The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
Over takeaway sushi in his London kitchen, American essayist and humorist David Sedaris talks to Nina Myskow about being greedy, good at dieting - for his regular book tours - and how he stopped wanting to eat the condiments after he gave up smoking drugs.
David's large, idiosyncratic family must play some part in his obsession with second helpings. From a thrifty father who hoarded titbits and clipped money-off coupons for the weekly grocery shop to a mother who spent hours in conversation with her six children around the dinner table, he still worries that there'll never be enough.
His boyfriend orders for him in restaurants and cooks elaborate meals like rabbit in mustard and cream sauce but he still relishes the thought of a huge hamburger called the 'Widow-maker' and a side order of spinach that comes in a dish the size of a mixing bowl.
"The hard thing about being on a diet is getting off of it" he explains, before recounting the unpleasant side effects of some French pharmacy diet pills he took, in order to get into his 'tour pants.' Eating on tour can be difficult so he orders supper at each venue and takes a bite in between signing books.
He also tells Nina about his love of Mr Whippy ice cream, sticky toffee pudding and why eating chocolate is like eating drain cleaner.
What would he choose for his last meal on earth? A comforting dish his mother used to make.
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with the Revd Dr Jo Bailey Wells, Chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury.
British hop farming has been in long term decline but the industry is on the brink of a renaissance, according to growers Ali and Richard Capper. Ali tells Sarah Swadling that 2013 has been a tricky year, with the late spring and hot July hampering growth. Ali's long term view is that British hops could find exciting new export markets. She says that brewers in America, Germany, and New Zealand are beginning to discover the subtle flavours that only British hops can deliver. The Cappers also grow eating, cooking, and cider apples. Ali tells Sarah that niche export markets could also await the fruit.
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs.
David Attenborough presents the dipper. On a cold winter's day when few birds are singing, the bright rambling song of a dipper by a rushing stream is always a surprise. Dippers sing in winter because that's when the males begin marking out their stretch of water, they're early breeders.
Morning news and current affairs. Including Sports Desk; Weather; Thought for the Day.
Egyptian author Tarek Osman uncovers the history of the modern Arab world by tracing some of the great political dreams that have shaped it, from the nineteenth century to the Arab Spring.
Throughout the series, he focuses on two countries that are currently high on the news agenda: Egypt and Syria. As Tarek discovers, these are also the states from which many of the crucial characters and ideas in this story emerged.
In the third programme, he explores the many forces which converged and led to the unexpected rise of Islamism or political Islam from the 1970s onwards, a force which came to fill the vacuum left by Arab Nationalism.
Tarek examines the reasons for the re-emergence of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and across the region, and the gradual cultural shift that changed the landscape of the Arab world .
Mary Poppins meets Adrian Mole in Nina Stibbe's letters from the heart of 1980s literary London.
Nina exchanges cookery tips with Alan Bennett and finds Thomas Hardy irritating.
Call Woman's Hour on 03700 100 444 to share your favourite Christmas traditions. We want to hear about the little rituals and customs, however strange or unconventional, that make your Christmas so special.
Time for something a little more spiritual in our kitchen series as we meet Sister Catherine Wybourne, also known as the digital nun, who lives in a community of Benedictine nuns in Herefordshire.
And how to make the most of Christmas as a childless woman with Jody Day, who runs a support group for women who wanted children but have none. She has suggestions on coping with family assumptions and pressures, including how to enjoy being an aunt without turning into a childcare martyr and how to think about your own sadness at a time when you might be continually told 'it's all about the children'.
2. The Tale of Peter Rabbit
Her love of the British landscape and its inhabitants - coupled with her world famous ability for storytelling - means she has been one of the most celebrated children's authors of the last hundred years.
This suite of five of her tumultuous tales, including some of the lesser-known stories, brings comedic surprise, comfort and joy to the Christmas audience.
Their timeless wonders pit the delight and childlike innocence of the very human characters against the dark and dramatic ruthlessness of the food-chain-led underbelly of Cumbria's fields and hedgerows.
In this episode Chris Addison stars as Peter Rabbit and John Henshaw as Mr McGregor.
"Are there too many people on earth for wildlife to thrive?" This is the question we will be asking in a special edition of Shared Planet recorded with a live audience in the Great Hall of the University of Bristol. Together with questions asked by Shared Planet listeners and members of the public in the Great Hall, Monty hosts guests Fred Pearce, an environment writer and author of The Last Generation: How nature will take her revenge for climate change and Kierán Suckling, Executive Director of the Center for Biological Diversity. And of course Shared Planet correspondent Kelvin Boot will make an appearance.
It was first performed by Judy Garland in the 1944 MGM musical Meet Me In St Louis', for the now famous scene in which she and her seven year old sister, played by Margaret O'Brien are downcast about the prospect of moving away from their beloved home.
Garland asked the composer, Hugh Martin to modify his original lyric, explaining it to be too depressing for her to sing, or the audience to hear.
Martin's collaborator and friend, John Fricke, explains the importance this song had for the composer and the joy he experienced in hearing it covered by every major artist since, from Frank Sinatra to Chrissie Hynde, Punk band Fear to Cold Play, Rod Stewart to James Taylor.
It's clear that the song's enduring power lies in a beautiful melody with a melancholic feel that sums up our emotional ambivalence to the Christmas season.
Soul Music is a series exploring famous pieces of music and their emotional appeal.
Radio 4's consumer programme normally looks at the way we spend money, but this programme is purely about giving things away.
Antz Junction in Swinton, Greater Manchester, was created by Martin Ainscough after selling his crane hire company for 255 million pounds. It's a centre for anyone interested in running a small business or charity to help people back into work.
The office space and bills are paid for, but anyone who uses Antz Junction has to give something back, in skills or time.
Winifred Robinson visits to see how it works and speak to some of the people being pulled back into life after thinking they were finished.
To discuss the effect and motivation of giving away time and money, Winifred is joined by one of the UK's wealthiest entrepreneurs, a social historian and a charity pioneer.
John Caudwell made his personal fortune from mobile phones. He's thought to be the UK's highest individual taxpayer, and has taken the Gates Foundation Pledge of giving away the majority of his 1.5 billion pound wealth through philanthropic projects.
Camila Batmanghelidjh founded her first charity in her early twenties, and runs Kids Company, which works with neglected and abused children in London and Bristol.
Hugh Cunningham is Emeritus Professor of Social History at the University of Kent and has studied the history of charitable giving.
National and international news. Listeners can share their views via email: wato@bbc.co.uk or on twitter: #wato.
Frank Gardner was shot several times by terrorists in Saudi Arabia in 2004, and suffered damage to his spinal nerve. He lost the use of his legs and is in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.
It was a catastrophic change to his life but having a supportive partner and being able to go back to work and continue with his career as a journalist for the BBC has been a key factor in his own recovery. In his third and final interview for the series 'One to One ', Frank meets Deborah Impiazzi who lost her sight and with it her job and her husband and explores how she is coping with this life changing trauma.
A real-time comedy drama about modern life, set during one of the most stressful journeys known to humanity - the trip from Arrivals Hall to Departure Gate.
Patrick, an architect en route to a major pitch, is negotiating the airport obstacle course when he learns that his son has had an accident at school.
Already running late, Patrick and his assistant Oriane must now juggle multiple simultaneous phone calls and security scans, Blackberry emails and duty-free queues, as they cope with Patrick's over-complicated work and home life. The emotional rollercoaster of arranging childcare, managing a marital breakdown, call centre delays and emergency conferences are added to the gruelling airport triathlon - a circle of hell newly opened for the super-connected of the 21st century.
Hymn: Once in Royal David's City (desc. Cleobury)
Ding, Dong! merrily on high (arr. Williamson)
Hear the voice of the Bard (Musgrave - first performance, commissioned by King's College)
Love came down at Christmas (Morris, arr. Cleobury)
Joy to the world (Holford, arr. Keyte and Parrott)
Hymn: 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
Fifth lesson: Luke 1 vv 26-35, 38 read by a representative of the sister College at Eton
Angelus ad Virginem (arr. Cleobury)
Away in a manger (arr. Willcocks)
Hymn: While shepherds watched (desc. Cleobury)
I saw three ships (arr. Preston)
Hymn: O come, all ye faithful (arr. Willcocks)
Hymn: Hark, the Herald Angels Sing (desc. Cleobury)
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.
At home in Edinburgh Isabella Bird was the very picture of the ailing Victorian spinster but the moment her tiny feet hit the gangway of a steamer or squeezed into the stirrups of a horse she was transformed. Taking a doctor's advice to travel for the sake of her health Isabella headed for Australia, Japan, Korea and Hawaii before finding her spiritual home amongst the most rotten scoundrels of America's West.
In 'Great Lives' the award-winning author of novels including 'How I Live Now' and 'The Bride's Farewell', Meg Rosoff explains why Isabella's transformation has inspired her books and her love of horses.
She's joined by David McClay from the National Library of Scotland who maintains an archive of Isabella's colourful correspondence from the farthest flung corners of the Earth.
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, as easily identifiable public figures are dressed up, gilded, fabricated and placed against a random musical backdrop for sugar coated consumption. The stories are simple and engaging but with an edge - allowing the audience to enjoy all the conventions of a musical (huge production numbers, tender ballads and emotional reprises) whilst we completely re-interpret events in major celebrities' lives.
Beautifully crafted with astronomically high production values 15 Minute Musical does for your ears what chocolate does for your taste buds. All in fifteen minutes!
Winner of the Writers Guild of Great Britain Radio Comedy Award this series provides an energy boost and a seasonal treat at 1815 over the Christmas week.
Cast: Richie Webb, Dave Lamb and Pippa Evans.
With Annette Crosbie as Edith, Robert Duncan as Scumspawn, Jimmy Mulville as Thomas.
Lynda manages to coax a downbeat Leonie to accompany her to the nativity play at the church. After the production, Leonie reveals she found the show very emotional and admits she needs time to think. Lynda reiterates that Leonie can stay for as long as she likes. But she will eventually have to tell James about the baby.
Disappointed Ed gets word that all the puppies from a litter over in Darrington have been sold. Emma refuses to be defeated. While everyone is getting ready for the nativity play, she makes her excuses and pops out on a mission. Emma turns on her charm and manages to win over the farmer who had previously said they'd have to wait. He eventually agrees to let them have a puppy.
Secretive Emma just makes it to the nativity in time to witness George's performance. Afterwards Emma reveals she has a surprise for them. George cannot contain his excitement when he sees the puppies. Susan has reservations about bringing a puppy home on Christmas Eve.
George picks a female pup and names her Holly. He excitedly exclaims this is the best Christmas ever. Ed is impressed with Emma's resourcefulness.
In new interviews, Mark Lawson talks to the people who have had exceptional years in the world of arts, culture and entertainment in 2013, in the second of two special programmes.
David Tennant talks about his roles in the two most highly anticipated television events of 2013 - the Doctor Who 50th anniversary special and the final episode of Broadchurch. He discusses which accent he decided on for his roles in The Escape Artist, the Politician's Husband and to play Shakespeare's Richard II on stage.
Dame Helen Mirren, who won the Evening Standard Best Actress award for her role in The Audience, talks about playing Queen Elizabeth II for the second time.
Olivia Colman remembers the night she won two Bafta Awards, for Accused and Twenty Twelve, and reveals her strategies for avoiding unwanted attention from the paparazzi.
Stephen Frears talks about working with Judi Dench and Steve Coogan on his hit film Philomena and why he is drawn to make films about real people and events.
Director Clio Barnard won critical acclaim for her second film The Selfish Giant, an adaptation of an Oscar Wilde fairy tale. She discusses taking The Selfish Giant to the Cannes Film Festival and explains why she will always work with children and animals.
Fi Glover brings together a disparate group of people all with one thing in common. This week people who have saved someone's life discuss the experience and how it affects them afterwards.
In a special edition Peter White talks to Dan and Michael Smith, identical twins who both have a rare genetic eye condition which caused them both to lose over ninety per cent of their sight within eighteen months of each other.
They talk to Peter about the impact their rapid sight loss had on their studies, their families and their relationships.
Claudia takes a musical journey inside the brain looking at the very latest neuroscientific research on everything from how we notice patterns in music to why the beat can be so powerful.
We're not born with musical ability, but the brain is an efficient machine that lets us learn the rules. But what about the people who can't understand music? And how can our emotional responses to music be used therapeutically?
When it comes to understanding the mind and the brain, the beauty of music is that there are so many dimensions to it - there's pitch, rhythm, melody, our memories and that all-important emotional element. These are rich pickings for those using it to try to understand the workings of the mind better and to develop new therapies.
2013 was a year when feminism, or women's issues, were in the media spotlight - from the serious to the bizarre.
There was Lily Allen's feminist anthem (or not), the Jane Austen banknote, and Mylie Cyrus twerking. Also, female genital mutilation, where to wear the Niqab, twitter trolls and growth of campaigns like The Everyday Sexism Project and No More Page Three. So, have British women rediscovered feminism? If so, is there a connection to the more obviously revolutionary times of the late 60's and early 70's, when young women fought for equal rights?
Sheila Dillon went to Leeds to try and find answers. She meets a woman whose campaigning was inspired by the murders committed by Peter Sutcliffe, the so-called Yorkshire ripper and discovers how much has changed in 30 years. She meets students at Leeds university and even attends a pole dancing class. She also talks to women footballers who play for the Millwall Lionesses
A distinguished panel of feminists - journalist, Dame Ann Leslie, writer Shelina Zahra Janmohamed, and campaigner, Laura Bates who runs the Everyday Sexism website - reflect on the issues facing women in the UK.
A picaresque tale of a centenarian, police and thieves, and moments in world history. As his mother put it, "Things are what they are, and whatever will be will be."
At 100 years-old, Allan Karlsson is a reluctant birthday boy. In the old people's home they've prepared a party for him. The Mayor and the local press will be there. But this party never gets started. Still in his bedroom slippers, Allan makes his getaway through the window and begins an unlikely adventure.
Allan is no stranger to adventure, as the stories of his earlier life reveal - a life in which he dined with world leaders such as Franco, Truman and Stalin and found himself behind the scenes during major events of the twentieth century.
Jonas Jonasson was born in 1961 in Vaxjö, Sweden. After starting up and then running the successful media company OTW for twenty years, he sold the business and moved to Switzerland. There he completed The Hundred-year-Old Man Who Climbed Out Of The Window And Disappeared. Jonas lives on the island of Gotland in Sweden.
Allan and his new friend Julius receive an unwelcome visitor at the station house in Byringe.
Live from The Metropolitan Cathedral and Basilica of St Chad in Birmingham. The Most Rev'd Bernard Longley, Archbishop of Birmingham celebrates the First Mass of Christmas and gives the homily. The choir of St Chad's under the direction of David Saint sings carols to welcome the birth of Christ. Organist: Nigel Morris.
WEDNESDAY 25 DECEMBER 2013
WED 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b03m3938)
The latest shipping forecast.
WED 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b03m393b)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.
WED 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b03m393d)
The latest shipping forecast.
WED 05:30 News Briefing (b03m393g)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
WED 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b03m7md5)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with the Revd Dr Jo Bailey Wells, Chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury.
WED 05:45 Farming Today (b03m7md7)
Spring 2013 saw some of the worst snow the UK has seen in decades. Thousands of farm animals were buried under drifts. The only way to rescue them was by digging them out, by hand, with a spade. Gareth Wyn Jones, a Welsh sheep farmer became the public face of the disaster, after using social media to highlight the desperate struggle to rescue animals trapped deep beneath the snow. He was seen by TV audiences worldwide and earned the nickname the 'tweeting farmer'. He lost 80 of his Welsh Mountain sheep in total, but managed to rescue just as many. Caz Graham has been to visit Gareth on his farm near Conwy in North Wales to see how he - and his sheep - have recovered.
Produced and presented by Caz Graham.
WED 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b03k6slx)
Robin
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs.
David Attenborough presents the robin. Christmas cards became popular around 1860 and robins often featured, carrying letters in their beaks or lifting door-knockers and were often referred to as the 'little postmen'. Until 1861, postmen wore red coats and were nick-named redbreasts or Robins, so the association between a familiar winter bird and the person who brought Christmas greetings was irresistible.
WED 06:00 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.....
WED 07:00 Frost on 4 (b03mjlk1)
Over a period of more than forty years, David Frost moved from the forefront of the 60s satire boom, to make his mark as one of the UK's most prominent journalists, and latterly became the politicians' favourite interviewer.
In recent years Frost celebrated his long career on BBC Radio 4 in three series where many wise and respected guests joined him to reflect on his memorable interviews.
In this special tribute to the veteran broadcaster we feature selected highlights from these remarkable programmes exploring the symbiotic worlds of comedy, journalism, religion and politics with lively discussions and fascinating archive.
Frost's career spanned journalism, comedy writing and daytime television presenting, including That Was The Week That Was, The Frost Report and Frost On Sunday. Since the mid-1960s, he has interviewed almost every prominent statesman, leader, dictator, entertainer and otherwise influential figure. He was perhaps the first interviewer of the television age to become as famous as the people he interviewed. His series of filmed encounters with former President Richard Nixon, over twelve days in 1977, made worldwide news; they, and the events leading up to them, have recently been the subject of the Hollywood movie Frost/Nixon.
As Frost and guests discuss favourite moments from television interviews from the past forty years we reveal many other moments just as compelling as Nixon in the dozens of other interviews in his canon of work.
Producer: Stephen Garner
WED 07:30 Stig at Fifty (b03m7mdc)
The classic children's book 'Stig of the Dump' has never been out of print since it was first published 50 years ago. At the heart of the story is an unlikely hero, a filthy caveman who communicates only in grunts and lives in an unstable chalk pit beyond the adult world of rules and conventions. He is the perfect friend for bored and restless eight year old Barney, a boy on the margins, nagged by his grandmother, lectured to by his bossy sister and ambushed by a gang of ruffian older boys, the Snargets.
The award-winning children's author David Almond, whose own book 'Skellig' also features a grubby and inarticulate other-worldly hero, explores the appeal of Stig half a century after publication. He meets the book's author Clive King, who turns 90 next year, and discovers why readers are still so fascinated by Stig the prehistoric part-man/part-boy.
Almond recalls the electrifying effect the book had on his class of Tyneside children when he worked as a teacher and acknowledges the profound influence on his own fiction. He meets children for whom Stig is still a natural hero, and adult devotees like the poet and author of 'Edgelands' Paul Farley, natural history writer Patrick Barkham, and the former chair of the National Trust Dame Fiona Reynolds, who all acknowledge the influence of Stig on their own lives and careers.
And in an age where children are rarely allowed to roam free, as Barney once did, he considers what contemporary children have lost fifty years after Stig first emerged from the dump.
Producers: Caroline Beck, Andy Cartwright
A Soundscape production for BBC Radio 4.
WED 08:00 Radio 4 Comedy Advent Calendar (b03m7mdf)
On Christmas Day gorge on a bumper edited compilation of all 24 'windows' from the Radio 4 Comedy Advent Calendar featuring some of your favourite presenters, performers and comedians.
Produced by Lyndsay Fenner and Sam Michell.
WED 09:00 Christmas Service (b03m7mdh)
Shepherds' Delight - A Christmas celebration from Chester Cathedral reflecting on the enthusiasm of the shepherds despite their lowly reputation in the eyes of the world. Their haste to get to the place of Jesus's birth testifies to their spiritual preparedness and eagerness for the coming of the Messiah. With meditations from the Rt Revd Peter Forster, Bishop of Chester, and traditional and modern carols by Peter Warlock, David Willcocks, Carl Rutti and Bryan Kelly sung by the Cathedral Choir with the Phoenix Brass Ensemble under the direction of Philip Rushworth. Organist: Benjamin Chewter. Producer: Stephen Shipley.
WED 09:45 Book of the Week (b03m7mdk)
Love, Nina: Despatches From Family Life
Sometimes You Just Have to Lie
Mary Poppins meets Adrian Mole in Nina Stibbe's letters from the heart of 1980s literary London. Alan Bennett's handyman skills come to the rescue and Nina finds herself in a situation where she just has to lie.
Read by Rebekah Staton
Abridged by Penny Leicester
Produced by Gemma Jenkins.
WED 10:00 Woman's Hour (b03m7mdm)
Nigel Slater; Evan Davis; Puppini Sisters
Jane and Jenni open up the Woman's Hour studio and invite you in to spend Christmas morning with them and other Radio 4 presenters Evan Davis, John Humphrys and Sheila Dillon. They're joined by Nigel Slater to give last-minute tips for a tasty Christmas dinner. Gyles Brandreth leads the party games, while Victoria Moore gives advice on some cocktails to help the day go with a swing and there's music from the Puppini Sisters. We'll also be hearing from the woman in charge of a British Antarctic Survey research base about her Christmas at the South Pole and we visit The Reverend Canon Katrina Scott at her parish in Coventry. And David Attenborough introduces Tweet of the Day...the robin.
Presenters: Jane Garvey and Jenni Murray
Producer: Steven Williams
Output Editor: Jane Thurlow.
WED 10:45 15 Minute Drama (b03mt7l4)
The Tales of Beatrix Potter
3. The Tale of Jemima Puddleduck
Beatrix Potter's famous tales are celebrated this Christmas.
Her love of the British landscape and its inhabitants - coupled with her world famous ability for storytelling - means she has been one of the most celebrated children's authors of the last hundred years.
This suite of five of her tumultuous tales, including some of the lesser-known stories, brings comedic surprise, comfort and joy to the Christmas audience.
Their timeless wonders pit the delight and childlike innocence of the very human characters against the dark and dramatic ruthlessness of the food-chain-led underbelly of Cumbria's fields and hedgerows.
Starring Janine Duvistki, Morwenna Banks and Seymour Mace.
Adapted and Directed by Sean Grundy
Produced by Sally Harrison
A Woolyback production for BBC Radio 4
WED 11:00 Woman's Hour (b03m7pzl)
Nigel Slater; Evan Davis; Puppini Sisters
Jane and Jenni open up the Woman's Hour studio and invite you in to spend Christmas morning with them and other Radio 4 presenters Evan Davis, John Humphrys and Sheila Dillon. They're joined by Nigel Slater to give last-minute tips for a tasty Christmas dinner. Gyles Brandreth leads the party games, while Victoria Moore gives advice on some cocktails to help the day go with a swing and there's music from the Puppini Sisters. We'll also be hearing from the woman in charge of a British Antarctic Survey research base about her Christmas at the South Pole and we visit The Reverend Canon Katrina Scott at her parish in Coventry. And David Attenborough introduces Tweet of the Day...the robin.
Presenters: Jane Garvey and Jenni Murray
Producer: Steven Williams
Output Editor: Jane Thurlow.
WED 11:30 Believe It! (b03m7p12)
Series 2
Danger Man
Jon Canter's "radiography" of Richard Wilson returns for a second series.
Celebrity autobiographies are everywhere. Richard Wilson has always said he'd never write one. Based on glimmers of truth, Believe It is the hilarious, bizarre, revealing (and, most importantly, untrue) celebrity autobiography of Richard Wilson.
He narrates the series with his characteristic dead-pan delivery, weaving in and out of dramatised scenes from his fictional life-story. He plays a heavily exaggerated version of himself: a Scots actor and national treasure, unmarried, private, passionate about politics, theatre and Manchester United (all true), who's a confidant of the powerful and has survived childhood poverty, a drunken father, years of fruitless grind, too much success, monstrosity, addiction, charity work and fierce rivalry with Sean Connery and Ian McKellen (not true).
The title - in case you hadn't spotted - is an unashamed reference his famous catchphrase.
Written by Jon Canter
Produced and Directed by Clive Brill
A Pacificus Production for BBC Radio 4.
WED 12:00 With Great Pleasure (b03m7p14)
With Great Pleasure at Christmas 2013
John Lloyd is joined by Hugh Laurie, Miriam Margolyes, Julian Rhind-Tutt and Howard Goodall to perform his favourite pieces of writing, comedy and music. A special Christmas edition of With Great Pleasure recorded in front of an audience at the BBC Radio Theatre.
John Lloyd is a comedy guru, the brains behind QI and the producer of Blackadder - and Hugh Laurie revisits his sublime portrayal of the Prince Regent from Blackadder the Third in a couple of previously unperformed pieces written by John. His other choices include a performance by all the cast of a scene from Hay Fever by Noel Coward, in which John made his stage debut while at school.
Taking us through John's life in comedy are sound archive extracts from Julian and Sandy from Round The Horne and Peter Cook from Beyond the Fringe.
Books that have been important in John's life include The Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff, How The Mind Works by Steven Pinker and poetry collections ranging from Auden to ee cummings. Words of wisdom from Douglas Adams and Viz Top Tips are also quoted.
Howard Goodall plays the song he composed for John's wedding, which is sung by John's daughter.
Producer Beth O'Dea.
WED 13:00 News (b03mygp9)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
WED 13:13 Weather (b03m393q)
The latest weather forecast.
WED 13:15 Lives in a Landscape (b03m7p16)
Series 15
Christmas at Sandringham
As the Royal Family sit down to their festive dinner on the Queen's Norfolk estate, Alan Dein invites Radio 4 listeners to spend Christmas at a rather different Sandringham - the Sandringham Hotel in Weston super Mare.
Alan joins the seafront hotel's 'Turkey & Tinsel' celebrations as three coachloads of revellers - mostly retired people - head south to celebrate Christmas in November.
"We're not the bees' knees, we're not the finest hotel in Weston super Mare..." says Ken Perrett, the hotel's owner. And it's true - the hotel is a little rough around the edges. Yet Ken must be getting something right - nearly a hundred people have checked in for five days of early festivities.
Amidst the laughter, turkey and tinsel, a bittersweet story emerges - as Alan discovers many are here celebrating without the ones they love.
Producer: Laurence Grissell.
WED 13:45 One to One (b01s89mk)
Ritula Shah talks to Satish Kumar
Ritula Shah was brought up as a Jain, which has renunciation as one of its central tenets. Ritula has always been fascinated by this idea and in this series she wants to explore what it means to give up something that still has value to those around you. Why do it? Where does it leave your relationships with those people whose choices you will have contradicted or undermined by your own? What happens when you waver (as surely you must)?
In this first programme she explores the theory with ex-Jain monk, Satish Kumar. He explains his own personal journey to renunciation of both the material and the spiritual while still a young man and why he ultimately rejected it as a way of improving the world.
Producer: Maggie Ayre.
WED 14:00 The Archers (b03m7ffw)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Tuesday]
WED 14:15 Drama (b03m7p9z)
Enid Bagnold - National Velvet
Episode 1
Fourteen year old Velvet is mad about horses. She knows 'there are pleasures earlier than love. Earlier than love, nearer heaven' in the form of horses.
When she wins a piebald horse in a raffle, she recognises he's something special. He can easily clear five-foot fences, and he'll do anything for her. Soon, she and butcher's assistant Mi have their sights set on the biggest race in England. But how can a girl in 1930s England get near Aintree?
Peter Flannery rescues National Velvet from Hollywood, returning 14 year old Velvet to her Sussex butcher's family in the 1930s. A welcome return for Enid Bagnold's strange, inventive fairytale about a young amateur girl rider who takes an untrained horse over the stiffest course in the world and wins.
Sound design: Eloise Whitmore
Author: Enid Bagnold
Dramatised by Peter Flannery
Director/Producer: Melanie Harris
Executive Producer: Polly Thomas
A Sparklab production for BBC Radio 4.
WED 15:00 HM The Queen (b03m7plk)
The Queen's Christmas message to the Commonwealth and the nation, followed by the national anthem.
WED 15:05 News (b03mygpc)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
WED 15:15 Pick of the Year (b03m7plm)
Pick of the Year 2013
The BBC in London has moved to a brand new building and Sandi Toksvig unpacks the boxes of BBC Radio, choosing her favourite moments from 2013.
Her choices include a newsreader's nightmare with a tongue twister of a name containing 36 letters and 19 syllables; an inspirational 16 year old; an unwelcome studio pest; a love story and a tennis player, a man's ear and Morecombe and Wise making beautiful music together.
In Britten's Footsteps - Radio 4
The Chris Evans Breakfast Show: Yodelling Woman - Radio 2
News read by Neil Sleat - Radio 4
The Unsent Letters of Erik Satie - Radio 4
Shelagh Fogarty - 5Live
Mark Thomas: The Manifesto - Radio 4
The Danny Baker Show - 5Live
Today Programme: The Reduced Shakespeare Company - Radio 4
Hello, I'm Half-Caste - Radio 4 Extra
Saturday Drama: Air Force One - Radio 4
That Mitchell & Webb Sound - Radio 4
Who is the Doctor? - Radio 2
Afternoon Drama: Love, War and Trains - Radio 4
Return to Japan - Radio 4
PM: Malala Yousafzai - Radio 4
If there's something you'd like to suggest for next week's programme, please e-mail potw@bbc.co.uk.
WED 16:00 Thinking Allowed (b03m7plp)
Santa Helpers; Christmas Tradition
A Thinking Allowed special on our construction of Christmas tradition. What does Christmas mean to you - a visit to Santa's grotto with the little ones, the opening of presents before breakfast, a house festooned with sparkly lights and wreaths of ivy? Or is your Christmas an understated and low key affair? Perhaps you don't even recognise it for cultural or religious reasons.
Professor Philip Hancock discusses his study into the 'elite' squad of Santa helpers who dispense seasonal cheer and gifts to children in department stores up and down the country. How do they maintain their 'ho, ho hos' in the face of 500 length queues? What special challenges does this unique branch of interactive service work present? Also, Professor Jennifer Mason talks about her research into how people create the Christmas experience, drawing on the rituals of their childhoods and negotiating conflicting traditions. The writer, Antony Lerman, joins the discussion.
Producer: Jayne Egerton.
WED 16:30 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.
WED 17:00 Radio 4 Comedy Advent Calendar (b03m7mdf)
[Repeat of broadcast at
08:00 today]
WED 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b03m393n)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
WED 18:15 15 Minute Musical (b03m7pzp)
Series 8
Julian and the Assanging Technicolour Download
A series of satirical, barbed, bittersweet fifteen-minute comedy musicals.
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, as easily identifiable public figures are dressed up, gilded, fabricated and placed against a random musical backdrop for sugar coated consumption. The stories are simple and engaging but with an edge - allowing the audience to enjoy all the conventions of a musical (huge production numbers, tender ballads and emotional reprises) whilst we completely re-interpret events in major celebrities' lives.
Beautifully crafted with astronomically high production values 15 Minute Musical does for your ears what chocolate does for your taste buds. All in fifteen minutes!
Winner of the Writers Guild of Great Britain Radio Comedy Award this series provides an energy boost and a seasonal treat at 1815 over the Christmas week.
Other episodes include:
Ra Ra It's Puti
A camp look at Russia's greatest love machine.
The Last Days of Farage
Nigel Farage goes to Europe with a Britpop soundtrack.
Half A Sixth Form
Michael Gove has a licence to teach.
It's A One-Hit-Wonderful Life
Simon Cowell contemplates ending his career until his guardian angel Susan Boyle appears to show him life without Cowell - It's A Wonderful Life.
Heaven Knows I'm Middle-Aged Now
Morrissey looks for a new musical collaborator.
Cast: Richie Webb, Dave Lamb and Jess Robinson
Written by: Dave Cohen, David Quantick and Richie Webb
Music Composed, Performed and Arranged by: Richie Webb
Music Production: Matt Katz
Producer: Katie Tyrrell.
WED 18:30 What Does the K Stand For? (b03m7pzs)
Series 1
The First Noel
The Amos family plan to fly out to celebrate Christmas in Lagos, Nigeria.
Stephen K Amos's sitcom about his teenage years, growing up black, gay and funny in 1980s South London.
Written by Jonathan Harvey with Stephen K Amos.
Himself ... Stephen K Amos
Young Stephen ... Shaquille Ali-Yebuah
Stephanie Amos ... Fatou Sohna
Virginia Amos ... Ellen Thomas
Vincent Amos ... Don Gilet
Miss Collins ... Gemma Whelan
Fola ... Kathryn Drysdale
Check-in attendant ... Harry Jardine
Producer: Colin Anderson
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2013.
WED 19:00 The Archers (b03m7pzv)
It's Christmas Day in Ambridge and Joe is thrilled with the handles Eddie has attached to the trap. Darrell comes out to wish the Grundys a merry Christmas and is promptly invited in to celebrate the day with them.
When Darrell receives Christmas presents from the Grundys - a shirt and jumper - he is very touched. He's sorry not to have got them anything in return, but they are just happy he's there. Darrell is quiet throughout the meal and, despite Eddie's kindness, he leaves.
Tom admits to Peggy that he is nervous. But Kirsty is really excited at the prospect of the promised surprise.
During the family Christmas meal, Helen receives a call from Rob. Tom follows her. He overhears the end of the conversation and has his suspicions about who is on the phone.
Tom pulls one last cracker with Kirsty. A jewellery box falls out, and Tom follows it up with a proposal of marriage. Delighted Kirsty says yes. Everyone - including Helen - is thrilled for Tom and Kirsty and they crack open champagne. They've all had a very happy Christmas.
WED 19:15 Front Row (b03m7pzx)
Sir Derek Jacobi
In conversation with Mark Lawson, Sir Derek Jacobi looks back over a career that has spanned half a century.
It was the role of the damaged Roman emperor Claudius, in the 1976 BBC television drama serial, I Claudius, that brought Sir Derek public fame. However he had already attracted attention in theatrical circles when in the early 1960s, at the age of 23, he was invited to become one of the founder members of Laurence Olivier's National Theatre.
Sir Derek talks to Mark about the support he received from his non-theatrical parents when he decided to make a life for himself on the stage. He reflects on the advice he's been given by distinguished directors, and why he thinks his face came between him and the role of Hannibal Lecter. He shares the experience of being struck by stage fright at the height of his success in the theatre, and discovering over dinner with Margaret Thatcher that the then Prime Minister felt that when it came to connecting with an audience they had much in common.
Producer Ekene Akalawu.
WED 19:45 15 Minute Drama (b03mt7l4)
[Repeat of broadcast at
10:45 today]
WED 20:00 Start the Week (b03gv7xm)
Andrew Marr on poet George Herbert
Andrew Marr returns to Start the Week for a special programme on the early 17th century poet George Herbert. His English poetry was never published in his lifetime, but he hoped it would act as consolation 'of any dejected poor soul', and his latest biographer John Drury argues that with its focus on love over theology, his poetry still speaks to and for modern readers. The composer Sir John Tavener and the writer Jeanette Winterson discuss prayer in a secular age, and the power of music and words to soothe the soul.
This programme was recorded before the sad announcement of Sir John Tavener's death.
Producer: Katy Hickman.
WED 20:45 Jared Diamond: How Geography Creates History (b03mtcvj)
In this talk, recorded in his study in Los Angeles, the geographer and polymath Jared Diamond argues that apparently slight differences in geography can have profound consequences for the culture and history of nations.
He takes as his examples Britain and Japan. "When one examines a globe," he says, "one's first impression is that no country would be more similar to the United Kingdom than is Japan. Japan and the British Isles look like mirror images of each other, as the big archipelagos flanking the Eurasian continent respectively to the east and to the west."
And yet, he argues, "it would be hard to find two modern industrial societies more dissimilar to each other than are Japan and Britain." The comparison, he argues, "reveals the big effects of even modest geographic differences."
Producer: Sheila Cook.
WED 21:00 Archive on 4 (b015bj1z)
The Oldest Music Hall
"A palace of entertainment" - so Paul Merton, Presenter, describes the Leeds City Varieties music hall .
He delves into the BBC archives to examine the life and death of Britain's music hall tradition in a funny and affectionate look at the City Varieties - once one of the most famous theatres in the world - as a result of 30 years transmission of The Good Old Days TV show.
With fresh interviews with former Good Old Days stars Ken Dodd, Barry Cryer and Roy Hudd, plus original archive clips of music hall stars and Good Old Days celebrities - this Archive on 4 documentary examines how the City Varieties mirrored the rise and fall of variety - and with a new multi million pound facelift - discovers whether such Yorkshire optimism in the future of this particular variety theatre is well founded.
Paul Merton is an enthusiastic and knowledgeable guide to the subject - not only has he performed at the theatre - he also is a fan of variety and its more rumbustious, red blooded predecessor, music hall. He discovers how the City Varieties launched the careers of international stars such as Frankie Vaughan and Ken Dodd - and also what made the iconic "Good Old Days" a staple of BBC tv schedules for three decades. He hears showbiz anecdotes, scandals and finds out just why twenty first century theatre-goers are enjoying a new appetite for variety as a result of the current TV talent shows.
WED 21:58 Weather (b03m393q)
[Repeat of broadcast at
13:13 today]
WED 22:00 The Reunion (b03m7slh)
The Fast Show
The first episode of The Fast Show in 1994 had twenty seven sketches in just half an hour. Charlie Higson and Paul Whitehouse, former writers for Harry Enfield, created a concept which re-invigorated the sketch show format and crammed it with catch-phrases.
In this special Christmas night edition of The Reunion, Sue MacGregor brings the cast back together to reflect on the series which launched their careers.
Higson and Whitehouse recruited young stand-up comedians whose worked they liked, such as Caroline Aherne , John Thomson , Simon Day and Felix Dexter, alongside actors such as Mark Williams and Paul Shearer. This process involved each 'auditioning' their proposed character in front of the ensemble.
Competitive Dad, the obscene Suits You tailors, Jazz Club, Does My Bum Look Big in This?, and the touching repressed romance of Ted and Ralph, scored a very high strike rate for introducing catchphrases and comedy characters to schools and work places around the country.
Some characters prompted spin-offs, such as Swiss Tony (Higson) the coiffed car salesman who compares everything to 'making love to a beautiful woman', and football pundit Ron Manager (Whitehouse).
We also hear from collaborators such as Kathy Burke, Harry Enfield, Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer, as well as TV critic Matthew Norman who wrote a famously fierce review of the first series.
Producer: Peter Curran
Series Producer: David Prest
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.
WED 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b03m7slk)
The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed out of the Window and Disappeared
Episode 3
A picaresque tale of a centenarian, police and thieves, and moments in world history. As his mother put it, "Things are what they are, and whatever will be will be."
At 100 years-old, Allan Karlsson is a reluctant birthday boy. In the old people's home they've prepared a party for him. The Mayor and the local press will be there. But this party never gets started. Still in his bedroom slippers, Allan makes his getaway through the window and begins an unlikely adventure.
Allan is no stranger to adventure, as the stories of his earlier life reveal - a life in which he dined with world leaders such as Franco, Truman and Stalin and found himself behind the scenes during major events of the twentieth century.
Jonas Jonasson was born in 1961 in VaxjÃ, Sweden. After starting up and then running the successful media company OTW for twenty years, he sold the business and moved to Switzerland. There he completed The Hundred-year-Old Man Who Climbed Out Of The Window And Disappeared. Jonas lives on the island of Gotland in Sweden.
Translated by Rod Bradbury.
Episode 3:
At the station house in Byringe, Allan and Julius's troubles are only just beginning.
Reader: Martin Jarvis
Abridger: Jeremy Osborne
Producer: Rosalynd Ward
A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4.
WED 23:00 Neil Gaiman - Neverwhere (b01r527b)
London Below
Beneath the streets of London there is another London. A subterranean labyrinth of sewers and abandoned tube stations. A somewhere that is Neverwhere.
An act of kindness sees Richard Mayhew catapulted from his ordinary life into a subterranean world under the streets of London. Stopping to help an injured girl on a London street, Richard is thrust from his workaday existence into the strange world of London Below.
So begins a curious and mysterious adventure deep beneath the streets of London, a London of shadows where the tube cry of 'Mind the Gap' takes on new meaning; for the inhabitants of this murky domain are those who have fallen through the gaps in society, the dispossessed, the homeless. Here Richard meets the Earl of Earl's Court, Old Bailey and Hammersmith, faces a life-threatening ordeal at the hands of the Black Friars, comes face to face with Great Beast of London, and encounters an Angel. Called Islington.
Joining the mysterious girl named Door and her companions, the Marquis de Carabas and the bodyguard, Hunter, Richard embarks on an extraordinary quest to escape from the clutches of the fiendish assassins Croup and Vandemar and to discover who ordered them to murder her family. All the while trying to work out how to get back to his old life in London Above.
A six part adaption of Neil Gaiman's novel adapted by Dirk Maggs, sees James McAvoy as Richard lead a stellar cast which includes Natalie Dormer, David Harewood, Sophie Okonedo, Benedict Cumberbatch, Christopher Lee, Anthony Head, David Schofield, Bernard Cribbins, Romola Garai, George Harris, Andrew Sachs, Lucy Cohu, Johnny Vegas, Paul Chequer, Don Gilet and Abdul Salis.
THURSDAY 26 DECEMBER 2013
THU 00:00 Midnight News (b03m394q)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
THU 00:15 Christmas Meditation (b03m7twp)
A reflection on the meaning of Christmas with author and columnist Peter Hitchens.
For many, Christmas Day is a special time of celebration with family and friends after weeks of excited preparation. For others, it's a time of solitude to be dreaded following weeks of commercial and social pressures.
As another Christmas Day draws to a close, Peter Hitchens draws on his own memories and experiences as he reflects on the questions: What was it all for? and Was it all worth it?
THU 00:30 Book of the Week (b03m7mdk)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 on Wednesday]
THU 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b03m394s)
The latest shipping forecast.
THU 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b03m394v)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.
THU 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b03m394x)
The latest shipping forecast.
THU 05:30 News Briefing (b03m394z)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
THU 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b03m7twr)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with the Revd Dr Jo Bailey Wells, Chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury.
THU 05:45 Farming Today (b03m7twt)
After snow and freezing temperatures hit farms in Cumbria and Wales at the height of lambing season in the Spring, Andrew Ward was moved to help farmers who were running desparately low on feed. From his Lincolnshire farm he co-ordinated collections of forage and straw, calling the project 'Forage Aid'. He shares his experiences with Sarah Swadling and describes how it felt to meet some of the people he helped.
Produced and presented by Sarah Swadling.
THU 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b03k6t6c)
Red Kite
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs.
David Attenborough presents the red kite. After centuries of persecution red kites were almost wiped out but in 1989 a project to restore the red kite back into the wild began. Since then kite numbers have soared, so that now these birds are foraging even around the outer suburbs of London.
THU 06:00 Today (b03m7z06)
Creator of the world wide web Sir Tim Berners-Lee guest-edits the programme.
THU 09:00 In Our Time (b03m7z08)
The Medici
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Medici family, who dominated Florence's political and cultural life for three centuries. The House of Medici came to prominence in Italy in the fifteenth century as a result of the wealth they had built up through banking. With the rise of Cosimo de' Medici, they became Florence's most powerful and influential dynasty, effectively controlling the city's government. Their patronage of the arts turned Florence into a leading centre of the Renaissance and the Medici Bank was one of the most successful institutions of its day. As well as producing four popes, members of the House of Medici married into various European royal families.
With:
Evelyn Welch
Professor of Renaissance Studies at King's College, University of London
Robert Black
Professor of Renaissance History at the University of Leeds
Catherine Fletcher
Lecturer in Public History at the University of Sheffield
Producer: Victoria Brignell.
THU 09:45 Book of the Week (b03m7z0b)
Love, Nina: Despatches From Family Life
Being a Student Is Great
Mary Poppins meets Adrian Mole in Nina Stibbe's letters from the heart of 1980s literary London. Nina starts college, has an uncomfortable theatre trip and frets about a romance.
Read by Rebekah Staton
Abridged by Penny Leicester
Produced by Gemma Jenkins.
THU 10:00 Woman's Hour (b03m7z0d)
The Woman's Hour Archive Collection
Jenni Murray presents highlights from the new Woman's Hour online archive, outstanding women from sixty three years of the programme. From a young Mary Quant and Judi Dench, to Marguerite Patten, Winnie Mandela, Nina Simone and Hillary Clinton. Jenni and her guest, Sue MacGregor, discuss their memories of presenting the programme. Sue recalls drinking gin with Bette Davis and borrowing Margaret Thatcher's heated rollers and you can hear Jenni's interview with Mrs Thatcher which one reviewer described as 'the only time ever my radio had frozen over'.
Presenter: Jenni Murray
Producer: Louise Corley.
THU 10:45 15 Minute Drama (b03mtfrj)
The Tales of Beatrix Potter
4. The Tale of Mr Tod
Beatrix Potter's famous tales are celebrated this Christmas.
Her love of the British landscape and its inhabitants - coupled with her world famous ability for storytelling - means she has been one of the most celebrated children's authors of the last hundred years.
This suite of five of her tumultuous tales, including some of the lesser-known stories, brings comedic surprise, comfort and joy to the Christmas audience.
Their timeless wonders pit the delight and childlike innocence of the very human characters against the dark and dramatic ruthlessness of the food-chain-led underbelly of Cumbria's fields and hedgerows.
Seymour Mace is Mr Tod and John Henshaw is Tommy Brock. Morwenna Banks is Beattie.
Adapted and Directed by Sean Grundy
Produced by Sally Harrison
A Woolyback production for BBC Radio 4
THU 11:00 Crossing Continents (b03m7z0g)
Brazil: Fighting Slavery
Brazil's anti-slavery hit-squads are unique. Since 1995, these committed bands of labour inspectors, accompanied by heavily armed police, have rescued 46,000 people deemed to be working as slaves. But Brazil's legal definition of slavery is contentious. It includes degrading conditions of work, which campaigners say amount to coercion. Some employers reject that. And now the stakes have been raised by proposals to confiscate land from bosses found to be flouting the anti-slavery standards. In a journey that takes her from cattle country on the edge of the Amazon, to the parched, rocky badlands of the north-east, Linda Pressly meets the campaigners, employers and politicians on both sides of the argument, and hears powerful testimony from the workers trapped in the middle.
Producer: Stephen Hounslow.
THU 11:30 The Lost Tapes of Orson Welles (b03m7z0j)
Episode 2
This two-part programme is a revealing series of informal conversations with the man best known as America's great cultural provocateur and one of the finest of filmmakers.
Director Orson Welles was asked to write his life story in his later years. He declined but was convinced by his friend Henry Jaglom to discuss his life over a weekly lunch at their favourite Hollywood restaurant, Ma Maison. The hundreds of tapes, recorded from 1983 to 1985, reveal extraordinary, frank, conversations between Welles and the independent director Jaglom.
The tapes gathered dust in a shoebox in the corner of Jaglom's production office for over thirty years - until now, but this programme provides an opportunity to hear the amazing material they contain for the first time.
Welles talks intimately, disclosing personal secrets and reflecting on the people of the time. At times the tapes display the great film maker as a world champion grudge keeper, rather different from the amiable character who appeared in interviews when he was alive. As we hear, he hated the way Charlton Heston always called Touch of Evil (directed by Welles) a 'minor film'. Welles also found the work of fellow directors, Woody Allen, Charlie Chaplin and Alfred Hitchcock, difficult to embrace. But, as we hear, he had some unexpected enthusiasms.
Presenter Christopher Frayling reveals the great director free to be irreverent and Welles is sometimes cynical and romantic, sentimental but never boring, and often wickedly entertaining. The programmes also feature the thoughts of fellow diner Henry Jaglom, film author Peter Biskind, as well as actor and Welles scholar Simon Callow.
Producer: John Sugar
A Sugar production for BBC Radio 4.
THU 12:00 You and Yours (b03m7z0l)
It's Boxing Day and a time to draw breath.
You've done the big Christmas thing and we thought maybe your mind is on the future - thinking about the year ahead.
Could this be the year you fulfil that dream of setting time a side to improve yourself.
You might want to turn your wilderness into a garden of eden, perhaps you'd like to play an instrument:
Or you might learn a language, or sort out your finances or get fit, or learn how to cook.
Today - we've got together some people who've managed to learn something new, something that has really changed their lives for the better - and we'll be hearing from the fertility specialist Professor Robert Winston, the historian Sir Max Hastings and Alvyn Hall the financial expert.
We think they'll inspire you...
THU 12:57 Weather (b03m3951)
The latest weather forecast.
THU 13:00 World at One (b03m3956)
National and international news. Listeners can share their views via email: wato@bbc.co.uk or on twitter: #wato.
THU 13:45 One to One (b01sdg27)
Ritula Shah talks to Mark Boyle
Ritula Shah was brought up as a Jain, which has renunciation as one of its central tenets. Ritula has always been fascinated by this idea and in this series she wants to explore what it means to give up something that still has value to those around you. Why do it? Where does it leave your relationships with those people whose choices you will have contradicted or undermined by your own? What happens when you waver (as surely you must)?
In this second episode in a series of three programmes, she talks to Mark Boyle who lived without money for almost three years. What did he think it could achieve?
Producer: Maggie Ayre.
THU 14:00 The Archers (b03m7pzv)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Wednesday]
THU 14:15 Drama (b03mtfrl)
Enid Bagnold - National Velvet
Episode 2
Fourteen year old Velvet is mad about horses. She knows 'there are pleasures earlier than love. Earlier than love, nearer heaven' in the form of horses.
When she wins a piebald horse in a raffle, she recognises he's something special. He can easily clear five-foot fences, and he'll do anything for her. Soon, she and butcher's assistant Mi have their sights set on the biggest race in England. But how can a girl in 1930s England get near Aintree?
Peter Flannery rescues National Velvet from Hollywood, returning 14 year old Velvet to her Sussex butcher's family in the 1930s. A welcome return for Enid Bagnold's strange, inventive fairytale about a young amateur girl rider who takes an untrained horse over the stiffest course in the world and wins.
Author: Enid Bagnold
Dramatised by Peter Flannery
Director/Producer: Melanie Harris
Executive Producer: Polly Thomas
A Sparklab production for BBC Radio 4.
THU 15:00 Open Country (b03m7z9z)
Doddington Hall, Lincolnshire
Helen Mark visits Doddington Hall in Lincolnshire to talk about how the estate's shoot forms part of the landscape management and a desire for locally-sourced produce. It also provides the farm shop and restaurant with festive fare, including pigeon burgers.
James Birch is Doddington's owner, (his wife's family have owned the estate continuously for around four hundred years). Shooting has always been part of life here and even now there's a full-time gamekeeper, who doubles as security guard and fly-tipping preventer.
The game from the shoot is used in the restaurant and is cooked by Chris Maclure, senior sous-chef, who makes sure nothing goes to waste. Helen talks to university lecturer- turned-florist Rachel Petheram, who loves the challenge of using only locally-grown flowers and herbs in her Christmas displays.
Helen also goes beating with Will Birkett, a young gamekeeper preparing for a day's shooting with his gun dogs.
Producer...Mary Ward-Lowery.
THU 15:27 Radio 4 Appeal (b03m3kr0)
[Repeat of broadcast at
07:55 on Sunday]
THU 15:30 Open Book (b03m3nhy)
[Repeat of broadcast at
16:00 on Sunday]
THU 16:00 The Film Programme (b03m7zb1)
Teenagers on Film
Francine Stock explores the spirit of the teenager on film through the decades with Kim Newman, Pamela Hutchinson, Hadley Freeman and Charlie Lyne. From Andy Hardy to The Hunger Games' Katniss Everdeen, the programme charts the rise of the teenager from pre-war in-betweeners to fully fledged rebels. The director Matt Wolf discusses his documentary Teenage which takes a look at adolescence in the first half of the 20th century. There's debate about the conservatism of teen film guru, the director John Hughes whose work includes The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off and Weird Science. And we unpick why 1995 marked the beginning of a ten year boom in teen flicks, from Clueless to Mean Girls.
THU 16:30 BBC Inside Science (b03m7zb3)
Bacteriophages; Breath-detecting disease; Our bees electric and DNA Barcoding
Professor Alice Roberts talks bacteriophages: viruses that infect the bacteria that infect us. With the rise of antibiotic resistance they are a potential weapon against infection.
We hear from Paul Hebert, the biologist behind the International Barcode of Life project – a global effort to classify the entire world’s species according to their DNA.
Bristol researchers have discovered that it is more than scent and colour that draws a bee to a flower – there is also an electric field.
Claire Turner from the Open University shows us the instrument she uses to detect disease. It can sense when a heart transplant patient is rejecting their new organ, purely through monitoring their breath.
THU 17:00 PM (b03m7zb5)
Full coverage and analysis of the day's news.
THU 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b03m3958)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
THU 18:15 15 Minute Musical (b03m7zb7)
Series 8
The Last Days of Farage
A series of satirical, barbed, bittersweet fifteen-minute comedy musicals.
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, as easily identifiable public figures are dressed up, gilded, fabricated and placed against a random musical backdrop for sugar coated consumption. The stories are simple and engaging but with an edge - allowing the audience to enjoy all the conventions of a musical (huge production numbers, tender ballads and emotional reprises) whilst we completely re-interpret events in major celebrities' lives.
Beautifully crafted with astronomically high production values 15 Minute Musical does for your ears what chocolate does for your taste buds. All in fifteen minutes!
Winner of the Writers Guild of Great Britain Radio Comedy Award this series provides an energy boost and a seasonal treat at 1815 over the Christmas week.
Other episodes include:
Ra Ra It's Puti
A camp look at Russia's greatest love machine.
Half A Sixth Form
Michael Gove has a licence to teach.
Julian And The Assanging Technicolour Download
An overly dramatic and musical look at Julian Assange.
It's A One-Hit-Wonderful Life
Simon Cowell contemplates ending his career until his guardian angel Susan Boyle appears to show him life without Cowell - It's A Wonderful Life.
Heaven Knows I'm Middle-Aged Now
Morrissey looks for a new musical collaborator.
Cast: Richie Webb, Dave Lamb, Jess Robinson and Pippa Evans.
Written by: Dave Cohen, David Quantick and Richie Webb
Music Composed, Performed and Arranged by: Richie Webb
Music Production: Matt Katz
Producer: Katie Tyrrell.
THU 18:30 The Secret World (b03m7zb9)
Series 4
Episode 5
Bishop Rowan Williams gets in deep water after deciding to celebrate Boxing Day with a game of knock down ginger.
William Hague finds himself stranded in a snowdrift with only some Belgian truffles for food.
And John Lydon ends up killing Sir Anthony Hopkins.
It can only be the weird goings on in the show that imagines the private lives of public people:
A seasonal edition of The Secret World with:
Margaret Cabourn-Smith
Jon Culshaw
Julian Dutton
Lewis MacLeod
Jess Robinson
Duncan Wisbey
Written by Bill Dare, Julian Dutton and Duncan Wisbey.
Produced and created by: Bill Dare.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2013.
THU 19:00 The Archers (b03m7zmn)
James catches Leonie off her guard while she is walking Scruff. She's furious. James is keen to talk but Leonie really doesn't want to. James follows her, needing an explanation. She finally reveals she's pregnant.
Ed has a talk with Rosa. He explains that Darrell was only shoplifting in an effort to make sure he had a present for her. Upset by this news, Rosa runs off.
Susan gathers some food to take to Darrell. But as she walks into the utility room she finds her new pashmina has been ruined by George's new puppy, Holly. Susan is distraught but promises George that Holly is part of the family now. They won't send her back.
Rosa turns up, and Ed cautiously tells her to go and say hello to Darrell. Rosa is unsure and just can't bring herself to see him.
James heads to the Dower House, needing some motherly advice. But as Lilian is not in, it falls to Matt. He is sober and sensible, and draws on his own experiences. Although he is insistent it's up to Leonie and James to make the decision, he reminds James that the chance to have a family might not come round again.
THU 19:15 Front Row (b03m7zmq)
Front Row Special on Buffy the Vampire Slayer
With Naomi Alderman.
The last episode of cult TV series Buffy The Vampire Slayer was broadcast in Britain ten years ago. At the time, Naomi believed that the show would lead to the creation of a host of other strong and complex female leads - who would inspire young women in the same way Buffy had inspired her. So where are all the "daughters of Buffy"? Naomi explores Buffy's legacy with the help of Buffy's creator Joss Whedon, and with actor Anthony Head, writers Neil Gaiman and Rhianna Pratchett, TV executives Jane Root and Susanne Daniels, and mega-fans Blake Harrison and Bim Adewunmi.
Producer: Rebecca Nicholson.
THU 19:45 15 Minute Drama (b03mtfrj)
[Repeat of broadcast at
10:45 today]
THU 20:00 The Report (b03m7zms)
Banking IT crisis
The 'Cyber Monday' computer meltdown that affected RBS and NatWest customers as they tried to bag bargains in the run-up to Christmas was just the latest in a string of IT glitches that have plagued the big UK banks in recent years.
But is there a greater problem than the inconvenience caused for shoppers? Melanie Abbott talks to those who have worked on the huge, ageing computer systems at the heart of the UK banking system and finds out that banks like RBS face a massive dilemma - spend billions replacing their 'mainframes' or risk bigger, more serious problems in the next few years.
Melanie finds out about the scale and size of the IT systems behind our everyday transactions as she becomes the first journalist allowed access to one of the secret data centres that power the banking payments system at Vocalink. And she hears from Andrew Tyrie, chair of the Treasury Select Committee, about the urgent need to solve the banks' IT problem before they damage the entire financial system.
THU 20:30 In Business (b03m7zmv)
Kenya's Mobile Money Revolution
Kenya is the surprising world leader in high-tech mobile money. Almost a third of the country's economy now goes through the mobile phone-based system M-Pesa. Even the company that launched it six years ago, Safaricom, didn't anticipate the gusto with which Kenyans would adopt its virtual currency.
In a country with fewer than 10,000 credit cards and where four-fifths of the population does not have a bank account, M-Pesa has emerged as a secure and easy way to pay and transfer money to anyone, anywhere across the country, and even abroad.
Now the system has morphed from a method of payment into a platform for all sorts of businesses. In Nairobi there are startups aiming to boost fundraising for funerals and weddings, help landlords collect rent, loan mobile phone credit, and much more, all based on the M-Pesa system. And alongside the flowering of new businesses, the Kenyan government has pinned its hopes on the high-tech sector for the future of the country's economic growth.
Peter Day talks to traces the story of how a mobile payment experiment kick-started an emerging tech economy.
Contributors:
Bob Collymore - chief executive, Safaricom
David Mark - co-founder, M-Changa
Kamau Wanyoike - director, MoVAS
Nancy Wang - co-founder, M-Kazi
Duncan Muchangi - co-founder, Manyatta Rent
Nikolai Barnwell - director, 88mph Nairobi
Joe Mucheru - Sub-Saharan ambassador, Google
Tony Mwai - general manager, IBM East Africa
Sam Gichuru - co-founder and director, Nailab
Kate Kiguru - co-founder and chief innovator, Ukall
Will Mutua - founder, Afrinnovator.
THU 21:00 BBC Inside Science (b03m7zb3)
[Repeat of broadcast at
16:30 today]
THU 21:30 In Our Time (b03m7z08)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 today]
THU 21:58 Weather (b03m395b)
The latest weather forecast.
THU 22:00 The World Tonight (b03m7zmx)
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
THU 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b03m7zmz)
The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed out of the Window and Disappeared
Episode 4
A picaresque tale of a centenarian, police and thieves, and moments in world history. As his mother put it, "Things are what they are, and whatever will be will be."
At 100 years-old, Allan Karlsson is a reluctant birthday boy. In the old people's home they've prepared a party for him. The Mayor and the local press will be there. But this party never gets started. Still in his bedroom slippers, Allan makes his getaway through the window and begins an unlikely adventure.
Allan is no stranger to adventure, as the stories of his earlier life reveal - a life in which he dined with world leaders such as Franco, Truman and Stalin and found himself behind the scenes during major events of the twentieth century.
Jonas Jonasson was born in 1961 in Vaxjö, Sweden. After starting up and then running the successful media company OTW for twenty years, he sold the business and moved to Switzerland. There he completed The Hundred-year-Old Man Who Climbed Out Of The Window And Disappeared. Jonas lives on the island of Gotland in Sweden.
Translated by Rod Bradbury.
Episode 4:
With both the police and the Never Again gang on their trail, Allan and Julius are heading soutg, driven by their new chauffeur, Benny.
Reader: Martin Jarvis
Abridger: Jeremy Osborne
Producer: Rosalynd Ward
A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4.
THU 23:00 Alice's Wunderland (b03m7zn1)
Series 2
Episode 3
A trip to Wunderland, a poundland of magical realms. This week, the Wunderlanders' thoughts turn to the future and all that it could bring.
Sketch show by Alice Lowe.
Also starring Richard Glover, Simon Greenall, Rachel Stubbings, Clare Thompson and Marcia Warren.
Produced by Lyndsay Fenner.
THU 23:30 Neil Gaiman - Neverwhere (b01rb2c1)
Earl's Court
Beneath the streets of London there is another London. A subterranean labyrinth of sewers and abandoned tube stations. A somewhere that is Neverwhere.
An act of kindness sees Richard Mayhew catapulted from his ordinary life into a subterranean world under the streets of London. Stopping to help an injured girl on a London street, Richard is thrust from his workaday existence into the strange world of London Below.
So begins a curious and mysterious adventure deep beneath the streets of London, a London of shadows where the tube cry of 'Mind the Gap' takes on new meaning; for the inhabitants of this murky domain are those who have fallen through the gaps in society, the dispossessed, the homeless. Here Richard meets the Earl of Earl's Court, Old Bailey and Hammersmith, faces a life-threatening ordeal at the hands of the Black Friars, comes face to face with Great Beast of London, and encounters an Angel. Called Islington.
Joining the mysterious girl named Door and her companions, the Marquis de Carabas and the bodyguard, Hunter, Richard embarks on an extraordinary quest to escape from the clutches of the fiendish assassins Croup and Vandemar and to discover who ordered them to murder her family. All the while trying to work out how to get back to his old life in London Above.
A six part adaption of Neil Gaiman's novel adapted by Dirk Maggs, sees James McAvoy as Richard lead a stellar cast which includes Natalie Dormer, David Harewood, Sophie Okonedo, Benedict Cumberbatch, Christopher Lee, Anthony Head, David Schofield, Bernard Cribbins, Romola Garai, George Harris, Andrew Sachs, Lucy Cohu, Johnny Vegas, Paul Chequer, Don Gilet and Abdul Salis.
FRIDAY 27 DECEMBER 2013
FRI 00:00 Midnight News (b03m3968)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
FRI 00:15 Food for Thought (b018g6wz)
Series 2
Yoko Ono
Yoko Ono discusses the virtues of vegetables with journalist Nina Myskow .
Although reluctant to let even the tiniest piece of inferior confectionery pass her lips, artist and musician Yoko Ono reveals why she finally fell in love with one particular food. She explains that one of husband, John's pleasures was chocolate and how it came to comfort her.
A long time devotee of macrobiotics, Yoko tells Nina about the experiences that shaped her tastes: from a Japanese diet low in animal fat to the years, during World War II, when she was evacuated from Tokyo. She made rice and miso soup for her siblings, longed for butter and was forced to barter for food.
Odd then perhaps that several years later she would go on a forty day fast with John Lennon.
She explains why.
Yoko also shares her passion for fish and chips, as well as Korean pickles. And how did she make John eat sushi?
Producer: Tamsin Hughes
A Wise Buddah production for BBC Radio 4.
FRI 00:30 Book of the Week (b03m7z0b)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 on Thursday]
FRI 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b03m396b)
The latest shipping forecast.
FRI 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b03m396d)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.
FRI 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b03m396g)
The latest shipping forecast.
FRI 05:30 News Briefing (b03m396j)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
FRI 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b03m80qk)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with the Revd Dr Jo Bailey Wells, Chaplain to the Archbishop of Canterbury.
FRI 05:45 Farming Today (b03m80qm)
This time last year farmer's daughter Caryl Hughes was working 40 hours a week in a hotel. Twelve months on and at the age of just 23, she's now running one of Wales most iconic farms. Llyndy Isaf is a 615 acre chunk of Snowdonia, just below the slopes of Snowdon. It's said to be where the victorious red Welsh dragon slew the white English one. It was bought by the National Trust after a celebrity-led public appeal in 2012 and now the Trust is offering year long scholarships to Welsh young farmers to give them valuable experience of farm management.
Caryl is the first recipient of the Llyndy Isaf scholarship and it's down to her to buy the livestock and set the foundations for the way this land will be farmed for generations to come. Caz Graham went to see how she's getting on.
Produced and presenter by Caz Graham.
FRI 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b03k7177)
Knot
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs.
David Attenborough presents the knot. Knot are dumpy waders which breed in the high Arctic but winter in hundreds of thousands on our estuaries and salt-marshes. Crammed together shoulder to shoulder at the water's edge, you can see how they got their scientific name Calidris canutus...a tribute to King Canute who discovered, despite his best attempts, that he didn't have the power to turn back the tides.
FRI 06:00 Today (b03m80qp)
Former MI5 chief Baroness Eliza Manningham-Buller guest-edits the programme.
FRI 09:00 Desert Island Discs (b03m3nhk)
[Repeat of broadcast at
11:15 on Sunday]
FRI 09:45 Book of the Week (b03m80qr)
Love, Nina: Despatches From Family Life
Dissertations, Romance and Subterfuge
Mary Poppins meets Adrian Mole in Nina Stibbe's letters from the heart of 1980s literary London. Dissertation crises, spotting Samuel Beckett and employing subterfuge to save face.
Read by Rebekah Staton
Abridged by Penny Leicester
Produced by Gemma Jenkins.
FRI 10:00 Woman's Hour (b03m80qt)
Older people living together; Gender-based toys; Family films; Women who inspired you
A growing number of older people are living together rather than marrying. The latest figures released by the Office of National Statistics show that the number of over 85s cohabiting doubled in the last decade to 16,000. So why are more older people reluctant to commit to marriage? Sheila is joined by Dr Julia Ryan, Director of Pre-Qualifying Nursing Education at Salford University and by agony aunt, Denise Robertson.
It's that time of year when Christmas lists get written, and one toy which has lasted through the generations is Lego. But, back in January 2012 the toy giant came under fire when it released Lego Friends, a new range aimed specifically at girls. The blocks come in pastel pinks and lilacs, and sets include a beauty salon and a café. Now Lego have also made changes to its monthly magazine, sending different editions to boys and girls - with the girls version focussing specifically on Lego Friends. 10 year old Sakura Gibson from the town of Groomsport in Northern Ireland was so unhappy that her magazine has less choice than her brothers that she decided to write to Lego to get some answers. Mary Harte went to meet her and her family - Dad Stuart, Mum Kirsten and 6 year old brother Jude. We contacted Lego who said: "All LEGO Club members receive a free magazine. We want our Club members to be happy with their choice of magazine and if for any reason, they are not, we are more than happy to send an alternative version as soon as possible if they call our customer services number, which is provided in the magazine." Sheila McClennon speaks to neuroscientist and business coach Dr Laura Nelson who two years ago successfully campaigned to remove boy and girl labelling in the London toy shop Hamleys, and now works to end the gender stereotyping of children. Also joining Sheila is Dave Williams, the European sales director for the toy company Wooky Europe.
For many households, sitting down together to watch a good film on the television is an integral part of celebrating Christmas. Or at least it used to be - increasingly it seems parents bemoan the fact that the family is spread out around the house drawn to watch different films on separate screens. So what qualities make a classic family film at Christmas - which titles, new and old, still have the appeal to get everyone bunched up on the same sofa? Sheila is joined by film critic Antonia Quirke.
All this year we've been celebrating powerful women with our first ever Woman's Hour Power List. You've heard about their achievements and what they've done to get where they are today - there have been some truly inspirational stories. As 2013 draws to a close we've been hearing from you about the woman in your life who inspired you. Professor Helen Berry, professor of history at Newcastle University & organiser of the Inspirational Women of the North East exhibition and Jacqueline Hughes Lundy, founder & organiser of the Inspiring Women Awards join Sheila to discuss what makes someone inspirational.
FRI 10:45 15 Minute Drama (b03mthnm)
The Tales of Beatrix Potter
5. The Tale of Ginger and Pickles
Beatrix Potter's famous tales are celebrated this Christmas.
Her love of the British landscape and its inhabitants - coupled with her world famous ability for storytelling - means she has been one of the most celebrated children's authors of the last hundred years.
This suite of five of her tumultuous tales, including some of the lesser-known stories, brings comedic surprise, comfort and joy to the Christmas audience.
Their timeless wonders pit the delight and childlike innocence of the very human characters against the dark and dramatic ruthlessness of the food-chain-led underbelly of Cumbria's fields and hedgerows.
Stars Reece Shearsmith stars as Ginger with John Henshaw as Pickles.
Adapted and Directed by Sean Grundy
Produced by Sally Harrison
A Woolyback production for BBC Radio 4
FRI 11:00 Extreme Commuting (b03m80qw)
The word 'commuter' was coined in the United States during the early days of rail travel, when reduced or 'commuted' fares were made available to people travelling from outlying areas to work in cities.
This programme tells the story of the modern-day extreme commuters - people who spend more than 3 hours a day travelling to and from work. For some, there is no option but to go where the work is, for others it's a lifestyle choice.
Marcus has chosen to live in deepest Suffolk so his children can have a rural childhood. This means his journey to work can take him up to 6 hours a day involving two trains and a twenty five minute walk.
Meanwhile Marion, a single mother, has no choice but to make a daily, 5 hour return journey from Essex into London.
Some people do it for the work, some for the lifestyle; some hate it, others love it for the freedom and time alone it gives them.
As the numbers of people who are doing extreme commuting looks set to rise, what is the impact on their lives?
Producer: Karen Gregor.
FRI 11:30 The Stanley Baxter Playhouse (b01pt9nc)
Series 5
Hector's House of Windsor
Hector's House of Windsor
By Colin Hough
A warm hearted comedic tribute to the Queen's jubilee year.
The Queen's Scots gillie aids her in a cunning plan to put her unruly prime minister and deputy firmly in their place when they visit her at Windsor and she invites them to join her on a canter round the park.
Her own superior wisdom, cunning and diplomatic skills are revealed while Her Majesty's wise and wily old Scots gillie looks on and enters into the fun.
Stanley Baxter plays the gillie and Phyllida Law takes the imperial role in this affectionate fictional account of what just might have happened when the prime minister of the day and his deputy pay Her Majesty a visit.
Written by Colin Hough
Directed by Marilyn Imrie
A Catherine Bailey production for BBC Radio 4.
FRI 12:00 You and Yours (b03m819w)
Housebuilding and landbanking, foie gras, consumer trends for 2014
Labour Party Leader Ed Miliband is accusing builders of buying and retaining plots of land and so slowing the availability of new homes. NHS England calls for 7 day healthcare to cut mortality rates at weekends; one hospital tells us it's already working. What were the big consumer stories of 2013 and what could happen in 2014? A new scheme to help people with disabilities understand their mobile phones tariffs. And are the French revolting over foie gras?
Presenter: Winifred Robinson
Producer: Pete Wilson.
FRI 12:52 The Listening Project (b03m819z)
Eileen and Amanda - Costume Drama
Fi Glover introduces a conversation between a wardrobe mistress and her assistant about the costumes they sew and their current preparations for The Snow Queen.
The Listening Project is a Radio 4 initiative that offers a snapshot of contemporary Britain in which people across the UK volunteer to have a conversation with someone close to them about a subject they've never discussed intimately before. The conversations are being gathered across the UK by teams of producers from local and national radio stations who facilitate each encounter. Every conversation - they're not BBC interviews, and that's an important difference - lasts up to an hour, and is then edited to extract the key moment of connection between the participants. Most of the unedited conversations are being archived by the British Library and used to build up a collection of voices capturing a unique portrait of the UK in the second decade of the millennium. You can 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 (b03m396l)
The latest weather forecast.
FRI 13:00 World at One (b03m396n)
News and current affairs, presented by Shaun Ley.
As the UK faces more stormy weather, we find out how the transport networks are affected.
A former Lebanon government minister is believed to be among at least five people killed by a bomb in Beirut. We'll hear from the city and ask what may be behind the attack.
The former BP executive - Lord Browne - tells us of his "secret life" as a gay man in the oil industry.
FRI 13:45 One to One (b01sj1sr)
Ritula Shah talks to Dr Michael Irwin
In the third of her interviews on the concept of renunciation, Ritula Shah talks to Dr Michael Irwin about the idea of renouncing life in old age or when faced with a terminal illness. Dr Irwin is a retired GP who campaigns for voluntary euthanasia and has accompanied people to the Swiss clinic Dignitas when they have chosen to end their lives. He talks to Ritula about his belief that people should have a choice as to when and how to die and about his thoughts on the end of his own life.
Producer: Maggie Ayre.
FRI 14:00 The Archers (b03m7zmn)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Thursday]
FRI 14:15 Drama (b011vhdc)
Lavinia Greenlaw - The Chess Girls
The emergence of the Polgar sisters in the 1970s and 80s rocked the chess world. In a heavily male dominated game, the three Hungarian girls broke record after record. The youngest, Judit, was talked of as a potential world champion.
The Chess Girls is the story of their parents, Laszlo and Klara Polgar, and how they defied the Communist authorities to conduct a remarkable educational experiment. Laszlo Polgar, convinced that any healthy child can be trained to become a genius, set out to prove his theory with his own children.
This is a drama-documentary with excerpts from an interview with Laszlo and Klara Polgar recorded for the play. The writer, Lavinia Greenlaw, takes their account and re-creates the lives of the young Polgar family in their tiny Budapest flat. The fictional Laszlo is played by Kerry Shale, and Klara by Sally Orrock.
Director: Chris Ledgard.
FRI 15:00 Gardeners' Question Time (b03m81b1)
The Met Office, Exeter
Peter Gibbs presents a special edition of GQT from The Met Office in Exeter, with Pippa Greenwood, Bunny Guinness and Anne Swithinbank.
As well as answering questions from local gardeners, the panel poses its own questions to scientists who provide weather data for gardeners across the country.
Produced by Howard Shannon.
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.
Questions this week:
Q. Could the panel suggest a slow growing grass requiring a minimum amount of cutting?
A. You could try a grass free lawn. It can be a mixture of up to thirty varieties of low-growing plants. Combine plants such as Thyme, Sedum, Achilleas and low Mints. To start with you may have to cut it eight times across the year. In the second year, you can trim it as little as three times per year. You will have colour throughout the matrix and it will attract many insects. Alternatively, reduce fertility by adding a sandy top-dressing to a fine grass seed mix.
Q. What sort of low maintenance planting would the panel recommend for a manmade, sloping bank in full sun?
A. Make sure that the site is completely weed free, so perhaps leave it fallow for a while.
You can get a lovely ground cover effect with the golden flowering Hypericums or the Potentillas. You could add some bulbs, such as Daffodils, which won't need separating for a number of years.
If you want more of a challenge, sow a perennial meadow that produces a density of ninety plants per square metre. They are designed so that you get a succession of colour from June right through until December. Alternatively, plant hundreds of Lavender cuttings or simply add sheets of Vinka and Ivy. Try planting Aubretia early in the year, followed by Osteospermum flowering for the rest of the summer.
FRI 15:45 Saki (b03m81b3)
The Seventh Pullet
by Saki (Hector Hugh Munro)
When his boring stories of unusually large potatoes fail to elicit any interest at all from fellow travellers on the daily commute, John Blenkinthrope begins to invent increasingly ludicrous and elaborate fantasies. A gently funny story about the diminishing rewards of the daily grind.
Read by Richard Greenwood.
Produced by Allegra McIlroy.
FRI 16:00 The Inheritance Collection 2013 (b03nh34g)
The Revd Richard Coles presents a selection of the stories and music featured on Saturday Live's Inheritance Tracks throughout 2013 from Queen of clean Aggie McKenzie, comedian Graham Fellowes aka John Shuttleworth, soul guitarist George Benson, singer Maria Friedman, musician Gary Barlow, Baroness Doreen Lawrence of Clarendon, Kite Runner author Khaled Hosseini, composer Django Bates, MOBOs founder Kanya King and baking supremo Mary Berry.
Producer: Lizz Pearson.
FRI 16:30 More or Less (b03m81b7)
Numbers of the year
A guide to 2013 in numbers - the most informative, interesting and idiosyncratic statistics of the year discussed by More or Less interviewees.
Contributors: David Spiegelhalter, Winton professor for the public understanding of risk at Cambridge University; Linda Yueh, BBC chief business correspondent; Simon Singh, author of The Simpsons and Their Mathematical Secrets; Dr Pippa Malmgren, president and founder of Principalis Asset Management; Paul Lewis; presenter of BBC Radio 4's Money Box programme; Dr Hannah Fry, Centre of the Advanced Spatial Analysis at University College London; Merryn Somerset-Webb, editor-in-chief of MoneyWeek; Helen Arney, comedian.
Producer: Ben Carter.
FRI 16:56 The Listening Project (b03m81b9)
Antonio and Leondre - Father's Footsteps
Fi Glover introduces a conversation between a 12-year-old rapper with a social conscience and his father, who has passed on his passion for music, family life and social justice.
The Listening Project is a Radio 4 initiative that offers a snapshot of contemporary Britain in which people across the UK volunteer to have a conversation with someone close to them about a subject they've never discussed intimately before. The conversations are being gathered across the UK by teams of producers from local and national radio stations who facilitate each encounter. Every conversation - they're not BBC interviews, and that's an important difference - lasts up to an hour, and is then edited to extract the key moment of connection between the participants. Most of the unedited conversations are being archived by the British Library and used to build up a collection of voices capturing a unique portrait of the UK in the second decade of the millennium. You can upload your own conversations or just learn more about The Listening Project by visiting bbc.co.uk/listeningproject
Producer: Marya Burgess.
FRI 17:00 PM (b03m81bc)
Full coverage and analysis of the day's news.
FRI 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b03m396q)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
FRI 18:15 15 Minute Musical (b03m81bf)
Series 8
Heaven Knows I'm Middle-Aged Now
A series of satirical, barbed, bittersweet fifteen-minute comedy musicals.
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, as easily identifiable public figures are dressed up, gilded, fabricated and placed against a random musical backdrop for sugar coated consumption. The stories are simple and engaging but with an edge - allowing the audience to enjoy all the conventions of a musical (huge production numbers, tender ballads and emotional reprises) whilst we completely re-interpret events in major celebrities' lives.
Beautifully crafted with astronomically high production values 15 Minute Musical does for your ears what chocolate does for your taste buds. All in fifteen minutes!
Winner of the Writers Guild of Great Britain Radio Comedy Award this series provides an energy boost and a seasonal treat at 1815 over the Christmas week.
Other episodes include:
Ra Ra It's Puti
A camp look at Russia's greatest love machine.
The Last Days of Farage
Nigel Farage goes to Europe with a Britpop soundtrack.
Half A Sixth Form
Michael Gove has a licence to teach.
Julian And The Assanging Technicolour Download
An overly dramatic and musical look at Julian Assange.
It's A One-Hit-Wonderful Life
Simon Cowell contemplates ending his career until his guardian angel Susan Boyle appears to show him life without Cowell - It's A Wonderful Life.
Heaven Knows I'm Middle-Aged Now
Cast: Richie Webb, Dave Lamb and Pippa Evans.
Written by: Dave Cohen, David Quantick and Richie Webb
Music Composed, Performed and Arranged by: Richie Webb
Music Production: Matt Katz
Producer: Katie Tyrrell.
FRI 18:30 Chain Reaction (b03m81pm)
Series 9
Terry Christian talks to Kevin Bridges
Manchester's very own Terry Christian talks to Scotland's comedy superstar Kevin Bridges.
Chain Reaction is the long-running host-less chat show where last week's interviewee becomes this week's interviewer.
Producer: Carl Cooper
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2013.
FRI 19:00 The Archers (b03m81pp)
Despite her nerves about the show, Lynda shares her joy at Tom and Kirsty's news, asking for details. Tom hints at a Spring wedding.
Helen's hanging by her phone. Kirsty asks if she's ok and Helen plays it cool.
Leonie's angry at James for ambushing her yesterday. Lynda tells her she must speak to James. She's unhappy that Leonie isn't coming to see her production tonight.
James visits Leonie, who reluctantly lets him in to say his piece. To her surprise, James has made a decision. Despite his apprehension about being a father, he'll support her in whatever she wants to do. They can face the challenge together.
There's a full house at the village hall for Robin Hood. Helen's distracted by a call from Rob, who asks Helen to meet him after the show. As the curtain falls, Lynda's full of praise for her stars Kirsty and Tom. Leonie and James show up, fully reconciled. They tell thrilled Lynda their plan to become parents.
Rob shocks Helen with the news that it's all over between him and Jess. He wants a divorce and to be with Helen. Helen asks why she should believe him. Rob pleads with her to give him another chance.
FRI 19:15 Front Row (b03m81pr)
The Young Popstars of 2013
John Wilson presents a special programme in which he talks to leading young performers about the commercial and creative pressures of starting out in the industry. Including James Blake, Laura Marling and Jake Bugg.
FRI 19:45 15 Minute Drama (b03mthnm)
[Repeat of broadcast at
10:45 today]
FRI 20:00 With Great Pleasure (b03m7p14)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:00 on Wednesday]
FRI 20:50 A Point of View (b03mckql)
Two Cheers for Human Rights
John Gray gives only two cheers for human rights. We are in danger, he argues, of turning them into a "comforting dogma through which we try to escape the painful dilemmas of war and politics."
"Rather than thinking of rights as a militant creed that can deliver the world from its conflicts, we should recognise rights for what they are - useful devices that quite often don't work.".
FRI 21:00 Saturday Drama (b01pgnbt)
Red Shoes
This dark tale collected by Hans Christian Andersen is reimagined for radio by Frances Byrnes and stars Lizzy Watts as the teenage Karen whose vanity and skittishness compel her to demand a forbidden pair of red shoes. But as she had been warned on countless occasions, the red shoes are so imbued with sin and lasciviousness that they utterly destroy her both spiritually and corporally. In so doing, this version of The Red Shoes shirks none of Anderson's ruthlessness or darkness. Fairytale this may be but its bleak warning against wanton behaviour under threat of a violent and bloody demise, holds nothing back from young and old alike.
In The Red Shoes is reimagined for Radio by Frances Byrnes.
The Red Shoes was directed in Belfast by Eoin O'Callaghan.
FRI 21:58 Weather (b03m396s)
The latest weather forecast.
FRI 22:00 The World Tonight (b03m820c)
With Philippa Thomas
The assassination of a moderate voice in Lebanon
Transport chaos and power cuts in the UK
A Greenpeace protestor home after 2 months in a Russian prison tells us it was all worth it.
FRI 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b03m820f)
The Hundred-Year-Old Man Who Climbed out of the Window and Disappeared
Episode 5
A picaresque tale of a centenarian, police and thieves, and moments in world history. As his mother put it, "Things are what they are, and whatever will be will be."
At 100 years-old, Allan Karlsson is a reluctant birthday boy. In the old people's home they've prepared a party for him. The Mayor and the local press will be there. But this party never gets started. Still in his bedroom slippers, Allan makes his getaway through the window and begins an unlikely adventure.
Allan is no stranger to adventure, as the stories of his earlier life reveal - a life in which he dined with world leaders such as Franco, Truman and Stalin and found himself behind the scenes during major events of the twentieth century.
Jonas Jonasson was born in 1961 in Vaxjö, Sweden. After starting up and then running the successful media company OTW for twenty years, he sold the business and moved to Switzerland. There he completed The Hundred-year-Old Man Who Climbed Out Of The Window And Disappeared. Jonas lives on the island of Gotland in Sweden.
Translated by Rod Bradbury.
Episode 5:
Allan, Julius and Benny have found temporary refuge at Lake Farm with The Beauty, her dog and her elephant. But Chief Inspector Aronsson is on their case. We also learn about Allan's contribution to the Manhattan Project in the 1940s.
Reader: Martin Jarvis
Abridger: Jeremy Osborne
Producer: Rosalynd Ward
A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4.
FRI 23:00 Great Lives (b03m79cx)
[Repeat of broadcast at
16:30 on Tuesday]
FRI 23:27 Neil Gaiman - Neverwhere (b01rbsc4)
The Angel Islington
Beneath the streets of London there is another London. A subterranean labyrinth of sewers and abandoned tube stations. A somewhere that is Neverwhere.
An act of kindness sees Richard Mayhew catapulted from his ordinary life into a subterranean world under the streets of London. Stopping to help an injured girl on a London street, Richard is thrust from his workaday existence into the strange world of London Below.
So begins a curious and mysterious adventure deep beneath the streets of London, a London of shadows where the tube cry of 'Mind the Gap' takes on new meaning; for the inhabitants of this murky domain are those who have fallen through the gaps in society, the dispossessed, the homeless. Here Richard meets the Earl of Earl's Court, Old Bailey and Hammersmith, faces a life-threatening ordeal at the hands of the Black Friars, comes face to face with Great Beast of London, and encounters an Angel. Called Islington.
Joining the mysterious girl named Door and her companions, the Marquis de Carabas and the bodyguard, Hunter, Richard embarks on an extraordinary quest to escape from the clutches of the fiendish assassins Croup and Vandemar and to discover who ordered them to murder her family. All the while trying to work out how to get back to his old life in London Above.
A six part adaption of Neil Gaiman's novel adapted by Dirk Maggs, sees James McAvoy as Richard lead a stellar cast which includes Natalie Dormer, David Harewood, Sophie Okonedo, Benedict Cumberbatch, Christopher Lee, Anthony Head, David Schofield, Bernard Cribbins, Romola Garai, George Harris, Andrew Sachs, Lucy Cohu, Johnny Vegas, Paul Chequer, Don Gilet and Abdul Salis.
FRI 23:55 The Listening Project (b03m820h)
Abi - Talking to Catherine
Fi Glover introduces a mother who is finally able to put into words all that she wishes she'd said while her daughter was still alive.
The Listening Project is a Radio 4 initiative that offers a snapshot of contemporary Britain in which people across the UK volunteer to have a conversation with someone close to them about a subject they've never discussed intimately before. The conversations are being gathered across the UK by teams of producers from local and national radio stations who facilitate each encounter. Every conversation - they're not BBC interviews, and that's an important difference - lasts up to an hour, and is then edited to extract the key moment of connection between the participants. Most of the unedited conversations are being archived by the British Library and used to build up a collection of voices capturing a unique portrait of the UK in the second decade of the millennium. You can 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)
15 Minute Drama
10:45 MON (b03m40zq)
15 Minute Drama
19:45 MON (b03m40zq)
15 Minute Drama
10:45 TUE (b03mt4k8)
15 Minute Drama
19:45 TUE (b03mt4k8)
15 Minute Drama
10:45 WED (b03mt7l4)
15 Minute Drama
19:45 WED (b03mt7l4)
15 Minute Drama
10:45 THU (b03mtfrj)
15 Minute Drama
19:45 THU (b03mtfrj)
15 Minute Drama
10:45 FRI (b03mthnm)
15 Minute Drama
19:45 FRI (b03mthnm)
15 Minute Musical
18:15 TUE (b03m79wb)
15 Minute Musical
18:15 WED (b03m7pzp)
15 Minute Musical
18:15 THU (b03m7zb7)
15 Minute Musical
18:15 FRI (b03m81bf)
A Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols
15:00 TUE (b03m79cv)
A Point of View
08:48 SUN (b03lsdgz)
A Point of View
20:50 FRI (b03mckql)
Alice's Wunderland
23:00 THU (b03m7zn1)
All in the Mind
21:00 TUE (b03m7fg4)
Any Answers?
14:00 SAT (b03m3j74)
Any Questions?
13:10 SAT (b03lsdgx)
Archive on 4
20:00 SAT (b03m3j7l)
Archive on 4
06:00 WED (b01pf5sv)
Archive on 4
21:00 WED (b015bj1z)
BBC Inside Science
16:30 THU (b03m7zb3)
BBC Inside Science
21:00 THU (b03m7zb3)
Believe It!
11:30 WED (b03m7p12)
Bells on Sunday
05:43 SUN (b03m3kqp)
Bells on Sunday
00:45 MON (b03m3kqp)
Book at Bedtime
22:45 MON (b03m443t)
Book at Bedtime
22:45 TUE (b03m7fg8)
Book at Bedtime
22:45 WED (b03m7slk)
Book at Bedtime
22:45 THU (b03m7zmz)
Book at Bedtime
22:45 FRI (b03m820f)
Book of the Week
00:30 SAT (b03ls7xw)
Book of the Week
09:45 MON (b03m40zl)
Book of the Week
00:30 TUE (b03m40zl)
Book of the Week
09:45 TUE (b03m79cj)
Book of the Week
09:45 WED (b03m7mdk)
Book of the Week
00:30 THU (b03m7mdk)
Book of the Week
09:45 THU (b03m7z0b)
Book of the Week
00:30 FRI (b03m7z0b)
Book of the Week
09:45 FRI (b03m80qr)
Brain of Britain
23:00 SAT (b03lpbzt)
Brain of Britain
15:00 MON (b03m43fs)
Broadcasting House
09:00 SUN (b03m3nhf)
Chain Reaction
18:30 FRI (b03m81pm)
Christmas Meditation
00:15 THU (b03m7twp)
Christmas Service
09:00 WED (b03m7mdh)
Crossing Continents
20:30 MON (b03ls15d)
Crossing Continents
11:00 THU (b03m7z0g)
Desert Island Discs
11:15 SUN (b03m3nhk)
Desert Island Discs
09:00 FRI (b03m3nhk)
Down the Line
23:30 MON (b03mjp26)
Drama
14:15 MON (b03m7tlk)
Drama
14:15 TUE (b01fjz31)
Drama
14:15 WED (b03m7p9z)
Drama
14:15 THU (b03mtfrl)
Drama
14:15 FRI (b011vhdc)
Ed Reardon's Week
16:30 WED (b01pfwhg)
Extreme Commuting
11:00 FRI (b03m80qw)
Farming Today
06:30 SAT (b03m3j6p)
Farming Today
05:45 MON (b03m40zd)
Farming Today
05:45 TUE (b03m74rb)
Farming Today
05:45 WED (b03m7md7)
Farming Today
05:45 THU (b03m7twt)
Farming Today
05:45 FRI (b03m80qm)
Food for Thought
00:15 TUE (b018g3n6)
Food for Thought
00:15 FRI (b018g6wz)
From Our Own Correspondent
11:30 SAT (b03m3j70)
Front Row
19:15 MON (b03m43g5)
Front Row
19:15 TUE (b03m7ffy)
Front Row
19:15 WED (b03m7pzx)
Front Row
19:15 THU (b03m7zmq)
Front Row
19:15 FRI (b03m81pr)
Frost on 4
07:00 WED (b03mjlk1)
Gardeners' Question Time
14:00 SUN (b03lsdgc)
Gardeners' Question Time
15:00 FRI (b03m81b1)
Great Lives
16:30 TUE (b03m79cx)
Great Lives
23:00 FRI (b03m79cx)
HM The Queen
15:00 WED (b03m7plk)
Hardeep's Sunday Lunch
13:30 SUN (b03m3nhr)
I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue
12:00 SUN (b03lpc02)
In Business
21:30 SUN (b03ls167)
In Business
20:30 THU (b03m7zmv)
In Our Time
09:00 THU (b03m7z08)
In Our Time
21:30 THU (b03m7z08)
In Touch
20:30 TUE (b03m7fg2)
Jared Diamond: How Geography Creates History
20:45 WED (b03mtcvj)
Just a Minute
18:30 MON (b03m43g1)
Kneehigh's The Wild Bride
14:30 SAT (b03m3j76)
Last Word
20:30 SUN (b03lsdgg)
Lines in the Sand
17:00 SUN (b03lph8y)
Lives in a Landscape
13:15 WED (b03m7p16)
Loose Ends
18:15 SAT (b03m3j7d)
Meet David Sedaris
19:15 SUN (b03m3nty)
Midnight Mass
23:30 TUE (b03m7fgb)
Midnight News
00:00 SAT (b03lsdkr)
Midnight News
00:00 SUN (b03m38w7)
Midnight News
00:00 MON (b03m38y3)
Midnight News
00:00 TUE (b03m390d)
Midnight News
00:00 THU (b03m394q)
Midnight News
00:00 FRI (b03m3968)
Modern Welsh Voices
19:45 SUN (b03m3nv0)
Money Box
12:00 SAT (b03m3j72)
Money Box
21:00 SUN (b03m3j72)
More or Less
20:00 SUN (b03lsdgj)
More or Less
16:30 FRI (b03m81b7)
Mr Cole Comes to Kensington
11:00 MON (b03m40zs)
Neil Gaiman - Neverwhere
23:00 WED (b01r527b)
Neil Gaiman - Neverwhere
23:30 THU (b01rb2c1)
Neil Gaiman - Neverwhere
23:27 FRI (b01rbsc4)
News Briefing
05:30 SAT (b03lsdl0)
News Briefing
05:30 SUN (b03m38wh)
News Briefing
05:30 MON (b03m38yc)
News Briefing
05:30 TUE (b03m390n)
News Briefing
05:30 WED (b03m393g)
News Briefing
05:30 THU (b03m394z)
News Briefing
05:30 FRI (b03m396j)
News Headlines
06:00 SUN (b03m38wk)
News and Papers
06:00 SAT (b03lsdl2)
News and Papers
07:00 SUN (b03m38wp)
News and Papers
08:00 SUN (b03m38wt)
News and Weather
22:00 SAT (b03lsdll)
News
13:00 SAT (b03lsdlb)
News
13:00 WED (b03mygp9)
News
15:05 WED (b03mygpc)
North by Northamptonshire
11:30 MON (b03m40zv)
O Henry Stories
00:30 SUN (b018fmtr)
Old Harry's Game
18:30 TUE (b00wqfn8)
On Your Farm
06:35 SUN (b03m3kqw)
One to One
13:45 MON (b038xrj7)
One to One
13:45 TUE (b039cbsq)
One to One
13:45 WED (b01s89mk)
One to One
13:45 THU (b01sdg27)
One to One
13:45 FRI (b01sj1sr)
Open Book
16:00 SUN (b03m3nhy)
Open Book
15:30 THU (b03m3nhy)
Open Country
06:07 SAT (b03ls15q)
Open Country
15:00 THU (b03m7z9z)
PM
17:00 SAT (b03m3j7b)
PM
17:00 MON (b03m43fz)
PM
17:00 TUE (b03m79w8)
PM
17:00 THU (b03m7zb5)
PM
17:00 FRI (b03m81bc)
Pick of the Week
18:15 SUN (b03m3ntt)
Pick of the Year
15:15 WED (b03m7plm)
Poetry Please
23:30 SAT (b03lknps)
Poetry in Translation
16:30 SUN (b01sdnqh)
Prayer for the Day
05:43 SAT (b03lsdv5)
Prayer for the Day
05:43 MON (b03pzytx)
Prayer for the Day
05:43 TUE (b03m74r2)
Prayer for the Day
05:43 WED (b03m7md5)
Prayer for the Day
05:43 THU (b03m7twr)
Prayer for the Day
05:43 FRI (b03m80qk)
Profile
19:00 SAT (b03m3j7g)
Profile
05:45 SUN (b03m3j7g)
Profile
17:40 SUN (b03m3j7g)
Radio 4 Appeal
07:55 SUN (b03m3kr0)
Radio 4 Appeal
21:26 SUN (b03m3kr0)
Radio 4 Appeal
15:27 THU (b03m3kr0)
Radio 4 Comedy Advent Calendar
08:00 WED (b03m7mdf)
Radio 4 Comedy Advent Calendar
17:00 WED (b03m7mdf)
Return to Angola
20:00 MON (b03m43g7)
Roddy Doyle on Radio 4
21:00 SAT (b03lknpn)
Roddy Doyle on Radio 4
15:00 SUN (b03m3nhw)
Saki
15:45 FRI (b03m81b3)
Saturday Drama
21:00 FRI (b01pgnbt)
Saturday Live
09:00 SAT (b03m3j6t)
Saturday Review
19:15 SAT (b03m3j7j)
Selection of BBC World Service Programmes
01:00 SAT (b03lsdkw)
Selection of BBC World Service Programmes
01:00 SUN (b03m38wc)
Selection of BBC World Service Programmes
01:00 MON (b03m38y7)
Selection of BBC World Service Programmes
01:00 TUE (b03m390j)
Selection of BBC World Service Programmes
01:00 WED (b03m393b)
Selection of BBC World Service Programmes
01:00 THU (b03m394v)
Selection of BBC World Service Programmes
01:00 FRI (b03m396d)
Shared Experience
20:00 TUE (b03m7fg0)
Shared Planet
21:00 MON (b03lpfwt)
Shared Planet
11:00 TUE (b03m79cn)
Shipping Forecast
00:48 SAT (b03lsdkt)
Shipping Forecast
05:20 SAT (b03lsdky)
Shipping Forecast
17:54 SAT (b03lsdld)
Shipping Forecast
00:48 SUN (b03m38w9)
Shipping Forecast
05:20 SUN (b03m38wf)
Shipping Forecast
17:54 SUN (b03m38wy)
Shipping Forecast
00:48 MON (b03m38y5)
Shipping Forecast
05:20 MON (b03m38y9)
Shipping Forecast
00:48 TUE (b03m390g)
Shipping Forecast
05:20 TUE (b03m390l)
Shipping Forecast
00:48 WED (b03m3938)
Shipping Forecast
05:20 WED (b03m393d)
Shipping Forecast
00:48 THU (b03m394s)
Shipping Forecast
05:20 THU (b03m394x)
Shipping Forecast
00:48 FRI (b03m396b)
Shipping Forecast
05:20 FRI (b03m396g)
Signs Taken for Wonders
16:00 MON (b03m43fv)
Six O'Clock News
18:00 SAT (b03lsdlj)
Six O'Clock News
18:00 SUN (b03m38x2)
Six O'Clock News
18:00 MON (b03m38ym)
Six O'Clock News
18:00 TUE (b03m390z)
Six O'Clock News
18:00 WED (b03m393n)
Six O'Clock News
18:00 THU (b03m3958)
Six O'Clock News
18:00 FRI (b03m396q)
Something Understood
06:05 SUN (b03m3kqr)
Something Understood
23:30 SUN (b03m3kqr)
Soul Music
15:30 SAT (b03lpfww)
Soul Music
11:30 TUE (b03m79cq)
Start the Week
09:00 MON (b03m40zj)
Start the Week
21:30 MON (b03m40zj)
Start the Week
20:00 WED (b03gv7xm)
Stig at Fifty
07:30 WED (b03m7mdc)
Sunday Worship
08:10 SUN (b03m3kr2)
Sunday
07:10 SUN (b03m3kqy)
The Archers Omnibus
10:00 SUN (b03m3nhh)
The Archers
19:00 SUN (b03m3ntw)
The Archers
14:00 MON (b03m3ntw)
The Archers
19:00 MON (b03m43g3)
The Archers
14:00 TUE (b03m43g3)
The Archers
19:00 TUE (b03m7ffw)
The Archers
14:00 WED (b03m7ffw)
The Archers
19:00 WED (b03m7pzv)
The Archers
14:00 THU (b03m7pzv)
The Archers
19:00 THU (b03m7zmn)
The Archers
14:00 FRI (b03m7zmn)
The Archers
19:00 FRI (b03m81pp)
The Film Programme
23:00 SUN (b03ls15s)
The Film Programme
16:00 THU (b03m7zb1)
The Food Programme
12:32 SUN (b03m3nhm)
The Food Programme
15:30 MON (b03m3nhm)
The Infinite Monkey Cage
16:30 MON (b03m43fx)
The Infinite Monkey Cage
23:00 TUE (b03m43fx)
The Inheritance Collection 2013
16:00 FRI (b03nh34g)
The Listening Project
14:45 SUN (b03m3nht)
The Listening Project
12:52 FRI (b03m819z)
The Listening Project
16:56 FRI (b03m81b9)
The Listening Project
23:55 FRI (b03m820h)
The Lost Tapes of Orson Welles
11:30 THU (b03m7z0j)
The Making of the Modern Arab World
09:00 TUE (b03m79cg)
The Making of the Modern Arab World
21:30 TUE (b03m79cg)
The News Quiz
12:30 SAT (b03lsdgq)
The Playlist Series
10:30 SAT (b03m3j6w)
The Report
20:00 THU (b03m7zms)
The Reunion
22:00 WED (b03m7slh)
The Secret World
18:30 THU (b03m7zb9)
The Stanley Baxter Playhouse
11:30 FRI (b01pt9nc)
The Week in Westminster
11:00 SAT (b03m3j6y)
The World This Weekend
13:00 SUN (b03m3nhp)
The World Tonight
22:00 MON (b03m443r)
The World Tonight
22:00 TUE (b03m7fg6)
The World Tonight
22:00 THU (b03m7zmx)
The World Tonight
22:00 FRI (b03m820c)
Thinking Allowed
00:15 MON (b03lpjy0)
Thinking Allowed
16:00 WED (b03m7plp)
Today
07:00 SAT (b03m3j6r)
Today
06:00 MON (b03m40zg)
Today
06:00 TUE (b03m74rd)
Today
06:00 THU (b03m7z06)
Today
06:00 FRI (b03m80qp)
Tweet of the Day
08:58 SUN (b03k5bwv)
Tweet of the Day
05:58 MON (b03k5cbg)
Tweet of the Day
05:58 TUE (b03k6rrj)
Tweet of the Day
05:58 WED (b03k6slx)
Tweet of the Day
05:58 THU (b03k6t6c)
Tweet of the Day
05:58 FRI (b03k7177)
Weather
06:04 SAT (b03lsdl4)
Weather
06:57 SAT (b03lsdl6)
Weather
12:57 SAT (b03lsdl8)
Weather
17:57 SAT (b03lsdlg)
Weather
06:57 SUN (b03m38wm)
Weather
07:57 SUN (b03m38wr)
Weather
12:57 SUN (b03m38ww)
Weather
17:57 SUN (b03m38x0)
Weather
05:56 MON (b03m38yf)
Weather
12:57 MON (b03m38yh)
Weather
21:58 MON (b03m38yr)
Weather
12:57 TUE (b03m390q)
Weather
17:57 TUE (b03mfrv3)
Weather
21:58 TUE (b03lkmdd)
Weather
13:13 WED (b03m393q)
Weather
21:58 WED (b03m393q)
Weather
12:57 THU (b03m3951)
Weather
21:58 THU (b03m395b)
Weather
12:57 FRI (b03m396l)
Weather
21:58 FRI (b03m396s)
Westminster Hour
22:00 SUN (b03m3p7k)
What Does the K Stand For?
18:30 WED (b03m7pzs)
What the Papers Say
22:45 SUN (b03m3p7m)
Whatever Happened to Community?: The Debate
22:15 SAT (b03lrzjk)
With Great Pleasure
12:00 WED (b03m7p14)
With Great Pleasure
20:00 FRI (b03m7p14)
Woman's Hour
16:00 SAT (b03m3j78)
Woman's Hour
10:00 MON (b03m40zn)
Woman's Hour
10:00 TUE (b03m79cl)
Woman's Hour
10:00 WED (b03m7mdm)
Woman's Hour
11:00 WED (b03m7pzl)
Woman's Hour
10:00 THU (b03m7z0d)
Woman's Hour
10:00 FRI (b03m80qt)
Word of Mouth
23:00 MON (b03lph1g)
World at One
13:00 MON (b03m38yk)
World at One
13:00 TUE (b03m390s)
World at One
13:00 THU (b03m3956)
World at One
13:00 FRI (b03m396n)
You and Yours
12:00 MON (b03m40zx)
You and Yours
12:00 TUE (b03m79cs)
You and Yours
12:00 THU (b03m7z0l)
You and Yours
12:00 FRI (b03m819w)
iPM
05:45 SAT (b03lsdv7)
iPM
17:30 SAT (b03lsdv7)