map that's instantly informative to a confused visitor? Mike Parker hits the city streets to find out what makes the ideal map for steering us through the urban jungle. He meets the man who has made it his mission to single-handedly create a new map of Manchester, and discovers how digesting the entire London A to Z makes cabbies' brains bigger.

From 2010.


TUE 16:00 Word of Mouth (b00rdzv4)
Michael Rosen takes another journey into the world of words, language and the way we speak.


TUE 16:30 A Good Read (b00rdzv6)
Robert Service and Valentina Polukhina

Two specialists of Russian history and literature, Robert Service and Valentina Polukhina, join Sue MacGregor to discuss books by Mary Renault, Elena Shvarts and Anthony Burgess.

The King Must Die by Mary Renault
Publisher. Arrow Books

Birdsong on the Seabed by Elena Shvarts
Publisher: Bloodaxe

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess (see compliance notes)
Publisher: Penguin Modern Classics

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in March 2010.


TUE 17:00 PM (b00rd90l)
Full coverage and analysis of the day's news with Eddie Mair. Plus Weather.


TUE 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b00rd92g)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


TUE 18:30 I've Never Seen Star Wars (b00rdzv8)
Series 3

Jenny Eclair

Marcus Brigstocke invites his comic guest Jenny Eclair to try five things she's never done before including having a bikini wax.

Whether the experiences are banal or profound, the show is about embracing the new and getting out of our comfort zones.

The title comes from the fact that the show's producer and creator Bill Dare had never seen Star Wars.

Producer: Bill Dare.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in March 2010.


TUE 19:00 The Archers (b00rd8tj)
Kenton misses the point of a dinner a deux.


TUE 19:15 Front Row (b00rd93y)
John Wilson and film critic Antonia Quirke discuss The Blind Side, the movie which won Sandra Bullock a Best Actress Oscar.

John Wilson meets Clem Cattini, the drummer who's played with everyone - from Abba to The Wombles - and also hears from Paul Weller, who asked Clem Cattini to play on his new album.

In 1962, the Russian composer Stravinsky accepted a Soviet invitation to visit his former country, his first trip to his native land for 50 years. He was to conduct a celebratory concert in Leningrad, and Russians began queueing for tickets a whole year before the performance. Russian-born author Olga Grushin has written a novel, The Concert Ticket, inspired by this event, and she describes the complex social system that evolved in the queue, with people working together to hold their places overnight.

John Wilson visits Leighton House, the former home of the renowned Victorian artist, Frederic, Lord Leighton - which is set to re-open after a 1.6-million-pound refurbishment. Leighton spent 30 years embellishing his house in London's Holland Park, creating its stunning centrepiece The Arab Hall, designed to display his priceless collection of over a thousand Islamic tiles.


TUE 19:45 15 Minute Drama (b00rd9cq)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:45 on Monday]


TUE 20:00 File on 4 (b00rdzvb)
Is Jobcentre Plus working?

The government is promising extra help for people out of work during the recession. But, as Britain braces itself for a rise in unemployment, Allan Urry reports from the communities already hardest hit and asks what redundant steelmakers, public sector workers and others joining the dole queue can really expect at the Jobcentre.


TUE 20:40 In Touch (b00rdzvd)
The implications for visually impaired travel and independence if the cheapest sat nav access system is discontinued. Mani Djazmi talks to users of the system and asks Vodafone for an explanation.

He also visits a group of visually impaired gardeners preparing for the Chelsea Flower Show.

Plus listener responses to last week's item Can't See Will Cook.


TUE 21:00 Am I Normal? (b00rdzvh)
Series 7

Eating

Most of us in the UK are overweight and many are constantly dieting. How can we talk about what's normal when it comes to eating when the majority of us simply consume too much food?

Vivienne Parry sets forth on a mission to pin down what normal or healthy eating actually means.

She meets the evangelists from the raw food, pure food community, the health food junkies who say their diet is the natural, 'normal' way of eating, and hears from those who fear that an obessession with eating only the 'purest' of foods is giving rise to a new 'righteous eating' condition called orthorexia.

Vivienne speaks to those who believe extreme diets and restricting and controlling what we eat are worrying steps on a path towards a diagnosable eating disorder. But others say that eccentric diets represent a rejection of the current food environment, a problem only when they seriously affect on someone's life, or offer inadequate nutrition.

With a staggering 60 per cent of us overweight or obese, one woman tells Vivienne how desperate she is to achieve a 'normal' weight, as she prepares for gastric surgery to reduce her 19 stone weight.

Obesity is the subject of a powerful struggle among medical professionals, who are currently deciding what should and shouldn't be considered to be a mental disorder. A prominent neuroscientist tells Vivienne that obesity is a brain disorder, while others argue that handing out psychiatric labels to obese people risks labelling swathes of the population as 'abnormal'.


TUE 21:30 Between Ourselves (b00rdyg6)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]


TUE 21:58 Weather (b00rdt8d)
The latest weather forecast.


TUE 22:00 The World Tonight (b00rdtb2)
News from a global perspective with Robin Lustig.

Britain expels an Israeli diplomat over the Dubai assassination.

What to expect from the Budget.

Delving into the World Tonight archives.

Insider trading arrests in big city firms.

What should MPs do after a life in politics?

Homeless children imprisoned in Tajikistan.


TUE 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b00rm54t)
Solar

Episode 7

Hugh Bonneville reads from Ian McEwan's new novel.

Michael Beard has just been told by his girlfriend, Melissa, that she is pregnant. This is not the news he wanted to hear.

Abridged by Barry Johnston.

A Heavy Entertainment production for BBC Radio 4.


TUE 23:00 Wil Hodgson: Straight Outta Chippenham (b00g4ywy)
Comic storyteller Wil Hodgson recounts a life lived as an outsider in his home town of Chippenham. When you're an ex-communist former wrestler with a shocking pink Mohican who collects My Little Ponies, you are going to get some looks in a small town.


TUE 23:30 Today in Parliament (b00rdvf6)
News, views and features on today's stories in Parliament with David Wilby.



WEDNESDAY 24 MARCH 2010

WED 00:00 Midnight News (b00rd76n)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.


WED 00:30 Book of the Week (b00rmpwd)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:45 on Tuesday]


WED 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b00rd786)
The latest shipping forecast.


WED 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b00rd7ff)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


WED 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b00rd7gj)
The latest shipping forecast.


WED 05:30 News Briefing (b00rd7l4)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


WED 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b00rd7mp)
Daily prayer and reflection with Judy Merry.


WED 05:45 Farming Today (b00rd7rh)
Anna Hill hears the effects of spring's late arrival on farms, and how an alien plant which can grow more than 20cm a day is causing problems on rivers. The Environment Agency explain how they're trying to tackle floating pennywort.

We also hear why one politician has decided to protest against plans for a massive dairy in Lincolnshire with an Early Day Motion. Eric Martlew has the support of over 70 MPs.


WED 06:00 Today (b00rd7x2)
All the morning's news and current affairs, including:

07:30 Social friction in east London over the level of immigration
07:50 Why did Ian Watmore resign as chief exec of the FA?
08:10 What does the Budget hold in store?
08:30 Criticism of Yarl's Wood immigration detention centre

With Sarah Montague and James Naughtie.


WED 09:00 Midweek (b00rf127)
Lively and diverse conversation with Libby Purves and guests including Patrick Cassidy.


WED 09:45 Book of the Week (b00rmpwg)
FS Saunders - The Woman Who Shot Mussolini

Episode 3

Sinead Cusack reads from Frances Stonor Saunders' account of the troubled life of Violet Gibson, the daugher of an Anglo-Irish lord who attempted to assassinate Mussolini in Rome in 1926.

Mussolini was a man with a passion for living dangerously - his battle scars and near misses testified to that - and it was the heroic legend that he stoked which so enthused his supporters. But Violet Gibson came to feel differently.

Abridged by Jill Waters

A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4.


WED 10:00 Woman's Hour (b00rghvc)
Maggi Hambling; Children of sperm and egg doners

Woman's Hour examines whether parents should be obligated to disclose that their children were conceived by donor sperm. Plus, Maggi Hambling, and fashion for older women.


WED 10:45 15 Minute Drama (b00rkdgk)
Susan Hill - The Beacon

Alone

Dramatisation by Anita Sullivan of the novel by Susan Hill.

The death of her mother releases May from her duties but triggers memories of an earlier breakdown. Meanwhile, Frank's success gathers pace as news breaks that the book is to be made into a film.

May Prime ...... Manon Edwards
Frank Prime ...... Steffan Rhodri
Colin Prime ...... Iestyn Jones
Elsa ...... Eiry Thomas
Berenice Prime ...... Siriol Jenkins
Radio Interviewer ...... Mark Lawson
Doctor Ford ...... Richard Mitchley
TV Interviewer ...... Sian Williams
TV Interviewer ...... Kirsty Wark
Taxi Driver ...... Dick Bradnum

Produced and Directed by Kate McAll.


WED 11:00 Cadbury is Our Longbridge (b00rf169)
Episode 2

Miles Warde tells the inside story of the closure of Cadbury's Somerdale factory near Bristol. Two years in the making, the series reveals how Somerdale became caught up in a global story.

Cadbury first announced the closure of this historic site at the end of 2007, and said that much of the production would be moved to Poland instead. Miles explores why that decision was made, and what happens in an economy where the shareholder is always put first.


WED 11:30 House on Fire (b00pl1h7)
Series 1

Moving In

Comedy by Dan Hine and Chris Sussman.

Vicky and Matt, previously strangers, have decided to buy a house together in these credit crunch times. It's day one, and only one person can have the spacious top bedroom. Who will get it, and what are they prepared to do to secure it?

Vicky ...... Emma Pierson
Matt ...... Jody Latham
Col Bill ...... Rupert Vansittart
Julie ...... Janine Duvitski
Peter ...... Philip Jackson

With Fergus Craig and Colin Hoult.

Directed by Clive Brill and Dan Hine

A Pacificus production for BBC Radio 4.


WED 12:00 Budget Special (b00rqpp6)
Live from Westminster, Alistair Darling presents his Budget to the House of Commons.


WED 13:57 Weather (b00rd8mp)
The latest weather forecast.


WED 14:00 The Archers (b00rd8tj)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Tuesday]


WED 14:15 Drama (b00rfhjj)
The Sensitive

A Nobody

Alastair Jessiman's Glasgow psychic detective returns for a new and disturbing case.

Thomas suffers a crisis of confidence when he is asked to investigate a potential serial killer. An old girlfriend, Kat, persuades him to take a break, but when they drive north for a few days, Thomas soon becomes convinced that they are being followed.

Directed by Bruce Young.


WED 15:00 Money Box Live (b00rfhjl)
Paul Lewis and a panel of guests answer calls on financial issues.

Guests:

Katie Tucker, chief operating officer from whole of market broker Private Finance
Melanie Bien, director (head of media relations), Savills Private Finance
Paula John, editor in chief, Your Mortgage.


WED 15:30 Afternoon Reading (b00bvq5d)
Spy Stories

Parker Adderson, Philosopher

Classic tales of deception and betrayal.

Ambrose Bierce's story describes a surprising encounter between a Confederate general and an oddly carefree spy during the American Civil War.

Read by Stacey Keach.

A Jarvis and Ayres production for BBC Radio 4.


WED 15:45 On the Map (b00rghjp)
Motoring Maps

Self-confessed map addict Mike Parker explores modern cartography.

The ultimate in cheap and ubiquitous mapping, there's scarcely a vehicle in the land that doesn't contain a dog-eared road atlas. Road maps and their digital descendent, the sat nav, may guide us efficiently around our nation's highways but they don't tell us much else about the landscape we're speeding through. Mike recalls a bygone age of elegant motoring maps and considers how modern road mapping and its unrelenting emphasis on our motorways and trunk roads has changed our picture of Britain.


WED 16:00 Thinking Allowed (b00rfhjn)
In April the world's publishing industry descends on Earls Court for the London Book Fair. It is principally a showcase of British books and an opportunity to sell their foreign rights but there is so much more going on. Laurie Taylor talks to the social scientist Brian Moeran and the publishing industry insider Damian Horner about parties, restaurants, one-upmanship and the importance of long-term friendships in an industry which relies on something as intangible as the quality of a book.

He also talks to David Cox about the forerunners to the Metropolitan Police, the Bow Street Runners. Were they anything more than corrupt thief-takers and a private security firm for the upper classes? Laurie hears new evidence which casts them as world class innovators in the 18th and 19th centuries.


WED 16:30 Am I Normal? (b00rdzvh)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Tuesday]


WED 17:00 PM (b00rd90n)
Full coverage and analysis of the day's news with Eddie Mair. Plus Weather.


WED 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b00rd92j)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


WED 18:30 Party (b00rfhjq)
Series 1

Episode 3

Satirical sitcom by Tom Basden about a group of young idealists trying to set up a new political party.

The Party clarifies its policies on climate change, while Duncan deals with the aftermath of under-cooked chicken sausages from a BBQ. Before long, murder is committed and the young idealists are placed in a compromising position.

Simon ...... Tom Basden
Mel ...... Anna Crilly
Duncan ...... Tim Key
Jared ...... Johnny Sweet
Phoebe ...... Katy Wix.


WED 19:00 The Archers (b00rd8tl)
Usha embraces the Great Outdoors.


WED 19:15 Front Row (b00rd940)
Mark Lawson talks to Peter Greenaway, whose new film Night Watching is inspired by Rembrandt's famous painting The Night Watch and stars Martin Freeman as the Dutch artist.

As a campaign is launched to give Ultravox's Vienna the No.1 spot in the charts it failed to get in 1981, David Quantick rails against the current trend for pop campaigning.

The writers Julian Barnes and David Edgar discuss the transformation by Edgar of Barnes's novel Arthur and George into a stage play.


WED 19:45 15 Minute Drama (b00rkdgk)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:45 today]


WED 20:00 Moral Maze (b00rfhjs)
Michael Buerk chairs a debate on the moral questions behind the week's news. Claire Fox, Michael Portillo, Clifford Longley and Kenan Malik cross-examine witnesses.


WED 20:45 Lent Talks (b00rfhjv)
Rev Prof Alister McGrath

Series of six talks by eminent thinkers exploring how faith and religion interact with a variety of aspects in society.

Rev Prof Alister McGrath reflects on the continuously developing relationship between the natural sciences, faith and religion.


WED 21:00 God On My Mind (b00rfhpr)
Evolution

Matthew Taylor discovers what the latest scientific research can tell us about the human need for religion.

We are programmed by our genes to believe in supernatural powers and to obey moral codes. Is this because it gave our ancestors an evolutionary advantage? Iranians, Scandinavians, Papuans, chimpanzees, twins and wedding rings offer some startling answers.


WED 21:30 Midweek (b00rf127)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]


WED 21:58 Weather (b00rdt8g)
The latest weather forecast.


WED 22:00 The World Tonight (b00rdtb4)
National and international news and analysis with Ritula Shah.

Labour's last Budget of the Parliament: has Alistair Darling raised the prospects for the economy and his party's electoral chances?

We hear from voters in Harrow and Dudley, look at what was in the Budget speech and what was left out, and assess what David Cameron and Nick Clegg had to say.

Plus, European leaders prepare to deliver a bail-out plan for Greece.


WED 22:40 Budget Statement by the Chancellor (b00rs77k)
The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, explains his Budget.


WED 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b00rm54w)
Solar

Episode 8

Hugh Bonneville reads from Ian McEwan's new novel.

Four more years have passed, and Professor Beard is travelling to New Mexico for the launch of his new solar energy plant. But his plans - and his personal life - begin to unravel.

Abridged by Barry Johnston.

A Heavy Entertainment production for BBC Radio 4.


WED 23:00 Earls of the Court (b00rfhpt)
The Ides of March

The night of Lloydie's much-publicised toga party is fast approaching. But can Johnno raise his game in time, and play the crucial role in the Ides of March sketch?

Comedy drama series by Will Adamsdale and Stewart Wright about two Australians down on their luck in London.

Lloydie ...... Stewart Wright
Johnno ...... Will Adamsdale
Woman 1 ...... Alison Pettitt
Woman 2 ...... Keely Beresford

Director: Sasha Yevtushenko

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in March 2010.


WED 23:15 Nick Mohammed in Quarters (b00h8qk5)
Episode 3

Energetic sketch comedy from Nick Mohammed. With Anna Crilly and Colin Hoult.


WED 23:30 Today in Parliament (b00rdvf8)
News, views and features on today's stories in Parliament with Sean Curran.



THURSDAY 25 MARCH 2010

THU 00:00 Midnight News (b00rd76q)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.


THU 00:30 Book of the Week (b00rmpwg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:45 on Wednesday]


THU 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b00rd788)
The latest shipping forecast.


THU 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b00rd7fh)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


THU 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b00rd7gl)
The latest shipping forecast.


THU 05:30 News Briefing (b00rd7l6)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


THU 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b00rd7mr)
Daily prayer and reflection with Judy Merry.


THU 05:45 Farming Today (b00rd7rk)
Charlotte Smith hears why it's been a bad Budget for rural cider makers. After a winter that's been tough for Scottish farmers and their sheep, Moira Hickey sees this years new lambs being born.

Will the Farming Today bees have survived the winter cold?


THU 06:00 Today (b00rd7x4)
With James Naughtie and Evan Davis. Including Sports Desk; Weather; Thought for the Day; Yesterday in Parliament.


THU 09:00 In Our Time (b00rfhx2)
The City - a history, part 1

Melvyn Bragg presents the first of a two-part discussion about the history of the city. With Peter Hall, Julia Merritt and Greg Woolf.The story of cities is widely held to begin in the 8th millennium BC in Mesopotamia. By 4000 BC, there were cities in the Indus Valley, by 3000 BC in Egypt, and by 2000 BC in China. What happened in the west was the furthest ripple of that phenomenon. In 1000 BC Athens still only had a population of one thousand. At its height, Athens' position as a powerful Mediterranean trading city allowed it to become the birthplace of much that would later characterise western cities, from politics through architecture to culture. Then, early in the first millenium AD, the world saw its first million-strong city: Rome. Maintaining a population of this size required stupendous feats of organisation and ingenuity. But in following centuries, as Rome declined and fell, the city itself, in the west at least, declined too; power emanated from kings and their mobile courts, rather than particular settlements.In China, urban trading posts continued to flourish, but their innovative energy dwindled before the end of the first millennium. Between 1150 and the onset of the Black Death in 1350, the city underwent a resurgence in Europe. City-states developed in Italy and in Germany. At this stage, there was no omnipotent power-centre to match Ancient Rome. But with the growth of sea and then ocean trade, and the centralisation of power in capitals ruling nation-states, cities like London, Paris, Madrid, Amsterdam and St Petersburg became increasingly wealthy, dynamic and ostentatious. By 1801, one of these - London - finally matched Ancient Rome's peak population of a million. Along the way, the city had become an ideal to be revered and a spectre to be feared.Peter Hall is Professor of Planning and Regeneration at The Bartlett School of Planning, University College London; Julia Merritt is Associate Professor of History at the University of Nottingham; Greg Woolfis Professor of Ancient History at the University of St Andrews.


THU 09:45 Book of the Week (b00rmpwj)
FS Saunders - The Woman Who Shot Mussolini

Episode 4

Sinead Cusack reads from Frances Stonor Saunders' account of the troubled life of Violet Gibson, the daugher of an Anglo-Irish lord who attempted to assassinate Mussolini in Rome in 1926.

As she was led off by the police in the moments after she had shot Benito Mussolini, Violet seemed confused and surprised to hear what she had done. But her subsequent behaviour showed flashes of remarkable lucidity. Was it an act of sanity to attempt to kill a man whom the world later regarded as deluded?

Abridged by Jill Waters

A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4.


THU 10:00 Woman's Hour (b00rghvf)
Law changes for prostitution and lap-dancing

Jenni Murray looks how changes in the law will affect prostitution and the licensing of lap dancing clubs. Plus actress Naomie Harris on her new TV drama Blood and Oil.


THU 10:45 15 Minute Drama (b00rkdgm)
Susan Hill - The Beacon

Truth and Lies

Dramatisation by Anita Sullivan of the novel by Susan Hill.

Alone at the farm, May remembers how they learned of Frank's book. Back in London, Frank is haunted by memories and afraid to be alone.

May Prime ...... Manon Edwards
Frank Prime ...... Steffan Rhodri
Colin Prime ...... Iestyn Jones
Elsa ...... Eiry Thomas
Berenice Prime ...... Siriol Jenkins
Radio Interviewer ...... Mark Lawson
Doctor Ford ...... Richard Mitchley
TV Interviewer ...... Sian Williams
TV Interviewer ...... Kirsty Wark
Taxi Driver ...... Dick Bradnum

Produced and Directed by Kate McAll.


THU 11:00 Crossing Continents (b00rjz1p)
The Children of Dushanbe

Angus Crawford reports on efforts to rescue vulnerable girls in Tajikistan who were locked up rather than helped. He hears how girls who had been raped were detained for being 'degenerate'. He also sees how a British NGO is working with the Tajik authorities to help these teenagers find freedom and safety.


THU 11:30 Capturing America: Mark Lawson's History of Modern American Literature (b00rfhzx)
The Celebrity Tour

Mark Lawson tells the story of how American writing became the literary superpower of the 20th century, telling the nation's stories of money, power, sex, religion and war.

Among the millions of words written by modern American authors, one of the most important is 'I'. The autobiographical, first-person story - featuring authors in light disguise or even under their own names - has become an increasingly significant literary genre.

Philip Roth and John Updike wrote long sequences of stories about fictional famous American authors - Nathan Zuckerman and Henry Bech - who can be read as versions of their own histories. Later, Roth went further, with several books including characters with his own name, just as Norman Mailer would refer to himself in non-fiction books as 'Mailer'. This is one of the devices of the 'New Journalism', developed by Tom Wolfe and Hunter S Thompson, which put the reporter at the heart of the story.

Conversely, some authors, including JD Salinger and Thomas Pynchon, were so appalled by the prospect of the publicity circuit that they preferred to vanish completely.

Beginning on 'The Philip Roth Tour' of Newark, New Jersey, in which Liz Del Tufo takes tourists to sites featured in the author's work, Mark Lawson reflects on the way in which a celebrity culture has made writers play with their public personalities, talking to Philip Roth, Tom Wolfe, Bret Easton Ellis, Jay McInerney, Dave Eggers and Professor Diane Roberts.


THU 12:00 Budget Call (b00rd8km)
Money Box and You and Yours join forces to analyse the Budget and take phone calls on the financial questions you want answers to. The Budget comes as the government is under pressure to start cutting the UK's deficit more quickly, which is set to hit 178 billion pounds this year. With a General Election to be held later this spring, the financial policies of all the political parties will be coming under scrutiny by voters. Join Winifred Robinson, Vincent Duggleby, Paul Lewis and a panel of experts for Budget Call.

You can call the programme when lines open on Thursday at 10:30 GMT. The number is 03700 100 444. Standard geographic charges apply. Calls from mobiles may be higher.


THU 12:57 Weather (b00rd8mr)
The latest weather forecast.


THU 13:00 World at One (b00rd8r8)
National and international news with Martha Kearney.


THU 13:30 Costing the Earth (b00rdxm5)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Monday]


THU 14:00 The Archers (b00rd8tl)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Wednesday]


THU 14:15 Drama (b00rfhzz)
Annamaria Murphy - Scummow: Things Washed Up By the Sea

When a delirious Irishman arrives in a Cornish harbour, baker Mary Kneebone takes him in, and soon the sick and gullible are queuing at her door. A wry comedy about faith, love and redemption from outstanding Cornish playwright Annamaria Murphy.

Mary Kneebone ..... Mary Woodvine
Edna Lugg ..... Barbara Jefford
Declan Credan ..... Stephen Hogan
Virgin Mary ..... Alison Pettit
Eamon Credan ..... John O'Mahony
Davey Ellis ..... Charles Barnecut

Director ..... Claire Grove.


THU 15:00 Open Country (b00rd3vy)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:07 on Saturday]


THU 15:27 Radio 4 Appeal (b00rd4dd)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:55 on Sunday]


THU 15:30 Afternoon Reading (b00bvq6c)
Spy Stories

The Child Spy

Classic tales of deception and betrayal.

Alphonse Daudet's story, set at the time of the Siege of Paris in 1870, tells of the consequences of a young boy's innocent recruitment into espionage.

Read by Martin Jarvis.

A Jarvis and Ayres production for BBC Radio 4.


THU 15:45 On the Map (b00rghjr)
Social Mapping

Self-confessed map addict Mike Parker explores modern cartography.

There's no more effective way of representing our lives than a map: social and political conditions, health trends and the movements of goods and ideas have far greater impact when they're plotted in multicoloured cartography. Mike asks how society is now being analysed online in cartographic mash-ups and crowd-sourced data. He also discovers how mapping the human condition, its needs and habits, its highs and its lows, goes back to way before the digital age.

From 2010.


THU 16:00 Open Book (b00rd4p3)
[Repeat of broadcast at 16:00 on Sunday]


THU 16:30 Material World (b00rfj18)
A new species of ancient human, discovered from the DNA in a tiny finger bone - the experts explain the implications.

Shipping: the hidden polluter. It's been estimated shipping kills 60,000 annually through its polluting exhaust fumes. As the Marine Environment Protection Committee meets in London to discuss solutions, Quentin Cooper hears what can be done.

A new Society of Biology is being launched in London. Will it give the life sciences a better voice?


THU 17:00 PM (b00rd90q)
Full coverage and analysis of the day's news with Eddie Mair. Plus Weather.


THU 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b00rd92l)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


THU 18:30 Another Case of Milton Jones (b00rfj1b)
Series 4

World-Famous Cyclist

In this episode, Milton's a world-beating cyclist who gets tangled up in a close-fitting body suit and the population of Holland... So if you want motivation, speed, adrenalin and a low-energy light bulb that takes forty minutes to come on, then put on your yellow jersey and catch up with "Another Case Of Milton Jones"

He's joined in his endeavours by his co-stars Tom Goodman-Hill ("Camelot"), Ben Willbond ("Horrible Histories") and Lucy Montgomery ("Down The Line").

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

Each week, Milton is a complete and utter expert at something - Top Gun aviator, Weatherman, Billy Elliot-style dancer, World-beating cyclist, mathematical genius and Extreme Travel Entrepreneur ...

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

"Milton Jones is one of Britain's best gagsmiths with a flair for creating daft yet perfect one-liners" - The Guardian
"King of the surreal one-liners" - The Times
"If you haven't caught up with Jones yet - do so!" - The Daily Mail

Written by Milton with James Cary ("Think The Unthinkable", "Miranda")

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


THU 19:00 The Archers (b00rd8tn)
Kate shows she's still a daddy's girl.


THU 19:15 Front Row (b00rd942)
David Byrne is about to release Here Lies Love, a concept album about Imelda Marcos, a song cycle which he co-wrote with Fatboy Slim. He tells Kirsty Lang about the inspiration for the project and some of the unlikely facts he learned about Imelda.

Award-winning crime writer Dreda Say Mitchell reviews Perrier's Bounty, a comedy crime thriller set in Dublin, starring Cillian Murphy, Jim Broadbent and Brendan Gleeson.

The Million's Poet is a televised poetry competition which airs live weekly across the Arab world, broadcast from Abu Dhabi. It takes the form of an X Factor-style talent competition, and one of its most hotly-tipped contestants is a Saudi woman who has caused controversy by attacking hard-line Muslim clerics in her poetry. Journalist Ibrahim Khayat talks to Kirsty, from Dubai, about the hype and controversy surrounding the programme and its star.

Britain's leading cultural and heritage organisations have combined forces to produce a document, Cultural Capital: A Manifesto For The Future. Sir Nick Hytner, artistic director of The National Theatre, explains to Kirsty Lang how investing in culture and heritage can help Britain's social and economic recovery from recession.

Writer and academic Kathryn Hughes reviews a new interactive exhibition at Kensington Palace in which the royal residence is brought to life by a series of avant-garde installations, theatrical performances and specially-commissioned dresses by designers including Vivienne Westwood.


THU 19:45 15 Minute Drama (b00rkdgm)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:45 today]


THU 20:00 The Report (b00rfj43)
Failing Hospitals

A year ago Simon Cox reported from Mid Staffordshire Hospital where hundreds of patients died as the result of poor-quality care. The government said this was a one-off but the list of hospitals with similar failings continues to grow. Simon investigates the latest hospital with unusually high death rates and accused of poor quality of care. After tens of billions of pounds extra investment, he asks why the NHS continues to have problems with patient safety.


THU 20:30 The Bottom Line (b00rfj45)
Evan Davis is joined by a panel of top executives from Nintendo, MTV and Thomson Reuters to find out what challenges they face in the digital age. They also discuss how they manage their star performers.

Evan is joined by chief executive of Thomson ReutersTom Glocer, general manager of Nintendo UK David Yarnton, and David Lynn, managing director of MTV Networks, UK and Ireland.


THU 21:00 Waking Up in the Dock (b00rfj47)
Strangulation, smothering and sex attacks - all committed by people who claim to have been asleep at the time. Edi Stark investigates whether the law and science are at odds in the 'sleepwalking defence'.


THU 21:30 In Our Time (b00rfhx2)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]


THU 21:58 Weather (b00rdt8j)
The latest weather forecast.


THU 22:00 The World Tonight (b00rdtb6)
National and international news and analysis with Robin Lustig.

Questions are raised about the Pope's involvement in the cover-up of child abuse cases in the Catholic Church.

EU leaders meet - will they agree how to help Greece overcome its economic problems?

A report on a nomadic school in Kenya.


THU 22:40 Budget Response by the Conservative Party (b00rs7bd)
The Shadow Chancellor, George Osborne, responds to the Budget.


THU 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b00rm54y)
Solar

Episode 9

Hugh Bonneville reads from Ian McEwan's new novel.

Professor Michael Beard is driving with his business partner, Toby Hammer, to Lordsburg in New Mexico for the official opening of their new solar energy plant. But events are about to conspire against them.

Abridged by Barry Johnston.

A Heavy Entertainment production for BBC Radio 4.


THU 23:00 Scrooby Trevithick (b00rfj49)
Writer

Comedy series written by and starring Andy Parsons, following the exploits of hapless Scrooby, a well-meaning but flawed young man who is desperately trying to better himself through his own website where he's left his web-diaries.

Scrooby tries to become a writer, having had what he regards as a cracking idea for a best-seller entitled A Short History of Combine Harvesters in Cornish.

With Kerry Godliman, Dara O Briain, Russell Howard, Hugh Dennis, Russell Kane, Rufus Hound, Alun Cochrane, Dominic Frisby, Paul Thorne, Martin Coyote and Barunka O'Shaughnessy.

An Open Mike production for BBC Radio 4.


THU 23:30 Today in Parliament (b00rdvfc)
News, views and features on today's stories in Parliament with Robert Orchard.



FRIDAY 26 MARCH 2010

FRI 00:00 Midnight News (b00rd76s)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.


FRI 00:30 Book of the Week (b00rmpwj)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:45 on Thursday]


FRI 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b00rd78b)
The latest shipping forecast.


FRI 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b00rd7fk)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


FRI 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b00rd7gn)
The latest shipping forecast.


FRI 05:30 News Briefing (b00rd7l8)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


FRI 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b00rd7mt)
Daily prayer and reflection with Judy Merry.


FRI 05:45 Farming Today (b00rd7rm)
A quarter of a million new trees are currently being planted in south east England. Charlotte Smith visits the forest to hear how the timber industry can be sustainable.

There are calls for salmon farms to be be banned from some areas of the Scottish coast to protect wild stocks from disease.


FRI 06:00 Today (b00rd7x6)
With James Naughtie and Justin Webb. Including Sports Desk; Weather; Thought for the Day; Yesterday in Parliament.


FRI 09:00 Desert Island Discs (b00rd4ds)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:15 on Sunday]


FRI 09:45 Book of the Week (b00rmpwl)
FS Saunders - The Woman Who Shot Mussolini

Episode 5

Sinead Cusack reads from Frances Stonor Saunders's account of troubled life of Violet Gibson, the daugther of an Anglo-Irish lord who attempted to assassinate Mussolini in Rome in 1926.

Violet was eventually released by the Italian government. But how would her family determine her fate and future?

Abridged by Jill Waters

A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4.


FRI 10:00 Woman's Hour (b00rghvh)
Affairs: acceptable or reprehensible?

Can an affair save a marriage? Plus, why women are turning their back on the City; and the woman who founded Manchester City Football Club.


FRI 10:45 15 Minute Drama (b00rkdgq)
Susan Hill - The Beacon

Inheritance

Dramatisation by Anita Sullivan of the novel by Susan Hill.

Frank turns up unexpectedly at the farm and the will is read.

May Prime ...... Manon Edwards
Frank Prime ...... Steffan Rhodri
Colin Prime ...... Iestyn Jones
Elsa ...... Eiry Thomas
Berenice Prime ...... Siriol Jenkins
Radio Interviewer ...... Mark Lawson
Doctor Ford ...... Richard Mitchley
TV Interviewer ...... Sian Williams
TV Interviewer ...... Kirsty Wark
Taxi Driver ...... Dick Bradnum

Produced and Directed by Kate McAll.


FRI 11:00 Haiti: Phoning Home (b00rfj9s)
In a special report from Haiti, Nick Davis follows a French charity that is giving free phone calls to victims of the earthquake and providing crucial communications for the relief agencies that have come to help them.

When disaster strikes the first instinct is to check on loved ones - but how, when there are no telephones? And how to co-ordinate relief efforts? Re-establishing phone links is vital and that's why Telecoms Sans Frontieres (Telecoms Without Borders), who perform that role, are among the first into any disaster zone. Haiti, in the aftermath of its devastating earthquake, is their current challenge. Nick Davis has been watching as loved ones are connected and rescue services given the technical help they need to work effectively.


FRI 11:30 Jeeves - Live! (b008kdv4)
Series 1

Bertie Changes His Mind

Martin Jarvis plays Bertie Wooster, Jeeves and an array of other PG Wodehouse characters.

Jeeves describes his concern that Mr Wooster is considering adopting a daughter. Perhaps a timely visit to a school for young ladies may change his master's mind?

A Jarvis and Ayres production for BBC Radio 4.


FRI 12:00 You and Yours (b00rd8kp)
Winifred Robinson dons her hard hat to visit the new Museum of Liverpool. The European Commission take action after people were hit by huge bills trying to use the internet abroad.


FRI 12:57 Weather (b00rd8mt)
The latest weather forecast.


FRI 13:00 World at One (b00rd8rb)
National and international news with Shaun Ley.


FRI 13:30 Feedback (b00rfj9v)
Roger Bolton airs listeners' views on BBC radio programmes and policy.


FRI 14:00 The Archers (b00rd8tn)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Thursday]


FRI 14:15 Drama (b00rfl5p)
No Place Like Home

By Robert Rigby and Nick Russell-Pavier. Householder Jonathan confronts a burglar with his legally-owned shotgun.

The Intruder ...... Alex Jennings
Jonathan ...... Toby Stephens
Police Officer/Matt Hughes/Colin ......Ben Crowe
Tom Robbins/Commander ...... Jonathan Oliver
Janet Robbins/WPC ...... Victoria Carling
Julie/Sophie ...... Zoe King

Produced by Nick Russell-Pavier

A Goldhawk Essential production for BBC Radio 4.


FRI 15:00 Gardeners' Question Time (b00rfl5r)
Peter Gibbs chairs a correspondence edition of the popular horticultural forum. Pippa Greenwood, Matt Biggs and Bob Flowerdew answer questions sent in by listeners.


FRI 15:45 On the Map (b00rghjt)
The Lie of the Land

Self-confessed map addict Mike Parker explores modern cartography.

There are lies, damned lies, statistics - and then there are maps. Borders can be moved and countries expanded, shrunk or even left off the map altogether. We'd like to believe that maps are a purely factual representation of the world with no bias or agenda, but in fact every cartographer decides what to include on their map and what to exclude. Mike Parker discovers how maps can be used as tools of power, politics and propaganda.

From 2010.


FRI 16:00 Last Word (b00rfl5t)
Matthew Bannister presents the obituary series, analysing and celebrating the life stories of people who have recently died.


FRI 16:30 The Film Programme (b00rfl5w)
Lewis Gilbert looks back over six decades in the film business, from directing classics such as Reach For The Sky and Alfie to three of the biggest Bond films ever: You Only Live Twice, The Spy Who Loved Me and Moonraker.

Director Roger Michell dissects Dalton Trumbo's Johnny Got His Gun, an anti-war film from 1971.

Writer Tom McCarthy discusses Alfred Hitchcock's preoccupation with doubles, particularly the director's own portly image often seen as cameos in his movies.


FRI 17:00 PM (b00rd90s)
Full coverage and analysis of the day's news with Eddie Mair. Plus Weather.


FRI 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b00rd92n)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


FRI 18:30 The Now Show (b00rfl5z)
Series 30

Episode 4

Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis present a satirical review of the week's news, with help from Jon Holmes, Laura Shavin, Mitch Benn and a special guest.


FRI 19:00 The Archers (b00rd8tq)
Tony is given cause for optimism.


FRI 19:15 Front Row (b00rd944)
In his new book Contested Will: Who Wrote Shakespeare? James Shapiro looks at the various conspiracy theories surrounding the identity of the playwright, from Francis Bacon to the Earl of Oxford to Christopher Marlow.

Increasingly, music is being used as an integral part of helping people with physical and mental challenges, from visual impairment to learning difficulties. Mark Lawson visits the Royal Hospital for Neuro-disability in London to see how adults with profound and complex disabilities caused by disease or damage to the brain are encouraged to engage with music as part of the recuperative process.

Earlier today ITV announced that they were axing long-running police drama The Bill. Peter Fincham, director of television for ITV, explains the reasons for this and what plans he has for ITV's creative future.


FRI 19:45 15 Minute Drama (b00rkdgq)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:45 today]


FRI 20:00 Any Questions? (b00rfl61)
Jonathan Dimbleby chairs the topical debate from the British Medical Association in London. The panellists are foreign secretary David Miliband, shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley, the Liberal Democrats' Treasury spokesman Vince Cable, and writer and broadcaster Germaine Greer.


FRI 20:50 A Point of View (b00rfl63)
At the heart of the matter

Simon Schama reflects on the politics surrounding President Obama's healthcare reforms, which he sees as a turning point of historic significance.


FRI 21:00 A History of the World in 100 Objects (b00rfl65)
The Beginnings of Science and Literature

Another chance to hear the Director of the British Museum, Neil MacGregor, retell the history of human development using 100 selected objects from the Museum. He begins with a small tablet found in modern Iraq and brought back to the British Museum. When it was translated, back in 1872, it turned out to be an account of a great flood that significantly pre-dated the famous Biblical tale of Noah. This discovery caused a storm around the world and led to a passionate debate about the truth of the Bible - about story telling and the universality of legend.

Neil then moves on to describe the British Museum's most famous mathematical papyrus. This shows how and why the ancient Egyptians were dealing with numbers around 1550 BC. This papyrus contains 84 different calculations to help with various aspects of Egyptian life, from pyramid building to working out how much grain it takes to fatten a goose. He describes it as "a crammer for a dazzling career in an ancient civil service".

The omnibus porgramme then arrives in Crete around 1700BC and tells the story both of man's fascination with bulls and the emergence of one of most cosmopolitan and prosperous civilisations in the history of the Eastern Mediterranean - the Minoans. The Minoans of Crete were more powerful than the mainland and enjoyed a complex and still largely unknown culture. They enjoyed a ritual connection with bulls as well as with a rich bronze making tradition. To consider the Minoans and the role of the bull in myth and legend, Neil introduces us to a small bronze sculpture of a man leaping over a bull, one of the highlights of the British Museum's Minoan collection. He explores the vast network of trade routes in the Mediterranean of the time, encounters an ancient shipwreck and tracks down a modern day bull leaper to try and figure out the attraction!

In 1833 a group of workmen were looking for stones in a field near the village of Mold in North Wales when they unearthed a burial site with a skeleton covered by a crushed sheet of pure gold. For his fourth item in this programme, Neil tells the story of what has become known at the British Museum as the Mold Gold Cape and tries to envisage the society that made it. He has already described the contemporary courts of the pharaohs of Egypt and the palaces of the Minoans in Crete. Nothing like that seems to have existed in Britain of that time but he imagines a people with surprisingly sophisticated skills and social structures.

Finally, Neil stands under the British Museum's giant statue of the King Ramesses II, an inspiration to Shelly and a remarkable ruler who build monuments all over Egypt. He inspired a line of future pharaohs and was worshipped as a god a thousand years later. He lived to be over 90 and fathered some 100 children! Neil considers the achievements of Ramesses II in fixing the image of imperial Egypt for the rest of the world. And the sculptor Antony Gormley, the man responsible for a contemporary giant statue, The Angel of the North, assesses the towering figure of Ramesses as an enduring work of art

Producers: Rebecca Stratford, Anthony Denselow and Paul Kobrak


FRI 21:58 Weather (b00rdt8l)
The latest weather forecast.


FRI 22:00 The World Tonight (b00rdtb8)
The US and Russia agree a treaty to reduce their nuclear arsenals
No agreement in sight as the second BA strike starts at midnight
Iraqi election - first results indicate victory for the former prime minister Ayad Allawi
And Egyptian men abandon their suits for the traditional galabaya

The World Tonight with Robin Lustig.


FRI 22:40 Budget Response by the Liberal Democrats (b00rs7gz)
The Liberal Democrats' treasury spokesman, Vince Cable, responds to the Budget.


FRI 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b00rm550)
Solar

Episode 10

Hugh Bonneville reads from Ian McEwan's new novel.

Michael Beard is being pursued by a lawyer from Albuquerque and, to make matters worse, his American girlfriend, Darlene, has just told his English girlfriend, Melissa, that they are getting married.

Abridged by Barry Johnston.

A Heavy Entertainment production for BBC Radio 4.


FRI 23:00 A Good Read (b00rdzv6)
[Repeat of broadcast at 16:30 on Tuesday]


FRI 23:30 Today in Parliament (b00rdvff)
News, views and features on today's stories in Parliament with Mark D'Arcy.




LIST OF THIS WEEK'S PROGRAMMES
(Note: the times link back to the details; the pids link to the BBC page, including iPlayer)

15 Minute Drama 10:45 MON (b00rd9cq)

15 Minute Drama 19:45 MON (b00rd9cq)

15 Minute Drama 10:45 TUE (b00rkdgt)

15 Minute Drama 19:45 TUE (b00rd9cq)

15 Minute Drama 10:45 WED (b00rkdgk)

15 Minute Drama 19:45 WED (b00rkdgk)

15 Minute Drama 10:45 THU (b00rkdgm)

15 Minute Drama 19:45 THU (b00rkdgm)

15 Minute Drama 10:45 FRI (b00rkdgq)

15 Minute Drama 19:45 FRI (b00rkdgq)

A Good Read 16:30 TUE (b00rdzv6)

A Good Read 23:00 FRI (b00rdzv6)

A History of the World in 100 Objects 21:00 FRI (b00rfl65)

A Point of View 08:50 SUN (b00rbs1f)

A Point of View 20:50 FRI (b00rfl63)

Afternoon Reading 19:45 SUN (b008khxt)

Afternoon Reading 15:30 TUE (b00bvq5k)

Afternoon Reading 15:30 WED (b00bvq5d)

Afternoon Reading 15:30 THU (b00bvq6c)

Ali: Me, My Family and Muhammad Ali 10:30 SAT (b00rd3wb)

Am I Normal? 21:00 TUE (b00rdzvh)

Am I Normal? 16:30 WED (b00rdzvh)

Americana 19:15 SUN (b00rd4q6)

Analysis 21:30 SUN (b00rb1xt)

Analysis 20:30 MON (b00rdxm3)

Another Case of Milton Jones 18:30 THU (b00rfj1b)

Any Answers? 14:00 SAT (b00rd3wq)

Any Questions? 13:10 SAT (b00rbs1c)

Any Questions? 20:00 FRI (b00rfl61)

Archive on 4 20:00 SAT (b00rd3xc)

Archive on 4 15:00 MON (b00rd3xc)

Banishing Eve 13:30 SUN (b00rd4f1)

Bells on Sunday 05:43 SUN (b00rd439)

Bells on Sunday 00:45 MON (b00rd439)

Between Ourselves 09:00 TUE (b00rdyg6)

Between Ourselves 21:30 TUE (b00rdyg6)

Beyond Belief 16:30 MON (b00rdxlx)

Book at Bedtime 22:45 MON (b00rm54r)

Book at Bedtime 22:45 TUE (b00rm54t)

Book at Bedtime 22:45 WED (b00rm54w)

Book at Bedtime 22:45 THU (b00rm54y)

Book at Bedtime 22:45 FRI (b00rm550)

Book of the Week 00:30 SAT (b00r93vz)

Book of the Week 09:45 MON (b00rd84t)

Book of the Week 00:30 TUE (b00rd84t)

Book of the Week 09:45 TUE (b00rmpwd)

Book of the Week 00:30 WED (b00rmpwd)

Book of the Week 09:45 WED (b00rmpwg)

Book of the Week 00:30 THU (b00rmpwg)

Book of the Week 09:45 THU (b00rmpwj)

Book of the Week 00:30 FRI (b00rmpwj)

Book of the Week 09:45 FRI (b00rmpwl)

Broadcasting House 09:00 SUN (b00rd4dn)

Budget Call 12:00 THU (b00rd8km)

Budget Response by the Conservative Party 22:40 THU (b00rs7bd)

Budget Response by the Liberal Democrats 22:40 FRI (b00rs7gz)

Budget Special 12:00 WED (b00rqpp6)

Budget Statement by the Chancellor 22:40 WED (b00rs77k)

Cadbury is Our Longbridge 11:00 WED (b00rf169)

Captured by Pirates 11:00 MON (b00rdwm5)

Capturing America: Mark Lawson's History of Modern American Literature 11:30 THU (b00rfhzx)

Classic Serial 21:00 SAT (b00r907w)

Classic Serial 15:00 SUN (b00rd4p1)

Costing the Earth 21:00 MON (b00rdxm5)

Costing the Earth 13:30 THU (b00rdxm5)

Counterpoint 13:30 MON (b00rdwrf)

Crossing Continents 11:00 THU (b00rjz1p)

Desert Island Discs 11:15 SUN (b00rd4ds)

Desert Island Discs 09:00 FRI (b00rd4ds)

Document 20:00 MON (b00rdxm1)

Drama 14:15 MON (b00rdwrh)

Drama 14:15 TUE (b00rdz0s)

Drama 14:15 WED (b00rfhjj)

Drama 14:15 THU (b00rfhzz)

Drama 14:15 FRI (b00rfl5p)

Earls of the Court 23:00 WED (b00rfhpt)

Excess Baggage 10:00 SAT (b00rd3w8)

Farming Today 06:30 SAT (b00rd3w0)

Farming Today 05:45 MON (b00rd7wy)

Farming Today 05:45 TUE (b00rd7rf)

Farming Today 05:45 WED (b00rd7rh)

Farming Today 05:45 THU (b00rd7rk)

Farming Today 05:45 FRI (b00rd7rm)

Feedback 20:00 SUN (b00rbq34)

Feedback 13:30 FRI (b00rfj9v)

File on 4 17:00 SUN (b00rbkyf)

File on 4 20:00 TUE (b00rdzvb)

From Our Own Correspondent 11:30 SAT (b00rd3wg)

Front Row 19:15 MON (b00rd95m)

Front Row 19:15 TUE (b00rd93y)

Front Row 19:15 WED (b00rd940)

Front Row 19:15 THU (b00rd942)

Front Row 19:15 FRI (b00rd944)

Gardeners' Question Time 14:00 SUN (b00rbs13)

Gardeners' Question Time 15:00 FRI (b00rfl5r)

God On My Mind 21:00 WED (b00rfhpr)

Haiti: Phoning Home 11:00 FRI (b00rfj9s)

Home Planet 15:00 TUE (b00rdz1r)

House on Fire 11:30 WED (b00pl1h7)

I've Never Seen Star Wars 18:30 TUE (b00rdzv8)

In Our Time 09:00 THU (b00rfhx2)

In Our Time 21:30 THU (b00rfhx2)

In Touch 20:40 TUE (b00rdzvd)

Jeeves - Live! 11:30 FRI (b008kdv4)

Just a Minute 12:00 SUN (b00rb1xp)

Just a Minute 18:30 MON (b00rdxlz)

Last Word 20:30 SUN (b00rbs15)

Last Word 16:00 FRI (b00rfl5t)

Lent Talks 00:30 SUN (b00rbly1)

Lent Talks 20:45 WED (b00rfhjv)

Loose Ends 18:15 SAT (b00rd3x5)

Material World 16:30 THU (b00rfj18)

Midnight News 00:00 SAT (b00rbsb0)

Midnight News 00:00 SUN (b00rd42z)

Midnight News 00:00 MON (b00rd782)

Midnight News 00:00 TUE (b00rd76l)

Midnight News 00:00 WED (b00rd76n)

Midnight News 00:00 THU (b00rd76q)

Midnight News 00:00 FRI (b00rd76s)

Midweek 09:00 WED (b00rf127)

Midweek 21:30 WED (b00rf127)

Money Box Live 15:00 WED (b00rfhjl)

Money Box 12:00 SAT (b00rd3wj)

Money Box 21:00 SUN (b00rd3wj)

Moral Maze 22:15 SAT (b00rblxz)

Moral Maze 20:00 WED (b00rfhjs)

News Briefing 05:30 SAT (b00rbsb8)

News Briefing 05:30 SUN (b00rd437)

News Briefing 05:30 MON (b00rd7mk)

News Briefing 05:30 TUE (b00rd7l2)

News Briefing 05:30 WED (b00rd7l4)

News Briefing 05:30 THU (b00rd7l6)

News Briefing 05:30 FRI (b00rd7l8)

News Headlines 06:00 SUN (b00rd43c)

News and Papers 06:00 SAT (b00rbsng)

News and Papers 07:00 SUN (b00rd4d8)

News and Papers 08:00 SUN (b00rd4dj)

News 13:00 SAT (b00rd3wn)

Nick Mohammed in Quarters 23:15 WED (b00h8qk5)

On Your Farm 06:35 SUN (b00rd4d4)

On the Map 15:45 MON (b00rd8yv)

On the Map 15:45 TUE (b00rghjm)

On the Map 15:45 WED (b00rghjp)

On the Map 15:45 THU (b00rghjr)

On the Map 15:45 FRI (b00rghjt)

Open Book 16:00 SUN (b00rd4p3)

Open Book 16:00 THU (b00rd4p3)

Open Country 06:07 SAT (b00rd3vy)

Open Country 15:00 THU (b00rd3vy)

PM 17:00 SAT (b00rd3wx)

PM 17:00 MON (b00rd92d)

PM 17:00 TUE (b00rd90l)

PM 17:00 WED (b00rd90n)

PM 17:00 THU (b00rd90q)

PM 17:00 FRI (b00rd90s)

Party 18:30 WED (b00rfhjq)

Pick of the Week 18:15 SUN (b00rd4pf)

Poetry Please 23:30 SAT (b00r90cg)

Poetry Please 16:30 SUN (b00rd4p5)

Prayer for the Day 05:43 SAT (b00rbsnb)

Prayer for the Day 05:43 MON (b00rd7rc)

Prayer for the Day 05:43 TUE (b00rd7mm)

Prayer for the Day 05:43 WED (b00rd7mp)

Prayer for the Day 05:43 THU (b00rd7mr)

Prayer for the Day 05:43 FRI (b00rd7mt)

Profile 19:00 SAT (b00rd3x7)

Profile 05:45 SUN (b00rd3x7)

Profile 17:40 SUN (b00rd3x7)

Quote... Unquote 23:00 SAT (b00rb16j)

Radio 4 Appeal 07:55 SUN (b00rd4dd)

Radio 4 Appeal 21:26 SUN (b00rd4dd)

Radio 4 Appeal 15:27 THU (b00rd4dd)

Rory Bremner's International Satirists 23:00 MON (b00rdxm7)

Saturday Drama 14:30 SAT (b00rd3ws)

Saturday Live 09:00 SAT (b00rd3w6)

Saturday Review 19:15 SAT (b00rd3x9)

Scrooby Trevithick 23:00 THU (b00rfj49)

Selection of BBC World Service Programmes 01:00 SAT (b00rbsb4)

Selection of BBC World Service Programmes 01:00 SUN (b00rd433)

Selection of BBC World Service Programmes 01:00 MON (b00rd7gd)

Selection of BBC World Service Programmes 01:00 TUE (b00rd7fc)

Selection of BBC World Service Programmes 01:00 WED (b00rd7ff)

Selection of BBC World Service Programmes 01:00 THU (b00rd7fh)

Selection of BBC World Service Programmes 01:00 FRI (b00rd7fk)

Shipping Forecast 00:48 SAT (b00rbsb2)

Shipping Forecast 05:20 SAT (b00rbsb6)

Shipping Forecast 17:54 SAT (b00rd3wz)

Shipping Forecast 00:48 SUN (b00rd431)

Shipping Forecast 05:20 SUN (b00rd435)

Shipping Forecast 17:54 SUN (b00rd4p7)

Shipping Forecast 00:48 MON (b00rd78n)

Shipping Forecast 05:20 MON (b00rd7l0)

Shipping Forecast 00:48 TUE (b00rd784)

Shipping Forecast 05:20 TUE (b00rd7gg)

Shipping Forecast 00:48 WED (b00rd786)

Shipping Forecast 05:20 WED (b00rd7gj)

Shipping Forecast 00:48 THU (b00rd788)

Shipping Forecast 05:20 THU (b00rd7gl)

Shipping Forecast 00:48 FRI (b00rd78b)

Shipping Forecast 05:20 FRI (b00rd7gn)

Six O'Clock News 18:00 SAT (b00rd3x3)

Six O'Clock News 18:00 SUN (b00rd4pc)

Six O'Clock News 18:00 MON (b00rd93w)

Six O'Clock News 18:00 TUE (b00rd92g)

Six O'Clock News 18:00 WED (b00rd92j)

Six O'Clock News 18:00 THU (b00rd92l)

Six O'Clock News 18:00 FRI (b00rd92n)

Sneakiepeeks 11:30 MON (b00pkbmh)

Something Understood 06:05 SUN (b00rd43f)

Something Understood 23:30 SUN (b00rd43f)

Soul Music 15:30 SAT (b00rb2sv)

Soul Music 13:30 TUE (b00rdyrb)

Start the Week 09:00 MON (b00rdvr0)

Start the Week 21:30 MON (b00rdvr0)

Sunday Worship 08:10 SUN (b00rd4dl)

Sunday 07:10 SUN (b00rd4db)

The Alps 11:00 TUE (b00rdygc)

The Archers Omnibus 10:00 SUN (b00rd4dq)

The Archers 19:00 SUN (b00rd4q4)

The Archers 14:00 MON (b00rd4q4)

The Archers 19:00 MON (b00rd8tv)

The Archers 14:00 TUE (b00rd8tv)

The Archers 19:00 TUE (b00rd8tj)

The Archers 14:00 WED (b00rd8tj)

The Archers 19:00 WED (b00rd8tl)

The Archers 14:00 THU (b00rd8tl)

The Archers 19:00 THU (b00rd8tn)

The Archers 14:00 FRI (b00rd8tn)

The Archers 19:00 FRI (b00rd8tq)

The Bottom Line 17:30 SAT (b00rbnmm)

The Bottom Line 20:30 THU (b00rfj45)

The Film Programme 23:00 SUN (b00rbs17)

The Film Programme 16:30 FRI (b00rfl5w)

The Food Programme 12:32 SUN (b00rd4dv)

The Food Programme 16:00 MON (b00rd4dv)

The Now Show 12:30 SAT (b00rbs19)

The Now Show 18:30 FRI (b00rfl5z)

The Public Meeting 09:30 TUE (b00mbhyk)

The Report 20:00 THU (b00rfj43)

The Secrets of the Art and the Artist: Caravaggio 14:45 SUN (b00rd983)

The Week in Westminster 11:00 SAT (b00rd3wd)

The World This Weekend 13:00 SUN (b00rd4dz)

The World Tonight 22:00 MON (b00rdtbf)

The World Tonight 22:00 TUE (b00rdtb2)

The World Tonight 22:00 WED (b00rdtb4)

The World Tonight 22:00 THU (b00rdtb6)

The World Tonight 22:00 FRI (b00rdtb8)

Thinking Allowed 00:15 MON (b00rbltf)

Thinking Allowed 16:00 WED (b00rfhjn)

Today in Parliament 23:30 MON (b00rdvkn)

Today in Parliament 23:30 TUE (b00rdvf6)

Today in Parliament 23:30 WED (b00rdvf8)

Today in Parliament 23:30 THU (b00rdvfc)

Today in Parliament 23:30 FRI (b00rdvff)

Today 07:00 SAT (b00rd3w4)

Today 06:00 MON (b00rd84r)

Today 06:00 TUE (b00rd7x0)

Today 06:00 WED (b00rd7x2)

Today 06:00 THU (b00rd7x4)

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Waking Up in the Dock 21:00 THU (b00rfj47)

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Westminster Hour 22:00 SUN (b00rd4r7)

Wil Hodgson: Straight Outta Chippenham 23:00 TUE (b00g4ywy)

Wild Billy Childish 11:30 TUE (b00rdygf)

Woman's Hour 16:00 SAT (b00rd3wv)

Woman's Hour 10:00 MON (b00rd85f)

Woman's Hour 10:00 TUE (b00rghvy)

Woman's Hour 10:00 WED (b00rghvc)

Woman's Hour 10:00 THU (b00rghvf)

Woman's Hour 10:00 FRI (b00rghvh)

Word of Mouth 16:00 TUE (b00rdzv4)

World at One 13:00 MON (b00rd8tg)

World at One 13:00 TUE (b00rd8r4)

World at One 13:00 THU (b00rd8r8)

World at One 13:00 FRI (b00rd8rb)

You and Yours 12:00 MON (b00rd8mk)

You and Yours 12:00 TUE (b00rd8kh)

You and Yours 12:00 FRI (b00rd8kp)

iPM 05:45 SAT (b00rbsnd)