The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
Hans Rosling wonders if, in the rush to tackle humanity's most pressing problems, we might be making things worse.
Professor Hans Rosling was 'the man in whose hands data sings'. He was dubbed 'a true inspiration' by Bill Gates and became a viral celebrity thanks to his popular TED talks which broke down the statistics behind global health and economics.
Before his death in 2017 Rosling spent years asking global audiences simple questions about basic trends. How widespread is extreme poverty? What is life expectancy today? How many children in the world have been vaccinated? He quizzed everyone from medics to lecturers, bankers, political decision makers - even Nobel Laureates. And the results were always the same.
"Everyone seems to get the world not only devastatingly wrong, but systematically wrong. By which I mean, that these test results are worse than random. They are worse than the results I would get if the people answering my questions had no knowledge at all."
Identifying key evolutionary instincts that prevent us from seeing the world as it really is, Rosling asks us to fundamentally shift our view of the world - but we have an engaging and entertaining guide on our journey.
Abridged by Anna Magnusson
Read by Adrian Rawlins
Producer Eilidh McCreadie.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
Spiritual reflection to start the day with Bob Fyffe, General Secretary of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland.
Listener Eamon Goodfellow on why he decided to give stand-up comedy a try, and why he thinks iPM should broadcast live from an open mic night.
The Your News bulletin is read by Sky News' Kay Burley.
And a listener who's a barrister specialising in mental capacity cases explains some of the problems that arise when people with dementia want to marry, after hearing our previous interviews.
iPM is the news programme that starts with its listeners. Email ipm@bbc.co.uk. Twitter: @BBCiPM. Presented by Eddie Mair and Luke Jones. Produced by Cat Farnsworth.
The latest news headlines. Including the weather and a look at the papers.
Ian Marchant visits The Isle of Wight looking for a plastic-free future. He helps with a beach-clean, finds out what skateboarders and sailors can contribute and visits Afton Down. Here a mountain of trash was cleared from the site of the legendary 1970 pop festival, when 600,000 people descended on the island to hear Hendrix play.
Ian also meets Father Xavier from Quarr Abbey, who has a spiritual approach to the problem of sustainability.
Producer...Mary Ward-Lowery.
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.
Alesha Dixon tells us about her career as singer, songwriter and Britain's Got Talent judge.
Christian Donlan describes living with multiple sclerosis.
Rev Andrew Rawding served as a British soldier in Coalisland, County Tyrone and has since returned there as rector.
Hannah Wright recalls her childhood behind prison walls.
Inheritance Tracks - John Gordon Sinclair chooses I Love You Because by Jim Reeves and the title track from Aladdin Sane by David Bowie.
Lightning Girl by Alesha Dixon is published by Scholastic.
The Unmapped Mind by Christian Donlan is published by Viking.
Outside Time: A Personal History of Prison Farming by Dr Hannah Wright is published by Placewise.
Jay Rayner launches a new series of the food panel programme in Golders Green, north-west London. He's joined by regular panellists Tim Anderson, Itamar Srulovich, Nisha Katona and Professor Barry Smith.
As Passover comes to an end, Jay and the team relish the opportunity to discuss Jewish cuisine more broadly with special guest Claudia Roden, the renowned Egyptian food writer and doyenne of Jewish food. The panellists discuss flourless baking, the most overrated ingredients and even settle a beetroot-based marital dispute.
They also explore the development of Sephardi cuisine around the world, from Kolkata to Israel.
Produced by Miranda Hinkley
Assistant Producer: Hester Cant
Food Consultant: Anna Colquhoun
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.
It is a fibre and a fabric that is part of many people's daily lives, it grows wild on at least three continents, it has been woven into cloth and traded all over the world for thousands of years. And when machines made possible the mass production of cotton, its story became entwined with the history of human slavery: making fortunes for a few, and condemning many to a life of misery. So what are the milestones in the history of cotton? And why has it always proved such a popular clothing material across the centuries and across the world?
Bridget Kendall is joined by four textile historians to trace cotton's origins and its evolution into one of the world's most important global commodities: Sven Beckert, Professor of History at Harvard, Prasannan Parthasarathi, Professor of History at Boston College, Giorgio Riello, Professor of Global History and Culture at the University of Warwick and the President of the Textile Society Mary Schoeser.
Photo: Cotton yarn (Getty Images)
Presenter: Bridget Kendall
Producer: Radek Boschetty.
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.
Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis present the week via topical stand-up and sketches
Punt and Dennis are joined this week by Ellie Taylor and Ola.
The latest weather forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
Ritula Shah presents political debate from All Saints Church in Bakewell, Derbyshire, with a panel including Shadow Minister for Early Years Tracy Brabin MP, Conservative MP Nigel Evans, the former leader of the Liberal Democrats Tim Farron MP and the Telegraph columnist Juliet Samuel.
Listeners have their say on the issues discussed on Any Questions?
Inspector Chen: A Loyal Character Dancer
by Qiu Xiaolong
dramatised by John Harvey
Shanghai, early 1990s. When a former dancer and party loyalist at the heart of a people smuggling operation to the USA goes missing Inspector Chen is under political pressure to find her, tactfully host a young female US Marshall and find the connection with a grisly Triad murder.
Director: David Hunter
A badly mutilated body turns up in Shanghai's Bund Park. It bears all the hallmarks of a triad killing.
Then former dancer and party loyalist Wen Liping vanishes in rural China just before she was to leave the country. Her husband, a key witness against a smuggling ring suspected of importing aliens to the US, refuses to testify until she is found and brought to join him in America.
The US immigration agency, convinced that the Chinese government are hiding something, send US Marshal Catherine Rohn to Shanghai to join the investigation.
Inspector Chen, an astute young policeman with twin passions for food and poetry, is under political pressure to find answers fast. When Catherine Rohn joins him he must tread very carefully.
The dramatisation of the second book in the Inspector Chen series, following the first, Death of a Red Heroine, and preceding the third, When Red is Black. All set in early 1990s Shanghai, in a China poised for rapid change.
Qiu Xiaolong was born in Shanghai, China. As well as writing the award-winning Inspector Chen series of mystery novels, he is also the author of two books of poetry translations, Treasury of Chinese Love Poems (2003) and Evoking T'ang (2007), and his own poetry collection, Lines Around China (2003). Qiu's books have sold over a million copies and have been published in twenty languages. He lives in St. Louis, USA with his wife and daughter.
Lindsey Chapman presents another edition of the series that looks at the range and diversity of theatre around Britain. This week we are in Liverpool hearing how theatre in the city is dealing with contemporary issues around race and gender identity. We are alongside the cast of the Everyman Theatre's latest production of Othello, in which the lead character is played as a woman, we hear from the founder of BAME theatre group Boisterous and from the city's longest running grass roots, queer theatre company, Grin.
This week saw the deadline for private companies with more than 250 staff to publish how much male employees earn on average compared to women. Now we have this information what do we do with it? Kate Bell Head of Economics and Social Affairs at the TUC and SNP MP Hannah Bardell discuss.
We hear from the BBC One Show presenter Alex Jones about her experience of returning to work after taking three months maternity leave and teacher Laura Pearl discusses how she is preparing her return to full-time work now her baby is six months old. We also have advice from Elizabeth Gardiner an employment solicitor.
Caitlin Davies tells us about the lives of some of the female inmates at Holloway Prison - the largest and most famous women's prison in Europe until its closure in 2016.
We celebrate 250 years of the British circus with Dea Birkett professional ringmaster and Professor Vanessa Toulmin who specialises in early film and circus. Why is the circus considered a world where women have been encouraged to thrive?
How often should you wash your hair? It's one of the most searched for questions on Google. Eleanore Richardson is a trained trichologist, she explains why a multitude of factors can affect how often you need to wash your hair.
Yvonne John talk about why not having children, not through your own choice, is different for black women.
And Ele Fountain talks about her novel Boy 87, the story of one child refugee's challenging journey in search of a better life.
Presented by Tina Daheley
Producer: Rabeka Nurmahomed
Editor: Lucinda Montefiore.
Caroline Wyatt with 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 Jeremy Irons, Catherine Tate, Tracy Ann Oberman and James Graham for an eclectic mix of conversation, music and comedy. With music from Honeyfeet.
Producer: Sukey Firth.
Series of profiles of people who are currently making headlines.
Black comedy thriller film Thoroughbreds is about 2 American teenage girls who hatch a plot to kill one of their step-fathers. Is it easier to hire an assassin or do it themselves? And will emotions get in the way of such a potentially messy business?
Congreve's The Way Of The World at London's Donmar Warehouse is a restoration comedy. But how funny can one make a wildly convoluted 300 year old plot about inheritance funny for today's theatre goers?
Richard Powers' latest novel is The Overstory - about mankind's relationship with the arboreal world. Eight stories set around the USA over several centuries come together to make readers rethink their relationship with trees
BBC TV is broadcasting a 4 part adaptation of China Mieville's novel The City & The City. It's a complicated speculative fiction work involving two cities which occupy exactly the same space and time but are invisible to each other. Well sort of... See if our reviewers have made sense of the idea
The Arts Council Collection tours the UK bringing major works by established and emerging British artists to venues which might not otherwise have access to important contemporary art. The exhibition In My Shoes at Yorkshire Sculpture Park is the opening venue for a chance to see the newest collection additions.
Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Jessica Burton, John Mullan and Sarah Crompton. The producer is Oliver Jones.
Cultural historian and writer Christopher Frayling explores the lasting influence of Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C Clarke's 1968 science fiction masterpiece.
2001: A Space Odyssey was released into the world in April 1968. Puzzling, infuriating, inspiring and thrilling, it captivated audiences at the time and, fifty years on, continues to exert a powerful effect on our thinking about the present and the future.
This remarkable movie was the result of a synthesis of two very different visions. Based on his own short story The Sentinel, it was written by British author Arthur C Clarke - a futurist of uncanny ability. The director was Stanley Kubrick - an American working in the UK, whose previous works included the swords and sandals epic Spartacus and savage nuclear satire Dr Strangelove.
Marketed at the time as The Ultimate Trip, 2001 became an essential experience for younger audiences - many of whom went to see it multiple times, and sometimes in an enhanced state of consciousness. But alongside its wildly psychedelic visions, 2001 also presented an extraordinarily convincing and intricate vision of the future of space travel.
Christopher Frayling travels back in time to the creation of 2001, hearing how organisations like NASA and IBM were enlisted to help Kubrick craft his vision. And he speaks to scientists, critics and filmmakers to examine the film's enduring influence on science, design and popular culture.
Interviewees:
Maggie Aderin-Pocock, space scientist
Piers Bizony, science journalist
Victoria Broackes, Senior Curator, V&A Museum
Catherine Constable, Professor of Film Studies, Warwick University
John Landis, film director
Christopher Nolan, film director
Georgina Orgill, Stanley Kubrick Archivist, University of the Arts London.
Producer: Jane Long
A Hidden Flack production for BBC Radio 4.
Alfred Molina, Adam Godley, Susannah Fielding, Ian Ogilvy and James Callis are directed by Martin Jarvis in Henrik Ibsen's riveting 1882 thriller.
A small Norwegian spa town relies on the local spring for its prosperity, but Dr Thomas Stockmann is concerned the waters may be contaminated. Could disease be spreading? If so, would the community's livelihood be jeopardised?
This new version of the play by Rebecca Lenkiewicz.
Specially composed music: A-Mnemonic
Director: Martin Jarvis
A Jarvis and Ayres production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4, followed by weather.
Clive Anderson and guests discuss the crisis hitting the NHS over negligence claims.
The cost of negligence claims against the NHS has quadrupled to £1.6bn in the decade since 2006 as the number of claims has nearly tripled and claimants' legal costs have risen from £77m to £487m. The spiralling compensation bill is putting huge financial pressure on the NHS and threatens to force doctors out of the profession.
Should patients who have experienced potentially life-changing injuries as result of medical negligence be expected to forego compensation? Clive Anderson explores calls to reform the law relating to compensation for medical errors as the cost of payouts continues to rise.
Patients' advocates say proposals to cap payouts would encourage a deny and defend culture within the NHS, which could prevent claimants from receiving justice as the cases become too expensive to fight. This would attack the very basic principle of full compensation that aims, in legal terms, to "put the wronged person back to where they would have been without the negligence."
Clive's guests explore the impact of Liz Truss's decision, as Lord Chancellor, to change the rate at which inflation is calculated when awarding compensation, adding £1bn to the NHS compensation bill. Her decision prompted a backlash from GPs and insurers who say it will "overcompensate" victims and force many doctors out of the profession.
Should the UK adopt a no-fault approach to compensation, as in New Zealand? Or move to a tariff-based system, as already happens for victims of violent crime? Or is it time to abandon the full compensation principle altogether?
Producer: Matt Willis
A 7digital production for BBC Radio 4.
(6/17)
Which two Australian cities lie at either end of the route taken by the train known as the Indian Pacific? In which port city did the German naval mutiny of 1918 take place? And which Oscar-winning British actress's last ever film was called Ship of Fools? Russell Davies makes a return visit to Salford for the sixth heat in the 2018 tournament. As always, the contenders have no idea of the subject matter of the questions they'll face, and every point counts with semi-final places at stake.
There's also a chance for a listener to win a prize by outwitting the Brains with questions he or she has devised.
Today's competitors are:
Graham Cox, a business development manager from Cheadle in Greater Manchester;
Mel Kinsey, a retired steelworker from Scarborough;
Darren Martin, a business analyst from Whittle le Woods in Lancashire;
Paul Webster, a National Trust worker from Rowlands Gill on Tyneside.
Producer: Paul Bajoria.
Fiona Sampson presents a radio poem about mud.
Moving downriver from upland bogs to tidal mudflats, and passing through sheep fields, research field stations, village fetes and battle fields along the way, we meet the people who make mud a way of life. Farmers, archaeologists, builders, ecologists and potters, as well as the great British public at play, reflect on what mud means to them.
It's a kaleidoscopic portrait, and mud emerges from it as our flexible friend - every bit as useful as it is dangerous, and as much fun as it is a nuisance.
We discover how mud is graded and measured, and the work it's doing in protecting environments from rising sea levels. We hear about the Fertile Crescent and the role of mud in making the first human settlements possible. We remember that, central to so much of farming, mud is what feeds us, and we celebrate the traditional crafts of cob construction, clay tiling and ceramic work, alongside the hard work of a restoration builder.
We also hear about some of the odder mud-related pastimes that have become popular in recent decades - bog-snorkelling and welly wanging.
With contributions from Kate Baker, Rob Barnett, Harry Clark, Hywel Davies, Gordon Green, Julia and Grace Maloney Homersham, Alison Palfrey, Peter Salmon, Tom Watkins, Corinne Westacott, poetry by R.S. Thomas, archive testimony from World War One soldiers and music by Benjamin Britten and Harrison Birtwistle.
A Terrier production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
Indira Varma reads a new story commissioned for Radio 4 by the award-winning writer Lionel Shriver.
Two fame-hungry young film-makers try to make it in London. But the road to fame is never simple...
Reader: Indira Varma is an acclaimed stage and TV actor, known most recently for her roles in Game of Thrones and Luther.
Writer: Lionel Shriver is an American author, best known for her novel We Need to Talk About Kevin, which won the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2005.
Producer: Justine Willett.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
Bells on Sunday comes from the Church of St Peter and St Paul, Shiplake in Oxfordshire. Shiplake is an accredited ringing centre frequently used by local and visiting ringers for teaching and improving ringing. A new set of bells with the tenor weighing 9 hundredweight, 15 pounds and tuned to G sharp, was cast over the winter of 2009 at the Whitechapel Foundry in London. We hear the bells ringing 'Stedman Triples'.
The latest national and international news.
Is the desire to belong one of the basic instincts underpinning human society? Mark Tully explores what causes the need to belong, what a sense of belonging offers us and whether it's possible to live without it.
There are readings from the work of novelist William Somerset Maugham, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the young New Zealand poet Lang Leav. Music comes from Louis Armstrong, Francis Poulenc and Suzanne Vega.
The readers are Cyril Nri and Emma Pallant.
Presenter: Mark Tully
Producer: Frank Stirling
A 7digital production for BBC Radio 4.
Riverford is known as one of the largest organic veg-box schemes in the country. It's come a long way since owner Guy Watson started supplying veg for local businesses around Buckfastleigh in Devon. It now employs over 600 staff, has a turnover of £60million and makes 55 thousand deliveries a week. It has a co-operative of farms supplying produce and partner farms abroad to fill the gaps. Now the owner plans to change the structure to employee-ownership. Ruth Sanderson has been invited to find out why and how the staff feel about it.
The latest weather forecast.
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.
Sunday morning religious news and current affairs programme.
Cathy Newman makes the Radio 4 Appeal on behalf of Shannon Trust.
Registered Charity Number: 1117249
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 'Shannon Trust'.
- Cheques should be made payable to 'Shannon Trust'.
The latest weather forecast.
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.
On 4th April, 1968, The Reverend Dr Martin Luther King Jr. was shot as he stood on a motel balcony in Memphis, Tennessee. He was in town to join African-American sanitation workers in their fight for employment rights; the previous night he had delivered his, now famous, "I've Been to the Mountaintop" address at Mason Temple. But Dr King was not to see the fruits of his lifelong struggle in the civil rights movement; he died that night.
King is remembered and respected across the world for his ceaseless commitment to the civil rights movement and to bringing about justice and equality through non-violent means, according to his Christian beliefs.
Fifty years on, clergy, gospel choir and congregation gather at Westminster Abbey to honour this remarkable man and to give thanks for his life and work. Wreathes are laid beneath his statue at the Innocent Victims' Memorial on the Abbey's west front and testimonies are given by Dr R David Muir,
Senior Lecturer at the University of Roehampton and Amanda Khosi Mukwashi, Chief Executive of Christian Aid.
The service is conducted by The Very Reverend Dr John Hall, Dean of Westminster.
The service is sung by the Martin Luther King Celebration Choir, comprised of members from IDMC, New Wine, Acquire, London Adventist Chorale, and the Kingdom Choirs, conducted by Karen Gibson and John Fisher, together with soloists Wayne Hernandez and Tracey Campbell.
The organ is played by Matthew Jorysz, Assistant Organist.
Producer: Katharine Longworth.
"Western liberals", writes John Gray, "are horrified by the rise of Xi Jinping".
But as China's parliament votes to allow him to be President for life, John Gray argues that the future of the liberal West ironically depends on the continuing success of the world's most powerful authoritarian state.
Producer: Adele Armstrong.
Comedian Ed Byrne perches on the Tweet of the Day bird feeder for a second week to pick more of his favourite episodes from the Tweet archive.
Producer: Tom Bonnett
Photograph: Roslyn Gaunt.
Sunday morning magazine programme with news and conversation about the big stories of the week. Presented by Paddy O'Connell.
Will jumps to conclusions, and the stress piles on Adam.
Sue MacGregor reunites the witnesses of the so called Enfield Poltergeist.
Poltergeist activity was first reported at the Hodgson family's three bedroom North London council house by Woman Police Constable Carolyn Heeps, in August 1977.
Over the next 18 months, over thirty eye witnesses, including neighbours, psychic researchers, several journalists, and the local lollipop lady, said they saw heavy furniture moving of its own accord, objects being thrown across a room, and the daughters seeming to levitate several feet off the ground. Many also heard, and recorded, unexplained knocking noises, and finally a gruff voice claiming to be a "G.H.O.S.T."
The activity was centred on the two daughters, Janet and Margaret Hodgson, who were then 11 and 14, with Janet acting as the conduit for the mystery voice. It has been described as the most documented paranormal event in Britain, with psychic researcher Maurice Grosse leading the observations.
With both sceptics and believers intrigued by the case, the question still remains - was this a true entity of the unexplained? Or could the activity be blamed on human mischief making?
Joining Sue to discuss, and attempt to explain, what they witnessed are former BBC Radio reporter Roz Morris, who recorded the poltergeist for The World This Weekend; Graham Morris, then of the Daily Mirror, who took a famous series of photographs of the girls levitating; and Richard Grosse who, as a newly qualified solicitor, helped his father cross-examine the Enfield poltergeist.
The programme also features Janet and Margaret Hodgson, the two daughters at the centre of the case, reflecting on events forty years later.
Researcher: Dan Hardoon
Producer: David Prest
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
David Mitchell hosts the panel game in which four comedians are encouraged to tell lies and compete against one another to see how many items of truth they're able to smuggle past their opponents.
John Finnemore, Henning Wehn, Lou Sanders and Graeme Garden are the panellists obliged to talk with deliberate inaccuracy on subjects as varied as police, submarines, books and spiders.
Produced by Richard Turner.
A Random Entertainment production for BBC Radio 4.
Dan Saladino looks behind the headlines of the newly introduced sugar tax.
The latest weather forecast.
Global news and analysis.
The Colin Powell School for Civic and Global Leadership, in Harlem, New York City is an exceptional college that prides itself on welcoming first generation scholars. Nicknamed the poor person's Harvard, the school is part of City College, where General Powell himself graduated sixty years ago.
Powell was the son of British Jamaican immigrants who moved to New York and worked in the garment industry. He tells the story of his own journey through education and his passion to connect a new generation of students from less fortunate backgrounds to the best opportunities.
We hear how Powell makes networking and internships a priority - he and his circle and the college staff work to place students in Washington and Wall Street, working in not-for-profits, in law, and organisations such as the United Nations.
We also hear from a collection of students - African Americans, young people from El Salvador and Bangladesh, from China, Peru and the Virgin Islands. As General Powell says, there is no college in the USA that can boast such diversity. It's a diversity he celebrates, in defiance of prevailing government thinking. America, after all, he points out, was built on immigrant talent and labour - just like his own.
A Just Radio production for BBC Radio 4.
Eric Robson hosts the programme from the Hambleton District in North Yorkshire. Matthew Wilson, Pippa Greenwood and Chris Beardshaw answer the horticultural questions from an audience of local gardeners.
This week the panellists suggest the best vegetables to grow in Yorkshire, debate whether you can plant roses into a bed that previously housed roses, and offer planting suggestions for growing up a brick wall.
They also have lots of ideas on creating a beach garden, on winning your local potato growing competition, and on the longevity of GQT itself.
And Matthew Wilson discovers the fascinating world of dry stone walling at the nearby Coldstones Cut.
Produced by Dan Cocker
Assistant Producer: Hester Cant
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.
Fi Glover introduces four conversations that reveal the particular bond between generations of men, 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.
Alfred Molina, Adam Godley, Susannah Fielding and Ian Ogilvy lead an all start cast. Dr Stockmann has discovered the town's spa-baths are contaminated. How will this affect local business interests? Will Stockmann be publicly vilified?
Martin Jarvis directs this new version by Rebecca Lenkiewicz of Henrik Ibsen's dynamic thriller. Will campaigning courage turn into self-righteous fanaticism? Vested interest lives on and this timeless 1882 drama is as up to date now as when it was first performed.
Townpeople: Moira Quirk, Elizabeth Knowleden, Jean Gilpin,
Alan Shearman, Neil Dickson, Ifan Meredith
Specially composed music: A-Mnemonic
Director: Martin Jarvis
A Jarvis and Ayres production for BBC Radio 4.
Diana Evans, who won the inaugural Orange Award for New Writers, talks to Mariella Frostrup about her new novel Ordinary People set in South London in 2008 when two couples find themselves at a moment of reckoning. Ordinary People opens with Barack Obama's election victory and is framed by that event and the death of Michael Jackson in 2009.
As London's Southbank Centre prepares to stage a day-long live reading of Nigerian author Chinua Achebe's epoch-defining African novel Things Fall Apart, we'll be talking to the organisers about the joys and challenges of bringing the work to life.
Novelists Amy Sackville and Vanora Bennett who've both fictionalised famous court painters - in this Diego Velasquez and Hans Holbein - tell all about these characters' unique perspective on courtly life.
And travel writer and novelist Emily Barr shares the Book she'd Never Lend.
Presenter: Mariella Frostrup
Producer: Simon Richardson.
Paul Farley meets the poet Robin Robertson, and hears extracts from his new book-length poem, The Long Take.
1946. Walker is a D-Day veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder; he can't return home to rural Nova Scotia, and looks instead to the city for freedom, anonymity and repair. As he walks the streets of New York, we witness a crucial period of fracture in American history, one that also allowed film noir to flourish. The Dream had gone sour but - as those dark, classic movies made clear - the country needed outsiders to study and dramatise its new anxieties.
While Walker tries to piece his life together, America is beginning to come apart: deeply paranoid, doubting its own certainties, riven by social and racial division, spiralling corruption and the collapse of the inner cities. The Long Take is about a good man, brutalised by war, haunted by violence and apparently doomed to return to it - yet resolved to find kindness again, in the world and in himself.
Reader: Kerry Shale
Producer: Mair Bosworth
Sound Design: Rebecca Ripley and Mair Bosworth.
How is it that trans people have come out of the shadows and become so visible, in films and music, in ads, on TV, on the radio, when for decades their lives were hidden? What has enabled that change? Is it hard-won battles for equality, changes in gender roles, the birth of the internet, consumer culture? Maria Margaronis explores what lies behind the Trans Revolution and discovers that even asking the question is fraught with difficulties.
Producer: Sarah Shebbeare.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest weather forecast.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Adrian Goldberg chooses his BBC Radio highlights.
Life proves difficult for Alistair, and Adam continues to be overwhelmed.
Paul Merton and Suki Webster star in a warm-hearted and surprising comedy play about a comedian meeting his number one fan.
Danny Heywood wakes in his hotel room to find that he is not alone. Sheryl, a fan on a mission, has let herself into the room and is determined not to leave until she gets what she wants. But what exactly does she want?
The ensuing stand off is a hilarious game of verbal cat and mouse as they both endeavour to maintain control of a very bizarre situation. This comic play - staged in real time - observes the obsessive, narcissistic culture of so-called celebrity - the desire to be famous and the urge to be near it.
My Obsession enjoyed a sold out run at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 2014, where it garnered excellent reviews.
Cast:
Danny - Paul Merton
Sheryl - Suki Webster
Written by Suki Webster
Producer - Liz Anstee
A CPL production for BBC Radio 4.
Lynne Truss's observations on the inhabitants of Meridian Cliffs, a small fictional wind-battered town on the south coast of England.
Alan Jeffreys, Chairman of the Meridian Cliffs Drama Society, chooses to ignore a series of mysterious illiterate texts, with unforeseen consequences. But it's an old fashioned letter that reminds him what he's lost.
Written by Lynne Truss
Directed by Kate McAll
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.
Has BBC News over-reported allegations of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party? Also, Roger Bolton has breakfast with Petroc Trelawny, Home Front's editor discusses the end of the series, listeners weigh in on Soul Music, and Michael Sandel discusses The Public Philosopher.
Listeners have been speaking to Feedback about the BBC's coverage of Jeremy Corbyn's recent attendance at a controversial seder dinner, which reignited the ongoing row over claims of anti-Semitism in his party. Some cite this as evidence that the BBC is anti-Corbyn.
Meanwhile, Feedback listeners have been singing the praises of Michael Sandel's The Public Philosopher, praising in particular an edition where he led a debate on the question of Citizens of Nowhere. Michael Sandel joins Roger from Harvard to talk about how the programme aims to bring a more measured and philosophical lens to urgent politicial questions, such as those about Brexit.
When it wraps up in November this year, the drama Home Front will have run for nigh on 600 episodes. Editor Jessica Dromgoole explains what its like to reach the final leg of what has been an extremely ambitious journey, and historical adviser Professor Maggie Andrews discusses how the series attempts to recreate the feel of First World War Britain.
And some listeners have been in touch with Feedback to say that they've been fleeing the Today programme for the soothing tones of Petroc Trelawny on Radio 3. Fresh from his breakfast show, Petroc joins Roger for a cup of coffee to elucidate how he stays so calm so early in the morning.
Presenter: Roger Bolton
Producer: Will Yates
Executive Producer: Katherine Godfrey
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.
Photo: Winnie Madikizela-Mandela
Matthew Bannister on
Winnie Madikizela-Mandela who was one of the leading anti apartheid campaigners in South Africa, but also faced allegations of being involved in violence and fraud.
Drue Heinz, who used the money from her husband's canned food business to become a major supporter of writers and artists.
Ray Wilkins, the footballer who captained England and played for 12 different clubs including Chelsea and Manchester United.
Eric Bristow, five times world darts champion.
And Steven Bochco, the American TV writer and producer who brought us Hill Street Blues and LA Law.
Archive clips: Sport on Four, Radio 4 12/01/1985; Sporting Greats, BBC TV 30/03/1999; Woman's Hour, Radio 4 02/10/1986.
Ireland's economy is hugely interlinked with its next-door neighbour, the UK, in everything from energy to transport to finance. Can those links be kept after the UK leaves the EU, or will Irish business have to change direction?
Ruth Alexander travels to Ireland to find out how businesses large and small are preparing for Brexit, and what challenges - and opportunities - they see.
Producer: Chris Bowlby.
Weekly political discussion and analysis with MPs, experts and commentators.
With Francine Stock.
Carol director Todd Haynes discusses his adaptation of children's novel Wonderstruck and how he cast his lead actor from the deaf community.
Director Robin Campillo reveals the autobiographical elements of his award-winning film about AIDS activists in the 90s, 120 Beats Per Minute, and how he had to come to terms with death at a very young age.
Niellah Arboine offers three rules for putting black characters on screen that film-makers should follow.
Director Sky Neal and producer Elhum Shakerifar take us behind the scenes of their documentary, Even When I Fall, about Nepal's first circus which has been set up by survivors of child trafficking.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
'Mixed-race' is the fastest growing ethnic group in the UK. But how do multiracial parents identify their own children? When is a mixed-race heritage passed down to the next generation and when is it not? Miri Song, Professor of Sociology at the University of Kent tackles these questions in her new book, Multiracial Parents: Mixed Families, Generational Change, and the Future of Race (2017).
Joining the discussion is socio-linguist Marta Wilczek-Watson whose work on trans-national relationships finds there has traditionally been too great a focus on the apparent difficulties faced by couples who come from different countries.
And we hear from one of those tasked with recording the UK's shifting demographics in the British Census, Pete Benton, Director of Population and Public Policy Operations at the Office of National Statistics.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
Spiritual reflection to start the day with Bob Fyffe, General Secretary of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
The latest weather forecast for farmers.
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about the British birds inspired by their calls and songs.
Wildlife Sound Recordist, Chris Watson, presents the Common Pheasant. The crowing of pheasants is a sound inseparable from most of the UK countryside yet these flamboyant birds were introduced into the UK. The pheasant's coppery plumage and red face-wattles, coupled with a tail that's as long again as its body, make the cock pheasant a strikingly beautiful bird.
News and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
Facebook co-founder Chris Hughes makes a case for cash handouts to the poor. He tells Andrew Marr that having become exceptionally wealthy he is looking for the most efficient way to give something back to society, and a Universal Basic Income is among his ideas.
But the Oxford academic Ian Goldin argues that UBI is an intellectual sticking plaster. He suggests targeted benefits, better taxation and philanthropy may be the answers to today's growing inequality and the prospect of mass job losses due to automation.
Caroline Slocock was the first female Private Secretary at No.10, employed by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. She looks back at the last years of Thatcher's time in office, and Thatcher's vision of a smaller state and individual responsibility.
Margaret Thatcher used the parable of the Good Samaritan to argue her case, suggesting that the voluntary actions of a wealthy Samaritan trumped the collective action of the state. Nick Spencer, Research Director at the public theology think tank Theos, explores how this parable has been hijacked for political ends from both the left and the right.
Producer: Katy Hickman.
Alberto Manguel has had consistent 5-star ratings for his books on reading, books and libraries. With regret, he packs up his library of 35,000 volumes and prepares to move from a vast property in rural France to a small apartment on Manhattan's West Side.
Choosing which books to keep, store, or cast out, Manguel finds himself in deep reverie on the nature of relationships between books and readers, books and collectors, order and disorder, memory and reading.
In this poignant re-evaluation of his life as a reader, he illuminates the highly personal art of reading and affirms the vital role of public libraries. Manguel's musings range widely - from delightful reflections on the idiosyncrasies of book lovers to deeper analyses of historic and catastrophic book events, including the burning of ancient Alexandria's library and contemporary library lootings at the hands of ISIS.
With insight and passion, the author underscores the universal centrality of books and their unique importance to a democratic, civilised, and engaged society.
Reader : Oliver Cotton
Author: Alberto Manguel
Abridger : Barry Johnston
Producer : David Roper
A Heavy Entertainment production for BBC Radio 4.
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.
In the 9th series of 'How Does That Make You Feel?' Martha's clients have made few changes to their circumstances.
For several months, Richard has managed to avoid scandal and humiliation, but as ever he is desperate to strike a balance between peace and stability and his craving for recognition. And so alarm bells start ringing when he reveals to Martha - in total secrecy - that he has had an approach from a popular reality TV show...
Shelagh Stephenson is the author of Radio 4's 'A Short History of Longing' and 'Guests Are Like Fish'. She is an Olivier Award winner for her play 'The Memory of Water' and has won Sony and Writer's Guild awards for her plays 'Darling Peidi' and 'Five Kinds of Silence'.
Writer ..... Shelagh Stephenson
Director ..... Eoin O'Callaghan
Producer ..... Eoin O'Callaghan.
AL Kennedy goes in search of epiphanies - those powerful revelations, the Aha! Instant in cognitive science, the Eureka moment among theorists and inventors.
Epiphanies are not found, they come to us. The word epiphania in Greek means 'manifestation' or 'appearance'. Famous epiphanies include Archimedes' Eureka! as he discovered the method to determine the density of an object while sitting in the bath, and Isaac Newton's realisation that a falling apple and the orbiting moon are both pulled by the same force.
These light-bulb moments feel as if they happen in a flash but, as we hear, they're the final, dazzling product of a more subtle subconscious process.
The programme talks to scientists of the human brain who explain why these moments occur when we're doing something else - when we're in the shower, digging in the garden, watching apple trees, or woken suddenly in the early hours of the morning with the force of a lightning bolt.
These revelations are the ones we pass on, the insights we give to friends. Moments that help define us and the way we choose to be in the world.
A Cast Iron production for BBC Radio 4.
Much-loved poet and entertainer Pam Ayres returns to BBC Radio 4 with four new shows packed with poems, sketches and anecdotes that will make you laugh out loud.
Today's theme is 'Holidays'.
Today there are sketches about choosing the perfect swimsuit; holiday one-upmanship, and how you know when it's time to get a bigger cabin.
Pam shares memories of how glamorous flying used to be when she first started to fly in the 1960s; stories about gifts and souvenirs which definitely don't travel, and the saga of buying her first ever wetsuit.
Pam also performs some new poems including 'Don't Put Me Dinner on a Slate' about the latest pub grub fashion, and three sections from a new linked series of poems called 'Flight Time'. Inspired by the trials and tribulations of long-distance flying, the first poem is about arrival and check-in, the second about the consequences of the in-flight meal and the third about the delights of the on-board toilets.
She is joined for the sketches by actors Felicity Montagu (Lynn in I'm Alan Partridge) and Geoffrey Whitehead (Not Going Out, Still Open All Hours).
Written by: Pam Ayres, Jan Etherington, Jenny Laville, Laura Major and Peter Reynolds.
Starring Pam Ayres, Felicity Montagu and Geoffrey Whitehead.
Producer: Claire Jones
This is a BBC Studios Production.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
On this day in 1918, the German's launched Operation Georgette as part of their Spring Offensive, and on the edge of Folkestone, Edie wakes up to an unwelcome intrusion.
Written by Lucy Catherine
Story-led by Sarah Daniels
Directed by Ciaran Bermingham
Editor: Jessica Dromgoole.
With more people choosing to live in the countryside and commute to work instead of living in cities, why are rural high streets struggling to survive?
Why are people with disabilities STILL struggling to get into some music gigs?
The wind farm project in the Outer Hebrides creating a stir with the locals.
And the Financial Conduct Authority tells us what it plans to tackle in the next 12 months.
Producer: Pete Wilson
Presenter: Winifred Robinson.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
Rana Mitter tells the story of Wu Zetian, the only woman ever to rule as China's emperor in her own right, in two thousand years of dynastic history. Even more remarkably,, she did it during one of the finest moments of China's cultural history - the medieval Tang dynasty. Wu Zetian grew up as a humble lady of the court, but threw off her humility to plan her way to the top with strategic precision, leaving a trail of elite corpses along the way. Once on the throne, she secured China's borders and promoted Buddhism as a powerful new religious force. Later history has condemned her as a dreadful anomaly , as women were never supposed to rule in traditional China. But she's had the last laugh - now regarded as a feminist icon in China with a 74-part TV soap opera dedicated to her rise and rule.
Chinese Characters is a series of 20 essays exploring Chinese history through the life stories of key personalities.
Producer: Ben Crighton
Researcher: Elizabeth Smith Rosser.
When Ella is asked questions pointing her towards places and memories, she begins to realise that the world she lives in now is just the imagined life of her mind and in reality she is in hospital in a minimally conscious state. Ella realises that these questions, posed by a neurologist, are attempts to discover whether she is conscious and that her possible answers are her only way to communicate with others, especially with her daughter, Charlie, who has her own questions that desperately need answers.
The Sky is Wider was developed through Wellcome Experimental Stories in consultation with Anil Seth (Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience and co-director at Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science, University of Sussex). The drama was inspired by the themes of the current States of Mind exhibition at Wellcome Collection in London which explores the nature of consciousness and runs until 16th October 2016.
The drama asks what it is to be a self. It explores an 'active approach' in which the neurologist asks questions of the patient in an attempt to ascertain their level of consciousness by examining the brain responses. Currently brain imaging (fMRI, EEG) can be used to actively decode responses to questions in patients who, following severe brain injury, are left in minimally conscious states. These methods represent a revolution in clinical neurology; allowing us to assess whether there is any residual consciousness or awareness left, following devastating brain injury and allowing us to open a means of communication.
Written by Linda Marshall Griffiths
Directed by Nadia Molinari
Sound Design by Steve Brooke
Programme Consultant Anil Seth
Listen on headphones for a unique 3D immersive experience.
(7/17)
Who were Roger Bannister's two pace setters in the race that broke the four-minute mile barrier in 1954? And what's the common name of the disease transmitted to human beings by the tsetse fly? These are just two of the questions in Russell Davies' pack as he welcomes another four amateur competitors to the trickiest general knowledge tournament of them all. There's a place in the semi-finals waiting for the winner, with a possibility of a runner-up getting through too, if his or her score is high enough.
Today's competitors are:
Rob Butlin, who works in advertising and comes from Great Doddington in Northamptonshire
Kathy Price, a retired consultant anaesthetist from Sunderland
Brian Roles, a retired IT programmer from Maidenhead in Berkshire
Tom Williams, a personal assistant from London.
Producer: Paul Bajoria.
Join Natalie Haynes and guests for half an hour of comedy and the Classics from the BBC Radio Theatre in London.
Natalie is a reformed comedian who is a little bit obsessive about Ancient Greece and Rome.
Today she stands up in the name of Greek writer Lucian. Expect to hear about the possible origins of 'The Life of Brian', the possible inspiration for Mickey Mouse and a trip to the moon about a thousand years before NASA.
With special guests Professor Edith Hall and Matthew Sweet.
Producer...Mary Ward-Lowery.
Beyond Belief The Good Friday Agreement
Short Desc
Ernie Rea in conversation with guests about the place of faith in today's complex world.
Medium Desc
Ernie Rea in conversation with guests about role of the churches in Northern Ireland since the Good Friday Agreement.
Long Desc
What role should the churches in Northern Ireland be playing now that peace has come to the Province? More than any other organisations, they should know the meaning of compassion, truth, mercy and forgiveness but are they providing enough leadership in these areas and what have they done to facilitate community cohesion since the signing of the Good Friday Agreement twenty years ago on the 10th April 1998?
Joining Ernie Rea are the Rev Norman Hamilton, former Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Northern Ireland and Father Martin Magill, the parish priest at St John's on the Falls Road. Also in the discussion will be Dr Gladys Ganiel of Queens University Belfast, an expert in conflict transformation.
Ernie will also be talking to Alan McBride who lost his wife in the Shankill Road Bombing.
Producer: Helen Lee
Series producer: Amanda Hancox
Producer Amanda Hancox.
Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
David Mitchell hosts the panel game in which four comedians are encouraged to tell lies and compete against one another to see how many items of truth they're able to smuggle past their opponents.
Richard Osman, Elis James, Sindhu Vee and Alan Davies are the panellists obliged to talk with deliberate inaccuracy on subjects as varied as Google, rugby, bananas and crabs.
Produced by Richard Turner.
A Random Entertainment production for BBC Radio 4.
Freddie is confronted, and Will's behaviour causes concern.
Arts news, interviews and reviews.
For many it's a surprising if not shock statistic - the latest figures from the Northern Ireland Life and Times Survey suggest most people there identify as 'Neither' Unionist nor Nationalist. Yet 20 years on from the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, polarisation, division and distrust continues.
The devolved Stormont Assembly has been collapsed for over a year. So called 'peacelines' still carve up Belfast. Disagreements over issues around identity are pulling the two main Unionist and Nationalist parties - the DUP and Sinn Fein - in different directions while they continue to dominate in elections.
Ruth Sanderson was a teenager when the Good Friday Agreement was signed. She still remembers the sense of opportunity and optimism that filled the air after the violence and bloodshed of the Troubles. Northern Ireland's politicians had agreed to share power and a whole generation could look forward to a far more hopeful future together.
Now Ruth is trying to work out where it all went wrong. Having recently moved back home to Northern Ireland from England, she's proud of her mixed British and Irish identity but frustrated by the on-going political deadlock. Despite coming from a Protestant background, she too is wondering if she should count herself among the apparently growing 'Neither' generation.
Looking back on Good Friday, Ruth is on a personal journey to ask how much more there is to Northern Ireland's politics than the binary narrative of orange and green.
Producer: Conor Garrett.
In a rundown neighbourhood in Athens there is a hotel with 4,000 people on its waiting list for rooms. But the roof leaks and the lifts are permanently out of action. None of the guests pay a penny, but everyone's supposed to help with the cooking and cleaning.
City Plaza is a seven-storey super squat housing 400 refugees from 16 different countries and the volunteers who support them.
The hotel went bankrupt during the financial crisis. It remained locked and empty until 2015, when Europe closed its borders leaving tens of thousands of refugees trapped in Greece. Then a group of activists broke in, reconnected the electricity and water and invited hundreds of migrants from the streets to take up residence with them.
The leftist Greek government has so far turned a blind eye and now mainstream NGOs like MSF and even the UNHCR have started co-operating in this illegal project. For Crossing Continents, Maria Margaronis finds out how the hotel operates and get to know the people inside.
Producer: Chloe Hadjimatheou.
Lots of people wear wigs, and go to great lengths to keep them secret - but why? Perhaps it's because the hair on top of our heads means so much to us. It's a crucial part of our identity, the person we see when we look in the mirror, so what happens when it's not there?
It's a question Brian Kernohan has asked himself. Yes, his hair's thinning a bit on top, but it's his secret - until his hairdresser points it out. Brian wouldn't dare suggest a wig - even though he's always wondered if he could try one?
Brian investigates the secret world of wigs with the help of alopecia sufferer Geraldine, who runs a secret wig shop which ensures discretion for all her customers. He explores the stigma attached to wig wearing, and finds out how tastes have changed since the 17thcentury when Louis XIV put wigs at the cutting edge of fashion.
He meets cancer patients who have learnt to "embrace your inner bald", as 16-year-old Sophie puts it, the wig shop owner who surprises customers by wearing her own stock, and meets the opera singer who loves to wear wigs on stage.
But still, Brian is nervous when he is fitted for a wig, and is even more terrified when he has to wear it in public. What if someone realises he's wearing a secret wig - and why does he care so much?
Producer: Freya McClements.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
John Updike's masterful Rabbit quintet established Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom as the quintessential American White middle class male. The first book Rabbit, Run was published in 1960 to critical acclaim. Rabbit Redux was the second in the series, published in 1971 and charted the end of the sixties - featuring, among other things, the first American moon landing and the Vietnam War.
This third book finds Rabbit in middle age and successful, having inherited his father in law's car business - selling newly imported Toyotas to the mass American market. But his relationship with his son Nelson was severely compromised by Rabbit's affair with Jill and her subsequent death has left them both wary of each other.
Published in 1981, Rabbit is Rich won Updike, among other awards, the Pulitzer Prize for fiction - and it's extraordinary how many of its themes continue to reverberate down to the present day.
Abridged by Robin Brooks
Read by Toby Jones
Produced by Clive Brill
A Brill production for BBC Radio 4.
Actor and singer Ruthie Henshall; pianist and composer Stephen Hough and Stan Todd, Royal National Lifeboat Institution helmsman, join Libby Purves for live, nocturnal conversation.
Actor and singer Ruthie Henshall stars as prison warder Mama Morton in the Kander and Ebb musical Chicago. She is the first performer to play three different leading roles in the same London show. When Chicago opened in 1997 she won an Olivier nomination for her role as Roxie. She rejoined the cast in 2003, taking the role of Velma Kelly, and now for the 21st anniversary revival she is playing corruptible prison warder Mama Morton, who has two stand-out songs - When You're Good To Mama and Class. Ruthie is joined on stage by Cuba Gooding Jr who plays Billy Flynn. Chicago is at the Phoenix Theatre, London.
Stephen Hough is a concert pianist, composer and writer. His 2014 album In the Night features music inspired by darkness and includes works by Schumann, Beethoven and Chopin, as well as Stephen's own Piano Sonata No 2. He describes pianists as nocturnal animals. "We have to come to life, to full alertness, after dark. It's not just because our audiences finish their daytime jobs at dusk and we are there to provide entertainment, rather there is something about the dangerous emotions unlocked by great music which needs the mystery of darkness for a full impact." Stephen is artist in residence at the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra with concerts coming up in May and June.
Stan Todd is a full-time helmsman at the Tower lifeboat station next to Waterloo Bridge, London. Nicknamed Stormy Stan for his ability to helm a lifeboat in the fiercest of seas, Stan first joined Brighton Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI ) aged 21 in 1980, and was recruited to the newly-formed RNLI service on the Thames in 2001. Over the years Stan has rescued hundreds of people from the river, with many of these rescues taking place at night. "It's healthy to feel fear, or you become complacent", he says. "It's not only yourself you're looking after, but the crew and the casualty's life in your hands. Fear keeps your senses sharp.". The Royal National Lifeboat Institution is the charity that saves lives at sea. Volunteers make up 95% of the workforce.
Producer: Paula McGinley.
From funerals to the Burning the Circle festival held every year on the Isle of Aran to surgeon's scrubbing up before an operation, Aleks explores the very human experience of rites of passage and ritual and why this very human experience can help make sense of ourselves online.
A modern day rite of passage could be getting your first mobile or social media account but do we have rituals to accompany these new keys to the adult world? And why should we need them?
Produced by Kate Bissell.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
Spiritual reflection to start the day with Bob Fyffe, General Secretary of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
Tiffany Francis recalls not realising, after stumbling across some baby ducks on the island of Lunga, she had infact seen corncrake chicks for this Tweet of the Day.
Tweet of the Day has captivated the Radio 4 audience with its daily 90 seconds of birdsong. But what of the listener to this avian chorus? In this new series of Tweet of the Day, we bring to the airwaves the conversational voices of those who listen to and are inspired by birds. Building on the previous series, a more informal approach to learning alongside a renewed emphasis on encounter with nature and reflection in our relationship with the natural world.
Producer Maggie Ayre.
News and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
Jonathan Freedland and guests compare the Facebook Cambridge Analytica data row with Luther's rejection of Purgatory and a loss of trust in the church in pre-Reformation Europe.
Telling the stories of non-native invasive species and our complicated attitudes to them and with an uncertain political future how do we police our ecological borders?
Japanese knotweed evolved to grow on the slopes of Japanese volcanoes. It's harsh home makes it a thug of a plant outside it's natural range with a seemingly magical ability grow in the most unlikely places. In the more than 100 years since a few female specimens were brought to UK shores as an ornamental garden plant it has spread across the country and is now probably the most hated plant in the UK. But is it really the Great Invader we believe it to be? Derek Mooney intends to find out.
Alberto Manguel has had consistent 5-star ratings for his books on reading, books and libraries. With regret, he packs up his library of 35,000 volumes and prepares to move from a vast property in rural France to a small apartment on Manhattan's West Side.
Choosing which books to keep, store, or cast out, Manguel finds himself in deep reverie on the nature of relationships between books and readers, books and collectors, order and disorder, memory and reading.
In this poignant re-evaluation of his life as a reader, he illuminates the highly personal art of reading and affirms the vital role of public libraries. Manguel's musings range widely - from delightful reflections on the idiosyncrasies of book lovers to deeper analyses of historic and catastrophic book events, including the burning of ancient Alexandria's library and contemporary library lootings at the hands of ISIS.
With insight and passion, the author underscores the universal centrality of books and their unique importance to a democratic, civilised, and engaged society.
Reader : Oliver Cotton
Author: Alberto Manguel
Abridger : Barry Johnston
Producer : David Roper
A Heavy Entertainment production for BBC Radio 4.
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.
Having completed his rehabilitation course following accusations of sexism and cruelty to his employees, Tony has returned to Martha's sessions a new man - or so he thinks. Chrissie may have got the house and everything in it, but Tony has insisted on having Nobby the Welsh Terrier - even though he can't stand him. He is also about to publish a book, "Men: the Fight Back Starts Here. And this Time it's Serious" - a bit of a mouthful but it sums up his position in a nutshell.
Shelagh Stephenson is the author of Radio 4's 'A Short History of Longing' and 'Guests Are Like Fish'. She is an Olivier Award winner for her play 'The Memory of Water' and has won Sony and Writer's Guild awards for her plays 'Darling Peidi' and 'Five Kinds of Silence'.
Writer ..... Shelagh Stephenson
Director ..... Eoin O'Callaghan
Producer ..... Eoin O'Callaghan.
Are we on the cusp of a new approach to healthy living and treating disease? BBC Health and Science correspondent James Gallagher explores the latest research into how our second genome, the vast and diverse array of microbes that live on and in our bodies, is driving our metabolism and our health.
Recent DNA analysis by the Human Microbiome Project detailed the vast and diverse array of microbes in and on our body - bacteria, archaea, fungi and viruses. It has been described as our second genome - a source of huge genetic diversity, a modifier of disease, an essential component of immunity, and an "organ" that influences not just our metabolism but also our mental health. Unlike the human genome which is fixed at birth, this "second genome" can be manipulated in many ways.
Researchers have suggested that our gut microbiome has a major role in the development of chronic conditions such as obesity, inflammatory bowel disease and asthma. Now the work has moved onto detailed analysis of the microbes in people with specific problems and measures to change the microbiome.
In this major three-part series, James Gallagher investigates the key research shaping our ability not just to read our microbiome and look at predispositions, but to change it for the better. From the ability to manipulate it to stem chronic disease, to the role it plays in determining our health from birth, to its surprising influence on our brain and behaviour - should we now think of ourselves not as self-sufficient organisms, but as complex ecosystems colonized by numerous competing and health-giving microbes?
An intimate portrait of singer, composer and multi-instrumentalist Hannah Peel.
Hannah Peel inhabits many different worlds. She can, blithely, be described as a singer-songwriter, known for stripped back renditions of 80s pop songs, accompanying herself with a hand-turned music box. But then she's also composed an epic concept album for brass band and electronics and provided the music for a theatrical re-imagining of Graham Greene's Brighton Rock, as well as being a session musician as a singer, violinist, trombonist, keyboard player and arranger.
Her personal life - like her professional activities - traverses different worlds, too. Her childhood was divided between Northern Ireland, where she was born and to which she returns often, and Yorkshire, where she grew up in the brass band tradition.
Now, she's a synthesiser convert and calls her studio The Lab. Yet, in all her music-making, her voice carries the legacy of a family steeped in the culture of singing.
Presented and produced by Alan Hall
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4
(Photo credit: Adam Patterson).
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
On this day in 1918, MP John Dillon warned that the new conscription bill would lead to further food shortages, and in Folkestone, Marieke is fed up.
Written by Lucy Catherine
Story-led by Sarah Daniels
Directed by Ciaran Bermingham
Editor: Jessica Dromgoole.
Consumer phone-in.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
Rana Mitter argues that we can think about Chinese Nationalist leader Chiang Kai-shek and his wife Soong Meiling (Madame Chiang) as Asia's first power couple. They dominated politics in China and were two of the most prominent non-westerners on the world scene for much of the early twentieth century. Their greatest test would come in the years 1937 to 1945, when Chiang Kai-shek led China's phase of World War II, in which over ten million Chinese were killed. During these years, Chiang sat alongside FDR and Winston Churchill. But by Chiang's side was Soong Meiling, her husband's interpreter to the outside world, who spoke to both houses of Congress in Washington DC, only the second woman ever to do so. Chiang's army was defeated by Mao's Communists in 1949. But during the war years, Chiang and Soong Meiling were more visible than any other Asian politicians on the globe.
Chinese Characters is a series of 20 essays exploring Chinese history through the life stories of key personalities.
Producer: Ben Crighton
Researcher: Elizabeth Smith Rosser.
It is 2030, and for the past fourteen years Charlie's mother Ella has been confined to her hospital room following a brain injury. Although Ella has remained behaviourally unresponsive, she is conscious and able to communicate using Virtual Reality (VR) and a Brain Computer Interface (BCI) which controls a speech synthesiser. Charlie has struggled growing up without the support of her mother and is reluctant to communicate with her mother in VR. Charlie has her own problems with a new baby, a husband who spends all his time in VR and a young son Kieran who she fears is heading the same way. But will Kieran be the key for Charlie to reconnect with her mother?
Real Worlds was developed through Wellcome Experimental Stories in consultation with Anil Seth (Professor of Cognitive and Computational Neuroscience and co-director at Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science, University of Sussex). The drama was inspired by the themes of the current States of Mind exhibition at Wellcome Collection in London which explores the nature of consciousness and runs until 16th October 2016.
The drama imagines a time when advances in neuroscience have made interaction through VR and BCI not only possible but fluent. Even today, new research is able to decode some aspects of people's mental states by combining brain imaging with machine learning: 'brain reading'. The technologies of brain implantation and VR are advancing rapidly. Fourteen years provides a plausible horizon for when these technologies could provide new opportunities for immersive interactions in VR without relying on the physical body.
Written by Jane Rogers
Directed by Nadia Molinari
Sound Design by Steve Brooke
Programme Consultant Anil Seth.
Spring now begins on average 26 days earlier than it did 10 years ago. Lindsey Chapman investigates how shifting seasons are affecting our wildlife.
Bumblebees in January, daffodils blooming early, 'thuggish-vegetation' thriving as a result of mild winters and damp summers: the seasons are blurring and wildlife is becoming confused.
Last year was 'a bit all over the place yet again'. It's hard to put any single event down to climate change but overall the impact is 'quite staggering' according to Matthew Oates, butterfly expert from the National Trust.
In this week's Costing The Earth, Lindsey Chapman meets Matthew as he takes stock of our shifting seasons. He explains how early spring can throw several species out of kilter, creating a mismatch between wildlife and their prey. And what happens when- like this year- we get an icy snap in the middle of a mild spell?
Lindsey meets the scientists studying the mechanisms driving the UK's climate, phenologists who have been studying the link between seasons and species and the naturalists who are spotting new species turning up on our doorstep and familiar species that are moving north, and Lindsey visits her Springwatch friend and colleague Brett Westwood to hear if there are any species that are benefitting from a warming UK climate.
Presenter: Lindsey Chapman
Producer: Martin Poyntz-Roberts.
Word of Mouth returns with a special programme in which Michael Rosen and guests discuss the state of language and public debate.
With the rise of the internet there is more political discussion than ever. Yet this torrent of words seems to carry less understanding than ever. This has been attributed to many causes. Some say it is the anonymous nature of internet discussions, or the increasing disparity between rich and poor, or even the efficacy with which media (and propaganda) organisations can affect public opinion. But possibly the problem lies in language itself. Traditionally, political language has been a shared endeavour through which we express our differences. Perhaps now even the language itself has become partisan - words carry profoundly different meanings for different people and the shared understand that public debate relies on is much reduced. Two people can share a word - say government or sovereignty - but if the frame of reference for what that word means has become radically different it's hard to find the common ground on which meaningful debate can happen. So Michael Rosen and guests will look at the state of current political and public debate, delve into the philosophy of language and see how words get their meaning in the minds of their users. Perhaps, on top of all our other attendant crises, we can claim to be living through a crisis of language.
Stand up comedian and political commentator Ayesha Hazarika's hero is Jayaben Desai who led a two year strike at Grunwick Film processing factory in North London. The majority of the workers were migrant women and they became known as the 'strikers in sarees'. Matthew Parris remembers the strike in 1976 as he was working in Margaret Thatcher's office at the time, but only recalls the violence at the picket line and the fact that the strike failed.
Can Ayesha Hazarika convince Matthew Parris that Jayaben Desai deserves the accolade of a great life?
They are joined in studio by Dr Sundari Anitha, co- author of 'Striking Women'
Produced in Bristol by Perminder Khatkar.
Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Second series of the award-nominated comedy drama set in Alcoholics Anonymous, written by Pete Jackson and inspired by his own road to recovery. Stars Sue Johnston, John Hannah, Eddie Marsan, Rebecca Front, Paul Kaye and Julia Deakin.
Love in Recovery follows the lives of five very different recovering alcoholics. Taking place entirely at their weekly meetings, we hear them moan, argue, laugh, fall apart, fall in love and - most importantly - tell their stories.
In this fourth episode, Julie (Sue Johnston) is having a tough time with her new bloke, and Danno (Paul Kaye) has a secret to share with the group. A big secret. A shameful secret. A secret he thought he'd never have to reveal.
Writer Pete Jackson is a recovering alcoholic and has spent time in Alcoholics Anonymous. It was there he found support from the unlikeliest group of disparate souls - with one common bond. As well as offering the support he needed throughout a difficult time, AA also offered a weekly, sometimes daily, dose of hilarity, upset, heartbreak and friendship.
There are lots of different kinds of AA meetings. Love in Recovery is about meetings where people tell their stories. There are funny stories, sad stories, stories of small victories and milestones, stories of loss, stories of hope, and those stories that you really shouldn't laugh at - but still do, along with the storyteller.
Cast:
Marion...........Julia Deakin
Fiona.............Rebecca Front
Simon............John Hannah
Julie...............Sue Johnston
Danno............Paul Kaye
Andy..............Eddie Marsan
Written and created by Pete Jackson
Producer/Director: Ben Worsfield
A Lucky Giant production for BBC Radio 4.
Pat helps a friend in need, and Harrison has a bad day.
Arts news, interviews and reviews.
Jonathan Izard killed a man in a road traffic accident. It wasn't his fault. In an attempt to come to terms with what happened, he tries to get to know the man he killed, Michael Rawson.
Jonathan goes back to the place on the road where his car hit Michael, on New Year's Eve 2015. Michael was crossing the road on his crutches from the bus stop to his flat in sheltered accommodation. It was a winter's evening, pitch black. He didn't see Jonathan's car until it was too late. Jonathan saw Michael, very briefly, just before the impact - a face in the windscreen, a look of puzzled bewilderment, as if to say, "What the hell do you think you're doing?"
Ten months later, the inquest confirmed that there was nothing Jonathan could have done. It ruled that no blame should attach to the driver. But meanwhile, Jonathan retreats from the world, stops shaving, wears black. He doesn't tell his friends what's happened, overcome by trauma and grief.
After the inquest, he starts to make this programme. He visits the place Michael lived, and talks to his friends. He sees Michael Rawson's photograph for the first time and discovers that, strangely, they have things in common. He begins to build up a picture of a complex, highly intelligent scholar who had a passion for photography, travel and classical music.
And he talks to other people who have killed accidentally. Jonathan Bartley, now a politician, ran over a young man when he himself was only 17. Maryann Gray accidentally killed an 8-year-old child when she was still a student. In a profoundly moving interview, Maryann explains this meant she decided never to have children herself - she felt she didn't deserve them.
Together, Jonathan and Maryann discuss their deep regret, their secret sense of shame. As she says, "Terrible things happen to perfectly good people. The world can be so capricious, we know that. But it's helpful for just day-to-day functioning to forget that, and assume that we're in control. When these accidents happen, they are reminders that we are only in partial control."
Last year about five and half thousand pedestrians were killed or injured in traffic accidents on Britain's roads.
Produced by Kim Normanton
A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4.
News, views and information for people who are blind or partially sighted.
Laura Barton drives the highways and byways, seeking out the musical memories and stories of fellow drivers and passengers.
Childhood family holidays, first forays behind the wheel after the successful driving test, the daily commute - our journeys in cars are often measured, and remembered, by the music on the stereo. It's a common experience, but one that we rarely discuss once we leave the personal bubble of the car.
Why do we listen to what we do, and what does it add to the journey?
Laura meets the family who spent months living on the road in Morocco, their choice of listening enhancing the fantasy of the road trip. With the right thing on the stereo, it's easy to create a sense of being in your own film, and Laura explores this with sound psychologist Michael Bull.
But is what we choose to listen to always safe? Laura tries out some bespoke driving music, created with the help of psychologists to aid concentration, before heading to a motorway service station to sample the listening tastes and habits of the 21st-century driver.
As night draws in, Laura lets a cabbie take the wheel and reflect on mood, music and the road ahead.
A Testbed production for BBC Radio 4.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
John Updike's masterful Rabbit quintet established Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom as the quintessential American White middle class male. The first book Rabbit, Run was published in 1960 to critical acclaim. Rabbit Redux was the second in the series, published in 1971 and charted the end of the sixties - featuring, among other things, the first American moon landing and the Vietnam War.
This third book finds Rabbit in middle age and successful, having inherited his father in law's car business - selling newly imported Toyotas to the mass American market. But his relationship with his son Nelson was severely compromised by Rabbit's affair with Jill and her subsequent death has left them both wary of each other.
Published in 1981, Rabbit is Rich won Updike, among other awards, the Pulitzer Prize for fiction - and it's extraordinary how many of its themes continue to reverberate down to the present day.
Abridged by Robin Brooks
Read by Toby Jones
Produced by Clive Brill
A Brill production for BBC Radio 4.
Award-winning writer and poet Richard Marsh stars alongside Russell Tovey, Phil Daniels and Rebecca Scroggs in this new, heart-warming sitcom set in a greetings card company.
This week, the gang battle for promotion. Will tries to make himself the model candidate and takes to the streets to learn what the public really want when it comes to greetings cards - but he finds that all he really wants to do is make himself the model candidate for the attractive woman he meets.
Richard Marsh is the writer and star of Love and Sweets, a Radio 4 comedy series that won Best Comedy in the BBC Audio Drama awards 2014. Now, in Cardboard Heart, he plays Will, a hapless romantic who's keen to find love and an aspiring writer with a 9 to 5 job writing poetry at a greetings card company.
Will shares an office with Goadsby (Rebecca Scroggs), who's responsible for the card artwork and being Will's nemesis, Colin (Sam Troughton), the firm's safety and survival-obsessed accountant, and charming renegade salesman Beast (Russell Tovey). Phil Daniels plays Rog, their roguish boss.
Paid to express heartfelt emotions for people he will never meet, Will consistently fails to express himself properly to anyone he does meet. Every social interaction is a minefield for Will. In his head, he knows exactly what to say but the minute he opens his mouth, it's a disaster. Luckily for you, Will shares his inner thoughts with the audience.
Written and created by Richard Marsh
Directed by Pia Furtado
Produced by Ben Worsfield
A Lucky Giant production for BBC Radio 4.
Spam and its prevention have been a driving force in the history of the internet. It's changed laws and communities, language and culture.
It comes in all shapes and forms, the most popular of which is advance fee scams. You know the drill: an agent for the widow of charitable billionaire wants to give you a share of a multi million-dollar 'inheritance'... in return for your help in getting access to it by posing as a cousin or a niece.
But this type of spam isn't just a feature of digital living; it's been around a lot longer than that.
The Digital Human traces the roots of the longest running spam scam in human history, before casting ahead to a world of intelligent spambots.
Aleks Krotoski asks if scams are symptomatic of their time, what do they tell us about now and what do they say about us?
Producer: Caitlin Smith.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
Spiritual reflection to start the day with Bob Fyffe, General Secretary of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs.
David Attenborough presents the ptarmigan. Few birds are tough enough to brave winter on the highest of Scottish mountains but Ptarmigan are well adapted to extreme conditions. They're the only British bird that turns white in winter and Ptarmigan have feathers that cover their toes, feet and nostrils to minimise heat loss.
Morning news and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
A Whiter Shade of Pale by Procol Harum: Why has this surreal track remained enduringly popular for over 50 years? Soul Music hears the stories and memories of those who love it.
Released in May 1967, A Whiter Shade of Pale was Procol Harum's first single. It went to No. 1 in the UK, and stayed there for six weeks.
Contributors:
Musicologist, Allan Moore, deconstructs the track and dismisses the almost universally accepted idea that it mimics Bach's Air on a G String.
Film-maker, Chris Rodley, remembers the impact it had on him when he heard it for the first time, in the dead of the night, on Radio Caroline.
Musician, James Pollard, explains how he created a wedding march for a friend using this track as inspiration.
Thriller writer, Nelson DeMille, describes his year in Vietnam as 'the year without music', but A Whiter Shade of Pale is the one song that reminds him of his time there.
Singer, Sarah Collins, suffered a brain tumour shortly after the birth of her second child. Making the decision to sing again was fundamental to her healing process. As her Dad, Phil, explains 'Whiter Shade' is his favourite song. He was very moved when she decided to record it for her YouTube channel.
Produced in Bristol by Karen Gregor.
Secrets have never been more suspect. Post Snowden, post Savile, institutions which keep secrets are automatically seen as having something to hide, and openness and transparency are seen as the new imperatives. Any deviation from the new orthodoxy of honesty is punished - by exposure.
But the story of secrecy is not as black and white as our contemporary prejudices would have it. For centuries secrecy has been seen to serve a useful purpose. It has protected citizens from the prying eyes of governments, it has protected the feelings of individuals and kept couples together. It has safeguarded professional integrity, and protected the vulnerable from abuse. Have we lost more than we have gained by abandoning our respect for the power and sanctity of secrecy?
Produced by Kate Bissell.
Alberto Manguel has had consistent 5-star ratings for his books on reading, books and libraries. With regret, he packs up his library of 35,000 volumes and prepares to move from a vast property in rural France to a small apartment on Manhattan's West Side.
Choosing which books to keep, store, or cast out, Manguel finds himself in deep reverie on the nature of relationships between books and readers, books and collectors, order and disorder, memory and reading.
In this poignant re-evaluation of his life as a reader, he illuminates the highly personal art of reading and affirms the vital role of public libraries. Manguel's musings range widely - from delightful reflections on the idiosyncrasies of book lovers to deeper analyses of historic and catastrophic book events, including the burning of ancient Alexandria's library and contemporary library lootings at the hands of ISIS.
With insight and passion, the author underscores the universal centrality of books and their unique importance to a democratic, civilised, and engaged society.
Reader : Oliver Cotton
Author: Alberto Manguel
Abridger : Barry Johnston
Producer : David Roper
A Heavy Entertainment production for BBC Radio 4.
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.
Caroline has created 32 online troll personalities, each of them arguing furiously with the others about whatever inconsequentiality is in the headlines. But though her brand is growing exponentially, even she has to admit that she has lost sight of who she actually is, or even which personality she should be employing at any given moment.
Shelagh Stephenson is the author of Radio 4's 'A Short History of Longing' and 'Guests Are Like Fish'. She is an Olivier Award winner for her play 'The Memory of Water' and has won Sony and Writer's Guild awards for her plays 'Darling Peidi' and 'Five Kinds of Silence'.
Writer ..... Shelagh Stephenson
Director ..... Eoin O'Callaghan
Producer ..... Eoin O'Callaghan.
A mother in her 90s advises the daughter who fears losing her how to cope when the inevitable happens. Fi Glover presents another conversation in the series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen.
Producer: Marya Burgess.
A comic look at the solutions humanity has devised to deal with the fundamental problems of survival, starring Helen Keen, Susy Kane and Peter Serafinowicz. This episode looks at love and the problems of finding the perfect mate, including the invention of computer dating; how we might chemically engineer love; how the bicycle revolutionised sex; having a row in Ikea; and a pair of romantic prairie voles.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
On this day in 1918, the Archbishop of Canterbury expressed concerns about the moral well-being of British troops, and in Folkestone, Alice receives a letter from France.
Written by Lucy Catherine
Story-led by Sarah Daniels
Directed by Ciaran Bermingham
Editor: Jessica Dromgoole.
Consumer affairs programme.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
Millions of Chinese speak the words of Kumarajiva (334-413) every day. Far fewer have any idea of who he is. He was perhaps China's most influential translator: in medieval China, he translated some of the most important Buddhist texts from Sanskrit into Chinese. Kumarajiva settled down for a life of contemplation as a Buddhist priest, but a series of invasions and occupations from the east saw him kidnapped, finally ending up at the great Chinese city of Chang'an (modern Xi'an). There he was given the task of rendering some of the key Buddhist teachings, such as the Diamond Sutra, into a form that Chinese worshippers could understand and use. In today's China, there are immense numbers of Buddhists who use Kumarajiva's texts. Even if his name has faded, Professor Rana Mitter says his achievement is very much part of the contemporary Chinese religious scene.
Chinese Characters is a series of 20 essays exploring Chinese history through the life stories of key personalities.
Producer: Ben Crighton
Researcher: Elizabeth Smith Rosser.
The British Army is in pell-mell retreat towards the Channel Ports, and must face up to losing the First World War, in this story starring Lee Ross and John Macmillan.
Meticulously based on unit war diaries and eye-witness accounts, each episode of TOMMIES traces one real day at war, exactly 100 years ago.
And through it all, wel follow the fortunes of Mickey Bliss and his fellow signallers. They are the cogs in an immense machine, one which connects situations across the whole theatre of the war, over four long years.
Series created by Jonathan Ruffle
Written by Avin Shah
Producers: David Hunter, Jonquil Panting, Jonathan Ruffle
Director: Jonquil Panting.
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.
Broadcaster and comedian Hardeep Singh Kohli sets out to find the next generation of white, black, Asian and minority ethnic satirical sketch writers, with a keen eye on finding the funny in a multicultural Britain.
Traditionally, some of the best UK sketch comedy shines a satirical light on social issues of the time, finding comedy from difficult subject matter or awkward social convention. When it comes to multiculturalism, sketch team Goodness, Gracious Me kicked open the door with their classic 90s sketch show, including the legendary Going For An English routine.
Sketchtopia aims to make sharp observations about modern Britain and, most importantly, allow shared experiences, common points of reference and authenticity to come together and hold a mirror up to our society and tell us a truth about ourselves.
Stand-ups and comedy writers from diverse backgrounds have been invited to give us a comic snapshot of UK society through their own observations and experiences. In these divisive times, Sketchtopia aims to poke fun at our multicultural society and tries to discover a diverse, multi-ethnic Utopia through good old-fashioned British sketch comedy.
In this episode - charity adverts, the potential loss of Eurovision, diversity in the workplace, and a young Indian traveller returns from his gap year in the UK with exciting new experiences...in a Tesco Metro.
Host: Hardeep Singh Kohli.
Performer: Vivienne Acheampong
Performer: Luke Manning
Performer: Jamie-Rose Monk
Performer: Nimisha Odedra
Performer: Paul G Raymond.
Script Editors: Sanjeev Kohli and Donny Mcleary
Writers: Sadia Azmat, Asmara Gabrielle, Kai Samra, Lizzie Bates, Anna Emerson, Athena Kugblenu, Joanne Lau, Jim Felton and In Cahoots.
Producer: Gus Beattie.
A Gusman production for BBC Radio 4.
Jazzer looks to the future, and Tom puts his foot in it.
Arts news, interviews and reviews.
Clive Anderson and guests examine concerns that the government's programme to modernise the court system through use of digital technologies could threaten access to justice.
Today, it's common practice for vulnerable witnesses to give evidence via video link. But government proposals could see the entire court process move online. Critics of the plans say that, without access to a lawyer, vulnerable defendants might act against their best interests, or may even be manipulated by a third party.
Clive hears concerns that, without a defendant appearing in the dock, victims and their families might not feel justice was being done. and - without a physical courtroom for journalists to attend - justice might no longer be seen to be done.
There is a widespread worry that cost-cutting is being prioritised over justice, and that the digitally illiterate risk being shut out of legal system, with profound consequences.
Supporters of the proposals claim digital courts will save the public time and money, be easier to navigate, and meet the demands of the "internet society" that services be delivered online.
Producer: Matt Willis
A 7digital production for BBC Radio 4.
Talks with a personal dimension.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
John Updike's masterful Rabbit quintet established Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom as the quintessential American White middle class male. The first book Rabbit, Run was published in 1960 to critical acclaim. Rabbit Redux was the second in the series, published in 1971 and charted the end of the sixties - featuring, among other things, the first American moon landing and the Vietnam War.
This third book finds Rabbit in middle age and successful, having inherited his father in law's car business - selling newly imported Toyotas to the mass American market. But his relationship with his son Nelson was severely compromised by Rabbit's affair with Jill and her subsequent death has left them both wary of each other.
Published in 1981, Rabbit is Rich won Updike, among other awards, the Pulitzer Prize for fiction - and it's extraordinary how many of its themes continue to reverberate down to the present day.
Abridged by Robin Brooks
Read by Toby Jones
Produced by Clive Brill
A Brill production for BBC Radio 4.
Break out comedy star Sophie Willan is coming to Radio 4 with an exciting new stand-up series looking at what it is to be 'normal'. Sophie grew up in and out of the Care System and had an unconventional childhood. In her debut series she will get to grips with - and often challenge - our perception of 'the perfect normal life', shining a light on the reality of the British experience.
In the final episode of the series, Sophie will explore what it is to be considered 'polite' in a middle class society, and how her upbringing has changed her perception of politeness.
Sophie Willan's Guide to Normality was produced by Suzy Grant for BBC Studios.
The Godfather of British stand up comedy, John Moloney, returns to the stage with stories of his much loved cat Edward. Edward isn't feeling well, he's leaning to the far-right - and it's not clear if it's a balancing act or political abnormality.
There's only one thing for it, a trip to the Vet.
John and Edward come up against characters who don't understand their plight, nor that of those most in need. Edward may end up providing as many solutions as he receives.
Featuring Karen Bartke and Julia Sutherland.
A Dabster production for BBC Radio 4.
In this episode of The Digital Human Aleks Krotoski asks if social media is creating a new era of shame. Psychotherapist Aaron Balick explains how shame needs a witness in order to be felt, we need to be able to see our selves through the eyes of another. If we break a social norm we are made to feel shame. Shame is a powerful emotion that can control our behaviour and infiltrate every aspect of our lives, influencing the way we live. Seraphina Ferraro's experience of shame went further, she found herself trapped in an abusive relationship by shame. Even after leaving Seraphina felt too ashamed to speak about what had happened. However, she discovered that the antidote to shame is empathy, others sharing their own experiences of shame has helped her in her recovery. Aleks explores the cost of shaming someone offline and online and the price of that shaming by those who have been shamed. Is technology increasing our ability to shame and how does this online shaming impact lives offline?
Produced by Kate Bissell.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
Spiritual reflection to start the day with Bob Fyffe, General Secretary of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs.
Kate Humble presents the story of the black grouse. A black grouse lek is one of Nature's spectacles. Charged with testosterone, the males, known as 'black cocks', compete on 'jousting lawns' for the females or grey hens. Fanning their lyre-shaped tails and displaying a flurry of white undertail feathers, the males rush towards their rivals with harsh scouring sneezes and bubbling cries, known as 'roo-kooing'.
Morning news and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the contribution of George Stephenson (1781-1848) and his son Robert (1803-59) to the development of the railways in C19th. George became known as The Father of Railways and yet arguably Robert's contribution was even greater, with his engineering work going far beyond their collaboration. Robert is credited with the main role in the design of their locomotives. George had worked on stationary colliery steam engines and, with Robert, developed the moving steam engine Locomotion No1 for the Stockton and Darlington Railway in 1825. They produced The Rocket for the Rainhill Trials on the Liverpool and Manchester Railway in 1829. From there, the success of their designs and engineering led to the expansion of railways across Britain and around the world.
with
Michael Bailey
Julia Elton
and
Colin Divall
Producer: Simon Tillotson.
Alberto Manguel has had consistent 5-star ratings for his books on reading, books and libraries. With regret, he packs up his library of 35,000 volumes and prepares to move from a vast property in rural France to a small apartment on Manhattan's West Side.
Choosing which books to keep, store, or cast out, Manguel finds himself in deep reverie on the nature of relationships between books and readers, books and collectors, order and disorder, memory and reading.
In this poignant re-evaluation of his life as a reader, he illuminates the highly personal art of reading and affirms the vital role of public libraries. Manguel's musings range widely - from delightful reflections on the idiosyncrasies of book lovers to deeper analyses of historic and catastrophic book events, including the burning of ancient Alexandria's library and contemporary library lootings at the hands of ISIS.
With insight and passion, the author underscores the universal centrality of books and their unique importance to a democratic, civilised, and engaged society.
Reader : Oliver Cotton
Author: Alberto Manguel
Abridger : Barry Johnston
Producer : David Roper
A Heavy Entertainment production for BBC Radio 4.
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.
Philip's mum is still caring for him, but he has at least found gainful employment, and it's while demonstrating fish smokers in the basement of a major department store that he is spotted by a hot young actors' agency called 'Weirdos'. It's mostly 'extras' work but he has already landed an unnamed role in a Games of Thrones style fantasy. He feels that his experience in front of the camera is certain to bring him to the attention of the principal director.
Shelagh Stephenson is the author of Radio 4's 'A Short History of Longing' and 'Guests Are Like Fish'. She is an Olivier Award winner for her play 'The Memory of Water' and has won Sony and Writer's Guild awards for her plays 'Darling Peidi' and 'Five Kinds of Silence'.
Writer ..... Shelagh Stephenson
Director ..... Eoin O'Callaghan
Producer ..... Eoin O'Callaghan.
A one-woman whirlwind of passion and energy, Sukayna Muhammad Younes is a unique phenomenon in Iraq. A council official in the half-destroyed city of Mosul, former stronghold of so-called Islamic State, she's on a mission to find and identify the thousands of children who went missing during the conflict - and reunite them with their families. It's a massive task - and deeply controversial because Sukayna makes no distinction between children who are victims of IS - and those who belonged to IS families. "They're all just children - all innocent," she says. Tim Whewell follows Sukayna through the rubble of the city, visiting her orphanage, trying to find missing parents, meeting families who want to reclaim children. Can she solve the mystery of Jannat - an abandoned fair-haired girl who may be the daughter of a foreign IS family? Can she help Amal, sister of a dead IS fighter, to adopt her baby niece? How can families afford the expensive DNA tests the authorities require before families can be reunited? As she tries to solve these problems Sukayna also has to look after her own family of six children - and cope with personal tragedy. Two of her brothers were killed by jihadis; her family home, used as an IS base, is now in ruins. Highly charismatic - Sukayna now wants to go into politics. "I am a mini-Iraq," she says - her family includes members of many communities - and she believes the country desperately needs more dynamic, tolerant people like her, to bring real change and overcome divisions. But it's hard to be a high-profile, energetic woman in patriarchal Iraq - and she's faced death threats both from remaining IS supporters - and those who think she's too ready to help "terrorist" families.
Presenter Tim Whewell
Producers Nick Sturdee & Mike Gallagher.
Louise K Wilson meets fellow artists who, like her, make work inspired by the Cold War.
Whether it's childhood memories, the background hum of the threat of nuclear armageddon, or the futuristic architecture, many artists are creatively stimulated by the imagined possibilities of a war which never turned hot.
Louise K Wilson travels to three very different sites with Cold War connections to explore their artistic appeal.
On a freezing winter morning, we meet artist Stephen Felmingham at the South Creake, Royal Observer Corps post, near Bloodgate Hill in Norfolk. He has been fascinated by the Cold War since he was a child, and remembers the presence of the American airbase near his home. This dank, underground shelter is the first ROC post Stephen became aware of - it overlooks his former primary school - and it began a six year practice of him visiting the national network of tiny, monitoring posts where he draws using his peripheral vision.
Hush House at Bentwaters Parks - formerly RAF Bentwaters - in Suffolk is a large hanger with a protruding concrete exhaust tunnel. The building was used to test jet engines and is acoustically treated to absorb the massive amount of noise created by this process. Despite the RAF title, Bentwaters was an American airbase which was home to much covert activity. Sound artist and scenographer Kathrine Sandys spent her childhood holidays camping nearby, and has strong memories of the activity she and her brother imagined took place there. Kathrine staged a sound and light installation in Hush House in 2010.
Field Station Berlin is former NSA listening station built in the Cold War to intercept communications from the East. It stands at the top of a man made rubble mountain, created by the women of the city as they disposed of the bombed out wreckage of Berlin in the second world war. At the base of Teufelsberg (or Devil's Mountain) stands Hitler's flagship military technical college, built so strongly that it couldn't be demolished, so was instead buried in rubble.
Every attempt to commercialise the site has failed and it is now home to a loosely marshalled collective of artists, some of whom live on site. While the buildings are brooding, decaying and unmistakably from the Cold War, its lure as a base for artists is mainly due to the space, lack of regulation and very low cost. It seems to be a magnet for people who want to exist outside of conventional society.
Produced by Freya Hellier
A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
On this day in 1918, the Women's National Anti-Suffrage League was officially dissolved, and in Folkestone, Walter has reconsidered his position.
Written by Lucy Catherine
Story-led by Sarah Daniels
Directed by Ciaran Bermingham
Editor: Jessica Dromgoole.
Consumer affairs programme.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
Better living through geometry. That was one of the lessons shared with the Chinese emperor by the Jesuit priest Matteo Ricci. He was part of an enterprising group of Jesuits priests who brought their faith to China, along with new ideas drawn from the scientific revolution changing early modern Europe. A collaboration rather than a conquest, Ricci worked with Chinese colleagues to develop ideas in astronomy, mathematics and even music - giving a favourable impression of the west to the elites of the Chinese court. And he even made a few Catholic converts, his life a demonstration that western religion in China didn't have to be about invasion, gunboats and opium trading.
Chinese Characters is a series of 20 essays exploring Chinese history through the life stories of key personalities.
Presenter: Rana Mitter
Producer: Ben Crighton
Researcher: Elizabeth Smith Rosser.
A young woman with cerebral palsy has to unravel secrets about her past. Written by and starring Francesca Martinez.
Produced by Charlotte Riches.
Helen Mark explores the landscape in between the city of Coventry and the countryside which surrounds it. These 'edgelands' are often ignored yet they are also places which inspire artists and writers and can tell us about how we live today. Tile Hill is the place which the artist George Shaw depicts in his work and inspired by him poet Liz Berry has written about these 'edgelands' and the stories they contain. Jonny Bark is a photographer who has recently explored this theme in his work around Coventry and writer JD Taylor has spent time travelling around these overlooked places in search of who we are and how we live in 21st Century Britain.
News and insights from the film world. League of Gentlemen writer Jeremy Dyson discusses Ghost Stories, his adaptation of his hit stage production.
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.
Simon Jones stars as Arthur Dent in a brand new full-cast series based on And Another Thing..., the sixth book in the famous Hitchhiker's Guide trilogy.
Forty years on from the first ever radio series of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Arthur Dent and friends return to be thrown back into the Whole General Mish Mash, in a rattling adventure involving Viking Gods and Irish Confidence Tricksters, with our first glimpse of Eccentrica Gallumbits and a brief but memorable moment with The Ravenous Bugblatter Beast Of Traal.
Starring John Lloyd as The Book, with Simon Jones as Arthur, Geoff McGivern as Ford Prefect, Mark Wing-Davey as Zaphod Beeblebrox, Sandra Dickinson and Susan Sheridan as Trillian, Jim Broadbent as Marvin the Paranoid Android and Jane Horrocks as Fenchurch. The cast also includes Samantha Béart, Toby Longworth, Andy Secombe, Ed Byrne, Lenny Henry, Philip Pope, Mitch Benn, Jon Culshaw and Professor Stephen Hawking.
The series is written and directed by Dirk Maggs and based on And Another Thing... by Eoin Colfer, with additional unpublished material by Douglas Adams.
Music by Philip Pope
Production research by Kevin Jon Davies
Written and directed by Dirk Maggs
Based on the novel And Another Thing... by Eoin Colfer, with additional material by Douglas Adams
Recorded at The Soundhouse Ltd by Gerry O'Riordan
Sound Design by Dirk Maggs
Produced by Dirk Maggs, Helen Chattwell and David Morley
A Perfectly Normal production for BBC Radio 4.
There is tension at Home Farm, and Lexi attends the surrogacy clinic.
Arts news, interviews and reviews.
Series looking at important issues in the news. Presented by David Aaronovitch.
Series about the world of work, from vast corporations to the modest volunteer.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
John Updike's masterful Rabbit quintet established Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom as the quintessential American White middle class male. The first book Rabbit, Run was published in 1960 to critical acclaim. Rabbit Redux was the second in the series, published in 1971 and charted the end of the sixties - featuring, among other things, the first American moon landing and the Vietnam War.
This third book finds Rabbit in middle age and successful, having inherited his father in law's car business - selling newly imported Toyotas to the mass American market. But his relationship with his son Nelson was severely compromised by Rabbit's affair with Jill and her subsequent death has left them both wary of each other.
Published in 1981, Rabbit is Rich won Updike, among other awards, the Pulitzer Prize for fiction - and it's extraordinary how many of its themes continue to reverberate down to the present day.
Abridged by Robin Brooks
Read by Toby Jones
Produced by Clive Brill
A Brill production for BBC Radio 4.
The number one podcast for those involved or just interested in the production of beef animals and dairy herds.
In this episode, we interview the star of a new musical about yoghurt and the Greek financial crisis.
Produced by Benjamin Partridge.
There's nothing more human that adapting a tool to make your life better, it's the rationale behind every innovation. Aleks Krotoski explores how our digital tools can be reinvented in powerful ways by individuals seeking a better life. Whether it's how smuggled USB sticks filled with content from the outside world inspire North Koreans to defect to the south, or the way a single photo of woman running with her hair flowing inspires a campaign against compulsory Islamic dress in Iran. What ties these stories together is hope. And it's the hope that the world can be made better that makes us look to the tools we have and how they might be re-purposed to make that a reality.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
Spiritual reflection to start the day with Bob Fyffe, General Secretary of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
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.
Morning news and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
Alberto Manguel has had consistent 5-star ratings for his books on reading, books and libraries. With regret, he packs up his library of 35,000 volumes and prepares to move from a vast property in rural France to a small apartment on Manhattan's West Side.
Choosing which books to keep, store, or cast out, Manguel finds himself in deep reverie on the nature of relationships between books and readers, books and collectors, order and disorder, memory and reading.
In this poignant re-evaluation of his life as a reader, he illuminates the highly personal art of reading and affirms the vital role of public libraries. Manguel's musings range widely - from delightful reflections on the idiosyncrasies of book lovers to deeper analyses of historic and catastrophic book events, including the burning of ancient Alexandria's library and contemporary library lootings at the hands of ISIS.
With insight and passion, the author underscores the universal centrality of books and their unique importance to a democratic, civilised, and engaged society.
Reader : Oliver Cotton
Author: Alberto Manguel
Abridger : Barry Johnston
Producer : David Roper
A Heavy Entertainment production for BBC Radio 4.
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.
Rabid constituents and demented and disastrous Tinder dates have cast Richard into a new slough of despondency. And then, the one light at the end of the tunnel - an invitation to appear on a popular TV reality show - is extinguished, when he inadvertently publicises his highly confidential invitation in a late night tweet. Richard now faces a sea of ignominy as the producers of the TV show deny all knowledge of him, and the horrible suspicion occurs to him that someone may have been playing a cruel and deeply humiliating prank - leaving Richard in a state of complete and abject despair.
Shelagh Stephenson is the author of Radio 4's 'A Short History of Longing' and 'Guests Are Like Fish'. She is an Olivier Award winner for her play 'The Memory of Water' and has won Sony and Writer's Guild awards for her plays 'Darling Peidi' and 'Five Kinds of Silence'.
Richard Fallon ..... Roger Allam
Martha ..... Frances Tomelty
Writer ..... Shelagh Stephenson
Director ..... Eoin O'Callaghan
Producer ..... Eoin O'Callaghan.
In 2014 Polly Weston's sister Lara died. She had just turned 22. Lara and her family had never discussed organ donation, and she wasn't on the register. But when the family were asked if they would consider donation, they said yes. Out of the tragedy of her death, medics managed to donate her organs to four women, while her eyes saved the sight of three men.
In February a bill passed its second reading in parliament to say that England would seek to move to an organ donation opt-out system - meaning citizens would be presumed to consent to their organs being donated unless they actively withdrew from the system. It seemed like there was universal support for the announcement. Labour were behind it. Newspapers rejoiced.
But having been through the process, Polly's family were unsure about whether this policy change would bring about an improvement in donations. She began speaking to major advocates of organ donation, and found that many donor specialists and donor families themselves are unconvinced by the change.
Very few of us will die in a situation which allows for our organs to be donated. And if we do - we won't be there to express our support for it, or to give our own medical and sexual history. It is families who are consulted - and still will be under the new system. The question is, how will the change in policy impact on consent rates in that sudden, awful moment? Will an opt-out system encourage more families to say yes?
This programme takes you through the experience of consent - and what the question of organ donation really means to families who have been asked. Why do they say no? And how will this policy impact on their response and their experience?
Produced and presented by Polly Weston.
Another chance to hear the much missed Ronnie Corbett in the final series of his popular sitcom by Ian Davidson and Peter Vincent. Ronnie is granddad Sandy and his old dog is Henry. If the dog dies or his lodger moves on, Sandy's children want him to downsize. He doesn't.
To help his finances, Sandy, still in the family home, took in a young couple as lodgers. But then the man left - leaving the attractive Dolores behind. AndSandy's children are quite sure she's a gold-digger. Sandy's opinion that it would be inhuman to move Henry somewhere unfamiliar is wearing a bit thin - as is the old dog himself.
Keeping the dog alive and the lodger happy is one thing, but what really concerns Sandy deeply is providing a guiding hand to his whole family - advising here, prompting there, responding to any emergency callout. If he kept himself to himself, of course, things would be a lot simpler and smoother. But a lot duller too.
Episode Three - Ships That Pass
Sandy is worried about memory loss. His son has a morbid fear of sofas. Sandy could help, but he's booked a holiday in an igloo with a man he doesn't really like. When he takes a fashionable memory cure, he remembers some things that were better left forgotten.
Written by Ian Davidson and Peter Vincent
Producer: Liz Anstee
A CPL production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
On this day in 1918, the National Council of Public Morals launched an inquiry into the growth of illegitimate births, and in Folkestone Gabriel is pursuing his own crusade.
Written by Lucy Catherine
Story-led by Sarah Daniels
Directed by Ciaran Bermingham
Editor: Jessica Dromgoole.
Consumer news and issues.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
In 1927, China's literary scene was struck by a sensational new character. Her name was Sophie, and she was tormented by sexual longing, unashamedly self-centred about her desires and dreams, and determined to carry out mental torture on her nice, reliable and rather dull boyfriend while lusting after a tall, handsome man she couldn't have. Sophie was the creation of Jiang Bingzhi, who became known under her pen name of Ding Ling (1904-1986). She became popular during a brief flowering of liberalism in China's cities, known as the New Culture movement, when ideas of political nationalism combined with daring new thought about feminism and social change. After Mao's victory in 1949, Ding Ling found herself in internal exile, forced to live in the remote countryside for decades because her views were considered "bourgeois" and "rightist." Yet in her last years, she was finally rehabilitated, and is remembered today as one of China's most important feminist authors.
Chinese Characters is a series exploring Chinese history through the life stories of 20 personalities.
Presenter: Rana Mitter
Producer: Ben Crighton
Researcher: Elizabeth Smith Rosser.
By Mark Lawson. The trustees of a famous wax works is facing a dilemma. Following pressure from social media activists and irate students, it is obliged to establish a deletion committee - charged with removing the effigies of waxed celebrities who have been named and shamed by the court of public opinion.
All the usual suspects are condemned to the flames but, when they start to include the likes of Germaine Greer because some commentators are offended by her views on the transgender community, the committee begins to question the efficacy of the selection process and whether it is carrying out a "guilty until proven more guilty" process, rather than a cool-headed reappraisal of the museum's best known exhibits.
A Big Fish production for BBC Radio 4.
Peter Gibbs invites the panel to join him at Cranfield University. Pippa Greenwood, James Wong and RHS Wisley curator Matthew Pottage answer questions from the audience.
Produced by Dan Cocker
Assistant Producer: Laurence Bassett
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.
An original short story commissioned by BBC Radio 4 from the acclaimed Irish writer David Hayden. As read by Jane Brennan ('Brooklyn', 'The Tudors')
David Hayden's writing has appeared in gorse, The Yellow Nib, The Moth, The Stinging Fly, Spolia and The Warwick Review, and poetry in PN Review. His debut short story collection 'Darker With The Lights On' was shortlisted for the Republic of Consciousness Prize 2018.
Writer ..... David Hayden
Reader ..... Jane Brennan
Producer ..... Michael Shannon.
Obituary series, analysing and celebrating the life stories of people who have recently died.
Radio 4's forum for audience comment.
A refugee and the host who shares her home with his family discuss the benefits the arrangement brings. 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.
A satirical review of the week's news, chaired by Miles Jupp.
Shula receives a shock, and Fallon jumps to conclusions.
News, reviews and interviews from the worlds of art, literature, film and music.
Jonathan Dimbleby presents political debate from Oxford Town Hall with Labour MP Caroline Flint, the columnist Peter Hitchens, co-leader of the Green Party of England and Wales Caroline Lucas MP and the conservative peer Lord Patten.
A weekly reflection on a topical issue.
The sixth omnibus of Season 13, A Woman's Place, set in Folkestone, in the week, in 1918, when Maud Allen's production of Salome was cancelled following accusations of "moral perversity" involving 47,000 English traitors.
Cast
Edie Chadwick ..... Kathryn Beaumont
Marieke Argent ..... Olivia Ross
Alice Macknade ..... Claire-Louise Cordwell
Rev. Walter Hamilton ..... Joseph Kloska
Gabriel Graham ..... Michael Bertenshaw
Sophie Beckwith ..... Abbie Andrews
Esme Macknade ..... Katie Angelou
Norman Harris ..... Sean Baker
Isabel Graham ..... Keely Beresford
Juliet Cavendish ..... Lizzie Bourne
Constance Pettigrew ..... Phoebe Frances Brown
Mickey Macknade ..... Reece Buttery
Hugh Cavendish ..... Pip Carter
Howard Argent ..... Gunnar Cauthery
Dolly Clout ..... Elaine Claxton
Annie Fear ..... Kathleen Cranham
Bill Macknade ..... Ben Crowe
Sylvia Graham ..... Joanna David
Mrs Edkins ..... Rachel Davies
Marion Wardle ..... Laura Elphinstone
Hilary Pearce ..... Craige Els
Rose Allatini ..... Phoebe Fildes
Inspector Forrester ..... Nigel Hastings
Dicky Manchester ..... Roy Hudd
Jessie Moore ..... Lucy Hutchinson
Adam Wilson ..... Billy Kennedy
Jack Wilson ..... Ashley Kumar
Kitty Lumley ..... Ami Metcalf
Olive Hargreaves ..... Rhiannon Neads
Dilys Walker ..... Ellie Piercy
Eric Morton ..... Paul Rainbow
Emma ..... Susie Riddell
Adeline Lumley ..... Helen Schlesinger
Frankie ..... Jane Slavin
Nell Kingsley ..... Alice St Clair
Rev. Alec Poole ..... Tom Stuart
Charles Summer ..... Rufus Wright
Written by Lucy Catherine
Story-led by Sarah Daniels
Directed by Ciaran Bermingham
Editor: Jessica Dromgoole
Sound: Martha Littlehailes
Composer: Matthew Strachan
Consultant Historian: Maggie Andrews.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
John Updike's masterful Rabbit quintet established Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom as the quintessential American White middle class male. The first book Rabbit, Run was published in 1960 to critical acclaim. Rabbit Redux was the second in the series, published in 1971 and charted the end of the sixties - featuring, among other things, the first American moon landing and the Vietnam War.
This third book finds Rabbit in middle age and successful, having inherited his father in law's car business - selling newly imported Toyotas to the mass American market. But his relationship with his son Nelson was severely compromised by Rabbit's affair with Jill and her subsequent death has left them both wary of each other.
Published in 1981, Rabbit is Rich won Updike, among other awards, the Pulitzer Prize for fiction - and it's extraordinary how many of its themes continue to reverberate down to the present day.
Abridged by Robin Brooks
Read by Toby Jones
Produced by Clive Brill
A Brill production for BBC Radio 4.
Clare explores the beautiful beaches of Aberlady Bay, East of Edinburgh. She joins the pupils, parents and staff of Saltersgate school which supports children and young people who have additional learning needs. Mary Higgins is the outdoor learning teacher and she's discovered that for some pupils, a long walk on a Monday morning sets them up for the week. She's thrilled by how far and well they ramble and joy they derive from being outside whatever the weather. With special dispensation, some of the parents come along to explain to Clare the pleasure and benefit their non-verbal sons gain from this weekly adventure.
Producer: Lucy Lunt.
A friendship founded on shared experience as young mums overseas and the impact of the Bali bombing, changes and continues as their lives change. Fi Glover presents another conversation in the series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen.
Producer: Marya Burgess.