Unwelcome: Edna and Tankerton return to her home town and attend a fete worse than death. Comic sci-fi saga with Alex Tregear. From February 2008. Episode 5 of 6.

Memories of first love, first borns and loss are stirred by The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face, the timeless love song written by Ewan MacColl for Peggy Seeger, and made famous by Roberta Flack.

The activist and folk musician Peggy Seeger tells the story of her first meeting with Ewan MacColl, which would inspire him to write the song, and talks about what the song means to her today. MacColl's biographer Ben Harker explains why this song is so different from much of Ewan's other work.

Julie Young talks about singing the song to her son Reagan, who had severe complex needs following a cardiac arrest as a baby, and the writer Louise Janson speaks about what the song came to mean to her as she set out on the path to becoming a mother on her own.

Writer and academic Jason King tells the story of how Roberta Flack came to cover this ballad by a Scottish folk musician, and how it catapulted her to fame. And Kandace Springs, a singer and pianist from Nashville, Tennessee, records her version of the song and talks about why the song is one of the greatest love songs of all time.

Produced by Mair Bosworth.

Keen to get closer to James, the sleuth gets embroiled in a saga of murder, lust and wellington boots. Stars Penelope Keith. From June 2004.

Tibor Fischer explores the ancient novel. 2,000 years before Hollywood, Greek and Latin writers were producing tales that read like film scripts, from romances to religious mystery texts. They incorporate plot twists, bawdy humour and magical episodes in ways that are strikingly similar to their modern counterparts, and their influence on world literature is vast. At the International Conference on the Ancient Novel, Tibor talks to leading academics about this relatively unknown literary genre.

The author's bus arrives at Magadan - the Capital of Sorrows. Read by John Rowe. From January 2000.

Martin considers some of the therapies that combined the psychoanalytic principles of Freud and Jung with the behaviour modifying techniques of the mid-Twentieth Century's other significant psychological movement 'behaviourism'.

With reference to the 'Gloria' tapes that featured the same patient being treated by three different 'talking cures' - Albert Ellis's Rational Emotive Behavioural Therapy, Fritz Perls's Gestalt Therapy and Carl Rogers's Person Centred Therapy.

Series consultant, Professor Daniel Pick, Birkbeck, University of London.

Producer: Alan Hall
A Falling Tree Production for BBC Radio 4.

Further Tales of the City by Armistead Maupin dramatised by Bryony Lavery . Set in San Francisco in 1981, a portrait of a free and easy era with the drug and sex counter-culture in full swing.

Dede's children have been kidnapped whilst on a cruise with her mother Frannie and drastic action is called for back at home by Anna Madrigal and Mary Ann.

Directed in Salford by Susan Roberts.

Winston writes from Canada. Randolph leaves Oxford for a lecture tour of the USA. With Alex Jennings and Sylvestra Le Touzel. From February 1999.

As the Second World War erupts, Lewis Eliot heads to Whitehall where his love life takes an unexpected turn. Stars Adam Godley. From February 2003.

Gyles Brandreth chairs the scandals quiz with Anthony Holden, Lucy Moore, Penny Junor and Julian Fellowes. From October 2005.

Sarah tries keeping her affair secret, but her mother Eleanor can sniff out deceit. Stars Prunella Scales. From September 1986.

Renaissance Italy's Prince Ludovico buys a cannon, and Princess Plethora wants to confess. Stars David Swift. From April 2001.

Andy (Tom Palmer) is beginning to settle in to the unusual seaside town of Flamford. When he and his Uncle Jeff (Philip Jackson) find an abandoned fridge in the street, Jeff seizes the opportunity to teach his nephew the value of entrepreneurship.

Unfortunately, his plans are complicated by a particularly diligent and zealous Police Officer (Mark Benton), a hard-nosed private landlord (Rasmus Hardiker) and Fish Shop Frank's refusal to see a business opportunity when it's sat on the pavement outside his chip shop.

Along the way, they meet a pair of half-hearted pirates, an eccentric plutocrat, Jeff's on-off paramour, Corinne (Alison Steadman) and the youngest-sounding pub landlord in Britain.

Writers: Ian Brown and James Hendrie
Producer/Director: Gordon Kennedy
An Absolutely production for BBC Radio 4.

Will Gracie Fields wed her 'Svengali'? And will her marriage be as successful as her career? With Tracy Wiles and Paul Nicholas. From April 1996.

More memories from the founding member of The Goon Show, Michael Bentine - recalling his disastrous first foray into acting and finally taking to the air.

Michael Bentine CBE was born in 1922 and died in 1996.

Producer: Andy Aliffe

First broadcast on BBC Radio 2 in September 1993.

The saxophone is the most important musical invention of the last 170 years. Lauded for its adventurous sound, its sensuality and seemingly never-ending versatility, the brass woodwind horn has become one of the most popular instruments in the world. Today, it's at home in classical music as it is in pop with hundreds of famous composers writing significant pieces for its shapely curves. Neither of these musical homes compare to its place in jazz, where its presence is so influential it's hard to think of another instrument more associated with the genre.

But for some the sax produces a devilish sound, whether that's down to taste or decency. It's been shunned by polite society, banished from orchestras and even denounced by governments. Much worse, in recent times it has been accused of blandness and crowned the king of elevator music.

British jazz musician Soweto Kinch examines the saxophone's place in history in Radio 4's Archive on 4. An alto player himself, Kinch investigates the instrument's captivating and somewhat turbulent journey through musical and spoken archive. Aiding Soweto with expert analysis are his friend and fellow sax player Courtney Pine, leading classical saxophonist Amy Dickson, historian Dr Paul Cohen, director of the 2012 World Saxophone Congress Richard Ingham and comedian David Quantick.

William Somerset Maugham was one of the most commercially successful English writers ever. His plays, short stories and novels effortlessly sold in their millions; his work on stage, page and screen drew huge audiences. He remains the English writer most adapted for film and TV. And yet he described himself as possessing only a "knack" for writing and his place among the literary greats as being only "in the first row of the second rate". Despite his huge popularity with a mass audience, the literary establishment dismissed him as "middle brow".

Yet the subjects he wrote about, and his complex and exotic lifestyle moulded the image of the successful 20th century writer - a wide circle of famous friends, a villa in the South of France, the adulation of readers across the globe and the ears of the Empire's leaders. His own long life, too, reads like the plot for a novel. Born when Disraeli was Prime Minister, he died when the 60s were in full swing. He trained as a doctor, dedicated himself to being a writer, and spent time as a World War One spy. He travelled the globe in search of material for stories - chronicling the boredom, frustration and scandals of the colonial class of empire builders.

His private life was complicated. In England he seemed a pillar of the establishment, yet he set up an exotic and promiscuous lifestyle in a villa on the Cote d'Azur with a succession of gay lovers. His last years were marked by an extraordinary, toxic family quarrel, betrayal and a public fall from grace. He died on December 16th 1965 in Nice, France.

Simon Fanshawe examines the literary legacy and complex private lives of Maugham in the company of writers, performers, biographers and family members.

Producer Mike Greenwood
Made for BBC Radio 4 Extra by Pier Productions.

Aristocrat Belport and servant Ned are called up to serve on the unfortunate HMS Fortunate. Stars Paul Rider. From June 2004.

Middle-aged Stella battles to get her grown-up children to leave home. Stars Duncan Preston and Penny Downie. From August 2003.

4 Extra Debut. Pliny, his mother Marcella, and his slave Venta, indulge in the pleasures of Rome - shopping and bathing. Stars Kieran Hodgson.

Singer Seal chooses 'Smile' by Nat King Cole and 'God Give Me Strength' by Elvis Costello with Burt Bacharach.

Olympic gold medallist Mary Peters tours her home town of Belfast to meet some old friends - including a dinosaur.

Down Your Way was a schedule staple for decades - 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 the series' success in the 1950s, it was attracting 10 million listeners a week.

Producer: Jill Marshall

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1988.

After saying their goodbyes to Professor Litefoot and Henry Gordon Jago, the Doctor and Leela respond to an alien distress call beamed direct from Victorian England. It's the beginning of a journey that will take them to the newly built Space Dock Nerva... where a long overdue homecoming is expected. A homecoming that could bring about the end of the human race.

Tom Baker is the Fourth Doctor, with his ancient warrior companion, Leela, played by Louise Jameson.

Written and directed by Nicholas Briggs.

A Big Finish production.

Stand-up at London's Comedy Store with host Simon Bligh, Matt Wellcome, Veronica McKenzie and Sean Meo. From December 1998.

The award-winning funny man revels in misery. With Laurence Howarth and Daisy Haggard. From December 2010.

The best in contemporary comedy. Arthur Smith chats to Adam Hess and Glenn Moore.

Stand by your radios! Jeremy Hardy returns to the airwaves with a broadcast of national comic import!

In this programme, Jeremy attempts to understand citizenship, to examine the State and to spell surveillance. Looking over his shoulder at the script will be Gordon Kennedy (Absolutely) and Carla Mendonça.

Welcome to "Jeremy Hardy Speaks To The Nation", a series of debates in which Jeremy Hardy engages in a free and frank exchange of his entrenched views. Passionate, polemical, erudite and unable to sing, Jeremy returns with a new series of his show, famous for lines like, "Kids should never be fashion slaves, especially in the Far East. My 12-year old daughter asked me for a new pair of trainers. I told her she was old enough to go out and make her own".

Few can forget where they were twenty years ago when they first heard "Jeremy Hardy Speaks To The Nation". The show was an immediate smash-hit success, causing pubs to empty on a Saturday night, which was particularly astonishing since the show went out on Thursdays. The Light Entertainment department was besieged, questions were asked in the House and Jeremy Hardy himself became known as the man responsible for the funniest show on radio since Money Box Live with Paul Lewis.

Since that fateful first series, Jeremy went on to win Sony Awards, Writers Guild nominations and a Nobel Prize for Chemistry. He is a much-loved regular on both The News Quiz and I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue. He can't sing.

Written by Jeremy Hardy

Produced by David Tyler
A Pozzitive production for BBC Radio 4.

The Welsh comedian sets out on his quest to free us from the seven deadly sins. With Tim Key and Tim Minchin. From February 2007.

Landlady Anna Madrigal's tenants must negotiate love, work and fun in a new era - the 80s. Stars Laurel Lefkow and Kate Harper. From July 2014.

4 Extra Debut. A male writer of romantic fiction learns the hard way not to cross the women his books are aimed at. Read by Vivian Pickles. From February 1997.

Episode Five - This Is A Man's World.

Nali's ex-husband arrives unexpectedly and Clare takes it upon herself to intervene. Simon has some bad news about Brian's vitamin supplements.

Sally Phillips is Clare Barker the social worker who has all the right jargon but never a practical solution.

A control freak, Clare likes nothing better than interfering in other people's lives on both a professional and personal basis. Clare is in her thirties, white, middle class and heterosexual, all of which are occasional causes of discomfort to her.

Each week we join Clare in her continued struggle to control both her professional and private life In today's Big Society there are plenty of challenges out there for an involved, caring social worker. Or even Clare.

Written by Harry Venning and David Ramsden
Producer Alexandra Smith.

Angry antique dealers, a word from the Minister for population - and it's not the end of the world

A sequential entertainment for radio starring Ronnie Barker.

With Terence Brady and Pauline Yates. Pianist: Gordon Langford. Banjo: Dick Abell.

Written by Terence Brady, Peter N Christie, Donald Churchill, Bert Fisher, John Graham, Christopher Langham, Roy Lomax, Chris Miller, Katie Moss, Myles Rudge and Gordon Langford, Allan Scott and Chris Bryant, and Gerald Wiley.

Producer John Fawcett-Wilson

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in August 1972.

Harry and his neighbours take on the council when a new bypass threatens their homes.

Written by David McKellar and David Renwick.

Starring Harry Worth. With John Baddeley, John Graham and Miriam Margolyes.

Producer: Simon Brett.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September 1976.

Made for 4 Extra. The author was brought up by her father in a house filled with radical thinkers, poets and philosophers. Read by Stella Gonet.

Fi Glover introduces a conversation between best friends who have approached motherhood in very different ways, in the series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen.

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 upload your own conversations or just learn more about The Listening Project by visiting bbc.co.uk/listeningproject

Producer: Marya Burgess.

4 Extra Debut. From The Who to Monty Python. Impresario and promoter Harvey Goldsmith shares his castaway choices with Kirsty Young. From July 2009.

Made for 4 Extra. 'Rumble Strip' and 'Griefcast'. Amanda Litherland and Deborah Frances-White recommend their favourite podcasts and speak to the people who make them.

Mrs Hawkins is thriving at work. But a figure from her past is about to make an unwelcome appearance. Read by Maggie Service.

Patrick Wright investigates Thomas Hennell and Barbara Jones, key figures in the 1940s Recording Britain art project. From February 2002.

The story of a friendship that created one of the 20th century's best-selling novels and films.

When American writer Kathryn Hulme meets a Belgian nurse on a UN Relief Programme after the Second World War, she doesn't understand why Marie-Louise Habets is so unwilling to talk about herself. It's only later that Marie-Louise admits she has recently left her convent - a confession that reaches a worldwide audience through the book and then the film of The Nun's Story.

Kathryn Hulme ...... Debora Weston
Marie-Louise Habets ...... Rachel Atkins
Pierre ...... John Moraitis
Fred Zinneman ...... Garrick Hagon
Audrey Hepburn ...... Christine Kavanagh
Mother Benedict ...... Jane Ridley

Produced and directed by Sara Davies.

With Burns Night in mind, poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with The Elephant in the Poetry Reading with Liz Lochhead on the influence of Robert Burns.

The Elephant In The Poetry Reading:
Liz Lochhead recalls her youth in a Motherwell state school, where reading, memorising, and performing in competitions instilled an appreciation of the work of Robert Burns.
Producer Dave Batchelor.
First heard on BBC Radio 3 in 2009.

Liz Lochhead: Time For Verse 5
George MacBeth concludes his conversation with Liz Lochhead on her life and work.
Reader: Janette Foggo.
Producer - Alec Reid.
First heard on BBC Radio 4 in 1998

Produced for 4 Extra by Sarah Wade.

After first fleeing the Creature, Victor Frankenstein heads to the mountains to avenge his brother's murder. Stars John Wood. From October 1994.

Episode 3:

It's a bad time for Carolyn to take a holiday as the crew of MJN Air have to face a real live King and a mythical fax machine.

Cabin Pressure is a sitcom about the wing and a prayer world of a tiny, one plane, charter airline staffed by two pilots: one on his way down, and one who was never up to start with. Whether they're flying squaddies to Hamburg, metal sheets to Mozambique or an oil exec's cat to Abu Dhabi, no job is too small but many, many jobs are too difficult.

Written by John Finnemore
Produced and directed by David Tyler
A Pozzitive production for BBC Radio 4.

The Amos family plan to fly out to celebrate Christmas in Lagos, Nigeria.

Written by Jonathan Harvey with Stephen K Amos
Produced by Colin Anderson.

Triple Foster's nominated comedian James Acaster presents the results of his research. This week, he's been investigating 'Wood'. With Nathaniel Metcalfe ('Fresh from the Fringe') and Bryony Hannah ('Call the Midwife').

Produced by Lyndsay Fenner.

Award-winning stand-up comedians Dan Antopolski, Tom Craine and Nat Luurtsema combine their talents to piece together a rapid-fire and surreal sketch show.

Produced by Colin Anderson.

Investigating the murder of a militant rambler, Agatha and James go undercover as a married couple. Stars Penelope Keith. From June 2004.

How much of ourselves do we reveal when we laugh?

Nicola Green has recorded people laughing in every conceivable situation, creating music from the sound of pure laughter. This programme blends that music with laughing anecdotes from various well-known voices.

This is a Laughing Portrait - from a baby's first laugh to dying of laughter.

Featuring Paul Merton, Emma Freud and her family, Rev Mark Oakley, Ainsley Harriot, Arthur Smith, Mark Steel and sound artist Scanner.

Producer : Katie Marsden

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2004.

Irene and Moira aren't speaking, Alberto and Ena have fallen out over the minestrone and Agnes has declared World War III on the Minister's trousers. Just how are villagers going to solve their dispute if no one is talking to each other...

Bittersweet comedy written by and starring Lynn Ferguson as 30-something island barmaid Irene Bruce, who hankers after a better life on the mainland.

Stars Lynn Ferguson as Irene, Janet Brown as Moira/Agnes, Lewis McLeod as Alberto/Robert, Gabriel Quigley as Ena/Bunty, Robert Patterson as Bob/Minister and Matt Costello as Dougie.

Music arranged by Olly Fox.

Producer: Lucy Bacon

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in May 2001.

This week, the Professor of Ignorance John Lloyd and his curator Sally Phillips welcome the acerbically charming comedian Joe Lycett, William Shakespeare's great great great great great great great 16th cousin twice removed, sociologist Prof Tom Shakespeare,and Blue Peter's longest-serving female presenter Konnie Huq. This week, the Museum reveals how wheels turned for the French Revolution, how a little blue ship on a plastic chip can get you into over 200 UK attractions, and the brain-tinglingly sensational significance of towels in the hands of a woman called Maria.

The show was researched by Mike Turner and QI.

The Production Coordinator was Tamara Shilham.

The Associate Producer was James Harkin.

The Producers were Richard Turner and Anne Miller.

It was a BBC Studios Production.

When the lad hits the gym, he knocks down a prize boxer completely by chance - which gives Sid an idea...

Starring Tony Hancock. With Moira Lister, Bill Kerr, Sidney James, Kenneth Williams and Paul Carpenter.

Written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson.

Theme and incidental music written 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 November 1954.

The Home Guard platoon try to capture a German pilot hanging off the Town Hall clock in Walmington-on-Sea.

Starring Arthur Lowe as Captain Mainwaring, John Le Mesurier as Sergeant Wilson, Clive Dunn as Corporal Jones, John Laurie as Private Frazer, Arnold Ridley as Private Godfrey, Ian Lavender as Private Pike, Bill Pertwee as Hodges, Frank Williams as the Vicar, Larry Martyn as Private Walker, Erik Chitty as Mr Parsons and Fraser Kerr as the German pilot.

Adapted for radio from Jimmy Perry and David Croft's TV scripts by Harold Snoad and Michael Knowles.

Producer: John Dyas

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in August 1976.

Crazy panel show capers as host Sue Perkins grills Simon Pegg, Armando Iannucci, Marcus Brigstocke and Peter Serafinowicz.

The game where someone stands to leave the studio 99p richer than when they came in.

Producer: David Tyler

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in February 2003.

Hapless backbench MP Duncan Stonebridge is worried about his majority. To boost his popularity his office organised a competition where children could spend a day with an MP to discover what politics is really like.

Unfortunately the winner is a ferociously obnoxious child prodigy. Nothing is ever simple for the MP who craves a quiet life.

Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis's topical sitcom from 2006 about a hapless backbench MP.

Stars James Fleet as Duncan Stonebridge.

With Simon Greenall, Geoffrey McGivern, Geraldine McNulty, Neil Edmond, Matilda Ziegler and Sarah Coleman.

Producer: Adam Bromley

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in October 2006.

Lewis Eliot ends up overseeing a secret wartime project with implications for the world. Stars David Haig and Claire Skinner. From June 2003.

Edward is in love with Isabel but he must try to make his fortune by travelling to the East before he can marry her. Their love is strong but will it withstand their separation?

Interviewed in 1933, Maugham said, 'It has always seemed to me that literature can only find its fullest and freest expression in the essay or short story.' He wrote more than 100 stories, at least 14 of which he burned on one of his 'bonfire nights', after Winston Churchill warned that they contravened the Official Secrets Act. Of the stories that do survive, he said, 'some of them deal with circumstances and places to which the passage of time and the growth of civilisation will give a romantic glamour.'

A collection of Maugham's best stories with tales from home and abroad. Tales of intrigue from far-flung colonial outposts and tales of passion from quintessentially British hearths.

Maugham writes perfect vignettes - snapshots of human life in all its diversity - captured at a moment of crisis or revelation.

Abridged by Polly Coles
Read by Daniel Weyman
Produced by Clive Brill

A Brill Production for BBC Radio 4 Extra.

The life of Victorian journalist pioneer, feminist and campaigner, Bessie Rayner Parkes.

The first of a trilogy of plays examining the lives and writing of three pioneering women journalists.

Introduced by Kate Perry.

Bessie Parkes 1829-1925 (mother of Hilaire Belloc) and her close friend Barbara Bodichon were the founders of The English Women's Journal, the first newspaper owned, written and printed by women.

Based on Bessie's own writing, Lavinia Murray's play tells her story, joining her as she waits to vote in the 1918 election.

Starring Sarah Parks as Bessie, Amanda Root as Barbara Leigh Smith, Kathryn Hunt as Miss Ingle, Russell Dixon as The Teller and James Nickerson as Mr Brattigan/Eugene.

Director: Sue Roberts

Produced at BBC Manchester by Felicity Goodall.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1999.

'Few people alive at the time were more delightful, more ingenuous, more movingly lovely, and as it might happen, more savage than the girls of slender means.'

Emilia Fox reads Muriel Spark's rapier-witted portrait of the lives and loves of a group of genteel but down-at-heel young women in postwar London. In the so-called May of Teck Club, a boarding house for single ladies, life carries on as if the world were back to normal: elocution lessons, poetry recitals, jostling over suitors and the sharing of a single taffeta gown. But the war has ended and things are not normal and never again will be. Into this world arrives Nicholas Farringdon, a writer and anarchist, who is beguiled by these girls of slender means and their giddy, carefree lives. But this meeting, we soon learn, will end in his death.

Today: It is 1945, but life carries on as usual in the May of Teck Club.

Spark's 1963 novel, The Girls of Slender Means, has become a modern classic. AL Kennedy has called it: 'An uncompromisingly well-crafted book: lean, ironic, funny, penetrating, unsettling and very, very beautiful. Welcome to the English language as operated by an expert.'
Muriel Spark (1918-2006) was an award-winning Scottish novelist and biographer, known best for her acclaimed novel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

This week, Martin examines the evolution of psychology's medicalised model, clinical psychiatry.

In this programme, he traces the origins of the asylum movement, visiting London's 'Bedlam' hospital, the York Retreat, the centre of 'moral treatment' in the late Eighteenth Century, and the dark Victorian buildings of the former Winwick asylum.

Produced by Alan Hall
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4.

Babycakes is the fourth book in the Tales of the City series by Armistead Maupin, originally serialized in the San Francisco Chronicle and set in the city . Dramatised for radio by Bryony Lavery. Landlady Mrs Madrigal is watching over the tenants of her house on Barbary Lane.
Babycakes is often cited as the first work of fiction to address the AIDS pandemic.
It begins in 1983, with the revelation of Jon Fielding's death from AIDS. His lover Michael is bereft. Brian, now 38 wants a baby but Mary Ann is still working hard. The Britannia is in town along with the Queen and the Royal party

Directed in salford by Susan Roberts.

Hannah Gordon reads from Martin Stannard's biography of the acclaimed Scottish novelist, written with full access to her letters and papers.

Abridged by Rosemary Goring.

Edna must avert an inter-dimensional apocalypse at Tankerton's wedding. Comic sci-fi saga with Alex Tregear and Sophie Duval. From February 2008.

Sue MacGregor and her guests - comedian Steve Punt and author and script writer John O'Farrell - discuss favourite books by Tobias Wolff, Jerome K Jerome and Simon Winchester. From 2005.

Old School by Tobias Wolff
Publisher: Bloomsbury

Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K Jerome
Publisher: Penguin Classics

The Surgeon of Crowthorne by Simon Winchester
Publisher: Penguin.

Kicking off his comedy travelogues in the capital of Hungary, the stand-up comic then takes the train to Poland.

As well as entertaining the locals with his unique brand of stand-up, Ross Noble chats to the Mayor of Warsaw about furry hats, uncovers the truth about suicidal Hungarian monks and even shares a curry with Poland's only comedian...

Producer: Danny Wallace

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in June 2001.

Made for 4 Extra. Miles Jupp chairs a satirical review of the week's news in an extended version of Friday's programme.

The poet laureate of alternative comedy, John Hegley, entertains an audience with his book of verse. From November 1996.

Confined to a hospital bed, Scotland Yard's Inspector Alan Grant is challenged to solve the mystery surrounding the alleged crimes of King Richard III.

Josephine Tey's classic story read in 14 parts by Paul Young.

Written in the early 1950s, The Daughter of Time was described by The New York Times as 'One of the best mysteries of all time'.

Producer: Bruce Young

Made for BBC 7 by BBC Scotland and first broadcast in 2005.

Historian Kate Williams investigates the success and lasting legacy of Samuel Smiles' 1859 book Self Help.

It outsold both Darwin's On the Origin of Species and Mill's On Liberty, also published that year, and gave birth to the idea that we can all achieve greatness through the application of sheer hard work.

Kate finds out if it contains a message for our own times, examines its enduring popularity and meets some of those who have been influenced by its ideas, including former politician Michael Portillo, who also reveals the book's influence on Margaret Thatcher.

Aristocrat Belport and servant Ned join the police and encounter demon barber Sweeney Todd. Stars Paul Rider. From June 2004.

In this series, Simon Evans examines the concept of the 'free lunch' and shines a light on new ways of making money in the 21st century.

There are many apparently 'free' economic models operating today but what are they and how do they work? Across four episodes Simon and his team will explore Social Media and how we often appear to enjoy it for free. Later on Simon examines the perhaps unfair belief that some multinationals appear to operate tax free. And what about the billions being given away 'for free' by a new breed of philanthro-capitalists? Finally, what can we learn from these operating models to help that beloved yet creaking institution, the NHS, which is also apparently free at the point of use?

As a wise person once said, there's no such thing as a free lunch. If you're not paying, you're the product.

Also featuring Financial Times economics god Tim Harford and Timandra Harkness, author of 'Big Data: Does Size Matter?' with contributions from the Queen of MoneyWeek, Merryn Somerset Webb.

Episode 1: Social Media

From the country-sized economy of Google changing the way we see adverts; to the seemingly free apps like Uber making San Francisco the economic centre of the world and changing the concept of local business; to social media platforms like Facebook redefining us as economic actors... the way we work, shop, meet, and think about money is profoundly changing. Many of these technologies look benign and free - but who is getting rich from them? And how? And how are we 'paying' without realising?

Starring: Simon Evans with Tim Harford and Timandra Harkness
Researcher: Andrew Wright
Production coordinator: Toby Tilling

Producer: Richard Morris
A BBC Studios Production.

Meet the World's Worst Weightlifter and Doddy undertakes a desert island stint with Man Friday.

Starring Ken Dodd.

With John Laurie, Judith Chalmers, Wallas Eaton and Percy Edwards.

Music from The Migil.

Doddy's Diddy Orchestra conducted by Malcolm Lockyer.

Script by Ken Dodd and Eddie Braben.

Producer: Bill Worsley

First broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in April 1965.

The bungling bureaucrats take on Trooping the Colour and try to fix the plumbing...

A weekly tribute to all those who work in government departments.

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 May 1973.

As the Cold War intensifies, a spy appears to be at large within Britain's nuclear research programme. Stars David Haig. From June 2003.

Bateman decides to travel to Tahiti to find out what's happening to Edward. His letters have become sporadic and his initial enthusiasm to return home seems to have waned.

Interviewed in 1933, Maugham said, 'It has always seemed to me that literature can only find its fullest and freest expression in the essay or short story.' He wrote more than 100 stories, at least 14 of which he burned on one of his 'bonfire nights', after Winston Churchill warned that they contravened the Official Secrets Act. Of the stories that do survive, he said, 'some of them deal with circumstances and places to which the passage of time and the growth of civilisation will give a romantic glamour.'

A collection of Maugham's best stories with tales from home and abroad. Tales of intrigue from far-flung colonial outposts and tales of passion from quintessentially British hearths.

Maugham writes perfect vignettes - snapshots of human life in all its diversity - captured at a moment of crisis or revelation.

Abridged by Polly Coles
Read by Daniel Weyman
Produced by Clive Brill

A Brill Production for BBC Radio 4 Extra.

Mea Allan (1909-1982) was the first woman war correspondent to be permanently accredited to the British Forces and the first woman news editor in Fleet Street. During the Second World War she kept up a remarkable correspondence with her mentor May Chalmers which gives a picture of daily life in the Blitz and on the home front in London and Scotland.

Felicity Goodall's play opens with Mea looking back over her life and friendship with May, beginning with her arrival in Fleet Street in December 1938.

Stars Siobhan Redmond as Mea Allan, Brigit Forsyth as May Chalmers and Steven Deproost as Archie.

Second of a trilogy of plays examining the lives and writing of three pioneering women journalists.

Director: Felicity Goodall

Produced at BBC Manchester by Sue Roberts.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1999.

'Few people alive at the time were more delightful, more ingenuous, more movingly lovely, and as it might happen, more savage than the girls of slender means.'

Emilia Fox reads Muriel Spark's rapier-witted portrait of the lives and loves of a group of genteel but down-at-heel young women in postwar London. In the so-called May of Teck Club, a boarding house for single ladies, life carries on as if the world were back to normal: elocution lessons, poetry recitals, jostling over suitors and the sharing of a single taffeta gown. But the war has ended and things are not normal and never again will be. Into this world arrives Nicholas Farringdon, a writer and anarchist, who is beguiled by these girls of slender means and their giddy, carefree lives. This meeting, we soon learn, will end in his death.

Today: During her 'brain work', Jane encounters writer and anarchist, Nicholas Farringdon, whose arrival at the May of Teck Club causes something of a stir.

Spark's 1963 novel, Girls of Slender Means, has become a modern classic. AL Kennedy has called it: 'An uncompromisingly well-crafted book: lean, ironic, funny, penetrating, unsettling and very, very beautiful. Welcome to the English language as operated by an expert.'

Muriel Spark was an award-winning Scottish novelist and biographer, known best for her acclaimed novel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

Reader: Emilia Fox
Abridger: Sally Marmion
Producer: Justine Willett.

From the late Eighteenth Century, the treatment - or containment - of mentally ill people was taken out of the hands of the church and into the hands of doctors.

Martin talks to psychiatrist Professor Tom Burns about changing models of treatment and to Joanna Moncrieff, author of The Myth of the Chemical Cure.

Producer: Alan Hall
A Falling Tree Production for BBC Radio 4.

Babycakes from the Tales of the City series by Armistead Maupin, originally serialized in the San Francisco Chronicle and set in the city . Dramatised for radio by Bryony Lavery.
Following the drug and sex counter-culture, the AIDS pandemic has arrived .The Queen is visiting san Francisco. Mary Annhas struck up a friendship with Simon - a British officer who has left the ship .

Directed by Susan Roberts.

Hannah Gordon reads from Martin Stannard's biography of the acclaimed Scottish novelist, written with full access to her letters and papers.

Marriage to an older man offers escape from the claustrophobia of Edinburgh's social microcosm, but the excesses of life in colonial Africa soon prove overwhelming.

Abridged by Rosemary Goring.

Jay Rayner puts well-known gastronomes through their culinary paces. This week's panellists are wine writer Jancis Robinson, wild man Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, chef Alastair Little and restaurateur Ruth Watson. Issues for digestion include what a Fat Rascal is, who spent sixty-seven thousand pounds on a new oven, and where dried tuna sperm is served as a delicacy.

A distinguished relative's arrival rings the alarm for Vera McConkey. It's 1955 in the sleepy Irish town. Stars TP McKenna. From June 1996.

When a haunted chess set causes consternation at the British Chess Championships, and a horse magically materialises in Kettering Agricultural Museum, MI:13 are called to investigate.

Harry Crow and Professor Dunning follow the trail of inexplicable happenings to South Wales, and an unlikely plot to resurrect Britain's greatest-ever hero.

The Scarifyers follows the exploits of 1930s ghost-story writer Professor Dunning and retired policeman Harry Crow, who together investigate weird mysteries under the auspices of top-secret government department MI:13.

Stars David Warner as Harry Crow, Terry Molloy as Professor Dunning, David Benson as Alexander Caulfield-Browne, Margaret Cabourn-Smith as Jenny Cracker/Lady Miriam Gore and Ewan Bailey as Commander Savage.

Written by Simon Barnard and Paul Morris

Music by Edwin Sykes

A Bafflegab Production.

2/5
Sir Alec Jeffreys speaks to Clare English about his eureka moment when he discovered DNA fingerprinting.

It was 9.05am on Monday 10th September 1984 when Alec realised the enormity of his breakthrough, and explains how it turned into a global phenomenon.

He speaks about how his techniques for DNA fingerprinting and DNA profiling are now not only used by the police, but also to resolve paternity and immigration disputes all over the world.

The sci-fi star probes the oceans. With Richard Herring, Stewart Lee and Tom Baker at Liverpool University. From August 1993.

The best in contemporary comedy. Tom Wrigglesworth chats to Katie Mulgrew.

Comedy set in an Essex Job Centre.

Stuart is concerned that the gift he left Nicola in her desk drawer could be misinterpreted. In fact, it's the worst gift in the history of gifts. Joe, uncharacteristically, offers to help and retrieve the gift (during a diversion created by Gary Probert). Joe only manages to make matters worse - or does he? Stuart could actually be finally getting somewhere with Nicola.

Seekers, is about the characters that regularly frequent a Job Centre in the Essex town of Rayleigh. Be it the unfulfilled or aspirational staff that work there, or the mixture of jobless people from every walk of life, some desperate to get back to work, some trying their best to never have to work at all.

We listen into the mundane, pointless and sometimes bewildering conversations, the petty arguments and pointless rivalries that people involve themselves in just to relieve the boredom in the sterile, air conditioned building, they all have to return to day after day.
Episode Two: The Diary

Written by Steven Burge
Produced by Katie Tyrrell.

The team wonder why so many men went to 'mow a meadow'. With Neil Edmond, Justin Edwards and James Rawlings. From March 2003.

A comedy about Australia and cancer. Written and performed by Simon Munnery. From September 2003.

Inspector Grant's actress friend Marta Hallard has suggested he attempts to fathom out an unsolved historical case - and he's fascinated by an unusual present that she's brought to the hospital...

Josephine Tey's classic mystery read by Paul Young.

Written in the early 1950s, The Daughter of Time was described by The New York Times as 'One of the best mysteries of all time'.

Producer: Bruce Young

Made for BBC 7 by BBC Scotland.

Human behaviour expert, Desmond Morris talks to Leigh Crutchley about his ground-breaking book sequel to 'The Naked Ape'.

Discussing the impact of human urges and achievements via rapidly growing populations, Morris explains the rise of 'super tribes' and the creation of scapegoats.

And what is the impact of all this on our children?

Producer: Elizabeth Rowley

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1969.

A domestic dispute boosts Stella's battle to get her grown-up children to leave home. Stars Duncan Preston. From August 2003.

Matthew Holness stars as Knut Ångström, a brooding, alcoholic, maverick Swedish detective from the tough streets of Oslo, in a Scandinavian detective yarn adapted from the bestselling Ångström trilogy by Martin English (writing as Bjorgen Swedenssonsson).

Following the death of his wife, Ångström is posted to the Njalsland peninsula where he becomes embroiled in a labyrinthine murder (or possibly not-murder) case which bears an eerie similarity to the Askeladden killings - a case from his distant past.

In episode 2, Ångström and Mina try to find out who tried to frame him for the death of Councillor Birgid Lundstrom, a trail which leads them straight to the door of Benny from ABBA. But when that door opens, why is Benny from ABBA now Mexican?

A new comedy series by writers of the Ladybird Books for Grown Ups, Charlie Brooker's ...Wipe, That Mitchell and Webb Look and A Touch of Cloth.

Written by Joel Morris and Jason Hazeley
Cast: Matthew Holness, Nadia Kamil, Simon Kane, Kevin Eldon, David Reed, Freya Parker.
Production Co-ordinator: Tamara Shilham
Produced by Lyndsay Fenner

A BBC Studios production.

Rumour abounds that empire-building Commander Povey is after Lieutenant Commander Stanton's job.

Starring Leslie Phillips as the Sub-Lieutenant, Jon Pertwee as the Chief Petty Officer, Stephen Murray as Number One, Richard Caldicot as Commander Povey, Ronnie Barker as Lieutenant Commander Stanton, Michael Bates as the Rating and Tenniel Evans as The Admiral.

The Navy Lark ran for an impressive 13 series on BBC Radio between 1959 and 1976.

Scripted by Lawrie Wyman.

Producer: Alastair Scott Johnston

First broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in March 1960.

Censors lambast the BBC - and a cursed tomb in 'The Clissold Saga'.

Starring Kenneth Horne. With Kenneth Williams, Hugh Paddick, Betty Marsden and Bill Pertwee.

Recorded at the BBC's Paris Studio in Lower Regent Street, London. Announcer: Douglas Smith

Round The Horne was born out of the demise of BBC radio comedy Beyond Our Ken, after the end of writer Eric Merriman's involvement. Using the same cast and producer, Barry Took and Marty Feldman were persuaded to write the scripts - which led to four series that ran between 1965 and 1968 - packed full of parodies, recurring characters, catchphrases and double-entendres.

Music by Edwin Braden and the Hornblowers and The Fraser Hayes Four.

Producer: John Simmonds

First broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in March 1965.

Radio 4's literary panel show, hosted by James Walton, with team captains Sebastian Faulks and John Walsh and guests Sue Limb and Mark Watson.

Produced by Alexandra Smith.

June's passion for station manager, David has so far been unrequited. But an interesting recipe in Old Cronwick's Book of Potions from Field and Forest should change all that...

Meanwhile, Rocket is expecting to meet an old flame when the Royal Train is diverted through the station.

Peter Morfoot's comedy stars Michael Williams as Rocket, Peter Davison as David, Rosemary Martin as June, Phillippa Wilson as Points, Madge Hindle as Hattie and Chris Emmett as Sodd. Other parts played by Paul Jenkins.

Producer: Gareth Edwards

First broadcast on BBC Radio 2 in December 1995.

Back in Cambridge, a scandal threatens the reputation of Lewis Eliot's old college and his best friend. Stars David Haig. From December 1995.

In the suffocatingly hot nights of a summer in Algeciras, a man from Glasgow tells the story of a terrible haunting in a local house and how he can't get it out of his mind.

Interviewed in 1933, Maugham said, 'It has always seemed to me that literature can only find its fullest and freest expression in the essay or short story.' He wrote more than 100 stories, at least 14 of which he burned on one of his 'bonfire nights', after Winston Churchill warned that they contravened the Official Secrets Act. Of the stories that do survive, he said, 'some of them deal with circumstances and places to which the passage of time and the growth of civilisation will give a romantic glamour.'

A collection of Maugham's best stories with tales from home and abroad. Tales of intrigue from far-flung colonial outposts and tales of passion from quintessentially British hearths.

Maugham writes perfect vignettes - snapshots of human life in all its diversity - captured at a moment of crisis or revelation.

Abridged by Polly Coles
Read by Daniel Weyman
Produced by Clive Brill

A Brill Production for BBC Radio 4 Extra.

Emille Peacocke (1882-1964) - daughter of a well-respected Northern newspaper family - takes Edwardian Fleet Street by storm, as she refuses to take no for an answer in her quest to become a real journalist.

Her subjects range from Suffragettes to Archbishops, trousseaux to the Telegraph, as she makes her mark as the first woman journalist on the Daily Express.

The final play in a trilogy examining the lives and writing of three pioneering women journalists.

Janys Chambers' dramatised account stars Kathryn Hunt as Emilie, Melissa Sinden as Mary McArthur, Sarah Parks as Lady Lytton, Morgan George as Herbert Peacocke, Russell Dixon as Ralph D Blumenfield, Alice French as Young Emilie, James Nickerson as Randal Charlton and Geoffrey Banks as Arnold Bennett.

Directed at BBC Manchester by Polly Thomas.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1999.

'Few people alive at the time were more delightful, more ingenuous, more movingly lovely, and as it might happen, more savage than the girls of slender means.'

Emilia Fox reads Muriel Spark's rapier-witted portrait of the lives and loves of a group of genteel but impoverished young women in postwar London. In the so-called May of Teck Club, a boarding house for single ladies, life carries on as if the world were back to normal: elocution lessons, poetry recitals, jostling over suitors and the sharing of a single taffeta gown. But the war has ended and things are not normal and never again will be. Into this world arrives Nicolas Farringdon, a writer and anarchist, who is beguiled by these girls of slender means and their giddy, carefree lives. This meeting, we soon learn, will end in his death.

Today: Writer and would-be anarchist, Nicolas, becomes more and more intoxicated by the 'girls of slender means'.

Spark's 1963 novel, The Girls of Slender Means, has become a modern classic. AL Kennedy has called it: 'An uncompromisingly well-crafted book: lean, ironic, funny, penetrating, unsettling and very, very beautiful. Welcome to the English language as operated by an expert.'
Muriel Spark was an award-winning Scottish novelist and biographer, known best for her acclaimed novel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

Martin talks to clinical psychologist Vaughan Bell about different forms of mental disturbance - psychoses and neuroses - and their manifestation in popular culture, including the Polanski film Rosemary's Baby and the poetry of Spike Milligan. And he meets Dolly Sen, a film-maker who's experienced psychosis for most of her life.

Producer: Alan Hall
A Falling Tree Production for BBC Radio 4.

Babycakes by Armistead Maupin, part of the Tales of the City series. Set in the era following the free sex and love counter culture. Following the death from AIDS of his partner, Michael is in England having swapped his flat with Englishman Simon who arrived on the Royal yacht Britannia. Brian wants a baby with Mary Ann.

Dramatised by Bryony lavery.
Directed in Salford by Susan Roberts.

Hannah Gordon reads from Martin Stannard's biography of the acclaimed Scottish novelist, written with full access to her letters and papers.

Spark's unique literary voice is discovered when she wins The Observer's Christmas story competition in 1951 with The Seraph and the Zambesi, beating 7,000 other entries.

Abridged by Rosemary Goring.

Crow and Dunning's investigations lead them to an unremarkable terraced house in South Wales, home to the mysterious Mr Merriman. Is there more to Merriman than first appears?

Meanwhile, Dunning meets famed archaeologist Ralegh Radford, who is on the verge of the greatest discovery of the age. Britain's Tutankhamen, the press are calling it. But could it be something stranger still?

The Scarifyers follows the exploits of 1930s ghost-story writer Professor Dunning and retired policeman Harry Crow, who together investigate weird mysteries under the auspices of top-secret government department MI:13.

Stars David Warner as Harry Crow, Terry Molloy as Professor Dunning, Gareth David-Lloyd as Glewlwyd Gafaelfawr, David Benson as Mr Merriman, Margaret Cabourn-Smith as Lady Miriam Gore and Ewan Bailey as Ralegh Radford.

Written by Simon Barnard and Paul Morris

Music by Edwin Sykes

A Bafflegab Production.

Dame Thora Hird explains to Robin Ray why certain musical moments send a shiver down her spine.

From stirring band music to the overture of No No Nanette, the actress also shares memories of her life and career.

Producer: Andrew Mussett

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1990.

Prince Charles ends up helping his driver move a sideboard. Jon Culshaw explores famous folk's private lives. From July 2010.

The best in contemporary comedy. Tom Wrigglesworth chats to Katie Mulgrew.

by Tony Bagley

1. Bo and Barack

The first in a series of four talks giving an unreliable dog's eye view of the trials and tribulations of living in the White House. Today President Obama's dog, Bo, suffers an identity crisis.

Directed by Marc Beeby.

The elderly Scotsmen invite Mrs Naughtie to perform her amazing Dance of the Seven Voles. Stars Barry Cryer and Graeme Garden. From December 2002.

Martin Bain-Jones is left in the studio, while Craig Children's got a dubious new job.

Ben Miller and Alexander Armstrong write and star in their first full-length radio comedy series.

With Charlie Condou, Melissa Lloyd and Tony Gardner.

Producer: Jon Rolph

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 1998.

Challenged to tackle an unsolved historical mystery, Inspector Grant has become fascinated by a portrait of King Richard III. Borrowing a school history book from a nurse, he begins his investigation...

Josephine Tey's classic mystery read by Paul Young.

Written in the early 1950s, The Daughter of Time was described by The New York Times as 'One of the best mysteries of all time'.

Producer: Bruce Young

Made for BBC 7 by BBC Scotland.

David Owen Norris and guests listen to Robert Burns' favourite songs in his drinking club in Tarbolton, near Glasgow. With National Poet of Scotland Liz Lochhead (writer of a play about Burns), Dr Kirsteen McCue and Professor Nigel Leask - and featuring Burns' own fiddle.

We hear the songs with the tunes he wanted - not always the ones which have become famous. For instance, 'My Love is like a Red Red Rose' was changed by his publisher against Burns' wishes. Kirsteen McCue is the world expert on Burns' songs and she reveals the original versions. We also hear a naughty song called 'Nine Inch will Please a Lady'.

Robert Burns' playlist reflects his political vision and also his complex love life. Burns was writing for the high-class Edinburgh ladies who took him up in his 30s, but he was also composing songs in broader Scots about their maids. Songs were a crucial part of his seduction technique - and they seem to have worked for him. He left 15 illegitimate children. Even on his death-bed, Burns was writing songs - for the pretty blonde teenager who was nursing him. That song, 'Oh Wert Thou in the Cold Blast', is one of his most beautiful and almost unbearably moving. Burns was destitute, he was dying at the age of only 37, and yet he sang to his nurse: "Oh wert thou in the cold blast, I'd shelter thee, I'd shelter thee".

Presenter David Owen Norris is a broadcaster, composer and concert pianist. He has arranged the songs, which are performed by Thomas Guthrie and jazz singer Gwyneth Herbert.

Producer: Elizabeth Burke.
A Loftus production for BBC Radio 4.

Will Graham be the next Blue Peter presenter and why did Tina's husband leave her?

Jenny McDade's high-fat bittersweet comedy for those believing there's a thin person inside them begging to get out.

Starring Janine Duvitski, Gareth Corke, Michael Troughton, Anne Reid, Julia Deakin, Tilly Gaunt, Harry Myers and Frances Jeater.

Producer: Sally Avens

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in February 1999.

John Finnemore presents another half hour of his award-winning sketch show, joined by his regular ensemble cast of Margaret Cabourn-Smith, Simon Kane, Lawry Lewin and Carrie Quinlan.

This week we hear the best sound in all of music, and someone asking for a massive favour. There's also an inaccurate sketch, but that's alright because John issues a correction and, well, since you ask him a very direct question...

John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme was described by The Radio Times as "the best sketch show in years, on television or radio", and by The Daily Telegraph as "funny enough to make even the surliest cat laugh". Already the winner of a BBC Audio Drama Award and a Radio Academy Silver Award, John was named the 2016 Radio Broadcaster of the Year by the Broadcasting Press Guild for his work on Souvenir Programme.

Written by & starring ... John Finnemore

Cellist ... Sally Stares
Production Coordinator ... Beverly Tagg
Producer ... Ed Morrish

A BBC Studios production.

George Starling is being driven mad by his wife Kate's preparations for their first baby.

Richard Briers and Prunella Scales star in their second series based on the mutual love and mistrust of a young married couple.

Originating on BBC TV, it was adapted for radio due to its popularity by Richard Waring from his own TV scripts.

A decade later, Richard Briers was starring as Tom Good in The Good Life whilst Prunella Scales starred as Sybil in Fawlty Towers. They remained friends until Richard Briers' death in 2013.

Producer: Charles Maxwell

Recorded at the BBC Paris Studio in London.

First broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in March 1967.

Neddie Seagoon is conned into pinching the keyboard played at the Battle of Waterloo. Stars Spike Milligan. From October 1955.

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

Henning Wehn, Katherine Ryan, Graeme Garden and Lloyd Langford are the panellists obliged to talk with deliberate inaccuracy on subjects as varied as geese, horses, advertising and Madonna.

The show is devised by Graeme Garden and Jon Naismith, the team behind Radio 4's I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue.

Producer: Jon Naismith
A Random Entertainment production for BBC Radio 4.

As the school term draws to a close, there are accusations of assault, a mysterious graffiti artist and Mrs Patterson is 'unwell'.

Created by Jim Eldridge, ten series of this comedy about a junior school ran between 1985 and 1998. King Street Junior Revisited ran from 2002 to 2005.

Written by Richard Stoneman.

Stars Karl Howman as Mr Sims, James Grout as the Headmaster, Deirdre Costello as Mrs Patterson, Paul Copley as Mr Long, Marlene Sidaway as Miss Lewis, Margaret John as Mrs Stone, Vivienne Martin as Mrs Rudd, Tom Watson as Mr Holliday, Geoffrey McGivern as Mr Grant and Kemal Ibrahim as Mohammed.

Producer: John Fawcett Wilson

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in May 1995.

Post-war politics throws up surprises for Lewis Eliot, as a rising star enlists his help. Stars David Haig and Iain Glen. From June 2003.

Lady Elizabeth Vermont has had a string of lovers and marriages. Now she's married a man considerably younger than herself. Will this one last?

Interviewed in 1933, Maugham said, 'It has always seemed to me that literature can only find its fullest and freest expression in the essay or short story.' He wrote more than 100 stories, at least 14 of which he burned on one of his 'bonfire nights', after Winston Churchill warned that they contravened the Official Secrets Act. Of the stories that do survive, he said, 'some of them deal with circumstances and places to which the passage of time and the growth of civilisation will give a romantic glamour.'

A collection of Maugham's best stories with tales from home and abroad. Tales of intrigue from far-flung colonial outposts and tales of passion from quintessentially British hearths.

Maugham writes perfect vignettes - snapshots of human life in all its diversity - captured at a moment of crisis or revelation.

Abridged by Polly Coles
Read by Daniel Weyman
Produced by Clive Brill

A Brill Production for BBC Radio 4 Extra.

A passionate and poignant yet doomed romance between Edinburgh socialite Agnes McLehose and the poet Robert Burns.

Starring Liam Brennan as Robert Burns and Wendy Seager as Clarinda.

Based on a series of intimate letters tracking their affair, which began on 6 December 1787, using a series of discrete code-names for each other.

Dramatised by Alison Joseph.

Director: Gaynor MacFarlane

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2002.

'Few people alive at the time were more delightful, more ingenuous, more movingly lovely, and as it might happen, more savage than the girls of slender means.'

Emilia Fox reads Muriel Spark's rapier-witted portrait of the lives and loves of a group of genteel but down-at-heel young women in postwar London. In the so-called May of Teck Club, a boarding house for single ladies, life carries on as if the world were back to normal: elocution lessons, poetry recitals, jostling over suitors and the sharing of a single taffeta gown. But the war has ended and things are not normal and never again will be. Into this world arrives Nicholas Farringdon, a writer and anachist, who is beguiled by these girls of slender means and their giddy, carefree lives. This meeting, we soon learn, will end in his death.
Today: Greggie's stories of unexploded bombs in the Club's garden prove to hold some truth.

Spark's 1963 novel, The Girls of Slender Means, has become a modern classic. Muriel Spark was an award-winning Scottish novelist and biographer, known best for her acclaimed novel The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie.

Psychiatric treatments have had their fair share of controversy.

In this episode, Martin looks at the extraordinary popularity of lobotomies during the middle of the last century, the continued use of Electroconvulsive Therapy and the 'anti-psychiatry movement' of RD Laing in the 1960s.

Producer: Alan Hall
A Falling Tree Production for BBC Radio 4.

It's San Francisco 1983. After the atmosphere of free sex and drug taking of the 70's the AIDS virus has changed things. In Mrs Madrigal's house, Mouse has swapped flats with Englishman Simon. Mouse is in London in pursuit of Mona. mary Ann is in pursuit of Simon whilst Brian is away.

Dramatised by Bryony Lavery

Directed in Salford by Susan Roberts.

Hannah Gordon reads from Martin Stannard's biography of the acclaimed Scottish novelist, written with full access to her letters and papers.

Spark's life is transformed by the publication of her fifth novel, The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, which gained critical and commercial success on both sides of the Atlantic when it was published in 1961.

Abridged by Rosemary Goring.

Professor Dunning embarks on an Athurian adventure, while Harry Crow has to go on the run. Stars David Warner. From August 2016.

Matthew Parris is joined by the founder of Kids' Company, the psychotherapist Camila Batmanghelidjh, to discuss the life of her Victorian equivalent, Mary Carpenter.

Mary Carpenter developed theories for helping deprived and criminalised children through the experience of running schools and reformatories in Bristol in the mid-nineteenth century. She became very influential as MPs turned to her for advice on educational and penal reform regarding children. Her guiding principle was that the treatment of troubled children should be based on the love of the child, not on ideas of punishment or retribution.

Camila Batmanghelidjh founded Kids' Company to offer practical support 'and love' to vulnerable inner city children who may lack it from their families. She was surprised to discover how closely Mary Carpenter's beliefs mirror her own, one hundred and fifty years on, and how many of the problems Mary Carpenter described remain unchanged. Camila finds Dickensian conditions in the homes of South London children now, with filthy conditions, parents who are intoxicated and drugs being used to control or pacify children. These scenes would have been familiar to Mary Carpenter as she visited families in the slums of Bristol.

The parallels between the two women are striking: both exhibited a gift for dealing with children at an early age; both decided to devote their lives to the cause, eschewing a family life of their own; both have had to spend time raising money and advocating on behalf of the children they represent.

Matthew and Camila are joined by biographer and historian Carla Contractor in this fascinating and moving programme.

Producer...Mary Ward-Lowery.

Thom Tuck presents the pick of the new sketch groups currently performing live on the UK comedy circuit - with character, improv, broken and musical sketch comedy.

In this third episode of the second series:

McNEILL & PAMPHILON
Double act Steve McNeill and Sam Pamphilon have been performing their comedy socks off since 2009 and have won rave reviews for their three Fringe runs. They have become a regular fixture on the sketch circuit, have written for several other BBC projects and now have their own BBC sitcom script in development. They both appeared on BBC 1 in Richard Hammond's Secret Service.

BARBERSHOPERA
Six years ago, Rob Castell and Tom Sadler came up with the idea to form a comedy musical quartet - and Barbershopera was born. Since then, the group has gone from strength to strength, winning a total of six Musical Theatre Matters awards over four years at the Edinburgh Festival, performing in London's West End two years running, and entertaining audiences around the UK on three successive tours.

WITTANK
Sketchateers Mark Cooper-Jones, Kieran Boyd and Naz Osmanoglu came together after achieving notable success as stand-ups on the circuit. Along with appearances on BBC3's Live at the Electric, the boys are in the middle of a sell-out tour and host a London residency at The Courtyard Theatre in Shoreditch every month.

Producer: Gus Beattie
A Comedy Unit production for BBC Radio 4.

by Jack Docherty

A new sitcom about three couples sailing off in to the sunset. And sinking. This week a school fundraiser proves unusually challenging.

Producer ..... Steven Canny

Jack Docherty
Jack has an exceptional record of making stand-out comedy. He first performed at the 1980 Edinburgh Festival Fringe with the comedy sketch group The Bodgers and went on to write for radio and television including: Spitting Image, Alas Smith and Jones, Vic Reeves Big Night Out, Absolutely, The Lenny Henry Show, Max Headroom, Weekending, The News Huddlines and a ton of other things.

He has also performed in a huge variety of comedy shows including in The Comic Strip Presents, The Morwenna Banks Show, Monarch of the Glen, Red Dwarf V, The Old Guys and Badults. He has also featured in the Radio 4 comedies Baggage and Mordrin MacDonald - 21st Century Wizard and has appeared on various comedy panel shows including Have I Got News For You and It's Only TV But I Like It. Jack presented his own show The Jack Docherty Show which ran for 2 years on Channel 5.

Turning his attention to dictators, the producer, writer and performer presents his own collection of humorous essays. From December 1997.

Darkly comic memoirs of growing up in the 1970s. Will father's lecture on sex dampen our hero's ardour? With Peter Bradshaw. From January 1999.

Using more books brought to his hospital bed, Inspector Grant is determined to prove King Richard III could not have committed the murders...

Josephine Tey's classic mystery read by Paul Young.

Written in the early 1950s, The Daughter of Time was described by The New York Times as 'One of the best mysteries of all time'.

Producer: Bruce Young

Made for BBC 7 by BBC Scotland.

Neil McCarthy explores the history of the illicit activities of the Wirral peninsula's wreckers, who ransacked Liverpool-bound vessels with notorious ferocity. After the end of the wrecking era, huge crowds came to the Victorian seaside resort of New Brighton, but they too have now gone. Neil tries to discover whether the wild spirit of the wreckers lives on in the area today.

Prince Ludovico battles his enemies in the local tavern while his wife Princess Plethora tries to reconcile her quarrel-some sons.

Neal Anthony's 16th century comedy drama about the chaotic lives of the ruling family of Renaissance Italy's most inconsequential city-state.

Stars David Swift as Ludovico, Sian Phillips as Plethora, Graham Crowden as Francesco, Paul Bigley as Alessandro, Saskia Wickham as Rosalie, Nick Romero as Salvatore, Christopher Kelham as Guido and Kim Wall as Doctor Dolfini.

Producer: Helen Williams

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in May 2001.

Washington D.C.'s favourite political call-in show returns to Radio 4 as stand-up legend Rich Hall and a selection of comedians from both sides of the Atlantic reflect on the first year of Donald Trump's presidency.

Speaking to American pundits, comics and of course hearing extensively from the man on the street the show will explore how many of Trump's campaign promises he managed to keep and how radically one of the most interesting countries on the planet has changed over 52 weeks.

Cast:
Rich Hall
Nick Doody
Jena Friedman
Lewis MacLeod
Freya Parker

Written by Rich Hall & Nick Doody with additional material by James Kettle and Laura Major.

Producer - Joe Nunnery
A BBC Studios Production.

The sound archives of the BBC - and noises animals make.

More quick-fire sketches, terrible puns, humorous songs and parodies.

Stars Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graeme Garden, David Hatch, Bill Oddie and Jo Kendall.

Written by Graeme Garden, David Hatch, Eric Idle 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 Leon Cohen and Bill Oddie.

Producer: Humphrey Barclay

First broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in July 1967.

Bryan is offered a job at last, but where will he find a babysitter?

Robert Lindsay takes over as single parent Bryan Archer, struggling to find work and raise his baby son.

In the original 1977 series, Bryan was played by the late Richard Beckinsale who tragically died in 1979. After a six-year hiatus, the series returned with Bryan's mother and baby Albert played once again by the ever-versatile Pat Coombs.

With Diana King as Mrs Willis, Marcia Warren as Vera and Hoppy, Ron Pember as Joe, Douglas Blackwell as Mr Graham/Bob Watling and David Graham as the Job Centre Clerk.

Incidental music by Max Harris.

Producer: John Fawcett Wilson

First broadcast on BBC Radio 2 in 1983.

Gyles Brandreth chairs the scandals quiz with Anthony Holden, Lucy Moore, Richard Herring and Louise Doughty. From October 2005.

Eleanor wants a video player but how can she raise the cash?.

Simon Brett's comedy about three generations of women - struggling to cope after the death of Sarah's GP husband - who never quite manage to see eye to eye.