SATURDAY 26 DECEMBER 2015

SAT 00:00 MR James (b06sqq9z)
Oh, Whistle and I'll Come To You
“Easy enough to whistle, but there's no telling what will answer...”
Professor Parkins uncovers a very curious artefact.
MR James’s ghostly story adapted by Michael and Mollie Hardwick.
Starring Michael Hordern as Professor Parkins.
Professor Parkins ...... Michael Hordern
Brown ...... Earle Grey
Purdon ...... James Thomason
Chambermaid/Small Boy ...... Sheila Grant
Waiter ...... Anthony Hall
Colonel Wilson ...... Austin Trevor
Mrs Spenlow ...... Hilda Kriseman
Rogers ...... Rolf Lefebvre
The Thing ...... Malcolm Hayes
Special effects by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.
Producer: Charles Lefeaux
First broadcast on the BBC Home Service in December 1963.
SAT 00:30 Soul Music (b0075zst)
Series 1
Silent Night
An exploration of one of the world's most popular Christmas carols, and some of unlikely places where it has been sung. From December 2000.
SAT 01:00 Agatha Christie (b007k0bk)
The Sittaford Mystery
5. The Second Seance
Mr Rycroft decides that only by re-enacting the séance which announced the murder of Captain Trevelyan, will the identity of his killer finally be revealed.
The conclusion of Agatha Christie's whodunit starring Geoffrey Whitehead as Inspector Narracott.
Inspector Narracott …. Geoffrey Whitehead
Emily Trefusis …. Melinda Walker
Charles Enderby …. Stephen Tompkinson
Major Burnaby …. Norman Bird
Ellwood …. Jack May
Martin Dering …. David Goudge
Mr. Rycroft …. John Moffat
Ronnie Garfield …. Nigel Greaves
Mrs. Willett …. Susan Westerby
Violet Willett …. Victoria Carling
Brian Pearson …. Charles Simpson
Caroline Percehouse …. Margaret Courtenay
Mrs. Curtis …. Barbara Atkinson
Sergeant Pollock …. Vincent Brimble
Mr. Dacres …. David King
Beatrice …. Alice Arnold
Jennifer Gardner …. Anna Cropper
Brian Pearson …. Charles Simpson
Dramatised and directed by Michael Bakewell.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 1990.
SAT 01:30 Bringing Holly from the Bongs (b06sqkhl)
Christmas 1965: The children of Goostrey Primary School in Cheshire are preparing to perform a special nativity play in the stable of the Crown Inn. Holly from the Bongs has been written especially for them by the famous children’s writer Alan Garner (The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, The Moon of Gomrath, The Owl Service) who lives locally and worked with them to help create the play.
Christmas 2015: The grown-ups who originally performed in the play return to the Crown Inn, 50 years on, to reflect on this unique theatrical experience with Alan Garner – who still regards Holly from the Bongs as his most technically perfect piece of writing.
Leslie Pimlott who played the Doctor in the original production, recalls with other cast members the story of how this customised nativity play was created by Alan Garner. The author spent many afternoons walking the children round the village’s boundaries, fields and The Bongs, the wooded area behind the school to explore the history and living heritage of Goostrey. Leslie celebrates the excitement of taking part in the original production and its memorable first performance half a century ago.
Part nativity play/part mummer’s play Holly from the Bongs is a customised piece of theatre written for the voices of the individual children of Goostrey School in 1965. A stylistic lesson in English writing from the middle ages to the 1960’s that has a very special place in the hearts of the original cast and the village of Goostrey.
Producer: Andy Cartwright
Made for BBC Radio 4 Extra by Soundscape Productions.
First broadcast in December 2015.
SAT 02:00 Tom Bodett - Christmastime at the End of the Road (b007k0bq)
Yet Another New Year
New Year is a time of celebration - and an annual fist fight. But a dense fog descends. Alaskan tales read by author Tom Bodett.
SAT 02:15 A Cause for Caroling (b03lsdg6)
Ring in the New
Jeremy Summerly concludes his history of the carol in Britain pondering the success of new carols over the last century. While King's College, Cambridge organist Stephen Cleobury insures a supply of newly commissioned carols for his massive international audience Jeremy wonders whether the popular songs from Berlin's 'White Christmas' to Slade's 'Merry Christmas' don't help sustain a more genuine caroling tradition.
He also recalls his own first experience of carols at Lichfield cathedral where John Rutter's 'Shepherd's Pipe Carol' was an astonishing discovery for the eager young chorister.
And Jeremy also ponders the continued appeal of the carol and why, while it's been in decline throughout its history, it continues to thrive.
Series Description:
The Christmas carol is as popular now as it was when carolers celebrated the birth of Edward III in 1312. Back then the carol was a generic term for a song with its roots in dance form, nowadays only the strictest scholar would quibble with the fact that a carol is a Christmas song.
But the journey the carol has taken is unique in music history because each shift in the story has been preserved in the carols that we sing today. Go to a carol concert now and you're likely to hear folk, medieval, mid-victorian and modern music all happily combined. It's hard to imagine that happening in any other situation.
In these programmes Jeremy Summerly follows the carol journey through the Golden age of the Medieval carol into the troubled period of Reformation and puritanism, along the byways of the 17th and 18th century waits and gallery musicians and in to the sudden explosion of interest in the carol in the 19th century. It's a story that sees the carol veer between the sacred and secular even before there was any understanding of those terms. For long periods the church, both catholic and protestant, was uneasy about the virility and homespun nature of carol tunes and carol texts. Nowadays many people think that church music is defined by the carols they hear from Kings College Cambridge.
He traces the folk carol in and out of church grounds, the carol hymn, the fuguing carol and the many other off-shoots, some of which survive to this day and many others which languish unloved but ready for re-discovery.
It's a journey full of song describing the history of a people who needed expression for seasonal joy in the coldest, hardest time of the year. And however efficient the heating system may be, the carol still generates warmth. Much of that is to do with the positive nostalgia of this music.
That nostalgia is in part due to the fact that carols are one of the first kinds of song children actually sing rather than hear. Many favourite carols were actually written for Children; Once in Royal David's City the most familiar example. Another factor is the concentration in the texts on the humanity of nativity with tunes garnered from the uninhibited world of folk song and ballad.
The series title is taken from a Thomas Hardy poem in which he ponders of a Darkling Thrush why it should chose to sing - 'so little cause for carolings of such ecstatic sound' - is the question asked. THis series is an attempt to answer why Carols remain so popular and familiar to so many. In fact Hardy himself, in his first novel Under The Greenwood Tree, went some way to answering his own question when he described the Mellstock Quire singing at Midnight on Christmas Eve:
'Then passed forth into the quiet night an ancient and time worn hymn, embodying a quaint Christianity in words orally transmitted from father to son through several generations down to the present characters, who sang them out right earnestly."
Jeremy brings the series up to date with the story of the famous Nine Lessons and Carols service broadcast by the BBC since the 1920s but born originally in Truro. It's a service that commands a worldwide audience measured in many millions, but as Jeremy concludes it has left an imbalance in the appreciation of our caroling tradition, a tradition that has always had one foot in the pub and another in the choir stalls.
Producer:Tom Alban.
SAT 02:30 William Makepeace Thackeray - Vanity Fair (b007jvxl)
Episode 10
1815, the Battle of Waterloo. As George and Rawdon fight, Becky and Amelia wait for news. Narrated by Stephen Fry.
SAT 02:45 And June Whitfield (b007jvfk)
Episode 5
The final chapter of June's life story so far takes us from the News Huddlines to international fame with Absolutely Fabulous.
SAT 03:00 Mystery Theater (b06sqp09)
The Black Museum: Orson Welles 2/2
The Raincoat: Orson Welles' tale inspired by a real case from Scotland Yard's gruesome gallery of crime-related ephemera
Even a simple garment like a raincoat can be connected to the brutal murder of a married woman.
In The Black Museum, Orson is your host and guide through tales based on the grim and ominous collection of objects connected to significant British crimes.
Writer: Ira Marion.
Music: Sydney Torch
Producer: Harry Alan Towers
The films of Orson Welles have guaranteed him a place in the pantheon of film heroes (Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons, Touch of Evil). This series is one of several fascinating sidesteps into a medium which arguably contributed to Welles' success - radio. Thanks to Harry Alan Towers, British radio was host to his dulcet tones for a spell in the early 1950s - including his famous cinematic anti-hero in The Lives of Harry Lime.
Presented by arrangement with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer radio attractions
Produced by Towers of London and first broadcast in the USA in 1952.
4 Extra's MYSTERY THEATER showcases American radio's golden years of the 1940s and 50s, when many of Hollywood's greatest screen stars were regular performers, often re-enacting film roles.
SAT 03:30 Anthony Trollope - Christmas Day at Kirkby Cottage (b00pfkw1)
A young man comes to spend Christmas with the family of his godfather, a clergyman in an English village. Predictably, he falls in love with the beautiful daughter, Isabel - but they need the help of her little sister, Mabel, and the patient counselling of her mother, too, before the course of true love finally runs smooth...
Anthony Trollope's Victorian comedy stars Finty Williams as Isabel Lownd, Chris Larkin as Maurice Archer, John Rhys-Davies as the Reverend John Lownd, Julia McKenzie as Alice Lownd and Lizzie Bowling as Mabel Lownd.
Mary Wimbush (pictured during recording) makes a delightful cameo - in what turned out to be one of her very last recordings - as Miss Dimbleby.
Master novelist Anthony Trollope (1815-82) is best-loved for his Barsetshire Chronicles and Palliser series. But he also wrote a handful of short stories for magazines on Christmas themes, of which this is the most delicate and enchanting.
"This comedy of two young lovers is an entertaining glimpse of mid-Victorian England, and to many will be entirely new, for it has been reprinted only rarely since its appearance in Routledge's Christmas Annual for 1870. Trollope was fifty-five when he wrote this story, but his vast energy and his genial, peppery enjoyment of life were still untouched by age. He had bidden farewell to Barsetshire - and resigned from the Post Office - three years earlier. But some of his best novels were still to come, including The Eustace Diamonds and The Way We Live Now." - WILLIAM STRODE
A Radio Theatre Production. First broadcast on BBC Radio 7 in 2009.
SAT 04:00 The 99p Challenge (b06sqn7w)
Series 4
Episode 6
Crazy panel show capers as host Sue Perkins grills Armando Iannucci, Simon Pegg, Marcus Brigstocke and Jon Holmes.
The game where someone stands to leave the studio 99p richer than when they came in.
Producer: David Tyler
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in March 2003.
SAT 04:30 Mind Your Own Business! (b009sczf)
Two Fingers of Suspicion
Secrets from Brightco's defence job are reaching a foreign power. But who is responsible for a leak?
Bernard Cribbins and Frank Thornton star in Andrew Palmer’s sitcom
Jimmy Bright ...... Bernard Cribbins
Russell Farrow ...... Frank Thornton
Nan Forbes ...... Annette Crosbie
Sue Plant ...... Annee Blott
With John Graham
Written by Andrew Palmer.
Producer: Edward Taylor
First broadcast on BBC Radio 2 in January 1988.
SAT 06:00 Hercule Poirot (b008hsvg)
Hercule Poirot's Christmas
1938: Tyrannical millionaire Simeon Lee has been estranged from most of his family for years. But now, on Christmas Eve, the old man calls them all together once more. Unable to disobey, the children gather uneasily and wonder what their father's intentions are. Does he want to clear up past misunderstandings or cause fresh mischief?
Before they can find out, a deafening crash is heard overhead. Rushing upstairs, they discover a body in a pool of blood. With so many possible suspects, it's lucky for Superintendent Sugden that the Chief Constable has his old friend Hercule Poirot staying with him. It seems to be an impossible case. But, as Poirot knows only too well, things aren't always as they seem.
Agatha Christie's whodunit stars Peter Sallis as Hercule Poirot, Edward De Souza as Superintendent Sugden, Manning Wilson as Colonel Johnson, Cyril Luckham as Simeon Lee, Rachel Gurney as Lydia Lee, Nicky Henson as Harry Lee, Deborah Makepeace as Pilar Estravados and Deryck Guyler as Tressilian, the butler.
From the book first published in 1938 and dramatised by Michael Bakewell.
Director: Enyd Williams
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1986.
SAT 07:25 Agatha Christie - Speaking Her Own Words (b06srxqc)
The Semi-Pro
Courtesy of The Christie Archive, specially selected excerpts from the Queen of the Crime's personal tapes as she dictated her autobiography to her typist using a dictaphone machine. A fascinating chance to hear Agatha Christie's voice and words before she made any amendments for publication. Her secretary later transcribed the tapes into a typescript, which the author then corrected by hand.
Introduced by Agatha Christie's grandson, Mathew Prichard who discovered her tapes.
Completed in 1965, the book was first published in the UK in 1977, the year after her death.
The author's tapes were edited by Radio 4 Extra only to take out pauses and extraneous noises like microphone rumble.
Producer: Peter Reed.
SAT 07:30 Marguerite Patten's Century of British Cooking (b06srv27)
Post War Pleasures 1950-1959
Scampi, Cock-a-Leekie Soup, Hamburgers, Tourneos Rossini, Steak Diane, Quiche Lorraine, Lemon Meringue Pie and Crepes Suzette.
Marguerite Patten mingles recipes of the 1950s with memories of the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth, the Festival of Britain and the end of rationing - in her 10-part history of British cooking.
Marguerite told us how to make the most of our rations during the Second World War in 'Kitchen Front' on the BBC Home Service. She fronted her first BBC TV cookery show in 1947.
Born in Bath, the home economist was widely considered to be the first celebrity cook, and wrote more than 170 books with worldwide sales of 17 million.
A regular contributor to BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour programme from 1946, Marguerite's final appearance was in 2011. She was awarded the OBE in 1991 and CBE in 2011.
Born November 4th 1915, Marguerite Patten died just a few months short of her 100th birthday in June 2015.
Producer: Ian Willox
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1999.
SAT 08:00 Meeting Myself Coming Back (b01k1ls1)
Series 4
Clive James
Another chance to hear the audio memories of the writer, critic, TV personality and poet Clive James who died in November. This programme was first broadcast in 2012.
Clive James was seldom off our television screens in the 80s and 90s. His shows like "Saturday Night Clive" and "Clive James on Television", featured clips of TV around the world and pioneered many techniques that we take for granted today.
But throughout this time, he was also writing memoirs, poems and critical essays. After leaving his native Australia, he began his career writing for literary magazines and later became the TV critic of "The Observer".
This more serious side has often been overlooked because of his TV fame. But, having left TV presenting behind and now having been diagnosed with leukaemia, Clive is re-assessing his life and legacy.
In "Meeting Myself Coming Back", Clive hears clips from moments in his life and discusses his reaction to them with John Wilson. We hear a recording from his student days in Cambridge performing a comic monologue at a college "Smoker" event. There are clips from early appearances on radio, in the company of the novelist Kingsley Amis and also his first attempts at writing and performing on television.
We also hear extracts from his TV shows of the 80s and 90s, when, in addition to his shows about television, he presented travel programmes and a series considering the nature and history of fame in the 20th century.
In an honest and penetrating look back at his life, Clive discusses his achievements, his past mistakes and his illness.
Producer: Emma Kingsley
SAT 09:00 Count Arthur Strong's Radio Show! (b011tsc5)
Extra Strong - Count Arthur Speaks! Mint Extracts
Can it be true? Yes, famed memory man, treader of the boards and gourmand of corner shops Count Arthur Strong allows Mark Radcliffe to probe deeply into his past career and deeds, with a selection of episodes from his life.
The variety star opens up as never before - his childhood, his early forays into show business, his army days, the lack of hot soup in France, and what happened when he owned a barge with Stan Stennett and Roy Walker.
A blistering, some-holds-barred tell-all straight from the mouth of the horse himself. Learn, definitively, how he became a Count.
Asking the probing questions is Radio 2 & 6 Music DJ Mark Radcliffe (Mark and Lard), and he knows where the skeletons are hidden - he produced Count Arthur Strong's Radio Show.
It features a selection of the finest episodes from Radio 4's Count Arthur Strong's Radio Show, the comic creation of Steve Delaney.
SAT 12:00 The Penny Dreadfuls (b008vt7r)
Revolution
The comedy trio tell the epic tale of the French Revolution. Co-starring Richard E Grant and Sally Hawkins. From July 2011.
SAT 13:00 I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General - Omnibus (b06srwzt)
A Savoy Cocktail - two parts Gilbert and Sullivan and one part the star who sang their famous patter songs. With Simon Butteriss.
SAT 14:05 David Attenborough's Life Stories (b00n5w39)
Series 1
Collecting
Why do we collect things? Is it a male response to ancient hunting instincts to provide food for the family?
Today, collecting by children is in decline, and with it the development of an early fascination with the natural world around them.
Series of talks by Sir David Attenborough on the natural histories of creatures and plants from around the world.
Producer: Julian Hector
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in October 2009.
SAT 14:15 In the Psychiatrist's Chair (b06srxx3)
Yehudi Menuhin
The celebrated violinist Yehudi Menuhin tells Professor Anthony Clare about the influences that shaped his life.
Psychiatrist Dr Anthony Clare's in depth interviews with prominent people from different walks of life.
Born in Dublin, author Anthony Clare held a doctorate in medicine, a master's degree in philosophy and was a fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. After becoming a regular on BBC Radio 4's Stop the Week in the 1980s, he became Britain's best-known psychiatrist and earned his own vehicle, In the Psychiatrist's Chair. Starting in 1982, this series ran until 2001 and also transferred to TV. Series highlights include conversations with Bob Monkhouse, Cecil Parkinson and Gerry Adams.
Anthony Clare died suddenly in Paris aged 64 in 2007.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in July 1996.
SAT 15:00 Meeting Myself Coming Back (b01k1ls1)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
SAT 16:00 Hercule Poirot (b008hsvg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
SAT 17:25 Agatha Christie - Speaking Her Own Words (b06srxqc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:25 today]
SAT 17:30 Marguerite Patten's Century of British Cooking (b06srv27)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
SAT 18:00 Classic Serial (b01npb18)
The Gothic Imagination
Frankenstein, part 2
The second part of a new production of Mary Shelley's heart-breaking modern myth of obsession, pride and the need for love. In attempting to find some peace from his troubles, Frankenstein has gone walking in the mountains, where he is about to come face to face with what he most hates and fears.
Dramatised by Lucy Catherine.
Directed by Marc Beeby.
SAT 19:00 Count Arthur Strong's Radio Show! (b011tsc5)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]
SAT 22:00 Irish Micks and Legends (b01ntgxf)
Series 1
Deirdre of Sorrows
Aisling Bea and Yasmine Akram become Ais and Yaz and are the very best pals. They are taking their role as Ireland's freshest story-tellers to the British nation very seriously indeed but they haven't had the time to do much research, learn their lines or work out who is doing which parts.
The girls' unconventional way of telling stories involves a concoction of thoroughly inappropriate modern-day metaphors and references to many of the ancient Irish stories.
With a natural knack for both comedy and character voices Yasmine Akram and Aisling Bea will bring you warm, modern re-workings of popular ancient Irish stories.
Today it's Deirdre of Sorrows.
Written and performed by Aisling Bea and Yasmine Akram.
Producer: Raymond Lau.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 2012.
SAT 22:15 Mission Improbable (b01p7by4)
Series 1
Egypt!
The international adventures of journalist Jane, manhunter Lucy and zookeeper Amelia continue - this time in the Egyptian desert.
When Jane's mum reveals that a member of her travel party, the gorgeous Dr Ralph, recently disappeared while they were on a guided tour of King Mufitez's tomb just outside Cairo, Jane reckons she's onto a sure-fire front-pager.
Chronically single Lucy is more than happy to drop everything in pursuit of the good doctor and Amelia is enticed along by the promise of a camel ride. However their sandy quest turns out to be far from straightforward. Our heroes are forced to endure extremes of temperature, fierce desert winds and a ten thousand year-old cobra - with only their foul smelling, asthmatic and worryingly cheap camel to help them.
Will they make it to King Mufitez's tomb? Will they find Dr Ralph? And will they ever get all that sand out of their pants?
Jane...................Catriona Knox
Lucy...................Lizzie Bates
Amelia................Anna Emerson
Angela................Felicity Montagu
Written by Anna Emerson, Lizzie Bates and Catriona Knox.
Audio production by Matt Katz.
Produced by Dave Lamb and Richie Webb.
A Top Dog production for BBC Radio 4.
SAT 22:30 Mordrin McDonald: 21st Century Wizard (b00xw1th)
Series 2
Billirock the Black
Written by David Kay and Gavin Smith, Mordrin McDonald is a 2000 year old Wizard living in the modern world where settling garden disputes and watching Countdown are just as important as slaying the odd Jakonty Dragon.
Step into the magically mundane world that is the life of 21st century wizard Mordrin McDonald. An isolated 2000-year-old sorcerer with enough power in his small finger to destroy a town, yet not even enough clout to get his bins emptied on time by the local council. Even for such a skilful sorcerer - modern life is rubbish!
Mordrin is deadpan, dry and makes delicious jams. He initially set up as a plc for income tax relief, but has found it a useful vehicle to help him bolster his Wizard skill set and his range of services. (Even a wizard has to diversify).
He's been running Fruity Potions from his cave for the past few years, in between completing the odd quest as instructed by the Wizard Council. In the past his services were to help kings in battles of good and evil, or as he prefers to put it, 'assisting with neighbour disputes.'
In this episode Mordrin is recruited to help re-capture evil sorcerer Billirock the Black who has escaped from his prison under Stirling Castle and is hell-bent on exacting his revenge.
Cast:
Mordrin ..... David Kay
Bernard The Blue ..... Jack Docherty
Geoff ..... Gordon Kennedy
Heather ..... Hannah Donaldson
Jill ..... Katrina Bryan
Billirock The Black ..... Greg Hemphill
Producer/Director: Gus Beattie
A Comedy Unit production for BBC Radio 4.
SAT 22:45 Steven Appleby's Normal Life (b007jqqw)
Series 1
The Normal Mind
Cartoonist Steven takes advantage of modern surgical techniques to reveal the inner workings of the creative artist's brain.
Starring Mark Perry as cartoonist Steven Appleby who takes an abnormal look at everyday life.
Steven ...... Paul McCrink
Mum ...... Rosalind Paul
Female Steven ...... Rachel Atkins
Mr Two ...... Ewan Bailey
Dad ...... Nigel Betts
Other parts played by the cast.
Written by Steven Appleby
Producer: Toby Swift
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in August 2001.
SAT 23:00 The Jason Byrne Show (b01p2s1y)
Series 3
I Looked Like Gollum at School
Award-winning comedian Jason Byrne lists the liabilities of looking good.
Stand up and sketches with Laurence Howarth and Daisy Haggard.
Producer: Julia McKenzie
First broadcast on BBC Radio 2 in November 2010.
SAT 23:30 Son of Cliche (b00p1jb9)
The Weird Dimension
Something weird is happening. Nothing is outside of the comedy team’s power!
Winner of 1984 Sony Gold Award for Best Light Entertainment Programme.
Sketch comedy with Chris Barrie, Nick Maloney and Nick Wilton.
Written by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor.
Producer: Alan Nixon
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in August 1983.


SUNDAY 27 DECEMBER 2015

SUN 00:00 Classic Serial (b01npb18)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:00 on Saturday]
SUN 01:00 I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General - Omnibus (b06srwzt)
[Repeat of broadcast at 13:00 on Saturday]
SUN 02:05 David Attenborough's Life Stories (b00n5w39)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:05 on Saturday]
SUN 02:15 In the Psychiatrist's Chair (b06srxx3)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:15 on Saturday]
SUN 03:00 Meeting Myself Coming Back (b01k1ls1)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 on Saturday]
SUN 04:00 Hercule Poirot (b008hsvg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 on Saturday]
SUN 05:25 Agatha Christie - Speaking Her Own Words (b06srxqc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:25 on Saturday]
SUN 05:30 Marguerite Patten's Century of British Cooking (b06srv27)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 on Saturday]
SUN 06:00 William Makepeace Thackeray - Vanity Fair Omnibus (b008p53p)
Episode 2
Ambitious Becky abandons marriage plans for a job as a governess. Luckily, this brings new marriage prospects. With Geoffrey Whitehead.
SUN 07:15 Unbuilt Britain (b01l0g3p)
Edinburgh's Great South Bridge Project
In the third in the series, architectural writer and historian Jonathan Glancey looks at some of the most fantastic building projects of Britain and finds out why they didn't make it off the drawing board. In Edinburgh, Robert Adam planned a marvellous street which would act as the gateway to the city for visitors from the south. Called 'South Bridge', the project allowed for a street elevated over the hilly approach, with rich decorations and elegant colonnades.
It might have been a wonderful proposal, but there was a price tag attached. Jonathan Glancey finds out more about the reputation of Robert Adam in Edinburgh and the reasons why the city fathers took against the project.
SUN 07:25 Inheritance Tracks (b06myczx)
Desmond Morris
Zoologist and broadcaster Desmond Morris chooses 'Alexander's Ragtime Band' by Ella Fitzgerald and 'Be Cool' by Honor Heffernan.
SUN 07:30 Ed Reardon's Week (b00qbv2p)
Series 6
Cheese Cricket
Ed finds himself a surprise hit when he takes part in a new Radio 4 'topical quiz with a tasty twist'. With Christopher Douglas and Stephanie Cole. From February 2010.
SUN 08:00 The Al Read Show (b008zdfh)
Episode 4
Hospitals, the Post Office and noisy neighbours.
A compilation of the legendary Northern comic's 1950s monologues.
Originally produced at BBC North by Ronnie Taylor
Compilation produced by Mike Craig.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 2 in October 1998.
SUN 08:30 A Life of Bliss (b0499n3t)
Office Secrets
David Bliss gets entangled in the secretive love life of his secretary.
George Cole stars in Godfrey Harrison's sitcom about bashful, bumbling bachelor, David Alexander Bliss.
David Bliss …. George Cole
Ann …. Diana Churchill
Tony ….Colin Gordon
Psyche the Dog …. Percy Edwards
Jennifer …. Eleanor Summerfield
Mr Hood …. Barry K. Barnes
Donald Hood …. Desmond Carrington
Six series of 118 episodes of A Life of Bliss ran on the BBC Home Service from 1953. It moved to BBC TV for a run of six episodes in 1969.
Sadly very few episodes survive in the BBC archive, including the first seven starring David Tomlinson. His replacement George Cole went to to star in the St Trinian's films and later as dodgy Arthur Daley in ITV's Minder.
The BBC Variety Orchestra conducted by Paul Fenhoulet.
Producer: Leslie Bridgmont
First broadcast on the BBC Home Service in August 1957.
SUN 09:00 The Man Who Made Things Out of Trees - Omnibus (b06ss5jd)
Robert Penn decides to fell a great ash, to find out how many uses there are for one tree. Beginning in a south Wales winter.
SUN 10:10 Agatha Christie - Speaking Her Own Words (b06ss5jg)
The Method
Courtesy of The Christie Archive, specially selected excerpts from the Queen of the Crime's personal tapes as she dictated her autobiography to her typist using a dictaphone machine. A fascinating chance to hear Agatha Christie's voice and words before she made any amendments for publication. Her secretary later transcribed the tapes into a typescript, which the author then corrected by hand.
Introduced by Agatha Christie's grandson, Mathew Prichard who discovered her tapes.
Completed in 1965, the book was first published in the UK in 1977, the year after her death.
The author's tapes were edited by Radio 4 Extra only to take out pauses and extraneous noises like microphone rumble.
Producer: Peter Reed.
SUN 10:15 Desert Island Discs Revisited (b06ss5jj)
Singers
Peggy Seeger
4 Extra Debut. From Ewan MacColl to Bach. Folk singer and songwriter Peggy Seeger shares her castaway choices with Sue Lawley. From July 2001.
SUN 11:00 The Moth Radio Hour (b06ss5s6)
Series 1
Millionaire Hot Seat, Monkey, Assassin
True stories told live in the USA: Sarah Austin Jenness introduces a special edition featuring tales from Australia.
The Moth is an acclaimed not-for-profit organisation dedicated to the art and craft of storytelling based in the USA. Since 1997, it has celebrated both the raconteur and the storytelling novice, who has lived through something extraordinary and yearns to share it. Originally formed by the writer George Dawes Green as an intimate gathering of friends on a porch in Georgia (where moths would flutter in through a hole in the screen), and then recreated in a New York City living room, The Moth quickly grew to produce immensely popular events at theatres and clubs around New York City and later around the USA, the UK and other parts of the world.
The Moth has presented more than 15,000 stories, told live and without notes, to standing-room-only crowds worldwide. The Moth podcast is downloaded over 27 million times a year.
Featuring true stories told live on stage without scripts, from the humorous to the heart-breaking.
The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Jay Allison and Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts and is distributed by the Public Radio Exchange.
SUN 11:50 David Attenborough's Life Stories (b00n5w39)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:05 on Saturday]
SUN 12:00 The Al Read Show (b008zdfh)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
SUN 12:30 A Life of Bliss (b0499n3t)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
SUN 13:00 William Makepeace Thackeray - Vanity Fair Omnibus (b008p53p)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
SUN 14:15 Unbuilt Britain (b01l0g3p)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:15 today]
SUN 14:25 Inheritance Tracks (b06myczx)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:25 today]
SUN 14:30 A Snow Garden and Other Stories - Omnibus (b06ss60f)
A woman finds herself in an unusual shop that might just offer her the gift she needs most this Christmas. Read by Rachel Joyce.
SUN 15:45 Lynne Reid Banks - Who Shall I Run To? (b01295yh)
Sally recalls how she and ex-husband Jeremy celebrated their 35th wedding anniversary in romantic Paris. Read by Sian Phillips.
SUN 16:00 Hercule Poirot (b06ss65l)
Murder in the Mews
A young woman is found dead in her flat, the day after Guy Fawkes night. But did she die by her own hand or someone else's? Inspector Japp calls for the assistance of Belgian sleuth, Hercule Poirot.
This 1955 broadcast was long thought lost, but a tape was rediscovered in the BBC archive in 2015.
Agatha Christie's whodunit stars Richard Williams as Hercule Poirot, Ian Whittaker as Freddie Hogg, Jack Melford as Chief Inspector Japp, Ronald Sidney as Detective-Sergeant Jameson, Duncan McLntyre as Doctor Brett, Monica Grey as Jane Plenderleith and Ella Milne as Mrs Hogg.
Dramatised by Anthony Aspinall from a short-story first published in Woman's Journal in 1936, which later appeared in a book collection in 1937.
Produced by David H Godfrey
First broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in March 1955.
SUN 17:00 Poetry Extra (b06ss6gv)
The Echo Chamber - Middle Age
BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive.
In 'The Echo Chamber', Paul Farley asks whether the middle years are tough for poets. With Paul Muldoon, Kathleen Jamie and Hugo Williams.
Producer: Tim Dee.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2013.
SUN 17:30 Ed Reardon's Week (b00qbv2p)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
SUN 18:00 Fear on 4 (b00c84nd)
Series 3
Invitation to the Vaults
The Man in Black tells of a harrowing comeuppance for a crooked literary agent.

Starring Sarah Badel as Madame Freitas, Roger Hammond as Albano Pizar and Edward de Souza as the Man in Black.

Fear on 4 brings you more in a series of nerve-tinglers.

Adapted by Wally K Daly from a short story by Basil Copper.

Producer: Martin Jenkins

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1991.
SUN 18:30 Susan Hill - The Woman in Black (b007jls5)
4. Letters and Death Certificates
Can solicitor Arthur Kipps finally unravel the eerie mystery of the isolated house of the reclusive Mrs Drablow?
John Woodvine and Robert Glenister star in Susan Hill's chilling ghost story.
Dramatised by Jon Strickland.
Young Kipps ...... Robert Glenister
Old Kipps ...... John Woodvine
Esme ...... Paula Tilbrook
Stella ...... Jane Cox
Samuel Daily ...... Rod Arthur
Music composed by Derek Pearce.
Directed at BBC Manchester by Chris Wallis
First broadcast on BBC Radio 5 in December 1993.
SUN 19:00 The Moth Radio Hour (b06ss5s6)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:00 today]
SUN 19:50 David Attenborough's Life Stories (b00n5w39)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:05 on Saturday]
SUN 20:00 The Man Who Made Things Out of Trees - Omnibus (b06ss5jd)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]
SUN 21:10 Agatha Christie - Speaking Her Own Words (b06ss5jg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:10 today]
SUN 21:15 Desert Island Discs Revisited (b06ss5jj)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:15 today]
SUN 22:00 Ed Reardon's Week (b00qbv2p)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
SUN 22:30 My Teenage Diary (b039q5ff)
Series 5
Rachel Johnson
Another brave celebrity revisits their formative years by opening up their intimate teenage diaries.
Comedian Rufus Hound is joined by journalist Rachel Johnson. Rachel's diaries focus on her gap year in Israel, when she worked on a kibbutz with her brother and was wined and dined by an Israeli shepherd.
They also include her trip to the Andes with a boyfriend who suffered from vertigo.
Producer: Harriet Jaine
A Talkback production for BBC Radio 4.
SUN 23:00 I Think I've Got a Problem (b007ynmg)
Series 1
Episode 4
After getting a job at a supermarket, Tom finally proposes to Sadie, but first he must ask her father for permission.
Tom's "imaginary" band get in on the act. Will it all end with a song and a dance?
Andrew McGibbon and Nick Romero's everyday story about a man who can't stop himself from breaking into song.
Suggs ..... Tom Caine
Bob Monkhouse ..... Dr Boone
Mika Simmons ..... Sadie
Phil Cornwell ..... Bouche
Michael Roberts ..... Clammy Clemence
Andrew McGibbon ..... Jake
Nick Romero ..... Monty DeVere
Emma Clarke ..... Melody
Songs: Andrew McGibbon. Nick Romero and Suggs
Director: Chris Neill
Producers: Torquil MacLeod. Julian Mayers and Andrew McGibbon.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in August 2001.
SUN 23:30 A Look Back at the Future (b01s259p)
2025
Foreseeing ego transplants and the USA invading Narnia...
Recorded in June 1994, Brian Perkins, Kate Robbins, Nigel Planer and Ken Livingstone recall 2025 - a year that was yet to happen.
Everything you wanted to know then, about the 21st century.
Written by Mark Burton, John O'Farrell and Pete Sinclair.
Producer: Caroline Leddy
First broadcast (with the aid of a crystal ball) on Radio 4 in August 1994.


MONDAY 28 DECEMBER 2015

MON 00:00 Fear on 4 (b00c84nd)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:00 on Sunday]
MON 00:30 Susan Hill - The Woman in Black (b007jls5)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:30 on Sunday]
MON 01:00 William Makepeace Thackeray - Vanity Fair Omnibus (b008p53p)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 on Sunday]
MON 02:15 Unbuilt Britain (b01l0g3p)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:15 on Sunday]
MON 02:25 Inheritance Tracks (b06myczx)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:25 on Sunday]
MON 02:30 A Snow Garden and Other Stories - Omnibus (b06ss60f)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:30 on Sunday]
MON 03:45 Lynne Reid Banks - Who Shall I Run To? (b01295yh)
[Repeat of broadcast at 15:45 on Sunday]
MON 04:00 Hercule Poirot (b06ss65l)
[Repeat of broadcast at 16:00 on Sunday]
MON 05:00 Poetry Extra (b06ss6gv)
[Repeat of broadcast at 17:00 on Sunday]
MON 05:30 Ed Reardon's Week (b00qbv2p)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 on Sunday]
MON 06:00 Kipling in Love (b06ssm4h)
His Wedded Wife
India, 1885: When a young subaltern joins a high-caste regiment he becomes the butt of a captain's jokes. Until finally the worm turns ...
Starring Richard Pearce as Henry, Michael Troughton as Watson, Lyndham Gregory as Reynolds and Barry J Gordon as Colonel Humphrey.
The first of eight plays based on short stories by Rudyard Kipling, dramatised for radio by Ed Thomason.
Producer: Adrian Bean
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1994.
MON 06:30 Opening Nights: Oliver (b00768h5)
4 Extra Debut. Based on the Dickens' story, Lionel Bart's musical starring Ron Moody opened in 1960. Presented by Russell Davies. From July 2002.
MON 07:00 The Right Time (b00cb3bx)
Series 3
Episode 6
Star Trek shock, love cheats - and digging deep.
The sketch comedy for people growing older disgracefully.
Stars Eleanor Bron, Graeme Garden, Neil Innes, Clive Swift, Roger Blake and Paula Wilcox.
Written by Graeme Garden, Mark Brisenden, Mike Barfield, Mike Coleman, Bob Sinfield, Chris Thompson & Pete Reynolds, Colin Bostock-Smith and Simon Roberts.
Script Editor: Ged Parsons.
Music by Ronnie & The Rex and Neil Innes.
Producer: Claire Jones
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 2003.
MON 07:30 I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue (b06s8bpy)
Series 64
Episode 4
The antidote to panel games pays a return visit to the Grand Opera House in York. Regulars Barry Cryer, Graeme Garden and Tim Brooke-Taylor are joined on the panel by Sandi Toksvig with Jack Dee in the chair. Colin Sell attempts piano accompaniment.
Producer - Jon Naismith. It is a BBC Radio Comedy production.
MON 08:00 Dad's Army (b007jqbr)
Series 3
My British Buddy
Walmington-on-Sea's warm welcome for some American troops backfires.
The comic exploits of a Second World War Home Guard platoon in Walmington-on-Sea.
Adapted for radio from Jimmy Perry and David Croft's TV scripts by Harold Snoad and Michael Knowles.
Captain Mainwaring …. Arthur Lowe
Sergeant Wilson …. John Le Mesurier
Corporal Jones …. Clive Dunn
Private Frazer …. John Laurie
Private Godfrey …. Arnold Ridley
Private Pike …. Ian Lavender
Hodges Warden …. Bill Pertwee
Private Walker …. Larry Martyn
Colonel Schultz …. Jack Watson
Mrs Fox …. Mollie Sugden
Shirley …. Wendy Richard
Producer: John Dyas
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in May 1976.
MON 08:30 Brothers in Law (b007jrhv)
Series 2
Statistics
Lawyer Roger has a bad day at the races, thanks to Joy's Uncle.
Starring Richard Briers as Roger Thursby, Terence Alexander as Henry Blagrove, Julia Lockwood as Sally, Bridget Armstrong as Joy, John Le Mesurier as the Judge, Richard Wattis as Trent and Malcolm Hayes as the Commentator.
All other parts by Michael Kilgarriff.
Written by Henry Cecil and Basil Dawson.
Published in 1955, Henry Cecil's comic legal novel Brothers in Law was adapted first for TV in 1962 by Frank Muir and Denis Norden. It provided the first regular starring role for Richard Briers, who later reprised his role of the idealistic young lawyer Roger Thursby for BBC Radio between 1970 and 1972.
Producer: David Hatch.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in July 1971.
MON 09:00 Quote... Unquote (b012fbw4)
The popular quotations quiz, Quote...Unquote, returns for a new series hosted by Nigel Rees. This week Nigel is joined by a fantastic array of stars: the legendary actress, Sian Phillips, sports journalist James Richardson, broadcaster Edward Stourton and the comedian and actress, Rebecca Front. As well as quizzing about quotations, the guests will share anecdotes and nuggets of advice they've picked up over the years.
The reader is Peter Jefferson.
Produced by Simon Mayhew-Archer.
MON 09:30 King Street Junior (b007jmgt)
Series 5
Choices
Parent Power means troubled times for Mr Sims, while Mrs Rudd falls foul of the law. With Karl Howman. From June 1990.
MON 10:00 Mystery Theater (b06sspfb)
End of the Road: Glenn Ford
1947: Danger awaits car salesman Speed Evans as captivating dame, Sylvia arrives in his showroom.
Starring Glenn Ford as Speed Evans and Cathy Lewis as Sylvia Ganlon.
Adapted by Irving Moore and Robert Richards from a story by Irving Moore.
Glenn Ford (1916-2006) A practical man, the Canadian-American film star began acting after school - but at his father's behest, maintained a number of pragmatic skills - wiring, plumbing, roofing. Ford was in both the US Marines and the Navy, even serving in Vietnam.
Big screen roles included Gilda, The Big Heat, Midway, The Sheepman, The Gazebo, Pocketful of Miracles, Don't Go Near the Water, The Fastest Gun Alive and Superman.
From CBS Radio's Suspense series which ran in the USA from 1942 to 1962.
4 Extra's MYSTERY THEATER showcases American radio's golden years of the 1940s and 50s, when many of Hollywood's greatest screen stars were regular performers, often re-enacting film roles.
MON 10:25 Agatha Christie - Speaking Her Own Words (b06sssg0)
Wartime Writing
Excerpts from the Queen of the Crime's personal dictaphone tapes dictating her autobiography for her typist - before she made any amendments for publication.
Completed in 1965, the book was first published in the UK in 1977, the year after her death.
Introduced by Agatha Christie's grandson, Mathew Prichard who discovered her tapes.
Producer: Peter Reed.
MON 10:30 Hercule Poirot (b007yn6z)
Murder on the Orient Express
Episode 1
A train departs, but one person aboard the Orient Express is destined never to arrive.
Speeding through the snowy European landscape, a bizarre and terrible murder brings the train to an abrupt halt.
The high-class carriages are packed with passengers and one of them - Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot - soon realises the challenge that awaits him...
Agatha Christie's whodunit stars John Moffatt as Hercule Poirot.
From the book published in 1934 and dramatised in five parts by Michael Bakewell
Hercule Poirot ...... John Moffatt
Princess Dragmiroff ...... Sian Phillips
Miss Debenham ...... Francesca Annis
Mr Ratchett ...... Joss Ackland
Pierre Michel ...... Frank Windsor
Mrs Hubbard ...... Sylvia Syms
Masterman ...... Desmond Llewelyn
Monsieur Bouc ...... Andre Maranne
Colonel Arbuthnot ...... Stephen Hodson
MacQueen ...... James Telfer
Miss Ohlsson ...... Kate Binchy
Foscarelli ...... Frank Coda
Hardman ...... John Church
Count Andrenyi ...... David Thorpe
Countess Andrenyi ...... Siriol Jenkins
Dr Constantine ...... Peter Polycarpou
The Taurus Express Guard ...... Vic Tablian
The Hotel Clerk ...... Kevork Malikyan
Pianist: Michael Haslam
Director Enyd Williams.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 1992.
MON 11:00 Midsummer Night in the Workhouse (b015ykx1)
A Weekend in the Country
In A Weekend in the Country by Diana Athill, an invitation to Richard's family home finds Elizabeth compelled to make a difficult choice.
The short stories collected in Midsummer Night in the Workhouse represent the start of Diana Athill's writing career. In the preface to the selection she says: 'I can remember in detail being hit by my first story one January morning in 1958. Until that moment I had been hand-maiden, as editor, to other people's writing, without ever dreaming of myself as a writer.' Then she encountered someone who reminded her of an episode in her past and that evening she wrote her first short story. She went on to win the the "Observer" short story competition and writes, 'Bury me, dear friends, with a copy of the Observer folded under my head, for it was the Observer's prize that woke me up to the fact that I could write and had become happy.'
Diana Athill's stories draw on her own personal experiences and her keen observations of others, each is perceptive, poignant and funny.
Diana Athill was born in 1917. In 1946 she joined Andre Deutsch and went on to become one of the country's leading editors in a career spanning fifty years. She has published six volumes of memoirs and a novel.
Read by Zoe Tapper
Abridged by Julian Wilkinson
Produced by Elizabeth Allard.
MON 11:15 Alex Jones - River's Up (b0076ytc)
Following severe floods, a couple living by the Severn desperately search for dry land and croissants. Stars Peter Corey and Annette Badland. From June 2006.
MON 12:00 Dad's Army (b007jqbr)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
MON 12:30 Brothers in Law (b007jrhv)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
MON 13:00 Kipling in Love (b06ssm4h)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
MON 13:30 Opening Nights: Oliver (b00768h5)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 today]
MON 14:00 Sir Peter Shaffer - Amadeus (b00shhrl)
Episode 1
Dying composer Salieri is fiercely jealous of his young rival. F Murray Abraham reads the play about Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
MON 14:15 The History of the Future (b01mhx6v)
The Oracle of Delphi
Juliet Gardiner begins her journey into the History of the Future with a look at the Oracle of Delphi, the place where the Ancient Greeks went to consult the Oracle and hear what the future held for them.
Juliet argues that a history of the future is really a history of anxiety, and begins her excavation of how the futurologists of their day foretold what was to come, and what these visions says about the pre-occupations of the time. How different were prophesies about the future at different points in history? What can ideas about the future tell us about the past?
People seek reassurance about the future, but that desire is rooted in their understanding of the present, with its specific predicaments, and it is these particularities that Juliet will be unearthing. Whose master plan does the future represent? Is it determined by God, or gods, or does man have the power to change what might seem predetermined?
This series of ten programmes will range from the Apocalyptic visions found in the New Testament Book of Revelation, to the enigmatic prophesies of Nostradamus in 16th century France to the science fiction dystopias of HG Wells and George Orwell. In 5th Century BC Greece, the god Apollo and his Oracle at Delphi was central to the idea of the future. In a fragmented society made up of warring City States with no over-arching authority people flocked to the Oracle to see what the future held. The Priestess through whom the god Apollo would speak would greet a questioner seated on a tripod in an underground chamber chewing bay leaves and surrounded by the intoxicating vapours which escaped through the fault line in the earth on which the Temple was built. Juliet speaks to classicists Nick Lowe and Hugh Bowden, and visits a tarot card reader on Brighton Pier.
Produced by Victoria Shepherd
A Juniper Production for BBC Radio 4.
MON 14:30 William Makepeace Thackeray - Vanity Fair (b007jvxx)
Episode 11
Miss Crawley attempts to decide who will inherit her money. William Makepeace Thackeray dramatisation with Stephen Fry.
MON 14:45 Someone Like Me by Miles Kington (b00dp3qs)
Episode 1
Recalling his earliest memory - of an event before his own birth - as well as the drama of his first kidnapping.
Broadcaster, writer and musician Miles Kington (1941-2008) reads from his account of an endearingly eccentric childhood.
Abridged in five parts by Richard Hamilton.
Producer: Emma Harding
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September 2005.
MON 15:00 Mystery Theater (b06sspfb)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:00 today]
MON 15:25 Agatha Christie - Speaking Her Own Words (b06sssg0)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:25 today]
MON 15:30 Hercule Poirot (b007yn6z)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:30 today]
MON 16:00 Quote... Unquote (b012fbw4)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]
MON 16:30 King Street Junior (b007jmgt)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:30 today]
MON 17:00 The Right Time (b00cb3bx)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:00 today]
MON 17:30 I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue (b06s8bpy)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
MON 18:00 Jonathan Aycliffe - The Matrix (b01nlwzy)
Evil Awaits
"I understood nothing then. I was still a child ..."
A postgraduate student's research into the occult brings him under the malign influence of an ancient book of spells - the Matrix Aeternitatis.
Set in contemporary Edinburgh. Jonathan Aycliffe's chilling novel abridged in ten parts by Rosemary Goring.
Read by Robert Paterson
Producer: David Jackson Young
First broadcast on BBC Radio Scotland in 1997.
MON 18:15 Book at Bedtime (b03wpfcd)
Lynne Truss - Cat Out of Hell
Episode 1
By acclaimed storyteller Lynne Truss, author of the bestselling Eats, Shoots and Leaves, the mysterious tale of a cat with nine lives. And a relationship as ancient as time itself and just as powerful.
The scene - an isolated cottage on the coast, on a stormy evening. Inside, Alec a recently bereaved widower and his dog. To pass the time Alec explores the contents of a folder of documents emailed to him by an acquaintance at the library where he used to work. What he discovers is an extraordinary story that will change his life forever.
Reader: Mike Grady
Abridger: Jeremy Osborne
Producer: Karen Rose
A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4.
MON 18:30 A Good Read (b06st1m9)
Quentin Blake and Allan Ahlberg
Louise Doughty and her guests, the first ever Children's Laureate Quentin Blake and children's author Allan Ahlberg discuss paperbacks by Carson McCullers, Ursula K Le Guin and John Masefield. From 2000.
Books discussed:
The Member of the Wedding by Carson McCullers
Publisher: Mammoth
A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K Le Guin
Publisher: Puffin
The Box of Delights by John Masefield
Publisher: Penguin.
MON 19:00 Dad's Army (b007jqbr)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
MON 19:30 Brothers in Law (b007jrhv)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
MON 20:00 Kipling in Love (b06ssm4h)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
MON 20:30 Opening Nights: Oliver (b00768h5)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 today]
MON 21:00 Pick of the Year (b06sg2mk)
Pick of the Year 2015
Robert Peston chooses his radio moments in Pick of the Year
Robert Peston's is in charge of the radio sweetshop and allowed to gather a pick n mix of the tastiest confections produced across the BBC's magnificent network in 2015.
He's chosen a famous Duck that helped us win world War 2, a Russian who used only his acting prowess to scare off a polar bear, a cat diagnosed with stress, an old geezer's love story that touched a nation, a brace of his pop idols and the black market in sperm.
Other radio moments include James Bond, comedian John Williams and Somerset Maugham, oh and the strong possibility of Mr Eddie Mair.
Produced by Stephen Garner and Kay Bishton.
MON 22:00 I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue (b06s8bpy)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
MON 22:30 Cabin Pressure (b01qdzc4)
Series 4
Xinzhou
Sitcom by John Finnemore about the pilots of a tiny charter airline.
It's cold, it's dark & there's no food on board. What better time for Gertie to decide to fall to bits? And what worse time for Arthur to try out his maths skills?
Cabin Pressure is a sitcom about the wing and a prayer world of a tiny, one plane, charter airline; staffed by two pilots: one on his way down, and one who was never up to start with. Whether they're flying squaddies to Hamburg, metal sheets to Mozambique, or an oil exec's cat to Abu Dhabi, no job is too small, but many, many jobs are too difficult...
Written by John Finnemore
Produced & directed by David Tyler
A Pozzitive production for the BBC.
MON 23:00 Dead Ringers (b06scz91)
Christmas Special
Politicians, media pundits and celebrities are given a Christmas roasting, with lashings of satirical gravy. The perfect antidote to all the tears you've shed over the Christmas TV ads.
Where can you experience the last ever episode of Downton Abbey, a preview of The Archers, and the shock revelation that none of the news on Radio 4's Today programme during the Christmas season is real. It's all pre-recorded while Sara, Jon and the rest of the team sun themselves in the Bahamas. All that and more in the Christmas edition of Dead Ringers.
Starring Jon Culshaw, Lewis MacLeod, Jan Ravens, Debra Stephenson and Duncan Wisbey.
Producer...Bill Dare
A BBC Radio Comedy Production.
MON 23:30 Weak at the Top (b00tjnmq)
Series 2
Values
Marketing maestro John Weak tries to solve the meeting room crisis with some challenging seduction...
Randy, devious, sexist and workshy, John Weak puts the man into management – in Guy Browning’s sitcom.
Starring Alexander Armstrong as marketing maestro and "totty" magnet John Weak.
Hayley ...... Clare Perkins
Sir Marcus ...... Geoffrey Whitehead
Bill Peters ...... Ron Cook
Tim ...... Ewan Bailey
Giles ...... Stephen Critchlow
Sam ...... Adjoa Andoh
Music: David Pickvance
Producer: Jonquil Panting
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in July 2006.


TUESDAY 29 DECEMBER 2015

TUE 00:00 Jonathan Aycliffe - The Matrix (b01nlwzy)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:00 on Monday]
TUE 00:15 Book at Bedtime (b03wpfcd)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:15 on Monday]
TUE 00:30 A Good Read (b06st1m9)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:30 on Monday]
TUE 01:00 Kipling in Love (b06ssm4h)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 on Monday]
TUE 01:30 Opening Nights: Oliver (b00768h5)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 on Monday]
TUE 02:00 Sir Peter Shaffer - Amadeus (b00shhrl)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:00 on Monday]
TUE 02:15 The History of the Future (b01mhx6v)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:15 on Monday]
TUE 02:30 William Makepeace Thackeray - Vanity Fair (b007jvxx)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:30 on Monday]
TUE 02:45 Someone Like Me by Miles Kington (b00dp3qs)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:45 on Monday]
TUE 03:00 Mystery Theater (b06sspfb)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:00 on Monday]
TUE 03:25 Agatha Christie - Speaking Her Own Words (b06sssg0)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:25 on Monday]
TUE 03:30 Hercule Poirot (b007yn6z)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:30 on Monday]
TUE 04:00 Quote... Unquote (b012fbw4)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 on Monday]
TUE 04:30 King Street Junior (b007jmgt)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:30 on Monday]
TUE 05:00 The Right Time (b00cb3bx)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:00 on Monday]
TUE 05:30 I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue (b06s8bpy)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 on Monday]
TUE 06:00 Kipling in Love (b06strdn)
Lispeth
India, 1886: Her train delayed, an English woman befriends an old Indian woman with a terrible tale to tell. Stars Mamta Kaash.
TUE 06:30 James Last - Non Stop Party People (b00vsvcy)
In a village hall in Lincolnshire determined fans brave the cold of a February night to dance the night away. The only music on the turntable is by James Last, a German bandleader with a fanatical following.
Paul Gambaccini goes in search of the non-stop party people to try to understand Last's enduring appeal.
James Last died aged 86 in 2015.
Producer: Mark Rickards
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2005.
TUE 07:00 HR (b01cw7kn)
Series 3
Gambled
The two friends, having discovered that their pensions are worthless, take every measure thinkable to survive.
Now they're hoping for a lottery win.
Nigel William's retirement comedy series, starring Jonathan Pryce and Nicholas le Prevost.
Peter ..... Jonathan Pryce
Sam ..... Nicholas Le Prevost
Dustman ..... Gerard McDermott
Producer: Peter Kavanagh
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in March 2012.
TUE 07:30 Don't Make Me Laugh (b06s9d20)
Christmas Special 2015
David Baddiel hosts a Christmas edition of the anti-comedy show, where the only task for the guests is to avoid making the audience laugh.
Frank Skinner, Hugh Dennis, Ellie Taylor and Dan Schreiber face the challenge of resisting all their natural instincts, talking about a series of funny subjects without making any jokes.
Producer: Dave Cribb
A So Radio production for BBC Radio 4.
TUE 08:00 Round the Horne (b00mw69c)
Series 3
Episode 14
Trouble at sea for Kenneth Horne in 'The Maltese Brass Monkey', while Julian and Sandy go trolling on a bona fox hunt with a twist.
With Kenneth Williams, Hugh Paddick, Betty Marsden and Bill Pertwee.
Recorded at the BBC's Paris Studio in Lower Regent Street, London. Announcer: Douglas Smith
Round The Horne was born out of the demise of BBC radio comedy Beyond Our Ken, after the end of writer Eric Merriman's involvement. Using the same cast and producer, Barry Took and Marty Feldman were persuaded to write the scripts - which led to four series that ran between 1965 and 1968 - packed full of parodies, recurring characters, catchphrases and double-entendres.
Music by Edwin Braden and the Hornblowers and The Fraser Hayes Four.
Producer: John Simmonds
First broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in May 1967.
TUE 08:30 The Men from the Ministry (b007jw7r)
Christmas Spirit
The bungling bureaucrats are acting like Scrooge!
One of 14 shows not kept in the archive and re-recorded in 1980 – previously never broadcast in the UK, until the arrival of BBC Radio 4 Extra.
‘The Men from the Ministry’ ran for 14 series between 1962 and 1977.
Stars Richard Murdoch and Deryck Guyler (who replaced Wilfrid Hyde-White from 1966).
With Norma Ronald, Ronald Baddiley and John Graham.
Written by Edward Taylor.
Producer: Edward Taylor.
Re-recording of ‘The Magic Carpet’ made in April 1980.
TUE 09:00 Dead Ringers (b06scz91)
[Repeat of broadcast at 23:00 on Monday]
TUE 09:30 Capital Gains (b00snlx2)
Series 2
Development Capital
There must be a way to stop the Haiku Jack Consortium from covering the land in concrete. Accidental billionaire Julius Hutch turns to the law - and goes beyond it.
Starring Peter Jones as Julius Hutch.
With Celestine Randall as Pauline Hutch, Justine Midda as Kate, Jeffrey Wickham as Sexton Lewis, Stephen Thorne as Sir Gainford Blounty, Jillie Meers as Dahlia Sprout, David Holt as Ted Smoothie and Brian Perkins as Himself.
Scripted by Collin Johnson.
Producers: Andy Jordan and David Blount
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in July 1997.
TUE 10:00 Mystery Theater (b06sttwn)
Pete Kelly's Blues: Gus Trudeau
An old pal of roaring 1920s jazz cornet player Pete Kelly is suspected of murdering a mobster.
Stars Jack Webb as Pete Kelly with his 'Big 7' jazz group.
Set in a 1922 Speakeasy at 417 Cherry Street, Kansas City, where a heady mix of gangsters, pulpy thrills and spills are readily available.
Pete Kelly's Blues may have only run for three months on American radio, but it spawned a whole film in the mid-1950s. A novel mix of hard-boiled thriller and musical interludes, Jack 'Dragnet' Webb not only stars but also directs.
A keen fan of jazz in real life, Webb did not miss the opportunity to get some of the genuine article into the series. It's fair to say happy endings weren't high on the agenda.
Written by Joe Eisinger.
Music by Dick Cathcart, with scoring by Matty Matlock.
First broadcast on NBC in the USA in 1951.
4 Extra's MYSTERY THEATER showcases American radio's golden years of the 1940s and 50s, when many of Hollywood's greatest screen stars were regular performers, often re-enacting film roles.
TUE 10:25 Agatha Christie - Speaking Her Own Words (b06stv20)
Keeping Notes
Excerpts from the Queen of the Crime's personal tapes dictating her autobiography for her typist - before she made any amendments for publication.
Completed in 1965, the book was first published in the UK in 1977, the year after her death.
Introduced by Agatha Christie's grandson, Mathew Prichard who discovered her tapes.
Producer: Peter Reed.
TUE 10:30 Hercule Poirot (b007yp1g)
Murder on the Orient Express
Episode 2
The Orient Express is trapped in a snowdrift and in one compartment, a man lies murdered. Fortunately Hercule Poirot is aboard the train.
Agatha Christie's whodunit stars John Moffatt as Hercule Poirot.
Hercule Poirot ...... John Moffatt
Monsieur Bouc ...... Andre Maranne
MacQueen ...... James Telfer
Pierre Michel ...... Frank Windsor
Dr Constantine ...... Peter Polycarpou
Masterman ...... Desmond Llewelyn
Mrs Hubbard ...... Sylvia Syms
Pianist: Michael Haslam
Dramatised by Michael Bakewell
Director Enyd Williams.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 1992.
TUE 11:00 Midsummer Night in the Workhouse (b0167vmx)
For Rain It Hath a Friendly Sound
In Diana Athill's story For the Rain it Hath a Friendly Sound first published in 1961, a phone call leads Kate to reflect on her marriage and her experience of love.
The short stories collected in Midsummer Night in the Workhouse represent the start of Diana Athill's writing career. In the preface to the selection she says: 'I can remember in detail being hit by my first story one January morning in 1958. Until that moment I had been hand-maiden, as editor, to other people's writing, without ever dreaming of myself as a writer.' Each of her stories draw on her own personal experiences and her keen observations of others.
Diana Athill was born in 1917. In 1946 she joined Andre Deutsch and went on to become one of the country's leading editors in a career spanning fifty years. She has also published six volumes of memoirs and a novel.
Read by Emma Fielding
Abridged by Julian Wilkinson
Produced by Elizabeth Allard.
TUE 11:15 Sirens of Fleet Street (b01dtsgz)
Free-Minded Albion's Daughter
The life of Victorian journalist pioneer, feminist and campaigner, Bessie Rayner Parkes.
The first of a trilogy of plays examining the lives and writing of three pioneering women journalists.
Introduced by Kate Perry.
Bessie Parkes 1829-1925 (mother of Hilaire Belloc) and her close friend Barbara Bodichon were the founders of The English Women's Journal, the first newspaper owned, written and printed by women.
Based on Bessie's own writing, Lavinia Murray's play tells her story, joining her as she waits to vote in the 1918 election.
Starring Sarah Parks as Bessie, Amanda Root as Barbara Leigh Smith, Kathryn Hunt as Miss Ingle, Russell Dixon as The Teller and James Nickerson as Mr Brattigan/Eugene.
Director: Sue Roberts
Produced at BBC Manchester by Felicity Goodall.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1999.
TUE 12:00 Round the Horne (b00mw69c)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
TUE 12:30 The Men from the Ministry (b007jw7r)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
TUE 13:00 Kipling in Love (b06strdn)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
TUE 13:30 James Last - Non Stop Party People (b00vsvcy)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 today]
TUE 14:00 Sir Peter Shaffer - Amadeus (b00shl8h)
Episode 2
Salieri's jealousy of Mozart ignites a plot for revenge. Read by F Murray Abraham. Adapted from the stage play.
TUE 14:15 The History of the Future (b01mk2hl)
The Druids
Juliet Gardiner continues her journey back to the History of the Future with a look into the society of the Druids and their beliefs about the future.
Druids held a crucial role in Britain, Ireland and Gaul until the first Century AD. Very little evidence of their mysterious culture remains and we might think of them now as the Roman writers portrayed them, wearing white robes and wreaths of mistletoe and oak leaves, making animal, even human sacrifices. One thing is for certain: their powers of prophesy were the sources of awe, fear and political threat to the conquering Romans who saw them as an alternative power base. The Druids are said to have predicted the Fall of the Roman Empire. Was this political expediency or something more mysterious? Juliet sees ancient spoons which may have been used by the Druids in divination ceremonies.
Produced by Victoria Shepherd
A Juniper Production for BBC Radio 4.
TUE 14:30 William Makepeace Thackeray - Vanity Fair (b007jvy2)
Episode 12
Becky has plans to deal with an uncertain financial future. Narrated by Stephen Fry, stars Emma Fielding.
TUE 14:45 Someone Like Me by Miles Kington (b00dp6f6)
Episode 2
Frog-like Aunt Flo and Uncle Walter's fascination with fig leaves.
Broadcaster, writer and musician, Miles Kington continues his account of an endearingly eccentric childhood.
Abridged by Richard Hamilton.
Producer: Emma Harding
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September 2005.
TUE 15:00 Mystery Theater (b06sttwn)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:00 today]
TUE 15:25 Agatha Christie - Speaking Her Own Words (b06stv20)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:25 today]
TUE 15:30 Hercule Poirot (b007yp1g)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:30 today]
TUE 16:00 Act Your Age (b00fn0vg)
Series 1
Episode 1
Simon Mayo discovers which generation is the funniest. With Jon Richardson, Lucy Porter and Roy Walker. From November 2008.
TUE 16:30 Capital Gains (b00snlx2)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:30 today]
TUE 17:00 HR (b01cw7kn)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:00 today]
TUE 17:30 Don't Make Me Laugh (b06s9d20)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
TUE 18:00 Jonathan Aycliffe - The Matrix (b01nm0f0)
Repercussions
"I threw the book onto the coals. It burst into flame as though soaked in petrol."
Trying to rid himself of an ancient book of spells, postgraduate student Andrew MacLeod is drawn to a sinister group...
Set in contemporary Edinburgh. Jonathan Aycliffe's chilling novel abridged in ten parts by Rosemary Goring.
Read by Robert Paterson
Producer: David Jackson Young
First broadcast on BBC Radio Scotland in 1997.
TUE 18:15 Book at Bedtime (b03xcd4c)
Lynne Truss - Cat Out of Hell
Episode 2
By acclaimed storyteller Lynne Truss, author of the bestselling Eats, Shoots and Leaves, the mysterious tale of a cat with nine lives, and relationship as ancient as time itself and just as powerful.
The scene - an isolated cottage on the coast on a stormy evening. Inside, Alec a recently bereaved widower and his dog. To pass the time Alec explores the contents of a folder of documents emailed to him by an acquaintance at the library where he used to work. What he discovers is an extraordinary story that will change his life forever.
Episode 2:
Alec discovers Roger's incredible life story through interviews transcribed by Wiggy. But what's more unbelievable is that Roger himself is the interviewee.
Reader: Mike Grady
Abridger: Jeremy Osborne
Producer: Karen Rose
A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4.
TUE 18:30 The Mysterious Dame Agatha (b06stvfg)
Cliff Michelmore presents an 85th birthday tribute to the Queen of whodunits.
The prolific author and playwright was desperately shy in public - so what was she really like?
With Peter Saunders, Nigel Stock and Julian Symons.
Producer: Mitchell Raper
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1975.
TUE 19:00 Round the Horne (b00mw69c)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
TUE 19:30 The Men from the Ministry (b007jw7r)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
TUE 20:00 Kipling in Love (b06strdn)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
TUE 20:30 James Last - Non Stop Party People (b00vsvcy)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 today]
TUE 21:00 Midsummer Night in the Workhouse (b0167vmx)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:00 today]
TUE 21:15 Sirens of Fleet Street (b01dtsgz)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:15 today]
TUE 22:00 Don't Make Me Laugh (b06s9d20)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
TUE 22:30 The Ape That Got Lucky (b0081sw3)
Man or Monkey
A look at how so many of the things we imagine to be human characteristics are really just animal ones.
Plus a glimpse at where evolution might take the human race next.
A spoof exploration of the fascinating subject of human evolution.
Starring Chris Addison.
With Professor Austin Herring (aka Geoffrey McGivern), Jo Enright and Dan Tetsell.
Written by Chris Addison and Carl Cooper.
Producer: Simon Nicholls
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in August 2005.
TUE 23:00 Twenty Players (b06stvjl)
Series 2
Sister Agnes Brown
Cliff Morgan tells the story of one of rugby's great coaches, Sister Agnes Brown.
One of a series of features on fictional sporting heroes.
Producer: Richard Wilson
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in June 1997.
TUE 23:15 Sir Henry at Rawlinson End (b00s8lgd)
The Hatching
The surreal saga of a dynasty delicately balanced on the edge of sanity.
Written by and starring Viv Stanshall.
Contains an edit of an original John Peel session as first heard on BBC Radio 1.
Music composed and performed by Viv Stanshall using additional musicians.
Producer: John Walters
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 1996.
TUE 23:30 Think the Unthinkable (b007jm43)
Series 1
Utiliton
Unthinkable Solutions are hired to transform Utiliton's call centre, where customer complaints have reached record levels.
Daisy and Sophie bring in Owen, an IT expert of low hygiene and low morals.
James Cary’s award-winning sitcom about management consultants.
Ryan Packer ...... Marcus Brigstocke
Sophie Stott ...... Emma Kennedy
Daisy ...... Catherine Shepherd
Pam ...... Olivia Colman
Simon ...... Kim Wall
Peter ...... Chris Pavlo
Owen ...... David Mitchell
Script associates: Paul Mayhew-Archer and Ed Drew.
Music by John Whitehall.
Producer: Adam Bromley.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 2001.


WEDNESDAY 30 DECEMBER 2015

WED 00:00 Jonathan Aycliffe - The Matrix (b01nm0f0)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:00 on Tuesday]
WED 00:15 Book at Bedtime (b03xcd4c)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:15 on Tuesday]
WED 00:30 The Mysterious Dame Agatha (b06stvfg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:30 on Tuesday]
WED 01:00 Kipling in Love (b06strdn)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 on Tuesday]
WED 01:30 James Last - Non Stop Party People (b00vsvcy)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 on Tuesday]
WED 02:00 Sir Peter Shaffer - Amadeus (b00shl8h)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:00 on Tuesday]
WED 02:15 The History of the Future (b01mk2hl)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:15 on Tuesday]
WED 02:30 William Makepeace Thackeray - Vanity Fair (b007jvy2)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:30 on Tuesday]
WED 02:45 Someone Like Me by Miles Kington (b00dp6f6)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:45 on Tuesday]
WED 03:00 Mystery Theater (b06sttwn)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:00 on Tuesday]
WED 03:25 Agatha Christie - Speaking Her Own Words (b06stv20)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:25 on Tuesday]
WED 03:30 Hercule Poirot (b007yp1g)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:30 on Tuesday]
WED 04:00 Act Your Age (b00fn0vg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 16:00 on Tuesday]
WED 04:30 Capital Gains (b00snlx2)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:30 on Tuesday]
WED 05:00 HR (b01cw7kn)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:00 on Tuesday]
WED 05:30 Don't Make Me Laugh (b06s9d20)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 on Tuesday]
WED 06:00 Kipling in Love (b06svtfc)
Venus Annodomini
India, 1886: Adored by all, but the attraction of Venus is only skin-deep as one unlucky captain discovers. Stars Alex Jennings.
WED 06:30 Stock Car Sewell (b00tjvxc)
For many years, art critic Brian Sewell was a devoted fan of Stock Car Racing. In this programme, he explores his passion for these battered beasts of the race track, as he visits the Wimbledon Stadium for a night at the races.
Stock car racing was brought to Britain in 1954 by 'Digger' Pugh who'd first seen it in America. The idea was to take everyday road cars and race them on the track. Unlike other forms of racing, contact between cars was allowed, making it a hugely popular spectator sport. During Stock Car racing's golden era in the Fifties and Sixties, races attracted huge crowds to stadia up and down the country. These days, Stock Car racing still has a devoted following.
In this programme, Brian Sewell gets to the bottom of his passion, a passion which celebrates speed, exhaust fumes, driving skill and pure throbbing horse power. He meets Pete Tucker, one of the last surviving drivers to drive in the first British Stock Car races, and talks to the people involved in Stock Car racing today.
Brian speaks to Pete Tucker who drove in the first ever British Stock Car races; Janice Bell, daughter of Digger Pugh, the man who brought stock car racing to Britain; George Heath a driver of Banger cars; Paul Hugget, writer for Stock Car magazine Wheelspin.
Producer: Caroline Hughes
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2010.
WED 07:00 The Brothers (b00nn2hg)
Series 2
Episode 1
Michael gets a circus obsession and Nigel has an odd encounter. Stars Raymond Coulthard and Adam Godley. From September 2005.
WED 07:30 Tom Wrigglesworth's Hang-Ups (b06s9l5c)
Series 3
A Christmas Not Special
Episode 6, 'A Christmas Not Special'. A ring of the doorbell interrupts an already unconventional Wrigglesworth family Christmas.
Series 3 of the sitcom where Tom Wrigglesworth phones home for his weekly check-in with his Mum, Dad and Gran, giving listeners a glimpse into his family background and the influences that have shaped his temperament, opinions and hang-ups.
Episode 6 "A Christmas Not Special": The Wrigglesworths receive a Christmas visitor while Tom struggles to get home in time for dinner.
Starring Tom Wrigglesworth, Paul Copley, Kate Anthony, Elizabeth Bennett and Chris Pavlo.
Written by Tom Wrigglesworth and James Kettle with additional material by Miles Jupp
Produced by Richard Morris
A BBC Radio Comedy Production.
WED 08:00 The Navy Lark (b013r1vy)
Series 5
A Deliberate Bashing
Desperate to escape his mother-in-law, can Captain Povey rely on the crew of HMS Troutbridge to assist?

Stars Jon Pertwee as the Chief Petty Officer, Leslie Phillips as the Sub-Lieutenant, Stephen Murray as the Number One, Ronnie Barker as Commander Bell, Richard Caldicote as Captain Povey, Ronnie Barker as Commander Bell, Tenniel Evans as Taffy Goldstein, Janet Brown as Mrs Crump and Lawrie Wyman as the Inspector.

Laughs afloat aboard British Royal Navy frigate HMS Troutbridge. The Navy Lark ran for an impressive thirteen series between 1959 and 1976.

Scripted by Lawrie Wyman

Producer: Alastair Scott Johnston.
First broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in April 1963.
WED 08:30 I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again (b011301y)
Series 7
Episode 7
Bill Oddie sings the 'Baby Samba' and Professor Prune loses his trousers.
Starring:
Tim Brooke-Taylor
John Cleese
Graeme Garden
David Hatch
Jo Kendal
Bill Oddie
Sketches written by Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie.
Music and songs by Bill Oddie, Liam Cohen and Dave Lee.
Originating from the Cambridge University Footlights revue ‘Cambridge Circus’, ISIRTA ran for 8 years on BBC Radio and quickly developed a cult following.
Producer: David Hatch/Peter Titheradge
First broadcast on the BBC Radio 2 in February 1969
WED 09:00 Counterpoint (b06swkv9)
1999
Heat 10
Ned Sherrin hosts the first semi-final with David Hunt of London, Lancashire's Sue McCombie and Andrew Taylor from Cambridge.
WED 09:30 Beachcomber... By the Way (b007jv6b)
Series 2
Episode 1
The further adventures of Mr Justice Cocklecarrot, Captain Foulenough, Dr Strabismus (whom God preserve) of Utrecht and Big White Carstairs.
Richard Ingrams, John Wells, John Sessions and Patricia Routledge recreate the world of the JB Morton.
Running in the Daily Express from 1924 to 1975 – JB Morton’s surreally comic ‘Beachcomber’ column paved the way for a great deal of modern humour.
Adapted by Michael Barfield with Richard Ingrams.
Announcer: Brian Perkins
Producer: Harry Thompson
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in July 1991.
WED 10:00 Mystery Theater (b06swkvc)
Box Thirteen: Alan Ladd
1947: In 'Actor's Alibi' struggling writer Dan Holliday's ad for inspirational adventure backfires.
Stars Alan Ladd as Dan Holliday. With Sylvia Picker as secretary Suzy and Edmund MacDonald as Police Lieutenant Kling.
Former hack turned freelance thriller writer Dan needs to generate ideas, so places a classified ad in the paper: "Adventure wanted - will go anywhere, do anything - Box 13." Played by Hollywood film star Alan Ladd (1913-1964), he's the very image of a perpetually rent-owing, down-at-heel luckless gumshoe wannabe.
Renowned for being only 5 foot 5 inches or so tall, actor Alan Ladd's tough California childhood gave way to small roles in theatre, film and radio before silver-screen success. His films included: This Gun For Hire, Duel of Champions, The Carpetbaggers, One Foot in Hell, The Deep Six and The Proud Rebel.
Box 13 is a syndicated 52-part series created by Alan Ladd's company, Mayfair Productions. The series premiered on December 31st 1947 on New York radio station WOR.
WED 10:25 Agatha Christie - Speaking Her Own Words (b06t1b2l)
Miss Marple
Excerpts from the Queen of the Crime's personal tapes dictating her autobiography for her typist - before she made any amendments for publication.
Completed in 1965, the book was first published in the UK in1977, the year after her death.
Introduced by Agatha Christie's grandson, Mathew Prichard who discovered her tapes.
Producer: Peter Reed.
WED 10:30 Hercule Poirot (b007yrng)
Murder on the Orient Express
Episode 3
Hercule Poirot has discovered the murder victim has a "past" - and is convinced that the murderer is still aboard the train.
Agatha Christie's whodunit stars John Moffatt as Hercule Poirot.
Hercule Poirot ...... John Moffatt
Monsieur Bouc ...... Andre Maranne
Pierre Michel ...... Frank Windsor
Princess Dragmiroff ...... Sian Phillips
Miss Ohlsson ...... Kate Binchy
Count Andrenyi ...... David Thorpe
Countess Andrenyi ...... Siriol Jenkins
Colonel Arbuthnot ...... Stephen Hodson
Hardman ...... John Church
Pianist: Michael Haslam
Dramatised by Michael Bakewell
Director Enyd Williams.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 1992.
WED 11:00 Midsummer Night in the Workhouse (b016kj76)
An Unavoidable Delay
In Diana Athill's story, An Unavoidable Delay, first published in 1962, Rose is travelling home from her holiday in Lubjiana when she encounters Paul and events take an unexpected turn.
The short stories collected in Midsummer Night in the Workhouse represent the start of Diana Athill's writing career. In the preface to the selection she says: 'I can remember in detail being hit by my first story one January morning in 1958. Until that moment I had been hand-maiden, as editor, to other people's writing, without ever dreaming of myself as a writer.' Each of her stories draws on her own personal experiences and her keen observations of others.
Diana Athill was born in 1917. In 1946 she joined Andre Deutsch and went on to become one of the country's leading editors in a career spanning fifty years. She has also published six volumes of memoirs and a novel.
Read by Emma Fielding
Abridged by Julian Wilkinson
Produced by Elizabeth Allard.
WED 11:15 Sirens of Fleet Street (b01dvvt3)
Change of Heart
Mea Allan (1909-1982) was the first woman war correspondent to be permanently accredited to the British Forces and the first woman news editor in Fleet Street. During the Second World War she kept up a remarkable correspondence with her mentor May Chalmers which gives a picture of daily life in the Blitz and on the home front in London and Scotland.
Felicity Goodall's play opens with Mea looking back over her life and friendship with May, beginning with her arrival in Fleet Street in December 1938.
Stars Siobhan Redmond as Mea Allan, Brigit Forsyth as May Chalmers and Steven Deproost as Archie.
Second of a trilogy of plays examining the lives and writing of three pioneering women journalists.
Director: Felicity Goodall
Produced at BBC Manchester by Sue Roberts.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1999.
WED 12:00 The Navy Lark (b013r1vy)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
WED 12:30 I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again (b011301y)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
WED 13:00 Kipling in Love (b06svtfc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
WED 13:30 Stock Car Sewell (b00tjvxc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 today]
WED 14:00 Sir Peter Shaffer - Amadeus (b00shrwn)
Episode 3
Salieri wrestles with his conscience over seducing Mozart's wife. Read by F Murray Abraham. Adapted from the stage play.
WED 14:15 The History of the Future (b01mk71l)
The Book of Revelation
Juliet Gardiner continues her look back into the History of the Future with the apocalyptic visions of Divine Judgement in the Book of Revelation.
There is some dispute about its authorship but it is generally believed that the Revelations of Jesus Christ were communicated to a mystic, John, while in exile on the island of Patmos off the coast of Turkey. John wrote them down around AD 95 and some interpret the Book of Revelation as unveiling events that will take place in the future, when Satan will be cast out and the Second Coming will bring about paradise on earth, others see it as an allegory of the struggle between good and evil.
Juliet views the Douse Manuscript, a dazzling 15th century illuminated Book of Revelation from a period when there was a flowering of interest in this vision of future, with its images of beasts, fires and plagues. Why did the Book's predictions become so pertinent at this particular time? Was this connected to anxieties and political aspirations of the Crusades? Juliet speaks to Professor of Early Modern ideas, Justin Champion.
Produced by Victoria Shepherd
A Juniper Production for BBC Radio 4.
WED 14:30 William Makepeace Thackeray - Vanity Fair (b007jvy5)
Episode 13
Becky and Rawdon make a tactical visit to relatives, and Becky finds a new companion. With Stephen Fry and Emma Fielding.
WED 14:45 Someone Like Me by Miles Kington (b00dpg1d)
Episode 3
Gossip, siestas and his brother's attempt to play a corpse.
Broadcaster, writer and musician, Miles Kington continues his account of an endearingly eccentric childhood.
Abridged by Richard Hamilton.
Producer: Emma Harding
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September 2005.
WED 15:00 Mystery Theater (b06swkvc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:00 today]
WED 15:25 Agatha Christie - Speaking Her Own Words (b06t1b2l)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:25 today]
WED 15:30 Hercule Poirot (b007yrng)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:30 today]
WED 16:00 Counterpoint (b06swkv9)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]
WED 16:30 Beachcomber... By the Way (b007jv6b)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:30 today]
WED 17:00 The Brothers (b00nn2hg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:00 today]
WED 17:30 Tom Wrigglesworth's Hang-Ups (b06s9l5c)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
WED 18:00 Jonathan Aycliffe - The Matrix (b01nm20n)
Morocco
Andrew journeys to Morocco with the sinister Duncan Mylne, where a shock awaits him...
Jonathan Aycliffe's chilling novel abridged in ten parts by Rosemary Goring.
Read by Robert Paterson
Producer: David Jackson Young
First broadcast on BBC Radio Scotland in 1997.
WED 18:15 Book at Bedtime (b03xcdnj)
Lynne Truss - Cat Out of Hell
Episode 3
By acclaimed storyteller Lynne Truss, author of the bestselling Eats, Shoots and Leaves, the mysterious tale of a cat with nine lives. And a relationship as ancient as time itself and just as powerful.
The scene - an isolated cottage on the coast on a stormy evening. Inside, Alec a recently bereaved widower and his dog. To pass the time Alec explores the contents of a folder of documents emailed to him by an acquaintance at the library where he used to work. What he discovers is an extraordinary story that will change his life forever.
Episode 3:
Winterton's folder reveals more of Roger's extraordinary story. But the mystery surrounding Jo's disappearance deepens.
Reader: Mike Grady
Abridger: Jeremy Osborne
Producer: Karen Rose
A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4.
WED 18:30 The Radio Detectives (b007jp9j)
Series 2
The Little Grey Cells of Hercule Poirot
Author Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot is one of her most famous and long-running characters, appearing in 33 novels.
Professor Jeffrey Richards delves into the casebook of the fastidious Belgian sleuth with a genius for lateral thinking.
Second affectionate five-part series about popular radio detectives.
Producer: Helen Williams
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1999.
WED 19:00 The Navy Lark (b013r1vy)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
WED 19:30 I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again (b011301y)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
WED 20:00 Kipling in Love (b06svtfc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
WED 20:30 Stock Car Sewell (b00tjvxc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 today]
WED 21:00 Midsummer Night in the Workhouse (b016kj76)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:00 today]
WED 21:15 Sirens of Fleet Street (b01dvvt3)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:15 today]
WED 22:00 Tom Wrigglesworth's Hang-Ups (b06s9l5c)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
WED 22:30 Old Harry's Game (b00wr9vv)
Christmas Special
Ring in the New
Satan decides he needs a holiday away from hell.
Written by and starring Andy Hamilton.
With Annette Crosbie as Edith, Robert Duncan as Scumspawn, Jimmy Mulville as Thomas.
And Felicity Montagu, Nick Revell, Philip Pope and Michael Fentons Stevens.
Producer: Paul Mayhew-Archer
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2010.
WED 23:00 Beauty of Britain (b010t6yh)
Series 2
Mission Command
Beauty Oolonga struggles with an irascible gentleman and the Featherdown office struggle with Social Services' new pilot scheme for elder care.
This means assessment exercises are based on the battle principles of General von Moltke of the Prussian Army...'
Starring Jocelyn Jee Esien.
Beauty's adventures continue as the Featherdown Agency sends her to provide care for the elderly.
Beauty’s Zimbabwean Shona background has taught her to respect age. She sees Britain at its best and its worst
Written by Christopher Douglas and Nicola Sanderson
Beauty ..... Jocelyn Jee Esien
Derek ..... Oscar James
Nicole/Topaz/Tiffany ..... Morwenna Banks
Karen ..... Nicola Sanderson
Sally ..... Felicity Montagu
Olivia/PhD Student .....Vicki Pepperdine
Music by The West End Gospel Choir.
Producer : Tilusha Ghelani
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in May 2011.
WED 23:30 Beautiful Dreamers (b00vy0pn)
Crazy Bird: The Horace Wiggerley Story
Nat investigates the story behind Laurel Miller's iconic photograph 'Crazy Bird', the image that captures the moment when ex-con Horace Wiggerley drove across the opening arms of the 23rd Street bridge in New York City. Featuring contributions from Lucian Msamati, Alibe Parsons, Peter Marinker, Ewan Bailey, Sally Orrock, Sean Baker and Lloyd Thomas.
Writers ..... James Lever and Nat Segnit.
Producers ..... Steven Canny and Sasha Yevtushenko.


THURSDAY 31 DECEMBER 2015

THU 00:00 Jonathan Aycliffe - The Matrix (b01nm20n)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:00 on Wednesday]
THU 00:15 Book at Bedtime (b03xcdnj)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:15 on Wednesday]
THU 00:30 The Radio Detectives (b007jp9j)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:30 on Wednesday]
THU 01:00 Kipling in Love (b06svtfc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 on Wednesday]
THU 01:30 Stock Car Sewell (b00tjvxc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 on Wednesday]
THU 02:00 Sir Peter Shaffer - Amadeus (b00shrwn)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:00 on Wednesday]
THU 02:15 The History of the Future (b01mk71l)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:15 on Wednesday]
THU 02:30 William Makepeace Thackeray - Vanity Fair (b007jvy5)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:30 on Wednesday]
THU 02:45 Someone Like Me by Miles Kington (b00dpg1d)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:45 on Wednesday]
THU 03:00 Mystery Theater (b06swkvc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:00 on Wednesday]
THU 03:25 Agatha Christie - Speaking Her Own Words (b06t1b2l)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:25 on Wednesday]
THU 03:30 Hercule Poirot (b007yrng)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:30 on Wednesday]
THU 04:00 Counterpoint (b06swkv9)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 on Wednesday]
THU 04:30 Beachcomber... By the Way (b007jv6b)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:30 on Wednesday]
THU 05:00 The Brothers (b00nn2hg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:00 on Wednesday]
THU 05:30 Tom Wrigglesworth's Hang-Ups (b06s9l5c)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 on Wednesday]
THU 06:00 Kipling in Love (b06sx2f5)
The Courting of Dinah Shadd
India, 1880: Sergeant Terence Mulvaney is a dark horse, reflecting on his military and personal ups and downs. Stars Jack Klaff.
THU 06:30 Brian Friel Season (b01r55mw)
Self Portrait
The playwright gives a rare insight into his personal past, musing on the facts and fictions of his life. From 1971.
THU 06:50 Inheritance Tracks (b0106vf7)
Colm Toibin
The writer inherits 'I Dreamt I Dwelt in Marbled Halls' sung by Joan Sutherland, and passes on Bob Dylan's 'I Threw It All Away'.
THU 07:00 Hazelbeach (b0082dtq)
Series 1
Wine
Returning to England, Nick's life descends into surreal chaos when he discovers the mysterious Ronnie Hazelbeach living in the house owned by his late Dad...
Caroline and David Stafford's first of three comedy series starring Jamie Forman as Ronnie Hazelbeach.
Ronnie ...... Jamie Foreman
Nick ...... Paul Bazely
Chloe ...... Tracy Wiles
James ...... John Dougall
Producer: Marc Beeby
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in October 2007.
THU 07:30 Tina C (b06s9s02)
Tina C: Herstory
Episode 4
Country music legend Tina C brings us right up to date with a (slightly) festive look at where she is today.
Bob Harris quizzes her about her ambitions for the future, and a live country band take us through some of her biggest hits.
Written and performed by Christopher Green.
Additional voices: Susan Jameson & Leo Wan.
The Band: Duncan Walsh-Atkins, Phil Hardisty, Mark Wraith.
Produced by Victoria Lloyd.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2015.
THU 08:00 Steptoe and Son (b007k1r0)
Series 4
And Afterwards At
It's a big day for Harold. He's set to tie the knot! But Albert's not convinced.
Starring Wilfrid Brambell and Harry H Corbett.
Following the conclusion of their hugely successful association with Tony Hancock, writers Galton & Simpson wrote 10 pilots for the BBC TV's Comedy Playhouse in 1962.
The Offer featured the lives of rag and bone men Albert Steptoe and son Harold - and was the spark for a run of eight series on TV.
Albert ...... Wilfrid Brambell
Harold ...... Harry H Corbett
With Pat Coombes, Patricia Hayes, Margot Boyd, Edward Kelsey, Sheila Grant, Martin Friend and Katherine Parr.
Written for TV and adapted for radio by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson.
Producer: Bobby Jaye
First broadcast on BBC Radio 2 in March 1972.
THU 08:30 The Small, Intricate Life of Gerald C Potter (b007jx9k)
Series 1
The Birthday Present
Busy writing his new crime novel, Gerald doesn't want to be disturbed - but Diana has other ideas...
The convoluted chronicle of an optimistic author written by Basil Boothroyd.
Starring Ian Carmichael as Gerald C Potter and Charlotte Mitchell as his wife and more successful writer, Diana.
With Michael McClain
The Small, Intricate Life of Gerald C Potter ran from 1976 to 1981
Producer: Bobby Jaye
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in March 1976.
THU 09:00 Genius (b00802hh)
Series 3
Rob Newman
Hi-tech hitching to brushes with fingernails.
Dave Gorman asks comedian Rob Newman to select the public's best loopy idea.
Award-winning comedian Dave Gorman and a celebrity guest chew over the ridiculous, unworkable but sometimes genius inventions, schemes and policies of the public.
Producer: Simon Nicholls
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in October 2007.
THU 09:30 No Commitments (b007jnyh)
Series 7
A Family Lunch
A Family Lunch: Victoria's hopes for a happy birthday celebration are soon dashed. Stars Angela Thorne and Bill Nighy. From February 2001.
THU 10:00 Mystery Theater (b06sx543)
Jeff Regan, Investigator: It All Comes Back to Me Now
1950: Jeff gets caught up in a case of missing memories. Could a mystery woman carrying a pistol be a murderer?
Starring Paul Dubov as Jeff Regan and Frank Nelson as Anthony Lyon.
Jeff Regan is a fully registered official private investigator working for the Los Angeles-based International Detective Bureau. Unlike some of his radio contemporaries, Jeff gets the job done through diligence and tenacity - rather than gun-toting fisticuffs.
The series debuted on CBS in the US 1948 starring Jack 'Dragnet' Webb. After he left the role on radio, Jeff was played by Frank Graham and finally Paul Dubov (1918-1979) who appeared in many Hollywood films as a support actor, rather than playing the leading man.
Jeff Regan, Investigator came off-air in 1950.
4 Extra's MYSTERY THEATER showcases American radio's golden years of the 1940s and 50s, when many of Hollywood's greatest screen stars were regular performers, often re-enacting film roles.
THU 10:25 Agatha Christie - Speaking Her Own Words (b06t23wl)
The Taxman
Excerpts from the Queen of the Crime's personal tapes dictating her autobiography for her typist - before she made any amendments for publication.
Completed in 1965, the book was first published in the UK in 1977, the year after her death.
Introduced by Agatha Christie's grandson, Mathew Prichard who discovered her tapes.
Producer: Peter Reed.
THU 10:30 Hercule Poirot (b007ys7n)
Murder on the Orient Express
Episode 4
Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot discovers that someone aboard the train is lying to him.
Agatha Christie's whodunit stars John Moffatt as Hercule Poirot.
Hercule Poirot ...... John Moffatt
Monsieur Bouc ...... Andre Maranne
Dr Constantine ...... Peter Polycarpou
Mrs Hubbard ...... Sylvia Syms
Miss Debenham ...... Francesca Annis
Foscarelli ...... Frank Coda
Fraulein Schmidt ...... Linda Polan
Count Andrenyi ...... David Thorpe
Countess Andrenyi ...... Siriol Jenkins
Miss Ohlsson ...... Kate Binchy
Pianist: Michael Haslam
Dramatised by Michael Bakewell
Director Enyd Williams.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 1992.
THU 11:00 A Dalmatian Trilogy (b018wb97)
The Lompic Cape
Episode 1 (of 3): The Lompic Cape by James Hopkin
An eccentric writer-explorer leads his bemused amanuensis over the island. But on the rocks, in the sea and in the old town, the two men see very different things.
James Hopkin has lived and travelled widely in Europe, including time spent on the Dalmatian islands off the coast of Croatia. These three specially-commissioned stories explore the history and landscape of the area, as well as providing a colourful journey for the senses.
Hopkin gained a First Class honours degree in English and Philosophy in Manchester, then a Distinction in his MA on modern fiction, followed by a British Academy Award for his PhD. In September 2002, he won an Arts Council short story competition with 'Even the Crows Say Krakow'.
His novel Winter Under Water (2007) was an assured and critically-acclaimed debut marking the arrival of a major new writer. He published a small collection of stories in 2008, along with the paperback of Winter Under Water.
James Hopkin's A Georgian Trilogy, also produced by Sweet Talk, was broadcast in 2010.
Reader: Alan Cox
Producer: Jeremy Osborne
A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4.
THU 11:15 Sirens of Fleet Street (b01dvzm8)
Miss Thingummybob
Emille Peacocke (1882-1964) - daughter of a well-respected Northern newspaper family - takes Edwardian Fleet Street by storm, as she refuses to take no for an answer in her quest to become a real journalist.
Her subjects range from Suffragettes to Archbishops, trousseaux to the Telegraph, as she makes her mark as the first woman journalist on the Daily Express.
The final play in a trilogy examining the lives and writing of three pioneering women journalists.
Janys Chambers' dramatised account stars Kathryn Hunt as Emilie, Melissa Sinden as Mary McArthur, Sarah Parks as Lady Lytton, Morgan George as Herbert Peacocke, Russell Dixon as Ralph D Blumenfield, Alice French as Young Emilie, James Nickerson as Randal Charlton and Geoffrey Banks as Arnold Bennett.
Directed at BBC Manchester by Polly Thomas.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1999.
THU 12:00 Steptoe and Son (b007k1r0)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
THU 12:30 The Small, Intricate Life of Gerald C Potter (b007jx9k)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
THU 13:00 Kipling in Love (b06sx2f5)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
THU 13:30 Brian Friel Season (b01r55mw)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 today]
THU 13:50 Inheritance Tracks (b0106vf7)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:50 today]
THU 14:00 Sir Peter Shaffer - Amadeus (b00sjp2n)
Episode 4
Will Salieri finally take his revenge on Mozart? Or is his quarrel really with God? Read by F Murray Abraham.
THU 14:15 The History of the Future (b01mk92q)
Nostradamus
Juliet Gardiner continues her History of the Future with a look into the world of the most famous futurologist of them all, Nostradamus. Nostradamus's name is synonymous with prediction and his poetic quatrains have not been out of print since they were first published in France in 1555.
The prophesies were an instant bestseller all across Europe and struck a chord in London too. Widespread fear in France of invasion by the Ottoman Empire made his prophesies with their reference to the Anti-Christ seem urgent and people were drawn to the predictions for clues to how to act in a war-torn present. Five hundred years later people still consult the almanacs of Nostradamus and find in its pages predictions that seem to have foreseen major current events, the most famous of which was the attack on the World Trade Centre on 9/11.
The prophesies are enigmatic, poetically vague and ripe for interpretation, but what is striking is that Nostradamus's words can represent the anxieties of the time in which they were written, and ours today. Juliet speaks to Nostradamus experts Peter Lemesurier and Mario Reading.
Produced by Victoria Shepherd
A Juniper Production for BBC Radio 4.
THU 14:30 William Makepeace Thackeray - Vanity Fair (b007jvy8)
Episode 14
A cash crisis forces Amelia to make a terrible decision about little Georgie's future. With Stephen Fry and Emma Fielding.
THU 14:45 Someone Like Me by Miles Kington (b00dpnwr)
Episode 4
A Sherlock Holmes game unearths some awkward family evidence.
Broadcaster, writer and musician, Miles Kington continues his account of an endearingly eccentric childhood.
Abridged by Richard Hamilton.
Producer: Emma Harding
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September 2005
THU 15:00 Mystery Theater (b06sx543)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:00 today]
THU 15:25 Agatha Christie - Speaking Her Own Words (b06t23wl)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:25 today]
THU 15:30 Hercule Poirot (b007ys7n)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:30 today]
THU 16:00 Genius (b00802hh)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]
THU 16:30 No Commitments (b007jnyh)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:30 today]
THU 17:00 Hazelbeach (b0082dtq)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:00 today]
THU 17:30 Tina C (b06s9s02)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
THU 18:00 Jonathan Aycliffe - The Matrix (b01nm5jd)
The Sheik
Returning to Scotland, Andrew becomes increasingly dependent on Mylne's support.
Jonathan Aycliffe's chilling novel abridged in ten parts by Rosemary Goring.
Read by Robert Paterson
Producer: David Jackson Young
First broadcast on BBC Radio Scotland in 1997.
THU 18:15 Book at Bedtime (b03xcgm0)
Lynne Truss - Cat Out of Hell
Episode 4
By acclaimed storyteller Lynne Truss, author of the bestselling Eats, Shoots and Leaves, the mysterious tale of a cat with nine lives. And a relationship as ancient as time itself and just as powerful.
The scene - an isolated cottage on the coast on a stormy evening. Inside, Alec a recently bereaved widower and his dog. To pass the time Alec explores the contents of a folder of documents emailed to him by an acquaintance at the library where he used to work. What he discovers is an extraordinary story that will change his life forever.
Episode 4:
Wiggy's sister Jo and her dog Jeremy are still missing. Suspicion falls on Wiggy himself.
Reader: Mike Grady
Abridger: Jeremy Osborne
Producer: Karen Rose
A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4.
THU 18:30 Women of Mystery - Queen of Crime (b06sx8b4)
4 Extra Debut. Why was the genteel Agatha Christie so good at writing murder stories? With Jessica Mann and biographer Janet Morgan. From December 1982.
THU 19:00 Steptoe and Son (b007k1r0)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
THU 19:30 The Small, Intricate Life of Gerald C Potter (b007jx9k)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
THU 20:00 Kipling in Love (b06sx2f5)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
THU 20:30 Brian Friel Season (b01r55mw)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 today]
THU 20:50 Inheritance Tracks (b0106vf7)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:50 today]
THU 21:00 A Dalmatian Trilogy (b018wb97)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:00 today]
THU 21:15 Sirens of Fleet Street (b01dvzm8)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:15 today]
THU 22:00 Tina C (b06s9s02)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
THU 22:30 The Secret World (b0125n5t)
Series 2
Episode 1
From Al Pacino to Keith Harris and Orville, Jon Culshaw and friends probe the private lives of the famous. From July 2010.
THU 23:00 Bleak Expectations (b00nyy8s)
Series 3
An Evil Life Sort of Explained
Pip Bin, Harry Biscuit and Gently Benevolent find themselves trapped in the vast emptiness of space.
As their doom looks increasingly inevitable, Mr Benevolent finally explains just why it is that he is so very very evil.
Mark Evans's epic Victorian comedy in the style of Charles Dickens.
Sir Philip ...... Richard Johnson
Young Pip Bin ...... Tom Allen
Gently Benevolent ...... Anthony Head
Lovely Benevolent ...... Jane Asher
Harry Biscuit ...... James Bachman
Hardthrasher/Sternbeater/Wackwallop ...... Geoffrey Whitehead
Miss Christmasham ...... Sarah Hadland
Miss Sweetly Delightful ...... Raquel Cassidy.
Producer: Gareth Edwards
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 2009
THU 23:30 Hamish and Dougal: You'll Have Had Your Tea (b008kl37)
Hogmanay Special
Hamish and Dougal find themselves celebrating Hogmanay with a busload of celebrities after they get stuck in a snowdrift on its way to the BBC's Hogmanay Cavalcade in Edinburgh.
Barry Cryer and Graeme Garden star as the two elderly Scotsmen famed for their appearances on BBC Radio’s I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue.
Mrs Naughtie ...... Alison Steadman
The Laird ...... Jeremy Hardy
Humphrey Lyttelton ...... Butler
Tim Brooke-Taylor ...... Himself
Sandi Wedge ...... Sandi Toksvig
James ...... James Naughtie
Pianist Colin Sell
Producer: Jon Naismith
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2004.


FRIDAY 01 JANUARY 2016

FRI 00:00 Jonathan Aycliffe - The Matrix (b01nm5jd)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:00 on Thursday]
FRI 00:15 Book at Bedtime (b03xcgm0)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:15 on Thursday]
FRI 00:30 Women of Mystery - Queen of Crime (b06sx8b4)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:30 on Thursday]
FRI 01:00 Kipling in Love (b06sx2f5)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 on Thursday]
FRI 01:30 Brian Friel Season (b01r55mw)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 on Thursday]
FRI 01:50 Inheritance Tracks (b0106vf7)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:50 on Thursday]
FRI 02:00 Sir Peter Shaffer - Amadeus (b00sjp2n)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:00 on Thursday]
FRI 02:15 The History of the Future (b01mk92q)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:15 on Thursday]
FRI 02:30 William Makepeace Thackeray - Vanity Fair (b007jvy8)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:30 on Thursday]
FRI 02:45 Someone Like Me by Miles Kington (b00dpnwr)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:45 on Thursday]
FRI 03:00 Mystery Theater (b06sx543)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:00 on Thursday]
FRI 03:25 Agatha Christie - Speaking Her Own Words (b06t23wl)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:25 on Thursday]
FRI 03:30 Hercule Poirot (b007ys7n)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:30 on Thursday]
FRI 04:00 Genius (b00802hh)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 on Thursday]
FRI 04:30 No Commitments (b007jnyh)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:30 on Thursday]
FRI 05:00 Hazelbeach (b0082dtq)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:00 on Thursday]
FRI 05:30 Tina C (b06s9s02)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 on Thursday]
FRI 06:00 Kipling in Love (b06sx9sy)
In the Pride of His Youth
London, 1880: Marrying Bella dashes Dicky's dream of a career in India. What can he do when offered a post? Stars Samuel West.
FRI 06:30 The Marx Brothers in Britain (b00sp198)
Author and historian Glenn Mitchell profiles the fascinating visits to Britain of legendary comedy team The Marx Brothers.
The Marx Brothers; Groucho, Harpo, Chico and (for a while) Zeppo, inspired a generation of comedians, not least in Britain via The Goon Show and, by extension, Monty Python's Flying Circus. Although Britons knew the Marxes essentially from their American films, they worked in the UK on several remarkable occasions, the first of which pre-dates their movie career.
Featuring actor Michael Roberts, famous for playing Groucho on the UK radio series Flywheel, Shyster and Flywheel and using archive and new contributions from people that met and worked with them this programme recreates and explores the eventful visits of the brothers.
Beginning with their first in 1922, with an ensemble that included future 'boop-oop-a-doop' girl Helen Kane, the opening night at the London Coliseum saw them the target of flying pennies. With the act not working they reverted to an earlier sketch, moving to the Alhambra for the third week prior to appearances in Bristol and Manchester where elsewhere on the bill was a young Sandy Powell.
By the time of their next visit, in 1931, the Marxes had gone from vaudeville to being the biggest attraction in Broadway musical-comedy. Two of their shows had been filmed - The Cocoanuts and Animal Crackers - and had done sufficient business in the UK for impresario C.B. Cochran to invite them to star at the Palace, London.
Audiences were thrilled and the Marxes enjoyed their second stay in London, even when Harpo and Chico, drawn into a protracted card game in an unheated flat, found themselves burning the furniture to keep warm! The journey back saw Groucho and family strip-searched at US Customs when Groucho put down his occupation as 'smuggler'.
In 1947, Chico accepted a solo engagement at the London Casino. He returned to Britain in January 1949 for an extensive variety tour, joined briefly by Harpo for a four-week engagement at the London Palladium in June. In a dockside interview - to be heard in the programme - Chico is asked about the Italian accent he used when in character and claims that, after seeing what they'd done to Mussolini, he'd become Greek!
Chico's final UK visit was in 1959 for two BBC appearances, one of which, Showtime hosted by David Nixon.
There will also be interview material from Groucho's various trips to Great Britain between 1954 and 1971. Some of his activities were professional - such as a British TV version of his quiz show You Bet Your Life - while others were purely social, notably his celebrated meeting with T.S. Eliot.
Contributors include actor Ron Moody, Theatre historian Chris Woodward and Marxist fan Peter Dixon.
FRI 07:00 1834 (b01137b8)
What Century Are You Living In?
Jason Slater is a 21st-century English teacher from Cheadle Hulme who wakes in 19th-century Macclesfield.
In Jim Poyser's riotous comedy of transportation and delight, Jason discovers he's now Tarquin, third son of Lord Belport with a faithful valet, Ned who can't explain what's happened.
He's also acquired a suspicious brother, Henry; a spurned ex-girlfriend, Millicent, now going out with Henry; and an over excited Luddite-cum-cauliflower farmer.
Jason Slater ...... Michael Begley
Ned ...... Joe Caffrey
Hoskins ...... Kenneth Alan Taylor
Lord Belport ...... Mark Chatterton
Henry ...... James Nickerson
Luddite ...... Toby Hadoke
Millicent ...... Julia Rounthwaite
Directed at BBC Manchester by Polly Thomas.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in June 2003.
FRI 07:30 Stop/Start (b01jhjsh)
by Jack Docherty
A new sitcom about love, marriage and putting up with each other. Stop/Start follows three couples as they do their best to get on with their lives. When things get tricky, the characters are able to stop the action, explain themselves to the audience and start it all up again.
Barney ..... Jack Docherty
Cathy ..... Kerry Godliman
Fiona ..... Fiona Allen
David ..... Charlie Higson
Evan ..... Steve Edge
Alice ..... Katherine Parkinson
Producer ..... Steven Canny
Jack Docherty
Jack has a fantastic record of making stand-out comedy. He first performed at the 1980 Edinburgh Festival Fringe with the comedy sketch group The Bodgers and went on to write for radio and television including: Spitting Image, Alas Smith and Jones, Vic Reeves Big Night Out, Absolutely, The Lenny Henry Show, Max Headroom, Weekending, The News Huddlines and a ton of other things.
He has also made guest appearances in The Comic Strip Presents, Sardines, Atletico Partick, The Morwenna Banks Show, Monarch of the Glen, Welcome to Strathmuir, Red Dwarf V and The Old Guys. He has also featured in the Radio 4 comedies Baggage and Mordrin MacDonald - 21st Century Wizard and has appeared on various comedy panel shows including Have I Got News For You and It's Only TV But I Like It.
FRI 08:00 Hancock's Half Hour (b008v13d)
Series 5
The Sleepless Night
The lad tries to get a good night's sleep, but everybody else keeps him awake.
Starring Tony Hancock.
With Sidney James, Bill Kerr, Hattie Jacques and Kenneth Williams.
Written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson.
Theme and incidental music written by Wally Stott.
Producer: Tom Ronald
First broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in June 1958.
FRI 08:30 The Goon Show (b007jmyg)
Series 6
The Greenslade Story
The amazing story of the rise and fall of BBC Home Service radio announcer Wallace Greenslade.
Groundbreaking, surreal BBC radio comedy written by Spike Milligan.
Starring:
Peter Sellers
Harry Secombe
Spike Milligan
First billed as Crazy People, ten series of The Goon Show were recorded between 1951 and 1960, but sadly many of the earliest shows weren’t kept in the archive.
With the Ray Ellington Quartet and Max Geldray.
Orchestra conducted by Wally Stott.
Announcer: Wallace Greenslade
Producer: Peter Eton
First broadcast on the BBC Home Service in December 1955.
FRI 09:00 The 3rd Degree (b01d0qth)
Series 2
University of East Anglia
Coming this week from the University of East Anglia, "The 3rd Degree" is a funny, lively and dynamic quiz show aimed at cultivating the next generation of Radio 4 listeners whilst delighting the current ones. It's recorded on location at a different University each week, and it pits three Undergraduates against three of their Professors in a genuinely original and fresh take on an academic quiz. Being a Radio 4 programme, it of course meets the most stringent standards of academic rigour - but with lots of facts and jokes thrown in for good measure.
Together with host Steve Punt, the show tours the (sometimes posh, sometimes murky, but always welcoming!) Union buildings, cafes and lecture halls of six universities across the UK.
The rounds vary between Specialist Subjects and General Knowledge, quickfire bell-and-buzzer rounds and the 'Highbrow & Lowbrow' round cunningly devised to test not only the students' knowledge of current affairs, history, languages and science, but also their Professors' awareness of television, film, and Lady Gaga... In addition, the Head-to-Head rounds, in which students take on their Professors in their own subjects, were particularly lively, and offered plenty of scope for mild embarrassment on both sides...
The resulting show is funny, fresh, and not a little bit surprising, with a truly varied range of scores, friendly rivalry, and moments where students wished they had more than just glanced at that reading list...
Producer: David Tyler
A Pozzitive production for BBC Radio 4.
FRI 09:30 Mind Your Own Business! (b009xyw7)
The Premature Berth
Head of finance Russell Farrow insists on the strictest economy. So tycoon Jimmy Bright must keep quiet about the firm’s £2,000,000 yacht.
But you can't keep anything quiet with Mum around...
Bernard Cribbins and Frank Thornton star in Andrew Palmer’s sitcom
Jimmy Bright ...... Bernard Cribbins
Russell Farrow ...... Frank Thornton
Nan Forbes ...... Annette Crosbie
Sue Plant ...... Annee Blott
Griselda Bright ...... Patricia Hayes
Written by Andrew Palmer.
Producer: Edward Taylor
First broadcast on BBC Radio 2 in January 1988.
FRI 10:00 Mystery Theater (b06sxbwk)
Sorry, Wrong Number: Agnes Moorehead
1943: Agnes Moorehead stars as the neurotic, bedridden Mrs Elbert Stevenson who overhears a murder being plotted via crossed phone wires.
It proved so popular that between 1947 and 1960, Moorehead freshly performed her "one-woman show" on CBS radio eight times, including versions for the East and West coasts - and always used her original script. However, the lead role in the 1948 movie version of Sorry, Wrong Number went to Barbara Stanwyck.
The film roles of Hollywood actress Agnes Moorehead (1900-1974) included Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons and Show Boat. She also starred as Endora in the long-running US TV sitcom 'Bewitched' for ABC.
Written by Lucille Fletcher, the May 25th 1943 broadcast of Sorry, Wrong Number was deemed to be "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the American Library of Congress and chosen for the National Recording Preservation Board. Orson Welles once called it "the single greatest radio script ever written."
Sound-effects by Bernie Surrey.
Producer: William Spier
Moorehead was a regular performer in CBS Radio's Suspense series which ran in the USA from 1942 to 1962.
4 Extra's MYSTERY THEATER showcases American radio's golden years of the 1940s and 50s, when many of Hollywood's greatest screen stars were regular performers, often re-enacting film roles.
FRI 10:25 Agatha Christie - Speaking Her Own Words (b06t3wh4)
Unambitious
Excerpts from the Queen of the Crime's personal tapes dictating her autobiography for her typist - before she made any amendments for publication.
Completed in 1965, the book was first published in the UK in 1977, the year after her death.
Introduced by Agatha Christie's grandson, Mathew Prichard who discovered her tapes.
Producer: Peter Reed.
FRI 10:30 Hercule Poirot (b007ytww)
Murder on the Orient Express
Episode 5
Time is against Belgian sleuth, Hercule Poirot as he battles to unmask the murderer aboard the Orient Express.
John Moffatt stars as Hercule Poirot in the conclusion of Agatha Christie's whodunit.
Hercule Poirot ...... John Moffatt
Monsieur Bouc ...... Andre Maranne
Dr Constantine ...... Peter Polycarpou
Masterman ...... Desmond Llewelyn
Pierre Michel ...... Frank Windsor
Princess Dragmiroff ...... Sian Phillips
Mrs Hubbard ...... Sylvia Syms
Miss Debenham ...... Francesca Annis
Count Andrenyi ...... David Thorpe
Countess Andrenyi ...... Siriol Jenkins
Colonel Arbuthnot ...... Stephen Hodson
Foscarelli ...... Frank Coda
Miss Ohlsson ...... Kate Binchy
MacQueen ...... James Telfer
Fraulein Schmidt ...... Linda Polan
Music composed and played by Michael Haslam
From the book published in 1934 and dramatised by Michael Bakewell
Director Enyd Williams.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 1993.
FRI 11:00 A Dalmatian Trilogy (b01946ws)
Dalmatian Muse
Episode 2 (of 3): Dalmatian Muse by James Hopkin
Danko lives in a secluded bay on the island. There is a strip of coast-line which he claims represents the whole of life: the island's illegal dumping site; then, further along, an eco-village of simple living and great food and wine; and finally, on the sea itself, the rusting guns of the old military occupation. At night he takes Polyanna out on his boat in search of phosphorescence.
James Hopkin has lived and travelled widely in Europe, including time spent on the Dalmatian islands off the coast of Croatia. These three specially-commissioned stories explore the history and landscape of the area, as well as providing a colourful journey for the senses.
Hopkin gained a First Class honours degree in English and Philosophy in Manchester, then a Distinction in his MA on modern fiction, followed by a British Academy Award for his PhD. In September 2002, he won an Arts Council short story competition with 'Even the Crows Say Krakow'.
His novel Winter Under Water (2007) was an assured and critically-acclaimed debut marking the arrival of a major new writer. He published a small collection of stories in 2008, along with the paperback of Winter Under Water.
James Hopkin's A Georgian Trilogy, also produced by Sweet Talk, was broadcast in 2010.
Reader: Raquel Cassidy
Producer: Jeremy Osborne
A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4.
FRI 11:15 Neil Brand - Righteous Brothers (b0076cxn)
Harmony is the joyful noise that Brother Caradoc wishes to offer to the Lord, and he dreams of taking his fellow monks to a higher musical plane with him.
But if plainsong is the rule, is he inspired by God - or sent by the Tempter?
Neil Brand's drama stars Tom George as Brother Caradoc, Ioan Meredith as Brother Esmonde, Clive Swift as Methuselah, Peter Kenny as Brother Alyn, David Timson as the Precentor, John Woodvine as the Abbot and Carolyn as Lady Emma.
Director: Ned Chaillet
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2003.
FRI 12:00 Hancock's Half Hour (b008v13d)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
FRI 12:30 The Goon Show (b007jmyg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
FRI 13:00 Kipling in Love (b06sx9sy)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
FRI 13:30 The Marx Brothers in Britain (b00sp198)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 today]
FRI 14:00 Sir Peter Shaffer - Amadeus (b00sjr7d)
Episode 5
Salieri is seething when Mozart writes an Italian opera, so he plots to stop it. Read by F Murray Abraham.
FRI 14:15 The History of the Future (b01mkzgw)
Leonardo da Vinci
Juliet Gardiner continues her History of the Future with a look at the designs of Renaissance Man Leonardo da Vinci. Juliet views his designs for warfare which seem to prefigure the modern tank and helicopter, and tries to understand how the culture of 15th century Florence with its political and religious turmoil as well as artistic flowering spoke to Leonardo's vision of the future. Many of Leonardo's inventions were astonishingly ahead of their time, but he is also a man firmly of his time, a time in which God, and the Revelation of the judgement of the Apocalypse depicted on the roof of the Baptistry would determine the end times for all. Juliet speaks to Evelyn Welch and Martin Kemp.
Produced by Victoria Shepherd
A Juniper Production for BBC Radio 4.
FRI 14:30 William Makepeace Thackeray - Vanity Fair (b007jvyc)
Episode 15
Becky is delighted to be presented at court, but Rawdon is not happy. With Stephen Fry, Emma Fielding and Stephen Wyatt.
FRI 14:45 Someone Like Me by Miles Kington (b00dpspz)
Episode 5
A shock at the age of 18 from his sausage-loving father...
Broadcaster, writer and musician, Miles Kington continues his account of an endearingly eccentric childhood.
Abridged by Richard Hamilton.
Producer: Emma Harding
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September 2005
FRI 15:00 Mystery Theater (b06sxbwk)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:00 today]
FRI 15:25 Agatha Christie - Speaking Her Own Words (b06t3wh4)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:25 today]
FRI 15:30 Hercule Poirot (b007ytww)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:30 today]
FRI 16:00 The 3rd Degree (b01d0qth)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]
FRI 16:30 Mind Your Own Business! (b009xyw7)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:30 today]
FRI 17:00 1834 (b01137b8)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:00 today]
FRI 17:30 Stop/Start (b01jhjsh)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
FRI 18:00 Jonathan Aycliffe - The Matrix (b01nmjxb)
Voices
"I reached the door and ran outside, but the voices would not leave me..."
Andrew witnesses a mysterious ceremony in a former church and meets with his friend's widow.
Jonathan Aycliffe's chilling novel abridged in ten parts by Rosemary Goring.
Read by Robert Paterson
Producer: David Jackson Young
First broadcast on BBC Radio Scotland in 1997.
FRI 18:15 Book at Bedtime (b03xchr6)
Lynne Truss - Cat Out of Hell
Episode 5
By acclaimed storyteller Lynne Truss, author of the bestselling Eats, Shoots and Leaves, the mysterious tale of a cat with nine lives. And a relationship as ancient as time itself and just as powerful.
The scene - an isolated cottage on the coast on a stormy evening. Inside, Alec a recently bereaved widower and his dog. To pass the time Alec explores the contents of a folder of documents emailed to him by an acquaintance at the library where he used to work. What he discovers is an extraordinary story that will change his life forever.
Episode 5:
Whilst Alec waits for Winterton to call, he decides to return to the British Library for the first time since Mary's death. But a terrible shock awaits him.
Reader: Mike Grady
Abridger: Jeremy Osborne
Producer: Karen Rose
A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4.
FRI 18:30 Soul Music (b0076bpw)
Series 3
Somewhere
A hit from West Side Story, that yearns for a better world, has come to have special significance for many - from Mary Wilson of the Supremes who found it a fitting tribute to Martin Luther King, to the mother who sings it at the end of long frustrating days with her beloved autistic son.
Plus, Stephen Sondheim and his daughter discuss writing the lyric and the relatively bad critical response to it.
Series about music that makes the hairs stand up on the back of our necks.
Taking part:
Mary Dhonau
Peter Dhonau
Nina Bernstein
Humphrey Burton
Stephen Sondheim
Steve Nallon
Clive Snelling
Adrienne Snelling
Graham Clarke
Mary Wilson
Producer: Lucy Lunt
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2002.
FRI 19:00 Hancock's Half Hour (b008v13d)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
FRI 19:30 The Goon Show (b007jmyg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
FRI 20:00 Kipling in Love (b06sx9sy)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
FRI 20:30 Brian Friel Season (b01r55mt)
Translations
A new production of Brian Friel's masterpiece about language and power.
It's the summer of 1833. In a hedge-school in Donegal, the schoolmaster's prodigal son is about to return from Dublin. With him are two army officers. Their aim is to create a map of the area, and, in the process, replace the Irish place names with English equivalents. It's an act with unexpected and violent consequences.
Thirty years ago playwright Brian Friel and actor Stephen Rea founded the Field Day Theatre Company in Northern Ireland. A company that aimed to provide a 'fifth province' in which Ireland's political and social troubles could be explored and re-imagined. Translations was its first production and became an instant classic. To mark its anniversary, BBC Radio 4 has commissioned a new production, specially adapted for radio by Michael Duke.
Cast:
Yolland.....Samuel Barnett
Lancey......Mark Bazeley
Doalty......John Paul Connolly
Jimmy Jack......Dermot Crowley
Sarah........Roisin Gallagher
Manus......David Ireland
Bridget.....Aoife McMahon
Hugh........Gerard McSorley
Owen......Eugene O'Hare
Maire......Eileen Walsh
Director: Kirsty Williams.
FRI 22:00 Stop/Start (b01jhjsh)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
FRI 22:30 Lionel Nimrod's Inexplicable World (b007r4mj)
Series 1
Death and the Afterlife
The sci-fi star and inventor explains life's big mysteries. Stars Richard Herring, Stewart Lee and Tom Baker. From October 1992.
FRI 23:00 The Gobetweenies (b01kt6qy)
Series 2
Episode 3
Mark Bonnar and Sarah Alexander star in Marcella Evaristi's comedy of shared parenting.
Mimi and Joe are determined to be the best kind of divorced parents, supportive and as good as any traditional set up. Mimi has even salvaged her ex's best suit from the charity shop where it was meanly dumped by Joe's most recent ex-wife. But Joe keeps getting misdirected post from the fetish shop across the road and Mimi cannot keep her prying fingers away from a big fat intriguing parcel.
Meanwhile their daughter Lucy has discovered an ethical way of eating that does not involve putting Quorn in her mouth - because her hero Mark Zuckerberg has said eating meat is not immoral if you catch your own dinner. So Lucy is going to steal a chicken. From a back garden in Highgate. It's a brilliant plan, especially since she has told her brother Tom he is saving the chicken bound for a battery farm.
But what are all those funny handcuffs doing on her dad's sitting room floor?
Director: Marilyn Imrie
Producer: Gordon Kennedy
An Absolutely Production for BBC Radio 4.
FRI 23:30 Shappi Talk (b00wsr2x)
Series 2
Politics
Shappi Khorsandi looks at a variety of subjects close to her Iranian heart - including History, Addiction and, in this programme, Politics.
Shappi reveals her thoughts on Margaret Thatcher, how Anne Frank got her into politics and that, while other parents took their children to the zoo, she was taken to Speakers' Corner.
She'll be joined by writer and satirist John O'Farrell to discuss how humour and politics are intertwined. Stand-up comedian Ian Stone offers his take on the world of politics and there's a witty song from Duncan Oakley.
Producer: Paul Russell
An Open Mike production for BBC Radio 4.