SATURDAY 15 JANUARY 2011

SAT 00:00 Midnight News (b00xb257)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.


SAT 00:30 Book of the Week (b00xf9t2)
Judith Flanders - The Invention of Murder

Episode 5

By Judith Flanders.

Over the course of the nineteenth century, murder - in reality a rarity - became ubiquitous: transformed into novels, into broadsides and ballads, into theatre and melodrama. "The Invention of Murder" explores the Victorian fascination with deadly violence by relating some of the century's most gripping and gruesome cases and the ways in which they were commercially exploited.

The public imagination was particularly stirred when new technology was used to bring criminals to justice. This episode looks at one such case in which an enterprising railway clerk used the electric telegraph to send a description of a suspected murderer ahead of the train he was travelling on, so that the suspect could be met by police at his journey's end. And, bringing us right up to the final years of the century, how the funeral of an acclaimed actor - and murder victim - was captured on film for posterity.

Read by Robert Glenister.

Abridged by David Jackson Young.

Produced by Kirsteen Cameron.


SAT 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b00xb259)
The latest shipping forecast.


SAT 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b00xb25c)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service. BBC Radio 4 resumes at 5.20am.


SAT 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b00xb25f)
The latest shipping forecast.


SAT 05:30 News Briefing (b00xb25h)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


SAT 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b00xb25k)
presented by the Rev Johnston McKay.


SAT 05:45 iPM (b00xb25m)
Bankers and Humanitarianism

A news programme shaped by the inquisitiveness and experience of the Radio 4 audience. This week we feature a listener's response to the banking crisis. Also in the programme, we visit a homeless shelter and ask what it tells us about the Big Society, and we talk humanitarian intervention with the man in charge of the UN's efforts in Haiti, whose career has spanned thirty years and twelve countries.


SAT 06:00 News and Papers (b00xb25p)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.


SAT 06:04 Weather (b00xb25r)
The latest weather forecast.


SAT 06:07 Open Country (b00xgqwz)
Yurts

Snow, biting winds and a tent made to the design used by nomads in Ulaanbaatar ... but Richard Uridge hasn't travelled to Mongolia for this week's Open Country, he's high up on Exmoor.

He meets Hen and Leo - who are braving winter on the moor in pursuit of their dream of a low impact, but not entirely low-tech lifestyle - their pig-farming neighbour and the man who made their yurt.

Producer Steve Peacock.


SAT 06:30 Farming Today (b00xgqx1)
Farming Today This Week

In some agricultural colleges demand for courses have risen by more than 40% compared to last year. At a time of increasing tuition fees Caz Graham meets students and staff at Harper Adams College in Shropshire to hear why studying agriculture is becoming more attractive.

Farming Today is following farmers as they move from agricultural college into the world of work. It is a notoriously difficult vocation to get started in. Dan Aries has returned to his family farm in Banbury but has plans to move to New Zealand; Stephen Olley is struggling to find work in Norfolk and thinks that farmers may be discriminating against him because of his disability; and Tom Martindale is back in Hampshire helping out his father Martin with the pigs.

Presented by Caz Graham and produced by Emma Weatherill.


SAT 06:57 Weather (b00xb25t)
The latest weather forecast.


SAT 07:00 Today (b00xgqx3)
Including Sports Desk; Weather; Thought for the Day.


SAT 09:00 Saturday Live (b00xgqx5)
Fi Glover with guest Mary Portas and poet Murray Lachlan Young; interviews with the last footman in England and a survivor of the New Cross Fire, a Crowdscape from Nottingham Market and the Inheritance Tracks of Rolf Harris.


SAT 10:00 Excess Baggage (b00xgqx7)
Pit villages - Overland with children across Africa

John McCarthy explores the Great Northern Coalfield in North East England with writer Peter Crookston and meets the young family who travelled 4,000 miles across Africa in 2 months.

Producer: Chris Wilson.


SAT 10:30 Ship of Spies (b00xgqx9)
Tom Mangold joins a spy-themed cruise around the Caribbean.

Outward appearances suggest it's just a regular cruise. But as the MS Eurodam sets sail from Fort Lauderdale in Florida, this vast ship is carrying two men who've been at the very heart of the US intelligence services. Former CIA directors Porter Goss and Michael Hayden are on board for the Spy Cruise, a seven day trip devoted to issues of national security.

Passengers have paid to hear and mingle with these senior ex-spooks, as well as a range of other former intelligence and military officers. Whilst other passengers on the ship gamble in the casino, play pool games and try their hand at line-dancing, the spy cruisers are locked into a lecture theatre worrying about the state of global security.

Tom Mangold discovers that the cruise is part of an attempt to repair the damaged reputation of the CIA after a string of controversies. In wide-ranging and rigorous interviews, he grills the two ex CIA bosses on extraordinary renditions, enhanced interrogations, water-boarding, and targeted assassinations.

Producer: Laurence Grissell

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 2011.


SAT 11:00 The Week in Westminster (b00xgqxc)
Jackie Ashley looks behind the scenes at Westminster.

The result of the Oldham East and Saddleworth by-election is being sifted for clues. Each party is looking for reassurance in the outcome of this first electoral test since the general election.

Here, three observers with a close interest give their views. They are the Conservative MP and secretary of the party's 1922 committee, Mark Pritchard, Labour's Michael Meacher who has a neighbouring Oldham seat and the Liberal Democrat, Chris Davies, now an MEP who once represented the area at Westminster.

Multi-million pound bonuses for top staff at the banks, many bailed out by the taxpayer after the credit crunch, blew up as the other big story of the week. Barclays' Bob Diamond thought apologies out of place and out of time. But MPs disagree - as the Conservative Andrea Leadsom and Labour's Chuka Umunna explain.

Finally, the expenses scandal is taking its toll. One former MP has been jailed and another MP stood down this week after pleading guilty to fraud. How different is this scandal from many others down the years? The veteran Labour peer and former MP, Bernard Donoughue, reflects.


SAT 11:30 From Our Own Correspondent (b00xgr0z)
The roots of the rage that's spilled onto the streets of North Africa.

Southern Sudan's farmers talk of their dreams of peace in a new nation.

The Communists of Laos begin a journey down the path to Capitalism.

And we soak up the atmosphere on a holy day in an ancient centre of Jewish mysticism.

Tunisia is in turmoil. Extreme economic and political tensions have exploded across the country, and there's been a number of deaths. Smoke and tear gas have hung thick in the air, and only when it finally clears will we see how much - or how little - Tunisia has changed. Neighbouring Algeria has also seen similar, although less intense, outbursts of violence recently. And in the capital, Algiers, Chloe Arnold has been reflecting on the causes of North Africa's troubles.

This is a momentous time for the people of southern Sudan. Over the past week they've been voting in a referendum on whether they should break away and form a country of their own. It'll be about a fortnight before the results are declared. But all the signs are that the south will indeed chose to secede - and Africa will soon have a new nation in its midst. Will Ross spent time with villagers as the voting unfolded, and he describes the mood among the region's farmers.

When an elderly man called Vang Pao died just recently in California, he was a long way from the land of his birth. He was a leader of the Hmong people of the South East Asian nation of Laos. Back in the 1960s and 70s his forces had formed part of a CIA-sponsored war in Laos. But when the Communists finally came to power, Vang Pao went into exile in the US. His death there has stirred memories of his story, and of his country's very painful past. But as Claudia Hammond has been finding out, in Laos today there is a real desire to move on, and gradual change is coming.

In their War of Independence the Americans shed blood to rid themselves of Britain, and the sovereignty of King George the Third. Republicanism sits at the heart of the US political system. From the very start there could never be any room for kings and queens and all that go with them. And yet, as Laura Trevelyan has been finding out, elements of the idea of monarchy - the romance and the fantasy that surround it - continue to captivate some Americans.

All over the world you find places that have marked themselves out as spiritual centres, towns and cities that have been the focus of centuries of belief and tradition. Mecca, Jerusalem, Lourdes in France, Varanasi on the Ganges - the list of famous names is long. But there are also many much less well-known sites that have a powerful resonance for followers of certain faiths. And Clive Lawton has been exploring one of them in Galilee.


SAT 12:00 Money Box (b00xgr11)
Thousands more pursued for tax after HMRC mistakes:
HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) says it will be pursuing another 450,000 people over tax it has failed to collect.

These underpayment cases relate to the financial year 2007/08 and are in addition to the 1.4 million people who underpaid through the Pay As You Earn (PAYE) system in 2008/09 and 2009/10, which HMRC revealed in September.

The problems have been uncovered by a new computer system, installed at HMRC in 2009.

The government has also announced that any earlier tax it failed to gather through tax codes for years before 2007/08 will be written off - though any refunds due to people who have paid too much will be made back to 2004/05.

And 250,000 people who get the state pension, but whose tax was wrongly calculated in 2008/9 and 2009/10, will also be let off their tax bill.

Pensions:
The Pensions Bill 2011 started its progress through Parliament this week.

It implements the more rapid rise in state pension age (it will be at least 66 for anyone born on or after 6 April 1954), and it will introduce the new workplace pensions that start for some in October 2012, and will apply to everyone at work aged between 22 years and pension age who pays tax, from October 2016 - with full contributions due from October 2017.

People will be automatically enrolled in the pension schemes - although it will be possible to opt out.

Tom McPhail, from Hargreaves Lansdowne, joins Paul to discuss the consequences of these planned changes, and the potential costs of waiting for the new workplace pensions to come into force.

Hidden currency costs:
Money Box has discovered that unsuspecting customers could be paying higher charges for currency conversion than they realise.

Some banks and businesses have started making up their own currency exchange rates, which can be significantly higher than the Visa and Mastercard spot rates.

Paul Lewis speaks to Bob Atkinson, from moneysupermarket.com.

Pre-nuptial agreements:
The Law Commission has started a three-month public consultation about whether pre-nuptial agreements should be made legally binding.

We ask what it might recommend, and how you can protect your financial affairs within a relationship as the law stands now.

And we talk to the Justice Minister, Jonathan Djanogly, about his ideas of insuring against divorce costs, and talk to a company that is considering selling divorce insurance in the UK.

Producer: Ruth Alexander.


SAT 12:30 The News Quiz (b00xb0zx)
Series 73

Episode 2

By-Elections, Baccalaureats, and Bankers' bonuses. In the week that Labour won the Oldham East by-election; Michael Gove backdated the baccalaureat, and bankers decided they'd take their bonuses despite government opposition, Sandi Toksvig and team tell us where it all went wrong. With guest panellists Jeremy Hardy, Sue Perkins, Susan Calman and Henning Wehn. Produced by Victoria Lloyd.


SAT 12:57 Weather (b00xb25w)
The latest weather forecast.


SAT 13:00 News (b00xb25y)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


SAT 13:10 Any Questions? (b00xb103)
Jonathan Dimbleby chairs the topical debate from Sexey's School in Bruton, Somerset with questions for the panel including Education minister Sarah Teather and Executive Director of the Fairtrade Foundation Harriet Lamb.

Producer: Victoria Wakely.


SAT 14:00 Any Answers? (b00xgr13)
Any Answers? Listeners respond to the issues raised in Any Questions? If you have a comment or question on this week's programme or would like to take part in the Any Answers? phone-in you can contact us by telephone or email. Tel: 03700 100 444 Email: any.answers@bbc.co.uk.


SAT 14:30 Saturday Drama (b00xgr15)
Master Harold and the Boys

On a wet and windy 1950s afternoon in the St George's Park Tea Room, Port Elizabeth, waiters Sam and Willie are practising their dance steps, unaware that the owner's son, Hally, who grew up with them, is about to change their relationship forever.
Athol Fugard's semi-autobiographical play asks who is really the master - and who the boys?
Recorded on location in South Africa.

Sam ..... Wiseman Sithole
Hally ..... Andrew Laubscher
Willie ..... Sizwe Msutu

Director: Marion Nancarrrow

This new production of Fugard's masterpiece, which opened on Broadway in 1982 and subsequently won the Drama Desk, London Critics' Circle and London Evening Standard awards for best play, has been recorded on location in South Africa with a South African cast. Athol Fugard introduces the play himself, from his home in America, the country where it was first performed and talks movingly about its first performance in South Africa, about why he wrote it and about himself as its central character, performing an act which he says he will regret "until his dying day".

Recorded in Cape Town, the new cast includes Wiseman Sithole, best known in South Africa for his role as Lucky in the TV drama series "Shooting Stars" and nominated for Best Supporting Actor in "Glass Roots"; Andrew Laubscher in his second role for radio, recorded whilst starring in the comedy "Is It Because I'm Jack?" at the On Broadway Theatre, Cape Town and Sizwe Msutu, well-known in South Africa for his roles as Detective Inspector Hlomla in the SABC1 TV drama series "Interrogation Room" and in the Xhosa film "Goodbye Bafana".


SAT 16:00 Woman's Hour (b00xgr17)
Weekend Woman's Hour

Presented by Jane Garvey. The family of Louisa May Alcott became obsessed with a naturalistic cult - we hear about Fruitlands, their nineteenth-century search for Utopia. Miriam O'Reilly's lawyer joins the programme to discuss the wider implications for women following the age discrimination ruling. How often should you change your bedlinen? Every week? Before and after guests? We discuss the thorny issue of washing your sheets. Marine Le Pen looks set to take over the mantle of the far right from her father this weekend. So what might her impact be on French politics? Recent news reports have highlighted the prosecution of gangs of predominantly Pakistani men who have groomed and sexually exploited young girls. What is the best way to tackle this crime without stereotyping and dividing communities? The secret life of stuff: would knowing a product has an environmentally sound footprint make you change your shopping habits? And the soprano Heather Shipp talks about the enduring appeal of Carmen.


SAT 17:00 PM (b00xgr19)
Full coverage and analysis of the day's news, plus the sports headlines.


SAT 17:30 iPM (b00xb25m)
[Repeat of broadcast at 05:45 today]


SAT 17:54 Shipping Forecast (b00xb260)
The latest shipping forecast.


SAT 17:57 Weather (b00xb262)
The latest weather forecast.


SAT 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b00xb264)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


SAT 18:15 Loose Ends (b00xgr1c)
Peter Curran is in the Loose Ends chair this week with an eclectic mix of conversation, music and comedy.

Award winning novelist DBC Pierre talks to Peter about childhood privilege, rebellion and globe trotting. His book Vernon God Little is adapted for the stage and directed by Rufus Norris for the Young Vic.

He may be best recognised as Jesus of Nazareth and he is married to Babs from Pan's People. But for another generation of television viewers Robert Powell is best known as Nursing CEO Mark Williams from Holby City. There may not be a dry surgical mask in the country as Mark says farewell to the wards on Tuesday January 24th 2011. Robert Powell then goes on to play the hard living, hard drinking journalist Jeffrey Bernard (who certainly needed some medical treatment in his time) in Jeffrey Bernard Is Unwell.

Sudanese former child soldier Emmanuel Jal launched his hip hop charity anthem We Want Peace'just ahead of the Sudan referenda to raise political awareness with a call for peace throughout the turbulent country. He's urging people to support the campaign by visiting the official We Want Peace website and sign up to become 'Peace Soldiers' and his call to action is backed by a host of high profile names including Kofi Annan, Richard Branson, George Clooney, Alicia Keys and Peter Gabriel.

How will self help guru and hypnotist Paul McKenna cope with Grumpy Old Man Arthur Smith? He'll have to try some of the techniques from his latest book I Can Make You Happy. Let's see shall we...........

There's music with a punk Cajun twist from Swiss trio Mama Rosin

And Californian folk pop from Sea of Bees

Producer: Cathie Mahoney.


SAT 19:00 Profile (b00xgr1f)
Colin Firth

As Colin Firth is honoured with a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame, Jonathan Maitland profiles the actor hotly tipped to receive an Oscar for his performance in The King's Speech.

Colin Firth is famous for his eclectic roles and campaigning zeal. He first came to prominence in the BBC adaption of Pride & Prejudice. He played Mr Darcy, a performance he claims never to have watched in full. But his break was as a public schoolboy in Another Country. His real life was very different, he went to a state school in Winchester. At home, books and theatre were highly valued. His grandparents were missionaries which might help to explain his involvement in a number of charitable and campaigning organisations. He is particularly interested in supporting indigenous people, fair trade and foreign development. In the past he has supported Labour and came out - briefly - last year for the Lib Dems.

His career has mixed serious roles in Tom Ford's A Single Man and Michael Winterbottom's Genoa with Phyllida Lloyd's Mamma Mia and the reprisal of Mr Darcy in the Bridget Jones films.

Profile talks to his parents, Shirley and David Firth, the actor, David Morrissey and director Sir Richard Eyre.

Producer: Rosamund Jones.


SAT 19:15 Saturday Review (b00xgr1h)
Tom Sutcliffe and his guests writer Paul Morley, novelist Dreda Say Mitchell and broadcaster and cleric Richard Coles review the week's cultural highlights including Blue Valentine.

Derek Cianfrance's film Blue Valentine stars Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams as Dean and Cindy. The narrative jumps between two points in the couple's relationship - the beginning and the apparent breakdown of their marriage several years later.

Linda Grant's novel We Had It So Good concerns another couple - Stephen and Andrea. They meet as students at Oxford in 1960s - he's a Rhodes scholar from California, while she's come up from Cornwall. The novel tracks their lives - and their fellow baby boomer friends - through the intervening years to the present.

JMW Turner is the subject of Rebecca Lenkiewicz's play The Painter at the Arcola Theatre in London. It explores the artist's relationship with the three key women in his life: his mother who ends up in Bedlam, the prostitute who models for him and the widow with whom he has a child.

Gilbert and George have been making work with postcards since the 1970s. They call their latest collection of 564 pieces - created from a combination of sex workers' advertising cards and London tourist postcards - The Urethra Postcard Pictures. 155 of them are on show at the White Cube gallery in London.

Laura Linney plays Cathy in the US comedy The Big C which is being broadcast on More 4. Cathy's behaviour towards her family and friends undergoes a radical change - she begins telling them exactly what she thinks and doing exactly what she wants to. What she doesn't tell them is that she has been diagnosed with terminal skin cancer and has refused treatment.

Producer: Torquil MacLeod.


SAT 20:00 Archive on 4 (b00xgr1k)
Going to the Flicks

Episode 1

Barry Norman is one of Britain's best loved film broadcasters, but for this series he is not so much interested in the films as in exploring how the experience of going to the cinema in Britain has changed over the last one hundred years. In fact, his first surprise is the discovery that people are far more likely to recall the general experience of going to the cinema than the individual films they saw.

He draws on BBC archive as well as recordings from the University of Lancaster which have never been broadcast before, and also new interviews to find out how people's experience of this most popular form of entertainment has changed over the decades.

The Silent Era, it turns out, was not all that silent, with plenty of chatting and tea-drinking going on, not to mention children reading out the titles to their illiterate parents and grandparents. Barry then moves on to hear how overwhelmed many viewers were by the sheer luxury of the cinemas built in the inter-war years and how these pleasure palaces offered a few hours of escape from lives which were harsh or sometimes simply dull. He himself recalls going to the pictures in the 1950s, which was the golden age of Saturday morning cinema for children. In the 1960s, with the advent of television, Barry finds out about the ultimately failed attempts to introduce novelties such as Cinerama and The Smellies to cinema and hears confessions about just what went on in the back row!

With contributions from film expert Annette Kuhn and architectural historian Richard Gray, this first part of Barry Norman's memoir of Going to the Flicks is a heady mix of nostalgia and surprise.

Producer : Beaty Rubens.


SAT 21:00 Classic Serial (b00x8fwv)
Neglected Classics - Miss Mackenzie

Episode 1

'Neglected Classics'
Miss Mackenzie
By Anthony Trollope
Dramatised by Martyn Wade
Part One
Miss Mackenzie, a woman past the bloom of youth, inherits a fortune and is then beset by suitors. But whom will she choose?

Anthony Trollope.....David Troughton
Miss Mackenzie.....Hattie Morahan
John Ball.....Philip Franks
Lady Ball.....Margaret Tyzack
Mr. Maguire.....Stephen Critchlow
Mr. Rubb.....Lloyd Thomas
Tom Mackenzie.....Sam Dale
Sarah Mackenzie.....Joanna Monro
Susanna Mackenzie.....Leah Brotherhead
Mr. Slow.....Sean Baker
Miss Todd.....Claire Harry
Mrs. Stumfold.....Christine Kavanagh
Rev. Stumfold.....Henry Devas

Directed by Tracey Neale

'Miss Mackenzie' by Anthony Trollope was the runner-up in Radio 4's 'Neglected Classics' vote. The novel was championed by Joanna Trollope who will be appearing on 'Open Book' to talk about the story in the very same week the Classic Serial begins the broadcast of Part One.

It is indeed a neglected gem of a novel. Miss Mackenzie is a single woman in her mid-thirties who receives a large inheritance when her brother dies. She must then deal with what comes with the fortune, including several suitors, who may, or, may not, simply be after her money.

Margaret decides to rent a small house in Littlebath and takes her surviving brother Tom's daughter with her as her ward. Tom and his wife, Sarah, are horrified that they have been left no money, especially as they find themselves in financial difficulties. Margaret Mackenzie's suitors include: her brother's junior partner, Mr. Rubb, a handsome young man but 'in trade'; her cousin, John Ball, a widowed father of seven. John is a gentle soul, who lives with his ailing father and his supercilious mother, Lady Ball; and the oleaginous Mr. Maguire, a curate in Littlebath. Unfortunately Mr. Maguire has a rather terrifying squint.

Miss Mackenzie has to pick her way through this romantic minefield, not knowing who is the best suitor and whether each man wants to marry her for her fortune rather than love. Her wish is simply to find true love. However, storm clouds gather when it is discovered that the fortune does not belong to Margaret after all but to her cousin, John Ball. The financial assistance she has given to her brother's family can continue no longer and also, what is to become of Miss Mackenzie?

Anthony Trollope has created a wonderful heroine in Miss Mackenzie. Although past the bloom of youth, her modesty, kindness and dignity will endear her to the listener and there is genuine delight when John Ball, against his mother's wishes, declares his love for Margaret and asks her to marry him.

The Author:
Convinced with good reason, that he was unloved and unregarded, Anthony Trollope struggled long and hard for a foothold in the world. But his vast resources of energy and dogged hard work broke down the barriers to success and found him loved, feted and avidly read. His labours were Herculean. He pitted himself against time to produce a vast collection of work about credible people and their foibles. He gained recognition as a writer who portrayed English life in a wry and honest manner with a cast of humorous and delightful characters. His portrayal of female characters is particularly skilful and Miss Mackenzie is no exception.

The Dramatist:
Martyn Wade is a skilled and talented radio writer and dramatist. He has taken up this neglected classic and has blown away the cobwebs to reveal a rather delightful and moving story. Martyn has dramatised the 'Barsetshire' novels for radio and the 'Palliser' series too. His most recent Trollope dramatisation was 'Orley Farm' and later this year he will be dramatising another Trollope novel - 'The American Senator'. He will also be dramatising Ada Leverson's 'The Little Ottley's' for Woman's Hour.


SAT 22:00 News and Weather (b00xb266)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4, followed by weather.


SAT 22:15 Unreliable Evidence (b00x9xb2)
Law of the Sea

Clive Anderson and some of the country's top legal minds discuss the law of the sea, examining the problems of trying to achieve justice over three-quarters of the earth's surface in the face of competing national interests.

Are the high seas a legal wild west, or can national and international law be brought together to address such complex issues as piracy, oil spills, fishing quotas and Arctic seabed mining rights?

And even if adequate law exists, who is responsible for seeing that it is enforced?

Guests include Britain's former judge at the International Tribunal of the Law of the Sea, David Anderson, and legal experts on piracy and environmental law.

Producer: Brian King
An Above The Title production for BBC Radio 4.


SAT 23:00 Brain of Britain (b00x923f)
(12/17)
The quest for the 2011 Brain of Britain champion reaches the twelfth and last heat, with Russell Davies in the questionmaster's chair. Today's contest will decide who completes the line-up in the semi-finals which begin next week. The programme comes from Manchester, with contenders from Liverpool, Kidderminster, Leicester and Beeston in Notts.

Producer: Paul Bajoria.


SAT 23:30 Adventures in Poetry (b00xgr2l)
Series 11

Kubla Khan

Peggy Reynolds continues her Adventures in Poetry as she explores Samuel Taylor Coleridge's celebrated poem Kubla Khan. Written in 1797 in a remote farmhouse in the Quantock Hills, the poem came to Coleridge as a vision in an opium-induced dream, which was famously interrupted by a visitor from the nearby village of Porlock. Peggy is fascinated by the fragmentary nature of the poem and the way in which phrases from it have resonated through literature, and even music, ever since. She is joined by Coleridge's biographer Richard Holmes; James Watt, an expert on the real Kubla Khan; Tim Clayton an expert in 18th culture; and by Martyn Ware, a sound artist who has been inspired by the poem to create a new, and vividly evocative soundscape based on the poem.

Produced by Jane Greenwood.