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

Radio-Lists Home Now on R4 Contact

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



SATURDAY 04 JANUARY 2020

SAT 00:00 Midnight News (m000cldz)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


SAT 00:30 Unreliable Memoirs (m000cxhc)
Episode 5

Clive James reads his autobiography. After a spell of national service, returning to university with a new outlook.

Australian-born Clive James reads the first volume of his autobiography, Unreliable Memoirs, exploring his life growing up from being an accident prone child actor who hated school, through to national service and a place at Sydney University.

Clive James - writer, broadcaster and poet - was known around the world for his dry wit. Born Vivian James in 1939, he moved to England in 1962 and rose to prominence as a literary critic and TV columnist. He went on to deliver wry commentary on international programming in such shows as Clive James On Television. The show saw him introduce amusing and off-beat TV clips from around the world, most famously from Japanese game show Endurance.

Diagnosed with leukaemia in 2010, the author and critic had movingly written about his terminal illness during the final years of his life. He died on 24th November at his home in Cambridge, where he had attended university and where his funeral took place at Pembroke College. He was 80 years old.

Unreliable Memoirs was first published in 1980.
It was abridged and produced by Jane Marshall, and read by Clive James.

A Jane Marshall production for BBC Radio 2 first broadcast in 2001.


SAT 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m000clf1)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.


SAT 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m000clf3)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


SAT 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m000clf5)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.


SAT 05:30 News Briefing (m000clf7)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4.


SAT 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m000clf9)
A short reflection and prayer with the Rev Dr Bert Tosh


SAT 05:45 Four Thought (m000clfc)
The Pen Is Mightier Than The Sword

Ashley Hickson-Lovence says his powerful mother and his love of reading kept him out of gangs while growing up on an estate in East London. As a former English teacher and now a debut novelist, he believes black boys, in particular, need books to read that engage them by reflecting their own lives. "Not everyone can have a mother like mine, but everyone deserves the key to the world of books which could change their lives."
Recorded at Primadonna literary and arts festival.
Presenter: Farrah Jarral
Producer: Sheila Cook


SAT 06:00 News and Papers (m000cyrq)
The latest news headlines. Including the weather and a look at the papers.


SAT 06:07 Open Country (m000cl6r)
Skateboarding in the Woods

Ruth Sanderson discovers a skateboarding camp, deep in the Forest of Dean. Camp Hillcrest mixes urban pursuits with forest living, and Ruth visits when the residential camp is in full swing. Kids come to be fully immersed in everything about skating culture, all in the idyllic setting of the Gloucestershire woods. The owner, Tom Seaton, tells Ruth how he has discovered this combination of urban skate vibe mixed with forest school activities engages children who otherwise wouldn't be attracted to the countryside, and gives them a unique experience.

Produced by Beatrice Fenton


SAT 06:30 Farming Today (m000cyrs)
Farming Today This Week

The latest news about food, farming and the countryside


SAT 06:57 Weather (m000cyrv)
The latest weather forecast.


SAT 07:00 Today (m000cyrx)
News and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.


SAT 09:00 Saturday Live (m000cyrz)
Kathy Reichs

Crime novelist Kathy Reich’s famous heroine is Temperance Brennan, an academic anthropologist turned forensic anthropologist, much like Kathy herself. Her latest novel, A Conspiracy of Bones, is published this year and Kathy joins Aasmah Mir and Suzy Klein.

Mike Bushell has made a career out of his hobbies; he famously holds the world record for participating in the greatest number of different sports on his Saturday morning slot on BBC Breakfast. He can now add ballroom dancing to the list as part of the Strictly 2019 line-up and 2020 tour.

After huge roles on TV and at the Royal Shakespeare Company and The National Theatre, this month actor Adjoa Andoh returns to The Archers and takes a leading role in Silent Witness. And after three years of training, she has recently become a “reader licensed by the bishop” in the Church of England.

Andrew Gregory had a successful career as a hairdresser until a motorbike accident 18 years ago resulted in his lower leg being amputated. He’s now become a parapole athlete, winning a gold medal at the International Pole Sports World Championship and has been named “pole athlete of the year”.

And Paul O'Grady shares his Inheritance Tracks - Spirit in the Sky by Norman Greenbaum and A Pretty Girl is Like a Melody by Sonny Lester.

Producer: Laura Northedge
Editor: Eleanor Garland


SAT 10:30 The Kitchen Cabinet (m000cys1)
Series 26

Edinburgh

Jay Rayner hosts the culinary panel show from Edinburgh. Sue Lawrence, Paula McIntyre, Tim Anderson and Prof Barry Smith answer the audience's questions.

On the menu this week we have kale (or should we say kail), a discussion on the microwave's place in the kitchen and recipe suggestions for turning a sprout hater into a sprout lover.

Jonathan Trew from Eat Walk Edinburgh Food Tours tells the fascinating history of oysters and their importance in Edinburgh - both for the people and the buildings.

Producer: Laurence Bassett
Assistant Producer: Jemima Rathbone

Food Consultant: Anna Colquhoun

A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4


SAT 11:00 A Small Matter of Hope (m000cn4w)
Life is getting better. Child mortality rates have tumbled worldwide, more girls are in education, malaria is in decline and hunger is a thing of the past for most of us. So why don't we believe it? Why are so many of us convinced that we're heading for hell in a handcart?

It's a question that really bothers the editor of the Spectator, Fraser Nelson. Is it the fault of journalists like him, peddling conflict and disaster rather than tales of human progress? Or are we all born with a negativity bias? Do we seek out stories of death and danger just as our ancestors listened out for sabre-toothed tigers padding ever closer to our cave?

In search of answers Fraser meets some of the best-selling thinkers on human happiness- Harvard psychology professor, Steven Pinker, author of Notes on a Nervous Planet, Matt Haig and co-author of Factfulness, Anna Rosling Ronnlund.

Armed with the combined intellectual heft of these purveyors of positivity Fraser returns to his Whitehall office to persuade his cynical staff that the world is crying out for a new Spectator with a positive spin.

Producer: Alasdair Cross


SAT 11:30 From Our Own Correspondent (m000cys3)
Death in Baghdad

The assassination in a US air strike of the senior Iranian general Qasem Soleimani raises the prospect of a response from Tehran that few can predict. Jim Muir reports on the significance of the US target and what might happen next.

Thirty years ago the United States acted to remove another foreign threat, this time closer to home. Following the US invasion of Panama shortly before Christmas, the country's military leader General Manuel Noriega surrendered to US troops on January the 3rd, 1990. David Adams was there.

In Ireland it used to be common for unmarried mothers to be confined in state-funded institutions. Often their babies, once born, were taken without their consent and given up for adoption. Deirdre Finnerty has met one of the thousands of women who were sent to these mother and baby homes.

Air travel in the Democratic Republic of Congo matters because there are few reliable roads. But there are serious concerns about the safety of flying and many people can't afford it anyway. Most Congolese who need to cover long distances do so - precariously - by boat. Olivia Acland has been aboard.

Maximum Irritability is a little known but nonetheless debilitating condition sometimes encountered high in the mountains on Pakistan’s border with India, as David Baillie discovers when he took a trip in a helicopter courtesy of the Pakistani army.

Producer: Tim Mansel


SAT 12:00 News Summary (m000cz1s)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


SAT 12:04 Money Box (m000cys7)
The history of financial mistakes

History is littered with tales of financial error – many instantly familiar even though they occurred several centuries apart.

Why do we keep on making the same mistakes with our money and can we learn to stop making them?

Paul Lewis discusses with Russell Napier, the Keeper of Edinburgh's Library of Mistakes, Prof Nicky Marsh who is writing a book on the history of financial advice and Dr Joe Gladstone from UCL's School of Management who helps people make better behavioural choices with their money.

Picture credit: Engraving from "Sketch of the Mosquito Shore" purporting to depict the Port of Black River in the non-existent Territory of Poyais, Wikipedia

Producer: Alex Lewis
Editor: Emma Rippon


SAT 12:30 The News Quiz (m000cldf)
Series 101

Best of 2019

Nish Kumar starts the year with a look back at the best bits of News Quiz in 2019.

A review of a busy year of hypothetical ferry companies, not dying in ditches and some musical chairs in the News Quiz hot seat too.

Written by Catherine Brinkworth

Producer: Richard Morris
A BBC Studios Production


SAT 12:57 Weather (m000cys9)
The latest weather forecast


SAT 13:00 News (m000cysc)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


SAT 13:15 Witness (m000d1qj)
Britain's GI babies

During World War Two hundreds of thousands of US troops were posted to the United Kingdom and several thousand of those soldiers were African-American. But when children were born as a result of relationships between those black GIs and white British women, their babies often grew up in children's homes and went on to have difficult lives. Farhana Haider has been speaking to one of those children, Babs Gibson-Ward.

Photo: Hoinicote House children, c.1948
Credit: Lesley York


SAT 13:30 Art of Now (m000c4pp)
The Walking Dance

A story, told in dance steps, of people with Parkinson’s finding balance in the movements and rhythms of the Argentine tango.

Four couples living with Parkinson’s disease attend a dance class for people with balance issues. The dance becomes entwined with their stories as they master the basic walking steps of the Argentine tango and work towards a choreographed performance for a group of people newly diagnosed with Parkinson’s.

Along the way, they reflect on how dancing is helping them to confront their diagnosis and what it means to them.

Roy Jones has been living with Parkinson’s for over twenty years. He and his wife Pat are learning Argentina’s ‘walking dance’ as a way to counteract the loss of movement associated with the condition.

“If I freeze, I automatically think of a dance step and it kick-starts my brain,” says Roy. “It’s like having a tooth missing from a cog. Suddenly you jump that missing tooth, and I’m moving again… I’m dancing… and that’s where I want to be.”

Joy Rainbird attends the class every week with her husband John as a way to overcome his rapidly advancing Parkinson’s. “It takes me back to when we were confident and I used to trust John to hold me and sway me and lead me...”

Julie Douglas, who partners her mother, finds dancing an escape from the frustration of trying to do things with Parkinson’s. Norman Moore and his wife Glynis use the tango steps to overcome the physical “stutter” of his condition.

Produced by Cicely Fell
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4
[photo credit: Cicely Fell]


SAT 14:00 Drama (b06hyt3p)
Unmade Movies

Unmade Movies: Arthur Miller’s The Hook

The world broadcast premiere of Arthur Miller’s unproduced screenplay tells the story of a 1950s Brooklyn longshoreman who is fired for standing up to his corrupt union boss, but decides to fight back by standing for union president.

1951. The Brooklyn Docks. Dawn. Hundreds of longshoreman queue in line to see if they’re going to be given a counter and picked for work in that day’s gang. It’s dangerous work, but with a hierarchy of corrupt union bosses all taking backhanders above them, they have no option but to accept.

The Hook is part of a season of radio adaptions of unproduced screenplays by the major authors of the 20th century - including Harold Pinter, Arthur Miller, Orson Welles and Ernest Lehman.
Arthur Miller developed the script for The Hook with Elia Kazan and it was on the trip to LA to pitch it to Harry Cohn at Columbia Studios that he met Marilyn Monroe for the first time. Cohn asked Miller to change the script and turn the corrupt union bosses into communists. Miller refused and the screenplay was shelved. He and Kazan then fell out over Kazan's testimony to McCarthy's House of Un-American Activities Committee. Kazan went on to make On The Waterfront and Miller wrote A View From The Bridge, essentially reworkings of The Hook.

This radio adaptation is directed by Adrian Noble. During his career Adrian has received over 20 Olivier Award nominations both as artistic director of the RSC and as a freelance theatre director.

Cast:
Narrator - David Suchet
Marty - Elliot Cowan
Louis - Nigel Lindsay
Rocky - Michael Feast
Farragut - Tim Pigott-Smith
Piggy - Nathan Wiley
Enzo - Jonathan Guy Lewis
Sleeper - Kerry Shale
Therese - Joanne Pearce
Old Dominic - Vincent Riotta
Mama - Lorelei King
Irene - Hollie Burgess
Pete - Leo Heller

Screenplay written by Arthur Miller
Adapted for radio by Laurence Bowen

Sound Design by Wilfredo Acosta

Directed by Adrian Noble
Produced by Laurence Bowen
A Feelgood Fiction production for BBC Radio 4


SAT 15:45 Christening (b07hj8bd)
A new short storyfrom the writer and former Blue Peter presenter Janet Ellis.

It is nearly the end of the school summer holidays. A young girl is invited to go to the local pool by a boy she likes. She's not keen on swimming and nervous around games and horseplay. Surviving an unexpected dunking, and bolstered by his concerned reaction, she feels older and stronger than before, and begins to shed her childish uncertainty and leave her childhood behind.

Written and read by Janet Ellis
Produced by David Roper
A Heavy Entertainment production for BBC Radio 4


SAT 16:00 Woman's Hour (m000cysf)
Highlights from the Woman's Hour week.


SAT 17:00 PM (m000cysh)
Full coverage and analysis of the day's news, plus the sports headlines.


SAT 17:30 The Inquiry (m000d1ql)
Is time travel possible?

Ever wanted to meet your historical heroes or explore the inventions of the future? Travelling in time has long been a dream of writers and filmmakers, but what can science tell us about whether it could ever become a reality?

We explore why time goes more slowly for astronauts on the international space station, hear about the very dangerous ways we could possibly exploit this to skip forwards through time and into Earth’s future, and we do the maths on wormholes, to see if they offer a portal to our past.

Contributors include:

James Gleick - author
Dr Natasha Hurley-Walker - Radio astronomer, Curtin University
Professor Katie Mack - Theoretical astrophysicist, North Carolina State University
Dr Luke Butcher - Theoretical physicist, University of Edinburgh

Presenter: Kate Lamble
Producer: Beth Sagar-Fenton
Researcher: Lizzy McNeill


SAT 17:54 Shipping Forecast (m000cysk)
The latest shipping forecast.


SAT 17:57 Weather (m000cysm)
The latest weather forecast.


SAT 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m000cysp)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


SAT 18:15 Loose Ends (m000cysr)
Mark Thomas, Claudia Hammond, Nikita Gill, Mike Batt, Alice Russell, Rachael Dadd, Tom Allen, Clive Anderson

Clive Anderson and Tom Allen are joined by Claudia Hammond, Mark Thomas, Nikita Gill and Mike Batt for an eclectic mix of conversation, music and comedy. With music from Alice Russell and Rachael Dadd.


SAT 19:00 Profile (m000cyst)
Dina Asher-Smith

Becky Milligan looks at the life of Dina Asher-Smith, the fastest woman in British history. An athlete who's also a keen historian, role model and lover of the glitz. For years she's been winning championships and breaking records. But will the great British hope win gold at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics?

Producer: Smita Patel


SAT 19:15 Saturday Review (m000cysw)
Little Women, War Of The Worlds Immersive Experience, Untitled Goose Game, Graphic novels, podcasts

There's a new all-star Little Women on the big screen. The cast includes Saoirse Ronan, Florence Pugh, Emily Watson, Laura Dern, Timothee Chalamet and Meryl Streep. Louisa May Alcott's novel has been a popular text for film makers since the first silent version in 1912 - is there anything new which director Greta Gerwig can bring to this version?
HG Wells' novel The War Of The Worlds is probably best known to many people as the Jeff Wayne musical version, it's the UK's 32nd best-selling studio album of all time. It's been a touring show, made into a video game and now it's become an immersive theatrical experience,complete with AI headsets.
Untitled Goose Game is an award-winning game in which the player is a goose who wanders around irritating characters by honking and flapping at them. We look at a couple of graphic novels: Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me and November
Four hundred years ago, in August 1619, a ship carrying more than 20 enslaved Africans arrived in America. A podcast series “1619,” from The New York Times, hosted by Nikole Hannah-Jones, examines the long shadow of that fateful moment. You're Dead To Me is a BBC podcast series which describes itself as "a history podcast for people who don't like history". Presented by Greg Jenner, it looks at a variety of subjects from a lighthearted perspective

Jordan Erica Webber's guests are Arifa Akbar, Naima Khan and Carl Anka. The producer is Oliver Jones


SAT 20:00 Archive on 4 (m000cysy)
Virtues of Vulnerability with Ed Balls

For Ed Balls, the decision to talk publicly about his stammer was pivotal. As a politician, displaying vulnerability was almost unthinkable. Ed's decision turned out to be a good one, but opening up in this way had risks, and things might have been different.

In this personal programme, Ed talks to people from sport, politics, business and media, hearing how they dealt with life’s challenges, displaying their vulnerability, often in full public view.

Ed speaks to Michael Palin, Facebook's Nicola Mendelsohn, one of the most powerful women in tech; politician Paula Sherriff, Paralympian and Strictly Come Dancing star Will Bayley, journalist Nick Robinson, and writer and activist Scarlett Curtis.

Through archive and original interviews, Ed revisits past moments of vulnerability, including his own, speaking to those involved to shed fresh light on the pitfalls and benefits of displaying one’s vulnerable side.

Presenter: Ed Balls
Producer: Jack Soper
A TBI Media production for BBC Radio 4


SAT 21:00 Sebastian Baczkiewicz - Pilgrim (m000cyt0)
Series 2

The Lady in the Lake

by Sebastian Baczkiewicz. In search of runaway ward, Freya, Pilgrim goes to Hollisale Well and discovers a small community dedicated to the memory of a woman lured into the water seven years ago by a magical being.

Cast
William Palmer ..... Paul Hilton
Freya ..... Rachael Spence
Becker ..... Adeel Akhtar
Gordy ..... Henry Devas
Charity ..... Claire Price
Gudrun ..... Claire Harry
Legend ..... Agnes Bateman

Directed by Marc Beeby


SAT 21:45 Book at Bedtime (b08n3wpq)
Rabbit, Run

Episode 8

The post-war novel that summed up middle-class white America and established John Updike as the major American author of his generation. Rabbit, Run is the first in a virtuoso Pullitzer Prize-wining quintet featuring hapless Harry Angstrom, whom we meet as a 26 year old former high school basketball star and suburban paragon in the midst of a personal crisis.

Episode 8 (of 10):
Janice brings the new baby home from hospital and Harry is overjoyed - until he is thwarted in his desires and decides to run again, at least for a night, with tragic consequences.

Rabbit, Run established Updike as one of the major American novelists of his generation. In the New York Times he was praised for his "artful and supple" style in his "tender and discerning study of the desperate and the hungering in our midst's".

Radio 4 plans to broadcast all five novels in the series over the next few years.

Read by Toby Jones
Abridged by Eileen Horne
Produced by Clive Brill
A Brill production for BBC Radio 4.


SAT 22:00 News and Weather (m000cyt2)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4.


SAT 22:15 The Spark (m000cp2w)
Paul Krugman v zombie economics

Helen Lewis meets the writers and thinkers who are breaking new ground.

From politics to economics, from tech to the study of how we live, things are changing fast. Old certainties have not been under such challenge for decades.

So each week, we give the whole programme over to a single in-depth, close-up interview with someone whose big idea is bidding to change our world.

Helen’s challenge is to make sense of their new idea, to find out more about the person behind it – and to test what it has to offer us against the failures of the past.

This week, Helen talks to Paul Krugman, recipient of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Economics, and author of Arguing With Zombies: Economics, Politics, and the Fight for a Better Future, about the ideas he contends block the path to positive change.

Producer: Phil Tinline


SAT 23:00 Quote... Unquote (m000cn46)
Sir Tim Rice, Robin Stevens, Shazia Mirza

Quote … Unquote, the popular celebrity quotations quiz, returns for its 55th series.

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.

Across forty years, Nigel Rees has been joined by writers, actors, musicians, scientists and various comedy types. Kenneth Williams, Judi Dench, PD James, Sir Ian KcKellen and Peter Ustinov... have all graced the Quote...Unquote stage.

Episode 5
Lyricist and author Sir Tim Rice
Novelist Robin Stevens
Stand-up comedian and writer Shazia Mirza

Quotes read by Charlotte Green
Production Coordinator: Candace Wilson

Producer: Victoria Lloyd
A BBC Studios production for BBC Radio 4


SAT 23:30 Wild Music (m000cnc4)
Earlier this year, the Scottish poet and writer John Burnside received a CD of Solan Goose by musician and composer Erland Cooper. These "sonic postcards" of Erland's native Orkney are inspired by local dialect, birds, landscapes and the sea. For John Burnside, it reconnected him with nature in a profound way.

The two meet for the first time on Orkney while Erland is working on the final album of his Orkney trilogy. Braving heavy rain and gale-force winds, Erland takes John to locations that inspire his work.

Scattered across the Orkney islands are some of the UK’s best preserved neolithic monuments, designated a UNESCO world heritage site. John feels a direct connection to the stone-age communities who lived here 5000 years ago, and a sense that those people lived really close to the earth, the sea and the sky. We visit the mysterious Ring of Brodgar, the neolithic village of Skara Brae, a sacred cairn, and the Bay of Skale. John responds by composing five new poems.

Sheltering from the storm, Erland and John entertain each other by swapping their favourite Orkney myths and legends - featuring seal people, a trip to faerie land and disappearing islands. These stories also weave their way into both artists' work.

Produced by Victoria Ferran
A Just Radio production for BBC Radio 4



SUNDAY 05 JANUARY 2020

SUN 00:00 Midnight News (m000cyt4)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


SUN 00:30 Witness (m000d1qn)
Chester Williams - South African rugby legend

In 1995, South Africa won an emotional victory as hosts of the Rugby World Cup shortly after the end of apartheid. Chester Williams was the only black player in the team and became a personal friend of President Nelson Mandela. Williams’ death in September 2019 was widely mourned in South Africa and beyond. His friend and fellow rugby player Jerome Paarwater tells his story to Rebecca Kesby.


SUN 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m000cyt6)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.


SUN 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m000cyt8)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


SUN 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m000cytb)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.


SUN 05:30 News Briefing (m000cytd)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4.


SUN 05:43 Bells on Sunday (m000cytg)
Manchester Cathedral

Bells on Sunday comes from Manchester Cathedral. This grade one listed building was – during World War two - the most damaged English Cathedral after Coventry. The interior retains a magnificent set of choir stalls complete with misericords dating back to the early Sixteenth Century. The tower contains a peal of ten bells cast by the Croydon Foundry of Gillett and Johnson. The tenor, cast in 1925, weighs twenty seven and three quarter hundredweight and is tuned to F. We hear them ringing Bristol Surprise Royal.


SUN 05:45 Profile (m000cyst)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Saturday]


SUN 06:00 News Headlines (m000cytn)
The latest national and international news headlines.


SUN 06:05 Something Understood (b01bkhjq)
Mementos

Mark Tully ponders the significance of mementos, not just of the past, but the future too. From military trophies to reminders of our own mortality, he examines the objects we imbue with personal meaning.

Mark observes in the programme that mementos keep the past alive in the present and are preserved for the future - so they are important links through time.

Featuring literature from Joseph Conrad, W.B. Yeats and John Donne; and music by Nat King Cole, Arvo Part and the Band of the Blues and Royals, among others, the programme celebrates the comfort we can gain from inanimate artefacts, and the capability they possess to 'speak' across generations.

But Mark also observes that Mementos can be a trap, too, encouraging us to live too much in the past - to indulge our previous sorrows and losses.

Perhaps no institutions preserve their mementos more lovingly than the military, and the programme features an interview with military historian, Squadron Leader Rana Chhina who shows Mark his family mementos of campaigns in India and Pakistan - mementos which mean so much to him, his family and his comrades.

And Mark, himself, shares with us a memento which means much to him and which epitomises the power of mementos to bind us to each other and to the past, present and future.

Readers: Jonjo O'Neill and Adjoa Andoh

Producer: Adam Fowler
A Unique production for BBC Radio 4


SUN 06:35 Living World (b050xwh1)
The Spined Loach

The Living World is a natural history strand that revels in rich encounter, immersion in the natural world and warm, enthusiastic story telling.

The spined loach is a small freshwater fish that spends most of the time burried in the silt of riverbeds. It is believed be in the UK as a result of the melting from the last Ice Age when the UK was connect to Europe. After the Ice Age rescinded, the ocean water levels increased for a time before decreasing enough to essentially separating some of the species from the rest that live in Europe. Brett Westwood joins Environment Agency Fisheries Officer Andy Beal and his team conducting a survey of this secretive and rare animal at Morton's Leam; a 15th Century river artificial course of the River Nene in Cambridgeshire.


SUN 06:57 Weather (m000cytq)
The latest weather forecast.


SUN 07:00 News and Papers (m000cyts)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.


SUN 07:10 Sunday (m000cytv)
Sunday morning religious news and current affairs programme.


SUN 07:54 Radio 4 Appeal (m000d0sh)
Children's Liver Disease Foundation

Sue Cook makes the Radio 4 Appeal on behalf of the Children's Liver Disease Foundation.

To Give:
- Freephone 0800 404 8144
- Freepost BBC Radio 4 Appeal. (That’s the whole address. Please do not write anything else on the front of the envelope). Mark the back of the envelope ‘Children's Liver Disease Foundation’.
- Cheques should be made payable to ‘Children's Liver Disease Foundation’.

Registered Charity Number: 1067331 In Scotland: SC044387


SUN 07:57 Weather (m000cytx)
The latest weather forecast.


SUN 08:00 News and Papers (m000cytz)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.


SUN 08:10 Sunday Worship (m000cyv1)
"No longer my own but Yours...."

At the start of the new year Methodists make a distinctive resolution. The covenant service, often celebrated on the first Sunday of the year, is at the heart of Methodists' devotion and discipleship, and their dedication in working for social justice. What God offers is a loving relationship. The Covenant is not a contract in which God and human beings agree to provide particular goods and services for each other! Rather, the Covenant is the means of grace by which Methodists accept the relationship and then seek to sustain it.
Live from Rayleigh Methodist Church, South East Essex, with the Minister, the Revd Dr Calvin Samuel, and the Revd Emma Nash, who is part of Methodism's national Evangelism and Growth Team. Directors of Music: Heather Symmons and Dave Cook; Organist: Keith Norman; Producer: Philip Billson.


SUN 08:48 A Point of View (m000cyv3)
Getting Close to Nature

"After months of hearing about the climate emergency", writes Rebecca Stott, "I thought it would be a good thing to spend some time around a species that was doing really well".
She decided to become a seal warden...but the job is rather different from what she was expecting.
"This wild, old, slithery, stinking world of the sand dunes really isn't cute" she says. "But there are some things in nature, dare I say it, that are a lot more interesting than cute".

Producer: Adele Armstrong


SUN 08:58 Tweet of the Day (b04t0vfj)
Northern Cardinal

Michael Palin presents the northern cardinal from a New York's Central Park. Northern Cardinals are finch-like birds and make British robins look positively anaemic. They are common residents in the south and east of North America where they live in woods, parks and gardens. Your first sighting of these vermilion birds with their black masks and outrageous crests comes as a shock. They seem too tropically colourful to brave the dull North American winter.

Only the male Cardinals are bright red. Females are browner with flashes of red on their wings and red bills. Both sexes obtain their red colours from seeds and other foods which contain carotenoid pigments.
Their familiarity and eye-catching colours have endeared cardinals to North Americans. No fewer than seven states, including Kentucky, Illinois and Ohio have adopted cardinals as their state bird and it's also the mascot of many famous sports clubs including the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team.


SUN 09:00 Broadcasting House (m000cyv7)
The Sunday morning news magazine programme. Presented by Paddy O'Connell


SUN 10:00 The Archers Omnibus (m000cyvc)
Writer, Caroline Harrington
Director, Jessica Bunch
Editor, Jeremy Howe

Pip Archer ….. Daisy Badger
Kenton Archer ….. Richard Attlee
Jolene Archer ….. Buffy Davis
Tony Archer ….. David Troughton
Helen Archer ….. Louiza Patikas
Brian Aldridge ….. Charles Collingwood
Phoebe Aldridge ….. Lucy Morris
Harrison Burns ….. James Cartwright
Justin Elliott ….. Simon Williams
Rex Fairbrother ….. Nick Barber
Toby Fairbrother ….. Rhys Bevan
Tracy Horrobin ….. Susie Riddell
Alistair Lloyd ….. Michael Lumsden
Jim Lloyd ….. John Rowe
Jazzer McCreary ….. Ryan Kelly
Kirsty Miller ….. Annabelle Dowler
Elizabeth Pargetter ….. Alison Dowling
Robert Snell ….. Graham Blockey
Lynda Snell ….. Carole Boyd
Oliver Sterling ….. Michael Cochrane
Roy Tucker ….. Ian Pepperell
Lee Bryce ….. Ryan Early
Gavin ….. Gareth Pierce


SUN 11:15 Desert Island Discs (m000cyvf)
Rupert Everett, actor

Rupert Everett is an actor, writer and director whose breakthrough came in 1981 when he was cast as a gay schoolboy in Another Country, Julian Mitchell's play and subsequent film.

Rupert later starred in Dance with a Stranger before making a splash in Hollywood playing Julia Roberts's gay confidante in My Best Friend's Wedding. But his movie career took a dive after The Next Best Thing - in which he played the gay father of Madonna's baby - flopped. After a period out of the limelight he turned his attention to writing and won great acclaim for his witty and illuminating memoirs about his life in showbusiness.

In 2018 Rupert starred in his directorial debut, The Happy Prince - a film about Oscar Wilde's final years in exile. The film was a decade-long labour of love for Rupert from writing the screenplay to securing the funding and persuading his friends Colin Firth and Emily Watson to join the cast. The film was well-received, with one critic calling it a 'deeply felt, tremendously acted tribute to courage'.

Later this year Rupert is starring in the Broadway revival of Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Presenter: Lauren Laverne
Producer: Paula McGinley


SUN 12:00 News Summary (m000cyvh)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


SUN 12:04 The Unbelievable Truth (m000cn4q)
Series 23

Episode 1

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

Holly Walsh, Henning Wehn, Tony Hawks and Sally Phillips are the panellists obliged to talk with deliberate inaccuracy on subjects as varied as actors, rules, dogs and Finland.

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


SUN 12:32 The Food Programme (m000cyvk)
Could eating microalgae be the next big thing?

Sheila Dillon enters the murky green and bright blue world of microalgae and cynobacteria to meet the people who believe humble pond scum could be the secret to securing food for the world's growing population. She meets Andrew Spicer, CEO of Algenuity, who is exploring how microalgae could be an egg replacement of the future and somehow their conversation leads Sheila to make a green Victoria sponge. Away from the kitchen, Sheila tells the story of Saumil Shah who is growing spirulina on rooftops in Bangkok and Simon Perez who has been inventing hot dogs, crisps and salad dressings from spirulina in Copenhagen. She hears from one of the world's leading algae scientists, Professor Alison Smith, Head of Plant Sciences at the University of Cambridge, and nutritionist Rhiannon Lambert before finding out from Dr Gisela Detrell how microalgae could feed astronauts on missions to Mars.

Presenter: Sheila Dillon
Producer: Tom Bonnett
Photograph: Space10


SUN 12:57 Weather (m000cyvm)
The latest weather forecast


SUN 13:00 The World This Weekend (m000cyvp)
Global news and analysis, presented by Mark Mardell.


SUN 13:30 The World Turned Upside Down (m000d1yp)
Episode 1

In the plains of Andalusia, just outside Seville, a giant tower stands bathed in a supernatural glow. This futuristic spectacle is a solar power station generating enough electricity to power a town - by day, and extraordinarily by night. It is just one part of a technological movement with revolutionary political consequences.

For more than a century, the world has revolved around fossil fuels. Wars have been fought over them. The nations that had oil and gas had power. They controlled the price, they controlled the supply and could tell their customers what to do.

The BBC's Diplomatic Correspondent, James Landale, now explores what will happen as countries around the world develop enough renewable energy to end their dependence on hydrocarbons and assesses the geopolitical consequences of this energy revolution.

How long will the transition take? Will the powerful oil and gas producers in the Middle East reform in time or will their economies implode, leaving failed states, regional conflict and a population exodus? How will Russia respond if Europe no longer needs so much of its gas? And which countries will be the new energy superpowers? Who will control resources like lithium and cobalt that will be needed for new high tech batteries?

Above all, who will call the shots in this new renewable world order?

The energy revolution is coming and it could change our world forever.

Produced by Adam Bowen


SUN 14:00 Gardeners' Question Time (m000cld2)
Nottinghamshire

Kathy Clugston and the team are in Nottinghamshire. James Wong, Bunny Guinness and Bob Flowerdew answer the audience's questions.

This week, the panellists discuss new year's resolutions and guilty gardening habits. They also answer questions on a Summer Clematis and spotting wireworm, and come up with suggestions for a small gardening space with a tropical theme.

Aside from the questions, Peter Gibbs examines the use of peat in the horticultural industry.

Producer: Laurence Bassett
Assistant Producer: Jemima Rathbone

A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4


SUN 14:45 The Listening Project (m000cyvr)
Sunday Omnibus- In the friendship zone

Fi Glover presents the omnibus edition of the series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen - with three conversations between men friends.

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


SUN 15:00 Riot Girls (m0001zwc)
Riot Days (Part 1)

Maria Alyokhina's account of her activism, trial and imprisonment, as part of Russian feminist punk protest group Pussy Riot. Dramatised by E V Crowe and starring Katie West, Kerry Gooderson and Kathryn Drysdale.

Directed by Emma Harding

Maria.....Katie West
Nadya.....Kerry Gooderson
Katya.....Kathryn Drysdale
Bass Player.....Saffron Coomber
Petya.....Cameron Percival
Investigator Igor.....Ronny Jhutti

All other parts played by Lucy Doyle, Alexandra Constantinidi, Clare Corbett, Tony Turner, Michael Bertenshaw, Carolyn Pickles, Christopher Harper and Jeanette Percival.

Guitarist....Lewis Turner

Additional material from Pussy Riot, A Punk Prayer for Freedom (Feminist Press) and Maria Alyokhina's closing courtroom statement translated by a collaborative team of translators, Marijeta Bozovic, Maksim Hanukai, and Sasha Senderovich, edited by Bela Shayevich, originally published on the website of n+1 magazine


SUN 16:00 Bookclub (m000cyvt)
Erin Morgenstern - The Night Circus

American author Erin Morgenstern talks about her fantasy novel The Night Circus which has become a cult favourite with readers. James Naughtie presents and an invited group of readers ask the questions.

It's the story of a mysterious Victorian travelling circus that only opens at night and is constructed entirely in black and white. Although there are acrobats, fortune-tellers and contortionists Le Cirque des Rêves is no conventional spectacle. Some tents contain clouds, some ice. the circus seems almost to cast a spell over its aficionados, who call themselves the rêveurs, the dreamers.

At the heart of the story is the tangled relationship between two young magicians, Celia, the enchanter's daughter, and Marco, the sorcerer's apprentice. At the behest of their shadowy masters they find themselves locked in a deadly contest and the two rivals defy all the rules of the game by falling in love.

You can hear a reading of The Night Circus on BBC Radio 4 Extra Monday 6 January - Friday 10 January at 1800

To take part in future Bookclubs apply at bookclub@bbc.co.uk

February's Bookclub Choice : The People's Act of Love by James Meek (2005)

Presented by James Naughtie
Produced by Dymphna Flynn


SUN 16:30 A Plague of Gratitude (m000cyvw)
Kaveh Akbar is a 30-year-old Iranian-American poet described as "one of the most exciting voices in American contemporary poetry."

Akbar's prizewinning debut collection, Calling a Wolf a Wolf, gave an unflinching account of his recovery from alcohol addiction.

But Kaveh has a new preoccupation. Gratitude. His collection was a resounding success both in the US and the UK, he's just got married to fellow poet Paige Lewis, he’s taken up a teaching post at Perdue University in Indiana - and he's suffering from survivor's guilt. He feels overwhelmed by this 'Plague of Gratitude' as he calls it. Even the salad spinner that sits in his kitchen haunts him - taunting him that he's been grossly overpaid because he can afford a salad spinner that nobody needs.

Recorded on location in Indiana, we follow Kaveh as he grapples with this new question - how can he, as a poet, write about gratitude and joy responsibly when there is so much violence and anger in the world? And how can he leverage his new-found fortune to give opportunities for others to feel gratitude? We hear selections of Kaveh's previous work in addition to a brand new poem.

Kaveh wants to live his life "in joyful service" to poetry. Teaching at Purdue and running his interview blog, DiveDapper, is part of his idea of sharing his gratitude. Fostering a thriving community is top of Kaveh’s agenda - we join him at a celebratory poetry festival he organises in Indianapolis and eavesdrop on his monthly poetry salon where students and teachers come together to share their work and enjoy each other’s company outside the classroom.

Produced by Victoria Ferran
A Just Radio production for BBC Radio 4


SUN 17:00 A Guide to Disagreeing Better (m000cn12)
Why do we hold our opponents in contempt? Former politician Douglas Alexander believes that disagreement is good, it's how the best arguments get refined. But, today, public discourse has become so ill-tempered, snide and lacking in respect that we are no longer engaged in a battle of ideas but a slanging match. He talks to people with personal tales about how we might all raise our game and disagree better, among them a relationship counsellor, an ex-soldier, a peace broker and a foster mother. Their tips? Civility is not enough. And knowledge is essential, as well as radical honesty, fierce intimacy and openness. So, dial down the rhetoric, rein in the insults - they will persuade no-one that your opinion is worth listening to - and pay attention.
Producer: Rosamund Jones
Researcher: Kirsteen Knight


SUN 17:40 Profile (m000cyst)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Saturday]


SUN 17:54 Shipping Forecast (m000cyvy)
The latest shipping forecast.


SUN 17:57 Weather (m000cyw0)
The latest weather forecast.


SUN 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m000cyw2)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


SUN 18:15 Pick of the Week (m000cyw4)
The best of BBC Radio this week.


SUN 19:00 The Archers (m000cyw6)
There’s a shocking proposal at The Bull and Philip attempts to keep the peace


SUN 19:15 Fred at The Stand (m000cyw8)
Series 1

Lyons, Mazadza, Jones and Delaney

Fred MacAulay introduces some of the funniest comedians in the UK doing what they do best - pure stand-up comedy. Recorded at The Stand Comedy Club in Edinburgh.

This week, Zoe Lyons shares her insights into Buddhism, newcomer Wayne Mazadza integrates into British life, Rosie Jones doesn't let being northern hold her back, and the relentless Gary Delaney delivers a barrage of unstoppable one liners.

Produced by Richard Melvin
A Dabster production for BBC Radio 4


SUN 19:45 A Run in the Park (m000cywb)
Episode 10

A group of strangers in Belfast have formed a running group, determined to go from absolute beginners to completing a 5K Parkrun in just nine weeks. As their shared runs get longer and tougher, friendships are forged and relationships challenged. But will any of them actually make it over the finish line?

Young couple Brendan and Angela are running from their doubts about their rapidly approaching wedding; librarian Cathy is in pursuit of a new life following a health scare; Syrian refugee Yana races from the trauma of her past; and recent retiree Maurice is determined to get fit for his family, step by painful step, even if he’s not actually part of their lives right now…

Author
David Park is one of Northern Ireland's most acclaimed writers. He is the author of nine novels and two collections of short stories. He has been awarded the Authors' Club First Novel Award, the Bass Ireland Arts Award for Literature, the Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize, the American Ireland Fund Literary Award and the University of Ulster's McCrea Literary Award, three times. He has also received a Major Individual Artist Award from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. His most recent novel ‘Travelling in A Strange Land’ won the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award and was a Radio 4 ‘Book at Bedtime’.

Writer ..... David Park
Reader ..... Des McAleer
Producer ..... Michael Shannon


SUN 20:00 Positive Thinking (m000cqd6)
Tackling Food Waste

Broadcaster and journalist Fi Glover and digital advisor Gemma Milne examine some of the UK’s biggest problems and consult a jury of end users to determine the best solution for all.

In this edition, the team are on the hunt for a radical solution to the UK’s problem of large scale supermarket food waste. Britain throws out over 10 million tonnes of food each year – which is more than enough to fill the Royal Albert Hall over 100 times.

Three advocates present their plans directly to our panel of consumers who rigorously interrogate them and ultimately decide on the solution they believe will have the greatest impact.

Under consideration are a proposal to remove “use by” and “sell by” dates on products in order to change consumer habits, food recycling through “no waste” shops on every high street and “gleaning” on farms, and an algorithmic tech solution that introduces dynamic pricing to the retailer’s shelves.

Fi and Gemma work with the panel to judge each solution, and together they have to reach a consensus on the best way forward.

Produced by Anishka Sharma and Sasha Edye-Lindner
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4


SUN 20:30 Last Word (m000cld4)
Neil Innes, Steve Sawyer, Sheila Mercier, Alasdair Gray

Pictured: Neil Innes

Matthew Bannister on

Neil Innes, the talented musician who was a member of the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, worked with Monty Python and satirised the Beatles. Roger McGough and Michael Palin pay tribute.

Steve Sawyer, the Greenpeace activist who helped to evacuate the Pacific Islanders of the Rongelap Atoll after they were affected by nuclear testing.

Sheila Mercier, the actress best known for playing Annie Sugden in the TV soap Emmerdale.

Alasdair Gray, the Scottish novelist and painter who created the acclaimed novel Lanark.

Interviewed guest: Roger McGough
Interviewed guest: Michael Palin
Interviewed guest: Brian Fitzgerald
Interviewed guest: Anthony Hayward
Interviewed guest: Jean Rogers
Interviewed guest: Frazer Hines
Interviewed guest: Alan Riach

Producer: Paula McGinley

Archive clips from: Chain Reaction, Radio 4 20/04/2016; Innes Own World, Radio 4 Extra 29/06/2018; All You Need is Cash, directed by Eric Idle and Gary Weis, Broadway Video 22/03/1978; The Reunion, Radio 4 14/09/2003; Rainbow Warrior's Rongelap Voyage, 25/06/2015, Pacific Media Centre; Breakfast Time, Radio 4 10/07/1985; Open To Question, Radio 4 15/10/1985; 1800 News Bulletin, Radio 4 26/08/1997; Emmerdale, ITV 31/10/1972; Emmerdale, ITV 16/07/1973; Emmerdale, ITV 19/05/1988; The Late Show: Alasdair Gray, BBC Two 18/10/1993; Artworks Scotland: Alasdair Gray, BBC 2S 14/11/2004; Alasdair Gray at Eighty, BBC 2S 27/12/2014; Reporting Scotland 2018: Alasdair Gray, 05/04/2018.


SUN 21:00 Money Box (m000cys7)
[Repeat of broadcast at 12:04 on Saturday]


SUN 21:25 Radio 4 Appeal (m000d0sh)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:54 today]


SUN 21:30 In Business (m000cl7d)
Selling Britain

Whatever happens in British politics, Britain’s reputation has changed. So what does this mean for its business image as the country starts to seek more global markets? Chris Bowlby discovers what’s in store for ‘Brand Britain’ and who its champions might be – from luxury London to north east England. What’s the key to the reputation of British business? Will some brands prosper regardless of what happens in the country itself?

Producer: John Murphy


SUN 22:00 Westminster Hour (m000cywd)
Radio 4's Sunday night political discussion programme.


SUN 23:00 Radiolab (m000cywg)
Series 6

Blood

Radiolab explores why are we - from horrifying movies to the holy - obsessed by blood? With Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich.

From medicine to the movies, the horrifying to the holy, and history to the present day — Radiolab considers the power and magic of the red liquid that runs through our veins. We meet an artist who opened his veins and got labeled a terrorist, douse ourselves in the meat and metaphors of blood in Shakespeare, wonder if clues to a gory fountain of youth could be lurking in the red blood cells of mice, and trace the complicated supply chain that gets blood from arms to operating tables.

Radiolab is a Peabody-award winning show about curiosity. Where sound illuminates ideas, and the boundaries blur between science, philosophy, and the human experience.

Hosts Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich investigate a strange world.

From WNYC. First broadcast on public radio in the USA in 2013.



MONDAY 06 JANUARY 2020

MON 00:00 Midnight News (m000cywk)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4.


MON 00:15 Rewinder (m000bcjh)
One: Punks, Spies and a Truck Full of Cash

Greg James, host of the Radio 1 Breakfast Show and self-confessed 'proud radio nerd', rummages through the BBC's vast archives of audio, video and documents, using current stories and listener suggestions as a springboard into the vaults.

This week a listener sends him in search of how the BBC covered the arrival of punks and punk music - coincidentally just a few days after Boris Johnson stated that The Clash were one of his favourite bands, a choice which infuriated some Clash fans. Greg finds an interview with Clash front-man Joe Strummer, shooting opinions in all directions, as well as Johnny Rotten and bandmates on Radio 4 news programmes in the late 1970s, John Peel defending the music and its disciples on Brass Tacks, and a reflective moment from singer Poly Styrene.

On the eve of Road Safety Week 2019, Greg discovers how the introduction of the breathalyser proved controversial just over 50 years ago - along with a radio play from the 1940s about the dangers of drink-driving. As the general election campaign continues, we hear the voice of the first woman to take her seat in the House of Commons - Nancy Astor, who was elected 100 years ago this month.

And almost 25 years to the day since the very first National Lottery draw, Greg returns to a moment of TV history, with a truck filled with the jackpot cash arriving in the studio.

Producer Paula McGinley


MON 00:45 Bells on Sunday (m000cytg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 05:43 on Sunday]


MON 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m000cywm)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.


MON 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m000cywp)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


MON 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m000cywr)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.


MON 05:30 News Briefing (m000cywt)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4.


MON 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m000cyww)
A short reflection and prayer with the Rev Dr Bert Tosh


MON 05:45 Farming Today (m000cywy)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.


MON 05:56 Weather (m000cyx0)
The latest weather forecast for farmers.


MON 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b04t0v9m)
Magnificent Frigatebird

Michael Palin presents the magnificent frigatebird a true oceanic bird, and resembling a hook-billed, pterodactyl of a seabird.

Magnificent frigatebirds are some of the most accomplished aeronauts of the tropical oceans. Their huge wingspans of over two metres and long forked tails allow them to soar effortlessly and pluck flying fish from the air, and also harass seabirds. These acts of piracy earned them the name Man-o' War birds and attracted the attention of Christopher Columbus.
Magnifcent Frigatebirds breed on islands in the Caribbean, and along the tropical Pacific and Atlantic coasts of central and South America as well as on the Galapagos Islands. Frigatebird courtship is an extravagant affair. The males gather in "clubs" , perching on low trees or bushes.

Here they inflate their red throat-pouches into huge scarlet balloons, calling and clattering their bills together as they try to lure down a female flying overhead. If they're successful, they will sire a single chick which is looked after by both parents for three months and by its mother only for up to 14 months, the longest period of parental care by any bird.


MON 06:00 Today (m000czkj)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.


MON 09:00 Start the Week (m000czkl)
A house and a home

Andrew Marr discusses the state of housing in Britain and what makes a house a home.

Common wisdom states that owning a house makes you a Tory, but is this true? Political scientist Ben Ansell says that Thatcher was right to assume that Right to Buy would create more Conservative voters. But today we see the opposite: the people whose houses have risen most in value are also the most likely to support Labour. Ansell looks back at the 1909 British Liberal Party budget, when politicians tried to take on the landlords who get rich at our expense.

The architect David Mikhail helped design a groundbreaking council house estate which won last year’s Stirling Prize, awarded to the best new building in the country. As the shortfall in social housing reaches crisis levels, his Goldsmith Street in Norwich was celebrated for creating sustainable and ambitious homes for people in need.

The writer Jude Yawson looks back at the emergence of Grime, a music culture which emerged from the tower blocks of East London. The artists – mostly young black men – used the city’s juxtaposition of their decaying tower blocks and the new gleaming skyscrapers, as the backdrop to their new urban music.

Fictional homes are at the centre of Christina Hardyment’s study, Novel Houses. Dickens and Austen both criticised grand country piles, seeing them as proxies for "the dead hand of the aristocracy". Hardyment explores the personal and social importance of unforgettable dwellings – from Bleak House to Howards End – and shows how the homes take on a life of their own, becoming as characterful as the people who live in them.

Producers: Katy Hickman and Hannah Sander


MON 09:45 State of the Nation (m000czm3)
Howard Jacobson

In the first of a series of five talks by British novelists reflecting on the state of the nation, a chance encounter forces Howard Jacobson to consider the true meaning of Brexit and ask if national togetherness is no more than a post-war pipe dream. Is the fractiousness of Brexit in fact a return to older and deeper habits? The series also hears from Lionel Shriver, Nadifa Mohamed, James Meek and Jan Carson.


MON 10:00 Woman's Hour (m000czkq)
How Does Fat Feel, Mindfulness for Parents

In May 2018 we put out a call to our listeners, asking How Does Fat Feel? Ena Miller interviewed three of the dozens of listeners who got in touch. A woman we are calling Jules described herself as fat and said that as she got bigger her life got smaller. Her low self esteem was having an impact on her marriage and her general health was poor. Today 'Jules' joins Jane to listen again to that interview and to talk about how she feels now.

Practising mindfulness can calm parents and children alike, according to Issy Judd who has written a book Mindfulness for Mums. She tells Jane about simple activities to relieve chaotic family stress, along with Sian Warriner, Consultant midwife at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust who runs mindfulness courses for expectant parents.

Presenter: Jane Garvey
Interviewed guest: Sian Warriner
Interviewed guest: Issy Judd
Reporter: Ena Miller
Producer: Lucinda Montefiore


MON 10:45 Exile (m000czks)
Episode 1

By Adrian Bean

The first episode in a brand new 10-part audio drama series marking the 400 year anniversary of the sailing of the Mayflower. A gripping story about one family's journey into the unknown.

What do you do when your beliefs are condemned by the rest of society? Sarah Hargreaves doesn't share her husband Matthew's desire to join the Puritan exiles, but when their son Benjamin is arrested on a trumped-up charge they have little choice but to go. Things go rapidly from bad to worse, and they decide to leave everything behind. Hoping to find peace and like minded souls in a new religious community in America, they spend everything they have left on a ticket to sail on the Mayflower.

CAST

Sarah Hargreaves - Louise Brealey
Matthew Hargreaves - Trystan Gravelle
Ben - Joel MacCormack
Elizabeth - Megan McInerney
Reverend Kerswell - Marc Danbury

Directed by John Norton
A BBC Cymru Wales Production


MON 11:00 The Untold (m000czkv)
The Alabama 3 singer and co-founder Jake Black died in May: as the next tour date draws near band members must decide whether they can continue without him and how they mark his absence on stage.

The decisions on a way forward started within days of Jake's unexpected death and whilst his body was still in the mortuary - moulds were taken of his face and hands in the hope that a death mask might help recreate his presence on stage.

In addition of the death mask, sound experts have painstakingly resurrected early out takes of Jake - otherwise known as the Very Reverend D Wayne Love. As preparations gather for the new tour, the forgotten tapes of the talented singer are a constant reminder of his huge talent.

The mask is made from the moulds taken by band member Nick Reynolds. He’s the son of Bruce, the great train robber and as well as playing harmonica he’s also a sculptor specialising in death masks. He's convinced that immortalising him in this way will be cathartic for all of them:

During the grieving process band members travel to a huge Sopranos Convention in New Jersey, with thousands of fans eager to meet the musicians behind the Sopranos theme tune, 'Woke up this Morning.' It is a bitter sweet experience for Rob Spragg, otherwise known as Larry Love, who formed Alabama 3 with Jake in 1996:

"Jake was larger than life, a real fusion of what we stood for and being in America without him is very hard." Rob has made big changes in his own life following Jake's death, largely giving up drugs and alcohol: "It's so hard - he should be here with us and hearing him during rehearsals and performances is bringing so many tears."


MON 11:30 Loose Ends (m000cysr)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:15 on Saturday]


MON 12:00 News Summary (m000czzh)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


MON 12:04 The Drop (m000czl0)
Episode 1

When retired spy Solomon Dortmund sees an envelope pass from one hand to another in a bustling cafe he knows he's witnessed more than an innocent encounter. But by relaying his suspicions to his MI5 handler he sets in train events which will alter lives.

Set in a snow-dusted London, Mick Herron's taut thriller takes place in the gap where old-style spy craft and modern intelligence analysis don't quite meet.

Read by John Heffernan
Abridged by Eileen Horne
Produced by Eilidh McCreadie


MON 12:18 You and Yours (m000czl2)
News and discussion of consumer affairs.


MON 12:57 Weather (m000czl4)
The latest weather forecast


MON 13:00 World at One (m000czl6)
Mon-Thurs: Analysis of news and current affairs, presented by Sarah Montague. Fri: Analysis of news and current affairs, presented by Mark Mardell.


MON 13:45 Green Originals (m000czl8)
Rachel Carson

Reflections on the modern pioneers of the environmental movement. Today - Rachel Carson.

Rachel Carson’s 1962 book Silent Spring was probably the most important environmental book of the 20th century. It catalogued, in grim detail, the effect that pesticides were having on the countryside and the wildlife within it. The book was fiercely attacked by the chemicals companies, whose businesses had grown rapidly in the years after the Second World War as a result of the widespread adoption of pesticides like DDT (dubbed the “insect bomb”).

After the publication of the book, there was a change in policy regulating the use of such substances in North America and in Britain too, where the effects of DDT on birds of prey numbers had long been suspected by organisations like the RSPB.

The nature writer Conor Jameson reflects on the work of this humble marine biologist turned conservationist, and analyses what challenges remain for the regulation of chemicals in wider environmental systems.

“Carson has taken on the status of a prophet,” he says, “with Silent Spring she created a new testament for our ecological times."

Producer: Emily Williams
Series Editor: David Prest
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4


MON 14:00 The Archers (m000cyw6)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Sunday]


MON 14:15 Drama (m0000qvr)
Road to Lisbon

Douglas Livingstone’s ‘Road to ...’ series, which creates a specially recorded soundtrack of major festivals to create new stories, takes us to this year’s joyous summer festival of St. Anthony in Lisbon. Patron saint of lovers and lost things, St. Anthony presides over days of celebrations. There’s fado – the wonderful songs of melancholy and longing peculiar to the Portuguese capital - there are nights of street parties, with sardines and sausages hissing on grills at every corner; there are dance competitions, parades and a mass wedding in the cathedral. But this is more than a story of sardines and sangria - we learn about life under the dictatorship of Dr. Salazar and the effect that the curiously named Carnation Revolution had on one man. 45, years ago Tony's father was one of the ‘Returnados’. After the fall of the Portuguese fascists, he was forced to leave his home and business in colonial Mozambique and found himself equally unwelcome in his native Lisbon. He made a new life in England and it's only on his death that his son discovers a clue to the secret that Paulo thought he had taken with him to the grave.

Tony ..... Carl Prekopp
Sharmila ..... Carlyss Peer
Joan ..... Elizabeth Rider
Paulo ..... David Westhead
Receptionist/Afonso ..... Andre Flynn
American Tourist ..... Julie Fitzpatrick
Azra ..... Cleo Sylvestre
Fernando ..... Malcolm Sinclair

Writer: Douglas Livingstone
Producer: Jane Morgan


MON 15:00 Quote... Unquote (m000czlb)
Dame Esther Rantzen, Steve Pemberton, Konnie Huq

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.
Across forty years, Nigel Rees has been joined by writers, actors, musicians, scientists and various comedy types. Kenneth Williams, Judi Dench, PD James, Sir Ian KcKellen and Peter Ustinov... have all graced the Quote...Unquote stage.

Episode 6
Broadcaster Dame Esther Rantzen
Actor and comedy writer Steve Pemberton
TV presenter Konnie Huq

Quotes read by Sally Grace
Production Coordinator: Candace Wilson

Produced by Victoria Lloyd
A BBC Studios Production for BBC Radio 4


MON 15:30 The Food Programme (m000cyvk)
[Repeat of broadcast at 12:32 on Sunday]


MON 16:00 Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics (m000czlf)
Series 5

Suetonius

Natalie tells the story of Suetonius, biographer of the Caesars and friend of Pliny the Younger. She's joined by guests Professor Llewelyn Morgan and biographer and journalist Anita Anand.
Classical knowledge is fragile: so much is lost. We don't know, for example, when Julius Caesar was born. What we do know about the Caesars is largely because of Suetonius. And some of it is quite strange. Who knew that experts in Latin grammar were once the coolest of the cool? That Domitian wrote a treatise on hair care? That Augustus kept a bust of Hadrian in his office and used hot nuts to soften the hair on his thighs? (Please don't try this at home).

Fellow biographer Anita Anand knows - like Suetonius - that writing about the long-dead is probably sensible if you want to stay out of trouble, but she still found herself in international hot water after her book on the Koh-i-Noor diamond (co-written with William Dalrymple) was published. It's amazing how Suetonius managed to stay in imperial good books despite writing the first warts and all biographies of all time.

Producer...Mary Ward-Lowery


MON 16:30 Beyond Belief (m000czlh)
Religion and Smell

No school nativity play is complete without the Three Wise Men ‘traversing afar’ bearing gifts for the baby Jesus. One of these gifts is frankincense, which for centuries has played a powerful role in many religious rituals. As an important ingredient in incense, its perfumed smoke has been a part of much religious worship since the time of the pharaohs in ancient Egypt. So why has smell become an important part of many faiths and how does it enhance religious observance? To discuss these questions, Ernie Rea is joined by Tim Jacob (Emeritus Professor at the School of Biosciences at the University of Cardiff), Kim Lahiri (Director at the International Federation of Aroma Therapists) and Dr Nicky Nielson (Lecturer in Egyptology at the University of Manchester).

Producer: Helen Lee


MON 17:00 PM (m000czlk)
Afternoon news and current affairs programme, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines.


MON 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m000czlp)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


MON 18:30 The Unbelievable Truth (m000czlr)
Series 23

Episode 2

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

Susan Calman, Graeme Garden, Sindhu Vee and Lloyd Langford are the panellists obliged to talk with deliberate inaccuracy on subjects as varied as cheese, Winston Churchill, flowers and rappers.

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


MON 19:00 The Archers (m000cz1b)
Jim struggles with his emotions and Justin knocks heads together


MON 19:15 Front Row (m000czlt)
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music


MON 19:45 Exile (m000czks)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:45 today]


MON 20:00 My Name Is... (m000czlw)
My Name Is Peter: I helped battle to stop the devastation caused by the Fishlake floods.

Deputy flood warden Peter Trimingham worked tirelessly to limit the impact of the Fishlake floods. He was born in the village and wants others to be spared from the horror of seeing so many suffer such loss in such a short space of time:

“That really sticks in your throat you know that regardless of your efforts you can do nothing to help people, it's a horrible feeling
You just feel so small and insignificant and useless: this is something much more powerful than you and it can't be imagined unless you've been in it.”

In this programme Peter questions those responsible for flood defences, including the Environmental Agency and speaks to academics and campaigning groups about what can be done to better protect people in the future.

He is confident that measures will be put in place to make future flooding unlikely in Fishlake, but he wants a more coordinated approach: “I don't want to see us defended so well that it guarantees someone else gets it. That's not what we are about as a country.”

When the water levels began to rise on Friday, Peter went out in his Jeep to fill sandbags and deliver them to neighbours: “We were driving along and all of a sudden we were lifted up by the flood water in a sideways flow which shoved us into a drain. We had to climb out otherwise we could have drowned,” he said.

In the recordings he meets local families suffering as insurance companies delay and even initially refused payments. He lives in the one of the “lowest house in the village,” and it was a race against time to get belongings off the floor as the water started seeping in from every hole and crevice:

“You're in your house that you've lived in and you’re frantically trying to get things away and at this stage you have no idea how high the water will rise.”

Within hours of the floods people began donating food, clothing and essential supplies to St Cuthbert’s church. Its pews are now stuffed with bedding and supplies are covering all available surfaces. Peter chats with organisers who feel that long term solutions can in part come from locals doing more to plant trees and encourage wildlife in the future.

When Peter was a boy rain from the hills of Sheffield would take a full day to reach Fishlake: “now with the spread of warehouses, concrete and block paving that run-off time is twelve hours: "“When we got to Stainforth Bridge we could see it was overbanking quite heavily, filling up low level areas. Some of the houses were wrecked as the floods took hold. Its photographs, memories, clothing and belongings – they’re all gone. It’s heart-breaking.”

Produced by Sue Mitchell


MON 20:30 Crossing Continents (m000cl64)
Sierra Leone - The Price of Going Home

Fatmata, Jamilatu and Alimamy all see themselves as failures. They’re young Sierra Leoneans who risked everything for the sake of a better life in Europe. Along the way, they were imprisoned and enslaved. They saw friends die. Eventually, they gave up. Now, they’re home again - facing the devastating consequences of what they did to their families before they left, actions that have left them ostracised by their nearest and dearest. Who will help them to survive back home? Can they rebuild their lives, and achieve any reconciliation with their parents? And if they can’t, will they be tempted to set off again, to seek their fortunes abroad?

Produced and presented by Tim Whewell
Editor, Bridget Harney


MON 21:00 Fidget on Four (m000cmyz)
Most of us fidget. This inability to keep still might involve repeatedly bouncing a knee up and down, playing with strands of hair, foot tapping, clicking a pen or doodling.

Fidgeting is most often associated with a lack of concentration and boredom, but studies are showing that targeted fidgeting helps people focus, calms the symptoms of ADHD and may even be meditative.

Some people, like presenter Dr Kat Arney, harness their natural tendency to fidget by knitting - and she’s not alone. There is ongoing research into the therapeutic benefits of crafts. Knitted muffs, covered in buttons, bells and ribbons to encourage fidgeting, are known to soothe people with dementia and are often used in care homes.

It’s time to realise that fidgeting can be a tool for concentration for everyone - provided it’s done in the right way.

The key to understanding why we fidget may lie in deciphering the neuroscientific processes at work in the brain and body as we do (or don’t) choose to move. Dr Arney examines what drives people to fidget, the research behind it and whether fidgeting is a help or hindrance to our physical and mental wellbeing - as well as what form of fidgeting works and what doesn’t.

Contributors include neuroscientist Anne Churchland (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, New York), clinical psychologist Roland Rotz (Lifespan Development Centre, California), Janet Cade (University of Leeds), Betsan Corkhill (Stitchlinks), Dave Bell (Dementia UK) and Louise Tomlins (The Accidental Knitter).

Producer: Sue Nelson
A Boffin Media production for BBC Radio 4


MON 21:30 Start the Week (m000czkl)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]


MON 22:00 The World Tonight (m000czlz)
In depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective


MON 22:45 The Drop (m000czl0)
[Repeat of broadcast at 12:04 today]


MON 23:00 Have You Heard George's Podcast? (p07vsf20)
Chapter 2

18. Concurrent Affairs

Following difficult conversations with Uganda and Britain, George drops a bombshell.

Written by George The Poet.
Produced by Benbrick & George The Poet.
Original music by Benbrick.

Featured songs: You Can Fly by Price Love, Think Twice by Celine Dion

Featured guests: Anne Isger as Britain.

Have You Heard George’s Podcast? is a George the Poet production for BBC Sounds.

Commissioning Executive for BBC: Dylan Haskins
Commissioning Editor for BBC: Jason Phipps


MON 23:30 The Courage of Ambivalence (m0007k73)
In an age of certainty, of assertions without facts, and sometimes assertions with facts, Mark O’Connell makes the case for a different virtue – ambivalence. Six years on from his thought-provoking, witty and charming Four Thought, he returns to make the case for ambivalence.

In those six years almost every trend in public life has been away from ambivalence rather than towards it. Populist movements from the left and the right are about certainty, and even the idea of balance often ends up sharing single, entrenched views, just neatly arrayed on either side.

Yet in real life few decisions are truly clear-cut, there is often a case on both sides, and a reasonable person could easily reach a different conclusion with the same evidence. Most of us, much of the time, have complex and mutually contradictory views on issues small and large. And that's also true in public life: the arts and business, politics and the military are all properly in the realm of ambivalence, with complicated, messy and marginal decisions.

Mark begins this programme in Dublin, speaking to a philosopher, a psychologist, an essayist and an art critic about what ambivalence is, how central it is to the human experience, and how we might embrace it. Then he travels to London, to examine areas of public life, and issues, where ambivalence feels less comfortable, more challenging. But as someone who is profoundly ambivalent about most things, much of the time, can he sustain the courage of his own ambivalence?

Producer: Giles Edwards



TUESDAY 07 JANUARY 2020

TUE 00:00 Midnight News (m000czm1)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


TUE 00:30 State of the Nation (m000czm3)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:45 on Monday]


TUE 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m000czm5)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.


TUE 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m000czm7)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


TUE 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m000czm9)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.


TUE 05:30 News Briefing (m000czmc)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4.


TUE 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m000czmf)
A short reflection and prayer with the Rev Dr Bert Tosh.


TUE 05:45 Farming Today (m000czmh)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.


TUE 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b04t0t2k)
Black-nest Swiftlet

Michael Palin presents the black-nest swiftlet deep inside an Indonesian cavern. The Black-nest swiftlet landing on the cave wall, begins work on one of the most expensive and sought- after items connected with any bird; its nest.

The swiftlet's tiny bowl -shaped nest is highly-prized as the main ingredient for bird's nest soup and is built by the male from strands of his saliva which harden into a clear substance which also anchors the nest to the vertiginous walls. Black-nest swiftlets are so-called because they add dark-coloured feathers to their saliva which are then incorporated into their nests.

The nests fuel expensive appetites. A kilo of nests can fetch 2500 US dollars and worldwide the industry is worth some 5 billion US dollars a year. Today in many places in South-east Asia artificial concrete "apartment blocks" act as surrogate homes for the Black-nest swiftlets. The birds are lured in by recordings of their calls, and once they've begun nesting, the buildings are guarded as if they contained gold bullion.


TUE 06:00 Today (m000d1yv)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.


TUE 09:00 The Life Scientific (m000cz0p)
Patricia Wiltshire on how pollen can solve crimes.

Patricia Wiltshire grew up in a mining village in South Wales, left home when she was 17 and worked for many years, first as a medical technician and then as a business secretary (a profession her first husband considered to be more ladylike). When she was studying botany A level at evening classes, her teacher encouraged her to apply for university as a mature student. (She would never have considered it otherwise). And so began her career as a palyonologist (studying pollen). She worked for many years reconstructing ancient environments on archaeological sites. But a phone call from a police detective led to a dramatic change of direction, when she was in her fifties. Since then, Pat has been involved in some of the most high-profile murder cases in Britain. The evidence she gave at the Old Bailey helped to convict the Ian Huntley, the school caretaker who murdered two ten year old girls in Soham in Cambridgeshire in 2002. She provided evidence for the Milly Dowler murder case in 2003 and the murder of the Ipswich prostitutes in 2006. She tells Jim Al-Khalili about her life scientific and how by studying pollen spores taken from suspects and their possessions, she can establish who’s been where.
Producer: Anna Buckley

Also coming up on The Life Scientific in the New Year.

Myles Allen, an Oxford Professor of Geosystems and the lead author on several IPCC reports on climate change. He describes the system he proposed for separating out human and non-human causes of climate change and assesses some of the claims made by Extinction Rebellion.

Professor Peter Fonagy describes his pioneering theory of ‘mentalization’ (the ability to make sense of our emotional states) and how he created the evidence base for different psychotherapeutic interventions. Therapy saved his life when he was a child refugee who arrived in the UK from Hungary and sparked his interest in the field.

Dr Susannah Maidment shares her passion for dinosaurs. She has spent many months dating rocks in the Morrison Formation in the American mid-West trying to sort out exactly what happened when in . One of the many questions she has tried to answer is why so many dinosaur species evolved from walking on two legs to moving about on four. Quite unlike our own species which evolved from four legged ancestors.

And winner of the 2019 Nobel Prize for physiology or Medicine, Professor Sir Peter Ratcliffe


TUE 09:30 One to One (m000d1yx)
Gerald Scarfe - bring back the news!

When photographer Paul Conroy was injured during a rocket attack in 2012, his first thought was probably not how this might change reporting of the Syrian civil war. Two other journalists died in the same attack - Remi Ochlik and Marie Colvin. Paul survived, wrote a book which became the basis for a famous documentary, and then worked as consultant on a major film, A Private War. Does his story add up to a more powerful way of explaining the war?

Five decades ago Gerald Scarfe went to Asia for The Daily Mail to cover the Vietnam war. He drew it, and here he shares his experiences with Paul as they discuss whether there are different ways to bring back the news. Future programmes in this series to include artist Arabella Dorman.

The producer in Bristol is Miles Warde


TUE 09:45 State of the Nation (m000cz0r)
Nadifa Mohamed

In the second of a series of five talks by British novelists reflecting on the state of the nation, Nadifa Mohamed recalls her family’s arrival from Somalia when she was a young child and explains why it’s only now that’s she’s ready to call the UK home. The series also hears from Lionel Shriver, Howard Jacobson, James Meek and Jan Carson.


TUE 10:00 Woman's Hour (m000d1z1)
The programme that offers a female perspective on the world


TUE 10:45 Exile (m000cz0v)
Episode 2

By Adrian Bean

Episode 2 in a new 10-part audio drama series marking the 400th anniversary of the sailing of the Mayflower. A gripping story about one family's journey into the unknown.

Fleeing religious persecution, Sarah Hargreaves and her family have risked everything to escape across the ocean, but when they get to Southampton, the Mayflower has already sailed. Finally they manage to get on board at Plymouth, and though Matthew Hargreaves believes it is God's will that has saved them, Sarah knows it is her own wily determination. That and the help of a kind sailor called Saul. Safely aboard ship their adventure really begins. But conditions are cramped, and their daughter Elizabeth is very sick.

CAST

Sarah Hargreaves - Louise Brealey
Matthew Hargreaves - Trystan Gravelle
Ben - Joel MacCormack
Elizabeth - Megan McInerney
Saul Tregarron - Matthew Gravelle
Captain Jones - John Cording

Directed by John Norton
A BBC Cymru Wales Production


TUE 11:00 The Diagnosis (m000cz0y)
For most of her life, Janice Wilson suffered from strange and terrifying attacks at night. She would wake up, suddenly, feeling as though she was being choked or strangled. The next day, there would be blood on her pillow. Sometimes she’d have up to 50 of these attacks a night. It left her terrified and exhausted. For years, doctors put it down to psychological problems due to a trauma in her past. Then she met a doctor who found the astonishing, true cause.
In “The Diagnosis”, Janice and the doctor who diagnosed her come together in a studio, to tell this remarkable story.

The programme is presented and produced by Helena Merriman, who was inspired to tell other people’s stories of diagnosis after receiving her own surprise diagnosis a few years ago.

Editor: Emma Rippon


TUE 11:30 Sounding The Cape (m000cz10)
“Sounding The Cape” brings the Radio 4 listener a sound journey through South Africa - from a politically charged soundscape of the murder of striking miners by a young Muslim, to the music of a living legend, Madosini, a Xhosa musician.

Singer and musician Nathaniel Mann, recent recipient of a Paul Hamlyn award for composition, travels to the Cape to find an irresistible blend of artists working with sound and music - reflecting both the joys and the pain of this conflicted and deeply unequal society.

Haroon Gunn-Sallie was born in prison - his parents under arrest for their part in the armed struggle against apartheid. Believing he was destined to be ‘an activist', he has channeled his activism into art, finding a surprising home in the mainstream fine art world - including London Frieze. Marikana is one of his most powerful works - an installation marking the anniversary of a massacre of striking miners in 2012.
The audience enter a sealed black box, and experience a collage of sounds which take you from the mine shaft through a vivid soundscape of newsreel, loudhailers, demonstrations and bullets to the massacre. Moments later the sound gives way to a beautiful rendition of ‘Senzenina’ - a song asking ‘What have We Done?', reflecting the struggles South Africa has yet to overcome as a fledgling democracy.

Madonsini, a traditional Xhosa musician, is the first person to be recorded for the WOMAD Festival's Musical Elders Archive project, yet her fame remains limited within the world-music sphere, and the instruments she plays are in danger of being lost. "There is no-one playing this instrument now except for me and my friend. I want the instrument to live, not to die with me." Revered for her skills on two unique instruments, the uhadi (bow with calabash) and the umrumbhe (mouth bow), Madosini is also instrument maker, using specific wood she finds lying in the bush near her home. Nathaniel gets a lesson in playing the umrumbhe with mixed results...

Jenna Burchell was driving across the great karoo - the desert also known as The Cradle of Mankind - when she noticed a white line running along the hillside next to the dusty road. It was a strata left behind after an ‘extinction event’, millennia ago, and so she began exploring the line - walking and gathering beautiful shattered rocks from the site. Using the Japanese technique of Kintsukuroi, repairing broken pottery with gold lacquer, she turned these ancient rocks into ‘Songsmiths’ working with recorded sound, to make the rocks sing of the land where they have existed for millennia triggered in each sculpture by the touch of a human hand. These ‘Songsmiths’ are both a visual and an aural treat - magically singing, as hands clutch stroke or just hover above the surface of each rock.

We also get the chance to listen in on a work in progress created by the artist Sikhumbuzo Makandula, who is fascinated by the sonic web bells cast over the South African landscape. His work explores the way that church bells became slave bells became school bells - in a sonically overwhelming show, asking the audience to join in with ringing a whole host of bells….

A sideways looks at an extraordinary sonic landscape.

Producer: Sara Jane Hall


TUE 12:00 News Summary (m000d23j)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


TUE 12:04 The Drop (m000cz12)
Episode 2

Set in a snow-dusted London, Mick Herron's taut thriller takes place in the gap where old-style spy craft and modern intelligence analysis don't quite meet.

When retired spy Solomon Dortmund sees an envelope pass from one hand to another in a bustling cafe he knows he's witnessed more than an innocent encounter. Even as he struggles to be taken seriously by his MI5 handler, undercover agent Snow White is about to take her first steps in the big league - but who is she working for?

Read by John Heffernan
Abridged by Eileen Horne
Produced by Eilidh McCreadie


TUE 12:18 You and Yours (m000cz15)
Call You and Yours

News and discussion of consumer affairs.


TUE 12:57 Weather (m000d1z5)
The latest weather forecast


TUE 13:00 World at One (m000d1z7)
Mon-Thurs: Analysis of news and current affairs, presented by Sarah Montague. Fri: Analysis of news and current affairs, presented by Mark Mardell.


TUE 13:45 Green Originals (m000cz17)
Joe Farman

On 16th May 1985, Joe Farman, Brian Gardiner and Jonathan Shanklin from the British Antarctic Survey published a paper in Nature announcing their discovery of a hole in the ozone layer above Antarctica. Their research suggested that chlorine released from CFCs – the chemicals used in everyday products like aerosols, refrigerators and air conditioning units – was destroying the layer of ozone which shields the Earth from the sun’s UV rays.

Just two years after the paper was published, world governments took swift action by signing up to the Montreal Protocol, a UN treaty which phased out the use of CFCs. Today, the Montreal Protocol is widely considered the most successful environmental treaty ever.

The meteorologist Peter Gibbs, who spent two years in Antarctica collecting ozone measurements for the British Antarctic Survey, reflects on the life of the camera-shy scientist who made one of the most important discoveries of the twentieth century.

“Farman realised the implications of his work for the whole world,” says Peter, “and despite not being a natural performer, he was prepared to put his head above the parapet.”

Producer: Dan Hardoon
Series Editor: David Prest
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.


TUE 14:00 The Archers (m000cz1b)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Monday]


TUE 14:15 Drama (m000cz1d)
Seven Pomegranate Seeds

Summer, and a young girl is stolen under the ground…

Up in the world, her mother searches for her lost child, her grief so powerful that the ground hardens into winter.

Colin Teevan’s The Seven Pomegranate Seeds draws on Greek mythology to weave a new contemporary story, revealing the darkest of moments, but also offering hope for the future and the possibility of a new, warming spring.

Starring Niamh Cusack (currently in the Nation Theatre’s My Brilliant Friend), Ruth Bradley (Humans) and Leah McNamara (Dublin Murders).

This is Colin Teevan’s brand-new radio adaptation of his original stage play. Originally based on seven of Euripedes’ female characters - Persephone, Hypsipyle, Medea, Alcestis, Phaedra, Creusa and Demeter - in this new radio adaptation, the myths are drawn into one new powerful story.

Colin Teevan is a celebrated playwright, translator and writer for screen. He created, wrote and was co-executive producer of ‘Rebellion’ and ‘Resistance’ (RTÉ and now Netflix) – serial dramas about the birth of modern Ireland, and ‘Charlie’, three films about Charles Haughey starring Aiden Gillen. He has premiered works at the National Theatres of Ireland, Scotland, and the National Theatre in London, and written many original dramas for BBC Radio.

The Seven Pomegranate Seeds is performed by the cast:
Niamh Cusack
Ruth Bradley
Leah McNamara

Written by Colin Teevan
Produced and Directed by Allegra McIlroy

A BBC Northern Ireland production


TUE 15:00 The Kitchen Cabinet (m000cys1)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:30 on Saturday]


TUE 15:30 Making History (m000cz1g)
Helen Castor and Tom Holland with the latest research that's Making History.


TUE 16:00 Word of Mouth (m000d1z9)
Metaphors

Michael Rosen returns to explore how metaphors shape our lives with author James Geary. We live, breathe and think in metaphors and communication would be impossible without them. In a far-reaching conversation, Michael and James tease out what they are, why they exist and why we need them in our language. And how it is that the Greek word from which the English word metaphor is derived is still in everyday use in its country of origin.

James Geary is the author of I Is an Other: The Secret Life of Metaphor and How It Shapes the Way We See the World.

Producer Beth O'Dea


TUE 16:30 Great Lives (m000cz1j)
Series 50

Charlie Parker nominated by Ken Clarke

From Kansas City to New York, young Charlie Parker conquered the world of jazz.. He was famous during his life, and even more famous after he died aged 34. He's nominated here by former health minister, home secretary and chancellor of the exchequer, Kenneth Clarke. Together with Richard Williams and Val Wilmer, Ken recounts what made Bird great, and why he died so very young.

"If you look at the street scenes of Harlem in 1940, it was a squalid place. Club life in New York was probably a smart escape." Ken Clarke

The programme also includes clips by Dizzy Gillespie and Annie Ross. and music such as Koko and Now's the Time.
The presenter is Matthew Parris, and the producer in Bristol is Miles Warde.


TUE 17:00 PM (m000d1zc)
Afternoon news and current affairs programme, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines.


TUE 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m000d1zh)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


TUE 18:30 Fags, Mags and Bags (b0bf64gh)
Series 8

A Song for Lenzie

The hit series returns for an eighth series with more shop based shenanigans and over the counter philosophy, courtesy of Ramesh Mahju and his trusty sidekick Dave. Written by and starring Donald Mcleary and Sanjeev Kohli.

Set in a Scots-Asian corner shop, the award winning Fags, Mags and Bags sees a return of all the shop regular characters, and some guest appearances along the way, from the likes of Moray Hunter, Lorraine McIntosh & Mina Amwar.

In this episode, Ramesh discovers to his horror than Sanjay hasn't been entirely truthful about his college education after The Bish (played by Michael Redmond) spots him busking in East Kilbride.

Join the staff of Fags, Mags and Bags in their tireless quest to bring nice-price custard creams and cans of coke with Arabic writing on them to an ungrateful nation. Ramesh Mahju has built it up over the course of over 30 years and is a firmly entrenched, friendly presence in the local area. He is joined by his shop sidekick, Dave.

Then of course there are Ramesh's sons Sanjay and Alok, both surly and not particularly keen on the old school approach to shopkeeping, but natural successors to the business. Ramesh is keen to pass all his worldly wisdom onto them - whether they like it or not!

Producer: Gus Beattie for Gusman Productions.
A Comedy Unit production for BBC Radio 4.


TUE 19:00 The Archers (m000d1v7)
Lilian has a brainwave and Josh returns to trouble at Brookfield


TUE 19:15 Front Row (m000d1zk)
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music


TUE 19:45 Exile (m000cz0v)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:45 today]


TUE 20:00 The Stem Cell Hard Sell (m000cz1l)
Stem cell therapies are sold as a new wonder cure by an increasing number of private clinics. But concerns are growing that unproven and unregulated treatments are not risk free.


TUE 20:40 In Touch (m000d1zm)
News, views and information for people who are blind or partially sighted


TUE 21:00 All in the Mind (m000cz1n)
Programme exploring the limits and potential of the human mind.


TUE 21:30 The Life Scientific (m000cz0p)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]


TUE 22:00 The World Tonight (m000d1zp)
In depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective


TUE 22:45 The Drop (m000cz12)
[Repeat of broadcast at 12:04 today]


TUE 23:00 Little Brexit (m0009t5q)
Brexit. Brexit. Brexit. The referendum has united this country like never before. Everybody loves Brexit. But how will Brexit affect the ordinary people of Britain? Matt Lucas and David Walliams return for a special episode of their much-loved sketch show Little Britain.

Written and performed by Matt Lucas and David Walliams

Also starring Tom Baker, Joann Condon, Anthony Head, Ruth Jones and Samantha Power

Music by David Arnold.

Produced by Ashley Blaker
A Pozzitive and Little Britain production for BBC Radio 4


TUE 23:30 Today in Parliament (m000d1zr)
News, views and features on today's stories in Parliament



WEDNESDAY 08 JANUARY 2020

WED 00:00 Midnight News (m000d1zt)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


WED 00:30 State of the Nation (m000cz0r)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:45 on Tuesday]


WED 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m000d1zw)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.


WED 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m000d1zy)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


WED 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m000d200)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.


WED 05:30 News Briefing (m000d202)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4.


WED 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m000d204)
A short reflection and prayer with the Rev Dr Bert Tosh.


WED 05:45 Farming Today (m000d206)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.


WED 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b04t0vl3)
Ostrich

Michael Palin presents the avian record breaking ostrich in the Kalahari Desert. Ostriches are ornithological record-breakers. The black and white adult male ostrich is taller and heavier than any other living bird, reaching almost 3 metres in height and weighing a whopping 150 kilograms. Females are smaller but lay the largest eggs of any bird. The ostrich's eye measures 5cm in diameter and is the largest of any land vertebrate.

Ostriches live in the wide open landscapes of central, eastern and South-West Africa. As well as being tall and observant, Ostriches also minimise their chances of being predated on, by living in groups and sharing lookout duties, or staying close to sharp-eyed antelope and zebra herds. They can also use their powerful legs to try and outrun a predator, reaching speeds of up to 70 kilometres per hour which makes them the fastest avian runner.


WED 06:00 Today (m000d1ts)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.


WED 09:00 Soul Music (m000czxn)
Series 28

Toto's Africa

Released in 1982, this soft-rock anthem has become an unlikely viral smash-hit.

Africa by Toto is a song that has changed lives, helped to raise thousands of pounds for charity and provided an unexpected musical corner-stone in a critically acclaimed play. Telling their personal stories in Soul Music:

Ralf Schmidt is the Artistic Director of Ndlovu Youth Choir which is made up of young people from the poorest parts of South Africa. Incredibly, the choir made it to the final of America's Got Talent, one of the biggest entertainment shows in the world. Ralf's exuberant, irresistible and uniquely African arrangement of Toto's Africa was their stand-out performance. (Brief extract of AGT (c) Fremantle USA and Syco Entertainment)

Michael Savage (aka DJ Michael Vinyl) of Prime Cuts record shop in Bristol, staged what could be considered a night of torture when he played Africa non-stop for twelve hours at a club. As Mike and Olivia Perry recall, this was to raise money for the Bristol based charity, Temwa, which operates in Malawi. They expected a handful of people to turn up, but the event had worldwide attention and was a huge success.

Mike Massé's life was completely changed following his release on YouTube of what many consider to be one of the best Africa cover-versions ever recorded. The main photo is of Mike Massé (photo credit: Jim Mimna).

David Greig is the Artistic Director of the Lyceum Theatre in Edinburgh; an esteemed playwright with intellectual clout. So, why did he include Africa in one of his plays? Well, he nearly didn't, but then he saw the light.

And, Abigail Gardner, a reader in music at the University of Gloucestershire, explains why Africa - originally a US No. 1 for just a week in 1982 - has recently undergone a strange modern rebirth, making it one of the most streamed songs on the internet.

Please scroll down to the 'Related Links' box to find out more about the interviewees.

Producer: Karen Gregor


WED 09:30 Four Thought (m000czxq)
Tidying Up

Sarah Gristwood is worried that the vogue for tidying will make history harder to uncover.

Sarah is an historian herself, and in writing her books has relied heavily on documents which might easily have been discarded. But that's not all: she wonders, too, how her successors will access our digital clutter in 500 years' time.

Producer: Giles Edwards


WED 09:45 State of the Nation (m000czxs)
Lionel Shriver

In the third of a series of five talks by British novelists reflecting on the state of the nation, Lionel Shriver examines the passions that drive both supporters and critics of Brexit and suggests that maybe the issue is not quite as important as we like to think. The series also hears from Howard Jacobson, Nadifa Mohamed, James Meek and Jan Carson.


WED 10:00 Woman's Hour (m000d1tz)
The programme that offers a female perspective on the world


WED 10:41 Exile (m000czxv)
Episode 3

By Adrian Bean

Episode 3 in a new 10-part audio drama series marking the 400th anniversary of the sailing of the Mayflower. A gripping story about one family's journey into the unknown.

Halfway across the vast Atlantic, there is no turning back for the exiled Pilgrims. Storms blast the ship, supplies are running short and passengers are dying.

Sarah discovers Elizabeth's secret. The exhausted crew on the Mayflower finally catch sight of land. But it is not Virginia, they have been blown off course, so they try to turn south and fail. Ben and the other men go onshore and return with fresh water, game and some corn they have stolen from the Native Americans' winter stores. Ben is beginning to grow into his new life, but for Matthew, Saul is becoming a problem.

CAST

Sarah Hargreaves - Louise Brealey
Matthew Hargreaves - Trystan Gravelle
Ben - Joel MacCormack
Elizabeth - Megan McInerney
Saul Tregarron - Matthew Gravelle
Captain Jones - John Cording
Ghost Sailor - Marc Danbury

Directed by John Norton
A BBC Cymru Wales Production


WED 10:55 The Listening Project (m0006lrm)
Karl and Devon - The Joys of Modern Life

Two men discuss the pros and cons of how their lives have been transformed by technology. Fi Glover presents another conversation in a series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen.


WED 11:00 My Name Is... (m000czlw)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 on Monday]


WED 11:30 Jeeves - Live! (m000cqgz)
Indian Summer of an Uncle

Award-winning Martin Jarvis performs the first of two PG Wodehouse comic classics, live on-stage. Jeeves as ‘stand-up’!

Bertie is pressurised by his intimidating Aunt Agatha to "save the family reputation" and prevent an uncle from making a potentially embarrassing marriage. Bertie fails in his mission. Can the inimitable Jeeves come to the rescue?

A packed house at The Orange Tree Theatre, Richmond, Surrey rocks with laughter as Martin Jarvis entertains playing Jeeves, Bertie and the rest.

Director: Rosalind Ayres
A Jarvis and Ayres production for BBC Radio 4


WED 12:00 News Summary (m000d3py)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


WED 12:04 The Drop (m000czxx)
Episode 3

Set in a snow-dusted London, Mick Herron's taut thriller takes place in the gap where old-style spy craft and modern intelligence analysis don't quite meet.

Solomon Dortmund sees an envelope pass from one hand to another in a bustling cafe and knows he's witnessed more than an innocent encounter. The retired spy carries the memory of tradecraft in his bones but struggles to engage the attention of preoccupied handler John Bachelor. Meanwhile undercover agent Snow White is about to take her first steps in the big league - but who is she working for?

Read by John Heffernan
Abridged by Eileen Horne
Produced by Eilidh McCreadie


WED 12:18 You and Yours (m000czxz)
News and discussion of consumer affairs.


WED 12:57 Weather (m000d1v3)
The latest weather forecast


WED 13:00 World at One (m000d1v5)
Mon-Thurs: Analysis of news and current affairs, presented by Sarah Montague. Fri: Analysis of news and current affairs, presented by Mark Mardell.


WED 13:45 Green Originals (m000czy1)
Petra Kelly

Petra Kelly did more than perhaps anyone else to raise the profile of green politics. As the most prominent member of West Germany’s Green Party, Die Grünen, Kelly’s energetic campaigning played a critical role in catapulting her party to electoral success in the 1983 Bundestag elections, where they won 27 seats.

Outside Germany, Kelly was an internationally famous campaigner against nuclear weapons and nuclear power, issues which galvanised the early green movement. But in 1992, at the age of just 44, Kelly was found dead in mysterious circumstances, alongside her lover Gert Bastian.

The Green Party MP Caroline Lucas looks back on the career of a politician who inspired her and considers Petra Kelly’s relevance to the environmental movement today.

“For Petra Kelly, green politics was never confined to Parliament,” she says, “it happened out on the streets, embracing non-violent protest and direct action.”

Producer: Dan Hardoon
Series Editor: David Prest
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4


WED 14:00 The Archers (m000d1v7)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Tuesday]


WED 14:15 Drama (m000d18r)
Someone Dangerous (Part 1)

The lives of a recently married Jed and Ira are thrown into turmoil when they discover, the previous occupant of the house they have just bought, killed herself in the bath. When Ira finds the young woman's diary under the floor boards, she begins to suspect murder. A taught, dark, two-part mystery thriller with Rob Jarvis and Lizzie Aaryn-Stanton, from Andy Mulligan, the writer of A Kidnapping and School Drama.

Cast:
Jed...............Rob Jarvis
Ira...............Lizzie Aaryn-Stanton
Mr Turner...............Harry Myers
D.I McCabe...............Keir Charles
Yola...............Emma Carter
Estate Agent...............Ewan Bailey
Henna...............Ayeesha Menon
Plumber...............Jonathan Abbott
Saboni...............Lydia Daniston
Young Woman's voice...............Jade Matthew

Original Music by Jon Ouin
Sound Design by Laurence Farr
Produced by Emma Hearn
Written by Andy Mulligan
Executive Producer/Directed by John Scott Dryden


WED 15:00 Money Box (m000d1vc)
The latest news from the world of personal finance plus advice for those trying to make the most of their money.


WED 15:30 All in the Mind (m000cz1n)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Tuesday]


WED 16:00 Thinking Allowed (b05w3wfc)
The 'Happiness Industry' - The 'Wellness Syndrome'

The Happiness Industry: Laurie Taylor talks to Will Davies, Senior Lecturer in Politics at Goldsmiths, University of London, who asks why policy makers have become increasingly focused on measuring happiness. Also, 'wellness syndrome': Andre Spicer, Professor of Organisational Behaviour at City University, argues that visions of positive social change have been replaced by a focus on individual well-being. They're joined by Laura Hyman, Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Portsmouth.

Producer: Jayne Egerton


WED 16:30 The Media Show (m000d1vf)
The programme about a revolution in media with Amol Rajan, the BBC's Media Editor


WED 17:00 PM (m000d1vh)
Afternoon news and current affairs programme, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines.


WED 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m000d1vm)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


WED 18:30 Joe Lycett's Obsessions (m000czy3)
Series 2

Clara Amfo and Carol Kirkwood

Joe Lycett returns for a second series, exploring the nation's weird and wonderful obsessions by getting to know a selection of famous and not so famous guests. Joining Joe on the sofa this week, weather presenter Carol Kirkwood shares her obsession with a cat called Donald, whilst Radio 1 DJ Clara Amfo reveals her love of trainers. Joe also welcomes members of the public to share their secret passions, as well as this week's VOP (very obsessed person), Paul Fraine, who introduces Joe to the world of Live Action Role Play.

Joe Lycett's Obsessions was written and performed by Joe Lycett, with material from James Kettle and additional material from Catherine Brinkworth and Kat Sadler. The production coordinator was Damilola Mabadeje. The producer was Suzy Grant and it was a BBC Studios Audio production.


WED 19:00 The Archers (m000d1rv)
Jim’s attitude causes problems and Neil offers some words of advice


WED 19:15 Front Row (m000d1vp)
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music


WED 19:45 Exile (m000czxv)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:41 today]


WED 20:00 The Spark (m000czy6)
Roy Baumeister v the negativity effect

Helen Lewis meets the writers and thinkers who are breaking new ground.

From politics to economics, from tech to the study of how we live, things are changing fast. Old certainties have not been under such challenge for decades.

So each week, we give the whole programme over to a single in-depth, close-up interview with someone whose big idea is bidding to change our world.

Helen’s challenge is to make sense of their new idea, to find out more about the person behind it – and to test what it has to offer us against the failures of the past.

This week, Helen meets social psychologist Roy Baumeister, co-author of The Power of Bad... And How To Overcome It.

Producer: Emma Wallace


WED 20:45 Four Thought (m000czxq)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:30 today]


WED 21:00 D for Diagnosis (m0006n0s)
What's in a Name?

Ever since the 17th-century philosopher René Descartes introduced the concept of dualism; the idea that our psyche or minds are separate from our bodies, the mind-body split in healthcare has had an enormous impact on the way mental health problems are recognised and labelled.

In this first of three programmes, Claudia Hammond explores the history of classification for diagnoses of the mind and discovers that diagnostic labels are very much artefacts of the cultural and social preoccupations of the time.

At the Wellcome Library in London, historian of psychiatry Dr Jen Wallis charts the modern classification of mental health conditions and the development of psychiatry as a medical specialism. She highlights pseudoscientific classifications like drapetomania, a psychiatric diagnosis given to enslaved Africans fleeing captivity and neurasthenia, an all-encompassing diagnosis of fatigue very much linked to the rapid technological advances of the 19th Century, as evidence of the permanent flux in what counts as mental illness.

From the medical library of the UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, Professor Sir Simon Wessely, former President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, revisits original case notes of British soldiers in World War One who had been diagnosed with the newly emerged condition of shellshock. Shellshock affected hundreds of thousands of troops across Europe and Claudia discusses with Simon why this novel diagnosis became the predominant explanation for traumatic suffering at that particular time.

Of course homosexuality was in the past criminalised and pathologised as a medical or psychological condition. Once officially categorised, gay men were exposed to a range of behavioural and medical treatments to "cure" them. And in the former Soviet Union, psychiatric diagnoses like "sluggish schizophrenia" were used to target opponents of the state. Dr Sarah Marks from Birkbeck, University of London, specialises in the history of psychiatry and she tells Claudia the abuses of diagnoses through history should serve as cautionary warnings about psychiatric labels today.

Producer: Fiona Hill


WED 21:30 Soul Music (m000czxn)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]


WED 22:00 The World Tonight (m000d1vr)
In depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective


WED 22:45 The Drop (m000czxx)
[Repeat of broadcast at 12:04 today]


WED 23:00 The Skewer (m000czy8)
Series 1

Episode 1

A satirical river of sound and a platform for diverse new talent, this is topical satire like you’ve never heard it before. A new open-door comedy for a fresh generation of satirists who don’t write sketches, jokes and one liners, but instead channel their talents into playing around with sound.

Following an award-winning pilot and an award nominated Halloween Brexit special, the "disorentating, dizzying, dazzling" Skewer returns for a full series.

"A freeform assault on the senses.. deeply haunting..an eerily beautiful discombobulating mosaic of spin" - comedy.co.uk

Creator and producer Jon Holmes curates contributions from brand new and diverse talent in a show where the experience is enhanced through headphones, attaching the listener to a late night drip of current events as they melt into the brain, evoking a feeling of drifting off, but with the occasional uncomfortable sleep-twitch.

Sketch-writing has long been the way into radio comedy but, for the new generation of satirists who don’t put pen to paper and instead beaver away on laptops using self-taught skills to toy with the news-scape, The Skewer's guerrilla approach to satire is their new playground.

“If ever there was an audio version of Coldwar Steve, it might well be this! Incredible.”

“Cassette Boy meets Blue Jam. Superb.”

“A whole new genre of radio comedy programme invented right there. Clever, funny and scary all at the same time.”

“Weirdly, hypnotically funny. More please.”

“Pushes the boundaries of satirical radio into the murky depths. The world needs exactly this kind of creative commentary right now. Looking forward to more.”

“With this new show, Jon Holmes asserts his place as king of outsider radio art. Its woozy, punch drunk style operates as a perfect satire of our times. Headphones on and fall down it’s K-hole, friends. Exceptional stuff.” Rufus Hound

Producer: Jon Holmes
An Unusual production for BBC Radio 4


WED 23:30 Today in Parliament (m000b0cw)
News, views and features on today's stories in Parliament



THURSDAY 09 JANUARY 2020

THU 00:00 Midnight News (m000d1vt)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


THU 00:30 State of the Nation (m000czxs)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:45 on Wednesday]


THU 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m000d1vw)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.


THU 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m000d1vy)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


THU 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m000d1w0)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.


THU 05:30 News Briefing (m000d1w2)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4.


THU 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m000d1w4)
A short reflection and prayer with the Rev Dr Bert Tosh.


THU 05:45 Farming Today (m000d1w6)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.


THU 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b04t0vqb)
Chowchilla

Michael Palin presents the secretive chowchilla from Queensland, Australia. The chowchilla gets its name from its song, which is one of the most distinctive sounds of the coastal rainforest of north-east Queensland. You're not likely to see the bird though because it spends its time skulking on the forest floor. Chowchillas belong to the family known as logrunners because they feed and nest on or near ground-level. They're stout thrush-like birds; the males are dark brown with a white chest and throat, whilst the female's throat is rusty-orange.

Chowchillas have been found to sing with different dialects in different areas. Within say, 50 hectares, all the family groups of pairs and non-breeding younger birds may share the same dialect. But in an adjacent area, the families may assemble some of their song components slightly differently. Over time, their song culture could change and a new dialect would be born.


THU 06:00 Today (m000d1rb)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.


THU 09:00 In Our Time (m000d1rg)
Catullus

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Catullus (c84-c54 BC) who wrote some of the most sublime poetry in the late Roman Republic, and some of the most obscene. He found a new way to write about love, in poems to the mysterious Lesbia, married and elusive, and he influenced Virgil and Ovid and others, yet his explicit poems were to blight his reputation for a thousand years. Once the one surviving manuscript was discovered in the Middle Ages, though, anecdotally as a plug in a wine butt, he inspired Petrarch and the Elizabethan poets, as he continues to inspire many today.

The image above is of Lesbia and her Sparrow, 1860, artist unknown

With

Gail Trimble
Brown Fellow and Tutor in Classics at Trinity College at the University of Oxford

Simon Smith
Reader in Creative Writing at the University of Kent, poet and translator of Catullus

and

Maria Wyke
Professor of Latin at University College London

Producer: Simon Tillotson


THU 09:45 State of the Nation (m000czdh)
Jan Carson

In the fourth of a series of five talks by British novelists reflecting on the state of the nation, Jan Carson considers the importance of the art of listening and says it’s time for UK politicians to learn a lesson from Northern Ireland. The series also hears from Lionel Shriver, Nadifa Mohamed, James Meek and Howard Jacobson.


THU 10:00 Woman's Hour (m000d1rl)
The programme that offers a female perspective on the world


THU 10:45 Exile (m000czdk)
Episode 4

By Adrian Bean

Episode 4 in a new 10-part audio drama series marking the 400th anniversary of the sailing of the Mayflower. A gripping story about one family's journey into the unknown.

The Pilgrims have arrived in America but they are still stuck on board the cramped ship until the winter has passed. Matthew and Ben are building a house on the land by day. Elizabeth is beginning to show. When the house is finally finished they leave the ship ready to begin their new lives. Then the snows begin to melt, the valley floods and Elizabeth breaks the news of her baby to her father.

CAST

Sarah Hargreaves - Louise Brealey
Matthew Hargreaves - Trystan Gravelle
Ben - Joel MacCormack
Elizabeth - Megan McInerney
Saul Tregarron - Matthew Gravelle
Woman - Ashleigh Haddad

Directed by John Norton
A BBC Cymru Wales Production


THU 11:00 Crossing Continents (m000czdn)
Belarus: The Wild World of Chernobyl

90 year old Galina is one of the last witnesses to the wild natural world that preceded the Chernobyl zone in southern Belarus. 'We lived with wolves' she says 'and moose, and elk and wild boars.' Soviet development destroyed that ecosystem. Forests and marshland were tamed and laid to farmland and industrial use. But when the Chernobyl reactor exploded in 1986, the human population was evacuated; their villages were buried beneath the earth as though they had never existed. A generation on, it seems that the animals Galina knew are returning. But how are they are affected by their radioactive environment? And what can we infer about the state of the land? Monica Whitlock visits the strange new wilderness emerging in the heart of Europe.

Produced and Presented by Monica Whitlock
Editor, Bridget Harney


THU 11:30 The End of the World Has Already Happened (m000czds)
2: The Hurricane In Your Cereal Bowl

Writer and philosopher Timothy Morton continues to share his ideas about our psychological relationship with global warming. Why can it be so difficult for many of us to engage with it? How could we cope better with our feelings about what’s happening so we can get on with something better for our planet?

In this second episode, Morton introduces his concept of hyperobjects - entities like mass extinction, global warming and hurricanes which are 'things', but so massively distributed in time and space that it’s hard to point to them - they can feel like abstractions but are ferociously, catastrophically real.

Morton channels William Blake in a railway tunnel and visits a garden centre to begin to uncover our innate ‘X-Men superpowers’ that we might scale up to planet-level action.

With contributions from Puerto Rican activists Colibrí Sanfiorenzo Barnhard and Anahí Lazarte Morales, Hilton Kelley of the Higher Ground network of flooding survivors in the US, artist Olafur Eliasson, Houston weatherman Travis Herzog, psychotherapist Caroline Hickman, and poetry read by Laurie Anderson.

Produced by Chris Elcombe
A Reduced Listening production for BBC Radio 4.

Featured music:
Alexandra Spence - Immaterial (Longform)
Anna Peaker - Realm of Perfume and Lights (Longform)
AquaSonic - Tide Concordance
Dawn of Midi - Nix & Io (Thirsty Ear)
Ondness - Malta Inquieta (Discrepant)
Siavash Amini - A Recollection of the Disappeared (Room40)
Tomoko Sauvage - Making of a Rainbow


THU 12:00 News Summary (m000d1tq)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


THU 12:04 The Drop (m000czdx)
Episode 4

Set in a snow-dusted London, Mick Herron's taut thriller takes place in the gap where old-style spy craft and modern intelligence analysis don't quite meet.

When retired spy Solomon Dortmund sees an envelope pass from one hand to another in a bustling cafe he knows he's witnessed more than an innocent encounter. His shambolic handler has called in a favour and now analyst Alec Wicinski is on the trail of a German agent. But Martin Kreutzmer isn't about to give up valuable asset Snow White without a fight.

Read by John Heffernan
Abridged by Eileen Horne
Produced by Eilidh McCreadie


THU 12:18 You and Yours (m000czf1)
News and discussion of consumer affairs.


THU 12:57 Weather (m000d1rq)
The latest weather forecast


THU 13:00 World at One (m000d1rs)
Mon-Thurs: Analysis of news and current affairs, presented by Sarah Montague. Fri: Analysis of news and current affairs, presented by Mark Mardell.


THU 13:45 Green Originals (m000czf4)
Wangari Maathai

Naturalist and TV presenter Gillian Burke assesses the role of her Kenyan ‘auntie’, Wangari Maathai, in drawing attention to environmental causes in sub-Saharan Africa and becoming the first African woman to win a Nobel Prize.

Producer: Dan Hardoon
Series Editor: David Prest
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4


THU 14:00 The Archers (m000d1rv)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Wednesday]


THU 14:15 Drama (m000d19c)
Someone Dangerous (Part 2)

The lives of a recently married Jed and Ira are thrown into turmoil when they discover, the previous occupant of the house they have just bought, killed herself in the bath. When Ira finds the young woman's diary under the floor boards, she begins to suspect murder. A taught, dark, two-part mystery thriller with Rob Jarvis and Lizzie Aaryn-Stanton, from Andy Mulligan, the writer of A Kidnapping and School Drama.

Cast:
Jed...............Rob Jarvis
Ira...............Lizzie Aaryn-Stanton
Mr Turner...............Harry Myers
D.I McCabe...............Keir Charles
Yola...............Emma Carter
Coroner..............Ewan Bailey
Henna...............Ayeesha Menon
Saboni...............Lydia Daniston
Voice of Young Woman...............Jade Matthew
Sally...............Natasha North

Original Music by Jon Ouin
Sound Design by Laurence Farr
Produced by Emma Hearn
Written by Andy Mulligan
Executive Producer/Directed by John Scott Dryden


THU 15:00 Open Country (m000c4zb)
Planting Trees to Save the Planet in Cumbria

Helen mark meets teenage environmental campaigner Amy Bray in her native Cumbria as she plants trees to help halt climate change. Amy has inspired her community to take action with a no plastic shop and helped to raise awareness with a mass fell climbing. Helen helps her as she takes on her latest challenge - to plant more trees and help to create natural flood defences as well as absorb carbon


THU 15:27 Radio 4 Appeal (m000d0sh)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:54 on Sunday]


THU 15:30 Bookclub (m000cyvt)
[Repeat of broadcast at 16:00 on Sunday]


THU 16:00 The Film Programme (m000d1rx)
The latest releases, the hottest stars and the leading directors, plus news and insights from the film world.


THU 16:30 BBC Inside Science (m000d1rz)
Dr Adam Rutherford and guests illuminate the mysteries and challenge the controversies behind the science that's changing our world.


THU 17:00 PM (m000d1s1)
Afternoon news and current affairs programme, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines.


THU 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m000d1s5)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


THU 18:30 Elephant in the Room (m0006dv6)
Episode 2

Sarah Millican hosts a new panel show using surveys to discover who is the most Average Jolene, and who is the most Maverick Matilda. This week's sparkling panel features Jenny Eclair, Ayesha Hazarika, Hayley Ellis and Alun Cochrane.

Surveys on subjects including childhood, daily rituals and favourite cheese are the basis for Sarah's questions to the panellists, discovering who is the closest to, and furthest from, the average. Surprising quirks, hilarious insights and unexpected anecdotes are revealed along the way.

The winner will be the most average. But joint winner will be the most different, the furthest from the norm.

A little bit like a dinner party, but one where you know all of the spoons.

A Chopsy production for BBC Radio 4


THU 19:00 The Archers (m000d1s8)
There’s hope on the horizon for Oliver and Jolene has an announcement to make


THU 19:15 Front Row (m000d1sb)
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music


THU 19:45 Exile (m000czdk)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:45 today]


THU 20:00 The Briefing Room (m000d1sd)
Combining original insights into major news stories with topical investigations.


THU 20:30 In Business (m000czf6)
Zimbabwe's Food Crisis: Can Old Crops Fix New Problems?

Every day people dig into sadza, a maize based meal, but there’s a problem. Zimbabwe’s getting much drier and maize can’t cope. Crop failures have partly contributed to food shortages this year leading to more than 7 million people needing food aid. The economic crisis has made the situation more serious and things will only get worse as the climate heats up. How can Zimbabwe feed itself? It turns out grains like millet and sorghum could hold the key. Unlike maize, these small grains are indigenous to the region. For In Business, Charlotte Ashton meets the remarkable business people fighting to put them back on Zimbabwean plates. From convincing smallholder farmers that traditional crops are the way forward, to advertising the health benefits of small grains to busy parents, this is a campaign for hearts and minds as much as full bellies.

Producer: Phoebe Keane


THU 21:00 BBC Inside Science (m000d1rz)
[Repeat of broadcast at 16:30 today]


THU 21:30 In Our Time (m000d1rg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]


THU 22:00 The World Tonight (m000d1sh)
In depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective


THU 22:45 The Drop (m000czdx)
[Repeat of broadcast at 12:04 today]


THU 23:00 Relativity (b095t037)
Series 1

Episode 4

Richard Herring's new comedy about four generations of a family. Starring Alison Steadman, Phil Davies and Richard Herring.

Relativity is a witty and loving portrait of family life, with affectionate observation of inter generational misunderstanding, sibling sparring and the ties that bind, that will resonate with anyone who has ever argued with their dad about how to pronounce crisp brand names.

Episode 4:
When Ken is rushed into hospital, and Margaret has to hold the fort alone, the family do their best to reach hospital as fast as possible - in a typically chaotic manner. Pete is nearly done for stealing chocolate Hob Nobs, Jane relives her glory days as a teen sprinting champ and Ian and Chloe have their first row.

Written by Richard Herring and produced by Polly Thomas.
Sound Design: Eloise Whitmore
Broadcast Assistants: Bella Lamplough Shields, Bryony Jarvis Taylor
Producer: Polly Thomas
Executive Producers: Jon Thoday and Richard Allen Turner
An Avalon Television production for BBC Radio 4.


THU 23:30 Today in Parliament (m0009yyk)
News, views and features on today's stories in Parliament



FRIDAY 10 JANUARY 2020

FRI 00:00 Midnight News (m000d1sk)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


FRI 00:30 State of the Nation (m000czdh)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:45 on Thursday]


FRI 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m000d1sm)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.


FRI 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m000d1sr)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


FRI 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m000d1st)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.


FRI 05:30 News Briefing (m000d1sw)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4.


FRI 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m000d1sy)
A short reflection and prayer with the Rev Dr Bert Tosh.


FRI 05:45 Farming Today (m000d1t0)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.


FRI 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b04t0vhm)
Asian Koel

Michael Palin presents the Asian koel's arrival to an Indian orchard. This long-tailed glossy blue-black bird, is a well-known British harbinger of spring, and like its British counterpart, it is a cuckoo.

The koel's plaintive call is heard from late March until July around villages and in wooded countryside from Pakistan east to Indonesia and southern China. In India, it symbolises the birth of a new season, the flowering of fruit-trees, the bloom of romance and all that's good about spring. The koel's song can be heard in many Bollywood movies and has inspired poems and folk songs; it's even rumoured to help mangoes ripen faster.

This almost universal feel-good factor doesn't extend to its victims, because the koel is after all a cuckoo, and lays its eggs in other birds' nests. Asian Koels are parasitic on a wide range of birds, but in India especially, on House Crows and Jungle Crows.

Producer Andrew Dawes.


FRI 06:00 Today (m000d229)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.


FRI 09:00 Desert Island Discs (m000cyvf)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:15 on Sunday]


FRI 09:45 State of the Nation (m000czyd)
James Meek

In the last of a series of five talks by British novelists reflecting on the state of the nation, James Meek explores the definitions that shape our idea of home - is it our family, our neighbourhood, our borders or the wider world? - and offers a new approach to defining where we belong in a divided nation. The series also hears from Lionel Shriver, Nadifa Mohamed, Howard Jacobson and Jan Carson.


FRI 10:00 Woman's Hour (m000d22c)
The programme that offers a female perspective on the world


FRI 10:45 Exile (m000czyg)
Episode 5

By Adrian Bean

Episode 5 in a new 10-part audio drama series marking the 400th anniversary of the sailing of the Mayflower. A gripping story about one family's journey into the unknown.

Sarah and her family are picking up the pieces of their lives once again after the flood, but the community rallies round to help them rebuild. Matthew, desperate to see a reason for God's punishment, accuses Saul of raping Elizabeth and making her pregnant. Sarah comes to Saul's defence and is condemned as an adulteress. Native Americans arrive with a gift and Elizabeth goes into labour.

Sarah Hargreaves - Louise Brealey
Matthew Hargreaves - Trystan Gravelle
Ben - Joel MacCormack
Elizabeth - Megan McInerney
Saul Tregarron - Matthew Gravelle
Captain Jones - John Cording

Directed by John Norton
A BBC Cymru Wales Production


FRI 11:00 No Triumph, No Tragedy (m000czyj)
Paul Maynard has cerebral palsy and has found ways of adapting to ensure he operates in government at the highest level. He has held a number of ministerial posts, along with the government whip, and has ensured that whilst he might get mocked and taunted in the House, it won’t be on account of his disability.

He has also doing his best to raise awareness about cerebral palsy and help families struggling to navigate educational and welfare services. There are 1,800 children diagnosed with the condition every year and yet only two have ever gone on to become elected representatives in Parliament. Paul sees many opportunities to better support parents and has been pushing other MP’s to familiarise themselves with a useful guide armed with information for constituents.

He is aware of how important it is for parents to seek early identification of the condition and secure the input from therapists that can make a huge difference. Paul tells Peter that it is important that cerebral palsy shouldn’t be holding anyone in the UK back from achieving their dreams: “Let’s make sure we play our part in helping every child gain consistent access to high quality services and enable them to achieve their full potential”

Produced by Sue Mitchell


FRI 11:30 Rude Not To (b09wshs4)
Bobby (GEMMA WHELAN) has the usual problems that afflict London singletons.

Like - how long should you wait to ask your boss out when his wife walks out on him? Without anyone else in the office finding out? While keeping your affair with the fire alarm maintenance guy under wraps?

The usual sort of thing.

But that was before her Mum, Veronica (SHERRIE HEWSON), decided to unceremoniously dump her husband of forty years and show up on Bobby's doorstep with a glint in her eye and a determination to "live the Sex And The City lifestyle". Which might prove difficult in a flat above a chicken shop in Forest Gate.

Bobby is about to find out that there's no situation that can't be made more awkward by your mother showing up in four-inch heels, three mojitos to the good.

An Objective Media production for BBC Radio 4


FRI 12:00 News Summary (m000d22f)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


FRI 12:04 The Drop (m000czyl)
Episode 5

Set in a snow-dusted London, Mick Herron's taut thriller takes place in the gap where old-style spy craft and modern intelligence analysis don't quite meet.

When retired spy Solomon Dortmund sees an envelope pass from one hand to another in a bustling cafe he knows he's witnessed more than an innocent encounter. His shambolic handler has called in a favour and now analyst Alec Wicinski is on the trail of a German agent. But Martin Kreutzmer isn't about to give up valuable asset Snow White without a fight - no matter who gets hurt in the process.

Read by John Heffernan
Abridged by Eileen Horne
Produced by Eilidh McCreadie


FRI 12:18 You and Yours (m000czyn)
News and discussion of consumer affairs.


FRI 12:57 Weather (m000d22h)
The latest weather forecast


FRI 13:00 World at One (m000d22k)
Mon-Thurs: Analysis of news and current affairs, presented by Sarah Montague. Fri: Analysis of news and current affairs, presented by Mark Mardell.


FRI 13:45 Green Originals (m000czyq)
Judith Wright

Reflections on the modern pioneers of the environmental movement. Today - Judith Wright, one of Australia’s finest poets whose poems forged a new way of looking at and valuing the Australian landscape and wildlife.

In 1962, increasingly concerned by environmental destruction, Judith founded the Wildlife Preservation Society of Queensland with three friends and was president of the organisation until 1975.

She was a leading force in the successful campaign to prevent oil drilling in the Great Barrier Reef and fought to create the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. It was a campaign that relied not on arguments about the beauty of the Reef but carefully marshalled scientific evidence and thorough administrative and legal action.

In later years, she focused on land rights for indigenous Australians, which she saw as a part of her environmental activism.

The writer Corin Throsby reflects on the poetry and activism of Judith Wright. He says that she showed generations of Australians that our landscape may be dusty and craggy, but that it has a profound and unique beauty. After a century of thinking the bush was something to be feared and tamed, she sent a loud and defiant message - this land is worth fighting for”.

Producer: Natalie Steed
Series Editor: David Prest
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4


FRI 14:00 The Archers (m000d1s8)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Thursday]


FRI 14:15 Drama (m000czys)
My Dad's Wardrobe

by Frazer Flintham.

A comedic adventure about a 12 year old boy's attempts to recover his dad's clothes. But there's much more to Louie's mission than merely getting out of trouble.

Louie ..... Aaron Gelkoff
John ..... Luca Evans
Mum .... Heather Craney
Sam ..... Ikky Elyas
Dad ..... Clive Hayward
Clodd ..... Gerard McDermott
Dean ..... Will Kirk
Mary ..... Lucy Reynolds
Charity shop man ..... Neil McCaul
Librarian ..... Jessica Turner
Park-Keeper ..... Adam Courting
Heather ..... Sinead MacInnes
Park woman ..... Laura Christy
T-Shirt girl ..... Scarlett Courtney
Swimming coach ..... Greg Jones

Director: David Hunter


FRI 15:00 Gardeners' Question Time (m000czyv)
Langholm

Kathy Clugston and the team are in Langholm, Scotland. Christine Walkden, James Wong and Matthew Wilson answer the horticultural questions from the audience.

Producer: Dan Cocker
Assistant Producer: Rosie Merotra

A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4


FRI 15:45 Short Works (m000czyx)
98' 99'

"The guns began to grow late in the month. Tiny shoots pushed up, almost invisible at first. The autumn had been wet, the winter hard, then the sun crept closer to the land. These were the ideal conditions and the soil of Red Field had always been good for growing." An original short work for radio by Grahame Williams.

Grahame Williams was born in County Down and now lives and works in London. His work has appeared in the Stinging Fly, the Letters Page and he received an Arvon/Jerwood Mentorship for fiction writing. His current work in progress is a novel about a father, a son and the construction of a giant girl in the last of the Belfast shipyards.

Produced by Maggie Ayre and Mair Bosworth


FRI 16:00 Last Word (m000d22m)
Radio 4's weekly obituary programme, telling the life stories of those who have died recently.


FRI 16:30 More or Less (m000d22p)
Tim Harford explains - and sometimes debunks - the numbers and statistics used in political debate, the news and everyday life.


FRI 16:55 The Listening Project (m0006n1p)
Mary and Helen - The Queen Is Looking Good

Two sisters in their 80s reflect on life and education in the Dundee of their childhood. . Fi Glover presents another conversation in a series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen.


FRI 17:00 PM (m000d22r)
Afternoon news and current affairs programme, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines.


FRI 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m000d22t)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


FRI 18:30 The News Quiz (m000czyz)
Series 101

Episode 2

A new series of news-wrangling begins with Nish Kumar in the chair and Mark Steel, Helen Lewis, Lucy Porter and Alun Cochrane dissecting news stories big and small.

Producer: Sam Michell
A BBC Studios Production


FRI 19:00 The Archers (m000czz1)
Contemporary drama in a rural setting

Writer, Simon Frith
Director, Kim Greengrass
Editor, Jeremy Howe

Ruth Archer ….. Felicity Finch
Pip Archer ….. Daisy Badger
Josh Archer ….. Angus Imrie
Kenton Archer ….. Richard Attlee
Jolene Archer ….. Buffy Davis
Lilian Bellamy ….. Sunny Ormonde
Neil Carter ….. Brian Hewlett
Susan Carter ….. Charlotte Martin
Justin Elliott ….. Simon Williams
Rex Fairbrother ….. Nick Barber
Alistair Lloyd ….. Michael Lumsden
Jim Lloyd ….. John Rowe
Jazzer McCreary ….. Ryan Kelly
Kate Madikane ….. Perdita Avery
Kirsty Miller ….. Annabelle Dowler
Hannah Riley ….. Helen Longworth
Oliver Sterling ….. Michael Cochrane
Philip Moss ….. Andy Hockley


FRI 19:15 Front Row (m000d22w)
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music


FRI 19:45 Exile (m000czyg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:45 today]


FRI 20:00 Any Questions? (m000d22y)
Thangam Debbonaire MP, Stanley Johnson, Johnny Mercer MP, Ash Sarkar

Chris Mason presents topical discussion from Launceston Town Hall with Labour MP Thangam Debbonaire, Environmentalist Stanley Johnson, Minister for Military Personnel and Veterans Johnny Mercer MP and Journalist Ash Sarkar.


FRI 20:50 A Point of View (m000d230)
A weekly reflection on a topical issue.


FRI 21:00 Green Originals (m000czz3)
From Rachel Carson to Judith Wright

Reflections on the modern pioneers of the environmental movement.

Nature writer Conor Jameson considers the impact of Rachel Carson, the author of Silent Spring which alerted the world to the impact of pesticides like DDT on the environment.

Meteorologist Peter Gibbs looks back at his old boss, the British Antarctic Survey scientist Joe Farman, who spotted the hole in the ozone layer using an antiquated piece of kit at the Halley research station in Antarctica.

Caroline Lucas, the only British Green MP, explores the legacy of the radical German politician Petra Kelly who founded Die Grünen and inspired a generation of European Greens.

Naturalist and TV presenter Gillian Burke assesses the role of her Kenyan “auntie”, Wangara Maathai, in drawing attention to environmental causes in sub-Saharan Africa and becoming the first African woman to win a Nobel Prize.

Writer Corin Throsby reflects on how the Australian poet Judith Wright drew attention to land rights and the broader environmental cause in her native Australia.

Producers: Natalie Steed, Dan Hardoon, Emma Barnaby, Emily Williams.
Series Editor: David Prest
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4


FRI 22:00 The World Tonight (m000d232)
In depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective


FRI 22:45 The Drop (m000czyl)
[Repeat of broadcast at 12:04 today]


FRI 23:00 Great Lives (m000cz1j)
[Repeat of broadcast at 16:30 on Tuesday]


FRI 23:30 Today in Parliament (m000b0rw)
News, views and features on today's stories in Parliament


FRI 23:55 The Listening Project (m0006n2h)
Richard and Liam - Living in the Moment

Friends in their 20s on the wonder of music and capturing and living in the moment. Fi Glover presents another conversation in a series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen.




LIST OF THIS WEEK'S PROGRAMMES
(Note: the times link back to the details; the pids link to the BBC page, including iPlayer)

A Guide to Disagreeing Better 17:00 SUN (m000cn12)

A Plague of Gratitude 16:30 SUN (m000cyvw)

A Point of View 08:48 SUN (m000cyv3)

A Point of View 20:50 FRI (m000d230)

A Run in the Park 19:45 SUN (m000cywb)

A Small Matter of Hope 11:00 SAT (m000cn4w)

All in the Mind 21:00 TUE (m000cz1n)

All in the Mind 15:30 WED (m000cz1n)

Any Questions? 20:00 FRI (m000d22y)

Archive on 4 20:00 SAT (m000cysy)

Art of Now 13:30 SAT (m000c4pp)

BBC Inside Science 16:30 THU (m000d1rz)

BBC Inside Science 21:00 THU (m000d1rz)

Bells on Sunday 05:43 SUN (m000cytg)

Bells on Sunday 00:45 MON (m000cytg)

Beyond Belief 16:30 MON (m000czlh)

Book at Bedtime 21:45 SAT (b08n3wpq)

Bookclub 16:00 SUN (m000cyvt)

Bookclub 15:30 THU (m000cyvt)

Broadcasting House 09:00 SUN (m000cyv7)

Christening 15:45 SAT (b07hj8bd)

Crossing Continents 20:30 MON (m000cl64)

Crossing Continents 11:00 THU (m000czdn)

D for Diagnosis 21:00 WED (m0006n0s)

Desert Island Discs 11:15 SUN (m000cyvf)

Desert Island Discs 09:00 FRI (m000cyvf)

Drama 14:00 SAT (b06hyt3p)

Drama 14:15 MON (m0000qvr)

Drama 14:15 TUE (m000cz1d)

Drama 14:15 WED (m000d18r)

Drama 14:15 THU (m000d19c)

Drama 14:15 FRI (m000czys)

Elephant in the Room 18:30 THU (m0006dv6)

Exile 10:45 MON (m000czks)

Exile 19:45 MON (m000czks)

Exile 10:45 TUE (m000cz0v)

Exile 19:45 TUE (m000cz0v)

Exile 10:41 WED (m000czxv)

Exile 19:45 WED (m000czxv)

Exile 10:45 THU (m000czdk)

Exile 19:45 THU (m000czdk)

Exile 10:45 FRI (m000czyg)

Exile 19:45 FRI (m000czyg)

Fags, Mags and Bags 18:30 TUE (b0bf64gh)

Farming Today 06:30 SAT (m000cyrs)

Farming Today 05:45 MON (m000cywy)

Farming Today 05:45 TUE (m000czmh)

Farming Today 05:45 WED (m000d206)

Farming Today 05:45 THU (m000d1w6)

Farming Today 05:45 FRI (m000d1t0)

Fidget on Four 21:00 MON (m000cmyz)

Four Thought 05:45 SAT (m000clfc)

Four Thought 09:30 WED (m000czxq)

Four Thought 20:45 WED (m000czxq)

Fred at The Stand 19:15 SUN (m000cyw8)

From Our Own Correspondent 11:30 SAT (m000cys3)

Front Row 19:15 MON (m000czlt)

Front Row 19:15 TUE (m000d1zk)

Front Row 19:15 WED (m000d1vp)

Front Row 19:15 THU (m000d1sb)

Front Row 19:15 FRI (m000d22w)

Gardeners' Question Time 14:00 SUN (m000cld2)

Gardeners' Question Time 15:00 FRI (m000czyv)

Great Lives 16:30 TUE (m000cz1j)

Great Lives 23:00 FRI (m000cz1j)

Green Originals 13:45 MON (m000czl8)

Green Originals 13:45 TUE (m000cz17)

Green Originals 13:45 WED (m000czy1)

Green Originals 13:45 THU (m000czf4)

Green Originals 13:45 FRI (m000czyq)

Green Originals 21:00 FRI (m000czz3)

Have You Heard George's Podcast? 23:00 MON (p07vsf20)

In Business 21:30 SUN (m000cl7d)

In Business 20:30 THU (m000czf6)

In Our Time 09:00 THU (m000d1rg)

In Our Time 21:30 THU (m000d1rg)

In Touch 20:40 TUE (m000d1zm)

Jeeves - Live! 11:30 WED (m000cqgz)

Joe Lycett's Obsessions 18:30 WED (m000czy3)

Last Word 20:30 SUN (m000cld4)

Last Word 16:00 FRI (m000d22m)

Little Brexit 23:00 TUE (m0009t5q)

Living World 06:35 SUN (b050xwh1)

Loose Ends 18:15 SAT (m000cysr)

Loose Ends 11:30 MON (m000cysr)

Making History 15:30 TUE (m000cz1g)

Midnight News 00:00 SAT (m000cldz)

Midnight News 00:00 SUN (m000cyt4)

Midnight News 00:00 MON (m000cywk)

Midnight News 00:00 TUE (m000czm1)

Midnight News 00:00 WED (m000d1zt)

Midnight News 00:00 THU (m000d1vt)

Midnight News 00:00 FRI (m000d1sk)

Money Box 12:04 SAT (m000cys7)

Money Box 21:00 SUN (m000cys7)

Money Box 15:00 WED (m000d1vc)

More or Less 16:30 FRI (m000d22p)

My Name Is... 20:00 MON (m000czlw)

My Name Is... 11:00 WED (m000czlw)

Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics 16:00 MON (m000czlf)

News Briefing 05:30 SAT (m000clf7)

News Briefing 05:30 SUN (m000cytd)

News Briefing 05:30 MON (m000cywt)

News Briefing 05:30 TUE (m000czmc)

News Briefing 05:30 WED (m000d202)

News Briefing 05:30 THU (m000d1w2)

News Briefing 05:30 FRI (m000d1sw)

News Headlines 06:00 SUN (m000cytn)

News Summary 12:00 SAT (m000cz1s)

News Summary 12:00 SUN (m000cyvh)

News Summary 12:00 MON (m000czzh)

News Summary 12:00 TUE (m000d23j)

News Summary 12:00 WED (m000d3py)

News Summary 12:00 THU (m000d1tq)

News Summary 12:00 FRI (m000d22f)

News and Papers 06:00 SAT (m000cyrq)

News and Papers 07:00 SUN (m000cyts)

News and Papers 08:00 SUN (m000cytz)

News and Weather 22:00 SAT (m000cyt2)

News 13:00 SAT (m000cysc)

No Triumph, No Tragedy 11:00 FRI (m000czyj)

One to One 09:30 TUE (m000d1yx)

Open Country 06:07 SAT (m000cl6r)

Open Country 15:00 THU (m000c4zb)

PM 17:00 SAT (m000cysh)

PM 17:00 MON (m000czlk)

PM 17:00 TUE (m000d1zc)

PM 17:00 WED (m000d1vh)

PM 17:00 THU (m000d1s1)

PM 17:00 FRI (m000d22r)

Pick of the Week 18:15 SUN (m000cyw4)

Positive Thinking 20:00 SUN (m000cqd6)

Prayer for the Day 05:43 SAT (m000clf9)

Prayer for the Day 05:43 MON (m000cyww)

Prayer for the Day 05:43 TUE (m000czmf)

Prayer for the Day 05:43 WED (m000d204)

Prayer for the Day 05:43 THU (m000d1w4)

Prayer for the Day 05:43 FRI (m000d1sy)

Profile 19:00 SAT (m000cyst)

Profile 05:45 SUN (m000cyst)

Profile 17:40 SUN (m000cyst)

Quote... Unquote 23:00 SAT (m000cn46)

Quote... Unquote 15:00 MON (m000czlb)

Radio 4 Appeal 07:54 SUN (m000d0sh)

Radio 4 Appeal 21:25 SUN (m000d0sh)

Radio 4 Appeal 15:27 THU (m000d0sh)

Radiolab 23:00 SUN (m000cywg)

Relativity 23:00 THU (b095t037)

Rewinder 00:15 MON (m000bcjh)

Riot Girls 15:00 SUN (m0001zwc)

Rude Not To 11:30 FRI (b09wshs4)

Saturday Live 09:00 SAT (m000cyrz)

Saturday Review 19:15 SAT (m000cysw)

Sebastian Baczkiewicz - Pilgrim 21:00 SAT (m000cyt0)

Selection of BBC World Service Programmes 01:00 SAT (m000clf3)

Selection of BBC World Service Programmes 01:00 SUN (m000cyt8)

Selection of BBC World Service Programmes 01:00 MON (m000cywp)

Selection of BBC World Service Programmes 01:00 TUE (m000czm7)

Selection of BBC World Service Programmes 01:00 WED (m000d1zy)

Selection of BBC World Service Programmes 01:00 THU (m000d1vy)

Selection of BBC World Service Programmes 01:00 FRI (m000d1sr)

Shipping Forecast 00:48 SAT (m000clf1)

Shipping Forecast 05:20 SAT (m000clf5)

Shipping Forecast 17:54 SAT (m000cysk)

Shipping Forecast 00:48 SUN (m000cyt6)

Shipping Forecast 05:20 SUN (m000cytb)

Shipping Forecast 17:54 SUN (m000cyvy)

Shipping Forecast 00:48 MON (m000cywm)

Shipping Forecast 05:20 MON (m000cywr)

Shipping Forecast 00:48 TUE (m000czm5)

Shipping Forecast 05:20 TUE (m000czm9)

Shipping Forecast 00:48 WED (m000d1zw)

Shipping Forecast 05:20 WED (m000d200)

Shipping Forecast 00:48 THU (m000d1vw)

Shipping Forecast 05:20 THU (m000d1w0)

Shipping Forecast 00:48 FRI (m000d1sm)

Shipping Forecast 05:20 FRI (m000d1st)

Short Works 15:45 FRI (m000czyx)

Six O'Clock News 18:00 SAT (m000cysp)

Six O'Clock News 18:00 SUN (m000cyw2)

Six O'Clock News 18:00 MON (m000czlp)

Six O'Clock News 18:00 TUE (m000d1zh)

Six O'Clock News 18:00 WED (m000d1vm)

Six O'Clock News 18:00 THU (m000d1s5)

Six O'Clock News 18:00 FRI (m000d22t)

Something Understood 06:05 SUN (b01bkhjq)

Soul Music 09:00 WED (m000czxn)

Soul Music 21:30 WED (m000czxn)

Sounding The Cape 11:30 TUE (m000cz10)

Start the Week 09:00 MON (m000czkl)

Start the Week 21:30 MON (m000czkl)

State of the Nation 09:45 MON (m000czm3)

State of the Nation 00:30 TUE (m000czm3)

State of the Nation 09:45 TUE (m000cz0r)

State of the Nation 00:30 WED (m000cz0r)

State of the Nation 09:45 WED (m000czxs)

State of the Nation 00:30 THU (m000czxs)

State of the Nation 09:45 THU (m000czdh)

State of the Nation 00:30 FRI (m000czdh)

State of the Nation 09:45 FRI (m000czyd)

Sunday Worship 08:10 SUN (m000cyv1)

Sunday 07:10 SUN (m000cytv)

The Archers Omnibus 10:00 SUN (m000cyvc)

The Archers 19:00 SUN (m000cyw6)

The Archers 14:00 MON (m000cyw6)

The Archers 19:00 MON (m000cz1b)

The Archers 14:00 TUE (m000cz1b)

The Archers 19:00 TUE (m000d1v7)

The Archers 14:00 WED (m000d1v7)

The Archers 19:00 WED (m000d1rv)

The Archers 14:00 THU (m000d1rv)

The Archers 19:00 THU (m000d1s8)

The Archers 14:00 FRI (m000d1s8)

The Archers 19:00 FRI (m000czz1)

The Briefing Room 20:00 THU (m000d1sd)

The Courage of Ambivalence 23:30 MON (m0007k73)

The Diagnosis 11:00 TUE (m000cz0y)

The Drop 12:04 MON (m000czl0)

The Drop 22:45 MON (m000czl0)

The Drop 12:04 TUE (m000cz12)

The Drop 22:45 TUE (m000cz12)

The Drop 12:04 WED (m000czxx)

The Drop 22:45 WED (m000czxx)

The Drop 12:04 THU (m000czdx)

The Drop 22:45 THU (m000czdx)

The Drop 12:04 FRI (m000czyl)

The Drop 22:45 FRI (m000czyl)

The End of the World Has Already Happened 11:30 THU (m000czds)

The Film Programme 16:00 THU (m000d1rx)

The Food Programme 12:32 SUN (m000cyvk)

The Food Programme 15:30 MON (m000cyvk)

The Inquiry 17:30 SAT (m000d1ql)

The Kitchen Cabinet 10:30 SAT (m000cys1)

The Kitchen Cabinet 15:00 TUE (m000cys1)

The Life Scientific 09:00 TUE (m000cz0p)

The Life Scientific 21:30 TUE (m000cz0p)

The Listening Project 14:45 SUN (m000cyvr)

The Listening Project 10:55 WED (m0006lrm)

The Listening Project 16:55 FRI (m0006n1p)

The Listening Project 23:55 FRI (m0006n2h)

The Media Show 16:30 WED (m000d1vf)

The News Quiz 12:30 SAT (m000cldf)

The News Quiz 18:30 FRI (m000czyz)

The Skewer 23:00 WED (m000czy8)

The Spark 22:15 SAT (m000cp2w)

The Spark 20:00 WED (m000czy6)

The Stem Cell Hard Sell 20:00 TUE (m000cz1l)

The Unbelievable Truth 12:04 SUN (m000cn4q)

The Unbelievable Truth 18:30 MON (m000czlr)

The Untold 11:00 MON (m000czkv)

The World This Weekend 13:00 SUN (m000cyvp)

The World Tonight 22:00 MON (m000czlz)

The World Tonight 22:00 TUE (m000d1zp)

The World Tonight 22:00 WED (m000d1vr)

The World Tonight 22:00 THU (m000d1sh)

The World Tonight 22:00 FRI (m000d232)

The World Turned Upside Down 13:30 SUN (m000d1yp)

Thinking Allowed 16:00 WED (b05w3wfc)

Today in Parliament 23:30 TUE (m000d1zr)

Today in Parliament 23:30 WED (m000b0cw)

Today in Parliament 23:30 THU (m0009yyk)

Today in Parliament 23:30 FRI (m000b0rw)

Today 07:00 SAT (m000cyrx)

Today 06:00 MON (m000czkj)

Today 06:00 TUE (m000d1yv)

Today 06:00 WED (m000d1ts)

Today 06:00 THU (m000d1rb)

Today 06:00 FRI (m000d229)

Tweet of the Day 08:58 SUN (b04t0vfj)

Tweet of the Day 05:58 MON (b04t0v9m)

Tweet of the Day 05:58 TUE (b04t0t2k)

Tweet of the Day 05:58 WED (b04t0vl3)

Tweet of the Day 05:58 THU (b04t0vqb)

Tweet of the Day 05:58 FRI (b04t0vhm)

Unreliable Memoirs 00:30 SAT (m000cxhc)

Weather 06:57 SAT (m000cyrv)

Weather 12:57 SAT (m000cys9)

Weather 17:57 SAT (m000cysm)

Weather 06:57 SUN (m000cytq)

Weather 07:57 SUN (m000cytx)

Weather 12:57 SUN (m000cyvm)

Weather 17:57 SUN (m000cyw0)

Weather 05:56 MON (m000cyx0)

Weather 12:57 MON (m000czl4)

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Westminster Hour 22:00 SUN (m000cywd)

Wild Music 23:30 SAT (m000cnc4)

Witness 13:15 SAT (m000d1qj)

Witness 00:30 SUN (m000d1qn)

Woman's Hour 16:00 SAT (m000cysf)

Woman's Hour 10:00 MON (m000czkq)

Woman's Hour 10:00 TUE (m000d1z1)

Woman's Hour 10:00 WED (m000d1tz)

Woman's Hour 10:00 THU (m000d1rl)

Woman's Hour 10:00 FRI (m000d22c)

Word of Mouth 16:00 TUE (m000d1z9)

World at One 13:00 MON (m000czl6)

World at One 13:00 TUE (m000d1z7)

World at One 13:00 WED (m000d1v5)

World at One 13:00 THU (m000d1rs)

World at One 13:00 FRI (m000d22k)

You and Yours 12:18 MON (m000czl2)

You and Yours 12:18 TUE (m000cz15)

You and Yours 12:18 WED (m000czxz)

You and Yours 12:18 THU (m000czf1)

You and Yours 12:18 FRI (m000czyn)