SATURDAY 21 MAY 2016

SAT 00:00 The Man Who Was Thursday by GK Chesterton (b007w525)
The Exposure
Sunday unmasks one of the anarchists as a Scotland Yard detective, leaving Gabriel Syme in despair.

Published in 1908, GK Chersterton's most famous novel is read in 13 parts by Geoffrey Palmer.

Director: Lawrence Jackson

Made for BBC Radio 7 by BBC Northern Ireland.

First broadcast in March 2005.
SAT 00:30 Soul Music (b00mg3yv)
Series 8
The Look of Love
Series exploring famous pieces of music and their emotional appeal.
Hal David discusses writing The Look of Love with Burt Bacharach, for the soundtrack of the spoof 1967 James Bond film Casino Royale. This classic track, sung by Dusty Springfield, provided the musical backdrop for a love scene between Peter Sellers and Ursula Andress.
Dusty Springfield's former backing singer, Simon Bell, remembers being on stage at the Albert Hall when Dusty laughed her way through a performance of the song, and musician Jonathan Cohen describes how the samba rhythm underscoring Dusty's smooth vocals combine to make this an enduringly popular love song.
It has been covered many times by artists including Isaac Hayes, Gladys Knight and the French singer Mirielle Mathieu. This programme hears from people whose personal memories of love and loss are forever linked with The Look of Love.
Contributors:
Sue Clarke
Wally Welling
Simon Bell
Trevor Foster
Jonathan Cohen
Hal David
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2010.
SAT 01:00 Wimsey (b007jzky)
The Nine Tailors
5 A Question of Identity
Following his trip to France, Lord Peter Wimsey takes a step closer to identifying the killer.
Ian Carmichael stars as the aristocratic sleuth.
Dorothy L Sayers' detective mystery dramatised by Alistair Beaton.
Lord Peter Wimsey …. Ian Carmichael
Bunter …. Peter Jones
Rev Theodore Venables …. Phillip Latham
Supt Blundell …. Timothy Bateson
Mrs Venables …. Noel Dyson
Nobby Cranton …. Stephen Greiff
Emily …. Jenny Twigg
Potty Peak …. Anthony Hyde
Donnington …. John Church
Narrator …. John Westbrook
Producer: Martin Fisher
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 1980.
SAT 01:30 Leading Ladies (b00vhg2z)
Theatre director and artistic director of the Southbank Centre Jude Kelly marks the 350th anniversary of the first performance by the first English professional actress.
Before the restoration and the reopening of the theatres after years of Puritan rule, boys and men had played women's roles. However, when Charles II came to the throne he requested that women be allowed on stage and the course of theatre history was changed forever when a woman took the stage in the role of Desdemona on 8th December 1660.
Although little is known about who she was, Jude Kelly pieces together a picture of what life would have been like for the first generation of actresses. She visits the real tennis court at Hampton Court Palace to find out what the first performance would have been like, takes Celia Imrie to the site of where the first performance took place and tours the Theatre Royal Drury Lane in search of Nell Gwynn.
Were the first actresses' victims of exploitation or women who exploited the situation to their own advantage? Were they whores or pioneers?
Producer: Benjamin Partridge
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in October 2010.
SAT 02:00 F Scott Fitzgerald - The Great Gatsby (b007jn2z)
Episode 10
Tragedy has struck, leaving Nick to ponder his life as he struggles to find mourners for a funeral. Read by Sam Robards.
SAT 02:15 In Search of Ourselves: A History of Psychology and the Mind (b041yf8g)
Care in the Community
At the end of this week of programmes examining psychiatry, the medicalised model for treating mental illness, Martin outlines the impact of reforms during the latter half of the Twentieth Century that resulted in the closure of Britain's Victorian asylums and a new policy of 'care in the community'.
Series consultant, Professor Daniel Pick, Birkbeck, University of London.
Producer: Alan Hall
A Falling Tree Production for BBC Radio 4.
SAT 02:30 The Churchills - Speaking for Themselves (b007jrg7)
Episode 5
The letters of Winston and Clementine Churchill. The reality of war strikes home. With Alex Jennings and Sylvestra Le Touzel. From February 1999.
SAT 02:45 James Bond - On Her Majesty's Secret Service (b07bq049)
Episode 10
Battling the evil Blofeld, Bond joins forces with Draco. All looks plain sailing for 007 and Tracy. Concluded by Joanna Lumley. From November 1989.
SAT 03:00 Esther Waters (b01r95hq)
Episode 2
After she was betrayed by William, Esther leaves the workhouse with her baby. She’s desperate for them to stay together. But how can she earn money?
Set against a background of horseracing and gambling; a stirring tale of how a woman survives and brings up her child in Victorian England.
First published in 1894, George Moore's novel is dramatised in two parts by Sharon Oakes.
Esther ..... Lyndsey Marshal
William ..... Matthew McNulty
Sarah ..... Joanne Froggatt
Leopold ..... Hugh Simon
Judge ..... Hugh Simon
Fred ..... Graeme Hawley
Demon ..... Stephen Hoyle
Peggy ..... Lisa Brookes
Mrs Empson ..... Melissa Jane Sinden
Mrs Barfield ..... Melissa Jane Sinden
Anne ..... Fiona Clarke
Bill ..... Greg Wood
Director: Gary Brown
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2013
SAT 04:00 The Museum of Curiosity (b01npjp9)
Series 5
Pascoe, Abrahams, Aldrin
Professor of Ignorance at the University of Buckingham, Professor John Lloyd CBE is joined by comedian Jimmy Carr for the fifth series.
Three guests are invited to donate one item each and explain why it deserves a place in the museum.
John and Jimmy welcome comedian Sara Pascoe, Ig Nobel founder Marc Abrahams and Astronaut Dr Buzz Aldrin.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2012.
SAT 04:30 No Commitments (b017gnkt)
Series 9
Coming Clean
The love lives of sisters Anna and Charlotte take some unexpected twists and turns. Stars Angela Thorne. From February 2003.
SAT 05:00 Crowned Hudds (b00pgydd)
How Ye Quest Was Wonne
Poking fun at King Arthur, Roy Hudd takes a royal romp through history, with June Whitfield and Chris Emmett. From August 1995.
SAT 05:30 Meet David Sedaris (b011tzmn)
Series 2
The Incomplete Quad, The Squirrel and the Chipmunk
The multi-award winning American essayist brings his wit and charm to BBC Radio 4 for a second series of audience readings. This week a memoir of one nefarious summer while studying at college: "The Incomplete Quad" and a modern take on the anthropomorphic fable in: "The Squirrel & The Chipmunk".
Producer: Steve Doherty
A Boomerang production for BBC Radio 4.
SAT 06:00 Dostoyevsky - The Friend of the Family (b04fxy8d)
Russia, 1859: The Manor of Stephanchikovo has been thrown into chaos by the activities of a former sergeant who's set himself up as an arbiter of morals and taste.
When he interferes in the marriage plans of the family, the whole situation explodes.
Fyodor Dostoevsky's 1859 novel dramatised by David Blum. Starring David Suchet, Margot Boyd and Clive Merrison.
Colonel ...... David Suchet
Madame La Generale ...... Margot Boyd
Sashenka ...... Kathryn Hurlbutt
Sergei ...... John Webb
Foma Fomich ...... Clive Merrison
Natasha ...... Helena Breck
Falaley ...... Graham Blockey
Yezhevikin ...... Alan Dudley
Tatyana Ivanovn ...... Maggie McCarthy
Bahcheyev ...... Bernard Brown
Miss Perepelitsyn ...... Eva Stuart
Mizinchikov ...... Colin Starkey
Obnoskin ...... Gary Cady
Gavrila ...... Lockwood West
Servant ...... Alan Thompson
Director: Martin Jenkins.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 1984.
SAT 07:30 Capturing America: Mark Lawson's History of Modern American Literature (b00rbn88)
Small Wars
Mark Lawson tells the story of how American writing became the literary superpower of the 20th century, telling the nation's stories of money, power, sex, religion and war.
As America enjoyed the peace and wealth resulting from victory in a Second World War which had affected its homeland security directly only at Pearl Harbour, the Pentagon and the State Department constructed a new foreign policy: major international conflicts would in future be avoided by 'small' or 'proxy' wars or 'police actions', aimed at neutralising ideological threats abroad.
Vietnam combatants David Rabe and Tobias Wolff dramatised their experiences on stage and in fiction, while EL Doctorow used historical parallels to reflect on recent campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Former CIA man Charles McCarry used his time in deep cover as material for a series of espionage masterpieces, and Jay McInerney - who had chronicled the wealthy recklessness of boom-time 1980s New York in books including Bright Lights, Big City - now turned to the very different mood of the city after 9/11.
Authors including Norman Mailer, Jay McInerney, Jonathan Safran Foer and EL Doctorow discuss the way American literature reflected these decades of theoretically small wars, and Mark Lawson reveals his candidate for the most unfairly neglected modern American writer.
SAT 08:00 Archive on 4 (b019qj15)
Freud vs Jung
Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung's names may be linked in the public imagination but the two men were friends and collaborators for only a few short years. In 1912 they had a final, catastrophic split and never worked together again. Lisa Appignanesi tells the story of the titanic struggle which shaped our map of the unconscious. Did the bisected science fail to fulfil its promise and how much can be laid at the door of the primal argument between its dominant father and rebellious son?
SAT 09:00 Braden Back on the Beat (b05vj0c8)
Oldie magazine founder Richard Ingrams presents a retrospective of the pioneering star of TV and radio, Bernard Braden.
Compiled from scouring the BBC Sound Archive and liaising with Bernard Braden's family and long-term friend Gillian Best, this 3 hour showcase features:
* Leave Your Name and Number: 21/07/1950
* Bedtime with Braden: 06/04/1951
* The Ransom of Red Chief: date unknown
* Braden Beside Himself: 04/07/1987
* Offbeat with Braden: 23/09/1978
Born in Canada, actor and broadcaster, Bernard Braden (1916 – 1993) made numerous radio and TV appearances in the UK – many with his wife Barbara Kelly. Braden is particularly remembered as a pioneer of UK TV consumer programmes - ‘On the Braden Beat’ (ATV) and ‘Braden's Week’ (BBC).
Producer: Mik Wilkojc.
Made for BBC Radio 4 Extra and first broadcast in May 2015.
SAT 11:30 Ludwig Koch and the Music of Nature (b00jn4m2)
Ludwig Koch was once as famous as David Attenborough, as pioneering as 'Blue Planet' and as important as the BBC Natural History Unit. They all owe their existence to this German refugee who first recorded the music of nature. Through his archive and new field recordings the poet Sean Street tells the story of Ludwig Koch.
When Sean Street was recording in a store-room at the Science Museum for a Radio 4 archive programme he came across a grey crate, stencilled, as if it belonged to a band on tour, with KOCH on it. This was the disc-cutting machine which Ludwig Koch used for a decade to make the recordings of birds, mammals and insects that led to a new field of study, of broadcasting and the creation of the BBC's Natural History Unit.
Sean and his producer then began investigating and discovered that Koch made the first ever wildlife recording, of a bird, when he was eight, in 1889 - and that it still exists in the BBC's archives.
Koch was an effusive man and this led to several confrontations with Nazi officials, whom he despised. There is an extraordinary recording of him telling the story of a Berliner whose bullfinch sang 'The Internationale'. He was carted off to prison and the bird 'executed'. "Under dictatorship," Koch observed, "even songbirds suffer". He came to England, worked with Julian Huxley on theories of animal language, and recorded birds from the Scillies to Shetland.
In 1940 he joined the BBC and soon became a household name, beloved of comedians (there's a great sketch by Peter Sellers parodying him at work) because of his resolute pronunciation of English as if it were German.
As well as being wonderful radio in itself his work was of great significance. It inspired producer Desmond Hawkins to start 'The Naturalist', (using Koch's enchanting recording of a curlew as its signature tune). Sean Street uses his recordings and contributions of those who worked with him in what becomes a natural history programme in itself, with Koch the subject and Sean exploring his habits and habitat.
There is also an attempt to record curlews as he did so successfully, to shed light on the achievements of this courageous, influential and loveable genius. Today sound-recordists use tiny digital machines and sophisticated microphones. But there are other problems - traffic, planes, people - and fewer, shyer curlews.
Producer: Julian May
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2009.
SAT 12:00 The Goon Show (b009kmns)
Series 7
The Flea
Neddie Seagoon is Samuel Pepys - and he's facing trouble from a flea called Francoise.
Groundbreaking, surreal BBC radio comedy written by Spike Milligan and Larry Stephens.
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: Pat Dixon
First broadcast on the BBC Home Service in December 1956.
SAT 12:30 Parsley Sidings (b01p0x1b)
Series 1
The Inspector Calls
The threat of closure from an official inspection calls for desperate measures at the sleepy station.
Starring Arthur Lowe as Horace, Ian Lavender as Bert, Kenneth Connor as Percy, Liz Fraser as Gloria and John Graham as Phineas Perkins.
Jim Eldridge's eponymous series is set in a sleepy railway station. The Hepplewhites have run 'Parsley Sidings' station for generations and the current Station Master, Horace, hopes that his son Bert will continue the line. Mild-mannered Ticket Clerk Bert wants to work anywhere but on the railways. His colleague, Station Announcer Gloria Simpkins, secretly loves him. Porter Percy Valentine is an archetypal wheeler-dealer and the ancient Signalman, Bradshaw, causes havoc and dispenses home-made remedies in equal measure. The 'Parsley Sidings' nemesis is Phineas Perkins, the station master of Potwhistle Halt, one stop down the line.
Re-created Announcements by Keith Skues.
Producer: Edward Taylor
First broadcast on BBC Radio 2 in December 1971.
SAT 13:00 Armistead Maupin - Tales of the City (Omnibus) (b07cb3dz)
Michael Tolliver Lives
It's 2005 and Mrs Madrigal is back. Michael's wedded bliss is interrupted and Brian is making plans. Stars Kate Harper. From May 2016.
SAT 14:10 Inheritance Tracks (b07cb4ll)
Rick Astley
Singer Rick Astley chooses 'That's Amore', sung by Dean Martin, and 'Buck Rogers' by Feeder.
SAT 14:15 Frankly Speaking (b07dprzl)
John Braine
'Angry young man' author of 'Room at the Top', John Braine answers the questions posed by John Bowen, Peter Duval Smith and George Scott.
Aged 37 when interviewed, he talks about his Yorkshire, working class background and the impact of his success.
John Braine was born in 1922 and died in 1986.
Launched in 1952 on the BBC Home Service, Frankly Speaking was a novel, ground breaking series. Unrehearsed and unscripted, the traditional interviewee/interviewer pairing was initially jettisoned for three interviewers firing direct questions. Early critics described it as 'unkempt', 'an inquisition' and described the guest as prey being cornered, quarry being pursued - with calls to axe the unscripted interview. But the format won out and eventually won over its detractors.
Only 40 or so of the original 100 programmes survive.
First broadcast on the BBC Home Service in 1959.
SAT 14:45 Could Do Better (b00759x7)
Alan Coren
Robert Booth summons Alan Coren to his study to blow the dust off the humorist and broadcaster's school reports. From November 1988.
SAT 15:00 Archive on 4 (b019qj15)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
SAT 16:00 Dostoyevsky - The Friend of the Family (b04fxy8d)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
SAT 17:30 Capturing America: Mark Lawson's History of Modern American Literature (b00rbn88)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
SAT 18:00 Henry James - The Turn of the Screw (b007jvdv)
When a new young Governess arrives at Bly, a remote country house in Essex, she fears that her two young charges, Flora and Miles, may be hiding a dark secret. As the days go by, she witnesses some strange visions which lead her to the conclusion that the house - and the children- are possessed by evil forces.
Starring Cathy Sara at the Governess, Tina Gray as Mrs Grose, Joseph Tremain as Miles and Lulu Popplewell as Floral.
Dramatised by Neville Teller. Directed by Peter Leslie Wild.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2004.
SAT 19:00 Braden Back on the Beat (b05vj0c8)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]
SAT 21:30 Ludwig Koch and the Music of Nature (b00jn4m2)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:30 today]
SAT 22:00 What Does the K Stand For? (b03mhvqf)
Series 1
Tell Them About the Dream, Martin
Young Stephen looks for a hero that he can tell his class about.
Stephen K Amos's sitcom about his teenage years, growing up black, gay and funny in 1980s South London.
Written by Jonathan Harvey with Stephen K Amos.
Stephen K Amos ... Stephen K Amos
Young Stephen ... Shaquille Ali-Yebuah
Stephanie Amos ... Fatou Sohna
Virginia Amos ... Ellen Thomas
Vincent Amos ... Don Gilet
Miss Collins ... Gemma Whelan
Jayson ... Frankie Wilson
Random Bloke ... Harry Jardine
Producer: Colin Anderson
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2013.
SAT 22:30 Armando Iannucci - Facts And Fancies (b007jrm4)
Episode 4
From writing books to environmental damage.
Producer, writer and performer Armando Iannucci presents his own collection of humorous essays.
Compiled by Jenny Baynes.
Producer: Jonathan James-Moore
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 1998.
SAT 22:45 Ida Barr: Artificial Hip Hop (b00v1qvw)
Choice
Ida Barr is a music hall singer who has embraced hip hop and rap, reflecting the cultural diversity of London's East End, where she has been living in retirement for several decades.
With her genuine love of talking to people, Ida sets out investigate a new topic in each episode, creating a unique brand of music-hall, hip-hop fusion with beat boxer Shlomo.
Ida’s subject this time is "Choice".
Written by and starring Christopher Green as Ida Barr.
Producer: Claire Grove
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September 2010.
SAT 23:00 Masala FM (b007jypp)
Episode 3
When one of Auntieji's disgruntled listeners decides to take matters in to his own hands, Khalid may be the only one who can save the station.
Six-part sitcom written by Meera Syal
Starring Sanjeev Bhaskar, Nitin Sawheny, Meera Syal and Nina Wadia.
Music by Nitin Sawhney.
Producer: Liz Anstee
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September 1996.
SAT 23:30 Everyone Quite Likes Justin (b0124nql)
Series 1
Pilot
In one version of his life, Justin is a well-known local Manchester radio DJ who is successful, funny, and stopped in the street by adoring fans. He's the man who has everything.
In another version he's a DJ in a slightly shabby local radio station who gets hassled by the occasional oddball on the street. And he's the man who hopes for everything. The truth lies somewhere in between.
And at home? Well, naturally, his private life is chaotic. His wife has left him, taking custody of his 8-year-old son Justin jnr, and is in the process of taking him to the cleaners. So he's back on the market. As is his house - so he's currently living in his father-in-law's spare room in Bury. The only person who understands him is his Gran, living in luxury in an old folk's home in Warrington. Oh, and his producer Bryn but this might not be a good thing.
Despite all this mess, Justin always remains positive. Every new day is a new opportunity, "When life throws you lemons, make lemonade".
Sitcom written by Justin Moorhouse and Jim Poyser.
Recorded in front of an audience in Manchester.
Justin ..... Justin Moorhouse
Gran ..... Anne Reid
Ray ..... Paul Copley
Lisa ..... Christine Bottomley
Bryn ..... Lloyd Langford
Tanya ..... Susan Cookson
Waiter ..... Jim Poyser
Head ..... Caimh McDonnell
Producer: Steven Canny
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in June 2011.


SUNDAY 22 MAY 2016

SUN 00:00 Henry James - The Turn of the Screw (b007jvdv)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:00 on Saturday]
SUN 01:00 Armistead Maupin - Tales of the City (Omnibus) (b07cb3dz)
[Repeat of broadcast at 13:00 on Saturday]
SUN 02:10 Inheritance Tracks (b07cb4ll)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:10 on Saturday]
SUN 02:15 Frankly Speaking (b07dprzl)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:15 on Saturday]
SUN 02:45 Could Do Better (b00759x7)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:45 on Saturday]
SUN 03:00 Archive on 4 (b019qj15)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 on Saturday]
SUN 04:00 Dostoyevsky - The Friend of the Family (b04fxy8d)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 on Saturday]
SUN 05:30 Capturing America: Mark Lawson's History of Modern American Literature (b00rbn88)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 on Saturday]
SUN 06:00 The Churchills - Speaking for Themselves (b007jrgp)
Omnibus, part 1
The letters of Winston and Clementine Churchill. 'Pug' and 'Cat' become close, but war and tragedy loom. Starring Alex Jennings.
SUN 07:15 A Woman's World (b00wr9vl)
The WRVS
Graham Clarke tells Chris Ledgard about running a WRVS lunch club. The charity no longer uses its full title - the Women's Royal Voluntary Service - and has been taking on male volunteers for many years. The chief executive Lynne Berry discusses the balance between respecting the WRVS's history as a women's organisation, and establishing its new image in the modern world of big charity.
SUN 07:30 Count Arthur Strong's Radio Show! (b01c7pqz)
Series 7
The Minx
Count Arthur (Steve Delaney) encounters more problems with the world as he tries to insure his car, a Hillman Minx. In an attempt to reduce his premium he sets out to prove that Terry Wogan will not be his passenger, causing great confusion for Mr Wogan himself.
Count Arthur Strong - one time Variety Star, now sole proprietor and owner of Doncaster's Academy of Performance - is a show business legend, raconteur, and lecturer extraordinaire. He stars in a Sitcom with regular sidekick Wilfred Taylor, Master Butcher, and a host of other characters.
All false starts and nervous fumbling badly covered up by a delicate sheen of bravado and self-assurance, and an expert in everything from the world of entertainment to the origin of the species, everyday life with Arthur is an enlightening experience.
Cast:
Steve Delaney
Mel Giedroyc
Alastair Kerr
David Mounfield
Producer: John Leonard
A Komedia Entertainment production for BBC Radio 4.
SUN 08:00 Ray's a Laugh (b007jrnb)
From 03/10/1958
Can Ted get over the shock of the arrival of a new employee? And Kitty's throwing a house party - on a budget.
Starring Ted Ray. With Kitty Bluett and Kenneth Connor.
Ray's A Laugh - the successor to ITMA - follows the comedy exploits of Ted's life at home with his 'radio' wife Kitty, as well as in a variety of jobs. It ran from 1949-1961.
Scripted by Bernard Botting and Charles Hart.
BBC Variety Orchestra conducted by Paul Fenoulhet.
Producer: Leslie Bridgmont
First broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in October 1958.
SUN 08:30 Doctor in the House (b007m680)
Women and Wine
Medic Simon Sparrow's efforts to get a date for the hospital ball turn to chaos.
The misadventures of student doctor Simon Sparrow - adapted for radio by Ray Cooney from Richard Gordon's novel 'Doctor in the House' published in 1952.
Starring Richard Briers as Simon Sparrow, Geoffrey Sumner as Sir Lancelot Spratt, Ray Cooney as Tony Benskin, Edward Cast as Taffy Evans, Norma Ronald as Matron/Vera and Joan Young as Lady Spratt.
Producer: David Hatch
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September 1968.
SUN 09:00 Memories: From Moscow to the Black Sea: Omnibus (b07cc7mb)
Teffi was a famous Russian writer in the early 1900s, but was forced to flee her country into exile. Read by Tracy-Ann Oberman.
SUN 10:10 Inheritance Tracks (b07cc7md)
Melanie C
Sporty former Spice Girl Melanie C chooses Stevie Wonder's 'I Wish' and 'Eternal Flame' by Bangles.
SUN 10:15 World Book Club (b07cc8ys)
Kate Grenville - The Secret River
4 Extra Debut. Kate Grenville talks about her novel which follows a man transported to Australia in 1806. With Harriett Gilbert. From April 2009.
SUN 11:15 The Moth Radio Hour (b07cc8yv)
Series 2
Adoption, a Plane Crash, and a Busload of Lutherans
True stories told live in the USA: Peter Aguero introduces a special show from New York, with stories about the ties the bind.
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 12:00 Ray's a Laugh (b007jrnb)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
SUN 12:30 Doctor in the House (b007m680)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
SUN 13:00 The Churchills - Speaking for Themselves (b007jrgp)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
SUN 14:15 A Woman's World (b00wr9vl)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:15 today]
SUN 14:30 Michiel Heyns - The Typewriter's Tale: Omnibus (b07cc9py)
In 1907, writer Henry James's typist, Frieda, is drawn to a new arrival at Lamb House in Rye. Read by Sian Thomas.
SUN 15:45 Short stories by DH Lawrence (b007qpxb)
The Shades of Spring
Addy Syson returns to the home of his youth; the land waits for him unaltered, but what of the girl he used to love?
Peter Meakin reads DH Lawrence’s short story first published in 1914.
Producer: Rosemary Watts
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in March 1995.
SUN 16:00 Steve Walker - Habakkuk of Ice (b0087495)
The extraordinary story of a battleship - made entirely of ice - designed for use in the Second World War.
It was left to dissolve in a lonely Canadian lake in Northern Alberta - and its eccentric English inventor, Professor Geofffey Pyke is one of the great unsung geniuses of the 20th Century.
Steve Walker's drama stars Tim McInnerney as Geoffrey Pyke, Dermot Crowley as JD Bernal, Melanie Hudson as Pamela Pleens, Chris Emmett as Winston Churchill and David Holt as Lord Mountbatten.
Director: Andy Jordan
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2001.
SUN 17:00 Poetry Extra (b07ccm88)
Paul Celan in Mapesbury Road
BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'Paul Celan in Mapesbury Road'.
What brought one of the most compelling modern European poets to a perfectly ordinary street in North London? Who did he visit there? And what made him write a poem about the experience? Writer Toby Litt investigates this most improbable of brief encounters between Paul Celan, the master elegist of 20th century Jewish experience and Britain at the end of the Sixties.
Producer: Zahid Warley
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2010.
SUN 17:30 Count Arthur Strong's Radio Show! (b01c7pqz)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
SUN 18:00 Drama (b012l4ns)
Anita Sullivan - Rock of Eye
Three elderly tailors, a trouser-maker, a coat-maker and a waistcoat-maker, have been commissioned to make a bespoke suit for an up and coming politician. They have worked together for decades but have only met very rarely, although increasingly, these days, at their colleagues' funerals. The suit has been designed by Mrs White, a mysterious woman whom they've never met. Mrs White has imposed very strict rules about secrecy, and all off-cuts have to be returned to her. The suiting fabric supplied is also unusual. It seems to change colour and quality with the mood of the tailors, and to move against the needle in a sentient manner. As the garment takes shape, it begins to have a powerful effect on anyone who comes into contact with it.
A BBC/Cymru Wales production, written and directed by Anita Sullivan.
SUN 18:45 Roald Dahl (b07ccqys)
Beware of the Dog
Beware of the Dog
On his way back to base following a mission, a badly injured Spitfire pilot is forced to bail out. Read by James Aubrey. From September 1986.
SUN 19:00 The Moth Radio Hour (b07cc8yv)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:15 today]
SUN 19:45 Memories: From Moscow to the Black Sea: Omnibus (b07cc7mb)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]
SUN 20:55 Inheritance Tracks (b07cc7md)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:10 today]
SUN 21:00 World Book Club (b07cc8ys)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:15 today]
SUN 22:00 Count Arthur Strong's Radio Show! (b01c7pqz)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
SUN 22:30 The Masterson Inheritance (b007jps7)
Series 2
Beware the Ides of Masterson
The award-winning improvised historical comedy series returns with a story of intrigue, terror, tyrants and togas set in ancient Rome.
Based entirely on audience suggestions.
Starring Paul Merton, Josie Lawrence, Jim Sweeney, Lee Simpson, Phelim McDermott and Caroline Quentin.
Producer: Phil Clarke
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in June 1994.
SUN 23:00 The Shuttleworths (b007p1np)
John Shuttleworth's Open Mind
The Bermuda Triangle
John Shuttleworth takes a look into the Bermuda Triangle. Let's hope that he and his agent Ken don't disappear!
Sheffield's premier singer-songwriter concludes his probe into unsolved phenomena.
Written and performed by Graham Fellows.
Additional material by Dean Wilkinson.
Producer: Dawn Ellis
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 2006.
SUN 23:30 Births, Deaths and Marriages (b01jhnyh)
Series 1
Episode 3
A new sitcom set in a Local Authority Register Office where staff deal with the three greatest events in anybody's life.
Written by David Schneider (The Day Today, I'm Alan Partridge), he also stars as chief registrar Malcolm Fox who is a stickler for rules and would be willing to interrupt any wedding service if the width of the bride infringes health and safety. He's not married - but why does he need to be? He's married thousands of women.
Alongside him are rival and divorcee Lorna who has been parachuted in from Car Parks to drag the office (and Malcolm) into the 21st century. To her, marriage isn't just about love and romance, it's got to be about making a profit in our new age of austerity.
There's also the ever spiky Mary, geeky Luke who's worried he'll end up like Malcolm one day, while ditzy Anita may get her words and names mixed up occasionally but as the only parent in the office, she's a mother to them all.
In this episode, Malcolm is distracted by a breast feeding mother during a birth registration, causing Lorna to suspect he might have made his first ever mistake.
Cast:
Malcolm........................................David Schneider
Lorna............................................Sarah Hadland
Anita.............................................Sandy McDade
Luke..............................................Russell Tovey
Mary..............................................Sally Bretton
Mr Carrick......................................Andrew Brooke
Mrs Carrick.....................................Kerry Godliman
Mrs Ferguson/
Mrs Goldring/ Mrs Smith..................Jane Whittenshaw
Producer: Simon Jacobs
A Unique production for BBC Radio 4.


MONDAY 23 MAY 2016

MON 00:00 Drama (b012l4ns)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:00 on Sunday]
MON 00:45 Roald Dahl (b07ccqys)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:45 on Sunday]
MON 01:00 The Churchills - Speaking for Themselves (b007jrgp)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 on Sunday]
MON 02:15 A Woman's World (b00wr9vl)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:15 on Sunday]
MON 02:30 Michiel Heyns - The Typewriter's Tale: Omnibus (b07cc9py)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:30 on Sunday]
MON 03:45 Short stories by DH Lawrence (b007qpxb)
[Repeat of broadcast at 15:45 on Sunday]
MON 04:00 Steve Walker - Habakkuk of Ice (b0087495)
[Repeat of broadcast at 16:00 on Sunday]
MON 05:00 Poetry Extra (b07ccm88)
[Repeat of broadcast at 17:00 on Sunday]
MON 05:30 Count Arthur Strong's Radio Show! (b01c7pqz)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 on Sunday]
MON 06:00 Wimsey (b007jznj)
The Nine Tailors
6 A Damnable Business
Lord Peter Wimsey identifies the mystery body, but he's yet to name the killer.
Ian Carmichael stars as the aristocratic sleuth.
Dorothy L Sayers' detective mystery dramatised by Alistair Beaton.
Lord Peter Wimsey …. Ian Carmichael
Rev Theodore Venables …. Phillip Latham
Supt Blundell …. Timothy Bateson
Nobby Cranton …. Stephen Greiff
Will Thoday …. Keith Drinkell
Mary Thoday …. Claire Clifford
Narrator …. John Westbrook
Producer: Martin Fisher
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 1980.
MON 06:30 Grayson Perry on Creativity and Imagination (b00sx8ng)
Grayson Perry is an epitome of creativity: a Turner Prize winning ceramicist who's as famous for his alter-ego Claire as for his pottery.
But what does being creative really mean? He's on a mission to find out.
Talent shows dominate TV schedules and we are taught that everyone can take part, but genuine talent, originality and the idea of learning a traditional arts skill is persistently overlooked he argues.
With the help of some of the most talented people in the business, Grayson Perry will be exploring how the imagination works. Creativity has become the modern buzzword of bureaucrats trying to ensure wider access to the arts. And it has been subject to a lot of mythmaking. Grayson wants to nail down these myths and show how creativity isn't a mystery, but at the same time it isn't necessarily easily accessible.
Writers Terry Pratchett and Rose Tremain, fashion designer Hussein Chalayan and Ray Tallis, poet and neuroscientist all join Grayson on his quest.
(Repeat.)
Producer: Gavin Heard.
MON 07:00 Elephants to Catch Eels (b007qx6x)
Series 1
Elephants to Catch Eels
Why would a top London journalist be so interested that love is all around in Drumlin Bay? What's Tamsyn been up to?
It seems the new editor of 'The Times of London' is boosting circulation by becoming a scurrilous gossipy rag. Of course, that would never happen now...
18th century Cornish village sitcom by the writers of Dead Ringers - Tom Jamieson and Nev Fountain.
Starring Lucy Speed as Tamsyn Trelawny, John Bowe as Jago Trelawny, Cameron Stewart as Major Thomas Falconer, Andrew McGibbon as Captain Marriot, Martin Hyder as Squire Bascombe, Mark Felgate as Dewey, Mark Perry as the Editor and Michael Fenton Stevens as Lampwick.
Producer: Jan Ravens.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in March 2003.
MON 07:30 Just a Minute (b07bbd50)
Series 75
Episode 1
Nicholas Parsons and guests return for the 75th series of the panel show where participants must try to speak for 60 seconds without hesitation, deviation or repetition. No repetition? That's no small order after nearly 50 years.
Paul Merton, now the second most prolific player of the game after Kenneth Williams, will be joined by guests including series regulars Josie Lawrence, Sheila Hancock, Marcus Brigstocke and Gyles Brandreth. Comedian Alexei Sayle, and Broadcaster of the Year John Finnemore make their first appearances.
Episode one features Paul Merton, John Finnemore, Gyles Brandreth and Sheila Hancock talking about such diverse topics as Halley's Comet, Carbon Dating and Answering the Telephone.
Hayley Sterling blows the whistle.
Produced by Victoria Lloyd.
MON 08:00 Parsley Sidings (b01p47pg)
Series 1
The 1890 Rocket
Station master Horace Hepplewhite decides to renovate his grandfather's rusting old steam engine, to get it back on the rails once more.
Starring Arthur Lowe as Horace, Ian Lavender as Bert, Kenneth Connor as Percy, Liz Fraser as Gloria and John Graham as Phineas Perkins.
Jim Eldridge's eponymous series is set in a sleepy railway station. The Hepplewhites have run 'Parsley Sidings' station for generations and the current Station Master, Horace, hopes that his son Bert will continue the line. Mild-mannered Ticket Clerk Bert wants to work anywhere but on the railways. His colleague, Station Announcer Gloria Simpkins, secretly loves him. Porter Percy Valentine is an archetypal wheeler-dealer and the ancient Signalman, Bradshaw, causes havoc and dispenses home-made remedies in equal measure. The 'Parsley Sidings' nemesis is Phineas Perkins, the station master of Potwhistle Halt, one stop down the line.
Recreated Announcements by Keith Skues.
Producer: Edward Taylor
First broadcast on BBC Radio 2 in January 1972.
MON 08:30 J Kingston Platt's Showbiz Handbook (b007k02m)
Dick Turpin
The veteran of many parts recounts the story of a scheme to make a fortune from flops which puts "the Producers" to shame.
The doyen of British show business, J Kingston Platt shares reminiscences drawn from the wealth and the poverty of his experience from the past 40 years.
Performed and written by Peter Jones.
Producer: Pete Atkin
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in June 1986.
MON 09:00 The Write Stuff (b00qvnjh)
Series 12
John Donne
James Walton takes the chair for the game of literary correctness. Team captains John Walsh and Lynne Truss are joined by Jane Thynne and Christopher Brookmyre. The author of the week and subject for pastiche is John Donne, and the reader is Beth Chalmers.
MON 09:30 Tony's (b007k2tv)
Series 1
Is This True Love?
Still single at 41, the barber's mother - and fate - seem determined to take a hand. Stars Victor Spinetti. From November 1979.
MON 10:00 Dostoyevsky - The Brothers Karamazov (b00y9455)
Episode 1
Russia, 1880: The Karamazovs are reunited for a meeting with their father to discuss Dmitry's inheritance.
But the unpredictable Fyodor Karamazov does not look as if he's going to play the game...
Starring Roy Marsden.
Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky's final novel published in 1880.
Dramatised in five parts by Melissa Murray.
Fyodor Karamazov ...... Roy Marsden
Dmitry ...... Paul Hilton
Ivan ...... Nicholas Boulton
Alyosha ...... Carl Prekopp
The Elder ...... Sam Dale
Mrs Khoklakova ...... Rachel Atkins
Lise ...... Emma Noakes
Katerina ...... Juliet Aubrey
Grushenka ...... Katy Cavanagh
Smerdyakov ...... Joseph Kloska
Grigory ...... Desmond McNamara
The Monk ...... Paul Richard Biggin
Katerina's Servant ...... Miranda Keeling
Original music by David Pickvance.
Directors: Marc Beeby and Colin Guthrie
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 2006.
MON 11:00 The Human Cradle (b01bbd8q)
Saba, by Sulaiman Addonia
In Sulaiman Addonia's new short story 'Saba', a former cinema employee decides to create a 'cinema' of his own inside a refugee camp. Read by Abukar Osman.
The first of three contemporary stories from the Horn of Africa - Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia.
Produced by Emma Harding
About the author: Sulaiman S.M.Y. Addonia was born in Eritrea to an Eritrean mother and an Ethiopian father. He spent his early life in a refugee camp in Sudan following the Om Hajar massacre in 1976, and in his early teens he lived and studied in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. He has lived in London since 1990. His first novel, The Consequences of Love (Vintage) was published in 2009.
MON 11:15 Dave Sheasby - Keeping Anne-Marie (b007lr89)
Cynical solicitor Kenneth Crowson tells a twisty tale involving the law, the media, a single mother, a hopeful couple - and a little baby girl.
Written by Dave Sheasby.
Starring Geoffrey Whitehead as Crowson, Hannah Storey as Marilyn, Carolyn Pickles as Vanessa, Sean Baker as Tim, Jemma Churchill as the Judge and Simon Donaldson as the Journalist.
Director: David Hunter
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2003.
MON 12:00 Parsley Sidings (b01p47pg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
MON 12:30 J Kingston Platt's Showbiz Handbook (b007k02m)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
MON 13:00 Wimsey (b007jznj)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
MON 13:30 Grayson Perry on Creativity and Imagination (b00sx8ng)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 today]
MON 14:00 Kate Grenville - The Secret River (b00ncwv7)
A London Boatman's Story
London boatman William Thornhill's epic move across the world in 1806. A story of belonging and ownership read by Ron Cook.
MON 14:15 In Search of Ourselves: A History of Psychology and the Mind (b042j8yf)
In the Beginning
In this first of ten programmes on experimental psychology, Martin Sixsmith examines its origins in the work of philosophers such as John Locke and scientists like Luigi Galvani, who in the 1700s investigated nerve impulses in frogs. He looks at the popular psychology of Victorian times including phrenology and physiognomy, going behind the scenes at the Science Museum with curator Philip Loring. And he talks to historian and philosopher John Forrester of Cambridge University.
Produced by Sara Parker
A Falling Tree Production for BBC Radio 4.
MON 14:30 The Churchills - Speaking for Themselves (b007jrh6)
Episode 6
Away at war, Churchill writes to Clementine stating he wants to return home early. Starring Alex Jennings and Sylvestra Le Touzel. From February 1999.
MON 14:45 Miles Kington - How Shall I Tell the Dog? (b00y9tqk)
Episode 1
Things to do before you die, and literary rivalry with an oncologist.
Miles Kington died of cancer in January 2008. Given very little time to live by his doctors, he decided to make cancer "pay its way" - by coming up with increasingly witty and absurd ideas for this book, as suggested to his agent, Gill.
With Michael Palin as Miles and Anna Massey as Gill.
Dramatised by Robin Brooks
Produced by Clive Brill
Made for BBC Radio 4 by Pacificus Productions
First broadcast in October 2008.
MON 15:00 Dostoyevsky - The Brothers Karamazov (b00y9455)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:00 today]
MON 16:00 The Write Stuff (b00qvnjh)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]
MON 16:30 Tony's (b007k2tv)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:30 today]
MON 17:00 Elephants to Catch Eels (b007qx6x)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:00 today]
MON 17:30 Just a Minute (b07bbd50)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
MON 18:00 The Man Who Was Thursday by GK Chesterton (b007jvbd)
Unaccountable Conduct of Professor de Worms
Young poet Syme is chased through the London snow from Soho to St Paul's by the strange figure of the Professor.

Published in 1908, GK Chesterton's most famous novel is read in 13-parts by Geoffrey Palmer.

Director: Lawrence Jackson

Made for BBC Radio 7 by BBC Northern Ireland.

First broadcast in 2005.
MON 18:30 A Good Read (b007672s)
Jane Asher & Monty Don
Rosie Boycott and her guests, actress Jane Asher and gardener Monty Don, discuss three books about faraway places - the outer Hebrides, the wilds of Spain and the Peruvian mountains by Joe Simpson, Adam Nicolson and Christ Stewart. From 2002.
Touching the Void, by Joe Simpson
Publisher: Vintage
Sea Room, by Adam Nicolson
Publisher: Harpercollins
Driving Over Lemons, by Chris Stewart
Publisher: Sort of Books.
MON 19:00 Parsley Sidings (b01p47pg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
MON 19:30 J Kingston Platt's Showbiz Handbook (b007k02m)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
MON 20:00 Wimsey (b007jznj)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
MON 20:30 Grayson Perry on Creativity and Imagination (b00sx8ng)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 today]
MON 21:00 The Human Cradle (b01bbd8q)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:00 today]
MON 21:15 Dave Sheasby - Keeping Anne-Marie (b007lr89)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:15 today]
MON 22:00 Just a Minute (b07bbd50)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
MON 22:30 Kevin Eldon Will See You Now (b01lt2vv)
Series 1
Guest Week - With Guests
Comedy's best kept secret ingredient gets his own sketch show. Sketches, characters, sound effects, bit of music, some messin' about, you know...
It's guest week and, to celebrate, Kevin Eldon will be talking to his guests who include a stupid man, Apollo 11 mission commander Neil Armstrong and sadly, a hypnotist.
Kevin Eldon is a comedy phenomenon. He's been in virtually every major comedy show in the last fifteen years, but not content with working with the likes of Chris Morris, Steve Coogan, Armando Iannucci, Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse, Stewart Lee, Julia Davis and Graham Linehan, he's finally decided to put together his own comedy series for BBC Radio 4.
After all the waiting - Kevin Eldon Will See You Now.
Appearing in this episode are Amelia Bullmore (I'm Alan Partridge, Scott and Bailey), Julia Davis (Nighty Night), Rosie Cavaliero (Peep Show), Paul Putner (Little Britain), Justin Edwards (The Consultants) and David Reed (The Penny Dreadfuls) with special guest Phil Cornwell.
Written by Kevin Eldon.
With additional material by Jason Hazeley and Joel Morris (Flight Of The Conchords, That Mitchell & Webb Sound) and Toby Davies.
Original music by Martin Bird.
Produced & directed by David Tyler
A Pozzitive production for BBC Radio 4.
MON 23:00 The News Quiz Extra (b07ch9dw)
Series 17
Episode 6
Made for 4 Extra. All the bonus and jokes that couldn't be squeezed into last week's News Quiz.
MON 23:45 Stewart Permutt - Singular Women (b0075569)
Frances
Celia Imrie plays a shy teacher with an unwanted notoriety. Bittersweet comedies about four very different women. From September 1997.


TUESDAY 24 MAY 2016

TUE 00:00 The Man Who Was Thursday by GK Chesterton (b007jvbd)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:00 on Monday]
TUE 00:30 A Good Read (b007672s)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:30 on Monday]
TUE 01:00 Wimsey (b007jznj)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 on Monday]
TUE 01:30 Grayson Perry on Creativity and Imagination (b00sx8ng)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 on Monday]
TUE 02:00 Kate Grenville - The Secret River (b00ncwv7)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:00 on Monday]
TUE 02:15 In Search of Ourselves: A History of Psychology and the Mind (b042j8yf)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:15 on Monday]
TUE 02:30 The Churchills - Speaking for Themselves (b007jrh6)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:30 on Monday]
TUE 02:45 Miles Kington - How Shall I Tell the Dog? (b00y9tqk)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:45 on Monday]
TUE 03:00 Dostoyevsky - The Brothers Karamazov (b00y9455)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:00 on Monday]
TUE 04:00 The Write Stuff (b00qvnjh)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 on Monday]
TUE 04:30 Tony's (b007k2tv)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:30 on Monday]
TUE 05:00 Elephants to Catch Eels (b007qx6x)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:00 on Monday]
TUE 05:30 Just a Minute (b07bbd50)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 on Monday]
TUE 06:00 Wimsey (b007jzpw)
The Nine Tailors
7 All Is Not Explained
Lord Peter Wimsey goes snooping to try and establish who killed Geoffrey Deacon - and how.
Ian Carmichael stars as the aristocratic sleuth.
Dorothy L Sayers' detective mystery dramatised by Alistair Beaton.
Lord Peter Wimsey …. Ian Carmichael
Supt Blundell …. Timothy Bateson
Rev Theodore Venables …. Phillip Latham
Will Thoday …. Keith Drinkell
Jim Thoday …. Malcolm Terris
Engineer …. Leonard Fenton
Hezekiah Lavender …. Michael Spice
Sluice Keeper …. Peter Tudenham
Narrator …. John Westbrook
Producer: Martin Fisher
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 1980.
TUE 06:30 Grayson on His Bike (b00vkw55)
Turner Prize winning artist Grayson Perry takes his teddy bear and childhood hero, Alan Measles, across Bavaria on a highly decorated Kenilworth AM1 motorcycle.
Grayson spent a troubled childhood in suburban Essex creating a fantasy life where he fought off the brutish invading Germans, under the command of his teddy bear Alan Measles, a plucky wartime Resistance leader who became his hero, a sort of personal God and the embodiment of everything that was good about masculinity.
Now Grayson Perry has commissioned a highly decorative Kenilworth AM1 motorcycle, with a shrine on the back for his teddy bear, whose inaugural voyage, Ten Days of Alan, takes them across Bavaria, on a mission of reconciliation with their old enemies.
Starting out from their hometown of Chelmsford, Grayson and Alan Measles' journey takes in the 1920s Nurburgring racetrack and religious icons like the Isenheim Altar by Matthias Grunewald and the church in Wies, where a peasant saw tears in the eyes of a flagellated Christ figure in 1738. They visit Mad King Ludwig's fantastically Rococo Schloss Neuschwanstein where much of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was filmed,the Steiff Teddy bear factory in Giengen and end up in Backnang, Chelmsford's twin town, to hand over a message of goodwill to the local Mayor.
As they go, Grayson and Alan reflect on the nature of art and pilgrimage, shared memories of childhood and the speed of their motorbike on Tyrolean mountain passes. Come sunshine ? Or rain.
Producer: Nicki Paxman.
TUE 07:00 Linda Smith's A Brief History of Timewasting (b008ycft)
Series 2
New Islington
With London house prices going stratospheric in the East End, Linda gets a valuation.
Sitcom written by and starring Linda Smith.
With Femi Elufowoju Jnr, Jeremy Hardy, Martin Hyder, Margaret John and Chris Neill.
Special guest: Dillie Keane
Producer: Jon Rolph
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in June 2002.
TUE 07:30 Isy Suttie's Love Letters (b0435hrn)
Series 2
The Crank
Isy Suttie recounts the tale of the Crank, a Matlock oddball who Isy's mother roped into helping Isy study the Welsh language. Along the way, Isy picks up a bit of morse code.
Another love story, told partly through song.
Sometimes Isy has merely observed the lives of others; quite often she's intervened, changing the action dramatically - for better or worse.
Intertwined within these stories are related real life anecdotes from her own, often disastrous, love life.
With her award-winning multi-character and vocal skills, and accompanied by her guitar, Isy creates a hilarious and deeply moving world, sharing with us her lessons in life and love.
Producer: Lyndsay Fenner
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in May 2014.
TUE 08:00 Round the Horne (b007jpsm)
Series 4
Episode 15
Crofter Kenneth Horne meets Bona Prince Charlie, Rambling Syd Rumpo sings of artefacts - and bona advertising Julian and Sandy-style.
Stars Kenneth Horne, Kenneth Williams, Hugh Paddick and Betty Marsden.
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. Marty departed after Series 3.
Written by Barry Took, Brian Cooke and Johnnie Mortimer.
Music by the Max Harris Group.
Producer: John Simmonds
First broadcast on the BBC Radio 2 in June 1968.
TUE 08:30 The Men from the Ministry (b015pvwm)
I Want My Mummy
Confusion - and an ancient Egyptian queen - rule for the bungling bureuacrats.
Stars Richard Murdoch and Deryck Guyler.
With Norma Ronald, Ronald Baddiley, John Graham and Hilary Pritchard.
Written by Edward Taylor and John Graham.
'The Men from the Ministry' ran for 14 series between 1962 and 1977. Deryck Guyler replaced Wilfrid Hyde-White from 1966. Sadly many episodes didn't survive in the archive, however the BBC's Transcription Service re-recorded 14 shows in 1980 - never broadcast in the UK, until the arrival of BBC Radio 4 Extra.
Producer: Edward Taylor
First broadcast on the BBC Radio 4 in July 1974.
TUE 09:00 The News Quiz Extra (b07ch9dw)
[Repeat of broadcast at 23:00 on Monday]
TUE 09:45 Stewart Permutt - Singular Women (b0075569)
[Repeat of broadcast at 23:45 on Monday]
TUE 10:00 Dostoyevsky - The Brothers Karamazov (b00yb1sd)
Episode 2
While Alyosha attends the bedside of the dying Elder, relations between Dmitry and his father become ever more dangerous.
Starring Roy Marsden.
Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky's final novel published in 1880.
Dramatised by Melissa Murray.
Fyodor Karamazov ...... Roy Marsden
Dmitry ...... Paul Hilton
Ivan ...... Nicholas Boulton
Alyosha ...... Carl Prekopp
The Elder ...... Sam Dale
Mrs Khoklakova ...... Rachel Atkins
Lise ...... Emma Noakes
Katerina ...... Juliet Aubrey
Grushenka ...... Katy Cavanagh
Smerdyakov ...... Joseph Kloska
Grigory ...... Desmond McNamara
The Monk ...... Paul Richard Biggin
Father Paisy ...... Philip Fox
Monks ...... Saikat Ahamed
Original music by David Pickvance.
Directors: Marc Beeby and Colin Guthrie
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 2006.
TUE 11:00 The Human Cradle (b01bmq2x)
The Invisible Map
In Maaza Mengiste's new short story, 'The Invisible Map', a young Ethiopian woman, hoping for a better life in Europe, finds herself trapped in a Libyan prison. Read by Adjoa Andoh.
The second in our series of contemporary stories from the Horn of Africa - Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia.
Produced by Emma Harding
About the author: Maaza Mengiste was born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia and graduated with an MFA in Creative Writing from New York University. Her debut novel, the critically acclaimed 'Beneath the Lion's Gaze', has been translated into several languages and was a finalist for a Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize. She teaches at NYU and currently lives in New York City.
TUE 11:15 Tommies (b06j2gg4)
21 October 1915
by Nick Warburton
Series created by Jonathan Ruffle.
Meticulously based on unit war diaries and eye-witness accounts, the new series of TOMMIES traces one real day at war, exactly 100 years ago: from the Western Front, to Mesopotamia, via neutral Holland and occupied Belgium.
And through it all, we'll follow the fortunes of Mickey Bliss and his fellow signallers, from the Lahore Division of the British Indian Army. They are the cogs in an immense machine, one which connects situations across the whole theatre of the war, over four long years.
Indira Varma, Lee Ross and Jassa Ahluwalia star in this story, set at Brigade HQ 89th Punjabis, Pont du Hem, France, on October 21st, 1915. Mickey Bliss returns to the front line as a newly-trained officer, with the beginnings of war-winning technology in his hands. But it's a month since the battle of Loos began - and the Allies are still where they were before it started.
Producers: David Hunter, Jonquil Panting, Jonathan Ruffle
Director: Jonquil Panting.
TUE 12:00 Round the Horne (b007jpsm)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
TUE 12:30 The Men from the Ministry (b015pvwm)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
TUE 13:00 Wimsey (b007jzpw)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
TUE 13:30 Grayson on His Bike (b00vkw55)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 today]
TUE 14:00 Kate Grenville - The Secret River (b00nd0t9)
For the Term of His Natural Life
Life in London for boatman Will Thornhill is sweet and rosy until fate intervenes. Read by Ron Cook.
TUE 14:15 In Search of Ourselves: A History of Psychology and the Mind (b042jhl9)
Brains and Brass Instruments
Martin Sixsmith investigates how medical research helped identify different areas of the brain - from the speechless patient of French physician Paul Broca to the brain damaged American railway worker Phineas Gage.
He looks at how new ways to measure time helped German psychologists like Wilhelm Wundt to assess the speed of thought, whilst in Britain archivist Subhadra Das explains the impact on psychology of Sir Francis Galton's statistical mass observations.
Produced by Sara Parker
A Falling Tree Production for BBC Radio 4.
TUE 14:30 The Churchills - Speaking for Themselves (b007jrhk)
Episode 7
Churchill returns home to his beloved Clementine, but tragedy strikes. With Alex Jennings and Sylvestra Le Touzel. From January 2000.
TUE 14:45 Miles Kington - How Shall I Tell the Dog? (b00yb307)
Episode 2
Things to learn before you die, without leaving home. Cancer sufferer Miles Kington's humorous letters. With Michael Palin.
TUE 15:00 Dostoyevsky - The Brothers Karamazov (b00yb1sd)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:00 today]
TUE 16:00 Counterpoint (b00dp6f4)
2005
Episode 5
Ned Sherrin hosts the music quiz with Graham Bennett of Surbiton, Jerry Knowles of Selsey and Andrew Taylor from Cambridge.
TUE 16:30 Flying the Flag (b00cbcpj)
Series 3
Cultural Exchange
"Someone else's culture is like someone else's toothbrush, William. You wouldn't want to use it yourself, but you're reassured to know they've got one."
With Heavy Metal and Dancing Detectors, Mackenzie and Surikov mix the oil and water of artistic detente.
Series 3 of Alex Shearer's Eastern bloc embassy sitcom.
Starring Dinsdale Landen as HM Ambassador Mackenzie, Peter Acre as William Frost, Moir Leslie as Helen Waterson, Christopher Benjamin as Colonel Surikov and Julian Dutton as Grub.
Producer: Neil Cargill
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 1990.
TUE 17:00 Linda Smith's A Brief History of Timewasting (b008ycft)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:00 today]
TUE 17:30 Isy Suttie's Love Letters (b0435hrn)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
TUE 18:00 The Man Who Was Thursday by GK Chesterton (b007jzqp)
The Man in Spectacles
With his new-found ally - the Professor - Gabriel Syme rests up before they both set off to confront Doctor Bull.

Published in 1908, GK Chersterton's most famous novel is read in 13 parts by Geoffrey Palmer.

Director: Lawrence Jackson

Made for BBC Radio 7 by BBC Northern Ireland.

First broadcast in 2005.
TUE 18:30 The Tingle Factor (b07cmbyg)
George Martin
Beatles record producer and composer Sir George Martin, talks to Jeremy Nicholas about the music which stirs his emotions.
In between his music choices, George looks back over his wide-ranging career.
From early classical music record making, through comedy records to signing The Beatles in 1962 - he reveals what it was like to work with John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
Born in 1926, Sir George Martin died in 2016.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September 1992.
TUE 19:00 Round the Horne (b007jpsm)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
TUE 19:30 The Men from the Ministry (b015pvwm)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
TUE 20:00 Wimsey (b007jzpw)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
TUE 20:30 Grayson on His Bike (b00vkw55)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 today]
TUE 21:00 The Human Cradle (b01bmq2x)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:00 today]
TUE 21:15 Tommies (b06j2gg4)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:15 today]
TUE 22:00 Isy Suttie's Love Letters (b0435hrn)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
TUE 22:30 The Guns of Adam Riches (b01qnrn0)
Series 1
The Ballad of Big Rich
Brand new character comedy from 2011 Edinburgh Award winner, Adam Riches. With fast-paced, offbeat sketches, songs (there are no songs) and a generous dollop of audience interaction. Also starring Cariad Lloyd and Jim Johnson.
This week, Adam Riches takes the listener back to the Wild West to tell the story of Big Rich, a sass-talkin', gun-totin' cowboy who just so happened to have sat on the front row.
Written by Adam Riches
Produced by Simon Mayhew-Archer and Rupert Majendie.
TUE 22:55 The Comedy Club Interviews (b045jrdz)
For two hours, seven nights a week, the Comedy Club offers the best laughs. Plus tonight, Paul Garner chats to Tracy Ann Oberman.
TUE 23:00 Vent (b00t4qzw)
Series 1
Gravity Gets You Down
Ben's physiotherapy seems to be working miracles when he gets far enough out of his coma to punch his physiotherapist.
And what are a tough-as-nails agent, a giant winged angel and Elvis doing in his unconscious mind?
Dark sitcom written by Nigel Smith.
Starring Neil Pearson as Ben Smith, Fiona Allen as Mary, Josie Lawrence as Mum and Leslie Ash as Blitzkrieg.
With Mark Perry, Dave Lamb, Jo Martin, Lucy Montgomery and Nicola Walker, Tim Whitnall and Sue Vincent.
Producer: Gareth Edwards
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in August 2006.
TUE 23:30 The Wilson Dixon Line (b00kr5y1)
Uncle Wilbur's Advice for Modern Living
Another chance to hear this affectionate tribute to the philosophy of country music. Cowboy philosopher Wilson Dixon shares his viewpoints on life, love and relationships through songs and anecdotes.
In the final episode, following his break up from Maureen, Wilson saddles up his horse Andrew and heads into the Colorado mountains to seek some guidance from his old Uncle Wilbour. What he gets instead is the the epic tale of "the man with no name", straight from the annals of the Wild West.
Wilson Dixon is the comic creation of Jesse Griffin and sidekick Snake Wizzelteats is performed by Jesse Budd.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 2 in 2009.


WEDNESDAY 25 MAY 2016

WED 00:00 The Man Who Was Thursday by GK Chesterton (b007jzqp)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:00 on Tuesday]
WED 00:30 The Tingle Factor (b07cmbyg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:30 on Tuesday]
WED 01:00 Wimsey (b007jzpw)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 on Tuesday]
WED 01:30 Grayson on His Bike (b00vkw55)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 on Tuesday]
WED 02:00 Kate Grenville - The Secret River (b00nd0t9)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:00 on Tuesday]
WED 02:15 In Search of Ourselves: A History of Psychology and the Mind (b042jhl9)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:15 on Tuesday]
WED 02:30 The Churchills - Speaking for Themselves (b007jrhk)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:30 on Tuesday]
WED 02:45 Miles Kington - How Shall I Tell the Dog? (b00yb307)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:45 on Tuesday]
WED 03:00 Dostoyevsky - The Brothers Karamazov (b00yb1sd)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:00 on Tuesday]
WED 04:00 Counterpoint (b00dp6f4)
[Repeat of broadcast at 16:00 on Tuesday]
WED 04:30 Flying the Flag (b00cbcpj)
[Repeat of broadcast at 16:30 on Tuesday]
WED 05:00 Linda Smith's A Brief History of Timewasting (b008ycft)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:00 on Tuesday]
WED 05:30 Isy Suttie's Love Letters (b0435hrn)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 on Tuesday]
WED 06:00 Wimsey (b007jzr6)
The Nine Tailors
8 Nine Tailors Make a Man
Can upper class sleuth, Lord Peter Wimsey finally solve the baffling mystery of the murder of Geoffrey Deacon?
Ian Carmichael stars as the aristocratic sleuth.
The conclusion of Dorothy L Sayers' detective mystery.
Lord Peter Wimsey …. Ian Carmichael
Bunter …. Peter Jones
Supt Blundell …. Timothy Bateson
Rev Theodore Venables …. Phillip Latham
Mrs Venables...Noel Dyson
Will Thoday …. Keith Drinkell
Harry Gotobed …. Alexander John
First Sluice Keeper …. Michael Spice
Second Sluice Keeper …. Peter Tudenham
Narrator …. John Westbrook
Dramatised by Alistair Beaton.
Producer: Martin Fisher
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 1980.
WED 06:30 Painting The Loneliness (b00sjbdy)
It's a dark night in Greenwich Village, New York. In Edward Hopper's 1942 painting Nighthawks, a couple, a solitary customer and the bartender seem adrift in the darkness around them.
Adam Gopnik, writer on the New Yorker, walks the streets in search of the location and the mood, wondering whether Hopper was 'painting the loneliness' he claimed, while Barbara Haskell, curator of a forthcoming Hopper exhibition, offers other interpretations.
Hopper called his paintings 'silent theater', but we take the liberty of dramatising fleeting thoughts of the four characters. What is going on in their minds in Hopper's diner late at night?
We are free to speculate on the countless possibilities with the help of playwright Dean Olsher and three actors: Michael Dowling, Sara Paul, and Jim Frangione.
Producer: Judith Kampfner
A Ladbroke production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in June 2010.
WED 07:00 Married (b007zmd4)
Series 2
Identity
Robin is about to encounter the double of someone he knew from his old universe.
After all this time, and one universe later, he can't still be nursing a grudge?
Hugh Bonneville stars in Tony Bagley's comedy.
Robin .... Hugh Bonneville
Lesley .... Josie Lawrence
Dirk .... Stephen Frost
Dame Jane Hyde .... Stephanie Cole
Philippa .... Siobhan Redmond
Producer: Claire Jones
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in May 2000.
WED 07:30 Heresy (b07bdfm2)
Series 10
Episode 1
The programme that dares to commit heresy. Victoria Coren Mitchell and her guests have fun challenging knee-jerk public opinions, and exposing the wrong-headedness of received wisdom.
In the first programme of the series Victoria is joined by comedians Lloyd Langford and Katy Brand, and the artist Grayson Perry. They talk about French Style, God and Hitler.
An Avalon Production
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2016.
WED 08:00 The Navy Lark (b01m8504)
Series 6
Open Day
With friends and relatives due for a visit aboard HMS Troutbridge, what has Pertwee got in mind?
Stars Leslie Phillips as the Sub-Lieutenant, Jon Pertwee as the Chief Petty Officer, Stephen Murray as the Number One, Richard Caldicot as Captain Povey, Ronnie Barker as Able Seaman Johnson, Heather Chasen as Mrs Povey and Tenniel Evans as The Admiral.
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 January 1964.
WED 08:30 I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again (b00j3pnr)
Series 9
Episode 3
Radio Prune takes a pop at Radio 1 DJs, and James T Kink camps it up in Star Trek.
Starring Tim Brooke-Taylor, John Cleese, Graeme Garden, David Hatch, Jo Kendall and Bill Oddie.
Sketches written by Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie.
Originating from the Cambridge University Footlights revue ‘Cambridge Circus’, ISIRTA ran for 8 years on BBC Radio and quickly developed a cult following.
Music and songs by Bill Oddie, Graeme Garden, Liam Cohen and Dave Lee.
Producers: David Hatch/Bob Oliver Rogers
First broadcast on the BBC Radio 2 in November 1973.
WED 09:00 Jest a Minute (b012h804)
Series 1
Episode 1
Justin Moorhouse, Jarred Christmas, Chris Corcoran and Jeremy Hardy star in Rhod Gilbert's comedy quiz. From August 2006.
WED 09:30 Change at Oglethorpe (b007k0dp)
Remember, Remember the Fifth of September
The blackest day of the year has come to Oglethorpe station - it's June's birthday. Rocket and Points are keeping out of her way, but station manager David is determined to make it a day to remember!
Peter Davison and Michael Williams star in Peter Morfoot's railway sitcom.
David ...... Peter Davison
Rocket ...... Michael Williams
June ...... Rosemary Martin
Points ...... Phillippa Wilson
Hattie ...... Madge Hindle
Sodd ...... Chris Emmett
Producer: Gareth Edwards
First broadcast on BBC Radio 2 in December 1995.
WED 10:00 Dostoyevsky - The Brothers Karamazov (b00yb5ch)
Episode 3
Following the violent encounter at the Karamazov home, Dmitry flees the town in search of Grushenka.
Starring Roy Marsden.
Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky's final novel published in 1880.
Dramatised by Melissa Murray.
Dmitry ...... Paul Hilton
Grushenka ...... Katy Cavanagh
Alyosha ...... Carl Prekopp
Lise ...... Emma Noakes
Mrs Khoklakova ...... Rachel Atkins
Grigory ...... Desmond McNamara
Makarov ...... Mark Straker
Andrey ...... Philip Fox
Trifon ...... Paul Richard Biggin
Musialowicz ...... Sam Dale
Constable ...... Saikat Ahamed
Revellers ...... Miranda Keeling/ Bethan Walker
Original music by David Pickvance.
Directors: Marc Beeby and Colin Guthrie
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 2006.
WED 11:00 The Human Cradle (b01by9lj)
Government by Magic Spell
In 'Government by Magic Spell' by Somali writer Saida Hagi-Dirie Herzi, a young woman is possessed by a jinni, but this soon leads her to a uniquely powerful position in state government. A satirical parable of power and corruption.
The third in our series of contemporary stories from the Horn of Africa - Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia.
Read by Yusra Wasrama
Produced by Emma Harding
About the author: Saida Hagi-Dirie Herzi is a Somali feminist writer.
WED 11:15 Tommies (b06kdyqg)
28 October 1915
by Michael Chaplin
Series created by Jonathan Ruffle
Meticulously based on unit war diaries and eye-witness accounts, each episode of TOMMIES traces one real day at war, exactly 100 years ago.
Justin Salinger, Indira Varma and Anna Madeley star in today's story set in neutral Holland. Tasked to complete a sensitive diplomatic mission Robert de Tullio finds himself drawn deeper not only into the murky waters of 1WW Intelligence but also into a more personal and dangerous quest .
Robert ..... Justin Salinger
Commentator ..... Indira Varma
Martins ..... Sam Dale
Tamara ..... Anna Madeley
Meulken ..... Mark Edel-Hunt
Jonqueer ..... William Brand
Van Hasselt ..... Chris Pavlo
Guard ..... Neet Mohan
Barman ..... David Hounslow
Driver ..... David Acton
Celestine ..... Pippa Nixon
Producers: David Hunter, Jonquil Panting, Jonathan Ruffle
Director: David Hunter.
WED 12:00 The Navy Lark (b01m8504)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
WED 12:30 I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again (b00j3pnr)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
WED 13:00 Wimsey (b007jzr6)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
WED 13:30 Painting The Loneliness (b00sjbdy)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 today]
WED 14:00 Kate Grenville - The Secret River (b00ndlm5)
The Sign of the Pickle Herring
London convict William Thornhill arrives in the alien land of Australia's New South Wales in 1806. Read by Ron Cook.
WED 14:15 In Search of Ourselves: A History of Psychology and the Mind (b042l24h)
The Mind Observes the Mind
In this programme Martin Sixsmith examines the evolution of psychology on both sides of the Atlantic, from the founding father of American psychology William James to the Gestalt movement in Germany, through the rise of behaviourism in the United States to the cognitive revolution of the 1960s.
He talks to the veteran psychologist George Mandler, who was part of that revolution, about how it still influences thinking today.
Produced by Sara Parker
A Falling Tree Production for BBC Radio 4.
WED 14:30 The Churchills - Speaking for Themselves (b007jrj1)
Episode 8
Clementine is unhappy when Winston buys Chartwell Manor without her knowledge. With Alex Jennings and Sylvestra Le Touzel. From February 1999.
WED 14:45 Miles Kington - How Shall I Tell the Dog? (b00yb5vd)
Episode 3
Cancer's infrequently asked questions, and notifying the dog. Miles Kington's humorous last letters. With Michael Palin.
WED 15:00 Dostoyevsky - The Brothers Karamazov (b00yb5ch)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:00 today]
WED 16:00 Jest a Minute (b012h804)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]
WED 16:30 Change at Oglethorpe (b007k0dp)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:30 today]
WED 17:00 Married (b007zmd4)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:00 today]
WED 17:30 Heresy (b07bdfm2)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
WED 18:00 The Man Who Was Thursday by GK Chesterton (b007jzrz)
The Duel
The three men travel to France where Gabriel Syme challenges the Marquis to a deadly combat...

Published in 1908, GK Chersterton's most famous novel is read in 13 parts by Geoffrey Palmer.

Director: Lawrence Jackson

Made for BBC Radio 7 by BBC Northern Ireland.

First broadcast in 2005.
WED 18:30 Off the Page (b007wh27)
Neither a Borrower Nor a Lender Be
Dominic Arkwright, William Leith, Rosie Millard and Terence Blacker discuss debt and lending to your friends. From August 2007.
WED 19:00 The Navy Lark (b01m8504)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
WED 19:30 I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again (b00j3pnr)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
WED 20:00 Wimsey (b007jzr6)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
WED 20:30 Painting The Loneliness (b00sjbdy)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 today]
WED 21:00 The Human Cradle (b01by9lj)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:00 today]
WED 21:15 Tommies (b06kdyqg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:15 today]
WED 22:00 Heresy (b07bdfm2)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
WED 22:30 Start/Stop (b03bsb9c)
Series 1
Two Parties
by Jack Docherty
A new sitcom about three couples sailing off in to the sunset. And sinking. This week two parties provide a particular challenge.
Producer ..... Steven Canny
Jack Docherty
Jack has an exceptional 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 performed in a huge variety of comedy shows including in The Comic Strip Presents, The Morwenna Banks Show, Monarch of the Glen, Red Dwarf V, The Old Guys and Badults. 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. Jack presented his own show The Jack Docherty Show which ran for 2 years on Channel 5.
WED 22:55 The Comedy Club Interviews (b07f4h0z)
For two hours, seven nights a week, the Comedy Club offers the best laughs. Plus tonight, Paul Garner has more chat with Tracy Ann Oberman.
WED 23:00 2000 Years of Radio (b007tcbl)
Series 1
Headless - Civil War Radio
Battle reports as they happen - with all the decapitations and more. Stars Marcus Brigstocke. From November 2000.
WED 23:15 Guy Browning's Small Talk (b0076mys)
Series 2
How to Go to a Party
The writer and humorist shares his tips on making merry and avoiding being 'de-mingled'. From August 2004.
WED 23:30 Lucy Montgomery's Variety Pack (b01322dm)
Series 2
Episode 3
The human chameleon's host of comic characters from a chicken shop worker to a honeymooner.
Multi-paced, one woman Fast Show starring Lucy Montgomery.
With:
Philip Pope
Sally Grace
Waen Shepherd
Natalie Walter
Iris Walker
Written by Lucy Montgomery with additional material by Steve Burge, Jon Hunter, Barunka O'Shaughnessy and Fay Rusling.
Script Editor: Dan Tetsell
Producer: Katie Tyrrell.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in August 2011.


THURSDAY 26 MAY 2016

THU 00:00 The Man Who Was Thursday by GK Chesterton (b007jzrz)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:00 on Wednesday]
THU 00:30 Off the Page (b007wh27)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:30 on Wednesday]
THU 01:00 Wimsey (b007jzr6)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 on Wednesday]
THU 01:30 Painting The Loneliness (b00sjbdy)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 on Wednesday]
THU 02:00 Kate Grenville - The Secret River (b00ndlm5)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:00 on Wednesday]
THU 02:15 In Search of Ourselves: A History of Psychology and the Mind (b042l24h)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:15 on Wednesday]
THU 02:30 The Churchills - Speaking for Themselves (b007jrj1)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:30 on Wednesday]
THU 02:45 Miles Kington - How Shall I Tell the Dog? (b00yb5vd)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:45 on Wednesday]
THU 03:00 Dostoyevsky - The Brothers Karamazov (b00yb5ch)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:00 on Wednesday]
THU 04:00 Jest a Minute (b012h804)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 on Wednesday]
THU 04:30 Change at Oglethorpe (b007k0dp)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:30 on Wednesday]
THU 05:00 Married (b007zmd4)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:00 on Wednesday]
THU 05:30 Heresy (b07bdfm2)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 on Wednesday]
THU 06:00 Israel Zangwill - Cheating the Gallows (b007jq4t)
Odd couple, Tom Peters and Everard G Roxdal are two inseperable lodgers - but a bank robbery threatens their intense friendship. And what about the cash?
Israel Zangwill's story is read by Lloyd Hutchinson.
Israel Zangwill was a writer and political activist (1864 – 1926)
Producer: Joanne Reardon
Made for BBC 7 by BBC Radio Drama, Manchester.
First broadcast in 2003.
THU 06:30 Character Assassins (b00tpqlf)
The death of fictional superstars by pen, pencil or type lies, quite literally, in the hands of their creators.
At the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival 2010, Fiona Lindsay conducts a forensic cross-examination of popular writers, put on trial to reveal their motives for killing off their leading characters. It's an age-old friction in fiction between creator and creation. And the assassination of an author's key character is often a result of a clash of egos.
Agatha Christie kept the death of her famous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot secret for 30 years only to confess shortly before her own demise. She had no regrets and, as her biographer Laura Thompson reveals, was in no hurry to get Miss Marple on the case.
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle detested Sherlock Holmes' public domination over his own life and murdered him merrily. Yet the firestorm of protest was so intense, resurrection was inevitable. Holmes expert David Stuart Davies and actor Roger Llewellyn incorporate the core of this controversy in their latest play.
Colin Dexter claims he didn't kill Morse: 'he died of natural causes'. A nation mourned, but the author is unrepentant, choosing kindly death over morose retirement.
Ian Rankin took the opposite view for the demise of Rebus, leaving the coffin lid open for a timely return. But since fictional characters are immortal, why kill them off at all?
Characters who become bigger than their authors, beware!! They may have all the best lines, but their creator has the last word.
Fiona Lindsay cross-examines the witnesses and interrogates the accused as they try to justify their acts of literal 'murder'.
Not so much a whodunit as a 'why did they do it?'
Producer: Chris Eldon Lee
A Culture Wise production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2010.
THU 07:00 PG Wodehouse - Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves (b007jqgh)
Bartholomew, Blackmail and Barefaced Lies
An expensive statue lands Bertie Wooster in a pickle.
PG Wodehouse romp adapted in six-parts by Richard Usborne.
Starring Michael Hordern as Jeeves, Richard Briers as Bertie Wooster, Paul Eddington as Roderick Spode, John Le Mesurier as Sir Watkin Bassett, Ronald Fraser as Major Plank, Jonathan Cecil as Boko Fittleworth, Denise Coffey as Stiffy Bing and Percy Edwards as Bartholemew the Dog.
Producer: David Hatch
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1980.
THU 07:30 Don't Start (b06vc3sg)
Series 3
Christmas
What do long term partners really argue about? The third series of Frank Skinner's sharp comedy. Starring Frank Skinner and Katherine Parkinson.
In this episode, our loving couple, Neil and Kim, spend a harrowing Christmas Day together.
The first and second series of Don't Start met with instant critical and audience acclaim:
"That he can deliver such a heavy premise for a series with such a lightness of touch is testament to his skills as a writer and, given that the protagonists are both bookworms, he's also permitted to use a flourish of fine words that would be lost in his stand-up routines." Jane Anderson, Radio Times
"Frank Skinner gives full rein to his sharp but splenetic comedy. He and his co-star Katherine Parkinson play a bickering couple exchanging acerbic ripostes in a cruelly precise dissection of a relationship." Daily Mail
"...a lesson in relationship ping-pong..." Miranda Sawyer, The Observer
Don't Start is a scripted comedy with a deceptively simple premise - an argument. Each week, our couple fall out over another apparently trivial flashpoint. Each week, the stakes mount as Neil and Kim battle with words. But these are no ordinary arguments. The two outdo each other with increasingly absurd images, unexpected literary references and razor sharp analysis of their beloved's weaknesses. Underneath the cutting wit, however, there is an unmistakable tenderness.
An Avalon production for BBC Radio 4.
THU 07:45 The Pin (b06nrjk1)
Series 1
Episode 4
Join Alex Owen and Ben Ashenden in their weird twist on the double-act sketch show. Strap in for a 15 minute delve in to a world of oddness performed in front of a live studio audience.
The Pin are an award-winning comedy duo, and legends of Edinburgh festival. They deconstruct the sketch form, in a show that exists somewhere between razor-sharp smartness and utterly joyous silliness.
After a sold-out run in Edinburgh, and a string of hilarious performances across BBC Radio 4 Extra, BBC 3, Channel 4, and Comedy Central, this was The Pin's debut solo show for Radio 4.
Producer: Sam Bryant
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 2015.
THU 08:00 The Small, Intricate Life of Gerald C Potter (b007jy9h)
Series 2
The Day
Author Gerald tries to make amends when he upsets his wife Diana.
The convoluted chronicle of an optimistic author starring Ian Carmichael as Gerald C Potter and Charlotte Mitchell as his wife.
With Jo Manning Wilson and Michael McClain.
Written by Basil Boothroyd.
Producer: Bobby Jaye
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 1977.
THU 08:30 Radio Active (b007jqbg)
Series 5
Nuclear Debate
Mike Channel chairs a special Radio Active debate. Are the studio audience for or against the annihilation of the planet?
Starring Helen Atkinson-Wood, Angus Deayton, Geoffrey Perkins, Philip Pope and Michael Fenton-Stevens.
Music by Philip Pope, Angus Deayton and Richard Curtis.
Written by Angus Deayton, Geoffrey Perkins with John Canter, Richard Curtis and Jeremy Pascall.
Producer: Jamie Rix
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in July 1985.
THU 09:00 The Food Quiz (b07ctb81)
Series 2
Episode 4
On Jay Rayner's menu are Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Roopa Gulati, Jennifer Sharp and Clement Freud. From August 2004.
THU 09:30 Artists (b00y2194)
Series 1
The War of Dog
Tamsin buys a dog to prove a point, and Dolores asks Marcus to landscape the garden. Stars Dave Lamb. From April 2003.
THU 10:00 Dostoyevsky - The Brothers Karamazov (b00ybxz9)
Episode 4
As Dmitry goes on trial for the murder of his father, Alyosha desperately seeks proof of his innocence.
Starring Roy Marsden.
Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky's final novel published in 1880.
Dramatised by Melissa Murray.
Dmitry ...... Paul Hilton
Ivan ...... Nicholas Boulton
Alyosha ...... Carl Prekopp
Mrs Khoklakova ...... Rachel Atkins
Katerina ...... Juliet Aubrey
Grushenka ...... Katy Cavanagh
Smerdyakov ...... Joseph Kloska
Grigory ...... Desmond McNamara
Judge ...... Ian Masters
Prosecutor ...... Philip Fox
Fetyokovich ...... Mark Straker
Devil ...... Sam Dale
Spectators ...... Paul Richard Biggin/ Saikat Ahamed/ Bethan Walker/ Miranda Keeling
Original music by David Pickvance.
Directors: Marc Beeby and Colin Guthrie
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 2006.
THU 11:00 Heidi Amsinck - Copenhagen Confidential (b01hdzqy)
The Suitcase
Read by Jack Klaff
In these three specially-commissioned tales by Heidi Amsinck, Copenhagen and its surrounds are places of twilight and shadows: mysterious places where strange, occasionally bad things happen.
The Suitcase
Hopkins is a commercial traveller on his first trip to Copenhagen, but things go awry after his baggage goes missing at Kastrup airport.
Heidi Amsinck, a writer and journalist born in Copenhagen, has covered Britain for the Danish press since 1992, including a spell as London Correspondent for the broadsheet daily Jyllands-Posten. Heidi has written numerous short stories for radio including, most recently, the three story set Danish Noir (2010) which was also produced by Sweet Talk for BBC Radio 4. A graduate of the MA in Creative Writing at Birkbeck, University of London, Heidi lives in Surrey with her husband and two young sons.
Producer: Jeremy Osborne
A Sweet Talk Production for BBC Radio 4.
THU 11:15 Tommies (b06mg2vg)
4 November 1915
by Jonathan Ruffle
Series created by Jonathan Ruffle.
Meticulously based on unit war diaries and eye-witness accounts, TOMMIES traces one real day at war exactly 100 years ago.
Indira Varma, Danny Rahim and Avin Shah star in this story which begins on a gunboat making its way up the river Tigris. Signallers Ahmadullah and Zarbab have a perilous mission to deliver a wireless set to beleaguered British forces in Mesopotamia. It proves a particularly gruelling and testing time for Ahmadullah.
Producers: David Hunter, Jonquil Panting, Jonathan Ruffle
Director: David Hunter.
THU 12:00 The Small, Intricate Life of Gerald C Potter (b007jy9h)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
THU 12:30 Radio Active (b007jqbg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
THU 13:00 Israel Zangwill - Cheating the Gallows (b007jq4t)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
THU 13:30 Character Assassins (b00tpqlf)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 today]
THU 14:00 Kate Grenville - The Secret River (b00ndwt6)
A Place Out of a Dream
On Will's first trip up the Hawksbury River in New South Wales, he sees a piece of land. Ron Cook reads Kate Grenville's tale.
THU 14:15 In Search of Ourselves: A History of Psychology and the Mind (b042ldz4)
War
Martin Sixsmith looks at the ways in which war has influenced psychology.
He examines the impact of shellshock and the treatment methods of pioneer doctors like W.H. Rivers at Craiglockhart Hospital in Scotland. He talks to military psychiatrist and Falklands veteran Dr Morgan O'Connell and to Edgar Jones, Professor of the History of Psychiatry at Kings College London. And he explains how war changed society's attitude to mental health and boosted psychology as a profession.
Produced by Sara Parker
A Falling Tree Production for BBC Radio 4.
THU 14:30 The Churchills - Speaking for Themselves (b007jrjh)
Episode 9
Churchill cuts back on household expenditure. Clementine is knocked down by a bus. With Alex Jennings and Sylvestra Le Touzel. From February 1999.
THU 14:45 Miles Kington - How Shall I Tell the Dog? (b00ybzdk)
Episode 4
The perfect funeral and gravestone, and parlez-vous cancer? Miles Kington's humorous last letters. With Michael Palin.
THU 15:00 Dostoyevsky - The Brothers Karamazov (b00ybxz9)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:00 today]
THU 16:00 The Food Quiz (b07ctb81)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]
THU 16:30 Artists (b00y2194)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:30 today]
THU 17:00 PG Wodehouse - Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves (b007jqgh)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:00 today]
THU 17:30 Don't Start (b06vc3sg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
THU 17:45 The Pin (b06nrjk1)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:45 today]
THU 18:00 The Man Who Was Thursday by GK Chesterton (b007wpnm)
The Criminals Chase the Police
As Gabriel Syme engages his opponent in a duel, there's a revelation from the Marquis.

Published in 1908, GK Chersterton's most famous novel is read in 13 parts by Geoffrey Palmer.

Director: Lawrence Jackson

Made for BBC Radio 7 by BBC Northern Ireland.

First broadcast in 2005.
THU 18:30 Great Lives (b00771zc)
Series 11
Millicent Garrett Fawcett
For 50 years, Millicent Garrett Fawcett struggled to win the right to vote for women in Britain, yet today she is little-known compared to the suffragette leaders who took a more militant course. Feminist campaigner Lesley Abdela discusses the extraordinary 'MGF', with Matthew Parris and historian Elizabeth Crawford.
THU 19:00 The Small, Intricate Life of Gerald C Potter (b007jy9h)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
THU 19:30 Radio Active (b007jqbg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
THU 20:00 Israel Zangwill - Cheating the Gallows (b007jq4t)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
THU 20:30 Character Assassins (b00tpqlf)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 today]
THU 21:00 Heidi Amsinck - Copenhagen Confidential (b01hdzqy)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:00 today]
THU 21:15 Tommies (b06mg2vg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:15 today]
THU 22:00 Don't Start (b06vc3sg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
THU 22:15 The Pin (b06nrjk1)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:45 today]
THU 22:30 Alex Horne Presents The Horne Section (b044h6nv)
Series 3
Adam Buxton
Alex Horne and his five-piece band tackle the theme of money, shopping and consumerism with an advert for milk, a sea shanty and a song about cheese dreams.
Special guest comedian Adam Buxton.
Band: Joe Auckland, Mark Brown, Will Collier, Ben Reynolds, Ed Sheldrake
With Saxophonist Pedro
Producer: Charlie Perkins
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in May 2014.
THU 22:55 The Comedy Club Interviews (b045jrl1)
For two hours, seven nights a week, the Comedy Club offers the best laughs. Plus tonight, Paul Garner chats again to Tracy Ann Oberman.
THU 23:00 Old Harry's Game (b00b9nzb)
Series 4
Knowledge and Ignorance
Satan thinks humans can't handle knowledge, but the professor thinks they can. Satanic sitcom stars Andy Hamilton. From March 2001.
THU 23:30 Hardeep at The Stand (b017cqv0)
Series 1
Episode 5
5/6
First on stage in this episode is an international comedian, enjoying huge success in the USA. Matt Kirshen realises that there's some truth in Santa's stories and demystifies cowboys in a way you wont expect. Boothby Graffoe has had a very loyal following over the years and with a spectacular fast paced musical performance from him you will soon be a fan too. Keeping the Scottish side of comedy up for this episode is the instantly loveable John Gillick, who has crafted his material over a number of years around the UK, making him one of Scotland's best joke slingers.
THU 23:45 Knocker (b008d1f2)
Obselejectivitysence
Market researcher Ian surveys a high-tech future. Sitcom with Neil Edmond and Paula Wilcox. From December 2007.


FRIDAY 27 MAY 2016

FRI 00:00 The Man Who Was Thursday by GK Chesterton (b007wpnm)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:00 on Thursday]
FRI 00:30 Great Lives (b00771zc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:30 on Thursday]
FRI 01:00 Israel Zangwill - Cheating the Gallows (b007jq4t)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 on Thursday]
FRI 01:30 Character Assassins (b00tpqlf)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 on Thursday]
FRI 02:00 Kate Grenville - The Secret River (b00ndwt6)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:00 on Thursday]
FRI 02:15 In Search of Ourselves: A History of Psychology and the Mind (b042ldz4)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:15 on Thursday]
FRI 02:30 The Churchills - Speaking for Themselves (b007jrjh)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:30 on Thursday]
FRI 02:45 Miles Kington - How Shall I Tell the Dog? (b00ybzdk)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:45 on Thursday]
FRI 03:00 Dostoyevsky - The Brothers Karamazov (b00ybxz9)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:00 on Thursday]
FRI 04:00 The Food Quiz (b07ctb81)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 on Thursday]
FRI 04:30 Artists (b00y2194)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:30 on Thursday]
FRI 05:00 PG Wodehouse - Stiff Upper Lip, Jeeves (b007jqgh)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:00 on Thursday]
FRI 05:30 Don't Start (b06vc3sg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 on Thursday]
FRI 05:45 The Pin (b06nrjk1)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:45 on Thursday]
FRI 06:00 Dixon of Dock Green (b012yv9b)
Series 1
London Pride
George Dixon is showing new boy in blue, Andy Crawford, the ropes on the beat of Dock Green in London's East End.
Much to PC Crawford's surprise, Dixon is prepared to bend the rules in order to arrest one of a gang of safebreakers.
Radio revival of BBC TV's famous copper starring David Calder as PC George Dixon and David Tennant as Andy Crawford.
Dixon of Dock Green's roots go back to 1950 film drama 'The Blue Lamp' which ended with Dixon being shot dead. However, Warner's role was resurrected for the BBC TV series running from 1955 to 1976.
PC George Dixon ...... David Calder
PC Andy Crawford ...... David Tennant
Jack Judd ...... MacDonnell
Emmy Judd ...... Avril Elgar
Lenny Judd ...... Jacob Dylan
Agar ...... Jonathan Tafler
Fred Jenkins ...... Eddie Martin
Written by Ted Willis. Dramatised from his TV screenplay by Sue Rodwell.
Produced in Bristol by Jeremy Howe and Viv Beeby.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in June 2005.
FRI 06:30 He Belonged to Glasgow - The Will Fyffe Story (b00vky75)
Born in Dundee in 1885, Will Fyffe became synonymous with a different city when his song 'I Belong To Glasgow' captured the nation's hearts.
After spending his formative years in touring theatre, Will Fyffe switched to comedy and music hall, and became a headline act throughout Scotland. Along with his contemporary Harry Lauder, his humour transcended the regional stage and appearances all over Britain led to five Royal Variety performances.
A leading film star of the 1930s and 40s, he made one Hollywood film, although this burgeoning career was put on hold as war broke out and he returned to entertain the troops.
An accident in 1947 led to his untimely death, but his body of work lives on through his songs, sketches and films.
In this programme, singer-songwriter and Deacon Blue frontman Ricky Ross looks at Fyffe's life, career and legacy with family, film historians and music hall experts, including Professor Jeffrey Richards, and Will Fyffe's daughter, Eileen.
Producer: Elizabeth Foster
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 2010.
FRI 07:00 Crowned Hudds (b00plhpx)
Odd Stuart
A new slant on King Charles II. Roy Hudd's historical royal romp, with June Whitfield and Chris Emmett. From September 1994.
FRI 07:30 Meet David Sedaris (b01211y4)
Series 2
Me Talk Pretty One Day; It's Catching
The multi-award winning American essayist brings his wit and charm to BBC Radio 4 for a series of audience readings. This week the perils of an American learning French in Paris in "Me Talk Pretty One Day" and an essay dealing with a friend's concern for cleanliness; "It's Catching".
Producer: Steve Doherty
A Boomerang production for BBC Radio 4.
FRI 08:00 Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? (b007jrt7)
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner
Terry is not keen to meet any of Bob's snobbish friends.
Starring James Bolam as Terry Collier, Rodney Bewes as Bob Ferris and Brigit Forsyth as Thelma Chambers.
With Sheila Fearn, Olive Milbourne, Julian Holloway and Gretta Gouriet.
Created and scripted for BBC TV by Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais. Adapted for radio by Patrick Tilley.
Producer: John Browell
Originally lost from the archive, the audio was recovered in a BBC Treasure Hunt.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September 1975.
FRI 08:30 The Goon Show (b007jtqc)
Series 7
Six Charlies in Search of an Author
Through pages and chapters, the fate of Neddie Seagoon is in the hands of the writer.
Groundbreaking, surreal BBC radio comedy written by Spike Milligan and Larry Stephens.
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: Pat Dixon
First broadcast on the BBC Home Service in December 1956.
FRI 09:00 We've Been Here Before (b00ft41b)
Series 2
Episode 1
Clive Anderson hosts the panel show that pokes fun at events of the past.
Second series of the topical historical satirical panel show setting out to prove that there's nothing new under, or in, The Sun.
Gyles Brandreth and Arthur Smith battle it out against John O'Farrell and Arabella Weir.
Producer: Ed Morrish
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in June 2004.
FRI 09:30 The Attractive Young Rabbi (b007k0wh)
Series 1
The New Synagogue
A single phone call turns the comfortable world of Rabbi Fine is turned upside down.
The first of three series of Barry Grossman’s comedy-drama about the collision between the old and the new in the Jewish community of Hillfield.
Starring David De Keyser as Rabbi Abraham Fine. Tracy-Ann Oberman as Rabbi Su Jacobs, Doreen Mantle as Sadie Fine, Henry Goodman as Melvin, Jonathan Kydd as Brian and Sarah Rice as Ruth.
Music: Max Harris.
Producer: John Fawcett Wilson
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1999.
FRI 10:00 Dostoyevsky - The Brothers Karamazov (b00yc3jw)
Episode 5
Following Ivan's dramatic appearance at his brother's trial, Katerina prepares to deal Dmitry a fatal blow.
Starring Roy Marsden.
Conclusion of Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky's final novel published in 1880.
Dramatised by Melissa Murray.
Dmitry ...... Paul Hilton
Ivan ...... Nicholas Boulton
Alyosha ...... Carl Prekopp
Katerina ...... Juliet Aubrey
Grushenka ...... Katy Cavanagh
Lise ...... Emma Noakes
Mrs Khoklakova ...... Rachel Atkins
Grigory ...... Desmond McNamara
Devil ...... Sam Dale
Judge ...... Ian Masters
Prosecutor ...... Philip Fox
Fetyukovich ...... Mark Straker
Bystanders ...... Paul Richard Biggin/ Saikat Ahamed
Original music by David Pickvance.
Directors: Marc Beeby and Colin Guthrie
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2006.
FRI 11:00 Heidi Amsinck - Copenhagen Confidential (b01hw63p)
The Climbing Rose
By Heidi Amsinck
Read by Jack Klaff
In these three specially-commissioned tales by Heidi Amsinck, Copenhagen and its surrounds are places of twilight and shadows: mysterious places where strange, occasionally bad things happen.
The Climbing Rose
Postman Brian Larsen has made a nice little side-earner doing odd-jobs for the rich and grateful old ladies of Klampenborg. Mrs Hoffman looks like a promising target - but there is something creepy about the rose in her front garden.
Heidi Amsinck, a writer and journalist born in Copenhagen, has covered Britain for the Danish press since 1992, including a spell as London Correspondent for the broadsheet daily Jyllands-Posten. Heidi has written numerous short stories for radio including, most recently, the three story set Danish Noir (2010), which was also produced by Sweet Talk for BBC Radio 4. A graduate of the MA in Creative Writing at Birkbeck, University of London, Heidi lives in Surrey with her husband and two young sons.
Producer: Jeremy Osborne
A Sweet Talk Production for BBC Radio 4.
FRI 11:15 Tommies (b06nq1fg)
11 November 1915
by Jonathan Ruffle
Series created by Jonathan Ruffle.
Meticulously based on unit war diaries and eye-witness accounts, each episode of TOMMIES traces one real day at war, exactly 100 years ago.
Through it all, we follow the fortunes of Mickey Bliss and his fellow signallers, from the Lahore Division of the British Indian Army. They are the cogs in an immense machine, one which connects situations across the whole theatre of the war, over four long years.
Indira Varma, Lee Ross and Pippa Nixon star in this special story for Remembrance Day, set at La Gorgue on 11th November 1915. A day when Second Lieutenant Mickey Bliss finds himself in two meetings. One which might change the whole war for the Signal Service. And one which is about to change his life forever.
Producers: David Hunter, Jonquil Panting, Jonathan Ruffle
Director: Jonquil Panting.
FRI 12:00 Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? (b007jrt7)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
FRI 12:30 The Goon Show (b007jtqc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
FRI 13:00 Dixon of Dock Green (b012yv9b)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
FRI 13:30 He Belonged to Glasgow - The Will Fyffe Story (b00vky75)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 today]
FRI 14:00 Kate Grenville - The Secret River (b00nf0tr)
Adam in Paradise
William stakes his claim on Thornhill's Point, but other people have the same idea. Read by Ron Cook.
FRI 14:15 In Search of Ourselves: A History of Psychology and the Mind (b042lp8w)
We Do What We're Told
Following the Second World War, psychologists wanted to understand how so many ordinary Germans could have agreed to participate in the Nazis' atrocities.
Martin Sixsmith looks at their attempts to explain the banality of evil, including the controversial experiments of Stanley Milgram and Philip Zimbardo. And he talks to Oxford Professor Miles Hewstone about how far social psychology has come in clarifying how we think and act within a group.
Series consultant, Professor Daniel Pick, Birkbeck, University of London.
Produced by Sara Parker
A Falling Tree Production for BBC Radio 4.
FRI 14:30 The Churchills - Speaking for Themselves (b007jrjy)
Episode 10
Winston writes from Canada. Randolph leaves Oxford for a lecture tour of the USA. With Alex Jennings and Sylvestra Le Touzel. From February 1999.
FRI 14:45 Miles Kington - How Shall I Tell the Dog? (b00yc4vx)
Episode 5
Test your own will to live, and how to write a funny book about cancer. Miles Kington's last letters. With Michael Palin.
FRI 15:00 Dostoyevsky - The Brothers Karamazov (b00yc3jw)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:00 today]
FRI 16:00 We've Been Here Before (b00ft41b)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]
FRI 16:30 The Attractive Young Rabbi (b007k0wh)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:30 today]
FRI 17:00 Crowned Hudds (b00plhpx)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:00 today]
FRI 17:30 Meet David Sedaris (b01211y4)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
FRI 18:00 The Man Who Was Thursday by GK Chesterton (b007wqf0)
The Earth in Anarchy
The allies head for the coastal town using horses, then motor cars to outrun their masked pursuers.
Published in 1908, GK Chersterton's most famous novel is read in 13 parts by Geoffrey Palmer.
Director: Lawrence Jackson
Made for BBC Radio 7 by BBC Northern Ireland.
First broadcast in 2005.
FRI 18:30 Soul Music (b00mk6tc)
Series 8
Vaughan Williams' Fantasia on a Theme, by Thomas Tallis
Series exploring famous pieces of music and their emotional appeal.
Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis
When Vaughan Williams wrote his Tallis Fantasia in 1910, he changed the course of British music. Here at last was a piece of music which was no longer under the Teutonic influence, but which drew on old English hymn tunes and folk idioms for its themes. As the string music builds to a climax, interviewees tell how this music has brought solace and hope in times of tragedy and changed the course of their lives.
When composers Herbert Howells and Ivor Gurney heard the premiere of Vaughan Williams' Tallis Fantasia in Gloucester Cathedral in 1910, it's said that they walked the streets of Gloucester all night because of the sheer excitement of possibility that this new piece had awakened in them.
This programme tells how the beauty and richness of Vaughan Williams' Tallis Fantasia awakened a life long love of classical music in a nine year old boy at bedtime; how it served as comfort for an artist in despair and how it brought solace to a grieving father
Contributors:
Michael Kennedy
Ian Clarke
EM Marshall
Rolf Jordan
Peter Phillips
Harry Atterbury
Colin Wood
Producer: Rosie Boulton
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2009.
FRI 19:00 Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? (b007jrt7)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
FRI 19:30 The Goon Show (b007jtqc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
FRI 20:00 Dixon of Dock Green (b012yv9b)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
FRI 20:30 He Belonged to Glasgow - The Will Fyffe Story (b00vky75)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 today]
FRI 21:00 Heidi Amsinck - Copenhagen Confidential (b01hw63p)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:00 today]
FRI 21:15 Tommies (b06nq1fg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:15 today]
FRI 22:00 Meet David Sedaris (b01211y4)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
FRI 22:30 John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme (b03c3dx7)
Series 3
Episode 6
John Finnemore, the writer and star of Cabin Pressure, regular guest on The Now Show and popper-upper in things like Miranda, presents a third series series of his hit sketch show.
The first series was described as "sparklingly clever" by The Daily Telegraph and "one of the most consistently funny sketch shows for quite some time" by The Guardian. The second series won Best Radio Comedy at both the Chortle and Comedy.co.uk awards, and was nominated for a Sony award.
This time around, John promises to stop doing silly sketches about nonsense like Winnie the Pooh's honey addiction or how goldfish invented computer programming, and concentrate instead on the the big, serious issues.
This final episode of the series looks at some pretty creative accounting; cross-examines an expert witness; and asks why it is that posh men's trousers are all the same colour.
Written by and starring John Finnemore, with Margaret Cabourn-Smith, Simon Kane, Lawry Lewin and Carrie Quinlan. Original music by Susannah Pearse.
Producer: Ed Morrish.
FRI 23:00 Hey Hey We're the Monks (b09mxld6)
When unlikely new monk recruit, Gary Woodcroft, joins the brethren at Buckley Abbey, life in the order is never going to be the same...
Bill Bailey stars as Gary Woodcroft
Gary Woodcroft …. Bill Bailey
Father Abbott …. Graham Crowden
Brother Francis …. Paul Brooke
Brother Bernard …. Howard Lew Lewis
Brother Dominic …. Osian Barnes
Gary's Mum …. Hilda Braid
DSS Officer …. Catherine Tate
Living Embodiment of Cider …. Simon Bates
Divine sitcom written by Dan Tetsell and Danny Robins.
Producer: Lucy Armitage.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 2 in September 2013.
FRI 23:30 The Consultants (b007vb2j)
Series 2
Episode 1
Time to hark back to a gentler age of radio when Archie Strutz and His Swinging Nuts were a favourite on the BBC Home Service and folktales sang of rustic careers "where the tales are our seed and the sod is your ears".
The Consultants are Neil Edmond, Justin Edwards and James Rawlings.
In 2002 they won the Perrier Best Newcomer Award ... and had to brace themselves for the inevitable backlash.
Producer: Will Saunders
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 2003.