Karoline Kan was born in 1989, the year of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Her generation has always been caught between China’s authoritarian politics and its hyper-modern technology and economic boom.
In her quest to understand the shifting sands of global, connected China, Karoline turns to her family, who have survived Maoism and its legacy by breaking with tradition. Navigating a society beset by poverty and often violent political unrest, the Kans swapped rural villages for crowded city streets in search of a better way of life.
Now a journalist, Karoline recounts gripping tales of her grandmother who struggled to help her family through the Great Famine; of her mother who defied the One-Child Policy by giving birth to Karoline, and of her cousin - a factory worker scraping by on less than £1 per hour. An ambitious millennial pursuing her career and personal life in a time of dizzyingly rapid social change, Karoline discovers her own story’s roots in the China of previous generations.
Karoline Kan is a former New York Times reporter who writes about millennial life and politics in China. Currently an editor at China Dialogue, she lives in Beijing.
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Rachel Gardner, President of the Girl’s Brigade
A few weeks ago my young daughter set up a tent in her bedroom. ‘Did you fancy a bit of a holiday at home?’ I joked, bemused. She smiled and shrugged.
I thought she’d soon lose interest of sleeping indoors in a tent, but she didn’t. Night after night I’ve watched her visibly relax in this small, gentle space. For an adopted child, struggling with the upheavals of lockdown and the loss of supportive routines and relationships, this tent is offering her troubled heart and mind a refuge from the storm.
A new study released last weekend and conducted by Savanta ComRes, has found that almost half of British parents (48%) are concerned about the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the mental health and wellbeing of their children. Many parents speak of a ‘fear culture’ where their children are afraid of going outside or meeting people. While every child is different, this constant feeling of fear can make everyday changes and pressures a huge challenge to cope with.
In Psalm 46 King David writes that ‘God is a safe place to hide, ready to help when we need him.’ For a man used to living in tents, I wonder if that’s what came to mind when he pictured a God who could be his refuge when the storms of life became too much.
Ever Present God, we ask you to draw close to all the children and young people who are struggling in their isolation.
May those who are struggling to cope, know that they are surrounded with love.
Nwando Ebizie describes the world she senses: one of glowing lines and shapes; whizzing, fizzing dots; and auras around people, trees and stars. Nwando's experiences with a condition called 'Visual Snow' have been an important impetus to her work as an artist. Other people's reactions, when Nwando describes them, have been another. In her art, and in this beautiful talk, Nwando tries to bring others into her world, a world which she describes as a denial of absolutes, and one in which everyone understands that their own sensory experiences are unique.
The latest news headlines. Including the weather and a look at the papers.
With the country in lockdown, archaeologists have had to cancel plans for excavations which would have allowed them to explore the history of our landscapes. Unable to put their trowels into action this summer, many are finding alternative methods of research. In this programme, Helen Mark finds out how some have turned to "virtual archaeology", using new technologies to continue to make discoveries about the past. She also hears about a new educational project, set up to help with home-schooling, which is using archaeology as a means to teach other skills - and in the process introducing the subject to a new generation, and perhaps inspiring the archaeologists of the future.
With the Chancellor announcing his plan for a green recovery, Sybil Ruscoe speaks to Ben Goldsmith about the creation of new jobs under a proposed national nature service. Also as part of our look at the green recovery, Mariclare Carey Jones reports on the 'Payment for Outcomes' scheme launched by the Llyn Landscape Partnership in North Wales. Plus a campaign to get rivers designated with the same bathing water standards as blue-flag beaches, and a Lavender farm in Cornwall which is having an extraordinary season.
Richard Coles and Viv Groskop are joined by aesthetician and skin expert Caroline Hirons. She went from counter girl to being dubbed the most powerful woman in the beauty industry, her blog has clocked up over a hundred thousand views and her book has just become the second ever on beauty to go to number one in the charts.
And furniture restorer Jay Blades, known for TV's The Repair Shop and Fixing Britain, on why he cares so much about old things and the stories behind them.
Annie Atkins is a graphic designer who inhabits a secret world - if you notice her work – it usually means she hasn’t done her job properly. She joins us to discuss her journey to Grand Budapest hotels and Boxtrolls.
We also have Antony Barlow is a listener who contacted us about a secret he kept from his family until they opened a letter meant for him.
and Martha Wainwright choose Me Myself I by Joan Armatrading and Going to a Town by Rufus Wainwright.
Jay Rayner hosts the culinary panel show. Dr Annie Gray, Andi Oliver, Rob Owen-Brown and Sue Lawrence join from their kitchens to answer questions sent in by email and social media.
This week, Jay and his panel are laying down their virtual rug to discuss how you can be the star of the socially-distanced picnic - think home-cured fish, showstopping pies, and a sandwich that is warmed in a rather unusual way.
They also crack open the vibrant watermelon to swap tips on jazzing up your summer salads, making the perfect edible cocktail, and tricking your guests into thinking it’s tuna.
Along the way, they help listeners with questions about bendy flapjacks and lockdown cooking experiments, and hear tales of aubergine heaven and hel
Australia had widely been seen as having successfully contained the coronavirus – an example to countries like the UK and the US where numbers of cases and deaths have been so much worse. In Australia they locked down early, closed the country’s borders and have had fewer than ten thousand cases. But this week has seen a resurgence in Melbourne and the city’s five million residents are now barred from leaving home for six weeks, except for essential reasons. The whole of the state of Victoria, of which Melbourne is the capital, has been closed, making it particularly hard for communities straddling the state's boundaries, from where Shaimaa Khalil reports.
In France this week, where they’re still reeling from the economic and human cost of the coronavirus epidemic, the country has been getting to know its new government. There’s a new prime minister, Jean Castex, and a new direction promised by the President – all part of Mr Macron’s plan to reboot his mandate after the crises of recent years. But what are the challenges facing this government in a post-lockdown France? Lucy Williamson reports from Paris.
Passenger ferries are essential to life along the Norwegian Coast – acting as a link between island and coastal communities and the wider world. But recent times have seen these ferries in troubled waters. Locals are angry about fare increases. The ferry companies say it’s so they can invest in environmentally friendly electric and hydrogen-powered boats. But some people in Norway’s island archipelago are feeling trapped by the cost of leaving home, as Oliver Smith reports.
A holiday in the resort of Magaluf on the island of Mallorca won’t ever be quite the same again – and not just because of coronavirus. This year has seen a new law in some Balearic resorts aimed at clamping down on alcohol-fuelled tourism. Out goes the promotion of boozy boat parties and pub crawls and in comes a more sedate, family friendly experience - the authorities hope. Lottie Gross has been to find out how it’s looking in Mallorca’s party resort.
When our correspondent in Moscow, Steve Rosenberg, was granted an interview with Russia’s spy chief – Sergei Naryshkin – he couldn’t help feeling rather excited as this was both rare and unexpected. The visit to the fortified headquarters of the Foreign Intelligence Service contained all the ingredients of a classic spy novel . And after the spy chief blamed America for trying to rule the world the interview ended with a party – complete with toasts and Russian jokes.
If you don’t know what a Kanye West is, then Joan Bakewell will explain all, and Her Majesty the Queen tells us why she’s helping out the FBI. There’s also a special guest at Downton Abbey, and a new role for Daniel Day Lewis.
Starring: Jon Culshaw, Jan Ravens, Lewis MacLeod, Duncan Wisbey and Debra Stephenson.
Written by Nev Fountain & Tom Jamieson, Laurence Howarth, Ed Amsden & Tom Coles, James Bugg, Simon Alcock, Athena Kugblenu, Cody Dahler, Gareth Ceredig, Jeffrey Aidoo, Alex Hardy, Paige Wilson, Sophie Dickson and Edward Tew.
Chris Mason presents political debate from London Broadcasting House with the founder of the Academy of Ideas Claire Fox, the Sunday Telegraph columnist Liam Halligan, the conservative MP Andrea Leadsom and the Shadow Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury Wes Streeting.
For more than twenty years, from war zones to the seats of political power, Katya Adler has interviewed, observed, told people's stories. And she's always been fascinated by what makes people tick - their personality. Can we change or fake it?
In the first of three programmes, Katya meets Olympic athlete and Vice President of Headway, James Cracknell, who suffered an injury to the brain a decade ago which caused some of his personality traits to change. Katya and James discuss the impact of the injury on James's personality, the extent to which personality is observed by people around us and how our personalities can evolve.
Christina Rossetti's iconic Victorian poem of passion and redemption dramatised, and woven with original song, and testimony from sisters whose lives have been caught up in the cycle of addiction.
Christina Rossetti ..... Ellie Piercy
Laura ..... Kathleen Cranham
Lizzie ..... Anjana Vasan
Goblins ..... Ed Gaughan, Joel MacCormack & Chris Lew Kum Hoi
Children ..... Eliza & Orla Pearce.
Singers ..... Stephen Jeffes, Tom Raskin & Edward Price
Singing producer ..... Jonathan Manners.
Composer ..... James Maloney
Sound ..... Peter Ringrose
Documentary producer ..... Georgia Catt
Adapted & directed ..... Jessica Dromgoole
Sometimes mistaken for a children’s poem, Goblin Market is a complex and elusive treatment of addiction, sexual awakening, religious fervour and love. Sharing the music and acoustic of the romantic whirlwind of the poem with testimony stories of modern addiction and protection adds to its power and relevance. The programme reflects on the real pain and trauma often overlooked in the poem, and at the same time, sees the poetry and depth in real experiences of addiction and salvation.
Created and recorded in lockdown, with the actors and singers all in separate acoustically protected rooms, and the interviewees all recording themselves, the programme is testament to the skills of the sound engineer, and the enduring truth that anything is possible in audio drama.
A highly-critical review of three medical treatments for women in the UK found thousands of lives had been harmed because officials failed to listen to safety worries and often dismissed them as "women's problems". The Cumberlege Review examined responses to concerns about a hormone pregnancy test, a drug for epilepsy, and vaginal mesh. We spoke to the BBC Health correspondent Anna Collinson, and to Baroness Cumberlege about her review. And we heard reaction from Clare Pelham, CEO of the Epilepsy Society, and Mary McLaughlin, who has campaigned for women affected by pelvic mesh in Ireland.
The video games sector makes up more than half of the UK’s entire entertainment market. Women are 50% of those who play but the number of women working in the industry is much lower. Jordan Erica Webber, a video games expert, Katie Goode, who makes VR games, and Abbey Plumb, a producer for a games company discussed their experiences of working in the video games industry.
It’s 1957 and Jean Swinney, a journalist on a local paper in the London suburbs, is investigating a story about a virgin birth. As she gets closer to the people involved Jean’s lonely and dutiful life becomes more interesting and she experiences a miracle of her own. Clare Chambers’ book ‘Small Pleasures’ is her first for 10 years and it was an item on Woman’s Hour which sparked the idea.
After the death of her mother, Emma Winterschladen has gone through what she calls ‘missed mum moments’ including graduating university, her first job and more recently her engagement. How do motherless daughters navigate these big moments without their mothers? Freelance Editor, writer & illustrator Emma Winterschladen and psychologist Anjula Mutanda discuss.
Twenty year old student Abigail McGourlay is the winner of The Arts Society’s national Isolation Artwork competition. She told us about her winning self-portrait 'Brewing'.
Julian Clary, Amma Asante, Dotty, The Lemon Twigs, Leonie Evans, Sara Cox, Clive Anderson
Clive Anderson and Sara Cox are joined, by Julian Clary, Amma Asante and Dotty for an eclectic mix of conversation, music and comedy. With music from The Lemon Twigs and Leonie Evans.
An insight into the character of an influential person making the news headlines
The Poet Laureate has gone to his shed on his own this week. Simon Armitage can't ask any guests to join him in his writing shed in West Yorkshire due to the Coronavirus. So he sits in the moonlight hoping to catch an owl in the garden to inspire his writing, and to think about the world beyond as he approaches the end of his translation of the medieval poem The Owl and the Nightingale.
It's a beautifully still night. Poetry, contemplation, storytelling - with a few jokes along the way - and a few musical instruments to charm the owls out of the trees.
Everywhere she goes, cameras click, people ask for autographs and selfies and tell her how wonderful she is. But what’s it really like to become the world’s most famous campaigner on climate change, when you’re still a teenager? The activist Greta Thunberg wrote a revelatory extended essay for Swedish Radio, which was featured on Sommar i P1, a legendary series which has been wildly popular in Sweden for over six decades. She describes her journey to deliver a speech at the UN General Assembly, observing the effects of climate change first-hand, her encounters with both powerful and ordinary people and a terrifying trip in a yacht across the Atlantic. This Swedish Radio production is introduced by Justin Rowlatt, the BBC's chief environment correspondent, and Greta's essay is interspersed with excerpts of her favourite music.
Seventh episode of a nine-part conspiracy thriller, starring Romola Garai. Written by Matthew Broughton.
Helen is kidnapped by the organ traffickers she has been investigating. To make matters worse, so is her mother, Rosie. As they wait for death in a tiny room, the secrets between them begin to unravel.
What do the traffickers want with them? Will they get out alive? And why won't Rosie talk about Helen's mysterious long-lost sister Elizabeth?
Helen .... Romola Garai
Rosie .... Susan Jameson
Man .... Sam Rix
Doctor .... Nabil Elouahabi
Jae Sung .... Leo Wan
Susmita Bhattarcharya is from Mumbai, India. She received an MA in Creative Writing from Cardiff University. Her debut novel, The Normal State of Mind, was published in March 2015. Her short stories have appeared in several literary journals internationally and in the UK. Susmita lives in Plymouth with her husband and two daughters.
Years of soft-touch regulation and the universal adoption of smartphones have created a “perfect storm of addictive 24/7 gambling”, making “the lives of two million people miserable” – according to a House of Lords Select Committee report looking into the betting industry. Its 66 recommendations include a ban on “loot boxes” in video games, which can often be bought for real money and offer a randomised reward; many see this as a dangerous gateway to gambling for children. It wants to ease the industry out of sports sponsorship; half the Premier League football clubs are currently supported by betting companies. It wants new taxes on gambling with the money used to fund addiction clinics. What, if any, is the moral equivalence between problem gambling and other forms of addiction to recreational activities like drinking and smoking? If it’s a public health issue rather than a matter of individual free choice, how heavily should gambling be restricted? Perhaps, because gambling addiction can often have a wider social impact, hurting families and friends as well as the addicts themselves, it should be compared to drug abuse. If that’s reasonable, why not just treat gambling like any class A drug and make it illegal? Gambling enthusiasts and libertarians see it as a leisure activity which offers harmless fun to the vast majority of punters. They believe there is nothing intrinsically immoral about the industry, although most admit that betting companies do have a duty of care to vulnerable clients. Are problem gamblers the hapless victims of a heartless racket or does that rob them of moral agency and free them of personal responsibility? Is problem gambling a disease, a moral failing or just the downside of freedom? With Dr Henrietta Bowden-Jones, Brigid Simmonds, Christopher Snowdon and Matt Zarb-Cousin.
This week's specialist subjects are material sciences, biochemistry and maths, and the questions range from carbon nanotubes to cocktail ingredients via Mah Jongg and rucksacks. And – bonus feature - someone calculating i to the power of i in front of a stunned audience.
The show is recorded on location at a different University each week, and it pits three undergraduates against three of their professors in a genuinely original and fresh take on an academic quiz
The rounds vary between specialist subjects and general knowledge, quickfire bell-and-buzzer rounds and the Highbrow and Lowbrow round, cunningly devised to test not only the students’ knowledge of current affairs, history, languages and science, but also their professors’ awareness of television, sport, and quite possibly Ed Sheeran. In addition, there are the head-to-head rounds, in which students take on their professors in their own subjects - with plenty of scope for mild embarrassment on both sides.
In this series, the universities are Bournemouth, Imperial College, Reading, Durham, Ulster University and Mansfield College Oxford.
The host, Steve Punt, although best known as a satirist on The Now Show, is also someone who delights in all facets of knowledge, - not just in the humanities (his educational background) but in the sciences as well. As well as The Now Show, he has made a number of documentaries for Radio 4 on subjects as varied as The Poet Unwound - The History Of The Spleen and Getting The Gongs - an investigation into awards ceremonies.
We join Helen Mort in Sheffield as she chooses her favourite poems. Including works by Wordsworth, Norman MacCaig and Karen McCarthy Woolf. Producer Sally Heaven
SUNDAY 12 JULY 2020
SUN 00:00 Midnight News (m000kwch)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.
SUN 00:15 Watching Us (m000kmrl)
Week 5
When Donald Trump announced his candidacy to become leader of the Republican Party he was already known by millions of Americans as a shrewd and astute businessman who, for 10 years, had cut through the crap on national TV.
A ruthless bad-ass who hired and fired and got things done. Just what Americans needed as real politicians seemed slow and boring and disingenuous.
But that wasn’t the real Donald Trump at all. That was Donald Trump created by reality TV.
Twenty years since Big Brother hit our screens and just look how far reality TV has come.
SUN 00:30 Short Works (m000knx0)
Vehicle by Emma Glass
A woman goes to buy a car in this unsettling original short work for radio by Emma Glass, author of the novels Peach and Rest and Be Thankful.
Emma Glass was born in Wales in 1987 and is now based in London, where she writes and works as a children’s nurse. Her debut novel Peach was published by Bloomsbury in 2018, has been translated into seven languages and was long-listed for the International Dylan Thomas Prize. Her second novel Rest and Be Thankful was published earlier this year.
Vehicle is read by the author and produced by Mair Bosworth
SUN 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m000kwck)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
SUN 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m000kwcm)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.
SUN 05:33 Shipping Forecast (m000kwcp)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
SUN 05:43 Bells on Sunday (m000kwcr)
Christ Church, Radyr in Cardiff
Currently there is no ringing taking place across UK towers, a situation not encountered since the Second World War. This morning’s recording comes from Christ Church, Radyr in Cardiff. The bells were dedicated in 1912 and there is a ring of eight, with the tenor weighing twelve hundredweight. We hear them ringing Stedman triples.
SUN 05:45 Profile (m000kwc8)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Saturday]
SUN 06:00 News (m000kwvs)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4
SUN 06:05 Something Understood (b00zzmv9)
Yours Truly
American broadcaster Julie Shapiro began a long correspondence with her great aunt Lill following the death of Lill's husband twenty-five years ago. It lasted until Lill's own death seven years later. These letters, read by Irma Kurtz, form the central part of a programme that examines the rituals, intimacies and sustaining qualities of old-fashioned letter-writing.
Julie also draws on 'wise words' to correspondents by Lewis Carroll, read by Jonathan Keeble, and 'audio postcards' from the author Rick Moody and the founder of analogue magazine The Radio Post, Simon Roche, and sets the entire programme to a soundtrack by the Canadian pianist Gonzales - a favourite choice of music to accompany letter-writing.
'Yours Truly' is at once a celebration of an art which technology is in danger of drowning out, a monument to a dearly beloved relative and a 'call to pens'.
Produced by Alan Hall
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4
SUN 06:35 On Your Farm (m000kwvw)
5000 Acres of Organic Farming
With its breath-taking views across the Vale of Pewsey, Rushall Organics is one of the UK’s oldest, large-scale organic farms. Covering some 5000 acres of chalk downland in Wiltshire, and bordering Salisbury Plain, the farm is rich in wildlife . Vast wildflower meadows are home to an abundance of insect life, mixed habitats support rare bird species including the corn bunting and stone curlew, and a clear chalk stream enriches the heart of the land.
With half the farm turned over to arable, cropping consists of cereals and clover, which alongside permanent grassland, supports a flock of 2000 ewes. Verity Sharp meets Joe Wookey the young, fourth generation farmer now at the helm, who’s passionate and optimistic about organic farming but isn’t free from worry. Inheriting such a vast farm is a considerable mental challenge, and his anxieties are compounded by issues such as trespass and genetically-modified crops.
SUN 06:57 Weather (m000kwvy)
The latest weather forecast
SUN 07:00 News and Papers (m000kww0)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.
SUN 07:10 Sunday (m000kww2)
Greyfriars Bobby; Jehovah's Witness; the New Archbishop of York
Greyfriars Kirk in Edinburgh is well known for the statue of the small Skye terrier, Greyfriars Bobby. It commemorates the dog’s loyalty after it guarded the grave of his owner for 14 years. Celebrations to mark the 400th anniversary have been cancelled because of Corona virus but the Rev Richard Frazer, Minister of Greyfriars Kirk, tells Emily why people are being encouraged to model their own statues of the iconic dog as part of the celebrations.
In August the Jehovah’s Witnesses will give evidence to the Independent Inquiry Into Child Sex Abuse. Submissions will also be heard from survivors who have criticised the church’s handling of abuse allegations. Their appearance comes as campaigners around the world are questioning why the religion is restructuring the organisation and selling off substantial amounts of property. Sunday’s - David Cook has been investigating.
The newly confirmed Archbishop of York Stephen Cottrell joins Emily to talk about the challenges he faces post pandemic in the Church, the needs of the North and the faith of the nation.
Producers
Carmel Lonergan
David Cook
Editor
Amanda Hancox
SUN 07:54 Radio 4 Appeal (m000kww4)
Mary's Meals
Judy Murray makes the Radio 4 Appeal on behalf of Mary's Meals.
To Give:
- Freephone 0800 404 8144
- Freepost BBC Radio 4 Appeal. (That’s the whole address. Please do not write anything else on the front of the envelope). Mark the back of the envelope ‘Mary's Meals’.
- Cheques should be made payable to ‘Mary's Meals’.
- You can donate online at bbc.co.uk/appeal/radio4
Registered Charity Number: SC022140
SUN 07:57 Weather (m000kww6)
The latest weather forecast
SUN 08:00 News and Papers (m000kww8)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.
SUN 08:10 Sunday Worship (m000kwwb)
Sowing in a time of uncertainty
The parable of the sower is one of Jesus' best known stories - and one which speaks especially clearly to a time of uncertainty. Seeds are sown into an unknown future, and the conditions in which they will grow are something we can't always predict. As the end of a most unusual term approaches this year students, pupils and teachers across the UK will be wondering just what kind of fruit may lie ahead.
Rev Dr Rosa Hunt, co-principal of the South Wales Baptist College reflects on the message Jesus parable offers today in a service led by Rev Dr Craig Gardiner and including contributions from staff and students at the College.
The music used in the service was recorded prior to lockdown or is commercially available and is as follows:
Guide Me O Thou Great Redeemer (Cardiff Polyphonic Choir, BBC recording)
Unless A Grain of Wheat (Bernadette Farrell, OCP 10827 Tr 11)
Beneath The Tree Of Life (Marty Haugen, Gia CD 463 Tr 1)
Brother Sister Let Me Serve You (Welsh Chamber Singers, BBC recording)
Now The Green Blade Riseth (Liverpool Cathedral Choir, Priory PRCD1180 Tr 15)
It Is Well With My Soul (National Youth Choir of Wales, BBC recording)
Producer: Dominic Jewel.
South Wales Baptist College can be found here: http://www.swbc.org.uk/
SUN 08:48 A Point of View (m000knxj)
Weekly reflections on topical issues from a range of contributors.
SUN 08:58 Tweet of the Day (b04dyh88)
Emperor Penguin
Tweet of the Day is the voice of birds and our relationship with them, from around the world.
Sir David Attenborough presents the emperor penguin from the Antarctic Peninsula. With temperatures down to minus 50oC, midwinter blizzards scouring one of the most inhospitable places on the planet, this is not an obvious location for raising young. Yet at the heart of this landscape, the world's largest penguin, the emperor, stands guard over their young. Tightly-packed colonies of hundreds or sometimes thousands of birds huddle together, to conserve heat. The male broods the single egg on his feet, protected under folds of bare abdominal skin. Females travel up to 100km from the colony in search of food, using a technique called tobogganing which is far more efficient than walking on their short legs. Harsh though the landscape is in midwinter, all this activity is co-ordinated to allow the young to fledge into the relatively warmth of an Antarctic summer.
SUN 09:00 Broadcasting House (m000kwwd)
The Sunday morning news magazine programme. Presented by Paddy O'Connell
SUN 10:00 The Archers Omnibus (m000kwwg)
Writers, Keri Davies & Gillian Richmond
Director, Kim Greengrass
Editor, Jeremy Howe
Brian Aldridge ..... Charles Collingwood
Debbie Aldridge ..... Tamsin Greig
Adam Macy ..... Andrew Wincott
Alice Carter ..... Hollie Chapman
Chris Carter ..... Wilf Scolding
SUN 10:55 Tweet of the Day (m000kwwj)
Tweet Take 5: Nightingale
Beloved by poets, in this extended version of Tweet of the Day we feature a bird which for many epitomises the romance of the night, the nightigale. This outwardly drab two tone brown bird belies its rich bubbling caroling drifting through a summer landscape. In this edition we will hear from actor Samuel West, followed by writer Joe Harkness and finally we hear from folk singer Sam Lee on why they love the song of the nightingale.
Producer Andrew Dawes
SUN 11:00 Desert Island Discs (m000ktnt)
Jens Stoltenberg, Secretary General of Nato
Jens Stoltenberg is the Secretary General of NATO and a former Prime Minister of Norway.
Although he was born into a political family in Norway, he grew up thinking he would become a statistician, before turning to a career in politics.
He served as the Prime Minister of Norway twice. During his second term, Norway experienced one of the darkest days in its recent history, when 77 people were murdered in a bomb attack in Oslo and a mass shooting on a nearby island.
Before becoming the Secretary General of NATO, a post he has held since 2014, he spent time as a UN Special Envoy on climate change. His term in office as Secretary-General has been extended until September 2022.
Presenter: Lauren Laverne
Producer: Sarah Taylor
Photo credit: NATO
SUN 11:45 Join the Dots (b0952sv2)
Series 1
The Language of Dots
Janet Ellis looks at how the dot has helped us communicate and reflects on the dot in computer language. Morse code, Braille and the dots that get our email delivered.
The simple dot is one of the first marks man ever made. From being a word we uttered infrequently, the advent of digital has made it one we use all the time.
The dot. We wear it, listen to it, read it and gaze on it. We send it through the air and under the waves. Each programme in this series circles a different aspect of this simple mark.
Contributors include Dr Tilly Blyth, Head of Collections Science Museum London, and Robert Saggers, Heritage Manager at the Royal Institute of Blind People.
Producer: Caroline Raphael
A Dora production for BBC Radio 4.
SUN 12:00 News Summary (m000kwwl)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
SUN 12:04 The Unbelievable Truth (m000kmk3)
Series 24
Episode 4
David Mitchell hosts the panel game in which four comedians are encouraged to tell lies and compete against one another to see how many items of truth they're able to smuggle past their opponents.
Holly Walsh, Miles Jupp, Sara Pascoe and Frankie Boyle are the panellists obliged to talk with deliberate inaccuracy on subjects as varied as bread, ABBA, men and experiments.
Produced by Jon Naismith
A Random Entertainment production for BBC Radio 4
SUN 12:32 The Food Programme (m000kw4q)
Child Food Poverty: What next after the Government's U-turn on Free School Meals?
Last month, footballer Marcus Rashford wrote an open letter to MPs calling for them to continue funding free schools meals during the summer holidays. He called for support to a petition started by teenage campaigner Christina Adane, and within hours, the Government responded. All children eligible for free school meals in term time in England would benefit from the ‘Covid summer food fund’. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland would also continue with voucher programmes. But funding would stop, Boris Johnson confirmed, after the summer.
So what then?
In this programme, Sheila Dillon is joined by two young campaigners on child food poverty Jani Clarke and Shane Robinson who've been hearing from young people across the UK with first-hand experiences of food poverty in their communities. They explain how the Covid-19 pandemic has affected home life and access to nutritious food. And why they are working with food campaigning charity The Food Foundation to demand more action from the UK government in their updated Right2Food charter. Sheila also asks actor and campaigner Dame Emma Thompson on why she's calling for the Government to listen to these young people.
Deputy Mayor of London for Social Integration, Social Mobility and Community Engagement Debbie Weekes-Bernard explains how the pandemic has affected opportunities for families living in food poverty, and journalist Louise Tickle describes the potential long term impact on children’s' access to education and opportunities should food poverty figures rise in the UK.
Presented by Sheila Dillon
Produced in Bristol by Clare Salisbury
SUN 12:57 Weather (m000kwwp)
The latest weather forecast
SUN 13:00 The World This Weekend (m000kwwr)
Global news and analysis, presented by Mark Mardell.
SUN 13:30 The Listening Project (m000kwwt)
Fi Glover presents the weekly edition of the programme on the shared experience of being in lockdown and emerging from it. This week friends and strangers share stories on subjects as varied as having hopes and aspirations for a career in the theatre being dashed by Covid 19; friends from different racial backgrounds living in Wales talk about the importance of talking about race; and friends in Manchester reflect on their time on the streets and the challenges of homelessness during lockdown; and sisters aged 12 and 14 talk about the challenges of going back to school as well as being carers for their Dad who has ME, arthritis and Fibromyalgia, and as well as helping their profoundly deaf Mum and looking after a younger sister.
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. The conversations are being gathered across the UK by teams of producers from local and national radio stations who facilitate each encounter. Every conversation lasts up to an hour, and is then edited to extract the key moments 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 this decade of the millennium. You can learn more about The Listening Project by visiting bbc.co.uk/listeningproject
Producer: Mohini Patel
SUN 14:00 Gardeners' Question Time (m000knwy)
GQT At Home: Episode Fifteen
Kathy Clugston hosts this week's horticultural panel show. James Wong, Matthew Wilson and Christine Walkden answer the questions from green-fingered listeners.
This week, the panel discusses the best plants for a bonsai, share tips on caring for a Money Tree, and give recommendations for planting an upright piano and a moon garden.
Aside from the questions, Humaira Ikram from KLC School of Design shares tips for planting in acid and alkaline soils, and Chris Thorogood tells the history of botanicals used in gin.
Producer - Rosie Merotra
Assistant Producer - Jemima Rathbone
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4
SUN 14:45 The Way I See It (m0009llz)
John Waters on Lee Lozano's Untitled 1963
Art critic Alastair Sooke, in the company of some of the leading creatives of our age, continues his deep dive into the stunning works in the Museum of Modern Art's collection, whilst exploring what it really means “to see” art.
Today's edition features film director John Waters. He chooses Lee Lozano's depiction of a head of a hammer, "Untitled 1963", but what will cult film specialist and director of Pink Flamingos make of such an apparently utilitarian subject?
Producer: Tom Alban
Main Image: Lee Lozano, Untitled, 1963. Oil on canvas, two panels, 7' 10" x 8' 4" (238.8 x 254 cm). Gift of Jo Carole and Ronald S. Lauder, The Museum of Modern Art, New York,
26.2004.a-b. © 2019 Estate of Lee Lozano
SUN 15:00 Primo Levi's The Periodic Table (b07ksrzl)
Arsenic and Silver
Henry Goodman stars as Primo Levi in a major dramatisation of Levi's short stories about our human relationship with the chemical elements. Introduced by Janet Suzman and dramatised by Graham White from the translation by Raymond Rosenthal.
Arsenic and Silver: At his retirement party, Primo recounts amusing stories from a professional chemist's life.
Older Primo ..... Henry Goodman
Younger Primo ..... Akbar Kurtha
Versino ..... Jessica Turner
Lentini ..... Nicholas Murchie
Bruni ..... David Horovitch
Cometto ..... John Rowe
Lucia ..... Juliet Aubrey
Gallery Director ..... Stephen Critchlow
Emilio ..... Caolan McCarthy
Farmer ..... David Hounslow
Customer ..... Ben Crowe
Bonino ..... Sam Dale
Gina ..... Rebecca Hamilton
Produced and directed by Emma Harding and Marc Beeby
SUN 16:00 Open Book (m000kwwx)
Charlotte Wood, Travel Writing, Narrative Voice
Elizabeth Day talks to the Australian writer Charlotte Wood about her latest novel The Weekend. Three women in their seventies come together to clear a friend's beach house, and in the process look back at their long friendship, and explore their desires and needs in old age.
Writers Max Lui and Ann Morgan both read widely to travel the world through pages of a book. As many of us stay in the UK this year, they discuss the transportive nature of travel writing, and recommend their favourite books.
And as part of Open Book's continuing exploration of how fiction works, we begin a new series looking at the narrative voice. This week Richard Beard unpicks the first person narrative.
SUN 16:30 The New Japanese Poetry (m000kwwz)
Rewriting Humanity
Poet and Editor Jordan Smith uncovers the unexpected skills of global poets who worked in detention centres and prisons, helping the youth detainees within them process their experience.
Award-winning poet Seth Michelson has been working with young children in migrant detention centres, who have been separated from their families and everything they know. Across the ocean, in Japan, poet Ryo Michiko brought poetry workshops to Nara Juvenile prison which housed youth offenders who have been convicted of crimes. While the young poets they work with are processing trauma of very different circumstances, both Seth and Michiko helped the children find a voice through which to narrate and grasp their own pasts, and to find hope.
Jordan Smith brings Seth and Ryo together in conversation to share their experiences, and to hear powerful poetic works that come from unexpected voices.
All the poetry in this programme is written by the young detainees.
Produced by Anishka Sharma
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4
SUN 17:00 File on 4 (m000kp64)
Mental Health: The Next Pandemic?
Lockdown is easing now as worries about physical ill-health recede. But could the stress and anxiety of the last few months lead to a second wave of the epidemic - one centred on the nation's mental health? File on 4 investigates the impact coronavirus has had on those already diagnosed with serious mental illness, and others for whom depression and anxiety are entirely new experiences. The programme looks at provision of mental health services during the crisis, hearing stories of early release from mental health wards and of sudden shifts in how help is provided. Reporter Claire Bolderson examines this quiet revolution in mental health provision prompted by Covid-19 and asks whether the changes are here to stay - and whether services, which many say are already stretched to breaking point, will be able to cope.
Reporter: Claire Bolderson
Producer: Imogen Walford
Editor: Carl Johnston
SUN 17:40 Profile (m000kwc8)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Saturday]
SUN 17:54 Shipping Forecast (m000kwx2)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
SUN 17:57 Weather (m000kwx4)
The latest weather forecast.
SUN 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m000kwx6)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
SUN 18:15 Pick of the Week (m000kwx8)
Sheila McClennon
This week, everything from philosophical questions on the end of the universe to what happened when royalty met a prize winning ram
Remembering the teenage pilots who flew the spitfires and Apollo 13 as Houston solves the problem
Why schools should have a more diverse history curriculum and the story of the office romance that never got off the ground – after the bloke did!
Sheku Kanneh-Mason Mason performs Elgar and there’s a tribute to Ennio Morricone.
Presenter: Sheila McCllennon
Producer: Stephen Garner
Production support: Dave James
Studio Manager: Phil Booth
Contact us potw@bbc.co.uk
SUN 19:00 Q & A by Vikas Swarup (b007vl21)
100,000,000 Rupees
By Ayeesha Menon, from the novel by Vikas Swarup.
Thomas draws on his experience as an unofficial guide at the Taj Mahal. His friendship with another homeless kid leads to a cruel twist of fate and a horrific discovery.
Thomas ...... Anand Tiwari
Prem Kumar ...... Sohrab Ardeshir
Shankar ...... Rohit Malkani
Swapna Devi ...... Devika Shahani-Punjabi
Darshan ...... Jamini Pathak
Other parts played by Pushan Kripalani, Nadir Khan and Rohit Malkani.
Directed by John Dryden.
SUN 19:15 Cabin Pressure (m000kwxc)
Series 2
Gdansk
When MJN Air is chartered to ferry a chamber orchestra, Carolyn has to deal with the mysterious Case Of The Poisoned Cashews, while Martin gets to run through all of the Seven Deadly Sins. And Arthur learns how not to pronounce "Szyszko-Bohusz", but does eat a lot of pudding.
Starring
Carolyn Knapp-Shappey ..... Stephanie Cole
1st Officer Douglas Richardson ..... Roger Allam
Capt. Martin Crieff ..... Benedict Cumberbatch
Arthur Shappey ..... John Finnemore
Madame Szyszko-Bohusz ..... Britta Gartner
Amsterdam ATC ..... Matt Green
Maestro ..... Simon Greenall
Written by John Finnemore.
Produced & Directed by David Tyler
A Pozzitive production for the BBC
SUN 19:45 Spice (m000kwxf)
The Last Believers
A series of five specially-commissioned tales revolving around the possibilities of the word spice.
3/5. The Last Believers by Alex Preston. A writer looks back at a visit to Corfu in his youth and the magical, myth-ical power of certain spices.
Alex Preston is an author and journalist. His last novel, In Love and War, was produced as a Book at Bedtime for BBC Radio 4. His personal anthology of nature writing, As Kingfishers Catch Fire, was published in 2017. Alex lives in Kent with his wife and two children.
Writer: Alex Preston
Reader: Dermot Crowley
Producer: Jeremy Osborne
A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4
SUN 20:00 Feedback (m000knx4)
Was Cleopatra secretly carried into her first audience with Julius Caesar wrapped in a duvet rather than a carpet? Radio 4’s Homeschool History claims a duvet is nearer the truth than Hollywood’s version. Presenter Greg Jenner outlines his evidence.
Two Feedback listeners review a Radio 2 documentary about Italia 90. Did it take them out of their comfort zones?
And will these latest cuts to the local radio budget prove too much for the service to bear?
Presenter: Roger Bolton
Producer: Kate Dixon
Executive Producer: Samir Shah
A Juniper Connect production for BBC Radio 4
SUN 20:30 Last Word (m000knx2)
Ennio Morricone, Sir Everton Weekes, Baroness Maddock, Earl Cameron CBE
Pictured: Ennio Morricone
Matthew Bannister on:
Ennio Morricone, the Italian composer best known for his scores for films like The Good, The Bad and the Ugly and The Mission, but keen to be remembered also for his avant garde classical works.
Sir Everton Weekes, the outstanding batsman who played a key role in West Indian cricket’s success in the 1940s and 50s.
Baroness Maddock, the Liberal Democrat politician who won a stunning victory in the Christchurch by-election in 1993.
Earl Cameron, the Bermuda-born actor whose long career included roles in many hit TV series as well as films like Pool of London, Thunderball and Guns at Batasi.
Interviewed guest: David Willey
Interviewed guest: David Temple
Interviewed guest: Donna Symmonds
Interviewed guest: BC Pires
Interviewed guest: Lord Alan Beith
Interviewed guest: Baroness Jenny Randerson
Producer: Neil George
Archive clips from: Outlook, World Service 07/01/2015; Everton Weekes in his own words, Sky Sports January 2019; England v West Windies 1950 Test Match, Pathe News; England v West Indies at Lords 1950, BBC News; British Politics, Radio 4 30/07/1993; Black on Screen, Radio 4 08/01/2001; Front Row, Radio 4 14/10/2016; Pool of London, directed by Basil Dearden, Ealing Studios 1951; The Heart Within, directed by David Eady, Penington Eady Productions 1957; Guns at Batasi, directed by John Guillermin, Twentieth Century Fox 1964; Thunderball, directed by Terence Young, Eon Productions 1965.
SUN 21:00 Money Box (m000kwbj)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:04 on Saturday]
SUN 21:25 Radio 4 Appeal (m000kww4)
[Repeat of broadcast at
07:54 today]
SUN 21:30 Analysis (m000kmkc)
Thinking for the Long Term
"The origin of civil government," wrote the Scottish philosopher David Hume in 1739, is that "men are not able radically to cure, either in themselves or others, that narrowness of soul, which makes them prefer the present to the remote."
Today, Hume's view that governments can help societies abandon rampant short-termism and adopt a more long term approach, feels little more than wishful thinking. The "now" commands more and more of our attention - quick fixes are the order of the day. But could that be about to change?
Margaret Heffernan asks whether the current pandemic might be the moment we are forced to rediscover our ability to think long term. Could our ability to emerge well from the current health crisis be dependent, in fact, on our ability to improve our long-term thinking?
Among those taking part: Paul Polman (Co-founder of Imagine and former CEO of Unilever), General Sir Nick Carter (Chief of the Defence Staff), Justine Greening (former Conservative minister and founder of the Social Mobility Pledge), Lord Gus O'Donnell (former head of the Civil Service), Chris Llewellyn Smith (former Director General of CERN), and Sophie Howe (Future Generations Commissioner for Wales).
Producer: Adele Armstrong
Editor: Jasper Corbett
SUN 22:00 Westminster Hour (m000kwxh)
Radio 4's Sunday night political discussion programme.
SUN 23:00 The Film Programme (m000kq0d)
Claire Denis and Mark Jenkin
With Antonia Quirke
Director Mark Jenkin sends his latest audio diary as he embarks on a new project, while he waits another year to start shooting his follow-up to the award-winning Bait.
This week's recommendation for a film to stream is High Life, a movie about lockdown and living in isolation, as convicts are sent into space for a scientific experiment. From the archives, director Claire Denis explains that her original idea was to make a film about a deadly virus.
Cinema owner Kevin Markwick explains why he is not going to open the doors of the Uckfield Picture House quite yet, despite the devastating impact that the coronavirus has had on the family business.
Poet Simon Barraclough cannot wait for cinemas to re-open. He has watched at least 98 films during lockdown, but explains, in verse, why watching a film on your television can never be the same as going to the cinema.
SUN 23:30 Something Understood (b00zzmv9)
[Repeat of broadcast at
06:05 today]
MONDAY 13 JULY 2020
MON 00:00 Midnight News (m000kwxk)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.
MON 00:15 Thinking Allowed (m000kpvp)
Rummage - Waste
Rummage & waste: Laurie Taylor talks to Emily Cockayne, Senior Lecturer in Early Modern History at the University of East Anglia, about the overlooked story of our throwaway past, from ladies of the First World War who turned dog hair into yarn to Girl Guides inspired to collect bottle tops by the litter collecting Wombles of Wimbledon. What lessons can be drawn from the past to address urgent questions of our waste today? Patrick O'Hare, Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Social Anthropology at the University of St Andrews, joins the conversation and considers our shifting definitions of waste, from domestic homes in the Global North to the rubbish dumps of Uruguay.
Producer: Jayne Egerton
MON 00:45 Bells on Sunday (m000kwcr)
[Repeat of broadcast at
05:43 on Sunday]
MON 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m000kwxm)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
MON 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m000kwxp)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.
MON 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m000kwxr)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
MON 05:30 News Briefing (m000kwxt)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4
MON 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m000kwxw)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Rachel Gardner, President of the Girl’s Brigade.
Good morning.
When I was a teenager I had friends who could complete a Rubik's Cube in under 15 seconds - they always had such smug looks on their faces as they did it! But no matter how diligently I persevered, I could never crack it. Today is International Puzzle Day, celebrating the birth of Dr. Erno Rubik, the Hungarian inventor of the Rubik's Cube, which became a worldwide craze in the 1980s. So whether you’re a Sudoku genius or a 3D puzzle maestro, this day is especially for you.
There’s something deeply ingrained in us that loves unravelling mysteries. In a variety of different ways we puzzle solve everyday - like working out where the toddler has hidden the phone or planning our walk to the shops to avoid the busy routes.
But for all the conundrums we unravel, there is much about life that remains shrouded in mystery. Much that can make us feel overwhelmed by the circumstances we find ourselves in. And if it’s situations like these that prompt people to pray, maybe it’s because facing the puzzles we cannot solve remind us of how little control we actually have over the mystery of life.
Being confronted during lockdown with a different kind of reality has inspired many of us to ask the questions about what it is that really matters most to us. This can lead us to fear; what if this is all there is? Or it can walk us towards wonder; what if there is more to life than this?
For all the small or large puzzles you face today, may you find you are not alone. May God give you the wisdom and confidence to resolve what you can, and to trust him for all that is beyond your control.
Amen
MON 05:45 Farming Today (m000kwxy)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
MON 05:56 Weather (m000kwy0)
The latest weather forecast for farmers.
MON 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b04dwdm3)
Vogelkop Bowerbird
Tweet of the Day is the voice of birds and our relationship with them, from around the world.
Sir David Attenborough presents the Vogelkop bowerbird of west New Guinea. The forest floor resembles a market stall with neat piles of brightly-coloured fruits and leaves placed carefully on a mossy lawn in front of a cave of thatched twigs. This is the work of the Vogelkop bowerbird. Native to New Guinea and Australia, this drab olive brown male, uses aesthetic tastes to bring vibrancy of colour into his life: and to woo his mate. His brightly coloured exhibits are graded for size and colour and any withered or faded items are quickly replaced. Satisfied with his work, he whistles, and growls to entice her to a private view. After mating the female departs to rear her single chick unaided, while the male returns to the task of tending his creation.
MON 06:00 Today (m000kw3p)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
MON 09:00 How to Play (m000h1lf)
Bach's Brandenburg Concerto No 2 with the Dunedin Consort
The insiders' take on bringing great pieces of classical music to audiences today.
International Bach specialist John Butt and his group the Dunedin Consort let us inside their Edinburgh rehearsals as they prepare for a performance of Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No.2.
Featuring Cecilia Bernardini, Alexandra Bellamy, David Blackadder, Jo Buckley, John Butt, Willie Hendry and David Lee. And Edith.
Music recorded by Lyndon Jones
Producer: Martin Williams
MON 09:30 Legacy of War (m000kw3r)
Episode 6
Stella Collis was born in London in 1947 but it wasn’t until 2009 that Stella learnt the full details about her father, Gottfried Rabe. Gottfried was a German prisoner of war who at the end of the war was interned at Wormwood Scrubs. In 1947, despite having fathered a child, he was repatriated back to Germany. Tragically Stella Collis passed away in 2018, however between 2009 and 2017 Stella recorded several interviews as she gained access to German military files and her father’s story began to unfold. These revelations completely transformed Gottfried’s legacy and Stella’s life. Stella’s daughter Juliet Weller helps to tell this remarkable story.
This programme is dedicated in the memory of Stella.
Produced by Kate Bissell
MON 09:45 A Month In Siena by Hisham Matar (m000kw5g)
Episode 1
When Hisham Matar was nineteen years old he came across the Sienese School of painting for the first time. In the year in which Matar's life was shattered by the disappearance of his father. the work of the great artists of Siena seemed to offer him a sense of hope. Over the years that followed, his feelings towards these paintings would deepen and, as he says, 'Siena began to occupy the sort of uneasy reverence the devout might feel towards Mecca or Rome or Jerusalem'.
A Month in Siena is the encounter, 25 years later, between the writer and the city he had worshipped from afar. It's a dazzling evocation of an extraordinary place and its effect on the writer's life. It's also an immersion in painting, a consideration of grief and a profoundly moving contemplation of the relationship between art and the human condition.
'Bewitching . . . Meditating on art, history and the relationship between them, this is both a portrait of a city and an affirmation of life's quiet dignities in the face of loss.' - The Economist, Books of the Year
In episode 1, Hisham Matar at last visits Siena, to immerse himself in the atmosphere of the place, and spend time amongst its great works of art.
Written by Hisham Matar
Read by Khalid Abdalla
Abridged by Jill Waters and Jonquil Panting
Produced by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4
MON 10:00 Woman's Hour (m000kw3w)
United Arab Emirates launches its first ever mission to Mars. Author Dorothy Koomson. Visiting care homes
Tomorrow the United Arab Emirates will launch its first ever mission to Mars. The probe, called Hope, aims to give the most complete picture yet of the Martian atmosphere – and will cement the UAE’s role as a space-exploring nation. We talk to Her Excellency Sarah Al-Miri Minister of State for Advanced Sciences and the Deputy Mission Project Manager for the Emirates Mars Mission and Professor Jim Al-Khalili, Theoretical physicist and presenter of The Life Scientific.
Ghislaine Maxwell will appear in court in Manhattan on Tuesday charged with recruiting girls for Jeffrey Epstein to sexually abuse. She’s always denied any wrongdoing, and has also denied knowing that he was doing anything wrong. But if we looks back over the decades, news coverage of women accused of aiding and abetting men in their crimes, especially if sexual abuse is involved, has provoked some double-standard reactions. We hear from Baroness Helena Kennedy and Consultant Clinical & Forensic Psychologist Naomi Murphy
Leading charities say relatives of care home residents with dementia should be treated as key workers. In a letter to the health secretary, they say that the care given by family members is "essential" to residents' mental and physical health. We hear from listener Sara McMahon about the impact not benig able to visit her dad has had on his condition.
Plus Dorothy Koomson discusses her new novel All My Lies Are True, sequel to the bestselling The Ice Cream Girls, about two teenage girls accused of the murder of their teacher.
Presenter Jane Garvey
Producer Beverley Purcell
Guest; Baroness Helena Kennedy
Guest; Naomi Murphy
Guest; Her Excellency Sarah Al-Miri
Guest; Professor Jim Al-Khalili,
Guest; Dorothy Koomson
MON 10:45 Why Mummy Swears (m000kw3y)
Episode 1
1/5
Gill Sims’ second comic novel about Ellen, a funny, feisty and stressed-out working-mum. Dramatised by Christine Entwisle.
Ellen’s children are becoming increasingly independent. She feels ready to take on a new challenge and return to full-time work. What could possibly go wrong?
Cast:
Ellen … Gabriel Quigley
Simon / Gary … Stuart McQuarrie
Kathy … Sally Reid
Mother … Anne Lacey
Directed by Kirsty Williams
MON 11:00 Walks Like a Duck (m000kw40)
Equipment, Equipment, Equipment
My name is Louise. I’m a mum to Jacob, wife to Mark, and therapist and friend to many. I also live with a degenerative, muscle wasting disease - a type of Muscular Dystrophy.
A few years ago, my hospital consultant asked a medical student to describe my condition. “Well,” he said, “she walks like a duck.” After a stunned pause, my husband and I howled with laughter. While I doubt the hapless student received the same reaction from the horrified neurologist, his clumsy response provided the perfect title for this documentary series.
The premise is clear. I don’t see myself as a person with a disability, yet that’s what I am. I don’t spend much of my life thinking about disability, yet my mind is filled with it 24/7. I wouldn’t choose to listen to a programme about disability, yet that’s what I was desperate to make!
It’s because living a life full of dependency and loss, my voice - and the voices of others like me - are so often silenced, so feared is the mirror of human weakness that others see reflected in our bodies.
A year in the making, the audio recordings in this series skip from the micro - the exhaustion caused by picking up a box of dropped crackers (when my day’s energy must be meticulously budgeted) - to the macro, such as asking questions about our collective, fearful disregard towards the chronically ill.
Amid all of this, are the real, raw and sometimes amusing sounds of my daily routine - I do live with an 8 year old, after all! - and some personal reflections on the acute emotional and physical pain caused by my diagnosis. I've tried to be absolutely honest in a way that has occasionally been exposing for me, to tell you what my life is like living with a disability.
Episode 2: Equipment, Equipment, Equipment
I am the proud owner of a car with slidey doors, a granny walker called Speedy, a wheelchair, some crutches, a stairlift and a mobility scooter called Brian. My life is pretty logistics-heavy and there’s a part of my brain constantly dedicated to thinking about the thing I will need next to get me to where I need to be. I’m grateful for all the stuff I have to help me - of course I am - but I do often wonder if many people have any idea what it’s like to live a life intertwined with equipment.
Presented by Louise Halling, with thanks to her husband Mark and her son Jacob
Produced by Catherine Carr and Jo Rowntree
A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4
Photo © Muscular Dystrophy UK/Chris O’Donovan
MON 11:30 Loose Ends (m000kw42)
[Repeat of broadcast at
18:15 on Saturday]
MON 12:00 News Summary (m000kwvq)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
MON 12:04 The Girl With The Louding Voice by Abi Daré (m000kw46)
Episode 1
Adunni is a fourteen-year-old Nigerian girl who knows what she wants: an education. She holds close to her the advice that her mother shared before she died: an education is the only way to get a “louding voice”— and the ability to speak for herself and decide her own future. But instead, Adunni's father sells her to be the third wife of a local man who is eager for her to bear him a son and heir.
The author Abi Daré grew up in Lagos, Nigeria. She studied law at the University of Wolverhamton and received an MSc from Glasgow Caledonian University in International Project Management. She also has an MA in Creative Writing from Birkbeck, University of London. She began writing the novel after a conversation with her 8yr old daughter about how there were girls her age in Nigeria who had to do housework for a living.
In Episode 1 we meet 14 year old Adunni who dreams of getting an education. But her father has other ideas.
Written by Abi Daré
Read by Ronkẹ Adékọluẹ́jọ́
Abridged by Jill Waters and Isobel Creed
Produced by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4
MON 12:18 You and Yours (m000kw49)
News and discussion of consumer affairs
MON 12:57 Weather (m000kw4d)
The latest weather forecast
MON 13:00 World at One (m000kw4g)
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 Bloodsport (m000kw4j)
6. Full Protection
It is the single most important sports story of our time and it reads like a Cold War thriller. The Evening Standard's sports correspondent Matt Majendie tells the whole story from 2012 till now.
Episode 6 shows how Lamine Diack, the boss of world athletics, conspired with the Russian state to protect their doping system. Diack is currently awaiting trial in a French court accused of corrupting the very sport he was sworn to protect.
Bloodsport is the story of the systematic doping of the 2012 and 2014 Olympics by the Russian state, its subsequent unmasking and the ongoing fall out amidst the power play of nation against nation. For the first time, you’ll hear the whole story from 2012 to 2020 told by the people who were there. You’ll hear from Paula Radcliffe and Sebastian Coe on London 2012, you’ll meet the expert German investigator who cracked the case wide open and from athletes who doped. We’ve got access to the elite Swiss lab racing to finish testing London 2012 samples and we’ve spoken to the guy who masterminded doping control at the London games. You’ll also hear first-hand testimony from people who blew the whistle inside Russia (at the risk of their own lives) and from seasoned journalists who watched open-mouthed as the whole thing unfolded. And we’ll take you into the ongoing arms race between doper and tester, to see how the science of testing plays out in the analysis of blood and urine samples. Despite it being eight years ago, the story isn’t over. There are unfinished corruption trials in French Courts and ongoing allegations of flagrant Russian cheating.
MON 14:00 Tumanbay (m000kw4l)
Series 4
The Fires
The city prepares for a spectacular celestial event – fires falling from the sky. While self-proclaimed Mother of the Empire, Fatima, sees it as an opportunity to glorify her new reign, for the Balarac it is the signal to enact a dreadful plan. Meanwhile Frog must save Matilla, the girl he loves, from the gallows and a prophesy that she will die at the hands of "the blind man".
Anton Lesser, Aiysha Hart, Rufus Wright and Kirsty Bushell lead an impressive ensemble cast in this gripping extended finale to this epic series from creators John Scott Dryden and Mike Walker.
Cast:
Gregor................ Rufus Wright
Heaven................Olivia Popica
Cadali................ Matthew Marsh
Fatima................ Kirsty Bushell
Grand Master................ Anton Lesser
Manel................ Aiysha Hart
Angel................ Steffan Donnelly
Sarp................Joplin Sibtain
Mehmed................ Nadim Sawalha
Frog................Misha Butler
Dumpy............... Ali Khan
Matilla................Albane Courtois
Bello................Albert Welling
Piero................Pano Masti
the Hafiz................Antony Bunsee
Sarah................Nina Yndis
Qulan................Christopher Fulford
Alkin............... Nathalie Armin
Landlady.............. Arita Sadiku
Original Music by Sacha Puttnam
Sound Design by Eloise Whitmore
Sound Recording by Laurence Farr
Produced by Emma Hearn, Nadir Khan and John Scott Dryden
Written and Directed by John Scott Dryden
A Goldhawk production for BBC Radio 4
MON 15:00 The 3rd Degree (m000kw4n)
Series 10
University of Reading
Steve Punt hosts the funny, lively and dynamic quiz from the University of Reading.
This week's specialist subjects are linguistics, law and film and theatre Studies and the questions range from dental fricatives to Jack Reacher via a burst water pipe in Birmingham.
The show is recorded on location at a different University each week, and it pits three undergraduates against three of their professors in a genuinely original and fresh take on an academic quiz
The rounds vary between specialist subjects and general knowledge, quickfire bell-and-buzzer rounds and the Highbrow and Lowbrow round, cunningly devised to test not only the students’ knowledge of current affairs, history, languages and science, but also their professors’ awareness of television, sport, and quite possibly Ed Sheeran. In addition, there are the head-to-head rounds, in which students take on their professors in their own subjects - with plenty of scope for mild embarrassment on both sides.
In this series, the universities are Bournemouth, Imperial College, Reading, Durham, Ulster University and Mansfield College Oxford.
The host, Steve Punt, although best known as a satirist on The Now Show, is also someone who delights in all facets of knowledge, - not just in the humanities (his educational background) but in the sciences as well. As well as The Now Show, he has made a number of documentaries for Radio 4 on subjects as varied as The Poet Unwound - The History Of The Spleen and Getting The Gongs - an investigation into awards ceremonies.
Producer: David Tyler
A Pozzitive production for BBC Radio 4
MON 15:30 The Food Programme (m000kw4q)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:32 on Sunday]
MON 16:00 Simon Schama: The Great Gallery Tours (m000kw4s)
The Courtauld
Simon Scharma introduces visits the Courtauld Gallery in London where he picks out the cream of the Impressionist collection from Cézanne, Manet and Gauguin.
Simon was inspired to make the series because, "Like many of you I'm badly missing the joy of museums and galleries. So I'm really delighted to be able to talk about four of my favourite treasure-houses of great art - the Prado, the Rijksmuseum and the Whitney in New York, and, first of all, the Courtauld Gallery in London. I hope to convey in full-colour radio the transforming power of some of their greatest paintings.“
Choosing the Courtauld also unlocked a personal story for Simon. The collection was started by the textile magnate Samuel Courtauld and the firm had become rich producing the silk substitute Rayon. Simon's father, a textile merchant, bought huge amounts of Courtauld's Rayon and Simon remembers being taken to the factory to watch production. It awakened in him an awareness of colour for the first time.
He also remembers, as a young man, being transfixed in front of Cézanne's painting Montagne Sainte-Victoire - one of an exceptional collection of Impressionist and post-Impressionist paintings assembled by Sam Courtauld, at a time when the 'French rebels' were regarded with great suspicion by the Englist art establishment. This is his first choice in his tour for this programme.
The other choices are A Bar at the Folies-Bergère by Manet - full of the life of late-19th-century Paris but also the mystery of how we should regard its central figure, the lovely but preoccupied barmaid - and Nevermore, Gauguin's haunting portrait of his naked teenage lover, painted in Tahiti in 1897.
You can find the names of the paintings and a link to the gallery on the Great Gallery Tours’ programme website.
Written and Presented by Simon Schama
Produced by Susan Marling
A Just Radio production for BBC Radio 4
MON 16:30 The Infinite Monkey Cage (p08fq7t3)
Series 22
Black Holes
Brian Cox and Robin Ince look at the weird and wacky world of black holes as they ask a question that has been troubling scientists for years: What happens if you push Matt Lucas into a black hole? They are joined by the very game Matt Lucas, alongside cosmologist Sean Carroll and astrophysicist Janna Levin to discover just how strange things might get for our intrepid volunteer, as he ventures into the interior of a black hole. From holograms to spagettification. it turns out science fact is far more bizarre than anything that science fiction could possibly imagine.
Producer: Alexandra Feachem
MON 17:00 PM (m000kw4w)
Afternoon news and current affairs programme, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines
MON 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m000kw50)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
MON 18:30 The Unbelievable Truth (m000kw52)
Series 24
Episode 5
David Mitchell hosts the panel game in which four comedians are encouraged to tell lies and compete against one another to see how many items of truth they're able to smuggle past their opponents.
Henning Wehn, Lou Sanders, Sindhu Vee and Neil Delamere are the panellists obliged to talk with deliberate inaccuracy on subjects as varied as guns, magic, berries and crocodiles.
Produced by Jon Naismith
A Random Entertainment production for BBC Radio 4
MON 19:00 The Archers (m000kv7d)
Fallon ends up disappointed and Jolene makes a controversial decision
MON 19:15 Front Row (m000kw54)
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
MON 19:45 Why Mummy Swears (m000kw3y)
[Repeat of broadcast at
10:45 today]
MON 20:00 A Deadly Trade (m000ktxk)
The bodies of 39 Vietnamese men and women discovered in a lorry container in Essex highlighted the growing problem of illegal and dangerous journeys into the UK. With police and governments pledging to do more to uncover illegal smuggling operations Radio 4 speaks to refugees, lorry drivers and to some of the smugglers behind this deadly trade
Recent coverage from Greece has highlighted the pressures on borders as desperate people risk everything to cross from Turkey. Dangerous Trade starts by tracking a dinghy full of refugees landing on the island of Lesbos and heading for the now infamous Moria camp. It was constructed for 3,100 people but now has a population of more than 20,000 men, women and children.
On the camp refugees speak about their dreams of a new life and many hope to make it to the UK. Following the route of some of those that have, Sue Mitchell joins them in Dunkirk as they negotiate with smugglers and weigh up the risks of crossing the Chanel illegally by boat or stowing away in lorries bound for England.
Last year, whilst recording another documentary for Radio 4, Sue met a 14 year old girl who was single-handedly talking to smugglers and raising the money from relatives who had already reached the UK. She details what happens as she and her siblings make the dangerous journey and she reflects on her new life in Britain.
Those who make the crossing know they are lucky to have survived. The deaths in the Essex container lorry revealed the shocking risks – as do reports of others who have perished at sea and on land. For the lorry drivers who inadvertently end up smuggling refugees, there’s growing anger that more isn’t being done at the borders. Governments have promised to work together to tackle this growing problem, but solutions are still a long way off.
Producer/Reporter: Sue Mitchell
MON 20:30 Analysis (m000kw56)
Humans vs the Planet
As Covid-19 forced humans into lockdown, memes emerged showing the earth was healing thanks to our absence. These were false claims – but their popularity revealed how seductive the dangerous idea that ‘we are the virus’ can be.
At its most extreme, this way of thinking leads to eco-fascism, the belief the harm humans do to Earth can be reduced by cutting the number of non-white people.
But the mainstream green movement is also challenged by a less hateful form of this mentality known as ‘doomism’ – a creeping sense that humans will inevitably cause ecological disaster, that it’s too late to act and that technological solutions only offer more environmental degradation through mining and habitat loss.
What vision can environmentalists offer as an antidote to these depressing ideas? And how can green politics encourage radical thinking without opening the door to hateful ideologies?
Producer/Presenter: Lucy Proctor
Editor: Jasper Corbett
MON 21:00 From Our Home Correspondent (m000kp55)
In the latest programme, Mishal Husain introduces pieces from writers around the United Kingdom which reflect life as it is being led during Covid-19.
Paul Moss, who reports for Radio 4's "The World Tonight" and the BBC World Service, spills the beans on how daily reporting has changed during lockdown. His story includes weirdly unprofessional backdrops, some decidedly awkward manoeuvring of equipment, bedding - and the neighbours.
BBC News presenter, Tanya Beckett, has found that lockdown has meant that time has stood still in her Oxfordshire village, leaving her to reflect on a dreadful crime. It took place not far from where she now lives and, as she has learnt more about the case, it has turned out to be even closer to home than she had at first realised.
Businesses across the UK are deciding how to operate as lockdown restrictions are eased. They include tarot card readers who perhaps saw what was coming. Writer and broadcaster Travis Elborough has been speaking to two Brighton tarot readers who are getting ready to meet clients again. So how is the future looking?
And how's your bubble? In June, it was announced that single person and single parent households could form a "support bubble" with another household. After months alone, Jane Labous, in lockdown with her young daughter, has taken the plunge. She's been speaking to others weighing up the pros and cons of "bubbling up".
Lockdown has curtailed plans to mark the 300th anniversary of the birth later this month of the household naturalist, the Reverend Gilbert White. Yet his writings, based on observations in the Hampshire village of Selborne, remain astonishingly accessible and informative today - as Andrew Green, with a special Selborne connection himself, has found.
Producer Simon Coates
MON 21:30 How to Play (m000h1lf)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 today]
MON 22:00 The World Tonight (m000kw58)
In depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective
MON 22:45 The Girl With The Louding Voice by Abi Daré (m000kw46)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:04 today]
MON 23:00 Rewinder (m000jg0k)
Johnners, Hot Tubs and the A to Z of Veg
Greg James, host of the Radio 1 Breakfast Show and self-confessed 'proud radio nerd', rummages through the BBC's vast archives of audio, video and documents, using current stories and listener suggestions as a springboard into the vaults.
The cancellation of reality dating show Love Island prompts Greg to rediscover a BBC equivalent - Living in the Past from 1978 in which six couples and three children lived in an Iron Age settlement for a year, equipped only with the tools, crops and livestock that would have been available in Britain in c 200 BC. With mud everywhere, rats on the menu and cramped living conditions, it's no surprise that emotions occasionally ran high.
In Mental Health Awareness Week Greg looks at how the BBC reported on mental illness in the days when it was very much a taboo subject for open discussion. He watches The Hurt Mind, a groundbreaking series from 1957 in which reporter Christopher Mayhew went behind the closed doors of a hospital and spoke to its staff and patients. The programme, which was highly praised at the time, shows how enlightened staff and a culture of openness about mental health, addressed some of the hidden issues faced by a post war generation. Greg also finds an astonishing interview with the singer and songwriter Ian Dury from 1981 in which the Blockheads frontman talks about his experience of depression.
Like many people Greg has found solace in his garden during the pandemic and, taking his microphone outdoors, he listens to birdsong and looks back at some of the BBC's early gardening programmes. Before Alan Titchmarsh there was CH Middleton - known to his audience as Mr Middleton - whose radio programme In Your Garden attracted an audience of millions. Mr Middleton's vegetable alphabet was a regular slot on his programme - something Greg thinks might appeal to listeners today. Writer Vita Sackville-West was also a regular gardening broadcaster and Greg finds a delightful talk she presented on the Home Service in 1950. Called Walking Through Leaves, it's a meditation on life's small pleasures which she and her family rank in terms of their 'Through Leaveness'.
A listener sets Greg on the hunt for archive featuring Eric Idle and, to his joy, the search leads him to find one of his favourite combinations - Test Match Special and a Python. Eric is conversation with the legendary cricket commentator and guffawer Brian Johnston and they discuss Eric's cricket musical Behind the Crease. Let's just say much laughter ensues.
Producer: Paula McGinley
MON 23:30 Today in Parliament (m000kw5b)
News, views and features on today's stories in Parliament
TUESDAY 14 JULY 2020
TUE 00:00 Midnight News (m000kw5d)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.
TUE 00:30 A Month In Siena by Hisham Matar (m000kw5g)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 on Monday]
TUE 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m000kw5j)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
TUE 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m000kw5l)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.
TUE 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m000kw5n)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
TUE 05:30 News Briefing (m000kw5q)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4
TUE 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m000kw5s)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Rachel Gardner, president of the Girl’s Brigade.
Good morning.
When lockdown began I feared what it would mean for my home city of Preston and the people here already gripped by poverty, homelessness and addiction. A few of us met to pray about how our church could respond - how we would love our neighbour.
Later that same day we were given a huge amount of high quality food from a local supermarket that was about to close. After we’d unpacked the bags we gazed across the sea of chocolate bunnies, rainbow coloured pasta and bath bombs that was filling the church. We wondered what on earth we were going to do with it all! Since then the newly refurbished church we planted into a few months before has become a food distribution hub, enabling us to feed every person and family who asks for help and to resource food charities and churches across this area who are feeding the most vulnerable and forgotten people in their communities. Sometimes I wonder if that explosion of resources on day one was a reminder that God always wants to give us more than we dare to ask, dream or even imagine.
Every time I walk into the church building to join the volunteers calling the lonely on the phone, cooking hot meals for the homeless or packing up food parcels for struggling families, I feel a surge of joy in my heart. God is being found by us where God always is - among the forgotten, suffering, overlooked people in our world. And in seeking to bless others, we have been blessed beyond all expectation.
I love the words from this prayer written by relief charity Christian Aid,
Breath of God,
let there be abundant life.
Inspire us with the vision of poverty over,
and give us the faith, courage and will to make it happen.
Amen
TUE 05:45 Farming Today (m000kw5v)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
TUE 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b04dyh49)
Sociable Weaver
Tweet of the Day is the voice of birds and our relationship with them, from around the world.
Sir David Attenborough presents the sociable weaver of the Kalahari Desert in Namibia. Travel through the dry margins of the Kalahari Desert and the telegraph poles stretching across the treeless plain could be wearing giant haystacks. These colossal communal homes are actually a home to the sociable weaver. These sparrow relatives build the largest nesting structure of any bird in the world. A hundred pairs may breed in a nest weighing nearly one tonne, built on isolated trees or any suitable man made structure such as pylons. Developed over generations these colonial nests provide a cooling structure during the searing heat of day and a warm refuge for night time roosts in this inhospitable landscape. Other animals find a use for these structures, from nesting vultures using it as a safe platform, to snakes; who if they enter the nest, can have free rein to this weaver larder.
TUE 06:00 Today (m000kv6f)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
TUE 09:00 Positive Thinking (m000kv6h)
Closing the Attainment Gap
Sangita Myska takes a deep dive into some of the biggest problems facing Britain today - and meets the people whose big ideas might solve them.
This week in Positive Thinking, we tackle how to close the attainment gap between disadvantaged pupils and their classmates.
The stats are shocking: by the time a disadvantaged child leaves primary school, he or she will be 9 months behind their classmates in their learning. That gap rises to a year and a half, by the time that same child leaves secondary school. We look to Michigan in America's Mid West for solutions on how to tear up the school calendar to help kids fulfill their true potential.
Contributors:
David Hornack, Superintendent for Holt Public Schools in Michigan in the US.
Tracy Argent, Headteacher at Woolmore Primary School in Tower Hamlets, London.
Revd Steve Chalke, Founder of the Oasis Academy Trust
Ros McMullen, Education Consultant
Rosie Murray West, School governor and personal finance journalist
Producers: Sarah Shebbeare and Sam Peach
TUE 09:30 Behind the Buzzwords (m000kv6k)
Nudge
David Cannadine tells the story behind the buzzword Nudge, widely used during the Coronavirus pandemic.
It was first popularised by two Harvard Professors, Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, in their best-selling book Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness’, published in 2008. They took the less catchy phrase Libertarian Paternalism as their starting point. David talks to Cass Sunstein about the original concept.
Nudge theory was subsequently seized on by politicians dealing with the fall-out from the financial crisis of 2008. They were attracted to the idea of using the findings of psychological research to encourage people to make better behavioural choices without imposing coercive legislation on them. President Barak Obama loved the concept and hired Cass Sunstein to come up with Nudge advice in areas including environmental protection, healthcare and highway safety. Other Nudge units followed and David speaks to David Halpern from the UK’s Nudge Unit, set up by David Cameron in 2010, about applying Nudge theory to public policy.
Critics of Nudge theory argue that Libertarian Paternalism concentrates on the psychological manipulation of citizens, rather than educating them about making better-informed choices, which means the ultimate effect of nudging is to infantilise us.
Nowadays, Nudge has not only been embraced by government but also by businesses - when you are compelled to leave an airport via the duty free shop, you are being Nudged to part with your cash. And while it was once a novelty to be asked to consider reusing the towels in your hotel bathroom, its now commonplace to be greeted with a winsome plea to think about the planet.
The application of Nudge Theory has undoubtedly had some successes. But there remain big question marks over whether it should be used in the first place. And there are also some doubts as to its effectiveness as Magda Osman from Queen Mary, University of London explains.
With Cass Sunstein, David Halpern and Magda Osman.
Researcher: Joe Christmas
Produced by Melissa FitzGerald
A Blakeway production for BBC Radio 4
The series is made in collaboration with The British Academy.
TUE 09:45 A Month In Siena by Hisham Matar (m000kv6n)
Episode 2
When Hisham Matar was nineteen years old he came across the Sienese School of painting for the first time. In the year in which Matar's life was shattered by the disappearance of his father. the work of the great artists of Siena seemed to offer him a sense of hope. Over the years that followed, his feelings towards these paintings would deepen and, as he says, 'Siena began to occupy the sort of uneasy reverence the devout might feel towards Mecca or Rome or Jerusalem'.
A Month in Siena is the encounter, 25 years later, between the writer and the city he had worshipped from afar. It's a dazzling evocation of an extraordinary place and its effect on the writer's life. It's also an immersion in painting, a consideration of grief and a profoundly moving contemplation of the relationship between art and the human condition.
'Bewitching . . . Meditating on art, history and the relationship between them, this is both a portrait of a city and an affirmation of life's quiet dignities in the face of loss.' - The Economist, Books of the Year
In episode 2, HIsham Matar and his wife visit the famous frescoes in the town hall or Palazzo Pubblico of Siena. They particularly want to see the 14th Century frescoes painted by Ambrogio Lorenzetti.
Written by Hisham Matar
Read by Khalid Abdalla
Abridged by Jill Waters and Jonquil Panting
Produced by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4
TUE 10:00 Woman's Hour (m000kv6q)
The programme that offers a female perspective on the world
TUE 10:45 Why Mummy Swears (m000kv6s)
Episode 2
2/5
Hungry for a new challenge, Ellen has bagged her dream-job. But she’s also found herself Chairing the PTA. Has she bitten off more than she can chew?
Gill Sims’ second comic novel about Ellen, a funny, feisty and stressed-out working-mum.
Dramatised by Christine Entwisle.
Cast:
Ellen … Gabriel Quigley
Simon … Stuart McQuarrie
Kathy … Sally Reid
Mother … Anne Lacey
Alan … Jordan Young
Lydea … Isobel McArthur
Directed by Kirsty Williams
TUE 11:00 The Political School (m000kv6v)
Episode 1
Have you ever thought that our whole political system needs radical change?
That in the face of complex global challenges - a pandemic, for example - the British state is a lumbering beast still using the technology of the 20th century, if not the 19th? That our politicians aren’t as well equipped for their jobs as they could be?
In this three-part series, author and broadcaster Timandra Harkness examines whether there's truth in these ideas and how our political system can change for the better.
In this first episode, Timandra looks at the role forecasting, statistics and probability play in government. It’s ironic that nobody saw the coronavirus crisis coming. Because plenty of people saw it coming. A pandemic was top of the UK government risk register, and still it seemed to take everyone by surprise. Suddenly we’re all living in a world of mathematical models, projected curves and logarithmic scales.
Are politicians equipped to use the data they have? Or is it time to send them back to the classroom for extra Maths?
A Novel production for BBC Radio 4
TUE 11:30 The Last Songs of Gaia (m000kv6y)
4: Plants and Insects
In the last year, the scale of the climate and wildlife crises has been laid bare by scientists around the globe. A frightening number of species are falling silent as a result. How are the world’s musicians, sound artists and poets responding?
The series concludes with the biggest leap - into the scarcely imaginable soundworld of pondweed, ants and the interior of tree trunks. If we could get inside these soundscapes, how might our perspective on the world change?
Verity Sharp listens to how the sounds of ants on the Amazon forest floor are transformed into music for drum ensemble, and considers whether we could ever grow to love the sound of pondweed photosynthesising. The symbolism of trees makes them easier to connect with and we hear tales of spirits and persecution in southern Mexico, as well as folk music inspired by threatened wildflowers much closer to home.
Featuring Jez Riley-French, Lisa Schonberg, Mikeas Sanchez and Janie Mitchell.
Produced by Chris Elcombe
A Reduced Listening production for BBC Radio 4
Additional material:
Horacio Franco - ‘Diálogo entre flautas’ from Lienzos de viento (Puertarbor Records puertarbor@gmail.com)
Baka chanting courtesy of Greenpeace Africa and Swiri Milsheron Nche
Photo © Pheobe Riley-French
TUE 12:00 News Summary (m000kv70)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
TUE 12:04 The Girl With The Louding Voice by Abi Daré (m000kv72)
Episode 2
Adunni is a fourteen-year-old Nigerian girl who knows what she wants: an education. She holds close to her the advice that her mother shared before she died: an education is the only way to get a “louding voice”— and the ability to speak for herself and decide her own future. But instead, Adunni's father sells her to be the third wife of a local man who is eager for her to bear him a son and heir.
The author Abi Daré grew up in Lagos, Nigeria. She studied law at the University of Wolverhamton and received an MSc from Glasgow Caledonian University in International Project Management. She also has an MA in Creative Writing from Birkbeck, University of London. She began writing the novel after a conversation with her 8yr old daughter about how there were girls her age in Nigeria who had to do housework for a living.
In Episode 2, 14 yr old Adunni begins married life in the home of her new husband.
Written by Abi Daré
Read by Ronkẹ Adékọluẹ́jọ́
Abridged by Jill Waters and Isobel Creed
Produced by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4
TUE 12:18 You and Yours (m000kv74)
News and discussion of consumer affairs
TUE 12:57 Weather (m000kv76)
The latest weather forecast
TUE 13:00 World at One (m000kv78)
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 Bloodsport (m000kv7b)
7. Dead Russians
Bloodsport is the story of the systematic doping of the 2012 and 2014 Olympics by the Russian state. It is the single most important sports story of our time and it reads like a Cold War thriller. The Evening Standard's sports correspondent Matt Majendie tells the whole story from 2012 till now.
Episode seven hears how doping mastermind, Grigory Rodchenkov, went public about Russian cheating at the London and Sochi Olympics - and swapped life in Russian for a US witness protection program.
For the first time, you’ll hear the whole story from 2012 to 2020 told by the people who were there. You’ll hear from Paula Radcliffe and Sebastian Coe on London 2012, you’ll meet the expert German investigator who cracked the case wide open and from athletes who doped. We’ve got access to the elite Swiss lab racing to finish testing London 2012 samples and we’ve spoken to the guy who masterminded doping control at the London games.
You’ll also hear first-hand testimony from people who blew the whistle inside Russia (at the risk of their own lives) and from seasoned journalists who watched open-mouthed as the whole thing unfolded. And we’ll take you into the ongoing arms race between doper and tester, to see how the science of testing plays out in the analysis of blood and urine samples. Despite it being eight years ago, the story isn’t over. There are unfinished corruption trials in French Courts and ongoing allegations of flagrant Russian cheating (even as the Russian government denies all the evidence). Against all this is the soon-to-be pressing question of whether Russia will participate in the now postponed Tokyo Olympics. The credibility of the Olympic movement might hang on the decision. The clock is ticking.
TUE 14:00 The Archers (m000kv7d)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Monday]
TUE 14:15 Drama (b0b9wrcy)
Tiger Girls
Crystal Yu plays Michelle, a Tiger Girl addicted to gambling in London's casinos. What will it take for her to walk away from family, culture and the empty promise of huge wealth?
Michelle's a paediatrician, being pursued by colleague Roy who wants to get serious. She likes him but she has a big secret to conceal. She's a gambler and a liar - like all addicts.
She's from a family of gamblers, steeped in its culture, and she just can't kick the thrill. She consults her almanac daily, looking to see if it's an auspicious day for Tiger Girls. If the signs are good, she'll drop everything to get to the roulette table. Like her grandma, she was born in the Year of the Tiger and good fortune comes from the South East. But unlike her grandma, she can't walk away after three wins. And she's lost so much already.
Loud, brash and colourful, the drama takes us into the heart of the British-Chinese community.
Writer Amy Ng is a London based Hong Kong-Chinese playwright named on the BBC's New Talent Hotlist. Director Shan Ng is an experienced television and film director making her directorial Radio 4 drama debut.
Writer: Amy Ng
Sound Designer: James Morgan
Additional music: Ruth Chan, Nick Crofts
Director: Shan Ng
Producer: Melanie Harris
Executive Producer: Polly Thomas
A Sparklab production for BBC Radio 4.
TUE 15:00 The Kitchen Cabinet (m000kv7g)
[Repeat of broadcast at
10:30 on Saturday]
TUE 15:30 The Curious Cases of Rutherford & Fry (m000kv7j)
Series 16
The Space Burrito
Is there a point in space where the Sun could heat a burrito perfectly? asks Will. The doctors tackle this and a plethora of other conundra from the Curious Cases inbox.
Featuring expert answers from astrophysicist Samaya Nissanke, cosmologist Andrew Pontzen, and cognitive neuroscientist Sophie Scott.
Presenters: Hannah Fry & Adam Rutherford
Producer: Jen Whyntie
TUE 16:00 Word of Mouth (m000kv7l)
The Language of the Pandemic
Professor Tanya Byron sitting in for Michael Rosen examines the language of Covid-19 with author Mark Honigsbaum. Since the outbreak of coronavirus we have had to adopt a new way of talking about life during a pandemic. We've been 'shielding' and 'socially distancing'. Some of us have been 'furloughed'. We've been dismayed by the irresponsible behaviour of 'covidiots' and tried to avoid too much 'doom scrolling'. But has communication about the virus been clear and effective enough? Medical historian Mark Honigsbaum in his book The Pandemic Century - 100 years of Panic, Hysteria and Hubris - argues that words matter and that we should learn the lessons of previous pandemics from Spanish Flu to Ebola.
Producer: Maggie Ayre
TUE 16:30 A Good Read (m000ktpl)
Fiona Shaw & Nicola Coughlan
Actors Fiona Shaw and Nicola Coughlan join Harriett Gilbert to talk books. Nicola's choice is The Psychopath Test by Jon Ronson, Harriett recommends In a Lonely Place by Dorothy M Hughes and Fiona chooses Slouching Towards Bethlehem by Joan Didion. Producer Sally Heaven
Follow us on Instagram at @agoodreadbbc
TUE 17:00 PM (m000kv7n)
Afternoon news and current affairs programme, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines
TUE 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m000kv7q)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
TUE 18:30 Meet David Sedaris (b08wp5cq)
Series 6
Episode 1
The globetrotting, trash-picking, aisle-rolling storyteller is back with more words of wit and wisdom. He opens this series with a new story fresh from the pages of The New Yorker, Untamed, and extracts from his book Theft By Finding, a compilation of diary entries from 1977-2002.
With sardonic wit and incisive social critiques, David Sedaris has become one of America's pre-eminent humour writers. The great skill with which he slices through cultural euphemisms and political correctness proves that he is a master of satire and one of the most observant writers addressing the human condition today.
David Sedaris's first book, Barrel Fever (1994), which included The SantaLand Diaries. was a critical and commercial success, as were his follow-up efforts, Naked (1997), Holidays on Ice (1997) and Me Talk Pretty One Day (2000). He became known for his bitingly funny recollections of his youth, family life and travels, making semi-celebrities out of his parents and siblings.
David Sedaris has been nominated for three Grammy Awards for Best Spoken Word and Best Comedy Album. A feature film adaptation of his story C.O.G. was released after a premier at the Sundance Film Festival (2013). He has been a contributor to BBC Radio 4 since 1996.
Producer: Steve Doherty
A Giddy Goat production for BBC Radio 4.
TUE 19:00 The Archers (m000kty2)
David turns detective and Elizabeth struggles to find the right words
TUE 19:15 Front Row (m000kv7s)
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
TUE 19:45 Why Mummy Swears (m000kv6s)
[Repeat of broadcast at
10:45 today]
TUE 20:00 File on 4 (m000kv7v)
Groomed, abused and put in prison: Rochdale’s untold story
How does an abused teenager get a criminal record while her abusers walk free? This is untold story of the Rochdale grooming scandal - how one young woman has been denied justice and how her attackers are still at large. For the very first time, 'Daisy' tells her harrowing story to File on 4. How, from the age of 12, she was groomed, raped and abused by a gang of men. The abuse led her to be involved in some criminal behaviour - but when the police investigated and she told them what was happening, she says she was ignored. She was sent to prison, where, for the first time since the abuse started, she says she felt safe. But when she was released, it started again. The police have admitted some failures but, a decade after they launched their investigation into systematic and organised abuse, Daisy and two other young women, who were also abused, are now taking civil action against Greater Manchester Police and the Crown Prosecution Service.
Producer: Sally Chesworth
Reporter: Alys Harte
Editor: Carl Johnston
TUE 20:40 In Touch (m000kv7x)
News, views and information for people who are blind or partially sighted
TUE 21:00 Inside Health (m000kty9)
A weekly quest to demystify health issues, bringing clarity to conflicting advice.
TUE 21:30 Positive Thinking (m000kv6h)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 today]
TUE 22:00 The World Tonight (m000kv7z)
In depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective
TUE 22:45 The Girl With The Louding Voice by Abi Daré (m000kv72)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:04 today]
TUE 23:00 The Infinite Monkey Cage (p08fq7t3)
[Repeat of broadcast at
16:30 on Monday]
TUE 23:30 Today in Parliament (m000kv82)
News, views and features on today's stories in Parliament
WEDNESDAY 15 JULY 2020
WED 00:00 Midnight News (m000kv84)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.
WED 00:30 A Month In Siena by Hisham Matar (m000kv6n)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 on Tuesday]
WED 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m000kv86)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
WED 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m000kv88)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.
WED 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m000kv8b)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
WED 05:30 News Briefing (m000kv8d)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4
WED 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m000kv8g)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Rachel Gardner, President of the Girl’s Brigade.
Good morning.
In September 1666, Samuel Pepys stood on the south bank of the Thames, watching as the city he loved became engulfed in what became known as the Great Fire of London. Built in 1087, Old St Paul’s was the heartbeat of the city – it was a building that seemed to carry the pulse of the people.
But Old St Paul’s had gone, swallowed by the fire.
Only stone and charred wood remaining. Christopher Wren was persuaded to re-imagine the St Paul’s of the future. And Wren’s first act, after drawing up designs was to send labourers to find the stone to mark the place the cathedral would be built. The labourers returned with a stone, rustically carved, but a solid, dependable stone sourced from the rubble of Old St Paul’s cathedral.
Each of us will have our own story of the rubble of disappointment or even suffering, as well as the hope emerging from this time.
Martin Luther King said that although we must accept finite disappointment, we must never lose infinite hope. Our hope lies in the fact that God is not helpless among the ruins. God stands weeping with us as we survey the landscape. But God is also inspiring us with dreams of what beauty and truth can emerge from the destruction.
God, as this new day begins, help us to let go of disappointment and hold onto hope for our homes and communities. Thank you that in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, all our deepest longings and hopes are fulfilled. Amen
WED 05:45 Farming Today (m000kv8j)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
WED 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b04dw6z4)
Red-headed Woodpecker
Tweet of the Day is the voice of birds and our relationship with them, from around the world.
Sir David Attenborough presents the red-headed woodpecker found in North America. With its inky black wings, snow white body and crimson hood, the red-headed woodpecker is one of the most striking members of its family, a real 'flying checker-board'. This striking Woodpecker has an ancient past, fossil records go back 2 million years and the Cherokee Indians used this species as a war symbol. More recently and nestled amongst Longfellow's epic poem The Song of Hiawatha, the grateful Hiawatha gave the red headed woodpecker its red head in thanks for its service to him.
WED 06:00 Today (m000ktx7)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
WED 09:00 Soul Music (m000ktx9)
Feeling Good
The surprising history behind a track made famous by Nina Simone. Feeling Good was written for a now obscure musical and originally performed by Cy Grant, the first black man to appear regularly on British TV. Cy Grant's daughter, Samantha Moxon, describes her father's extraordinary life from Prisoner of War camp to a successful career in the arts. The composer, Neil Brand, discusses why the song has gone on to transcend the almost forgotten musical it was created for. Other speakers are Sam Reynolds, who says the track helped her through challenging times, and musician, Kirsten Lamb, who sings a simplified version with young children at a homelessness project in Massachusetts.
Producer: Karen Gregor
WED 09:30 Four Thought (m000ktq6)
Change Through Engagement
Mahamed Hashi draws on his experience as a teacher, youth worker, councillor and victim of a stabbing and shooting to speak out against racist stereotyping. He explains why he thinks community outreach is a two way process: meeting people's needs but also listening to what they have to say, especially young people. Positive engagement with the police and representative bodies is the way, he believes, to change racist culture and a discriminatory status quo.
Presenter: Olly Mann
Producer: Sheila Cook
WED 09:45 A Month In Siena by Hisham Matar (m000ktxc)
Episode 3
When Hisham Matar was nineteen years old he came across the Sienese School of painting for the first time. In the year in which Matar's life was shattered by the disappearance of his father. the work of the great artists of Siena seemed to offer him a sense of hope. Over the years that followed, his feelings towards these paintings would deepen and, as he says, 'Siena began to occupy the sort of uneasy reverence the devout might feel towards Mecca or Rome or Jerusalem'.
A Month in Siena is the encounter, 25 years later, between the writer and the city he had worshipped from afar. It's a dazzling evocation of an extraordinary place and its effect on the writer's life. It's also an immersion in painting, a consideration of grief and a profoundly moving contemplation of the relationship between art and the human condition.
'Bewitching . . . Meditating on art, history and the relationship between them, this is both a portrait of a city and an affirmation of life's quiet dignities in the face of loss.' - The Economist, Books of the Year
In episode 3, Hisham Matar - now on his own in the city - decides to explore and heads for the city walls.
Written by Hisham Matar
Read by Khalid Abdalla
Abridged by Jill Waters and Jonquil Panting
Produced by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4
WED 10:00 Woman's Hour (m000ktxf)
The programme that offers a female perspective on the world
WED 10:45 Why Mummy Swears (m000ktxh)
Episode 3
3/5
The pressure of balancing a full-time job, parenting and the PTA seems almost impossible to Ellen. When will she realise that the best thing to do when you’re in a hole is to stop digging?
Gill Sims’ second comic novel about Ellen, a funny, feisty and stressed-out working-mum.
Dramatised by Christine Entwisle.
Cast:
Ellen … Gabriel Quigley
Simon / Gary … Stuart McQuarrie
Kathy … Sally Reid
Alan / Coach … Jordan Young
Lydea … Isobel McArthur
Directed by Kirsty Williams
WED 11:00 A Deadly Trade (m000ktxk)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 on Monday]
WED 11:30 The Break (m000ktxm)
Series 3
Episode 6: Fly Flamford
Jeff (Philip Jackson) and Andy (James Northcote) are awaiting their departure from Winifred Holtby International Airport, formerly RAF Flamford Heath, with a major repurposing in the 90s as Flamin’ Wheels Go-Kart Centre.
They’ve taken advantage of The Flamford Bugle’s 2-for-1 ticket offer to mark the “exciting new route” to Rome-Maremma by low budget airline AlexAir.
They’re soon joined by Fish Shop Frank (Mark Benton), Copper Kettle proprietor and nervous flyer Joyce Rickles (Alison Steadman) and Flamford’s Number One aged curmudgeon, Mr Truepenny (Rasmus Hardiker) - all of them with an eye for a bargain and all of them fellow 2-for-1 ticketeers.
Frank has already started on the pints (“What? I’m on holiday”), Joyce has been on a Flying-With-Confidence course (“My mantra is ‘Turnips’”) and Mr Truepenny is behaving more oddly than normal (“I dropped an E earlier and I think it’s kicking in”). They soon find cheapest is not always best.
As the flight delays mount, so tempers rise and questions are asked. When’s the plane leaving? What is Frank’s secret? Who is Simon? And why does WH Smith sell water in litre bottles which you cannot possibly finish before you reach the security gate?
Starring:
Philip Jackson
Alison Steadman
Mark Benton
Shobna Gulati
Rasmus Hardiker
James Northcote
Created and Written by Ian Brown and James Hendrie
Studio Engineered and Edited by Leon Chambers
Production Manager Sarah Tombling
Produced and Directed by Gordon Kennedy
Recorded at The Soundhouse Studios, London
An Absolutely Production for BBC Radio 4
WED 12:00 News Summary (m000ktxp)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
WED 12:04 The Girl With The Louding Voice by Abi Daré (m000ktxr)
Episode 3
Adunni is a fourteen-year-old Nigerian girl who knows what she wants: an education. She holds close to her the advice that her mother shared before she died: an education is the only way to get a “louding voice”— and the ability to speak for herself and decide her own future. But instead, Adunni's father sells her to be the third wife of a local man who is eager for her to bear him a son and heir.
The author Abi Daré grew up in Lagos, Nigeria. She studied law at the University of Wolverhamton and received an MSc from Glasgow Caledonian University in International Project Management. She also has an MA in Creative Writing from Birkbeck, University of London. She began writing the novel after a conversation with her 8yr old daughter about how there were girls her age in Nigeria who had to do housework for a living.
In Episode 3, Adunni helps Khadija when she is worried about her pregnancy. But they must be careful that Morufu does not discover what they are doing.
Written by Abi Daré
Read by Ronkẹ Adékọluẹ́jọ́
Abridged by Jill Waters and Isobel Creed
Produced by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4
WED 12:18 You and Yours (m000ktxt)
News and discussion of consumer affairs
WED 12:57 Weather (m000ktxw)
The latest weather forecast
WED 13:00 World at One (m000ktxy)
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 Bloodsport (m000kty0)
8. The Duchess
Bloodsport is the story of the systematic doping of the 2012 and 2014 Olympics by the Russian state. It is the single most important sports story of our time and it reads like a Cold War thriller. The Evening Standard's sports correspondent Matt Majendie tells the whole story from 2012 till now.
Revelations emerge from Grigory Rodchenkov's backstory. Plus we get one step closer to him in witness protection.
For the first time, you’ll hear the whole story from 2012 to 2020 told by the people who were there. You’ll hear from Paula Radcliffe and Sebastian Coe on London 2012, you’ll meet the expert German investigator who cracked the case wide open and from athletes who doped. We’ve got access to the elite Swiss lab racing to finish testing London 2012 samples and we’ve spoken to the guy who masterminded doping control at the London games.
You’ll also hear first-hand testimony from people who blew the whistle inside Russia (at the risk of their own lives) and from seasoned journalists who watched open-mouthed as the whole thing unfolded. And we’ll take you into the ongoing arms race between doper and tester, to see how the science of testing plays out in the analysis of blood and urine samples. Despite it being eight years ago, the story isn’t over. There are unfinished corruption trials in French Courts and ongoing allegations of flagrant Russian cheating (even as the Russian government denies all the evidence). Against all this is the soon-to-be pressing question of whether Russia will participate in the now postponed Tokyo Olympics. The credibility of the Olympic movement might hang on the decision. The clock is ticking.
WED 14:00 The Archers (m000kty2)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Tuesday]
WED 14:15 Drama (b0680hnt)
The Interrogation - Series 4
Tom
D.C.I. Max Matthews and D.S. Sean Armitage are from different generations and different worlds but together they make an excellent team. It's Sean's first day back at work since he was seriously injured in the line of duty and both men are finding it hard to adjust. Today's interviewee is Tom, the son of a wealthy scrap metal merchant who is also an old colleague of Max's.
DCI Max Matthews ..... Kenneth Cranham
DS Sean Armitage ..... Alex Lanipekun
Tom ..... Luke Norris
Debbie Ross ..... Susan Brown
Director ..... Mary Peate
Writer ..... Roy Williams
WED 15:00 Money Box (m000kty7)
Paul Lewis and a panel of guests answer calls on personal finance.
WED 15:30 Inside Health (m000kty9)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Tuesday]
WED 16:00 Thinking Allowed (m000ktyc)
Laurie Taylor explores the latest research into how society works.
WED 16:30 The Media Show (m000ktyf)
Topical programme about the fast-changing media world
WED 17:00 PM (m000ktyh)
Afternoon news and current affairs programme, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines
WED 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m000ktyk)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
WED 18:30 Women Talking About Cars (b084bpc0)
Series 1
Olivia Colman
Victoria Coren Mitchell interviews famous women about their lives through the cars they have known, the journeys they've been on and the things they shout in traffic.
This week Olivia Colman reveals the nickname of her beloved Morris Minor, and answers that crucial question for any award-winning actress: "What are you driving these days?"
With car descriptions read by Josette Simon.
Produced by Gareth Edwards
A BBC Studios Production.
WED 19:00 The Archers (m000ktym)
Harrison finds himself with some making up to do and David feels guilty
WED 19:15 Front Row (m000ktyp)
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
WED 19:45 Why Mummy Swears (m000ktxh)
[Repeat of broadcast at
10:45 today]
WED 20:00 Moral Maze (m000ktyr)
Combative, provocative and engaging live debate examining the moral issues behind one of the week's news stories. #moralmaze
WED 20:45 Four Thought (m000ktq6)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:30 today]
WED 21:00 Soul Music (m000ktx9)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 today]
WED 21:30 The Media Show (m000ktyf)
[Repeat of broadcast at
16:30 today]
WED 22:00 The World Tonight (m000ktyt)
In depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective
WED 22:45 The Girl With The Louding Voice by Abi Daré (m000ktxr)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:04 today]
WED 23:00 Little Lifetimes by Jenny Eclair (m000ktyw)
Series 6
Nanna No No
A highly successful retired lawyer believes she will be the perfect grandmother, so why is she hiding behind the sofa when her grandchildren appear?
Haydn Gwynne is best known for her work on Drop The Dead Donkey, The Windsors and Billy Elliot on Broadway for which she won a Drama Desk Award.
Written by Jenny Eclair
Read by Haydn Gwynne
Producer, Sally Avens
WED 23:15 The Damien Slash Mixtape (m00013w5)
Series 2
Episode 2
Multi-character YouTube star Damien Slash makes the move from online to Radio 4, in this new fast-paced, one-man sketch comedy show. From the surreal to the satirical, from the zeitgeist to the absurd, Damien serves up a range of high octane characters, all from his own voice. Adverts, actors, hipsters, trolls - no aspect of modern life is left un-skewered.
Written by and starring Damien Slash (aka Daniel Barker).
Guest starring Natasia Demetriou
Production coordinated by Hayley Sterling
Produced by Matt Stronge
A BBC Studios production.
WED 23:30 Today in Parliament (m000ktyy)
News, views and features on today's stories in Parliament
THURSDAY 16 JULY 2020
THU 00:00 Midnight News (m000ktz0)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.
THU 00:30 A Month In Siena by Hisham Matar (m000ktxc)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 on Wednesday]
THU 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m000ktz2)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
THU 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m000ktz4)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.
THU 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m000ktz6)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
THU 05:30 News Briefing (m000ktz8)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4
THU 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m000ktzb)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Rachel Gardner, President of the Girl’s Brigade.
Good morning.
Recently I watched the Disney film Frozen II with my children. There’s a moment where Kristoff (the kind hearted boyfriend) is reunited with Anna after she’s been out rescuing her sister Elsa. Anna apologises for going into the fight alone. Instead of displaying a bruised ego or expressing jealously Kristoff says, ‘It’s OK. My love is not fragile.’ No wonder he’s been named Disney’s best hero.
My family and I live opposite a hospital so when the nation took part in the weekly #clapforcarers and key workers we would stand at our front door, banging pots and pans to thank everyone within ear shot for putting themselves in the path of danger to care for us all. It was an incredible expression of love and solidarity as a grateful nation gave voice to not only their thanks, but their commitment to value what matters most.
This pandemic is revealing many things, but one to truly celebrate is the truth that though we may be fragile and frail in the face of a virus, there’s still something inside that overcomes. We may all be in incredibly difficult times, but we have an extraordinary capacity to stay strong through adversity.
Jesus was no stranger to hardship, enduring rejection, resistance, betrayal and cruel suffering at the hands of others. His was a life of selflessness that Christians see as a model for all of humanity. And through it all he chose love over hate, forgiveness over bitterness, and hope over despair.
May you receive in Christ’s name the courage to put one foot in front of the other. May your eyes be fixed on a hope that is certain and true so that you whatever suffering or struggle you face, you know that you can endure.
Amen.
THU 05:45 Farming Today (m000ktzd)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
THU 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b04dw7p8)
Superb Lyrebird
Tweet of the Day is the voice of birds and our relationship with them, from around the world.
Sir David Attenborough presents the superb lyrebird of eastern Australia. Superb lyrebirds are about the size of pheasants. During courtship, as the male struts and poses, he unleashes a remarkable range of sounds. Up to 80% of the lyrebird's display calls are usually of other wild birds. However, if kept in captivity, they can mimic a chainsaw, camera click, gunshot and a whole host of other man made sound. Research recently discovered that the lyrebird co-ordinates his dancing displays to particular sounds. But superb lyrebirds are promiscuous performers and it's quite likely that another male may have played the leading role while he dances and sings away.
THU 06:00 Today (m000kwfl)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
THU 09:00 The Long View (m000kwfq)
The Long View of Theatre Closure
The doors of Theatres the length and breadth of Britain are locked. A pandemic is making it impossible for them to make money and in spite of some support their situation is perilous. That's the situation now as the government announces a package aimed at saving Theatres from going to the wall as they wait to be allowed to open their doors again, but it was also the story back in Shakespeare's day. Plague and the concomitant rising death rate in 1603 made it impossible to open London's thriving theatres after the usual Lent shutdown. The plague which raged across the nation meant the theatres remained shut well into 1604.
With the help of the Shakespearean scholar Professor Emma Smith, the theatre owner Nica Burns, the Director Josie Rourke, the Conservative MP and former actor Giles Watling and the actor Paapa Essiedu, Jonathan Freedland takes the long view of theatre lockdown.
How did the players, writers and owners survive back in the 17th century? How did audiences respond as the menace of plague began to recede? And what lasting impact did the shutdown have on the shape of British theatre thereafter.
Producer: Tom Alban
THU 09:30 James Burke's Web of Knowledge (m00024p7)
Episode 1
James Burke has spent his career as a broadcaster and writer in the field of science and technology 'joining up the dots'. Now he uses the information he has gleaned over many years to create a 'Knowledge Web', revealing how the most unexpected connections can be made across history. What he can show us is that change doesn't happen in predictable straight lines, and he has some surprises in store. For example - can you connect Mozart to the helicopter? In the first programme James Burke does just that.
Taking in Rachmaninoff and Edgar Allan Poe along the way, James Burke takes us on a journey though history like no other.
THU 09:45 A Month In Siena by Hisham Matar (m000kwgk)
Episode 4
When Hisham Matar was nineteen years old he came across the Sienese School of painting for the first time. In the year in which Matar's life was shattered by the disappearance of his father. the work of the great artists of Siena seemed to offer him a sense of hope. Over the years that followed, his feelings towards these paintings would deepen and, as he says, 'Siena began to occupy the sort of uneasy reverence the devout might feel towards Mecca or Rome or Jerusalem'.
A Month in Siena is the encounter, 25 years later, between the writer and the city he had worshipped from afar. It's a dazzling evocation of an extraordinary place and its effect on the writer's life. It's also an immersion in painting, a consideration of grief and a profoundly moving contemplation of the relationship between art and the human condition.
'Bewitching . . . Meditating on art, history and the relationship between them, this is both a portrait of a city and an affirmation of life's quiet dignities in the face of loss.' - The Economist, Books of the Year
In episode 4, the author goes to see the epic 14th Century altarpiece by Duccio di Buoninsegna - The Maesta.
Written by Hisham Matar
Read by Khalid Abdalla
Abridged by Jill Waters and Jonquil Panting
Produced by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4
THU 10:00 Woman's Hour (m000kwfv)
The programme that offers a female perspective on the world
THU 10:45 Why Mummy Swears (m000kwg1)
Episode 4
4/5
Ellen is juggling a full-time job, her family and the PTA. Her work don’t even know that she has children. The pressure is on. And the last thing she needs is to spend Christmas with her judgmental mother and her smug step-sister.
Gill Sims’ second comic novel about Ellen, a funny, feisty and stressed-out working-mum.
Dramatised by Christine Entwisle.
Cast:
Ellen … Gabriel Quigley
Simon … Stuart McQuarrie
Mother … Anne Lacey
Sarah / Lydea … Isobel McArthur
Kathy … Sally Reid
Alan … Jordan Young
Directed by Kirsty Williams
THU 11:00 From Our Own Correspondent (m000kx1g)
Insight, and analysis from BBC correspondents around the world
THU 11:30 What If Everyone Was Disabled? (m000kx1l)
“Every single day, I’m reminded of my disability. Yeah, it doesn’t stop me from doing much… but the reminders are always there.”
Mat Fraser – writer, actor, rights activist, punk drummer, thalidomide survivor – isn’t afraid to challenge, to provoke and to ask awkward questions. Sometimes he allows his imagination to run riot. In this programme, he wonders how different things might be if the vast majority of people, rather than the minority, had a disability.
Mat assesses how far we’ve come with accessibility and inclusivity, particularly in the last two decades, and considers what’s stopping us from going further. Money, power, politics, legislation and technology all play their part, but what about social attitudes towards disability?
Mat invites designers, architects, advisers and campaigners to share some great and not-so-great examples of inclusive design. He imagines having grown up in a world “where Sandy from Crossroads wasn’t the only disabled bloke I saw on TV”. And, his friend and fellow actor Liz Carr (Silent Witness) tells Mat about a public transport wheelchair experience that blew her mind.
Presenter: Mat Fraser
Producer: Steve Urquhart
A Reduced Listening production for BBC Radio 4
THU 12:00 News Summary (m000kx1n)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
THU 12:04 The Girl With The Louding Voice by Abi Daré (m000kwgc)
Episode 4
Adunni is a fourteen-year-old Nigerian girl who knows what she wants: an education. She holds close to her the advice that her mother shared before she died: an education is the only way to get a “louding voice”— and the ability to speak for herself and decide her own future. But instead, Adunni's father sells her to be the third wife of a local man who is eager for her to bear him a son and heir.
The author Abi Daré grew up in Lagos, Nigeria. She studied law at the University of Wolverhamton and received an MSc from Glasgow Caledonian University in International Project Management. She also has an MA in Creative Writing from Birkbeck, University of London. She began writing the novel after a conversation with her 8yr old daughter about how there were girls her age in Nigeria who had to do housework for a living.
In Episode 4, Adunni is faced with an impossible choice – find Bamidele for Khadija’s sake, or be accused of killing her by the river. She has to find help from somewhere.
Written by Abi Daré
Read by Ronkẹ Adékọluẹ́jọ́
Abridged by Jill Waters and Isobel Creed
Produced by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4
THU 12:18 You and Yours (m000kx1q)
News and discussion of consumer affairs
THU 12:57 Weather (m000kx1s)
The latest weather forecast
THU 13:00 World at One (m000kx1v)
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 Bloodsport (m000kx1x)
9. Strict liability
Bloodsport is the story of the systematic doping of the 2012 and 2014 Olympics by the Russian state. It is the single most important sports story of our time and it reads like a Cold War thriller. The Evening Standard's sports correspondent Matt Majendie tells the whole story from 2012 till now.
Episode 9 takes us inside the world of doping and looks at the human damage it inflicts. Not just on those cheated but also on the cheats themselves. Coercion, health effects, abuse. It’s not obvious where moral responsibility lies.
For the first time, you’ll hear the whole story from 2012 to 2020 told by the people who were there. You’ll hear from Paula Radcliffe and Sebastian Coe on London 2012, you’ll meet the expert German investigator who cracked the case wide open and from athletes who doped. We’ve got access to the elite Swiss lab racing to finish testing London 2012 samples and we’ve spoken to the guy who masterminded doping control at the London games.
You’ll also hear first-hand testimony from people who blew the whistle inside Russia (at the risk of their own lives) and from seasoned journalists who watched open-mouthed as the whole thing unfolded. And we’ll take you into the ongoing arms race between doper and tester, to see how the science of testing plays out in the analysis of blood and urine samples. Despite it being eight years ago, the story isn’t over. There are unfinished corruption trials in French Courts and ongoing allegations of flagrant Russian cheating (even as the Russian government denies all the evidence). Against all this is the soon-to-be pressing question of whether Russia will participate in the now postponed Tokyo Olympics. The credibility of the Olympic movement might hang on the decision. The clock is ticking.
THU 14:00 The Archers (m000ktym)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Wednesday]
THU 14:15 Drama (b068vyt3)
The Interrogation - Series 4
Riz
DCI Matthews and DS Armitage are getting back into the swim after Sean's return to work. An American movie actor living in London is burgled, but the details of the case don't seem to add up. Riz's story.
DCI Max Matthews ..... Kenneth Cranham
DS Sean Armitage ..... Alex Lanipekun
Riz ..... Nabil Elouahabi
Tara ..... Joanna Horton
Derek ..... Chris Pavlo
Reporter ..... Stephen Critchlow
Director ..... Mary Peate
Writer .... Roy Williams
THU 15:00 Open Country (m000kx21)
Ben Shieldaig
On the West Coast of Scotland, the village of Shieldaig nestles in the shadow of a mountain. On the steep sides of Ben Shieldaig is a very rare habitat called temperate rainforest. Under the trees the air is humid and the rocks are soft with moss.
Recently, the mountain has been bought by the Woodland Trust, which aims to cover the whole area in trees through a combination of natural regeneration and some planting.
Unable to leave her home in lockdown, Helen Mark meets locals online for a virtual tour of this magical place. She learns about the history of the village and its once isolated community, and find out what the future will hold.
Produced by Heather Simons
Image : Steve Carter
THU 15:27 Radio 4 Appeal (m000kww4)
[Repeat of broadcast at
07:54 on Sunday]
THU 15:30 Open Book (m000kwwx)
[Repeat of broadcast at
16:00 on Sunday]
THU 16:00 The Film Programme (m000kx23)
Film programme looking at the latest cinema releases, DVDs and films on TV
THU 16:30 BBC Inside Science (m000kwg7)
Dr Adam Rutherford and guests illuminate the mysteries and challenge the controversies behind the science that's changing our world
THU 17:00 PM (m000kx25)
Afternoon news and current affairs programme, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines
THU 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m000kx27)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
THU 18:30 ReincarNathan (m000kx29)
Series 2
Eel
Nathan Blakely was a popstar. But he was useless, died, and was reincarnated. The comedy about Nathan’s adventures in the afterlife returns for a second series with Daniel Rigby and Diane Morgan, and guest-starring Romesh Ranganathan.
In the second episode, Nathan is brought back to life as an eel in a river in Norfolk. He’s desperate to join the cool adolescent eels as they migrate across the Atlantic to spawn in the Caribbean. But it’s too much too soon for Nathan. Will he ever learn to do the right thing and make it back to human again?
Cast:
Diane Morgan - Jenny
Daniel Rigby - Nathan
Tom Craine – Yellow Eel
Hugh Dennis – Nathan’s Dad
Henry Paker – Bouncer, Smuggler
Freya Parker – Vortex, Neil, Smuggler, Nathan’s Mum
Romesh Ranganathan - Jameel
Writers: Tom Craine and Henry Paker
Music composed by Phil Lepherd
Producer: Harriet Jaine
Studio Production: Jerry Peal
A Talkback production for BBC Radio 4
THU 19:00 The Archers (m000kvkt)
Harrison bares his soul and Elizabeth takes the next step.
Writers, Sarah McDonald Hughes & Sarah Hehir
Director, Peter Leslie Wild
Editor, Jeremy Howe
David Archer ..... Timothy Bentinck
Elizabeth Pargetter ..... Alison Dowling
Kenton Archer ..... Richard Attlee
Jolene Archer ..... Buffy Davis
Harrison Burns ..... James Cartwright
THU 19:15 Front Row (m000kwfz)
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
THU 19:45 Why Mummy Swears (m000kwg1)
[Repeat of broadcast at
10:45 today]
THU 20:00 The Briefing Room (m000kwg3)
David Aaronovitch and a panel of experts and insiders present in-depth explainers on major news stories.
THU 20:30 The Bottom Line (m000kwg5)
Produced in association with The Open University
THU 21:00 BBC Inside Science (m000kwg7)
[Repeat of broadcast at
16:30 today]
THU 21:30 The Long View (m000kwfq)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 today]
THU 22:00 The World Tonight (m000kwg9)
In depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective
THU 22:45 The Girl With The Louding Voice by Abi Daré (m000kwgc)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:04 today]
THU 23:00 For the Love of Leo (m00024nv)
Part Four: Princess of the Russias
By Michael Chaplin.
This wry, narrative comedy begins with the funeral of Tamsin, killed in a traffic accident, mother of Laura and beloved wife of Edinburgh artist Leo.
The funeral is barely over before Leo acquires a new status as an eligible bachelor. The women in his circle begin to seek his company and win his affection.; while his mother, his grown up arctic weather analyst daughter and newly acquired, sparky, opinionated cleaning lady offer unasked for advice. His life becomes ever more complicated and demanding.
Each episode traces his growing relationship with a different woman, as the ghost of Tamsin, who knew all of these women well, turns up at bedtime to venture an opinion too. Leo becomes increasingly haunted by the mystery surrounding Tamsin’s accident, which occurred many miles from her home. What was she doing there? Leo becomes convinced Tamsin was having an affair, but in the end the truth turns out to be very different. The series is wry, funny, sometimes sad - but always warm hearted and tender.
Cast:
Leo Fabiani ... Mark Bonnar
Tamsin Fabiani ... Beth Marshall
Sadie ... Tracy Wiles
Princess Natalia ... Vera Graziadei
Nicky McIntosh ... Hilary Maclean
Laura Fabiani ... Samara MacLaren
Guy ... Simon Donaldson
Directed by Marilyn Imrie
A Catherine Bailey production for BBC Radio 4
THU 23:30 Today in Parliament (m000kwgf)
News, views and features on today's stories in Parliament
FRIDAY 17 JULY 2020
FRI 00:00 Midnight News (m000kwgh)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.
FRI 00:30 A Month In Siena by Hisham Matar (m000kwgk)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 on Thursday]
FRI 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m000kwgm)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
FRI 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m000kwgp)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.
FRI 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m000kwgr)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
FRI 05:30 News Briefing (m000kwgt)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4
FRI 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m000kwgw)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Rachel Gardner, President of the Girl’s Brigade.
Today is the last day of my daughter being in school year 3. In normal times this would have marked the end of an exciting term. Around this time we’d expect to see hoards of young people going about the age-old tradition of writing on each other’s school shirts; etching their memories and marking this important life transition. Sitting exams, attending their prom, having their leaver’s assembly are all part of the story of growing up for many young people and they’re not happening. This can fill them with a keen sense of loss and sadness. One high school leaver put it like this, ‘You start school life and it’s like you’re writing a book. You know each chapter. But then suddenly the last page is ripped out and you don’t get to finish it. It leaves you feeling a bit lost.’
Although we may think that young people are more flexible when it comes to change, we must recognise that they will have to pay for both the economic and social costs of this crisis, facing its legacy of increased mental health, financial and employment concerns.
But even with all of this, the younger generations have so much to show us about how to emerge well from this time. Their involvement in speaking out against the injustice of racism and their willingness to embrace change and to be the change, is an incredible gift from God. In Luke’s gospel when Jesus called the children to come to him, he was showing how the Kingdom of God is about a vision for the future and the ones who will shape that future.
God, we thank you that the young people in our communities see the world in ways that we never will.
We honour them for coming of age at an unprecedented time. May they step into their future with confidence, compassion and hope, and may they hear us cheering them on!
Amen.
FRI 05:45 Farming Today (m000kwgy)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
FRI 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b04dw7qv)
Black Stork
Tweet of the Day is the voice of birds and our relationship with them, from around the world.
Sir David Attenborough presents the globally widespread but secretive black stork. High up in a forest canopy, the black stork is a large but fairly secretive and mostly silent bird. They are also strong migrants capable of sustained flight, flying up to 7,000 kilometres or more, often over open seas. Black storks are summer visitors to eastern Europe and breed from Germany across Russia to Japan. A small population is resident in Spain, but most birds migrate south in winter to Africa, India or China. Unlike their relative the more flamboyant and colonial nesting white stork, black storks are a solitary nester. It is at this time of the year adults can produce a few grunts or bill clapping sounds during courtship, the young however are far more vocal at the nest.
FRI 06:00 Today (m000ktnp)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
FRI 09:00 Desert Island Discs (m000ktnt)
[Repeat of broadcast at
11:00 on Sunday]
FRI 09:45 A Month In Siena by Hisham Matar (m000ktps)
Episode 5
When Hisham Matar was nineteen years old he came across the Sienese School of painting for the first time. In the year in which Matar's life was shattered by the disappearance of his father. the work of the great artists of Siena seemed to offer him a sense of hope. Over the years that followed, his feelings towards these paintings would deepen and, as he says, 'Siena began to occupy the sort of uneasy reverence the devout might feel towards Mecca or Rome or Jerusalem'.
A Month in Siena is the encounter, 25 years later, between the writer and the city he had worshipped from afar. It's a dazzling evocation of an extraordinary place and its effect on the writer's life. It's also an immersion in painting, a consideration of grief and a profoundly moving contemplation of the relationship between art and the human condition.
'Bewitching . . . Meditating on art, history and the relationship between them, this is both a portrait of a city and an affirmation of life's quiet dignities in the face of loss.' - The Economist, Books of the Year
In episode 5, the time has come to leave Siena, but it is not long before Hisham Matar is planning his next visit. He reflects on how this trip has changed his view on many things.
Written by Hisham Matar
Read by Khalid Abdalla
Abridged by Jill Waters and Jonquil Panting
Produced by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4
FRI 10:00 Woman's Hour (m000ktny)
The programme that offers a female perspective on the world
FRI 10:45 Why Mummy Swears (m000ktp4)
Episode 5
5/5
Ellen’s been juggling too much for too long. The pressure of running the PTA from your office, whilst pretending not to have children is getting to her. Will the truth finally out?
Gill Sims’ second comic novel about Ellen, a funny, feisty and stressed-out working-mum.
Dramatised by Christine Entwisle.
Cast:
Ellen … Gabriel Quigley
Simon … Stuart McQuarrie
Lydea … Isobel McArthur
Directed by Kirsty Williams
FRI 11:00 Bluebird Over the White Cliffs of Dover (b0076lp0)
Dame Vera Lynn's wartime classic is British, original, but not entirely without controversy. Ian Hislop discovers the chequered history of this musical mainstay of the British nation in its finest hour. Could it really be a song weighed down by politics, propaganda and even a touch of plagiarism? And what about those bluebirds - have you ever seen any in the Dover area?
Ian meets Dame Vera Lynn, veterans, musicologists and even an ornithologist in his quest to find the hidden meaning of this classic wartime song.
FRI 11:30 Relativity (m000kvkd)
Series 3
Episode 1
Drawing on his own family, the third series of Richard Herring’s comedy drama builds on the warm, lively characters and sharply observed family dynamics of previous series.
His affectionate observation of inter generational misunderstanding, sibling sparring and the ties that bind will resonate with anyone who has ever tried to show their dad which remote turns the television on.
Amid the comedy, Richard broaches some more serious highs and lows of family life. In this series, he focuses on the roller coaster ride of first time parenting, how to maintain a long standing marriage and brass rubbing.
Richard Herring is a comedian, writer, blogger and podcaster and the world's premier semi-professional self-playing snooker player.
Episode 1:
Ian and Chloe are new parents to their much loved but incessantly crying baby, Don. Meanwhile sister Jane has had enough of husband Pete, while Ken and Margaret are simply trying to turn the television on.
Cast:
Margaret…………….Alison Steadman
Ken……………..Phil Davis
Jane…………….Fenella Woolgar
Ian……………….Richard Herring
Chloe…………..Emily Berrington
Pete………………..Gordon Kennedy
Holly………………...Tia Bannon
Mark………………Fred Haig
Nick………………..Harrison Knights
Written by Richard Herring
Sound Design by Eloise Whitmore
Producer: Polly Thomas
Executive Producers: Jon Thoday and Richard Allen Turner
An Avalon Television production for BBC Radio 4
FRI 12:00 News Summary (m000kvkh)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
FRI 12:04 The Girl With The Louding Voice by Abi Daré (m000ktph)
Episode 5
Adunni is a fourteen-year-old Nigerian girl who knows what she wants: an education. She holds close to her the advice that her mother shared before she died: an education is the only way to get a “louding voice”— and the ability to speak for herself and decide her own future. But instead, Adunni's father sells her to be the third wife of a local man who is eager for her to bear him a son and heir.
The author Abi Daré grew up in Lagos, Nigeria. She studied law at the University of Wolverhamton and received an MSc from Glasgow Caledonian University in International Project Management. She also has an MA in Creative Writing from Birkbeck, University of London. She began writing the novel after a conversation with her 8yr old daughter about how there were girls her age in Nigeria who had to do housework for a living.
In Episode 5, Adunni runs away to Lagos where she is told to work - very hard - for someone called Big Madam.
Written by Abi Daré
Read by Ronkẹ Adékọluẹ́jọ́
Abridged by Jill Waters and Isobel Creed
Produced by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4
FRI 12:18 You and Yours (m000kvkk)
News and discussion of consumer affairs
FRI 12:57 Weather (m000kvkm)
The latest weather forecast
FRI 13:00 World at One (m000kvkp)
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 Bloodsport (m000kvkr)
10. Cleaning the Stables
Bloodsport is the story of the systematic doping of the 2012 and 2014 Olympics by the Russian state. It is the single most important sports story of our time and it reads like a Cold War thriller. The Evening Standard's sports correspondent Matt Majendie tells the whole story from 2012 till now.
Episode 10 sees how the Russia saga has dragged on and on and is still in dispute at the Court of Arbitration for Sport. We also see how the various institutions of world anti-doping - the I.O.C. and W.A.D.A etc - have reformed themselves in the wake of the Russia Scandal. But will it work?
For the first time, you’ll hear the whole story from 2012 to 2020 told by the people who were there. You’ll hear from Paula Radcliffe and Sebastian Coe on London 2012, you’ll meet the expert German investigator who cracked the case wide open and from athletes who doped. We’ve got access to the elite Swiss lab racing to finish testing London 2012 samples and we’ve spoken to the guy who masterminded doping control at the London games.
You’ll also hear first-hand testimony from people who blew the whistle inside Russia (at the risk of their own lives) and from seasoned journalists who watched open-mouthed as the whole thing unfolded. And we’ll take you into the ongoing arms race between doper and tester, to see how the science of testing plays out in the analysis of blood and urine samples. Despite it being eight years ago, the story isn’t over. There are unfinished corruption trials in French Courts and ongoing allegations of flagrant Russian cheating (even as the Russian government denies all the evidence). Against all this is the soon-to-be pressing question of whether Russia will participate in the now postponed Tokyo Olympics. The credibility of the Olympic movement might hang on the decision. The clock is ticking.
FRI 14:00 The Archers (m000kvkt)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Thursday]
FRI 14:15 Drama (b069wzvy)
The Interrogation - Series 4
PC Joanne Laverty
D.S. Armitage finds himself working with his old friend and colleague P.C. Joanne Laverty. But then he and Max have to interview her. Joanne's story.
DCI Max Matthews ..... Kenneth Cranham
DS Sean Armitage ..... Alex Lanipekun
Jordan ..... Gershwyn Eustache Jnr.
Joanne ..... Sally Orrock
Director .... Mary Peate
Writer ..... Roy Williams
FRI 15:00 Gardeners' Question Time (m000kvky)
GQT At Home: Episode Sixteen
Peter Gibbs hosts the gardening panel show. Bunny Guinness, Bob Flowerdew and Chris Beardshaw answer the questions sent in by listeners via email and social media.
Producer - Darby Dorras
Assistant Producer - Jemima Rathbone
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4
FRI 15:45 Short Works (m000kvl0)
The Fall of Man
In a new story for Radio 4 from acclaimed Irish writer, Donal Ryan, a man looks back on the lies that have shaped his life.
Reader: Liam O'Brien
Writer: Donal Ryan is the author of four novels and a short story collection. HIs fourth novel, From a Low and Quiet Sea, was longlisted for the Booker Prize and shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award 2018.
Producer: Justine Willett
FRI 16:00 Last Word (m000kvl2)
Matthew Bannister tells the life stories of people who have recently died, from the rich and famous to unsung but significant.
FRI 16:30 Feedback (m000kvl4)
The programme that holds the BBC to account on behalf of the radio audience
FRI 17:00 PM (m000kvl6)
Afternoon news and current affairs programme, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines
FRI 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m000kvl8)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
FRI 18:30 Dead Ringers (m000kvlb)
Series 20
Episode 6
The team find the funny side of how world leaders and media deal with the pandemic.
Starring: Jon Culshaw, Jan Ravens, Lewis MacLeod, Duncan Wisbey and Debra Stephenson.
Written by Tom Jamieson and Nev Fountain, Ed Amsden and Tom Coles, Sarah Campbell, James Bugg, Simon Alcock and others.
Producer Bill Dare
A BBC Studios Production
FRI 19:00 Front Row (m000ktp2)
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
FRI 19:45 Why Mummy Swears (m000ktp4)
[Repeat of broadcast at
10:45 today]
FRI 20:00 Any Questions? (m000ktp7)
Baroness Ros Altmann, Bobby Seagull
Chris Mason presents political debate from London Broadcasting House with a panel including the pensions and social care expert Baroness Ros Altmann and the mathematician Bobby Seagull.
Producer: Lisa Jenkinson
FRI 20:50 A Point of View (m000ktp9)
Weekly reflections on topical issues from a range of contributors.
FRI 21:00 Bloodsport (m000ktpc)
Omnibus 2
The story of the systematic doping of the 2012 and 2014 Olympics by the Russian state.
FRI 22:00 The World Tonight (m000ktpf)
In depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective
FRI 22:45 The Girl With The Louding Voice by Abi Daré (m000ktph)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:04 today]
FRI 23:00 A Good Read (m000ktpl)
[Repeat of broadcast at
16:30 on Tuesday]
FRI 23:30 Things That Made the Modern Economy (m00088my)
Series 2
Dwarf Wheat
In 1968, Stanford biologist Paul Ehrlich published an explosive book, The Population Bomb. Ehrlich predicted that populations would grow more quickly than food supplies, causing mass starvation. Ehrlich was wrong – food supplies kept pace. And that’s largely due to the years Norman Borlaug spent growing different strains of wheat in Mexico. The “green revolution” vastly increased yields of wheat, corn and rice. Yet, as Tim Harford describes, worries about overpopulation continue. The world’s population is still growing, and food yields are now increasing more slowly – partly due to environmental problems the green revolution itself made worse. Will new technologies come to the rescue?
Producer: Ben Crighton
Editor: Richard Vadon
FRI 23:45 Today in Parliament (m000ktpn)
News, views and features on today's stories in Parliament