The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
All cloth begins with a twist.
Kassia St Clair reveals how lab-blended materials have allowed humans to travel further and faster than ever before as she concludes her exploration of the fabrics that shape the world we live in.
Read by Francesca Dymond
Abridged by Laurence Wareing
Producer: Eilidh McCreadie
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping
The latest shipping forecast.
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
Reflection and prayer with writer and broadcaster The Rev Dr Johnston McKay.
The residents trying to protect their Yorkshire town from flooding. Hebden Bridge was badly hit by floods in 2015. In the valley above the town, volunteers have taken up saws and pickaxes to try and ensure it doesn't happen again.
Let us know what's happening in your world. ipm@bbc.co.uk
Presented by Luke Jones. Produced by Cat Farnsworth.
The latest news headlines. Including the weather and a look at the papers.
Clare joins a group of recently graduated students of Agriculture from Newcastle University who are walking and canoeing along the Speyside Way from source to sea in memory of their friend Rob who was tragically killed in their final year. Their summer wild camping trip is a way to bring the group of friends together once a year to talk and remember Rob who was such an integral part of their university life.
Producer: Maggie Ayre
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside
The latest weather forecast.
News headlines and sport.
Comedian and writer Adam Hills is also the host of Channel 4's taboo busting comedy satire The Last Leg. He joins Richard and Aasmah along with:
Gina Lawton who grew up thinking she was white like her parents, then she found out about her black heritage.
Claire de Lune is a ceramicist who recently found that her family had been working with clay for 700 years.
And the inheritance tracks of Manfred Mann's Paul Jones.
Jay Rayner and the panel are at Senate House in North London. Dr Barry Smith, Sue Lawrence, Tim Hayward and Nisha Katona answer the culinary questions.
The panellists are in the 'Ministry of Truth' where they discuss which of their culinary nightmares they would send to Room 101, their favourite coffee, and discover if they are a 'super taster' or a 'non taster'.
They also give suggestions on how best to cook okra, tips on making jam, and which food makes them the most happy.
This week they are joined by Public Engagement Manager Michael Eades who discusses the history of the building.
Produced by Hannah Newton
Assistant Producer: Hester Cant
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4
George Parker of The Financial Times looks behind the scenes at Westminster.
The Editor is Marie Jessel.
Correspondents around the world tell their stories and examine news developments in their region
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Paul Lewis presents the latest news from the world of personal finance.
Miles Jupp is back in the host's chair and he's joined by Helen Lewis, Neil Delamere, Felicity Ward and Susan Calman.
This week Theresa May wants a deal, China wants the moon on a stick and some Greek donkeys want a rest.
Writers: Madeleine Brettingham, James Kettle and Benjamin Partridge with Edward Easton and Mike Shephard
Producer: Richard Morris
A BBC Studios Production
The latest weather forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
Jonathan Dimbleby presents political debate from Chiltern Hills Academy in Chesham, Buckinghamshire, with Tom Baldwin the director of communications for the People's Vote campaign, the Chairman of the think tank Policy Exchange and former diplomat Alexander Downer, the Director General of the CBI Carolyn Fairbairn, and the Director of the Academy of Ideas Claire Fox.
Have your say on the issues discussed on Any Questions?
Entertaining new dramas following the political swings of The Republican Party, through the personal stories of its Presidents.
Closely based on the accounts of those who were there, we imagine the triumphs and disasters which have driven the party's electoral fortunes.
1975. After Nixon’s resignation, President Gerald Ford is fighting for his political survival. But the country is in chaos - and his party is disintegrating.
Challenger Ronald Reagan is attacking in weekly radio broadcasts: “Make America Great Again” is his big catchphrase.
Saigon has just fallen, the Panama Canal is threatened and détente looks like a sell-out. There’s political fervour on the streets. Even Patty Hearst, celebrity rich-girl kidnap victim, seems to have turned terrorist.
Then a small-time FBI informant decides that she is the woman to catalyse the revolution.
She buys a gun - and aims it at the President.
Written by Jonathan Myerson
Produced and directed by Jonquil Panting
Sara Jane Moore . . . Sian Thomas
Gerald Ford . . . Nathan Osgood
Betty Ford . . . Barbara Barnes
Bob Hartmann . . . Daniel Betts
Jerry terHorst . . . Kerry Shale
Benton Becker . . . John Macmillan
Bert Worthington . . . Philip Desmeules
Richard Nixon . . . Jonathan Hyde
Detective Callaghan . . . Stephen Hogan
Kat . . . Emma Handy
Lud . . . Sean Murray
Writer . . . Jonathan Myerson
Director . . . Jonquil Panting
Isaac Julien has an imagined chat with former collaborator Professor Stuart Hall. The artist and sociologist discuss the future of British identity and the immigrant influence on British art.
As Stuart Hall approached the end of his academic career as director of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham and Professor of Sociology at the Open University, he turned what he terms his "baggage" about diaspora, identity, culture and history towards the Arts. Isaac Julien, a filmmaker and installation artist who worked with him on projects such as Looking for Langston, credits Hall for giving black British artists a language with which to break the narrow definitions of what constitutes British art.
He thanks Hall for "putting black art in the frame from which it had been excluded and marginalised."
Hall, a figurehead of the intellectual Left, and a pioneer in the study of multiculturalism, sounds remarkably prescient in his discussion with Julien about British identity and culture, though Brexit did not begin to dominate the political agenda until after his death. He recognises how globalisation and the internationalisation of culture challenge national identities.
Sharing a West Indian heritage, Hall and Julien appeal for understanding that Britishness is not one thing and wonder how Britain might draw on its diverse strands to re-imagine itself and "to learn to love mixture".
Series Background:
In 1991, Natalie Cole sang a duet with her long dead father, Nat King Cole. The result was Unforgettable. This is the radio equivalent. In each edition of the series, a different guest is invited to interact with someone, now dead, with whom they have or have wanted to have a connection. The guest has no advance knowledge of the excerpts, and the conversation can take unexpected turns, occasionally leading to some emotionally charged exchanges, as living voices engage with those preserved in the archive.
Archive material used with permission from Mike Dibb.
Assistant Producer: Philippa Geering
Producer: Adam Fowler
An Overtone production for BBC Radio 4.
Sir Don McCullin, photographer and 'sky stalker', talks to Mariella Frostrup about the landscape surrounding his Somerset house.
McCullin's best known as a star photojournalist of the 1960's and 1970's, but he's also been photographing the Somerset fields for more than three decades. In this special programme he tells Mariella Frostrup why. "I was ready for the English landscape - it became my psychiatrist's chair. Having spent the last sixty years covering wars and tragedies, watching people being murdered and starving to death, I needed to save myself."
A revealing and intimate programme recorded entirely on location, featuring the sites he adores and rare access to his darkroom to discuss that burnt and brooding technique. The Tate is planning an exhibition of his landscapes next year. "There has to be a connection between the terrible imagery he has witnessed and these landscapes now, expunged of humanity - it's almost like they're an act of revenge." Mariella Frostrup
The producer in Bristol is Miles Warde
The actor Sally Field tells us about her challenging childhood and her rise to fame.
In some areas in the UK, children outnumber adopters three to one. What is it like to be adopted? We hear from Zara Phillips a musician and author of Somebody’s Daughter and the comedian and broadcaster Jon Holmes who's written about his experience in ‘A Portrait of an Idiot as a Young Man.’
The award winning director Marianne Elliott best known for War Horse and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time discusses her latest production, Stephen Sondheim’s musical comedy ‘Company’ where the main character is now a woman.
What's it like to raise mixed race children in the UK today? We hear from Emma Dabiri the academic and broadcaster, Nicky Ezer who has raised Jewish Jamaican children and the youth worker Tanya Compas.
Sue Nelson tells us the story of Mary Wallace ‘Wally’ Funk, an American aviator who passed rigorous tests to become one of the Mercury 13 as part of the Women in Space Programme. The journalist and author Deborah Robertson shares some of her decluttering tips. And Sofi Jeannin talks about being appointed the first female Chief Conductor of the BBC Singers.
Presented by Jane Garvey
Producer: Rabeka Nurmahomed
Editor: Beverley Purcell
Full coverage of the day's news.
No supply chain is immune from disruption and shocks. From extreme weather to strikes and cyber crime, what causes a supply chain to fail? Join Evan Davis and guests.
Guests
Tim O'Malley, Managing Director of Nationwide Produce
Richard Oldroyd, Regional Managing Director of Persimmon Homes
Liam Fassam, Associate Professor of Supply Chain Geography and Research Director at the University of Northampton
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest weather forecast.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Clive Anderson and Emma Freud are joined by Sue Perkins, Ian Rankin, Nina Sosanya and Schalk Bezuidenhout for with an eclectic mix of conversation, music and comedy. With music from Delgres and The Breath.
Producer: Paula McGinley
An insight into the character of an influential person making the news headlines
They Shall Not Grow Old is a film directed and created by Peter Jackson about The First World War. Compiled using colourised and painstakingly-restored footage from 100 years ago accompanied by the testimonies of the soldiers who fought. Is it tampering with history or an exciting new way to bring it back to life?
Oceania at The Royal Academy is the first major survey of Oceanic art to be held in the UK, featuring art from Melanesia, Polynesia and Micronesia. From New Guinea to Easter Island , Hawaii to New Zealand it marks the 250th anniversary of Captain Cooke setting sail on the Endeavour
Sally Rooney's novel Normal People was longlisted for this year's Man Booker prize. The highly-praised story follows the complicated and passionate relationship of 2 young lovers in modern Ireland
Nina Raine's new play Stories at The National's Dorfman Theatre is about a 39 year old woman who wants to have a baby 'before it's too late' and her efforts to find the best father for her much-longed-for child
Sally4Ever is Julia Davis' painfully-uncomfortable new comedy series on Sky Atlantic, about a bored woman who decides to ditch her dull fiance to pursue a lesbian affair
Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Rosie Boycott, Geoffrey Durham and Viv Groskop. The producer is Oliver Jones
Podextra recommendations
Rosie recommends Stacey Dooley investigates Fashion's Dirty Secrets on BBC iPlayer
Geoffrey recommends Whistle In The Dark by Emma Healey
Viv recommends Angus Roxburgh's Moscow Calling
Tom recommends The Long Take by Robin Robertson
On the fields of battle, and in conflict zones, women reporters are now commonplace but, in the past, the female perspective was much harder to find.
War reporters spend their careers giving voice to the survivors of violence, but the reporter's own experience seldom makes the cut.
In this Archive on 4 we hear strong personal accounts from the archives of early female war reporters such as Martha Gellhorn, Clare Hollingworth, Kate Webb, Gloria Emerson and Marie Colvin which show that the need to challenge conventional journalistic culture goes back many years.
But what links these women to the reporters of today? The BBC's Chief International Correspondent, Lyse Doucet, is joined by Lindsey Hilsum, Rukmini Callamachi, Nima Elbagir, Leila Dundas Molana-Allen, Francesca Borri, and Rania Abouzeid to assess their role in the light of those eminent pioneers.
Producer: Louisa Field and Leonie Thomas
Exec Producer: David Prest
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4
Caught up in the surprise British retreat of 1918, three signallers face a terrifying choice between thick fog and German Stormtroopers, in this front line adventure starring Lee Ross and John Macmillan.
Mickey Bliss is back on the Western Front, where the Allies have spent the autumn gaining just five miles of soil over fourteen weeks at Passchendaele.
After today's extraordinary events, they will lose forty miles in just two weeks.
Meticulously based on unit war diaries and eye-witness accounts, each episode of TOMMIES traces one real day at war, exactly 100 years ago.
And through it all, we 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.
Captain Mickey Bliss ..... Lee Ross
Sapper Juma Gubanda ..... John Macmillan
Sergeant Desmond Dixon ..... Daniel Weyman
Sapper Ezekiel Warmby ..... Tom Vallen
Major George Fenniman ..... Philip Bretherton
Captain Hubert Puckle ..... Simon Wilson
Sergeant Castle ..... Ryan Early
Sapper John Quennell ..... Nick Underwood
WAAC Florrie Fanshawe ..... Karen Bartke
Messengers ..... Lukie Bailey, Ryan Whittle
Commentator ..... Indira Varma
Series created by Jonathan Ruffle
Written by Jonathan Ruffle
Producers: David Hunter, Jonquil Panting, Jonathan Ruffle
Director: Jonquil Panting.
Welcome to the modern world where airspace needs protecting, dating profile photographs need taking and lonely people need cuddling. It's the home of bizarre jobs brought about by a myriad of 21st century by-products.
Nick Baker meets the people behind some of the Britain's most niche jobs, gets inside the role, scopes out what it says about our world today and assesses whether it's time for a career change.
Episode 1: Drone Defence
Drone use is growing at a rapid rate in Britain and our skies are some of the busiest anywhere in the world. Nick Baker meets Richard Gill who is employed by the likes of football stadiums, celebrities and prisons to protect airspace.
Producer: Leeanne Coyle
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
Hampshire Police are giving leaflets to suspected sexual predators, explaining the law to them and asking for their behaviour to stop. The "C5 notices" are used when there is not enough evidence to support a prosecution. Supporters of the scheme say it’s another way to prevent sexual crime and protect children. Critics say there’s no evidence it changes anyone’s behaviour and it risks stigmatising the innocent. Where does this leave the principle that everyone is innocent until proven guilty in a court of law? Is this non-negotiable or can there be a place for pre-emptive justice? The question is more pressing in the age of social media. While public naming and shaming can give victims the confidence to come forward and talk to the police, it can also risk creating the assumption of lifelong guilt for those who are accused but have never been convicted. Some say the new social dynamics have changed our culture and behaviour for the better; others make the historic comparison to witch hunts and pillories. This applies to all kinds of behaviour, not just the criminal. When an individual’s every past teenage misdemeanour is a matter of public record, from an ill-advised selfie to a casually racist tweet, how should they be treated in adult life? Have we lost the capacity to forgive? If justice is a combination of punishment and rehabilitation, how should we strike that balance? Witnesses are: Jamie Bartlett, Director of the Centre for the Analysis of Social Media at the think-tank Demos; Dr Marian Duggan, Senior Lecturer in Criminology, University of Kent; Michael Lane, Police and Crime Commissioner for Hampshire; and Corey Stoughton, Acting Director of Liberty.
Producer: Dan Tierney
(11/13)
Could you name the Samuel Barber opera that won a Pulitzer Prize and was revived at Glyndebourne this year? Or the group in which jazz legends Courtney Pine and Cleveland Watkiss started their careers? Paul Gambaccini has these and plenty of other questions from the musical world, for the three semi-finalists lining up today at the Radio Theatre in London.
They are:
Trevor Collins, a former costume designer from North London
Michael Rixon, a technology entrepreneur from Hampton Wick in London
David Sherman, a hospital catering administrator from Chelmsford.
A place in the 2018 Counterpoint Final awaits the winner.
Producer: Paul Bajoria
Poet Fiona Benson takes Paul Farley to her favourite swimming spot on the River Exe and shares new work from her forthcoming collection Vertigo + Ghost - poems of domestic life set against the backdrop of horrific world events, and of depression, motherhood and renewal.
Fiona Benson won an Eric Gregory Award in 2006 and a Faber New Poets Award in 2009. She lives in Devon with her husband and their two daughters. Her first collection, Bright Travellers, was shortlisted for the T. S. Eliot Prize and the Forward Prize for Best First Collection. It won the 2015 Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize and the 2015 Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry Prize for First Full Collection.
With music by The Cabinet of Living Cinema.
Presenter: Paul Farley
Producer: Mair Bosworth
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
The BBC Young Writers Award is an opportunity for budding writers between the ages of 15 to 18 years old. The five stories which make up this year's shortlist were inspired by a desire for socio-political change and personal experience of mental illness. They all show a maturity of language and ideas far beyond their years. Whether it be the brutal life of a unwilling young poacher; the desperation and prejudice faced by a mother fighting to give her daughter a better life; the experience of loss seen through a child’s eyes; the guilt of unspoken words as a family struggle to cope with mental illness or the pain of a young girl watching her sister in the grip of anorexia – the finalists have given powerful insight into the issues facing and motivating young people today and the importance of writing as expression.
Today Chair of judges Katie Thistleton presents excerpts from the shortlist as well as a reading in full of the winning story, Under a Deep Blue Sky written by 17 year old Davina Bacon.
The 2018 shortlist in full
'Under a Deep Blue Sky' by Davina Bacon, read by Don Gilet
'Footprints in the Far Field' by Reyah Martin, read by Liam Lau Fernandez
'Unspoken' by Lottie Mills, read by Alexandra Constantinidi
'Firsts' by Jane Mitchell, read by Nadia Albina
'Oh Sister, Invisible' by Tabitha Rubens, read by Lucy Doyle
Presented by Katie Thistleton
Produced by Ciaran Bermingham
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping
The latest shipping forecast
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
Bells on Sunday comes from the church of St Giles, Cripplegate in the city of London. In 1552 there were five bells in the sixteenth century tower. By 1792 there was a ring of twelve, mostly cast at Pack and Chapman’s Whitechapel Foundry. These bells were destroyed by enemy action in 1940 and the present twelve were cast by Mears and Stainbank at Whitechapel in 1953 and 1954. We hear them ringing Cambridge Surprise Maximus.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
Bertrand Russell and Winnie the Pooh, among others, help Mark Tully decide if we should try to stop worrying, or if anxiety serves a purpose.
Mark draws from the words of the 20th century Indian spiritual master, Avatar Meher Baba: “There are few things in the mind which eat up so much energy as worry…..It substantially curtails the joy and fullness of life;” and from the thoughts of the Buddha, who describes two arrows: the first of which pierces us and causes pain; and the second – the arrow of worry or anger – which magnifies the pain ten times if we allow it to strike.
Yet still we go on worrying even when there’s very little to worry about: sentiments expressed in poetry from Kathryn Simmonds, and music by Leonard Bernstein.
So why do we worry, and how do we stop doing so - especially when laying traps for Heffalumps?
Readers: Claire Benedict and Lloyd Peters
Presenter: Mark Tully
Producer: Adam Fowler
A 7Digital production for BBC Radio 4.
The shifting shingle world of Dungeness is a remarkable place. There are four internationally important shingle peninsula’s in the World. Two in Germany, one in America, (Cape Canaveral) and yes you've guessed it, Dungeness in Kent. The unique landscape of Dungerness has been studied since Medieval times giving scientists such as Erica Towner and David Harper from Sussex University a wealth of historical data to work from.
Which is why Peter France joined Erica and David on a timeline walk from the sea edge to dry land in this Living World. Along the way, Peter discovers shingle is a very underrated habitat and far from being like a desert the area is teeming with life. Dungerness has also the RSPB's oldest nature reserve created in 1932 from land bought in 1930 on Denge Beach. As part of their journey the trio look at the nuclear power stations on dungerness, which were built on good former shingle sites of Special Scientific Interest. That destroyed the shingle but on the positive side, the power stations provide cliff habitat for redstarts and rare lichens, and their warm discharge water provides feeding areas for birds. As can be imagined on a shingle headland, tree cover is limited, though visiting ancient holly bushes on Ministry of Defense land usually not open to the public provides a startling glimpse into the past.
Lindsey Chapman revisits this edited Living World from 1990 to gently bring the story of Dungerness and it's wildlife up to date with a unique wildlife project.
Presenter Andrew Dawes
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The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.
Sunday morning religious news and current affairs programme presented by Edward Stourton.
Dame Louise Casey makes the Radio 4 Appeal on behalf of Depaul International
Registered Charity Number: 1107385,
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 ‘Depaul International’.
- Cheques should be made payable to ‘Depaul International’.
The latest weather forecast.
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.
Rev Richard Littledale is Baptist minister at Newbury Baptist Church. In November 2017 his wife, Fiona, died after a long battle with cancer. In this morning’s act of worship, Richard reflects on the loss of his wife, and his journey from grief to signs of hope over the past twelve months through stories and theological reflections. Producer Andrew Earis.
Howard Jacobson on the end of mooching as a way of life.
"Rooting around, doing nothing in particular, walking but not knowing where I was walking to....I can only regret the happy mooching hours of earlier times", writes Howard.
He ponders whether our present age of mass anger and disgruntlement is partly a result of our expectations of instant gratification.
"We sit, like so many privileged Aladdins, rubbing our smart lamps in full confidence that the cyber genie will appear in ripped trousers and give us all we ask for".
Producer: Adele Armstrong
Detective Jack Frost prequel author James Henry picks the yellowhammer, whose song is believed to have influenced one of the world’s greatest composers Ludwig Van Beethoven..
Although many think the yellowhammer is a symbol of English farmland, it is in reality very much a European bird, famous for it's song. The natural world provided Ludwig Van Beethoven with a constant source of ideas and a number of his works are often attributed to the yellowhammer’s song. Many critics cite the dramatic first four bars of Beethoven's fifth symphony but for James and many others the more gentle first movement of Beethoven's fourth piano concerto is a more fitting celebration and for James it is that which he listens to during the winter months to remind him of the summer, and his favourite farmland bird.
In addition, all this week James will be choosing five of his favourite episodes from the Tweet of the Day back catalogue.
Producer Andrew Dawes
Sunday morning magazine programme with news and conversation about the big stories of the week. Presented by Paddy O'Connell.
Writer ..... Mary Cutler
Director ..... Rosemary Watts
Editor ..... Alison Hindell
Jill Archer ..... Patricia Green
David Archer ..... Timothy Bentinck
Josh Archer ..... Angus Imrie
Kenton Archer ..... Richard Attlee
Jolene Archer ..... Buffy Davis
Pat Archer .... Patricia Gallimore
Tom Archer ..... William Troughton
Brian Aldridge ..... Charles Collingwood
Jennifer Aldridge ..... Angela Piper
Lilian Bellamy ..... Sunny Ormonde
Ian Craig .... Stephen Kennedy
Justin Elliott ..... Simon Williams
Bert Fry .... Eric Allan
Eddie Grundy ..... Trevor Harrison
Shula Hebden Lloyd ..... Judy Bennet
Adam Macy ..... Andrew Wincott
Jazzer McCreary .... Ryan Kelly
Elizabeth Pargetter ….. Alison Dowling
Johnny Phillips ..... Tom Gibbons
Fallon Rogers .... Joanna Van Kampen
Robert Snell ..... Graham Blockey
Lynda Snell ..... Carole Boyd
Peggy Woolley ..... June Spencer
Hannah Riley ..... Helen Longworth
Venki Ramakrishnan is a Nobel Prize-winning molecular biologist.
He is most renowned for his research into the atomic structure of the ribosome - a complex molecule in the cell which translates DNA into chains of amino acids that build proteins, the essence of life. This work eventually secured Venki a Nobel Prize in 2009, which he shared with Ada Yonath and Thomas Steitz.
Venki was born in Tamil Nadu, in the south of India. Both his parents were scientists, and both pursued postgraduate studies overseas when Venki was very young. He completed his schooling in India, and then moved to the United States. Life on an American campus in the early 1970s was, he recalls, a culture shock for a self-confessed nerdy young Indian. He completed a PhD in Physics in 1976, but then switched to biology which he felt was a more exciting discipline. His research into the ribosome began when he was working at Yale as a post-doctoral fellow in the late 1970s.
He moved to the UK in 1999, joining the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge as a group leader. He was knighted in 2012, and has served as President of the Royal Society since 2015, where he has argued that science should enjoy a central place in the curriculum and in our wider culture.
Presenter: Lauren Laverne
Producer: Sarah Taylor
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Professor of Ignorance John Lloyd and his curator Lee Mack welcome comedian and writer Karen Dunbar, metallurgist Professor John Wood and breakfast radio host Shaun Keaveny.
This week, the Museum’s Guest Committee steel themselves for some deadly karaoke, use a massive machine to show off a single atom of iron and experience the unalloyed joy of opening an old-fashioned tube of toothpaste.
The show was researched by Mike Turner and Emily Jupitus of QI.
The Producers were Richard Turner and Anne Miller.
A BBC Studios Production
After the summer heatwave, Master of Wine Susie Barrie meets winemakers bringing in what could be a watershed harvest for homegrown wine. On a tour of the south of England she visits Peter Hall who's been making wine for 40 years in his isolated Breaky Bottom vineyard in East Sussex. Just down the road we visit sparkling wine makers Nyetimber and Ridgeview, we get a lesson in winemaking from Sarah Midgley at Plumpton College and then to Frazer Thompson of Chapel Down in Kent and Patrick McGrath of Hatch Mansfield in Ascot who helped Champagne Taittinger plant vines in the UK.
The latest weather forecast.
Global news and analysis; presented by Mark Mardell
In the latest programme of the monthly series, Mishal Husain introduces dispatches from journalists and writers around the United Kingdom.
This month we hear Sima Kotecha's triumphant tale of finally managing to pay off her student loans - except debt can prove a stubborn companion.
Lesley Curwen visits a part of Lancashire she has long known which finds itself once more at the centre of media attention. The Fylde coastal plain is where the energy company Cuadrilla has just resumed fracking activities amidst much controversy. But away from the site itself what, she wonders, do local people make of all that's happening?
From what claims to be the site of the solution to the UK's future energy needs to one that used to argue the same: Sellafield. On his visit, Theo Leggett sees plenty of rust and weeds at the Cumbrian nuclear plant but also discovers that in this part of northern England which has long struggled for economic take-off there are burgeoning hopes for the future... maybe.
With BBC Children in Need's annual fundraising extravaganza just around the corner, Alison Holt tells the story of one teenager in Wales who is coping with an especially demanding medical diagnosis - growing up as HIV-positive - and how one organisation supported by listeners' and viewers' donations seeks to help him and his family.
And we travel to Kent with Christine Finn as she unearths a coals-to-Newcastle story about how a lavender farming boom there has - quelle horreur! - managed to succeed in cornering the lucrative French perfume market. But for how long?
Producer Simon Coates
Peter Gibbs and the panel are in the New Forest. Chris Beardshaw, Christine Walkden and Pippa Greenwood answer the horticultural questions.
They offer advice on growing dahlias in pots, how to deal with problematic looking pears, and how best to prune apple trees. They also make suggestions on giving a makeover to a blooming bluebell garden, and on building an interactive outdoor space for young children.
In the feature Bob Flowerdew finds out the latest developments with ash dieback disease and offers advice on how best to deal with this issue in your own garden.
Produced by Laurence Bassett
Assistant Producer: Hester Cant
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4
Fi Glover with conversations between those who have lost parents and siblings to cancer, and friends who recognise that they are much nearer the end of life than the beginning. All in the Omnibus edition of the series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen.
The Listening Project is a Radio 4 initiative that offers a snapshot of contemporary Britain in which people across the UK volunteer to have a conversation with someone close to them about a subject they've never discussed intimately before. The conversations are being gathered across the UK by teams of producers from local and national radio stations who facilitate each encounter. Every conversation - they're not BBC interviews, and that's an important difference - lasts up to an hour, and is then edited to extract the key moment of connection between the participants. Most of the unedited conversations are being archived by the British Library and used to build up a collection of voices capturing a unique portrait of the UK in the second decade of the millennium. You can learn more about The Listening Project by visiting bbc.co.uk/listeningproject
Producer: Marya Burgess
Linda Marshall Griffiths dramatises Henry James's classic story of passion and possession.
As Amerigo and Charlotte's betrayal is exposed, everything changes for Maggie.
HENRY JAMES.....John Lynch
MAGGIE VERVER.....Daisy Head
FANNY ASSINGHAM.....Charlotte Emmerson
PRINCE AMERIGO.....Luke Pasqualino
CHARLOTTE STANT.....Nathalie Emmanuel
ADAM VERVER.....Toby Jones
COLONAL ASSINGHAM/SHOPKEEPER.....Jonathan Keeble
Directed by Nadia Molinari
Alex Clark is joined by best-selling novelist and author of Big Little Lies, Liane Moriarty, whose latest book Nine Perfect Strangers is a satirical look at the wellness industry.
Dear Mr Murray is a selection of letters from the John Murray archive, released to celebrate the publisher's 250th anniversary. Editor of the collection David McClay explains how he made his selection from half a million letters, and what we can learn about Jane Austen, Charles Darwin and Lord Byron from their correspondence with their publisher.
And Alex Clark and guests Sharmaine Lovegrove, Dr Priyamvada Gopal and Chloe Currens consider how the literary canon can be expanded and reimagined to reflect more diverse perspectives and historical context.
Carol Ann Duffy joins Paul Farley in the Echo Chamber to share poems from Sincerity, her final collection as Poet Laureate, a frank, disarming and deeply moving exploration of loss and remembrance in their many forms.
Presenter: Paul Farley
Producer: Mair Bosworth
Five years ago the UK’s biggest bioethanol plant opened in Hull as part of a £1 billion investment in renewable biofuel. Last month, the Vivergo site ceased production with the loss of more than 100 jobs. The knock-on effects have been felt by hauliers and some 900 farms across the region, which supplied the plant with wheat to be converted into fuel.
The closure comes just 5 months after ministers set new, ambitious targets to double the use of sustainable fuels - like bioethanol - by 2020.
The government says it's committed to green energy - its recent ‘Clean Growth Strategy’ claims plans are in place to cut greenhouse gases by more than half of 1990 levels by 2030. And yet, research shows investment in green energy fell 56% last year, the biggest drop of any country - with policy change, subsidy cuts and 'stop-start' support from ministers being blamed.
So, do Britain’s plans for a greener future add up? File on 4 takes to the road to find out. On a trip around the North East of England, Simon Cox asks why, when the offshore wind industry has grown, other cheap, renewable energies like onshore wind, solar power and now biofuels are struggling to survive. He examines whether changes in policy are hitting crucial investment, and if ambitious climate targets will really be met.
Reporter: Simon Cox
Producers: Mick Tucker and Oliver Newlan
Editor: Gail Champion
Photo: Thanet wind farm. Credit: Reuters.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest weather forecast.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
The best of BBC Radio this week
Jill offers a lifeline and Tom is caught out
The Big Broadcast: Quiz
Words and music by Neil Brand
A comedy with music. It's 1932 and Chicago Beefsteak's Hour of Charm is the most successful on Midwest US radio .... but today with the help of a deep-voiced celebrity guest the studio team manage to subvert the new manager's plans to change the format.
Myrna ..... Samantha Spiro
Paul Robeson ..... Chris Jarman
Arthur ..... Ryan Early
Grace ..... Elizabeth Counsell
Jerry ..... Ryan Whittle
Dixie ..... Kerry Gooderson
Princeton ..... Stephen Hogan
Jess ..... Emma Handy
BBC Singers: Helen Neeves, Katherine Nicholson, Chris Bowen, Jamie W Hall.
Director: David Hunter
Twelve flights. Twelve travellers. Twelve stories.
Jude Akuwudike continues David Szalay's gripping short story series, Turbulence. Twelve travellers circumnavigate the globe en route to see lovers, children, parents, or nobody at all. From London to Madrid, Dakar to Sao Paolo, Seattle to Hong Kong, and beyond, these are stories of lives in turmoil, each in some way touching the next.
Today: an African businessman lands back in Senegal to find his world has shifted...
Writer: David Szalay
Reader: Jude Akuwudike
Producer: Justine Willett
Original Music: Kirsten Morrison
After a week that saw Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab hurry to Brussels for talks, the BBC’s Brussels reporter Adam Fleming talks to Roger Bolton. He shares his personal insights into the challenges of covering breaking news on Brexit.
The BBC Radio 4 series ‘The Anatomy of Loneliness’ came to a close this week. It explored the results of the BBC’s Loneliness Experiment, an online survey conducted in collaboration with Wellcome Collection. Roger talks to series presenter Claudia Hammond and BBC Radio Science Unit editor Deborah Cohen and asks: what can we learn from self-selecting surveys?
This week marks the end of a government consultation on reforming the 2004 Gender Recognition Act, which set out the legal process by which a person can change their gender. On Tuesday, Radio 4’s ‘Woman’s Hour’ discussed the subject, hearing from voices on various sides of the debate. Feedback hears some listeners’ perspectives on how the issue was discussed.
And BBC Radio 5 Live’s competition to find the Young Commentator of the Year is open for entries. But what makes for a pitch perfect sports commentary? Roger talks to last year’s winner Isaac Barrington and to 5 Live commentator John Murray to hear their tips on painting a picture of sport live on air.
Presenter: Roger Bolton
Producer: Will Yates
A Whistledown Production for BBC Radio 4
Pictured: Paul Allen
Matthew Bannister on
Paul Allen who teamed up with his school friend Bill Gates to found the computer software company Microsoft. After he left, he used his billions to support medical research, education and an American football team.
Mary Midgley, the philosopher who wrote about the relationship between humans and animals and enjoyed lively debates with her colleagues.
Leon Lederman, the physicist who won the Nobel prize for his work on the neutrino and described the Higgs boson as "the God particle".
Roger Mainwood, the animator who helped to bring Raymond Briggs' The Snowman to the screen, then directed the critically acclaimed animated film about Briggs' parents, "Ethel and Ernest".
Interviewed guest: Glenn Fleishman
Interviewed guest: David Midgley
Interviewed guest: Professor Malcolm Fairbairn
Interviewed guest: Nigel Lockyer
Interviewed guest: Jez Stewart
Archive clips from: Horizon: The Six Billion Dollar Experiment, BBC TV 01/05/07; Origins: Where We and Our World Came From, BBC TV 18/03/86; Woman’s Hour, Radio 4 30/07/03; Woman's Hour, Radio 4 17/03/97; Desert Island Discs, Radio 4 20/11/05; When the Wind Blows film trailer, Meltdown Productions/British Screen Productions/Film Four International/TVC London/Penguin Books, directed by Jimmy T. Murakami 1986; Ethel and Albert film trailer, BBC/BFI/Ffilm Cymru Wales/Film Fund Luxembourg/Cloth Cat Animation/Ethel&Ernest Productions/Lupus Films/Melusine Productions, directed by Roger Mainwood 2016; Meg and Mog, ITV, directed by Roger Mainwood 2003; CBS News, 17/04/11; Today, Radio 4 25/04/11.
Could Northern Ireland soon face a huge decision - whether to leave the UK? Andrea Catherwood returns to where she grew up to discover why the biggest question of all is looming beyond Brexit. Demography may soon leave Catholics as the largest population group. And Brexit debate over new border controls in Ireland has challenged the uneasy compromise of the Good Friday Agreement. So how could a vote on creating a united Ireland come about? How would different traditions and generations decide what to do? And away from political debate, how do the people of Northern Ireland feel about the prospect of such a sensitive and fundamental choice?
Producer: Chris Bowlby
Editor: Hugh Levinson
Preview of the week's politics with politicians, pundits and experts.
With Antonia Quirke.
Halloween comes early as composer Neil Brand reveals how John Carpenter's score for his 1978 horror classic changed the sound of horror in the movies.
Poet Don Paterson waxes lyrical about Jean Cocteau's Orphee and reveals why poets rarely make good film-makers.
Gomorrah director Matteo Garrone discusses his latest drama set in the Italian underworld, Dogman, which won the award for best actor at this year's Cannes Film Festival and best dog at the Palme Dog awards, which is also held annually in the French resort.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
Rich Russians: Laurie Taylor talks to Elisabeth Schimpfossl, Lecturer in Sociology at Aston University, about her study of the changing nature of the Russian elite, from oligarchs to bourgeoisie. Also, millionaire tax flight - myth or reality? Cristobal Young, Associate Professor of Sociology at Cornell University, suggests that location is surprisingly important to the rich.
Producer: Jayne Egerton
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping
The latest shipping forecast
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
Reflection and prayer with writer and broadcaster The Rev Dr Johnston McKay.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside
The latest weather forecast for farmers.
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs.
Miranda Krestovnikoff presents the Arctic Tern. Arctic terns are superlative birds. They're best known for seeing more daylight than any other bird as they migrate between the Antarctic seas, where they spend our winter, and their breeding grounds in northern Europe - a staggering round trip of over 70 thousand kilometres.
Radio 4's flagship news and current affairs programme; including Thought for the Day
Pirates come in many forms – from swashbuckling Captain Hook to today's poverty-stricken pirates off the coast of Somalia.
It’s 400 years since one of the most charismatic and controversial figures in English history was executed. Sir Walter Ralegh was a favourite of Elizabeth I and was a famous adventurer and poet. But his exploits divided opinion even in his own lifetime, and his biographer Anna Beer tells Kirsty Wark the Spanish regarded him as a state-sponsored pirate.
Captain Hook, Long John Silver and Jack Sparrow are at the heart of a new exhibition on fictional pirates at the V & A Museum of Childhood. The exhibition, curated by Will Newton, explores adventures on the high seas and charts how the moral ambiguity of Robert Louis Stevenson’s creation became the romanticised and sanitised version in today’s popular imagination.
In 2012 the journalist Michael Scott Moore, who had covered the first trial in Europe of a Somali pirate, travelled to the Horn of Africa to find out more. He ended up being kidnapped and held captive for 977 days. He explores the historical and political case for piracy in Somalia, as well as religious extremism and the art of survival aboard a hijacked ship.
Last month an American and a Chinese ship nearly collided in the South China Sea - which would probably have led to a major war, explains Veerle Nouwens. Through her role at defence think tank the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) she monitors the ongoing race to control the South China Sea. She explains when an island is not an island, and why a calamity in this shipping route could bring chaos to the global economy.
Producer: Hannah Sander
Plastic pirate figures © Papo
Michael Rosen and guests explore well-known phrases from the national conversation such as #metoo, post-fact and resilience. By looking at their usage, origins, rhetorical power and linguistic construction, we can see how they frame public argument and shape our thinking (sometimes in ways we do not notice). This series includes Natalie Haynes on 'Patriarchy', Stuart Maconie on ‘The Nanny State’; Afua Hirsch on ‘Sovereignty’ and Isabel Hardman on ‘Safe-Space’.
The programme that offers a female perspective on the world
Lynne Truss observes the inhabitants of Meridian Cliffs, a small wind-battered town on the south coast of England.
Jess, the hairdresser, keeps a map of the world on the salon wall, with pins for each client from far flung places. She loves her global network of haircuts - until someone starts tampering with the pins.
Written by Lynne Truss
Directed by Kate McAll
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.
You may not realise it, but your own behaviour will have been changed by an unassuming book, published 10 years ago.
“Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness” by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, is probably the most influential popular science book ever written.
Mary Ann Sieghart investigates the unexpected story of Nudge, which has prodded us into becoming fitter and richer, while transforming policy-making, changing our relationship with the state and saving governments billions across the world. Its impact has surprised even Cass Sustein, amazed “people have used the idea in ways we authors could not possibly have been creative enough to see.”
Honing in on exactly how Nudge works, Mary Ann is grilled in UCL's Love Lab to find out how she makes decisions; she finds taking the pound signs off the menu in a restaurant encourages her spend more and adding adjectives to the food really makes it taste better.
Walking through the Nudge Unit, she hears how powerful a tiny tweak on a form or text can get be, from getting people back to work to creating a more diverse police force. Popular with the political left and right, it has been embraced around the world; from Guatemala to Rwanda, Singapore to India it is used to reduce energy consumption, encourage organ donation, combat corruption and even stop civil wars.
But of course not everyone is using this powerful tool for good. “Like any form of knowledge you can use it for good or bad” says David Halpern, “in the same way as you can use biochemistry to make amazing new medicines or you can make neurotoxins to kill people.”
Mary Ann explores the darker side of Nudge, asking if we should be wary of who is nudging the nudgers and where it might go next.
Producer: Sarah Bowen
Episode Four: The Getaway.
Josh Howie’s Losing It continues as stand-up comic Josh and his wife comes to terms with the arrival of their first child. In episode four, Josh and his wife take their baby away for a weekend in Ireland. Sadly the trip doesn’t get off to the best of starts when Josh upsets several people on the plane.
Written by
Josh Howie
Cast
Josh Howie
Pippa Evans
Donal Cox
Julian Deane
Stephen Hagen
Jonathan Kemp
Debra Tammer
Wendy Wason
Produced by Ashley Blaker
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
On this day in 1918, the Dundalk, an Irish steamer was torpedoed without warning, while in Folkestone, the Wilsons are marking an anniversary.
Cast
Florrie ..... Claire Rushbrook
Adam ..... Billy Kennedy
Jack ..... Ashley Kumar
Kitty ..... Ami Metcalf
Norman ..... Sean Baker
Phyllis ..... Christine Absalom
Written by Sebastian Baczkiewicz
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole
Sound: Martha Littlehailes
Radio 4's consumer affairs programme.
The latest weather forecast.
Mon-Thurs: Analysis of news and current affairs, presented by Sarah Montague. Fri: Analysis of news and current affairs, presented by Mark Mardell.
James Naughtie explores history through front page small ads.
Front page news is a relatively late addition to the newspaper business. For most of their first couple of centuries, British newspapers carried classified ads rather than news on their front page. They transformed the hustle and bustle of the marketplace into newsprint, so you could take it home or to the inn to pore over at your leisure.
James Naughtie travels the country discovering how these front page ads give us a snapshot of time and place, exploring how they weave national and local life together - the heartbeat of history rolling daily or weekly off the presses.
The ads tell us what people were eating, drinking and wearing, what was on stage and what people were playing at home. They mark the mood of the time through notices for public meetings held to stoke up or damp down public fears of crime and political unrest. They are a record of the notices placed for houses and public buildings to be built, licenses applied for and subscriptions raised for publications and commemorations. They show the latest labour saving gadgets "trending" as technology arrived, and they track jobs and trades on the way up and down as the British Empire waxed and waned. The ever present ads for patent medicines record our most popular ailments.
The classified ads of the Newcastle Courant of 14th October 1842 reveal how new policing was overtaking the hue and cry, and ads for the arrival of a new dentist in town tell the story of the redistribution of teeth from the poor in town to the gentry in the county.
Produced by John Forsyth
A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4.
By Shon Dale-Jones
Shon embarks on an epic quest to replace his mother's broken Royal Worcester Porcelain Company figure of the Duke of Wellington on horseback.
In 1974 Shon Dale-Jones's father invested in a Royal Worcester porcelain figure of The Duke of Wellington on horseback. He kept the figure, wrapped in sponge, in a big box, under his bed. After he died, Shon's mother decided to take the figure out and display it on the table in the bay window. But when the figure gets broken, Shon and his mum realise the true significance of The Duke.
Shon Dale-Jones has performed his one-man solo show, The Duke, across the world - from Abergavenny to Adelaide. Funny, poignant and playful, The Duke weaves together the tragi-comic fate of a family heirloom, the quandary of a script writer stretching his integrity, and an unfolding refugee crisis. Blending fantasy and reality, The Duke gently challenges our priorities in a world full of crisis.
Written and performed by Shon Dale-Jones
Directed by James Robinson
A BBC Cymru-Wales Production.
(12/13)
The last of this year's semi-finalists line up to compete for the sole remaining place in the 32nd Counterpoint Final. This week's contest comes from Salford and the competitors will be answering questions on musical clips ranging from Purcell and Rimsky-Korsakov through to Lerner & Loewe and David Byrne.
As always, they'll have the chance to choose a musical topic in which to specialise as part of the contest - but with no prior warning of the topics on offer, and no chance to prepare, it can often be a risky choice.
The semi-finalists today are:
Bill Cawley, a supermarket checkout operator from Leek in Staffordshire
Charles Dusting, a retired accountant from Worcester
Alan Harrison, a retired metallurgist from Sheffield.
Producer: Paul Bajoria
Martin Simpson and Richard Hawley visit master luthier Roger Bucknall, who reveals the extraordinarily painstaking and creative labour of love involved in making an acoustic guitar.
On a tour of his workshop, Roger shows not only a passion for instrument-making, but for the pure pleasure in working with wood. In the vast store of tonewood, we hear about the aural and decorative properties of centuries-old Claro Walnut, Bearclaw and the incredibly rare Snakewood. Roger discusses some of the fascinating and surprising stories behind his stock including the Giant Redwood, reclaimed from the Big River at Mendocino, and the 2,000-year-old Alaskan Sitka Spruce windfall.
We find out how Roger acquired some rare Brazilian Rosewood from the folk musician Mike Waterson and crafted it into three guitars, one of which Richard Hawley owns. "If anybody's ever seen Harry Potter, then they'll understand what the word Horcrux means," he says. "Roger, you're going to live forever with this 'cause part of your soul, without doubt, went into this guitar."
Roger explains the minute detail and precision employed here, with bespoke machinery and hand-made tools, from steam-bending and curfing to the hammering-in of frets with a hammer thought to have now made more than two million blows. "I have a deep passion for frets," says Martin Simpson. "It's how we do what we do. They are beautiful things, and when they're properly finished it makes all the difference in the world."
And who knew bits of guitars and mandolins could be made from old snooker tables or whiskey barrels? Or why Rosewood is called Rosewood?
A unique insight into a popular and much-loved instrument and three friends' obsession with it - with stories, laughs and music along the way.
A 7digital production for BBC Radio 4.
Digital Assistant bots are becoming ever more common - Alexa playing music on your countertop, Siri taking notes on your phone, a little voice bubbling out of your watch to rattle off the things you almost forgot you needed to buy during the big weekend shop. They are useful little servants
But, barking orders at something that talks back, something that seems a little bit human but totally subservient… it can be a little uncomfortable. As with any new invention, domestic robots illuminate issues within human society that we may not have noticed before. Are we projecting old social norms of hierarchy and gender onto this new technology, and if we are, does how we choose to design and treat our subservient machines, impact how we treat our fellow humans?
PM at 5pm: interviews, context and analysis.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Professor of Ignorance John Lloyd and his curator Lee Mack welcome journalist and author Lucy Mangan, scientist and writer Steve Mould and former England footballer Graeme Le Saux.
This week, the Museum’s Guest Committee indulge in past pleasures with a mechanical talking robot, an amusement arcade penny pusher machine and the soothing sounds of a 1980s Sony Walkman.
The show was researched by Mike Turner and Emily Jupitus of QI.
The Producers were Richard Turner and Anne Miller.
A BBC Studios Production.
Pip offers an unusual solution and Helen is unnerved
Live daily magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
An offbeat comic drama series by Ben Cottam following the experiences of Latvian locum Dr Dace Zake - mistakenly hired in the belief she speaks Polish - in a beleaguered medical centre in the deprived South Shore area of Blackpool.
It's Dr Dace Zake's first day working at the medical centre. She's late, which incurs the wrath of Jan the receptionist and she encounters a man throwing up into a carrier bag outside the surgery. Not a good start to the day.
Writer.........................Ben Cottam
Director.....................Alison Crawford.
MP and historian Kwasi Kwarteng claims the British Empire is all around us today and in this series he sets out to look for it in the UK’s monuments, people - and in its contested memories.
Oxford is Kwasi’s destination for ‘Empire of Rules’. If Empire had a cultural heart, Oxford has as good a claim as any to the title, he believes. He looks at how the university educated generations of colonial administrators who went on to run and shape whole countries. This was the university of arch-imperialist Cecil Rhodes. Oxford, he says, also provided much of the intellectual underpinning of the imperial project, developing influential ideas and disciplines, such as ‘cultural anthropology’. But Kwasi discovers that some students and academics, especially from outside the UK, think Oxford still has a colonialist image. He investigates what’s being done to address those concerns.
Producer Gareth Jones for BBC Wales
How do you increase the attainment of disadvantaged children? Poorer children consistently perform worse at school by not reaching higher grades at age 16, compared to richer children. There is broad agreement, across party lines that they require more money to help them succeed and reduce inequality. Therefore, schools in England adopted the pupil premium policy in 2011 where extra funding was attached to each child in receipt of free school meals. Professor of Education at University College London, Dr Rebecca Allen assesses how well the policy has been working. Producer: Nina Robinson Editor: Hugh Levinson
Alex Bellos is brilliant at all things mathematical, but even he can't hold a candle to the amazing mathematical feats of the supercalculators. Alex heads to Wolfsburg in Germany to meet the contestants at this year's Mental Calculation World Cup. These men and women are the fastest human number crunchers on the planet, able to multiply and divide large numbers with no need to reach for a smart phone, computer or calculator. So how do they do it, and is it a skill that any of us can learn? Alex talks to Robert Fountain, the UK's two-time winner of this prestigious prize, about his hopes for this year's competition and the mathematical magicians of the past who have inspired him. He also meets Rachel Riley, Countdown's number queen, to find out what it takes to beat the countdown clock.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
A contemporary novel set in Prague, inspired by an original Gothic story and written by Sarah Perry.
Melmoth the Witness is a terrifying and yet moving creation who repels and attracts our sympathies simultaneously. The novel explores some of humanity’s darkest actions, asks us to consider our deepest secrets and conveys the importance of bearing witness to unspeakable events. At the same time, it's also a novel of redemption, of the possibility of forgiveness, hope and reconciliation, and the healing power of love.
Episode 1:
Helen Franklin’s uneventful life as a translator in Prague is altered when a troubled friend gives her a mysterious document.
Sarah Perry was born in Essex in 1979. She has been the writer in residence at Gladstone's Library and the UNESCO World City of Literature Writer in Residence in Prague. After Me Comes the Flood, her first novel, was long-listed for the Guardian First Book Award and the Folio Prize, and won the East Anglian Book of the Year Award in 2014. The Essex Serpent - also a Radio 4 Book at Bedtime - was Waterstone's Book of the Year in 2016 and the British Book Awards Book of the Year in 2017. Her work has been translated into twenty languages. She lives in Norwich.
Writer: Sarah Perry
Abridger: Jeremy Osborne
Reader: Greta Scacchi and Anton Lesser
Producer: Rosalynd Ward
A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4
Michael Rosen finds out how best to communicate with people with dementia. Professor Alison Wray shares her new research about the ways in which language is affected by dementia. She offers practical advice to carers, such as to respond to the feeling behind the words being used by the person with dementia rather than to the words themselves.
Producer Beth O'Dea
Related films: Dementia - The "Communication Disease" and Understanding the Challenges of Dementia Communication here:
https://m.youtube.com/channel/UC6kMlO8mkB09GNCLm1zbaHQ
All the news from today's sitting at Westminster.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping
The latest shipping forecast
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
Reflection and prayer with writer and broadcaster The Rev Dr Johnston McKay.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside
For Tara Robinson the sound of oystercatchers recalls her father taking her to Loch Fleet as a child and being quizzed by him about the birds she saw, 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 Mark Ward.
Radio 4's flagship news and current affairs programme; including Thought for the Day
An ecologist who fell in love with computing, Jacqueline McGlade pioneered the use of satellites study the state of the global environment. Today thanks to programmes like Google Earth, we can see the surface of the earth in great detail. But when Jacqueline was a student, earth observation satellites were used for weather forecasting and not much else. Early in her career, she used satellite images to study fish populations, thinking it would be useful to know not only how many fish were in the sea but where they were likely to be. Few believed such an ambitious undertaking would be possible but, after a spell in Silicon Valley, Jacqueline found a way. The moving maps she created changed the way oceanographers and fishermen viewed the sea. In the early 1980s, she started trying to model the global climate using some of the earliest supercomputers and a roomful of un-networked PCs. As Executive Director of the European Environment Agency, she introduced monitoring systems for a range of environmental indicators and insisted that the information provided by Europe’s first earth observation satellite should be made available to everyone for free. She retired from her latest job, as chief scientist to the United Nations Environment Programme last year and now lives in a mud hut in the Masai Mara, having married a Masai chief.
Producer: Anna Buckley
Who gets the farm? Bronwen Maddox goes to Wicton Farm in Herefordshire to meet Claire Howlett. Claire runs the farm with her brother Daniel, while her parents still live in the farmhouse. Succession is a big issue in farming, and Claire explains how she and her family handled the difficulties of passing on the management of this farm from one generation to the next.
Producer: Chris Ledgard
Michael Rosen and guests explore well-known phrases from the national conversation such as #metoo, post-fact and resilience. By looking at their usage, origins, rhetorical power and linguistic construction, we can see how they frame public argument and shape our thinking (sometimes in ways we do not notice). This series includes Natalie Haynes on 'Patriarchy', Stuart Maconie on ‘The Nanny State’; Afua Hirsch on ‘Sovereignty’ and Isabel Hardman on ‘Safe-Space’.
The programme that offers a female perspective on the world
Lynne Truss observes the inhabitants of Meridian Cliffs, a small wind-battered town on the south coast of England where divorced men from nearby Brighton come to live because property is cheaper.
One such man is Peter, a retired University don, whose well organised life is about to be disrupted by a visit from his infuriating brother.
Written by Lynne Truss
Directed by Kate McAll
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.
In the ashes of World War 2, a new international order was built. Its aim: to ensure relative peace and stability. In this series, the BBC's former Diplomatic Editor Bridget Kendall examines why all this now seems to be falling apart.
In this opening episode, Bridget retraces how the victorious Allies set about building a new order out of the cataclysm of world war.
At first, global institutions like the United Nations were established, with the aim of bringing states together in institutions that would embed enough co-operation to stave off a return to conflict.
But within couple of years, a new Cold War was dividing the world into American and Soviet spheres. In this harsher context, further institutions like NATO and what became the European Union were set up, which also aimed at establishing a new kind of internationalism - even if they weren't quite as idealistic as the UN.
As Bridget explores, from decolonisation to coups and proxy wars, the rhetoric of a liberal rules-based order did not always match reality. But in 1989, when East Europe achieved liberation from the Soviet bloc through largely peaceful revolutions, it seemed as though the liberal hopes of the late 1940s had won. So what went wrong?
Speakers in this series include:
Ex-Prime Minister of the UK Tony Blair, ex-Foreign Minister of Poland Radek Sikorski, Deputy Leader of Alternativ fur Deutschland Beatrix von Storch, Director of the Carnegie Center Moscow Dmitri Trenin, ex-US Deputy Secretary for Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Director of the Blavatnik School of Government Ngaire Woods, head of the Eurasia Group Ian Bremmer; journalists Isabel Hilton and Peter Hitchens, and historians Dr Brigitte Leucht, Professor Piers Ludlow and Professor John Bew.
Producer: Phil Tinline
The writer Tej Adeleye meets the new generation of British musicians shaking up the jazz establishment.
This community of musicians grew up in London. They practiced together and learned the blues. Now they’re collaborators, playing alongside each other in dozens of different bands. Their collective story takes us to venues across town, from the back of a Jamaican restaurant in Deptford to the Royal Albert Hall.
UK Jazz is having a moment. Spotify has reported a 108% growth in people under 30 listening to UK Jazz. Shabaka Hutchings, saxophonist and clarinettist, has recently signed to Impulse Records, the home of Coltrane. Global audiences are tuning into London’s jazz musicians.
Tej joins drummer and bandleader Moses Boyd in Peckham to retrace his pilgrimage that inspired breakthrough track Rye Lane Shuffle. He recalls sitting on the top deck of the 171 bus on Sunday mornings, watching crowds going to church and emerging from nightclubs. “That’s where it came from, the Rye Lane Shuffle,” he says. “Everybody on this strip has a purpose. There’s nowhere else that sums up London better to me than Rye Lane.”
Saxophonist Nubya Garcia and trumpeter Sheila Maurice Grey met at Tomorrow’s Warriors, a music charity at the Southbank Centre. Its founders, the bassist Gary Crosby and his partner Janine Irons, approach it as a jazz boot camp, giving free workshops and masterclasses to young people, with a particular emphasis on developing black and female talent.
This new jazz wave goes beyond music for dancing to. Composer and saxophonist Cassie Kinoshi’s ten-piece Seed Ensemble explores what it’s like to be a black woman in the UK and Shabaka Hutchings, leader of three bands including Mercury-nominated Sons of Kemet, offers a bold rallying cry for political change through his music.
Produced by Paul Smith
A Just Radio production for BBC Radio 4
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
On this day in 1918, Parliament was set to have its electric lighting replaced with candles, and in Folkestone, Keepers Lodge faces a fine for infringing the lighting restrictions.
Cast
Adeline ..... Helen Schlesinger
Forrester ..... Nigel Hastings
Howard ..... Gunnar Cauthery
Nell ..... Alice St Clair
Phyllis ..... Christine Absalom
Silas ..... Shaun Dooley
EJ Thomas ..... Sean Murray
Edward Morris ..... John Lightbody
Private Hims ..... Ryan Whittle
Written by Sebastian Baczkiewicz
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole
Sound: Martha Littlehailes
Radio 4's consumer affairs programme.
The latest weather forecast.
Mon-Thurs: Analysis of news and current affairs, presented by Sarah Montague. Fri: Analysis of news and current affairs, presented by Mark Mardell.
James Naughtie finds the heartbeat of history in the front page small ads of old UK newspapers.
The classified ads of the Manchester Mercury on 17 August 1819, the day after the Peterloo Massacre, give their own insight into the post Napoleonic war social stress. Rewards are offered for information on "those who have absconded from their families" with their names and descriptions. Special constables have been recruited in Bowden "to enforce obedience of the laws" and auctions are announced for everything from a house to a horse, and from a clementi piano to the "Scotch edition of Shakespeare".
Front page news is a relatively late addition to the newspaper business. For most of their first couple of centuries, British newspapers carried classified ads rather than news on their front page. They transformed the hustle and bustle of the marketplace into newsprint, so you could take it home or to the inn to pore over at your leisure.
James Naughtie travels the country discovering how these front page ads give us a snapshot of time and place, exploring how they weave national and local life together - the heartbeat of history rolling daily or weekly off the presses.
The ads tell us what people were eating, drinking and wearing, what was on stage and what people were playing at home. They mark the mood of the time through notices for public meetings held to stoke up or damp down public fears of crime and political unrest. They are a record of the notices placed for houses and public buildings to be built, licenses applied for and subscriptions raised for publications and commemorations. They show the latest labour saving gadgets "trending" as technology arrived, and they track jobs and trades on the way up and down as the British Empire waxed and waned. The ever present ads for patent medicines record our most popular ailments.
Produced by John Forsyth
A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4.
‘Swans’ by Eoin McNamee centres on a child being smuggled in through Dublin airport. As Interpol and the local police try to trace the child, they have a very limited window – they have to find him before he’s smuggled through the airside by Ground Crew. After that, he’ll simply disappear. The smuggling operation is dependent on the collaboration of someone with access and possibly even someone who works at the airport.
Starring Lolita Chakribarti and Aaron McCusker, this play highlights the very real problem that is people smuggling and is told alongside one of Ireland's most traditional myths ‘The Children of Lir’.
Anjali Aziz ..... Suzie Seweify
Anna ..... Hilary Rose
Child ..... James Dale
Dan Shanahan ..... Aaron McCusker
Deirdre ..... Phoebe Henry
Du Vassel ..... Richard Croxford
Eva ..... Tina Kellegher
Fiona ..... Clare Dunne
Savita Aziz ..... Lolita Chakrabarti
Writer ..... Eoin McNamee
Producer ..... Celia De Wolff
Could the war on plastic have unintended consequences for the environment? Tom Heap reports.
Producer: Sarah Swadling
Michael Rosen talks to academic Colin MacCabe and Dr Laura Wright about Raymond Williams' 1976 book Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society, which looks at the changing meanings of words such as 'culture', 'art', 'nature' and 'society'. Often the changes in meaning of these words reflect the changing society in which they are being used. Colin MacCabe has spent the past decade updating Williams' work, and he and his team have added some words of their own. Producer Sally Heaven.
Actor Liz Carr who plays Clarissa in Silent Witness chooses First In The World Somewhere, Penny Pepper's powerful memoir of growing up in the 1970s and 80s as a disabled punk activist. Kate Williams, the historian and writer has picked the memoirs of an 11th century Japanese lady-in-waiting Diary of Lady Murasaki. Visitation by Jenny Erpenbeck a German novel set in a forest on Lake Brandenburg and described as 'unsettling' is Harriett's choice.
Producer Maggie Ayre
PM at 5pm: interviews, context and analysis.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
New series from multi-award winning Mark Watson. Assisted and impeded in equal measure by henchmen Sam Simmons and Will Adamsdale, he revives his quest to make some sort of sense of life, against the backdrop of a world that has, in recent times, come to seem even more peculiar than usual.
The tenacious trio take on some of human life's central topics - family, spirituality, Scandinavia. Watson peddles his unique, high-octane stand-up while Simmons and Adamsdale chip in with interjections which include (but are not limited to) music, shopping lists, life advice, stunts, avant-garde offerings and divvy interactions.
Expect big laughs, controlled chaos and an attempt to answer the one question none of us can quite escape from - what exactly is going on?
This week, Watson and his team look at family. It's often considered the staple of a happy existence, but does family life enrich us or merely guarantee hang-ups and frustrations? We can't live without our families, but should we feel bad for wanting to?
Mark Watson is a multi-award winning comedian, including the inaugural If.Comedy Panel Prize 2006. He is assisted by Sam Simmons, winner of Fosters Edinburgh Comedy Award 2015, and Will Adamsdale who won the Perrier Comedy Award in 2004.
Produced by Lianne Coop
An Impatient production for BBC Radio 4.
Elizabeth's hopes are raised and Brian waves the white flag
Live daily magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
By Ben Cottam. Dace feels like she's making progress and Jan seems to have thawed a bit. But then she meets Jack, a young heroin addict from Birmingham.
Director.........Alison Crawford.
It’s been called “the new narcotics”, a crime that promises high-rewards with little fear of being detected, and it is attracting criminal gangs usually associated with drugs and violence.
“Waste crime”; the illegal disposal of the UK’s mountains of often hazardous rubbish, and those involved are finding new and inventive ways of cashing in.
File on 4 investigates how gangs hide hundreds of tonnes of waste in fields and makeshift tips around the country, and goes out with enforcement officers as they raid factories and depots around the country. The crime costs the UK an estimated 600 million pounds a year, as it’s escalated from opportunist fly-tipping to a dangerous and competitive criminal industry.
One farmer tells the programme how he was confronted by hooded men when he went to investigate suspicious activity on his land. The gang dumped 100 tonnes of waste before switching their lorry number plates and driving off. Three days later, a nearby farm was also hit, with another 100 tonnes, and again the gang escaped.
Others use their own premises to hide hazardous waste. They set up a legitimate operation, with licenses to process harmless rubbish. But that’s just a front, a technique to trick to investigators from the Environment Agency. Behind the legal piles of rubbish are hundreds of tonnes of hazardous material.
The authorities are trying to fight back. But do they have the resources they need?
Reporter: Paul Kenyon
Producer: Sally Chesworth
Editor: Gail Champion
News, views and information for people who are blind or partially sighted.
Dr Mark Porter goes on a weekly quest to demystify the health issues that perplex us.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
A contemporary novel set in Prague, inspired by an original Gothic story and written by Sarah Perry.
Melmoth the Witness is a terrifying and yet moving creation who repels and attracts our sympathies simultaneously. The novel explores some of humanity’s darkest actions, asks us to consider our deepest secrets and conveys the importance of bearing witness to unspeakable events. At the same time, it's also a novel of redemption, of the possibility of forgiveness, hope and reconciliation, and the healing power of love.
Episode 2:
Helen returns to the lodgings she shares with her eccentric Czech landlady. She learns the strange story of Melmoth after reading the manuscript which made her friend anxious and uneasy. But is Melmoth just a fairy tale?
Sarah Perry was born in Essex in 1979. She has been the writer in residence at Gladstone's Library and the UNESCO World City of Literature Writer in Residence in Prague. After Me Comes the Flood, her first novel, was long-listed for the Guardian First Book Award and the Folio Prize, and won the East Anglian Book of the Year Award in 2014. The Essex Serpent - also a Radio 4 Book at Bedtime - was Waterstone's Book of the Year in 2016 and the British Book Awards Book of the Year in 2017. Her work has been translated into twenty languages. She lives in Norwich.
Writer: Sarah Perry
Abridger: Jeremy Osborne
Reader: Greta Scacchi and Anton Lesser
Producer: Rosalynd Ward
A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4
Comedy drama about a young woman trying to build a more fulfilling life for herself in Glasgow.
Josie and Darren go camping but find themselves disastrously ill equipped for the great outdoors.
Based on characters from the short films "Romance and Adventure" and "Let's Go Swimming" by Josie Long and Douglas King.
Josie Josie Long
Darren Darren Osborne
Margaret Clare Grogan
PCSO Officer Chris Pavlo
The Podcaster Jesse Thorn
Shondra Claudia O'Doherty
Unfeasably Handsome Man John Early
Written by Josie Long
Producer: Colin Anderson
All the news from today's sitting at Westminster.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping
The latest shipping forecast
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
Reflection and prayer with writer and broadcaster The Rev Dr Johnston McKay.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside
Tiffany Francis recalls her encounters with yellowhammers at the Butser Ancient Farm in Hampshire for 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.
Radio 4's flagship news and current affairs programme; including Thought for the Day
Poet and novelist Jackie Kay meets Turner Prize-winning artist Lubaina Himid.
Jackie Kay is currently the Scottish Makar or poet laureate. Her first collection, The Adoption Papers, was published in 1991, and drew on her own experience as a black child, adopted at birth by a white couple. Since then she has written prize-winning poetry, stories and fiction, as well as a memoir, Red Dust Road, about tracing and finding her birth parents.
In 2017 Lubaina Himid became the first black woman to win the Turner Prize – and its oldest winner, at the age of 63. Her paintings and installations often focus on hidden black history and creativity - so for her work Swallow Hard: The Lancastrian Dinner Service, she overpainted willow pattern plates with images of slavery. She lives and works in Preston and is professor of contemporary art at the University of Central Lancashire.
Producer Clare Walker
It’s possible that we are more angry now than ever, but it’s also possible that we just perceive higher levels of rage because we are all plugged into an environment that can turn a profit on our outrage. In the digital age media outlets have to keep our attention to make money, and the best way to do that? Get us angry.
But how is this constant rage stream affecting us? Oliver explores how the infrastructure of the digital age has been built to keep anger on a rolling boil, why our brains can’t help but be drawn to the things that outrage us most, and if it’s possible to redesign our the lucrative attention economy to tone down the anger, or if we’ve reached the point of no return where the rage we vent behind the screen is now spilling over into how we see one another in the real world.
Michael Rosen and guests explore well-known phrases from the national conversation such as #metoo, post-fact and resilience. By looking at their usage, origins, rhetorical power and linguistic construction, we can see how they frame public argument and shape our thinking (sometimes in ways we do not notice). This series includes Stuart Maconie on ‘The Nanny State’; Afua Hirsch on ‘Sovereignty’ and Isabel Hardman on ‘Safe-Space’.
The programme that offers a female perspective on the world
Lynne Truss observes the inhabitants of Meridian Cliffs, a small wind-battered town on the south coast of England where Terry finds walking his beloved dog, Thelonius, a frustrating affair.
It seems the little pooch's only goal in life is to sniff every lamp post in town and then wee on top of it. If only Terry knew what complex canine messages he was tuning into.
Written by Lynne Truss
Directed by Kate McAll
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.
Ex-offenders celebrate how their lives have changed through the power of the written word. Fi Glover presents another conversation in the series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen.
Producer: Marya Burgess.
Inspired by a story by O. Henry, we travel to Perthshire in the days when the streets had more horses than horsepower. We encounter two 1930s tricksters who get their just deserts when they attempt to kidnap and hold to ransom a young lad who's learned a thing or two from the Wild West.
Stanley Baxter and Joe Caffrey are those two desperate men and young member of the Royal Lyceum Youth Theatre Tom Borley is the lad who gets the better of them in this classic screwball comedy.
Written by Colin MacDonald
Directed by Marilyn Imrie
A Catherine Bailey production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
On this day in 1918, the House of Commons voted in favour of female MPs, and in Folkestone, Sylvia wishes there were no news.
Cast
Sylvia ..... Joanna David
Connie ..... Darcey Brown
Mrs Edkins ..... Rachel Davies
Esme ..... Katie Angelou
Gabriel ..... Michael Bertenshaw
Grace ..... Grace Doherty
Juliet ..... Lizzie Bourne
Laurie ..... Will Howard
Mathieu ..... Bea White
Written by Sebastian Baczkiewicz
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole
Sound: Martha Littlehailes
Radio 4's consumer affairs programme.
The latest weather forecast.
Mon-Thurs: Analysis of news and current affairs, presented by Sarah Montague. Fri: Analysis of news and current affairs, presented by Mark Mardell.
James Naughtie explores history through front page small ads. The South London Press of 19 June 1897, a few days ahead of Victoria's Diamond Jubilee, carries ads for an overnight sea trip to witness the review of the fleet at Spithead (food included, bar bill excepted), as well as columns of "buy to let" opportunities as the housing boom spread south of the river.
Front page news is a relatively late addition to the newspaper business. For most of their first couple of centuries, British newspapers carried classified ads rather than news on their front page. They transformed the hustle and bustle of the marketplace into newsprint, so you could take it home or to the inn to pore over at your leisure.
James Naughtie travels the country discovering how these front page ads give us a snapshot of time and place, exploring how they weave national and local life together - the heartbeat of history rolling daily or weekly off the presses.
The ads tell us what people were eating, drinking and wearing, what was on stage and what people were playing at home. They mark the mood of the time through notices for public meetings held to stoke up or damp down public fears of crime and political unrest. They are a record of the notices placed for houses and public buildings to be built, licenses applied for and subscriptions raised for publications and commemorations. They show the latest labour saving gadgets "trending" as technology arrived, and they track jobs and trades on the way up and down as the British Empire waxed and waned. The ever present ads for patent medicines record our most popular ailments.
Produced by John Forsyth
A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4.
Brief Lives by Tom Fry and Sharon Kelly
Episode 5
Sarah has started volunteering at the local Law Centre. But the lawyer who runs it has some unorthodox methods.
FRANK............... David Schofield
SARAH.............. Kathryn Hunt
DEBBIE………….Eve Steele
D C COLEMAN…….Natalie Grady
STUART …………..Graeme Hawley
SERENA…………..…Maria Major
Director/Producer Gary Brown
Paul Lewis and a panel of guests answer calls on personal finance.
Laurie Taylor explores the latest research into how society works.
A topical programme about the fast-changing media world.
PM at 5pm: interviews, context and analysis.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
New sitcom starring Jocelyn Jee Esien about the world of a youth group leader called ‘Joy’.
Joy was written by Jocelyn Jee Esien and Bola Agbaje, the script editors were Sarah Campbell and Laura Major. The performers were Nicholas Bailey, Nimisha Odedra, Vivienne Acheampong and Nathan Bryon.
Producer, Suzy Grant
A BBC Studios production
Lynda forges ahead with her plan and Josh attempts to make up for recent events
Live daily magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
By Ben Cottam. Dace considers the serious business of bingo and Jan shows her true colours whilst helping an elderly widower who has become confused.
Director.......Alison Crawford.
Combative, provocative and engaging debate chaired by Michael Buerk. With Mona Siddiqui, Anne McElvoy, Melanie Philips and Giles Fraser
David Baddiel tries to understand how wifi works.
Wifi is everywhere around us. It facilitates large parts of the modern economy, but how does it work? In this first episode of a new series of David Baddiel Tries to Understand, David tries to find out. At a wifi installation in London, he hears some basics, and begins to grasp what can stop wifi working. But will his second expert, a professor of wireless communication, be able to get through to David?
Producer: Giles Edwards
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
A contemporary novel set in Prague, inspired by an original Gothic story and written by Sarah Perry.
Melmoth the Witness is a terrifying and yet moving creation who repels and attracts our sympathies simultaneously. The novel explores some of humanity’s darkest actions, asks us to consider our deepest secrets and conveys the importance of bearing witness to unspeakable events. At the same time, it's also a novel of redemption, of the possibility of forgiveness, hope and reconciliation, and the healing power of love.
Episode 3:
Hoffman’s manuscript describes his childhood in Prague and his first tentative encounter with Melmoth. Helen has secrets of her own and clues to her previous life, hidden in her room.
Sarah Perry was born in Essex in 1979. She has been the writer in residence at Gladstone's Library and the UNESCO World City of Literature Writer in Residence in Prague. After Me Comes the Flood, her first novel, was long-listed for the Guardian First Book Award and the Folio Prize, and won the East Anglian Book of the Year Award in 2014. The Essex Serpent - also a Radio 4 Book at Bedtime - was Waterstone's Book of the Year in 2016 and the British Book Awards Book of the Year in 2017. Her work has been translated into twenty languages. She lives in Norwich.
Writer: Sarah Perry
Abridger: Jeremy Osborne
Reader: Greta Scacchi and Anton Lesser
Producer: Rosalynd Ward
A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4
Stand-up series exploring British Chinese culture, from BBC New Comedy Award finalist Ken Cheng. This week, he looks at Relationships.
Produced by Lyndsay Fenner.
A BBC Studios production.
Travel through the bad gateway in this modern ghost story as writer and performer Tom Neenan discovers what horrors lurk in our apps and gadgets. In this episode a taxi app offers some unexpected destinations.
Modern technology is terrifying. The average smartphone carries out 3.36 billion instructions per second. The average person can only carry out one instruction in that time. Stop and think about that for a second. Sorry, that’s two instructions; you won’t be able to do that.
But what if modern technology was... literally terrifying? What if there really was a ghost in the machine?
Starring
Tom ..... Tom Neenan
Heidi ..... Jenny Bede
Amar ..... Naz Osmanoglu
Taxi Controller ..... Georgie Fuller
Written by Tom Neenan
Produced by David Tyler
A Pozzitive production for the BBC
www.pozzitive.co.uk
The show is a Pozzitive production, and is produced by David Tyler whose other credits include Agendum, The Brig Society, Giles Wemmbley Hogg, Jeremy Hardy Speaks To The Nation, Cabin Pressure, John Finnemore’s Double Acts, Jack & Millie, Thanks A Lot, Milton Jones!, Shush!, Kevin Eldon Will See You Now, Armando Iannucci’s Charm Offensive, The Castle, The 3rd Degree, The 99p Challenge, My First Planet, Radio Active & Bigipedia. His TV credits include Paul Merton – The Series, Spitting Image, Absolutely, The Paul Calf Video Diary, Three Fights Two Weddings & A Funeral, Coogan’s Run, The Tony Ferrino Phenomenon and exec producing Victoria Wood’s dinnerladies.
All the news from today's sitting at Westminster.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping
The latest shipping forecast
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
Reflection and prayer with writer and broadcaster The Rev Dr Johnston McKay.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside
Tweet of the Day is the voice of birds and our relationship with them, from around the world.
Liz Bonnin presents the morepork or Ru-Ru, New Zealand's only surviving native owl. Strange double notes in the forests of New Zealand were once thought to be cries from the Underworld. But these calls are most likely to be that of a morepork calling. Its familiar call earned it the alternative Maori name of "ruru". Largely nocturnal, it has brown, streaky feathers and large bright yellow eyes which are well adapted for almost silent night hunting forays for large insects, spiders, small birds and mammals. In Maori mythology, moreporks, or "ruru" are spiritual birds, and can represent the ancestral spirit of a family, taking the form of a woman known as "Hine-Ruru" or "owl woman" who acts as a guardian, protecting and advising the family members.
Radio 4's flagship news and current affairs programme; including Thought for the Day
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Bernard Mandeville (1670-1733) and his critique of the economy as he found it in London, where private vices were condemned without acknowledging their public benefit. In his poem The Grumbling Hive (1705), he presented an allegory in which the economy collapsed once knavish bees turned honest. When republished with a commentary, The Fable of the Bees was seen as a scandalous attack on Christian values and Mandeville was recommended for prosecution for his tendency to corrupt all morals. He kept writing, and his ideas went on to influence David Hume and Adam Smith, as well as Keynes and Hayek.
With
David Wootton
Helen Paul
and
John Callanan
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Michael Rosen and guests explore well-known phrases from the national conversation such as #metoo, post-fact and resilience. By looking at their usage, origins, rhetorical power and linguistic construction, we can see how they frame public argument and shape our thinking (sometimes in ways we do not notice). This series includes Natalie Haynes on 'Patriarchy', Stuart Maconie on ‘The Nanny State’; Afua Hirsch on ‘Sovereignty’ and Isabel Hardman on ‘Safe-Space’.
The programme that offers a female perspective on the world
Lynne Truss observes the inhabitants of Meridian Cliffs, a small wind-battered town on the south coast of England where one of the ladies in Jenny's art class is worried that her secret past will catch up with her.
Written by Lynne Truss
Directed by Kate McAll
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.
Correspondents around the world tell their stories and examine news developments in their region.
Andrew McGibbon talks to Duncan Lamont about growing up in Greenock, playing jazz saxophone, composing music for Mr Benn, King Rollo and Spot, and being fired from Sinatra's band.
Frank Sinatra remains one of the most influential singers of the 20th century. In a singing career characterised by a spectacular reinvention after falling out of fashion, he came to epitomise a cool, intelligent post war jazz chic - a singer with a unique, close mic singing technique, supported in the studio and live by some of the best musicians and bandleaders in the world.
Throughout the 1960s, he solidified further his claim on the swingin' crooner style with a string of critically acclaimed albums, and later appearing with his cartoonish mob of co-performers in the Rat Pack, Sammy Davis Junior and Dean Martin. He maintained a sure grip on the business side of his music, creating his own record label, Reprise.
His touring schedule meant that, when he came to the UK, only the best musicians were called upon to play with him.
British tenor saxophonist Duncan Lamont was a successful jazz saxophonist in his own right. His unique tone has been heard on thousands of recordings and he was one of the key UK studio musician legends. He was also one of Frank Sinatra's regular musicians when he performed in the UK until, without warning, he found himself unwanted.
Duncan is a prolific composer, having written the music to the TV shows Mr Benn, King Rollo and Spot as well as the critically praised, Young Persons Guide to the Jazz Orchestra. But as a musician he will have always faced the possibility of being out of work.
After having been faithful to Frank for many years, he found that as far as Sinatra was concerned, he was "outta luck".
Written and presented by Andrew McGibbon
Producer: Nick Romero
A Curtains For Radio production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
On this day in 1918, the Battle of the Selle ended in victory for the Allied forces, and in Folkestone, Norman Harris joins a strange alliance.
Cast
Norman ..... Sean Baker
Adeline ..... Helen Schlesinger
Eric ..... Paul Rainbow
Forrester ..... Nigel Hastings
Gabriel ..... Michael Bertenshaw
Hilary ..... Craige Els
Phyllis ..... Christine Absalom
Maisie ..... Cassie Layton
Written by Sebastian Baczkiewicz
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole
Sound: Martha Littlehailes
Radio 4's consumer affairs programme.
The latest weather forecast.
Mon-Thurs: Analysis of news and current affairs, presented by Sarah Montague. Fri: Analysis of news and current affairs, presented by Mark Mardell.
James Naughtie explores history through front page small ads. The classified ads in the Hereford Journal of Sunday 1st January 1800 reveal the stresses of a country at war - from "English wines nearly as good as foreign" to the list of the dead and injured from the Battle of Camperdown. The list reveals the breadth of races and countries of origin from Malaya to New York in the crews of Britain's triumphant fleet.
Front page news is a relatively late addition to the newspaper business. For most of their first couple of centuries, British newspapers carried classified ads rather than news on their front page. They transformed the hustle and bustle of the marketplace into newsprint, so you could take it home or to the inn to pore over at your leisure.
James Naughtie travels the country discovering how these front page ads give us a snapshot of time and place, exploring how they weave national and local life together - the heartbeat of history rolling daily or weekly off the presses.
The ads tell us what people were eating, drinking and wearing, what was on stage and what people were playing at home. They mark the mood of the time through notices for public meetings held to stoke up or damp down public fears of crime and political unrest. They are a record of the notices placed for houses and public buildings to be built, licenses applied for and subscriptions raised for publications and commemorations. They show the latest labour saving gadgets "trending" as technology arrived, and they track jobs and trades on the way up and down as the British Empire waxed and waned. The ever present ads for patent medicines record our most popular ailments.
Produced by John Forsyth
A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4.
Stuart Slade's drama about the destructive impact of telling lies and what happens when a family secret is brought out into the open. In agreeing to return home to Bulgaria with her daughter, Svetlana is made to confront a life-changing decision from her past.
Svetlana ….. Dolya Gavanski
Ellie ….. Lauren Cornelius
Petu ….. Sokol Cahani
Young Svetlana ….. Lucy Doyle
Konstantin ….. Liam Lau Fernandez
Bulgarian woman ….. Emma Handy
Malcolm ….. Cameron Percival
Produced and directed by Gemma Jenkins
Stuart Slade has written for stage and screen, this is his debut radio play. His most recent production, BU21, played at the Trafalgar Studios and was nominated for an Offie. His next stage play, Troika, will be appearing at The Bush Theatre in a forthcoming season of new work.
The famous cityscape of Liverpool can seem familiar to visitors and locals alike. But the arrival of three giants is about to transform the way it's seen. A 50 foot giant man has been shipwrecked on a Wirral beach and will make a raft to travel across the Mersey while a 'Little boy giant' and his dog Xolo will soon wake up and stride through the streets exploring. The marionettes are powered by 'Liliputians' and have enchanted thousands of Liverpudlians who line the streets to see them with people from all over the world. The spectacle is the idea of French theatre group Royal de Lux and it's the third and final time the giants will visit the city - each time telling a story about Liverpool.
Helen Mark is literally chased through the streets in a bid to get close to these creatures. She asks why the people have taken the giants to their heart and why the company wanted to return so often. Ten years since it became the European Capital of Culture many say the city has a new confidence and can hold it's head up high.
Presented by Helen Mark and Produced by Anne-Marie Bullock of Radio and Music Production Bristol.
With Francine Stock.
In the second edition of her new series, Moving Image, Francine Stock talks to director Carol Morley about the film that has influenced her the most - Jane Campion's debut Sweetie. And they are joined by a mystery guest.
Adam Rutherford investigates the news in science and science in the news.
PM at 5pm: interviews, context and analysis.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Work at Hardacre’s advertising agency is brought to a standstill when Teddy (Rasmus Hardiker) becomes obsessed with a series of literary thrillers – the continuing adventures of John Soldier in titles such as Kill And Let Die and The Deathman Cometh.
Soon he has Joe (Mathew Baynton) and Amanda (Josie Lawrence) hooked on them as well, and all work is put on hold as the team obsess over the most exciting books they’ve ever read.
Meanwhile, Hardacre (Nigel Havers) receives a visit from an old flame (guest star Frances Barber), and finds himself caught in a battle for her affections with a wholly unexpected opponent.
Cast:
Hardacre...............................Nigel Havers
Joe...........................................Mathew Baynton
Amanda.................................Josie Lawrence
Teddy.....................................Rasmus Hardiker
Laura......................................Olivia Nixon
Laurie Patterson.................Frances Barber
Book Launch Host.............Edward Rowett
An Absolutely production for BBC Radio 4
Johnny is under pressure and Rex struggles to control his feelings.
Live daily magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
By Ben Cottam. Dace's first patient of the day is a fortune teller who has foreseen everything apart from type 2 diabetes. She's considering making her position at the medical centre a permanent one, but then has an unpleasant experience with a patient who is unhappy to be seen by a foreign doctor.
Director......Alison Crawford.
Why are the Japanese having less sex? Chie Kobayashi and Ruth Evans investigate.
Kunio Kitamura, the head of Japan's family planning association is worried he may soon be out of a job. The birth rate, condom use, the pill, abortions and sexually transmitted diseases are all declining. He says, "The only explanation is that Japanese people are having less sex."
A recent report reveals that a record number of couples are living in sexless marriages. A third of men interviewed said they were too tired for sex, and a quarter of women said they found sex troublesome. Another survey of single Japanese aged 18-34 found that the proportion of virgins had increased significantly over the past decade - almost 45% said they had never had sex.
Chie Kobayashi and Ruth Evans look at the complex reasons behind these trends, and the alarming implications for Japan's dramatically falling birth rate - the country's population of 127 million is expected to drop dramatically to around 86 million by 2060.
A Ruth Evans production for BBC Radio 4
Plastic is arguably one of the world's greatest inventions. Its' qualities allow it to be used in everything from food packaging to clothes and cars. But discarded plastic clogs up our rivers and oceans threatening marine life creating a consumer backlash. So what can the industry do to restore its reputation and how? Evan Davis and guests discuss.
GUESTS
Lubna Edwards, Global Sustainability Director, Klockner Pentaplast
Roger Baynham, Managing Director, Philip Tyler Polymers and Chair of the Recycling Group, British Plastics Federation
Adrian Griffiths, CEO and Founder, Recycling Technologies.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
A contemporary novel set in Prague, inspired by an original Gothic story and written by Sarah Perry.
Melmoth the Witness is a terrifying and yet moving creation who repels and attracts our sympathies simultaneously. The novel explores some of humanity’s darkest actions, asks us to consider our deepest secrets and conveys the importance of bearing witness to unspeakable events. At the same time, it's also a novel of redemption, of the possibility of forgiveness, hope and reconciliation, and the healing power of love.
Episode 4:
Helen’s friend Thea reveals more chilling details about Melmoth. Thea’s partner has spent weeks researching the story, at great cost to his mental and physical health. Helen begins to take the legend of Melmoth seriously.
Sarah Perry was born in Essex in 1979. She has been the writer in residence at Gladstone's Library and the UNESCO World City of Literature Writer in Residence in Prague. After Me Comes the Flood, her first novel, was long-listed for the Guardian First Book Award and the Folio Prize, and won the East Anglian Book of the Year Award in 2014. The Essex Serpent - also a Radio 4 Book at Bedtime - was Waterstone's Book of the Year in 2016 and the British Book Awards Book of the Year in 2017. Her work has been translated into twenty languages. She lives in Norwich.
Writer: Sarah Perry
Abridger: Jeremy Osborne
Reader: Greta Scacchi and Anton Lesser
Producer: Rosalynd Ward
A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4
It's January in Hilary Lyon's Secrets and Lattes - and time to beat the post-festive blues.
Hilary Maclean and Hilary Lyon star as sisters Trisha and Clare who run Cafe Culture in Edinburgh's leafy Bruntsfield. Trisha is on a single-minded start-of-the-year health kick while trying to get over yet another breakup with her long-distance lover Richard (Roger May), and Clare is desperate for a business project to get over her crush on sexually-ambivalent chef Callum (Derek Riddell).
Trisha and Clare find they have distinctly different ideas about hosting a Burns Supper, trainee chef and recovering kleptomaniac Lizzie (Pearl Appleby) makes a new friend, and everybody parties in true Rabbie Burns' spirit until an unexpected guest makes for a dramatic turn of events.
Director: Marilyn Imrie
Producers: Gordon Kennedy and Moray Hunter
An Absolutely production for BBC Radio 4
All the news from today's sitting at Westminster.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping
The latest shipping forecast
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
Reflection and prayer with writer and broadcaster The Rev Dr Johnston McKay.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside
Environmentalist Tony Juniper recalls catching a whitethroat in a mist net in Portugal which had been ringed in Dorset and listening to their song as part of the soundtrack of summer.
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: Denis Williams.
Radio 4's flagship news and current affairs programme; including Thought for the Day
Michael Rosen and guests explore well-known phrases from the national conversation such as #metoo, post-fact and resilience. By looking at their usage, origins, rhetorical power and linguistic construction, we can see how they frame public argument and shape our thinking (sometimes in ways we do not notice). This series includes Natalie Haynes on 'Patriarchy', Stuart Maconie on ‘The Nanny State’; Afua Hirsch on ‘Sovereignty’ and Isabel Hardman on ‘Safe-Space’.
The programme that offers a female perspective on the world
Lynne Truss observes the inhabitants of Meridian Cliffs, a small wind-battered town on the south coast of England, where Colin treasures his collection of improving books.
But as lapses in his memory become more apparent, Colin's wife Shirley spots an opportunity for a bit of decluttering.
Written by Lynne Truss
Directed by Kate McAll
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.
In 1595, Sir Walter Raleigh sailed to South America in search of the fabled 'El Dorado'. Gold had long fascinated Europeans and he was determined that his expedition would bring back untold treasures. In the end there was little to show for it except his remarkable account of the journey, 'The Discoverie of the Large, Rich and Bewtiful Empyre of Guiana'. Jerry Brotton takes this as his guide as he travels to Trinidad, Raleigh's staging post for the journey, and then into modern day Guyana just to the south of Raleigh's original exploration.
Jerry discovers the descendants of the indigenous peoples Raleigh met and wrote about in his account, and travels upriver in search of the elusive gold that was so prized by Europeans.
What is left, if anything, of the dream of El Dorado in today's Guyana? Deep In the pristine rainforest of South America he finds out if the lure of gold still holds.
Jerry Brotton is Professor of Renaissance Studies at Queen Mary, University of London
Producer Mark Rickards
Vera is still very angry with Ginny and Lionel for creating havoc at Sizzlinghurst while she and Henry were in the USA. Henry notices that some of the silver is missing and suspects the Goslings.
Nutwood Cottage, a pretty cottage on the estate. has become vacant and everyone wants it - the Goslings especially and, in a surprise reappearance, Venus whose excuse is that it would be the perfect location for her to nurse her husband in his “last weeks of life”.
Meanwhile Ginny is desperate to get back into Vera’s good books and she and Lionel visit Scratchey and Barrington to house hunt for a weekend cottage. The hunt proves fruitless but inspires a fabulous idea.
Cast:
VERA SACKCLOTH-VEST................................MIRIAM MARGOLYES
HENRY MICKLETON........................................JONATHAN COY
MRS GOSLING...................................................ALISON STEADMAN
GINNY FOX........................................................ALISON STEADMAN
LIONEL FOX.......................................................NIGEL PLANER
GOSLING.............................................................NIGEL PLANER
VENUS TRADUCES...........................................MORWENNA BANKS
LYTTON SCRATCHEY......................................NIGEL PLANER
BARRINGTON.....................................................MORWENNA BANKS
RAYMOND..........................................................MORWENNA BANKS
A Little Brother production for BBC Radio 4
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
On this day in 1918, the President of the Board of Agriculture intimated that his successor might be a woman, while in Folkestone, Juliet has her eye on a different succession.
Cast
Howard ..... Gunnar Cauthery
Connie ..... Darcey Brown
Gabriel ..... Michael Bertenshaw
Grace ..... Grace Doherty
Juliet ..... Lizzie Bourne
Mathieu ..... Bea White
Ralph ..... Nicholas Murchie
Sylvia ..... Joanna David
Chastagner ..... Stephane Cornicard
Written by Sebastian Baczkiewicz
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole
Sound: Martha Littlehailes
Radio 4's consumer affairs programme.
The latest weather forecast.
Mon-Thurs: Analysis of news and current affairs, presented by Sarah Montague. Fri: Analysis of news and current affairs, presented by Mark Mardell.
James Naughtie explores history through front page small ads. The Dundee Courier of 16th November 1922, the morning after the General Election that saw Winston Churchill displaced by the UK's only ever Prohibitionist MP Edwin Scrimgeour, and the classified ads announce a victory rally. Also, the Colonial Department is recruiting clerks and engineers for Ceylon, Nigeria and South Africa, and the city's fashion shops are competing for the custom of the wives and children of the jute mill owners.
Front page news is a relatively late addition to the newspaper business. For most of their first couple of centuries, British newspapers carried classified ads rather than news on their front page. They transformed the hustle and bustle of the marketplace into newsprint, so you could take it home or to the inn to pore over at your leisure.
James Naughtie travels the country discovering how these front page ads give us a snapshot of time and place, exploring how they weave national and local life together - the heartbeat of history rolling daily or weekly off the presses.
The ads tell us what people were eating, drinking and wearing, what was on stage and what people were playing at home. They mark the mood of the time through notices for public meetings held to stoke up or damp down public fears of crime and political unrest. They are a record of the notices placed for houses and public buildings to be built, licenses applied for and subscriptions raised for publications and commemorations. They show the latest labour saving gadgets "trending" as technology arrived, and they track jobs and trades on the way up and down as the British Empire waxed and waned. The ever present ads for patent medicines record our most popular ailments.
Produced by John Forsyth
A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4.
Following a fiendishly complex cyber-attack on the UK electricity system, hospitals, food distribution, communications systems and transport networks are thrown into disarray. Lives are at risk while GCHQ agents attempt to contain the virus.
As Henry Morcombe and his team get close to the source of the attack, their suspicions fall on a most unlikely source and they now have to deal with a very inconvenient truth.
Cast:
Henry....................Owen Teale
Gerry / Steve.........Dominic Hawksley
Jacqui...................Lucy Phelps
Siddiq...................Ashley Kumar
Alison...................Alison Newman
David....................Richard Maxted
Yu.........................Louise-Mai Newberry
Bill........................Niall Ashdown
Home Secretary......James Lailey
Other parts played by members of the company
The Good Listener created by Fin Kennedy and Boz Temple-Morris
Written by Anders Lustgarten
Sound design by Alisdair McGregor
Assistant Producer: Robbie MacInnes
Produced and directed by Boz Temple-Morris
A Holy Mountain production for BBC Radio 4
Peter Gibbs and the panel are in Swindon. Chris Beardshaw, Bob Flowerdew and Anne Swithinbank answer the horticultural questions from the audience.
Produced by Dan Cocker
Assistant Producer: Laurence Bassett
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4
The Wild Hunt.
All Hallows Eve, 1589. Hoping to impress a girl in the village, a young man stays out in the forest at night, hoping to glimpse the ghostly Wild Hunt.
Zoe Gilbert is the award-winning author of Folk, published in 2018. Her stories have won prizes including the Costa Short Story Award, and have appeared in many journals and anthologies, including Thought X, Spindles and Conradology. She has travelled to China and South Korea on writing projects for the British Council, and is completing a PhD exploring folk tales and new short fiction.
Writer: Zoe Gilbert
Reader: Peter Firth
Producer: Jeremy Osborne
A Sweet Talk Production for BBC Radio 4
Matthew Bannister tells the life stories of people who have recently died, from the rich and famous to unsung but significant.
Radio 4's forum for comments, queries, criticisms and congratulations
Friends who have written to each other for over twenty years regularly find comfort in their letterbox. Fi Glover presents another conversation in the series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen.
Producer: Marya Burgess.
PM at 5pm: interviews, context and analysis.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
A comedic look at the week's news.
Writer ..... Adrian Flynn
Director ..... Julie Beckett
Editor ..... Alison Hindell
Jill Archer ..... Patricia Green
David Archer ..... Timothy Bentinck
Pip Archer ..... Daisy Badger
Josh Archer ..... Angus Imrie
Pat Archer .... Patricia Gallimore
Helen Archer ..... Louiza Patikas
Tom Archer ..... William Troughton
Brian Aldridge ..... Charles Collingwood
Rex Fairbrother ..... Nick Barber
Toby Fairbrother ..... Rhys Bevan
Emma Grundy .... Emerald O'Hanrahan
Adam Macy ..... Andrew Wincott
Jazzer McCreary .... Ryan Kelly
Elizabeth Pargetter ….. Alison Dowling
Johnny Phillips ..... Tom Gibbons
Fallon Rogers .... Joanna Van Kampen
Robert Snell ..... Graham Blockey
Lynda Snell ..... Carole Boyd
Anna Tregorran .... Isobel Middleton
Hannah Riley ..... Helen Longworth
Lee ..... Ryan Early
Live daily magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
By Ben Cottam. A teenage girl comes to the surgery fearing she is pregnant and Dace is running late again for something important.
Director........Alison Crawford.
Jonathan Dimbleby hosts political debate from Middlesbrough Town Hall with a panel including the leader of UKIP Gerard Batten MEP, the Labour MP Caroline Flint and Tim Roache from the GMB trade union.
Producer: Lisa Jenkinson
Weekly reflections on topical issues from a range of contributors.
The fifth omnibus of Season 15, Onward, set in Folkestone, in the week, in 1918, when the Government advised private employers to make vacancies for returning officers.
Cast
Florrie ..... Claire Rushbrook
Adeline ..... Helen Schlesinger
Sylvia ..... Joanna David
Norman ..... Sean Baker
Howard ..... Gunnar Cauthery
Phyllis ..... Christine Absalom
Esme ..... Katie Angelou
Gabriel ..... Michael Bertenshaw
Juliet ..... Lizzie Bourne
Chastagner ..... Stephane Cornicard
Mrs Edkins ..... Rachel Davies
Silas ..... Shaun Dooley
Hilary ..... Craige Els
Forrester ..... Nigel Hastings
Laurie ..... Will Howard
Adam ..... Billy Kennedy
Jack ..... Ashley Kumar
Maisie ..... Cassie Layton
Edward Morris ..... John Lightbody
Kitty ..... Ami Metcalf
Ralph ..... Nicholas Murchie
EJ Thomas ..... Sean Murray
Eric ..... Paul Rainbow
Nell ..... Alice St Clair
Private Hims ..... Ryan Whittle
Connie ..... Darcey Brown
Grace ..... Grace Doherty
Mathieu ..... Bea White
Written by Sebastian Baczkiewicz
Story-led by Katie Hims
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole
Sound: Martha Littlehailes
Composer: Matthew Strachan
Consultant Historian: Maggie Andrews
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
A contemporary novel set in Prague, inspired by an original Gothic story and written by Sarah Perry.
Melmoth the Witness is a terrifying and yet moving creation who repels and attracts our sympathies simultaneously. The novel explores some of humanity’s darkest actions, asks us to consider our deepest secrets and conveys the importance of bearing witness to unspeakable events. At the same time, it's also a novel of redemption, of the possibility of forgiveness, hope and reconciliation, and the healing power of love.
Episode 5:
Helen meets a young woman after an unexpected incident in a church, and introduces her to Thea. The woman is no stranger to the story of Melmoth.
Sarah Perry was born in Essex in 1979. She has been the writer in residence at Gladstone's Library and the UNESCO World City of Literature Writer in Residence in Prague. After Me Comes the Flood, her first novel, was long-listed for the Guardian First Book Award and the Folio Prize, and won the East Anglian Book of the Year Award in 2014. The Essex Serpent - also a Radio 4 Book at Bedtime - was Waterstone's Book of the Year in 2016 and the British Book Awards Book of the Year in 2017. Her work has been translated into twenty languages. She lives in Norwich.
Writer: Sarah Perry
Abridger: Jeremy Osborne
Reader: Greta Scacchi and Anton Lesser
Producer: Rosalynd Ward
A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4
Lauren Laverne and guests partake of a few nocturnal frank and funny conversations.
All the news from today's sitting at Westminster.
Shared memories of being bullied for speaking with a different accent. Fi Glover presents another conversation in the series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen.
Producer: Marya Burgess.