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.
Five historians explore the global impact of the 1918 armistice and the legacy it has left in our world: from the fringes of Europe to the Middle East. They challenge the conventional narrative about the end of the First World War and the peace settlements that followed, with repercussions still felt today.
Today, Jörn Leonhard, Professor of European History at the University of Freiburg, explores the German experience of the 1918 armistice. He explains how most Germans expected victory until the final weeks of the First World War and were unable to imagine defeat. On top of military defeat came the fall of the monarchy and the founding of the German republic. German soldiers returned to a country traumatised by the unexpected defeat, revolution and political polarisation.
Professor Leonhard argues that this combination fuelled what's been called the ‘stab-in-the-back’ legend, which was later used by Adolf Hitler against the hated democracy, and it explains why the armistice centenary has not attracted as much attention in Germany as it has in other countries.
Readings by Helen Ayres and Will Hubbard.
Produced by Melissa FitzGerald
A Blakeway production for BBC Radio 4
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping
The latest shipping forecast
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Guvna B, award-winning rapper and Grime artist.
"People just didn't get it... He was in a lovely family now, he had lots of support from loving parents, it was in the past. It was already starting to be in the past. But no; this is our present".
A listener explains how her son's adoption in infancy affects him as a teenager, and the impact it has on the family.
Send us a sentence of Your News: ipm@bbc.co.uk
Presented by Luke Jones. Produced by Cat Farnsworth
The latest news headlines. Including the weather and a look at the papers.
Elveden is a quaint rural Suffolk village with an intriguing history as the last Maharajah of the Sikh Empire was buried here in 1893. For almost two decades the village has attracted coach loads of Sikhs from all over the country and the world flocking to see the graveside of Maharajah Duleep Singh.
Bobby Friction, a broadcaster and DJ who is Punjabi Sikh has grown up hearing stories all about the last King of the Sikh Empire. He visits Elveden for the first time for Open Country to see for himself the graveside on the day that marks 125 years since Duleep Singh died. Bobby finds out more about the Maharaja and travels to the adjoining town of Thetford where the Maharaja has become an important part of the landscape.
The producer is Perminder Khatkar.
Half of all the sugar we use in the UK comes from home grown sugar beet. 3,000 growers produce about 8 million tonnes of sugar beet each year, and it's all bought and processed by just one company - British Sugar. Anna Hill has been to their sugar factory at Cantley in Norfolk to learn how a muddy root is used to make clean, white crystals of refined sugar.
Along the way she find out how this year's harvest is shaping up, learns about the damage sugar beet can do to the soil, and hears worries about an insecticide ban coming in next year.
She also looks at the potential impact of Brexit on this globally traded commodity.
Presented by Anna Hill. Produced by Heather Simons
The latest weather forecast.
News headlines and sport.
Stephen Fry joins Richard and Aasmah to talk about Greek Heroes and finding wedded bliss. We also have JoJo Wood who extolls the virtue of wood carving for mental health, and Dr Catherine Walker, a septuagenarian weightlifter and academic at Oxford university, and Bisi Alimi who is a LGBTQ rights campaigner and the first person to come out as gay on national TV in Nigeria. We have your thank you and broadcaster and writer Jenni Murray chooses her inheritance tracks: The Blue Danube by Strauss and Diamonds and Rust by Joan Baez.
Producer: Corinna Jones
Editor: Eleanor Garland
One radio producer, one randomly generated postcode, and an unheard story unfolding in a corner of Britain we wouldn’t otherwise know about.
Earlier this year, producer Polly Weston discovered a random postcode generator on the internet. It sparked a radical idea. Maybe by randomly generating postcodes, and then going there, we'd find stories which are being overlooked - stories of national importance which we never would have noticed without stumbling into them.
Each week, a new postcode is randomly generated. This postcode becomes Polly's patch. Near or far, populated or not, this is the area where she must go to make the programme.
Week one takes us to TQ8 8 - and into the heart of the mystery of the disappearing crabs.
Producer/Presenter: Polly Weston
Exec Producer: Jolyon Jenkins
Helen Lewis of The New Statesman looks behind the scenes at Westminster.
The Editor is Peter Mulligan.
In June 2016 voters in the United Kingdom elected to leave the European Union. The date for this departure, scheduled for the 29th of March 2019, is fast approaching – but what does Brexit actually mean? We’ve been told that Brexit means Brexit and that it will be implemented by a strong and stable government. Sounds good but the last few days have been rocky to say the least. Adam Fleming gives us his take from Brussels on all things Brexit.
Kate Adie introduces this and other stories from correspondents around the world.
Linda Pressly reports from Nigeria, where inpatients can end up as inmates
Steve Rosenberg gate-crashes a birthday party for Russian spies
Dave Lee is in California where the town of Paradise has been all but lost
And Caroline Eden tucks into a healthy slice of humble pie in an ancient Turkish city.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
This week the government's publication of its draft Brexit Withdrawal Agreement was followed by the cabinet resignations of Dominic Rabb and Esther McVey. The financial markets responded with a sharp drop in the pound before it stabilised and a fall in the share price of UK focused companies. Guest: Tom Stevenson Investment Director at Fidelity Worldwide Investments.
Some of the biggest clothing retailers are being warned they could be encouraging young shoppers to get into problem debt. Major sports and fashion names are using a new type of “try before you buy” service from the Swedish bank Klarna for online orders. Guest Moira O'Neill, head of personal finance at Interactive Investor.
A childminder reveals how problems with the government's tax-free childcare system are impacting on her business. Earlier this month around 22,000 standing order payments from parents to childcare providers were delayed. HMRC have apologised and say it was an isolated issue which has been fixed. Guest: Aoife Hamilton, Policy and Information Manager at Employers for Childcare.
Until now Starling Bank services could only be accessed via a smartphone app. That changed this week after it joined a partnership which allows its customers to deposit and withdraw cash at Post Office branches. Is this a step backwards for digital banking? Guest: Anne Boden CEO and founder, Starling Bank.
Presenter: Paul Lewis
Reporter: Dan Whitworth
Producer: Charmaine Cozier
Editor: Richard Vadon
Hugh Dennis presents the week via topical stand-up and sketches. This week he tackles the fallout from the Brexit withdrawal agreement and the fast moving news that followed it.
Ahir Shah has an upbeat piece about the world collapsing around him, Lucy Porter takes on sugar, and Beardyman brings us a beat-boxing Jacob Rees-Mogg.
Gemma Arrowsmith and Luke Kempner provide additional voices.
It was written by Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis, with additional material from Robin Morgan, Katie Storey, Sophie Duker, Laura Major and Mike Shephard.
The production coordinator was Sarah Sharpe
It was a BBC Studios production.
The latest weather forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
Jonathan Dimbleby presents political debate from Masham Town Hall in Ripon with Labour peer Lord Adonis, Northern Power House Minister Jake Berry MP, Shadow Brexit Minister Jenny Chapman MP, the CEO of Siemens UK Juergen Maier and Conservative MP John Redwood.
Producer: Lisa Jenkinson
Have your say on the issues discussed on Any Questions?
A gripping new drama by David Pownall imagining what may have happened if the composer Monteverdi had been summoned to Rome to appear before the all-powerful Inquisition on charges of allowing blasphemy and immorality to go unpunished at the end of his magnificent new opera The Coronation of Poppea.
The Emperor Nero, persecutor of the early Christian church, is the leading character and concludes the opera by singing a sublime love duet - something the church authorities cannot comprehend or sanction.
Weak and frightened, the elderly Monteverdi is even brought face to face with the highly unpredictable Pope. How will Monteverdi escape the suffocating clutches of the Church? Will the Inquisition succeed in stifling his creative impulses? Why is the Pope so involved?
This is novelist and dramatist David Pownall's 89th play for radio – a remarkable achievement. He revisits some of the long-standing areas of artistic interest that have always intrigued him. What motivates composers? What emotions inspire great music? How can a composer reconcile himself to the unbending demands of the Church or the State when under intense mental and physical pressure. Can a composer ever truly express himself under such strictures? This debate lies at the heart of his great stage play, the black comedy Master Class, in which Stalin tries to ‘persuade’ Prokofiev and Shostakovitch to work together to produce the perfect piece of Soviet music.
Cast:
Claudio Monteverdi Jim Norton
Maffeo Barberini David Horovitch
Claudia Monica Dolan
Busenello Anton Lesser
Domingo Michael Maloney
Adriano and Bernini Carl Prekopp
Sister John James Joyce
The Pope’s Secretary /Coachman Andrew Branch
and Giovanna and Martha Jane Whittenshaw
Written by David Pownall
Directed by Martin Jenkins
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4
Highlights from the Woman's Hour week.Presented by Jane Garvey
Producer: Rabeka Nurmahomed
Editor:Jane Thurlow
Full coverage of the day's news.
There has been an explosion in the number of craft ale breweries and small-scale gin distilleries in recent years. The so-called super premium alcohol sector is growing. Why are these drinks popular among consumers? Is this a passing fad or is the drinks business facing fundamental change? Evan Davis and guests discuss.
Guests:
Tina Warner-Keogh, partner and co-owner of Warner Edwards Gin Distillery
Laura Edwards, general manager at Meantime Brewing Company
and Andrew Geoghegan, global consumer planning director at Diageo
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest weather forecast.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Clive Anderson and YolanDa Brown are joined by Mark Knopfler, Nina Wadia, Kate Humble and Liam Charles for an eclectic mix of conversation, music and comedy. With music from Mark Knopfler.
Producer: Paula McGinley
An insight into the character of an influential person making the news headlines
The latest production of Macbeth at London's Globe Theatre sees real-life husband and wife, Paul Ready and Michelle Terry play the murderous couple
French film The Workshop is about a young people's writer's group where tensions over the plot development spill into the film's own story-line
Italian author Elena Ferrante's multi-million selling, globally-successful novels are coming to the TV. My Brilliant Friend has been adapted and directed by Saverio Costanzo: a man! Some avid fans have wondered aloud whether such a female-centric story might be beyond his capabilities.
Uwe Johnson's 1800 page meisterwerk Anniversaries was published in 4 parts from 1970 to 1983. It has just been translated into English for the first time - will they delight in its scope?
An exhibition at Modern Art Oxford of video work by Penny Woolcock reveals her fascination with the underdog
Podcastextra recommendations:
Kathryn is a fan of Channel 4's The Secret Life of The Zoo
Don was overawed by the majesty of the redwoods in Muir Woods in California
Jenny has been reading Kafka's The Unhappiness of Being A Single Man
Tom is looking forward to watching The House of Assad on BBC TV
Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Don Guttenplan, Kathryn Hughes and Jenny McCartney. The producer is Oliver Jones
Forty years ago this month, Viv Anderson made his debut for England against Czechoslovakia - the first black player to play for his country.
Former footballer Clark Carlisle looks back at the challenges black players faced at a time when racist abuse from the terraces - often from their own fans - and insults within the dressing room were a regular occurrence.
Some, like Cyrille Regis, chose to respond by ignoring the insults and death threats and by "putting the ball in the back of the net”. But should he and others have done more to stand up against the abuse?
Through archive and new interviews with those who lived through it - including former players like Garth Crooks, Paul Davis, Paul Mortimer and Paul Canoville - as well as his own personal experiences, Clark Carlisle examines the difficult choices black players faced and asks whether the issue of racism in football is really a thing of the past.
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4
by Vincent O'Connell
Susan has recently died. Was it an accident? Suicide? Murder? Three people visit her flat in a final communion with the woman they loved. But it seems she is a different woman for each of them.
CAST
Marie ..... Christine Absalom
Daniel ..... Nick Underwood
Erica ..... Cristina Catalina
Susan ..... Scarlett Brookes
Directed by Marc Beeby
Welcome to the modern world where airspace needs protecting, dating profile photographs need taking and lonely people need cuddling. It's the home of bizarre jobs brought about by a myriad of 21st century by-products.
Nick Baker meets the people behind some of the Britain's most niche jobs, gets inside the role, scopes out what it says about our world today and assesses whether it's time for a career change.
3. Life Story Writers
Nick Baker spends time at a bespoke story telling service where the ghost writers aren't penning for celebrities but ordinary people. He investigates why more of us are investing in our own posterity.
Producer: Leeanne Coyle
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
The Prime Minister’s Brexit plan is now on the table, but the table is looking very wobbly. We learned this week that the Chequers proposal, backed by cabinet ministers in July, was not so much a lollipop as a spoonful of castor oil, an “undesirable compromise” to be grudgingly accepted rather than greeted with enthusiasm. When the deal goes to Parliament for approval, will MPs and peers have a moral duty to support Theresa May's compromise, however unsatisfactory they believe it to be? Some will say ‘No, it’s a matter of moral principle to reject it,’ either because it’s not what the country voted for or because it’s not in the nation’s interests, or both. Others will accept that the reality of Brexit has turned out to be very different from the idea; it’s not a yes-no question any more, it’s a deck of political and economic priorities being shuffled and dealt round a crowded poker table. If ever there was a time to play the odds and cut our losses, they insist that this is it. Compromise can be a dirty word, especially where moral conviction is involved. To concede any ground in a deal is to risk being accused of weakness or lack of principle. Conversely, those who refuse to give ground can be seen as impractical or downright mulish. In our politics, our business deals and our personal relationships, how should we balance flexibility and integrity?
Producer: Dan Tierney
Quote … Unquote, the popular humorous celebrity quotations quiz, returns for its 54th series.
In almost forty years, Nigel Rees has been joined by writers, actors, musicians, scientists and various comedy types. Kenneth Williams, Judi Dench, PD James, Larry Adler, Ian KcKellen, Peter Cook, Kingsley Amis, Peter Ustinov… have all graced the Quote Unquote stage.
Join Nigel as he quizzes a host of celebrity guests on the origins of sayings and well-known quotes, and gets the famous panel to share their favourite anecdotes and quotes.
Episode 2
Historian, broadcaster and writer of award-winning sketch show Horrible Histories - Greg Jenner
Comedian and writer - Sindhu Vee
Actor and comedian - Roy Hudd
Presenter ... Nigel Rees
Producer ... Simon Nicholls
A BBC Studios Production
A Thankful or ‘Blessed’ village is a place where every soldier returned alive from World War One. Songwriter Darren Hayman heard about ‘Thankful Villages’ and knew that he had his next album title. He then embarked on a three year odyssey to visit all 54 of them..
Hayman writes a song for every village based on local characters, hidden stories and chance meetings. He records soundscapes in graveyards, playgrounds, churches, road sides and village fetes, uses playground xylophones, and old church organs.
Some songs take the form of instrumentals inspired by location, some are interviews with village residents set to music, others are new songs with lyrics or found local traditional songs.
The first Thankful Villages were identified and named by Arthur Mee in 1936 in his series of guidebooks, The King’s England.
“Thankful Villages is such a beautiful and strange title, I knew what I had to do. I had to visit every one of Britain’s 54 Thankful Villages,” says Hayman. “It was not going to be a project about war. Arthur Mee’s definition was really just a starting point; a random device to point me to small places. That’s what I love and that’s the one certainty I had about Thankful Villages, that it would be about small things, small things that matter.’
Producer: Thom Hoffman
A Greenpoint production for BBC Radio 4
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
An Indian ghost story from an exciting new voice in fiction, Deepa Anappara. It’s monsoon season, and as the rain turns into floods, a woman is trapped in her home. But is she really alone?
Reader: Indira Varma
Producer: Justine Willett
Writer: Deepa Anappara
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The latest shipping forecast
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
Bells on Sunday comes from the Church of All Saints, Writtle in Essex. Mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086 the Parish is one of the largest in Essex. The Tower contains a peal of ten bells with two extra trebles to provide an additional light ring of eight. The complete ring was cast by John Taylor of Loughborough in 2004. The Tenor weighs thirty one and a half hundredweight and is tuned to the key of D. We now hear part of a quarter peal rung in 2016 of Plain Bob Royal.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
At Passover, Jewish people eat bitter herbs as a reminder of the bitterness of slavery. Mark Tully explores bitterness in all its forms – as a taste and as an emotion, as a commemoration and part of our shared history, and as a corrosive, all-consuming mental state.
What is the difference between bitterness and anger? And what is the antidote to bitterness?
Egyptian-Jewish food writer Claudia Roden explains the importance of bitterness in her life – and offers Mark a taste of some rather bitter herbs.
Readings include Pip’s encounter with Miss Havisham in Great Expectations, with music from Billie Holliday to George Frideric Handel.
Readers: Rachel Atkins and Paterson Joseph
Presenter: Mark Tully
Producer: Hannah Marshall
A 7digital production for BBC Radio 4
Farmer, Stephen Jones, is one of the UK's only quinoa producers. Caz Graham visits his farm in Shropshire and hears how his quinoa business came from a love of experimenting. She asks how he convinced his Dad to grow such an unusual crop, gets cooking tips from local chef, James Sherwin and is given a sneak preview of Stephen's next experiment - lentils!
Producer: Heather Simons
The latest weather forecast.
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.
Sunday morning religious news and current affairs programme presented by Edward Stourton.
The presenter Matt Baker makes the Radio 4 Appeal on behalf of BBC Children in Need.
Registered Charity Number: 802052 in England and Wales and SC039557 in Scotland.
Donations: BBC Children in Need Appeal, PO Box 648, Salford, M5 0LB
or you can give online at bbc.co.uk/pudsey or call 0345 733 2233 (Calls to 03 numbers are charged at no more than UK geographic rates (as for 01 and 02 numbers) and will be included as part of any inclusive minutes. This applies to calls from any network including mobiles.
And you can also donate using - 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 'BBC Children in Need'.
- Cheques should be made payable to 'BBC Children in Need'.
The latest weather forecast.
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.
The poet Stewart Henderson leads a reflection on endurance from the church of Keswick St John in the Lake District. Drawing on the life and works of the poet William Wordsworth, the service features music from David and Yvonne Lyon and includes their songs "Enjoy not Endure", "As we follow you" and "Vesper Sky". As well as poetry from Wordsworth and Henderson, there is a reading from Psalm 121. Hymns include Jesus calls us o'er the tumult (St Andrew) and Great is thy faithfulness (Great is thy faithfulness). The church choir, directed by John Cooper Green, will sing the anthem "He that shall endure to the end" from Mendelssohn's Elijah and the service is led by the vicar, the Reverend Charles Hope. The producer is Janet McLarty.
Howard Jacobson on a very tricky dilemma - which of his possessions can he throw away or put into storage...and which must he keep?
"I inhabit a simple moral universe when it comes to sheets of paper", he writes. "Paper with words on, good. Paper with numbers on, bad".
But it's more complicated with some other things "How can I release the evidence of me to a storage company somewhere on the North Circular Road!"
Producer: Adele Armstrong
Calling herself a bird noticer rather than a bird watcher, for painter and print maker Carry Akroyd birds are part of the landscape she connects to for her work. Carry illustrated the Tweet of the Day British Birds book in 2013, where she began noticing birds of a single bold colour; black, white, or even black and white.
Carry has chosen 5 episodes from the back catalogue which you can hear Monday to Friday and in the Tweet of the Week Omnibus.
Producer Andrew Dawes
Sunday morning magazine programme with news and conversation about the big stories of the week. Presented by Paddy O'Connell.
Writer ..... Simon Frith
Director ..... Kim Greengrass
Editor ..... Jeremy Howe
Jill Archer ..... Patricia Greene
David Archer ..... Timothy Bentinck
Ruth Archer ..... Felicity Finch
Ben Archer ...... Ben Norris
Helen Archer ..... Louiza Patikas
Tom Archer ..... William Troughton
Christine Barford .... Lesley Saweard
Lilian Bellamy .... Sunny Ormonde
Neil Carter ..... Brian Hewlett
Susan Carter ..... Charlotte Martin
Justin Elliott ..... Simon Williams
Emma Grundy .... Emerald O'Hanrahan
Shula Hebden Lloyd .... Judy Bennett
Jim Lloyd ..... John Rowe
Adam Macy ..... Andrew Wincott
Jazzer McCreary ..... Ryan Kelly
Elizabeth Pargetter ….. Alison Dowling
Lily Pargetter ..... Katie Redford
Johnny Philips .... Tom Gibbons
Lynda Snell ..... Carole Boyd
Oliver Sterling .... Michael Cochrane
Roy Tucker ..... Ian Peperrell
Peggy Woolley ..... June Spencer
Lexi Viktorova.... Ania Sowinski
Hannah Riley ..... Helen Longworth
Lee ..... Ryan Early
Tracey Thorn, musician and writer, is best known as one half of the duo Everything but the Girl. Brought up in Brookmans Park, Hertfordshire, she bought her first guitar, a black Les Paul copy, when she was 16 and her first band was called the Stern Bobs. Shortly after, she formed her own all-female band, Marine Girls, before moving to Hull University to study English. On her first night there, she met her future husband, Ben Watt, and they went on to form Everything But the Girl. Between 1982 and 2000, they sold more than nine million records and toured Europe and America. Despite their success, Tracey did not always enjoy performing live.
At 35 she left the pop world to look after her twin girls, who were followed by her son Blake. She took about seven years out to be a full time parent, but since then she has come back to song-writing, recording music and writing: her first memoir Bedsit Disco Queen was a best seller, and she has a fortnightly column in the New Statesman.
This year Tracey was presented with the outstanding contribution to music prize, at the AIM independent music awards.
Presenter: Lauren Laverne
Producer: Cathy Drysdale
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
The 70th series of Radio 4's multi award-winning ‘antidote to panel games’ promises yet more quality, desk-based entertainment for all the family.
The series starts its run at the Lighthouse concert hall in Poole where regulars Tim Brooke-Taylor and Barry Cryer are joined on the panel by Tony Hawks and local boy John Finnemore, with Jack Dee as the programme's reluctant chairman.
Regular listeners will know to expect inspired nonsense, pointless revelry and Colin Sell at the piano.
Producer - Jon Naismith.
It is a BBC Studios production.
The Food Programme invites a panel of four to discuss the merits of a low versus high carbohydrate diet. Following up on the issues raised in discussing the government's dietary advice in the Eatwell Guide a panel including Duane Mellor of the University of Coventry, Fiona Godlee of the British Medical Journal, Dr Trudi Deakin and Anthony Warner aka the Angry Chef try to answer some of the questions and bust some of the myths about carbohydrates.
Producer: Maggie Ayre
The latest weather forecast.
News with Mark Mardell including Brexit latest and rejuvenating the High Street at Christmas.
In the latest programme of the monthly series, Mishal Husain introduces dispatches from journalists and writers around the United Kingdom that reflect the range of contemporary life in the country. From politics to pastimes, from hallowed traditions to emerging trends, from the curious to the ridiculous, the programme presents a tableau of Britain today.
Pieces this month include reflections on the very young and the very old playing together, how people on Lewis in the Western Isles are remembering a century-old tragedy that affected all families there, the special attraction of North Yorkshire for Goths and why a carol service takes us down to Strawberry Field.*
* as "From Our Home Correspondent" is a topical programme, pieces are subject to change at short notice.
Eric Robson and the panel are in Boston Spa, West Yorkshire. Neil Porteous, Bunny Guinness and Matthew Wilson answer this week’s questions from green-fingered enthusiasts.
The panellists offer advice on how to best move hydrangeas, making the most of a greenhouse during winter, and dealing with a spreading Pampas grass.
Also, James Wong heads to the fungarium at Kew Gardens to explore the largest collection of fungi in the world.
Produced by: Hannah Newton
Assistant Producer: Rosie Merotra
A Somethin’ Else production for BBC Radio 4
In a week of conversations illuminating the work of Children in Need - from children with worries about social media; a teenager and her mentor; and brothers with a history of drug abuse, homelessness and attempted suicide- Fi Glover presents another conversation in 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: Mohini Patel
1/3. By Patrick O’Brian. In 1812 Britain is at war with America and France. When Captain Jack Aubrey and Dr Stephen Maturin are forced to abandon ship in the South Atlantic they are picked up by the Royal Navy frigate, Java, in pursuit of an American heavy frigate, Constitution. But when the ships exchange fire the enemy proves superior. Jack and Stephen are taken as prisoners-of-war to Boston – where Stephen’s former lover, Diana Villiers, has become the mistress of an American diplomat. Dramatised by Roger Danes.
Captain Jack Aubrey...................................DAVID ROBB
Doctor Stephen Maturin.................RICHARD DILLANE
Diana Villiers......................................CANDIDA BENSON
Killick.................................................................JON GLOVER
Bonden..................................................................SAM DALE
Johnson..................................................STRUAN RODGER
Pontet-Canet...................................NICK UNDERWOOD
Clapier....................................................STEPHEN HOGAN
Jaheel Brenton...........................GERARD MCDERMOTT
Lt. Babbington..................................................DON GILET
Captain Lambert......................................SEAN MURRAY
Chads..........................................LIAM LAU FERNANDEZ
Other parts are played by the cast.
Producer/director Bruce Young
Best-selling novelist Barbara Kingsolver talks to Mariella Frostrup about her new novel Unsheltered, which uses a historical perspective to address contemporary US politics.
Patrick Gale explains why Moominland Midwinter is the book he'd never lend, and describes how it comforted him as a young child at boarding school.
In light of Anna Burns becoming the first Northern Irish novelist to win the Man Booker Prize, writers Lucy Caldwell and Brian McGilloway consider how writers from the North are answering the questions of whether, and how, to address The Troubles in their fiction.
And Sandip Roy reflects on how the historic decision to decriminalise homosexuality in India is opening doors for LGBT writers.
Hundreds of people travel back and forth across the Irish border on the Belfast to Dublin train every day. For work and for pleasure, to explore and come home, to pass unimpeded through what may be about to become the only land frontier between the UK and Europe.
With Brexit coming down the tracks and continued uncertainty about the future nature of the border, poet Leontia Flynn is taking the train between the two cities and back again.
As Leontia's poetry mixes with the stories and voices of the people she meets, she soon discovers many of them are crossing a personal border of their own. The homeless man who takes the train for shelter. The cosplay fanatic who thinks a hard border might spell an end to his cross border comic-book conventions. The elderly woman who uses her time on the train to pray.
As Leontia thinks about her own identity as a Northern Irish poet in an ever shifting political landscape, she's crossing the border by rail, poetry and words.
Producer: Conor Garrett for BBC Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland has some of the highest rates in Europe of pollution linked to agricultural waste – the by-product of intensive pig, poultry and cattle farming. One solution is to turn the waste into energy through green recycling schemes that attract multi-million pound subsidies. But is the system being ‘gamed’ by industry?
An investigation by BBC Radio 4’s File on 4 programme has found that some waste-to-energy schemes are receiving public cash despite operating without planning approval. Their aim was to reduce harmful emissions and pollution, but there are mounting concerns that some schemes have exacerbated environmental harm. The energy regulator OFGEM is responsible for administering the waste-to-energy schemes. Are they doing enough to protect the public's money and has yet another green subsidy effectively back-fired?
Reporter: Lesley Curwen
Producer: David Lewis
Editor: Gail Champion
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From grand opera to blokes bashing cymbals affixed to their person, there is an eclectic musical theme skipping through Pick of the Week, presented by Poet and Lyricist, Stewart Henderson, courtesy of programmes from Bruno Tonioli and Tom Ravenscroft. Also contributing to the repertoire is The Ruhleben Legacy, a Radio 3 documentary about a, behind enemy lines, First World War, Berlin internment camp, where distinguished, banged up British classical musicians set about composing new works. And there is a striking, 1960’s archive interview featuring the American playwright, Lorraine Hansberry, the first black, female dramatist to be produced on Broadway.
We call it Pick Of The Week…because that’s what it seeks to be.
Lily takes the strain and Roy struggles to adapt.
By John Nicholson, Richard Katz and Javier Marzan
Richard Wilson plays Robinson Crusoe in an irreverent re-boot of Daniel Defoe's classic.
After cheating their captain of the ship's treasure, a couple of sailors go into hiding on a deserted island. Their plans to lay low are rumbled when they're discovered by a long-forgotten castaway and his Spanish manservant.
In this new series the comedy troupe Peepolykus assume the roles of minor characters in great works of fiction and derail the plot of the book through their hapless buffoonery.
Director . . . . . Sasha Yevtushenko.
Twelve flights. Twelve travellers. Twelve stories.
In David Szalay's deeply moving short story series, twelve travellers circumnavigate the globe en route to see lovers, children, parents, brothers and sisters, or nobody at all. From London to Madrid, Dakar to Sao Paolo, Seattle to Hong Kong, and beyond, these are stories of lives in turmoil, each in some way touching the next.
In today's story, on a flight back to Hong Kong, a wife is torn between love and lust.
Writer: David Szalay
Reader: Liz Sutherland-Lim
Producer: Justine Willett
Original Music: Kirsten Morrison
Roger Bolton talks to Katya Adler about covering Brexit, and hears listener views on BBC Sounds, University Unchallenged and the conclusion of Home Front.
It’s been a busy news week for those keeping track of Brexit, with the news moving almost too fast to follow. But what's it like for the reporters tasked with explaining it? Roger Bolton speaks to the BBC’s Europe editor, Katya Adler about the past week at the coalface.
The BBC Radio 4 documentary University Unchallenged asked if universities have enough breadth of political opinion, considering whether the intellectual climate in academia is being constrained by a lack of "viewpoint diversity". But listeners were split on whether the programme took the right approach. Producer Martin Rosenbaum answers their comments.
Since its recent launch, the BBC Sounds website and app have been a regular subject of discussion in the Feedback inbox. After more mixed comments from the audience, Executive Product Manager of BBC Sounds, Chris Kimber, speaks to Roger and answers listener comments queries.
Finally, listeners reflect on the conclusion of Radio 4 series Home Front, a drama that charted everyday life in Britain during World War One.
Presenter: Roger Bolton
Producer: Alice Bloch
Executive Producer: Deborah Dudgeon
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4
Pictured: Stan Lee
Matthew Bannister on
The naturalist and expert on animal evolution Aubrey Manning who presented the acclaimed BBC TV series Earth Story.
The Jewish Communist campaigner Max Levitas who fought Oswald Moseley's fascist blackshirts.
The singer Babs Beverley - one third of the close harmony singing group the Beverley Sisters.
Janet Paisley the poet and novelist known for her work in the Scots language.
Stan Lee - revered creator of comic book icons like Spiderman, the X-Men and the Fantastic Four.
Interviewed guest: Derwent May
Interviewed guest: Julian Hector
Interviewed guest: Stephanie Hilbourne
Interviewed guest: Matthew Sweet
Interviewed guest: Linda Jackson
Interviewed guest: Michael Goldfarb
Producer: Neil George
Archive clips from: Sunday Morning with Richard Holloway, Radio Scotland 14/02/2010; The Poetry of Life, Radio Scotland 27/01/2008; The Language of Kings, BBC Scotland/Hopscotch Films 28/02/2006; PM, Radio 4 04/10/2006; Woman's Hour, Radio 4 14/08/1985; Richard Bacon, 5 Live 20/08/2009; 5 Live interview 12/11/2018; Third Ear, Radio 4 17/12/1991; Today, Radio 4 18/11/2015; Rules of Life: Life Before Birth, Radio 4 24/01/2006; Earth Story: The Time Travellers, BBC Worldwide / Learning Channel 01/11/1998; Images by Janet Paisley. 31/12/2018; Jeremy Vine, Radio 2 09/11/2011; Max Levitas Battle of Cable Street, Fourman Films 07/09/2013.
Many key findings in psychological research are under question, as the results of some of its most well-known experiments – such as the marshmallow effect, ego depletion, stereotype threat and the Zimbardo Stanford Prison Experiment – have proved difficult or impossible to reproduce. This has affected numerous careers and led to bitter recriminations in the academic community. So can the insights of academic psychology be trusted and what are the implications for us all? Featuring contributions from John Bargh, Susan Fiske, John Ioannidis, Brian Nosek, Stephen Reicher, Diederik Stapel and Simine Vazire.
Presenter: David Edmonds
Producer: Ben Cooper
Preview of the week's politics with politicians, pundits and experts.
With Antonia Quirke
Luca Guadagnino reveals his plans to turn Call Me By Your Name into a long-running saga that will span decades, and how he was inspired to re-make Suspiria even before he’d seen Dario Argento’s original in 1977.
Neil Brand shows us how Alan Silvestri's score for Back To The Future changed the game for adventure movies.
As 9 To 5 returns to cinemas and Working Girl celebrates its 30th anniversary, Gaylene Gould and Anna Smith chart the movie stereotypes of working women.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
Architecture, housing and health. Laurie Taylor explores a neglected aspect of well being. He's joined by the writer, Iain Sinclair, Daryl Martin, Lecturer in Sociology at the University of York and Christine Murray, founder of the “Women in Architecture” Awards.
Producer: Jayne Egerton
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping
The latest shipping forecast
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Guvna B, award winning rapper and Grime artist
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside
The latest weather forecast for farmers.
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs.
John Aitchison tells the story of the chough. Our healthiest chough populations are in Ireland, southwest and north Wales and western Scotland. The last English stronghold was in Cornwall and Choughs feature on the Cornish coat of arms. Even here they became extinct until wild birds from Ireland re-colonised the county in 2001. Now the birds breed regularly on the Lizard peninsula.
Radio 4's flagship news and current affairs programme; including Thought for the Day
A stifling culture of safety is now spreading throughout Western academic institutions leading to a crisis in mental health, according to the social psychologist Jonathan Haidt. He tells Amol Rajan that the current obsession with ‘safe spaces’ and no-platforming, is not only a breach of freedom of speech, but is creating a generation unable to cope with modern life.
But the commentator Yasmin Alibhai-Brown argues that free speech has often been used as a justification to spout hate speech and prejudice. She defends political correctness as a means to build a safer, more compassionate world.
The writer Olivia Sudjic made her name after the publication of her debut novel Sympathy which explored surveillance and identity in the internet age. But as she became the focus of attention she felt trapped in a spiral of self-doubt. She looks at the epidemic of anxiety among the so-called ‘snowflake’ generation.
Changing attitudes are at the heart of Mark Ravenhill’s new play, The Cane. Should a well-respected teacher be punished retrospectively for past actions which are now deemed unacceptable, but few questioned at the time?
Producer: Katy Hickman
In her new memoir Michelle Obama chronicles the life experiences that have shaped her; abridged for radio by Katrin Williams.
We first join her on the way to Princeton, driven there by her father, with boyfriend David as company too. A whole new world will be opening up, from the South Side in Chicago to these hallowed halls of learning..
Reader Michelle Obama.
Producer Duncan Minshull
(Photo credit: Courtesy of the Obama-Robinson Archive)
The music industry was dominated by men back in the sixties but Cilla Black was never scared to stand up for herself. She was Britain’s best-selling female singer back then. Now a new album has been released called Cilla Black with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic. It features Cilla’s biggest hits from the 60s and 70s. Juliette Pochin is one of the producers and she explains why and how Cilla's vocals have been remastered and how they chose Sir Cliff Richard, Rebecca Ferguson and Sheriden Smith to do duets.
We used to be pretty sure about the difference between sex and gender. We thought sex was biological and gender was social. Gender was all about adopting roles within a society which is thought to be unequal. However, many people, including some who are transgender, argue that it's much more complicated than that. So today we reassess what's sex and what's gender and catch up on all the current arguments.
Jeremy Front arrives in Cambridge to visit the 'Zinoviev School of International Relations' to find out more about its new head Jessica Kennedy (Rebecca Front). Jessica has managed to jump from high-level job to high-level job, with seemingly few qualifications. Is she just a consummate power player? Or are there more sinister forces at work? Jeremy Front is here to find out. And he won't let anything get in his way. Not even breakfast.
Starring:
Jeremy Front as Jeremy Front
Rebecca Front as Jessica Kennedy
Emma Sidi as Eva
Ewan Bailey as Trader/Porter
and
Simon Yadoo as Bus driver/Protester
Producer: Sam Michell
It is a BBC Studios Production
Grace Dent returns with a new series of stories from 21st century Britain.
Today, 38 year old entrepreneur Simon fights to become his teenage niece's legal guardian after she was placed in care.
Until last year, Simon was a highly successful businessman with a city lifestyle to match. Then his business went under - and with it his sense of purpose in life.
At around the same time his 13 year old niece was placed into local authority care because of her mother's drug use.
Simon resolves to get his niece out of care and become her legal guardian - but it involves a fraught legal process and a massive life change.
Producer: Laurence Grissell
After being interrogated last week by Sara Cox, Joe Lycett turns interviewer and invites his chosen guest Katherine Ryan into the Chain Reaction hotseat.
Chain Reaction is the talk show with a twist where one week's interviewee becomes the next week's interviewer. John Cleese was first in the hot seat back in 1991 and since then, a procession of big names from the world of comedy and entertainment including Jennifer Saunders, Jarvis Cocker and Eddie Izzard have helped continue the chain.
Joe Lycett is a stand-up comedian who some know as "the parking fine man" from 8 out of 10 Cats Does Countdown while others celebrate him for any number of acclaimed live tours and festival shows that have delighted the British comedy viewing public in recent years.
Joe's chosen guest is Katherine Ryan, the Canadian stand-up star and presenter who is perhaps best known for her live stand-up work - 'Glam Role Model' and 'Kathbum' - as well as appearances on BBC2's Episodes and Taskmaster on Dave. Katherine fields questions on subjects as varied as being compared to Joan Rivers and the secret of happiness, all via a mini-detour to address her hatred of bread.
Producer: Richard Morris
A BBC Studios Production
Photo credit: Matt Stronge.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
'It was tempting to think, at times like this, that some bizarre hysteria had gripped the British people.'
Jonathan Coe's new novel for Brexit Britain.
Beginning eight years ago on the outskirts of Birmingham, where car factories have been replaced by pound shops, and London, where riots give way to Olympic fever, Jonathan Coe's new novel follows a Britain through a time of mind-boggling change.
There are newlyweds Ian and Sophie, on either side of the Referendum debate; Doug, the leftwing journalist who writes about austerity from his Chelsea townhouse, and his radical teenage daughter who will stop at nothing in her quest for social justice; Benjamin Trotter, who embarks on an apparently doomed new career in middle age, and his father Colin, whose last wish is to vote to leave the EU. Through these lives is the story of modern England: a story of nostalgia and delusion; of bewilderment and barely-suppressed rage.
Today: 'that bigoted woman'.
Writer: Jonathan Coe's novels include The Rotter's Club and What a Carve Up!
Producer: Justine Willett
Reader: Jeff Rawle is an acclaimed British actor, best known for his role as the long-suffering George Dent in the sitcom Drop the Dead Donkey.
Abridger: Richard Hamilton
Radio 4's consumer affairs programme.
The latest weather forecast.
Mon-Thurs: Analysis of news and current affairs, presented by Sarah Montague. Fri: Analysis of news and current affairs, presented by Mark Mardell.
Education is often seen as a panacea for a liberal civilised society: the more, the better. But what if we’re wrong? What if the desire to deliver higher education to as many people as possible is actually making society less fair?
Economist Bryan Caplan poked a hornet’s nest recently with his book “The Case Against Education”. It argued passionately that higher education has become a mere signalling exercise for employers – one which rewarded rote-learning conformism and threw anyone with less than a 2:1 on the scrapheap.
Much admired – and much criticised – Caplan’s book was a call-to-arms for an end to a futile, economically-crippling education arms-race. His solution? Simply pull funding for almost all higher education until its social worth was fully proven.
Advertising guru and behaviourist Rory Sutherland is joined in studio by the Executive Director of the Education Policy Institute Natalie Perera - and down the line by Bryan Caplan himself – to assess one of liberal society’s most sacred cows.
Produced by Steven Rajam for BBC Wales
Drama from Syria telling stories of contemporary life in Damascus.
As the Government are scouring the community to find recruits for military service, Wajd is returning home to sell her late mother's apartment. She is quickly embroiled in conflict as her presence in the neighbourhood has dramatic and unexpected consequences. She's a former opposition activist, but it’s her pro-Government friend Mandour who offers the help she needs.
Stories From Hay El Matar is a uniquely authentic drama series that takes place in a fictional suburb of Damascus. It is made by a team of Syrian and Lebanese artists working with British director Boz Temple-Morris, and is recorded in Beirut, Lebanon.
Each story in the series takes place at the same point in time, exploring a different part of the community. They are adapted from the Arabic language radio drama, Hay El Matar, produced by BBC Media Action, which provides a balanced and authentic depiction of everyday events for people inside Syria. It ran for one season of 150 episodes between 2016 and 2017and aimed to humanise opposing groups by countering stereotypes and providing balanced and authentic depictions of the various groups and situations across Syrian society. It included detailed consideration of issues such as early marriage and radicalisation as well as many issues around day to day living.
Stories from Hay El Matar is written in Arabic by Syrian writer Hozan Akko, and adapted into English by actor and dramatist Raffi Feghali. It offers a rare glimpse of how normal life is lived in Syria through these extraordinary times and features a cast of actors from Syria and Lebanon, many of whom are themselves living through the kinds of events depicted in the drama.
Cast:
Wajd Yara Bou Nassar
Mandour Elie Youssef
Kevork Raffi Feghali
Assaf Oussama el Ali
Abou Jameel Marcel Bou Chakra
Jack Alhasan Yousseff
Amer Adeeb Razzouk
Toufik Saseen Kawzally
Souad Maya Harb
Hadeel Nesrine Abi Samra,
And Ghali Hussam Sharwany
Studio recording Karim Beidoun, Guerilla Studios
Spot effects Layal Salman
Sound editing Alisdair McGregor
Music Ziad Ahmadiye
Adaptation Raffi Feghali
Writer Hozan Akko
Producer and Director Boz Temple-Morris
A Holy Mountain production for BBC Radio 4
Quote … Unquote, the popular humorous celebrity quotations quiz, returns for its 54th series.
In almost forty years, Nigel Rees has been joined by writers, actors, musicians, scientists and various comedy types. Kenneth Williams, Judi Dench, PD James, Larry Adler, Ian KcKellen, Peter Cook, Kingsley Amis, Peter Ustinov… have all graced the Quote Unquote stage.
Join Nigel as he quizzes a host of celebrity guests on the origins of sayings and well-known quotes, and gets the famous panel to share their favourite anecdotes and quotes.
Episode 3
Actress, writer and star of hit Radio 4 comedy Dead Ringers - Jan Ravens
Author of Brick Lane - Monica Ali
Broadcaster and former host of Going For Gold - Henry Kelly
Presenter ... Nigel Rees
Producer ... Simon Nicholls
The sounds of casting, chiming, singing and clanging are fused together to make a magical sound track to the story of how meat cleavers have been used as musical instruments for over 300 years..
Growing up in Suffolk, Nathaniel Mann, heard stories passed down by his grandma about a tradition of the village Rough Band, made up of pots and pans, iron and metal implements, including meat cleavers - delivering a sort of sonic warning to anyone stepping out of line, committing adultery or behaving in way considered unacceptable.
As part of the Avant-Folk trio 'Dead Rat Orchestra', Mann, a singer and composer, has long been playing music with strange percussive instruments.
Coming across an old meat cleaver in his dad's garage he was inspired to make a set of cleavers to play music on - so turned to a bronze bladesmith to help turn meat cleavers into musical gold.
In a chance discovery, he discovered the idea wasn't new - and so he sought out Jeremy Barlow, author of “The Enraged Musician”, to find out the coded messages of Hogarth’s musical prints, including marrow bones and meat cleavers.
He also visits BathIRON 2018, as a new bandstand is being cast for the city of Bath, and gets the chance to conduct and sing with an orchestra of master smiths.
The freshly cast meat cleaver is finally used in one of the Nest Collective's Campfire Concerts, where the Dead Rat Orchestra join a trio of female folk musicians from Poland - Sutari - who have developed their own parallel world of Rough Music.
A joyful celebration, some nail biting forging, and some entrancing music. You've never heard cleavers like this before....
Producer: Sara Jane Hall
For some people the sight of blood can make them feel rather queasy but it is a tangible life force with an agreed purpose – a bodily fluid which delivers nutrients and oxygen to our cells and transports waste products away from those same cells. Just as blood is an essential component of life, it seems it is also vital to our religious traditions. Ritual slaughter of animals is still widespread. At the heart of Christian faith is belief in the redeeming qualities of the blood of Jesus. Some traditions hold blood to be so sacred that they would be prepared to see a child die rather than permit a blood transfusion.
Joining Ernie to discuss the Religious significance of blood are Douglas Davies - Professor of the Study of Religion at Durham University, Dr Mikel Burley - Associate Professor of Religion and Philosophy at the University of Leeds and Dr Dawn Llewellyn - Senior Lecturer in Christian Studies and Deputy Director at the Institute of Gender Studies at the University of Chester.
Producer: Helen Lee
Series Producer: Amanda Hancox
PM at 5pm: interviews, context and analysis.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
The 70th series of Radio 4's multi award-winning ‘antidote to panel games’ promises more homespun wireless entertainment for the young at heart.
This week the programme pays a return visit to the Lighthouse concert hall in Poole where regulars Tim Brooke-Taylor and Barry Cryer are once again joined on the panel by Tony Hawks and John Finnemore, with Jack Dee in the chair. At the piano - Colin Sell.
Producer - Jon Naismith.
It is a BBC Studios production.
Neil confronts the enemy and David is unhappy with his new role.
Live daily magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
Ben Wright looks back at the drama and repercussions of the truly “meaningful” Commons vote that took the UK into the European Economic Community in 1971.
Prime Minister Edward Heath had secured a deal with Brussels but could not guarantee getting it through the Commons because of opposition within his own Tory party. The Labour front bench opposed EEC membership - but there were pro-European Labour MPs in favour and Heath needed their support.
The marathon debate was held over six days and was one of the great post-war parliamentary moments. In the end Heath, who described the parliamentary vote as a decision to take “our rightful place in a truly United Europe”, won.
The victorious PM returned to Downing Street that night and played the first of Bach’s preludes and fugues on his clavichord. Harold Macmillan lit a bonfire of celebration on the cliffs of Dover. The Sun’s headline the next day was “In we go!”.
As Parliament votes again, this time on exit, could Theresa May learn anything from her predecessor’s triumph?
Producer: Adam Bowen
What could cause a future financial crash? Ian Goldin, professor of globalisation and development at Oxford University, talks to some of the world's leading economists about whether we have learnt lessons from the 2008 financial crash and whether countries are now better prepared to meet the next crisis. Or are we condemned to another economic meltdown, perhaps even more severe, which would provide new fuel to the fires of populism? A decade ago, the world was taken by surprise. Will it be again? Featuring contributions from the IMF's Managing Director, Christine Lagarde, Lord Nick Stern, Professor Peter Piot, Pascal Lamy and Jeffrey Sachs.
Producer: Ben Carter
Rictus, 2015 (detail)
Artist Ken Currie's paintings of the human body have been described as 'arresting and intensely visceral'. Now he accepts an invitation from Sue Black, Professor of Anatomy and Forensic Anthropology, to examine for himself the reality of the human body. Ken takes a journey to Brussels to look at the famous painting by Jacques-Louis David, 'The Death of Marat', and on to Dundee to witness the actual nature of flesh and bone at the Centre for Anatomy and Human Identification, Dundee University.
Producer Mark Rickards
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
After a decade photographing The Oldest Living Things In The World, New York photographer Rachel Sussman said she began thinking of deep time as deep water. “The more time I spent in the depths, the more I could stay in that space longer.”
What can we glean from spending time in the company of those who fix their gaze on longer timeframes, whose work entails inhabiting expanded notions of time, who seek both to ask and answer questions about our bounded place in that which is boundless?
This is a sonic deep-dive into deep time and "the long now" - a series of close encounters via philosophy and science, literature and nature, art and the lived life, which delves into how we can think long-term and hold something of deep time as we move through our days. With musings and moments that connect the speaker to the infinite at one time or another - to the deep past, the long future, or the bigger present.
Perhaps, if we can better inhabit an expanded view of time, we might also expand how we can live its mysteries and exigencies.
Featuring interviews with philosopher and author David Wood, NASA astrophysicist and research astronomer Natalie Batalha, Brooklyn-based photographer Rachel Sussman, Australian writer and philosopher Christina McLeish, and Danny Hillis, an American inventor, scientist and designer of The Long Now’s 10, 000 Year Clock.
With thanks to NASA’s sound archive and the University of Iowa’s Space Sounds.
Including extracts from poems by Alice Oswald and Edna St Vincent Millay.
Produced by Jaye Kranz
A Falling Tree productions for BBC Radio 4
All the news from today's sitting at Westminster.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping
The latest shipping forecast
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Guvna B, award winning rapper and Grime artist
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about the British birds inspired by their calls and songs.
Wildlife Sound Recordist, Chris Watson, presents the Redwing. The soft thin 'seep' calls of redwings as they fly over at night are as much a part of autumn as falling leaves, damp pavements and the smoke of bonfires. In winter up to a million redwings pour into our islands, most of them from Scandinavia and Iceland.
Radio 4's flagship news and current affairs programme; including Thought for the Day
How do you convince a Formula One racing driver that they are speeding round the race track at Le Mans when, in fact, they are sitting in a simulator in the McLaren offices in Woking? Apparently it’s all about getting the vibrations right. Racing drivers really do drive by the seat of their pants. They’re also highly attuned to the sound of the engine and instinctively associate different sounds with different speeds. When Caroline Hargrove started trying to build a driveable model of a Formula One car, many thought it just wouldn’t be possible. Today, all the major manufacturers of Formula One cars use simulators to help them design faster cars and improve driver performance. Caroline talks to Jim Al-Khalili about how she stumbled upon a job in Formula One and stayed for twenty years. And why she now wants to build digital twins for human beings.
Producer: Anna Buckley
Lynne Truss talks to Jillian Moody about her experiences of travelling across the world in a campervan with her husband and three young daughters. The family bought a second-hand campervan prior to the trip which had no shower and no toilet and after a terrible first night, reality took its toll as they realised their itinerary would have to change. They were faced with many challenges en route but after 38,000 miles, there's no doubt it was a life-changing experience for Jillian. Producer Sarah Bunt.
In her new memoir Michelle Obama chronicles the experiences that have shaped her life.
From Chicago's South Side, to a sparkling education, to her time as a qualified young lawyer. One day at the firm, she is asked to mentor a young trainee called Barack Obama.
Read by Michelle Obama
Producer Duncan Minshull
(Photo credit: Courtesy of the Obama-Robinson Archive)
The programme that offers a female perspective on the world
Jeremy Front wakes in Cambridge to continue day two of his interrogation of 'Incredible Woman' Jessica Kennedy, and hopefully find out if it really is true she's in line to become the first female Director General of the BBC. But it's not easy interviewing someone as busy as Jessica, so Jeremy follows her to the House of Lords in the hope of pinning her down during the journey. Unfortunately, a pitstop for refreshments in the Upper House's canteen doesn't get Jeremy any closer to his scoop.
Starring:
Jeremy Front as Jeremy Front
Rebecca Front as Jessica Kennedy
Emma Sidi as Eva
And
Ewan Bailey as News Reader/Policeman
Producer: Sam Michell
It is a BBC Studios Production
Do words like movie, elevator or cookie raise your linguistic hackles? Do you hate hearing someone ask if they can ‘get’ a coffee? Lexicographer Susie Dent – more usually found in the Dictionary Corner of Channel 4’s Countdown – explores the history of how Americanisms have entered British English and argues that perhaps we should learn to love these transatlantic imports.
We hear from the Queen’s English Society about why they believe British English should be protected and John Humphrys tells us about the Americanisms he particularly dislikes. Linguist Dr Lynne Murphy reveals that dislike of Americanisms goes back to Dr Johnson and Michael Proffitt, the Chief Editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, tells Susie about some of the unexpected words which started life in America.
There’s another surprise when Susie travels to Stratford upon Avon, where Dr Nick Walton from the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust shows that some of the most disliked Americanisms first appear in Shakespeare’s plays. There’s an actor’s perspective from Tamsin Greig, who’s recently appeared in Twelfth Night at the National Theatre, and the singer Marty Wilde remembers teenagers’ enthusiasm for all things American in the 1950s and their elders’ despair at this assault on the English language.
Susie concludes with an exhortation to all of us to throw off our British linguistic reserve and to Americanize – even if only a little bit. She encourages us to embrace the verve of American vocabulary and to recognize that many of our American bugbears actually came from Britain in the first place.
Presenter: Susie Dent
Producer: Louise Adamson
Executive Producer: Samir Shah
A Juniper production for BBC Radio 4
Singer-songwriter Emma Lee Moss (aka Emmy the Great) returns to the playground to re-explore one of her earliest musical influences, the clapping game.
Emma finds the playground very much alive with song, new and old . So how is this seemingly old-fashioned pastime surviving in an age of YouTube and smart phones?
Emma speaks to children and researchers, as well as exploring the archive of amateur folklorist Iona Opie, to understand the secrets of the clapping game’s success since the 1950s.
How are songs created? How do they spread? How do they last generations? What makes them catchy? These are the fundamental questions at the heart of any songwriter’s profession and Emma thinks the answers lie with the overlooked songwriting prodigies of our time – children.
Listening to games from her own primary school in Hong Kong, to the playground songs of England and Iceland, Emma traces the global passage of clapping games and tries to unpick their craft. Could she learn from the creative process behind the clapping game? As children borrow lyrics and melody from adult culture to work into their games, Emma borrows from the playground – composing riffs and rhythms as she goes.
With contributions from Dr Kate Cowan, Dr John Potter, Professor Andrew Burn, Dan Jones (aka the Rhyme Collector), Una Margret Jonsdottir and Dr Julia Bishop.
Produced by Claire Crofton
A Boom Shakalaka Production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
A new novel for Brexit Britain.
Beginning eight years ago on the outskirts of Birmingham, where car factories have been replaced by pound shops, and London, where riots give way to Olympic fever, Jonathan Coe follows a Britain through a time of mind-boggling change. It paints a portrait of modern England up to Brexit: a country of nostalgia and delusion; of bewilderment and barely-suppressed rage.
Today: road rage, and Coalition banter.
Writer: Jonathan Coe
Producer: Justine Willett
Reader: Jeff Rawle
Abridger: Richard Hamilton
Radio 4's consumer affairs programme.
The latest weather forecast.
Mon-Thurs: Analysis of news and current affairs, presented by Sarah Montague. Fri: Analysis of news and current affairs, presented by Mark Mardell.
Could we fix the disconnect between the public and its politicians – by selecting our MPs by lottery?
In today’s episode, ad guru and expert on human behaviour Rory Sutherland explores how a “House Of The People”, comprised of a random cross-section of the British public – might be better at truly reflecting the considered will of the British people.
Rory is joined by the Australian political economist and expert on innovation Nicholas Gruen, - who explains how the idea dates back to the Ancient Greeks – and the MP for Birmingham Yardley, Jess Philips, an elected parliamentarian who’s keener on the idea than you might expect…
Produced by Steven Rajam for BBC Wales
Drama from Syria. Love, money and radicalisation in contemporary Damascus.
For the poorest living in Damascus, there is precious little choice. Nidal is a teenage boy who would have little to look forward to – but he is in love. His neighbour, Hadeel, is from a displaced family who are only just making ends meet so, when the rich businessman Abou Jameel becomes interested in her, the family only see one course of action.
This is not only a love story, but also an exploration of the root causes of radicalisation among young people.
Stories From Hay El Matar is a uniquely authentic drama series that takes place in a fictional suburb of Damascus. It is made by a team of Syrian and Lebanese artists working with British director Boz Temple-Morris, and is recorded in Beirut, Lebanon.
Each story in the series takes place at the same point in time, exploring a different part of the community. They are adapted from the Arabic language radio drama, Hay El Matar, produced by BBC Media Action, which provides a balanced and authentic depiction of everyday events for people inside Syria. It ran for one season of 150 episodes between 2016 and 2017and aimed to humanise opposing groups by countering stereotypes and providing balanced and authentic depictions of the various groups and situations across Syrian society. It included detailed consideration of issues such as early marriage and radicalisation as well as many issues around day to day living.
Stories from Hay El Matar is written in Arabic by Syrian writer Hozan Akko, and adapted into English by actor and dramatist Raffi Feghali. It offers a rare glimpse of how normal life is lived in Syria through these extraordinary times and features a cast of actors from Syria and Lebanon, many of whom are themselves living through the kinds of events depicted in the drama.
Cast:
Nidal Odai Quedese
Hadeel Nesrine Abi Samra
Rashed Hashem Kabrit
Azzam Bassel Madi
Shukri Abdelrahim Alawji
Rabab Nowar Yousef
Assaf Oussama el Ali
Souad Maya Harb
Toufik Saseen Kawzally
Abou Jameel Marcel Bou Chakra
Jack Alhasan Yousseff
Amer Adeeb Razzouk
Mandour Elie Youssef
Ghali Hussam Sharwany
Studio recording Karim Beidoun, Guerilla Studios
Spot effects Layal Salman
Sound editing Alisdair McGregor
Music Ziad Ahmadiye
Adaptation Raffi Feghali
Writer Hozan Akko
Producer and Director Boz Temple-Morris
A Holy Mountain production for BBC Radio 4
Josie Long presents short documentaries about food - from congee on a mountaintop to the nightmarish consequences of a family dinner.
The writer Jessica J Lee tries to recreate a vivid sensory experience and Australian audio-maker Mike Williams shares a visceral story of a Christmas Eve meal.
Series Producer: Eleanor McDowall
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4
Climate change is hard to depict. Polar bears on melting ice caps are far away from everyday life and the data is often complex and confusing. So could art in its broadest sense help us to understand the implications of global warming and environmental degradation? Tom Heap takes a look at how the creative community is responding to what is arguably the biggest threat of our time and asks if art can succeed in eliciting a response where science has failed.
Music and visual arts which make climate data sets tangible, clothing which make pollutants visible and artists who make their creative response a form of protest. These are just a few of the ways in which artists are responding to environmental issues but it remains to be seen if these visions can impact our collective beliefs and behaviours.
Long-running legal magazine programme featuring reports and discussion
Former SAS serviceman turned thriller writer Andy McNab chooses Touching The Void as his good read, the true story of Joe Simpson's disastrous climbing expedition that ended in tragedy. Natives by Akala, the hip hop artist, a semi autobiographical polemic on race and class in modern Britain is chosen by George the Poet and Attica Locke's crime thriller featuring black Texas ranger Darren Mathews, Bluebird Bluebird is Harriett's choice.
Producer: Maggie Ayre
PM at 5pm: interviews, context and analysis.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Nominated for this year’s main Edinburgh Comedy Award, and winner of the Newcomer in 2014, American comedian Alex Edelman is back for a second series of his show PEER GROUP in which he takes a comic look at what it’s like being a millennial today.
The first episode is all about his relationship with materialism and what millennials actually want to own, apart from - obviously - a house. He looks at how the internet has changed people's perceptions of owning things, and what things actually mean anything to millennials in a world where everything is disposable.
We also hear from Alex's "peer group" - comedians Alfie Brown, Moses Storm and Jak Knight, journalist Rebecca Nicholson and cultural commentator David Burstein.
It is written and presented by Alex Edelman, with additional material by Ivo Graham.
Producer: Sam Michell.
A BBC Studios production.
Brian's birthday proves eventful and there's disaster for Will
Live daily magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
When secure training centres were launched nearly two decades ago they offered child offenders the opportunity to learn from their mistakes and get their lives back on track in a safe environment.
Today there are three units in England, Medway in Rochester, Oakhill in Milton Keynes and Rainsbrook in Rugby, which provide 30 hours of education a week as part of the rehabilitation process.
But the units have been dogged by serious concerns over the treatment of young people, including allegations of abuse, the inappropriate use of restraint and unsafe living conditions.
File on 4 investigates youth custody and reveals the scale of concern about life in secure training centres.
The Government has acknowledged there have been unacceptable levels of violence in youth custody and has recently announced a new generation of secure schools, which promise to equip young offenders with the skills to live successful, crime-free lives.
File on 4 asks whether these new facilities will be the long-term solution to turning young offenders' lives around.
Reporter: Simon Cox
Producer: Ben Robinson
Editor: Gail Champion
Photo Credit: Press Association
News, views and information for people who are blind or partially sighted.
Claudia finds out how MDMA assisted psychotherapy could help treat people with alcohol dependence. Also why city traders who can detect their own heartbeat may have better instincts when they have to make quick decisions about what's happening in the financial markets
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
Ross Noble presents his surreal magazine show featuring celebrity guests and stories from around Britain - the best bits, the worst bits, the fascinating bits and the downright strange bits.
Ross is joined in the studio by journalist and broadcaster Kirsty Wark. Piers meets a protest singer who's found a niche for himself and the team investigates the take of the Sinister Stuffer of Manchester.
Britain in Bits with Ross Noble is written by and stars Ross Noble.
Also starring:
Hadley Fraser
George Fouracres
Emma Sidi
Kirsty Wark is played by Kirsty Wark
The talent wrangler was Niall Ashdown
The production coordinator was Hayley Sterling
The producer was Matt Stronge
It was 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 weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping
The latest shipping forecast
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Guvna B, award winning rapper and Grime artist
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside
Known locally as Sten-shakker or Chek after their alarm call, Northern Wheatears never cease to delight Helen Moncrieff, Shetland Manager for RSPB Scotland when they return to Shetland for the breeding season.
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: Sarah Blunt
Photograph: Sonia Johnson.
Radio 4's flagship news and current affairs programme; including Thought for the Day
The opera singer Elizabeth Llewellyn meets the film director and screenwriter Amma Asante.
Elizabeth Llewellyn first won wide critical acclaim in 2010, when she starred in Jonathan Miller’s production of La Bohème at English National Opera. Her path to success was unconventional: she gave up singing at the age of 22, and worked as a project manager for an IT company for a decade before gradually returning to music. She has now performed in opera houses around the world, including leading roles in Tosca, Madame Butterfly, and Porgy and Bess.
Amma Asante appeared in Grange Hill as a teenager, and moved on to writing and directing. In 2004 she won the best newcomer BAFTA for her film A Way of Life. She went on to direct Belle, which was inspired by a portrait of Dido Elizabeth Belle, a girl born into slavery, but brought up in the house of a British lord. Her film A United Kingdom, starring David Oyelowo and Rosamund Pike, opened the London Film Festival in 2016.
Producer Clare Walker
"Is it true all British people can trace their ancestry to Vikings and how do ancestry DNA tests work?" asks Chloe Mann from Worthing.
Genetic ancestry tests promise to reveal your ancestral origins and map your global heritage, but do they? Rutherford and Fry are here to bust some myths.
Adam takes a trip through Norse history with Viking historian Janina Ramirez, whilst flying over the Medieval town of Ludwig.
Meanwhile Hannah discovers how DNA ancestry tests work with evolutionary geneticist Mark Thomas, including why most of us can rightly reclaim our royal lineage.
If you have any more Curious Cases for the team to solve, please send them in for consideration: curiouscases@bbc.co.uk
Presenters: Adam Rutherford, Hannah Fry
Producer: Michelle Martin
In her new memoir Michelle Obama chronicles the life experiences that have shaped her.
Her relationship with Barack deepens. There is a trip to Honolulu to be enjoyed, where she will meet his family, and after that a snapshot of a memorable wedding day.
Reader Michelle Obama
Producer Duncan Minshull
(Photo credit: Courtesy of the Obama-Robinson Archive)
The programme that offers a female perspective on the world
It's day three of Jeremy Front's week with 'Incredible Woman' Jessica Kennedy and it's a rude awakening when he is hauled out of bed to go running with her and Eva. It's manageable though, especially as this might prove to be the best time to catch Jessica with her guard down and snaffle some useful revelations, such as how exactly she came to become head of the Zinoviev School of International Relations and whether any of the conspiracy theories about her are true. Jeremy also hears from Nell Slater, a prominent activist and journalist who is one of Jessica's fiercest critics.
Jeremy Front as Jeremy Front
Rebecca Front as Jessica Kennedy/Nell Slater
and
Emma Sidi as Eva
Producer: Sam Michell
It is a BBC Studios Production
Sisters Eve and Olivia are young carers who help to look after their Mum. Fi Glover presents another conversation in a series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen.
Producer: Mohini Patel
A musical drama about a young musician’s quest to find the truth about her family. The drama stars much loved iconic Scots actor Bill Paterson and, in her first appearance in a radio drama, the award winning folk musician Karine Polwart.
As BBC Radio 2 Folk Singer Of The Year 2018, Karine Polwart is a multi-award-winning Scottish songwriter and musician, as well as a theatre maker, storyteller, spoken-word performer and published essayist. Her songs combine folk influences and myth with themes as diverse as "Donald Trump’s corporate megalomania", Charles Darwin’s family life and the complexities of modern parenthood. She sings traditional songs too and writes to commission for theatre, animation and thematic collaborative projects. Karine is six-times winner at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, including twice for Best Original Song.
Cast:
Tommy ... Bill Paterson
Lucy ... Karine Polwart
Written by Michael Chaplin.
Directed by Marilyn Imrie
A Catherine Bailey production for BBC Radio 4
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Following in the footsteps of The Rotters' Club and The Closed Circle, Jonathan Coe's new novel is the novel for Brexit Britain.
Beginning eight years ago on the outskirts of Birmingham, where car factories have been replaced by pound shops, and London, where riots give way to Olympic fever, Middle England follows a Britain through a time of mind-boggling change. It paints a portrait of modern England up to Brexit: a country of nostalgia and delusion; of bewilderment and barely-suppressed rage.
Today: anger and fury give way to riots.
Writer: Jonathan Coe
Producer: Justine Willett
Reader: Jeff Rawle
Abridger: Richard Hamilton
Radio 4's consumer affairs programme.
The latest weather forecast.
Mon-Thurs: Analysis of news and current affairs, presented by Sarah Montague. Fri: Analysis of news and current affairs, presented by Mark Mardell.
Humans are masters of the art of deception – like it or not, it’s hard to disagree.
But the art of SELF-deception is all around – the manifold ways which we subconsciously kid ourselves about our motivations and deepest desires. From little white lies to fake news, self-placebos to dodgy dossiers.
In today’s episode, advertising guru and behavioural expert Rory Sutherland speaks to a legendary figure in evolutionary biology – the American geneticist Robert Trivers, who wrote the foreword to Richard Dawkins’ Selfish Gene. He’s also joined by evolutionary psychologist Diana Fleishman, and “guru of randomness”, the statistician and author of “Black Swan”, Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
Produced by Steven Rajam for BBC Wales
Drama from Syria telling stories of contemporary life in Damascus.
“The war is over!” declares Arshy, the proprietor of a traditional restaurant in Hay El Matar. Has she lost her senses or does she know something that we don’t? In such extreme times, everyone must find their own way to cope. So in the midst of it all, while everything is changing around her, she is fighting to keep hold of the Damascus that she loves. But is it a fight she can win?
Stories From Hay El Matar is a uniquely authentic drama series that takes place in a fictional suburb of Damascus. It is made by a team of Syrian and Lebanese artists working with British director Boz Temple-Morris, and is recorded in Beirut, Lebanon.
Each story in the series takes place at the same point in time, exploring a different part of the community. They are adapted from the Arabic language radio drama, Hay El Matar, produced by BBC Media Action, which provides a balanced and authentic depiction of everyday events for people inside Syria. It ran for one season of 150 episodes between 2016 and 2017and aimed to humanise opposing groups by countering stereotypes and providing balanced and authentic depictions of the various groups and situations across Syrian society. It included detailed consideration of issues such as early marriage and radicalisation as well as many issues around day to day living.
Stories from Hay El Matar is written in Arabic by Syrian writer Hozan Akko, and adapted into English by actor and dramatist Raffi Feghali. It offers a rare glimpse of how normal life is lived in Syria through these extraordinary times and features a cast of actors from Syria and Lebanon, many of whom are themselves living through the kinds of events depicted in the drama.
Cast:
Arshi Najwa Kondakji
Kevork Raffi Feghali
Abou Jameel Marcel Bou Chakra
Assaf Oussama el Ali
Rabab Nowar Yousef
Shukri Abdelrahim Alawji
Amer Adeeb Razzouk
Jack Alhasan Yousseff
Rashed Hashem Kabrit
Karakas Zeinab Assaf
Ghali Hussam Sharwany
Studio recording Karim Beidoun, Guerilla Studios
Spot effects Layal Salman
Sound editing Alisdair McGregor
Music Ziad Ahmadiye
Adaptation Raffi Feghali
Writer Hozan Akko
Producer and Director Boz Temple-Morris
A Holy Mountain production for BBC Radio 4
Paul Lewis and a panel of guests answer calls on personal finance.
Laurie Taylor explores the latest research into how society works.
A topical programme about the fast-changing media world.
PM at 5pm: interviews, context and analysis.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
An attempt to get a good night's sleep results in a visit from the police.
Bob – Steve Speirs
Gruff – Elis James
Alice – Katy Wix
Graham– Ben Willbond
Sara– Vivienne Acheampong
Rashid – Phaldut Sharma
Written by Benjamin Partridge & Gareth Gwynn
Produced by Victoria Lloyd
A BBC Studios Production
Joe spots an opportunity for revenge and tempers flare at Lynda's rehearsal
Live daily magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
Combative, provocative and engaging debate chaired by Michael Buerk. With Michael Portillo, Matthew Taylor, Melanie Philips and Giles Fraser.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
Bittersweet comedy drama about a community mental health nurse. Written by Paul Whitehouse and David Cummings.
Billy relives a shattering childhood trauma for Nurse Elizabeth but things are looking up for Cat Lady April - she’s met a new boyfriend at the Cemetery.
Starring Paul Whitehouse and Esther Coles, with Rosie Cavaliero, Simon Day and Cecilia Noble.
Produced by Paul Whitehouse and David Cummings
Associate Producer Tom Jenkins.
A Down The Line production for BBC Radio 4
Rogues Gallery is a series of comic monologues with twists-in-the-tale, written & performed by Lenny Henry. In this episode an alien updates his governing council on a research trip to Earth that ended in disaster.
All the news from today's sitting at Westminster.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping
The latest shipping forecast
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Guvna B, award winning rapper and Grime artist
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.
David Attenborough presents the magpie. Magpies have always had a rascally streetwise image. They featured in anti-theft campaigns on television in the 1980s, and long before that, their kleptomaniac tendencies were celebrated by Rossini in his opera, 'The Thieving Magpie'. Their pied plumage isn't just black and white, but gleams with iridescent greens, blues and purples.
Radio 4's flagship news and current affairs programme; including Thought for the Day
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the philosophy of hope. To the ancient Greeks, hope was closer to self-deception, one of the evils left in Pandora's box or jar, in Hesiod's story. In Christian tradition, hope became one of the theological virtues, the desire for divine union and the expectation of receiving it, an action of the will rather than the intellect. To Kant, 'what may I hope' was one of the three basic questions which human reason asks, while Nietzsche echoed Hesiod, arguing that leaving hope in the box was a deception by the gods, reflecting human inabilitity to face the demands of existence. Yet even those critical of hope, like Camus, conceded that life was nearly impossible without it.
With
Beatrice Han-Pile
Judith Wolfe
and
Robert Stern
Producer: Simon Tillotson
In her new memoir Michelle Obama chronicles the life experiences that have shaped her.
"Must've been a good speech" jokes the author to her husband, again and again, as the family hits the campaign trail. Snapshots of various successes. From Senator to running as President and the triumphant aftermath..
Reader Michelle Obama
Producer Duncan Minshull
(Photo credit: Copyright Callie Sell/Aurora Photos)
The programme that offers a female perspective on the world
'Incredible Woman' Jessica Kennedy is forced to leave her house and seek safety elsewhere, giving Jeremy 'Every Cloud' Front the perfect opportunity to get his scoop as they flee, hopefully including a confirmation that Jessica's in line to become the first female Director General of the BBC. However, before any of that can be ascertained, Eva and Jessica are going to require the use of Jeremy's Twingo. And it's still at the Cambridge Park-and-Ride...
Jeremy Front as Jeremy Front
Rebecca Front as Jessica Kennedy/Nell Slater
Emma Sidi as Eva
and
Ewan Bailey as The Voice
Producer: Sam Michell
It is a BBC Studios Production
Nigerian patients held in hospital because they can’t pay their medical bills.
In March 2016, a young woman went into labour. She was rushed to a local, private hospital in south-east Nigeria where she gave birth by caesarean section. But when the hospital discovered this teenage mother didn’t have the money to pay for her treatment, she was held in a room with her son. They remained there for 16 months – until the police arrived and released them.
This is not an isolated case. In Nigeria, very few health services are free of charge, and campaigners estimate that thousands have been detained in hospitals for failing to pay their bills. It’s become an increasingly high-profile issue – one couple have been awarded compensation after going through the courts.
For Crossing Continents, Linda Pressly explores a widespread abuse – meeting victims, and the hospital managers attempting to manage their budgets in a health system under enormous pressure, where only 5% of Nigerians are covered by health insurance.
Producer: Josephine Casserly
(Photo: Ngozi Osegbo was awarded compensation by a court after she and her husband were detained in a hospital because they couldn't pay their medical bills. BBC PHOTO)
Marie Louise Muir can’t stop thinking about her childhood home, a Georgian town house on Derry / Londonderry’s Clarendon street where she spent her teenage years in the 1980s. She dreams about the house often, remembers every creak and sigh of the building and is haunted by memories of things left unsaid.
Now she’s returning home with four artists to find out why the walls she left behind many years ago continue to surround, inspire and invade her imagination. Why do childhood homes have such a hold on us?
In the first of a new three part series exploring the theme of 'Dwelling', Marie Louise is joined by the poet Abby Oliviera, classical pianist Ruth McGinley, actor James Lecky and electronic musican Ryan Vail.
As they move from room to room, the artists blend memories of their own childhood homes with performances. Some are echoes of their own past and some are created from scratch to reflect the life and sounds of the house. As it becomes a living gallery space, filled with poetry and music, Marie Louise begins to understand why her childhood home is so firmly lodged in her imagination.
Produced by Conor McKay for BBC Northern Ireland.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
A novel for Brexit Britain.
Beginning eight years ago on the outskirts of Birmingham, where car factories have been replaced by pound shops, and London, where riots give way to Olympic fever, Middle England follows a Britain through a time of mind-boggling change. It paints a portrait of modern England up to Brexit: a country of nostalgia and delusion; of bewilderment and barely-suppressed rage.
Today: Coalition banter in the Rose Garden, and Olympic fever.
Writer: Jonathan Coe
Producer: Justine Willett
Reader: Jeff Rawle
Abridger: Richard Hamilton
Radio 4's consumer affairs programme.
The latest weather forecast.
Mon-Thurs: Analysis of news and current affairs, presented by Sarah Montague. Fri: Analysis of news and current affairs, presented by Mark Mardell.
Society rightly craves greater more diversity in the way its businesses, institutions and systems are composed. But is our obsession with measuring this with “rational” metrics ruining any chance of a truly free, fair world?
Rory’s joined by the Darwinian philosopher and rationalist Helena Cronin from the London School of Economics – who vividly describes the subject as a “third rail issue – touch it, and you die”. She explains how measuring outcomes – percentage distributions of males and females across the employment world – is a terribly blunt instrument to assess the complex world of sex differences, and the very real issue of discrimination in the modern world.
Produced by Steven Rajam for BBC Wales
Part 4 of the conspiracy thriller. Written by Lucy Catherine, starring Hattie Morahan and Jonathan Forbes.
A near-death experience and a mysterious text message lead Helen to contemplate a sinister connection between her unborn baby and genetically engineered cattle.
A gripping thriller, chart topping podcast and winner of Best Sound (BBC Audio Drama Awards) and Best Fiction (British Podcast Awards), now Tracks is back with another 9 part headphone filling thrill-ride.
Helen…. Hattie Morahan
Freddy….. Jonathan Forbes
Dr Wolfs.... Rhodri Meilir
Sam.... Morgan Watkins
Receptionist.... Jeanette Percival
Lead writer.... Matthew Broughton
Directed by Carl Prekopp
Produced by James Robinson
A BBC Cymru Wales Production
Ash trees are prolific in our landscapes and have long held an important place in our culture. Their long, straight trunks have been shaped into spears, wheels, oars and arrows amongst many other tools which have aided our evolution. The tree has also been revered for its healing powers in the past but today it is the ash itself which is in danger. Ash dieback was first found in the UK in 2012 and it is now found across the UK. Most of our ash trees will disappear from the landscape in the next few decades so in Kent, where the disease has already had a devastating impact, the 'Ash Project' has been set up to remember the tree and its cultural importance. Helen Mark visits to see 'Ashes to Ashes' a sculpture by Ackroyd and Harvey made from ash at White Horse Wood and finds out about attempts to save the ash trees which show signs of immunity in the hope that we might be able to return ash to our landscapes in the future.
With Antonia Quirke.
Novelist Naomi Alderman and screenwriter Rebecca Lenkiewicz discuss the film adaptation of Alderman's debut novel Disobedience, a lesbian love story set in the orthodox Jewish community of Hendon.
The Star And Shadow cinema in Newcastle was a converted furniture showroom rebuilt entirely by volunteers who had little or no experience of bricklaying, drilling or grouting.The building took years to complete and was 15 months behind schedule, but is finally open. Antonia, who helped to drill some of the concrete floor, returns to the site to show one of her favourite movies to a local film club called Losing The Plot.
Adam Rutherford investigates the news in science and science in the news.
PM at 5pm: interviews, context and analysis.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Washington D.C.'s favourite political call-in show returns to Radio 4 as stand-up legend, Rich Hall and a selection of comedians from both sides of the Atlantic break down the results of US midterms and offer an insight into the unfolding drama of the Trump presidency.
Cast:
Rich Hall
Nick Doody
Lewis MacLeod
Freya Parker
Written by Rich Hall & Nick Doody with additional material by James Kettle and Laura Major.
Producer - Joe Nunnery
A BBC Studios Production
Helen has a change of heart and events take their toll on Elizabeth.
Live daily magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
Evan Davis chairs a round table discussion providing insight into business from the people at the top.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
Series 3. Episode 2. If at first you don't succeed.
Tez Ilyas returns for a third series of TEZ Talks.
In this episode Tez talks about things in life which sometimes don't work out how we hoped. And he discusses an awful campaign perpetrated against the Muslim community.
Written and performed by... Tez Ilyas
Produced by... Carl Cooper
This is a BBC Studios Production.
Comedian. Writer. Ex-Zoo Keeper. Bird Watcher. Definitely NOT a people person.
Sam and Henry are making a series about birds, and every week - armed with Sam's 'Big Book of Birds' they're looking for a different one. Sadly, and despite Henry's very best efforts, Sam keeps being distracted by the people they run into. Each encounter sparks an investigation into Sam's past, because once they've sorted out his issues, then they'll really be able to focus on the bird-watching.
This week they're on the island of Patos, trying to find a very rare heron.
The unique talents of the multi-award winning Sam Simmons have landed on BBC Radio 4.
Written by and starring SAM SIMMONS
With:
HENRY PAKER
SARAH KENDALL
MIKE WILMOT
FREYA PARKER
Sound design by CRAIG SCHUFTAN
Producers JOSEPH NUNNERY
ALEXANDRA SMITH
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 weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping
The latest shipping forecast
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Guvna B, award winning rapper and Grime artist
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside
Wildlife artist Jane Smith reveals why she feels such a strong connection with Snipe which produce a drumming sound which seems to encapsulate the sound of the Hebrides.
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: Sarah Blunt
Photographer: Milo Bostock.
Radio 4's flagship news and current affairs programme; including Thought for the Day
In her new memoir Michelle Obama chronicles the life experiences that have shaped her.
Barack, Malia, Sasha and the author have moved to the White House. So.. dealing with the formalities, the security set-up, and how will the two daughters cope? Then after two months there is an eventful summit meeting in London and an audience with the Queen.
Reader Michelle Obama
Producer Duncan Minshull
(Photo credit: Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)
The programme that offers a female perspective on the world
Jeremy flees Cambridge with Jessica and Eva and heads to the Highlands in his Twingo, hoping to avoid of the sinister forces pursuing them. But unfortunately for Jessica, Jeremy hasn't forgotten to bring his recording equipment and is hell-bent on finally getting his story. Even if it means death, personal injury, or missing lunch.
Jeremy Front as Jeremy Front
Rebecca Front as Jessica Kennedy/Nell Slater
Emma Sidi as Eva
and
Ewan Bailey as Newsreader
Producer: Sam Michell
It is a BBC Studios Production
Britain's old industrial cities are changing faster than at any time since WW2. Mark Ovenden uncovers a policy shift that's fueling property speculation.
The fourth series of the comedy following the fortunes of a British comic who has married into a Swedish family and is building a new life in Scandinavia.
The series is set and recorded on location in Sweden, written Danny Robins (co-creator and writer of the Lenny Henry comedy Rudy’s Rare Records), and stars Edinburgh Comedy Award-winning comedian Adam Riches along with a cast of Sweden’s most popular TV comedy actors.
We catch up with Geoff (Adam Riches) and Linda (Sissela Benn) as the generous period of Swedish paternity leave comes to an end. It's time to discuss sending their son John to dagis (nursery school) and launching Geoff onto the unsuspecting Swedish job market. This means Geoff must come to terms with conflicting attitudes towards health and safety, the sinister undertones of Pippi Longstocking and what happens when the entire staff of a Swedish office ‘kicks off’.
In his new, tiny, unpronounceable, Northern home-town of Yxsjö, Geoff confronts the Scandinavian practice of ‘death-cleaning’, the Mosquito Museum, white water canoeing and Swedish attitudes towards gender equality. His father-in-law Sten (Thomas Oredsson) becomes the voice of Geoff’s conscience and Gunilla (Anna-Lena Bergelin), his mother-in-law, helps him make a commercial.
In this first episode, Geoff worries about trolls, mortality and poisoned blueberries.
Cast:
Geoff - Adam Riches
Linda - Sissela Benn
Gunilla - Anna-Lena Bergelin
Sten - Thomas Oredsson
John - Harry Nicolaou
Ian - Danny Robins
Written by Danny Robins
Produced and directed by Frank Stirling
A 7digital production for BBC Radio 4
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
A novel for Brexit Britain.
Beginning eight years ago on the outskirts of Birmingham, where car factories have been replaced by pound shops, and London, where riots give way to Olympic fever, Jonathan Coe's new novel follows a Britain through a time of mind-boggling change. It paints a portrait of modern England up to Brexit: a country of nostalgia and delusion; of bewilderment and barely-suppressed rage.
Today: home truths emerge on a cruise among Middle Englanders.
Writer: Jonathan Coe
Producer: Justine Willett
Reader: Jeff Rawle
Abridger: Richard Hamilton
Radio 4's consumer affairs programme.
The latest weather forecast.
Mon-Thurs: Analysis of news and current affairs, presented by Sarah Montague. Fri: Analysis of news and current affairs, presented by Mark Mardell.
Key idea: we think we can measure what makes better services and systems. But what if people don’t really know – or admit – what actually matters to their deepest desires?
Advertising guru and writer on human behaviour Rory Sutherland is joined by legendary advertising creative Dave Trott, as well as statistician, trader and iconoclast Nassim Nicholas Taleb, to explore the ways in which our consumer and business decisions are driven by things we don’t realise – and how some of the most brilliant pieces of behavioural insight seem utterly counterintuitive.
Produced by Steven Rajam for BBC Wales
by Nick Warburton
John ..... Ronald Pickup
Richard ..... Paul Ritter
Clare ..... Kate Duchêne
Mrs Cardabbon ..... Sue Jameson
Ralph Bell ..... Sean Murray
MC ..... Tony Turner
Robust Betty ..... Emma Handy
Rude Girl ..... Saffron Coomber
WPC ..... Jeanette Percival
Surly Reader ..... Cameron Percival
Directed by Sally Avens
John Hector has a new campaign to halt the decline of good manners in Breck Howe. But his idea of naming and shaming those who fall below his standards meets with opposition, and John's own manners are called into question.
Peter Gibbs and the panel are in North Wiltshire. Christine Walkden, Pippa Middleton and Matthew Wilson answer the horticultural questions.
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4
"We rested our backs on the trunk of the tree. At first I could only hear myself, chewing. But after a while I thought I heard it too". An original short work for radio about love, death and talking to trees, written and read by the novelist and poet S.K. Perry.
Sarah's debut novel Let Me Be Like Water was published this year in the UK and the US by Melville House. She is currently a PhD candidate at Manchester Metropolitan University, funded to write her next novel and to research depictions of sex in literary prose by the NWCDTP. Born in Croydon, Sarah's background is in campaigning, education, and gender equalities. She currently lives in Leeds.
Produced by Mair Bosworth
Written and performed by S.K. Perry
Matthew Bannister tells the life stories of people who have recently died, from the rich and famous to unsung but significant.
Radio 4's forum for comments, queries, criticisms and congratulations
Close friends whose lives mirror each other’s. Fi Glover presents another conversation in a series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen.
Producer: Mohini Patel
PM at 5pm: interviews, context and analysis.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Special guest host Lucy Porter presents the week via topical stand-up and sketches.
With stand-up from Ivo Graham and Sindhu Vee.
The production coordinator was Sarah Sharpe
It was a BBC Studios production.
Writer ..... Caroline Harrington
Director ..... Rosemary Watts
Editor ..... Jeremy Howe
Jill Archer ..... Patricia Greene
David Archer ..... Timothy Bentinck
Ben Archer ...... Ben Norris
Helen Archer ..... Louiza Patikas
Tom Archer ..... William Troughton
Brian Aldridge .... Charles Collingwood
Jennifer Aldridge ..... Angela Piper
Harrison Burns ..... James Cartwright
Neil Carter ..... Brian Hewlett
Susan Carter ..... Charlotte Martin
Joe Grundy ..... Edward Kelsey
Eddie Grundy ..... Trevor Harrison
Will Grundy .... Philip Molloy
Emma Grundy .... Emerald O'Hanrahan
Shula Hebden Lloyd .... Judy Bennett
Kirsty Miller ..... Annabelle Dowler
Elizabeth Pargetter ….. Alison Dowling
Lily Pargetter ..... Katie Redford
Johnny Philips .... Tom Gibbons
Lynda Snell ..... Carole Boyd
Oliver Sterling .... Michael Cochrane
Roy Tucker ..... Ian Peperrell
Hannah Riley ..... Helen Longworth
Lee ..... Ryan Early
Russ Jones ..... Andonis James Anthony
Live daily magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
Jonathan Dimbleby presents political debate from Somerville College, Oxford with a panel including the former Chanellor of the Exchequer Ken Clarke MP, the Labour backbench MP Stella Creasy and the political commentator Tim Montgomerie.
Producer: Lisa Jenkinson
Weekly reflections on topical issues from a range of contributors.
Neil MacGregor continues the omnibus editions of his series on the expression of shared beliefs in communities around the world and across time.
In this programme he considers how the transience of a single life is woven into the longer time-span of the community as a whole - how one life meshes with many across the generations. He explores ceremonies of induction and initiation, as well as activities such as prayer and song that bind people together, and considers the role the community plays around the birth of a child.
Producer Paul Kobrak
Produced in partnership with the British Museum
Photograph (c) The Trustees of the British Museum.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
All the news from today's sitting at Westminster.
Mother and son remembering how they coped with father’s Alzheimer’s. Fi Glover presents another conversation in a series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen.
Producer: Mohini Patel