SATURDAY 02 MAY 2026

SAT 00:00 Midnight News (m002vnh3)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


SAT 00:30 To the Edge of the World by Tilar J Mazzeo (m002sg5k)
Episode 5

Summer 1856. Nineteen-year-old Mary Ann Patten and her husband, Joshua, are young and ambitious. Both from New England seafaring families, they have already completed their first voyage around the world with Joshua as captain. Their dream of building a home and a family is coming within reach. It would mean freedom. But the price of that freedom is one last dangerous transit – a race to deliver supplies to the California Gold Rush.

As their ship leaves New York Harbour and sails down the jagged coast of South America, Joshua falls dangerously ill. The treacherous first mate is imprisoned in the brig for insubordination. With no obvious option for a new captain, Mary Ann steps into the breach forced to take the helm from her husband. Within days she has put down a mutiny and must now attempt to steer this 216’ clipper ship laden with the modern equivalent of $11 million dollars of cargo through Drake’s Passage and around Cape Horn – the most treacherous waters in the world.
Author Tilar J. Mazzeo undertook an expedition of her own to Cape Horn and Antarctica in 2022 to retrace Mary Ann’s footsteps. Drawing on her own first-hand experiences, as well as new archival research into nineteenth century women’s maritime writing, this thrilling adventure blows apart the well-worn image of the meek, retiring nineteenth-century wife.

Read by Nina Bowers.
Written by Tilar J. Mazzeo
Abridged by Katrin Williams
Producer: Lu Kemp

Tilar J Mazzeo is the New York Times bestselling author of more than a half-dozen award-winning non-fiction cultural histories, including Widow Cliquot – now a major Hollywood Film.


SAT 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m002vnh5)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.


SAT 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m002vnh7)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


SAT 05:30 News Summary (m002vnh9)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


SAT 05:34 Shipping Forecast (m002vnhc)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.


SAT 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m002vnhf)
Spiritual reflection to start the day with Fr Philip Blackledge of Holy Trinity Scottish Episcopal Church, Melrose.


SAT 05:45 The Hackers (m0012fsx)
Series 1

The Worm

In 1988, the first major computer worm shook the early internet to his core, disabling computers across the network and even causing panic in the Pentagon. Biella uncovers the story with Eugene Spafford, the first person to analyse the worm that caused so much chaos, and finds out why worms can still be so devastating decades later.


SAT 06:00 News and Papers (m002vwxd)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


SAT 06:07 Open Country (m002vml2)
Roadside Verges

Britain's roadside verges rarely get much attention, but can play host to a whole range of plant and animal species. In this programme Martha Kearney finds out about this overlooked habitat. She meets a community group in East Sussex whose members grow plants at home specially to plant in the verges of their village, and talks to the charity Plantlife about the importance of verges as an environmental habitat. She goes out exploring with artist Nessie Ramm, who focuses on painting the tiny details of roadside verges, and who last year won the New English Art Club Climate Emergency prize for her work entitled 'Reduce Speed Now'.

Producer: Emma Campbell


SAT 06:30 Farming Today (m002vwxg)
02/05/26 Dry April, Agroforestry, Giant greenhouse

Farmers are hoping for more rain in May after an unusually dry and windy April in many part of the UK. The East of England had between 2 and 4 per cent of the expected rainfall last month. We hear from a farmer struggling to plant his crops.
This week we look at agroforestry - that's farming with trees in the mix. We visit farms using trees for different reasons - including providing shade for livestock, adding nutrients to soil, and providing habitats for useful insect predators.
And the UK's second largest greenhouse - which could replace 7 per cent of the tomatoes the UK imports - has been given the go ahead. Rivenhall Greenhouse near Braintree in Essex will cover 40 hectares and use power from a domestic waste incinerator - burning all the black bag waste from the county.
Presented by Charlotte Smith and produced by Sally Challoner.


SAT 06:57 Weather (m002vwxj)
The latest weather reports and forecast


SAT 07:00 Today (m002vwxl)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.


SAT 09:00 Saturday Live (m002vwxn)
02/05/26

Radio 4's Saturday morning show brings you extraordinary stories and remarkable people.


SAT 10:00 What's Up Docs? (m002vmdt)
Should you improve your balance?

Welcome to What’s Up Docs?, the podcast where doctors and identical twins Chris and Xand van Tulleken tune in to the ideas shaping our health and wellbeing.

In this episode, they turn their attention to balance. Where does it come from, why is it so important for our health, and do some people naturally have better balance than others? They also explore how much we can improve it, and what we should be doing to maintain it.

To help them find their balance, they’re joined by physiotherapist and vestibular rehabilitation specialist, Maggie Stacey.

Falls can have serious consequences for our health and wellbeing, especially as we get older. If you've fallen or are worried about falling, doing exercises to improve your strength, balance and flexibility can help make you stronger and feel more confident on your feet. The current UK fall prevention guidelines advise that adults over the age of 65 should:

- be physically active every day, even if it's just light activity
- do activities that improve strength, balance and flexibility on at least 2 days a week
- do at least 150 minutes of moderate intensity activity a week or 75 minutes of vigorous intensity activity if you are already active, or a combination of both
- reduce time spent sitting or lying down and break up long periods of not moving with some activity

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

Presenters: Drs Chris and Xand van Tulleken
Guest: Maggie Stacey
Producer: Maia Miller-Lewis
Executive Producer: Rami Tzabar
Editor: Jo Rowntree
Researcher: Grace Revill
Tech Lead: Reuben Huxtable
Visuals Producer: Leon Gower
Digital Lead: Richard Berry
Composer: Phoebe McFarlane
Sound Design: Ruth Rainey

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

A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4


SAT 10:30 The Kitchen Cabinet (m002vwxq)
Series 52

Swindon

Jay Rayner is joined by chefs, cooks and food writers, Tim Hayward, Lerato, Melissa Thompson and Angela Gray at the Swindon Arts Centre to talk roast pork, tuna and the items they would add to a railway buffet.

With Swindon’s pig‑hill roots in mind, the panellists explore what makes the perfect roast pork, from choosing the right cut to methods of achieving proper crackling.

They also discuss how cheesy a cheesecake should really be, whether steaks should be thick or thin, and relive some discomfort as they describe the foods that they feel should never be eaten cold.

And, as World Tuna Day approaches, opinions are divided on canned tuna, with the panel debating oil versus brine and offering ideas to take this ingredient far beyond the realms of tuna mayo and pasta bakes.

Producer: Dan Cocker
Assistant Producer: William Norton

A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4


SAT 11:00 The Week in Westminster (m002vwxs)
Radio 4's assessment of developments at Westminster


SAT 11:30 From Our Own Correspondent (m002vwxv)
Trump, the King, and a special relationship

Kate Adie introduces stories on the King and Queen's visit to Washington, the current mood inside Iran, elections in Gaza and the West Bank, and why fish are front and centre in the politics of West Bengal.

King Charles and Queen Camilla's state visit to Washington came at a fragile moment in the UK-US relationship. A gulf has opened up between the two nations over issues such as Ukraine, defence spending, tariffs, and the Iran War. Sarah Smith reflects on how far the visit has helped restore the 'special relationship'.

Donald Trump’s admiration for the traditions of the Royal Family was on full display during the visit, as he praised the King as an ‘elegant man’. Sean Coughlan has travelled with the King on previous tours, and reflects on what made this one different.

Inflation has soared to 50 per cent in Iran and people continue to struggle with rising prices of staples such as rice, eggs and cheese, as the stand-off in the Strait of Hormuz continues to disrupt trade. Lyse Doucet reflects on her recent encounters while visiting Tehran.

Municipal elections were held last weekend in the occupied West Bank and Gaza. Hamas was officially excluded from participating, as the Palestinian Authority requires parties and candidates to recognise the state of Israel - something Hamas refuses to do. Jon Donnison has been in Ramallah.

And in West Bengal a fierce state election battle is underway. Indian PM Narendra Modi's BJP has mounted an aggressive push to unseat the Trinamool Congress party which is seeking a fourth consecutive term. Soutik Biswas reveals how a culinary tradition has become a surprising hot-button issue.

Series Producer: Serena Tarling
Production Coordinators: Katie Morrison and Sophie Hill
Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith


SAT 12:00 News Summary (m002vwxx)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


SAT 12:04 Money Box (m002vwxz)
NS&I Delays and Youth Unemployment

Some bereaved listeners whose relatives had money put away with National Savings and Investments are facing weeks and months of delay in getting their own money. It comes as NS&I works to track down the accounts of tens of thousands of people who had died, after it admitted keeping nearly half a billion pounds in its coffers that should have been passed to their estates. The state-owned bank has apologised and says its working hard on its plan to ensure those affected are paid what is owed to them, along with returning the processing of current and new bereavement claims to their normal time-frame.

The cost of borrowing has been held steady by the Bank of England. On Thursday its Monetary Policy Committee held the Bank Rate at 3.75%. How is that affecting mortgage deals?

And, how can young people, who’re out of work, find a job? Dan Whitworth reports on a scheme run by the charity Spear to address barriers to work. It comes as University College London publishes research which finds being out of work and education between ages 16 and 24 has long-term consequences for people’s employment and finances in midlife.

Presenter: Paul Lewis
Reporters: Dan Whitworth and Jo Krasner
Researcher: Catherine Lund
Editor: Jess Quayle
Senior News Editor: Sara Wadeson

(First broadcast 12pm, Saturday 2nd May 2026)


SAT 12:30 The News Quiz (m002vngk)
Series 120

3. When the King came round for tea

This week you’re all cordially invited to join us for King Charles’ state visit to Donald Trump’s White House. Please dress to impress. We’ll also be digging into the state of the nation ahead of the upcoming elections on 7th May. Plus, what do we think about MPs drinking at work?

Written by Andy Zaltzman.

With additional material by: Matt Hulme, Eleri Morgan, Joe Topping and Angela Channell
Producer: Georgia Keating
Executive Producer: James Robinson
Production Coordinator: Asha Osborne-Grinter
Sound Editor: Marc Willcox

A BBC Studios Production for Radio 4.


SAT 12:57 Weather (m002vwy1)
The latest weather forecast


SAT 13:00 News (m002vwy3)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


SAT 13:10 Any Questions? (m002vngr)
Hilary Benn MP, Robbie Moore MP, Lisa Smart MP, Gawain Towler

Alex Forsyth presents political debate from Grassington Town Hall in North Yorkshire with the secretary of state for Northern Ireland, Labour MP Hilary Benn; Conservative MP and shadow environment minister, Robbie Moore; the Liberal Democrats' Cabinet Office spokesperson Lisa Smart MP; and Reform UK board member, Gawain Towler.

Producer: Paul Martin
Assistant Producer: Jo Dwyer
Production Coordinator: Ishmael Soriano
Lead broadcaster engineer: Mike Smith
Editor: Colin Paterson


SAT 14:05 Any Answers? (m002vwy5)
Listeners respond to the issues raised in the preceding edition of Any Questions?


SAT 14:45 The Archers (m002vngm)
26th April – 1st May 2026
Writer: Tim Stimpson
Director: Mel Ward
Editor: Jeremy Howe

Brian Aldridge … Charles Collingwood
Ben Archer … Ben Norris
David Archer …Timothy Bentinck
Ruth Archer … Felicity Finch
Helen Archer … Louiza Patikas 
Natasha Archer … Mali Harries 
Tom Archer … William Troughton 
Lilian Bellamy … Sunny Ormonde
Alice Carter … Hollie Chapman 
Chris Carter … Wilf Scolding
Susan Carter … Charlotte Martin
Ian Craig …  Stephen Kennedy 
Amber Gordon … Olivia Bernstone
George Grundy … Angus Stobie
Bert Horrobin…  David Sterne
Tracy Horrobin … Susie Riddell 
Adam Macy … Andrew Wincott  
Kirsty Miller …. Annabelle Dowler 
Lottie Summers ... Bonnie Baddoo
Erik Hakansson … Steven Hartley
Debbie Aldridge ... Tamsin Greig


SAT 15:00 Hardy's Women (m000wjf6)
Jude the Obscure

Episode 1

Sue Bridehead relates the story of Wessex stonemason, Jude Fawley, who aspires to be a scholar at the university of Christminster. But an early romance threatens to blow him off course. Starring Robert Emms, Kirsty Oswald, Elinor Coleman and Julius D'Silva. Dramatised by Graham White.

Directed by Emma Harding

Sue ..... Kirsty Oswald
Young Jude ..... Hector Bateman-Harden
Jude ..... Robert Emms
Drusilla ..... Jane Slavin
Arabella ..... Elinor Coleman
Phillotson ..... Julius D’Silva
Mrs Edlin ..... Jessica Turner
Troutham .....T ony Turner
Taylor/ Shepherd ..... Nicholas Murchie
Michael/ Carter 1/ Hawker ..... David Sturzaker
Anny ..... Megan McInerney
Miss Fontover ..... Marilyn Nnadebe
Carter 2/ Undergraduate .... Joshua Riley
Carter 3/ Undergraduate .... Stewart Campbell

Production co-ordinator: Maggie Olgiati
Sound designer: Caleb Knightley


SAT 16:00 Woman's Hour (m002vwy7)
Highlights from the Woman's Hour week


SAT 17:00 PM (m002vwy9)
Full coverage of the day's news


SAT 17:30 Sliced Bread (m002vmkp)
Vibration Plates

Can Vibration Plates help with fitness, bone density, and even lymphatic drainage?

They've been around for a while but vibration plates seem to be having another 'moment'. Originally touted as a piece of fitness kit for the gym or home, the latest ads on social media seem to be promoting claims around benefits to bone density and lymphatic drainage.

Listeners Natasha and Steve got in touch wanting to know whether all this could really be true of a single wonder product! To find out, presenter Greg Foot is joined by Dr Claire Minshull, a sports rehabilitation expert, and Professor Neil Mansfield, author of the book 'Human Response to Vibration'.

All of our episodes start with YOUR suggestions. If you’ve seen an ad, trend or wonder product promising to make you happier, healthier or greener, email us at sliced.bread@bbc.co.uk OR send a voice note to our WhatsApp number, 07543 306807.

RESEARCHER: PHIL SANSOM
PRODUCERS: SIMON HOBAN AND GREG FOOT


SAT 17:54 Shipping Forecast (m002vwyc)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping


SAT 17:57 Weather (m002vwyf)
The latest weather reports and forecast


SAT 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m002vwyh)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


SAT 18:15 Loose Ends (m002vwyk)
Tracy Borman, Phil Wang, Anna Haugh, Hollywood Musicals, Finn Forster

Its food, glorious food week on Loose Ends as new Masterchef host - the Irish restaurateur and chef Anna Haugh - joins Clive to talk about her chemistry with co-host Grace Dent, kitchen etiquette and the hierarchy of carbohydrates (spuds on top, of course).

Potatoes just don't cut it for the comedian Phil Wang, who will always be a noodles-man. He's going on tour but has a number of foodie side hustles, including hosting the Great British Menu and judging "the slurpies" his award for best chinese restaurant at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

And the historian Tracy Borman has a new novel all about the Boleyn family, its seems Tudor real lives were strange enough to seem made up and yes, foods like marchpane and manchet feature alongside the odd turkducken roast.

Plus music from singer songwriter Finn Forster (who loves a Middlesborough chicken parmo) and from the golden era of the Hollywood musical from jazz pianist Joe Stilgoe with singer Liza Pulman (popcorn, anyone?).

Presenter: Clive Anderson
Producer: Olive Clancy
Assistant Producer: Sam Nixon
Technical Producers: Gayl Gordon and Giles Aspen


SAT 19:00 Profile (m002vwym)
Emily Thornberry

Dame Emily Thornberry, Labour MP and the influential head of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee, is in the hot seat as the committee
continues its ongoing investigation - dubbed ‘Scandelson’ scrutinising - into the circumstances behind Lord Mandelson’s appointment as US ambassador.

Born in Guildford in 1960 her mother was a teacher and her father an academic who would go on to be a UN Assistant Secretary General. When Emily was seven her father walked out on the family leaving her mother with no income and three children to look after. They were made homeless and moved to a council estate.

After A Levels she studied law and qualified as a barrister in the mid 80s and spent 20 years as a human rights barrister at the chambers of Michael Mansfield KC.

She was first elected as a Labour MP in 2005. She has since been re-elected 5 times and held a number of Shadow Cabinet positions including Defence, Foreign Affairs, International Trade, and Attorney General. But when Sir Keir Starmer became Prime Minister to many people’s surprise there was no ministerial job for Emily.

Now, as chair of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, she has the power to scrutinise government decisions and appointments; a role that has seen her grilling members of her own party in recent weeks.

Mark Coles looks back on her life.

Contributors:
Michael Mansfield KC
Dawn Butler MP
Sir Jeremey Hunt MP
Lord Christopher Smith
Jim Thornberry

Archive :
Devil Wears Prada 2 trailer - 20th Century Studios / Wendy Finerman Productions / Sunswept Entertainment

Presenter: Mark Coles
Producers: Tom Gillett and Nathan Gower
Editor: Justine Lang
Sound mix: Neil Churchill
Production co-ordinators: Maria Ogundele and Rosie Strawbridge


SAT 19:15 This Cultural Life (m002vmkh)
Lubaina Himid

Turner Prize-winning Artist Lubaina Himid talks to John Wilson about her formative influences. She made her name in the mid-1980s as a pioneering member of the British black arts movement, organising exhibitions to champion the work of fellow women artists. Having trained as a theatre designer, her paintings and installation pieces often have a strong narrative aspect, telling stories of race, history and identity. In 2017, at the age of 63, she became the oldest artist to win the Turner Prize, as well as the first black woman to do so. The following year, she was made a CBE for services to art. In 2026, Lubaina Himid will represent Britain at the international arts festival, the Venice Biennale.

Producer: Edwina Pitman


SAT 20:00 Archive on 4 (m002vwyp)
Voices of the General Strike

Accompanied by the recorded memories of those who took part, historian David Runciman explores the General Strike of 1926: nine days that shook the nation.

On the 4th of May 1926, millions of workers downed tools and went on strike. They did so in sympathy with coal miners who'd been locked out of work by mine owners demanding longer working days for lower pay. In places, life almost ground to a halt — public transport stopped, docks were blockaded, gas and electricity threatened, food supplies halted, newspapers ceased publication.

For coal miners the strike was an attempt to halt the worsening of their already desperately poor pay and conditions. For the millions of workers who, trusting their union leaders, took the extraordinary step of sacrificing their own pay in support of others, it was a radical hope that collective action might improve a system that seemed weighted against them.

For Labour leader Ramsay Macdonald the strike was a misguided tactic on the road to socialism. For Conservative Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin it was a constitutional threat. He said so on the airwaves, in a speech partly rewritten for him by the BBC's General Manager John Reith, who felt that the national schism of the strike threatened the future of the BBC and that a closeness to government was the only way to ensure its survival. With newspapers mostly out of action, the BBC — soon to transform from a private company to a public corporation — gained a new primacy as a source of news.

Meanwhile Winston Churchill commandeered paper supplies to produce a daily propaganda newspaper, called the British Gazette. The TUC countered with their own more modest and often more level-headed publication, the British Worker.

The government instituted emergency measures and across the country volunteers were recruited to break the strike and maintain essential services.

In the background loomed the spectre of the Soviet Union and a fear — grounded in reality or not — of revolution.

Until, on the 12th of May 1926, the TUC called off the strike, having secured no concessions for the miners, who remained locked out of the pits until they agreed to the conditions of the mine owners six months later.

Before, during and after — and almost forgotten amid the drama and febrile politics — is the predicament of the coal miners.

Featuring:
David Hendy, cultural historian, author of The BBC: A People's History 
Neil Kinnock, former leader of the Labour Party who grew up in a mining family with memories of the Strike
Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite, historian, co-author of Women and the Miners' Strike 1984-1985
David Torrance, historian, author of The Edge of Revolution: the General Strike that Shook Britain


SAT 21:00 In Time to the Music (m001hp31)
Plaisir d'amour

In Time to the Music is the story of a piece of music, song, an air or melody travelling through time as a folk tune, a theatre melody, a hymn, a composition, a symphony - reinterpreted across years, centuries or millennia through revival, musical revolution, social fashions or archaeological discovery. 

We examine why certain tunes have managed to reach out over time, across genres, class, race and continents, how some are reimagined by oppressors even though they were written by its oppressed, how melodies from earlier periods are borrowed by subsequent composers, and how these illusive musical engravings change genre - from hymn to reggae, from court song to rock and roll - all with the passage of time.

The second episode explores the journey of Plaisir d'amour, starting out as a love song for Marie Antoinette to sing, through various revivals to its reworking as a 1961 hit for Elvis Presley. The programme also examines other music that has travelled through time.

Featuring musicologists Laura Tunbridge, Professor Richard Dumbrill, Julia Doe, jazz pianist and educator Gareth Williams and singer Ian Shaw.

Written and Presented by Andrew McGibbon

Assistant Producer: Saul Sarne

Producer: Nick Romero

A Curtains For Radio production for BBC Radio 4


SAT 21:30 Planet Bach (m000ytzj)
It seems that every minute of every day, a musician is playing Bach’s music somewhere on our planet. Clemency Burton-Hill charts the playing of Bach across a day and around the globe with stories from musicians who each have a daily ritual of playing some of this music.

Ilay Kenes is an 11-year-old Belgian boy who plays some Bach on his guitar every morning when he gets out of bed. Other musicians around the world who play Bach every morning include Masaaki Suzuki on the harpsichord or organ in Tokyo, Hungarian-born organist Xaver Varnus in his own church in Nova Scotia, pianist Grant McLachlan looking out at Table Mountain from his house in Cape Town and cellist Nicola Yamazaki in Austria.

Some musicians play Bach every day but not at a set time. Iranian-born pianist Ramin Bahrami plays Bach whenever he needs him throughout the day. In one of Kenya’s largest slums, David Joroge shares the cello he plays with other students at the Art of Music Foundation and so he plays Bach Cello Suites every day, at a time when there’s a cello free.

Finally, British viola player, Robin Ireland plays last thing at night before bed in his house in Brittany.

Where did this daily ritual of playing Bach every day begin? Maybe with Beethoven or perhaps Mendelssohn. But it was the Catalan cellist Pablo Casals who wrote, "For the past 80 years I have started each day in the same manner. It is not a mechanical routine but something essential to my daily life. I go to the piano, and I play two preludes and fugues of Bach. I cannot think of doing otherwise. It is a sort of benediction on the house. Each day is something new, fantastic, unbelievable. That is Bach, like nature, a miracle!"

Clemency herself either listened to or played Bach every day for as long as she can remember. But in January 2020 she experienced a brain haemorrhage, and everything changed. After emergency surgery, she was unconscious for 17 days and then slowly emerged. She’s still working her way back to her own daily encounter with Bach’s music.

Producer: Rosie Boulton
A Must Try Softer production for BBV Radio 4

Bach music played:

Violinist Hilary Hahn: Adagio from Sonata No.3 in C major, BWV 1005
Guitarist Ilay Kenes: Prelude in E Major, BWV 1006a
Organist Xaver Varnus: Double Fugue in C minor, BWV 582B
Cellist Pablo Casals: Allemande from 1st Cello Suite in G major, BWV 1007
Pianist Grant McLachlan: Allemande from French Suite in G Major, BWV 816
Pianist Glenn Gould: Sarabande from Partita in C minor, BWV 826
Cellist David Joroge: Minuet from 1st Cello Suite in G major, BWV 1007
Violist Robin Ireland: Fugue from Violin Sonata in G minor (transcribed for viola) BWV 1001
Violinist Hilary Hahn: Adagio from Sonata No.3 in C major, BWV 1005


SAT 22:00 News (m002vwyr)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


SAT 22:15 The Food Programme (m002v04z)
Food Stories of Roots and Roads

Dan Saladino reports from Parabere Forum, a gathering of food storytellers, featuring Olia Hercules on the Ukrainian cooks who inspired her, indigenous Australian chef Mindy Woods on saving First Nations' cuisine and Palestinian writer Fidaa Abuhamdiya with a powerful story of olive trees and oil from the West Bank.

Produced and presented by Dan Saladino.


SAT 23:00 The Many Wrongs of Lord Christian Brighty (m0022kfw)
Series 1

2. The Best Friend I Locked Up

Challenged by Babs to find a single person he’s never wronged, Brighty’s search leads them to Cornwall and to best friend Russ Blackshark. Whilst Brighty and Babs re-run Russ’s stag do, Churlington gets into a spot of bother auditing the family tin mine.

Lord Christian Brighty is the talk of the Regency 'Ton' - a celebrated libertine, a heartthrob and a hero to many. But close-up, he is a spoilt, impetuous, life-ruining bastard… Or at least he was. Because his carefree life of infinite privilege has been upended by an encounter with his new chambermaid - the uneducated but forthright Babigail - who became the first person to tell him the unvarnished truth about his selfish behaviour. Overnight, his lifelong trust that everyone loved him had been replaced with a gnawing fear that Babs was right.

So now, with his narcissism collapsing and a need to prove to Babs he is actually a good person, Lord Brighty is determined to fix all his past wrongs. And by extension all the ills of Regency society. Accompanying him in his quest are Babs (elevated beyond her station to a chambermaid-cum-adviser role), and his butler, Mr Churlington. Although Churley would prefer everything to stay exactly as it used to be (as would all Brighty’s friends, family and the entirety of high society).

Written by Christian Brighty & Amy Greaves

Cast:
Lord Christian Brighty ….. Christian Brighty
Babs ….. Jessica Knappett
Churlington ….. Colin McFarlane
Russ Blackshark ….. David Reed
Reticent Tom ….. Nimisha Odedra
Briny Briony ….. Chiara Goldsmith
Gareth Hornpipe ….. Joz Norris

Script Editor ….. David Reed
Sound & Recording ….. David Thomas
Photographer ….. Will Hearle
Production Assistant ….. Katie Sayer
Producer ….. Ben Walker

A DLT Entertainment Production for BBC Radio 4

Christian Brighty and Amy Greaves are award-winning comedians. Their viral sketches based on Bridgerton, Poldark and Jane Austen have catapulted them to viral stardom, securing Christian’s place as the internet’s answer to Mr Darcy and amassing 150 million views across TikTok and Instagram (@brightybuoy). Amy and Christian both have a deep love of the work Jane Austen, traditional regency romance (not smut), and historical romance set in the regency (smut).


SAT 23:30 Round Britain Quiz (m002vm9j)
4. Scotland vs Wales

Teams from all over the UK will face Kirsty Lang's cryptic questions across the series, with Kirsty offering support and the odd hint where it might be needed.

The fourth match in the series is between Scotland and Wales.

As always, they'll drop points every time they need a clue from the chair to steer them towards the right solution.

You can follow the questions for this episode which will appear below on the day of the match.

Teams:
Scotland - Val McDermid and Alan McCredie
Wales: Cariad Lloyd and Myfanwy Alexander.

Host: Kirsty Lang
Recorded by: Phil Booth
Sound Design: Chris Maclean
Production Coordinator: Caroline Barlow
Producer: Carl Cooper

A BBC Studios Production

Questions set by Lucy Porter, Martin Mor, and by you, the listeners!

Questions in today's edition:

Q1 (From David Piper)
Place these in their correct numerical order - and identify the odd one out:
The title of a 1987 Hollywood comedy starring Tom Selleck, Ted Danson and Steve Guttenberg.
A popular rural TV series whose title was taken from a children's nursery rhyme.
A misnamed novel by a female author published in 1865 set on the Atlantic coast of the USA.
A 1911 book describing a 140-kilometre walking journey across Sussex.
And a series of children's adventure books written in the days before helicopter parents

Q2 (From George Crozier)
Why might an unwon jackpot, a wading bird, the motherly cart-horse from Orwell’s Animal Farm, Mel’s lethal partner and something that’s spread further than intended, help you have a successful date – and what might you wear for the occasion?

Q3 (Phil Ware)
Music: Why are the following on a train, and who is waiting at journey’s end?

Q4 (David Winpenny)
Can you put these five in proper order from highest to lowest?
The Voice of the Dark Side. A purée of mashed potato, egg yolk and butter. Nurse Gladys. Longleat’s fashionable chatelaine, and Tarzan.

Q5 (Christopher Dickins)
How were the birthplace of a prodigy, the origin of Lady’s twin nemeses, the Sooner State! A lofty part of Indonesia, and Captain Smith’s coastline
visited by Lorenz and Jerome’s successors?

Q6 (From Simon and Tom Meara)
Music: Listen to the following pieces of music - can you give them a small, appropriate honorific?

Q7 (From George Crozier)
At 337.5 degrees, why might an individual with a burdensome amount of knowledge, with symptoms of Meniere’s Disease, and a title shared by Brad, Angelina, Donald and Maya, keep you in suspense?

Q8 (From Helena Minton)
Why would someone with diplopia recognise these?
A spa town at the foot of the Black Forest;
A Eurasian bird in the crow family;
A 1977 movie starring Minnelli and De Niro
And a band with three unrelated Taylors.

SUNDAY 03 MAY 2026

SUN 00:00 Midnight News (m002vwyt)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


SUN 00:15 Take Four Books (m002vm9g)
Gwendoline Riley

The award-winning English writer Gwendoline Riley speaks to Take Four Books, about her new novel The Palm House, and, together with presenter James Crawford, they explore its three influences.

The Palm House follows the friendship between Laura Miller and Edmund Putnam, known as ‘Putnam’, who both work in the London media landscape in 2017. Over the course of a long weekend, they meet several times for drinks and crisps, and discuss the state of their lives, and share stories from their past.

Gwendoline Riley won the Betty Trask Award for her debut novel Cold Water in 2002. Subsequent works have seen her win the Somerset Maugham Award and she was recently given the prestigious Windham-Campbell Prize from Yale University in recognition of her life’s work to date.

For her three influences Gwendoline chose: Annie Ernaux's short non-fiction book about her experiences of having an abortion called Happening from the year 2000; Charles Dickens's last completed novel, Our Mutual Friend from 1864; and Penelope Fitzgerald's novel Offshore from 1979, which won the Booker Prize that year.

Producer: Dominic Howell
Editor: Gillian Wheelan
This was a BBC Audio Scotland production.


SUN 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m002vwyw)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.


SUN 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m002vwyy)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


SUN 05:30 News Summary (m002vwz0)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


SUN 05:34 Shipping Forecast (m002vwz2)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.


SUN 05:43 Bells on Sunday (m002vwz4)
St Swithin Clunbury, Shropshire

Bells on Sunday comes from the Parish church of St Swithin Clunbury in Shropshire. Situated on the edge of the Black Mountains the church was originally constructed in the 12th century as a chapel of ease with major additions and alterations in the 14th and 15th centuries. There are six bells, five cast by the John Warner foundry of London in 1887 and a 1620 Tenor bell by William Clibury which weighs ten hundredweight and is tuned to the note of A. We now hear them ringing Cambridge Surprise Minor.


SUN 05:45 In Touch (m002vmf6)
Barriers at the Ballot

Despite some encouraging developments, many blind and visually impaired people complain that they are still unable to secretly and independently cast their vote at elections. With UK elections fast approaching, this episode examines the current situation. Ian Hamilton reports on an initiative in Scotland, and also joining us are:-

Rachael Andrews, whose action to bring a case to Court resulted in the Judge finding that the existing arrangements were "a parody of the Electoral system".

Duncan Johnson from Pakflatt, a company that makes the McGonagle Reader, a device designed to enable secret and independent voting for blind people, and,

Jackie Killeen, Director of administration and regulation at The Electoral Commission.

Presenter: Peter White
Producer: Fern Lulham
Production Coordinator: Helen Surtees

Website image description: Peter White sits smiling in the centre of the image, wearing a dark green jumper. Above Peter's head is the BBC logo (three individual white squares house each of the three letters). Bottom centre and overlaying the image are the words "In Touch"; and the Radio 4 logo (the word Radio in a bold white font, with the number 4 inside a white circle). The background is a bright mid-blue with two rectangles angled diagonally to
the right. Both are behind Peter, one of a darker blue and the other is a lighter blue.’


SUN 06:00 News Summary (m002vy8d)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


SUN 06:05 Beyond Belief (m002vmdr)
War and Peace

Giles Fraser and the panel discuss religious views on military action and how conflict is justified theologically across different faiths and contexts. They reflect on the personal story of Michael Elstub, and his journey from military service to becoming a Quaker and peace campaigner.

Panel:
Mandeep Kaur MBE - Sikh Chaplain to the Armed Forces
Prof David Chandler - Professor of International Relations, Centre for the Study of Democracy, University of Westminster
Sheikh Dr Usama Hasan - Imam and counter-extremism practitioner
Major General Timothy Cross CBE - retired British Army officer and military logistics expert and lay minister in the Church of England

Producers: Katharine Longworth and Peter Everett


SUN 06:35 On Your Farm (m002vy8g)
New to Dairy Farming

James Scott wasn't planning to become a farmer, but everything changed during the Covid pandemic. Lockdown bought him home from his university course in Sports Business. He discovered a passion for agriculture whilst filling the days working on his father's beef and sheep farm. James had the realisation that what he really wanted to do was become a dairy farmer. He's now building a herd, and is optimistic about his future. These are difficult times for UK dairy farmers as global oversupply has led to a crash in milk prices. James tells Sarah Swadling that he's hopeful his business model will help him ride the rollercoaster of a volatile market for the years to come.

Presented and produced by Sarah Swadling.


SUN 06:57 Weather (m002vy8j)
The latest weather reports and forecast


SUN 07:00 News and Papers (m002vy8l)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


SUN 07:10 Sunday (m002vy8n)
A look at the ethical and religious issues of the week


SUN 07:54 Radio 4 Appeal (m002vy8q)
RNID

The singer-songwriter and musician KT Tunstall makes the Radio 4 Appeal on behalf of RNID (The Royal National Institute for Deaf People).

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

To Give:
- Freephone 0800 404 8144
- Freepost BBC Radio 4 Appeal. (That’s the whole address. Please do not write anything else on the front of the envelope). Mark the back of the envelope ‘RNID’.
- Cheques should be made payable to ‘RNID’.
- 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: 207720 (SC038926). If you’d like to find out more about the charity’s work visit *https://rnid.org.uk/
*The BBC is not responsible for content on external websites

Producer: Anna Bailey


SUN 07:57 Weather (m002vy8s)
The latest weather reports and forecast


SUN 08:00 News and Papers (m002vy8v)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


SUN 08:10 Sunday Worship (m002vy8x)
Sing to the Lord a new song

A special service from the iconic BBC Maida Vale studios hosted by Swarzy with UK worship leader Philippa Hanna and Grammy award winning Israel Houghton.
Based on Psalm 96 'Sing to the Lord a new song' the service celebrates contemporary Christian music and the tradition of scripture inspiring new worship music.
The music is a mix of new music from Philippa and Israel, favourite hymns and the classic 'Alpha & Omega'.
The band is 'Psalms x Saints' led by Nathaniel Broome. The producer is Miriam Williamson

Readings: Psalm 96 and Revelation 21: 1-7

Music:
Free Indeed
It is well
Great is thy faithfulness
Alpha & Omega
And Ever Amen
Till the whole world knows


SUN 08:48 Witness History (w3ct8r33)
Straightening the Leaning Tower of Pisa

On 15 December 2001, the Leaning Tower of Pisa reopened to the public after an unprecedented 11-year closure.

Famous worldwide for its dramatic lean, the tower also became, during the 1990s, the most closely monitored building on Earth. Engineers and scientists watched anxiously as the tilt worsened year by year, raising the very real possibility that the tower could topple.

The lengthy restoration effort — invisible to tourists but watched closely by experts — was a race against time, during which visitors were barred from climbing the tower for over a decade.

The complex €27 million stabilization project reduced the tower’s tilt by around 17 inches, securing the iconic structure for an estimated 200–300 years.

Nunziante Squeglia, professor of geotechnics at the University of Pisa, tells Colm Flynn about the extraordinary moment the tower reopened.

Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by and curious about 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 how the Excel spreadsheet was developed, the creation of cartoon rabbit Miffy and how the sound barrier was broken.

We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: the moment Reagan and Gorbachev met in Geneva, Haitian singer Emerante de Pradines’ life and Omar Sharif’s legendary movie entrance in Lawrence of Arabia.

You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, like the invention of a stent which has saved lives around the world; the birth of the G7; and the meeting of Maldives’ ministers underwater. We cover everything from World War Two and Cold War stories to Black History Month and our journeys into space.

(Photo: The Leaning Tower of Pisa. Credit: Martin Ruegner/via Getty Images)


SUN 08:58 Tweet of the Day (m002vy8z)
George McGavin on the Swift

Entomologist George McGavin worked at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History for 25 years, where each year he looked forward to the return of swifts to their nest boxes.

Produced by Sophie Anton for BBC Audio in Bristol.


SUN 09:00 Broadcasting House (m002vy91)
The Sunday morning news magazine programme. Presented by Paddy O'Connell


SUN 10:00 The Reunion (m002vxcv)
Women's Ashes Winners 2005

On a village green near Guildford in Surrey, eleven maids of Bramley played eleven maids of Hambledon. It was the first ever recorded game of cricket involving women – and the year was 1745.

But the history of women’s cricket gives us a familiar tale of failure to thrive at a sport controlled by, played by, and largely watched by men.
There were some trailblazers. Rachael Heyhoe Flint helped organise the first Women’s Cricket World Cup in 1973, and Enid Bakewell scored a century on her England debut in 1968.

But as in men’s cricket, the battles between England and Australia have always been the most intense, and with great tradition. The women’s side play for the ashes of a cremated miniature bat – ceremonially set alight in a wok sometime in the late 1990s.

The 2005 season promised it all and delivered. Not only the greatest-ever Ashes series of the men’s game, but also a triumph for the England Women’s team with a 1-0 victory in their two-match series against Australia.

In a symbolic first, the two teams shared a celebratory open-topped bus tour through central London.

Joining Kirsty Wark are Claire Taylor, the first woman to be named as one of Wisden’s Cricketers of the Year in 2009; Holly Colvin, who took part in the Ashes in 2005 aged just 15; women’s assistant coach and manager Neil Rider; Rosalie Fairbairn, lower middle order batter; off-break bowler Laura Kelly MacLeod; and BBC Sport reporter and commentator Alison Mitchell.

Presenter: Kirsty Wark
Producer: Howard Shannon
Editor: David Prest
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4


SUN 11:00 The Archers Omnibus (m002vy93)
26th April – 1st May 2026
Writer: Tim Stimpson
Director: Mel Ward
Editor: Jeremy Howe

Brian Aldridge … Charles Collingwood
Ben Archer … Ben Norris
David Archer …Timothy Bentinck
Ruth Archer … Felicity Finch
Helen Archer … Louiza Patikas 
Natasha Archer … Mali Harries 
Tom Archer … William Troughton 
Lilian Bellamy … Sunny Ormonde
Alice Carter … Hollie Chapman 
Chris Carter … Wilf Scolding
Susan Carter … Charlotte Martin
Ian Craig …  Stephen Kennedy 
Amber Gordon … Olivia Bernstone
George Grundy … Angus Stobie
Bert Horrobin…  David Sterne
Tracy Horrobin … Susie Riddell 
Adam Macy … Andrew Wincott  
Kirsty Miller …. Annabelle Dowler 
Lottie Summers ... Bonnie Baddoo
Erik Hakansson … Steven Hartley
Debbie Aldridge ... Tamsin Greig


SUN 12:15 Profile (m002vwym)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Saturday]


SUN 12:30 The Unbelievable Truth (m002vm5n)
Series 33

1. Hats, Drugs, Germany and the BBC

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

Henning Wehn, Holly Walsh, Miles Jupp and Lucy Porter are the panellists obliged to talk with deliberate inaccuracy on subjects as varied as hats, drugs, Germany and the BBC.

The show is devised by Graeme Garden and Jon Naismith

Producer: Jon Naismith

A Random Entertainment production for BBC Radio 4


SUN 12:57 Weather (m002vy95)
The latest weather forecast


SUN 13:00 The World This Weekend (m002vy97)
A look at the week's big stories and preview of the week to come.


SUN 13:30 The Documentary (p0n6g2qv)
How to Spend Billions – Fast: Carney’s Defence Deadline

The Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, has given his generals and admirals an unusual command: spend money. Lots of it. Quickly. For years, it was the other way around. Canada wore the uniform of a serious NATO ally – while undershooting the alliance’s 2% of GDP defence spending target. Now, spurred by what Carney has called a “rupture” in geopolitics, Ottawa is adding billions to hit NATO’s target by 31 March 2026 – the end of the fiscal year.

Military leaders are scrambling to reverse a culture of frugality and long planning cycles. Parliament’s budget watchdog has said the Department of National Defence sometimes struggles to spend the funds it already has. The Conservative defence critic has said the new billions are money “the department won’t be able to shovel out the door.”

Neal Razzell follows the money to see what changes — and what doesn’t — when a military tries to expand at speed. In Quebec, at Canada’s main basic training base, he watches the rebuild begin — as recruits and instructors grapple with the limits of time, staff and space. In British Columbia, at the Navy’s Pacific headquarters, he asks the commander of Maritime Forces Pacific what “spend fast” can actually fix in a fleet Carney says is less than half operational.

This episode of The Documentary comes to you from Assignment, investigations and journeys into the heart of global events.


SUN 14:00 Gardeners' Question Time (m002vng7)
From The Archives: Summer Colour

Kathy Clugston guides us through the GQT archives to hear how our panellists and experts, old and new, advise on delivering dazzling displays of summer colour.

Along the way, the gardeners explore how thoughtful structural planting underpins great colour all season long, explain why deadheading matters, and reveal the origins of the Chelsea chop.

They also advise on watering in hot weather, compost mixes for long-lasting displays, and the surprising relationships between insects and plants. So if you're anti-Ant, hear how Dr Chris Thorogood gives some positive PR to these charming creatures often mislabelled as 'pests'.

Producer: Rahnee Prescod
Assistant Producer: William Norton

A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4


SUN 14:45 Opening Lines (m002vx3w)
Don Quixote - Episode One

John Yorke explores why Don Quixote has had such a profound influence on storytelling in the four hundred years since it was published. The first European novel, it’s an epic work of comic - and tragic - genius. Quixote embodies an ideal of heroic resilience in the face of a broken reality. And it’s a novel that’s in our bones: familiar even if we haven’t read any of its nearly a thousand pages.

The programme includes an interview with film director, cartoonist and Monty Python member Terry Gilliam, who spent nearly thirty years attempting to make a film about Don Quixote. He says:

“What I love about Cervantes - he's been through it all. This is the guy who's really had rough and tumble life. And he's learned to laugh at it: because he'd been through so much. And he survived with a sense of humour and a brilliant pen. [Quixote] wouldn’t have been like that if Cervantes hadn't experienced this. It's about the falling, and the dignity with which he manages to pull himself up from the mess that he finds himself in. It's just wonderful.”

Also including contributions from Isabel Torres, Professor of Spanish Golden Age Literature at Queen’s University, Belfast.

John Yorke has worked in television and radio for over 30 years and shares his experience as he unpacks the themes and impact of the books, plays and stories 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. He created the BBC Writers Academy and trained a generation of screenwriters, now with thousands of hours of television to their names. His acclaimed books Into the Woods and Trip to the Moon explore the structure and power of narrative, and he writes, teaches and consults on all forms of storytelling, including many podcasts for Radio 4.

Producer: Mary Ward-Lowery
Reader: Ewan Bailey
Executive Producer: Sara Davies and Caroline Raphael
Production Hub Coordinator: Dawn Williams and Nina Semple
Researcher: Henry Tydeman
Sound: Iain Hunter

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4


SUN 15:00 Drama on 4 (m002vy99)
Don Quixote

Episode 1

“Somewhere in La Mancha, in a place whose name is best forgotten...”

So begins the odyssey of the knight-errant, Don Quixote de la Mancha, resolved to restore honour and chivalry to a world that has lost its values. He recruits to his cause a loyal squire, Sancho Panza, and saddles up his mighty steed, Rocinante – all in the name of the fair maiden Dulcinea, the object of his courtly love.

Except that Sancho is a gluttonous farm labourer, Rocinante a bony old nag and Dulcinea a local peasant woman. But this is of little concern to this Knight of the Sad Countenance, who sees the world as he wishes to see it, in a quest that has him take on brigands, muleteers, rival knights, and famously, windmills.

An epic tale set in the wide, open plains and the mountains of Spain. With original music recorded in Castile on medieval and 16th century instruments.

By Miguel de Cervantes
Adapted by Ernesto Caballero
Translated by David Johnston and Nicolas Jackson

Don Quixote de la Mancha ..... Jason Watkins
Sancho Panza ….. Mackenzie Crook
Cide Hamete Benengeli ..... Khalid Laith
Niece ….. Sofia Oxenham
Priest ….. John Sackville
Barber ….. Will Howard
Maritornes ….. Lucy Speed
Muleteer ….. Jason Forbes
Galleyslave ….. Tyler Pringle
Housekeeper….. Liis Mikk

Other voices performed by the cast

Music performed by Paco Díez and recorded at the Aula-Museo Paco Díez, Mucientes, Spain

Armour foley by Emma Pearn
Jousting by The Knights of Middle England

Script supervisor ..... Liis Mikk
Executive producer ..... Sara Davies
Production manager ..... Eleanor Mein

Track laying ...... Andreina Gómez Casanova
Sound design, music production and mix ..... Jon Nicholls

Directed and produced by Nicolas Jackson

An Afonica production for BBC Radio 4


SUN 16:00 Bookclub (m002vy9d)
Nicola Barker

Described as a book of startling originality, the writer Nicola Barker speaks to Bookclub, presented by James Naughtie, about her 838-page epic novel, Darkmans, which was published in 2007 and shortlisted for the Booker Prize that same year. Set in the town of Ashford, Kent, the novel centres around a father and son relationship - Daniel and Kane Beede - and a jester from the court of Edward IV makes his presence known in mysterious ways.

Producer: Dominic Howell
Editor: Gillian Wheelan
This was a BBC Audio Scotland production.
Author image credit: Colin Alderman


SUN 16:30 Round Britain Quiz (m002vy9g)
5. England v Wales

Teams from all over the UK will face Kirsty Lang's cryptic questions across the series, with Kirsty offering support and the odd hint where it might be needed.

The fifth match in the series is between England and Wales.

As always, they'll drop points every time they need a clue from the chair to steer them towards the right solution.

You can follow the questions for this episode which will appear below on the day of the match.

Teams:
England - Jenny Ryan and Stuart Maconie
Wales - Myfanwy Alexander and Cariad Lloyd

Host: Kirsty Lang
Recorded by: Phil Booth
Sound Design: Chris Maclean
Production Coordinator: Caroline Barlow
Producer: Carl Cooper

A BBC Studios Production

Questions set by Lucy Porter, Martin Mor and by you, the listeners!


SUN 17:00 Witness History (w3ct74p3)
Elvis visits Scotland

In 1960, as he headed home from military service, the King of Rock ’n’ Roll made an unexpected stop at Prestwick Airport.

It's believed to be the only time Elvis Presley is known to have set foot on British soil.

It was only a brief visit, but for 16-year-old Anne Murphy, watching him walk down the airplane steps is a memory that has never faded.

More than six decades later, she tells Megan Jones what it was like to see Elvis up close.

Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by and curious about 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 how the Excel spreadsheet was developed, the creation of cartoon rabbit Miffy and how the sound barrier was broken.

We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: the moment Reagan and Gorbachev met in Geneva, Haitian singer Emerante de Pradines’ life and Omar Sharif’s legendary movie entrance in Lawrence of Arabia.

You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, like the invention of a stent which has saved lives around the world; the birth of the G7; and the meeting of Maldives’ ministers underwater. We cover everything from World War Two and Cold War stories to Black History Month and our journeys into space.

(Photo: Elvis at Prestwick Airport, with Anne Murphy looking up at him. Credit: The Hollywood Archive/Alamy)


SUN 17:10 Understand (m002sdyn)
How Reading Made Us

1. How Reading Made Our Brains

Reading seems an unremarkable skill. After all, everyone can read. Even small children. When we say something is as “easy as ABC”, we mean it is very easy indeed. In fact, learning to read has dramatic and irreversible consequences for people and for societies. Learning to read permanently alters your brain. It changes the emotions you experience and the way you relate to others. When a society learns to read the consequences are dramatic: wars break out, revolutions erupt and new political systems spring into being. Reading made us who we are.

For centuries people have been reading more and more. Recently the trend has gone into reverse. The number of people who pick up a book has been falling steadily for twenty years. Now half of adults no longer read regularly.

How will this change us?

Over three episodes, Times writer James Marriott explores how reading made us, and what might happen if we stop.

In this first programme, James finds out how unnatural the process of reading is, and the complex alchemy our brains create to make words on the page make sense to us, and asks what we gain - and lose - when we learn to read.

Guests include:

- Professor Maryanne Wolf, Director of the Center for Dyslexia, Diverse Learners, and Social Justice at UCLA
- John Burn-Murdoch, chief data reporter for the Financial Times
- Naomi Alderman, writer and presenter
- Dr Joseph Henrich, Professor of Anthropology at Harvard University

Producer - Beth Sagar-Fenton
Editor - Chris Ledgard


SUN 17:54 Shipping Forecast (m002vy9k)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping


SUN 17:57 Weather (m002vy9m)
The latest weather reports and forecast


SUN 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m002vy9p)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


SUN 18:15 Pick of the Week (m002vy9r)
Jon Harvey

This week, Jon hears about why the power of urine has been celebrated for thousands of years, plus a supposedly autonomous AI chatbot that claimed to have the cure for cancer. We turn the clock back to mark 40 years after Chernobyl with a wedding day during the world’s worst nuclear disaster, and reflect on a bit of cinematic gold with the moment Michael Caine played football with Pele against the Nazis.

Presenter: Jon Harvey
Producer: Caitlin Sneddon
Editor: Steven Hobson
Production Coordinator: Caoilfhinn McFadden

A BBC Audio Scotland and Northern Ireland production for BBC Radio 4.

Programmes featured in this episode include:

The Unbelievable Truth: Hats, Drugs, Germany and the BBC
The Documentary: Under the Influence of AI
Writing the Atom: The Atomic Age
Archive on 4: The Last Dance Floor in Chernobyl
Start The Week, 27/04: Chemical Reactions
Uncanny: Case 4: The Cock Lane Poltergeist
Open Country: Roadside Verge
Cafe Hope: Rhymes for Resilience
Key Changes: 1492 The Fall of Granada
Long Player with Steven Rainey: Prince - Sign o' the Times
Drama on 4: The Madness of George III
Front Row, 27/04: Stage kissing
Screenshot: Nudity
Sporting Witness: Making Escape to Victory


SUN 19:00 The Archers (m002vx3q)
Brad has something on his mind, and Brian makes a decision.


SUN 19:15 Illuminated (m002vx40)
Strong Women

World champion Strongwomen Lucy Underdown, Rebecca Roberts and Donna Moore redefine what it means to be strong. They reveal what we can all learn from these record-breaking athletes, while also challenging what it really means to be powerful woman.

Contributors: Rebecca Roberts, Lucy Underdown and Donna Moore

Produced by Justine Potter

Executive Producer: Geoff Bird

A Savvy production for BBC Radio 4


SUN 19:45 Just One Thing - with Michael Mosley (m001z6tx)
Deep Calm - with Michael Mosley

Deep Calm - Episode 5: Using Music

Sit back, leave behind the cares of the day and take a sonic journey with Dr Michael Mosley. In this new podcast series, designed to help you let go and unwind, each episode focuses on a scientifically-proven technique for activating the body’s built-in relaxation response, and takes a deep dive to explore what’s happening inside as we find stillness and calm.

Most of us instinctively know that music can have a huge impact on our mood. But it can also be an effective tool to tap into your body’s relaxation response. Plus thought loops, soundwaves and an encounter with the Organ of Corti.

Guest: Stefan Koelsch, professor at the University of Bergen in Norway.

Series Producer, sound design and mix engineer: Richard Ward
Researcher: William Hornbrook
Production Manager: Maria Simons
Editor: Zoë Heron
Specially composed music by Richard Atkinson (Mcasso)
A BBC Studios Audio production for BBC Sounds / BBC Radio 4.


SUN 20:00 Feedback (m002vml4)
Fergal Keane, Doing Death Differently, and Visualisation

It's the end of this series of Feedback, and Andrea Catherwood is talking to someone who has just brought his own long run at the BBC to a definitive close. Fergal Keane has covered conflicts and events all over the world as a BBC News correspondent, and now he's stepping away. Andrea asks him for his reflections on bearing witness to many world conflicts for 37 years at the Corporation.

And last week we spoke to Jonathan Kanagasooriam, the person in charge of strategy for a new raft of video podcasts from BBC Sounds. You've been in touch with your thoughts about the discussion.

Finally, the team behind obituary programme Last Word have recently produced a series about approaching a big fear in a new way. In Doing Death Differently, presenter Matthew Bannister looks at our changing attitudes and approaches to death. Andrea sits down with Matthew to share your views on the series and discuss the different ways we memorialise the departed.

Presenter: Andrea Catherwood
Producer: Pauline Moore
Assistant Producer: Rebecca Guthrie
Executive Producer: David Prest

A Whistledown Scotland production for BBC Radio 4


SUN 20:30 Last Word (m002vngc)
Xia De-hong, Lord Hunt of Chesterton, Joan Burstein, Bill Leader

Xia De-hong, inspired her daughter Jung Chang to write the best selling book Wild Swans about her trials and tribulations at the hands of the Chinese government.

Lord Hunt, the meteorologist and former Director General and Chief Executive of the Met Office, who was an expert in turbulence.

Joan Burstein, ran the influential Browns boutique in London’s South Molton Street, backing the careers of many leading designers.

Bill Leader, the recording engineer who captured all the leading performers of the folk revival of the 1960s and 70s.

Presenter: Matthew Bannister
Producer: Ben Mitchell
Assistant Producer: Catherine Powell
Researcher: Jesse Edwards
Editor: Andrea Kennedy

Archive:
Tomorrow's World, BBC One,18/11/1965; You and Yours, BBC Radio 4, 27/06/2005; My Life in Seven Charms, with Annoushka Ducas MBE, 27/05/2021; Joan Burstein Browns 50 Testimonial, Browns Fashion (Uploaded to Youtube - 22 Oct 2020); Best of Mortimer and Whitehouse: Gone Fishing, BBC Two, Uploaded to Youtube


SUN 21:00 Money Box (m002vwxz)
[Repeat of broadcast at 12:04 on Saturday]


SUN 21:25 Radio 4 Appeal (m002vy8q)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:54 today]


SUN 21:30 From Our Own Correspondent (m002vwxv)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:30 on Saturday]


SUN 22:00 Westminster Hour (m002vy9t)
Taking stock of Starmer's premiership and the local elections in London

Radio 4's Sunday night political discussion programme.


SUN 23:00 In Our Time (m002vmk4)
Cybernetics

Misha Glenny and guests discuss cybernetics – the field of study which gave us the prefix ‘cyber’ and helped lay the foundations for the information age. After the Second World War, cybernetics emerged as the study of communication, feedback, and control in both animals and machines. Cybernetics was first defined in 1948 by the American mathematician Norbert Wiener (1894-1964) and aimed to find a shared universal language which could be used across disciplines. The name drew on an Ancient Greek word for steersman, the person who stands at the helm of a ship to steer or govern its course. Cybernetics saw the world as systems which used loops of information and feedback to adjust their own course of action. Those ideas could be applied to anything from thermostats to the human brain, and arguably laid foundations for the information age.

With

Jacob Ward
Historian of science and technology at Maastricht University

Jon Agar
Professor of Science and Technology Studies at University College London

And

Orit Halpern
Lighthouse Professor and Chair of Digital Cultures at Technische Universität Dresden

Producer: Martha Owen

Reading list:

Peter Galison, 'The ontology of the enemy: Norbert Wiener and the cybernetic vision' (Critical Inquiry 21, 1994)

Slava Gerovitch, From Newspeak to Cyberspeak: A History of Soviet Cybernetics (MIT Press, 2004)

Orit Halpern, Beautiful Data: A History of Vision and Reason (Duke University Press, 2015)

Orit Halpern, Robert Mitchell and Bernard Dionysius Geoghegan, The Smartness Mandate: Notes toward a Critique (Grey Room 68, 2017)

Orit Halpern, Financializing Intelligence: On the Integration of Machines and Markets (e-flux, March 2023)

N. Katherine Hayles, How We Became Posthuman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, Literature, and Informatics (University of Chicago Press, 1999)

Steve J. Heims, John Von Neumann and Norbert Wiener, From Mathematics to the Technologies of Life and Death (MIT Press, 1980)

Ronald R. Kline, The Cybernetics Moment: Or Why We Call Our Age The Information Age (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015)

Eden Medina, Cybernetic Revolutionaries: Technology and Politics in Allende’s Chile (MIT Press, 2011)

David A. Mindell, Between Human and Machine: Feedback, Control, and Computing before Cybernetics (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004)

Andrew Pickering, The Cybernetic Brain: Sketches of Another Future (University of Chicago Press, 2010)

Norbert Wiener, The Human Use of Human Beings: Cybernetics and Society (first published 1950; Da Capo Press, 1988)

In Our Time is a BBC Studios production

Spanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Misha Glenny and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.


SUN 23:45 Short Works (m002vng9)
Now That Summer's Coming by Deirdre Anna Rose Kelly

An original short story specially commissioned by BBC Radio 4 to mark Bealtaine, the Gaelic festival heralding the beginning of summer traditionally held on the first day of May. Written and read by Deirdre Anna Rose Kelly.

The Author.
Deirdre Anna Rose Kelly is a writer from Donegal, who lives in Belfast. She is a member of the Duncairn Arts Centre's Creative Collective. She has read her work on stage and on BBC Radio Ulster.

Writer: Deirdre Anna Rose Kelly
Reader: Deirdre Anna Rose Kelly
Producer: Michael Shannon

A BBC Audio Northern Ireland Production for BBC Radio 4.

MONDAY 04 MAY 2026

MON 00:00 Midnight News (m002vy9w)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


MON 00:15 Crossing Continents (m002vmf8)
Driving Against Net Zero

Is defence of the petrol car and liberated motoring becoming the new battleground for Europe’s populist parties? Chris Bowlby visits one of the homes of German car culture and a populist stronghold, Zwickau, to see how motoring is rising up the German agenda. Is Zwickau a foretaste of something affecting all of Germany – a car-loving, car-manufacturing powerhouse in the past, now wondering anxiously what the future holds against the emergence of Chinese electric cars. And less than a hundred miles from Zwickau, just across the border in the Czech Republic, a new coalition government has recently taken power, including ministers from a populist party called Motorists for Themselves – muscular defenders of the old petrol car.

Producer: Jim Frank
Studio engineer: Neil Churchill
Production coordinator: Katie Morrison
Editor: Penny Murphy


MON 00:45 Bells on Sunday (m002vwz4)
[Repeat of broadcast at 05:43 on Sunday]


MON 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m002vy9y)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.


MON 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m002vyb0)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


MON 05:00 News Summary (m002vyb2)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


MON 05:04 Last Word (m002vngc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:30 on Sunday]


MON 05:34 Shipping Forecast (m002vyb4)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.


MON 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m002vyb6)
Spiritual reflection to start the day with Fr Philip Blackledge of Holy Trinity Scottish Episcopal Church, Melrose.


MON 05:45 Farming Today (m002vyb8)
04/05/26 Neolithic Farming and Feasting

Neolithic peoples made the transition from being nomadic hunter-gatherers to crop-growing farmers, and their diets are the subject of numerous studies.

Archaeological evidence informs us about the farming and foraging activities of these ancient peoples, but it's unusual to get a first hand taste of how it might have been to forage on the shore and land!

On the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, the arts organisation, Haar, facilitated an opportunity to sit down to an interpretation of a Stone Age feast - albeit with considerable artistic and culinary licence! The event was centered around the 5000-year-old Calanais standing stone circle. Nancy Nicolson joined the foragers to find out about the farming and feasting habits of our ancestors, and met one of the crofters whose sheep today graze the machair, the strip of flower and herb-rich land that borders the sea and which it is believed contributed to the flavours and nutrition of the food Neolithic people ate.

Produced and presented by Nancy Nicolson.


MON 05:57 Weather (m002vybb)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for farmers


MON 06:00 Today (m002vx2z)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.


MON 09:00 Start the Week (m002vx31)
Laurie Anderson: Strange and Disorientating Landscapes

What happens when art, fiction and biography take us to places that unsettle, reorient and transform our sense of the world? On Radio 4’s weekly discussion programme, Naomi Alderman moves from science fiction and land art to the landscape of the mind.

Pioneering multimedia artist and musician Laurie Anderson discusses The Republic of Love, which she is performing at the Brighton Festival on 6th May. It’s an immersive multi-sensory experience, in which she reinterprets past pieces, including her 80s hit Big Science, to illuminate the political and emotional strangeness of the present moment. (Her new album, Let X=X is released on May 8, 2026)

Writer Nina Allan reflects on co-authoring The Illuminated Man, the biography her late husband, the novelist Christopher Priest, had started about J. G. Ballard. She explores Ballard’s singular imagination, shaped by wartime internment in Shanghai, and his repeated motifs of flooded cities, drained swimming pools, and the violence seeping through gated communities seen in books including Empire of the Sun, Crash and The Drowned World.

Art historian Joy Sleeman introduces the first major UK exhibition devoted to the American artist Nancy Holt, MoonSunStarEarthSkyWater, at the Goodwood Art Foundation (until November 2026). She reveals how Holt’s land art, from her 18 feet long concrete Sun Tunnels to a posthumous installation Hydra’s Head, invites viewers into cosmic and elemental landscapes where art and the environment meet.

Producer: Katy Hickman
Assistant Producer: Natalia Fernandez


MON 09:45 Café Hope (m002vx33)
Cleaning with compassion

Jo Revett, from the charity Dora Brown, tells Rachel Burden how volunteers transform homes for free for families living in crisis. They may need help because of domestic neglect or hygiene poverty. The team go in and do a deep clean, clearing out the home, as well as showing the family how to maintain their homes themselves.

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: Tom Bigwood


MON 10:00 Woman's Hour (m002vx35)
How to have difficult conversations

We all have to have difficult conversations at some point in our lives. We have them at work, at home, and with friends and family. So why do we often feel ill-equipped to initiate that challenging chat? And why are we not more optimistic that airing our issues will lead to a more positive outcome for all involved? In this special edition of Woman's Hour, Nuala McGovern explores how we can have better difficult conversations.

She is joined by psychotherapist, international conflict mediator and author of How to Agree to Disagree: Turning Conflict into Connection, Gabrielle Rifkind. She reflects on what makes a conversation difficult and the skills we require to tackle them.

In our personal lives, difficult conversations can feel especially daunting, because they’re usually with the people we care about most. TV and podcast host Vicky Pattison and comedian and author Helen Thorn reveal how they approach discussing sensitive topics with their loved ones.

And difficult conversations at work can make even the most confident among us feel strangely tongue‑tied: asking for a pay rise, giving feedback or managing conflict. Entrepreneur Izzy Obeng MBE and former social worker Sophie Baker explain how to have the hardest conversations at work.

And romance author, Talia Hibbert, explains how she scripts difficult conversations and explores how they work as plot devices in novels and on screen.

Presenter: Nuala McGovern
Producer: Sophie Powling


MON 11:00 Writing the Atom (m002vx37)
The mystery of quantum mechanics

Jim Al-Khalili is a quantum physicist and as a science communicator he knows the value of metaphors and imagery to bring theories and equations to life. Translating them into stories that capture the imagination, turning the inconceivable and the obscure into the familiar. However, in this third and final chapter of "Writing the Atom" on quantum mechanics this ambition becomes more difficult to achieve. The often quoted physicist Richard Feynman said, "if you think you understand quantum physics you don't understand quantum physics." Perhaps paradoxically, the one thing the physicists do agree on is that quantum mechanics is the most successful theory in all of science.

Quantum mechanics has given us modern electronics, from computers to mobile phones, as well as the laser, GPS, medical imaging devices, and the internet. And it has changed our perceptions of reality. One hundred years after the birth of quantum mechanics, a survey in the journal Nature found physicists still disagreeing ferociously about how to interpret the theory that so enraged Einstein. So how does one communicate this strange and counter intuitive science in a way that is not confusing when the scientists themselves can’t find a consensus.
Jim looks at how comedy, with characters like the ill-informed Philomena Cunk can inadvertently cut to the heart of sub atomic particles, or how Michael Frayn's play Copenhagen gives us a multilayered understanding of Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle.

Presented by Jim Al-Khalili
Produced by Geraldine Fitzgerald
Executive Producer Sasha Feachem
A BBC Studios Production


MON 11:45 The Dark Frontier by Jeffrey Marlow (m002vx39)
Episode 1: A Portal to Another Realm

The deep sea is one of our last frontiers. For most of human history, it was a vast, dark, and unknown realm that invoked awe and terror. Now, one thing we do know is that it is critically important and central to the future of life on this planet.

In The Dark Frontier, marine microbiologist and deep-sea explorer Jeffrey Marlow reveals how life can thrive in even the most remote, unforgiving landscapes. Professor Marlow takes us on a series of deep-sea dives in the world’s most scientifically-advanced submersible:
“Gelatinous creatures whir by the window. We overtake a sinking gob of seaweed, a micro-universe unto itself. By a depth of two hundred metres beneath the waves, virtually no light remains. Beneath this boundary lies the deep sea – more than 95% of the earth’s habitable volume. I am struck by the realisation that the ocean we’ve been looking at all these years from shores and ships is in fact a portal to another realm – one that may well be the largest, most diverse, most consequential habitat on earth.”

Jeffrey Marlow’s research focuses on understanding the microbes that inhabit the rocks and sediments of the seafloor. In his lab in Boston, he works with a team of scientists to discover how these communities of microbes perform feats of metabolic ingenuity that shape the global carbon cycle and push the boundaries of life’s limits in extreme environments.

In this first episode, he takes us on a deep dive into the Caribbean Sea and sees the ocean’s “biological pump” in action – a process that removes carbon from the air and the surface ocean and stores it in the deep sea, far from the atmosphere, where it could contribute to global warming.

Reader: Adam Sims
Abridged and produced by Elizabeth Burke
Executive producer: Sara Davies
Sound design: Jon Calver
A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4


MON 12:00 News Summary (m002vx3d)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


MON 12:04 You and Yours (m002vx3g)
News and discussion of consumer affairs


MON 12:57 Weather (m002vx3j)
The latest weather forecast


MON 13:00 World at One (m002vx3l)
News, analysis and comment from BBC Radio 4


MON 13:45 Naturebang (m002vx3n)
Giant Anteaters and Power Posing

Becky Ripley and Emily Knight look to the animal world to question why we "power pose". Anteaters are masters of it. When feeling threatened, they rear up on their hind legs and extend their arms out wide to show off their huge claws. It is a posture that is designed to make them look more intimidating to predators or competing rivals. Does it work like this for us? If we take up more space in a power pose, are we perceived to be more powerful in the eyes of others?

Featuring Arnaud Desbiez, president and founder of ICAS (The Wild Animal Conservation Institute), and Dr Daniel Gurney, Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Hertfordshire. Produced and presented by Emily Knight and Becky Ripley.


MON 14:00 The Archers (m002vx3q)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Sunday]


MON 14:15 Conversations from a Long Marriage (m002vx3s)
Series 7

1. Changing Places

Joanna Lumley and Roger Allam return as the loving, long-married couple, in the 7th series of Jan Etherington’s award-winning comedy.

This week, we join them as they wake up in their new house. Joanna is keen to meet the neighbours but finds them unwelcoming. And how will she react when Roger discovers that an old flame lives in the same village?

Written by Jan Etherington
Producer: Claire Jones
Production coordinator: Giulia Lopes Mazzu
Studio Engineer: Wilfredo Acosta
Sound Designer: Jon Calver

A BBC Studios Production for Radio 4


MON 14:45 Opening Lines (m002vx3w)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:45 on Sunday]


MON 15:00 Great Lives (m002vx3y)
Peter Cook picked by Jon Harvey aka Count Binface

Peter Cook was at the centre of the satire boom of the early sixties, both on stage with Beyond the Fringe and with his Soho club, The Establishment. Later he became a famous double act with Dudley Moore, and was also less well known as Lord Gnome, the proprietor of Private Eye.

"I can't believe that after 600 episodes of Great Lives, no one has ever nominated him before."

A funny half hour on the life of Peter Cook, featuring archive of him both young and old. Jon Harvey makes the case for this comedy great along with the voices of biographer Harry Thompson, Jonathan Miller, Ian Hislop, Richard Ingrams, and - in an interview from 1993 - Chris Morris. Also includes an extract of The Strange Death of the Establishment from Radio 4 in 2004

The producer for BBC Studios is Miles Warde


MON 15:30 Illuminated (m002vx40)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:15 on Sunday]


MON 16:00 The Documentary (p0n6g2qv)
[Repeat of broadcast at 13:30 on Sunday]


MON 16:30 The Kitchen Cabinet (m002vwxq)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:30 on Saturday]


MON 17:00 PM (m002vx42)
Full coverage of the day's news


MON 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m002vx44)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


MON 18:30 The Unbelievable Truth (m002vx46)
Series 33

2. Pets, The Brain, Breakfast and Shopping

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

Alan Davies, Celya AB, Ian Smith and Angela Barnes are the panellists obliged to talk with deliberate inaccuracy on subjects as varied as pets, the brain, breakfast and shopping.

The show is devised by Graeme Garden and Jon Naismith

Producer: Jon Naismith

A Random Entertainment production for BBC Radio 4


MON 19:00 The Archers (m002vx48)
Leonard has a proposition for Carol, and Natasha looks forward to showing off her skills.


MON 19:15 Front Row (m002vx4b)
Celebrating the art of Illustration, with Sir Quentin Blake and Posy Simmonds

As the Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration prepares to open in London, we find out how illustrators are adapting to a changing world.

Starting with a rare interview from Quentin Blake, we'll hear how this once undervalued side of the visual arts still creates the defining images of childhoods, whilst also now playing a central role in the visual language of the internet.

Featuring voices working across illustration, including Posy Simmonds, Chris Riddell, Michael Rosen, Christoph Niemann, Lizzy Stewart, Benji Davies, Murugiah, Chie Kutsuwada and Jane Rosenberg and Olivia Ahmad.

The Quentin Blake Centre for Illustration opens 5th June.

Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Harry Graham


MON 20:00 The Briefing Room (m002vml6)
Can Europe build digital sovereignty?

Ask Claude a question, Google a query, order from Amazon, chat with mates on WhatsApp, tune in to Youtube. And where ever you do it from, you’ll never be somehow not in America. Because Britain, like Europe is dependent on US tech and as the AI revolution unfolds, governments are increasingly worried about it.

The new buzz phrase is digital sovereignty. But what does that mean? Is it even feasible? And can the UK and the Europe take back control?

David Aaronovitch talks to:

Stanley Pignal, Europe editor at The Economist
Cecilia Rikap, Associate Professor in Economics and Head of Research at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose
Seb Johnson, founder of Scaling Europe, a media company focused on European Tech

Presenter: David Aaronovitch
Producers: Ben Carter, Sally Abrahams, Kirsteen Knight
Production Co-ordinator: Gemma Ashman
Sound engineer: James Beard
Editor: Richard Vadon


MON 20:30 BBC Inside Science (w3ct977j)
Why is Europe the fastest-warming continent?

The latest European State of the Climate report has found that Europe is once again getting warmer, and at a rate that is twice as fast as the global average. Tom Whipple is joined by Dr Samantha Burgess, deputy director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, to understand the driving forces behind this stark difference and anticipate what Europeans can expect in the coming years as a result.

We also remember Dr J Craig Venter, one of the famous founders of what we might now call the genomic age of science who dies this week.

In the lead-up to the 100th birthday of the world-famous broadcaster Sir David Attenborough, Inside Science is shining a spotlight on a species of scientific importance that has been named after him. This week, Dr Leonidas-Romanos Davranoglou shares his treacherous search for a unique species of echidna previously thought to be extinct.

Plus, science journalist Caroline Steel fills us in on the latest science news that you might have missed - from the surprising growth rates of Neanderthal babies to 10,000 newly discovered planets.

Presenter: Tom Whipple
Producer: Alex Mansfield
Assistant Producer: Katie Tomsett
Editor: Martin Smith
Production Co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth


MON 21:00 Start the Week (m002vx31)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]


MON 21:45 Café Hope (m002vx33)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:45 today]


MON 22:00 The World Tonight (m002vx4d)
In depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective


MON 22:45 The Prisoner by Sally Carson (m002vx4g)
Episode Six

The Prisoner by Sally Carson is the 1936 sequel to her novel Crooked Cross, first published in 1934 and based on her first-hand experience of travelling through Bavaria witnessing the inexorable and devastating rise of fascism. The Prisoner was written by Carson whilst she was on holiday in Germany in 1935. Carson was only 38 when she died in 1941 of breast cancer, so she never lived to see the end of the war - which makes her novels and her foresight even more extraordinary.

Despite the excellent reviews for both books, both she and the texts disappeared. Long out of print, they were recently rediscovered by Persephone Books and republished.

The Prisoner picks up the story of the Kluger family a few months after the death of Lexa Kluger and her boyfriend Moritz Wiseman who were hounded and hunted down on the mountains between their home town of Kranach and Austria. The reason – relationships between Germans and Jews were now forbidden. Despite his family being long assimilated and his father having won an Iron Cross in the First World War fighting for his country, Germany, Moritz, while technically not Jewish because his mother wasn’t, had a Jewish surname.

The Prisoner follows the Klugers as they try to make sense of Lexa’s death, each in their own way. And in particular Helmy, Lexa’s brother, who was on patrol on the mountain that night. The trauma of what he witnessed has affected his behaviour so much that his family now fear for his safety as the Nazi Party tightens its grip on German society.

Reader: Daniel Weyman
Abridged by Sara Davies
Produced by Caroline Raphael
Production Co-ordinator: Dawn Williams
Recorded and mixed by Matt Bainbridge

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4


MON 23:00 Drama on 4 (m000vz8v)
Talawa Stories: NSA by Charles Entsie

Set within the charged confines of a car, a clandestine encounter between two Black men leads to far more than either had bargained for.

Each man must come to terms with their identities and very different life trajectories.

Written by Charles Entsie.

Man ...... Don Gilet
Boy ...... Idris Debrand

Talawa Theatre is the UK’s outstanding Black theatre company.

Recorded during the national lockdown and in line with Covid safe measures.

Sound Design: Steve Bond
Producer: Alison Holder
Director: Jade Lewis

A Talawa Theatre / feral inc production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in May 2021.


MON 23:30 Hotel Room Art (m001tqbs)
The inside story of art in hotel rooms - and why hoteliers think it's so important to get it right. Ian McMillan has always been fascinated by the artworks he finds on his travels. Here he encounters mass produced flowers, abstract excitement and ancient artefacts. In three very different hotel bedrooms he meets curators, designers and artists - but most importantly he meets the art, and asks why we have ‘art’ hotels .

TUESDAY 05 MAY 2026

TUE 00:00 Midnight News (m002vx4j)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


TUE 00:30 The Dark Frontier by Jeffrey Marlow (m002vx39)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:45 on Monday]


TUE 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m002vx4l)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.


TUE 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m002vx4n)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


TUE 05:00 News Summary (m002vx4q)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


TUE 05:04 The Documentary (p0n6g2qv)
[Repeat of broadcast at 13:30 on Sunday]


TUE 05:34 Shipping Forecast (m002vx4v)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.


TUE 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m002vx4x)
Spiritual reflection to start the day with Fr Philip Blackledge of Holy Trinity Scottish Episcopal Church, Melrose.


TUE 05:45 Farming Today (m002vx4z)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.


TUE 06:00 Today (m002vybt)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.


TUE 09:00 The Gift (m002vybw)
Series 3

1. Twins, Part 1

The special bond between twin sisters Michelle and Lavinia is tested in an almost inconceivable way.

In The Gift, Jenny Kleeman has always looked at extraordinary truths that unravel when people take at-home DNA tests. For Series 3, Jenny is asking what it means to belong in a world where the global DNA database keeps expanding.

Presenter: Jenny Kleeman
Producer: Conor Garrett
Production Coordinator: Juliette Harvey
Commissioning Executive: Tracy Williams
Commissioning Editor: Dan Clarke
The Gift is a BBC Studios production for BBC Radio 4


TUE 09:30 All in the Mind (m002vybz)
Toxic work behaviours, mind blanking, and why spending time with friends makes you more yourself

Claudia Hammond and guests offer insights into tackling knowledge theft and discourteous emails.

Dr Emma Russell, occupational psychologist and reader in occupational and organisational psychology from the University of Sussex, has insights into perpetrators of disrespectful emails. And studio guest Dr Pete Olusoga, senior lecturer in psychology at Sheffield Hallam University, tells Claudia about new research into knowledge theft and how to make repairs if it happens.

And Dr Madoka Kumashiro, from Goldsmiths, University of London, will discuss the Michaelangelo phenomenon – the idea that spending time with people who bring out the best in us helps to reveal our ideal inner self.

And finally, Pete Olusoga has research on mind-blanking which is increasingly thought to be a distinct brain state, different to mind-wandering or sleep.

Presenter: Claudia Hammond
Producers: Lorna Stewart and Gerry Holt
Studio Managers: Giles Aspen and Mary Stone
Production Coordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth
Content Editor: Ilan Goodman


TUE 10:00 Woman's Hour (m002vyc1)
Women's voices and women's lives - topical conversations to inform, challenge and inspire.


TUE 11:00 Screenshot (m002vngp)
Teachers

Ellen E Jones and Mark Kermode head back to class to learn how teachers have been depicted on screen, from Goodbye, Mr Chips to Adolescence. What can film and television teach us, if anything, about what it takes to be a good teacher?

Mark speaks to east London-based teacher and film critic Charlotte Harrison about the enduring appeal of inspirational mentor figures in cinema, from Sidney Poitier in To Sir, with Love to Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society, and how far these stories reflect - or distort - the realities of life in the classroom. She also highlights the films and TV series that come closest to capturing the day-to-day experience of teaching.

Ellen talks to Guz Khan, star of Man Like Mobeen, who first honed his crowd-control skills in a Coventry classroom before turning to stand-up comedy and acting, about how screen depictions compare with his own experience as a teacher.

She also speaks to British television legend Sir Philip Redmond about Grange Hill, the groundbreaking, long-running school drama he created in 1978, whose characters - from Mr Bronson to Mrs McClusky - became as familiar to generations of British pupils as their real-life teachers.

Producer: Jane Long
A Prospect Street production for BBC Radio 4.


TUE 11:45 The Dark Frontier by Jeffrey Marlow (m002vyc3)
Episode 2: Woods Hole

The deep sea is one of our last frontiers. For most of human history, it was a vast, dark, and unknown realm that invoked awe and terror. Now, one thing we do know is that it is critically important and central to the future of life on this planet.

In The Dark Frontier, marine microbiologist and deep-sea explorer Jeffrey Marlow reveals how life can thrive in even the most remote, unforgiving landscapes. Professor Marlow’s research focuses on understanding the microbes that inhabit the rocks and sediments of the seafloor.

In his lab in Boston, he works with a team of scientists to discover how these communities of microbes perform feats of metabolic ingenuity that shape the global carbon cycle and push the boundaries of life’s limits in extreme environments.

In this second episode, he looks back to his summer as an undergraduate at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution on Cape Cod, and his first attempts to extract the DNA of microbes living in deep-ocean rocks. The discovery of these microbes has profoundly altered the old assumption that life was dependent on the sun. In fact, hydrothermal vents deep in the ocean are a second source of life: “I was coming to understand that the microbial universe was just as mysterious as the worlds beyond Earth I had longed to explore as a boy.”

Reader: Adam Sims
Abridged and produced by Elizabeth Burke
Executive producer: Sara Davies
Sound design: Jon Calver
A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4


TUE 12:00 News Summary (m002vyc5)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


TUE 12:04 You and Yours (m002vyc7)
Call You & Yours: How does your family afford the cost of care?

On today's programme we want to talk about paying for care.

How does your family afford the cost of care?

Fees for care home places or carers in the home increase every year and Healthcare data provider LaingBuisson suggests the average fee for a care home place for a "frail older person" is now just under £1500 a week.

Nearly half of the market is self funded - which means residents pay for their own care- through pension income, savings and if it comes to it the sale of their home

How does your family afford the cost of care?

You can call 03700 100 444 after 11am.

Or you can email us at youandyours@bbc.co.uk.

PRESENTER: WINIFRED ROBINSON
PRODUCER: LYDIA THOMAS


TUE 12:57 Weather (m002vyc9)
The latest weather forecast


TUE 13:00 World at One (m002vycc)
News, analysis and comment from BBC Radio 4


TUE 13:45 Naturebang (m002vycf)
Riverbeds and the Sedimentation of Ideas

What if all the ideas and values surrounding our lives are like pieces of sediment in a river? Some never quite settle and get swept away, lost to the currents of time. But some take hold, solidify, become part of the cultural bedrock that underpin our lives. With the help of a geologist and a philosopher, Becky Ripley and Emily Knight dig deeper into this metaphor, to unearth the sedimented histories shape our lives.

Featuring geologist Chris Jackson, Professor of Basin Analysis at Imperial College London, and philosopher Julian Baginni, author of 'How the World Thinks'. Produced and presented by Emily Knight and Becky Ripley.


TUE 14:00 The Archers (m002vx48)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Monday]


TUE 14:15 Takeover (m000xdq6)
Series 1

Episode 3

High-stake deals and sibling rivalry set in the world of the super wealthy. Billionaire Ravi Majumdar finds his business empire and family start to unravel as he single-mindedly tries to destroy his lifelong adversary. A drama on a grand scale, played out like a Shakespearean tragedy. Starring Rajit Kapur.

Recorded both in the UK and in India.

Cast:
Ravi Majumdar...... Rajit Kapur
Ash......Abhin Galeya
Maya......Amrita Acharia
Zara......Munirih Grace
Shaan......Danny Ashok
Amit......Tavish Bhattacharyya
Ian......Finbar Lynch
Seraphina......Jennifer Armour
Jai......Vincent Ebrahim
Karan......Zafar Karachiwala
Jeet......Ronny Jhutti
Venitia......Laurel Lefkow

All other parts were played by:
Ash Hunter
Philip Desmeules
Emma Carter
Natalie Simpson,
Lola Ogunyemi,
Aseem Hattangady,
Ayeesha Menon
Nadir Khan

With original music by Sacha Puttnam

Written by Ayeesha Menon and Matthew Solon
Sound Design by Eloise Whitmore
Sound recording by Paul Clark, Ashyar Bulsara and Ayush Ahuja
Assistant Producer, Eleanor Mein
Production Assistant, Anna Calandra
Produced by Emma Hearn and Nadir Khan
Director and Executive Producer, John Scott Dryden

A Goldhawk production for BBC Radio 4


TUE 15:00 History's Heroes (m002vych)
Charles Dickens and the Train Crash

In June 1865, the writer Charles Dickens was sitting in the first-class carriage of a train when it crashed outside of Kent. The horrific accident would require all his courage and threaten to reveal his most closely guarded secret.

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

A BBC Studios production.

Producer: Michael LaPointe
Written and presented by Alex von Tunzelmann
Executive Producer: Paul Smith
Commissioning editor for Radio 4: Rhian Roberts


TUE 15:30 Beyond Belief (m002vyck)
Inked

Giles Fraser gets under the skin of the religious significance of tattoos. We hear from Wassim Rassouk - the owner of the oldest tattoo business in the world and head of a family business going back 27 generations.

His panel are Revd Wendy Dalrymple, Canon of Ripon Cathedral who has Christian symbols tattooed on the entire length of her arms, tattoo artist and designer, Gabriel Wolff who specialises in Hebrew Calligraphy, and Maori tā moko artist Te Rangitu Netana.


TUE 16:00 Artworks (m002vycm)
Uneasy Listening

Uneasy Listening examines three challenging composers - Karlheinz Stockhausen, Morton Feldman and John Cage - who, as mid-20th century artists, were responsible for turning classical music upside down and discomforting audiences.

Once the height of sophistication, they’re now seen as vibrant music usurpers of the past. Their legacies are increasingly obscured by a contemporary reluctance to perform challenging or unwieldy works, with mischievous or taboo breaking behaviour and an embrace of what is perceived as difficultness, in pursuit of artistic originality.

Uneasy Listening explores why that is and how rehabilitation of these ‘troublemaker’ artists and others like them, through a bold defence of their challenging work and personalities, may help to lift the shadows that have fallen over their complicated artistry.

For listeners, it will be a chance to understand why the difficultness matters, why it is integral, why a reluctance to engage with the complexity may reveal something about contemporary musical prejudices, and how we might overcome those.

Presenter: Jude Rogers
Editor: Nick Romero
Producer: Andrew McGibbon

A Curtains For Radio production for BBC Radio 4


TUE 16:30 What's Up Docs? (m002vycp)
Why do you snore?

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

In this episode they're looking at snoring, exploring what causes some of us to snore when we sleep. They also want to know when we should worry that our snoring might actually be the sign of a larger problem, and what we can do to sleep a little more quietly at night.

Joining them is Dr Sophie West, a consultant respiratory physician and lead of Newcastle regional sleep service, with national roles across the OSA Alliance, British Thoracic Society, and NICE Sleep Disordered Breathing Guidelines group.

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

Presenters: Drs Chris and Xand van Tulleken
Guest: Dr Sophie West
Producer: Maia Miller-Lewis
Executive Producer: Rami Tzabar
Researcher: Samara Linton
Tech Lead: Reuben Huxtable
Visual Producer: 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 (m002vycr)
Full coverage of the day's news


TUE 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m002vyct)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


TUE 18:30 Nature Table (m002vycw)
Series 5

5: Mind-controlling Caffeine & Kinky Lamprey

In this episode Sue hears about mind-controlling Caffeine, kinky Lamprey, Poisonous tomatoes and sassy Sticklebacks.

‘Sue Perkins’ Nature Table - possibly the funniest “natural science” series, ever.’ Pick of the Week, The Telegraph

Joining Sue Perkins at the BBC Radio Theatre, this episode of the ARIA-winning ‘Show and Tell’ wildlife comedy features special guests: comedian and singer Jordan Gray, ethnobotanist James Wong and wildlife cameraman and fish expert Jack Perks.

Nature Table has a simple clear goal: to positively celebrate our planet’s wonderfully wild (and funny) flora and fauna in a fun accessible way... whilst always having a giggle.

Hosted by: Sue Perkins
Guests: Jordan Gray, James Wong & Jack Perks.
Written by: Jon Hunter and Jenny Laville.
Additional material by: Jade Gebbie.
Researcher: Catherine Beazley
Executive Producer: James Robinson
Sound Editor: Jerry Peal
Music by: Ben Mirin
Production Coordinator: Caroline Barlow & Sarah Nicholls
Producer: Simon Nicholls

A BBC Studios Production for Radio 4.


TUE 19:00 The Archers (m002vycy)
Ruth has a lot to think about, and Anna tries to keep her cool.


TUE 19:15 Front Row (m002vyd0)
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music.


TUE 20:00 File on 4 Investigates (m002vyd2)
News-making original journalism documentary series, investigating stories at home and abroad.


TUE 20:40 In Touch (m002vyd4)
News, views and information for people who are blind or partially sighted


TUE 21:00 Crossing Continents (m002vyd6)
Serbia: Under the Canopy

Eighteen months ago, the renovation of the railway station in Serbia’s second biggest city, Novi Sad, led to a tragic accident. A substantial concrete canopy, which ran across the front of the station building, suddenly collapsed, killing sixteen people. The disaster sparked mass protests. Marchers demanded justice for the dead and injured. As the protests spread, to the capital, Belgrade, and to towns and cities across the country, the demands evolved. Protesters accused the government of corruption and of covering up the truth about what happened. The government accused the protesters of being foreign agents, supported and organised by malign outside forces. Now, after more than a year, the mass protests have finally subsided. Jill McGivering is in Serbia to find out what’s happened to that explosion of anti-government anger.

Presented by Jill McGivering
Produced by Caroline Finnigan
Studio mix: Neil Churchill
Editor: Penny Murphy


TUE 21:30 Great Lives (m002vx3y)
[Repeat of broadcast at 15:00 on Monday]


TUE 22:00 The World Tonight (m002vyd8)
In depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective


TUE 22:45 The Prisoner by Sally Carson (m002vydb)
Episode Seven

The Prisoner by Sally Carson is the 1936 sequel to her novel Crooked Cross, first published in 1934 and based on her first-hand experience of travelling through Bavaria witnessing the inexorable and devastating rise of fascism. The Prisoner was written by Carson whilst she was on holiday in Germany in 1935. Carson was only 38 when she died in 1941 of breast cancer, so she never lived to see the end of the war - which makes her novels and her foresight even more extraordinary.

Despite the excellent reviews for both books, both she and the texts disappeared. Long out of print, they were recently rediscovered by Persephone Books and republished.

The Prisoner picks up the story of the Kluger family a few months after the death of Lexa Kluger and her boyfriend Moritz Wiseman who were hounded and hunted down on the mountains between their home town of Kranach and Austria. The reason – relationships between Germans and Jews were now forbidden. Despite his family being long assimilated and his father having won an Iron Cross in the First World War fighting for his country, Germany, Moritz, while technically not Jewish because his mother wasn’t, had a Jewish surname.

The Prisoner follows the Klugers as they try to make sense of Lexa’s death, each in their own way. And in particular Helmy, Lexa’s brother, who was on patrol on the mountain that night. The trauma of what he witnessed has affected his behaviour so much that his family now fear for his safety as the Nazi Party tightens its grip on German society.

Reader: Daniel Weyman
Abridged by Sara Davies
Produced by Caroline Raphael
Production Co-ordinator: Dawn Williams
Recorded and mixed by Matt Bainbridge

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4


TUE 23:00 Uncanny (m002vydd)
Cold Cases

The Sandown Clown

Spring 1973, the Isle of Wight, and two young children have an truly weird encounter.

In marshland near Sandown Airport they meet a 7-foot creature with a yellow hat, three-fingered hands, and triangles for eyes.

He calls himself ‘All Colours Sam.’ Was Sam an otherworldly visitor, or merely the product of a child’s imagination? And is there any connection to an epidemic of UFO sightings over the Isle of Wight at the same time?

The truth is out there - Danny, Ciaran and Evelyn investigate.

Presented by Danny Robins
Experts: Evelyn Hollow and Dr Ciaran O’Keeffe
Story sections by Simon Barnard
Research by Ryan Whalen and Nancy Bottomley
Filming and editing by Robb Leech
Editing and sound design by Charlie Brandon-King
Theme music by Katherine Priddy
Theme co-produced by Jennifer Ann Keller
Incidental music by Evelyn Sykes
Commissioning executive: Paula McDonnell
Commissioning editor: Rhian Roberts
Produced by Simon Barnard and Victoria Lloyd

A Bafflegab and Uncanny Media production for BBC Radio 4


TUE 23:30 Soul Music (m001rgnj)
I Will Always Love You

Written by Dolly Parton... sent stratospheric by Whitney Houston; I Will Always Love You is a song that has a worldwide fanbase reflected by the diverse memories shared here:

Nagham Kewifati tells how her mother, Mayada Bseliss, had a huge hit in Syria with an Arabic version. It was produced by Nagham's father, Mayada's husband, Samir.

Dr. Marie Thompson of the Open University, who co-wrote a short course entirely about Dolly Parton, reveals the unlikely story behind the song and why Elvis Presley was refused permission to record his own version.

Member of Parliament, Jim Shannon, explains why he introduced an unusual Early Day Motion in the House of Commons to celebrate the song's 50th anniversary in 2023.

Ben Rimalower, host of Giants in the Sky on the Broadway Podcast Network, describes how obsessed he became with Whitney Houston's performances of this track when he was recovering from alcohol and drug addiction.

Vocal Coach, CeCe Sammy Lightfoot, describes how difficult Whitney Houston's version is to sing and the technique required to perform this vocal high-wire act.

And Marcus Grimmie, brother of singer Christina Grimmie, remembers his sister's beautiful voice and rise to stardom before she was tragically murdered. He set up the Christina Grimmie Foundation in her memory to create a community and provide financial support for families affected by gun violence.

Producer: Karen Gregor

WEDNESDAY 06 MAY 2026

WED 00:00 Midnight News (m002vydj)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


WED 00:30 The Dark Frontier by Jeffrey Marlow (m002vyc3)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:45 on Tuesday]


WED 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m002vydl)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.


WED 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m002vydn)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


WED 05:00 News Summary (m002vydq)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


WED 05:04 BBC Inside Science (w3ct977j)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:30 on Monday]


WED 05:34 Shipping Forecast (m002vydv)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.


WED 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m002vydx)
Spiritual reflection to start the day with Fr Philip Blackledge of Holy Trinity Scottish Episcopal Church, Melrose.


WED 05:45 Farming Today (m002vydz)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.


WED 06:00 Today (m002vygp)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.


WED 09:00 Life Changing (m002vxds)
Triumph for a medical guinea pig

Laurie Peake loved the outdoors, provided it involved speed. She had discovered a passion for skiing in Canada, and back home in England she loved water-skiing, dancing and motorbiking. That is, until a serious motorbike crash on a wintry day in the 1980s changed everything.

Rushed to hospital, it looked as if Laurie would lose her lower leg. But a pioneering orthopaedic team thought otherwise, maintaining there was still hope. In a long battle which involved a technique only ever tried behind the iron curtain, they fought against the odds to save her leg.

Laurie tells Dr Sian Williams how, during the process, she discovered a passion for art and art history – and reveals whether the experimental Ilizarov technique really worked.

Producer: Tom Alban


WED 09:30 Currently (m002smwt)
Britain by Bodycam

Every month brings a new headline about shoplifting, confrontations with retail staff and disorder on our high streets.

As a result, more and more security guards have taken to wearing bodyworn cameras, now visible in every part of our lives, from supermarkets to coffee shops, railway stations to hospitals. For some they are a welcome deterrent and bring peace of mind. For others, they are a sign of a country that has lost its way.

But what is the world behind these bodycams? Miles away from the high street, dotted around the country on trading estates, in business parks on the edges of cities, even in disused military bunkers, staff work round the clock to monitor live footage that feeds through from bodyworn cameras.

Aidan Tulloch has been allowed through the bombproof doors and secure airlocks to see what it is like to work in one of these alarm receiving centres. How does it feel to spend 12-hour shifts in one of these windowless rooms watching all corners of Britain? What is the psychological impact of seeing violence unfold in real time?

Talking to employees from a number of security companies as they sit at banks of computer screens and watch notifications ping in from across the country, he finds out how the alarm receiving centres can often be peaceful places, full of the usual office chatter...until an alarm goes off.

And as our social media feeds are filled with videos of altercations - often caught on bodycam - alongside people claiming the country is in decline, what does it say about society that we consume this content for pleasure?

Presenter: Aidan Tulloch
Producer: Tim Bano


WED 10:00 Woman's Hour (m002vygr)
Women's voices and women's lives - topical conversations to inform, challenge and inspire.


WED 11:00 File on 4 Investigates (m002vyd2)
[Repeat of broadcast at 20:00 on Tuesday]


WED 11:40 This Week in History (m002vxf7)
May 4th to May 10th

Fascinating, surprising and eye-opening stories from the past, brought to life.

4th May 1990 - Latvia declares its independence
10th May 1857 - Indian rebellion against British rule by the East India Company begins
10th May 1824 - The National Gallery first opens at 100 Pall Mall


WED 11:45 The Dark Frontier by Jeffrey Marlow (m002vygt)
Episode 3: Diving to the Bottom of the Pacific

The deep sea is one of our last frontiers. For most of human history, it was a vast, dark, and unknown realm that invoked awe and terror. Now, one thing we do know is that it is critically important and central to the future of life on this planet.

In The Dark Frontier, marine microbiologist and deep-sea explorer Jeffrey Marlow reveals how life can thrive in even the most remote, unforgiving landscapes. Professor Marlow’s research focuses on understanding the microbes that inhabit the rocks and sediments of the seafloor.

In his lab in Boston, he works with a team of scientists to discover how these communities of microbes perform feats of metabolic ingenuity that shape the global carbon cycle and push the boundaries of life’s limits in extreme environments.

In this third episode, he is diving deep in the Pacific Ocean, at the Cascadia subduction zone, where two tectonic plates are edging towards each other.
“I saw multitudes of life coating every surface, and the biological richness was astounding. The sheer improbability of the whole thing – an overflowing oasis within a sea-floor desert – was hard to comprehend. Rich profusions of life can be sustained without sunlight or the importation of sun-built food. It made me wonder if something similar could be happening elsewhere in the solar system…”

Reader: Adam Sims
Abridged and produced by Elizabeth Burke
Executive producer: Sara Davies
Sound design: Jon Calver
A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4


WED 12:00 News Summary (m002vygw)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


WED 12:04 You and Yours (m002vygy)
News and discussion of consumer affairs


WED 12:57 Weather (m002vyh0)
The latest weather forecast


WED 13:00 World at One (m002vyh2)
News, analysis and comment from BBC Radio 4


WED 13:45 Naturebang (m002vyh4)
Rats, Risk and Reward

Jackpot! Lights are flashing, bells are ringing, and you collect your big reward. No, this isn't Vegas, but it might as well be. We're in a specially designed casino for rats, where they gamble in pursuit of the Big Win: delicious sugar pellets. For both rats and humans, a finely tuned ability to assess risk against reward is essential for navigating an unpredictable world. We're pretty good at it. But why are we so easily derailed by the toxic allure of the Big Win, the roll-over Jackpot, the risk-it-all-on-black strategy which makes no rational sense? The answer may surprise you, and may also give you some insight into why you can't stop late-night doom-scrolling on your phone.

Featuring Catharine Winstanley, Professor of Psychology at the University of British Columbia, and Natasha Schull, cultural anthropologist and associate professor at New York University. Produced and presented by Emily Knight and Becky Ripley.


WED 14:00 The Archers (m002vycy)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Tuesday]


WED 14:15 Life Lines (m002vyh6)
Series 9

Episode 1

Carrie is a call handler for the ambulance service. Every day she makes split-second decisions as she deals with a succession of emergencies; from a young man who has fallen whilst attempting to put up a flag, to a mother dealing with the death of her only son. Carrie is gifted with the knack of calmly helping people through their most vulnerable moments. Each episode is a collage of heart-stopping stories, where Carrie’s indiscriminate acts of kindness can mean the difference between life and death.
The programme contains scenes of a traumatic nature.

Carrie ….. Sarah Ridgeway
Will ….. Rick Warden
Ian ….. Michael Jibson
Nick ….. Archie Christoph-Allen
David/ Æssan ….. Keneth Collard
Peter ….. Sam Dale
Bella ….. Sadie Gray
Natalie ….. Anna Spearpoint
Lauren ….. Yasmin Mwanza
Gwen ….. Clare Corbett

Production Co-ordinator ….. Luke MacGregor
Technical Producers ….. Keith Graham, Sam Dickinson

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

A BBC Studios Production.


WED 15:00 Money Box (m002vyh9)
The latest news from the world of personal finance


WED 15:30 Currently (m002tzlz)
About the Girls: The Puberty Puzzle

This week, as BBC Radio 4 explores what it means to grow up as a girl in 2026, health presenter Laura Foster is examining a striking scientific reality: that girls today are hitting puberty earlier than their parents and grandparents did. Question is why is this happening — and what does it mean for the adults they will become?

With the trend showing no sign of slowing down, Laura speaks to leading researchers to decode the forces behind this shift. With girls hitting puberty earlier than ever - we pay a visit to one primary school which has moved puberty lessons forward to keep pace. From genetics and childhood obesity to screens, stress and the Covid pandemic, we examine the complex mix shaping the bodies and minds of today’s girls.

What does earlier puberty mean for their physical, emotional and social development? Can the downward trend be stopped? And what support do young people need from families, schools and policymakers right now? Join us for About The Girls: The Puberty Puzzle as we explore why growing up is starting earlier than we expect.

Presenter: Laura Foster

Producer: Kate White
Editor: Martin Smith


WED 16:00 When It Hits the Fan (m002vyhc)
Who's in the news for all the wrong reasons? With David Yelland and Simon Lewis.


WED 16:15 The Media Show (m002vyhf)
This is the programme about a revolution in media.


WED 17:00 PM (m002vyhh)
Full coverage of the day's news


WED 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m002vyhk)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


WED 18:30 Stand-Up Specials (m002vyhm)
Nina Gilligan: Goldfish

Nina Gilligan’s head has become a goldfish bowl... distorted reflections, empty speech bubbles, thoughts tapping against the glass. She drifts through the murk, waiting for the filter to kick back in.

She starts with a plan. Or tries to. But it won’t stay put. Words go missing, stories double back, and a voice in her head keeps butting in at the worst possible moment.

“Car food.” Petrol. That sort of thing. The right word is there somewhere... just not when she needs it.

Recorded live at the Frog and Bucket Comedy Club in Manchester, Nina is thinking and talking at the same time, not always in the same direction.

As everything loops, slips, and resurfaces, Nina tries to hold onto what matters, and finds herself seeing some memories in a completely different light.

Written and performed by Nina Gilligan.
Produced by Carl Cooper.
Production Coordinator: Jodie Charman.
Sound design: Chris McClean.

A BBC Studios Production


WED 19:00 The Archers (m002vyhp)
Ruairi gets some food for thought, and there’s disaster for the Maliks.


WED 19:15 Front Row (m002vyhr)
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music.


WED 20:00 AntiSocial (m002vnfz)
Peace talks for the culture wars. In an era of polarisation, propaganda, and pile-ons, Adam Fleming helps you work out what the arguments are really about.


WED 20:45 Human Intelligence (m00274wb)
Series 1

Collectors: Pamphila

Naomi Alderman examines the intelligence and sharp humour of an ancient Greek historian known as Pamphila of Epidaurus. She was a female historian working in a society that believed women were constitutionally unsuited to the rational and peculiarly masculine task of recording facts for posterity. She wrote thirty-three volumes of her famed Historical Commentaries from her home. She wrote for fun, organising her material in a free and easy mix, like ‘embroidery’. We have none of her original writings, just reported fragments, but she gave us cultural history as we know it today, centuries ahead of time.

Special thanks to Edith Hall, Professor of Classics at Durham University.

Produced by BBC Studios Audio in partnership with The Open University.


WED 21:00 The Gift (m002vybw)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 on Tuesday]


WED 21:30 All in the Mind (m002vybz)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:30 on Tuesday]


WED 22:00 The World Tonight (m002vyhv)
In depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective


WED 22:45 The Prisoner by Sally Carson (m002vyhx)
Episode Eight

The Prisoner by Sally Carson is the 1936 sequel to her novel Crooked Cross, first published in 1934 and based on her first-hand experience of travelling through Bavaria witnessing the inexorable and devastating rise of fascism. The Prisoner was written by Carson whilst she was on holiday in Germany in 1935. Carson was only 38 when she died in 1941 of breast cancer, so she never lived to see the end of the war - which makes her novels and her foresight even more extraordinary.

Despite the excellent reviews for both books, both she and the texts disappeared. Long out of print, they were recently rediscovered by Persephone Books and republished.

The Prisoner picks up the story of the Kluger family a few months after the death of Lexa Kluger and her boyfriend Moritz Wiseman who were hounded and hunted down on the mountains between their home town of Kranach and Austria. The reason – relationships between Germans and Jews were now forbidden. Despite his family being long assimilated and his father having won an Iron Cross in the First World War fighting for his country, Germany, Moritz, while technically not Jewish because his mother wasn’t, had a Jewish surname.

The Prisoner follows the Klugers as they try to make sense of Lexa’s death, each in their own way. And in particular Helmy, Lexa’s brother, who was on patrol on the mountain that night. The trauma of what he witnessed has affected his behaviour so much that his family now fear for his safety as the Nazi Party tightens its grip on German society.

Reader: Daniel Weyman
Abridged by Sara Davies
Produced by Caroline Raphael
Production Co-ordinator: Dawn Williams
Recorded and mixed by Matt Bainbridge

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4


WED 23:00 Brian & Roger (m002vyhz)
6. Something in My Eye

A new series of the hit podcast specially recorded for Radio 4.

Roger's on the up, he and his son Jamie are down to the final pairs for Race Across The World, and he can't thank Brian enough for his help. Which is great, because Brian's in need of a small favour.

Brian & Roger are friends that met at a support group for divorced men.
Both are starting again, both are finding it hard.
One of them is nice.

Written and performed by Harry Peacock and Dan Skinner.
Produced by Joel Morris and Sally Harrison.
Music by Bach, arranged by Hywel Davies.
Hywel Davies (piano), Luke Belcher (bass), Tilly Tremayne (vocals).

Executive Producer: Johnny Vegas
A Woolyback production for BBC Radio 4


WED 23:15 The Skewer (m002vyj1)
Series 16

Episode 3

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


WED 23:30 Soul Music (m001rppx)
Defying Gravity from Wicked

Wicked the musical is 20 years old in 2023. The story of the Wizard of Oz told from the witches' perspective examines themes of difference, power and alienation. The so called Wicked Witch of the West Elphaba born with green skin experiences the pain of growing up different and of longing for acceptance. No surprise then that anybody who has ever felt marginalised or that they don't fit in is drawn to her story. Defying Gravity is Elphaba's war-cry at the end of Act One as she bravely decides to forge her own path in life - to "close her eyes and leap".
The song has become a powerful anthem for people from all different walks of life and this episode tells some of their stories.
Edward Pierce the Broadway set designer of Wicked knows the song through and through as he worked on the sequence where Elphaba takes flight and begins Defying Gravity. It wasn't until he became severely ill with Covid that the song took on a different meaning. While he was in an induced coma on a ventilator a nurse sang and hummed Defying Gravity to him. He believes that song played more than a minor role in his recovery. That nurse was singer Felicia Temple who had featured on The Voice America singing talent show performing Defying Gravity. When her musical career was cut short by lockdown in March 2020 she returned to nursing and when she found herself at the bedside of a Broadway set designer there was only one song that came to mind. But it has a personal resonance for her too as she went onto that TV show to sing the song one year on from her own illness with cancer and was resolute that as the song goes 'nothing was ever going to bring me down'.
The first British singer to play the role of Elphaba in the West End and Broadway is Kerry Ellis. She recounts how that song has given her so much in life and how grateful she is to its strong message of courage.
Kath Pierce formerly of the Manchester Proud Choir outlines why Defying Gravity is such an important song to the LGTBQ community and why the choir and members of the public took to the trams and streets of Manchester one November evening in defiance of a violent attack against two young gay men. They'd been on their way home on the tram singing songs from Wicked after a night out. Hundreds of people assembled in the city centre and sang Defying Gravity as a protest against the hate crime.
Musicologist Mel Spencer talks us through the genius of composer Stephen Schwartz's song and how it harks back to Somewhere Over The Rainbow as well as to Wagner!

Producer: Maggie Ayre

THURSDAY 07 MAY 2026

THU 00:00 Midnight News (m002vyj5)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


THU 00:30 The Dark Frontier by Jeffrey Marlow (m002vygt)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:45 on Wednesday]


THU 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m002vyj7)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.


THU 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m002vyj9)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


THU 05:00 News Summary (m002vyjc)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


THU 05:04 All in the Mind (m002vybz)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:30 on Tuesday]


THU 05:34 Shipping Forecast (m002vyjh)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.


THU 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m002vyjk)
Spiritual reflection to start the day with Fr Philip Blackledge of Holy Trinity Scottish Episcopal Church, Melrose.


THU 05:45 Farming Today (m002vyjm)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.


THU 06:00 Today (m002vyjr)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.


THU 09:00 In Our Time (m002vyjt)
Joseph Roth

Misha Glenny and guests discuss one of the great writers on Central Europe after the first world war and on the dying of the old orders with the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire. As a German speaking Jew from Brody in the north-eastern edge of that Empire, which was then in Galicia, next in Poland and is now in Ukraine, Roth (1894 - 1939) was to spend his short life moving first to Lviv then to Vienna and finally to Paris via Berlin without ever finding a settled home. Roth explored the loss of homeland and anticipated the dangers of the new nationalism through his journalism and in his novels including Radetzky March, Job, Rebellion and Flight Without End, and his books were among the first the Nazis burned.

With

Helen Chambers
Emeritus Professor of German at the University of St Andrews

Deborah Holmes
Associate Professor of Modern German Literature at the University of Salzburg

And

Jon Hughes
Reader in German and Cultural Studies at Royal Holloway, University of London

Producer: Simon Tillotson

In Our Time is a BBC Studios Production

Spanning history, religion, culture, science and philosophy, In Our Time from BBC Radio 4 is essential listening for the intellectually curious. In each episode, host Misha Glenny and expert guests explore the characters, events and discoveries that have shaped our world.


THU 09:45 Strong Message Here (m002vyjw)
Armando Iannucci and guests decode the utterly baffling world of political language.


THU 10:00 Woman's Hour (m002vyjy)
Women's voices and women's lives - topical conversations to inform, challenge and inspire.


THU 11:00 This Cultural Life (m002vyk0)
Michael Frayn

Over a seven-decade career, Michael Frayn has been acclaimed as a novelist, playwright, journalist, translator & memoirist. From his comedies – including the stage farce Noises Off, and a screenplay for Clockwise starring John Cleese, and the novels Headlong and Skios – to the complex political, historical and scientific themes of his stage plays Democracy and Copenhagen, he has been prolific in a diverse array of genres and subjects. He is also renowned for his stage adaptations of the works of Russian writers including Anton Chekhov. At 92, Michael Frayn advised on a recent revival of Copenhagen for the Hampstead Theatre.

Producer: Edwina Pitman


THU 11:45 The Dark Frontier by Jeffrey Marlow (m002vyk2)
Episode 4: Rosebud

The deep sea is one of our last frontiers. For most of human history, it was a vast, dark, and unknown realm that invoked awe and terror. Now, one thing we do know is that it is critically important and central to the future of life on this planet.

In The Dark Frontier, marine microbiologist and deep-sea explorer Jeffrey Marlow reveals how life can thrive in even the most remote, unforgiving landscapes. Professor Marlow’s research focuses on understanding the microbes that inhabit the rocks and sediments of the seafloor.

In his lab in Boston, he works with a team of scientists to discover how these communities of microbes perform feats of metabolic ingenuity that shape the global carbon cycle and push the boundaries of life’s limits in extreme environments.

In this fourth episode, Jeffrey tells the story of a whale named Rosebud. Rosebud had swum in the waters off California since the early 2000s, but in 2011 she was killed by a ship’s steel hull. She lay washed up on the beach, until marine biologist Greg Rouse decided to begin the experiment of a lifetime - he towed her out to sea and buried her a thousand metres deep. He wanted to discover what kind of ecosystem would come to life around her, fed by her carcass.

Three years later, Jeffrey Marlow joins a research ship to find out.
“As we descended to 844 metres, the haze of marine snow gave way revealing Rosebud’s splayed skeleton. It was monumental. The rib cage looked like a ruined cathedral, with crabs and snails huddled beneath its buttresses. It was then that I realised that Rosebud was nurturing her own bespoke community…”

Reader: Adam Sims
Abridged and produced by Elizabeth Burke
Executive producer: Sara Davies
Sound design: Jon Calver
A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4


THU 12:00 News Summary (m002vyk4)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


THU 12:04 Scam Secrets (m002vyk6)
Exposing the secret techniques criminals use to steal your money.


THU 12:32 Sliced Bread (m002vyk8)
Ergonomic Keyboards and Mice

Do ergonomic devices like split keyboards and vertical mice help with comfort and health?

If you're a heavy computer user there are an increasing variety of weird and wonderful options to help improve your comfort and reduce the risk of aches and pains associated with 'Repetitive Strain Injury' (RSI).

Listener Tim is curious whether ergonomic tools—such as split keyboards, alternative layouts, or vertical mice—could optimise his professional setup as a software engineer.

To find out, presenter Greg Foot does a deep-dive into the evidence alongside Nichola Adams, from the Chartered Institute of Ergonomics and Human Factors; and Ben Vallack, who runs a YouTube channel all about workflow and design.

And if you're interested in this topic, we have a companion episode on Standing Desks - available along with all our other episodes on BBC Sounds.

All of our episodes start with YOUR suggestions. If you’ve seen an ad, trend or wonder product promising to make you happier, healthier or greener, email us at sliced.bread@bbc.co.uk OR send a voice note to our WhatsApp number, 07543 306807.

RESEARCHER: PHIL SANSOM
PRODUCERS: SIMON HOBAN AND GREG FOOT


THU 12:57 Weather (m002vykb)
The latest weather forecast


THU 13:00 World at One (m002vykd)
News, analysis and comment from BBC Radio 4


THU 13:45 Naturebang (m002vykg)
African Wild Dogs and Democracy

For African Wild Dogs in the Okovango Delta, living with the pack has its ups and downs. You get help with the hunting, and there's safety in numbers, but there's also a lot of compromise. When the pack leaves, you leave, even if you were in the middle of a nap. All social-living animals from ants to zebras (and humans) have to figure out how to make decisions as a group, and the dogs have a particularly interesting strategy. They vote. By sneezing. Of course, humans have much more sophisticated ways of collaborating in group decision-making, but sometimes we're not very succesful at doing what's genuinely best for everyone. Even the most sophisticated systems of modern democracy have a hard time discovering, and enacting, the actual Will of the People. Becky Ripley and Emily Knight wonder if the dogs might do it better.

Featuring Andrew King, Professor of Animal Behaviour at Swansea University, and Helen Margetts, Professor of Internet and Society at the University of Oxford. Produced and presented by Emily Knight and Becky Ripley.


THU 14:00 The Archers (m002vyhp)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Wednesday]


THU 14:15 Life Lines (m002vykj)
Series 9

Episode 2

Award winning drama set in an Ambulance Control Room.

Carrie must deal with the fallout from a car having driven into a crowd of protestors, all the time maintaining her compassion and ability to deal with other people’s emergencies whilst facing face down her own fears that her husband is among those injured.

The programme contains scenes of a traumatic nature.

Carrie ….. Sarah Ridgeway
Will ….. Rick Warden
Ian ….. Michael Jibson
Jake ….. Sam Swann
Policewoman/Operator….. Yasmin Mwanza
Jogger/Gareth ….. Stephen Wight
John ….. John Hollingworth
Med-Reg/Rosie ….. Holli Dempsey
Peter/Humphrey ….. Sam Dale
Henny ….. Georgie Glen

Production Co-ordinator ….. Luke MacGregor
Technical Producers ….. Keith Graham, Sam Dickinson
Writer ….. Al Smith
Director ….. Sally Avens

A BBC Studios Production.


THU 15:00 Open Country (m002vykl)
Wildlife Artists on Massingham Heath

Martha Kearney is in Norfolk to see the farm that is being returned to something like its ancient grassland habitat, following WW2 Dig for Victory. The Society of Wildlife Artists is holding a year-long residency documenting the recovery of the land and the wildlife and Martha meets some of the artists and sees how they are reflecting what they see around them.

Producer: Beth O'Dea


THU 15:27 Radio 4 Appeal (m002vy8q)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:54 on Sunday]


THU 15:30 Word of Mouth (m002vykn)
Michael Rosen and Dara Ó Briain talk about time

On his 80th birthday, Michael Rosen discusses with Dara Ó Briain how we talk about and understand time, and how we look back on the different chapters of our lives.
To hear the full conversation, download the podcast.
Produced for BBC Audio Bristol by Beth O'Dea, in partnership with the Open University.
Subscribe to the Word of Mouth podcast and never miss an episode: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/b006qtnz


THU 16:00 The Briefing Room (m002vykq)
David Aaronovitch presents in-depth explainers on big issues in the news.


THU 16:30 BBC Inside Science (w3ct977k)
A weekly show exploring science, its mysteries, and the debates it sparks.


THU 17:00 PM (m002vykt)
Full coverage of the day's news


THU 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m002vykw)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


THU 18:30 Stand-Up Specials (m002vyky)
Geoff Norcott's Working Men's Club S2

S2 E3: Baby Daddy

Geoff Norcott examines modern masculinity in this second series of his stand-up show, by creating the safe space of a working men’s club so he can speak freely about the problems men are facing and how we might go about fixing them in a way that benefits everyone.

This week, Geoff looks at the early years of fatherhood – before you can kick a ball around with them, or give them inspiring words of wisdom as a stirring score plays behind you. What does it mean to be a “good dad” to a baby? As ever, these serious points are intercut with “manly hypotheticals”, the sort of question men ask each other to avoid talking about stuff that matters, like: who would win in a fight between Ben Shephard and Dermot O’Leary?

Written and presented by ... Geoff Norcott

Recorded by ... Sean Kerwin
Production manager ... Dawn Williams
Executive producer ... Caroline Raphael

Producer ... Ed Morrish


THU 19:00 The Archers (m002vxdg)
Brian fears the worst, and Brad comes to a decision.


THU 19:15 Front Row (m002vyl0)
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music.


THU 20:00 When It Hits the Fan (m002vyhc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 16:00 on Wednesday]


THU 20:15 The Media Show (m002vyhf)
[Repeat of broadcast at 16:15 on Wednesday]


THU 21:00 Radical with Amol Rajan (m002vyl2)
Conversations about tomorrow, from Today.


THU 21:30 Life Changing (m002vxds)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 on Wednesday]


THU 22:00 The World Tonight (m002vyl6)
In depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective


THU 22:45 The Prisoner by Sally Carson (m002vyl8)
Episode Nine

The Prisoner by Sally Carson is the 1936 sequel to her novel Crooked Cross, first published in 1934 and based on her first-hand experience of travelling through Bavaria witnessing the inexorable and devastating rise of fascism. The Prisoner was written by Carson whilst she was on holiday in Germany in 1935. Carson was only 38 when she died in 1941 of breast cancer, so she never lived to see the end of the war - which makes her novels and her foresight even more extraordinary.

Despite the excellent reviews for both books, both she and the texts disappeared. Long out of print, they were recently rediscovered by Persephone Books and republished.

The Prisoner picks up the story of the Kluger family a few months after the death of Lexa Kluger and her boyfriend Moritz Wiseman who were hounded and hunted down on the mountains between their home town of Kranach and Austria. The reason – relationships between Germans and Jews were now forbidden. Despite his family being long assimilated and his father having won an Iron Cross in the First World War fighting for his country, Germany, Moritz, while technically not Jewish because his mother wasn’t, had a Jewish surname.

The Prisoner follows the Klugers as they try to make sense of Lexa’s death, each in their own way. And in particular Helmy, Lexa’s brother, who was on patrol on the mountain that night. The trauma of what he witnessed has affected his behaviour so much that his family now fear for his safety as the Nazi Party tightens its grip on German society.

Reader: Daniel Weyman
Abridged by Sara Davies
Produced by Caroline Raphael
Production Co-ordinator: Dawn Williams
Recorded and mixed by Matt Bainbridge

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4


THU 23:00 Election 26 (m002vylb)
Nick Robinson and Rachel Burden present live coverage and analysis of the local elections in England, plus elections for the Scottish Parliament and the Senedd in Wales.

FRIDAY 08 MAY 2026

FRI 06:00 Today (m002vxcq)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.


FRI 09:00 The Reunion (m002vxcv)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:00 on Sunday]


FRI 10:00 Woman's Hour (m002vxcy)
Women's voices and women's lives - topical conversations to inform, challenge and inspire.


FRI 11:00 The Food Programme (m002vxd0)
K-Food

Hallyu - the Korean Wave - is taking over. With dramas and films like Squid Game and K-Pop Demon Hunters topping the Netflix charts, K-beauty products filling TikTok feeds and chemist shop shelves, and the global tour of the biggest K-Pop band in the world, BTS, about to begin, there’s no getting away from it’s impact. In this programme Jaega Wise explores how this fascination with Korean culture is driving the popularity of Korean food across the UK. She chats with celebrity chef and author, Judy Joo and meets the restaurant owner catering for some of the most well-known K-Pop bands in the world. Jaega also takes a look at the products hitting our supermarket shelves, and finds out why the sharing concept is central to the ethos of Korean food.

Presented by Jaega Wise and produced by Tory Pope for BBC Audio in Bristol


FRI 11:45 The Dark Frontier by Jeffrey Marlow (m002vxd2)
Episode 5 : Deep Time

The deep sea is one of our last frontiers. For most of human history, it was a vast, dark, and unknown realm that invoked awe and terror. Now, one thing we do know is that it is critically important and central to the future of life on this planet.

In The Dark Frontier, marine microbiologist and deep-sea explorer Jeffrey Marlow reveals how life can thrive in even the most remote, unforgiving landscapes. Professor Marlow’s research focuses on understanding the microbes that inhabit the rocks and sediments of the seafloor.

In his lab in Boston, he works with a team of scientists to discover how these communities of microbes perform feats of metabolic ingenuity that shape the global carbon cycle and push the boundaries of life’s limits in extreme environments.

In this final episode, Jeffrey reveals how time slows down in the deep ocean. Microbes on the ocean floor slow their metabolism so they hover on the edge of extinction, entering a liminal state between life and death:
“But whenever an edible carbon molecule somehow got through the sediment – maybe every few thousand years – a microbe would pounce. The detection of microbes that could plausibly be one hundred million years old emphasised, to me, how sharply the deep sea diverges from our ingrained understanding of the natural world. Entire civilizations have come and gone while these bacteria beneath the sea napped.”

Reader: Adam Sims
Abridged and produced by Elizabeth Burke
Executive producer: Sara Davies
Sound design: Jon Calver
A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4


FRI 12:00 News Summary (m002vxd4)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


FRI 12:04 AntiSocial (m002vxd6)
Peace talks for the culture wars. In an era of polarisation, propaganda, and pile-ons, Adam Fleming helps you work out what the arguments are really about.


FRI 12:57 Weather (m002vxd8)
The latest weather forecast


FRI 13:00 World at One (m002vxdb)
News, analysis and comment from BBC Radio 4


FRI 14:00 The Archers (m002vxdg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Thursday]


FRI 14:15 Limelight (m002vxdj)
Wraith

Episode 1: Breach

A cutting-edge thriller about an Artificial Intelligence takeover, written in consultation with leading AI and cybersecurity experts.

During a routine overnight update at the headquarters of a major UK telecoms giant, two IT workers unknowingly set something terrifying in motion. They've started an LCE - an AI Loss of Control Event.

Over the course of one night, a handful of staff race to regain control as forces far beyond the building begin to close in. What’s been unleashed threatens to change everything — and soon there may be no way to put it back.

This is a very a real and disastrous phenomenon, and it could happen to us very soon.

Starring Edward Bluemel and Corinna Brown.

Artificial Intelligence consultant: Saffron Huang.
Cybersecurity consultant: Adam Orton.

Written by James Dobbyn and Anthony Povah.

Cast:
Iain - Edward Bluemel
Mel - Corinna Brown
Zaina - Fatima Adoum
Roland - Philip Bretherton
Jess - Alix Wilton Regan
Nisha - Seyan Sarvan
Sam - Kenneth Omole
Andrea - Beth Chalmers
Oliver - Sean Rigby
Marcus - Wilf Scolding
John - Joseph Mydell
Susan - Karen Bryson
Lyssa - Catriona Stirling
Supporting roles - Sean Baker and members of the cast

Original Music by Steven D Griffiths and Isla Noir

Artificial Intelligence consultant: Saffron Huang
Cybersecurity consultant: Adam Orton
Sound Designer: Lucinda Mason Brown
Director: John Wakefield
Story Producer: Sarah Olley
Producer: Chris Grezo
Executive Producer: John Scott Dryden

A Strange Boy production for BBC Radio 4


FRI 14:45 The Hackers (m0012fnt)
Series 1

Hail Satan

Hackers have long been portrayed as the bad guys, but Biella uncovers how the ethical Grey and White Hat hackers created the modern security industry, despite the risk to their careers, and fierce opposition from major tech and software companies who wanted to keep any vulnerabilities in their products hidden from the public eye. She talks with Chris Wysopal, member the high-profile hacker think tank the L0pht, about the struggle for security, and how that fight may have inadvertently damaged a key part of hacker culture in the long term.


FRI 15:00 Gardeners' Question Time (m002vxdl)
Horticultural programme featuring a group of gardening experts.


FRI 15:45 Short Works (m002vxdn)
The Circle

A specially-commissioned story by Joel Morris for anyone who’s ever formed a school band – or has listened to one.

Jed and Brady have found a cow shed, a cymbal on a rope and a plate of old ketchup, but they still haven’t found the magic. And Spatch can’t play, has no kit and, even worse, isn’t actually there. But maybe aliens can help?

Read by Mathew Baynton
Producer: David Tyler

A Pozzitive production for BBC Radio 4


FRI 16:00 Last Word (m002vxdq)
Radio 4's weekly obituary programme


FRI 16:30 PM (m002vxdv)
Full coverage of the day's news


FRI 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m002vxdx)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


FRI 18:30 The News Quiz (m002vxdz)
Series 120

Episode 4

In a 7 May elections special, Andy Zaltzman quizzes the week's news with panellists Lucy Porter, Geoff Norcott, Hugo Rifkind and Rachel Fairburn.


FRI 19:00 The Archers (m002vxf1)
3rd-8th May 2026
Writer: Sarah McDonald Hughes
Director: Marina Caldarone
Editor: Jeremy Howe

Brian Aldridge … Charles Collingwood
Ben Archer … Ben Norris
Ruth Archer … Felicity Finch
Natasha Archer … Mali Harries 
Tom Archer … William Troughton 
Lilian Bellamy … Sunny Ormonde
Leonard Berry … Paul Copley
Ruairi Donovan … Arthur Hughes
George Grundy … Angus Stobie
Bert Horrobin…  David Sterne
Brad Horrobin … Taylor Uttley
Tracy Horrobin … Susie Riddell 
Adam Macy … Andrew Wincott  
Akram Malik ... Asif Khan
Dr Azra Malik … Yasmin Wilde 
Carol Tregorran … Mia Soteriou
Anna Tregorran … Isobel Middleton


FRI 19:15 Screenshot (m002vxf3)
Amélie

Screenshot marks the 25th anniversary of the whimsical romantic comedy about a shy Parisian waitress trying very hard to improve the lives of those around her. Why does Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s film continue to enchant audiences a quarter of a century on? And how did Amélie embody the ‘Manic Pixie Dream Girl’?

Mark speaks to the director himself, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, to explore the films legacy and revisit how it was received at the time.

Ellen talks to comedian Susan Wokoma and film critic Hannah Strong on how the film embodied the twee era and indie film-making and whether Amélie was ever a manic pixie dream girl.

Producer: Mae-Li Evans
A Prospect Street production for BBC Radio 4


FRI 20:00 Any Questions? (m002vxf5)
Topical discussion posing questions to a panel of political and media personalities


FRI 20:55 This Week in History (m002vxf7)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:40 on Wednesday]


FRI 21:00 Free Thinking (m002vxf9)
The middle

From taking the middle ground to the mid-life crisis, Middle England to middle managers, to being a middle child - is occupying a position in the middle out of fashion ? Anne McElvoy hosts Radio 4's ideas discussion programme and her guests this week for a middling conversation are:

Journalist Catherine Carr. Her new book Who's the Favourite? explores being a middle child and the relevance of birth order

Writer and broadcaster Mark Lawson, who has written novels set in middle England

Adrian Wooldridge, journalist, author and Global Business Columnist at Bloomberg Opinion

Producer: Eliane Glaser


FRI 22:00 The World Tonight (m002vxfc)
In depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective


FRI 22:45 The Prisoner by Sally Carson (m002vxff)
Episode Ten

The Prisoner by Sally Carson is the 1936 sequel to her novel Crooked Cross, first published in 1934 and based on her first-hand experience of travelling through Bavaria witnessing the inexorable and devastating rise of fascism. The Prisoner was written by Carson whilst she was on holiday in Germany in 1935. Carson was only 38 when she died in 1941 of breast cancer, so she never lived to see the end of the war - which makes her novels and her foresight even more extraordinary.

Despite the excellent reviews for both books, both she and the texts disappeared. Long out of print, they were recently rediscovered by Persephone Books and republished.

The Prisoner picks up the story of the Kluger family a few months after the death of Lexa Kluger and her boyfriend Moritz Wiseman who were hounded and hunted down on the mountains between their home town of Kranach and Austria. The reason – relationships between Germans and Jews were now forbidden. Despite his family being long assimilated and his father having won an Iron Cross in the First World War fighting for his country, Germany, Moritz, while technically not Jewish because his mother wasn’t, had a Jewish surname.

The Prisoner follows the Klugers as they try to make sense of Lexa’s death, each in their own way. And in particular Helmy, Lexa’s brother, who was on patrol on the mountain that night. The trauma of what he witnessed has affected his behaviour so much that his family now fear for his safety as the Nazi Party tightens its grip on German society.

Reader: Daniel Weyman
Abridged by Sara Davies
Produced by Caroline Raphael
Production Co-ordinator: Dawn Williams
Recorded and mixed by Matt Bainbridge

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4


FRI 23:00 Americast (w3ct8lz1)
Join Americast for insights and analysis on what's happening inside Trump's White House.


FRI 23:30 Soul Music (m001ry6c)
Pata Pata

Miriam Makeba recorded 'Pata Pata' in 1967 with the help of American producer Jerry Ragovoy. It became a huge hit and Miriam Makeba used newfound fame to speak the injustices of apartheid. Her records were banned and South Africa and she was forced to live in exile. Here, people from around the world share their stories about what this iconic track means to them.

Actor John Kani grew up in Johannesburg remembers dancing to the song when it came on the radio and says that Miriam Makeba became an inspiration for how art could bring about change. He would meet her years later after a concert in New York, and again in Johannesburg after apartheid ended.

Author of 'Makeba: the Miriam Makeba Story', Nomsa Mwamuka, charts the history of 'Pata Pata' and why Makeba would come to see it as "frivilous".

Buks van Heerden is a pace-runner who has completed over 800 marathons. He plays 'Pata Pata' late in the race when the runners he's pacing are getting tired and says it always lifts the mood.

Angelique Kidjo says Miriam Makeba was the first African woman on the cover of an album. Hearing 'Pata Pata' inspired her to perform, and later in life she and Makeba became friends.

Dr. Niyi Coker devised 'Mama Africa: The Musical' in Cape Town when he realised that a younger generation of South Africans weren't aware of Miriam Makeba of her work. 'Pata Pata' would see two generations of 'Miriam' singing together and it would bring the house down.

Produced for BBC Audio Bristol by Toby Field
Technical Producer: Ilse Lademann
Editor: Emma Harding

With thanks to Rita Ray, Dr. Niyi Coker, and Moses Molapisane at the BBC bureau in Johannesburg.