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

Radio-Lists Home Now on R4 Contact

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



SATURDAY 22 DECEMBER 2012

SAT 00:00 Midnight News (b01pcvym)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.


SAT 00:30 Book of the Week (b01pcvkw)
Shakespeare's Local - Six Centuries of History Seen Through One Extraordinary Pub

Episode 5

Tony Robinson reads Pete Brown's history of British pubs as seen through the story of one remarkable London inn, the George in Southwark, said to be the one-time local of Chaucer, Dickens and Shakespeare.

The George Inn is one of the few remaining galleried coaching inns in Britain, and lies a few minutes' walk from the Thames. 'Shakespeare's Local' takes us on a literary pub crawl through the history of this pub, from its regulars - the watermen, merchants, actors, craftsmen, writers and coachdrivers - as well as the many incarnations of the pub itself - from lawless Southwark tavern to coaching inn, theatre pub to Victorian drinking den, unfashionable boozer to tourist attraction.

Today: the myths and the ghosts of landlords and ladies past.

Reader: Tony Robinson is best known for his role as Baldrick in the Blackadder series. He's also presented Channel 4's 'Time Team' and written numerous books for children.
Author: Pete Brown , the 'Beer drinkers' Bill Bryson' (TLS), was named Beer Writer of the Year by the British Guild of Beer Writers, and is the author of three other books on pubs and brewing.
Producer: Justine Willett.


SAT 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b01pcvyp)
The latest shipping forecast.


SAT 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b01pcvyr)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service. BBC Radio 4 resumes at 5.20am.


SAT 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b01pcvyw)
The latest shipping forecast.


SAT 05:30 News Briefing (b01pcvyy)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


SAT 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b01pcwtc)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day Archbishop Vincent Nichols.


SAT 05:45 iPM (b01pcwtf)
'Will you marry me, Mister?' A listener proposes to her boyfriend during a special show about love. What will he say?


SAT 06:00 News and Papers (b01pcvz0)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.


SAT 06:04 Weather (b01pcvz2)
The latest weather forecast.


SAT 06:07 Open Country (b01pcs63)
Christmas in Norfolk

Helen Mark is in Norfolk where preparations for Christmas are underway. In Great Hockham Helen meets Vincent Thurkettle whose life has been defined by a love of trees and the great outdoors. During the early part of the year, Vincent tends his fields of Christmas trees, which are allowed to grow with wild flowers at their roots, before spending his summers diving for sunken treasure off the coast of Britain. Returning to Norfolk later in the year, Vincent begins his Christmas tree deliveries and Helen joins him as he sets off.
In the coastal town of Cromer, a rather more unusual Christmas tree has appeared in the churchyard and Helen meets fisherman, John Davies, to find out about the 150 lobster pots that were used to build the tree which now lights up the town and celebrates the town's fishing heritage.
Helen also finds out how to decorate a Christmas tree for garden birds before heading back to Great Hockham where Vincent Thurkettle has finished the day's deliveries. Vincent, who also spends a week each year chopping wood to heat his cottage and cook his food gives Helen a lesson in how to lay the best wood fire and where the chestnuts will soon be roasting.

Presenter: Helen Mark
Producer: Helen Chetwynd.


SAT 06:30 Farming Today (b01pf5cq)
Farming Today This Week

The Schmallenberg virus, which causes deformities in lambs and calves, has now been identified in every English county. It has also spread to Wales, Northern Ireland and the Scottish borders. Caz Graham finds out how the disease is affecting early lambing on a visit to Nick Hart's flock of pedigree Charollais sheep in Herefordshire. He has lost about a third of his early lamb crop to the Schmallenberg virus. Anna Hill asks the UK Chief Veterinary Officer Nigel Gibbens about progress towards licensing a vaccine and Charlotte Smith discusses the French experience of Schmallenberg with vet Thierry Chambon.

The presenter is Caz Graham and the producer is Sarah Swadling.


SAT 06:57 Weather (b01pcvz4)
The latest weather forecast.


SAT 07:00 Today (b01pf5cs)
Morning news and current affairs with John Humphrys and James Naughtie. Including Yesterday in Parliament, Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.


SAT 09:00 Saturday Live (b01pf5cv)
Sanjeev Bhaskar and Children's Laureate Julia Donaldson's Inheritance Tracks

Sian Williams and Richard Coles talk to actor and writer Sanjeev Bhaskar who's appearing in a Christmas TV special of 'Outnumbered', hold a poetry prescription surgery to solicit listeners requests for poems about solitude with William Seighart the founder of National Poetry Day, hear from Derek Amato who hit his head in a swimming accident, lost part of his memory and awoke able to play the piano brilliantly, dig the furious sound of the 'fuzz box' in our regular feature 'soundsculpture', listen to the thoughts of soldiers at Headley Court Defence Medical Rehabilitation Unit who are recovering from injuries sustained on active duty, listen to Children's Laureate Julia Donaldson's Inheritance Tracks, thrill to the atmosphere of Hawksmoor Churches in East London, with John McCarthy and writer Iain Sinclair, and jump with joy to John Sessions' imagining Al Pacino at Christmas.

Producer: Chris Wilson.


SAT 10:30 ...But Still They Come (b01pf5cx)
"...But Still They Come' explores the enormous impact and influence of Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of The World's, telling the story of the recording of the original album, the various incarnations produced in the 35 years since its release and the 2012 version, re-recorded for a new generation.

This programme explains how and why Jeff Wayne began working on a concept album based on H.G. Wells' science fiction masterpiece and the years of hard work it took to realise his vision.

In the summer of 1978, the UK album charts were dominated by Disco and Punk, with the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack firmly entrenched at number one. It was an audacious move and a huge gamble to release a double concept album based on a Victorian science fiction novel. But the compelling blend of progressive rock, classical music, Richard Burton's narration and the fascinating story struck a chord with music fans all over the world and the album became a massive hit, supported by the singles Forever Autumn and Eve of the War.

Guests contributing recollections of the part they played in Jeff's creation include David Essex who voiced The Artilleryman and Justin Hayward who sang Forever Autumn. The programme also contains never-before-heard studio interaction with Richard Burton, David Essex and Jeff Wayne during the original recording sessions.

In the years since its release The War Of The Worlds has morphed in to live stage shows, computer games and apps. Now Jeff has re-interpreted the record for a 21st century audience with a new recording featuring Liam Neeson and Gary Barlow (who both contribute to this programme), and Joss Stone.

Produced by Des Shaw and Chris O'Shaughnessy
A Ten Alps production for BBC Radio 4.


SAT 11:00 The Week in Westminster (b01pf5cz)
George Parker of The Financial Times looks behind the scenes at Westminster.
For the last Week In Westminster of 2012, George Parker of The Financial Times talks to 2 ex- chancellors Ken Clarke and Alistair Darling, and discovers they have more in common than one might think.
Liberal Democrat President Tim Farron assesses his leader Nick Clegg's important speech this week, drawing sharp dividing lines between the parties of the coalition.
And if you've drawn a blank on Christmas presents, how about a political biography? Every year Conservative MP Keith Simpson produces a reading list of political and historical books for MPs. This year he lists Jack Straw's autobiography Last Man Standing, and together they discuss the merits of political biography.

The Editor is Marie Jessel.


SAT 11:30 From Our Own Correspondent (b01pf5d1)
A Parisian merry-go-round ride

Kate Adie presents despatches from reporters across the globe.

Lucy Ash travels to Burma where she finds that Chinese investment ventures are being challenged by local people.

As Greece receives it latest tranche of bailout funds, Mark Lowen looks back over a tumultuous year in the country.

Andrew North looks at the controversy surrounding the proposed introduction of foreign supermarkets to India.

Joanna Robertson joins in the Parisian love affair with fairgrounds.

Horatio Clare explains why change might be coming to the remote island of St. Helena in the very near future.

Producer: Jane Beresford.


SAT 12:00 Money Box (b01pf5d3)
Package accounts - is the end now? Carbon discredits. The taxman cometh...not. When you can and can't cool off

Lloyds Bank has become the first bank to stop selling paid-for current accounts through its branches and on the phone. The accounts, which cost between £9.95 and £25 a month, offer a range of benefits including insurance, cheaper share dealing, and favourable overdraft terms. Many people don't - or cannot - use all the add-ons and the FSA has raised concerns about the way banks sell these accounts. Some consumer groups warn they are almost always bad value and are the next mis-selling scandal. Lloyds insists it has only paused the in-branch and telephone sales and will "fully re-enter the market later in 2013". We speak to Mike Dailly from the FSA Consumer Panel.

After landbanking - selling rectangles of muddy fields on the promise of big development gains later - comes carbon trading. This time the property is even further away - often in South America - and the promise is that the carbon credits are earned by, for example, not cutting down rainforest and then resold to businesses who use them as a permit to pollute. Of course it's a daft idea. The FSA and an IFA explains to one investor why he shouldn't throw good money after bed.

What we all suspected is in fact true - it takes too long and costs too much to phone Her Majesty's Revenue & Customs. And it's the National Audit Office that says it. Twenty million calls lost, an average wait of nearly five minutes, and a cost of £33m due to the 0845 numbers used by the Revenue for customer helplines. HMRC chief Lin Homer responds.

Normally when you buy something online you get a seven day cooling off period during which time you can cancel the deal and get your money back in full. But it does not apply to some things you buy online. We reveal what.


SAT 12:30 The News Quiz (b01pcwr3)
Series 79

Episode 1

A satirical review of the week's news, chaired by Sandi Toksvig. Panellists are Jeremy Hardy, Susan Calman, Samira Ahmed and Nick Doody.

Produced by Lyndsay Fenner.


SAT 12:57 Weather (b01pcvz6)
The latest weather forecast.


SAT 13:00 News (b01pcvz8)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


SAT 13:10 Any Questions? (b01pcwr9)
Haddenham Village Hall, Buckinghamshire

Jonathan Dimbleby presents political debate from Haddenham in Buckinghamshire - the panel includes the Labour MP Frank Field, Green Party leader Natalie Bennett, Daily Mail columnist Max Hastings and the Minister for International Development Alan Duncan MP.


SAT 14:00 Any Answers? (b01pf5d5)
Your chance to have your say on the issues of the week - Call Anita Anand on 03700 100 444 or tweet using #bbcaq or email any.answers@bbc.co.uk. Issues include Andrew Mitchell and public trust in the police - the increase in foodbanks in the UK - is it a sign that the "big society" is succeeding or failing? Afghanistan - drawdown and should parents or doctors decide on medical treatment for a child?


SAT 14:30 Saturday Drama (b01pf5d7)
Lewis Carroll - Alice through the Looking Glass

By Lewis Carroll, dramatised by Stephen Wyatt It's mid-winter, the snow is falling against the window, and Alice is learning how to play chess but then, on a whim, she goes to the mirror and pretends her black kitten is the Red Queen and suddenly everything changes ...

With Jim Al-Khalili, Roger McGough, Jenni Murray, Jane Garvey, Eric Robson, Pippa Greenwood, Peter Donaldson, Kirsty Young, Andrew Marr, Evan Davies, Garry Richardson & Melvyn Bragg.

This dramatisation brings out the intellectual spine of Lewis Carroll's classic story - while losing none of the fun.
When Alice crashes through the looking glass she enters a world set out like a giant chess board and discovers science, maths, poetry, riddles, and wordplay. It is instantly entertaining and tantalizingly offers the listener more than meets the ear.

In this fast-moving and surrealist world, Alice has to decode the bizarre rules of the mirror-world. If Alice can get to The Eighth Square she will be Queen. Lewis Carroll is ever present. He sets out the chess game for Alice, teasing the listener into having an overview of his story and exploring the ideas within it.

On her chess journey Alice will meet the Red & White Queen, Humpty Dumpty, Tweedledee and Tweedledum (who might be more familiar than the listener can possibly imagine) and the Red & White Knights. But there's a twist here - Alice will also discover that Radio 4 can be found on the other side of the glass.

Published for Christmas 1871 this story is the mirror image of Alice In Wonderland: the characters are chess pieces instead of cards. It is Winter rather than Summer and time runs backwards. Tim Burton's film was 'inspired' by Lewis Carroll's books but it wasn't Lewis Carroll's book. This is a chance for the Radio 4 listeners to discover the real thing and show them why this classic appeals to philosophers, linguists and chess fans, prefaced Modernism, has provoked a wealth of academic study, and in doing so remind them of the bits they loved in childhood (and the bits they've forgotten).

Mathematician Carroll, prefaced his book with a chess problem. It is claimed the game is a part of a sequence of numbers - that Alice's journey is code - that Carroll was flirting with numerology and esotericism. It is intriguing because Carroll loved number games and puzzles. He was frighteningly clever. He regularly invented things. You could say he was the Mark Zuckerberg of his time.


SAT 16:00 Woman's Hour (b01pf5sj)
Weekend Woman's Hour: Cate Blanchett, Tove Jansson, Meow Meow

From Elizabeth to Galadriel, Cate Blanchett on taking on the role of the Queen. We debate anonymity for defendants in rape cases. Fashion designer Caroline Charles on 50 years of dressing stars and royalty from Mick Jagger to Diana Princess of Wales. Romeo Beckham's doing it, but can child models ever start too young? International cabaret artist Meow Meow on why she's been compared to Marlene Dietrich and a "whiskey voiced angel". Teenage parties and alcohol - is it ever possible for it to end well? The work of Moomin book author Tove Jansson is remembered by her niece who inspired the role of the grand-daughter in the seminal novel,The Summer Book. Radio 4 announcer Carolyn Brown on the decision to donate one of her kidneys to husband Bruce.
Presented by Jane Garvey.
Producer: Laura Northedge
Editor: Anne Peacock.


SAT 17:00 PM (b01pf5sl)
Saturday PM

Full coverage of the day's news presented by Ritula Shah.


SAT 17:30 iPM (b01pcwtf)
[Repeat of broadcast at 05:45 today]


SAT 17:54 Shipping Forecast (b01pcvzd)
The latest shipping forecast.


SAT 17:57 Weather (b01pcvzg)
The latest weather forecast.


SAT 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b01pcvzj)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


SAT 18:15 Loose Ends (b01pf5sn)
Macy Gray, James Purefoy, Bryan Ferry, Matthew McFadyen and Freshsteps

Clive talks All That Jazz with musician, songwriter and Jealous Guy Bryan Ferry. Following the huge success of Roxy Music in the 70's and 80's, Bryan is celebrating the 40th anniversary of his incredible career and has re-recorded some of his own compositions on new album 'The Jazz Age'. It's performed by 'The Bryan Ferry Orchestra' in the style of the decadent, roaring Twenties.

Clive's on the run from actor James Purefoy, who's about to star in cat and mouse thriller 'The Following', alongside Kevin Bacon. After playing cunning Roman general Mark Antony in the HBO series 'Rome', James is playing a notorious serial killer who escapes from death row and embarks on a new killing spree. 'The Following' starts on Tuesday 22nd January on Sky Atlantic HD.

Arthur Smith talks to Mr Darcy, 'Pride & Prejudice' star Matthew MacFadyen. From aloof romantic hero to forward thinking detective, Matthew's playing Inspector Edmund Reid in a fictionalised trek into the heart of London's East End in the blood soaked aftermath of Jack the Ripper. 'Ripper Street' starts on BBC One on Sunday 30th December at 21.00.

Clive checks in On How Life Is for Grammy award-winning singer-songwriter Macy Gray. Since she shot to fame in 1999 with 'I Try', Macy has been Dancing With The Stars, collaborated with The Black Eyed Peas and appeared in such Hollywood blockbusters as 'Spiderman'. Her latest album 'Talking Book' is a love letter to its creator, Stevie Wonder. Macy performs 'You and I' in the 40th Anniversary year of Stevie's timeless masterpiece.

And South Coast collective FreshSteps have just what we need and perform 'Need You Now' from their album 'The Sound of Urban Soul-Jazz Vol 1'.

Producer: Cathie Mahoney.


SAT 19:00 From Fact to Fiction (b01pf5sq)
Series 13

There's a World Outside Your Window

There's a World Outside Your Window by Joe Dunthorne

In a week in which the world has been trying to come to terms with events in Newtown Connecticut, writer Joe Dunthorne gives the perspective of a family in South Wales, preparing for Christmas.

Bob... Gerran Howell
Phil... Alun Raglan
Sue... Eiry Thomas

Directed by James Robinson
A BBC Cymru Wales Production.


SAT 19:15 Saturday Review (b01pf5ss)
Life of Pi, Dance of Death and Restless are all reviewed

Life of Pi, Yann Martel's 2002 Booker winner, was reputed to be unfilmable. But now Ang Lee has attempted to prove everyone wrong with an extraordinary 3D and CGI display that brings not just a boy and a tiger to life, but a whole ocean. How effective is it in telling the story?

There are two television offerings: The Girl is a film starring Toby Jones and Sienna Miller as Alfred Hitchcock and Tippi Hedren which will go out on BBC 2 on Boxing Day. It focuses on their relationship during the making of The Birds, when Hedren had to endure days of live birds being thrown at her as well as Hitchcock's unwanted attentions. Restless, beginning on BBC1 on December 27, is an adaptation of a novel by William Boyd, starring Hayley Atwell, Charlotte Rampling, Rufus Sewell and Michelle Dockery, well known for her role as Lady Mary in Downton Abbey. It is based on the reality of how Britain spied during the Second World War.

At the Trafalgar Studios in London a new version by Conor McPherson of Strindberg's The Dance of Death, a depiction of a claustrophobic marriage starring Kevin McNally, Indira Varma and Daniel Lapaine, provides an antidote to Christmas fare.

Finally, Tenth of December, a collection of short stories from George Saunders, of whom Zadie Smith has said, "Not since Twain has America produced a satirist this funny with a prose style this fine".

With Tom Sutcliffe and reviewers Kathryn Hughes, Misha Glenny and Sarah Hall.


SAT 20:00 Archive on 4 (b01pf5sv)
What Big Teeth You Have...

Children's author Anthony McGowan examines the tangled story behind the beloved children's stories.

Once upon a time in Kassel, two brothers set out to record the traditional oral tales of their country. To their horror, they realised that the stories - full of sex and violence - were happily being devoured by children in nurseries all over Germany. The first people to police the stories of the Brothers Grimm were the brothers themselves, as they sanitised the stories over seven editions.

This bowdlerising trend continued throughout the 19th century, when children's literature was used as a didactic tool to encourage moral behaviour. Right into the 20th century the tales were used to reinforce the moral beliefs of the day. From the prim and proper 'Listen with Mother', to Walt Disney's first foray into big screen animated features - 'Snow White' complete with seven dwarves - the fairy tales reinforced the ideals of the day.

Then in the 1930s, films were released in Germany - stories where the huntsman in Little Red Riding Hood wears an army uniform and Snow White's father leads a heroic charge into Poland.

After the war there was a policing of the Grimms, this time by the Allied Commanders - complete removal. But, like Snow White in her glass coffin, they were only waiting to be revived. In the 1960s there was a resurgence of interest in the Grimms. Acclaimed analyst Bruno Bettelheim claimed that the stories were not vehicles for human evil - but that the tales were essential in the development of children's minds.

Coinciding with, or because of Bettelheim's work, there soon came a rush of new versions of the stories reclaiming them for a post-war world, from Angela Carter to acclaimed fantasy writer Jane Yolen who expressed the horrors of the Holocaust through Sleeping Beauty, Stephen Sondheim's Into the Woods and Philip Pullman's new tales.

Yet, as Anthony discovers, the various interpretations of these classic tales belie the true origins of the tales that were not, as we have been led to believe, spoken stories told by the good German peasant folk to their children at bedtime.....


SAT 21:00 Alexandre Dumas - The Count of Monte Cristo (b01p9gjy)
Episode 4

Caderousse is dead, and the Count's ward Andrea is poised to marry Eugenie Danglars.

While Heloise de Villefort pursues her own murderous plans to secure General Noirtier's inheritance for her son. The Count's revenge, so long in the planning, is devastating in its conclusion.

Adventure novel by Alexandre Dumas dramatised by Sebastian Baczkiewicz.

The Count/Edmond Dantes ...... Iain Glen
Haydee ...... Jane Lapotaire
Younger Haydee ...... Amber Rose Revah
Mercedes de Morcerf ...... Josette Simon
Fernand, Count de Morcerf ...... Zubin Varla
Gerard de Villefort ...... Paul Rhys
Heloise de Villefort ...... Kate Fleetwood
Abbe Faria ...... Richard Johnson
Baron Danglars ...... Toby Jones
Hermine Danglars ...... Stephanie Racine
Eugenie Danglars ...... Eleanor Crooks
Valentine de Villefort ...... Lizzy Watts
Edouard de Villefort ...... Finn Monteath
Max Morrell ...... Adam Nagaitis
Andrea Cavalcanti ...... Will Howard
Bertuccio ...... Paul Stonehouse
Jacopo ...... Joe Sims
Milly ...... Sarah Thom

Music by David Tobin and Jeff Meegan.

Directors: Jeremy Mortimer / Sasha Yevtushenko

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2012.


SAT 22:00 News and Weather (b01pcvzl)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4, followed by weather.


SAT 22:15 Unreliable Evidence (b01pcqkf)
Unfair Dismissal

Clive Anderson and guests discuss concerns that proposed government changes to employment law are nudging us towards a US-style 'fire at will' culture.

Business secretary Vince Cable says he plans to cut "red tape" in employment law in order to promote economic growth. But the proposals, which include a cut in how much workers can claim for unfair dismissal, have raised fears that workers' rights are being eroded.

With many recession-hit businesses looking for ways to downsize their workforces, and the government determined to simplify dismissal procedures, this programme asks if current employment law strikes the right balance between protecting job security and allowing employers the flexibility to adjust their staffing levels.

Leading lawyers representing the interests of employers and employees explain how current law works in the areas of dismissal and redundancy and argue about the need for further change.

Producer: Brian King
An Above the Title production for BBC Radio 4.


SAT 23:00 Brain of Britain (b01pbk81)
(4/17)
Which explorer gave the Pacific Ocean its name? And which film actor played both Sergeant Bilko in 1996 and Inspector Clouseau in 2006?

Russell Davies asks the questions in this fourth heat of the current series of Britain's longest-running general knowledge contest. The competitors are from Chorley in Lancashire, Stoke-on-Trent, Birmingham and Aberdare. They'll each be hoping they can win through to the semi-finals in the new year, with a chance of becoming the sixtieth holder of the coveted Brain of Britain title.

There's also a chance for a listener to win a prize by devising questions tricky enough to stump the combined brainpower of the contestants.

Producer: Paul Bajoria.


SAT 23:30 No Ideas But in Things: The Poetry of William Carlos Williams (b01p9gk2)
Presented by poet Annie Freud, with the former American Poet Laureate Billy Collins, and poets August Kleinzahler and Mark Ford.

William Carlos Williams is known as a revolutionary figure in poetry but, in comparison to his friend Ezra Pound and American writers including TS Eliot and Gertrude Stein, who sought a more exciting environment for creativity in Europe, Williams lived a strikingly conventional life.

A doctor for more than forty years serving the New Jersey town of Rutherford, he relied on his patients and the America around him to create a distinctively American verse. His lifelong quest was that poetry should mirror the speech of the American people.

A second generation immigrant, he sought to make something of the people and for the people in America. He was mocked by Pound who came from centuries of Americans and wrote to him "My dear boy, you have never felt the whoop of the PEEraries", but their correspondence was vital in developing the poetry of Imagism, which Pound would formally name in 1912.

Williams' sense of ordinary people, living in a real place not an imagined city of ancient relics and memory, defined America for him and infused his work. He got rid of the high blown poetic language of Europe, paring down his verse to essential, unemotional, broken lines. His famous poem The Red Wheelbarrow, published in 1923, is 16 words on 8 lines.

He was awarded the Pulitzer prize for poetry, posthumously, in the year he died 1963. He is America's first true poet.

Producer: Kate Bland
A Just Radio production for BBC Radio 4.



SUNDAY 23 DECEMBER 2012

SUN 00:00 Midnight News (b01pf2sr)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.


SUN 00:30 Rhys Davies Competition Winners (b01pf5v0)
Supper

Supper by Linda Ruhemann. It's Christmas Eve and a woman begins to decorate a very empty house. The kids have left home and she's facing the prospect of her first Christmas alone. However, she's expecting an unusual guest for supper: Her ex-husband. Runner-up in the Welsh short story contest.

Read by Sharon Morgan
Directed by James Robinson

A BBC Cymru Wales Production.


SUN 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b01pf2st)
The latest shipping forecast.


SUN 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b01pf2sw)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


SUN 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b01pf2sy)
The latest shipping forecast.


SUN 05:30 News Briefing (b01pf2t0)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


SUN 05:43 Bells on Sunday (b01pf6db)
The bells of St. Mary's Church, Ilmington, Warwickshire.


SUN 05:45 Four Thought (b01pcqkh)
Series 3

Georgie Fienberg: Saying No to Pity

Georgie Fienberg believes that endless fundraising by overseas aid charities is not sustainable, and she argues that charities should want to close.

Georgie is Founder of Afrikids, a charity which supports poor children in Ghana. When she started the organisation she set a deadline for closing its UK fundraising arm, so that the organisation in Ghana would be sustainable and self-sufficient.

Four Thought is a series of talks which combine thought provoking ideas and engaging storytelling. Recorded live in front of an audience, speakers air their latest thinking on the trends, ideas, interests and passions that affect our culture and society.

Producer: Giles Edwards.


SUN 06:00 News Headlines (b01pf2t2)
The latest national and international news.


SUN 06:05 Something Understood (b01pf6dd)
When an Angel Passes

William Blake's childhood vision of a tree on Peckham Rye filled with angels, 'bright angelic wings bespangling every bough like stars', offers a starting point for Alan Hall's reflections on the angelic in the everyday.

He makes reference to a short story by Gabriel Garcia Marquez about a 'very old man with enormous wings', poems by Rainer Maria Rilke and John Agard, and an extract from the moving conclusion of James Agee's novel about the death of his father.

The programme also includes music by Sufjan Stevens, Gillian Welch and Johannes Brahms and a clip from the Powell and Pressburger film 'A Matter of Life and Death'.

Produced by Eleanor McDowall.
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4.


SUN 06:35 On Your Farm (b01pf6dg)
Sarah Swadling visits Truro's annual Primestock Show in Cormwall to find out how important such shows are to the Christmas meat trade. Truro's show is unique because it is held right in the middle of the city centre. For one day only, cattle and sheep are offloaded, judged and then auctioned off to butchers and local abattoirs ready for Christmas. Primestock Shows, or Fatstock shows as they otherwise known, are held all over the country in time for the festive period.


SUN 06:57 Weather (b01pf2t4)
The latest weather forecast.


SUN 07:00 News and Papers (b01pf2t6)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.


SUN 07:10 Sunday (b01pf6dj)
This week we have a special edition of Sunday looking at women and faith presented by Edward Stourton

Inspired by the General Synod's vote against women bishops in the Church of England , we look at the question of whether religions discriminate against women .
Kati Whitaker has a report on whether the decision not to allow women bishops in the Church of England was an issue of equality.. or theology.
We also hear from the Rt. Rev. Mary Gray-Reeves, a bishop in California about what it's like to have authority over a parish which doesn't accept that it's possible for a woman to have that role.

We hear from Roman Catholic nun Sister Lynda Dearlove who is engaged in the kind of caring that's traditionally been the role of women in the Church. She works with prostitutes.

Orthodox Jewish teacher Dina Brawer launches a programme called the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance .. its introduction follows a decision by the Chief Rabbi and United Synagogue leaders to allow women to chair synagogues.

Ann Holmes-Redding, a former priest in the American Episcopal Church believes it is possible to be a Christian and a Muslim at the same time. Matt Wells talks to her.

Lyse Doucet reflects on the way women's lives in Pakistan and Afghanistan are influenced by religion.

And three guests - Muslim writer Khola Hasan, Rev Rosie Harper and anthropologist Dr Tamsin Bradley discuss religious leadership and influence on women both in the UK and worldwide.


SUN 07:55 Radio 4 Appeal (b01pf6dn)
Contact the Elderly

Richard Wilson presents the Radio 4 Appeal for Contact the Elderly
Reg Charity: 1146149 (England and Wales); SC039377 (Scotland)
To Give:
- Freephone 0800 404 8144
- Freepost BBC Radio 4 Appeal, mark the back of the envelope Contact the Elderly.


SUN 07:57 Weather (b01pf2t8)
The latest weather forecast.


SUN 08:00 News and Papers (b01pf2tb)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.


SUN 08:10 Sunday Worship (b01pf6dq)
Advent Expectations- 'Expectant Mothers' is the theme of worship from the Chapel of Unity, Methodist College, Belfast. The service is led by the College Chaplain, the Rev David Neilands. Preacher: The Rev Dr Richard Clutterbuck and the Rev Diane Clutterbuck.
The Chapel Choir is directed by Ruth McCartney. Producer: Bert Tosh Billson.

Advent is a time of expectation. The Biblical texts are filled with anticipation of the coming Messiah, promises of hope for the future, and expectations of the Second Coming of Christ. It's a time that we're called on to question what's expected of us and reflect upon what we can expect from God. As we prepare for Christmas our hearts are filled with expectations, which may or may not be fulfilled. And we are also reminded that God does not show His love for us in the way we expect; rather than making a great and triumphant entry into the world, he comes to us as a tiny, vulnerable child.

At the heart of the Advent story there is a very human moment - a moment where a young woman discovers that she is expecting a child. The image of the expectant mother is both powerful and humbling yet incredibly natural and unaffected. We are also reminded that the that a mother shows to her child can be compared to that which God shows to his children.]

The Gospel Reading (Luke 1.39-25) is an account of Mary's visit to her cousin Elizabeth. Here two expectant mothers share an intimate moment - but Elizabeth, and John the Baptist within her womb, also reveal something of their expectations for the future. This moment of joy causes Mary to burst forth into song declaring her own expectations for the child she is carrying and for the future of the world.


SUN 08:50 A Point of View (b01pcwrc)
Economics Priesthood

Will Self warns against the false prophets of the new priesthood of economics who base their analyses and predictions on "spurious notions of human behaviour". "In place of the vulgate we require the holy books of economics to be written in the language we actually speak, and along with this we should actively seek a liberty of individual conscience, so that we communicate directly with Mammon, freed from the intercession of a priesthood who, when not arguing about how many angels can be fitted on the head of a pin, are spending our money producing elegant but utterly spurious mathematical models of possible future angel-on-pin scenarios."
Producer: Sheila Cook.


SUN 09:00 Broadcasting House (b01pf6ds)
News and conversation about the big stories of the week with Paddy O'Connell.


SUN 10:00 The Archers Omnibus (b01pf6dv)
See daily episodes for detailed synopses
Writer ..... Mary Cutler
Director ..... Vanessa Whitburn
Editor ..... Vanessa Whitburn

Jill Archer..... Patricia Greene
Kenton Archer..... Richard Attlee
Elizabeth Pargetter..... Alison Dowling
Matt Crawford... Kim Durham
Lilian Bellamy..... Sunny Ormonde
Joe Grundy..... Edward Kelsey
Eddie Grundy..... Trevor Harrison
Will Grundy..... Philip Molloy
Emma Grundy..... Emerald O'Hanrahan
Edward Grundy..... Barry Farrimond
Neil Carter..... Brian Hewlett
Susan Carter..... Charlotte Martin
Mike Tucker..... Terry Molloy
Vicky Tucker..... Rachel Atkins
Lynda Snell..... Carole Boyd
Jazzer McCreary..... Ryan Kelly
Usha Franks..... Souad Faress
Jim Lloyd..... John Rowe
Paul Morgan..... Michael Fenton Stevens
Joyce Walters..... Ann Beach.


SUN 11:15 Desert Island Discs (b01pf6dx)
Dawn French

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is Dawn French.

Her career started back when dungarees were considered a legitimate fashion choice and she's built her reputation on borderline surreal skits and glowingly warm characterisations.

Brought up in a forces family she had to move schools a lot and found making people laugh helped to make them her friends. Since then it's made her a household name and she may be moments away from becoming a 'national treasure'.

Double act partner, sit-com star, sketch show performer, writer, actor, Dawn has made us laugh for years. So does she ever feel overwhelmed by people's expectations? She says "I tell myself that I'm the sort of person who can open a one-woman play in the West End, so I do .... I am the sort of person who writes a book - so I do".

Producer: Cathy Drysdale.


SUN 12:00 I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue (b01pbq3t)
Series 58

Episode 6

Back for a second week at the Charter Theatre in Preston, regulars Barry Cryer, Graeme Garden and Tim Brooke-Taylor are joined on the panel by the great Victoria Wood, with Jack Dee in the chair. Piano accompaniment is provided by Colin Sell.

Producer - Jon Naismith.


SUN 12:32 The Food Programme (b01pf6dz)
Christmas Necessary Pleasures

Christmas Necessary Pleasures - Sheila Dillon hears from leading chefs and writers on their favourite Christmas foods.

Jamie Oliver, Angela Hartnett and Great British Bake Off judge Paul Hollywood are among the top chefs who create an imaginary banquet of Christmas delicacies. Food writers Tom Jaine and Kirsten Rodgers discuss these foods, and hear about past Christmas traditions from food historian Peter Brears as he cooks up dishes in Wordsworth's Cottage in Grasmere.

Presented by Sheila Dillon and produced by Emma Weatherill.


SUN 12:57 Weather (b01pf2td)
The latest weather forecast.


SUN 13:00 The World This Weekend (b01pf6f1)
Shaun Ley presents the latest national and international news, including an in-depth look at events around the world. Email: wato@bbc.co.uk; twitter: #theworldthisweekend.


SUN 13:30 Hardeep's Sunday Lunch (b01pf6f3)
Series 1

Episode 5

For his Sunday lunch Hardeep Singh Kohli helps to cook traditional Congolese food with the help of Ben and Kongosi Mussanza. Over lunch Ben and Kongosi tell Hardeep about life in the Congo and how they and their children became caught up in the ethnic fighting. But despite being almost killed they talk of their determination to do peace and reconciliation work to stop the violence and counsel the victims. Eventually Kongosi had to flee the country with some of her children and they have settled in Bradford where Ben was studying peace studies. Hardeep talks to the family about how they have tried to overcome the traumas they suffered in the Congo and the problems of moving to another country.

Producers: Dawn Bryan
Amanda Hancox.


SUN 14:00 Gardeners' Question Time (b01pcwqq)
Muncaster Castle, Cumbria

Eric Robson hosts a special Christmas edition of GQT from Muncaster Castle, Cumbria. Chris Beardshaw, Bunny Guinness and Matthew Wilson join in the seasonal fun as your Gardeners' Question time panel.

Produced by Howard Shannon
A Somethin' Else Production for BBC Radio 4.

Q. How can I encourage my Pyracantha and Winter Jasmine plants to climb?

A. Lack of support for the plants will result in a lack of upward growth. Net around the Jasmine, and tie in other plants to the support. Alternatively, Sea Buckthorn might do well as it is very robust.

Q. Our new garden is bounded on both sides by fields. Is there anything we can do to create a barrier to the wild grasses and weeds (especially Buttercups), without losing the view?

A. Changing the ground habitat at the boundary with a low hedge (such as a mix of Sloe and Hawthorne) will discourage the wild plants from migrating across. Make this hedge several rows deep to create a thicker network of stems, and put a mowing strip inside it. It might be possible to add plants to your garden which references the landscape, such as the 'Hedgehog' variety of cultivated Buttercup.

Q. Can the panel recommend any plants that can withstand sea salt, sand, wind and that are not enjoyed by snails?

A. The Yellow Horned-Poppy (Glucium Flavum) or Californian Poppy (Eschscholzia Californica) would do well, as would the Crambe Cordifolia or Maritima, also known as Seakale. Hebe Topiaria is a good evergreen plant. You could also combat the snails with ferric phosphate.

Q. What's the best time of year to prune a Magnolia Grandiflora 'Exmouth'?

A. As with most evergreens, wait until it is in growth and the beginning of summer. Light pruning and tip pruning can be carried out a little earlier. You should take out no more than a quarter of total canopy in any one season, but 'little and often' is recommended.

Q. Is there any environmentally friendly way of getting rid of moss on driveways and pathways?

A. A flame gun would work on moss, as might salt. However, the chemicals available for combating moss are easier, although not as easy as letting the moss grow! Clinker could be added to paths and its pH would help get rid of the moss.

Q. Could the panel recommend small trees or shubs with all-year interest for a soggy, clay garden facing southwest.

A. Ornamental Crabapples, Viburnum Lantana (the Wayfaring Tree), Aesculus Buckeyes, Willows such as Chermisina, Britzensis and Salix Elaeagnus and blueberries are all recommended.

Q. In 1996 we had around 100 Rhododendrons planted in our garden. For the past few years, many have black, undeveloped buds on them. Why is this?

A. In bad-weather seasons, the plants' delicate petals can be scorched out leaving the bud dry and crumbling. Rhododendrons are also susceptible to a fungus that results in pinheads around the bud, but this is more moist. A good mulch around the plant will help.

Q. Our Leylandii hedge has stopped growing. How can we get it to grow faster?

A. There may be a problem with your soil, or they could be sitting in water. You could try planting Sea Buckthorn instead!


SUN 14:45 The Listening Project (b01pf6f5)
Sunday Edition

Fi Glover presents conversations about babies, Christmas and loved ones remembered in the Sunday Edition of the Radio 4 series proving it's surprising what you hear when you listen. The conversations come from Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Wales and from the other side of the Atlantic, courtesy of StoryCorps, the American enterprise on which The Listening Project is based.

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

Producer: Marya Burgess.


SUN 15:00 Classic Serial (b01pf6f7)
The Eustace Diamonds

Episode 1

Rose Tremain's dramatisation of Anthony Trollope's enthralling novel stars Pippa Nixon as the beautiful Lizzie Eustace, fighting to retain possession of her magnificent diamond necklace, which she claims was left to her, as a gift, by her late husband Florian.

Her immediate relatives, spurred on by the intransigent family lawyer, Camperdown, argue that the diamonds are an heirloom, and on no account can be retained by her. The dispute colours all Lizzie's subsequent relationships - with her cousin Frank, her new lover Lord Fawn, and her admirer Lord George. As gossip and scandal intensify, Lizzie is driven to increasingly desperate behaviour in an attempt to retain her jewels.

Original Music: Lucinda Mason Brown
Produced and directed by Gordon House
A Goldhawk Essential production for BBC Radio 4

Harpist: Cecilia De Maria
Cellist: Alison Baldwin.


SUN 16:00 Open Book (b01pf7kc)
Colin Firth's Five of the Best

Colin Firth shares his 5 of the best books with Mariella Frostrup

Today's programme is devoted to the reading choices of an actor whose abiding image in most women's eyes remains his emergence from a Regency Lake, wet shirt plastered to his torso and features furrowed in a classic Mr Darcy frown, in the television adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. More recently he won both an Oscar and a BAFTA for his portrayal of the stammering King George VI in The King's Speech.

He is also an avid bibliophile and he has co-compiled The People Speak, a book which brings to life, through their own words, the many voices of ordinary and extraordinary individuals who took on the Establishment.

Colin's Firth Five of the best choices;

1 The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner

2 Coming Through Slaughter - Michael Ondaatje

3 The Leopard - Giuseppe di Lampedusa

4 The World as I Found it - Bruce Duffy

5 The Power and the Glory - Graham Greene

Producer: Andrea Kidd.


SUN 16:30 Poetry Please (b01pf7kf)
Roger McGough presents a varied, warm, yet slush-free selection of Christmas poetry requests.
A moving poem called The Shepherd by Edward Kaulfuss will strike a chord with anyone who has felt estranged at a Christmas gathering. T.S. Eliot's 'The Journey of The Magi' with its complexities and doubt features alongside other classics like Hardy's ever hopeful poem The Oxen (it wouldn't be Christmas without it, after all) and Laurie Lee's Christmas Landscape. Another thoughtful nativity poem comes from a poet perhaps better known for her caustic wit; Dorothy Parker.
There are some nostalgic poems from Ireland, including Patrick Kavanagh's poem 'A Christmas Childhood' where the six year old Kavanagh saw the magic in the mundane ("my child poet picked out the letters/On the grey stone/In silver the wonder of a Christmas townland") as his father's melodeon called out to his neighbours. John Montague's poem The Silver Flask marks the brief reunion of a family dispersed from County Tyrone to Brooklyn, where Montague himself was born.
Coventry Patmore's poem The Toys might just move the hardest cynic heart to tears, whilst Hugh MacMillan's 'Saturday Afternoon at the Grotto' injects a healthy sense of Glaswegian realism.
The readers are John Mackay, Ian McElhinney and Eleanor Tremain.
Producer: Sarah Langan.


SUN 17:00 Europe Moves East (b01p9l5f)
Allan Little looks at the changing dynamic of the European Union

The Europe that Britain joined forty years ago was a small and loose association of nations on the western edge of the continent. Germany was still divided, with its capital in the sleepy town of Bonn near the Belgian border. France - with its long-standing commitment to the sovereignty of nation states - was the driving force of the European project.

But the last decade has seen a profound and irreversible shift. Europe's centre of gravity has moved dramatically east. After reunification in 1990, a much more powerful Germany has emerged. The countries of the old Eastern bloc look to Berlin for leadership. Their experience of Soviet occupation and communist dictatorship has committed them to building a much stronger and more tightly integrated Europe, one that will help secure their young and still vulnerable democracies. "I want the European Union to become a superpower," the Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski tells the programme. This changing dynamic is the subtle, hidden undertow to the continuing tensions over the Euro.

Forty years ago the European project was being shaped by those who had survived the Second World War on the Western Front. Now, more and more, it is being driven by those who lived through the brutality and horror of the Eastern Front, and who endured forty years of communist oppression.

Power in Europe has shifted, from the old and familiar Paris-Bonn relationship to the new and much more dynamic Berlin-Warsaw. This is the new Europe. It is one in which France - once the unchallenged leading voice - is increasingly marginalised. And it is one in which Britain seems, increasingly, reluctant to stay part of.

Producer: Jane Beresford.


SUN 17:40 Letter from America by Alistair Cooke (b01q16zd)
America's problem with gun ownership

The problem of US gun ownership, and why the American constitution doesn't actually guarantee a right to bear arms, as examined by broadcaster and journalist Alistair Cooke in 1993.

Paddy O'Connell introduces a shortened archive edition of Letter from America first broadcast 19 years ago on 29 October 1993.

In this edition, Alistair Cooke took the American nation's temperature on gun control in the midst of that early-90s panic, as Congress was about to pass the Brady Act in 1993, after more than a decade of lobbying by Jim Brady, President Reagan's former press secretary, shot with the President in an assassination attempt in 1981.

Alistair Cooke's talks on American life, history and politics - Letter from America - were broadcast weekly on BBC Radio from 1946 -2004. Over 920 archive editions are available to listen or download for free on the Radio 4 website.

Presenter: Alistair Cooke
Introduced by: Paddy O'Connel
Archive producer: Zillah Watson.


SUN 17:54 Shipping Forecast (b01pf2tg)
The latest shipping forecast.


SUN 17:57 Weather (b01pf2tj)
The latest weather forecast.


SUN 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b01pf2tl)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


SUN 18:15 Pick of the Week (b01pf7kh)
There's a celebration of musical genius from J S Bach to Dusty Springfield. We visit the Southwark inn reputedly frequented by Shakespeare and Dickens and discover what makes the perfect song for a drunk. There are Rumpolesque reflections on the gentle art of blackmail, an episode of The Archers which never quite found its way into Ambridge, and the pleasures and perils of the hobo life on American railroads. All this and the breathlessly-awaited end of the world . in Pick Of The Week, presented by Gerry Northam.

Programmes chosen this week:

Train Hopping in the USA - Radio 4
PM - Radio 4
The Long Count - Radio 4
2012 - The End of Time - Radio 4
For All Mankind - Radio 4
Book of the Week - Shakespeare's Local - Radio 4
Word of Mouth - Radio 4
Dusty Springfield at the BBC - Radio 2
I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue - Radio 4
Rumpole and the Gentle Art of Blackmail - Radio 4
Stage Door - Radio 4
Night Waves - Radio 3
Live in Concert - Radio 3

If there's something you'd like to suggest for next week's programme, please e-mail potw@bbc.co.uk.


SUN 19:00 The Archers (b01pf7kk)
Susan tells Emma that Keith's depressed at the prospect of spending Christmas in prison. As a distraction, Susan gets Emma to help her organise costumes at the Village Hall. Emma apologises for being distant lately, but Susan knows Emma has had a lot on her mind. At least now they can enjoy a laugh.

Kenton shows up to watch other acts and get inspiration for material. Lynda calls him conscientious - Jim calls him teacher's pet. A replacement has been found for the injured dancer. Kenton dropped in on a dance rehearsal (for research), which impresses Lynda. Jim can't contain himself - what a crawler!

In New York, Lilian's worn out from sightseeing. Matt impresses Lilian with a carriage ride in Central Park - he's clearly in a fussing mood. Lilian gets a text but doesn't check it, and they reflect on how far away Ambridge feels
right now.

Skating at the Rockefeller Centre, Matt's keen to know that everything's ok between the two of them now. Lilian assures him. Things become a bit more tense later when Matt encourages Lilian to ring Jennifer back (assuming the text was from Jennifer). Lilian points out the time difference, and then resolves to just sit and enjoy the view.


SUN 19:15 Just William - Live! (b01pfrrc)
Series 3

William Holds the Stage

Last May, as part of Winchester's Best of British Festival in celebration of the Jubilee, Martin Jarvis performed the first of two of Richmal Crompton's comic classics, live on-stage.

In William Holds the Stage, when an old boy of the school gives a lecture on Hamlet, William gets a somewhat confused idea that Shakespeare's plays were written by a man called Ham, and that Shakespeare poisoned Ham, and stole the plays and pretended he had written them. Then a man called Bacon got involved and possibly someone called Eggs as well.

When it's announced that the class will perform a scene from Hamlet in front of a live audience, William decides that, despite being cast as an attendant, he'd prefer to play the leading role himself. But things don't go entirely to plan.

A packed house at the Theatre Royal rocks with laughter as Jarvis performs William's hilariously inventive version of Shakespeare's masterpiece. Just William as 'stand-up'.

Performed by Martin Jarvis
Director: Rosalind Ayres.
A Jarvis and Ayres Production for BBC Radio 4.


SUN 19:45 The Apocalypse Clock (b01pfrrf)
After the End

A short story diptych written by the award-winning author Patrick Ness.

Read by Lindsay Duncan.

A newly bereaved wife returns alone to her looted home. One week on from the false apocalypse, the power is still down, the fires are still burning; people are starting to emerge, shame-faced, from their shelters, seeking food and information. As the widow walks to a hastily established food-bank, she glimpses the small boy who has shadowed her since she returned from the hospital. In his right hand he is carrying something precious; a small gift, a revelation.

The Mayans predicted that the world will end on 21st December 2012. These specially commissioned short stories explore the nature of endings through the eyes of a woman who loses everything on the day of revelation.

Produced by Kirsteen Cameron.


SUN 20:00 More or Less (b01pcwqx)
Fact-checking US gun crime statistics

The recent massacre at a school in the United States has re-opened the debate on gun ownership in the US. Tim Harford investigates whether the anti-gun statistics being widely shared on the internet stand up to scrutiny.

Whether you're looking at crime statistics or the effectiveness or hospitals, we've long argued on More or Less that death is the one hard fact that it's very hard to fudge. So imagine how surprised we are to find out it's not very reliable an outcome at all. At least not in England. Medical statistician Professor Sheila Bird tells Tim why she's concerned that the death register in England is causing delays for important health research.

Eating more chocolate improves a nation's chances of producing Nobel Prize winners - or at least that's what a recent study appears to suggest. But how much chocolate do Nobel laureates eat, and how could any such link be explained?

The average age of first-time buyers has been steadily climbing for years - it's not just government ministers who say this - everyone says it, everyone knows it. Apart from, More or Less discovers, the people who actually calculate the figure: the Council of Mortgage Lenders.

Plus, the statistical paradox of road collisions caused by deer; and the mathematics of juggling, with Colin Wright.

Producer: Ruth Alexander.


SUN 20:30 Last Word (b01pcwqv)
A Russian opera diva, a famous British housebuilder, a reluctant union leader and a '60s trendsetter called 'Mr Freedom'

Matthew Bannister on

Sir Lawrie Barratt who built hundreds of thousands of Barratt homes during the 1970s and 80s

The soprano Galina Vishnevskaya - a great interpreter of Russian music who - with her husband the cellist Rostropovich - was forced into exile by the Soviet Union.

Jack Hart who led the fight to regain trade union recognition at the government's listening station GCHQ

And the design pioneer Tommy Roberts who sold flamboyant clothes in a series of London shops. Dame Vivienne Westwood and Sir Paul Smith pay tribute to his influence.


SUN 21:00 Money Box (b01pf5d3)
[Repeat of broadcast at 12:00 on Saturday]


SUN 21:26 Radio 4 Appeal (b01pf6dn)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:55 today]


SUN 21:30 In Business (b01pcsmc)
Can the Co-op Cope?

The Cooperative movement is 168 years old and the Co-op brand is a presence in food, funerals, travel and banking. Peter Day reports on its relevance to the 21st century consumer.


SUN 22:00 Westminster Hour (b01pfrzr)
Preview of the week's political agenda at Westminster with MPs, experts and commentators. Discussion of the issues politicians are grappling with in the corridors of power.


SUN 22:45 What the Papers Say (b01pfrzt)
Leading journalists analyse how the newspapers are covering the biggest stories in Westminster and beyond.


SUN 23:00 The Film Programme (b01pcs65)
Life of Pi, Ewan MacGregor, Xmas films on TV

Francine Stock meets with Ang Lee to discuss Life of Pi, the hugely anticipated big screen adaptation of Yan Martel's novel.

Ewan McGregor reveals his reluctance to take on the part of a father searching for his family in the aftermath of the 2004 Asian tsunami in The Impossible, directed by Juan Antonio Bayona.

Critic Nigel Floyd picks out his favourite films showing on television over Christmas.

And Peter Jackson talks about his involvement with West of Memphis, a documentary focusing on the case of three teenagers arrested for the murders of three 8 year old children.

Producer: Craig Smith.


SUN 23:30 Something Understood (b01pf6dd)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:05 today]



MONDAY 24 DECEMBER 2012

MON 00:00 Midnight News (b01pf2vn)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.


MON 00:15 Thinking Allowed (b01pc37z)
Female jockeys; military migrants

Military Migrants and the British Army. From Fiji to Ghana, the British military recruits soldiers to fight Britain's wars. Since 1998 overseas recruitment has been stepped up in response to labour shortages and diversity programmes. The sociologist, Vron Ware, talks to Laurie Taylor about her new book 'Military Migrants: Fighting for Your Country'. She argues that this new category of soldier inhabits a contradictory situation - on the one hand, praised as a 'hero' but on the other, stigmatised as an 'immigrant' and 'foreigner'. They're joined by the sociologist, Les Back. Also, Deborah Butler discusses her research on trainee female jockeys in the horse racing world.

Producer: Jayne Egerton.


MON 00:45 Bells on Sunday (b01pf6db)
[Repeat of broadcast at 05:43 on Sunday]


MON 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b01pf2vq)
The latest shipping forecast.


MON 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b01pf2vs)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


MON 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b01pf2vv)
The latest shipping forecast.


MON 05:30 News Briefing (b01pf2vx)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


MON 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b01pftb2)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day Archbishop Vincent Nichols.


MON 05:45 Farming Today (b01pftb4)
A third of sprouts grown in the UK will be harvested in the Christmas fortnight. Charlotte Smith meets the team harvesting tonnes of the festive favourite on a Yorkshire farm.

This programme is presented by Charlotte Smith and produced in Birmingham by Angela Frain.


MON 05:57 Weather (b01pf2vz)
The latest weather forecast for farmers.


MON 06:00 Today (b01pftb6)
Morning news and current affairs with John Humphrys and Evan Davis. Including Sports Desk; Weather; Thought for the Day.


MON 09:00 Start the Week (b01pftb8)
The Human Voice: Rolando Villazon and Mark-Anthony Turnage

In a special recording of Start the Week, Andrew Marr explores the power of the human voice. From the emotional intensity of the tenor Rolando Villazón, singing Rodolfo in La Boheme, to the art of writing for the voice with the composer Mark-Anthony Turnage. Mary King trains the voice, and the neuro-psychiatrist Michael Trimble examines our reactions to it.


MON 09:45 Book of the Week (b01pftbb)
Three Houses

Episode 1

A beautifully nostalgic childhood memoir of Britain in the late 1890s, written by the eminent author Angela Thirkell.
She recalls in rich detail, and with a delightful sense of humour, the three houses which were seminal to her youth.

The first is The Grange in North End Lane, Fulham, which was home to her grandfather, the pre-Raphaelite artist Edward Burne-Jones. She recalls that every Sunday her grandparents kept open house for their friends and that, given the chance, she would slip away from the august gathering to explore her grandfather's studio: "Sinister people called models lived there who had trays taken up to them at lunch and tea-time".

Read by Sian Thomas.
Abridged and produced by Jane Marshall
A Jane Marshall production for BBC Radio 4.


MON 10:00 Woman's Hour (b01pftbd)
Tracey Thorn, Diana Henry

Tracey Thorn, of Everything But The Girl, plays songs from her new Christmas album and talks about what makes the perfect festive hit. Chef Diana Henry creates a delicious last minute gift. All you need is a jar, some fruit and quite a lot of booze. Presented by Jane Garvey.
Producer: Dianne McGregor.


MON 10:45 15 Minute Drama (b01pftbg)
A Little Twist of Dahl

Taste

A series of stories by Roald Dahl
Dramatised by Stephen Sheridan.

Episode 1: Taste

Charles Dance leads the cast as the urbane Storyteller in dramatisations of five classic tales by Roald Dahl. Bizarre and amusing by turns, these black comedies are justly famous for their surprise endings.

The stories show Dahl at the height of his powers as a writer of adult fiction. They are stylishly plotted, vividly characterised and made unforgettable by their breezy cynicism, presenting as they do, a hilariously bleak view of family life. Their satisfying conclusions invariably leave bullies, schemers, adulterers and frauds soundly punished.

In Taste, whenever Mike Schofield and Richard Pratt dine together, they play a little game. If Pratt, a conceited wine buff, can identify a rare vintage in a blind tasting, he wins a case of the wine in question. When Schofield boasts that he has acquired a wine whose obscurity renders it unguessable, Pratt suggests they increase their stakes. If he fails to identify it, he forfeits both his houses but, if he succeeds, he wins the hand of Schofield's delectable daughter in marriage. Despite the girl's protests, Schofield agrees to the wager.

Produced and Directed by David Blount
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.


MON 11:00 Freedom Pass (b01pftbj)
It's been a good five years since the series created by Christopher Matthew and the late Alan Coren was last broadcast - but last Christmas Terry Waite revealed that he had been a huge fan of the programme in which the two would would hop on a bus to see where it takes them - geographically, historically and conversationally. So much of a fan that Terry even suggested that, were the opportunity ever to occur, he would be delighted to take Alan's place for another outing of the programme.

What the original series of Freedom Pass managed to do was to introduce the idea of two sixty-year-old men engaged upon journeys of discovery not merely of the London bus system but also of themselves. Their aim was, in their own words, "to travel the bus routes together, rabbiting as we go. about the history inside us and outside us, about the people and events, the books and films, politics and wars, loves and hates, that are jolted out of our twin and joint memories by the places that the buses --- both intentionally and serendipitously --- take us past and to."

It struck Christopher that this same aim, philosophy even, would lend itself beautifully to a special one-off jaunt with Terry Waite. Given the extra meaning that the word 'Freedom' would bring to a bus journey with, as Christopher puts it, "this splendid man at my side", the two met at London Bridge Station and made their way by bus to Trafalgar Square. Their travels and their musings took them past St Paul's Cathedral, university life, Fleet Street and assisting in amputations.

Producer: Paul Kobrak.


MON 11:30 Enid Blyton - The Magic Faraway Tree (b01pftbl)
Rick Comes to Stay

Wisha, wisha, wisha.

Playfulness, soundscape and oddity above the rustling leaves of Blyton's Magic Faraway Tree.

In the centre of the Enchanted Wood is the Faraway Tree. Home to Moonface, Silky and Saucepan Man; its upper branches stretch into cloud-hosted dimensions of strange and magical lands.

In this two-part abridged adaptation of Enid Blyton's classic children's tale, BBC Radio 4 swoops voices from the world of entertainment into the mystical lands above.

Featuring Johnny Vegas as Moonface, Nigel Planer as Saucepan and Lucy Beaumont (Winner of the BBC's New Comedy Awards 2012) as Silky.

Episode 1 of 2: Rick Comes to Stay

Cast:
Narrator..............................Ronni Ancona
Rick...................................Billy Kennedy
Joe.....................................Alex Clarke
Frannie...............................Nell Tiger Free
Beth...................................Tess Fontaine
Moonface............................Johnny Vegas
Silky...................................Lucy Beaumont
Saucepan............................Nigel Planer
Mother.................................Joanna Hall
Angry Pixie..........................Wayne Forester

Written by Enid Blyton
Adapted for radio by Andrew Lynch

Music composed and arranged by Phase Music

Directed by Johnny Vegas
Produced by Sally Harrison
A Woolyback Production for BBC Radio 4.


MON 12:00 You and Yours (b01pftn9)
Christmas travel special - changing tourism and new destinations

In this You and Yours travel special, we're uncovering overlooked or less accessible destinations from every part of the UK. They include a new ski resort in Scotland, a neglected gem in the north east of England, a yurt farm in the Cambrian mountains of Wales and next year's European City of Culture - Derry in Northern Ireland.

We also hear about the upsurge in package holidays from the world's biggest tour operator, why Derby is wowing wheelchair users and the once and hopefully future spiritual delights of Damascus.

And we'll also tell you where to look for bargains in the Boxing Day travel sales.


MON 12:57 Weather (b01pf2w1)
The latest weather forecast.


MON 13:00 World at One (b01pftnc)
Shaun Ley presents national and international news. Listeners can share their views via email: wato@bbc.co.uk or on twitter: #wato.


MON 13:45 Grimm Thoughts (b01pftnf)
Episode 6

When the Grimm brothers first published their Children's and Household Tales in 1812, in a scholarly effort to collate a national identity of the people, it was the beginning of an obsessive project of two intricately interwoven lifetimes.

To mark the bicentenary of the first edition, writer and mythographer Marina Warner explores the many compelling and often controversial aspects of the tales in a 10-part series, revealing new insights into the stories we think we know so well, and introducing us to the charms and challenges of those that we don't.

Alongside beautifully narrated extracts from the tales themselves, renowned academics and artists who work closely with the Grimms' rich heritage add to our understanding of these deceptively complex stories.

In the sixth episode, we learn how these tales which had been lovingly collected to preserve a sense of national identity, were adopted and retold by the Nazis for the purposes of their brutal propaganda machine.

The humour is stripped from The Boy Who Set Out to Learn Fear, Red Riding Hood's gallant rescuer is given a swastika armband, and the dark undercurrents to the morals we might once have innocently accepted become uncomfortably apparent. We also explore the tangled post-war effort to reclaim the Grimms' tales for a more positive purpose, featuring discussion of The Singing Ringing Tree, the East German film that thrilled the young and old of German and British audiences alike.

Producer: Kevin Dawson
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.


MON 14:00 The Archers (b01pf7kk)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Sunday]


MON 14:15 Drama (b01pftnh)
The Barber of Shavingham

by Rob Castell and Tom Sadler

A joyous musical comedy from the multi-award-winning acapella group Barbershopera. A Spanish matador, inherits a barber shop in the sleepy Norfolk town of Shavingham.

Producer: Ben Walker

Esteve Johnson, a flamboyant Spanish matador, arrives in the sleepy seaside town of Shavingham, Norfolk to claim his inheritance after his estranged barber father's sudden death. At first viewed with suspicion, Esteve wins over the locals, falls for beautiful town crier Vicky and starts a turf war with rival hairdresser Trevor Sorbet.

Recorded in front of an enthusiastic radio theatre audience and performed in pitch-perfect five-part harmony this is an upbeat, funny and fantastical play about family, loyalty, love and hairdressing. It is adapted from an award-winning live comedy musical (Best Lyrics Musical Theatre Matters Award) which sold out in Edinburgh, plus a 5 week London West End run and national tour.

"All of the performances are terrific - each perfectly blending sharp comic timing with effortless singing. The story is surprisingly touching. You'll find yourself caring about the characters despite, or even because of, the fact that they're so silly. If you're sick of plays with dismal subject matter, then this is the one to really cheer you up." (The Scotsman reviewing the live version of 'The Barber Of Shavingham')

The Barber of Shavingham was commissioned as part of Radio 4's 'New Directions' Innovation Strand.


MON 15:00 A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols (b01pftnk)
For many people around the world, A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols, live from the candlelit chapel of King's College, Cambridge, marks the beginning of Christmas. It is based around nine Bible readings which tell the story of the loving purposes of God. They are interspersed with carols old and new, sung by the world famous chapel choir who also lead the congregation in traditional Christmas hymns.

Once in Royal David's City (descant Ledger)
Bidding Prayer read by the Dean
Ding, dong, ding (arr. Woodward)
First lesson: Genesis 3, vv 8-19 read by a Chorister
Herefordshire Carol (arr Vaughan Williams)
Adam lay ybounden (Christopher Brown)
Second lesson: Genesis 22 vv 15-18 read by a Choral Scholar
Good Christian men (arr Ledger)
The holly and the ivy (arr Walford Davies)
Third lesson: Isaiah 9 vv 2, 6-7 read by a Member of College Staff
Nowell sing we now all and some (medieval)
Unto us is born a Son (arr Willcocks)
Fourth lesson: Isaiah 11 vv 1-3a, 4a, 6-9 read by a Representative of the City of Cambridge
A spotless rose (Ledger)
Ring out, wild bells (Carl Vine - first performance, commissioned by King's College)
Fifth lesson: Luke 1 vv 26-35, 38 read by the Master Over the Choristers
Gabriel's message (arr Pettman)
The Cherry Tree Carol (arr Cleobury)
Sixth lesson: Luke 2 vv 1, 3-7 read by the Chaplain
Away in a manger (arr Willcocks)
All bells in paradise (Rutter)
Seventh lesson: Luke 2 vv 8-16 read by the Director of Music
In the bleak midwinter (Darke)
While shepherds watched (descant Cleobury)
Eighth lesson: Matthew 2 vv 1-12 read by the Vice-Provost
Three Kings from Persian Lands (Cornelius arr Atkins)
Sir Christèmas (William Mathias)
Ninth lesson: John 1 vv 1-14 read by the Provost
O come, all ye faithful (arr Willcocks)
Collect and Blessing
Hark, the Herald Angels Sing (descant Ledger)
Organ voluntaries:
In dulci jubilo BWV 729 (Bach)
Toccata Op 5 (Duruflé ) [broadcast on Radio 3 on Christmas Day only]

Director of Music: Stephen Cleobury
Organ Scholar: Parker Ramsay
Producer: Simon Vivian.


MON 16:30 The Infinite Monkey Cage (b01pfv8r)
Series 7

Christmas Special: The Science of Christmas Behaviour

Brian Cox and Robin Ince get into the Christmas spirit as they look at the science of Christmas behaviour with actor and writer Mark Gatiss, geneticist Steve Jones, psychologist Richard Wiseman and emeritus Dean of Guildford Cathedral Victor Stock.


MON 17:00 PM (b01pfv8w)
Full coverage and analysis of the day's news with Paddy O'Connell.


MON 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b01pf2w3)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


MON 18:15 I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue (b01pfv8y)
Christmas Special

In celebration of its 40th Anniversary this year, Radio 4's perennial antidote to panel games presents a specially extended Christmas edition of the show. Programme regulars Barry Cryer, Graeme Garden and Tim Brooke-Taylor are joined on the panel by Stephen Fry, with Jack Dee as the programme's reluctant chairman. Regular listeners will know to expect inspired nonsense, pointless revelry and Colin Sell at the piano. Producer - Jon Naismith.


MON 19:00 The Archers (b01pfv90)
At Neil's request, Neil and Ruth go through Ed's accounts. His money management is in a mess with no real budgeting or forward planning. Neil asks Ruth not to let on to proud Ed that they've had this meeting. But Ruth does want to speak to David, who is also concerned. Ed clearly needs decent dairy management software. Ruth has told Neil she'll show Ed how they run their budget, although finding the right moment to approach Ed with an offer of help may be tricky.

At Lower Loxley, David and Elizabeth discuss the gargantuan amounts of food for tomorrow and share a joke about Christmases past.

Vicky's delighted when Mike returns home. He's free now for 36 whole hours! Noticing all the sewing work Vicky's been doing for the show, Mike says she should take things easier. They cosy up as Mike says how lovely Vicky has made the place look. Then they enjoy a romantic dance together before Mike treats himself to a beer. Vicky looks ahead to next Christmas, and despite a slightly warning tone from Mike he joins her. He tells Vicky how amazing she is, with enough belief to get them both to where they are now.


MON 19:15 Front Row (b01pfv92)
People of the Year 2012, part 2

Mark Lawson unwraps interviews with arts headline makers of 2012, in the second of two programmes.

Writer E L James reflects on a year in which she became a global publishing phenomenon, with her best-selling trilogy which began with Fifty Shades of Grey.

Mark looks back at the Olympic Opening Ceremony, with director Danny Boyle and designer Thomas Heatherwick, who created the highly original cauldron for the Olympic flame.

Singer Emeli Sandé remembers how nervous she felt moments before performing at the Opening Ceremony, and discusses a year in which she has become one of the UK's most high-profile musicians.

Broadcaster and writer Clare Balding considers her role as a presenter at the Olympic and Paralympic games, and reveals how she allowed her mother three chances to veto content in her best-selling memoir, published this year.

Writer Lolita Chakrabarti and actor Adrian Lester talk about their collaboration on the acclaimed play Red Velvet, based on the life of Ira Aldridge, an African-American actor whose arrival on the 19th century London stage provoked debate and dissent.

Producer Ella-mai Robey.


MON 19:45 15 Minute Drama (b01pftbg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:45 today]


MON 20:00 Earworms (b01ng2qz)
Earworms are those nagging songs you find yourself humming on the bus.

In this programme, music presenter Shaun Keaveny meets fellow sufferers and scientists to find out why songs get stuck in our head. He asks songwriter Guy Garvey from Elbow how to write a catchy tune and discovers the Holy Grail of musicians everywhere - the 'earworm formula'.

For the past three years on his 6 Music breakfast show, Shaun has been asking listeners to send in their earworms. When psychologist Dr Lauren Stewart found out, she was fascinated by this strange mental phenomenon. Together they've compiled the largest study on earworms to date, with over 10,000 reports from people around the world.

Lauren and her team at Goldsmiths have found that some people are particularly susceptible to earworms. Plus they are starting to discover that certain songs are more 'earwormy' than others.

So is there a secret formula behind the world's catchiest tunes?

Producer: Michelle Martin

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2012.


MON 20:30 Crossing Continents (b01pcs5q)
Poland's New Immigrants

For decades, Poland has been a country of emigrants travelling to build new lives abroad, not least in the UK. But could things be about to change? Paul Henley travels to the country at the eastern edge of the EU, where the financial crisis has, so far, been avoided. He meets the migrants already making a life in Europe's least multicultural society, and explores the conditions that suggest Poland could be on the cusp of becoming a destination; home to a new wave of migrants.
Producer: Lila Allen.


MON 21:00 Material World (b01pcs67)
This week Quentin Cooper looks at new research into the usefulness of I Q tests. The hundred year old measure of intelligence has often been derided for being culturally biased, sexist and unfairly divisive. Now the largest ever study of IQ tests examines asks what such tests really measure and how far they can provide a useful way to compare the abilities of different people.

We also look to Antarctica, a project to drill through the frozen surface of Lake Ellsworth has been suspended due to problems with a hot water powered drill. Scientists hope to resume drilling by Christmas day and obtain samples for their search for life forms that may have existed for millennia below the lakes frozen surface.

We talk to Alexander Kumar a doctor who has spent the past 9 months living in Antarctica as part of an European Space Agency project to look at the physiological and psychological impact of extreme cold and isolation - which ESA hopes will help inform future long distance space missions to other planets.

And we hear from children's presenters Dick and Dom about their new science series 'How Dangerous' which is being broadcast on 4 Extra starting on Christmas Eve.


MON 21:30 Start the Week (b01pftb8)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]


MON 21:58 Weather (b01pf2w5)
The latest weather forecast.


MON 22:00 The World Tonight (b01pfv96)
Prime Minister David Cameron is going to give a big speech on the future of the UK in Europe in early 2013 - amid growing calls from his own party, for a referendum - in or out. In this special programme, Ritula Shah asks an international panel of MPs if the UK can prosper outside Europe and Europe can prosper without the UK?


MON 22:45 Daphne Du Maurier (b01pfv98)
Frenchman's Creek

Episode 1

Part adventure, part romance, and set in Cornwall, Daphne Du Maurier's novel tells the powerful love story between Lady Dona and the French pirate Aubery.

Episode 1
Lady Dona St Columb flees high society London for the family estate in Cornwall, only to discover that a stranger has been sleeping in her bed.

Read by Adjoa Andoh
Abridged by Eileen Horne

Produced by Clive Brill
A Pacificus production for BBC Radio 4.


MON 23:00 Word of Mouth (b01p9l1x)
Under the Influence

Michael Rosen returns for a new series with an investigation into the effects of alcohol on speech and voice quality. Michael talks to psychologists at the University of Liverpool and listens to some of the controlled experiments they're carrying out with undergraduates both sober and intoxicated. He looks at research into the perfect pub song, and beer writer Pete Brown talks about the quintessential hum of pub chat. And we visit the Royal College of Music to discuss voice care and the kinds of food and drink professional singers have to avoid in order to prolong their careers.

Producer: Chris Ledgard.


MON 23:30 Midnight Mass (b01pfv9b)
Glory to the new born King
Radio 4 visits the Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King in Liverpool for the first Mass of Christmas in the company of a congregation of nearly two thousand people. The Principal Celebrant is the Rt Revd Thomas Williams, Auxiliary Bishop of Liverpool, assisted by the Dean and Clergy of the Cathedral. The cathedral choir, directed by Christopher McElroy sings Haydn's St Nicholas Mass, carols and Christmas music with organ (Richard Lea) and brass to celebrate the birth of Jesus, the light of the world.
Producer: Clair Jaquiss.



TUESDAY 25 DECEMBER 2012

TUE 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b01pf2x6)
The latest shipping forecast.


TUE 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b01pf2x8)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


TUE 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b01pf2xb)
The latest shipping forecast.


TUE 05:30 News Briefing (b01pf2xd)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


TUE 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b01pfwh8)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day Archbishop Vincent Nichols.


TUE 05:45 Farming Today (b01pfwhb)
Highclere Castle is famous around the world as the location for the TV programme Downton Abbey. But when the cameras have left, it is business as usual for the 2,000 acre farm, woodland and grounds. In the special Christmas Day edition of Farming Today, Anna Hill meets the team who manage the estate.

This programme is presented by Anna Hill and produced in Birmingham by Sarah Swadling.


TUE 06:00 Food and Farming Awards (b01p0vfj)
BBC Food and Farming Awards 2012

Sheila Dillon and Valentine Warner present the 13th, annual, BBC Food & Farming Awards, featuring Angela Hartnett, Raymond Blanc, Paul Hollywood and Countryfile's Adam Henson.

Recorded at the BBC Good Food Show, inside the NEC, Birmingham, chefs, food writers and drinks experts announce the winners in nine different categories, from Best Street Food or Takeaway to Best Food Market.

The event was the climax of a six month search for the best of British food and drink and the event proved to be a rich mix of food stories are on offer. A perfect start to Christmas morning.

Producer: Dan Saladino.


TUE 07:00 HV Morton: Travelling into the Light (b01mqr4t)
As John McCarthy retraces one of the journeys of H.V. Morton he presents a revealing portrait of this influential travel writer.

Witty, erudite and engaging, H.V. Morton was Britain's first truly popular travel writer.

His success was assured when he covered the opening of Tutankhamun's tomb in 1923. His book In Search of England, published four years later, launched a bestselling series and set a benchmark for all travel writers.

Using In Search of England as a reference, McCarthy recreates Morton's journey around Devon and explores the changes to the landscape over the past eighty years.

On his travels he uncovers two Mortons. The book's narrator is a welcoming, cheerful man who rolls along the roads of England in a two-seater car to compose his skilfully-crafted considerations; and then there's the writer Harry Morton, a more complex individual whose literary achievements mask a complicated private life.

McCarthy's journey, echoing the pages of chapter six of In Search of England, takes him around Dartmoor, Widecombe and finally Clovelly. As he absorbs the areas he visited himself as a child he reflects on the influence of Morton and brings into the light the darker corners of the life of this pioneering travel writer.


TUE 07:30 Eric Sykes - The Radio Years (b0088z58)
The late and much missed Eric Sykes, in conversation with Paul Jackson, reflects back on his radio years writing scripts for Frankie Howerd, Archie Andrews and the Goons.

Producer: Paul Kobrak.


TUE 08:00 The Kitchen Cabinet (b01pfwhd)
Series 3

Christmas Special

For this special Christmas edition of The Kitchen Cabinet, Jay Rayner and the team are with food-lovers in Hoxton, London.

On the panel and full of festive cheer is food historian Annie Gray; renowned Michelin Star chef Angela Hartnett; cook, writer, and co-founder of the Leon restaurant chain, Henry Dimbleby; and Glaswegian cook and expert on Catalan cooking, Rachel McCormack.

The team tackle Christmas eating, including talking about the best ways of cooking and carving a turkey, vegetarian options for Christmas dinner if not an obvious nut roast, and if it's possible to shoe-horn deep-frying into Christmas cooking.

They pit Henry's modern mince pies against Annie's Tudor version that contains meat, and take questions on exciting ways to use-up leftovers and the best ways to dress your festive vegetables.

Food Consultant: Anna Colquhoun.

Produced by Robert Abel and Peggy Sutton.
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.


TUE 08:30 Ed Reardon's Week (b01pfwhg)
Ed Reardon at Christmas

It Started in August

Celebrate Christmas with Radio 4's favourite curmudgeonly author, Ed Reardon, and his faithful companion Elgar.

It's Christmas Day and where is Ed Reardon spending it? The scepticism of his writing class back in August about where Ed would be hanging his stocking, wasn't entirely misplaced, and receiving a Christmas card from one's girlfriend signed without a kiss and her surname added in brackets probably doesn't bode well. However, all is not lost as Ed's jocular round robin email to his family inviting himself to join their Christmas celebrations wasn't all in vain - there was at least one member of the family who didn't bounce it back. So, following assurances that his requirements would be minimal, his levels of merriment would be Dionysian and a small caveat about what he regards as permissible Christmas viewing Ed is encouraged to think that he won't be spending Christmas alone. Or he could be looking at a day with only Elgar, an Oxo cube and a cinnamon stick.

Written by Andrew Nickolds and Christopher Douglas
Produced by Dawn Ellis.


TUE 09:00 Christmas Service (b01pfwhj)
'A Right Royal Christmas' - Bishop Richard Chartres preaches from the Chapel of St Peter ad Vincula, Tower of London at the close of a remarkable Diamond Jubilee Year. Bishop Stephen Oliver and Chaplain to the Queen and Chaplain to HM Tower of London, The Revd Roger Hall MBE, are joined by members of the community who today live within the walls of the Tower in this joyful act of worship for Christmas morning which will draw parallels and contrasts between the Kingship of Jesus Christ and some of the Royal happenings for which the Tower of London is famous. The Choir of the Chapels Royal, HM Tower of London present a feast of lively and popular carols including the Christmas morning favourite 'I Saw Three Ships.' Music Director: Colm Carey with organist Andrew Arthur. Producer: Mark O'Brien.


TUE 09:45 Book of the Week (b01pfwhl)
Three Houses

Episode 2

The author Angela Thirkell recalls her home in Kensington Square in the late 1890s, popping in to visit her neighbour, Auntie Stella aka Mrs Patrick Campbell, and the tea-time visits from her adoring grandfather, the artist Edward Burne-Jones, who kept a pad of paper at her house to draw her enchanting pictures.

Read by Sian Thomas.
Abridged and produced by Jane Marshall
A Jane Marshall production for BBC Radio 4.


TUE 10:00 Woman's Hour (b01pfwhn)
Miranda Hart, Allegra McEvedy

Jenni Murray and Jane Garvey host an extended edition of Woman's Hour. Comedian Miranda Hart discusses her new series; Kirstie Allsopp, Anna Friel and Jessica Ennis share their Xmas plans and we hear about some unusual ways of spending the holiday, there are tips from the chefs Mary Berry, Monica Galetti and Allegra McEvedy and Susy Atkins mixes the perfect pre-lunch aperitif. Plus music from the Ruby Dolls and some special presents.
Producer Louise Corley.


TUE 10:45 15 Minute Drama (b01pfwhq)
A Little Twist of Dahl

The Way up to Heaven

A series of stories by Roald Dahl
Dramatised by Stephen Sheridan.

Episode 2: The Way Up To Heaven

Charles Dance leads the cast as the urbane Storyteller in dramatisations of five classic tales by Roald Dahl. Bizarre and amusing by turns, these black comedies are justly famous for their surprise endings.

The stories show Dahl at the height of his powers as a writer of adult fiction. They are stylishly plotted, vividly characterised and made unforgettable by their breezy cynicism, presenting as they do, a hilariously bleak view of family life. Their satisfying conclusions invariably leave bullies, schemers, adulterers and frauds soundly punished.

In The Way Up To Heaven, despite living in a New York mansion so vast that it requires its own elevator, the Fosters are not a happy couple. Mrs Foster has a pathological fear of being late and her husband deliberately torments her by doing everything as slowly as he can. When she accepts an invitation to visit France, he insists on taking her to the airport only to leave her waiting outside in the car. Nearly hysterical, she goes to see what's keeping him but, when she reaches the front door, she hears a particular sound and realises, if she's cunning, she need never be late again..

Produced and Directed by David Blount
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.


TUE 11:00 Woman's Hour (b01pfyfg)
Jenni Murray and Jane Garvey host an extended edition of Woman's Hour. Comedian Miranda Hart discusses her new series; Kirstie Allsopp, Anna Friel and Jessica Ennis share their Xmas plans and we hear about some unusual ways of spending the holiday, there are tips from the chefs Mary Berry, Monica Galetti and Allegra McEvedy and Susy Atkins mixes the perfect pre-lunch aperitif. Plus music from the Ruby Dolls and some special presents.
Producer Louise Corley.


TUE 11:30 Saving Species (b01pfwhs)
Series 3

British Overseas Territories

Howard Stableford is in the chair for this Christmas Day Saving Species. On this day our thoughts are about spending time at home with our family, so for this week's episode Howard is looking at the UK's extended family with a programme on conservation in some of the British Overseas Territories.

We report on the news that a rare and highly endangered frog from Monserrat and Dominica in the Caribbean has successfully bred in London Zoo. Ed Drewitt discusses with Dr Ian Stephen this last chance conservation effort to save the Mountain chicken frog threatened with the Chytrid fungus; a disease fatal to 2/3 of all amphibians.

From tropical seas to the windswept island of S Georgia where the largest rat eradication project in the world is about to happen. Team Rat set off in January to save the albatrosses and petrels that nest on the sub-Antarctic eden from being eaten by rodents.

Howard discusses the establishment of marine conservation areas around the overseas territories with Alistair Gammell of the PEW Foundation. Overseas Territories are not just the land itself, it includes the seas that surround them for 200 nautical miles and include some of the richest seas in the world. Howard then questions the DEFRA Minister for Biodiversity, Richard Benyon, what the UK plans to do to help protect the precious places that make up British Overseas Territories.

Presenter Howard Stableford
Producer Mary Colwell
Editor Julian Hector.


TUE 12:00 With Great Pleasure (b01pfwzw)
With Great Pleasure at Christmas

A festive edition of the programme which invites a celebrity to raid their memories in search of the pieces of writing and music which best sum up their lives. Fi Glover, one of the BBC's most cherished radio presenters, steps up with a wonderfully varied selection of readings, from a nursery rhyme to Aristotle by way of Alan Bennett and John Mortimer. She even includes a fully-practical recipe for a very special dessert.

The readers are Rosie Cavaliero and Mark Meadows, who are joined by poet Kate Fox, and the Exultate Singers provide the finishing celebratory touch.

Producer Christine Hall.


TUE 12:57 Weather (b01pf2xg)
The latest weather forecast.


TUE 13:00 News Briefing (b01pfwzy)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


TUE 13:15 Grease Was Our World (b01pth5g)
Grease has entertained audiences for over 40 years, first on stage from 1971 and then on film in 1978. Somewhere near you Danny, Sandy Rizzo and the Pink Ladies will be hand jiving their way through a pastiche 1950's that is a happy fantasy almost entirely detached from the Eisenhower years. But the true roots of Grease lie far away from the palm trees and sunlit corridors of Travolta's Rydell High.

Alan Dein searches for the real world of Grease in North West Chicago with creator Jim Jacobs. There he encounters a much earthier world of 1950's teenage America. Enter a universe of drag races, boy bikers, teen rumbles and the real Pink Ladies! Home to The Imperials, Goombahs, Ravens and The Outcasts. Most newly arrived from the inner city and chafing against conformity. Tough kids who created a new kind of life for themselves far removed from their immigrant parent desires. Now in their 70's they describe some of the adventures that helped provide the inspiration for Jim Jacobs and writing partner Warren Casey in creating their Sandy, Danny, Rizzo and Kenickie. But the Grease that opened with an amateur cast for what was supposed to be just a few weeks in February 1971 was radically different to the so many of us know.

Producer: Mark Burman.


TUE 13:45 Grimm Thoughts (b01pfx02)
Episode 7

When the Grimm brothers first published their Children's and Household Tales in 1812, in a scholarly effort to collate a national identity of the people, it was the beginning of an obsessive project of two intricately interwoven lifetimes.

To mark the bicentenary of the first edition, writer and mythographer Marina Warner explores the many compelling and often controversial aspects of the tales in a 10-part series, revealing new insights into the stories we think we know so well, and introducing us to the charms and challenges of those that we don't.

Alongside beautifully narrated extracts from the tales themselves, renowned academics and artists who work closely with the Grimm's rich heritage add to our understanding of these deceptively complex stories.

Oedipal struggle in Cinderella; oral fixation in Hansel and Gretel; Little Red Riding Hood and attachment complex! Writers, psychologists and therapists have read deeper meanings into the Grimms' fairy tales. They have long been the subject of Freudian and Jungian interpretations and continue to be used by therapists and self-help authors today. In today's seventh episode of the series, we put the tales on the couch and discuss with psychoanalyst Susie Orbach their primal capacity to take on the unreal form of a dream.

Producer: Kevin Dawson
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.


TUE 14:00 The Archers (b01pfv90)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Monday]


TUE 14:15 Drama (b01pfx04)
Rumpole

Rumpole and the Expert Witness

Written by by John Mortimer. Adapted for radio by Richard Stoneman.

Benedict Cumberbatch and Timothy West star in this new Rumpole story.

It's 1964. Rumpole is asked to defend a GP, Dr Ned Dacre, who is accused of murdering his wife, Sally. Dr Ned Dacre's father is also a GP, Dr Henry Dacre, and it is he who asks Rumpole to take on the case.

Dr Henry met Rumpole during the Penge Bungalow Murder trial and believes Rumpole's the man to get his son off this trumped-up charge. The plot thickens when the local pathologist, Pamela Gall, turns out to be an old flame of Dr Ned's. It seems that Pamela never forgave Dr Ned for dumping her and marrying Sally instead.

Director: Marilyn Imrie
A Catherine Bailey production for BBC Radio 4.


TUE 15:00 HM The Queen (b01pfxhv)
The Queen's Christmas message to the Commonwealth and the nation, followed by the national anthem.


TUE 15:05 News Briefing (b01pfxhx)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


TUE 15:15 Pick of the Year (b01pfxhz)
In the New Year, Senior Announcer Harriet Cass leaves Radio 4 but before her departure she chooses her favourite moments from BBC Radio in 2012.

Included in her choices are children's voices talking about trout and haircuts, disembodied voices in desperate morse code messages signalling Titanic's end, Yorkshire voices searching for the point where language and accent change, great orator's voices - such as Martin Luther King - and voices telling moving and heart-breaking stories.

Good Morning Scotland - BBC Radio Scotland
The Arse That Jack Built - Radio 4
Today: Leap For Change - Radio 4
The Ice Mountain - Radio 4
Titanic In Her Own Words - Radio 4
Ship of Dreams - Radio 4
Wireless Nights - Radio 4
Soul Music: Brothers in Arms - Radio 4
Today: Obama's Victory Speech - Radio 4
Andrew Peach Show - Radio Berkshire
Charlie and Alfie's Breakfast Show: Martin Luther King Archive - Radio Newcastle
PM: Leap For Change - Radio 4
Twelfth Night - Radio 3
Old Harry's Game - Radio 4
Shortcuts - Radio 4
In Tune: The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain - Radio 3

If there's something you'd like to suggest for next week's programme, please e-mail potw@bbc.co.uk.


TUE 16:00 Word of Mouth (b01pfxj1)
Michael Rosen meets linguists, historians, students and sequence dancers to find out why the giving and receiving of compliments can be a complex and dangerous business. He meets language students in Cheltenham and sequence dancers in North London, who each have very different responses to people saying nice things to them. He talks to a personal development tutor and an etiquette coach about the do's and dont's of positive feedback. And he talks to the Swansea linguist studying why people feel uncomfortable with compliments. The difficulty is not the compliment, it's the response. How do you reply positively and politely without sounding arrogant? Michael discovers that our tendency towards post-modern irony makes a sincere compliment a difficult manoeuvre to complete - so even if you can say something nice, it may still be best to say nothing at all.

Producer: John Byrne.


TUE 16:30 Great Lives (b01pfxj3)
Series 29

Ralph Vaughan Williams

Matthew Parris talks to writer, broadcaster and 6Music presenter Stuart Maconie about the life of Ralph Vaughan Williams.

The expert witness is Em Marshall-Luck, chairman of the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society and founder-director of the English Music Festival.

Producer: Christine Hall


TUE 17:00 News Briefing (b01pfxj5)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


TUE 17:10 Eddie Goes Country (b01p2w7d)
PM presenter Eddie Mair has harboured a secret. But no more - it's a lifelong love of Country music. He wants to know why these three chord melodramas call him and many of his fellow Celts.

While, to the casual listener, Country is often regarded as a twang of twee tunes and lachrymose lyrics for the permanently melancholic, Eddie suggests that it is actually a 'complex state of mind'. He considers the accessible merits of the music and discovers the roots of Country.

Returning to Scotland, Eddie attends the Celtic Connections Music Festival in Glasgow. Here he compares notes, likes and dislikes with fellow broadcaster and Country aficionado Ricky Ross, along with singers Eleanor McEvoy and Dick Gaughan.

On hand to explain the 18th century Scots/Irish exodus to America and Canada is emigration historian Professor James Hunter. And providing a master class on the Celtic musical lineage detected in contemporary Country Music is musicologist Dr. Katherine Campbell from Edinburgh University.

And for the first time, Eddie will reveal where his musical devotion took root. It began on the Sabbath in a yellow Triumph PI. That almost sounds like the beginning of a Country song...

Producers: Jo Coombs and Stewart Henderson
A Loftus Audio production for BBC Radio 4.


TUE 17:40 Nabokov's Christmas (b01pfy5p)
by Vladimir Nabokov.

An intensely moving short story about a father mourning the death of his son. On Christmas Eve, a grieving father moves around the family home gathering together some of his son's effects. This leads him to discover things that he did not know about his beloved son and also to find something among his belongings that will renew his will to live.

Vladimir Nabokov was born in St. Petersburg in 1899, the eldest son of an aristocratic family. Nabokov is arguably most famous for his 1955 novel LOLITA.

Read by Robert Glenister.

Produced by Gaynor Macfarlane.


TUE 17:54 Shipping Forecast (b01pfy5r)
The latest shipping forecast.


TUE 17:57 Weather (b01pjvps)
The latest weather forecast.


TUE 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b01pf2xj)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


TUE 18:15 15 Minute Musical (b01pfy5t)
Series 7

A Right Royal Cockney Christmas

Let the music play on!

Beautifully crafted with astronomically high production values 15 Minute Musical does for your ears what chocolate does for your taste buds.

All in fifteen minutes!

Episode One: A Right Royal Cockney Christmas

Upstairs Downton with the Windsors and the Middletons.

Starring: Richie Webb, Dave Lamb, Alex Tregear and Jess Robinson
Written by: Richie Webb, Dave Cohen and David Quantick
Music by: Richie Webb
Music Production: Matt Katz
Producer: Katie Tyrrell

After a year's break 15 Minute Musical is itching to get it's musical teeth back into easily identifiable public figures and give them a West End Musical make-over. This fabricated, sugar-coated story is then told in an original, never heard before, bite-size musical that will have your toes tapping to the rhythm and shoulders shaking to the laughs.

In true West End style artistic licence is well and truly taken and stretched ridiculously as easily identifiable public figures are dressed up, gilded, fabricated and placed against the backdrop of a random period of history for sugar coated consumption. The stories are simple and engaging but the writing is razor-sharp allowing the audience to enjoy all the conventions of a musical (huge production numbers, tender ballads and emotional reprises) whilst we completely re-interpret events in major celebrities' lives. With over thirty musicals selling out in the West End night after night - the British public (and the Radio 4 audience) cannot get enough of them, therefore .

Winner of the Writers Guild of Great Britain Radio Comedy Award this series is a seasonal treat at 1815 over the Christmas week.


TUE 18:30 Bleak Expectations (b01pfy5w)
Series 5

A Loved-Up Life Potentially Totally Annihilated

The inappropriately named arbiter of all evil Mister Gently Benevolent unveils an advent calendar of evil that will culminate on Christmas day with the total destruction of the universe.

Only one man can prevent the end of everything for all time. But at a terrible terrible cost. Is this the end for our hero Pip? Or is it curtains for the whole of creation? And does that mean Harry needn't get Pippa a Christmas present?

Mark Evans's epic Victorian comedy in the style of Charles Dickens.

Sir Philip ...... Richard Johnson
Young Pip Bin ...... Tom Allen
Gently Benevolent ...... Anthony Head
Harry Biscuit ...... James Bachman
Servewell ...... James Bachman
Clampvulture ...... Geoffrey Whitehead
Ripely ...... Sarah Hadland
Lily ...... Sarah Hadland
Pippa ...... Susy Kane
The Ghost of Christmice ...... Mark Evans

Producer: Gareth Edwards

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2012.


TUE 19:00 The Archers (b01pfy5y)
Fallon's delighted when she discovers that her ticket to a Six Nations rugby match is just part of a weekend in Cardiff which includes a deluxe hotel. Jazzer manages to make Kenton feel guilty enough to invite him to join his family for lunch at Lower Loxley.

Lilian's still on New York time but she springs to life when her phone beeps and Matt offers to check it.

At Home Farm, Matt mentions the texts Lilian kept getting from Jennifer, although Peggy thinks Jennifer would have been too busy to text. Lilian changes the subject. Later, when Lilian's phone rings she quickly goes off to take the call, saying it must be James.

Alice reads Jim's article on Mike Tucker in Borsetshire Life. Alice thinks Jim should interview Chris -it's an opportunity for free advertising.

Peggy starts to reminisce and Lilian offers to go away with her. Peggy wants to go to Whitby, where Peggy snatched a few days with Jack in 1943.

In the evening, Matt, Lilian and Alice head to the Bull, where Jazzer starts off the Christmas sing-song with a romantic rendition of "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas". Rhys and Fallon kiss and wish each other a happy Christmas.


TUE 19:15 Front Row (b01pfy60)
Working with the family

With Mark Lawson.

Jack Whitehall, Greg Davies, Niamh Cusack and Frances de la Tour are among the performers and artists who share memories and reflections on working with close members of their families.

Christmas is the time when people are most likely to spend time with their closest relatives. But for some in showbusiness the holidays are not a rare family reunion but a continuation of a professional relationship or, for writers and comedians, an encounter with the relatives who have been the source of their best material.

Comedians Greg Davies, Jack Whitehall and Sarah Millican regularly exploit cringeworthy family moments in the service of comedy. They describe how it feels to perform the material with the family members in question in the audience.

Actress Niamh Cusack reflects on the experience of appearing in Chekhov's Three Sisters with two of her sisters and her father, and Andy and Frances de la Tour discuss working together in Alan Bennett's People, and why they are banned from laughing while watching each other perform.

Singer Donny Osmond reveals why he and sister Marie's chemistry on stage does not necessarily reflect the reality off-stage and the conductor Alan Gilbert explains why having his violinist mother in the orchestra prevents the other musicians from indulging in a much-loved pleasure.

Producer Ellie Bury.


TUE 19:45 15 Minute Drama (b01pfwhq)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:45 today]


TUE 20:00 The Bricklayer's Lament (b01lsqk6)
Back in December 1958, German musician and humorist Gerard Hoffnung was asked to speak at the Oxford Union in a debate entitled "This House Believes Life Begins at 38". Luckily, the BBC was on hand to record the debate and they managed to capture Gerard giving a hilarious comic speech, which included the now legendary Bricklayer's Lament story.

This half hour documentary, narrated by Jack Dee, tells the story of the speech and how The Bricklayer's Lament really came about. It includes contributions from Ian Hislop, who was a fan from an early age, and Inspector Morse creator Colin Dexter, who was taught by Gerard during the Second World War.

The programme will reveal how an early incarnation of the R4 comedy panel show Just a Minute was to play a pivotal role in the eventual success of The Bricklayer's Lament.

The programme also features many classic clips of Gerard Hoffnung speaking at the Oxford Union debate, as well as other recordings he made in the fifties. These include snippets of the hilarious interviews he gave to the Canadian broadcaster Charles Richardson.

Also included are revealing interviews with Gerard's widow, Annetta, who shares her memories of this amazingly talented man.

The Bricklayer's Lament is a fascinating insight into how this recording came about and a loving tribute to a unique personality who entertained so many generations.

Produced by Paul Russell
An Open Mike Production for BBC Radio 4.


TUE 20:30 In Touch (b01pfyfj)
David Blunkett MP, Gary O'Donoghue BBC Political Correspondent and opera singer Denise Leigh join Peter White to talk about a favourite audio book.
David chooses Hilary Mantel's Bring Up the Bodies, Gary selects Robert A Caro's LBJ, Denise Leigh picks Jason Manfords' Brung Up Proper and Peter's choice is John Arlott, A Memoir, by Timothy Arlott.


TUE 21:00 Archive on 4 (b01mhnnm)
A Brief History of Blame

Blame the abstract, blame the real, blame the stars, blame the bankers, blame the mother-in-law, blame anyone but yourself ....

The American satirist Joe Queenan presents A Brief History of Blame, an archive opera in six acts featuring Margaret Thatcher, Niall Ferguson, Tom Wrigglesworth, Richard Nixon, Melvyn Bragg, the Archbishop of Canterbury, plus new interviews with Germaine Greer, John Sergeant and Charlie Campbell. Together they reveal that we are all now living in a babel of blame.

Queenan gives no nonsense answers to six headings, including How Blaming Began. There are explanations for the word scapegoat, discussion of the role of parents in messing things up, and a rare outing from Margaret Thatcher in a performance of Yes Minister which she wrote herself. "I want you to abolish economists, " she demands. "Don't worry if it goes wrong - I'll get the blame, I always do."

"My qualifications for presenting this programme are impeccable," says Queenan. "My father was an alcoholic, my mother an emotionally distant manic depressive. Together we grew up in a charm free housing project in Philadelphia. So don't whine to me about how tough life is."

The producer is Miles Warde, who previously collaborated with Joe Queenan on A Brief History of Irony and An American's Guide to Failure.


TUE 21:58 Weather (b01pf2xl)
The latest weather forecast.


TUE 22:00 Drama (b01h6463)
Roy Smiles - Dear Arthur, Love John

A comedy drama by Roy Smiles, writer of previous Afternoon Dramas Ying Tong, Good Evening and Pythonesque.

It's often assumed that it was Dad's Army that made John Le Mesurier and Arthur Lowe well known. This is not so. Arthur Lowe had come to national attention, after a long apprenticeship in theatre, as the uptight church warden Mr Swindley in Coronation Street. John had made many films and found success as the diffident Colonel in the popular sitcom George And The Dragon. But it was Dad's Army, late in their lives, that brought them fame, fortune and the oddest of friendships.

For these were strange bedfellows: Arthur was a grammar school boy made good, John a public schoolboy who'd shamed his family by going into showbusiness; Arthur was a high Tory, John a life-long fluffy liberal; Arthur had a happy and stable marriage, John notoriously difficult ones - his first wife (Hattie Jacques) had left him for a shifty car-dealer, his second wife (Joan) had left him for doomed comedian Tony Hancock.

In 1982 John writes to Arthur to say how much he misses him and, as he does, we flashback to Dad's Army: the first read through; the reaction to getting 21 million viewers; Lowe's hatred of being recognised by the public; the rivalry between John Laurie and Arnold Ridley; Lowe's hostility to Clive Dunn and socialism; the affection Le Mesurier had for them all, particularly Jimmy Beck; and how, after initial snobbery about the show, the cast came to realise it was the best time of their lives.

Producer: Liz Anstee
A CPL Production for BBC Radio 4.


TUE 22:45 Daphne Du Maurier (b01pfzcv)
Frenchman's Creek

Episode 2

Part adventure, part romance, and set in Cornwall, Daphne Du Maurier's novel tells the powerful love story between Lady Dona and the French pirate Aubery.

Episode 2
Lady Dona revels in her new found freedom, encounters the local gentry and finds a secret passage to the sea.

Read by Adjoa Andoh
Abridged by Eileen Horne

Produced by Clive Brill
A Pacificus production for BBC Radio 4.


TUE 23:00 The Infinite Monkey Cage (b01pfv8r)
[Repeat of broadcast at 16:30 on Monday]


TUE 23:30 The Playlist Series (b017ng3m)
Queen Victoria's Playlist

In Buckingham Palace, David Owen Norris and guests listen to Queen Victoria's favourite songs. We have been given access to Victoria's own gold piano, on which we'll hear music written specially by Mendelssohn for her to play in a duet with Albert. We also hear an amorous serenade written for her by Prince Albert and a song which was sung in the streets after their first child was born, Queen Victoria's Baby.

David Owen Norris has discovered a startling popular song of the period about the Great Exhibition - the excitement of setting off to see the Queen as a gold statue, and the reality of fleas, dirt, crowds, and dubious dark alleys where it was all too easy to lose one's virtue and return pregnant!

Listening to the music are Royal biographer Kate Williams, cultural critic Matthew Sweet, and expert on Victorian music Professor Jeremy Dibble. They'll be discussing what Queen Victoria's favourite songs reveal about a very musical monarch.

Producer: Elizabeth Burke.

A Loftus production first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 2011.



WEDNESDAY 26 DECEMBER 2012

WED 00:00 Midnight News (b01pf2yf)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.


WED 00:15 Christmas Meditation (b01pg3q7)
Just as everyone is doing the washing up and waving off the last guests Catherine Fox reflects on how the message of Christmas can feel both too big and very small at the same time.

Having just moved to the city of Liverpool, she takes us into Liverpool's vast Anglican cathedral which is the largest in the country. And yet there inside the tallest, widest, longest nave, architect Giles Gilbert Scott put one of his smallest buildings - the red telephone box. You could step inside, pick up the receiver and phone anyone in the world.. But what would you say?

Using memories from childhood Christmases, and experiences of being a mother herself, she spends time thinking about the big and small things in life which can help to define our faith and our questioning. And with the nativity story all around, where do such thoughts take us to on Christmas night?'

In a profound, honest and down to earth reflection Catherine Fox mixes her own personal style - which will be well known to all those who regularly read her blogs or know her in the Twitter community as @FictionFox - with some beautiful Christmas carols to present an evocative and thought-provoking close to Christmas Day.


WED 00:30 Book of the Week (b01pfwhl)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:45 on Tuesday]


WED 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b01pf2yh)
The latest shipping forecast.


WED 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b01pf2yk)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


WED 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b01pf2ym)
The latest shipping forecast.


WED 05:30 News Briefing (b01pf2yp)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


WED 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b01pg3q9)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day Archbishop Vincent Nichols.


WED 05:45 Farming Today (b01pg3qd)
Early lambing has started in some parts of the UK and Anna Hill joins one Norfolk sheep farmer, as he anxiously awaits the arrival of around 100 pedigree lambs in just 24 hours.

This programme is presented by Anna Hill and produced in Birmingham by Angela Frain.


WED 06:00 Meeting Myself Coming Back (b01jppw6)
Series 4

Richard Branson

The first programme in the new series of 'Meeting Myself Coming Back', the series in which leading public figures explore their lives through the BBC archives, features Sir Richard Branson in conversation with John Wilson. From his early days as the founder of "Student" magazine, to the creation of the Virgin record business and expansion into a global empire, Richard Branson has been an icon of entrepreneurship. In this interview, he meets his younger self from the sound archive and discusses his reactions with John Wilson.

He begins by hearing his 21- year old self running the influential "Student Magazine" from a basement in London and relives the way he created Virgin Records as a cut price mail order enterprise. He also hears the sound archive from 1984 when he announced the setting up of Virgin Atlantic with only one plane. We hear his memories of his daring exploits in hot air balloons and at sea and his thoughts on escaping death by a whisker.

Richard Branson also relives the episode when one of his planes flew into Baghdad airport in to bring out the British hostages held by Saddam Hussain after the invasion of Kuwait in 1990. He talks about the eerie stillness of the deserted airport, the tension of waiting and the relief when the hostages finally came on board.

We also hear his thoughts on doing business, taking knocks, political affiliation, plans for space travel and paying tax.

Producer: Emma Kingsley.


WED 07:00 Today (b01pg3qg)
Morning news and current affairs with Justin Webb and Evan Davis. Including Sports Desk; Weather; Thought for the Day.


WED 09:00 Midweek (b01pg3qj)
Peter Snow, Sir Trevor Nunn, Debra Searle, Mike Brace

Libby Purves looks back over the last decade with guests, writer and broadcaster Peter Snow, theatre director Sir Trevor Nunn, adventurer Debra Searle and paralympian Mike Brace.

Peter Snow CBE is a writer and broadcaster. He has presented a number of documentaries with his son Dan including 'Battleplan: The Battle for Alamein' and 'Battlefield Britain'. His book 'When Britain Burned the White House', about the British destruction of US public buildings during the Anglo-American war of 1812, is published next year.

Sir Trevor Nunn CBE is a theatre director. He is a former artistic director of both the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre. He has directed some of the most critically acclaimed and popular productions in recent decades. He is currently directing two shows in London's West End, Cole Porter's 'Kiss Me Kate' and Alan Ayckbourn's 'A Chorus of Disapproval'. Kiss Me Kate is at the Old Vic and Chorus of Disapproval is at the Harold Pinter Theatre.

Debra Searle MBE is an adventurer, television presenter and is a Trustee of the Duke of Edinburgh's Award. In 2001 she set off with her then husband on the Atlantic Rowing Challenge from Tenerife to Barbados. But after only 14 days he withdrew from the race, leaving Debra to finish alone. During the last decade she achieved a new world record in a dragon boat across the English Channel. She also competed in the longest canoe race in the world.

Mike Brace CBE is former chairman of the British Paralympic Association and director of Vision 2020UK. He is currently a director of UKAD, the UK's Anti-doping agency for sport. He was in Singapore in 2005 when London won the 2012 Olympic bid. Blinded at 10 in a firework accident, he represented Great Britain at cross-country skiing at six Paralympic Games, three World Championships and two European Championships.

Producer: Annette Wells.


WED 09:45 Book of the Week (b01pg3ql)
Three Houses

Episode 3

A beautifully nostalgic childhood memoir of Britain in the late 1890s, written by the eminent author Angela Thirkell.
She recalls in rich detail, and with a delightful sense of humour, the three houses which were seminal to her youth.

The third of the three houses is the country home of the author's grandfather, the artist Edward Burne-Jones. It is furnished with Morris wallpaper, Morris chintzes and carpets and a selection of beastly uncomfortable pre-Raphaelite chairs.

Read by Sian Thomas
Abridged and produced by Jane Marshall.
A Jane Marshall production for BBC Radio 4.


WED 10:00 Woman's Hour (b01pg3qp)
Inspiring women over 80: Dr Alice Rivlin, Prof Mildred Dresselhaus, Vigdis Finnbogadottir, Prof Romila Thapar

Jenni Murray introduces a special edition of Woman's Hour comprising fresh interviews with a series of octogenarian women, each a world leader in their field. The women discuss the changes they have seen in their 80-plus years and the lessons they have learned.
The women are

Dr Alice Rivlin, 81, One of the USA's top economists, she is advisor to President Obama on debt reduction.

Professor Mildred Dresselhaus, 82, is known as the Queen of Carbon and has been awarded the one million dollar Kavli Prize in nanoscience - presented to her by the King of Norway.

Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, 82, was the world's first democratically elected female President, when she became Iceland's head of state.

Prof Romila Thapar, 81, One of India's greatest historians and the winner of Kluge Award - the equivalent of the Nobel prize for historians.


WED 10:45 15 Minute Drama (b01pg3qr)
A Little Twist of Dahl

The Hitchhiker

A series of stories by Roald Dahl
Dramatised by Stephen Sheridan.

Episode 3: The Hitchhiker

Charles Dance leads the cast as the urbane Storyteller in dramatisations of five classic tales by Roald Dahl. Bizarre and amusing by turns, these black comedies are justly famous for their surprise endings.

The stories show Dahl at the height of his powers as a writer of adult fiction. They are stylishly plotted, vividly characterised and made unforgettable by their breezy cynicism, presenting as they do, a hilariously bleak view of family life. Their satisfying conclusions invariably leave bullies, schemers, adulterers and frauds soundly punished.

In The Hitchhiker, Andrew Pym, a successful author, is driving to London in his brand new BMW. He stops to give a hitchhiker a lift. Unwisely, he allows the man to persuade him to see if the car can go as fast as its manufacturers claim. Stopped for speeding, his details are noted down by a policeman who warns him to expect a heavy fine and sends him on his way. Blithely unconcerned at causing so much trouble, the hitchhiker starts boasting that he is engaged in a line of work that requires exceptional skills. And it's these skills that can get Andrew out of his present difficulty.

Produced and directed by David Blount
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.


WED 11:00 Bellydancing and the Blues (b01pg3qt)
Dancer and drummer Guy Schalom hunts out the spirit of the new Egypt in one of its biggest cultural exports. To our ears, Baladi is the music of the bellydancer - kitsch and mock-Arab. But in its true form it is the essence of Egypt, 'of the country', 'home' in the deepest sense.

Our journey begins in Berlin, as bejwelled dancers from across Europe gather on a theatre stage ready to do battle for the title 'Miss Bellydance 2012'. They might not all know it, but the music which accompanies their gyrations is a knot of contradictions: an essence of the east inspired by western musical traditions, the spirit of rural Egypt made urban.

But the deepest contradictions rest with the very people who perform Baladi. What seems to us a provocative, alluring, even licentious dance for women in fact has roots in a ceremonial dance for men. As we discover in Cairo, deep divisions remain between those who think it is a vital expression of the oriental spirit and those committed to regenerating sexual stereotypes. So what is the reality of bellydance and Baladi in the new Egypt? Can it find any place amongst the street rappers and pop artists or is this an artform about to be consigned to realms of the tourist-pleasing clubs and cafes? As with so much in this rapidly changing culture, answers prove difficult to find.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2012.


WED 11:30 A Charles Paris Mystery (b01pg3qw)
An Amateur Corpse

Episode 4

Charles closes in on the murderer of his old friend Hugo's wife with help from both his wife and his mother.

Bill Nighy stars as actor-cum-sleuth, Charles Paris.

By Jeremy Front - based on Simon Brett's novel.

Charles ..... Bill Nighy
Frances ..... Suzanne Burden
Joan ..... Geraldine McEwan
Maurice ..... Jon Glover
Geoff ..... Patrick Brennan
Saskia ..... Christine Absalom
Hugo ..... Paul Ritter
Holly ..... Susie Ridell

Director: Sally Avens

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2012.


WED 12:00 You and Yours (b01pg3qz)
Turkey leftovers, the boss of Waitrose, and government health advice

We're told by the Government how much we should drink, eat and exercise - but what's the science behind the advice? Former Chief Medical Officer Sir Liam Donaldson tells us he thinks some of the advice is too simplistic and that using units to try to measure alcohol is out of date.

Money Saving Expert Matlin Lewis looks back on how 2012 has been for consumers.

We've got some advice on what to do with that left-over turkey as we look at whether TV chefs are to blame for food waste. Winifred is joined by former MasterChef winner Thomasina Miers.

We reveal why you need to watch out for the flaw in the new style MoT certificates. They're being used to con people buying used cars.

And the row going on about our National Parks - just how accountable are they to the people that live within them.

Plus Good afternoon, thank you for the question, it's great to have this opportunity. Not phrases you hear much in everyday life but ones we hear a lot on this programme. We blame the army of media trainers and hear from one of them.

And, 'Daddy is Lego spelled like Merlot with a silent t?' hear more conversations overheard at Waitrose from their managing director Mark Price.

Presenter: Winifred Robinson
Producer: Joe Kent.


WED 12:57 Weather (b01pf2yr)
The latest weather forecast.


WED 13:00 World at One (b01pg3r1)
Shaun Ley presents national and international news. Listeners can share their views via email: wato@bbc.co.uk or on twitter: #wato.


WED 13:45 Grimm Thoughts (b01pg3r3)
Episode 8

When the Grimm brothers first published their Children's and Household Tales in 1812, in a scholarly effort to collate a national identity of the people, it was the beginning of an obsessive project of two intricately interwoven lifetimes.

To mark the bicentenary of the first edition, writer and mythographer Marina Warner explores the many compelling and often controversial aspects of the tales in a 10-part series, revealing new insights into the stories we think we know so well, and introducing us to the charms and challenges of those that we don't.

Alongside beautifully narrated extracts from the tales themselves, renowned academics and artists who work closely with the Grimm's rich heritage add to our understanding of these deceptively complex stories.

By exposing the role of fairy tales in the cultural struggle over gender, feminism transformed fairy-tale studies and sparked a debate that would change the way society thinks about the stories and the words "happily ever after". In the eighth episode, we speak to writer Helen Simpson about the presentation of the tales' female characters, and how their impact and influence still resonates today.

Producer: Kevin Dawson
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.


WED 14:00 The Archers (b01pfy5y)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Tuesday]


WED 14:15 The Penny Dreadfuls (b01pg3r6)
Hereward the Wake

by David Reed and Humphrey Ker

From the team who brought Radio 4 the story of Guy Fawkes and the French Revolution, The Penny Dreadfuls now turn their comic eye towards Hereward The Wake. Why has this Englishman responsible for leading the fight against the occupation of William The Conqueror, been so readily forgotten? The story didn't end when they ran out of embroidery cotton on the Bayeux Tapestry. Our mission is to make sure that from now on, you will know his name.

Producer...Julia McKenzie.


WED 15:00 Archive on 4 (b01p2wd0)
From Easy to Cryptic - 100 Years of the Crossword

Famous for her own love of word play, Lynne Truss decodes a bountiful archive of clues, answers, interviews and puzzles to celebrate the centenary of this resilient mind teaser. The first crossword appeared in the New York Times in 1913, devised by a Liverpudlian called Arthur Wynne. He was the first of many setters whose cryptic clues and clever answers encapsulate the cultural and social agenda of their age. MI5 interrogated the Telegraph's first setter in 1944 when his crossword solutions suggested he knew too much about military operations. Lynne learns that code breakers selection for Bletchley Park was based on their prowess for cracking crosswords.

In an internet age of gaming and quick access to information, Lynne Truss learns why scientists argue that the hardy crossword keeps the mind agile and listens to the sounds of the setter and crossword solver at work, pondering the trickiest clue.


WED 16:00 Thinking Allowed (b01pg54j)
Intoxication

Intoxication - In a special programme, Laurie Taylor explores the role and meaning of both alcohol and drugs in human life. Why do so many people chose to alter their consciousness with stimulants, whether legal or illicit? Professor James Mills, the author of 'Cannabis Nation..' is joined by Professor Fiona Measham and Professor Chris Hackley.

Producer: Jayne Egerton.


WED 16:30 The Media Show (b01pg54l)
From the Two Ronnies and Morecambe and Wise to the Royle Family and the battle of the soaps, Steve Hewlett unpicks the dark arts of festive TV scheduling. From the executives who make up programme titles to fool their rivals to the search for the perfect sitcom to suit all the family on Christmas night, he asks industry experts to reveal the tricks of the trade. His guests include David Liddiment, independent producer, former director of ITV Programmes and now a BBC Trustee; former scheduler Stephen Price and Lisa Campbell, editor of Broadcast magazine.
He is also joined by Sir David Jason the star of one of the most successful and long-running sitcoms, Only Fools and Horses. Sir David describes working on the Christmas editions and how his inspiration for Del Boy Trotter was a man from London's Eastend who he met while working as an electrician.


WED 17:00 PM (b01pg54n)
Carolyn Quinn with interviews, context and analysis.


WED 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b01pf2yt)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


WED 18:15 15 Minute Musical (b01pg54q)
Series 7

Brian Elliott

A series of satirical, barbed, bittersweet fifteen-minute comedy musicals.

Episode Two: Brian Elliott

Brian Cox in Brian Elliott about a boy who D-reams of being a Scientist.

Starring: Richie Webb, Dave Lamb and Pippa Evans
Written by: Richie Webb, Dave Cohen and David Quantick
Music by: Richie Webb
Music Production: Matt Katz
Producer: Katie Tyrrell

Beautifully crafted with astronomically high production values 15 Minute Musical does for your ears what chocolate does for your taste buds.

All in fifteen minutes!

The fun-size yet satisfying musicals take an easily identifiable public figure and give them a West End Musical make-over. The fabricated, sugar-coated story is told in an original, never heard before, musical.

Delicious musical delicacies that melt in your ear not in your hand.

So, enjoy a West End Musical experience for a fraction of the cost - well, actually for no cost at all.

With over thirty musicals selling out in the West End night after night - the British public (and the Radio 4 audience) cannot get enough of them, therefore ...

In true West End style artistic licence is well and truly taken and stretched ridiculously as easily identifiable public figures are dressed up, gilded, fabricated and placed against the backdrop of a random period of history for sugar coated consumption. The stories are simple and engaging but the writing is razor-sharp allowing the audience to enjoy all the conventions of a musical (huge production numbers, tender ballads and emotional reprises) whilst we completely re-interpret events in major celebrities' lives. With over thirty musicals selling out in the West End night after night - the British public (and the Radio 4 audience) cannot get enough of them, therefore ...


WED 18:30 Mark Steel's in Town (b01phj47)
Series 4

Corby

Comedian Mark Steel returns with a new series, looking under the surface of some of the UK's more distinctive towns to shed some light on the people, history, rivalries, slang, traditions, and eccentricities that makes them unique.

Creating a bespoke stand-up set for each town, Mark performs the show in front of a local audience.

As well as examining the less visited areas of Britain, Mark uncovers stories and experiences that resonate with us all as we recognise the quirkiness of the British way of life and the rich tapestry of remarkable events and people who have shaped where we live.

During this 4th series of 'Mark Steel's In Town', Mark will visit Tobermory, Whitehaven, Handsworth, Ottery St Mary, Corby, and Chipping Norton.

This week, Mark visits Corby to uncover an unlikely town rivalry, the extraordinary story behind a baffling accent, and the truth behind the trouser press rumours... From December 2012.

Additional material by Pete Sinclair.
Produced by Sam Bryant.


WED 19:00 The Archers (b01pg54s)
Ed finds himself getting under Susan's feet in Ambridge View's unfamiliar kitchen, so heads out to start milking. Ed accepts Ruth's offer to show him how dairy management programmes work. There's the possibility of downloading a simple accounting programme for free. Ruth offers to help Ed get set up and they agree to meet next week.
Jill, Jim and Kenton discuss the awkward moment yesterday when Jim spat out one of Jill's mince pies - the batch had been mixed up and he'd got a meaty one. Jim fears the Christmas show will be dreary, but Kenton says he may be pleasantly surprised. Jim criticises Borsetshire Life magazine, although he's interested in interviewing Chris at Alice's suggestion, so won't resign.
Shocked Jill reports the death of Bob Pullen, who has given Jill authority to organise his funeral arrangements. Glasses are raised and stories are shared, before Jill realises she'd better tell Joe. He's now the official village elder.
Susan apologises to Ed for being a bit short with him this morning. Ed thanks her for having him and Emma. He feels he's let Emma down, but is going to do everything he can to get them back on their feet. Susan's confident he will - new year, new start.


WED 19:15 Front Row (b01pg54v)
Neil Young, Pete Townshend, Mick Jagger and more on their musical roots

John Wilson talks to musicians including Keith Richards, Mick Jagger, Neil Young, Neil Diamond, Paul McCartney, Emeli Sandé, Jonny Greenwood and Pete Townshend about their first musical influences.

Neil Young reveals why he recently recorded a version of God Save The Queen, the anthem he sang regularly during his Canadian childhood.

Paul McCartney discusses how songs by the great American tunesmiths of the 1930s, which he heard in his childhood home, influenced his own approach to writing.

Pete Townshend contrasts his love of abrasive rock and roll with the music performed by his father, who played the saxophone in a dance band.

Soul singer Bobby Womack remembers how he also rebelled against his father, who wanted his sons to perform only gospel music, rather than anything more secular.

Mick Jagger and Keith Richards reflect on their early shared love of raw American blues records.

And Neil Diamond, Emeli Sandé and Jonny Greenwood, from the band Radiohead, recall the early musical encounters which shaped their subsequent careers.

Producer John Goudie.


WED 19:45 15 Minute Drama (b01pg3qr)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:45 today]


WED 20:00 Unreliable Evidence (b01pg54x)
Courtroom Drama

With its sets and costumes, soliloquies, suspense and dramatic revelations - the courtroom is pure theatre.

Following the return of Rumpole to Radio 4, Clive Anderson and his guests discuss how accurately the legal world is depicted in stage and screen dramas. And they discuss the issues which arise when the distinctions between fiction and fact - between Rumpole and reality - become blurred in the public's mind.

Guests Helena Kennedy QC, appeal court judge Sir Alan Moses, German judge Ruth Herz and former barrister and co-creator of Garrow's Law, Mark Pallis, reflect on 50 years of fictional courtroom dramas - from To Kill a Mockingbird to Silk, and ask if lawyers can learn things from the actors who portray them.

Does the way courtroom dramas introduce dramatic last minute evidence, show defendants crumbling under cross-examination and defence barristers reducing juries to tears, even remotely reflect the real world? Are judges really as out of touch, and lawyers as pompous and greedy as their screen counterparts? And does it really matter if screenwriters fail to stick to the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

Award-winning producers of comedy, drama, factual and entertainment programming.

Producer: Brian King
An Above The Title production for BBC Radio 4.


WED 20:45 Four Thought (b01pg54z)
Series 3

Tom Armitage: The Coded World

Designer and technologist Tom Armitage argues that learning to write computer code means learning to think in a modern way, and that it should spur creativity: the possibility of doing entirely new things.

Four Thought is a series of talks which combine thought provoking ideas and engaging storytelling. Recorded live in front of an audience, speakers air their latest thinking on the trends, ideas, interests and passions that affect our culture and society.

Producer: Giles Edwards.


WED 21:00 And No Birds Sing: Rachel Carson and Silent Spring (b01ptgb4)
Franny Armstrong - the film maker behind the blockbuster The Age of Stupid - looks at the explosive impact of Rachel Carson's 1962 book Silent Spring and its role in the growth of the environmental movement.

'All Mankind is in her debt', said one Senator on Rachel Carson's death in 1964. At a time when 'attacks from the air' as Carson described them - the indiscriminate spraying of crops with pesticides - were a regular occurrence in the US, Carson's book 'Silent Spring' questioned the logic of releasing large amounts of chemicals into the environment without fully understanding their effects on ecology or human health. Carson presented evidence from state after state of entire bird populations being wiped out, the desecration of plant life, contamination of ground water and instances of the deaths of human beings. Beyond these specific concerns, she suggested that the spraying was a 'war on life' - and put this as a moral, as well as scientific, question. In an age where there was palpable excitement in the agricultural and chemical industries at the prospect of man controlling nature, Carson introduced the idea that man's war against nature is a war against himself.

Fifty years after the book's publication, Franny Armstrong, director of the film 'Age of Stupid' and founder of the 10:10 Climate Change campaign, looks at the far-reaching influence of Carson's book. She talks to Caroline Lucas, who has written the introduction to the 50th anniversary edition of the book, about the impact Silent Spring had when it was first published, the challenges she faced, and how she made her case so effectively. Contributors include nature writer Mark Cocker, who talks about Carson's lucid and beautifully composed depiction of a world which has faced apocalypse, science writer Colin Tudge on the method and message of the book, and Linda Lear, Carson's biographer, who reveals the price Carson paid to bear witness to what she had discovered. While researching the connection between pesticides and onset of cancer, she was diagnosed with breast cancer, and had to minimize her own health problems in order to complete her life's work.

'I could never again listen to a thrush's song if I had not done all I could' wrote Carson towards the end of her life. Already a bestselling nature writer, Carson deliberately employed the rhetoric of the cold war and a tone of moral crisis to persuade readers of the urgency of her message. The book is an assault on the wilful ignorance of major commercial interests, but despite warnings that she would be subjected to personal attack and threats of legal action, Carson continued her crusade, and ultimately wrought political change, under the Kennedy administration and beyond. In his Preface to the 1994 edition, Al Gore described Silent Spring as the most influential book of the last fifty years, which brought us back to a fundamental idea: the interconnection of human beings and the natural environment. If this is a fairly widely accepted concept today, in the early 1960s, Carson was labelled by business interests as 'emotional and hysterical', a 'crackpot' and 'subversive'. This programme looks at the events surrounding the production of 'Silent Spring', and its hostile reception in some quarters, to its legacy today.


WED 21:30 Midweek (b01pg3qj)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]


WED 21:58 Weather (b01pf2yw)
The latest weather forecast.


WED 22:00 The World Tonight (b01pg551)
Syrian army police chief defects to rebels.

High court judge intervenes in gay marriage row.

Will tensions between Japan and China worsen in 2013?

With Paul Moss.


WED 22:45 Daphne Du Maurier (b01pg553)
Frenchman's Creek

Episode 3

Part adventure, part romance, and set in Cornwall, Daphne Du Maurier's novel tells the powerful love story between Lady Dona and the French pirate Aubery.

Episode 3
Dona is captured by pirates, which is not altogether unpleasant, and finds she is not the only one who has come to Navron for refuge.

Read by Adjoa Andoh
Abridged by Eileen Horne

Produced by Clive Brill
A Pacificus production for BBC Radio 4.


WED 23:00 Tim Key and Gogol's Overcoat (b01nt3y0)
Tim Key spins his own surreal tale of one of Russian fiction's greatest short stories, whilst contending with his own filthy disgrace of a jacket. With contributions from Alexei Sayle and John Motson.

Tim Key - poet, comedian, and crumpled polymath - is obsessed with Nikolai Gogol's short story "The Overcoat". Written in 1842, it's a fable of a simple clerk, Akakiy Akakievich, whose desire for a new coat to keep the St Petersburg winter at bay forever changes his life...and ultimately destroys him.

Its author - the enigmatic Ukrainian-born writer Nikolai Gogol - is one of Tim's idols. In this deceptively simple yet utterly surreal tale, Gogol spins webs around the reader, foxing them with an unreliable narrator, blending stark realism with the eye-poppingly fantastical, and constantly deconstructing and undercutting the story of poor Akaky Akakievich with his own running commentary.

More than 150 years on, no-one, it seems, quite knows what The Overcoat is really about. Is it a dark satire on the powerlessness of the individual and the tyranny of totalitarian governments? A fantastical, proto-Dadaist fable of devils, toenails and ghostly goings-on? Or a deeply realist moral message to be kind to the poorest in our society?

Tim's off to find out what - if anything - Gogol's mysterious story can tell us...and why The Overcoat feels even more relevant in the 21st century. Is this fable the seed of alternative comedy? Should more of us pay heed to this bizarre morality tale? And above all, isn't it about time Tim replaced his own filthy disgrace of a coat?

Fact blends with surreal fantasy, as Tim gets sidetracked, Gogol-style, into his own private coat Hades...

Featuring contributions from Russian experts Donald Rayfield, Maria Rubins and Konstantin von Eggert - plus East End tailor and Master Cutter Clive Phythian, 'father of alternative comedy' Alexei Sayle, and football commentator and sheepskin coat-wearing icon John Motson.


WED 23:30 The Playlist Series (b01gd4lk)
William Shakespeare's Playlist

David Owen Norris and guests compile a playlist for the bard. Choosing Shakespeare's favourite songs are the renowned Shakespeare scholar Stanley Wells, RSC director Greg Doran and musician Lucie Skeaping.

The music ranges from a lullaby Shakespeare's mother Mary Arden might have sung him, through bawdy ballads from the local tavern, to haunting songs written by Shakespeare himself. What do they tell us about our most enigmatic genius?

The programme is recorded at the Swan Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon, a wooden recreation of a Shakespearean playhouse.

With singers Gwyneth Herbert and Thomas Guthrie, and a trumpeter from Shakespeare's old school to test the theatre acoustics with some rousing fanfares.

Producer: Elizabeth Burke.
A Loftus production for BBC Radio 4.



THURSDAY 27 DECEMBER 2012

THU 00:00 Midnight News (b01pf2zq)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.


THU 00:15 Stephen Fry on the Phone (b017cb0m)
Creating the Network

Stephen Fry traces the evolution of the mobile phone, from hefty executive bricks that required a separate briefcase to carry the battery to the smart little devices complete with personal assistant we have today.

There are more mobile phones in the world than there are people on the planet: Stephen Fry talks to the backroom boys who made it all possible and hears how the technology succeeded, in ways that the geeks had not necessarily intended.

In the first episode, Stephen Fry meets the men who first dreamt of creating a cellular network. Back in the sixties, two Bell Labs engineers in the US thought perhaps a maximum of 50,000 people might use a cellular phone network. Now, there are billions of phones in the world, all of them dependent on the networks based on their design. It was an enormous technical challenge that took decades to complete; but the main problems were political. Motorola, for example, argued that phone calls were a frivolous waste of radio spectrum compared to more worthy causes like television.

Producer: Anna Buckley.


THU 00:30 Book of the Week (b01pg3ql)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:45 on Wednesday]


THU 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b01pf2zs)
The latest shipping forecast.


THU 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b01pf2zv)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


THU 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b01pf2zx)
The latest shipping forecast.


THU 05:30 News Briefing (b01pf2zz)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


THU 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b01pghmb)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day Archbishop Vincent Nichols.


THU 05:45 Farming Today (b01pg57f)
Charlotte Smith visits the meadows, ponds and orchards of the Worcestershire Wildlife Trust to find out how wildlife is faring in the winter.

Presenter: Charlotte Smith. Producer: Angela Frain.


THU 06:00 Today (b01pg5nr)
0738
Scientists often complain that journalists - in search of attention-grabbing headlines - misrepresent their work through simplification and exaggeration and journalists often complain that scientists are unwilling to explain what they do to the public. Today's guest editor, Sir Paul Nurse, wants to bridge that gap, so he took Today presenter John Humphrys on a tour of his lab at Cancer Research UK to see science in action.
0750
Chancellor George Osborne on Thursday announced the award of investment funds totalling £21.5m to some of Britain's top universities to develop commercial uses for the "super-material" graphene. Guest editor Sir Paul Nurse began by asking him how central science was to the government's plans for reviving the economy.
0810
Every child taken to a hospital accident and emergency department in England is to be checked against a computer database to help detect signs of abuse. Dr Simon Eccles, a consultant in emergency medicine at Homerton Hospital, London, explains that the system will allow medical staff to see if the children they treat are subject to a child protection plan or being looked after.
0815
Today's Christmas guest editor, Sir Paul Nurse, asks the novelist Ian McEwan why writers are so wary of scientific themes.
0820
The London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games passed pretty much without a glitch this year. Sir John Armitt, chairman of the Olympic Delivery Authority and who is now heading a review of infrastructure for the Labour Party, and Paul Deighton, chief executive of London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games, discuss the lessons that can be learned in terms of building new infrastructure.


THU 09:00 In Our Time (b01pg5nt)
The Cult of Mithras

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the cult of Mithras, a mystery religion that existed in the Roman Empire from the 1st to the 4th centuries AD. Also known as the Mysteries of Mithras, its origins are uncertain. Academics have suggested a link with the ancient Vedic god Mitra and the Iranian Zoroastrian deity Mithra, but the extent and nature of the connection is a matter of controversy.

Followers of Mithras are thought to have taken part in various rituals, most notably communal meals and a complex seven-stage initiation system. Typical depictions of Mithras show him being born from a rock, enjoying food with the sun god Sol and stabbing a bull. Mithraic places of worship have been found throughout the Roman world, including an impressive example in London. However, Mithraism went into decline in the 4th century AD with the rise of Christianity and eventually completely disappeared. In recent decades, many aspects of the cult have provoked debate, especially as there are no written accounts by its members. As a result, archaeology has been of great importance in the study of Mithraism and has provided new insights into the religion and its adherents.

With:

Greg Woolf
Professor of Ancient History at the University of St Andrews

Almut Hintze
Zartoshty Professor of Zoroastrianism at SOAS, University of London

John North
Acting Director of the Institute of Classical Studies, University of London.

Producer: Victoria Brignell.


THU 09:45 Book of the Week (b01pg5nw)
Three Houses

Episode 4

A beautifully nostalgic childhood memoir of Britain in the late 1890s, written by the eminent author Angela Thirkell.
She recalls in rich detail, and with a delightful sense of humour, the three houses which were seminal to her youth.

At her grandfather's house in Rottingdean, the author listens to her cousin's latest stories. The cousin is Rudyard Kipling and the tales are later published as The Just So Stories.

Read by Sian Thomas
Abridged and produced by Jane Marshall
A Jane Marshall production for BBC Radio 4.


THU 10:00 Woman's Hour (b01pg5ny)
Jessica Ennis, Victoria Pendleton, Katherine Grainger

Jessica Ennis, Victoria Pendleton and Sarah Storey on how they reached the top and the pressures of being an elite female athlete. Gold medal winning rower Katherine Grainger, BBC sports journalist Eleanor Oldroyd, Sue Tibballs from the Women's Sport and Fitness Foundation, and chief executive of UK Sport Liz Nicholl joins Jane Garvey to discuss how women's sport in Great Britain can build on the Olympic success of London 2012.
Producer: Emma Wallace
Studio Producer: Ella-mai Robey
Editor: Alice Feinstein.


THU 10:45 15 Minute Drama (b01pg5p0)
A Little Twist of Dahl

Edward the Conqueror

A series of stories by Roald Dahl
Dramatised by Stephen Sheridan.

Episode 4: Edward the Conqueror

Charles Dance leads the cast as the urbane Storyteller in dramatisations of five classic tales by Roald Dahl. Bizarre and amusing by turns, these black comedies are justly famous for their surprise endings.

The stories show Dahl at the height of his powers as a writer of adult fiction. They are stylishly plotted, vividly characterised and made unforgettable by their breezy cynicism, presenting as they do, a hilariously bleak view of family life. Their satisfying conclusions invariably leave bullies, schemers, adulterers and frauds soundly punished.

In Edward the Conqueror, Louisa, a retired piano teacher, takes in a stray cat. She is astonished at how happy it seems when she plays it some Liszt. Noticing that, like Liszt, it has warts on its face, she decides that it must be the re-incarnation of the great composer. Edward, her monstrously selfish husband, resents the cat's presence and is ruthlessly dismissive of her theories on its true identity. Unabashed, Louisa announces, to Edward's acute embarrassment, that she intends to make her findings public.

Produced and directed by David Blount
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.


THU 11:00 Crossing Continents (b01pg5p2)
Burma

Lucy Ash asks what the explosion in popular protest over a Chinese-backed copper mine says about changes in Burma and asks if this is a test case for the government's commitment to democratic reforms.

Farmers' daughters Aye Net and Thwe Thwe Win have led thousands of villagers in protest against what they say is the unlawful seizure of thousands of acres of land to make way for a $1 billion expansion of a copper mine run by the military and a large Chinese arms manufacturer. They have been thrown in jail and they have been harassed by their own police and military, and yet they have refused to back down.

Their bravery has been celebrated by the poet Ant Maung from the nearest big city Monywa, who wrote: "The struggle made them into iron ladies. . .This is life or death for them - they will defend it at the cost of everything."

Burmese officials and the Chinese company say the Monywa copper mine will create jobs and bring prosperity to one of the poorest and least developed nations in Asia. But the villagers complain about pollution, damage to crops and the loss of fertile land.

A violent crackdown on the protestors was a stark reminder that the country's transition to democracy remains fraught with difficulties. Some suspect the government acted to avoid scaring away foreign investors. Others say the brutal response shows Burma's military leaders are still in charge behind the scenes and that they are not prepared to tolerate any dissent which encroaches on their economic interests.

Meanwhile there is a rising tide of Sinophobia in a country which feels overshadowed by its powerful northern neighbour. How the mine dispute is resolved may provide vital clues about the future of Burma.

Producer: Katharine Hodgson.


THU 11:30 Beatrix Potter's Favourite Tale (b01pgg3x)
Philip Glassborow recounts the tale of the original version of The Tailor of Gloucester - Beatrix Potter's personal favourite - and learns about her attachment to the many traditional songs and carols which were included when the book was first published in 1901 but excised from the more familiar later version. With Finty Williams as Beatrix Potter.

It was after a visit to Gloucester that Beatrix Potter became fascinated by the true story behind the miraculous tale of grateful mice stitching the mayor's wonderful waistcoat after the tailor himself had fallen ill and there was no "no more twist".

Potter transformed this into The Tailor of Gloucester and sent it as a gift to Freda, the little daughter of her old governess. She published this privately, including many local songs and carols associated with the old legend that on the stroke of midnight on Christmas eve, the animals are able to speak.

As she had anticipated - and in spite of the astonishing success of her first book, Peter Rabbit - Frederick Warne declined to publish this and eventually brought out a version stripped of most of its music.

Philip Glassborow tracks down the sources of this music and explores Potter's passion for it and the traditions at the heart of the story.

Producer: Beaty Rubens.


THU 12:00 You and Yours (b01pgg3z)
Online romance fraud, rising rail fares, dog-friendly towns

Deaf people searching for love on the internet are being targeted by criminals. It's prompted police to issue new warnings to people using online dating websites. Rail fares are set to rise again in the New Year, so how do prices here compare with the rest of Europe? Trading Standards are there to protect us from fraudsters and rogue traders, but their budgets have been cut by nearly a third in just three years. How will ordinary consumers be affected? Is Keswick in Cumbria really the most dog-friendly town in Britain?
Producer: Jonathan Hallewell
Presenter: Winifred Robinson.


THU 12:57 Weather (b01pf301)
The latest weather forecast.


THU 13:00 World at One (b01pgg41)
Shaun Ley presents national and international news. Listeners can share their views via email: wato@bbc.co.uk or on twitter: #wato.


THU 13:45 Grimm Thoughts (b01pgh23)
Episode 9

When the Grimm brothers first published their Children's and Household Tales in 1812, in a scholarly effort to collate a national identity of the people, it was the beginning of an obsessive project of two intricately interwoven lifetimes.

To mark the bicentenary of the first edition, writer and mythographer Marina Warner explores the many compelling and often controversial aspects of the tales in a 10-part series, revealing new insights into the stories we think we know so well, and introducing us to the charms and challenges of those that we don't.

Alongside beautifully narrated extracts from the tales themselves, renowned academics and artists who work closely with the Grimm's rich heritage add to our understanding of these deceptively complex stories.

In the ninth episode, we break the silence on the tales' history of censorship. Throughout their lifetime the collection's innocent veneer has had its blood, violence, and sexual overtones softened or removed altogether by successive editors, each reacting to the particular sensitivities of the day, and even to the Grimms themselves.

Even so the stories have found as many champions as censors, most notably J.R.R. Tolkien in his defence of The Juniper Tree's brutal depiction of murder. Why is it that although the details that prove controversial have changed over time - each one a telling insight into the temperament of a society - the tales' fundamental power to shock remains unchanged?

Producer: Kevin Dawson
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.


THU 14:00 The Archers (b01pg54s)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Wednesday]


THU 14:15 Drama (b01pgh25)
The Sensitive

Queen of the Dead

By Alastair Jessiman.

Glasgow's psychic detective returns for a new case. A grieving daughter finds hundreds of cassette recordings made by a woman obsessed with her late father, a Professor of English. Thomas Soutar is hired to trace the identity of the woman behind the tapes - who styles herself the "Queen Of the Dead".

Producer/director: Bruce Young.


THU 15:00 Open Country (b01pgh27)
Finding Neverland

Helen Mark takes us on a journey to the real Never Never Land.

Peter Pan first came to life on the glittering stage of London's Duke of York Theatre on 27th December 1904, but he began life far away from the hustle, bustle and glamour of the West End in the market town of Kirriemuir near Dundee. Helen Mark visits the birth place of J.M. Barrie who immortalised this "wee red toonie" as "Thrums" in his popular (pre-Pan) novels Auld Licht Idylls, A Window in Thrums, and The Little Minister. Helen also takes us out into the landscape that is believed to have inspired Never Never Land and the adventures of Peter Pan himself.

Producer: Nicola Humphries.


THU 15:27 Radio 4 Appeal (b01pf6dn)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:55 on Sunday]


THU 15:30 Open Book (b01pf7kc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 16:00 on Sunday]


THU 16:00 The Film Programme (b01pgh5v)
The Unfilmable Books That Have Made It to the Big Screen

In a special edition, Francine Stock and guests discuss difficult books adapted for the big screen. Deepa Mehta talks Midnight's Children, Ang Lee reveals the challenges of making Life of Pi, and Walter Salles discusses On the Road. Meanwhile, Sir Christopher Frayling, critic Tim Robey, and screenwriter Tony Grisoni look back over the years at cinema's attempts at realising 'unfilmable' books.

Producer: Craig Smith.


THU 16:30 Material World (b01pgh5x)
Unsung heroes of Science

Recorded in front of an audience Quentin Cooper and guests, Kevin Fong, Adam Rutherford, Mark Miodownik, Vivienne Parry and Dallas Campbell, discuss the unsung heroes of science


THU 17:00 PM (b01pgh5z)
Carolyn Quinn with interviews, context and analysis.


THU 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b01pf303)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


THU 18:15 15 Minute Musical (b01pgh61)
Series 7

The Ozfather

After a year's break 15 Minute Musical is itching to get it's musical teeth back into easily identifiable public figures and give them a West End Musical make-over. This fabricated, sugar-coated story is then told in an original, never heard before, bite-size musical.

Episode 3: The Ozfather

The story of Rupert Murdoch and how he come to Britain to build a media empire.

Starring: Richie Webb, Dave Lamb and Jess Robinson
Written by: Richie Webb, Dave Cohen and David Quantick
Music by: Richie Webb
Music Production: Matt Katz
Producer: Katie Tyrrell

So, enjoy a West End Musical experience for a fraction of the cost - well, actually for no cost at all.

The bitesize yet satisfying musicals take easily identifiable public figures and give them a West End Musical make-over with original, never heard before musicals that will have both your goose-bumps and the hairs on the back of your neck dancing.

With over thirty musicals selling out in the West End night after night the British public cannot get enough of them, therefore enjoy the music, the singing, the dancing and the high production values from your radio - without the hassle, discomfort and expense of actually going to the West End.

Winner of the Writers Guild of Great Britain Radio Comedy Award this series is a seasonal treat at 1815 over the Christmas week.


THU 18:30 Births, Deaths and Marriages (b01jrqr1)
Series 1

Episode 4

In this episode, the team are horrified that the media have been invited to one of Malcolm's citizenship ceremonies, Anita's got problems with childcare and Luke's having a 'quarter life' crisis.

Births, Deaths and Marriages is a new sitcom set in a Local Authority Register Office where the staff deal with the three greatest events in anybody's life.

Written by David Schneider (The Day Today, I'm Alan Partridge), he stars as chief registrar Malcolm Fox who is a stickler for rules and would be willing to interrupt any wedding service if the width of the bride infringes health and safety. He's single but why does he need to be married? He's married thousands of women.

Alongside him are rival and divorcee Lorna who has been parachuted in from Car Parks to drag the office (and Malcolm) into the 21st century. To her, marriage isn't just about love and romance, it's got to be about making a profit in our new age of austerity.

There's also the ever spiky Mary, geeky Luke who's worried he'll end up like Malcolm one day, and ditzy Anita who may get her words and names mixed up occasionally but, as the only parent in the office, is a mother to them all.

Cast:
Malcolm ...... David Schneider
Lorna ....... Sarah Hadland
Anita ........ Sandy McDade
Luke ....... Russell Tovey
Mary ....... Sally Bretton
Mr. Arnold/Peter Stephenson ...... Andrew Brooke
Bereaved woman/New Citizen/Mum ...... Jane Whittenshaw

Producer: Simon Jacobs
A Unique production for BBC Radio 4.


THU 19:00 The Archers (b01pgh63)
At the village hall, Kirsty and Fallon prepare to rehearse 'Hey Nonny' and Lynda has a general costume nightmare. Later, when people have gone, Fallon tells Kenton she's not feeling the excitement of the show - there's something missing.
Matt's bored and fancies a trip into Borchester with Lilian, but Lilian declines as she's got a run through of the show later. When she arrives at rehearsals, she's immediately greeted by criticism from Lynda. Lilian gives as good as she gets and flounces out, leaving Lynda stunned.
Lilian rings Paul. She realises she ought to apologise to Lynda, but she had to get it off her chest. Paul mentions she could get a flight to Dubai and join him. Lilian wonders how on earth she'd swing that, but Paul says she's resourceful enough. Otherwise it's another ten days before they can see each other again - which is a long time.
At home, Matt wishes they were going away just after Christmas, but Lilian reminds Matt they can't, they have other commitments. When Matt continues to moan, Lilian finally snaps at him and a piqued Matt goes to bed. Left alone, Lilian picks up the phone and dials - asking to make a reservation...


THU 19:15 Front Row (b01pgh65)
The creative backstage stars of Strictly, Downton and the Olympics

Kirsty Lang turns the spotlight on the backstage stars, some of the key individuals behind-the-scenes who play a key role in big events and major TV shows.

The band from Strictly Come Dancing lurk at the back of the stage in the shadows as the brightly-lit action takes place on the dance floor in front of them. Band leader Dave Arch, bass player Trevor Barry and singers Haley Sanderson and Lance Ellington give us an insight into the view from the back, and what they can do when things don't quite go according to plan.

Costume designer Caroline McCall is in charge of creating, sourcing, designing and hiring the wide selection of period dress for Julian Fellowes' ITV1 hit drama series Downton Abbey. She takes Kirsty round her main costume suppliers who provided the extensive high-end wardrobe for Shirley MacLaine in Series 3, and describes what it's like to see the script for the first time and find there's a big wedding, a jazz party and a trip to London, and filming starts in two weeks.

And Patrick Woodroffe, lighting designer of choice for the Rolling Stones since 1982, has had a busy year lighting the Queen's Diamond Jubilee concert outside Buckingham Palace, the Stones' 50th anniversary tour, and not least the opening and closing ceremonies for the Olympics and Paralympics. He discusses the pleasures of creating a new show from scratch and the challenges that faced him when Danny Boyle described his vision for his opening ceremony - and why the big orange Olympic rings so nearly didn't light up.

Producer Jerome Weatherald.


THU 19:45 15 Minute Drama (b01pg5p0)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:45 today]


THU 20:00 The Report (b01pgh6r)
HP and Autonomy

Current affairs series. Phil Kemp investigates the sale of the British software company Autonomy to IT giant Hewlett Packard, which claims it was misled about the firm's value.


THU 20:30 In Business (b01pgh6t)
The Business of Kindness

Random acts of kindness can help businesses grow in surprising ways. Peter Day talks with one woman who explains how the generosity of others has made all the difference to her company. Henrietta Lovell, the Rare Tea Lady, started her firm just before becoming seriously ill. Through the kindness of strangers she has managed to return to health and run a prosperous company. She is now a great advocate for spreading the idea that kind gestures are an important force in the way we conduct our personal and professional lives.


THU 21:00 Saving Species (b01pfwhs)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:30 on Tuesday]


THU 21:30 In Our Time (b01pg5nt)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]


THU 21:58 Weather (b01pf305)
The latest weather forecast.


THU 22:00 The World Tonight (b01pgh81)
President Obama has returned to the White House to try to break the political deadlock in Congress which risks sending the United States over what's known as the "fiscal cliff", and tipping its economy back into recession. President Putin has signalled he'll sign into law a bill barring Americans from adopting Russian children. And how enduring has the Olympic cheer been from London 2012? Presented by Ritula Shah.


THU 22:45 Daphne Du Maurier (b01pghc1)
Frenchman's Creek

Episode 4

Part adventure, part romance, and set in Cornwall, Daphne Du Maurier's novel tells the powerful love story between Lady Dona and the French pirate Aubery.

Episode 4
Lady Dona socializes with French pirates and English gentry, juggling her two different lives.

Read by Adjoa Andoh
Abridged by Eileen Horne

Produced by Clive Brill
A Pacificus production for BBC Radio 4.


THU 23:00 The Simon Day Show (b010y312)
Series 1

Billy Bleach

With no headliner at The Mallard, newcomer Billy Bleach is asked to extend his stand-up set. With Simon Greenall. From May 2011.


THU 23:30 The Playlist Series (b017l5y3)
Robert Burns's iPod

David Owen Norris and guests listen to Robert Burns' favourite songs in his drinking club in Tarbolton, near Glasgow. With National Poet of Scotland Liz Lochhead (writer of a play about Burns), Dr Kirsteen McCue and Professor Nigel Leask - and featuring Burns' own fiddle.

We hear the songs with the tunes he wanted - not always the ones which have become famous. For instance, 'My Love is like a Red Red Rose' was changed by his publisher against Burns' wishes. Kirsteen McCue is the world expert on Burns' songs and she reveals the original versions. We also hear a naughty song called 'Nine Inch will Please a Lady'.

Robert Burns' playlist reflects his political vision and also his complex love life. Burns was writing for the high-class Edinburgh ladies who took him up in his 30s, but he was also composing songs in broader Scots about their maids. Songs were a crucial part of his seduction technique - and they seem to have worked for him. He left 15 illegitimate children. Even on his death-bed, Burns was writing songs - for the pretty blonde teenager who was nursing him. That song, 'Oh Wert Thou in the Cold Blast', is one of his most beautiful and almost unbearably moving. Burns was destitute, he was dying at the age of only 37, and yet he sang to his nurse: "Oh wert thou in the cold blast, I'd shelter thee, I'd shelter thee".

Presenter David Owen Norris is a broadcaster, composer and concert pianist. He has arranged the songs, which are performed by Thomas Guthrie and jazz singer Gwyneth Herbert.

Producer: Elizabeth Burke.
A Loftus production for BBC Radio 4.



FRIDAY 28 DECEMBER 2012

FRI 00:00 Midnight News (b01pf311)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.


FRI 00:15 Stephen Fry on the Phone (b017cfkj)
From Car Phone to Executive Brick

Stephen Fry traces the evolution of the mobile phone, from hefty executive bricks that required a separate briefcase to carry the battery to the smart little devices complete with personal assistant we have today.

There are more mobile phones in the world than there are people on the planet: Stephen Fry talks to the backroom boys who made it all possible and hears how the technology succeeded, in ways that the geeks had not necessarily intended.

In episode two, Stephen Fry meets the men who brought mobile phones to Britain. Thanks to Margaret Thatcher opening up the airwaves, Britain became a world leader in mobile phone technology in the eighties. Vodafone (short for voice-data-phone) competed fiercely with the BT's mobile baby, Cellnet (short for cellular network), to create the first mobile phone network in the UK which was launched to great fanfare on Christmas Day 1985. Coverage was truly patchy, handsets were seriously hefty and calls cost a fortune, but mobile phones quickly replaced car phones as the ultimate yuppie accessory. Voicemail, incidentally, was a good excuse to charge customers yet more for a service that was, in reality, rather poor..

Producer: Anna Buckley.


FRI 00:30 Book of the Week (b01pg5nw)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:45 on Thursday]


FRI 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b01pf313)
The latest shipping forecast.


FRI 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b01pf315)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


FRI 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b01pf317)
The latest shipping forecast.


FRI 05:30 News Briefing (b01pf319)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


FRI 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b01pghpc)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day Archbishop Vincent Nichols.


FRI 05:45 Farming Today (b01pgjy3)
Young farmers struggling to find their way onto the farming ladder are working with the Forestry Commission in Scotland. A pilot project has offered ten-year leases to two young farmers in Fife, on 'starter farms' where some of the land is best suited to tree planting. The project addresses two of Scotland's government targets: the need to plant more trees and the need to get more young people into farming.

Is this, though, an erosion of a precious resource at a time when food production should be paramount? Moira Hickey visits Pitcairn Farm near Lochgelly to find out.

Presented and produced by Moira Hickey.


FRI 06:00 Today (b01pgjy5)
Morning news and current affairs with James Naughtie and Sarah Montague. Including Sports Desk; Weather; Thought for the Day.


FRI 09:00 Desert Island Discs (b01pf6dx)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:15 on Sunday]


FRI 09:45 Book of the Week (b01pgjy7)
Three Houses

Episode 5

A beautifully nostalgic childhood memoir of Britain in the late 1890s, written by the eminent author Angela Thirkell.
She recalls in rich detail, and with a delightful sense of humour, the three houses which were seminal to her youth.

It's Christmas at North End House in Rottingdean and the waits and the mummers are busy touring the village. But for one little girl, opening her stocking on her grandmother's bed, it's a tiny dormouse that steals the day.

Read by Sian Thomas
Abridged and produced by Jane Marshall.
A Jane Marshall production for BBC Radio 4.


FRI 10:00 Woman's Hour (b01pgjy9)
Rings, going home, dressing for success and fashion howlers

Presented by Jenni Murray. On the fifth day of Christmas my true love gave to me.... what makes the ring more symbolic and significant than any other piece of jewellery? Anthea Jarvis, author of "How to be Adored" and Caroline Cox, who writes about fashion, advise us on how to dress for success. Home can be a place we long for, or a place we want to escape from and forget? What is this notion of 'home' and belonging, and how does it shape us for good or bad? And, the television presenter, Kate Garraway, commented recently that 'a sad and sorry collection of fashion howlers lies at the back of every woman's wardrobe'. To discuss some of fashion's biggest faux pas, and how to avoid them, Jenni is joined by fashion journalist, Helen Tither, and columnist, Judith Woods.


FRI 10:45 15 Minute Drama (b01pgjyc)
A Little Twist of Dahl

The Neck

A series of stories by Roald Dahl

Episode 5: Neck

Charles Dance leads the cast as the urbane Storyteller in dramatisations of five classic tales by Roald Dahl. Bizarre and amusing by turns, these black comedies are justly famous for their surprise endings.

The stories show Dahl at the height of his powers as a writer of adult fiction. They are stylishly plotted, vividly characterised and made unforgettable by their breezy cynicism, presenting as they do, a hilariously bleak view of family life. Their satisfying conclusions invariably leave bullies, schemers, adulterers and frauds soundly punished.

In Neck, Sir Basil Turton, a wealthy newspaper magnate, has recently taken a young wife. Bossy and openly adulterous, the new Lady Turton is despised by Jelks, Sir Basil's butler, for her cruel treatment of his master. One morning she is openly frolicking with her latest lover in the grounds of the estate, when, for a joke, she sticks her head through a hole in one of Sir Basil's priceless Henry Moore sculptures. When she finds she is stuck, Sir Basil with Jelks' assistance, must decide on a course of action.

Produced and directed by David Blount
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.


FRI 11:00 UK Confidential (b01pgksh)
1982

With unique access to secret government papers, Martha Kearney presents a look at the political events of 1982 as told through the Cabinet minutes, Prime Ministerial papers and Foreign and Commonwealth Office documents and briefings that are being released to the public at the end of the year.

Close to 30,000 Government papers containing top secret memos, notes and briefings are included in the release, and the Radio 4 team have been given special access over the last few weeks.

In a dramatic year, 1982 saw Britain at war with Argentina over the Falklands, which is expected to dominate much of the papers released under the thirty year rule.

We anticipate discovering details of the talks to avert conflict, of events such as the loss of HMS Sheffield and the Battle of Goose Green, and of the controversial sinking of the Argentine Navy cruiser General Belgrano.

In addition we may well find out details of how the Franks Inquiry into the Falklands War put politicians and civil servants under the spotlight and how those around Margaret Thatcher sought to capitalise on her renewed popularity in the wake of the victory in the South Atlantic.

Producer: Deborah Dudgeon
A Whistledown Production for BBC Radio 4, in association with Takeaway Media.


FRI 12:00 You and Yours (b01pglkx)
Convenience stores, Odeon Cinema boss and the Olympic legacy

How local independent stores are coping with the twin threats of cash strapped customers and the expansion of the big supermarkets into convenience stores

Why the boss of Odeon cinemas, Rupert Gavin, thinks that Strictly Come Dancing is more of a threat to his business than online downloads.

Melanie Abbott has been back to the Olympic Park in search of the Olympic legacy.

We examine the economics behind the online retailer Amazon and look at how one town has spent its 'Portas Money' and if it has had any effect.


FRI 12:52 The Listening Project (b01pglkz)
John and Colin: Atomic Test Witness

Fi Glover presents a conversation between a father and son about the father's National Service experience on Christmas Island, as a witness to atomic testing, proving it's surprising what you hear when you listen.

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

Producer: Marya Burgess.


FRI 12:57 Weather (b01pf31c)
The latest weather forecast.


FRI 13:00 World at One (b01pgg81)
James Robbins presents national and international news. Listeners can share their views via email: wato@bbc.co.uk or on twitter: #wato.


FRI 13:45 Grimm Thoughts (b01pgll1)
Episode 10

When the Grimm brothers first published their Children's and Household Tales in 1812, in a scholarly effort to collate a national identity of the people, it was the beginning of an obsessive project of two intricately interwoven lifetimes.

To mark the bicentenary of the first edition, writer and mythographer Marina Warner explores the many compelling and often controversial aspects of the tales in a 10-part series, revealing new insights into the stories we think we know so well, and introducing us to the charms and challenges of those that we don't.

Alongside beautifully narrated extracts from the tales themselves, renowned academics and artists who work closely with the Grimm's rich heritage add to our understanding of these deceptively complex stories.

In the final episode, with fairy tales enjoying a renaissance across film and literature, we look to the future of these tales that have haunted our past and the fundamental appeal of storytelling.

Considering Hansel and Gretel, a universal story of the joys and dangers of youth and innocence, we speak to playwright Lucy Kirkwood about her brand new National Theatre adaptation of the tale, and explore what the many contemporary takes on the Grimms' legacy might tell us about the modern world.

Producer: Kevin Dawson
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.


FRI 14:00 The Archers (b01pgh63)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Thursday]


FRI 14:15 Drama (b01pgll3)
Sarah Weatherall - Storm

By Sarah Weatherall. Sound is Andrei's passion and has become his life. Working on a film soundtrack on a remote Scottish island he discovers his recordings filled with human cries floating on the wind. Braving the storms, Andrei sets out to solve the mystery.

Directed by Anne Bunting.


FRI 15:00 Gardeners' Question Time (b01pgll5)
Newcastleton, Scotland

Eric Robson and the team are in Newcastleton in Scotland for the final GQT of 2012. Bob Flowerdew, Matt Biggs and Anne Swithinbank join Eric as this week's GQT panel.

Produced by Howard Shannon
A Somethin' Else Production for BBC Radio 4.

Overflow and notes:

Q. I have a north-facing concrete garden, in the constant shade of my house. What can an armchair gardener do with this garden?

A. Get a greenhouse and also consider building some raised beds from railway sleepers. Small trees could be planted in large containers, and walkways covered in bark or gravel to hide the rest of the concrete pad.

Q. When and how hard should a Hydrangea Hortensia be pruned to encourage it back to life after being cut down to ground level?

A. Leave the thicket of stems that have grown back until they are ready to flower, then after flowering some of the stems can be thinned out. Leave the flower heads on the plant to protect developing buds below.

Q. What is the best way to move my clump of Common Dog Violets from a gravel bed when I undertake re-landscaping next spring?

A. Divide the clump into smaller pieces in the spring and replant into trays of potting compost before planting out again into multiple clumps.

Q. How does the panel recommend making the most of cold frames attached to a greenhouse?

A. Cold frames are good for over-wintering almost-hardy plants that will overheat in the greenhouse. Potted-out Strawberry plants can be kept in the cold frame and insulated space blankets can be laid over the frames to keep Fuschias and Pelargoniums through the winter. Seeds that need a cold period, such as some trees, shubs and herbaceous plants, can be put in a cold frame to break their dormancy.

Q. How do I look after my large Mock Orange (Philadelphus) bush? Last year I pruned them and this year they did not blossom.

A. These should be pruned directly after flowering but will not respond well to being shaped in general. To reduce the plant in size whilst maintaining its flowering, thin out the shoots annually. Philadelphus Microcarpam is a recommended smaller variety of Philadelphus.

Q. Against the odds a vine has survived after the destruction of its greenhouse home. How can we encourage it to fruit?

A. Prune back very hard to remove last year's growth. Leave two or three shoots on each shoot and remove again any shoots that do not develop flower trusses on them. When berries develop, remove intermittent bunches to encourage the vine to ripen sooner and shorten the shoots again to concentrate growth.

Q. Would Myrtle grow in the Scottish Borders?

A. Temperatures below -8 or -9 degrees will harm a Myrtle. They can be grown in a conservatory or greenhouse, or in pots that you can move inside in the winter.

Q. Will a tree grown from a plum stone bear fruit and if so, when? It is currently about 18in tall.

A. This needs to be planted out, as plums are not happy in pots. It probably will bear fruit, though in its original form.

Q. How do you garden when you only get 7 hours of sunshine in the whole month of July?

A. Jerusalem Artichokes, Celeriac, runner beans and even roses did OK this year despite the wet weather. A greenhouse will make your life easier as a gardener, as will a helmet with a torch on top!

________________________________________________________________
PRODUCER
name: Howard Shannon

Produced by Howard Shannon
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.


FRI 15:45 Morven Crumlish - Murals (b01pgll7)
A Bowl of Cherries

These three stories by Morven Crumlish - commissioned specially for Radio 4 - are inspired by the work of the artist Phoebe Anna Traquair. Traquair (1852-1936) was born in County Dublin and in the 1870s moved to Edinburgh, where she would later become a prominent figure in the Scottish Arts and Crafts movement.

Probably her best-known works are the vibrantly-coloured murals in what was formerly the Catholic Apostolic Church in Broughton Street, Edinburgh, which Traquair took eight years to complete (1893-1901). When the church fell out of ecclesiastical use, the murals suffered badly through neglect, but following the formation of the Mansfield Traquair Trust, a major restoration was undertaken, completed in 2005.

While art is at the core of all three fictions, Murals also mirrors the evolution of a similar building: from church, to brickyard, to present-day use for visitors and as a venue for events."

3/3. A Bowl Of Cherries

An events manager, organising a christening party at the former church, is beset by crises. One is professional - there's a dead dog in the basement. But the other is more existential.

Morven Crumlish's stories have been broadcast widely, and she also contributes to the Guardian. Her work has featured in four previous Sweet Talk productions for BBC Radio 4, including Dilemmas of Modern Martyrs - five of her stories - in 2008; and most recently 'Harold Lloyd Is Not The Man Of My Dreams' (Three For My Baby, 2011).
Morven lives in Edinburgh.

Reader: Ashley Jensen
Producer: Jeremy Osborne
A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4.


FRI 16:00 Bute: Dreams of the World's Richest Man (b01pgll9)
Jonathan Glancey discovers the astonishing contribution to British art and architecture of the 3rd Marquis of Bute.

In the second half of the 19th Century, the 3rd Marquis of Bute would have had claim to the world's richest man. His wealth was based not just on the family estates in Scotland, but on his ownership of the docks of Cardiff, then the world's richest port whose coal powered the greatest navy and the greatest empire in the world. The wealth was simply extraordinary.

What he did with that wealth matches it in scale: he embarked on artistic patronage on an almost incomprehensible scale. When he met the Gothic designer William Burgess it marked the start of a lifetime of collaboration with the finest architects and artists of his day, producing the High Victorian Gothic exuberance of Cardiff Castle and Castell Coch, the ostentation of Mount Stuart on the Isle of Bute and the sumptuous restoration of the Renaissance Falkland Palace. They are the most extraordinary buildings.

The grand halls of the castles and houses are furnished with the most expensive materials in the world, worked into elaborate decoration by the finest Victorian artists: Nathaniel Westlake, William Frame, Rowland Anderson and Lonsdale. Etched into them all (there are 5 grand houses altogether) are Bute's great loves - the signs of the zodiac and exotic animals, appearing camouflaged in every part of every home. These buildings are masterpieces which modern tastes are only just rediscovering.

In this programme Jonathan Glancey revisits and rediscovers these amazing buildings, the artistic and social currents that fuelled the rise in Victorian Gothic as well as the life and legacy of the remarkable man who remains one of our most remarkable artistic patrons.


FRI 16:30 More or Less (b01pglrw)
Numbers of 2012

A guide to 2012 in numbers - the most informative, interesting and idiosyncratic statistics of the year discussed by More or Less interviewees.

Contributors: Robert Peston, BBC's Business Editor; Dr Pippa Wells, physicist at CERN; Bill Edgar, author of Back of the Net One Hundred Golden Goals; John Rodda, Hydrologist; Gabriella Lebrecht, sports analyst at Decision Technology; Helen Joyce, Brazil correspondent for The Economist; Jack Straw, Member of Parliament for Blackburn; Jil Matheson, the UK's National Statistician; Dr James Grime, from the Millennium Mathematics Project at the University of Cambridge; Gillian Tett, columnist and assistant editor of the Financial Times; David Spiegelhalter, Professor for the Public Understanding of Risk at Cambridge University

Presenter: Tim Harford.
Producer: Charlotte Pritchard.


FRI 16:55 The Listening Project (b01pglry)
Diane and Michael: Man's Best Friend

Fi Glover presents a conversation between a father and daughter Radio 4's series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen. Michael is devoted to his Border Collie and Diane wonders whether perhaps he prefers his dog to his daughter.

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


FRI 17:00 PM (b01pgls0)
Carolyn Quinn with interviews, context and analysis.


FRI 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b01pf31f)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


FRI 18:15 15 Minute Musical (b01pgls2)
Series 7

The Reducers

A series of satirical, barbed, bittersweet fifteen-minute comedy musicals.

Episode Four: The Reducers

Can the coalition cash in by crashing out at the next election? Cameron can only hope in this musical.

Starring: Richie Webb, Dave Lamb and Jess Robinson
Written by: Richie Webb, Dave Cohen and David Quantick
Music by: Richie Webb
Music Production: Matt Katz
Producer: Katie Tyrrell

The fun-size yet satisfying musicals take an easily identifiable public figure and give them a West End Musical make-over. The fabricated, sugar-coated story is told in an original, never heard before, musical.

Delicious musical delicacies that melt in your ear not in your hand.

15 Minute Musicals are beautifully crafted treats for the ear!

The bitesize yet satisfying musicals take easily identifiable public figures and give them a West End Musical make-over with original, never heard before musicals that will have both your goose-bumps and the hairs on the back of your neck dancing.

Winner of the Writers Guild of Great Britain Radio Comedy Award this series is a seasonal treat at 1815 over the Christmas week.


FRI 18:30 The News Quiz (b01pgls4)
Series 79

Episode 2

A compilation of the best bits of The News Quiz from 2012, presented by Sandi Toksvig.

Produced by Martha Owen and Lyndsay Fenner.


FRI 19:00 The Archers (b01pgls6)
Excited Peggy tells David all about her upcoming trip to Whitby. Surprised David wonders at the timing though - it'll be rather cold. Undeterred Peggy tells David about her trip there with Jack in 1943.
At the village hall, there's gossip about dramatic events at the Horrobins' yesterday, with Clive showing up in Ambridge and being arrested for breaking his licence. David and Peggy feel for Susan.
Master of Ceremonies Kenton gets the Christmas show going and surprises everyone dressed as a jester and bopping the audience on their heads with balloons. Lynda's horrified as Kenton introduces himself as the Lord of Misrule. But Robert encourages Lynda to see how it plays out.
Despite herself, Lynda's intrigued by Kenton's popular routine, which seems to enhance the acts - not least Jim's rather dry recitation. Lynda fears she'll have to go and hide - until she's showered with compliments for her ingenuity. Kenton selflessly joins in, making out that Lynda was behind it all.
Lynda hopes Kenton doesn't take any liberties with her big closing speech. But as the evening draws to a close, Kenton pays tribute to the late Bob Pullen, before also paying warm tribute to Lynda. Lynda's touched and closes the show with a heartfelt speech from The Tempest.


FRI 19:15 Front Row (b01pgls8)
British actors in America

With Mark Lawson.

Damian Lewis, Hugh Laurie, Thandie Newton, Adrian Lester, Clive Owen and Ashley Jensen are among the actors who discuss the highs and lows of working as British performers in America.

Many high profile American TV shows and films are casting British actors in key roles. The success of programmes such as Homeland and House are testament to the strong parts tempting British actors across the pond.

Director Stephen Frears explains his theory that there is a crisis in American acting, prompting producers and directors to seek talent on this side of the Atlantic.

Hugh Laurie and Damian Lewis reflect on the pros and cons of the long contracts and extended seasons on prime time US TV shows and Adrian Lester and Thandie Newton explore the reasons behind the success of many black British actors in America.

Producer Ellie Bury.


FRI 19:45 15 Minute Drama (b01pgjyc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:45 today]


FRI 20:00 Correspondents' Look Ahead (b01pgg83)
Owen Bennett-Jones is joined by some of the BBC's top correspondents as they give their predictions about what will shape our world next year.

Will the global economy recover? How will the Arab Spring play out across the Middle East - and how will the conflict in Syria be resolved? Will Burma and North Korea continue to come out of the cold? And will a re-elected Barack Obama play a more assertive role in global affairs?

Join Owen and his guests as they gaze into their crystal balls - and he rates their predictions from last year's look ahead.

Producer: Linda Pressly.


FRI 20:50 A Point of View (b01pglsb)
Will Self: The British Vomitorium

"Are you full yet? Stuffed? Fit to burst?" asks Will Self as he appeals to the post-Christmas glutton to consider a major lifestyle change in the year ahead.

"What I think we should all do", he says, "is throw up our very obsession with food itself, and enter the New Year purged".

He takes us on a tour of foodie history, and explores how we've gone from being a culinary backwater to "the most food-obsessed nation in Europe - if not the world".

Producer: Adele Armstrong.


FRI 21:00 With Great Pleasure (b01pfwzw)
[Repeat of broadcast at 12:00 on Tuesday]


FRI 21:58 Weather (b01pf31h)
The latest weather forecast.


FRI 22:00 The World Tonight (b01pglw4)
Ritula Shah presents national and international news and analysis.


FRI 22:45 Daphne Du Maurier (b01pglw6)
Frenchman's Creek

Episode 5

Part adventure, part romance, and set in Cornwall, Daphne Du Maurier's novel tells the powerful love story between Lady Dona and the French pirate Aubery.

Episode 5
Dona enjoys her newfound secret friendship and is invited to accompany the pirates on their next adventure.

Read by Adjoa Andoh
Abridged by Eileen Horne

Produced by Clive Brill
A Pacificus production for BBC Radio 4.


FRI 23:00 Great Lives (b01pfxj3)
[Repeat of broadcast at 16:30 on Tuesday]


FRI 23:27 The Playlist Series (b01jpptd)
James Joyce's Playlist

James Joyce had a fine singing voice and earned money singing professionally as a young man. All his life he sang for friends; he sang to his desperately sick young brother, dying of typhoid; he sang to his mother on her deathbed. He sang to Nora, and she sang to him - their songs becoming a part of their courtship and marriage. He wrote songs, and set them to music; and certain special songs are repeated again and again through his fiction.

In this programme, recorded in James Joyce's Martello Tower near Dublin, we discover and recreate James Joyce's favourite songs. We also find, and hear, Joyce's own guitar. At one point in his life he had a plan to make a living travelling round Ireland playing it, as a wandering minstrel.

The songs include sentimental classics like 'Love's Old Sweet Song', which appears seven times in 'Ulysses'; the bawdy music hall ballad 'Those Seaside Girls', one of Joyce's favourites (his most erotic scenes are set by the sea); and a hauntingly sad farewell he wrote to his wife Nora, 'Bid Adieu'. We end with the rollicking 'Finnegan's Wake', an Irish song about a drunken wake which gave its name to the novel.

The contributors are Declan Kiberd, eminent Irish scholar and author of 'Ulysses and Us: the Art of Everyday Living'; actor Barry McGovern; and Katherine O'Callaghan, who has spent several years researching Joyce's music.

The presenter is David Owen Norris, pianist and music Professor, who has also arranged the songs which are sung by Thomas Guthrie and Gwyneth Herbert.

The setting is the Martello Tower near Dublin where Joyce lived as a young man, and which becomes the setting for the opening scenes of 'Ulysses'.

Producer: Elizabeth Burke
A Loftus Production for BBC Radio 4.


FRI 23:55 The Listening Project (b01pglw8)
Karl and Camila: Gang Culture

Fi Glover presents a conversation between the founder of Kids Company, Camila Batmanghelidjh, and Karl, who now helps others move away from violence and gang culture as he did, in Radio 4's series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen.

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

Producer: Marya Burgess.




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

...But Still They Come 10:30 SAT (b01pf5cx)

15 Minute Drama 10:45 MON (b01pftbg)

15 Minute Drama 19:45 MON (b01pftbg)

15 Minute Drama 10:45 TUE (b01pfwhq)

15 Minute Drama 19:45 TUE (b01pfwhq)

15 Minute Drama 10:45 WED (b01pg3qr)

15 Minute Drama 19:45 WED (b01pg3qr)

15 Minute Drama 10:45 THU (b01pg5p0)

15 Minute Drama 19:45 THU (b01pg5p0)

15 Minute Drama 10:45 FRI (b01pgjyc)

15 Minute Drama 19:45 FRI (b01pgjyc)

15 Minute Musical 18:15 TUE (b01pfy5t)

15 Minute Musical 18:15 WED (b01pg54q)

15 Minute Musical 18:15 THU (b01pgh61)

15 Minute Musical 18:15 FRI (b01pgls2)

A Charles Paris Mystery 11:30 WED (b01pg3qw)

A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols 15:00 MON (b01pftnk)

A Point of View 08:50 SUN (b01pcwrc)

A Point of View 20:50 FRI (b01pglsb)

Alexandre Dumas - The Count of Monte Cristo 21:00 SAT (b01p9gjy)

And No Birds Sing: Rachel Carson and Silent Spring 21:00 WED (b01ptgb4)

Any Answers? 14:00 SAT (b01pf5d5)

Any Questions? 13:10 SAT (b01pcwr9)

Archive on 4 20:00 SAT (b01pf5sv)

Archive on 4 21:00 TUE (b01mhnnm)

Archive on 4 15:00 WED (b01p2wd0)

Beatrix Potter's Favourite Tale 11:30 THU (b01pgg3x)

Bells on Sunday 05:43 SUN (b01pf6db)

Bells on Sunday 00:45 MON (b01pf6db)

Bellydancing and the Blues 11:00 WED (b01pg3qt)

Births, Deaths and Marriages 18:30 THU (b01jrqr1)

Bleak Expectations 18:30 TUE (b01pfy5w)

Book of the Week 00:30 SAT (b01pcvkw)

Book of the Week 09:45 MON (b01pftbb)

Book of the Week 09:45 TUE (b01pfwhl)

Book of the Week 00:30 WED (b01pfwhl)

Book of the Week 09:45 WED (b01pg3ql)

Book of the Week 00:30 THU (b01pg3ql)

Book of the Week 09:45 THU (b01pg5nw)

Book of the Week 00:30 FRI (b01pg5nw)

Book of the Week 09:45 FRI (b01pgjy7)

Brain of Britain 23:00 SAT (b01pbk81)

Broadcasting House 09:00 SUN (b01pf6ds)

Bute: Dreams of the World's Richest Man 16:00 FRI (b01pgll9)

Christmas Meditation 00:15 WED (b01pg3q7)

Christmas Service 09:00 TUE (b01pfwhj)

Classic Serial 15:00 SUN (b01pf6f7)

Correspondents' Look Ahead 20:00 FRI (b01pgg83)

Crossing Continents 20:30 MON (b01pcs5q)

Crossing Continents 11:00 THU (b01pg5p2)

Daphne Du Maurier 22:45 MON (b01pfv98)

Daphne Du Maurier 22:45 TUE (b01pfzcv)

Daphne Du Maurier 22:45 WED (b01pg553)

Daphne Du Maurier 22:45 THU (b01pghc1)

Daphne Du Maurier 22:45 FRI (b01pglw6)

Desert Island Discs 11:15 SUN (b01pf6dx)

Desert Island Discs 09:00 FRI (b01pf6dx)

Drama 14:15 MON (b01pftnh)

Drama 14:15 TUE (b01pfx04)

Drama 22:00 TUE (b01h6463)

Drama 14:15 THU (b01pgh25)

Drama 14:15 FRI (b01pgll3)

Earworms 20:00 MON (b01ng2qz)

Ed Reardon's Week 08:30 TUE (b01pfwhg)

Eddie Goes Country 17:10 TUE (b01p2w7d)

Enid Blyton - The Magic Faraway Tree 11:30 MON (b01pftbl)

Eric Sykes - The Radio Years 07:30 TUE (b0088z58)

Europe Moves East 17:00 SUN (b01p9l5f)

Farming Today 06:30 SAT (b01pf5cq)

Farming Today 05:45 MON (b01pftb4)

Farming Today 05:45 TUE (b01pfwhb)

Farming Today 05:45 WED (b01pg3qd)

Farming Today 05:45 THU (b01pg57f)

Farming Today 05:45 FRI (b01pgjy3)

Food and Farming Awards 06:00 TUE (b01p0vfj)

Four Thought 05:45 SUN (b01pcqkh)

Four Thought 20:45 WED (b01pg54z)

Freedom Pass 11:00 MON (b01pftbj)

From Fact to Fiction 19:00 SAT (b01pf5sq)

From Our Own Correspondent 11:30 SAT (b01pf5d1)

Front Row 19:15 MON (b01pfv92)

Front Row 19:15 TUE (b01pfy60)

Front Row 19:15 WED (b01pg54v)

Front Row 19:15 THU (b01pgh65)

Front Row 19:15 FRI (b01pgls8)

Gardeners' Question Time 14:00 SUN (b01pcwqq)

Gardeners' Question Time 15:00 FRI (b01pgll5)

Grease Was Our World 13:15 TUE (b01pth5g)

Great Lives 16:30 TUE (b01pfxj3)

Great Lives 23:00 FRI (b01pfxj3)

Grimm Thoughts 13:45 MON (b01pftnf)

Grimm Thoughts 13:45 TUE (b01pfx02)

Grimm Thoughts 13:45 WED (b01pg3r3)

Grimm Thoughts 13:45 THU (b01pgh23)

Grimm Thoughts 13:45 FRI (b01pgll1)

HM The Queen 15:00 TUE (b01pfxhv)

HV Morton: Travelling into the Light 07:00 TUE (b01mqr4t)

Hardeep's Sunday Lunch 13:30 SUN (b01pf6f3)

I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue 12:00 SUN (b01pbq3t)

I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue 18:15 MON (b01pfv8y)

In Business 21:30 SUN (b01pcsmc)

In Business 20:30 THU (b01pgh6t)

In Our Time 09:00 THU (b01pg5nt)

In Our Time 21:30 THU (b01pg5nt)

In Touch 20:30 TUE (b01pfyfj)

Just William - Live! 19:15 SUN (b01pfrrc)

Last Word 20:30 SUN (b01pcwqv)

Letter from America by Alistair Cooke 17:40 SUN (b01q16zd)

Loose Ends 18:15 SAT (b01pf5sn)

Mark Steel's in Town 18:30 WED (b01phj47)

Material World 21:00 MON (b01pcs67)

Material World 16:30 THU (b01pgh5x)

Meeting Myself Coming Back 06:00 WED (b01jppw6)

Midnight Mass 23:30 MON (b01pfv9b)

Midnight News 00:00 SAT (b01pcvym)

Midnight News 00:00 SUN (b01pf2sr)

Midnight News 00:00 MON (b01pf2vn)

Midnight News 00:00 WED (b01pf2yf)

Midnight News 00:00 THU (b01pf2zq)

Midnight News 00:00 FRI (b01pf311)

Midweek 09:00 WED (b01pg3qj)

Midweek 21:30 WED (b01pg3qj)

Money Box 12:00 SAT (b01pf5d3)

Money Box 21:00 SUN (b01pf5d3)

More or Less 20:00 SUN (b01pcwqx)

More or Less 16:30 FRI (b01pglrw)

Morven Crumlish - Murals 15:45 FRI (b01pgll7)

Nabokov's Christmas 17:40 TUE (b01pfy5p)

News Briefing 05:30 SAT (b01pcvyy)

News Briefing 05:30 SUN (b01pf2t0)

News Briefing 05:30 MON (b01pf2vx)

News Briefing 05:30 TUE (b01pf2xd)

News Briefing 13:00 TUE (b01pfwzy)

News Briefing 15:05 TUE (b01pfxhx)

News Briefing 17:00 TUE (b01pfxj5)

News Briefing 05:30 WED (b01pf2yp)

News Briefing 05:30 THU (b01pf2zz)

News Briefing 05:30 FRI (b01pf319)

News Headlines 06:00 SUN (b01pf2t2)

News and Papers 06:00 SAT (b01pcvz0)

News and Papers 07:00 SUN (b01pf2t6)

News and Papers 08:00 SUN (b01pf2tb)

News and Weather 22:00 SAT (b01pcvzl)

News 13:00 SAT (b01pcvz8)

No Ideas But in Things: The Poetry of William Carlos Williams 23:30 SAT (b01p9gk2)

On Your Farm 06:35 SUN (b01pf6dg)

Open Book 16:00 SUN (b01pf7kc)

Open Book 15:30 THU (b01pf7kc)

Open Country 06:07 SAT (b01pcs63)

Open Country 15:00 THU (b01pgh27)

PM 17:00 SAT (b01pf5sl)

PM 17:00 MON (b01pfv8w)

PM 17:00 WED (b01pg54n)

PM 17:00 THU (b01pgh5z)

PM 17:00 FRI (b01pgls0)

Pick of the Week 18:15 SUN (b01pf7kh)

Pick of the Year 15:15 TUE (b01pfxhz)

Poetry Please 16:30 SUN (b01pf7kf)

Prayer for the Day 05:43 SAT (b01pcwtc)

Prayer for the Day 05:43 MON (b01pftb2)

Prayer for the Day 05:43 TUE (b01pfwh8)

Prayer for the Day 05:43 WED (b01pg3q9)

Prayer for the Day 05:43 THU (b01pghmb)

Prayer for the Day 05:43 FRI (b01pghpc)

Radio 4 Appeal 07:55 SUN (b01pf6dn)

Radio 4 Appeal 21:26 SUN (b01pf6dn)

Radio 4 Appeal 15:27 THU (b01pf6dn)

Rhys Davies Competition Winners 00:30 SUN (b01pf5v0)

Saturday Drama 14:30 SAT (b01pf5d7)

Saturday Live 09:00 SAT (b01pf5cv)

Saturday Review 19:15 SAT (b01pf5ss)

Saving Species 11:30 TUE (b01pfwhs)

Saving Species 21:00 THU (b01pfwhs)

Selection of BBC World Service Programmes 01:00 SAT (b01pcvyr)

Selection of BBC World Service Programmes 01:00 SUN (b01pf2sw)

Selection of BBC World Service Programmes 01:00 MON (b01pf2vs)

Selection of BBC World Service Programmes 01:00 TUE (b01pf2x8)

Selection of BBC World Service Programmes 01:00 WED (b01pf2yk)

Selection of BBC World Service Programmes 01:00 THU (b01pf2zv)

Selection of BBC World Service Programmes 01:00 FRI (b01pf315)

Shipping Forecast 00:48 SAT (b01pcvyp)

Shipping Forecast 05:20 SAT (b01pcvyw)

Shipping Forecast 17:54 SAT (b01pcvzd)

Shipping Forecast 00:48 SUN (b01pf2st)

Shipping Forecast 05:20 SUN (b01pf2sy)

Shipping Forecast 17:54 SUN (b01pf2tg)

Shipping Forecast 00:48 MON (b01pf2vq)

Shipping Forecast 05:20 MON (b01pf2vv)

Shipping Forecast 00:48 TUE (b01pf2x6)

Shipping Forecast 05:20 TUE (b01pf2xb)

Shipping Forecast 17:54 TUE (b01pfy5r)

Shipping Forecast 00:48 WED (b01pf2yh)

Shipping Forecast 05:20 WED (b01pf2ym)

Shipping Forecast 00:48 THU (b01pf2zs)

Shipping Forecast 05:20 THU (b01pf2zx)

Shipping Forecast 00:48 FRI (b01pf313)

Shipping Forecast 05:20 FRI (b01pf317)

Six O'Clock News 18:00 SAT (b01pcvzj)

Six O'Clock News 18:00 SUN (b01pf2tl)

Six O'Clock News 18:00 MON (b01pf2w3)

Six O'Clock News 18:00 TUE (b01pf2xj)

Six O'Clock News 18:00 WED (b01pf2yt)

Six O'Clock News 18:00 THU (b01pf303)

Six O'Clock News 18:00 FRI (b01pf31f)

Something Understood 06:05 SUN (b01pf6dd)

Something Understood 23:30 SUN (b01pf6dd)

Start the Week 09:00 MON (b01pftb8)

Start the Week 21:30 MON (b01pftb8)

Stephen Fry on the Phone 00:15 THU (b017cb0m)

Stephen Fry on the Phone 00:15 FRI (b017cfkj)

Sunday Worship 08:10 SUN (b01pf6dq)

Sunday 07:10 SUN (b01pf6dj)

The Apocalypse Clock 19:45 SUN (b01pfrrf)

The Archers Omnibus 10:00 SUN (b01pf6dv)

The Archers 19:00 SUN (b01pf7kk)

The Archers 14:00 MON (b01pf7kk)

The Archers 19:00 MON (b01pfv90)

The Archers 14:00 TUE (b01pfv90)

The Archers 19:00 TUE (b01pfy5y)

The Archers 14:00 WED (b01pfy5y)

The Archers 19:00 WED (b01pg54s)

The Archers 14:00 THU (b01pg54s)

The Archers 19:00 THU (b01pgh63)

The Archers 14:00 FRI (b01pgh63)

The Archers 19:00 FRI (b01pgls6)

The Bricklayer's Lament 20:00 TUE (b01lsqk6)

The Film Programme 23:00 SUN (b01pcs65)

The Film Programme 16:00 THU (b01pgh5v)

The Food Programme 12:32 SUN (b01pf6dz)

The Infinite Monkey Cage 16:30 MON (b01pfv8r)

The Infinite Monkey Cage 23:00 TUE (b01pfv8r)

The Kitchen Cabinet 08:00 TUE (b01pfwhd)

The Listening Project 14:45 SUN (b01pf6f5)

The Listening Project 12:52 FRI (b01pglkz)

The Listening Project 16:55 FRI (b01pglry)

The Listening Project 23:55 FRI (b01pglw8)

The Media Show 16:30 WED (b01pg54l)

The News Quiz 12:30 SAT (b01pcwr3)

The News Quiz 18:30 FRI (b01pgls4)

The Penny Dreadfuls 14:15 WED (b01pg3r6)

The Playlist Series 23:30 TUE (b017ng3m)

The Playlist Series 23:30 WED (b01gd4lk)

The Playlist Series 23:30 THU (b017l5y3)

The Playlist Series 23:27 FRI (b01jpptd)

The Report 20:00 THU (b01pgh6r)

The Simon Day Show 23:00 THU (b010y312)

The Week in Westminster 11:00 SAT (b01pf5cz)

The World This Weekend 13:00 SUN (b01pf6f1)

The World Tonight 22:00 MON (b01pfv96)

The World Tonight 22:00 WED (b01pg551)

The World Tonight 22:00 THU (b01pgh81)

The World Tonight 22:00 FRI (b01pglw4)

Thinking Allowed 00:15 MON (b01pc37z)

Thinking Allowed 16:00 WED (b01pg54j)

Tim Key and Gogol's Overcoat 23:00 WED (b01nt3y0)

Today 07:00 SAT (b01pf5cs)

Today 06:00 MON (b01pftb6)

Today 07:00 WED (b01pg3qg)

Today 06:00 THU (b01pg5nr)

Today 06:00 FRI (b01pgjy5)

UK Confidential 11:00 FRI (b01pgksh)

Unreliable Evidence 22:15 SAT (b01pcqkf)

Unreliable Evidence 20:00 WED (b01pg54x)

Weather 06:04 SAT (b01pcvz2)

Weather 06:57 SAT (b01pcvz4)

Weather 12:57 SAT (b01pcvz6)

Weather 17:57 SAT (b01pcvzg)

Weather 06:57 SUN (b01pf2t4)

Weather 07:57 SUN (b01pf2t8)

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Weather 21:58 MON (b01pf2w5)

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Weather 21:58 FRI (b01pf31h)

Westminster Hour 22:00 SUN (b01pfrzr)

What the Papers Say 22:45 SUN (b01pfrzt)

With Great Pleasure 12:00 TUE (b01pfwzw)

With Great Pleasure 21:00 FRI (b01pfwzw)

Woman's Hour 16:00 SAT (b01pf5sj)

Woman's Hour 10:00 MON (b01pftbd)

Woman's Hour 10:00 TUE (b01pfwhn)

Woman's Hour 11:00 TUE (b01pfyfg)

Woman's Hour 10:00 WED (b01pg3qp)

Woman's Hour 10:00 THU (b01pg5ny)

Woman's Hour 10:00 FRI (b01pgjy9)

Word of Mouth 23:00 MON (b01p9l1x)

Word of Mouth 16:00 TUE (b01pfxj1)

World at One 13:00 MON (b01pftnc)

World at One 13:00 WED (b01pg3r1)

World at One 13:00 THU (b01pgg41)

World at One 13:00 FRI (b01pgg81)

You and Yours 12:00 MON (b01pftn9)

You and Yours 12:00 WED (b01pg3qz)

You and Yours 12:00 THU (b01pgg3z)

You and Yours 12:00 FRI (b01pglkx)

iPM 05:45 SAT (b01pcwtf)

iPM 17:30 SAT (b01pcwtf)