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.
Tina Brown recalls being editor-in-chief of Vanity Fair magazine in the 80's, early 90's.
It's 1991 and Demi Moore appeared pregnant and naked on a cover, shot by Annie Leibovitz. So what's the story behind this famous image?
Read by Tina Brown
Producer Duncan Minshull.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
Spiritual reflection to start the day with former Moderator of the Church of Scotland's General Assembly, the Very Rev John Chalmers.
Our listener Robert hasn't. We hear from the consultants who told him not to.
All our stories start with listeners. Email us ipm@bbc.co.uk or we're on 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.
The Irish border is currently the focus of intense negotiations around Brexit. Nobody knows how a soft or hard Brexit will work in practise but most agree that a hard border will negatively affect both the economies and relationships of the Republic and Northern Ireland. Helen Mark delves beneath the politics to discover the wildness of the land along the border and talks to the people who live there and cross the border daily. The border has inspired artists and writers such as Garrett Carr and Rita Duffy and Helen meets them to explore the borderlands and try to understand the unique history of the places along the line from Lough Foyle to Carlingford Lough.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
The latest weather forecast.
News and current affairs. Including Yesterday in Parliament, Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
Bruce Dickinson is best known as lead singer one of the most successful heavy metal bands in history, Iron Maiden. But he's also a airline captain, international fencer, radio presenter, and writer, who has now written his autobiography. The man once billed a "Human air raid siren" joins Richard Coles and Aasmah Mir in the studio.
Alby Shale's father, Christopher Shale, died of a heart attack aged 56 in 2011 when Alby was 20. Not long before he died, he'd taken Alby to Rwanda to show him the volunteering work he'd been doing there, which had resulted in a plan to open the country's first national Cricket stadium. After his father's sudden death, Alby decided to help complete the project and joins us after having just returned from Rwanda where he watched the stadium's opening ceremony and inaugural match.
We also meet Shobna Gulati, actress, writer and dancer known for her roles in Dinnerladies and Coronation Street, about to star in Daisy Pulls it off.
And listener Clarinda Goodman is a solicitor turned stone mason. She will join us to talk about what she's got out of turning to this physically demanding and creative craft in later life.
We also have the inheritance tracks of television presenter, reality TV star, life coach and former professional footballer, Jeff Brazier.
and JP gets an insiders tour of Birmingham Royal Ballet's Nutcracker.
What does this Button do by Bruce Dickinson is out now
Daisy Pulls it Off is at the Park Theatre in London until 13 January
Birmingham Royal Ballet's production of The Nutcracker is at the Birmingham Hippodrome until the 13th of December
Producer: Corinna Jones
Editor: Beverley Purcell.
Alan Dein connects with random strangers around the world and calls them.
This week, his guests are in far flung places and bustling cities but each, in their own way, isolated.
He finds Clare, an ex-Mounted Police Officer in the High Arctic, Dino, a security guard, locking up after a long nightshift in Skopje and in Northern China, 19-year-old Ben, whose ears are still ringing from his first night ever in a nightclub.
Producer: Sarah Bowen.
Radio 4's weekly assessment of developments at Westminster.
Political change in Zimbabwe and the new African reality Kate Adie introduces correspondent's stories from around the world.
Fergal Keane recalls the Cold War era conflicts he once reported on in Africa and reflects on what the downfall of Robert Mugabe reveals about how things have changed since then.
Lebanon has long been a nation of news addicts and Richard Hall finds that the ongoing political upheaval is keeping people glued to their screens.
Linda Pressly explores how a passion for horse breeding is uniting people in the West Bank.
In Portugal, Margaret Bradley finds that the seasonal migration of livestock from valley to mountain has been replaced by a new transhumance of hungry tourists.
And Andrew Whitehead explores the complex history of Kashmir's Tibetans.
Producer: Joe Kent.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
The latest news from the world of personal finance.
Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis re-cap the week with topical stand-up and sketches from guests Gareth Gwynn, Andy Zaltzman, Tamar Broadbent and Eshaan Akbar.
It's budget week! We delve into their red box to present more sketches, stand up and song...
Gareth Gwynn takes us on a magical mystery tour of local radio, Andy Zaltzman plays hardball, Tamar Broadbent chooses Avocados with Eshaan Akbar as interview guest.
Producer...Adnan Ahmed
BBC Studios Production.
The latest weather forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
Jonathan Dimbleby presents political debate from Haysfield Girls School in Bath with a panel including the economist Kate Barker and Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury Peter Dowd MP, Henry Newman the Director of the think tank Open Europe and the Chief Secretary to the Treasury Liz Truss MP.
Listeners have their say on the issues discussed on Any Questions?
Hayley Atwell stars in Dorothy Baker's whip-smart family drama about a headstrong student hell-bent on sabotaging her identical twin sister's wedding day.
Published in 1962, Baker's touching, witty and sharp character study is an over-looked 20th century American literary classic, featuring a protagonist easily as headstrong, vulnerable and compelling as Catcher in the Rye's Holden Caulfield.
Cassandra Edwards is a clever, popular and attractive 24-year-old grad student at California's Berkeley University. But she is missing one thing - her much loved identical twin sister, Judith. Cassandra's seemingly gilded life is sent into a tailspin when she finds out that Judith is marrying someone she has only just met, a nice young doctor from Connecticut.
Cassandra heads home to her family ranch to stop the wedding by any means at her disposal - namely a clutch purse full of pills, a taste for brandy and her own biting wit. She plunges herself back into the heart of a family still reeling from the death of the mother, and finds herself having to face the challenge of finding out who you really are when you think you're only one half of a complete person.
Adapted by Peter Flannery, the multi-award-winning stage and television writer who created Our Friends in the North, The Devil's Whore and who adapted the George Gently novels for BBC One.
Sound Design: Eloise Whitmore
Written by Dorothy Baker
Adapted by Peter Flannery
Director/Producer: Melanie Harris
Executive Producer: Jo Meek
A Sparklab production for BBC Radio 4.
We have music and chat from the American singer songwriter Joan As Policewoman.
As part of our Best Place to be a Woman series we look at what makes Northern Ireland a good place to live. We hear from Kellie Turtle from the Women's Resource and Development Agency, the journalist Anne Hailes and from single mum Rosa Thompson.
We catch up with listener Sue who got in touch with us earlier in the year to talk about going from wife to carer for her husband Roy. We found out Sue was about to have a crucial meeting about Roy's future: she tells about it via an audio diary and we hear from Eddy Graham Head of Information at Carers UK.
Everybody's Talking About Jamie is a new musical based on the true-life subject of a 2011 BBC documentary looking at a young man's desire to be a drag artist. We talk to the real Jamie Campbell and his mother Margaret about seeing your life story performed on a West End stage.
Does the feminist movement need to make more room for working class women? A new essay-based book 'Know Your Place' explores issues within working class culture. Sian Norris and Cath Bore have contributed to the book. Sian talks about growing up in a working class family with gay parents and Cath looks at the politics of being a female cleaner.
What it's like to be a young grandmother? We hear from Sarah Castle Gerrard and Elisa Vasquez Walters who both became grandmothers in their early 40s.
We discuss how best to talk about consent with the under-fives with the Sex Education Specialist Rachel Fitzsimmons.
Presented by Jenni Murray
Produced by Rabeka Nurmahomed
Edited by Jane Thurlow.
Full coverage of the day's news.
In the final programme of the current series Evan Davis will be talking to Sir Terry Leahy, former Tesco CEO, in front of an invited audience at Sir Terry's old school, St. Edward's College, Liverpool.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest weather forecast.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Clive Anderson and Emma Freud are joined by Stormzy, Margaret Cho, Peter Bowker and Dan Stevens for an eclectic mix of conversation, music and comedy. With music from Zara McFarlane and Holly Macve.
Producer: Sukey Firth.
Series of profiles of people who are currently making headlines.
A review of the week's cultural highlights.
For most of us, having to leave home, at least once in our lives, is inevitable, necessary and not unwelcome. The idea of modern, secular homelessness is banal, in contrast to the imposed exile that so many are obliged to endure.
The writer Amit Chaudhuri left India for England as part of his journey to becoming a writer. He resists the labels of exile or emigre or immigrant. Through these 'Adventures in Alienation', he encounters the experiences of others - among them Kirsty Gunn, James Wood and voices from the BBC Sound Archive - and examines his own understanding of what it means not to belong.
Produced by Rachel Hooper.
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4.
by Graham Greene
Dramatised by Nick Warburton.
Directed by Sally Avens
Querry, a celebrated architect of churches believes himself burnt out: unable to feel anything for his profession, his faith or even the suicide of his
mistress.
He journeys to a remote leprosy in Africa: there, he hopes to live in obscurity, unconcerned with the fate of others and to die, but it seems that he may have a
second chance to find both happiness and redemption.
The story reflects many of Greene's own personal struggles with his celebrity as a famous 'Catholic' author and his own doubts about his faith.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4, followed by weather.
Driverless cars could be on UK roads within four years under government plans to invest in the sector. The Chancellor Philip Hammond said "We have to embrace these technologies if we want the UK to lead the next industrial revolution". At the thick end of the wedge, Silicon Valley billionaire Elon Musk believes artificial intelligence is "a fundamental risk to the existence of human civilisation". AI is changing our lives here and now, whether we like it or not. Computer algorithms decide our credit rating and the terms on which we can borrow money; they decide how political campaigns are run and what adverts we see; they have increased the power and prevalence of fake news; through dating apps they even decide who we might date and therefore who we're likely to marry. As the technology gathers pace, should we apply the brakes or trustingly freewheel into the future? For those inclined to worry, there's a lot to worry about; not least the idea of letting robot weapons systems loose on the battlefield or the potential cost of mass automation on society. Should we let machines decide whether a child should be taken into care or empanel them to weigh the evidence in criminal trials? Robots may never be capable of empathy, but perhaps they could be fairer in certain decisions than humans; free of emotional baggage, they might thus be more 'moral'. Even if machines were to make 'moral' decisions on our behalf, according to whose morality should they be programmed? Most aircraft are piloted by computers most of the time, but we still feel safer with a human in the cockpit. Do we really want to be a 'driverless' society?
Producer: Dan Tierney.
Peter Mikhailov, the former member for Morley and Outwood, and Widnes's record try scorer all had a no.1 hit in 1958. What was it called?
Tom Sutcliffe invites the teams from the North of England (Stuart Maconie and Adele Geras) and the Midlands (Rosalind Miles and Stephen Maddock) to take on the challenge posed by this and many other cryptic questions in this second contest of the series. Both are making their first appearance of the season and will be keen to get a solid footing on the leader board to start with. As always, the programme includes a selection of the best question ideas suggested by listeners over the past twelve months - and a couple of fiendish music and audio montages with a devious connection which the teams have to unravel.
Producer: Paul Bajoria.
Roger McGough marks 50 years since the death of John Masefield with a programme full of poetry about the sea, from the Odyssey to the Ancient Mariner to the Mermaid at Zennor. Producer Sally Heaven.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
From Fact To Fiction: As The Year Grows Old
The writer Chris Dolan writes a new short story in response to this week's news.
Writer: Chris Dolan
Reader: David Hayman
Producer: David Ian Neville.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
This week's Bells on Sunday comes from the church of St Mary the Virgin, Bowdon in the Diocese of Chester. A new peal of eight bells was cast and hung in 1964 by John Taylor and company with a tenor just six pounds over Eighteen Hundred weight, tuned to E. They're regarded as a fine example of the Loughborough foundry's output at that time.
We hear now part of a quarter peal of Stedman Triples.
The latest national and international news.
Stories of metamorphosis have always captivated journalist Remona Aly. They are woven with enduring truths, moral lessons and provocative challenges.
Tales of metamorphosis can be both glorious and sinister, influential and cautionary. In this episode of Something Understood, Remona argues that these tales profoundly impact our collective psyche, revealing the story of the human experience.
The poetry of John Keats and the words of the Quran remind Remona how metamorphosis can reveal our darker nature. Metamorphosis is a recurring theme in Hinduism too with Lord Krishna confiding in his warrior friend Arjuna, "For one who has taken his birth, death is certain; and for one who is dead, birth is certain."
The episode features musical selections from Tchaikovsky and Van Morrison which underpin how metamorphosis can be part of life's purpose, moving away from stasis and encouraging reform, renewal and reflection.
The readers are Rachel Atkins, Laurence Kennedy and Max O'Brien.
Special thanks to Mandeep Moore for her Punjabi translation of Jind Kaur.
Presenter: Remona Aly
Producer: Jonathan O'Sullivan
A TBI Media production for BBC Radio 4.
Cows are complex creatures. They have best friends and worst enemies. They can adore their grandchildren and hate their sisters, in fact they have personalities just as diverse as the farmers who look after them. That's the belief of Rosamund Young who farms in the Cotswolds. She documented these and many other insights into the lives of cows in a book which sold a few hundred copies back in 2003.
That might have been the end of the story but then writer and national treasure Alan Bennett happened to read it and mentioned in his diaries that it's, "a book that alters the way one sees things."
Now, much to Rosamund's surprise, Faber and Faber have republished The Secret Life of Cows and it's gone global. The rights have been sold in 19 different countries and there's a foreword by Alan Bennett himself. Caz Graham has been to Broadway to meet Rosamund and her cows, to hear about this new publishing fame and the farming philosophy she follows.
The latest weather forecast.
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.
Sunday morning religious news and current affairs programme.
The historian and broadcaster Dan Snow makes the Radio 4 Appeal on behalf of Cord.
Registered Charity Number: 1070684
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 'Cord'.
- Cheques should be made payable to 'Cord'.
The latest weather forecast.
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.
"My good lady, go home and sit still".
From St Giles' Cathedral, Edinburgh, marking the 100th anniversary of Elsie Inglis, founder of the Scottish Women's Hospitals
for Foreign Service, which cared for thousands of soldiers during WWI.
With the Minister, The Rev Calum MacLeod, and the Rev Helen Alexander.
Cathedral Choir directed by Michael Harris. Organist: Peter Backhouse.
Featuring two violins made in honour of WWI poets, Wilfred Owen and Siegfried Sassoon.
Hymns: Jesus calls us! O'er the tumult (Tune: St Andrew)
The King of Love my Shepherd Is (Tune: Dominus Regit Me)
For all the Saints (Tune: Sine Nomine)
Anthem: Give us the wings of faith (Bullock)
Producer: Mo McCullough.
Will Self reflects on the epidemic of sleeplessness.
He explores the "heady cocktail" of modern life that's keeping us awake and argues that we all need the imaginative sustenance of dreams.
Producer: Adele Armstrong.
Musician Fyfe Dangerfield tells the story of an inspirational trip to the 'birdland' of the Farne Islands where a seabird inspired the name for the band that made him famous.
Producer: Mark Ward
Photograph: Simon Stobart.
Sunday morning magazine programme with news and conversation about the big stories of the week. Presented by Paddy O'Connell.
There is a shock for Christine, and the results are in at the parish council election.
The writer and activist Naomi Klein reached an international audience with her first book, the best-selling No Logo, a rallying cry against the power of corporate brands and the replacement of traditional manufacturing jobs with sweatshop labour.
Since then, she's turned her intellectual ire on to even bigger terrain - the political and economic systems underpinning capitalism and climate change. The way to save the planet, she says, requires a radical rethink which will address what she calls the "unresolved tensions" between big business and over-consumption.
It's no surprise then that her fierce broadsides against the free market ideology have attracted plaudits and opprobrium in equal measure. But, coming from a family steeped in political activism, such polarized reactions come with the territory. Her grandparents were fervent Marxists and she was born in Canada to American activist parents who fled the US in protest against the Vietnam War. Her mother is a feminist filmmaker while her doctor father was heavily involved with the natural birth movement.
Growing up in the 1980s, she was a committed shopper and self-confessed "teeny bopper." But at 19 she experienced a dramatic political awakening - after that, she says, "you had to call yourself a feminist."
Presenter Kirsty Young
Producer Paula McGinley.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
The 68th series of Radio 4's multi award-winning 'antidote to panel games' promises more homespun wireless entertainment for the young at heart. This week the programme pays a return visit to the Swan Theatre in High Wycombe where regulars Graeme Garden, Tim Brooke-Taylor and Barry Cryer are once again joined on the panel by Jan Ravens, with Jack Dee in the chair. At the piano - Colin Sell. Producer - Jon Naismith. It is a BBC Studios production.
Dan Saladino is at Food On The Edge, a gathering of people with food stories to tell; from a Black Panther breakfast to a chef convinced her emotions could be detected in her food.
Held in Galway, the west of Ireland each year chef JP McMahon invites fellow cooks, chefs and restaurateurs to take to a stage and for 15 minutes share a food story of experience. Over two days more than 40 different stories from countries as diverse as Japan, Italy, Bolivia and Australia are told.
Dan selects a handful of the stories that made an impact on him during his time at Food On The Edge.
The first story is of how a Syrian kitchen came to be set up in Amsterdam. Tens of thousand of Syrians arrived in the city during the peak of the recent refugee crisis. Among them was a photographer, fashion designer, fitness machine repair man and a lawyer. Together they ran a kitchen in the Salvation Army centre where they were being housed, aiming to feed their fellow refugees with food from home. After spotting an appeal for help on Facebook, Dutch chef Jurriaan Momberg visited the kitchen to see if he could help teach them to cook. What he discovered were some of the greatest culinary talents he'd encountered in his career. It led to the creation of a pop-up restaurant which caused a sensation in Amsterdam. But all good things comes to an end and in the programme Jurriaan explains why one day he walked into an empty kitchen.
Another story comes from Oakland California. It was there in 1966 that the radical political movement The Black Panthers were created in response to police violence against black communities. By 1969 what had first looked like a militia, promoting armed resistance, the organisation had also created a series of social programmes. The most successful of which was a breakfast programme set up to feed black children who were often going to school undernourished and hungry. Chef Saqib Keval of the People's Kitchen Collective, a group of cooks, historians and researchers who tell stories through food, explains why he's brought the free breakfasts back to California.
Meanwhile Chef Matt Orlando of the Copenhagen restaurant Amass reveals some of the kitchen experiments he's been undertaking to convert so called "waste food" and by-products into delicious meals. He explains the ingenious way flavours and nutrients inside used coffee grounds can be released to make a meal.
Irish chef Domini Kemp took to the stage to express her frustration of how, based on her own experience of cancer treatment, the medical profession neglect the power of food in conversations about prevention, recovery and long term health.
Finally, New York chef Elise Kornack tells the story of how a mental breakdown led her to become convinced that her own powerful emotions were being transferred through her cooking and onto her customers. Like a scene from the book and film, Like Water For Chocolate, she believed every mouthful of food she was serving would result in diners sensing what was unfolding in her troubled mind.
Produced and presented by Dan Saladino.
The latest weather forecast.
Global news and analysis.
In this 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 a different modern day anxiety, hope or idea as its starting point each month, 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?"
Presenter: Sarah Dunant
Producers: Katherine Godfrey and Nathan Gower
Executive Producer: David Prest
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.
Eric Robson and his panel of gardening experts visit Westcliff-on-sea in Essex. Bob Flowerdew, Christine Walkden and Matt Biggs answer questions from the audience.
Produced by Dan Cocker
Assistant Producer: Hester Cant
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.
Fi Glover introduces conversations about the liberation of dance, whether you're old or young, fit or ailing, 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.
by Graham Greene
Dramatised by Nick Warburton.
Directed by Sally Avens
Querry, a celebrated architect of churches, doubting his faith and his lack of humanity has fled to a remote leprosy in Africa. There, he has begun to find a type of contentment. But his whereabouts are leaked to the press and Querry becomes a hunted man with nowhere left to run.
Mariella Frostrup explores the idea of the Great American Novel and asks if it's honoured at the expense of contemporary British novels. She's joined by Benjamin Markovits and Stephanie Merrit. Phillip Lewis luxuriates in the writing of William Styron's The Confessions of Nat Turner. Also on the programme, Mariella celebrates the joys and traditions of reading aloud.
When the poet Frank Ormsby was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease, his response was unexpected. He embarked on a newly fertile creative period, documenting his experiences and finding a voice in his poetry that he was beginning to lose in his daily communications.
His first act was to search Google - for jokes. "Which would you rather have, Parkinson's or Alzheimer's. Obviously Parkinson's! I'd rather spill half my pint than forget where I left it."
As he discusses with Marie-Louise Muir, the illness has changed him. It's mellowed him. After a career as a school teacher, his daily life is now quieter and more solitary. There's a poetry, almost, in his pauses and silences.
Frank belongs to the generation of Northern Irish writers that has followed in the footsteps of Seamus Heaney and Michael Longley, His medication, he believes, has aided his creativity. But it has also induced hallucinations. He finds himself sitting on his own in his study but surrounded by people, by the ghosts of his mother-in-law and unidentified visitors. And he's also haunted by a fear that the earth will open up and swallow him.
But if you ask how he's doing, he writes,
"I'll tell you the one
about 'parking zones disease'.
I'll assure you that the pills seem to be working".
Photo credit: Malachi O'Doherty
With readings by Frank himself and Ciaran McMenamin from The Darkness of Snow.
Produced by Alan Hall
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4.
Byron Vincent joins the Violence Reduction Unit in Glasgow to see how they turn young men away from lives of violence and chaos.
Three years ago, after he discussed his own violent and chaotic youth in a Four Thought talk on Radio 4, Byron was invited to come and speak at the VRU. Since then he has been back several times - now he experiences the unit's work directly. Byron spent two weeks embedded in two of the VRU's programmes, from watching the scheme's participants working in food trucks in the west end of Glasgow to joining the cast at the Royal Military Tattoo in Edinburgh.
After hours, and with his powerful personal connection to their lives, Byron has extraordinarily candid conversations with the young men involved in the scheme about fear, insecurity, redemption, love, hope and the real reasons for spiralling violence. But what sacrifices will be required for them to make new lives, free from chaos and violence?
Producer: Giles Edwards.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest weather forecast.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Kathy Clugston chooses her BBC Radio highlights.
Brian has a reputation to protect, and Ian is feeling fancifully festive.
by Ed Harris
Comedy in the Cabinet War Rooms. Dot's been sent to St Horribly Vulture's School for Boys to enlist a teacher for 'Shhhh Bletchley Park'. But is he the right sort of chap for the job?
Director/Producer Jessica Brown.
When a girl disappears in the heart of England how far back do you have to go to find the truth?
Siobhan Finneran continues Jon McGregor's gripping new series. A community is rocked when 13-year-old Becky Shaw goes missing on a holiday to the Peak District. Now her disappearance sparks long-buried memories, and opens old wounds. Today: a local park ranger is taken back to an evenftul hill walk the summer before...
The fifteen stories of The Reservoir Tapes each stand alone but together build a compelling portrait of a village shaken by tragedy, as they explore events that precede and follow the disappearance of the teenage Becky Shaw. A companion to Jon McGregor's critically acclaimed Man Booker long-listed novel Reservoir 13, these stories and their different perspectives offer tantalizing glimpses as what to might have happened to the teenage girl.
Writer: Jon McGregor is an acclaimed British novelist who has been longlisted for the Man Booker Prize three times. His third novel, Even the Dogs, won the International Dublin Literary Award.
Reader: Siobhan Finneran is an acclaimed British actor. Her early work include the film Rita, Sue and Bob Too, and more recent TV roles have been in Happy Valley, The Lock and Downton Abbey.
Producer: Justine Willett.
Roger Bolton with listener views on BBC radio programmes.
Following a series of misogynistic and anti-semitic tweets, Josh Rivers was sacked from his position as editor of Gay Times and PM ran a 20 minute interview with the former editor. It was much to the consternation of some Feedback listeners who took issue with the amount of airtime Rivers was allowed and the way in which the interview was conducted by presenter Eddie Mair. PM Editor Roger Sawyer discusses his editorial decision and explains why he thinks it was in the public interest to hear Josh Rivers' views.
The second part of an interview with Sioned Wiliam, BBC Radio 4's Commissioning Editor for Comedy, focuses on whether there are enough women in comedy programmes and how she finds new talent. Lazy Susan, one of Sioned's recent discoveries, explain how they got the gig and tell us about the format for their new duo show - part spoof, part homage to popular US podcasts.
And we meet a couple for whom radio became their lifeline. When Rob and Eeva John were taken hostage in northern Ethiopia in 1984, their only contact with the outside world was through a hidden shortwave radio. Nicola Kelly spoke to them about their ordeal and the role radio had to play in their release.
Producer: Kate Dixon
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.
Matthew Bannister on
Lord Imbert, the Commissioner who tried to change the culture of the Metropolitan Police. He invited TV cameras to observe his officers at work, leading to a controversial film of them subjecting a rape victim to aggressive questioning.
Pat Hutchins, the children's author and illustrator who created the book "Rosie's Walk" and presented the TV series "Rosie and Jim".
Rodney Bewes, the actor best known for playing Bob in the Likely Lads.
Charles Manson, one of the most notorious murderers of the 20th century.
And David Cassidy, the singer and actor who was a heartthrob for millions of teenage girls in the 1970s.
In 2017 it's easier than ever to express offence. The angry face icon on Facebook, a sarcasm-loaded tweet or a (comparatively) old-fashioned blog post allow us to highlight the insensitivities of others and how they make us feel - in a matter of moments. Increasingly, offence has consequences: people are told what they can and cannot wear, comedy characters are put to bed. Earlier this year, a white artist was condemned for her depiction of the body of a murdered black teenager. Those who were offended demanded that the painting be destroyed because 'white creative freedoms have been founded on the constraint of others'. It's easy to scoff. Detractors refer to those asking for a new level of cultural sensitivity as "snowflakes" and insist the offence they feel is self-indulgent. But history teaches that fringe discussions often graduate to mainstream norms. So are these new idealists setting a fresh standard for cultural sensitivity? A standard that society will eventually come to observe? Mobeen Azhar puts aside familiar critiques about the threat to free speech. Instead, he tries to understand the challenging arguments put forward by those who are pushing for new norms, and who believe that being offended will create a more culturally aware, progressive society.
Featuring contributions from X-Factor star Honey G, black lesbian punk rockers Big Joanie and RuPaul's Drag Race contestant Charlie Hides
Producer: Tim Mansel.
Weekly political discussion and analysis with MPs, experts and commentators.
True stories told live in in the USA: Meg Bowles introduces stories about being singled out and facing your fears.
The Moth is an acclaimed not-for-profit organisation dedicated to the art and craft of storytelling based in the USA. Since 1997, it has celebrated both the raconteur and the storytelling novice, who has lived through something extraordinary and yearns to share it. Originally formed by the writer George Dawes Green as an intimate gathering of friends on a porch in Georgia (where moths would flutter in through a hole in the screen), and then recreated in a New York City living room, The Moth quickly grew to produce immensely popular events at theatres and clubs around New York City and later around the USA, the UK and other parts of the world.
The Moth has presented more than 15,000 stories, told live and without notes, to standing-room-only crowds worldwide. The Moth podcast is downloaded over 27 million times a year.
Featuring true stories told live on stage without scripts, from the humorous to the heart-breaking.
The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Jay Allison and Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts and is distributed by the Public Radio Exchange.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
GDP - Laurie Taylor talks to Lorenzo Fioramonti, Professor of Political Economy at the University of Pretoria, and author of a new book which exposes the flaws of an economic system which values this statistic, above all others, as a measure of prosperity and growth. They're joined by Douglas McWilliams, Deputy Chairman of the Centre for Economics and Business Research. Also, Mali music - Caspar Melville, Lecturer in Global Creative and Cultural Industries at SOAS, discussed his study into the ways in which Eurocentric copyright is impacting on African musical traditions.
Producer: Jayne Egerton.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
Spiritual reflection to start the day with former Moderator of the Church of Scotland's General Assembly, the Very Rev John Chalmers.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
The latest weather forecast for farmers.
Childrens author and poet Michael Morpurgo discusses the cackling magpie in this Tweet of the Day, a bird that seemingly never dies.
Producer: Tom Bonnett
Photograph: Ken Bentley.
News and current affairs. Includes Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
It is a hundred years since Finland declared independence following the Russian Revolution. Amol Rajan asks what is unique about Europe's most sparsely populated country. The conductor Sakari Oramo celebrates Finland's greatest composer Sibelius, while the curator Sointu Fritze looks at the work of Tove Jansson, famed for her cartoon creatures the Moomins as well as her daring political cartoons and images of the sea. The writer Horatio Clare travels around the frozen seas of Finland on board a government icebreaker, discovering stories of its history and character, while the economist Martin Sandbu evaluates a region seen as a capitalist utopia.
Producer: Katy Hickman.
Neil MacGregor continues his series on shared beliefs with a focus on earthly rulers and the gods.
Queens and kings may be priests of the gods, or their representatives. They may be incarnations - or even gods themselves. Or the relationship may be so close that to divide spiritual from temporal power at all would simply make no sense.
Neil examines these ideas, with the help of objects including a bronze staff belonging to the Oba of Benin, and a bronze vessel from China, whose inscription suggests that its dynastic leaders enjoyed a mandate from heaven.
Producer Paul Kobrak
The series is produced in partnership with the British Museum, with the assistance of Dr Christopher Harding, University of Edinburgh.
Photograph (c) The Trustees of the British Museum.
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.
An offbeat comic drama series by Ben Cottam following the experiences of Latvian locum Dr Dace Zake - mistakenly hired in the belief she speaks Polish - in a beleaguered medical centre in the deprived South Shore area of Blackpool.
It's Dr Dace Zake's first day working at the medical centre. She's late, which incurs the wrath of Jan the receptionist and she encounters a man throwing up into a carrier bag outside the surgery. Not a good start to the day.
Writer.........................Ben Cottam
Director.....................Alison Crawford.
Nouri is Syrian and Mike is Scottish. It is a new friendship formed around fishing and coffee and leads to Nouri confronting some painful memories.
Theodora Potts: Victorian Psychic by Tracy-Ann Oberman and Ivor Baddiel
from an idea by Tracy-Ann Oberman
Theodora Potts is fast-becoming the go-to psychic of the Victorian age.
That is until a seance is interrupted by a real spirit.
Tracy-Ann Oberman co-wrote and co-stars
Theodora Potts ..... Maureen Lipman
Sioux Sioux ..... Tracy-Ann Oberman
Adolphus/Dr von Ubermench ..... Neil McCaul
Countess ..... Ellie Darvill
The Earl ..... Clive Hayward
Mr Brown ..... Rupert Holliday Evans
Clemmie ..... Abbie Andrews
Mr Soames ..... Gary Duncan
Woman with birthmark ..... Isabella Inchbald
Produced and directed by Marion Nancarrow
This is the last of four plays especially written for Maureen Lipman which form this month's "A Month of Maureen". Maureen Lipman's hugely successful career as actress, writer, artist and, most recently, director, has spanned 50 years and, in her honour, these 4 new comedy dramas have been especially commissioned for Radio 4, with the writers creating roles specifically for her. The results are 4 very different plays. In this final play, Maureen is Theodora Potts, a Victorian psychic with a secret, who's about to meet her match. Tracy-Ann Oberman co-stars in a surprising reincarnation - and also co-wrote the play for Maureen.
Tracy-Ann says she wanted the write the play because "I've always been been fascinated with the Theosophical Society and the Victorian craze for female psychics who could apparently contact the dead. Given credibility by the likes of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the Spirit World was just one seance away. If a woman ( and women were seen as more "sensitive" ) could master the sleight of hand and trickery needed to carry a theatrical and shock-filled seance, a good income and an introduction to Smart Society could be in store. One of the most famous fake psychics, Leah Fox, married a hugely wealthy man in America. A working class poor unmarried woman like Theodora Potts, who had little or no prospects, like many other 'mediums' of the time, hoped that a similar fate could be in store for them. The great thing about Maureen is that her nuance and ability to inhabit a range of characters with ease meant she could find all the layers to Theodora - who plays a variety of characters in one day to get what she needs!".
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
On this day in 1917, as the Times reported the fake news that the Tsar's daughter was to visit America, travelling under the name of Miss Tatiana Romanoff, Kitty Lumley is on the trail of her missing daughter, May.
Written by Sarah Daniels
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole.
News and discussion of consumer affairs.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
Born in Brooklyn in 1942, Lou Reed moved with his middle-class Jewish family to Long Island when he was a young boy. A rebellious teenager, he discovered R&B and rock and roll and began playing in bands early on. He also began experimenting with drugs and sex, leading his parents to take a drastic decision that Lou never forgave them for. At Syracuse University, he came under the influence of the poet Delmore Schwartz, who encouraged him to take writing seriously and served as a role model for Lou's bohemian ambitions. When he moved to New York City, Lou took a song-writing job with the budget label Pickwick Records, and met avant-garde musician John Cale. With guitarist Sterling Morrison and drummer Maureen Tucker they formed the Velvet Underground, whose first paid gig was a now legendary appearance at a high school dance where they played three songs and by all accounts caused half the audience to flee for the exit.
1/5 The Velvet Underground is formed.
Read by Read by Demetri Goritsas
Abridged and produced by Sara Davies.
by Peter Jukes
Second series, with Lenny Henry as Frank Watt, reformed double-murderer recently released from prison. Frank and Geoff start a small rehabilitation company called ITHACA for ex-offenders, but have they rehabilitated themselves?
Director ..... Mary Peate
Playwright and journalist PETER JUKES is best known for his book about the hacking trial, BEYOND CONTEMPT, (which he also dramatised for Radio 4); and more recently for his award-winning podcast and subsequent book UNTOLD: THE DANIEL MORGAN MURDER UNCOVERED.
SIR LENNY HENRY has an astonishing list of achievements to his credit: he is one of Britain's best known comedians; an award-winning actor (recently starring in The Comedy of Errors at The National Theatre, Fences at the Duchess Theatre, and 'The Resitable Rise of Arturo Ui' at the Donmar); co-founder of Comic Relief and a Trustee of the National Theatre, not to mention his campaigning activity for equal employment opportunities in Broadcasting. Added to all of this, he is making a name for himself as a playwright - he has written four plays for Radio 4 (with another in the pipeline) and his autobiographical BBC1 drama 'Danny and the Human Zoo' won the Screen Nation Film and Television Award in 2016.
(3/12)
How might a learning experience for military personnel leave you with the leftovers, and why are they the same only different?
For the third contest of Round Britain Quiz's 70th anniversary season, Northern Ireland take on the South of England. Making their debut for Northern Ireland are the new partnership of the journalist Freya McClements and the writer and film-maker Paddy Duffy. They face the formidable South of England pairing of the writer Marcus Berkmann and the comedian Paul Sinha.
Tom Sutcliffe is in the chair to provide the occasional helpful nudge and to steer the panel out of some of their more fanciful blind alleys, as they wrestle to unpack the cryptic questions in the limited time available. As always, the programme includes several questions suggested by RBQ listeners.
Producer: Paul Bajoria.
Following four distinguished photographers at work on four very different photo shoots, exploring both sides of the story: the process of photographing and of being photographed.
It seems like we're all photographers now, and never have more photographs been taken - events documented, lives snapped, moments frozen. With high quality cameras in most back pockets these days, it's been estimated that a trillion photographs will be taken this year.
What are we doing when we point a camera at something - and why?
In this series we get behind the lens, as we hear about the process and practice of professional photographers. What motivates them? What are they trying to capture? Which shots work best?
And, crucially, what do they think they're doing?
But as well as a programme about the photographer at work, it's also a programme about the photographer's subject - about the people and places being photographed, the world that the photographer is momentarily entering - and what it means to have a camera pointed at you.
The first programme features an extraordinary project spanning 3 decades of intimate family life. In 1987 Matthew Finn began photographing his mother, Jean, in their everyday Leeds family home. 30 years later, Matthew still travels to take photographs but, as we discover, human frailty is now testing the bond between mother and son.
Each programme will be accompanied by an on-line gallery of photographs.
When you stand in front of the altar in an Anglican or Catholic church, you are almost certainly facing East. The graveyard is very unlikely to be at the north side and if your church is called St Michael's, it will very likely be situated on the North side of your town or city. Cardinal points play an important role in sacred architecture. Is this simply a matter of history and culture or is there something deeper going on? To discuss sacred direction, Ernie Rea is joined by Martin Palmer, Secretary General of the Alliance of Religions and Conservation; Jon Cannon, Architectural Historian and Author of Sacred Spaces; and Vikram Lall, award winning Indian architect, educator and author.
Producer: Helen Lee.
Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
The nation's favourite wireless entertainment pays a visit to the Winter Gardens in Margate. Old-timers Barry Cryer and Tim Brooke-Taylor are joined on the panel by Tony Hawks and Andy Hamilton with Jack Dee in the chair. Colin Sell provides piano accompaniment. Producer - Jon Naismith. It is a BBC Studios production.
Jennifer learns something shocking, and Rex finds himself out of favour.
Arts news, interviews and reviews.
Radio played a key role in the propaganda campaigns of Nazi Germany. The most notorious personality in this radio war was William Joyce, or 'Lord Haw-Haw' - who came to be known as the English voice of Nazi Germany. But he wasn't alone in this effort.
Professor Jo Fox of Durham University discovers the lost transcripts of Radio Caledonia, a 'secret station' designed to disseminate defeatist propaganda to the people of Scotland and sow seeds of dissent among its listeners. Set up by the German Propaganda Ministry in 1940, the presenter was Scottish national Donald Grant.
Jo Fox examines the Nazis' attempts to appeal to Scottish nationalist feeling through these broadcasts and asks why, unlike Joyce, Donald Grant was spared execution.
Producer: Sarah Shebbeare.
The chilling story of a massacre of Rohingya muslims in a small village in Myanmar, formerly known as Burma. On 30 August government soldiers swept through the village setting fire to homes, raping and killing dozens, possibly hundreds of its muslim inhabitants. An ongoing military crackdown in the state has seen more than 500,000 Rohingya muslims flee to neighbouring Bangladesh since late August. The government of Aung San Suu Kyi has faced international condemnation over the crisis. She says the military is responding to attacks by Rohingya militants. But the Rohingya have long been persecuted in Myanmar: denied citizenship, decent healthcare and education. For Crossing Continents, Gabriel Gatehouse investigates the massacre in Tula Toli. Speaking to survivors in camps in Bangladesh, he pieces together a picture of horrific violence, perpetrated in what has been described as a "textbook example of ethnic cleansing." And he hears evidence that suggests the violence may have been planned in advance. Producer John Murphy.
Reindeer have been entwined with the lives of people living in the most northerly parts of the world for thousands of years, following the herds north as the Arctic ice retreated. Karen Anette Anti from a long line of Sami herds-people and Tilly Smith with her herd of reindeer in the Scottish Highlands, teach Brett Westwood that there's a lot more to reindeer than Rudolph. In a programme also featuring reindeer expert Dr. Nicholas Tyler, Palaeolithic archaeologists Dr. Felix Riede and Dr George Nash.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
John Updike's masterful Rabbit quintet established Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom as the quintessential American White middle class male. The first book Rabbit, Run was published in 1960 to critical acclaim. Rabbit Redux is the second in the series, published in 1971 and charting the end of the sixties - featuring, among other things, the first American moon landing and the Vietnam War.
Despite its very strong language, sex, and reflection of racist attitudes of the time, Time Magazine said of the book and its author, "Updike owns a rare verbal genius, a gifted intelligence and a sense of tragedy made bearable by wit. A masterpiece."
It's extraordinary how many of its themes reverberate down to the present day.
Abridged by Eileen Horne
Read by Toby Jones
Produced by Clive Brill
A Brill production for BBC Radio 4.
John Wilson continues with the series in which he talks to leading performers and songwriters about the album that made them or changed them.
Recorded in front of a live audience at the BBC's iconic Maida Vale Studios. Each edition includes two episodes, with John initially quizzing the artist about the album in question, and then, in the B-side, the audience puts the questions. Both editions feature exclusive live performances.
A-side: Our Version of Events by Emeli Sandé
Scottish singer-songwriter Emeli Sandé takes us back to her debut album "Our Version of Events ", the UK's biggest selling record of 2012 which spent more consecutive weeks in the British charts than any other debut album, breaking a record held for 50 years by The Beatles.
Featuring the singles Next To Me, Heaven, Clown and Read all About It, the album made her a household name and she was the only artist to perform at both the opening and closing ceremonies of the London Olympics. Our Version of Events went on to win the BRIT Award for Album of the Year and Emeli was named Best British Female Artist.
The B-side of the programme, where it's the turn of the audience to ask the questions, can be heard tomorrow at 3.30pm.
Complete versions of the songs performed in the programme (and others) can be heard on the 'Mastertapes' pages on the Radio 4 website, where the programmes can also be downloaded and other musical goodies accessed.
Producer: Edwina Pitman.
Susan Hulme reports from Westminster.
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.
Spiritual reflection to start the day with former Moderator of the Church of Scotland's General Assembly, the Very Rev John Chalmers.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
Children's author Michael Morpurgo recounts how his daily walk in the Devon countryside is often enlivened by the call of buzzards overhead for this Tweet of the Day.
Producer: Tom Bonnett
Photograph: Mandy West.
News and current affairs. Including Yesterday in Parliament, Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
Jonathan Freedland looks at past events that shed light on present-day controversies.
When she was two years old, Joanna Briscoe's life as single child changed forever when her mother came home with a new baby in her arms. From that moment, Joanna's early childhood was over-shadowed by the rivalry with her brother for her mother's attention. Whilst her brother rapidly grew stronger and could be more physically aggressive, Joanna fought back with her tongue. In this programme, she discusses how the rivalry escalated and what she has learned from the experience with journalist and mother Samantha Simmonds whose own sons constantly compete with one another.
Producer Sarah Bunt.
Neil MacGregor focuses on societies which aimed to live without religious beliefs.
Neil examines a revolutionary clock, from around 1795, created in the wake of the French Revolution, and designed to mark a new way of living: in an age of reason, there would no longer be royalism or religion in France.
A poster from the Soviet Union celebrates the apparent triumph of scientific progress: the cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin floats in space, looks out and proclaims 'There is no God!'. It seems that the heavens are empty of divine beings, but full, instead, of starry promise.
Producer Paul Kobrak
Produced in partnership with the British Museum
Photograph (c) The Trustees of the British Museum.
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.
By Ben Cottam. Dace feels like she's making progress and Jan seems to have thawed a bit. But then she meets Jack, a young heroin addict from Birmingham.
Director.........Alison Crawford.
Yogita Limaye investigates concerns, highlighted in a United Nations study, that vitally important reserves of sand are running out, with serious consequences for human society and the planet.
Sand is quite literally the foundation of our society. Nearly everything we build in the modern world is made from concrete and its most integral component is sand. But the resource takes thousands of years to form and we're consuming it faster than it is being replenished.
UK Geologist Andrew Bloodworth says that much of the way we're mining sand is unsustainable. Around the world we're taking from active ecosystems - river beds, beaches and the sea floor increasing the risk of droughts, coastal flooding and causing damage to fisheries.
In Mumbai, Yogita meets environmental campaigner Sumaira Abdulali who has been threatened and violently attacked for her work in highlighting sand mining. In many parts of the country, sand mining without a permit is now illegal - but she says that has only pushed the practice underground creating 'sand mafias'.
In Goa, Professor Purnanand Savoikar is working to reduce our dependence on sand. He's researching ways to make concrete by partially replacing sand with recycled waste plastic. Professor John Orr from the University of Bath says 10% of sand can be saved in this way if applied globally. He says there is a huge amount of wastage in the way we design buildings.
Pascal Peduzzi of the United Nations Environment Programme believes doing nothing is not an option - only a wholesale change in attitudes can prevent irreversible damage to the planet.
Producer: Matt Willis
A 7digital production for BBC Radio 4.
Latin America's protest and socially conscious art. A continent-wide commitment by many artists to social activism makes Latin America not just one of the most diverse art scenes in the world - but also one of the most compelling, with music, visual arts and street art calling out injustice, often in the face of discrimination, oppression and impunity.
The third programme in the series explores the pan-Latin music genre Cumbia. Popular with the working class, the genre was largely rejected by middle-upper class society. Now a cumbia revival is prompting widespread enjoyment of Latin America's quintessential party music - but can it heal social divisions?
Cumbia styles like Peruvian cumbia chicha and Argentinian cumbia villera explicitly voice the daily lives and struggles of the poor. Chicha legend Pascualillo says chicha is "a total identity". DJ Diego Hernandez notes that chicha's popularity has accompanied increasing tolerance between ethnicities and classes in Lima.
Despite Cumbia's growing popularity, new bands from the villas (akin to Brazilian favelas) still face hostility. Singer Ivan Brasil states, "I was talking with our mayor, and I said I have my cumbia band and I want to play in a plaza and he said 'cumbia - no, it will bring a lot of vagrancy'".
Cumbia's rebellious and infectious rhythm has also been drawn on by Tropipunk band Kumbia Queers. Singer Juana Chang (pictured) says they use their music "to say something without losing the joy and purpose - which is to bring people together". Fellow Argentinian Miss Bolivia wants to "re-appropriate cumbia to let some alternative contents appear" to counter the misogyny that she believes has infected the genre's lyrics.
Is the increasing popularity of cumbia raising awareness of social issues? Or is it simply Latin America's best loved party soundtrack?
Producers: Louise Morris, Andrew McGibbon
Peruvian Dubber: Kieffer Santander
Argentinian Dubber: Guillermo Fiallo Montero
Film Editor: Nick Romero
Field Broadcast Assistant: Annie-Rose Harrison-Dunn
Executive Producer: Sarah Cuddon
A Curtains for Radio production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
On this day in 1917, the Estonian government asserted its independence from Bolshevik Russia, and in Marshalls' factory, Sarah Illingworth is disturbed by a declaration.
Written by Sarah Daniels
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole.
Consumer phone-in.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
Lou Reed met avant-garde musician John Cale in New York City in 1965; before long they were joined by guitarist Sterling Morrison and drummer Mo Tucker, and the Velvet Underground was born. The combination of Reed's experimental approach to sound with Reed's tough, literate lyrics openly referencing drugs, sex and fetishism, created rock music that was groundbreaking and uncompromising. When Andy Warhol heard them he agreed to manage them, and the Velvets took on the role of house band at The Factory, Warhol's studio. Warhol insisted on bringing in German actress and model Nico to give the band a kind of glamour, and their first album, The Velvet Underground and Nico, came out in 1967. Although it wasn't a critical success, the album had a significant influence on other musicians, both in the US and the UK, who recognised and were inspired by the music's underground experimentation. As Reed's desire for control over the band grew, he first of all engineered Nico's departure, and not long after that a split with Warhol. Finally, after the release of a second album, White Light/White Heat, in January 1968, he threw down an ultimatum: either Cale should go or he would. Reluctantly, Tucker and Morrison agreed and John Cale left the band.
Read by Demetri Goritsas
Abridged and produced by Sara Davies.
by Peter Jukes
Frank helps out in a restorative justice conference, but a police intelligence report about his daughter spurs him to look for his own kind of justice.
Director ..... Mary Peate.
Josie Long hears stories from within hidden worlds - a doctor living in quarantine, the founder of a time travellers convention and a radio DJ offering a lifeline to prisoners.
Series Producer: Eleanor McDowall
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4.
John Wilson continues with his new series in which he talks to leading performers and songwriters about the album that made them or changed them. Recorded in front of a live audience at the BBC's iconic Maida Vale Studios. Each edition includes two episodes, with John initially quizzing the artist about the album in question, and then, in the B-side, the audience puts the questions. Both editions feature exclusive live performances.
Having discussed the making of "Our Version of Events", the biggest selling UK album of 2012, (in the A-side of the programme, broadcast on Monday 27th November 2017 and available online), Emeli Sandé responds to questions from the audience and performs acoustic live versions of some to the tracks from the album.
Producer: Edwina Pitman.
Andrew McGibbon analyses great artists at a significant time in their careers, but from the perspective of someone who worked for them, inspired them, employed them or did their job for them while no one was looking.
Annie Ross was a young singer from Scotland who found herself in a bigger spotlight when she was asked by Duke Ellington to stand in for Billie Holliday at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem.
She was petrified, but was well received by the audience. From there, Annie developed an intriguing relationship with Billie and as Billie's career nosedived with substance abuse and bad love, Annie's career as a singer took off as she created a new style of singing with her hit record Twisted.
This is a moving story of japes and heartbreak from a witness and friend of one of the most significant jazz singers of the 20th Century.
Written and presented by Andrew McGibbon
Produced by Nick Romero
A Curtains for Radio production for BBC Radio 4.
Comedians Nish Kumar and Katy Brand tell Harriett Gilbert about their favourite books. Katy's choice is the hilarious Portnoy's Complaint by Philip Roth. But does it still stand up after all these years?
Nish introduces the two white people in the studio to Why I'm No Longer Speaking To White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge.
And Harriett recommends a collection of poetry, A Scattering by Christopher Reid, that expresses the pain of grieving the loss of a loved one.
Producer Beth O'Dea.
Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Episode 6: A Different Direction
All is going well for Ed. He has a regular income from his column in 'Your Motorhome' magazine which has the added bonus of also providing him with comfortable accommodation, and he is more than happy with his new agent, Maggie. Determined to make the best of this seismic shift in his circumstances Ed resolves to put his relationship with Maggie her on a more permanent footing by introducing her to his children.
Written by Andrew Nickolds and Christopher Douglas
Produced by Dawn Ellis
It was a BBC Studios Production.
Noluthando has some tough love for Freddie, and Lexi is full of encouragement.
Arts news, interviews and reviews.
With university tuition fees at over £9,000 a year and the ending of maintenance grants, two six formers face one of the biggest questions in their lives. Is it worth paying to go to Uni?
Coming from very different backgrounds, Destiny Clark and Maelo Manning go on an investigative journey during their final school year from UCAS application to A level results as they make up their minds whether to opt for university or follow another path such as an apprenticeship. As they weigh up their options, they visit university fairs and open days, talk to students, parents, teachers, academics and employers, and look at apprenticeship schemes. They pick their way through what one head of sixth form describes as a minefield of choice.
Destiny attends the Forest Academy in Hainault, Essex where she is studying French A level and Media Btec, an A level equivalent. When Destiny first enrolled in Year 7, the school was in special measures but it has since turned itself around. The school, which has an ethnically mixed and diverse intake, has a rapidly increasing sixth form with more and more students going to uni every year. More than half the students are from disadvantaged backgrounds and, for them, thousands of pounds-worth of university debt is a real concern. Assistant principal and head of sixth form Ed Macleod and his team encourage students like Destiny to consider university despite the cost but also to look at some of the higher-level apprenticeships where study and work combine.
Meanwhile Maelo's mother Jane has always been determined that her only child goes to the best possible university and intends to pay all her costs upfront. Maelo has attended a private school St Dunstan's College in South London, since the age of four. She's taking four A levels with predicted As and A stars, and wants to follow a career in law.
Producer: Sara Parker
Executive Producer: Samir Shah
A Juniper production for BBC Radio 4.
News, views and information for people who are blind or partially sighted.
Claudia Hammond presents a series that explores the limits and potential of the human mind.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
John Updike's masterful Rabbit quintet established Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom as the quintessential American White middle class male. The first book Rabbit, Run was published in 1960 to critical acclaim. Rabbit Redux is the second in the series, published in 1971 and charting the end of the sixties - featuring, among other things, the first American moon landing and the Vietnam War.
Despite its very strong language, sex, and reflection of racist attitudes of the time, Time Magazine said of the book and its author, "Updike owns a rare verbal genius, a gifted intelligence and a sense of tragedy made bearable by wit. A masterpiece."
It's extraordinary how many of its themes reverberate down to the present day.
Abridged by Eileen Horne
Read by Toby Jones
Produced by Clive Brill
A Brill production for BBC Radio 4.
June Whitfield returns as Miss Marple in the first of three Agatha Christie dramatisations by Joy Wilkinson.
Gossip spreads through St Mary Mead of a murdered wife and a husband under suspicion and then Miss Marple is called as an alibi.
Directed by Gemma Jenkins
June Whitfield reprises her role as Miss Marple on BBC Radio 4 in three of the best short stories.
Sean Curran reports from Westminster.
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.
Spiritual reflection to start the day with former Moderator of the Church of Scotland's General Assembly, the Very Rev John Chalmers.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
Children's Author and playwright Michael Morpurgo enjoys talking to oystercatchers on his annual visit to the Isles of Scilly.
Producer: Tom Bonnett
Photograph: Chris Kilpatrick.
Morning news and current affairs. Including Yesterday in Parliament, Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
Series in which two artists discuss creative questions. In this edition, painter Rose Wylie meets comedian Stewart Lee.
Political cartoonist and renowned cynic Martin Rowson is off to the zoo to draw and interview one of Britain's leading tiger experts, Sarah Christie. Martin is a self-confessed zoo enthusiast, and Sarah has had great influence on his work in conservation.
This is the fourth sketch in a five part series, where Martin draws and interviews people who have shaped his work and wider life. He also puts pen to paper with ex-Chancellor George Osborne, journalist Julia Langdon, illustrator Ralph Steadman and punk poet John Cooper Clarke.
Photographer: Sam Finney.
Producer: Becky Ripley.
Neil MacGregor continues his series on shared beliefs with a focus on those faiths seen as a threat to the state.
A plain board, to be found on a 17th-century Japanese roadside, offers generous rewards to anyone who informs on Christians. At almost exactly the same time a print from France depicts the officially sanctioned destruction of a Huguenot Church just a few miles east of Paris.
Producer Paul Kobrak
Produced in partnership with the British Museum
Photograph (c) The Trustees of the British Museum.
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.
By Ben Cottam. Dace considers the serious business of bingo and Jan shows her true colours whilst helping an elderly widower who has become confused.
Director.......Alison Crawford.
They are both apprentices at Siemens Blade Factory in Hull, but would describe their identities as much more complex. Fi Glover presents another conversation in the series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen.
Producer: Marya Burgess.
Novelist, Harvard Fellow and Social Entrepreneur Zia Haider Rahman explores the powerful impact the use and abuse of metaphor can have on the world around us.
Metaphors are not simply there for the use of novelists or poets. They are integral to the way we think and understand - pervading our language and allowing us to conceptualise new and complex ideas, using familiar images. They are essential to areas of abstract study, where they provide the basis for new theoretical models, and play a vital role in communicating specialised knowledge to non-experts.
But, Rahman argues, these compelling imaginary pictures can also become prisons, trapping our thought in over simplistic or entirely false versions of a more nuanced or entirely different reality. Drawing on examples from the worlds of biology, economics, business and environmental policy, he demonstrates the very real and damaging consequences these metaphors can have.
Biologist Stephen Rose and Sociologist Hilary Rose discuss how the misleading metaphors of genetics built the popular enthusiasm for the field's apparently miraculous powers. Economist and Green MEP Molly Scott Cato explains what happened when the "natural capital" metaphor took on a life of its own. Economist John Weeks dissects the metaphors of austerity, "balancing the budget" and "the national credit card". And novelist and ex-McKinsey consultant Dina Nayeri demonstrates how the world of business pushes metaphors to the edge of meaning.
With original music by Daniel R Wilson
Readers: Milli Prus and Edward Doegar
Produced by Michael Umney and Margot Gibbs
A Resonance production for BBC Radio 4.
After a successful first series on Radio 4 and a sold-out run at the Edinburgh Festival, policeman turned comic, Alfie Moore, returns with the series that forces his audience to make the policing decisions as he takes them through a real life crime scenario.
Written and performed by Alfie Moore,
Script Editor ..... Will Ing,
Producer..... Alison Vernon-Smith.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
On this day in 1917, the Women's Royal Naval Service was established, and in Tynemouth, Isabel Graham finds herself a bit out of her depth.
Written by Sarah Daniels
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole.
Consumer affairs programme.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
After two groundbreaking but critically unsuccessful albums, Lou Reed's drug and alcohol consumption was as high as ever, and his clashes with other members of the Velvet Underground were growing worse. In August 1970 he left the band. His first solo album, simply entitled Lou Reed, came out in 1972, and although it failed to break him commercially the way he'd hoped, it brought him some useful public and industry attention. When David Bowie proposed that he produce Reed's next album, the collaboration perfectly reflected the musical innovation and sexual ambiguity that both performers were successfully exploring. The album that resulted, Transformer, included two songs that would go on to be among Reed's greatest lyrics: Walk on the Wild Side and Perfect Day. But the collaboration was not to last: Bowie couldn't cope with Reed's increasingly unpredictable behaviour, and Reed claimed to have had enough of the glam-rock scene. "I don't wear make-up any more," he announced.
Read by Demetri Goritsas
Abridged and produced by Sara Davies.
by Peter Jukes
Frank is in crisis, and the one thing that will get him out of his corner is the one person he refuses to see.
Director ..... Mary Peate.
Financial phone-in.
Sociological discussion programme, presented by Laurie Taylor.
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.
Comedy series by Katherine Jakeways about four generations of women living under one roof.
Hetty's old diaries turn up some uncomfortable home truths for Maggie, who sets out to challenge herself and prove things have changed.
All Those Women explores familial relationships, ageing, marriages - it's about life and love and things not turning out quite the way that you'd expected them to. Every week we join Hetty, Maggie, Jen and Emily as they struggle to resolve their own problems, and support one another.
Written by KATHERINE JAKEWAYS
Script editor Richard Turner
Producer Alexandra Smith
A BBC Radio Comedy Production.
Alan does some award-worthy buttering up, and David puts his foot in it.
Arts news, interviews and reviews.
Combative, provocative and engaging debate chaired by Michael Buerk. With Giles Fraser, Melanie Phillips, Mona Siddiqui and Michael Portillo.
Michael Merrick challenges how we think about social mobility.
Sharing his own story, Michael makes the case that social mobility often involves pressure on individuals to move away - both physically and metaphorically - from the family and community which nourished them. He argues that the graduate professions thus take on a particular character, making those professions uncomfortable places to be for people arriving in them from working class backgrounds. And he suggests that this division, which often makes itself felt in education, is unwise. "In a contest between home and academic flourishing," he says, "some choose home; not because of ignorance, but because of a refusal to shed heritage as participation fee."
Producer: Giles Edwards.
Maria Merian was born in 1647. At the time of her birth, Shakespeare had been dead for 30 years; Galileo had only just stood trial for arguing that the Earth moved around the Sun. And yet, here in Germany, was a child who would become an important but oft-forgotten figure of science.
Aged 13, she mapped out metamorphism, catching caterpillars from her garden and painting them in exquisite detail. At that point, most believed that caterpillars spontaneously generated from cabbages and maggots materialised from rotten meat. She later voyaged to Suriname in South America to pursue pupae further, discovering not just new species but also the conditions needed for their survival.
Some call her the first field ecologist; others admire her for her eloquent brushwork. However, her studies will help today's biologists plot which insects lived where. These data are invaluable because this could help scientists predict what species will survive climate change.
Naomi Alderman discusses the life and legacy of Maria Merian with biologist and historian Kay Etheridge from Gettysburg College, Pennsylvania and biologist Kathy Willis from Kew Gardens.
Producer: Graihagh Jackson.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
John Updike's masterful Rabbit quintet established Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom as the quintessential American White middle class male. The first book Rabbit, Run was published in 1960 to critical acclaim. Rabbit Redux is the second in the series, published in 1971 and charting the end of the sixties - featuring, among other things, the first American moon landing and the Vietnam War.
Despite its very strong language, sex, and reflection of racist attitudes of the time, Time Magazine said of the book and its author, "Updike owns a rare verbal genius, a gifted intelligence and a sense of tragedy made bearable by wit. A masterpiece."
It's extraordinary how many of its themes reverberate down to the present day.
Abridged by Eileen Horne
Read by Toby Jones
Produced by Clive Brill
A Brill production for BBC Radio 4.
A white boy from West Virginia is forced to join the Klu Klux Klan by his father, but when his black friends find out, they play a cruel trick on him. Voiced by George Fouracres (Radio 4's Daphne Sound Expensive).
Written by Sir Lenny Henry
Produced by Sam Michell
A BBC Studios Production.
Edinburgh Comedy Award nominee 2015 and triple Chortle Award Winner Joseph Morpurgo presents a series of 'educational' audio adventures for BBC Radio 4.
Join us on our walking tour of London's historic east end, which you'll be exploring through its pubs.
Written and performed by Joseph Morpurgo, with Naomi Petersen and Jonathan Broke.
Sound design by Craig Schuftan
Producer Alexandra Smith
A BBC Studios Production.
Susan Hulme reports from Westminster.
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.
Spiritual reflection to start the day with former Moderator of the Church of Scotland's General Assembly, the Very Rev John Chalmers.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
Author Michael Morpurgo doesn't go out looking for birds, but when out walking along a river he loves to glimpse a dipper and would love to get up closer to them.
Producer: Tom Bonnett
Photograph: Keith Docherty.
Morning news and current affairs. Including Yesterday in Parliament, Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Gauss (1777-1855), widely viewed as one of the greatest mathematicians of all time. He was a child prodigy, correcting his father's accounts before he was 3, dumbfounding his teachers with the speed of his mental arithmetic, and gaining a wealthy patron who supported his education. He wrote on number theory when he was 21, with his Disquisitiones Arithmeticae, which has influenced developments since. Among his achievements, he was the first to work out how to make a 17-sided polygon, he predicted the orbit of the minor planet Ceres, rediscovering it, he found a way of sending signals along a wire, using electromagnetism, the first electromagnetic telegraph, and he advanced the understanding of parallel lines on curved surfaces.
With
Marcus du Sautoy
Colva Roney-Dougal
and
Nick Evans
Producer: Simon Tillotson.
Neil MacGregor continues his series on shared beliefs with a look at the attempts of some faiths to establish a state of their own.
An over-printed coin from 2nd century Jerusalem tells of the failed attempt of Shimon bar Kokhba to lay claim to a state for the Jews, free from Roman rule - while a white cotton flag, framed in pale blue, flew over Sudan after it had been taken by Mahdist forces and before the Islamic state collapsed in the mid 1890s.
Producer Paul Kobrak
Produced in partnership with the British Museum
Photograph (c) The Trustees of the British Museum.
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.
By Ben Cottam. Dace's first patient of the day is a fortune teller who has foreseen everything apart from type 2 diabetes. She's considering making her position at the medical centre a permanent one, but then has an unpleasant experience with a patient who is unhappy to be seen by a foreign doctor.
Director......Alison Crawford.
In the West Bank hundreds of families share a passion for breeding horses. Amid the narrow streets and cramped apartment buildings small stables can be found with owners grooming beautiful Arabian colts and fillies. These new breeders are now making their mark at Israeli horse shows where competition to produce the best in breed is intense. As Palestinian and Israeli owners mingle on the show ground, political differences are put to one side as they share a passion for the Arabian horse.
For Crossing Continents, Linda Pressly follows one Palestinian owner and his colt as they navigate their way through Israeli checkpoints to the next big event in the Israeli Kibbutz of Alonim. Winning best in show is the plan but will they even get there?
Estelle Doyle producing.
After the violence directed at black people in Nottingham and Notting Hill in the 1950s, and the naked racism expressed in Smethwick during the 1964 general election, a group of pioneering West Indians came up with a simple and defiant riposte: Carnival. In Queens of Chapeltown, Colin Grant goes behind the scenes of Carnival to its Leeds West Indian HQ in Chapeltown - amidst the glue guns, sequins and feathers - to capture that moment of extraordinary transformation, 50 years on: the birth of a tradition which, for one weekend in August, would wash away the bad taste of anti immigrant sentiment with a burst of colour and flash of exuberance that would forever change Britain. Grant travels to Leeds to talk with the pioneers and celebrate the endurance and growth of Carnival.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
On this day in 1917, the Graincourt Sugar Factory fell to the German Army, and in Tynemouth, Iris Reed is finding toffee in the strangest places.
Written by Sarah Daniels
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole.
Consumer affairs programme.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
Marriage did nothing to curb Reed's drug and alcohol use, and his next album, Berlin, was a tough listen, documenting the violent breakdown of a relationship. Two successful albums followed, somewhat repairing his reputation, but Reed's self-destructive urge to reject popular success led him to release his most challenging album yet, Metal Machine Music. When his marriage ended, Reed began a relationship with an enigmatic transsexual male called Rachel. The relationship lasted for three years, inspiring the most romantic album of Reed's career, Coney Island Baby.
Read by Demetri Goritsas
Abridged and produced by Sara Davies.
Writer Douglas Livingstone and director Jane Morgan continue the series of dramas created with recordings from distinctive festivals around the world.
This year, they reach the annual garlic festival held in the medieval village of Lautrec. The hilltop community, officially recognised as one of the most beautiful villages in France, holds a rapidly growing festival to celebrate the harvest of their distinctive pink garlic. This two day event on the first weekend of August attracts thousands of visitors with its bewildering array of garlic twining competitions, garlic sculptures, dancing, processions, elaborate church services, markets, culinary contests, a vast dole of free garlic soup and a huge communal dinner held under the stars.
Together with a sound engineer, the team set off to record the event and then weave the recordings into a drama based on the experience.
In Road to Lautrec, three oddly assorted people from a London cookery course take advantage of an offer to visit the fete, staying with a local ex-pat. What follows is a comic romance of gastronomy, lost love and prodigious amounts of garlic and rose wine, played out in a truly extraordinary place in the distant shadow of Brexit.
The cast includes the original Poldark, Robin Ellis, who lives in the region, along with BAFTA and Olivier award winning Cheryl Campbell, veteran BBC radio actor Nigel Anthony and Emma Cunniffe, fresh from playing the title role in the RSC and West End production of Queen Ann.
Writer: Douglas Livingstone
Director: Jane Morgan
A 7digital production for BBC Radio 4.
Adrian Goldberg travels around Birmingham meeting with fellow Brummies, all of whom have a special vision for the future of Birmingham's landscape. He begins on a huge piece of blank wasteland in the very heart of the city centre which is waiting to become the home of the Birmingham terminal for HS2. He's joined by Waheed Nazir from Birmingham City Council to consider how the anticipation of HS2 is already changing Birmingham's skyline as well the city's sense of its own future.
Adrian joins the Birmingham Trees for Life team in a park on the far Eastern rim of the city. The team have coordinated the planting of over 70,000 trees in Birmingham over the past 10 years with many groups of children and volunteers.
His next stop is to Britain's first retrofit zero carbon house, just 2 miles out of the city centre in Balsall Heath. Architect John Christophers has a special interest in Sustainable Architecture, and his recently built family home is an inspiring vision of how existing housing stock could be transformed to become carbon neutral homes. When an architectural critic from The Times visited this house he said: "I have seen the future, and it's in Birmingham".
Adrian's next visit is to the Apple Day at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital. This is the brain child of HR manager Antony Cobley who has led an initiative to plant orchards and gardens around the hospital grounds for patients and relatives to the hospital.
Sutton Park is one of Europe's largest urban parks and is 9 miles to the north of the city centre. Here Adrian joins a group of Rangers and volunteers on a project to transform a dense wood of holly which hasn't been coppiced for over 200 years, to an open woodland of ancient oaks and newly planted rowan trees.
Presented by Adrian Goldberg
Produced by Rosie Boulton.
Francine Stock meets Michael Haneke, award winning director of Funny Games, The White Ribbon, Amour and his latest, Happy End.
Adam Rutherford investigates the news in science and science in the news.
Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Episode 4 - La Vie Moral
Alexei considers how one might live an ethical life, recounts the difficulties he faced when tracking down his lost cat and pays penance for a feud with another performer.
Written by Alexei Sayle
Performed by Alexei Sayle
Original music and lyrics by Tim Sutton
Produced by Joe Nunnery
A BBC Studios Production.
Lilian has an unlikely heart to heart, and Emma is on tenterhooks.
Arts news, interviews and reviews.
Series looking at important issues in the news. Presented by David Aaronovitch.
If you're the Chancellor of the Exchequer, worrying about where the next financial crisis might come from, what keeps you awake at night?
Jonty Bloom hears about the potential problems which might induce insomnia; including car loans, High Frequency Trading and the threat of Cyber attack.
Producer: Phoebe Keane.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
John Updike's masterful Rabbit quintet established Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom as the quintessential American White middle class male. The first book Rabbit, Run was published in 1960 to critical acclaim. Rabbit Redux is the second in the series, published in 1971 and charting the end of the sixties - featuring, among other things, the first American moon landing and the Vietnam War.
Despite its very strong language, sex, and reflection of racist attitudes of the time, Time Magazine said of the book and its author, "Updike owns a rare verbal genius, a gifted intelligence and a sense of tragedy made bearable by wit. A masterpiece."
It's extraordinary how many of its themes reverberate down to the present day.
Abridged by Eileen Horne
Read by Toby Jones
Produced by Clive Brill
A Brill production for BBC Radio 4.
Welcome To Wherever You Are is a stand-up show that refuses to be constrained by geography when it comes to booking guests; instead, it uses modern technology to connect a studio audience in the BBC Radio Theatre, London, with the best comedians in the world - no matter where they happen to be.
This week, host Andrew Maxwell talks cricket and colonialism with The Bugle podcast co-host Alice Fraser in Sydney; hears emerging star Storm Xu in Shanghai tell us about his problems with dating; and talks to world-renowned satirist Bassem Youssef about why he had to move to Los Angeles from his native Egypt (spoiler: it turns out dictators don't like you making jokes about them).
Andrew Maxwell is a multi-award-winning stand up and double Edinburgh Comedy Award nominee, familiar to Radio 4 audiences for his appearances on The News Quiz, The Now Show, and his own series Andrew Maxwell's Public Enemies. He's also appeared on Live At The Apollo, Mock The Week, and Have I Got News For You.
Presented by ... Andrew Maxwell
Featuring ... Alice Fraser
Featuring ... Storm Xu
Featuring ... Bassem Youssef
Production co-ordinator ... Hayley Sterling
Producer ... Ed Morrish
A BBC Studios Production.
Sean Curran reports from Westminster.
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.
Spiritual reflection to start the day with former Moderator of the Church of Scotland's General Assembly, the Very Rev John Chalmers.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
On a visit to the Camargue National Park in France, author Michael Morpurgo found getting close to beautiful and elegant flamingos, and hearing their call, touched his soul.
Producer: Tom Bonnett
Photograph: Ashutosh Jhureley.
Morning news and current affairs. Including Yesterday in Parliament, Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
Neil MacGregor concludes his series on how shared beliefs have shaped societies.
He began with the Lion Man, an object created 40 000 years ago, and now reflects on the present, on the future and on hope.
Producer Paul Kobrak
The series is produced in partnership with the British Museum, with the assistance of Dr Christopher Harding, University of Edinburgh.
Photograph (c) The Trustees of the British Museum.
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.
By Ben Cottam. A teenage girl comes to the surgery fearing she is pregnant and Dace is running late again for something important.
Director........Alison Crawford.
Diogenes (404 - 323BC), who lived in a barrel in Athens, was perhaps the most famous cynic. The school gets its name from Diogenes' who was nick-named "kynikos", or 'dog-like', because he lived in the street and fed on scraps. The Cynics were arguably the first environmentalists and the modern anarchist elements of the Green movement are adapting their teaching, especially around self-sufficiency and living a simple life. The ancient Cynics thought we have been corrupted by the false beliefs of civilization, such as the belief that the most important thing in life is to win success and status. So they set out to puncture these false beliefs. Diogenes the Cynic called this 'debasing the currency' and he became well known for his philosophical pranks. Plato is said to have described him as a Socrates "gone mad.". For satirist Andy Zaltzman this all sounds very familiar and he goes to talk through the philosophy with the comedian and political activist Mark Thomas. But when it comes to carrying out the tasks set for him by Jules Evans, author of "Philosophy for Life and Other Dangerous Situations" he's stretched to his limits.
Producer: Phil Pegum.
A brand new sitcom for BBC Radio 4 written by Marcus Brigstocke and Sarah Morgan and starring Marcus Brigstocke as Mike and Kerry Godliman as his wife Max.
Michael and Maxine Wilson and their teenage daughters, Lola and Cat (plus their bearded dragon Chomsky, and about 150,000 bees) have resolved to live a cleaner, greener, serener life. This is a show about living ethically... whatever that means. Millions of people try every day to make 'good' choices and do the 'right thing', be ethical, charitable and community minded. It's hard. Most of us live with hypocrisy and failure all the time but keep on trying. The Wilsons, good folk that they are, are trying about 20% harder and learning to live with about 19% more failure. They are not giving up.
In this episode a mealtime fraught with anxiety and multiple dietary preferences shows that maybe they all worry a little bit TOO much about food, and have forgotten how to enjoy it. Max and Mike decide to use their time away in Cornwall to leave Jennifer and Phillip in charge of mealtimes and see if the common-sense approach pays off.
Producer...Julia McKenzie
Production Coordinator...Tamara Shilham
A BBC Studios Production.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
On this day in 1917, Germany and the new Russian government began a cessation of hostilities, while in Collingwood, Phyllis is still counting her losses.
Written by Sarah Daniels
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole.
Consumer news and issues.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
After Andy Warhol's death, Lou Reed and John Cale put aside their old differences to record a tribute to him. When they performed some of the songs at an event in France, the two other members of the Velvet Underground joined them onstage, leading fans to hope for a reunion tour. The projected tour was shortlived, however, with Reed's need for control once again creating tensions with the band. In 1992, as his second marriage was coming to an end, Reed met Laurie Anderson, who would be his partner until the end of his life. Reed went into recovery from his addictions, and began to explore artistic outlets and collaborations outside rock and roll. Over the next two decades he collaborated with many artists and musicians on a wide range of musical and artistic projects. In 2013 he became seriously ill and needed a liver transplant. He emerged from the operation announcing he was a triumph of modern medicine, but his optimism was unfounded. He died, at home in Long Island, in October that year.
Read by Demetri Goritsas
Abridged and produced by Sara Davies.
By Beatrice Colin
A darkly comic drama about who you might meet on the journey to hell.
Charon is the Ferryman on the river Acheron. His job is to ferry sinners across the river of woe and decide into which circle of Hell they should go.
Thomas is determined not to turn into his dad. And that includes the day job.
Directed by Gaynor Macfarlane.
A panel of experts answer listeners' horticultural queries.
An original short story commissioned by BBC Radio 4 from the acclaimed Irish novelist Joseph O'Connor. As read by David Wilmot (Ripper Street, Black Sails, The Guard.)
Joseph O'Connor was born in Dublin. He is the author of eight novels as well as two collections of short stories and a number of bestselling works of non-fiction. He has received numerous awards including the Irish PEN Award for Outstanding Contribution to Irish Literature.
Writer ..... Joseph O'Connor
Reader ..... David Wilmot
Producer ..... Michael Shannon.
Obituary series, analysing and celebrating the life stories of people who have recently died.
Radio 4's forum for audience comment.
When you view teenage rebellion from a mother's perspective, it's easy to forget you were once there yourself. 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.
Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis present the week via topical stand-up and sketches, with Lucy Porter and Kae Kurd.
Producer... Adnan Ahmed
A BBC Studios Production.
Justin has a big decision to make, and Pip confides in Elizabeth.
News, reviews and interviews from the worlds of art, literature, film and music.
Jonathan Dimbleby presents political debate and discussion from the Hollywood Arts Centre in Newry, Northern Ireland, with a panel including the DUP MP Nigel Dodds.
A reflection on a topical issue.
The third omnibus of Season 12, Giddy with Possibility, set in Tynemouth, in the week, in 1917, when Germany and the new Russian government began a cessation of hostilities.
Cast
Kitty Lumley ..... Ami Metcalf
Sarah Illingworth ..... Naomi Frederick
Isabel Graham ..... Keely Beresford
Iris Reed ..... Charlie Hardwick
Phyllis Marshall ..... Christine Absalom
Adeline Lumley ..... Helen Schlesinger
Bill McCracken ..... Caolan McCarthy
Cressida Marshall ..... Isabella Inchbald
Ethel Manning ..... Sophie Scott
Edie Chadwick ..... Kathryn Beaumont
Eva Reynolds ..... Sophie Scott
Johnnie Marshall ..... Paul Ready
Kenny Stokoe ..... Dean Logan
Lester Reed ..... Trevor Fox
Marion Wardle ..... Laura Elphinstone
Matilda James ..... Hannah Wood
Maud Drummond ..... Vineeta Rishi
Molly Duckett ..... Victoria Bewick
Peggy Tanney ..... Abbie Andrews
Joyce Lyle ..... Tracy Whitwell
Lad 1 ..... Edmund Wiseman
Lad 2 ..... Philip Correia
Stanley Hobbs ..... David Nellist
Beatrice Marshall ..... Eviee Lavery
Cristine de Groot ..... Ysabelle Cooper
Gussie Marshall ..... Grace Doherty
Peter Lumley ..... Bea White
Written by Sarah Daniels
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole
Story-led by Shaun McKenna
Sound: Martha Littlehailes
Composer: Matthew Strachan
Consultant Historian: Maggie Andrews.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
John Updike's masterful Rabbit quintet established Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom as the quintessential American White middle class male. The first book Rabbit, Run was published in 1960 to critical acclaim. Rabbit Redux is the second in the series, published in 1971 and charting the end of the sixties - featuring, among other things, the first American moon landing and the Vietnam War.
Despite its very strong language, sex, and reflection of racist attitudes of the time, Time Magazine said of the book and its author, "Updike owns a rare verbal genius, a gifted intelligence and a sense of tragedy made bearable by wit. A masterpiece."
It's extraordinary how many of its themes reverberate down to the present day.
Abridged by Eileen Horne
Read by Toby Jones
Produced by Clive Brill
A Brill production for BBC Radio 4.
Mark D'Arcy reports from Westminster.
Dance teachers who have become friends through their commitment to bringing ballet to adults. Fi Glover presents another conversation in the series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen.
Producer: Marya Burgess.