SATURDAY 01 SEPTEMBER 2018

SAT 00:00 Algernon Blackwood - Ancient Sorceries (b007jvy3)
Ancient Magic
Vezin is wary over a mother and daughter's invitation to witches' Sabbath. Philip Madoc reads Algernon Henry Blackwood's dark tale.
SAT 00:30 Mastertapes (b03k3gmb)
Series 3, Edwyn Collins (A-Side)
John Wilson talks to musicians about the album that made or changed them. Edwyn Collins discusses and plays from "Gorgeous George", his best known solo album which includes the hit song "A Girl Like You". Complete versions of the songs performed in the programme (and others) can be heard on the 'Mastertapes' pages on the Radio 4 website, where the programmes can also be downloaded and other musical goodies accessed.
Edwyn Collins is an Ivor Novello Award winning songwriter who has enjoyed great success both as a solo artist and as the lead singer of Orange Juice.
"Gorgeous George" was produced in the studio which Edwyn built himself and highlights Edwyn's witty melodic style. 'Girl Like You' spent 14 weeks in the charts and features in the films 'Empire Records' and 'Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle'. Edwyn has also produced records for the likes of The Cribs, Space, Little Barrie and The Proclaimers, produced and starred in his own sitcom as well as creating a book of illustrations.
In May 2009, he won the Ivors Inspiration Award in recognition of his struggles following a double brain haemorrhage in 2005. He has continued to record and his latest album 'Understated' was recently released on his own label.
In Mastertapes John Wilson talks to leading performers and songwriters about the album that made them or changed them. Recorded in front of a live audience at the BBC's iconic Maida Vale Studios. Each edition includes two episodes, with John initially quizzing the artist about the album in question, and then, in the B-side, the audience puts the questions. Both editions feature exclusive live performances. The B-Side of this programme can be heard on Tuesday 3rd December at 3.30
Producer: Helen Lennard.
SAT 01:00 Trueman and Riley (b00j272j)
Series 1, Speed
Detective Riley is feeling angry for being sent on a 'speed awareness' workshop.
But that puts him on the trail of ex-con from the old days in Hull - womanising rip-off merchant Frank Butters...
Brian B Thompson's detective series about the ill-matched duo is set in Leeds.
Starring Robert Daws as D.I. Trueman, Duncan Preston as D.S. Riley, Sam Dale as Frank Butters, Christine Kavanagh as Melanie, John Dougal as Eric Simonelli, Miranda Keeling as Inez and Jasmine Callan as Svetlana.
The duo began life on BBC Radio 4 in 2002, with Detective Inspector Trueman called back to work after a nervous breakdown in order to solve a high profile murder case, backed up by Detective Superintendent Riley. This was followed by three new plays in 2005.
Director: Toby Swift
Made for BBC 7 and first broadcast in 2007.
SAT 01:30 All Lit Up: A Century of Illumination in Blackpool (b01m9c6x)
Blackpool's town motto is 'Progress'. And in the past 150 years the combination of brilliant entrepreneurs and a town council keen to promote tourism, turned Blackpool into the country's most popular seaside destination for working people - with annual visits topping 17 million at one time.
One example of progress was the town's early adoption of electric street lighting and an electric tramway by the sea. This gave rise to the first Illuminations, 100 year ago.
The Illuminations 'the greatest free show on earth' continue to draw large numbers of visitors. Laurence Llewelyn Bowen, who loves Blackpool, is creative curator of the Illuminations designing lights and tableaux, and he presents this programme.
All Lit Up begins with Laurence among the crowds and celebrities at the centenary Switch On on Friday night. We then tour Blackpool to hear his tribute to the exceptional architecture which has given the town is magical distinctiveness through the years - the restored Winter Garden and Tower, the elegant 19th century buildings of the piers and the Modernist casino building at the Pleasure Beach.
We'll hear from local MP Gordon Marsden, Professor Fred Gray and CEO of the Pleasure Beach Amanda Thompson about what Blackpool can do to build on its seaside heritage and continue its appeal to the next generation.
Produced by: Susan Marling
A Just Radio Ltd Production for BBC Radio 4.
SAT 02:00 Thomas Hardy - The Woodlanders (b007jx8b)
Desperation
Reconciliation is on the cards, with the recognition of unspoken devotion. Concluded by Juliet Stevenson.
SAT 02:15 On the Beach (b0076hx8)
St Agnes
Father and son surfers Mike and James Hendy contemplate the future of St Agnes in Cornwall, threatened by raw sewage pumped into the sea. From November 2013.
SAT 02:30 Christopher Denys - Promenade Rock (b0076ddm)
Absent Without Leave
It seems that Matthew's past is about to catch up with him when a mystery army sergeant arrives in town.
Conclusion of Christopher Denys' ten-part series set in the booming 1950s seaside resort of Llantwit-on-Sea.
Starring Nerys Hughes as Eirlys Richards, Russell Boulter as Matthew Dolan, Iwan Thomas as Iorweth Jenkins, Christopher Scott as Arnold Pilton, Andy Hockley as Cox'n Hughes and David Bannerman as Attercliffe.
Director: Sue Wilson
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2003.
SAT 02:45 Book of the Week (b039j4z3)
Peter Snow - When Britain Burned the White House, Episode 5
Nearly 200 years ago, Britain attacked the heartland of the United States. The President and his wife had just enough time to pack their belongings and flee the White House before the British army entered and set fire to the building. From here, the British army turned its sights to Baltimore.
Peter Snow tells the story of this extraordinary confrontation between Britain and the United States, the outcome of which inspired America's national anthem. Using eyewitness accounts, Peter describes the colourful personalities on both sides of this astonishing battle - from Britain's fiery Admiral Cockburn, to the cautious but widely popular army commander Robert Ross and the beleaguered President James Madison whose nation was besieged by a greater military force.
In the final episode, the British attack on Baltimore has failed and they retreat to their ships. To celebrate victory, a young American poet Francis Scott Key writes a poem - The Star Spangled Banner.
Read by Jamie Parker
Producer: David Roper
A Heavy Entertainment production for BBC Radio 4.
SAT 03:00 The Barchester Chronicles (b04gnm5q)
Anthony Trollope's Framley Parsonage, A Gift of Fire
by Anthony Trollope, dramatised for radio by Nick Warburton
After a lot of proposals made and turned down in Barchester, Miss Dunstable decides to hold a party. Lord Lufton - turned down by Lucy - finally comes back from his fishing trip, unaware that Lucy is now nursing the Vicar's wife in typhus-ridden Hogglestock.....
Music composed by David Robin, Jeff Meegan and Julian Gallant
Produced & directed by Marion Nancarrow
And we return to Anthony Trollope's Barchester in "The Small House at Allington", will be broadcast in December.
SAT 04:00 Jest a Minute (b01789l0)
Series 2, Episode 3
Rhod Gilbert's comedy quiz from the Glee Club in Cardiff.
With Lucy Porter, Milton Jones, Lloyd Langford and Chris Corcoran.
Producers: Paul Forde and Gareth Gwynn.
First broadcast on BBC Radio Wales in 2006.
SAT 04:30 Elephants to Catch Eels (b007mcc4)
Series 1, Episode 1
If smugglers were the rock stars of the day, Tamsyn Trelawny was Drumlin Bay's very own Ms Dynamite-ee-ee.
But how will she cope when a keen young soldier from London is appointed the new local customs collector.?
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, Julia Deakin as Lady Mary, Mark Felgate as Dewey and Phil Nice as Various Characters.
Producer: Jan Ravens.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in February 2003.
SAT 05:00 Winston (b00pr7lg)
Winston Back Home, Say It Again, Winston
Old rogue Winston has run away and taken the geese, but Nancy intervenes...
Peter Tinniswood's bawdy comedy serial stars Bill Wallis as Winston, Maurice Denham as Father, Shirley Dixon as Nancy, Liz Goulding as Rosie and Christian Rodska as William.
Director: Shaun MacLoughlin.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 1994.
SAT 05:30 Michael Frayn's Matchbox Theatre (b06pxyt0)
Episode 1
Michael Frayn: the most comic philosophical writer of our time. An all-star cast has great fun with Frayn's hilarious view of us all. And of how we attempt to communicate.
In this opening episode, we hear Joanna Lumley and Roger Allam as stone effigies in a cathedral talking to each other like an old married couple. (Well, they've been together several hundred years. Nothing much changes.)
Then there's the younger couples - Charles Edwards and Sophie Winkleman bickering over who should finish who's sentences, and Lisa Dillon and Alex Jennings on the irritations that occur when discussing an apparently simple decision - whether or not to accept a kind invitation.
Martin Jarvis has trouble with a rarefied type of cold-calling - how to tell someone they've won a Nobel Prize. And we have an excerpt from a documentary on a species of creature that scurries and scuttles in the darkness. The wild life narrator sounds suspiciously like Sir David Attenborough. (It is.)
This four-part series is Theatre in miniature. Short entertainments based on Frayn's recently acclaimed book, Matchbox Theatre. His brand new collection, now on the radio - the theatre of the listener's imagination. Set design, ice-cream sales, packet of nuts, where to sit - it's up to you. Just sit back and enjoy.
Episode 1 cast: Charles Edwards, Sophie Winkleman, Joanna Lumley, Roger Allam, Lisa Dillon, Alex Jennings, David Attenborough, Martin Jarvis
Written by Michael Frayn
Producer: Rosalind Ayres
Director: Martin Jarvis
A Jarvis and Ayres production for BBC Radio 4.
SAT 06:00 Caryl Churchill - Top Girls (b0076y00)
A dinner party with a difference - as Marlene, a modern, successful woman of the 1980s, entertains five guests from the past.
19th century Victorian traveller Isabella Bird, 13th century Japanese Courtesan Lady Nijo, Dull Gret, a character from a Breughel painting, Pope Joan and, arriving late, Patient Griselda - Chaucer's obedient wife.
All are remarkable women - all are long dead.
Caryl Churchill's drama - first staged in 1982 at the Royal Court in London - examines the political costs of women rising to the top.
Starring Lesley Manville as Marlene, Deborah Findlay as Isabella Bird, Lesley Sharp as Dull Gret, Sarah Lam as Lady Nijo, Cecily Hobbs as Pope Joan, Anna Patrick as Patient Griselda and Beth Goddard as the Waitress.
Director: Hilary Norrish
First broadcast on the BBC World Service in 1992.
SAT 07:30 The Three Voyages of Captain Cook (b00769wc)
This Melancholy Affair
After the astounding success of his first two voyages, few imagined that Captain James Cook would go to sea again.
In the last of three programmes, Dr Nigel Rigby of the National Maritime Museum, learns that Cook, already 48, wanted to find the fabled North West Passage between America and Asia, probably motivated by the prize of £20,000.
He died in the attempt, killed on Hawaii in 1779.
Reader: Bill Wallis
Music composed and performed by John Metcalfe.
Producer: Mark Smalley
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2002.
SAT 08:00 Archive on 4 (b04hmfpd)
Four Women Poets Today
In 1992, four relatively unknown poets spoke with Peggy Reynolds for BBC Radio 4 about the impact of gender and nationality on their poetry and on their sense of themselves as poets.
Today, Carol Ann Duffy is the first-ever Poet Laureate, Gillian Clarke is the National Poet of Wales, Liz Lochhead is the Makar or National Poet of Scotland, and Eavan Boland is a highly distinguished scholar-poet who divides her year between Stanford and Dublin.
In the light of these developments - not to mention the constitutional changes and wild economic fluctuations of the last 21 years - Peggy Reynolds speaks with each of them again, asking them to reflect on their creative and professional journeys and on the state of women's poetry - and poetry in general - today.
Finally, she asks them to cast forward and predict what they might say if there were a similar programme in 21 years time. Their replies surprise her.
Producer Beaty Rubens.
SAT 09:00 The Workin's of Perkins: The Radio Life of Geoffrey Perkins (b00pk92h)
When British comedy stalwart Geoffrey Perkins died suddenly in 2008 aged 55, he left behind a legacy of programmes that few can equal.
He was involved in ground-breaking TV productions like Spitting Image, Father Ted and The Fast Show. He also kick-started the careers of the likes of Ben Elton and Harry Enfield. However, Perkins' roots were in radio.
His friend and colleague Angus Deayton presents this 3 hour showcase tribute to the producer, writer and performer: Featuring:
* Radio Active,
Series 1 Ep 2/6: Bedrock (Mike Flex Breakfast Show)
The National Local Radio Station offers advice for nuclear war plus guests Status Quid. Stars Geoffrey Perkins, Angus Deayton, Helen Atkinson-Wood, Michael Fenton Stevens and Philip Pope. From 1981.
* Hordes of the Things
Ep 1/4:
The kingdom of Albion is in peril. Andrew Marshall and John Lloyd's epic Tolkien parody with Paul Eddington, Miriam Margolyes and Simon Callow. From 1980.
* Legal, Decent, Honest and Truthful
Series 1 Ep 1/6:
Ken Handley pitches to a motorway services chain. Advertising satire starring Martin Jarvis and Wendy Richard. From 1982
* Ernest Fontwell Versus The Experts
The Communications Experts/ The Holiday Experts
How to beat the fiends in white coats and overalls at their own game. Two episodes of this 1979 comedy starring Frank Thornton and Patsy Rowlands.
* The 27-Year Itch
Series 2: Ep 1/6 The Family That Stays Together Lives Apart
Marital mayhem comedy starring Hugh Paddick and Betty Marsden. From 1980.
* The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
The Secondary Phase (6/6) Fit The Twelth
Arthur and Zaphod learn some unpalatable home truths. Stars Peter Jones. From 1980.
Producer: Mik Wilkojc
Made for BBC 7 and first broadcast in 2009.
SAT 12:00 Never Too Late (b011j605)
Down Memory Lane
Feisty Hilda's senior citizen holiday sees man-mad Mildred after a nostalgic destination.
A surviving episode from Terry Gregson's sitcom series about a group of highly active pensioners.
Starring Thora Hird as Hilda Spriggett, Kenneth Connor as Albert Pickles, Joe Gladwyn as Tommy Preston, Megs Jenkins as Emily Holroyd and Avis Bunnage as Mildred Emmett.
Producer: Edward Taylor
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 1981.
SAT 12:30 The Write Stuff (b0076yq7)
Series 9, Alan Bennett
James Walton quizzes the panel in the literary quiz show.
Team captains Sebastian Faulks and John Walsh with guests Michèle Roberts and Harry Ritchie.
The Author of the Week and subject for pastiche is Alan Bennett.
Reader: Beth Chalmers.
Producer Katie Marsden
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in June 2006.
SAT 13:00 Curious Under the Stars (b0bhfhkf)
A Mermaid's Kiss
When Gareth is pushed off the harbour wall, he finds himself face-to-face with a mermaid.
Continuing series of the magical drama set in Glan Don, a mysterious village perched on the wild Welsh coast.
Gareth .... Elis James
Diane .... Emma Sidi
Emlyn .... Ifan Huw Dafydd
Megan .... Gwyneth Keyworth
Guto .... John Weldon
Written by Alan Harris.
Series created by Meic Povey
Directed by James Robinson and Nigel Lewis
A BBC Cymru Wales Production first broadcast in five parts on BBC Radio.
SAT 14:10 Inheritance Tracks (b0bhfhkh)
Judy Murray
Tennis coach Judy Murray chooses 'The Jeely Piece Song' by the Singing Kettle and 'Girl' by Sharon Martin.
SAT 14:15 Down Your Way (b0bhfhkk)
Irene Thomas in Milton Keynes
BBC Radio 4's Brain of Britain champion Irene Thomas visits the home of the Open University, Milton Keynes.
An 'almost unconscious accumulation of knowledge' helped ex-chorus-girl Irene Thomas to become the first woman to win both the general knowledge and the three-yearly winners' contest, Brain Of Brains.
This time Irene gets to pose the questions as she tours the OU's headquarters.
Down Your Way was one of the BBC's longest-running radio series - starting on the BBC Home Service in 1946 and ending its run on BBC Radio 4 in 1992. Using a variety of hosts, including Richard Dimbleby and Brian Johnston, the programme toured villages, towns and cities across the UK. At the height of its success in the 1950s, the series was attracting 10 million listeners a week.
Irene Thomas died aged 81 in 2001.
Producer: Jill Marshall
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1988.
SAT 15:00 Archive on 4 (b04hmfpd)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
SAT 16:00 Caryl Churchill - Top Girls (b0076y00)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
SAT 17:30 The Three Voyages of Captain Cook (b00769wc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
SAT 18:00 Joseph Wilde - Produce (b0bhfhkm)
When a couple discover that they can't have a healthy baby naturally, Zenith Genomics seems to offer the solution: they can create a perfect, bespoke child, with every gene hand-picked. For a price. But the parents soon find that perfection brings its own problems...
A dark fable about parental expectation and the pressures of parenting in a competitive and commodified world.
Joseph Wilde's unsettling drama set in the near future.
Anita .... Laura dos Santos
Tom .... Joseph Kloska
Dr Ahmed .... Seeta Indrani
Beth .... Amy-Jayne Leigh
Mr Dean .... Ewan Bailey
Director: Abigail le Fleming
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2016.
SAT 18:45 Jan Mark - Black and White (b088ssr4)
Nule
Martin dresses up the old newel stair post to look like a person, but his joke soon turns very creepy. Read by Malcolm Raeburn.
SAT 19:00 The Workin's of Perkins: The Radio Life of Geoffrey Perkins (b00pk92h)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]
SAT 22:00 The Lee Mack Show (b00bt53m)
The Lee Mack Show, Suggs
Madness singer Suggs joins the quick-fire comic for stand-up, sketches and music. With Angela McHale and Steve Brown. From March 2005.
SAT 22:30 The Richest Man in Britain (b00nlx7p)
The Interview
Sitcom by Nick Hornby and Giles Smith about an ageing rock star and his search for fulfilment.
Trillionnaire rocker Dave Mabbutt is persuaded to preview his 'drums-only' version of 1970s classic album, Temple of the Human Mind.
Dave Mabbutt ...... Mark Williams
Dom ...... Russell Tovey
Dave's Mum ...... Lynda Bellingham
Jane the Guardian journalist ...... Kerry Fox.
SAT 23:00 Simon Evans Goes to Market (b061t68k)
Series 2, Tobacco
Comedian Simon Evans returns with a new series about the economics of some of the goods - or bads - we are addicted to.
If you crave your daily coffee, can't get by without a cigarette, feel that mid-afternoon slump without your sugar-fix, or can't face an evening without a glass of wine, you are definitely not alone. But have you ever thought about the economics that has made your addiction possible? Who does it profit? And would you want to make some canny investments that take advantage of our human weaknesses?
In this series, Simon Evans looks at the economics, history and health issues behind these oh-so-addictive commodities.
This week it's tobacco. It's been called the single biggest avoidable cause of death in the world today yet it has remained an investment goldmine, with a single pound invested in tobacco stocks in 1900 now being worth over 6 million pounds.
Simon speaks to Robert West, Professor of Health Psychology and Director of Tobacco Studios at University College London about current global trends in smoking. He is also joined by economics guru, More Or Less host Tim Harford and the Queen of investment know-how, Merryn Somerset-Webb, as he walks us around the economics of these very familiar commodities and pokes fun at our relationship with them.
Presented by Simon Evans, with Professor Robert West, Tim Harford and Merryn Somerset-Webb.
Written by Simon Evans, Benjamin Partridge and Andy Wolton.
Produced by Claire Jones.
SAT 23:30 Mark Thomas: The Manifesto (b00x44lw)
Series 3, Episode 1
Comedian-activist, Mark Thomas returns for another series in which he collates policies suggested by his studio audience into the People's Manifesto.
This week Mark and the audience consider an agenda which includes a shame-based pay-policy for professional footballers, compulsory relationship MOTs and the public funding of political parties, plus there's "any other business" suggestions from the theatre audience.
Mark also starts to pursue one of the winning policies from last series - that he should invade Jersey.


SUNDAY 02 SEPTEMBER 2018

SUN 00:00 Joseph Wilde - Produce (b0bhfhkm)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:00 on Saturday]
SUN 00:45 Jan Mark - Black and White (b088ssr4)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:45 on Saturday]
SUN 01:00 Curious Under the Stars (b0bhfhkf)
[Repeat of broadcast at 13:00 on Saturday]
SUN 02:10 Inheritance Tracks (b0bhfhkh)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:10 on Saturday]
SUN 02:15 Down Your Way (b0bhfhkk)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:15 on Saturday]
SUN 03:00 Archive on 4 (b04hmfpd)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 on Saturday]
SUN 04:00 Caryl Churchill - Top Girls (b0076y00)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 on Saturday]
SUN 05:30 The Three Voyages of Captain Cook (b00769wc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 on Saturday]
SUN 06:00 Christopher Denys - Promenade Rock (b0bhfnpx)
Omnibus, Episode 2
Fresh out of "finishing school", Joyce Pilton auditions for Professor Broadbent's Punch and Judy show, with disastrous results...
Omnibus of the last five of ten-parts by Christopher Denys set in the 1950s heyday of the Great British seaside holiday.
Starring Nerys Hughes as Eirlys Richards, Russell Boulter as Matthew Dolan, Tina Gray as Theda Pilton, Chris Emmett as Professor Bernie Broadbent, Tracy Wiles as Joyce Pilton and Guy Higgins as the Voice of Punch and Judy.
Director: Sue Wilson
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2003.
SUN 07:15 Clive Dunn - Definitely Dunn (b073ccby)
The Men From Walmington
Don't panic! Memories of Dad's Army star Clive Dunn, who played Lance-Corporal Jack Jones for nearly a decade on TV, radio and film between 1968 to 1977.
Recalling highlights from his first 50 years in entertainment, Clive recalls joining Dad's Army and his fellow cast members - and playing 'Buttons' in pantomime.
Clive was aged 68 at the time of recording. He died in Portugal in 2012, aged 92.
Producer: Edward Taylor
First broadcast on BBC Radio 2 in 1988.
SUN 07:30 To Hull and Back (b06hjkv6)
Series 1, The French Connection
Sophie still lives at home with her mum in Hull. They make a living doing car boot sales at the weekend. Except they don't really make a living because her mum can't bear to get rid of any of their junk.
Plus, they don't have a car. As their house gets more cluttered, Sophie feels more trapped. Sophie dreams of moving to London to meet her dad and to become a famous actress. Will this dream come true?
Pilot episode of the sitcom by BBC New Comedy Award winner, Lucy Beaumont.
Starring Lucy Beaumont as Sophie and Maureen Lipman as Sheila.
Producer: Carl Cooper
A BBC Radio Comedy Production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2014.
SUN 08:00 Floggit's (b00ct1wp)
From 09/11/1956
A power cut causes chaos in the village. Gossip galore at sisters Gert and Daisy's general store in Russett Green.
Stars Elsie and Doris Waters as Gert and Daisy.
With Joan Sims, Ron Moody, Ronnie Barker and Hugh Paddick.
Originally popular regulars in 'Worker's Playtime' on the BBC Home Service during wartime, Gert and Daisy won own series, Floggit's, when the duo inherited a village general store with a ragbag of local characters to deal with. It ran for 2 series between 1956 and 1957.
Scripted by Terry Nation, John Junkin and Dave Freeman.
Producer: Bill Gates
First broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in November 1956.
SUN 08:30 Take It From Here (b01b1s9l)
From 26/03/1958
The 10th anniversary Show, with a 'Pygmalion' spoof and The Operatic Weather Forecast.
Starring Professor Jimmy Edwards, Dick Bentley and June Whitfield.
Music from Wallace Eaton and the Keynotes and the BBC Revue Orchestra conducted by Harry Rabinowitz.
Scripted by Frank Muir and Denis Norden.
Producer: Charles Maxwell
First broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in March 1958.
SUN 09:00 A Boy in the Water (Omnibus) (b0bhfnpz)
In September 1988, eleven-year-old Tom Gregory became the youngest person ever to swim the English Channel, trained by a coach at his local swimming baths in Eltham, South East London.
Tom first went to the swimming baths in Eltham when he was seven. As one of the slowest swimmers in his class at school, he could barely make it across a width without taking a break half way. Despite a reluctant start, his potential was soon spotted by the coach who ran the club. John Bullet was an old-school disciplinarian and a maverick in the Channel Swimming establishment, who had an impressive track record for training distance swimmers. He had established a team of local kids who trained together in open water at Dover, in the cold waters of Windermere, and in London Docks. When John singled Tom out as a Channel contender, Tom's training began in earnest; as his ability and stamina became evident, his (and John's) sights focussed on the world record for the youngest swimmer to make a solo crossing of the Channel.
As coach, mentor and inspiration John Bullet inspired extraordinary loyalty from his young swimmers. Tom and his older sister Anna were part of a close-knit group of young people who spent their holidays being mini-bussed around the country, camping out and listening to Top Twenty mix tapes, all the while training in conditions which would challenge swimmers of any age.
Tom describes the intensity and closeness of these five years of his life with affection and honesty; the account of his gruelling training and his record-breaking Channel swim, all before his twelfth birthday, is both exhilarating, and, to a generation brought up on stricter health and safety regulations, occasionally disquieting.
Tom's world record still stands today and can never be broken; since his swim the qualifying age for an official Channel challenge has been raised to sixteen.
Tom Gregory went on to become an officer in the Royal Anglican Regiment and served in Iraq and Afghanistan. He now lives in Surrey with his wife and daughter.
Reader: Patrick Kennedy
Abridged and produced by Sara Davies.
SUN 10:10 The Listening Project (b04kf5zq)
Rachel and Mandy - Diary Keepers
Fi Glover introduces a conversation between friends who record their activities and their likes and dislikes with considerable dedication.
The Listening Project is a Radio 4 initiative that offers a snapshot of contemporary Britain in which people across the UK volunteer to have a conversation with someone close to them about a subject they've never discussed intimately before. The conversations are being gathered across the UK by teams of producers from local and national radio stations who facilitate each encounter. Every conversation - they're not BBC interviews, and that's an important difference - lasts up to an hour, and is then edited to extract the key moment of connection between the participants. Most of the unedited conversations are being archived by the British Library and used to build up a collection of voices capturing a unique portrait of the UK in the second decade of the millennium. You can learn more about The Listening Project by visiting bbc.co.uk/listeningproject
Producer: Marya Burgess.
SUN 10:15 Desert Island Discs Revisited (b0813n7x)
Adventurers, Simon Murray
From Annie Lennox to Giacomo Puccini, adventurer Simon Murray shares his castaway choices with Kirsty Young. From January 2009.
SUN 11:00 Radiolab (b0bhfnq1)
Series 4, Apocalyptical
Radiolab turns its gaze to the topic of endings, both blazingly fast and agonizingly slow. With Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich.
Radiolab is a Peabody-award winning show about curiosity. Where sound illuminates ideas, and the boundaries blur between science, philosophy, and the human experience.
Hosts Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich investigate a strange world.
First broadcast on public radio in the USA.
SUN 12:00 Floggit's (b00ct1wp)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
SUN 12:30 Take It From Here (b01b1s9l)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
SUN 13:00 Christopher Denys - Promenade Rock (b0bhfnpx)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
SUN 14:15 Clive Dunn - Definitely Dunn (b073ccby)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:15 today]
SUN 14:30 Jaws by Peter Benchley (Omnibus) (b0bhfnq3)
"He didn't see the fin rise behind him..."
Amity's beaches are open again for the 4th July weekend. But Brody is nervous...
Will it ever be safe to go back into the water?
Henry Goodman continues Peter Benchley's classic 1974 novel, which went on to become one of the greatest movies of all time.
Omnibus of the last five of ten parts.
Writer: Peter Benchley's 1974 novel shot straight on to the bestseller lists, and has since sold some 20 million copies. It was adapted into the iconic film by Steven Spielberg a year later. The film won three Academy Awards.
Abridger: Richard Hamilton.
Producer: Justine Willett
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in August 2018.
SUN 15:45 Inside the Queen's Head (b00t3bns)
Gay Bar
Lemn Sissay visits pubs with the Queen's name to meet her subjects. A lesbian anarchist and a male voice choir are in Brighton.
SUN 16:00 Drama (b0501k2f)
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow - The Song of Hiawatha
The Song of Hiawatha by
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
This epic narrative poem, with its picturesque and highly imaginative tales, threads the many aspects of native American mythology concerning life, nature and ritual. Weaving together "beautiful traditions into a whole" as Longfellow intended.
Narrator ...... Henry Goodman
Hiawatha ..... Neet Mohan
Gitche Manito/Mudjekeewis/Pau-Puk-Keewis ...... Ramon Tikaram
Nokomis ...... Shaheen Khan
Young Hiawatha ...... Talia Barnett
Minnehaha ..... Harriet Judd
Chibiabos's song, and original music was composed and performed by Olly Fox
Directed by Pauline Harris.
SUN 17:00 Poetry Extra (b0bhfnq5)
Lindisfarne: Poetry in Progress
Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'Lindisfarne: Poetry in Progress'.
After four centuries - the Lindisfarne Gospel-book returned to the North-East of England in in 2013 - not as far as the island itself, but to Palace Green Library in Durham.
To mark the occasion, the Newcastle Centre for the Literary Arts commissioned 12 poets to respond to the book and to the almost-island on which it was created.
Beaty Rubens followed the poets' progress - sharing crab sandwiches and beer on a coach-trip to the island back in the spring and hearing about their progress over the summer and early autumn as they each wrote and recorded their poems.
Finally, she hears from the digital artist who created two installations where the poems could be enjoyed by the public.
This is the story of their Poetry in Progress.
Producer: Beaty Rubens
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2013.
SUN 17:30 To Hull and Back (b06hjkv6)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
SUN 18:00 Dan Dare (b0bhfnq7)
Marooned on Mercury, Episode 1
On their journey Earthwards, Dare and the crew of the Anastasia rally to the assistance of an old ally...
Adventures based on the Eagle comic strip 'Dan Dare' created in 1950 by the Reverend Marcus Morris and Frank Hampson.
Starring Ed Stoppard as Dan Dare, Geoff McGivern as Digby, Heida Reed as Professor Peabody, Raad Rawi as the Mekon, Bijan Daneshmand as Sondar, Kelly Burke as Ergolux, Dianne Weller as the On-Board Computer, Nicholas Briggs as Garlock and Alistair Lock as Crewman Galloway.
Dramatised by Marc Platt.
Director: Andrew Mark Sewell.
Made by B7.
SUN 18:35 Wilkie Collins - The Dead Hand (b007k2ws)
"When he looked at the bed now, he saw hanging over the side of it a long, white hand."
When Arthur visits Doncaster during race week, he's obliged to share a hotel room with a stranger.
A tale of mystery by Wilkie Collins - adapted by Michael Bakewell
Read by Peter Marinker
Producer: Rosemary Hart
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1989.
SUN 19:00 Radiolab (b0bhfnq1)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:00 today]
SUN 20:00 A Boy in the Water (Omnibus) (b0bhfnpz)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]
SUN 21:10 The Listening Project (b04kf5zq)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:10 today]
SUN 21:15 Desert Island Discs Revisited (b0813n7x)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:15 today]
SUN 22:00 To Hull and Back (b06hjkv6)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
SUN 22:30 Self Storage (b01gykv4)
Jobhunting
Dave is still separated. Can he get his life back on track by getting a job? Stars Reece Shearsmith. From October 2007.
SUN 22:45 2000 Years of Radio (b069npj8)
Series 2, Tempest FM
The shocking truth - who really wrote Shakespeare's plays? Recreation of the wireless archives with Al Holloway. From October 2002.
SUN 23:00 Radio 2's Comedy Showcase (b007kc2k)
Ready, Steady, Sink!
The crew on the rotting ship broadcasting Radio Splash - Britain's 11th most popular pirate radio station - miserably endure each other's foul personal habits and constant lack of essential supplies. Stars Peter Kay. From January 2000.
SUN 23:30 Dave Podmore (b007jz8b)
Dave Podmore's Cricket Night, Episode 4
After meeting Rory McGrath on TV, the legendary player is called to Buckingham Palace. Stars Chris Douglas. From May 2004.


MONDAY 03 SEPTEMBER 2018

MON 00:00 Dan Dare (b0bhfnq7)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:00 on Sunday]
MON 00:35 Wilkie Collins - The Dead Hand (b007k2ws)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:35 on Sunday]
MON 01:00 Christopher Denys - Promenade Rock (b0bhfnpx)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 on Sunday]
MON 02:15 Clive Dunn - Definitely Dunn (b073ccby)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:15 on Sunday]
MON 02:30 Jaws by Peter Benchley (Omnibus) (b0bhfnq3)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:30 on Sunday]
MON 03:45 Inside the Queen's Head (b00t3bns)
[Repeat of broadcast at 15:45 on Sunday]
MON 04:00 Drama (b0501k2f)
[Repeat of broadcast at 16:00 on Sunday]
MON 05:00 Poetry Extra (b0bhfnq5)
[Repeat of broadcast at 17:00 on Sunday]
MON 05:30 To Hull and Back (b06hjkv6)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 on Sunday]
MON 06:00 Jim Eldridge - Down Payment on Death (b007jtkk)
A Shot in the Night
Sick of the espionage business, professional hitman Art Gordo had quit the British Secret Service. But then he's offered big money to carry out one last killing...
The first of a 5-part thriller adapted by Jim Eldridge from his own novel.
Stars Dinsdale Landen as Art Gauder, Manning Wilson as Clarke, and Frances Jeater as Louise Lenehan.
Producer: John Fawcett-Wilson
First broadcast on the BBC World Service in 1976.
MON 06:30 What's in Your Head (b00jnkdx)
Under pressure, when we are on our own, many of us hear the words or songs we learnt by heart as a child. This programme features people discussing how these songs have helped them in situations of extreme pressure and danger.
Heidi Vincent is a secondary school teacher in Devon whose son Theo was born prematurely at 23 weeks. She describes her four months of waiting in intensive care as being 'like in some kind of shifted reality'.
Ghias Aljundi was a political prisoner of conscience who was tortured and held in a Syrian prison cell for four years without charge. He was comforted by a poem he had memorised called My Mother.
Peter Shaw from south Wales was kidnapped while working in Georgia and held underground for four months. He found that music and songs which he had learned from his father helped him.
A Loftus production for BBC Radio 4.
MON 07:00 Flying the Flag (b007jx5g)
Series 1, Favours
In which the repair of the Embassy typewriter plays a part in the mating of seals, the extermination of bugs, and the silencing of little birds.
Alex Shearer's Eastern bloc embassy sitcom.
Starring Dinsdale Landen as HM Ambassador Mr Mackenzie, Peter Acre as William Frost, Moir Leslie as Helen Waterson, Milton Johns as Brown, Stuart Organ as Bryant and Christopher Benjamin as the Colonel
Producer: Pete Atkin
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 1987.
MON 07:30 Just a Minute (b0bgc00n)
Series 82, Episode 4
The second of two special episodes recorded at this year's Edinburgh Festival with Paul Merton, Fred MacAulay, Mark Watson and Jo Caulfield.
Hayley Sterling blows the whistle.
Producer: Richard Morris
A BBC Studios Production.
MON 08:00 Hancock's Half Hour (b007s5g6)
Almost a Gentleman
Overlooked in the New Year's Honours, the lad brushes up on his social etiquette skills.
Starring Tony Hancock, Sidney James, Bill Kerr, Kenneth Williams and Hattie Jacques.
Written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson.
Theme and incidental music composed by Wally Stott. Recorded by the BBC Revue Orchestra conducted by Harry Rabinowitz.
Producer: Dennis Main Wilson
First broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in January 1957.
MON 08:30 It Sticks Out Half a Mile (b007jpyj)
Marooned
A visit to the pier theatre ends in disaster for Arthur Wilson and Miss Perkins.
A seaside saga of pier perpetuation starring John Le Mesurier as Arthur Wilson, Ian Lavender as Frank Pike, Bill Pertwee as Bert Hodges and Vivienne Martin as Miss Perkins.
After a pilot episode was made in 1981, Arthur Lowe sadly died. So this 13-part series was revamped to feature the Dad's Army characters played by Pertwee and Lavender instead. The series was later adapted for ITV by Yorkshire TV.
Written by Harold Snoad and Michael Knowles, based on the characters originally created by Jimmy Perry and David Croft.
Producer: Martin Fisher
First broadcast on BBC Radio 2 in January 1984.
MON 09:00 Wordaholics (b01s6c9z)
Series 2, Episode 4
Gyles Brandreth chairs the word-obsessed comedy panel game where this week Katy Brand & Alex Horne compete with Richard Herring & Natalie Haynes for wordy supremacy.
This week Richard Herring decides to reclaim the word 'middle class' and tries to decipher the 16th century phrase 'a mare's nest'; Natalie Haynes tries to get rid of the word 'decimate' and despite being a vegetarian works out what the very meaty cookery term 'barding' means; Alex Horne comes up with the correct definition for the Victorian phrase 'a scraping castle' and asks to take the word 'a' out of the dictionary. Meanwhile Katy Brand takes a guess at what the unit of measurement 'the Warhol' is and reveals that her favourite word is 'plop'.
Writers: Jon Hunter and James Kettle.
Producer: Claire Jones.
MON 09:30 King Street Junior Revisited (b007jx80)
Series 1, A Good Heart
The long summer holiday is over - and it's D-day minus one for the school teachers of King Street Junior.
School comedy created and written by Jim Eldridge. Ten series of this King Street Junior ran between 1985 and 1998. King Street Junior Revisited ran from 2002 to 2005.
Stars Carolyn Pickles as Mrs Devon, Marlene Sidaway as Miss Lewis, Michael Cochrane as Mr Maxwell, Paul Copley as Mr Long, Teresa Gallagher as Miss Featherstone, Jacqueline Beatty as Miss Reid, Janice Acquah as Mrs Khan and Elliot Gonzalez as Peter.
Producer: John Fawcett Wilson
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 2002.
MON 10:00 Evelyn Waugh - Brideshead Revisited (b007k2ms)
Beginnings
Midway through the war, a disillusioned Captain Charles Ryder finds himself posted to a remote country retreat. It's Brideshead Castle, scene of the happiest years of his young, impressionable life and the beginnings of his friendship with Sebastian Flyte - whose presence will forever haunt him.
Evelyn Waugh's most famous novel of life, love and a forgotten era.
Starring Ben Miles as Charles Ryder, Jamie Bamber as Sebastian Flyte, Anne-Marie Duff as Julia, Abby Ford as Cordelia, Toby Jones as Brideshead, Tom Smith as Boy Mulcaster, Ann Beach as Nanny Hawkins, Martin Hyder as Jasper, Geoffrey Streatfeild as Anthony Blanche, Andrew Wincott as Hooper, Scott Brooksbank as Collins.
Dramatised in four parts by Jeremy Front.
Music by Neil Brand
Director: Marion Nancarrow
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2003.
MON 11:00 Alison Moore - The Pre-War House and Other Stories (b03w3y3x)
The Egg
William's impressive collection of birds' eggs lacks only one thing: an egg from a mute swan.
Ruth Gemmell reads a selection of stories from Alison Moore's atmospheric, and sometimes dark, debut collection.
Alison Moore was born in Manchester in 1971. Her stories have been published in various magazines and anthologies including Best British Short Stories 2011. She has been shortlisted for the Bridport Prize and the Manchester Fiction Prize, and won first prize in the novella category of The New Writer Prose and Poetry Prizes. Her first novel, The Lighthouse, was shortlisted for The Man Booker Prize 2012.
Abridged and produced by Jeremy Osborne
A Sweet Talk Production for BBC Radio 4 Extra.
MON 11:15 Afternoon Drama (b00lpl8t)
Machado de Assis - A Second Life
Comic drama by Adam Beeson, adapted from a short story by the 19th-century Brazilian writer Machado de Assis. Anxious to avoid all the mistakes in his life, a man appeals to Heaven to allow him to be born again with 'experience'. But in his second life this precious knowledge proves no use at all.
Father Caldos ...... John Bett
Jose Maria ...... Richard Conlon
Dona Clemencia ...... Lucy Paterson
Lucas ...... John Macaulay
Prophet Job ...... Mark McDonnell
Other parts played by the cast.
Directed by Bruce Young.
MON 12:00 Hancock's Half Hour (b007s5g6)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
MON 12:30 It Sticks Out Half a Mile (b007jpyj)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
MON 13:00 Jim Eldridge - Down Payment on Death (b007jtkk)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
MON 13:30 What's in Your Head (b00jnkdx)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 today]
MON 14:00 Book at Bedtime (b044gs0q)
Jo Baker - Longbourn, Episode 1
By Jo Baker. The story of 'Pride and Prejudice from the servants' point of view.
It is wash-day for the housemaids at Longbourn House and Sarah's hands are chapped and raw.
'If Elizabeth Bennet had the washing of her own petticoats', Sarah thought, she would be more careful not to tramp through muddy fields.'
The peace - or monotony - of domestic life below stairs is about to be disturbed the the arrival of a new footman, James.
MON 14:15 The Making of Music (b007mh44)
Series 1, Origins
James Naughtie discovers how history has shaped classical music. The origins of this music begin in the churches and monasteries of the Christian world, from Constantinople in the East to Iona in Scotland. The building blocks of classical music were formed.
Produced by Rosie Boulton, Sara Conkey, Lucy Lunt
BBC Birmingham.
MON 14:30 Jane Beeson - A Monkey With a Box of Paints (b0076481)
First Stirrings
As the first impressionist exhibition opens to the ridicule of the critics, the first stirrings of Berthe Morisot's talent are recalled with an early encounter with Édouard Manet.
Jane Beeson's five-part series looking at the female impressionist painter Berthe Morisot through her correspondence with her mother and sister.
Berthe ... Sarah-Jane Holm
Cornelie ... Pauline Munro
Manet ...Simon Chandler
Edma .... Alison Pettitt
Guichard .... Robert Lister
Woolf ... Ian Brooker
Directed at BBC Pebble Mill by Peter Leslie Wild
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2001.
MON 14:45 Book of the Week (b039zg2f)
Sandra Hempel - The Inheritor's Powder: A Cautionary Tale of Poison, Betrayal and Greed, Episode 1
On the morning of Saturday 2nd of November 1833, the Bodle household sat down to their morning breakfast, sharing a pot of coffee. That evening, the local surgeon John Butler received an urgent summons - the family and their servants had all collapsed with a serious illness. Three days later, after lingering in agony, the wealthy grandfather George Bodle died in his bed at his farmhouse in Plumstead. The Bodles had been the victims of a terrible poisoning.
In the nineteenth century, criminal poisoning with arsenic was frighteningly easy. For a few pence and with few questions asked, it was possible to buy enough poison to kill off an entire family, hence arsenic's popular name - The Inheritor's Powder.
The surgeon John Butler had set about collecting the evidence that he hoped would bring the culprit to justice but, in the 1830s, forensic science was still in its infancy. Even diagnosing arsenic poisoning was a hit-and-miss affair.
So when a chemist named James Marsh was called as an expert witness in the case of the murder at Plumstead, he decided that he had to create a reliable test for arsenic poisoning, or the murders would continue and killers would be left to walk free. In so doing though he was to cause as many problems as he solved. Were innocent men and women now going to the gallows?
Sandra Hempel, author of The Inheritor's Powder, is a medical journalist who has written for a wide variety of both popular newspapers and magazines and specialist publications, from the Mail on Sunday and The Times to Nursing Times and BMA News.
Abridged by Libby Spurrier
Director: David Blount
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.
MON 15:00 Evelyn Waugh - Brideshead Revisited (b007k2ms)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:00 today]
MON 16:00 Wordaholics (b01s6c9z)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]
MON 16:30 King Street Junior Revisited (b007jx80)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:30 today]
MON 17:00 Flying the Flag (b007jx5g)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:00 today]
MON 17:30 Just a Minute (b0bgc00n)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
MON 18:00 15 Minute Drama (b00qzjr4)
Hilary Mantel - Beyond Black, Voices From the Other Side
Dramatisation by Caroline Harrington of Hilary Mantel's blackly comic novel about a professional medium with a troubled past.
Alison Hart is a professional medium, an awkward, obese, disorganised woman, but with a gift for empathy and a good platform technique. Her familiar spirits are figures from her chaotic childhood, principal among them a small, foul-mouthed circus performer with disgusting personal habits called Morris who is her unpleasant and bitter spirit guide.
To try and create some order in her messy existence she has taken on an assistant, the highly efficient but essentially heartless Colette, who, although she is a regular witness to Alison's gift, is nevertheless a profoundly sceptical companion. The two of them are bound together by a need that neither wants to recognise.
Alison ...... Alison Steadman
Colette ...... Rosie Cavaliero
Morris ...... Bill Wallis
Directed by Sara Davies.
MON 18:15 Jonathan Aycliffe - The Matrix (b01nlwzy)
Evil Awaits
"I understood nothing then. I was still a child ..."
A postgraduate student's research into the occult brings him under the malign influence of an ancient book of spells - the Matrix Aeternitatis.
Set in contemporary Edinburgh. Jonathan Aycliffe's chilling novel abridged in ten parts by Rosemary Goring.
Read by Robert Paterson
Producer: David Jackson Young
First broadcast on BBC Radio Scotland in 1997.
MON 18:30 A Good Read (b00770wg)
Joanne Harris & Lisa Jardine
Sue MacGregor and her guests - author Joanne Harris and former Chair of the Man Booker prize, Professor Lisa Jardine - discuss books by Donna Leon, Patricia Duncker and Emily Bronte. From 2006.
Doctored Evidence by Donna Leon
Publisher: Arrow
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Publisher: Penguin Popular Classics
The Deadly Space Between by Patricia Duncker
Publisher: Picador.
MON 19:00 Hancock's Half Hour (b007s5g6)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
MON 19:30 It Sticks Out Half a Mile (b007jpyj)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
MON 20:00 Jim Eldridge - Down Payment on Death (b007jtkk)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
MON 20:30 What's in Your Head (b00jnkdx)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 today]
MON 21:00 Alison Moore - The Pre-War House and Other Stories (b03w3y3x)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:00 today]
MON 21:15 Afternoon Drama (b00lpl8t)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:15 today]
MON 22:00 Just a Minute (b0bgc00n)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
MON 22:30 Start/Stop (b04th9fg)
Series 2, Glastonbury
Hit comedy about three marriages in various states of disrepair. Starring Jack Docherty, Kerry Godliman, John Thomson, Fiona Allen, Charlie Higson and Sally Bretton.
This week the three couples have tickets for Glastonbury. But the festival dates clash with Cathy's dad's birthday. Barney fears he will be marooned in a care home while his friends have the time of their lives at the music festival.
At the festival Alice tries to lose David, Evan tries to get David to loosen his tie, and Fiona tries to get Alice to lose her inhibitions and talk about Barney.
Meanwhile in the care home Barney is losing the will to live while being made to sing 'If You're Happy and You Know It Clap Your Hands'.
Producer ..... Claire Jones.
MON 23:00 News Quiz Extra (b0bhfzrn)
Series 24, Episode 1
Miles Jupp is joined by Mark Steel, Angela Barnes, Helen Lewis and Simon Evans for the first episode of the new series.
This week dancing, scallops and energy drinks - but not all necessarily at the same time.
Written by Madeleine Brettingham, Max Davis, James Kettle and Mike Shephard
Producer: Richard Morris
A BBC Studios Production.
MON 23:45 Hearing With Hegley (b018sgz6)
Series 2, Episode 1
The poet laureate of alternative comedy, John Hegley entertains with a book of verse. With Nigel Piper. From August 1998.


TUESDAY 04 SEPTEMBER 2018

TUE 00:00 15 Minute Drama (b00qzjr4)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:00 on Monday]
TUE 00:15 Jonathan Aycliffe - The Matrix (b01nlwzy)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:15 on Monday]
TUE 00:30 A Good Read (b00770wg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:30 on Monday]
TUE 01:00 Jim Eldridge - Down Payment on Death (b007jtkk)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 on Monday]
TUE 01:30 What's in Your Head (b00jnkdx)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 on Monday]
TUE 02:00 Book at Bedtime (b044gs0q)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:00 on Monday]
TUE 02:15 The Making of Music (b007mh44)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:15 on Monday]
TUE 02:30 Jane Beeson - A Monkey With a Box of Paints (b0076481)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:30 on Monday]
TUE 02:45 Book of the Week (b039zg2f)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:45 on Monday]
TUE 03:00 Evelyn Waugh - Brideshead Revisited (b007k2ms)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:00 on Monday]
TUE 04:00 Wordaholics (b01s6c9z)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 on Monday]
TUE 04:30 King Street Junior Revisited (b007jx80)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:30 on Monday]
TUE 05:00 Flying the Flag (b007jx5g)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:00 on Monday]
TUE 05:30 Just a Minute (b0bgc00n)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 on Monday]
TUE 06:00 Jim Eldridge - Down Payment on Death (b007jtkq)
The Double Target
Retired professional hitman, Art Gordo heads to his friend Louise's flat to plan his next moves.
Thriller adapted by Jim Eldridge from his own novel.
Stars Dinsdale Landen as Art Gauder and Frances Jeater as Louise Lenehan.
Producer: John Fawcett-Wilson
First broadcast on the BBC World Service in 1976.
TUE 06:30 My Yiddisher Mother Tongue (b00n5nz2)
Writer and comedian David Schneider goes on a personal journey through Yiddish culture and language.
Schneider, who first came to fame on The Day Today and I'm Alan Partridge, is the grandson of a Yiddish playwright and a Yiddish actress. He returns to Whitechapel and Vienna where his grandparents performed and considers the rich thousand-year history of the language.
Contributors include Yiddish enthusiasts including Michael Grade and General Colin Powell, who picked up the language in his teens when he worked in a Jewish toy store in New York.
TUE 07:00 Secrets and Lattes (b042zbmt)
Series 1, Oh God It's Christmas...
Episode 6. Oh God, it's Christmas...
It's December in episode 6, the final part of Hilary Lyon's comedy narrative series, and Trisha (played by Julie Graham) has high expectations of the imminent festive season in Edinburgh, as she is spending her first Christmas back in her native city with a particularly special person. She is also uncharacteristically enthusiastic about all things festive at work in 'Cafe Culture', the Bruntsfield coffee shop she runs with her usually sensible big sister Clare (played by Hilary Lyon).
However, everybody else in the Cafe Culture team seems to be dreading it all and there's little evidence of seasonal goodwill around. Clare would happily cancel the whole thing and is fearful of a stressful scenario at home with her troubled husband and monosyllabic teenage children and, for the first time ever, can't summon up the enthusiasm for hanging up even a few tasteful baubles.
Temperamental, opera-loving polish chef, Krzyzstof (Simon Goodall) is having his own major traumas and reservations about everything in his life and although he plans on holding a traditional feast with friends, a major falling-out with Trisha makes this increasingly unlikely. The fourth member of the cafe team, teenage waitress Lizzie (played by Pearl Appleby) is avoiding addressing some complicated family stuff in her past and is pretending to be an ostrich when it comes to Christmas.
Can the team overcome their sturm und drang, survive Christmas and make Cafe Culture a continuing success?
Trish.......................................Julie Graham
Clare.......................................Hilary Lyon
Krzysztof.................................Simon Greenall
Lizzie......................................Pearl Appleby
Richard.....................................Roger May
Director....................................Marilyn Imrie
Producers ............................... Moray Hunter and Gordon Kennedy
An Absolute production for BBC Radio 4.
TUE 07:30 Thanks a Lot, Milton Jones! (b03vgnjl)
Series 1, Wedding Planner
Mention Milton Jones to most people and the first thing they think is 'Help!'.
King of the one-liners, Milton Jones returns BBC to Radio 4 for an amazing 10th series in a new format where he has decided to set himself up as a man who can help anyone anywhere - whether they need it or not. Because, in his own words, "No problem too problemy".
But each week, Milton and his trusty assistant Anton set out to help people and soon find they're embroiled in a new adventure. So when you're close to the edge, then Milton can give you a push.
This week, Milton has decided to become a wedding planner. But when a distraught bride comes to the door with the case of the vanishing groom-to-be, Milton is all set to help.
Written by Milton with James Cary ("Bluestone 42", "Miranda") and Dan Evans (who co-wrote Milton's Channel 4 show "House Of Rooms") the man they call "Britain's funniest Milton," returns to the radio with a fully-working cast and a shipload of new jokes.
The cast includes regulars Tom Goodman-Hill ("Spamalot", "Mr. Selfridge") as the ever-faithful Anton, and Dan Tetsell ("Newsjack"), and features the one and only Josie Lawrence working with Milton for the first time.
Producer David Tyler's radio credits include Armando Iannucci's Charm Offensive, Cabin Pressure, Bigipedia, Another Case Of Milton Jones, Jeremy Hardy Speaks To The Nation, The Brig Society, Giles Wemmbley Hogg Goes Off, The 99p Challenge, The Castle, The 3rd Degree and even, going back a bit, Radio Active.
Produced and Directed by David Tyler
A Pozzitive production for BBC Radio 4.
TUE 08:00 The Small, Intricate Life of Gerald C Potter (b007jtg6)
Series 1, The Promotion
Gerald and Diana compete to publicize their new books.
The convoluted chronicle of an optimistic crime writer written by Basil Boothroyd.
Starring Ian Carmichael as Gerald C Potter and Charlotte Mitchell as his wife and more successful writer, Diana.
With James Thomason, Anthony Smee and Peter Craze.
The Small, Intricate Life of Gerald C Potter ran from 1976 to 1981.
Producer: Bobby Jaye
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 1976.
TUE 08:30 The Men From the Ministry (b007jqfn)
Not on Your Telly
The bungling bureaucrats spark bedlam during a BBC 'Panorama' probe.
Stars Richard Murdoch and Deryck Guyler.
With Norma Ronald, Ronald Baddiley and John Graham.
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 August 1977.
TUE 09:00 News Quiz Extra (b0bhfzrn)
[Repeat of broadcast at 23:00 on Monday]
TUE 09:45 Hearing With Hegley (b018sgz6)
[Repeat of broadcast at 23:45 on Monday]
TUE 10:00 Evelyn Waugh - Brideshead Revisited (b007k2nx)
New Vistas
Friendship with the ebullient Sebastian Flyte continues to open up new vistas for Charles. But for Sebastian, the family is closing in.
Evelyn Waugh's most famous novel of life, love and a forgotten era.
Starring Ben Miles as Charles Ryder, Jamie Bamber as Sebastian Flyte, Anne-Marie Duff as Julia, Eleanor Bron as Lady Marchmain, William Hope as Rex Mottram, Abby Ford as Cordelia, Edward Petherbridge as Lord Marchmain, Liza Sadovy as Cara, Benjamin Whitrow as Mr Ryder, Thomas Arnold as Mr Samgrass, Toby Jones as Brideshead, Tom Smith as Boy Mulcaster, Ann Beach as Nanny, Emma Woolliams as Death's Head, Laura Doddington as the Sickly Child and Martin Hyder as the Sergeant.
Dramatised in four parts by Jeremy Front.
Music by Neil Brand
Director: Marion Nancarrow
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2003.
TUE 11:00 Alison Moore - The Pre-War House and Other Stories (b03w46lf)
Static
Over the last 40 years, Wilfred has never wanted anyone but Dorothy. But he's never been a great romantic.
Ruth Gemmell reads a selection of stories from Alison Moore's atmospheric, and sometimes dark, debut collection.
Alison Moore was born in Manchester in 1971. Her stories have been published in various magazines and anthologies including Best British Short Stories 2011. She has been shortlisted for the Bridport Prize and the Manchester Fiction Prize, and won first prize in the novella category of The New Writer Prose and Poetry Prizes. Her first novel, The Lighthouse, was shortlisted for The Man Booker Prize 2012.
Abridged and produced by Jeremy Osborne
A Sweet Talk Production for BBC Radio 4 Extra.
TUE 11:15 Rachel Feldberg - Flying (b0076k43)
A chance meeting between ex-lovers changes both their lives for ever, for the better.
Rachel Feldberg's story of grief, revenge and love, set on a Leeds allotment.
Stars Steve Huison as Ozzy, Kerry Fox as Cass and Elianne Byrne as Emily.
Director: Polly Thomas
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2004.
TUE 12:00 The Small, Intricate Life of Gerald C Potter (b007jtg6)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
TUE 12:30 The Men From the Ministry (b007jqfn)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
TUE 13:00 Jim Eldridge - Down Payment on Death (b007jtkq)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
TUE 13:30 My Yiddisher Mother Tongue (b00n5nz2)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 today]
TUE 14:00 Book at Bedtime (b044jhsh)
Jo Baker - Longbourn, Episode 2
Sarah is suspicious of the new footman James Smith, even though his presence lightens her workload. Pride & Prejudice from the servants' perspective, read by Sophie Thompson.
TUE 14:15 The Making of Music (b007mtk0)
Series 1, Notre Dame
James Naughtie discovers how history has shaped the development of classical music. Notre Dame in Paris was consecrated in 1163. Paris was the centre of intellecual life in Europe. As Notre Dame was being built, two men were writing the music that would fill it. Perotin and Leonin are the first named composers that come down to us through history.
Produced by Rosie Boulton, Sara Conkey , Lucy Lunt
BBC Birmingham.
TUE 14:30 Jane Beeson - A Monkey With a Box of Paints (b007648k)
Passion
Berthe compares herself to Baudelaire, and Manet is impressed with her passion. As her sister settles into married domesticity, Berthe encounters a slightly more comical suitor of her own.
Jane Beeson's five-part series looking at the female impressionist painter Berthe Morisot through her correspondence with her mother and sister.
Berthe ... Sarah-Jane Holm
Cornelie ... Pauline Munro
Manet ...Simon Chandler
Edma .... Alison Pettitt
Guichard .... Robert Lister
Woolf ... Ian Brooker
Directed at BBC Pebble Mill by Peter Leslie Wild
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2001.
TUE 14:45 Book of the Week (b03b965w)
Sandra Hempel - The Inheritor's Powder: A Cautionary Tale of Poison, Betrayal and Greed, Episode 2
On the morning of Saturday 2nd of November 1833, the Bodle household sat down to their morning breakfast, sharing a pot of coffee. That evening, the local surgeon John Butler received an urgent summons - the family and their servants had all collapsed with a serious illness. Three days later, after lingering in agony, the wealthy grandfather George Bodle died in his bed at his farmhouse in Plumstead. The Bodles had been the victims of a terrible poisoning.
In the nineteenth century, criminal poisoning with arsenic was frighteningly easy. For a few pence and with few questions asked, it was possible to buy enough poison to kill off an entire family, hence arsenic's popular name - The Inheritor's Powder.
The surgeon John Butler had set about collecting the evidence that he hoped would bring the culprit to justice but, in the 1830s, forensic science was still in its infancy. Even diagnosing arsenic poisoning was a hit-and-miss affair.
So when a chemist named James Marsh was called as an expert witness in the case of the murder at Plumstead, he decided that he had to create a reliable test for arsenic poisoning, or the murders would continue and killers would be left to walk free. In so doing though he was to cause as many problems as he solved. Were innocent men and women now going to the gallows?
Sandra Hempel, author of The Inheritor's Powder, is a medical journalist who has written for a wide variety of both popular newspapers and magazines and specialist publications, from the Mail on Sunday and The Times to Nursing Times and BMA News.
Abridged by Libby Spurrier
Director: David Blount
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.
TUE 15:00 Evelyn Waugh - Brideshead Revisited (b007k2nx)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:00 today]
TUE 16:00 Dilemma (b01qmb08)
Series 2, Episode 1
Sue Perkins puts Paul Sinha, Lemn Sissay, Margaret Cabourn-Smith and Graeme Garden through the moral and ethical wringer in the panel show where they face finely-balanced dilemmas and Sue cross-examines their answers.
Comic Paul struggles with his sporting loyalties; poet Lemn experiences something new, actor and comic Margaret faces up to some poor parenting; and Graeme contemplates life without one of his favourite Aunties.
There are no "right" answers - but there are some deeply damning ones.
Devised by Danielle Ward.
Producer: Ed Morrish.
TUE 16:30 Ballylenon (b007jx54)
Series 5, Episode 1
Phonsie's sale of the Hoover ancestral home sparks much speculation.
Series set in the sleepy town of Ballylenon, Co Donegal in 1956.
Written by Christopher Fitz-Simon.
Starring TP McKenna as Phonsie Doherty, Margaret D'Arcy as Muriel McConkey, Stella McCusker as Vera McConkey, Aine McCartney as Vivienne Boal, Charlie Bonnar as Packy McGoldrick, Marcella Riordan as Peg Sweeney and John Guiney as Father O'Flatley.
Music arranged and performed by Stephanie Hughes.
Director: Eoin O'Callaghan
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1998.
TUE 17:00 Secrets and Lattes (b042zbmt)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:00 today]
TUE 17:30 Thanks a Lot, Milton Jones! (b03vgnjl)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
TUE 18:00 15 Minute Drama (b00qzjr6)
Hilary Mantel - Beyond Black, Colette's Story
Dramatisation by Caroline Harrington of Hilary Mantel's blackly comic novel about a professional medium with a troubled past.
Colette is an event organiser whose marriage to dull, conventional Gavin ends after she has the strange experience of holding a phone conversation with Gavin's mother, whom she later discovers is dead. Colette's interest in the paranormal leads her to a Psychic Extravanganza in Windsor where professional medium Alison is performing, and to a subsequent consultation where Alison drops a bombshell about her father and then makes her a surprising job offer.
Alison ...... Alison Steadman
Colette ...... Rosie Cavaliero
Gavin ...... Mark Meadows
Natasha/Renee ...... Adrienne O'Sullivan
Directed by Sara Davies.
TUE 18:15 Jonathan Aycliffe - The Matrix (b01nm0f0)
Repercussions
"I threw the book onto the coals. It burst into flame as though soaked in petrol."
Trying to rid himself of an ancient book of spells, postgraduate student Andrew MacLeod is drawn to a sinister group...
Set in contemporary Edinburgh. Jonathan Aycliffe's chilling novel abridged in ten parts by Rosemary Goring.
Read by Robert Paterson
Producer: David Jackson Young
First broadcast on BBC Radio Scotland in 1997.
TUE 18:30 My Life in Five Songs (b00nz121)
Series 1, Lorraine McIntosh
Lorraine McIntosh is a singer, actress and now a composer. As female vocalist with Deacon Blue she enjoyed the success that comes when a band sells over 6 million records. Equally at home in front of a camera Lorraine's appeared in films and on TV and she's now turned her hand to writing songs. In conversation with Phil Cunningham she reveals the 5 songs that are really special to her.
TUE 19:00 The Small, Intricate Life of Gerald C Potter (b007jtg6)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
TUE 19:30 The Men From the Ministry (b007jqfn)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
TUE 20:00 Jim Eldridge - Down Payment on Death (b007jtkq)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
TUE 20:30 My Yiddisher Mother Tongue (b00n5nz2)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 today]
TUE 21:00 Alison Moore - The Pre-War House and Other Stories (b03w46lf)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:00 today]
TUE 21:15 Rachel Feldberg - Flying (b0076k43)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:15 today]
TUE 22:00 Thanks a Lot, Milton Jones! (b03vgnjl)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
TUE 22:30 Bunk Bed (b03zr0w2)
Series 1, Episode 2
Everyone craves a place where their mind and body are not applied to a particular task. The nearest faraway place. Somewhere for drifting and lighting upon strange thoughts which don't have to be shooed into context, but which can be followed like balloons escaping onto the air. Late at night, in the dark and in a bunk bed, your tired mind can wander. This is the nearest faraway place for Patrick Marber and Peter Curran.
Here they endeavour to get the heart of things in an entertainingly vague and indirect way. This is not the place for typical male banter.
From under the bed clothes they play each other music from The Residents and Gerry Rafferty, archive of JG Ballard and Virginia Woolf. Life, death, work and family are their slightly warped conversational currency.
Writers/Performers:
PETER CURRAN is a publisher, writer and documentary maker. A former carpenter, his work ranges from directing films about culture in Africa, America and Brazil to writing and presenting numerous Arts and culture programmes for both radio and television.
PATRICK MARBER co-wrote and performed in On The Hour and Knowing Me, Knowing You..with Alan Partridge. His plays include Dealer's Choice, After Miss Julie, Closer and Don Juan in Soho. Marber also wrote the Oscar-nominated screenplay for the film Notes on a Scandal.
Writers/Performers:
Producer: Peter Curran.
TUE 22:45 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.
TUE 22:55 The Comedy Club Interviews (b0bjfz85)
Matt Green. 1/2
From 10.00pm till midnight, 7 days a week, the Comedy Club has two hours of comedy. Plus Rob Deering chats to Matt Green. Episode 1 of 2.
TUE 23:00 Revolting People (b00f80zs)
Series 1, An Incredible Amount of Storm Clouds
Feared Briton General Venables demands executions by sunset. 1770 America sitcom stars Andy Hamilton. From February 2000.
TUE 23:30 Inside Alan Francis (b00j17xy)
Episode 4
Comedy series in which comedian Alan Francis explores the workings of his own mind in relation to his life, friends and long-suffering girlfriend Jane.
Alan leaves home.
With Julian Dutton, Barnaby Power, Kali Peacock.


WEDNESDAY 05 SEPTEMBER 2018

WED 00:00 15 Minute Drama (b00qzjr6)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:00 on Tuesday]
WED 00:15 Jonathan Aycliffe - The Matrix (b01nm0f0)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:15 on Tuesday]
WED 00:30 My Life in Five Songs (b00nz121)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:30 on Tuesday]
WED 01:00 Jim Eldridge - Down Payment on Death (b007jtkq)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 on Tuesday]
WED 01:30 My Yiddisher Mother Tongue (b00n5nz2)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 on Tuesday]
WED 02:00 Book at Bedtime (b044jhsh)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:00 on Tuesday]
WED 02:15 The Making of Music (b007mtk0)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:15 on Tuesday]
WED 02:30 Jane Beeson - A Monkey With a Box of Paints (b007648k)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:30 on Tuesday]
WED 02:45 Book of the Week (b03b965w)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:45 on Tuesday]
WED 03:00 Evelyn Waugh - Brideshead Revisited (b007k2nx)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:00 on Tuesday]
WED 04:00 Dilemma (b01qmb08)
[Repeat of broadcast at 16:00 on Tuesday]
WED 04:30 Ballylenon (b007jx54)
[Repeat of broadcast at 16:30 on Tuesday]
WED 05:00 Secrets and Lattes (b042zbmt)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:00 on Tuesday]
WED 05:30 Thanks a Lot, Milton Jones! (b03vgnjl)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 on Tuesday]
WED 06:00 Jim Eldridge - Down Payment on Death (b007jtkw)
A Life for a Life
Retired hitman Art Gordo faces more pressure to kill the shadowy Charles Allweather.
Sick of the espionage business, professional hitman Art Gordo had quit the British Secret Service. But he's been offered big money to carry out one last killing...
Thriller adapted by Jim Eldridge from his own novel.
Stars Dinsdale Landen as Art Gauder, Frances Jeater as Louise Lenehan, Donald Gee as Paul Le Clerk and Joanna Wake as Sally Le Clerk.
Producer: John Fawcett-Wilson.
First broadcast on the BBC World Service in 1976.
WED 06:30 In Search of the Holy Quail (b00mdy17)
Rock musicians and bird watchers Guy Garvey, Martin Noble and Marc Riley go to Shetland in search of the quail. From September 2009.
WED 07:00 Like They've Never Been Gone (b00bfq16)
Series 2, All Aboard!
There's mutiny in the air as Tommy and Sheila set off on their cruise.
30 years after sweethearts Tommy Franklin and Sheila Parr won the 1962 Eurovision Song Contest, the musical double-act are back in the big time.
Series 2 of Mike Coleman's six-part sitcom stars June Whitfield and Roy Hudd.
With Pat Coombs, Julian Eardley, Edward Halstead, Tracy Ann Oberman and Les Dennis.
Music by Frido Ruth.
Producer: Steve Doherty
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 1999.
WED 07:30 Sarah Kendall: Australian Trilogy (b0bgg3b6)
Series 2, One-Seventeen AM
Part 2: One-Seventeen AM.
"Good day, bad day, who can tell..."
Multi-award winning storyteller Sarah Kendal returns with more hilarious, gripping and moving stories.
This second volume of Sarah Kendall's Australian Trilogy, is one show in three parts. A collection of seemingly unconnected stories and memories, which, together, form a meditation on luck, survival and hindsight.
Scrolling backwards and forwards in time to different moments in her life, over the three parts Sarah creates an intricate montage, demonstrating the interconnectedness of life.
In this second part, Sarah is trying to be more positive. She tells us of a trip to the vets with the family's pet hamster, of a car accident she was in as a child, and of a day at a clinic with her son. And we find out that hamsters originate from Syria.
Written by Sarah Kendall & Carl Cooper
Performed by Sarah Kendall
Producer - Carl Cooper
Production Co-ordinator - Beverly Tagg
This is a BBC Studios production
Photo Credit - Rosalind Furlong
Series One of Sarah Kendall's Australian Trilogy-
Winner - Writers' Guild Award - Best Radio Comedy
Winner - BBC Audio Drama Award - Best Scripted Comedy (Longform)
Winner -Silver ARIA Award - Best Fictional Storytelling
Nominee - Chortle Comedy Awards - Best Radio Show
Nominee - Music and Radio Awards - Best Storytelling.
WED 08:00 The Navy Lark (b01h0kpk)
Wren Chasen Returns
The crew are back from some eventful leave, but Heather's surprise return from Scotland gives her fiancé Phillips a nasty shock.
Stars Jon Pertwee as the Chief Petty Officer, Leslie Phillips as the Sub-Lieutenant, Stephen Murray as the Number One, Ronnie Barker as Able Seaman Johnson, Richard Caldicote as Captain Povey and Heather Chasen as Heather.
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 September 1963.
WED 08:30 Beyond Our Ken (b00tn8kq)
From 19/08/1958
Kenneth Horne flicks through his diary - and 'Hornerama' probes Love and Marriage.
Starring Kenneth Horne, Kenneth Williams, Hugh Paddick, Betty Marsden and Ron Moody.
Written by Eric Merriman and Barry Took
Music from Pat Lancaster, the Malcolm Mitchell Trio and the BBC Review Orchestra conducted by Paul Fenoulhet.
Announcer: Douglas Smith
A madcap mix of sketches and songs, Beyond Our Ken hit the airwaves in 1958 and ran to 1964 - featuring regulars like Arthur Fallowfield, Cecil Snaith and Rodney and Charles.
The precursor to 'Round The Horne' - sadly only 13 shows survive from the original run of 21 episodes in Series 1. Audio restored using both home and overseas (BBC Transcription Service) recordings.
Producer: Jacques Brown
First broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in August 1958.
WED 09:00 Who Goes There? (b00lbnyx)
Series 2, Episode 6
Martin Young chairs the quiz looking at lives of the noteworthy and notorious from the history books.
Tackling the biographical teasers are team captains Francis Wheen and Fred Housego with guests Carmen Callil and Victoria Glendinning.
Producer: Aled Evans
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in July 1998.
WED 09:30 The Secret Life of Rosewood Avenue (b007k1rc)
Moving In
'What's Rosewood Avenue like? Very quiet. Very sedate. Very residential. Just the sort of place you'd feel at home in ...'
A hapless vicar discovers life behind suburbia's net curtains isn't what he expected.
Stephen Sheridan's six-part series stars James Grout as the Reverend Timothy Carswell, Margaret Courtenay as Miss Tilling, Jean Heywood as Miss Tapp and Christopher Good as Dr Warlock.
Producer: Lissa Evans.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in February 1991.
WED 10:00 Evelyn Waugh - Brideshead Revisited (b007k2q1)
Strains
With their friendship strained, Sebastian continues his drinking and Charles is lured by Paris and art.
Evelyn Waugh's most famous novel of life, love and a forgotten era.
Starring Ben Miles as Charles Ryder, Jamie Bamber as Sebastian Flyte, Benjamin Whitrow as Mr Ryder, Eleanor Bron as Lady Marchmain, William Hope as Rex Mottram, Anne-Marie Duff as Julia, Abby Ford as Cordelia, Thomas Arnold as Mr Samgrass, Toby Jones as Brideshead, Eve Best as Celia, Geoffrey Streatfeild as Anthony Blanche, Tom Smith as Boy Mulcaster, Carl Prekopp as Kurt, Jemma Churchill as the Nurse, Andrew Wincott as Wilcox and Martin Hyder as the Monk.
Dramatised in four parts by Jeremy Front.
Music composed by Neil Brand
Director: Marion Nancarrow
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2003.
WED 11:00 Jennifer Egan - Emerald City and Other Stories (b01f5c03)
Puerto Vallarta
2011 was a phenomenal year for the young American author, Jennifer Egan. Her novel, 'A Visit From The Goon Squad' became a run-away bestseller and went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Now a collection of her short stories has been re-published by Constable and Robinson.
Entitled Emerald City, the stories are a pithy and sometimes poignant look at contemporary life in the United States. Young and middle-aged characters change, grow and regret in a series of tales that traverse the United States and the state of modern marriage, parenting and ambition. Egan is heralded as one of the best writers to emerge in the past decade and this collection underlines her ability to bring a spotlight on the particular and to reflect a nation in challenging times.
Today's story, Puerto Vallarta, is a portrait of a family, where the truth is not as it seems and where a daughter has to make a choice and so find her own freedom.
The Reader is Sasha Pick
The Abridger is Miranda Davies
The Producer is Di Speirs.
WED 11:15 Daphne Du Maurier (b0076d82)
The Little Photographer
The young Madame la Marquise is away on holiday - alone and bored. But then she meets the local photographer and feels the thrill of being looked at...
An illicit slow burning passion in Daphne du Maurier's classic, with a surprise twist in the tale.
Madame.... Sian Thomas
Photographer....John McAndrew
Elise/Mademoiselle Paul .... Nickie Rainsford
Edouard/Manager .... Robert Harper
Miss Clay.... Pauline Whitaker
Celeste .... Alice Ford
Dramatised by Michelene Wandor.
Director: Geni Hall-Kenny
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2003.
WED 12:00 The Navy Lark (b01h0kpk)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
WED 12:30 Beyond Our Ken (b00tn8kq)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
WED 13:00 Jim Eldridge - Down Payment on Death (b007jtkw)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
WED 13:30 In Search of the Holy Quail (b00mdy17)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 today]
WED 14:00 Book at Bedtime (b044j3gl)
Jo Baker - Longbourn, Episode 3
Sarah notices that the presence of the militia makes James uncomfortable. What secrets is he keeping? Pride & Prejudice from the servants' perspective, read by Sophie Thompson.
WED 14:15 The Making of Music (b007mnr4)
Series 1, Troubadours
James Naughtie discovers how history has shaped the development of classical music. Across Europe in courts and great houses, music was beginning to celebrate the human as well as the divine. The Troubadours wrote songs of love, jealousy and betrayal.
Reader: Benedict Cumberbatch
Produced by Rosie Boulton, Sara Conkey, Lunt Lunt
BBC Birmingham.
WED 14:30 Jane Beeson - A Monkey With a Box of Paints (b0076491)
Rivalry
Berthe poses for a portrait by Manet entitled Rest, but she finds his admiration is beginning to grow for another gifted painter, Eva Gonzales.
Jane Beeson's five-part series looking at the female impressionist painter Berthe Morisot through her correspondence with her mother and sister.
Berthe ... Sarah-Jane Holm
Cornelie ... Pauline Munro
Manet ...Simon Chandler
Edma .... Alison Pettitt
Guichard .... Robert Lister
Woolf ... Ian Brooker
Directed at BBC Pebble Mill by Peter Leslie Wild
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2001.
WED 14:45 Book of the Week (b03b96l4)
Sandra Hempel - The Inheritor's Powder: A Cautionary Tale of Poison, Betrayal and Greed, Episode 3
On the morning of Saturday 2nd of November 1833, the Bodle household sat down to their morning breakfast, sharing a pot of coffee. That evening, the local surgeon John Butler received an urgent summons - the family and their servants had all collapsed with a serious illness. Three days later, after lingering in agony, the wealthy grandfather George Bodle died in his bed at his farmhouse in Plumstead. The Bodles had been the victims of a terrible poisoning.
In the nineteenth century, criminal poisoning with arsenic was frighteningly easy. For a few pence and with few questions asked, it was possible to buy enough poison to kill off an entire family, hence arsenic's popular name - The Inheritor's Powder.
The surgeon John Butler had set about collecting the evidence that he hoped would bring the culprit to justice but, in the 1830s, forensic science was still in its infancy. Even diagnosing arsenic poisoning was a hit-and-miss affair.
So when a chemist named James Marsh was called as an expert witness in the case of the murder at Plumstead, he decided that he had to create a reliable test for arsenic poisoning, or the murders would continue and killers would be left to walk free. In so doing though he was to cause as many problems as he solved. Were innocent men and women now going to the gallows?
Sandra Hempel, author of The Inheritor's Powder, is a medical journalist who has written for a wide variety of both popular newspapers and magazines and specialist publications, from the Mail on Sunday and The Times to Nursing Times and BMA News.
Abridged by Libby Spurrier
Director: David Blount
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.
WED 15:00 Evelyn Waugh - Brideshead Revisited (b007k2q1)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:00 today]
WED 16:00 Who Goes There? (b00lbnyx)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]
WED 16:30 The Secret Life of Rosewood Avenue (b007k1rc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:30 today]
WED 17:00 Like They've Never Been Gone (b00bfq16)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:00 today]
WED 17:30 Sarah Kendall: Australian Trilogy (b0bgg3b6)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
WED 18:00 15 Minute Drama (b00qzjr8)
Hilary Mantel - Beyond Black, An Evil Thing
Dramatisation by Caroline Harrington of Hilary Mantel's blackly comic novel about a professional medium with a troubled past.
Colette decides Alison should publish a book, and starts to interview her on tape. She soon realises she's taken on more than she might want to know: Alison's memories of her childhood in Aldershot turn out to be profoundly disturbing. Her mother arranged abortions for other women, but couldn't get rid of her own child, and may well have offered her to a succession of detestable petty thieves and abusers. They lived in squalor, Alison was neglected, and her school life and subsequent jobs were messed up by interfering spirits. She was rescued by a neighbour, Mrs Etchells, who claimed to be her grandmother, and who introduced her to the psychic world.
Alison ...... Alison Steadman
Colette ...... Rosie Cavaliero
Morris ...... Bill Wallis
Emmie ...... Katharine Rogers
Keith ...... Simon Armstrong
Mrs McGibbet ...... Sheila Hannon
Mrs Etchells ...... June Barrie
Directed by Sara Davies.
WED 18:15 Jonathan Aycliffe - The Matrix (b01nm20n)
Morocco
Andrew journeys to Morocco with the sinister Duncan Mylne, where a shock awaits him...
Jonathan Aycliffe's chilling novel abridged in ten parts by Rosemary Goring.
Read by Robert Paterson
Producer: David Jackson Young
First broadcast on BBC Radio Scotland in 1997.
WED 18:30 How Tickled Am I? (b007jnxs)
Series 1, Jimmy Clitheroe
"Nearly a quarter of the population settle down to listen to a radio classic..."
Mark Radcliffe profiles the diminutive radio star who played a schoolboy. But was he ever allowed to grow up?
A six-part series exploring the tradition of the northern comedian.
Producer: Bernadette McConnell
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1999.
WED 19:00 The Navy Lark (b01h0kpk)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
WED 19:30 Beyond Our Ken (b00tn8kq)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
WED 20:00 Jim Eldridge - Down Payment on Death (b007jtkw)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
WED 20:30 In Search of the Holy Quail (b00mdy17)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 today]
WED 21:00 Jennifer Egan - Emerald City and Other Stories (b01f5c03)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:00 today]
WED 21:15 Daphne Du Maurier (b0076d82)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:15 today]
WED 22:00 Sarah Kendall: Australian Trilogy (b0bgg3b6)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
WED 22:30 Sarah Millican's Support Group (b00qx458)
Series 1, Episode 2
Comedy by Sarah Millican, who plays Sarah, life counsellor and modern-day agony aunt.
Sarah tackles the problems, 'My Mother is behaving like a teenager - she's 50 not 15!' and I'm a sensitive butcher who loves meat jokes and innards but is too nice to find a girl - where am I going wrong?'
Sarah ...... Sarah Millican
Marion ...... Ruth Bratt
Terry ...... Simon Daye
Shirley ...... Janice Connolly
Julie ...... Emma Fryer
David ...... Tim Key.
WED 23:00 The Masterson Inheritance (b007jqyg)
Series 3, Masterson Rides Again
The life of young Billy at his Victorian boarding school. Improvised historical family saga with Paul Merton. From July 1995.
WED 23:30 Absolute Power (b007zmrm)
Series 3, Episode 4
Martin has a sporting challenge, but can Charles save a disgraced minister? Stars Stephen Fry and John Bird. From January 2002.


THURSDAY 06 SEPTEMBER 2018

THU 00:00 15 Minute Drama (b00qzjr8)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:00 on Wednesday]
THU 00:15 Jonathan Aycliffe - The Matrix (b01nm20n)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:15 on Wednesday]
THU 00:30 How Tickled Am I? (b007jnxs)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:30 on Wednesday]
THU 01:00 Jim Eldridge - Down Payment on Death (b007jtkw)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 on Wednesday]
THU 01:30 In Search of the Holy Quail (b00mdy17)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 on Wednesday]
THU 02:00 Book at Bedtime (b044j3gl)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:00 on Wednesday]
THU 02:15 The Making of Music (b007mnr4)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:15 on Wednesday]
THU 02:30 Jane Beeson - A Monkey With a Box of Paints (b0076491)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:30 on Wednesday]
THU 02:45 Book of the Week (b03b96l4)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:45 on Wednesday]
THU 03:00 Evelyn Waugh - Brideshead Revisited (b007k2q1)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:00 on Wednesday]
THU 04:00 Who Goes There? (b00lbnyx)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 on Wednesday]
THU 04:30 The Secret Life of Rosewood Avenue (b007k1rc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:30 on Wednesday]
THU 05:00 Like They've Never Been Gone (b00bfq16)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:00 on Wednesday]
THU 05:30 Sarah Kendall: Australian Trilogy (b0bgg3b6)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 on Wednesday]
THU 06:00 Jim Eldridge - Down Payment on Death (b007tcfh)
The Professionals
Retired hitman Art Gordo makes a decision about his target Charles Allweather, but what about Louise?
Thriller adapted by Jim Eldridge from his own novel.
Stars Dinsdale Landen as Art Gauder, Frances Jeater as Louise Lenehan, Donald Gee as Paul Le Clerk and Basil Hinson as Leon Young.
Producer: John Fawcett-Wilson
First broadcast on the BBC World Service in 1976.
THU 06:30 Written in Stone (b00lyfl3)
Llewelyn Morgan tells the story of how an ancient stone inscription came to the National Museum of Afghanistan in Kabul.
The journey that the Rabatak Inscription took is a tale of determination and bravery, passing through the hands of an Afghan warlord called Sayad Jafar Naderi, British archaeologist Jonathan Lee and also the Taliban. It is now the job of Omar Khan Masoudi, director of the National Museum, to keep it safe and reunite it with other Afghan treasures that are currently abroad.
The programme explores the lengths to which people have gone to protect the archaeological and cultural heritage of Afghanistan, and the role that history may play in the country's future.
THU 07:00 Snap (b00td5sb)
Series 1, Episode 1
When a couple have history, how can they ever be history?
Molly and Doug are separating but as he's only moving a few streets away, can they make a clean break?
Paul Mendelson's sitcom stars Rebecca Lacey as Molly, Paul Venables as Doug, Soumaya Keynes as Kaz, Jessie Sullivan as Ryan, Rebecca Front as Scarlet, Marlene Sidaway as Mrs Lonsdale and Richard Firth as Ansel.
Producer: David Ian Neville
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in July 2003.
THU 07:30 Plum House (b07gfzw3)
Series 1, Perilously Poorly Peter
Comedy about the inept staff at an historic house starring Simon Callow and Miles Jupp.
Every year thousands of tourists flock to the Lake District. But one place they never go to is Plum House - the former country home of terrible poet George Pudding (1779-1848). Now a crumbling museum, losing money hand over fist, it struggles to stay open under its eccentric curator Peter Knight (Simon Callow).
In this episode, Peter is forced to visit town, somewhere he hasn't been since Woolworths closed down, for a medical emergency. He leaves his hopelessly out-of-touch deputy Julian (Miles Jupp) in charge who sees it as a perfect opportunity for him to finally make his mark on the place by, amongst other things, establishing his cafe Chez Julian, a hangout for 'Cumbrian Jean Paul Sartres'.
Written by Ben Cottam and Paul Mckenna
Directed and Produced by Paul Schlesinger
A Hat Trick production for BBC Radio 4.
THU 08:00 Yes Minister (b007jmpx)
Series 1, The Right to Know
MP Jim Hacker tries to excavate himself from problems with badgers.
Starring Paul Eddington as Jim Hacker, Nigel Hawthorne as Sir Humphrey Appleby and Derek Fowldes as Bernard.
With Diana Hoddinott as Annie, Peter Cellier as Sir Frederick and Gerry Cowper as Lucy.
Bill Nighy as Frank Weisel, Richard Vernon as Sir Desmond, Richard Davies as Morgan and Arthur Cox as George.
Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn satirical sitcom ran on BBC TV between 1980 and 1984. Yes Minister is centred around the hapless Jim Hacker and a collection of civil service underlings headed by the Machiavellian Sir Humphrey Appleby and obsequious Bernard.
Adapted for radio by producer Pete Atkin.
First broadcast on Radio 4 in 1983.
THU 08:30 The Goon Show (b009kmns)
The Flea
Neddie Seagoon is Samuel Pepys and he is facing trouble from a flea called Francoise. Stars Harry Secombe. From December 1956.
THU 09:00 The Write Stuff (b0076ytb)
Series 9, Henry James
James Walton quizzes the panel in the literary quiz show.
Team captains Sebastian Faulks and John Walsh with guests Peter Kemp and Miles Kington.
The Author of the Week and subject for pastiche is Henry James.
Reader: Beth Chalmers.
Producer Katie Marsden
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in June 2006.
THU 09:30 Alison and Maud (b007k3yc)
Series 2, Free-Range Angels
Alison and Maud make merry with a Thai take-away.
Second of two series of Sue Limb's Bed and Breakfast sitcom about sisters Alison and Maud and their guests at the Abbeyfield Guest House in Norwich.
Starring Denise Coffey as Alison, Miriam Margolyes as Maud, Joss Ackland as Father, Geoffrey Whitehead as Bernard, Chris Emmett as Mr Mullet and Nicholas Grace as Leslie.
Producer: Jonathan James-Moore.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 2004.
THU 10:00 Evelyn Waugh - Brideshead Revisited (b007k2r7)
Stormy Waters
Charles is overwhelmed by meeting Julia again on board ship, but will his relationship with the Marchmain family still prove to be jinxed?
Conclusion of Evelyn Waugh's most famous novel of life, love and a forgotten era.
Starring Ben Miles as Charles Ryder, Jamie Bamber as Sebastian Flyte, Benjamin Whitrow as Mr Ryder, Eleanor Bron as Lady Marchmain, William Hope as Rex Mottram, Anne-Marie Duff as Julia, Abby Ford as Cordelia, Thomas Arnold as Mr Samgrass, Toby Jones as Brideshead, Eve Best as Celia, Geoffrey Streatfeild as Anthony Blanche, Tom Smith as Boy Mulcaster, Andrew Wincoot as Wilcox, Liza Sadovy as Cara, Ann Beach as Nanny Hawkins, Edward Petherbridge as Lord Marchmain, Sean Baker as the Doctor and Jonathan Keeble as Father MacKay.
Dramatised in four parts by Jeremy Front.
Music composed by Neil Brand
Director: Marion Nancarrow
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2003.
THU 11:00 Jennifer Egan - Emerald City and Other Stories (b01fhp9l)
Emerald City
2011 was a phenomenal year for the young American author, Jennifer Egan. Her novel, 'A Visit From The Goon Squad' became a run-away bestseller and went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
In her first collection of short stories, entitled Emerald City, the stories are a pithy and sometimes poignant look at contemporary life in the United States. Young and middle-aged characters change, grow and regret in a series of tales that traverse the United States and the state of modern marriage, parenting and ambition.
Today's title story, Emerald City, examines the allure and the disappointments of life among the trend-setters of New York, where fashionistas scrabble for fame and fortune and where realities hit hard.
The Reader is Andrew Scott
The Abridger is Miranda Davies
The Producer is Di Speirs.
THU 11:15 Afternoon Drama (b03cdzm1)
Stephen Wyatt - The Organist's Daughter
When the greatly-admired German composer, Dieterich Buxtehude, wishes to retire from his post as organist at Lübeck Cathedral he faces a major problem. Tradition dictates that his successor must marry his eldest daughter, Anna Margreta, who, although caring and intelligent, is not renowned for her beauty. Buxtehude informs Anna Margreta that it is his express wish that she marries his successor but he agrees that she will be the one to inform any possible candidates of this arrangement.
Among the potential successors are the young musicians, Händel and Bach. Still in their early twenties, neither is willing to contemplate settling down to a life at Lübeck. They simply wish to learn from the great maestro. Each one clearly admires Anna Margreta for her devotion to her father, her love for the Cathedral, her knowledge of music and her plain speaking - but each also has their own clear vision for the future.
Buxtehude and his other daughters become increasingly frustrated until an unexpected solution is found.
Simon Russell Beale plays Buxtehude. He was especially interested in the role as he had visited Lübeck Cathedral (and played the organ) during the making of his recent series of television programmes devoted to the development of classical musical.
Written by Stephen Wyatt
Director: Martin Jenkins
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.
THU 12:00 Yes Minister (b007jmpx)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
THU 12:30 The Goon Show (b009kmns)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
THU 13:00 Jim Eldridge - Down Payment on Death (b007tcfh)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
THU 13:30 Written in Stone (b00lyfl3)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 today]
THU 14:00 Book at Bedtime (b044j94s)
Jo Baker - Longbourn, Episode 4
Sarah is charmed by the Bingleys' footman. James and Mrs Hill both have reason to be worried. Pride & Prejudice from the servants' perspective, read by Sophie Thompson.
THU 14:15 The Making of Music (b007mvlf)
Series 1, Burgundy
James Naughtie discovers how history has shaped the development of classical music. Philip The Good, the Duke of Burgundy funded great musicians Dufay and Binchois. They in turn were influenced by an English composer, John Dunstable. His style was imitated in the Burgundy court and gave music there ' an English countenance.'
Produced by Rosie Boulton, Sara Conkey and Lucy Lunt.
BBC Birmingham.
THU 14:30 Jane Beeson - A Monkey With a Box of Paints (b007649n)
Agonising
Berthe agonises over whether or not to exhibit her latest painting, while Paris becomes overrun by militia preparing for the forthcoming war with Prussia.
Jane Beeson's five-part series looking at the female impressionist painter Berthe Morisot through her correspondence with her mother and sister.
Berthe ... Sarah-Jane Holm
Cornelie ... Pauline Munro
Manet ...Simon Chandler
Edma .... Alison Pettitt
Guichard .... Robert Lister
Woolf ... Ian Brooker
Directed at BBC Pebble Mill by Peter Leslie Wild
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2001.
THU 14:45 Book of the Week (b03b977g)
Sandra Hempel - The Inheritor's Powder: A Cautionary Tale of Poison, Betrayal and Greed, Episode 4
On the morning of Saturday 2nd of November 1833, the Bodle household sat down to their morning breakfast, sharing a pot of coffee. That evening, the local surgeon John Butler received an urgent summons - the family and their servants had all collapsed with a serious illness. Three days later, after lingering in agony, the wealthy grandfather George Bodle died in his bed at his farmhouse in Plumstead. The Bodles had been the victims of a terrible poisoning.
In the nineteenth century, criminal poisoning with arsenic was frighteningly easy. For a few pence and with few questions asked, it was possible to buy enough poison to kill off an entire family, hence arsenic's popular name - The Inheritor's Powder.
The surgeon John Butler had set about collecting the evidence that he hoped would bring the culprit to justice but, in the 1830s, forensic science was still in its infancy. Even diagnosing arsenic poisoning was a hit-and-miss affair.
So when a chemist named James Marsh was called as an expert witness in the case of the murder at Plumstead, he decided that he had to create a reliable test for arsenic poisoning, or the murders would continue and killers would be left to walk free. In so doing though he was to cause as many problems as he solved. Were innocent men and women now going to the gallows?
Sandra Hempel, author of The Inheritor's Powder, is a medical journalist who has written for a wide variety of both popular newspapers and magazines and specialist publications, from the Mail on Sunday and The Times to Nursing Times and BMA News.
Abridged by Libby Spurrier
Director: David Blount
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.
THU 15:00 Evelyn Waugh - Brideshead Revisited (b007k2r7)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:00 today]
THU 16:00 The Write Stuff (b0076ytb)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]
THU 16:30 Alison and Maud (b007k3yc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:30 today]
THU 17:00 Snap (b00td5sb)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:00 today]
THU 17:30 Plum House (b07gfzw3)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
THU 18:00 15 Minute Drama (b00qzjrb)
Hilary Mantel - Beyond Black, Death of a Princess
Dramatisation by Caroline Harrington of Hilary Mantel's blackly comic novel about a professional medium with a troubled past.
Colette is woken one night by Alison getting news from beyond of Princess Diana's fatal car crash. The tragic accident means business will be heavy for all the psychics at the Psychic Fair in Nottingham, and they're not helped by Alison's disgusting spirit guide, Morris, who is more than usually irritating, patrolling the motorway services, desperate to find his mates, and interfering with Alison's friend Mandy. As Alison becomes more disturbed by the darker side of her job, Morris finds his old mate Aitkenside, a development that throws Alison into despair.
Alison ...... Alison Steadman
Colette ...... Rosie Cavaliero
Morris ...... Bill Wallis
Mandy ...... Adrienne O'Sullivan
Silvana ...... Jacqueline Tong
Directed by Sara Davies.
THU 18:15 Jonathan Aycliffe - The Matrix (b01nm5jd)
The Sheik
Returning to Scotland, Andrew becomes increasingly dependent on Mylne's support.
Jonathan Aycliffe's chilling novel abridged in ten parts by Rosemary Goring.
Read by Robert Paterson
Producer: David Jackson Young
First broadcast on BBC Radio Scotland in 1997.
THU 18:30 Great Lives (b014q00c)
Series 25, Hildegard Von Bingen
When the singer Cerys Matthews first played the music of the 12th century nun, Hildegard von Bingen, on her BBC 6 music show, she said she felt she could hear the tumble weed rolling through the listeners' houses. Matthew unravels Cerys's admiration for the woman who was given by her parents as a 'tithe' to the church at the age of eight and who became one of the most influential people of her time. She wrote about the visions that she experienced from the age of three, later deemed to have been migraines, but was a true polymath, writing liturgical texts, songs, botanical studies and morality plays. Despite her religious devotion, she was no demure subject. Her influence was widespread and she even had the ear of the Pope. Beatified but never officially canonized, Matthew, Cerys and guest expert (tbc) celebrate the life of the woman who was nonetheless known to millions as Saint Hildegard von Bingen
Producer: Sarah Langan.
THU 19:00 Yes Minister (b007jmpx)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
THU 19:30 The Goon Show (b009kmns)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
THU 20:00 Jim Eldridge - Down Payment on Death (b007tcfh)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
THU 20:30 Written in Stone (b00lyfl3)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 today]
THU 21:00 Jennifer Egan - Emerald City and Other Stories (b01fhp9l)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:00 today]
THU 21:15 Afternoon Drama (b03cdzm1)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:15 today]
THU 22:00 Plum House (b07gfzw3)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
THU 22:30 The In Crowd (b008g2dl)
Series 1, Episode 6
Sketch show from Manchester's Comedy Store with Robin Ince, Helen Moon, Smug Roberts and Kate Ward. From January 2002.
THU 22:45 Foley and McColl: The Interview (b0076d8h)
Placebo
The duo tell Parky about their lean years. Stars Sean Foley, Hamish McColl and Michael Parkinson. From March 2003.
THU 22:55 The Comedy Club Interviews (b0bjfzn5)
Matt Green. 1/2
From 10.00pm till midnight, 7 days a week, the Comedy Club has two hours of comedy. Plus Rob Deering chats to Matt Green. Episode 2 of 2.
THU 23:00 Hut 33 (b00lqfm2)
Series 1, Careless Talk
A security breach at Bletchley Park puts the wartime code-breakers under suspicion. Stars Robert Bathurst. From July 2007. Episode 3 of 6.
THU 23:30 The Young Postmen (b00fkp61)
Tour de France
Surreal comedy in which a trio of 'posties' get embroiled in escapades. Written by and starring Ben Miller, with John Thomson and Felicity Montagu. From November 1992.


FRIDAY 07 SEPTEMBER 2018

FRI 00:00 15 Minute Drama (b00qzjrb)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:00 on Thursday]
FRI 00:15 Jonathan Aycliffe - The Matrix (b01nm5jd)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:15 on Thursday]
FRI 00:30 Great Lives (b014q00c)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:30 on Thursday]
FRI 01:00 Jim Eldridge - Down Payment on Death (b007tcfh)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 on Thursday]
FRI 01:30 Written in Stone (b00lyfl3)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 on Thursday]
FRI 02:00 Book at Bedtime (b044j94s)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:00 on Thursday]
FRI 02:15 The Making of Music (b007mvlf)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:15 on Thursday]
FRI 02:30 Jane Beeson - A Monkey With a Box of Paints (b007649n)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:30 on Thursday]
FRI 02:45 Book of the Week (b03b977g)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:45 on Thursday]
FRI 03:00 Evelyn Waugh - Brideshead Revisited (b007k2r7)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:00 on Thursday]
FRI 04:00 The Write Stuff (b0076ytb)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 on Thursday]
FRI 04:30 Alison and Maud (b007k3yc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:30 on Thursday]
FRI 05:00 Snap (b00td5sb)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:00 on Thursday]
FRI 05:30 Plum House (b07gfzw3)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 on Thursday]
FRI 06:00 Jim Eldridge - Down Payment on Death (b007jtl9)
The Moment of Truth
Retired hitman Art Gordo comes face-to-face with his mysterious nemesis at last.
Conclusion of the 5-part thriller adapted by Jim Eldridge from his own novel.
Stars Dinsdale Landen as Art Gauder, Frances Jeater as Louise Lenehan, Donald Gee as Paul Le Clerk, Joanna Wake as Sally Le Clerk, Basil Hinson as Leon Young and Douglas Blackwell as Forbes.
Producer: John Fawcett-Wilson
First broadcast on the BBC World Service in 1976.
FRI 06:30 Command Performance (b00rpvkt)
Command Performance explores prestigious concerts held in unique places under special circumstances with presenter Katie Derham . As you'd expect the command performance is a royal prerogative and singer Katherine Jenkins gives us further insight when she explains her recent experience of a performance for the current Queen at Balmoral.
As we hear for most artists a private performance rarely features a royal at the top table. Time is devoted to the after dinner or corporate gig where lucrative money can be made. Comedian Barry Cryer gives us tips on the best way to approach these unique events and veteran Roy Hudd also suggests ways you make the most of these performance opportunities with out losing your nerve.
After a hard day General Secretary Joseph Stalin liked to relax watching the ballet. Today a bespoke performance with an artist is possible. Jazz musician Yolanda Brown was invited to perform for the President Medvedev at the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg. Playing for a leading political figure is significant for an artist, but what about performing for eight global players? Jools Holland explains his command performance when he played for Prime Minster Tony Blair at the G8 summit and why President Bill Clinton had difficulty leaving the event.
For many artists a performance for his Holiness the Pope is a command performance to be embraced with great relish. Composer Simon Wills performed for the Pope on two occasions and reveals what happens behind the walls of the Vatican, what the changing facilities are like and how the Pope responds to a performance.
The programme concludes that any one can purchase their own command performance and music promoter Hugh Phillimore can help. He has secured the world's leading stars providing the price is right.
Sugar Productions for BBC Radio 4.
FRI 07:00 Winston (b00pync3)
Winston Back Home, A Born Natural
Old rogue Winston's plot to be alone with Nancy gets an unexpected boost from Father.
Peter Tinniswood's bawdy comedy serial stars Bill Wallis as Winston, Maurice Denham as Father, Shirley Dixon as Nancy, Liz Goulding as Rosie and Christian Rodska as William.
Director: Shaun MacLoughlin.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 1994.
FRI 07:30 Michael Frayn's Matchbox Theatre (b06qms9t)
Episode 2
Michael Frayn - the most comic philosophical writer of our time. An all-star cast has great fun with Frayn's hilarious view of us all. People talking. To each other, to the world at large, to themselves. Explaining. Heard, overheard, half-heard.
In Episode 2, we eavesdrop on two strangers in a café. Patricia Hodge is the woman who can't get names right. Joanna Lumley, listening in at the next table, longs to correct her. Adam Godley becomes increasingly obsessive in a doctor's surgery. Matthew Wolf, attending a lecture on words, doesn't care for the phrase 'if you like'. Sophie Winkleman and Charles Edwards, trying to find their destination, have 'WIC' - that's 'Words in Car'. Stephen Fry is a politician who believes he has mastered the intricacies of his mobile phone. Tom Hollander and Nigel Anthony share confidences in their own mathematically precise language. And Julian Sands suffers at the hands of Martin Jarvis' Pinteresque writer-tormentor.
This four-part series is Theatre in miniature. Short entertainments based on Frayn's recently acclaimed book, Matchbox Theatre. His brand new collection, now on the radio - the theatre of the listener's imagination. Set design, ice-cream sales, packet of nuts, where to sit - it's up to you. Just sit back and enjoy.
Episode 2 cast: Patricia Hodge, Joanna Lumley, Adam Godley, Mathew Wolf, Sophie Winkleman, Charles Edwards. Stephen Fry, Tom Hollander, Nigel Anthony, Julian Sands, Martin Jarvis.
Written by Michael Frayn
Producer: Rosalind Ayres
Director: Martin Jarvis
A Jarvis and Ayres production for BBC Radio 4.
FRI 08:00 I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again (b012xpyk)
Series 8, Episode 5
It's music all the way on Wonderful Radio Prune with Dave "the Rave" Hatch.
Starring Tim Brooke-Taylor, 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, Liam Cohen and Dave Lee.
Producer: David Hatch/Peter Titheradge
First broadcast on the BBC Radio 2 in March 1970.
FRI 08:30 Doctor in the House (b007jt0n)
In the Wards
Unleashed on the patients, the medics are unprepared for the formidable Sister Virtue.
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, Joan Sanderson as Sister Virtue and Irene Handl as Mrs Clark.
Producer: David Hatch
Recorded at the BBC Paris studio in London.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in July 1968.
FRI 09:00 Jest a Minute (b017gnw5)
Series 2, Episode 4
Rhod Gilbert's comedy quiz from the Glee Club in Cardiff.
With Elis James, Jon Richardson, Lloyd Langford and Chris Corcoran
Producers: Paul Forde and Gareth Gwynn.
First broadcast on BBC Radio Wales in 2006.
FRI 09:30 Elephants to Catch Eels (b007nchq)
Series 1, Episode 2
Sly barmaid Tamsyn Trelawny and her band of smugglers battle to try and outwit local customs officer, Captain Marriott.
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, Julia Deakin as Edna, Mark Felgate as Dewey and Phil Nice as Roy.
Producer: Jan Ravens.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in February 2003.
FRI 10:00 Keith Waterhouse - Mr and Mrs Nobody (b055knqf)
A delightful diary account which reveals the day-to-day activities of one Charles Pooter, a London clerk, and his long-suffering wife Carrie.
Stars Judi Dench and Michael Williams.
By Keith Waterhouse. Based on George and Weedon Grossmith's 19th Century comic masterpiece 'The Diary of a Nobody'.
Incidental music composed by Colin Sell. Played by Colin Sell and Peter Ripper.
Directed by Gordon House
First broadcast on the BBC World Service in May 1990.
FRI 11:00 Podcast Radio Hour (b0bhjc1f)
David McGuire
Made for 4 Extra. Amanda Litherland is joined by David McGuire to recommend the best podcasts.
FRI 12:00 I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again (b012xpyk)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
FRI 12:30 Doctor in the House (b007jt0n)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
FRI 13:00 Jim Eldridge - Down Payment on Death (b007jtl9)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
FRI 13:30 Command Performance (b00rpvkt)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 today]
FRI 14:00 Book at Bedtime (b044jh7r)
Jo Baker - Longbourn, Episode 5
By Jo Baker. The Bennet family receive an invitation from Netherfield. For Sarah, it's a chance to better get to know Ptolemy, the Bingleys' footman.
Reader...Sophie Thompson
Abridger...Sara Davies
Producer...Mary Ward-Lowery.
FRI 14:15 The Making of Music (b007mnr6)
Series 1, The Renaissance
James Naughtie discovers how history has shaped the development of classical music.The world was changing: in the Renaissance, man was well as God was celebrated in music and the arts. In Ferrara, Italy, Josquin Desprez wrote as mass that immortalised his patron, the Duke Ecole d'Este I. Missa Hercules dux Ferrariae was based on the syllables of the Dukes name.
Reader: Simon Russell Beale
Produced by Rosie Boulton, Sara Conkey, Lucy Lunt.
BBC Birmingham.
FRI 14:30 Jane Beeson - A Monkey With a Box of Paints (b00764b5)
Opening
The first Impressionist exhibition finally opens, and Berthe has to face the wrath of the reactionary critics. But her sister Edma offers a glimmer of light.
Conclusion of Jane Beeson's five-part series looking at the female impressionist painter Berthe Morisot through her correspondence with her mother and sister.
Berthe ... Sarah-Jane Holm
Cornelie ... Pauline Munro
Manet ...Simon Chandler
Edma .... Alison Pettitt
Guichard .... Robert Lister
Woolf ... Ian Brooker
Directed at BBC Pebble Mill by Peter Leslie Wild
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2001.
FRI 14:45 Book of the Week (b03b97bc)
Sandra Hempel - The Inheritor's Powder: A Cautionary Tale of Poison, Betrayal and Greed, Episode 5
On the morning of Saturday 2nd of November 1833, the Bodle household sat down to their morning breakfast, sharing a pot of coffee. That evening, the local surgeon John Butler received an urgent summons - the family and their servants had all collapsed with a serious illness. Three days later, after lingering in agony, the wealthy grandfather George Bodle died in his bed at his farmhouse in Plumstead. The Bodles had been the victims of a terrible poisoning.
In the nineteenth century, criminal poisoning with arsenic was frighteningly easy. For a few pence and with few questions asked, it was possible to buy enough poison to kill off an entire family, hence arsenic's popular name - The Inheritor's Powder.
The surgeon John Butler had set about collecting the evidence that he hoped would bring the culprit to justice but, in the 1830s, forensic science was still in its infancy. Even diagnosing arsenic poisoning was a hit-and-miss affair.
So when a chemist named James Marsh was called as an expert witness in the case of the murder at Plumstead, he decided that he had to create a reliable test for arsenic poisoning, or the murders would continue and killers would be left to walk free. In so doing though he was to cause as many problems as he solved. Were innocent men and women now going to the gallows?
Sandra Hempel, author of The Inheritor's Powder, is a medical journalist who has written for a wide variety of both popular newspapers and magazines and specialist publications, from the Mail on Sunday and The Times to Nursing Times and BMA News.
Abridged by Libby Spurrier
Director: David Blount
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.
FRI 15:00 Keith Waterhouse - Mr and Mrs Nobody (b055knqf)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:00 today]
FRI 16:00 Jest a Minute (b017gnw5)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]
FRI 16:30 Elephants to Catch Eels (b007nchq)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:30 today]
FRI 17:00 Winston (b00pync3)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:00 today]
FRI 17:30 Michael Frayn's Matchbox Theatre (b06qms9t)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
FRI 18:00 15 Minute Drama (b00qzjrd)
Hilary Mantel - Beyond Black, Escape
Dramatisation by Caroline Harrington of Hilary Mantel's blackly comic novel about a professional medium with a troubled past.
Alison's disgusting spirit guide Morris has been joined by Donny Aitkenside, one of the violent group of petty criminals who were in and out of the house all through Alison's abusive childhood. Alison knows the other members of the spirit gang can't be far behind, and decides the only way to escape them is to move to a new house where they won't want to follow her. Her assistant Colette locates a suitable new development, and the move has the desired effect: Morris hates it, and announces he's leaving. At long last, Alison thinks, she's free.
Alison ...... Alison Steadman
Colette ...... Rosie Cavaliero
Morris ...... Bill Wallis
Emmie ...... Katharine Rogers
Aitkenside ...... Simon Armstrong
Directed by Sara Davies.
FRI 18:15 Jonathan Aycliffe - The Matrix (b01nmjxb)
Voices
"I reached the door and ran outside, but the voices would not leave me..."
Andrew witnesses a mysterious ceremony in a former church and meets with his friend's widow.
Jonathan Aycliffe's chilling novel abridged in ten parts by Rosemary Goring.
Read by Robert Paterson
Producer: David Jackson Young
First broadcast on BBC Radio Scotland in 1997.
FRI 18:30 Mastertapes (b03k3h2k)
Series 3, Edwyn Collins (B-Side)
John Wilson continues with his Radio 4 series in which he talks to leading performers and songwriters about the album that made them or changed them. Recorded in front of a live audience at the BBC's iconic Maida Vale Studios. Each edition includes two episodes, with John initially quizzing the artist about the album in question, and then, in the B-side, the audience puts the questions. Both editions feature exclusive live performances.
Programme 4 (B-side). Having discussed the making of "Gorgeous George", the career changing solo album with the world wide hit A Girl Like You (in the A-side of the programme, broadcast on Monday 2nd December and available online), Edwyn Collins - together with his wife and manager Grace Maxwell - responds to questions from the audience and, with a small band, performs acoustic live versions of some to the tracks from the album which he started recording 20 years ago.
Producer: Helen Lennard.
FRI 19:00 I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again (b012xpyk)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
FRI 19:30 Doctor in the House (b007jt0n)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
FRI 20:00 Jim Eldridge - Down Payment on Death (b007jtl9)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
FRI 20:30 Command Performance (b00rpvkt)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 today]
FRI 21:00 Podcast Radio Hour (b0bhjc1f)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:00 today]
FRI 22:00 Michael Frayn's Matchbox Theatre (b06qms9t)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
FRI 22:30 Goodness Gracious Me (b007jv2l)
Series 1, Episode 2
Indian students on a gap year enjoy bustling England's smells at the airport, the Indian Neighbours are cooking a roast and Skipinder the Punjabi Kangaroo hops in.
Stars Sanjeev Bhaskar, Kulvinder Ghir, Nitin Sawhney, Meera Syal and Nina Wadia.
Gold Winner of the Sony Radio Academy Awards. The sketch comedy show originally ran on BBC Radio 4 from 1996 to 1998, later transferring to TV on BBC Two from 1998 to 2001.
Scripted by Sharat Sardana, Richard Pinto and the cast.
Produced by Gareth Edwards and Anil Gupta.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in July 1996.
FRI 22:55 The Comedy Club Interviews (b0bkgrby)
Jake Yapp 1/1
From 10.00 until midnight, 7 days a week, the Comedy Club has two hours of comedy. Plus Arthur Smith chats to Jake Yapp about 'And We Are Live...'. Episode 1 of 1.
FRI 23:00 Rubbish (b00770xw)
Series 1, Rage
Comedy series by Tony Bagley about Martin Christmas, local government officer, cynic and manic depressive.
5: Rage.
Martin is dragged along to Life Editing by its course tutor and on-off girlfriend Sarah. The one thing that would improve his life, he decides, would be being able to say no. But this doesn't mean that people won't carry on saying no to him.
With Reece Dinsdale, Nicola Walker, James Lance, Paul Copley.
FRI 23:30 The Party Party (b007w2z5)
Episode 3
Will Sir Lord Knight's campaign over the danger of ads do the business? Stars Hugh Laurie and Clive Mantle. From May 1987.