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

Radio-Lists Home Now on R4 Contact

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



SATURDAY 27 DECEMBER 2014

SAT 00:00 Midnight News (b04vd4tv)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.


SAT 00:15 Dog Days (b036twsx)
The Call of the Wild

Robert Hanks tells of a human obsession through four doggy books. The Call of the Wild by Jack London. Is every pooch a wolf in dog's clothing? With Prill Barrett, John Bradshaw and Ian Bruce Miller and Jem the border terrier and Timmy the whippet. Producer: Tim Dee.


SAT 00:30 Book of the Week (b04vjh7p)
Stories in the Stars

26/12/2014

A seasonal reading for clear and frosty nights, when the skies sparkle with thousands of dots forming half remembered, almost traceable shapes. These are the stories behind the names and shapes of the constellations that pattern the night sky.

Stories In The Stars by Susanna Hislop is read by a range of voices and accents from around the country and the globe. It might be one of the stories that the great Egyptian astronomer Ptolemy assigned to them in his masterwork that became known as the Almagest, or it might be a personified first person narration from the constellation Chameleon having a grumble about the number of different names and imagined shapes assigned to him over the millennia.

From Greco-Roman mythology to the lives of the eighteenth century astronomers, this is a delightful miscellany which gives us a reason to step outside, look up and wonder at the magic lantern show above us.

Readers: Colman Domingo, Paul Copley, Maggie Steed

Episode Five:
Virgo - The Maiden points towards Spring. Canis Major is leader of the pack.

Abridged, directed and produced by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4


SAT 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b04vd4tx)
The latest shipping forecast.


SAT 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b04vd4tz)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service. BBC Radio 4 resumes at 5.20am.


SAT 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b04vd4v1)
The latest shipping forecast.


SAT 05:30 News Briefing (b04vd4v3)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


SAT 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b04vjqr6)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with the Rt Rev'd Richard Chartres, Bishop of London.


SAT 05:45 iPM (b04vjqr8)
What it's like to be told you have ebola, the beauty of a magnolia tree and a WW1 time capsule which contained a letter to the future - some of the best bits from iPM this year. Presented by Eddie Mair and Jennifer Tracey. Email iPM@bbc.co.uk.


SAT 06:00 News and Papers (b04vd4v5)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.


SAT 06:04 Weather (b04vd4v7)
The latest weather forecast.


SAT 06:07 Open Country (b04vjqrb)
Dart Estuary

The Dart Estuary is one of South Devon's longest and most spectacular ria valleys. The surrounding area is a honeypot for visitors, and the boat trip along the estuary is one of the most popular attractions. Helen Mark visits during the calm tranquillity of winter, taking a boat from Dittisham to Dartmouth exploring the Dart's industries, habitats and naval history.

Helen meets skipper Dave Eggins at the village of Dittisham and they embark down the river soaking up some of the sights on the way. Their first stop is to meet oyster farmer Pat Tucker at a very important time of year as he harvests his oysters for the French market at Christmas. They join him on the first day of a low tide, as the oysters can only be harvested on 25 days of the year when the water is low enough to reveal them.

Next Helen and the skipper pop over the river to meet Nigel Mortimer, Estuaries Officer from the South Devon AONB. He sheds light on some of the characteristically important habitats of the estuary such as mudflats, saltmarsh and reed beds and they see if they can spot any of the regular visiting wildlife. Using nets they take a closer look into the mud to see the important worms, snails and bacteria which recycle the organic detritus from the river basin, and which many other species depend on.

Helen gets back on the boat to head to the port of Dartmouth where the estuary widens into a deep water harbour. No trip on the Dart would be complete without delving into its long and colourful naval history. She meets David Lingard Chairman of the Dartmouth Museum and retired Royal Navy Commander at the historic Bayard's Cove. He reveals how international trade has shaped the fortune of Dartmouth and other settlements along the Dart over the centuries.

Although this global maritime trade may be consigned to the past, the Dart is still used by the Royal Navy today. The Britannia Royal Naval College is an imposing building overlooking the lower estuary with a close connection to the Dart. We meet Lieutenant Commander Sue Bryson on a college jetty to hear about how the estuary provides an excellent environment in which the cadets gain essential seamanship, warfare and leadership training.

Presenter: Helen Mark
Producer: Sophie Anton.


SAT 06:30 Farming Today (b04vjqrd)
Farming Today This Week: Family Farming

Marking the end of the UN's Year of Family Farming, Charlotte Smith meets all four generations of the Palmer family who farm together near Fowey in Cornwall.

The UN's initiative received little attention in the UK, but elsewhere around the world we'll hear that it brought together family farmers from different continents to share best practice.

Down on the Palmer family's farm near Fowey in south Cornwall, Charlotte meets the relatives whose experiences stretch back over seventy years. Alice who's in her 90s recalls coming to Frogmore Farm as a Lancashire land girl during the war. She married Tom, the farmer's son, and has never left. We hear of her daughter Jill's experience running the farm these last twenty years, of her grandson Simon, and her 18 year old great grandson Ben, who also works on the farm.

Presented by Charlotte Smith and produced by Mark Smalley.


SAT 06:57 Weather (b04vd4v9)
The latest weather forecast.


SAT 07:00 Today (b04vjqrg)
Morning news and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Thought for the Day and Weather.


SAT 09:00 Saturday Live (b04vjrj9)
Anton du Beke; Stephanie Hirst

Anton du Beke of Strictly Come Dancing joins Aasmah Mir and Suzy Klein.

Anton has been with Strictly from the beginning, having famously partnered Ann Widdecombe, Nancy Dell'Olio, and most recently Judy Murray. As he is about to go on tour with his dance partner, Erin Boag, he explains how he became involved in ballroom dancing and why his favourite dance is the Foxtrot.

The poet Mr. Gee shares seasonal poems.

The award winning broadcaster Stephanie Hirst, formerly Simon Hirst, describes her lifelong passion for radio, her musical influences, the events that have led her to change gender and live as a woman, and how her family have supported her.

Vicki Brewer shares the story of her favourite Christmas present - a personalised board game from her daughter and son in law, in which the content was tailored to stories from the family's life.

JP Devlin meets John Lydon, aka Johnny Rotten, lead singer of the iconic 1970s punk band The Sex Pistols. John talks frankly about Christmas, his childhood illness, trains and his relationship with his parents.

Glyn Johns talks about his career as a sound engineer/producer with bands from The Rolling Stones and The Eagles to The Who and Led Zeppelin.

And Grayson Perry shares his Inheritance Tracks: It's Not Unusual by Tom Jones and I'd Rather Ride Around With You by Reba McIntyre.

Anton and Erin's new production That's Entertainment is on a nationwide tour from 22 January - 29 March 2015.

Sound Man, by Glyn Johns, is published by Blue Rider Press.

Anger is an Energy: My Life Uncensored by John Lydon

Grayson Perry: Who Are You? can be seen at the National Portrait Gallery until 15 March 2015.

Produced by Louise Corley.


SAT 10:30 The Kitchen Cabinet (b04vjrjc)
Series 9

Berwick-upon-Tweed

Jay Rayner and the panel are in Berwick-Upon-Tweed for this week's episode of the culinary panel programme.

Taking questions from a local audience in Bewick-upon-Tweed are food scientist Professor Peter Barham, DIY food expert Tim Hayward, Catalan inspired Scottish cook Rachel McCormack, and broadcaster and cook Andy Oliver.

The panel discuss their favourite ways to prepare salmon, enjoy whisky and cook with malt - and, of course, the best culinary creations with which to celebrate Hogmanay.

Food Consultant: Anna Colquhoun

Producer: Victoria Shepherd
Assistant Producer: Darby Dorras
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.


SAT 11:00 The Forum (b04vjrjf)
Natural Navigation

Could you find your way around using only natural signs? Bridget Kendall explores the phenomenal computational power of the human brain to work out where we are and the navigational ability of migratory birds to fly thousands of miles. With behavioural ecologist Tim Birkhead, navigator and explorer Tristan Gooley and neuroscientist Jennifer Groh.

Photo: birds flying in formation (Getty Images)


SAT 11:30 From Our Own Correspondent (b04vd4vc)
I Hate New York!

Seasonal stories and festive fables: Mike Wendling strongly disagrees with the thought that New York City is the world's most magical place at this festive time of year; why Yolande Knell in Bethlehem is looking forward to two more Christmases in the coming weeks; Nick Thorpe meets a Gypsy 'Santa Claus' on an allotment in southern Hungary; Petroc Trelawny on how the glittering New Year's Day ball in Vienna has its roots in a dark era of Austrian history and in Paris, Joanna Robertson tracks down one seasonal delicacy which, while delicious, carries the unmistakeable whiff of ... gunpowder!


SAT 12:00 News Summary (b04vd4vf)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


SAT 12:04 Money Box (b04vjrjh)
What to do with an unexpected windfall

This week Paul Lewis devotes the programme to one subject - what should you do with an unexpected windfall? Perhaps an inheritance has come through or is expected. Or you downsized your home. An investment has matured. Perhaps the lottery or a gamble has paid off. Or you got a very welcome cheque from that distant relative for Christmas.
Wherever unexpected cash comes from it can bring problems with it. What to do? Spend? Save? Pay off debt? Invest?
Guests include Anna Bowes from Savings Champion.co.uk who deals with cash.
MoneyWeek's commentator on gold and commodities Dominic Frisby who is also a private investor himself.
Louise Oliver is a Certified Financial Planner with Independent Financial Advisors Piercefield-Oliver.
And David Fyfe, Managing Director of Independent Financial Advisors, Fyfe Financial.


SAT 12:30 Dead Ringers (b04vjl75)
Series 13

Episode 1

The impression show takes a look at all the shows that come out around Christmas time and are given that extra festive cheer: Crimewatch and Embarrassing Bodies. Who doesn't want to see a crime scene brightened up with tinsel and fake snow? And a pustulating sore that looks like a snowman?

Starring Jon Culshaw, Jan Ravens, Duncan Wisbey, Lewis MacLeod, Debra Stevenson.

Producer: Bill Dare.


SAT 12:57 Weather (b04vd4vh)
The latest weather forecast.


SAT 13:00 News (b04vd4vk)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


SAT 13:15 The Reunion (b04w5nn9)
Wallace and Gromit

Wallace and Gromit - created by Bristol-based animation company Aardman - have entertained millions, made their Plasticine stars national treasures, won multiple Oscars and boosted sales of Wensleydale cheese.

Sue MacGregor is joined by Aardman founders Peter Lord and David Sproxton, producer Carla Shelley, ex-manager Mary Lowance and Wallace and Gromit creator Nick Park - as well as the two stars themselves - to recall four decades of comic craft and innovation at Aardman that have left an indelible impression on British cultural life.

Aardman came to prominence with their Plasticine man Morph and went on to create classics, such as Creature Comforts which pioneered the use of real-life interviews as the voices of Aardman's eccentric animal kingdom.

Wallace and Gromit remain firm favourites. Wallace, the eccentric inventor from Wigan who loves cheese, and his silent but very well-read associate, quietly saving the day with a range of facial expressions that have brought comparisons with the great silent star Buster Keaton.

A collaboration with American producers Dreamworks led to the big-budget feature film Chicken Run. And few who saw it will ever forget Wallace's moonlit transformation in The Curse of the Were Rabbit.

Yet there have also been moments of real-life drama, like the huge fire that destroyed many character models, original drawings and sets.

As our guests reveal how they created these extraordinary films and characters, they reflect on the ups and downs of their experiences and look forward to the next chapter of Aardman, Wallace and Gromit, Shaun The Sheep and those characters waiting in the wings.

Produced by David Prest and Peter Curran
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.


SAT 14:00 At Home with David Hockney (b04w0b2v)
Radio 4 documentary.


SAT 14:30 Good Omens (b04vjrjm)
Episode 6

As Aziraphale and Crowley, the Witchfinder Army, and the Horsepersons of the Apocalypse descend on Lower Tadfield, the fate of the Earth rests on the shoulders of Adam Young

With a cast led by Peter Serafinowicz and Mark Heap, this is the conclusion of the first ever dramatisation of Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman's Good Omens.

Events have been set in motion to bring about the End of Days. The armies of Good and Evil are gathering and making their way towards the sleepy English village of Lower Tadfield. The Four Horsepersons of the Apocalypse - War, Famine, Pollution and Death - have been summoned from the corners of the earth and are assembling.

Witchfinder Sergeant Shadwell and his assistant Newton Pulsifier are also en route to Tadfield to investigate some unusual phenomena in the area, while Anathema Device, descendent of prophetess and witch Agnes Nutter, tries to decipher her ancestor's cryptic predictions about exactly where the impending Apocalypse will take place.

Atlantis is rising, fish are falling from the sky; everything seems to be going to the Divine Plan.

Everything that is but for the unlikely duo of an angel and a demon who are not all that keen on the prospect of the forthcoming Rapture. Aziraphale (once an angel in the Garden of Eden, but now running an antiquarian bookshop in London), and Crowley (formerly Eden's snake, now driving around London in shades and a vintage Bentley) have been living on Earth for several millennia and have become rather fond of the place. But if they are to stop Armageddon taking place they've got to find and kill the one who will the one bring about the apocalypse: the Antichrist himself.

There's just one small problem: someone seems to have mislaid him...

Crowley ...... Peter Serafinowicz
Aziraphale ...... Mark Heap
Agnes Nutter ...... Josie Lawrence
Anathema Device ...... Charlotte Ritchie
Newton Pulsifer ...... Colin Morgan
Madame Tracy ...... Julia Deakin
War ...... Rachael Stirling
Famine ...... Paterson Joseph
Pollution ...... Harry Lloyd
Death ...... Jim Norton
Shadwell ...... Clive Russell
Melatron ...... Nicholas Briggs
Beelzebub ...... Steve Toussant
Mr Young ...... Simon Jones
Tyler ...... Andy Secombe
Deisenburger ...... Martin Sherma
Baddicombe ...... Tom Alexander
Guard ...... Ben Crowe
Security Guard ...... Trevor White
Adam ...... Adam Thomas Wright
Pepper ...... Hollie Burgess
Wensleydale ...... Bobby Fuller
Brian ...... Lewis Andrews

Adaptation and sound design by Dirk Maggs.

Producer: Heather Larmour.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2014.


SAT 15:30 The Voices of... (b04vdzy3)
Elly Stone

Elly Stone - a modest 87 year old New Yorker ("born and dragged up"), whose sublime voice will forever be associated with the songs of Belgian chanteur Jacques Brel - talks about her life in music.

In My Childhood, Song for Old Lovers, The Old Folks and Carousel she brings a new perspective to Brel's familiar emotional intensity and piercing social commentary.

20 years after her stage retirement, she offers a rare insight into her life and what music has meant to her - in a quiet New York studio, out on the streets of her bustling city and at Sardi's, the famous theatre restaurant.

Running through Elly's own story - from troubled childhood, through Broadway success, to marriage, motherhood and mid-life epiphany - there's a musical counterpoint that can be traced in the songs she famously made her own in the musical revue Jacques Brel's Alive and Well and Living in Paris.

Producer: Alan Hall

A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in December 2014


SAT 16:00 Woman's Hour (b04vjrjp)
Woman's Hour Powerlist 2014 - Game Changers

Highlights from interviews with the Woman's Hour Powerlist 2014 Game Changers. Baroness Doreen Lawrence, Caitlin Moran, Francesca Martinez, Julie Bentley and Laura Bates.

Presented by Jane Garvey
Producer: Abigail Hollick
Editor: Jane Thurlow.


SAT 17:00 PM (b04vjrjr)
Saturday PM

Full coverage of the day's news.


SAT 17:30 iPM (b04vjqr8)
[Repeat of broadcast at 05:45 today]


SAT 17:54 Shipping Forecast (b04vd4vp)
The latest shipping forecast.


SAT 17:57 Weather (b04vd4vr)
The latest weather forecast.


SAT 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b04vd4vt)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


SAT 18:15 Loose Ends (b04vjrjt)
Clive Anderson celebrates a year of star names and stunning music from the Loose Ends studio

Clive Anderson celebrates a year of star names and striking music and brings together the very best of Loose Ends 2014.

Around an enlarged table, though possibly not all at the same time, are - Gregory Porter, Engelbert Humperdinck, Hugh Grant, Chris O'Dowd, Emma Freud, Tamsin Grieg, Ray Davies, Alan Johnson MP, Arthur Smith, Ross Noble, Sarah Solemani, Jon Gnaar, Ronan Keating, Sara Pascoe, Jerry Springer, Danny Wallace, Kate Tempest, Nikki Bedi, Mick Fleetwood, Tom Hollander, Cerys Matthews, Aisling Bea, Maggie Aderin-Pocock, Leonie Orton, Imtiaz Dharker, Bobby Crush, Scottee, and Cody ChesnuTT.


SAT 19:00 From Fact to Fiction (b04wh18l)
Series 17

Episode 2

By Liam Williams

The 27th December has always been a day for doing nothing, until now. This year it's been re-branded as Purple Saturday and it's all about shopping.

As a couple get caught up in the havoc of the post-Christmas sales, they try to make sense of this new tradition, discover where it came from and find out if there's any festive spirit left.

Directed by James Robinson
A BBC Cymru/Wales Production.


SAT 19:15 At Home Abroad (b04v4sx8)
The world is on the move. More than 200 million people live today in a different country to their birthplace.

Britain is a major crossroads of this seething human migration. Among developed nations, there are more Britons living abroad than from any other country. Inward migration to Britain has also been massive - more than 13 percent of the UK population is foreign born.

A panel of New Britons, immigrants from all points of the compass, debate questions raised by making a new home abroad. How far do you assimilate? What is the process of leaving one culture behind when the new one doesn't always accept you with open arms? How do you raise your children, born in Britain, if you do not fully feel a member of British society yourself? Can an immigrant believe there too many immigrants coming to this country now?

Presented by Michael Goldfarb

Produced by Anthony Denselow
A Certain Height production for BBC Radio 4.


SAT 20:00 21st Century Mythologies (b04w1cf4)
Omnibus, Part 2

In 1954, the French critic and semiotician Roland Barthes began a series of essays in which he analysed the popular culture of his day. He called his essays "Mythologies." In this series of witty talks, the acclaimed writer and critic Peter Conrad delivers a series of 21st Century Mythologies in a French accent of the mind. Conrad ranges over the defining effluvia of our era, from the Cronut, to the Shard, to the Kardashians.


SAT 21:00 Pink Mist (b04vjsn8)
A dramatic poem by Owen Sheers about soldiers struggling to return home from Afghanistan. Commissioned for the Radio 4 More than Words festival in Bristol and set and recorded there.

There are three comrades: Arthur is back in Bristol and wants to tell the story of his war and that of his friends, Hads and Taff. Taff is a dubstep 'soundhead', Hads is trapped in a job in a shopping centre; they join up too. Arthur's girlfriend and Had's mother and Geraint's wife also appear.
With music by Jon Nicholls.

Arthur: Carl Prekopp; Hads: Osi Okerafor; Taff: Jordan Bernarde; Gwen: Devon Black; Lisa: Alex Tregear; Sarah: Leona Walker.
Producer Tim Dee.


SAT 22:00 News and Weather (b04vd4vy)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4, followed by weather.


SAT 22:15 Pass the Turkey Twizzlers (b04vf95h)
Has the middle class obsession with organic, artisan and locally sourced food gone too far?

Lucy Kellaway hosts an argumentative dinner party where all the debates are about food. Her guests are the columnist India Knight, the presenter of Radio 4's The Food Programme Sheila Dillon and the author of Bad Science Ben Goldacre.

Producer: Mark Turner.


SAT 23:00 Brain of Britain (b04vdnc1)
Brain of Brains 2014

Russell Davies chairs the general knowledge contest of champions, held every three years, featuring the Radio 4 'Brain of Britain' champions for 2012, 2013 and 2014. This year the highest-scoring runner-up in any of the last three Finals also joins them.

A close contest is guaranteed, between four of Britain's most competitive quiz brains: Mark Grant, Barry Simmons, David Stainer and Ray Ward.

The special contest launches the brand new season of 'Brain of Britain' which begins in earnest next week.

Producer: Paul Bajoria.


SAT 23:30 The Echo Chamber (b04vd6mj)
Series 4

Solsticial

Paul Farley introduces a new poem called Tithonus for the year's midnight from Alice Oswald - a poem which lasts as long as dawn - and with music from nykelharpist Griselda Sanderson. Producer: Tim Dee.



SUNDAY 28 DECEMBER 2014

SUN 00:00 Midnight News (b04vjvn7)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.


SUN 00:15 Midwives to Be (b04vf6z9)
It's one of the most popular degree courses in the country. If you've managed to secure a place at King's College London to study midwifery, you've beaten 17 other applicants to secure the place.

Sarah Taylor has been following the September 2014 intake of BSc Midwifery students who are studying at King's College London. Less than half of them are straight from school, some arrive on the course having already studied something completely different. Other members have finally got a place to study midwifery after doing their time as Health Care Assistants and studying via the access course route.

It's a really diverse student group and of the 99 student midwives, just one is male. The students share their stories of what motivated them to apply for the course, how hard it was to get on and how they are coping with the first term. It's an intense student experience - twelve hour shifts in hospital alongside lots of lectures to help them get up to speed with everything they need to know to support women in labour.

Presented and produced by Sarah Taylor.


SUN 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b04vjvn9)
The latest shipping forecast.


SUN 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b04vjvnc)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service. BBC Radio 4 resumes at 5.20am.


SUN 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b04vjvnf)
The latest shipping forecast.


SUN 05:30 News Briefing (b04vjvnh)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


SUN 05:43 Bells on Sunday (b04vjwt5)
The bells of Westminster Abbey.


SUN 05:45 Four Thought (b04vf95m)
Series 4

Art, Design and Politics

Paola Antonelli explores the politics in art and design.

The curator of design at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, Paola uses examples from a recent exhibition to show how curatorial decisions can be extremely political, and to examine the role of museums and curators in stimulating political debate and discussion.

The programme is presented by Amanda Stern, from McNally Jackson Books in New York City.

Producer: Giles Edwards.


SUN 06:00 News Headlines (b04vjvnk)
The latest national and international news.


SUN 06:05 Something Understood (b04vjyh4)
When I Grow Up

When do we really feel like we've 'grown up'?

Jude Rogers reflects on the transition to adulthood with readings from Sharon Olds, Jennifer Egan and J.M. Barrie, alongside music from Fever Ray, Broadcast and Nick Cave.

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


SUN 06:35 On Your Farm (b04vjyh6)
Caribbean Chilli

Tom Heap samples the mouth-puckering Taste of Paradise as he visits the Caribbean to meet a farmer specialising in Scotch Bonnet Peppers.

Well over 90% of the food consumed in the Turks and Caicos islands is imported from abroad. In the course of a generation a nation of subsistence farmers and fishermen have given up the land and the sea to work in the booming tourist industry. But Courtney Missick is an exception. He comes from a long line of local farmers and is absolutely determined to make his small farm on the island of North Caicos a commercial success. Growing coconut trees for resort hotels and Scotch Bonnet Peppers for a local hot sauce bottler, he's showing that the thin, dry soils of the islands can produce a healthy harvest.

Courtney takes Tom for a tour of his farm, showing how his ducks and chickens fertilise the soil and explaining how he's picked up innovative irrigation techniques from the US and Israel. He's joined by his neighbour, naturalist and amateur farmer Bryan Naqqi Manco who fills in the history of the islands, from the pre-Columbian native farmers, through the brief period of cotton plantations to the time when the freed slaves learnt how to cultivate for themselves. Courtney is determined to do justice to their legacy and make the Turks and Caicos Islands self-sufficient once more.

Producer: Alasdair Cross.


SUN 06:57 Weather (b04vjvnm)
The latest weather forecast.


SUN 07:00 News and Papers (b04vjvnp)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.


SUN 07:10 Sunday (b04vjyh8)
Women Bishops, Archbishop of Canterbury, Women in Religion

2014 was an historic year for women in the Church of England when they won the right to be appointed as Bishops.

In a special edition of Sunday ahead of the installation of the rev Libby Lane as the bishop of Stockport, Caroline Wyatt looks at the role of women in the Church of England and other faiths.

The Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby reflects on the historic decision to allow women bishops and discusses how the Church will manage dissent from traditionalists.

Sarah Swadling reports on the recruitment process for Bishops. Is it down to who you know or is it now more transparent?

Katharine Jefferts Schori, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States gives her advice to the new appointees based on her own experience and Trevor Barnes investigates how the Diocese of London plans to deal with opposition from parishes that won't accept a woman bishop.

The rev Angela Berners-Wilson, the first priest to be ordained by the Church of England and the rev Jody Stowell discuss the opportunities for women now the Church is finally an equal opportunity employer.

Dina Brawer from the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance and Rabiha Hannan - vice president of the Islamic Society of Britain look at their own faiths and reflect on the role of women and how changes in the Church of England may impact on their own faith.

Contributors:
Archbishop of Canterbury, rt rev Justin Welby
Rev Angela Berners-Wilson
Rev Jody Stowell
Presiding bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori
Dina Brawer
Rabiha Hannan

Producers:
David Cook
Catherine Earlam

Series Producer:
Amanda Hancox.


SUN 07:55 Radio 4 Appeal (b04vjyss)
Afasic

Sir Derek Jacobi presents the Radio 4 Appeal for Afasic, a charity which supports children and young people with speech, language and communication needs and provides information and training for parents and professionals.
Registered Charity No 1045617
To Give:
- Freephone 0800 404 8144
- Freepost BBC Radio 4 Appeal, mark the back of the envelope 'Afasic '.
- Cheques should be made payable to Afasic.


SUN 07:57 Weather (b04vjvnr)
The latest weather forecast.


SUN 08:00 News and Papers (b04vjvnt)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.


SUN 08:10 Sunday Worship (b04vjysv)
Songs of Innocence and Experience

Marking Holy Innocents from Wesley's Chapel London with carols in the West Gallery style. Two hundred years ago, when hymns as we know them were only just coming into use and before mighty pipe organs had appeared, a bunch of local musicians would bring their enthusiasm and energy to the aid of congregations. They'd sing from the west end of the church and often from a specially constructed West Gallery. Robust and earthy some of this music may be but their singing still covered every part of human life with songs of innocence and experience. Leader: The Superintendent, Leslie Griffiths; Preacher: Professor of Christianity and the Arts at King's College London Ben Quash. Music: Awake and join the cheerful choir - Coventry Carol - A Virgin most Pure - While Shepherds Watched their flocks by night - The Magi Carol - O Come all ye Faithful. Music Director: Francis Roads; Producer: Rowan Morton-Gedhill.


SUN 08:48 A Point of View (b04vjl7c)
Monarch's Message

David Cannadine reflects on the history of the Queen's Christmas message. Following the success of the first broadcast in 1932 by the Queen's grandfather, King George V, "what had begun as a one-off innovation" soon "became an invented tradition".

"There can be no doubt," says Cannadine, "it brought the King closer to his subjects than had been true of any monarch who had gone before him."

Producer: Sheila Cook.


SUN 08:58 Tweet of the Day (b04t0lwc)
House Wren

Tweet of the Day is the voice of birds and our relationship with them, from around the world.

Sir David Attenborough presents the house wren found across the New World. Having one of the largest ranges of any songbird in the New World, the migratory house wren occurs anywhere from their breeding grounds in Canada and North America, to their to wintering grounds from Central America to Chile. The male house wren's song is a torrent of trills delivered at full volume from his territory of shrubs, low trees and ferny banks. Diminutive he may be but he's feisty and is known to drag other birds' eggs or chicks from a nest-hole he wants for himself. In parts of North America, house wrens are a significant cause of nest failure in some other species of songbirds.


SUN 09:00 Broadcasting House (b04vjz06)
Sunday morning magazine programme with news and conversation about the big stories of the week. Presented by Paddy O'Connell.


SUN 10:00 The Archers Omnibus (b04vjz08)
King's School Worcester Choir ..... conducted by Simon Taranczuk
Organist ..... Christopher Allsop.


SUN 11:15 Desert Island Discs (b04vjz0b)
Ray Winstone

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the actor Ray Winstone.

Nil By Mouth, Sexy Beast, Vincent, The Sweeney - he's probably best known for totally authentic tough-guy, geezer-parts. But his work has more range and nuance, encompassing roles as varied as Henry VIII, Magwich in Great Expectations and the lead in Beowulf.

Beyond the screen the man himself almost seems to come from a bygone era, when a fellow worth his salt always wore a dapper three piece suit and was handy with his fists. In his youth as a boxer he won 80 of his 88 fights and it seemed for a while that a whiff of menace had followed him out of the ring and onto the streets.

However he says, "I'm not like the geezers I play: loads of things scare me in everyday life but you have to hide a bit and put on a front. I cry at movies, I cry at scripts, I cried when West Ham got back into the Premiership - I'm even frightened of spiders."

Producer: Cathy Drysdale.


SUN 12:00 News Summary (b04vjvnw)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


SUN 12:04 I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue (b04vdngk)
Series 62

Episode 6

Back for a second week at The Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury, regulars Barry Cryer and Graeme Garden are joined on the panel by Susan Calman and Tony Hawks, with Jack Dee in the chair. Piano accompaniment is provided by Colin Sell.

Producer - Jon Naismith.


SUN 12:32 The Food Programme (b04vjz0d)
Redemption through Food

Redemption through food. Sheila Dillon brings you her selection of inspirational stories from The Food Programme in 2014.

Ken Hom tells Sheila how food changed his life and his fortunes. Claudia Roden explains how food brought the Egyptian diaspora together. And we hear from a former drug addict who found a new life growing salad.

Presented by Sheila Dillon produced by Emma Weatherill in Bristol.


SUN 12:57 Weather (b04vjvny)
The latest weather forecast.


SUN 13:00 The World This Weekend (b04vjz0g)
Global news and analysis; presented by Mark Mardell.


SUN 13:30 The Invisible Age (b04vdnkt)
The Living Archive

What's it really like to be old? This programme is dedicated to conversations with the over 85s about the great turning points in their lives. Presenter Matthew Sweet describes his friends in their 80s and 90s as a "living archive". The "fourth generation" is not only a fast-growing feature of modern Britain, it's a portal to our collective past.

How does it feel to know about something that the culture has forgotten? What happens when your friends and family pass on and you are left? Matthew Sweet talks to people aged over 85 in a quest to find out not only about their lives but also how life has changed around them. We meet some of Britain's 14,000 centenarians - they are part of a growing trend, with demographers predicting that, by 2114, a million Britons alive will have received their telegram from the Queen.

And Matthew travels back to his home town of Hull where, as a six year old, he liked nothing more than spending time with his elderly neighbours. He meets one of these neighbours, who, unbeknown to Matthew at the time, is eminent political theorist Professor Bikhu Parekh, now Baron Parekh. Matthew also talks to Mary Urwin whose father knew Florence Nightingale, and Bridgette Paterson who once played with the von Hindenburg children in the German President's Palace.

Produced by Hermeet Chadha
A Loftus production for BBC Radio 4.


SUN 14:00 Gardeners' Question Time (b04vk02x)
Belsay Hall, Northumberland

Eric Robson hosts a festive edition of the horticultural panel programme from Belsay Hall, Northumberland. Matt Biggs, Bob Flowerdew and Anne Swithinbank take questions from the audience.

Produced by Darby Dorras
Assistant Producer: Hannah Newton

A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4

This week's questions and answers:

Q. I planted Garlic for the first time this year at the end of October, when should I harvest it and when will I know it's ready?

A. As it starts to shrivel a little at the beginning of July dig it up and it will be ready.

Q. We have established an area of wild flowers in our village green, which mainly consists of perennials. It looks good but come July the area is dominated by Oxeye Daisy and Scabious, which fall over and smother the other plants. We've tried to reduce them and put in more annuals but with little success. Is it possible to grow annuals with perennials and do the panel have any advice on keeping colour throughout the season?

A. Annuals are difficult to grow in a meadow and so you'll probably just have to accept that the wild meadow is going to look a bit ropey at certain times of year. The exception to this is Yellow Rattle which can be grown successfully in a meadow by sowing in the autumn but you really need to score the ground a bit to get the seeds to germinate, even scarify the earth. Yellow Rattle is a partial parasite so will restrict the vigour of the grasses. You could always cheat by planting annuals in pots and then burying these pots so the rims are just below ground level. This will give the appearance of annuals growing through perennials.

Q. I have had a Russet Egremont Apple Tree for two years. It has produced three apples, which promptly fell off. Does it need pollinating?

A. As you didn't have a lot of blossom either, pollination is probably not the problem. It's probably just quite young and a bit too dry. Put down a good mulch to keep the moisture in and make sure grass isn't growing too close to the base of the tree. Just in case this is a pollination issue, plant any kind of Crab Apple tree and this is sure to pollinate it.

Q. What planting would you recommend for a low screen to divide a vegetable plot from flowerbeds given that we suffer from salt-laden easterly winds in the winter? We're 200 metres from the sea.

A. You might consider Brassicas - a low hedge of red Brussel Sprouts would look very different and are known to survive in costal conditions. There is also the perennial Nine Star Broccoli that can keep going for three or four years. You could also plant in a ridge of shingle, or put in a dry stone wall or a fence and grow Rosa Rugosa up it.

Q. Please tell me how I can get an obstinate Yucca Filamentosa to flower. I've had it 14 years and tried it in various locations and still no flowers.

A. It's been distracted by all the moving. Yuccas need really deep roots and a good crown of growth before they flower. So put in the ground in the spring. Choose a sheltered spot where it gets lots of sunshine and leave it well alone. It needs at least four years before it will flower. You could put stones or sand beneath it to increase the warmth.

Q. What do the panel feel about volunteer potatoes? The best ones I harvest have come up on their own from last year's crop.

A. The ones that 'volunteer' come up before the blight gets them. If you plant potatoes in the autumn, you encourage this to happen. This works well in cold winters but in warm wet ones the potatoes can rot in the ground. However, the crops planted in the autumn tend to be lighter. You can try growing Sarpo potatoes that are thought to be blight resistant but make sure you don't leave them in the ground too long as this can change the texture. You could also try the 'Carolus' potato.


SUN 14:45 The Listening Project (b04vk02z)
Sunday Omnibus - Children's Special

Fi Glover revisits some of the children's conversations featured by The Listening Project over the past two years. Gems of youthful wisdom from Suffolk, Devon, Leeds and Leicester.

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 learn more about The Listening Project by visiting bbc.co.uk/listeningproject

Producer: Marya Burgess.


SUN 15:00 The Barchester Chronicles (b04vk031)
Anthony Trollope's The Small House at Allington

Episode 2

Anthony Trollope's The Small House at Allington by Michael Symmons Roberts

Adolphus Crosbie is determined to enjoy all the pleasures of high society including the attentions of Lady Alexandrina during his stay at Courcy Castle. Back at the Small House in Allington, Lily Dale devotedly continues to plan their wedding, despite a worrying lack of correspondence from her betrothed.

Music composed by David Tobin, Jeff Meegan and Julian Gallant

Written by Michael Symmons Roberts
Directed by Gary Brown
Produced by Charlotte Riches

The Small House of Allington is the fifth instalment of The Barchester Chronicles, Anthony Trollope's much-loved series of witty, gently satirical stories of provincial life set within the fictional cathedral town of Barchester and the surrounding county of Barsetshire. With a focus on the lives, loves and tribulations of the local clergy and rural gentry, the canvas is broad and colourful, with a wonderful set of iconic characters whose lives we become intimately involved in as they grow up, grow old and fall in or out of love and friendship across the years.


SUN 16:00 Open Book (b04vk033)
Sir Richard Eyre Five of the Best Books

Sir Richard Eyre's distinguished career as a director encompasses both theatre and film. He ran the National Theatre in London for ten years and also created acclaimed productions of Guys and Dolls and Mary Poppins. For the big screen he's directed Notes on a Scandal and Iris. He talks to Mariella Frostrup about his five favourite books, and how they shaped his life.

And Dr Sarah Dillon continues her series of close reading by turning her attention to Aldous Huxley and the opening of his novel Brave New World. Published in 1932, the novel is set in a dystopian future where human beings are reproduced artificially, the opiate of the people is the drug soma and the population is strictly controlled and divided into castes.


SUN 16:30 Found at Sea (b04vk035)
Andrew Greig recounts, in poetic sequence, the tale of his open dinghy voyage from Stromness in Scapa Flow to an overnight stay on Cava island.

In a small boat in open waters, he found a new element to live in and a new metaphor for life. He captures it in a poetry sequence of moving simplicity,"in the middle of life, halfway over, we pitch on a gurly sea."

Written in six weeks, Found at Sea is a 'very wee epic', as Andrew calls it himself, about sailing, male friendship and a voyage to find a way through the rest of life by recalling the lives they've lived before.

Cast:
Narrator ............Andrew Greig
Skip ...................Lewis Howden
Crew .................Tam Dean Burn
Musician ............Rachel Newton

Sound Design Lee McPhail
Director Marilyn Imrie

Producer Gordon Kennedy
An Absolutely production for BBC Radio 4.


SUN 17:00 Terror and the Oxygen of Publicity (b04vf2qh)
The Islamic State has been described as one of the most brutal terrorist organisations currently fighting in the Middle East and one with the most sophisticated (social) media strategy. Much of their expansion is not happening on the ground but online through videos, magazines and blogs they publish.

In 'Terror and the Oxygen of Publicity' Gordon Corera, the BBC Security Correspondent, examines the jihadists' social media strategy, the attempts to combat it, and how media organisations tread the fine line of giving publicity to terrorists and reporting the news.

The Producer is Anna Meisel.


SUN 17:40 From Fact to Fiction (b04wh18l)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Saturday]


SUN 17:54 Shipping Forecast (b04vjvp6)
The latest shipping forecast.


SUN 17:57 Weather (b04vjvpg)
The latest weather forecast.


SUN 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b04vjvpk)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


SUN 18:15 Pick of the Week (b04vk0bx)
Liz Barclay's Pick of the Week on features true stories from World War One and actor Ray Winstone on why he can look after himself in a tight spot. David Sedaris outlines the steps Santa takes to deal with children who misbehave over Christmas and we have the perfect piece of music to be put on hold to.
Join Liz for music and stories from across the radio networks on Pick of the Week.


SUN 19:00 The Archers (b04vk0bz)
Lynda is discomfited to find Tristram Hawkshaw in attendance to review the final performance of Blithe Spirit. He charms Susan, who thinks he's a lovely man. Lynda is quick to put her right. Far from being lovely, 'Hatchet' Hawkshaw is likely to tear their production apart.

However, Tristram takes Lynda completely by surprise by seeking her out afterwards and declaring he found the piece extremely moving - a triumph. Lynda is overwhelmed.

Jennifer prepares a vegan supper for Kate, much to Brian's dismay. He's keen to jettison an unwanted Christmas jumper from Pat. He wonders if she'd mind if he exchanged it. Jennifer thinks Pat probably has more important things on her mind than worrying about a jumper.

Jennifer receives a welcome email from Liam, editor of the Borchester Echo. He's going to run her story about Justin Elliott.

Kate drops a bombshell. She intends to stay in Ambridge to study for an Advanced Diploma in International Development at Felpersham University. This leaves her parents with all sorts of questions. Will Nolly and Sipho join her? What about Lucas? Kate assures them she has the full support of her family. She'll be in Ambridge alone. Jennifer is delighted. Kate being back is a positive move for the whole family. But Brian is sceptical. He hopes Jenny's right.


SUN 19:15 The Rest is History (b04vk0c1)
Series 1

Episode 3

Frank Skinner loves history, but just doesn't know much of it.

This comedy discussion show with celebrity guests promises to help him find out more about it.

With John Lloyd, Katy Brand and historian in residence Dr Kate Williams

Frank and company navigate their way through the annals of time, picking out and chewing over the funniest, oddest, and most interesting moments in history.

Producers: Dan Schreiber and Justin Pollard

An Avalon production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in December 2014.


SUN 19:45 Goodnight, Vienna (b04vk1cz)
Jonke's Schnitzel, by James Hopkin

A multi-contributor series of specially-commissioned radio stories about this most beguiling of cities. To the outsider, Vienna can be a state of mind as much as an actual place.

Episode 2 (of 3): Jonke's Schnitzel by James Hopkin
The Narrenturm, or Tower Of Fools, was once the principal mental asylum in Vienna. It has now been reopened. But to what purpose?

James Hopkin's short stories have been broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and BBC Radio 4, including The Mural At Frau Krauser's, A Georgian Trilogy and A Dalmatian Trilogy, which was broadcast in 2012. He is currently working on his second novel.

Reader: Tim McInnerny

Produced by Jeremy Osborne
A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4.


SUN 20:00 Cells and Celluloid: A Science and Cinema Special (b04vj1x8)
When Science Meets Cinema

The Film Programme's Francine Stock and Adam Rutherford from BBC Inside Science join forces for a special Christmas day programme celebrating science in the movies. Francine meets Paul Franklin, the special effects wizard behind blockbuster Interstellar, and discovers how he worked with theoretical physicist Kip Thorne to create the most detailed simulation of a black hole ever produced. But can Hollywood ever really be faithful to science and should it be? Professor Sidney Perkowitz, one of the authors of Hollywood Chemistry, considers what happens when physics gets warped by cinema. Christopher Frayling explores the scientist on screen, from Frankenstein to Dr Strangelove; and can science save celluloid? Adam visits the archives of British Film Institute to uncover the science behind film preservation. Adam and Francine subject themselves to a psychological experiment that tracks their eye movements as they watch a film on the big screen.


SUN 21:00 Money Box (b04vjrjh)
[Repeat of broadcast at 12:04 on Saturday]


SUN 21:26 Radio 4 Appeal (b04vjyss)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:55 today]


SUN 21:30 In Business (b04vj6gz)
The Business of Kindness - Revisited

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

Producer: Sandra Kanthal.


SUN 22:00 News Review of the Year (b04vk1gj)
2014

From the tragedies of the Malaysian Airlines planes to the spread of Ebola, from Scotland's referendum to the rise and rise of UKIP, from Russia's annexation of Crimea to America's withdrawal from Afghanistan, from Gaza to Ferguson, from YouTube sensations to social media trolls, from Rotherham to Hong Kong to Kobani, from Philip Seymour Hoffman and Robin Williams to L'Wren Scott, from Germany's World Cup to Malala Yusufzai - 2014 witnessed episodes of extraordinary drama, tragedy, excitement, elation and mystery.

Sarah Montague presents her personal review of the year, including its defining episodes and its lighter moments.

Producer Simon Coates.


SUN 23:00 Last Word (b04vjh88)
In a special edition of Last Word, Matthew Bannister talks to obituary editors from around the UK about the nature of their work

Matthew Bannister and a group of obituary editors from around the UK gather to compare notes and discuss why the world of the obituary writer is very often an uplifting one.

Producer: Neil George.


SUN 23:30 Something Understood (b04vjyh4)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:05 today]



MONDAY 29 DECEMBER 2014

MON 00:00 Midnight News (b04vjvqn)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.


MON 00:15 Thinking Allowed (b04vj6gx)
Rituals at Christmas

Customs at Christmas and beyond. It may be best not to invite a sociologist for Xmas - they're liable to spend their time chronicling, even questioning your seasonal rituals. In this festive programme, Laurie Taylor looks at the ever shifting nature of our habits, practices and customs; changes in our lives which have been detected and discussed in previous editions of Thinking Allowed. Is our concept of romantic love as timeless as we often presume? How did bathrooms evolve from luxurious Victorian rooms to classless and clinical spaces? Do contemporary constructions of sophisticated drinking downplay the risks of middle class alcohol consumption? In what ways has the elevator changed the status associated with the top and bottom floors of homes and buildings? And when did consumerism cease to be about the satisfaction of mere wants as opposed to the indulgence of hedonistic pleasures? Thinking Allowed subjects the trivial, the everyday and the taken for granted to entertaining sociological scrutiny.

Producer: Jayne Egerton.


MON 00:45 Bells on Sunday (b04vjwt5)
[Repeat of broadcast at 05:43 on Sunday]


MON 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b04vjvqq)
The latest shipping forecast.


MON 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b04vjvqs)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


MON 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b04vjvqv)
The latest shipping forecast.


MON 05:30 News Briefing (b04vjvqx)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


MON 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b04w4qr6)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with the Rt Rev'd Richard Chartres, Bishop of London.


MON 05:45 Farming Today (b04vk6km)
Farm Floods Revisited

At the start of 2014 the Somerset Levels experienced their worst floods in living memory. For many farmers, it was a race against time to get livestock to dry land. Nearly a year on, life is starting to get back on track. In this programme, Charlotte Smith returns to West Yeo Farm near Bridgwater, where James and Jenny Winslade run a beef herd. When she was last there, in March, their cattle were spread across nine different farms, their pastures were an oily swamp, and the farmhouse was a building site. Now they're back home, and normality is slowing returning to the farm.

Presented by Charlotte Smith and produced by Emma Campbell.


MON 05:56 Weather (b04vjvqz)
The latest weather forecast for farmers.


MON 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b04t0m7p)
Red-throated Caracara

Tweet of the Day is the voice of birds and our relationship with them, from around the world.

Sir David Attenborough presents the red-throated caracara from the Amazonian rainforest. The size of buzzards, red-throated Caracaras are black- and -white birds of prey that travel together when searching for paper wasp nests among the leaves. While some birds search for food, others act as sentinels on the lookout for predators. If a monkey or a spotted cat approaches, the sentinel will alert the flock and together they will mob the intruder with loud calls. They specialise in bee and wasp grubs, but seem impervious to stings and it was once thought that they may possess a special repellent which deters the adult insects. Latest research now shows that when they are disturbed by the caracaras, paper wasps keep away from their damaged nest to avoid further danger and so the birds simply take advantage of the wasp's absence.


MON 06:00 Today (b04vk6kp)
Morning news and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.


MON 09:00 Start the Week (b04vk6kr)
Sense of Place

Andrew Marr discusses why we react so strongly to some places, look for meaning in them and build up stories about them over time. Joining him in the studio are author and travel writer Philip Marsden who has been exploring Cornwall with Sense of Place in mind; Scottish artist Victoria Crowe who's been returning to paint the Pentland Hills for thirty years; singer Ian Bostridge who's performing and analysing Schubert's Winterreise; and lecturer Joanne Parker on the maps we make in our minds, as we draw together places that have the most meaning to us.

Producer: Simon Tillotson.


MON 09:45 Book of the Week (b04vk6kt)
Ian Bostridge - Schubert's Winter Journey

Episode 1

Award-winning tenor Ian Bostridge explores Franz Schubert's enigmatic masterpiece Winterreise, or Winter's Journey. Composed in 1827, this powerful song-cycle for voice and piano uses twenty-four poems by Wilhem Muller and is considered one of classical music's most powerful compositions.

Drawing upon his experience as a performer (he has performed Winterreise more than a hundred times), on his musical knowledge and on his training as a scholar, Bostridge unpicks the enigmas and subtle meanings behind the songs to explore the world Schubert inhabited.

Ian Bostridge is recognised as one of the greatest Lieder interpreters today. He has made numerous award-winning recordings of opera and song, and gives recitals throughout Europe, North America and the Far East. He was the original Caliban in Thomas Ades's The Tempest, and played Aschenbach in the landmark 2007 production of Britten's Death in Venice at ENO. He will be Humanitas Professor of Classical Music at the University of Oxford in 2014-15.

Read by Ian Bostridge

Written by Ian Bostridge

Abridged by Laurence Wareing

Produced by Kirsteen Cameron.


MON 10:00 Woman's Hour (b04vk6kw)
Party Small Talk, Women and Slapstick, 2015 Fashion, Winning a Lotto Syndicate

It’s coming up to New Year’s Eve. There will be parties and parties mean small talk. For some, this will be joy everlasting; for others, it is the social equivalent of scraping nails down a long blackboard. So is small talk an art we Brits are especially gifted at? We give you a survival guide to party chit-chat.

Why does slipping on a banana skin make people laugh? Comedian Lucy Porter and Dr Louise Peacock talk about the stars of slapstick from Lucille Ball to Miranda and how the relationship between women and slapstick is far from simple. Thya ask; who will be the new women stars of slapstick?

Plus, we all dream of winning the lottery and spend hours spending the fictional money. The National Lottery is 20 years old and there have been more than 3,700 Lotto-made millionaires since it began on 19th November 1994. We talk to two ladies who won £1.4million each as part of a syndicate in Driffield, Yorkshire. Sue Brusby and Sue Harris join Jane to discuss what life has been like since they joined the Rich List.


MON 10:45 15 Minute Drama (b04vk6ky)
Nigel Slater - Eating for England

Episode 1

In the bleak Christmas following his mother's death, the young Nigel Slater sought refuge in food.

Sugar mice, pink wafers and mince pies helped him survive. So too did his Aunt Elvie who, against the wishes of his father, encouraged Nigel to cook.

Eating for England, the successor to his highly acclaimed memoir Toast, is part food memoir, part collective memory bank of a nation's taste. Using the book as source material along with further conversations with Nigel, dramatist Sarah Daniels has written a playful reimagining. A grown up Nigel - played by Julian Rhind Tutt, looks back on his childhood while caring for a now elderly, yet ever sparkling, Aunt Elvie, played by Celia Imrie.

Rich with sounds of the kitchen and recorded on location, with a cameo performance from Nigel himself.

What drives a cook to write about food? Why is there such a powerful link between memory and what we eat? And why is reading about food so irresistibly appetising?

In this opening episode, Nigel reflects on sugar mice and the bleak Christmas just after his mother's death, when Aunt Elvie helped him through.

Aunt Elvie......................Celia Imrie
Nigel Slater...................Julian Rhind Tutt
Tony..............................Adrian Scarborough
Young Nigel...................Isaac Whitmore

Dramatised by Sarah Daniels
Sound design by Eloise Whitmore

Director: Polly Thomas

A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in December 2014.


MON 11:00 This Farming Life (b04vk6l0)
Episode 1

What is modern farming life really like? Do you picture rich landowners simply banking cheques from Europe or aging men struggling to produce food with no time off? In the first of a two-part series, Charlotte Smith - more commonly found challenging ministers on Farming Today - looks beyond the farm gate and follows the lives of several farmers through the Autumn season.

Peter Alvis' cheese-making business supplies an international market and is going from strength to strength. His brother Johnny runs the 1100 cow dairy, providing a large proportion of the milk but is paid the same rate as other suppliers. They want to increase cheese production by 50% but are desperate to find more local suppliers.

It's a different picture for Bob Hall. A year ago his home and farm were deluged by the Somerset floods. The farming community rallied to help those affected but his 250 strong herd is now just 70. When Charlotte meets him at the market he's finding new store cattle are too expensive and the year is pretty much lost. It's not just farming rhythms but family rhythms that have been hit. For his wife Sue the worst will only be over when she's back in her home and can have the extended family round for Sunday dinner.

Phil Dibble has a slightly more relaxed outlook, despite the pressures. He says his 180acre farm isn't viable like it was for his grandfather so he works part-time as a truck driver and he says his District Nurse wife is the real bread-winner. But their 19 year old son, Harry, has big ideas of how to turn the farm around and Phil's prepared to listen. His mum had hoped he'd see through his A-levels as a back up, and use his skill for Maths but Harry knows what he wants to do.

Presented by Charlotte Smith
Produced by Anne-Marie Bullock.


MON 11:30 Start/Stop (b04vk6l2)
Series 2

Hotel

The three couples end up on a 'date night' together and Evan is a surprise convert to French cinema.

Meanwhile Barney tries to get his smartphone to answer some of life's big questions.

Jack Docherty's comedy about three marriages in various states of disrepair.

Barney ..... Jack Docherty
Cathy ..... Kerry Godliman
Fiona ..... Fiona Allen
Evan ..... John Thomson
David ..... Charlie Higson
Alice ..... Sally Bretton
Voice of Barney's smartphone...Jon Briggs

Producer: Claire Jones

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2014.


MON 12:00 News Summary (b04vjvr1)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


MON 12:04 Home Front (b04vk6l4)
29 December 1914 - Joe Macknade

Warwickshire cricket captain Jim Troughton guest stars as England cricketer Colin Blythe on a recruitment drive in Folkestone, and appealing to one young man in particular.

Written by Katie Hims
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole
Sound: Martha Littlehailes


MON 12:15 You and Yours (b04vk6l6)
Changes to the Pet Travel scheme come into force today, including a new minimum age of 12 weeks before a pet can be vaccinated for rabies, new laminated passports and a new requirement for all EU member states to carry out checks on their borders. But one charity has expressed concerns that the changes won't be effective in slowing down the illegal trade in puppies and cats.

Complaints about public services and private industry are big business, as Queen Margaret University launches the world's first masters degree for professional complaint handlers, does that mean we are getting better as a nation at complaining?

And we talk to the founder of a website who's most popular postings are old Argos catalogues from 1973 to 1999. Could looking nostalgically back into the past be good for you?


MON 12:57 Weather (b04vjvr3)
The latest weather forecast.


MON 13:00 World at One (b04vk6l8)
Analysis of current affairs reports, presented by Edward Stourton.


MON 13:45 Out of Armenia (b04vk72b)
Manchester

Writer and historian Charles Emmerson traces the history of the Armenian diaspora through Europe's Armenian communities today.

From Manchester, home to Britain's oldest Armenian community, Charles travels to Paris, the largest and most dynamic Armenian diaspora community in Europe, still living in the shadow of the memory of the massacres and deportations of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire in 1915.

In Venice, he meets the monks charged with the safe-keeping of Armenian traditions of literature and song on the island of San Lazzaro. In Istanbul, we hear the more recent stories of the city's Armenian community - subtle architects building a new relationship between Turks and Armenians from the foundations up.

Finally, at the foot of Mount Ararat, in Yerevan, underground jazz music and Syrian refugees tell a new story - of a new focus for Armenian identity and fresh challenges to its survival.

Armenians have long lived in diaspora, struggling to keep their common identity alive in communities dispersed around the world. They became leading figures in Ottoman Istanbul. In the 19th century, some moved to the dirt and damp of the booming textile city of Manchester, establishing themselves in the city's middle-class suburbs and building the first Armenian church in north-west Europe.

Over tea and cake in warm family homes, Charles hears the stories of a tiny but close-knit community, now concerned about how to keep alive its identity, language and religion for a new generation of Mancunian Armenians. The church holds services just once a month, when a priest comes up from London. Some ask whether there will be an Armenian community in Manchester at all in 50 years' time.

Produced by Cicely Fell
An Above The Title production for BBC Radio 4.


MON 14:00 The Archers (b04vk0bz)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Sunday]


MON 14:15 Pilgrim by Sebastian Baczkiewicz (b04vk72d)
Series 6

St Lewin

by Sebastian Baczkiewicz.

In search of silver and gold, Pilgrim comes to St Lewin where the malevolence of a powerful old enemy is causing havoc in the lives of ordinary people .

2 of 4

Pilgrim ..... Paul Hilton
Mister Truffles ..... Zubin Varla
Binnie ..... Helen Longworth
Mirabella ..... Janice Acquah
Jerry ..... Ian Conningham
Francis ..... Paul Heath
Jose ..... Shaun Mason
Maurice ..... David Acton
Little Truffles ..... Bettrys Jones
The Girl ..... Agnes Bateman

Directed by Marc Beeby


MON 15:00 Brain of Britain (b04vk72g)
Heat 1, 2015

(1/17)
Which politician was described by the writer Malcolm Bradbury as 'the Bertie Wooster of Marxism'? And the A horizon, B horizon, C horizon and O horizon are all layers of what?

Russell Davies returns to Radio 4 with the first contest in a new season of the evergreen general knowledge quiz, with contestants from all over Britain competing for the title Brain of Britain 2015. It's the 62nd series of the quiz, and the eventual champion will join a long and illustrious list of names which down the years has included Irene Thomas, Daphne Fowler, Kevin Ashman and Barry Simmons.

The competitors in this week's opening heat come from London, Guernsey, Bath and Norwich.

The programme also offers the customary chance for a listener to 'Beat the Brains' by suggesting ingenious questions that may stump their collective general knowledge.

Producer: Paul Bajoria.


MON 15:30 The Food Programme (b04vjz0d)
[Repeat of broadcast at 12:32 on Sunday]


MON 16:00 Sister Aimee (b04w0fvk)
Naomi Grimley tells the story of how a Canadian farm girl combined glamour and the gospel to become among the most famous women in America in the 1920s and 30s. Aimee Semple McPherson built a huge following for her healing abilities and for her extraordinary "illustrated sermons" - part bible reading, part music hall turn. And long before the arrival of televangelism, she pioneered the use of radio to spread her message across the airwaves. Her allure was such that even Charlie Chaplin was a fan. But with celebrity came loneliness and scandal. In 1926, she disappeared after swimming on Venice Beach, only to mysteriously reappear in Mexico five weeks later. What happened during that period is still hotly contested. Naomi asks what this extraordinary woman's life tells us about two of America's enduring themes: faith and fame.
Producer: Nick White

Special thanks to:
Foursquare Archives
Esotouric - Bus Adventures into the secret heart of Los Angeles
Paul Rood
Catherine Brekus
Randall Balmer

Music:
Hauschka - Kreuzung
Lee Rosevere - Dreaming
Podington Bear - Gauze
Martha Tilton - Blow, Gabriel, Blow
Chris Zabriskie - Cylinder Six

Archival material and piano recordings used with the express written consent of The International Church of the Foursquare Gospel. Copyright protected.


MON 16:30 Beyond Belief (b04vk9nh)
Magna Carta

What was the Church's role in the creation of Magna Carta? We all know about "Bad King John" and his barons, but this was a religiously charged document. The very first and the very last clause declare that "The Church must be free," and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Stephen Langton, almost certainly drafted it.

Ernie Rea is joined by the Very Rev June Osborne, Dean of Salisbury , whose Cathedral houses one of the four original copies of Magna Carta; Simon Barrow Co Director of Ekklesia, a Christian think tank; and David Carpenter, Professor of Medieval History at Kings College London and one of the investigators involved in the Magna Carta Project which is researching the context, production and reception of Magna Carta.


MON 17:00 PM (b04vk9nk)
PM at 5pm- Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.


MON 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b04vjvr5)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


MON 18:15 Christmas With... (b04vk9nm)
Clare Barker

Clare has had enough; it's the 29th December and it's high time Christmas was packed up for another year. Social work doesn't just stop because it's the festive season, but will a chance encounter bring back a bit of seasonal magic?

Sally Phillips is Clare Barker the social worker who has all the right jargon but never a practical solution.

In today's Big Society there are plenty of challenges out there for an involved, caring social worker. Or even Clare.

Written by Harry Venning and David Ramsden
Producer Alexandra Smith.


MON 18:30 The Unbelievable Truth (b04vk9np)
Series 14

Episode 1

David Mitchell hosts the panel game in which four comedians are encouraged to tell lies and compete against one another to see how many items of truth they're able to smuggle past their opponents.

Lloyd Langford, David O'Doherty, Susan Calman and Josh Widdicombe are the panellists obliged to talk with deliberate inaccuracy on subjects as varied as penguins, spoons, dolls and letters.

The show is devised by Graeme Garden and Jon Naismith, the team behind Radio 4's I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue.

Produced by Jon Naismith
A Random Entertainment production for BBC Radio 4.


MON 19:00 The Archers (b04vk9nr)
Helen and Rob enjoy some time together away from the farm. Rob praises her performance in Blithe Spirit. They agree Pat is less stressed now that Tony's stable, but Rob makes it clear today is all about Helen.
Helen mentions that Kate will be staying in Ambridge for a while. She and Jennifer might join them at the New Year's Eve ball. Rob isn't keen, but Helen assures him that Kate is very much a free spirit.
Jill and Carol have tea together. Before watching It's a Wonderful Life, Carol raises a toast to Jill, and many more happy years in Ambridge. Jill is happy with her decision to stay. Everything she knows of Phil is in Ambridge. Jill admits she'll miss the family. They've been very quiet since she announced her decision. Carol assures her they'll get used to it. And she'll make sure Jill finds plenty of things to fill her time.
As Helen chooses a new dress, Rob is concerned that the one she favours is too revealing. He steers her towards a more conservative style. She shows him the new, more fashionable, haircut she's considering. Rob urges her to go for something more classic. She's beautiful and doesn't need to follow the herd. He can't wait for New Year's Eve. Helen is going to be the belle of the ball.


MON 19:15 Front Row (b04vk9nt)
The rise and rise of Event Cinema

Kirsty Lang investigates the flourishing phenomenon of so-called event cinema. Plays, musicals and operas in major cities have become available throughout the country on the big - and sometimes small - screen in local cinemas. Eric Felner, the producer of Billy Elliot the Musical tells of his delight at the performance in September that topped the cinema box office, beating Denzel Washington's The Equalizer into second place. David Sabel, the Head of Digital at the National Theatre responsible for NT Live, analyses the success of Frankenstein, War Horse and many other shows. Helen McCrory talks about what the live screening of Medea felt like and Lesley Manville and Richard Eyre describe having their theatre production of Ibsen's Ghosts filmed. Front Row hears from some who fear the impact of event cinema on local theatre and on touring; Lorne Campbell of Northern Stage and the playwright Alan Ayckbourn voice their concerns. And what is the future of event screening?

Presenter: Kirsty Lang
Producer: Sarah Johnson.


MON 19:45 15 Minute Drama (b04vk6ky)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:45 today]


MON 20:00 The Invisible Age (b04vk9nw)
Let Yourself Go

News reports about increased longevity invariably come with warnings and worries. Matthew Sweet asks whether we could turn society's pessimism about our increasing old age into an opportunity to gain a new perspective on life.

He spends time with some of the oldest and greatest thinkers, who share with him their insights on ageing. He travels to talk to writers who use their old age to write about the privileged vantage point they enjoy.

In the midst of a public conversation about old age which centres on the cost and loss of a long life, Matthew talks to people in their 80s and 90s about the gains that old age can bring. Matthew likens his conversations with the so called 'oldest-old' to meeting explorers of a new territory. He is curious to ask them what they can share with us about the things they have learnt and the things they can see.

Produced by Catherine Carr
A Loftus production for BBC Radio 4.


MON 20:30 Crossing Continents (b04vk9ny)
Abdi and the Golden Ticket

Each year, the US government does a strange and slightly surprising thing: it gives away 50,000 green cards (permanent resident visas) to people chosen at random via a lottery.

But becoming an American is not easy, even if you do win a golden ticket.

For Crossing Continents, Leo Hornak follows the story of Abdi Nor, a young Somali lottery winner living in one of the toughest slums in Kenya, as he prepares for his final US embassy interview and the chance of a new life in the States.

But as Abdi's interview date approaches, the obstacles to him achieving his American dream appear to grow ever greater.


MON 21:00 Shared Planet (b04vdy2q)
Pit Stops and Stopovers

The Amur Falcon and the Swan Goose are both migrating birds. These birds, like many other migrating birds, need to rest, feed and refresh en route. Some journeys are thousands of miles and rich feeding habitat is disappearing for development. Wetlands, estuaries and coastlines are often the focus of industrial expansion, tourism and new housing, yet they are also the places most needed by migrating waders. Inland there are problems too as water bodies, scrub and insect rich grasslands are quickly taken over for agriculture and urban development. What can be done? In Nagaland in north-eastern India the Amur falcon has recently congregated at a newly built reservoir to feed on the rich insect life that it supports. Hundreds of thousands, millions even, of these small birds of prey come together for a few days and in the past have been heavily hunted and trapped for food. Yet local people, encouraged by NGOs and the churches, have decided to let the birds be. In America the migrating monarch butterfly is being helped by people planting nectar rich flowers and protecting the trees they like to roost in. Some of the challenges are huge, others easy to solve. Monty Don explores the trials of migration.


MON 21:30 Start the Week (b04vk6kr)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]


MON 21:58 Weather (b04vjvr7)
The latest weather forecast.


MON 22:00 The World Tonight (b04vk9zq)
Greece calls a snap election. Anti-austerity party Syriza are favourites to win. Is another Eurozone crisis on the way ?

The programme begins a special week of coverage on immigration with the World Tonight's Beth McLeod.

Debbie Purdy, who campaigned to clarify the law on assisted suicide, has died.

What do foreigners make of the British obsession with class?

In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective. with David Eades.


MON 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b04vk9zs)
The Girls of Slender Means

All the Nice People Were Poor

'Few people alive at the time were more delightful, more ingenuous, more movingly lovely, and as it might happen, more savage than the girls of slender means.'

Emilia Fox reads Muriel Spark's rapier-witted portrait of the lives and loves of a group of genteel but down-at-heel young women in postwar London. In the so-called May of Teck Club, a boarding house for single ladies, life carries on as if the world were back to normal: elocution lessons, poetry recitals, jostling over suitors and the sharing of a single taffeta gown. But the war has ended and things are not normal and never again will be. Into this world arrives Nicholas Farringdon, a writer and anarchist, who is beguiled by these girls of slender means and their giddy, carefree lives. But this meeting, we soon learn, will end in his death.

Today: It is 1945, but life carries on as usual in the May of Teck Club.

Spark's 1963 novel, The Girls of Slender Means, has become a modern classic. AL Kennedy has called it: 'An uncompromisingly well-crafted book: lean, ironic, funny, penetrating, unsettling and very, very beautiful. Welcome to the English language as operated by an expert.'
Muriel Spark (1918-2006) was an award-winning Scottish novelist and biographer, known best for her acclaimed novel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.


MON 23:00 Word of Mouth (b04vdzyf)
Ebola: How should we talk about it?

Michael Rosen talks to Oxfam's media officer on Ebola, Ian Bray, about the language we use about the disease, both in this country and in Liberia, where he's been based. Michael also asks linguists Louise Sylvester and Laura Wright about the words we've used though history to describe disease and plague, and what they tell us about changing attitudes to sickness.
Producer Beth O'Dea.


MON 23:30 Don't Log Off (b04gvsnm)
Series 5

Enduring Love

Alan Dein crosses the world via Facebook and Skype, hearing the real life dramas of random strangers.

In this first programme of the new series, Alan discovers some moving stories of couples under pressure.

Alan builds up a relationship with Hank and Norma in Arkansas, USA following them over the course of a difficult year as harp-playing Hank draws on his own near-death experience to deal with Norma's breast cancer. As Hank puts it: "I worked hard to survive, and I deserve my companion in life..."

Alan also tracks the fortunes of a young couple in love, trying to make a go of it despite the fact one lives in southern Italy and the other in Slovakia.

Plus a veteran of the first Gulf War - now a long distance lorry driver - recalls how he salvaged his own relationship after it faltered as a result of long absences from home.



TUESDAY 30 DECEMBER 2014

TUE 00:00 Midnight News (b04vjvs5)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.


TUE 00:15 Dog Days (b0371hjy)
Flush

Robert Hanks tells of a human obsession through four doggy books. Flush by Virginia Woolf. Is a pedigree over-rated? With Prill Barrett, John Bradshaw and Ian Bruce Miller and Jem, the border terrier, and Timmy the whippet. Producer: Tim Dee.


TUE 00:30 Book of the Week (b04vk6kt)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:45 on Monday]


TUE 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b04vjvs7)
The latest shipping forecast.


TUE 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b04vjvs9)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


TUE 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b04vjvsc)
The latest shipping forecast.


TUE 05:30 News Briefing (b04vjvsf)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


TUE 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b04w4ryf)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with the Rt Rev'd Richard Chartres, Bishop of London.


TUE 05:45 Farming Today (b04vkhj9)
Yuletide Growers: Mistletoe, Poinsettia and Kentish Walnuts

You might think that the dead of winter is a quiet time for growers, but for some it's the busiest time of the year. Sarah Swadling visits a farmer in Worcestershire who has built an online business around Mistletoe, a grower who tends 100,000 Poinsettia every year, and a man who is hoping to revive English Walnut production in Kent. Produced and presented by Sarah Swadling.


TUE 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b04t0m9x)
Laughing Kookaburra

Tweet of the Day is the voice of birds and our relationship with them, from around the world.

Sir David Attenborough presents Australia's laughing kookaburra. At 45cm the laughing kookaburra is one of the world's largest kingfishers. Native to south and eastern Australia, they have now been introduced to Western Australia and parts of New Zealand. Although they do catch fish, they hunt mainly on land where they eat reptiles, small mammals and invertebrates. The cacophony of loud hooting laughs from which they get their Aboriginal name, is often produced by several birds in chorus. The cackling call is one of the few exotic bird sounds that is recognised around the world: a captive kookaburra named Jacko became a radio celebrity in Australia through his ability to break into that laughing call on demand. By the time of his death in 1939 he was one of the best known birds in the world.


TUE 06:00 Today (b04vkhjc)
Morning news and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.


TUE 09:00 The Long View (b04vkhl8)
Obesity in the 1930s and now

Jonathan Freedland compares current debates about obesity, and how we treat it, with concerns and possible solutions which arose in the 1930s.

He examines books with titles like "Obesity", "Slimming for the Million: The New Treatment of Obesity", "Why Be Fat?" and "Surplus Fat and How to Reduce It" on the shelves of the Wellcome Collection Library. He looks at how the problem was tackled in the 1930s and whether it can inform how we approach today's obesity epidemic, which some claim "will bankrupt the NHS".

Jonathan's guests include writer and historian Louise Foxcroft; Emeritus Professor of Nutrition Policy at London Metropolitan University, Jack Winkler; Robert Opie of the Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising; Margaret Peggie, Vice President of the Fitness League, and Liz Harper, Archivist at The Royal Albert Hall.

Producer Clare Walker.


TUE 09:30 Witness (b04wlktg)
The Hong Kong Riots of 1967

Throughout much of 1967 striking workers and students filled the streets of Hong Kong. They were inspired by the Cultural Revolution in China and wanted an end to British rule. Witness hears from Jasper Tsang Yok-sing, now the president of Hong Kong's Legislative Council, then a young left-wing student.


TUE 09:45 Book of the Week (b04vkhlb)
Ian Bostridge - Schubert's Winter Journey

Episode 2

Internationally acclaimed tenor Ian Bostridge examines one of the most powerful compositions in classical music: Schubert's song-cycle Winterreise (Winter's Journey).

In this episode, which explores the political context of the piece, he focuses on song five "Der Lindenbaum" (The Linden Tree) and song ten "Rast" (Rest)

Ian Bostridge is recognised as one of the greatest Lieder interpreters today. He has made numerous award-winning recordings of opera and song, and gives recitals throughout Europe, North America and the Far East. He was the original Caliban in Thomas Ades's The Tempest, and played Aschenbach in the landmark 2007 production of Britten's Death in Venice at ENO. He will be Humanitas Professor of Classical Music at the University of Oxford in 2014-15.

Written and read by Ian Bostridge

Abridged by Laurence Wareing

Produced by Kirsteen Cameron.


TUE 10:00 Woman's Hour (b04vkjs9)
Judith Weir; Testament of Youth; #gamergate

Judith Weir, the first woman to be appointed Master of the Queen's Music. #gamergate and women on the web in 2014. What has happened to the search for the school girls kidnapped by Noko Haram in Northern Nigeria? On the set of the film of Vera Brittain's autobiography, Testament of Youth.


TUE 10:45 15 Minute Drama (b04w0jfs)
Nigel Slater - Eating for England

Episode 2

When Nigel's dad announces his remarriage, Aunt Elvie and mince pies come to the rescue.

Aunt Elvie......................Celia Imrie
Nigel Slater...................Julian Rhind-Tutt
Tony..............................Adrian Scarborough
Joan..............................Fenella Woolgar
Humphrey.....................David Annen
Young Nigel...................Isaac Whitmore

In the bleak Christmas following his mother's death, the young Nigel Slater sought refuge in food. Sugar mice, pink wafers and mince pies helped him survive. So too did his Aunt Elvie who, against the wishes of his father, encouraged Nigel to cook.

Eating for England, the successor to his highly acclaimed memoir Toast, is part food memoir, part collective memory bank of a nation's taste. Using the book as source material along with further conversations with Nigel, dramatist Sarah Daniels has written a playful reimagining. A grown up Nigel - played by Julian Rhind-Tutt, looks back on his childhood while caring for a now elderly, yet ever sparkling, Aunt Elvie, played by Celia Imrie.

Rich with sounds of the kitchen and recorded on location, with a cameo performance from Nigel himself.

What drives a cook to write about food? Why is there such a powerful link between memory and what we eat? And why is reading about food so irresistibly appetising?

Dramatised by Sarah Daniels

Sound design by Eloise Whitmore

Director: Polly Thomas

A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in December 2014.


TUE 11:00 UK Confidential (b04vkjsc)
Martha Kearney reviews today's release of secret government files from the mid 1980s.

The year long miners' strike came to an end in 1985, but social unrest continued with riots in London leaving a policeman dead in Tottenham. Football hooliganism burgeoned, resulting in horrific scenes at the European Cup Final in Heysel when 39 people died during violent riots before the Liverpool/Juventus match.

Mikhail Gorbachev became Soviet leader and Oleg Gordievsky was one of a number of high profile Russian defectors to Britain. As nuclear arms talks between the Soviet Union and the United States made a tentative start, a catastrophic accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine released radioactive particles over much of the Western USSR.

A row in Cabinet over the future of Westland helicopters resulted in Michael Heseltine's resignation as Defence Secretary in early 1986. A Cabinet Committee considered government policy on AIDS for the first time, and several Whitehall departments collaborated to develop what became the 'Poll Tax'.

As the official Cabinet papers of the mid-80s are opened to the public for the first time, Martha Kearney discovers how these events were viewed in Government. With access to the Prime Minister's personal correspondence, minutes of top secret meetings and telephone calls, and confidential policy advice, UK Confidential offers fresh insights into history.

Martha is joined in the studio by key political players from the time - Defence Secretary Lord (Michael) Heseltine, Shadow Chancellor Lord (Roy) Hattersley, Margaret Thatcher's private secretary Lord (Charles) Powell, and Channel 4 Political Correspondent Elinor Goodman.

Produced by Deborah Dudgeon
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.


TUE 12:00 News Summary (b04vjvsh)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


TUE 12:04 Home Front (b04vkjsf)
30 December 1914 - Esme Macknade

Esme desperately needs a friend, and finds one in an unexpected place.

Written by Katie Hims
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole
Sound: Martha Littlehailes


TUE 12:15 You and Yours (b04vkjsh)
Call You and Yours

Call You & Yours: How did you shop for Christmas? Millions chose online over the high street and if you shopped at the Sales how was it different from previous years?


TUE 12:57 Weather (b04vjvsk)
The latest weather forecast.


TUE 13:00 World at One (b04vkjsk)
Analysis of current affairs reports, presented by Edward Stourton.


TUE 13:45 Out of Armenia (b04w0jfv)
Paris

"The last of the battlefields is the battlefield of the imagination - and that space is infinite".

Charles Emmerson continues his journey through the Armenian diaspora of Europe in Paris - Europe's largest, most culturally-vibrant and politically-radical Armenian diaspora community.

With the singing of the Armenian monk-musician Gomidas playing in the background, French-Armenian actor Simon Abkarian tells Charles the story of how his family was wiped out in Anatolia in 1915, and how Armenians have turned the pain of memory into the foundations of a new homeland in France.

As Charles is plied with pomegranate wine in the local Armenian shops of Alfortville, a Paris suburb which filled with Armenian refugees in the 1920s, we hear how French-Armenians have become more French than the French themselves - counting members of parliament, actors, musicians and the singer Charles Aznavour among their number. One of the most famous fighters of the French resistance, Missak Manouchian, was also Armenian.

On a river barge in the Seine, as a mostly Armenian band tunes up for an evening concert, we hear mixed Armenian, Turkish, Kurdish and Persian music - symbol of a younger generation of Paris Armenians opening up, and an embrace of culture as a tool of both memory and peace.

Produced by Cicely Fell
An Above The Title production for BBC Radio 4.


TUE 14:00 The Archers (b04vk9nr)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Monday]


TUE 14:15 Drama (b04vkjsm)
Roy Smiles - Memories of a Cad

Affectionate comedy drama about the relationship between Terry-Thomas and Richard Briers, starring Martin Jarvis and Alistair McGowan.

While holidaying on the island of Majorca in 1984, the infinitely charming actor Richard Briers - then 50 and at the height of his TV sitcom fame - decides to visit the comic movie actor Terry-Thomas in his home on the other side of the island.

The 73 year old Terry-Thomas has been suffering from Parkinson's disease for the past ten years. His memory is fading, his body deteriorating and the work has dried up. He lives in quiet seclusion with his adoring wife Belinda.

He's delighted by the visit of 'young' Richard Briers, who he recognises from the telly. Briers cheers him up by telling him facts about his life Terry has long forgotten - from his cabaret years in the 1930s and his success in the Armed Forces as a Stars In Battledress entertainer, to his work in the movies of the Boulting Brothers peaking with I'm Alright Jack and his glory days in American movies such as Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines and It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, which brought him worldwide fame as a 'bounder.'

Terry-Thomas has forgotten he came from Finchley, that his father worked at Smithfields Market and that it was his fate to be a clerk at the same market until he decided to re-invent himself, aged 17, as the raffish cad the world came to love.

Written by Roy Smiles.

Terry-Thomas ..... Martin Jarvis
Richard Briers ..... Alistair McGowan
Belinda ..... Laura Shavin
Spencer Tracy ..... Lewis Macleod

Producer: Liz Anstee

A CPL production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in December 2014


TUE 15:00 The Kitchen Cabinet (b04vjrjc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:30 on Saturday]


TUE 15:30 A Portrait Of... (b04vkkpd)
Andrew Motion

We go into the artist's studio to follow portrait painter Fiona Graham-Mackay as she paints the former poet laureate Andrew Motion.

A personal, immersive journey exploring art unfolding, this is an insight into the private encounter of two acclaimed artists, and we listen in to what this process is like for both the painter and the painted.

It's a unique relationship, a little like being in the therapist's chair - the painter stripping away the layers to reveal the true likeness of her subject, the sitter under the microscope, exposed and studied. Fiona Graham-Mackay shares the secrets of the portrait painter as she captures the sitter on canvas; the sitter reflects on what being painted reveals and contemplates the prospect of being immortalised in oil.

Fiona Graham-Mackay has painted hundreds of portraits, including Prince Michael of Kent, Seamus Heaney and Lord Carrington. In all her sittings she has always been fascinated by her conversations with her subjects and continues to be amazed by how people open up in ways that surprise even themselves as she paints them. What is revealed goes beyond anything you might expect in an ordinary interview.

Produced by Eve Streeter
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.


TUE 16:00 Word of Mouth (b04vkl1s)
Why do we laugh?

Michael Rosen finds out why we laugh and why we cry, with neuroscientists Sophie Scott and Sam Evans, and linguist Laura Wright. It's probably not why you think... And does it matter if laughter and crying are real or false, in terms of their effect on us? Producer Beth O'Dea.


TUE 16:30 Great Lives (b04vkl1v)
Series 35

Tom Solomon on Roald Dahl

Writer Roald Dahl is well known as the author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Fantastic Mr Fox and The BFG, but he was also fascinated by medical science. Professor Tom Solomon, who looked after him during his last illness, spent hours discussing medicine with Dahl.

Tom talks to Matthew Parris about Dahl's life and work, through the prism of his forensic interest in the workings of the human body. With them is Donald Sturrock, Dahl's biographer.

Producer Christine Hall.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2014.


TUE 17:00 PM (b04vkl9g)
PM at 5pm- Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.


TUE 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b04vjvsm)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


TUE 18:15 15 Minute Musical (b03m79wb)
Series 8

It's a One-Hit-Wonderful Life

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.

It's A One-Hit Wonderful Life

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

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.


TUE 18:30 I've Never Seen Star Wars (b04vkl9j)
Series 6

Ann Widdecombe

Marcus Brigstocke persuades his guests to try new experiences - starting with politician Ann Widdecombe.

Ann tries camping in a tent for the first time and watches as much of The Thick Of It as she can stand on TV.

Marcus also offers Ann the chance to drink a Jagerbomb - but will she accept?

Director: Bill Dare

First broadcast on BBC Radio in December 2014.


TUE 19:00 The Archers (b04vkl9l)
Carol thinks Elizabeth seems low. They watch Fallon and Burns on the ice; young love! Elizabeth's quite envious. She's had a bad year. Carol reassures her it's the difficult times that make us stronger. Elizabeth promises to try Carol's pick-me-up tea, and Carol persuades her to join them at Brookfield on Wednesday - Jill's last New Year's Eve there.
Jennifer asks Adam to take lonely Kate to the Lower Loxley Ball. Jennifer's reserved them a couple of tickets. She senses a new, mature Kate.
Echo editor Liam wants to know Jennifer's sources over the alleged development, before he will use her story and approach Justin Elliott for comment. Jennifer feels he should just trust her investigative journalism. When he then refuses to print it, Brian's not surprised. There's no guarantee any of Jennifer's claims are true. But Jennifer is determined to unearth Justin's dirty little secret. SAVE will carry on fighting. Even if some, like David and Ruth, have jumped ship.
Charlie is glad to see that Adam is planning to expand his operation. Charlie buys him lunch in return for his help with the landslip. He encourages Adam to stand up to Brian and go for what he wants.
Brian is stunned when Adam announces he's going on holiday for two weeks. With lambing, it's the worst possible time. But Adam reckons he's entitled to a break. Brian will just have to manage.


TUE 19:15 Front Row (b04vkl9n)
People of the Year 2014 - Part 1

John Wilson talks to the people who have had exceptional years in the worlds of the arts, culture and entertainment in 2014, in the first of two special programmes.

Carey Mulligan discusses making her west end debut in Skylight, and the thrill of taking to the stage after her many film roles. Gillian Anderson, lauded for her performances on television in The Fall and on stage in A Streetcar Named Desire, talks about playing two very different women.

Two of the biggest selling musicians of 2014, Ed Sheeran and Paolo Nutini, discuss the song writing process and award winning authors Hilary Mantel and Lionel Shriver on the art of writing short stories.

Kristen Scott Thomas and Helen McCrory, who stunned audiences with their stage performances in Greek tragedies Electra and Medea, on the visceral experience of playing tragic heroines.

Designer Tom Piper and ceramicist Paul Cummins explain why their poppies installation at the Tower of London, which marked the 100th anniversary of the start of WWI, struck a chord with millions of people and artist Marina Abramovic on her bravest installation yet.

And, following two of the biggest comebacks of 2014, John Cleese remembers the Pythons' reunion and Adrian Noble discusses directing Kate Bush.

Presenter: John Wilson
Producer: Olivia Skinner.


TUE 19:45 15 Minute Drama (b04w0jfs)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:45 today]


TUE 20:00 Build and Be Damned (b04g8hrq)
The Victorians famously built wildly ambitious infrastructure projects, like roads, railways, sewers and tunnels. David Wighton asks whether we should copy their example.
The Victorians and their predecessors have been celebrated for their forward thinking, building assets which are continuing to benefit the British economy. Yet some of their grandest projects left investors broke or actually created headaches for later generations. So - which is more important: cost-benefit reports or sheer boldness of vision? David Wighton finds that the lessons from the past turn out to more complex than they first appear.
Producer: Sandra Kanthal.


TUE 20:30 In Touch (b04vklfs)
Rt Hon David Blunkett MP

Peter White joins the Rt Hon David Blunkett MP on a walk in the Derbyshire countryside, to discuss David's plans for his recently announced retirement. They talk about David's love of the outdoors, football and poetry.
David lets his dog Cosby off the lead and guides Peter on one of his favourite walks, in which he uses the sound of two weirs to locate where he is on the path. When back in David's cottage, Peter asks about Mr Blunkett's book library and his skills as a cook.


TUE 21:00 All in the Mind (b04vklfv)
Musical hallucinations and mental health in the novel

Claudia Hammond finds out how neuroscientists are understanding musical hallucinations by looking at the brains of those who experience them. Tim Griffiths and Vicky Williamson talk about their research into musical imagery and what it reveals about the workings of the brain and why musical hallucinations are more common in people with hearing loss. Nathan Filer and Matt Haig join Claudia to talk about their novels: The Shock of the Fall and The Humans and why they chose to write about mental health. Dr Catherine Loveday discusses recent research into why some people are hard-wired to be better navigators than others and why drawing could improve learning.


TUE 21:30 The Long View (b04vkhl8)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]


TUE 21:58 Weather (b04vjvsp)
The latest weather forecast.


TUE 22:00 The World Tonight (b04wv05j)
Demonstrations in Moscow after Putin critic Alexei Navalny convicted of fraud.

Beth McLeod's immigration series continues - with a look at migrants from "old" Europe

What foreigners make of the British obsession with class.

and who's been given a gong in the New Year's Honours List ?

In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective. With David Eades.


TUE 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b04vklsd)
The Girls of Slender Means

This Marvellous Dress

'Few people alive at the time were more delightful, more ingenuous, more movingly lovely, and as it might happen, more savage than the girls of slender means.'

Emilia Fox reads Muriel Spark's rapier-witted portrait of the lives and loves of a group of genteel but down-at-heel young women in postwar London. In the so-called May of Teck Club, a boarding house for single ladies, life carries on as if the world were back to normal: elocution lessons, poetry recitals, jostling over suitors and the sharing of a single taffeta gown. But the war has ended and things are not normal and never again will be. Into this world arrives Nicholas Farringdon, a writer and anarchist, who is beguiled by these girls of slender means and their giddy, carefree lives. This meeting, we soon learn, will end in his death.

Today: During her 'brain work', Jane encounters writer and anarchist, Nicholas Farringdon, whose arrival at the May of Teck Club causes something of a stir.

Spark's 1963 novel, Girls of Slender Means, has become a modern classic. AL Kennedy has called it: 'An uncompromisingly well-crafted book: lean, ironic, funny, penetrating, unsettling and very, very beautiful. Welcome to the English language as operated by an expert.'

Muriel Spark was an award-winning Scottish novelist and biographer, known best for her acclaimed novel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

Reader: Emilia Fox
Abridger: Sally Marmion
Producer: Justine Willett.


TUE 23:00 Fresh from the Fringe 2014 (b04wh77q)
Long Showcase of new comedy talent from the 2014 Edinburgh Fringe, hosted by Jason Cook and featuring Fosters award-winners Alex Edelman (newcomer) and Funz and Gamez (panel prize), along with Suzi Ruffell, Gein's Family Giftshop, Lolly Adefope, Tamar Broadbent, Rhys James, Massive Dad, Natasia Demetriou and Dane Baptiste.

Produced by Lyndsay Fenner.


TUE 23:30 Don't Log Off (b04hyrq1)
Series 5

Identity

Alan Dein crosses the world via Facebook and Skype, hearing the real life dramas of random strangers.

Today, people tell stories about grappling with issues of identity. A disabled woman from the Ukraine talks about ethnic tensions as crisis grips the country, keeping an audio diary of her reflections as the situation develops.

Alan also hears from a young woman in Moscow who discusses the difficulties of being gay and mixed race in Russia.

Meanwhile, a young Bolton man whose family originate from Pakistan recounts his horror after being shot at during his last visit there, reflecting on how it has informed his views on nationality.

Producer: Laurence Grissell.



WEDNESDAY 31 DECEMBER 2014

WED 00:00 Midnight News (b04vjvtm)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.


WED 00:15 Dog Days (b0371hm9)
Sirius

Robert Hanks tells of a human obsession through four doggy books. Sirius by Olaf Stapledon. Can a man be a dog? With Prill Barrett, John Bradshaw and Ian Bruce Miller and Jem, the border terrier, and Timmy the whippet. Producer: Tim Dee.


WED 00:30 Book of the Week (b04vkhlb)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:45 on Tuesday]


WED 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b04vjvtp)
The latest shipping forecast.


WED 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b04vjvtr)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


WED 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b04vjvtt)
The latest shipping forecast.


WED 05:30 News Briefing (b04vjvtw)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


WED 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b04w4tm7)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with the Rt Rev'd Richard Chartres, Bishop of London.


WED 05:45 Farming Today (b04vkm6m)
Celebration Foods: Truffles, Sparkling Wine and Champagne

Ahead of the biggest party night of the year we meet producers of celebration food and drink from the British countryside. Sarah Swadling goes truffle hunting at a secret location in Wiltshire. She visits a smokery in Gloucestershire which continues the tradition of curing wild salmon from the River Severn. Charlotte Smith, meanwhile, is at one of the biggest makers of English Sparkling Wine, in Kent. Produced and presented by Sarah Swadling.


WED 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b04t0mj0)
Greater Hill Mynah

Tweet of the Day is the voice of birds and our relationship with them, from around the world.

Sir David Attenborough presents the mimic specialist Greater Hill Mynah from Asia. Like many members of the starling family, Greater Hill Mynah's are superb mimics with a remarkable ability to reproduce the tones of the human voice. This makes them popular as cage and now some wild populations have been severely reduced by collecting. Hill mynahs are not just vocally outstanding. They're dapper looking birds too; glossy purplish-black with a white wing-patch and wattles of bright yellow skin under their eyes and around the back of their necks. The wild birds don't impersonate people though; it's only those captive birds which are amongst some of the best mimics of the human voice.


WED 06:00 Today (b04vkm6p)
Morning news and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.


WED 09:00 Midweek (b04vkm6r)
Julian and Jiaxin Lloyd Webber; Gurinder Chadha; Milton Jones; Dr Kevin Isaac

Libby Purves meets cellists Julian and Jiaxin Lloyd Webber; comedian Milton Jones; writer and director Gurinder Chadha and diplomat and poet, Dr Kevin Isaac.

Gurinder Chadha OBE is a Kenyan-born writer and director who is best known for her film, Bend it Like Beckham. The comedy tells the story of a young Asian woman's ambition to play football while accommodating the demands of family and tradition. Alongside composer Howard Goodall, Gurinder has transformed the screenplay into a new West End musical. Bend It Like Beckham: The Musical is at the Phoenix Theatre in London from May 2015.

Julian Lloyd Webber is an award-winning composer and cellist. His career began at 16 with a scholarship to the Royal College of Music. Later he studied in Geneva under renowned cellist, Pierre Fournier. His wife, Jiaxin Lloyd Webber, is a graduate of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and former principal cello of the Auckland Chamber Orchestra. Following the announcement of Andrew's retirement, the couple have created a new show reflecting on his life and career and featuring music from them both. Julian and Jiaxin Lloyd Webber are on tour in 2015.

Dr Kevin Isaac is the High Commissioner for St Kitts and Nevis to the Court of St James. A published poet, he has written several volumes of verse - a talent he discovered thanks to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office after he won an FCO-sponsored poetry competition. His latest collection, Breakfast with my Fathers, was inspired by his father and father-in-law. Breakfast with my Fathers is self-published.

Milton Jones is a comedian known for his surreal one-liners and deadpan delivery. He stars in the award-winning Radio 4 programme, Another Case of Milton Jones, and regularly appears on panel shows such as Mock the Week. He is touring his new stand-up show, The Temple of Daft, next year.

Producer: Paula McGinley.


WED 09:45 Book of the Week (b04vkc30)
Ian Bostridge - Schubert's Winter Journey

Episode 3

Award-winning tenor Ian Bostridge explores Franz Schubert's masterpiece Winterreise, or Winter's Journey. Drawing upon his experience as a performer (he has performed Winterreise more than a hundred times), on his musical knowledge and on his training as a scholar, Bostridge unpicks the enigmas and subtle meanings behind the songs to explore the world Schubert inhabited.

In this episode, he focuses on three songs: "Einsamkeit" (Loneliness), "Die Post" (The Post) and "Der greise Kopf" (The Old Man's Head).

Written and read by Ian Bostridge

Abridged by Laurence Wareing

Produced by Kirsteen Cameron.


WED 10:00 Woman's Hour (b04vkm6t)
British Queens; Millennium Development Goals; The General Election; Women's Sport

In September the Queen will become Britain's longest serving monarch. Royal Biographer Christopher Warwich and Tudor expert Sarah Gristwood discuss British Queens. In 2000, the UN adopted eight Millenium Development Goals to be achieved by 2015. How successful have they been? Penny Lawrence from Oxfam and Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka from UN Women discuss their impact on women. Newsnight's Political Editor Allegra Stratton takes a look at how women will influence the outcome of the 2015 General Election. Following an impressive new financial deal for women's tennis and the growing popularity of women's football, has women's sport finally come of age? We take a look at women's achievements in sport this year and ahead at the sporting events of 2015 with Eleanor Oldroyd. And another chance to hear our June interview with Angelina Jolie.
Presenter Jane Garvey
Producer Corinna Jones.


WED 10:40 15 Minute Drama (b04w0jxk)
Nigel Slater - Eating for England

Episode 3

Chocolates, least favourite sweets and funerals occupy Nigel's time.

Aunt Elvie......................Celia Imrie
Nigel Slater...................Julian Rhind-Tutt
Tony..............................Adrian Scarborough
Joan..............................Fenella Woolgar
Young Nigel...................Isaac Whitmore

In the bleak Christmas following his mother's death, the young Nigel Slater sought refuge in food. Sugar mice, pink wafers and mince pies helped him survive. So too did his Aunt Elvie who, against the wishes of his father, encouraged Nigel to cook.

Eating for England, the successor to his highly acclaimed memoir Toast, is part food memoir, part collective memory bank of a nation's taste. Using the book as source material along with further conversations with Nigel, dramatist Sarah Daniels has written a playful reimagining. A grown up Nigel - played by Julian Rhind-Tutt, looks back on his childhood while caring for a now elderly, yet ever sparkling, Aunt Elvie, played by Celia Imrie.

Rich with sounds of the kitchen and recorded on location, with a cameo performance from Nigel himself.

What drives a cook to write about food? Why is there such a powerful link between memory and what we eat? And why is reading about food so irresistibly appetising?

Dramatised by Sarah Daniels.

Sound design by Eloise Whitmore

Director: Polly Thomas

A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in December 2014.


WED 10:55 The Listening Project (b04vkm6w)
Sanchez and Han – Wife or Baby Mother

Fi Glover introduces a father, now happily married to the mother of the two youngest of his seven children, and his eldest son; should he wait until he's married to have children?

(Please note that, at the end of Fi's introduction to the conversation, she accidentally transposes the names of Han and Sanchez.)

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 learn more about The Listening Project by visiting bbc.co.uk/listeningproject

Producer: Marya Burgess


WED 11:00 Faultline Scotland (b04vkm6y)
The Independence Referendum was intended to settle the issue of Scotland's future for a generation. But has it highlighted - or even created - a crack down the centre of Scottish society? On one side, you have passionate yes voters; younger, mobilised, comfortable in social media, disengaged from UK politics, less "British" than before. On the other, you have older, perhaps wealthier people, who tend to remember Thatcher and the Cold War, and who may be more closely engaged with mainstream media. Aasmah Mir will walk this faultline in Scottish society. She'll speak to #the45 who are keeping Scottish Independence alive in social media, and those no voters who, heart-sore at the division caused by the referendum, are determined that the question is never ever put again.


WED 11:30 The Rivals (b04vkmhh)
Series 3

The Knight's Cross Signal Problem

Based on a short story by Ernest Bramah.
Dramatised by Chris Harrald.

Inspector Lestrade was made to look a fool in the Sherlock Holmes stories. Now he is writing his memoirs and has a chance to get his own back, with tales of Holmes' rivals. He continues with blind detective Max Carrados as they try to discover who caused a horrific train crash at Knights Cross where the driver of the train swears the light was green and the signalman swears the light was red.

Directed by Liz Webb

Episode by Chris Harrald inspired by the short story 'The Knight's Cross Signal Problem' by Ernest Bramah: http://fullreads.com/literature/the-knights-cross-signal-problem/.


WED 12:00 News Summary (b04vjvty)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


WED 12:04 Home Front (b04vkmwn)
New Year's Eve 1914 - Albert and Florrie Wilson

Can the Wilsons draw a line under the terrible events of 1914, by celebrating New Year in the time-honoured fashion?

Written by Katie Hims
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole
Sound: Martha Littlehailes


WED 12:15 You and Yours (b04vr5hr)
E-cigarettes; The vinyl revival; Nuisance calls; James and Jake Dyson

E-cigarettes have been last year's retail success, but they are still not fully accepted by the UK's public health authorities as a way to stop smoking. Is it time they changed their mind?

It's been more than a year since it became illegal for companies to sell on or leak details of your car accident to the claims management companies, but the practice is still happening. Will new Government fines stop the nuisance calls?

Also, James Dyson and son Jake talk to us about life in a design dynasty. And the revival in vinyl records sales continues apace, but is there the hardware to make enough records to go around?


WED 12:57 Weather (b04vjvv0)
The latest weather forecast.


WED 13:00 World at One (b04vr5ht)
Senior Labour MP David Lammy backs Blair's warning to Miliband. Shaun Ley reports on Labour's year. Shadow Cabinet Office minister Lucy Powell responds.

British doctor, Oliver Johnson, on same flight as nurse with Ebola tells us scaremongering over screening health workers could hamper efforts to combat the disease in West Africa.

Labour MP Simon Danczuk and Richard Fitzwilliams, a former editor of The International Who's Who, debate the merits of Fiona Woolf being made a Dame in the New Year's Honours List.

AFP photographer Joseph Eid talks about his work in Homs, scene of some of the most brutal fighting in the Syrian civil war. And could DNA defeat the dog owners who don't bother to pick up when it's dark?

Presented by Edward Stourton.


WED 13:45 Out of Armenia (b04w0jxm)
Venice

Guided by an earnest novice monk from the bells of Santa Croce to the Armenian monastery-island of San Lazzaro, Charles Emmerson continues to Venice on his journey through the Armenian diaspora of Europe.

Armenian traders have been in Venice for centuries. Tall tales of Armenians fighting with Venetians at Troy still circulate. But when the island of San Lazzaro, a former leper colony, was turned into an Armenian monastery in the early 18th century, it became a new magnet for Armenians in the city.

Over the years, San Lazzaro developed into a sacred citadel of Armenian culture. The monks collected together manuscripts and books of the Armenian world even as they turned to dust elsewhere. We hear the Armenian religious singing which the monks kept alive, and share the wonder of the Venetian Armenians who first heard it when they were young.

San Lazzaro's reputation spread - it's claimed Byron visited the island to learn the Armenian language by swimming all the way from the Venice shore. Charles learns of the very spot on the island where Byron came to meditate after trying to master the twists and turns of the semi-mystical Armenian alphabet.

Speaking with the monks today, Charles discovers the links which tie the monastery to the outside world, even as it becomes harder and harder to make up a football team for the island's meagre football pitch.

The gardener reveals the monastery's culinary secrets - rose-petal jam, and copious supplies of dairy products from the Lido. And as the mist draws in, and vespers end, the abbot takes out the monastery speedboat to return his visitors to the city. The island falls back into the protective silence of the night.

Produced by Cicely Fell
An Above The Title production for BBC Radio 4.


WED 14:00 The Archers (b04vkl9l)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Tuesday]


WED 14:15 Drama (b04vr5hw)
The Meet-Cute

Starring Mackenzie Crook and Rosie Cavaliero.

When his agent threatens to leave him, an emerging horror writer makes one last bid for success.

He teams up with the girl-next-door to write in a genre entirely unfamiliar to him - the romantic comedy. For her, rom-coms are a guilty pleasure: she literally keeps them in her closet.

Can they together find the perfect receipt for successful film-writing, or will they find themselves trapped in the middle of a romantic-comedy cliché?

Written by Ben Lewis
Sound by Elena Pena
Produced by Lu Kemp.

BBC Scotland.


WED 15:00 Afghan Women: Speaking Out, Losing Lives (b04tj384)
Afghan Women: Speaking Out, Losing Lives paints a vivid portrait of the everyday lives of girls and women at a turning point in Afghan history.

Lyse Doucet visits Kabul to see how the lives of Afghan girls and women have changed since the fall of the Taliban 13 years ago, and to hear concerns that these hard-won gains are already being threatened as the troops depart.

From female illiteracy to maternal mortality and sexual violence, Afghanistan is still one of the worst places on earth for women's rights.

Considerable advances have been made since the fall of the Taliban, as Lyse hears.

She speaks with Rula Ghani, whose very public profile as the new First Lady - the first First Lady in a generation - gives a sense of how women's opportunities are improving, at least in cities such as Kabul.

She visits the Rabia Balkhi Women's Hospital and the Zarghuna High School for Girls - the largest girls' school in the country. As doctors, midwives, new mothers, teachers, schoolgirls and one of the country's very few female rappers share their personal stories, she hears optimism about life in cities.

But these women also share their grave concerns.

Lyse hears shocking accounts of domestic violence and rape; the rapper, Paradise, shares the heart-breaking true story behind one of her songs; and Lyse chances upon an all too common instance of still-birth.

Additionally, the testimonies of three women who had shared their stories for a play specially commissioned by Amnesty International, and whom Lyse had hoped to meet, are read by the actor Olivia Colman, giving voice to the women who fear even today to speak out.

A timely portrait of Afghanistan from Lyse Doucet, the BBC's Chief International Correspondent

Producer : Beaty Rubens.


WED 15:30 All in the Mind (b04vklfv)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Tuesday]


WED 16:00 Thinking Allowed (b04vr5j0)
Self-help and Self-improvement

Self-help & self-improvement. As thoughts turn to resolutions and making a fresh start in 2015, Laurie Taylor wonders if his scepticism about self-help books and self-improvement programmes is well founded. He goes for advice to Christine Whelan - Professor in the School of Human Ecology at the University of Wisconsin and a self-help author. Further enlightenment is provided by Meg John Barker - Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the Open University - who has studied self-help literature dealing with sex and relationships and has also written what she describes as 'an anti self-help book'. And Rebecca Coleman - Senior Lecturer in Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London - explains how TV makeover shows and online dieting sites create powerfully gendered and class-based messages about changing our bodies.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod.


WED 16:30 The Media Show (b04vr5j2)
Host Graham Norton on the changing nature of the chat show

Chat shows have been the staple of TV schedules for decades. The Bee Gees storming off Clive Anderson's show, David Icke claiming to be the 'son of God' on Wogan, Victoria Beckham's 'Golden Balls' confession, and Grace Jones slapping Russell Harty, are considered some of the best of British chat show moments. However, some have lamented the demise of the 'traditional' talk show, where hosts do one-on-one in-depth interviews with celebrities. Instead, networks favour comedy entertainment shows, like Alan Carr and Graham Norton. So, why the change in style, and what are the ingredients for chat show success? Graham Norton joins Steve Hewlett to discuss chat show gold and explains how age, experience, and celebrity demands have influenced his style. Also in the studio; Elaine Bedell, Director of Entertainment and Comedy at ITV; Jonathan Shalit, Chair of talent management agency Roar Global, and the Guardian TV critic Julia Raeside. Together, they discuss how the changing nature of celebrity has had an impact on talk show styles, and ask where next for the genre.

Producer: Dianne McGregor.


WED 17:00 PM (b04vr5j4)
PM at 5pm- Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.


WED 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b04vjvv3)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


WED 18:15 Christmas With... (b04vr5j6)
Damien Trench - New Year's Eve

No-one likes New Year's Eve but don't worry, celebrated cookery writer and self-professed New Year's Eve celebrations specialist Damien Trench is on hand to impart his words of wisdom on how to make the perfect punch, what food to serve and most importantly, the best way of getting everyone to go home at the end of the night.


WED 18:30 What Does the K Stand For? (b04vr5j8)
Series 2

Turning Cheeks

Family arguments in the first in a series of Stephen K Amos' sitcom about his own teenage years, growing up black, gay and funny in 1980s South London.

Written by Jonathan Harvey with Stephen K Amos.

Producer: Colin Anderson.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2014.


WED 19:00 The Archers (b04vr5jb)
At Brookfield, the atmosphere is charged with Carol's strong cocktails. Carol hints to David about Jill's unease. But David tells Kenton he has no doubts about the move. David reassures Jill. They will miss her, but will make things work in Hexham.

Josh and Johnny are doing 'dares' at the Young Farmers 'apres ski' party. Josh has soon had too many and falls over. Phoebe offers to stay with him but Johnny gallantly steps up.

While she's waiting for Harrison, Fallon gives keyed-up Kenton a hand at the Bull ahead of his busy night. Kenton reveals that once the Brookfield money has come in he's planning to put some aside for his daughter Meriel, and maybe take a trip Down Under.

When Harrison finally arrives, he's full of apologies for his lateness. He promises Fallon he's the real deal. Fallon assures him it's fine. She's cheered up hugely by the news from Kenton that he and Jolene intend to give her a chunk of money to help set up her business.

As they look at the stars, Harrison wants to hold on to the moment. If he's standing in this exact spot with Fallon this time next year, he'll have done all right. They kiss.


WED 19:15 Front Row (b04vr5jd)
People of the Year - Part Two

In the second programme celebrating the arts highlights from 2014, John Wilson hears from Benedict Cumberbatch, Timothy Spall, Keira Knightley and Eddie Redmayne as they discuss the challenges of playing real life figures in film. Dolly Parton, Joan Baez, Iggy Pop and Emma Thompson talk about the impact of age on their chosen careers as Daria Klimentova explains why she decided to retire from the world of ballet. Michael Sheen discusses his passion for Dylan Thomas in this anniversary year, and Simon Schama and Hilary Spurling enthuse about Rembrandt and Matisse. And pop newcomers, Sam Smith and Young Fathers reflect on their successes over the last year.


WED 19:45 15 Minute Drama (b04w0jxk)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:40 today]


WED 20:00 Four Thought (b04wh7xt)
Best of Four Thought

Kamin Mohammadi presents three of the best recent episodes of Four Thought, each addressing a state of mind.

The talks include Amia Srinivasan on the potential benefits of anger, Mark O'Connell discussing his own constitutional ambivalence and Farrah Jarral on cheekiness.

Producer: Giles Edwards.


WED 20:45 Four Thought (b04wh7xy)
Series 4

Keeping It Personal

Darren Harris, a double paralympic athlete and mathematics graduate, draws similarities between people and prime numbers: each is indivisible and unique. In the age of big data, he makes the case for a more person-centred approach in public services. And he finds it in an unexpected place, somewhere more usually associated with a 'win at all costs' mentality: elite sport.

Producer: Giles Edwards.


WED 21:00 Music to Save Grimethorpe (b04vjh7w)
Ian McMillan, Yorkshire poet and broadcaster, was born and brought up near Grimethorpe, home of one of the most famous brass bands in the world - Grimethorpe Colliery Brass Band. He knows and loves their music, and understands their importance to the local community. In this programme, he celebrates brass band music, revels in its power and precision and explores it's meaning in a world where coal-mining has all but disappeared.
Throughout the twentieth century, the local brass band was a badge of pride for British industry that sat at the very centre of the community. Grimethorpe Colliery Brass Band was founded in 1917 and paid for by the pit to offer miners a hobby. After the mine shut, its fight to survive inspired the 1995 film Brassed Off, starring Ewan McGregor and Tara Fitzgerald.

Through thick and thin, Grimethorpe Colliery Band have toughed it out and remained one of the world's best known brass bands. The band manager Nigel Dixon and trustees have committed to staying involved as long as they can and have turned attention to trying everything they can to save Grimethorpe.

To hear them strike up, there is no other sound like it and this programme is filled with their wonderful, rich, colourful, emotional sounds.

Ian McMillan meets members of the band, sits in on rehearsals, and finds out how they fight to survive financial catastrophe. He talks to the community as the band push on with their work of funding music education in the local school so that children can learn instruments for free and, for one or two, offer the potential to change their lives too, in the same way most of the current Grimethorpe band first started out.

Produced by Bob Dickinson
A Sparklab production

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2014.


WED 21:30 Midweek (b04vkm6r)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]


WED 21:58 Weather (b04vjvv5)
The latest weather forecast.


WED 22:00 The World Tonight (b04vr5jj)
Is inequality on the rise? David Eades presents a special edition of The World Tonight. Has a new class of global super-rich emerged and is the traditional middle class disappearing? We hear from Switzerland, China and the UK.


WED 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b04vr5jl)
The Girls of Slender Means

It's Just a Girls' Hostel

'Few people alive at the time were more delightful, more ingenuous, more movingly lovely, and as it might happen, more savage than the girls of slender means.'

Emilia Fox reads Muriel Spark's rapier-witted portrait of the lives and loves of a group of genteel but impoverished young women in postwar London. In the so-called May of Teck Club, a boarding house for single ladies, life carries on as if the world were back to normal: elocution lessons, poetry recitals, jostling over suitors and the sharing of a single taffeta gown. But the war has ended and things are not normal and never again will be. Into this world arrives Nicolas Farringdon, a writer and anarchist, who is beguiled by these girls of slender means and their giddy, carefree lives. This meeting, we soon learn, will end in his death.

Today: Writer and would-be anarchist, Nicolas, becomes more and more intoxicated by the 'girls of slender means'.

Spark's 1963 novel, The Girls of Slender Means, has become a modern classic. AL Kennedy has called it: 'An uncompromisingly well-crafted book: lean, ironic, funny, penetrating, unsettling and very, very beautiful. Welcome to the English language as operated by an expert.'
Muriel Spark was an award-winning Scottish novelist and biographer, known best for her acclaimed novel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.


WED 23:00 Fresh from the Fringe 2014 (b04wh7y3)
Long Showcase of new comedy talent from the 2014 Edinburgh Fringe, hosted by Jason Cook and featuring Fosters award-winners Alex Edelman (newcomer) and Funz and Gamez (panel prize), along with Suzi Ruffell, Gein's Family Giftshop, Lolly Adefope, Tamar Broadbent, Rhys James, Massive Dad, Natasia Demetriou and Dane Baptiste.

Produced by Lyndsay Fenner.


WED 23:30 Don't Log Off (b04jlpn1)
Series 5

Going It Alone

Alan Dein crosses the world via Facebook and Skype, hearing the real life dramas of random strangers.

This week he speaks to people who, through choice or circumstance, are going it alone.

He hears from a Chinese student, now living in Los Angeles, who is coping with living alone in a foreign country and has come to terms with his stutter without the help of a speech therapist.

A woman from Australia explains how she is overcoming the disappointment of being jilted by her Vietnamese fiancé while another in Argentina explains why she wants to remain alone having lost her savings in pursuit of a relationship.

And finally he hears from a widow in London who is haunted by her husband's death.

Producer: Clare Walker.



THURSDAY 01 JANUARY 2015

THU 00:00 Midnight News (b04vkc2y)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.


THU 00:15 Dog Days (b0371j3z)
Niki

Robert Hanks tells of a human obsession through four doggy books. Niki by Tibor Dery. If a dog could vote, would it? With Prill Barrett, John Bradshaw and Ian Bruce Miller and Jem, the border terrier, and Timmy the whippet. Producer: Tim Dee.


THU 00:30 Book of the Week (b04vkc30)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:45 on Wednesday]


THU 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b04vjvw6)
The latest shipping forecast.


THU 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b04vjvw8)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


THU 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b04vjvwb)
The latest shipping forecast.


THU 05:30 News Briefing (b04vjvwf)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


THU 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b04w4xz6)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with the Rt Rev'd Richard Chartres, Bishop of London.


THU 05:45 Farming Today (b04vkc3w)
Country Estate

Sally Challoner meets some of the staff and tenant farmers at Berkeley Castle - one of the UK's oldest country estates. Covering 6,000 acres in Gloucestershire, the estate is also home to a medieval deer park, and takes in part of the River Severn. We catch up with the heir to the estate, and find out how old traditions meet modern land management practices.
There are now 18 tenant farms on the estate, along with several houses and two pubs. And difficult decisions sometimes have to be made to keep the castle running. But today the Berkeley family meet with the staff to hand out parcels of venison from the estate's deer park, as a thank you for the year just gone.


THU 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b04t0mqf)
White Tern

Tweet of the Day is the voice of birds and our relationship with them, from around the world.

Sir David Attenborough presents the widespread marine species, the white tern. Also known as fairy terns or angel terns, these are very slender, long-winged birds, brilliant white except for a black, slightly-upturned bill, dark eyes and very short blue-grey legs. In flight, their wings appear almost translucent. For such a delicate-looking bird, they have rather harsh calls. Unusually they lay their eggs on a bare branch. The female tern selects a small groove in the bark or on the leaf-stalks of palms where her single egg will be most secure. Here, on its tropical tightrope, the egg is safer from ground predators like rats and because there's no nesting material, there's less chance of parasites.


THU 06:00 Today (b04vkc6k)
Morning news and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.


THU 09:00 War and Peace (b04w82wc)
Episode 1

The fortunes of three Russian aristocratic families during the Napoleonic War.

A dynamic fresh dramatisation by Timberlake Wertenbaker of Leo Tolstoy's epic - from the translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokonsky.

Starring Lesley Manville, John Hurt, Alun Armstrong and Harriet Walter.

There's a lively dinner party at the Rostov family home and Anna Mikhailovna Dubretskoy is in battle with Prince Vassily over the will and inheritance of the wealthy Count Bezukhov. It seems Pierre, his illegitimate son, may inherit the Count's vast fortune. Meanwhile, Andrei's decision to join the army causes tension between him and his pregnant wife, Lise.

The story moves between their past and present as Pierre, Natasha, Marya and Nikolai talk to their children about the events that shaped their lives and the lives of every Russian who lived through these troubled times.

War and Peace reflects the panorama of life at every level of Russian society in this period. The longest of 19th-century novels, it's an epic story in which historical, social, ethical and religious issues are explored on a scale never before attempted in fiction.

Paterson Joseph ...... Pierre Bezuhkov
Lesley Manville ...... Countess Rostov
John Hurt ...... Prince Bolkonsky
Alun Armstrong ...... Count Rostov
Phoebe Fox ...... Natasha Rostov
Sam Reid ...... Nikolai Rostov
Tamzin Merchant ...... Sonya Rostov
Stephen Campbell Moore ...... Andrei Bolkonsky
Natasha Little ...... Marya Bolkonsky
Roger Allam ...... General Kutuzov
Harriet Walter ...... Mikhailovna Drubetskoy

Director: Celia de Wolff
Executive Producer: Peter Hoare

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2015.


THU 10:00 War and Peace (b04w82wf)
Episode 2

Having inherited his father's fortune, Pierre becomes the new Count Bezukhov and the richest man in Russia. Prince Vassily's charming daughter, Helene, captures Pierre's attention and before long they are married. But will it be a happy match?

Meanwhile, Princess Marya is being wooed by Helen's wily brother, Anatole, while war dominates for others - Prince Andrei is building a respectful relationship with General Kutuzov and courageously speaks out to Prince Bagration in defence of Captain Tushin while Nikolai is wounded at Shoengraben. The Battle of Austerlitz is imminent.

A dynamic fresh dramatisation by Timberlake Wertenbaker of Leo Tolstoy's epic - from the translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokonsky - follows the fortunes of three Russian aristocratic families during the Napoleonic War. Starring Lesley Manville, John Hurt, Alun Armstrong and Harriet Walter.

The story moves between their past and present as Pierre, Natasha, Marya and Nikolai talk to their children about the events that shaped their lives and the lives of every Russian who lived through these troubled times.

War and Peace reflects the panorama of life at every level of Russian society in this period. The longest of 19th-century novels, it's an epic story in which historical, social, ethical and religious issues are explored on a scale never before attempted in fiction.

Alex Shiels … Sergei Rostov
Ben Crowe … Mikhail Mitrich
Charlotte Emmerson … Helen Kuragin
Daniel Flynn … Regimental Commander
David Calder … Prince Vassily Kuragin
David Collings … Shinshin
Ella Dale … Masha Bezukhov
Ferdinand Kingsley … Anatole Kuragin
Harriet Walter … Anna Mikhailovna Drubetskoy
Hazel Ellerby … Julia's mother
Jed Vine … Petya Rostov
Joanna David … Annette Scherer
Joel Msccormack … Boris Drubetskoy
John Hurt … Prince Bolkonsky
Jonathan Slinger … Captain Denisov
Kathleen Keaney … Liza Rostov
Miss Nelly Harker … Lise Bolkonsky
Alun Armstrong … Count Rostov
Emerald O'Hanrahan … Julia Karagan
Lesley Manville … Countess Rostov
Natasha Little … Marya Bolkonsky
Paterson Joseph … Pierre Bezuhkov
Phoebe Fox … Natasha Rostov
Pip Donaghy … Colonel of the House
Roger Allam … General Kutuzov
Roger May … Prince Bagration
Sam Blatchford … Andrusha Rostov
Sam Dale … Alpatych
Sam Reid … Nikolai Rostov
Sarah Badel … Maria Demitrievna
Serena Evans … Catiche
Stanley Toyne … Mitya Rostov
Stephen Campbell Moore … Andrei Bolkonsky
Tamzin Merchant … Sonya Rostov
Tom Glenister … Nikolenka Bolkonsky

Director: Celia de Wolff
Executive Producer: Peter Hoare

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2015.


THU 11:00 War and Peace (b04w82wh)
Episode 3

Napoleon maps out his strategic plan against the Russians at Austerlitz. General Kutuzov and Andrei are both wounded in the battle and Andrei's family don't know if he is alive. Meanwhile, Pierre challenges Dolokhov to a duel over Helene - he suspects them of being lovers - and Pierre and Helene argue, but she refuses to separate. Denisov and Nikolai return to the Rostov home while at Bald Hills, Lise is in childbirth but will she and Andrei ever see each again?

A dynamic fresh dramatisation by Timberlake Wertenbaker of Leo Tolstoy's epic - from the translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokonsky - follows the fortunes of three Russian aristocratic families during the Napoleonic War. Starring Lesley Manville, John Hurt, Alun Armstrong and Harriet Walter.

The story moves between their past and present as Pierre, Natasha, Marya and Nikolai talk to their children about the events that shaped their lives and the lives of every Russian who lived through these troubled times.

War and Peace reflects the panorama of life at every level of Russian society in this period. The longest of 19th-century novels, it's an epic story in which historical, social, ethical and religious issues are explored on a scale never before attempted in fiction.

Alex Shiels … Sergei Rostov
Ben Crowe … Mikhail Mitrich
Charlotte Emmerson … Helene Kuragin
Daniel Flynn … Regimental Commander
David Calder … Prince Vassily Kuragin
David Collings … Shinshin
Ella Dale … Masha Bezukhov
Ferdinand Kingsley … Anatole Kuragin
Harriet Walter … Anna Mikhailovna Drubetskoy
Hazel Ellerby … Julia's mother
Jed Vine … Petya Rostov
Joanna David … Annette Scherer
Joel Maccormack … Boris Drubetskoy
John Hurt … Prince Bolkonsky
Jonathan Slinger … Captain Denisov
Kathleen Keaney … Liza Rostov
Nelly Harker … Lise Bolkonsky
Alun Armstrong … Count Rostov
Emerald O'Hanrahan … Julia Karagan
Lesley Manville … Countess Rostov
Natasha Little … Marya Bolkonsky
Paterson Joseph … Pierre Bezuhkov
Phoebe Fox … Natasha Rostov
Pip Donaghy … Colonel of the Hussars
Roger Allam … General Kutuzov
Roger May … Prince Bagration
Sam Blatchford … Andrusha Rostov
Sam Dale … Alpatych
Sam Reid … Nikolai Rostov
Sarah Badel … Maria Demitrievna
Serena Evans … Catiche
Stanley Toyne … Mitya Rostov
Stephen Campbell Moore … Andrei Bolkonsky
Tamzin Merchant … Sonya Rostov
Tom Glenister … Nikolenka Bolkonsky

Director: Celia de Wolff
Executive Producer: Peter Hoare

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2015.


THU 12:00 War and Peace (b04w82wl)
Episode 4

Pierre meets a wise stranger, Bazdeev, and becomes a Freemason. Natasha catches the eye of Captain Denisov who rashly proposes – Countess Rostov sets him straight. Nikolai confesses his huge gambling debts to his father, Count Rostov, and vows never to gamble again. General Denisov vows never to propose again.

Following Lise's death, Pierre visits Bald Hills to try and console a broken Andrei and siblings Andrei and Marya draw close when Andrei's young son, Nikolenka, is dangerously ill. Meanwhile, on the battlefield, Denisov takes drastic action to feed his starving troops but the consequences are harsh. And following a business visit to Count Rostov, Andrei encounters Natasha Rostov and is enchanted – he wants to live again.

A dynamic fresh dramatisation by Timberlake Wertenbaker of Leo Tolstoy's epic - from the translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokonsky - follows the fortunes of three Russian aristocratic families during the Napoleonic War. Starring Lesley Manville, John Hurt, Alun Armstrong and Harriet Walter.

The story moves between their past and present as Pierre, Natasha, Marya and Nikolai talk to their children about the events that shaped their lives and the lives of every Russian who lived through these troubled times.

War and Peace reflects the panorama of life at every level of Russian society in this period. The longest of 19th-century novels, it's an epic story in which historical, social, ethical and religious issues are explored on a scale never before attempted in fiction.

Alex Shiels … Sergei Rostov
Ben Crowe … Mikhail Mitrich
Charlotte Emmerson … Helene Kuragin
Daniel Flynn … Regimental Commander
David Calder … Prince Vassily Kuragin
David Collings … Shinshin
Ella Dale … Masha Bezukhov
Ferdinand Kingsley … Anatole Kuragin
Harriet Walter … Anna Mikhailovna Drubetskoy
Hazel Ellerby … Julia's mother
Jed Vine … Petya Rostov
Joanna David … Annette Scherer
Joel Maccormack … Boris Drubetskoy
John Hurt … Prince Bolkonsky
Jonathan Slinger … Captain Denisov
Kathleen Keaney … Liza Rostov
Nelly Harker … Lise Bolkonsky
Alun Armstrong … Count Rostov
Emerald O'Hanrahan … Julia Karagan
Lesley Manville … Countess Rostov
Natasha Little … Marya Bolkonsky
Paterson Joseph … Pierre Bezuhkov
Phoebe Fox … Natasha Rostov
Pip Donaghy … Colonel of the Hussars
Roger Allam … General Kutuzov
Roger May … Prince Bagration
Sam Blatchford … Andrusha Rostov
Sam Dale … Alpatych
Sam Reid … Nikolai Rostov
Sarah Badel … Maria Demitrievna
Serena Evans … Catiche
Stanley Toyne … Mitya Rostov
Stephen Campbell Moore … Andrei Bolkonsky
Tamzin Merchant … Sonya Rostov
Tom Glenister … Nikolenka Bolkonsky

Director: Celia de Wolff
Executive Producer: Peter Hoare

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2015.


THU 13:00 News (b04vjvwn)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


THU 13:15 Death of An Orchestra (b04v381r)
Alan Bennett recalls his regular boyhood visits to hear the Yorkshire Symphony Orchestra. With other keen supporters and former members, he tells the Orchestra's history from 1947 to its demise in 1955.

Amid the austerity of the post-war years, the YSO was founded in a spirit of great optimism to provide first class orchestral music for the citizens of Yorkshire. It was based in Leeds Town Hall, and funded entirely out of the Rates. The inaugural concert book expressed the hope that it would "find a permanent place in the musical life of Yorkshire and rank with the finest orchestras of this country".
The founder conductor was Maurice Miles, who appears in the only recording of the YSO to survive in the BBC Archive.

There were guest appearances by Sir Malcolm Sargent, Sir Thomas Beecham and Sir Adrian Boult, and visits from glittering soloists such as Joan Hammond and Tito Gobbi.

As a Leeds schoolboy, Alan Bennett found these figures from the outside world "tinged with great glamour". Violinist Rodney Friend, another supporter, was a winner of the YSO's competition for young soloists before becoming leader of the LPO, the New York Philharmonic and the BBC SO.

Eight former members of the orchestra, now scattered around the country, describe life in the YSO: cold rickety buses, romance, and the thrill of the great conductor Nikolai Malko arriving for the final season. They recall their shock on discovering that the Orchestra was to be disbanded and the sadness of the final concert.

Produced by Susan Kenyon
A Whistledown production first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2014.


THU 13:45 Out of Armenia (b04w0k5n)
Istanbul

"I see them, I see them myself, I see them all the time."

Charles Emmerson continues to Istanbul on his journey through the Armenian diaspora communities of Europe. He learns how the murder of Turkish-Armenian newspaper editor Hrant Dink in 2007 - reported and condemned worldwide - has changed relations between the city's Turks and Armenians. Long suppressed or hidden, Istanbul's Armenian life is seeping back to the surface. Subjects long taboo are now discussed openly.

Armenians have lived in Istanbul for centuries - jewellers, porters, businessmen and architects. They have had a patriarch in the city since just a few years after the Turkish conquest.

Yet when Hrant Dink was shot dead by a radical Turkish nationalist outside his office one Friday afternoon, many outside Turkey were surprised to learn that Armenians still lived in Istanbul at all.

The moment became a watershed. Turks appeared on the streets of Istanbul bearing banners reading 'We are all Armenians'.

Istanbul Armenians tell Charles of their pride in their culture and their city, and of their determination to continue Hrant Dink's legacy, building a new relationship with their Turkish friends and compatriots. Rober Koptas, Agos' current editor, takes Charles to the paper's cramped first floor offices. The paper's purpose now, he says, is to be "a playground, not a castle".

In a bustling Armenian restaurant - the city's only Armenian restaurant - Charles runs into Turkish-Armenian photographer Ara Güler, Istanbul's Cartier-Bresson, and hears the story of his most famous photograph. Speaking to a publisher we discover how literature is drawing Turks and Armenians closer together.

Produced by Cicely Fell
An Above The Title production for BBC Radio 4.


THU 14:00 The Archers (b04vr5jb)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Wednesday]


THU 14:15 War and Peace (b04w89tp)
Episode 5

There is much excitement as the Rostov family is invited to the Emperor's New Year's Eve Ball where Andrei meets Natasha Rostov for the first time. The two of them fall deeply in love, but are the rumours of his proposal to her true? And how will Andrei's domineering father, Prince Bolkonsky, react to the news?

Pierre, still a freemason, is growing increasingly distant from Helene. Meanwhile the Rostov family is in an increasingly dire financial position and Countess Rostov is desperate for Nikolai to marry Julia Karagin whose wealth could save them. But Nikolai and his penniless cousin Sonya love each other and are determined to marry.

A dynamic fresh dramatisation by Timberlake Wertenbaker of Leo Tolstoy's epic - from the translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokonsky - follows the fortunes of three Russian aristocratic families during the Napoleonic War. Starring Lesley Manville, John Hurt, Alun Armstrong and Harriet Walter.

The story moves between their past and present as Pierre, Natasha, Marya and Nikolai talk to their children about the events that shaped their lives and the lives of every Russian who lived through these troubled times.

War and Peace reflects the panorama of life at every level of Russian society in this period. The longest of 19th-century novels, it's an epic story in which historical, social, ethical and religious issues are explored on a scale never before attempted in fiction.

Alex Shiels … Sergei Rostov
Ben Crowe … Mikhail Mitrich
Charlotte Emmerson … Helene Kuragin
Daniel Flynn … Regimental Commander
David Calder … Prince Vassily Kuragin
David Collings … Shinshin
Ella Dale … Masha Bezukhov
Ferdinand Kingsley … Anatole Kuragin
Harriet Walter … Anna Mikhailovna Drubetskoy
Hazel Ellerby … Julia's mother
Jed Vine … Petya Rostov
Joanna David … Annette Scherer
Joel Maccormack … Boris Drubetskoy
John Hurt … Prince Bolkonsky
Jonathan Slinger … Captain Denisov
Kathleen Keaney … Liza Rostov
Nelly Harker … Lise Bolkonsky
Alun Armstrong … Count Rostov
Emerald O'Hanrahan … Julia Karagan
Lesley Manville … Countess Rostov
Natasha Little … Marya Bolkonsky
Paterson Joseph … Pierre Bezuhkov
Phoebe Fox … Natasha Rostov
Pip Donaghy … Colonel of the Hussars
Roger Allam … General Kutuzov
Roger May … Prince Bagration
Sam Blatchford … Andrusha Rostov
Sam Dale … Alpatych
Sam Reid … Nikolai Rostov
Sarah Badel … Maria Demitrievna
Serena Evans … Catiche
Stanley Toyne … Mitya Rostov
Stephen Campbell Moore … Andrei Bolkonsky
Tamzin Merchant … Sonya Rostov
Tom Glenister … Nikolenka Bolkonsky

Director: Celia de Wolff
Executive Producer: Peter Hoare

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2015.


THU 15:00 War and Peace (b04w89ty)
Episode 6

Natasha struggles to cope with Andrei's absence and is sent to stay with her Godmother in Moscow, so that she can meet with Prince Bolkonsky and Marya in an attempt to win them over. It all goes wrong when she is tempted to stray by the two timing Anatole Kuragin who immediately fills Natasha's head with promises of his love. Could Natasha be about to throw away everything she already has with her beloved fiancee, Andrei, for the hand of this wicked Prince?

A dynamic fresh dramatisation by Timberlake Wertenbaker of Leo Tolstoy's epic - from the translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokonsky - follows the fortunes of three Russian aristocratic families during the Napoleonic War. Starring Lesley Manville, John Hurt, Alun Armstrong and Harriet Walter.

The story moves between their past and present as Pierre, Natasha, Marya and Nikolai talk to their children about the events that shaped their lives and the lives of every Russian who lived through these troubled times.

War and Peace reflects the panorama of life at every level of Russian society in this period. The longest of 19th-century novels, it's an epic story in which historical, social, ethical and religious issues are explored on a scale never before attempted in fiction. From this, Timberlake Wertenbaker has created a riveting radio dramatisation in ten episodes.

Leo Tolstoy … Author
Timberlake Wertenbaker … Dramatist

Alex Shiels … Sergei Rostov
Ben Crowe … Mikhail Mitrich
Charlotte Emmerson … Helene Kuragin
Daniel Flynn … Regimental Commander
David Calder … Prince Vassily Kuragin
David Collings … Shinshin
Ella Dale … Masha Bezukhov
Ferdinand Kingsley … Anatole Kuragin
Harriet Walter … Anna Mikhailovna Drubetskoy
Hazel Ellerby … Julia's mother
Jed Vine … Petya Rostov
Joanna David … Annette Scherer
Joel Maccormack … Boris Drubetskoy
John Hurt … Prince Bolkonsky
Jonathan Slinger … Captain Denisov
Kathleen Keaney … Liza Rostov
Nelly Harker … Lise Bolkonsky
Alun Armstrong … Count Rostov
Emerald O'Hanrahan … Julia Karagan
Lesley Manville … Countess Rostov
Natasha Little … Marya Bolkonsky
Paterson Joseph … Pierre Bezuhkov
Phoebe Fox … Natasha Rostov
Pip Donaghy … Colonel of the Hussars
Roger Allam … General Kutuzov
Roger May … Prince Bagration
Sam Blatchford … Andrusha Rostov
Sam Dale … Alpatych
Sam Reid … Nikolai Rostov
Sarah Badel … Maria Demitrievna
Serena Evans … Catiche
Stanley Toyne … Mitya Rostov
Stephen Campbell Moore … Andrei Bolkonsky
Tamzin Merchant … Sonya Rostov
Tom Glenister … Nikolenka Bolkonsky

Director: Celia de Wolff
Executive Producer: Peter Hoare

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2015.


THU 16:00 War and Peace (b04w89v2)
Episode 7

Andrei grows ever more bitter about Natasha's behaviour with Anatole Karagin and, after a heated argument with his father, feels he has little choice but to leave Bald Hills in order to rejoin the army and forget the past. Petya, the youngest child of the Rostovs also wants to join the army much to the horror and worry of the Countess.

Meanwhile, Pierre is convinced that he is on a mission to single-handedly save Russia from Napoleon, while his own feelings towards Natasha could be something more than just those of a concerned 'guardian'. As the war continues to spread across Russia, Prince Bolkonsky and Marya are warned by Andrei that troops could be drawing closer to their home near Smolensk. The news is too much for the old Prince.

A dynamic fresh dramatisation by Timberlake Wertenbaker of Leo Tolstoy's epic - from the translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokonsky - follows the fortunes of three Russian aristocratic families during the Napoleonic War. Starring Lesley Manville, John Hurt, Alun Armstrong and Harriet Walter.

The story moves between their past and present as Pierre, Natasha, Marya and Nikolai talk to their children about the events that shaped their lives and the lives of every Russian who lived through these troubled times.

War and Peace reflects the panorama of life at every level of Russian society in this period. The longest of 19th-century novels, it's an epic story in which historical, social, ethical and religious issues are explored on a scale never before attempted in fiction. From this, Timberlake Wertenbaker has created a riveting radio dramatisation in ten episodes.

Leo Tolstoy … Author
Timberlake Wertenbaker … Dramatist

Alex Shiels … Sergei Rostov
Alun Armstrong … Count Rostov
Ben Crowe … Mikhail Mitrich
Charlotte Emmerson … Helen Kuragin
Daniel Flynn … Regimental Commander
David Calder … Prince Vassily Kuragin
David Collings … Shinshin
Ella Dale … Masha Bezukhov
Emerald O'Hanrahan … Julia Karagan
Ferdinand Kingsley … Anatole Kuragin
Harriet Walter … Anna Mikhailovna Drubetskoy
Hazel Ellerby … Julia's mother
Jed Vine … Petya Rostov
Joanna David … Annette Scherer
Joel Maccormack … Boris Drubetskoy
John Hurt … Prince Bolkonsky
Jonathan Slinger … Captain Denisov
Kathleen Keaney … Liza Rostov
Lesley Manville … Countess Rostov
Miss Nelly Harker … Lise Bolkonsky
Natasha Little … Marya Bolkonsky
Paterson Joseph … Pierre Bezuhkov
Phoebe Fox … Natasha Rostov
Pip Donaghy … Colonel of the House
Roger Allam … General Kutuzov
Roger May … Prince Bagration
Sam Blatchford … Andrusha Rostov
Sam Dale … Alpatych
Sam Reid … Nikolai Rostov
Sarah Badel … Maria Demitrievna
Serena Evans … Catiche
Stanley Toyne … Mitya Rostov
Stephen Campbell Moore … Andrei Bolkonsky
Tamzin Merchant … Sonya Rostov
Tom Glenister … Nikolenka Bolkonsky

Director: Celia de Wolff
Executive Producer: Peter Hoare

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2015.


THU 17:00 War and Peace (b04w89v4)
Episode 8

Marya flees Bald Hills when it is subject to attack from the French army. After being rescued by Nikolai from a near peasants’ revolt, they both realise their mutual love for one another, despite Nikolai already being promised to Sonya.

Pierre decides to visit the Battlefields at Borodino where he encounters Andrei who is now living in a broken down shed and desperately trying to forget his previous life. General Kutuzov is leading the cavalry. Despite Pierre warning Andrei of the rumours that Kutuzov is a traitor to the Russians and questioning whether Kutuzov is a skilled commander, Andrei believes that, with Kutuzov by their side, they will win the battle. Although, unknown to Andrei, Kutuzov may have to sacrifice Moscow in the process.

A dynamic fresh dramatisation by Timberlake Wertenbaker of Leo Tolstoy's epic - from the translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokonsky - follows the fortunes of three Russian aristocratic families during the Napoleonic War. Starring Lesley Manville, John Hurt, Alun Armstrong and Harriet Walter

The story moves between their past and present as Pierre, Natasha, Marya and Nikolai talk to their children about the events that shaped their lives and the lives of every Russian who lived through these troubled times.

War and Peace reflects the panorama of life at every level of Russian society in this period. The longest of 19th-century novels, it's an epic story in which historical, social, ethical and religious issues are explored on a scale never before attempted in fiction. From this, Timberlake Wertenbaker has created a riveting radio dramatisation in ten episodes.

Leo Tolstoy … Author
Timberlake Wertenbaker … Dramatist

Alex Shiels … Sergei Rostov
Alun Armstrong … Count Rostov
Ben Crowe … Mikhail Mitrich
Charlotte Emmerson … Helen Kuragin
Daniel Flynn … Regimental Commander
David Calder … Prince Vassily Kuragin
David Collings … Shinshin
Ella Dale … Masha Bezukhov
Emerald O'Hanrahan … Julia Karagan
Ferdinand Kingsley … Anatole Kuragin
Harriet Walter … Anna Mikhailovna Drubetskoy
Hazel Ellerby … Julia's mother
Jed Vine … Petya Rostov
Joanna David … Annette Scherer
Joel Maccormack … Boris Drubetskoy
John Hurt … Prince Bolkonsky
Jonathan Slinger … Captain Denisov
Kathleen Keaney … Liza Rostov
Lesley Manville … Countess Rostov
Miss Nelly Harker … Lise Bolkonsky
Natasha Little … Marya Bolkonsky
Paterson Joseph … Pierre Bezuhkov
Phoebe Fox … Natasha Rostov
Pip Donaghy … Colonel of the House
Roger Allam … General Kutuzov
Roger May … Prince Bagration
Sam Blatchford … Andrusha Rostov
Sam Dale … Alpatych
Sam Reid … Nikolai Rostov
Sarah Badel … Maria Demitrievna
Serena Evans … Catiche
Stanley Toyne … Mitya Rostov
Stephen Campbell Moore … Andrei Bolkonsky
Tamzin Merchant … Sonya Rostov
Tom Glenister … Nikolenka Bolkonsky

Director: Celia de Wolff
Executive Producer: Peter Hoare

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2015.


THU 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b04vjvwt)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


THU 18:15 Christmas With... (b04vkglq)
Damien Trench - New Year's Day

Renowned cookery Damien Trench is a man who's had more than his fair share of raucous New Year's Eve parties and therefore has more than a little wisdom to impart on how best to set about the clean up operation that must inevitably follow any evening of high-tempo ritournelles and roundalays.


THU 18:30 My Teenage Diary (b04vkgls)
Series 6

Alex Horne

Comedian Alex Horne's teenage diary focuses on his 1997 gap year, which he spent teaching English in China. But looking back, Alex wishes he'd spent more time teaching grammar, and less time worrying about girls and sampling the local nightlife.

Produced by Harriet Jaine
A Talkback production for BBC Radio 4.


THU 19:00 The Archers (b04xgj8k)
It's still New Year's Eve. Phoebe, Josh, Johnny and Pip are letting their hair down at the Young Farmers party. Things get a little messy between Josh and Johnny. Phoebe tells Johnny not to worry. Josh is probably just emotional because he's leaving soon. She remarks wistfully that Josh is lucky. His parents are so normal.
The lively atmosphere spills over into chaos when drunk Josh knocks over an ice sculpture with his dance moves.
At the Lower Loxley ball, Kate is hitting the champagne. Adam is concerned, and eventually Kate admits she's messed up. She's had another affair, and her marriage is over. But the real problem is that she married the wrong man. She doesn't miss Lucas. He's taken the children back to Johannesburg, but they're happy and settled so maybe that's how it has to be for now. And it means she has another chance here with Phoebe.
Adam's reluctance to party is noted by Charlie. He thinks Adam should try letting go. On the other hand, Kate and Charlie are getting on like a house on fire. Adam warns Kate off, telling her Charlie's not to be trusted. Kate counters that Charlie's fun. If she didn't know Adam better she'd say he was jealous. Don't be ridiculous, retorts Adam.


THU 19:15 War and Peace (b04w89v9)
Episode 9

As the Rostovs pack up ready to leave Moscow, Natasha invites all the wounded soldiers to stay in their house. Nikolai is still in love with Marya but feels he cannot go back on his promise to Sonya. That night, a wounded officer is wheeled into the courtyard – Prince Andrei – who Sonya is told won't live long. She and the Countess decide not to reveal the news to Natasha.

Meanwhile, Pierre returns to the Queen-less hive that is Moscow where he receives a letter from Countess Bezukhov requesting a divorce. The French Army arrive to find Moscow deserted and completely out of control while Pierre wanders through the now-empty city, in disguise, as he initiates his solo mission to assassinate Napoleon. But fate could be about to interrupt his grand plan.

A dynamic fresh dramatisation by Timberlake Wertenbaker of Leo Tolstoy's epic - from the translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokonsky - follows the fortunes of three Russian aristocratic families during the Napoleonic War. Starring Lesley Manville, John Hurt, Alun Armstrong and Harriet Walter

The story moves between their past and present as Pierre, Natasha, Marya and Nikolai talk to their children about the events that shaped their lives and the lives of every Russian who lived through these troubled times.

War and Peace reflects the panorama of life at every level of Russian society in this period. The longest of 19th-century novels, it's an epic story in which historical, social, ethical and religious issues are explored on a scale never before attempted in fiction. From this, Timberlake Wertenbaker has created a riveting radio dramatisation in ten episodes.

Leo Tolstoy … Author
Timberlake Wertenbaker … Dramatist

Alex Shiels … Sergei Rostov
Alun Armstrong … Count Rostov
Ben Crowe … Mikhail Mitrich
Charlotte Emmerson … Helen Kuragin
Daniel Flynn … Regimental Commander
David Calder … Prince Vassily Kuragin
David Collings … Shinshin
Ella Dale … Masha Bezukhov
Emerald O'Hanrahan … Julia Karagan
Ferdinand Kingsley … Anatole Kuragin
Harriet Walter … Anna Mikhailovna Drubetskoy
Hazel Ellerby … Julia's mother
Jed Vine … Petya Rostov
Joanna David … Annette Scherer
Joel Maccormack … Boris Drubetskoy
John Hurt … Prince Bolkonsky
Jonathan Slinger … Captain Denisov
Kathleen Keaney … Liza Rostov
Lesley Manville … Countess Rostov
Miss Nelly Harker … Lise Bolkonsky
Natasha Little … Marya Bolkonsky
Paterson Joseph … Pierre Bezuhkov
Phoebe Fox … Natasha Rostov
Pip Donaghy … Colonel of the House
Roger Allam … General Kutuzov
Roger May … Prince Bagration
Sam Blatchford … Andrusha Rostov
Sam Dale … Alpatych
Sam Reid … Nikolai Rostov
Sarah Badel … Maria Demitrievna
Serena Evans … Catiche
Stanley Toyne … Mitya Rostov
Stephen Campbell Moore … Andrei Bolkonsky
Tamzin Merchant … Sonya Rostov
Tom Glenister … Nikolenka Bolkonsky

Director: Celia de Wolff
Executive Producer: Peter Hoare

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2015.


THU 20:15 War and Peace (b04w89vd)
Episode 10

In this concluding episode, Pierre recalls his time in the barracks – a surprisingly happy time where he meets a prisoner, Platon Karateev. Kutuzov reluctantly leads the Battle of Tarutino, a Russian victory by a series of accidents.

Meanwhile, Sonya is left little choice but to return her promise to Nikolai so that he can marry his true love, Marya. Countess Rostov receives shocking news and Natasha is still suffering from the death of her beloved Prince Andrei. Kutuzov is called upon once again by the Emperor, this time to 'save Europe'. What will be the General's ultimate decision for Russia?

A dynamic fresh dramatisation by Timberlake Wertenbaker of Leo Tolstoy's epic - from the translation by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokonsky - follows the fortunes of three Russian aristocratic families during the Napoleonic War. Starring Lesley Manville, John Hurt, Alun Armstrong and Harriet Walter

The story moves between their past and present as Pierre, Natasha, Marya and Nikolai talk to their children about the events that shaped their lives and the lives of every Russian who lived through these troubled times.

War and Peace reflects the panorama of life at every level of Russian society in this period. The longest of 19th-century novels, it's an epic story in which historical, social, ethical and religious issues are explored on a scale never before attempted in fiction. From this, Timberlake Wertenbaker has created a riveting radio dramatisation in ten episodes.

Leo Tolstoy … Author
Timberlake Wertenbaker … Dramatist

Alex Shiels … Sergei Rostov
Alun Armstrong … Count Rostov
Ben Crowe … Mikhail Mitrich
Charlotte Emmerson … Helen Kuragin
Daniel Flynn … Regimental Commander
David Calder … Prince Vassily Kuragin
David Collings … Shinshin
Ella Dale … Masha Bezukhov
Emerald O'Hanrahan … Julia Karagan
Ferdinand Kingsley … Anatole Kuragin
Harriet Walter … Anna Mikhailovna Drubetskoy
Hazel Ellerby … Julia's mother
Jed Vine … Petya Rostov
Joanna David … Annette Scherer
Joel Maccormack … Boris Drubetskoy
John Hurt … Prince Bolkonsky
Jonathan Slinger … Captain Denisov
Kathleen Keaney … Liza Rostov
Lesley Manville … Countess Rostov
Miss Nelly Harker … Lise Bolkonsky
Natasha Little … Marya Bolkonsky
Paterson Joseph … Pierre Bezuhkov
Phoebe Fox … Natasha Rostov
Pip Donaghy … Colonel of the House
Roger Allam … General Kutuzov
Roger May … Prince Bagration
Sam Blatchford … Andrusha Rostov
Sam Dale … Alpatych
Sam Reid … Nikolai Rostov
Sarah Badel … Maria Demitrievna
Serena Evans … Catiche
Stanley Toyne … Mitya Rostov
Stephen Campbell Moore … Andrei Bolkonsky
Tamzin Merchant … Sonya Rostov
Tom Glenister … Nikolenka Bolkonsky

Director: Celia de Wolff
Executive Producer: Peter Hoare

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2015.


THU 21:30 In Our Time (b048nlfb)
The Sun

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Sun. The object that gives the Earth its light and heat is a massive ball of gas and plasma 93 million miles away. Thanks to the nuclear fusion reactions taking place at its core, the Sun has been shining for four and a half billion years. Its structure, and the processes that keep it burning, have fascinated astronomers for centuries. After the invention of the telescope it became apparent that the Sun is not a placid, steadily shining body but is subject to periodic changes in its appearance and eruptions of dramatic violence, some of which can affect us here on Earth. Recent space missions have revealed fascinating new insights into our nearest star.

With:

Carolin Crawford
Gresham Professor of Astronomy and Fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge

Yvonne Elsworth
Poynting Professor of Physics at the University of Birmingham

Louise Harra
Professor of Solar Physics at UCL Mullard Space Science Laboratory

Producer: Thomas Morris.


THU 22:00 The World Tonight (b04vkhcw)
Human rights activists say that last year more than 76-thousand people were killed in Syria.

The figures suggest 2014 was the worst year for casualties since the outbreak of the civil war in 2011.


THU 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b04vkhcy)
The Girls of Slender Means

Let Them Enjoy Themselves while They're Young

'Few people alive at the time were more delightful, more ingenuous, more movingly lovely, and as it might happen, more savage than the girls of slender means.'

Emilia Fox reads Muriel Spark's rapier-witted portrait of the lives and loves of a group of genteel but down-at-heel young women in postwar London. In the so-called May of Teck Club, a boarding house for single ladies, life carries on as if the world were back to normal: elocution lessons, poetry recitals, jostling over suitors and the sharing of a single taffeta gown. But the war has ended and things are not normal and never again will be. Into this world arrives Nicholas Farringdon, a writer and anachist, who is beguiled by these girls of slender means and their giddy, carefree lives. This meeting, we soon learn, will end in his death.
Today: Greggie's stories of unexploded bombs in the Club's garden prove to hold some truth.

Spark's 1963 novel, The Girls of Slender Means, has become a modern classic. Muriel Spark was an award-winning Scottish novelist and biographer, known best for her acclaimed novel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.


THU 23:00 Tim FitzHigham: The Gambler (b01qldm8)
Pilot episode

Award winning comedian-author-adventurer, Tim FitzHigham and his nemesis Alex Horne recreate a bizarre bet which was originally wagered by the 4th Duke of Queensbury in 1753.

The bet: that Tim can pass a missive over a distance of fifty miles in one hour, using only the means that would have been available to a gentleman in 1753.

Written by Tim FitzHigham and Jon Hunter, with additional material from Paul Byrne.

Produced by Colin Anderson.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2013.


THU 23:30 Hot Gossip! (b04pvb7m)
1. Origins

If language elevates us above other animals, why does human society seem to spend so much time gossiping? Perhaps it's because without gossip there would be no society and language would be much less interesting. In the first of two programmes, Geoff Watts explores our fascination with small talk and chit chat. Where did gossip come from, why did it evolve and how has it changed (and changed us) in the digital age?

If your guilty pleasure is rifling through gossip magazines, then here's a reassuring message: you are merely fulfilling an evolutionary drive. The brain is 'hard-wired' to be fascinated by gossip - which not only helps members of your social group to bond but can also help to police those in the group who transgress. Biologist call them ‘free-riders’ and in large social groups, free-riders can wreak havoc with the society unless they’re policed – by gossip.

For anthropologist Robin Dunbar, author of the now classic text, ‘Grooming, Gossip and The Evolution of Language’, it is not the pearls of wisdom that makes the world go round but everyday tittle tattle: “we are social beings and our world is cocooned in the interests and minutiae of everyday social life. They fascinate us beyond nature”. Gossip, which Dunbar says can be traced back to social grooming in apes, makes up around two-thirds of general conversation according to his research. Without gossip says Dunbar “there can be no society”.

Of course, historically, culturally, morally gossip has rarely been seen as anything but good. In Judaism where derogatory speech about another person has a special name – ‘Lashon Hara’ or 'evil tongue', it is, says Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, “…regarded it as one of the worst of all sins’. Gossip is said to kill three people, “the one who says it, the one he/she says it about, and the one who listens in. Gossip is not just a sinful act but one that contaminates others”. Nowhere is this more evident than recent cases of internet trolling and cyber bullying. “we need a new ethic” argues Sacks. But are we even capable of changing our nasty habits?

Producer: Rami Tzabar

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 2014.



FRIDAY 02 JANUARY 2015

FRI 00:00 Midnight News (b04vjvxs)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.


FRI 00:15 Dog Days (b0371jlf)
My Dog Tulip

Robert Hanks tells of a human obsession through five doggy books. My Dog Tulip by J. R. Ackerley. The messy stuff - how do we live with it? With Prill Barrett, John Bradshaw and Ian Bruce Miller and Jem, the border terrier, and Timmy the whippet. Producer: Tim Dee.


FRI 00:30 Book of the Week (b04vqsh5)
Ian Bostridge - Schubert's Winter Journey

Episode 4

Award-winning tenor Ian Bostridge explores Franz Schubert's song-cycle masterpiece Winterreise, Winter's Journey. Drawing upon his experience as a performer, on his musical knowledge and on his training as a scholar, Bostridge unpicks the enigmas and subtle meanings behind the songs to explore the world Schubert inhabited.

"I'm at an end with all dreams / why should I linger among the sleepers?" In this episode, he looks at the ways in which Schubert used his composition to challenge the social and political order of his day, focusing on two songs: "Im Dorfe" (In The Village) and "Tauschung" (Deception).

Written and read by Ian Bostridge

Abridged by Laurence Wareing

Produced by Kirsteen Cameron.


FRI 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b04vjvxv)
The latest shipping forecast.


FRI 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b04vjvxx)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


FRI 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b04vjvxz)
The latest shipping forecast.


FRI 05:30 News Briefing (b04vjvy3)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


FRI 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b04w4zsx)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with the Rt Rev'd Richard Chartres, Bishop of London.


FRI 05:45 Farming Today (b04vqsh7)
Land Army

Charlotte Smith meets some of the Women's Land Army - Land Girls and Lumber Jills - who kept Britain in food and timber during the Second World War. They were invited to a tea party at the offices of Defra in London. Earlier in the year a memorial was unveiled to the Land Army at the National Arboretum in Staffordshire, following a fund-raising campaign. Produced by Sally Challoner.


FRI 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b04t0msp)
Black Swan

Tweet of the Day is the voice of birds and our relationship with them, from around the world.

Sir David Attenborough presents a widely regarded symbol of Australia, the black swan. These stately looking birds are native to the wetlands of south-western and eastern Australia. The New Zealand population was hunted to extinction but has now been reintroduced there. Their plumage is charcoal grey rather than black and beautifully ruched along their lower back, hiding the white primary feathers which are fully revealed in flight. Their only colour is a raspberry- coloured bill. Black swans behave like nomads, tracking local rains and breeding when they can. In Britain as a collection bird, a few have even cross-bred with mute swans to produce a greyish hybrid nick-named the 'Blute Swan'.


FRI 06:00 Today (b04vqsh9)
Morning news and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.


FRI 09:00 Desert Island Discs (b04vjz0b)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:15 on Sunday]


FRI 09:45 Book of the Week (b04vqvbq)
Ian Bostridge - Schubert's Winter Journey

Episode 5

Literature, religion and the hurdy-gurdy man. Internationally acclaimed tenor Ian Bostridge concludes his exploration of Schubert's existential masterpiece Winterreise, Winter's Journey.

Strange old man,
Should I go with you?
Will you to my songs
Play your hurdy-gurdy?

Written and read by Ian Bostridge

Abridged by Laurence Wareing

Produced by Kirsteen Cameron.


FRI 10:00 Woman's Hour (b04vqvbs)
Jane Hawking; Surrogacy; Same Clothes Every Day; Safe Houses for Over-45s

In 1965, a 21 year old student called Jane married a young and brilliant cosmologist, knowing that he was ill with Motor Neuron Disease and had been given only three years to live. But together they fought the disease and confounded all expectations. Fifty years on, Jane and her now ex-husband Professor Stephen Hawking are the subject of The Theory of Everything, a film based on Jane's autobiography Travelling to Infinity.

On Jan 4th 1985 Kim Cotton became the UK's first surrogate mother when she gave birth to "baby Cotton". The story shocked the nation when it was revealed that £6000 was paid to her for the baby. Kim Cotton went on to set up COTS - Childlessness Overcome Through Surrogacy in 1988, which gives help and advice to surrogates and childless couples in the UK. She joins Sheila with fertility law expert Natalie Gamble.

How much time do you spend deciding what to wear in the morning? Recently Karl Stefanovic, a television presenter from Australia, admitted to wearing the same suit every day for a year to make a point about the ways in which his female colleagues are judged - and claimed that during all that time nobody noticed. Mary Anne Hobbs who presents the weekend breakfast show on 6Music and Maria Malone, lecturer in fashion at the Manchester Metropolitan University Department of Apparel talk about how less might be more.

A new safe house for women who have been victims of domestic or sexual abuse and violence will be opening in the North East of England in January 2015. It's aimed at women aged 45 and over and thought to be the first of its kind in UK. Richinda Taylor, CEO of EVA Women's Aid and Wendy, who was in an abusive relationship for 15 years, join Sheila to explain why they would like to see more women over 45 seeking help.


FRI 10:45 15 Minute Drama (b04w0k8x)
Nigel Slater - Eating for England

Episode 5

Aunt Elvie, now in a home, continues to play a central part in Nigel's life.

Aunt Elvie......................Celia Imrie
Nigel Slater...................Julian Rhind-Tutt
Waiter...........................Nigel Slater
Nellie.............................Buffy Davies
Cynthia..........................Effie MacMillan

Eating for England, the successor to his highly acclaimed memoir Toast, is part food memoir, part collective memory bank of a nation's taste. Using the book as source material along with further conversations with Nigel, dramatist Sarah Daniels has written a playful reimagining. A grown up Nigel - played by Julian Rhind-Tutt, looks back on his childhood while caring for a now elderly, yet ever sparkling, Aunt Elvie, played by Celia Imrie.

Rich with sounds of the kitchen and recorded on location, with a cameo performance from Nigel himself.

What drives a cook to write about food? Why is there such a powerful link between memory and what we eat? And why is reading about food so irresistibly appetising?

Dramatised by Sarah Daniels.

Sound design by Eloise Whitmore.

Director: Polly Thomas

A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in December 2014.


FRI 11:00 Wittgenstein's Jet (b04v3b9v)
Did the future philosopher, Ludwig Wittgenstein, design and build an early jet powered aero-engine, in Manchester, in 1908? This programme tells the story of Wittgenstein's earliest project, and rebuilds his jet. Presenter Cassie Newland is an archaeologist with a passion for engineering. When she meets "shed engineer" Dave Southall they scrutinise Wittgenstein's designs, and try to work out how the aero-engine would have worked.

Arriving in England in 1908, Wittgenstein was a research student in mechanical engineering at Manchester University. After working at a research station in Glossop, doing experimental work with kites, and thinking about designs for a flying machine, he began to focus his attention more on the engines that might power them. Using a combustion chamber, he developed a scheme for an engine powering a propeller assisted by gas discharge nozzles at the end of each blade. But by 1911 Wittgenstein was restless and switched to studying Mathematics at Cambridge. Would his engine have worked, if used in an aircraft? In this programme, we find out.


FRI 11:30 Mark Steel's in Town (b03nt9w6)
Series 5

Glastonbury

Mark Steel returns to Radio 4 for a fifth series of the award winning show that travels around the country, researching the history, heritage and culture of six towns that have nothing in common but their uniqueness, and does a bespoke evening of comedy in each one.

As every high street slowly morphs into a replica of the next, Mark Steel's in Town celebrates the parochial, the local and the unusual. From Corby's rivalry with Kettering to the word you can't say in Portland, the show has taken in the idiosyncrasies of towns up and down the country, from Kirkwall to Penzance, from Holyhead to Bungay.

This first edition of the series comes from Glastonbury, Somerset, which lives up to every expectation of being the most new-agey, hippyish town Mark has ever visited. He talks about the Tor and King Arthur, visits the two chain shops on the High Street, is given an unusual reason for not being able to get into his dressing room, and makes a crucial mistake when it comes to cider. From January 2014.

Written and performed by ... Mark Steel
Additional material by ... Pete Sinclair
Production co-ordinator ... Trudi Stevens
Producer ... Ed Morrish.


FRI 12:00 News Summary (b04vjvy5)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


FRI 12:04 Home Front (b04vqvbv)
2 January 1915 - Ivor Davies

The recruitment drive is finally bearing fruit for Sergeant Major Davies, but nothing is simple.

Written by Katie Hims
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole
Sound: Martha Littlehailes


FRI 12:15 You and Yours (b04vqvbx)
Pay Day Loans, Fuel Poverty and Shiny Toasters

New rules on how much people can be charged when they take out a pay day loan come into effect today, but do they go far enough?

We look at the Government's plans to grade the homes of people in fuel poverty - and make sure they become more energy efficient before the next General Election.

As the war for your custom continues, we look at how the supermarkets plan to entice you through their doors in 2015.

Why campaigners are calling for more of us to take carbon monoxide more seriously.

And we go behind the scenes at the Dualit toaster factory to see how a family firm has managed to stand the test of time with its robust design.

PRESENTER PETER WHITE

PRODUCER PETE WILSON.


FRI 12:57 Weather (b04vjvy7)
The latest weather forecast.


FRI 13:00 World at One (b04vqwyk)
Analysis of current affairs reports, presented by Mark Mardell.


FRI 13:45 Out of Armenia (b04w0khs)
Yerevan

As Charles Emmerson's journey through the Armenian diaspora draws to a close, he travels to Yerevan, the capital of modern Armenia, in the shadow of Mount Ararat.

Over rich piano chords, through a haze of cigarette smoke, Charles speaks to Levon Malkhasyan, Armenia's most famous jazz musician. He hears the Yerevan stories which define it as a city - its Soviet construction in the 1920s, the earthquake of 1988 and, since the 1990s, the city's opening up to the diaspora world.

Poor, isolated, cut off from neighbouring Turkey, keeping an uneasy ceasefire with Azerbaijan, dependent on Russia, Yerevan is no natural cosmopolitan centre. Yet with Mount Ararat floating above its sky-line of Soviet-built tower blocks, it has become a city for diasporans to call their own. From Toronto, Melbourne, Paris or Boston, some visit for summer jaunts, others to reassert who they are.

"You realise that Armenian identity is much more expansive", says Scout Tufankjian, an American-Armenian photographer newly-returned from a four year voyage documenting the Armenian diaspora around the world. The bonds that tie Armenians together - visible and invisible, tangible and intangible - are real.

Scout remembers a few lines of William Saroyan, the American-Armenian writer: "the glance, the gesture, the smile, and through these things the swift rebirth of the race, timeless and again strong..." More than history, more than religion, more than suffering, more than political claims - an innate sense of what it means to be Armenian, in and out of Armenia.

Produced by Cicely Fell
An Above The Title production for BBC Radio 4.


FRI 14:00 The Archers (b04xgj8k)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Thursday]


FRI 14:15 Drama (b04vqwym)
Inventing Scotland

Inventing Scotland a comedy by Mike Harris
The true story of how one man's need for cash created a national myth and saved the union.
It is 1822 . King George is coming to Edinburgh and novelist Walter Scott has two weeks to create a patriotic, nation-binding spectacle that will avert revolution, save the union, earn the monarch's eternal gratitude, and also rescue himself from imminent bankruptcy.

Director/Producer Gary Brown.


FRI 15:00 Gardeners' Question Time (b04vqwyp)
The Garden Museum

Peter Gibbs chairs this week's edition from The Garden Museum, London. Chris Beardshaw, Pippa Greenwood and Bunny Guinness join him to answer a range of horticultural questions.

We also hear all about the Garden Museum's archive project.

Produced by Howard Shannon
Assistant Producer: Hannah Newton

A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4

This week's questions and answers:
Q. What English plant would you recommend for a garden in China?

A. Bunny would give you ten English Roses - probably the 'Munstead Wood' variety.
Pippa suggests Primroses and Harebells and a Bramley Apple Tree.
Meanwhile, Chris recommends a lawn as a way of uniting the various areas in your garden and giving the garden some breathing space.

Q. As a reformed Foxglove lover, could the panel recommend a variety with a prolonged flowering season that would add colour to a shady garden?

A. There is the perennial Foxglove which is pink but it doesn't go to seed so they would have to be propagated. There are so many different colours to choose from, from brown through to apricot.

Q. I have two fruit trees in my garden that are fruiting well but at the centre of every fruit is a maggot. What is it and what can I do about it?

A. It's the larvae of the Coddling Moth and you can put out a pheromone trap to attract the moths to a sticky end and prevent the larvae from ruining your fruit. Hang one out in two months' time. Don't use grease bands as they are designed to catch winter moths rather than Coddling Moths. But if you had a problem with winter moths, use grease paint rather than bands.

Q. My friend has two ponds linked with a waterfall, the pond is filled with frogs and marginal plants. Should she keep the pump running through the winter months?

A. We usually recommend turning off water features as the frosts come as this gives you an opportunity do a bit of a clean up but if your friend kept it running in the winter that wouldn't be a problem. The reason we keep water features running through the summer is to ensure the water is well oxygenated when activity is high but as things in the pond slow down in the winter months it's not necessary to keep the pump running.

Q. I've just become a first time allotment holder. The allotment is currently covered in thick, dense plants and a few weeds. What's the best way to clear the plot?

A. If the grass is Couch grass, the panel recommend using glyphosate. Apply when the grass and weeds are in full growth and then plant plugs of seeds through the dead grass. Alternatively you could fork it out. Do not be tempted to use a powered cultivator as this will just split the weeds and make them multiply!

Q. Does it bother the panel that in period dramas, there is never any sight of the garden staff?

A. Chris gets very annoyed at the horticultural inaccuracies in period dramas, especially when he sees Conifers in Robin Hood!

Q. How could I build up a thriving Mycorrizal population along a long plane tree avenue? There is only a two-metre soil depth as the London Underground runs beneath!

A. You could try putting deciduous bark of a 15cm depth across the whole canopy spread of the trees. Don't worry about the soil depth. The Mycorrizal fungi will spread out and harvest the resources from the ground and feed it back into the tree. Think of it as an extension of the tree roots. Try to avoid soil compaction as this will damage the Mycorrizal organisms.

Q. I have a Pittosporum that I would like to reduce in width but not height. When should I do this and how?

A. They are very tolerant plants so you could just cut the sides but maybe wait until March to do this. To make sure it looks good you could do this over a couple of years so it doesn't look so severe. Wait until it has the first buds before pruning hard. Chris suggests sneaking up on it when it least expects it and letting light in underneath to give it a breath of fresh life!

Q. Can the panel recommend a good thug that will take on Creeping Buttercup? I have clay soil.

A. Trachystemon Orientale is a kind of Borage that is very attractive and would take on the buttercups and any other weeds. When it starts to take over a bit you can trash it down and it will give you lots of new flowers. Pippa loves Buttercups and thinks that you should learn to love them but, if you really can't, try planting Hypernicums. Periwinkles would also work.


FRI 15:45 King Albert's Book (b04vqwyr)
Episode 3

King Albert's Book was a tribute to the Belgian King and people, published by subscription in December 1914.

The book was the idea of Hall Caine, a novelist and playwright of the late Victorian and Edwardian eras, to raise money for the Daily Telegraph Belgium fund. He invited princes, statesman, churchmen, authors, political activists, artists and composers to present their view of the tragedy that had befallen Belgium in the preceding months of war.

Contributors include Winston Churchill, Thomas Hardy, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Sarah Bernhardt, Emmeline Pankhurst and Rudyard Kipling. The result is an extraordinary snapshot of a moment in time and the passions aroused by the conquest of Belgium and the resistance led by King Albert.

As the book was being prepared in the Autumn of 1914, no one knew how the tragedy of the First World War would unfold - there was still hope that it would all be over fairly swiftly. What seemed to be a heroic defence of a sovereign state was the primary concern of the book's contributors, little knowing how long the conflict would continue and how the greater tragedy of the war would supersede this event.

This final episode, narrated by the writer and producer Paul Dodgson, includes a statement by French philosopher Henri Bergson, an account of wounded Belgium soldiers in England by Mary Cholmondeley, and a history lesson by Professor Paul Vinogradoff.

Readers: Kenneth Cranham, Tim McMullan and Harriet Walter
Pianist: Kevin Matthews

Narrated and Produced by Paul Dodgson
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.


FRI 16:00 Last Word (b04vqx62)
Debbie Purdy, David Ryall, Willy Burgdorfer, Dame Mary Glen Haig, Graeme Goodall

Julian Worricker on

Debbie Purdy, the right-to-die campaigner who won a landmark court ruling to clarify the law on assisted suicide.

The actor, David Ryall, who had starring roles on stage, in film and on television.

Dr Willy Burgdorfer, an entomologist who discovered the bacterium that causes Lyme disease.

Dame Mary Glen Haig, who fenced for Britain at four Olympic Games and then became one of the first women on the International Olympic Committee.

And Graeme Goodall, the music producer and record label owner, who was a key figure in the early days of Jamaica's recording industry.


FRI 16:30 More or Less (b04vqx64)
Numbers of the Year 2014

Tim Harford and guests look back at some of the weird and wonderful numbers of 2014. Featuring contributions from Evan Davis, Sir David Spiegelhalter, Helen Joyce, Nick Robinson, Helen Arney, Pippa Malmgren, Paul Lewis and Carlos Vilalta.


FRI 16:55 The Listening Project (b04vqxyx)
Eifion and Berwyn - Community Matters

Fi Glover introduces two men who both put a lot into the thriving community of Llansannan in North Wales. For them a town holds no attraction, but village life has everything.

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 learn more about The Listening Project by visiting bbc.co.uk/listeningproject

Producer: Marya Burgess.


FRI 17:00 PM (b04vqxyz)
Full coverage and analysis of the day's news.


FRI 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b04vjvy9)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


FRI 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.


FRI 18:30 Dead Ringers (b04vr10b)
Series 13

Episode 2

The classic impression show takes a look back at 2014 together with a sneak preview of things that will definitely happen in 2015. How will the UKIP/Labour coalition fair?

Starring Jon Culshaw, Jan Ravens, Duncan Wisbey, Lewis MacLeod, Debra Stevenson.

Producer: Bill Dare.


FRI 19:00 The Archers (b04vr10d)
It's still New Year's Eve. Roy calls Phoebe and then Hayley but gets their voicemails. As the Grey Gables guests bring in the New Year, Roy tries Elizabeth. He breaks down and sobs as her phone also goes to voicemail.
At Lower Loxley, Adam wonders if there may be wedding bells for Helen in 2015. There's no rush, she says. Life's exactly how she wants it.
Dan assures Pip there's nothing glamorous about the military but he loves the buzz. Dan needs to make a call and Pip wonders what her name is. She's a fellow cadet but it's not serious. Pip knows her relationship with Spencer is over. She's just finding it difficult to tell him.
Charlie invites Adam outside for some air and tells him that nothing else matters except what he wants. He thinks Adam knows what that is.
As Helen and Rob see in the New Year, Rob agrees that everything is perfect - so he thinks it's time they had a baby. Helen is not so sure it's the right time. Receiving a text to say Henry's snoring peacefully, she decides to give Tom a quick call.
Helen steps outside to find Adam and Charlie kissing passionately. Adam insists it's not what she thinks. Helen snaps - what the hell is going on?


FRI 19:15 Front Row (b04vr10g)
Tamsin Greig, Birdman, Turner in January

Tamsin Greig talks to Samira Ahmed about her debut in musical theatre in an adaptation of Pedro Almodóvar's film Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.

Michael Keaton has already been tipped for an Oscar for his role in Alejandro G Iñárritu's dark comedy Birdman. He plays a former superhero actor hoping to revive his career in a Broadway production. Tim Robey joins Front Row to give his verdict.

This year has seen a huge rise in the number of photographs taken by drones. The artist James Bridle talks about the phenomenon. How will it change the nature of photography and what issues around privacy does it raise?

And Turner in January: each year, the Scottish National Gallery opens its doors for a one-month, free exhibition of 38 watercolours by Turner, a bequest from the philanthropist Henry Vaughan in 1900. Curator Charlotte Topsfield talks about the work and how such limited exposure has helped preserve the quality of the colour.


FRI 19:45 15 Minute Drama (b04w0k8x)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:45 today]


FRI 20:00 Correspondents' Look Ahead (b04vr10j)
2015

The BBC's top international news correspondents look ahead to the major developments in 2015, in a lively discussion chaired by Mark Mardell.

He is joined by chief international correspondent Lyse Doucet, China editor Carrie Gracie, business editor Kamal Ahmed and diplomatic correspondent Bridget Kendall.

Mark will be asking for their ideas about the stories and the people to watch over the coming months.

What will happen in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine - and how will it affect the rest of us in Europe? Will Britain and other Western nations succeed in stopping the advance of the group calling itself Islamic State - and which other countries' help will they need to obtain? What are the prospects for the global economy? And how will China flex its muscles on the international stage?
Producer Simon Coates.


FRI 20:50 A Point of View (b04vr10l)
The Pursuit of Happiness

A L Kennedy reflects on what it means to pursue happiness in a world where "not having enough money can be utterly miserable" and indulging our desire to acquire is also unsatisfying. The answer may lie in seeing that happiness is, "not so much a condition as a destination - it can inspire journeys ...better made in company".
Producer: Sheila Cook.


FRI 21:00 Home Front - Omnibus (b04vr10n)
29 December 1914 to 2 January 1915

Folkestone is uneasy about the move from 1914, and all its hope and fear, into 1915 with all its hope and fear.

Written by: Katie Hims
Consultant Historian: Professor Maggie Andrews
Music: Matthew Strachan
Sound: Martha Littlehailes
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole.


FRI 21:58 Weather (b04vjvyd)
The latest weather forecast.


FRI 22:00 The World Tonight (b04vr10q)
Palace says any suggestion of impropriety by Prince Andrew "categorically untrue"

Woman names him in documents filed in a court in Florida - claims she was forced to have sex with a number of men, including the Duke of York.


FRI 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b04vr1j3)
The Girls of Slender Means

It Was all a Question of Time

'Few people alive at the time were more delightful, more ingenuous, more movingly lovely, and as it might happen, more savage than the girls of slender means.'
Emilia Fox reads Muriel Spark's rapier-witted portrait of the lives and loves of a group of genteel but impoverished young women in postwar London. In the so-called May of Teck Club, a boarding house for single ladies, life carries on as if the world were back to normal: elocution lessons, poetry recitals, jostling over suitors and the sharing of a single taffeta gown. But the war has ended and things are not normal and never again will be. Into this world arrives Nicholas Farringdon, a writer and anachist, who is beguiled by these girls of slender means and their giddy, carefree lives. This meeting, we soon learn, will end in his death.
Today: As tragedy strikes the May of Teck Club, time is running out for some of the 'girls of slender means'.
Spark's 1963 novel, The Girls of Slender Means, has become a modern classic. Muriel Spark was an award-winning Scottish novelist and biographer, known best for her acclaimed novel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.


FRI 23:00 Great Lives (b04vkl1v)
[Repeat of broadcast at 16:30 on Tuesday]


FRI 23:27 Hot Gossip! (b04sy3qp)
2. Brains

In the second of two programmes, Geoff Watts continues to explore the science, history and cultural implications of gossip.

Gossip has a bad reputation and for the most part, deservedly so. Yet, on-going research appears to suggest that gossip does serve a useful purpose. Not least because our brains may be hard wired for it. Researchers in Boston have used a technique known as binocular rivalry (showing different images to left and right eye at the same time) to suggest that gossip acts as an early warning system, that the brain automatically redirects your attention onto people you've heard negative remarks about. Even though this process happens at a sub-conscious level, your brain is sifting through and weeding out anyone in your surroundings that you may be have good reason to distrust.

Elsewhere, researchers in Manchester have been analysing what makes gossip memorable and are now scanning subjects brains to see if there are specific gossip networks which light up. From preliminary results it appears gossip activates areas in the brain similar to those that produce feelings of pleasure and reward. Next they plan to scan their subjects' brains as they tweet.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, in many of these experiments, it is celebrity gossip that tends to produce the largest response. Thanks to what one commentator calls the perfect storm of 24-hour news, reality TV and social media, the all-pervasive celebrity gossip industry exploits our endless appetite for information about people we will never meet. But could even celebrity gossip serve a purpose? Or are we gorging ourselves on trivia whilst ignoring the plight of those closest to us? And can and should anything be done to stem the negative impacts of gossip in a digital age?

Producer: Rami Tzabar

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 2014.


FRI 23:55 The Listening Project (b04vr1j7)
Tony and Chris - Magical Powers

Fi Glover with two magicians who are expert in card tricks, mind-reading and spoon-bending, but acknowledge that they deliberately deceive their audiences. Is magic moral?

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 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 (b04vk6ky)

15 Minute Drama 19:45 MON (b04vk6ky)

15 Minute Drama 10:45 TUE (b04w0jfs)

15 Minute Drama 19:45 TUE (b04w0jfs)

15 Minute Drama 10:40 WED (b04w0jxk)

15 Minute Drama 19:45 WED (b04w0jxk)

15 Minute Drama 10:45 FRI (b04w0k8x)

15 Minute Drama 19:45 FRI (b04w0k8x)

15 Minute Musical 18:15 TUE (b03m79wb)

15 Minute Musical 18:15 FRI (b03m7zb7)

21st Century Mythologies 20:00 SAT (b04w1cf4)

A Point of View 08:48 SUN (b04vjl7c)

A Point of View 20:50 FRI (b04vr10l)

A Portrait Of... 15:30 TUE (b04vkkpd)

Afghan Women: Speaking Out, Losing Lives 15:00 WED (b04tj384)

All in the Mind 21:00 TUE (b04vklfv)

All in the Mind 15:30 WED (b04vklfv)

At Home Abroad 19:15 SAT (b04v4sx8)

At Home with David Hockney 14:00 SAT (b04w0b2v)

Bells on Sunday 05:43 SUN (b04vjwt5)

Bells on Sunday 00:45 MON (b04vjwt5)

Beyond Belief 16:30 MON (b04vk9nh)

Book at Bedtime 22:45 MON (b04vk9zs)

Book at Bedtime 22:45 TUE (b04vklsd)

Book at Bedtime 22:45 WED (b04vr5jl)

Book at Bedtime 22:45 THU (b04vkhcy)

Book at Bedtime 22:45 FRI (b04vr1j3)

Book of the Week 00:30 SAT (b04vjh7p)

Book of the Week 09:45 MON (b04vk6kt)

Book of the Week 00:30 TUE (b04vk6kt)

Book of the Week 09:45 TUE (b04vkhlb)

Book of the Week 00:30 WED (b04vkhlb)

Book of the Week 09:45 WED (b04vkc30)

Book of the Week 00:30 THU (b04vkc30)

Book of the Week 00:30 FRI (b04vqsh5)

Book of the Week 09:45 FRI (b04vqvbq)

Brain of Britain 23:00 SAT (b04vdnc1)

Brain of Britain 15:00 MON (b04vk72g)

Broadcasting House 09:00 SUN (b04vjz06)

Build and Be Damned 20:00 TUE (b04g8hrq)

Cells and Celluloid: A Science and Cinema Special 20:00 SUN (b04vj1x8)

Christmas With... 18:15 MON (b04vk9nm)

Christmas With... 18:15 WED (b04vr5j6)

Christmas With... 18:15 THU (b04vkglq)

Correspondents' Look Ahead 20:00 FRI (b04vr10j)

Crossing Continents 20:30 MON (b04vk9ny)

Dead Ringers 12:30 SAT (b04vjl75)

Dead Ringers 18:30 FRI (b04vr10b)

Death of An Orchestra 13:15 THU (b04v381r)

Desert Island Discs 11:15 SUN (b04vjz0b)

Desert Island Discs 09:00 FRI (b04vjz0b)

Dog Days 00:15 SAT (b036twsx)

Dog Days 00:15 TUE (b0371hjy)

Dog Days 00:15 WED (b0371hm9)

Dog Days 00:15 THU (b0371j3z)

Dog Days 00:15 FRI (b0371jlf)

Don't Log Off 23:30 MON (b04gvsnm)

Don't Log Off 23:30 TUE (b04hyrq1)

Don't Log Off 23:30 WED (b04jlpn1)

Drama 14:15 TUE (b04vkjsm)

Drama 14:15 WED (b04vr5hw)

Drama 14:15 FRI (b04vqwym)

Farming Today 06:30 SAT (b04vjqrd)

Farming Today 05:45 MON (b04vk6km)

Farming Today 05:45 TUE (b04vkhj9)

Farming Today 05:45 WED (b04vkm6m)

Farming Today 05:45 THU (b04vkc3w)

Farming Today 05:45 FRI (b04vqsh7)

Faultline Scotland 11:00 WED (b04vkm6y)

Found at Sea 16:30 SUN (b04vk035)

Four Thought 05:45 SUN (b04vf95m)

Four Thought 20:00 WED (b04wh7xt)

Four Thought 20:45 WED (b04wh7xy)

Fresh from the Fringe 2014 23:00 TUE (b04wh77q)

Fresh from the Fringe 2014 23:00 WED (b04wh7y3)

From Fact to Fiction 19:00 SAT (b04wh18l)

From Fact to Fiction 17:40 SUN (b04wh18l)

From Our Own Correspondent 11:30 SAT (b04vd4vc)

Front Row 19:15 MON (b04vk9nt)

Front Row 19:15 TUE (b04vkl9n)

Front Row 19:15 WED (b04vr5jd)

Front Row 19:15 FRI (b04vr10g)

Gardeners' Question Time 14:00 SUN (b04vk02x)

Gardeners' Question Time 15:00 FRI (b04vqwyp)

Good Omens 14:30 SAT (b04vjrjm)

Goodnight, Vienna 19:45 SUN (b04vk1cz)

Great Lives 16:30 TUE (b04vkl1v)

Great Lives 23:00 FRI (b04vkl1v)

Home Front - Omnibus 21:00 FRI (b04vr10n)

Home Front 12:04 MON (b04vk6l4)

Home Front 12:04 TUE (b04vkjsf)

Home Front 12:04 WED (b04vkmwn)

Home Front 12:04 FRI (b04vqvbv)

Hot Gossip! 23:30 THU (b04pvb7m)

Hot Gossip! 23:27 FRI (b04sy3qp)

I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue 12:04 SUN (b04vdngk)

I've Never Seen Star Wars 18:30 TUE (b04vkl9j)

In Business 21:30 SUN (b04vj6gz)

In Our Time 21:30 THU (b048nlfb)

In Touch 20:30 TUE (b04vklfs)

King Albert's Book 15:45 FRI (b04vqwyr)

Last Word 23:00 SUN (b04vjh88)

Last Word 16:00 FRI (b04vqx62)

Loose Ends 18:15 SAT (b04vjrjt)

Mark Steel's in Town 11:30 FRI (b03nt9w6)

Midnight News 00:00 SAT (b04vd4tv)

Midnight News 00:00 SUN (b04vjvn7)

Midnight News 00:00 MON (b04vjvqn)

Midnight News 00:00 TUE (b04vjvs5)

Midnight News 00:00 WED (b04vjvtm)

Midnight News 00:00 THU (b04vkc2y)

Midnight News 00:00 FRI (b04vjvxs)

Midweek 09:00 WED (b04vkm6r)

Midweek 21:30 WED (b04vkm6r)

Midwives to Be 00:15 SUN (b04vf6z9)

Money Box 12:04 SAT (b04vjrjh)

Money Box 21:00 SUN (b04vjrjh)

More or Less 16:30 FRI (b04vqx64)

Music to Save Grimethorpe 21:00 WED (b04vjh7w)

My Teenage Diary 18:30 THU (b04vkgls)

News Briefing 05:30 SAT (b04vd4v3)

News Briefing 05:30 SUN (b04vjvnh)

News Briefing 05:30 MON (b04vjvqx)

News Briefing 05:30 TUE (b04vjvsf)

News Briefing 05:30 WED (b04vjvtw)

News Briefing 05:30 THU (b04vjvwf)

News Briefing 05:30 FRI (b04vjvy3)

News Headlines 06:00 SUN (b04vjvnk)

News Review of the Year 22:00 SUN (b04vk1gj)

News Summary 12:00 SAT (b04vd4vf)

News Summary 12:00 SUN (b04vjvnw)

News Summary 12:00 MON (b04vjvr1)

News Summary 12:00 TUE (b04vjvsh)

News Summary 12:00 WED (b04vjvty)

News Summary 12:00 FRI (b04vjvy5)

News and Papers 06:00 SAT (b04vd4v5)

News and Papers 07:00 SUN (b04vjvnp)

News and Papers 08:00 SUN (b04vjvnt)

News and Weather 22:00 SAT (b04vd4vy)

News 13:00 SAT (b04vd4vk)

News 13:00 THU (b04vjvwn)

On Your Farm 06:35 SUN (b04vjyh6)

Open Book 16:00 SUN (b04vk033)

Open Country 06:07 SAT (b04vjqrb)

Out of Armenia 13:45 MON (b04vk72b)

Out of Armenia 13:45 TUE (b04w0jfv)

Out of Armenia 13:45 WED (b04w0jxm)

Out of Armenia 13:45 THU (b04w0k5n)

Out of Armenia 13:45 FRI (b04w0khs)

PM 17:00 SAT (b04vjrjr)

PM 17:00 MON (b04vk9nk)

PM 17:00 TUE (b04vkl9g)

PM 17:00 WED (b04vr5j4)

PM 17:00 FRI (b04vqxyz)

Pass the Turkey Twizzlers 22:15 SAT (b04vf95h)

Pick of the Week 18:15 SUN (b04vk0bx)

Pilgrim by Sebastian Baczkiewicz 14:15 MON (b04vk72d)

Pink Mist 21:00 SAT (b04vjsn8)

Prayer for the Day 05:43 SAT (b04vjqr6)

Prayer for the Day 05:43 MON (b04w4qr6)

Prayer for the Day 05:43 TUE (b04w4ryf)

Prayer for the Day 05:43 WED (b04w4tm7)

Prayer for the Day 05:43 THU (b04w4xz6)

Prayer for the Day 05:43 FRI (b04w4zsx)

Radio 4 Appeal 07:55 SUN (b04vjyss)

Radio 4 Appeal 21:26 SUN (b04vjyss)

Saturday Live 09:00 SAT (b04vjrj9)

Selection of BBC World Service Programmes 01:00 SAT (b04vd4tz)

Selection of BBC World Service Programmes 01:00 SUN (b04vjvnc)

Selection of BBC World Service Programmes 01:00 MON (b04vjvqs)

Selection of BBC World Service Programmes 01:00 TUE (b04vjvs9)

Selection of BBC World Service Programmes 01:00 WED (b04vjvtr)

Selection of BBC World Service Programmes 01:00 THU (b04vjvw8)

Selection of BBC World Service Programmes 01:00 FRI (b04vjvxx)

Shared Planet 21:00 MON (b04vdy2q)

Shipping Forecast 00:48 SAT (b04vd4tx)

Shipping Forecast 05:20 SAT (b04vd4v1)

Shipping Forecast 17:54 SAT (b04vd4vp)

Shipping Forecast 00:48 SUN (b04vjvn9)

Shipping Forecast 05:20 SUN (b04vjvnf)

Shipping Forecast 17:54 SUN (b04vjvp6)

Shipping Forecast 00:48 MON (b04vjvqq)

Shipping Forecast 05:20 MON (b04vjvqv)

Shipping Forecast 00:48 TUE (b04vjvs7)

Shipping Forecast 05:20 TUE (b04vjvsc)

Shipping Forecast 00:48 WED (b04vjvtp)

Shipping Forecast 05:20 WED (b04vjvtt)

Shipping Forecast 00:48 THU (b04vjvw6)

Shipping Forecast 05:20 THU (b04vjvwb)

Shipping Forecast 00:48 FRI (b04vjvxv)

Shipping Forecast 05:20 FRI (b04vjvxz)

Sister Aimee 16:00 MON (b04w0fvk)

Six O'Clock News 18:00 SAT (b04vd4vt)

Six O'Clock News 18:00 SUN (b04vjvpk)

Six O'Clock News 18:00 MON (b04vjvr5)

Six O'Clock News 18:00 TUE (b04vjvsm)

Six O'Clock News 18:00 WED (b04vjvv3)

Six O'Clock News 18:00 THU (b04vjvwt)

Six O'Clock News 18:00 FRI (b04vjvy9)

Something Understood 06:05 SUN (b04vjyh4)

Something Understood 23:30 SUN (b04vjyh4)

Start the Week 09:00 MON (b04vk6kr)

Start the Week 21:30 MON (b04vk6kr)

Start/Stop 11:30 MON (b04vk6l2)

Sunday Worship 08:10 SUN (b04vjysv)

Sunday 07:10 SUN (b04vjyh8)

Terror and the Oxygen of Publicity 17:00 SUN (b04vf2qh)

The Archers Omnibus 10:00 SUN (b04vjz08)

The Archers 19:00 SUN (b04vk0bz)

The Archers 14:00 MON (b04vk0bz)

The Archers 19:00 MON (b04vk9nr)

The Archers 14:00 TUE (b04vk9nr)

The Archers 19:00 TUE (b04vkl9l)

The Archers 14:00 WED (b04vkl9l)

The Archers 19:00 WED (b04vr5jb)

The Archers 14:00 THU (b04vr5jb)

The Archers 19:00 THU (b04xgj8k)

The Archers 14:00 FRI (b04xgj8k)

The Archers 19:00 FRI (b04vr10d)

The Barchester Chronicles 15:00 SUN (b04vk031)

The Echo Chamber 23:30 SAT (b04vd6mj)

The Food Programme 12:32 SUN (b04vjz0d)

The Food Programme 15:30 MON (b04vjz0d)

The Forum 11:00 SAT (b04vjrjf)

The Invisible Age 13:30 SUN (b04vdnkt)

The Invisible Age 20:00 MON (b04vk9nw)

The Kitchen Cabinet 10:30 SAT (b04vjrjc)

The Kitchen Cabinet 15:00 TUE (b04vjrjc)

The Listening Project 14:45 SUN (b04vk02z)

The Listening Project 10:55 WED (b04vkm6w)

The Listening Project 16:55 FRI (b04vqxyx)

The Listening Project 23:55 FRI (b04vr1j7)

The Long View 09:00 TUE (b04vkhl8)

The Long View 21:30 TUE (b04vkhl8)

The Media Show 16:30 WED (b04vr5j2)

The Rest is History 19:15 SUN (b04vk0c1)

The Reunion 13:15 SAT (b04w5nn9)

The Rivals 11:30 WED (b04vkmhh)

The Unbelievable Truth 18:30 MON (b04vk9np)

The Voices of... 15:30 SAT (b04vdzy3)

The World This Weekend 13:00 SUN (b04vjz0g)

The World Tonight 22:00 MON (b04vk9zq)

The World Tonight 22:00 TUE (b04wv05j)

The World Tonight 22:00 WED (b04vr5jj)

The World Tonight 22:00 THU (b04vkhcw)

The World Tonight 22:00 FRI (b04vr10q)

Thinking Allowed 00:15 MON (b04vj6gx)

Thinking Allowed 16:00 WED (b04vr5j0)

This Farming Life 11:00 MON (b04vk6l0)

Tim FitzHigham: The Gambler 23:00 THU (b01qldm8)

Today 07:00 SAT (b04vjqrg)

Today 06:00 MON (b04vk6kp)

Today 06:00 TUE (b04vkhjc)

Today 06:00 WED (b04vkm6p)

Today 06:00 THU (b04vkc6k)

Today 06:00 FRI (b04vqsh9)

Tweet of the Day 08:58 SUN (b04t0lwc)

Tweet of the Day 05:58 MON (b04t0m7p)

Tweet of the Day 05:58 TUE (b04t0m9x)

Tweet of the Day 05:58 WED (b04t0mj0)

Tweet of the Day 05:58 THU (b04t0mqf)

Tweet of the Day 05:58 FRI (b04t0msp)

UK Confidential 11:00 TUE (b04vkjsc)

War and Peace 09:00 THU (b04w82wc)

War and Peace 10:00 THU (b04w82wf)

War and Peace 11:00 THU (b04w82wh)

War and Peace 12:00 THU (b04w82wl)

War and Peace 14:15 THU (b04w89tp)

War and Peace 15:00 THU (b04w89ty)

War and Peace 16:00 THU (b04w89v2)

War and Peace 17:00 THU (b04w89v4)

War and Peace 19:15 THU (b04w89v9)

War and Peace 20:15 THU (b04w89vd)

Weather 06:04 SAT (b04vd4v7)

Weather 06:57 SAT (b04vd4v9)

Weather 12:57 SAT (b04vd4vh)

Weather 17:57 SAT (b04vd4vr)

Weather 06:57 SUN (b04vjvnm)

Weather 07:57 SUN (b04vjvnr)

Weather 12:57 SUN (b04vjvny)

Weather 17:57 SUN (b04vjvpg)

Weather 05:56 MON (b04vjvqz)

Weather 12:57 MON (b04vjvr3)

Weather 21:58 MON (b04vjvr7)

Weather 12:57 TUE (b04vjvsk)

Weather 21:58 TUE (b04vjvsp)

Weather 12:57 WED (b04vjvv0)

Weather 21:58 WED (b04vjvv5)

Weather 12:57 FRI (b04vjvy7)

Weather 21:58 FRI (b04vjvyd)

What Does the K Stand For? 18:30 WED (b04vr5j8)

Witness 09:30 TUE (b04wlktg)

Wittgenstein's Jet 11:00 FRI (b04v3b9v)

Woman's Hour 16:00 SAT (b04vjrjp)

Woman's Hour 10:00 MON (b04vk6kw)

Woman's Hour 10:00 TUE (b04vkjs9)

Woman's Hour 10:00 WED (b04vkm6t)

Woman's Hour 10:00 FRI (b04vqvbs)

Word of Mouth 23:00 MON (b04vdzyf)

Word of Mouth 16:00 TUE (b04vkl1s)

World at One 13:00 MON (b04vk6l8)

World at One 13:00 TUE (b04vkjsk)

World at One 13:00 WED (b04vr5ht)

World at One 13:00 FRI (b04vqwyk)

You and Yours 12:15 MON (b04vk6l6)

You and Yours 12:15 TUE (b04vkjsh)

You and Yours 12:15 WED (b04vr5hr)

You and Yours 12:15 FRI (b04vqvbx)

iPM 05:45 SAT (b04vjqr8)

iPM 17:30 SAT (b04vjqr8)