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.
In September 1988, eleven-year-old Tom Gregory became the youngest person ever to swim the English Channel, trained by a coach at his local swimming baths in Eltham, South East London.
Tom first went to the swimming baths in Eltham when he was seven. As one of the slowest swimmers in his class at school, he could barely make it across a width without taking a break half way. Despite a reluctant start, his potential was soon spotted by the coach who ran the club. John Bullet was an old-school disciplinarian and a maverick in the Channel Swimming establishment, who had an impressive track record for training distance swimmers. He had established a team of local kids who trained together in open water at Dover, in the cold waters of Windermere, and in London Docks. When John singled Tom out as a Channel contender, Tom's training began in earnest; as his ability and stamina became evident, his (and John's) sights focussed on the world record for the youngest swimmer to make a solo crossing of the Channel.
As coach, mentor and inspiration John Bullet inspired extraordinary loyalty from his young swimmers. Tom and his older sister Anna were part of a close-knit group of young people who spent their holidays being mini-bussed around the country, camping out and listening to Top Twenty mix tapes, all the while training in conditions which would challenge swimmers of any age.
Tom describes the intensity and closeness of these five years of his life with affection and honesty; the account of his gruelling training and his record-breaking Channel swim, all before his twelfth birthday, is both exhilarating, and, to a generation brought up on stricter health and safety regulations, occasionally disquieting.
Tom's world record still stands today and can never be broken; since his swim the qualifying age for an official Channel challenge has been raised to sixteen.
Tom Gregory went on to become an officer in the Royal Anglican Regiment and served in Iraq and Afghanistan. He now lives in Surrey with his wife and daughter.
Reader: Patrick Kennedy
Abridged and produced by Sara Davies.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Dr Eve Poole, Third Church Estates Commissioner for the Church of England.
Our listener James only learned as an adult that he'd been conceived by sperm donation. Ten years later, he's now found his biological father and plans to meet him for the first time. He tells iPM why he hopes to recognise himself in another person.
And Simon Jack reads our Your News bulletin.
Let us know your story on iPM@bbc.co.uk
Presented by Luke Jones and Simon Jack. Produced by Cat Farnsworth.
The latest news headlines. Including the weather and a look at the papers.
Charlotte Smith goes on a trip down memory lane, visiting St Davids in Pembrokeshire. It's the area where she spent many of her childhood summer holidays - but a place she hasn't been back to in forty years. She meets the family still running the farm and campsite where she used to stay as a child, learns how to forage for food in rock pools along the shore, and discovers that the 21st century has found a new use for a disused slate quarry. Life may be very different from how it was in the 1970s, but Charlotte finds nostalgia in the unchanging nature of the Welsh landscape.
Produced by Emma Campbell.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
The latest weather forecast.
News and current affairs including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
Maggie Aderin-Pocock on her love of the moon and Nigerian heritage; Ali Payne tweeted to try and find the inscribed copy of Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist given to her by her late husband. She continues her search on Saturday Live. Celebrating 30 years of marriage, The Alarm's Mike and Jules Peters discuss working together and dealing with individual cancer diagnoses. Rehana Popal is the first practising female Afghan at the Bar. Coming to the UK as a refugee when she was five, Rehana talks about her path to law. Helen Lederer shares her Inheritance Tracks: Que Sera Sera and All I Want by Joni Mitchell. Ann Cleeves talks about remote living and writing the final book in her Shetland series.
Producer: Claire Bartleet
Editor: Eleanor Garland.
Over the sound of ripping wax-strips, nail drills, clippers and trimmers, Toyah Willcox invites us to eavesdrop on usually private conversations taking place in hair and beauty salons across the UK.
We drop in on appointments at Totally Polished in Blackpool, The Topiary Salon in Basingstoke, Smith Hair Studio in Edmonton and Not Another Salon in London's East End.
From holidays and bingo wins to hospital appointments and bereavements, customers relish the opportunity to swap stories, gossip and enjoy an hour's escape from the stresses of daily life. Beauticians and hairdressers are trusted confidantes, privy to shocking secrets, but they also provide an independent ear and a comforting shoulder to cry on.
For Toyah's friend and hairdresser to the stars, Keith Wainwright MBE, a trip to the salon is also an important source of physical and social contact in an increasingly online world.
According to industry reports, women and men of all ages and means are spending increasing amounts of time, and money, at hair and beauty salons in the UK. British consumers spent an estimated 1.89 billion pounds on salon services in the last quarter of 2017. We find out why.
Producer: Victoria Ferran
Executive Producer: Susan Marling
A Just Radio production for BBC Radio 4.
Thomas Sankara is the revolutionary who became the first president of Burkina Faso in West Africa, and gave the country its name, meaning "the land of upright people". In his four years as leader he instituted sweeping reforms to empower rural people and make society more equal. For some Sankara was a hero, for others he was a ruthless autocrat. Now more than 30 years since his mysterious - and as yet unsolved - assassination in 1987, why do memories of him still haunt Africa? Joining Bridget Kendall to discuss Sankara's life and legacy are Dr Amber Murrey-Ndewa from the American University of Cairo, BBC Afrique journalist Lamine Konkobo who comes from Burkina Faso and Aziz Fall, Professor of International Studies in Canada and campaigner for justice on behalf of the Sankara family.
Photo: Thomas Sankara at a press conference in Paris, 1986. (Getty Images).
Is China trying to brainwash Muslim Uyhgurs? Kate Adie introduces stories and insights from correspondents around the world.
John Sweeney meets two men who say they fled China after seeing inside a 're-education camp' in the north-west province of Xinjiang. It's claimed that up to a million Uyghur people may be incarcerated in similar camps.
Lucy Ash meets the professional pimp running for office in Nevada. Dennis Hof runs a string of legal brothels in the state, but in one county people will soon be voting on whether to end legal sex work.
Tim Ecott hears how two new sub-sea tunnels could change the lives of some of the 50,000 people who live on the Faroes islands. When the work is complete 90% of the population will be connected by road.
Chris Robinson is in Istanbul where an increasing number of men, many of them British, are traveling to undergo hair transplant surgery.
And Hugh Schofield is just back from his summer break, and he wants to tell you why camping in rural France offers the best holiday there is.
Producer: Joe Kent.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Paul Lewis presents the latest news from the world of personal finance.
Miles Jupp is joined by Mark Steel, Angela Barnes, Helen Lewis and Simon Evans for the first episode of the new series.
This week dancing, scallops and energy drinks - but not all necessarily at the same time.
Written by Madeleine Brettingham, Max Davis, James Kettle and Mike Shephard
Producer: Richard Morris
A BBC Studios Production.
The latest weather forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
Shaun Ley presents political debate from the Radio Theatre at Broadcasting House, London with a panel including the Chairman of the House of Commons Brexit Select Committee Hilary Benn MP , Vice Chair of the Conservative Party for Communities Helen Grant, the journalist Isabel Oakeshott and the sociologist and bioethicist Tom Shakespeare.
Producer: Emma Campbell.
Listeners have their say on the issues discussed on Any Questions?
Henry Goodman reads Peter Benchley's classic 1974 novel, and one of the greatest movies of all time.
It's high summer on Cape Cod's Amity Island, and the tourists are arriving in their hundreds. But something dangerous is lurking off the coast... It's the start of a summer of horror that will take police chief Martin Brody into battle with the town, and with the shark itself.
Will it ever be safe to go back into the water?
Reader: Henry Goodman
Writer: Peter Benchley's 1974 novel shot straight on to the bestseller lists, and has since sold some 20 million copies. It was adapted into the iconic film by Steven Spielberg a year later. The film won three Academy Awards.
Producer: Justine Willett
Abridger: Richard Hamilton.
Full coverage of the day's news.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest weather forecast.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Nikki Bedi and Arthur Smith are joined by Phil Nichol, Priyanga Burford, Daliso Chaponda and Jack Monroe for an eclectic mix of conversation, music and comedy. With music from Laura Misch and Marine.
Producer: Debbie Kilbride.
It's been a long time coming.
A sticker on the cover of Jamaican born writer Victor Headley's 1992 novel 'Yardie' said "soon to be made into a major movie".
A quarter of a century on, it finally has.
Directed by British actor Idris Elba, the film - about violent Jamaican drug gangs operating in London in the 1980s - opens this weekend.
On Profile this week, Mark Coles finds out more about the man who wrote the original story.
Described by a friend, as an 'enigma wrapped in a mystery'. We hear from friends who grew up with him in Jamaica, from his daughter Sol - who was just eight when her father wrote the book.
And we find out why at the height of his success he fled to Africa for ten years. And what he makes of the new movie.
Producer Smita Patel
Researcher Darin Graham.
The Sam Wanamaker Playhouse in London is an intimate candle-lit theatre space ideally suited for Shakespeare productions. Their latest is Love's Labour's Lost, played largely as broad comedy... how does it handle the pathos?
Polish film Cold War won the Best Director Palme d'Or this year. It's a love story set in Soviet era Poland and the obstacles which make reaching for hope and resolution sometimes seem impossible
A new TV drama series co-production from BBCTV and Netflix looks at the international legal ramifications of war crimes committed during the Rwandan genocide. Black Earth Rising stars Harriet Walter and Michaela Coel as a mother and daughter with a personal involvement that leads to family conflict
Pat Barker's latest novel The Silence Of The Girls is a retelling of the Trojan Wars from the point of view of the women.
Surreal Science is a new exhibition at London's Whitechapel Gallery combining collected 19th century scientific teaching models and illustrations, with new works selected by Salvatore Arancio to explore and understand the mysteries of nature and existence through scientific enquiry.
Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Helen Lewis, Susan Jeffreys and David Benedict. The producer is Oliver Jones.
Jonathan Freedland re-examines the 1990s from a new angle - recalling it as a rare period of peace and prosperity. But could it also be the decade which ultimately led to Trump and Brexit?
Sandwiched between the end of the Cold War and the war on terror, the 1990s now look like an oasis of calm. The decade witnessed the end of apartheid in South Africa, the fall of the Soviet Union and peace in Northern Ireland. As a result, people became preoccupied by more domestic dramas. Just as the UK was gripped by the saga of Charles and Diana's marriage, the Americans were hooked on the OJ Simpson trial.
Jonathan unearths a rich selection of archive and hears from MPs John Redwood and Harriet Harman about their perspectives on this most unusual decade. But he also argues that some of the forces unleashed in that decade would only start to manifest themselves in the middle of the 2010s - with the rise of Donald Trump and the UK's decision to leave the EU.
Producer: Laurence Grissell.
Indira Varma, Lee Ross, and James Lailey star in this story by Nick Warburton. And Dean Logan plays Home Front's Kenny Stokoe, now serving with the signallers of the Tyneside Scottish.
On a morale-boosting tour of troops massing in the Somme valley, a celebrity poet and priest arrives to perform his popular verse. But are inspirational speeches what the Kenny and his pals really need, when they are days away from facing action?
Meticulously based on unit war diaries and eye-witness accounts, each episode of TOMMIES traces one real day at war, exactly 100 years ago.
And through it all, we'll follow the fortunes of Mickey Bliss and his fellow signallers, from the Lahore Division of the British Indian Army. They are the cogs in an immense machine, one which connects situations across the whole theatre of the war, over four long years.
The drama includes an extract from "First Time In", by Ivor Gurney.
Series created by Jonathan Ruffle
Producers: David Hunter, Jonquil Panting, Jonathan Ruffle
Director: Jonquil Panting.
Psychotherapist Susie Orbach explores the private relationship between therapist and patient. We join Susie in her consulting room, where she meets a different client each day.
Today, Susie meets Amelia, who is worried about her teenage daughter Grace.
All of the clients are played by actors, but these are not scripted scenes. Each client profile has been carefully constructed by therapist Susie, director Ian Rickson (former artistic director at the Royal Court, and director of the highly acclaimed Jerusalem) and radio producer Kevin Dawson. The client profiles have been given to the actors who have learned about the characters' lives, backgrounds, and reasons for seeking therapy. The scenes have then been improvised and recorded on concealed microphones at Susie's surgery.
Throughout the encounters in this series, we get to hear the therapist at work, experiencing what it's like to eavesdrop on the most intimate of exchanges.
To help us with our understanding of the process, Susie Orbach commentates on what is happening in the room, giving us an insight into her role as a therapist and shining a light on the journey both she and her patient have embarked upon.
Psychotherapist: Susie Orbach
Amelia: Lia Williams
Producer: Kevin Dawson
Director: Ian Rickson
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4, followed by weather.
This week; Rural isolation amongst the elderly is a growing problem across the UK with forecasts putting over 50% of the rural population over 65 by 2030.
How can we prevent this huge group of people being cut off and experiencing the devastating effects of loneliness?
Follow ten of the country's brightest minds as they gather in the Royal Oak pub, Tetbury. They have just one day to come up with a solution that will convince a panel of local judges - and the locals of the town.
Presented by Matthew Taylor and facilitated by Cat Drew from Uscreates.
Team One-
Rebecca Ford - RSA
Paul Randall - Rainbow Zebra Office Furniture
Georgina Osman - Tetbury Council Tourism Manager
Immy Robinson- Shift Design
Aidan Rumble - Design Consultant
Team Two-
Lil Adair - US Creates
Sue Fellows - Police Community Support Officer
Rich Gundry - Wonderland Communications
Nigel Burton- I-Adapt
Rebecca Wilson - Jolly Nice Farm Shop
Emma Parnell - Snook Design
Expert Witnesses-
Robert Sharp - Tetbury Resident
Natalie Turner - Centre For Aging Better
Judges-
Lisa Hepworth - Social Prescriber, Gloucestershire Rural Community Council
Penny Williams - Manager, St Marys Day Centre
Julia Hasler - Chair, Tetbury Goods Shed
Producers-
Jordan Dunbar
Estelle Doyle
Editor-
Penny Murphy.
(4/13)
Russian ballet, classic Motown, contemporary opera and the music of this summer's Royal Wedding all crop up among the questions facing today's competitors. Paul Gambaccini is at the Radio Theatre to put them through their paces and determine who takes another of the 2018 semi-final places. As always, it will be the contestant whose knowledge best covers the wide range of musical genres in the toughest music quiz of them all.
Taking part today are:
Nicholas Brann, a finance director from London
Jeremy Pearce, a solicitor and business consultant, also from London
David Sherman, a hospital catering administrator from Chelmsford.
Producer: Paul Bajoria.
In 1968, The Last Poets hit the streets of New York with their no-holds-barred commentary on American society, race and revolution. Using their "words as bullets", in the wake of the civil rights movement and in the midst of the black arts movement, they mixed sharp, spoken word with African drumming, redefining what poetry could be and ultimately inspiring the sound of hip hop.
Set against a soundtrack of their songs and poems, Last Poets Abiodun Oyewole, Umar Bin Hassan and drummer Baba Donn Babatunde talk about what inspired their sound and how they found an outlet for their ideas through words. Spoken word artist and rapper Saul Williams puts their work into context and we also hear from younger spoken word artists about how, in the context of turbulent American politics today, their words seem more relevant than ever. The programme is timely in the light of a new book by the writer Christine Otten about the lives of the Last Poets and their new album, Understand What Black Is.
Producer Jo Wheeler
A Just Radio production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
Harry Venning's comic monologue about a doomed space cruise which even Jane McDonald cannot save.
It's 2118. Day three of Jeff's space cruise and already events are falling below his required standard. On his phone, he records his experience for the operator, Cosmic Tours of Hove, from whom he must surely get compensation.
Writer: Harry Venning
Reader: Jeff Rawle
Producer: Karen Rose
A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
Bells on Sunday comes from Canterbury Cathedral in Kent. The south west tower, also known as the Oxford Tower, contains a ring of twelve bells plus two additional ringing bells cast by the Whitechapel Foundry in 1981. The tenor weighs thirty four and three quarter hundredweights and is tuned to the key of C sharp. We hear them ringing Grandsire Cinques.
The latest national and international news.
Rabbi Shoshana Boyd Gelfand examines the phenomenon of call and response, one of the most primal human interactions.
She explains that, "whether we're calling our mother on the phone or crying out to God, when we call we hope for a response. That's because we are social creatures, yearning for connection, so responding to a call seems to be hard-wired into us."
Shoshana leads us into deep space, tuning in to the Arecibo Message, humanity's first attempt to call out to unseen alien races. The irony is that, if aliens respond we may not even be able to understand them. Shoshana admits that, despite all her prayers, she's never heard the voice of God herself, and wonders if she would understand if a divine response was to arrive.
Drawing upon musical examples ranging from Count Basie and Bach to Simon and Garfunkel, Shoshana reveals that the call and response form has long fascinated singers and composers. She explains she has always been amazed at Bach's ability to write music for the piano that lets the left and right hand enter a dialogue, communicating back and forth through melody.
The communal Jewish prayer of the Kaddish, the electric energy between Baptist pastor and congregation and the beauty of the Islamic call to prayer are all explored as Shoshana considers the interpersonal bonding that call and response facilitates.
She concludes that faith itself can be defined as the ever-present hope that, when we call out from the depths, we will receive a response. It may not always be the response that we were expecting. It may even be silence. But, fundamentally, we call out and hope for an answer as a reminder that we are not alone.
Presenter: Shoshana Boyd Gelfand
Producer: Max O'Brien
A TBI production for BBC Radio 4.
Sarah Swadling meets two Somerset farming neighbours who've joined forces to survive.
Their fathers used to help each other out at silage making time but Jeremy Padfield and Rob Addicott have taken co-operation a step further. Starting with a combine, they decided to share machinery and staff between their farms. As Sarah Swadling finds out, collaboration has given the two tenant farming neighbours the scale they need to survive, as arable farms get ever larger.
The latest weather forecast.
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.
Sunday morning religious news and current affairs programme.
Michael Rosen makes the Radio 4 Appeal on behalf of Meningitis Research Foundation.
Registered Charity Numbers: England and Wales no 1091105, in Scotland no SC037586,
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 'Meningitis Research Foundation'.
- Cheques should be made payable to 'Meningitis Research Foundation'.
The latest weather forecast.
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.
With Silence, with Scripture, with Sacrament, with Service: Rediscovering the Presence of Christ in the midst of busy and complex lives. A service of meditation led by Revd Richard Carter, leader of the Nazareth Community at St Martin-in-the-Fields in London.
Producer: Andrew Earis.
"To stand in the corridor of a crowded locked ward in a contemporary British mental hospital" writes Will Self, "is still to feel oneself closer to Hogarth's hellish vision of Bedlam, than any enlightened healthcare".
Will tells the disturbing story of what happened to a friend, recently detained in a London psychiatric hospital.
Producer: Adele Armstrong.
Kate Bradbury loves watching the swifts screaming across her new garden in the centre of Hove near Brighton. As yet though they aren't nesting in here house, but with help, they might just do so. As a wildlife gardener Kate encourages as many bird species as possible to visit. But for this Tweet of the Day it may be a slight wait until she can call the swifts over Sussex, her swifts.
As Kate heads into her second week curating her favourite episodes from the Tweet of the Day back catalogue, you can hear all five programmes chosen this week, and some thoughts from Kate about her love of wildlife in the Tweet of the Week omnibus edition, which is available via the Radio 4 Website.
Producer: Andrew Dawes
Photograph: Paul Dubois.
Sunday morning magazine programme with news and conversation about the big stories of the week. Presented by Paddy O'Connell.
Things go from bad to worse for Elizabeth and Susan has a confession to make.
Sue MacGregor reunites the pioneers of Chickenshed Theatre where disabled and able-bodied performers were united by their talents rather than divided by their differences.
In the early 1970s, children with severe learning disabilities were often hidden away in institutions and sent to "special" schools, away from their peers. No-one expected anything of them. Conditions like dyslexia and autism, although named and identified, were rarely diagnosed and sufferers were often seen as "problem children".
In 1974, Jo Collins and Mary Ward identified a common interest in treating all children as individuals, not labels. A disused chicken shed, owned by an impoverished aristocrat, became the base for their new theatre company. That summer, Chickenshed Theatre was named most promising new company by The Stage newspaper.
It took some years for the company to become fully inclusive. But, when it did, the results were astonishing. Able-bodied and disabled actors, dancers and singers created what theatre director Trevor Nunn described as "a glimpse of a more perfect world", a utopia where everyone's individuality was celebrated, not hidden.
Famous names including Judi Dench and Bob Hoskins were bowled over by the quality of the performances. Princess Diana became a patron and got to know many of the young actors.
A girl in a wheelchair could dance through the air, a young woman who could not speak became a gifted songwriter and a young man from the wrong side of the tracks chose to become a dancer rather than a jailbird.
Joining Sue to look back on the pioneering work of Chickenshed are founders Jo Collins and Mary Ward, actor Simon Callow and former Chickenshed members Lucia Bellini, Emma Cambridge and Jessica Wall.
Producer: Karen Pirie
Series Producer: David Prest
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
The second of two special episodes recorded at this year's Edinburgh Festival with Paul Merton, Fred MacAulay, Mark Watson and Jo Caulfield.
Hayley Sterling blows the whistle.
Producer: Richard Morris
A BBC Studios Production.
Sheila Dillon investigates the world of food and drink labelling: what has to go on the label, and what doesn't. On the way she travels through time, stops in ancient China, and goes down the rabbit hole with a very familiar word.
The latest weather forecast.
Global news and analysis.
We're floating silently in the sky beneath a giant pink balloon. The passengers peer at allotments in rows, over garden walls, spy a police car speeding through suburban streets, a train curving on rails into a tunnel, a sleepy teenager creeping home down an alley, , a woman in a pink dressing gown drinking a cup of tea as her dogs patrol the garden... and finally a magnificent crossing of the River Avon, bird song reaching up to the basket of the balloon drifting silently above.
Birds fly below, wispy clouds hit the bleary eyed faces of two poets a composer and an air pilot, passing over the city of Bristol in the early morning.
Combining the sounds heard from a balloon, with the words and poems of Miles Chambers, Poet Laureate for Bristol and Rebecca Tantony, both first time balloonists, we take a journey over the city, hearing sound rising up unimpeded from the waking city.
Also in the basket, multi-award winning composer Dan Jones, who brings on board both his music and his previous experience as the sound designer for a fleet of balloons called Sky Orchestra - and of course the pilot, Peter Dalby, who spends his life staring down at the world from above.
For the balloonist there is no friction; sound rises curiously unimpeded upwards with zero interference. We bring a rich mix of propane burner gushing, the dawn chorus, a choir of city sounds captured in a balloon, all mixed with the magical music of Dan Jones.
Producer: Sara Jane Hall.
Peter and the panel are at the John Innes Centre in Norwich. Bob Flowerdew, Matthew Wilson and Christine Walkden answer the horticultural questions.
This week, the panellists help a listener hoping to camouflage a treehouse with plants, they give encouragement to a non-flowering Bird-of-Paradise plant, and they diagnose a rather black tomato plant.
They also advise on attracting worms into your compost bin, suggest why perennials aren't flowering this summer, and assist a gardener on a mission to create his own cultivar.
Peter Gibbs pays a visit to Dr Scott Boden, Project Leader of Crop Genetics at the John Innes Centre, to discover how LED lights are used to accelerate the growth of plants.
Produced by Darby Dorras
Assistant Producer: Hester Cant
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.
Fi Glover introduces four conversations that reveal the particular bond between generations of men, 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.
Contemporary drama from Iran. A writer must cheat the censor to publish his love story.
In order for his book to receive a publishing permit, the writer must convince Mr Petrovich, the all-powerful censor at the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, that it will not provoke sin in the mind of the reader.
His characters, Sara and Dara, meet at a riot and are obliged to hide their encounters from both their families and the regime's Campaign Against Social Corruption, the feared citizen-guardians of Islamic morality. Gender separation is rigorously enforced and illicit passion punished so the lovers exercise their creativity to meet in secret amid the bustling streets of Tehran, in an empty cinema and a hospital A&E unit. Discovery would mean imprisonment, or even death.
Yet writing freely of their encounters puts the writer in as much peril as his own fictional lovers in this Farsi "Fahrenheit 451".
To win Sara's love, Dara now faces an unsuspected rival and a dangerous neighbour.
Written by Shahriar Mandanipour
Dramatised by Hattie Naylor from the translation by Sara Khalili
Executive Producer: Sara Davies
Sound Design by James Morgan and Steve Bond
Music by Gorkem Sen
Produced and Directed by Nicolas Jackson
An Afonica production for BBC Radio 4.
James Naughtie and Madeline Miller discuss her debut novel The Song of Achilles which won the Orange Prize for Fiction 2012.
In The Song of Achilles, Madeline Miller presents a love story against the backdrop of the Trojan war - between Achilles, leading the Greek army, and his best friend Patroclus. Her imagined relationship between the two men explains the emotional support that Achilles gets from Patroclus, the strength of the bond between them and the depth of Achilles' grief at his friend's death.
Recorded with a group of invited readers.
October's Bookclub Choice : A Death in the Family by Karl Ove Knausgaard (2014)
Presenter : James Naughtie
Interviewed Guest : Madeline Miller
Producer : Dymphna Flynn.
In 1977 the sculptor Walter De Maria erected a field of stainless steel poles in the New Mexico high desert, where lighting frequently strikes. The only way to see this electrifying art work, one of the largest sculptures on earth, is to spend the night in a log cabin, in a remote and eerie location, off the grid.
We join acclaimed American poet Kim Addonizio as she drives hundreds of dusty miles to Quemado, the remote town closest to the Lightning Field. At the Dia Art Foundation Office, cowboy Robert Weathers drives the pre-booked guests out into the Field and leaves them alone overnight, with no phones, cameras, or digital devices, to experience the art work.
De Maria believed that no gallery could compete for impact with the power of a natural disaster - "Flood, forest fire, typhoon, sand storm, earthquake... it is in the unpredictable disasters that the highest forms are realised."
Addonizio responds, "Maybe that's part of his aim, to put us out here where we may experience an unpredictable disaster."
In a grid 1 mile by 1 kilometre, the 400 stainless steel poles reach an exact height on which an invisible pane of glass could be balanced. They are in themselves a remarkable sight. The added challenge for this very urban poet is a night in the desert, with heat, rattlesnakes and the potential thrill and danger of lightning strikes.
On the journey, Addonizio also dips into her favourite desert poems, including ones by Native American poets Joy Harjo, Simon Ortiz and others, and finds both personal and poetic inspiration.
We also hear from writer Geoff Dyer, who has twice visited the field, to enjoy his dry take on a pilgrimage on many an art fan's bucket list. "De Maria has rightly insisted that the light is as important as the lightning. But calling it the Lightning Field is a sensational piece of marketing..."
Addonizio is making a visit to the Field in June this year, where she will consider the personal and existential meanings of De Maria's steel rods, each a polished pointed spear aimed at the heavens.
An atmospheric journey through the desert to an extraordinary location, with one of the USA's most acclaimed contemporary poets.
Producer: Sara Jane Hall
"Rattlesnake" by Stanley Vestal
"Culture and the Universe" by Simon Ortiz
"To the Desert" by Benjamin Alire Saenz
"Invisible Fish by Joy Harjo
Readings from "White Plains" by Geoff Dyer
Photograph is of Walter De Maria's, Lightning Field, 1977. A permanent earth sculpture, 400 stainless steel poles arranged in a grid array measuring one mile by one kilometer, average pole height 20 feet 7 inches, pole tips form an even plane. Quemado, New Mexico. Collection Dia Art Foundation, New York. Photo: John Cliett. Courtesy Dia Art Foundation, New York.
Being stopped by beggars on the street and asked for money makes most people feel uncomfortable. We may divert our eyes or make excuses about why we didn't stop. "They'd only spend it on drugs..." we tell ourselves. We worry they might not really need the money or that they might trying to con us.
Presenter Mark Johnson explores our relationship with beggars. He shares his own experience of living on the streets and goes on a journey to find out if there is such a thing as a fake beggar and asks why the police are fining and in some cases even jailing beggars.
He travels across the country to track a vigilante campaign in Torquay in which members of the public are trying to drive "fake beggars" off the street and discovers that 'outing' people can have terrible consequences for some of the most vulnerable in society. In Brighton he speaks to beggars who have been targeted by police using a 200 year old law to prosecute and fine them. And in Cambridge he meets a man who has been arrested 17 times and sent to prison twice for begging.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest weather forecast.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
By the misty marshes in Kent we discover the man who made Barry Manilow a star in 1970's. We stay in that decade to hear a investigative journalist read the files on Leonard Bernstein created by The FBI who spied on him for three decades.
Wear the first person testimony of fear as bombs explode around a house under siege, and meet the actors who voiced Gerry Adams when the government banned his voice.
There are dragons and dripping and Channel swimmers. Even Donald Trump gets a look in as he misquoted a BBC Radio 4 presenter. Fake News? It's true he did.
Produced by Cecile Wright and Dave James.
There's yet another shock for Elizabeth and Jim has a new mission.
Michael Frayn - the most comic philosophical writer of our time. An all-star cast has great fun with Frayn's hilarious view of us all. People talking. To each other, to the world at large, to themselves. Explaining. Heard, overheard, half-heard.
In Episode 2, we eavesdrop on two strangers in a café. Patricia Hodge is the woman who can't get names right. Joanna Lumley, listening in at the next table, longs to correct her. Adam Godley becomes increasingly obsessive in a doctor's surgery. Matthew Wolf, attending a lecture on words, doesn't care for the phrase 'if you like'. Sophie Winkleman and Charles Edwards, trying to find their destination, have 'WIC' - that's 'Words in Car'. Stephen Fry is a politician who believes he has mastered the intricacies of his mobile phone. Tom Hollander and Nigel Anthony share confidences in their own mathematically precise language. And Julian Sands suffers at the hands of Martin Jarvis' Pinteresque writer-tormentor.
This four-part series is Theatre in miniature. Short entertainments based on Frayn's recently acclaimed book, Matchbox Theatre. His brand new collection, now on the radio - the theatre of the listener's imagination. Set design, ice-cream sales, packet of nuts, where to sit - it's up to you. Just sit back and enjoy.
Episode 2 cast: Patricia Hodge, Joanna Lumley, Adam Godley, Mathew Wolf, Sophie Winkleman, Charles Edwards. Stephen Fry, Tom Hollander, Nigel Anthony, Julian Sands, Martin Jarvis.
Written by Michael Frayn
Producer: Rosalind Ayres
Director: Martin Jarvis
A Jarvis and Ayres production for BBC Radio 4.
Eight new cases to challenge the detective wit of Annika Strandhed, queen of the Oslo Police boat patrol.
Since we last met her, Annika has been promoted to Chief Inspector. Her first act was - apart from choosing a new speedboat - to co-opt Mikel, her forensic photographer of choice, to accompany her. Her son Tor is about to start school.
Being Chief Inspector means a bigger case-load. What follows will test her physically and emotionally as never before.
Episode 3: Representation
A journalist is found dead in the central hall of Norway's parliament building.
Nick Walker is the author of two critically-acclaimed novels, Blackbox and Helloland. His plays and short stories have often featured on BBC Radio 4, including the First King of Mars stories (2007 - 2010) and the plays Life Coach (2010) and Stormchasers (2012). The previous series of Annika Stranded were broadcast in 2013, 2014 and 2016.
Writer: Nick Walker
Reader: Nicola Walker
Sound Design: Jon Calver
Producer: Jeremy Osborne.
The Prime Minister's trip to Africa has spurred much debate on EU tariffs to the country and how this could change after Brexit. Twitter was set alight by an interview on the Today programme in which the presenter quoted some pretty high tariffs on African countries. The critics claimed that these tariffs were largely non-existent. So what's the truth? Tim Harford speaks to Soumaya Keynes, a trade specialist at The Economist.
It was also claimed that six fast-growing African countries could provide significant trade openings for the UK as it seeks to expand its trade relationships outside the EU. But how big are these African economies?
"No alcohol safe to drink, global study confirms" ran a recent BBC headline about a paper published in the Lancet journal. Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter tells Tim Harford why moderate drinkers should not be alarmed.
President Trump tweeted this eye-catching claim recently: "Over 90% approval rating for your all-time favorite (I hope) President within the Republican Party and 52% overall." That does sound impressively high. Tim Harford asks the BBC's senior North America reporter, Anthony Zurcher whether the figures are true.
What proportion of the UK's population are immigrants? What proportion of teenage girls give birth each year? Research suggests most people get the answer to these questions, and many others about everyday facts, very wrong. Tim Harford interviews Bobby Duffy, Global Director of Ipsos Social Research Institute and author of the book, "Perils of Perception: Why We're Wong About Nearly Everything", about our most common mistakenly-held beliefs and what they reveal about us.
Producer: Ruth Alexander.
Pictured: Lindsay Kemp
Julian Worricker on:
The dancer and choreographer, Lindsay Kemp, who worked alongside David Bowie and Kate Bush.
John Calder, the influential publisher, who championed avant-garde authors and battled censorship.
The record-breaking sailor, Hilary Lister, who became the first quadriplegic person to sail across the English Channel.
John Calcutt, who shaped the contemporary visual art scene in Scotland at the Glasgow School of Art.
And the award-winning American playwright, screenwriter and author, Neil Simon.
Interviewed guest: David Haughton
Interviewed guest: Kate Bush
Interviewed guest: Bill Swainson
Interviewed guest: Pauline Rudd
Interviewed guest: Francis McKee
Interviewed guest: Matt Wolf
Archive clips from: Woman's Hour, Radio 4 22/01/1969; Private Passions, Radio 3 25/03/2000; Censorship In Modern Britain: Radio 4 Reports, 12/12/68; Radio 2 Arts Programme: Simply Simon, 27/04/1997; Desert Island Discs, Radio 4 14/05/1995; A Race Against Time: Hilary Lister's Round Britain Dream, BBC Two 14/07/2013; Woman's Hour, Radio 4 11/07/1989; Third Ear, Radio 3 06/05/1991.
Thousands of new consumer products are launched every year, and many end in failure.
These flops are rarely discussed, and quickly forgotten.
The Museum of Failure in Sweden is taking a different approach, showcasing some of the world's most flawed products and services.
Ruth Alexander talks to curator Samuel West, and some of the product designers, about what we can learn from commercial mistakes.
Producer: John Murphy.
Weekly political discussion and analysis with MPs, experts and commentators.
With Antonia Quirke.
Oscar winner Pawel Pawlikowski talks about his award-winning tale of amour fou in communist Poland, Cold War.
Erik Aadahl and Ethan Van der Ryn on designing the sound of John Krasinski's A Quiet Place, a thriller in which a family must remain silent to avoid giant predators.
As it is re-released to mark its 30th anniversary, Terence Davies discusses his acclaimed Distant Voices, Still Lives.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
The lust to escape your life, gifts that make you feel misunderstood and a mystery with an elusive man at it's centre - Josie Long unfurls stories of mistaken identity.
The writer Nikesh Shukla and his friends, Nick Hearne and Robbie Lingham, talk about the frustrating mysterious character who entered their lives after they sent a lamb chop into space. The Australian producer Natalie Kestecher is horrified by a gift from a close friend and a young woman plots her escape in a call from Laura Mayer's How Are You Doing Project.
Navy Story
Originally recorded for the How Are You Doing Project
Produced by Laura Mayer
The Gift
Featuring writing from the Redundant Women series
Produced by Natalie Kestecher
Adam
Featuring Nikesh Shukla, Nick Hearne and Robbie Lingham
Series Producer: Eleanor McDowall
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Dr Eve Poole, Third Church Estates Commissioner for the Church of England.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
The latest weather forecast for farmers.
Urban Birder David Lindo reflects on the arrival of the swift as a sign that summer is here. He marvels at the ability of this small bird to navigate its way to Britain across Africa and Europe.
Tweet of the Day has captivated the Radio 4 audience with its daily 90 seconds of birdsong. But what of the listener to this avian chorus? In this new series of Tweet of the Day, we bring to the airwaves the conversational voices of those who listen to and are inspired by birds. Building on the previous series, a more informal approach to learning alongside a renewed emphasis on encounter with nature and reflection in our relationship with the natural world.
Producer Maggie Ayre.
News and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks speaks to some of the world's leading thinkers about morality, together with voices from the next generation: groups of British 6th form students.
In this programme, Rabbi Sacks argues that a world in which we each pursue our own interests and leave everything else to the state and the market can be incredibly liberating, but outsourcing moral responsibility can also leave us feeling vulnerable and alone, without meaning and direction in our lives.
Contributors:
Jordan Peterson, professor of psychology at the University of Toronto;
Noreena Hertz, economist, author and broadcaster;
Michael Sandel, political philosopher and professor at Harvard University;
Students from The Manchester Grammar School and Manchester High School for Girls.
Producer: Dan Tierney
Series Editor: Christine Morgan.
In Jan Morris's newly published 'diary of my thoughts', abridged for radio by Katrin Williams, the renowned author and traveller covers much ground:
She is devoted to her Honda Civic Type R, she extolls the virtues of small town America, and recalls the recent time when television 'seduced' her into a starring role - with very mixed results!
Reader Janet Suzman
Producer Duncan Minshull.
On March 20th 1993 the day before Mothering Sunday, the IRA exploded two bombs in a shopping street in the town of Warrington killing Jonathan Ball aged 3 and Tim Parry aged 12 and injuring dozens more. The deaths of the two boys inspired one of the largest peace rallies in Irish history. Tonight on BBC2 a drama documentary Mother's day starring Vicky McClure and Anna Maxwell Martin tells the story of the two mothers Susan McHugh and Wendy Parry and their husbands brought together on opposite sides of the Irish sea in the wake of the tragedy. Jane speaks to Wendy and Colin Parry, parents of Tim who went on to set up the charity The Peace Foundation to support those affected by terrorism and conflict .
Swatching involves trying different shades of make-up on the skin - usually the arm - to find the right match in tone. It is a growing trend used by make-up brands and bloggers alike, but it has also highlighted the lack of products on offer for women of colour. Journalist Kemi Olivia Alemoru has called swatching 'a political battleground' in the make-up industry. Kemi joins beauty youtube Leonore Christa to discuss with Jane.
Presenter: Jane Garvey
Producer: Caroline Donne.
In this the 10th series of 'How Does that Make You Feel?' Martha's clients have made few changes to their circumstances.
For several months, Richard has managed to avoid scandal and humiliation, but as ever he oscillates between the need for a low profile and his desperate craving for recognition. And so alarm bells start ringing when he reveals to Martha - in total secrecy - that he has been snapped by paparazzi leaving a restaurant carrying a woman over his shoulder.
Shelagh Stephenson is the author of Radio 4's 'A Short History of Longing' and 'Guests Are Like Fish'. She is an Olivier Award winner for her play 'The Memory of Water' and has won Sony and Writer's Guild awards for her plays 'Darling Peidi' and 'Five Kinds of Silence'.
Writer ..... Shelagh Stephenson
Director ..... Eoin O'Callaghan
Producer ..... Eoin O'Callaghan.
The journalist John Harris examines the potency of narrative, both in the stories that define us as individuals and in those that shape our understanding of the public domain.
Story is ubiquitous - and not simply in the realm of fiction and entertainment. In science and religion as well, narratives shape our world and help us negotiate ideas of truth.
In this episode, we hear from Yarden Katz of Harvard Medical School, theologian Robert Beckford, neuroscientist Tali Sharot, medical humanities researcher Angela Woods, the writer Bernardine Evaristo and psychotherapist Arabella Kurtz.
Presented by John Harris
Produced by Nina Garthwaite and Alan Hall
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4.
A fourth series of Richard Wilson's Radiography in which writer Jon Canter delves into the true and not so true nooks and crannies of Richard's life and works.
In this episode, Richard decides that it's time he became more Scottish and calls on all his Scottish friends to do likewise.
Cast:
Richard Wilson - himself
Ian McKellen - himself
Anthony Sher - himself
Peter Capaldi - himself
David Tennant - himself
Arabella Weir - herself
Produced and Directed by Clive Brill
A Brill production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Mike Holcombe from Largs in Scotland asks, "How do we look for alien life and what are we expecting to find?"
In the first of two episodes on the search for ET, Hannah and Adam look for life inside the Solar System. How do we define life and why we obsessed with finding it on Mars? Or should we be looking for space squid on Europa instead?
Features interviews with planetary scientist Monica Grady from the Open University, senior astronomer Seth Shostak from SETI and zoologist Matthew Cobb from the University of Manchester.
Send your Curious Cases for consideration in to curiouscases@bbc.co.uk
Presenters: Hannah Fry, Adam Rutherford
Producer: Michelle Martin.
Home insurers are predicting that 2018 could be the worst year for subsidence claims in a quarter of a century. It's being put down to the hot summer weather which dries out bricks and mortar. It happened in 1976, when 20,000 claims were made. A ground engineering company tells us that they have seen a 400% increase in enquiries about subsidence. Cracks in your walls and garden can be expensive to fix and drive up the cost of insurance. They can also make your home harder to sell. We hear about the tell-tale signs of subsidence, the potential cures and the likely costs.
Some of Britain's biggest retailers are trying to persuade their landlords to reduce their rent. A "perfect storm" of online competition, rising staff costs and fewer customers has made it hard for some shops to survive and thousands have closed in recent years. As it becomes harder to make a living on the high street, retail rents in many places are now falling. The new owner of House of Fraser is in talks with the company's landlords, but who has the upper hand in these negotiations, the shops or the landlords? And can small retailers also demand lower rents?
For years, parents have been told not to flush baby wipes down the toilet, with a warning that they don't decompose and can clog up drains and sewers. Some "flushable" wipes are available, but research carried out by Middlesex University suggests that some of them contain plastic fibres. One of Britain's biggest drain clearance companies tells us that even flushable wipes can cause blockages and other damage. They are advising that all wipes should go in the bin, and not down the toilet.
Producer: Jonathan Hallewell
Presenter: Winifred Robinson.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
Inside the head of paparazzo George Bamby as he goes in search of Fern Britton and David Cameron.
Episode one of a new series of immersive features which allow the listener to step into the world of a compelling character with an extraordinary job. Recorded in binaural stereo using the latest recording techniques for a rich, lifelike and intimate sound. Subjects wear a small microphone in each ear, picking up sound just like the human ear. Whatever they hear, we hear - how they hear it. The series is best heard on headphones.
In episode one, we inhabit the world of paparazzi photographer George Bamby as he travels to Padstow in Cornwall in search of some lucrative shots of TV personality Fern Britton and ex-PM David Cameron. While the beaches are packed with holiday-makers enjoying the hot summer, Bamby has his binoculars out, scanning the sun seekers for famous faces. Bamby starts the day bullish, confident he'll get his shots - but things don't quite go to plan...
Producer: Laurence Grissell.
It is beautiful. It is remarkable. It is unique. It is the colour of a wet street at midnight, and, more important than any of these things, it has Style.
The Marquis de Carabas has been having a rather stressful time of it. Being killed by the villainous duo Vandemar and Croup, having his body sold by the sewer people, and brought back to life with the aid of Old Bailey is enough to test the endurance of most people. But as if that isn't bad enough, the Marquis has lost his coat. It's not just any old coat. It is mysterious and unique and makes him the man he is. And he wants it back.
Neil Gaiman takes us back to the London Below of 'Neverwhere' in this new adventure as we accompany the Marquis on his quest to discover who has his coat - and, most importantly of all - to get his coat back. As he travels through the tunnels and sewers of subterranean London the Marquis encounters some of the most dangerous and treacherous inhabitants of London Below, comes face to face with an old enemy, and - worst of all - is forced to accept help from someone very close to home .
Adapted by Dirk Maggs from the story by Neil Gaiman, 'How the Marquis Got his Coat Back' sees Paterson Joseph once again don the coat of the Marquis de Carabas which he first wore twenty years ago in the 1996 BBC TV dramatisation of 'Neverwhere'. He is joined by Adrian Lester (Undercover, Hustle), Don Warrington (Death in Paradise, Rising Damp), Mitch Benn (Good Omens, The Now Show) and Divian Ladwah (Detectorists) while Bernard Cribbins reprises his role of Old Bailey from the Radio 4 production of 'Neverwhere'.
Sound Design ..... Dirk Maggs
Producer ..... Heather Larmour.
(5/13)
What was the most notable musical achievement of Lys Assia, who died in 2018? If you can answer this you'd get off to a flying start in this heat of Radio 4's music quiz - but would you be as confident with questions about Tchaikovsky ballets, Mendelssohn oratorios or classic 1970s jazz-funk albums? All of these topics crop up in the opening round - after which today's competitors get the chance to pick a special musical subject on which they think they'll be able to score plenty of points. Paul Gambaccini provides musical extracts both familiar and surprising - and even improvises his own musical clues from time to time. A semi-final place awaits today's winner.
Taking part are:
Roderick Cromar, a chartered accountant from Inverurie
Ed Newsome, who works in arts marketing in Cardiff
Jack Spearing, a student from Baldock in Hertfordshire.
Producer: Paul Bajoria.
Poland's artists, writers and musicians respond to growing ultra-nationalism.
In the run up to the 2015 presidential elections, Poland's populist Law and Justice party campaigned on a platform of national pride and traditional Catholic values. Since taking control of the government, the party remains popular with many Poles but has also faced accusations of posing a grave risk to democratic values. Recent changes to the country's justice system drew thousands of protestors into the streets and resulted in charges from the EU that the government is attempting to undermine the rule of law by stacking the courts with political-loyalists.
Opposition parties and human rights activists have also accused Poland's ruling party of restricting free speech by pushing virtually all critical voices off the state news media and trying to exert political control over the country's arts and cultural institutions.
With regional elections due to take place this autumn and the country remaining deeply split politically, Anna McNamee travels to Warsaw and beyond to find out how Polish artists, writers and musicians have been affected by the rise of ultra-nationalism. Can art change Poland's political future?
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.
When Pope Francis visited Mexico in 2016, he paid his respects to the Virgin of Guadalupe, a dark skinned Madonna who is said to have appeared to a peasant man in 1531. Then, standing at the Mexican border, he turned his attention to the migrant crisis, "No more death, no more exploitation," he declared.
Mexicans have experienced a lot of death in recent years. Drug cartels operate freely in the urban areas. They have even appropriated their own folk Saint - called Santa Muerte or Our Lady of Death. 87% of Mexicans identify as Catholics. But what does their faith have to say about the desperate conditions under which so many live.
Joining Ernie Rea to discuss the role of religion in Mexico are Alan Knight, Emeritus Professor of Latin American History at the University of Oxford; Amanda Hopkinson, Visiting Professor of Translation at City University, London; and Dr Elizabeth Baquedano, Senior Honorary Lecturer at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London.
Producer: Helen Lee.
Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Nicholas Parsons expertly corrals four Just a Minute regulars in the form of Paul Merton, Pam Ayres, Josie Lawrence and Julian Clary.
This week the rare achievement of an uninterrupted minute! But from who?
Hayley Sterling blows the whistle.
Producer: Richard Morris
A BBC Studios Production.
Fallon loses her temper and Helen fears for Henry.
Arts news, interviews and reviews.
Actress and broadcaster Jameela Jamil tackles the explosive conversation around sexual assault to determine what consent in sex and relationships should look like in a modern, digital world.
The recent sexual assault allegations that have surfaced from the #MeToo movement have radically changed how men and women view consent.
With every new story that comes out, a series of opinion articles are published overnight. Jameela Jamil joined the conversation - and her concise, blunt and cutting article spread like wildfire across social media. In this two-part series, Jameela asks if our legal and moral interpretation of "consent" is no longer fit for purpose, particularly for a new social media and sexually literate generation who behave differently, and expect different standards of behaviour.
The most polarising element of the #MeToo movement has been the fraught debate over what can and can't be considered sexual assault. A variety of commentators have argued that most assaults should fall under the category of bad sex - and that the lines are only clear when it's rape. In the first episode, Jameela investigates the grey areas of sex - the subtle times where it's not clear to both parties if lines have been crossed. These are the moments your partner pushes you further than you want to go, a colleague acts inappropriately or a friend mis-steps completely.
Jameela hears stories from survivors - both men and women - heterosexual speakers and those from the LGBTQ+ community. She asks why there appears sometimes to be a generational divide among women on this issue and what conversations need to be had to form a definition of consent that all parties can understand and agree on.
Produced by Anishka Sharma
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.
'He was using prisoners like oxen for ploughing for his own gain'. An ex-convict recalls the prison officer in charge of the prison farm he worked on in Uganda. The country has one of the most overcrowded prison systems in Africa. It also has one of the continent's most developed systems of prison labour. For Crossing Continents, Ed Butler reports from Uganda where most of the country's 54,000 inmates are now serving an economic purpose, working for the benefit of an elite collection of private farmers and other business interests - even though half of them have not been convicted of any crime. He speaks to current and former prisoners, to find out how the system works, and asks: is the country breaking its international pledges on prisoner treatment?
Presented and produced by Ed Butler.
(Image: Prisoners at Patongo Prison, Uganda. Credit: David Brunetti).
"For me 1971 was the Year of the Dragon," says Brett Westwood. This was the year he first read the Hobbit and discovered the giant winged Smaug. Dragons are everywhere - in books, myths, tattoo parlours, computer games, and of course on the Indonesian island of Komodo. Here be dragons warned the ancient maps, but where does myth meet reality ... and why has the dragon reached into so many cultures around the world?
With contributions from zoologist Mark Carwardine who travelled to Komodo with Douglas Adams for Last Chance to See. Plus Joe Capon of the Attenborough Komodo Dragon House at London Zoo; film critic Antonia Quirke who explains the connection between King Kong and Komodo; Martin Arnold, author of a new book on Dragons: Power and Fear; and Matt Swarbrick who helped film the first dragon buffalo hunt - from bite to final throes.
The producer in Bristol is Miles Warde.
Photo copyright ZSL London Zoo.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
Set in the years after WWII, Kate Atkinson's new novel puts idealism on the spot and asks who can be trusted when loyalty is pushed to its limits.
Radio producer Juliet Armstrong spots an all-too-familiar face in a crowded London street.
Abridged by Robin Brooks
Read by Fenella Woolgar
Producer: Eilidh McCreadie.
Imagine if London's genteel literary scene had a bit more swag and a gangsta's lean. You've just imagined The Literary Adventures of Mr. Brown.
With the help of his naively affable intern, Charlie, the heroic, absurd and frankly bad-ass Kurtis Brown fights for his clients in London's entertainment industry.
When you need your fights fought and your books bought, who are you going to call? The best damn literary agent in the world, Kurtis Brown. He'll solve all your problems... For 15%.
Written and performed by Chris Gau and Mike Orton-Toliver
Producer: Zoe Rocha
Executive Producer: Ralf Little
A Little Rock production for BBC Radio 4.
Aleks is looking at regret, that sinking, nagging feeling when we realise we have made the wrong choice or when things have not gone the way we hoped or envisaged. Ethan Zuckerman was one of the early architects of user generated content on the internet in the mid nineties. He created the code that lead to the pop up advert which he still regrets today but Aleks finds out not for the reasons you would think.
Denise Locke was on Flight 1549 which miraculously landed in the Hudson River in 2009. She had a choice to get on the flight that day because the weather delay meant she was texted by the airline to give her the option not to fly. She flew anyway and despite suffering post traumatic stress she does not regret the experience. It has changed her life, she now lives much more in the present.
Professor Amy Summerville runs a regret lab at Miami University, Ohio, she talks about the importance of regret and why it helps us to understand the world around us. Amy thinks that in our modern world we experience more regret, because of what she refers to as counterfactual thinking and the abundance of choice we now have because of technology.
Simon Yates one of the protagonists in the film and book Touching the Void, speaks about why he cut the rope his climbing partner was dangling on up a mountain in Peru and why he has no regrets about what he did.
Mel Slater and Doron Friedman both push the boundaries of what' s possible in virtual reality. They're exploring the use of clones in VR which are able to go back in time and re live past experiences. They believe this technology will have great impacts not only on our how we perceive the self and on identity but also how we experience and deal with regret in the future.
Produced by Kate Bissell.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Dr Eve Poole, Third Church Estates Commissioner for the Church of England.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs.
Kate Humble presents the snipe. The snipe is an intricately patterned wader, not much bigger than a blackbird but with an enormously long bill. In the breeding season they fly high above their territories before dashing earthwards and then sweeping upwards again. Throughout this display you'll hear a bleating sound, known as 'drumming'. Find out how the sound is made in today's programme.
News and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Yesterday in Parliament, Weather and Thought for the Day.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks speaks to some of the world's leading thinkers about morality, together with voices from the next generation: groups of British 6th form students.
Traditionally, morality meant altruism, care for others, the world beyond the self. Today's icon, though, is the "selfie," the image of ourselves we present to others by way of smartphones and social media. Rabbi Sacks explores the impact this has had on how we see ourselves and live our lives.
Contributors:
Jean Twenge, Professor of psychology at San Diego State University;
David Brooks, political and social commentator and author;
Students from Graveney School in London and Queens' School in Hertfordshire.
Producer: Dan Tierney
Series Editor: Christine Morgan.
In Jan Morris's newly published 'diary of my thoughts' the renowned author and traveller covers much ground:
'I have lived almost all my life by the sea.. most of the books I have written have been about sea cities.. I can hardly imagine life far from a shoreline, without a horizon'. She also ruminates about the origins of catchphrases, do they stand the test of time? And a late beloved cat called Ibsen.
Reader Janet Suzman
Producer Duncan Minshull.
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.
Having completed his rehabilitation course following accusations of sexism and cruelty to his employees, Tony has returned to Martha's sessions a new man. Women and foreigners are no longer the object of his irritation - it's now vegans refusing to eat avocado on toast (as everyone knows they are supposed to) who have begun to get under his skin.
Shelagh Stephenson is the author of Radio 4's 'A Short History of Longing' and 'Guests Are Like Fish'. She is an Olivier Award winner for her play 'The Memory of Water' and has won Sony and Writer's Guild awards for her plays 'Darling Peidi' and 'Five Kinds of Silence'.
Writer ..... Shelagh Stephenson
Director ..... Eoin O'Callaghan
Producer ..... Eoin O'Callaghan.
Dogs have changed us and we've changed them. Brett Westwood visits Battersea to meet the animals whose history is most inextricably linked with our own. And in the process very nearly loses a furry microphone cover to an enthusiastic lurcher named Trevor (pictured above)... As the first domestic animals, dogs made it possible for humans to spread into the areas of the world that they did, to eat more protein and to take up activities from hunting to sledding. But it was only in the Victorian period that the dogs we know today were "invented", by breeding. And throughout all of this dogs have also been changing human lives as companions.
Producer Beth O'Dea
Taking part:
Professor Greger Larson, Director Palaeogenomics & Bio-Archaeology Research Network, School of Archaeology, University of Oxford
Dr John Bradshaw, anthrozoologist and author of In Defence of Dogs and The Animals Among Us
Susan McHugh, Professor of English at the University of New England
Naomi Sykes, Lawrence Professor of Archaeology at the University of Exeter
Julie-Marie Strange, Professor of British History at the University of Manchester
Dr Krithika Srinivasan, Lecturer in Human Geography, University of Edinburgh.
Artist and sceptic Adham Faramawy asks if virtual reality's fantastical spaces can offer new ways to make and experience art. He sets out to discover what VR can offer beyond the shock of its novelty - from new bodies to new lovers, to new spaces for work and play.
He explores a bold new medium in its infancy, talking to artists and innovative game designers. Initially excited by the possibilities of pushing beyond the rectangle of a screen to create truly immersive moving image, Adham discovers a darker side to VR.
The speed and development of the technology is impressive, but how is it exciting or troubling artists and audiences? And how does this new frontier affect their attitudes towards themselves and the ways they behave and interact?
With digital art pioneer Rebecca Allen, artists Ed Fornieles and Rindon Johnson, games designer Robin Hunicke and Professor Henry Fuchs.
Music by Sega Bodega
Produced by Rose De Larrabeiti
A Boom Shakalaka production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Do alien civilisations exist? When will ET phone home?
In the second part of our alien double bill, Hannah and Adam boldly go in search of intelligence. They may be some time.
What will aliens look like? Where should we look for them? And what are the chances of finding complex life in the cosmos?
Featuring astronomer Seth Shostak from the SETI Institute in California, exoplanet hunter Sara Rugheimer from the University of St Andrews and zoologist Matthew Cobb from Manchester University,
Presenters: Hannah Fry, Adam Rutherford
Producer: Michelle Martin.
Consumer phone-in.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
Bosnian bomb disposal officer Sead Vrana has to detect and dispose of a powerful anti-tank warhead hidden high in the mountains above Sarajevo, on the former front line of the Bosnian War.
Episode two of a new series of immersive features which allow the listener to step into the world of a compelling character with an extraordinary job. Recorded in binaural stereo using the latest recording techniques for a rich, lifelike and intimate sound. Subjects wear a small microphone in each ear, picking up sound just like the human ear. Whatever they hear, we hear - how they hear it. The series is best heard on headphones.
In this episode we inhabit the world of Bosnian explosive ordnance technician Sead Vrana as he searches for an anti tank weapon. Vrana defused his first landmine at the age of just seventeen as a young soldier in the Bosnian Army, in the early days of the Bosnian War. Over two decades later, we're with him every step of the way as he executes the dangerous task of detecting and disposing of a warhead that could rip through 40cm of steel.
Producer: Laurence Grissell.
by Joseph Wilde. Unsettling drama set in the near future.
When a couple discover that they can't have a healthy baby naturally, Zenith Genomics seems to offer the solution: they can create a perfect, bespoke child, with every gene hand-picked. For a price. But the parents soon find that perfection brings its own problems...
A dark fable about parental expectation and the pressures of parenting in a competitive and commodified world.
Anita .... Laura dos Santos
Tom .... Joseph Kloska
Dr Ahmed .... Seeta Indrani
Beth .... Amy-Jayne Leigh
Mr Dean .... Ewan Bailey
Writer .... Joseph Wilde
Director .... Abigail le Fleming
The Writer
Joseph is a young writer for stage, screen and radio. His breakout play CUDDLES was originally produced in 2013 and revived in 2015 for a UK tour and New York transfer. Joseph has also written plays for Hightide Festival Theatre and Ovalhouse, and in 2014 he worked as an assistant director at the Royal Shakespeare Company. His first radio play THE LOVING BALLAD OF CAPTAIN BATEMAN won the 2014 Imison Award, and for television, he currently writes for DOCTORS and completed the CASUALTY shadow scheme in 2015.
Life on the streets is hard and precarious, but every soul who sleeps on a pavement has a story. Tara and George is a six-part series exploring the lives of two people in their late forties who sleep rough in London's Spitalfields. It asks simply, what led them there and why do they remain?
Journalist Audrey Gillan has come to know them as neighbours in this diverse and fashionable area of the capital, and has been recording her conversations with Tara and George for nearly two years.
In this episode, Tara opens up, little by little, about her childhood in London, missing her mum and what led to her three children being taken away from her.
Written and presented by Audrey Gillan
Produced by Audrey Gillan and Johnny Miller
Original music by Francis Macdonald
Series Producer: Alan Hall
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 "Praise and Blame" - the first of a trilogy of albums that would take him back to his musical roots (in the A-side of the programme, available online), Tom Jones responds to questions from the audience and performs acoustic live versions of some to the tracks from the album that led one critic to declare "at last Jones the artist is the match of Jones the entertainer" (The Guardian)
Producer: Paul Kobrak.
Louise K Wilson meets fellow artists who, like her, make work inspired by the Cold War.
Whether it's childhood memories, the background hum of the threat of nuclear armageddon, or the futuristic architecture, many artists are creatively stimulated by the imagined possibilities of a war which never turned hot.
Louise K Wilson travels to three very different sites with Cold War connections to explore their artistic appeal.
On a freezing winter morning, we meet artist Stephen Felmingham at the South Creake, Royal Observer Corps post, near Bloodgate Hill in Norfolk. He has been fascinated by the Cold War since he was a child, and remembers the presence of the American airbase near his home. This dank, underground shelter is the first ROC post Stephen became aware of - it overlooks his former primary school - and it began a six year practice of him visiting the national network of tiny, monitoring posts where he draws using his peripheral vision.
Hush House at Bentwaters Parks - formerly RAF Bentwaters - in Suffolk is a large hanger with a protruding concrete exhaust tunnel. The building was used to test jet engines and is acoustically treated to absorb the massive amount of noise created by this process. Despite the RAF title, Bentwaters was an American airbase which was home to much covert activity. Sound artist and scenographer Kathrine Sandys spent her childhood holidays camping nearby, and has strong memories of the activity she and her brother imagined took place there. Kathrine staged a sound and light installation in Hush House in 2010.
Field Station Berlin is former NSA listening station built in the Cold War to intercept communications from the East. It stands at the top of a man made rubble mountain, created by the women of the city as they disposed of the bombed out wreckage of Berlin in the second world war. At the base of Teufelsberg (or Devil's Mountain) stands Hitler's flagship military technical college, built so strongly that it couldn't be demolished, so was instead buried in rubble.
Every attempt to commercialise the site has failed and it is now home to a loosely marshalled collective of artists, some of whom live on site. While the buildings are brooding, decaying and unmistakably from the Cold War, its lure as a base for artists is mainly due to the space, lack of regulation and very low cost. It seems to be a magnet for people who want to exist outside of conventional society.
Produced by Freya Hellier
A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4.
Greg Jenner on the great song and dance man Gene Kelly, star of Singin' In The Rain. "He was so much better than he had any right to be."
Born in Pittsburgh in 1912, Gene Kelly was a broad-shouldered Irish American whose first love was ice hockey.
But according to his biographer, Ruth Leon, he revolutionised movie-making by making the camera dance.
Matthew Parris is impressed.
Kelly's great films also include On The Town and An American in Paris - with extracts and archive, this is a joyful celebration of the great age of Hollywood musicals.
Nominator Greg Jenner is historical consultant on Horrible Histories and author of Dead Famous: A History of Celebrity.
The producer in Bristol is Miles Warde.
Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Start/Stop is a sitcom by Jack Docherty about three marriages in various states of disrepair.
Barney and Cathy have been married for ages and it shows, Evan and Fiona's marriage is one big, noisy argument and David is old enough to be Alice's father.
Start/Stop follows the story of these three couples as they try to make the best of their marriages and friendships, and the characters are able to stop the action, explain themselves to the audience and start it all up again.
This week: 'Therapy', where all the couples end up seeing the same therapist, played by Sanjeev Bhaskar.
Evan and Fiona are already in therapy to tackle their issues with conflict - mostly over where they should keep the keys. Cathy wants Barney to go to a therapist too, as he keeps calling out Alice's name in his sleep. And during their session, David tries to distract the therapist, who he suspects is having his own lustful thoughts about Alice.
Written by: Jack Docherty
Producer: Claire Jones
A BBC Studio Production.
Jazzer digs for dirt and Clarrie is concerned.
Arts news, interviews and reviews.
Of all the horrors of the Great War of 1914-1918, perhaps the worst was saved for the end. Writer Nicholas Rankin tracks how the outbreak of influenza in the late summer of 1918 turned into the worst pandemic since the Black Death of the 1340s. Ten million died in WW1, but the 'flu virus' of a century ago killed between 50 and 100 million people in every corner of the globe. In that last year of the war scientists understood bacteria and the germ theory of disease, but they did not have the technology to see viruses, let alone understand them. The unique conditions of the First World War gave the flu virus unparalleled opportunities to reproduce and kill. Millions of healthy young men, packed together into troopships, crowded in camps and trenches, living in battlefields contaminated by poison gases, were like a giant petri dish. Soldiers died like flies, but civilians who flocked together to celebrate the Armistice on 11th November 1918 also infected each other. Modern transport - steamships, railways, bicycles in Africa - helped deadly influenza spread world-wide as troops returned home at the war's end. Once dubbed 'the forgotten pandemic' it is now being re-researched by scientists and historians who wish to learn its lessons for today. In the 1970s, the writer Richard Collier advertised in the newspapers of 29 countries asking for survivors' stories, and in the Imperial War Museum Nicholas Rankin leafs through his huge archive of vivid replies. He also travels to Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin to hear what oral history can tell us about the impact of the pandemic in Ireland. And he learns how influenza devastated native peoples worldwide, particularly in Polynesia, where a quarter of the population of Western Samoa died.
PRODUCER: MARK BURMAN.
News, views and information for people who are blind or partially sighted.
Marsha Owen presents the stories of those who live and work along the rail network that fans out from Cardiff up into the South Wales Valleys.
Broadly covering the ex-coalfield of South Wales, the Valleys is a collection of towns and villages ranged along, and separated by, hills and mountains. Running roughly north to south, the Valley Lines connects these towns and villages to each other - and to the growing city of Cardiff on the south coast.
Trains can offer up a slice of life, a window onto a world - glimpsed back gardens, frozen street scenes, snatches of lives and overheard conversations - and the Valley Lines provide an opening onto the people and places - and the culture and economics - of this region, defined by its geography.
As resistant to generalisations as any place, the meaning of the Valleys depends upon who you ask: a collection of deeply rooted communities with an enviable sense of cohesion and identity; a cradle of industrial and socialist history; a sublime natural resource and increasingly a rural playground; a predicament to be confronted, a problem to be solved.
And certain statistics do seem to back up this last concern: according to metrics of deprivation and economic inactivity, of educational attainment, health and life expectancy, the problems in the Valleys seem very real.
It's easy to be blinded by these statistics. And one proffered solution to 'the problem of the Valleys' that surfaces from time to time calls for, effectively, a managed clearance of large parts of the area, to rewild them, creating a tourist-focused region comparable perhaps to the Lake District.
One response to these intentions can stand as a premise for these programmes: what about the people?
It's a story usually told in a current affairs context, but these programmes hope to loosen that form to tell part of the story of the Valleys through the Valley Lines railway, its passengers and passers-by.
Producer: Martin Williams
Music: Potato Lettuce by David Grubbs.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
Set around WWII, Kate Atkinson's new novel puts idealism on the spot and asks who can be trusted when loyalty is pushed to its limits.
London, 1940. When Juliet Armstrong applies to join the armed forces she is surprised to find herself recruited by the Security Services.
Abridged by Robin Brooks
Read by Fenella Woolgar
Producer: Eilidh McCreadie.
A current affairs parody and stupidly feasible visit to the 24-hour Hall of Opinion Mirrors. Because there are two stories to every story.
All the news from today's sitting at 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.
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Dr Eve Poole, Third Church Estates Commissioner for the Church of England.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs.
Chris Packham presents the fieldfare. Fieldfares are thrushes, and very handsome ones. They have slate-grey heads, dark chestnut backs and black tails and their under parts are patterned with arrows. Although birds will stick around if there's plenty of food available, fieldfares are great wanderers and are quick to move out in freezing conditions.
Morning news and current affairs. Including Yesterday in Parliament, Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks speaks to some of the world's leading thinkers about morality, together with voices from the next generation: groups of British 6th form students.
For most of history, societies have been held together by a shared moral code. But half a century ago, the West embarked on a great experiment: a move from "We" to "I," from "We're all in this together" to "I'm free to be myself." Recently, there's been a reaction against individualism in favour of the group. But what's returned isn't a sense of society as a whole, but rather, subgroups, defined by faith, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation. What's lost, Rabbi Sacks argues, is our sense of collective belonging and the common good.
Contributors:
Jonathan Haidt, Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University;
Robert Putnam, Political scientist and Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University;
Students from Loreto College in Manchester.
Producer: Dan Tierney
Series Editor: Christine Morgan.
In her new 'diary of my thoughts', renowned author and traveller Jan Morris covers much ground :
"It's wonderful, isn't it - how the experience of The First Time loiters in the memory.." Also, a trip in a de Havilland Dragon Rapide biplane and the quirks of keeping old address books.
Reader Janet Suzman
Producer Duncan Minshull.
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.
Caroline has created 73 online troll personalities, each of them arguing furiously with the others about whatever inconsequentiality is in the headlines. But though her brand is growing exponentially, even she has to admit that she has lost sight of who she actually is, or even which personality she should be employing at any given moment. But having stalked, trolled and terrorised her followers into total submission, she feels she is now ready to begin a career in Politics.
Shelagh Stephenson is the author of Radio 4's 'A Short History of Longing' and 'Guests Are Like Fish'. She is an Olivier Award winner for her play 'The Memory of Water' and has won Sony and Writer's Guild awards for her plays 'Darling Peidi' and 'Five Kinds of Silence'.
Caroline ..... Rebecca Saire
Martha ..... Frances Tomelty
Writer ..... Shelagh Stephenson
Director ..... Eoin O'Callaghan
Producer ..... Eoin O'Callaghan.
A daughter who is a dyslexia specialist has solved the mystery of her father's school refusal. Fi Glover presents another conversation in the series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen.
Producer: Marya Burgess.
The hit series returns for an eighth series with more shop based shenanigans and over the counter philosophy, courtesy of Ramesh Mahju and his trusty sidekick Dave. Written by and starring Donald Mcleary and Sanjeev Kohli.
Set in a Scots-Asian corner shop, the award winning Fags, Mags and Bags sees a return of all the shop regular characters, and some guest appearances along the way, from the likes of Moray Hunter, Lorraine McIntosh & Mina Amwar.
In this episode, the local Provost for Lenzie - played by Moray Hunter - needs help to raise funds to create a tourist attraction for the town.
Join the staff of Fags, Mags and Bags in their tireless quest to bring nice-price custard creams and cans of coke with Arabic writing on them to an ungrateful nation. Ramesh Mahju has built it up over the course of over 30 years and is a firmly entrenched, friendly presence in the local area. He is joined by his shop sidekick, Dave.
Then of course there are Ramesh's sons Sanjay and Alok, both surly and not particularly keen on the old school approach to shopkeeping, but natural successors to the business. Ramesh is keen to pass all his worldly wisdom onto them - whether they like it or not!
Producer: Gus Beattie for Gusman Productions.
A Comedy Unit production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
"How fast can a human run and would we be faster as quadrapeds?" This question flew in via Twitter from historian Greg Jenner.
Is there a limit to human sprinting performance? In this episode we investigate the biomechanics of running, statistical trends in human performance and which kind of monkey runs the fastest.
But first, an experiment. Due to some spurious and possibly fictional injuries, neither Hannah nor Adam are fit enough to take part in a sprint trial at the University of Bath. So long-suffering Producer Michelle steps up to the challenge and into the starting blocks. Not known for her love of athletics, or exercise of any sort, how will she fair in the ultimate speed test?
Biomechanist Peter Weyand from Texas discusses the role of different muscle types in speed versus endurance. Sports scientist Polly McGuigan reveals why Usain Lightning Bolt is still the fastest man in the world. And Prof of Sports Engineering Steve Haake reveals how fast a man can run like a monkey.
Presenters: Hannah Fry, Adam Rutherford
Producer: Michelle Martin.
Consumer affairs programme.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
Step into the world of circus manager Roxana Icu as she works frantically backstage to ensure the kids are kept entertained out front.
Episode three of a new series of immersive features which allow the listener to step into the world of a compelling character with an extraordinary job. Recorded in binaural stereo using the latest recording techniques for a rich, lifelike and intimate sound. Subjects wear a small microphone in each ear, picking up sound just like the human ear. Whatever they hear, we hear - how they hear it. The series is best heard on headphones.
In this episode, we're backstage with the company manager of Giffords Circus as she pulls out all the stops to ensure that everything goes to plan out front. Highly skilled circus artists performing dangerous acts must be kept happy, the ponies and sausage dogs must make their entrances on cue - and wardrobe malfunctions remain an ever present danger.
Producer: Laurence Grissell.
by David Morley
The first of two true stories about African-American lawyer CB King, who was forced to confront the violence and bigotry of the Southern States of America in the battle for Civil Rights in the 1960s.
C.B. King ..... Leo Wringer
Bobby Peel ..... Tom Forrister
Slater King ..... Steve Toussaint
Carol King ..... Cecilia Noble
Marion King ..... Saffron Coomber
Charlie Ware ..... Ammar Duffus
Reverend Boyd ..... Tayla Kovacevic-Ebong
Chief Pritchett ..... Ewan Bailey
Sheriff 'Gator' Johnson ..... David Schaal
Senator Peel ..... Sean Murray
Mrs Peel ..... Emma Handy
Sheriff Matthews ..... David Seddon
Frank Jones ..... Ryan Whittle
The Doctor ..... Lewis Bray
Directed by Marc Beeby.
While the US Congress was passing legislation to put an end to Segregation, courts in the Deep South were still presided over by racist (elected) judges, mayors still employed brutal Sheriffs with links to the Ku Klux Klan, and in many counties over 90% of the black population were denied the vote through illegal red tape and brazen intimidation. It took a few brave lawyers and campaigners to fight landmark legal cases to put the new legislation into action.
C. B. King was the only black lawyer in an area of Georgia the size of England, where over half the population were black. He was eloquent, confident and street wise. He was also just the kind of African-American that the whole Jim Crow system was designed to rub out. He braved white mobs outside courts trying to stop him defending black clients, and even into the early 1980s, CB had to employ a driver in a fast car to escape from the Ku Klux Klan in "bad" Georgia counties.
King was a beacon of light for campaigners throughout America, and he attracted the cream of the country's law students, who competed for internships at his practice. In the summer, white undergraduates from Harvard, Yale or Berkeley would make their way to Albany, Georgia, to work with him, despite the well-known risk of violence and even death at the hands of the KKK.
CB's stories are told through the physical and emotional journey of a Harvard law student, Bobby Peel, who spends a summer with CB, working on two landmark cases. The cases are real. This naïve, campaigning, ambitious, 20 year-old middle class white kid is mentored by CB King. Through their eyes we see the dark heart of segregation and the divide between the modern northern states and the racist legal and social structures of the Deep South.
These dramas are made with the co-operation of CB King's family, including Baroness Oona King, his niece,.
Financial phone-in.
Josie Long hears stories of crossing over to the other side - from radio waves permeating political barriers to the migratory routes of eels.
Radio 100
Featuring Leslie Rosin, Cornelia Saxe and Gregor Schuster
Produced by Leo Hornak
The Other Side
Featuring Laura Barton
The Last Night
Featuring Anny Shaw
Produced by Andrea Rangecroft
Series Producer: Eleanor McDowall
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4.
Topical programme about the fast-changing media world.
Carolyn Quinn with interviews, context and analysis.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Part 3: Seventy-Five Years
"Maybe there is neither good nor bad luck; maybe we're all just component part of an endless story"
Multi-award winning storyteller Sarah Kendal returns with more hilarious, gripping and moving stories.
This second volume of Sarah Kendall's Australian Trilogy, is one show in three parts. A collection of seemingly unconnected stories and memories, which, together, form a meditation on luck, survival and hindsight.
Scrolling backwards and forwards in time to different moments in her life, over the three parts Sarah creates an intricate montage, demonstrating the interconnectedness of life.
In this final part, Sarah tells of he grandparents lives, past and present. Stabbings, alien abductions and dementia wards. We find out why Halley's Comet meant so much to Sarah's dad and we conclude with a story about an astronaut's final trip.
Written by Sarah Kendall & Carl Cooper
Performed by Sarah Kendall
Producer - Carl Cooper
Production Co-ordinator - Beverly Tagg
This is a BBC Studios production
Photo Credit - Rosalind Furlong
Series One of Sarah Kendall's Australian Trilogy-
Winner - Writers' Guild Award - Best Radio Comedy
Winner - BBC Audio Drama Award - Best Scripted Comedy (Longform)
Winner -Silver ARIA Award - Best Fictional Storytelling
Nominee - Chortle Comedy Awards - Best Radio Show
Nominee - Music and Radio Awards - Best Storytelling.
Kenton is left horrified and Jennifer's hopes are raised.
Arts news, interviews and reviews.
This week: how to better protect young people from the harmful effects of social media?
Follow ten of the country's brightest minds as they gather in the library of Bartley Green school, in Birmingham. They have just one day to come up with a solution that will convince a panel of judges - and the students of the school.
Who will impress and who will fall short?
Presented by Matthew Taylor and facilitated by Cat Drew from Uscreates.
Team One:
- Rebecca Ford - head of design programme, RSA
- Tobias Revell - Artist and designer
- Sam Howey Nunn - Director of Free Ice Cream
- Marialuisa Ferro - Social media blogger for UScreates
- Luke Newbold - Founder of Lens Change and Studio You London
- Asha, pupil at Bartley Green school
Team two:
- Lil Adair - Design consultant, USCreates
- Vasant Chari - Senior Policy Adviser, Policy Lab
- Molly Thompson - Community manager, Silicon Canal
- Megan Highcock - Youth Sight Research and Marketing
- Hamda Mohamed - Young leader, Uprising youth leadership
- Maisy, pupil at Bartley Green school
Expert witnesses:
- Victoria Goodyear - Pedagogical researcher into digital technologies, University of Birmingham
- Alan Earl - Online safety consultant
Series producer: Estelle Doyle and Producer: Jordan Dunbar.
Editor: Penny Murphy.
Talks with a personal dimension.
AL Kennedy goes in search of epiphanies - those powerful revelations, the Aha! Instant in cognitive science, the Eureka moment among theorists and inventors.
Epiphanies are not found, they come to us. The word epiphania in Greek means 'manifestation' or 'appearance'. Famous epiphanies include Archimedes' Eureka! as he discovered the method to determine the density of an object while sitting in the bath, and Isaac Newton's realisation that a falling apple and the orbiting moon are both pulled by the same force.
These light-bulb moments feel as if they happen in a flash but, as we hear, they're the final, dazzling product of a more subtle subconscious process.
The programme talks to scientists of the human brain who explain why these moments occur when we're doing something else - when we're in the shower, digging in the garden, watching apple trees, or woken suddenly in the early hours of the morning with the force of a lightning bolt.
These revelations are the ones we pass on, the insights we give to friends. Moments that help define us and the way we choose to be in the world.
A Cast Iron production for BBC Radio 4.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
Taking place during WWII, Kate Atkinson's new novel puts idealism on the spot and asks who can be trusted when loyalty is pushed to its limits.
After passing a series of tests set by her superiors, Juliet's career in espionage is about to take off.
Abridged by Robin Brooks
Read by Fenella Woolgar
Producer: Eilidh McCreadie.
Bittersweet comic real life stories written and performed by Chris Neill with Martin Hyder and Isy Suttie. This week - an encounter with a violinist and is France the answer?
Written by Chris Neill
Starring: Chris Neill, Isy Suttie and Martin Hyder
Producer: Steve Doherty
A Giddy Goat production for BBC Radio 4
Music:
Title: Dance Away
Perf: The Bryan Ferry Orchestra (from the soundtrack to Babylon Berlin)
Title: C'est Si Bon
Perf: Stanley Black and His Orchestra
Title: Belles, Belles, Belles
Perf: Claude Francois
Title: Les Champs-Elysees
Perf: Joe Dassin
Title: The Swan (from Carnival of the Animals/Saint-Saens)
Perf: Yo-Yo Ma with Kathryn Stott
Title: For Me Formidable
Perf: Charles Aznavour.
A heady combination of maths, science and comedy with Festival of The Spoken Nerd trio who are stand up Mathematician Matt Parker, Physicist Steve Mould and Physicist and musician Helen Arney. It's science that you can play along with at home as the team look at domestic phenomena that we relate to on a day to day basis.
In this episode the power of static electricity is harnessed, our internal bacteria examined and get a great life hack on how to chill cans of beer without a fridge.
Producer.... Julia McKenzie
A BBC Studios Production.
All the news from today's sitting at 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.
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Dr Eve Poole, Third Church Estates Commissioner for the Church of England.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Steve Backshall presents the house martin.
House martins are often confused with swallows , but look shorter-tailed and lack the rusty throats. They're compact birds which build their with pellets of mud under our eaves and although they're so familiar to us in summer, we still can't be certain where they spend the winter. Ornithologists believe that they may spend our winter catching insects high over African rainforests.
Morning news and current affairs. Including Yesterday in Parliament, Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks speaks to some of the world's leading thinkers about morality, together with voices from the next generation: groups of British 6th form students.
AI is already fundamentally transforming our world, and in the coming years will have an enormous impact on almost every aspect of our lives. So the ethical questions surrounding its development are urgent and important. Rabbi Sacks argues that we must always be able to choose our fate, in the full dignity of responsibility, never forgetting that machines were made to serve human beings, not the other way around.
Contributors:
Mustafa Suleyman, Co-founder and Head of Applied AI at DeepMind;
Nick Bostrom, Philosophy Professor at the University of Oxford;
Students from Queens' School in Hertfordshire.
Producer: Dan Tierney
Series Editor: Christine Morgan.
In her newly published 'diary of my thoughts', the renowned author and traveller Jan Morris covers much ground:
What treasures are to be found in Trefan Morys, her 'crumbling' home in North Wales? Then bonding once more with the old Honda car. And thoughts regarding the 'British Empire' of old.
Reader Janet Suzman
Producer Duncan Minshull.
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.
Philip's Mum is still caring for him, but he has at least found gainful employment. And it's while demonstrating fish smokers in the basement of a major department store, that he is approached by a TV company wanting to make a 'Where Are They Now?' style documentary about once minor celebrities. He invites their researcher to lunch but is dismayed to learn that his mother has already begun to fill her in on his recent history.
Shelagh Stephenson is the author of Radio 4's 'A Short History of Longing' and 'Guests Are Like Fish'. She is an Olivier Award winner for her play 'The Memory of Water' and has won Sony and Writer's Guild awards for her plays 'Darling Peidi' and 'Five Kinds of Silence'.
Writer ..... Shelagh Stephenson
Director ..... Eoin O'Callaghan
Producer ..... Eoin O'Callaghan.
Reports from around the world.
True stories of life-changing encounters with art in all its forms.
Each week, writer Anna Freeman presents a showcase of stories about art and people around Britain. In this second episode, Anna and the Sketches producers tell stories about portraits.
Becky travels to West Wales to find out why artist Grahame Hurd-Wood is painting a portrait of every single inhabitant of the city of St Davids. Mair meets the seamstress Lydia Higginson who gave away all the clothes she owned and made a whole new wardrobe from scratch. And Polly unfolds the story behind a mysterious piece of street art in Birmingham.
Producers: Mair Bosworth, Becky Ripley and Polly Weston
Presenter: Anna Freeman.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Two random questions in this episode. "Is anything truly random, or is everything predetermined?" asks Darren Spalding from Market Harborough.
Hannah and Adam go in search of random events, from dice throws to lava lamps. Can we predict the outcome of any event? And "how do computers manage to pick random numbers?", asks Jim Rennie from Mackinaw in Illinois.
Joining them are a random selection of experts: mathematician Colva Roney-Dougal, technology journalist Bill Thompson, Science Museum Curator Tilly Blyth and quantum physicist Jim AlKhalili.
Presenters: Adam Rutherford, Hannah Fry
Producer: Michelle Martin.
Consumer affairs programme.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
It's the build-up for fight night as boxing trainer Peter Stanley prepares his protégé Simon Corcoran for his professional debut.
Part of a new series of immersive features which allow the listener to step inside the heads of a compelling character and explore their world. Recorded in binaural stereo using the latest recording techniques for a rich, lifelike, 3-D sound. Subjects wear a small microphone in each ear, picking up sound just like the human ear. Whatever they hear, we hear - how they hear it. The series is best heard on headphones.
Recorded at the legendary York Hall in London's East End, experience the night as they did - backstage and in the ring - where the stakes are high for Simon.
Producer Neil McCarthy.
by David Morley
Another true story about African-American lawyer CB King as he fights for Civil Rights in the violent, racist counties of the Southern States of America in the 1960s.
C.B. King ..... Leo Wringer
Bobby Peel ..... Tom Forrister
Slater King ..... Steve Toussaint
Carol King ..... Cecilia Noble
Marion King ..... Saffron Coomber
Knight Collins ..... Ammar Duffus
Charles Sherrod ..... Tayla Kovacevic-Ebong
John Perdew ..... Ryan Whittle
Karl Skinner ..... David Seddon
Sheriff Cull Campbell ..... Ewan Bailey
Stephen Pace ..... David Schaal
Senator Peel ..... Sean Murray
Mrs Peel ..... Emma Handy
The Doctor ..... Lewis Bray
Secretary ..... Lucy Doyle
Directed by Marc Beeby.
Helen Mark visits the Malvern Hills. She meets a landscape historian, who shows her how human history has left its marks on the topography - if you know where to look for them. She finds out about the inspiration which the composer Edward Elgar drew from the area, and learns how the landscape is reflected in his music. Malvern is famous for its spring water, which has been bottled in the town since the 17th century. Helen meets the man who bought one of the springs by accident - and then went on to revive the Malvern spring water brand. The area is also known for its gas lamps, which are believed to have inspired C.S. Lewis in his description of the entrance to Narnia in 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe'. Helen finds that there are some very 21st century developments afoot for the Victorian gas lamps, and meets the man who's worked out how to power them using something which is in plentiful supply on the hills - dog poo!
Produced by Emma Campbell.
News and insights from the film world.
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.
Comedy about the inept staff at a historic house, starring Simon Callow and Jane Horrocks.
Every year thousands of tourists flock to the Lake District. But one place they never go to is Plum House - the former country home of terrible poet George Pudding (1779-1848). Now a crumbling museum, losing money hand over fist, it struggles to stay open under it's eccentric curator Peter Knight (Simon Callow).
Can anyone save Plum House from irreversible decline?
In this episode, a mysterious visitor arrives. Being visited is an unusual event in itself, but when he shows genuine interest in how the place is run our team immediately suspect he has been sent from the Trust to spy on them. Why else would a man, on his own, turn up at a museum unannounced?
The cast is joined by Kevin Eldon who guest stars as the visiting man of mystery.
Written by Ben Cottam and Paul McKenna
Directed and Produced by Paul Schlesinger
A Hat Trick production for BBC Radio 4.
Will attempts to let go and Tom has a new focus.
Arts news, interviews and reviews.
Series looking at important issues in the news. Presented by David Aaronovitch.
Do you own a sex toy? And if so, would you admit it to your friends? Increasingly, the answer to both questions is yes.
Once a seedy mail-order product advertised in the back pages of porn magazines, sex toys today are marketed as a fun way for couples to enhance their relationships. And in the process, the global sales of these objects of arousal have grown exponentially into the billions of dollars.
Laurence Knight explores how this came about, speaking to industry pioneers such as Sam Roddick, Doc Johnson and LoveHoney. And he travels to China, where many of them are manufactured.
Produced and presented by Laurence Knight.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
Taking place during WWII, Kate Atkinson's new novel puts idealism on the spot and asks who can be trusted when loyalty is pushed to its limits.
Juliet is having a busy war working for the Security Services - typing up fifth columnists' conversations by day and mingling with well-connected right wingers by night.
Abridged by Robin Brooks
Read by Fenella Woolgar
Producer: Eilidh McCreadie.
Between 1954 and 1959, BBC Radio recorded 102 episodes of Ray Galton and Alan Simpson's comedy classic Hancock's Half Hour. The first modern sitcom, it made stars of Tony Hancock, Sid James and Kenneth Williams, and launched Galton and Simpson on one of the most successful comedy-writing partnerships in history. But 20 episodes of the show are missing from the BBC archives, and have not been heard since their original transmission nearly sixty years ago. Now, after a highly successful first series, another five of those episodes have been lovingly re-recorded in front of a live audience at the BBC Radio Theatre, featuring a stellar cast led by Kevin McNally as The Lad Himself.
Tonight's episode: A Visit To Russia. With East/West relations in crisis, Tony takes it upon himself to launch his very own diplomatic mission...
Written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, and with the classic score newly recorded by the BBC Concert Orchestra, the show stars Kevin McNally, Kevin Eldon, Simon Greenall, Robin Sebastian and Susy Kane. A Visit To Russia was first broadcast on the 14th December 1955.
Produced be Ed Morrish & Neil Pearson.
Written by Ray Galton & Simpson
A BBC Radio Comedy Production.
All the news from today's sitting at 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.
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Dr Eve Poole, Third Church Estates Commissioner for the Church of England.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
Two-time Olympic Gold medalist Alex Gregory reflects on the birds he sees such as the kingfisher and heron while out on early morning training for this Tweet of the Day.
Tweet of the Day has captivated the Radio 4 audience with its daily 90 seconds of birdsong. But what of the listener to this avian chorus? In this new series of Tweet of the Day, we bring to the airwaves the conversational voices of those who listen to and are inspired by birds. Building on the previous series, a more informal approach to learning alongside a renewed emphasis on encounter with nature and reflection in our relationship with the natural world.
Producer: Mark Ward
Photograph: Anna Bilska.
News and current affairs, including Yesterday in Parliament, Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
Rabbi Jonathan Sacks speaks to some of the world's leading thinkers about morality, together with voices from the next generation: groups of British 6th form students.
Rabbi Sacks explores who young people see as their moral role models in the 21st Century and explores powerful reasons for hope for a better, more ethical and more responsible world.
Contributors:
Steven Pinker, Harvard cognitive psychologist, linguist, and author;
Melinda Gates, Philanthropist and co-founder of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation;
Heather Templeton-Dill, President of the John Templeton Foundation;
David Brooks, political and social commentator and author;
Jordan Peterson, professor of psychology at the University of Toronto;
Michael Sandel, political philosopher and professor at Harvard University;
Students from The Manchester Grammar School, Manchester High School for Girls, Loreto College in Manchester, Graveney School in London and Queens' School in Hertfordshire.
Producer: Dan Tierney
Series Editor: Christine Morgan.
In her newly published 'diary of my thoughts', renowned author and traveller Jan Morris covers much ground:
She recalls her late brother Gareth, a 'siffleur' of the highest order. Then ascending Mount Snowdon, Yr Wyddfa, one day. And then a chaotic yet comic walk to lunch on another day..
Reader Janet Suzman
Producer Duncan Minshull.
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.
Richard has survived the incident with Rapunzel in the whole-food restaurant and has been convinced by a would-be guru that he can have whatever he wants in life by just wishing hard enough for it ... Martha doesn't take too long in quashing this delusion leaving Richard in a state of complete and abject despair.
Shelagh Stephenson is the author of Radio 4's 'A Short History of Longing' and 'Guests Are Like Fish'. She is an Olivier Award winner for her play 'The Memory of Water' and has won Sony and Writer's Guild awards for her plays 'Darling Peidi' and 'Five Kinds of Silence'.
Writer ..... Shelagh Stephenson
Director ..... Eoin O'Callaghan
Producer ..... Eoin O'Callaghan.
Richard Clay explores why we are no longer afraid of nuclear annihilation, and whether we should be.
In December 2018, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists placed the Doomsday Clock at two minutes to midnight. Not since 1953, when the U.S. first tested its Hydrogen bomb, has the nuclear warning been so stark.
And yet, the paranoia and fear which once existed has seemingly disappeared. In the late 80s, the Government's Protect and Survive booklets were sent to households across Britain, telling people to crouch under the kitchen table when the four-minute warning sounded.
Raymond Briggs's animated novel When the Wind Blows depicted an elderly couple's final moments together following a nuclear strike, and films like Threads and The Day After shocked TV audiences and attracted huge controversy.
Today, however, people seem more agitated by issues like climate change than nuclear disaster. Richard Clay explores what has happened in the intervening 40 years.
Producers: Anthony Denselow and Ellie Clifford
Executive Producer: David Prest
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.
Police officer and comedian Alfie Moore returns with a new series of the show in which the audience make the policing decisions in a real-life case. Alfie has more than fifteen years' experience in the Humberside police force to draw from and in this, the first episode, Alfie uses a case from his time in the Dog Section , where he deployed his dog Zeus in a robbery chase.
This is the fourth series of this show that has been a real hit with the Radio 4 audience.
Written and presented by ..... Alfie Moore
Script-editor ..... Will Ing
Producer ..... Alison Vernon-Smith.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Hannah Fry and Adam Rutherford investigate everyday science mysteries. Why do we all have different pain thresholds? Adam visits a pain laboratory.
Consumer news and issues.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
Gamekeeper Mike Holliday stalks an elusive deer on the Glenample Estate in Scotland
Part of a new series of immersive features which allow the listener to step inside the heads of a compelling character and explore their world. Recorded in binaural stereo using the latest recording techniques for a rich, lifelike, 3-D sound. Subjects wear a small microphone in each ear, picking up sound just like the human ear. Whatever they hear, we hear - how they hear it. The series is best heard on headphones.
Numbers of deer on the estate have to be managed but culling them is by no means straightforward. Mike has to deploy the cunning of a hunter as he stalks his quarry on the glen.
Producer Neil McCarthy.
Written by Lisa Osborne. The story of Napoleon's last weeks before the long exile on St Helena.
In June 1815, HMS Bellerophon, captained by Frederick Maitland of the Royal Navy, was at anchor off the Atlantic coast of France waiting for news of Napoleon. The Emperor had fled the battlefield at Waterloo and made his way to Paris. As the royalists took control of the city, the Emperor fled to the coast hoping to escape to America.
Maitland's job was to stop him.
On 10 July, Napoleon was reported to be holed up in the Prefecture Maritime in Rochefort. For a tense few days, the Royal Navy and Napoleon played cat and mouse until, on the morning of 15th, Napoleon accepted that he could not evade the British fleet and gave himself up to Bellerophon (known affectionately by her crew as the Billy Ruffian), intending to bargain for house arrest somewhere in the English countryside.
For the next three weeks, his hopes rose and fell as the powers in London decided his fate. He spent that time on Bellerophon with his entourage, hoping for the best, fearing the worst, and befriending the young Scottish captain and crew of one of the Navy's most noble men of war.
Cast:
Napoleon.......................Adrian Scarborough
Maitland........................Arthur Darvill
Bertrand........................Adam James
Madame Bertrand..........Emerald O'Hanrahan
Mott...............................Sam Alexander
Baker Hawkins...............Sam Dale
Lord Liverpool...............Hugh Ross
Written and Directed by Lisa Osborne
Produced by Karen Rose
A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4.
Eric Robson and his panel of experts visit Merseyside. Bunny Guinness, Pippa Greenwood and Bob Flowerdew answer the audience questions.
Produced by Dan Cocker
Assistant Producer: Laurence Bassett
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.
In this new story by James Meek, we meet his Lordship, known as Gerry, who's flat broke and needs some heavy stones shifting at the manor. The required 'muscle' will come from an unexpected quarter..
Reader David Horovitch
Producer Duncan Minshull.
Obituary series, analysing and celebrating the life stories of people who have recently died.
Investigating the numbers in the news.
Friends who met through belly-dancing have found it's changed their lives. 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.
Comedian Simon Evans takes the guest host chair this week and finds plenty to satirise in this week's news.
Producer: Richard Morris.
Lily fears the worst and Hannah waves the white flag.
News, reviews and interviews from the worlds of art, literature, film and music.
Jonathan Dimbleby presents political debate and discussion from Leeds Minster with a panel including the Conservative peer Lord Pickles and the business woman and animal rights campaigner Selina Scott.
Producer: Lisa Jenkinson.
A weekly reflection on a topical issue.
In 2014 Polly Weston's sister Lara died. She had just turned 22. Lara and her family had never discussed organ donation, and she wasn't on the register. But when the family were asked if they would consider donation, they said yes. Out of the tragedy of her death, medics managed to donate her organs to four women, while her eyes saved the sight of three men.
In February a bill passed its second reading in Parliament to say that England would seek to move to an organ donation opt-out system - meaning citizens would be presumed to consent to their organs being donated unless they actively withdrew from the system. It seemed like there was universal support for the announcement. Labour were behind it. Newspapers rejoiced.
But having been through the process, Polly's family were unsure about whether this policy change would bring about an improvement in donations.
Now she asks what does organ donation really mean to families - and will an opt out system really make a difference?
Produced and presented by Polly Weston.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
Taking place during WWII, Kate Atkinson's new novel puts idealism on the spot and asks who can be trusted when loyalty is pushed to its limits.
After narrowly avoiding blowing her cover with Mrs Scaife, Juliet finds herself put on the spot about the rest of the team at Dolphin Square.
Abridged by Robin Brooks
Read by Fenella Woolgar
Producer: Eilidh McCreadie.
All the news from today's sitting at Westminster.
A sperm donor meets one of the many women he's helping. Fi Glover presents another conversation in the series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen.
Producer: Marya Burgess.