George Eliot - notable among Victorian novelists not only for her books but also for her personal life-story - explored through five of her fictional characters
5. Gwendolen Harleth
It's sometimes said that George Eliot never wrote an autobiography because she had already poured so much of her own experiences into her key characters.
Presenter Kathryn Hughes hears from debut novelist Kathy O'Shaughnessy and recent biographer Philip Davis about Gwendolen Harleth, the charismatic,, flawed heroine of Eliot's final novel, Daniel Deronda.
Does Gwendolen's fated search for some agency in her life reflect Eliot's opinion about the growing fight for women's equality?
When I lived in Greenwich, south-east London, one of my favourite things to do was walk along the Thames near the grounds of the Cutty Sark. Launched on this day in Dumbarton, Scotland, in 1869, the Cutty Sark was one of the last clippers built. While it’s the only one surviving, the majestic ship has been through a tough time in recent years. It suffered two devastating fires. Often when I saw the Cutty Sark standing tall, I was reminded that the phoenix really can rise from the ashes. After each fire, which threatened the ship’s very existence, came a process of restoration and revival.
At times in my life, I’ve felt that sense of devastation – when the unexpected happens and knocks me sideways. Life itself is a rollercoaster, with twists and turns, that can sometimes drive us off course. It can be hard to think things will ever be restored again. The Bible is full of stories of those times when all has felt lost – the Israelites in exile in Egypt, the great flood that engulfs the whole world, the crucifixion of Christ. In the midst of those trials and tribulations, there would have been a temptation to despair and submit to the darkness.
And yet. After each period of suffering came rescue, hope and joy. Like we have seen with the Cutty Sark, new life can spring forth after death. Belief in God doesn’t make us immune to suffering, it doesn’t protect us from the heat and difficulties of life. But it does mean that in the midst of it all, we can look forward to a brighter future.
God of rescue, thank you that right in the middle of our grief and despair, you suffer alongside us. Today, may we feel a peace that passes all understanding. Amen.
The team takes charge of this question with a spin through the history of antimatter. Adam talks to physicist Frank Close, author of 'Antimatter', about its origins in the equations of Dirac to its manufacture in the first particle accelerator, the Bevatron.
Cosmologist Andrew Pontzen tells Hannah why physicists today are busy pondering the mystery of the missing antimatter. Anyone who discovers why the Universe is made of matter, rather than antimatter, is in line for the Nobel Prize.
Plus, neuroscientist Sophie Scott describes how antimatter has been put to good use down here on Earth to peer into people's brains.
The latest news headlines. Including the weather and a look at the papers.
For the first time, Open Country is entirely based at a cemetery. Helen Mark explores Arnos Vale in Bristol - forty-five acres of green space and woodland which provide a vital wildlife corridor in the city. First established 180 years ago as a 'garden cemetery' with architecture in the style of classical Greece, Arnos Vale quickly became the fashionable place for Victorian Bristolians to be buried. It was one of the first places in England to install a crematorium, a state-of-the-art development in its day. But during the latter part of the 20th century it fell into disrepair. Neglected and overgrown, it almost closed for good. A campaign to save it has resulted in a cemetery which today is much more than just a place to bury the dead. As Helen finds out, it has a whole life of its own. Wildlife thrives in the trees and undergrowth which almost swallowed the gravestones during the years of neglect. Now restored as a working cemetery, it also has a cafe and a shop, and is a venue for everything from yoga classes and craft fairs to film screenings and even weddings.
News and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
Jazz/pop singer/songwriter Jamie Cullum joins Aasmah Mir and Mobeen Azhar. He talks about his music, and the personal stories that inspired his latest album Taller, his family and what's been passed down through the generations.
Mark Bright tells his story of from foster care to football to reach the FA Cup in 1990.
Alice Gorman AKA ‘Dr Space Junk’ is an archaeologist who’s made it her mission to explore artefacts that mankind has left in space. Everything from defunct satellites to Elon Musk’s red sports car. She describes how growing up on a farm in Australia inspired her passion.
Nicola Wren wants to be not just a star – but a superstar – and she will NOT let her four siblings and her world-famous brother get in the way.
And Dan Snow chooses his Inheritance Tracks - Slide Away by Oasis, and Mr. Brightside by The Killers.
Greg James digs into the BBC's archives, using current stories as a portal to the past.
Adam Fleming and the BBC's politics team bring you the essential guide to the 2019 UK general election.
Insight, wit and analysis from BBC correspondents, journalists and writers from around the world.
The latest news from the world of personal finance plus advice for those trying to make the most of their money.
Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis present the week via topical stand-up and sketches. They're joined by Fern Brady, Pierre Novellie, Jake Yapp and Gemma Arrowsmith.
It was written by the cast with additional material by Robin Morgan, Laura Major, Kat Sadler and Alex Kealy.
Chris Mason presents political debate from Callington Community College in East Cornwall with a panel including the Shadow Defence Secretary Nia Griffith, Conservative Prospective Parliamentary Candidate Mark Harper, Europe Minister in the Scottish Government Ben Macpherson and the Liberal Democrat Prospective Parliamentary Candidate Sarah Wollaston.
The Narrator, George Eliot ..... Juliet Aubrey
Dorothea ..... Olivia Vinall
Edward Casaubon ..... Charles Edwards
Dr Lydgate ..... John Heffernan
Will Ladislaw ..... Joseph Quinn
Mr Brooke ..... Neil McCaul
Sir James Chettam ..... Hugh Skinner
Reverend Farebrother ..... Miles Jupp
Mr Bulstrode ..... Adrian Scarborough
Celia ..... Lucy Reynolds
Peter Featherstone ..... Clive Hayward
Fred Vincy ..... Will Kirk
Rosamond Vincy ..... Laura Christy
Mr Vincy ..... Rick Warden
Mrs Cadwallader ..... Jessica Turner
Adolf Naumann ..... Adam Courting
Dr Hawley ..... Greg Jones
Servant ..... Sinead MacInnes.
This Radio 4 adaptation is part of the BBC's The Novels That Shaped Our World - a year-long celebration of literature. Middlemarch is a jewel in the classic novel crown and has a truly wonderful epic arc; it has politics, tragedy, romance and delicious moments of comedy. It's full of highly complex characters and includes wonderfully dynamic females. There are two fascinating storylines that pack a powerful punch. There is the controlling Casaubon, with his hold over Dorothea, and the masterly crafted downfall of Bulstrode.
In this 'study of Provincial Life', we follow multiple narratives and viewpoints and they are cleverly twisted together so we have a sense of people constantly threatening and shifting and realigning one another’s stories. It’s an entire world in microcosm. We witness lives colliding - it's 'the convergence of human lots' and it's about the difficulties of civilisation; we are all the same, and yet we are not the same at all. 'We all of us, grave or light, get our thoughts entangled in metaphors and act fatally on the strength of them.'
Broadcaster, columnist and producer Emma Freud dreamed of being a news journalist. She felt she never had the courage to pursue it, but still wonders if she had what it takes. Emma talks to Newsnight's Emily Maitlis about the adrenaline of the job; whether she ever has self-doubt - and what really drives her.
What are the pros and cons of running a business with your life partner and how do you keep the personal out of your professional life? Evan Davis and guests discuss.
Sophie Mirman and Richard Ross, founders and owners, Trotters childrenswear and accessories
Peter Leach, author and Adjunct Professor in Family Business , Imperial College Business School
Frank Skinner, Emily Maitlis, Jeff Kinney, Paul Charles, Calexico and Iron & Wine, Natacha Atlas, Nikki Bedi, Clive Anderson
Clive Anderson and Nikki Bedi are joined by Emily Maitlis, Frank Skinner, Paul Charles and Jeff Kinney for an eclectic mix of conversation, music and comedy. With music from Calexico and Iron & Wine and Natacha Atlas.
An insight into the character of an influential person making the news headlines
Dear Evan Hansen, Feast & Fast, Greener Grass, Irenosen Okojie, Ken Burns' Country series
Broadway musical Dear Evan Hansen has been an enormous success and has now transferred to London's West End. It's the story of a socially awkward young man who accidentally becomes a hero
Feast & Fast: The art of food in Europe, 1500 – 1800 is the latest exhibition at The Fitzwilliam in Cambridge
British Nigerian author Irenosen Okojie's collection of short stories; Nudibranch
American documentary series maker Ken Burns has turned his attention to Country music for his latest series now airing on BBC4
Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Deborah Bull, Susie Boyt and Louisa Uchum Egbunike. The producer is Oliver Jones
Susie: Wednesday Afternoon matinees at Regent Street Cinema and the Joan Crawford film Queen Bee
Louisa: Chinua Achebe- There was a Country and Chinelo Okparanta - Under the Udala Trees
America's Constitution provides for the removal of a President if he commits "high crimes and misdemeanours" in office. The process is called impeachment.
In the first two centuries of its existence, only one US President was impeached. Now for the third time in 45 years, the House of Representatives is preparing articles of impeachment against a sitting US president.
In this Archive on 4, Michael Goldfarb explains the mechanics of impeachment and how it became a weaponised tool of partisan politics.
Using archive from the Nixon and Clinton impeachment processes, as well as interviews with participants in those events, the programme explains the British origins of impeachment for High Crimes and Misdemeanours.
Charles Dickens attends the Opening of Parliament by the new young Queen - Victoria. Through his attendance there he finds himself rubbing shoulders with the 'great and good' of the land and, in particular, the alluring Lady Kames.
Will this elevation compromise his judgement as editor of 'The Herald' - especially when a shocking and scandalous story close to home emerges?
Dickens ..... Jamie Glover
Jack ..... Freddy White
Agnes ...... Jasmine Hyde
Lord Henry Kames ..... Robert Bathurst
Lady Belinda Kames ..... .Juliet Aubrey
William Percy ..... Bertie Carvel
Robert ..... John Dougall
James ..... Sam Dale
Mrs. Slingsby ..... .Melinda Walker
The post-war novel that summed up middle-class white America and established John Updike as the major American author of his generation. Rabbit, Run is the first in a virtuoso Pullitzer Prize-wining quintet featuring hapless Harry Angstrom, whom we meet as a 26 year old former high school basketball star and suburban paragon in the midst of a personal crisis.
Rabbit returns to Mt Judge and turns to his old high school basketball coach for advice about his marriage - but instead, finds himself introduced to an alternative partner.
Rabbit, Run established Updike as one of the major American novelists of his generation. In the New York Times he was praised for his "artful and supple" style in his "tender and discerning study of the desperate and the hungering in our midst's".
Radio 4 plans to broadcast all five novels in the series over the next few years.
Doctors of medicine swear the Hippocratic Oath, written some 2,500 years ago, declaring that they will protect the confidentiality of their patients. Sometimes they break that promise and are criticised; sometimes they keep it and are criticised. This week a woman is suing an NHS trust for not telling her about her father’s Huntington’s disease, which doctors had already diagnosed when she had her own child. Only after the child was born did she find out that she also carried the faulty gene for the degenerative, incurable brain disorder – with a 50% chance of passing it on. Her father had told doctors he didn’t want her to know because he feared she might kill herself or have an abortion. This tragic case is at the centre of a moral tussle between the duty of confidentiality and the duty of care. If our right to medical privacy is intrinsic to our freedom, security and sense of self, when – if ever – should it be overridden to prevent harm to others? That’s a problem doctors have faced for a long time, but now inherited conditions are setting us another moral conundrum: science is giving us the power to eradicate many of them entirely, through gene-manipulation. So, should we press on with stem cell therapy and selective IVF? Or should we slam on the brakes, conscious of the perils of playing God and of creating a world in which prospective parents can order the characteristics of their designer babies from a tick-box à la carte menu? Featuring Dr Michael Fay, Sir Jonathan Montgomery, Sandy Starr and Dr Helen Watt.
The last of this year's heat winners join Paul Gambaccini for the contest to decide who takes the third of the places in the 2019 Final. Questions await them on all aspects of musical knowledge, from 18th century oratorio to 1980s dance music. And which performer has achieved the bestselling British album of the 21st century so far?
Julia Copus explores the poetry and life of the only born and bred Bloomsbury poet.
Thomas Hardy wrote that Charlotte Mew was "Far and away the best living woman poet - who will be remembered when others are forgotten." Siegfried Sassoon said that she was "the only poet who can give me a lump in my throat," while Virginia Woolf called her "the greatest living poetess".
Although she lived in Bloomsbury all her life, she was never part of the Bloomsbury set and, when Charlotte Mew died in 1928 aged 59, a small notice in a London paper described her simply as "Charlotte Mary New, 53" - the name and the age both wrong.
But to those who knew her, Charlotte Mew was a compelling, at times mischievous and groundbreaking poet, whose writing was full of sea-breezes, lamp-lit streets, human voices, and the sudden stark contrasts between sound and silence, between life and death.
Her dramatic monologue The Farmer's Bride caused a sensation in literary circles when it was published in 1912, dramatising the terrifying story of a young woman trapped in a powerless arranged marriage, who is literally locked away.
Julia explores how Charlotte Mew broke the mould of contemporary styles in the early 20th century and created a unique poetic voice.
SUNDAY 24 NOVEMBER 2019
SUN 00:00 Midnight News (m000bn1q)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
SUN 00:30 Short Works (m000bgpd)
Cuckoo
An original short work for BBC Radio 4 by the Northern Irish writer Paul McVeigh. As read by Tony Flynn.
Born in Belfast, Paul McVeigh has written comedy, essays, flash fiction, a novel, plays and short stories. His work has been performed on radio, stage and television, and published in seven languages. Paul co-founded the London Short Story Festival and is an associate director at Word Factory. His debut novel 'The Good Son' won The Polari First Novel Prize and The McCrea Literary Award.
Writer ..... Paul McVeigh
Reader ..... Tony Flynn
Producer ..... Michael Shannon
SUN 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m000bn1s)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
SUN 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m000bn1v)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.
SUN 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m000bn1x)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
SUN 05:30 News Briefing (m000bn1z)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4.
SUN 05:43 Bells on Sunday (m000bl2r)
Tavistock Parish Church
Bells on Sunday comes from Tavistock Parish Church. Before the Reformation, Tavistock was dominated by its great abbey, very little of which remains. However, the tower of the parish church, dedicated to St. Eustachius, was originally also the gateway to the abbey cemetery. The bells were augmented to ten in celebration of the start of the third millennium. We hear them ringing Grandsire Caters.
SUN 05:45 Profile (m000bl22)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Saturday]
SUN 06:00 News Headlines (m000bl0q)
The latest national and international news headlines.
SUN 06:05 The Wrath of God (b0505l2x)
The concept of The Wrath of God is a contentious one. Mark Tully asks how we can reconcile the idea of a loving God with a God of Wrath - in conversation with Rabbi Jonathan Sacks.
He discusses the evidence of God as a loving God in the Hebrew Bible and examines the idea of divine anger as a way of obviating the need for human vengeance. He also asks whether anger is an entirely negative force in the first place.
Contrasting views are offered by writers and theologians from Stephen Crane to Miroslav Wolf, and musical argument is provided by artists ranging from Mendelssohn and Britten to Yossele Rosenblatt and the Delmore Brothers.
The readers are David Holt, Adjoa Andoh and Francis Cadder.
Produced by Frank Stirling
A Unique production for BBC Radio 4
SUN 06:35 On Your Farm (m000bl0s)
Carbon Counting
Will Case, like many farmers, is worried about climate change and uncomfortable about reports that farming is a key contributor to it. He wonders where his family farm which produces beef, salt marsh lamb, free-range eggs and milk on the edge of Morecambe Bay near Ulverston in Cumbria fits into the bigger picture of global heating. Caz Graham takes Mike Berners-Lee, a leading expert in carbon foot-printing to meet Will, look at his farm’s carbon footprint and discuss where UK farming sits in the context of global agriculture and climate change.
SUN 06:57 Weather (m000bl0v)
The latest weather forecast.
SUN 07:00 News and Papers (m000bl0x)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.
SUN 07:10 Sunday (m000bl0z)
Sunday morning religious news and current affairs programme.
SUN 07:54 Radio 4 Appeal (m000bl11)
SolarAid
Matthew Syed makes the Radio 4 appeal for SolarAid
Reg Charity: 1115960
To Give:
- Freephone 0800 404 8144
- Freepost BBC Radio 4 Appeal, mark the back of the envelope 'SolarAid'.
- Cheques should be made payable to 'SolarAid'
SUN 07:57 Weather (m000bl13)
The latest weather forecast.
SUN 08:00 News and Papers (m000bl15)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.
SUN 08:10 Sunday Worship (m000bl17)
Called to serve
Throughout their lives people are called to serve in different ways, some in their daily lives, and for others in the career that they choose. Some are called to serve God as ministers in the church. Students from St John's College and Cranmer Hall at Durham University, who are training for ordination, reflect on their vocation, and their desire to minister to those around them. The service is led by the Warden of Cranmer Hall, the Reverend Dr Philip Plyming, the preacher is the Deputy Warden, the Reverend Emma Parker, the band leader is Richard Barber, and the choir is directed by Louise Reid. Producer: Ben Collingwood.
SUN 08:48 A Point of View (m000bgq1)
The Sex Recession
"In all things erotic", writes Adam Gopnik, "morals and manners run at right angles to each other".
Adam argues that the much discussed "sex recession" in the US is primarily a question of misunderstanding between generations - and is certainly not a cause for moral panic!
"We misread the sex because the signs change, and we misread the signs to mean that the sex is changing...or even that the sex is vanishing".
Producer: Adele Armstrong
SUN 08:58 Tweet of the Day (m0001mt4)
Monty Don's Fieldfare Season
For writer, gardener and TV presenter Monty Don, the changing seasons herald different sounds and atmospheres in the garden. In autumn as the leaves begin to fall, the arrival of flocks of fieldfares from the north of Europe are as much a part of the garden in winter as are summer migrants during the long days of June. A mixture of truculence and shyness, everything about fieldfares is harsh or jerky, but for Monty he likes them.
Monty Don takes over the Tweet of the Day output this week with a selection of episodes by Sir David Attenborough.
Producer Andrew Dawes
SUN 09:00 Broadcasting House (m000bl19)
News with Paddy O'Connell including election coverage with our team of Special Advisers plus the difficulty of fostering a child from a war zone. Reviewing the news coverage: violin virtuoso Tasmin Little, Big Issue founder Lord Bird and political journalist Michael Crick.
SUN 10:00 The Archers Omnibus (m000bl1c)
Writer, Tim Stimpson
Director, Rosemary Watts
Editor, Jeremy Howe
Jill Archer ….. Patricia Greene
David Archer ….. Timothy Bentinck
Pip Archer ….. Daisy Badger
Pat Archer ….. Patricia Gallimore
Brian Aldridge ….. Charles Collingwood
Phoebe Aldridge ….. Lucy Morris
Lilian Bellamy ….. Sunny Ormonde
Harrison Burns ….. James Cartwright
Neil Carter ….. Brian Hewlett
Justin Elliott ….. Simon Williams
Rex Fairbrother ….. Nick Barber
Eddie Grundy ….. Trevor Harrison
Clarrie Grundy ….. Heather Bell
Will Grundy ….. Philip Molloy
Emma Grundy ….. Emerald O'Hanrahan
Ed Grundy ….. Barry Farrimond
Tracy Horrobin ….. Susie Riddell
Elizabeth Pargetter ….. Alison Dowling
Lily Pargetter ….. Katie Redford
Johnny Phillips ….. Tom Gibbons
Leonard Berry ….. Paul Copley
Russ Jones ….. Andonis James Anthony
Joy Horville ….. Jackie Lye
Alf Grundy ….. David Hargreaves
Roman Trench ….. Ewan Bailey
SUN 11:15 Desert Island Discs (m000bl1f)
Isabella Tree, writer and conservationist
Isabella Tree is a conservationist and writer of the award-winning book Wilding: the Return of Nature to a British Farm, which tells the story of rewilding a 3,500 acre farm estate in Sussex, which she oversaw with her husband Charlie.
The adopted daughter of Michael Tree and Lady Anne Cavendish, Isabella grew up in Mereworth Castle in Kent, and then in Shute House, a vicarage in Dorset. Following her expulsion from two secondary schools, she attended Millfield School as a sixth former, where mutual friends introduced her to her future husband. After reading classics at the University of London, she went on to work as a journalist and travel writer for the Evening Standard and The Sunday Times. Her first book, The Bird Man, about the Victorian ornithologist John Gould, was published in 1991. She married Charles Burrell in 1993 and settled at Knepp, a dairy and arable farm in Sussex. She continued to travel, writing books about Papua New Guinea, Nepal and Mexico.
In 2000 Isabella and Charlie closed the farm business at Knepp, and turned the estate into a conservation project, letting the land develop on its own, and eventually introducing free-roaming animals – cattle, pigs, deer and ponies. Two decades later, the project has seen extraordinary increases in wildlife, fungi, and vegetation with extremely rare species like turtle doves, nightingales, peregrine falcons and purple emperor butterflies breeding there. The soil is richer in micro-organisms which help to recapture carbon from the air and promote a functioning ecosystem where nature is given as much freedom as possible.
She lives at Knepp with her Charlie and two children, Ned and Nancy.
Presenter: Lauren Laverne
Producer: Cathy Drysdale
SUN 12:00 News Summary (m000bn1g)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
SUN 12:04 I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue (m000bcn7)
Series 72
Theatre Severn, Shrewsbury
The 72nd series of Radio 4's multi award-winning ‘antidote to panel games’ promises more homespun wireless entertainment for the young at heart. This week the programme pays a return visit to Theatre Severn in Shrewsbury where Tim Brooke-Taylor and Stephen Fry are pitched against Pippa Evans and Miles Jupp, with Jack Dee in the chair. At the piano - Colin Sell. Producer - Jon Naismith. It is a BBC Studios production.
SUN 12:32 The Food Programme (m000bl1k)
Eating Animals Part 1: The Future of Meat
Dan Saladino looks at the current debate taking place over our relationship with meat.
SUN 12:57 Weather (m000bl1m)
The latest weather forecast
SUN 13:00 The World This Weekend (m000bl1p)
Global news and analysis, presented by Mark Mardell.
SUN 14:00 Gardeners' Question Time (m000bgpb)
Sheffield Botanical Gardens: Correspondence Edition
Peter Gibbs is at the Sheffield Botanical Gardens for a correspondence edition. Bob Flowerdew, Anne Swithinbank and Matt Biggs are on hand to answer questions sent in by listeners via post, email and social media.
This week, the panellists take shelter from the rain while offering suggestions for plants in a boggy garden, advising on how to re-pot cacti and considering whether deciduous or evergreen trees are best for CO2 absorption. They also discuss how to prune by touch for a blind listener.
In between the questions, the team wander the Sheffield Botanical Gardens, led by Ian Turner.
Producer: Dan Cocker
Assistant Producer: Rosie Merotra
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4
SUN 14:45 The Listening Project (m000bl1t)
Sunday Omnibus - All About Reliance
Fi Glover presents the omnibus edition of the series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen with three conversations on the theme on reliance- - between friends and within families and relationships.
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: Mohini Patel
SUN 15:00 The Pallisers (m000bl1w)
Episode 3
Based on the novels by Anthony Trollope. Dramatised by Mike Harris
Episode 3
A scandal surrounds the Palace of Westminster. Sir Nicholas Bonteen MP has been brutally murdered in a street attack. There are several suspects including distinguished Members of Parliament. Starring Jessica Raine as Lady Glencora Palliser and Edward MacLiam as Phineas Finn. The second half of the series concludes early next year.
Lady Glencora ..... Jessica Raine
Plantagenet ..... Tim McMullan
Finn ..... Edward MacLiam
Mary Flood ..... Sinead MacInnnes
Bonteen/ Sir Gregory ..... Eugene O’Hare
Marie Goesler ..... Melody Grove
Lowe ..... Jonathan Keeble
Fawn ..... Lloyd Peters
Policeman/Usher ..... Ikky Elyas
Judge ..... Hamilton Berstock
Director/Producer Gary Brown
SUN 16:00 Open Book (m000bl1y)
Lee Child
Mariella Frostrup talks to bestselling novelist Lee Child about his first book of non- fiction, The Hero. They are joined by Pat Barker, author of award-winning Regeneration trilogy and Silence of the Girls, to explore the origins of the heroic protagonist.
The Norwegian literary sensation Hanne Ørstavik talks about her novel Love which takes place across one night in a frozen, isolated town. The book has resonated around the world since it was written in 1997, but only now lands here with a new translation by Martin Aitken.
And debut novelist Kate Weinberg explores the appeal of mysterious disappearances. Her debut novel, The Truants, is a coming-of-age story imbued with plenty of twisty, murder-mystery tropes, and a deft nod to queen of the genre, Agatha Christie.
SUN 16:30 Power Lines (m000bl20)
City
Poet and proud Brummie Amerah Saleh takes us on a tour of the booming poetry scene in Birmingham.
From open mics to one of the city's biggest theatres, Amerah talks to the writers and performers turning Birmingham into a poetry power house. She meets people just starting out, emerging talent developing their skills, and artists established in the poetry world.
Young poets tell her about their motivation to perform in public. Emerging poet Shaun Hill speaks about coming up through small gigs and how the city has shaped his poetry. Established performer Jasmine Gardosi discusses two very different sides of Birmingham and Steven Camden, aka Polar Bear, talks about how being a Brummie is still at the heart of his work, even though he moved away.
The poets featured in this episode are:
Shaun Hill
Afrah Yafai
Nafeesa Hamid
Jasmine Gardosi
Bohdan Piasecki
Steven Camden / Polarbear
Producers: Tom MacAndrew and Husain Husaini
Executive Producer: Sally Spurring
A Wire Free production for BBC Radio 4
SUN 17:00 File on 4 (m000bfhx)
Drug Shortages
Medical professionals say shortages of commonly prescribed drugs are currently worse than ever before - impacting on patient care and potentially costing lives.
The government has banned the export of some medications from the UK in an attempt to protect dwindling supplies but desperate patients are still travelling abroad to get the medication they need or, rationing their supply or going without treatments entirely.
File on 4 examines the complex supply network behind the medication we’re prescribed and finds out how a single broken link in the fragile chain can impact patients, doctors and pharmacists alike. Speaking to worried insiders, exasperated clinicians and patients left too frightened to leave the house, the programme uncovers a long-running crisis at the very centre of our health care system.
Reporter: Adrian Goldberg
Producer: Steven Hobson
Editor: Carl Johnston
Image credit: Hiraman\Getty
SUN 17:40 Profile (m000bl22)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Saturday]
SUN 17:54 Shipping Forecast (m000bl24)
The latest shipping forecast.
SUN 17:57 Weather (m000bl26)
The latest weather forecast.
SUN 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m000bl28)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
SUN 18:15 Pick of the Week (m000bl2b)
Pippa Evans
The best of BBC Radio this week.
SUN 19:00 The Archers (m000bl2d)
Johnny is left devastated and Leonard has the rug pulled from under him
SUN 19:15 Rich Hall's (US) Breakdown (m0006dtt)
Multi award-winning comedian and US Citizen Rich Hall takes a look across the pond at the current state of US Politics.
A combination of stand-up, sketch and interview, Rich Hall's (US) Breakdown broadcasts live from the fictional IBBC network in Washington to the whole of the United States.
Rich and his co-host Nick Doody take calls from every corner of the United States to hear the concerns of US citizens, offering their take on the issues troubling them.
Starring Rich Hall with Nick Doody, Lewis Mcleod, Emma Sidi and Jen Kirkman.
It is a BBC Studios Production.
SUN 19:45 A Run in the Park (m000bl2g)
Episode 4
A group of strangers in Belfast have formed a running group, determined to go from absolute beginners to completing a 5K Parkrun in just nine weeks. As their shared runs get longer and tougher, friendships are forged and relationships challenged. But will any of them actually make it over the finish line?
Young couple Brendan and Angela are running from their doubts about their rapidly approaching wedding; librarian Cathy is in pursuit of a new life following a health scare; Syrian refugee Yana races from the trauma of her past; and recent retiree Maurice is determined to get fit for his family, step by painful step, even if he’s not actually part of their lives right now…
Author
David Park is one of Northern Ireland's most acclaimed writers. He is the author of nine novels and two collections of short stories. He has been awarded the Authors' Club First Novel Award, the Bass Ireland Arts Award for Literature, the Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize, the American Ireland Fund Literary Award and the University of Ulster's McCrea Literary Award, three times. He has also received a Major Individual Artist Award from the Arts Council of Northern Ireland. His most recent novel ‘Travelling in A Strange Land’ won the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award and was a Radio 4 ‘Book at Bedtime’.
Writer ..... David Park
Reader ..... Lara Sawalha
Producer ..... Michael Shannon
SUN 20:00 Feedback (m000bgpj)
The Today programme presenter Nick Robinson defends broadcast coverage of the election, while also admitting that some mistakes are made. He also discusses how he is preparing for chairing the next leaders’ debate.
Two young people who had never listened to BBC radio until last week are given the task of reviewing a second popular Radio 4 programme. Will PM persuade them to tune-in in the future?
Presenter: Roger Bolton
Producer: Kate Dixon
Executive Producer: Samir Shah
A Juniper Connect production for BBC Radio 4
SUN 20:30 Last Word (m000bgpg)
Vladimir Bukovsky, Alison Prince, Keith Schellenberg, Robert Ponsonby
Pictured: Vladimir Bukovsky
Matthew Bannister on
The Russian dissident Vladimir Bukovsky, a long term opponent of the Soviet regime who revealed the use of psychiatric hospitals as political prisons.
Alison Prince, the children's writer who scripted Trumpton.
Keith Schellenberg, the eccentric millionaire who was a bobsleigh champion and keen powerboat racer. He bought the Scottish Isle of Eigg - and was accused of treating his tenants badly.
Robert Ponsonby, the BBC Controller of Music who ran the Proms and faced a strike by musicians in the Corporation's orchestras.
Interviewed guest: Alyona Kojevnikov
Interviewed guest: Julia Eccleshare
Interviewed guest: Ray Bulman
Interviewed guest: Camille Dressler
Interviewed guest: Professor David Hendy
Interviewed guest: Peter Donohoe CBE
Reader: Ian Conningham
Producer: Neil George
Archive clips from: Vladimir Bukovsky interviewed by Bernard Levin, BBC Sound Archive 26/04/1980; Soviet Propaganda Film 1972, Periscope Film 17/08/2014; PM, Radio 4 04/01/1977; Watch with Mother: Joe and a Horse, BBC One 03/10/1966; Trumpton, BBC One, 03/01/1967; Spud by Alison Prince, Young Corgi, 07/08/2003; Jackanory, BBC One 1965; Radio Scotland News, 09/02/2006; Upfront, BBC Scotland 03/02/1994; Music Now, Radio 3 29/11/1974; Radio 3 continuity announcement, BBC Sound Archive 23/11/1978.
SUN 21:00 Money Box (m000bl2k)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:04 on Saturday]
SUN 21:25 Radio 4 Appeal (m000bl11)
[Repeat of broadcast at
07:54 today]
SUN 21:30 Analysis (m000bcnh)
NATO at 70
NATO’s military strength and unswerving trans-Atlantic solidarity enabled it to contain and ultimately defeat the Soviet Union. But with Vladimir Putin’s Russia resurgent, and eager to restore some of its past glory, people speak of a new “Cold War”. But this one is very different from the first. It is being fought out on the internet; through propaganda; and by shadowy, deniable operations. It is not the kind of struggle that plays to the Alliance’s traditional strengths. Worse still, NATO – currently marking its seventieth anniversary - is more divided than ever; its member states having very different priorities. President Trump has added additional strains, raising a question-mark over Washington’s fundamental commitment to its European partners. So can NATO hold together and adapt to the new challenges it faces or will it sink into a less relevant old age?
Producer: Stuart Hughes
Editor: Jasper Corbett
SUN 22:00 Westminster Hour (m000bl2m)
Radio 4's Sunday night political discussion programme.
SUN 23:00 The Film Programme (m000bg3w)
Frozen 2
With Antonia Quirke
The creators of Frozen tell Antonia about how they dealt with the pressure of following up one of the biggest hits of recent years. Writer Chris Buck and writer/director/chief creative officer of Walt Disney Animation Studios Jennifer Lee explain why they put their characters through a psychological test and what the unexpected results showed.
Mati Diop, the award winning director of Atlantics, talks about the lost generation of Senegalese men who tried to cross the ocean in small boats to find work in Europe and why their deaths haunt the living and the loved ones they left behind
Anna Smith takes another look at Stanley Kubrick's final movie Eyes Wide Shut and its infamous orgy scene in the light of the Time's Up movement.
SUN 23:30 A Believer's Guide to Atheism (m00088n8)
As a student, Michael Symmons Roberts was an evangelical atheist, keen to rid people of their religious beliefs. In the course of his studies, however, he lost his atheism and in the years since has become a practising Roman Catholic. He has always retained a great interest in atheism, believing that at its most nuanced it offers a means by which to examine his own faith, and in this programme he sets out to discover the state of non-belief stands in today's Britain.
He finds out that things have moved on from a decade ago when New Atheists like Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens and Harris brought their materialist rejection of belief so prominently into the public domain.
Now the majority of us identify as so-called 'Nones', without religion but not entirely in line with the rationalist atheists either. Instead the 'Nones' are likely to display beliefs in a wide range of supernatural phenomena such as ghosts and divination while rejecting the idea of a god. Some are driven more by social justice, others find their spiritual needs met by connecting with nature.
What is clear about questions regarding belief and non-belief right now is that things are multiple and complex, reflecting as ever the moment at which those questions are posed.
Michael speaks with eminent academics Linda Woodhead and Lois Lee; he meets Alom Shaha, author of 'The Young Atheist's Handbook' who was raised in a Muslim household; he attends an event held by the Edinburgh Skeptics, and also hears from the author of 'Doubt: A History', Jennifer Michael Hecht, about the state of atheism in America.
Producer: Geoff Bird
MONDAY 25 NOVEMBER 2019
MON 00:00 Midnight News (m000bl2p)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4.
MON 00:15 Thinking Allowed (m000bfsv)
Thrift
Thrift: Through the strictures of the global financial downturn and its aftermath citizens have been urged to ‘keep calm and carry on’. This slogan, first coined in the 1940s and revived in the 2000s, found its way into political rhetoric and popular culture. Laurie talks to Rebecca Bramall, lecturer in media and communications at the London College of Communication, about the cultural politics of austerity. Also, Alison Hulme, lecturer in International Development at the University of Northampton, surveys the history of 'thrift' from the early Puritans to Post-war rationing and into consumer culture. What are the overlaps between thrift and austerity?
Producer: Jayne Egerton
MON 00:45 Bells on Sunday (m000bl2r)
[Repeat of broadcast at
05:43 on Sunday]
MON 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m000bl2t)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
MON 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m000bl2w)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.
MON 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m000bl2y)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
MON 05:30 News Briefing (m000bl30)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4.
MON 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m000bl32)
A spiritual comment and prayer to start the day with Chine McDonald
Good morning,
A few weeks ago, I travelled to Nigeria to attend my grandmother’s funeral. Although I moved to the UK when I was four years old, every time I return to Nigeria – touching down on the tarmac amid the haze of the African sun – I feel a strong sense of homecoming. It feels familiar to me in a way that nowhere else in the world does; and yet it also feels completely alien. That juxtaposition – feeling at home and at the same time very far away from home – is a feeling familiar to many first and second generation immigrants who can trace their roots back to elsewhere.
Throughout my life, I have been drawn to the beauty of my culture – the traditions and rituals that help us to make sense of life and community and God. Nigerian funerals – like Nigerian weddings – are extravagant. My grandmother’s lasted for three days. The burial alone was attended by over a thousand people. While that may seem completely alien to the average Brit, to me it symbolised the importance of community. Many of the attendees had never met my grandmother, but they came from community groups that meant something to her – whether her former school or church, or delegations from distant parts of her family, plus friends and friends of friends of her children.
My dad as the eldest son was the recipient of amazing outpourings of love, of support and thanksgiving for his mother’s life.. Saying goodbye to my grandmother surrounded by so many members of her community taught me afresh that at times of mourning, we can learn about friendship, family and community and what it is to be human.
Life-giving God, help us to be those who provide places of homecoming and community to those who need it most. Amen.
MON 05:45 Farming Today (m000bl34)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
MON 05:56 Weather (m000bl36)
The latest weather forecast for farmers.
MON 05:58 Tweet of the Day (m0002g3m)
Dominic Couzens on the Moorhen
Natural history writer, speaker and tour leader Dominic Couzens is in the chair this week for Tweet of the Day. Taking a break from his worldwide travels, Dominic recounts why the moorhen is a comical bird which can hold a few surprises that's no laughing matter.
You can hear more from Dominic in his Tweet of the Week omnibus available on the Radio 4 website or via BBC Sounds.
Producer Andrew Dawes
MON 06:00 Today (m000blvz)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
MON 09:00 Start the Week (m000blw1)
Love and unreason
Classicist Bettany Hughes has traced the history of the goddess known as Venus or Aphrodite. Originally depicted with a phallus on her head, Venus was later drawn and sculpted as a beautiful naked woman. Hughes tells Andrew Marr why this powerful deity of love was thought to corrupt and to inspire.
Tenor Mark Padmore depicts the irrationality of desire in Benjamin Britten's Death in Venice. He plays the lead role in the Royal Opera House's new production, based on Thomas Mann's novella, in which a burnt-out writer succumbs to obsessive love. Britten wrote the main part for his partner, Peter Pears, with whom he lived through decades of homophobia.
Unconscious desires and strange fantasies play out in the work of Dora Maar, one of the great Surrealist artists. Emma Lewis has curated an exhibition of Maar's photography and paintings, revealing an artist whose striking imagery rivalled that of her more famous lover, Picasso.
Historian Clare Carlisle discusses the Dutch philosopher Baruch Spinoza, one of the first thinkers to interrogate our emotional life. George Eliot translated his 17th-century masterpiece, the Ethics, into English. Eliot also 'translated' his ideas into literary form. Her novel Middlemarch draws on Spinoza's ideas about human flourishing and love, shown through different happy and unhappy marriages.
Producer: Hannah Sander
MON 09:45 The Pulse Glass (m000blw3)
A Seventh Century Gospel
Gillian Tindall’s reflection on family and social history and the changing meaning of the objects that survive the passing of time is a fascinating exploration into memory, loss and how we construct the past.
Most of the objects that surround us, no matter how important in their time, will eventually be lost and forgotten. But a few, for reasons of sentiment, chance, conservation or simple inaction, escape destruction and gain new meanings. A toy train, a stack of letters in a family attic, a piece of medical equipment long out of use - each opens a window into the past and prompts an exploration into the nature of permanence.
In The Pulse Glass and the Beat of Other Hearts, Tindall explores what has survived of her own family’s history, as well as the remnants of a wider social history, glimpsed through the chance survival of artefacts that have survived against the odds of history and forgetting.
Gillian Tindall is a novelist and historian. She combines a sharp eye for the detail of individual and domestic history with an imaginative understanding of the social and political geography of the past to find and follow the traces of past lives that survive all around us. She has written on the history of Kentish Town (The Fields Beneath), on the history of London’s Southbank through the generations living in one house (The House by the Thames), on a village in rural France through the letters written to one young girl (Celestine: Voices From a French Village), on her own family’s connection with the Left Bank in Paris (Footsteps in Paris), and on London’s past through the route to be followed by Crossrail (The Tunnel Through Time). She has lived in the same house in London for over fifty years.
Reader: Anastasia Hille
Abridger: Libby Spurrier
Producer: Sara Davies
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4
MON 10:00 Woman's Hour (m000blw6)
The programme that offers a female perspective on the world
MON 10:45 Middlemarch (m000blw8)
Episode 2 : Something More Unmanageable than a Dragon
By George Eliot
Adapted by Katie Hims
Episode 2 : Something More Unmanageable than a Dragon
Edward Casaubon has taken his new wife to Rome. A deep sadness has enveloped his young bride, Dorothea, but while she is sitting all alone an unexpected visitor calls at the apartment.
Cast:
George Eliot ..... Juliet Aubrey
Dorothea ..... Olivia Vinall
Edward Casaubon ..... Charles Edwards
Will Ladislaw ..... Joseph Quinn
Adolf Naumann ..... Adam Courting
Tantripp ..... Scarlett Courtney
Directed by Tracey Neale
MON 11:00 The Untold (m000blwc)
Expectations
Hazel loves her job. She is very good at. But there is pressure on her to leave.
An impressive career has led Hazel to a perfect job at The University of Chichester: it’s stimulating, she loves the students and she is widely respected.
With no age discrimination, Hazel could continue forever. And she would like to. Work is her very identity and the idea of pootling around the garden and joining a choir fills her with horror. But Hazel suspects friends, family and colleagues think it is time to go.
“The expectation seems to be, from a lot of people, that I will give it all up, that my right job is to look after the grandchildren a bit, do a bit of painting and care for Phil, but that isn’t me, it isn’t me at all.”
When her husband, Phil, is diagnosed with Parkinson’s, the pressure escalates but Hazel doesn't see her future as just his carer.
“The joy of Phil’s and my relationship is that we’ve always been independent of each other. I don’t want to rush off and leave him, but I don’t want the burden of having the life sucked out of both of us.”
She feels judged for thinking this, for not abandoning her career to look after Phil, but if she were a man, would expectations be different?
Hazel has always been a clear-headed decision maker. She knew within 10 minutes of meeting her husband she should marry him. She even wants to write her PhD on decision-making. But this choice is proving impossible to make. What should she and what will she decide?
Producer: Sarah Bowen
MON 11:30 Loose Ends (m000blwf)
[Repeat of broadcast at
18:15 on Saturday]
MON 12:00 News Summary (m000blwh)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
MON 12:04 Grandmothers (m000blwk)
Episode 1
1/10
Three very different women’s lives collide in Salley Vickers’ tender new novel about grandparents and the children they help to raise.
Reader: Eleanor Bron
Abridger: Salley Vickers
Producer: Kirsty Williams
MON 12:18 You and Yours (m000blwn)
News and discussion of consumer affairs.
MON 12:57 Weather (m000blwq)
The latest weather forecast
MON 13:00 World at One (m000blws)
Mon-Thurs: Analysis of news and current affairs, presented by Sarah Montague. Fri: Analysis of news and current affairs, presented by Mark Mardell.
MON 13:45 You're Doing It Wrong (b09snrb7)
Series 1
Work
"Choose a job you love, and you'll never work a day in your life!". Or so we're told. Usually by some kind of nauseating lifestyle blog or motivational poster.
These days it's not enough just to turn up, work hard and bring home a wage; we should all be following our passions, chasing that dream job, and waking up every morning raring to get to the office. If your job is tedious, you hate your boss, and Monday mornings make you want to cry, it's probably YOUR FAULT for not being ambitious enough.
Adam Buxton takes a sideways look at some of our confusing modern ideas about work. Is the idea of a 'dream job' - one that inspires and fulfills us and makes our lives worth living - really possible? Or idealistic nonsense designed to make you feel guiltier, work harder, and complain less? Can we really be happy at work and should we be?
Produced in Bristol by Emily Knight.
MON 14:00 The Archers (m000bl2d)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Sunday]
MON 14:15 Drama (b09r6fvl)
The B Towns
The Punjab
The B Towns: The Punjab by Phil Davies
The first in a series of linked but stand alone dramas. Three stories from three neglected but resilient towns. A character from today's drama takes centre stage in tomorrow's drama. Bilal and his family feel helpless as their family restaurant is being closed as part of a lucrative mill development. Then a character from Bilal's past turns up with anarchic ideas.
Director/Producer Gary Brown.
MON 15:00 Counterpoint (m000blwv)
Series 33
The Final, 2019
(13/13)
The cream of this year's competitors face Paul Gambaccini's questions in the contest to decide the 2019 Counterpoint champion. They'll be tested on their knowledge of music of all varieties, with 80s pop, Broadway musicals, Hollywood film scores and 19th century opera all in the mix. The winner will take home the trophy and become the 33rd person to be named Counterpoint champion since the quiz began in the 1980s.
The Finalists are
Alan Franklin, a retired librarian from Fulham in London
Nick Reed, a local council clerk from Masham in North Yorkshire
Brian Thompson, a retired schoolteacher from Liverpool.
Producer: Paul Bajoria
MON 15:30 The Food Programme (m000bl1k)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:32 on Sunday]
MON 16:00 Adam Buxton and the Human Horn (m000blwy)
William ‘Shooby’ Taylor, also known as The Human Horn, is the world’s weirdest scat singer.
Sometimes he’s accompanied by a Farfisa organ but mostly he just scats wildly and enthusiastically over other people’s records. Adam Buxton is beguiled by his originality. It was Louis Theroux who first sent Adam some Shooby on a compilation CD in the 1990s and, later, Adam and Joe Cornish chose to use Shooby as part of the theme tune for The Adam and Joe Show on TV.
But Adam could never find out anything about Shooby himself. There were rumours he worked as a postman in Harlem and that he’d been in and out of institutions. Rare leads were followed but sightings proved elusive and fans, like Adam, wondered whether he was even still alive. Then WFMU DJ and outsider music historian Irwin Chusid started to play the odd Shooby track on his music show and Shooby’s cult following continued to grow.
Shooby described how he’d started singing in Harlem clubs in his teens where he developed his own scat style. Growing up, he’d heard sounds in his head which he felt destined to express musically. Then he’d had an epiphany in which he realised he could transform his voice into a musical instrument – ‘the horn’’. Utterly eccentric, strange and, to many, brilliant, Shooby was also booed off stage by crowds who relished mocking his live shows. Despite his lack of commercial success though, he was not a quitter, remaining undaunted and proud of his work as Shooby Taylor – The Human Horn.
With contributions from Louis Theroux, Joe Cornish, Irwin Chusid and Rick Goetz.
Produced by Sarah Cuddon
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4
MON 16:30 The Digital Human (m000blx0)
Series 18
Faceless
Aleks Krotoski explores the digital world.
MON 17:00 PM (m000blx2)
Afternoon news and current affairs programme, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines.
MON 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m000blx4)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
MON 18:30 I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue (m000blx6)
Series 72
New Theatre Royal, Portsmouth
The nation's favourite wireless entertainment pays a visit to the New Theatre Royal in Portsmouth. Tim Brooke-Taylor and Tony Hawks compete against Rachel Parris and Marcus Brigstocke with Jack Dee in the chair. Colin Sell provides piano accompaniment. Producer - Jon Naismith. It is a BBC Studios production.
MON 19:00 The Archers (m000blx8)
Helen receives a blast from the past and Pip is touched by an unexpected gesture.
MON 19:15 Front Row (m000blxb)
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
MON 19:45 Middlemarch (m000blw8)
[Repeat of broadcast at
10:45 today]
MON 20:00 Exhaustion: A History (m000blxd)
Are we really more exhausted today than we have ever been before? Writer and broadcaster Philip Ball sets out on a journey to discover a forgotten history of listlessness, burn-out and fatigue.
The story he uncovers reveals modern concerns with being tired out, that can feel unique to our time, have in fact been shared by many previous generations that also claimed to be ages of exhaustion.
From Ancient Greek bodily concerns with imbalances in the four humours, to spiritual failings of desert dwelling monks of early Christianity. From celestial bodies of Renaissance thinking, to the moralistic sexual messages of the 18th and 19th century Vampires. What does exhaustion show us about our preoccupations of the past?
As we arrive at the industrial revolution and the rhythms of contemporary life start to change, it’s the exhaustion of the outside world that comes into play. Yet the age old prejudices of class, sex and race continue in its interpretations.
Today, listlessness and burnout still serve as a bridge to our wider anxieties. But are brand new stakes in the history of exhaustion entering the fray? Our depleted world, sapped of its resources, desperately seeks new sources of energy. Is civilisation and our planet now jeopardised by exhaustion too?
Presented by Philip Ball
Producer: David Waters
A TBI Media production for BBC Radio 4
MON 20:30 Crossing Continents (m000bg37)
Russian Women Fight Back
Domestic abuse in Russia is endemic with hundreds maybe thousands of women dying at the hands of their partners every year. Despite this a controversial law was passed in 2017, which scrapped prison sentences for first-time abusers. Beatings that do not cause broken bones or concussion are now treated as administrative offences rather than crimes. As one activist puts it: “the punishment for beating your wife now feels like paying a parking ticket.”
But Russian society is waking up to the crisis. The case of three girls - the Khachaturyan sisters - who face long prison sentences for murdering their tyrannical father, has sparked mass protests. More than 300,000 people have signed an online petition urging prosecutors to drop the murder charges. The girls’ mother tells reporter Lucy Ash that her daughters were acting in self-defence against a man who had abused them physically, emotionally and sexually for years.
Lucy also meets the mother of a woman stabbed to death by her husband who was discovered in her blood soaked bed by her seven year old son. In both cases, the frightened women had appealed to the police but to no avail. These tragedies might have been averted if only the authorities had taken earlier warnings seriously.
In Moscow, Lucy talks to activists who are fighting back by supporting victims, pushing for legal reforms and drawing attention to the cause through art, video games and social media. And she meets a lone feminist MP in the Russian Duma who is trying to bring in restraining orders for violent husbands, boyfriends and family members. Today Russia has no such laws and domestic violence is not a standalone offence in either the criminal or the civil code.
Producers: Josephine Casserly and Albina Kovalyova
Research: Nina Nazarova
(Image: This woman asks whether silence is really golden – more Russian women are speaking out against domestic violence. Credit: Sergei Konkov\TASS via Getty Images)
MON 21:00 Hurting (m000bfgn)
Sally Marlow talks to some of the men and women who have self-harmed, and the experts who treat them, to find out what is driving so many people to self-harm.
Clinical guidelines define self-harm as any act of self-poisoning or self-injury carried out by a person irrespective of their motivation. However, research reveals a worrying association between self-harm and the risk of suicide.
While rates of self-harm are particularly high among teenage girls, the true picture is far more nuanced. Rates have gone up in all age groups and both genders and, more recently, in groups such as middle-aged men.
So what is driving so many people to hurt themselves, and what can be done to help them? The media is quick to point the finger at social media, but Sally discovers that the reasons behind this question are as varied and complex as the people who do it.
Producer: Beth Eastwood
MON 21:30 Start the Week (m000blw1)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 today]
MON 22:00 The World Tonight (m000blxh)
In depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective
MON 22:45 Grandmothers (m000blwk)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:04 today]
MON 23:00 Have You Heard George's Podcast? (p07sq1zv)
Chapter 2
12. A Night To REMember
George dives deeper into his dreams via a circus of characters - some old, some new.
Written by George The Poet.
Produced by Benbrick & George The Poet.
Original music by Benbrick.
Featured songs: Memories by A Pass, You Can Fly by Price Love, A Night To Remember by Shalamar
Featured guests: Barney Artist as Inua the Intern, Mandi as Anna the analyst, Anne as Britain, Sandra & Petra as George’s friends in the car
Thank you to Robert Serumaga.
Have You Heard George’s Podcast? is a George the Poet production for BBC Sounds.
Commissioning Executive for BBC: Dylan Haskins
Commissioning Editor for BBC: Jason Phipps
MON 23:30 Stranger Than Sci-Fi (m0007qfd)
Telekinesis
Astro-physicist Dr Jen Gupta and comedian Alice Fraser travel the parallel worlds of science and sci-fi.
Starting with the latest books and films, they discover real life science that sounds too strange to be true - from babies grown in bags, via black hole Jacuzzis, to flowers that behave like our ears.
In this episode, Jen and Alice try to work out the truth behind telekinesis – moving things with your mind. They look at the real history behind the hit show Stranger Things. It turns out the CIA spent a long time investigating the truth behind paranormal phenomena as part of their efforts to out-think the Russians during the Cold War. But it's the actual science that is much more interesting than the sci-fi.
They talk to the Brazilian scientist Miguel Nicolelis about inventing the brain-machine interface and how he got a monkey in America to move a robot in Japan with its mind. What will the consequences be for human beings now we can link our brains to machines?
Produced by Joe Sykes
Executive Producer: Peggy Sutton
A Somethin’ Else production for BBC Radio 4
TUESDAY 26 NOVEMBER 2019
TUE 00:00 Midnight News (m000blxl)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
TUE 00:30 The Pulse Glass (m000blw3)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 on Monday]
TUE 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m000blxn)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
TUE 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m000blxq)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.
TUE 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m000blxs)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
TUE 05:30 News Briefing (m000blxv)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4.
TUE 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m000blxx)
A spiritual comment and prayer to start the day with Chine McDonald.
Good morning,
In March, we moved from our newbuild flat to the Edwardian house we had always dreamed of. At times over the past few months, I’ve definitely regretted our decision. A house built in 1906 has the types of daily issues that our newbuild flat did not. It’s absolutely freezing, for one. Things keep breaking and we find ourselves having to correct the bizarre décor decisions of those who lived there previously. But there is something beautiful about a house with history. During the Second World War, the town we live in became known as ‘Bomb Alley’ due to its being on a direct flight path from Germany to London. It therefore faced bombs being dropped on the way into London and on the way back to Germany again.
Our neighbours – many of whom have lived on the street for decades – regale us with some of the historic facts they’ve unearthed – the lofts insulated with newspapers from the 40s that told the story of the Blitz. I wonder what those who came before us – who wandered the streets that we now walk on; who lived in the houses we now occupy – would think if they could see us now.
During periods of darkness such as the Blitz, it must have been hard to comprehend that the light would emerge again. That normality would resume, that the fear and pain would ever become a distant memory. At those times when I resent the creaky floorboards, the draughtiness and the maintenance problems of our new old house, I’ll remember that despite the turbulence our house has seen over the years, it is still standing tall.
Lord God, when the storms of life surround us, may we look forward to an eternal hope. Amen.
TUE 05:45 Farming Today (m000blxz)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
TUE 05:58 Tweet of the Day (m0002lhk)
Dominic Couzens on the Goldfinch
Natural history writer, speaker and Natural history writer, speaker and tour leader Dominic Couzens is at the helm this week for Tweet of the Day. For Dominic the impeccably turned out goldfinch is the avian glitterati, bird royalty, star quality on the feeders. Yet it was an encounter with 400 goldfinch feeding on thistle seed heads which captivated Dominic.
You can hear more from Dominic in his Tweet of the Week omnibus available on the Radio 4 website or via BBC Sounds.
Producer Andrew Dawes
TUE 06:00 Today (m000bmx2)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
TUE 09:00 The Long View (m000bmx4)
Huawei and Siemens
Jonathan Freedland takes the Long View of suspected state espionage through technology companies.
He compares the investigations into potential spy activity for Nazi Germany in WWII by Siemens employees in the UK and the allegations about Huawei’s 5G equipment containing spy ware useful to the Chinese state.
Producer Neil McCarthy
TUE 09:30 Naturebang (m00060wy)
Sea-Sponges and the Illusion of Self
The humble sea sponge has been around for over 500 million years. We may think of them as ‘simple’ animals, with no brain, no nerves and no organs. But they have a pretty good party trick up their fleshy sleeves. Push a sponge through a mesh, until all that remains is a cloud of cells. Pour those cells into a tank, and watch as the cells reform themselves, like the terminator, back into a sponge.
Becky Ripley and Emily Knight ask: is it the same sponge it was before?
In the human world, nobody is queueing up to be forced through a discombobulating mesh. But enter the world of science fiction and there’s something that’s not far off… the teleportation machine. Would you allow yourself to be dissolved into a molecular cloud and flung through space and time? And would the ‘you’ at the other end really be the same ‘you’ that left?
Featuring Professor Sally Leys from the University of Alberta, and Philosopher Charlie Huenemann from Utah State University.
TUE 09:45 The Pulse Glass (m000bmx6)
The Pulse Glass
Gillian Tindall’s reflection on family and social history and the changing meaning of the objects that survive the passing of time is a fascinating exploration into memory, loss and how we construct the past.
Before doctors had access to accurate pocket watches, they timed a patient’s pulse with a thirty-second sand glass, or pulse glass. Gillian’s great-great grandfather’s pulse glass leads her to the story of her grandmother’s marriage and a question about how we create our identity.
Most of the objects that surround us, no matter how important in their time, will eventually be lost and forgotten. But a few, for reasons of sentiment, chance, conservation or simple inaction, escape destruction and gain new meanings. A toy train, a stack of letters in a family attic, a piece of medical equipment long out of use - each opens a window into the past and prompts an exploration into the nature of permanence.
In The Pulse Glass and the Beat of Other Hearts, Tindall explores what has survived of her own family’s history, as well as the remnants of a wider social history, glimpsed through the chance survival of artefacts that have survived against the odds of history and forgetting.
Gillian Tindall is a novelist and historian. She combines a sharp eye for the detail of individual and domestic history with an imaginative understanding of the social and political geography of the past to find and follow the traces of past lives that survive all around us. She has written on the history of Kentish Town (The Fields Beneath), on the history of London’s Southbank through the generations living in one house (The House by the Thames), on a village in rural France through the letters written to one young girl (Celestine: Voices From a French Village), on her own family’s connection with the Left Bank in Paris (Footsteps in Paris), and on London’s past through the route to be followed by Crossrail (The Tunnel Through Time). She has lived in the same house in London for over fifty years.
Reader: Anastasia Hille
Abridger: Libby Spurrier
Producer: Sara Davies
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4
TUE 10:00 Woman's Hour (m000bmx8)
The programme that offers a female perspective on the world
TUE 10:45 Middlemarch (m000bmy7)
Episode 3 : A Terrible Optimism
Fred Vincy embarks on an economic learning curve, and learns very little.
Cast
George Eliot ..... Juliet Aubrey
Featherstone ..... Clive Hayward
Fred Vincy ..... Will KIrk
Mary Garth ..... Scarlett Courtney
Mrs Garth ..... Alison Belbin
Caleb Garth ..... Neil McCaul
Letty Garth ..... Grace Doherty
Mr Bambridge ..... Rick Warden
Farmer ..... Ikky Elyas
Writer: Katie Hims
Director: Jessica Dromgoole
TUE 11:00 Born in Bradford (m0009kt4)
Diabetes and Tooth Decay
Born in Bradford is one of the world’s largest longitudinal studies, involving 14,000 babies and their families and reaping data on all aspects of health as the children grow. Winifred Robinson has been alongside the research from the start.
With the 14,000 youngsters now entering their teenage years the researchers are tracking a wide range of data, from mental illness through to what might determine whether they need to wear braces. Over half of the families in the study are of Pakistani origin and previous programmes have investigated the links between cousin marriage, infant mortality and a number of rare conditions seen in the city.
In this programme Winifred follows researchers trying to determine why the city is seeing an increase in type 2 diabetes in youngsters. When Consultant Paediatrician Matthew Mathai first started work in the city eleven years ago it was rare to see children with type 2 diabetes and yet, today, he and his team are facing rising numbers of cases and have fears that there are many more that are in a pre-diabetic state and not receiving the interventions that might help them.
Winifred meets 14-year-old Zaira, who was diagnosed two weeks ago and has been plucking up the courage to tell her best friend that she has diabetes. She fears people will jump to the conclusion that it’s because she’s overweight and says there is a stigma to getting it so young. Dietician Alison Woodhead is working with Zaira to look at how she can exercise more and eat a more balanced diet.
A fortnight in and Zaira says that she is definitely trying hard to turn things around: she has largely given up chocolate and fizzy drinks. She is also going to the park with her dad and using gym equipment at home to work out. For Alison it is good news, but she worries about how easy it will be to continue the changes once winter sets in. The other big problem is that Bradford is home to a vast number of takeaway outlets, many of which are placed around schools in the city.
Winifred will also be investigating the high levels of tooth decay amongst youngsters in Bradford, with 40 per cent of five-year-olds having decay and a child a week needing to have all of their baby teeth extracted. This compares to the national average of 25 per cent, which in itself is quite high. Dr Peter Day is following a thousand of the youngsters in Born in Bradford to see whether this early tooth extraction has an impact on the need for braces in adolescents.
Producer: Sue Mitchell
TUE 11:30 Hear For Life (m000bmxb)
Behind the scenes of Here For Life, the latest Open Call project from Artangel and Radio 4.
Released in November 2019, Here For Life is a film by Andrea Luka Zimmerman and Adrian Jackson, one of three projects commissioned in a partnership between Artangel and the BBC in 2014.
The film makers describe it as “an uncommon story told on common ground: ten Londoners with their love and their loss, their lyrical lives and marginalised grace; between fiction and fact, attention and act, what does it cost to exist?”
In this companion piece for radio, producer Phil Smith follows the story of the production, as the filmmakers put together an ambitious collaborative work that blurs fact and fiction, storytelling and performance. Constructed from hundreds of hours of behind-the-scenes footage, the piece gives an intimate insight into the creative process.
FILM CREDITS:
Principal Cast: Jo Galbraith, Jake Goode, Richard Honeyghan, Kamby Kamara, Errol McGlashan, Patrick Onione, Ben Smithies, Floria Twyman, Jono Whitty and Sasha Winslow.
Directors: Andrea Luka Zimmerman and Adrian Jackson
Producer: The Artangel Trust
Executive Producer: James Lingwood, Michael Morris and Cressida Day
Production note: Devised by the performers, Andrea Luka Zimmerman, Adrian Jackson with Therese Henningsen
AUDIO CREDITS:
Producer: Phil Smith
Violin: Alison Blunt
Executive Producer: Russell Finch
A Somethin’ Else production for BBC Radio 4
TUE 12:00 News Summary (m000bmxd)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
TUE 12:04 Grandmothers (m000bmxg)
Episode 2
2/10
By best-selling writer, Salley Vickers.
Read by Eleanor Bron.
Three very different women’s lives collide in this tender new novel about grandparents and the children they help to raise.
Nan’s given herself a mission: to help her grandson, Billy, be less honest.
In the meantime, she notices another person struggling with honesty.
Reader: Eleanor Bron
Abridger: Salley Vickers
Producer: Kirsty Williams
TUE 12:18 You and Yours (m000bmxj)
News and discussion of consumer affairs.
TUE 12:57 Weather (m000bmxl)
The latest weather forecast
TUE 13:00 World at One (m000bmxn)
Mon-Thurs: Analysis of news and current affairs, presented by Sarah Montague. Fri: Analysis of news and current affairs, presented by Mark Mardell.
TUE 13:45 You're Doing It Wrong (b09tf362)
Series 1
Parenting
What kind of parent are you? Did you rush to the cot every time your baby cried, or let her 'cry it out'? Does your toddler eat strictly rationed organic produce, or allowed to eat what he wants? When did YOU go back to work?
It doesn't really matter what you answer to these incessant questions, as long as you know that you are wrong wrong wrong, and have probably done irreparable developmental damage to your kids. Parent of three Adam Buxton gathers new parents, experienced parents, blogging parents and judgemental parents just to hear what they actually think - about parenting.
Produced in Bristol by Emily Knight.
TUE 14:00 The Archers (m000blx8)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Monday]
TUE 14:15 Drama (b09r7pgj)
The B Towns
All of the Beauty in the World
The B Towns: All of the Beauty in the World by Eve Steele
Three stories from three neglected but resilient towns. A character from yesterday's drama now takes centre stage. Jenny has returned to her home town after graduating from university. But her hopes of finding a decent job are pretty slim.
Director/Producer Gary Brown.
TUE 15:00 Short Cuts (m000bmxq)
Series 21
Sports
From rally car driving to the serenity of climbing - Josie Long presents short documentaries and adventures in sound about sport, exercise and competition.
Series Producer: Eleanor McDowall
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4
TUE 15:30 Costing the Earth (m000bmxs)
Vegan World
What would the British countryside look like if we all adopted the vegan diet recommended by so many environmental campaigners? Tom Heap finds out.
Producer: Anne-Marie Bullock
TUE 16:00 Art of Now (m00081w8)
Hostile Design
Artist and activist Stuart Semple was outraged by his hometown council putting bars on benches to deter the homeless. He investigates the use of hostile design in public spaces.
His campaign against the benches in Bournemouth included getting people to decorate them with knitting, flowers and balloons - and it eventually proved successful as the council removed the bars. But Stuart has found many other designs to deter anti-social behaviour. From bars and spikes to metal stops to deter skateboarders, he asks why our public spaces aren’t more welcoming and inclusive.
One of the first benches to deliberately deter anti-social behaviour was the Camden Bench, designed by brothers Dean and Jason Harvey of Factory furniture nearly a decade ago. A greyish-white monolith of concrete, it has nowhere for litter or drug drops. It is also graffiti, skateboarder and crash-resistant and is so uncomfortable that, like many seats in London, it's only designed for a short stay. It met the Camden Council design brief to encourage people to walk to work with rest stops on the way, while deterring loiterers. At first glance, it is more barricade or sculpture than seat.
Stuart asks arts journalist Anny Shaw for a critical assessment. He also seeks the view of art critic and historian Ben Street in the London Borough of Bromley, where there's an even more unlikely type of bench made of black polished granite.
And hostile design is more than just street furniture. Stuart finds out about a high-pitched sound that normally only under-25s can hear, transmitted in public spaces to discourage gangs of youths congregating, as well as bagpipe or classical music played loudly on a loop at railway stations to deter rough sleepers.
Meanwhile, Stuart has been customising his own benches as artworks to be exhibited at his London retrospective. One is white with a neon pink bar, and another covered in cuddly toys. His art is one of his responses to hostile design.
In Denver, he's been part of a "happy city" project, with interventions including an emotional baggage drop at the station, where commuters were able to offload their problems to a complete stranger.
Presenter: Stuart Semple
Producer: Sara Parker
A TBI production for BBC Radio 4
TUE 16:30 A Good Read (m000bmxv)
Russell Kane & Sarah Perry
Comedian Russell Kane and Sarah Perry, author of The Essex Serpent, talk about their favourite books with Harriett Gilbert. They are: Under the Net by Iris Murdoch, The Train Was On Time by Heinrich Boll, translated by Leila Vennewitz, and Life Among the Savages by Shirley Jackson, her slightly fictionalised memoir. It turns out that Russell and Sarah are Iris Murdoch worshippers, but Harriett is not as sure...
Follow us on Instagram @agoodreadbbc to share your thoughts on Iris, and more.
Producer Sarah Goodman
TUE 17:00 PM (m000bmxx)
Afternoon news and current affairs programme, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines.
TUE 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m000bmxz)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
TUE 18:30 Tom Wrigglesworth's Hang-Ups (m000bmy1)
Series 5
No Rest for the Wrigglesworths
Mr and Mrs Wrigglesworth take a trip down memory lane. And then another trip back up memory lane.
Starring Tom Wrigglesworth, Paul Copley, Kate Anthony and Elizabeth Bennett.
Written by Tom Wrigglesworth and James Kettle with additional material by Miles Jupp.
Produced by Richard Morris
A BBC Studios Production
TUE 19:00 The Archers (m000bmy3)
It’s crunch time for Phoebe and Justin has yet more tricks up his sleeve.
TUE 19:15 Front Row (m000bmy5)
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
TUE 19:45 Middlemarch (m000bmy7)
[Repeat of broadcast at
10:45 today]
TUE 20:00 File on 4 (m000bmy9)
Going back: The people reversing their gender transition
An increasing number of people are questioning their gender identity. Waiting lists for specialist clinics treating both children and adults with gender dysphoria are increasing, with some having to wait years to been seen. Many who transition to a gender different to the one they were assigned at birth live happy lives. But, File on 4 has spoken to some who now regret the taking of cross-sex hormones or undergoing surgery, and who are now de-transitioning. They and experts working in the field of gender identity fear that other mental health issues are not being adequately explored before life-changing decisions are made and have told the BBC more help is needed for this vulnerable group.
Image credit; Natasaadzic\Getty
TUE 20:40 In Touch (m000bmyc)
News, views and information for people who are blind or partially sighted
TUE 21:00 All in the Mind (m000bmyf)
Programme exploring the limits and potential of the human mind.
TUE 21:30 The Long View (m000bmx4)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 today]
TUE 22:00 The World Tonight (m000bmyh)
In depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective
TUE 22:45 Grandmothers (m000bmxg)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:04 today]
TUE 23:00 Michael Frayn's Pocket Playhouse (b0b49248)
Series 1
01/06/2018
Martin Jarvis directs the masterly comic series written by Michael Frayn, the author of Noises Off and the most comic philosophical writer of our time. The outstanding cast is led by Ian McKellen, Joanna Lumley, Stephen Fry, Alfred Molina, Alex Jennings and Jarvis himself.
It's an astonishing tour de force of comic imagination and satire.
Each of the four episodes reveals Frayn's infectious delight in writing between the lines of theatre, fiction, television and the media, the church, relationships - life in general.
In this first episode, Joanna Lumley opens the series with "assembly instructions", Alex Jennings is a subversive theatre director, Ian McKellen meets Mozart (George Blagden), Alfred Molina has security problems with packaging, Lisa Dillon and Edward Bennett are Gainsborough's Mr and Mrs Andrews National Gallery portrait, Stephen Fry conducts a weird press interview with Martin Jarvis, and McKellen and Lumley are Mr and Mrs God.
Cast:
Joanna Lumley, Ian McKellen, Stephen Fry, Alfred Molina, Martin Jarvis, Lisa Dillon, Edward Bennett, George Blagden, Nigel Anthony, Janie Dee, Rosalind Ayres, Alex Jennings.
Written by Michael Frayn,
Director: Martin Jarvis.
A Jarvis and Ayres production for BBC Radio 4.
TUE 23:30 The Corrections (m0008jp9)
Olive the Poppy Seller
The Corrections re-visits four news stories which left the public with an incomplete picture of what really happened.
When 92-year-old Olive Cooke took her own life in 2015 the story seemed clear. A kindly and vulnerable old woman had been taken advantage of by grasping charities and had killed herself when she could give no more.
The Daily Mail ran with ‘Hounded to Death’. ‘Killed by Kindness’ was The Sun’s headline. Olive’s story was covered by tabloids, broadsheets and TV and radio news programmes. It even prompted government action. But the story was wrong.
Produced and presented by Jo Fidgen and Chloe Hadjimatheou
WEDNESDAY 27 NOVEMBER 2019
WED 00:00 Midnight News (m000bmyk)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
WED 00:30 The Pulse Glass (m000bmx6)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 on Tuesday]
WED 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m000bmym)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
WED 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m000bmyp)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.
WED 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m000bmyr)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
WED 05:30 News Briefing (m000bmyt)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4.
WED 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m000bmyw)
A spiritual comment and prayer to start the day with Chine McDonald.
Good morning,
This weekend, I’ll be joining the tail-end of a 60-mile heritage walk members of my church will be taking part in. A few of us will be trekking from Herne Bay in Kent to our church in south-east London over three days and I – toddler in tow – will join the last five miles to raise money for our ambitious new church building project. Our church’s presence in the urban and diverse area of Deptford dates back to 1844 when a group of Christian men and women opened one of London’s first ‘ragged schools’ in a loft above a cowshed on the high street. Ragged schools were charitable organisations set up to provide free education for children living in poverty in the 19th century. These children were often excluded from Sunday School because of their ‘ragged’ appearance.
We’ve dug into the church’s archives and found that children from the Deptford Ragged School would love being taken on day trips to the seaside town of Herne Bay, where they would get to run around, sit by the sea and have the freedom and fun that all children should. As we retrace the route of these trips, I’ll be thinking about the generous hearts of our predecessors; those Christians who 175 years ago were moved to action by the plight of destitute children. This to me represents my faith at its best. Christianity was never meant to be exclusive; never meant to erect barriers between people – no matter their background – and God. The whole point is this belief that God loves each and every one of us. I’m proud of the heritage my church has and its commitment to providing a place of radical welcome for those in our communities today who need a place to call home.
God of love, thank you that you have made each and every one of us in your image; as we live in the light of your love for us, may we extend that love to those in our communities, showing them your radical hospitality. Amen.
WED 05:45 Farming Today (m000bmyy)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
WED 05:58 Tweet of the Day (m0003631)
Gillian Clarke on the Red Kite
Welsh poet and playwright Gillian Clarke first saw a red kite in the Welsh mountains as a child, a bird which now has expanded east and now Gillian regularly sees them sky-dancing over Reading while she travels to London on the train.
You can hear more from Gillian in her Tweet of the Week omnibus, available as a download from the website, or on BBC Sounds
Producer : Andrew Dawes
WED 06:00 Today (m000bn9z)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
WED 09:00 Behind the Scenes (m000bnb1)
acta Community Theatre
Acta Community Theatre in Bristol is a place where theatre is made in reverse. Rather than starting with a play and finding professional actors to realise it, people create and perform original drama of their own, rooted in their experiences and stories. There is never an audition.
Noma Dumezweni narrates this visit to the acta centre and beyond, as we listen to some of the many people who create theatre here. We spend time with a group of young carers for whom acta is an important social lifeline, listen in on some lively caribbean elders as they perform to a full house, and join a group of women from one of Bristol’s more deprived areas as they use theatre and comedy to express and overcome their struggles.
While acta is beneficial for those taking part - some even argue that community theatre should be provided by the NHS - does it have artistic, as well as social, value? Members and staff explain why this is a rich, refreshing, and uniquely authentic form of theatre that deserves acclaim and attention.
A Just Radio production for BBC Radio 4
WED 09:30 The Curious Cases of Rutherford & Fry (m000bnb3)
Series 14
The Trouble Sum Weather
"Why is it so difficult to predict the weather?" asks Isabella Webber, aged 21 from Vienna.
"I am sure there are many intelligent meteorologists and it seems rather straight forward to calculate wind speed, look at the clouds, and data from the past to make accurate predictions, but yet it’s not possible."
Adam delves into the history of forecasting with author Adam Blum, beginning with the mystery of a lost hot air balloon full of Arctic explorers.
Hannah visits the BBC Weather Centre to talk to meteorologist and presenter Helen Willetts about how forecasting has changed, and whether people get annoyed at her if she gets the forecast wrong.
Plus mathematician Steven Strogatz suggests a chaotic explanation as to why we can't produce the perfect forecast.
Presenters: Hannah Fry, Adam Rutherford
Producer: Michelle Martin
WED 09:45 The Pulse Glass (m000bncm)
Celestine’s Letters
Gillian Tindall’s reflection on family and social history and the changing meaning of the objects that survive the passing of time is a fascinating exploration into memory, loss and how we construct the past.
Most of the objects that surround us, no matter how important in their time, will eventually be lost and forgotten. But a few, for reasons of sentiment, chance, conservation or simple inaction, escape destruction and gain new meanings. A toy train, a stack of letters in a family attic, a piece of medical equipment long out of use - each opens a window into the past and prompts an exploration into the nature of permanence.
In The Pulse Glass and the Beat of Other Hearts, Tindall explores what has survived of her own family’s history, as well as the remnants of a wider social history, glimpsed through the chance survival of artefacts that have survived against the odds of history and forgetting.
In today's episode, when Gillian comes upon a cache of letters in the French village where she had a small house, the story of one young innkeeper’s daughter in the nineteenth century makes its way unexpectedly out into the world, and with it the memories of a whole community.
Gillian Tindall is a novelist and historian. She combines a sharp eye for the detail of individual and domestic history with an imaginative understanding of the social and political geography of the past to find and follow the traces of past lives that survive all around us. She has written on the history of Kentish Town (The Fields Beneath), on the history of London’s Southbank through the generations living in one house (The House by the Thames), on a village in rural France through the letters written to one young girl (Celestine: Voices From a French Village), on her own family’s connection with the Left Bank in Paris (Footsteps in Paris), and on London’s past through the route to be followed by Crossrail (The Tunnel Through Time). She has lived in the same house in London for over fifty years.
Reader: Anastasia Hille
Abridger: Libby Spurrier
Producer: Sara Davies
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4
WED 10:00 Woman's Hour (m000bnb7)
The programme that offers a female perspective on the world
WED 10:41 Middlemarch (m000bnb9)
Episode 4 : Vanishing from Daylight
The Casaubons’ honeymoon is well and truly over.
Cast
George Eliot ..... Juliet Aubrey
Dorothea ..... Olivia Vinall
Edward Casaubon ..... Charles Edwards
Celia Brooke ..... Lucy Reynolds
Arthur Brooke ..... Neil McCaul
Sir James Chettam ..... Hugh Skinner
Tertius Lydgate ..... John Heffernan
Rosamond Vincy ..... Laura Christy
Writer: Katie Hims
Director: Jessica Dromgoole
WED 10:55 The Listening Project (m000bnbc)
Carl and Neil - Face Age
Friends chat about appearance and the app which shows how your face will look as you age. Fi Glover presents another conversation in a series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen.
WED 11:00 Exhaustion: A History (m000blxd)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 on Monday]
WED 11:30 Lemn Sissay's Social Enterprise (m000bnbf)
Episode 1
Every year since 2013, the poet, broadcaster and author Lemn Sissay has arranged a Christmas dinner for people aged 18-25 who have left the care system and have no one with whom to have Christmas dinner. No one to give presents or receive them. No-one on the other end of the cracker.
This is not a charity. It isn't even an organisation. It's a project Lemn undertook because he understands how it feels - at 18 he was released from a children's home and given an empty flat in Wigan, with no one in the world who had known him for longer than a year.
Lemn Sissay’s Social Enterprise is a four-part series for BBC Radio 4, considering what these dinners have taught him about charity, social enterprise, and people, through stand-up, interview and poetry.
This week, he explores the idea of shelter in all its forms - with the help of Polly Neate, the Chief Executive of the charity Shelter, and comedy writer Sarah Morgan.
Written and performed by Lemn Sissay
Guest: Polly Neate
Guest: Sarah Morgan
Producer: Ed Morrish
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4
WED 12:00 News Summary (m000bnds)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
WED 12:04 Grandmothers (m000bnbl)
Episode 3
3/10
By best-selling writer, Salley Vickers.
Read by Eleanor Bron.
Three very different women’s lives collide in this tender new novel about grandparents and the children they help to raise.
Nan finds herself escorting her grandson, Billy, to a museum for the day. There they bump against an unusual grandparent and child duo.
Reader: Eleanor Bron
Abridger: Salley Vickers
Producer: Kirsty Williams
WED 12:18 You and Yours (m000bnbn)
News and discussion of consumer affairs.
WED 12:57 Weather (m000bnbq)
The latest weather forecast
WED 13:00 World at One (m000bnbs)
Mon-Thurs: Analysis of news and current affairs, presented by Sarah Montague. Fri: Analysis of news and current affairs, presented by Mark Mardell.
WED 13:45 You're Doing It Wrong (b09v6vt6)
Series 1
Diet
A Mediterranean diet for longevity, low-fat to protect against cancer, and make sure you're getting your omega-3! The world is full of dietary advice, but it's impossible to keep up with all these rules. No sooner has a new 'miracle ingredient' been announced, than it's furiously debunked. Does red wine contribute to cancer this week, or help cure it?
Adam Buxton explores the weird and wonderful world of the ludicrous, billion-dollar diet and nutrition industry, and tries, rather desperately, to sort the good advice from the well-meaning rubbish. How on earth can we figure out what works and what doesn't? And how does this help Adam decide what to have for lunch?
Produced in Bristol by Emily Knight.
WED 14:00 The Archers (m000bmy3)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Tuesday]
WED 14:15 Drama (b09r7y0f)
The B Towns
Connor's Song
Connor's Song
by Michael Stewart
Three stories from three neglected, but resilient towns. A minor character from yesterday's drama takes centre stage to tell their story in today's drama.
This final stand alone drama follows Michelle, a single mother who lives in Yorkshire. Her world collides with Halina's from Poland when both Mothers are reeling from devastating news.
Produced and directed by Pauline Harris.
WED 15:00 Money Box (m000bnbv)
The latest news from the world of personal finance plus advice for those trying to make the most of their money.
WED 15:30 All in the Mind (m000bmyf)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Tuesday]
WED 16:00 Thinking Allowed (m000bnbx)
New research on how society works.
WED 16:30 The Media Show (m000bnbz)
The programme about a revolution in media with Amol Rajan, the BBC's Media Editor
WED 17:00 PM (m000bnc1)
Afternoon news and current affairs programme, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines.
WED 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m000bnc5)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
WED 18:30 Susan Calman Makes Me Happy (m000bpbn)
Episode 2
Taking part in Strictly Come Dancing made Susan Calman happy. Completely, totally happy. And having lived with anxiety for so long, it was something of a surprise to discover something new that gave her feelings of joy. So, in Susan Calman Makes Me Happy, she explores and explains the other things in life that bring her happiness.
This week, aided and abetted by her studio audience and wife Lee, Susan presents a love letter to the gogglebox. From the enormous rented behemoth of her childhood through to the modern day box-set you can watch on your phone anywhere you like, television has been an ever-present comfort and teacher for her.
Produced by Lyndsay Fenner.
Written by Susan Calman and Jon Hunter
Production Co-ordinator: Tamara Shilham
A Somethin’ Else production for BBC Radio 4
WED 19:00 The Archers (m000bnc7)
Elizabeth puts her foot down and Lynda is keen to maintain tradition
WED 19:15 Front Row (m000bnc9)
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
WED 19:45 Middlemarch (m000bnb9)
[Repeat of broadcast at
10:41 today]
WED 20:00 Nine Truths (m000bncc)
Sima Kotecha chairs a special debate in Coventry exploring the values of diverse groups of young people, living, working and studying in the city. Can the participants come to a consensus about what it means to live a good life? At the end of the programme they will be invited to come up with nine ‘truths’ – moral maxims to try to live by.
Producers: Dan Tierney and Dan Jackson.
WED 20:45 The Curious Cases of Rutherford & Fry (m000bnb3)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:30 today]
WED 21:00 Costing the Earth (m000bmxs)
[Repeat of broadcast at
15:30 on Tuesday]
WED 21:30 Behind the Scenes (m000bnb1)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 today]
WED 22:00 The World Tonight (m000bncf)
In depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective
WED 22:45 Grandmothers (m000bnbl)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:04 today]
WED 23:00 Twayna Mayne: Black Woman (p07r9sgg)
4. Colourism
Comedian Twayna Mayne was trans-racially adopted and in this episode she looks at ‘colourism’ as she explores her own Black British female identity. Along with stand-up in front of a live audience she chats to other women about their shared experiences, with this episode featuring a contribution from writer Danielle Dash.
Producer: Julia McKenzie
A BBC Studios Production
WED 23:15 Bunk Bed (b061034f)
Series 2
Episode 4
Two men in darkness, sharing a bunk bed and a stream of semi-consciousness about family, relationships, work and imagined life.
We all crave a place where our mind and body are not applied to a particular task. The nearest faraway place from daily life. Somewhere for drifting and lighting upon strange thoughts which don't have to be shooed into context, but which can be followed like balloons escaping onto the air. Late at night, in the dark and in a bunk bed, the restless mind can wander.
After an acclaimed reception by The Independent, The Sunday Telegraph, The Observer and Radio 4 listeners, Bunk Bed returns with its late night stream of semi-concsciousness.
In this episode, under cover of darkness, the bedfellows touch on how your name forms the character, alarms in biscuit tins, a child called Typhus, and the enduring strength of The Night Chicago Died by Paper Lace.
Elsewhere in the series, Patrick and Peter deal with therapy, Chas and Dave, children's happiness, JRR Tolkien, Babycham, Aldous Huxley and correction fluid - among a ragbag of subjects.
Written and performed by Patrick Marber and Peter Curran
Producer: Peter Curran
A Foghorn production for BBC Radio 4
WED 23:30 The Corrections (m0008r5b)
What Really Happened in Balcombe?
The Corrections re-visits four new stories which left the public with an incomplete picture about what really happened.
In 2013 the West Sussex village of Balcombe was the site of a showdown between anti-fracking protesters and the energy company Cuadrilla. Fracking – or hydraulic fracturing – involves pumping water, sand and chemicals into rock at high pressure to fracture it and release oil or gas that’s trapped there. It’s controversial.
But, in fact, there was no fracking in Balcombe that summer.
So why did the "battle" there become such a significant national news story?
Produced and presented by Jo Fidgen and Chloe Hadjimatheou.
THURSDAY 28 NOVEMBER 2019
THU 00:00 Midnight News (m000bnck)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
THU 00:30 The Pulse Glass (m000bncm)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 on Wednesday]
THU 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m000bncp)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
THU 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m000bncr)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.
THU 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m000bnct)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
THU 05:30 News Briefing (m000bncw)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4.
THU 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m000bncy)
A spiritual comment and prayer to start the day with Chine McDonald.
Good morning,
This year, something amazing has happened. A New Year’s Resolution I made on 1 January has not yet been broken. At the start of 2019, keen to adopt a system to make better sense of the chaos and busyness of life, I took up bullet journaling. It’s a kind of enhanced to-do list slash journal slash life goals vision board. Alongside my daily tasks, I have a little section for prayers for the week. When I hear of a friend who’s ill, I put their name down as a reminder to pray, when I am feeling overwhelmed by a certain task, I write it down there to remember to ask God for help. But like so many religious believers, I’ve found that my prayers are often requests – like reading out shopping lists to God.
So I’ve split my prayer section up into ‘help’ prayers, ‘thanks’ prayers and ‘wow’ prayers. Inspired by Anne Lamott’s book Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers, it’s a helpful reminder to me to add wonder and gratitude amid the necessary pleas for help. Like many religious believers, I find that I don’t often stop to take the time to thank God; whether for the big things or the small ones. I feel taking note of the things I’m thankful to God for – my son’s smile, the completed task, the new opportunities, the roof above my head – is also beneficial to my own well-being.
As G K Chesterton said: “When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude.” I’m hoping the increased gratitude that I’ve felt through bullet journaling this year will continue long into the coming year and beyond.
Father God, forgive us for our ingratitude and help us to live lives full of thankfulness. Amen.
THU 05:45 Farming Today (m000bnd0)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
THU 05:58 Tweet of the Day (m0003cqq)
Gillian Clarke and the Grey Heron
For Welsh poet and playwright Gillian Clarke she has had two close encounters with a grey heron, including the one in her garden reminding her of a Bishop wearing vestments.
You can hear more from Gillian in the Tweet of the Week Omnibus available on BBC Sounds
Producer : Andrew Dawes
THU 06:00 Today (m000bp3d)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
THU 09:00 In Our Time (m000bp3g)
Li Shizhen
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the life and ideas of Li Shizhen (1518-1593) whose compendium of natural medicines is celebrated in China as the most complete survey of natural remedies of its time. He trained as doctor and worked at the Ming court before spending almost 30 years travelling in China, inspecting local plants and animals for their properties, trying them out on himself and then describing his findings in his Compendium of Materia Medica or Bencao Gangmu, in 53 volumes. He's been called the uncrowned king of Chinese naturalists, and became a scientific hero in the 20th century after the revolution.
With
Craig Clunas
Anne Gerritsen
And
Roel Sterckx
Producer: Simon Tillotson
THU 09:45 The Pulse Glass (m000bp96)
A Map
Gillian Tindall’s reflection on family and social history and the changing meaning of the objects that survive the passing of time is a fascinating exploration into memory, loss and how we construct the past.
Most of the objects that surround us, no matter how important in their time, will eventually be lost and forgotten. But a few, for reasons of sentiment, chance, conservation or simple inaction, escape destruction and gain new meanings. A toy train, a stack of letters in a family attic, a piece of medical equipment long out of use - each opens a window into the past and prompts an exploration into the nature of permanence.
In The Pulse Glass and the Beat of Other Hearts, Tindall explores what has survived of her own family’s history, as well as the remnants of a wider social history, glimpsed through the chance survival of artefacts that have survived against the odds of history and forgetting.
In today's episode, looking at a nineteenth century map of the East End of London, Gillian reflects on the changes to the city over the last two centuries and casts a critical eye on the impact on memory of post-war city planning.
Gillian Tindall is a novelist and historian. She combines a sharp eye for the detail of individual and domestic history with an imaginative understanding of the social and political geography of the past to find and follow the traces of past lives that survive all around us. She has written on the history of Kentish Town (The Fields Beneath), on the history of London’s Southbank through the generations living in one house (The House by the Thames), on a village in rural France through the letters written to one young girl (Celestine: Voices From a French Village), on her own family’s connection with the Left Bank in Paris (Footsteps in Paris), and on London’s past through the route to be followed by Crossrail (The Tunnel Through Time). She has lived in the same house in London for over fifty years.
Reader: Anastasia Hille
Abridger: Libby Spurrier
Producer: Sara Davies
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4
THU 10:00 Woman's Hour (m000bp3l)
The programme that offers a female perspective on the world
THU 10:45 Middlemarch (m000bp3n)
Episode 5 : Unconcerned as a Jellyfish
When Fred contracts typhoid, Dr Lydgate is drawn into the web of the Vincy household, and specifically, Rosamond Vincy.
Cast
George Eliot ..... Juliet Aubrey
Tertius Lydgate ..... John Heffernan
Rosamond Vincy ..... Laura Christy
Harriet Bulstrode ..... Rosie Cavaliero
Mr Vincy ..... Rick Warden
Mrs Vincy ..... Heather Craney
Fred Vincy ..... Will Kirk
Peter Featherstone ..... Clive Hayward
Mary Garth ..... Scarlett Courtney
Writer: Katie Hims
Director: Jessica Dromgoole
THU 11:00 Crossing Continents (m000bp3q)
The Man Who Laughed at al-Qaeda
Raed Fares, founder of Syria's legendary Radio Fresh FM, was mowed down by unknown gunmen as he left his studios in rebel-held Idlib in November 2018. The death of the man who fought hatred with humour and laughed in the faces of President Assad, ISIS and al-Qaeda, sent shockwaves way beyond his troubled homeland. When ordered by Islamist extremists to stop broadcasting music he had replied with bird song and clucking chickens. On being told to take his female presenters off air, he put their voices through software to make them sound like men. In tribute to its founder, Raed Fares's radio station has refused to die with him. One year on from his killing it continues to broadcast the comedy programmes he loved, as Assad's troops close in and bombs fall around it.
Presenter: Mike Thomson
Producer: Joe Kent
THU 11:30 So Many Books, So Little Time (m000bp3s)
Mark Hodkinson ponders the nature of our personal book collections, why and how we gather books, what it says about us, and how we ever expect to find time to read them all.
Author Mark had just moved house. By far the most difficult task was carrying, storing and alphabetising his collection of 3,500 books. It made him stop to think. If it took, say, four days of solid reading to finish a book, he’d need 38.3 years to go through his collection. He would have to make his way through 315 million words. And that’s if he didn’t take time off to sleep, eat and have the occasional night out.
Clearly, it was a challenge too far.
So Many Books, So Little Time is an autobiographical, impressionistic audio odyssey. Mark considers that he might be afflicted by bibliomania and visits consumer psychologist Lisa Edgar to see whether owning thousands of books is normal. He calls at his local bookshop and meets its owner, George Kelsall, who has ten times as many books as Mark and has bought a large house solely to accommodate them.
He visits fellow writers, such as Austin Collings who tells Mark he is in grave danger of becoming merely an aggregate of all his books and will eventually lose his own writing voice. Trevor Hoyle tells Mark that he views books as time capsules and, pulling copies down from the shelves, he can tell Mark when he bought them, what was happening in his life at the time. Joanne Harris, the million-selling author of Chocolat, tells Mark she has filled her house full of books because she can’t bring it upon herself to throw any away.
Practical concerns are not forgotten – Mark visits a carpenter, Ashley Deakin, who previously made a bookcase a week but now does one or two a year. ‘‘People don’t want to put books on their walls any more. They just want these bloody huge televisions,’’ he says. Ashley then remembers that he built a shelving unit just a few weeks ago.
"But it was for shoes,’’ he says.
A 7digital production for BBC Radio 4
THU 12:00 News Summary (m000bp98)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
THU 12:04 Grandmothers (m000bp3x)
Episode 4
4/10
By best-selling writer, Salley Vickers.
Read by Eleanor Bron.
Three very different women’s lives collide in this tender new novel about grandparents and the children they help to raise.
Blanche arranges to secretly meet her estranged granddaughter. Meanwhile Nan has Billy for a sleep-over when an unusual parcel arrives at her door.
Reader: Eleanor Bron
Abridger: Salley Vickers
Producer: Kirsty Williams
THU 12:18 You and Yours (m000bp3z)
News and discussion of consumer affairs.
THU 12:57 Weather (m000bp41)
The latest weather forecast
THU 13:00 World at One (m000bp43)
Mon-Thurs: Analysis of news and current affairs, presented by Sarah Montague. Fri: Analysis of news and current affairs, presented by Mark Mardell.
THU 13:45 You're Doing It Wrong (b09w0vhz)
Series 1
The Environment
Recycle your plastics to replenish the rainforest; share showers to save the whales; turn your washing machine down 3 to give the polar bears a fighting chance!
Modern environmentalism is well-meaning, but horribly muddled. We diligently wipe out yoghurt pots and despair over plastic bottles.... yet jet off on holidays, buy new cars and pop out another kid, or three. We install solar panels, but eat imported guava. Replace our lightbulbs, but bin our batteries.
Do we have any idea which strategies are actually effective? Does anything work?
Adam Buxton digs down into our approach to saving the planet to see if anything makes sense.
Produced in Bristol by Emily Knight.
THU 14:00 The Archers (m000bnc7)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Wednesday]
THU 14:15 Drama (m000bszb)
Monique & Me
Cara cares for her elderly mother, Monique, but tensions rise as disturbing memories from her childhood emerge
in this affecting and beguiling drama about care and abuse.
Monique - Sian Thomas
Adult Cara - Christine Bottomley
Child Cara - Millie Kinsey
Derek - James Quinn
Occupational Therapist - Angela Lonsdale
Written by Jill O'Halloran
Produced and Directed by Pauline Harris
This play was nominated as Runner-up in Radio Drama North's prestigious Alfred Bradley writing Bursary Award. Past winners include Lee Hall (Billy Elliot) and Peter Straughan (Tinker Tailor Solider Spy, Wolf Hall).
THU 15:00 Open Country (m000bp45)
Witham Navigable Drains
Some people dream of canoeing up the Zambezi, or exploring Venice by gondola, but Ian Marchant has always dreamed of the world's least romantic waterway: the Witham Navigable Drains, near Boston in Lincolnshire. And there is romance and beauty here. And grand sluices, mighty pumps and a box or two of maggots.
Producer...Mary Ward-Lowery
THU 15:27 Radio 4 Appeal (m000bl11)
[Repeat of broadcast at
07:54 on Sunday]
THU 15:30 Open Book (m000bl1y)
[Repeat of broadcast at
16:00 on Sunday]
THU 16:00 The Film Programme (m000bp47)
Simon Beaufoy
With Francine Stock
"In screenwriting terms, it's a disaster. And yet, as a film, it's a piece of magic." Oscar winning screenwriter Simon Beaufoy on why Terrence Malick's Days Of Heaven breaks all the rules of cinema and is still a masterpiece.
THU 16:30 BBC Inside Science (m000bp49)
Dr Adam Rutherford and guests illuminate the mysteries and challenge the controversies behind the science that's changing our world.
THU 17:00 PM (m000bp4c)
Afternoon news and current affairs programme, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines.
THU 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m000bp4h)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
THU 18:30 Rich Hall's (US) Breakdown (m000bp4k)
Thanksgiving
Join multi award-winning comedian and US citizen Rich Hall as he takes a look across the pond at the current state of US politics.
A combination of stand-up, sketch and interview, Rich Hall's (US) Breakdown broadcasts live from the fictional IBBC network in Washington to the whole of the United States.
Rich and his co-host Nick Doody take calls from every corner of the United States to hear the concerns of US citizens, offering their take on the issues troubling them.
Producer: Adnan Ahmed
BBC Studios Production
THU 19:00 The Archers (m000bp4m)
Harrison is shocked by some harsh criticism and Russ gets his wires crossed
THU 19:15 Front Row (m000bp4p)
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
THU 19:45 Middlemarch (m000bp3n)
[Repeat of broadcast at
10:45 today]
THU 20:00 The Briefing Room (m000bp4r)
Combining original insights into major news stories with topical investigations.
THU 20:30 In Business (m000bp4t)
Keeping the Lights On
As Britain’s sources of electricity change, along with significant changes in demand, how will the lights stay on?
The major power blackout that hit the UK in early August – the worst in more than a decade – was an indication of how increasingly complicated our electricity grid is becoming. Hundreds of thousands of people, as well as major transport hubs, were affected as electricity supplies were cut to restore balance to the system and prevent an even greater blackout.
The National Grid, which is the energy system operator, said two generators, including a major wind-farm, tripped out after lightning struck a high-voltage transmission line. The episode raised many questions about how stable the UK’s electricity supply system is.
What is clear is that the traditional coal-fired generators, which used to supply much of the UK’s electricity, are being rapidly phased out. Now many more - and varied - generators supply the grid, including small and huge wind-farms, solar farms, nuclear power stations, gas-fired plants, hydro-electric turbines and other sources. This makes the management of the system more tricky.
Then there’s the demand side. Electricity demand is growing, not least with the prospect of electrical cars becoming commonplace. Without building the right infrastructure, with the right storage, and without the correct planning, the electricity grid will not be able to cope.
For Radio 4’s In Business David Baker speaks to the National Grid, to major electricity suppliers, and to smaller, community-based generators, asking how the system is changing and what needs to be done to make sure it remains reliable, affordable and sustainable, so that the future is not one of widespread blackouts.
Producer: John Murphy
Picture: National Grid's Electricity Control Centre
THU 21:00 BBC Inside Science (m000bp49)
[Repeat of broadcast at
16:30 today]
THU 21:30 In Our Time (m000bp3g)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 today]
THU 22:00 The World Tonight (m000bp9c)
In depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective
THU 22:45 Grandmothers (m000bp3x)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:04 today]
THU 23:00 Where's the F in News (m000bp9f)
Series 3
Episode 4
An energetic, intelligent female-anchored show with an all-female panel - using the events, trends and talking points they think should really be top of the news agenda in a series of fresh and funny challenges.
Host Jo Bunting is joined by a panel of women including Sara Barron, Eve Pollard, Maisie Adam, and Janina Ramirez.
Jo Bunting is a producer and writer of topical comedy and satire, with credits including Have I Got News For You, the Great British Bake Off spin off show An Extra Slice with Jo Brand, and the successful topical chat show That Sunday Night Show presented by Adrian Chiles on ITV. Jo was a guest interviewer on Loose Ends for several years and a panellist on Loose Women.
An Avalon production for BBC Radio 4
THU 23:30 The Corrections (m0008y7y)
The Brexit Murder?
The Corrections re-visits four news stories which left the public with an incomplete picture of what really happened.
In August 2016 Arkadiuz Joswik - known to his friends as Arek - was attacked and killed in a shopping precinct in Harlow where he’d stopped for a late night snack. Arek was Polish and the idea took hold that he had been killed by racists who were somehow empowered by the Brexit referendum earlier that summer. But was this really an anti-immigrant hate crime?
Produced and presented by Jo Fidgen and Chloe Hadjimatheou
FRIDAY 29 NOVEMBER 2019
FRI 00:00 Midnight News (m000bp9h)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
FRI 00:30 The Pulse Glass (m000bp96)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 on Thursday]
FRI 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m000bp9k)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
FRI 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m000bp9m)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.
FRI 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m000bp9p)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
FRI 05:30 News Briefing (m000bp9r)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4.
FRI 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m000bp9t)
A spiritual comment and prayer to start the day with Chine McDonald
Good morning
“Who trusted God was love indeed
And love Creation’s final law
Tho’ Nature, red in tooth and claw
With ravine, shriek’d against his creed”
These immortal lines come from Alfred Lord Tennyson’s famous poem In Memoriam in which he reflects on the impact of scientific advancements and evolutionary theories in light of the tragic death of his friend Arthur Hallam, who died suddenly in 1833. The poem explores life and death and love and grief, and within all that, humanity’s relationship to God.
Like all of us who at times in our life will experience grief;… the personal pain of the loss of a loved one leads us to ask bigger, more universal questions about the meaning of life. More than 30 years after the death of Tennyson’s friend, Charles Darwin would release his Origin of Species. Published just over 160 years ago, the book had widespread impact all over the world as Darwin put forward his theories of evolution and natural selection. Tennyson’s words ‘nature, red in tooth and claw’ speak of the seeming mean-ness and brutality of nature; its capriciousness meaning that death and destruction can come at any time.
During my study of theology at university, complete with all the challenges that come with an intellectual wrestling with faith, I managed to hold the two ideas of science and faith in tension. I found comfort in the doubt – in handing over to a higher power and being satisfied in not knowing the answers. And yet clinging to the hope that all things will be made right in the end.
Creator God, who made each of us in your divine image, may we reflect the beauty, truth and hope that comes only from belief in you. Amen.
FRI 05:45 Farming Today (m000bp9w)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
FRI 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b09wvgfw)
Mark Cocker on the Curlew
High in the Derbyshire hills the bubbling melancholic sound of the curlew lifts nature writer Mark Cocker's heart in this Tweet of the Day.
Producer Tim Dee
Photograph: Kevin Carolan.
FRI 06:00 Today (m000bs3n)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
FRI 09:00 Desert Island Discs (m000bl1f)
[Repeat of broadcast at
11:15 on Sunday]
FRI 09:45 The Pulse Glass (m000bs5q)
The Lady in the Woods
Gillian Tindall’s reflection on family and social history and the changing meaning of the objects that survive the passing of time is a fascinating exploration into memory, loss and how we construct the past.
Most of the objects that surround us, no matter how important in their time, will eventually be lost and forgotten. But a few, for reasons of sentiment, chance, conservation or simple inaction, escape destruction and gain new meanings. A toy train, a stack of letters in a family attic, a piece of medical equipment long out of use - each opens a window into the past and prompts an exploration into the nature of permanence.
In The Pulse Glass and the Beat of Other Hearts, Tindall explores what has survived of her own family’s history, as well as the remnants of a wider social history, glimpsed through the chance survival of artefacts that have survived against the odds of history and forgetting.
In the final episode, the story of a statue in the wood near her house in France brings Gillian to the moment when she must leave that house behind, and with it part of her own past. As she does so, she remembers again her brother, whose death began her exploration of memory and meaning.
Gillian Tindall is a novelist and historian. She combines a sharp eye for the detail of individual and domestic history with an imaginative understanding of the social and political geography of the past to find and follow the traces of past lives that survive all around us. She has written on the history of Kentish Town (The Fields Beneath), on the history of London’s Southbank through the generations living in one house (The House by the Thames), on a village in rural France through the letters written to one young girl (Celestine: Voices From a French Village), on her own family’s connection with the Left Bank in Paris (Footsteps in Paris), and on London’s past through the route to be followed by Crossrail (The Tunnel Through Time). She has lived in the same house in London for over fifty years.
Reader: Anastasia Hille
Abridger: Libby Spurrier
Producer: Sara Davies
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4
FRI 10:00 Woman's Hour (m000bs3s)
The programme that offers a female perspective on the world
FRI 10:45 Middlemarch (m000bs3v)
Episode 6 : A Key to Understanding
Will Ladislaw's return upsets the balance of the Casaubons' quiet life.
Cast
George Eliot ..... Juliet Aubrey
Dorothea ..... Olivia Vinall
Edward Casaubon ..... Charles Edwards
Will Ladislaw ..... Joseph Quinn
Arthur Brooke ..... Neil McCaul
Writer: Katie Hims
Director: Jessica Dromgoole
FRI 11:00 Natural Histories (m000bs3x)
Aye-Aye
Think sprite or hobgoblin and you are nearly there when it comes to the Aye-Aye, surely one of the weirdest looking creatures on earth? With its large saucer-like eyes, massive ears, and long skeletal middle finger which its uses to tap for grubs on logs, this lemur both fascinates and terrifies us. Endemic to the forests of Madagascar, some local people believe that if one looks at you, someone in your village will die. They even hang up an aye-aye on the edge of the village in some areas to ward off evil spirits. We are responsible for the demise of the aye-aye in other ways; by destroying the forests on which it depends. But as we hear, get up close to an aye-aye and you’ll meet one of the most alluring and watchable mammals on the planet. Not merely a creature in close harmony with its disappearing world, but as Brett Westwood and Verity Sharp discover an ambassador for conservation which still has us in its thrall. Producer Sarah Blunt
Contributors
Mark Carwardine – Zoologist
Lee Durrell – Honarary Director of Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust
Alan Toyne - Team Leader of Mammals at Bristol Zoo Gardens
Charlie Welch - Conservation Co-ordinator at the Duke Lemur Centre, North Carolina
Michael Hearst – Composer and musician. Composer of Songs for Unusual Creatures.
Amanda Webber- Co-lead of the Madagascar Field Project at Bristol Zoo Gardens
Sinead MacInnes – BBC Radio Drama Company Actor
Photo of an Aye-Aye courtesy of Bristol Zoo Gardens
FRI 11:30 In and Out of the Kitchen (b066w9gj)
Series 4
The Baby
When their friend Marion Duffett is called away on a family matter, she asks Damien and Anthony to look after her baby. Something which Anthony is infinitely more inclined towards than Damien. Still, it's come at a good time as Damien is angling for a role as an ambassador for a children's charity.
At the same time, Damien's street food series is gathering pace and he is forced to go to a music festival and engage in a cook-off with Ray Jarrow.
Starring:
Miles Jupp as Damien Trench
Justin Edwards as Anthony
Brendan Dsmpsey as Mr Mullaney
Chris Brand as Ray Jarrow
Alex Tregear as Jasmine
Jessica Turner as Alison
and
David Acton as Trevor/Marco
The producer was Sam Michell
FRI 12:00 News Summary (m000bs5s)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
FRI 12:04 Grandmothers (m000bs41)
Episode 5
5/10
By best-selling writer, Salley Vickers.
Read by Eleanor Bron.
Three very different women’s lives collide in this tender new novel about grandparents and the children they help to raise.
Blanche is once again caught shop-lifting, but this time it isn’t the understanding Nan that spots her.
Reader: Eleanor Bron
Abridger: Salley Vickers
Producer: Kirsty Williams
FRI 12:18 You and Yours (m000bs43)
News and discussion of consumer affairs.
FRI 12:57 Weather (m000bs45)
The latest weather forecast
FRI 13:00 World at One (m000bs47)
Mon-Thurs: Analysis of news and current affairs, presented by Sarah Montague. Fri: Analysis of news and current affairs, presented by Mark Mardell.
FRI 13:45 You're Doing It Wrong (b09wswnd)
Series 1
Family
Mum, Dad and 2.4 children... how old-fashioned. Single parent families, multi-parent households, step-brothers and half-sisters and the rest - it's old news that the 'nuclear family' model is outdated. So why does society keep on telling us it's the only way to be? Single-mother stigma is still alive and well, and unmarried people in their 40s and over are universally assumed to be sad, lonely, and yearning for a partner.
Adam Buxton wonders how our ideas about family came about, and whether there might be a better way to organise things. Is the 'decline of family' really such a bad thing?
Produced in Bristol by Emily Knight.
FRI 14:00 The Archers (m000bp4m)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Thursday]
FRI 14:15 Drama (m000bs49)
Trip The Light Fantastic
“Come and trip it as you go, on the light fantastic toe…”
Jack (Paul Copley) and Freddie (Lorn MacDonald) meet every Tuesday evening to dance. Or try to dance. Try to maintain a bit of dignity. Try to sweat out a bit of elegance. Seventy and twenty-one, they are men from different worlds, brought together by a love of the twist and a longing for something which resembles happiness.
Written by Miriam Battye. Produced and directed by Becky Ripley.
FRI 15:00 Gardeners' Question Time (m000bs4c)
St Ann's Allotments, Nottingham
Kathy Clugston and the team visit the St Ann's Allotments in Nottingham. Bunny Guinness, Bob Flowerdew and James Wong answer the audience's questions.
Producer: Laurence Bassett
Assistant Producer: Jemima Rathbone
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.
FRI 15:45 Short Works (m000bs4f)
An original short work for radio.
FRI 16:00 Last Word (m000bs4h)
Radio 4's weekly obituary programme, telling the life stories of those who have died recently.
FRI 16:30 Feedback (m000bs4k)
The programme that holds the BBC to account on behalf of the radio audience.
FRI 16:55 The Listening Project (m000bs4m)
Kirsty and Conor - Realising who you are
A revealing chat between friends about a crisis of faith and the experience of coming out. Fi Glover presents another conversation in a series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen.
FRI 17:00 PM (m000bs4p)
Afternoon news and current affairs programme, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines.
FRI 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m000bs4t)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
FRI 18:30 The Now Show (m000bs4w)
Series 55
Episode 6
Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis present the week via topical stand-up and sketches. They're joined by Jessica Fostekew, Glenn Moore, Jess Robinson and Luke Kempner.
It was written by the cast with additional material by Rose Johnson, Mike Shephard, Kat Sadler and Zoe Tomalin.
It was a BBC Studios production.
FRI 19:00 The Archers (m000bs4y)
Writer, Nick Warburton
Director, Jeremy Howe
Editor, Jeremy Howe
Jill Archer ….. Patricia Greene
David Archer ….. Timothy Bentinck
Ruth Archer.... Felicity Finch
Pip Archer ….. Daisy Badger
Helen Archer..... Louiza Patikas
Brian Aldridge ….. Charles Collingwood
Phoebe Aldridge ….. Lucy Morris
Harrison Burns ….. James Cartwright
Justin Elliott ….. Simon Williams
Rex Fairbrother ….. Nick Barber
Eddie Grundy ….. Trevor Harrison
Clarrie Grundy ….. Heather Bell
Will Grundy ….. Philip Molloy
Ed Grundy ….. Barry Farrimond
Kirsty Miller.... Annabelle Dowler
Tracy Horrobin ….. Susie Riddell
Elizabeth Pargetter ….. Alison Dowling
Freddie Pargetter.... Toby Laurence
Lily Pargetter ….. Katie Redford
Johnny Phillips ….. Tom Gibbons
Lynda Snell.... Carole Boyd
Oliver Sterling.... Michael Cochrane
Leonard Berry ….. Paul Copley
Russ Jones ….. Andonis James Anthony
Martyn Gibson..... Jon Glover
Bella.... Elinor Coleman
FRI 19:15 Front Row (m000bs50)
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
FRI 19:45 Middlemarch (m000bs3v)
[Repeat of broadcast at
10:45 today]
FRI 20:00 Any Questions? (m000bs52)
Michelle Dewberry, Delyth Jewell AM, Stephen Kinnock
Chris Mason presents debate from Cardiff's St Teilo's Church in Wales High School with a panel including Brexit Party candidate Michelle Dewberry, Plaid Cymru AM Delyth Jewell and Labour parliamentary candidate Stephen Kinnock.
Producer: Lisa Jenkinson
FRI 20:50 A Point of View (m000bs54)
A weekly reflection on a topical issue.
FRI 21:00 Archive on 4 (b0bbmthw)
That's Edutainment!
Are the values of education and entertainment truly compatible? Matthew Sweet asks if learning can or should be fun.
When we watch a high-end TV documentary do we learn anything? Or do we simply think we have? With lessons from the archive, this is an hour long look at the links between education and fun.
We attend Radio 4's King Street Junior for a historical re-enactment and go down Sesame Street, an early example of edutainment that worked. A 1970's adult education series called On the Move, with a young Bob Hoskins playing a removal man who has trouble reading and writing, helped enormous numbers of people with literacy problems. It accidentally became cult viewing in the process.
The same cult status was accorded to the first late night Open University broadcasts, although the values of good television and undergraduate teaching initially clashed, sometimes about the appropriate colour of shirts.
In his capacity as academic, Matthew talks to Dr Fern Riddell, whose PhD he supervised. Fern chose broadcasting and writing rather than lecturing or teaching as a career and she explains how injecting historical authenticity into TV dramas like Ripper Street might help us see past eras more clearly, if backed by the right research.
And, with the help of Harvard Professor of Education Meira Levinson, Matthew wonders whether Homer Simpson is an appropriate vehicle for the study of philosophy.
Meanwhile, are some of the ideals of Public Service Broadcasting changing in the digital age? Nowadays the strictly educational programmes like OU material and schools broadcasting are no longer part of the general broadcasting landscape, meaning we're less likely to stumble upon them. Put Public Service Broadcasting into a popular search engine and you might not end up learning about the BBC mission statement, but something completely different.
A Testbed production for BBC Radio 4.
FRI 22:00 The World Tonight (m000bs5v)
In depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective
FRI 22:45 Grandmothers (m000bs41)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:04 today]
FRI 23:00 A Good Read (m000bmxv)
[Repeat of broadcast at
16:30 on Tuesday]
FRI 23:25 Art of Now (m0008p2w)
Harlem's New Renaissance
The Harlem Renaissance was an intellectual, social, and artistic explosion of African-American culture which began in 1919. The great migration brought many people from the Southern States of America north into urban areas where their culture flourished. Harlem became a centre for artistic endeavour, particularly writing and music. Publishers became interested in the work of writers such as Langston Hughes and lots of artists came to prominence. Many of the ideas and also the issues that were explored then are still relevant today.
As a resident of Harlem, Darryl Pinckney, novelist, playwright and essayist has a particular interest in the period. He explores the Harlem Renaissance and its legacy with Kevin Young - director of the Chomburg centre, poet and poetry editor of the New Yorker, Tracy Smith - who has just finished her term as Poet Laureate in the US, Melissa Barton, Curator of American Literature, Drama and Prose Writings at Yale University, Abiodun Oyewole, founder member of The Last Poets and Harlem resident, the artist LaTasha N Nevada Diggs.
Produced by Susan Roberts in Salford.
FRI 23:55 The Listening Project (m000bs5y)
Angela and Bernadette - Connecting to the Spirit World
Mother and daughter who believe the psychic power to contact the dead runs in the family. Fi Glover presents another conversation in a series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen.