SATURDAY 20 SEPTEMBER 2025

SAT 00:00 Midnight News (m002jhng)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


SAT 00:30 The Finest Hotel in Kabul by Lyse Doucet (m002jhm8)
Episode 5 - Sadeq and the Danger Hours

Lyse Doucet reads from her new book about Afghanistan, told through daily life at the Inter-Con Kabul. It's 2020 the Taliban can taste new victory, and anxiety stalks the hotel.

Lyse Doucet is the BBC's Chief International Correspondent and an award winning journalist who has reported from many of the world's war zones. She has covered stories from Afghanistan since 1988 when she first checked into the Inter-Con, and from where she has witnessed the impact of unceasing conflict that has scarred this nation for half a century.

Her book is a history of Afghanistan told through the lives of the people who have worked at the Inter-Con, some since it opened in 1969. Despite enduring several coups, a Soviet occupation, civil war, a US invasion, and the rise and fall and rise of the Taliban, the Inter-Con is still standing. In telling the stories of the hotel's housekeepers, chefs, managers and engineers Lyse shows how us how ordinary Afghans have managed to live through destruction and disruption in their workplace and their country.

The music is Wa wa Leili - Leili, how wonderful! from the album Sweet Nomad Girl. Abdul Wahab Madadi (vocal), Veronica Doubleday (vocal and daireh) and John Baily (14-stringed dutar).

Abridged by Julian Wilkinson
Produced by Elizabeth Allard
Image by Paula Bronstein


SAT 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m002jhnj)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping


SAT 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m002jhnl)
BBC Radio 4 presents a selection of news and current affairs, arts and science programmes from the BBC World Service.


SAT 05:30 News Summary (m002jhnn)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


SAT 05:34 Shipping Forecast (m002jhnq)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping


SAT 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m002jhns)
Spiritual reflection to start the day with Fr Philip Blackledge of Holy Trinity Scottish Episcopal Church, Melrose.


SAT 05:45 Uncharted with Hannah Fry (m0023096)
20. The Confidence Trick

An ambitious portfolio manager stumbles upon a perfect graph. It outlines eye watering profits. But something doesn't quite add up - could this graph be accurate? Or does it hide a far more sinister truth?

Producer Lauren Armstrong Carter
Sound Designer: Jon Nicholls
Story Editor: John Yorke


SAT 06:00 News and Papers (m002js5m)
The news headlines, including a look at the newspapers.


SAT 06:07 Open Country (m002jfc9)
Fair Isle

Halfway between Orkney and Shetland, Fair Isle is one of Britain’s most isolated inhabited islands. It's famous for knitting and birds, and those still form the basis of the island's economy, as Martha Kearney discovers.

As an inviting rock in the North Atlantic it’s a magnet for migratory birds, with exhausted individuals blown off course regularly adding to a long list of unusual species recorded by the local bird observatory. Martha joins the island’s Head of Ornithology, Alex Penn, to ring some visitors and sit for a while with Britain’s friendliest colonies of puffin.

French knitwear designer, Marie Brahat introduces Martha to her flock of sheep and gives her a lesson in turning their wool into the unique designs of Fair Isle knitwear. School teacher Jonathan Pye is the newest arrival on the island, currently dealing with a school roll of just two pupils - brothers Luca and Anders.

Producer: Alasdair Cross


SAT 06:30 Farming Today (m002js5p)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside


SAT 06:57 Weather (m002js5r)
The latest weather reports and forecast


SAT 07:00 Today (m002js5t)
Today (Saturday)


SAT 09:00 Saturday Live (m002js5w)
Lulu, Palestinian Cooking, a Water Sommelier and Mark Kermode's Inheritance Tracks

Lulu joins Adrian Chiles for extraordinary stories from remarkable people.


SAT 10:00 You're Dead to Me (p0f92pfx)
The Columbian Exchange

Greg Jenner is joined by Dr Caroline Dodds Pennock and comedian Desiree Burch in the 15th century to learn all about the Columbian Exchange, which is often described as the start of globalisation. We go beyond the expeditions of Christopher Columbus to share the bigger story of a monumental exchange of plants, foods, animals, materials, people and culture across the continents. It’s also a life lesson on why you shouldn't set sail with a couple of cougars aboard your ship!

Research by Roxy Moore
Written by Emma Nagouse and Greg Jenner
Produced by Emma Nagouse and Greg Jenner
Assistant Producer: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow
Project Management: Isla Matthews
Audio Producer: Steve Hankey

You’re Dead To Me is a production by The Athletic for BBC Radio 4.


SAT 10:30 The Kitchen Cabinet (m002js5z)
Series 49

Episode 5

Jay Rayner hosts a culinary panel show packed full of tasty titbits.


SAT 11:00 Radical with Amol Rajan (m002jfd2)
Conversations about tomorrow, from Today.


SAT 11:30 From Our Own Correspondent (m002js61)
Insight, wit and analysis from BBC correspondents, journalists and writers from around the world.


SAT 12:00 News Summary (m002js63)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


SAT 12:04 Money Box (m002js65)
The latest news from the world of personal finance


SAT 12:30 The News Quiz (m002jhmx)
Series 118

Episode 3

Topical panel quiz show, taking its questions from the week's news stories.


SAT 12:57 Weather (m002js67)
The latest weather forecast


SAT 13:00 News (m002js69)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


SAT 13:10 Any Questions? (m002jhn3)
Topical discussion posing questions to a panel of political and media personalities


SAT 14:05 Any Answers? (m002js6c)
Listeners respond to the issues raised in the preceding edition of Any Questions?


SAT 14:45 The Archers (m002jhmz)
Writer: Sarah McDonald Hughes
Director: Peter Leslie Wild
Editor: Jeremy Howe

Brian Aldridge.... Charles Collingwood
Ben Archer.... Ben Norris
Lilian Bellamy.... Sunny Ormonde
Alice Carter.... Hollie Chapman
Ruairi Donovan.... Arthur Hughes
Justin Elliott.... Simon Williams
Alan Franks.... John Telfer
Martyn Gibson.... Jon Glover
Ed Grundy.... Barry Farrimond
Jim Lloyd.... John Rowe
Paul Mack.... Joshua Riley
Azra Malik.... Yasmin Wilde
Jazzer McCreary.... Ryan Kelly
Lily Pargetter.... Katie Redford
Fallon Rogers.... Joanna Van Kampen


SAT 15:00 The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann (m000vgfd)
3. A Way Out

Hugh’s cousin James and the beautiful Madame Claudia have both left the sanatorium, but both are soon to return, with fatal consequences.

Hugh is now deep in the enchantment of the Mountain. If he is ever to escape, he will have to undergo a dreadful vision and a terrifying supernatural experience.

Thomas Mann’s novel is a literary icon, a tragi-comedy, a masterpiece of deep thought, sly irony, sex, love and death.

Written from a translation by John E Woods

Dramatised by Robin Brooks

Narrator ..... Lucy Robinson
Hugh Casthorpe ..... Luke Thallon
James Simpson ..... Hugh Skinner
Doctor Crowmarsh ..... Sandy Grierson
Professor Jones ..... Richard Harrington
Claudia Civet ..... Genevieve Gaunt
Peter Piobar ..... Stephen Hogan
Angela Simpson ..... Kate Paul
Howe ..... Huw Brentnall
Ellen Cameron ..... Lilit Lesser
Kirsty / Nurse ..... Georgia Brown

Sound Design by Wilfredo Acosta and Alisdair McGregor

Director: Fiona McAlpine

An Allegra production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in April 2021.


SAT 16:00 Woman's Hour (m002js6f)
Highlights from the Woman's Hour week


SAT 17:00 PM (m002js6h)
Full coverage of the day's news


SAT 17:30 Political Thinking with Nick Robinson (m002js6k)
Nick Robinson talks to people who shape our political thinking about what shaped theirs.


SAT 17:54 Shipping Forecast (m002js6m)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping


SAT 17:57 Weather (m002js6p)
The latest weather reports and forecast


SAT 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m002js6r)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


SAT 18:15 Loose Ends (m002js6t)
Neil Hannon & The Divine Comedy, Mark Gatiss, Kate Fox, AA Dhand

Amit Dhand, Mark Gatiss and Kate Fox join Edith Bowman live in Bradford with music by The Divine Comedy.


SAT 19:00 Profile (m002js6w)
An insight into the character of an influential person making the news headlines


SAT 19:15 This Cultural Life (m002jfbq)
In-depth conversations with some of the world's leading artists and creatives across theatre, visual arts, music, dance, film and more. Hosted by John Wilson.


SAT 20:00 Archive on 4 (m0015tw6)
Sir Alex Ferguson: Made in Govan

BBC Radio Manchester presenter Mike Sweeney and former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson go back a long way. They used to play football together and bonded over their love of music from the sixties. In this edition of Archive on 4, they sit down together to talk about Sir Alex as a young man and the influences which shaped his extraordinary career. Sir Alex reflects on his upbringing in Govan, the tenements where he lived and the people who first believed in him. He reveals how his early experiences as a working man left him with values that last to this day. He tells Mike about the magic of first playing football, and reflects on the ups and downs of his playing and coaching career and their impact on what came next. Moments from the BBC Archive help Mike tell Sir Alex's story.

Presented by Mike Sweeney.
Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Camellia Sinclair.
Mixed by Michael Harrison.


SAT 21:00 Moral Maze (m002jf5c)
Live debate examining the moral issues behind one of the week's news stories.


SAT 22:00 News (m002js6y)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


SAT 22:15 The Food Programme (m002jhm6)
The Rise of Matcha

As global sales of matcha continue to boom, Leyla Kazim traces the story of the powdered green tea from centuries-old Japanese tradition to global health trend of the moment. We look behind the social media videos and headlines to find out more about the reported matcha shortage, how the matcha supply chain is reacting, and what might happen next.

Presented by Leyla Kazim and produced by Sophie Anton for BBC Audio in Bristol.


SAT 23:00 Icklewick FM (m002j89f)
Series 2

4. Ye Revolt

The whole town turns up to celebrate the launch of a brand new attraction which promises to bring Icklewick’s colourful history to life using the power of immersive theatre. When Jicklevick fails to live up to the impossibly high expectations set by Sharon and Louis L’Beech, Chris and Amy find themselves at risk of being devoured by a horde of disgruntled MILFs. Meanwhile, Simon does a Gary Sparrow.

Icklewick FM is created and written by Chris Cantrill and Amy Gledhill, with additional material from the cast.

Starring:
Amy Gledhill
Chris Cantrill
Mark Silcox
Colin
Hoult
Janice Connolly
Phil Ellis
Lucy Beaumont
Henry Paker
Molly McGuinness
Darren J Coles
Shivani Thussu
Joe Kent Walters
Tom Burgess
Nicola Redman
Tai Campbell
Em Humble
James Carbutt

Series Artwork by Sam O'Leary

Music, sound design and additional material by Jack Lewis Evans.
Line Produced by Laura Shaw
Produced by Benjamin Sutton.
A Daddy’s Superyacht production for BBC Radio 4


SAT 23:30 BBC National Short Story Award (m002jhnd)
BBC National Short Story Award 2025

You Cannot Thread a Moving Needle by Colwill Brown

Colwill Brown's powerful and heart-breaking story is about Shaz, a teenager who is more vulnerable than she realises. A brutal incident with two boys has a lasting impact, leaving her with a powerful sense of shame, and curtailing her life chances. The reader is Sophie McShera.

Colwill Brown is the author of the novel We Pretty Pieces of Flesh published in 2025. Her work has appeared in Granta, Prairie Schooner, and other publications, and she has received scholarships and awards from the Tin House Summer Workshop, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Hedgebrook, Ragdale, the Anderson Center, GrubStreet Center for Creative Writing, and elsewhere.

The annual BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University marks its twentieth anniversary in 2025 with a shortlist of five short stories by established and newer writers to the form. The five outstanding stories explore relationships, community and place against a backdrop of a world in crisis.

For two decades this award has celebrated writers who are the UK’s finest exponents of the form.  James Lasdun secured the inaugural Award in 2006 for ‘An Anxious Man’. In 2012 when the Award expanded internationally for one year, Miroslav Penkov was victorious for his story, ‘East of the West’. Last year, the Award was won by Ross Raisin for ‘Ghost Kitchen’, a tense, cinematic story narrated by a bicycle courier and inspired by the gig economy and the ‘dark kitchens’ of the restaurant industry.

In its 20-year history, Sarah Hall, K J Orr, Naomi Wood, Jonathan Buckley, Julian Gough, Clare Wigfall, Cynan Jones, Lucy Caldwell, Ingrid Persaud, Saba Sams and David Constantine have also carried off the Award with shortlisted authors including Zadie Smith, Jackie Kay, William Trevor, Rose Tremain, Caleb Azumah Nelson, Naomi Alderman, Kamila Shamsie, K Patrick and Jacqueline Crooks.

This year’s judging panel was chaired by Di Speirs who has sat on every judging panel since the Award’s inception and is joined by the very first chair of judges, William Boyd as well as former winners and shortlisted writers Lucy Caldwell, Ross Raisin and Kamila Shamsie.

In a time when literary awards come and go, and can struggle for funding and airtime, the BBC National Short Story Award with Cambridge University continues to be a cause for joy

From 15th to 18th September four of the shortlisted stories can be heard at 3.30 each afternoon with the fifth story in contention for the award broadcasting on Friday, 19th September, at 11.30pm. The winner of the 20th BBC National Short Story Award will be announced live on BBC Radio 4’s Front Row on Tuesday 30th September 2025.

If you have been a victim of child or adult sexual abuse or violence, details of help and support are available at bbc.co.uk/actionline.

Produced by Elizabeth Allard.

SUNDAY 21 SEPTEMBER 2025

SUN 00:00 Midnight News (m002js70)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


SUN 00:15 Take Four Books (m002jgjr)
Ian McEwan

Booker prize winning author, Ian McEwan, speaks to Take Four Books, about his new novel, What We Can Know, and explores its connections to three other literary works. What We Can Know is set almost a hundred years in the future in a Britain much of which is now underwater, and it follows the character of Tom Metcalfe, a scholar of the University of South Downs, who is looking back at the literature of the early twenty-first century.

For his his three influences Ian chose: a poem called Marston Meadows: A corona for Prue by John Fuller, first published in the Times Literary Supplement in 2021; The Immortal Dinner by Penelope Hughes-Hallett from 2000; and Footsteps by Richard Holmes from 1985.

The supporting contributor for this episode is the writer Denise Mina, and it's recorded during the Edinburgh International Books Festival.

Presenter: James Crawford
Producer: Dominic Howell
Editor: Gillian Wheelan

This was a BBC Audio Scotland production.


SUN 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m002js72)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping


SUN 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m002js74)
BBC Radio 4 presents a selection of news and current affairs, arts and science programmes from the BBC World Service.


SUN 05:30 News Summary (m002js76)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


SUN 05:34 Shipping Forecast (m002js78)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping


SUN 05:43 Bells on Sunday (m002js7b)
St Peter’s Church in Theberton, Suffolk

Bells on Sunday comes from St Peter’s Church in Theberton, Suffolk. The Grade I listed church building mostly dates from the 12th century with 15th century windows. It features a thatched roof covering the nave and chancel and a round tower with an octagonal upper section. There are six bells of which the heaviest five all date from 1875 and were cast at the Mears & Stainbank foundry in London. The Tenor weighs six and one half hundredweight and is tuned to the note of B flat. We hear them ringing Merchants Return Delight Minor.


SUN 05:45 In Touch (m002jf43)
News, views and information for people who are blind or partially sighted


SUN 06:00 News Summary (m002js7h)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4


SUN 06:05 Heart and Soul (w3ct6vp4)
Bergen-Belsen: Among graves, we were born

Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp in Germany was the only camp liberated by the British Forces in April, 1945. Prior to that, over 50,000 people were murdered there. After liberation, the British Forces, alongside the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (AJDC) set up another camp about 2 kilometres away - the Bergen-Belsen Displaced Persons (DP) Camp – the largest DP camp in Europe, where over 2,000 babies were born. Known as ‘Bergen-Belsen Babies’, Susan Schwartz and Karen Lasky were two of the many born stateless who gained citizenship after their families were eventually accepted and immigrated to Canada.

On the anniversary of the liberation, survivors, alongside Bergen-Belsen Babies gathered for the week, trying to fill in the gaps of what happened to their families and reflect on their childhoods.

Executive Producer: Rajeev Gupta
Editor: Chloe Walker
Production co-ordinator: Mica Nepomuceno

(Photo: A mix of old photos from a survivor of the DP camp. Credit: Andrew Schwartz)


SUN 06:35 On Your Farm (m002js7l)
The Yorkshire Milkshake!

Yorkshire dairy farmers James and Alex Hill like a milkshake and had a feeling they weren’t alone. Just three years ago they launched their own milkshake and milk vending machines in 5 farm shops. The shakes sold really well and a pal of theirs wondered if they might be interested in converting the old beer trailer, he’d used at festivals into their own mobile milkshake truck. Of course they would!
The trailer now serves festival-goers rhubarb and custard, bis-cowf, and red velvet milkshakes instead of best bitter and mild at events across Yorkshire. Visitors to this summer’s Great Yorkshire Show supped up 15 hundred litres of flavoured milk and 800 litres of ice-cream.
Caz Graham visits the Hill family farm near Penistone to see how robotic milking and a vending machine shop complete with music, glitterballs and cow print boxer shorts have helped transform farm life. Then it’s off to Barnsley town centre to pull a few pints... of frothy milkshake.


SUN 06:57 Weather (m002js7n)
The latest weather reports and forecast


SUN 07:00 News and Papers (m002js7q)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


SUN 07:10 Sunday (m002js7s)
A look at the ethical and religious issues of the week


SUN 07:54 Radio 4 Appeal (m002js7v)
AMR Action UK

The scientist and broadcaster Dr Adam Rutherford makes the BBC Radio 4 Appeal on behalf of AMR Action UK.

The Radio 4 Appeal features a new charity every week.
Each appeal then runs on Radio 4 from Sunday 0755 for 7 days.

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 ‘AMR Action UK’.
- Cheques should be made payable to ‘AMR Action UK’.
- You can donate online at bbc.co.uk/appeal/radio4
- Please ensure you are donating to the correct charity by checking the name of the charity on the donate page.

Registered Charity Number: 1157884. If you’d like to find out more about the charity’s work visit *https://amr-action-uk.org/
*The BBC is not responsible for content on external websites

Producer: Anna Bailey


SUN 07:57 Weather (m002js7x)
The latest weather reports and forecast


SUN 08:00 News and Papers (m002js7z)
The news headlines, including a look at the newspapers.


SUN 08:10 Sunday Worship (m002js81)
St Aloysius' Church, Glasgow

With Fr Adrian Porter SJ and the Schola Cantorum of St Aloysius' College, Glasgow.
Readings: Amos 8:4-7
Luke 16:10-13
Dear Lord And Father Of Mankind (Tune: Repton)
Before The World Began (John L Bell/Graham Maule)
Ubi Caritas (Gjeilo)
Our Father (Roberts)
Praise To The Holiest In The Height (Tune: Billing)
Organ Voluntary: March from The Occasional Oratorio (Handel)
Director of Music: Ann Archibald
Organist: Ronan McQuade


SUN 08:48 Witness History (w3ct74jq)
9/11: The generosity of Gander

On 11 September, 2001, a small Canadian town called Gander became a haven for thousands of airline passengers and crew stranded after the 9/11 terror attacks.

The attacks on the World Trade Center had forced the closure of US airspace leaving many flights unable to land. Within hours, 38 planes with 7,000 passengers, had been diverted to Gander, effectively doubling the town's population. But what happened next showcased the extraordinary kindness and generosity of the Newfoundlanders.

For five days, local residents provided beds, food, medicine and clothing for those stranded during the crisis, and didn’t ask for a cent. They even put on music evenings, barbecues and canoe trips to keep their visitors entertained.

Beverley Bass, one of the plane captains, tells Jane Wilkinson about Gander’s extraordinary hospitality during one of the most traumatic events in modern history.

Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there.

For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more.

Recent episodes explore everything from the death of Adolf Hitler, the first spacewalk and the making of the movie Jaws, to celebrity tortoise Lonesome George, the Kobe earthquake and the invention of superglue.

We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: Eva Peron – Argentina’s Evita; President Ronald Reagan and his famous ‘tear down this wall’ speech; Thomas Keneally on why he wrote Schindler’s List; and Jacques Derrida, France’s ‘rock star’ philosopher.

You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the civil rights swimming protest; the disastrous D-Day rehearsal; and the death of one of the world’s oldest languages.

(Photo: Passengers and crew at Gander airfield, 2001. Credit: Town of Gander)


SUN 08:58 Tweet of the Day (m002js83)
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about birds inspired by their calls, songs and behaviour.


SUN 09:00 Broadcasting House (m002js85)
The Sunday morning news magazine programme. Presented by Paddy O'Connell


SUN 10:00 The Reunion (m002js87)
House of Lords Reform

Kirsty Wark brings together a group of people involved in the 1999 attempt to reform the House of Lords.

Presenter: Kirsty Wark
Producer: Leo Hornak
Editor: David Prest

A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4


SUN 11:00 The Archers Omnibus (m002js89)
Writer: Sarah McDonald Hughes
Director: Peter Leslie Wild
Editor: Jeremy Howe

Brian Aldridge.... Charles Collingwood
Ben Archer.... Ben Norris
Lilian Bellamy.... Sunny Ormonde
Alice Carter.... Hollie Chapman
Ruairi Donovan.... Arthur Hughes
Justin Elliott.... Simon Williams
Alan Franks.... John Telfer
Martyn Gibson.... Jon Glover
Ed Grundy.... Barry Farrimond
Jim Lloyd.... John Rowe
Paul Mack.... Joshua Riley
Azra Malik.... Yasmin Wilde
Jazzer McCreary.... Ryan Kelly
Lily Pargetter.... Katie Redford
Fallon Rogers.... Joanna Van Kampen


SUN 12:15 Profile (m002js6w)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Saturday]


SUN 12:30 Just a Minute (m002jgpk)
Series 95

5. Whoopsie-daisy

Sue Perkins challenges Lucy Porter, Paul Merton, Zoe Lyons and Stephen Mangan to speak for 60 seconds without repetition, deviation or hesitation. Subjects include give it 110%, Oasis tickets and I wish I didn’t know that about you.

Production Coordinator: Sarah Nicholls
Sound Editor: Marc Willcox
Producer: Georgia Keating
Executive Producer: James Robinson
Additional material by Eve Delaney

An EcoAudio certified production.
A BBC Studios Production for Radio 4.


SUN 12:57 Weather (m002js8c)
The latest weather forecast


SUN 13:00 The World This Weekend (m002js8f)
Radio 4's look at the week's big stories from both home and around the world.


SUN 13:30 Currently (m002js8h)
Scotland Wants You

Nick Eardley explores the Scottish dimension to one of the most contentious issues facing the UK – immigration. With lower birthrates and a population that’s aging faster, Scotland desperately needs people to come here and take up jobs in critical sectors like healthcare, agriculture, and hospitality. And now with Reform biting at their heels Labour plan to adopt a much tighter immigration policy. So does this ‘one size fits all’ immigration policy risk making Scotland’s problems worse?

Nick’s investigation probes into another central question: are higher immigration levels something that the average Scot is ready to accept? On the surface, Scotland presents itself as a hospitable, inclusive country, known for its strong values of egalitarianism. It avoided last year’s wave of immigration riots which hit parts of England and marred Labour’s first few weeks in power but recent protests outside asylum hotels in places like Perth and Falkirk suggest public opinion is shifting.

The recent rise in support for Reform UK reveal a complex picture. While there’s much enthusiasm for Scotland from immigrant communities, there are surprising undercurrents of resentment surfacing.

Nick will explore the often contradictory narratives and perspectives surrounding immigration in Scotland. His journey will uncover whether Scotland’s reputation for openness aligns with current attitudes, or if this image masks deeper ambivalences - does the old Scottish adage, about inclusivity - “We’re all Jock Tamson’s bairns,” still reflect the country today?

Presenter: Nick Eardley
Producer: Peter McManus
Sound: Gav Murchie


SUN 14:00 Gardeners' Question Time (m002jhmn)
Elmbridge

Horticultural programme featuring a group of gardening experts.


SUN 14:45 Opening Lines (m002js8k)
The Cherry Orchard - Episode Two

John Yorke looks at The Cherry Orchard, Anton Chekhov’s final play and a landmark in 20th century theatre.

It’s 1903 and Liubov Andryeevna Ranyevskaya has returned to the family estate in southern Russia. As the head of this aristocratic household she faces a dilemma. The family is in serious financial difficulty and they have the choice of either selling the entire estate, or accepting the proposal of local businessman, Lopakhin, to cut down their beloved cherry orchard to make way for holiday homes and use the money to pay their debts.

In the second of two episodes, John looks at how Chekhov’s use of ambiguity, his skilful combination of comic and tragic elements, and his rejection of naturalism represent a departure from his previous work and were to prove so influential in the development of 20th century theatre.

John has worked in television and radio for 30 years, and shares his experience with Radio 4 listeners as he unpacks the themes and impact of the books, plays and stories that are being dramatised in BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. As former Head of Channel Four Drama and Controller of BBC Drama Production he has worked on some of the most popular shows in Britain - from EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless. As creator of the BBC Writers Academy he's trained a generation of screenwriters - now with over 70 green lights and thousands of hours of television to their names. He is the author of Into the Woods, the bestselling book on narrative, and he writes, teaches and consults on all forms of narrative, including many podcasts for Radio 4.

Contributors:
Simon Russell Beale, whose long and distinguished acting career has seen him play many roles, including his performance as Lopakhin in a 2009 production of The Cherry Orchard at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. He also won an Olivier Award for his performance as Uncle Vanya in 2003.
Rosamund Bartlett, a cultural historian with expertise in Russian literature, music, and art. Her books include Chekhov: Scenes from a Life and she has also translated and edited selections of his stories and letters.
Benedict Andrews, director of an acclaimed production of The Cherry Orchard at the Donmar Warehouse in London in 2024.

Reader: Torquil MacLeod
Closing music: Torquil MacLeod
Sound: Sean Kerwin
Researcher: Henry Tydeman
Production Hub Coordinator: Nina Semple
Producer: Torquil MacLeod
Executive Producer: Sara Davies

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4


SUN 15:00 Drama on 4 (m002js8m)
The Yafa Cherry Orchard

Part 2

Chekhov’s masterpiece is relocated to Palestine during the partition of 1948.


SUN 16:00 Take Four Books (m002js8p)
Graham Norton

BAFTA Award-winning broadcaster and novelist Graham Norton discusses Frankie, his fifth novel, which centres on the life of an apparently unremarkable Irish woman in her eighties as she recounts her story to a young carer.

Graham Norton shares the three key literary influences that helped shape the novel: Elizabeth Bowen’s The Last September (1929), Armistead Maupin’s Significant Others (1987), and Gabrielle Zevin’s Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow (2022).

Joining the discussion is acclaimed Irish author, poet, and LGBT+ activist Mary Dorcey.

Producer: Rachael O’Neill
Editor: Esme Kennedy
This was a BBC Audio Scotland production.


SUN 16:30 The 3rd Degree (m002js8r)
Series 15

2. Queen Mary, University of London

This episode coming from Queen Mary University of London, The 3rd Degree is a funny, upbeat and brainy quiz show.

The specialist subjects this week are Dentistry, Medicine and Politics, so there’ll be references to Melt-Quench Processing, Biliary Sludge and Quintin Hogg - clue, only one of them was a Conservative Cabinet Minister. Plus your chance to play Vaccine Scrabble!

The show is recorded on location at a different University each week, and pits three Undergraduates against three of their Professors in this fresh take on an academic quiz. The General Knowledge rounds include a quickfire bell-and-buzzer finale and the Highbrow & Lowbrow round cunningly devised to test not only the students’ knowledge of history, art, literature and politics, but also their Professors’ awareness of TV, music and sport. Meanwhile there are the three Specialist Subject rounds, in which students take on their Professors in their own subjects, and where we find out whether the students have actually been awake during lectures.

In this series, universities include Bristol, Queen Mary University of London, Kent, Worcester College Oxford, and Manchester Metropolitan University.

Producer: David Tyler

A Pozzitive production for BBC Radio 4


SUN 17:00 Witness History (m002k5jt)
When Stalin silenced Shostakovich

Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich was one of the greatest musicians of the 20th century. But in 1936, Joseph Stalin attended a performance of Shostakovich's opera, Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk.

The Soviet leader was unimpressed and left early. Days later, the state newspaper Pravda published a scathing review titled 'Muddle instead of music', castigating the music as bourgeois.

Shostakovich was blacklisted from public life, and feared for his safety during Stalin's ongoing purges.

The traditional style of his comeback Symphony No 5 in 1937 was a hit with the authorities, and Shostakovich's reputation was restored. But his true intentions are hugely debated – some experts argue the Fifth Symphony was a cleverly veiled act of dissent.

Fifty years on from the composer's death, his son Maxim Shostakovich unfolds the mystery with Ben Henderson.

Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive.

Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there.

For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more.

Recent episodes explore everything from the death of Adolf Hitler, the first spacewalk and the making of the movie Jaws, to celebrity tortoise Lonesome George, the Kobe earthquake and the invention of superglue.

We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: Eva Peron – Argentina’s Evita; President Ronald Reagan and his famous ‘tear down this wall’ speech; Thomas Keneally on why he wrote Schindler’s List; and Jacques Derrida, France’s ‘rock star’ philosopher.

You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the civil rights swimming protest; the disastrous D-Day rehearsal; and the death of one of the world’s oldest languages.

(Photo: Dmitri Shostakovich and his son Maxim Shostakovich. Credit: Express/Getty Images)


SUN 17:10 Inheritors of Partition (m0019yxh)
Five years after the award-winning Radio 4 series Partition Voices, Kavita Puri explores the 75th anniversary of the division of the Indian subcontinent through three stories from the third generation in Britain.

In homes across the UK, partition is not history but a live issue for its young descendants. It’s a quiet awakening just as there is a noisy national conversation around how colonial history is told. This documentary tells contemporary tales of love, longing and discovery. A man goes to the Pakistani village where his Hindu grandfather was saved by Muslims and makes a surprising connection; a woman who has always thought of herself as British Pakistani does a DNA test; and a young couple with roots on different sides of the line dividing India and Pakistan plan their wedding.

Over the course of a year, Kavita Puri follows their stories as they piece together parts of their complex family histories and try to understand the legacy of partition and what it means to them today, and to their place in Britain.

Producer: Ant Adeane
Editor: Hugh Levinson
Sound: Neil Churchill
Production Coordinator: Janet Staples

The theme composition is based on a piece of music originating in pre-partition Punjab. It has been reinterpreted and arranged in collaboration between Manbir Singh, a classical singer and musician of Punjabi heritage, and Enayet, an electronic music producer and artist of Bengali heritage.


SUN 17:54 Shipping Forecast (m002js8t)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping


SUN 17:57 Weather (m002js8w)
The latest weather reports and forecast


SUN 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m002js8y)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


SUN 18:15 Pick of the Week (m002js90)
Alex Lathbridge

A selection of highlights from the past week on BBC radio


SUN 19:00 The Archers (m002js92)
Contemporary drama in a rural setting


SUN 19:15 Illuminated (m002js94)
How Trains Shrank Time and Space

It is 200 years since the birth of the modern railway. On the 27th of September 1825 the first passenger train on a public line and powered by steam, travelled 26 miles between County Durham’s collieries and Stockton-on-Tees.

A rich aural soundscape incorporates archive, modern voices and a light poetic narration to reflect how train travel since then has changed our concept of time and space.

Joe Fowler's composition mimics the varying gradients and tempos of that inaugural journey and accelerates from the coal mines which fuelled the railway to the modern day, racing to a future of international travel and where modern technologies and increasing technological reliance for good or ill turn the wonder of that inaugural journey into cold digital sounds.

Poet Katrina Porteous walks the old passenger route, revealing her family's connections to County Durham's mines and railways. She meets Jackson who shows her the original buffer block discovered in his mother’s garden; walks the Etherley and Brusselton inclines where stationary steam first replaced pit ponies. In Shildon she sees where the first passengers boarded the train, pulled by Stephenson’s Loco No. 1 and is shown Heighington Station - the world's first! In Darlington she hears the stories of retired railway workers, visits the oldest railway bridge in continuous use (Skerne) and the Good’s Shed Clock Tower which enabled scheduling of S&DR trains - over 40 years before time was standardised across the country. We end at the terminus in Stockton where the coal was put on ships for London and further afield.

Participants reflect on landscape and time, and Katrina muses on what a world shrunk by technology and speed means for us now.

Produced by Anna Scott-Brown,
Overtone Productions.


SUN 19:45 Just One Thing - with Michael Mosley (m0017cfl)
Dance

In this episode, Michael gets out his dancing shoes & shines some light on the many benefits of dancing, revealing that dancing has been shown to be BETTER than traditional fitness exercises for improving your muscles, your balance and even the size of your brain. He speaks to professional-ballet-dancer-turned-neuroscientist Dr Julia F Christensen at the Max Planck Institute in Frankfurt, to find out how dancing can improve our balance and coordination, and trigger new connections in our brain, while our volunteer Lorne has a go at adding some disco dancing to her everyday routine.


SUN 20:00 Word of Mouth (m002js96)
The Language of the Manosphere

The 'Manosphere' is a group of loosely affiliated mainly young males who have developed a specialised vocabulary to discuss women online in a negative and hostile way. Some of the vocabulary is a response to feminism which some men claim is diminishing their role in society. For other men a failure to attract women has given rise to phrases such as Chad and Stacey and a belief in the 80/20 theory - that 80% of women are attracted to just 20% of men who are Alpha males or Chads.
Acronyms such as AWALT (All women are like that) and MGTOW (Men Going Their Own Way) are also used for the purpose of internet dialogue.
Dr Jessica Aiston of Queen Mary University in London is one of several linguistic researchers who submitted evidence to the UK Parliament call for research into online misogyny. She tells Michael Rosen what that research has shown her and explains some of the terms used.

How did terms like “down the rabbit hole” and “gaslighting” enter the English language? How do other languages adapt expressions like these? Find out in an interactive guide with The Open University’s experts. Visit the BBC Radio 4Word of Mouth page and follow the links to The Open University.

Produced for BBC Audio Bristol by Maggie Ayre, in partnership with the Open University.
Subscribe to the Word of Mouth podcast and never miss an episode: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/b006qtnz


SUN 20:30 Last Word (m002jhmq)
Matthew Bannister tells the life stories of people who have recently died, from the rich and famous to unsung but significant.


SUN 21:00 Money Box (m002js65)
[Repeat of broadcast at 12:04 on Saturday]


SUN 21:25 Radio 4 Appeal (m002js7v)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:54 today]


SUN 21:30 From Our Own Correspondent (m002js61)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:30 on Saturday]


SUN 22:00 Westminster Hour (m002js9b)
Radio 4's Sunday night political discussion programme.


SUN 23:00 On the Run (m00237gv)
Stay Alive

Writer, Poet and Runner Helen Mort trails a history of running, from prehistoric times to present day. Helen asks why we run, and finds out what running has meant through the ages. Helen looks at stories of running through the ages, to chart the development of humanity's relationship with running. She'll be finding out what role running played in societies through the ages, and how it has been represented in culture.

In the first episode, Helen examines the role of running in prehistoric times. What role did running play in life of early humans, and what kinds of running did they do? Did we evolve to sprint, or to run long distances, and why? How did people represent running in their culture, such as cave art? Helen finds out if cultures of running in different indigenous communities today, with traditions stretching back thousands of years, can tell us anything about humanity's approach to running.

Helen's route then leads to Ancient Greece, the site of some of the earliest known records of running as a sport. She relives the famous journey of the messenger Pheidippides to Athens, whose feat, and feet gave us the marathon.

Interviewees:
Dr Nathalie Hager, Lecturer in Art History, University of British Columbia
Prof Dan Lieberman, Evolutionary Biologist at Harvard University and author 'Exercised: The Science of Physical Activity, Rest and Health
Dustin Martin, Executive Director, Wings of America
Christopher McDougall, writer and author of 'Born to Run'
Andrea Marcolongo, Classicist and author of 'The Art of Running: Learning to Run Like a Greek'.
Roger Robinson, Runner, Historian and author of 'Running in Literature'.

Readings by Andi Bickers and Nuhazet Diaz Cano

Excerpt from Henri Lhote, A la découverte des fresques du Tassili (The Search for the Tassili Frescos) (Arhaud, 1958).

Thanks to Dr Judith Swaddling

Producer: Sam Peach


SUN 23:45 Short Works (m0012fwy)
Every Ballymena Man's Dream by Gerard McKeown

Someone has been leaving footballs filled with concrete in public places for unsuspecting people to discover.

Or, in one case, try to kick.

Gerard McKeown's original short story read by Seamus O'Hara.

Gerard is a writer from Ballymena, Northern Ireland.

He was recently longlisted for the Retreat West 2020 Short Story Award and the 2019 BBC National Short Story Award.

His work has appeared in numerous anthologies including 'Still Worlds Turning' 2019 and 'The Black Dreams: Strange Stories from Northern Ireland' 2021.

Producer: Michael Shannon

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2021.

MONDAY 22 SEPTEMBER 2025

MON 00:00 Midnight News (m002js9g)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


MON 00:15 Crossing Continents (m002jf47)
Kenya: A Battle for Gen Z

Over the past year, Kenya has been rocked by anti-government protests. What started as a demonstration over proposed tax increases soon turned into a nationwide, youth-led protest over the state of the economy, alleged political corruption and police brutality. But it's come at a cost. Dozens of protestors have been killed in clashes with the police, and human rights groups say many activists have been abducted and tortured by agents of the states. Michael Kaloki meets the young Kenyans who are caught in a battle for change.

Presented by Michael Kaloki
Produced by Alex Last
Studio mix by Neil Churchill
Editor Penny Murphy


MON 00:45 Bells on Sunday (m002js7b)
[Repeat of broadcast at 05:43 on Sunday]


MON 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m002js9k)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping


MON 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m002js9m)
BBC Radio 4 presents a selection of news and current affairs, arts and science programmes from the BBC World Service.


MON 05:00 News Summary (m002js9p)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


MON 05:04 Last Word (m002jhmq)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:30 on Sunday]


MON 05:34 Shipping Forecast (m002js9r)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping


MON 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m002js9t)
Spiritual reflection to start the day with Fr Philip Blackledge of Holy Trinity Scottish Episcopal Church, Melrose.


MON 05:45 Farming Today (m002js9w)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.


MON 05:57 Weather (m002js9y)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for farmers


MON 06:00 Today (m002jsbq)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.


MON 09:00 Start the Week (m002jsbs)
Contains Strong Language Festival, Bradford

At the Contains Strong Language Festival in Bradford, Tom Sutcliffe and guests explore the history and culture of the city, and nation, through its poetry and stories. From battlefields and royal courts, coalmines to curry houses Start the Week looks at the language and rhythms that have captured the country.

The historian Catherine Clarke is retelling the story of the past in a new way in ‘A History of England in 25 Poems’. From the 8th century to today these verses illuminate the experiences, emotions and imaginations of those who lived through it.

As the 2025 City of Culture, Bradford gets an imaginative re-making in ‘The Book of Bradford: A City in Short Fiction’, a collection filled with rich diversity and youthful energy. Its editor Saima Mir, who grew up in the city, says the stories don’t avoid the scars of past challenges, but there’s pride in a city that has overcome differences and is looking ahead.

Moving on from the past is also reflected in Andrew McMillan’s debut novel, ‘Pity’, which follows three generations of a Yorkshire mining family, exploring themes of masculinity and post-industrial decline. As a prize-winning poet, McMillan will also be performing at the Contains Strong Language Festival in Bradford.

Producer: Katy Hickman
Assistant Producer: Natalia Fernandez


MON 09:45 Café Hope (m002jsbv)
Caring quilts

Founder of Quilts for Care Leavers, Maggie Lloyd-Jones, tells Rachel Burden how the charity offers 'quilted hugs' to young people who are leaving the local authority care system.

Volunteers start quilting at the start of the year, so each care leaver attending an organised Christmas dinner can pick out a quilt of their choice.

Café Hope is our virtual Radio 4 coffee shop, where guests pop in for a brew and a chat to tell us what they’re doing to make things better in big and small ways. Think of us as sitting in your local café, cooking up plans, hearing the gossip, and celebrating the people making the world a better place.

We’re all about trying to make change. It might be a transformational project that helps an entire community, or it might be about trying to make one life a little bit easier. And the key here is in the trying. This is real life. Not everything works, and there are struggles along the way. But it’s always worth a go.

You can contact us on cafehope@bbc.co.uk

Presenter: Rachel Burden
Series Producer: Uma Doraiswamy
Sound Design: Nicky Edwards
Researcher: Maeve Schaffer
Editor: Clare Fordham


MON 10:00 Woman's Hour (m002jsbx)
Women's voices and women's lives - topical conversations to inform, challenge and inspire.


MON 11:00 The Great Influencer Experiment (m002jsbz)
The Business of Being Seen

As their experiment wraps up, Emily, Alun and Danyah must reckon with what they’ve learned. Did the experiment bring success, or expose the limits of life online? Is the pressure, scrutiny and demand of visibility worth continuing with?

And beneath their stories lies a bigger question: can being a creator really be a sustainable career? The creator economy promises opportunity, but the business of turning attention into income is more precarious than it appears.

Presenter: Osman Iqbal
Editor: Matt Willis
Sound: Tony Churnside
Production co-ordinator: Brenda Brown


MON 11:45 A History of England in 25 Poems by Catherine Clarke (m002jsc1)
1: Vikings - 'The Battle of Maldon'

Catherine Clarke reads her new and original history of England - told through poetry.

Through five poems across a week, Clarke takes us onto battlefields, inside royal courts, below stairs of great houses and onto cricket pitches, with vivid voices, and surprising stories. In a portal to the past, she takes us inside the words and moments these poems capture, with new perspectives on how England has dreamed itself into existence - and who gets to tell its story.

Today: Clarke begins in Essex, in the year 1000, with The Battle of Maldon, a myth-making poem, creating the idea of England as a proud warrior nation.

Writer and reader: Catherine is a Professor at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London, and Director of the Victoria County History of England.
Abridger: Richard Hamilton
Producer: Justine Willett


MON 12:00 News Summary (m002jsc4)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


MON 12:04 You and Yours (m002jsc6)
News and discussion of consumer affairs


MON 12:57 Weather (m002jsc8)
The latest weather forecast


MON 13:00 World at One (m002jscb)
News, analysis and comment from BBC Radio 4


MON 13:45 Looking for No Man's Land (m002jscd)
1. All great quests start with a map

Is there anywhere left on Earth that is unaffected by humans? Humans have spread to every corner of the globe, disrupting it in unprecedented ways. But we are on a quest to find a place on Earth that remains untouched. We’re looking for No Man’s Land... if it exists.

Presenter Caroline Steel and producer Florian Bohr speak to environmentalists, scientists and, really, anyone who might have a clue.

In this first episode, we begin by ruling places out. With the help of environmental scientist Erle Ellis and the head of NASA’s scientific visualisation team Mark Subbarao, we explore maps that reveal humanity’s astonishing global footprint – and wonder whether we might have bitten off more than we can chew.


MON 14:00 The Archers (m002js92)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Sunday]


MON 14:15 Alone (m0009bnq)
Series 2

Anti-Valentine's Day

The unattached neighbours are all dreading the left-out feeling they always get on February 14th.

Encouraged by a driven Will, they agree to go out and enjoy themselves anyway, by way of protest, and so book a table for a singles-only meal out. After all, there is safety in numbers - as long as you have the numbers.

Sitcom about five single, middle aged neighbours living in flats in a converted house in North London.

Mitch is a widower and part-time therapist, looking to put his life back together now that he is single and living with Will, his younger, more volatile and unhappily divorced half-brother.

Elsewhere in the building is schoolteacher Ellie who is shy, nervous and holds a secret candle for Mitch. Overly honest, frustrated actress Louisa, and socially inept IT nerd Morris complete the line-up of mis-matched neighbours.

Mitch ...... Angus Deayton
Will ...... Pearce Quigley
Ellie ...... Abigail Cruttenden
Louisa ...... Kate Isitt
Morris ...... Bennett Arron
Waiter ...... Dominic Coleman

Written and created by Moray Hunter
Produced by Gordon Kennedy
Based on an original idea developed in association with Dandy Productions

An Absolutely production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in October 2019.


MON 14:45 Mrs Bridge by Evan S Connell (m0019r15)
Episode 6

Evan S. Connell's Mrs Bridge is an extraordinary tragicomic portrayal of suburban life and one of the classic American novels of the 20th century.

Mrs Bridge, a conservative housewife in Missouri, has three children and a kindly lawyer husband. Her married life begins in the early 1930s – and soon after she and her young family move to a wealthy country club suburb of Kansas City. She spends her time shopping, going to bridge parties and bringing up her children to be pleasant, clean and have nice manners. The qualities that she values above all else. And yet she finds modern life increasingly baffling, her children aren't growing up into the people she expected, and sometimes she has the vague disquieting sensation that all is not well in her life.

In a series of comic, telling vignettes, Evan S. Connell illuminates the narrow morality, confusion, futility and even terror at the heart of a life of plenty.

First published in 1959 it was perhaps overshadowed by the critical attention paid to contemporaries like Philip Roth and John Updike - although Mrs Bridge was a finalist for the National Book Award in that year. Ten years later Connell published Mr Bridge which follows that same events largely from the point of view of Walter Bridge. In 1990, James Ivory directed the film Mr and Mrs Bridge based on both novels and starring Paul Newman and his wife Joanne Woodward. Fans of the book today include the novelist David Nicholls and Tracey Thorne, author and singer.

Read by Fenella Woolgar
Written by Evan S Connell
Abridged by Isobel Creed and Jill Waters

A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4


MON 15:00 Great Lives (m002jsch)
Elizabeth Day on Hatshesput

"One of the things that she claimed was that her mother had been impregnated by the sun god Amon-Ra."
Elizabeth Day's interest in the female pharaoh Hatshepsut was sparked by a trip to Egypt less than a year ago. What intrigued her was how this woman survived and thrived as ruler in a traditionally male role. Joining her in discussion is Professor Joyce Tyldesley, recent winner of archaeologist of the year. She says that Hatshepsut changed her life when she wrote her biography. Matthew Parris presents.

Elizabeth Day is the author of six novels and host of How to Fail.
The producer for BBC Studios in Bristol is Miles Warde


MON 15:30 You're Dead to Me (p0f92pfx)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:00 on Saturday]


MON 16:00 Currently (m002js8h)
[Repeat of broadcast at 13:30 on Sunday]


MON 16:30 The Kitchen Cabinet (m002js5z)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:30 on Saturday]


MON 17:00 PM (m002jsck)
News and current affairs, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines


MON 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m002jscm)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


MON 18:30 Just a Minute (m002jscp)
Series 95

6. Do you believe in soul mates?

Sue Perkins challenges Julian Clary, Rachel Parris, Paterson Joseph and Paul Merton to speak for 60 seconds without repetition, deviation or hesitation. Subjects include my Spanish exchange, Paddington Bear and shoulder pads.

Production Coordinator: Sarah Nicholls
Sound Editor: Marc Willcox
Producer: Georgia Keating
Executive Producer: James Robinson
Additional material by Eve Delaney

An EcoAudio certified production.
A BBC Studios Production for Radio 4.


MON 19:00 The Archers (m002jscr)
Contemporary drama in a rural setting


MON 19:15 Front Row (m002jsct)
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music


MON 20:00 Rethink (m002jfch)
Rethink: should we stop flying?

Aviation is far more difficult to decarbonise than other sectors of the economy, because kerosene is the perfect fuel for planes. It produces enough power to enable planes to fly, yet it is light enough for them to get off the ground and cross the world.

Alternatives are thin on the ground; batteries are too heavy, clean hydrogen power is in its infancy, while Sustainable Aviation Fuel - or SAF - is expensive and in short supply. Although the Government has a "SAF-mandate", only 22% of all jet fuel supplied by 2040 will have to be sustainable.

New airliners are more fuel-efficient than ever before, and both routes and air-traffic control are being optimised. But if growth outpaces efficiencies, greenhouse gas emissions will continue to rise.

And passenger demand is back at pre-pandemic levels. In 2024 the UK was the third largest market in the world for flights.

In the absence of any immediate solution, should we fly less, if at all? How realistic and affordable are slower alternatives like the train? Could passengers be penalised for taking more than one return flight a year? And should the Government rather than individuals be taking responsibility for change?

Presenter: Ben Ansell
Producer: Ravi Naik
Editor: Lisa Baxter

Contributors:
Alice Larkin, Professor of Climate Science and Energy Policy in the School of Engineering at the University of Manchester.
Dr Roger Tyers, UK Aviation specialist at Transport & Environment
Yannick van den Berg, postdoctoral researcher at the University of Amsterdam Law School
Tom Nevitt, project manager of Climate Perks
Duncan McCourt, Chief Executive, Sustainable Aviation

Rethink is a BBC co-production with the Open University


MON 20:30 BBC Inside Science (m002jfck)
A weekly programme that illuminates the mysteries and challenges the controversies behind the science that's changing our world.


MON 21:00 Start the Week (m002jsbs)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]


MON 21:45 Café Hope (m002jsbv)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:45 today]


MON 22:00 The World Tonight (m002jscw)
In-depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective.


MON 22:45 The Plot Against America by Philip Roth (m002jscy)
Episode 1

Richard Schiff (The West Wing) reads Roth's chilling vision of an alternative American history, in which Charles Lindbergh defeats Roosevelt in 1940 and makes a deal with Hitler. The new presidency begins to take a toll on the Roth family, ushering in a wave of anti-Semitism.

Produced by Mair Bosworth and Fay Lomas for BBC Audio
Abridged by Sara Davies
Sound by Ilse Lademann
Assistant produced by Alice McKee
Read by Richard Schiff


MON 23:00 Tracking the Planet (m001xdfb)
Riding the Storm

Our planet is alive. A dynamic, moving, pulsating organism. Air pressure rises and falls, ocean currents meander, and the climate continues, by tiny increments, to warm.

And at the same time, billions of animals are on the move.

All over the planet, animals are fitted with sophisticated tracking devices by teams of dedicated scientists, which tell us so much about what they’re up to. From rhinos in bulky satellite collars, to microscopic chips glued to the back of a bee, they record where the animals go, what they eat, and how and why they migrate across the globe.

But they record so much more than that too – modern trackers can also log local climactic conditions, windspeed, temperature, even some measures of the animal’s own health; heartbeat, or skin temperature. Every tagged animal is transformed into a tiny dynamic weather station, collecting data on climactic conditions and the health of ecosystems, which would be impossible to collect otherwise.

Diving Weddell seals bring back data on the melting speed of a deep water glacier. Roving Tiger Sharks uncover previously unknown sea-grass habitats. High-flying sea-birds on annual migration tell us about changing wind patterns across the tempestuous equator, and farm animals in the mountains of Italy, moving nervously in their fields, give a silent alert: an earthquake is on the way.

In this series, Emily Knight explores some of the stories that can be told about the animals that call this world home, and the much larger over-arching story too: How the changing conditions on this planet are transforming THEIR lives, changing their migration routes, re-positioning their food-stocks, bringing new diseases or challenging weather. We can track how they’re coping with it all, and how, sometimes, they’re not.


MON 23:30 Great Lives (m001y1yb)
Sir Bruce Forsyth

The political writer and broadcaster Steve Richards remembers the 1970s as a “dark decade.” But one shining light for the teenage Steve was Saturday evening telly, especially the Generation Game on BBC One. He was captivated by the performance of the show’s host, Bruce Forsyth. Brucie was in his pomp, with the programme getting audiences of up to 19 million. Steve thought his performances were comedic genius, especially his interaction with contestants. And he came to appreciate Sir Bruce’s other talents too, like his singing and dancing abilities.
As well as the Generation Game, his seven-decade career took in Sunday Night at The London Palladium, one-man stage shows, Play Your Cards Right and Strictly Come Dancing. Indeed, it has been said that the story of Sir Bruce Forsyth is the story of modern entertainment television in Britain.
That’s why Steve has nominated Sir Bruce as a Great Life. And joining him and host Matthew Parris to discuss Brucie’s life and career are his widow Lady Forsyth and his long-time manager Ian Wilson.
Producer: Paul Martin for BBC Studios Audio

TUESDAY 23 SEPTEMBER 2025

TUE 00:00 Midnight News (m002jsd1)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


TUE 00:30 A History of England in 25 Poems by Catherine Clarke (m002jsc1)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:45 on Monday]


TUE 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m002jsd3)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping


TUE 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m002jsd5)
BBC Radio 4 presents a selection of news and current affairs, arts and science programmes from the BBC World Service.


TUE 05:00 News Summary (m002jsd7)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


TUE 05:04 Currently (m002js8h)
[Repeat of broadcast at 13:30 on Sunday]


TUE 05:34 Shipping Forecast (m002jsd9)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping


TUE 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m002jsdc)
Spiritual reflection to start the day with Fr Philip Blackledge of Holy Trinity Scottish Episcopal Church, Melrose.


TUE 05:45 Farming Today (m002jsdf)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.


TUE 06:00 Today (m002jsph)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.


TUE 09:00 The Life Scientific (m002jspk)
Gareth Collett on a career in bomb disposal

Movies might have us believe that bomb disposal comes down to cutting the right wire. In fact, explosive devices are complex and varied - and learning how to dispose of them safely involves intense training, as well as the ability to stay calm under pressure.

This was the world of Dr Gareth Collett, a retired British Army Brigadier General and engineer, specialising in bomb disposal; whose 32-year military career took him around the world, including heading up major ordnance clearance projects in Iraq and Afghanistan. After retiring from the army, Gareth became a university lecturer – but following his diagnosis with bladder cancer, started researching a possible link between bomb disposal veterans and higher rates of urological cancers.

In conversation with Professor Jim Al-Khalili, Gareth discusses this ongoing research, dealing with PTSD - and why he just can't watch Oscar-winning movie The Hurt Locker...

Presented by Jim Al-Khalili
Produced by Lucy Taylor for BBC Studios


TUE 09:30 Universities Challenged (m002jspm)
Examining the social and financial pressures currently facing universities in the UK.


TUE 10:00 Woman's Hour (m002jspp)
Women's voices and women's lives - topical conversations to inform, challenge and inspire.


TUE 11:00 Add to Playlist (m002jhn1)
Jeffrey Boakye and Anna Phoebe explore the rich web of connections in music.


TUE 11:45 A History of England in 25 Poems by Catherine Clarke (m002jspr)
2: Poetry, Prophecy and the Island - ‘This England’, from Shakespeare's Richard II

Catherine Clarke reads her new and original history of England - told through poetry.

Through five poems across a week, Clarke takes us onto battlefields, inside royal courts, below stairs of great houses and onto cricket pitches, with vivid voices, and surprising stories. In a portal to the past, she takes us inside the words and moments these poems capture, with new perspectives on how England has dreamed itself into existence - and who gets to tell its story.

Today: Clarke looks at the ways in which Shakespeare's endlessly anthologised 'This England' speech from Richard II has shaped English identity.

Writer and reader: Catherine is a Professor at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London, and Director of the Victoria County History of England.
Abridger: Richard Hamilton
Producer: Justine Willett


TUE 12:00 News Summary (m002jspt)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


TUE 12:04 You and Yours (m002jspw)
News and discussion of consumer affairs.


TUE 12:57 Weather (m002jspy)
The latest weather forecast


TUE 13:00 World at One (m002jsq0)
News, analysis and comment from BBC Radio 4


TUE 13:45 Looking for No Man's Land (m002jsq2)
Caroline Steel and Florian Bohr are on a quest to find No Man's Land... if it exists.


TUE 14:00 The Archers (m002jscr)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Monday]


TUE 14:15 Life Lines (m002jsq4)
Series 8: Part One

The award winning drama set in an Ambulance Control Room.

Carrie is a call handler for the ambulance service. Every day she makes split-second decisions as she deals with a succession of emergencies; from a young woman who has been sexually assaulted to a vicious attack on an ambulance crew. Carrie is gifted with the knack of calmly helping people through their most vulnerable moments. Each episode is a collage of heart-stopping stories, where Carrie’s indiscriminate acts of kindness can mean the difference between life and death
But how can a newly pregnant Carrie maintain a calm facade when she has to work with an AI system that can listen but doesn't always understand and her own body rebelling against her.

For details of organisations which offer advice and support with pregnancy related issues, go online to bbc.co.uk/actionline

Carrie ..... Sarah Ridgeway
Will ..... Rick Warden
Ian ..... Michael Jibson
Caitlyn ..... Rowan Robinson
Dan/Doctor ..... Tom Victor
Flo/Holly ..... Abbie Andrews
Isaac ....Keenan Munn-Francis
It includes some imagined scenes.”
Andy ..... Jason Barnett
Nina ..... Kitty O'Sullivan
Receptionist ..... Maggie Service

Technical Producers ..... Andrew Garratt & Neva Missirian
Production Co-ordinator ..... Luke MacGregor

Writer ..... Al Smith
Director ..... Sally Avens

A BBC Studios Audio Production


TUE 15:00 History's Heroes (m002fbhs)
Katharine Hepburn: Queen of the Screen

How did the actor Katharine Hepburn challenge the conventions of Hollywood’s studio system?

Stories of bold voices, with brave ideas and the courage to stand alone. Historian Alex von Tunzelmann shines a light on remarkable people from across history.

Archive courtesy of The G.Robert Vincent Voice Library in Michigan State University.

A BBC Studios Audio production.

Producer: Lorna Reader
Series producer: Suniti Somaiya
Written and presented by Alex von Tunzelmann
Executive Producer: Paul Smith
Commissioning editor for Radio 4: Rhian Roberts


TUE 15:30 Beyond Belief (m002jsq9)
Series exploring the place and nature of faith in today's world.


TUE 16:00 Artworks (m002jsqf)
Iris Barry, First Lady of Film

In 1924 Iris Barry wrote the infamous words: “Going to the pictures is nothing to be ashamed of.”

We think of cinema as being the defining artform of the 20th century, but at its inception film was considered anything but art. It was a cheap form of mass entertainment circulating through flea pit cinemas and music halls. Yet one woman dedicated her life to changing that perception.

Silent film historian Pamela Hutchinson explores the extraordinary life of Iris Barry – the pioneering 1920s critic, curator and film preservationist who made the case for cinema to be taken seriously.

Through sheer force of will, a razor-sharp wit and the magnetism of her writing, Iris Barry managed to catapult herself from provincial obscurity into the upper echelons of high society – on both sides of the Atlantic – and in the process forever changed the course of cinematic history, while leading a life worthy of the most improbable of film plots.

Featuring Richard Brody of the New Yorker, Bryony Dixon curator for silent film for the British Film Institute, Arts Editor for The Spectator Igor Toronyi-Lalic, journalist and academic Henry K. Miller, and Iris Barry biographer Robert Sitton.

Presented by Pamela Hutchinson
Produced by James King and Ashley Pollak
Consultant: Igor Toronyi-Lalic
Sound Mix by Tom O’Sullivan
Executive Producer: Rami Tzabar
A TellTale Industries production for BBC Radio 4


TUE 16:30 What's Up Docs? (m002jsqj)
Are you getting enough fibre?

Welcome to What’s Up Docs?, the podcast where doctors and identical twins Chris and Xand van Tulleken clear up the confusion around every aspect of our health and wellbeing.

In this episode, they want to answer some of the most important questions about dietary fibre. What is it and why do our bodies need it? They’ll explore the best sources of fibre - both natural and processed - and unpack the growing trend of fibre-enriched foods. Also, they’ll discuss easy ways to add more fibre into our daily routines without overhauling our diets.

They speak to Dr Deirdre Tobias, an obesity and nutritional epidemiologist at the Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston, to find out.

If you want to get in touch, you can email us at whatsupdocs@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp us on 08000 665 123.

Presenters: Drs Chris and Xand van Tulleken
Guest: Dr Deirdre Tobias
Producers: Maia Miller-Lewis and Jo Rowntree
Executive Producer: Rami Tzabar
Editor: Kirsten Lass
Maia Miller-Lewis
Researcher: Grace Revill
Tech Lead: Reuben Huxtable
Social Media: Leon Gower
Digital Lead: Richard Berry
Composer: Phoebe McFarlane
Sound Design: Ruth Rainey

At the BBC:
Assistant Commissioner: Greg Smith
Commissioning Editor: Rhian Roberts

A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4


TUE 17:00 PM (m002jsql)
News and current affairs, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines


TUE 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m002jsqn)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


TUE 18:30 Mark Steel's in Town (m00127vg)
Series 11

Walthamstow, London

Walthamstow has got plenty going for it - "it has the requisite villagey middle-class bit, but with a proper gor-blimey guv'nor East End heart" says one newspaper article and Mark finds a town mid-gentrification. The dog track has gone, the famously long market remains but there is also a Viking Shop and an extraordinary showroom and workshop with a vast range of neon light fittings called God's Own Junkyard. There is a museum dedicated to the designer William Morris who used to live there and there's evidence of a recent war too in the form of the cycling scheme known as "mini-Holland." Hopefully Mark will tread carefully. With guest local MP Stella Creasy.

The full box set of all episodes (with well over 50 towns visited) is available now wherever you get your podcasts.

Written by and starring...Mark Steel
With additional material from Pete Sinclair
Production Coordinator...Beverly Tagg
Producer...Julia McKenzie
A BBC Studios Production.


TUE 19:00 The Archers (m002jsqq)
Contemporary drama in a rural setting


TUE 19:15 Front Row (m002jsqs)
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music


TUE 20:00 File on 4 Investigates (m002jsqv)
News-making original journalism investigating stories at home and abroad


TUE 20:40 In Touch (m002jsqx)
News, views and information for people who are blind or partially sighted


TUE 21:00 Crossing Continents (m002jsqz)
Insight, and analysis from BBC correspondents around the world


TUE 21:30 Great Lives (m002jsch)
[Repeat of broadcast at 15:00 on Monday]


TUE 22:00 The World Tonight (m002jsr1)
In-depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective


TUE 22:45 The Plot Against America by Philip Roth (m002jsr3)
Episode 2

Richard Schiff (The West Wing) reads Roth's chilling vision of an alternative American history, in which Charles Lindbergh defeats Roosevelt in 1940. Conservative Rabbi Bengelsdorf of Newark endorses the new President, who flies to Europe to make a deal with Hitler to keep the USA out of the war.

Produced by Mair Bosworth and Fay Lomas for BBC Audio
Abridged by Sara Davies
Sound by Ilse Lademann
Assistant produced by Alice McKee
Read by Richard Schiff


TUE 23:00 Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics (m00212zs)
Series 10

Hesiod

Natalie stands up for the prize-winning Greek poet, cataloguer of gods and author of a flatpack wagon manual, Hesiod. She's joined by Professor Edith Hall and poet Alicia Stallings.

Hesiod is highly regarded by the ancients for his sublime poetry, and he won a prize for his Theogony, a detailed account of the origins of the gods. He also wrote a farming manual, including the wagon-building instructions, and an epic on how to pickle fish. Hesiod rails at the hardship of the farming life in autobiographical references in his poems: he is not a fan of his home town of Ascra in ancient Boeotia, and he describes being cold and hungry at low points in the year.

Rock star mythologist’ and reformed stand-up Natalie Haynes is obsessed with the ancient world. Here she explores key stories from ancient Rome and Greece that still have resonance today. They might be biographical, topographical, mythological or epic, but they are always hilarious, magical and tragic, mystifying and revelatory. And they tell us more about ourselves now than seems possible of stories from a couple of thousand years ago.

Producer...Mary Ward-Lowery


TUE 23:30 Great Lives (m001y8b2)
Antoni Gaudi

Baroness Ros Altmann, a Conservative peer and former pensions minister, was “blown away” by the architecture of Antoni Gaudi on a trip to Barcelona in the 1990s. She’s been back several times and her wonder at Gaudi’s use of colour and natural shapes has not faded. She wants to find out more about the conservative, religious man who created such exuberant and flamboyant work. Gaudi biographer Gijs Van Hensbergen joins Ros and host Matthew Parris to explore Gaudi’s childhood, his personal life and how his Catholicism and love of Catalan nature informed his work.
Producer: Paul Martin for BBC Studios Audio.

WEDNESDAY 24 SEPTEMBER 2025

WED 00:00 Midnight News (m002jsr5)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


WED 00:30 A History of England in 25 Poems by Catherine Clarke (m002jspr)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:45 on Tuesday]


WED 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m002jsr7)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping


WED 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m002jsr9)
BBC Radio 4 presents a selection of news and current affairs, arts and science programmes from the BBC World Service.


WED 05:00 News Summary (m002jsrc)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


WED 05:04 BBC Inside Science (m002jfck)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:30 on Monday]


WED 05:34 Shipping Forecast (m002jsrf)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping


WED 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m002jsrh)
Spiritual reflection to start the day with Fr Philip Blackledge of Holy Trinity Scottish Episcopal Church, Melrose.


WED 05:45 Farming Today (m002jsrk)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.


WED 06:00 Today (m002jtxw)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.


WED 09:00 More or Less (m002jsw9)
Tim Harford explains - and sometimes debunks - the numbers and statistics used in political debate, the news and everyday life.


WED 09:30 Artworks (m002bhx5)
Paul Simon's Political Storm

The pairing of joyful Black South African music with Paul Simon’s cinematic lyricism is either a high point in cultural exchange, or an outrageous betrayal of the anti-apartheid movement. How should we view Simon's Graceland album now - in a time when cultural boycotts, cultural appropriation, and cancel culture are on the tip of everyone's tongue?

Forty years on, and through a distinctly South African lens, New York Times reporter Lynsey Chutel considers the legacy of one the most popular, controversial, and contested record releases ever. Was Paul Simon arrogant? Ignorant? And did his music really aid the struggle against apartheid?

Contributors:
Stanley De Klerk, Lynsey's uncle
Professor Sean Jacobs, Director of International Affairs at The New School
Bakithi Kumalo, bassist on Graceland
Billy Bragg, singer-songwriter
Dali Tambo, founder of Artists Against Apartheid
Sonti Mndebele, singer on the Graceland tour
Setumo-Thebe Mohlomi, music writer

Presented by Lynsey Chutel
Produced by Seun Matiluko & Jack Howson
Mixed by Louis Blatherwick
With thanks to Tom Bonnett for inspiration, as well as Rose-Anna Hyde, Richard Power and Saskia Cookson for additional research

A Peanut & Crumb production for BBC Radio 4


WED 10:00 Woman's Hour (m002jty2)
Women's voices and women's lives - topical conversations to inform, challenge and inspire.


WED 11:00 File on 4 Investigates (m002jsqv)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 on Tuesday]


WED 11:40 This Week in History (m002jswr)
Fascinating, surprising and eye-opening stories from the past, brought to life.


WED 11:45 A History of England in 25 Poems by Catherine Clarke (m002jty4)
3: Below Stairs in the Country House - ‘Crumble Hall’ by Mary Leapor

Catherine Clarke reads her new and original history of England - told through poetry.

Through five poems across a week, Clarke takes us onto battlefields, inside royal courts, below stairs of great houses and onto cricket pitches, with vivid voices, and surprising stories. In a portal to the past, she takes us inside the words and moments these poems capture, with new perspectives on how England has dreamed itself into existence - and who gets to tell its story.

Today: we go below stairs with a poem with a twist - Mary Leapor's biting satire on the 18th-century 'country house' poem, 'Crumble Hall'

Writer and reader: Catherine is a Professor at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London, and Director of the Victoria County History of England.
Abridger: Richard Hamilton
Producer: Justine Willett


WED 12:00 News Summary (m002jty6)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


WED 12:04 You and Yours (m002jty8)
News and discussion of consumer affairs


WED 12:57 Weather (m002jtyb)
The latest weather forecast


WED 13:00 World at One (m002jtyd)
News, analysis and comment from BBC Radio 4


WED 13:45 Looking for No Man's Land (m002jtyg)
Caroline Steel and Florian Bohr are on a quest to find No Man's Land... if it exists.


WED 14:00 The Archers (m002jsqq)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Tuesday]


WED 14:15 Life Lines (m002jtyj)
Series 8: Part Two

Carrie ...... Sarah Ridgeway
Will .....Rick Warden
Ian ..... Michael Jibson
Oscar ..... Alex Laurence-Philips
Paul ..... Jason Barnett
Lindsay ..... Maggie Service
James/Luke ....... Tayla Kovacevic-Ebong
Maira ..... Aoife Moss

Technical Producers ...... Andrew Garratt & Neva Missirian
Production Co-ordinator ..... Luke MacGregor
Writer ..... Al Smith
Director ..... Sally Avens

A BBC Studios Audio Production

Award winning drama set in an Ambulance Control Room.
As Carrie struggles with her own feelings of redundancy at work and loss in her personal life she faces a barrage of calls from members of the public in danger of losing their own loved ones.
The series contains scenes of a traumatic nature.
For details of organisations which offer advice and support with pregnancy related issues, go online to bbc.co.uk/actionline


WED 15:00 Money Box (m002jtyl)
The latest news from the world of personal finance


WED 15:30 The Artificial Human (m002jtyn)
Can AI make me fitter?

What would make you want to exercise? Is it the thrill of being discovered as the next football legend? Or maybe the threat of a scary drill sergeant shouting at you?

Join Aleks and Kevin at the starting line, as they set out to discover how AI could help reshape your fitness goals. From what the high end athletes are using to track their progress and how that trickles down to everyday users, to how AI is levelling the playing field when it comes to scouting new talent. Plus, could an AI coach be just the thing to help with that pesky fleeting motivation?

Presenters: Aleks Krotoski & Kevin Fong
Producer: Emily Esson
Sound: Sean Mullervy


WED 16:00 When It Hits the Fan (m002jtvy)
Who's in the news for all the wrong reasons? With David Yelland and Simon Lewis.


WED 16:15 The Media Show (m002jtw0)
Social media, anti-social media, breaking news, faking news: this is the programme about a revolution in media.


WED 17:00 PM (m002jtyq)
News and current affairs, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines


WED 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m002jtys)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


WED 18:30 Do Gooders (m002jtyv)
Series 2

4. The Party

Clive attempts to impress his judgemental father with a lavish birthday party. Unfortunately, numbers are lower than he’d like, not least because the rest of the team are at a secret fundraising dinner.

Garrett Millerick’s ensemble sitcom Do Gooders returns for another series. The show takes us back behind the curtain of fictional mid-level charity, The Alzheimers Alliance, as the fundraising events team continue their struggle for survival. Cue more office feuds, more workplace romances and more catastrophic fundraising blunders – all par for the course when trying to ‘do good’ on an industrial scale.

Cast

Gladys – Kathryn Drysdale
Lauren – Ania Magliano
Clive – Garrett Millerick
Harriett – Fay Ripley
Achi – Ahir Shah
Ken – Frank Skinner

Writer – Garrett Millerick
Additional Material – Andrea Hubert
Sound Engineer – David Thomas
Editor – David Thomas
Production Assistant – Jenny Recaldin
Producer – Jules Lom
Executive Producers – Richard Allen-Turner, Daisy Knight, Julien Matthews, Jon Thoday

An Avalon Television Production for BBC Radio 4


WED 19:00 The Archers (m002jtvc)
Contemporary drama in a rural setting


WED 19:15 Front Row (m002jtyx)
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music


WED 20:00 Moral Maze (m002jtyz)
Live debate examining the moral issues behind one of the week's news stories.


WED 21:00 The Life Scientific (m002jspk)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 on Tuesday]


WED 21:30 Illuminated (m002js94)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:15 on Sunday]


WED 22:00 The World Tonight (m002jtz1)
In-depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective.


WED 22:45 The Plot Against America by Philip Roth (m002jtz3)
Episode 3

Richard Schiff (The West Wing) reads Roth's chilling vision of an alternative American history, in which Charles Lindbergh defeats Roosevelt in 1940 and makes a deal with Hitler. Visiting Washington D.C. the Roth family begin to feel like strangers in their own country.

Produced by Mair Bosworth and Fay Lomas for BBC Audio
Abridged by Sara Davies
Sound by Ilse Lademann
Assistant produced by Alice McKee
Read by Richard Schiff


WED 23:00 Ria Lina Gets Forensic (m002jtz5)
Series 1

3. Red Light Therapy

Forensic-scientist-turned-stand-up-comedian Ria Lina applies her forensic eye to the various treatments out there that claim to have anti-aging effects.

This time, she’s joined by stand-up Ninia Benjamin to see if Red Light Therapy can heal Ria’s aching shoulder and Ninia’s aching knees, shoulder, finger and earlobe.

Featuring Ria Lina and Ninia Benjamin
Written by Ria Lina and Steve N Allen
Produced by Ben Walker

A DLT Entertainment production for BBC Radio 4


WED 23:15 The Skewer (m002jtz7)
Series 14

Episode 3

Jon Holmes brings you the week's biggest stories like you've never heard them before.


WED 23:30 Great Lives (m001yhj1)
Katherine Rundell on E Nesbit

Bestselling children's author Katherine Rundell discusses the extraordinary life of E Nesbit who wrote The Railway Children and Five Children And It.

Katherine praises her “bold unwillingness to speak down to children” and reflects that “she never seemed to forget what it was like to be a child”. E, or Edith, Nesbit’s conjuring of mythical beasts like the Phoenix and the sand fairy the Psammead was a particular inspiration to Katherine Rundell who says "you can really believe they are flesh and blood”. Edith Nesbit has also influenced the work of Jacqueline Wilson and JK Rowling who have both praised this trailblazing writer.

She had a particularly colourful private life and a very open marriage. She flouted the social conventions of the time. She was married when seven months pregnant. Her husband had children outside of their relationship and Edith then raised them as her own. She was a feminist but didn't believe in Votes for Women. She co-founded the Fabian Society and kept company with the likes of George Bernard Shaw and Noel Coward.

Katherine Rundell is joined by Elisabeth Galvin who has written a biography of E Nesbit. The programme features an excerpt from The Phoenix And The Carpet by E Nesbit as well as clips from the 1970 film of The Railway Children distributed by EMI films and the 1991 BBC television adaptation of Five Children And It.

Presenter: Matthew Parris
Producer: Robin Markwell for BBC Studios Audio

THURSDAY 25 SEPTEMBER 2025

THU 00:00 Midnight News (m002jtz9)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


THU 00:30 A History of England in 25 Poems by Catherine Clarke (m002jty4)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:45 on Wednesday]


THU 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m002jtzc)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping


THU 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m002jtzf)
BBC Radio 4 presents a selection of news and current affairs, arts and science programmes from the BBC World Service.


THU 05:00 News Summary (m002jtzh)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


THU 05:04 More or Less (m002jsw9)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 on Wednesday]


THU 05:34 Shipping Forecast (m002jtzk)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping


THU 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m002jtzm)
Spiritual reflection to start the day with Fr Philip Blackledge of Holy Trinity Scottish Episcopal Church, Melrose.


THU 05:45 Farming Today (m002jtzp)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.


THU 06:00 Today (m002jttn)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.


THU 09:00 Writing the Universe (m00209g8)
The fabric of the universe

When we think of the fabric of the universe we might imagine vast expanses of nothing, but one phenomenon that has captured the imagination of both scientists and fiction writers is the black hole. These giant gaps in the fabric of spacetime can span billions of miles, but we now know there is one at the centre of every galaxy.

Robin Ince talks to cosmologists about how they attempt to convey their almost unbelievable size, at the same time as staying true to the maths that explains them. He learns that Einstein first conceived of a black hole in 1915, but didn't believe anyone would ever prove their existence, even after the German physicist Karl Schwarzschild confirmed their existence.

For the physicist and writer Janna Levin black holes are almost magical and she has spent her career trying to convey their wonder to the general public, using language as a tool to draw us in. Thanks to the Nobel laureate, physicist Kip Thorne, we now have a better idea of what they may actually look like. He explains how equations form the basis of the black holes in the film Interstellar and reveals that the movie-making process also taught him more about how these vast tears in the fabric of spacetime actually work.

With contributions from Robin’s fellow Infinite Monkey Cage presenter Brian Cox; Janna Levin, author of 'The Black Hole Survival Guide'; astronomer Paul Murdin; physicist Kip Thorne; special effects adviser Paul Franklyn; physicist and philosopher Sean Carroll and theoretical physicist Fay Dowker.

Producer: Marijke Peters

Executive Producer: Alexandra Feachem

Soundscape designer: Jane Watkins

BBC Studios Audio Production


THU 09:45 Strong Message Here (m002jttq)
Armando Iannucci and Helen Lewis decode the utterly baffling world of political language.


THU 10:00 Woman's Hour (m002jtts)
Women's voices and women's lives - topical conversations to inform, challenge and inspire.


THU 11:00 This Cultural Life (m002jttv)
In-depth conversations with some of the world's leading artists and creatives across theatre, visual arts, music, dance, film and more. Hosted by John Wilson.


THU 11:45 A History of England in 25 Poems by Catherine Clarke (m002jttx)
4: Modernity, Mourning and the Shadow of War - ‘Funeral Blues’ by W. H. Auden

Catherine Clarke reads her new and original history of England - told through poetry.

Through five poems across a week, Clarke takes us onto battlefields, inside royal courts, below stairs of great houses and onto cricket pitches, with vivid voices, and surprising stories. In a portal to the past, she takes us inside the words and moments these poems capture, with new perspectives on how England has dreamed itself into existence - and who gets to tell its story.

W. H. Auden's 'Funeral Blues' is beloved as a moving portrait of grief. But today Clarke looks at how its unexpected origins in 1930s satire...

Writer and reader: Catherine is a Professor at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London, and Director of the Victoria County History of England.
Abridger: Richard Hamilton
Producer: Justine Willett


THU 12:00 News Summary (m002jttz)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


THU 12:04 The Bottom Line (m002jtv1)
Evan Davis hosts the business conversation show with people at the top giving insight into what matters.


THU 12:32 Sliced Bread (m002jtv3)
Dough - The Future of Flight

Can supersonic air travel make a comeback?

Greg Foot, host of the BBC Radio 4 show 'Sliced Bread', now brings you 'Dough'.

Each episode explores future wonder products that might rise to success and redefine our lives.

Experts and entrepreneurs discuss the trends shaping what today's everyday technology may look like tomorrow, before a leading futurist offers their predictions on what life might be like within five, ten and fifty years.

This episode examines the future of flight.

How could new, supersonic flights not cost the earth?
Will your future taxi be a flying one without a pilot?
Could a new shape for aeroplanes make them more spacious and efficient?

Alongside Greg is the futurist, Tom Cheesewright, and expert guests Mariya Tarabanovska, an aerospace engineer and the founder of Flight Crowd, a non-profit educational organisation focused on electric aviation and Simon Davies, chief test pilot at Vertical Aerospace, a British aerospace technology company.

This episode was produced by Jay Unger.

Dough is a BBC Audio North Production for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds


THU 12:57 Weather (m002jtv5)
The latest weather forecast


THU 13:00 World at One (m002jtv7)
News, analysis and comment from BBC Radio 4


THU 13:45 Looking for No Man's Land (m002jtv9)
Caroline Steel and Florian Bohr are on a quest to find No Man's Land... if it exists.


THU 14:00 The Archers (m002jtvc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Wednesday]


THU 14:15 Drama on 4 (m001byz3)
Love Across the Ages

Shahid Iqbal Khan’s BBC Radio 4 afternoon drama tackles love between two Muslim men from Iran in 815 through to modern-day Bradford using classical poet Abu Nuwas as our guide, our Cupid. Love Across was the Ages was nominated for an Aria 'Best Drama' Award in 2023.

Abū Nuwās al-Ḥasan ibn Hānī al-Ḥakamī (c. 756 – c. 814) was a classical Arabic poet, and the foremost representative of the modern (muhdath) poetry, famous for his wine, hunting and homoerotic oeuvre. He also entered the folkloric tradition, appearing several times in One Thousand and One Nights.

It’s 2022. Danyaal and Saif meet in a bookshop in Bradford. They are both drawn to the poetry book of Abu Nuwas, but with only one copy left who will become its lucky owner? Abu Nuwas plays Cupid with his words, with the enchanting powers of his poetry as we are transported to different eras, different countries, each with different views on gay relationships. Can Danyaal and Saif navigate the ups and downs of their relationship during these times and will they live happily ever after? Abu Nuwas reminds us to let down our guard and to reach out… Where will it take us?

Cast:
Danyaal ..... Esh Alladi
Saif ..... Darren Kuppan
Abu Nuwas ..... Raad Rawi
Shop assistant / Shazia ..... Nadia Emam

The quotes from poems by Abu Nuwas were translated by James Montgomery, Jim Colville and Philip Kennedy. Forget the Windswept Traces and Don't Cry for Layla from Poems Of Wine & Revelry, 1st Edition by Colville, published by Routledge © Jim Colville, quoted by arrangement with Taylor & Francis Group.

Shahid Iqbal Khan is an Olivier-Award nominated playwright based in Bury, Greater Manchester. He writes for the stage and radio. His previous works in audio include Brandlesholme (United Kingdoms, Radio 4), Bhavika and Night of the Living Flatpacks (both on community channels). He is currently adapting The Last of the Mohicans for Radio 4.

Nickie Miles-Wildin directs for radio and theatre, making work that challenges, connects and is full of hope.

Production team:
Director, Nickie Miles-Wildin
Sound Recordist, Greg Veryard
Sound Designer, Steve Brooke
Composer, Sarah Sayeed
Illustration, Isobel Platt
Production Manager, Darren Spruce
Producer, Polly Thomas
Executive Producer, Eloise Whitmore

A Naked Production for BBC Radio 4


THU 15:00 Open Country (m002jtvf)
Countryside magazine featuring the people and wildlife that shape the landscape of Britain.


THU 15:27 Radio 4 Appeal (m002js7v)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:54 on Sunday]


THU 15:30 Word of Mouth (m002jtvh)
It's not what you say, it's how you say it

Michael Rosen on the linguistic comfort food of clichés, pragmatics and how we use language to connect us beyond the actual words used. Derek Bousfield explains how words do more than carry meaning: context governs what we say and how it’s understood.
Dr Bousfield is Reader in Pragmatics and Communication and Co-Director of The Manchester Centre for Research in Linguistics and co-author of Talking in Clichés: The Use of Stock Phrases in Discourse and Communication.
Produced for BBC Audio Bristol by Beth O'Dea, in partnership with the Open University.
Subscribe to the Word of Mouth podcast and never miss an episode: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/b006qtnz


THU 16:00 Rethink (m002jtvk)
Rethink... winners and losers

Do you agree with either of these statements?

Illegal migrants come here and are a burden on services and the taxpayer.
OR
The only way to reduce inequality is to tax billionaires and giant companies who avoid tax.

They may seem on opposite poles of the political spectrum, but both anti-migrant campaigners and anti-capitalists share an identical mindset. Both are demonstrating zero-sum thinking; the belief that if one group wins, another has to lose.

In itself, zero-sum thinking isn't moral or immoral, right or wrong. But Economists claim it leads to poor economic policy, and they say evidence shows it is possible to create win-win situations for everyone.

But many of the main parties at Westminster also use zero-sum thinking in their political rhetoric - from Reform and the Greens, to the Conservatives and Labour. Also, the first past the post electoral system is literally a zero-sum process. So is this kind of thinking baked-into UK politics?

So are there particular groups of people that are more prone to zero-sum beliefs? Where did this mindset come from? What economic conditions encourage zero-sum thinking, and how deeply are these beliefs held?

Presenter: Ben Ansell
Producer: Ravi Naik
Editor: Lisa Baxter

Contributors:
Stefanie Stantcheva, Nathaniel Ropes Professor of Political Economy at Harvard and founder and director of the Social Economics Lab.
Dr Patricia Andrews Fearon, social psychologist at the Golub Capital Social Impact Lab at Stanford University.
Dr Parth Patel, Associate director for democracy & politics at the Institute of Public Policy and Research
Iain Mansfield, Director of Research and Head of Education and Science at Policy Exchange
Cleo Watson, Former Downing Street strategist, adviser to Boris Johnson, author and presenter of Radio 4's "How to win a campaign"


THU 16:30 BBC Inside Science (m002jtvm)
A weekly programme that illuminates the mysteries and challenges the controversies behind the science that's changing our world.


THU 17:00 PM (m002jtvp)
News and current affairs, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines


THU 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m002jtvr)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


THU 18:30 Stand-Up Specials (m002jtvt)
Glenn Moore's Almanac Series 2

Run Glenn Run!

Comedian Glenn Moore looks in his almanac at world events and what he was doing at the time. In this episode, Glenn not only decides to enter the London Marathon but to do it with his fridge, albeit with it strapped to someone else’s back.

Perhaps best-known for his outrageously brilliant one-liners on Mock The Week , Glenn delivers a tale of comic mishaps and extraordinary scenes interwoven with a big event in history – and looks back through his almanac to find out other strange connections to the day as well.

Written by Glenn with additional material by Katie Storey (Have I Got News For You, Mock The Week, The Last Leg) and produced and directed by David Tyler (Cabin Pressure, Armando Iannucci’s Charm Offensive, etc)

A Pozzitive production for BBC Radio 4


THU 19:00 The Archers (m002jsw1)
Contemporary drama in a rural setting


THU 19:15 Front Row (m002jtvw)
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music


THU 20:00 When It Hits the Fan (m002jtvy)
[Repeat of broadcast at 16:00 on Wednesday]


THU 20:15 The Media Show (m002jtw0)
[Repeat of broadcast at 16:15 on Wednesday]


THU 21:00 Loose Ends (m002js6t)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:15 on Saturday]


THU 21:45 Strong Message Here (m002jttq)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:45 today]


THU 22:00 The World Tonight (m002jtw2)
In-depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective.


THU 22:45 The Plot Against America by Philip Roth (m002jtw4)
Episode 4

Richard Schiff (The West Wing) reads Roth's chilling vision of an alternative American history, in which Charles Lindbergh defeats Roosevelt in 1940 and makes a deal with Hitler. The Roth family receive some bad news about cousin Alvin, who's been fighting with the Canadians against Nazi Germany.

Produced by Mair Bosworth and Fay Lomas for BBC Audio
Abridged by Sara Davies
Sound by Ilse Lademann
Assistant produced by Alice McKee
Read by Richard Schiff


THU 23:00 Radical with Amol Rajan (m002jtw6)
Conversations about tomorrow, from Today.


THU 23:30 Great Lives (m001ypz8)
James Dyson on Frank Whittle

Frank Whittle’s fascination with aeroplanes started as a nine-year-old boy when he was nearly decapitated by one that was taking off from a local common in Coventry where he grew up. From that moment he set his sights on becoming a pilot, and joined the RAF in 1923. A few years later, aged just 21, he came up with an idea for powering aircraft so that they could fly much further and faster than the existing propeller planes. Despite a dearth of support from the Air Ministry, he doggedly pursued his vision of a turbojet engine and the RAF’s first fighter jet entered service towards the end of the Second World War, in 1944. His invention not only revolutionised air combat, but also international travel.

The inventor and entrepreneur James Dyson finds his story so inspiring that he has collected some of Whittle’s inventions, including an original working jet engine from 1943. He finds it amazing that Whittle got it right first time, which inventors almost never do. James Dyson is joined in the studio by Frank Whittle’s son, Ian Whittle, who is also a pilot.

Presenter: Matthew Parris
Producer: Beth McLeod for BBC Studios Audio

FRIDAY 26 SEPTEMBER 2025

FRI 00:00 Midnight News (m002jtw8)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


FRI 00:30 A History of England in 25 Poems by Catherine Clarke (m002jttx)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:45 on Thursday]


FRI 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m002jtwb)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping


FRI 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m002jtwd)
BBC Radio 4 presents a selection of news and current affairs, arts and science programmes from the BBC World Service.


FRI 05:00 News Summary (m002jtwg)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


FRI 05:04 Rethink (m002jtvk)
[Repeat of broadcast at 16:00 on Thursday]


FRI 05:34 Shipping Forecast (m002jtwj)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping


FRI 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m002jtwl)
Spiritual reflection to start the day with Fr Philip Blackledge of Holy Trinity Scottish Episcopal Church, Melrose.


FRI 05:45 Farming Today (m002jtwn)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.


FRI 06:00 Today (m002jsvg)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.


FRI 09:00 The Reunion (m002js87)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:00 on Sunday]


FRI 10:00 Woman's Hour (m002jsvj)
Women's voices and women's lives - topical conversations to inform, challenge and inspire.


FRI 11:00 The Food Programme (m002jsvl)
Wales's Secret Ingredient: Lessons from Cymru on the Future of Food

Sheila Dillon is joined by four guests who each have a deep connection with Welsh food and farming for a panel discussion recorded at the 2025 Abergavenny Food Festival. Beca Lyne-Pirkis is a food writer and broadcaster; Patrick Holden is an organic farmer and founder of the Sustainable Food Trust; Carwyn Graves is a Welsh food historian and author; and Sue Pritchard leads the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission. Together, they explore what is currently making Wales’s approach to food distinctive — and what lessons it might offer for the future of food across the UK.

Presented by Sheila Dillon
Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Natalie Donovan


FRI 11:45 A History of England in 25 Poems by Catherine Clarke (m002jsvn)
5: Green - ‘The Groundsman’ by Zaffar Kunial

Catherine Clarke reads her new and original history of England - told through poetry.

Through five poems across a week, Clarke takes us onto battlefields, inside royal courts, below stairs of great houses and onto cricket pitches, with vivid voices, and surprising stories. In a portal to the past, she takes us inside the words and moments these poems capture, with new perspectives on how England has dreamed itself into existence - and who gets to tell its story.

What and whose is English history now? Clarke explores the future of England's 'green and pleasant land' through Zaffar Kunial's 2022 poem, 'The Groundsman', set on an English cricket pitch.

Writer and reader: Catherine is a Professor at the Institute of Historical Research, University of London, and Director of the Victoria County History of England.
Abridger: Richard Hamilton
Producer: Justine Willett


FRI 12:00 News Summary (m002jsvq)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


FRI 12:04 Rare Earth (m002jsvs)
Trains on Trial

It's 200 years since the first passenger rail journey saw George Stephenson’s Locomotion No.1 travel 26 miles between Shildon, Darlington and Stockton. Environmentalists love trains - making a journey by rail can be up to 80% greener than doing it by car - and there are exciting new inventions hoping to make train travel even greener. But can we pin part of the blame for global warming on the invention of the railways in the first place?

Presented by Tom Heap and Helen Czerski
Produced by Beth Sagar-Fenton


FRI 12:57 Weather (m002jsvv)
The latest weather forecast


FRI 13:00 World at One (m002jsvx)
News, analysis and comment from BBC Radio 4


FRI 13:45 Looking for No Man's Land (m002jsvz)
Caroline Steel and Florian Bohr are on a quest to find No Man's Land... if it exists.


FRI 14:00 The Archers (m002jsw1)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Thursday]


FRI 14:15 Limelight (m002hzhy)
Mothercover

Episode 5: The Visit

Gwen has to do one final task. But just as she thinks things are over, she realises she’s more in danger than ever.
An Aberystwyth-set thriller, by BAFTA Cymru nominee Fflur Dafydd, with original music by Mercury Prize nominees Gwenno and Rhys Edwards.

CAST
Gwen…. Alexandra Roach
Liz…. Remy Beasley
Owen…. Sacha Dhawan
Geraint…. Matthew Gravelle
Dean…. Alex Harries
The Home Secretary…. Claire Cage
Henry…. Gwydion Rhys
Ticket Office Girl…. Aoife Moss
Ioan... Liam Donnelly

Original Music.... Gwenno and Rhys Edwards

Sound design.... Rhys Morris
Production Co-ordinator.... Lindsay Rees and Eleri McAuliffe
Directed by Fay Lomas
Produced by Fay Lomas and John Norton, BBC Audio Drama Wales


FRI 14:45 Untaxing (m0029hd7)
1. The Napkin That Changed the World

Albert Einstein called tax ‘the hardest thing in the world to understand’ - but was he right? Tax expert and campaigner, Dan Neidle delves into the bizarre, brilliant and sometimes disastrous ways tax shapes our lives, our choices and the world around us.

A quick sketch over dinner in 1974 became one of the most influential ideas in economic policy. Art Laffer’s curve promised that tax cuts could pay for themselves - but was it brilliant insight or a costly illusion?

Producer: Tom Pooley
A Tempo+Talker production for BBC Radio 4


FRI 15:00 Gardeners' Question Time (m002jsw3)
Eden Project, Part 2

Horticultural programme featuring a group of gardening experts.


FRI 15:45 Short Works (m002jsw5)
Shadowing Gordon by Jan Carson

An original short story specially commissioned by BBC Radio 4 from the author Jan Carson. Read by Seamus O’Hara (‘Blue Lights’).

The Author
Jan Carson is a writer and community arts facilitator based in East Belfast. Her novel ‘The Fire Starters’ was awarded the EU Prize for Literature 2019 and the author was acclaimed as “one of the most exciting and original Northern Irish writers of her generation” by the Sunday Times. Her most recent novel ‘The Raptures’ was shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards Novel of the Year and the Kerry Group Novel of the Year. She is a frequent contributor to BBC Radio 4 was shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award 2020, the An Post Irish Short Story of the Year and the Seán Ó Faoláin Short Story Prize. She was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2023.

Writer: Jan Carson
Reader: Seamus O’Hara
Producer: Michael Shannon

A BBC Audio Northern Ireland Production for BBC Radio 4.


FRI 16:00 Last Word (m002jsw7)
Matthew Bannister tells the life stories of people who have recently died, from the rich and famous to unsung but significant.


FRI 16:30 More or Less (m002jsw9)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 on Wednesday]


FRI 17:00 PM (m002jswc)
News and current affairs, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines


FRI 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m002jswf)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


FRI 18:30 The News Quiz (m002jswh)
Series 118

Episode 4

Topical panel quiz show, taking its questions from the week's news stories.


FRI 19:00 The Archers (m002jswk)
Contemporary drama in a rural setting


FRI 19:15 Screenshot (m002jswm)
Yuppies

As cult classic American Psycho turns 25 this year, Ellen and Mark investigate the world of yuppies on screen and ask, are yuppies a thing of the past or more prevalent than ever? They talk to director of American Psycho Mary Harron, co creators of BBC/HBO drama Industry and indie film director Whit Stillman.

Ellen speaks to director Whit Stillman, whose ‘doomed bourgeois in love’ trilogy chronicles the lives of yuppies in the late 80’s. Ellen talks to him about his affectionate take on the era and whether his aunt really did invent the phrase ‘yuppie’.

Mark speaks to Mary Harron, director of American Psycho. They discuss the film's surprising legacy and the casting of Christian Bale in his now iconic role as product-obsessed super-yuppie Patrick Bateman.

Ellen then speaks to Konrad Kay and Mickey Down, co creators of finance-world drama, Industry. They discuss their love of American Psycho and the way in which wealth is portrayed on screen.

Producer: Queenie Qureshi-Wales
A Prospect Street production for BBC Radio 4


FRI 20:00 Any Questions? (m002jswp)
Topical discussion posing questions to a panel of political and media personalities


FRI 20:55 This Week in History (m002jswr)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:40 on Wednesday]


FRI 21:00 Free Thinking (m002jswt)
Finding my tribe

In party conference season, we look at what bonds party members and what it means to create a new network with its own shared beliefs and rituals. What light can an anthropologist shed? Anne McElvoy and guests look at finding my tribe.

Producer: Ruth Watts


FRI 22:00 The World Tonight (m002jsww)
In-depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective.


FRI 22:45 The Plot Against America by Philip Roth (m002jswy)
Episode 5

Richard Schiff (The West Wing) reads Roth's chilling vision of an alternative American history, in which Charles Lindbergh defeats Roosevelt in 1940 and makes a deal with Hitler. Cousin Alvin has returned home after serving with the Canadian military in the fight against Nazi Germany.

Produced by Mair Bosworth and Fay Lomas for BBC Audio
Abridged by Sara Davies
Sound by Ilse Lademann
Assistant Producer Alice McKee


FRI 23:00 Americast (w3ct7t5z)
Join Americast for insights and analysis on what's happening inside Trump's White House.


FRI 23:30 Great Lives (m001yysl)
Queen Emma

Professor Alice Roberts, best known as the presenter of Digging for Britain, picks the wife of two English kings and the mother of two English kings. Queen Emma was born in Normandy and came to England as a diplomatic peaceweaver when she married Aethelred in 1002. Somehow she survived the invasion of the Danes under Swein Forkbeard and married his son, King Canute after Aethelred's death. Together with help from Professor Janina Ramirez - author of Femina - and Patricia Bracewell who has written a trilogy of historical novels based on Emma's life, Alice pieces together an extraordinary life, the richest woman in England, aunt of William the Conqueror, mother of Edward the Confessor.

Alice Roberts is Professor of Public Engagement in Science at Birmingham University and the author of Crypt: Life, Death and Disease in the Middle Ages and Beyond
Programme also includes recorded audio of Professor Pauline Stafford, author of Gendering the Middle Ages

The producer in Bristol is Miles Warde