The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
The BBC is a British institution unlike any other, and its story during the Second World War is also the story of Britain's people.
Writer and presenter Edward Stourton is a sharp-eyed and affectionate companion on the BBC's wartime journey, investigating archives, diaries, letters and memoirs to examine what the BBC was and what it stood for.
In this final episode, the BBC's War Reporting Unit comes into being, and correspondent Guy Byam is parachuted behind enemy lines.
These were the years when Auntie (the BBC's enduring nickname) earned a reputation for bossiness. It was also a period of remarkable voices - Churchill's fighting speeches de Gaulle's broadcasts from exile, George Orwell, Ed Murrow, Richard Dimbleby and Vera Lynn.
During these extraordinary times, eyewitness testimonies gave a voice to everyone, securing the BBC's reputation as a reliable purveyor of the truth.
Auntie's War is more than a portrait of an institution at a critical time, it is also a portrayal of the British in wartime and an insight into why we have our broadcast culture today.
Read by Edward Stourton
Abridged by Anna Magnusson
Produced by Pippa Vaughan
A Loftus production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
A reading and a reflection to start the day with the Rev'd Dr Karen Smith, Tutor in Church History and Christian Spirituality at South Wales Baptist College.
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.
The crumbling Jurassic Coast in Dorset has already helped us to discover some of the most interesting species from deep time, revolutionising our understanding of dinosaurs and the prehistoric landscape. The latest important fossil to be found along this stretch of coastline is not a huge dinosaur but a tiny mammal. Grant Smith recently found the fossilised teeth of a small rodent like creature which date back to the early Cretaceous period, around 140 million years ago. The sophistication of these teeth have made scientists reassess the time frame for mammal development as they indicate a far more developed mammal species who would have lived alongside the dinosaurs of the Cretaceous period.
The new species which Grant unearthed is mankind's earliest ancestor and has been named 'Durlstotherim Newmani', after keen amateur palaeontologist and local landlord Charlie Newman. The landlord of the Square and Compass in Worth Matravers founded his own fossil museum in the pub, and pointed Grant to the location in Durlston Bay at which he found the specimen.
The rich history of scientists and academics being ably assisted by passionate amateurs on this coastline is echoed further down the coast at Kimmeridge where Steve Etches, a retired plumber, has just opened his incredible collection of fossils to the public at the Etches Collection. It is a history of collaboration which goes right back to one of the earliest fossil hunters Mary Anning and as Helen Mark discovers the work of the people who live along this coastline in enhancing our understanding of deep time is now being rightly celebrated.
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.
Aasmah Mir and Suzy Klein are joined by commentator and former England Rugby hooker, Brian Moore and 19 year Liv Cooke, currently the world Freestyle champion.
Jay Rayner and his panel visit Burghley House near Stamford. Tim Anderson, Rachel McCormack, Jordan Bourke, and Dr Annie Gray answer questions from the audience on food.
Produced by Darby Dorras
Assistant Producer: Hester Cant
Food Consultant: Anna Colquhoun
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.
Helen Lewis of the New Statesman 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.
Miles Jupp and team vs The News. Lining up this week are Angela Barnes, Lucy Porter, Lloyd Langford and Peter Oborne.
Producer: Richard Morris
A BBC Studios Production.
The latest weather forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
Jonathan Dimbleby presents political debate from Wyedean School in Sedbury, Gloucestershire, with the Chair of 1922 Committee Graham Brady MP, the Labour Whip Thangam Debbonaire MP, the Director of the Academy of Ideas Claire Fox and the writer and broadcaster Matthew Parris.
Listeners have their say on the issues discussed on Any Questions?
Adapted by Robin Brooks
Muriel Spark's gloriously dark comedy about death.
Set among a group of elderly people, the story begins with what appears to be an ordinary crime and ends up as a metaphysical mystery.
An anonymous caller repeatedly disturbs the elderly men and women with the message: "Remember you must die."
Directed by Gaynor Macfarlane.
Frances Fyfield ends this series of Tales from the Stave with a look forward to the new year in the form of Delius' orchestral favourite 'On Hearing The First Cuckoo In Spring'. Now one of the most popular pieces in the British music repertoire it began life as one of two pieces for small orchestra. The melody has its origins in a Norwegian Folk song set by Delius' friend Edvard Grieg. All that we have left of Delius manuscript is a few pages of detailed sketch material. The final manuscript was sent to Germany for publication in Germany in 1912 and was lost. Frances is joined by the conductor Alice Farnham, the scholar Nigel Simeone and the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra Clarinettist Joanna Patton.
Producer: Tom Alban.
Highlights from the Woman's Hour week.Presented by Jane Garvey
Producer: Rabeka Nurmahomed
Editor: Jane Thurlow.
Full coverage of the day's news.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest weather forecast.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Clive Anderson and Arthur Smith are joined by Tony Robinson, David Olusoga, Tom Kerridge and Phyllis Logan for an eclectic mix of conversation, music and comedy. With music from Son of Sam and Penniless Cove.
Producer: Tim Bano.
Series of profiles of people who are currently making headlines.
A review of the week's cultural highlights.
January 2018 is the 200th anniversary of the publication of Frankenstein - Mary Shelley's extraordinary, ground-breaking novel about the creation of a living being who becomes a monster. Cultural historian and writer Christopher Frayling considers how the story of Victor Frankenstein and his creature has become a creation myth for our age.
Frankenstein is one of a handful of works whose title has passed into the language of everyday life and has been adapted countless times for cinema, radio, television and theatre - with each new generation discovering the unique power of the original.
In the overwhelmingly Christian society of 1818, the notion of man creating life was both unthinkable and blasphemous. Two centuries later, the moral dilemmas of the original story continue to challenge and perplex us. After Dr Christiaan Barnard performed the first heart transplant in 1967, he proclaimed "I am the new Frankenstein'. Since then we have truly entered an age of genetically and surgically modified nature - from cloned sheep to disease-resistant crop strains. Inevitably these developments are met with newspaper headlines that scream Frankenstein!
Christopher Frayling uses his expert knowledge to lead us through the rich and unsettling history of the Frankenstein myth, amidst a host of chilling archive recordings and insightful contributions from filmmakers, writers and scientists. He explores how and why, 200 years after it was born, Mary Shelley's nightmare creation is still very much alive and kicking.
Interviewees:
Kim Newman, critic and horror writer
John Landis, film director
Sara Karloff, daughter of Boris
Madeline Smith, Hammer Studios actress
Miranda Seymour, biographer of Mary Shelley
Professor Sharon Ruston, science and literature expert
Stephen Hebron, Curator of Special Projects, Bodleian Library
Producer: Jane Long
A Hidden Flack production for BBC Radio 4.
A bold new version of John Wyndham's science fiction classic by Graeae, a disabled led theatre company.
Jenny Sealey, Graeae's artistic director, has her own understanding of The Midwich Cuckoos, based on growing up feeling different and has cast deaf and disabled actors who also identify with the Cuckoos and what it is to be 'other' in society.
While being faithful to the original, this production brings a new sensitivity to the iconic novel, trying to grapple with the complexity of difference.
This brave modernisation is by award winning writer Roy Williams, with original music from composer Oliver Vibrans.
Episode 2
As the Cuckoos' extraordinary powers grow, so fears grow for their and the safety of others. Michaela is increasingly at loggerheads with her father over how to deal with the Cuckoos, as the stakes get higher.
Composer.....................................Oliver Vibrans
Co-directors...................................Polly Thomas and Jenny Sealey
Sound designer/Producer.................... Eloise Whitmore
Studio engineer...............................Lee Aston
Shadow writer................................Amy Bethan Evans
BSL interpreters..............................Ruth Andrews, Beverley Roberts, Tony Redshaw
Production coordinator.....................Sarah Kenny
Executive Producer..........................Joby Waldman
A Naked Productions/Graeae Theatre co-production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4, followed by weather.
Anne McElvoy takes guests and listeners alike to the edges of their certainties. She brings together two figures who are active in the public debate on opposed sides of a political question.
Anne is joined by conflict resolution specialist Gabrielle Rifkind to lead the two guests through a series of structured conversations to encourage them to air the personal experiences, instincts and feelings that underpin their public positions. Together Anne and Gabrielle invite guests to do something that doesn't often feature in debates: really listen to each other.
Joining the discussion this week are Fraser Nelson, editor of the Spectator and Zoe Williams, author and columnist for the Guardian.
(8/12)
Robert Muldoon's successor, Blue Sky's Oscar winner and Mozart's portraitist: why are they only different on the radio?
This is just one of the eight apparently impenetrable questions facing the Round Britain Quiz panellists this week, as Stephen Maddock and Rosalind Miles of the Midlands take on Stuart Maconie and Adele Geras of the North of England. Tom Sutcliffe is on hand to provide helpful steers where needed - but the more help the teams need, the more points they'll be docked.
As always, the programme includes some of the best recent question ideas sent in by listeners - and Tom will have the solution to the teaser he left unanswered at the end of last week's show.
Producer: Paul Bajoria.
Poets grapple with their origins in the second episode of Blast, Radio 4's new alternative poetry series featuring the best new poetry and spoken word performance.
Radio 4's poet-in-residence Daljit Nagra pays a visit to Bradford Literature Festival and to Herefordshire, for the 21st annual Ledbury Poetry Festival, to meet poets writing about difficult fathers and absent mothers, upbringings and lost parents.
Wayne Holloway-Smith on failing to lift heavy objects on his dad's building site. Miriam Nash on growing up across two houses and the difficulty of saying where you're 'from'. Roy McFarlane on growing up in the Black Country and finding out - at the age of 14 - that he was adopted. Raymond Antrobus on trying to come to terms with losing his father. And Lebanese poet Zeina Hashem-Beck on correcting her mother's broken English.
Produced by Mair Bosworth and Hana Walker-Brown.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
An original short story commissioned by BBC Radio 4, written and read by the novelist and broadcaster Ian Sansom.
Ian Sansom is the author of several books, including the popular Mobile Library Mystery Series. He is a regular broadcaster on BBC Radio 3 and Radio 4 as well as a frequent contributor and critic for, among others, The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The London Review of Books and The Spectator.
Writer ..... Ian Sansom
Reader ..... Ian Sansom
Producer ..... Michael Shannon.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
This week's Bells on Sunday, comes from Christ Church, Radyr in Cardiff. The bells were dedicated in 1912 and there is a ring of eight, with the tenor weighing 12 hundredweight. We hear them ringing here 'Stedman triples'.
The latest national and international news.
The spiritual and symbolic power of fire and flame is found in a wide variety of cultures and religions. Flames are an important metaphor in secular literature and art too. Mark Tully searches for what draws so many to the image of a flame - moths, lovers, worshippers and poets.
He meets designer Sarah Van Gameren and discusses her artistic preoccupations with fire and designs which actually burst into flame themselves.
There's poetry by Simon Armitage and Christina Rossetti, and prose by the Indian novelist and politician Shashi Tharoor. Music comes from Gustav Holst and American composer Morten Lauridsen.
The readers are Jane Whittenshaw and David Westhead,
Presenter: Mark Tully
Producer: Frank Stirling
A 7digital production for BBC Radio 4.
Dr Ryad Alsous, a beekeeping expert and refugee from Syria, has kept bees for over 40 years and is a former professor of agriculture at Damascus University. The war forced him to flee in 2013 and all his hives have since been destroyed. Almost two years after arriving in the UK Ryad was donated a hive of native black bees, which he has expanded into a further seven hives. Now, with the help of Sanctuary Kirklees, Ryad has set up a beekeeping course in Huddersfield called The Buzz Project. It teaches local refugees and job seekers how to keep bees and produce honey, whilst helping them learn English and find a place and purpose in the community. Caz Graham joins Ryad at one of the fortnightly training sessions to find out how he's rebuilding his life through bees and helping others to do the same.
The latest weather forecast.
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.
Sunday morning religious news and current affairs programme, presented by Edward Stourton.
Kaye Wragg makes the Radio 4 Appeal on behalf of Children with Cancer UK.
Registered Charity Number: 298405
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 'Children with Cancer UK'.
- Cheques should be made payable to 'Children with Cancer UK'.
The latest weather forecast.
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.
from Dunfermline Abbey, Fife, exploring the legacy of Queen Margaret
of Scotland whose shrine makes it a historic place of pilgrimage.
In the former royal capital of Scotland, the Abbey is also the burial place of
Robert the Bruce.
With the Rev MaryAnn Rennie and the Rev Dr Rosie Magee.
Master of the Music: Matthew Beetschen.
Producer: Mo McCullough.
A weekly reflection on a topical issue.
Professor Andy Radford, a Behavioural Biologist at the University of Bristol recalls how the evocative cries of the Curlews on the Yorkshire Moors first captivated him as a child and inspired his interest in bird vocalisations.
Tweet of the Day has captivated the Radio 4 audience with its daily 90 seconds of birdsong. But what of the listener to this avian chorus? In this new series of Tweet of the Day, we bring to the airwaves the conversational voices of those who listen to and are inspired by birds. Building on the previous series, a more informal approach to learning alongside a renewed emphasis on encounter with nature and reflection in our relationship with the natural world.
Producer: Sarah Blunt
Photograph: Rachel Walker.
Sunday morning magazine programme with news and conversation about the big stories of the week. Presented by Paddy O'Connell.
Jill is left stunned, and Roy fears for the future.
Angela Hartnett is a chef, TV presenter and cookery writer. She holds a Michelin star and runs her own restaurants.
Angela was born in 1968 to an Italian mother and Irish father, and her culinary career has been influenced by her Italian background and her grandmother's cooking. After studying for a history degree, Angela began work in the catering industry before joining Gordon Ramsay at his restaurant Aubergine. In 2002 she took over at the Connaught, London, as the first woman chef to run its restaurant. When it closed five years later, she moved on to open her own restaurant, Murano, in 2008. She achieved a Michelin star in both establishments and has expanded her restaurant business.
She has been a regular contributor on some of TV and radio's most popular cookery programmes. In 2007, she was awarded an MBE for Services to the Hospitality Industry.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
This week, the Professor of Ignorance John Lloyd and his curator Sally Phillips welcome the satirical comedy impressionist Rory Bremner, the presenter of the BBC World Service's The Arts Hour Nikki Bedi and the award-winning writer who makes you thirsty for beer, Pete Brown.
This week, the Museum's Guest Committee find out about the boy-elephant-god Ganesh, and why the direction his trunk is pointing in is so important; reveal the last British soldier to bring down an enemy with a longbow, and enter George Orwell's favourite non-existent pub..
The show was researched by Mike Turner and QI.
The Production Coordinator was Tamara Shilham.
The Associate Producer was James Harkin.
The Producers were Richard Turner and Anne Miller.
It was a BBC Studios Production.
Where are the cooks changing the lives of their communities? Which food shops or markets make shopping a more unique experience? Who is making the UK a more delicious place through food and drink?
Rick Stein, Giorgio Locatelli, Angela Hartnett, Yotam Ottolenghi and this year's head judge Andi Oliver join Sheila Dillon to launch 2018's search for the best in UK food, drink and farming; the BBC Food & Farming Awards 2018. Sheila celebrates the impact of previous award winners and reveals the expert panel of judges who'll crown the Food and Farming Awards 'Class of 2018'. But it all begins with your nominations...
Presented by Sheila Dillon
Produced by Clare Salisbury
NB. The BBC Food & Farming Awards will open for public nominations on Sunday 14th January for 2 weeks, closing on Monday 29th January. Details can be found at bbc.co.uk/foodawards.
The latest weather forecast.
Global news and analysis.
Jasvinder Sanghera is the founder of Karma Nirvana, a charity which offers services and support to young women and men who are victims of 'honour' based abuse and forced marriage. At the age of seventeen she ran away from home to avoid a forced marriage herself and was, as a result, disowned by her family. But the biggest turning point in her life came when her sister - Robina - killed herself after feeling trapped in an abusive marriage. This unhappy death eventually led to the foundation of the charity. When Jasvinder's daughter Natasha met and fell in love with a man from a Sikh background, Jasvinder was fearful that his family would not accept her because Jasvinder was disowned and had run away from home. As Hardeep cooks with the family, he hears from Jasivnder and Natasha and her husband about how life has come full circle for them and what it means to Jasvinder to re-discover her roots through the graciousness of her daughter's new family.
Producer: Helen Lee.
Eric Robson and the panel are in Lancashire. This week, Matthew Wilson, Bunny Guinness and Anne Swithinbank field the horticultural questions.
Produced by Hannah Newton
Assistant Producer: Laurence Bassett
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.
Fi Glover introduces conversations about re-constructed families, good behaviour and dealing with a stammer 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.
Adapted by Beatrice Colin
One of Spark's most gripping and disturbing books.
At the centre of this taut thriller is Lise, an enigmatic young woman travelling alone to a European city in search of "the one".
She seems keen to leave a trail, acquiring a brightly coloured outfit and an equally outlandish set of personas in her encounters with a series of extraordinary and desperate individuals. But as the subject of her search eludes her, her behaviour becomes increasingly erratic. We assume that she is seeking a lover but in fact she is searching for the man who will murder her. As the tension builds, The Driver's Seat asks if we are ever truly in control of our own lives.
Directed by Gaynor Macfarlane.
A celebration of Muriel Spark, who was born in 1918. Alan Taylor who has written a memoir about his friendship with the novelist, and writer William Boyd join Mariella Frostrup to share their love of her writing.
How did Momtaza Mehri go from net savvy 6th former to successful millennial poet?
A house belonging to her grandmother is the closest poet Momtaza Mehri has ever come to having a permanent home. Aside from summer months in London, Momtaza's family picked its way across the Middle East.
"Then I just realise, I'm having this typical Somali experience where we're literally going to the places that would be considered the bad 'hoods."
Across a sea, another gulf, was the country her parents no longer called home.
Talking with her mother, Momtaza revisits the childhood experiences that shaped her outlook and her coming of age as a millennial poet.
Poetry extracts are taken from:
I believe in the transformative power of cocoa butter and breakfast cereal in the afternoon
Manifesto for those carrying dusk under their eyes
The Sag
Shan
Wink Wink
November 1997
"The internet just switched up the entire game," Momtaza says.
Producer: Tamsin Hughes
A Testbed production for BBC Radio 4.
Before 9/11 British attitudes to partaking in faith-inspired armed combat were... different.
British Muslims travelled freely to fight in Afghanistan, Bosnia, Burma and Kashmir for a few weeks or months, and then returned home to their day jobs or studies - few questions asked.
In this programme, Mobeen Azhar sheds light on the people and organisations involved in this early wave of British involvement in Jihad - the youth organisations which helped send hundreds of young Brits to fight overseas.
The programme also reveals reports featured in magazines published in the 1990s by Lashka-e-Taiba - the terrorist group behind the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
Within its pages are detailed reports on how its leader Hafiz Saeed came to Britain in the mid-90s to spread the word on fighting a holy war, find recruits and raise money. The programme hears from those who answered his call - the British Muslims who built bridges with militant groups in South Asia and beyond.
Many of these 'pioneers' came from Britain's Salafi community - followers of a strict, literal interpretation of Islam. Since 9/11 the Salafis - sometimes known as Wahhabis - have often been named as the key influencers in the global jihad, but is that accurate?
The programme also explains the nuances of Salafism and how this early period of British involvement in Jihad was itself hugely divisive within the British Salafi community, creating a schism between a peaceful pious majority, and those who chose to take up arms.
Producers: Richard Fenton-Smith & Sajid Iqbal.
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The latest weather forecast.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Nick Baker chooses his BBC Radio highlights.
Kirsty makes a horrific discovery, and Roy unburdens himself.
Andy (Tom Palmer) is beginning to settle in to the unusual seaside town of Flamford. When he and his Uncle Jeff (Philip Jackson) find an abandoned fridge in the street, Jeff seizes the opportunity to teach his nephew the value of entrepreneurship.
Unfortunately, his plans are complicated by a particularly diligent and zealous Police Officer (Mark Benton), a hard-nosed private landlord (Rasmus Hardiker) and Fish Shop Frank's refusal to see a business opportunity when it's sat on the pavement outside his chip shop.
Along the way, they meet a pair of half-hearted pirates, an eccentric plutocrat, Jeff's on-off paramour, Corinne (Alison Steadman) and the youngest-sounding pub landlord in Britain.
Writers: Ian Brown and James Hendrie
Producer/Director: Gordon Kennedy
An Absolutely production for BBC Radio 4.
5 writers choose 5 poems as inspiration for new stories.
Episode 1/5
The Windhover
A mother tells the story of how her son came to be part of the family.
A story inspired by Gerard Manley Hopkins' 'The Windhover', by Merryn Glover
Credits
Writer ..... Merryn Glover
Reader ..... Alison Peebles
Producer ..... Claire Simpson
A BBC Scotland Production for BBC Radio 4.
Did missed appointments cost the NHS £1 billion last year?
New figures published recently suggest that the financial cost to the NHS for missed appointments was £1 billion last year. But our listeners are curious. How has this figure been worked out? And don't missed appointments actually ease the pressure on an overcrowded system?
Graduate pay - is it always higher than non-graduates' pay?
It is often claimed that if you go to university and get a degree, you will earn more than those who do not. But is that always true? We take a look to see if there are occasions when having a degree makes little difference or whether the benefit of a degree has changed over time.
How much cocaine is on a bank note?
Tim Harford speaks to Richard Sleeman who works for a firm, Mass Spec Analytical, that specialises in working out how much cocaine can be found on bank notes across the country. Do some parts of the country have more cocaine on their notes than others? Is it true that 99% of bank notes in London have cocaine on them?
Is it true that one in five can't name an author of literature?
Last year the Royal Society of Literature made this claim - but what was it based on? It turns out a polling company found that 20 percent questioned failed to name a single author. Should we be surprised? We took a look at the data.
Diet Coke Habit
The New York Times claims that Donald Trump drinks 'a dozen' Diet Cokes a day. With each can of 330ml containing 42mg of caffeine - what impact, if any, could this have on the President's health?
Photo: John W. Young
Matthew Bannister on
John W. Young the American astronaut who went into in space six times, including landing on the moon and commanding the first space shuttle flight.
Peter Preston the long serving editor of the Guardian who re-designed and modernised the paper.
Ray Thomas the flautist and singer who was a founding member of the Moody Blues.
Sir Brian Neill, the barrister and judge who defended the Sunday Times in the Thalidomide court case.
Heather Stewart, the pilot who risked her life to fly cargo and passengers through war zones in Africa.
There is a motoring revolution underway: the fast accelerating switch from petrol and diesel cars, to electric vehicles. In Norway, almost 40% of new car purchases are now fully electric or hybrids. Other countries are starting to catch up, and are setting ambitious targets. Britain wants to ban the sale of all petrol and diesel cars by 2040. Oxford wants to ban non-electric vehicles from parts of the city centre by 2020. Motor manufacturers are investing vast sums in the development of new electric models. Those who don't, risk being left behind.
And yet, as Peter Morgan reports, obstacles remain. Many drivers feel "range anxiety", the fear that the car battery will run out before they can recharge it. And electric cars are not cheap to buy.
But costs are coming down fast, batteries will soon last for hundreds of miles, and charge-points are being installed in more and more places. So much so, that there's a new land grab going on for market share. Start-ups are getting in on the act, and even big oil companies like Shell are branching out into this business.
Nevertheless, where will all the extra electricity come from? Will there be standardisation of the charging infrastructure, so drivers don't end up frustrated at a charge-point where their plug doesn't fit?
And while electric cars don't emit toxic fumes like nitrogen oxides, how much difference do they actually make to harmful particulates in the air?
Producer: Arlene Gregorius.
Weekly political discussion and analysis with MPs, experts and commentators.
With Francine Stock.
Playwright and writer/director Martin McDonagh talks about his award-winning drama Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, and why he never knows which direction his plot is taking when he's writing and is as surprised by the twists and turns as the audience.
The heist thriller Baby Driver is choreographed to the songs that its hero is listening to on his headphones, from the coffee machine that's in sync with Harlem Shuffle to the shoot-out that plays out to the strains of Hocus Pocus by Dutch prog rock band Focus. Sound designer Julian Slater tell us how he did it.
As two Churchill bio-pics are released within six months of each other, The Film Programme challenges historians and history buffs to offer better historical candidates for the movie treatment. Comedy writer Jack Bernhardt kicks off the Pitch Battle series with Headless, the tale of Lord Thomas Fairfax, a brilliant general and terrible politician, and his part in Charles I's downfall.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
The sensory landscape of the city. Laurie Taylor explores the scenes, sounds, smells and tastes of urban life. He's joined by Daniel Silver, Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto, Alex Rhys-Taylor, Lecturer in Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London and Monica Degen, Reader in Sociology at Brunel University London.
Producer: Jayne Egerton.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
A reading and a reflection to start the day with the Rev'd Dr Karen Smith, Tutor in Church History and Christian Spirituality at South Wales Baptist College.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
The latest weather forecast for farmers.
Audio-visual artist, Kathy Hinde has always loved cranes, ever since she learned to make origami cranes as a child. Here she recalls a magical sunrise watching a balletic performed by dancing Common Cranes.
Tweet of the Day has captivated the Radio 4 audience with its daily 90 seconds of birdsong. But what of the listener to this avian chorus? In this new series of
Tweet of the Day, we bring to the airwaves the conversational voices of those who listen to and are inspired by birds. Building on the previous series, a more informal approach to learning alongside a renewed emphasis on encounter with nature and reflection in our relationship with the natural world.
Producer: Sarah Blunt
Photograph: Tony McLean.
News and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
The prize-winning novelist Peter Carey tackles head on for the first time the legacies of colonialism in his native Australia in his latest book, A Long Way From Home. He talks to Tom Sutcliffe about the damage and loss for the Stolen Generations. The writer and broadcaster Afua Hirsch believes Britain is also a nation in denial about the past and present, and argues it's time to talk more openly about race and identity. The Dutch journalist Geert Mak once travelled the breadth of Europe to explore what it meant to be European at the end of the 20th century. He found countries struggling to understand the wrongs they had committed during the Holocaust, the Second World War and decades of dictator rule.
Mary Shelley was brought up by her father in a house filled with radical thinkers, poets, philosophers and writers of the day. Aged 16, she eloped with Percy Bysshe Shelley, embarking on a relationship that was lived on the move across Britain and Europe. She coped with debt, infidelity and the deaths of three children, before early widowhood changed her life forever. Most astonishingly, it was while still a teenager that she composed her novel Frankenstein, creating two of our most enduring archetypes today.
The life story is well-known. But who was the woman who lived it?
Mary Shelley left plenty of evidence and, in this fascinating dialogue with the past, Fiona Sampson sifts through letters, diaries and records to find the real woman behind the story. She uncovers a complex, generous character - friend, intellectual, lover and mother - trying to fulfil her own passionate commitment to writing at a time when to be a woman writer was an extraordinary and costly anomaly.
Coinciding with the 200th anniversary of the publication of Frankenstein, this is a major new work of biography by a prize-winning writer and poet.
Written by Fiona Sampson
Read by Stella Gonet
Abridged by Polly Coles
Produced by Clive Brill
A Brill production for BBC Radio 4.
Jane Garvey and BBC Radio Sheffield's mid-morning presenter Paulette Edwards jointly host a phone-in being broadcast on both Stations all about the menopause. Listeners share their personal experiences
Phone lines open from 0800 on Monday 15th January. Call 03700 100 444.
You can email now via the 'Woman's Hour Website.
Tomorrow we'll be unveiling new data from a poll commissioned by us and Radio Sheffield which investigates how the menopause affects British women at work, in their relationships, and the treatments they found effective. Across the rest of the week Jane Garvey and Jenni Murray on Woman's Hour and Paulette Edwards on BBC Radio Sheffield will continue to hear from listeners and experts with advice on navigating this stage in your.
Presenter; Jane Garvey
Presenter; Paulette Edwards
Producer Beverley Purcell
Studio Guest; Dr Dawn Harper.
Captured in Wales during the Roman conquest of Britain, Venta is now a slave in the household of Pliny the Younger, a wealthy lawyer who lives in a magnificent villa just outside Rome. As servitude goes, things could be worse. Pliny is a kind, if tetchy, master and uses Venta mainly as a scribe. His mistress, Pliny's mother, thinks of him as her 'bedroom attendant'. Recently Venta had a lucky escape when he was forced to fight in the Colosseum and survived to tell the tale. Unfortunately, he was given no choice but to kill Calvin, lover of Doris the cook, who now won't speak to him.
Depressed by the decline in the standard of Doris's cooking following Calvin's death, the family spend the day in Rome, shopping for bargains in the market, followed by sheer indulgence at the Baths. But the outing ends with a surprising turn of events for Pliny. By Hattie Naylor, based on real events in first century Rome.
A BBC/Cymru Wales production, directed by Kate McAll.
Grace Dent follows what happens when 43 year old Sharon embarks on a search for love. With two failed marriages behind her it would be easy to feel disappointed about the possibilities: not Sharon, who is optimistic that the right man is out there somewhere. When nights out at a local club fail to reap rewards Sharon turns to the internet but with mixed success: some of prospective suitors look nothing like their profile photos and whilst one or two prove to be decent, there are others who are not.
Over visits to Sharon's Rotherham flat, Producer Sue Mitchell gets to know more about her and her family. She has three children and helps pitch in to look after her grandchildren and keep an eye on her 23 year old daughter, Jessica, who is single and sometimes accompanies her on nights out. She has a dog, Molly, who gives birth to eleven pups and many friends call in and out on an evening. As well as looking for love, Sharon is also keen to get a job and already has a plan in place when it comes to spending her wages: a trip to Benidorm and perhaps even a holiday romance!
At the start of recordings she is with Serge, who has come from Cameroon and quickly moves into Sharon's flat, where he learns to make Yorkshire puddings and immerses himself in the goings on in Coronation Street. But strains quickly develop and before long they are arguing over his wish to have a child and her worry about what she sees as his controlling behaviour. When the relationship breaks down it is back to the drawing board: how is she going to find Mr Right and exactly what is she looking for in a partner?
Episode 2, 'The Madman in the Attic'. With Tom's Dad advocating some rather drastic "rationalizing", Tom realises that it might be time for him to have a clear-out himself.
Series 3 of the sitcom where Tom Wrigglesworth phones home for his weekly check-in with his Mum, Dad and Gran, giving listeners a glimpse into his family background and the influences that have shaped his temperament, opinions and hang-ups.
Starring Tom Wrigglesworth, Paul Copley, Kate Anthony and Elizabeth Bennett.
Written by Tom Wrigglesworth and James Kettle with additional material by Miles Jupp
Produced by Richard Morris
A BBC Radio Comedy Production.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Welcome to the modern world where airspace needs protecting, dating profile photographs need taking and lonely people need cuddling. It's the home of bizarre jobs brought about by a myriad of 21st century by-products.
Nick Baker meets the people behind some of the Britain's most niche jobs, gets inside the role, scopes out what it says about our world today and assesses whether it's time for a career change.
Episode 1: Drone Defence
Drone use is growing at a rapid rate in Britain and our skies are some of the busiest anywhere in the world. Nick Baker meets Richard Gill who is employed by the likes of football stadiums, celebrities and prisons to protect airspace.
Producer: Leeanne Coyle
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.
News and discussion of consumer affairs.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
Artist Roger Law has long been fascinated by the culture of Korea. From stunning ceramics to films and music, South Korea has it all. Roger travels to the 21st century city of Seoul to find out what fires up the Korean imagination.
In the first of the series, Roger Law discovers how Korean potters became so skilled at ceramics that the Japanese decided to kidnap them.
Producer Mark Rickards.
Stone. Episode 6 by Cath Staincliffe.
Stone starts to question the reliability of the original murder investigation he was involved with.
Created by Danny Brocklehurst. Script Editor Caitlin Crawford. Director Gary Brown. Producers Gary Brown & Nadia Molinari
DCI John Stone investigates the suspicious death of a man in a fire at a homeless hostel. Stone's enquiries lead him to re-examine a murder he worked on twenty years before in order to solve the case. In doing so he uncovers a web of lies and deceit that make him face past mistakes and lead to personal trauma.
(9/12)
Last time they met, the South of England team of Marcus Berkmann and Paul Sinha inflicted a heavy defeat on newcomers Paddy Duffy and Freya McClements of Northern Ireland - so Northern Ireland will be out for revenge this week. Tom Sutcliffe is on hand to ensure fair play, and to make sure the points reflect the amount of help he has to give them in tackling such convoluted teasers as:
Why should the connection between an incipient flower, half of a Crazy duo, and the man who made up Barbie and the Munsters, be on the tip of your tongue?
The programme will, as always, also include a selection of the best question ideas received from listeners in recent months.
Producer: Paul Bajoria.
The Russian Revolution unleashed a brand of humour that continues to this day. In this two-part series, comedian and Russophile Viv Groskop explores a century of revolutionary comedy and asks how it continues to shape the national psyche.
The series will rediscover comedy of the Revolution: Bolshevik satire, early Communist cartoons and jokes about Lenin, as writers, satirists and comedians recall the jokes and cartoons shared by their parents and grandparents.
Viv will investigate the birth of the 'anekdot' and trace the development of dark humour through the purges. She will look at how dissident humour in the late 1950s influenced comedy in London and New York, and meet contemporary comedians to gain an understanding of the shape and sound of the comedy circuit in Russia today.
Producer: Georgia Catt.
The Secret Life of Birds
Brian Cox and Robin Ince are joined by guests including Katy Brand, Steve Backshall and Professor Tim Birkhead to uncover the secret life of birds. They'll be looking at some of the extraordinary and cunning behaviour exhibited by many species of birds, both male and female, in an effort to attract a mate. They also get a special visit from Brann the Raven, who takes to the stage to demonstrate just how intelligent some species of birds can be.
Producer: Alexandra Feachem.
Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
This week, the Professor of Ignorance John Lloyd and his curator Sally Phillips welcome the acerbically charming comedian Joe Lycett, William Shakespeare's great great great great great great great 16th cousin twice removed, sociologist Prof Tom Shakespeare,and Blue Peter's longest-serving female presenter Konnie Huq. This week, the Museum reveals how wheels turned for the French Revolution, how a little blue ship on a plastic chip can get you into over 200 UK attractions, and the brain-tinglingly sensational significance of towels in the hands of a woman called Maria.
The show was researched by Mike Turner and QI.
The Production Coordinator was Tamara Shilham.
The Associate Producer was James Harkin.
The Producers were Richard Turner and Anne Miller.
It was a BBC Studios Production.
Lexi reaches an emotional decision, and Rex is surprised by recent developments.
Arts news, interviews and reviews.
The political columnist and commentator Steve Richards presents a major series looking back on David Cameron's dramatic years in power, through interviews with high-profile insiders. How did Mr Cameron go from promising not to "bang on about Europe" to being brought down by it? What is the significance of Brexit in his overall record and legacy? We look back on the other seismic events of his leadership - the first peacetime coalition government in nearly a century, the stewardship of the economy in the aftermath of a massive financial crash, the narrowly avoided constitutional crisis of the Scotland independence referendum, the 2015 general election victory against the odds.
Part Two focuses on David Cameron's mission to modernise and transform the Conservative party and its thinking, exploring ideas such as the Big Society, the major shake-up of education and health policy, social reforms such as same-sex marriage and the ambition to make the party more environmentally conscious. We examine the impact of the financial crisis and "austerity" on the Cameron governments. We ask whether there is such a thing as "Cameronism" and we assess the success of David Cameron's mission to make the Conservatives more diverse and representative of modern Britain.
Interviewees in the series include Craig Oliver, Oliver Letwin, Nicky Morgan, George Eustice, Nick Boles, Ed Vaizey, Camilla Cavendish, Gabby Bertin, Jacob Rees-Mogg, Ken Clarke, Nigel Farage, David Blunkett and Vince Cable.
Producer: Leala Padmanabhan
Executive Producer: Martin Rosenbaum.
Lucy Ash meets the staff and customers of a bakery which is the one bright spot in war-torn east Ukraine. The war there between Russian-backed rebels and the Ukrainian army has dropped out of the headlines and there seems to be little political will to make peace. More than 10,000 people have been killed and as it enters its fourth year, this has become one of the longest conflicts in modern European history. But in the frontline town of Marinka there's one bright spot amidst the gloom - the bakery. It's the first new business in the town since the fighting began and it is bringing some hope and comfort to its traumatised citizens. We meet staff and customers from the bakery to explore a community living on the edge. "The aroma of fresh bread," says the man behind the enterprise, " gives people hope. It smells like normal life."
Producer Albina Kovalyova.
With more than 30 million presentations being given around the world every day, PowerPoint has become the single most ubiquitous tool for presenting ideas. Yet it's the software many of us love to hate - vilified for simplifying the complex and complicating the simple.
30 years on from its commercial launch, Ian Sansom asks, 'What's the real point of PowerPoint?' as he embarks on what surely must be a world first - a PowerPoint presentation for the radio.
How do I move this on to the next slide? There we are. Thanks.
Armed only with an auto-content wizard, some zippy graphics and a hefty set of bullet points, Ian ventures forth to assess the true impact of this revolution in communication. He speaks with the software's pioneers, meets some of its notable detractors and asks how PowerPoint has influenced corporate life and spilled out into some improbable areas of our culture.
As he discovers how science-fiction is helping to inform the next generation of presentation technology, Ian asks if PowerPoint has empowered the individual - or if our boardrooms, lecture halls and even our spiritual affairs are to be forever condemned to the fate that has come to be known as 'Death By PowerPoint.'
What do I do now? Press escape? No, I want to bring it back to the start. F6 I think. Where's the remote thingy..?
Producer: Conor Garrett.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
Muriel Spark's playful and autobiographical novel set amid London's post-war publishing scene.
Mrs Hawkins is thriving in her new job and continues to lose weight. But a figure from her past is about to make an unwelcome appearance.
Read by Maggie Service
Abridged by Rosemary Goring
Producer: Eilidh McCreadie.
Britain's army of cleaners and some of the people they clean for meet for the first time.
Many of today's cleaners might as well be invisible - we know so little of the people behind the job title. Blanche Girouard hears the stories and experiences of a range of immigrant cleaners who work in London's homes, schools and offices.
Alford is a Jamaican man in his 60s who has been cleaning the same school for over a decade. Here, he sits down for a proper conversation with some of the senior pupils for the first time and we hear some extraordinary life stories being shared.
Barrister Maria Gonzalez Marello profiles some of the cases of abuse and exploitation that come through her weekly free legal advice surgery for cleaners - she has won many court cases against unscrupulous contracting companies, and the number of cases had increased since the Brexit process started. There is a cruel irony that many big London firms boasting of attractive employment packages maintain their gleaming offices using people who work under very poor conditions. The recent decision to ban the charging of (large) fees for those employees wishing to take a grievance to an Employment Tribunal may improve conditions eventually, but contract law is complex.
On the other hand, we meet Veronica - a 24 year-old Polish cleaner who really enjoys cleaning in most of the twenty houses and offices she services every week. The programme concludes that language - the ability to speak English and read contracts - is the greatest defence against exploitation and isolation.
Producer: Peter Curran
A Foghorn production for BBC Radio 4.
News from Westminster.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
A reading and a reflection to start the day with the Rev'd Dr Karen Smith, Tutor in Church History and Christian Spirituality at South Wales Baptist College.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
Audio-visual artist Kathy Hinde enjoys the sounds of a flock of Pink-footed Geese as they take to the air.
Tweet of the Day has captivated the Radio 4 audience with its daily 90 seconds of birdsong. But what of the listener to this avian chorus? In this new series of Tweet of the Day, we bring to the airwaves the conversational voices of those who listen to and are inspired by birds. Building on the previous series, a more informal approach to learning alongside a renewed emphasis on encounter with nature and reflection in our relationship with the natural world.
Producer: Sarah Blunt
Photograph: Tom Mckibbin.
News and current affairs. Including Yesterday in Parliament, Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
When Eben Upton was in his twenties, he wanted to get children thinking about how computers think, to boost the number of people applying to read computer science at university. He dreamt of putting a chip in every classroom. The result was Raspberry Pi, a tiny gadget, little bigger than a credit card, that can be hooked up to any keyboard and monitor, to create a programmable PC. And it's cheap. Raspberry Pi Zero, sticker price just £5, was given away free with a computer magazine in 2015. Eben tells Jim how it all began, in his loft with soldering irons and post it notes, and how, by ruthlessly pursuing a philanthropic goal he became CEO of a highly successful business enterprise.
Producer: Anna Buckley.
The Olympian, Helen Glover, speaks to world-class badminton player, Gail Emms, about the difficult time she has had since retiring from sport.
Helen Glover is one of our most successful athletes. In a life devoted to rowing, she has won a phenomenal twenty one Olympic, World and European gold medals. But now she is contemplating retirement. And she is discovering that looking to the future - towards a life away from competitive rowing - is as daunting as it is liberating.
Gail Emms, alongside her doubles partner, Nathan Robertson, won a silver medal at the 2004 Olympics and became World Champion in 2006. But when she retired in 2008, she struggled financially and underestimated how hard it might be to find a new sense of identity and purpose.
Producer: Karen Gregor.
Mary Shelley was brought up by her father in a house filled with radical thinkers, poets, philosophers and writers of the day. Aged 16, she eloped with Percy Bysshe Shelley, embarking on a relationship that was lived on the move across Britain and Europe. She coped with debt, infidelity and the deaths of three children, before early widowhood changed her life forever. Most astonishingly, it was while still a teenager that she composed her novel Frankenstein, creating two of our most enduring archetypes today.
The life story is well-known. But who was the woman who lived it?
Mary Shelley left plenty of evidence and, in this fascinating dialogue with the past, Fiona Sampson sifts through letters, diaries and records to find the real woman behind the story. She uncovers a complex, generous character - friend, intellectual, lover and mother - trying to fulfil her own passionate commitment to writing at a time when to be a woman writer was an extraordinary and costly anomaly.
Coinciding with the 200th anniversary of the publication of Frankenstein, this is a major new work of biography by a prize-winning writer and poet.
Written by Fiona Sampson
Read by Stella Gonet
Abridged by Polly Coles
Produced by Clive Brill
A Brill production for BBC Radio 4.
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.
Pliny, despite vehemently not believing in such things, appears to have fallen in love at first sight. In a quest to find the girl of his dreams, he commands Venta to go under cover in the Ladies side of the Roman Baths. Meanwhile, Doris the psychic cook makes a surprising confession, which no one saw coming. By Hattie Naylor, based on real events in first century Rome.
A BBC/Cymru Wales production, directed by Kate McAll.
From the plumbing of ancient Rome, to lead acid batteries, paint, petrol and a dangerous legacy, the metal lead has seen a myriad of uses and abuses over thousands of years. In bullets, and poisons it has killed us both quickly and slowly, and yet its malleability, low melting point and resistance to corrosion make it a fantastic material for all kinds of containers and water proofing. And it is key to one of the most commonly used, and ignored, devices on the planet, the car battery.
However it's only recently that the serious impact of lead poisoning on the development of children's brains has come to light.
Uta Frith, Emeritus Professor of Cognitive Development at UCL, who worked on lead poisoning in the 1970s and 80s, journeys with lead from the iron age to the present day delving into the history and scandal associated with this often overlooked element.
Cathy FitzGerald invites you to discover new details in old masterpieces, using your phone, tablet or computer.
The average length of time spent looking at a painting in a gallery is 28 seconds. On Moving Pictures, we like to take a little longer. Each thirty-minute episode is devoted to a single artwork - and you're invited to look as well as listen, by following a link to an extraordinary high-resolution image made by Google Arts and Culture. Zoom in and you can see more than the artist - the pores of the canvas, the sweep of individual brushstrokes, the shimmer of pointillist dots.
In the first programme of this series, stroll along the high-street of a market town in Regency England - as imagined in a one-of-a-kind patchwork hanging, held in the collection of the V&A Museum. This needlework masterpiece features tiny applique scenes of everyday life - children flying kites, chimney sweeps heading home from work, a fishwife off to market. Cathy asks if one of the little characters might be the maker herself.
Interviewees: Jenny Lister, Kerry Taylor, Deb McGuire, Linda Seward, Tracy Chevalier
Producer and Presenter: Cathy FitzGerald
A White Stiletto production for BBC Radio 4
Ann West, Coverlet (c) Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Acquired with the support of the Friends of the V&A.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Welcome to the modern world where airspace needs protecting, dating profile photographs need taking and lonely people need cuddling. It's the home of bizarre jobs brought about by a myriad of 21st century by-products.
Nick Baker meets the people behind some of the Britain's most niche jobs, gets inside the role, scopes out what it says about our world today and assesses whether it's time for a career change.
Episode 2: Online Dating Photographer
Nick turns his lens on a niche role which was borne of the online dating industry - estimated to be worth £225 million next year. He'll stand on both sides of the camera as he gets to grip with a service which claims it won't be niche for long.
Producer: Leeanne Coyle
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.
Consumer affairs phone-in.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
Artist Roger Law has long been fascinated by the culture of Korea. From stunning ceramics to films and music, South Korea has it all. Roger travels to the 21st century city of Seoul to find out what fires up the Korean imagination.
Seoul is the place to go for anyone who wants plastic surgery, and Roger wants to know why. Is there something in the Korean psyche which can be helped by a nose job? And can they make him look like George Clooney?
Producer Mark Rickards.
Stone. Episode 7. By Alex Ganley
The team now have their prime suspect, but who is he? There is only one person who can identify him.
Created by Danny Brocklehurst. Script Editor Caitlin Crawford. Director Gary Brown. Producers Gary Brown & Nadia Molinari
DCI John Stone investigates the suspicious death of a man in a fire at a homeless hostel. Stone's enquiries lead him to re-examine a murder he worked on twenty years before in order to solve the case. In doing so he uncovers a web of lies and deceit that make him face past mistakes and lead to personal trauma.
Tom Holland and his guests showcase the stories that are making history.
Helen Castor heads for Wales and new scientific research telling us much more about what the Romans ate and how far away they had to source their food to feed their armies. Helen's in Newport, not far from Caerleon which was one of only three permanent fortresses in Roman Britain. Here, archaeologists and scientists from Cardiff University are using dental palaeopathology to discover where the animals that were slaughtered for their meat came from. The results suggest that so-called supply chains were as long and involved as they are today.
Also, we cross the Bristol Channel for more food history as reporter Hester Cant tastes the city's vibrant street food culture and discovers just how long its been established in the UK.
Producer: Nick Patrick
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.
Michael Rosen and Dr Laura Wright are back with a new series of Word of Mouth, and appropriately enough they're starting with Hellos. And greetings. Former diplomat Andy Scott has greeted people in more than 60 countries, and he's written a book about his experiences called One Kiss or Two? The origins and psychology of greetings provide a rich subject and by the end of the programme they may all even have come to a conclusion on whether to hug or not to hug..
Producer Beth O'Dea.
Herodotus - father of history or father of lies?
Matthew Parris introduces a sparky discussion about a writer whose achievements include a nine book account of a war between east and west - the Persian invasions of Greece. Justin Marozzi proposes him not just as an historian, but as geographer, explorer, correspondent, the world's first travel writer, and an irrepressible story teller to boot. Backing him up is Professor Edith Hall, who sees Herodotus as the author of a magnificent work of prose. But Matthew Parris wrestles with whether he was historian or hack.
Justin Marozzi is the author of the award winning Baghdad: City of Peace, City of Blood.
Edith Hall is Professor in the Centre for Hellenic Studies at King's College London.
Herodotus of Halicarnassus - modern day Bodrum in Turkey - wrote about Croesus, Darius, Xerxes and Leonidas, plus the battles of Marathon, Thermopylae and Plataea. His books also embrace much of the rest of the known world.
The producer in Bristol is Miles Warde.
Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
In this series, Simon Evans examines the concept of the 'free lunch' and shines a light on new ways of making money in the 21st century.
There are many apparently 'free' economic models operating today but what are they and how do they work? Across four episodes Simon and his team will explore Social Media and how we often appear to enjoy it for free. Later on Simon examines the perhaps unfair belief that some multinationals appear to operate tax free. And what about the billions being given away 'for free' by a new breed of philanthro-capitalists? Finally, what can we learn from these operating models to help that beloved yet creaking institution, the NHS, which is also apparently free at the point of use?
As a wise person once said, there's no such thing as a free lunch. If you're not paying, you're the product.
Also featuring Financial Times economics god Tim Harford and Timandra Harkness, author of 'Big Data: Does Size Matter?' with contributions from the Queen of MoneyWeek, Merryn Somerset Webb.
Episode 1: Social Media
From the country-sized economy of Google changing the way we see adverts; to the seemingly free apps like Uber making San Francisco the economic centre of the world and changing the concept of local business; to social media platforms like Facebook redefining us as economic actors... the way we work, shop, meet, and think about money is profoundly changing. Many of these technologies look benign and free - but who is getting rich from them? And how? And how are we 'paying' without realising?
Starring: Simon Evans with Tim Harford and Timandra Harkness
Researcher: Andrew Wright
Production coordinator: Toby Tilling
Producer: Richard Morris
A BBC Studios Production.
Brian is in trouble, and Susan has a brainwave.
Arts news, interviews and reviews.
File on 4 exposes a multi-million pound global trade in fake diplomas.
A complex network of online universities sells degrees, doctorates and professional qualifications - for a price. Some of the buyers have gone on to trade on these credentials, including them on their CVs and gaining jobs in public life.
Others, after making an initial purchase, were blackmailed by the sellers, who threatened to expose them unless they paid out huge additional sums of money.
Despite criminal investigations in numerous countries, why is there still a thriving trade in dubious qualifications and are institutions and companies taking the issue seriously enough?
Reporter: Simon Cox
Producers: Matthew Chapman and Helen Clifton
Editor: Gail Champion.
News, views and information for people who are blind or partially sighted.
Dr Mark Porter presents a series on health issues.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
Muriel Spark's playful and autobiographical novel set amid London's post-war publishing scene.
Wanda continues to behave strangely as Mrs Hawkins mulls on the loss of another job in publishing. Before long her thoughts turn to her brief wartime marriage to the late Tom Hawkins.
Read by Maggie Service
Abridged by Rosemary Goring
Producer: Eilidh McCreadie.
News from Westminster.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
A reading and a reflection to start the day with the Rev'd Dr Karen Smith, Tutor in Church History and Christian Spirituality at South Wales Baptist College.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
Migrating Barnacle geese inspire audio-visual artist Kathy Hinde to create an installation in Scotland to celebrate their winter residence.
Tweet of the Day has captivated the Radio 4 audience with its daily 90 seconds of birdsong. But what of the listener to this avian chorus? In this new series of Tweet of the Day, we bring to the airwaves the conversational voices of those who listen to and are inspired by birds. Building on the previous series, a more informal approach to learning alongside a renewed emphasis on encounter with nature and reflection in our relationship with the natural world.
Producer: Sarah Blunt
Photograph: Eljay Rogers.
Morning news and current affairs. Including Yesterday in Parliament, Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
Boys Don't Cry by The Cure is, on the surface, a tribute to teenage angst and a slice of pop perfection. Lol Tolhurst, the band's drummer, wrote the song with his band mates in Robert Smith's parent's extension.
Poorna Bell saw the song's lyrics echo her husband's struggle with expressing his emotions, and describes the devastating impact that can have.
Runner Derek Redmond recalls the moment he lost his 'game face' at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, and Sara Pacella and Jeffrey Axt chart the changing fortunes of a giant Boys Don't Cry poster.
Producer Sally Heaven.
Bettany Hughes considers changing ideas about harmony at an operas rehearsal, in a garden, in mythology and on the battlefield.
This surprising and invigorating history of the most influential ideas in the story of civilisation, has been described as 'a double espresso shot of philosophy, history, science and the arts'. Award-winning historian and broadcaster Bettany Hughes begins each programme with the first, extant evidence of a single word-idea in Ancient Greek culture and travels both forwards and backwards in time, investigating how these ideas have been moulded by history, and how they've shaped us.
In this programme Bettany explores harmony with experts from the humanities and sciences, people who see these big philosophical ideas playing out in their own lives including Chinese soprano Beibei Wang, conductor Peter Knapp, philosopher Angie Hobbs, art historian Pippa Shirley, gardener Andy Flitney and Royal Navy chaplain Stu Hallam. Bettany reveals where these ideas were born and then explores the street markets, churches, offices and homes where they continue to morph and influence our daily lives, including Blackheath Halls in South East London and Waddesdon Manor in Buckinghamshire.
Other ideas in this series are character, narcissism, technology and hubris. Ideas examined previously include idea, desire, agony, fame, justice, wisdom, comedy, liberty, peace and hospitality, virtue, psyche, charisma, irony and nemesis.
Readings: Sean Baker
Series Producer: Dixi Stewart.
Mary Shelley was brought up by her father in a house filled with radical thinkers, poets, philosophers and writers of the day. Aged 16, she eloped with Percy Bysshe Shelley, embarking on a relationship that was lived on the move across Britain and Europe. She coped with debt, infidelity and the deaths of three children, before early widowhood changed her life forever. Most astonishingly, it was while still a teenager that she composed her novel Frankenstein, creating two of our most enduring archetypes today.
The life story is well-known. But who was the woman who lived it?
Mary Shelley left plenty of evidence and, in this fascinating dialogue with the past, Fiona Sampson sifts through letters, diaries and records to find the real woman behind the story. She uncovers a complex, generous character - friend, intellectual, lover and mother - trying to fulfil her own passionate commitment to writing at a time when to be a woman writer was an extraordinary and costly anomaly.
Coinciding with the 200th anniversary of the publication of Frankenstein, this is a major new work of biography by a prize-winning writer and poet.
Written by Fiona Sampson
Read by Stella Gonet
Abridged by Polly Coles
Produced by Clive Brill
A Brill production for BBC Radio 4.
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.
Pliny has a new job as Chief Overseer of the sewage works of Rome - but it's Venta, his slave, who has to go under ground and check for blockages. There he finds that Rome's prisoners are doing the real dirty work, including a Stoic philosopher, the victim of a recent purge by the Emperor Domitian. By Hattie Naylor, based on real events in first century Rome.
A BBC /Cymru Wales production, directed by Kate McAll.
Junior doctors who love their work but feel they could do it better if the pressure was less. Fi Glover presents another conversation in the series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen.
Producer: Marya Burgess.
Series 11 of the show where one week's interviewee becomes the next week's interviewer. The first episode of Chain Reaction was broadcast on BBC Radio Five in 1991 when John Cleese was the first comedian in the hot seat. Now, 25 years on, a new series sees another raft of the world's best-loved comedians and entertainment personalities talking to each other about their lives and work. This week, the comedian and satirist Ian Hislop turns interviewer as he talks to the writer and presenter Victoria Coren-Mitchell.
Ian Hislop is a long-standing team captain on 'Have I Got News for You' and the editor of the satirical magazine Private Eye. As a dedicated fan and student of history, he has made several acclaimed documentaries on wide-ranging subjects including conscientious objectors and The Beeching Report.
Ian's guest Victoria Coren-Mitchell is a columnist for The Observer and GQ amongst other publications and has presented myriad documentaries on subjects as varied as The Bohemians and Mary Poppins. As well as a prolific writing career, she keeps order on the popular and fiendishly difficult television quiz, 'Only Connect'. She is also well-known as one of the world's top professional poker players and has achieved huge success at the card table.
In this link in the chain, Ian talks to Victoria about her wide and varied career in writing, quizzing and cards.
Producer: Richard Morris
A BBC Radio Comedy Production.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Welcome to the modern world where airspace needs protecting, dating profile photographs need taking and lonely people need cuddling. It's the home of bizarre jobs brought about by a myriad of 21st century by-products.
Nick Baker meets the people behind some of the Britain's most niche jobs, gets inside the role, scopes out what it says about our world today and assesses whether it's time for a career change.
3. Life Story Writers
Nick Baker spends time at a bespoke story telling service where the ghost writers aren't penning for celebrities but ordinary people. He investigates why more of us are investing in our own posterity.
Producer: Leeanne Coyle
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.
Consumer affairs programme.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
Artist Roger Law has long been fascinated by the culture of Korea. From stunning ceramics to films and music, South Korea has it all. Roger travels to the 21st century city of Seoul to find out what fires up the Korean imagination.
Korean films are becoming more popular in the west, but there is still a long tradition we know little about. Roger visits the 'Hollywood of Seoul' to find out how their movies get made.
Producer Mark Rickards.
Stone. Episode 8 by Alex Ganley.
The team locate the possible witness. But what does she know?
Created by Danny Brocklehurst. Script editor Caitlin Crawford. Directed by Gary Brown. Produced by Nadia Molinari & Gary Brown
DCI John Stone investigates the suspicious death of a man in a fire at a homeless hostel. Stone's enquiries lead him to re-examine a murder he worked on twenty years before in order to solve the case. In doing so he uncovers a web of lies and deceit that make him face past mistakes and lead to personal trauma.
Financial phone-in.
Sociological discussion programme, presented by Laurie Taylor.
Topical programme about the fast-changing media world.
Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Matthew Holness stars as Knut Ångström, a brooding, alcoholic, maverick Swedish detective from the tough streets of Oslo, in a Scandinavian detective yarn adapted from the bestselling Ångström trilogy by Martin English (writing as Bjorgen Swedenssonsson).
Following the death of his wife, Ångström is posted to the Njalsland peninsula where he becomes embroiled in a labyrinthine murder (or possibly not-murder) case which bears an eerie similarity to the Askeladden killings - a case from his distant past.
In episode 2, Ångström and Mina try to find out who tried to frame him for the death of Councillor Birgid Lundstrom, a trail which leads them straight to the door of Benny from ABBA. But when that door opens, why is Benny from ABBA now Mexican?
A new comedy series by writers of the Ladybird Books for Grown Ups, Charlie Brooker's ...Wipe, That Mitchell and Webb Look and A Touch of Cloth.
Written by Joel Morris and Jason Hazeley
Cast: Matthew Holness, Nadia Kamil, Simon Kane, Kevin Eldon, David Reed, Freya Parker.
Production Co-ordinator: Tamara Shilham
Produced by Lyndsay Fenner
A BBC Studios production.
Justin stands accused, and Kenton imparts some advice.
Arts news, interviews and reviews.
Anne McElvoy takes guests and listeners alike to the edges of their certainties. She brings together two figures who are active in the public debate on opposed sides of a principle.
Anne is joined by conflict resolution specialist Gabrielle Rifkind to lead the two guests through a series of structured conversations to encourage them to air the personal experiences, instincts and feelings that underpin their public positions. Together Anne and Gabrielle invite guests to do something that doesn't often feature in debates: really listen to each other.
Joining the discussion this week to discuss whether 'we should all be feminists' are author, journalist and human rights activist Joan Smith, and former barrister and now co-editor of The Conservative Woman, Laura Perrins.
Talks with a personal dimension.
Part one of a three-part series, in which the journalist and author Matthew Syed explores how and why individuals and organisations learn from their mistakes or fail to do so. He explores the common obstacles to learning lessons from experience and how they can be surmounted.
The series follows a wide-ranging approach, taking in government and public services such as the NHS and the Police, the commercial world from aviation to Google, the role of education, and underlying principles of psychology and philosophy, scientific method and individual decision-making.
Interviewees in the series include the comedian John Cleese, the entrepreneur Richard Branson, the inventor James Dyson, the campaigner Alastair Campbell, and Sara Thornton, head of the National Police Chiefs Council, as well as others from the fields of medicine, education, social work, manufacturing, government policy and academic research.
Producer: Martin Rosenbaum.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
Muriel Spark's playful and autobiographical novel set amid London's post-war publishing scene.
As Wanda Podolak edges ever closer to breakdown, Nancy has spent an unexpected night with neighbour and medical student William Todd.
Read by Maggie Service
Abridged by Rosemary Goring
Producer: Eilidh McCreadie.
When a rare pair of whales start ramming The Egg as part of their mating ritual, Harry and the team are forced to take evasive action to save the prison. But their efforts are soon hindered by the arrival of ardent conservationist Jo-Jo Peebles, hell-bent on protecting the whales at any cost. Who will crack first? Harry? Jo-Jo? Or The Egg...?
Written by Dan Maier
Produced by Sam Michell
It is a production from BBC Studios.
Rhys James Is... Privileged
Comedian Rhys James explores different aspects of himself through live stand up, spoken word poetry and interview clips. In this first episode he examines his privileged status and chats to his mum and dad.
Written and performed by... Rhys James
Rhys' mum and dad... Rhys' mum and dad
Music by... Steve Dunne
Sound by... David Thomas
Produced by... Carl Cooper
This is a BBC Studios production.
News from Westminster.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
A reading and a reflection to start the day with the Rev'd Dr Karen Smith, Tutor in Church History and Christian Spirituality at South Wales Baptist College.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
"Its one of the most breath-taking experiences I've witnessed" says Kathy Hinde as she recalls watching thousands of Knot being forced by the incoming tide into the air above the mudflats at Snettisham In Norfolk. Here she shares that experience with us.
Tweet of the Day has captivated the Radio 4 audience with its daily 90 seconds of birdsong. But what of the listener to this avian chorus? In this new series of Tweet of the Day, we bring to the airwaves the conversational voices of those who listen to and are inspired by birds. Building on the previous series, a more informal approach to learning alongside a renewed emphasis on encounter with nature and reflection in our relationship with the natural world.
Producer: Sarah Blunt
Photograph: Ian Redman.
Morning news and current affairs. Including Yesterday in Parliament, Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the work, ideas and life of the Russian poet whose work was celebrated in C20th both for its quality and for what it represented, written under censorship in the Stalin years. Her best known poem, Requiem, was written after her son was imprisoned partly as a threat to her and, to avoid punishment for creating it, she passed it on to her supporters to be memorised, line by line, rather than written down. She was a problem for the authorities and became significant internationally, as her work came to symbolise resistance to political tyranny and the preservation of pre-Revolutionary liberal values in the Soviet era.
With
Alexandra Harrington
Michael Basker
and
Katharine Hodgson
Producer: Simon Tillotson.
Mary Shelley was brought up by her father in a house filled with radical thinkers, poets, philosophers and writers of the day. Aged 16, she eloped with Percy Bysshe Shelley, embarking on a relationship that was lived on the move across Britain and Europe. She coped with debt, infidelity and the deaths of three children, before early widowhood changed her life forever. Most astonishingly, it was while still a teenager that she composed her novel Frankenstein, creating two of our most enduring archetypes today.
The life story is well-known. But who was the woman who lived it?
Mary Shelley left plenty of evidence and, in this fascinating dialogue with the past, Fiona Sampson sifts through letters, diaries and records to find the real woman behind the story. She uncovers a complex, generous character - friend, intellectual, lover and mother - trying to fulfil her own passionate commitment to writing at a time when to be a woman writer was an extraordinary and costly anomaly.
Coinciding with the 200th anniversary of the publication of Frankenstein, this is a major new work of biography by a prize-winning writer and poet.
Written by Fiona Sampson
Read by Stella Gonet
Abridged by Polly Coles
Produced by Clive Brill
A Brill production for BBC Radio 4.
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.
Pliny feels under threat from the Emperor Domitian more than ever when he is invited to the Palatine, and the room where the Emperor tortures flies. Meanwhile, Marcella has a new slave, Sextus, who has supplanted Venta in Marcella's affections. By Hattie Naylor, based on real events in first century Rome.
A BBC/Cymru Wales production, directed by Kate McAll.
For nearly two decades, Swedish health professionals have been treating asylum-seeking children who fall into a deeply listless state. They withdraw from the world, refuse to speak, walk and eat - most end up being tube-fed. They are known as, "the apathetic children" in Sweden. More recently this illness has been termed Resignation Syndrome. Experts agree it is children who have experienced deep trauma who are vulnerable. Doctors link the condition to an uncertain migration status. But why, asks Linda Pressly, does it only seem to happen to children in Sweden, and how can they recover?
From the nomads of the vast steppe - to the glamour and adulation of the stage. Kate Molleson unravels the story of Mongolia's remarkable rise to being an opera superpower (2/2)
Mongolia is becoming a global leader in opera singing - and completely breaking the mould. Young nomadic herders and horsemen are being plucked from the vast plains and taken to Ulaanbaatar - where they're transformed into the next generation of top-flight tenors and baritones.
It's a fascinating synergy of young men with the perfect physique, often honed in a rugged, traditional outdoorsmen culture, and a superb Soviet-era music and arts education system that - just over half a century after its State Academic Theatre of Opera and Ballet first opened - is delivering the next generation of global singing superstars.
Radio 4 brings you a hypnotic audio portrait, taking you from the open plains, horse lullabies and throat singing of the endless Mongolian landscape to the cultural melee of Ulaanbataar - a place of stark contrasts where gleaming 21st century skyscrapers rise, yet where around half the population live in traditional gers (tents). A nation numbering just 3 million people, yet the size of Western Europe, and sandwiched between the gigantic superpowers of Russia and China - how much can Mongolia harness its cultural might to have a voice in global geopolitics?
In the concluding episode, Kate explores the political value of Mongolia's musical prowess. In the Soviet era, the communist government used the people's love of traditional song to advance opera, and with it a certain idea of "civilisation"; in 2017, the current government see Mongolia's operatic might as a way of punching above its weight in global geopolitics. The buzzword on everyone's lips is "soft power" - a way for Mongolia to be part of a global conversation with nations - like its neighbours Russia and China - they could never compete with militarily or economically.
But what does this mean for Mongolia's traditional culture? And in a digitally-connected world where international musical genres are consumed across old political boundaries, and a musician with an internet connection can become a global star without leaving their bedroom - how much do contemporary Mongolians get to pick and choose what constitutes their cultural identity?
As Mongolia's foremost opera star prepares to take the stage in Ulaanbaatar, Kate explores the diversity of Mongolia's musical makeup in 2017 - from breakout indie acts and hip hop DJs to women throat singers causing ripples in the nation's venerable traditional classical singing art.
Producer: Steven Rajam
Presenter: Kate Molleson
A BBC Wales production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Welcome to the modern world where airspace needs protecting, dating profile photographs need taking and lonely people need cuddling. It's the home of bizarre jobs brought about by a myriad of 21st century by-products.
Nick Baker meets the people behind some of the Britain's most niche jobs, gets inside the role, scopes out what it says about our world today and assesses whether it's time for a career change.
4. Rap Interpreters
Rap music isn't enjoyed by everyone but should still be available to all. Nick Baker spends time with the interpreters who work with rap artists to make their music accessible to deaf people.
Producer: Leeanne Coyle
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.
Consumer affairs programme.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
Artist Roger Law has long been fascinated by the culture of Korea. From stunning ceramics to films and music, South Korea has it all. Roger travels to the 21st century city of Seoul to find out what fires up the Korean imagination.
Roger travels out of Seoul to visit the island of Jeju. It's a holiday spot, but one with a remarkable selection of unusual museums. From teddy bears to stones, they all have their place in the cabinets of curiosities.
Producer Mark Rickards.
Stone Episode 9 written by Vivienne Harvey
DCI Stone and team are close to discovering the truth, but as the net closes in on the main suspects, Stone's personal and professional life collide.
Written by Vivienne Harvey
Created by Danny Brocklehurst
Script Editor Caitlin Crawford
Director Nadia Molinari
Producers: Gary Brown and Nadia Molinari
Series:
DCI John Stone investigates the suspicious death of a man in a fire at a homeless hostel. Stone's enquiries lead him to re-examine a murder he worked on twenty years before in order to solve the case. In doing so he uncovers a web of lies and deceit that make him face past mistakes and lead to personal trauma.
Strathpeffer in the Highlands of Scotland is one of the few remaining strongholds of the elusive Scottish wildcat. The species is now considered to be rarer than the tiger with estimates of between 40 and 400 wildcats left in the wild. The reason that these estimates vary so widely is that the creatures are very hard to spot and that they are often mixed up with large feral or hybrid cats who are also responsible for diluting the remaining gene pool.
Feral cats also cause problems for the wildcats when they bring disease into the few remaining areas where experts believe wildcat populations exist. That's why the Scottish Wildcat Action team are working on a 'Trap, Neuter, Vaccinate and Release' programme. with the help of the local community, to ensure domestic cats do not interbreed with wildcats or spread disease.
David Lindo meets the team at Scottish Wildcat Action in Strathpeffer to see first hand how this programme works as the wildcat enters the vitally important breeding season from January to March.
Alexander Payne gives Francine Stock the low-down on Downsizing.
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.
John Finnemore presents another half hour of his award-winning sketch show, joined by his regular ensemble cast of Margaret Cabourn-Smith, Simon Kane, Lawry Lewin and Carrie Quinlan.
This week we hear the best sound in all of music, and someone asking for a massive favour. There's also an inaccurate sketch, but that's alright because John issues a correction and, well, since you ask him a very direct question...
John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme was described by The Radio Times as "the best sketch show in years, on television or radio", and by The Daily Telegraph as "funny enough to make even the surliest cat laugh". Already the winner of a BBC Audio Drama Award and a Radio Academy Silver Award, John was named the 2016 Radio Broadcaster of the Year by the Broadcasting Press Guild for his work on Souvenir Programme.
Written by & starring ... John Finnemore
Cellist ... Sally Stares
Production Coordinator ... Beverly Tagg
Producer ... Ed Morrish
A BBC Studios production.
Noluthando goes too far, and Kate is forced to step up.
Arts news, interviews and reviews.
Series looking at important issues in the news. Presented by David Aaronovitch.
Have you ever wondered what happens to the clothes you donate to charity?
Every year, hundreds of millions of pounds worth of clothes from rich nations are exported to Africa.
In Business travels to Tanzania, where second hand fashion is big business. Now the Tanzanian government want to phase-out these cheap imports, which they say are killing the local textiles industry. But if they do, they risk losing a lucrative trade-aid deal that allows them to export to the United States duty free. BBC Africa's Sammy Awami investigates the used clothes or 'mitumba' business, and asks local textiles producers if they are ready to clothe this rapidly-growing nation.
Producer: Helen Grady.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
Muriel Spark's playful and autobiographical novel set amid London's post-war publishing scene.
Still grieving after Wanda's tragic death, Nancy Hawkins is heading for an interview with a new literary magazine.
Read by Maggie Service
Abridged by Rosemary Goring
Producer: Eilidh McCreadie.
Washington D.C.'s favourite political call-in show returns to Radio 4 as stand-up legend Rich Hall and a selection of comedians from both sides of the Atlantic reflect on the first year of Donald Trump's presidency.
Speaking to American pundits, comics and of course hearing extensively from the man on the street the show will explore how many of Trump's campaign promises he managed to keep and how radically one of the most interesting countries on the planet has changed over 52 weeks.
Producer - Joe Nunnery
A BBC Studios Production.
News from Westminster.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
A reading and a reflection to start the day with the Rev'd Dr Karen Smith, Tutor in Church History and Christian Spirituality at South Wales Baptist College.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
As she watches House martins land and take off from telegraph wires, audio-visual artist Kathy Hinde was struck by how they looked like notes on a musical score. This inspired a musical sculpture in which the birds compose the music!
Tweet of the Day has captivated the Radio 4 audience with its daily 90 seconds of birdsong. But what of the listener to this avian chorus? In this new series of Tweet of the Day, we bring to the airwaves the conversational voices of those who listen to and are inspired by birds. Building on the previous series, a more informal approach to learning alongside a renewed emphasis on encounter with nature and reflection in our relationship with the natural world.
Producer: Sarah Blunt
Photograph: Andy & Helen Holt.
Morning news and current affairs. Including Yesterday in Parliament, Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
Mary Shelley was brought up by her father in a house filled with radical thinkers, poets, philosophers and writers of the day. Aged 16, she eloped with Percy Bysshe Shelley, embarking on a relationship that was lived on the move across Britain and Europe. She coped with debt, infidelity and the deaths of three children, before early widowhood changed her life forever. Most astonishingly, it was while still a teenager that she composed her novel Frankenstein, creating two of our most enduring archetypes today.
The life story is well-known. But who was the woman who lived it?
Mary Shelley left plenty of evidence and, in this fascinating dialogue with the past, Fiona Sampson sifts through letters, diaries and records to find the real woman behind the story. She uncovers a complex, generous character - friend, intellectual, lover and mother - trying to fulfil her own passionate commitment to writing at a time when to be a woman writer was an extraordinary and costly anomaly.
Coinciding with the 200th anniversary of the publication of Frankenstein, this is a major new work of biography by a prize-winning writer and poet.
Written by Fiona Sampson
Read by Stella Gonet
Abridged by Polly Coles
Produced by Clive Brill
A Brill production for BBC Radio 4.
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.
Fearing for her safety, Pliny calls off his marriage to Calpurnia and retires to his room, brokenhearted. Meanwhile, the Emperor Domitian is increasingly paranoid that there is a plot against him. This time he's right. By Hattie Naylor, based on real events in first century Rome.
A BBC Cymru/Wales production, directed by Kate McAll.
From the secret campaign waged by the Prince Regent (the future George IV) against the leading satirical artists of his time (Gillray, Cruickshank and Rowlandson) in order to protect his reputation, to the messages and memoranda penned by Prince Albert about the forthcoming Great Exhibition of 1851 - the Royal Collection and Archive reveal to historian Dr Amanda Foreman the captivating narratives hidden amongst the dry documents and ledgers. Such as the entry for £35 paid to a print-seller to halt his publication of a scurrilous engraving, or the blackmailed threats by another to crucify the Prince Regent in satirical verse unless he stumps up. It's only when all the documents are laid out - literally - on the beautiful map tables of the Print Room at Windsor Castle, that the full story begins to appear. Amanda, too, sees how Prince Albert was already planning the legacy of his Great Exhibition by drawing up plans for the development of what is today the great museum quarter of London, South Kensington. Art that was sold, then re-acquired, porcelain that was acquired, sold and bought up again... the ebb and flow of art and artefacts from the unique collections of our monarchs are brought vividly to life by the expert team of curators and archivists of the Royal Collection and historian Amanda Foreman.
Producer: Simon Elmes.
by Agatha Christie
dramatised by Joy Wilkinson
Mark Easterbrook has teamed up with Ginger in order to discover who is at the bottom of the spate of recent mysterious deaths. And they think they've found the perfect plan. Part Three.
Directed by Mary Peate.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Welcome to the modern world where airspace needs protecting, dating profile photographs need taking and lonely people need cuddling. It's the home of bizarre jobs brought about by a myriad of 21st century by-products.
Nick Baker meets the people behind some of the Britain's most niche jobs, gets inside the role, scopes out what it says about our world today and assesses whether it's time for a career change.
5. Cuddle Therapists
Meeting the therapists who offer cuddle sessions by the hour, Nick Baker asks why demand for this niche service is on the increase and, after trying out the service for himself, he has concerns which need addressing.
Producer: Leeanne Coyle
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.
Consumer news and issues.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
Artist Roger Law has long been fascinated by the culture of Korea. From stunning ceramics to films and music, South Korea has it all. Roger travels to the 21st century city of Seoul to find out what fires up the Korean imagination.
In the last in the series, Roger Law tries some Korean food for Christmas Day. Not all of it is to his taste, but the national dish of kimchi hits the spot.
Producer Mark Rickards.
Stone - series finale episode 10 written by Vivienne Harvey
A devastated DCI Stone urges his team to bring the truth to light and finally get justice for the victims.
Written by Vivienne Harvey
Created by Danny Brocklehurst
Script Editor Caitlin Crawford
Director Nadia Molinari
Producers: Gary Brown and Nadia Molinari
Series:
DCI John Stone investigates the suspicious death of a man in a fire at a homeless hostel. Stone's enquiries lead him to re-examine a murder he worked on twenty years before in order to solve the case. In doing so he uncovers a web of lies and deceit that make him face past mistakes and lead to personal trauma.
Horticultural panel programme.
The artist, or the man?
For most of the twentieth century, Eric Gill was known for his sculptures and drawings, printmaking and the iconic typeface that bears his name. But in 1989, Fiona MacCarthy's acclaimed biography of the artist - which included extensive research into Gill's private journals - revealed another side, including an incestuous relationship with his sister and the sexual abuse of two of his three daughters.
Since then, it has been difficult for many to approach his art in its previous light.
The Ditchling Museum Of Art And Craft mounted a major retrospective, Eric Gill: The Body, which ran from April to September 2017. This short story by Alison MacLeod, emerged from her time as one of the writers-in-residence for the exhibition. The voices sequence in the story is inspired by visitors' responses to the exhibition.
A work of creative non-fiction, Portrait: Eric Gill Dreaming imagines Gill in his house in Ditchling, asleep and dreaming about his work and life, and wondering whether or not they go together.
Which brings us back to the original question - the artist, or the man?
Alison MacLeod lives in Brighton. She was shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award in 2011 and her stories, including the series Imagining Chekhov, have featured previously on Radio 4. Her novel Unexploded was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize and was broadcast as a Book At Bedtime. Her latest collection of stories, All The Beloved Ghosts, was published in 2017. Alison is Professor of Contemporary Fiction at the University of Chichester.
Writer: Alison MacLeod
Reader: Indira Varma
Producer: Jeremy Osborne
A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4.
Obituary series, analysing and celebrating the life stories of people who have recently died.
Investigating the numbers in the news.
A father who donated a kidney to a stranger wants to know what his daughter feels about it. 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.
This week's panel features Jeremy Hardy, Kerry Godliman and Isabel Hardman with Miles Jupp in the chair.
There's a shock in store for Jennifer, and Toby stands his ground.
News, reviews and interviews from the worlds of art, literature, film and music.
Jonathan Dimbleby presents political debate from Ceredigion Museum in Aberystwyth with the leader of the Welsh Conservatives Andrew R T Davies , Shadow Defence Secretary Nia Griffith MP, jungle survivor author and commentator Stanley Johnson and the leader of Plaid Cymru Leanne Wood AM.
A weekly reflection on a topical issue.
Paul Seabright, economist and author, presents part two of the omnibus edition of his investigation into our trading past. Paul explores what happens when different trading cultures collide, he examines the role of slavery in the story of global trade, and he salutes the shipping container.
Producer: Chris Ledgard.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
Muriel Spark's playful and autobiographical novel set amid London's post-war publishing scene.
Although she enjoys her new job and looks forward to the future with William Todd, Nancy dreads the reappearance of hack writer Hector Bartlett.
Read by Maggie Service
Abridged by Rosemary Goring
Producer: Eilidh McCreadie.
News from Westminster.
A cyclist, rescued by Air Ambulance, shares his positive feelings about the way the accident has changed his life with a London Air Ambulance fund raiser. Fi Glover presents another conversation in the series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen.
Producer: Marya Burgess.