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: BBC RADIO 4
Unofficial Weekly Listings for BBC Radio 4 — supported by bbc.co.uk/programmes/
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
Morten Stroksnes and his friend Hugo are in pursuit of the elusive Greenland shark. Now it's spring, and the hunt is on again after a setback with the engine. The intrepid fishermen set out with renewed energy and some rather pungent bait.
The Lofoten archipelago, just north of the Arctic Circle, is a place of unsurpassed beauty. The skyline spikes with dramatic peaks; the radiant greens and purples of the Northern Lights follow summers where the sun never sets. It's a place of small villages, where the art of fishing, though evolving, is still practiced in traditional ways.
Beneath the great depths surrounding these islands lurks the infamous Greenland shark. Shark Drunk is the true story of two friends, the author and the artist Hugo Aasjord, as they embark on a wild pursuit of the famed creature - all from a tiny rubber boat.
Winner of the Norwegian Brage Prize 2015
Winner of the Norwegian Critics' Prize for Literature 2015
Winner of the Norwegian Reine Ord Prize at Lofoten International Literature Festival 2016
Morten Stroksnes is a Norwegian historian, journalist, photographer, and writer. He has written reportage, essays, portraits, and columns and reviews for most major Norwegian newspapers and magazines. He has published four critically acclaimed books of literary reportage and contributed to several others.
Written by Morten Stroksnes , translated by Tiina Nunnally
Read by Adrian Scarborough
Abridged and Produced by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4.
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The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
A short reflection and prayer with Rev Dr Lesley Carroll.
An Iraqi doctor on moving to the UK and the tragedy which inspired a career change.
iPM is the news programme that starts with its listeners. Email ipm@bbc.co.uk. Twitter: @BBCiPM. Presented by Luke Jones and Eddie Mair. Produced by Emma Close.
The latest news headlines. Including the weather and a look at the papers.
Leathers, green beard, a Harley and pension: guest presenter Paul Murphy meets some of the people behind the longest running bike night in the UK.
Lincolnshire's roads are long, straight (Roman) and quiet, perfect for motorbikes. Every week between March and October, about a thousand of them ride out in the county for a pub supper and a cup of tea. It's a sight you don't easily forget.
Graham Sugdon started Lincolnshire Bike Nights in 1989 when his hair and beard were long and black. He's a third generation biker and hopes he'll be riding into his eighties, like his Dad, Bernard. Frustrated by the 'No Bikers' signs at venues, Graham set out to persuade landlords that bikers could be good customers. Twenty-eight years later he's still organising weekly 'rides out'. It is about landscape - the pleasures of experiencing it at speed.
Steve Smith, landlord of the Ferry House Inn in the Trent-side village of Burton upon Stather, always looks forward to bike night. These customers may have tattoos, ZZ top-style hair and green beards, but they're unfailingly polite, their bikes are immaculate and they don't drink and drive. These leather-clad cruisers appreciate a nice bit of landscape.
Presenter...Paul Murphy
Producer...Mary Ward-Lowery.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
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News and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
Sir Tim Smit, co-founder of the Eden Project; actor and writer John Gordon Sinclair; performer Sophie Willan and confectioner Andy Baxendale join Aasmah Mir and the Reverend Richard Coles.
Sir Tim Smit co-founded the Eden Project in Cornwall in 2001. The Dutch born businessman is also known for restoring the Lost Gardens of Heligan with John Nelson. It's 25 years since these gardens were restored to their former glory. This week the Eden Project launched a new company Eden Project International Ltd (EPIL) to establish Eden projects with international partners around the world. Eden Project International is currently working on three projects in China and others in Australia and New Zealand.
John Gordon Sinclair is an author and actor, best known for playing Gregory in Bill Forsyth's film Gregory's Girl. In 2012 he turned his attention to writing crime novels and his current book, Walk In Silence, is the story of lawyer Keira Lynch who is caught up in the murky Albanian underworld. As an actor Gordon was nominated for a BAFTA for Best Newcomer for Gregory's Girl and his first outing in London's West End in She Loves Me won him a Best Actor Olivier award. Walk in Silence is published by Faber and Faber. Gordon features in the television drama Diana and I which will be broadcast on BBC Two later this year.
Comedian Sophie Willan's new show Branded explores why she feels like a well-travelled alien - fitting in with no particular class or culture but still constantly being put into boxes by others. Branded by her working class background, her gender, her ambition, and her unapologetic 'Northerness', she explains the misunderstandings she's experienced in different environments. Her previous show On Record tackled the story of her childhood in care and the impact of getting access to her case files at 23. Branded is at the Pleasance Courtyard: Bunker 2, Edinburgh.
Andy Baxendale is a sweet consultant who features in the BBC Two series the Sweetmakers which explores the life of confectioners in late 19th and early 20th century England. This was a time when cheap sugar meant sweets for every class in society and the modern brands that we still know and love today were created. Using period equipment, original recipes and authentic ingredients, Andy and his fellow confectioners recreate sweets of the past and discover the adulterants and toxic colours used in sweets, the Quaker families who dominated confectionery, and the poignant letters sent back from the First World War trenches. The Sweetmakers is broadcast on BBC Two.
Producer: Paula McGinley.
Jay Rayner and his panellists visit Hull, UK City of Culture for 2017. Dr Annie Gray, Sue Lawrence, Tim Hayward and Rob Owen Brown answer the foodie questions.
This week, they discuss what to do with a glut of gooseberries, the best toppings for burgers and how to make a delicious dry rub.
The panellists also debate chicken - thigh versus breast - and what to put on a crumpet, apart from butter.
Producer: Darby Dorras
Assistant Producer: Laurence Bassett
Food consultant: Anna Colquhoun
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.
This year is the 80th anniversary of the record-breaking attempt by the US aviator Amelia Earhart to circumnavigate the globe. It was a mission that cost her life, but helped to cement her place in history as one of the most inspirational and celebrated pilots of the 20th century.
Earhart used her position and the publicity her flights generated to advance the cause of women's rights - not just in aviation, but in wider society.
Bridget Kendall looks back at the life of a pioneering woman determined to break through barriers - with Susan Butler, author of 'East to the Dawn: The Life of Amelia Earhart'; Dorothy Cochrane, Curator in the Aeronautics Division of the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington; and Susan Ware, author of 'Still Missing: Amelia Earhart and the Search for Modern Feminism'.
Photo: Amelia Earhart in June 1928 (Getty Images).
Afghanistan's new Top Guns and America's dilemma over sending more US troops to the region. Kate Adie introduces correspondents' stories.
Justin Rowlatt meets one of a new generation of Afghan fighter pilots and asks whether they can become an effective fighting force without additional support from their US allies.
Chris Haslam is in Rwanda ahead of the presidential election, but he doesn't need to wait for the vote itself to reveal who the winner is.
Antonia Quirke finds that Mexico's long-running drug war is spreading its violence to previously peaceful parts of the country.
David Shukman visits Greenland's melting ice sheet and struggles to avoid its treacherous puddles of slushy snow.
And fridge magnets and foreign policy: has Steve Rosenberg found a new way to decipher Russia's approach to global politics.
Producer: Joe Kent.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
In this first programme in a seven part series that explores what retirement might look like in the future, Brooke Elias, a 23 year old just starting out in the world of work asks three pension experts about the challenges she's likely to face in providing for her retirement and what the solutions might be.
The population is getting older and the number of pensioners supported by each 1000 people in work is getting bigger. It will need steady rises in state pension age to keep it around its present level of three workers paying for each pensioner.
Until recently the number of people paying into a pension at work was falling. Now, it is rising again with the automatic enrolment of most workers into one. But not enough is going into many workplace pensions to give members a comfortable retirement.
So will tomorrow's pensioners be able to afford what is in effect a twenty year paid holiday at the end of their lives? And will the working population be willing to help them pay for it?
Paul Lewis is joined by former Pensions Minister Baroness Ros Altmann, Tom McPhail, Head of Retirement Policy at the finance company Hargreaves Lansdown and Paul Johnson Director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
Presenter: Paul Lewis
Producer: Ben Carter
Editor: Andrew Smith.
This week, the Professor of Ignorance John Lloyd and his new curator, the brilliant Romesh Ranganathan welcome a high-powered media executive who was persuaded by none other than Joan Rivers to become a stand-up comedian, Cally Beaton; the wonderfully funny comedy actor from Smack The Pony, I'm Alan Partridge, Green Wing and Miranda, Sally Phillips; and consultant in cellular pathology at Peterborough City Hospital and president of the Royal College of Pathologists, Suzy Lishman.
This week, the Museum's Guest Committee offer as exhibits the entire population of the Netherlands; Richard III's foot bones; and a knitted tea-cosy to cover the entire Museum.
The show was researched by Anne Miller of QI and Mike Turner.
The production coordinator was Tamara Shilham.
The producers were Richard Turner and James Harkin.
It was a BBC Studios Production.
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Ed Stourton presents political debate from Whiteparish Memorial Centre near Salisbury with a panel including the journalist Julia Hartley Brewer, the Shadow Secretary of State for International Trade and Shadow Minister for International Climate Change Barry Gardiner MP, the Rt Rev. Nick Holtam the Bishop of Salisbury and the Minister for Climate Change and Industry Claire Perry MP.
Listeners have their say on the issues discussed on Any Questions?
Love Henry James: Roderick Hudson
adapted by Lavinia Murray
Rowland Mallet - a wealthy Bostonian bachelor becomes patron to a young sculptor, Roderick Hudson, and takes him from the US to Rome to study and develop his art. Their conflicting and complex relationship is heightened in the 'old world' as Rowland falls in love with Mary Garland, Roderick's fiance, and Roderick becomes involved in a destructive relationship with the beautiful Christina Light.
Produced and directed by Pauline Harris
Written in 1875 this was one of Henry James's early novels, his second.
Witty, wise and the best women in literature. So why doesn't Henry James inspire the widespread devotion that Jane Austen and the Brontës bask in? Sarah Churchwell is on a mission to solve that mystery and turn readers on to the limitless charms of the Father of the modern novel.
With the help of 'Brooklyn' and 'House of Names' author, Colm Tóibín and literary biographer Hermione Lee, Sarah will showcase the very best of his work and prove that James isn't just an 'important' novelist but a thoroughly enjoyable read.
As an American who travelled through Europe and took up British citizenship during the First World War, James was well-placed to chronicle the shifting relationships between the continents. Americans, by turns naïve or arrogant, clash time and again with stubborn Brits and wily Continentals. In an age of Trump and Brexit his penetrating gaze and snarky asides are needed more than ever.
But it's Henry's women that keep bringing film-makers and fans to his work. No male novelist before or since has spent an entire career faithfully placing himself within the consciousness of women. Alone amongst the great men of Victorian and Edwardian literature he assumed that a woman could feel as he did and experience the same powerful drive to act. Those wishes, however, are again and again thwarted by the constraints of society and the moral sense of his characters.
As a curtain-raiser to a season of Henry James dramas on BBC Radio Four Sarah Churchwell reassesses those great characters and offers up their magnetic attraction and fatal flaws for the new audience that he so richly deserves.
Producer: Alasdair Cross.
Olivia Colman and Olivia Williams discuss their new play Mosquitoes and what it's like to play sisters.
We hear from Patricia Greene, Jill Archer in the Archers, who's been playing the role for sixty years. We look at how her character has changed over the years and the latest story line 'flapjackgate'.
Three women whose children, for many reasons, do not live with them discuss Mothers Apart, a group in Huddersfield which allows them to talk about this taboo situation. Siobhan Beckwith who runs the group discusses the mental and emotional difficulties these women face.
Listener Jackie talks about how the gender pay gap has directly affected her and we hear from the Labour MP Jess Phillips and Charlie Dobrez a Director of Lewes Football Club in Sussex which pays both its male and female players the same.
We continue our series Dating with Difficulty, having to explain a difficult personal situation to a prospective partner. Eleanor Conway talks about dating whilst sober because of past drug and alcohol abuse and Emily Reynolds shares what it's like tying to find a partner when you have bipolar disorder.
And a new comedy 'The Big Sick' based on the real life relationship of co-writers Kumail Nanjiani and Emily V.Gordon. It's the story of the Pakistani-American stand up comedian who hides the fact that he's dating a while woman from his strictly traditional parents.
Presented by Jane Garvey
Producer: Rabeka Nurmahomed
Editor; Beverley Purcell.
Full coverage of the day's news.
There's no business like show business. Evans Davis and guests explore the success story that is UK theatre. From splashy musicals, and classic revivals to cutting edge new dramas the sector makes more than a billion pounds in ticket sales a year. But there's trouble on the horizon. Public subsidies for theatres are being cut back. Can corporate giving and donations from philanthropists continue to plug the shortfall?
Guests
Brenna Hobson, National Theatre of Scotland
Kate Varah, the Old Vic, London
Rachel Tackley, Chichester Festival Theatre.
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Nikki Bedi and Scottee are joined by Steven Berkoff, Ciaran Hinds, Sofie Hagen and Andrew O'Neill for an eclectic mix of conversation, music and comedy. With music from Nomade Orquestra and Tanzania Albinism Collective.
Producer: Debbie Kilbride.
Lady Brenda Hale has been announced as the new president of the UK Supreme Court - the first woman to hold the post. Lady Hale has a long track record as a female pioneer in the legal profession and has been critical of the lack of diversity within the judicial system.
Born in Yorkshire, she was an outstanding student, passing the 11 plus exam a year early. She took a different route into the judiciary, having pursued a career as a legal academic first, rather than spend years working as a barrister.
After becoming a part time judge while working for the Law Commission - the body which promotes law reform - she then went quickly through the ranks sitting in the Court of Appeal and then the House of Lords. She became the first female justice at the Supreme Court and then its first female deputy president - and will take on role of President in October.
Mark Coles talks to friends, family and colleagues about about her distinguished career - and early love for Cliff Richard.
Producer: Jordan Dunbar.
Girl From The North Country; Conor McPherson and the songs of Bob Dylan at London's Old Vic - inspired pairing or an unholy marriage?
Could The Big Sick - a film about a woman in a coma produced by Judd Apatow - revive the sorry state of romcom movies?
Stamped From The Beginning by Dr Ibram X Kendy is the definitive history of racist ideas in America and winner of the National Book Award in the US
The latest exhibition at Liverpool's Walker Art Gallery, Coming Out, brings together a diverse range of artists who have used their work to explore sexuality and gender identity since 1967.
Top Of The Lake returns to BBC TV with Elizabeth Moss and Jane Campion back on board. Can it be as gripping as the first season?
Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Sarah Churchwell, Kerry Shale and Briony Hanson. The producer is Oliver Jones.
Roy Jenkins's reputation as the senior member of the 'Gang of Four' who quit the Labour Party and founded the SDP in the early 1980s now often eclipses his earlier and more enduring impact as a reforming Home Secretary in the 1960s. Despite spending under two years in charge of the Home Office, Jenkins transformed his department into an engine of social change and master-minded a raft of liberal measures. His reforms provoked condemnation by some for creating a 'permissive society' but he was praised by others for being the architect of a 'civilised society'. Richard Weight, the social historian, talks with key witnesses and explores the archives to explore Roy Jenkins's role in the liberal reforms of the 1960s.
Jenkins championed liberal reform from his early days in politics. When he penned The Labour Case in a Penguin series for the 1959 election, his final chapter was entitled 'Is Britain Civilised?' Jenkins's basic ideas - that the state should do less to restrict personal freedom and that Labour should expand freedom in people's personal lives - were to become his guiding principles at the Home Office in the mid-1960s. He seized the moment to pursue far-reaching reforms, notably of the laws on homosexuality and abortion. On the explosive issues of immigration and race relations, he battled against ingrained prejudice. Today Jenkins's reforms are among the key lasting changes made during the Wilson Government in the 1960s.
Producer: Rob Shepherd.
D H Lawrence's The Gypsy
Drama inspired by D H Lawrence's The Virgin and the Gypsy. Handsome gypsy Joe and his family arrive in the small countryside village of Papplewick one summer looking for work. It isn't long before Joe is drawn to the local Rector's daughter. A tale of desire and repression set during interwar England.
Written by Dan Allum
Directed by Charlotte Riches.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4, followed by weather.
Despite the introduction of the Equal Pay Act nearly half a century ago, the BBC salary revelations of last week suggest that the most dramatic example of inequality for women - the gender pay gap - shows no immediate sign of narrowing. In a letter urging the corporation to act now to deal with the disparity, many of its highest-profile female personalities emphasise "what many of us have suspected for many years... that women at the BBC are being paid less than men for the same work." Logically, the legal and moral case for paying the same rate for the same job is overwhelming. But in practice, can two jobs ever be exactly the same? Even if they are the same on paper, what people do with their jobs may be very different. Many examples of the difference in the average earnings of men and women stem from the biological fact that women are the child-bearers. Does that mean we will never be able to escape an inherently misogynistic culture? What more could or should companies, government and society reasonably do about gender disparities? Is positive discrimination essential, or does it merely address the symptoms rather than the causes of inequality? Would a ban on the promotion of perceived gender stereotypes in advertising be one useful way of tackling everyday sexism? Or is viewing society through the prism of gender an unhealthy obsession and an unhelpful distraction from the job of tackling wider inequalities in wealth, health and education?
Witnesses are Emily Hill, Nikki Van De Gaag, Sophie Walker and Dr Joanna Williams.
Producer: Dan Tierney.
(4/13)
Which film composer's music accompanies Matthew Bourne's new touring production of the ballet The Red Shoes? And in which famously cryptic song lyric of the 1960s do old men play Chinese chequers by the trees?
The competitors in today's contest have no idea what questions await them, but they can be sure they will cover the widest possible range of music. They will also face the notorious specialist round, in which they have to pick from a list of five topics on which to answer individual questions - with no prior notice of what the topics are going to be.
Today's winner goes through to the semi-finals in September.
Producer: Paul Bajoria.
The second edition of a new globe-trotting poetry series. Poet Helen Mort explores exciting voices from around the world. This week, she hears poems in Persian, Spanish, German and Chinese - and in translation - all inspired by the everyday objects and people around them. She considers how through the observing eye of poetry, the ordinary becomes extraordinary.
Tea bags, mushrooms and mosquitoes have all inspired German poet Jan Wagner. His poems give surprising perspectives on the most commonplace objects - they are witty, compassionate and novel. Wagner reads from his collection Self-Portrait with a Swarm of Bees, and talks about the process of translation between German and English.
Nicknamed the Poet of Objects in his native Iran, Iraj Ziayi writes about ordinary household items - chairs, slippers - with heightened intensity. In his poem Six Green Polish Chairs, a collection of childhood memories are triggered by the sight of a particular shade of green. Alireza Abiz translates from the Persian.
Helen Mort travels to Oxford to speak to Theophilus Kwek. Kwek is a young poet and translator from Singapore, whose version of Moving House by Malayan-born poet Wong Yoon Wah, recently won second place in the Stephen Spender prize for poetry in translation. Moving House explores the ordinary details of a house move, with a fascinating personal and political subtext.
Finally, there's poetry by Oscar Cruz, direct from the streets of Santiago de Cuba. Speaking to Cruz's translator Serafina Vick, Helen Mort learns about his mission to bring the everyday life and language of his city - in all its frank reality - into his poems. Muy caliente!
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
In Sarah Hall's specially commissioned short story for Radio 4, a local eccentric has a strange effect on a rural town in America's Northwest. Who was the totemic figure who walked and walked the bridges of Snake Canyon? And why did he do it?
Sarah Hall is a highly acclaimed and award-winning British novelist, whose works include: Haweswater (which won the 2003 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Novel, a Society of Authors Betty Trask Award), The Electric Michelangelo (shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize) and Wolf Border (winner of the James Tait Memorial Prize). Her short story, Mrs Fox won the BBC National Shorts Story Award in 2014.
Produced by Justine Willett.
Read by Jamie Parker: an acclaimed British actor, who came to prominence as part of the original cast of Alan Bennett's The History Boys. He recently won a Best Actor Olivier Award for his role as Harry Potter in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.
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The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
Church bells from St Mary Magdalene, Chewton Mendip.
The latest national and international news.
The sun is a powerful symbol in many cultures and many faiths. In a programme that investigates what it means to humans in religious, scientific and secular contacts, Mark Tully asks what we mean by sun worship.
He talks to Lakshmi, a sadhvi - or Hindu holy woman - from an ashram in Delhi, about the rituals of sun worship. He also explores the works of physicist John Tyndall and poets Molly Fisk and Emily Bronte on their love and loathing for the sun. There is music from Haydn, Roy Ayers and Sally Beamish.
The readers are David Westhead and Polly Frame.
Presenter: Mark Tully
Producer: Frank Stirling
A 7digital production for BBC Radio 4.
They may not rank alongside the Jamaican bobsleigh team in the list of unlikely sporting heroes but the Israeli Sheepdog Trial team are determined to make their mark. It's a competitive field long dominated by British and Irish farmers but other nations are increasingly showing an interest. For the first time the World Trials are being held outside the British Isles, just to the north of Amsterdam. And, also for the first time, a team from Israel is taking part. Ruth Sanderson follows the progress of the two Israeli shepherds as they take on the might of the Scots and Welsh.
Producer: Emily Hughes.
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The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.
Trevor Barnes finishes his short series on stained glass by talking to Peter Cormack on how glass artists transformed the aesthetics and production of stained glass in Britain and America during the Arts and Crafts period.
The Charity Commission have published a critical report into how the Jehovah's Witnesses managed allegations of child sex abuse at the Manchester New Moston congregation. Kathleen Hallisey a lawyer for survivors and Harvey Grenville, Head of Investigations and Enforcement at the Charity Commission discuss the issues with Edward.
Whether we worry about what to eat, how to love, or simply how to be happy, we are worrying about how to lead a good life. Philosophy Professor and author of "How To Be a Stoic" Massimo Pigliucci talks to Edward about why Stoicism as the best way to embrace life.
Kevin Bocquet reports on the organisation Hope for Justice which helps rescue the victims of people traffickers and discovers the scale of the problem here in the UK.
Catherine Bott's guide to Monteverdi's Vespers which is being performed at the BBC Proms on Monday 31st July 2017 to celebrate the 450th anniversary of the composer's birth.
Producers: Carmel Lonergan and Louise Clarke-Rowbotham
Editor: Amanda Hancox.
Annie Ashby, a beneficiary of MHA (Methodist Homes), makes the Radio 4 Appeal on the charity's behalf.
Registered Charity Number 1083995
To Give:
- Freephone 0800 404 8144
- Freepost BBC Radio 4 Appeal. (That's the whole address. Please do not write anything else on the front of the envelope). Mark the back of the envelope 'MHA'.
- Cheques should be made payable to 'MHA'.
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The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.
A service to mark the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Passchendaele, recorded at St Martin-in-the-Fields, a church which gave a moment of comfort and shelter to many troops as they passed through London to the Western Front. The Menin Gate Memorial in Ypres in Belgian Flanders records the names of more than 54,000 soldiers from the UK and Commonwealth who fell on the battlefield in that area during the First World War and who have no known grave. This service commemorates those who went missing at the Third Battle of Ypres (known more commonly as the Battle of Passchendaele) which began on 31 July 1917. We hear of the experiences of those back at home who lost loved ones during the First World War, and also from those whose relatives and friends have gone missing since. The preacher is the vicar of St Martin's, the Revd Dr Sam Wells, and the music is led by St Martin's Voices. Producer Andrew Earis.
"I have lived long enough now", writes Adam Gopnik, "to see several absolutely horrific epochs come and go...looking much less absolutely horrific once they're gone."
He reflects on how Donald Trump's presidency will affect our sense of what constitutes normality.
"Are we every day normalizing behaviour", he asks, "that will bring an end to normalcy itself".
Producer: Adele Armstrong.
Writer Eleanor Matthews recalls how the magpie came into her life at a time of change for Tweet of the Day.
Tweet of the Day has captivated the Radio 4 audience with its daily 90 seconds of birdsong. But what of the listener to this avian chorus? In this new series of Tweet of the Day, we bring to the airwaves the conversational voices of those who listen to and are inspired by birds. Building on the previous series, a more informal approach to learning alongside a renewed emphasis on encounter with nature and reflection in our relationship with the natural world.
Producer Eliza Lomas.
News with Paddy O'Connell. Dan Damon hears of the poets who died on the same day at the Battle of Passchendaele. We discuss if Artificial Intelligence could bring an end to civilisation. Reviewing the Sunday papers - former top cop Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, free speech advocate Ella Whelan and screenwriter Gareth McLean.
Jill wants to be heard, and Clarrie gets ready to host.
Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer of Facebook, is Kirsty Young's castaway. She worked for Google at the beginning of the tech boom before joining Facebook in 2008. Raised in Miami Beach, Florida, she studied economics at Harvard. She became chief of staff for Larry Summers, Treasury Secretary under Bill Clinton, before moving to Silicon Valley.
Sheryl published her first book called Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead in 2013 which tried to answer the question why so few women reach the top echelons of their professions. In 2015, her husband of eleven years and father of their two children, Dave Goldberg, died suddenly while they were on holiday. In her second book, Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy, she describes her struggles in dealing with this sudden loss.
Producer: Cathy Drysdale.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
The godfather of all panel shows pays a visit to the New Alexandra Theatre in Birmingham. Regulars Barry Cryer and Tim Brooke-Taylor are joined on the panel by Jeremy Hardy and Jan Ravens with Jack Dee in the chair. Colin Sell accompanies on the piano. Producer - Jon Naismith. It is a BBC Studios production.
Sheila Dillon and The Food Programme team go camping, to discover the possibilities of food and drink in the outdoors.
Joining Sheila around a Monmouthshire campfire are BBC 6Music presenter Cerys Matthews, author of 'How to Eat Outside' Genevieve Taylor, forager and wild drinks teacher Andy Hamilton, Matthew De Abaitua - author of 'The Art of Camping: The History and Practice of Sleeping Under the Stars', and Josh Sutton - who has just written a book called 'Outdoor Ovens' and is also known as the Guyrope Gourmet.
Produced by Rich Ward.
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Global news and analysis.
In this new monthly series, broadcaster and acclaimed historical novelist Sarah Dunant, delves into the past to help frame the present, bringing to life worlds that span the centuries.
Taking modern day anxieties as its starting point, the series considers how certain questions are constant, yet also change their shape over time. Sarah celebrates the role of imagination in History and History as a discipline is at the heart of the programme, showing how historians are continually changing the questions they ask of the past.
The programme takes its name from the industrialist Henry Ford who, in 1921 reportedly told the New York Times, "History is Bunk" and asked "What difference does it make how many times the ancient Greeks flew kites?"
The opening episode examines the commonly-held anxiety that the future for the generations to come no longer looks as good as it did for past ones. Sarah explores the idea of tension and acceptance between generations. Dr Lucy Underwood introduces us to rebellious Catholic teens after the Reformation. Professor Helen Berry talks to Sarah about the struggle by the young to marry for love and the historian Lawrence Stone, who spawned a new interest in family history.
Sarah talks to Professor Ibram Kendi about the tension between successive generations of black Americans about how to overcome racism. And with Professor Peter Mandler, Sarah examines how the holy grail of social mobility, used by politicians on both sides long after its sell by date, was actually more complex and flawed than we have come to accept.
Presenter: Sarah Dunant
Producer: Katherine Godfrey
Assistant Producer: Nathan Gower
Executive Producer: David Prest
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.
Peter Gibbs and the panel are pitch side at AFC Wimbledon. Joining Peter to answer questions from the stands are Pippa Greenwood, Bunny Guinness and Matthew Wilson.
They discuss non-flowering Lavenders, an out-of-sorts Hydrangea and what to do with an unruly Eucalyptus. They also give tips on how best to deter cats from using your garden as a latrine.
And the panellists venture onto the hallowed turf to discuss ways in which you can keep your lawn as immaculate as a professional football pitch.
Produced by Dan Cocker
Assistant Producer: Laurence Bassett
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.
Fi Glover introduces conversations between brothers who ran a Derry department store, friends who had more freedom than their children, and charity workers with a sense of humour, in the Omnibus edition of the series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen.
The Listening Project is a Radio 4 initiative that offers a snapshot of contemporary Britain in which people across the UK volunteer to have a conversation with someone close to them about a subject they've never discussed intimately before. The conversations are being gathered across the UK by teams of producers from local and national radio stations who facilitate each encounter. Every conversation - they're not BBC interviews, and that's an important difference - lasts up to an hour, and is then edited to extract the key moment of connection between the participants. 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.
Henry James' masterpiece about desire and freedom dramatised by Linda Marshall Griffiths.
Arriving in England from her native America Isabel Archer immediately draws attention because of her intelligence, candour and independent spirit. Isabel is pursued by two suitors but determined to explore what the world has to offer she strives to have the freedom to determine her own future declaring she will never marry. Seeing her desire to break away from the conventions of her society and pursue her own course, her cousin Ralph does something extraordinary.
Directed by Nadia Molinari
The Portrait of a Lady is part of Love Henry James: a series of dramatisations and features celebrating Henry James and his unique insights on love. Love Henry James takes a thrilling, passionate, heart-breaking journey through his novels and his life. Henry James is an extraordinary storyteller. His characters and their inner lives are vividly portrayed. The stories are compelling and the stakes are high. He writes about transformation through travel where innocence opens up to experience.
Henry James unlocks the secrets of the human heart.
A special programme recorded at the Chalke Valley History Festival. Mariella and her guests, Tom Holland, Tracy Borman and Olivette Otele talk about who is writing history today, whose stories they are telling - or neglecting -and the relationship between writing history and writing historical fiction.
The third edition of a new globe-trotting poetry series. Poet Helen Mort explores exciting voices from around the world. This week, she hears poems in Macedonian, Old Norse and Russian - and in translation. Reflecting on the phrase 'tracks of time', she discovers how memory and history play a part in the work of these three poets.
Helen travels to Berlin to meet the Macedonian poet Nikola Madzirov. Described as one of most powerful voices in contemporary European poetry, he writes with great lyrical depth, insight and originality. In his collection 'Remnants of Another Age', he reflects on the history of his Balkan homeland and on ideas of shelter and nomadism with a restless, timeless intelligence.
Heading up the North Sea coast to Aberdeen, we hear Scottish poet Ian Crockatt reading his fresh versions of the Old Norse verses of Rognvaldr, Earl of Orkney. The collection, 'Crimsoning the Eagle's Claw', is a treasure trove of vivid snapshots of the life of this twelfth century poet, lover, nobleman and sailor. Like meeting a Viking face-to-face.
Finally, Helen travels to Oxford to meet one of Russia's foremost contemporary poets, Maria Stepanova and her translator, Sasha Dugdale. Stepanova writes formally inventive and thoughtful poetry, teeming with references from her country's cultural memory and political history. Through her journalism and editorship of an independent, crowdfunded site, she is also an important liberal voice.
Producer: Caroline Hughes
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.
Prevent is the government's policy designed to nip terrorism in the bud - and it has proved highly controversial. The former Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, David Anderson QC, explores the origins of the strategy, its original purpose, and how it has evolved over the past decade.
The public dialogue played out in the press and among politicians is often critical of Prevent - but how does that compare to its implementation and impact on the ground?
David Anderson meets a young former Extreme Far Right activist who has been through Prevent's de-radicalisation programme Channel and learns how it has led to a dramatic change in his behaviour, and speaks to Prevent professionals about how the strategy works in practice.
The programme explores the controversial statutory duty placed on public institutions, legally obliging staff - teachers, doctors, prison officers - to report concerns they might have about an individual. Students also share their views on how the Prevent policy has affected them, knowing that their teachers may be reporting their behaviour - and a mother shares the story of her two sons, who were wrongly referred by over-zealous school staff.
Critics claim the policy continues to unfairly target British Muslims, and has brought a whole community under suspicion and David Anderson speaks to critics from within Muslim communities - as well as British Muslims who support the policy too.
And for a policy which has been so widely discussed and debated, we still know little about it - so why has the government been so reluctant to release information? And what impact has this secrecy had on public perception and understanding of Prevent?
Producer: Richard Fenton-Smith.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest weather forecast.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
This week, we take a trip to the bottom of the Norwegian seas in search of an ancient monster, hear the arc of bird flight transcribed into sound, and consider humanity's historical obsession with mercury.
There are crimes solved by fleas, bowling babies, poetry and The Proms.
And in the 50th year since the Sexual Offence Act of 1967 we reminisce about a glitzy Soho hangout for punks, and reveal how gay life in London's theatre land survived despite the hostility of the law.
Fallon is driven to distraction, and Matt makes a promise.
Comedy is at its most powerful when it takes on our darkest fears and hardest times, and transforms them into laughter. Julia Sutherland looks into the corners of fellow stand up comedians' lives - performers who have chosen to share their deeply personal stories on stage to give a voice to issues otherwise overlooked. They have overcome their troubles and empowered themselves and many others to laugh at the things you're not supposed to laugh at.
Through comedy, Julia shows that sometimes it's OK not to be OK.
This second programme in the series features Felicity Ward and Fern Brady. Felicity Ward is an Australian comedian who has struggled with severe anxiety throughout her adult life - particularly challenging when it's your job to entertain strangers every night from stage. Glaswegian stand up Fern Brady has been forced to cope with depression, which is made far more difficult by her underlying anger issues that are provoked by the challenges of daily life.
A Dabster production for BBC Radio 4.
As part of their final Media Degree assessment at NUC in Northern Ireland, three final year university students - Natalie Driver, JJ Collins and Vic Grant - decide to make a podcast about a cold case which happened in Colecastle fourteen years ago. On Saturday April 26th 2003, Toby Ellis was minding his four month old nephew, Derek Ellis. He nipped into his local newsagents and left the pram outside on the street. He claimed he left the child for no longer than two minutes. During this time, the baby was abducted and six days later the infant's body was discovered buried in a nearby wooded area, Mountfort. Cause of death, a blow to the head. No one was ever charged with the murder and the case has remained on-going.
The first episode of Hiding Out is a podcast hosted by one of the students, Natalie; she reveals she is currently in hiding fearing for her safety. Having published their first podcast on The Murder at Colecastle, her fellow student Vic had received a call from someone who had heard the podcast claiming they had new evidence about the day the child was abducted. Vic and JJ met with the source. That was 3 days ago and no one has seen or heard from either Vic or JJ since... The only contact Natalie has received is a text sent from her classmate JJ's phone which reads "We're watching you. Stop this now." Natalie knows their disappearance is clearly linked to digging into the murder of Derek Ellis. If she finds them, she may finally find the truth of what happened in Colecastle. Natalie's nightly podcasts of 'Hiding Out' are attracting more and more interest - #whereisnatalie and #findvicandjj are rife with speculation. Are these three students actually in danger? Or - as their media lecturer believes - is this all an elaborate media hoax?
Gerard Stembridge ..... Writer
Gemma McMullan ..... Series Producer & Director.
Roger Bolton looks at the BBC's coverage of Donald Trump, the Dead Ringers team reveal what spurred them on in their latest popular series, and listeners react to the news that Saturday Review has been granted a late reprieve.
At a press conference shortly after his inauguration, Donald Trump referred to the BBC's Jon Sopel as "Another beauty". On this week's Feedback, the beauty himself joins Roger to consider listener response to his coverage, how the BBC tries to remain impartial in the face of an unusual presidency and whether the BBC is giving either too much or too little credence to the ongoing allegations of collusion between Donald Trump's campaign and Russia.
Many listeners have contacted Feedback to say how much they've enjoyed the latest series of Dead Ringers. So how do they do it? Jan Ravens, Jon Culshaw and Lewis Macleod discuss why breakneck news can make for blistering satire.
In April, Radio 4 announced the cancellation of long running arts staple Saturday Review. Feedback listeners were furious - and made their views clear in no uncertain terms. This week, Radio 4 controller Gwyneth Williams announced an abrupt - but possibly temporary - reversal of the decision. Saturday Review enthusiasts respond to the news.
Patricia Greene has been on The Archers since the 1950s, playing the much loved Jill Archer. So when the now 86 year old actress was played a clip of herself as Jill from 1959 during an interview on Woman's Hour she barely recognised her own voice. Listeners react to a special radio moment.
Producer: Will Yates
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.
Matthew Bannister on
Mary Turner the President of the GMB Union who started her campaigning life by organising her fellow dinner ladies at a North London school.
Chester Bennington, lead singer of the band Linkin Park who sold more than seventy million copies of their nu-metal albums.
Scharlette Holdman who cajoled lawyers into representing people on death row in American prisons and developed techniques for persuading the courts to mitigate their sentences.
Orri Vigfusson the businessman and angler who saved North Atlantic salmon stocks by paying commercial fishermen to stop taking them from the sea.
And the film director George A Romero who pioneered the zombie horror movie genre with Night of the Living Dead.
Presenter: Matthew Bannister
Producer: Paul Waters.
Has the initial success of the minimum wage meant politicians have extended the policy to damaging levels? All the major political parties agree: the measure has been a success, and in the 2017 election all promised substantial rises in the rate by 2020. The Conservatives are aiming for a £9 national living wage by the end of the decade, and not to be outdone, Labour promised £10 for all but the under-18s. Paul Johnson, director of the Institute of Fiscal Studies, asks why left and right have both adopted this once controversial policy. And could the current bidding war of big increases undermine the positive effects it has had over its eighteen-year history?
Producer: Kate Lamble.
Weekly political discussion and analysis with MPs, experts and commentators.
Antonia Quirke talks to director James Ivory about Howard's End, as it's about to be re-released in cinemas, and his working relationship with producer Ismail Merchant that spawned dozens of movies including A Room With A View, The Remains Of The Day and Maurice.
Antonia learns the secret art and craft of ADR (or Automated Dialogue Replacement), as she joins a group of actors as they overdub crowd scenes in a costume drama.
Pasquale Iannone discusses the extraordinary personal and professional relationship between Sophia Loren and producer Carlo Ponti that lasted four decades.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
Exhaustion: is extreme fatigue a peculiarly modern phenomenon? Laurie Taylor talks to Ann Katharina Schaffner, Reader in Comparative Literature and Medical Humanities at the University of Kent and author of a multi disciplinary study into weariness, past and present. Also, listeners' thoughts on subway travel.
Producer:Jayne Egerton.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
A short reflection and prayer with Rev Dr Lesley Carroll.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
The latest weather forecast for farmers.
Nadia Archer of the RSPB recalls volunteering in Manchester on a peregrine watch at the Arndale Centre for Tweet of the Day, where the call of the wild could bring relaxation to a busy city centre.
Tweet of the Day has captivated the Radio 4 audience with its daily 90 seconds of birdsong. But what of the listener to this avian chorus? In this new series of Tweet of the Day, we bring to the airwaves the conversational voices of those who listen to and are inspired by birds. Building on the previous series, a more informal approach to learning alongside a renewed emphasis on encounter with nature and reflection in our relationship with the natural world.
Producer Tom Bonnett.
News and current affairs. Includes Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
On the 70th anniversary of the partition of India, Kavita Puri hears remarkable first-hand testimonies from both British Asians and the Colonial British. The division of the Indian subcontinent into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan resulted in one of the largest migrations the world has ever seen. Over 10 million people sought refuge in one or other of the new dominions. Unspeakable violence accompanied the displacement, claiming up to a million lives, while tens of thousands of women suffered rape and abduction. Many of those who experienced the chaos have kept their silence ever since, such was their trauma. Yet those taking part in this series speak with remarkable clarity about the tumultuous events, whose legacy endures to this day within Britain's South Asian communities.
This first programme covers the years leading up to partition; a time in which many Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus recall living together harmoniously - indeed, sometimes remarkably closely. We hear about the calls for the British to quit India; the rising clamour for an independent Pakistan; the dread as communal rioting gripped ever more of the subcontinent; and how the movement of people began even before partition, as the first refugees abandoned lands inhabited for centuries; and how independence day was marked on both sides of the border.
Producer: Mike Gallagher, Tim Smith, Ant Adeane
Academic Consultants:-
Dr Joya Chatterji, Professor of South Asian History, University of Cambridge
Dr Andrew Whitehead, Honorary Professor, University of Nottingham
Radio 4's Partition Voices recordings will be archived in full in the British Library Sound Archive.
An extraordinary oral history of Russian Women's experiences in the Second World War.
In the late 1970s, Svetlana Alexievich realised that she had grown up surrounded by women who had fought in the Second World War, but whose voices were absent from official narratives. She said out to write her first book to document their stories.
Travelling thousands of miles, Svetlana spent years interviewing hundreds of Soviet women - captains, tank drivers, snipers, pilots, nurses and doctors - who had experienced the war on the front lines, on the home front and in occupied territories. As it brings to light their most harrowing memories, this symphony of voices reveals a different side of war, a new range of feelings, smells and colours.
Read by Sarah Badel, Teresa Gallagher and Jane Whittenshaw.
Written by Svetlana Alexievich.
Translated by Richard Pavear and Larissa Volokonsky.
Producer: Celia de Wolff
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.
Desire and propriety clash in Henry James' classic novella dramatised by Amanda Dalton.
Frederick Winterbourne meets the beautiful and free spirited Daisy Miller and falls instantly in love but when his desire for her is met with disapproval from his aunt will he follow his heart?
Directed by Nadia Molinari
Daisy Miller is part of Love Henry James: a series of dramatisations and features celebrating Henry James and his unique insights on love. Love Henry James takes a thrilling, passionate, heart-breaking journey through his novels and his life. Henry James is an extraordinary storyteller. His characters and their inner lives are vividly portrayed. The stories are compelling and the stakes are high. He writes about transformation through travel where innocence opens up to experience.
Henry James unlocks the secrets of the human heart.
Grace Dent revisits four of the most intriguing Untold stories from the past few months to discover what happened next. This includes 'Missing', the story of Zack and Kirsty in the wake of Zack's disappearance.
Journalist and comedy writer David Quantick has met and interviewed hundreds of people. What were his first impressions, how have they changed and does it all matter?
In this first programme (of four), there are stories about Björk, Michael Caine and Freddie Mercury, among others.
Produced by Steve Doherty
A Giddy Goat production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
31 July 1917 marked the first day of Passchendaele, and - at the Maudsley hospital in London - Adeline and Phyllis are on the offensive.
Written by Katie Hims
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole
Notes
Home Front Season 11 focuses on madness and trauma, both military and civilian, and is subtitled 'Broken and Mad', a line from the Sassoon poem, Survivors
No doubt they'll soon get well; the shock and strain
Have caused their stammering, disconnected talk.
Of course they're 'longing to go out again,'-
These boys with old, scared faces, learning to walk.
They'll soon forget their haunted nights; their cowed
Subjection to the ghosts of friends who died,-
Their dreams that drip with murder; and they'll be proud
Of glorious war that shatter'd all their pride...
Men who went out to battle, grim and glad;
Children, with eyes that hate you, broken and mad.
Folkestone is still recovering from the first Gotha Air Raid that struck suddenly and devastatingly on 25 May 1917, killing nearly a hundred citizens. At the heart of this narrative are three soldiers suffering war neurosis (shell shock), but the story refracts out to the madness of a town that has recently experienced significant trauma. The polarities of treatment for soldiers - from the talking cure of Dr Argent (& WH Rivers) to the 'punitive' methods of Dr Pilchard (& Lewis Yealland) - find a parallel in civilian manifestations. Post air raid anxiety, on a personal and a civic scale, can be treated by arrest and prosecution, or by accommodation and understanding.
News and discussion of consumer affairs.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
Does anyone stay in one place anymore?
Statistically, moving house is one of the most stressful things we do in our lives - whether finding somewhere to live, moving in, moving out - we leave traces of ourselves scattered in kitchens, bedrooms, bathrooms, flat shares, student lodgings and childhood homes.
Would you like the chance to go back ? To see who lives in your old bedroom, what colours the walls are painted and which posters are stuck up with blue tack? Or what has happened to the swirly hall carpet your parents laid?
Every day this week, Jude Rogers travels back in time, to visit the places that she's called home over nearly 4 decades - a journey through front doors, differently configured living rooms, extended bedrooms places shared with family, friends, boyfriends and most recently, her husband and child.
Some surprises are in store, as buildings change dimension in her memory, moments of joy and tragedy return, and a sense of continuity is found.
Gentrification, shifting social movements and nostalgia, all observed with a candid and personal eye.
Part one find her nervously approaching the house she lived on a new-build estate in Wales, where she lived up to the age of 5. The garage is gone, the back garden built on... but then she steps inside to find...?
Producer: Sara Jane Hall.
A surreal drama from the imagination of Christopher Lee.
It's 31 July 2017 and an increasingly certifiable Prime Minister is about to call another snap election when she is told that Gibraltar wants to stay in Europe and so, after 300 years of British rule, the Gibbies (as she calls them) are about to declare they are Spanish.
She goes into gigantic decline declaring history will write her off as the PM who lost more than her majority - if Gib goes, so will Australia, Canada and New Zealand.
The Queen, cousin of the Spanish King, wants to know what's going on and gives her PM advice she never expected to hear, telling her about the Buckingham Palace fox's attitude towards flamingo and the cost of large animal vets that look after the Gibraltar monkeys.
And, all the while, a conjuror's assistant on three bottles of whisky a day through a glass straw has a theory to save the Empire - and Fulham from relegation.
It's all more Gixit than Brexit.
Written by Christopher Lee
Directed by Celia de Wolff
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.
(5/13)
Join Paul Gambaccini for another contest between music enthusiasts from around the UK, bidding for a place in the semi-finals of radio's most prestigious musical quiz. This week's competitors are from the London area and the South coast of England, and Paul's questions test their knowledge of the classics, jazz, stage musicals and more than sixty years of rock and pop music. The musical extracts include familiar favourites alongside plenty of music you've yet to discover.
Producer: Paul Bajoria.
A three part series marking the 50th anniversary of the partial decriminalisation of sex between men through the Sexual Offences Act of 1967. Simon Callow presents an exploration of 100 years of queer life in Britain seen through the lens of the arts.
The series has been produced in partnership with Tate Britain and their landmark exhibition Queer British Art 1861-1967. Simon's guide throughout the series is exhibition curator Clare Barlow.
In the final episode, Simon charts the emergence of a new wave of openly queer artists in the 1950s and 60s. Working at a time when practising homosexuality was still illegal, these artists liberated themselves rather than waiting for a change in the law.
Simon visits his local library, the site of a radical campaign of homoerotic vandalism which saw the writer Joe Orton and his partner Kenneth Halliwell deface library books with lewd covers, before surreptitiously placing them back on the shelves to shock the unsuspecting readers of Islington. We also sit down with Francis Bacon's close friend Michael Peppiatt who discusses the tortured male figures and scenes of gay sex that Bacon defiantly painted.
The episode concludes with an examination of the work of David Hockney who represents a radical departure in queer art. Neither coded, nor titillating, his early work - self professed "homosexual propaganda" - explores homosexuality in a way that is completely transparent and self-celebrating. Simon concludes that, while Bacon was a genius, his vision of lovemaking was not encouraging. The gospel according to Hockney however was a gospel of love and light.
Presenter: Simon Callow
Producer: Max O'Brien
A TBI production for BBC Radio 4.
Are we living in a simulation?
Elon Musk thinks we definitely could be, and it seems he is not alone. The idea that we might simply be products of an advanced post-human civilisation, that are simply running a simulation of our universe and everything it contains, has taken hold over the last few years. Brian Cox and Robin Ince are joined on stage by comedian Phill Jupitus, Philosopher Professor Nick Bostrom and Neuroscientist Professor Anil Seth to ask what the chances are that are living in some Matrix like, simulated world and more importantly, how would we ever know?
Producer: Alexandra Feachem.
Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Back for a second week at the New Alexandra Theatre in Birmingham, regulars Barry Cryer and Tim Brooke-Taylor are joined on the panel by Jeremy Hardy and Jan Ravens with Jack Dee in the chair. Piano accompaniment is provided by Colin Sell. Producer - Jon Naismith. It is a BBC Studios production.
Anisha is drawn in, and Alistair frets about the past.
Arts news, interviews and reviews.
In the modern Western world, we take free speech for granted. We presume it is our age-old inheritance. But it's not. In this three-part series, historian Professor Fara Dabhoiwala explores how freedom of speech came into being, with extracts from key flashpoints in the past.
We hear pamphlets, trials and the testimony of people who were put to death in this country because of the views they expressed. Leading scholars discuss the past and the light it sheds on current struggles about religion, sex, and politics.
The series begins in the 17th century with the spotlight on religion.
We hear extracts from the ten-day debate in Parliament about the limits of free speech, sparked by the case of James Naylor, a Quaker who claimed to be a holy prophet. Naylor received a horrific punishment as a result - his tongue was bored through with a hot iron. We hear too the trial of the last man in Britain to be executed for blasphemy - the Edinburgh student Thomas Aikenhead who was hanged in Edinburgh in 1697 for claiming that the Bible was a fable and Christianity was in terminal decline.
The contributors in this first programme are Professor Justin Champion, Professor of History at Royal Holloway College; Dr Hannah Dawson, Lecturer in the History of Political Thought at King's College London; and Dr Maleiha Malik, Professor of Law at King's College London, who has written extensively about the role of religion in modern society. Does being a person of faith give her a different perspective on freedom of speech?
Fara Dabhoiwala is the author of The Origins of Sex: A History of the First Sexual Revolution. He is a Senior Research Scholar at Princeton University and a life fellow of All Souls and Exeter College, Oxford. His current projects include a history of free speech and a history of global English.
Presented by Fara Dabhoiwala
Dramatic readings by Emily Bevan, Ewan Bailey, Jonathan Keeble and Oliver Soden
Academic Research by Sally Holloway
Produced by Elizabeth Burke
Executive Producer: Jo Coombs
A Loftus production for BBC Radio 4.
Pakistan is at a crossroads when it comes to gender identity. Kami calls herself Pakistan's first transgender supermodel. She's championing a new transgender identity in a country where there's a strict cultural code for people like her. It's the long established culture of the 'the third gender', also known as Khwaja Sira or Hijra. The community are celebrated as 'Gods chosen people' by many Pakistanis. But the reality is that many Hijras experience discrimination in daily life and complain that basic access to jobs, welfare and familial support is denied. For Kami and others like her this is no longer acceptable. Yet many Hijras shun the new transgender identity and believe it is alien to the established culture of the region. In their view, the very notion of a 'transgender woman' is wrong and could threaten the systems and structures that have provided support for Khwaja Siras for centuries. For Crossing Continents Mobeen Azhar meets Kami and Mani, one of the few openly transgender men in the country, and talks to Khwaja Sira sex workers, dancers and even aspiring politicians. Inside Trans Pakistan explores the tension between the emerging transgender identity in Pakistan and the established 'third gender' culture.
Whilst we might take them for granted, Aristotle described them as the Intestines of the earth and Charles Darwin recognised their importance when he wrote "It may be doubted whether there are many other animals which have played so important a part in the history of the world, as have these lowly organized creatures". As Brett Westwood discovers these 'ecosystem engineers' play a vital role in aerating our soils, aiding drainage, clearing up pollutants and if you're a Gippsland giant and measure up to 3m in length, making themselves heard from below ground! They have also wormed their way into our literature, charmed our culture and burrowed into our language. Producer: Sarah Blunt.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
Amanda Craig's new novel is a state-of-the-nation black comedy that highlights the growing disconnect between life in London and the rest of the country.
Quentin and Lottie Bredin, like many modern couples, can't afford to divorce. Having lost their jobs in the recession, they can't afford to go on living in London either; instead, they must downsize and move their three children to a house in a remote part of Devon. Arrogant and adulterous, Quentin can't understand why Lottie is so angry; devastated and humiliated, Lottie feels herself to have been intolerably wounded.
Ever practical, though, she rents out their London house for an extortionate sum in order to reap the city's ever-rising property market. The income covers the mortgage and allows them to rent a house in Devon (priced suspiciously low, even by rural standards).
Why is their rent so low? What is the mystery surrounding their unappealing new home? The beauty of the landscape is ravishing, yet it conceals a dark side involving poverty, revenge, abuse and violence which will rise up to threaten them all.
Reader: Amanda Lawrence
Writer: Amanda Craig
Abridger: Robin Brooks
Producer: Kirsteen Cameron.
An intimate portrait of the songwriter, singer and frontman of the new wave rock band XTC, Andy Partridge.
Brought up on a council estate in Swindon, Andy Partridge's escape from the poverty of his working class upbringing followed a classic path - art and music. At 15, he enrolled in what he calls the 'art floor' of the local college - Swindon didn't boast an actual art college. Then, he discovered the magnetic power of carrying around his Dad's old guitar. He didn't even have to play it to find himself the centre of attention.
In the years that followed - and in the wake of the punk explosion - he tasted celebrity and success with his band XTC. His curious vocal style and angular compositions were distinctive and influential. XTC built a cult status with songs such as Making Plans for Nigel and Senses Working Overtime, as well as albums including the acclaimed Skylarking.
But Swindon didn't lose Andy for long, despite the lure of London and New York. He lives there still, now with his American partner. And he's still writing songs - including for the recent album by the reformed Monkees.
In this programme, he talks about the trajectory of his career and the 'art blood' that has consistently flowed through his veins.
Produced by Alan Hall
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4
[Photo courtesy of Kevin Nixon, Prog Magazine].
Josie Long presents stories of messages sent across borders. Unsent postcards, a last message and the journey for home.
An old handwritten note, in pursuit of a woman who ran away, leads to a town submerged in water; the writer Laura Barton discovers a tranche of muted, unsent missives in a storage box; and we hear the voices of those who are far from home.
Dear Martha
Produced by Rikke Houd
Envision Yourself a Free Man
First made as part of the Restorative Radio project
http://www.restorativeradio.org/audio-postcards-2/
Produced by Sylvia Ryerson
A Very Different Time
Produced by Phil Smith
Unsent
Featuring Laura Barton
Series Producer: Eleanor McDowall
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
A short reflection and prayer with Rev Dr Lesley Carroll.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
Rower and two times Olympic Gold medallist Alex Gregory tells the story of his childhood pet, a house sparrow called Sparky.
Tweet of the Day has captivated the Radio 4 audience with its daily 90 seconds of birdsong. But what of the listener to this avian chorus? In this new series of Tweet of the Day, we bring to the airwaves the conversational voices of those who listen to and are inspired by birds. Building on the previous series, a more informal approach to learning alongside a renewed emphasis on encounter with nature and reflection in our relationship with the natural world.
Producer Mark Ward.
News and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
We join David at the start of The Lyceum's 2017 season in which he is adapting and working on the translation of The Suppliant Women by Aeschylus. It's the opening show of the season and a very important one for David as it will show his intent and direction for the rest of the year. The play is full of drama and democracy and although the second oldest play in human existence we quickly discover the themes of asylum, refugees and violence towards women are still very relevant today. The play concerns the suppliant women, fifty women from Egypt who flee to Greece seeking asylum from forced marriage. David acknowledges that the opening show of the season will be a big moment for him and that he has deliberately chosen a very risky production because it contains all the themes he wants the season to be about: democracy, participation, politics and music. In David's adaptation the chorus is made up of thirty young women from Edinburgh. The young women are non professional actors and most have jobs or studies so rehearsal time is limited. Will David manage to reach his own expectations and that of the audience with his opening show?
Produced and presented in Edinburgh by Kate Bissell.
An extraordinary oral history of Russian Women's experiences in the Second World War.
In the late 1970s, Svetlana Alexievich realised that she had grown up surrounded by women who had fought in the Second World War, but whose voices were absent from official narratives. She said out to write her first book to document their stories.
Travelling thousands of miles, Svetlana spent years interviewing hundreds of Soviet women - captains, tank drivers, snipers, pilots, nurses and doctors - who had experienced the war on the front lines, on the home front and in occupied territories. As it brings to light their most harrowing memories, this symphony of voices reveals a different side of war, a new range of feelings, smells and colours.
Read by Sarah Badel, Teresa Gallagher and Jane Whittenshaw.
Written by Svetlana Alexievich.
Translated by Richard Pavear and Larissa Volokonsky.
Producer: Celia de Wolff
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.
Henry James' classic novella dramatised by Amanda Dalton.
When Winterbourne meets the free spirited Daisy Miller again in Rome he finds himself torn between his desire for Daisy and his need to uphold the values and rules of conduct of his society. If he is to follow his heart he must ignore the disapproval and harsh judgement of those around him.
Directed by Nadia Molinari.
Brett Westwood investigates our obsession with bats, at to a Gothic mansion at night where bats swirl around him. From Dracula to Batman and Goth, bats have infiltrated our culture and our psyches, despite the persisting sense that they are in some way alien and unknowable. But they are in fact one of our most successful and social mammals, and those who work with them have a passion for them.
Contributors: Jeremy Deller, Christopher Frayling, Darren Mait, Daniel Flew, Will Brooker, Merlin Tuttle, The Neighbours are Bats performance project. Readings by Greta Scacchi. Location recording at National Trust Tyntesfield.
Producer: Beth O'Dea.
What was the nature of the "horrid... obscure hurt" which befell Henry James on the night of October 28th 1861, and how did it influence his literary career?
In October 1861 the 18 year old Henry James was working as a fireman, and was called to battle a blaze at the West Stables in Newport Rhode Island. There, while putting out the fire, he suffered an injury, referred to in his autobiography as a "horrid... obscure hurt." James scholars have been divided ever since on whether James injured his back, or, more painfully,suffered an injury to his testicles.
Is the story of the "obscure hurt" a fiction as profound as any of James' novels or a real wound which gives us an insight into the life long bachelor's intimate life?
Professor John Sutherland investigates.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
On this day in 1917, Pope Benedict XV issued his Peace Note, describing the war as driven by a universal madness, and in Folkestone, Dorothea experiences a private sadness.
Written by Katie Hims
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole.
Consumer phone-in.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
One morning you say goodbye to your ordinary house in an ordinary an ordinary Welsh village, and an ordinary bedroom filled with Blur and Oasis posters, that mum can still invade with the hoover, and suddenly you are standing in front of a beautiful 400 year old building with turrets and clock towers.
You sit on your bed staring at the bare walls, wondering what poster to put up first. Your roommate arrives and you eye each other warily.
Taking that first step away from home, if you are lucky enough to go to university, can be a little more gentle that landing up in the outside world. But what challenges lie ahead?
Jude Rogers continues her journey back to the homes that have shaped her life, and meets the students who have taken up residence in her past rooms - Verity, Annie and Tilly, to find out how their lives contrast with hers.
Producer: Sara Jane Hall.
Metaphormoses by Gary Ogin.
Matthew wakes up one morning to find he has been transformed into a Hassidic Jew called Moishe. His father Jeremy is alarmed. After all he doesn't want the neighbours to know his family is Jewish. A fast paced comedy about religion and identity.
Director/Producer Gary Brown.
Tom Holland with the last in the series, exploring new historical research and resonances.
We travel to Durham to examine the world's oldest piece of environmental legislation, the Charter of the Forest which was made law 800 years ago in 1217.
Tom reveals how travellers from Heathrow may well be taking off from one of the most important Iron Age sites in the UK.
We also hear memories of family holidays from a unique collection in Leicester and reveal how key figures in Russia's October revolution of 1917 met in the East End of London 10 years earlier.
Producer: Nick Patrick
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.
Award winning political interviewers Alice Thomson and Rachel Sylvester take leading figures from politics, business and the arts back to their home towns where they spent their childhood.
In Milton Keynes, they meet Nat Wei, who created headlines when he was put in charge of delivering the Big Society - David Cameron's "mission in politics". He was the youngest peer in the House of Lords when he was given his title at 33, and the first British-born person of Chinese origin to enter the House.
Lord Wei goes back to his old school where bullying and drug taking were once commonplace, and talks about how faith, education, his Hong Kong Chinese heritage, and Milton Keynes itself have all influenced his later life as a social entrepreneur.
Producer: Chris Ledgard.
The actress, Maxine Peak nominates her working class hero, Ellen Wilkinson as a great life. Ellen is regarded as one of the most important figures in the history of British radical left politics. She joined the Communist party, met Lenin and Trotsky in Moscow and then went on to become one of the Labour Party's youngest people entering parliament in 1924.
For Maxine Peak, the tragedy is that Ellen Wilkinson is now virtually a forgotten figure despite her remarkable achievements. With help from historian Helen Antrobus from the 'People's History Museum' in Manchester, they make the case for why Ellen Wilkinson merits the description of a great life.
The presenter is Matthew Parris and the producer is Perminder Khakar.
Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
The globetrotting, trash-picking, aisle-rolling storyteller is back on Radio 4 with more words of wit and wisdom. This week, A Number Of Reasons I've Been Depressed, Lately and some recent diary extracts.
With sardonic wit and incisive social critiques, David Sedaris has become one of America's pre-eminent humour writers. The great skill with which he slices through cultural euphemisms and political correctness proves that he is a master of satire and one of the most observant writers addressing the human condition today.
David Sedaris's first book, Barrel Fever (1994), which included The SantaLand Diaries. was a critical and commercial success, as were his follow-up efforts, Naked (1997), Holidays on Ice (1997) and Me Talk Pretty One Day (2000). He became known for his bitingly funny recollections of his youth, family life and travels, making semi-celebrities out of his parents and siblings.
David Sedaris has been nominated for three Grammy Awards for Best Spoken Word and Best Comedy Album. A feature film adaptation of his story C.O.G. was released after a premier at the Sundance Film Festival (2013). He has been a contributor to BBC Radio 4 since 1996.
Producer: Steve Doherty
A Giddy Goat production for BBC Radio 4.
There is a knot to unravel at the Dower House, and Harrison presents his offer.
Arts news, interviews and reviews.
Since the Grenfell Tower fire in June, the architectural dream of Le Corbusier's 'streets in the sky' has, in many minds, become a living nightmare. Every high rise building in the country, and each of their residents, has become embroiled in the Grenfell story. As this debate with its practical and policy considerations continues, High Rise offers a radio meditation on the experience of tower block life.
What has come of that vision of airy existence above the bustle of the streets, with open horizons and light-filled apartments? What future can tower blocks now have in the provision of social and private housing? Who will want to live in them and, more to the point, what happens to the current residents?
In a mosaic of interviews gathered around the country, we hear from Rita in Margate's famous Arlington House, a block her father helped build. "It gleamed like a diamond back then," she says. Nicole, who lives in Cables Wynd House in Leith, featured in the film of Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting, shares the horror she experienced as a teenager living locked in the sky. We visit Rochdale where residents have mounted a campaign to stop the proposed demolition of their iconic Seven Sisters tower blocks.
In London, Bill speaks of his long, happy years on the notorious Pepys Estate in Deptford. Across the city, JP Ajunonwu, a resident in the iconic Trellick Tower, describes the night of the fire in neighbouring Grenfell Tower. Francesca and her young daughter visit what, until that night, she'd anticipated as being her wonderful new home on the 13th floor of a high rise.
And architectural writer Shumi Bose, who grew up in a tower block in Kolkata, outlines the dreams of the architects and urban planners who designed our modern cityscapes.
Produced by Rebecca Lloyd-Evans and Alan Hall
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4.
News, views and information for people who are blind or partially sighted.
Dr Mark Porter presents a series that aims to demystify perplexing health issues.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
Amanda Craig's new novel is a state-of-the-nation black comedy that highlights the growing disconnect between life in London and the rest of the country. The reader is Amanda Lawrence.
Quentin and Lottie Bredin, like many modern couples, can't afford to divorce. Having lost their jobs in the recession, they can't afford to go on living in London either; instead, they must downsize and move their three children to a house in a remote part of Devon. Arrogant and adulterous, Quentin can't understand why Lottie is so angry; devastated and humiliated, Lottie feels herself to have been intolerably wounded.
Ever practical, though, she rents out their London house for an extortionate sum in order to reap the city's ever-rising property market. The income covers the mortgage and allows them to rent a house in Devon (priced suspiciously low, even by rural standards).
Why is their rent so low? What is the mystery surrounding their unappealing new home? The beauty of the landscape is ravishing, yet it conceals a dark side involving poverty, revenge, abuse and violence which will rise up to threaten them all.
Reader: Amanda Lawrence
Writer: Amanda Craig
Abridger: Robin Brooks
Producer: Kirsteen Cameron.
Personality tests, tests of character and knowing how to cheat. Josie Long presents stories of people testing their mettle.
The writers Ross Sutherland and Joe Dunthorne examine the Sutherland-Dunthorne luck index to see why one's success seems to mean the other's failure. James Acaster embarks on a quest in search of connection and oversized novelty letters, and we hear the story of two men who knew how to deceive the people examining them.
The Wow Scenario
Featuring James Acaster
Project Alpha
Featuring Mike Edwards
Produced by Claire Crofton
The Sutherland-Dunthorne Inverse Proportional Luck Index
Featuring Joe Dunthorne and Ross Sutherland
Series Producer: Eleanor McDowall
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
A short reflection and prayer with Rev Dr Lesley Carroll.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
Double Olympic gold medal-winning rower Alex Gregory recalls seeing white stork in Portugal for Tweet of the Day.
Tweet of the Day has captivated the Radio 4 audience with its daily 90 seconds of birdsong. But what of the listener to this avian chorus? In this new series of Tweet of the Day, we bring to the airwaves the conversational voices of those who listen to and are inspired by birds. Building on the previous series, a more informal approach to learning alongside a renewed emphasis on encounter with nature and reflection in our relationship with the natural world.
Producer Mark Ward.
Morning news and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
Val McDermid presents the first in a series of two programmes charting the history of same-sex relationships in Britain.
"I know who I am, but I have to keep it to myself."
"I find I'm living a lie all day long."
"I've known girls who've taken their own lives because the woman they love has finished the affair."
The stories of gay men and women from the past century are deeply sad, and moving testimony to the way persecution has dogged the lives of homosexual men and women - and continues to blight them, even in the days of equal marriage.
In this radio history, novelist Val McDermid, herself in a long-term lesbian partnership, explores the story of same-sex love. From the molly-houses of 18th century London, where men met to enjoy same-sex company, dancing and drinking in relative safety, to the moment in 1967 when consenting men in private might have a sexual relationship without fear of the Police knocking at the door.
In the first programme, historians Matt Cook, Rictor Norton and Rebecca Jennings join Val to chart the lives of homosexuals from the Renaissance to the Victorian age, when finally the death penalty for homosexual acts was repealed. And she hears the story of Anne Lister, a Yorkshire gentlewoman from the Georgian era, who not only owned and managed coalmines on her estate near Halifax, but also had a string of passionate lesbian affairs and even went through a form of marriage ceremony to her beloved.
Producer: Simon Elmes
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.
An extraordinary oral history of Russian Women's experiences in the Second World War.
In the late 1970s, Svetlana Alexievich realised that she had grown up surrounded by women who had fought in the Second World War, but whose voices were absent from official narratives. She said out to write her first book to document their stories.
Travelling thousands of miles, Svetlana spent years interviewing hundreds of Soviet women - captains, tank drivers, snipers, pilots, nurses and doctors - who had experienced the war on the front lines, on the home front and in occupied territories. As it brings to light their most harrowing memories, this symphony of voices reveals a different side of war, a new range of feelings, smells and colours.
Read by Sarah Badel, Teresa Gallagher and Jane Whittenshaw.
Written by Svetlana Alexievich.
Translated by Richard Pavear and Larissa Volokonsky.
Producer: Celia de Wolff
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.
Henry James' classic novella dramatised by Amanda Dalton.
When Winterbourne meets the free spirited Daisy Miller again in Rome he finds himself torn between his desire for Daisy and his need to uphold the values and rules of conduct of his society. If he is to follow his heart he must ignore the disapproval and harsh judgement of those around him.
Directed by Nadia Molinari.
Wendy used to hide rather than talk to people, but with Christine's help she's no longer a covert stammerer and has found her voice. Fi Glover presents another conversation in the series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen.
Producer: Marya Burgess.
Professor Emma Griffin explores how British workers became tied to the clock.
Before industrialisation, workers were accustomed to a loosely regulated working week, influenced more by daylight hours and the agricultural cycle than by the time on the face of a clock. Indeed, most people didn't own a watch and managed all aspects of their lives without reference to official time.
During the Industrial Revolution, British workers became tied to the clock in a way they never had before. Emma visits Quarry Bank Mill in Cheshire to discover how 19th century factory owners extracted a long and regular working week from a workforce accustomed to a much more loosely regimented working pattern. She examines how the new technologies of the railways, telegraphs and radio gradually extended a new concept of clock-based time to the population at large. And she visits the Royal Observatory at Greenwich to understand how their precision clocks, which for centuries had been specialist scientific equipment of use only to astronomers, were pressed into service as the regulator of the nation's workforce. Finally, Emma sheds light on our ever-changing relationship to time and how new concepts altered the human experience of work and rest.
Humans have always tried to measure time, but the importance of this task stepped up a gear during the 19th century. Now it was about controlling a workforce. And in today's economic climate of zero hours contracts and increasingly casualised employment, Emma argues this fundamental relationship between time and control is as important as ever.
Producer: Melissa FitzGerald
A Blakeway production for BBC Radio 4.
A second series of the sitcom about three women who meet during cancer treatment and start going to salsa class together to maintain their friendship. As they adjust to life after cancer they realise that they've all changed. This second series begins as Jill has left her husband and son to live at her new boyfriends' parent's house, Camille is planning a huge life change and Chippy has a new live-in wannabe step-father in the shape of Gordon from their salsa class.
In the second episode, Marco's sister arrives and is not impressed by his new girlfriend - Camille. Jill is still trying to decide whether to have reconstruction while Tim lives the high-life on a photo shoot and Chippy thinks she can save her budding relationship with a lie.
The series is not about cancer, but about life after cancer, how you cope the changes in your outlook, your desires and your expectations. It's also about how other people cope with the change in you.
Written by Kay Stonham
Produced and directed by Alison Vernon-Smith.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
On this day in 1917, the heaviest rainfall in 30 years fell on Passchendaele, and in Folkestone, Jessie lives under a cloud.
Written by Katie Hims
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole.
Consumer affairs programme.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
Part 3 of Jude Rogers return to the homes she has lived in throughout her life.
She returns to rented accommodation across London in the 1990's - her first flat-share, central and cheap, and occupied then by a bevy of colourful characters - now empty and being used as a long term investment.
Then she crosses town to find her former first floor flat in Hackney in East London, now subsidised by the local council as an attempt to keep born and bred Londoners close to their families, despite rocketing rents.
Producer: Sara Jane Hall.
2. The Lure
The second of four plays marking the centenary of the great American playwright, Arthur Miller.
By the time he was 35, Arthur Miller had a very eclectic CV. He was the son of an illiterate Jewish immigrant, whose once flourishing coat business had failed during the Depression. He'd worked nights in an auto-parts warehouse, been a dock-yard worker, a jobbing writer for Orson Welles, a prize-winning student playwright, and a writer of radio drama for Roosevelt's Federal Theatre Project. He was a communist activist and a highly skilled carpenter. In 1950 Death of A Salesman, directed by his good friend Elia Kazan, became a major Broadway hit. By that time Miller was the father of two children and had been married to his college sweetheart, Mary Slattery, for ten years. Now Hollywood beckoned, where a chance meeting with Marilyn Monroe would change everything. Written by Jonathan Holloway.
Producer for LA Theatre Works: Susan Loewenberg
Associate Producers: Anna Lyse Erikson and Myke D Wysekopf
Sound by Mark Holden, Wes Dewberry, and Catherine Robinson
A BBC/Cymru Wales and LA Theatre Works Co-Production, directed by Kate McAll
LA Theatre Works is a non-profit audio drama company based in Los Angeles that records classic and contemporary plays. They have been collaborating with the BBC for nearly thirty years, beginning with a production of Arthur Miller's The Crucible that starred Richard Dreyfuss and Stacey Keach.
Paul Lewis presents a live edition of the series that explores what retirement might look like in the future.
Early-bird poet Ian McMillan investigates why some people are happiest being early and others are content to be late.
Ian often arrives hours early for a performance and the thought of being late brings him out in a cold sweat. Infuriated at being repeatedly kept waiting by his tardy friend and fellow performer, composer Luke Carver Goss, he tries to find out why people have such different ideas about what being on time means.
Luke and Ian share their experiences of timekeeping to try and understand each other's approaches to punctuality - and end up writing a song, "I'm Not Late, I'm Running Late".
Ian also talks to social psychologist and author Oliver Burkeman, another early bird, about whether he should be irritated by being kept waiting - or more forgiving. Oliver says no-one is late or early by accident - it's always revealing of a deeper need.
Perhaps Ian runs on "industrial time", a throwback to his industrial roots. This was when the clock began to rule the working day instead of the sun and - according to Katy Belshaw, curator of industrial heritage at the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry - when people began to talk not about time passed, but about time spent.
Ian shares his strong emotions about the possibility of being late with psychotherapist Sarah Carson, who questions him about his past to find out where his fear began. Finally, Ian sets himself the challenge of meeting his friend Luke on time - not early or late, just exactly on time. But how will this make Ian feel?
A Pennine production for BBC Radio 4.
Topical programme about the fast-changing media world.
Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Chain Reaction is Radio 4's long running hostless chat show where last week's interviewee becomes this week's interviewer.
In the third episode of the series one half of comedy double-act Vic & Bob, Bob Mortimer, talks to the other half of comedy double-act Vic & Bob, Vic Reeves. Vic & Bob are best know as the creators and stars of The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer, Shooting Stars and House of Fools.
Producer ... Charlie Perkins.
Roy wants to smooth things over, and Alice deploys her powers of persuasion.
Arts news, interviews and reviews.
Combative, provocative and engaging debate chaired by Michael Buerk. With Matthew Taylor, Claire Fox, Anne McElvoy and Giles Fraser.
Ivo Gormley tells the story of his bright idea to combine getting fit with doing good in the community, at a time of growing social isolation.
Recorded at the Phoenix Artist Club.
Presenter: Helen Zaltzman
Producer: Sheila Cook.
Farrah Jarral asks who gets to play in our society. Starting with a question about why it's more acceptable for adults to play, she explores the often hidden linguistic, social, economic and political battles over the right to play.
Starting at the London Toy Fair, Farrah travels to Bristol to find out why it became the centre of a play revolution, and she speaks to play advocates, activists and academics. At the end she comes back to where she began: with the final battle over the right to play, and whether adults can give ourselves permission to play.
Producer: Giles Edwards.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
Amanda Craig's state-of-the nation novel highlighting the growing disconnect between life in London and the rest of the country.
Quentin and Lottie Bredin can't afford to divorce. Having lost their jobs in the recession, they can't afford to go on living in London either; instead, Lottie decides to rent out their London home for an extortionate sum and move their family to a remote house in Devon for a year.
Within that time, the estranged couple face many challenges, not least when they discover the reason why their new home has such a low rent.
Reader: Amanda Lawrence
Writer: Amanda Craig
Abridger: Robin Brooks
Producer: Kirsteen Cameron.
Comedy drama by Pete Jackson, set in Alcoholics Anonymous and inspired by his own road to recovery. Starring Sue Johnston, John Hannah, Eddie Marsan, Rebecca Front, Paul Kaye and Julia Deakin.
The programme follows the lives of five very different recovering alcoholics. Set entirely at their weekly meetings, we hear them get to know each other, learn to hate each other, argue, moan, laugh, fall apart, fall in love and, most importantly, tell their stories.
There are funny stories, sad stories, stories of small victories and milestones, stories of loss, stories of hope, and stories that you really shouldn't laugh at - but still do. Along with the storyteller.
In this fourth episode, Andy (Eddie Marsan) has a date for the first time in....well....longer than he'd like to admit. It's up to the rest of the group to rally round and get him match fit.
Writer Pete Jackson is a recovering alcoholic and has spent time with Alcoholics Anonymous. It was there he found, as many people do, support from the unlikeliest group of disparate souls, all banded together due to one common bond. As well as offering the support he needed throughout a difficult time, AA also offered a weekly, sometimes daily, dose of hilarity, upset, heartbreak and friendship.
Written and created by Pete Jackson
Produced and Directed by Ben Worsfield
A Lucky Giant production for BBC Radio 4.
Critically-acclaimed comedian Kieran Hodgson is joined by Harry Enfield and Colin Hoult, in the first of a new series of comedy intros to the great composers. Can self-described 'music educator and inspiration' Ralph Lewis, the man behind 'Mozart's Mowing Masterclass' and 'How Clean is your Strauss', persuade self-confessed 'enemy of culture' Paul, that Wagner's worth a listen, and not just music for Nazis?
Written and starring Kieran Hodgson
With Colin Hoult and Harry Enfield
Producer: Sam Ward
A BBC Studios Production.
Josie Long presents documentaries where reality takes on a magical aspect - tales of snake-filled American towns, a visit to a shaman and of crashing back down to earth.
The Curve of the Earth
Produced by Stephanie Rowden
http://www.stephanierowden.com
The Shaman
Produced by Rikke Houd
Snake Pit, Waurika
Produced by Sarah Geis
Magical Realism
Produced by Phil Smith
Series Producer: Eleanor McDowall
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
A short reflection and prayer with Rev Dr Lesley Carroll.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
Springwatch producer Laura Howard describes how the arrival of swifts in May and learning more about nature walking in the countryside felt like wearing glasses that let her see clearly for the first time.
Tweet of the Day has captivated the Radio 4 audience with its daily 90 seconds of birdsong. But what of the listener to this avian chorus? In this new series of Tweet of the Day, we bring to the airwaves the conversational voices of those who listen to and are inspired by birds. Building on the previous series, a more informal approach to learning alongside a renewed emphasis on encounter with nature and reflection in our relationship with the natural world.
Producer: Tom Bonnett.
Morning news and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
In the space of a few short years the male beard has made a striking return to British life. Footballers, actors, fashionable hipsters and hirsute labourers are far more likely to wear some form of facial hair than they were in the recent past. The beard used to be the marker of a particular mindset, usually involving real ale, wholesome living and a disregard for the strictures of conventional living. Now the wearing of a tidy, well-barbered beard is far less likely to raise an eyebrow.
And so it was in the 1850s when, after many years of shaving, a fashion for wearing a full beard swept the British Isles. Charles Dickens lead by example and wrote in his journal 'Household Words' extolling the virtues of 'whisker, beard, and moustache, reverently worn, and trimmed discreetly and with decency'. Within a few years beards were everywhere and claims for their practicality in the face of industrial dirt and grime only encouraged more. They were also worn by heroes beginning with those returning from the Crimean war and then the sportsmen like Spencer Gore, first Wimbledon champion in 1877 and the greatest celebrity of the age, W.G.Grace.
Jonathan asks historians Dr Alun Withers of Exeter University and Professor Caroline Cox what drove the passion for beards then and what fuels it now and he visits a barbers shop to find out whether the damaged to the razor industry was more than compensated in both eras by the passion for developing and sustaining the perfect beard.
He also hears from Areeb Ullah who wears his beard as a proud Muslim and has thoughts on the impact this new fashion has on his own bearded identity.
Pognophiles versus Pognophobia, a story for our times as much as for Victorian Britain, in The Long View.
Producer: The recently bearded Tom Alban.
Community Radio Broadcaster of the Year, Primrose Granville talks to the Jamaican chef Henroy Brown about his near death experience as a young man in his twenties, when he was diagnosed first with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, and then with the near fatal Steven Johnson syndrome.
She herself came through a very traumatic point in her own lif . In 2003 she was an Early Years/Special Needs practitioner with dreams of becoming a Head Teacher, married with a young son.
Then a freak incident ended all of that. Within 18 months she was unemployed, unemployable, separated and with no financial security. She was also mourning the loss of her father.
"For years I did nothing & felt like nothing until someone introduced me to community radio." she says "Being out of work was the worst thing that ever happened to me, even more than the loss of my marriage, my father & my financial freedom. I knew I had ambition but others didn't seem to. However, I never gave up, as losing my ambition was one loss too many."
Primrose asks Henroy what gave him the strength to carry on when he was at his lowest point, and how he has managed to rebuild his life.
Producer: Maggie Ayre.
An extraordinary oral history of Russian Women's experiences in the Second World War.
In the late 1970s, Svetlana Alexievich realised that she had grown up surrounded by women who had fought in the Second World War, but whose voices were absent from official narratives. She said out to write her first book to document their stories.
Travelling thousands of miles, Svetlana spent years interviewing hundreds of Soviet women - captains, tank drivers, snipers, pilots, nurses and doctors - who had experienced the war on the front lines, on the home front and in occupied territories. As it brings to light their most harrowing memories, this symphony of voices reveals a different side of war, a new range of feelings, smells and colours.
Read by Sarah Badel, Teresa Gallagher and Jane Whittenshaw.
Written by Svetlana Alexievich.
Translated by Richard Pavear and Larissa Volokonsky.
Producer: Celia de Wolff
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.
Desire and propriety clash in Henry James' classic novella dramatised by Amanda Dalton.
Daisy's close friendship with the handsome Italian Mr Giovanelli and her refusal to give him up invites the harsh judgement of the society and Winterbourne is forced to decide whether to follow his heart or turn his back on Daisy.
Directed by Nadia Molinari.
On December the 14th last year the BBC's Mike Thomson awoke to a desperate voicemail message. It came from a frightened mother of three in besieged East Aleppo. Head teacher, Om Modar, who had been in regular contact with Mike, was pleading for help. Syrian government forces were closing in on the rebel-held area and bombs were falling around the shelter she shared with dozens of petrified children. Her voice, crackling with fear, said: "Please, please help us get out of Aleppo by safe corridor.....we are terrified.....please help us." That was the last Mike heard from Om. Months of silence followed. Finally, he became convinced she was dead. Then out of the blue came a two-line text. It revealed the fate of Om Modar and led Mike to near the Syrian border.
Join Natalie Haynes and guests for half an hour of comedy and the Classics from the BBC Radio Theatre in London.
Natalie is a reformed comedian who is a little bit obsessive about Ancient Greece and Rome.
Today she stands up in the name of Greek poet, Sappho, about whom we know so little, and most of what we think we know is made-up. But one thing is certain: her poetry is scorching, and unforgettable. There will also be a lot of gossip from over a thousand years ago.
With special guests novelist Stella Duffy, classicist Professor Edith Hall and music from LiTTLe MACHiNe.
Producer...Mary Ward-Lowery.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
On this day in 1917, copies of Sylvia Pankhurst's 'Dreadnought' were seized in a raid, and in Folkestone, Kitty discovers a vital clue.
Written by Katie Hims
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole.
Consumer affairs programme.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
Things are getting serious for Jude Rogers as she makes the decision to buy her first home in the London suburbs - its where she will get married from, have her first child, and she only moved out last year... its an emotional moment as she returns to the first home she bought.
"It's amazing how powerful smell is. Instantly, I see my son as a baby, scuttling across the wooden floor in his walker. I expect my husband to walk through from the kitchen. I hear a cat's footsteps upstairs, and stop calling out for our cat, Poppy. She lived here for three years, and died, at 15, last summer."
Producer: Sara Jane Hall.
Tanya Franks and Paterson Joseph star in this razor-sharp family comedy by Tamsin Oglesby.
El and Jim have the normal mid-life marital issues: drink, work, stress, infidelity.
They also have a 16 year old daughter, Tiny.
Rather than communicate with each other, they concentrate on taking care of Tiny. They argue about her poor behaviour. They end up in family therapy.
Then... they think of another answer to their problem.
Tamsin Oglesby's political fire, sparky dialogue, and deftly funny observation of human weakness and self-deception, have led to a series of theatrical hits, including her dissection of the British education system in 'Future Conditional' for the Old Vic, and her dystopian comedy for the National Theatre imagining government solutions to the ageing population, 'Really Old, Like Forty-Five'.
"... burns with rage, and cackles with black humour." Time Out
"...this magical-satirical portrait of liberal middle-class England delivers an unexpected explosion, like a bomb in a designer bag" Sunday Times
Produced and directed by Jonquil Panting.
Helen Mark swaps her anorak for a frock as she visits the summer festival at Glyndebourne to discover how its famous gardens inspire opera-goers, musicians and artists. Set within the South Downs National Park the gardens and surrounding landscape have become an integral part of the Glyndebourne experience, and the team of gardeners share how each themed garden is created and maintained. As the audience begins to arrive for the evening performance, Helen talks to conductor William Christie and singers Danielle de Niese and Joelle Harvey about the unique way music and setting come together at Glyndebourne. She also meets Executive Chairman Gus Christie who introduces her to a recent addition to the local landscape, Glyndebourne's controversial wind turbine, and explains why he's passionate about reducing their carbon emissions.
Producer: Sophie Anton.
Antonia Quirke talks to Mark Gill, the director of a new bio-pic about Morrissey, England Is Mine, and considers the singer's influence on the movie tastes of a generation, introducing thousands of fans to A Taste Of Honey and many other British realist classics.
Adam Rutherford explores the science that is changing our world.
Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
"The most exciting new comedy duo working today" - David Walliams
Their hugely successful second series won critical acclaim and a slew of awards. Now double-act The Pin are back with more of their trademark offbeat nonsense.
In this episode, Alex and Ben are putting out a Christmas special - in the height of summer, to avoid competition....
"One of the smartest, punchiest new comedy duos to have appeared in a while...had me laughing out loud on my own in an empty room" The Guardian
"Exquisitely silly and very funny...makes you feel as though you might be hearing the next Mitchell and Webb" The Times
"Genuine moments of hilarity and a real breath of comedic fresh air" RadioTimes
Written and performed by Ben Ashenden and Alex Owen.
Featuring Mark Benton, Margaret Cabourn-Smith and Liam Williams.
Produced by Sam Bryant.
A BBC Studios Production.
Emma feels outnumbered, and Matt dangles the bait.
Arts news, interviews and reviews.
Series looking at important issues in the news. Presented by David Aaronovitch.
Tower blocks are under intense scrutiny. So what's the best way to run them? Matthew Gwyther visits Manchester and discovers this is not just about architecture. These blocks are also complex communities of people. So what's the future now for this key sector in our housing and commerce?
Producer: Chris Bowlby
Editor: Penny Murphy.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
Amanda Lawrence reads the new, state-of-the-nation novel by Amanda Craig.
Made redundant from her job as an architect, and too poor to divorce her unfaithful husband, Quentin, Lottie has rented out their London home for an extortionate sum and temporarily moved the family to a remote farmhouse in Devon. It's taking some time for everyone to adjust to their new lives.
Reader: Amanda Lawrence
Writer: Amanda Craig
Abridger: Robin Brooks
Producer: Kirsteen Cameron.
Thwarting Jason's plans to make a horror episode, Phil and George hope to appease the Twitter trolls by keeping the show nice and family friendly - all with the help of Sir Paul McCartney.
Join critically-acclaimed sketch trio, Daphne, as they pull out all the stops in a dazzling array of peculiar characters, whacky scenarios, dodgy remarks, curious observations, minor altercations and major peacemaking - served on a bed of catchy little numbers with a live nine-piece band.
Written by and starring: Jason Forbes, Phil Wang & George Fouracres
Original music composed by Jeff Carpenter
Orchestrator: Simon Nathan
The Daphnettes were the London Musical Theatre Orchestra:
Musical Director - Freddie Tapner
Violin - Debs White
Cello - Nick Squires
Trumpet - Michael Maddocks
Trombone - Elliot Pooley
Tenor Sax - Joe Atkin Reeves
Drum Kit - Ben Hartley
Percussion - Ben Burton
Piano - Jon Ranger
Bass - Jack Cherry
The Production Coordinator was Hayley Sterling
It was produced by Matt Stronge and was a BBC Studios production.
Defiantly staring down neo-Nazis, unwanted family portraits and a photographer searching for his subject years later - Josie Long presents new short documentaries inspired by images.
(Photo credit: Nathan Edwards/News Corp Australia)
Woman in the Photo
Produced by Andrea Rangecroft
Resistance
Featuring Tess Asplund
Produced by Andrea Rangecroft
Family Portrait
Featuring Chimene Suleyman and Recep Süleyman Şehitoğlu
Series Producer: Eleanor McDowall
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
A short reflection and prayer with Rev Dr Lesley Carroll.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
Tiffany Francis recalls her encounters with yellowhammers at the Butser Ancient Farm in Hampshire for Tweet of the Day.
Tweet of the Day has captivated the Radio 4 audience with its daily 90 seconds of birdsong. But what of the listener to this avian chorus? In this new series of Tweet of the Day, we bring to the airwaves the conversational voices of those who listen to and are inspired by birds. Building on the previous series, a more informal approach to learning alongside a renewed emphasis on encounter with nature and reflection in our relationship with the natural world.
Producer Maggie Ayre.
Morning news and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
An extraordinary oral history of Russian Women's experiences in the Second World War.
In the late 1970s, Svetlana Alexievich realised that she had grown up surrounded by women who had fought in the Second World War, but whose voices were absent from official narratives. She said out to write her first book to document their stories.
Travelling thousands of miles, Svetlana spent years interviewing hundreds of Soviet women - captains, tank drivers, snipers, pilots, nurses and doctors - who had experienced the war on the front lines, on the home front and in occupied territories. As it brings to light their most harrowing memories, this symphony of voices reveals a different side of war, a new range of feelings, smells and colours.
Read by Sarah Badel, Teresa Gallagher and Jane Whittenshaw.
Written by Svetlana Alexievich.
Translated by Richard Pavear and Larissa Volokonsky.
Producer: Celia de Wolff
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.
Desire and propriety clash in Henry James' classic novella dramatised by Amanda Dalton.
Winterbourne struggles to accept that Daisy's close friendship with the handsome Mr Giovanelli is innocent. When he discovers Daisy alone with Giovanelli one night at the Colosseum, consumed by jealousy, he confronts her.
Directed by Nadia Molinari.
In July 1967 a petition appeared in the Times, signed by 64 of Britain's great and good. They included The Beatles, David Dimbleby, David Hockney and Tariq Ali. The petition called for the decriminalisation of cannabis, describing it as "the least harmful pleasure-giving drug, probably much safer than alcohol and tobacco". Its publication brought forth the wrath of the establishment - the future Lord Hailsham called it "a grave error of judgement."
Now, the journalist Peter Hitchens meets some of those who signed the petition to ask whether, 50 years on, they have any regrets.
The long-term effect of the petition, he argues, has been to decriminalise cannabis by stealth, which has had devastating social effects. The correlation between cannabis consumption and mental illness is becoming ever clearer.
1967 is remembered as the Summer of Love. "Fifty years from now," Peter asks, "who will look wise? Those who said that all we need is love, or those who know that someone always has to clear up after the party, however good it was?"
Presenter: Peter Hitchens
Producer: Tim Mansel
Executive Producer: Samir Shah
A Juniper production for BBC Radio 4.
To Hull and Back is the eagerly anticipated sitcom from BBC New Comedy Award winner Lucy Beaumont.
Sophie still lives at home with her mum in Hull. They make a living doing car boot sales at the weekend. Except they don't really make a living because her mum can't bear to get rid of any of their junk. Plus, they don't have a car. As their house gets more cluttered, Sophie feels more trapped.
"An Affair to forget"
Sophie is on a quest for love whilst her mother is trying to get accepted in to a posh Lady's Golf Club. Door to door sellers peddling thick bleach and an accident with a milk float all conspire to thwart their efforts.
Cast
Sophie ... Lucy Beaumont
Sheila ... Maureen Lipman
Jean ... Kerrie Marsh
Ernie ... Norman Lovett
DJ Richie ... Jon Richardson
DeeDee ... Sue McCormick
Ann ... Annie Sawle
Ben ... Christopher Simpson
Writer ... Lucy Beaumont
Producer ... Carl Cooper
This is a BBC Radio Comedy Production.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
On this day in 1917, there was a service on the Leas in Folkestone to mark the third anniversary of the outbreak of war.
Written by Katie Hims
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole.
Consumer news and issues.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
Jude Rogers finds herself drawn back to the country of her birth - Wales - in the final episode of the series.
"The property boom in London gave us the means to get out and buy bigger - my God, we could even buy a house with a GARDEN.
And if you've been listening to me this week - going back to the places I've lived in, you'll appreciate the jump up that means..
We fell in love with a house in Wales, looking over the Monnow Valley, a part of the world where we didn't know anybody, or anything, really.
All our friends in London, our home for nearly two decades, thought we were mad."
Producer: Sara Jane Hall.
by Nick Warburton
When Richard and Clare inherit a house in Yorkshire they find themselves drawn into an unlikely group attempting to defend their town against the worst ills of modernity and it seems the Breck Howe Preservation Society will stop at nothing.
Directed by Sally Avens
Nick Warburton who wrote 'On Mardle Fen' introduces us to another maverick character in John Hector. This is a play for anyone who's spent too long speaking to a computerised voice on a phone line, or railed against the loss of a green field to ugly housing or found themselves a number rather than a name and wishes somehow they had the wherewithal to keep things as they were.
Ronald Pickup plays John Hector (Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, The Worst Week of My Life,Waiting for Godot) Paul Ritter plays Richard (The Game, Harry Potter, Friday Night Dinner) Kate Duchêne (Everyman, The Worst Witch, Cabin Pressure) plays Clare.
As part of GQT's 70th anniversary celebrations, the team visit gardeners at the four points of the UK compass to explore the incredible variety of climate and environment in this country - something that makes gardening here so endlessly fascinating.
This week it's East v West as Eric Robson is joined by Bob Flowerdew, Anne Swithinbank and Neil Porteous in County Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, with a wet climate to the very west of the UK, while Peter Gibbs, Christine Walkden, Matthew Wilson and Bunny Guinness set up camp some 400 miles east in Lowestoft, Suffolk, where life is markedly drier.
Both panels answer questions from local residents and explore how garden can thrive in these contrasting extremes.
Produced by Dan Cocker, Hannah Newton and Darby Dorras
Assistant Producer: Laurence Bassett
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.
A retired bicycle repairman is slowly inveigled into helping the son of a former friend deal with a difficult loss. A new short story by Linda Cracknell that captures the awkwardness of two men from different generations skirting around the subject of grief.
Read by Paul Young
Written by Linda Cracknell
Produced by Kirsteen Cameron.
Obituary series, analysing and celebrating the life stories of people who have recently died.
Radio 4's forum for audience comment.
Molly no longer uses sign language; she has a cochlear implant, but she and her Dad know her hearing isn't perfect, especially when it comes to the cinema. Fi Glover presents another conversation in the series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen.
Producer: Marya Burgess.
Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
This week, the Professor of Ignorance John Lloyd and his curator, the brilliant Romesh Ranganathan welcome:
The comedian, artist, performance poet, musician, radio DJ, author, musical actor and former Museum of Curiosity Curator, Phill Jupitus
Criminologist, broadcaster, writer and award-winning documentary film-maker, Roger Graef;
and
The novelist, Michelin-starred restaurateur and food columnist who is also Chancellor of Queen Margaret University as well as judge on The Great British Bake Off, Prue Leith.
This week, the Museum's Guest Committee offer as exhibits the world's first celebrity chef, a newspaper headline calling for longer sentences and one evening in Chelmsford Odeon on Sunday July 26th 1981.
The show was researched by Anne Miller of QI and Mike Turner.
The production coordinator was Tamara Shilham.
The producers were Richard Turner and James Harkin.
It was a BBC Studios Production.
Oliver decides it is time to move on, and Alistair shows his hand.
News, reviews and interviews from the worlds of art, literature, film and music.
Ritula Shah presents political debate from the Radio Theatre at Broadcasting House, London with a panel including, the Labour MP Stella Creasy, the Conservative MP Nigel Evans and the journalist and author Owen Jones.
Adam Gopnik reflects on why musical theatre makes its makers miserable. He should know - he's just finished an eight week run of a musical he wrote.
He concludes that while films, for example, have a "natural author" in the shape of the director, a musical doesn't and "a seven-person creative team of equals", he says can never be harmonious.
But there's a lot of fun to be had along the way....
Producer: Adele Armstrong.
The first omnibus of Season 11, Broken and Mad, set in Folkestone, in the week, in 1917, when the battle of Passchendaele began.
Written by Katie Hims
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole
Sound: Martha Littlehailes
Composer: Matthew Strachan
Consultant Historian: Maggie Andrews.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
The new novel by Amanda Craig is a state-of-the-nation black comedy highlighting the growing disconnect between life in London and the rest of the country.
After losing their jobs, Lottie and Quentin have rented out their London home for an extortionate sum and moved their family to Devon. Lottie's son Xan, who'd failed to get into university, seems to have settled the best, finding new purpose as a wage-earner, working in the local pie factory.
Read by Amanda Lawrence
Written by Amanda Craig
Abridged by Robin Brooks
Produced by Kirsteen Cameron.
Josie Long hears stories of our desire to pause - from dismantling a house which seems stopped in time to the difficulties of watching your child grow up.
The House by the Creek
Produced by Sophie Townsend
Pony
Produced by Ibby Caputo
Private Black Motherhood and Public White Protest
Originally made for the Hope Chest podcast
https://stacialbrown.com/tag/hope-chest-podcast/
Produced by Stacia Brown
Series Producer: Eleanor McDowall
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4.
They met on the first brick-laying course for women and have supported each other through life in the construction industry ever since. Fi Glover presents another conversation in the series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen.
Producer: Marya Burgess.