The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
Stephanie Cole reads Penelope Lively's intimate meditation on gardening, literature and creativity. Today's episode considers city allotments and the suburban garden.
Penelope Lively has always been a keen gardener. This book is partly a memoir of her own life in gardens: the large garden at home in Cairo where she spent most of her childhood, her Oxfordshire garden and the smaller urban garden in the North London home she lives in today. In this intimate and eloquent work of narrative non-fiction, one of the UK's most cherished and admired writers uses the garden to break open the world for us, and examines how we might encourage our lives to bloom.
Abridged by Siân Preece
Producer: Eilidh McCreadie.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with the Reverend Andrew Martlew, former Army Chaplain.
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 the weather and a look at the papers.
Meditation, a celebration, a warning, the marking of a solemn occasion, music: bells are a public sound that changes according to the landscape. And bell-ringing in Devon is unique: it all sounds a bit trance, according to Mary Ward-Lowery. She hears other mind-bending sounds in this programme, including the noisy tramping of ants' feet and the peaceful fusion of bells and birdsong.
With artist Marcus Vergette, sound recordist Tony Whitehead, an award-winning band of Devon call-change ringers, oh, and a steeplejack who spends his life mending church towers rocked by centuries of bells swinging the mortar loose.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
The latest weather forecast.
News and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
The singer/songwriter Katie Melua joins Aasmah Mir and the Rev. Richard Coles.
Alan Dein travels the world via the internet, talking to people trying to survive against the odds.
Locking himself away in a studio in Broadcasting House, Alan crosses time zones and continents speaking to random strangers using Facebook, Skype and WhatsApp.
Among those Alan gets chatting to today is BJ who spends half his life working on the confines of an oil rig in the East Timor Sea so that he can spend the rest of his time throwing himself off high rise buildings as he pursues his super dangerous pastime, base jumping. Then there's Syrian refugee Abdulkader who tells of his epic journey to Europe from the ruins of Aleppo. Also on Alan's contacts list today are Sam and Anna, co-workers in a call centre in Ukraine, who dream of leaving their poorly paid jobs behind forever.
Producer: Laurence Grissell.
The traditional two-minute silence to mark Armistice Day.
Paul Waugh of the Huffington Post looks behind the scenes at Westminster.
The editor is Peter Mulligan.
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.
In the week that Panorama uncovered the Paradise Papers, Punt and Dennis present a mix of topical stand-up and sketches which aims to explain the news. David Quantick looks at the Christmas ads, Grainne Maguire looks at the disparity in access to abortion across the UK, and Vikki Stone recaps a year of Donald Trump. Catherine Mayer discusses women's rights since Trump's election a year ago, and Luke Kempner supplies voices to make it all come to life.
Produced by Victoria Lloyd
A BBC Studios Production.
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The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
Jonathan Dimbleby presents political debate from St John the Baptist Church in Meopham, Kent with Shadow Secretary of State for International Trade Barry Gardiner MP, Prisons and Probation Minister Sam Gyimah MP, the Liberal Democrat's spokesperson on Education Layla Moran MP and the Political Editor of the Sunday Express Camilla Tominey.
Listeners have their say on the issues discussed on Any Questions?
From T E Lawrence and the Great Pyramid at Giza, to the Third Battle of Gaza, Tommies explores the Intelligence battle redrawing the Middle East, in this two-part adventure starring Indira Varma and Lee Ross.
Through camel chases, train derailments, riots and assassination squads, British intelligence and anti-colonial sedition go head to head in Cairo - where Mickey's about to meet some surprisingly familiar faces.
Meticulously based on unit war diaries and eye-witness accounts, each episode of TOMMIES traces one real day at war, exactly 100 years ago.
And through it all, we'll follow the fortunes of Mickey Bliss and his fellow signallers, from the Lahore Division of the British Indian Army. They are the cogs in an immense machine, one which connects situations across the whole theatre of the war, over four long years.
Written by Jonathan Ruffle and Avin Shah.
Producers: David Hunter, Jonquil Panting, Jonathan Ruffle
Director: Jonquil Panting.
Fi Glover introduces conversations between a couple who are both disabled, a mother with a severely disabled daughter and her friend, and the children of parents with MS 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.
Tayo Popoola explores Nigeria's enduring love of Jim Reeves and country music.
Over 50 years after his death, American country music legend Jim Reeves has maintained his popularity to a truly remarkable extent. Up until the 1980s, his label RCA continued to release new records almost yearly, and his many fans would eagerly snap them up. Today, his importance is still hotly discussed online, in message boards and chat rooms.
Where is the happening? In Nigeria.
Few musical forms appear more quintessentially American than country and western. But despite the genre's deep ties to cowboys and open skies, Nigeria became entranced by the fiddle and yodel heavy music. By the 1960s, as Nashville-based performers like Reeves and his producer Chet Atkins moved country toward an increasingly slick sound, the music had become a part of everyday Nigerian life, where it has remained.
In this very personal journey, Tayo travels around Nigeria with his country music loving mother in tow, exploring how this continued popularity can be - at least partially - attributed to the spiritual qualities that Nigerian audiences hear in country. Too slow to work as dance music, filled with the otherworldly sounds of pedal steel and orchestral strings, and laced with a decidedly Christian morality, country music has become known as a contemplative style, designed to carry the listener beyond daily life.
Tayo considers the impact of Jim Reeves on Nigerian legends like Chief Ebenezer Obey (who appears and sings in person on the programme), as well as his influence on younger contemporary musicians like Ogak Jay Oke and Stephen Rwang Pam.
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.
From Coronation Street to Last Tango in Halifax, Anne Reid has been acting on television for sixty years. Anne tells us about her new film Kaleidoscope, described as a modern day Psycho.
We'll hear from the winner of the Woman's Hour Craft Prize.
The writer and director Sharon Horgan talks about her new comedy Motherland with actors Anna Maxwell Martin and Diane Morgan who play Julia and Liz.
Locker Room Talk is a piece of verbatim theatre by Edinburgh's Traverse Theatre. Creator Gary McNair recorded interviews with men to capture their 'locker room talk' of mainly sexist and derogatory comments about women. He tells us about the culture of these male dominated spaces and Artistic Director Orla O'Loughlin tells us why she chose four women to voice them in the play.
Marisa Anderson the solo guitarist from Portland Oregan who discusses her love of guitars and performs the track San Seliu.
The number of women giving birth to their babies by caesarean section has risen significantly in the past year to almost 28 per cent. It is suggested that these numbers may be caused by obesity, rising maternal age or even fear of vaginal childbirth. Shazia Malik an obstetrician and gynaecologist discuss the findings.
And now Pole Dancing has been recognised as a sport, can it ever really detach itself from its roots inside seedy strip clubs. Kath Woodward the Professor of Gender Theories and Diversity in the field of Sports at the Open University and Katie Coates the founder of the International Pole Sports Federation discuss.
Presented by Jenni Murray
Producer: Rabeka Nurmahomed
Editor :Jane Thurlow.
Full coverage of the day's news.
In the UK we spend £4.5 billion a year on domestic pets. Where does the money go? Evan Davis and guests discuss the business of keeping pets.
GUESTS
Lynne Hill, Chief Executive of Linnaeus Group of veterinary practices
Dean Richmond, Managing Director of retailing chain, Pets Corner
Ashley Gray, Managing Director of Vetsure Pet Insurance.
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The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Clive Anderson and Nikki Bedi are joined by The Hairy Bikers, Anna Ptaszynski, Sathnam Sanghera and Travis Alabanza for an eclectic mix of conversation, music and comedy. With music from The Lemon Twigs.
Producer: Sukey Firth.
Series of profiles of people who are currently making headlines.
Mamet's Glengarry Glen Ross is revived at London's Playhouse Theatre, starring Christian Slater
John Hamm and Geena Davis in Marjorie Prime - a film about love loss and avatars
There's a new BBC TV adaptation of E M Forster's Howards End
Richard Flanagan's novel First Person - his first since the Mann Booker winning The Narrow Road To The Deep North - draws on his own experience as a ghost writer. Red Star Over Russia is an exhibition at Tate Modern marking the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution and examining its impact on visual culture
Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Bob and Roberta Smith, Charlotte Mullins and Susan Jeffreys. The producer is Oliver Jones.
Fifty years on, Frances Cairncross tells the story of the Devaluation crisis of 1967, which she covered as a young journalist.
It was one of the iconic phrases that will always be associated with Harold Wilson's premiership: in a TV broadcast, a day after his government had decided to reduce the value of the pound sterling by just over 14 percent against the dollar, Wilson assured the nation that, nevertheless, "the pound in your pocket" was still worth the same. Despite adding that imports would indeed cost more, and that prices would rise, the phrase stuck and has remained indelibly linked to Wilson's era ever since.
And yet, the plunge in value that sterling incurred following last year's Brexit vote was no smaller and yet caused far less panic and confusion. How come?
As a young journalist, Frances Cairncross covered the story - well, after all, she had a family connection: her father, Sir Alec Cairncross, was a senior Treasury official closely involved in the discussions before and the consequences following the November 18th move. "Der Tag," writes Alec in his diary. "At 9.30 the statement became public and at 10.35 I saw the TV screen show a £1 note with DEVALUED printed across it..."
In this programme to mark half a century since the biggest economic crisis of its time, with the help of rich contemporary audio archives, Frances Cairncross talks to those who were closely involved in the fraught run-up to the move that cost Chancellor James Callaghan his job as Chancellor.
With Peter Jay, William Davis, William Keegan, David Walker, Robin Butler and Professors Robert Neild and Kathleen Burk, and featuring readings from Alec Cairncross's diary of the period.
Producer: Simon Elmes.
By Mike Walker
In June 1941, when news came through that the Nazis had taken Minsk, 300 miles into Soviet territory, Joseph Stalin retired to his dacha. And there he stayed for three days - refusing to answer the telephone or to see anyone.
What was he doing, at a time when his country needed him most? Had he suffered a mental breakdown? Was he unable to face up to his gross miscalculation that Hitler would not start a war on two fronts? Or did he fear arrest? And was this an act of cunning, to test the loyalty of his inner circle?
Mike Walker's epic chronicle of the Russian Tsars continues with the story of Joseph Stalin and the invasion of the Soviet Union.
The guitarist was Colin Guthrie.
Directed by Sasha Yevtushenko.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4, followed by weather.
The Westminster sex scandal has shone a light on yet more public figures behaving badly. The behaviour may not be new, but people appear to be far less tolerant of it. This raises questions about where our morality comes from and whether human beings can become collectively more ethical. Is this apparent shift in social mores an example of how our collective moral standards have improved? Or has an increasingly sexually-permissive culture - in which even children as young as ten are now "sexting" - created the monster from which many now recoil? It's not just about sex; there is an increasing public intolerance of tax havens, but does that mean we are any less greedy? While some argue that individualism has made us more selfish, others say it has encouraged a morality based on considered personal conscience rather than on a consensus which can be flawed. This week, Nicola Sturgeon apologised on behalf of the Scottish Government to all men convicted of now-abolished homosexual offences. Conversely, slavery - once thought acceptable - is now illegal. Are such retrospective judgements not a clear sign of moral progress? To what extent should moral values change as the tide of public opinion ebbs and flows? There are far fewer people who think homosexuality is wrong, but those who continue to think it say that morality should not be decided by a majority vote and does not change over time. If they are right, how can we even begin to define what we mean by moral progress, let alone attempt to measure it?
Producer: Dan Tierney.
The final instalment of the series of the timeless quotations programme 'Quote ... Unquote'. Nigel Rees quizzes Actor and Writer Sally Phillips, Author and Broadcaster Matthew Parris, Historian and Writer Kate Williams and Writer and Actor Frog Stone.
For over forty years, Nigel Rees has been joined by writers, actors, musicians, scientists and various comedy types. Kenneth Williams, Judi Dench, PD James, Larry Adler, Ian KcKellen, Peter Cook, Kingsley Amis, Peter Ustinov... have all graced the Quote ... Unquote stage.
Join Nigel as he quizzes a host of guests on the origins of sayings and well-known quotes, and gets the panel to share their favourite anecdotes.
Episode 6
Historian Kate Williams
Actor and Writer Frog Stone
Actor and Writer Sally Phillips
Columnist and Broadcaster Matthew Parris
Presenter ... Nigel Rees
Reader ... Charlotte Green
Producer ... Katie Tyrrell
Production co-ordinator ... Beverly Tagg
This is a BBC Studios Production.
Wordsworth's daughter Catharine may have had Down's Syndrome. If so, how did that change the poet? Biographer and poet Grevel Lindop investigates.
She's just a tiny footnote to history. Only remembered really because Wordsworth wrote two poems about her, Surprised by Joy and Characteristics of a Child Three Years Old. Catharine was born on September 6 1808, and died on June 3rd 1812, aged three years and nine months. She was the fourth child of William and Mary Wordsworth.
All children are special, but there seems to have been something different about Catharine. Again and again, in letters written by the Wordsworth family, there's a sense of something unusual about her looks and her development.
Ever since Grevel Lindop first read about Catharine, he's been wondering what was so distinctive about her. We know that Wordsworth used to call her 'his little Chinese maiden'. Grevel has been wondering whether Catharine Wordsworth had Down's Syndrome.
When little Catharine was alive, Down's Syndrome had not been identified as a condition. It was only in the 1860s, long after Catharine's death, that Dr John Langdon Down published a paper describing it, and it became recognised as a common genetic condition. Catherine seems to have had some of the features of a child with Down's Syndrome, including the cast of the eye which used to be perceived as giving such children an oriental look.
Did Catharine have Down's Syndrome? Grevel decided to ask a doctor and parents of children with Down's Syndrome to look at the evidence - a small portrait miniature and some letters mainly written by Dorothy, Wordsworth's sister, who lived with the family.
Producer: Matt Thompson
A Rockethouse production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
Hold Me in Your Light. Written and performed by World Slam Poetry Champion Harry Baker.
Dan is the stag at his own stag do. It's a surreal ordeal. He feels detached, anxious about the marriage but unable to speak about feelings to his fellow stags. He escapes to the roof of the bar and sees the people below in the streets of the city he loves. For the first time he notices them glow, leaving trails of light as they move. Perhaps he's found an answer to his doubts.
Producer Mary Ward-Lowery.
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The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
This week's Bells on Sunday, comes from St George's Memorial Church in Ypres, Belgium. St George's was built in 1927 to honour the dead of World War One but funds ran out before bells could be fitted. In August this year, a ring of eight bells - cast by John Taylor & Co. in Loughborough - were hung in the bell tower of St Georges. Here they are now.... recorded just three weeks ago during a special service of dedication at which they were rung for the first time.
The latest national and international news.
There is a golden chain in music which links the author of a work, its various performers and the audiences who hear it. Mark Tully investigates the creative part played by each of these groups over the life of a piece.
He discusses the creative responsibilities and expectations of music making with musician and Professor of Performance Studies, John Rink, and they explore the challenges to traditional attitudes in this artistic chain.
The music chosen includes Chopin, sacred music interpreted by the Hilliard Ensemble, jazz from Billie Holliday and soul from the Edwin Hawkins Singers. There is argument from Igor Stravinsky, Peter Maxwell Davies, Shakespeare and American poet David Lee Garrison.
The readers are Francis Cadder, Christopher Harper and Polly Frame.
Presenter: Mark Tully
Producer: Frank Stirling
A 7digital production for BBC Radio 4.
A project in Wensleydale is one of just a handful of pilots across Europe exploring how to improve the effectiveness of the current system of rewarding farmers for the environmental work they do. David Metcalfe who farms near Hawes is now being paid by result for his work protecting wading bird habitats and rare wildflower eco-systems. In the past to receive payments he's had to stick to strict rules imposed as part of his agri-environment agreement.
So is this new approach better, will it work and how could it help shape the way farmers are paid in a new post-Brexit UK agriculture policy? Caz Graham has been to meet David along with staff from the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority and Natural England who are behind the project.
The latest weather forecast.
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.
Sunday morning religious news and current affairs programme.
Nick Hewer makes the Radio 4 Appeal on behalf of Pancreatic Cancer Action.
Registered Charity Number: 1137689
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 'Pancreatic Cancer Action'.
- Cheques should be made payable to 'Pancreatic Cancer Action'.
The latest weather forecast.
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.
On Remembrance Day, 1987, Lord Eames OM, then the Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh was preparing to preach the sermon at a service in the Cathedral in Enniskillen. The service never happened because a bomb exploded at the town's Cenotaph killing ten people and injuring over sixty.
Thirty years later the Right Rev Lord Eames reflects on the effects of that event and considers the role of remembering in our lives.
From Christ Church, Ballynure, County Antrim.
Led by Right Rev Kenneth Clarke with the New Irish Choir, directed by Jonathan Rea.
Psalm 90.1-6, 13-17
Romans 8. 18-39
O God of love, O King of peace (Rockingham)
Lord for the years (Lord of the years)
Still, my soul, be still (Getty)
A Prayer of St Francis (Rea)
He will hold me fast (arr Rea)
A Clare Benediction (Rutter).
"As the years have passed", writes Will Self, "so gnawing on a bloody piece of cow rump has come to seem, to me, more and more...well, vulgar".
Via Leviticus and Arcimboldo, he charts his conversion to vegetarianism.
And he explains why it's not just personal morals that are "propelling me headlong towards the horror of Quorn"!
Producer: Adele Armstrong.
Gary Moore describes the elation of tracking down the notoriously elusive golden pheasant and finding it basking in sunshine as it poses for a mate.
Producer: Tom Bonnett
Photograph: Martin Clay.
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.
Lilian turns detective, and Ian struggles to make a good impression.
James Naughtie sets the scene in London's Whitehall for the solemn ceremony when the nation remembers the sacrifice made by so many in the two world wars and in other more recent conflicts.
The traditional music of remembrance is played by the massed bands. After the Two Minutes Silence and Last Post, HRH The Prince of Wales lays the first wreath on behalf of nation and commonwealth, before a short Service of Remembrance. During the March Past, both veterans and those involved in recent conflicts throughout the world share their thoughts.
Producer: Helen Lee.
Novelist Nikesh Shukla is learning how to box. It's gone from memories of Rocky movies and watching the big match with family as a child to being a skill he wants for himself. When he voiced his thoughts on Twitter, journalist Hayley Campbell gave him 3 key pieces of advice. She took up kickboxing three years ago and shares how the sport and the partnership with her trainer changed her physically and mentally, but also how the boxing world became a source of fascination leading her to meet and interview some of the most powerful fighters.
Produced by Anne-Marie Bullock.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
David Mitchell hosts the panel game in which four comedians are encouraged to tell lies and compete against one another to see how many items of truth they're able to smuggle past their opponents.
Mark Steel, Holly Walsh, Tony Hawks and Fred Macaulay are the panellists obliged to talk with deliberate inaccuracy on subjects as varied as doughnuts, jellyfish, twitter and Star Wars.
Produced by Jon Naismith
A Random Entertainment production for BBC Radio 4.
On the Food Programme we believe that you can learn a lot about a place by looking at what and how people eat there. With Catalonia so much in the headlines at the moment and Spain in the thick of a constitutional crisis, Sheila Dillon travels to the country's most north-easterly region to take a closer look at what food can tell us about the Catalan story.
The latest weather forecast.
Global news and analysis.
Trevor Dann reports from the USA on an innovative scheme which helps military veterans suffering with post traumatic stress by pairing them with songwriters.
Former soldiers discuss the therapeutic effects of creating songs about their experiences. The founder of the programme, singer-songwriter Darden Smith, explains how the idea came from his song, Angel Flight, about the pilots who bring home the bodies of deceased servicemen and women. And we hear country artist Maia Sharp working on a song with John who lost the use of his arm in a combat incident which is still classified.
A Trevor Dann Company production for BBC Radio 4.
Eric Robson presents the show from the Wellcome Collection in London. Anne Swithinbank, Matt Biggs and Chris Beardshaw answer the audience's horticultural questions.
The panel recommend plants to make a spectacular garden for all the senses, they share the golden rules for pruning and give a masterclass in growing abundant butternut squash.
In the feature Matt Biggs unearths some of the museum's botanical gems with the help of in-house researcher, Julia Nurse, and they explore the role of the gardener in the museum.
Produced by Hannah Newton
Assistant Producer: Laurence Bassett
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.
Fi Glover introduces mothers of daughters with Down's, a mother and sister of children diagnosed with diabetes, and friends with learning disabilities who want to work, 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.
By Mike Walker
Mike Walker's ambitious chronicle of the Russian Tsars concludes with a drama that surveys the reign of Vladimir Putin.
As with Putin's beloved espionage serial The Shield and the Sword, at the heart of this story stands a spy who lives a hundred lives to protect one life: his true identity.
Weaving together many interconnected stories, some true and others fictional, the drama goes in search of the true identity of the enigmatic Russian President, whose leadership has lasted almost 18 years. We tell stories from Putin's childhood, the early days in the KGB, his relationship with outgoing President Yeltsin, the battle with the oligarchs, the fallout from the Kursk tragedy, as well as the accusations of corruption and authoritarian repression.
Does each new story shed further light on the mystery, or leads us further into the labyrinth?
Mariella Frostrup talks to celebrated American novelist Celeste Ng, whose new book Little Fires Everywhere explores what happens when a calm and ordinary suburb is disrupted by the arrival of a new residents - a teenage girl and her artistic mother.
Ian Rankin shares his passion for Thomas Pynchon's 1973 novel Gravity's Rainbow and we hear from the Sharjah Book Fair which has just closed its doors in the UEA.
While the Icelandic crime writer novelist Lilja Sigurdardottir explains why the financial crash of 2008 inspired many authors to explore the society's underbelly.
Image: Celeste NG
Credit: Kevin Day Photography.
The 2017 TS Eliot prize winning poet Jacob Polley returns to the West Coast of Cumbria where he was born. Wedged between the Lake District and the sea its home to a proudly independent border people, who voted for change in the referendum. Jacob wants to understand this place better - to find out why loyalties are shifting - and to get closer to understanding the source of his own writing. Jacob grew up on the Solway, an estuary that's an area of outstanding natural beauty and has been a hazardous shortcut to Scotland since people settled here.
Jacob has felt this marshy landscape of quicksand and shifting channels has always been in flux, and this has been a metaphor he's used in his poetry to capture the sense of vacancy that as a poet he's always felt here. Yet on his journey from the coast to the marsh, Jacob discovers this place is not vacant. It's home to a community who have through history had to fall back on their own resources, and who define themselves as much by what they do, as where they come from.
He visits the Cumbrian artist Conrad Atkinson whose work explores the themes of social injustice and unemployment. Cleator Moor born writer David Gaffney explains why when he was a teenager he felt he lived as far away from Carlisle - the county town of Cumbria - as people in Carlisle feel they are from London.
Yet, this is a place that has been at the centre of things, it was once on the frontier of the Roman Empire. In St. Michael's Church in Burgh-by Sands he discovers recycled Roman stones from the fort of Aballava, on Hadrian's Wall. The chancel was the resting place in 1307 of King Edward I of England, known as 'The Hammer of the Scots'. He died on Burgh Marsh of something called 'The Flux', on the way to crush a rebellion led by Robert the Bruce.
History lives and breathes here, as Jacob meets the Haaf-Net fishermen on the Solway, who catch salmon in the same way as their Viking ancestors did over a thousand years ago. Tuned as they are to shape the shifting nature of the Solway, their very adaptability has been the key to their survival.
What does the leak of files from offshore law firm Appleby reveal about how money is transferred out of the developing world and into the pockets of the rich?
Using leaked documents obtained by German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung and working with the Consortium of Investigative Journalists, File on 4 delves into the records to find out how the rich use secretive tax regimes and corporate structures to divert money via the offshore jurisdiction of Mauritius.
Producer: Anna Meisel
Reporter: David Grossman
Editor: Gail Champion.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest weather forecast.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Liz Barclay chooses her BBC Radio highlights.
What is distracting Lilian? Alan prays for some community spirit.
by Ed Harris
Comic adventures with Dot and the gals from personnel who are getting squiffy over Agent Bertie Whiff-Whaff. Bertie wants Dot promoted, but can Dot handle life on the other side of the hallway? Ed Harris' rollicking comedy starring Fenella Woolgar.
Director/Producer 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 won the Critics Circle Award winner 2013 Most Promising Newcomer for 'Port' at the National Theatre, she also received an Evening Standard Nomination.
The story of a disappearance - told backwards.
David Schofield reads the next in Jon McGregor's short story series set in the Peak District, where 13-year-old Becky Shaw has gone missing. Today: the police question a local man about why he has a gun on his kitchen table...
The fifteen stories of The Reservoir Tapes each stand alone but together build a compelling portrait of a community rocked by tragedy, as they explore events that precede and follow the disappearance the teenage girl. A prequel to Jon McGregor's critically acclaimed Man Booker long-listed novel Reservoir 13, these stories and their different perspectives offer tantalizing glimpses as to might have happened to Becky.
Writer: Jon McGregor is an acclaimed British novelist who has been longlisted for the Man Booker Prize three times. His third novel, Even the Dogs, won the International Dublin Literary Award.
Reader: David Schofield is a distinguished British actor with a long connection to the RSC. His film works includes Gladiator and Pirates of the Caribbean.
Producer: Justine Willett.
Roger Bolton speaks to two listeners with opposing views on The Archers and we speak to Sam Wolfson about declining Radio 1 listener figures.
Following the release of the latest RAJAR figures, which measures radio listening habits, Nick Grimshaw's Radio 1 breakfast show has seen the lowest reach since RAJAR records began. We speak to the network's target audience at a college in Warrington to find out how they are now listening to audio and Sam Wolfson, Executive Editor of VICE UK explains why those figures have dipped.
And The Archers continues to attract new audiences with its dramatic twists and turns. But some listeners say the programme has gone too far. We hear from two Archers fans on opposing sides of the argument.
Well, so, like, you know what I mean...? Sociolinguist Heike Pichler makes a return visit to Feedback to respond to listener comments on the various uses of 'so' and to explain the meaning behind some of Roger's most irritating verbal tics.
And radio that changes lives. We hear from listener Nicola Watson about an episode of 'You and Yours' that gave her the confidence she needed to return to the workforce.
Producer: Kate Dixon
A Whistledown Production for BBC Radio 4.
Matthew Bannister on
The chef Antonio Carluccio who transformed Italian cooking in the UK.
Sima Wali who devoted her life to campaigning for the rights of Afghan women.
The Pulitzer Prize winning American poet laureate Richard Wilbur.
Mary Reveley, the Yorkshire based race horse trainer who saddled more than two thousand winners.
And Dudley Simpson who composed the theme from the TV series Blake's Seven and incidental music for Dr Who.
Interviewed guest: William Sitwell
Interviewed guest: Suleiman Wali
Interviewed guest: Michael Carlson
Interviewed guest: Cornelius Lysaght
Interviewed guest: Matthew Sweet.
Professor James Tilley finds out what we can learn about politics from the power struggles within chimpanzee groups and how our evolutionary past may affect the political decisions that we make today. Interviewing primatologists, evolutionary psychologists and political scientists, he explores the parallels between our political world and that of other primates. These include the way politicians form coalitions, how people choose leaders, loyalties to parties and even how, and when, we go to war. These similarities to other primates reflect our evolutionary heritage and the way in which stone-age human groups settled disputes internally and externally.
Producer: Bob Howard.
Weekly political discussion and analysis with MPs, experts and commentators.
Can you smell a movie? Francine Stock meets perfume expert and blogger Dariush Alavi who believes he can.
Documentary maker Alex Gibney explains how he approached his new film No Stone Unturned, which attempts to solve a murder at the heart of The Troubles.
As Paddington returns in a new adventure about a pop-up book, Larushka Ivan-Zadeh leafs through the history of the magical book in children's movies.
Sean Baker, the filmmaker known for Tangerine, the movie shot entirely on a phone, tells Francine about his new film The Florida Project, the strange real world of Florida motels, and casting his unknown lead after seeing her posts on social media.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
Marxism - Laurie Taylor talks to David Harvey, Professor of Anthropology at CUNY and world authority on Marx's thought. His latest book explores the architecture of capital & insists that Marx's original analysis of our economic system still resonates today. They're joined by Jonathan Sperber, Professor of History at the University of Missouri. He insists that Marx was a 19th century figures who ideas have run their course. Also, 'red' globalisation. James Mark, Professor of History at the University of Exeter, tells a little known story about the way in which anti capitalist ideas once circulated the globe.
Producer: Jayne Egerton.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with the Reverend Andrew Martlew, former Army Chaplain.
Affordable homes in rural areas are hard to come by. Now a report from the National Housing Federation says this scarcity is driving young people out of the countryside - and warns that by 2039, almost half of rural households will over the age of 65.
The organisation says this lack of 'new blood' is prompting a decline in local services such as schools, shops and post offices - but it believes the trend could be reversed, if a few new affordable homes specifically geared towards young families were built.
We hear from David Orr, the Chief Executive at the National Housing Federation, which represents housing associations - and get the developer perspective from Andrew Whitaker, the planning director at the Home Builders Federation.
All this week, Farming Today will be shining a spotlight on farm tenancies - and the pros, cons and future of rented agricultural land. Currently, rented land makes up around one-third of the total area farmed across England and Wales. Charlotte Smith asks George Dunn, the chief executive of the Tenant Farmers Association, what forms these tenancies take.
We're all so used to seeing dry stone walls - or dykes as they're known in Scotland - that we generally pay little attention to how they stay upright or the skills involved in building and maintaining them. But these walls are an essential part of the rural landscape, and today there's a growing demand for them along new stretches of road. This industry boom has highlighted a worrying lack of skilled craftsmen and women, particularly in Scotland. Nancy Nicolson headed out into the Pentlands to meet up with Richard Love of the Dry Stone Walling Association - who's campaigning for more training in the ancient rural crafts.
The latest weather forecast for farmers.
Presenter Dermot O'Leary goes in search of sea eagles in the Highlands. He's enlisted wildlife cameraman Gordon Buchanan to help him track them down but with the light fading their chances of seeing them are not looking good.
Producer: Tom Bonnett
Photo: Ian Ireland.
News and current affairs. Includes Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
'I'm mad as hell, and I'm not going to take it anymore'. These are the words of the news anchor-man in the film Network, now adapted for the stage. The director Ivo van Hove tells Francine Stock how this satire on global capitalism and chasing ratings with populist rants has such relevance today. Composer Nico Muhly also looks to Hollywood, adapting Hitchock's film Marnie - and the novel that inspired it - for the English National Opera. Born into poverty, Marnie becomes trapped in a web of lies and angrily claws her way out. Anger pervades Darren McGarvey's book, Poverty Safari, as he takes the reader on a journey into Britain's deprived communities to give voice to people who feel misunderstood and unheard. He explores how stress pervades the streets where he was brought up, while the scientist Caroline Relton studies how stress and other environmental factors can be passed down through generations, effecting our genetic make-up.
Producer: Katy Hickman.
Neil MacGregor's series on the role and expression of beliefs continues this week with a focus on images.
In Mexico, the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe came not from the hand of an artist, but was directly given from heaven - according to its history. Our Lady of Guadalupe is now the most powerful of presiding images, and the Basilica of Guadalupe near Mexico City is said to be the most visited Roman Catholic pilgrimage site in the world.
The sanctuary of the goddess Artemis in the great trading city of Ephesus, now in western Turkey, was by far the most celebrated temple of the antique Mediterranean, and the cult of Artemis spread eastwards towards the Black Sea, and westwards towards Spain. Artemis was thought to protect the vulnerable at their moments of greatest personal danger.
Neil MacGregor also visits a shrine devoted to a woman sometimes perceived as a contemporary protectoress.
Producer Paul Kobrak
The series is produced in partnership with the British Museum, with the assistance of Dr Christopher Harding, University of Edinburgh.
Photograph (c) The Trustees of the British Museum.
American actress Sonequa Martin-Green is probably best known for her role as Sasha Williams in the TV series The Walking Dead. She now stars as the first black female lead in the Star Trek series, 50 years after the original franchise was first broadcast. As a woman of colour, what's been her experience in Hollywood?
Why are more older women dying from alcohol related illness? Since 2001 there's been a 35% increase in the number of deaths of women aged between 60-64 from conditions like liver disease or heart failure. Professor Ilana Crome who co-chairs a Royal College of Psychiatrists' working group on older substance abusers and London GP Dr Philippa Kaye discuss.
We talk to Dr Laura Stachel about why she invented a solar-powered midwifery suitcase and winning an award at the UN Climate Change conference.
15 year-old actor Sydney Wade on her role as Skye, the lead character in the new series of the Children In Need drama D For Dexter. It's part she's played since she was 11 so what's it been like to grow up with the role?
Presenter: Jane Garvey
Producer: Anne Peacock.
Skye and Dexter are back in this award-winning serial, one of the highlights of the BBC Children in Need Appeal on Radio 4.
Jak is drinking again, so Skye has to look out for Dexter. She never knows if her mum is going to be in, out, or out of it. Last night she didn't come home at all. Doesn't bother Skye. Her mum can do what she wants: it's her life. Except it's Dexter's life too, and if social services find out how bad things are, they might come and take him away again.
Skye is fourteen and Dexter's five, and they live in Gainsborough in Lincolnshire. Dexter has just started school, so Skye has to drop him off and pick him up, because Jak can't do it. She'd never remember and if by some miracle she did, the teachers would see her and then there'd be questions. Luckily Skye's been excluded from her school, so she can keep an extra close eye on what's going on at home and make sure Dexter's where he should be.
She needs to be on her toes, because you never know who Jak might bring home next.
This year's story was developed with the help of Footsteps 2000, an organisation that supports young people who are affected by a loved one's substance misuse, and receives funding for specific projects from BBC Children in Need.
Writer...Amanda Whittington
Director...Mary Ward-Lowery
Music by Smashing Pumpkins and Beyoncé, performed by Tom Constantine.
This is Rob's story - a man who lost his voice and is trying to get it back.
Rob is a warm and charismatic man who says he's an extrovert. He's a successful business-coach - a people-centred job he loves.
But two years ago he lost his voice. At first he thought he'd shouted too much at the rugby, but then he discovered he'd developed the rare neurological condition, Spasmodic Dysphonia, which has severely affected his ability to speak. It's having a serious impact on both his social and working life.
Producer, Karen Gregor, follows Rob for six months as he tries to improve his voice: he gets treatment at the QE hospital in Birmingham with Consultant ENT surgeon, Declan Costello; he seeks out voice coaching with Christina Shewell in Bristol; and he meets a woman with the same very rare condition who might, just might, shed some light on what on earth he should do.
Grace Dent tells the story. Karen Gregor produces.
Five Lessons by Marcy Kahan
Nigella Smith is no ordinary piano student. Can her piano tutor win her trust in just five lessons?
A comedy about retreating, advancing and the joys of humming.
Pianist Peter Ringrose
Produced and directed by Marion Nancarrow
Maureen Lipman's hugely successful career as actress, writer, artist and, most recently, director, has spanned 50 years and, in her honour, 4 new comedy dramas have been especially commissioned for Radio 4, with the writers creating roles specifically for her. The results are 4 very different plays. This is the second of the four. In it, she stars with Julian Rhind-Tutt (Green Wing, The Bastard Executioner).
Next week, she & George Layton play husband & wife Alan and Fay, on a trip to a Jewish cemetery to honour their dead. But the line between life and death seems to be more blurred than it used. The final play, "Theodora Potts: Victorian Psychic" has been co-written by Tracy-Ann Oberman, who also co-stars in it with her friend.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
The first episode of a new season, set in the North East, in the shadow of the Russian Revolution. On this day in 1917, in Petrograd, the Bolsheviks conclusively defeated Kerensky's counter-revolutionaries, and in Tynemouth, Edie Chadwick is looking for a fight.
Written by Sebastian Baczkiewicz
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole
Notes
The excitement and fear provoked by the Bolshevik Revolution that overturned Russia, Britain's greatest ally in the war, rippled out around the world and - briefly - made people believe that anything was possible.
Season 12 of Home Front, 'Giddy with Possibility', is set back in the world of industrial Tyneside, at a time of unprecedented unrest and union activity, and where ladies' football is gaining a foothold in the national imagination.
Story-led by Shaun McKenna, Season 12 brings together the talents of Sebastian Baczkiewicz, Sarah Daniels, Caroline Horton and Katie Hims.
You and Yours looks at a new controversial report calling for reform of the ombudsman system.
The report from Moneysaving Expert and MPs in the All Party Parliamentary Group on Consumer Protection says too many companies are ignoring rulings.
Researchers asked 1,409 people who'd gone to an ombudsman with a complaint if they'd to it again.
Just over half said they wouldn't deal with the Ombudsman again because it takes too long.
But those working in the ombudsman system say some of the criticisms aren't fair and don't give the full picture.
We speak to Yvonne Forvague, chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Consumer Protection.
We also hear from Donal Galligan, Director of the Ombudsman Association.
We investigate a furniture company that's been selling its customers bespoke furniture online through platforms like eBay and Facebook.
But some customers are telling us they've spent hundreds of pounds but not received their goods.
National Trading standards explain what rights consumers have and what more social media and e-commerce sites should be doing to shut down rogue practices sooner.
We hear from the first-time dad whose attempts at making parenthood more affordable have gone viral.
Mark Hoyle from Nottingham has set up Lad Baby - a YouTube channel documenting his journey from lad to dad.
He speaks to our presenter about how he's built a following of more than one million people on social media.
Presenter: Winifred Robinson
Producer: Tara Holmes.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
The story of Joseph Conrad, abridged in five parts by Katrin Williams. He was the author of Heart Of Darkness, Lord Jim, and sailed the seas..
1. After the death of his father, young Conrad is in the care of his Uncle Tadeuz for some years. One day he announces his plans to go to sea, to travel to the great port of Marseilles and find a ship. How will his uncle react?
Reader Laurel Lefkow
Producer Duncan Minshull.
by Roy Williams, with Kenneth Cranham and Alex Lanipekun. The story of Colin.
Colin's wife and daughter have been brutally attacked in their home, but no-one seems to have broken in. When the truth finally comes out, even Max is taken aback.
Directed by Mary Peate
Original music by David Pickvance.
(1/12)
Round Britain Quiz marks the start of its 70th anniversary series with a special programme recorded at this year's Edinburgh Fringe - also celebrating its 70th birthday in 2017. Tom Sutcliffe chairs the opening contest between the South of England and Scotland, pitting Marcus Berkmann and Paul Sinha against Val McDermid and Alan McCredie. Before an enthusiastic Fringe audience they face the programme's trademark cryptic questions, with Tom deducting points along the way depending on how many clues and nudges he is called on to provide.
Producer: Paul Bajoria.
In the middle of the greatest national crisis since the Civil War the American Government looked to the arts to both help lift the national spirit & spread the message of the New Deal. The writer Marybeth Hamilton begins her journey through this remarkable but short lived experiment with the story of fine arts.Collectively, it was hoped, Americans could renew democracy & create a better tomorrow through participation & exposure to music, art & theater. The W.P.A. was an extension of Federal Relief, meaningful work for those that needed it and qualified for it. Which meant the talents of thousands of unemployed actors, musicians, writers and artists across the nation could be put to use in the betterment of all. On the government payroll and under the auspices of Federal One, a host of talents from Jackson Pollock to Arthur Miller, Orson Welles to Zora Neale Hurston helped democratize art. For the people, by the people with the people.
Across the nation, artists painted epic murals in small towns and vast cities that valorized work and workers or America's democratic past. Community art centres brought artists, students and the public together to learn, experiment and explore the possibilities of art for all. You could find art going on at subway stations, sewerage works and public schools. A hospital, school or public institution could loan a painting for a few dollars. All of this was to provide employment in a time of crisis and renew American democracy but it raised deep questions about the role of art and who got to own it or see it. For its many critics programmes like Federal One were fostered radicalism and dissent - subverting a nation. But for the many touched by those days it was an unforgettable experiment in art and democracy.
Producer Mark Burman.
The rituals of Remembrance Sunday still have power to move us. The thought of the millions who died, many of whom have no known grave; they are victims of war known only to God. For the many families who mourned loved ones killed in the World Wars, the fact that there were no bodies to bury, no tangible evidence of death, made the process of grieving and letting go all the more difficult. But does it pose a problem religiously? Joining Ernie Rea to discuss how we mourn our dead loved ones in the absence of a body are Professor Douglas Davies, Director of the Centre for Death and Life Studies at the University of Durham; Dr Miri Freud-Kandel, Fellow in Modern Judaism at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies; and Dr Chetna Kang, who is a Consultant Psychiatrist and Hindu Priest.
Producer: Amanda Hancox.
Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
The 68th series of Radio 4's multi award-winning 'antidote to panel games' promises yet more quality, desk-based entertainment for all the family. The series starts its run at the Swan Theatre in High Wycombe where regulars Graeme Garden, Tim Brooke-Taylor and Barry Cryer are joined on the panel by Jan Ravens, with Jack Dee as the programme's reluctant chairman. Regular listeners will know to expect inspired nonsense, pointless revelry and Colin Sell at the piano. Producer - Jon Naismith. It is a BBC Studios production.
Adam feels cornered, and Jolene gets the lowdown.
Arts news, interviews and reviews.
Laura Barton completes her three-part examination of the place of confidence in modern life with a personal quest to explore the role of confidence in our everyday lives and relationships.
She begins by speaking with Maria Konnikova, author of 'The Confidence Game' about the history and methodology of con artists who invite us to place our confidence in them before betraying that trust. We should, she concludes, be very wary of a kind of confidence that is loud and intended to mislead us.
Laura seeks out an alternative version of confidence that might enrich us, taking part in a professional workshop to find out whether, in the words of another attendee, it's possible to display confidence "without turning into a jerk."
She speaks with the workshop leader, psychotherapist Jo Ellen Grzyb, about how she has managed to move from being 'a human doormat' in her early life to being the head of an organisation teaching people how to become more confident.
Laura also meets voice coach Patsy Rodenburg, who has for many years helped world leaders, actors and business figures develop their self-confidence through a variety of physical and mental exercises. Too many people, she warns, adopt a 'fake it til you make it' approach that is, she says, little more than a bluff and no replacement for a more systematic and long term approach to building up a meaningful measure of confidence.
These days when we talk about politicians we are more likely to discuss whether they are authentic than whether they are great orators or statesmen or women. Few of us take the time to listen to a speech or read a manifesto and when we judge politicians we more often focus on whether they seem sincere, warm or passionately committed to a cause rather than weighing up their policy programmes . We're turned off by spin and cynical about many politicians' motivations and we seek reassurance that they can really be trusted.
Professor Rosie Campbell asks how we can make judgements about a politician's authenticity. Are politicians more trustworthy if they stick to their principles without compromise? Or is authenticity about revealing our true character, warts and all? And what is better for democracy? Authentic leaders who are straight talking and stick rigidly to their ideals or leaders who are willing to negotiate behind the scenes?
Producer: Ben Carter.
Brett Westwood admires how the impossible-looking creature once known as the 'camelopard' went from a beloved creature in the African plains to becoming a worldwide sensation spreading 'giraffemania' as news and sightings of its striking beauty travelled around the world. Author Michael Allin tells the story of 'Zarafa' a giraffe taken from Ethiopia to the docks of Marseille that then walked into the heart of Paris, art historian Dr Alexandra Loske describes how King George IV's ailing giraffe was a metaphor for his rule of Britain. We hear from a man whose project sent giraffes viral way before the internet had been taken over by cat and dog memes and we take a more serious look at how giraffe numbers are falling but the world seems not to be listening.
Producer: Tom Bonnett.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
Kif Kehlmann is a penniless writer. He has never been published. In fact, he hasn't even completed his first novel. But he is committed to literature - great literature.
Kif and his wife Suzy have a young daughter and they are also expecting twins, they can't pay their bills and interest rates are spiralling out of control in early 1990s Australia. So when Kif's best mate Ray, who happens to be minder and bodyguard to Australia's most notorious conman, suggests Kif accepts the job offer of ghostwriting the fraudster's memoir, Kif has a dilemma.
But it doesn't take him long to abandon literature in favour of actually getting a book published - and getting paid. The only problem is they have less than six weeks before Australia's most wanted, Ziggy Heidl, goes on trial - and Ziggy appears pathologically incapable of telling the truth about anything.
First Person is the novel Richard Flanagan began to write just before he won the Booker Prize for The Narrow Road to The Deep North (2014), a novel which was acclaimed by The Guardian as a masterpiece. He has also been described as the greatest Australian writer of his generation.
As a penniless young writer, he accepted the job of ghostwriting the autobiography of Australia's most famous criminal who was about to go on trial for defrauding the banks of $700 million dollars. John Friedrich, the conman, died before he went to trial. Decades later, Flanagan takes this bizarre, real life episode as the starting point for a chilling and at times darkly funny novel about truth and lies and the difference between good and evil.
Written by Richard Flanagan
Abridged by Jill Waters and Isobel Creed
Read by Luke Mullins
Produced by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4.
EPISODE TWO: IDENTITY AND EMPATHY
Poet, playwright and performer Sabrina Mahfouz presents part two of Power Lines. She looks at identity and empathy with poets from Wrexham to Huddersfield and from Birmingham to Southend-On-Sea.
She talks to poet and playwright Yomi Sode about writing with his family and moving from the stage to the page. Welsh writer Sophie McKeand explains how walking in the woods inform her work. Bohdan Piasecki performs a poem in Polish. And she seeks out Lisa Luxx whose performances are celebrated for their power and connectivity.
This programme contains strong language.
A Wire Free Production for BBC Radio 4. Producer: Sally Spurring.
The poems featured in this episode are:
Jet Sweeney "RIP(E)"
Yomi Sode "Take It Back" (from the Roundhouse "And Now What" Season)
Yomi Sode "Daily Ijo"
Catherine Wilson "Today I Took A Bus Ride With My Anxiety"
Sophie McKeand "How. To. Ask. For. Help."
Bohdan Piasecki "Cisza"
Lisa Luxx "Grandmother Earth".
Susan Hulme reports from Westminster.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with the Reverend Andrew Martlew, former Army Chaplain.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
Since his early teens, presenter Dermot O'Leary has into birdlife and from his kitchen in Central London he loves gazing into the garden and watching the effort small birds like the coal tit put in as they troop back and forth from the bird feeders.
Producer: Tom Bonnett
Photo: Tom McKibbin.
News and current affairs. Including Yesterday in Parliament, Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
We may be more connected than ever, but we are, in many ways, strangers to each other. How many of your close friends have radically different politics, values or life experiences from you? And when did you last share a meal with someone from a totally different background?
In this programme, Douglas Alexander tries to find out why we've become so polarised as a nation and what we can do about it. His time as a politician convinced him that government alone cannot mend Britain's divisions. So what can we do as a society and as individuals?
Douglas seeks advice from those who've studied Britain's fault lines and traced their causes - from political and economic forces to neuroscience and psychology. We also hear from those with expertise in bringing together people from different backgrounds - from the head of the UK army to the members of an Edinburgh cooking club. He also takes inspiration from the head of the Roman Catholic Church, Pope Francis, who's argued that, for human beings to flourish, we need to create a Culture of Encounter.
Neil MacGregor continues his series on the expression of shared beliefs with a focus on the making of divine images.
For the painter of a Russian religious icon, the paramount purpose is the continuation of a tradition, in which the painter seeks only to take his proper place, creating an image which opens a gateway to the divine.
The Hindu goddess Durga is at the centre of the popular annual festival of Durga Puja, where communities create images of the goddess in everyday materials - clay, wood, straw and oil paint - which then are endowed with a transcendental character.
Producer Paul Kobrak
Produced in partnership with the British Museum
Photograph (c) The Trustees of the British Museum.
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.
By Amanda Whittington.
Even though she's drinking and she's mostly out of it, Jak knows that Leanne is bad news. But still, she's made Skye move in to Dexter's room and now Leanne thinks everything is hers. She won't stop talking and smoking weed.
But Skye knows something even worse. She knows what's in Leanne's bin bags.
Brett Westwood stalks the leopard.. and finds him on Exmoor. With Guy Balme of Panthera, Gordon Buchanan, who filmed the urban leopards of Mumbai for Planet Earth, zoologist and author of Leopard Desmond Morris, Rick Minter, author of Big Cats - Facing Britain's Wild Predators and Danny Reynolds, Director of Exmoor Zoo. With readings by Lia Williams of The Snow Leopard by Stephen Dunn and Leopard Skin by Douglas Stewart.
Producer Beth O'Dea. Photo of Zoysa the black leopard (commonly known as a black panther) courtesy of Exmoor Zoo.
Protest art in Latin America. A continent-wide commitment by many artists to social activism makes Latin America not just one of the most diverse art scenes in the world - but also one of the most compelling, with music, visual arts and street art calling out injustice, often in the face of discrimination, oppression and impunity.
This first of three programmes examines the process of memorialisation in two countries which have suffered civil conflict and dictatorship - Guatemala and Chile. These brutal histories remain, in the words of Amanda Jara, "a sceptic wound". How can art help heal the trauma?
Amanda is the daughter of protest singer-songwriter Victor Jara, one of the first victims of Chilean dictator Pinochet's regime. She has been trying to re-open the notorious Estadio de Chile, now called the Victor Jara stadium and where war crimes took place under Pinochet, as a memorial and arts venue.
Meanwhile, in Santiago's Museum of Memory, an immersive installation by Alfredo Jaar, The Geometry Of Conscience, brings visitors face to face with victims of Pinochet's regime.
In Guatemala, artist Daniel Hernandez-Salazar uses photography to expose a history of genocide, while Mayan theatre group Mujeres Ajchowen resurrect the indigenous culture that the Guatemalan war tried to obliterate.
Dubbing Voices: Yuri Betancourt Garcia, Esmeralda Lobos, Maria Fernanda Reyna
Field Broadcast Assistant: Annie-Rose Harrison-Dunn
Executive Producer: Sarah Cuddon
Video Editor: Nick Romero
Producers: Louise Morris, Andrew McGibbon
A Curtains for Radio production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
On this day in 1917, the women's suffrage movement in America turned a corner, as 33 protesters were brutally tortured and beaten in a fabled 'Night of Terror', while in Tynemouth, there's a zealous new Women's Welfare Officer.
Written by Sebastian Baczkiewicz
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole.
Consumer phone-in.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
The story of Joseph Conrad, abridged in five parts by by Katrin Williams. He was the author of Heart Of Darkness, Lord Jim, and sailed the seas..
2. It's 1878 and that teeming metropolis called London excites Conrad. From here he will board ships. And from other ports of the world he will board other ships, including the Vidar, which will fuel his writing life..
Reader Laurel Lefkow
Producer Duncan Minshull.
by Roy Williams, with Kenneth Cranham and Alex Lanipekun. The story of Jonny.
When the defendant in a rape case is found innocent, Max just can't seem to let it go.
Directed by Mary Peate
Original music by David Pickvance.
Josie Long hears stories which come out of nowhere. A story of creation, time and disappearance; a writer takes a precarious drive down an icy road imagining the dive into nothing at the edge of her vision, and the unexpected kindness of a stranger pulls a man back from the brink.
Thin Air
Feat. Laura Barton
The Water
Produced by Rikke Houd
Originally broadcast on CBC's Love Me
http://www.cbc.ca/radio/loveme/the-island-and-the-sea-1.4234588
The Kindness of Strangers
Produced by Claire Crofton
Series Producer: Eleanor McDowall
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4.
Tom Heap reports from the UN Climate Change Conference in Bonn this week
Producer Martin Poyntz-Roberts.
Legal magazine programme presented by Joshua Rozenberg.
The novelist Jon McGregor (If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, Even the Dogs, Reservoir 13) doesn't normally like books where the story springs from 'letters and diaries found in the attic'. Can Penelope Lively's Moon Tiger convince him otherwise? (A book his fellow guest, the writer Cathy Rentzenbrink (The Last Act of Love, A Manual for Heartache) loves so much she has re-read it countless times). Cathy doesn't much like nature writing. Can Jon's choice of a book of poetic essays - Things That Are by Amy Leach - bring her round? And might they at least find common ground with Harriett's choice, Alan Johnson's memoir This Boy?
Produced by Mair Bosworth.
Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Episode 4: An Enemy of the People
Following an encounter with Jack, the refuse collector at the recycling centre, Ed is persuaded to enter the world of local politics. Jack holds Ed as a bit of a hero after reading his comments on various ballot papers when assisting with the local count at several elections and decides that Ed would make the perfect local councillor. Ed takes very little persuading when he discovers the emoluments he can expect and begins his campaign with the help of his new agent, Maggie.
Written by Andrew Nickolds and Christopher Douglas
Produced by Dawn Ellis
It was a BBC Studios Production.
Justin is not a happy man, and Harrison plays detective.
Arts news, interviews and reviews.
The head of counter terrorism Assistant Commander Mark Rowley has warned the extreme right wing pose a growing threat in the UK. He told the Home Affairs select committee last month that right wing issues had increased in the last two years which was a real concern, although Islamic extremism remained the main threat.
Last month, two men alleged to be members of National Action - a banned extreme far right group - were charged in connection with an alleged plot to kill an MP.
Adrian Goldberg investigates the current face of the far right in the UK today and hears from their victims.
He meets the former soldier who intervened after a far right extremist tried to behead a Sikh man and challenges the Austrian leader of a group called Generation Identity which launched in the UK only last month.
They are part of a Europe wide group of so called 'Identitarians' who say their aim is to protect cultural identity. But their target is clear. Members unfurled a banner over Westminster bridge in London which declared "Defend London, Stop Islamisation."
Experts say there is now growing cross border co-operation between far right groups in Europe, the UK and America.
Jewish communities are also worried about the rise in the far right and growing anti-Semitic attacks. A student who highlighted far right posters being put up at her university was forced to move after a hate campaign which included her face being superimposed on pictures of holocaust victims. Businesses have been firebombed and some members of the Jewish community say they are so concerned they are considering leaving the country.
The programme reveals new research on the scale of far right extremism on-line. Thousands of people in the UK have been identified as having violent extremist thoughts. Former extremists have been brought in to try to persuade people to change their views. But are they listening?
Presenter: Adrian Goldberg
Producer: Paul Grant
Editor: Gail Champion.
News, views and information for people who are blind or partially sighted.
Claudia Hammond launches the 2018 All in the Mind Awards - a chance for anyone who has received help for a mental health problem, to recognise the people and organisations who have gone above and beyond the call of duty
1 in 3 of us will experience problems with our mental health at some time in our lives, and help and support from people around us can make all the difference in how we cope day to day and helping us on the road to recovery. Between now and the end of January 2018 the Radio 4 All in the Mind Awards is seeking listeners' experiences of brilliant mental health care and to recognise the people - the unsung heroes who helped make the difference.
The judging panel this year includes Star Wards founder Marion Janner; director of nursing and mental health services Mandy Stevens; Dr Mathijs Lucassen lecturer in mental health ; and Claudia Hammond, psychologist and All In The Mind presenter.
There are 3 categories for the awards, the individual, professional or project.
Individual Award : An individual family member, friend, boss or colleague who offered significant support
Professional Award: A mental health professional whose dedication, help and support made a really significant difference to you. This could be a psychologist, psychiatrist, social worker, nurse, volunteer or other professional
Project Award: A mental health project or group you took part in, which made a big difference to your recovery or the way you cope.
The winners of the awards will be announced during a ceremony to be held at the Wellcome Collection in London in June 2017
Join Claudia Hammond and members of this year's judging panel to hear the moving stories of past winners who have gone beyond the call of duty in the lives of people with mental health difficulties, and details of how to apply for the 2018 Awards.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
Kif Kehlmann is a penniless writer. He has never been published. In fact, he hasn't even completed his first novel. But he is committed to literature - great literature.
Kif and his wife Suzy have a young daughter and they are also expecting twins, they can't pay their bills and interest rates are spiralling out of control in early 1990s Australia. So when Kif's best mate Ray, who happens to be minder and bodyguard to Australia's most notorious conman, suggests Kif accepts the job offer of ghostwriting the fraudster's memoir, Kif has a dilemma.
But it doesn't take him long to abandon literature in favour of actually getting a book published - and getting paid. The only problem is they have less than six weeks before Australia's most wanted, Ziggy Heidl, goes on trial - and Ziggy appears pathologically incapable of telling the truth about anything.
First Person is the novel Richard Flanagan began to write just before he won the Booker Prize for The Narrow Road to The Deep North (2014), a novel which was acclaimed by The Guardian as a masterpiece. He has also been described as the greatest Australian writer of his generation.
As a penniless young writer, he accepted the job of ghostwriting the autobiography of Australia's most famous criminal who was about to go on trial for defrauding the banks of $700 million dollars. John Friedrich, the conman, died before he went to trial. Decades later, Flanagan takes this bizarre, real life episode as the starting point for a chilling and at times darkly funny novel about truth and lies and the difference between good and evil.
Written by Richard Flanagan
Abridged by Jill Waters and Isobel Creed
Read by Luke Mullins
Produced by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4.
Fred MacAulay introduces some of the funniest comedians in the UK doing what they do best - pure stand up comedy. Recorded at The Stand Comedy Club in Edinburgh.
This week, the unstoppable Jason Cook tells a story about performing on a cruise ship, JoJo Sutherland lets slip some of her supermum secrets, Eddy Brimson survives a terrorist attack, and Scotsman Gareth Waugh has a plan to save the bees.
A Dabster production for BBC Radio 4.
Sean Curran reports from Westminster.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with the Reverend Andrew Martlew, former Army Chaplain.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
Presenter Dermot O'Leary hails the greater black-backed gull as an 'Alsatian of the skies' as he marvels at their hardy survival skills and effortless aerodynamics.
Producer: Tom Bonnett
Photo: Simon Richardson.
Morning news and current affairs. Including Yesterday in Parliament, Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
Tom Morris , artistic director of the Bristol Old Vic theatre, meets Bristol's Poet Laureate Miles Chambers, to discuss how the theatre can best address Bristol's complex past, and its engagement with the transatlantic slave trade.
Producer Clare Walker.
Political cartoonist and renowned cynic Martin Rowson sits down to draw and interview veteran journalist Julia Langdon, whom he worked with in his early days on newspapers.
This is the second sketch in a five part series, where Martin draws and interviews people who have shaped his work and wider life. He also puts pen to paper with ex-Chancellor George Osborne, illustrator Ralph Steadman, zoologist Sarah Christie and punk poet John Cooper Clarke.
Photographer: Sam Finney.
Producer: Becky Ripley.
Neil MacGregor continues his series about the expression of shared beliefs with a focus on how we come to comprehend sacred images.
Our understanding of the rock art created by the San people of southern Africa over many centuries is helped by written accounts, so that what first appears to be an image of a hunting expedition becomes a record of a spiritual journey into another realm of experience. "For many years it was a matter of gaze and guess," says David Lewis Williams, an authority on rock art: "You gaze at it, and if you gaze long enough, your guess will take you close to what it's all about - and I'm afraid that's not the case, but we don't have to gaze and guess any more."
In the British Museum, a small 19th century Japanese shrine shows the spirits coming to visit a long-settled agricultural society. The curved doors of a small wooden box open to reveal, inside, a shimmering world of carved gilded wood, and a scene to which Japanese viewers would bring different interpretations.
Producer Paul Kobrak
Produced in partnership with the British Museum
Photograph (c) The Trustees of the British Museum.
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.
By Amanda Whittington.
Last night Skye had a sort of sleepover, first time ever. With Leanne. She can't invite anyone home from school because of Jak's drinking, and no one ever asks her to theirs, so this is the next best thing.
And the tattoo that Leanne did on her ankle is still there.
Two young carers reflect on time spent just being teenagers, thanks to YMCA Cardiff (Time 4 Me Young Carers project), funded by Children In Need. Fi Glover presents another conversation in the series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen.
Producer: Marya Burgess.
After a successful first series on Radio 4 and a sold-out run at the Edinburgh Festival, policeman turned comic, Alfie Moore, returns with the series that makes his audience make the policing decisions as he takes them through a real life crime scenario.
This week in the first of a new series he asks whether we think ALL crime should be reported and investigated. You may be surprised at the result.
Written and performed by Alfie Moore,
Script Editor ..... Will Ing,
Producer..... Alison Vernon-Smith.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
On this day in 1917, the Finnish parliament declared their independence from Russia, and in Tynemouth, Johnnie sees more to Aunt Phyllis than he'd suspected.
Cast
Johnnie Marshall ..... Paul Ready
Cressida Marshall ..... Isabella Inchbald
Sarah Illingworth ..... Naomi Frederick
Matthew Ash ..... David Reakes
Phyllis Marshall ..... Christine Absalom
Adeline Lumley ..... Helen Schlesinger
Beatrice Marshall ..... Eviee Lavery
Gussie Marshall ..... Grace Doherty
Written by Sebastian Baczkiewicz
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole.
Consumer affairs programme.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
The story of Joseph Conrad, abridged in five parts by Katrin Williams. He was the author of Heart Of Darkness, Lord Jim, and sailed the seas..
3. He meets Marguerite Poradowski and emotional letters follow - for years. Then his trek through the Congo to secure a posting is nightmarish, but the experience will later fuel his fiction.
Reader Laurel Lefkow
Producer Duncan Minshull.
by Roy Williams, with Kenneth Cranham and Alex Lanipekun. The story of Kellie.
Sean agrees to go for a drink with his old schoolfriend, Kellie. Little does he know what he's letting himself in for. Exciting series-ender.
Directed by Mary Peate
Original music by David Pickvance.
Financial phone-in.
Sociological discussion programme, presented by Laurie Taylor.
Topical programme about the fast-changing media world.
Terry is living proof that Bev gets results at the Children in Need-funded play and youth group she runs at Alison House. 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.
Comedy series by Katherine Jakeways about four generations of women living under one roof.
As relationships wobble, members of the family descend upon Maggie to provide support, plumbing advice and tea. Rent-free, naturally.
All Those Women explores familial relationships, ageing, marriages - it's about life and love and things not turning out quite the way that you'd expected them to. Every week we join Hetty, Maggie, Jen and Emily as they struggle to resolve their own problems, and support one another.
A BBC Radio Comedy Production.
Ruth tries to play match-maker, and is it goodbye to an Ambridge tradition?
Arts news, interviews and reviews.
Combative, provocative and engaging debate chaired by Michael Buerk. With Claire Fox, Matthew Taylor, Anne McElvoy and Mona Siddiqui.
Geoff Colman discusses truth and reality in acting.
As Head of Acting at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama in London, Geoff has an unparalleled view of the shifting worlds of acting and drama. But in recent years he has been asked to coach artists across the performing arts, in fields where acting - in particular acting for the camera - would never previously have been a concern. In this Four Thought, Geoff tells the story of how he fell in love with the theatre of acting, and how technology is forcing a new relationship with reality, and truth.
Producer: Giles Edwards.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
Kif Kehlmann is a penniless writer. He has never been published. In fact, he hasn't even completed his first novel. But he is committed to literature - great literature.
Kif and his wife Suzy have a young daughter and they are also expecting twins, they can't pay their bills and interest rates are spiralling out of control in early 1990s Australia. So when Kif's best mate Ray, who happens to be minder and bodyguard to Australia's most notorious conman, suggests Kif accepts the job offer of ghostwriting the fraudster's memoir, Kif has a dilemma.
But it doesn't take him long to abandon literature in favour of actually getting a book published - and getting paid. The only problem is they have less than six weeks before Australia's most wanted, Ziggy Heidl, goes on trial - and Ziggy appears pathologically incapable of telling the truth about anything.
First Person is the novel Richard Flanagan began to write just before he won the Booker Prize for The Narrow Road to The Deep North (2014), a novel which was acclaimed by The Guardian as a masterpiece. He has also been described as the greatest Australian writer of his generation.
As a penniless young writer, he accepted the job of ghostwriting the autobiography of Australia's most famous criminal who was about to go on trial for defrauding the banks of $700 million dollars. John Friedrich, the conman, died before he went to trial. Decades later, Flanagan takes this bizarre, real life episode as the starting point for a chilling and at times darkly funny novel about truth and lies and the difference between good and evil.
Written by Richard Flanagan
Abridged by Jill Waters and Isobel Creed
Read by Luke Mullins
Produced by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4.
Lenny Henry writes and stars in a darkly comic story about Stan Clayton who has been a butcher all his life and hopes his sons will follow in his footsteps. But when one of them brings home a cherry red Stratocaster one day, it seems that Stan's plans are for the chopping block.
Producer - Sam Michell
It is a BBC Studios Production.
Sam Bain's adaptation of his own comic novel tells the story of Pierre (Alex Macqueen), a man too enthralled in the minutiae of celebrity gossip to notice that his house is about to be repossessed.
This week Pierre hits on a plan to finally make sure his favourite celebrity notices he exists. All he needs is a ticket to Strictly Come Dancing and an out of date prawn sandwich.
Written by Sam Bain (Peep Show, Fresh Meat)
Starring Alex MacQueen (The Thick of It) and Lolly Adefope (Plebs)
Produced by Gareth Edwards
A BBC Studios production.
Susan Hulme reports from Westminster.
Dealing with the depression that comes with having to give up work is a big part of dealing with cancer. This conversation was recorded at Dorothy House Hospice, near Bath, which is funded by Children in Need. Fi Glover presents another conversation in the series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen.
Producer: Marya Burgess.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with the Reverend Andrew Martlew, former Army Chaplain.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
Presenter Dermot O'Leary relishes the effortless soaring of swifts and remembers the joy of the independence of his first car and the feeling of taking country roads home to visit his family and seeing swallows bobbing along in front of him on the lanes.
Producer: Tom Bonnett
Photo: Phill Luckhurst.
Morning news and current affairs. Including Yesterday in Parliament, Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and impact of Germaine de Staël (1766-1817) who Byron praised as Europe's greatest living writer, and was at the heart of intellectual and literary life in the France of revolution and of Napoleon. As well as attracting and inspiring other in her salon, she wrote novels, plays. literary criticism, political essays, and poems and developed the ideas behind Romanticism. She achieved this while regularly exiled from the Paris in which she was born, having fallen out with Napoleon who she opposed, becoming a towering figure in the history of European ideas.
With
Catriona Seth
Alison Finch
and
Katherine Astbury
Producer: Simon Tillotson.
Neil MacGregor continues his series about the expression of shared beliefs with a focus on images which seek to change the viewer's behaviour.
A small coloured wood-cut, created in the Netherlands around 1500, offers a particularly gruesome rendering of Christ's crucifixion. Christ is pictured with blood pouring from his torso, his head, his legs and his outstretched arms. These are not realistically arranged droplets; instead we see a flurry of vertical red strokes, tightly packed together and evenly spaced. Neil MacGregor reflects on the purpose of this image.
He also considers a serene figure of the Buddha, a halo behind his head, already in his enlightened state.
Producer Paul Kobrak
Produced in partnership with the British Museum
Photograph (c) The Trustees of the British Museum.
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.
By Amanda Whittington.
Skye's in shock. She has to pretend that everything's ok, but nothing will ever be the same again.
Reports from writers and journalists around the world. Presented by Kate Adie.
...Whodunnit: Radio 4 documentary.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
On this day in 1917, ANZAC troops occupied Jaffa, and in Tynemouth, Alan Lowther is thinking of cake.
Written by Sebastian Baczkiewicz
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole.
Consumer affairs programme.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
The story of Joseph Conrad, abridged by Katrin Williams. He was author of Heart Of Darkness, Lord Jim, and sailed the seas..
4. Recollections of the Congo endure, as does his correspondence with Marguerite. He meets Emilie Briquel, yet marries Jessie George. He produces various work at this time, yet those African memories are indelible and Heart Of Darkness will get written.
Reader Laurel Lefkow
Producer Duncan Minshull.
The young Noel Coward demanded fierce loyalty from his friends. To the point of laying down 'palship' rules. But did the as-yet unknown actor live up to his own high standards? Writer Jonathan Tafler imagines a testing moment in his relationship with two actor colleagues.
Written by Jonathan Tafler
Directed by Peter Kavanagh
Jonathan Tafler bases his fictitious account on fact: because of the on-going war aspiring young male actors who had not yet joined up got acting breaks they might not otherwise have had. And the dramatic events in the play are based (though very loosely) on a true event in Coward's autobiography: a dismal regional tour of Charley's Aunt where the as-yet little-known actor would hook up with a bosom chum, Esme Wynne. They already have a very rigorous set of rules to ensure loyalty, and regularly repeat rules as a reminder to each other. But in our drama, when a new male friend joins the palship, that loyalty is put severely to the test.
Helen Mark meets people whose livelihoods depend on the unique landscape of the Lizard peninsula in Cornwall. She finds rock that looks like snakeskin, otherwise known as serpentine, and hears a dragon breathing. Possibly. It's all a bit reptilian.
The Lizard is the most southerly point of England and it's probably not named after serpentine, the snakeskin-like rock that's found here, and nowhere else on earth. It's a peninsula that's almost an island, cut off by the Helford River on one side and the coast on the other, surrounded by some of the cleanest water to be found in the UK. It's kept that way by the rocky coast that makes it dangerous for ships to come too close and muddy up the sea. Salt has been extracted from the seawater here since the Iron Age, and seaweeders still harvest sea spaghetti and pepper dulse from its shores, both for gourmet consumption.
Other gourmet items are the organic 'destination pasties' of Gear Farm, which also has an Iron Age heritage to protect in the form of a fort and geophysical evidence of nearly fifty roundhouses which once graced its land. Helen meets Don Taylor, who loves the mystery and magic of serpentine and makes it into sculptures inspired by the shape of the rocks he finds in the cliffs. And there's artist Bridget Leaman, whose home is perched on the cliffs by Lizard village. The landscape here inspires her paintings, sometimes in the most unexpected ways.
Producer Mary Ward-Lowery.
Radio 4's weekly film programme.
Adam Rutherford investigates the news in science and science in the news.
Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Episode 2 - The Financial Crash
Alexei considers the causes and fall-out of the 2008 financial crash, the appeal of Donald Trump and laments his lack of mainstream success.
Written by Alexei Sayle
Performed by Alexei Sayle with Sean Baker
Original music and lyrics by Tim Sutton
Produced by Joe Nunnery
A BBC Studios Production.
Lexi takes charge, and Alan has an epiphany.
Arts news, interviews and reviews.
Evan Davis presents the business magazine.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
Kif Kehlmann is a penniless writer. He has never been published. In fact, he hasn't even completed his first novel. But he is committed to literature - great literature.
Kif and his wife Suzy have a young daughter and they are also expecting twins, they can't pay their bills and interest rates are spiralling out of control in early 1990s Australia. So when Kif's best mate Ray, who happens to be minder and bodyguard to Australia's most notorious conman, suggests Kif accepts the job offer of ghostwriting the fraudster's memoir, Kif has a dilemma.
But it doesn't take him long to abandon literature in favour of actually getting a book published - and getting paid. The only problem is they have less than six weeks before Australia's most wanted, Ziggy Heidl, goes on trial - and Ziggy appears pathologically incapable of telling the truth about anything.
First Person is the novel Richard Flanagan began to write just before he won the Booker Prize for The Narrow Road to The Deep North (2014), a novel which was acclaimed by The Guardian as a masterpiece. He has also been described as the greatest Australian writer of his generation.
As a penniless young writer, he accepted the job of ghostwriting the autobiography of Australia's most famous criminal who was about to go on trial for defrauding the banks of $700 million dollars. John Friedrich, the conman, died before he went to trial. Decades later, Flanagan takes this bizarre, real life episode as the starting point for a chilling and at times darkly funny novel about truth and lies and the difference between good and evil.
Written by Richard Flanagan
Abridged by Jill Waters and Isobel Creed
Read by Luke Mullins
Produced by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4.
Members of the cast of Channel 4's hugely popular sketch show Absolutely reunite for a brand new series on BBC Radio 4. Pete Baikie, Morwenna Banks, Moray Hunter, Gordon Kennedy and John Sparkes are back together with all new material. They revisit some of their much loved sketch characters and also introduce some newcomers to the line-up.
In 2013, the group got back together for Radio 4's Sketchorama: Absolutely Special, which won a BBC Audio Drama Award in the Best Live Scripted Comedy category.
The third episode of the series features another meeting of the highly confused Stoneybridge Town Council as well as Denzil and Gwynedd, the far from devoted Swansea couple.
We also hear from the Little Girl with her own take on Teenagers, Mr Muzak talks about going to a club with like-minded individuals, and Calum Gilhooley pontificates with Google HR on their logo changes. There's a talking version of Facebook and more from the Regional News team.
Produced by Gus Beattie and Gordon Kennedy
An Absolutely/Comedy Unit production for BBC Radio 4.
Susan Hulme reports from Westminster.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with the Reverend Andrew Martlew, former Army Chaplain.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
The dunnock is a newly-appreciated bird in the O'Leary household and as Dermot potters around the garden he admires the work ethic and understated beauty of this industrious little brown bird.
Producer: Tom Bonnett
Photo: Ian Redman.
Morning news and current affairs. Including Yesterday in Parliament, Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
Anna Pavord, writer & gardener, is interviewed by Kirsty Young for Desert Island Discs
Producer: Cathy Drysdale.
Neil MacGregor's series on the role and expression of beliefs continues with a reflection on faiths which focus on the word rather than the image.
A striking cobalt blue mosque lamp, from around 1570, shows an Islamic way of doing honour to the word: calligraphy.
In Jewish religious ceremonies a yad - a small silver rod with a little hand and a pointing index finger - is used to follow the text during readings from the Torah, to avoid any damage to the delicate parchment.
Producer Paul Kobrak
Produced in partnership with the British Museum
Photograph (c) The Trustees of the British Museum.
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.
By Amanda Whittington.
Dexter's teacher wants to help, but it just makes things worse. And now Skye's more frightened than ever that they'll come and take Dexter away.
Andy Zaltzman, the comedian, cricket fanatic and lapsed classics student will be spending a week living by the teachings of three ancient schools of philosophy. This week he'll mostly be being stoic.
Stoicism is being hailed as the new Mindfulness in their quest for a modern day answer to the eternal question of how to live a good life. The trouble is centuries of misunderstanding have left us with glaring misconceptions about what these philosophies really are: Stoicism is nothing about keeping a stiff upper lip and suppressing my emotions. The great attraction of stoicism is what it tells us about resilience and how to deal with life's vicissitudes. Founded by Zeno of Citium in the 3rd century BC, Premiership rugby club Saracens hold weekly classes in it, special forces recruits are taught its insights - the value of virtue for its own sake and how to make the best of what is in our power, and take the rest as it naturally happens - and politicians and business leaders are attracted by the works of famous Stoics like Seneca and Marcus Aurelius.
Every week Andy will be given a set of tasks to confront to teach him a philosophical lesson. His guide and task master is Jules Evans, author of "Philosophy for Life and Other Dangerous Situations." Andy will also meet the famous mentalist and illusionist Derren Brown who's also a follower of Stoicism.
Producer: Phil Pegum.
A brand new sitcom for BBC Radio 4 written by Marcus Brigstocke and Sarah Morgan and starring Marcus Brigstocke as Mike and Kerry Godliman as his wife Max.
Michael and Maxine Wilson and their teenage daughters, Lola and Cat (plus their bearded dragon Chomsky, and about 150,000 bees) have resolved to live a cleaner, greener, serener life. This is a show about living ethically... whatever that means. Millions of people try every day to make 'good' choices and do the 'right thing', be ethical, charitable and community minded. It's hard. Most of us live with hypocrisy and failure all the time but keep on trying. The Wilsons, good folk that they are, are trying about 20% harder and learning to live with about 19% more failure. They are not giving up.
In this episode Max needs a holiday and so does Mike but what's the right choice ethically? As they balance the appeal of hot sun versus a carbon-neutral campsite Cat has her own agenda and Lola wrestles with the rights and wrongs of charity.
Producer...Julia McKenzie
Production Coordinator...Tamara Shilham
A BBC Studios Production.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
On this day in 1917, the sculptor, Auguste Rodin, died, and in Tynemouth, it's clear that Lester Reed has been thinking.
Written by Sebastian Baczkiewicz
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole.
Throughout the day, Radio 4 celebrates Children in Need with poems on the theme of childhood.
With poems from Hollie McNish, Carol Ann Duffy, Edward Lear, Wordsworth and Seamus Heaney, we explore this precious time in all our lives.
Producer: Sarah Addezio.
Consumer news and issues.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
Throughout the day, Radio 4 celebrates Children in Need with poems on the theme of childhood.
With poems from Hollie McNish, Carol Ann Duffy, Edward Lear, Wordsworth and Seamus Heaney, we explore this precious time in all our lives.
Producer: Sarah Addezio.
The story of Joseph Conrad, abridged by Katrin Williams. He was author of Heart Of Darkness, Lord Jim, and sailed the seas..
5. The late 1890's. He is settled with Jessie at Pent Farm, Kent, rubbing shoulders with various literary greats. His sea-faring days are over but the imaginative adventures continue to flourish and the novel Nostromo begins to take shape..
Reader Laurel Lefkow
Producer Duncan Minshull.
All Christine needs is a badge, so people understand she's not a bad mum, it's just her son is autistic.
All Chloe needs is sleep.
Daniel needs elephants.
And all they really need is love.
Michael narrates this drama about what it is like growing up with his brother Daniel.
Written and Directed by Tony Pitts
With thanks to the Autistic Society and Faye and Bowie Hough
Producer: Justine Potter
Executive Producer: Melanie Harris
A Savvy production for BBC Radio 4
Related Links
http://www.autism.org.uk/
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/autism/
https://www.mencap.org.uk/learning-disability-explained/conditions/autism-and-aspergers-syndrome.
Peter Gibbs and the panel visit Warsash in Hampshire. Chris Beardshaw, Pippa Greenwood and Bunny Guinness answer this week's horticultural questions.
Produced by Dan Cocker
Assistant Producer: Laurence Bassett
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.
In Neighbours of Zero by Peter Bradshaw, the perils of the betting shop are comically revealed:
"Now here's the thing: I lose as well.. Just a bit.. Let me explain.." - and so the narrator does, which involves a neat new system, a betting shop heist, and moral retribution of sorts..
Reader Daniel Mays
Producer Duncan Minshull.
Throughout the day, Radio 4 celebrates Children in Need with poems on the theme of childhood.
With poems from Hollie McNish, Carol Ann Duffy, Edward Lear, Wordsworth and Seamus Heaney, we explore this precious time in all our lives.
Producer: Sarah Addezio.
Obituary series, analysing and celebrating the life stories of people who have recently died.
Radio 4's forum for audience comment.
Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.
Throughout the day, Radio 4 celebrates Children in Need with poems on the theme of childhood.
With poems from Hollie McNish, Carol Ann Duffy, Edward Lear, Wordsworth and Seamus Heaney, we explore this precious time in all our lives.
Producer: Sarah Addezio.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis re-cap the week via topical stand-up and sketches with guests Darren Harriot, Sophie Willan, Jake Yapp, Gemma Arrowsmith and Marie Le Conte.
Producer...Victoria Lloyd
A BBC Studios Production.
Can Toby and Pip reach an accord? Christine is in a holiday mood.
News, reviews and interviews from the worlds of art, literature, film and music.
Jonathan Dimbleby presents political debate and discussion from Brooksbank School in Elland, Yorkshire, with a panel including the Shadow Education Minister Tracy Brabin MP, Marnie Millard chief executive of international soft drinks business Nichols an the former cabinet minister Owen Paterson MP.
A reflection on a topical issue.
The first omnibus of Season 12, Giddy with Possibility, set in Tynemouth, in the week, in 1917, when the Finnish Parliament declared their independence from Russia.
Written by Sebastian Baczkiewicz
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole
Story-led by Shaun McKenna
Sound: Martha Littlehailes
Composer: Matthew Strachan
Consultant Historian: Maggie Andrews.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
Kif Kehlmann is a penniless writer. He has never been published. In fact, he hasn't even completed his first novel. But he is committed to literature - great literature.
Kif and his wife Suzy have a young daughter and they are also expecting twins, they can't pay their bills and interest rates are spiralling out of control in early 1990s Australia. So when Kif's best mate Ray, who happens to be minder and bodyguard to Australia's most notorious conman, suggests Kif accepts the job offer of ghostwriting the fraudster's memoir, Kif has a dilemma.
But it doesn't take him long to abandon literature in favour of actually getting a book published - and getting paid. The only problem is they have less than six weeks before Australia's most wanted, Ziggy Heidl, goes on trial - and Ziggy appears pathologically incapable of telling the truth about anything.
First Person is the novel Richard Flanagan began to write just before he won the Booker Prize for The Narrow Road to The Deep North (2014), a novel which was acclaimed by The Guardian as a masterpiece. He has also been described as the greatest Australian writer of his generation.
As a penniless young writer, he accepted the job of ghostwriting the autobiography of Australia's most famous criminal who was about to go on trial for defrauding the banks of $700 million dollars. John Friedrich, the conman, died before he went to trial. Decades later, Flanagan takes this bizarre, real life episode as the starting point for a chilling and at times darkly funny novel about truth and lies and the difference between good and evil.
Written by Richard Flanagan
Abridged by Jill Waters and Isobel Creed
Read by Luke Mullins
Produced by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4.
Mark D'Arcy reports from Westminster.
Throughout the day, Radio 4 celebrates Children in Need with poems on the theme of childhood.
With poems from Hollie McNish, Carol Ann Duffy, Edward Lear, Wordsworth and Seamus Heaney, we explore this precious time in all our lives.
Producer: Sarah Addezio.