The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
The term subculture has often been used to describe counter cultural youth groups such as Teddy Boys and Goths. But this week Thinking Allowed hears from young sociologists from York University who've explored the sub culture of pop fans. What are the attractions of belonging to such communities of music enthusiasts? Tonya Anderson talks about women in their forties who link up with other Duran Duran fans via the internet in their bedrooms. And Rosemary Hill reveals the altogether noisier world of female heavy metal aficionados. Professor Angela McRobbie joins Laurie Taylor in the studio to ask where the fans of teen pop and heavy metal do or don't fit into the history and meaning of subcultures.
The Prince of Wales launches a Countryside Trust, to raise money for rural communities. Companies will pay for permission to use its logo on their products, raising millions for rural areas in need. The head of Red Tractor tells Farming Today it may take years for the new logo to become a significant player in the market.
Charlotte Smith reports on the Farming Today pigs, as they head for the abattoir. Their journey has been followed since birth, shedding light on an industry which despite the recession, is enjoying high profits.
And following the driest first 6 months of any year since 1929, those managing heaths and moorlands fear damaging fires may be on the horizon. At Woodbury Common in Devon more than a hundred acres of gorse went up in flames, damaging habitat for rare birds and insects.
With John Humphrys and Sarah Montague. Including Sports Desk; Weather; Thought for the Day.
Start The Week pits rational optimism against humane pessimism as Andrew Marr brings together the philosopher Roger Scruton, who argues against the dangers of false hope, and the former chairman of Northern Rock, Matt Ridley, who views the world in a much more rosy light. The historian Peter Hennessy delves behind the country's national security strategy to explore the Secret State, while Linda Colley asks when did Britain's constitution become unwritten.
Neil MacGregor's world history as told through things. This week he is exploring the sophisticated ways that people expressed religious yearning in the 14th and 15th centuries. He is looking at the statues of gods and ancestors - in India, Mexico and on Easter Island - and he describes the importance of icon painting in the Orthodox Church.
Today he is with an object designed to connect with Christ himself - a stunning Christian reliquary from medieval Europe made to house a thorn from the crown of thorns. Neil tells the story of this highly ornate reliquary while Sister Benedicta Ward and the Archbishop of Leeds, the Right Reverend Arthur Roche, help explain the background and meaning to the powerful tradition of relic worship.
Presented by Jane Garvey. The actress Natascha McElhone on dealing with her husband's sudden death. Dr Miriam Stoppard and Clinical Psychologist Linda Blair debate the issue of adult nudity in front of children: Is it natural or could it cause developmental problems? Today marks the start of the first ever Childhood Obesity Week - we look at one programme helping parents and children turn their lives around and the quest for a male contraceptive pill - could it ever become a reality?
An adaptation of Trezza Azzopardi's new novel, a compelling psychological thriller involving a young woman with a secret in her past. During a rainy summer Maggie arrives for a job interview at a large house in the country. The house is empty apart from Kenneth, an elderly man, who wants a secretary to do an unusual live-in job. He wants someone to listen to his music collection, and transcribe his impressions and memories connected to each piece of music. Kenneth is odd, isolated, perhaps on the edge of dementia, slightly threatening. But Maggie is mysterious too and she has some hidden plan in taking this job. She knows this place, she's been here before. Piece by piece, as the rain intensifies and the river begins to flood, we learn about Maggie's shocking past.
Trezza Azzopardi's novels have been short-listed for numerous awards, including the Booker. Critics praise her story-telling ability, her psychological acuity and her intense poetic atmosphere.
WILLIAM............ MARK MEADOWS
RUSTY............ MARILYN LE CONTE
Errol Flynn was cinema's brightest Hollywood star, with a series of unforgettable swashbuckling epics to his name. However, Flynn spent his last year with girlfriend Beverley Aadland on the island of Cuba, mixing with Castro, Che Guevara and the Cuban rebels. We hear about the pair's two-year relationship and their time together in Cuba.
Errol's daughter Rory Flynn saw Beverley as a positive force in her father's life and key in their final adventure to Cuba in 1958. Flynn secured a commission from Hearst newspapers to file reports and secure an interview with Castro. The programme explores these articles filed by Flynn - many which have lain unseen in a Texan archive for 50 years.
On his return from the mountains, Flynn set about capturing his adventures on film and secured the funds to star alongside Beverley in "Cuban Rebel Girls". The film disappeared without trace, but Flynn set about recording the events of the revolution with producer Victor Pahlen, and their documentary film "Cuban Story" was the result. Hear clips from both of these films in this programme.
Fifty years after his passing, Errol Flynn is famous for his epic films, womanising, and hard-living lifestyle. However, his strange venture into the world of Cuban politics and flirtation with the flowering of Castro's brand of communism is as an untold story. Now, we address this oversight.
Clare decides to focus on her son, sparking a chance meeting at Toddler Tunes that could change the course of her life.
Meanwhile, Brian's admiration for Nali grows when she visits his school and tames Year 9. All this plus Clare and Libby both interview for the Team Leader post.
Clare Barker is the self-absorbed social worker who has the right jargon for every problem she comes across, though never a practical solution. But there are plenty of challenges out there for an involved, caring social worker. Or even Clare.
Clare ..... Sally Phillips
Brian ..... Alex Lowe
Ray ..... Richard Lumsden
Helen ..... Liza Tarbuck
Megan ..... Nina Conti
Libby ..... Jess Robinson
Clerk .... Alex Tregear
Howard ..... Paterson Joseph
Other parts played by the cast.
Julian Worricker brings you up to date on the latest drug shortage which is affecting Parkinson's sufferers, could it be a long-term problem?
We'll hear from three leading disability charities who've had a chance to digest the budget. They tell us how the cuts will affect their work?
And is the campaign to create new village greens leading to a housing crisis?
As ever, a host of celebrities will be joining Nigel as he quizzes them on the sources of a range of quotations and asks them for the amusing sayings or citations that they have personally collected on a variety of subjects.
Reader ..... Peter Jefferson.
Danny Brewer and his long suffering fiance Jan go to Las Vegas to get married, after many years of failed attempts. But it isn't long before they've lost all their money and the wedding looks doomed again. Danny's brother Bernie attracts the eye of a gay Elvis impersonator, who could be the salvation they desperately need.
Bernie ..... Johnny Vegas
Danny ..... Ricky Tomlinson
Jan ..... Nicola Stephenson
Elvis Impersonator/Salvatore ..... Rupert Degas
Lulla Belle/Serena ..... Lorelie King
De Ricco/Henchman ..... Michael Roberts
Marge ..... DeNica Fairman
As part of 'London: Another Country ?' on Radio 4, five short features in which the voices of the poor of Victorian London throw into sharp relief the underprivileged of today's London. The present-day is heard through interviews, the Victorian stories are voiced by actors from the verbatim transcripts made in the 1850s by the pioneer of London oral history, Henry Mayhew, author of "London Labour and the London Poor".
It is impossible to read Mayhew without being struck by how little has changed. The rough sleepers of Mayhew's West End are there today too, there are always girls forced to walk the streets under-age, the market stall-holders still flaunt their stock, hen parties look for "grotesque" dancing to enjoy as the Victorians did the "penny gaff" and mudlarks go on working the shore of the Thames.
In Part 1 we hear those living rough then and now, about the hardship and risks of living on the streets of London.
The Mayhew extracts are abridged by Penny Gold whose Afternoon Play "A Chaos of Wealth and Want", examines an incident in the life of Mayhew as he was compiling the interviews for his history, is being broadcast on Radio 4 this week.
With Jude Akuwudike, Tony Bell, Christine Kavanagh, Alison Pettit, David Seddon, Michael Shelford, Lloyd Thomas
In the last of the current series, physicist Brian Cox and comedian Robin Ince look at the notion of perfection and whether the latest advances in the biomedical sciences could ever lead us to the perfect body. What are the limitations of science, and can we visualise a future where we transcend the human form that evolution has led us to, and would we want to?
Full coverage and analysis of the day's news with Eddie Mair. Plus Weather.
The nation's favourite wireless entertainment pays a first-time visit to the Sands Centre in Carlisle. Regulars Barry Cryer, Graeme Garden and Tim Brooke-Taylor are joined on the panel by Sandi Toksvig, with Jack Dee in the chair. Colin Sell provides piano accompaniment. Producer - Jon Naismith.
Lilian is concerned to find Jolene working in the bar first thing in the morning. Jolene looks very tired, and confesses to not sleeping. When Lilian says she needs more time to come to terms with it all, Jolene protests that she just wants to get back to some sort of normality. Later, Ruth approaches Jolene in the pub to ask about the beer tent for the fete - she is concerned about the state Jolene is in.
Kathy tells Kenton that for Jamie's sake she wished Kenton had been there at the ceremony in the cricket field yesterday. Too late, says Kenton, and goes to work.
At Jaxx, Kenton chats to Lilian. She worries to him about Jolene, but Kenton says he can understand someone wanting to bury themselves in work. Lilian thinks he looks really at home in the bar. Later, Kenton phones Kathy to tell her he won't be back to eat tonight - and he's told Jamie himself.
David and Ruth wonder about Pip bringing Jude over as promised to discuss their trip. David thinks he's either fobbing them off or he couldn't give a damn.
Brenda Blethyn stars in the film London River. In the wake of the 7/7 London bombings, two parents from very different religious backgrounds search for their missing children. Adrian Wootton reviews
One-on-One theatre pairs a single audience member with a solo actor. This week London's BAC launches a festival of One-on-One performances and the Barbican's Bite Festival mounts the latest work by the oddly named You Me Bum Bum Train, where over 200 actors concentrate on an audience of one. Kirsty investigates.
On her new CD Tapestry Unravelled, singer Christine Tobin has recorded every song from Carole King's classic 1971 album Tapestry, including You've Got a Friend and It's Too Late. Christine reveals why she's taken on this much-loved disc, and she and her guitarist perform in the Front Row studio.
As the British Film Insitute launches a nationwide hunt for 75 of its most wanted lost films, film historian Matthew Sweet considers the significance of the missing canisters on the film library shelves.
Firhall, in the Scottish Highlands, is the first village in Britain to be child-free.
To buy a property here, you have to be 45-plus with no dependent family in tow, and you must sign a contract agreeing not to sell property on to those with children. The concept, adapted from an American idea which is growing in popularity in Europe, is the latest twist in the trend towards segregated communities.
But in a rapidly ageing population is it desirable - or even practical - to encourage these sorts of settlements where older people are segregated from the rest of society?
When it first opened, this child-free community of over-45s ruffled feathers, prompting a media hate campaign in which residents were denounced as child haters.
But as Kati Whitaker discovers, the residents have a quite different perspective. They see Firhall as offering a new approach to life - where they can shrug off the old stereotypes associated with ageing and live full and active lives.
What's more, far from feeling shunted out of the mainstream and left to die out of sight, they claim Firhall provides them with their right to a life free from noise and hassle - a village which to them is nothing short of utopia.
The Greek debt crisis has prompted calls for Greece to be thrown out of the Euro. There has even been speculation that the single currency itself might not survive - the secret but influential Bilderberg group met in June this year to consider, it is said, the unthinkable - whether the Euro might be doomed. It is a situation not envisaged by the Euro's architects who created no mechanism for leaving the currency or for its abolition.
Chris Bowlby looks at the likely fate of the Euro. What will happen if it is abolished and what will it look like if it survives? Would Europe revert to having several different currencies and how far is German economic power, which the Euro was meant to contain, going to dominate the new European economic order.
Chris Bowlby is a BBC journalist who enjoys investigating the economic and political consequences of hypothetical events: his previous Analysis programmes have included examinations of the effects of a British exit from the European Union and of Scottish independence from the UK.
350 years ago, a group of 'natural philosophers' got together to found a club in London. With the patronage of Charles II, they called it 'The Royal Society'. Today it is the nation's elite academy of sciences and, to celebrate the anniversary, it is staging its Summer Exhibition this week on the Southbank of the Thames. Quentin Cooper visits the exhibition to see a model volcano, a holographic mine detector, a flying penguin, segments of the biggest telescope in the world, the longest-lived animal on Earth and to test his own cultural evolution. Plus amateur snail science at the Gardener's Question Time Summer Garden Party.
Turkey warns it will cut diplomatic ties with Israel unless it apologises for the attack on the Gaza aid envoy.
Juliet Stevenson reads F M Mayor's unfairly Neglected Classic, the story of a plain, reliable parson's daughter whose life of duty and service is thrown into confusion by an unexpected and unsought love affair. Today, an uncontrolled moment of passion. After an increasingly unhappy time at home, Kathy abandons Robert for the Riviera, leaving him to ponder their marriage - and dream of what might have been with Mary.
F M Mayor's masterful novel, The Rector's Daughter, is a rare thing - a novel with a deceptively small canvas, set in the backwaters of a dull East Anglia a century ago, but still as fresh as ever. Much loved by those who have discovered it, it now comes to Radio 4 as one of the Open Book listeners' Neglected Classics.
Writer Andrea Levy presents ten anthologies of short pieces for radio capturing a certain off-beat spirit of London.
In this first programme, we join the crew of one of London's police helicopters looking down on city streets as they carve their circling way through the London sky on the shortest night of the year; on the ground, Andrea hears from Zimbabwean David Mwanaka who farms 60 - yes 60 - acres in Enfield, growing white maize; and on the final day of paid-for local newspapers on the streets of London, Alan Dein talked to the vendors calling "Standard! Evening Standard!" for the last time in October.
Regular features include Pairs in Squares, in which Jonathan Glancey randomly selects a section from the grid of London's famous streetmap and explores it in company with a well-known London companion; and The Other Londons - five places with a 'London' name NOT found within the M25.
Andrea Levy was born in London and holds the city close to her heart; her experience growing up there as a black Londoner pervades her novels and is the thread woven through this mix of the day-to-day and the nocturnal... of pieces taking a sidelong glance as well as a more direct approach. A blend of poetry and prose, of the factual and the fictional that together make up this diverse and diverting nightly series.
Today's news from Parliament with Sean Curran and team. Top stories: the Deputy Prime Minister on plans to allow voters to decide if they want change to the electoral system; and the announcement of cuts to school building projects in England. Editor: Rachel Byrne.
TUESDAY 06 JULY 2010
TUE 00:00 Midnight News (b00swll8)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
TUE 00:30 A History of the World in 100 Objects (b00swmrh)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 on Monday]
TUE 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b00swlsp)
The latest shipping forecast.
TUE 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b00swlxc)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.
TUE 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b00swlvm)
The latest shipping forecast.
TUE 05:30 News Briefing (b00swlz8)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
TUE 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b00swm0w)
With George Craig.
TUE 05:45 Farming Today (b00swmfc)
Anna Hill hears calls for polytunnels to be banned from National Parks. Despite the increase in yield and quality plastic tunnels can provide for farmers, the Campaign to Protect Rural England believes them to be a blot on the landscape.
In the last 6 years the national Alpaca herd has grown from 8000 animals to around 30,000. The coat of these animals never stops growing, and Farming Today visits an alpaca shearer to see how their coats are maintained.
And after 6 months of life, the pigs Farming Today have been following now weigh 95 kilos. This week they get taken to the abattoir.
Presenter: Anna Hill Producer: Melvin Rickarby.
TUE 06:00 Today (b00swmgv)
With Justin Webb and John Humphrys. Including Sports Desk, Yesterday in Parliament, Weather, Thought for the Day.
TUE 09:00 The London Story (b00sx7r0)
Episode 1
Playwright Kwame Kwei-Armah explores how, over the last thirty years, London became a diverse, creatively rich world city and how its brash, dynamic and uncompromising population has shaped its politics and culture since the 1970s.
There is no such thing as a typical Londoner - one in three of the city's residents was born outside the UK and some 300 languages are spoken in the capital. Those who come to London are drawn to its teeming possibilities, its openness and its promise of life without limits - you can be who you want to be because everybody else is too busy enjoying the buzz to care.
Yet in the 1970s London was on the brink - a depressed city with a declining population and a shrinking manufacturing base. These days the population is growing again and, recession notwithstanding, the city is basking in a cultural resurgence and a confidence in its 24 hour cosmopolitan reputation which is evident from the streets of Soho to the bustle of Brick Lane. On the other hand, it's argued that today's London at the top of its game has become adrift from the rest of the UK, that it's now a city of the world rather than of its own country.
Brought up in 1970s Southall in west London, Kwame returns to his childhood haunts to hear how his neighbourhood's history laid the foundations of what Southall is today - a lively, multi ethnic community. In April 1979 tensions in Southall led to protests in the streets and clashes with the police that cost the life of demonstrator Blair Peach. Today's Southall is a relatively harmonious community and Kwame hears the stories of how its evolution from that crisis has eptiomised the coming of age of the 21st century's dynamic, multi ethnic London.
Producer: Paula McGinley.
TUE 09:45 A History of the World in 100 Objects (b00swmjs)
Meeting The Gods (1200 - 1400 AD)
Icon of the Triumph of Orthodoxy
This week Neil MacGregor's world history as told through objects is describing how people expressed devotion and connection with the divine in the 14th and 15th centuries.
Today he is with an icon from Constantinople that looks back in history to celebrate the overthrow of iconoclasm and the restoration of holy images in AD 843 - a moment of triumph for the Orthodox branch of the Christian Church. This icon shows the annual festival of orthodoxy celebrated on the first Sunday of Lent, with historical figures of that time and a famous depiction of the Virgin Mary.
The American artist Bill Viola responds to the icon and describes the special characteristics of religious painting. And the historian Diarmaid MacCulloch describes the often troubled relationship between the Church and the images it has produced.
Producer: Anthony Denselow.
TUE 10:00 Woman's Hour (b00swp2p)
Presented by Jane Garvey. What has happened to women in punk? Linder talks about her 13-hour post-punk
performance art show. Children's Minister Sarah Teather joins Jane to discuss Early Years education. Teaching public speaking to school children, how beneficial is it? Plus actress Brenda Blethyn on her latest film 'London River'.
TUE 10:45 15 Minute Drama (b00swqbw)
Trezza Azzopardi - The Song House
Episode 2
An adaptation of Trezza Azzopardi's new novel - a compelling psychological thriller involving a young woman with a secret in her past. During a rainy summer, Maggie arrives for a job interview at a large house in the country. The house is empty apart from Kenneth, an elderly man, who wants a secretary to do an unusual live-in job. He wants someone to listen to his vast and eclectic music collection, then transcribe his impressions and memories connected to each piece of music. Kenneth is odd, isolated, perhaps on the edge of dementia. He wants to record what each piece of music means to him while he can still remember. But Maggie is mysterious too and she has some hidden plan in taking this job. Lonely and dependent, Kenneth has no inkling as yet of the real reason she's here.
Trezza Azzopardi's novels have been short-listed for numerous awards, including the Booker.
Cast:
MAGGIE.............KAY CURRAM
NARRATOR..........SHARON MORGAN
KENNETH...........JOHN CASTLE
ALISON............CAROLINE HARKER
WILLIAM............ MARK MEADOWS
RUSTY............ MARILYN LE CONTE
Adapted by Elizabeth Burke. Produced and Directed by: Kate McAll.
TUE 11:00 Saving Species (b00sx8nd)
Series 1
Episode 14
14/40. We have part three of Gillian Rice's vulture report from India. Having broken the news that the RSPB and the Indian Conservationists have successfully hatched vultures from eggs in incubators (a first in the world for bird conservation), Gillian reports on how India is ridding the use of Diclofenac in cattle (the drug heavily implicated in poisoning 99.9% of Indias vultures). We'll be talking to the RSPB about their fears that the use of Diclofenac is increasing amongst African farmers and vets. Could there be a catastrophic decline of African vultures in the future for the same reason?
We have been up and down the country asking the older generation about their memories of wild flowers in the latest edition of Saving Species' "Memories are Made of This" features.
And a close encounter with the rare, retreating and beautifully named Ladybird Spider. With a name like Ladybird Spider, how could you possibly not love it!
Our newshound Kelvin Boot will be with us with wildlife stories making the news from around the world.
Presented by Brett Westwood
Produced by Sheena Duncan
Series Editor Julian Hector.
TUE 11:30 Grayson Perry on Creativity and Imagination (b00sx8ng)
Grayson Perry is an epitome of creativity: a Turner Prize winning ceramicist who's as famous for his alter-ego Claire as for his pottery.
But what does being creative really mean? He's on a mission to find out.
Talent shows dominate TV schedules and we are taught that everyone can take part, but genuine talent, originality and the idea of learning a traditional arts skill is persistently overlooked he argues.
With the help of some of the most talented people in the business, Grayson Perry will be exploring how the imagination works. Creativity has become the modern buzzword of bureaucrats trying to ensure wider access to the arts. And it has been subject to a lot of mythmaking. Grayson wants to nail down these myths and show how creativity isn't a mystery, but at the same time it isn't necessarily easily accessible.
Writers Terry Pratchett and Rose Tremain, fashion designer Hussein Chalayan and Ray Tallis, poet and neuroscientist all join Grayson on his quest.
(Repeat.)
Producer: Gavin Heard.
TUE 12:00 You and Yours (b00swrbp)
Which laws should be scrapped? The Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, is asking the public to go online and tell him what rules and regulations should go. He wants us all to have a say in how to restore civil liberties and cut red tape for businesses and charities. So which ones would you nominate? The Taxpayers Alliance says the ID Cards Act and the Digital Economy Act should be ditched. The TUC wants to scrap the VAT exemption on private school fees. Suggestions from elsewhere include getting rid of double yellow lines along high streets to help small businesses and abolishing the Human Rights Act. So which laws would cut bureaucracy and curb the nanny state? Your nominations please.
TUE 12:57 Weather (b00swrjc)
The latest weather forecast.
TUE 13:00 World at One (b00swrr3)
National and international news with Martha Kearney.
TUE 13:30 Smash Hit of 1453 (b00rt921)
In the musical powerhouse of Europe in the 15th century, one tune caught the imagination of the court composers. This was The Armed Man (or in its original French "L'Homme Arme"). A rousing first line warns that "the armed man must be feared" and goes on to tell everyone to arm themselves with a coat of mail. The musician and broadcaster Rainer Hersch unpicks the facts we know of the tune and its words, making his way through 40 odd church masses by as many composers, who used the melody as a base.
Early music specialists Catherine Bott and Andrew Kirkman think the original song may have been a warning against the threat of the warring Turks, following the fall of Constantinople in 1453, but it could equally have been a popular children's or even a pub song. Whatever its origin it became literally the "Smash Hit" of that time, but then, like much of pop music, it just went out of fashion and disappeared.
Rainer leaves the 15th century behind to find out why the song suddenly burst back into life in the 20th century. Christopher Marshall heard it in his New Zealand school and composed a lively piece for wind band. Karl Jenkins came across it during the Kosovo crisis 10 years ago, and composed his popular Mass for Peace. This begins with the sounds of an approaching army, with the original tune bursting out at the climax. The Master of the Queen's Music, Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, encountered it while studying in Italy, and composed a theatre piece where it becomes anything from a hymn to a foxtrot. And this year the folk-group Mawkin:Causley released their first album and turned it into a fast-moving riff, which gets audiences on their feet.
Rainer traces the journey of the tune and the words, as it appears in these very different musical clothes.
The producers are Richard Bannerman and Merilyn Harris, and it is a Ladbroke production for BBC Radio 4.
TUE 14:00 The Archers (b00swygb)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Monday]
TUE 14:15 Drama (b00sx8nj)
Mr Anwar's Farewell to Stornoway
By Iain Finlay MacLeod.
Mr Anwar has lived for four decades on the Isle of Lewis, in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland. Indian by birth, and a tailor to trade, he came to the UK to make his fortune. Heading north, away from London's cramped confines, he built a successful clothing business from scratch: selling men's trousers and ladies underwear from two suitcases balanced on the back of a bicycle.
The suitcases were soon exchanged for a busy shop in Stornoway. He brought his wife to the island and the pair raised their family in the community. And yet, across the decades, Mr Anwar clung onto a fervid dream of his youth: to make a fortune and retire in style to India.
Now, five months into retirement, things are not going quite as he had planned. Distraction appears in the form of his taciturn neighbour, Tormod, who asks Mr Anwar to tailor a jacket for him. As the pair get the measure of each other, some difficult questions are asked and hard truths confronted.
Mr Anwar ... Vincent Ebrahim
Nadia ... Shelley King
Tormod ... Matthew Zajac
Isobel ... Anne Lacey
Mr Anwar's pipe tune composed and performed by Iain MacInnes.
Directed by Kirsteen Cameron.
TUE 15:00 Making History (b00sx91n)
According to the Daily Telegraph shortly after the recent budget, the amount of money available from the government for cultural heritage and the arts is set to be slashed by 33% - and 33% of £1.5billion doesn't pay for very much.
So are we at the end of what Tony Blair once described as a 'golden age for museums', or will digital technology - like that used so successfully by the BBC and British Museum in the A History of the World project - come to the rescue?
In this special programme Vanessa Collingridge hears what the public thinks about our museums, what people in the sector feel and, perhaps most importantly, what the new Minister for Culture Ed Vaizey believes is the way forward for our museums.
Taking part in the programme is Dr Sam Alberti from the University of Manchester, Dr Brian Kelly - a digital heritage specialist from UKOLN at the University of Bath, and Christopher Kirby at the award-winning Herbert Museum in Coventry.
We go to Croydon to hear how our big, national museums are trying to help smaller museums, and we'll be visiting Aberdeen to find out how our past was presented way back in the 17th and 18th centuries.
Send us your views:
Email: making.history@bbc.co.uk
Write to Making History. BBC Radio 4. PO Box 3096. Brighton BN1 1PL
Join the conversation on our Facebook page or find out more from the Radio 4 website: www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/makinghistory
Presenter: Vanessa Collingridge
Producer: Nick Patrick
A Pier Production for BBC Radio 4.
TUE 15:30 I Was There Too (b00sx93n)
Series 2
Maiden, Mother, Spinster, Saint
In the pivotal moments of history the little man is inevitably written out of the history books. Whatever happened to Cleopatra's milkman, Einstein's postman, Michelangelo's model or Shakespeare's gardener? Just maybe there was more going on behind the scenes than we could ever imagine.
Writers Lucy Caldwell, Heidi Regan and Jessica Ransom, take us behind the scenes for an alternative look at some great historical moments through the eyes of some unexpected - and, until now - overlooked witnesses who were there too!
It's history - but not quite as we know it!
Maiden, Mother, Spinster, Saint
by Lucy Caldwell
Reader: Corinne Kempa
Being overshadowed by a sibling takes on a whole new meaning when your sister is a figure of national notoriety.
Pretty As A Picture
by Heidi Regan
Reader: Raphael Koeb
Beauty and truth collide when a young assistant accompanies a master painter on an important royal commission.
She Wore a White Dress
by Jessica Ransom
Reader: Julie Dray
Dressing a queen is a great responsibility, especially for her final public appearance.
Producer: Heather Larmour
This week our afternoon readings take a look at some momentous moments in history from the perspective of those on the sidelines. Each afternoon some unexpected witnesses who were 'there too' tell us their stories and give us an insight into the happenings that didn't make it into the history books.
Today's 'I Was There Too!' reading takes us back to events in fifteenth century France and a most unusual case of sibling rivalry, as Corinne Kempa reads 'Maiden, Mother, Spinster, Saint' by Lucy Caldwell, producer Heather Larmour.
TUE 15:45 London Street Cries (b00sx05m)
Episode 2
Continuing the series of voices from the London streets, in which each programme highlights a particular sector of London life, now and in the 1850s.
In Part 2 we hear stories from London street sellers and market traders, both from Victorian times and the present day.
Abridged by Penny Gold
Producers: Jeremy Mortimer and Rebecca Stratford.
TUE 16:00 The Chambers (b00lnzq9)
Episode 1
Radio 4 goes behind the elegant facades of legal London to meet the barristers, clerks and staff of one of the capital's leading Chambers as they prepare for the biggest upheaval in their history, the implementation of the 2007 Legal Services Act. "If you're looking for somebody to fight on your side you're not looking for the biggest brain-on-a-stick in the world but who can't argue their way out of a bus queue. You need somebody who's going to fight your corner!" Richard is a leading QC who's fought court battles in some of the highest profile cases of the past twenty years, and he reckons the changes will leave some more traditional people in the law reeling, and possible out of a job. For his part, he's determined that his Chambers wont get left behind.
This is the context for two programmes that paint an intimate portrait of life behind the elegant faÃade of Outer Temple Chambers, to which Radio 4 was last year granted exceptional access. From Barristers's Clerk Nick from Canvey Island, who joined Chambers at 18 - "what you see on the TV, the court stuff, it's not what actually goes on behind closed doors. In the backroom, it's hard work!" - to Cara who's nine months pregnant; how will she balance the demands of her high powered life as a barrister with those of a new mother? "Anarchy will rule!"
And then there's Christine, Commercial Director: "I have a habit of being a thorn in the side of organisations; I can't help it. If I see something that I think is wrong I just can't help myself. And sometimes it's good, and sometimes it causes me more problems than I care to think about!"
Producer: Simon Elmes.
TUE 16:30 A Good Read (b00sxgs0)
Helen Fraser and Neil Innes
Sue Macgregor talks favourite paperbacks with Helen Fraser, the Chief Executive of the Girls' Day School Trust, and writer and comic performer Neil Innes. Before taking up her current post Helen spent her entire career in publishing, beginning with a brief stint as a sales assistant at Foyles bookshop and ending up as Managing Director of Penguin. Neil was one of the founder members of the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band and went on to write and perform with Monty Python's Flying Circus and the Rutles. He's well-known for his BBC2 show, The Innes Book of Records and has a one-man show modestly entitled 'A People's Guide to World Domination.'
Producer: Sara Davies.
TUE 17:00 PM (b00sx0rf)
Full coverage and analysis of the day's news with Eddie Mair. Plus Weather.
TUE 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b00sx0th)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
TUE 18:30 Fags, Mags and Bags (b00fm6m8)
Series 2
Rameshtonite
Trouble looms for Ramesh as his banter nemesis Tom Skilliter re-appears after 20 years.
Award-winning comedy set in a Scottish corner shop, written by and starring Sanjeev Kohli and Donald McLeary.
Ramesh ... Sanjeev Kohli
Dave ... Donald McLeary
Alok ... Susheel Kumar
Sanjay ... Omar Raza
Father Henderson ... Gerard Kelly
Ted ... Gavin Mitchell
Tom Skilliter ... Tom Urie
Joan Begg ... Marjory Hogarth
Director: Iain Davidson
Producer: Gus Beattie
A Comedy Unit production for BBC Radio 4.
TUE 19:00 The Archers (b00swyg2)
In the shop, Joe's doing his usual shelf filling. Susan's impressed with how hard he is working. However, when Joe tries to take home a bag full of out-of-date stock after his shift, Susan realises he's been putting old stock to the back of the shelves deliberately, so that he can take it home. She packs aggrieved Joe off home and says she'll take the out-of-date stock herself.
Pip tries to pin Jude down to a date for telling her parents about their trip but Jude's got other plans. In fact, he's at the airport, and his flight to New York leaves shortly. Pip's devastated when she realises he's dumping her.
Elizabeth tries to comfort Pip, saying she can stay at Lower Loxley for the night but insists on ringing her parents to tell them what's happened.
Ruth and David agree it's good that Jude's out of their lives, and are thankful that at least he didn't dump her somewhere miles away. Ruth knows Pip must be devastated, and wishes she could hug her but they agree to give Pip time to come to terms with it. And they can look forward to when they can all finally put it behind them.
TUE 19:15 Front Row (b00sx0xz)
David Hyde Pierce on his British stage debut
Vampires return to our cinemas this week with the third film in The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, which is based on the best-selling novel by Stephenie Meyer. Kristen Stewart is back in the role of Bella Swan, making life and death decisions. Dr. Helen Wheatley from Warwick University delivers her verdict.
Tony and Emmy award winning American actor David Hyde Pierce talks about Broadway, playing Niles Crane in Frasier and now appearing on the London stage with Joanna Lumley and Mark Rylance, in La Bete, a play inspired by Moliere, written by David Hirson, and directed by Matthew Warchus.
Sargent and the Sea, the first ever exhibition of John Singer Sargent's marine paintings, shows work inspired by travels in France, around the Mediterranean and across the Atlantic, when the young artist was passionate about the sea. Rachel Campbell-Johnston reviews.
Mark also interviews Piers Paul Read, a Catholic author whose new novel The Misogynist is written from the perspective of a divorced atheist.
Producer Claire Bartleet.
TUE 19:45 A History of the World in 100 Objects (b00swmjs)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 today]
TUE 20:00 File on 4 (b00sxgs2)
Illegal workers
Lifting the lid on illegal London - welcome to a world of forged documents and faked identities. It's believed there are likely to be more than 200,000 illegal migrant workers in the UK's capital city. But how are they able to survive. How do they get work? In this special investigation, Jon Manel obtains rare access into the lives of some of London's illegal workers - lives often based on lies and deception. He discovers that some are now so much part of the system, they even pay tax and national insurance.
He hears of miserable and difficult times spent living in the shadows. But other illegal workers say they are making a bigger contribution than many who were born here. "I'm doing a job that most English persons wouldn't do. I think I've never seen an English person cleaning a toilet". And he goes to a well known part of London that owes its survival to the workers who shouldn't be here.
Producer: Paul Grant.
TUE 20:40 In Touch (b00sxgs4)
Presenter Peter White turns guinea-pig to help with groundbreaking research on how people can "read" with their fingers. Despite innate clumsiness as a child, Peter is reckoned to be one of the fastest Braille readers in Britain. So what happens when he reads? Neuro-scientist Professor Alvaro Pascual-Leone has invited Peter to Harvard so that they can study his brain. Pascual-Leone's initial research suggests, fascinatingly, that when totally blind people read Braille the interpretation of the text is done by the occipital cortex, the part of the brain which normally processes vision, not touch! So how does that under-employed bit of Peter's brain "know" that he is in fact "reading", and not just "touching"? In 'Braille on the Brain' we follow Peter's progress as he submits himself to MRI scans and reading tests, and scarily discovers that when attempts are made to "block" the visual part of his brain, his reading is seriously inhibited. We follow him as he is encased in a tube, submits to blows to the skull, and to impulses being sent to his occipital cortex. But the whole process has a very serious aim: only about five per cent of blind people can read Braille; if we understood better how the process works, perhaps we could have a real impact on those figures.
TUE 21:00 All in the Mind (b00sxgs6)
How Children Learn - Photos in Textbooks - Solitary Confinement
The latest neuroscientific studies on how children learn are changing traditional teaching methods. Claudia Hammond reveals new work which could challenge long held beliefs, and meets the teachers and children taking part in this ground breaking work.
Photos in Textbooks: Traditionally more boys than girls go on to university to study science. Jessica Good from Rutgers University in the States wanted to know if the difference could be explained by what she calls a hidden curriculum.
Psychological Effects of Solitary Confinement: Psychologist Craig Haney from the University of California Santa Cruz has interviewed hundreds of prisoners living in solitary confinement.
TUE 21:30 The London Story (b00sx7r0)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 today]
TUE 21:58 Weather (b00sx18t)
The latest weather forecast.
TUE 22:00 The World Tonight (b00sx1gs)
Radio 4's daily evening news and current affairs programme bringing you global news and analysis.
TUE 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b00sx1q9)
FM Mayor - The Rector's Daughter
Episode 7
Juliet Stevenson reads F M Mayor's unfairly Neglected Classic, the story of a plain, reliable parson's daughter whose life of duty and service is thrown into confusion by an unexpected and unsought love affair. Today Mary flees Dedmayne, in turmoil after a single passionate embrace with Mr Herbert. Kathy, meanwhile, has made plans to escape the Herberts' unhappy marriage - but all will not go to plan.
The Reader is Juliet Stevenson
Abridger Sally Marmion
Producer Di Speirs
F M Mayor's masterful novel, The Rector's Daughter, is a rare thing - a novel with a deceptively small canvas, set in the backwaters of a dull East Anglia a century ago, but still as fresh as ever. Much loved by those who have discovered it, it now comes to Radio 4 as one of the Open Book listeners' Neglected Classics.
TUE 23:00 London Nights (b00sxgwh)
Trains
Writer Andrea Levy presents anthologies of short pieces for radio that capture a certain off-beat spirit of London.
In the second programme: a railway runs through it... Trains are one of the most audible heartbeats of the capital, threading their way through the suburbs above ground and pulsing millions of commuters deep beneath the London clay, from the outer fringes to the centre and the centre to the fringes. Writer Claire MacDonald remembers an unexpected and uplifting chance encounter on a commuter train, while Jonathan Glancey's guests in the nightly Pairs in Squares feature find themselves on Page 19, Square 2J on the London streetmap - featuring the railway hub that is Old Oak Common.... Also on the menu, London's bikers pause for a cuppa in Epping Forest and free-runner Dan takes a leap across the city's night-time rooftops.
Andrea Levy was born in London and holds the city close to her heart; her experience growing up here as a black Londoner pervades her novels and is the thread woven through this mix of the day-to-day and the nocturnal... of pieces taking a sidelong glance as well as a more direct approach. A blend of poetry and prose, of the factual and the fictional that together make up this diverse and diverting nightly series.
Andrea Levy sadly died of cancer aged 62 in February 2019.
Executive Producer: Simon Elmes
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2010.
TUE 23:30 Today in Parliament (b00sx1xq)
The Prime Minister tells MPs that an inquiry is to be set up to investigate allegations that British security services were complicit in the torture of terror suspects. MPs debate the Finance Bill which will put George Osborne's emergency budget into law. And peers continue to scrutinise the details of the Government's Academies Bill. Rachel Bryne and team report on today's events in Parliament.
WEDNESDAY 07 JULY 2010
WED 00:00 Midnight News (b00swllb)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
WED 00:30 A History of the World in 100 Objects (b00swmjs)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 on Tuesday]
WED 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b00swlsr)
The latest shipping forecast.
WED 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b00swlxf)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.
WED 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b00swlvp)
The latest shipping forecast.
WED 05:30 News Briefing (b00swlzb)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
WED 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b00swm0y)
With George Craig.
WED 05:45 Farming Today (b00swmff)
Six months after their birth, it's the final chapter for the Farming Today pigs as they go off to the abattoir. We've followed them from insemination and now fully fattened they've come to the end of their life. And with a hosepipe ban being brought into force in the North West of England we find out just how dry the UK currently is.
Pressnter: Anna Hill; Producer: Martin Poyntz-Roberts.
WED 06:00 Today (b00swmgx)
With Justin Webb and John Humphrys. Including Sports Desk, Yesterday in Parliament, Weather, Thought for the Day.
WED 09:00 Midweek (b00sxh18)
This week Libby Purves is joined by Fergus Beeley, Sandra Newman, Cameron Addicott and Adina Tal.
Fergus Beeley is a wildlife filmmaker. He presents The Monkey-Eating Eagle of the Orinoco, part of the BBC's Natural World series, which follows the fortunes of him and his team as they spend the best part of eighteen months at the top of a rainforest tree making a film about the Harpy Eagle, one the most ferocious of all eagles, plucking large monkeys off the canopy trees.
Sandra Newman is an acclaimed novelist, shortlisted for the Guardian first book award. Her new book is a memoir, 'Changeling' about her adoption and subsequent discovery of her birth parents: a NASA scientist and a novelist. Her story is full of ups and downs, from the suicide of her adoptive mother, to a stint as a professional gambler and finally to her new status as a writer. 'Changeling' is published by Chatto and Windus.
Cameron Addicott worked as an undercover investigator with HM Customs and SOCA (Serious Organised Crime Agency) for twenty years. In his book 'The Interceptor' he tells of his work as a surveillance operative, hunting down the UK's most dangerous criminals, starting with the interception and decoding of phone calls to car chases around the M25 and drug busts in roadside cafes. His book 'The Interceptor' is published by Penguin.
Adina Tal is the President of Nalaga'at (which means "Do Touch" in Hebrew), the world's only professional deaf-blind group of actors, based in Tel Aviv. The company's show, "Not by Bread Alone", is part of LIFT - the London International Festival of Theatre.
WED 09:45 A History of the World in 100 Objects (b00swmjv)
Meeting The Gods (1200 - 1400 AD)
Shiva and Parvati Sculpture
The history of humanity as told through one hundred objects from the British Museum in London is back in India. This week Neil MacGregor is with the gods - exploring the sophistication of religious art in the 14th and 15th centuries, as people around the world sought ways of finding physical expression for devotion and for representing the divine.
Today Neil is with a magnificent stone sculpture showing the powerful deity Shiva with his consort Parvati seated on his knee - two of the most beloved and familiar figures of Hinduism. The vehicles of the deities, a bull and a lion, and their children sit at their feet, while a host of supporting musicians and attendants swirl around their heads. Neil considers how images like this help cement the relationship between deity and devotee.
The writer Karen Armstrong considers the special relationship between male and female aspects in spiritual practice while the Hindu cleric Shaunaka Rishi Das explores the particular characteristics of Shiva and Parvati and considers the religious significance of their union.
Producer: Anthony Denselow.
WED 10:00 Woman's Hour (b00swp2r)
Presented by Jenni Murray. Why do so many women not exercise? Apparently 80 per cent of women aren't exercising enough and less than 3 per cent of women play team sports. We look at the reasons behind the figures and ask what can be done? Myrrha Stanford Smith talks about winning a three book literary deal in her eighties, how are women's pay and pensions faring in the public sector and the growing popularity of Rock Choir.
WED 10:45 15 Minute Drama (b00swqr9)
Trezza Azzopardi - The Song House
Episode 3
An adaptation of Trezza Azzopardi's new novel - a compelling psychological thriller involving a young woman with a secret in her past.
During a rainy summer, Maggie has taken a job as a live-in secretary in a large house in the country. Ostensibly she's there to catalogue Kenneth's music collection, and to write a memoir of the elderly man's life. Kenneth is odd, isolated, perhaps on the edge of dementia. He wants to record what each piece of music means to him while he can still remember. Now he has fallen in love with her. But Maggie has a deeper purpose, one she has not yet revealed to him. She is trying to find out what happened to her as a child, when she was abducted, at the age of four.
Trezza Azzopardi's novels have been short-listed for numerous awards, including the Booker.
Cast:
MAGGIE.............KAY CURRAM
NARRATOR..........SHARON MORGAN
KENNETH...........JOHN CASTLE
ALISON............CAROLINE HARKER
WILLIAM............ MARK MEADOWS
RUSTY............ MARILYN LE CONTE
Adapted by Elizabeth Burke Produced and Directed by: Kate McAll.
WED 11:00 There's More to Life Than London (b00sxh94)
Tube fairs. The rattling overcrowded tube itself. The house prices, the negative equity, the schools, the dirt. There are plenty of reasons not to live in London, which may be the reason most people in Britain don't.
Stuart Cosgrove (Commissioning Editor for Nations and Regions of Channel 4 until 2015) presents a programme on the joys and challenges of choosing to live and work outside the capital.
The journalist and broadcaster examines the dark side of Britain's obsessive metrocentrism, the brain-draining draw of the capital, sucking enterprise and energy from the regions and its navel-gazing parochialism, dressed up as cosmopolitanism.
As the Civil Service and the BBC itself begin to grapple with the challenges of moving key departments outside of the capital this will be a timely look at how and why, despite political and institutional devolution, we still allow London to dominate British life, and what price we pay for the largely unexamined assumption that everything happens in London.
Producer David Stenhouse
From July 2010.
WED 11:30 North by Northamptonshire (b00sxj24)
Series 1
Episode 4
Sheila Hancock heads a stunning cast including Mackenzie Crook, Penelope Wilton, Felicity Montagu and Kevin Eldon. This is a clever, funny and touching series about a small town in the middle of Northamptonshire as it prepares for a talent night.
Written by and also starring Katherine Jakeways.
It's Town Talent Night at last and Ken and Keith are busy fine-tuning their pet whippets' dance routine.
Everyone nervously awaits the arrival of the celebrity judge Lady Ballantyne who is unfortunately in the spotlight for being the most recent Royal racist.
Jan does her last minute preparations for her trip to Australia. Will she be going alone or could she possibly dare to dream that Jonathan might join her at the last minute?
And finally supermarket manager Rod (Mackenzie Crook) gets to take Tanya from till 4 on a date. The true measure of success will be how many packets of scampi fries they consume. Will it be just the one? Or perhaps too many to count?
Narrator ...... Sheila Hancock
Rod ...... Mackenzie Crook
Mary ...... Penelope Wilton
Jan ...... Felicity Montagu
Jonathan ...... Kevin Eldon
Esther ...... Katherine Jakeways
Keith ...... John Biggins
Frank ...... Rufus Wright
Taxi Driver ...... Rufus Wright
Lady Ballantyne ...... Lizzie Roper
Angela Lizzie Roper
Producer: Claire Jones.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in July 2010.
WED 12:00 You and Yours (b00swrbr)
Three months on, why are some passengers still waiting for airlines to pay out compensation for the ash cloud disruption? Under EU rules, European airlines must pay for their passengers' hotel and food bills while stranded. How bankruptcies in the US motor industry have led to a shortage of car parts in the UK - leaving some drivers without a car. And the grandmother from Cornwall inspired to take up motorcycling after hearing a piece on this very programme.
WED 12:57 Weather (b00swrjf)
The latest weather forecast.
WED 13:00 World at One (b00swrr5)
National and international news with Martha Kearney.
WED 13:30 The Media Show (b00sxj26)
This week the BBC published its annual report and the BBC Trust responded to the BBC executive's strategic review.
Tim Davie is the director of the BBC's Audio and Music team who proposed the closure of BBC 6 Music. Now that the BBC Trust has rejected his plans, what is his strategy for digital radio?
Sir Michael Lyons is chairman of the BBC Trust, charged with overseeing the BBC. How does he respond to claims that relations between the Trust and the BBC executive have become strained?
Steve raises these questions with Tim Davie and Sir Michael Lyons and discusses the BBC's image with tv executive Peter Bazalgette and Guardian media commentator Emily Bell.
WED 14:00 The Archers (b00swyg2)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Tuesday]
WED 14:15 Drama (b00sxj28)
Betsy Coleman
A new play by Katie Hims
Betsy Coleman signs up to do memory research for a bit of extra cash, but she finds that her memories are so vivid that revisiting her past becomes compulsive, particularly when she gets to spend some virtual time with her late Mother.
Betsy .... Maxine Peake
David ..... Benedict Wong
Young Betsy ..... Shannon Flynn
Mick ..... Ralph Ineson
Carla ..... Alison Pettit
Des ..... Tony Bell
Julie ..... Christine Kavanagh
Written by Katie Hims
Directed by Mary Peate
When Betsy Coleman was 11 years old, her father was convicted of murdering her mother. Now 37, Betsy has drifted through her life, committing to nothing and no one. She sees an ad looking for volunteers to take part in some neurological research at the local University, and, in need of some extra cash, she signs up.
She quite likes the look of the geeky research scientist, David, but mostly she loves going back into her memories, particularly those which involve her late mother. Against his better judgment, David lets her do more tests. But then things start to get out of hand...
WED 15:00 Money Box Live (b00sxj2b)
If you need advice about planning for retirement or drawing a pension why not call Vincent Duggleby and guests on this afternoon's Money Box Live.
You may have a question about joining a company scheme or starting a personal pension.
What are costs, tax benefits and liabilities?
Or perhaps you're about to retire - when will you receive your state pension and how do you turn your pension fund into retirement income?
Whatever your question, Vincent Duggleby and guests will be waiting to take your call.
Phone lines open at
1.30 this afternoon and the number to call is 03700 100 444. Standard geographic charges apply. Calls from mobiles may be higher. The programme starts after the three o'clock news. That number again 03700 100 444.
WED 15:30 I Was There Too (b00sx96r)
Series 2
Pretty as a Picture
In the pivotal moments of history the little man is inevitably written out of the history books. Whatever happened to Cleopatra's milkman, Einstein's postman, Michelangelo's model or Shakespeare's gardener? Just maybe there was more going on behind the scenes than we could ever imagine.
Writers Lucy Caldwell, Heidi Regan and Jessica Ransom, take us behind the scenes for an alternative look at some great historical moments through the eyes of some unexpected - and, until now - overlooked witnesses who were there too!
It's history - but not quite as we know it!
Maiden, Mother, Spinster, Saint
by Lucy Caldwell
Reader: Corrine Kempa
Being overshadowed by a sibling takes on a whole new meaning when your sister is a figure of national notoriety.
Pretty as a Picture
by Heidi Regan
Reader: Raphael Koeb
Beauty and truth collide when a young assistant accompanies a master painter on an important royal commission.
She Wore a White Dress
by Jessica Ransom
Reader: Julie Dray
Dressing a queen is a great responsibility, especially for her final public appearance.
Producer: Heather Larmour
Our afternoon readings this week take a look at some momentous moments in history from the perspective of some unexpected witnesses who were 'there too' but didn't quite make it into the history books.
Today's reading takes us to Tudor times where an eager young apprentice travels with a master painter on an important commission where he learns a valuable lesson about the politics of beauty and truth.
Raphael Koeb reads 'Pretty as a Picture' by Heidi Regan, producer Heather Larmour.
WED 15:45 London Street Cries (b00sx05p)
Episode 3
Continuing the series of voices from the London streets, in which each programme highlights a particular sector of London life, now and in the 1850s.
In Part 3 we hear from sex workers who ply their trade in modern London, as well as hearing testimony from Victorian prostitutes.
Abridged by Penny Gold
Producers: Jeremy Mortimer and Rebecca Stratford.
WED 16:00 Thinking Allowed (b00sxj2d)
Niall Ferguson on financier Siegmund Warburg
Siegmund Warburg laid the foundations of the prosperity which has sustained the post-war City of London, and was one of the architects of European Integration. Niall Ferguson, in his new book High Financier tells Laurie Taylor how this extraordinarily dominant figure had meticulous business methods and an uncompromisingly strict ethical code. How much relevance does his example have for today? Could the traders and speculators who inhabit today's financial world learn from the elite of the past? Laurie discusses the lessons we can draw from this figure and the role played by today's financial elite with the historian Niall Ferguson and financial sociologist Karel Williams.
Producer: Charlie Taylor.
WED 16:30 All in the Mind (b00sxgs6)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Tuesday]
WED 17:00 PM (b00sx0rh)
Full coverage and analysis of the day's news with Eddie Mair. Plus Weather.
WED 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b00sx0tk)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
WED 18:30 Jeremy Hardy Speaks to the Nation (b00sxj2g)
Series 8
How to Confront the Vexed Issue of British Identity Without Getting in the Most Fearful Bate About the Whole Thing
Passion, polemic, wit and vigour, but surprisingly, no singing as Britain's most dedicated satirist returns to the airwaves once again.
Jeremy is joined by Gordon Kennedy and special guest Shappi Khorsandi for an in-depth discussion about why this week's title is so long.
Written by Jeremy Hardy
Producer: David Tyler
A Pozzitive production for BBC Radio 4.
WED 19:00 The Archers (b00swyg4)
Chris and Alice have set off for San Francisco. Meanwhile, Brian and Annabelle get a knockback from stubborn Joseph Hastings, who refuses to sell his land. The other two farmers are on board.
Brian decides to go back and see Hastings alone, farmer to farmer. He works his charm, focusing on family values and the benefits Hastings could enjoy of early retirement. Later, Hastings calls Brian back - he's got himself a deal.
Pip's distraught after realising that Jude planned to disappear to America without saying anything. Touched by Pip's situation, Elizabeth opens up about her own heartbreak. She met what she thought was the perfect man - Cameron Frazer, a rival for Nigel when they were younger. He was similar to Jude - older than Elizabeth, charming, and he made her feel special.
But then Elizabeth became pregnant. Cameron wanted her to have an abortion, but she decided to keep the baby. They planned a holiday together, but on the way to the airport Cameron disappeared, never to return. Elizabeth was left stranded. At her lowest point, she decided to go ahead with the abortion.
WED 19:15 Front Row (b00sx0y1)
Simon Callow on his theatrical life
On publication of his Memoir, My Life in Pieces, actor, director and writer Simon Callow talks about the making of Amadeus on stage and screen, how to deal with critics and the political importance of Four Weddings and a Funeral
Twenty five years on from the publication of Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, Jeanette Winterson reflects on the cultural importance of story-telling.
After a sell-out tour of North America, Mumford and Sons return home to the UK for a Summer of festivals. Ben and Marcus from the band talk to Mark about bringing folk back to the charts and collaborating with Laura Marling and Indian folk group Dharohar Project.
Mumford and Sons play the iTunes festival in London this Friday, T in Park in Scotland on Saturday and Oxegen in Ireland on Sunday.
The EP of songs with Laura Marling and Dharohar Project is availale to download now.
Producer Philippa Ritchie.
WED 19:45 A History of the World in 100 Objects (b00swmjv)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 today]
WED 20:00 Moral Maze (b00sxj2j)
When the government said it was asking for departments to come up with plans for a 40% cut in their budget, the message was clear - nothing was going to be sacred. Except that is the NHS and foreign aid. While schools, police and armed forces all say cuts of this magnitude will hit front line services, the £7 billion a year budget for the Department for International Development has been ring fenced. In the depths of an unprecedented financial crisis, why should foreign aid be exempt from scrutiny? Defenders say there's a very clear moral imperative - if we cut foreign aid people will die as a direct result. Critics argue that government spending on aid has been distorted by the dictates of foreign policy - how else could you explain why we're giving over £800m in aid to India - a country that can afford its own space programme?
Is foreign aid a luxury we can't afford, or is this just another excuse not to care - to disengage from our responsibilities as one of the richest countries on earth and close our eyes to the suffering of millions of people around the world?
Michael Buerk chairs with Michael Portillo, Melanie Philips, Clifford Longley and Kenan Malik.
Witnesses:
Julian Harris, Project Director at International Policy Network
Sabina Alkire, Director of the Oxford Poverty & Human Development Initiative and an Anglican Priest.
Michela Wrong, former journalist and the author of three non-fiction books on Africa, latest book was about corruption in Kenya called 'It's our turn to eat'
Myles Wickstead, Former ambassador in Ethiopia, Visiting prof of International Relations at the OU. Ran the Secretariat for the Commission for Africa, revisiting the issue.
WED 20:45 The London Nobody Knows (b00sxj2l)
Episode 1
Historian and presenter, Dan Cruickshank, has a copy of a battered, yellowing book under his arm. "The London Nobody Knows" was written by Geoffrey Fletcher in the 60s. It was a record of an unfamiliar London at the time, written by a man totally infatuated with the city.
Fifty years on, Dan retraces Fletcher's steps.from the pie shops where "the floors are sanded, where the eels are greenest, where the cups of tea are thickest" to the east end markets where "the fishy smell has sunk into the very pavements".
Much of it has gone.but not all. In a series of two programmes, Dan takes us on a journey through the city he loves. He sets out to find what remains - and what has been lost - of Geoffrey Fletcher's London.
He visits a wonderfully colourful Hackney market - one of the many London street markets now under threat - in the company of writer and Hackney wanderer, Iain Sinclair.
As he climbs the great stone stairway of Wilton's Music Hall in East London, the music begins to pour out. "It is absolutely fantastic.nothing like it in London" he says. The last grand music hall in the world is one of Cruickshank's favourite places. It's the kind of place Dan wants to remain a secret!
Presenter: Dan Cruickshank
Producer: Adele Armstrong.
WED 21:00 The Age of the Genome (b00sxj7b)
Episode 3
Ten years after scientists decoded and sequenced the human genome, Professor Richard Dawkins looks at the transformation in research on diseases such as cancer and diabetes.
When an international army of scientists announced that they had succeeded in reading out the entire genetic instruction manual for the human body, commentators declared the dawn of a new age in medicine. A decade on, the revolution has not yet affected the health care for most of us. So what has been happening behind the scenes in medical research labs and how are we going to benefit?
The discovery of genes that play roles in conditions such as cancers, diabetes and heart disease has accelerated at a rapid rate since medical researchers gained access to the sequence of 3 billion molecular letters in the genetic book of life. The technology for analysing the genomes is becoming fast and relatively cheap. It took more than ten years and about $1 billion to read the first human genome sequence. Now it takes a couple of weeks and a few thousand pounds. Before long it will cost just a few hundred pounds. Within a few years, it may be quick and cheap enough to offer us complete DNA scans as part of our routine health care.
More immediately, the ease of sequencing lets researchers understand diseases such as cancers at a fundamental and detailed level. At the Wellcome Trust's Sanger Institute, Andy Futreal and his team are now identifying the crucial DNA faults which drive skin and lung cancer cells to multiply out of control and spread around the body. That is much easier to do now that they can unveil the complete genetic architecture of malignancy within cancer cells. This approach is already leading to new drugs which can target tumours with greater killing power and lesser side effects than traditional chemotherapies.
However, scientists are less certain than they were about another great medical advance promised from the Human Genome Project. This was the advent of comprehensive DNA tests which would reveal which diseases we as individual patients are likely to develop later in life - and the size of the risks. Research groups have found many genes that influence our chances of developing conditions such as heart disease and diabetes. But the impact of these particular genes is not nearly strong enough to account for the full effect that inheritance plays in why individuals get some diseases and not others. It is one of the most controversial topics in medical genetics today. So where is the missing heritability?
Producer: Andrew Luck-Baker.
WED 21:30 Midweek (b00sxh18)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 today]
WED 21:58 Weather (b00sx18w)
The latest weather forecast.
WED 22:00 The World Tonight (b00sx1gv)
The final investigation into 'climategate' clears scientists of allegations of manipulating data
Are the alleged Russian sleeper spies in the US about to be swapped for people held in Russia?
And five years on from the July 7th London bombings we ask if we are better protected now? We report from a special World Tonight-Chatham House-ESRC conference chaired by Robin Lustig
With Ritula Shah and Robin Lustig.
WED 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b00sx1qc)
FM Mayor - The Rector's Daughter
Episode 8
Juliet Stevenson reads F M Mayor's unfairly Neglected Classic, the story of a plain, reliable parson's daughter whose life of duty and service is thrown into confusion by an unexpected and unsought love affair. Today Kathy returns from the Riviera, her beauty damaged but her marriage strengthened. And Mary befriends her erstwhile rival.
The Reader is Juliet Stevenson
Abridger Sally Marmion
Producer Di Speirs
F M Mayor's masterful novel, The Rector's Daughter, is a rare thing - a novel with a deceptively small canvas, set in the backwaters of a dull East Anglia a century ago, but still as fresh as ever. Much loved by those who have discovered it, it now comes to Radio 4 as one of the Open Book listeners' Neglected Classics.
With deft precision, F M Mayor captures the emotions stirring in Mary's heart and the pain of thwarted middle aged desire. With her unerring eye, she reveals both the bitterness and strengths of a happy marriage. The Rector's Daughter is acerbic and poignant and much deserves its loyal fans and its place within Radio 4's Neglected Classics season.
WED 23:00 London Nights (b00sxgy7)
Music and Prayers
Writer Andrea Levy presents short pieces for radio capturing a certain off-beat spirit of London and Londoners - a whole world of experience within one sprawling city.
Tonight, the rhythms of a north London estate with young musicians Kyle and Marius prompt Andrea to memories of her own childhood adventures, car-minding for sixpence near Highbury Stadium on matchday. She invites us to eavesdrop on an all-night suburban prayer vigil; and we hear a spooky modern ghost story of unaccountable disappearances from Brockwell Lido... Plus: in the nightly feature, Pairs in Squares, Jonathan Glancey's pin lands in the map-section devoted to Soho, as revealed by ad-man John Hegarty.
Andrea Levy was born in London and holds the city close to her heart; her experience growing up here as a black Londoner pervades her novels and is the thread woven through this mix of the day-to-day and the nocturnal... of pieces taking a sidelong glance as well as a more direct approach. A blend of poetry and prose, of the factual and the fictional that together make up this diverse and diverting nightly series.
Andrea Levy sadly died of cancer aged 62 in February 2019.
Executive Producer: Simon Elmes
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2010.
WED 23:30 Today in Parliament (b00sx1xs)
Sean Curran reports on a day when the Education Secretary, Michael Gove, is called before the House to apologise for issuing inaccurate information about school building projects. He also reports on Prime Minister's Questions when MP express concern about crime.
THURSDAY 08 JULY 2010
THU 00:00 Midnight News (b00swllf)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
THU 00:30 A History of the World in 100 Objects (b00swmjv)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 on Wednesday]
THU 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b00swlst)
The latest shipping forecast.
THU 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b00swlxh)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.
THU 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b00swlvr)
The latest shipping forecast.
THU 05:30 News Briefing (b00swlzd)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
THU 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b00swm10)
With George Craig.
THU 05:45 Farming Today (b00swmfh)
The Environment Agency is not delivering value for money when tackling diffuse water pollution in rivers and waterways according to a report from the National Audit Office. Sarah Falkingham reports on the final fate of the Farming Today pigs: they're now sliced and packed and ready for sale, and Farming Today reports on a daring rescue of rare brown trout in the Lake District.
Presenter: Charlotte Smith; Producer: Martin Poyntz-Roberts.
THU 06:00 Today (b00swmgz)
With James Naughtie and Sarah Montague. Including Sports Desk, Yesterday in Parliament, Weather, Thought for the Day.
THU 09:00 In Our Time (b00sxjlz)
Pliny's Natural History
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Pliny's Natural History.Some time in the first century AD, the Roman scholar Pliny the Elder published his Naturalis Historia, or Natural History, an enormous reference work which attempted to bring together knowledge on every subject under the sun. The Natural History contains information on zoology, astronomy, geography, minerals and mining and - unusually for a work of this period - a detailed treatise on the history of classical art. It's a fascinating snapshot of the state of human knowledge almost two millennia ago.Pliny's 37-volume magnum opus is one of the most extensive works of classical scholarship to survive in its entirety, and was being consulted by scholars as late as the Renaissance. It had a significant influence on intellectual history, and has provided the template for every subsequent encyclopaedia.With:Serafina CuomoReader in Roman History at Birkbeck, University of LondonAude DoodyLecturer in Classics at University College, DublinLiba TaubReader in the History and Philosophy of Science, Cambridge UniversityProducer: Thomas Morris.
THU 09:45 A History of the World in 100 Objects (b00swmjx)
Meeting The Gods (1200 - 1400 AD)
Statue of Huastec Goddess
The history of humanity as told through one hundred objects from the British Museum in London is in Mexico. This week Neil MacGregor is meeting the Gods - exploring the sophistication of religious art in the 14th and 15th centuries as people around the world created physical expressions for devotion and for representing the divine.
Today he is with a striking sandstone sculpture of a goddess made by the Huastec people of present day Mexico. This remarkable figure stands bare breasted with hands folded over her stomach and wearing a remarkable fan-shaped headdress. She has been associated with the later Aztec goddess of sexuality and fertility.
The writer Marina Warner describes the power of the goddess figure in matters of fertility and sexuality while the art historian Kim Richter describes the particular nature of Huastec society and sculpture.
Producer: Anthony Denselow.
THU 10:00 Woman's Hour (b00swp2t)
Presented by Jenni Murray. Pregnancy for men: a group of prospective dads on 'Mantenatal' classes - all-male pregnancy and childbirth classes; Dame Helen Ghosh reflects on the history of women civil servants. And a new model of welfare in Southwark - do voluntary services make people less dependant and more likely to help themselves?
THU 10:45 15 Minute Drama (b00swqrc)
Trezza Azzopardi - The Song House
Episode 4
An adaptation of Trezza Azzopardi's new novel, a compelling psychological thriller involving a young woman with a secret in her past. During a rainy summer Maggie arrives for a job interview at a large house in the country. The house is empty apart from Kenneth, an elderly man, who wants a secretary to do an unusual live-in job. He wants someone to listen to his vast and eclectic music collection, and transcribe his impressions and memories connected to each piece of music. She is to be a kind of ghostwriter of his autobiography, through music. Kenneth is odd, isolated, perhaps on the edge of dementia, slightly threatening. But Maggie is mysterious too and she has some hidden plan in taking this job. She knows this place, she's been here before. Piece by piece, as the rain intensifies and the river begins to flood, we learn about Maggie's shocking past and the childhood trauma that involves Kenneth's son, William.
Trezza Azzopardi's novels have been short-listed for numerous awards, including the Booker.
Cast:
MAGGIE.............KAY CURRAM
NARRATOR..........SHARON MORGAN
KENNETH...........JOHN CASTLE
ALISON............CAROLINE HARKER
WILLIAM............ MARK MEADOWS
RUSTY............ MARILYN LE CONTE
Adapted by Elizabeth Burke Produced and Directed by : Kate McAll.
THU 11:00 From Our Own Correspondent (b00sxkty)
From Our Own Correspondent's in the small Alabama town of Magnolia Springs this morning -- hearing how its battle against the oil spill has embraced the American values of self-reliance and ingenuity.
Also:
Srebrenica struggles to escape the memories of its massacre.
In the Arctic's icy white wilderness, we find extraordinary rich, green plantlife.
And a stroll across the French battlefield where sixty thousand Britons died -- on just one day.
For years....as Yugoslavia collapsed....the Balkans witnessed terrible violence. Civilians were often targeted without mercy. City streets were shelled. And whole communities were driven from their homes.... But in all the killing and brutality, there was one particularly appalling episode: the massacre at Srebrenica. It happened fifteen years ago now. And in Srebrenica, Mark Lowen has been wondering if the town can ever shed its past....
Still the oil gushes from the wreckage on the floor of the Gulf of Mexico. With every passing hour the slick grows. And all along America's Gulf coast, small towns must try to confront it. Among them is a little place in Alabama called Magnolia Springs. It didn't wait for help to arrive. Instead Laura Trevelyan says the community drew on deep-rooted, old-fashioned American values, and set about defending its way of life.
These past few weeks have been very much South Africa's time in the sun. The World Cup was a chance for the country to show itself off at its best....and South Africa has scored! The tournament's been a success. But its final whistle will sound this weekend. And Andrew Harding has been reflecting on whether the great event will have made any lasting difference, once the crowds....and the world's attention....have drifted away.
If you want evidence of climate change, go to the Arctic. The ice is shrinking. It's reckoned that this summer it'll retreat further than ever recorded. We don't know exactly what impact this may have on the earth's climate as a whole. But the continuing loss of the summer ice is lending added urgency to the study of its unique biology. Richard Hollingham has been with scientists examining the extraordinary life-forms that manage to thrive in the harshness of the far north....
It was in these summer days in July....more than ninety-years ago, during the First World War.....that the Battle of the Somme was fought. By the end of just the first day, the British alone had suffered sixty-thousand casualties.... Perhaps as much as any battle in history, this one has come to symbolise the horror and futility of war... And all these years on....Fergal Keane has been walking in the footsteps of the lost legions of the Somme.....
THU 11:30 The Doll's House (b00sxkv0)
A peek inside the world of the doll's house, by those who had one as a child.
It's the classic little girl's favourite toy and in this programme we hear about the influence the doll's house has had on the imagination of now grown up women and the occasional man, as well as the hobby of doll's houses for adults.
For the children's writer and illustrator, Lauren Child, the first doll's house she saw was made by her friend's mother from a cupboard. It inspired her to make her own which she still is working on today. Many of the textiles which form the back-drop of her successful Charlie and Lola series originated as either wallpapers or fabrics from the doll's house she made in her youth. For her, the doll's house is an environment which you can control. In fact, it's one of the first occasions you get in your childhood to manipulate an environment and make up your own stories.
It's also an area of craftsmanship where Britain leads the world. Whilst it may seem curious, some of the best examples of miniature building and carving are present in the cottage industries of doll's house furniture makers. We hear from some of the best UK miniature artisans who are as well known in the doll's house world of the States, Japan and the rest of Europe as they are in Britain.
Looking at doll's houses from the 18th and 19th centuries in the Museum of Childhood, we hear that when they were built they were rarely intended as children's toys, but as hobbies for the ladies of the house. Queen Mary's dolls house is discussed complete with miniature family portraits of her family and her arrangement of what she thought the domestic home might look like.
And we hear from the increasing number of women who are keeping the miniaturists in business as the vogue for dolls houses for adults grows.
Producer and Presenter: Sarah Taylor.
THU 12:00 You and Yours (b00swrbt)
Peter White discusses a legal threat to the Digital Economy Bill. Plus, how Amazon is widening its service to include groceries and musical instruments and what smaller shops think about it. Also, how one website hopes to build an historic online photo album so people can experience the street views their ancestors might have enjoyed.
THU 12:57 Weather (b00swrjj)
The latest weather forecast.
THU 13:00 World at One (b00swrr7)
National and international news with Martha Kearney.
THU 13:30 Off the Page (b00sxkv2)
Blinded By Science
Provocative and thoughtful new writing and discussion, presented by Dominic Arkwright. This week's subject is Blinded By Science.
Joining Dominic to write and talk about science and what we make of it are Dr. Ben Goldacre, author of Bad Science in the Guardian, Tania Hershman, writer in residence in the Science Faculty at Bristol University and space scientist Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock.
Produced by Beatrice Fenton.
THU 14:00 The Archers (b00swyg4)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Wednesday]
THU 14:15 Drama (b00sxkv4)
Gerontius
Destined to be the first English saint for centuries, the great theologian, poet and Catholic convert Cardinal John Henry Newman (1801-90) insisted in his will that he was to be buried in the same grave as fellow convert Fr Ambrose St John whom he had known for over thirty years.
Written by award-winning playwright Stephen Wyatt and starring Derek Jacobi as Newman, this highly-imaginative play explores the relationship between Newman and Ambrose, the concerns aroused at the time and the controversy surrounding the decision to exhume their bodies. The play also draws on some of the themes in Dream of Gerontius (music by Edward Elgar). Others in the cast are Nicholas Boulton, Michael Jayston, Geoffrey Whitehead, Karl Davies, Ben Warwick and Jane Whittenshaw.
Cast:
Cardinal Newman ...... Derek Jacobi
Fr Ambrose St John ...... Nicholas Boulton
Fr Faber ..... Geoffrey Whitehead
Angel ..... Karl Davies
Demon ....... Michael Jayston
Reporter ...... Ben Warwick
Lecturer ...... Jane Whittenshaw
Directed by Martin Jenkins
A Pier Production for BBC Radio 4.
THU 15:00 Open Country (b00sw35x)
[Repeat of broadcast at
06:07 on Saturday]
THU 15:27 Radio 4 Appeal (b00sw4vt)
[Repeat of broadcast at
07:55 on Sunday]
THU 15:30 I Was There Too (b00sx96t)
Series 2
She Wore a White Dress
In the pivotal moments of history the little man is inevitably written out of the history books. Whatever happened to Cleopatra's milkman, Einstein's postman, Michelangelo's model or Shakespeare's gardener? Just maybe there was more going on behind the scenes than we could ever imagine.
Writers Lucy Caldwell, Heidi Regan and Jessica Ransom, take us behind the scenes for an alternative look at some great historical moments through the eyes of some unexpected - and, until now - overlooked witnesses who were there too!
It's history - but not quite as we know it!
Maiden, Mother, Spinster, Saint
by Lucy Caldwell
Reader: Corrine Kempa
Being overshadowed by a sibling takes on a whole new meaning when your sister is a figure of national notoriety.
Pretty As A Picture
by Heidi Regan
Reader: Raphael Koeb
Beauty and truth collide when a young assistant accompanies a master painter on an important royal commission.
She Wore a White Dress
by Jessica Ransom
Reader: Julie Dray
Dressing a queen is a great responsibility, especially for her final public appearance.
Producer: Heather Larmour
Today's afternoon reading sees the last in our 'I Was There Too!' series, readings which offer us an unexpected interpretation of some historic moments from some witnesses who were there too! It's history, but not as we know it!
This afternoon we travel to revolutionary France as a young dressmaker gives us her insight into dressing a Queen for the most public appearance of her life. Julie Dray reads 'She Wore a White Dress' by Jessica Ransom, Producer Heather Larmour.
THU 15:45 London Street Cries (b00sx05r)
Episode 4
Continuing the series of voices from the London streets, in which each programme highlights a particular sector of London life, now and in the 1850s.
In Part 4 we hear from present day street cleaners and recycling operatives, as well as from a modern mudlark, and from nineteenth-century scavengers.
Abridged by Penny Gold
Producers: Jeremy Mortimer and Rebecca Stratford.
THU 16:00 Bookclub (b00swkc3)
[Repeat of broadcast at
16:00 on Sunday]
THU 16:30 Material World (b00sxkv6)
Quentin Cooper presents his weekly digest of science in and behind the headlines.
The first full-sky image from Europe's Planck telescope revealing the oldest light in the Universe was published this week. Quentin Cooper speaks to Planck scientist Dr. Dave Clements to find out what this imag is really showing.
This week we find out about the earliest inhabitants on the British Isles. Stone tools discovered at a site in Norfolk suggest that early humans arrived in Britain 800000 years ago, pushing back previous estimates by 100000 years. Their diet must have been rich in meat to survive the harsh winters. Quentin also finds out about our much older ancestors from Kenya who thanks to a varied diet of crocodiles and catfish were able to grow bigger brains.
One of our finalists of the 'So you want to be a scientist?' talent search has been collecting data to test out his theory. Sam O'Kell and his mentor Professor Geoff Lawday have been testing a pressure suit at the Roskilde music festival to find out how crowds behave when listening to different bands.
The producer is Ania Lichtarowicz.
THU 17:00 PM (b00sx0rk)
Full coverage and analysis of the day's news with Eddie Mair. Plus Weather.
THU 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b00sx0tm)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
THU 18:30 The Secret World (b012b1z6)
Series 2
Episode 2
Alan Titchmarsh - quaint gardener or ruthless murderer? Jon Culshaw and friends probe the private lives of the famous. From July 2010.
THU 19:00 The Archers (b00swyg6)
Matt presents Lilian with her favourite smellies for her birthday. He's determined to treat Lilian to something more special when he's back on serious money. Lilian's keen to go for a nice lunch, but Matt has lined up a viewing of a property in Hollerton. Lilian's disappointed at his timing, but partly because she was hoping to subtly check up on Jolene while they were out.
As they view the property, Matt admits that Brian's getting to him and he's taking it personally. Matt's keen to snap up this place, to teach Brian a lesson, but Lilian's not sure about it. She vaguely remembers reading something about the property, so Matt reluctantly agrees to let Lilian look into it.
Jolene is really struggling behind the bar at the Bull. Fallon asks Lilian to come back to work part time. Then hopefully Jolene will be persuaded to take a rest and leave the pub in capable hands.
Ruth's glad to know that Pip's ok at Elizabeth's, but she really wants her home. Pip's gone back to work at the Orangery. At least it'll keep her occupied. David and Ruth agree not to push things. Eventually Ruth gets a text from Pip. She'll be home tomorrow.
THU 19:15 Front Row (b00sx0y3)
Christopher Nolan on his latest film, Inception
Christopher Nolan, whose previous films include Memento and The Dark Knight, has turned his attention to the power of dreams and the subconscious for his new film Inception, starring Leonardo DiCaprio. Nolan discusses the new film which he's written and directed, which is set against a backdrop of corporate espionage.
Every kid has a bug period and Professor Edward O Wilson says he's glad he's never grown out of his. After a long career as a renowned Pulitzer Prize-winning scientist, with a particular interest in ants, Wilson has now published his first novel, at the age of 81. Anthill draws on his scientific experience, in a tale of ants, humans and the environment.
The Saatchi New Sensations winning artist Oliver Beer has been working on his Resonance Project, in which he uses the human voice to stimulate architectural spaces to resound at their resonant frequencies. He has taken singers into the Pompidou Centre in Paris, the Farfa Abbey in Rome, and most recently the sewers of Brighton. To give a flavour of what it's like, he takes Mark and two tenors into a long underground tunnel under Hyde Park in London.
In the week that Elton John said he was going to concentrate on making records that fitted his age, and Brian May appeared with grey hair, David Quantick reflects on whether rock stars can grow old gracefully.
THU 19:45 A History of the World in 100 Objects (b00swmjx)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 today]
THU 20:00 The Report (b00sxtby)
Catching Somali Pirates
Why are so few captured pirates brought to trial? Each year hundreds of ships are attacked by pirate gangs, many off the coast of Somalia.They target cargo and also passengers and crew who are held for ransom, sometimes for years. The British couple Paul and Rachel Chandler have been held hostage for over 8 months. An international Combined Task Force now patrols the region and its ships regularly witness boarding raids and seize pirates, yet most are just released or returned to the Somali shore - probably to participate in further attacks. In fact across the world fewer than 50 pirates have been successfully convicted of any crime. In this week's The Report, Simon Cox investigates the highly-charged political, social and legal issues which enable pirates to operate with relative impunity.
THU 20:30 The Bottom Line (b00sxtc0)
Evan Davis is joined in the studio by top business guests to discuss the fear of technology and the difficulties of working with people you don't like.
When we constantly hear about revolutionising effect of technology on the business world, it's easy to forget that many people are suspicious of new innovations. Technophobia may stem from legitimate concerns, and it can hit companies working in the high-tech sphere, especially when communication doesn't keep pace with invention. The panel discusses fear of genetically modified crops, internet security and more.
Also on the programme: working with people you don't like. They are the tricky ones, those with tough personalities and idiosyncratic habits. We hear how the bosses on our panel have dealt with difficult characters throughout their careers and how they manage these types today.
Evan's guests are John Atkin, chief operating officer of Syngenta; Eric Grosse, president of Expedia Worldwide; and John McLaren, chairman of Barchester Group.
THU 21:00 Saving Species (b00sx8nd)
[Repeat of broadcast at
11:00 on Tuesday]
THU 21:30 In Our Time (b00sxjlz)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 today]
THU 21:58 Weather (b00sx18y)
The latest weather forecast.
THU 22:00 The World Tonight (b00sx1gy)
As rules on stop and search are changed, we ask if we have the right laws to deal with potential terrorists?
We talk to the IMF about its views on the British economy, and we have a special report from Scotland.
And ten alleged spies appear in a court in New York, we hear the latest.
The World Tonight with Robin Lustig.
THU 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b00sx1xv)
FM Mayor - The Rector's Daughter
Episode 9
Juliet Stevenson reads F M Mayor's unfairly Neglected Classic, the story of a plain, reliable parson's daughter whose life of duty and service is thrown into confusion by an unexpected and unsought love affair. Today Mary's loyalty and love are betrayed yet again while a marriage matures.
The Reader is Juliet Stevenson
Abridger Sally Marmion
Producer Di Speirs
F M Mayor's masterful novel, The Rector's Daughter, is a rare thing - a novel with a deceptively small canvas, set in the backwaters of a dull East Anglia a century ago, but still as fresh as ever. Much loved by those who have discovered it, it now comes to Radio 4 as one of the Open Book listeners' Neglected Classics.
With deft precision, F M Mayor captures the emotions stirring in Mary's heart and the pain of thwarted middle aged desire. With her unerring eye, she reveals both the bitterness and strengths of a happy marriage. The Rector's Daughter is acerbic and poignant and much deserves its loyal fans and its place within Radio 4's Neglected Classics season.
THU 23:00 London Nights (b00sxgy9)
London Talking
Writer Andrea Levy presents anthologies of short pieces for radio that capturing a certain off-beat spirit of London.
Including tonight: London Talking - Steve Chandra Savale of the Asian Dub Foundation listens to the output of just two of London's hundreds of community and pirate radio stations that provide a public voice for the capital's many ethnic communities.
Plus - out of town with The Other Londons... a trip to London Apprentice, two miles south of St Austell in Cornwall. And as usual, Jonathan Glancey sticks a pin randomly into the London streetmap to find out from his famous guests just what makes that corner of the city tick ...in Pairs in Squares.
Andrea Levy was born in London and holds the city close to her heart; her experience growing up here as a black Londoner pervades her novels and is the thread woven through this mix of the day-to-day and the nocturnal... of pieces taking a sidelong glance as well as a more direct approach. A blend of poetry and prose, of the factual and the fictional that together make up this diverse and diverting nightly series.
Andrea Levy sadly died of cancer aged 62 in February 2019.
Executive Producer: Simon Elmes
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2010.
THU 23:30 Today in Parliament (b00sx1xx)
Susan Hulme reports on a day when MPs hear from the Home Secretary of plans to change the 'stop and search' laws. There's more Labour criticism of the Education Secretary, Michael Gove. Peers discuss the history curriculum. And MPs debate anonymity for defendants in rape cases.
FRIDAY 09 JULY 2010
FRI 00:00 Midnight News (b00swllh)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
FRI 00:30 A History of the World in 100 Objects (b00swmjx)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 on Thursday]
FRI 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b00swlsw)
The latest shipping forecast.
FRI 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b00swlxk)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.
FRI 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b00swlvt)
The latest shipping forecast.
FRI 05:30 News Briefing (b00swlzg)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
FRI 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b00swm12)
With George Craig.
FRI 05:45 Farming Today (b00swmfk)
Charlotte Smith hears that The Welsh Assembly Government will invest £2 million in rural broadband. The Country Land and Business Association say that isn't enough to make a real difference, and that broadband should be a legal right.
A couple of years ago the pig industry was in trouble - each pig slaughtered lost the farmer £11. This year Farming Today is learning first hand if you can make money from pigs, following 11 animals from birth to slaughter. Today the National Pig Association tells Charlotte Smith the pig industry is outperforming most other areas of farming.
And community-led growing projects have seen a surge. The Federation of City Farms and Community Gardens has seen its membership rise by nearly fifty per cent in two years. A visit to the Wyre Community Land Trust in Worcestershire illustrates the attraction of farming with your neighbours.
Presented by Charlotte Smith. Produced by Melvin Rickarby.
FRI 06:00 Today (b00swmh1)
With James Naughtie and Evan Davis. Including Sports Desk, Yesterday in Parliament, Weather, Thought for the Day.
FRI 09:00 Desert Island Discs (b00sw7fd)
[Repeat of broadcast at
11:15 on Sunday]
FRI 09:45 A History of the World in 100 Objects (b00swmjz)
Meeting The Gods (1200 - 1400 AD)
Hoa Hakananai'a Easter Island Statue
This week Neil MacGregor is exploring the sophisticated ways in which people connected to gods and ancestors in the Middle Ages. He is looking at religious images from India, France, Mexico and Turkey.
Today - in the last programme of the second series - he is with one of the most instantly recognisable sculptures in the world: one of the giant stone heads that were made on Easter Island in the South Eastern Pacific Ocean. These deeply mysterious objects lead Neil to consider why they were made and why many were ultimately thrown down.
What was the Easter Islanders understanding of their gods and their ancestors? Steve Hooper, an expert on the arts of the Pacific, and the internationally renowned sculptor Sir Anthony Caro both respond to this monumental work of devotion.
Producer: Anthony Denselow.
FRI 10:00 Woman's Hour (b00swp2w)
Presented by Jenni Murray.
Marin Alsop made history by becoming the first woman in charge of a major American orchestra, when she took charge of the Baltimore Symphony. Her appointment was greeted by controversy, as the musicians were divided on the question of whether they actually wanted her. Now she is - temporarily - back in Britain, as the Artistic Director of the Southbank Centre's Bernstein Project where she will conduct Leonard Bernstein's Mass. She discusses the difference between conducting in Britain and America.
The appointment of female bishops is expected to dominate this weekend's Church of England Synod meeting. The Archbishops of York and Canterbury have stepped in to try and avert a split over the issue. They've suggested that diocese which oppose women's ordination be partly overseen by male bishops. Their intervention has angered some of those who support women's ordination, saying it's a compromise too far. Jenni Murray is joined by a supporter and critic of the Archbishops' stance.
The journalist Zaiba Malik talks about her memoir, 'We Are A Muslim Please'. It's the story of her childhood in Bradford, and the conflicts she felt as a Muslim girl, born and raised in Britain. In it she talks about her parents, her relationship with her religion, and how that religion has been hi jacked by extremists.
It's 50 years since the publication of Stan Barstow's 'A Kind of Loving'. To mark the occasion, the book has been adapted as the Woman's Hour serial. So how has life in the north been represented in books over the past half century?
FRI 10:45 15 Minute Drama (b00swqrf)
Trezza Azzopardi - The Song House
Episode 5
An adaptation of Trezza Azzopardi's new novel, a compelling psychological thriller involving a young woman with a secret in her past.
Kenneth has fallen in love with a woman thirty years younger, Maggie,who'd been working for him as a live-in secretary. As for Maggie, she has motives of her own - she's been trying to investigate a traumatic incident in her childhood, when she was abducted by Kenneth's son, William. So far, Kenneth doesn't know what really happened; and William doesn't know who Maggie really is. But as the river floods, all three make their way to the safety of the big house - and a final confrontation.
Trezza Azzopardi's novels have been short-listed for numerous awards, including the Booker.
Cast:
MAGGIE.............KAY CURRAM
NARRATOR..........SHARON MORGAN
KENNETH...........JOHN CASTLE
ALISON............CAROLINE HARKER
WILLIAM............ MARK MEADOWS
RUSTY............ MARILYN LE CONTE
Adapted by Elizabeth Burke. Produced and Directed by: Kate McAll.
FRI 11:00 Touchline Tales (b00sy3l9)
Series 1
A Thunder of Hooves, A Babble of Bookies
Old friends Des Lynam and Christopher Matthew head for some famous sporting venues - to enjoy, observe, reminisce and trade tales about some of the greatest pleasures in their lives. Today, they lay some bets at a mid-week meet at Goodwood Races, bump into Bob Champion and see if they can discern a potential winner by just looking at it.
As a commentator and friend of sporting stars, Des has, as ever, a fund of stories to tell, and insights to reveal. But Christopher gamely tries to match him stride by stride with his own experiences as a lifelong spectator at the highest levels of sport (and, like Des, an occasional participant at the lowest). And who comes out on top is revealed when they tot up their winnings at the end of the day.
Producer: Paul Kobrak.
FRI 11:30 Paul Temple (b00sy3lc)
Paul Temple and Steve
David Nelson Explains
A new production of the 1947 detective serial 'Paul Temple and Steve.' One of the great radio detectives returns refreshed and reinvigorated to the airwaves to investigate the activities of a shadowy and ruthless criminal mastermind in post-war London.
The investigation into the activities of the mysterious Dr. Belasco lead him to a murder scene in a flat above a London dry-cleaning business; but then the clues begin to point far away from the great city, to a lonely country house on Romney Marsh.
Paul Temple ..... Crawford Logan
Steve ..... Gerda Stevenson
Sir Graham Forbes ..... Gareth Thomas
Kaufman ..... Nick Underwood
Worth/Charlie ..... Greg Powrie
Nelson ..... Jimmy Chisholm
Joseph ..... Richard Greenwood
Mrs Forester ..... Candida Benson
Ed Bellamy ..... Robin Laing
Waitress ..... Lucy Paterson
Produced by Patrick Rayner.
FRI 12:00 You and Yours (b00swrbw)
Winifred Robinson talks to Peter Curran at the end of his European trip in an electric car, finds out what he learnt and asks whether he thinks there's a practical future for personal electric transport.
Also, we get reaction to the FA decision that's stopped young girls playing football with the boys.
Plus how easy it is for wheelchair users to go to an outdoor concert?
And BBC Business Correspondent Greg Wood's starts his weekly roundup looking at local Council cuts.
FRI 12:57 Weather (b00swrjl)
The latest weather forecast.
FRI 13:00 World at One (b00swrr9)
National and international news with Shaun Ley.
FRI 13:30 Feedback (b00sy3lf)
In Feedback this week; Roger Bolton speaks to the director of the World Service, Peter Horrocks.
Also on the programme, a Feedback listener, who wrote to us to protest the proposed closure of 6music tells us how he found himself making the case to save the station to the chairman of the BBC Trust, Sir Michael Lyons.
Plus as ever the prime pickings of your comments about BBC Radio.
Producer: Brian McCluskey
A City Broadcasting production for BBC Radio 4.
FRI 14:00 The Archers (b00swyg6)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Thursday]
FRI 14:15 Drama (b00sy3lh)
A Chaos of Wealth and Want
Henry Mayhew dedicated his life to recording the testimony of the poor and dispossessed in 1850's London. But he never offered them charity. Until he met Mouse.
Written by Penny Gold
Director Jeremy Mortimer
The play focuses on an episode in the career of the great chronicler of London life and pioneer of oral history, Henry Mayhew. In the 1850s, Mayhew spent his days gathering verbatim testimonies from the city's poor for his 'London Labour and the London Poor'. No moralising do-gooder, he believed he could talk to such people on equal terms. It took his challenging friendship with Jack, a sharp-witted teenage coster (market trader) and his over-trusting attempt to assist Mouse, a drunken child-runaway with a winning smile, to teach him where the borders lie.
At the heart of the story is Mayhew himself: a vigorous, humorous, volatile, improvident, totally engaging, totally exasperating man. No wonder he sees similarities between himself and the street people he interviews; no wonder he drives his wife to distraction.
FRI 15:00 Gardeners' Question Time (b00sy3lk)
Bob Flowerdew, Anne Swithinbank and Matthew Wilson are in Sparsholt College for a Q&A session. The presenter is Peter Gibbs.
We also bring you an update on our slug trails and supermarket bedding trials.
Producer: Howard Shannon
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.
FRI 15:45 London Street Cries (b00sx05t)
Episode 5
Continuing the series of voices from the London streets, in which each programme highlights a particular sector of London life, now and in the 1850s.
In Part 5 we hear about the raucous and bawdy Penny Gaff theatres of the 1850s, and compare this with a present-day London Hen Night, with contributions from male strippers.
The Mayhew extracts are abridged by Penny Gold whose Afternoon Play "A Chaos of Wealth and Want", examines an incident in the life of Mayhew as he was compiling the interviews for his history, is being broadcast on Radio 4 as part of the'London: Another Country' season.
Cast for the week
Henry Mayhew .....Sam Dale
With Jude Akuwudike, Tony Bell, Christine Kavanagh, Alison Pettit, David Seddon, Michael Shelford, Lloyd Thomas
Abridged by Penny Gold
Producers: Jeremy Mortimer and Rebecca Stratford.
FRI 16:00 Last Word (b00sy3lm)
Matthew Bannister presents Radio 4's obituary programme, analysing and reflecting on the lives of people who have recently died. Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussain Fadlallah was known as the spiritual force behind Hezbollah in Lebanon during the the1980s. He held strongly anti-Israeli views and the USA branded him a terrorist but he was revered as a liberal Shia cleric by thousands of his followers.
We also hear about the lives of the explorer and composer David Fanshawe, Dr Clement A Finch, whose research into the role of iron in the body led to advances in treating anaemia, the artist Sigmar Polke, racehorse trainer Rosemary Lomax and the singer Ilene Woods.
FRI 16:30 The Film Programme (b00sy4ym)
Kristin Scott Thomas talks to Francine Stock about her alternative film career in France and her latest, Leaving, a steamy drama about a wife who abandons her family for a builder. Kristin discusses the difficulty of filming love scenes and why she gets very different roles across the Channel.
Francine visits a cinema that's reversing the multiplex trend, as a 1930s picture palace that was converted into four screens in the 1970s is returning to its former glory.
Plus, there's a review of two highly acclaimed films by female directors, Lourdes and The Headless Woman
Colin Shindler reports from 1960, the year of A Bout De Souffle, Peeping Tom, Psycho and Saturday Night And Sunday Morning.
FRI 17:00 PM (b00sx0rm)
Full coverage and analysis of the day's news with Eddie Mair. Plus Weather.
FRI 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b00sx0tp)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
FRI 18:30 The Now Show (b00sy4yp)
Series 31
Episode 4
Paul the Psychic Octopus: Our animal-heavy silly season series continues with a football-result-predicting octopus finding international fame.
Steve Punt and John Finnemore guide listeners through the government’s plans for electoral reform; though it’s still unclear which voting system next year’s referendum will follow.
Both gravy and actual trains are under revue as the BBC and royal family report back on their own value for money, and can the national press really have recycled an article about the blacking-out of a Midlands swimming pool’s windows, without checking the facts?
Mitch marks Ringo's birthday with an octo-ode, Jon Holmes thinks newspaper headline writers are making stuff up, “Naomi Campbell to Testify at War Crimes Trial” Really? And guest, Henning Wehn, gives a German perspective on the World Cup.
Starring Steve Punt and John Finnemore, with Mitch Benn, Jon Holmes, Laura Shavin and Henning Wehn.
Written by the cast, with additional material from James Kettle, Carrie Quinlan, John Luke Roberts and Andy Wolton. Produced by Colin Anderson.
This week’s Audience Question:
“Russia and the USA are exchanging captured spies, what’s the best / worst swap you’ve ever made?”
If you’d like to share your answer or to read other people’s, search for #nowshow on Twitter.
FRI 19:00 The Archers (b00swyg8)
Pip's finally home, and rushes into her Mum's arms. Ruth encourages emotional Pip to go and find her Dad - there's nothing to be nervous about. Pip finds David tending to Edana the heifer. Josh has been doing well with her, but David says he could use Pip's expertise if they're to stand any chance at the Royal Welsh. David invites Pip to come and help out at the show, and she's pleased.
Jamie convinces Kathy to come to Jaxx and take an interest in what Kenton's doing. They can all eat together in the bar. Kathy and Jamie arrive to find Kenton laughing and joking with Kirsty. But Kenton becomes more sober when he sees Kathy. Still, he makes an effort and offers Kathy a guided tour.
Later at Bridge Farm, Kathy and Pat have a catch up. Kathy admits that she was wrong not letting Kenton come to the cricket ground on Sunday. She also opens up about her troubling visit to Jaxx with Jamie. She noticed how happy Kenton seems in his own setting and realises that they have grown so far apart.
Written by ..... Carole Simpson Solazzo
Directed by ..... Julie Beckett
Editor ..... Vanessa Whitburn
Kenton Archer ..... Richard Attlee
David Archer ..... Timothy Bentinck
Ruth Archer ..... Felicity Finch
Pip Archer ..... Helen Monks
Elizabeth Pargetter ..... Alison Dowling
Tony Archer ..... Colin Skipp
Pat Archer ..... Patricia Gallimore
Brian Aldridge ..... Charles Collingwood
Matt Crawford ..... Kim Durham
Lilian Bellamy ..... Sunny Ormonde
Jolene Perks ..... Buffy Davis
Fallon Rogers ..... Joanna Van Kampen
Kathy Perks ..... Hedli Niklaus
Jamie Perks ..... Dan Ciotkowski
Joe Grundy ..... Edward Kelsey
Susan Carter ..... Charlotte Martin
Lynda Snell ..... Carole Boyd
Kirsty Miller ..... Annabelle Dowler
Jude Simpson ..... Piers Wehner
Annabelle Shrivener ..... Julia Hills
Joseph Hastings ..... David Hargreaves.
FRI 19:15 Front Row (b00sx0y5)
Photographer Steve McCurry; spy handovers
Steve McCurry has been a member of Magnum Photos since 1986. He talks to Kirsty Lang about taking an iconic picture of a girl with green grey eyes whom he found in a camp in Afghanistan during the Soviet War.
Director Ralph Ziman discusses his latest film Jerusalema, about a young man's journey from petty theft to becoming a major gang player amidst the crime and corruption of pre- and post-Apartheid Johannesburg.
Music writer Rosie Swash delivers her verdict on new albums by three very different female artists. Singer and songwriter M.I.A. is not afraid of controversy in her songs, videos and public statements. She's releasing her third album. Eliza Doolittle - born Eliza Caird - is a British singer and former child actress with a self-titled debut album. And with a Grammy nomination under her belt, Janelle Monae is releasing her debut album The ArchAndroid, which charts the story of the American singer's alter-ego, an android named Cindi Mayweather.
Hunter Davies has been exploring the eccentricities and roles of individual collectors in creating Britain's museums, and has discovered exhibitions on everything from baked beans to radios. He compares notes with Dr. Jerzy J. Kierkuc-Bielinski, Exhibition Curator at Sir John Soane's Museum in London.
As the latest US/Russian spy exchange takes place on the tarmac of Vienna airport, we consider the classic Cold War scenario as depicted in film and literature.
Producer Jerome Weatherald.
FRI 19:45 A History of the World in 100 Objects (b00swmjz)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 today]
FRI 20:00 Any Questions? (b00sy4yr)
Jonathan Dimbleby chairs the live debate from The Tolmen Centre in Constantine, near Falmouth, Cornwall, with questions from the audience for the panel including: Labour MP and chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, Margaret Hodge; Conservative MP John Redwood; Patience Wheatcroft, Editor in Chief of the Wall Street Journal, Europe and Guardian columnist John Harris.
Producer: Victoria Wakely.
FRI 20:50 A Point of View (b00sy515)
Political and Military Leaders
David Cannadine reflects on the relationship between political and military leaders, comparing British, American and world history. He traces the tensions between Presidents, Prime Ministers and commanders of the armed forces and he illuminates the times when military men have crossed the line into politics.
Producer: Sheila Cook.
FRI 21:00 15 Minute Drama (b00sy517)
Trezza Azzopardi - The Song House
Omnibus
Dramatisation of Trezza Azzopardi's psychological thriller about an older man who hires Maggie, a young woman with a dark secret, as a musical ghostwriter.
FRI 21:58 Weather (b00sx190)
The latest weather forecast.
FRI 22:00 The World Tonight (b00sx1h0)
The Government plans to scrap Primary Care Trusts : can GPs take the strain ?
Praising the Ayatollah : the limits of diplomacy
Haiti : six months on from the quake
with Robin Lustig.
FRI 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b00sx1w7)
FM Mayor - The Rector's Daughter
Episode 10
Juliet Stevenson reads the concluding episode of F M Mayor's unfairly Neglected Classic, the story of a plain, reliable parson's daughter whose life of duty and service is thrown into confusion by an unexpected and unsought love affair. Today Mary finds solace in a robin's song and Mr Herbert finally reveals his heart. Reader is Juliet Stevenson
Abridger Sally Marmion
Producer Di Speirs
F M Mayor's masterful novel, The Rector's Daughter, is a rare thing - a novel with a deceptively small canvas, set in the backwaters of a dull East Anglia a century ago, but still as fresh as ever. Much loved by those who have discovered it, it now comes to Radio 4 as one of the Open Book listeners' Neglected Classics.
FRI 23:00 London Nights (b00sxgyc)
The Other Side of the River
Writer Andrea Levy presents anthologies of short pieces for radio capturing a certain off-beat spirit of London.
In tonight's programme: The Other Side of the River - South Londoner Arthur Smith conducts musician Suggs round his manor in a vain attempt to convince the north Londoner that his is the better end of town. On Monday, Suggs returns the compliment. Also: writer Peter Blegvad rings a doorbell in Hammersmith and is ushered into the fantasy world of the Central London Hatcheries and Conditioning Centre - or is he?
Plus, the regular feature Pairs in Squares, in which Jonathan Glancey randomly selects a section from the grid of London's famous streetmap and explores it in company with a well-known London companion.
Andrea Levy was born in London and holds the city close to her heart; her experience growing up here as a black Londoner pervades her novels and is the thread woven through this mix of the day-to-day and the nocturnal... of pieces taking a sidelong glance as well as a more direct approach. A blend of poetry and prose, of the factual and the fictional that together make up this diverse and diverting nightly series.
Andrea Levy sadly died of cancer aged 62 in February 2019.
Executive Producer: Simon Elmes
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2010.
FRI 23:30 Today in Parliament (b00sx1xz)
Report of the day's events in Parliament with Mark D'arcy.
The Commons isn't sitting today -- but Peers are at work.
The Lords debate libel reform and changing the laws on dangerous dogs.
Also in the programme Mark will be examining the outbreak of party battling that broke out in Westminster this week... As opposition MPs kept the house up into the small hours , gave the deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg a rough ride - and made the most of the Education Secretary, Michael Gove's embarrassment over mistakes on his school building list.
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 (b00swpqv)
15 Minute Drama
10:45 TUE (b00swqbw)
15 Minute Drama
10:45 WED (b00swqr9)
15 Minute Drama
10:45 THU (b00swqrc)
15 Minute Drama
10:45 FRI (b00swqrf)
15 Minute Drama
21:00 FRI (b00sy517)
A Good Read
16:30 TUE (b00sxgs0)
A History of the World in 100 Objects
00:30 SAT (b00st9zg)
A History of the World in 100 Objects
09:45 MON (b00swmrh)
A History of the World in 100 Objects
19:45 MON (b00swmrh)
A History of the World in 100 Objects
00:30 TUE (b00swmrh)
A History of the World in 100 Objects
09:45 TUE (b00swmjs)
A History of the World in 100 Objects
19:45 TUE (b00swmjs)
A History of the World in 100 Objects
00:30 WED (b00swmjs)
A History of the World in 100 Objects
09:45 WED (b00swmjv)
A History of the World in 100 Objects
19:45 WED (b00swmjv)
A History of the World in 100 Objects
00:30 THU (b00swmjv)
A History of the World in 100 Objects
09:45 THU (b00swmjx)
A History of the World in 100 Objects
19:45 THU (b00swmjx)
A History of the World in 100 Objects
00:30 FRI (b00swmjx)
A History of the World in 100 Objects
09:45 FRI (b00swmjz)
A History of the World in 100 Objects
19:45 FRI (b00swmjz)
A Point of View
08:50 SUN (b00svv6x)
A Point of View
20:50 FRI (b00sy515)
Afternoon Reading
00:30 SUN (b00f9gbh)
Afternoon Reading
19:45 SUN (b00fyqdb)
All in the Mind
21:00 TUE (b00sxgs6)
All in the Mind
16:30 WED (b00sxgs6)
Americana
19:15 SUN (b00swljp)
Analysis
21:30 SUN (b00strwm)
Analysis
20:30 MON (b00sx2z5)
Any Answers?
14:00 SAT (b00sw3sp)
Any Questions?
13:10 SAT (b00svv6v)
Any Questions?
20:00 FRI (b00sy4yr)
Archive on 4
20:00 SAT (b00sw450)
Archive on 4
15:00 MON (b00sw450)
Bells on Sunday
05:43 SUN (b00sw4vc)
Bells on Sunday
00:45 MON (b00sw4vc)
Book at Bedtime
22:45 MON (b00sx1q6)
Book at Bedtime
22:45 TUE (b00sx1q9)
Book at Bedtime
22:45 WED (b00sx1qc)
Book at Bedtime
22:45 THU (b00sx1xv)
Book at Bedtime
22:45 FRI (b00sx1w7)
Bookclub
16:00 SUN (b00swkc3)
Bookclub
16:00 THU (b00swkc3)
Broadcasting House
09:00 SUN (b00sw5yh)
Clare in the Community
11:30 MON (b00sx2ql)
Classic Serial
21:00 SAT (b00st4v6)
Classic Serial
15:00 SUN (b00swkc1)
Desert Island Discs
11:15 SUN (b00sw7fd)
Desert Island Discs
09:00 FRI (b00sw7fd)
Drama
14:15 MON (b00sx2qr)
Drama
14:15 TUE (b00sx8nj)
Drama
14:15 WED (b00sxj28)
Drama
14:15 THU (b00sxkv4)
Drama
14:15 FRI (b00sy3lh)
Electric Ride
10:30 SAT (b00sw3s9)
Excess Baggage
10:00 SAT (b00sw367)
Fags, Mags and Bags
18:30 TUE (b00fm6m8)
Far From The Madding Child
20:00 MON (b00sx2z3)
Farming Today
06:30 SAT (b00sw35z)
Farming Today
05:45 MON (b00swmgs)
Farming Today
05:45 TUE (b00swmfc)
Farming Today
05:45 WED (b00swmff)
Farming Today
05:45 THU (b00swmfh)
Farming Today
05:45 FRI (b00swmfk)
Feedback
20:00 SUN (b00svt6k)
Feedback
13:30 FRI (b00sy3lf)
File on 4
17:00 SUN (b00sv5bf)
File on 4
20:00 TUE (b00sxgs2)
From Our Own Correspondent
11:30 SAT (b00sw3sf)
From Our Own Correspondent
11:00 THU (b00sxkty)
Front Row
19:15 MON (b00sx18r)
Front Row
19:15 TUE (b00sx0xz)
Front Row
19:15 WED (b00sx0y1)
Front Row
19:15 THU (b00sx0y3)
Front Row
19:15 FRI (b00sx0y5)
Gardeners' Question Time
14:00 SUN (b00svv6l)
Gardeners' Question Time
15:00 FRI (b00sy3lk)
Glastonbury Poetry Diaries
23:30 SAT (b00st4vb)
Grayson Perry on Creativity and Imagination
11:30 TUE (b00sx8ng)
I Was There Too
15:30 TUE (b00sx93n)
I Was There Too
15:30 WED (b00sx96r)
I Was There Too
15:30 THU (b00sx96t)
I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue
12:00 SUN (b00strwh)
I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue
18:30 MON (b00sx2z1)
In Our Time
09:00 THU (b00sxjlz)
In Our Time
21:30 THU (b00sxjlz)
In Touch
20:40 TUE (b00sxgs4)
Jeremy Hardy Speaks to the Nation
18:30 WED (b00sxj2g)
Last Word
20:30 SUN (b00svv6n)
Last Word
16:00 FRI (b00sy3lm)
London Nights
23:00 MON (b00sxgvq)
London Nights
23:00 TUE (b00sxgwh)
London Nights
23:00 WED (b00sxgy7)
London Nights
23:00 THU (b00sxgy9)
London Nights
23:00 FRI (b00sxgyc)
London Street Cries
15:45 MON (b00swyln)
London Street Cries
15:45 TUE (b00sx05m)
London Street Cries
15:45 WED (b00sx05p)
London Street Cries
15:45 THU (b00sx05r)
London Street Cries
15:45 FRI (b00sx05t)
Loose Ends
18:15 SAT (b00sw44t)
Making History
15:00 TUE (b00sx91n)
Material World
21:00 MON (b00svnn9)
Material World
16:30 THU (b00sxkv6)
Midnight News
00:00 SAT (b00svvg2)
Midnight News
00:00 SUN (b00sw4v1)
Midnight News
00:00 MON (b00swlnw)
Midnight News
00:00 TUE (b00swll8)
Midnight News
00:00 WED (b00swllb)
Midnight News
00:00 THU (b00swllf)
Midnight News
00:00 FRI (b00swllh)
Midweek
09:00 WED (b00sxh18)
Midweek
21:30 WED (b00sxh18)
Money Box Live
15:00 WED (b00sxj2b)
Money Box
12:00 SAT (b00sw3sh)
Money Box
21:00 SUN (b00sw3sh)
Moral Maze
22:15 SAT (b00sv6vh)
Moral Maze
20:00 WED (b00sxj2j)
News Briefing
05:30 SAT (b00svvgb)
News Briefing
05:30 SUN (b00sw4v9)
News Briefing
05:30 MON (b00swm0t)
News Briefing
05:30 TUE (b00swlz8)
News Briefing
05:30 WED (b00swlzb)
News Briefing
05:30 THU (b00swlzd)
News Briefing
05:30 FRI (b00swlzg)
News Headlines
06:00 SUN (b00sw4vf)
News and Papers
06:00 SAT (b00svvgj)
News and Papers
07:00 SUN (b00sw4vp)
News and Papers
08:00 SUN (b00sw4vy)
News and Weather
22:00 SAT (b00sw452)
News
13:00 SAT (b00sw3sm)
North by Northamptonshire
11:30 WED (b00sxj24)
Off the Page
13:30 THU (b00sxkv2)
On Your Farm
06:35 SUN (b00sw4vk)
Open Country
06:07 SAT (b00sw35x)
Open Country
15:00 THU (b00sw35x)
PM
17:00 SAT (b00sw44k)
PM
17:00 MON (b00sx0tf)
PM
17:00 TUE (b00sx0rf)
PM
17:00 WED (b00sx0rh)
PM
17:00 THU (b00sx0rk)
PM
17:00 FRI (b00sx0rm)
Paul Temple
11:30 FRI (b00sy3lc)
Pick of the Week
18:15 SUN (b00swlfz)
Picturing Britain
14:45 SUN (b00jwy0t)
Poetry Please
16:30 SUN (b00swlfq)
Prayer for the Day
05:43 SAT (b00svvgd)
Prayer for the Day
05:43 MON (b00swmf9)
Prayer for the Day
05:43 TUE (b00swm0w)
Prayer for the Day
05:43 WED (b00swm0y)
Prayer for the Day
05:43 THU (b00swm10)
Prayer for the Day
05:43 FRI (b00swm12)
Profile
19:00 SAT (b00sw44w)
Profile
05:45 SUN (b00sw44w)
Profile
17:40 SUN (b00sw44w)
Quote... Unquote
23:00 SAT (b00stq0l)
Quote... Unquote
13:30 MON (b00sx2qn)
Radio 4 Appeal
07:55 SUN (b00sw4vt)
Radio 4 Appeal
21:26 SUN (b00sw4vt)
Radio 4 Appeal
15:27 THU (b00sw4vt)
Robin Hood and the Cuban Revolutionaries
11:00 MON (b00n3mq4)
Saturday Drama
14:30 SAT (b007rvpl)
Saturday Live
09:00 SAT (b00sw365)
Saturday Review
19:15 SAT (b00sw44y)
Saving Species
11:00 TUE (b00sx8nd)
Saving Species
21:00 THU (b00sx8nd)
Selection of BBC World Service Programmes
01:00 SAT (b00svvg6)
Selection of BBC World Service Programmes
01:00 SUN (b00sw4v5)
Selection of BBC World Service Programmes
01:00 MON (b00swlz6)
Selection of BBC World Service Programmes
01:00 TUE (b00swlxc)
Selection of BBC World Service Programmes
01:00 WED (b00swlxf)
Selection of BBC World Service Programmes
01:00 THU (b00swlxh)
Selection of BBC World Service Programmes
01:00 FRI (b00swlxk)
Shipping Forecast
00:48 SAT (b00svvg4)
Shipping Forecast
05:20 SAT (b00svvg8)
Shipping Forecast
17:54 SAT (b00sw44m)
Shipping Forecast
00:48 SUN (b00sw4v3)
Shipping Forecast
05:20 SUN (b00sw4v7)
Shipping Forecast
17:54 SUN (b00swlfs)
Shipping Forecast
00:48 MON (b00swlvk)
Shipping Forecast
05:20 MON (b00swlx7)
Shipping Forecast
00:48 TUE (b00swlsp)
Shipping Forecast
05:20 TUE (b00swlvm)
Shipping Forecast
00:48 WED (b00swlsr)
Shipping Forecast
05:20 WED (b00swlvp)
Shipping Forecast
00:48 THU (b00swlst)
Shipping Forecast
05:20 THU (b00swlvr)
Shipping Forecast
00:48 FRI (b00swlsw)
Shipping Forecast
05:20 FRI (b00swlvt)
Six O'Clock News
18:00 SAT (b00sw44r)
Six O'Clock News
18:00 SUN (b00swlfx)
Six O'Clock News
18:00 MON (b00sx0xx)
Six O'Clock News
18:00 TUE (b00sx0th)
Six O'Clock News
18:00 WED (b00sx0tk)
Six O'Clock News
18:00 THU (b00sx0tm)
Six O'Clock News
18:00 FRI (b00sx0tp)
Smash Hit of 1453
13:30 TUE (b00rt921)
Something Understood
06:05 SUN (b00sw4vh)
Something Understood
23:30 SUN (b00sw4vh)
Start the Week
09:00 MON (b00sx2bx)
Start the Week
21:30 MON (b00sx2bx)
Sunday Worship
08:10 SUN (b00sw5yf)
Sunday
07:10 SUN (b00sw4vr)
The Age of the Genome
21:00 WED (b00sxj7b)
The Archers Omnibus
10:00 SUN (b00sw5yk)
The Archers
19:00 SUN (b00swljm)
The Archers
14:00 MON (b00swljm)
The Archers
19:00 MON (b00swygb)
The Archers
14:00 TUE (b00swygb)
The Archers
19:00 TUE (b00swyg2)
The Archers
14:00 WED (b00swyg2)
The Archers
19:00 WED (b00swyg4)
The Archers
14:00 THU (b00swyg4)
The Archers
19:00 THU (b00swyg6)
The Archers
14:00 FRI (b00swyg6)
The Archers
19:00 FRI (b00swyg8)
The Bottom Line
17:30 SAT (b00svnyg)
The Bottom Line
20:30 THU (b00sxtc0)
The Chambers
16:00 TUE (b00lnzq9)
The Doll's House
11:30 THU (b00sxkv0)
The Film Programme
23:00 SUN (b00svv6q)
The Film Programme
16:30 FRI (b00sy4ym)
The Food Programme
12:32 SUN (b00sw7fg)
The Food Programme
16:00 MON (b00sw7fg)
The Infinite Monkey Cage
16:30 MON (b00sx2qt)
The London Nobody Knows
20:45 WED (b00sxj2l)
The London Story
09:00 TUE (b00sx7r0)
The London Story
21:30 TUE (b00sx7r0)
The Media Show
13:30 WED (b00sxj26)
The Now Show
12:30 SAT (b00svv6s)
The Now Show
18:30 FRI (b00sy4yp)
The Report
20:00 THU (b00sxtby)
The Secret World
18:30 THU (b012b1z6)
The Sinking of the Lancastria
13:30 SUN (b00swj3b)
The Week in Westminster
11:00 SAT (b00sw3sc)
The World This Weekend
13:00 SUN (b00sw7fl)
The World Tonight
22:00 MON (b00sx1q4)
The World Tonight
22:00 TUE (b00sx1gs)
The World Tonight
22:00 WED (b00sx1gv)
The World Tonight
22:00 THU (b00sx1gy)
The World Tonight
22:00 FRI (b00sx1h0)
There's More to Life Than London
11:00 WED (b00sxh94)
Thinking Allowed
00:15 MON (b00sv6g4)
Thinking Allowed
16:00 WED (b00sxj2d)
Today in Parliament
23:30 MON (b00sx1y3)
Today in Parliament
23:30 TUE (b00sx1xq)
Today in Parliament
23:30 WED (b00sx1xs)
Today in Parliament
23:30 THU (b00sx1xx)
Today in Parliament
23:30 FRI (b00sx1xz)
Today
07:00 SAT (b00sw363)
Today
06:00 MON (b00swmjq)
Today
06:00 TUE (b00swmgv)
Today
06:00 WED (b00swmgx)
Today
06:00 THU (b00swmgz)
Today
06:00 FRI (b00swmh1)
Touchline Tales
11:00 FRI (b00sy3l9)
Weather
06:04 SAT (b00sw35v)
Weather
06:57 SAT (b00sw361)
Weather
12:57 SAT (b00sw3sk)
Weather
17:57 SAT (b00sw44p)
Weather
06:57 SUN (b00sw4vm)
Weather
07:58 SUN (b00sw4vw)
Weather
12:57 SUN (b00sw7fj)
Weather
17:57 SUN (b00swlfv)
Weather
21:58 SUN (b00swljr)
Weather
05:57 MON (b00sx2bv)
Weather
12:57 MON (b00swrr1)
Weather
21:58 MON (b00sx1gq)
Weather
12:57 TUE (b00swrjc)
Weather
21:58 TUE (b00sx18t)
Weather
12:57 WED (b00swrjf)
Weather
21:58 WED (b00sx18w)
Weather
12:57 THU (b00swrjj)
Weather
21:58 THU (b00sx18y)
Weather
12:57 FRI (b00swrjl)
Weather
21:58 FRI (b00sx190)
Westminster Hour
22:00 SUN (b00swljt)
What the Papers Say
22:45 SUN (b00swljw)
Woman's Hour
16:00 SAT (b00sw3sr)
Woman's Hour
10:00 MON (b00swp6t)
Woman's Hour
10:00 TUE (b00swp2p)
Woman's Hour
10:00 WED (b00swp2r)
Woman's Hour
10:00 THU (b00swp2t)
Woman's Hour
10:00 FRI (b00swp2w)
World at One
13:00 MON (b00swrtw)
World at One
13:00 TUE (b00swrr3)
World at One
13:00 WED (b00swrr5)
World at One
13:00 THU (b00swrr7)
World at One
13:00 FRI (b00swrr9)
You and Yours
12:00 MON (b00swrj9)
You and Yours
12:00 TUE (b00swrbp)
You and Yours
12:00 WED (b00swrbr)
You and Yours
12:00 THU (b00swrbt)
You and Yours
12:00 FRI (b00swrbw)
iPM
05:45 SAT (b00svvgg)