SATURDAY 04 OCTOBER 2025
SAT 00:00 Midnight News (m002k4qh)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
SAT 00:30 Dangerous Miracle by Liam Shaw (m002k4p9)
Episode 5: Redesigning Research
Biologist Liam Shaw explores the surprising history and uncertain future of antibiotics, one of humanity's greatest medical advances.
The week concludes with an overview of the possible future of antibiotic treatment; from bespoke phage therapy to a complete overhaul of the pharmaceutical industry.
Read by James Macnaughton
Abridged by Eileen Horne
Produced by Eilidh McCreadie
A BBC Audio Scotland production for BBC Radio 4
SAT 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m002k4qk)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping
SAT 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m002k4qm)
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 (m002k4qp)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
SAT 05:34 Shipping Forecast (m002k4qr)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping
SAT 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m002k4qt)
A spiritual comment and prayer to start the day with the Rev Lynne Gibson.
SAT 05:45 Untaxing (m0029hm0)
2. The Beatles Clause
Harry Potter star, Rupert Grint, thought he’d found a way to cut his tax bill, until an obscure law tripped him up. That law? One created because of The Beatles.
But why were the Fab Four so desperate to avoid tax? And how did their money-saving scheme end with them losing control of their own music? A story of rock, rebellion, and the long arm of the taxman.
Producer: Tom Pooley
A Tempo+Talker production for BBC Radio 4
SAT 06:00 News and Papers (m002kf43)
The news headlines, including a look at the newspapers.
SAT 06:07 Open Country (m002k4l0)
Black Poplars: How To Save A Tree
Have you ever heard of a black poplar? You've probably seen one, at least in a painting, even if you didn't recognise it as such. The black poplar is Britain's most endangered tree, and features in Constable's famous work, The Hay Wain. Martha Kearney is in Suffolk to see black poplars at Flatford Mill, the location in the painting, and to talk to botanical artist Ruth Wharrier about painting from nature. With tree wardens David Appleton and Fe Morris, Martha surveys new trees on the riverbank nearby. She finishes by visiting a new clone bank of trees at Jimmy's Farm, which are thriving between the wolves and polar bears. Without active support, this native British tree could disappear from our countryside altogether.
Suffolk Tree Warden Network: https://www.suffolktreewardens.org.uk
https://ruthwharrier.com
https://www.suffolkwildlifetrust.org/adult-learning/botanical-art
Producer: Beth O'Dea
SAT 06:30 Farming Today (m002kf45)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside
SAT 06:57 Weather (m002kf47)
The latest weather reports and forecast
SAT 07:00 Today (m002kf49)
Today (Saturday)
SAT 09:00 Saturday Live (m002kf4c)
Priscilla Presley, Ann Cleeves, Panning for Gold, and Davina McCall's Inheritance Tracks
Priscilla Presley joins Adrian Chiles for extraordinary stories from remarkable people.
SAT 10:00 Curious Cases (m002kf4f)
Series 24
To Crab, or Not to Crab?
We can all picture a crab, but did you know that nature has reinvented those claw clicking, sideways scuttling crustaceans at least five separate times? In recent years the internet has run wild with the idea that crabs are the ultimate life-form, and that even humans might one day end up with pincers too. But is there any truth behind the memes? Hannah and Dara scale the tangled tree of life and tackle taxonomy to figure out if ‘crab’ really is evolution’s favourite shape. Exploring coconut to spanner, ghost to hermit, soldier to spider they learn how to tell the ‘true’ crabs from the impostors.
You can send your everyday mysteries for the team to investigate to: curiouscases@bbc.co.uk
Contributors
Dr Joanna Wolfe – Evolutionary Biologist, Stanford University and UC Santa Barbara
Professor Matthew Wills - Professor of Evolutionary Paleobiology, University of Bath
Ned Suesat-Williams – Director of the Crab Museum, Margate
Producer: Emily Bird
Executive Producer: Sasha Feachem
A BBC Studios Production
SAT 10:30 The Kitchen Cabinet (m002kf4h)
Series 49
Episode 7
Jay Rayner hosts a culinary panel show packed full of tasty titbits.
SAT 11:00 Radical with Amol Rajan (m002k4ln)
Conversations about tomorrow, from Today.
SAT 11:30 From Our Own Correspondent (m002kf4k)
Insight, wit and analysis from BBC correspondents, journalists and writers from around the world.
SAT 12:00 News Summary (m002kf4m)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
SAT 12:04 Money Box (m002kf4p)
The latest news from the world of personal finance
SAT 12:30 The News Quiz (m002k4q0)
Series 118
Episode 5
Topical panel quiz show, taking its questions from the week's news stories.
SAT 12:57 Weather (m002kf4r)
The latest weather forecast
SAT 13:00 News (m002kf4t)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
SAT 13:10 Any Questions? (m002k4q6)
Topical discussion posing questions to a panel of political and media personalities
SAT 14:05 Any Answers? (m002kf4w)
Listeners respond to the issues raised in the preceding edition of Any Questions?
SAT 14:45 The Archers (m002k4q2)
Writer: Keri Davies
Director: Marina Caldarone
Editor: Jeremy Howe
28th September - 3rd October
Brian Aldridge.... Charles Collingwood
Pip Archer.... Daisy Badger
Alice Carter.... Hollie Chapman
Ian Craig.... Stephen Kennedy
Ruairi Donovan.... Arthur Hughes
Justin Elliott.... Simon Williams
Amber Gordon.... Charlotte Jordan
Ed Grundy.... Barry Farrimond
Emma Grundy.... Emerald O'Hanrahan
George Grundy.... Angus Stobie
Brad Horrobin.... Taylor Uttley
Alistair Lloyd.... Michael Lumsden
Paul Mack.... Joshua Riley
Adam Macy.... Andrew Wincott
Kirsty Miller.... Annabelle Dowler
Stella Pryor.... Lucy Speed
Prison Officer.... Janice Connolly
SAT 15:00 Drama on 4 (m000wrt3)
The Last of England
A darkly comic drama by BAFTA award-winning dramatist Neil McKay, with a title inspired by Ford Madox Brown’s painting. Three 60-something friends argue passionately over the course of a ferry journey from Portsmouth to Santander, returning to their expat life in Spain after attending the UK funeral of their friend Ken, who went home for a visit and would never come back.
Hywel, a loquacious Welshman, Irishman Jim from Lurgan and pugnacious ex-MP Malcolm from Glasgow are unlikely allies (and enforced drinking pals) in the small Spanish town they now call home. Fuelled by some indifferent Rioja and cheap Spanish brandy, through the course of a night they try - and fail - to come to terms with life, death, truth and Brexit.
Also on the ferry are Ken’s daughter Gemma and her partner Rashid, carrying the ashes of Ken, to scatter beneath an almond tree in his favourite spot near the village. But Gemma is furious with her father for abandoning his English family and falling for a bartender more than half his age. She’s furious with her father’s so-called friends for encouraging him. And she’s quite cross with Rashid.
As the ferry heads for Spain and the sea gets rougher, secrets and motivations are revealed, showing nothing is quite as anyone believed and nobody is quite what they seem. Is home where you live, or where your heart is?
Neil McKay - The Moorside, Appropriate Adult, Mo, See No Evil, The Hunt for the Yorkshire Ripper - is one of our foremost television dramatists, specialising in factually-based drama. He has written many comic pieces including: Hot Money, about female Bank of England employees who robbed the bank of disused notes; Planespotting about British plane-spotters arrested for spying in Greece, starring Lesley Sharp; and, most recently, feature film Dream Horse for Film4/ Warner Bros about a female cleaner in a South Wales village who bred a champion racehorse - starring Toni Collette and Damian Lewis.
Cast
Hywel – Anthony O’Donnell
Malcolm – Gary Lewis
Jim – Dan Gordon
Rashid – George Bukhari
Gemma – Faye McKeever
Writer – Neil McKay
Director – Melanie Harris
Executive Producer – Jeremy Mortimer
Production Co-ordinator - Darren Spruce
Sound Recordist - Louis Blatherwick
Sound Designer – Eloise Whitmore
A Sparklab production for BBC Radio 4
SAT 16:00 Woman's Hour (m002kf4y)
Highlights from the Woman's Hour week
SAT 17:00 PM (m002kf50)
Full coverage of the day's news
SAT 17:30 Political Thinking with Nick Robinson (m002kf52)
Nick Robinson talks to people who shape our political thinking about what shaped theirs.
SAT 17:54 Shipping Forecast (m002kf54)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping
SAT 17:57 Weather (m002kf56)
The latest weather reports and forecast
SAT 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m002kf58)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
SAT 18:15 Loose Ends (m002kf5b)
Joanna Lumley, James Graham, Esther Walker, Bret McKenzie, Ayoade Bambgoye, Nxdia
Joanna Lumley, James Graham, Ayoade Bambgoye and Esther Walker join Clive Anderson for conversation and comedy with music by Bret McKenzie and Nxdia.
SAT 19:00 Profile (m002kf5d)
An insight into the character of an influential person making the news headlines
SAT 19:15 This Cultural Life (m002k4kh)
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 (m002kf5g)
One Last Chance to See
“It's funny how often, every author I know, their own favourite book is the one that sold the least… My favourite book is what I’m here to talk about tonight.”
Douglas Adams is best known as a science fiction writer. But in the late 80s, the author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy embarked on something completely different. After a life-changing meeting with a rare lemur called an Aye-Aye, he decided he wanted to travel the world with the zoologist Mark Carwardine, in search of endangered species. Their journeys became a book and a Radio 4 series called Last Chance To See.
A few years ago, Katherine Rundell stumbled upon Last Chance To See in a second hand book shop. “It was a revelation... the way that he managed to salute the intricate variety and infinite strangeness of living things and still tell some of the best jokes that you will encounter in print, that seemed to me both an extraordinary thing and the thing that we need so much more of.”
Here, Katherine Rundell revisits the story behind the book and Radio 4 series – as told by its co-author Mark Carwardine in a new interview, and Douglas himself, thanks to archive from the lecture Douglas gave at the University of California in 2001, just a month before his death .
Ever ahead of his time, the message of the book is even more stark today.
“We don't have to save the world. The world's fine. The world has been through five periods of mass extinction…. What we have to be concerned about is whether or not the world we live in will be capable of sustaining us in it. That's what we need to think about.”
With thanks to Mark Carwardine, the Douglas Adams Estate, and the University of California.
Presented by Katherine Rundell. Produced in Bristol by Polly Weston
SAT 21:00 Moral Maze (m002k3mg)
Is democracy a failed experiment?
Later this month, millions of demonstrators are due to take to the streets across the USA for a second time, under the banner “No Kings”. Organisers say, “America has no kings, and the power belongs to the people”. They are mobilizing to protest against what they see as democratic backsliding during Trump’s second presidency.
Faith in democracy has been shaking all over the world. Recent Pew research suggests that, since 2017, public dissatisfaction with democracy far outweighs satisfaction across 12 high-income countries, including the UK, France and Germany. There are different interpretations of what’s causing this, and how to fix it.
Some observers think that Trump’s more controversial policies – from DOGE to attacks on elite institutions to the dismantling of DEI programmes – could have been inspired by the ideas of Curtis Yarvin, a computer engineer turned political theorist. He's known for founding an anti-democracy philosophical movement called ‘The Dark Enlightenment’, dismissing America's democratic values and instead calling for the return of an absolute monarchy, run by a 'CEO' figure.
Are democratic values a fiction, designed to prop up the elites? Or are they the only safeguard we have against tyranny?
Chair: Michael Buerk
Panel: Carmody Grey, Ash Sarkar, Anne McElvoy and Inaya Folarin-Iman
Witnesses: Curtis Yarvin, Mike Wendling and Andrés Velasco
Producers: Dan Tierney and Peter Everett
*This is a special episode of the Moral Maze recorded at ‘How The Light Gets In’ philosophy and music festival: https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/hay
SAT 22:00 News (m002kf5j)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
SAT 22:15 The Food Programme (m002k4p7)
In Search of Mustard in Norwich
Five years ago, after 160 years in Norwich, the Colman's factory shut its doors for the last time.
John Osborne is a writer, a poet and a performer - he's called Norwich home for 25 years. But last year, while writing a show about his city, he began to learn more about the depth of the history of Colman's, and he started to wonder why more people don't know about it.
Between Jeremiah Colman, James Colman, Jeremiah James Colman and many many generations since, an entire empire was built on the back of these humble seeds. The company had a cradle-to-grave ethos, providing education, housing, healthcare and leisure for workers and their families. All of which means the factory, the school buildings, the churches, even the entire village of Trowse is still a part of the fabric of the city. Now, everywhere he looks in Norwich, from the double yellow lines, to the big yellow boxes on the pavement full of sand for de-icing the concrete in winter... John sees mustard.
Hundreds of people worked at the factory, and as its doors shut in 2020, a crowdfunder was underway to launch a new Norwich mustard. Five years on, the mustard is nowhere to be found. Even the famous mustard shop, where everyone went for Christmas presents for their relatives, is gone. So John wants to rediscover this history, and along the way find out what's happened to Norwich's mustard. After all, the bright yellow labels on shelves all over the world still proudly read Colman's "of Norwich". As it turns out, thanks to the determination of the local mustard farmers, mustard never really left Norwich at all...
Presented by John Osborne
Produced in Bristol by Polly Weston
SAT 23:00 Icklewick FM (m002j89k)
Series 2
6. The Barricade
The long running stand off between Mayor Power and the Coalition of Concerned Pensioners threatens to boil over into an all out war. With Chris and Amy still not talking to each other, Simon is forced to cover the rapidly escalating ruckus from the studio with Mr Patel. The truth about Amy’s gap year is finally revealed which leads to grave consequences that will change Icklewick forever...
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
Jen Brister
Henry Paker
Molly McGuinness
Darren J Coles
Shivani Thussu
Joe Kent Walters
Jin Hao Li
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 The 3rd Degree (m002k3g8)
Series 15
3. University of Kent
This episode coming from the University of Kent, The 3rd Degree is a funny, upbeat and brainy quiz show.
The specialist subjects this week are Forensic Science, Architecture and English Literature, so we’ll be charging James Bond under the Firearms Act, watching friendly bombs fall on Slough and chatting about the worst bits of Titus Andronicus. All this plus dinosaurs!
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
SUNDAY 05 OCTOBER 2025
SUN 00:00 Midnight News (m002kf5l)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
SUN 00:15 Take Four Books (m002k3g6)
William Boyd
Booker shortlisted writer William Boyd speaks to Take Four Books this week about his new spy novel, The Predicament, and together with presenter James Crawford, and the crime writer Louise Welsh, they explore its connections to three other literary works. In his new novel, which is the second in a trilogy, travel writer turned accidental spy, Gabriel Dax, finds himself caught up in events in Guatemala, and then in Berlin, where he becomes aware of a plot to assassinate the charismatic, young president John F Kennedy. The stakes are high, the pace is fast, and Gabriel is finding the allure of his handler, Faith Green, difficult to resist.
For his three influences William chose: Mountolive, published in 1958, and which is the third volume in The Alexandria Quartet series by Lawrence Durrell; Len Deighton's debut novel The Ipcress File from 1962, this was later turned into a film, of the same name, starring Michael Cane; and John Le Carre's iconic The Spy Who Came In From The Cold published in1963.
Producer: Dominic Howell
Editor: Gillian Wheelan
This is a BBC Audio Scotland production.
SUN 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m002kf5n)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping
SUN 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m002kf5q)
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 (m002kf5s)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
SUN 05:34 Shipping Forecast (m002kf5v)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping
SUN 05:43 Bells on Sunday (m002kf5x)
Winchester Cathedral in Hampshire.
Bells on Sunday, comes from Winchester Cathedral in Hampshire. Bells have rung out from the Cathedral since Saxon times. It is recorded that King Cnut gave two bells to the Old Minster in the early 11th century. Today the Cathedral has the only diatonic ring of fourteen in the world. The tenor bell weighs thirty five and a half hundredweight and is tuned to the note of C. We hear them ringing Erin Septuples.
SUN 05:45 In Touch (m002k3jp)
News, views and information for people who are blind or partially sighted
SUN 06:00 News Summary (m002kfhm)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4
SUN 06:05 Beyond Belief (m002k3j5)
Have religions forgotten the working class?
This special edition of Beyond Belief was recorded in Bradford, the 2025 City of Culture, at the Contains Strong Language festival - the BBC’s annual celebration of poetry, performance and spoken word.
In this episode the panel will explore have religions forgotten the working class - with creative responses from spoken word artists Saju Ahmed and Sharena Lee Satti.
Is religion fundamentally a middle-class activity? Does the church have a class problem? And, how can religious organisations play their role in making a society for all?
To examine these questions, Giles is joined by:
Father Alex Frost, Anglican Priest and author of ‘From Argos to Altar’.
Alina Khan, Vice Principal for Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion at Bradford College, and winner of the British Muslim Woman of the Year 2024 at the British Muslim Awards.
Dermot Bolton, Vice Chair of Bradford Standing Advisory Council on Religion Education and Humanist Advisor to Bradford University Chaplaincy.
Dr Sufyan Abid Dogra - Anthropologist of Religion. He is involved in campaigns against inequalities and advocates for the upward mobility of disadvantaged minority populations. He is a board member for Active Bradford and Bradford Art Centre. He is a member of Muslims in Britain Research Network.
Presenter: Giles Fraser
Producer: Alexa Good
Assistant Producers: Naomi Wellings and Linda Walker
Editor: Tim Pemberton
SUN 06:35 On Your Farm (m002kfhp)
Dyfi Dairy: Rescue, Retirement and Rich Rewards
Sophia Morgan-Swinhoe, Scott Sanders and Sam Lewis sell milk and cheese direct to their local community, produced from a herd of goats and some 45 head of cattle. They’re young, driven and relentlessly hard working, herding their livestock up the steep hills of Powys on foot and forever looking for ways to optimise animal welfare. Many of the original dairy herd were rescue animals, they move the bull calves on as conservation grazers, and older cows are kept on farm after retirement. As a former vegan, Sophia describes the operation as an ‘ethics experiment’, using positive reinforcement by way of treats and scratches to build relationships with the animals and promote both safety and productivity. The farm is now not only profitable but also has a secure base. After ten years of hard graft and multiple tenancies, Dyfi Dairy at last have the keys to their first farm. The sense of security is a welcome relief. On the morning Verity Sharp visits, the new mobile, solar-powered milking parlour the trio have designed and built is in operation. As an approved calf-at-foot dairy, the small system enables newborns to be kept with their mothers during milking. They talk through how it works and then, after a steep climb up the valley to reunite the cows with the older calves, sit down to talk farm economics whilst handing round some of Dyfi Dairy’s legendary fudge.
SUN 06:57 Weather (m002kfhr)
The latest weather reports and forecast
SUN 07:00 News and Papers (m002kfht)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
SUN 07:10 Sunday (m002kfhw)
A look at the ethical and religious issues of the week
SUN 07:54 Radio 4 Appeal (m002kfhy)
Kinship
Actor and ambassador for Kinship Jay Kontzle makes this week’s Radio 4 appeal. When parents are unable to raise their children, the charity provides help, advice and training for kinship carers in England and Wales.
The Radio 4 Appeal features a new charity every week. Each appeal then runs on Radio 4 from Sunday 0754 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 ‘Kinship’.
- Cheques should be made payable to ‘Kinship’.
- 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: 1093975. If you’d like to find out more about the charity’s work visit *https://kinship.org.uk/
*The BBC is not responsible for content on external websites
Producer: Katy Takatsuki
SUN 07:57 Weather (m002kfj0)
The latest weather reports and forecast
SUN 08:00 News and Papers (m002kfj2)
The news headlines, including a look at the newspapers.
SUN 08:10 Sunday Worship (m002kfj4)
Brother Sun and Sister Moon
"Be praised, my Lord, through all your creatures, especially Sir Brother Sun, who brings the day; and you give light through him....Praise be You, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars, in heaven you formed them clear and precious and beautiful"
St Francis of Assisi's great hymn of praise, Canticle of the Creatures, is a shout of exultation, that brings together all of creation; wind, rain, plants and animals, the cosmos, and even death. For 800 years it has inspired an affinity with the natural world, placing all things into a relationship with God.
In this service from Selwyn College, Cambridge, the Revd Dr Arabella Milbank Robinson explores what this 800 year old song can tell us about our responsibility to the environment in the face of climate change and ecological challenges.
The service is led by the Dean of Chapel and Chaplain, Arabella Milbank Robinson. Selwyn Chapel Choir are directed by Selwyn College's Director of Music and University Organist, Sarah MacDonald. The organist is Stanley Godfrey.
MUSIC
Brother Sun, Sister Moon (Sarah MacDonald)
And the swallow (Caroline Shaw)
Benedicite omnia opera Domini (Lassus)
All Creatures of our God and King (Lasst uns erfreuen)
Creation sings! each plant and tree (Melita)
Responsorial Psalm: 104
Producer: Katharine Longworth
SUN 08:48 Witness History (w3ct74jk)
Brazil’s biggest bank heist
In August, 2005, a gang of robbers tunnelled their way into a Brazilian bank vault in a heist straight out of the movies.
Three months before, the thieves had set up a landscaping business, Grama Sintetica - or Synthetic Grass, from a house close to the Banco Central in Fortaleza. But it was a plot to disguise their real activity.
Working in shifts, they dug an 80 metre tunnel from the house, under a neighbouring street and into the vault before escaping with more than 160million reais, then the equivalent of $70million.
Antonio Celso Dos Santos, then a federal police chief, was one of the detectives who tracked down the gang. He spoke to Jane Wilkinson about the investigation.
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: Police and journalists examine the Banco Central tunnel, 2005. Credit: Tuno Viera/AFP via Getty Images)
SUN 08:58 Tweet of the Day (m002kfj6)
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about birds inspired by their calls, songs and behaviour.
SUN 09:00 Broadcasting House (m002kfj8)
The Sunday morning news magazine programme. Presented by Paddy O'Connell
SUN 10:00 Desert Island Discs (m002kfjb)
Angela Harding, artist
Angela Harding, artist, shares the eight tracks, book and luxury items she would take with her if cast away to a desert island. With Lauren Laverne.
SUN 11:00 The Archers Omnibus (m002kfjd)
Writer: Keri Davies
Director: Marina Caldarone
Editor: Jeremy Howe
28th September - 3rd October
Brian Aldridge.... Charles Collingwood
Pip Archer.... Daisy Badger
Alice Carter.... Hollie Chapman
Ian Craig.... Stephen Kennedy
Ruairi Donovan.... Arthur Hughes
Justin Elliott.... Simon Williams
Amber Gordon.... Charlotte Jordan
Ed Grundy.... Barry Farrimond
Emma Grundy.... Emerald O'Hanrahan
George Grundy.... Angus Stobie
Brad Horrobin.... Taylor Uttley
Alistair Lloyd.... Michael Lumsden
Paul Mack.... Joshua Riley
Adam Macy.... Andrew Wincott
Kirsty Miller.... Annabelle Dowler
Stella Pryor.... Lucy Speed
Prison Officer.... Janice Connolly
SUN 12:15 Profile (m002kf5d)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Saturday]
SUN 12:30 Paul Sinha's Perfect Pub Quiz (m002k391)
Series 4
Foxy Flag Facts
Paul Sinha tests his audience in Leicester on their knowledge of their home county, Trivial Pursuit-style - with all the colours of questions, from geography to entertainment, getting asked. Can they fill the wedges, and can Paul answer their favourite questions, about crisps, bells and cricket?
Written and performed by Paul Sinha
Additional material: Oliver Levy
Additional questions: The Audience
Original music: Tim Sutton
Recording engineer: Jerry Peal
Mixed by: Rich Evans
Producer: Ed Morrish
A Lead Mojo production for BBC Radio 4
SUN 12:57 Weather (m002kfjg)
The latest weather forecast
SUN 13:00 The World This Weekend (m002kfjj)
Radio 4's look at the week's big stories from both home and around the world.
SUN 13:30 Currently (m002kfjl)
The Split
David Baker’s Jewish identity and faith have always been central to who he is - and so is his affiliation with Israel. But he has been re-evaluating that relationship since Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 and the ongoing war in Gaza.
For many decades after the founding of Israel, most British Jews were unequivocal in their support. And that is still the case for many Jews in Britain. But there is evidence that those ties are weakening for a younger generation and some older Jews, too, are criticising the actions of Israel’s current right-wing government and the continuing devastation of Gaza.
In a search for answers, David talks to other British Jews who are responding in different ways to what is, for many, a crisis. Some are taking political action, some are deepening their bonds with Israel and others are re-examining their connection with the Jewish state.
Presenter: David Baker
Producer: Jo Glanville
Executive Producer: Robert Nicholson
A Whistledown Production for BBC Radio 4
SUN 14:00 Gardeners' Question Time (m002k4pp)
Horticultural programme featuring a group of gardening experts.
SUN 14:45 Opening Lines (m002kfjn)
Star of the Sea
In the winter of 1847, the Star of the Sea sets sail from Ireland for New York. Among the refugees are a maidservant, a bankrupt aristocrat, an aspiring novelist and a maker of revolutionary ballads. It reads like a Victorian gothic novel, with murder and intrigue at its heart.
Star of the Sea by Joseph O’Connor was published in 2002 and attracted multiple plaudits as well as literary awards. O’Connor talks about the shocked response from his publishers when he proposed writing a novel about the Irish Famine and we learn how real facts are woven skilfully into fiction.
Novelist Colm Tóibín explains how there are elements of pastiche in Star of the Sea and how it’s written like a 19th century novel. He also states that, at a time when the Irish narrative was being re-imagined, even the great Irish playwrights such as Sean O’Casey didn’t write about the Famine.
At the heart of the story is the threatening figure of Pius Mulvey – the balladeer and adventurer. Known as ‘The Monster’, Mulvey stalks the decks of the ship like some kind of embodiment of the tragedy that has overtaken the old country. We hear about the tragic and human stories within this novel into which O’Connor is also able weave humour and a propulsive narrative.
John Yorke explains that the skill of this novel is that, with the aid of eyewitness accounts, historical documents, letters home, passenger manifests and Captain’s logs, O’Connor unravels the extraordinary relationships at the book’s heart by re-stitching them into a grander tapestry – that of a terrible horror, long hidden, central to a nation’s heart.
John Yorke has worked in television and radio for 30 years and shares his experience 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 R4.
Contributor:
Colm Tóibín, bestselling writer
Extracts from:
The Arts Show, BBC Radio Ulster with Marie Louise Muir, 16 August 2007
Reading from Star of the Sea by Peter Marinker, from the audiobook of the same title published by W.F. Howes Ltd, 2011
Star of the Sea published in 2002 by Secker and Warburg
Sound: Sean Kerwin
Researcher: Henry Tydeman
Production Hub Coordinator: Nina Semple
Producer: Belinda Naylor
Executive Producer: Caroline Raphael
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4
SUN 15:00 Drama on 4 (m002kfjq)
A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian
Episode 2
Episode 2 deepens the turmoil unleashed by Mykolai’s marriage to the volatile and much younger Valentyna. Domestic chaos erupts as Mykolai locks himself in fear, alleging abuse, while Valentyna flaunts wealth, bullies him, and charms others with half-truths. The police dismiss the conflict as marital squabbling, but Nadya sees her father’s frailty and grows desperate to intervene.
When Mykolai finally takes legal action, divorce proceedings are set in motion, though Valentyna pleads that she is merely a misunderstood immigrant trying to provide for her son, Stanislav. Her past resurfaces with the dramatic arrival of her ex-husband Dubov, who still longs for her and seeks to reunite their fractured family.
Meanwhile, suspicions mount about Valentyna’s motives when she returns unexpectedly, apparently pregnant, and demands money in exchange for leaving. Mykolai, blinded by pride and confusion, insists he may be the father, fuelling bitter disputes among his daughters and Dubov.
Interwoven with this present-day drama are poignant wartime recollections. Ludmyla narrates the hardships of her early marriage, motherhood under poverty, and survival through famine, war, and forced labour. Vira, too, begins to reveal her own traumatic childhood memories from a Nazi labour camp - secrets long buried beneath her bitterness.
As tensions escalate, Mykolai clings to poetry, tractors, and delusions of love, even as his daughters push him toward safety and truth. The episode exposes not only Valentyna’s manipulations but also the scars of history carried by every member of the family, where loyalty, betrayal, and resilience continue to collide.
An International Arts Partnership production for BBC Radio 4
SUN 16:00 Bookclub (m002kfjs)
Led by James Naughtie, readers talk to acclaimed authors about their best-known novels.
SUN 16:30 The 3rd Degree (m002kfjv)
Series 15
4. Worcester College, Oxford
This episode coming from Worcester College, Oxford, The 3rd Degree is a funny, upbeat and brainy quiz show.
The specialist subjects this week are Maths, Theology and History, so naturally we’ll be looking at exotic 4-spaces, the concept of homoiousion and a little heraldic bird with no feet. And a slug called Shaun. And Wittgenstein.
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 (w3ct74q4)
Greece’s debt crisis
It was a week that brought the future of Greece and the Eurozone to the brink. Ten years ago, on 6 July the Greek people voted against the terms of a financial bailout which included raising taxes and slashing welfare spending.
Greece owed €323bn to various countries and banks within Europe. Its banks were closed. A quarter of the population and half of Greece’s young people were unemployed.
The morning after the vote, Euclid Tsakalotos was brought in to replace Yanis Varoufakis as finance minister. His predecessor had accused European leaders of “terrorism” in their handling of the crisis. Parachuted in to last-ditch talks with angry European leaders, Euclid Tsakalotos describes to Josephine McDermott the make-or-break 17-hour summit in Brussels.
He reveals that when Angela Merkel, the leader of Greece’s biggest lender Germany, said she was leaving the room because she could not accept what was on the table, Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, actually locked the door to stop her leaving and force an agreement to be reached.
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 football in Brazil, the history of the ‘Indian Titanic’ and the invention of air fryers, to Public Enemy’s Fight The Power, subway art and the political crisis in Georgia. We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: visionary architect Antoni Gaudi and the design of the Sagrada Familia; Michael Jordan and his bespoke Nike trainers; Princess Diana at the Taj Mahal; and Görel Hanser, manager of legendary Swedish pop band Abba on the influence they’ve had on the music industry. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the time an Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at the President of the United States in protest of America’s occupation of Iraq; the creation of the Hollywood commercial that changed advertising forever; and the ascent of the first Aboriginal MP.
(Photo: A queue outside a bank in Greece in 2015. Credit: Getty Images)
SUN 17:10 The Verb (m002kfjy)
The Verb from Contains Strong Language in Bradford
Ian McMillan presents The Verb from Contains Strong Language in Bradford - with poets Imtiaz Dharker, Kieron Higgins, Nabeela Ahmed, and Katrina Porteous (reading poems from her Laurel Prize winning collection Rhizodont).
Rock, stone and sediments are everywhere in this celebration of poetry and poetry in Bradford. We have millstone grit and the story of stone in a specially commissioned poem from Queen's Gold Medal winner Imtiaz Dharker, the influence of ska on the sediments of language that turned Kieron Higgins into a poet. Nabeela Ahmed reads from her new book 'From Kashmir to Yorkshire' and explores the layers of languages, including Pahari, that helped to tune her poetry ear, and the winner of this year's Laurel Prize for Nature or Environmental poetry, Katrina Porteus, reads from her collection 'Rhizodont'. She was described by the judges as 'always keeping faith with the north-east' and the book was praised as a 'a crucial act of the imagination. speaking as non-human entities (eg an ice core) ...loving, knowing and authoritative'.
Produced by Faith Lawrence
SUN 17:54 Shipping Forecast (m002kfk0)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping
SUN 17:57 Weather (m002kfk2)
The latest weather reports and forecast
SUN 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m002kfk4)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
SUN 18:15 Pick of the Week (m002kfk6)
James Crawford
A selection of highlights from the past week on BBC radio
SUN 19:00 The Archers (m002kfk8)
Jolene finds herself bearing the brunt, and Paul struggles with small talk.
SUN 19:15 Illuminated (m002kfkb)
Peanuts at 75
On the 75th anniversary of the iconic comic strip Peanuts, psychoanalyst and author Josh Cohen shares how Charlie Brown and the Snoopy gang have become his constant companions—and how they can help us navigate the frustrating squiggle of life.
Charles Schultz’s daily newspaper comic strip is perhaps the most enduring, beloved and iconic cartoon ever penned. Even if you’ve never read the strip itself, you are unlikely to have escaped its famous characters’ journeys across the decades and the globe. The round-headed, wobbly mouthed Charlie Brown and his dog Snoopy, often found snoozing atop his kennel, have been emblazoned across t shirts, crockery and pretty much every other conceivable piece of merchandise. They have inspired TV shows, pop songs, and even been the namesakes of Apollo lunar modules.
Far from just a bunch of cutesy doodles, as many have come to see it, Peanuts’ cross-generational appeal is down to its spot-on depiction of the complex emotions that follow us all from childhood into adulthood. From Charlie Brown’s humiliation on the baseball field to his frenemy Lucy’s unrequited pining for her piano-playing crush, and her brother Linus’ desperate attachment to his security blanket, the strip reflects the everyday pain and frustration of being human. And, with warmth and wit, offers its readers a way to live with it.
In fact, Peanuts deals so much in the intense emotional experiences of its young protagonists that one of its most recognisable recurring gags is Lucy’s booth offering ‘PSYCHIATRIC HELP 5¢’.
Stepping out from behind his analytic couch and taking a seat at its cartoon simulacrum in that famous booth, Josh unpacks the psychological truths illustrated in the comic’s four main characters - Charlie Brown, Lucy, Linus and Snoopy. Hooked by a copy of Peanuts Jubilee aged five, they were his contemporaries. Today, after 50 years of avid reading, he’s on the other side of the two-way channel between childhood and adulthood that Peanuts opens up. He investigates the emotional pull of the comic for him and for so many of us - including the other writers and thinkers we hear from who share his passion.
Presenter and Writer: Josh Cohen
Producer: Heather Dempsey
Executive Producer: Kirsten Lass
A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4
SUN 19:45 Just One Thing - with Michael Mosley (m0017tbn)
Enjoy Oily Fish
In this episode, Michael speaks to nutritional neuroscientist Dr Simon Dyall from the University of Roehampton to get to the bottom of the many benefits behind oily fish and Omega-3s. He finds out how consuming Omega-3 could affect your mood, your brain and even your walking speed! They discuss the different types of oily fish, other sources of Omega-3 fatty acids, revealing why these fatty acids are so important.
SUN 20:00 Word of Mouth (m002k4l2)
Julia Donaldson: A life in language
Julia Donaldson, author of The Gruffalo amongst many other beloved children's books, tells Michael Rosen about her reading, writing, speaking and listening, beginning with her own childhood experiences.
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
SUN 20:30 Last Word (m002k4pt)
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 (m002kf4p)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:04 on Saturday]
SUN 21:25 Radio 4 Appeal (m002kfhy)
[Repeat of broadcast at
07:54 today]
SUN 21:30 From Our Own Correspondent (m002kf4k)
[Repeat of broadcast at
11:30 on Saturday]
SUN 22:00 Westminster Hour (m002kfkd)
Radio 4's Sunday night political discussion programme.
SUN 23:00 On the Run (m0023pcs)
Running the Show
Writer, poet and runner Helen Mort continues on the trail of the history of running, asking why we run and what it has meant to humanity through the ages.
In this final episode she rounds the the corner into the 20th Century, and finishes by examining the role running plays in our life today.Helen explores how distance running became the sport we know today. She heads back to the races of one hundred years ago and finds out who took part, and who wasn't allowed to.
She heads into the heart of the 'running boom' of the 1970s, which saw the emergence of 'jogging' as a phenomenon and the mass participation of running we see today, including big city marathons. One major factor was the creation of the cushioned running shoe by Nike, and Helen talks to the company's first employee, who thought up the name of the iconic sports brand.
Helen charts the emergence of running in mass media, from adverts to cinema, and considers how narrative of running have changed. As she reaches the 21st century, Helen heads inside the mind of the modern runner and finds out about the psychology of running, its benefits and also its downsides. Thousands of people line to run a Parkrun each weekend, what does that tell us?
'Mass participation' still only reaches some however, and Helen also finds out about the movements to make running more inclusive which are gaining pace throughout the world.
Contributors:
Sabrina Pace-Humphreys, Author of Black Sheep: A Story of Rural Racism, Identity and Hope
Dr Sam Edwards, Loughborough University
Katie Holmes, Historian
Vybarr Cregan Reid, Author of Footnotes: Why Running Makes Us Human
Pro Steve Haake, Sheffield Hallam University
Jeff Johnson, early employee of Nike
Dr Peter Olusaga, Sheffield Hallam University
With thanks to Thor Gotaas, author of 'A Global History of Running', Dr Nathalie Hager, Matt Rimmer and the MyRaceKit North team.
Producer: Sam Peach
Readings by Nuhazet Diaz Cano
SUN 23:45 Short Works (m002k4pr)
This Is the Way I'm Going by Michael Amherst
"As I run for the platform at Paddington, I know that even if I make the train I will still have missed it. For all the trains are evenly spaced and if you are in time for one, it means you were just too late for another."
An original short story for radio, about one man's journey to the end of the line...
Writer: Michael Amherst, winner of the Hubert Butler Essay Prize and Stonewall Prize for Nonfiction. His debut novel, The Boyhood of Cain, was published by Faber in February.
Reader: Tayla Kovacevic-Ebong
Producer-Director: Becky Ripley
MONDAY 06 OCTOBER 2025
MON 00:00 Midnight News (m002kfkg)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
MON 00:15 Crossing Continents (m002k3jr)
Haitians Living in Fear in the Dominican Republic
How Haitians in the Dominican Republic are being targeted for expulsion.
The Dominican Republic is the Caribbean’s number one tourist destination. Last year 11 million visitors came here, many enjoying the five star resorts that skirt the island’s coast.
Much of the construction work building those tourist facilities is in fact done by Haitians, and many of the staff who work in them are from Haiti, which occupies the western half of this island of Hispaniola. Over recent years the tourism industry has helped make the Dominican economy the fastest growing in Latin America.
However, the Dominican government is now implementing one of the most systematic deportation policies anywhere in the world. Last year the president, Luis Abinader, announced that his country would expel illegal migrants at the rate of ten thousand a week. The chief target is Haitians and people of Haitian descent. President Abinader says he is keeping his country secure and implementing the constitution. Meanwhile Haitians in the Dominican Republic are living in fear of raids by the immigration authorities and of being sent back across the border, to a country riven by violence as well as political and economic instability.
John Murphy is in the Dominican Republic to talk to Haitians stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Producer: Bob Howard
Mix: Rod Farquhar
Programme Coordinator: Katie Morrison
Series Editor: Penny Murphy
MON 00:45 Bells on Sunday (m002kf5x)
[Repeat of broadcast at
05:43 on Sunday]
MON 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m002kfkj)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping
MON 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m002kfkl)
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 (m002kfkn)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
MON 05:04 Last Word (m002k4pt)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:30 on Sunday]
MON 05:34 Shipping Forecast (m002kfkq)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping
MON 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m002kfks)
A spiritual comment and prayer to start the day with the Rev Lynne Gibson.
MON 05:45 Farming Today (m002kfkv)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
MON 05:57 Weather (m002kfkx)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for farmers
MON 06:00 Today (m002kfpd)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
MON 09:00 Start the Week (m002kfpg)
Yanis Varoufakis on Greece’s civil war
The economist Yanis Varoufakis found himself in the eye of the storm as Greece’s Minister of Finance in 2015, at the height of the country’s debt crisis. Now he reflects on his political awakenings and the women who influenced him in Raise Your Soul. It’s a family story that starts in Egypt in the 1920s and traces Greece’s tumultuous century through Nazi occupation, civil war, dictatorship, socialism and economic crisis.
The historian Professor Mary Vincent focuses on the Spanish Civil War and has written about fascism, political violence and its impact on the people. She sees both similarities and stark differences between the Greek and Spanish Civil Wars and ponders the question of how global politics influence what happens in nation states.
As a new translation of Thucydides’s The History of the Peloponnesian War (by Robin Waterfield) is published, the classicist Professor Paul Cartledge explains why this ancient text has remained essential reading for military leaders and politicians for centuries. Thucydides’s account of the war between Athens and Sparta that began in 431 BCE depicts the devastation of civil war and reflects on the nature of political power.
Producer: Katy Hickman
Assistant Producer: Natalia Fernandez
MON 09:45 Café Hope (m002kfpj)
Dedication to donation
Lorna Newbrook tells Rachel Burden how she is trying to get more people to give blood after frequent transfusions helped extend her husband Mike's life for 16 months. She's trying to educate young people that they can donate blood from the age of 17, and wants people to give a 'Pint for Mike'.
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
Editor: Clare Fordham
MON 10:00 Woman's Hour (m002kfpl)
Women's voices and women's lives - topical conversations to inform, challenge and inspire.
MON 10:55 A Carnival of Animals (m002kfpn)
The Orangutan
In this new series for BBC Sounds and BBC Radio 4, best-selling author and scholar Katherine Rundell celebrates the lives of twenty astonishing but endangered animals. Each episode includes fascinating stories that connect natural history with cultural insight, myth and science — revealing how animals have shaped human imagination, and how our choices now shape their survival.
This first episode, The Orangutan, introduces us to Rose, who once lived in Napoleon’s household, and takes us deep into the forests of Borneo, where orangutans have learned to weed paths, wash clothes, and steal canoes — simply by watching the humans around them.
But fewer than 800 Tapanuli orangutans remain in the wild. Katherine asks what it means to live alongside such beings — and what it will take to ensure they remain part of our shared future.
Written and Presented by Katherine Rundell
Produced by Natalie Donovan for BBC Audio in Bristol
MON 11:00 Three Ages of Child (m002kfpq)
Episode 2: The Middle Years
Dr Guddi Singh is a paediatrician looking for answers. She’s worried about the patients whose problems can’t be fixed with a prescription – babies who are not thriving because their parents can’t afford to heat their home or children who are obese because they don’t have access to outdoor space. Children in the UK face some of the worst health outcomes in Europe. Dr Singh wants to find solutions.
In a three-part series, she travels across England through the three ages of childhood: the early years, the primary school years and adolescence. She meets people in the community, from health workers to teachers, on a quest to discover what’s going wrong and what it will take to turn things around.
In the second episode, she’s in London, travelling from east to west across the capital to find out what’s making the difference for children in their school years. She goes to an adventure playground in Tower Hamlets, meets community health workers in Westminster and visits a school in Feltham that puts wellbeing at the heart of education.
Presenter: Guddi Singh
Producer: Jo Glanville
Editor: Kirsten Lass
Executive Producer: Rosamund Jones
Production Executive: Lisa Lipman
Sound Engineers: Dan King and Jon Calver
Photography of Guddi Singh courtesy of Anad Singh
Commissioning Editor: Daniel Clarke
A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4
MON 11:45 Fly, Wild Swans by Jung Chang (m002kfps)
Episode 1
In this sequel to her memoir Wild Swans, Jung Chang charts her path from arriving as a 26-year-old student in the UK in 1978, through the years of post-Mao liberalisation, to the more recent authoritarian and increasingly repressive rule of President Xi Jinping. The constant thread throughout these years has been her powerful bond with her mother, the woman to whom this book is dedicated.
Jung and her fellow students grew up in complete isolation from the West, and lived in fear as to what might happen if they broke any of the strict rules imposed upon them by their government. The chance to travel to Britain and then to study at York University was an invaluable opportunity. But the freedom of expression that she chose to exercise once she became a British citizen eventually exacted a high price.
Although for many years she was able to return to China and visit her family while researching her subsequent books, there came a point when the political situation meant permanent separation from her mother and those family members who she left behind in China. Today Jung Chang is unable to return to bid farewell to her frail mother who is now in her 90s, but she remains determined to honour the freedom that her mother encouraged her to embrace.
Written by Jung Chang
Read by Sarah Lam
Abridged and Produced by Jill Waters
The Waters Company for BBC Radio 4
MON 12:00 News Summary (m002kfpv)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
MON 12:04 You and Yours (m002kfpx)
News and discussion of consumer affairs
MON 12:57 Weather (m002kfpz)
The latest weather forecast
MON 13:00 World at One (m002kfq1)
News, analysis and comment from BBC Radio 4
MON 13:45 Multitrack (m002kfq3)
I Am What I Ate
How can you reconnect with yourself through food?
Chantal has always relied on her mother to make traditional Jamaican meals. Now she’s an adult and living away from home, she has to take the initiative.
Has her lack of knowledge in preparing these cuisines distanced her from part of her culture? She travels through London to see whether the multicultural nature of the city is up to the challenge of providing the ingredients to her favourite dish.
Presented and produced by Chantal Romain
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4
Commissioned in association with the Multitrack Audio Producers Fellowship for new talent in feature-making
MON 14:00 The Archers (m002kfk8)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Sunday]
MON 14:15 Alone (m0009yy1)
Series 2
Front Window
The neighbours become obsessed with various goings-on at the front of the house.
There’s bad parking to contend with, naked neighbours at night and, worst of all, someone keeps stealing the expensive bay tree plants that sit on the porch.
An exasperated Ellie has had enough and suggests everyone gathers together on a stake out to protect their precious plants.
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
Connor ...... Fred Haig
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 November 2019.
MON 14:45 Mrs Bridge by Evan S Connell (m0019r5l)
Episode 8
Evan S. Connell's Mrs Bridge is an extraordinary tragicomic portrayal of suburban life and one of the classic American novels of the twentieth 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.
Mrs Bridge by Evan S. Connell
Read by Fenella Woolgar
Abridged by Isobel Creed and Jill Waters
The Waters Company for BBC Radio 4
MON 15:00 Great Lives (m002kfq5)
Oliver Postgate
"...Postgate is nothing short of a touchstone for our national imagination"
Andrew Davenport, composer, puppeteer and creator of Teletubbies and In the Night Garden, chooses Oliver Postgate, who, along with his Smallfilms business partner, the artist Peter Firmin, invented the children's television shows Ivor the Engine, The Clangers and, perhaps most loved of all, Bagpuss.
Postgate was a late bloomer. Following Dartington school (which he hated) a stint in jail and working the land, several odd jobs and even odder inventions, he eventually discovered a love of stop-motion animation and created some of the most enduring worlds and best-loved characters in television, all from a cowshed in Kent.
With cultural historian Matthew Sweet and singer and musician Sandra Kerr.
Including clips of his programmes and archive from Postgate's 2007 Desert Island Discs.
MON 15:30 Curious Cases (m002kf4f)
[Repeat of broadcast at
10:00 on Saturday]
MON 16:00 Currently (m002kfjl)
[Repeat of broadcast at
13:30 on Sunday]
MON 16:30 The Kitchen Cabinet (m002kf4h)
[Repeat of broadcast at
10:30 on Saturday]
MON 17:00 PM (m002kfq7)
News and current affairs, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines
MON 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m002kfq9)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
MON 18:30 Paul Sinha's Perfect Pub Quiz (m002kfqc)
Series 4
Episode 2
Paul Sinha and his live audience compile the questions for a perfect pub quiz.
MON 19:00 The Archers (m002kf90)
The Grundys face an anxious wait, and Mick smells a rat.
MON 19:15 Front Row (m002kfqf)
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
MON 20:00 Rethink (m002k4l4)
Rethink...nightlife
The Night Times Industries Association says one in four venues have shut down since 2020, and the sector will face an irreversible decline unless the government provides urgent support.
The industry was one of the worst hit during the pandemic, and it's asking for cuts to National Insurance, a permanent cut in VAT and a reform of business rates to help it keep afloat.
The NTIA claims the night time economy contributes more than £153 billion to the UK economy and supports over 2 million jobs.
Culturally, the sector punches above its weight. The nightclub boom in the last 50 years gave us disco, acid house, drum and bass and grime, as well as many other sub-genres of music. But nightclubs are expensive and consumers are finding their thrills elsewhere; drink is cheaper from supermarkets, and why search for someone you fancy on the dancefloor when you can use a dating app?
And as nightclubs struggle, so do small music venues, where artists like Ed Sheeran, Dua Lipa, Coldplay, Arctic Monkeys Blur and Oasis started out, as well as many others.
People are willing to pay hundreds of pounds to see those same artists in giant venues like Co-op Live in Manchester or at Wembley Stadium, so what can be done to make sure the next wave of new artists have somewhere to play? Should the government intervene? Should big venues subsidise smaller ones, or is it up to fans to throw them a lifeline?
Or has nightlife in its current form - much like variety music halls - taken its last curtain call?
Presenter: Ben Ansell
Producer: Tom Gillett
Editor: Lisa Baxter
Contributors:
MON 20:30 BBC Inside Science (m002k4l6)
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 (m002kfpg)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 today]
MON 21:45 Café Hope (m002kfpj)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 today]
MON 22:00 The World Tonight (m002kfqh)
In-depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective.
MON 22:45 Helm by Sarah Hall (m002kfqk)
That Brief, Busy Interlude
An elemental novel from the twice-nominated Booker author of BURNTCOAT and THE WOLF BORDER. Helm, the only named wind in the UK, has scoured the Eden Valley since the dawn of time. When people arrive, Helm becomes the subject of their myth and folklore but, as the Anthropocene takes us all past the point of no return, Helm’s very existence is threatened.
Read by Hattie Morahan
Written by Sarah Hall
Abridged by Siân Preece
Produced by Eilidh McCreadie
A BBC Audio Scotland production for BBC Radio 4
MON 23:00 Limelight (m00254h0)
Aldrich Kemp and The Rose of Pamir
1. Mothers
A break-in at the Linnean Society triggers a race for the mysterious and elusive Rose of Pamir. Clara Page and the Themis Group are on one side, but who is on the other?
Aldrich Kemp and the gang are back with some new faces as the race moves from London to Paris, New York to Amsterdam and the Maldives to Tajikistan.
Chapter One: Mothers
... and daughters take centre stage.
Clara Page - Phoebe Fox
Aldrich Kemp – Ferdinand Kingsley
Mrs Boone – Nicola Walker
Nakesha Kemp – Karla Crome
Aunt Lily – Susan Jameson
The Underwood Sisters – Jana Carpenter
Mrs Bartholomew – Kate Isitt
Lionel – Steven Mackintosh
Selina – Catherine Kanter
Hazlitt & Sir Peregrine – Ben Crowe
Recruitment Consultant – Bec Boey
Written and directed by Julian Simpson
Music composed by Tim Elsenburg.
Sound Design: David Thomas
Producer: Sarah Tombling
Production Assistant: Ethan Elsenburg
Executive Producer: Karen Rose
New episodes available on Fridays. Listen first on BBC Sounds
A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4
MON 23:30 Being Roman with Mary Beard (m001zngp)
10. A Bag of Snails and a Glass of Wine
An obscure carved stone dug up from a vineyard in southern Italy tells the story of a pair of publicans- the delightfully named Calidius Eroticus and Fannia Voluptas- and their bawdy adventures in the pub trade. Fans of Frankie Howard, the Carry On films and the sitcom Plebs will instantly feel at home with the Roman sense of humour, but these two characters have so much more to offer than lame jokes and a glass of rough wine- they’re our window into the fascinating bar culture of the Romans.
Most urban Romans had neither the facilities nor the time to cook their own food so meals were eaten and drinks drunk from bars. New discoveries at Pompeii reveal the complex stratification of the culture, from the most basic takeaways to dining rooms that mimicked the lifestyles of the rich and famous.
Producer: Alasdair Cross
Cast: Robert Wilfort and Tyler Cameron
Expert contributors: Allison Emmerson, Tulane University, Claire Holleran, Exeter University and Sophie Hay, Archaeological Park of Pompeii
Special thanks to Antonio Valerio of Campi Valerio and Museo Archeologico di Santa Maria delle Monache, Isernia
Translations by Mary Beard
TUESDAY 07 OCTOBER 2025
TUE 00:00 Midnight News (m002kfqm)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
TUE 00:30 Fly, Wild Swans by Jung Chang (m002kfps)
[Repeat of broadcast at
11:45 on Monday]
TUE 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m002kfqp)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping
TUE 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m002kfqr)
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 (m002kfqt)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
TUE 05:04 Currently (m002kfjl)
[Repeat of broadcast at
13:30 on Sunday]
TUE 05:34 Shipping Forecast (m002kfqw)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping
TUE 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m002kfqy)
A spiritual comment and prayer to start the day with the Rev Lynne Gibson.
TUE 05:45 Farming Today (m002kfr0)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
TUE 06:00 Today (m002kf87)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
TUE 09:00 The Life Scientific (m002kf89)
Eleanor Schofield on conserving Tudor warship the Mary Rose
In July 1545, King Henry VIII watched from Southsea Castle on England's south coast as his fleet sailed out to face the French - only to witness his prized warship, the Mary Rose, sink before his eyes.
Raised from the Solent in 1982, the ship is now the centrepiece of the Mary Rose Museum, along with thousands more artefacts that were recovered from the seabed. But keeping the 500-year-old ship and its associated Tudor relics in good condition is no small task, which is where Dr Eleanor Schofield comes in. As Director of Collections at the Mary Rose Trust and a materials engineer by training, Eleanor has spent years tackling the unique scientific challenges of conserving centuries-old wood and metal. From the United States to Portsmouth, Eleanor's research is helping ensure this iconic vessel remains 'ship-shape' for generations to come.
In a special edition of The Life Scientific, recorded in front of an audience at the museum in Portsmouth's Historic Dockyards, Professor Jim Al-Khalili discovers how cutting-edge science is keeping history afloat.
Presented by Jim Al-Khalili
Produced by Lucy Taylor for BBC Studios
TUE 09:30 All in the Mind (m002kf8c)
The show on how we think, feel and behave. Claudia Hammond delves into the evidence on mental health, psychology and neuroscience.
TUE 10:00 Woman's Hour (m002kf8f)
Women's voices and women's lives - topical conversations to inform, challenge and inspire.
TUE 10:55 A Carnival of Animals (m002kf8h)
The Hummingbird
In this series for BBC Sounds and BBC Radio 4, best-selling author and scholar Katherine Rundell celebrates the lives of twenty astonishing but endangered animals. Each short essay includes fascinating stories that connect natural history with cultural insight, myth and science - revealing how animals have shaped human imagination, and how our choices now shape their survival.
In this episode, Katherine introduces the hummingbird - the smallest living bird, hatched from eggs typically no bigger than a chickpea, and explains how these birds, named for the sound of their wings, see a world far more vivid than ours, thanks to ultraviolet-sensitive cones in their eyes.
We also hear how Queen Victoria’s fascination with hummingbirds helped spark a craze that led to their use in jewellery - and eventually to the founding of the RSPB. Today, more than 10% of hummingbird species are endangered. Katherine explores why we need them - not only for pollination, but as dazzling proof of nature’s ability to evolve in colours beyond our imagination.
Written and Presented by Katherine Rundell
Produced by Natalie Donovan for BBC Audio in Bristol
TUE 11:00 Screenshot (m002k4q4)
Painters and Painting
2025 marks 250 years since the birth of JMW Turner - the great 19th century landscape artist, whose expressive, atmospheric paintings transformed British art. His life and genius was also unforgettably brought to the screen in Mike Leigh’s 2014 film Mr Turner, starring Timothy Spall. Ellen E Jones and Mark Kermode look at the long relationship between cinema and painting.
Mark speaks to cultural historian Professor Sir Christopher Frayling on Hollywood's approach to the history of art, from Kirk Douglas as Van Gogh to Salma Hayek as Frida Kahlo. He then talks to actor Timothy Spall on how playing JMW Turner led to a parallel career as a painter.
Ellen explores the relationship between painting and cinematography with cinematographer Sir Roger Deakins. She also speaks to artist Cathy Lomax on the painterly in cinema - and the cinematic in painting.
Producer: Jane Long
A Prospect Street production for BBC Radio 4
TUE 11:45 Fly, Wild Swans by Jung Chang (m002kf8l)
Episode 2
In this sequel to her memoir Wild Swans, Jung Chang charts her path from arriving as a 26-year-old student in the UK in 1978, through the years of post-Mao liberalisation, to the more recent authoritarian and increasingly repressive rule of President Xi Jinping. The constant thread throughout these years has been her powerful bond with her mother, the woman to whom this book is dedicated.
Jung and her fellow students grew up in complete isolation from the West, and lived in fear as to what might happen if they broke any of the strict rules imposed upon them by their government. The chance to travel to Britain and then to study at York University was an invaluable opportunity. But the freedom of expression that she chose to exercise once she became a British citizen eventually exacted a high price.
Although for many years she was able to return to China and visit her family while researching her subsequent books, there came a point when the political situation meant permanent separation from her mother and those family members who she left behind in China. Today Jung Chang is unable to return to bid farewell to her frail mother who is now in her 90s, but she remains determined to honour the freedom that her mother encouraged her to embrace.
Written by Jung Chang
Read by Sarah Lam
Abridged and Produced by Jill Waters
The Waters Company for BBC Radio 4
TUE 12:00 News Summary (m002kf8p)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
TUE 12:04 You and Yours (m002kf8r)
News and discussion of consumer affairs
TUE 12:57 Weather (m002kf8t)
The latest weather forecast
TUE 13:00 World at One (m002kf8w)
News, analysis and comment from BBC Radio 4
TUE 13:45 Multitrack (m002kf8y)
Lost & Found: The Methodists
Lost & Found: The Methodists is a personal story about a Zimbabwean Mother’s search for a community and spiritual home she thought she had lost forever.
“Standing on the street corner, there were seven people dressed in red and white uniforms. I knew who they were."
Tendayi Pearce, the daughter of a Methodist minister, used to travel from England to Zimbabwe just to enjoy the church songs that she had sung as a child, until one day, her son saw a group of women wearing the traditional Zimbabwean Methodist church uniforms in Southend-on-Sea.
Tendayi tells the story of her journey to Britain and the loss of her connection to the church she had grown up with, before this chance encounter resulted in her connecting with hundreds of Zimbabweans across the country, long forgotten school friends, and creating her own branch of the church in Milton Keynes.
Lost and Found: The Methodists is a story about searching for something that was intrinsic to you and the magic that can happen once it is found again. It is a story of immigration and community which is rarely talked about - the connecting of communities across the country, which has a positive ripple effect on the individuals found within it, as well as the 'traditional British' communities and institutions.
Written, presented and produced by Daniel Pearce
Featuring Tendayi Pearce, Martin Nyampingidza & Annah Mwadiwa
Sound Design and Editing: Daniel Pearce
Choir Recording and TX Mastering: Jerry Peal
Exec Producer: Gordon Kennedy
Music recorded at Freeman Memorial Methodist Church, Bletchley
Featuring The Milton Keynes Zimbabwean Fellowship Choir and Shalom Trumpet
An Absolutely production for BBC Radio 4
Commissioned in association with the Multitrack Audio Producers Fellowship for new talent in feature-making
TUE 14:00 The Archers (m002kf90)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Monday]
TUE 14:15 Drama on 4 (m001c6tr)
I’ve Been So Touched
Zarah has been sexually assaulted at work. Her two best friends Aisha and Ceri are on hand with love, jokes, kids' drinks and a lift home to Wales. Leila Navabi's new hard hitting comedy drama about the healing power of real friends starts with an assault and ends with a hug.
This drama includes frank and sometimes graphic conversations about a sexual assault.
CAST
Zarah - Zadeiah Campbell-Davies
Aisha - Ashna Rabheru
Ceri - Georgia Henshaw
Hamish - Simon Armstrong
Sound by Nigel Lewis
Produced by John Norton
for BBC Audio Wales
TUE 15:00 History's Heroes (m002kf92)
History's Toughest Heroes
Peter Freuchen: Surviving the Arctic Wilderness
An arctic explorer is trapped in a snow drift the size of a coffin. How will he survive frostbite and make it out alive?
In History's Toughest Heroes, Ray Winstone tells ten true stories of adventurers, rebels and survivors who lived life on the edge.
Danish born Peter Freuchen looked like a Viking, 6ft 7, huge beard, massive furs. His life was one non-stop adventure. He started out as well-to-do young man in Copenhagen – destined for a life as a doctor. But there was a race for the North Pole going on, and explorers would pass through the city to tell their incredible stories. Freuchen was inspired. He dropped out of medical school and joined an expedition to the extreme north. From that moment on, his life was fraught with danger, severed limbs, murderous wolves and lost dogs, extreme isolation and loneliness and very unlikely survival. He was undefeated by the frozen desert of the arctic and, as the century wore on, by Nazi oppression, even by the dazzling glare of Hollywood celebrity.
A BBC Studios production for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds.
Producer: Suniti Somaiya
Executive Producer: Paul Smith
Written by Imogen Robertson
Commissioning editor for Radio 4: Rhian Roberts
TUE 15:30 Beyond Belief (m002kf94)
Series exploring the place and nature of faith in today's world.
TUE 16:00 Artworks (m002kf96)
Ways of Not Seeing
For decades, art galleries have provided blind visitors with audio descriptions of paintings in their collections. But these descriptions are often only dry, “objective” accounts of the fabulous artworks they aimed to represent. Now, a new world of imaginative audio description is emerging, and it promises to transform the experience of art galleries for blind and sighted people alike.
Our guide to these new approaches is blind writer Joseph Rizzo Naudi, who takes us on a search for a highly unusual oil painting by the Dutch Golden Age painter, Frans Hals. Join him as this elusive painting is brought to life by a unique group of blind and not-so-blind describers, and experience for yourself a fascinating approach to visual art that depends not so much on what we see, but what we say.
Featuring Georgina Kleege, Professor Emeritus of English, University of California, Berkeley; Hannah Thompson, Professor of French and Critical Disability Studies, Royal Holloway, University of London; Maria Oshodi, writer, theatre director and CEO of Extant; Bart Cornelis, Curator of Dutch and Flemish Paintings 1600-1800, The National Gallery; Elina Cerla; Harshadha Balasubramanian and Katy Tarbard, Gallery Educator The National Gallery.
Writer and presenter: Joseph Rizzo Naudi
Producer: Michael Umney
Executive Producer: Susan Marling
Mixing Engineer: Chris O’Shaugnessy
Original poem written and read by Ella Frears
Standard Art Description written and read by Megan McKie-Smith
John Berger’s essay “The Hals Mystery” appeared in The Threepenny Review (no. 10, Summer 1982)
Joseph Rizzo Naudi is supported by the Techne AHRC Doctoral Training Partnership
With special thanks to Margherita di Ceglie, Anne Fay, Karen Elsea and Alexandra Moskalenko at the National Gallery for their support.
Programme image shows a detail from Frans Hals, Portrait of a Woman with a Fan, about 1640 © The National Gallery, London.
TUE 16:30 What's Up Docs? (m002kf98)
What can natural spaces do for my health?
Welcome to What’s Up Docs?, the podcast where doctors and identical twins Chris and Xand van Tulleken tackle the confusion around every aspect of our health and wellbeing.
In this special episode, Chris and Xand are out of the studio and into the woods, exploring something a little different - the connection between nature and our health.
You’ve probably heard claims that just being in green spaces can boost your mood, help you recover from illness, and even lower your stress. But how much of that is really backed by science, and how much is just the latest wellness fad? They want to know everything from the trend of ‘forest bathing’ to whether a wild forest really does more for us than a city park, and what ‘getting back to nature’ actually means in our modern world. To do this they are joined by Dame Kathy Willis, Professor of Biodiversity at Oxford University.
If you want to get in touch, you can email whatsupdocs@bbc.co.uk or WhatsApp us on 08000 665 123.
Presenters: Drs Chris and Xand van Tulleken
Guest: Professor Kathy Willis
Producer: Jo Rowntree
Executive Producer: Rami Tzabar
Editor: Kirsten Lass
Assistant Producer: Maia Miller-Lewis
Researcher: Grace Revill
Tech Lead: Reuben Huxtable
Social Media: Leon Gower
Digital Lead: Richard Berry
Composer: Phoebe McFarlane
Sound Design: Melvin Rickarby
At the BBC:
Assistant Commissioner: Greg Smith
Commissioning Editor: Rhian Roberts
A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4
TUE 17:00 PM (m002kf9b)
News and current affairs, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines
TUE 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m002kf9d)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
TUE 18:30 Mark Steel's in Town (m002kf9g)
Series 14
1. Oakham
First stop of the new series is Oakham, nestled in the UK’s smallest county – Rutland.
Oakham is proudly twinned with Paris (even if the Parisians don’t know), has Europe’s largest man-made lake (which required flooding a local village) and hangs its horseshoes the other way round (so the devil falls out, obviously).
Joining Mark is Clare Balding, who’s also in town to take him on a ramble around Rutland, which you can hear in Ramblings, this Thursday on Radio 4.
This is the 14th series of Mark's award winning show where he travels around the country visiting towns that have nothing in common but their uniqueness. After thoroughly researching each town, Mark writes and performs a bespoke evening of comedy for a local audience. As well as Oakham, in this series, Mark be will also be popping to Wrexham, Cambridge, Lewisham and, Lerwick and Unst in Shetland.
There will also be extended versions of each episode available on BBC sounds.
Written and performed by Mark Steel
Additional material by Pete Sinclair
Production co-ordinator Caroline Barlow and Katie Baum
Sound Manager Jerry Peal
Producer Carl Cooper
A BBC Studios production for Radio 4
TUE 19:00 The Archers (m002kf9k)
Brad sees things from another perspective, and Neil attempts to stay positive.
TUE 19:15 Front Row (m002kf9m)
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
TUE 20:00 File on 4 Investigates (m002k3jm)
News-making original journalism investigating stories at home and abroad
TUE 20:40 In Touch (m002kf9p)
News, views and information for people who are blind or partially sighted
TUE 21:00 How to Play (m002hkx5)
Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique with Anja Bihlmaier and the BBC Philharmonic
The BBC Philharmonic Orchestra and conductor Anja Bihlmaier invite us into their rehearsal room as they prepare for a Proms performance of Hector Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique.
Hector Berlioz was a French composer and his Symphonie Fantastique - first performed in 1830 - is a work of high Romanticism. It is a dramatic five-movement symphony, using vivid orchestral colours and effects to depict the story of a young artist who, driven to despair by unrequited love, falls into an hallucinatory state after taking opium. It progresses through a series of visions and dreams, from a ball and a pastoral scene to a frightening march to the guillotine and a grotesque witches' Sabbath.
Featuring Anja Bihlmaier, conductor; Zoe Beyers, violin; Paul Patrick, percussion; and Kenny Sturgeon, oboe
Thanks to Jess Mills, Stephen Rinker and all at the BBC Philharmonic.
TUE 21:30 The Bottom Line (m002k4kp)
Evan Davis hosts the business conversation show with people at the top giving insight into what matters.
TUE 22:00 The World Tonight (m002kf9r)
In-depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective
TUE 22:45 Helm by Sarah Hall (m002kf9t)
The Centre for Atmospheric Science
An elemental novel from the twice-nominated Booker author of BURNTCOAT and THE WOLF BORDER. Helm, the only named wind in the UK, has scoured the Eden Valley since the dawn of time. When people arrive, Helm becomes the subject of their myth and folklore but, as the Anthropocene takes us all past the point of no return, Helm’s very existence is threatened.
Helm’s peculiarities catch the eye of the intrepid Victorians while, in the present day, there are still investigations to be made near the top of Cross Fell.
Read by Hattie Morahan
Written by Sarah Hall
Abridged by Siân Preece
Produced by Eilidh McCreadie
A BBC Audio Scotland production for BBC Radio 4
TUE 23:00 Natalie Haynes Stands Up for the Classics (m0021j1m)
Series 10
Artemis
Natalie stands up for the goddess Artemis. She's a predator, a hunter, an archer. Goddess of wild creatures, the moon to her brother Apollo's sun, she's not averse to the odd human sacrifice. And if you forget her in your prayers, she's liable to send a really big pig to dig up your orchards.
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 Being Roman with Mary Beard (m001zv1d)
11. Three Lovers and a Funeral
Allia Potestas is a woman remembered in one of the most intriguing and affecting funeral orations of the ancient world. Her lover remembers her diligent application to housework before praising to the skies her beauty and her erotic skills. But he didn’t have Allia to himself. She was shared in a ménage à trois with his male friend. It’s an unusual domestic arrangement and a surprising one to advertise on a tombstone. The lines themselves reveal an enormous amount about Roman morality and the sexual politics of the time, but the story between the lines is even more fascinating. Can we dig beneath the emotional turmoil of the man and guess what Allia herself thought about the arrangement? Mary Beard is joined in Rome by Allison Emmerson of Tulane University to examine this extraordinary funerary monument at the Baths of Diocletian.
Producer: Alasdair Cross
Expert contributors: Allison Emmerson, Tulane University; Helen King, Open University; Mairead McAuley, University College London
Cast: Tyler Cameron as Allius
Special thanks to Museo Nazionale Romano
WEDNESDAY 08 OCTOBER 2025
WED 00:00 Midnight News (m002kf9x)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
WED 00:30 Fly, Wild Swans by Jung Chang (m002kf8l)
[Repeat of broadcast at
11:45 on Tuesday]
WED 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m002kf9z)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping
WED 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m002kfb1)
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 (m002kfb3)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
WED 05:04 BBC Inside Science (m002k4l6)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:30 on Monday]
WED 05:34 Shipping Forecast (m002kfb5)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping
WED 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m002kfb7)
A spiritual comment and prayer to start the day with the Rev Lynne Gibson.
WED 05:45 Farming Today (m002kfb9)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
WED 06:00 Today (m002kglv)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
WED 09:00 More or Less (m002kfn8)
Tim Harford explains - and sometimes debunks - the numbers and statistics used in political debate, the news and everyday life.
WED 09:30 The History Podcast (m002kglx)
The Magnificent O'Connors
2. The Murder of Donk Ambridge
Jimmy O’Connor was a small-time thief, making the most of the opportunities war torn London presented to him. How did he end up in a condemned cell at Pentonville?
On the Easter weekend 1941, a man is murdered in a London suburb. The police have little evidence to go on, and the usual suspects are pulled in for questioning. Among them is 23-year-old Jimmy O’Connor. He’s eventually charged and tried for the crime, though he maintains his innocence. Sentenced to death, the outlook is bleak as Jimmy awaits his final appointment with hangman Albert Pierrepoint.
Presenter: Ragnar O’Connor
Producer: Emily Esson, Victoria McArthur
Research: Elizabeth Ann Duffy, Louise Yeoman
Script Assistant and Additional Research: Marisha Currie
Script Writers: Emily Esson, Jack Kibble-White
Original Music: Lomond Campbell
Theme Music: Barry Jackson
Addition mixing and sound effects: Charlie McPhee, Kayleigh Raphel
Story Consultant: Jack Kibble-White
Script Editor: Graham Russell
Executive Editor: Gillian Wheelan
Commissioning Executive: Tracy Williams
Commissioning Editor: Dan Clarke
A BBC Audio Scotland production for BBC Radio 4
Archive: The Russell Harty Show, ITV, April 1976
Thanks to Cheryl Field, Richard Field and Kirsty Williams
WED 10:00 Woman's Hour (m002kglz)
Women's voices and women's lives - topical conversations to inform, challenge and inspire.
WED 10:55 A Carnival of Animals (m002kgm1)
The Swift
In this series for BBC Sounds and BBC Radio 4, best-selling author and scholar Katherine Rundell celebrates the lives of twenty astonishing but endangered animals. Each short essay includes fascinating stories that connect natural history with cultural insight, myth and science - revealing how animals have shaped human imagination, and how our choices now shape their survival.
In this short essay, written and read by Katherine, we meet the swift - a bird so committed to flight that it spends at least ten months of the year airborne. Over its lifetime, a swift will fly around two million kilometres: enough to reach the moon and back twice, and then once more to the moon. They even sleep on the wing, as witnessed by a First World War pilot who described flying through a motionless flock in the night sky.
Swifts belong to the family Apodidae, from the Greek ápous, meaning “footless” - a reflection of the belief that they had no legs. They do, but if all goes well, they rarely need them. Yet in Britain, swift numbers have dropped by 50% in the last two decades, as nesting sites vanish with the demolition of old buildings.
Written and Presented by Katherine Rundell
Produced by Natalie Donovan for BBC Audio in Bristol
WED 11:00 File on 4 Investigates (m002k3jm)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 on Tuesday]
WED 11:40 This Week in History (m002kfnq)
Fascinating, surprising and eye-opening stories from the past, brought to life.
WED 11:45 Fly, Wild Swans by Jung Chang (m002kgm3)
Episode 3
In this sequel to her memoir Wild Swans, Jung Chang charts her path from arriving as a 26-year-old student in the UK in 1978, through the years of post-Mao liberalisation, to the more recent authoritarian and increasingly repressive rule of President Xi Jinping. The constant thread throughout these years has been her powerful bond with her mother, the woman to whom this book is dedicated.
Jung and her fellow students grew up in complete isolation from the West, and lived in fear as to what might happen if they broke any of the strict rules imposed upon them by their government. The chance to travel to Britain and then to study at York University was an invaluable opportunity. But the freedom of expression that she chose to exercise once she became a British citizen eventually exacted a high price.
Although for many years she was able to return to China and visit her family while researching her subsequent books, there came a point when the political situation meant permanent separation from her mother and those family members who she left behind in China. Today Jung Chang is unable to return to bid farewell to her frail mother who is now in her 90s, but she remains determined to honour the freedom that her mother encouraged her to embrace.
Written by Jung Chang
Read by Sarah Lam
Abridged and Produced by Jill Waters
The Waters Company for BBC Radio 4
WED 12:00 News Summary (m002kgm5)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
WED 12:04 You and Yours (m002kgm7)
News and discussion of consumer affairs
WED 12:57 Weather (m002kgm9)
The latest weather forecast
WED 13:00 World at One (m002kgmc)
News, analysis and comment from BBC Radio 4
WED 13:45 Multitrack (m002kgmf)
The Alcoholic's Tarot
Artist Leon Clowes traces addiction recovery through the lens of a bespoke tarot deck. In a Brighton workshop, Leon invites people touched by addiction to share candid conversations sparked by his alcoholic misfortune-tellings.
The programme explores how addiction speaks to universal human experiences: sadness, resilience, and moments of levity. In partnership with recovery-focused arts organisations in Brighton (small performance adventures and Performing Recovery magazine), The Alcoholic’s Tarot weaves in city textures and intimate storytelling to produce an intimate and poignant portrait of recovery and connection.
Music by Cleon Clowes
Produced by Leon Clowes
Commissioned in association with the Multitrack Audio Producers Fellowship
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4
WED 14:00 The Archers (m002kf9k)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Tuesday]
WED 14:15 Drama on 4 (m002kgmh)
Murder in Aland
Episode 2
In Episode 2, following a violent attack, Pekka awakens in the hospital, haunted by fragmented memories and nightmares. As he pieces together the events surrounding a mysterious death, uncovered audio files hint at lovers, spies and secrets that could destabilise nations.
Pekka follows the clues - but someone is watching, and the danger is closer than he thinks.
Cast:
Pekka ..... Pelle Heikkilä
Mikael ..... Santtu Karvonen
Astrid ..... Laura Malmivaara
Fagerudd ..... Jaana Saarinen
Other parts played by Pääru Oja, Satu Tuuli Karhu, Anna Airola, Thomas Dellinger, Olli Rahkonen, Joel Hirvonen, Asta Sveholm, Akseli Kouki, Riitta Havukainen, Mikko Kouki and Pihla Penttinen
Written by Satu Rasila, Akseli Kouki and Mikko Kouki
Sound Design - Samuli Welin and Steve Bond
Producers - Alex Hollands and Jenni Kaunisto
Director - Mikko Kouki
Recorded in Helsinki, in Finnish and English
A Goldhawk production for YLE Finland and BBC Radio 4
WED 15:00 Money Box (m002kgmk)
The latest news from the world of personal finance
WED 15:30 The Artificial Human (m002kgmm)
Why am I sad when my AI leaves?
According to the Harvard Business Review companionship has become the number one use case for generative Ai. But what if the model gets updated and the Ai chum you've been confiding in and sharing your life with disappears? Who picks up the pieces and do the creators of these technologies be more careful?
Aleks Krotoski and Kevin Fong explore the latest and most high-profile incident of this when Open Ai replaced GPT 4o with GPT 5. At a stroke, all personas that users had shaped their use and careful prompting got wiped causing a wave of emotion from ranging from irritation at the lack forewarning to genuine distress of people denied the opportunity to prepare and say goodbye.
They'll hear from Casey Fiesler, Professor in the Department of Information Science at the University of Colorado Boulder about how this all went down and whether Open Ai could or should have done things differently. They also be joined by Alan Cowan from Hume Ai about how you can create highly personable Ai responsibly.
Presenters: Aleks Krotoski and Kevin Fong
Producer: Peter McManus
Sound: Tim Heffer.
WED 16:00 When It Hits the Fan (m002kgmp)
Who's in the news for all the wrong reasons? With David Yelland and Simon Lewis.
WED 16:15 The Media Show (m002kgmr)
Social media, anti-social media, breaking news, faking news: this is the programme about a revolution in media.
WED 17:00 PM (m002kgmt)
News and current affairs, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines
WED 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m002kgmw)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
WED 18:30 Do Gooders (m002kgmy)
Series 2
6. The OBE
Harriett finds herself in a PR storm after her surprisingly high salary is leaked. Clive, ever the champion of needlessly high pay cheques, jumps to her defence. Elsewhere, the team pursue a new celebrity patron much to Ken’s dismay.
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 (m002kgn0)
Chris makes his feelings clear, and Susan has a brainwave.
WED 19:15 Front Row (m002kgn2)
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
WED 20:00 AntiSocial (m002k4pf)
News and discussion of consumer affairs
WED 20:45 Superhead (m00237h7)
Episode 1 - A Delight in Class
John Dickens has been investigating Trevor Averre-Beeson for the best part of a decade. Averre-Beeson was once one of the most prominent examples of the generation of “Superheads” that Tony Blair and Michael Gove backed in turn to help transform failing schools in Britain. He built an education empire around a large academy trust, Lilac Sky.
But in 2016, that empire suddenly and rapidly collapsed, sparking a scandal that sent shockwaves through the world of education.
John Dickens explores the inside story behind the rise and fall of one of Britain’s most charismatic educators, and investigates whether the rapid growth - and precipitous collapse - of Lilac Sky exposes weaknesses in regulation that the government has failed to fully reckon with.
In Episode 1, John goes back to the beginning, hearing the story of Trevor's emergence as one of the original "Superheads".
Producers: Robert Nicholson and Charlie Towler
Sound Design: Tom Brignell
Executive Producer: David Prest
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4
WED 21:00 The Life Scientific (m002kf89)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 on Tuesday]
WED 21:30 All in the Mind (m002kf8c)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:30 on Tuesday]
WED 22:00 The World Tonight (m002kgn5)
In-depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective
WED 22:45 Helm by Sarah Hall (m002kgn7)
Who Will Build the Cross?
An elemental novel from the twice-nominated Booker author of BURNTCOAT and THE WOLF BORDER. Helm, the only named wind in the UK, has scoured the Eden Valley since the dawn of time. When people arrive, Helm becomes the subject of their myth and folklore but, as the Anthropocene takes us all past the point of no return, Helm’s very existence is threatened.
Michael Lang’s divine plan becomes clearer as a diabolical threat is made against Long Meg and her Sisters.
Read by Hattie Morahan
Written by Sarah Hall
Abridged by Siân Preece
Produced by Eilidh McCreadie
A BBC Audio Scotland production for BBC Radio 4
WED 23:00 Ria Lina Gets Forensic (m002k6q8)
Series 1
5. Electrical Muscle Stimulation (EMS)
Former-forensic-scientist-turned-current-stand-up-comedian Ria Lina examines the gap between the science we’re sold by the beauty and fitness industry and the science that’s done in a lab – particularly when it comes to exercises and treatments that boast anti-aging effects.
This episode, she’s joined by real-life Baroness Ayesha Hazarika to try Electrical Muscle Stimulation (EMS).
Featuring Ria Lina and Ayesha Hazarika
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 (m002kgn9)
Series 14
Episode 5
Jon Holmes brings you the week's biggest stories like you've never heard them before.
WED 23:30 Being Roman with Mary Beard (m002020b)
12. The Wolf of Via Vesuvio
Lucius Caecilius Iucundus kept the economic wheels of Pompeii well greased. He was a middle man doing very nicely - part money-lender, part auctioneer, part banker, all hustler.
Thanks to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius and the preservation of the ruins of Pompeii, we can still visit his house, look at his bronze portrait, and read his account books. 150 tablets of receipts, carbonised in the destruction of Pompeii, lead us through the deals that keep the city’s economy moving. If you want to buy a Ferrari-level horse but only have the cash for a Fiesta then Iucundus is your man. It might look like dry stuff, but it's as revealing of real life as snooping on someone’s Paypal account or leafing through their credit card receipts might be now. Never mind imperial plunder and luxury lifestyles, it’s a glimpse of how the economy works in a regular town.
Mary Beard visits Iucundus's home and talks to the novelist Robert Harris about his fascination with the Pompeii moneylender.
Producer: Alasdair Cross
Expert Contributors: Sophie Hay, Parco Archeologico di Pompei; Matthew Nicholls, Oxford University
Special thanks to National Archaeological Museum, Naples and Parco Archeologico di Pompei
THURSDAY 09 OCTOBER 2025
THU 00:00 Midnight News (m002kgnc)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
THU 00:30 Fly, Wild Swans by Jung Chang (m002kgm3)
[Repeat of broadcast at
11:45 on Wednesday]
THU 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m002kgnf)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping
THU 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m002kgnh)
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 (m002kgnk)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
THU 05:04 More or Less (m002kfn8)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 on Wednesday]
THU 05:34 Shipping Forecast (m002kgnm)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping
THU 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m002kgnp)
A spiritual comment and prayer to start the day with the Rev Lynne Gibson.
THU 05:45 Farming Today (m002kgnr)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
THU 06:00 Today (m002kgr6)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
THU 09:00 In Our Time (m002kt25)
The Moon
After 27 years, Melvyn Bragg has decided to step down from the In Our Time presenter’s chair. With over a thousand episodes to choose from, he has selected just six that capture the huge range and depth of the subjects he and his experts have tackled. In this first pick, we hear Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the origins, science and mythology of the moon.
Humans have been fascinated by our only known satellite since prehistory. In some cultures the Moon has been worshipped as a deity; in recent centuries there has been lively debate about its origins and physical characteristics. Although other planets in our solar system have moons ours is, relatively speaking, the largest, and is perhaps more accurately described as a 'twin planet'; the past, present and future of the Earth and the Moon are locked together. Only very recently has water been found on the Moon - a discovery which could prove to be invaluable if human colonisation of the Moon were ever to occur.
Mankind first walked on the Moon in 1969, but it is debatable how important this huge political event was in developing our scientific knowledge. The advances of space science, including data from satellites and the moon landings, have given us some startling insights into the history of our own planet, but many intriguing questions remain unanswered.
With:
Paul Murdin
Visiting Professor of Astronomy at Liverpool John Moores University
Carolin Crawford
Gresham Professor of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge
Ian Crawford
Reader in Planetary Science and Astrobiology at Birkbeck College, London.
Producer: Natalia Fernandez
THU 09:45 Strong Message Here (m002kgrb)
Armando Iannucci and guests decode the utterly baffling world of political language.
THU 10:00 Woman's Hour (m002kgrd)
Women's voices and women's lives - topical conversations to inform, challenge and inspire.
THU 10:55 A Carnival of Animals (m002kgrg)
The Pig
In this series for BBC Sounds and BBC Radio 4, best-selling author and scholar Katherine Rundell celebrates the lives of twenty astonishing but endangered animals. Each short essay includes stories that connect natural history with cultural insight, myth and science - revealing how animals have shaped human imagination, and how our choices now shape their survival.
In this episode, Katherine introduces us to Lulu, a black potbellied pig who once saved a human’s life - a reminder of the pig’s intelligence. We learn that pigs can distinguish between different types of music, and some have even learned to play video games. The largest pig on record was Big Bill, who weighed 1,100kg - as much as a VW Beetle with a lion inside. But their size can also make them dangerous: in 14th-century Normandy, one was tried and sentenced in a court of law for killing a child.
Despite their strength and intelligence, some pig species are now critically endangered. One of them, the Visayan Warty Pig, has piglets with go-faster stripes along their backs and adults with extravagant bouffant hair. The pig may even be the subject of the world’s oldest known animal art - a 45,000-year-old cave painting of the Sulawesi Warty Pig, now listed as near-threatened. Whether it survives another 45,000 years - or even another hundred - is up to us.
Written and Presented by Katherine Rundell
Produced by Natalie Donovan for BBC Audio in Bristol
THU 11:00 This Cultural Life (m002kgrj)
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 Fly, Wild Swans by Jung Chang (m002kgrl)
Episode 4
In this sequel to her memoir Wild Swans, Jung Chang charts her path from arriving as a 26-year-old student in the UK in 1978, through the years of post-Mao liberalisation, to the more recent authoritarian and increasingly repressive rule of President Xi Jinping. The constant thread throughout these years has been her powerful bond with her mother, the woman to whom this book is dedicated.
Jung and her fellow students grew up in complete isolation from the West, and lived in fear as to what might happen if they broke any of the strict rules imposed upon them by their government. The chance to travel to Britain and then to study at York University was an invaluable opportunity. But the freedom of expression that she chose to exercise once she became a British citizen eventually exacted a high price.
Although for many years she was able to return to China and visit her family while researching her subsequent books, there came a point when the political situation meant permanent separation from her mother and those family members who she left behind in China. Today Jung Chang is unable to return to bid farewell to her frail mother who is now in her 90s, but she remains determined to honour the freedom that her mother encouraged her to embrace.
Written by Jung Chang
Read by Sarah Lam
Abridged and Produced by Jill Waters
The Waters Company for BBC Radio 4
THU 12:00 News Summary (m002kgrn)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
THU 12:04 The Bottom Line (m002kgrq)
Evan Davis hosts the business conversation show with people at the top giving insight into what matters.
THU 12:32 Sliced Bread (m002kgrs)
Greg Foot investigates the so-called wonder products making bold claims.
THU 12:57 Weather (m002kgrv)
The latest weather forecast
THU 13:00 World at One (m002kgrx)
News, analysis and comment from BBC Radio 4
THU 13:45 Multitrack (m002kgrz)
Song of the Deer
Song of the Deer reimagines the monumental 18th Century Gaelic poem, Moladh Beinn Dobhrain - In Praise of Beinn Dorain - a celebrated Munro in the Scottish Highlands.
We join Niall Rowantree, a modern-day forester and deer stalker, as he hunts his prey and uncovers the secrets of this revered animal. Kathleen MacInnes voices the perspective of a hind as she moves through the landscape.
The original poem was created by Duncan Ban MacIntyre and it was translated in 2021 by Gary MacKenzie. This documentary explores the relationship between highlanders, their landscape, and the ecology around them.
Producers: Uilleam MacCormaig, Flora Zajicek
Produced in Scotland by The Big Light for BBC Radio 4
Commissioned in association with the Multitrack Audio Producers Fellowship for new talent in feature-making
THU 14:00 The Archers (m002kgn0)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Wednesday]
THU 14:15 Drama on 4 (m002kgs1)
The Lovers
By Andy Grace Edwards.
Poignant drama about love, art and the healing power of a big old walk.
Sam and Liv’s are a couple and a performance artist collective. But their personal and artistic relationships have reached a fork in the road, so they turn to their favourite performance artists in search of inspiration.
Marina Abramovic and Ulay once walked The Great Wall of China for their art. Now Sam and Liv will walk the Southern Upland Way...
Cast in Order of Appearance:
Liv … Chloe Ann Tyler
Sam … Reuben Joseph
Dee … Wendy Seager
Helen … Anne Lacey
Original music by Fraser Jackson
Sound Design by Andy Hay
Production Co-ordinator: Rosalind Gibson
Directed by Kirsty Williams
THU 15:00 Ramblings (m002kgs3)
Clare Balding's in Town!
Clare Balding’s In Town! To kick off the new series, Clare is walking in Rutland with comedian Mark Steel. Since they’re in the same place at the same time, Clare is also making a cameo appearance on Mark’s hugely successful Radio 4 show, Mark Steel’s In Town, in Oakham, Rutland’s largest town.
Mark has been making In Town for 450 years (he told us) and each show involves intense research before he performs a stand-up routine about the area to a local audience. As Clare and Mark amble around the Hambleton Peninsula, which stretches into Rutland Water, Mark and his producer Carl Cooper discuss what it takes to pull together an episode of In Town.
Mark also discusses the theme of his new book, Leopard in My House, about his recovery from cancer. Guiding Mark and Clare is keen local walker Richard Cooper, who has lived in the area for 20 years and is both knowledgeable and passionate about Rutland. Mark Steel's In Town – Oakham, Rutland will be broadcast on Tuesday, 7 October, with Ramblings following on the 9th... with both available forever on BBC Sounds...
Map: OS Explorer 234 - Rutland Water
Map Ref: SK901075 for Ketton Road where they started the walk
Presenter: Clare Balding
Producer: Karen Gregor
A BBC Studios production for BBC Radio 4
THU 15:27 Radio 4 Appeal (m002kfhy)
[Repeat of broadcast at
07:54 on Sunday]
THU 15:30 Feedback (m002kgs5)
The programme that holds the BBC to account on behalf of the radio audience
THU 16:00 The Briefing Room (m002kgs7)
David Aaronovitch presents in-depth explainers on big issues in the news.
THU 16:30 BBC Inside Science (m002kgs9)
A weekly programme that illuminates the mysteries and challenges the controversies behind the science that's changing our world.
THU 17:00 PM (m002kgsc)
News and current affairs, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines
THU 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m002kgsf)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
THU 18:30 Call Jonathan Pie (p0fst5cb)
4. Race
After a night of riots in Sam’s home town, Pie makes a stupid remark and Sam takes umbrage. Pie takes to the airwaves to prove his non-racist credentials, but ends up looking like a slice of Gammon on the side of the road. Sam and Pie make up and soon Jules is thinking that she herself might be a bit racist because she didn’t like a film that Sam likes. It's all gets a bit silly really.
Jonathan Pie ..... Tom Walker
Jules ..... Lucy Pearman
Sam ..... Aqib Khan
Roger ..... Nick Revell
Agent ..... Daniel Abelson
Voiceovers ..... Bob Sinfield and Rob Curling
Callers ... Cole Anderson-James, Ellie Dobing, Sarah Gabriel, Ed Kear, Hope Leslie, Thanyia Moore and Jonathan Tafler
Writer ..... Tom Walker
Script Editor ..... Nick Revell
Additional Material ..... Daniel Abelson
Producers..... Alison Vernon-Smith
and Julian Mayers
Production Coordinator ..... Ellie Dobing
Original music composed by Jason Read
Additional music Leighton James House
A Yada-Yada Audio Production.
THU 19:00 The Archers (m002kfmx)
Emotions run high for Will, and things don't go to plan for George.
THU 19:15 Front Row (m002kgsj)
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
THU 20:00 When It Hits the Fan (m002kgmp)
[Repeat of broadcast at
16:00 on Wednesday]
THU 20:15 The Media Show (m002kgmr)
[Repeat of broadcast at
16:15 on Wednesday]
THU 21:00 Loose Ends (m002kf5b)
[Repeat of broadcast at
18:15 on Saturday]
THU 21:45 Strong Message Here (m002kgrb)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 today]
THU 22:00 The World Tonight (m002kgsl)
In depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective
THU 22:45 Helm by Sarah Hall (m002kgsn)
Apocalypse/Various
An elemental novel from the twice-nominated Booker author of BURNTCOAT and THE WOLF BORDER. Helm, the only named wind in the UK, has scoured the Eden Valley since the dawn of time. When people arrive, Helm becomes the subject of their myth and folklore but, as the Anthropocene takes us all past the point of no return, Helm’s very existence is threatened.
Selima meets depressingly familiar attitudes on Great Dun Fell as NaNay counfounds expectations and returns from the mountain.
Read by Hattie Morahan
Written by Sarah Hall
Abridged by Siân Preece
Produced by Eilidh McCreadie
A BBC Audio Scotland production for BBC Radio 4
THU 23:00 Radical with Amol Rajan (m002kgsq)
Conversations about tomorrow, from Today.
THU 23:30 Artworks (m002kf96)
[Repeat of broadcast at
16:00 on Tuesday]
FRIDAY 10 OCTOBER 2025
FRI 00:00 Midnight News (m002kgss)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
FRI 00:30 Fly, Wild Swans by Jung Chang (m002kgrl)
[Repeat of broadcast at
11:45 on Thursday]
FRI 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m002kgsv)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping
FRI 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m002kgsx)
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 (m002kgsz)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
FRI 05:04 The Briefing Room (m002kgs7)
[Repeat of broadcast at
16:00 on Thursday]
FRI 05:34 Shipping Forecast (m002kgt1)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping
FRI 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m002kgt3)
A spiritual comment and prayer to start the day with the Rev Lynne Gibson.
FRI 05:45 Farming Today (m002kgt5)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
FRI 06:00 Today (m002kfm8)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
FRI 09:00 Desert Island Discs (m002kfjb)
[Repeat of broadcast at
10:00 on Sunday]
FRI 10:00 Woman's Hour (m002kfmb)
Women's voices and women's lives - topical conversations to inform, challenge and inspire.
FRI 10:55 A Carnival of Animals (m002kfmd)
The Golden Mole
In this episode acclaimed writer Katherine Rundell introduces us to the golden mole - a creature so rare in its beauty, it seems almost mythical. Iridescent fur, shifting through black, silver, turquoise and gold, makes it one of the few mammals to glow.
Golden moles are miniature powerhouses. Their kidneys are so efficient that many species never need to drink water. Their hearing is extraordinary: the bone in their middle ear is so large and sensitive that they can detect the vibrations of insects moving above them. There are twenty-one known species, all found in sub-Saharan Africa - and more than half are threatened with extinction due to pollution and habitat loss.
Perhaps the greatest mystery is why they shine. Unlike butterflies or hummingbirds, which use iridescence to communicate or attract mates, the golden mole is blind and lives almost entirely underground. Scientists believe its shimmering fur evolved for low-friction burrowing - the glow is a by-product, not a signal. They burrow, breed and hunt, unaware of their brilliance -unknowingly shining.
Written and Presented by Katherine Rundell
Produced by Natalie Donovan for BBC Audio in Bristol
FRI 11:00 The Food Programme (m002kfmg)
The Food Innovators: 2025
Dan Saladino meets people behind pioneering projects rethinking the future of chocolate, seafood and food forests. Which one will win this year's BBC Best Food Innovation Award?
Produced and presented by Dan Saladino.
FRI 11:45 Fly, Wild Swans by Jung Chang (m002kfmj)
Episode 5
In this sequel to her memoir Wild Swans, Jung Chang charts her path from arriving as a 26-year-old student in the UK in 1978, through the years of post-Mao liberalisation, to the more recent authoritarian and increasingly repressive rule of President Xi Jinping. The constant thread throughout these years has been her powerful bond with her mother, the woman to whom this book is dedicated.
Jung and her fellow students grew up in complete isolation from the West, and lived in fear as to what might happen if they broke any of the strict rules imposed upon them by their government. The chance to travel to Britain and then to study at York University was an invaluable opportunity. But the freedom of expression that she chose to exercise once she became a British citizen eventually exacted a high price.
Although for many years she was able to return to China and visit her family while researching her subsequent books, there came a point when the political situation meant permanent separation from her mother and those family members who she left behind in China. Today Jung Chang is unable to return to bid farewell to her frail mother who is now in her 90s, but she remains determined to honour the freedom that her mother encouraged her to embrace.
Written by Jung Chang
Read by Sarah Lam
Abridged and Produced by Jill Waters
The Waters Company for BBC Radio 4
FRI 12:00 News Summary (m002kfml)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
FRI 12:04 AntiSocial (m002kfmn)
News and discussion of consumer affairs
FRI 12:57 Weather (m002kfmq)
The latest weather forecast
FRI 13:00 World at One (m002kfms)
News, analysis and comment from BBC Radio 4
FRI 13:45 Multitrack (m002kfmv)
A Northerner’s Guide to London
In this satirical audio fiction, in the style of a 1940s public information film, lost northerner Ben is given crucial support on a make-or-break work trip to London.
Writer, producer and sound designer: Antonia Gospel
Executive producer: Carys Wall
Script consultant: Tom McLean
Additional sound design and mixing by Jonathan Webb.
Voice acting by Freddie Bolt (Ben), Antonia Gospel (The Guide), Patrick Wallace, Amy Howard, Matt Bailey and Nick Bailey.
A Bespoken Media production for BBC Radio 4
Commissioned in association with the Multitrack Audio Producers Fellowship for new talent in feature-making
FRI 14:00 The Archers (m002kfmx)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Thursday]
FRI 14:15 Limelight (m002kfmz)
The Betrayed
Episode 1: Siblings
A five-part drama about a family - and a society - divided by far-right populist extremism.
When Louise a senior officer in the Garda Síochána sees her brother Frank on the news, taking part in an aggressive far-right protest she is shocked. Not least because she is and she had no idea Frank had been influenced by the populist extremists who hurl accusations of being 'traitors' at police and politicians alike.
In the aftermath, Frank's face doesn't show up on CCTV. But when she threatens to have him arrested, he accepts the deal she reluctantly offers - she will cover for him if he promises to stay away from demos and protests.
But then Louise learns that Frank is connected to a much wider network. He's in touch with organised extremists throughout Europe, Louise realises that Frank is on a path that could bring Ireland, and other countries, to the brink of chaos. The time has come to break up his network, whatever the family consequences.
LOUISE KENNY … Niamh Algar
FRANK KENNY … Jonathan Forbes
KEVIN … Stephen Hogan
TONY … Aidan O'Callaghan
DERVLA … Karen Ardiff
MICHAEL GRIFFITHS … Jonathan Harden
MUSA … Amy McAllister
MARYAM … Lara Sawalha
Directed by Eoin O’Callaghan
A Big Fish/BBC Northern Ireland Production for Limelight
FRI 14:45 Untaxing (m0029j9j)
3. Jaffa Cake or Biscuit?
A biscuit or a cake? That was the question that landed biscuit company McVities in court in 1991 - and the fate of the Jaffa Cake rested on the most unexpected piece of evidence.
But behind the absurdity lies a deeper issue - how the UK’s messy VAT system distorts prices, creates baffling tax battles, and might just be costing us over £20 billion a year.
Producer: Tom Pooley
Music: Jaffa Cake Musical is by Gigglemug Theatre, with songs by Sam Cochrane, arrangements by Rob Gathercole, and Katie Pritchard singing 'Tax Man'.
A Tempo+Talker production for BBC Radio 4
FRI 15:00 Gardeners' Question Time (m002kfn2)
Horticultural programme featuring a group of gardening experts.
FRI 15:45 Short Works (m002kfn4)
The Victim
When her ex-boyfriend suddenly vanishes, forensic accountant Natalie decides to turn detective. She's done an online training course, and she's bought a trench coat on Vinted. So what could possibly go wrong? A brand new detective comedy from J.D. Brinkworth, read by Ada Player.
J.D. Brinkworth is an award-winning comedy writer, and the author of The Pie & Mash Detective Agency.
Ada Player (BAFTA nominee) is an actress and comedian, and was nominated for Best Newcomer at the 2025 Edinburgh Fringe.
Producer: Katie Sayer
A Pozzitive production for BBC Radio 4
FRI 16:00 Last Word (m002kfn6)
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 (m002kfn8)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 on Wednesday]
FRI 17:00 PM (m002kfnb)
News and current affairs, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines
FRI 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m002kfnd)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
FRI 18:30 The News Quiz (m002kfng)
Series 118
Episode 6
Topical panel quiz show, taking its questions from the week's news stories.
FRI 19:00 The Archers (m002kfnj)
Writer: Sarah Hehir
Director: Dave Payne
Editor: Jeremy Howe
Jolene Archer.... Buffy Davis
Chris Carter.... Wilf Scolding
Neil Carter.... Brian Hewlett
Susan Carter.... Charlotte Martin
Ruairi Donovan.... Arthur Hughes
Mick Fadmoor.... Martin Barrass
Amber Gordon.... Charlotte Jordan
Clarrie Grundy..... Heather Bell
Ed Grundy..... Barry Farrimond
Eddie Grundy.... Trevor Harrison
Emma Grundy.... Emerald O'Hanrahan
George Grundy.... Angus Stobie
Will Grundy.... Philip Molloy
Brad Horrobin.... Taylor Uttley
Adam Macy.... Andrew Wincott
Paul Mack.... Joshua Riley
Lily Pargetter.... Katie Redford
Fallon Rogers.... Joanna Van Kampen
Prison Guard.... Janice Connolly
FRI 19:15 Screenshot (m002kfnl)
Death
Viewers are so used to seeing death and dying on screen, often in dramatic or unrealistic ways. Ellen and Mark explore how films and TV are drawn to personifications of death, why we need more realistic depictions and who is making them.
Mark speaks to film critic Kim Newman about the way in which personifications of death have been portrayed throughout cinema history, from The Seventh Seal to the Final Destination series. Mark then talks to director Kristen Johnson about her film, Dick Johnson is Dead.
Ellen talks to academic Michele Aaron about how death and dying has been depicted in film and if we need more realistic depictions.
Producer: Hester Cant
A Prospect Street production for BBC Radio 4
FRI 20:00 Any Questions? (m002kfnn)
Topical discussion posing questions to a panel of political and media personalities
FRI 20:55 This Week in History (m002kfnq)
[Repeat of broadcast at
11:40 on Wednesday]
FRI 21:00 Free Thinking (m002kfns)
The status of Science
Held up by some as the paradigm of human knowledge, science is one of the major sources of authority in society today. Scientists develop technologies to make our lives easier and more comfortable. They fight diseases, they have identified and are helping to combat climate change. Yet developments like AI, and in some areas of genetic science, seem to raise ethical dilemmas that scientists on their own can't address. And at a time when some want to challenge the authority of 'experts' across the board, where does that leave the authority of scientists? Shahidha Bari discusses science in society with theologian Dafydd Mills Daniel and others.
Producer: Luke Mulhall
FRI 22:00 The World Tonight (m002kfnv)
In depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective
FRI 22:45 Helm by Sarah Hall (m002kfnx)
Problems, But Not Unsolvable
An elemental novel from the twice-nominated Booker author of BURNTCOAT and THE WOLF BORDER. Helm, the only named wind in the UK, has scoured the Eden Valley since the dawn of time. When people arrive, Helm becomes the subject of their myth and folklore but, as the Anthropocene takes us all past the point of no return, Helm’s very existence is threatened.
Catherine's husband remains unmoved by the solstice harnessing power of Long Meg. Helm pays a destructive visit and leaves a gift for NaNay’s tribe.
Read by Hattie Morahan
Written by Sarah Hall
Abridged by Siân Preece
Produced by Eilidh McCreadie
A BBC Audio Scotland production for BBC Radio 4
FRI 23:00 Americast (w3ct7t61)
Join Americast for insights and analysis on what's happening inside Trump's White House.
FRI 23:30 Illuminated (m002kfkb)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:15 on Sunday]