The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
Age leads to death and frequently to illness. What does that mean for us as individuals - and also for society? The retired neurosurgeon, Henry Marsh, reflects on the inevitable.
Marsh read Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Oxford University before studying medicine at the Royal Free Hospital in London, graduating in 1979. He became a Fellow of the Royal College of Surgeons in 1984 and was appointed Consultant Neurosurgeon at Atkinson Morley's/St.George's in 1987, he retired from there in 2015 and has since continued to operate in Ukraine and Nepal as well as teaching in hospitals around the world.
His first memoir, Do No Harm, was a bestseller when it was published in 2014 - Admissions is the more personal and provocative follow up, reflecting on a life in surgery.
Henry Marsh has been the subject of two major documentary films - Your Life in their Hands (2003) which won the Royal Television Society Gold Medal and The English Surgeon (2009) which won an Emmy. He has lectured widely on the subject of hospital architecture and design, keeps bees and makes furniture in his spare time. He was made a CBE in 2010 and is married to the best-selling anthropologist and writer Kate Fox.
Written by Henry Marsh
Read by Robert Powell
Abridged and Produced by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4.
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The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
Spiritual reflection to start the day with The Rev Neil Gardner, Minister of Canongate Kirk, Edinburgh.
iPM is the news programme that starts with its listeners. Email ipm@bbc.co.uk. Twitter: @BBCiPM. Presented by Luke Jones and Eddie Mair.
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.
The latest weather forecast.
In this series Clare Balding will walk the Nidderdale Way, a spectacular fifty- three mile route in North Yorkshire, encircling the valley of the River Nidd. On this first section from Pateley Bridge to Scar House Reservoir, she's joined by local walking expert, Stephen Spellman and Michelin star chef, Frances Atkins. Frances is one of only six female chefs in the UK to have a Michelin Star, her restaurant is en route at Ramsgill . She explains how important walking is for her as a source of inspiration and relaxation from the stresses of the kitchen. Stephen advises Clare on the right equipment to have when tackling consecutive days of walking. They're also joined by Frances's black Labrador, Polly. While something of a law unto herself, Polly clearly loves this landscape of moorland, rolling green fields, dry stone walls and remote farm houses as much as her three companions.
Producer : Lucy Lunt.
This week's programme is a round-up of the voices we've heard throughout this week, as Farming Today has been out on the road visiting rural communities up and down Britain. In the run-up to next month's general election, we've been on farms, at livestock auctions, on rural bus routes, and in village tea shops. We've been north, south, east and west - and heard from all four nations that make up the United Kingdom. In this programme, Charlotte Smith pulls together a summary of the opinions we've heard about what politicians should be concentrating on. From post-Brexit agricultural policy to rural broadband, what does rural Britain want from its would-be MPs?
Presented by Charlotte Smith and produced by Emma Campbell.
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News and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
Aasmah Mir and Suzy Klein are joined by the boxer and Olympic gold champion Nicola Adams, who talks about her boxing career and work as an extra in programmes including Coronation Street. Actor Les Dennis, spent three years on the Street playing burglar-turned-romeo, Michael Rodwell. He explains why he shaved his head for his latest role as Uncle Fester in The Addams Family. Survival expert, Megan Hine, is the woman who helps keep Bear Grylls safe. She describes how she contracted Lyme disease, was chased through the jungle by an armed drug gang and had to abseil past bears.
Rochdale born singer and call centre worker, Jack Randle, is the first Briton to be selected to enter the 'Sinatra Idol Contest' held in Hoboken, New Jersey. He reveals what he'll be singing.
Martin Kemp shares his Inheritance Tracks. He chooses Long Distance Love performed by Little Feat and Jumping Jack Flash by The Rolling Stones.
Believe - Boxing, Olympics and my life outside the ring, by Nicola Adams, is out now.
The Addams Family is currently on a tour of the UK and Ireland.
Jack Randle takes part in the Sinatra Idol Contest in Hoboken on 15 June.
Mind of a Survivor, What the Wild Has Taught Me About Survival and Success, by Megan Hine.
Do words like movie or cookie raise your linguistic hackles? Do you hate to hear someone ask if they can 'get' a coffee or 'reach out' to you? Lexicographer Susie Dent - more usually found in the Dictionary Corner of Channel 4's Countdown - explores the history of how Americanisms have entered British English and argues that maybe we should learn to love these transatlantic imports.
Susie hears from the Queen's English Society about why they feel British English should be protected; We discover that dislike of Americanisms goes back to Dr Johnson and hear from the Chief Editor of the Oxford English Dictionary about some of the surprising words which started life on the other side of the Atlantic; There's another surprise when Susie travels to Stratford upon Avon and discovers that some of the most disliked Americanisms first appeared in Shakespeare's plays; There's an actor's perspective on this when Susie meets Tamsin Greig, who's been appearing in Twelfth Night at the National Theatre; Rock and roll singer, Marty Wilde, remembers teenagers' enthusiasm for all things American in the 1950s and their elders' despair at this assault on the English language.
Susie concludes with an exhortation to all of us to throw off our British linguistic reserve and to Americanize! - if only a little bit. She encourages us to embrace the verve of American vocabulary, and to recognize that many of our American bugbears actually came from Britain in the first place.
Presenter: Susie Dent
Producer: Louise Adamson
Executive Producer: Samir Shah
A Juniper production for BBC Radio 4.
Nick Robinson assesses developments in the election campaign.
Reports from writers and journalists around the world. Presented by Kate Adie.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
The latest news from the world of personal finance.
Miles captains an exciting formation of newshounds: Francis Wheen, John Robins, Angela Barnes and Kiri Pritchard-McLean
Producer: Richard Morris
A BBC Studios Production.
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The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
Jonathan Dimbleby presents political debate from Cranmore School in West Horsley, Surrey, with a panel including Chief Secretary to the Treasury David Gauke, the journalist Rachel Johnson, the Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell and Tommy Sheppard from the SNP.
Any Answers after the Saturday broadcast of Any Questions?. Email any.answers@bbc.co.uk. Tweet,#BBCAQ. Follow us @bbcanyquestions.
Lines open at 1230 on Saturday 03700 100 444.
Presenter Anita Anand
Producer: Maire Devine
Editor Eleanor Garland.
John Galsworthy's epic family saga of love, money and betrayal
Dramatised for radio by Lin Coghlan & Shaun McKenna
Wilfrid has tried to do the right thing by leaving Dinny, but as Fleur & Michael try to help each of them, unexpected echoes of their own past return.
Then an unexpected arrival changes Dinny's world.
Original music composed by Neil Brand
Director ..... Marion Nancarrow
from the novels of John Galsworthy
dramatised by Lin Coghlan & Shaun McKenna
Tomorrow you can hear the very final part of the story. As repercussions of Clare's unhappy past begin to hit home, is there a chance of happiness for Dinny herself?
Over the last 2 years, BBC Radio 4 has dramatised all 9 of John Galsworthy's Forsyte novels and this series "The Forsytes Concludes" brings us to the last 3 novels, which he wrote at the end of his life. Across this week, we've had the 90' drama based on "Maid in Waiting" which introduced the Cherrell family and Dinny Cherrell in particular who, aged 24 in 1928, was full of excitement for the life ahead of her. She is Fleur & Michael's cousin and, unbeknown to either of them, their lives are to have parallels neither could have predicted.
Through the week, 5 x 15' episodes tell the story of "Flowering Wilderness" (which sees an unexpected return and a new love for Dinny) and now two 60 minute Dramas - today and tomorrow - end the story.
Joining Jessica Raine, Max Bennett, Ben Lambert and Brian Protheroe from the original cast are Sarah Ridgeway, Nina Sosanya, Allan Corduner, Jonathan Aris, Chloe Pirrie and John Heffernan.
Puccini's La Boheme is the subject of the last in the current series of Frances Fyfield's manuscript explorations, Tales from the Stave. Working their way through the often feverish handwriting of Puccini's fourth and arguably most popular opera are the internationally acclaimed conductor Gianandrea Noseda, the soprano Eleonora Buratto and the Ricordi archives leading authority Gabriele Dotto.
What they uncover is the work of a composer still honing and perfecting even as he completed the final manuscript version of his masterpiece in time for performance at the Teatro Regio in Turin. The score is cluttered with tweaks, re-thinks and a sense of urgent emphasis, as well as some of the most familiar and beautiful music of the Romantic Opera repertoire. The vibrant, unbridled characters of the Latin Quarter of Paris in the 19th century come fizzing to life in the score which makes the tragic final Act all the more poignant, something reflected dramatically on the manuscript itself at the point at which the heroine, Mimi, dies.
Producer: Tom Alban.
We discuss why Superintendent Ted Hastings in the BBC's Line of Duty is the ultimate guilty crush. Adrian Dunbar who plays Ted Hastings and the author Kathy Lette look at the appeal of the unreconstructed male.
We'll hear from the anti FGM campaigner Hibo Wardere about her recent trip to Senegal where she met communities who have abandoned the practice of FGM.
The Oldham born model Karen Elson talks about her life as a singer songwriter in Nashville.
We discuss the merits of school residential trips with James Wynne, Head of Science at Chesterfield Schoo,l in Crosby and teacher Pamela Butchart author of 'There's a Werewolf in my Tent'.
We hear from documentary maker Sue Bourne about her latest film talking to people who have been told they have a terminal illness. Lisa Keech talks about the difference her cancer diagnosis has made to her life.
What makes someone want to go on holiday with their mother? We hear from Kate Lee who took her mum away in 2001 and 2008 when her dementia became more apparent and 24 year old Gena Mour Barrett who goes on holiday with her mum every year.
We hear about the women who made swimming possible in the 19th Century when it was an exclusively male sport with the writer and keen swimmer Jenny Landreth.
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 Sara Cox are joined by Cerys Matthews, Eimear McBride, Adjoa Andoh and Salena Godden for an eclectic mix of conversation, music and comedy. With music from Valaire and Will Stratton.
Producer: Sukey Firth.
Mark Coles profiles Robert Mueller who's just been appointed as special counsel to oversee the investigation into Russian interference in the US election. Mueller retired as director of the FBI four years ago, but now finds himself centre stage again.
The squared-jawed Princeton graduate was decorated for bravery during the Vietnam War before training as a lawyer. Dissatisfied with private practice, he found a government job as assistant US attorney in San Francisco - a move which marked the beginning of a steady climb to the top of law enforcement in America.
Robert Mueller became FBI director one week before the 2001 World Trade Center attacks and over the next twelve years transformed the organisation, moving thousands of staff from criminal investigations into counter terrorism and security. Yet surprisingly little is known about him personally.
Joe Wright directs Brecht's Life of Galileo at The Young Vic, reimagining it with a Chemical Brothers rave soundtrack...
In science fiction black comedy Colossal, Anne Hathaway plays a woman coping with alcoholism whose alter ego just happens to be a giant space monster. It's a kaiju movie
Jimmy McGovern's newest TV offering is Broken which stars Sean Bean as an inner city priest coping with escalating personal and parish pressures.
Lucy Hughes-Hallett's novel Peculiar Ground deals with the construction and changing nature of the walls of a country estate across the centuries.
Thresholds is an exhibition by Matt Collishaw at Somerset House, re-staging one of the earliest exhibitions of photography in 1839, when William Henry Fox Talbot showed his first prints.
Tom Sutcliffe's guests are John Mullan, Laline Paull and Tiffany Jenkins. The producer is Oliver Jones.
In a programme first broadcast in 2016 to mark the 60th anniversary of the musical "My Fair Lady", the actor and singer Clarke Peters explores the career and legacy of its lyricist Alan Jay Lerner and investigates the art of lyricists in general through the BBC archive.
Alan Jay Lerner often said that he sweated for weeks to write a lyric for a song. His words highlighted the struggle that he and the other legendary wordsmiths of musical theatre had as they sought to hone the right words to fit their collaborator's music - words which would sometimes translate into the vernacular and speech of generations afterwards - expressions like "Get me to the Church on Time" (Lerner) or "Everything's Coming Up Roses" (Sondheim).
The programme explores the art of Alan Jay Lerner and the other musical theatre lyricists which fill the BBC archives. Many of the songwriting greats are there - Yip Harburg, writer of "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?", Dorothy Fields (lyric writer of the hit show "Sweet Charity") and the great Oscar Hammerstein. There are there are the artists who delivered both words and music - including Irving Berlin and Stephen Sondheim. And there are the surprises- figures like PG. Wodehouse who, as well as writing the famous "Jeeves" books, also wrote lyrics for musical theatre.
There are also new interviews with the lyricist Charles Hart (writer of words for "Phantom of the Opera" and more recently "Bend it like Beckham"), Millie Taylor, Professor of Musical Theatre at Winchester University and Alan Jay Lerner expert Dominic McHugh.
Clarke Peters who's sung in many musicals and written the book for "Five Guys Named Moe" presents this journey of crafting the words for the perfect musical theatre song. He explores the pleasures and pitfalls of a lyricist's life and, in the company of Lerner and many others, takes the listener through from first thought to the opening night.
Producer: Emma Kingsley.
In 1861, Alexander II liberated 23 million Russian serfs, four years earlier than the abolition of slavery in the USA. But twenty years later, the tide of revolutionary thinking is rising and dissatisfaction with the regime has led to terrorist cells making several assassination attempts on the Tsar's life. One cell in particular, The People's Will, is determined to succeed this time but in the struggle between autocracy and radical socialism there can be only one winner.
Director Alison Hindell
A BBC Cymru Wales production.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4, followed by weather.
Healthcare is being transformed by technology. Presenters Timandra Harkness and Leo Johnson discover what the future really holds for how we look after our health. Visiting the Silicon Valley technologists and cutting-edge medical research facilities, Leo explores the ambitions they have to bring science-fiction style health aids and treatments to millions of people, and how they are working to try and put an end to all infectious diseases. Timandra experiences the latest in remote control doctor surgeries in Dubai, and discovers the hugely significant part that your health data will play in shaping the future of healthcare for everyone.
Producer: Jonathan Brunert.
(17/17)
The grand Final sees the cream of this year's competitors vying for the 64th BBC Brain of Britain title. The Finalists are from Leeds, Rochester in Kent, Wigton in Cumbria and Northwich in Cheshire. Russell Davies asks the questions.
Producer: Paul Bajoria.
Roger McGough presents a selection of poems recited by finalists at Poetry by Heart, a competition for students at school and colleges in England to learn and recite poems from memory. Recorded at the national finals at the British Library in London, we hear the regional champions battle it out to hear who becomes the regional Poetry by Heart champion for 2017.
Producer: Mair Bosworth and Eliza Lomas.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
In Joshua Ferris' specially commissioned short story, a writer living in a New York apartment building is put in a tough spot when one of the doormen requests an honest assessment of his first screenplay. William Hope reads this artful tale.
The novelist Joshua Ferris is best known for his acclaimed and award winning novel, To Rise Again at a Decent Hour. His acutely observed debut short story collection The Dinner Party is published in June 2017.
Produced by Elizabeth Allard.
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Church bells from St Edith's Church, Monks Kirby.
The latest national and international news.
Mark Tully asks priest and stand-up comedian, Maggy Whitehouse, how humour can puncture hypocrisy and piety in religious leaders and their congregations.
Together, they discus how holy fools can make people laugh at the pretentiousness of the powerful, the pomposity of the proud, and the absurdity of those who take themselves too seriously. They consider if Jesus himself sometimes acted as a jester, mocking human arrogance.
Mark also looks to Sufi traditions and the legendary satirical figure, Mulla Nasruddin, whose humour constantly humiliates those who feel they are above ordinary believers, demonstrating that we are all equal in the eyes of God.
Producer: Adam Fowler
A 7digital production for BCC Radio 4.
Formby Asparagus was once a famous delicacy, served on the Cunard liners between Liverpool and New York but grown in fields reclaimed from sand dunes to take the 'night-soil' of Liverpool. The sewerage is long gone but the asparagus remains - just. Today the dunes are managed by the National Trust and there's just a single asparagus grower left, David Brooks who's the fifth generation of his family to grow and sell asparagus spears. Caz Graham joins him for the harvest and hears from the National Trust's Andrew Brockbank about how and why this specialist crop took root on the Lancashire coast.
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The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.
Sunday morning religious news and current affairs programme.
Simon Callow makes the Radio 4 Appeal on behalf of Child Poverty Action Group.
Registered Charity Number 294841
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 'Child Poverty Action Group'.
- Cheques should be made payable to 'Child Poverty Action Group'.
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A service of choral matins live from the Collegiate Church of St Mary, Warwick reflecting on the theme of The Lordship of Christ. The preacher is the Bishop of Coventry, The Right Reverend Dr Christopher Cocksworth. The choir of St Mary's perform celebratory music as Ascension Day approaches.
O God, the King of glory (Purcell)
Psalm 93
Jubilate Deo in C (Britten)
O clap your hands (Vaughan Williams)
Director of Music: Thomas Corns
Producer: Ben Collingwood.
As the season of literary festivals gets underway, Howard Jacobson tells us not to be lured by their appearance of being civilized.
"The prevailing tone of sweet concord shouldn't be allowed to disguise the violent nature of creativity", he says.
They're a fiercely competitive business for writers, he believes. "To write is to reconceive the world and only a God, or someone acting like a God, can do that...You don't want some other two-bit deity coming along and bagging the credit for what you've done".
Producer: Adele Armstrong.
In this programme, London based chef and restaurant owner Cyrus Todiwala talks about his love of the city's house sparrow, bringing a bit of joy to the bustling streets.
Tweet of the Day has captivated the Radio 4 audience with its daily 90 seconds of birdsong. But what of the listener to this avian chorus? In this new series of Tweet of the Day, we bring to the airwaves the conversational voices of those who listen to and are inspired by birds. Building on the previous series, a more informal approach to learning alongside a renewed emphasis on encounter with nature and reflection in our relationship with the natural world.
Producer Maggie Ayre.
Sunday morning magazine programme with news and conversation about the big stories of the week. Presented by Paddy O'Connell.
Toby can't be cheered, and Kenton gets the wrong end of the stick.
Kirsty Young's castaway is Dr Demis Hassabis. An artificial intelligence researcher and co-founder and CEO of DeepMind, he is also a neuroscientist, a computer games designer, an entrepreneur, and in his youth, a world-class chess player.
Born in 1976, he was introduced to chess aged four and, by the age of twelve, was the world's second-highest ranked player for his age. With his winnings, he bought himself a PC and taught himself to code. After taking his A Levels two years early, before going to university he worked on one of the most successful computer games of the 1990s, Theme Park. He graduated from Cambridge with a double first, and returned to the computer games industry, founding his own company in his early twenties.
His passion had long been artificial intelligence and he says everything he's done has been part of a long-term plan to "solve intelligence" and then use intelligence "to solve everything else". He gained a PhD in Cognitive Neuroscience where he deliberately chose to study topics where AI had failed so far: memory and imagination. After stints at MIT and Harvard, he co-founded his company in 2010, which was then acquired by Google in January 2014. In March 2016 their computer programme, AlphaGo, beat a world champion Go player at the game having taught itself how to play through a combination of two techniques - deep learning and reinforcement learning.
Producer: Cathy Drysdale.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Just A Minute is 50 years old this year! Nicholas Parsons has been hosting since day one, and kicks off the first episode of the new series with a cracking line-up: Paul Merton, Josie Lawrence, Graham Norton and Stephen Fry.
The panel have to talk on a given subject for sixty seconds without repetition, hesitation or deviation. Graham tells us how he lets off steam, Paul informs us about Charles Darwin, Josie tells us what she thinks of low hanging fruit, and Stephen gets stuck into selfie sticks.
Hayley Sterling blows the whistle and it was produced by Matt Stronge.
Just A Minute is a BBC Studios production.
Sheila Dillon charts the rise of the humble mac'n'cheese: a dish that crosses culture and classes and has established itself as a popular comfort food across the world.
We discover the history of the dish. Food historian Polly Russell tells us how a macaroni recipe first appeared in the UK in the 1700s and slowly it became more and more prevalent over the subsequent centuries.
We'll hear how macaroni cheese became a staple in the UK: cheap and easy to make its popularity spread. It was also embraced by Caribbean cuisine, regularly eaten as a side dish, especially with Sunday lunch, and now there's even an annual celebration of the meal. Each May Glasgow hosts 'Pastaval' - a festival of Mac n Cheese. The event sells-out each year and is popular with everyone.
And whilst you can still buy basic packet versions, tinned macaroni cheese and simple home-made macaroni cheese is easy to make, there are many 'going-to-town' on the dish: Lobster mac n cheese anyone?
This is the story of a dish that crosses cultures and classes to be the world's favourite comfort food.
Presenter: Sheila Dillon
Producer: Martin Poyntz-Roberts.
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Global news and analysis.
Eric Robson and the panel are in Southport. Pippa Greenwood, Christine Walkden and Bob Flowerdew answer this week's questions.
Produced by Hannah Newton
Assistant producer: Laurence Basset
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.
Fi Glover introduces conversations featuring love and marriage, the restorative magic of the garden, the some time magic of the Fearless Foxes, and the demands of guinea pigs. All 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.
John Galsworthy's epic family saga of love, money and betrayal.
Dramatised for radio by Shaun McKenna
Clare's hopes for a new life have been dashed and Dinny pours all her energy into protecting her sister, ignoring her own heartache.
Original music composed by Neil Brand
Director ..... Gemma Jenkins.
Gail Honeyman's debut novel Eleanor Oliphant Is Completely Fine caused a stir at last year's Frankfurt Book Fair and is one of this year's hotly tipped summer reads. She talks to Mariella Frostrup about her strange, solitary heroine, and the place of loneliness in fiction.
Nell Stevens talks about her own experience of solitude - she spent six weeks totally alone in the Falkland Islands as she attempted to write her first novel; Emma Henderson explores the rich archive of Alpine writing and bestselling novelist Angie Thomas shares the book she'd never lend.
Roger McGough presents a selection of listeners' requests for poems about being lost. Suggestions range from poems that guide you through the forests' depths, to those reflecting inner labyrinths.
Producer: Eliza Lomas.
From the Hillsborough Inquest to Plebgate, from the revelations about undercover officers to the shooting of Mark Duggan, the last few years have been as controversial as any in the history of British policing. The government has introduced a range of new measures to try and make the police service more accountable. These have included the strengthening of the Independent Police Complaints Commission, measures to crack down on officers retiring when under investigation, and a new openness surrounding police disciplinary hearings. But have these new ideas really worked or is there, as some claim, real resistance to accountability?
File on 4 investigates a series of cases of alleged wrongdoing brought against the police by both members of the public and by serving officers. We look at some of the tactics police forces still appear to be using to avoid scrutiny, and we ask : despite the new measures, how much has really changed?
Reporter : Mark Gregory
Producer :Sally Chesworth
Editor: Gail Champion.
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The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Katie Puckrik chooses her BBC Radio highlights.
Lilian is keen to help, and Johnny is in need of a companion.
Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis present a satirical round-up of election news and comment from comedians, journalists and commentators...
Canvassing for your vote this week, Steve and Hugh are joined by Andy Zaltzman, Tiffany Stevenson, Luke Kempner, Freya Parker and Soumaya Keynes.
Recorded mere hours before transmission, the Now Show team look across the political spectrum, giving their own unique take on the election news and shenanigans.
Produced by Adnan Ahmed
BBC Studios Production.
Lynne Truss observes the inhabitants Meridian Cliffs, a small wind-battered town on the south coast of England.
Mrs Manville lives in a Tudor revival home called The Grange. Built on a double plot, it's by far the largest house in Meridian Cliffs. Now approaching 80, Mrs Manville has decided it's time to downsize.
Her son Mark, with an eye on his inheritance, has his own ideas about what she should do - but Mrs Manville clings fiercely to her independence, and chooses instead to seek the services of kind, reliable Mr Jolyon.
Directed by Kate McAll
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.
Labour launched their manifesto this week, introducing new rates of tax for high earners. But did the BBC do a good job of explaining it? A screen grab taken from a TV item was spread on social media which gave a misleading impression of the amount of tax you would pay if you earned £80,000 or £123,000. We take a look at what the tax rate would mean for people earning these amounts or more.
When we lie and tell the truth online
Researchers are very excited about the amount of data that is being generated by people using social media and internet tools. But what can we really glean from that information. Seth Stephens-Davidowitz has written a book called Everybody Lies where he explores the image we portray on social media versus the truths we tell about ourselves by what we search online. We also find out some speed dating tips.
We still have sea ice
Recently BBC 4 aired a documentary from 2007 which made the claim that by 2013 all the sea ice in the world would have disappeared during summer due to global warming. It is 2017 and that has not happened. We find out why that prediction was wrong and what is really happening to sea ice.
Maths and cake
Dr Eugenia Cheng takes us through a tour of real life items that she likes to use as the basis to explain more complicated mathematical ideas. We find out how she uses hotels, cakes and yoghurt to illustrate her ideas.
Matthew Bannister on
Rhodri Morgan the former Welsh First Minister, known as the Labour Party's "Father of Welsh devolution".
Michael Wearing the TV producer behind award winning series like "Boys From The Blackstuff" and "Edge of Darkness".
Helen Szamuely who helped to start the Anti Federalist League - which became the UK Independence Party.
The Moors murderer Ian Brady.
And the DJ Robert Miles - best known for his international hit "Children".
Producer: Neil George.
McDonalds has long dominated the burger market and continues to do so in the UK. But the US owned, giant fast food chain is in the midst of a make-over. Posher burger chains are springing up everywhere and McDonalds is now offering table service and new-look restaurants. Matthew Gwyther, Editor of Management Today, asks how and why McDonalds feels the need to present a new image to its customers and whether it will work in today's health conscious society.
Producer: Caroline Bayley.
Weekly political discussion and analysis with MPs, experts and commentators.
Guy Raz explores how networks surround and sustain us, in nature, in our bodies, in relationships and in the digital world.
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.
Relatives of Russian Prisoners: Judith Pallot , Professor of the Human Geography of Russia at the University of Oxford talks to Laurie Taylor about her research into the experiences of the wives, mothers, girlfriends, daughters who, as relatives of Russia's three-quarters of a million prisoners, are the "invisible victims" of the country's harsh penal policy. She's joined by Laura Piacentini, Professor of Criminology at the University of Strathclyde.
Also, how to bridge the boundary that divides prison and society. Jennifer Turner, Lecturer in Human Geography at the University of Liverpool, discusses her study.
Producer: Jayne Egerton.
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The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
Spiritual reflection to start the day with The Rev Neil Gardner, Minister of Canongate Kirk, Edinburgh.
Summer must be here because it's Chelsea Flower Show this week. Here at Farming Today this week we're taking a look at the British flower industry. The National Farmers' Union estimates that the UK cut flower and indoor plant market is worth around £2.2 billion pounds. The lion's share of that market has been captured by imports from Dutch growers but British flower producers are fighting back. We hear from Flowers From the Farm who now have 500 members growing everything from sweet peas to poppies.
We have a special report from Scotland where wild oysters are back in Scottish waters for the first time in a hundred years.
Ahead of polling day on June 8th, we hear an Election 2017 postcard from rural Devon where one mum tells us that school closures are ruining village life.
Presenter: Charlotte Smith.
The latest weather forecast for farmers.
Ashley Davies of the Slimbridge Wetland Centre reveals why a kingfisher changed his life.
Tweet of the Day has captivated the Radio 4 audience with its daily 90 seconds of birdsong. But what of the listener to this avian chorus? In this new series of Tweet of the Day, we bring to the airwaves the conversational voices of those who listen to and are inspired by birds. Building on the previous series, a more informal approach to learning alongside a renewed emphasis on encounter with nature and reflection in our relationship with the natural world.
Producer Miles Warde.
News and current affairs. Includes Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
On Start the Week Andrew Marr discusses India. The Indian MP Shashi Tharoor looks back at the history of the Raj in Inglorious Empire, a searing indictment of the British and the impact on his country. The journalist Adam Roberts travels from Kerala to the Himalayas to find out whether a resurgent, vibrant India is about to realise its potential, and whether the belief in future prosperity will cover over the cracks which have divided the nation in the past. The Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, is at the centre of India's reinvention, and has galvanised Hindu nationalists, but the academic Kate Sullivan de Estrada argues that he's a controversial figure both at home and abroad. And the writer Preti Taneja retells Shakespeare's great tragedy, King Lear, set in Delhi and Kashmir, in her exploration of contemporary Indian society.
Producer: Katy Hickman
Image: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi participates in a mass yoga session to mark the International Day of Yoga on 21st June, 2016 in Chandigarh, India. Credit: Getty Images.
In 1997, Bella Bathurst began to go deaf at the age of 28. Within a few months, she had lost half her hearing, and the rest was slipping away. She wasn't just missing punchlines, she was missing most of the conversation - and all of the jokes. For the next twelve years deafness shaped her life.
Sound draws on this experience, exploring the practical and emotional impact of losing your hearing, and what it teaches you about listening and silence, music and noise.
Today, Bella embarks on a sailing trip with friends. She doesn't want to admit her hearing is getting worse, but out at sea even more sound gets lost. As the weather worsens and Bella mishears instructions from the captain, has she put the whole boat in danger?
A Loftus production for BBC Radio 4.
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.
Anthony Bourdain's no holds barred exposé of the restaurant trade. A high octane culinary adventure set in New York, dramatised by Marcy Kahan.
Kitchen Confidential was a sensation on publication in 2000, taking the reader right to the heart of a sweaty, noisy, fast and furious cooking station with a fiery, likeable anti-hero protagonist. This debut radio dramatisation is a full-on behind the scenes tour of a range of kitchens, which questions why anyone would want to lead the exhausting, adrenalin-fuelled, harsh and precarious life of a restaurant chef. Marcy Kahan's clever dramatisation brings out the tenderness and real passion of its writer, as well as his high-octane roller coaster career.
Episode 1: Vichyssoise
Anthony is tucked away in a store room of his restaurant Les Halles, tapping out his book. He is telling us why we should never order fish on Monday, when his great friend and colleague Dimitri interrupts - they need to prep the day's ingredients. Then, all of a sudden, Anthony's Mother pipes up, taking him back to his seminal childhood holiday in France, when he first encountered cold soup and oysters. Achef is born.
The dramatist Marcy Kahan is an award-winning radio and theatre playwright and screenwriter. Her plays include 20 Cigarettes (Soho Theatre, 2007), a stage version of Nora Ephron's When Harry Met Sally (Theatre Royal, Haymarket, 2005) and Intimate Memoirs of An Irish Taxidermist (Perrier award, 1986 Edinburgh Festival). Marcy's screenplay Antonia and Jane was the first television film to be given cinematic distribution by Miramax and won a Gold Plaque award for best original screenplay at the 1991 Chicago Film Festival.
Dramatised by Marcy Kahan
Sound Design: Eloise Whitmore
Producer: Polly Thomas
Executive Producer: Robert Abel
A Somethin Else production for BBC Radio 4.
Grace Dent follows Miguel Marcus Almeida who has always dreamed of making luxury, British designer shoes and selling them to global markets like Japan and the US. But with no financial backing and no family lineage, he's a tiny fish in a massive pond. Can he really pull this off?
He's always loved shoes, a passion he's had since childhood. Growing up on a council estate in London, he said he didn't have much but it was his grandfather who instilled in him his love of shoes and told him that a man is "measured by his shoes".
Miguel has now been given his biggest break. He has been asked to design some men's shoes by an agent in Japan, the world's biggest consumer of British luxury brands. But he's under pressure. At the same time, he's getting a collection of shoes ready to showcase in Florence, at one of the most prestigious international men's fashion shows.
Here, he'll have the opportunity to meet buyers from around the world and there's a chance he might even meet his prospective Japanese buyers who could take a chance and invest in this little known shoemaker.
Can this dreamer who dreams big really crack this?
Producer in Bristol: Perminder Khatkar.
by Ed Harris
Comic adventures with Dot and the gals from personnel who for this week at least are in control of the War Rooms kitchens. Their task is to prepare a delicious cut of veal to woo the American Ambassador. It's a shame Dot just ate it. How will they wriggle out of this one?
Producer/Director, Jessica Mitic
Ed Harris has written extensively for radio. In 2013 he won the Radio Academy Award for Best Drama for his War time thriller, 'The Resistance of Mrs Brown'. In 2011 he won the Writer's Guild Award for 'Troll' and was nominated for the Prix Europa for his play for BBC Radio 3: 'The Wall'.
Fenella Woolgar won the Clarence Derwent Award for her role in 'Hedda Gabler' at the Old Vic and most recently played Margaret Thatcher in 'Handbagged' at the Vaudeville Theatre, London.
Kate O'Flynn has been nominated for an Olivier Award for Best actress in a supporting role in The Glass Menagerie at Duke of York's theatre. She also won the Critics Circle Award winner 2013 Most Promising Newcomer for 'Port' at the National Theatre.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
On this day in 1917, Christabel Pankhurst addressed a meeting of the Women's Socialist and Political Union, and in Folkestone, Maisie Harris finds a real friend.
Singers ..... Nancy Cole, Ksynia Loeffler, Stephen Jeffes, Tom Raskin, Charles Gibbs
Organ - David Smith
Written by Sarah Daniels
Singers conducted by Sam Evans
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole.
Consumer affairs programme.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
How a gas container explains the divide between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Jeremy Bowen, the BBC's Middle East Editor, was only trying to warm his home during the winter in Jerusalem. During the process, he discovered that the Palestinians are even at loggerheads over simple things like heating. "It's a place where the conflict is always in your face. So is religion, " he says.
Bowen started reporting on the region in the lead up to the Gulf War back in 1990. Since then, he has witnessed endless wars between individuals, religious groups and full-sized states, jostling for military, political and economic power. He has interviewed dictators, fanatics and fundamentalists as well as the ordinary people caught up in their dangerous games. In that time, the past has always been present, providing motivation and political ammunition. Bowen has made headlines himself and he has paid a personal price, coming under fire and losing a colleague in the course of reporting - on the worst day, he says, in his life.
Produced by Mark Savage and Cara Swift.
When black civil servant, Charles, tries to persuade white landowner, Guy, to sell his farm, he meets a family at breaking point. The white farm owners in Zimbabwe have seen their neighbours intimidated, attacked and bought out, and now Guy's farm, Independence, is next. May Sumbwanyambe's play is inspired by real events in the late 1990's when white-owned farms in Zimbabwe were seized by thousands of war veterans. Adapted from Papatango Theatre's recent award-winning stage production.
Director: George Turvey
Producer Bruce Young
BBC Scotland.
A funny and dynamic quiz show hosted by Steve Punt - this week from the University of Roehampton with specialist subjects including Anthropology, Law and Linguistics and questions ranging from brachiation and morphemes to Xanadu via Kanye West and Sir Philip Sydney.
The programme is recorded on location at a different University each week, and it pits three Undergraduates against three of their Professors in an original and fresh take on an academic quiz.
The rounds vary between Specialist Subjects and General Knowledge, quickfire bell-and-buzzer rounds and the Highbrow and Lowbrow round cunningly devised to test not only the students' knowledge of current affairs, history, languages and science, but also their Professors' awareness of television, sport, and quite possibly Justin Bieber. In addition, the Head-to-Head rounds see students take on their Professors in their own subjects, offering plenty of scope for mild embarrassment on both sides.
Other Universities featured in this series include Queen's University Belfast, Hull, Derby, Liverpool and St John's College Cambridge.
Produced by David Tyler
A Pozzitive production for BBC Radio 4.
Dr Cathy FitzGerald presents a second series of lessons in creative writing made from archive recordings of great novelists, poets and playwrights talking about their craft.
In this episode:
Lesson One - Find your Story
Inspiration isn't always a divine spark; often an idea has far more prosaic origins. In this lesson, we hear how the speaking clock inspired Beryl Bainbridge, how Roald Dahl's children tricked him into creating James and the Giant Peach, and how Ray Bradbury found a story in a pair of tennis shoes.
Lesson Two - Listen Up!
Tips on developing an ear for dialogue, featuring an archive recording of the New York poet and writer Grace Paley reading her warm and funny story The Loudest Voice.
Lesson Three - A Workshop with Allen Ginsberg
How often do you get to take a creative writing lesson from one of the Beats? In this extraordinary recording of a lecture given in 1982, American poet Allen Ginsberg explains what he learned about writing from novelist Jack Kerouac.
Presenter and Producer: Cathy FitzGerald
A White Stiletto production for BBC Radio 4.
As President Obama joins Angela Merkel to celebrate the Reformation 500 Anniversary, Ernie Rea and guests discuss the religious climate in Germany.
The Reformation left Germany with a predominantly Catholic South and Protestant North; but today the scene is much more nuanced. The legacy of Communism means that religious affiliation in the former DDR is much lower than in the West; the number of Muslims in Germany now nudges five million, following the recent arrival of Syrian refugees, and debates around Islam and multi-culturalism are likely to play a prominent part in elections later this year.
Ernie's guests are Nick Baines, the Anglican Bishop of Leeds, who as a multi linguist has had a close relationship with all things German for many years; James Hodkinson, Associate Professor in German at the University of Warwick; and Silke Horstkotte, a Lutheran living in Leipzig who is also a Research Fellow at Warwick.
Producer: Rosie Dawson.
Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Just A Minute is 50 years old this year! Nicholas Parsons has been hosting since day one, and presides over the following all-star panel: Paul Merton, Pam Ayres, Zoe Lyons and Julian Clary.
The panel have to talk on a given subject for sixty seconds without repetition, hesitation or deviation. How much does Pam know about New York City? Julian gives us everything he's go on Julius Caesar, Zoe talks about her love of pick 'n' mix, and Paul tells us about his strong point.
Hayley Sterling blows the whistle and it was produced by Matt Stronge.
Just A Minute is a BBC Studios production.
Josh makes an executive decision, and Rex has cause for concern.
Arts news, interviews and reviews.
Tim Samuels asks if the property industry is at threat from technological disruption.
It was in the late 1990's that a Harvard academic Clay Christensen introduced a buzzword that has now become pervasive. He wanted to capture why established companies get driven out of their industries by young upstarts. It became known as disruptive innovation and has dramatically reshaped our business landscape.
Two-thirds of the companies on the Fortune 500 list in 1980 have disappeared. The balance has shifted from the incumbents to the challengers, from the old economy to the new. For some start-ups, the belief in disruption has taken on a near-religious edge. Forget rules, obligations and regulations - all that disrupts is good, all that stands in the way deserves to fail.
Journalist Tim Samuels investigates three industries facing change - property, finance and death - and invites a disruptor and a disruptee to breakfast.
In this first programme, Tim talks to Michael Bruce, the CEO of online estate agent Purple Bricks. He has labelled traditional estate agents as "out of touch, out of date and leaving millions out of pocket." From idea to IPO in three years, they have become a threat to the traditional model. Simon Gerrard has been involved in the estate agency industry since he started photocopying for his father aged ten. Not feeling threatened by Purple Bricks, he believes their lack of hand holding, negotiating and guidance will be their downfall. They come together for breakfast - but who will pick up the cheque?
A Reduced Listening production for BBC Radio 4.
President Donald Trump has pledged to chase what he called the 'bad hombres' out of America. One of the organisations the President is targeting is the notorious Mara Salvatrucha gang, better known as MS-13 whose members deal in drugs, human smuggling and underage prostitution. They aggressively recruit young Latino immigrants in U.S. cities and suburban communities and have recently been responsible for a number of shockingly brutal murders, including the killing of two teenage girls with machetes and baseball bats. Lucy Ash travels to Long Island in New York and to Maryland to investigate. She asks what impact such crimes have on the heated debate about illegal border crossings and she asks if tougher immigration policies will really make America safe again.
Carbon is widely considered to be the key element in forming life. It's at the centre of DNA, and the molecules upon which all living things rely.
Monica Grady, Professor of Planetary Science at the Open University, explores the nature of carbon, from its formation in distant stars to its uses and abuses here on earth.
She looks at why it forms the scaffold upon which living organisms are built, and how the mechanisms involved have helped inform the development of new carbon based technology, and products - from telephones to tennis rackets.
One form of carbon is graphene which offers great promise in improving solar cells and batteries, and introducing a whole new range of cheaper more flexible electronics.
Carbon is also the key component of greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide and methane. To counter some of the effects of man-made climate change, Scientists are now developing novel ways to speed up this mechanism - using waste materials created from mining and industry.
Monica Grady also looks to space, and the significance of carbon in the far reaches of the universe. There is lots of carbon in space, some in forms we might recognise as the precursors to molecules. As elemental carbon seems to be everywhere what are the chances of carbon based life elsewhere?
The latest weather forecast.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
New York, a small town on the tip of Manhattan Island, 1746. One rainy evening, a charming and handsome young stranger, fresh off the boat from England, pitches up to a counting house on Golden Hill Street, with a suspicious yet compelling proposition. He has an order for a thousand pounds in his pocket that he wishes to cash. But can he be trusted?
This is New York in its infancy, a place where a young man with a fast tongue can invent himself afresh, fall in love, and find a world of trouble.
Francis Spufford says of his book, "Golden Hill is just a novel. More specifically, it's an eighteenth century novel. It's set in the winter of 1746, in what was then the very small British colonial town of New York; but it's also written like a novel from the eighteenth century. So the story of the charming but unreliable-seeming young Mr Smith, who turns up from London with a document in his pocket that may be a fraud or may be worth a fortune, is as hectically stuffed with event as it would have been if Fielding or Smollett had written it.
"Eighteenth-century readers expected to get their money's worth, and Golden Hill contains (among other things) a mystery, a political intrigue, a love story, a ball, a duel, a high-stakes card game, a trial, a dash of horror, a play-within-a-play, some surprisingly graphic sex and a rooftop chase. As a slow writer, I enjoyed working on something that runs fast. It was intricate fun devising and winding up the book's clockwork. But I hope it's also a story that feels alive, and makes the past feel alive too, while Mr Smith runs for his life, and the snow falls on Manhattan Island."
Written by Francis Spufford
Read by Jamie Parker
Abridged by Isobel Creed and Jill Waters
Produced by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4.
With 99% of 8-15 year olds playing video games, Michael Rosen & Dr Laura Wright explore how gaming is influencing language and storytelling. From terms like 'epic fail' and 'levelling up' entering education and politics to sophisticated developments in interactive storytelling taking on the cinema and film industry. Narrative paramedic, Rhianna Pratchett and Associate Professor in Games Research, Esther MacCallum Stewart guide us through the world and language of gamers. There will be zombies...
Producer: Sarah Addezio.
Another chance to hear NATURE in which sound recordist Chris Watson captures the remarkable chants of Andé Somby, a Sami yoiker. Yoiks are traditional Sami chants, which come from the earth and are largely inspired by natural world. When Andé invited sound recordist Chris Watson to record him yoiking near Kvalnes in the Lofoten Islands in Norway, Chris had no idea what an extraordinary and challenging experience this would be - not only to travel north of the Arctic Circle to record these ancient chants but also to gain an insight into the culture and beliefs of the Sami People. As a westerner he was about to step into a very different world. There are yoiks for people, animals and land. In the Sami tradition it's important for everyone to have a yoik; it's as important as being given a name, and for Andé, it's the Wolf yoik which has a special significance. For the recording of this and other yoiks, Andé led Chris up a very steep mountain to a small lake in a crater. Standing by the lake edge, surrounded by snow-capped mountains, the air is filled with most extraordinary sounds as Andé performs his yoiks. Yoiking is far more than just a performance, it is a much deeper connection with the earth; when a yoiker sings about an animal, for example, he believes he becomes that animal. Producer Sarah Blunt.
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.
Spiritual reflection to start the day with The Rev Neil Gardner, Minister of Canongate Kirk, Edinburgh.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
Kane Brides of the Slimbridge Wetland Centre on why the humble coot means so much to him.
Tweet of the Day has captivated the Radio 4 audience with its daily 90 seconds of birdsong. But what of the listener to this avian chorus? In this new series of Tweet of the Day, we bring to the airwaves the conversational voices of those who listen to and are inspired by birds. Building on the previous series, a more informal approach to learning alongside a renewed emphasis on encounter with nature and reflection in our relationship with the natural world.
Producer Miles Warde.
News and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
Astrophysicist Tim O'Brien explains to Jim Al-Khalili how he combines studying how stars explode with running music gigs around the iconic radio telescope at Jodrell Bank.
Eavesdropping on the arguments, ambitions and bewilderment of voters facing their democratic decisions in the run-up to 8 June. Fi Glover presents.
Producer: Marya Burgess.
In 1997, Bella Bathurst began to go deaf at the age of 28. Within a few months, she had lost half her hearing, and the rest was slipping away. She wasn't just missing punchlines, she was missing most of the conversation - and all of the jokes. For the next twelve years deafness shaped her life.
Sound draws on this experience, exploring the practical and emotional impact of losing your hearing, and what it teaches you about listening and silence, music and noise.
Today, Bella tries to find her deaf identity. Can someone who's losing her hearing at the age of 28 ever be part of the deaf-from-birth community? And how can she continue to relate to her friends and family if she can't work out what they're saying?
A Loftus production for BBC Radio 4.
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.
Anthony Bourdain's no holds barred exposé of the restaurant trade. A high octane culinary adventure set in New York, dramatised by Marcy Kahan.
Kitchen Confidential was a sensation on publication in 2000, taking the reader right to the heart of a sweaty, noisy, fast and furious cooking station with a fiery, likeable anti-hero protagonist. This debut radio dramatisation is a full-on behind the scenes tour of a range of kitchens, which questions why anyone would want to lead the exhausting, adrenalin-fuelled, harsh and precarious life of a restaurant chef. Marcy Kahan's clever dramatisation brings out the tenderness and real passion of its writer, as well as his high-octane roller coaster career.
Episode 2: The Line
Bourdain drifts back to 1973 and his summer at the Cape Cod joint where he started out as bottle washer and skivvy, graduating to being the salad maker alongside a bunch of stoned, metal head, summer season outlaw chefs - a training that took him next to New York.
The dramatist Marcy Kahan is an award-winning radio and theatre playwright and screenwriter. Her plays include 20 Cigarettes (Soho Theatre, 2007), a stage version of Nora Ephron's When Harry Met Sally (Theatre Royal, Haymarket, 2005) and Intimate Memoirs of An Irish Taxidermist (Perrier award, 1986 Edinburgh Festival). Marcy's screenplay Antonia and Jane was the first television film to be given cinematic distribution by Miramax and won a Gold Plaque award for best original screenplay at the 1991 Chicago Film Festival.
Dramatised by Marcy Kahan
Sound Design: Eloise Whitmore
Producer: Polly Thomas
Executive Producer: Robert Abel
A Somethin Else production for BBC Radio 4.
Silicon forms more than a quarter of the earth's crust by weight. With oxygen it makes sand, and it is essential to plant life. Dr Louisa Preston explores why silicon is so useful.
An intimate portrait of the songwriter, singer and frontman of the new wave rock band XTC, Andy Partridge.
Brought up on a council estate in Swindon, Andy Partridge's escape from the poverty of his working class upbringing followed a classic path - art and music. At 15, he enrolled in what he calls the 'art floor' of the local college - Swindon didn't boast an actual art college. Then, he discovered the magnetic power of carrying around his Dad's old guitar. He didn't even have to play it to find himself the centre of attention.
In the years that followed - and in the wake of the punk explosion - he tasted celebrity and success with his band XTC. His curious vocal style and angular compositions were distinctive and influential. XTC built a cult status with songs such as Making Plans for Nigel and Senses Working Overtime, as well as albums including the acclaimed Skylarking.
But Swindon didn't lose Andy for long, despite the lure of London and New York. He lives there still, now with his American partner. And he's still writing songs - including for the recent album by the reformed Monkees.
In this programme, he talks about the trajectory of his career and the 'art blood' that has consistently flowed through his veins.
Produced by Alan Hall
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
On this day in 1917, dog shows were banned under a new amendment to the Defence of the Realm act, but in Folkestone, the cookery competition yields unexpected results.
Written by Sarah Daniels
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole.
Consumer phone-in.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
On the trail of Osama Bin Laden. BBC Middle East Editor Jeremy Bowen follows his journey from Saudi Arabia to Afghanistan via a ranch on the banks of the Nile. "1998 was the first time that anyone who wasn't expert in the growth of radical jihadist violence had heard of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda," he says. "Reports on the BBC website at the time referred to him as 'Mr Bin Laden, an exiled Saudi dissident'. Years later there was no need to find a form of words to describe him and the BBC was no longer calling him Mister."
Bowen started reporting on the region in the lead up to the Gulf War back in 1990. Since then, he has witnessed endless wars between individuals, religious groups and full-sized states, jostling for military, political and economic power. He has interviewed dictators, fanatics and fundamentalists as well as the ordinary people caught up in their dangerous games. In that time, the past has always been present, providing motivation and political ammunition. Bowen has made headlines himself and he has paid a personal price, coming under fire and losing a colleague in the course of reporting - on the worst day, he says, in his life.
Produced by Mark Savage and Cara Swift.
Threat of plague from outlying villages and how to deal with it brings the Inquisitor Barakat (Hiran Abeysekera) into conflict with the ailing regent Effendi Red (Sagar Arya).
Meanwhile, Manel (Aiysha Hart) - having failed in the task given to her by the rebels - must now prove her commitment to the cause by undertaking a more dangerous mission. One that brings her face to face with a deadly secret at the heart of this fanatical regime.
Tumanbay is created by John Dryden and Mike Walker and inspired by the Mamluk slave rulers of Egypt.
Original 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 by Mike Walker
Directed by John Dryden
A Goldhawk production for BBC Radio 4.
Personality tests, tests of character and knowing how to cheat. Josie Long presents stories of people testing their mettle.
The writers Ross Sutherland and Joe Dunthorne examine the Sutherland-Dunthorne luck index to see why one's success seems to mean the other's failure. James Acaster embarks on a quest in search of connection and oversized novelty letters, and we hear the story of two men who knew how to deceive the people examining them.
Series Producer: Eleanor McDowall
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4.
Can Britain revive its forests and provide our own wood to build homes? Tom Heap investigates.
Producer: Sarah Swadling.
David Walliams talks in depth to Michael Rosen about how he writes his children's books like Mr Stink and The Boy In The Dress and how he switches modes to write comedy like Little Britain. His acute awareness of language developed from a young age, and he was influenced by the books he read then, from Roald Dahl to James Bond, and the comedy scripts he studied, from Monty Python and Rowan Atkinson. He talks about the real-life conversation that inspired Carol Beer, the "computer says no" character from Little Britain, how The Shining was the surprising model for Awful Auntie, and about the boy who originally gave him the idea to start writing for children..
Producer Beth O'Dea.
This week it's the turn of Peter Williams, founder of the British retail chain Jack Wills who is nominating Steve Jobs as his great life. For Williams, despite the fact that Steve Jobs was an abrasive and difficult person, it was his ability to predict what people wanted. It was his Apple products that have touched the lives of so many people world wide and for Peter it's his gadgets that have changed our attitudes to technology.
To help Peter Williams make his case, he is joined by Luke Dormehl, technology journalist and author of The Apple Revolution. The presenter is Matthew Parris and the producer is Perminder Khatkar.
Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Episode two of the symphonious sketch show, starring Daniel Rigby, Sara Pascoe, Mike Wozniak, Cariad Lloyd and Henry Paker. This week, Oxford Zoo is annexed by its own monkey kingdom and a young woman falls under the romantic spell of "The Great Dimbleby."
Written by Benjamin Partridge, Henry Paker and Mike Wozniak.
Produced by Simon Mayhew-Archer.
Neil waxes lyrical, and Tom has high hopes.
Arts news, interviews and reviews.
Headlines involving abuse in care homes normally centre on allegations against staff, but is aggression among residents being overlooked?
With homes increasingly taking care of those with more complex needs such as dementia and other mental health disorders, are staff able to cope with some who have challenging behaviour?
File on 4 has found evidence that some residents are suffering serious assaults by others living in the same home. Some have died from their injuries. Allan Urry investigates the unsolved killing of one dementia patient.
Are workers skilled enough to recognise and deal with aggression, before it becomes violent, and should the NHS and local authorities be doing more to support them?
When the perpetrators themselves often have little understanding of what they have done due to the nature of their illness-are they also being let down? The programme reveals failures in the system that could have cost lives.
Reporter: Allan Urry
Producer: Emma Forde
Editor: Gail Champion.
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.
New York, a small town on the tip of Manhattan Island, 1746. One rainy evening, a charming and handsome young stranger, fresh off the boat from England, pitches up to a counting house on Golden Hill Street, with a suspicious yet compelling proposition. He has an order for a thousand pounds in his pocket that he wishes to cash. But can he be trusted?
This is New York in its infancy, a place where a young man with a fast tongue can invent himself afresh, fall in love, and find a world of trouble.
Francis Spufford says of his book, "Golden Hill is just a novel. More specifically, it's an eighteenth century novel. It's set in the winter of 1746, in what was then the very small British colonial town of New York; but it's also written like a novel from the eighteenth century. So the story of the charming but unreliable-seeming young Mr Smith, who turns up from London with a document in his pocket that may be a fraud or may be worth a fortune, is as hectically stuffed with event as it would have been if Fielding or Smollett had written it.
"Eighteenth-century readers expected to get their money's worth, and Golden Hill contains (among other things) a mystery, a political intrigue, a love story, a ball, a duel, a high-stakes card game, a trial, a dash of horror, a play-within-a-play, some surprisingly graphic sex and a rooftop chase. As a slow writer, I enjoyed working on something that runs fast. It was intricate fun devising and winding up the book's clockwork. But I hope it's also a story that feels alive, and makes the past feel alive too, while Mr Smith runs for his life, and the snow falls on Manhattan Island."
Written by Francis Spufford
Read by Jamie Parker
Abridged by Isobel Creed and Jill Waters
Produced by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4.
The so-called Millennial generation - those born between 1982 and 1994 - has been much maligned in the press for being lazy, entitled, vain, venal, self-involved, easily offended little emperors. But Alex Edelman thinks these criticisms are baseless. So in "Alex Edelman'S Peer Group" he seeks to redress the balance. In this episode he discusses Millennials' attitude to work and institutions.
Written and presented by Alex Edelman
Producer: Sam Michell
A BBC Studios Production.
James Aldred will be familiar to many Radio 4 listeners as 'the tree climber'. As a tree canopy access expert, James spends much of his life travelling across the world and climbing up into tree canopies to film the wildlife there, but in his spare time when he's home, James loves to head through the woods behind his house and up to the disused quarry to watch the peregrines that have bred here. In 2015 he decided to keep an audio diary and follow the lives of these birds in his spare time. Historically Peregrines were prized for falconry and it's from here that we get the names falcon for the female bird and tiercel for the male. On a freezing cold day in early February, James set off for the quarry with his recorder and microphones for the first time, and watched the adult birds patrolling back and forth marking their territory, prior to courtship. Over the coming weeks, James returned to his ringside seat as often as he could to watch these magnificent birds and determine which ledge they would choose to nest on. He followed the birds from winter through spring and summer as they bred and raised their young, as you can hear in this intimate audio diary about one of the world's most iconic birds of prey. Producer Sarah Blunt.
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.
Spiritual reflection to start the day with The Rev Neil Gardner, Minister of Canongate Kirk, Edinburgh.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
Ruth Cromie of the Slimbridge Wetland Centre proclaims her love for the eider duck, both rock hard and extremely soft.
Tweet of the Day has captivated the Radio 4 audience with its daily 90 seconds of birdsong. But what of the listener to this avian chorus? In this new series of Tweet of the Day, we bring to the airwaves the conversational voices of those who listen to and are inspired by birds. Building on the previous series, a more informal approach to learning alongside a renewed emphasis on encounter with nature and reflection in our relationship with the natural world.
Producer Miles Warde.
Morning news and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
"Raindrops on Roses and Whiskers on Kittens"... In this week's Soul Music, guests from around the world share their special memories of The Sound of Music classic 'My favourite Things'.
Written by Rodgers and Hammerstein in 1959 this deceptively simple song has travelled the globe to comfort and enthral children the world over.
Iranian Astronaut and philanthropist Anousheh Ansari's first encounter with this musical classic was in her native language of Farsi. It's a melody she held dear to her during years of unrest through the Iranian revolution and the war that was to follow. It's also the song that travelled with her as she realised her childhood dream of exploring outer space.
For vocal coach Heather Mair Thomas 'My Favourite Things' evokes memories of a happy Cornish childhood, growing up with her musical family. It has also become a reminder to always look for the good in life - come what may.
Meanwhile Jazz musician David Liebman takes us on a journey through the 1960's New York club scene to the night where an encounter with John Coltrane's version of 'My Favourite Things' changed his life forever and Sound of Music fan Emma Poulton relives her very special wedding day that was topped off with a 'copper kettle' .
Featuring Tom Santopietro author of 'The Sound of Music Story'.
Produced By Nicola Humphries.
In today's show, John has booked the wonderful Eddie Izzard as a guest. Well, he hopes he has.
It would be terrible if Eddie were stuck on a train.
Starring John Cleese, Harriet Carmichael and Eddie Izzard, and written by John Cleese and James Peak.
The extracts used in this programme are taken from John's audiobook of his autobiography So Anyway.
Producers: James Peak and Andre Jacquemin
A Goldhawk Essential production for BBC Radio 4.
In 1997, Bella Bathurst began to go deaf at the age of 28. Within a few months, she had lost half her hearing, and the rest was slipping away. She wasn't just missing punchlines, she was missing most of the conversation - and all of the jokes. For the next twelve years deafness shaped her life.
Sound draws on this experience, exploring the practical and emotional impact of losing your hearing, and what it teaches you about listening and silence, music and noise.
Today, Bella continues to try to fight her deafness - and herself. Her loneliness and isolation is typical of people who have lost their hearing, she finds. Depression and social anxiety are very common.
A Loftus production for BBC Radio 4.
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.
Anthony Bourdain's no holds barred exposé of the restaurant trade. A high octane culinary adventure set in New York, dramatised by Marcy Kahan.
Kitchen Confidential was a sensation on publication in 2000, taking the reader right to the heart of a sweaty, noisy, fast and furious cooking station with a fiery, likeable anti-hero protagonist. This debut radio dramatisation is a full-on behind the scenes tour of a range of kitchens, which questions why anyone would want to lead the exhausting, adrenalin-fuelled, harsh and precarious life of a restaurant chef. Marcy Kahan's clever dramatisation brings out the tenderness and real passion of its writer, as well as his high-octane roller coaster career.
Episode 3: Owners
Anthony considers the wilderness years, when he traipsed from one lowly New York place to another, taking hand to mouth chef jobs in ever more ludicrous restaurant ventures, bound to fail.
The dramatist Marcy Kahan is an award-winning radio and theatre playwright and screenwriter. Her plays include 20 Cigarettes (Soho Theatre, 2007), a stage version of Nora Ephron's When Harry Met Sally (Theatre Royal, Haymarket, 2005) and Intimate Memoirs of An Irish Taxidermist (Perrier award, 1986 Edinburgh Festival). Marcy's screenplay Antonia and Jane was the first television film to be given cinematic distribution by Miramax and won a Gold Plaque award for best original screenplay at the 1991 Chicago Film Festival.
Dramatised by Marcy Kahan
Sound Design: Eloise Whitmore
Producer: Polly Thomas
Executive Producer: Robert Abel
A Somethin Else production for BBC Radio 4.
Siblings who make up the band Brand New Friend (playing at Radio 1's Big Weekend in Hull on the BBC Introducing Stage on Sunday) share thoughts on confidence. Fi Glover presents another conversation in the series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen.
Producer: Marya Burgess.
When family come to call, Snoo runs into problems with a grape and Alice has to learn a tricky manoeuvre.
Meet Alice (Rebecca Front) - a former child prodigy who won a place at Oxford aged 9 but, because Daddy went too, she never needed to have any friends. She's scared of everything. Everything that is except libraries and Snoo (Morwenna Banks) - a slightly confused individual with a have-a-go attitude to life, marriage, haircuts and reality. Snoo loves books, and fully intends to read one one day.
And forever popping into the library is Dr Cadogan (Michael Fenton Stevens) - celebrity doctor to the stars and a man with his finger in every pie. Charming, indiscreet and quite possibly wanted by Interpol, if you want a discrete nip and tuck and then photos of it accidentally left on the photocopier, Dr Cadogan is your man.
Their happy life is interrupted by the arrival of Simon Nielson (Ben Willbond), a man with a mission - a mission to close down inefficient libraries. Fortunately, he hates his mission. What he really wants to do is once - just once - get even with his inexhaustible supply of high-achieving brothers.
Written by Morwenna Banks and Rebecca Front
Based on an idea developed with Armando Iannucci
Produced by David Tyler
A Pozzitive production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
On this day in 1917, the manager of the Savoy ordered 10,000 plates to be destroyed after a guest noticed they were German-made, and Folkestone celebrates Empire Day.
Written by Sarah Daniels
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole.
Consumer affairs programme.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
The BBC's Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen looks back to December 1998, when the West sent bombers in to Baghdad to punish Saddam Hussein. In four days and nights the Americans and the British dropped 415 cruise missiles and 600 bombs. "We journalists suspected that tips off about the timing of attacks were to distract Americans from the scandal surrounding Bill Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky, which was at its height," he says.
Bowen started reporting on the region in the lead up to the Gulf War back in 1990. Since then, he has witnessed endless wars between individuals, religious groups and full-sized states, jostling for military, political and economic power. He has interviewed dictators, fanatics and fundamentalists as well as the ordinary people caught up in their dangerous games. In that time, the past has always been present, providing motivation and political ammunition. Bowen has made headlines himself and he has paid a personal price, coming under fire and losing a colleague in the course of reporting - on the worst day, he says, in his life.
Produced by Mark Savage and Cara Swift.
The myth of Orpheus and Eurydice has inspired poets, painters and especially musicians since ancient times. As a season of revivals at the Royal Opera House season explores this most potent of musical stories, poet Simon Armitage and playwright Linda Marshall Griffiths each tell their own versions of the story of the doomed lovers on Radio 4.
Eurydice and Orpheus. Her story...by Simon Armitage .
Sanna is a lab technician in a seed vault at a university. She stores and tends to seeds from flowers and trees from all over the world . She mostly loves the flowers ...Coltsfoot, Early Star of Bethlehem, Lady's Bedstraw, Farewell to Spring, Eyebright, Forget-me-not ...
She's had her eye on a busking musician she passes on her way home from work in the subway . One evening, on a whim, she stops to talk . They quickly become close and fall in love. Sanna persuades Zak to turn his back on a life of drugs and crime. Having survived withdrawal, this gifted musician picks up a harp and discovers that he has an overwhelming natural talent, one that will have a deep, irreversible effect on both their lives.
Eurydice and Orpheus by Simon Armitage
Her Story
Harpist - Jon Banks
With electronic music composed by PJ Harvey
Produced 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.
Justin Edwards, Mel Giedroyc and Dave Mounfield are in the mining town of Grissock to tell the story of talc through the ages, using songs, sketches and powerful verbatim theatre.
Justin has actually done some research for this week's play, interviewing some miners in the social club and writing down what they said to him. Sadly ,not all of it was relevant. The band go on strike and special guest Vicki Pepperdine launches a coup.
Is this the end for Rum Bunch?
The Rum Bunch is Justin Edwards (The Consultants, The Odd Half Hour, Newsjack, Sorry I've Got No Head, The Thick of It), Mel Giedroyc (Mel and Sue, Bake Off, Let It Shine) and Dave Mounfield (Count Arthur Strong, This Is Jinsy).
The house band is Jason Hazeley and David Reed - The Penny Dreadfuls.
Produced by Jim North
A Top Dog production for BBC Radio 4.
Kenton needs reining in, and Toby has a turn of fortune.
Arts news, interviews and reviews.
How will we become wealthy in future? Presenters Leo Johnson and Timandra Harkness journey to New York and the Arabian Gulf to discover how our understanding of wealth is changing. They explore new definitions of wealth, and find out how old money plans to hang on to its wealth in the face of challenges from technology and social tensions between generations.
Producer: Jonathan Brunert.
The BBC's business editor Simon Jack and economics editor Kamal Ahmed present the inside track on key economic and business issues behind the 2017 general election.
The latest weather forecast.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
New York, a small town on the tip of Manhattan Island, 1746. One rainy evening, a charming and handsome young stranger, fresh off the boat from England, pitches up to a counting house on Golden Hill Street, with a suspicious yet compelling proposition. He has an order for a thousand pounds in his pocket that he wishes to cash. But can he be trusted?
This is New York in its infancy, a place where a young man with a fast tongue can invent himself afresh, fall in love, and find a world of trouble.
Francis Spufford says of his book, "Golden Hill is just a novel. More specifically, it's an eighteenth century novel. It's set in the winter of 1746, in what was then the very small British colonial town of New York; but it's also written like a novel from the eighteenth century. So the story of the charming but unreliable-seeming young Mr Smith, who turns up from London with a document in his pocket that may be a fraud or may be worth a fortune, is as hectically stuffed with event as it would have been if Fielding or Smollett had written it.
"Eighteenth-century readers expected to get their money's worth, and Golden Hill contains (among other things) a mystery, a political intrigue, a love story, a ball, a duel, a high-stakes card game, a trial, a dash of horror, a play-within-a-play, some surprisingly graphic sex and a rooftop chase. As a slow writer, I enjoyed working on something that runs fast. It was intricate fun devising and winding up the book's clockwork. But I hope it's also a story that feels alive, and makes the past feel alive too, while Mr Smith runs for his life, and the snow falls on Manhattan Island."
Written by Francis Spufford
Read by Jamie Parker
Abridged by Isobel Creed and Jill Waters
Produced by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4.
Divorcee Spencer arrives to take Tilly to school and is shocked to see the family home is no longer called Utopia. Meanwhile, teenage son Dylan has illegally downloaded Straw Dogs and daughter Tilly intends to attend school mufti-day in drag as one half of Siegfried and Roy (with cat Lord Lucan as the lion).
Spencer has an argument with the managing agent of his flat over a tiny detail of its refurbishment and threatens to give notice - which the agent willingly accepts.
Spencer sees his list of clients in a daze, mentally obsessing over property and, as he fumbles through the day still carrying a wooden name plaque bearing the fading legend Utopia, ends up wandering into an estate agent's office in an attempt to talk to a pretty girl.
A Big Talk production for BBC Radio 4.
The number one podcast for those involved or just interested in the production of beef animals and dairy herds.
In this episode we hear your letters on the topic of the world's favourite meat sauce - gravy. Also, the Network answerphone receives a very strange message.
The original Beef And Dairy Network Podcast series can be found at www.maximumfun.org
Performed by Benjamin Partridge, Mike Wozniak, Gemma Arrowsmith, Tom Crowley and Nadia Kamil
Written and produced by Benjamin Partridge.
With a two metre wingspan, strong hooked beak and four inch talons, harpy eagles are one of the most powerful birds of prey in the world and have been known to attack people who get too close to their nests, so when wildlife cameraman John Aitchison agreed to spend a month on a tiny platform high up in rainforest canopy in Venezuela to try and film a young eagle chick hunting for the first time, it was with some trepidation at what might lie ahead. John abseiled down from his platform each night to grab a meal and a few hours of sleep, but before dawn he climbed back up onto his tiny platform, just big enough for him and his camera. High up in the rainforest canopy, his neighbours included bellowing howler monkeys, flocks of squawking parrots and colourful butterflies as well as highly venomous snakes and stinging ants. He also had to endure some torrential storms and powerful winds. But his perseverance was rewarded with stunning views across the forest, magical misty mornings, very close encounters with the harpy chick and a most unexpected meeting between the young eagle and a very brave sloth! Producer Sarah Blunt.
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.
Spiritual reflection to start the day with The Rev Neil Gardner, Minister of Canongate Kirk, Edinburgh.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
Debbie Pain of the Slimbridge Wetland Centre explains her joy at the return of the marsh harrier to her local patch.
Tweet of the Day has captivated the Radio 4 audience with its daily 90 seconds of birdsong. But what of the listener to this avian chorus? In this new series of Tweet of the Day, we bring to the airwaves the conversational voices of those who listen to and are inspired by birds. Building on the previous series, a more informal approach to learning alongside a renewed emphasis on encounter with nature and reflection in our relationship with the natural world.
Producer Miles Warde.
Morning news and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the flourishing of the idea of Purgatory from C12th, when it was imagined as a place alongside Hell and Heaven in which the souls of sinners would be purged of those sins by fire. In the West, there were new systems put in place to pray for the souls of the dead, on a greater scale, with opportunities to buy pardons to shorten time in Purgatory. The idea was enriched with visions, some religious and some literary; Dante imagined Purgatory as a mountain in the southern hemisphere, others such as Marie de France told of The Legend of the Purgatory of Saint Patrick, in which the entrance was on Station Island in County Donegal. This idea of purification by fire had appalled the Eastern Orthodox Church and was one of the factors in the split from Rome in 1054, but flourished in the West up to the reformations of C16th when it was again particularly divisive.
With
Laura Ashe
Matthew Treherne
and
Helen Foxhall-Forbes.
In 1997, Bella Bathurst began to go deaf at the age of 28. Within a few months, she had lost half her hearing, and the rest was slipping away. She wasn't just missing punchlines, she was missing most of the conversation - and all of the jokes. For the next twelve years deafness shaped her life.
Sound draws on this experience, exploring the practical and emotional impact of losing your hearing, and what it teaches you about listening and silence, music and noise.
Today, deafness dramatically changes Bella's experience of the busy streets of London. But, as she sits on the top deck of a bus, she realises that while she can't hear the sounds of the crowd, she has a new way to read the interactions she sees on the street below.
A Loftus production for BBC Radio 4.
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.
Anthony Bourdain's no holds barred exposé of the restaurant trade. A high octane culinary adventure set in New York, dramatised by Marcy Kahan.
Kitchen Confidential was a sensation on publication in 2000, taking the reader right to the heart of a sweaty, noisy, fast and furious cooking station with a fiery, likeable anti-hero protagonist. This debut radio dramatisation is a full-on behind the scenes tour of a range of kitchens, which questions why anyone would want to lead the exhausting, adrenalin-fuelled, harsh and precarious life of a restaurant chef. Marcy Kahan's clever dramatisation brings out the tenderness and real passion of its writer, as well as his high-octane roller coaster career.
Episode 4: Cook's Talk
Anthony and Dimitri entertain us with the low down on kitchen repartee. Not recommended for the faint hearted! Mother attempts to maintain some decorum - and finds herself quite fluent in some of the less racy terminology.
The dramatist Marcy Kahan is an award-winning radio and theatre playwright and screenwriter. Her plays include 20 Cigarettes (Soho Theatre, 2007), a stage version of Nora Ephron's When Harry Met Sally (Theatre Royal, Haymarket, 2005) and Intimate Memoirs of An Irish Taxidermist (Perrier award, 1986 Edinburgh Festival). Marcy's screenplay Antonia and Jane was the first television film to be given cinematic distribution by Miramax and won a Gold Plaque award for best original screenplay at the 1991 Chicago Film Festival.
Dramatised by Marcy Kahan
Sound Design: Eloise Whitmore
Producer: Polly Thomas
Executive Producer: Robert Abel
A Somethin Else production for BBC Radio 4.
Reports from writers and journalists around the world. Presented by Kate Adie.
Andrew McGibbon analyses great artists at a significant time in their careers, but from the perspective of someone who worked for them, inspired them, employed them or did their job for them while no one was looking.
Annie Ross was a young singer from Scotland who found herself in a bigger spotlight when she was asked by Duke Ellington to stand in for Billie Holliday at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem.
She was petrified, but was well received by the audience. From there, Annie developed an intriguing relationship with Billie and as Billie's career nosedived with substance abuse and bad love, Annie's career as a singer took off as she created a new style of singing with her hit record Twisted.
This is a moving story of japes and heartbreak from a witness and friend of one of the most significant jazz singers of the 20th Century.
Written and presented by Andrew McGibbon
Produced by Nick Romero
A Curtains for Radio production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
On this day in 1917, Britain suffered its first ever airplane bombing raid, and Tontine Street in Folkestone is packed with shoppers preparing for Whitsun weekend.
Written by Sarah Daniels
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole.
Consumer affairs programme.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
BBC Middle East Editor Jeremy Bowen recalls his tricky dealings with the Iraqi Ministry of Information as he covered the impact of Western sanctions against Saddam Hussein. "The regime didn't mind us reporting about sanctions," he says. "It was real news, and it made their enemies look bad. It was much harder to report the brutality of the regime."
Bowen started reporting on the region in the lead up to the Gulf War back in 1990. Since then, he has witnessed endless wars between individuals, religious groups and full-sized states, jostling for military, political and economic power. He has interviewed dictators, fanatics and fundamentalists as well as the ordinary people caught up in their dangerous games. In that time, the past has always been present, providing motivation and political ammunition. Bowen has made headlines himself and he has paid a personal price, coming under fire and losing a colleague in the course of reporting - on the worst day, he says, in his life.
Produced by Mark Savage and Cara Swift.
A special edition of Home Front, marking the centenary of Britain's first Gotha Air Raid, which devastated Folkestone on 25 May 1917. Weaving real historical figures and testimony with the stories and characters of Home Front, Sarah Daniels pays tribute to the people who died in this sudden, shocking atrocity.
Written by Sarah Daniels
Sound by Martha Littlehailes
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole
NOTES
Friday 25 May 1917 marked the beginning of the Whitsun weekend, and shoppers queued in Tontine Street outside Stokes Greengrocers, who had put word around town that they were stocking fresh potatoes on that day. A squadron of Gotha planes who had attempted an attack on London, were returning unsuccessful, and tried their luck bombing the railway line that took thousands of soldiers daily to the coast.
Some planes attacked Shorncliffe Camp, killing 18, mainly Canadians, while others swept east across the town. A single bomb was dropped on Tontine Street at 6.22pm (breaking the clock of the Congregational Church). It killed 63 - 10 men, 28 women and 25 children. More than 100 were injured.
On Thursday 25 May 2017, the first plaque commemorating the dead of the Tontine Street bomb will be unveiled in Folkestone, at 6.22pm.
Clare Balding embarks on the second leg of the Nidderdale Way , a 53 mile circular walk that begins and ends in the North Yorkshire town of Pateley Bridge.
Today she's joined by the Rev Darryl Hall and Methodist minister, Mike Poole, who work and walk together regularly , known locally as the Ant and Dec of the church. Mike's wife Julia also comes along with the map to ensure they stay on track. This section of the walk takes them through the small hill village of Middlesmoor. Its church, St Chads, boasts of having one of the best views in Britain and Clare believes the community can also brag about their very excellent public conveniences.
For this series Clare is using OS Explorer 298, starting reference for this walk 066 766, and the Harvey map of The Nidderdale Way.
Producer: Lucy Lunt.
Francine Stock talks to David Michod about War Machine, his satire on the U.S. military starring Brad Pitt as an ambitious general.
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.
Music and comedy presented by Alex Horne and his 5-piece band. This week they tackle the theme of money, shopping and consumerism with an advert for milk, a sea shanty and a song about cheese dreams. They're joined by special guest comedian Adam Buxton.
Host... Alex Horne
Band... Joe Auckland, Mark Brown, Will Collier, Ben Reynolds, Ed Sheldrake
Guests... Adam Buxton and Saxophonist Pedro
Producer... Charlie Perkins.
Pip needs some distance, and Johnny strikes gold.
Arts news, interviews and reviews.
The Rt Revd David Walker is the preacher at a service for Ascension Day, live from St Martin-in-the-Fields led by the vicar, the Revd Dr Sam Wells.
Music is provided by the Daily Service Singers, the St Martin's Voices Fellows and Southbank Symphonia as they perform Haydn's dramatic and majestic, Paukenmesse. Hundreds of Radio 4 listeners will be joined in the church by on-air talent and broadcasters who will lead various parts of the service.
The latest weather forecast.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
New York, a small town on the tip of Manhattan Island, 1746. One rainy evening, a charming and handsome young stranger, fresh off the boat from England, pitches up to a counting house on Golden Hill Street, with a suspicious yet compelling proposition. He has an order for a thousand pounds in his pocket that he wishes to cash. But can he be trusted?
This is New York in its infancy, a place where a young man with a fast tongue can invent himself afresh, fall in love, and find a world of trouble.
Francis Spufford says of his book, "Golden Hill is just a novel. More specifically, it's an eighteenth century novel. It's set in the winter of 1746, in what was then the very small British colonial town of New York; but it's also written like a novel from the eighteenth century. So the story of the charming but unreliable-seeming young Mr Smith, who turns up from London with a document in his pocket that may be a fraud or may be worth a fortune, is as hectically stuffed with event as it would have been if Fielding or Smollett had written it.
"Eighteenth-century readers expected to get their money's worth, and Golden Hill contains (among other things) a mystery, a political intrigue, a love story, a ball, a duel, a high-stakes card game, a trial, a dash of horror, a play-within-a-play, some surprisingly graphic sex and a rooftop chase. As a slow writer, I enjoyed working on something that runs fast. It was intricate fun devising and winding up the book's clockwork. But I hope it's also a story that feels alive, and makes the past feel alive too, while Mr Smith runs for his life, and the snow falls on Manhattan Island."
Written by Francis Spufford
Read by Jamie Parker
Abridged by Isobel Creed and Jill Waters
Produced by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4.
This week, Milton Jones becomes a responsible sober-suited Financial Adviser, and fights off a Swedish invasion with the aid of his trusty hamster.
Mention Milton Jones to most people and the first thing they think is 'Help!'. Because each week, Milton and his trusty assistant Anton (played by Milton regular, Tom Goodman-Hill) set out to help people and soon find they're embroiled in a new adventure. Because when you're close to the edge, then Milton can give you a push.
"Milton Jones is one of Britain's best gagsmiths with a flair for creating daft yet perfect one-liners" - The Guardian.
"King of the surreal one-liners" - The Times
"If you haven't caught up with Jones yet - do so!" - The Daily Mail
Written by Milton with James Cary (Bluestone 42, Miranda) and Dan Evans (who co-wrote Milton's Channel 4 show House Of Rooms), the man they call "Britain's funniest Milton" returns to the radio with a fully-working cast and a shipload of new jokes.
The cast includes regulars Tom Goodman-Hill ( Spamalot, Mr. Selfridge) as the ever-faithful Anton, Josie Lawrence and Dan Tetsell (Newsjack).
With music by Guy Jackson.
Produced and directed by David Tyler
A Pozzitive production for BBC Radio 4.
Fen Raft Spiders as their name implies are water-loving spiders. They are also large and distinctive looking spiders with white, cream or yellow stripes along the sides of both the carapace and abdomen which contrast with their dark body. They were first discovered in the mid-1950s in Redgrave and Lopham Fen in Suffolk which today is one of the sites where Helen Smith, leader of the Fen Raft Spider Recovery Programme has been introducing these spiders after their populations declined as a result of degradation and loss of lowland aquatic habitat. The spiders are also found at on the Pevensey Levels in East Sussex and Crymlyn Bog near Swansea in South Wales. For this programme, Helen, who has a license to handle these spiders, very kindly agreed to collect a male and female Fen Raft Spider and bring them indoors in a tank so that wildlife sound recordist Chris Watson could not only get a really close look at these spiders, but also try and record their courtship behaviour. This is a complex and elaborate affair, which includes the males vibrating his front legs in arcs on the water surface. After mating, the female lays her eggs in an egg sac and spins a nursery web in which to protect them. The webs are usually spun on vegetation above the water's surface, but Helen also had one in tank so Chris was able to examine the tiny spiderlings which had hatched from the egg case. Back out on the fens, Chris also lowered a couple of underwater microphones (hydrophones) into a ditch and captured the extraordinary world of sound in which these creatures live as diving beetles, backswimmers and water boatman communicated to one another below the water surface. Producer Sarah Blunt.
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.
Spiritual reflection to start the day with The Rev Neil Gardner, Minister of Canongate Kirk, Edinburgh.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
Peter Cranswick of the Slimbridge Wetland Centre on the amazing common scoter.
Tweet of the Day has captivated the Radio 4 audience with its daily 90 seconds of birdsong. But what of the listener to this avian chorus? In this new series of Tweet of the Day, we bring to the airwaves the conversational voices of those who listen to and are inspired by birds. Building on the previous series, a more informal approach to learning alongside a renewed emphasis on encounter with nature and reflection in our relationship with the natural world.
Producer Miles Warde.
Morning news and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
In 1997, Bella Bathurst began to go deaf at the age of 28. Within a few months, she had lost half her hearing, and the rest was slipping away. She wasn't just missing punchlines, she was missing most of the conversation - and all of the jokes. For the next twelve years deafness shaped her life.
Sound draws on this experience, exploring the practical and emotional impact of losing your hearing, and what it teaches you about listening and silence, music and noise.
By 2009, Bella has made her peace with her hearing loss. She's found ways to cope, and ways to be happy. And she assumes this is the way life will always be. Then a routine visit to her audiologist changes everything.
A Loftus production for BBC Radio 4.
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.
Anthony Bourdain's no holds barred exposé of the restaurant trade. A high octane culinary adventure set in New York, dramatised by Marcy Kahan.
Kitchen Confidential was a sensation on publication in 2000, taking the reader right to the heart of a sweaty, noisy, fast and furious cooking station with a fiery, likeable anti-hero protagonist. This debut radio dramatisation is a full-on behind the scenes tour of a range of kitchens, which questions why anyone would want to lead the exhausting, adrenalin-fuelled, harsh and precarious life of a restaurant chef. Marcy Kahan's clever dramatisation brings out the tenderness and real passion of its writer, as well as his high-octane roller coaster career.
Episode 5: Okay I Lied
Anthony makes his final confession - everything he has told us is untrue. Well, sort of. His love of chaos and the dark side means that his version of restaurant life is not the only one. As an example, we visit the kitchen of Scott Bryan, a fellow cook and the antithesis of Anthony - quiet, calm, always well mannered. Anthony brings us up to date with his own career as a jet setting cookery writer and presenter, whose love of food drives all his endeavours.
The dramatist Marcy Kahan is an award-winning radio and theatre playwright and screenwriter. Her plays include 20 Cigarettes (Soho Theatre, 2007), a stage version of Nora Ephron's When Harry Met Sally (Theatre Royal, Haymarket, 2005) and Intimate Memoirs of An Irish Taxidermist (Perrier award, 1986 Edinburgh Festival). Marcy's screenplay Antonia and Jane was the first television film to be given cinematic distribution by Miramax and won a Gold Plaque award for best original screenplay at the 1991 Chicago Film Festival.
Dramatised by Marcy Kahan
Sound Design: Eloise Whitmore
Producer: Polly Thomas
Executive Producer: Robert Abel
A Somethin Else production for BBC Radio 4.
When he's not engaged as a BBC editor in the world of Media old and new, and its machinations, Amol Rajan would love to be either watching, or better yet, playing cricket. A deceptively mean leg-spin bowler he grew up in South London soaking up the traditions of the game, its rhythms, complexities and drama. But he's concerned that those qualities are under threat from what he calls 'The Imperial Inversion of Cricket'. Initially the process saw Britain's former colonies develop and overtake the mother country in terms of ability. First came the Australians, then the West Indies, both of them using the established game to better their former colonial masters.
Now it's the turn of India, but this time it's different. This time the sheer scale, passion and desire to make something new of the game is making India not just a dominant playing power but a major force in the direction of the game.
Where Test cricket reigned supreme the crash bang wallop of Twenty-twenty is proving a huge financial success. The Indian Premier League, the IPL, is proving a far greater manipulator than the Australian experiments of the Kerry Packer era in the 70s and 80s.
In this programme Amol goes back to his roots at the Old Sinjuns cricket club in south London and talks to club members today about what they think of the changes over-taking the game.
And he travels to India to hear the story of the game there, from the sleepy colonial splendour of the Roshanara Cricket Club in Old Delhi to the hi-tech offices of one of the IPL franchises, the Delhi Daredevils. He also talks to Lalit Modi, the man who helped launch the IPL and, in doing so, sent shock waves through the game.
What he finds is a vibrant, coherent response to the needs of a professional sport in the 21st century. Will cricket hold on to its traditions and will Lords remain the Mecca as Simon Hughes the former Middlesex bowler and TV pundit fervently hopes, or will the sheer financial power and numbers India calls upon change the game for ever? And if it does change, might it actually be for the better?
Producer: Tom Alban.
Max and Ivan are private detectives for whom no case is too small......Sorry, for whom no fee is too small. Matt Lucas joins them to solve a showbiz mystery.
Driven by their love of truth, justice (and the need to pay off their terrifying landlord, Malcolm McMichaelmas), they take on crimes that no-one else would consider. In this case, the mysterious disappearance of film impresario Bernie Goldfinkelrubenstein's leading man.
Max and Ivan - comedians and actors Max Olesker and Ivan Gonzalez - are a critically acclaimed, award-winning double act who have quickly established themselves as one of the most exciting comedy duos on the circuit.
Over the course of the series they are dropped into new worlds, and have to use their skills to penetrate deep into each community. If that means Ivan dressing up as a 14 year old German girl, so be it!
Cast:
Max...............Max Olesker
Ivan..............Ivan Gonzalez
Bernie...........Matt Lucas
Malcolm.........Lewis MacLeod
Norman.........David Reed
Lizzie............Jenny Bede
Produced by Victoria Lloyd
A John Stanley production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
On this day in 1917, while in Canada there were demonstrations against the introduction of conscription, people in Folkestone mourned their dead.
Written by Sarah Daniels
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole.
Consumer news and issues.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
Jeremy Bowen describes the incident as the worse day of his working life - the day he and his colleagues came under fire from the Israeli Defence Force. Bowen's driver Abed Takkhoush was hit when the crew of an Israeli tank fired a shell across the border wire into Lebanon. It hit the back of his Mercedes taxi while he was sitting in the driver's seat phoning his son. Bowen started reporting on the region in the lead up to the Gulf War back in 1990. Since then, he has witnessed endless wars between individuals, religious groups and full-sized states, jostling for military, political and economic power. He has interviewed dictators, fanatics and fundamentalists as well as the ordinary people caught up in their dangerous games. In that time, the past has always been present, providing motivation and political ammunition.
Produced by Mark Savage and Cara Swift.
Alistair McGowan writes and stars in a play about the scandalous opening night of George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion - the first time that the word 'bloody' was used on the British stage. The production also created a passionate love-hate triangle of Shaw (McGowan), his leading man, Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree (Richard McCabe) and his leading lady, the irrepressible Mrs Patrick Campbell (Charlotte Page), who played the 19 year old Eliza Doolittle at the age of 49.
Directed by Emma Harding.
Eric Robson presents a postbag edition of the show from the Chelsea Physic Garden. Matthew Wilson, Matt Biggs and Pippa Greenwood answer the horticultural questions.
Produced by Dan Cocker
Assistant Producer: Laurence Bassett
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.
A writer in an unnamed city struggles to stay focused on his work. This new story from Philip O Ceallaigh is inspired by the Ramones cover of Tom Waits' song.
Read by Robin Laing
Producer: Eilidh McCreadie.
Obituary series, analysing and celebrating the life stories of people who have recently died.
Investigating the numbers in the news.
A former volunteer at the Calais Jungle catches up with the young Sudanese friend she made there, in the village he was dispersed to with 45 other refugees. 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.
Jeremy Hardy, Holly Walsh and Andrew Maxwell are amongst Miles' guests for another round of News Quizzing.
Justin sets out his stall, and Brian is made to bear the load.
News, reviews and interviews from the worlds of art, literature, film and music.
Jonathan Dimbleby presents political debate from Crickhowell High School in Powys, Wales, with the Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care for Plaid Cymru in the Welsh Assembly, Rhun ap Iorwerth, the Shadow Defence Secretary Nia Griffith, the former conservative party minister Anna Soubry and the political journalist and author Isabel Oakeshott.
A reflection on a topical issue.
The sixth omnibus of Season 10, Our Daily Bread, set in Folkestone, in the week, in 1917, when Britain suffered its first ever airplane bombing raid.
Cast
Maisie Harris ..... Cassie Layton
Esme Macknade ..... Katie Angelou
Jessie Moore ..... Lucy Hutchinson
Kitty Lumley ..... Ami Metcalf
Alec Poole ..... Tom Stuart
Eve ..... Amelda Brown
Reg Roach ..... Arthur Smith
Hilda Moore ..... Bella Hamblin
Adam Wilson ..... Billy Kennedy
Alfred Vane ..... Charlie Clements
Switchboard ..... Chetna Pandya
Alice Macknade ..... Claire Louise Cordwell
Lady Penfold ..... Elaine Claxton
Cynthia Hamilton ..... Fenella Woolgar
Rob MacDonald ..... Finlay Robertson
Noah Hamilton ..... Finn Monteath
Maggie Macknade ..... Hollie Thoupos
Nancy Parker ..... Jane Whittenshaw
Sylvia Graham ..... Joanna David
Mayor Stephen Penfold ..... John Woodvine
Walter Hamilton ..... Joseph Kloska
Isabel Graham ..... Keely Beresford
Edna Harris ..... Lara J West
Juliet Cavendish ..... Lizzie Bourne
May Arnold ..... Lois Chimimba
Todd Merman ..... Luke Newberry
Ralph Winwood ..... Nick Murchie
Eric Morton ..... Paul Rainbow
Oscar Hendrickx ..... Pierre Elliot
Olive Hargreaves ..... Rhiannon Neads
Evelina White ..... Rosie Cavaliero
Ernie Moore ..... Sean Connolly
Singers ..... Nancy Cole, Ksynia Loeffler, Stephen Jeffes, Tom Raskin, Charles Gibbs
Organ - David Smith
Written by Sarah Daniels
Singers conducted by Sam Evans
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole
Sound: Martha Littlehailes
Composer: Matthew Strachan
Consultant Historian: Maggie Andrews.
The latest weather forecast.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
New York, a small town on the tip of Manhattan Island, 1746. One rainy evening, a charming and handsome young stranger, fresh off the boat from England, pitches up to a counting house on Golden Hill Street, with a suspicious yet compelling proposition. He has an order for a thousand pounds in his pocket that he wishes to cash. But can he be trusted?
This is New York in its infancy, a place where a young man with a fast tongue can invent himself afresh, fall in love, and find a world of trouble.
Francis Spufford says of his book, "Golden Hill is just a novel. More specifically, it's an eighteenth century novel. It's set in the winter of 1746, in what was then the very small British colonial town of New York; but it's also written like a novel from the eighteenth century. So the story of the charming but unreliable-seeming young Mr Smith, who turns up from London with a document in his pocket that may be a fraud or may be worth a fortune, is as hectically stuffed with event as it would have been if Fielding or Smollett had written it.
"Eighteenth-century readers expected to get their money's worth, and Golden Hill contains (among other things) a mystery, a political intrigue, a love story, a ball, a duel, a high-stakes card game, a trial, a dash of horror, a play-within-a-play, some surprisingly graphic sex and a rooftop chase. As a slow writer, I enjoyed working on something that runs fast. It was intricate fun devising and winding up the book's clockwork. But I hope it's also a story that feels alive, and makes the past feel alive too, while Mr Smith runs for his life, and the snow falls on Manhattan Island."
Written by Francis Spufford
Read by Jamie Parker
Abridged by Isobel Creed and Jill Waters
Produced by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4.
Intimate late-night conversation.
A love of dance has given them an understanding of how their bodies and minds work, and how best to use them. Fi Glover presents another conversation in the series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen.
Producer: Marya Burgess.