The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
In The Odyssey there is a moving episode in which Odysseus goes into the Underworld to meet the shades of dead luminaries. He also sees his mother, and realises she has died since he left home. He tries repeatedly to embrace her, but as she is a spirit, cannot.
In McCarthy Woolf's poem, written throughout in rhyming couplets, the story takes place in a portacabin in a port, and in a minicab. Here the mother, Cleo, who died soon after giving birth to her son, Valentine, is trying to make contact with him. Valentine is a cabbie on a night shift, and his controller on the radio has godlike power. But there is strange interference, on the radio and even his passenger's mobile phone.
Karen McCarthy Woolf is Cleo; Samuel James is Angel and Valentine and Maeve Bluebell Wells plays the Passenger.
Producer: Julian May.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with the Reverend Roger Hutchings.
Finding love when she was 37 and he was 17.
iPM is the news programme that starts with its listeners. Email ipm@bbc.co.uk. Twitter: @BBCiPM. Presented by Luke Jones and Eddie Mair. Produced by Emma Close.
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.
The latest weather forecast.
Helen Mark asks whether time creatively spent in Stonehenge's prehistoric landscapes can help Wiltshire residents with long term mental health problems. It's called the Human Henge project, and for one day a week for ten weeks the participants have been given the opportunity to get an insight into the lives of ancestors lived long ago. Helen accompanies the group on the final day when they're able to enter the inner circle of Stonehenge, the culmination of their work together.
Helen hears how the idea for the project began with the Restoration Trust, a charity that links heritage sites with mental health in what it describes as 'culture therapy'. English Heritage who operate Stonehenge have supported the project, as has a leading expert on Stonehenge, the archaeologist Professor Tim Darvill of Bournemouth University. Tim argues that the site may well have had a healing function in the past as a focus for rituals and ceremonies, and is glad to explore that aspect of it today.
The participants themselves describe how they've benefitted from being out of doors, from getting to know each other and having a focus besides indoor drop-in support groups. More than one participant says what's helped her is being treated as someone with a brain, glad to learn something new about her locality and its ancient past.
Producer: Mark Smalley.
New Zealand has a fearsome reputation as a top exporter of lamb, beef, dairy produce, fruit, wool and wine - and a great deal of other produce. And it's all done without paying farmers subsidies or being part of a union of countries like the single market.
So, how do they do it?
Nancy Nicolson reports from one of New Zealand's top agricultural shows where she gets a flavour of the political arena in which the industry operates; the attitude marketeers are taking to the opportunities offered by Brexit; and how farmers feel about working in an unsubsidised world.
She meets the Prime Minister, Bill English, industry leaders and working farmers.
Producer: Nancy Nicolson.
The latest weather forecast.
Morning news and current affairs. Including Yesterday in Parliament, Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
Entertainer Roy Hudd, singer Imelda May, dog and duck man Stuart Barnes and stand-up comic Ayesha Hazarika join the Rev Richard Coles and Kate Singleton for a chat.
Jay Rayner whisks his panel off to Paris for a special 100th episode celebration. Answering the questions are Annie Gray, Tim Anderson and Andi Oliver.
The panellists take great delight in reminiscing over favourite memories of eating in Paris, they help audience members with queries about steak and missing ingredients, and there's a whole lot of patisserie to be enjoyed too!
Producer: Darby Dorras
Assistant Producer: Laurence Bassett
Food consultant: Anna Colquhoun
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.
Steve Richards and fellow presenters of the Week In Westminster, George Parker of the Financial Times, Helen Lewis of the New Statesman, and Tom Newton Dunn of the Sun discuss Teresa May's surprise decision to hold a general election on June 8th.
Reports from writers and journalists around the world. Presented by Kate Adie.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Joan was among thousands of people who took out shared appreciation mortgages in the late 1990s. Older borrowers used them to release cash worth up to 25 percent of the value of their homes. On the sale of the home the bank would get the loan amount back plus 75 percent of any increase in property value. Years later Joan is in her eighties with mobility problems and her home has risen sharply in value. She tells Money Box she can't sell up to downsize because the amount owed to her banks won't leave enough to buy a suitable property in her area.
The Prime Minister's call for a snap general election raises questions about the future course of pension policy. Tom McPhail, Head of Policy at Hargreaves Lansdown and Steve Webb, former pensions minister now Royal London's Director of Policy, discuss what it might mean for pensions tax relief, the triple lock and the state pension age.
This week shadow chancellor John McDonnell defined rich people as those earning above £70,000 to £80,000 a year, during an interview where he suggested that they could be asked to pay more tax under a Labour government. Professor Donald Hirsch, Director of the Centre for Research in Social Policy at Loughborough University, shares insights on people with that level of income, including where they're likely to be found.
Plans which would have seen increases of up to 20 thousand pounds for a charge that's payable for sorting out the affairs of someone who has died have been halted. From May probate fees in England and Wales were due to rise from a flat fee of £155 or £215 to a sliding scale which would charge up to £20,000 for estates worth over 2 million pounds. The general election means there's not enough time for the legislation to go through parliament.
Jeremy Hardy, Andy Hamilton, Helen Lewis and Susan Calman are Miles' guests for the first episode in the series.
It's the first episode of series 93 of the News Quiz and the whole country is talking about only one thing. And it's not the rise in the urban fox population in Bournemouth... although that does get a mention.
Producer: Richard Morris
A BBC Studios Production.
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The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
Jonathan Dimbleby presents political debate from Truro High School in Cornwall with a panel including the President of the European Movement and Liberal Democrat peer Lord Ashdown, Labour Whip Thangam Debbonaire MP, Farming and Fisheries Minister George Eustice MP and the Express columnist and commentator Ann Widdecombe.
Listeners have their say on the issues discussed on Any Questions?
Harold Pinter's acclaimed drama about a love affair and the intricate nature of deceit which is told in reverse time from its poignant ending to its thrilling first kiss.
Emma ..... Olivia Colman
Jerry ..... Andrew Scott
Robert ..... Charles Edwards
Waiter ..... Gerard McDermott
Produced/directed by Gaynor Macfarlane
Harold Pinter was born in London in 1930. His writing career spanned over 50 years and produced 29 original stage plays, 27 screenplays, many dramatic sketches, radio and TV plays, poetry, one novel, short fiction, essays, speeches, and letters. In 2005 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature and, in the same year, the Wilfred Owen Award for Poetry and the Franz Kafka Award (Prague). In 2006 he was awarded the Europe Theatre Prize and, in 2007, the highest French honour, the Légion d'honneur. He died in December 2008.
Andrew Scott recently won the BAFTA for Best Supporting Actor.
Keeping In Touch
A woman, happily married and with children, considers whether her settled life leaves her free to make her own choices. Written by Joan Bakewell in response to Harold Pinter's 1978 play Betrayal and based on their 1960's affair, the drama throws a new light on how it came about.
Written by Joan Bakewell
Produced by Charlotte Riches.
The two time Emmy Award winning US star Megan Mullally known best for her role as Karen in the American sitcom Will and Grace talks about her musical collaboration Nancy and Beth.
We talk about names. How do famous and young women feel about being called Jane? Dr Jane Pilcher Associate Professor at the University of Leicester, Jane Brodie an art director and the actor Jane Asher discuss.
How should embryos remaining after IVF treatment be dealt with and who should make the decision about what to do with them? Kate and Becky both had IVF and discuss their experience and Juliet Tizzard director of the National Fertility and Embryology Association discusses the medical and ethical considerations.
Last Sunday Turkey voted in a referendum. The result was extremely close but President Erdogan's victory has increased his power. He is known for his conservative views about women's rights. Emma Sinclair Webb is a senior Turkey researcher with Human Rights Watch and Elif Shafak is a novelist who lives in the UK discuss impact his rise have on women in Turkey.
The last ever episode of the American comedy drama Girls aired on British television this week. But what impact did the show have on young women? We hear from Girls fans, journalists Pandora Sykes and Simran Hans.
Maintaining dignity when you're receiving hospital treatment can be difficult but we hear how important it is to remain active as part of your general recovery in hospital. Claire Robinson Co-founder of INGA Wellbeing has designed gowns for people who need regular hospital treatment and Professor Brian Dolan who is behind the End Pyjama Paralysis Campaign.
Presented by Jane Garvey
Producer: Rabeka Nurmahomed
Editor: Jane Thurlow.
Full coverage of the day's news.
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The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Clive Anderson and Nikki Bedi are joined by Sophie Okonedo, Mica Paris, Stephen Mangan and John Grant for an eclectic mix of conversation, music and comedy. With music from Mica Paris and Joe Goddard.
Producer: Debbie Kibride.
Series of profiles of people who are currently making headlines.
Gemma Arterton and Bill Nighy star in in Their Finest; a new film about the vital role of movies in Britain during The War.
A revival of Christopher Hampton's 1970 play The Philanthropist has opened in London. It features a glittering array of actors best known for their TV work. How well do their skills transfer to the stage?
Lisa McInerny won The Bailey's Prize 's for her first novel The Glorious Heresies. Her latest, The Blood Miracles, continues that story with same characters many years older and a little wiser
Ashley Bickerton is a painter and sculptor whose work is much admired (and collected) by Damien Hirst, among others. A new exhibition at Hirst's Newport Gallery includes work from throughout Bickertion's career
The Hours is a new radio dramatization of Michael Cunningham's Pulitzer winning book inspired by Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway. Starring Rosamund Pike it has the tricky job of maintaining three simultaneous plotlines set in different eras
Viv Groskop's guests are Emma Jane Unsworth, Ryan Gilbey and Ekow Eshun. The producer is Oliver Jones.
Jonathan Freedland re-examines the 1990s from a new angle - recalling it as a rare period of peace and prosperity. But could it also be the decade which ultimately led to Trump and Brexit?
Sandwiched between the end of the Cold War and the war on terror, the 1990s now look like an oasis of calm. The decade witnessed the end of apartheid in South Africa, the fall of the Soviet Union and peace in Northern Ireland. As a result, people became preoccupied by more domestic dramas. Just as the UK was gripped by the saga of Charles and Diana's marriage, the Americans were hooked on the OJ Simpson trial.
Jonathan unearths a rich selection of archive and hears from MPs John Redwood and Harriet Harman about their perspectives on this most unusual decade. But he also argues that some of the forces unleashed in that decade would only start to manifest themselves in the middle of the 2010s - with the rise of Donald Trump and the UK's decision to leave the EU.
Producer: Laurence Grissell.
New dramatisation of the Pulitzer winning book by Michael Cunningham inspired by Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway. Starring Rosamund Pike, Fenella Woolgar and Teresa Gallagher.
Three very separate women. They live in different locations and different eras but they are bound by their passion for Virginia Woolf's novel Mrs Dalloway. As they experience life on a Tuesday in June, their thoughts and experiences echo each other and become intertwined.
In Richmond in 1923, Virginia Woolf (Fenella Woolgar) sits down to write a novel calling her heroine Mrs Dalloway. In Los Angeles in 1949, Laura (Teresa Gallagher) sits in bed reading Mrs Dalloway. In New York in the 1990s, Clarissa (Rosamund Pike) goes out to buy flowers for a party mirroring the start of the day for the fictional Mrs Dalloway. The party is for her best friend Richard who long ago dubbed her Mrs Dalloway.
Weaving together themes of bisexuality, mental illness, middle age, the trials of creativity, parental guilt, marital discord, suburban isolation, infertility, friendship and loss - the three stories become one.
In the first episode, the women go about their day. Virginia is struggling to write in Richmond where she feels banished but is cheered by a visit from her sister. Laura has domestic tasks and a small son to look after but all she wants to do is read, and Clarissa struggles to prepare for a huge party in honour of her friend Richard but she's worried that he is so sick. Each finds a way to make it through to the afternoon of the same day in June.
Michael Cunningham's enormously popular and critically successful book won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and inspired the film starring Nicole Kidman. He called his story The Hours because that was a title that Virginia Woolf had considered. He says Mrs Dalloway was a huge influence on his life because he read the novel as a response to a dare when he was 15 and then decided to be a writer.
Sony Award winning writer Frances Byrnes adapted the book for radio.
Composer: Gene Pritsker
Pianist: Carollyn Eden
Sound Design: Steve Bond
Adapted for radio by Frances Byrnes
Directed by Judith Kampfner and Polly Thomas
Produced by Judith Kampfner
Executive Producer Celia De Wolff
A Corporation For Independent Media production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4, followed by weather.
Should we stop worrying about our growing global population and look forward to an age of abundance and prosperity?
In a debate recorded in front of an audience at the London School of Economics and Political Science, Fi Glover examines the thoughts of pessimists and optimists She asks not only what they think about population growth, but also how their views are informed by their contrasting mindsets. Where does their optimism or pessimism come from?
Best-selling author and documentary maker Johan Norberg is an optimist, seeing positives wherever he looks. Population growth has coincided with a huge increase in prosperity and education levels, setting free our natural instinct to innovate. He believes technological advances will allow us to feed the extra mouths and clean up the planet.
Robin Maynard, a veteran campaigner and strategist and now chief executive of the charity Population Matters, has a very different view. He considers that even the current population is unsustainable, using one-and-a-half times the planet's resource limit, and adding billions more people will cause disastrous damage to the Earth's ecosystems.
Three expert witnesses are called to give evidence - statistician Professor David Spiegelhalter, Philosophy Professor Sarah Conly, and Joel Kibazo (former Director of the African development Bank).
The pessimist and the optimist cross-examine the witnesses and, to conclude, the audience votes. Is the glass half empty or half full?
A Just Radio production for BBC Radio 4.
(13/17)
The first semi-final of the 2017 season features three of the winners from the past three months of heats, plus a top-scoring runner-up. There's no such thing as an easy victory at this stage in the contest, with a place in the Final at stake.
Will the contenders know who staged an attempt to steal the Crown Jewels in 1671, or the temperature at which the Fahrenheit and Celsius scales coincide? Will their trigger fingers be quick enough to give them the chance to answer, even if they do?
As always, the contest features a chance for a Brain of Britain listener to win a prize by stumping the competitors with ingenious quiz questions of his or her own devising.
Producer: Paul Bajoria.
Paul Farley hears a new radio poem, Greta Stoddart's Who's There, a sequence set in a Dorset care home. With music by Jon Nicholls. Producer: Tim Dee.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
A new story by Zoe Strachan, inspired by a piece of music.
Northern Soul and a crumbling modernist ruin come together in a story of missed chances and lasting love.
Written by Zoe Strachan
Read by Ann Louise Ross
Music: 'Long After Tonight Is All Over' performed by Jimmy Radcliffe
Producer: Eilidh McCreadie.
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This week's Bells on Sunday comes from the central church of the Royal Air Force on London's Strand, St. Clement Danes. The tower has a ring of ten bells with a tenor weighing 21 and a half hundredweight. It's said that the tenth bell was added to enable the tune 'Oranges and Lemons' to be sounded, these no doubt being 'the bells of St Clements' alluded to in the song. We hear them ringing now, 'London Surprise Royal'.
The latest national and international news.
Rabbi Shoshana Boyd Gelfand examines our differing forms of memory, collective and individual.
Citing the work of neuroscientist Steven Rose, who states "lose your memory and you, as you, cease to exist", Shoshana discusses the identity crisis sparked by memory failure resulting from medical conditions.
We hear the words of Oliver Sacks who described a patient with a memory span of five minutes. We also hear Shoshana emotionally recounting the story of how her father, once a radiologist, now sits at home reading his own scans which document the slow deterioration of his brain due to Alzheimer's.
While individual memory is clearly vital to the construction of identity, there is another deeper collective memory available to us. Shoshana argues that, in addition to our personal history, we can seemingly tap into larger shared narratives of love, faith, art and spirit.
Collective memory underlies many of the rituals that we use to transmit our shared values through the generations. One of the best examples of this is the Passover Seder, a dramatic retelling of the Exodus story. Every year on the eve of Passover, Jews gather to re-enact the very first Passover when the Jewish people fled from Ancient Egypt.
The Exodus is only one of many expressions of collective remembering in religious tradition. Christians remember the resurrection on Easter Day, Muslims re-enact Mohammed's journey when they go on pilgrimage to Mecca, Hindus recall the victory of light over darkness on Diwali. Shoshana argues that one of the great powers of religious traditions is that they allow us to access these collective memories.
Presenter: Shoshana Boyd Gelfand
Producer: Max O'Brien
A TBI Media production for BBC Radio 4.
We meet the volunteers of Forty Hall Vineyard - a 10 acre organic vineyard in north London just within the M25. The vineyard is the first commercial scale vineyard in London since the middle ages, and is run and managed by the local community. They planted the first vines in 2009 and are now producing their own English still and sparkling wines. Forty Hall is also a local food project and provides volunteering opportunities and health and well-being benefits to a wide range of local people. Philippa Hall visits the vineyard at the peak of Spring pruning to hear about how the project got off the ground.
Producer: Sophie Anton.
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The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.
French voters take part in the first round of the Presidential elections on Sunday. Dr Charles Devellennes from the University of Kent explains why religion, once a taboo in French politics, has grown in importance in political discourse.
Pope Francis' trip to Egypt later this week is his first to a Muslim majority country. Fawaz Gerges, Professor of International Relations at the LSE and Bishop Angaelos, head of the Coptic Orthodox Church in the UK discuss with Edward Stourton the significance of the visit for Muslims and Christians in Egypt.
An influential report by the Church of Scotland's Theological Forum says the Kirk should allow ministers to conduct same-sex marriages. Journalist Rosemary Goring tells Edward about the proposals.
The remains of five Archbishops of Canterbury have been found beneath a medieval parish church next to Lambeth Palace. Trevor Barnes investigates why their remains appear to have been mislaid.
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and Prince Harry are leading the Heads Together campaign to end stigma around mental health. It's the official charity of the London Marathon. Edward hears from Dan Dark, an RE teacher who is running to support his wife who has struggled with anorexia. Later, Edward explores how churches are changing their approach to mental health. The Archbishop of Canterbury's daughter Katharine Welby-Roberts talks about her depression with Dr Kate Middleton a Director of Mind And Soul.
'Islands' is a new play that commemorates the 350th Anniversary of the 1667 Treaty of Breda in which the Dutch ceded Manhattan to the English in exchange for the tiny spice island of Rhun. Rosie Dawson has been to rehearsals.
Producers: David Cook & Carmel Lonergan
Series Producer: Amanda Hancox
Photo Credit: Craig Dick.
Jon Snow makes the Radio 4 Appeal on behalf of Advantage Africa.
Registered Charity Number 1092719
To Give:
- Freephone 0800 404 8144
- Freepost BBC Radio 4 Appeal. (That's the whole address. Please do not write anything else on the front of the envelope). Mark the back of the envelope 'Advantage Africa'.
- Cheques should be made payable to 'Advantage Africa'.
Photo credit: Dai Baker.
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The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.
A service marking the tenth anniversary of the 'Equipping, Calling, Going' festival, a five day all-age celebration of prayer, worship and teaching which takes place throughout Easter week in Scarborough. It is led by Miriam Swaffield, Student Mission Leader at Fusion UK. The preacher is the Revd Dr Calvin Samuel, Principal of the London School of Theology. Producer Andrew Earis.
A L Kennedy reflects on the way our past shapes our present and our future.
"As groups we get trapped in our pasts, not quite repeating them, but sometimes forcing our futures out of shape for the sake of their ghosts."
Producer: Sheila Cook.
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs.
Kate Humble presents the curlew. The haunting song of the curlew instantly summons the spirit of wild places. By April, most curlews have left their winter refuge on estuaries and marshes and have returned to their territories on moorland or upland pastures. Wherever they breed you'll hear the male birds singing and displaying. It's often called the bubbling song.
Sunday morning magazine programme with news and conversation about the big stories of the week. Presented by Paddy O'Connell.
Lilian has a spring in her step, and Ruth wants to keep a low profile.
Sue MacGregor brings together four people who were profoundly affected by the Challenger disaster, when NASA's space shuttle exploded just after lift-off.
On January 28, 1986, people watched in horror as Challenger, one of America's four space shuttles, erupted into a ball of flames just over a minute after lift off, killing everyone on board. "Flight controllers here are looking very carefully at the situation. Obviously a major malfunction," reported the NASA launch commentator as television screens showed a cloud of smoke and water vapour where Challenger had been, along with debris falling into the Atlantic Ocean.
At Mission Control, the doors were immediately locked and the phones disconnected as flight controllers, following protocol, began backing up the flight data. In the stands near the launch site there were heartbreaking scenes as the astronauts' friends and families reacted with disbelief and shock.
Challenger's crew of seven was led by led by Dick Scobee and included Christa McAuliffe, a 37-year-old social science teacher from New Hampshire, who had been chosen from over 11,000 applicants to become America's first civilian astronaut. Salvage crews spent several weeks bringing up pieces of the shuttle and carefully recovering the remains of the seven astronauts.
A special commission appointed by then President Ronald Reagan to investigate the accident identified a failure in a solid rocket booster joint as the cause for explosion, but also the pointed the finger at problems in NASA's organisational culture and decision-making processes.
Joining Sue MacGregor round the table to look back on one of NASA's darkest tragedies are June Scobee Rodgers, the widow of Challenger Space Shuttle Commander Richard "Dick" Scobee; Steve Nesbitt, NASA Chief Commentator; astronaut Norman Thagard; and Allan McDonald, former Morton Thiokol Director of the Space Shuttle Rocket Booster Project.
Presenter: Sue MacGregor
Producer: Emily Williams
Series Producer: David Prest
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
David Mitchell hosts the panel game in which four comedians are encouraged to tell lies and compete against one another to see how many items of truth they're able to smuggle past their opponents.
David O'Doherty, Richard Osman, Zoe Lyons and Marcus Brigstocke are the panellists obliged to talk with deliberate inaccuracy on subjects as varied as bicycles, wine, trees and chocolate.
Produced by Jon Naismith
A Random Entertainment production for BBC Radio 4.
Sheila Dillon digs up the remarkable story of how potatoes changed the world, offer a whole spectrum of flavour, and might shape our food future.
With Sheila are cook and food writer Anna Jones, Charles C. Mann - author of '1493 - How Europe's Discovery of the Americas Revolutionized Trade, Ecology and Life on Earth', and the potato revolutionary and agronomist Alan Wilson.
Presenter: Sheila Dillon
Producer: Rich Ward.
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Global news and analysis.
Cartoonist Gerald Scarfe recycles and mashes the BBC's archive on Love and Marriage.
Love: life's great mystery. We reveal it in all its facets by the powerful slicing of leading romantic figures. Love at first sight, patriotism, the love that dare not speak its name, true love. As discussed by Barbara Cartland, Aristophanes, Michael Portillo, Charlotte Green and Tony Blair.
A sensual trapeze act of a programme. Fun, silly, thoughtful radio ... recycled.
Producer: Melvin Rickarby.
Peter Gibbs and the panel answer listener correspondence from The Savill Garden, Windsor. Anne Swithinbank, Pippa Greenwood and Bunny Guinness delve into the postbag.
The panellists offer advice on what could be eating a Szechuan Pepper, suggest alternatives to Foxgloves and provide tips on what to grow in an unheated greenhouse.
Also, Peter Gibbs visits Ascension Island in the Atlantic to investigate hydroponic gardening.
Produced by Dan Cocker
Assistant Producer: Laurence Bassett
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.
Fi Glover introduces three conversations between friends in - or close to - retirement, about their shared memories of work and childhood in the Omnibus edition of the series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen.
The Listening Project is a Radio 4 initiative that offers a snapshot of contemporary Britain in which people across the UK volunteer to have a conversation with someone close to them about a subject they've never discussed intimately before. The conversations are being gathered across the UK by teams of producers from local and national radio stations who facilitate each encounter. Every conversation - they're not BBC interviews, and that's an important difference - lasts up to an hour, and is then edited to extract the key moment of connection between the participants. Most of the unedited conversations are being archived by the British Library and used to build up a collection of voices capturing a unique portrait of the UK in the second decade of the millennium. You can learn more about The Listening Project by visiting bbc.co.uk/listeningproject
Producer: Marya Burgess.
The radio debut for the Pulitzer winning book by Michael Cunningham inspired by Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway. Starring Rosamund Pike, Fenella Woolgar and Teresa Gallagher.
Three very separate women. They live in different locations and different eras but they are bound by their passion for Virginia Woolf's novel Mrs Dalloway. As they experience life on a Tuesday in June, their thoughts and experiences echo each other and become intertwined.
In Richmond in 1923, Virginia Woolf (Fenella Woolgar) sits down to write a novel calling her heroine Mrs Dalloway. In Los Angeles in 1949, Laura (Teresa Gallagher) sits in bed reading Mrs Dalloway. In New York in the 1990s, Clarissa (Rosamund Pike) goes out to buy flowers for a party mirroring the start of the day for the fictional Mrs Dalloway. The party is for her best friend Richard who long ago dubbed her Mrs Dalloway.
Weaving together themes of bisexuality, mental illness, middle age, the trials of creativity, parental guilt, marital discord, suburban isolation, infertility, friendship and loss - the three stories become one.
In the second and concluding episode, Virginia, Laura and Clarissa all experience conflict between their need to be free and their domestic responsibilities and ties. Virginia Woolf creates a pivotal moment when Mrs Dalloway sees a book in a shop window open at a page with a song from Shakespeare's Cymbeline. It haunts her - and it haunts Laura and Clarissa too. As their stories become interwoven there more and more parallels.
Michael Cunningham's enormously popular and critically successful book won the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and inspired the film starring Nicole Kidman. He called his story The Hours because that was a title that Virginia Woolf had considered. He says Mrs Dalloway was a huge influence on his life because he read the novel as a response to a dare when he was 15 and then decided to be a writer.
Sony Award winning writer Frances Byrnes adapted the book for radio.
Composer: Gene Pritsker
Pianist: Carollyn Eden
Sound Design: Steve Bond
Adapted for radio by Frances Byrnes
Directed by Judith Kampfner and Polly Thomas
Produced by Judith Kampfner
Executive Producer Celia De Wolff
A Corporation For Independent Media production for BBC Radio 4.
Lisa McInerney won both the Baileys and Desmond Elliott prizes for her first novel. Her second, The Blood Miracles, is again set in Cork. It's a violent, gritty tale of a young drug dealer at the mercy of rival gangs.
Also on the programme, an exploration of regional writing and some great books about Singapore.
Ground-truthing poetry - Paul Farley hears new poems by Zaffar Kunial in the English Midland places they were made. Producer: Tim Dee.
Frances Stonor-Saunders explores how the young Donald Trump stormed into Manhattan from the outer boroughs in the late 1970s and headed straight for New York's most outrageous nightclub. He didn't dance, didn't drink, and didn't take drugs. So what was he doing in the cocaine-fuelled hothouse of the Disco revolution? And what was the link to Roy Cohn, infamous attack dog of the McCarthy era, go-to Attorney for the Mob and the man Trump was happy to call his mentor?
Producer: Fiona Leach
Research: Serena Tarling.
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The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
This week more uses for transparent wood than you can shake a see through stick at thanks to the comic genius of Kevin Eldon.
There's music from Carole King, Jake Thackray, Peter Skellern and a Honky Tonk Nun.
Joan Bakewell gets her chance to tell her side of the Harold Pinter Betrayal story
and fifty years after the doomed Soyuz1 space mission a drama imagines the final moments of Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov. It is utterly brilliant and unbearably sad.
Join Sheila McClennon for her picks of the week.
Toby reaches the end of the road, and Emma comes under fire.
The second series of the sitcom with Hal Cruttenden finds the hapless house husband still trying to cope with his mid-life crisis and doubting his every move.
His wife Sam (Kerry Godliman) is still a highly successful business woman, his two daughters Lily and Molly continue to grow into teenagers and find their dad just a little annoying, his bitter and embittered sister Pippa (Abigail Cruttenden) has inconveniently decided to stay with Hal alongside her angry teenage son Oberon, racist neighbour Penny (Ronni Ancona) proves to be a major thorn in Hal's side and best mates Fergus (Ed Byrne) and Barry (Gavin Webster) hinder rather than help Hal's goal of finding himself.
In this third episode, Hal's vision of himself as a romantic partner are confounded as Sam reveals she's catching up with a 'blast from the past'. And refugee housemate Mahmoud causes a stir.
Written by Hal Cruttenden and Dominic Holland
Produced by Paul Russell
An Open Mike production for BBC Radio 4.
Lynne Truss observes the inhabitants of Meridian Cliffs, a small wind-battered town on the south coast of England.
Retired driving instructor Terry lives alone with his elderly Jack Russell, Thelonius, and his large collection of jazz records. When daytime TV's Got Any Stuff? comes to town looking for people with unwanted items to take part in the show, it provokes Terry into doing something he's been putting off. His mother died a while ago and her belongings are piled up in his garage. In among the ancient tea towels and assorted plastic ash trays, Terry finds a battered yellow suitcase whose contents take him by surprise.
Directed by Kate McAll
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.
Jeremy Corbyn said this week that living standards are falling. This was one of the points he made in response to Theresa May's announcement of a snap General Election. It isn't the first time he has made this claim and so we decided to check it out. Tim Harford finds out from Senior Economist Jonathan Cribb at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, that there have been some interesting twists and turns to living standards.
A recent Guardian front page suggested that sexual harassment at British universities is at 'epidemic levels'. We looked at the data cited and we are not so sure the evidence backs that up.
Maths teacher and performer Kyle Evans takes us on a mathematical journey of some of his favourite songs. He checks the Beatles, Bob Dylan and Kate Bush for the accuracy of their lyrics.
Do the Conservatives really have a 20 point lead over Labour in the opinion polls? We have been sceptical in the past of the accuracy of polling. We speak to Matt Singh about whether we need to be worried again now.
Recent headlines suggested that returning to blue passports once we leave the EU may cost half a billion pounds. We discover this is not at all what it seems.
Presenter: Tim Harford
Producer: Charlotte McDonald.
Obituary series, analysing and celebrating the life stories of people who have recently died.
The number of women in prison globally is rapidly increasing. The Institute for Criminal Policy Research has calculated that between 2000 and 2015, the female prison population around the world grew by 50%, compared with an 18% rise in male prisoners over the same period. Re-offending rates are high, and overcoming the stigma of a prison sentence makes finding a job extremely tough. But can entrepreneurship break the cycle? Caroline Bayley speaks to six former women prisoners across three continents. They were convicted under different circumstances and of different crimes - but they're united in their passion for business, enterprise and self-employment which has allowed them to turn their lives around on the outside.
Producer: Alex Burton.
Carolyn Quinn and guests preview the week ahead at Westminster, plus Political Thinking with Nick Robinson - in-depth discussion on the big political themes shaping our world.
Guy Raz explores the powerful feelings of stress, depression and despair, with people who challenge assumptions about emotion.
A journey through fascinating ideas based on talks by riveting speakers on the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) stage.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
ELITE EDUCATION: Laurie Taylor explores the ways in which the most prestigious schools and universities around the world sustain inequality. Debbie Epstein, Professor of Cultural Studies in Education at Roehampton University, talks about a far reaching study looking at the origins and costs of the 'export' of the British public school to other countries including Hong Kong and South Africa. Also, Natasha K. Warikoo, Associate Professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education consider how elite students in America and Britain think about merit, race and privilege having gained admittance to one of the world's top universities.
Producer: Jayne Egerton.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with the Reverend Roger Hutchings.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
The latest weather forecast for farmers.
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs.
Miranda Krestovnikoff presents the Puffin. Far better-known for its comical looks than its calls, the puffin is a bird that that is recognised by many and has earned the nickname "sea-parrot" or "clown of the sea".
News and current affairs. Includes Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
On Start the Week Kirsty Wark asks whether it's possible to produce art for all. She's joined by the former Director of the National Theatre Nicholas Hytner who looks at the balancing act between art and show business but argues for the power of a national theatre to become part of the cultural bloodstream. The designer Lucienne Day made the link between mass production and fine art, and the curator of an exhibition of her fabrics, Jennifer Harris, says her abstract designs could be seen in households across the country. Singer-songwriter Eliza Carthy is a member of one of British folk's great dynasties, and has helped popularise folk music for new generations, combining tradition with innovation. Nietzsche suggested that 'art raises its head where religions decline' and the philosopher Jules Evans who studies human ecstasy, asks whether art galleries and theatres can really help us come together, lose control and connect with something beyond ourselves.
Producer: Katy Hickman
Image: Eliza Carthy and The Wayward Band
Photographer: Steve Gullick.
Inua Ellam, who was born in Nigeria, begins the second week of responses by 10 contemporary poets, all refugees, exiles, migrants or their offspring, to Homer's Odyssey, which is full of parallels with the world today. Ellams's poem is inspired by the episode where the temptress, the witch Circe, turns Odysseus' men into pigs. As Odysseus goes to rescue his men, he's advised by the god Hermes that he should eat a certain herb to protect himself. In Ellam's update, all street rhythms and rhymes, Odysseus's ship is a broken-down bus, Circe's palace a warehouse club and Hermes is as much a dealer as a god.
With Inua Ellams himself, Maeve Bluebell Wells as Circe and Tom Forrister, Hermes.
Producer: Julian May.
What impact is the snap Election having on the selection of female candidates? With less than 7 weeks to go some parties are changing the way they're choosing who'll contest seats. Will women win or lose out on better representation at Westminster? Joining Jane, Conservative MP Maria Miller who chairs parliament's Women and Equalities Committee, Labour MP and former frontbencher Rachel Reeves, Lib Dem MP Sarah Olney, Angela Crawley MP and SNP shadow spokesperson on equalities, women and children, UKIP deputy chair Suzanne Evans, and Sarah Childs, Professor of Politics and Gender, University of Bristol.
Set in 19th century rural Northumberland, Lady Macbeth is about a woman in a loveless marriage who embarks on an affair and stops at nothing to get what she wants. The film stars BAFTA breakthrough Brit actress Florence Pugh. Florence and Alice Birch the writer of the film joins Jane to discuss.
Presenter: Jane Garvey
Producer: Anne Peacock.
New drama from award-winning writer E V Crowe about one man's investigation into himself. Police officers Henry and Anna are getting married, but their engagement party hasn't gone as planned...
Writer ...... E V Crowe
Director ..... Abigail le Fleming
THE WRITER
E V Crowe won the Imison Award for the best debut radio drama in 2015 with HOW TO SAY GOODBYE PROPERLY, about a girl growing up in an army family. Her first play KIN was nominated for the Most Promising Playwright at the Evening Standard Awards, her second Royal Court play, 'Hero' was part of the Olivier Award winning Season in the Theatre Upstairs. Her most recent outing at The Royal Court was with THE SEWING GROUP in 2016. Other theatre work includes plays for Cardboard Citizens, the RSC and The Unicorn. TV includes GLUE for E4 and COMING UP for Channel 4.
Children are being lured into online gambling - not done with real money, but with the accessories that go with certain online games. Sometimes these are "skins" (cosmetic enhancements for in-game weapons), sometimes "coins". In some cases, the skins are worth tens of thousands of pounds, and can be bought and sold on third party websites. As a result they've become an alternative currency, easily accessible to children - although their parents probably know nothing about it. Some children have run up serious debts. It's a business worth billions of pounds a year.
The gambling sites are unlicenced, illegal, and make no attempt to check the age of the people gambling. In some cases the sites have been set up by Youtube stars who have millions of young followers; but in some of the worst cases, the Youtubers have not revealed that they actually own the sites they have been pushing. In other cases, Youtubers have been paid to make promotional videos where the odds have been fixed to make it look as though it's easy to make money.
In February this year, two British men, one of them a popular Youtuber, were convicted of running an illegal site which invited children to gamble "coins" in the FIFA game. But the site is still operational, and there are clone copies of it running across Europe. Other people who have run hugely lucrative unlicenced gambling sites seem to have got away with it and are still idolised by their young fans. Are the authorities willing or able to put a stop to this business?
Presenter/producer: Jolyon Jenkins.
"Keep an eye on Paisley..." Benjamin Disraeli
Mark Steel returns to Radio 4 for a sixth series of the award winning show that travels around the country, researching the history, heritage and culture of six towns that have nothing in common but their uniqueness, and performs a bespoke evening of comedy for the local residents.
In the penultimate episode Mark Steel visits the Renfrewshire town of Paisley, in Scotland, but definitely not in Glasgow. The largest town in Scotland, Paisley has a rich history; being at the centre of the weaving industry it gave its name to the famous Paisley pattern, as well as being the site of a landmark legal battle involving a snail in a bottle of ginger beer which led to a change in consumer law. More recently, Paisley elected Mhairi Black, the youngest MP since 1832.
Whilst in town Mark visits a 'Car Park In The Sky', has a wander round a 12th century Abbey with alien gargoyles and ends up having a game of pool with a dog called Murphy.
Written and performed by ... Mark Steel
Additional material by ... Pete Sinclair
Production co-ordinator ... Hayley Sterling
Producer ... Carl Cooper
It was a BBC Radio Comedy Production.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
On this day in 1917, a funeral was held in Dover for the 7 British and 28 German casualties of the 2nd Battle of Dover Straits, while in Folkestone, there's a new start for Kitty.
Written by Shaun McKenna
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole.
What can be done to limit noise pollution; and more people are choosing the 'David Bowie' option - eschewing funerals in favour of cremation only - what do you think?
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
Rachel Johnson is struggling with writing her latest novel and talks to writer A.L. Kennedy. They compare distraction techniques, discuss setting rules on how many words you write before checking the Internet, and the benefits of having a special chair to do your writing. They also talk about how to make time to write, when the writing itself doesn't earn your living.
Producer: Sara Conkey.
Night falls on a race to the Macedonian front, in this story by Jonathan Ruffle.
If they hadn't been too late to save Serbia, there would never have been 160,000 British troops stationed near Salonika, in what is now Northern Greece.
And if it weren't for one deserting Bulgarian soldier, Celestine de Tullio would be on her way home to England today, in widow's weeds.
But the British troops in Salonika have done so much digging in, and so little actual fighting, that they're universally mocked as 'The Gardeners of Salonika'.
So Celestine's need for action can only help them. Can't it?
Meticulously based on unit war diaries and eye-witness accounts, each episode of TOMMIES traces one real day at war, exactly 100 years ago.
And through it all, we'll follow the fortunes of Mickey Bliss and his fellow signallers, from the Lahore Division of the British Indian Army. They are the cogs in an immense machine, one which connects situations across the whole theatre of the war, over four long years.
Series created by Jonathan Ruffle
Producers: David Hunter, Jonquil Panting, Jonathan Ruffle
Director: Jonquil Panting.
(14/17)
In a North-South semi-final contest this week, two of the competitors are from Surrey and two from Cumbria. They all either won their heat over the past three months of the 2017 tournament, or narrowly missed out as a high-scoring runner-up. The standard promises to be high today, with another place in the Final at stake.
As ever, the 'Beat the Brains' feature also offers a listener the chance to have his or her question suggestions put to the panel, to see if their combined knowledge is up to the challenge.
Producer: Paul Bajoria.
Charlotte Church presents a selection of the writing that means the most to her, from the books of Roald Dahl, Mark Twain and Carl Sagan to the lyrics of Jill Scott and Sam Beam (Iron and Wine). She talks about being in the spotlight from a young age, about her love of physics, about testifying at the Leveson Inquiry and becoming a feminist. She's joined on stage by her friends - the singer and actress Carys Eleri and musician Jonathan Powell - to read and sing her choices.
This episode of With Great Pleasure was recorded in front of an audience at The Norwegian Church in Charlotte's home town of Cardiff.
Producer: Mair Bosworth
Readers/Musicians: Carys Eleri and Jonathan Powell.
How much of our interaction with technology occurs out of our awareness, even when we have the illusion of control? Aleks Krotoski investigates.
Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
David Mitchell hosts the panel game in which four comedians are encouraged to tell lies and compete against one another to see how many items of truth they're able to smuggle past their opponents.
David O'Doherty, Richard Osman, Zoe Lyons and Marcus Brigstocke are the panellists obliged to talk with deliberate inaccuracy on subjects as varied as colour, vegetables, pizza and carpets.
Produced by Jon Naismith
A Random Entertainment production for BBC Radio 4.
David and Ruth reach a decision, while Brian has reason to celebrate.
Arts news, interviews and reviews.
With the French elections fast approaching, and Marine le Pen continuing to prove popular in the polls, many commentators are suggesting that if she does win, or come close, it will be thanks to a disillusioned working class shifting its allegiance wholesale behind the Front National. Professor Andrew Hussey argues in this programme that such a reading is far too simplistic. While it's true many people will give le Pen their vote, he says that there are many more who will not, partly thanks to generational allegiance to the left, but also more interestingly because of the power of 'la culture populaire'. He visits the north of the country, the area where much of its industry has been traditionally based, and the setting for not only Edouard Louis' powerful recent novel 'The End of Eddy', but also the film 'Chez Nous' about a nurse who becomes a Front National representative. Andrew speaks to its star, Emilie Dequenne, about the reason people are tempted by le Pen's message, and hears from its director Lucas Belvaux and producer David Frenkel about the power of culture as a political weapon. Andrew then returns to Paris, to talk about not just the influence of music, comedy and TV, but also the lived culture in the markets and the streets of his own arrondissement just inside the southern Périphérique. The rich diversity and mixture of the people and the lives being lived here offer, he argues, a different and compelling narrative of France that is troubled, certainly, but for the most part functioning and powerful enough to withstand the advances of the far right.
Presenter: Andrew Hussey
Producer: Geoff Bird.
Lung cancer is America's biggest cancer killer. But there is hope: the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) has sanctioned trials of CimaVax - a treatment created in Cuba that has extended the lives of hundreds of patients on the island. This is the first time a Cuban drug has been tested in the US.
American cancer patients got wind of CimaVax five years ago. Patients like Judy Ingels - an American with a stage 4 lung cancer diagnosis - arrive regularly in Havana, hoping for a miracle. It's traffic that's increased since the US / Cuba thaw.
The creation of Cuba's biotech industry was Fidel Castro's idea back in the 1980s. Today it employs 22,000 people, and sells drugs all over the world - excluding the US. When Presidents Obama and Castro made their momentous move to end hostilities, doctors and patients on both sides of the Florida Straits hoped everyone might benefit from an exchange of life-saving treatments. Now there's deep anxiety. Will President Trump re-freeze the thaw, and jeopardise a revolutionary collaboration?
For Crossing Continents, Linda Pressly explores Cuba's bio-tech industry. How has this small Caribbean nation been able to develop world-class drugs with its limited resources?
Jude Rogers' father died suddenly when she was five, and she remembers every, vivid detail of the morning before she found out: the book she was reading in school, her walk through the school hall to meet her grandmother, the sun in her hair.
What happens when we go into shock? Anyone who has undergone a trauma remembers the strange mental and physical feelings such a moment brings, unlike any other. It may be triggered by an accident, a loss, death, devastating news, or lost love.
The feelings that came over us, the way the world changed shape, speed and sometimes colour, the superhuman strength we can feel, the incidental, insignificant details we notice and remember for years to come. What are the evolutionary reasons for this, and how do our brains change as a consequence?
In 'The Shock', writer Jude explores what happens when our brains go into survival mode during and after traumatic events.
War correspondent for The Times, Anthony Loyd, recalls the pin sharp focus of his senses which helped him escape his kidnappers, even after a severe punishment beating. John Samuel recalls the moment when he discovered he had 2 sisters, and a half brother, he never knew about (a good shock!) And Guardian columnist Suzanne Moore recalls the moment of discovering her daughters faced life threatening trauma.
Professor Sarah Garfinkle of Brighton and Sussex Medical School, explains the way the brain changes size and shape following trauma; Dr Gillian Forrester of Birkbeck University gives the evolutionary explanation for our instinctive reactions, and Jude heads out to an Essex airfield to meet 'flying trauma doctor' Simon Keane, at Essex & Herts Air Ambulance, who has to deal both with his own shock, and that of patients on a daily basis. Marc Wittman, psychologist and author, helps Jude understand why time speeds up, or slows down when we have a shock.
Science combined with powerful storytelling.
Producer: Sara Jane Hall
Music sourced by Danny Webb.
The latest weather forecast.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
The post-war novel that summed up middle-class white America and established John Updike as the major American author of his generation. Rabbit, Run is the first in a virtuoso Pullitzer Prize-wining quintet featuring hapless Harry Angstrom, whom we meet as a 26 year old former high school basketball star and suburban paragon in the midst of a personal crisis.
Episode 6 (of 10):
Ruth is furious when Harry learns that his wife Janice is in labour and rushes off, arriving at the hospital full of fear - only to fall head over heels for his new baby daughter.
Rabbit, Run established Updike as one of the major American novelists of his generation. In the New York Times he was praised for his "artful and supple" style in his "tender and discerning study of the desperate and the hungering in our midst's".
Radio 4 plans to broadcast all five novels in the series over the next few years.
Read by Toby Jones
Abridged by Eileen Horne
Produced by Clive Brill
A Brill production for BBC Radio 4.
Michael Rosen and Dr Laura Wright find out how countries - including this one - got their names, and what they mean. Why isn't Greenland green? How is Venezuela like a Little Venice? And what's the only state in the world named after a woman? With Professor Richard Coates.
Producer Beth O'Dea.
Sean Curran reports from Westminster.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with the Reverend Roger Hutchings.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about the British birds inspired by their calls and songs.
Michaela Strachan presents the rock pipit. The sight of a greyish bird no bigger than a sparrow, at home on the highest cliffs and feeding within reach of breaking waves can come as a surprise. In spring and early summer, the male Pipits become wonderful extroverts and perform to attract a female, during which they sing loudly to compete with the sea-wash.
Morning news and current affairs. Including Yesterday in Parliament, Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
The food we eat is the greatest cause of death and illness worldwide. The main culprits - salt, sugar and fat - are now so embedded in our diet, in the form of processed foods, that most of us consume far too much.
Yet Professor Graham MacGregor doesn't believe it's up to us to reverse this situation. It's up to the food industry, he says, who manufacture the processed foods, to take the 'rubbish' out.
Now Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at the Wolfson Institute of Preventative Medicine, Graham MacGregor has spent much of his career campaigning tirelessly to persuade the food industry to do just that - to reduce these demons in our diet - firstly salt, and now sugar.
And he's had remarkable success. As a nation we now eat thirty thousand tonnes less salt each year than we did fifteen years ago, saving the NHS a staggering £1.5 billion per year.
Blood pressure lies at the heart of this huge saving and, as Graham explains to Jim al-Khalili, blood pressure is not a natural consequence of ageing. High blood pressure is simply a consequence of too much salt.
Producer: Beth Eastwood.
Half of England's pregnant teenagers have vanished. They didn't go missing, they just never conceived. And the teenage pregnancy rate plummeted. It's one of the greatest societal mysteries we've seen. A real-life Whodunnit. Everyone wants to crack the case and keep rates dropping.
In today's penultimate chapter, we look for the means by which teenage pregnancy rates fell off a cliff in 2008. Is it down to contraceptive technology?
Michael Blastland is on the case in this non-fiction investigation, unravelling the causes at the root of the biggest trends. These are true-life mysteries that creep up on us until the pattern of our lives is altered. He examines the culprits and punctures presumptions about causation and its implications for policy making.
Encountering red-herrings, false accusations, Government conspiracy, and hack journalism, finding out whodunnit in the case of a 50% reduction in teenage pregnancy is not going to be easy.
At its heart may lie a Government desire to prevent under 18 conception - a well-meaning intention, backed up by some strong evidence that socio-economic disadvantage can be both a cause and a consequence of teenage motherhood. But what makes huge swathes of teenagers change their behaviour?
Whodunnit? is a new series and a new kind of investigation. It owes its style to detective storytelling. But the cases are unequivocally real. These are societal mysteries - true-life changes in the pattern of our lives, changes that might even feature some of us.
Presenter: Michael Blastland
Producer: Katherine Godfrey
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.
In The Odyssey Aeolus, the god of winds, loves listening to Odysseus tell stories. He rewards him with a bag containing all the winds except the one that will blow him safely home to Ithaca. But his crew think the bag is full of treasure that Odysseus is concealing from them. When they are almost home they open it, the winds escape, and blow the ship back to Aeolus's island.
Zaffar Kunial's father comes from Kashmir, but in his poetic response to Homer he explores the more mysterious story of his mother's family. Kunial finds a place name on the map of Orkney that is the same as his grandmother's and unravels the odyssey of an ancestor who was blown about the world, from Egypt to Orkney in the Napoleonic Wars. And, like Odysseus, he was a soldier and storyteller. His family also wandered, crossing the sea to an island. The place they were trying to get to, then were ripped from, was home.
Producer: Julian May.
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.
New drama from award-winning writer E V Crowe about one man's investigation into himself.
Four important people didn't turn up to Henry and Anna's engagement party, and Anna has sent Henry to find out why.
After a bruising encounter with his ex-wife, Miranda, Henry has reached his daughter Gemma's flat.
Writer ...... E V Crowe
Director ..... Abigail le Fleming
THE WRITER
E V Crowe won the Imison Award for the best debut radio drama in 2015 with HOW TO SAY GOODBYE PROPERLY, about a girl growing up in an army family. Her first play 'Kin' was nominated for the Most Promising Playwright at the Evening Standard Awards, her second Royal Court play, 'Hero' was part of the Olivier Award winning Season in the Theatre Upstairs. Her most recent outing at The Royal Court was with THE SEWING GROUP in 2016. Other theatre work includes plays for Cardboard Citizens, the RSC and The Unicorn. TV includes GLUE for E4 and COMING UP for Channel 4.
The most beautiful and shimmering of the elements, the weirdest, and yet the most reviled.
Chemist Andrea Sella tell the story of Mercury, explaining the significance of this element not just for chemistry, but also the development of modern civilisation.
It's been a a source of wonder for thousands of years - why is this metal a liquid? and what is its contribution to art, from the Stone Age to the Renaissance?
We look at how Mercury in integral to hundreds of years of scientific discoveries, from weather forecasting to steam engines and the detection of atomic particles it has a key role.
However Mercury is highly toxic in certain forms and ironically the industrial processes it helped create have led to global pollution which now threatens fish, wildlife and ourselves.
We ask is it time to say goodbye to Mercury?
Acclaimed singer and Ella Fitzgerald devotee, Mara Carlyle, examines the life and vocal magnificence of the most beloved of jazz singers - marking the centenary of her birth.
Mara visits Harlem to trace Ella's ascent from humble origins to becoming one of America's greatest stars, exploring the voice that transformed her fortunes and changed the face of jazz forever.
She's joined by a host of singers including opera queen Jessye Norman, Dianne Reeves, Emiliana Torrini, ESKA, and her own aunt, jazz singer Norma Winstone.
Mara examines the magic of Ella's vocal prowess - her pure, clear tone, impeccable phrasing, virtuosic improvisation, and her tender expression of human emotion - that has kept audiences captivated since her auspicious debut at New York's Apollo Theater.
Produced by Zakia Sewell and Tobias Withers
A Cast Iron Radio production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
On this day in 1917, there were protests in Plymouth against the light treatment of conscientious objectors, while in Folkestone, Reverend Hamilton is feeling less lenient.
Singers ..... Nancy Cole, Ksynia Loeffler, Stephen Jeffes, Tom Raskin, Charles Gibbs
Written by Shaun McKenna
Singers conducted by Sam Evans
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole.
Consumer phone-in.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
In the second of two programmes about the art of writing, Rachel Johnson confesses to struggling with her latest book which is 'supposed to be funny'. In this programme, she meets novelist and playwright Michael Frayn to find out how he organises his writing day, how he gets an audience laughing, and his thoughts on the art of writing farce.
Producer: Sara Conkey.
Tumanbay, the wealthiest city on earth, has been conquered by a brutal religious regime, the followers of Maya. Responsible for rooting out heretics is Barakat (Hiran Abeysekera), a ruthless and uncompromising zealot.
As refugees scramble to escape the city, Gregor (Rufus Wright), previously Master of the Palace Guard, has sworn an oath to the new rulers and struggles to survive as the new regime sets about dismantling the city of everything of value.
Tumanbay is created by John Dryden and Mike Walker and inspired by the Mamluk slave rulers of Egypt.
Orignal Music by Sacha Puttnam and Jon Ouin
Sound Design by Steve Bond
Sound Edited by James Morgan and Andreina Gomez
Script Edited by Abigail Youngman
Produced by Emma Hearn, Nadir Khan and John Dryden
Written and Directed by John Dryden
A Goldhawk production for BBC Radio 4.
Our homes are responsible for 25% of our carbon emissions in the UK. Tom Heap asks if we can retrofit our homes to fight climate change.
Writer Jacqueline Wilson talks to Michael Rosen about her love of language and how she came up with the idea of Tracy Beaker. She describes her imaginative life as a child, walking along telling stories to herself under her breath, fascinated by words. She can trace her interest in writing real and believable children to the books that she loved as a child, from Little Women to Lolita..
Producer Beth O'Dea.
Biographical series presented by Matthew Parris.
Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
One of Britain's finest comedians, Rob Newman, is our guide on a unique audio odyssey of the brain, taking in everything from love and guilt to robot co-workers and the unlikely importance of prehistoric trousers.
It's a witty, fact-packed series mixing stand-up and sketches, challenging notions of neuroscience with a new theory that's equal parts enlightening and hilarious.
Rob offers an alternative to some of the more bizarre claims in modern popular science, as well as rejigging theories of our brains in light of what we know about nature, artificial intelligence and Belinda Carlisle.
Created by the award-winning team behind Robert Newman's Entirely Accurate Encyclopaedia of Evolution.
Written by and starring Rob Newman
Co-starring Claire Price and Richard McCabe
Producer: Jon Harvey
Executive Producer: Richard Wilson
A Hat Trick production for BBC Radio 4.
Ambridge Hall is invaded, and Tom angles for a better deal.
Arts news, interviews and reviews.
Radio 4 documentary.
News, views and information for people who are blind or partially sighted.
Claudia Hammond explores the latest developments in the worlds of psychology, neuroscience, and mental health.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
The post-war novel that summed up middle-class white America and established John Updike as the major American author of his generation. Rabbit, Run is the first in a virtuoso Pullitzer Prize-wining quintet featuring hapless Harry Angstrom, whom we meet as a 26 year old former high school basketball star and suburban paragon in the midst of a personal crisis.
Episode 7 (of 10):
Rabbit is reunited with his wife, his old basketball coach and his in-laws, and turns over a new leaf. Yet he can't help wondering if the minister's wife Lucy is flirting with him.
Rabbit, Run established Updike as one of the major American novelists of his generation. In the New York Times he was praised for his "artful and supple" style in his "tender and discerning study of the desperate and the hungering in our midst's".
Radio 4 plans to broadcast all five novels in the series over the next few years.
Read by Toby Jones
Abridged by Eileen Horne
Produced by Clive Brill
A Brill production for BBC Radio 4.
Comedy's best kept secret ingredient returns with another series of his own sketch show. In this episode, a love song, a dead scarecrow, a Jiffy Bag and Kylie Minogue. Some owls were harmed during the making of this programme.
Kevin Eldon is a comedy phenomenon. He's been in virtually every major comedy show in the last fifteen years, but not content with working with the likes of Chris Morris, Steve Coogan, Armando Iannucci, Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse, Stewart Lee, Julia Davis and Graham Linehan, he's also created his own comedy series for BBC Radio 4.
After all the waiting - Kevin Eldon Will See You Now.
Also starring Amelia Bullmore (I'm Alan Partridge, Scott & Bailey), Julia Davis (Nighty Night), Paul Putner (Little Britain), Justin Edwards (The Thick Of It), David Reed (The Penny Dreadfuls) and Rosie Cavaliero (Alan Partridge, Harry and Paul).
Written by Kevin Eldon with additional material by Jason Hazeley and Joel Morris (A Touch Of Cloth and, yes, those modern Ladybird books)
Original music by Martin Bird
Produced and directed by David Tyler
A Pozzitive production for BBC Radio 4.
News from Westminster.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with the Reverend Roger Hutchings.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs.
Miranda Krestovnikoff presents the Gannet. The North Atlantic is the international stronghold for this impressive seabird - with its wingspan of nearly 2 metres, remorseless expression and dagger-like bill.
Morning news and current affairs. Including Yesterday in Parliament, Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
Series in which two artists discuss creative questions. The artist Yinka Shonibare meets international architect Sir David Adjaye.
Simon Barnes continues his series challenging conventional thinking about sport, and argues that sport produces narratives worthy of a novel.
Simon argues that sport is as much a novel as Ulysses or Tristram Shandy, with a cast of characters as rich as villains Lance Armstrong, Hansie Cronje and the 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Hydrant,' Tiger Woods, and tragedies as profound as that of Oscar Pistorius. He draws parallels between Andrew Flintoff's legendary performance in the 2005 Ashes and Lord of the Rings, and he discusses the amazing - and amazing variety of - narratives in sport with David Maraniss, associate editor at the Washington Post, himself addicted to sport stories.
Producer: Giles Edwards.
In China today many children are left in rural villages with grandparents while their parents work vast distances away in the coastal cities. Odysseus, similarly, abandons his son Telemachus and goes to war. Sarah Howe, winner of the T. S.Eliot Award, was born in Hong Kong. In her response to Homer Telemachus is a Chinese girl left in the countryside. She wants to leave, but for reasons more complicated than to look for her father.
Producer: Julian May.
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.
New drama from award-winning writer E V Crowe about one man's investigation into himself.
Four important people didn't turn up to Henry and Anna's engagement party, and Anna has sent Henry to find out why.
After difficult encounters with his ex-wife and his daughter, Henry is hoping for some comfort from his best friend, Joe.
Writer ...... E V Crowe
Director ..... Abigail le Fleming
THE WRITER
E V Crowe won the Imison Award for the best debut radio drama in 2015 with HOW TO SAY GOODBYE PROPERLY, about a girl growing up in an army family. Her first play 'Kin' was nominated for the Most Promising Playwright at the Evening Standard Awards, her second Royal Court play, 'Hero' was part of the Olivier Award winning Season in the Theatre Upstairs. Her most recent outing at The Royal Court was with THE SEWING GROUP in 2016. Other theatre work includes plays for Cardboard Citizens, the RSC and The Unicorn. TV includes GLUE for E4 and COMING UP for Channel 4.
A granddaughter who changed school and friends to make her mother's life easier shares her philosophy of life with her grandmother. Fi Glover presents another conversation in the series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen.
Producer: Marya Burgess.
The third series of writer Jon Canter's version of Richard Wilson's autobiography. Will you believe any of it?
After a recent brush with death, Richard considers the legacy he will leave behind. So he ponders the best way to bequeath something to the next generation.
Produced and Directed by Clive Brill
A Brill production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
On this day in 1917, On this day in 1917, the YMCA appealed for workers in their base camps in France, and Jessie Moore would rather be anywhere than here.
Written by Shaun McKenna
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole.
Consumer affairs programme.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
In 2004 , the BBC's Security Correspondent Frank Gardner was shot several times by terrorists while reporting in Saudi Arabia, some of those bullets hit the core of his body and damaged his spinal nerve which means that he can no longer use his legs and is in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. This was for him a catastrophic life changing injury. But while he was in hospital he received an email from someone who too had been shot in the back and said- 'I've got some advice and tips on how to cope'. In this first of three programmes for the series 'One to One' Frank Gardner explores how one copes with a life changing injury and begins by talking to Dr Stuart Butchart who gave Frank hope.
Presenter : Frank Gardner
Producer : Perminder Khatkar.
THE PROGRESS OF THE SOUL OF LIZZIE CALVIN
In poet John Donne's great unfinished work of the same name , he plays with the ancient idea of the transmigration of souls, that a spirit might be reincarnated in many different lives. For contemporary poet Michael Symmons Roberts, the idea of making a new 'Progress of the Soul' has long been an ambition. Both poets have serious fun with this idea, imagining a soul passing, dissatisfied with each successive form of life, through a fantastical range of insects, plants, fish, animals and on, trying to reach its ultimate fulfilment as a human being.
The soul , played by Glenda Jackson is the driving voice of the drama - key narrator and storyteller. Beginning in the body of Lizzie Calvin, a minister in waiting , the soul journeys through different forms of life, from a flea on a dogs back to a mandrake . This is a new radio poem that is irreverent and serious, lyrical and disturbing, witty and heart breaking . It ultimately questions the idea of the soul, what its relevance is in contemporary society .
Written by Michael Symmons Roberts
Sound producer Steve Brooke
Directed in Salford by Susan Roberts.
Financial phone-in.
Sociological discussion programme, presented by Laurie Taylor.
Topical programme about the fast-changing media world.
Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
You always remember where you were when you first heard certain pieces of music, watched films that were important to you, were told of big news events. Sometimes when you hear a song you are transported back to the first time you heard it, you remember everything: where you were, who you were with, what was going on in your life that means it was so important to you.
If you were growing up in the nineties it is likely you can chart your life by where you were as each new Blur album was released. This is the story of a Blur fan, who looks back on his life remembering where he was the first time he heard 'the new Blur album; from their first in 1992, to seventh and most recent release in 2003. From being at school, to his first jobs and relationships, this is John's story of life, love, friendship and growing older, with the new Blur album as a constant backdrop.
Matt lays it on thick, and Usha lends an ear.
Arts news, interviews and reviews.
Is nostalgia for the past and fear of the future preventing us from recognising the huge benefits of digital technology for children?
In a debate recorded in front of an audience at the London School of Economics and Political Science, Fi Glover examines the thoughts of pessimists and optimists. She asks not only what they think about the effect digital technology has on children, but also how their views are informed by their contrasting mindsets. Where does their optimism or pessimism come from?
Baroness Martha Lane Fox, an invincible optimist and tech entrepreneur, says children are naturally predisposed to learn, and digital technology provides endless opportunities for development. She considers that we romanticise traditional childhoods spent outside in the fresh air but, in reality, children must tap the social and educational potential of tablets and smart phones if they are to be prepared for life in our digital world.
Andrew Keen, an entrepreneur himself as well as being one of the most influential pessimistic commentators on the digital age, takes the opposite view. He believes our children are immersed in digital media before they can walk, stunting their development, damaging their health, and making them less able to interact with real-life people. He says the internet monetises every aspect of our children's lives, their personal data harvested for the use of governments and corporations.
Three expert witnesses are called to give evidence - Professor Sugata Mitra, educationalist Sue Palmer, and technology expert and presenter Julia Hardy.
The pessimist and the optimist cross-examine the witnesses and, to conclude, the audience votes. Is the glass half empty or half full?
A Just Radio production for BBC Radio 4.
Andrea Cooper argues that football is an 'electric currency', and explains why she believes it can change the world for the better.
Andrea is Head of the Liverpool Football Club Foundation, and in this talk she describes watching young people listening intently to their favourite footballers, and how her foundation now hopes to work with the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in the developing world. She hopes to use the deep wellspring of affection amongst Liverpool Football Club's immense global fanbase to encourage young fans to pay more attention to healthcare messages. It could, she says, tilt the world on its axis, and prove a concept which would work elsewhere.
Producer: Giles Edwards.
The latest weather forecast.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
The post-war novel that summed up middle-class white America and established John Updike as the major American author of his generation. Rabbit, Run is the first in a virtuoso Pullitzer Prize-wining quintet featuring hapless Harry Angstrom, whom we meet as a 26 year old former high school basketball star and suburban paragon in the midst of a personal crisis.
Episode 8 (of 10):
Janice brings the new baby home from hospital and Harry is overjoyed - until he is thwarted in his desires and decides to run again, at least for a night, with tragic consequences.
Rabbit, Run established Updike as one of the major American novelists of his generation. In the New York Times he was praised for his "artful and supple" style in his "tender and discerning study of the desperate and the hungering in our midst's".
Radio 4 plans to broadcast all five novels in the series over the next few years.
Read by Toby Jones
Abridged by Eileen Horne
Produced by Clive Brill
A Brill production for BBC Radio 4.
Episode 4: Texas. It's the final party of the year and Tom is off to a wedding. Can a sweepstake, some cowboy boots and a little bit of line dancing end Tom's fancy dressed year on a high?
Tom Parry is an award winning comedian, writer and actor whose credits include Miranda, Phone Shop and Drunk History among many others. As a stand up, he most recently gained critical acclaim and an Edinburgh Comedy Award Best Newcomer nomination for his debut hour 'Yellow T-Shirt'. For more than a decade he has been part of the multi-award winning sketch team Pappy's. Together they have performed 6 sell out shows at the Edinburgh Fringe, completed 4 national tours, gigged all over the world, and created, written and starred in the sitcom 'Badults' for BBC3.
Cast: Tom Parry, Ben Clarke, Celeste Dring, Gareth Pierce
Producer: Richard Morris
A BBC Studios Production.
The number one podcast for those involved or just interested in the production of beef animals and dairy herds.
In this episode, we interview Dr David Pin from the European Space Agency about the possibility of cows on Mars, and hear your letters about getting too attached to meat beasts.
The original Beef And Dairy Network Podcast series can be found at www.maximumfun.org
Written and performed by Benjamin Partridge and Mike Wozniak
Produced by Benjamin Partridge.
Sean Curran reports from Westminster.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with the Reverend Roger Hutchings.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. David Attenborough presents the Shag. Perhaps the least vocal of all British birds they hiss and belch to warn off interlopers getting too close to their nest. They are seabirds and their name comes from the shaggy crest on the top of their head.
Morning news and current affairs. Including Yesterday in Parliament, Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the text and context of The Book of the Dead, also known as the Book of Coming Forth by Day, the ancient Egyptian collections of spells which were intended to help the recently deceased navigate the underworld. They flourished under the New Kingdom from C16th BC until the end of the Ptolemaic era in C1st BC, and drew on much earlier traditions from the walls of pyramids and on coffin cases. Almost 200 spells survive, though no one collection contains all of them, and one of the best known surrounds the weighing of the heart, the gods' final judgement of the deceased's life.
With
John Taylor
Kate Spence
and
Richard Bruce Parkinson
Producer: Simon Tillotson.
Reza Mohammadi was born in Kandahar and is one of the leading poets writing in Persian today. In his poem Odysseus, returning from war, somehow winds up in Kabul and cannot escape it. Here 'the capital of stone', he is doomed to witness murder and decapitation of humans and gods alike. Even the topography of the Afghan capital parallels Homer, and all is soured by war. The mountain where Apollo resides is where the Scud missiles were fired from. The Tora Bora complex is like Polyphemus, the Cyclops's, cave. One of the holiest places in the city is where, now, addicts go to smoke opium. Nick Laird, the poet from Northern Ireland, worked with Mohammadi to render his poem into English. It is a work of astonishing, disturbing images, and yet is compellingly beautiful.
The Afghan musician Milad Yousofi plays specially composed music on the rubab.
Producer: Julian May.
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.
New drama from award-winning writer E V Crowe about one man's investigation into himself.
Four important people didn't turn up to Henry and Anna's engagement party, and Anna has sent Henry to find out why.
Henry's come to see his colleague Karen, the final name on the list. But his party is the last thing on her mind: Vicky Cranshaw, the victim of a domestic violence case she and Henry worked on, has been murdered.
Writer ...... E V Crowe
Director ..... Abigail le Fleming
THE WRITER
E V Crowe won the Imison Award for the best debut radio drama in 2015 with HOW TO SAY GOODBYE PROPERLY, about a girl growing up in an army family. Her first play 'Kin' was nominated for the Most Promising Playwright at the Evening Standard Awards, her second Royal Court play, 'Hero' was part of the Olivier Award winning Season in the Theatre Upstairs. Her most recent outing at The Royal Court was with THE SEWING GROUP in 2016. Other theatre work includes plays for Cardboard Citizens, the RSC and The Unicorn. TV includes GLUE for E4 and COMING UP for Channel 4.
Men in the Faroe Islands are having to look far beyond their shores for marriage. The remote, windswept archipelago between Norway and Iceland, with close ties to Denmark, has seen an influx of women from South-East Asia who have come to marry Faroese men. In recent years the islands have been experiencing a declining population. Young women in particular have been leaving the islands, often for education, and not returning. One complaint from them is that their close-knit community has too conservative and masculine a culture where sheep farming, hunting and fishing are still dominant. For some women Faroese society is simply too small, too constraining. There are now approximately 2,000 fewer women of marriageable age in the total population of 50,000. In response, some men have been looking elsewhere for partners, from countries like Thailand and the Philippines. For Crossing Continents, Tim Ecott meets these foreign women adjusting to life in this isolated group of islands where the elements are harsh and the language impenetrable.
John Murphy producing.
A chronological journey through life - from childhood to old age - via a series of interviews recorded with people as they confront their reflection in the mirror.
What do they see? How has their face changed? What stories lie behind the wrinkles and scars?
We hear the initial wonder of the small child give way to the embarrassment of the teenager and the acceptance of later-life.
Created by multi-award-winning documentary-maker, Cathy FitzGerald, this moving programme hops from home to home in contemporary Britain, catching its subjects in bedrooms and bathrooms and lounges, in order to hold up a mirror to the ageing process itself.
A White Stiletto production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
On this day in 1917, a Liverpool captain was sentenced to nearly two years in prison for helping people avoid conscription, while in Folkestone, Hilary gets his call up papers.
Written by Shaun McKenna
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole.
Consumer affairs programme.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
Sathnam Sanghera explores class. As the son of an illiterate factory worker who ended up going to Cambridge and working for The Times, he now regards himself as firmly middle class.
In the first of his two programmes for One to One, he interviews Janice Turner, a fellow journalist from The Times, at her home in South London. She had a similar journey to Sathnam; she moved from working class Doncaster to the London media establishment, but she feels very differently about which class she belongs to.
Producer: Perminder Khatkar.
By Katherine Jakeways
Suzie's never been to Cornwall before, but somehow she finds herself on the Cornish Riviera Express, hurtling from Paddington to Penzance. She sits next to David and over the course of an eventful five hour journey an intense relationship develops.
A romantic comedy from writer Katherine Jakeways. The Radio Times has described Katherine as 'new Victoria Wood' saying "her character comedy is so acutely observed and so sharp that it's in danger of causing permanent injury." Starring Rosie Cavaliero (Prey) and Justin Edwards (The Thick of It).
And you can find out what happens next tomorrow with Where this Service will Continue.
Directed by James Robinson
A BBC Cymru Wales Production.
Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire is home to one of our most enduring legends, that of Robin Hood. David Lindo learns how the man in green tights who stole from the rich and gave to the poor is still important to the people who live within the Sherwood Forest area, and to the many visitors who come here. The truth about the man behind the legend remains in dispute but the ancient oak trees remain. Some, like the Major Oak, are up to one thousand years old and need support to remain standing. They provide precious dead wood habitat for many species and this is one reason why the RSPB are taking over the management of the national nature reserve and building a brand new visitor centre to help people understand how precious this ancient habitat is.
The forest landscape was created and preserved by medieval Kings and David visits King John's Palace in Kings Clipstone to find out how the ruins we see there today could be part of a much bigger story about the real time in which Robin and his Merry Men would have roamed the woods. And Robin Hood is also the inspiration for Sherwood's anti-fracking campaigners, they fear that trees like the Major Oak could be affected if planned seismic surveys in the wider area lead to drilling for shale gas.
With Francine Stock
Writer/director David Leland revisits Worthing, the setting of his classic comedy drama Wish You Were Here, on its 30th anniversary.
William Oldroyd discusses his acclaimed low budget drama Lady Macbeth.
Adam Rutherford explores the science that is changing our world.
Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Starring Nigel Havers, Mathew Baynton and Josie Lawrence. Welcome back to Hardacre's, the worst advertising agency in London, for the second series of Edward Rowett's award-winning sitcom.
This week, things are looking up for Hardacre's. They're pitching for the biggest account of their lives - the cutting edge new smartphone, the Cosmos X10.
It's the day of the big pitch and Hardacre (Nigel Havers), Joe (Mathew Baynton), Teddy (Kieran Hodgson), Amanda (Josie Lawrence), and Laura (Olivia Nixon) are waiting to be called in. They may be waiting rather a long time, in fact, as they appear to have turned up six hours early.
As the day unfolds and the wait continues, it emerges that some of the team may have something to hide. Is there more at stake than meets the eye? And what does it have to do with Charles Blackwell (guest star Martin Jarvis), Hardacre's oldest and dearest nemesis?
An Absolutely production for BBC Radio 4.
Pip finds the comfort she needs, and Justin cannot be calmed.
Arts news, interviews and reviews.
Series looking at important issues in the news. Presented by David Aaronovitch.
How have private businesses fared in Greece since the crisis began? The economy has shrunk by nearly a third and unemployment has soared. So what have companies had to do to survive? And have any managed to actually thrive? Louise Cooper meets hopeful entrepreneurs, embattled importers, and a few small companies going underground in a bid to avoid rising costs and disappearing demand. Can Greece ever return to growth?
Producer: Rosamund Jones.
The latest weather forecast.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
The post-war novel that summed up middle-class white America and established John Updike as the major American author of his generation. Rabbit, Run is the first in a virtuoso Pullitzer Prize-wining quintet featuring hapless Harry Angstrom, whom we meet as a 26 year old former high school basketball star and suburban paragon in the midst of a personal crisis.
Episode 9 (of 10):
Harry learns terrible news of his daughter, Rebecca. He becomes convinced, for the moment, that these are the wages of his sin.
Rabbit, Run established Updike as one of the major American novelists of his generation. In the New York Times he was praised for his "artful and supple" style in his "tender and discerning study of the desperate and the hungering in our midst's".
Radio 4 plans to broadcast all five novels in the series over the next few years.
Read by Toby Jones
Abridged by Eileen Horne
Produced by Clive Brill
A Brill production for BBC Radio 4.
Hit comedy about three marriages in various states of disrepair. Starring Jack Docherty, Kerry Godliman, John Thomson, Fiona Allen, Charlie Higson and Sally Bretton.
This week the three couples have tickets for Glastonbury. But the festival dates clash with Cathy's dad's birthday. Barney fears he will be marooned in a care home while his friends have the time of their lives at the music festival.
At the festival Alice tries to lose David, Evan tries to get David to loosen his tie, and Fiona tries to get Alice to lose her inhibitions and talk about Barney.
Meanwhile in the care home Barney is losing the will to live while being made to sing 'If You're Happy And You Know It Clap Your Hands'.
Producer ..... Claire Jones.
Susan Hulme reports from Westminster.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with the Reverend Roger Hutchings.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs.
Steve Backshall presents the sandwich tern. Sandwich terns are the UK's largest breeding terns and have shaggy black crests and a black bill with a yellow tip. They live in colonies on shingle or sandy beaches and were first described from birds seen in Sandwich in the 1780s by William Boys, a Kentish surgeon.
Morning news and current affairs. Including Yesterday in Parliament, Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
In the final episode of The Odyssey Project, Radio 4's Poet in residence, who has curated and introduced the series, reads his take on Odysseus's homecoming. He takes on the suitors who have been feasting at his expense and pestering his wife for her hand in marriage, so they can take over his land. It's a bloody scene that ends with Odysseus and his man slaying every suitor. In Nagra's poem, his protagonist, Daag, a modern day migrant living in Sheffield, returns to his village home in the Punjab to reclaim his wife. To reclaim his wife from the men of the ruling caste who have exploited the corrupt region by running their own harem and gambling den. Daag is from the knife-cutter caste, he has plenty of blades and, in a Bollywood way, knows how to handle them.
Producer: Julian May.
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.
New drama from award-winning writer E V Crowe about one man's investigation into himself.
Four important people didn't turn up to Henry and Anna's engagement party, and Henry's been to see them all, as Anna wanted him to. They've blamed the way he's treated them in the past, but he swears he's changed. However on his return home Anna, filled with misgivings and unnecessarily worried about an important exam, has told Henry that she doesn't want to marry him anymore.
It's time for Henry to choose who he wants to be...
Writer ...... E V Crowe
Director ..... Abigail le Fleming
THE WRITER
E V Crowe won the Imison Award for the best debut radio drama in 2015 with HOW TO SAY GOODBYE PROPERLY, about a girl growing up in an army family. Her first play 'Kin' was nominated for the Most Promising Playwright at the Evening Standard Awards, her second Royal Court play, 'Hero' was part of the Olivier Award winning Season in the Theatre Upstairs. Her most recent outing at The Royal Court was with THE SEWING GROUP in 2016. Other theatre work includes plays for Cardboard Citizens, the RSC and The Unicorn. TV includes GLUE for E4 and COMING UP for Channel 4.
What does the way we speak say about us? Why do we still judge each other that way? And why do so many of us still feel the need to "improve" our accent to fit in?
Cole Moreton did that as a teenager, trying to escape the East End, but now he goes back to understand where he came from - and to search for the unique but vanishing voice of his late grandmother's generation.
They grew up during and after wartime listening to posh announcers on the wireless and sounded half Cockney, half like the Queen. Can there be any women like that left in the same place today, transformed as it is by immigration and gentrification?
The East Enders have left for Essex and Kent and experts say true Cockney will die out within a couple of decades. Meanwhile a new accent is emerging on the old streets - Multicultural London English. Cole meets modern grandmothers of all backgrounds in the East End today, as he searches in vain for the voice of his Nan.
The real Queen sounds more like a Cockney than she used to - but she's not available for interview. Dame Vera Lynn sings him a bedtime lullaby. June Brown, who plays Dot Cotton, says they don't talk proper Cockney on EastEnders any more - it's all "lazy talk" now.
But finally, Cole finds Beryl, a formidable force in Forest Gate at the age of 91, who sounds exactly like his Nan.
Presenter: Cole Moreton
Producer: Jonathan Mayo
A TBI Media production for BBC Radio 4.
At Sizzlinghurst, Mrs Gosling is on the point of divorce - which is seriously affecting her cooking. Henry has had enough and is on the verge of firing the Goslings, so Vera embarks on a mission to get Mrs Gosling to forgive her husband and bring harmony back below-stairs.
Meanwhile, in an attempt to win back Vera's affection (which Vera has given to Hilda), Ginny secretly installs an Aeolian Harp in the gardens at Sizzlinghurst in the hope that its sweet sound will captivate Vera. But things backfire when the painter Augustus Dong and his Biblical beard turn up to propose the setting up of a pantisocracy with Vera and Henry.
A Little Brother production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
On this day in 1917, the Food Controller's Wheat, Rye and Rice Restriction Order came into effect, and the Winwoods host a dinner party.
Written by Shaun McKenna
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole.
Consumer news and issues.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
Sathnam Sanghera feels he has come a long way from his working class Wolverhampton background and now regards himself as firmly middle class.
In this second programme for One to One, he meets Alpesh Chauhan, an Asian Brummie from a working class background, who has become an Assistant Conductor with the CBSO (City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra).
As someone who has broken through so many social barriers, has Alpesh's ethnic background proved to be a bigger hurdle than his social class?
Producer: Perminder Khatkar.
By Katherine Jakeways
Fifteen months after they met on a train, David has come to find Suzie. Part two of the romantic comedy.
Suzie has a busy day planned - she needs to pick up the dog from the groomers, go to the chiropodists and make a trifle. But her plans are torpedoed by the arrival of David. Fifteen months ago Suzie and David sat next to each other on a train journey from London to Penzance; both married, they shared an intense and unforgettable five and a half hours. Now, out of the blue, David's landed in Suzie's life again.
A romantic comedy from writer Katherine Jakeways. The Radio Times described Katherine as the 'new Victoria Wood' saying "her character comedy is so acutely observed and so sharp that it's in danger of causing permanent injury." Starring Rosie Cavaliero (Prey) and Justin Edwards (The Thick of It).
Directed by James Robinson
A BBC Cymru Wales Production.
This week, the team are answering questions from the audience in Cirencester.
Produced by Hannah Newton
Assistant Producer: Laurence Bassett
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.
David Park is one of Northern Ireland's most acclaimed novelists. He has won the Authors' Club First Novel Award, the Bass Ireland Arts Award for Literature, the Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize, the American Ireland Fund Literary Award and the University of Ulster's McCrea Literary Award, three times. In 2014 he was longlisted for the Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award. His novel 'The Truth Commissioner' was also recently adapted into a feature film starring Roger Allam.
Producer ..... Michael Shannon.
Obituary series, analysing and celebrating the life stories of people who have recently died.
Investigating the numbers in the news.
Friends who are members of their primary school's debating team reflect on what they've learned from listening to other people's opinions. Fi Glover presents another conversation in the series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen.
Producer: Marya Burgess.
Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Miles is joined by Hugo Rifkind, Katy Brand, Rich Hall and Kiri Pritchard-McLean.
Producer: Richard Morris
A BBC Studios Production.
Brookfield needs to dig deeper, and Kenton strikes a deal.
News, reviews and interviews from the worlds of art, literature, film and music.
Jonathan Dimbleby presents political debate from Blantyre Old Parish Church in South Lanarkshire with the leader of Scottish Labour Kezia Dugdale MSP, Minister for Social Security in the Scottish Government Jeane Freeman MSP, and the Editor of The Spectator magazine Fraser Nelson.
A reflection on a topical issue.
The second omnibus of Season 10, Our Daily Bread, set in Folkestone, in the week, in 1917, when the Food Controller's Wheat, Rye and Rice Restriction Order came into effect.
Written by Shaun McKenna
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole
Story-led by Sarah Daniels
Sound: Martha Littlehailes
Composer: Matthew Strachan
Consultant Historian: Maggie Andrews.
The latest weather forecast.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
The post-war novel that summed up middle-class white America and established John Updike as the major American author of his generation. Rabbit, Run is the first in a virtuoso Pullitzer Prize-wining quintet featuring hapless Harry Angstrom, whom we meet as a 26 year old former high school basketball star and suburban paragon in the midst of a personal crisis.
Episode 10 (of 10):
Harry prays for his daughter, but then returns to form - abusing his wife, horrifying his family, and running to Ruth who finally reveals her secret.
Rabbit, Run established Updike as one of the major American novelists of his generation. In the New York Times he was praised for his "artful and supple" style in his "tender and discerning study of the desperate and the hungering in our midst's".
Radio 4 plans to broadcast all five novels in the series over the next few years.
Read by Toby Jones
Abridged by Eileen Horne
Produced by Clive Brill
A Brill production for BBC Radio 4.
What does it mean to be an activist? From Greenham Common, to the Miner's Strike, to the Women's March, female activists have always had the power to shape the course of public debate. For many, activism has been a bridge to education, political awareness and influence but it can also bring personal risk and demand tough choices.
This month on Late Night Woman's Hour Lauren Laverne and guests discuss the joys and pressures of activism.
Aardman animations co-founder Peter Lord and comedian Russell Kane talk about their favourite books with Harriett Gilbert. Russell chooses Susan Pinker's The Village Effect, Peter Lord's favourite read is Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban, and Harriett's choice is Miss Lonelyhearts by Nathaniel West. Producer Sally Heaven.
Friends recall their Facebook post which asked people to look beyond the headscarf to see their similarities, instead of focusing on their differences. Fi Glover presents another conversation in the series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen.
Producer: Marya Burgess.