Helen Macdonald reads from her eagerly awaited new essay collection. Today, she considers swifts, finding them 'magical in the manner of all things that exist just a little beyond understanding.
Vesper Flights is Helen Macdonald's first book since the publication of the award-winning and best-selling H is for Hawk. Each essay in this collection by the acclaimed nature writer explores humanity’s connection with the natural world, our curiosity about it and our love for it, as well as its increasingly urgent fragility. The essays are also a reminder that we inhabit a beautiful world, and celebrate it in all its wonder.
Helen Macdonald is a writer, poet, naturalist and historian of science. H is for Hawk won several prestigious prizes, including the Samuel Johnson and the Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger in France.
When Claire arrived at the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit shortly after the birth of her daughters, the nurse on duty looked alarmed, then flustered, and finally realised, in Claire's words, 'that I have not risen, Lazarus-like, from an epidural, but might just be another kind of mother all together.' This is how Claire begins her beautiful meditation on what it means to be a mother - reflecting on her experiences trying to get pregnant, of what she has experienced of motherhood, and what she has not.
The latest news headlines. Including the weather and a look at the papers.
Brett Westwood shares his audio-diary of the natural world in summer including nectar-robbing bees, hover flies which resemble hornets, and murderous crab-spiders.
Discover the truth behind the European Witch Craze. Far from the world of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, discover how one book turned the world upside down as a disgruntled patriarchy murdered thousands of innocent women.
Join Greg Jenner, comedian Cariad Lloyd and historian Prof Suzannah Lipscomb. It’s history for people who don’t like history!
The EU has warned a trade deal with the UK now seems unlikely – is that just posturing to speed up negotiations or is ‘no deal’ now the most likely outcome? And how will Brexit affect you when the transition period ends – from the price of shopping, to pet passports and lorry parks, David Aaronovitch asks the experts:
Maddy Thimont Jack - Senior Researcher. The Institute for Government
Insight, wit and analysis from BBC correspondents, journalists and writers from around the world
Eavesdrop as a couple open up to a relationship counsellor about their personal finances and their feelings.
Money worries are known to put a big strain on relationships, and it can be hard to talk openly and honestly without tempers flaring or heads burying deep into the sand.
In this episode, we hear Hollie and Jay in conversation with Dee Holmes, a counsellor from the relationship charity Relate. Jay has been on furlough and is now working reduced hours, but he’s still keen to save what little he has spare for a place to live with Hollie. Hollie is also keen on that idea but can’t quite seem to stop dipping into her savings to buy clothes. Can they find common ground?
Darren Harriott curates his ideal festival: a magical carnival of surprise called The Festival of the Unexpected. Featuring trombonists, acrobats, wrestling and opera, it's a whimsical journey through Darren's favourite things with his favourite people. Also, there are vampires.
This episode features Faye Treacy, Aaron Twitchen, Rob Halden and Alice Ruxandra Bell, with writing by Natasha Mwansa and Kemah Bob. Piano accompaniment was provided by Alex Beetschen.
The producer was Ella Watts, and the production co-ordinator was Caroline Barlow. Sound design is by Chris Maclean. This is a BBC Studios production.
Anita Anand presents political debate and discussion from London Broadcasting House with a panel including the LBC presenter and political commentator Iain Dale, the Prisons and Probation Minister Lucy Frazer MP, Shadow Apprentices and Life Long Learning Minister Toby Perkins MP and the SNP Spokesperson on Health and Social Care at Westminster Dr Philippa Whitford MP.
Trapped in an unhappy marriage and provoked by her husband's obsession with her younger sister, Nan disappears from the family home for a night – with devastating consequences. A series of dramatic revelations will lead either to divorce or reconciliation - but the outcome depends on whether Nan's sister will lie to protect her.
Agatha Christie's extraordinary early play, which predates her famous stage thrillers, lay unread in her family's archives until it was discovered by theatre producer Julius Green. Seemingly written in the mid-1920s, during the breakdown of Christie's first marriage, The Lie is an intensely personal piece of writing - a hard-hitting domestic drama which bears many of the hallmarks of her later work for the theatre, and which offers a unique insight into her complex emotional response to events in her own life at the time.
"In every life there comes a moment, one supreme and all-powerful moment, when we hold our fate in our hands, to decide our entire life for good or evil."
The drama was adapted for radio from Agatha Christie's stage play by Martin Lewton and Julius Green.
A Made in Manchester production for BBC Radio 4 by arrangement with The Agatha Christie Archive Trust
The massive explosion that tore through Beirut on August 4th left more than 200 people dead, 6,000 injured, and as many as 300,000 homeless. The explosion was caused by a fire that ignited 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate stored at the port. When the blast hit, Lebanon was already in the middle of an unprecedented economic and political crisis that has triggered hyperinflation, poverty, and hunger. Many Lebanese feel that the blast was not the cause of catastrophe in Lebanon, but the result of it. Tanya Beckett asks, what’s gone wrong in Lebanon?
Sandi Toksvig, Yotam Ottolenghi, Jules Buckley, Gregory Porter, Bumi Thomas, Emma Freud, Clive Anderson
Clive Anderson and Emma Freud are joined by Sandi Toksvig, Yotam Ottolenghi and Jules Buckley for an eclectic mix of conversation, music and comedy. With music from Gregory Porter and Bumi Thomas.
An insight into the character of an influential person making the news headlines
Rembrandt, Vermeer and Frans Hals are the artsts at the centre of Sir Simon Schama's tour of the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. It's a place he knows well, having written extensively about Dutch history and about his great hero, Rembrandt.
So we are treated to Simon's vibrant take on The Nightwatch - the most justifiably famous group portrait and priniciple treasure of the museum. We have wonderful accounts too of Vermeer's Woman Reading a Letter and a Frans Hals' sexy marriage portrait.
There's also a fabulous still life that means you'll never look at asparagus in the same way again.
With the help of Museum Director Taco Dibbits, Simon sets the Rijksmuseum in context. It is more than a gallery. It is an account of the Dutch past and a 'temple of national identity' - it is where the Dutch go to remember who they were and still are. Duiring lockdown, it was voted the place that Dutch people most missed visiting.
You can find the names of the paintings and a link to the gallery on the Great Gallery Tours programme website.
Stanley Tucci tells the story of William Mulholland and the lies that made Los Angeles possible.,
The founders of LA had a vision of a future megacity. But there was just one problem - it was a virtual desert, with very little rainfall.
William Mulholland was the man charged with bringing water to the desert. But not without a great deal of double dealing and duplicity.
California wants to dazzle you with its endless sunshine and visions of the future – but that’s just a mirage.
Stanley Tucci imagines the modern history of California as a Hollywood movie, playing a hard-boiled screenwriter uncovering the full, sordid truth. He knows exactly where all the bodies are buried.
In 1967 the novel 'Logan's Run' proposed a dystopian solution to overpopulation and lack of resources- the (voluntary, willing) self-culling of those over twenty one years of age. 50 years on, the novel's themes of intergenerational war and the redundancy of the old have a particular poignancy.
In this Archive on Four, Ed Howker looks at how the then futuristic themes of 'Logan's Run' have manifested themselves in the reality of 21st century society. Large swathes of the capitalist world seem to have adopted the novel's plot as policy, such as in Silicon Valley, for example, where hardly anyone is over the age of 30. At the same time there is a huge discrepancy in wealth and resources held by the young and old, often held up as the source of conflict in 'generational unfairness'.
Ed Howker looks at the state of the young and the old and asks if implementing a 'Sleepshop', where the 21-year-olds of 'Logan's Run' fade out in a narcotic haze for the benefit of those younger, seems such a bad idea after all.
Part three of the conspiracy thriller. Written by Matt Hartley . Starring Hattie Morahan and Jonathan Forbes.
A gripping thriller, chart-topping podcast and winner of Best Sound (BBC Audio Drama Awards) and Best Fiction (British Podcast Awards), now Tracks is back with another 9 part headphone-filling thrill-ride.
Helen…. Hattie Morahan
Freddy….. Jonathan Forbes
Dr Geffroy.... Richard Elfyn
Dr. Solomon.... Kerry Shale
Katrina.... Elina Alminas
Dr. Williams.... Carys Eleri
Lead writer.... Matthew Broughton
The last of three specially-commissioned tales by Julie Mayhew - her first stories for radio - taking their inspiration not only from the Rapunzel story made familiar by the Brothers Grimm, but also from some of the traditional European tales that influenced them.
In modern settings, each story features a girl with a tall tower of her own and the possibilities of an open window...
Set in the not-too-distant future, a woman sits watching events on ‘Earth’. But who is the crying girl with the crazy hair?
Julie Mayhew has written three plays for radio, including A Shoebox Of Snow which was nominated for Best Drama at the BBC Audio Drama Awards in 2012. Her first novel, Red Ink (2013), was nominated for the 2014 CILIP Carnegie Medal. Her second, The Big Lie, will be published in the summer of 2015. Julie is a founder and host of the short story cabaret, The Berko Speakeasy.
8. Troy Deeney
In Grounded with Louis Theroux, Louis’s using the lockdown to track down some high-profile people he’s been longing to talk to – a fascinating mix of the celebrated, the controversial and the mysterious.
In this episode, the guest is footballer and Watford FC captain, Troy Deeney. Troy tells Louis about growing up on one of the biggest council estates in Europe, his time in prison and the reason he won’t fix his teeth.
What was the full name of Brian's mother, as played by Terry Jones in Monty Python's Life of Brian? And can you name three British Prime Ministers since the Second World War who didn't go to university?
Another four competitors join Russell Davies for the eighth heat of the general knowledge tournament, recorded under socially-distanced conditions without an audience. There's still plenty of tension as they compete for another of the places in the 2020 semi-finals. As well as the outright winner, a high enough score could send one or more of the runners-up through too. This week's contest comes from MediaCity UK in Salford, and the participants are:
A listener could also win a prize if his or her questions are chosen to test the contestants in the 'Beat the Brains' interlude.
Alan Mumby, Chairman of Far Welter’d, the East Lincolnshire Dialect Society, explores dialect poetry written and spoken in his native county.
The Society’s name has Danish roots, referring to a sheep that’s fallen on its back and is struggling to recover - and Alan asks whether Lincolnshire dialect, so rarely featured in today’s media, is in similar distress.
Travelling to the tiny hamlet of Somersby, he visits the birthplace of the county’s most famous poet, Alfred Lord Tennyson, whose little-known dialect poetry reveals his cherished memories of the villagers who he grew up with.
Many members of Far Welter’d are themselves poets – like Wolds farmer Andy Robinson (aka Billy Woldsworth) and George Danby, who farms on the Fens. Alan talks to them about their writing and how dialect varies throughout the area. While enthusiastic ‘yeller-belly’ Rod Stones discusses the influence of his Danish ancestors on the dialect he speaks today, and Maureen Sutton, Lincolnshire’s Poet Laureate, explores the changing perceptions of dialect in our modern world.
SUNDAY 30 AUGUST 2020
SUN 00:00 Midnight News (m000m4fj)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.
SUN 00:15 The Way I See It (m000cbfr)
Stanley Tucci and Giacometti's Head of a Man on a Rod
Art critic Alastair Sooke, in the company of some of the leading creatives of our age, takes us on a deep dive into the stunning works in the Museum of Modern Art's collection, whilst exploring what it really means “to see” art.
Leading cultural figures in the series include Grammy- and Emmy-award-winning Hollywood actor and comedian Steve Martin, one of the founders of minimalism – composer Steve Reich and stand-up comedian Margaret Cho. Each episode introduces us to an important art work in the collection, but asks how our own perspective affects our appreciation of the piece.
In this edition, American actor Stanley Tucci chooses Alberto Giacometti's "Head of a Man on a Rod" from 1947.
Producer: Tom Alban
Main Image:
Alberto Giacometti, Head of a Man on a Rod, 1947. Bronze, 23 1/2" (59.7 cm) high, including bronze base 6 3/8 x 5 7/8 x 6" (16.0 x 14.9 x 15.1 cm). Gift of Mrs. George Acheson. Museum of Modern Art, NY, 5
95.1976. © 2019 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris
SUN 00:30 Short Works (m000m0b0)
Krusso
An original short story for BBC Radio 4 by the Irish writer June Caldwell. Read by Emmet Kirwan.
June Caldwell is the author of 'Room Little Darker', a collection of short stories. She is the winner of the Moth Short Story Prize and has been shortlisted for writing.ie Short Story of the Year; Calvino Prize in Fabulist Fiction; Colm Toíbín International Short Story Award; Lorian Hemingway Prize; and Sunday Business Post/Penguin Ireland Short Story Prize.
Reader: Emmet Kirwan
Writer: June Caldwell
Producer: Michael Shannon
A BBC Northern Ireland production.
SUN 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m000m4fn)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
SUN 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m000m4fr)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.
SUN 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m000m4fw)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
SUN 05:30 News Briefing (m000m4fz)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4
SUN 05:43 Bells on Sunday (m000m4c5)
St. Mary, Ilmington in Warwickshire
Bells on Sunday comes from the parish church of St. Mary, Ilmington in Warwickshire. The bells were augmented from six to eight by John Taylor of Loughborough in 2000, and are rung from the ground floor. We now hear them ringing Plain Bob Doubles on the back six bells.
SUN 05:45 Profile (m000m4b6)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Saturday]
SUN 06:00 News (m000m48l)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4
SUN 06:05 Something Understood (b065rv5m)
Changing the Mirror
Actor Adjoa Andoh explores our need to see our own identities reflected in the culture and environment that envelop us.
With readings from work by Jackie Kay and Aminatta Forna and music by Nina Simone, Miriam Makeba and Florence Price.
Readers: Nadine Marshall, Jackie Kay and Janice Acquah
Produced by Eleanor McDowall
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4
SUN 06:35 On Your Farm (m000m48n)
Rise and Root: The Diverse Farm
On the face of it, American agriculture is overwhelmingly white, male and straight – so too here in the UK.
Could that ever change? Anna Jones travels to an inspirational farm on the ‘black dirt’ soils of New York State to meet four women, from very different backgrounds, who started farming together in the hope they could make positive change happen.
New Yorkers Jane Hodge, Michaela Hayes-Hodge, Lorrie Clevenger and Karen Washington co-own Rise and Root Farm, growing organic fruits and vegetables, edible flowers and plant seedlings for customers in the city.
Anna talks to Karen about food justice in New York City's poorest communities and Lorrie’s efforts to cast off the long shadow of slavery and reclaim positive stories of African-American agriculture and successful black-owned farms. Anna hears from Michaela and Jane, a married couple, about being known locally as ‘The Lesbian Farm’ and why it's time white people got comfortable talking openly about issues of race and equality.
SUN 06:57 Weather (m000m48q)
The latest weather forecast
SUN 07:00 News and Papers (m000m48s)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.
SUN 07:10 Sunday (m000m48v)
A look at the ethical and religious issues of the week
SUN 07:54 Radio 4 Appeal (m000m48x)
Home-Start UK
Broadcaster Kaye Adams makes the Radio 4 Appeal on behalf of Home-Start UK.
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 ‘Home-Start UK’.
- Cheques should be made payable to ‘Home-Start UK’.
- You can donate online at bbc.co.uk/appeal/radio4
Registered Charity Number: 1108837/SC039172
SUN 07:57 Weather (m000m48z)
The latest weather forecast
SUN 08:00 News and Papers (m000m491)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.
SUN 08:10 Sunday Worship (m000m493)
Wild at home
Greenbelt looks 'Wild at Home' in digital form this summer 2020, with Paul Kerensa, Molly Boot and Greenbelt's Creative Director Paul Northup. From livestream performance to reflective blogs; from archive talks to special artist features, Greenbelt is so many things to so many different people. But for everyone, it's somewhere to believe in. Producer: Andrew Earis
SUN 08:48 A Point of View (m000m0bg)
A Fine Line
"At no time, in modern times," writes Adam Gopnik, "have we endured so much and understood so little."
But Adam reminds us that plagues have often, in the past, preceded times of plenty - the Jazz Age, for example, following closely on the heels of the 1918 flu pandemic in the US.
"So what lies before us may be parched austerity and continuing depression... or champagne at midnight in Gatsby's garden."
Producer: Adele Armstrong
SUN 08:58 Tweet of the Day (b04syywl)
Blue Manakin
Tweet of the Day is the voice of birds and our relationship with them, from around the world.
Liz Bonnin presents the advancing, leaping and queuing male blue manakin of Brazil. Male blue manakins are small, blue and black birds with scarlet caps. They live in the forests of south-east Brazil and neighbouring areas of Argentina and Paraguay. Whilst their plumage is eye-catching, their mating display is one of the strangest of any bird. A dominant male Blue Manakin enlists the support of one or more subordinate males. Calling loudly, all the males sidle along a branch towards the female, taking turns to leap into the air and then fly back down and take their place at the back of the queue. This sequence of advancing, leaping and queuing occurs at a frenetic pace, until, without warning, the dominant male calls time on this avian dance-off, with a piercing screech.
SUN 09:00 Broadcasting House (m000m495)
The Sunday morning news magazine programme. Presented by Paddy O'Connell
SUN 10:00 The Archers Omnibus (m000m497)
Writers, Katie Hims & Naylah Ahmed
Director, Marina Caldarone
Editor, Jeremy Howe
Lilian Bellamy ….. Sunny Ormonde
Alice Carter ….. Hollie Chapman
Chris Carter ….. Wilf Scolding
Ed Grundy ….. Barry Farrimond
Lynda Snell ….. Carole Boyd
Robert Snell ….. Graham Blockey
SUN 10:55 Tweet of the Day (m000m499)
Tweet Take 5: Starling
The raucous chattering and calls of the starling are for many a familiar sound near to our homes. Yet each winter thousands upon thousands of starlings arrive in the United Kingdom bringing with them mesmerising aerial displays. In this extended version of Tweet of the Day, we hear from three people whose creativity is inspired by this common songster. Composer, producer and musician Joe Acheson, novelist and nature writer Melissa Harrison and singer songwriter Kitty Macfarlane.
Producer Andrew Dawes
SUN 11:00 The Reunion (m000m49c)
The Bid for London 2012
The Summer Olympic and Paralympic Games held in London in 2012 are widely regarded as one of the most successful of modern times. They regenerated a largely wasteland area in East London and inspired a generation into sport.
On the track, Team GB’s sporting performance was the best this country had produced at an Olympics since 1908, and there was an equal emphasis on the Paralympics too, with over 4,000 athletes from 164 countries competing in front of packed crowds.
However, the initial resistance and negative reception to the bid when it began in 2003, was a world away from the euphoria and patriotism that London 2012 would inspire. By the time London had decided to bid, the UK hadn’t tried to host the Olympics for a decade. There had been three previous failed British bids, by Birmingham and Manchester, and many years of cynicism by those who felt that hosting an Olympics was nothing more than an elaborate and expensive exercise in national ego boosting.
Encompassing resignations, a TV investigation that nearly scuttled the team’s hopes, and a dramatic final push involving Prime Ministers and global superstars, the story of the bid for London 2012 contains almost as much drama as the Games themselves.
Kirsty Wark is joined by core members of the bid team:
Barbara Cassani was the first Chair of the bid and Sir Keith Mills was its Chief Executive.
Jonathan Edwards and Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson sat on the Athletes Advisory Board.
Richard Caborn was the Minister for Sport and Sir Craig Reedie was a member of the International Olympic Committee
Lord Sebastian Coe became Bid Chair in its second stage.
Producer: Steve Hankey
Presenter: Kirsty Wark
Series Producer: David Prest
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4
SUN 11:45 The Alien Birds Have Landed (b01m19nj)
The Starling and Blackbird
Alison Steadman tells the story of how and why the Starling is hated in North America and the Blackbird in New Zealand. Historically as much as today we have meddled with nature. It's a risky business. Can we undo our mistakes or is it too late?
Producer: Tim Dee
SUN 12:00 News Summary (m000m49g)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
SUN 12:04 I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue (b017vsjf)
Series 56
Episode 4
The nation's favourite wireless entertainment with a second show from Sage Gateshead. Regulars Barry Cryer, Graeme Garden and Tim Brooke-Taylor are joined on the panel by Marcus Brigstocke with Jack Dee in the chair. Colin Sell attempts piano accompaniment. Producer - Jon Naismith.
SUN 12:32 The Food Programme (m000m49j)
Sitopia - a land with food at its centre
Prime Minister Carolyn Steel joins Sheila Dillon for this special edition of The Food Programme from the year 2030. Sheila discusses the prime minister’s rise to power after Britain saw food shortages and riots in the 2020s and what it is like to now live in Sitopia - a land with food at the centre of everyone’s lives.
After meeting the prime minister in the Rose Garden, which is now a bounteous vegetable garden, Ms Steel and Sheila take a walk around London to see the radical changes to the country. She meets Chris Young from the Real Bread Campaign to hear about how the banning of industrial bread has created thousands of jobs in bakeries. Sheila holograms with Stephen Ritz, founder of The Green Bronx Machine, to hear how his pioneering work inspired the prime minister to turn school playing fields into gardens and classrooms into kitchens. And they speak with ‘agriwilding’ farmer Rebecca Hosking to see how nature and farming now coexist.
Back in the Rose Garden Sheila interviews the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Patrick Holden - who in 2020 was the chief executive of The Sustainable Food Trust - to question him on how Britain can afford to live in Sitopia without a substantial raise in taxes.
Prime Minister Steel explains how the Good Food Revolution all began after her book ‘Sitopia: How Food Can Save the World’ was published in 2020.
Presenter: Sheila Dillon
Producer: Emma Weatherill
SUN 12:57 Weather (m000m49m)
The latest weather forecast
SUN 13:00 The World This Weekend (m000m49r)
Global news and analysis, presented by Mark Mardell.
SUN 13:30 Punt PI (b065rlrt)
Series 8
The Case of the Missing Cezanne
Steve Punt turns Private Investigator and tries to crack the case of the missing Cézanne masterpiece 'Auvers sur Oise'.
The painting was stolen from the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford whilst the city celebrated the millennium, and has not been seen since.
His search takes him from the crime scene to the Mayfair art world, via leads at Scotland Yard and sightings on a pub wall in Coventry.
With a watchful eye for any Mr Big who may be behind a painting reportedly "stolen to order", Punt PI enters the murky world of stolen art. But how close can he get to the stolen Cézanne?
Producer Neil McCarthy
SUN 14:00 Gardeners' Question Time (m000m09y)
GQT At Home: Episode Twenty-Two
Kathy Clugston hosts this week's gardening panel show, joined by Bob Flowerdew, Pippa Greenwood and James Wong to answer listeners' horticultural quandaries and queries.
The panellists tackle questions on unhappy salad leaves, growing your own Christmas dinner and fragrant climbers for a pergola. They also share obscure gardening tips passed down from their elders.
Away from the questions, garden designer Humaira Ikram explains how best to plant in dry conditions, and Peter Gibbs visits the heather garden at RHS Wisley with head gardener Matthew Pottage.
Producer - Laurence Bassett
Assistant Producer - Jemima Rathbone
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.
SUN 14:45 The Way I See It (m000ccm3)
Lady Ruth Rogers on Henri Rousseau's The Dream
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 is the choice of award-winning chef, Ruth Rogers: The Dream, by Henri Rousseau.
Producer: Tom Alban
Main Image:
Henri Rousseau, The Dream, 1910. Oil on canvas, 6' 8 1/2" x 9' 9 1/2" (204.5 x 298.5 cm). Gift of Nelson A. Rockefeller. Museum of Modern Art, NY, 2
52.1954
SUN 15:00 Madam, Will You Talk? (m000m49w)
Episode 2
Set in the South of France in the early 1950s, the heat is intense, roads are dusty and parched, cicadas are noisy, the coffee is strong and une omelette aux fines herbes at the local café is almost exotic.
This is Charity’s dream holiday after the austere greyness of England and the death of her husband in the war. At her hotel, she meets David, a lonely English schoolboy who is there with his stepmother. She discovers that his father has been accused of murder and he is in France for his own safety.
Charity soon finds herself caught up in a plot to kidnap him and she begins to mistrust everyone. Is the man she keeps bumping into a foe or friend? She flees to Marseille where the war still casts a shadow. Collaborators with the occupying Germans are still being hunted down and fugitive Nazis are living in disguise.
Mary Stewart invented the romantic suspense novel. Originally published in 1954, this was her first book and an instant best-seller. She caught the spirit of the post-war world - her heroines are all independent, educated young women who enjoy travelling, drive fast cars and stand up for themselves. Never out of print and with over five million copies sold, Mary Stewart's been called one of the great British storytellers of the 20th century.
Cast:
Charity Selbourne ..... Scarlett Courtney
Richard Byron ..... Tim Dutton
Paul Very ..... Sam Alexander
Loraine Bristol ..... Harriet Collings
Louise Cray ..... Esme Scarborough
John Marsden & Max Kramer ..... Kenneth Collard
David Bryon ..... Frankie Milward
Other parts were played by members of the cast
Sound Engineer and Design: David Thomas
Production Co-ordinators: Sarah Tombling and Phoebe Izzard-Davey
Programme Illustration: Mahla Bess
Dramatised by Marcy Kahan from the novel by Mary Stewart
Produced and Directed by Caroline Raphael
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4
SUN 16:00 Open Book (b0bgbm5p)
Richard Powers and Nature Writing
Alex Clark talks to Richard Powers about The Overstory, a novel about the majesty and importance of trees. They're also joined by Melissa Harrison and Jessica J Lee to consider contemporary nature writing and the environmental concerns preoccupying novelists today.
And ecologist Liam Heneghan examines why children's writers have been so drawn to trees and forests.
SUN 16:30 Tongue and Talk: The Dialect Poets (m000m4b2)
The Forest of Dean
The Forest of Dean in Gloucestershire has a long literary legacy, from early dialect writing by William Wickenden to Dennis Potter and Winifred Foley. Academic Jason Griffiths talks to colleagues at the University of Gloucestershire about Reading the Forest, their project exploring the area’s literary landscape.
Historian Roger Deeks discusses soldier poet FW Harvey and his influence on later Forest writers, while research fellow Michelle Straw offers fascinating insight into the gendered nature of dialect.
Jason also catches up with local publisher Doug McLean to remember dialect poet and performer Harry Beddington, and meets contemporary poets Keith Morgan and Maggie Clutterbuck, and singer-songwriter Dick Brice. Meanwhile, in search of present-day dialect speakers, he visits the Forest’s freeminers, and discovers how local schools are teaching the next generation of Foresters to value their dialect.
A Made in Manchester production for BBC Radio 4
SUN 17:00 Code-Switching (m000ls8x)
Like many young black people, Lucrece Grehoua is an expert in code-switching - used to changing her voice, accent and mannerisms when she enters white-majority spaces. But should she really have to? In this programme, Lucrece reveals the cost of hiding who we really are in the workplace and explores the mechanics of code-switching, a term first used to describe the experience of African-American students in the 1970s. She shares her own story of being taught to become “a palatable black girl with a soft voice and an unceasing smile”. And she talks to other young professionals about the steps they’ve taken to fit in – from adopting a “white voice” in the office to changing how they behave and switching up their look. We also hear from those who, tired of code-switching, are daring to be themselves in the corporate world.
Lucrece speaks to:
Her friends Emmanuel Ajayi, Cheryl Jordan Osei and Ivan
Her Mum and brother Steve
Criminal barrister Leon Nathan Lynch
Sociolinguist Devyani Sharma from the Accent Bias Britain Project
Nels Abbey, author of Think Like a White Man, A Satirical Guide to Conquering the World While Black
Elizabeth Bananuka, founder of BME PR Pros and The Blueprint
Social Mobility Commissioner and lawyer Sandra Wallace
Picture Credit: Jeff Overs/BBC
SUN 17:40 Profile (m000m4b6)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Saturday]
SUN 17:54 Shipping Forecast (m000m4bb)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
SUN 17:57 Weather (m000m4bg)
The latest weather forecast.
SUN 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m000m4bk)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
SUN 18:15 Pick of the Week (m000m4bp)
Eunice Olumide
This week we negotiate the complexities of human nature, benevolence, and the power of our imagination for better or for worse. From folklore to Scottish Gaelic, to music and fashion - we consider human nature and what is the purpose of life?
Neil MacGregor catapults us back more than two thousand years, exploring how cultural artifacts negate mythology, we look at the power of protest and of lives well spent as we weave a new and brighter future.
Presenter: Eunice Olumide
Producer: Stephen Garner
Production Support: Kay Whyld and Sandra Hardial
Studio Engineer: Owain Williams
contact potw@bbc.co.uk
SUN 19:00 The Whisperer In Darkness (m000m4bv)
Episode 5
An unexpected phone call turns Matthew Heawood’s attention to a mystery in the gloom of Rendlesham Forest. Folklore, paranormal, otherworldly? Up for debate, but fertile ground for a new investigative podcast, that’s for sure. One question still lingers, will our host be re-joined by his roaming researcher, Kennedy Fisher?
The duo’s last venture patched together frantic updates from Baghdad, as they pursued suspected occultists in The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. Very little hope lingered of solving the mystery, and maybe even less that Kennedy would return home safe. But for now, a new investigation calls.
Following the success of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, (Silver, British Podcast Awards) Radio 4 commissions a return to this HP Lovecraft-inspired universe. Once again, the podcast embraces Lovecraft’s crypt of horror, braving the Sci-Fi stylings of The Whisperer in Darkness.
Episode Five
Heawood and Kennedy are starting to make progress with the Henry Akeley investigation. Or so they think.
Cast:
Kennedy Fisher……………….………JANA CARPENTER
Matthew Heawood………………….BARNABY KAY
Albert Wilmarth………………………MARK BAZELEY
Henry Akeley……………….……..….DAVID CALDER
Ben…………………...........…….…….BEN CROWE
Tania…………………..……...............GABRIELLE GLAISTER
Slide……………………....................FERDINAND KINGSLEY
Mystery woman…………........…...NICOLA STEPHENSON
Child's voice…………………..........EDIE SIMPSON
Producer: Karen Rose
Director/Writer: Julian Simpson
Sound Recordist and Designer: David Thomas
Production Coordinators: Sarah Tombling and Holly Slater
Music by Tim Elsenburg
Executive Producer: Caroline Raphael
A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds
SUN 19:15 Tom Wrigglesworth's Hang-Ups (b07tc1rm)
Series 4
Construction Time Again
Episode 3 - Construction Time Again. Tom's Dad offers some unwanted assistance.
Series 4 of Tom Wrigglesworth's Hang-Ups presents another hilarious helping of down-the-line adventures from Edinburgh Comedy Award nominated Tom. Listen in on Tom's weekly phone calls home to his Mum, Dad and Gran in Sheffield and get a glimpse into the triumphs and tribulations of the Wrigglesworth clan in all its dysfunctional glory.
Starring Tom Wrigglesworth, Paul Copley, Kate Anthony, Elizabeth Bennett.
Written by Tom Wrigglesworth and James Kettle with additional material by Miles Jupp.
Producer: Richard Morris
A BBC Studios Production.
SUN 19:45 The New Adventures of Baron Munchausen (m000m4bx)
Episode 3
The Baron intends to relax in Queensland after volunteering with the bushfire crews – but fate has other plans.
This specially commissioned series from James Robertson celebrating travel, adventure and the importance of storytelling is read by William Gaminara.
Our hero is a descendant of the original 18th century Baron Munchausen, whose tall tales inspired a book that would forever link the family name with fibs and exaggeration. Eager to redress the balance, the current Baron dedicates himself to setting down the unvarnished truth about his own exploits.
James writes, “The present-day Baron’s adventures are no less incredible, but in his case every detail has a rational explanation and not one word is an exaggeration or a lie. He flies with swans, sails, sledges and balloons his way round the world, is swallowed by a whale, encounters wolves and alligators, fights bush fires in Australia, orbits the moon and plays golf with the President of the USA. He does the kind of things, in other words, that have been denied to the rest of us for the last five months. Realism, escapism or a mixture of the two? Judge for yourselves.”
James Robertson is an award-winning poet, novelist and short story writer whose books include ‘Joseph Knight’, ‘And The Land Lay Still’ and ‘To Be Continued...’.
Produced by Eilidh McCreadie
SUN 20:00 More or Less (m000lzgy)
Covid plasma therapy
Donald Trump says allowing the emergency use of blood plasma therapy for coronavirus patients will save “countless lives” and is “proven to reduce mortality by 35%”. We look at the evidence.
Amid talk of coronavirus being back on the rise in the UK, what does the data show? Could screening for breast cancer from the age of 40 save lives? And can it really be true than one in five women in 18th century London made a living selling sex?
SUN 20:30 Last Word (m000m0b2)
Dr James Partridge OBE, Sally Jacobs, Angela Buxton, Philip Horniblow OBE
Pictured: Dr James Partridge OBE (c) Paul Chambers Photography
Julian Worricker on:
The theatre designer, Sally Jacobs, whose work included a groundbreaking production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, set in a white box on stage….
James Partridge, whose life was transformed by facial burns suffered in a car accident, and who went on to campaign for equal treatment for all, irrespective of appearance….
The tennis player Angela Buxton, who faced discrimination in the sport because of her Jewish heritage, and who formed a winning doubles partnership with Althea Gibson….
And Philip Horniblow, variously described as a mountaineer, soldier, spy and doctor, who spent thirty years of his working life in the Middle East.
Interviewed guest: Anna Furse
Interviewed guest: Phyllida Swift
Interviewed guest: Richard Evans
Interviewed guest: Dawn Robertson
Interviewed guest: Nigel Gifford
Producer: Neil George
Archive clips from: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by Peter Brook 1970, RSC / MIT Global Shakespeare; The Reunion, Radio 4 08/05/2015; Turandot: Puccini’s Final Opera, Royal Opera House 25/09/2013; ITV News 17/08/2020; About Face, Radio 4 18/07/1993; North West Tonight, BBC One 02/07/2004; Angela Buxton on Althea Gibson, BET News 2004; Fry v Buxton, Wimbledon Ladies’ Finals, BBC Sound Archive 07/07/1956; Nationwide, BBC One 15/06/1981.
SUN 21:00 The Money Clinic (m000m4bz)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:04 on Saturday]
SUN 21:25 Radio 4 Appeal (m000m48x)
[Repeat of broadcast at
07:54 today]
SUN 21:30 In Business (m000lyzl)
The March of Robots
Robots and Artificial Intelligence have been moving into our workplaces for years.
But is now the time that they will become fully established and take over some jobs entirely? Is the march of the robots going to get louder now that everything seems to be changing ? David Baker investigates.
Produced by Sandra Kanthal
SUN 22:00 Westminster Hour (m000m4c1)
Radio 4's Sunday night political discussion programme.
SUN 23:00 The Film Programme (m000lyz2)
I Am Spartacus (Remix)
With Francine Stock
"I Am Spartacus" is one of the most famous lines in film history and Francine tells the turbulent backstory of that line and how it involved the so-called Hollywood witch-hunt, in which writers had to secretly change their names to get work.
She hears from actor Kerry Shale and historians Pamela Hutchinson and Colin Shindler.
SUN 23:30 Something Understood (b065rv5m)
[Repeat of broadcast at
06:05 today]
MONDAY 31 AUGUST 2020
MON 00:00 Midnight News (m000m4c3)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.
MON 00:15 Thinking Allowed (m0004mfw)
The Politics of Memorials
The Politics of Memorials: Remembering Emmet Till – in 1955, a young African-American was lynched in Mississippi at the age of 14, after being accused of offending a white woman in her family's grocery store. Driving through the Mississippi Delta today, you’ll find a landscape dotted with memorials to major figures and moments from the civil rights movement, none more tragic than this murder. The ways in which his death is remembered have been fraught from the beginning, revealing the political controversies which lurk behind the placid facades of historical markers. Dave Tell, Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Kansas, analyses the various ways that this landmark event in the civil rights movement has been commemorated. Also, Margaret O’Callaghan, Reader in History, Queen’s University Belfast, discusses commemoration in the context of Irish history. How has the marking of the Easter Rising shifted over time? What roles are played by memorials in any society? And what forces dictate what gets remembered and what is forgotten? Revised repeat.
Producer: Jayne Egerton
MON 00:45 Bells on Sunday (m000m4c5)
[Repeat of broadcast at
05:43 on Sunday]
MON 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m000m4c7)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
MON 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m000m4c9)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.
MON 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m000m4cc)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
MON 05:30 News Briefing (m000m4cf)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4
MON 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m000m4cj)
A reflection and prayer to start the day with Rev Dr Janet Unsworth
MON 05:45 Farming Today (m000m4cn)
Bank Holiday Special: The Farming Forum
Clive Bailye set up The Farming Forum to learn about conservation agriculture from other farmers and share his successes and failures along the way. Now, it's grown into a thriving online community with tens of thousands of members. It hosts conversations about everything from machinery prices to mental health, and has come into its own during lockdown, helping keep the rural community connected.
In this programme we learn more about Clive's conservation agriculture journey, and speak to some of those who have been helped by The Farming Forum.
This is a BBC Audio production, presented and produced by Heather Simons.
MON 05:56 Weather (m000m4cs)
The latest weather forecast for farmers.
MON 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b04t0gsc)
Saddleback
Tweet of the Day is the voice of birds and our relationship with them, from around the world.
Liz Bonnin presents the formerly widespread saddleback of New Zealand. It's loud, piping and whistling calls once resounded throughout New Zealand's forests, but now the saddleback is heard only on smaller offshore islands. This is a bird in exile. About the size of a European blackbird, saddlebacks are predominantly black with a rust-coloured saddle-shaped patch on their backs. In Maori culture this mark came from the demi-God Maui who, after trying to catch the sun, asked the saddleback to fetch water. The bird refused, so hot-handed Maui grabbed it and left a scorch mark on the bird's back. As well as this chestnut saddle, the bird has two bright red wattles at the base of its beak which it can dilate when it displays. It also has an extensive vocabulary and one of its calls has earned it the Maori name –"Ti-e-ke".
MON 06:00 Today (m000m567)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
MON 09:00 Start the Week (m000m569)
Nature notes, from farming to fungi
The first episode of the new season. Andrew Marr and guests stop to consider the natural world and the changing seasons.
When James Rebanks first learnt to work the land, at his grandfather's side, the family’s Lake District farm was a key part of the ancient landscape and was teeming with wildlife. By the time he inherited the farm, that landscape had profoundly changed. In English Pastoral, his follow-up to best-seller The Shepherd’s Life, Rebanks assesses the revolutionary post-war farming methods - and the unintended destruction they caused. He looks at what can be done to restore rich soil and flourishing fields.
Since the start of the pandemic, novelist and nature writer Melissa Harrison has been documenting the wonder of the natural world, bringing the sights and sounds of her Suffolk countryside to homes all around the country. In her podcast The Stubborn Light of Things she plays close attention to what’s happening on her doorstep, from the arrival and departure of the swifts, to the bloom of the hawthorn, to the hunt in the undergrowth for glow-worms. A collection of Harrison’s monthly nature notes from The Times are due to be published this November.
A much underrated and unnoticed part of the natural world are fungi, according to the biologist Merlin Sheldrake. In Entangled Life he celebrates the ingenuity, extravagance and strangeness of fungal networks. Neither plant nor animal, fungi are found throughout the earth, in the air and in our bodies. They can live on a speck of dust or spread over miles of underground mazes. While fungi gives us bread and life-saving medicines, they have also transformed our understanding of the way plants communicate with each other via the ‘Wood Wide Web’.
Producer: Katy Hickman
MON 09:45 Burning the Books by Richard Ovenden (m000m56c)
Episode 1
A 3000-year journey through the destruction of knowledge and the fight against all the odds to preserve it.
Richard Ovenden, director of the Bodleian Library, explains how attacks on libraries and archives have been a feature of history since ancient times, but have increased in frequency and intensity during the modern era. Libraries are far more than stores of literature, through preserving the legal documents such as Magna Carta and records of citizenship they also support the rule of law and the rights of citizens.
Today, the knowledge they hold on behalf of society is under attack as never before.
At once a powerful history of civilisation and a manifesto for the vital importance of physical libraries in our increasingly digital age, Burning the Books is also a very human story animated by an unlikely cast of adventurers, self-taught archaeologists, poets, freedom-fighters - and, of course, librarians and the heroic lengths they will go to preserve and rescue knowledge. Richard Ovenden demonstrates fundamentally how knowledge of the past still has so many valuable lessons to teach us and we ignore it at our peril.
Written by Richard Ovenden
Read by Anthony Head
Abridged by Siân Preece
Produced by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4
MON 10:00 Woman's Hour (m000m56f)
Educating Rita at 40 with Julie Walters, Willy Russell and real life Ritas
This summer marks 40 years since Willy Russell’s landmark play Educating Rita was first performed. The funny and moving story of a 26 year-old Liverpudlian hairdresser studying for an Open University degree has barely been off stage since. Dame Julie Walters played the lead role in both the original theatrical production and the later film, for which she was Oscar-nominated. She joins Jane to talk about what playing the role has meant to her, and how much Rita/Susan’s experience chimed with her own. Jane also speaks to Willy Russell about Rita’s story, and why he believes it has resonated with so many women. They are joined by four real life Ritas – working-class women who returned to education in later life, Glynthea Modood, Sue Slater, Kate Wiseman, and the Open University’s Pro Vice Chancellor Liz Marr.
MON 10:45 Annika Stranded (m000jfpt)
Series 6
Staying and Going
She’s back. Five new cases to challenge the detective wit of Chief Inspector Annika Strandhed, queen of the Oslo Police boat patrol.
After an experiment as a family unit in Oslo, Tor has returned to the Reindeer Police in the north of Norway, leaving Annika and her son to pick up their old routines.
1/5. Staying And Going
Annika investigates a case involving a stone tiger, a flowering plant and an acupuncturist.
Nick Walker is the author of two critically-acclaimed novels ‘Blackbox’ and ‘Helloland’. His plays and short stories have often featured on BBC Radio 4 including: ‘the ‘First King of Mars’ stories (2007 - 2010) and the plays ‘Life Coach’ (2010) and ‘Stormchasers’ (2012). The first season of ‘Annika Stranded’ was broadcast in 2013.
Writer: Nick Walker
Reader: Nicola Walker
Sound Design: Jon Calver
Producer: Jeremy Osborne
A Sweet Talk Production for BBC Radio 4
MON 11:00 My Name Is... (m000m56h)
My Name is Niellah
Niellah Arboine is a young journalist at the start of her career. She wants to know why Black journalists like her are so underrepresented in broadcast and print journalism.
Research by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University found that just 0.2% of journalists are Black - that is one in every 500. Yet Black people make up nearly 4% of the population.
At a time when the Black Lives Matter movement has become resurgent and the coronavirus pandemic has had a disproportionate impact on Black and Brown people, Niellah asks what life is like for Black journalists in the UK today.
She speaks to some of Britain’s leading journalists about how they tackle the challenges of getting into the industry, facing racial prejudice both in newsrooms and in reporting, and finding their voice to report on the experiences of their communities and society as a whole.
She asks what needs to be done to change the culture of Britain’s newsrooms, and what steps need to be taken for print and broadcast journalism to be more inclusive and to truly represent the nation in all its diversity.
Niellah speaks to Liv Little of gal-dem Magazine, Nadine White of the Huffington Post and Rianna Croxford of BBC News. She meets with ITV News anchor Charlene White, talks to journalist and academic Marcus Ryder and questions the Managing Editor of the Evening Standard and The Independent, Doug Wills.
Presented by Niellah Arboine
Produced by Mugabi Turya and Seren Jones.
(Photo: Niellah Arboine. Photo credit: Shopé Delano)
MON 11:30 Loose Ends (m000m4f8)
[Repeat of broadcast at
18:15 on Saturday]
MON 12:00 News Summary (m000m56l)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
MON 12:04 The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante (m000m56n)
Episode One
A teenage girl uncovers family secrets and lies in 1990s Naples, in the new novel by Elena Ferrante, author of the Neapolitan quartet of novels (My Brilliant Friend, The Story of a New Name, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, and The Story of the Lost Child).
As Giovanna moves from childhood into adolescence, she becomes fascinated with her father's sister Vittoria, from whom he is estranged. She goes down from the affluent heights of Naples where she has grown up in a wealthy left-wing family, into the depths of the rough neighbourhoods of her father's youth. As she begins to excavate her family history, everything of which she was certain unravels.
Read by Juliet Aubrey
Abridged by Sara Davies
Produced by Mary Ward-Lowery and Mair Bosworth
MON 12:18 You and Yours (m000m56q)
Garden Centres; Eat Out To Help Out; Gone Fishing
It's been a difficult year for the horticulture industry. Lockdown hit growers hard with many losing thousands of pounds worth of stock, and garden centres lost crucial business at their busiest time. But now, new figures from the Horticulture Trade Association suggest sales in August are up 50% on the same time last year. We'll speak to a commercial grower of plants in Formby, and also the celebrity horticulturalist David Domoney.
On the last day of the government's Eat Out To Help out scheme - we'll look at how it's gone for customers, business and the government. Millions of meals have been sold under the offer, which gives diners up to 50% off their bill. There's a maximum discount of 10 pounds per person, and more than 83,000 businesses signed up to the promotion.
And around 750 thousand people in England and Wales are now reaching for waders before heading off for a day at the river. The Environment Agency says participation in angling has grown rapidly out of lockdown, with over 100,000 new rod license applications - up 15% on last year. We'll look into the lasting appeal of a spot of fishing.
Presenter: Sam Fenwick
Producer: Jess Quayle
MON 12:57 Weather (m000m56s)
The latest weather forecast
MON 13:00 World at One (m000m56v)
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 From the Mayflower to the Moon (and Back Again) (m000m56x)
De la Salle has left the room
Joe Queenan is setting out in an inflatable canoe. He's heading down the steamy Mississippi River, looking for the adventurers who built the United States.
"That my country should presently be helmed by a rapacious real estate developer," Queenan says, "should come as no surprise to anyone who has studied the early years of the nation. Back then, people just showed up from Europe and stole land. The Dutch stole Manhattan, the Spanish stole Florida, the French stole Louisiana, and the English stole everything.”
Today's expedition retraces the trip of a man who claimed Louisiana for King Louis in 1682. This is the first of ten journeys between the arrival of the Pilgrim Fathers on the Mayflower in 1620 and the landing of the men on the moon in 1969. Other episodes follow the forced relocation of Native Americans by President Andrew Jackson, the same Andrew Jackson whose statue was nearly pulled down in Washington in June; plus the crossing of the Bering Strait by Vitus Bering and the movement of African Americans up to Chicago and Detroit from the South. All were recorded in lockdown against the background of major turmoil in the US.
The producer in Bristol is Miles Warde
Contributors include Paul Chaat Smith, Merete Boge Pedersen, Cariole Berkin and Clive Webb.
MON 14:00 Drama (m000m56z)
Agatha Christie’s Absent in the Spring
Famous for her ingenious crime books and plays, Agatha Christie also wrote about crimes of the heart under the name of Mary Westmacott. Absent In The Spring, written under that name, is the book that Christie cites in her autobiography as the most complete of all her works.
Set in 1934, it is the story of a woman, Joan Scudamore, who unexpectedly becomes stranded in a Mesopotamian way station when returning from a visit to her daughter in Baghdad. The sudden solitude compels her to look back over her married life in rural England. The barren heat of the desert is contrasted against the lush greenery of her West Country home as she digs deeper into her emotional memories and uncovers incidents that have lain buried in her psyche for many years.
She begins to put together a picture of her life that both frightens and appalls her in equal measure. She returns to England, determined to change her attitude to love and married life. The conclusion to the story is as unexpected as it is truthful.
Cast:
Joan Scudamore ... Harriet Walter
Barbara Wray/ Myrna Randolph ... Amy Morgan
Ali/ William Wray ... Nabil Elouahabi
Blanche Haggard ... Geraldine Alexander
Rodney Scudamore/Col. Sherston ... James Fleet
Lesley Sherston/ Miss Gilbey ... Hilary Maclean
Written by Agatha Christie as Mary Westmacott
Adapted by Malcolm McKay
Composer: Nick Bicât
Sound Designer: Leon Chambers
Directed by Catherine Bailey
A Catherine Bailey production for BBC Radio 4
MON 14:45 Museum of Lost Objects (b072n5xf)
Armenian Martyr’s Memorial, Der Zor
The Museum of Lost Objects traces the histories of 10 antiquities or cultural sites that have been destroyed or looted in Iraq and Syria.
The Armenian martyr's memorial in Der Zor, Syria was a tribute to the Armenians who perished in the mass killings of 1915. It was consecrated in 1991 and then completely destroyed in 2014 by Islamic militants. A British-Armenian writer recalls her visits to Der Zor, and traces the harrowing journey of her ancestors through the Syrian desert.
This episode was first broadcast on 10 March, 2016.
Presenter: Kanishk Tharoor
Producer: Maryam Maruf
Contributors: Nouritza Matossian, writer; Heghnar Watenpaugh, University of California Davis
With thanks to Elyse Semerdjian of Whitman College
Picture: Armenian Martyr's Memorial, Der Zor
MON 15:00 Brain of Britain (m000m572)
Heat 10, 2020
(10/17)
Many of us have heard of the Battle of Gettysburg and the famous Gettysburg Address, but in which American state will you find Gettysburg? Which Italian club did the Welsh international footballer John Charles play for in the 1960s? And in which year was the last ever Frost Fair held on the River Thames?
You can find the answers in the latest of the delayed heats in the 2020 Brain of Britain tournament, which comes from Salford, with contestants joining Russell Davies without an audience present. Another of the places in the semi-finals is up for grabs, and possibly even more than one place if the runner-up scores are good enough.
Today's competitors are all from the North of England: they are
Dan Greenwood, a junior doctor from York
Dag Griffiths, a retired teacher from Ormskirk in Lancashire
Richard Payne, a teacher from Huddersfield
Nick Reed, a local government clerk from Masham in North Yorkshire.
Producer: Paul Bajoria
MON 15:30 The Food Programme (m000m49j)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:32 on Sunday]
MON 16:00 My Dream Dinner Party (m000m575)
Alison Steadman's Dream Dinner Party
Actor Alison Steadman hosts a dinner party with a twist - all her guests are from beyond the grave, long time heroes brought back to life by the wonders of the radio archive.
Alison is joined by Beatles legend John Lennon, actress and comedian Beryl Reid, novelist Anita Brookner, Hollywood great James Stewart and singer and lyricist Charles Aznavour. As Alison's french onion soup simmers gently, the guests begin to relax into an evening of shared secrets: from the joy of the unexpected to the pain of genius, and from the seduction of music to the trauma of Vietnam.
There's laughter, flirtation and a nostalgic trip back to Strawberry Fields
Presented by Alison Steadman
Produced by Sarah Peters and Peregrine Andrews
Researcher: Edgar Maddicott
Executive Producer: Iain Chambers
A Tuning Fork and Open Audio production for BBC Radio 4
MON 16:30 Beyond Belief (m000m577)
The Face
Because of Covid-19, we now have to cover our faces with masks which means that we are becoming more anonymous. In this edition of Beyond Belief, Ernie takes a look at the importance of the face to people of different faiths. Jews and Muslims don’t have images of God in their places of worship. However, if you go into a Hindu, Sikh or Buddhist Temple you will see many images or statues of their Gods. Christian art has long depicted the face of Christ, usually showing a blue eyed, blonde Jesus far removed from that of a Jew from the Middle East 2000 years ago.
As for the human face, some Muslim women cover theirs in public; Hindus adorn their faces with colourful marks which signify their status; while many Christians have a cross of ash placed on their faces during Lent.
Joining Ernie to discuss The Face are Dr Jessica Frazier, a Fellow at the Centre for Hindu studies and a Lecturer at the University of Oxford; Joanna Moorhead, a freelance writer and Arts Editor for The Tablet; and Rania Hafez, a Senior Lecturer in the School of Education at the University of Greenwich and a Fellow of the Muslim Institute.
Producer: Helen Lee
MON 17:00 PM (m000m579)
Afternoon news and current affairs programme, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines
MON 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m000m57c)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
MON 18:30 I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue (m0001hkc)
Series 70
Episode 5
The godfather of all panel shows pays a visit to Venue Cymru in Llandudno. Tim Brooke-Taylor is joined on the panel by programme stalwarts Susan Calman, Richard Osman and Rob Brydon with Jack Dee in the chair. Colin Sell accompanies on the piano.
Producer - Jon Naismith.
It is a BBC Studios production.
MON 19:00 The Archers (m000m57g)
Alice gets the wrong end of the stick and Susan is taught a lesson
MON 19:15 Front Row (m000m57j)
Robert Macfarlane, bestselling author, walker, mountaineer and campaigner, talks to Kirsty Lang
Robert Macfarlane walks into the mountains, along ancient paths and down into caves and potholes. He has written beautiful and popular books about these - Mountains of the Mind, The Old Ways, Underland. He is concerned about the depletion of the natural world, and the language we use to speak of it. Landmarks is a lexicon of landscape and nature. When a new edition of a famous children's dictionary left out several common nature words - bluebell, conker, kingfisher - he wrote a series of poems, spells to bring them back to use, and with the artist Jackie Morris created a book. The Lost Words: A Spell Book found its way into half the primary schools in England, and every one in Scotland, and has had a profound impact on the education of children about nature. He worked with several musicians, who set the spells to create an album.
Macfarlane is also a campaigner: moved by the felling of trees in Sheffield, and the protests against this, he gave a poem for anyone to use in protests. It has been translated into Telegu and used in India, as well as at HS2 demonstrations.
Now Macfarlane is working with the actor and singer Johnny Flynn, writing songs inspired by the oldest known written story, Gilgamesh. In this Gilgamesh takes an axe to a scared cedar grove in the first act of deforestation. In the month when Donald Trump has finalized plans to allow drilling for oil and gas in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge, the earliest story, Macfarlane explains, speaks across 4,000 year to us today.
Macfarlane talks to Kirsty Lang about books, collaborations and work in progress. He is deeply concerned about our treatment of the natural world, but his writing is charged with joy and, he explains, he his hopeful.
Presenter: Kirsty Lang
Producer: Julian May
MON 19:45 A Small Town Murder (b01gk4n5)
Episode 1
By Scott Cherry
In the first episode of 'A Small Town Murder' by Scott Cherry: it looks like Family Liaison Officer, Jackie Hartwell, might be offered some paid leave after the tragic events of a recent case.
Jackie Hartwell (played by Meera Syal) is a West Midlands Family Liaison Officer who solves cases by winning the trust of those caught up in the nightmare of serious crime and murder.
Police guidelines: The primary function of an FLO is that of an investigator. In performing this role, the officer will support the family, but will also gather relevant information and intelligence.
Jackie is a serving copper, not a social worker, functioning as part of an active team of investigating CID officers. But working in liaison enables her to get closer to the people involved in the crime, closer to the raw emotions, than the rest of her colleagues - allowing her to investigate in a way they can't, as she combines empathy and intuition with the keen observation of a clever detective.
In Series 4 of 'A Small Town Murder', Jackie is asked to be FLO to the parents of a young man whose murdered body is found floating in the local canal. But as she tries to support the family and solve the murder, Jackie finds herself becoming more and more distracted by the tragic consequences of a previous case.
Producer: Clive Brill
A Pacificus Production for BBC Radio 4
MON 20:00 A Short History of Solitude (m000m57l)
Episode One: Retreat
Thomas Dixon explores the surprising history of being alone.
In this episode, he discovers some of the most extreme examples of voluntary solitude - anchorites, people who chose to be enclosed as a kind of living sacrifice to God; the hermits who sought isolation in the desert; and an artist who lived as Schrodinger's Cat for 10 days and nights in a light- and sound-proof box.
And yet, even these exceptional feats of isolation were unexpectedly social.
For much of history, the idea of being entirely alone was a fascinating but frightening one. The Renaissance poet Petrarch wrote one of the first defences of solitude, but imagined a countryside retreat far from the corrupting life of the city, made comfortable with clever companions and servants. In the 17th century, domestic architecture meant privacy was impossible, and being alone and unobserved was seen as something dangerous and terrifying - a torment not threatened in hell itself.
Contributors include the artists Ansuman Biswas and Nwando Ebize; Hetta Howes, who researches medieval devotional texts; and the historians Barbara Taylor, Miri Rubin and Erica Longfellow.
Music for the series was specially composed and performed by Beth Porter.
The episode also features Samuel West's reading of John Donne's Meditation XVII from his Pandemic Poems project, Nwando Ebizie's Extreme Unction and part of two new pieces commissioned by Sound and Music as part of the Interpreting Isolation project: Wallpaper by Jonathan Higgins and As the World Ain't Square by Douglas MacGregor and George Finlay Ramsey.
Barbara Taylor runs the research project Pathologies of Solitude at Queen Mary University of London and is academic advisor to the series.
Produced by Natalie Steed
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4
MON 20:30 Crossing Continents (m000lyyb)
Reza's Story
A death-defying migrant's story... Said Reza Adib was a TV journalist in Afghanistan. In 2016, about to break a story about the sexual abuse of children by Afghan men in authority, he received a threat to his life. Reza fled across the border to Iran. But journalism was in his blood, and in Iran he began to investigate sensitive stories related to the war in Syria. When Iranian authorities confiscated his lap top, he knew his life was again in danger. That same day, with his wife and two small children, he began a perilous journey to safety in Finland – an odyssey that would last four years. The family would survive shooting on the Turkish border, a voyage across the Aegean Sea on an overcrowded makeshift vessel with fake lifejackets, and then the nightmare of refugee camps in Greece. It was here that Chloe Hadjimatheou met Reza, and for Crossing Contintents she tells the story of a remarkable journalist who’s continued to ply his trade - in spite of the odds stacked against him.
Producer: Linda Pressly
MON 21:00 From Our Home Correspondent (m000m13b)
Mishal Husain presents a range of perspectives on Britain today.
Edinburgh is usually thronged with crowds and alive with performers from around the world at Festival time. But the Scottish capital is in decidedly unfamiliar guise this August. Long-time resident, James Naughtie, experiences a city that is not itself.
Sparked by the shift in living patterns during lockdown, councils in England have implemented low traffic neigbourhoods aimed at cutting the number of vehicles on busy streets. But, as Tom Edwards, BBC London's Transport Correspondent, discovers, while residents like the respite, for motorists the new measures add to already time-consuming journeys.
Deep in the Cotswolds lies an opera house popular with aficionados for miles around. This summer, though, silence - not music - has reigned there. Gillian Powell, part of Longborough Festival Opera's team, reflects on what she has been missing, what's still been possible to do and what she might be able to look forward to next year.
During the Hindu festival of Janmastimi - a time of family reunion and celebration - Harshad Mistry received particularly sad and unwelcome news - the passing of his Motabhai or big brother. It has prompted not only poignant memories but also thoughts about ambition, kinship and community.
And Ian McMillan reveals his youthful attempts with a friend at breaking the time barrier in Barnsley - with the help of a hill of sand and a baked bean tin - and explains why it's something that still preoccupies him.
Producer Simon Coates
MON 21:30 Start the Week (m000m569)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 today]
MON 22:00 The World Tonight (m000m57q)
In depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective
MON 22:45 The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante (m000m56n)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:04 today]
MON 23:00 Word of Mouth (m000m13r)
Protest Slogans
Playwright Sabrina Mahfouz, sitting in for Michael Rosen, talks about the provocative language of protest slogans with artist Zoe Buckman and writer Siana Bangura.
Image copyright : Greg Morrison
Sabrina Mahfouz: http://www.sabrinamahfouz.com/
Siana Bangura: sianabangura.com @Sianaarrgh
Siana Bangura is a writer, producer, performer and community organiser hailing from South East London, now living, working, and creating between London and the West Midlands. Siana is the founder and former editor of Black British Feminist platform, No Fly on the WALL; she is the author of poetry collection, ‘Elephant’; and the producer of ‘1500 & Counting’, a documentary film investigating deaths in custody and police brutality in the UK. Siana works and campaigns on issues of race, class, and gender and their intersections and is currently working on projects focusing on climate change, the arms trade, and state violence. Her recent works include the short film 'Denim' and the play, 'Layila!'. Across her vast portfolio of work, Siana’s mission is to help move marginalised voices from the margins, to the centre.
Zoe Buckman: zoebuckman.com
Zoë Buckman (b. 1985 Hackney, East London) is a multi-disciplinary artist working in sculpture, installation, and photography, exploring themes of Feminism, mortality, and equality.
Notable solo shows have included No Bleach Thick Enough, at Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London, Heavy Rag at Fort Gansevoort Gallery New York, Let Her Rave at Gavlak Gallery Los Angeles, Imprison Her Soft Hand at Project for Empty Space, Newark; Every Curve at PAPILLION ART, Los Angeles; and Present Life at Garis & Hahn Gallery, New York.
Group shows include those at The Museum of Art and Design NYC, MOCA Virginia, The Camden Arts Centre, London, The Studio Museum in Harlem, The Children’s Museum of the Arts, Paul Kasmin Gallery NY, Goodman Gallery South Africa, Jack Shainman Gallery NY, Monique Meloche Chicago, NYU Florence Italy, Grunwald Art Gallery, Indiana University, and the Democratic National Convention, Philadelphia, the National Center for Civil and Human Rights, Atlanta, GA and The National Museum of African-American History & Culture, Washington, DC
Buckman studied at the International Center of Photography (ICP), was awarded an Art Matters Grant in 2017, The Art Change Maker Award 2019 at The New Jersey Visual Arts Center, and The Art and Social Impact Award 2020 at Baxter St NYC, and completed a residency at Mana Contemporary in 2017.
Public works include a mural, We Hold These Truths To Be Self-Evident, in collaboration with Natalie Frank at the Ford Foundation Live Gallery of New York Live Arts in NYC. In February 2018 Buckman unveiled her first Public Sculpture presented by Art Production Fund on Sunset Blv, Los Angeles, a large scale outdoor version of her neon sculpture Champ, which has been up for three years.
Buckman lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
MON 23:30 The Empty Cases (m000lyyd)
On 7th June 2020, protestors in Bristol rewrote the city’s history by pulling down a statue of 17th-century slave trader Edward Colston, and dumping it in the harbour. The damaged statue has since been retrieved and there are plans to display it elsewhere, complete with the red daubs of protestors’ paint, and Black Lives Matter placards.
The event has triggered a discussion amongst Britain’s curators about what objects are acceptable for display in museums and galleries in 2020. Some museums have entire collections established on the wealth of the slave trade or acts of colonial plunder, others have items that might now be deemed racially or culturally insensitive. For some, it’s the context and settings of collections that reveal a distinctly racist interpretation of history. As one museum curator has put it, “in Britain, you’re never more than 150 miles from a looted African object”.
Gary Younge speaks to the curators as they currently review what's on display in UK museums and how they’re re-writing the way we revere, remember and acknowledge Britain's historical moments.
As Gary finds out, when the public is re-admitted to museums after the current lockdown, there is a distinct possibility that some display cases may have notable absences.
Producer: Candace Wilson
Editor: David Prest
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4
Photo credit: Candace Wilson
TUESDAY 01 SEPTEMBER 2020
TUE 00:00 Midnight News (m000m57s)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.
TUE 00:30 Burning the Books by Richard Ovenden (m000m56c)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 on Monday]
TUE 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m000m57v)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
TUE 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m000m57x)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.
TUE 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m000m57z)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
TUE 05:30 News Briefing (m000m581)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4
TUE 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m000m583)
A reflection and prayer to start the day with Rev Dr Janet Unsworth
TUE 05:45 Farming Today (m000m585)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
TUE 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b04t0gzx)
Greater Racket-tailed Drongo
Tweet of the Day is the voice of birds and our relationship with them, from around the world.
Liz Bonnin presents the greater racket-tailed drongo of South-East Asia. Across a clearing in a Malaysian forest flies a dark bird, seemingly chased by two equally dark butterflies. Those butterflies in hot pursuit aren't insects at all; they are the webbed tips of the greater racket-tailed drongo's excessively long wiry outer-tail feathers, which from a distance look like separate creatures as it flies. Glossy blue-black birds which live in wooded country and are great insect catchers, hawking after them in mid-air before returning to a perch. They're bold too and won't hesitate to harry and chase much larger birds than themselves, including, birds of prey. Like other drongos the greater racquet-tailed drongo has an extensive but not very musical repertoire which includes the sounds of other birds it meets, when it joins mixed feeding flocks, and can imitate the call of a hawk to alarm the hawk's victims and so steal food from them while they are distracted by the call: an ingenious tactic, which few other birds have learned.
TUE 06:00 Today (m000m5lf)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
TUE 09:00 The Life Scientific (m000m5lh)
Francesca Happé on autism
When Francesca Happé started out as a research psychologist thirty years ago, she thought she could easily find out all there was to know about autism – and perhaps that wouldn’t have been impossible as there were so few papers published on it. Francesca’s studies have increased our knowledge of how people with autism experience the world around them, and their social interactions. She’s looked at their brains using various imaging techniques, studied the families of people with autism to explore their genetics, and raised awareness of how the condition can appear differently in women than in men. Jim al-Khalili talks to Francesca, now Professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience in London, about her research career and her current projects, including how people with autism experience mental health issues, such as PTSD.
TUE 09:30 One to One (m000m5lk)
Tattoos: Helen Mort & Lou Hopper
Tattooed poet Helen Mort talks to Tattooist Lou Hopper about “getting inked”. In the first of three programmes about body modifications, Helen explores the body as a canvas and tattoos as an art form. Why do people choose to decorate their skin with tattoos? How do they make the wearer feel? What responses do tattoos evoke ? Are tattoos a way of projecting our personality? What do visual modifications reveal about an individual? Producer Sarah Blunt
TUE 09:45 Burning the Books by Richard Ovenden (m000m5lm)
Episode 2
A 3000-year journey through the destruction of knowledge and the fight against all the odds to preserve it.
Richard Ovenden, director of the Bodleian Library, explains how attacks on libraries and archives have been a feature of history since ancient times, but have increased in frequency and intensity during the modern era. Libraries are far more than stores of literature, through preserving the legal documents such as Magna Carta and records of citizenship they also support the rule of law and the rights of citizens.
Today, the knowledge they hold on behalf of society is under attack as never before.
At once a powerful history of civilisation and a manifesto for the vital importance of physical libraries in our increasingly digital age, Burning the Books is also a very human story animated by an unlikely cast of adventurers, self-taught archaeologists, poets, freedom-fighters - and, of course, librarians and the heroic lengths they will go to preserve and rescue knowledge. Richard Ovenden demonstrates fundamentally how knowledge of the past still has so many valuable lessons to teach us and we ignore it at our peril.
Written by Richard Ovenden
Read by Anthony Head
Abridged by Siân Preece
Produced by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4
TUE 10:00 Woman's Hour (m000m5lp)
The programme that offers a female perspective on the world
TUE 10:45 Annika Stranded (m000jnl2)
Series 6
Borders
She’s back. Five new cases to challenge the detective wit of Chief Inspector Annika Strandhed, queen of the Oslo Police boat patrol.
After an experiment as a family unit in Oslo, Tor has returned to the Reindeer Police in the north of the country, leaving Annika and her son to pick up their old routines.
2/5. Borders
After a body is found on a boat drifting into Russian waters, Annika is sent to liaise with border police.
Nick Walker is the author of two critically-acclaimed novels ‘Blackbox’ and ‘Helloland’. His plays and short stories have often featured on BBC Radio 4 including: ‘the ‘First King of Mars’ stories (2007 - 2010) and the plays ‘Life Coach’ (2010) and ‘Stormchasers’ (2012). The first season of ‘Annika Stranded’ was broadcast in 2013.
Writer: Nick Walker
Reader: Nicola Walker
Sound Design: Jon Calver
Producer: Jeremy Osborne
A Sweet Talk Production for BBC Radio 4
TUE 11:00 My City in Lockdown (m000m5lr)
As a doctor on the covid wards Fozia Hayat is supportive of measures to control the spread of the virus, but was shocked by the way that partial lockdowns were imposed across Northern cities.
Localised lockdowns took effect on the eve of Eid celebrations and Fozia starts by speaking to people in her own community. She examines the reaction to the government led restrictions imposed across parts of West Yorkshire, East Lancashire and Greater Manchester, focusing on what messages are getting through and what sense people across the generations are making of them.
As friends and relatives scrambled to unpick their Eid celebrations they were drawn into the swell of conspiracy theories on social media and the mounting anger felt at the way they were being treated. A few went ahead with their plans anyway, but most obeyed the new rules, becoming increasingly angry at pictures of crowded beaches and packed pubs
As a doctor Fozia is worried about divisions and racist undertones in the wake of localised lockdowns. There were provocative tweets from a neighbouring Conservative MP blaming things on "irresponsible" Asians and in wealthier parts of the borough demanded exemption from the new rules. In the hospital there are now only a handful of patients on the covid wards, but many of the newly infected are young and could put older relatives at risk.
Migrant populations have higher fertility rates and high covid rates amongst the young will clearly impact in cities like Bradford. Fozia is concerned that coverage rarely focuses on a more nuanced understanding of what's happening. Many in the Asian community feel singled out and perplexed at why funerals and family gatherings are restricted whilst bars are open for business.
Producer: Sue Mitchell
TUE 11:30 Nsukka Is Burning (m000m5lt)
Playwright Inua Ellams explores how writers from Nsukka, a university town in southeastern Nigeria, have continued to bloom in spite of erasure and exile.
Producing some of the most formidable voices in African literature, like Chinua Achebe, Ifeoma Okoye and Chimamanda Adichie, this Igbo town has burned bright as a beacon of resistance in Nigeria.
Nsukka's harmattan season brings about an unusual chill but this is likely the only cold thing about this place. As one of the first areas invaded and burned in the Nigerian Biafran war, we trace Nsukka’s history of creativity right through to the stories and spaces of resilience that exist today.
Inua speaks with Nwando Achebe, oral historian and the daughter of Chinua Achebe, about the war’s impact on the town and how creativity was nurtured at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka. The writer Chika Unigwe talks about her memories of Nsukka and how she returns in her work. And Inua hears from writers Otosirieze Obi-Young and Arinze Ifeakandu about The Writers Community that is continuing a tradition of resistance and platforming young artists.
Inua Ellams is the writer of Three Sisters and Barber Shop Chronicles. He is an internationally touring poet, playwright and performer. His published books of poetry include Thirteen Fairy Negro Tales and The Half-God of Rainfall.
Sound Engineer: Charlie Brandon-King
Voiceover Artist: Chidimma Nwodoh, Uju Ejizu and Obi Maduegbuna
Sound Designer and Composer: Alexis Adimora
Produced by Deborah Shorindé.
Executive Producer: Hannah Marshall
Commissioned as part of the Multitrack Audio Producers Fellowship
A 7digital production for BBC Radio 4
TUE 12:00 News Summary (m000m5lw)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
TUE 12:04 The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante (m000m5ly)
Episode Two
A teenage girl uncovers family secrets and lies in 1990s Naples, in the new novel by Elena Ferrante, author of the Neapolitan quartet of novels (My Brilliant Friend, The Story of a New Name, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, and The Story of the Lost Child).
As Giovanna moves from childhood into adolescence, she becomes fascinated with her father's sister Vittoria, from whom he is estranged. She goes down from the affluent heights of Naples where she has grown up in a wealthy left-wing family, into the depths of the rough neighbourhoods of her father's youth. As she begins to excavate her family history, everything of which she was certain unravels.
Read by Juliet Aubrey
Abridged by Sara Davies
Produced by Mary Ward-Lowery and Mair Bosworth
TUE 12:18 You and Yours (m000m5m0)
Call You & Yours: How reliant are you on the bank of mum and dad?
On Call You & Yours we're asking, how reliant are you on the bank of mum and dad?
A report by Legal & General has found that a quarter of home buyers are now more reliant on help from their parents since the coronavirus pandemic. They say more people will be buying houses with the help of family members than last year.
Are you a first time buyer looking to buy a house with some help from your family?
Or are you parent or grandparent trying to help your kids get a foot on the ladder?
Has the pandemic generally meant you've had to rely on family more for money?
Email youandyours@bbc.co.uk or call 03700 100 444 when our phone lines open at
11am on Tuesday.
Presented by Winifred Robinson.
Produced by Beatrice Pickup.
TUE 12:57 Weather (m000m5m2)
The latest weather forecast
TUE 13:00 World at One (m000m5m4)
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 From the Mayflower to the Moon (and Back Again) (m000m5m6)
Vitus Bering and the Bering Strait
In 1867 the United States of America purchased Alaska from Russia. The history of Russian involvement on the American mainland dates back to the arrival of trappers, who came as far south as California looking for sea otter. But the key explorer of the gap between Asia and the Americas was a Dane - Vitus Bering. He led two of the greatest explorations in history before dying of scurvy on what was later called Bering Island. This is his story.
With contributions from Merete Boge Pedersen from Bering's Danish hometown of Horsens.
The presenter is Joe Queenan.
The producer in Bristol is Miles Warde.
TUE 14:00 The Archers (m000m57g)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Monday]
TUE 14:15 Drama (m000m5m8)
Agatha Christie’s The Rose and the Yew Tree
Famous for her ingenious crime books and plays, Agatha Christie also wrote about crimes of the heart under the name of Mary Westmacott.
The Rose and the Yew Tree is set in a Cornish seaside town, during the election of 1945 when it was assumed Churchill would be re-elected as Prime Minister. It’s the story of an enigmatic young woman, Isabella, who everyone expects will marry her cousin Rupert, the returning war hero. But she becomes seemingly intrigued by the working class opportunistic parliamentary candidate, John Gabriel.
Agatha Christie flouts all the known rules of love and class only to then reveal the tragic results of such behaviour. The play explores the true meaning of their love as it exists on its own unmatchable and uncompromising terms.
Cast:
Hugh Norreys ... Richard McCabe
Teresa Norreys/Milly Burt ... Selina Cadell
Capt. Carslake ... Jonathan Cullen
Lady St. Loo ... Avril Clark
John Gabriel ... Toby Jones
Isabella Charteris ... Ioanna Kimbook
Rupert St. Loo/ James Burt ... Stephen Critchlow
Written by Agatha Christie as Mary Westmacott
Adapted by Malcolm McKay
Sound Designer: Leon Chambers
Directed by Catherine Bailey
A Catherine Bailey production for BBC Radio 4
TUE 15:00 Short Cuts (m000m5mb)
The Departure
Josie Long presents short documentaries and audio adventures about going somewhere new.
Production team: Alia Cassam and Eleanor McDowall
Produced by Andrea Rangecroft
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4
TUE 15:30 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 Law
TUE 16:00 Anatomy of Guilt (m000m5md)
What is guilt - is it a legal verdict, a state of mind or a moral idea? Why do we feel guilty? And is there such a thing as collective guilt, by which a whole community or even country may be judged?
A criminal barrister but also grown up a Catholic, Helena Kennedy QC cross-examines the notion of guilt from a range of perspectives - legal, psychological and political.
Guilt is both a public judgement and a private emotion, both legal and psychological. It’s also highly political. Following recent Black Lives Matter protests across the UK the question of collective guilt - historical guilt - is animating debates around Britain’s colonial past and demands for reparations. The example of Germany and the trials at Nuremberg following the Second World War are a model of how law has confronted, and struggled with, ideas of collective guilt. Today there is strong moral disagreement around how far back in time shared responsibility for historic crimes should extend - ‘…the guilt remains, more deeply rooted, more securely lodged, than the oldest of old trees’ the Black American author James Baldwin wrote of slavery and its continuing impact, ‘..history is present in all that we do’.
Jewish guilt, Catholic guilt, guilt as a state of inner conflict. In psychoanalysis, it divides the self even as it creates a shared bond with others. On an everyday level most of us reflect on feelings of guilt - not keeping a promise, not telling the truth, failing in our obligations. Where do those feelings of moral guilt, indeed of conscience, come from? And has our understanding of guilt really changed over time?
Drawing on her own experience as a criminal barrister and hearing from a range of contributors, Helena takes the legal notion of guilt as a verdict and ventures outwards, drawing on religious ideas, psychoanalytic insight, political grievance and the meaning of historic justice.
Contributors include the author Howard Jacobsen, psychoanalyst and writer Adam Phillips, curator Aliyah Hasinah, international lawyer Philippe Sands, legal scholar and barrister Conor Gearty, author Svenja O’Donnell, barrister Ulele Burnham and writer and journalist Rhik Samadder.
Producer: Simon Hollis
A Brook Lapping production for BBC Radio 4
TUE 16:30 Great Lives (m000m5mg)
Ernie Bevin, forgotten political giant
Ernie Bevin led an extraordinary life. Born in Somerset in 1881, his father is unknown and his mother died when he was eight. He left his job as a farm labourer age 11 and moved to Bristol, where he helped to found the Transport and General Worker's Union. He was Churchill's Labour minister in the wartime cabinet, and heavily involved in postwar reconstruction as Foreign secretary under Clement Attlee. He smoked too much and drank too much, and made a massive impression on everyone he met. So why is he not better known? Nominating him is Frances O'Grady, General Secretary of the TUC, Matthew Parris presents and also contributing is his biographer, Andrew Adonis, author of Ernest Bevin: Labour's Churchill.
The producer in Bristol is Miles Warde
TUE 17:00 PM (m000m5mj)
Afternoon news and current affairs programme, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines
TUE 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m000m5ml)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
TUE 18:30 The Lenny Henry Show (m000m5mn)
Episode 2
Another helping of character-based sketch comedy from Lenny Henry - including Gideon de Witt, the politician who can never answer a question straight, Mr Stone, the former Special Forces operative-turned-teacher, and paranoid Aaron, who sees crime everywhere.
There's also the trailer for a gritty new Netflix movie that's heaven sent and more from Deakus discussing British-ness, while Delbert and Winston talk racist statues, and there's another song from Northern grime artist The Yorkshire Moor, this time celebrating all things Northern.
Cast includes Lenny Henry, Vas Blackwood, George Fouracres, Freya Parker, and Cherrelle Skeete.
Written by Lenny Henry and Max Davis, with Tasha Dhanraj, Kim Fuller and Benjamin Partridge.
Music by Lawrence Insula.
Produced by Sam Michell.
A Douglas Road and Tiger Aspect production for BBC Radio 4
TUE 19:00 The Archers (m000m5k1)
Philip reveals his plans for the future and Gavin is keen to made amends for the past
TUE 19:15 Front Row (m000m5mq)
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
TUE 19:45 A Small Town Murder (b01gk4rs)
Episode 2
By Scott Cherry
In the second episode of 'A Small Town Murder' by Scott Cherry: Family Liaison Officer, Jackie Hartwell, gets closer to identifying the malnourished body of the young man found floating in the canal.
Jackie Hartwell (played by Meera Syal) is a West Midlands Family Liaison Officer who solves cases by winning the trust of those caught up in the nightmare of serious crime and murder.
Police guidelines: The primary function of an FLO is that of an investigator. In performing this role, the officer will support the family, but will also gather relevant information and intelligence.
Jackie is a serving copper, not a social worker, functioning as part of an active team of investigating CID officers. But working in liaison enables her to get closer to the people involved in the crime, closer to the raw emotions, than the rest of her colleagues - allowing her to investigate in a way they can't, as she combines empathy and intuition with the keen observation of a clever detective.
In Series 4 of 'A Small Town Murder', Jackie is asked to be FLO to the parents of a young man whose murdered body is found floating in the local canal. But as she tries to support the family and solve the murder, Jackie finds herself becoming more and more distracted by the tragic consequences of a previous case.
Producer: Clive Brill
A Pacificus Production for BBC Radio 4
TUE 20:00 Universities in Crisis (m000m5ms)
Sam Gyimah, former minister for universities in Theresa May's government, asks if Britain's universities can survive the crisis they now face.
Many are calling the immense challenge that Britain's universities now face an existential crisis. With access to leaders of universities from the most traditional to the most modern, Sam Gyimah explores whether the business and education models for Britain's higher education sector are fit for purpose. The Covid pandemic is significant but when that crisis comes together with the major issues that Britain's universities already face over their funding and the impact of Brexit, it's clear that the coming academic year will be like no other in living memory.
Universities in Crisis examines the changes now challenging students, teachers, researchers and all those connected to higher education. The programme asks what really lies behind the new tone from government over how many may go to university and what kind of value a degree might bring in future. And it explores the alternative models of higher education which may be more successful in the new conditions the world must adapt to. Is it now more about the philosophy of what a university is in the 21st century? Sam discovers how Britons might move beyond the ossification of social hierarchies and employment structures to radically change the style and role of higher education for the future.
Producer: Jonathan Brunert
TUE 20:40 In Touch (m000m5mv)
News, views and information for people who are blind or partially sighted
TUE 21:00 Science Stories (b06wg805)
Series 2
The meteorite and the hidden hoax
In 1864 a strange type of rock fell from the sky above Orgueil in rural France. Shocked and frightened locals collected pieces of the peculiar, peaty blob from the surrounding fields, and passed them on to museums and scientists.
At that time, a debate had been raging over the origin of life; Could life possibly form from mere chemicals? Or did it need some strange unidentified vital substance?
Into this debate fell the Orgueil meteorite, and because it seemed remarkably similar to loamy soil, some wondered whether it may hint at the existence of extra-terrestrial life.
The great Pasteur allegedly investigated, but disappointingly found no such thing. Nevertheless, the mere possibility prompted later ideas that the origin of life on earth indeed lay elsewhere in the universe, ideas that were greeted with varying degrees of skepticism over ensuing decades.
As Phil Ball narrates, given how much was at stake, and how bitterly scientists argued on either side, the most remarkable thing about the story is the extraordinary secret the meteorite kept to itself until exactly 100 years later.
Producer: Alex Mansfield
TUE 21:30 The Life Scientific (m000m5lh)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 today]
TUE 22:00 The World Tonight (m000m5mx)
In depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective
TUE 22:45 The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante (m000m5ly)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:04 today]
TUE 23:00 Fresh From the Fringe (b067xjql)
Fresh from the Fringe: 2015, Part 2
Recorded at the BBC's tented venue in Potterow, Edinburgh, winner of last year's Best Newcomer Award Alex Edelman hosts Part Two of the cream of sketch and stand-up comedy from this year's Edinburgh fringe festival. This late night edition features sketch act The Pin, Danish stand-up Sofie Hagen, mustachioed Mike Wozniak and award-winning mad-cap Australian comic Sam Simmons. Producer - Joe Nunnery.
TUE 23:30 Today in Parliament (m000m5mz)
News, views and features on today's stories in Parliament
WEDNESDAY 02 SEPTEMBER 2020
WED 00:00 Midnight News (m000m5n1)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.
WED 00:30 Burning the Books by Richard Ovenden (m000m5lm)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 on Tuesday]
WED 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m000m5n3)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
WED 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m000m5n5)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.
WED 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m000m5n7)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
WED 05:30 News Briefing (m000m5n9)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4
WED 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m000m5nc)
A reflection and prayer to start the day with Rev Dr Janet Unsworth
WED 05:45 Farming Today (m000m5nf)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
WED 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b04sym21)
Black Chinned Hummingbird
Tweet of the Day is the voice of birds and our relationship with them, from around the world.
Liz Bonnin presents the North American black chinned hummingbird. What seems to be a large green beetle is flying erratically across a Los Angeles garden: suddenly, it hovers in mid-air to probe a flower bloom; this is a black-chinned hummingbird. Although often thought of as exclusively tropical, a few species of hummingbirds occur widely in North America and in the west; the Black-chinned hummingbird is the most widespread of all. Both sexes are glittering emerald above: the male's black throat is bordered with a flash of metallic purple, which catches the sun. Black-chinned "hummers" are minute, weighing in at just over 3 grams. But they are pugnacious featherweights seeing off rival males during intimidation flights with shrill squeals, whilst remarkably beating their wings around 80 times a second. They'll also readily come to artificial sugar-feeders put out by householders to attract these flying jewels to their gardens.
WED 06:00 Today (m000m5j5)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
WED 09:00 More or Less (m000m5j9)
Tim Harford explains - and sometimes debunks - the numbers and statistics used in political debate, the news and everyday life.
WED 09:30 Four Thought (m000m5jc)
Telford, Little Yugoslavia
Jelena Sofronijevic tells a story of Serbia, Yugoslavia - and Telford.
In this talk Jelena explores questions of diasporic identity through her family's connection with Yugoslavia, a country which no longer exists. On a visit to Serbia, she discovers that her upbringing in Telford had been more traditionally ‘Serbian’ than that of her Belgrade and Novi Sad relatives. And she finds herself, despite being born after Yugoslavia ceased to exist, drawn to its blended nationalism; her lived experiences traversing harsh borders. And she likens Yugoslavia, a country born of republics, to her home town of Telford, itself a collection of small, independent towns.
Producers: Giles Edwards and Peter Snowdon.
WED 09:45 Burning the Books by Richard Ovenden (m000m5kz)
Episode 3
A 3000-year journey through the destruction of knowledge and the fight against all the odds to preserve it.
Richard Ovenden, director of the Bodleian Library, explains how attacks on libraries and archives have been a feature of history since ancient times, but have increased in frequency and intensity during the modern era. Libraries are far more than stores of literature, through preserving the legal documents such as Magna Carta and records of citizenship they also support the rule of law and the rights of citizens.
Today, the knowledge they hold on behalf of society is under attack as never before.
At once a powerful history of civilisation and a manifesto for the vital importance of physical libraries in our increasingly digital age, Burning the Books is also a very human story animated by an unlikely cast of adventurers, self-taught archaeologists, poets, freedom-fighters - and, of course, librarians and the heroic lengths they will go to preserve and rescue knowledge. Richard Ovenden demonstrates fundamentally how knowledge of the past still has so many valuable lessons to teach us and we ignore it at our peril.
Written by Richard Ovenden
Read by Anthony Head
Abridged by Siân Preece
Produced by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4
WED 10:00 Woman's Hour (m000m5jh)
The programme that offers a female perspective on the world
WED 10:45 Annika Stranded (m000jtnd)
Series 6
Hypertension
She’s back. Five new cases to challenge the detective wit of Chief Inspector Annika Strandhed, queen of the Oslo Police boat patrol.
After an experiment as a family unit in Oslo, Tor has returned to the Reindeer Police in the north of the country, leaving Annika and her son to pick up their old routines.
3/5. Hypertension
When a body is found in the Laerdal Tunnel, it leads to some high blood pressure.
Nick Walker is the author of two critically-acclaimed novels ‘Blackbox’ and ‘Helloland’. His plays and short stories have often featured on BBC Radio 4 including: ‘the ‘First King of Mars’ stories (2007 - 2010) and the plays ‘Life Coach’ (2010) and ‘Stormchasers’ (2012). The first season of ‘Annika Stranded’ was broadcast in 2013.
Writer: Nick Walker
Reader: Nicola Walker
Sound Design: Jon Calver
Producer: Jeremy Osborne
A Sweet Talk Production for BBC Radio 4
WED 11:00 A Short History of Solitude (m000m57l)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 on Monday]
WED 11:30 Jack & Millie (m000m5jk)
Series 2
Service Economy
In the first of this new series, Jack and Millie are back and ready to deal with Harry’s bongos, Delphine’s chicken, Shirley’s bombshell and a cleaner with flashbacks
So Millie’s son Melvin has given her a new tablet with a voice recorder?
So suddenly Jack and Millie have decided to record everything that happens to them? And for this, we should be grateful?
Well Yes! Because this is the new series of the comedy show written by Jeremy Front (writer of the Charles Paris mysteries for Radio 4) and starring Jeremy Front and Rebecca Front as Jack and Millie Lemman - an older couple who are fully engaged with contemporary life whilst being at war with the absurdities of the modern world...
Cast:
Jack............Jeremy Front
Millie..........Rebecca Front
Shirley........Tracy-Ann Oberman
Harry...........Nigel Lindsay
Melvin........Harry Peacock
Delphine....Jenny Bede
With special guest
Debbie Chazen as Nadia
Written by Jeremy Front
Produced by David Tyler
A Pozzitive production for BBC Radio 4
WED 12:00 News Summary (m000m6k4)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
WED 12:04 The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante (m000m5jq)
Episode Three
A teenage girl uncovers family secrets and lies in 1990s Naples, in the new novel by Elena Ferrante, author of the Neapolitan quartet of novels (My Brilliant Friend, The Story of a New Name, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, and The Story of the Lost Child).
As Giovanna moves from childhood into adolescence, she becomes fascinated with her father's sister Vittoria, from whom he is estranged. She goes down from the affluent heights of Naples where she has grown up in a wealthy left-wing family, into the depths of the rough neighbourhoods of her father's youth. As she begins to excavate her family history, everything of which she was certain unravels.
Read by Juliet Aubrey
Abridged by Sara Davies
Produced by Mary Ward-Lowery and Mair Bosworth
WED 12:18 You and Yours (m000m5js)
News and discussion of consumer affairs
WED 12:57 Weather (m000m5jv)
The latest weather forecast
WED 13:00 World at One (m000m5jx)
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 From the Mayflower to the Moon (and Back Again) (m000m5jz)
Paul Revere's Midnight Ride
Paul Revere was the Boston silversmith who rode just over 12 miles to warn the rebels that the British were coming. The year was 1775, the eve of the American Revolution. Over eight decades later Henry Longfellow wrote the poem that made Revere an immortal. Paul Revere's Ride is a famous part of the national tale, but, as Joe Queenan points out, Longfellow famously left out the other men who rode with Revere because:
a) history works better when it's simple
b) Longfellow couldn't find rhymes for their more complicated names.
Presented by the satirist Joe Queenan, with archive contributions from Carole Berkin and Andrew Sachs reading Paul Revere's Ride.
The producer in Bristol is Miles Warde
WED 14:00 The Archers (m000m5k1)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Tuesday]
WED 14:15 Power Out (m000m5k3)
Part 2/2
Sean’s in trouble with the cyber crime police, a fake video’s been posted on social media. An eco-activist group seem to be threatening the national grid.
If this is power, then POWER OUT.
What happens when the power system we’re hooked up to fails? When things we thought were solid, that we thought would protect us, fail?
A new thriller about power and protest on a dying planet, starring Vinnie Heaven and written by Sarah Woods.
Sean …… Vinnie Heaven
Cathy …… Deborah McAndrew
Mr Graham …… Jason Done
Sameera …… Bhavna Limbachia
Xarea …… Jeanette Percival
Skimmer …… Ayden Brouwers
Qiqi …… Celia Dominguez
Moth .... Saul Woods
Inspector Carter …… Jonathan Keeble
Security Guard …… Ashley Margolis
Directed by Susan Roberts
A new drama podcast thriller about young people taking power into their own hands.
Recorded in binaural sound to give you a fully immersive sound experience when listening on headphones.
A BBC Drama North Production.
WED 15:00 The Money Clinic (m000m4bz)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:04 on Saturday]
WED 15:30 Science Stories (b06wg805)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Tuesday]
WED 16:00 Thinking Allowed (m000219d)
Surveillance
Surveillance: Laurie Taylor explores the way in which we have become the watchers, as well as the watched. From 9/11 to the Snowden leaks, stories about surveillance increasingly dominate the headlines. But surveillance is not only 'done to us' – it is something we do in everyday life. We submit to surveillance, believing we have nothing to hide. Or we try to protect our privacy. At the same time, we participate in surveillance in order to supervise children, monitor other road users, and safeguard our property. Social media allow us to keep tabs on others, as well as on ourselves. Laurie Taylor explores the contemporary culture of surveillance. He's joined by Kirstie Ball, Professor of Management at the University of St Andrews, and David Lyon, Professor in the Department of Sociology at Queen's University, Canada. Revised repeat.
Producer: Jayne Egerton
WED 16:30 The Media Show (m000m5k7)
Topical programme about the fast-changing media world
WED 17:00 PM (m000m5k9)
Afternoon news and current affairs programme, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines
WED 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m000m5kf)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
WED 18:30 Paul Sinha's General Knowledge (m000m5kh)
Series 2
Episode 4
Paul Sinha is an award-winning comedian, the reigning British Quiz Champion and also, according to the Radio Times, the UK's "funniest fund of forgotten facts". He returns to Radio 4 with a second series of his General Knowledge, recounting the amazing true stories that lie behind fascinating nuggets of information.
This episode ranges from the funniest Clives in history, via the first anti-Nazi Oscar winner, to the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest and the real, uncredited, writer of one of rock music's most famous songs.
The programme was recorded virtually, with an audience of 200 people watching him from the comfort of their own home.
Written and performed by Paul Sinha
Additional material by Oliver Levy
Recording engineered by Lee Chaundy & Marc Willcox
Produced by Ed Morrish
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4
WED 19:00 The Archers (m000m4qb)
Ed finds himself in hot water and there’s a nasty shock for Philip
WED 19:15 Front Row (m000m5kk)
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
WED 19:45 A Small Town Murder (b01gk6c2)
Episode 3
By Scott Cherry
In the third episode of 'A Small Town Murder' by Scott Cherry: Family Liaison Officer, Jackie Hartwell, is finding it hard to win Sue and Carl's trust.
Jackie Hartwell (played by Meera Syal) is a West Midlands Family Liaison Officer who solves cases by winning the trust of those caught up in the nightmare of serious crime and murder.
Police guidelines: The primary function of an FLO is that of an investigator. In performing this role, the officer will support the family, but will also gather relevant information and intelligence.
Jackie is a serving copper, not a social worker, functioning as part of an active team of investigating CID officers. But working in liaison enables her to get closer to the people involved in the crime, closer to the raw emotions, than the rest of her colleagues - allowing her to investigate in a way they can't, as she combines empathy and intuition with the keen observation of a clever detective.
In Series 4 of 'A Small Town Murder', Jackie is asked to be FLO to the parents of a young man whose murdered body is found floating in the local canal. But as she tries to support the family and solve the murder, Jackie finds herself becoming more and more distracted by the tragic consequences of a previous case.
Producer: Clive Brill
A Pacificus Production for BBC Radio 4
WED 20:00 Grounded with Louis Theroux (p08hfrwm)
9. Gail Porter
In Grounded with Louis Theroux, Louis’s using the lockdown to track down some high-profile people he’s been longing to talk to – a fascinating mix of the celebrated, the controversial and the mysterious.
In this episode, Louis speaks to television presenter and mental health campaigner Gail Porter. Gail discusses 90s lad culture, having her naked image projected onto the Houses of Parliament, and trying to contact the dead.
Produced by Paul Kobrak
A Mindhouse production for BBC Radio 4
WED 20:45 Four Thought (m000m5jc)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:30 today]
WED 21:00 My Name Is... (m000m56h)
[Repeat of broadcast at
11:00 on Monday]
WED 21:30 The Media Show (m000m5k7)
[Repeat of broadcast at
16:30 today]
WED 22:00 The World Tonight (m000m5kn)
In depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective
WED 22:45 The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante (m000m5jq)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:04 today]
WED 23:00 Woof (m000m5kq)
Honest Mistakes at Home and Abroad
Habits of a Social Animal
In this third series, Chris Neill continues his comedic exploration of affairs of the heart, the unexpected humiliations of ageing, and what bloody good luck it is that he has met his boyfriend, Rory.
In earlier series, episodes revolved around the terrible blind date Chris was set up on, his fantasy French boyfriend inspired by a school textbook, making a fish pie for his dying neighbour, and his failure to write a novel. As ever, Chris remains entirely willing to expose himself to a late-night, possibly bed-bound, audience and this third series of Woof has more autobiographical stories of his life in love, lust and mediocrity.
In programme three: "Have you two met?” Getting out and meeting people is not something Chris (and many other people) find easy – he examines parties and the swings and roundabouts of social intercourse. And a glass bowl gets broken. Stand up comedy illustrated with sketches featuring Isy Suttie and Martin Hyder.
Written by Chris Neill
Starring: Chris Neill, Isy Suttie and Martin Hyder
Producer: Steve Doherty
A Giddy Goat production for BBC Radio 4
WED 23:15 Bunk Bed (m0003d9v)
Series 6
20/03/2019
Everyone craves a place where their mind and body are not applied to a particular task. The nearest faraway place. Somewhere for drifting and lighting upon strange thoughts which don't have to be shooed into context, but which can be followed like balloons escaping onto the air.
Late at night, in the dark and in a bunk bed, your tired mind can wander.
This is the nearest faraway place for Patrick Marber and Peter Curran. Here they endeavour to get the heart of things in an entertainingly vague and indirect way. This is not the place for typical male banter.
From under the bed clothes, they play each other music and old bits of BBC Archive. Life, death, work and family are their slightly warped conversational currency.
Produced by Peter Curran
A Foghorn production for BBC Radio 4
WED 23:30 Today in Parliament (m000m5ks)
News, views and features on today's stories in Parliament
THURSDAY 03 SEPTEMBER 2020
THU 00:00 Midnight News (m000m5kx)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.
THU 00:30 Burning the Books by Richard Ovenden (m000m5kz)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 on Wednesday]
THU 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m000m5l1)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
THU 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m000m5l3)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.
THU 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m000m5l5)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
THU 05:30 News Briefing (m000m5l7)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4
THU 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m000m5l9)
A reflection and prayer to start the day with Rev Dr Janet Unsworth
THU 05:45 Farming Today (m000m5lc)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
THU 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b03x4769)
Cetti's Warbler
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs.
Bill Oddie presents the Cetti's warbler. Until the 1960s, Cetti's warblers were unknown in the UK but on the Continent they were common in marshy areas, especially dense scrub and the edge of reed-beds and ditches. They first bred in these habitats in south-east England in the early 1970s and by the end of the century their loud and sudden song-bursts were startling people from southern England and South Wales and northwards as far as Yorkshire.
THU 06:00 Today (m000m4pd)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
THU 09:00 The Infinite Monkey Cage (m000m4pg)
Series 22
What is Life?
Brian Cox and Robin Ince are joined by comedians Jo Brand and Ross Noble, alongside Nobel Prize winner Sir Paul Nurse and geneticist Prof Aoife McLysaght to ask the biggest question of all, what is life and how did it start? They look at the amazing feat of nature that has somehow created all of life from just four fundamental units of simple chemistry. From chickens to butterflies to yeast, we are all far more closely related then we think. But how did the spark of life occur and what has any of this got to do with Ewoks?
Producer: Alexandra Feachem
THU 09:30 Laws That Aren't Laws (m000m4pj)
Stigler's Law
Stephen M Stigler's Law of Eponymy states that no scientific discovery is named after its discoverer. Stigler's Law was first hypothesised by his friend, Robert K Merton.
THU 09:45 Burning the Books by Richard Ovenden (m000m4pl)
Episode 4
A 3000-year journey through the destruction of knowledge and the fight against all the odds to preserve it.
Richard Ovenden, director of the Bodleian Library, explains how attacks on libraries and archives have been a feature of history since ancient times, but have increased in frequency and intensity during the modern era. Libraries are far more than stores of literature, through preserving the legal documents such as Magna Carta and records of citizenship they also support the rule of law and the rights of citizens.
Today, the knowledge they hold on behalf of society is under attack as never before.
At once a powerful history of civilisation and a manifesto for the vital importance of physical libraries in our increasingly digital age, Burning the Books is also a very human story animated by an unlikely cast of adventurers, self-taught archaeologists, poets, freedom-fighters - and, of course, librarians and the heroic lengths they will go to preserve and rescue knowledge. Richard Ovenden demonstrates fundamentally how knowledge of the past still has so many valuable lessons to teach us and we ignore it at our peril.
Written by Richard Ovenden
Read by Anthony Head
Abridged by Siân Preece
Produced by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4
THU 10:00 Woman's Hour (m000m4pp)
The programme that offers a female perspective on the world
THU 10:45 Annika Stranded (m000k1dg)
Series 6
Something In The Water
She’s back. Five new cases to challenge the detective wit of Chief Inspector Annika Strandhed, queen of the Oslo Police boat patrol.
After an experiment as a family unit in Oslo, Tor has returned to the Reindeer Police in the north of the country, leaving Annika and her son to pick up their old routines.
4/5. Something In The Water
Annika is at her son’s school play when she is called to investigate a body in the Maridalsvannet lake.
Nick Walker is the author of two critically-acclaimed novels ‘Blackbox’ and ‘Helloland’. His plays and short stories have often featured on BBC Radio 4 including: ‘the ‘First King of Mars’ stories (2007 - 2010) and the plays ‘Life Coach’ (2010) and ‘Stormchasers’ (2012). The first season of ‘Annika Stranded’ was broadcast in 2013.
Writer: Nick Walker
Reader: Nicola Walker
Sound Design: Jon Calver
Producer: Jeremy Osborne
A Sweet Talk Production for BBC Radio 4
THU 11:00 Crossing Continents (m000m4pr)
South Africa Moonshine
Pineapple beer is the universal homebrew in South Africa and pineapple prices trebled when the government imposed a ban on the sale of alcohol and tobacco during the coronavirus pandemic. South Africa has recorded the highest number of coronavirus cases in Africa and the government introduced the ban to ease the pressure on hospitals. With the infection rate now falling the ban has been lifted although some restrictions remain in place. Ed Butler and Vauldi Carelse have been hearing from the brewers, both legal and illegal, on the impact the ban has had on their livelihoods and on people’s health, and since the ban has ended, from those considering what lessons the nation might learn from its experiment with being ‘dry’.
(Image: Barman working at a bar which has re-opened under new regulations in Val, South Africa, 07 August 2020. Credit: EPA/Kim Ludbrook)
THU 11:30 Pause the Plié (m000m4pt)
Dancer Tatum Swithenbank is on a journey to explore where her creativity might lie after being diagnosed with a life changing genetic condition.
What does an artist do when they can no longer perform in their chosen medium? Can an artist find an equally satisfying creative outlet when the one they’ve known is no longer available to them?
Artists are often grouped together under the word 'creatives' - the implied suggestion is that being gifted in the arts means you are inherently creative in many ways, and potentially your creativity is transferable. The idea that an artist gets the most satisfaction from the form they are most highly skilled in raises questions around the interchangeability of creativity. Tatum explores these questions with artists who have thrived in different creative mediums as she redefines herself, and searches for a new outlet.
With contributions from fine art photographer Hannah Laycock, dancer and choreographer Suzie Birchwood, musician and teacher David Watkins, artistic director and choreographer Marc Brew, and actor Dylan Mason.
Producer: Raymond Tannor
Executive Producer: Anishka Sharma
Commissioned as part of the Multitrack Audio Producers Fellowship
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4
THU 12:00 News Summary (m000m4pw)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
THU 12:04 The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante (m000m4py)
Episode Four
A teenage girl uncovers family secrets and lies in 1990s Naples, in the new novel by Elena Ferrante, author of the Neapolitan quartet of novels (My Brilliant Friend, The Story of a New Name, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, and The Story of the Lost Child).
As Giovanna moves from childhood into adolescence, she becomes fascinated with her father's sister Vittoria, from whom he is estranged. She goes down from the affluent heights of Naples where she has grown up in a wealthy left-wing family, into the depths of the rough neighbourhoods of her father's youth. As she begins to excavate her family history, everything of which she was certain unravels.
Read by Juliet Aubrey
Abridged by Sara Davies
Produced by Mary Ward-Lowery and Mair Bosworth
THU 12:18 You and Yours (m000m4q1)
News and discussion of consumer affairs
THU 12:57 Weather (m000m4q3)
The latest weather forecast
THU 13:00 World at One (m000m4q5)
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 From the Mayflower to the Moon (and Back Again) (m000m4q7)
The Trail of Tears
"The Trail of Tears is one of the cruellest most shameful events in all American history," says presenter Joe Queenan, "a history that is by no means short on cruel, shameful behaviour. " The title of this episode, The Trail of Tears, refers to the forced relocation of five entire Nations - the Cherokee, the Creek, the Choctaw, the Chickasaw and the Seminoles - from their ancestral homes to the charmless wastes of Oklahoma.
Contributors include Paul Chaat Smith of the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington.
The producer in Bristol is Miles Warde
THU 14:00 The Archers (m000m4qb)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Wednesday]
THU 14:15 Drama (m000570z)
Keeping the Wolf Out
Carnaby Street
Special Investigator Bertalan Lázár returns in Philip Palmer's crime drama set in communist Hungary in 1964. The death of a rock musician leads Bertalan to enter uncharted territory - Budapest's underground drugs scene. Meanwhile, his wife Franciska's relationship with her KGB contact spirals out of control.
Bertalan Lazar ..... Leo Bill
Franciska Lazar ..... Clare Corbett
József Szabados ..... Joseph Ayre
Dmitri Dragunov ..... Simon Scardifield
Márk Mészáros ..... Michael Bertenshaw
Zsófia ..... Sarah Ovens
Drug Dealer ..... Chris Pavlo
Police Officer ..... Kenny Blyth
Directed by Sasha Yevtushenko
THU 15:00 Open Country (m000m4qd)
Cleeve Common
At 330 meters about sea-level, Cleeve Common in Gloucestershire is the highest point of the Cotswold Hills. It's become famous as the backdrop to the racing at the Cheltenham Festival, and Sybil Ruscoe first saw it from a helicopter while covering the Festival for BBC 5 Live.
In this programme she re-visits the common, where thousands of years of history is etched into the landscape. From Roman stone quarries to an Iron Age meeting place...from the original racecourse to a modern golf course.
She finds out about the wildlife that calls the common home - from skylarks to yellow meadow ants - and learns about the centuries old balancing act between recreation, agriculture and conservation.
Produced by Heather Simons
Picture credit: Michael Bates
THU 15:27 Radio 4 Appeal (m000m48x)
[Repeat of broadcast at
07:54 on Sunday]
THU 15:30 Open Book (b0bgbm5p)
[Repeat of broadcast at
16:00 on Sunday]
THU 16:00 The Film Programme (m000m4qg)
Ladj Ly
With Antonia Quirke
Les Miserables is not another adaptation of Victor Hugo's novel, but an award-winning, autobiographical thriller set in a deprived estate in the Parisian suburbs. Ladj Ly's film made such an impact with French audiences that President Francois Macron asked to watch it. He was so shaken by what he saw on screen that he ordered his ministers to start finding solutions to the poor housing conditions in the French capital.
THU 16:30 BBC Inside Science (m000m4qj)
Dr Adam Rutherford and guests illuminate the mysteries and challenge the controversies behind the science that's changing our world
THU 17:00 PM (m000m4ql)
Afternoon news and current affairs programme, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines
THU 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m000m4qn)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
THU 18:30 Between Ourselves with Marian Keyes (m0008rk6)
Travel
Marian Keyes is a publishing sensation - her works of fiction (Rachel's Holiday, The Break and others) have sold in their millions, across the globe. In this series, Marian reads selections from her non-fiction writing, in conversation with her friend and actor Tara Flynn.
This week's theme is travel. Alongside the craic, Marian reads Shite For Goms from her collection Making It Up As I Go Along, and Sent To Siberia from Further Under The Duvet.
Presenters: Tara Flynn and Marian Keyes
Producer: Steve Doherty
A Giddy Goat production for BBC Radio 4
THU 19:00 The Archers (m000m4qq)
Emma goes on the attack and Tracy proves a point.
Writers, Katie Hims & Sarah McDonald-Hughes
Director, Peter Leslie Wild
Editor, Jeremy Howe
Alice Carter ….. Hollie Chapman
Chris Carter ….. Wilf Scolding
Susan Carter ….. Charlotte Martin
Tracy Horrobin ….. Susie Riddell
Ed Grundy ….. Barry Farrimond
Emma Grundy ….. Emerald O’Hanrahan
Philip Moss ….. Andy Hockley
Gavin Moss ….. Gareth Pierce
THU 19:15 Front Row (m000m4qs)
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
THU 19:45 A Small Town Murder (b01gk6qg)
Episode 4
By Scott Cherry
In the fourth episode of 'A Small Town Murder' by Scott Cherry: Family Liaison Officer, Jackie Hartwell, is faced with giving Sue and Carl some frustrating news.
Jackie Hartwell (played by Meera Syal) is a West Midlands Family Liaison Officer who solves cases by winning the trust of those caught up in the nightmare of serious crime and murder.
Police guidelines: The primary function of an FLO is that of an investigator. In performing this role, the officer will support the family, but will also gather relevant information and intelligence.
Jackie is a serving copper, not a social worker, functioning as part of an active team of investigating CID officers. But working in liaison enables her to get closer to the people involved in the crime, closer to the raw emotions, than the rest of her colleagues - allowing her to investigate in a way they can't, as she combines empathy and intuition with the keen observation of a clever detective.
In Series 4 of 'A Small Town Murder', Jackie is asked to be FLO to the parents of a young man whose murdered body is found floating in the local canal. But as she tries to support the family and solve the murder, Jackie finds herself becoming more and more distracted by the tragic consequences of a previous case.
Producer: Clive Brill
A Pacificus Production for BBC Radio 4
THU 20:00 The Briefing Room (m000m4qv)
David Aaronovitch and guests explore major news stories.
THU 20:30 In Business (m000m4qx)
The Tree Trade
Politicians keep promising more trees – seen as good for the environment and for fighting climate change. Trees are also big business sustaining vital rural jobs. So will lots of new planting keep everyone happy? Chris Bowlby explores forestry’s future in one of its key locations – Northumberland. He visits the huge forest at Kielder, and a rural factory turning thousands of logs into essential materials for millions of British homes. But there are problems too – a thicket of bureaucracy surrounding planting, and questions about what sort of trees really do bring environmental gain.
Presenter: Chris Bowlby
Producer: John Murphy
THU 21:00 BBC Inside Science (m000m4qj)
[Repeat of broadcast at
16:30 today]
THU 21:30 The Infinite Monkey Cage (m000m4pg)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 today]
THU 22:00 The World Tonight (m000m4qz)
In depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective
THU 22:45 The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante (m000m4py)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:04 today]
THU 23:00 Nick Revell: BrokenDreamCatcher (m000m4r1)
Clash of the Hipster Shamans
"Nick Revell has done for magic realism what Austin Powers did for James Bond." The Times
Nick is comfortably one of the best comic storytellers in the UK. An easy claim to make, but one backed up by years of successful touring and sell-out runs at the Edinburgh Fringe.
BrokenDreamCatcher is a series of contemporary comic tales that could almost be true. Anything can happen - and it probably will - when this master storyteller combines comedy with magic realism.
In this episode, the coincidental opening of two 'shaman shops' in north London leads to previously undreamed of events unfolding at the Nag's Head crossroads in Holloway. Unlikely as it might seem, Hollywood A-lister Gwyneth Paltrow gets involved - she reveals her visceral dislike of Taylor Swift, a secret passion for 1970s Rugby League and asks to borrow Nick's kettle .... but can they find the dream catcher repairman's business card in time?
These are outlandish stories told with energy, wit and intelligence served with both a smile and a barb. They are illustrated and supported by an original soundtrack written and performed by Paul Clark of London's Clod Ensemble.
Written and performed by Nick Revell
Original music: Paul Clark
Producer: Steve Doherty
A Giddy Goat production for BBC Radio 4
THU 23:30 Today in Parliament (m000m4r3)
News, views and features on today's stories in Parliament
FRIDAY 04 SEPTEMBER 2020
FRI 00:00 Midnight News (m000m4r5)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.
FRI 00:30 Burning the Books by Richard Ovenden (m000m4pl)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 on Thursday]
FRI 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m000m4r7)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
FRI 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m000m4r9)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.
FRI 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m000m4rc)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
FRI 05:30 News Briefing (m000m4rf)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4
FRI 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m000m4rh)
A reflection and prayer to start the day with Rev Dr Janet Unsworth
FRI 05:45 Farming Today (m000m4rk)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
FRI 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b03x478r)
Woodlark
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs.
Bill Oddie presents the woodlark. Woodlarks are closely related to skylarks, but they're much rarer in the UK, where they’re mainly confined, as breeding birds, to southern England. Unlike the skylark, the male woodlark will sing from trees but his piece de resistance is the song-flight in which he flies slowly in a broad loop, often very high above his territory.
FRI 06:00 Today (m000m5yy)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
FRI 09:00 The Reunion (m000m49c)
[Repeat of broadcast at
11:00 on Sunday]
FRI 09:45 Burning the Books by Richard Ovenden (m000m60l)
Episode 5
A 3000-year journey through the destruction of knowledge and the fight against all the odds to preserve it.
Richard Ovenden, director of the Bodleian Library, explains how attacks on libraries and archives have been a feature of history since ancient times, but have increased in frequency and intensity during the modern era. Libraries are far more than stores of literature, through preserving the legal documents such as Magna Carta and records of citizenship they also support the rule of law and the rights of citizens.
Today, the knowledge they hold on behalf of society is under attack as never before.
At once a powerful history of civilisation and a manifesto for the vital importance of physical libraries in our increasingly digital age, Burning the Books is also a very human story animated by an unlikely cast of adventurers, self-taught archaeologists, poets, freedom-fighters - and, of course, librarians and the heroic lengths they will go to preserve and rescue knowledge. Richard Ovenden demonstrates fundamentally how knowledge of the past still has so many valuable lessons to teach us and we ignore it at our peril.
Written by Richard Ovenden
Read by Anthony Head
Abridged by Siân Preece
Produced by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4
FRI 10:00 Woman's Hour (m000m5z4)
The programme that offers a female perspective on the world
FRI 10:45 Annika Stranded (m000k953)
Series 6
A Thing
She’s back. Five new cases to challenge the detective wit of Chief Inspector Annika Strandhed, queen of the Oslo Police boat patrol.
After an experiment as a family unit in Oslo, Tor has returned to the Reindeer Police in the north of the country, leaving Annika and her son to pick up their old routines.
5/5. A Thing
Annika gives evidence at the trial of a revenge case.
Nick Walker is the author of two critically-acclaimed novels ‘Blackbox’ and ‘Helloland’. His plays and short stories have often featured on BBC Radio 4 including: ‘the ‘First King of Mars’ stories (2007 - 2010) and the plays ‘Life Coach’ (2010) and ‘Stormchasers’ (2012). The first season of ‘Annika Stranded’ was broadcast in 2013.
Writer: Nick Walker
Reader: Nicola Walker
Sound Design: Jon Calver
Producer: Jeremy Osborne
A Sweet Talk Production for BBC Radio 4
FRI 11:00 Re-enactment Radio (m000dk15)
There is at the end of Titanic a desperate scene. Kate Winslet, playing Rose, is floating on a large piece of wood. Jack, her beloved, is freezing to death. And audiences everywhere are wondering why Rose doesn't budge up. The man responsible, James Cameron, is fed up with the controversy. "I've never really seen it as a debate. It's just stupid really."
We think he's wrong, so we've re-enacted Jack's death to prove that he could have survived, if only Rose had moved up.
“Movies are amazing – they transport you to places you’ve never been, immerse you in strange worlds, make you laugh and cry,” says presenter Antonia Quirke. “But when a movie goes wrong, it can make you ask, could we do that better ourselves?”
Fighting in high heels, bogus computer hacking, car chases that simply look fake ... we are out to expose why film makers repeatedly get it wrong by doing it ourselves. Expert advisers include Simon Brew and Jonathan Howell.
Re-enactment Radio is a new arts feature presented by Antonia Quirke. The producers in Bristol are Miles Warde, Emily Knight and Victoria Cansfield
FRI 11:30 Mr Muzak (m000m5z6)
Series 2
O Little Town of Letchington
Richie Webb stars as performance-shy cocktail pianist Nigel Penny.
Nigel Penny’s attempts to live his life like his music, in the background, are constantly thwarted by his entrepreneurial half-brother Pav (Paul G Raymond) who is desperate to find gigs for Nigel and his musical partner, wannabe singer Rachel (Jess Robinson).
Pav is supplying the ambience to the opening of an all-year-round Christmas store. And by ‘ambience’ he basically means Nigel and Rachel singing carols. The ghosts of Christmas past mean this can only be an unpleasant experience for Nigel. This is compounded by Stan’s attempts at securing a tree, Marco’s suspect catering promises and the manager of the store who fancies herself as Letchington’s answer to Mariah Carey.
Cast:
Nigel Penny ..... Richie Webb
Pav Penny ..... Paul G Raymond
Rachel ..... Jess Robinson
Stanislav ..... Dave Lamb
Marco ..... Jim North
Tanya/Joanne ..... Anna Morris
Directed by Nick Walker
Audio Production by Matt Katz
Written and produced by Richie Webb
A Top Dog production for BBC Radio 4
FRI 12:00 News Summary (m000m67j)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
FRI 12:04 The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante (m000m5zb)
Episode Five
A teenage girl uncovers family secrets and lies in 1990s Naples, in the new novel by Elena Ferrante, author of the Neapolitan quartet of novels (My Brilliant Friend, The Story of a New Name, Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, and The Story of the Lost Child).
As Giovanna moves from childhood into adolescence, she becomes fascinated with her father's sister Vittoria, from whom he is estranged. She goes down from the affluent heights of Naples where she has grown up in a wealthy left-wing family, into the depths of the rough neighbourhoods of her father's youth. As she begins to excavate her family history, everything of which she was certain unravels.
Read by Juliet Aubrey
Abridged by Sara Davies
Produced by Mary Ward-Lowery and Mair Bosworth
FRI 12:18 You and Yours (m000m5zd)
News and discussion of consumer affairs
FRI 12:57 Weather (m000m5zg)
The latest weather forecast
FRI 13:00 World at One (m000m5zj)
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 From the Mayflower to the Moon (and Back Again) (m000m5zl)
Interstate Delight
"Alright - we're setting out now!"
This is Joe Queenan's true account of an unexpected journey, east to west, coast to coast, eating only at one particular chain of restaurant - Hooters.
And yes - Joe really did make this trip. Also includes contributions from Clive Webb of Sussex University on the origins of the highway, plus Joe's daughter on concerns about her father's choice of eating establishment.
With music by Kraftwerk and Loudon Wainwright III.
The producer in Bristol is Miles Warde
FRI 14:00 The Archers (m000m4qq)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Thursday]
FRI 14:15 Drama (b0bf59rz)
The Summer Book
In The Summer book by Tove Jansson (author of the Moomin books) a woman and her six-year-old granddaughter Sophia spend a summer together on a tiny island in the Gulf of Finland . They talk about life, nature, religion - everything but their feelings about Sophia's mother's death and their love for one another. This wonderfully humane and atmospheric book is dramatised by the poet and playwright Amanda Dalton from the translation by Thomas Teal.
Sophia Jansson, the real-life model for Sophia and niece of Tove, narrates this radio adaptation . Her own mother, Signe Hammarsten-Jansson informed the character of the grandmother.
Directed in Salford by Susan Roberts.
FRI 15:00 Gardeners' Question Time (m000m5zn)
GQT At Home: Episode Twenty-Three
Peter Gibbs is in the chair for this week's horticultural panel show. Anne Swithinbank, Matthew Pottage and Chris Beardshaw join him to answer gardening questions sent in by listeners via email and social media.
Producer - Laurence Bassett
Assistant Producer - Rosie Merotra
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4
FRI 15:45 Short Works (m000m5zq)
The Blue Folk of The Minch
Hebridean folklore with a contemporary twist is at the centre of Kevin MacNeil's story of the Blue Folk of The Minch - mythical sea creatures found of the shores of his native Lewis. In keeping with tradition such creatures challenge the humans they encounter to a deadly contest of words. There's no escape, as a young man discovers when a poetry slam in Glasgow goes wrong.
Kevin MacNeil is a novelist, poet and playwright
Produced by Maggie Ayre for BBC Audio Bristol
FRI 16:00 Last Word (m000m5zs)
Matthew Bannister tells the life stories of people who have recently died, from the rich and famous to unsung but significant.
FRI 16:30 More or Less (m000m5j9)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 on Wednesday]
FRI 17:00 PM (m000m5zv)
Afternoon news and current affairs programme, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines
FRI 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m000m5zz)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
FRI 18:30 The News Quiz (m000m601)
Series 103
Episode 1
Andy Zaltzman is the new host of the News Quiz, chewing over a week of headlines with a panel of comics and journalists. This week Helen Lewis and Daliso Chaponda are amongst the guests in this first episode of the series recorded with a remote audience watching and listening from home.
Producer: Richard Morris
Production co-ordinator: Gwyn Davies
A BBC Studios Production
FRI 19:00 Front Row (m000m604)
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
FRI 19:45 A Small Town Murder (b01gk6v5)
Episode 5
By Scott Cherry
In the final episode of ' A Small Town Murder' by Scott Cherry: Family Liaison Officer, Jackie Hartwell, hurries back to the canal in the hope of finding Sue and Carl.
Jackie Hartwell (played by Meera Syal) is a West Midlands Family Liaison Officer who solves cases by winning the trust of those caught up in the nightmare of serious crime and murder.
Police guidelines: The primary function of an FLO is that of an investigator. In performing this role, the officer will support the family, but will also gather relevant information and intelligence.
Jackie is a serving copper, not a social worker, functioning as part of an active team of investigating CID officers. But working in liaison enables her to get closer to the people involved in the crime, closer to the raw emotions, than the rest of her colleagues - allowing her to investigate in a way they can't, as she combines empathy and intuition with the keen observation of a clever detective.
In Series 4 of 'A Small Town Murder', Jackie is asked to be FLO to the parents of a young man whose murdered body is found floating in the local canal. But as she tries to support the family and solve the murder, Jackie finds herself becoming more and more distracted by the tragic consequences of a previous case.
Producer: Clive Brill
A Pacificus Production for BBC Radio 4
FRI 20:00 Any Questions? (m000m606)
Chris Mason presents political debate and discussion from venues around the UK.
FRI 20:50 A Point of View (m000m608)
Weekly reflections on topical issues from a range of contributors.
FRI 21:00 From the Mayflower to the Moon (and Back Again) (m000m60b)
Omnibus 1
"While it's nice to think that America is about life, liberty and exploration, it's also about real estate," says Joe Queenan in the opening episode.
"That my country should presently be helmed by a rapacious real estate developer should come as no surprise to anyone who has studied the early years of the nation."
From the journey by canoe down the Mississippi by Robert de la Salle in 1682 to the forced relocation of five nations of Native Americans in the 1830s, Queenan recreates key moments from the early history of the United States - a history that is still being fought over today. Other journeys include Vitus Bering crossing the Bering Strait, and Queenan's own journey from coast to coast eating only at the same chain of restaurant.
The producer in Bristol is Miles Warde
FRI 22:00 The World Tonight (m000m60d)
In depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective
FRI 22:45 The Lying Life of Adults by Elena Ferrante (m000m5zb)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:04 today]
FRI 23:00 Great Lives (m000m5mg)
[Repeat of broadcast at
16:30 on Tuesday]
FRI 23:30 Things That Made the Modern Economy (m000bg3p)
Series 2
Oil
The price of oil is arguably the most important price in the world economy. So when did the oil boom begin, and how did we become so excruciatingly dependent? Tim Harford wonders if there is any prospect of us weaning ourselves off what one oil minister called “the devil’s excrement”.
Producer: Ben Crighton
Editor: Richard Vadon
FRI 23:45 Today in Parliament (m000m60g)
News, views and features on today's stories in Parliament