The BBC has announced that it has a sustainable plan for the future of the BBC Singers, in association with The VOCES8 Foundation.
The threat to reduce the staff of the three English orchestras by 20% has not been lifted, but it is being reconsidered.
See the BBC press release here.
RADIO-LISTS: BBC RADIO 4 Extra
Unofficial Weekly Listings for BBC Radio 4 Extra — supported by bbc.co.uk/programmes/
Stranded in Earth's past, the Voice tries tempting Captain Jet Morgan and his crew out into the city of the aliens.
Futuristic tale set in 1965 as first broadcast in 1953.
Stars Andrew Faulds as Jet Morgan, Alfie Bass as Lemmy Barnett, Guy Kingsley-Poynter as Doc, David Williams as Mitch, Other parts by Deryck Guyler.
Music composed and orchestra conducted by Van Phillips.
Written and produced by Charles Chilton.
Though first heard in 1953, the original recordings were wiped.
Re-recording first broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in 1958.
Chris Bigsby talks competition with laid-back writer Howard Jacobson and highly driven FT columnist Mrs Moneypenny. From April 2002.
In each programme, Professor Bigsby introduces a duo of writers of fact and fiction: new talent and established names. In the context of a discussion of one of the ideas and pre-occupations of our times, each presents a piece on this week's topic.
The best new writing and the freshest conversation from 2002.
Detective Jack Dunroody is trapped in a cave, with the tide rising - and a monastery murder still to solve...
Chandleresque noir-fiction from the pen of Marius Brill.
Paul B Davies stars as Jack Dunroody, with Rebecca Front as Terry Moore, David Collings as Thelonious the monk, John Turner as the Councillor, Natasha Pyne as Rose Scarlet, David Holt as Watson the dog & Damian; John Hartley as Underwood; Ian Masters as Boots and Jonathan Keeble as the parrot
Director: Andy Jordan.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1991.
Sarfraz Manzoor visits Mumbai to visit some of the musicians who were recruited in 1968 by George Harrison to help him record the soundtrack to the psychedelic film Wonderwall
On his way back to base following a mission, a badly injured Spitfire pilot is forced to bail out. Read by James Aubrey. From September 1986.
Dr Geoff Bunn's ten-part History of the Brain is a journey through 5000 years of our understanding of this complex organ in our heads. From Neolithic times to the present day, he reveals the contemporary beliefs about what the brain is for and how it fulfils its functions.
While referencing the core physiology and neuroscience, this is a cultural, not a scientific history. What soon becomes obvious is that our understanding of this most inscrutable organ has in all periods been coloured by the social and political expedients of the day no less than by the contemporary scope of scientific or biological exploration.
Episode 10: Einstein's Brain focuses on how advances in neurology have influenced our understanding of human's as 'neurochemical selves'. Examining the recent trend to explain every aspect of personality by underlying brain processes, Geoff Bunn highlights how disciplines from aesthetics to sociology have felt the impact of neuroscience. He acknowledges the benefits supplied by MRI scanning but points out the flaws in promoting an understanding of humanity based entirely on analysis of the brain. If the dissection of Einstein's brain were all we had to go on, we wouldn't know much about the famous physicist's life and character.
The series is entirely written and presented by Dr Geoff Bunn of Manchester Metropolitan University, with actors Paul Bhattacharjee and Jonathan Forbes providing the voices of those who have written about the brain from Ancient Egypt to the present day. The original, atmospheric score is supplied by composer, Barney Quinton.
Producer: Marya Burgess.
The peace of Sawston is disturbed by the latest news from Italy about Lilia. With Teresa Gallagher and Tom George.
In the picturesque Spanish village of Guzmán, villagers have gathered for centuries in 'the telling room' to share their stories. It was here, in the summer of 2000, that Michael Paterniti listened as Ambrosio Molinos de las Heras spun an odd and compelling tale about a cheese made from an ancient family recipe. Reputed to be among the finest in the world - one bite could conjure long-lost memories. But then, Ambrosio said, things had gone horribly wrong.
Paterniti was hooked. Relocating his young family to Guzmán, he was soon sucked into the heart of an unfolding mystery - a blood feud that includes accusations of betrayal and theft, death threats, and a murder plot. As the village began to spill its long-held secrets, Paterniti found himself implicated in the very story he was writing.
Michael Paterniti is a journalist and has been nominated eight times for the National Magazine Award. One of his stories was chosen for True Stories: A Century of Literary Non-fiction, joining four other writers as the best examples of literary journalism from the last hundred years. He is also the author of the New York Times bestselling book Driving Mr Albert. He lives in Portland, Oregon.
Read by: Will Adamsdale
Abridged by Eileen Horne
Produced by Clive Brill
A Pacificus production for BBC Radio 4.
In this 1957 thriller by the author of The Go-Between, L.P.Hartley, ex-Sergeant Stephen Leadbitter, raised from an unhappy working class childhood between the wars, is on a peacetime mission to business success as a chauffeur and car for hire. He uniformly despises his clients, especially the ladies, until the young, widowed, naive and immensely rich Lady Franklin hires him to take her on trips to cathedrals which she had visited with her late husband.
Lady Franklin has been in mourning for her late husband - a man considerably older than her and an invalid - for two years, and is finding it impossible to return to normal life. In the confines of the car, and in search of a cure for her depression, she shares her burden with him. He obliges with a story of his own, a fiction, which grows, monster-like, to plague the inventor. Two alien classes are put on a collision course, causing salvation or destruction to all involved, from the epicentre of an unexpected burst of love.
Simon Day (The Simon Day Show (R4), The Fast Show) stars as the lonely damaged anti-hero and Lisa Dillon (Cranford, Bright Young Things) as the hugely rich and very young widow who is the unwitting cause of his downfall. Kenneth Cranham narrates.
Dramatised by Judith Adams from the novel by L.P.Hartley.
Cast:
Narrator ...... Kenneth Cranham
Steve Leadbitter ..... Simon Day
Lady Franklin ..... Lisa Dillon
Hughie ..... Joseph Millson
Constance ..... Ursula Burton
Clarice ..... Nicola Duffett
Simmonds ..... Anthony Gleave
Bert Standing ..... Kevin James
Landlady ..... Jane Purcell
Porter ..... Andrew Cullimore
Producer/Director: Chris Wallis
An Autolycus production for BBC Radio 4.
Animal, vegetable or mineral?
Barry Took hosts a revised version of popular radio parlour game of 20 questions.
Regular Geoffrey Durham is joined by Jeremy Hanley and Helen Atkinson-Wood.
Written by Michael Dines.
Producer: Andy Aliffe
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 1998.
A tour of the sprawling post-Regency Metropolis in the years before the Victorians turned up and made everything boring - in the company of garrulous author Pierce Egan, cocksure urbanite Corinthian Tom, his naive Somerset cousin Jerry Hawthorn and their drunken compatriot Bob Logic.
Written by Pierce Egan and adapted in six parts by Dan Tetsell.
Pierce Egan .... Geoffrey McGivern
Corinthian Kate .... Amanda Abbingdon
Corinthian Tom .... Greg Wise
Old Hawthorn .... Christopher Douglas
Jerry Hawthorn .... Mark Gatiss
Mrs Belcher .... Laura Shavin
Bob Logic .... James Bachman
Mr Primefit .... Dave Lamb
Producer: Tilusha Ghelani
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in May 2006.
The wine police are called - and a couple take up Satanism.
Sketch show about growing older disgracefully.
Stars Eleanor Bron, Dudley Sutton, Roger Blake, Paula Wilcox. Clive Swift and Barry Cryer.
Written by Nicholas Barber & Glenn Dakin, Jill Brodie & John Pidgeon, Barry Cryer, Jan Etherington, Ronnie Golden, Mike Haskins, Simon Littlefield, George Poles and Chris Thompson & Pete Reynolds.
Script editor: George Poles.
Music by Ronnie & The Rex.
Producer: Katie Marsden
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in August 2004.
By John Nicholson, Richard Katz and Javier Marzan
Richard Wilson plays Robinson Crusoe in an irreverent re-boot of Daniel Defoe's classic.
After cheating their captain of the ship's treasure, a couple of sailors go into hiding on a deserted island. Their plans to lay low are rumbled when they're discovered by a long-forgotten castaway and his Spanish manservant.
In this new series the comedy troupe Peepolykus assume the roles of minor characters in great works of fiction and derail the plot of the book through their hapless buffoonery.
Cast:
Crusoe . . . . . Richard Wilson
Friday . . . . . Javier Marzan
John . . . . . John Nicholson
Richard . . . . . Richard Katz
Captain . . . . . Sam Dale
First Mate . . . . . Leo Wan
Briggs . . . . . David Hounslow
Dodd . . . . . Caolan McCarthy
Director . . . . . Sasha Yevtushenko
The arrival of baby Titus, the 77th Earl of Groan, causes consternation in the crumbling citadel of Gormenghast
The first of two plays based on the Gormenghast novels by Mervyn Peake - dramatised by Brian Sibley.
Starring Sting as Steerpike
Freddie Jones as The Artist
Bernard Hepton as Dr Prunesquallor
Judy Parfitt as Irma Prunesquallor
David Warner as Sepulchrave
Eleanor Bron as Gertrude
Sheila Hancock as Clarice and Cora
Jill Lidstone as Fuchsia
Cyril Shaps as Flay
Robert Eddison as Sourdust
Maurice Denham as Barquentine
Stratford Johns as Swelter
Hilda Schroder as Nannie Slagg
Melinda Walker as Keda
Graham Blockey as Rantel
and Peter Acre as Braigon
Director: Glyn Dearman
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1984.
Music critic Pete Paphides tells the story behind three 'follow-up' albums - from Dexys Midnight Runners, Fleetwood Mac and Suede - with tales of musical pressure, creative differences, personal politics and mixed results.
How many bands have found themselves with a massive and often unexpected hit album, only to struggle with the creation of their next opus? Sometimes the follow-up exceeds the first album, but often nerves kick in and bands are removed from the very stimulus that created their magic in the first place, finding themselves in a world of creative confusion, sycophants and accountants.
Pete Paphides talks to musicians, producers, and critics to explore the stories of follow-up albums with the same expert knowledge he brought to Lost Albums.
Programme 1: Dexys Midnight Runners - Don't Stand Me Down.
Kevin Rowland and Helen O'Hara give rare interviews about a pivotal time in Dexys Midnight Runners' history. Having been the best-selling UK band of 1982 with their massive hit single Come On Eileen and the hugely popular album Too-Rye-Ay, Dexys took some time to consider what to do next.
Don't Stand Me Down was brave and different to Too-Rye-Ay. Rowland had a clear vision and went to great lengths to record and mix it to his own specifications.
His interest in his Irish roots and Irish politics was one of the themes of the record. Misunderstood in its day, it received poor reviews but has since gone on to receive critical acclaim.
Produced by Laura Parfitt
A White Pebble Media Production for BBC Radio 4.
Jo Fidgen explores how the women's vote has changed British politics and society.
In the 1929 general election, women voted on the same terms as men for the first time. It was dubbed the Flapper Vote and had an instant effect on how politicians went about their business. With women now the majority of the electorate, there was talk of "petticoat government" and dire predictions that politics would be reduced to a narrow preoccupation with the cost of living.
It soon became clear that women do vote differently from men. For decades, they swung the country Right. Without them, there would have been no Conservative governments between 1945 and 1979. But that all began to change, and it was women who thrust Tony Blair to power.
Jo Fidgen delves into the archives in search of the female voter and the ways politicians have sought to win her over. She digs up rare archive from the 1929 campaign trail, overhears a conversation between a young Margaret Thatcher and a prospective voter, and eavesdrops on a discussion between Tony Benn and his father about how female voters had changed the job of constituency MPs, and curtailed their drunken behaviour.
Neil Kinnock reflects on his struggle to get the Labour party to change its attitude to women. There's a personal take from Emma Nicholson on the soul-searching in the Conservative party as it started to lose the housewives' vote.
Many things have been said about female voters - including that they have made politics petty and personality-driven. Academics and pollsters consider the evidence, and bring us up-to-date with women's voting preferences.
Producers: Jo Fidgen and Kate Taylor
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4
In 1916 on the battlefield of the Somme, a German sniper brought to an end the life of perhaps Britain's greatest short-story writer.
Hector Hugh Munro was a political sketch-writer, foreign correspondent, historian and novelist. But he is best known under the pen name Saki for his short story writing.
Saki's dark and twisted tales make delicious radio drama. Many of them centre on childish mischief, small acts of rebellion against pretentious or overbearing authority figures, and supernatural beasts.
The stories draw on the author's upbringing in North Devon, where Saki was raised by his aunts and grandmother.
Shaun Ley, who also grew up in Devon, returns to Saki's childhood home to explore the environment that made the author.
In this three-hour programme, Shaun brings together a series of adaptations, including The Lumber Room, The Toys of Peace, The She-Wolf, The Schartz-Metterklume Method, Mrs Packeltide's Tiger, The Open Window and Sredni Vashtar.
Contributors include: Sir Richard Eyre, Will Self and Dr Sandie Byrne.
Producer: Adam Bowen
Ventriloquism and PAs. Nicholas Parsons welcomes Paul Merton, Tony Hawks, Shelia Hancock and Graham Norton. From August 2011.
Maggie wins an award for a cold cure advert – then catches a cold before the ceremony.
"A light-hearted exposé of the advertising world!". Set in a London ad agency called 'Apsley, Addis, Cohen, Barbican, Blythe, Giddy & Partners'.
Starring Michael Medwin as Michael, Fenella Fielding as Janet, Joan Sims as Mavis, Eleanor Summerfield as Maggie and Nicholas Phipps as Adrian. Other parts by Warren Mitchell.
Series two (of three) written by Myles Rudge with Ronnie Wolfe.
Producer: Eric Miller
First broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in January 1961.
Jeremy Front arrives in Cambridge to visit the 'Zinoviev School of International Relations' to find out more about its new head Jessica Kennedy.
Jessica has managed to jump from high-level job to high-level job, with seemingly few qualifications. Is she just a consummate power player? Or are there more sinister forces at work?
Jeremy Front is here to find out. And he won't let anything get in his way. Not even breakfast.
Jeremy Front stars as Jeremy Front
Rebecca Front as Jessica Kennedy
Emma Sidi as Eva
Ewan Bailey as Trader/Porter
Simon Yadoo as Bus driver/Protester
Producer: Sam Michell
A BBC Studios Production first broadcast in five parts on BBC Radio 4 in November 2018.
4 Extra Debut. Fashion Designer Zandra Rhodes chooses 'Bolero' by Ravel and the duet from 'The Pearl Fishers' by Bizet.
Muriel Gray is joined by Susie Frith and Anne Chapman for a ramble around the gentle rolling landscape of the famous Northamptonshire battlefield.
Series exploring the areas around our greatest battlefields.
Producer: Lucy Lunt
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2004.
And so, Val McDermid's crime comedy draws to a climax in the traditional mode of the detective story. The date of Friday 13th adds to the air of danger and mystery - almost as if it was planned that way.
As the suspense builds. What, we ask ourselves, what is that unfamiliar sound? Is it a mating cry? An alarm call?
In the wild, hunters have to rely on their tracking skills - their eyesight, their hearing, their knowledge of their environment and their experience. Luckily for Detective Sergeant Trotter, he has something more sophisticated to count on.
There's nothing quite like a good murder - apart, of course, from another good murder in a second series....
Cast:
DSI Alma Blair......................Julie Hesmondhalgh
DS Jason Trotter..................John Hollingworth
CSM Jo Blake.......................Miriam Margolyes
Narrator / Brian Masters......Jonathan Keeble
Eric Ollerinshaw..................Alan Rothwell
PC Sparks / Claire...............Victoria Brazier
Sound Designer: Eloise Whitmore
Writer: Val McDermid
Directed and Produced by Justine Potter
A Savvy Production for BBC Radio 4
Once an Edwardian boating haven, the Wheatstone Pond has acquired a dark and chilling atmosphere – with a vile odour hanging around its waters.
After a tragic suicide, the pond is drained and some rather unusual artefacts begin to emerge...
Robert Westall’s deadly occult mystery dramatised by Martyn Read
Starring John Duttine as Morgan, Teresa Gallagher as Hermione, John Webb as James, Ian Brooker as DI Crittenden, Christopher Scott as Mr Makepeace, Peter Meakin as Mossy, Lorna Laidlaw as Rose and Jack Halsey and Richard Ganjavi as the Children.
Directed at BBC Birmingham by Rosemary Watts.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2004.
Satan strikes a bizarre bargain with an eminent historian. Devilish sitcom starring Andy Hamilton and Annette Crosbie. From September 2007.
The Sheffield singer-songwriter investigates unsolved phenomena, with agent Ken Worthington and guest Patrick Mower. From March 2006.
The best in contemporary comedy. Arthur Smith chats to Brennen Reece.
Welsh comic Rhod Gilbert introduces regulars Lloyd Langford and Greg Davies, plus Sarah Millican who takes a weekly look at The Six Stages of Woman.
With live music from Kid British, including Lost in London, Winner and Two Out of Seven.
Guest comedian is Edinburgh Comedy Award winner Mark Watson.
Join Rhod for his Rant on irritating products, delve into Rhod’s Confessions where Lloyd Langford impresses the girls with his French - and see if Greg Davies can tempt you with his Indecent Proposal.
Producers: Julia Mckenzie and Lianne Coop.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 2 in September 2010
English prejudices clash with Italian passions when a young widow is sent abroad to avoid a man's clutches.
The lure of southern Europe clashes with the propriety of the north, in EM Forster's deliciously witty story of English conventions confounded by the romance of Italy.
Omnibus of the first five of ten parts by Penny Leicester.
Sian Thomas is the Narrator, with Teresa Gallagher as Lilia, Tom George as Kingcroft, Jamie Bamber as Philip, Sara Kestelman as Mrs Herriton and Deborah Findlay as Harriet.
Director: Di Speirs
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2003.
When McIver is stuck in Bombay, he takes a city tour and finds himself drawn to a woman in a pink sari.
Written by Tracey Lloyd and read by Lyndam Gregory.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1996.
A fresh look at the ancient world.
Natalie Haynes, critic, writer and reformed stand-up comedian, brings the ancient world entertainingly up to date. In each of the four programmes she profiles a figure from ancient Greece or Rome and creates a stand-up routine around them. She then goes in search of the links which make the ancient world still very relevant in the 21st century.
Episode 4 : Aspasia. Women in ancient Greece were supposedly not seen, not heard and not talked about. Meet the woman who broke all the rules – all the more remarkably for the fact that she was the partner of one of the most powerful men in Greece at the time, Pericles. Natalie explores how writers and comedians used Aspasia’s reputation as a way of attacking the statesman – a practice which hasn’t changed much over 2,500 years. With classicist Sarah B. Pomeroy, Dr Ian Jenkins of the British Museum and Cate Haste, co-author with Cherie Booth of a book on the lot of the statesman’s spouse.
Producer: Christine Hall
David Jason gets chatty with animals and plants - and can a medium reach Doris's dead husband to find out where his money is?
With Sheila Steafel and Royce Mills.
Following in the footsteps of Lord Clark, Dr Bronowski and Professor Galbraith, David Jason unravels the mysteries of the universe and the meaning of life.
Scripted by Colin Bostock Smith, Andy Hamilton, Barry Pilton and Alastair Beaton.
Music by John Owen Edwards
Producer: Geoffrey Perkins
First broadcast on the BBC Radio 4 in September 1977.
David needs to find a new secretary and finds himself landed with his boss’s niece.
Stars George Cole as David Bliss, Diana Churchill as Anne Fellows, Colin Gordon as Tony Fellows, Sheila Sweet as Zoe Hunter, Percy Edwards as 'Psyche' the Dog, Barry K Barnes as Mr Hood, Marcia Hammond as Gwen Cherrell and Sheila Manahan as Miss Robertson.
Godfrey Harrison's sitcom about shy, bumbling bachelor David Alexander Bliss.
Beginning in 1953, it ran for six series of 118 episodes concluding in 1969 - but few survive in the BBC archive. (A TV series was made in 1969). For the first 7 episodes, David Tomlinson played David, but the rest starred the future star of The St Trinian's films - destined to find great fame as the dodgy Arthur Daley in ITV's Minder - George Cole.
Producer: Leslie Bridgmont
First broadcast on the BBC Home Service in January 1959.
In her memoir Becoming, abridged by Katrin Williams, Michelle Obama chronicles the experiences that have shaped her - from the South Side of Chicago to Princeton, to her years as an executive balancing the demands of motherhood and work, to her time spent at the world's most famous address. The White House of course.
Reader Michelle Obama
Producer Duncan Minshull
First broadcast in five parts on BBC Radio 4 in November 2018
Fi Glover introduces a conversation about how a poor start in life can inhibit the skills needed for family life, and how they can still be learned, with help, proving yet again that 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 learn more about The Listening Project by visiting bbc.co.uk/listeningproject
Producer: Marya Burgess
From Mozart to Mama Cass, the actress and comedian Miranda Hart shares her castaway choices with Kirsty Young. From December 2013.
True stories told live in in the USA: Catherine Burns introduces stories from the road, rail, and the sky.
The Moth is an acclaimed not-for-profit organisation dedicated to the art and craft of storytelling based in the USA. Since 1997, it has celebrated both the raconteur and the storytelling novice, who has lived through something extraordinary and yearns to share it. Originally formed by the writer George Dawes Green as an intimate gathering of friends on a porch in Georgia (where moths would flutter in through a hole in the screen), and then recreated in a New York City living room, The Moth quickly grew to produce immensely popular events at theatres and clubs around New York City and later around the USA, the UK and other parts of the world.
The Moth has presented more than 15,000 stories, told live and without notes, to standing-room-only crowds worldwide. The Moth podcast is downloaded over 27 million times a year.
Featuring true stories told live on stage without scripts, from the humorous to the heart-breaking.
The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Jay Allison and Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts and is distributed by the Public Radio Exchange.
You get a very different insight into the natural world when you have the opportunity to study the behaviour of individual animals. David Attenborough recalls with sumptuous delight spotting a blackbird in his garden with a white feather - "whitey" - giving him a window into the life of blackbirds and what's more, that individual. And, he says, he saw what blackbirds get up to! In this story Attenborough remembers filming spiders and filming chimpanzees, both of which benefited from someone knowing about the individuals - and whether you're a spider or a chimpanzee, you have a personality all of your own.
Written and presented by David Attenborough
Produced by Julian Hector.
'It was tempting to think, at times like this, that some bizarre hysteria had gripped the British people.'
Jonathan Coe's new novel for Brexit Britain.
Beginning eight years ago on the outskirts of Birmingham, where car factories have been replaced by pound shops, and London, where riots give way to Olympic fever, Jonathan Coe's new novel follows a Britain through a time of mind-boggling change.
There are newlyweds Ian and Sophie, on either side of the Referendum debate; Doug, the leftwing journalist who writes about austerity from his Chelsea townhouse, and his radical teenage daughter who will stop at nothing in her quest for social justice; Benjamin Trotter, who embarks on an apparently doomed new career in middle age, and his father Colin, whose last wish is to vote to leave the EU. Through these lives is the story of modern England: a story of nostalgia and delusion; of bewilderment and barely-suppressed rage.
Today: 'that bigoted woman'.
Writer: Jonathan Coe's novels include The Rotter's Club and What a Carve Up!
Producer: Justine Willett
Reader: Jeff Rawle is an acclaimed British actor, best known for his role as the long-suffering George Dent in the sitcom Drop the Dead Donkey.
Abridger: Richard Hamilton
Series of programmes in which two people from different generations discuss a topic that reveals the changing nature of Britain.
The theme of the first five programmes is Respect.
Alistair Redman is a sub-postmaster on the Scottish Isle of Islay and Elizabeth Stuart drives the post bus around the island. They discuss the changing nature of the post business and how change has to respect the society it operates in.
A Juniper production for BBC Radio 4.
With petty thieves at work in the high street and a gang of ruthless house breakers at work in both the Old and New Town area of Edinburgh, new police recruits John Gray and his faithful dog have their work cut out.
John Gray served as an Edinburgh policeman for several years in the 1850s and, like other officers on the beat back then, he had to provide his own police dog: the faithful Skye terrier that came to be known as Greyfriars Bobby.
Ronald Frame's Victorian thriller written for radio stars Crawford Logan as Greyfriars Bobby, Paul Young as John Gray. Kenny Blythe as Aeneas Cairncross, Simon Tait as Lachlan Cairncross and Gayanne Potter as Bridie.
Produced in Glasgow by David Ian Neville.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2002.
Poet Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with Adventures in Poetry – Donal Og.
Donal Og, an Irish song, translated by Lady Augusta Gregory of Coole Park, is a ballad that speaks of love and loss.
With poets and dreamers, and an old man who met WB Yeats and Lady Gregory as they gathered Kiltartan stories from the Irish speakers of Galway and Aran.
Presented by Peggy Reynolds.
Producer: Sara Davies.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2005.
A hypnotherapist can't persuade his lover of the value of his work. Then a patient starts regressing.
Robert and James are lovers but their relationship is on the brink of collapse. Robert is a devotee of hypnotherapy but theatre manager James is a sceptic. When he treats a patient, Marie, who vividly regresses to a past life as the servant of a wealthy merchant in 18th-century Honeybourne, Robert tries to convince James that his work is valid.
Stars Nicholas Farrell as Robert, Jonathan Coy as James, Lynsey Baxter as Marie and Stephen Critchlow as Gilchrist.
Written by Michael Butt.
Director: Peter Kavanagh.
First broadcast on Radio 4 in 2003
Over the years, a beautiful and seemingly ageless woman enters Andrew’s life, then promptly disappears. Read by Joss Ackland. From January 1987.
A pub quiz and a talking yam spell disaster for Brian when he accidentally discovers his IQ. Oh - and that's what Archer's lungs look like. Thank you Lillian.
The return of the hit sitcom starring Nicholas Lyndhurst and Vicki Pepperdine ("Getting On") set on a shiny new planet.
Welcome to the colony. We're aware that, having been in deep cryosleep for 73 years, you may be in need of some supplementary information.
Personnel:
Unfortunately, Burrows the leader of the colony has died on the voyage so his Number 2, Brian (Nicholas Lyndhurst), is now in charge. He's a nice enough chap, but no alpha male, and his desire to sort things out with a nice friendly meeting infuriates the colony's Chief Physician Lillian (Vicki Pepperdine), who'd really rather everyone was walking round in tight colour-coded tunics and saluting each other. She's also in charge of Project Adam, the plan to conceive and give birth to the first colony-born baby. Unfortunately, the two people hand-picked for this purpose - Carol and Richard - were rather fibbing about being a couple, just to get on the trip.
Add in an entirely unscrupulous Chief Scientist, Mason and also Archer, an idiot maintenance man who believes he's an "empath" rather than a plumber, and you're all set to answer the question - if humankind were to colonise space, is it destined to succumb to self-interest, prejudice and infighting? (By the way, the answer's "yes". Sorry.)
Written by Phil Whelans
Produced and Directed by David Tyler.
The best in contemporary comedy. Arthur Smith chats to Brennen Reece.
The latest on the 'Penelope Keith riots', and just 38 weeks to Wimbledon.
All the news as it happens, if it happens – and the sport with Alan Partridge.
Savagely satirical award-winning comedy starring Chris Morris.
With Steve Coogan, David Schneider, Rebecca Front, Patrick Marber and Doon Mackichan.
Written by Chris Morris, Richard Herring, Steven Wells, Andrew Glover, David Quantick and Stewart Lee.
Editor: Armando lannucci
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September 1991.
Divorcee Carol has a fruit surplus and Adrian is asked to be a Bond girl. Award-winning comedy with Ben Moor. From June 2008.
English prejudices clash with Italian passions, when a young widow is sent abroad to avoid a man's clutches. Stars Sian Thomas.
Rome, AD 70: Roman sleuth Marcus Didius Falco chances upon an illegal trade in precious metal (the silver pigs) after mounting a rescue from a kidnap gang.
Anton Lesser brings the popular detective to life in Lindsey Davis's witty and enthralling adventures set in the days of the Roman Empire. Dramatised by Mary Cutler.
With Felicity Jones as Sosia, Ben Crowe as Petronius, Robert Lister as Decimus, Richard Derrington as Publius and Frances Jeater as Falco's Mother.
Directed in Birmingham by Peter Leslie Wild.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2004.
Tim van Eyken, award-winning young singer and squeezebox player, reveals how today's musicians are rediscovering 'tune books', small manuscript books of music that were in use from the late-17th to the mid-19th century.
They are now sharing them, in the way that musicians always have, but nowadays online, so that all over the world, people are playing these tunes once again in an ongoing global virtual session.
A mystery body strains the Republic's spirit of glasnost at the British Embassy – where many more British tourists are finding their way here than in the past...
Alex Shearer's Eastern bloc embassy sitcom.
Starring Dinsdale Landen as HM Ambassador Mackenzie, Peter Acre as William Frost, Moir Leslie as Helen Waterson, Stephen Greif as the United States Ambassador, Christopher Benjamin as Colonel Surikov and Stephen Rashbrook as Harris.
Producer: Pete Atkin
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in March 1988.
The 70th series of Radio 4's multi award-winning ‘antidote to panel games’ promises more homespun wireless entertainment for the young at heart.
This week the programme pays a return visit to the Lighthouse concert hall in Poole where regulars Tim Brooke-Taylor and Barry Cryer are once again joined on the panel by Tony Hawks and John Finnemore, with Jack Dee in the chair. At the piano - Colin Sell.
Producer - Jon Naismith.
It is a BBC Studios production.
When the lad gets a surprise in the cellar, Sid sees his chance to make some money.
Stars Tony Hancock. With Sidney James, Bill Kerr, Hattie Jacques and Kenneth Williams.
Written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson.
Theme and incidental music written by Wally Stott.
Producer: Tom Ronald
First broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in February 1958.
Station Master Horace Hepplewhite steps up to the crease in his battle to save his sleepy station from closure.
Starring Arthur Lowe as Horace, Ian Lavender as Bert, Kenneth Connor as Percy, Liz Fraser as Gloria and Ronald Baddiley as Mr Bun the Inspector.
Jim Eldridge's eponymous series is set in a sleepy railway station. The Hepplewhites have run 'Parsley Sidings' station for generations and the current Station Master, Horace, hopes that his son Bert will continue the line. Mild-mannered Ticket Clerk Bert wants to work anywhere but on the railways. His colleague, Station Announcer Gloria Simpkins, secretly loves him. Porter Percy Valentine is an archetypal wheeler-dealer and the ancient Signalman, Bradshaw, causes havoc and dispenses home-made remedies in equal measure. The 'Parsley Sidings' nemesis is Phineas Perkins, the station master of Potwhistle Halt, one stop down the line.
Re-created Announcements by Keith Skues.
Producer: Edward Taylor
First broadcast on BBC Radio 2 in January 1972.
This week, the popular panel game is bought to you from the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and hosted by Nicholas Parsons. Favourite players Paul Merton and Gyles Bradreth are joined by newcomer and fringe favourite Jason Byrne. Producer Tilusha Ghelani
A smooth trouble-free staff meeting... no hiccoughs or nasty surprises? That's a bad omen for the school's staff.
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, Christopher Dunning as Paul, Charlotte Finlay-Tribe as Mandy, Nikki Snode as Dinesh and Jodie Devlin as Ria.
Producer: John Fawcett Wilson
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in June 2003.
While Eustacia Vye waits on Egdon Heath for her erstwhile lover Damon Wildeve , his fiancee Tamsin Yeobright has been jilted at the altar.
Thomas Hardy’s 1878 Wessex novel about love and longing dramatised in three-parts by David Calcutt.
David Calder stars as Thomas Hardy, Emma Fielding as Eustacia Vye, Adam Godley as Clym Yeobright, Timothy Watson as Damon Wildeve, Ben Crowe as Diggory Venn, Cathy Sara as Tamsin Yeobright, Annette Badland as Mrs Yeobright, Gerry Hinks as Granfer Cantle, Stephen Tomlin as Timothy Fairway, Sunny Ormonde as Susan Nunsuch, Ben Tibber as Johnny Nunsuch, Martin Reeve as Humphrey, Oliver Hembrough as Christian Cantle and Martyn Read as Captain Vye.
Traditional music arranged and performed by Chris Leslie
Director: Rosemary Watts
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2005.
An awkward encounter between a suited American and a pregnant woman in a stuck lift. Written and read by Anne Enright.
On July 13 1793, Charlotte Corday, a young girl from Caen in Normandy, journeyed to Paris. Her sole aim was to kill Jean Paul Marat, while he sat in his bath. But what drove her to such extremes?
The first of three plays by David Pownall exploring the hearts and minds of three of history's most celebrated killers.
Samantha Bond stars Charlotte Corday and Gerard Murphy as Jean Paul Marat.
Director: Eoin O'Callaghan
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1999.
A corpse sets detective-for-hire George Valentine on a search for a missing embezzler.
'Let George Do It' was a sponsored American radio drama carried by the Mutual Broadcasting System from 1952.
Robert Bailey stars as George Valentine, gleaning clients from his classified ad in the Personal Notices: "Danger's my stock in trade. If the job's too tough for you to handle, you've got a job for me."
With Virginia Gregg as George's secretary, Brooksie.
Scripted by David Victor and Jackson Gillis.
Music by Eddie Dunstedler.
Directed by Don Clark.
Announcer: John Hiestand.
4 Extra's MYSTERY THEATER showcases American radio's golden years of the 1940s and 50s, when many of Hollywood's greatest screen stars were regular performers, often re-enacting film roles.
As Harriet and Philip arrive to rescue Lilia's son, Philip finds himself captivated by Italy. With Sian Thomas and Jamie Bamber.
Nicholas Shakespeare writes about his aunt, a glamorous English woman whose life in Paris during the German Occupation grew more and more mysterious. Abridged in 5 episodes by Katrin Williams.
1. The author resolves to unearth the facts about Priscilla, whose background and activities during World War 2 fascinate the rest of the family. She died in the 1980's, even a Vicomtess at one stage. How, then, will he embark on his task of discovery?
Reader Nicholas Shakespeare
Producer Duncan Minshull
The Voice invites Captain Jet Morgan and his crew to meet him, but Lemmy is soon feeling terrified...
Futuristic tale set in 1965 as first broadcast in 1953.
Stars Andrew Faulds as Jet Morgan, Alfie Bass as Lemmy Barnett, Guy Kingsley-Poynter as Doc and David Williams as Mitch, Other parts by David Jacobs and Deryck Guyler.
Music composed and orchestra conducted by Van Phillips.
Written in 13-parts and produced by Charles Chilton.
Though first heard in 1953, the original recordings were wiped.
Re-recording first broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in 1958.
Sue MacGregor and her guests - comedy writers and performers, Arabella Weir and Ken Campbell - discuss books by Isabel Allende, Jon Canter, and Wilson & Shea.
My Invented Country by Isabel Allende, translated by Margaret Sayers Peden
Publisher: Harper Perennial
The Illuminatus! Trilogy: Part 1 The Eye in the Pyramid by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson
Publisher: Constable & Robinson
Seeds of Greatness by Jon Canter
Publisher: Vintage
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2007.
Martin's proposal to his girlfriend does not go according to plan. Stars Charles Gray and Paul Raffield. From March 1996.
John Waite investigates the shocking claim that the Cartilages were not a real family. With Ben Miller. From October 1996.
Special guest host Lucy Porter presents the week via topical stand-up and sketches and looks at the latest news on the Brexit withdrawal bill, and looks at a round-up of the other stories this week.
Ivo Graham examines the recent tradition of Christmas adverts as events, and Sindhu Vee looks into the recent controversy around a film crew helping some penguins to safety. Jess Robinson brings up a festive song from Number 10.
Kieran Hodgson and Emma Sidi provide additional voices.
The show was written by Steve Punt and the cast with additional material from Madeleine Brettingham, Ed Amsden, Tom Coles, Joe Barnes, Laura Major and Mike Shephard.
The production coordinator was Sarah Sharpe and the producer was Matt Stronge.
It was a BBC Studios production.
Sherlock Holmes plays Cluedo in this sketch comedy starring Robert Webb, Olivia Colman and Sally Hawkins. From September 2002.
Roman detective, Falco is investigating the mystery of how a stolen lead ingot containing silver came to be in the bank box of a senator's daughter. And things have taken a turn for the worse, as he's now probing a murder and - worse still - he's forced to visit a remote and dangerous outpost of the Empire - Britain.
Starring Anton Lesser as Falco, Fritha Goodey as Helena, Ben Crowe as Petronius, Robert Lister as Decimus, Richard Derrington as Publius and Ian Brooker as Hilaris.
Lindsey Davis's witty and enthralling adventure set in the days of the Roman Empire. Dramatised by Mary Cutler.
Directed in Birmingham by Peter Leslie Wild.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2004.
"The intense love for my parents, with its resultant anguish, lives on for me". Sebastian Peake, eldest son of Mervyn Peake, the remarkable author and artist, takes a return trip to the Island of Sark where he spent his childhood.
Peake, whose centenary is being celebrated this week, is best known for his 'Titus Groan' series of novels, and to a lesser degree his art and illustrations; but he was also a passionate husband, married to artist Maeve Gilmore, and family man. Never too busy to indulge his children, he enriched their lives with his fantastical imagination as much as those who read his novels or relished his art.
Here, Sebastian revisits the family home in the Channel Islands, walks the traffic free byways, recalling his remarkable father; the day he sketched 50 of the islanders at the annual fair; the acts of derring-do, climbing down to dangerous coves to gather semi-precious stones for Maeve; his time as one of the Sark Group of painters; and finally the days spent writing his most famous novel, 'Gormenghast'.
With his brother Fabian, he pours over diaries, paintings and sketches to talk about their father's artistic legacy, from the best loved "Treasure Island" illustrations to poignant sketches of the last inhabitants of Belsen. With his sister Clare, he mourns his fathers struggles in later life, the onset of Parkinson's and the difficult final years for the family, and their mother in particular.
This is the life of Mervyn Peake, from his youth as an artist, to his untimely death in 1957, having become one of the most truly imaginative and haunting writers in the world, talking to those who knew him best.
Producer: Sara Jane Hall.
It's the semi-final of the Frewitt Cup, but Father Benedict's tactics manual falls into enemy hands.
Robert Patterson knows that victory will come only with the help of the Angel of the Lord.
A six-part black comedy by Martin Davies
Stars Desmond Barrit as Father Benedict, Brenda Blethyn as Mrs Patterson, Paul Parris as Robert Patterson, Charlotte Coleman as Barbara Patterson, Martino Lazzeri as Guy Entwhistle, Mark Straker as Andy, Claire Skinner as Janet and Gordon Reid as Mr Plant,
Producer: Lissa Evans
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in February 1993.
Nominated for this year’s main Edinburgh Comedy Award, and winner of the Newcomer in 2014, American comedian Alex Edelman is back for a second series of his show PEER GROUP in which he takes a comic look at what it’s like being a millennial today.
The first episode is all about his relationship with materialism and what millennials actually want to own, apart from - obviously - a house. He looks at how the internet has changed people's perceptions of owning things, and what things actually mean anything to millennials in a world where everything is disposable.
We also hear from Alex's "peer group" - comedians Alfie Brown, Moses Storm and Jak Knight, journalist Rebecca Nicholson and cultural commentator David Burstein.
It is written and presented by Alex Edelman, with additional material by Ivo Graham.
Producer: Sam Michell.
A BBC Studios production.
Bertie Wooster comes a cropper while trying to rescue Gussie Fink-Nottle's notebook.
PG Wodehouse romp adapted by Chris Miller.
Starring Michael Hordern as Jeeves, Richard Briers as Bertie Wooster, Patrick Cargill as Sir Watkyn Bassett, Miriam Margolyes as Stiffy Byng, Rex Garner as Gussie Fink-Nottle, James Villiers as Roderick Spode and Bridget Armstrong as Madeline Bassett.
Producer: David Hatch
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1973.
Times are changing – but can the bungling bureaucrats pass the new civil service exams?
One of 14 shows not kept in the archive and re-recorded in 1980 – previously never broadcast in the UK, until the arrival of BBC Radio 4 Extra.
‘The Men from the Ministry’ ran for 14 series between 1962 and 1977.
Stars Richard Murdoch and Deryck Guyler (who replaced Wilfrid Hyde-White from 1966).
With Norma Ronald, Ronald Baddiley and John Graham.
Written by Johnnie Mortimer, Brian Cooke and Edward Taylor.
Producer: Edward Taylor.
Re-recording of ‘A Degrading Business' made in April 1980.
Clive Anderson referees the improvisations of Stephen Fry, John Sessions, Rory Bremner and Jon Glover. From February 1988.
A West End play causes such a scandal, that respectable Victorian theatregoers can't keep away.
The second series of short stories by WS Gilbert dramatised by Stephen Wyatt.
Starring Jonathan Coy as WS Gilbert, Alexander Delamere as Jellybag, Jeffrey Harmer as Quisby, Tim Hudson as Edgar, Jilly Bond as Henrietta, Stephen Hogan as Joseph, Bella Merlin as Hebe and Charlotte West-Oram as Mrs Spiff.
Playwright and humourist, Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (1836-1911) is best known for his comic opera collaborations with Sir Arthur Sullivan, which first captivated audiences across the English-speaking world in the late 19th century.
Director: Jenny Stephens
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2004.
Clym Yeobright has returned from Paris. A contrived meeting between him and Eustacia has sparked a mutual interest.
Is he the man she’s been dreaming of?
Thomas Hardy’s 1878 Wessex novel about love and longing dramatised in three-parts by David Calcutt.
David Calder stars as Thomas Hardy, Emma Fielding as Eustacia Vye, Adam Godley as Clym Yeobright, Timothy Watson as Damon Wildeve, Ben Crowe as Diggory Venn, Cathy Sara as Tamsin Yeobright, Annette Badland as Mrs Yeobright, Gerry Hinks as Granfer Cantle, Stephen Tomlin as Timothy Fairway, Sunny Ormonde as Susan Nunsuch, Martin Reeve as Humphrey, Oliver Hembrough as Christian Cantle and Martyn Read as Captain Vye.
Traditional music arranged and performed by Chris Leslie.
Director: Rosemary Watts
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2005.
As the second Gulf War erupts, Simon wants to 'retard thought implantation'. Written by Mimi Thebo. Read by Stephen Perring.
On a sunny day in May 1812, as Napoleon's armies massed on the Russian borders, Liverpudlian timber merchant, John Bellingham was feeling aggrieved.
He entered the House of Commons and shot dead the prime minister, Spencer Perceval.
Second of three plays by David Pownall exploring the hearts and minds of three of history's most celebrated killers.
David Horovitch stars as John Bellingham.
Director: Eoin O'Callaghan
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1999.
Bertie comes a cropper while trying to rescue Gussie's notebook. PG Wodehouse adventure with Michael Hordern and Richard Briers.
A young, frightened woman pays a visit to the Baker Street detective. A job offer that seems too good to be true is just the beginning of a most mysterious case.
John Stanley stars as the original super-sleuth, Sherlock Holmes with Alfred Shirley as the dependable Doctor Watson.
American radio drama series carried by the Mutual Broadcasting System from 1947.
Based upon the character of Sherlock Holmes, created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and dramatised by Edith Meiser.
Music by Albert Berman.
Announcer: Sy Harris
Produced and directed by Basil Loughren.
4 Extra's MYSTERY THEATER showcases American radio's golden years of the 1940s and 50s, when many of Hollywood's greatest screen stars were regular performers, often re-enacting film roles.
As they prepare to rescue Lilia's baby, Philip, Caroline and Harriet find Italy intoxicating. Stars Jamie Bamber and Emilia Fox.
Nicholas Shakespeare writes about his aunt, a glamorous English woman whose life in Paris during the German Occupation grew more and more mysterious. Abridged in 5 episodes by Katrin Williams.
2. Fleeing to Paris, in desperate straits, the young woman finds kindness when it's least expected. Enter the gallant Robert Doynel. Now her life will change forever..
Reader Nicholas Shakespeare
Producer Duncan Minshull
James Walton's pop music history quiz with Andrew Collins, Tracey MacLeod, Stewart Lee and Martin Freeman. From December 2004.
With Michael messing her about, Izzy's quest to find love gets even more muddled.
Tumbling from one love entanglement to another, 30 something teacher Izzy Comyn has a predilection for inappropriate men.
Adapted by Sue Limb from her 1984 novel into 3 radio series which ran from 1987 to 1993. Granada also adapted the series for ITV.
Imedla Staunton stars as Izzy. With Nicholas Le Prevost as Michael, Mike Grady as Dick, Sion Probert as Gwyn and Phyllida Nash as Louise.
Producer: Jonathan James-Moore
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 1987.
After travelling through time, could Captain Jet Morgan and his crew be bound for home at last?
Futuristic tale set in 1965 as first broadcast in 1953.
Stars Andrew Faulds as Jet Morgan, Alfie Bass as Lemmy Barnett, Guy Kingsley-Poynter as Doc and David Williams as Mitch, Other parts by David Jacobs and Deryck Guyler.
Music composed and orchestra conducted by Van Phillips.
Written and produced by Charles Chilton.
Though first heard in 1953, the original recordings were wiped.
Re-recording first broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in 1958.
Craig Armstrong is a respected composer and arranger and a Royal Academy of Music graduate.
His film credits include the scores for William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet which earned him a BAFTA award and Moulin Rouge which earned him an Ivor Novello award for best original score. He wrote the music for the film Love Actually and has produced his own albums including Piano Works and Film Works.
Phil Cunningham opens the programme with the music to accompany the Balcony Scene from the soundtrack to the film Romeo + Juliet and then they go on to talk about these five tracks.
The Long and Winding Road - The Beatles
Lontano for Orchestra (1967 ) - Ligeti
Safe from Harm - Massive Attack
Lets make our own movies - AGF - Westernization Completed
Because of Toledo - The Blue Nile
Phil closes the programme with Enno Morricone's Love Theme
Back where it started out. Matt Lucas and David Walliams' oddball TV smash hit without the cameras. From February 2002.
The best in contemporary comedy. Jessica Fostekew chats to Suzi Ruffell
Going Live! Phillip Schofield relives his days on children's television with Nick Golsen and Tim de Jongh. From January 1997.
Ed appears to have stepped on the gravy train at last as he takes up a professorship at Much Wenlock Court - a prestigious writing retreat. He hopes this will lead him to, at the very least, a contentious Saturday Essay on the Today Programme. However, this retreat has been set up by one Jaz Milvain so could Ed's change in fortune be too good to be true?
Written by Andrew Nickolds and Christopher Douglas
Produced by Dawn Ellis.
Probing the illegal imports of the ingots, Roman sleuth Falco has chanced upon a sinister plot to overthrow the Emperor Vespasian. And he's also discovered the identity of Helena's ex-husband: which has made him realise the pot is much closer to home than he thought.
Starring Anton Lesser as Falco, Fritha Goodey as Helena, Ben Crowe as Petronius, Robert Lister as Decimus and Jonathan Keeble as Titus.
Lindsey Davis's witty and enthralling adventure set in the days of the Roman Empire. Dramatised by Mary Cutler.
Directed in Birmingham by Peter Leslie Wild.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2004.
Recently Anne Fine decided to re-read some of Enid Blyton's work, to try and discover just what it was about her that she had loved as a child. For years she had ignored Blyton's work, in part because of the constant drip, drip, drip of disapproval that has accompanied her books for many decades. But, on going back to her battered old Blytons, she realised exactly why she had found her books so captivating - they are remarkably good reads - real page turners.
Anne Fine does not deny that Blyton is the creator of creaking plots and cardboard characters ........ the author of jolly and exciting adventures, in which the most enormous amounts of food are consumed by children who are far from obese ..... and a writer dogged by accusations of racism and sexism. And yet her books have outsold all other children's authors. In August this year, she was voted the UK's best-loved writer. Her work has been translated into 40 different languages and she's sold over 500 million books worldwide.
A Fine Defence of Enid Blyton includes extracts from a rare interview with her only surviving daughter, Imogen Smallwood, and contributions her official biographer, Barbara Stoney, as well as the UK's leading Blyton scholar, Dr David Rudd [Professor of Children's literature at Bolton University]. There are also archive recordings of Enid herself, her elder daughter [Gillian Baverstock] and her brother Hanley. The reader is Miriam Margolyes.
Anne Fine has written over 40 books for children and adults. She has been Children's Laureate and has won many prizes for her writing [including the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize, the Smarties Prize and the Carnegie Medal].
Producer: Helen Lee
London 1855: Primus's latest publishing coup is the explorer Richard Burton, but drink and other substances seem to have destroyed Burton's sense of direction.
Martyn Wade’s four-part comedy stars Michael Cochrane as Primus, Maggie Steed as Cordelia, Elizabeth Spriggs as Edith, David Horovitch as Gerald, Frances Jeater as Katie Joiner, Norman Rodway as Richard Burton and David Antrobus as the Waiter.
Director: Cherry Cookson
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in August 1998.
An attempt to get a good night's sleep results in a visit from the police.
Bob – Steve Speirs
Gruff – Elis James
Alice – Margareat Cabourn-Smith
Graham– Ben Willbond
Sara– Vivienne Acheampong
Rashid – Phaldut Sharma
Written by Benjamin Partridge & Gareth Gwynn
Produced by Victoria Lloyd
A BBC Studios Production
HMS Troutbridge's mission to foster good relations with the German navy goes awry.
Stars Leslie Phillips as the Sub-Lieutenant, Jon Pertwee as the Chief Petty Officer, Stephen Murray as the Number One, Richard Caldicote as Captain Povey, Heather Chasen as Heather, Michael Bates as Rear Admiral Ironbridge, Tenniel Evens as Taffy Goldstein and Ronnie Barker as Lieutenant Queeg.
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 December 1963.
Kenneth Horne debuts ‘The Wolfhound of the Tuskervilles’ and ‘Hornerama’ on cricket.
With Kenneth Williams, Hugh Paddick, Betty Marsden and Bill Pertwee.
Written by Eric Merriman and Barry Took
Music from Pat Lancaster, the Fraser Hayes Four and the BBC Variety 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 15 shows survive from the original run of 21 episodes in Series 2. Audio restored using both home and overseas (BBC Transcription Service) recordings.
Producer: Jacques Brown
First broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in May 1959.
Martin Young chairs the quiz which looks at the noteworthy and the notorious from history.
Tackling the biographical teasers are team captains Francis Wheen and Fred Housego with guests Carol Sarler and Rachel Holmes
Producer: Liz Anstee
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in February 2000.
Captured by French revolutionaries, Tamsyn faces an excruciating torture involving a shuttlecock, some badminton rackets and two fat naked Germans.
It's 1793 and in the small Cornish village of Drumlin Bay, heroic smuggler Tamsyn Trelawny is still running rings around the customs men, assisted by her drunken father Jago.
Written by Tom Jamieson and Nev Fountain.
Starring Sheridan Smith as Tamsyn Trelawny, John Bowe as Jago Trelawny, Cameron Stewart as Major Thomas Falconer, Andrew McGibbon as Captain Marriot, Martin Hyder as Squire Bascombe, Mark Felgate as Dewey and Mark Perry as Hobbs.
Producer: Jan Ravens.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in May 2004.
Eustacia's disappointment over Clym’s intention to stay on Egdon Heath and the resurgence of her passion for Damon Wildeve threaten to blight all their lives.
Conclusion of Thomas Hardy’s 1878 Wessex novel about love and longing dramatised in three-parts by David Calcutt.
David Calder stars as Thomas Hardy, Emma Fielding as Eustacia Vye, Adam Godley as Clym Yeobright, Timothy Watson as Damon Wildeve, Ben Crowe as Diggory Venn, Cathy Sara as Tamsin Yeobright, Annette Badland as Mrs Yeobright, Gerry Hinks as Granfer Cantle, Stephen Tomlin as Timothy Fairway, Sunny Ormonde as Susan Nunsuch, Martin Reeve as Humphrey, Oliver Hembrough as Christian Cantle, Martyn Read as Captain Vye and Ben Tibber as Johnny Nonsuch.
Traditional music arranged and performed by Chris Leslie.
Director: Rosemary Watts
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2005.
Can Colin command authority when he becomes the manager of an over-35s amateur football team? Written and read by Matt Harvey.
April 14th 1865: Thirty minutes into the performance of 'Our American Cousin', at the Ford Theatre, Washington, John Wilkes Booth entered President Abraham Lincoln's State Box, and shot him dead.
What set of remarkable circumstances led up to an event that in its time was as momentous as the assassination of JF Kennedy?
The last of three plays by David Pownall exploring the hearts and minds of three of history's most celebrated killers.
Nathan Osgood stars as John Wilkes Booth and Carlos Antonio as Davey Herold.
Director: Eoin O'Callaghan
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1999.
The Raincoat: Orson Welles' tale inspired by a real case from Scotland Yard's gruesome gallery of crime-related ephemera
Even a simple garment like a raincoat can be connected to the brutal murder of a married woman.
In The Black Museum, Orson is your host and guide through tales based on the grim and ominous collection of objects connected to significant British crimes.
Writer: Ira Marion.
Music: Sydney Torch
Producer: Harry Alan Towers
The films of Orson Welles have guaranteed him a place in the pantheon of film heroes (Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons, Touch of Evil). This series is one of several fascinating sidesteps into a medium which arguably contributed to Welles' success - radio. Thanks to Harry Alan Towers, British radio was host to his dulcet tones for a spell in the early 1950s - including his famous cinematic anti-hero in The Lives of Harry Lime.
Presented by arrangement with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer radio attractions
Produced by Towers of London and first broadcast in the USA in 1952.
4 Extra's MYSTERY THEATER showcases American radio's golden years of the 1940s and 50s, when many of Hollywood's greatest screen stars were regular performers, often re-enacting film roles.
Caroline sets out to rescue Lilia's son from his father Gino, but discovers something unknown. Stars Emilia Fox and Tom George.
Nicholas Shakespeare writes about his aunt, a glamorous English woman whose life in Paris during the German Occupation grew more and more mysterious. Abridged in five episodes by Katrin Williams.
3. Priscilla has been living off her wits and off the favours of men she knows. But incriminating information seems to gather fast and one morning the police come calling.
Reader Nicholas Shakepeare
Producer Duncan Minshull
After blasting off, Captain Jet Morgan and his crew try to make sense of their mammoth trip through time.
Conclusion of the futuristic tale set in 1965 as first broadcast in 1953.
Stars Andrew Faulds as Jet Morgan, Alfie Bass as Lemmy Barnett, Guy Kingsley-Poynter as Doc and David Williams as Mitch, Other parts by David Jacobs and Deryck Guyler.
Music composed and orchestra conducted by Van Phillips.
Written and produced by Charles Chilton.
Though first heard in 1953, the original recordings were wiped.
Re-recording first broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in 1958.
Mark Radcliffe looks back at the life and career of comic Norman Evans.
Like his more famous counterpart and mentor, Gracie Fields, Norman was born and brought up in Rochdale, where he worked as a travelling salesman before his talent for comic speeches was spotted and he took to the stage.
His genius for observing the "humour of everyday life" led to his most famous sketch show - "Over The Garden Wall" – playing a northern housewife plagued by "women's troubles" and "him at home". While Evans is less famous now, he paved the way for later comedians like Les Dawson.
Series exploring the tradition of influential northern comedians of the past,
Producer Libby Cross
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2000.
The waters rise on Shedtown and its no-rules pier is about to reach its beachy head.
Will the Sheddists choose to shed this new life again and drip back off the big wheel and into reality (home)? Or will they keep on drifting? - Dipping back into the sea, headed for a headier life still, in their dreams.
CAST
Jimmy.................. Stephen Mangan
Barry.................... Tony Pitts
Wes..................... Warren Brown
Father Michael.... James Quinn
Dave.................... Shaun Keaveny
Diane................... Rosina Carbone
1st Diane............. Suranne Jones
Diane (in wigs).....Debra Stephenson
William................ Seymour Mace
Deborah.............. Emma Fryer
Eugenius............. Neil Maskell
Norma No Rules..Juliet Oldfield
Narrated by Maxine Peake
Written and Directed by Tony Pitts
Music by Richard Hawley and Paul Heaton
Produced by Sally Harrison
A Woolyback Production for BBC Radio 4
The best in contemporary comedy. Jessica Fostekew chats to Suzi Ruffell
The Londoner invites Micky Flanagan and Nat Luurtsema round to his place, and there's music from Alabama 3. From July 2009.
The spin doctoring duo get a lucrative contract to work for the BBC. Stars Stephen Fry and John Bird. From February 2004.
Falco battles to discover who killed Sosia - and to unmask the plotters against the Emperor. He also discovers that true love can cross the boundaries of the strict Roman class structure...
Starring Anton Lesser as Falco, Fritha Goodey as Helena, Robert Lister as Decimus, Jonathan Keeble as Titus and Richard Derrington as Publius.
Lindsey Davis's witty and enthralling adventure set in the days of the Roman Empire. Dramatised by Mary Cutler.
Directed in Birmingham by Peter Leslie Wild.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2004.
You've heard of the twelve bar - it's time to learn what exactly it is.
It is the DNA of popular music. Three chords played in a set sequence over twelve bars.
The twelve bar is an American invention. It was originally taken up by rural blues musicians. The first commercial example was W.C. Handy's 'St Louis Blues'. Then it became the staple of the New Orleans jazz repertoire, the big bands, Chicago blues . And in the fifties, just about every other pop song was written around the twelve bar chord sequence.
It is also the common ground for musicians who want to get to know each other. You might not know the same songs, but you know a twelve bar, and you jam. It's a musical level playing field.
You might not know it but a lot of very familiar songs are twelve bars. Here are twelve:
Hound Dog
Mustang Sally
Can't Buy Me Love
Subterranean Homesick Blues
Green Onions
Making Your Mind Up
Folsom Prison Blues
Mercy (Duffy)
Stormy Monday
Money
In The Mood
Sweet Home Chicago
Nick Barraclough has played a few twelve bars in his time. In this programme he talks to bluesologists, a couple of jazzers and a banjo player about why the twelve bar works so well. They illustrate what can be done with this simple sequence and how much fun it can be to mess with it.
Producer: John Leonard
A Smooth Operation production for BBC Radio 4
A big win under the guidance of the legendary Tam Robertshaw has led to Ken's new role as courier for the lovely Racehorse Rita. Is he seriously out of his depth?
Dave Sheasby's six-part comedy drama.
Starring as Gerard McDermott as Ken, Gillian Bevan as Margaret, Anthony Ofoegbu as Curly, Keith Marsh as Dad, Christopher Wright as Nigel, John Rowe as Tomlinson and Janet Maw as Rita.
Director: David Hunter
First broadcast on BBC Radio in September 1997.
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 break down the results of the US midterms and offer an insight into the unfolding drama of the Trump presidency.
Cast:
Rich Hall
Nick Doody
Lewis MacLeod
Freya Parker
Mike Wilmot
and Desiree Burch.
Written by Rich Hall & Nick Doody with additional material by James Kettle and Mike Shephard.
Producer - Joe Nunnery
A BBC Studios Production
When the ad agency takes on a campaign for a new high-tech lock – it works too well!
"A light-hearted exposé of the advertising world!". Set in a London ad agency called 'Apsley, Addis, Cohen, Barbican, Blythe, Giddy & Partners'.
Starring Michael Medwin as Michael, Fenella Fielding as Janet, Joan Sims as Mavis, Eleanor Summerfield as Maggie and Nicholas Phipps as Adrian. Other parts by Warren Mitchell.
Series two (of three) written by Myles Rudge with Ronnie Wolfe.
Producer: Eric Miller
First broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in January 1961.
Neddie Seagoon ends up splashing about when he visits a German scientist. Stars Harry Secombe. From October 1957.
Scratch your head along with Chris Maslanka, Dr Victor Bryant, Dr Doreen Baxter and William Hartston. From July 1998.
Maria and Richard have a happy marriage, no children, but their house is falling down. It looks like there's only one thing for it - they'll have to start taking in lodgers. From January 1995.
Stars Barbara Flynn as Maria, Patrick Barlow as Richard. With Diane Louise-Jordan as Ruby and Toby Longworth as Paul. Produced by Liz Anstee.
First heard on BBC Radio 4.
Dramatisation of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde.
One of the great works of English literature, this powerful, compelling story explores love from its first tentative beginnings through to passionate sensuality and eventual tragic disillusionment. Lavinia Greenlaw's new version for radio brings Chaucer's language up-to-date for a modern audience while remaining true to his original poetic intention.
After seeing the beautiful widow Criseyde at the temple in Troy, Troilus falls instantly in love with her. Inexperienced in love, he is unable to act on his feelings and locks himself in his room to compose love songs. Pandarus, worried for his friend, eventually persuades Troilus to tell him why he is so miserable and is delighted to hear that the cause is Troilus' love for his niece Criseyde.
Worried about her reputation, Criseyde is at first reluctant to enter into a relationship with Troilus. After much cajoling and manipulation, she reluctantly comes around to the idea. Pandarus is frustrated that the relationship is moving too slowly and engineers a complex plan to get Criseyde and Troilus in bed together.
Troilus ...... Tom Ferguson
Criseyde ...... Maxine Peake
Pandarus ...... Malcolm Raeburn
Servant/Friend ...... Kathryn Hunt
Calchas/Servant ...... Kevin Doyle
Priam/Servant ...... Terence Mann
Hector/Diomede ...... Declan Wilson
With music composed by Gary Yershon and performed by Ehsan Emam, Tim Williams and Mike Dale.
Directed by Susan Roberts.
Michael is worried that he might not be able to have children with his wife, but he has a plan. Written by Philip Gross. Read by Andrew Hilton.
What happens when a brilliant dancer loses his will to dance? Frances Byrnes' passionate play is about someone who has stopped moving and needs to move again.
Luke was a brilliant dancer, the star of his generation. Suddenly, without warning, he loses his ability to dance - not physically, but psychologically. He has one last chance to dance onstage - his old company has a big producer in that audience they must impress. But Luke can't cope, he runs to hide in a seedy bar behind the theatre where he meets Guy, an elderly gentlemen adamant he will find the love of his life at the party he has heard about in the woods.
Inspired by real non-dancers' stories, and based on workshops at London Contemporary Dance School and Northern School of Contemporary Dance, this new drama takes the audience deep into what makes a dancer tick. The physical compulsion to express oneself through movement and dedicate yourself to relentless, all consuming dance training is examined in words and movement.
Frances Byrnes is a Sony award winning dance features maker and dramatist. Her adaptation of L P Hartley's The Go-Between for BBC Radio 3 was shortlisted in the 2013 Writers Guild Awards.
Cast:
Luke..........John Heffernan
Guy...........Wyllie Longmore
Bea............Alexandra Mathie
Debs..........Carla Henry
Dancer........Akeim Toussaint Buck
With thanks to Peter Lovatt, Ihsaan de Banya, Veronica Lewis, Naomi Thomas and London Contemporary Dance School; Janet Smith, Ceri Brierley and Northern School of Contemporary Dance.
Written by Frances Byrnes
Producer/director: Polly Thomas
A Somethin Else production for BBC Radio 4
1947: Danger awaits car salesman Speed Evans as captivating dame, Sylvia arrives in his showroom.
Starring Glenn Ford as Speed Evans and Cathy Lewis as Sylvia Ganlon.
Adapted by Irving Moore and Robert Richards from a story by Irving Moore.
Glenn Ford (1916-2006) A practical man, the Canadian-American film star began acting after school - but at his father's behest, maintained a number of pragmatic skills - wiring, plumbing, roofing. Ford was in both the US Marines and the Navy, even serving in Vietnam.
Big screen roles included Gilda, The Big Heat, Midway, The Sheepman, The Gazebo, Pocketful of Miracles, Don't Go Near the Water, The Fastest Gun Alive and Superman.
From CBS Radio's Suspense series which ran in the USA from 1942 to 1962.
4 Extra's MYSTERY THEATER showcases American radio's golden years of the 1940s and 50s, when many of Hollywood's greatest screen stars were regular performers, often re-enacting film roles.
Philip admires Gino's love for his son, but Harriet has other plans which spark terrible consequences. Stars Sian Thomas.
Nicholas Shakespeare writes about his aunt, a glamorous English woman whose life in Paris during the German Occupation grew more and more mysterious. Abridged in 5 episodes by Katrin Williams.
4. Priscilla relied on the kindness and often dubious motives of men to survive in the capital. Then information supplied by her friend Gillian Sutro casts even more light on tumultuous events..
Reader Nicholas Shakespeare
Producer Duncan Minshull
In 17th Century Leyden, young Flemish painter Godfrey Schalken's love for his master's daughter, Rose, receives a setback when a mysterious visitor comes calling one night by the name of Vanderhausen...
An unabridged reading in 2 episodes read by Ian McDiarmid.
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu (1814-1873) is regarded by many critics as the greatest master of the English ghost story. A product of the decaying Anglo-Irish culture of the early and mid-19th Century, he sums up in his work better than any of his contemporaries the fears and dreads that may haunt the sensitive individual.
Producer: Lawrence Jackson
Made for BBC 7 by BBC Northern Ireland and first broadcast in 2005.
Oscar Wilde, author of The Importance of Being Earnest and The Ballad of Reading Gaol, is proposed by Will Self, a writer once described as a 'high powered satirical weapon'.
In 1895, and at the height of his success, Wilde began libel proceedings against the Marquess of Queensberry, sparking a disastrous sequence of trials, prison, exile and disgrace. A century later Oscar Wilde is often listed as one of the wittiest Britons who ever lived, but this was a life that ended in tragedy and early death. Joining Will Self and Matthew Parris in the studio is Franny Moyle, author of a biography of Oscar Wilde's wife, Constance, an often overlooked character in Wilde's life. The programme features actor Simon Russell Beale's reading of De Profundis - From The Depths.
The producer is Miles Warde.
The week's news stories lovingly moulded into sketches and one-liners by the public
Battles galore in the National Theatre of Brent's definitive history of Earth. Stars Patrick Barlow. From May 1990.
Bonus material from David Mitchell and Robert Webb's fifth series of quirky sketches, with Olivia Colman and James Bachman. Extra episode exclusive to 4 Extra. From December 2013.
The codebreakers must get jabs, but they all rustle up excuses to avoid the needle. Stars Robert Bathurst. From June 2008.
A long-buried secret induces pity and sorrow in the Great Detective.
Holmes and Watson learn the truth about the death of a lion tamer many years before, which left his wife horribly mutilated and hidden behind a veil. A tale of abuse and revenge fuelled by the ultimate betrayal of a lover and the physical and emotional scars it has left behind.
Taken from 'The Case-book of Sherlock Holmes' published in 1927 some years after Holmes' death at the hands of Moriarty, this a story from the latter period of Sherlock Holmes mysteries.
Read by James Nickerson.
Producer: Joanne Reardon
Made for BBC 7 and first broadcast in 2004.
The planet Mars boasts the most dramatic landscapes in our solar system. Kevin Fong embarks on a grand tour around the planet with scientists, artists and writers who know its special places intimately- through their probes, roving robots and imaginations.
As we roam Mars' beauty spots, Kevin explores why the Red planet grips so many. Beyond its alien topographic grandeur, Mars inspires the bigger questions: are we alone in the cosmos, and what is the longer term destiny of humanity? Was there more than one life genesis? Will humans ever live on more than one planet?
The itinerary includes the solar system's greatest volcano - Olympus Mons. It is an ancient pile of lavas more than twice the height of Everest, with a summit crater that could contain Luxembourg.
The weight of Mars' gargantuan volcanic outpourings helped to create the planet's extreme version of our Grand Canyon. Vallis Marineris is an almighty gash in the crust 4,000 kilometres long and seven kilometres deep. That is more than three times the depth of Earth's Grand Canyon. In some place the cliffs are sheer from top to bottom.
A little to the east lies an extraordinary region called Iani Chaos, a vast realm of closely spaced and towering rock stacks and mesas, hundreds to thousands of metres high. One researcher describes it as Tolkienesque. This unearthly shattered terrain was created billions of years ago when immense volumes of water burst out from beneath the surface and carved another giant canyon, known as Ares Valles, in a matter of months. Imagine a hundred Amazon rivers cutting loose at once, suggests Professor Steve Squyres.
The catastrophically sculpted landscapes are part of the plentiful evidence that in its early days, Mars was, at time,s awash with water and, in theory, provided environments in which life could evolve and survive. That is what the latest robot rover on Mars - Curiosity - is exploring at the dramatic Gale Crater with its central peak, Mount Sharp.
Expert Mars guides in the programme include scientists on the current Curiosity mission, and on the preceeding rover explorations by Spirit and Opportunity. Kevin talks to hard sci-fi novelist Kim Stanley Robinson whose rich invocations of Martian landscapes form th narrative bedrock of his Mars Trilogy.
He also meets Bill Hartmann, a planetary scientist since earliest generation of Mars probes in the 1960s and 1970. Bill has a parallel career as an artist who paints landscapes of the Red Planet.
Planetary scientist Pascal Lee of the Mars Institute begins Kevin's tour with a painting he created - an imagined view of Mars from the surface of its tiny moon, Phobos.
Producer: Andrew Luck-Baker, BBC Radio Science Unit
A group of desperate friends are landed in a situation they're desperate to get out of...
Black comedy in six parts by Mark Maier and Daniel Maier set on the slopes of a ski resort.
Nadine - Olivia Colman
Clare - Joanna Holden
Craig - Mark Maier
Paul - Chris Pavlo
Enzo - Daniel Maier
Producer: Alex Walsh-Taylor
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September 2003.
By Richard Katz, John Nicholson and Javier Marzan
In ancient Persia, the new Queen cheats death by captivating the King with stories. For almost three years, she's kept the executioners waiting and now they're taking matters into their own hands by hatching a plot to kidnap her.
In this new series the comedy troupe Peepolykus assume the roles of minor characters in great works of fiction and derail the plot of the book through their hapless buffoonery.
Cast:
Richard . . . . . Richard Katz
The King . . . . . Javier Marzan
John . . . . . John Nicholson
Hayley . . . . . Hayley Carmichael
Scheherazade . . . . . Sirine Saba
Grand Vizier . . . . . Sam Dale
Guards . . . . . Richard Pepple & George Watkins
Director . . . . . Sasha Yevtushenko
What's My Kink? - and Prune Playhouse presents The Search for the Nile.
Starring Tim Brooke-Taylor, John Cleese, Graeme Garden, David Hatch, Jo Kendall and Bill Oddie.
Sketches written by Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie.
Originating from the Cambridge University Footlights revue ‘Cambridge Circus’, ISIRTA ran for 8 years on BBC Radio and quickly developed a cult following.
Music and songs by Bill Oddie, Liam Cohen and Dave Lee.
Producers: David Hatch/John Cassels
First broadcast on the BBC Radio 2 in November 1973.
After a row with his father Albert, Harold decides to leave their rag and bone business and take up another offer of employment.
Starring Wilfrid Brambell as Albert and Harry H Corbett as Harold.
Following the conclusion of their hugely successful association with Tony Hancock, writers Ray Galton and Alan Simpson wrote 10 pilots for the BBC TV's Comedy Playhouse in 1962. The Offer was set in a house with a yard full of junk, featuring the lives of rag and bone men Albert Steptoe and his son Harold and it was the spark for a run of 8 series for TV.
Adapted for radio from Galton and Simpson's TV script by Gale Pedrick.
Produced by Bobby Jaye
First broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in July 1966.
Animal, vegetable or mineral?
Barry Took hosts a revised version of popular radio parlour game of 20 questions.
Regular Geoffrey Durham is joined by Neil Innes and Jan Ravens.
Written by Michael Dines.
Producer: Andy Aliffe
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 1998.
Tom and Jerry visit a cockfight, try to buy a horse, meet a sporting legend and lay a wager on which is better, London or the West Country.
Meanwhile, garrulous narrator Pierce Egan takes literary critic William Hazlitt to his first boxing match.
Pierce Egan’s 19th-century comic novel adapted in six parts by Dan Tetsell.
Pierce Egan .... Geoffrey McGivern
Plausible Jack .... Ben Graves
Corinthian Tom .... Greg Wise
William Hazlitt/Tom Cribb .... Alex Mcqueen
Jerry Hawthorn .... Mark Gatiss
Bob Logic .... James Bachman
Mrs Egan .... Alys Torrence
Producer: Tilusha Ghelani
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in May 2006.
Dramatisation of Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde.
One of the great works of English literature, this powerful, compelling story explores love from its first tentative beginnings through to passionate sensuality and eventual tragic disillusionment. Lavinia Greenlaw's new version for radio brings Chaucer's language up-to-date for a modern audience while remaining true to his original poetic intention.
Criseyde's Uncle Pandarus has been the matchmaker for the Trojan hero Troilus and young widow Criseyde, who are desperately in love. But what will happen when Criseyde is handed over to the Greeks at the gates of Troy to join her 'traitor' father?
Troilus ...... Tom Ferguson
Criseyde ...... Maxine Peake
Pandarus ...... Malcolm Raeburn
Servant/Friend ...... Kathryn Hunt
Calchas/Servant ...... Kevin Doyle
Priam/Servant ...... Terence Mann
Hector/Diomede ...... Declan Wilson
With music composed by Gary Yershon and performed by Ehsan Emam, Tim Williams and Mike Dale.
Directed by Susan Roberts.
Amanda Litherland travels to Scotland to recommend the best podcasts. Featuring true crime series The Doorstep Murder, and Podlitical, politics from a Scottish perspective. Also, an immersive audio version of Macbeth, recorded on location at Glamis Castle.
An old pal of roaring 1920s jazz cornet player Pete Kelly is suspected of murdering a mobster.
Stars Jack Webb as Pete Kelly with his 'Big 7' jazz group.
Set in a 1922 Speakeasy at 417 Cherry Street, Kansas City, where a heady mix of gangsters, pulpy thrills and spills are readily available.
Pete Kelly's Blues may have only run for three months on American radio, but it spawned a whole film in the mid-1950s. A novel mix of hard-boiled thriller and musical interludes, Jack 'Dragnet' Webb not only stars but also directs.
A keen fan of jazz in real life, Webb did not miss the opportunity to get some of the genuine article into the series. It's fair to say happy endings weren't high on the agenda.
Written by Joe Eisinger.
Music by Dick Cathcart, with scoring by Matty Matlock.
First broadcast on NBC in the USA in 1951.
4 Extra's MYSTERY THEATER showcases American radio's golden years of the 1940s and 50s, when many of Hollywood's greatest screen stars were regular performers, often re-enacting film roles.
Englishman Philip confesses all to Italian Gino and learns a bitter truth. Stars Sian Thomas, Jamie Bamber and Tom George.
Nicholas Shakespeare writes about his aunt, a glamorous English woman whose life in Paris during the German Occupation grew more and more mysterious. Abridged in 5 episodes by Katrin Williams.
5. D-Day and the whole of Paris is jumping, dancing, clasped in embrace. But Priscilla the eternal party girl is in a very quiet place, with a dubious past hot on her heels.
Reader Nicholas Shakespeare
Producer Duncan Minshull
The ghoulish Vanderhausen seals his deal with Rose's uncle and takes her away. 17th-century mystery concluded by Ian McDiarmid.
Restaurant critic Jay Rayner, Professor John Sutherland and writer Julie Myerson discuss drink with Chris Bigsby.
In each programme, Professor Bigsby introduces a group of writers of fact and fiction: new talent and established names. In the context of a discussion of one of the ideas and pre-occupations of our times, each presents a piece on this week's topic.
The best new writing and the freshest conversation from 2002.
Susan Calman explores issues on which she has strong opinions. This week, she explains that she has never been interested in having children, and why they frighten her.
Produced by Lyndsay Fenner.
The award-winning satirist reflects on his early days in radio, with some long forgotten sketches from the archives.
Armando is interviewed by Dave Batchelor, who was instrumental in his move to BBC Radio Scotland. He remembers having a hoot, playing with sound effects and hosting a music show called Bite The Wax, with occasionally limited pop knowledge.
He also recalls being sounded out as the host of the Radio 1 Breakfast Show, and the inspiration for future Radio 4 hit On The Hour.
First broadcast on BBC Radio Scotland in 2006.
Following the audience response to classic sketch group Absolutely's guest appearance on the second series of Radio 4's Sketchorama, this special edition is devoted to the reunion performance and features further, previously unheard material from the recording held in April 2013 at the Oran Mor venue in Glasgow.
The much-loved sketch group - consisting of Pete Baikie, Morwenna Banks, Moray Hunter, Gordon Kennedy and John Sparkes - recorded almost 45 minutes of material so this full half-hour show offers the opportunity to hear even more from Stoneybridge and Calum Gilhooley, as well as new sketches from other Absolutely characters such as Frank Hovis and The Old Lady Artist.
Producer: Gus Beattie.
A Comedy Unit production for BBC Radio 4.
Actress, comedian, singer and all-round entertainer, Elaine C Smith, talks to Bruce Morton about her career from humble beginnings to starring in TV hit, Naked Video.
Series exploring the comedy skills of some of Scotland's finest humourists.
Producer: Dave Batchelor
First broadcast on BBC Radio Scotland in March 2004.