SATURDAY 04 SEPTEMBER 2021
SAT 00:00 Midnight News (m000z78x)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.
SAT 00:30 Sunshine and Laughter by Louis Barfe (m000z78r)
Episode 5
Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise met for the first time at the Swansea Empire in the 1930s, while appearing as separate acts in one of Jack Hylton’s touring variety shows.
Both were successful child stars, and each recognised instantly a kindred spirit instantly, They were soon touring together with Sadie, Eric’s redoubtable mother, finding them digs and looking out for them.
They learnt their trade the hard way with periods of unemployment and several flops – on the Ed Sullivan show in New York they had to re-write virtually the entire act for the American sense of humour. But the hard won experience gained on the way up proved the making of them.
With brilliant writers like Eddie Braben, Morecambe and Wise found success first at ATV, then at the BBC with The Morecambe and Wise Show, which included stunning and legendary sketches awith Andre Previn, Shirley Bassey and Angela Rippon.
Morecambe and Wise had become a national institution. Their shows topped the ratings right up until the untimely death of Eric Morecambe in 1984. It's clear that, in their professional life, they were inseparable, fonder of each other than most brothers. After Eric’s death, Ernie Wise soldiered on professionally, but he was now only half a star, and it was clear that for the rest of his life, after a partnership of five decades, Ernie would be searching for Eric.
If Eric had lived, all they would have had to do for work would be to appear on stage as themselves, and they had had a lifetime’s experience for that.
Written by Louis Barfe
Reader: Penelope Keith
Abridger: Libby Spurrier
Producer: Celia de Wolff
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4
SAT 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m000z790)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
SAT 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m000z794)
BBC Radio 4 presents a selection of news and current affairs, arts and science programmes from the BBC World Service.
SAT 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m000z798)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
SAT 05:30 News Briefing (m000z79c)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4
SAT 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m000z79h)
A reflection and prayer to start the day with Andrea Rea
SAT 05:45 Four Thought (m000z6cg)
Who Owns Space?
Simon Morden argues that we should resist the privatisation of space.
Simon is a scientist and science fiction writer, and in this talk he reflects on what science fiction has taught us. "We know about the hubris of science through Frankenstein, we know of totalitarian state-controlled media through 1984, and we also know it’s a terrible idea to break quarantine protocols through the film Alien," he says. "Science fiction doesn’t prevent us from doing those things, but we can’t say we didn’t know what the results would be." Simon is concerned that science fiction has also shown us a dark future where the coming era of space exploration - and the exploitation of extra-terrestrial objects - is dominated by private companies. And having recently written a non-fiction book about the natural history of Mars, this is a future he is keen to avoid.
Producer: Giles Edwards.
SAT 06:00 News and Papers (m000zckj)
The latest news headlines. Including the weather and a look at the papers.
SAT 06:07 Ramblings (m000z6xb)
A Sunny Stomp on the Pentland Hills
Clare hikes with the inspirational adventurers Hazel and Luke Robertson on the Pentland Hills near Edinburgh. They are mountain leaders, polar explorers and public speakers with many personal experiences to draw upon. Hazel spent four years of her childhood growing up in Canada and Alaska, which developed her love of the outdoors. At the age of 30, Luke became the first Scot to ski solo and unsupported to the South Pole. This was in 2016, just two years after major brain surgery. Both are originally from the North East of Scotland, but now live in Edinburgh from where they run their company 'Everyday Exploring'. They've chosen to take Clare on one of their favourite local walks: Starting at Bonaly (Grid Ref: NT 211 674) they head up White Hill and onto Capelaw hoping, first, for views across the three bridges that span the Firth of Forth and then a broader view taking in more of the Pentlands range. See the 'related links' box on the Ramblings webpage for more information about what's been discussed in the programme.
Presenter: Clare Balding
Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Karen Gregor
SAT 06:30 Farming Today (m000zckl)
04/09/21 - Farming Today This Week: The Trade and Agriculture Commission, staff shortages and food waste
The former head of the Trade and Agriculture Commission, Tim Smith, says he "can’t think of a single coherent reason" why the Government still hasn’t responded to its report or set up the statutory body which was to replace it. The Trade and Agriculture Commission was created last summer to advise Ministers on trade deals, after concerns that giving tariff free access to our markets could undermine UK farming and food businesses. Its report, with 22 recommendations, was published in March - at which point it was disbanded to be replaced with a new commission which would examine future trade agreements. But the new TAC hasn’t yet appeared.
Fruit and veg farmers could increase their profits by 20% by getting to grips with how much of their crop is going to waste and why. We hear how robots could be part of the solution.
And, staff shortages in the food chain are causing serious problems farmers and food companies. A cross-industry report says the cause is a combination of post-Brexit immigration rules and Covid-19. We hear from a poultry producer who is struggling and a raspberry farm that's giving fruit away for free to those who can pick it.
Presented by Charlotte Smith
Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Heather Simons
SAT 06:57 Weather (m000zckn)
The latest weather reports and forecast
SAT 07:00 Today (m000zckq)
Including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
SAT 09:00 Saturday Live (m000zcks)
Mo Gilligan
Mo Gilligan, host of his own Bafta winning Friday night TV show, judge on the Masked singer, a comedian with sell out tours behind him, but only 5 years ago he was working the shop floor in retail, he joins us to talk about his journey into primetime.
Gavanndra Hodge's childhood was chaotic as both her parents had addiction problems, then tragedy struck and her little sister died. She reflects on loss and trauma.
Simon Amstell is a writer, director and stand up comedian who first came to prominence on Popworld then later on Never Mind the Buzzcocks. He’s since directed and written films and done stand up tours.
Saturday Live listener Yvonne Hausman wrote to us about her father, a London cabbie who in the 1960s and 70s garnered a reputation in Lincoln, Nebraska for giving his customers a slap up meal on a Friday night!
We have the Inheritance Tracks of writer Ann Cleeves, and your thank you.
Producer: Corinna Jones
SAT 10:30 You're Dead To Me (p08532gd)
Mary Shelley
Greg Jenner is joined by literary expert Dr Corin Throsby and comedian Lauren Pattison to explore the often turbulent life of literary icon Mary Shelley.
Join us as we all question our life achievements while discussing the groundbreaking work Mary produced by the age of just 20, how far she was prepared to walk for love, and arguably the most gothic first date in history.
A Muddy Knees Media production for BBC Radio 4
SAT 11:00 The Briefing Room (m000z6s3)
The Afghan Refugee Crisis
The Taliban takeover over of Afghanistan has left millions internally displaced and hundreds of thousands more hoping to leave the country soon. Where will these Afghan refugees try to go and how will they be received by different countries?
Joining David Aaronovitch in The Briefing Room are:
Camille Le Coz, Policy Analyst with Migration Policy Institute.
Michael Semple, Professor at the Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice at Queen's University Belfast and former UN co-ordinator for the Bamiyan region in Afghanistan.
Peter Walsh, researcher in migration at the Migration Observatory.
Dominic Casciani, BBC Home and Legal correspondent
Producers: Ben Carter, Kirsteen Knight and Sharon Hemans
Studio Manager: James Beard
Production Co-ordinator: Iona Hammond
Editors: Alison Gee and Jasper Corbett
SAT 11:30 From Our Own Correspondent (m000zd60)
Insight, wit and analysis from BBC correspondents, journalists and writers from around the world
SAT 12:00 News Summary (m000zd62)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
SAT 12:04 Money Box (m000zd4m)
The latest news from the world of personal finance
SAT 12:30 The News Quiz (m000z7b7)
Series 106
Episode 1
Andy Zaltzman is joined by Ian Smith, Rachel Fairburn, Helen Lewis and Hugo Rifkind to discuss the week's news.
This week they look at the death of Geronimo the alpaca, the withdrawal from Afghanistan, new ideas to counteract climate change and the excess of pigs.
Script is written by Andy Zaltzman with additional material by Alice Fraser, Madeleine Brettingham, Tasha Dhanraj and Chirag Upadhyay.
Produced by Sam Michell for BBC Studios
SAT 12:57 Weather (m000zd64)
The latest weather forecast
SAT 13:00 News and Weather (m000zd66)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4
SAT 13:10 Any Questions? (m000z78g)
Gracie Bradley, Mark Duddridge, Danny Kruger MP, Kerry McCarthy MP
Chris Mason presents political debate and discussion from Chacewater Village Hall with the interim director of Liberty Gracie Bradley, the Chair of the Cornwall and Isles of Scilly Local Enterprise Partnership and Chair of Coastline Housing Mark Duddridge, the Conservative MP Danny Kruger and the Labour MP and shadow minister for green transport Kerry McCarthy.
Producer: Camellia Sinclair
Lead broadcast engineer: Tim Allen
SAT 14:00 Any Answers? (m000zd68)
Have your say on the issues discussed on Any Questions?
SAT 14:45 Drama (m0007qbk)
The Bulbul Was Singing
Laura (Rebecca Humphries) is a young British woman who's been fighting with the Kurds against Isis. Now she's back in the UK, she finds herself charged with terrorism offences. By Judy Upton.
Directed by Emma Harding
Laura . . . Rebecca Humphries
Ariman . . . Shaniaz Hama Ali
Dad . . . Paul Hickey
Jonas . . . Jonny Holden
Instructor . . . Saya Zahawi
D I Kent . . . Catherine Cusack
PC Miller . . . Shaun Mason
Serena . . . Debbie Korley
Custody Assistant . . . Chris Pavlo
SAT 15:30 Speak Up (m000ydx0)
Women may be caricatured as babbling chatterboxes, but in public, women speak a lot less.
Be it in conferences or committee meetings, television or parliamentary debates, women do not get a proportionate amount of air space as men.
Mary Ann takes us on a global journey to find out why women aren't speaking up and if they are being disproportionally side-lined, excluded from the world's debates.
She explores the role history and social conditioning plays: the ancient Babylonians thought if a woman spoke in public, she should have her teeth smashed with a burnt brick; in classrooms today boys get far more attention, teachers accepting their calling out of answers, while punishing girls for the same behaviour.
She hears that when women do speak, they are often spoken over regardless of their status. In the Australian High Court, women judges and even the female presiding judge were regularly interrupted by male advocates. And women aren't heard in the same way as men; many struggle to see that a woman might be the expert in the room.
So how can women be heard? In a year in which the head of the Tokyo Olympics organizing committee said women talk too much and Jackie Weaver had to assert her authority in a fuming parish council meeting, we do need solutions.
Should women be hesitant and tentative or bold and chatty? How can a slight change in the layout of a room make a fundamental difference? Mary Ann finds out how to speak up and be heard, to get your point across and influence both men and women.
Interviewees: Deborah Cameron, Professor of Language and Communication, Oxford University, Chris Karpowitz, Professor of Political Science, Brigham Young University, David Sadker, Prof Emeritus at The American University, Linda Carli, Senior Lecturer Emerita in Psychology, Wellesley College, Ioana Latu, senior lecturer in Psychology, Queens University Belfast and author and speaking coach, Patricia Seabright
Producer: Sarah Bowen
SAT 16:00 Woman's Hour (m000zd6b)
Weekend Woman's Hour: Greenham Common, 'Girlboss' & the magic of Mirrors
Forty years ago a campaign group called Women for Life on Earth marched from Cardiff to the Greenham Common RAF Base in Berkshire to protest against the British government allowing US nuclear missiles on British Soil. We hear from two women Rebecca Mordan, co-author of Out of the Darkness Greenham Voices 1981-2000 and Sue Ray who were part of the original movement and are walking to Greenham Common again this week.
We hear from Fran Lebowitz the American writer, social commentator, humourist, very occasional actress and New York legend.
‘Girlboss’ is used as a term of empowerment. It’s meant to refer to a new generation of confident, take charge women who pursue their own entrepreneurial ambitions but does this concept relate only to white middle class privileged women and what does it mean to successful women of colour? To discuss this is Otegha Uwagba the author of We Need to Talk About Money and Asma Khan the founder of Dharjeeling Express.
Zizi Strallen is playing Mary Poppins in the latest stage adaptation in London’s West End. She performs ‘Practically Perfect’.
We hear from two parents about what it’s like to be told your child has special educational needs and that they are not developing normally. Parents Lauren Gibson and Claire Walker discuss.
Why are some mirrors more flattering than others? How often do you look in the mirror and are you able to judge your reflection fairly? We hear from the psychotherapist Susie Orbach and from mirror expert Dr Melissa Kao.
Presenter: Anita Rani
Producer: Rabeka Nurmahomed
Editor: Louise Corley
SAT 17:00 PM (m000zd6d)
Full coverage of the day's news
SAT 17:30 Political Thinking with Nick Robinson (m000zd6g)
Nick Robinson talks about what's really going on in British politics.
SAT 17:54 Shipping Forecast (m000zd6j)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
SAT 17:57 Weather (m000zd6l)
The latest weather reports and forecast
SAT 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m000zd6n)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4
SAT 18:15 Loose Ends (m000zcdh)
Joan Bakewell, Rosamund Pike, Jenny Eclair, Lachlan Goudie, Roy Joseph Butler, Maja Lena, Southern Avenue, Athena Kugblenu
Anneka Rice and Athena Kugblenu are joined by Joan Bakewell, Rosamund Pike, Jenny Eclair and Lachlan Goudie and Roy Joseph Butler for an eclectic mix of conversation, music and comedy. With music from Maja Lena and Southern Avenue.
SAT 19:00 Profile (m000zcky)
An insight into the character of an influential person making the news headlines
SAT 19:15 The Infinite Monkey Cage (p08dy6ym)
Series 22
The End of the Universe
Brian Cox and Robin Ince are back for new series, for now at least, as they take an upbeat look at all the different ways our Universe might end. They are joined by legendary comedians Steve Martin and Eric Idle, alongside astrophysicist Katie Mack and cosmologist Brian Greene, to find out which end the panel might prefer. Will we go with the Big Rip or possibly the Big Crunch, or even death by giant bubble that expands so rapidly it wipes out our universe almost instantly? On that cheery note the panel vote for their favourite apocalyptic ending and wonder what they might be doing and what they hope to have achieved when the final moment comes.
Producer: Alexandra Feachem
SAT 19:45 It Ain't Me You're Looking For: Bob Dylan at 80 (m000w4ny)
One: Learn Your Song Well (1941-1964)
Marking his birthday on May 24th, Radio 4 broadcasts 'It Ain't Me You're Looking For: Bob Dylan at 80'. Presented by Sean Latham, Director of the Institute for Bob Dylan Studies at the University of Tulsa, and editor of 'The World of Bob Dylan', this five-part series looks at the songs and draws on the vast Bob Dylan Archive, exploring the life, work and influence of a great and elusive artist.
It argues that Dylan is a remarkable storyteller, impossible to ascribe to any genre or movement, steadfastly developing skills that rightly earned him the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Each episode focuses on a theme from a different period, encompassing his career.
• Learn Your Song Well (1941-1964)
• Bleeding Genius (1964-1966)
• Vanishing Acts (1966-1979)
• This Train (1979-1993)
• High Water Everywhere (1993-2021)
One: Learn Your Song Well (1941-1964)
In his Nobel acceptance speech, Dylan embeds himself in a tradition of performative storytelling extending from Homer. Odysseus is, Dylan says, “always being warned of things to come. Touching things he’s told not to." Latham looks at 'A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall', about a young man committing himself to experiencing the joys and terrors of the world, then wrestling a story from them. Sixty years later, that still drives his creative life.
Early on Dylan made up stories about himself. He became a political songwriter by mixing his fictional autobiography with folk and blues to create stories of liberation. 'Blowin' in the Wind', its source in an anti-slavery song, becomes an anthem of the Civil Rights Movement. Dylan finds these stories constrictive and with 'Restless Farewell,' dramatically, and angrily, announces his shift from political to personal liberation.
Producer Julian May
SAT 20:00 Archive on 4 (m000zcl0)
The Greenham Effect
As a child, Rebecca Mordan protested at Greenham. Forty years since it began, she explores the camp's profound impact on the women there and on the whole of British society.
Drawing upon a unique and rich new oral history of over a hundred women who lived, campaigned and threw their all into the Greenham protests, Rebecca explores how their experience changed them and the wider world. She meets the two women who first had the idea of a protest at Greenham, and others who went to jail for their beliefs. She also meets Michael Heseltine, the minister in Mrs Thatcher's asked to stop the protests having any impact.
The Greenham Effect uncovers how the methods and experiences of the Greenham women transformed many women's lives and how they now shape protest and female empowerment in our world today.
SAT 21:00 GF Newman's The Corrupted (b03dfl00)
Series 1
Episode 1
A new long-running drama series from G F Newman based on the characters from the multi-award winning writer's best-selling crime novel. Spanning six decades, it plots the course of one family against the backdrop of a revolution in crime as the underworld extends its influence to the very heart of the establishment, in an uncomfortable relationship of shared values.
Joey Oldman is a Russian Jew, who arrived in Britain before the war with only two words of English and married Cathy Braden. They had a son, Brian, and a daughter, Rose. Cathy's widowed mother, Gracie, takes up with a famous and glamorous gangster, Billy Hill, while her brother Jack wants to become World Light Heavyweight Boxing Champion. Both the army and the Kray twins interfere with this ambition. Jack is left feeling bitter and angry and plunges headlong into crime, running protection rackets and claiming a piece of other criminals' sometimes infamous pies. His actions become ever more savage and bizarre and harder to reconcile.
Haunted by the murder of his grandfather which he witnessed when he was six, Brian Oldman holds a terrible secret that he must keep for fear of his life as he falls deeper under his mother's spell. But there is a more disturbing secret he has yet to discover - one that will threaten his very existence. All the while he becomes a willing participant in the criminal underworld in the 1950s, where gangs such as the Krays and the Richardson are emerging to challenge the old guard in savage battles for territory.
Cast:
Joey Oldman..........Toby Jones
Cath Oldman..........Denise Gough
Brian Oldman.........Rory McMenamin
Jack Braden............Tom Weston-Jones
Gracie Braden.........Ruth Gemmell
Billy Hill...................Robert Glennister
Bobby Brown..........Charlie Davies
P C Watling.............Nigel Cooke
Win Booker.............Lotte Rice
Frank Cockain
and Tiger Braden....Michael Eaves
Spotty.....................Jonathan Tafler
With Ross Kemp as Narrator.
Written by G F Newman
Produced and directed by Clive Brill
A Pacificus production for BBC Radio 4
SAT 21:45 The Hotel (m000qhh8)
14: The Priest
Barbara Flynn reads the next in Daisy Johnson's deliciously dark series of short stories, set in a remote hotel on the Fens.
Today: a cult seventies horror movie shot at The Hotel continues to haunt those who starred in it....
Reader: Barbara Flynn
Writer: Daisy Johnson
Producer: Justine Willett
SAT 22:00 News (m000zcl2)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4
SAT 22:15 Behind the Crime (m000z6dl)
As a society, we send close to 100,000 people to prison each year. But what happens to people while they’re behind bars?
Sally Tilt and Dr Kerensa Hocken are forensic psychologists who work in prisons.
Their role is to help people in prison look at the harm they’ve caused to other people, understand why it happened and figure out how to make changes to prevent further offending after they’ve been released.
In Behind the Crime, they take the time to understand the life of someone who’s ended up in prison, and what happened afterwards.
In this episode, they talk to 23 year-old Courtney, a mum who received a five-year sentence for her part in a series of armed robberies at the age of 17.
Through the course of the conversation, they explore some of the key events in Courtney’s life and track some of the threads that led her down a path to prison.
At the same time, Sally and Kerensa explain some of the methods they use to reach the core factors that can lead to people harming others – and how they then work with people in prison to prevent further harm from happening in the future.
Producer: Andrew Wilkie
Editor: Hugh Levinson
A BBC Radio Current Affairs and Prison Radio Association co-production for BBC Radio 4
Image: Sally Tilt and Dr Kerensa Hocken. Credit: Christopher Terry/Prison Radio Association
SAT 23:00 Brain of Britain (m000z5w5)
Heat 7, 2021
(7/17)
Competitors from Somerset, the Home Counties and London join Russell Davies this week for the latest heat of the 2021 general knowledge tournament, recorded in London under pandemic restrictions. Among other things, they'll need to know the name of Vincent Van Gogh's art dealer brother, the distance run in an Olympic steeplechase, and the names of the Imperial Cities of Morocco. Today's winner will take another of the places in the semi-finals later in the season.
Taking part are:
Heather Auton, a retired marketing director from Amersham in Buckinghamshire
George Bulmer, a retail manager from Hammersmith in London
Ian McKillop, a locum pharmacist from Ilminster in Somerset
Emma Napper, a personal assistant from Arlesey in Bedfordshire.
Assistant Producer: Stephen Garner
Producer: Paul Bajoria
SAT 23:30 Black Sci-Fi: Stories from the End of the World (m000yyqh)
Writer, activist and broadcaster Walidah Imarisha presents the untold story of black sci-fi and its vital role in redefining the present and imagining the future.
This documentary explores the power - and the rich history - of speculative, visionary fiction by black authors in the UK, USA and Africa, and how activists around the world have been inspired by science fiction as they strive to build new worlds. Walidah Imarisha unravels the idea that all organisation and activism is a form of "science fiction" - and how bringing new realities into being is itself a creative act.
Interviewees include multidisciplinary artists Moor Mother and Rasheedah Philips, Nigerian-American writer Nnedi Okorafor, and British feminist writer and researcher Lola Olufemi.
Produced by Tej Adeleye
Sound by Peregrine Andrews
Readings by Sue Brown
An Overcoat Media production for BBC Radio 4
SUNDAY 05 SEPTEMBER 2021
SUN 00:00 Midnight News (m000zcl4)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.
SUN 00:15 Green Originals (m000d85l)
Jacques Cousteau
A pioneer of the aqua lung and nature documentaries, Jacques Cousteau’s groundbreaking series The Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau had an enormous impact on the 1970s, gripping an entire generation of children with its kaleidoscopic beauty. The stunning films of sea-life, coupled with Cousteau's natural history lectures in romantically accented English, are credited with spawning the environmental movement.
Cousteau spent more time filming underwater than probably anyone else and, as such, was alert to the devastating impact of over-fishing and pollution, particularly in the Mediterranean. Away from the camera, he lobbied tirelessly for tighter government regulations to protect the marine environment and biodiversity.
Champion freediver Tanya Streeter reflects on the life and work of the explorer and film-maker turned oceanographer and considers the challenges that remain for the protection of our Oceans.
“Cousteau’s inventions opened up the underwater world to exploration,” she says. “He inspired us to see the planet in an entirely new way.”
Producer: Emily Williams
Series Editor: David Prest
A Whistledown production in association with The Open University.
SUN 00:30 Short Works (m000z79s)
A Little Lay-Off
By Candy Neubert. A story about football loyalty, hope and box-to-box midfield play.
A few times a season, a woman books a night at a hotel in her nearest town - so she can watch Arsenal on TV in her favourite pub.
Candy Neubert is a poet who has also published novels and short stories. Her latest collection, Privacy, was published in April 2021.
Writer: Candy Neubert
Reader: Chetna Pandya
Producer: Jeremy Osborne
A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4
SUN 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m000zcl6)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
SUN 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m000zcl8)
BBC Radio 4 presents a selection of news and current affairs, arts and science programmes from the BBC World Service.
SUN 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m000zclb)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
SUN 05:30 News Briefing (m000zcld)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4
SUN 05:43 Bells on Sunday (m000zclg)
St Martin’s Church, Desford in Leicester
Bells on Sunday comes from St Martin’s Church, Desford in Leicester. The church’s perpendicular gothic tower houses a ring of six bells, all of which were cast by John Taylor of Loughborough in 1912. The tenor bell weighs ten-and-a-half hundredweight and is tuned to A flat. We hear the bells ringing St Martin’s Doubles.
SUN 05:45 Profile (m000zcky)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Saturday]
SUN 06:00 News Summary (m000zd3v)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4
SUN 06:05 Something Understood (m0001cy7)
Self-Portraits
In this exploration of the self-portrait, the poet Michael Symmons Roberts starts with the modern phenomenon of the ubiquitous selfie and questions whether it really is such a quantum shift in the way we see ourselves in the world. Or is this just the latest tech-twist in the story of self-portraiture?
“It’s become a cliché to mock and revile it,” Michael says, “characterising it as a narcissistic exercise, but the reality is more complex”.
Self-portraiture goes way back to cave paintings, he suggests, and has a long and complex history. “I still remember when I first saw one of Rembrandt’s self-portraits in the flesh, or LS Lowry’s red-eyed, searing vision of himself staring back. There’s something about them that makes us feel they are giving us the real person, a glimpse of the painter’s true self.”
Michael goes on to extend his definition of the self-portrait from just painters and sculptors to include poets and novelists. The poetry of Nobel Prize winning Polish poet Wistawa Szymborska, Gerard Manley Hopkins and Emily Dickenson, and the music of Philip Glass, singer songwriter Don McLean and Nile Rogers, helps Michael conclude, “Self-portraits, at their best, aspire to portray the inner world, not just the surface appearance.”
Presenter: Michael Symmons Roberts
Producer: Michael Wakelin
A TBI production for BBC Radio 4
SUN 06:35 On Your Farm (m000zd3x)
Food and Farming Awards finalist: Throne Farm
Throne Farm in Herefordshire is a VERY mixed farm. Alongside acres of agroforestry, sheep and poultry production is a shed containing what the farmer, Stephen Ware, sees as the "Future of Farming" - insects!
Stephen's philosophy is based on producing the most complex, nutritionally dense food with minimal inputs from outside his own farm. After losing a contract to supply cider apples to a large drinks producer, he chose to reconfigure his orchards into an agroforestry system. But he didn't stop there, and has planted more than 22,000 new trees in rows down his arable fields. As well as growing cereal crops between the trees, he now produces apples, pears and sour cherries for juicing. The apple pomace left over after juicing can be fed to his insects, which he hopes to use to make protein-rich products for human consumption - as soon as the rules allow.
So what will Charlotte Smith make of his farm? She's there to judge his entry into the BBC Food and Farming Awards after she picked him as one of three finalists in the "Farming for the Future" category.
Presented by Charlotte Smith
Produced by Heather Simons
SUN 06:57 Weather (m000zd3z)
The latest weather reports and forecast
SUN 07:00 News and Papers (m000zd41)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.
SUN 07:10 Sunday (m000zd43)
A look at the ethical and religious issues of the week
SUN 07:54 Radio 4 Appeal (m000zcbp)
Restless Development
Businesswoman and TV personality Deborah Meaden presents the BBC Radio 4 Appeal on behalf of the charity Restless Development.
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 ‘Restless Development’.
- Cheques should be made payable to ‘Restless Development’.
- You can donate online at bbc.co.uk/appeal/radio4
Registered Charity Number: 1127488
SUN 07:57 Weather (m000zd45)
The latest weather reports and forecast
SUN 08:00 News and Papers (m000zd47)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.
SUN 08:10 Sunday Worship (m000zd49)
Back to the Square Mile
London's Square Mile banking and financial services sector contributes hugely to Britain's GDP, yet many are wondering when all the workers will return. The Square Mile is also renowned for its historic churches - nowhere else in England are so many churches packed so close together. The Square Mile's Christian community has been working hard to welcome the thousands of workers back to this historic patch of the City. From All Hallows by the Tower with Area Dean and Vicar the Revd Katherine Hedderly.
Producer: Philip Billson
Photo Credit: Simon Kennedy
SUN 08:48 A Point of View (m000z78j)
The Secret Life of Food
Sara Wheeler looks at the emotional power of food.
"It's regrettable", she writes, "that the link between food and happiness has been broken by the epidemic of obesity that bedevils the developed world."
Producer: Adele Armstrong
SUN 08:58 Tweet of the Day (b04hkwbt)
African Southern Ground Hornbill
Tweet of the Day is the voice of birds and our relationship with them, from around the world.
Miranda Krestovnikoff presents the African southern ground hornbill. Ground hornbills live in south and south east Africa. They're glossy black birds, as big as turkeys with huge downward-curving bills. The bird produces a deep booming sound that reverberates over long distances, sometimes as much as 5 kilometres, across its grassy habitat. Preferring to walk rather than fly, they strut about in the long grass, searching for prey. Snakes are a favourite: even deadly puff adders are no match for the birds' bludgeoning beaks.
SUN 09:00 Broadcasting House (m000zd4c)
The Sunday morning news magazine programme. Presented by Paddy O'Connell.
SUN 10:00 The Archers Omnibus (m000zd4f)
Writer, Adrian Flynn
Directors, Kim Greengrass and Jeremy Howe
Editor, Jeremy Howe
Lilian Bellamy ... Sunny Ormonde
Justin Elliott … Simon Williams
Jakob Hakansson ... Paul Venables
Tracy Horrobin … Susie Riddell
Alistair Lloyd ... Michael Lumsden
Jazzer McCreary … Ryan Kelly
Denise … Clare Perkins
Nancy … Frances Barber
SUN 11:00 The Reunion (m000zd9n)
The Trial of the Mangrove Nine
Kirsty Wark reunites a group of people involved in the trial of the Mangrove Nine in 1971.
The Mangrove Nine were a group of British black activists tried for inciting a riot at a 1970 protest against the police targeting of The Mangrove, a Caribbean restaurant in Notting Hill, west London. Their trial lasted 55 days and involved various challenges by the Nine to the legitimacy of the British judicial process. They were all acquitted of the most serious charges and the trial became the first judicial acknowledgement of behaviour motivated by racial hatred within the Metropolitan Police.
Joining Kirsty are five people who were caught up in the events of that time, and the trial of the Mangrove Nine that followed.
Clive Phillip took part in the protests and was a close friend of the Mangrove’s owner Frank Crichlow, Desmond Gittens ran the neighbouring Black People’s Information Centre alongside Rhodan Gordan, one of the Mangrove Nine defendants, Desmond’s daughter Aisha Gittens knew many of the defendants well.
Farrukh Dhondy attended the trial and compiled a daily newsletter for the British Black Panther Movement, and Education Campaigner Gus John was then a youth worker in neighbouring Westbourne Grove and a frequent visitor to The Mangrove.
Producers: Olateju Adeleye and Rosemary Laryea
Series Producer: David Prest
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4
SUN 11:45 Just One Thing - with Michael Mosley (m000zd9q)
Eat Chocolate
Could eating two squares of dark chocolate a day really help you reduce your risk of cardiovascular disease - and enhance blood flow to your brain? In this episode, Michael Mosley champions the wonders of chocolate. With the help of Professor Aedín Cassidy at Queen's University Belfast, he reveals the secret ingredients behind the benefits and why we should start to embrace the bitter taste of high cocoa chocolate.
SUN 12:00 News Summary (m000zd9s)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
SUN 12:04 The Unbelievable Truth (m000z5wg)
Series 26
Episode 6
David Mitchell hosts the panel game in which four comedians are encouraged to tell lies and compete against one another to see how many items of truth they're able to smuggle past their opponents.
Sally Phillips, Frankie Boyle, Lucy Porter and Neil Delamere are the panellists obliged to talk with deliberate inaccuracy on subjects as varied as moths, football, singing and shopping.
Produced by Jon Naismith
A Random Entertainment production for BBC Radio 4
SUN 12:32 The Food Programme (m000zcf3)
Stirring Up Stories: The Business of Food PR
Leyla Kazim finds out how food companies and restaurants use PR agencies to get us thinking about the meals they want us to buy. From talking teabags to weird breakfast combos, social media has become a way for brands to show us their personalities. In this episode we speak to those behind the stories, find out where they came from, and why they work to keep brands relevant.
In hospitality, as restaurants reopen, PR agencies faced with contract cancellations at the start of the pandemic are now being called on to get people back through the doors. They don't use stunts, but publicising the stories of those involved and their recipes can be as effective in drumming up interest. Leyla meets hospitality PR expert Gemma Bell, who was involved in encouraging restaurants to take part in the Eat Out to Help Out Campaign, she says the way they communicate about restaurants over the past 10 years has really changed - and it's no longer just about getting good restaurant reviews.
Plus we hear from one of London's first food influencers @onehungryasian about the role he plays in promoting restaurant businesses, and young food campaigner Dev Sharma tells Leyla how he hopes fast-food brands won't shift their marketing campaigns completely to PR once the laws change on advertising junk food to children.
Presented by Leyla Kazim
Produced in Bristol by Natalie Donovan
SUN 12:57 Weather (m000zd9w)
The latest weather forecast
SUN 13:00 The World This Weekend (m000zd9y)
Jonny Dymond looks at the week’s big stories from both home and around the world.
SUN 13:30 The Listening Project (m000zdb0)
Challenging Perceptions
Fi Glover presents three conversations - between strangers Adam and Linda who share differing views on the importance of gaming versus reading; Rachel and Jaina talking about raising awareness of blindness; and Alena and Adam on challenging perceptions of stay-at-home parents.
The Listening Project is a Radio 4 initiative that offers a snapshot of contemporary Britain in which people across the UK volunteer to have a conversation. The
conversations are being gathered across the UK by teams of producers from local and national radio stations who facilitate each encounter. Every conversation lasts up to an hour, and is then edited to extract the key moments of connection between the participants. Most of the unedited conversations are being archived by the British Library and used to build up a collection of voices capturing a unique portrait of the UK in this decade of the millennium. You can learn more about The Listening Project by visiting bbc.co.uk/listeningproject
Producer: Mohini Patel
SUN 14:00 Gardeners' Question Time (m000z79q)
GQT at Home: Cannas and Cordylines
Peter Gibbs hosts this week's horticultural panel show. His experts, on hand to answer listeners questions, queries and quandaries, are Matthew Wilson, Anne Swithinbank and Christine Walkden. They are joined by a virtual audience from across the country.
This week, the panellists explain how to move a Lupin when moving house, and share their top tips for cheering up a rather sad looking Cordyline. They also give some low maintenance, but suitably fragrant, planting ideas for a listener's cottage window boxes.
Meanwhile, Dr Chris Thorogood takes us to the rainforest floor where an unusual and rare Malaysian plant can be found, the Fairy Lantern. And our Great Trees of GQT series continues as Jacquie Felix tells us about her favourite, the Himalayan Birch.
Producer - Hannah Newton
Assistant Producer - Aniya Das
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4
SUN 14:45 Green Originals (m000d85l)
[Repeat of broadcast at
00:15 today]
SUN 15:00 Dangerous Liaisons (m000zdb2)
Episode 2
By Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, in a new version by Sian Ejiwunmi-LeBerre.
Tanya Moodie, Nicola Coughlan and Ray Fearon star in this dark and scandalously funny masterpiece of eighteenth-century French literature, which has never before been dramatised by BBC Radio 4.
Sian Ejiwunmi-LeBerre’s brand new version plays fast and loose with the letter form of the novel, as clueless ingenue Cecile de Volanges, and lonely wife Lady Tourvel, both become prey in a struggle for seduction between two amoral ex-lovers: Madame de Merteuil and Count Valmont.
The battle turns darker, as the rivals deal out sexual control and abuse in a dangerous contest that will kill one of them - and one of their victims.
Cast:
Madame de Merteuil ….. Tanya Moodie
Count Valmont ….. Ray Fearon
Cecile de Volanges ….. Nicola Coughlan
Lady Tourvel ….. Melody Grove
The Editor ….. Sian Ejiwunmi-LeBerre
Danceny ….. Sid Sagar
Lady Volanges ….. Juliet Cowan
Lady Rosemonde ..... Amanda Boxer
Ensemble ….. Alexander Devrient, David Hounslow, Ryan Whittle
Harpist ..... Ruth Faber
Singers ..... Rowan Atkins, Freddie Falzon
Sound Design ….. Jon Nicholls, Jonquil Panting, Olga Reed
Produced and directed by Jonquil Panting
A Jonx production for BBC Radio 4
SUN 16:00 Bookclub (m000zcbr)
Lissa Evans - Old Baggage
Lissa Evans talks to James Naughtie and a group of her readers about her novel Old Baggage.
Set in 1928, it tells the story of Matilda Simpkin, who was an activist during the Women’s Suffrage Campaign. Jailed five times, Mattie marched, sang, gave speeches and smashed windows, and nothing since then has had the same depth or excitement. After a chance meeting with 15-year-old Ida, she sets out on a new venture, starting a girls’ club to help young women gain and maintain independence.
Old Baggage was shortlisted for the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Literature 2019.
Presenter : James Naughtie
Producer : Dymphna Flynn
For details on how to take part in Bookclub email us at bookclub@bbc.co.uk
October’s Bookclub Choice : All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (2014)
SUN 16:30 Tongue and Talk: The Dialect Poets (m000zdb4)
Northern Ireland
Actor and writer Catherine Harvey explores the poetry and language of Northern Ireland, asking how the way people speak and write is connected to the place itself.
Catherine's journey begins in Belfast, where poet Ciaran Carson’s linguistic roots lie deep beneath the foundations of the city. For many years, he was director of the Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry at Queen’s University, with its longstanding connection to many of the province’s wonderful writers – including, of course, Seamus Heaney himself.
Among others, Catherine talks to poets Scott McKendry and Maria McManus, dialect expert Antoin Rodgers and literary academic Frank Ferguson. With readings by Victoria Gleason and Michael Hughes – from the Weaver Poets, who once worked in Ulster’s prosperous linen industry, to the poetry of the streets today and a Greek myth for modern times.
Other episodes in this fourth series look at dialect poetry in Wales and Scotland.
A Made in Manchester production for BBC Radio 4
SUN 17:00 After Merkel (m000z5js)
After 16 years as Chancellor of one of the world's most powerful nations, the unassuming East German scientist turned power politician, Angela Merkel, remains a bit of an enigma And at the end of September, her time in power comes to an end.
BBC Europe Editor Katya Adler asks now that the woman dubbed Mutti, or Mummy, is leaving politics, if history books will deem her a political visionary or more of a middle manager. And what will be the impact of Angela Merkel's departure on her country and the EU? Influential Germany has traditionally been a close ally of the UK's, what happens there has an impact on us all.
Contributors include France's Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire; former Brexit Secretary David Davis; Yanis Varoufakis, former Greek finance minister; the Scottish Constitution Secretary Angus Robertson; the journalist for Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Helene Bubrowski; and former advisor to President Obama and author of After the Fall, Ben Rhodes.
Presenter: Katya Adler
Producer for BBC Audio in Bristol: Camellia Sinclair
SUN 17:40 Profile (m000zcky)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Saturday]
SUN 17:54 Shipping Forecast (m000zdb6)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
SUN 17:57 Weather (m000zdb8)
The latest weather reports and forecast
SUN 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m000zdbb)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4
SUN 18:15 Pick of the Week (m000zdbd)
Edward Adoo
In the week where we lost the Upsetter - Lee 'Scratch' Perry, Edward will be paying tribute to the late reggae ambassador, sprinkling some Notting Hill Carnival vibes and finding out why local radio is truly valued. He's also got a story from the Taliban that could have changed the situation in Afghanistan, Klaus Voormann talks about the recording of John Lennon's Imagine and why Stoke is the place to be.
It's rammed, jammed, all stacked... ready to roll for you.
Presenter: Edward Adoo
Producer: Elizabeth Foster
Production support: Emmie Hume
Studio Manager: Phil Booth
SUN 19:00 The Archers (m000zcdx)
Chris lends an ear to a friend in need, and Eddie hatches a cunning plan.
SUN 19:15 Michael Frayn's Magic Mobile (m000jmmf)
Episode 4
Michael Frayn’s masterful comic ideas, directed by Rosalind Ayres.
No upgrades to install - just click here for God’s new version of the Ten Commandments. Note how a character from a novel can literally jump out at you. Hear how credits now take up more screen time than the production. Observe how Auto-Jeeves, offering a Martini, shows itself to be an indispensable robot. And, from the news studio, witness thunderous reports from Olympus about a surprising reshuffle of the Pantheon.
Cast:
Susannah Fielding, David Suchet, George Blagden, Lisa Dillon, Anna-Louise Plowman, Moira Quirk, Rosalind Ayres, Nigel Anthony, Darren Richardson, Matthew Wolf
Writer: Michael Frayn
Director: Rosalind Ayres
A Jarvis and Ayres production for BBC Radio 4
SUN 19:45 Making Amends (m000zd4k)
Gina
Five wry stories on the nature of and need for apology, by Nick Walker, the writer of Annika Stranded.
Making Amends is a therapeutic process that encourages people to recognise behaviour in their past which, because of addiction problems, goes against their values and standards. But the need to make amends and apologise for lapses of behaviour is not just confined to the addicted.
3/5. Gina
Emerging from the depression that followed the breakdown of her career, Gina feels she must seek out Alyssa.
Nick Walker is the writer of Annika Stranded, which ran for six seasons on BBC Radio 4 between 2013 and 2020. Annika - a TV version - will be broadcast in 2021. He has also written two critically-acclaimed novels , Blackbox and Helloland. His plays and other short stories for radio include The First King of Mars, Life Coach and Stormchasers.
Writer: Nick Walker
Reader: Tracy Wiles
Sound Design: Jon Calver
Producer: Jeremy Osborne
A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4
SUN 20:00 More or Less (m000z6cd)
Covid, HGV driver shortages and protest costs
English Covid restrictions were lifted in July. Back then, some predicted that there could be as many as 6,000 hospital admissions a day by the following month. So, what happened?
The Metropolitan Police says it’s spent £50 million on policing Extinction Rebellion since 2019. They’re on the streets again – can it really be that costly?
The economics correspondent at The Economist Duncan Weldon puts government borrowing during the pandemic into context and talk about his new book, 200 Years of Muddling Through.
Are we running out of lorry drivers? And to what extent is Brexit to blame? We look at the numbers behind a claim that there is a shortfall of 100,000 lorry drivers in the UK.
Plus, disturbing evidence that Star Trek’s Mr Spock may actually be terrible at logic.
SUN 20:30 Last Word (m000z79v)
Jill Murphy (pictured), Len Gibson, Dame Elizabeth Blackadder, Nanci Griffith
Matthew Bannister on:
The children’s author Jill Murphy who based her best-selling stories of the Worst Witch on her own schooldays.
Len Gibson, the former prisoner of war from Sunderland who worked on the notorious Burma railway and later taught Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics to play guitar.
Dame Elizabeth Blackadder, the acclaimed artist noted for her exquisite Japanese-influenced paintings of flowers and cats.
Nanci Griffith, the singer and songwriter from Texas who was known as the 'queen of folkabilly'.
Producer: Lucy Wai
Interviewed guest: Bob Harris
Interviewed guest: Alexandra Gladwell
Interviewed guest: Brian Burnie
Interviewed guest: Pamela Todd
Interviewed guest: Alice Strang
Interviewed guest: Duncan Macmillan
Archive clips used: BBC, Jackanory Words or Pictures 1995; CBBC/ZDF, The Worst Witch 2017; BBC, Woman's Hour 2016; Pathe News, Japanese planes 1943; WarGen, The War Memories of Len Gibson 2019; Daft as a Brush charity, Dave Stewart tribute to Len Gibson 2021; BBC, Conversation with Artists 1982; BBC, Words and Music 1994; BBC, Bob Harris' Country 2012.
SUN 21:00 Money Box (m000zd4m)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:04 on Saturday]
SUN 21:25 Radio 4 Appeal (m000zcbp)
[Repeat of broadcast at
07:54 today]
SUN 21:30 The Untold (m000wcc7)
Getting Back to Life
This is a story of a young man’s grit and determination and a mother’s unstinting support.
Nick was 23 when his life changed forever. He was driving home late one night when his car came off the road. He thinks he fell asleep at the wheel. Luckily no one else was involved, but the consequences for Nick and his family have been immense. He suffered a serious brain injury and was in hospital for months. But slowly, slowly, he's worked at getting his independence back.
We first met Nick back in 2016, following him for a couple of years, from rehab unit to sheltered accommodation and then back to living with his mum Ann, his greatest champion.
Over three years on, how is Nick doing? Nick is a man on a mission – to get his life back. How’s the mission going?
Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Jo Dwyer
SUN 22:00 Westminster Hour (m000zd4p)
Radio 4's Sunday night political discussion programme.
SUN 23:00 The Film Programme (m000z6xd)
Maria Djurkovic
With Antonia Quirke
You might think that fewer movies would be made during a pandemic, with continual testing and all the restrictions on social distancing. In fact, the British film industry has never been busier, and production designer Maria Djurkovic explains why that's the case.
Script supervisor Angela Allen reveals all the unpaid jobs she did during her five decades in the film industry, from second unit director to editorial consultant to Katherine Hepburn's double in The African Queen.
The directors of Shorta, Frederik Louis Hviid and Anders Olholm, tell Antonia why their thriller about a riot in a housing estate is very different from the typical Danish movie.
SUN 23:30 Something Understood (m0001cy7)
[Repeat of broadcast at
06:05 today]
MONDAY 06 SEPTEMBER 2021
MON 00:00 Midnight News (m000zd4r)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.
MON 00:15 Thinking Allowed (m000z6d2)
The Changing Nature of Crime
The changing nature of crime: What do current day thieves, gangsters and dealers say about their ‘business’ and how its evolved over time? How strict a division is there between the 'respectable' and the 'illicit' world? To what extent are our notions of crime rooted in Hollywood myth making about sharp suited gangsters rather than the more mundane reality? Laurie Taylor explores these questions with Richard Hobbs, Emeritus Professor of Criminology at the University of Essex and author of a new study which analyses the essence of illegal capitalism, from anonymous warehouse thieves to exalted underworld figures such as the Krays. They’re joined by Tuesday Reitano, Deputy Director of the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, whose research highlights the impact on Covid 19 on the illegal economy. She finds that shortages, lockdowns and public attitudes have brought the underworld and upperworld closer together allowing criminals to taking advantage of the virus, finding new routes for illegal commodities, from narcotics to people.
Producer: Jayne Egerton
MON 00:45 Bells on Sunday (m000zclg)
[Repeat of broadcast at
05:43 on Sunday]
MON 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m000zd4t)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
MON 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m000zd4w)
BBC Radio 4 presents a selection of news and current affairs, arts and science programmes from the BBC World Service.
MON 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m000zd4y)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
MON 05:30 News Briefing (m000zd50)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4
MON 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m000zd52)
A reflection and prayer to start the day with Andrea Rea
MON 05:45 Farming Today (m000zd54)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
MON 05:56 Weather (m000zd56)
The latest weather forecast for farmers.
MON 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b04t0vhm)
Asian Koel
Michael Palin presents the Asian koel's arrival to an Indian orchard. This long-tailed glossy blue-black bird, is a well-known British harbinger of spring, and like its British counterpart, it is a cuckoo.
The koel's plaintive call is heard from late March until July around villages and in wooded countryside from Pakistan east to Indonesia and southern China. In India, it symbolises the birth of a new season, the flowering of fruit-trees, the bloom of romance and all that's good about spring. The koel's song can be heard in many Bollywood movies and has inspired poems and folk songs; it's even rumoured to help mangoes ripen faster.
This almost universal feel-good factor doesn't extend to its victims, because the koel is after all a cuckoo, and lays its eggs in other birds' nests. Asian Koels are parasitic on a wide range of birds, but in India especially, on House Crows and Jungle Crows.
Producer Andrew Dawes.
MON 06:00 Today (m000zcd5)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
MON 09:00 How to Play (m000zcd7)
Elgar's Enigma Variations with Sir Mark Elder and the Hallé Orchestra
We eavesdrop on rehearsals as Manchester’s Hallé Orchestra prepare for a performance of Elgar’s Enigma Variations. The Hallé’s Music Director, Sir Mark Elder and players from the orchestra give us their insider's perspective on this celebrated music and show how they work together to bring it to life in the concert hall.
Associate Leader, Sarah Ewins, Principal Viola, Tim Pooley and Principal Flute, Amy Yule all describe the delights and challenges of working on this piece.
Sir Mark Elder discusses his role in uniting the players in a fresh and cohesive performance.
And Em Marshall-Luck, Founder-Director of the English Music Festival, gives historical context to the music.
Produced by Rosie Boulton for BBC Wales
Photo credit: Russell Hart
MON 09:30 The Age of Denial (m00036l2)
A New Conversation
Are the children of the digital revolution going to tackle global issues differently? Isabel Hardman looks at new ways of confronting denialism.
Producer: Chris Ledgard
MON 09:45 The Daughters of Kobani, by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon (m000zcd9)
Episode 1
In 2014, north eastern Syria might have been the last place you would expect to find a revolution centred on women's rights. But that year, an all-female militia faced off against Isis in a little town few had ever heard of - Kobani.
By then, the Islamic State had swept across vast swathes of the country, taking town after town and spreading terror as the civil war burned all around it.
From that unlikely showdown in Kobani emerged a fighting force that would wage war against ISIS across northern Syria alongside the United States. In the process, these women would spread their own political vision, determined to make women's equality a reality by fighting - house by house, street by street, city by city - the men who bought and sold women.
Based on years of on-the-ground reporting, The Daughters of Kobani is the unforgettable story of the women of the Kurdish militia that improbably became part of the world's best hope for stopping ISIS in Syria. Drawing from hundreds of hours of interviews, author Gayle Tzemach Lemmon introduces us to the women fighting on the front lines, determined to not only extinguish the terror of ISIS but also prove that women could lead in war and must enjoy equal rights come the peace.
'An extraordinary account of brave, defiant women fighting for justice and equality' - Hillary Clinton
Read by Sarah Lambie
Abridged by Polly Coles
Produced by Clive Brill
A Brill production for BBC Radio 4
MON 10:00 Woman's Hour (m000zcdc)
Women's voices and women's lives - topical conversations to inform, challenge and inspire.
MON 11:00 My Name Is... (m000zcdf)
My Name Is Natalie
An individual with a story to tell, and some answers to find, in today's Britain.
MON 11:30 Loose Ends (m000zcdh)
[Repeat of broadcast at
18:15 on Saturday]
MON 12:00 News Summary (m000zcdk)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
MON 12:04 The Fortnight in September, by RC Sherriff (m000zcdm)
Episode 1
‘The man on his holidays becomes the man he might have been, the man he could have been, had things worked out a little differently. All men are equal on their holidays’.
In his autobiography, RC Sherriff describes how he had the idea for The Fortnight in September during his own holiday in Bognor Regis, when he started to wonder about the lives of the ordinary people he saw coming and going there.
He found himself itching to write about an imaginary family – Mr and Mrs Stevens and their three children, one still at school and two on the verge of adulthood – leaving their house in Dulwich and travelling by train to stay in a boarding house by the sea for two weeks. Deceptive in its simplicity and brimming with poignant observation, Sherriff describes how the family while away the days with beach cricket and swimming in the sea, and the warm evenings strolling along the promenade and listening to the band playing on the bandstand. He explores the importance of a break from work and humdrum routines, giving people an opportunity to reconnect with family, some time to reflect and make resolutions, and perhaps a chance for some romance or an adventure.
Sherriff’s understated novel, published in 1931, celebrates an era when going abroad was still the privilege of the few, and returning to the simple pleasures and familiar rituals of an English seaside holiday was the much-anticipated yearly treat for the majority.
Written by RC Sherriff
Reader: Adrian Scarborough
Abridger: Sara Davies
Producer: Alexa Moore
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4
MON 12:18 You and Yours (m000zcdp)
News and discussion of consumer affairs
MON 12:57 Weather (m000zcdr)
The latest weather forecast
MON 13:00 World at One (m000zcdt)
Forty-five minutes of news, analysis and comment, with Sarah Montague
MON 13:45 A History of the World in 100 Objects (b00txgs5)
Tolerance and Intolerance (AD 1550-1700)
Shi'a Religious Parade Standard
Neil MacGregor's world history as told through things. This week he is exploring the development and co-existence of faiths across the globe around 400 years ago, looking at objects from India and Central America, Europe and Indonesia that embody the political consequences of belief.
Today, he is with a remarkable object from Shia Iran that in the 16th century was open to the co-existence of faiths. The object he has chosen is a symbol of Shia faith, a standard or Alam that was carried at the front of Shia processions. They were often so tall and heavy that they would require great physical strength to handle. Neil visits religious sites in Isfahan to reflect on the spiritual climate of the time. Hossein Pourtahmasbi, from the Iranian community in London and a former alam carrier, describes the tradition. And the Iranian historian Haleh Afshar reflects on the shifting position of Shia Islam within Iran over the centuries.
Producer: Anthony Denselow
MON 14:00 The Archers (m000zcdx)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Sunday]
MON 14:15 United Kingdoms (m000zcdz)
Sheltering
A ground-breaking new series capturing contemporary life across the UK with bitesize dramas, monologues, poetry and song. Each episode features five shorts works by five writers from across the parts of the UK and each episode responds to a different theme.
Episode 2: Sheltering
BRANDLESHOLME
When Greta gets her first visit from her local befriending service, the person who turns up really isn’t what she expected.
Written by Shahid Iqbal Khan
Performed by Sue Jenkins and Abdullah Afzal
Sound Design by Eloise Whitmore
Produced by Polly Thomas and Dermot Daly
COUNTY DOWN
A busker working an underpass takes in the months and years of his life making music for passing crowds.
Written by Stephen Sexton
Performed by Stephen Hagan
Sound Design Lucinda Mason Brown
Produced by Celia de Wolff
GORBALS
Iain lives for Sunday afternoons. That’s when he goes to his local Toolshed – a place to create and to talk, a place to escape to. But when he finds out it’s going to be shut down, Iain’s past begins to haunt his every thought.
Written by Andy Edwards
Performed by Gavin Mitchell, Matthew Barker and Dani Heron
Sound Design by Joanne Willott
Produced by Kirsty Williams
WRECSAM
A young woman waits at the village bus stop, taking in the world around her when she realises she’s standing next to someone from her past.
Written and performed by Rachel Harper
Sound Design by Nigel Lewis
Produced by John Norton and James Robertson
SEAFORD
Poetic and moving meditation on living through a pandemic.
Written by Danusia Samal
Performed by Sam Dale, Eliza Collings, Danusia Samal and Tia Bannon
Sound Design Lucinda Mason Brown
Produced by Celia de Wolff
Programme Illustration by Eleanor Hibbert
Original Music composed by Niroshini Thanbar
Sheltering was curated by Kirsty Williams for BBC Scotland, BBC Northern Ireland, Pier Productions, Naked Productions and BBC Cymru-Wales for BBC Radio 4.
MON 15:00 Brain of Britain (m000zcf1)
Heat 8, 2021
(8/17)
In the 1570s who was the most famous member of the Spanish Marines? Which campaigning organisation was founded by Peter Benenson? And who was the singer in the punk band the Modern Lovers? Russell Davies puts these questions, and many more, to the contenders in today's heat of the general knowledge tournament.
Today's winner will take another of the places in the semi-finals coming up in a month or so's time. The contenders today are:
Gill Powell, a music and legacy festival manager from Herefordshire
Phil Small, a contracts director from Reading
Laura Trowern, a teaching assistant from Southsea in Hampshire
Allie Wharf, a seaweed farmer from Warham in Norfolk.
There's also a chance for a Brain of Britain listener to win a prize by defeating the assembled Brains with quiz questions of his or her own.
Assistant Producer: Stephen Garner
Producer: Paul Bajoria
MON 15:30 The Food Programme (m000zcf3)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:32 on Sunday]
MON 16:00 The Imperilled Adventures of the Adventure Playground (m000zcf5)
“Better a broken bone than a broken spirit.” So runs the mantra for adventure playgrounds - as coined by the woman who did more than anyone to establish them in the UK, Lady Marjory Allen.
In these current days of ours, an increasing aversion to risk means these places designed for children to swing from ropes, jump from trees and generally run free are in trouble. Many of them have been either shut down or re-purposed - a trend only made worse by local authority funding cuts.
Josie Long thinks this is a terrible situation. Adventure playgrounds, she argues, have never played a more important role, with children ushered from bubble to bubble between home and school, after decades in which active and seemingly hazardous play has been undermined. But are adventure playgrounds much safer in their own way than the ‘toyland whimsy’ offered by conventional playground designs where children don’t learn to assess risk?
Josie talks to Michael Rosen about how much more creative the play offered by adventure playgrounds can be, encouraging independence and developing vital social and psychological skills alongside an amazing amount of fun. She spends two days among the children and play workers at the Baltic Street Adventure Playground in the East End of Glasgow, seeing first-hand the incredible and radical difference such a space can offer - not just to the individual children but also the community at large.
Produced by Geoff Bird
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4
MON 16:30 Beyond Belief (m000zcf7)
Ganesha
Series exploring the place and nature of faith in today's world. Producer: Helen Lee
MON 17:00 PM (m000zcf9)
Afternoon news and current affairs programme, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines.
MON 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m000zcfc)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
MON 18:30 Just a Minute (m000zcff)
Series 87
Episode 1
Sue Perkins hosts the return of Radio 4’s longest-running panel show, Just a Minute. In her first episode as chairperson, Sue challenges guests Paul Merton, Sheila Hancock, Daliso Chaponda and Jan Ravens to talk without hesitation, deviation, or repetition. This episode was produced using remote recording technology, with the audience joining from their homes all over the world.
Devised by Ian Messiter
Whistle blown by Caroline Barlow
Produced by Hayley Sterling
A BBC Studios Production
MON 19:00 The Archers (m000zcfj)
Susan comes to a terrible realisation, and Ben digs himself a hole.
MON 19:15 Front Row (m000zcfl)
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
MON 19:45 Prime Ministers' Props (b0bch41t)
Series 2
The Duke of Wellington's Boots
David Cannadine returns with five more programmes examining the careers of British prime ministers through their props of power. From the Duke of Wellington's boot to Mrs Thatcher's handbag, he explores political fame and image through the way in which an object or prop can come to define a political leader.
When the Duke of Wellington died, his horse carried a pair of his boots the reverse way around in the stirrups at the end of his funeral procession. The sight of these boots brought tears to the eyes of the thousands of mourners at his state funeral. The Duke became associated with his boots after he wrote to his boot maker from the Iberian Peninsula to request he made shorter boots without a tassel, which fitted under trousers, because the Duke tended to wear civilian dress while on campaign.
David Cannadine meets the present Duke of Wellington to explore how his ancestor's utilitarian boots quickly caught on with patriotic British gentlemen, eager to emulate their war hero. But Wellington's boots were turned against him during his premiership by his enemies, who characterised him as a military despot, complete with jackboots and spurs.
The Duke's eponymous footwear were revived again in the aftermath of the First World War, when Wellingtons reappeared in a new guise as our more familiar and much loved 'wellies' - no longer made of leather, but of rubber.
Readings by Ewan Bailey and Will Huggins
Series Producer: Melissa FitzGerald
Series Researcher: Martin Spychal
A Blakeway production for BBC Radio 4
MON 20:00 Power to Which People? (m000xv7q)
What does it take to run an effective local political campaign? Chinwe Kalu-Uma returns to the area where she was brought up, Edmonton in North London, to meet campaigners against plans to expand a local incinerator. These kind of facilities, however necessary, tend to create local opposition. So why is it that some communiities are better organised when it comes to in resisting development? Chinwe meets people involved in other campaigns against incinerators in Cambridgeshire as she sets out to find if there if a right way and a wrong way to exert power, and asks if the political process can become more user friendly.
Producer: Julie Ball
Studio Manager: Rod Farquhar
Production Coordinators: Iona Hammond and Siobhan Reed
MON 20:30 Crossing Continents (m000z6ww)
Moria - After the Fire
The fire that destroyed the sprawling Moria asylum seekers’ camp on the Greek island of Lesvos last September made headlines around the world. For the asylum seekers who lost their makeshift home and most of their possessions, it was a devastating setback. For Greece, still hosting thousands of migrants Europe won’t take in, the fire intensified a determination to move them on elsewhere What’s happened to some of Moria’s former residents since then? Working with Athens-based journalists Katy Fallon and Stavros Malichudis,, Maria Margaronis follows a few of them—all Afghans--as they negotiate the search for safety and stability some migrants call “the game.” After the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, tens of thousands of Afghans are trying to leave their country. These are the stories of some who had already made the journey.
Presented and produced by Maria Margaronis.
Special thanks to Lighthouse Reports for their support in gathering this material.
MON 21:00 China's Great Science Leap (m000z5hm)
Satellites and Space
President Xi Jinping is investing seriously into his strategic vision of turning China into a nation of scientific pacesetters. China’s past contributions to modern-science have been proportionally lacklustre, but with a reinvigorated focus over the past two decades, China is fast turning from imitator to innovator. What might this increasing scientific prowess mean for the future of China’s development as well for the international scientific community?
Whereas once many Chinese scientists chose to go abroad to further their careers, presenter Dr Kevin Fong hears how the government has sought to lure its brightest researchers back and what that means for both scientific collaborations and the culture of science in China and the UK. As scientific research relies on transparent information sharing, what are the challenges of collaborating with an authoritarian regime?
In this second episode Kevin explores China’s booming space programme and quantum advancements; from a newly built space station to the launch of the world's first quantum satellite.
Kevin speaks to Professor Jian-Wei Pan, a scientist whose illustrious career is a list of quantum firsts and hears how China is fast making inroads into quantum computing and communications. We imagine what a quantum future - with China at the forefront - might look like and whether this potentially game-changing technology will be developed in a collaborative or competitive spirit.
MON 21:30 How to Play (m000zcd7)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 today]
MON 22:00 The World Tonight (m000zcfn)
In-depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective
MON 22:45 The Fortnight in September, by RC Sherriff (m000zcdm)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:04 today]
MON 23:00 Lights Out (m000zcfq)
Series 4
Fallout
Documentary adventures that encourage you to take a closer listen.
The image of the atomic mushroom cloud is powerfully symbolic, yet the grainy black and white footage that we're familiar with can create a sense of something historical, abstract and almost cinematic.
The legacy of the UK's atmospheric nuclear weapons tests in Australia and the South Pacific is still, to some degree, shrouded in mystery. But for veterans and their offspring, as well as often forgotten islanders, these events are something very present that they carry with them everyday in an ongoing fight for acknowledgement.
This documentary brings together these interconnected, intergenerational testimonies and considers the possible physical, psychological and cultural fallout that has occurred in the years following Operation Grapple on Kiritimati (then Christmas Island) and the Minor Trials in Maralinga.
With contributions from Tekaobo Wainwright, John and Laura Morris, Steve Purse, Philomena Lawrence and Stacey and Rose Clarke.
Producer: Hannah Dean
Consultant: Becky Alexsis-Martin. and additional research from Susie Boniface
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4
(photo credit: Eric Meyer)
MON 23:30 Today in Parliament (m000zcft)
Today in Parliament
News, views and features on today's stories in Parliament
TUESDAY 07 SEPTEMBER 2021
TUE 00:00 Midnight News (m000zcfw)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.
TUE 00:30 The Daughters of Kobani, by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon (m000zcd9)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 on Monday]
TUE 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m000zcfy)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
TUE 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m000zcg0)
BBC Radio 4 presents a selection of news and current affairs, arts and science programmes from the BBC World Service.
TUE 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m000zcg2)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
TUE 05:30 News Briefing (m000zcg4)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4
TUE 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m000zcg6)
A reflection and prayer to start the day with Andrea Rea
TUE 05:45 Farming Today (m000zcg8)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
TUE 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b04svjxg)
Atlantic (Island) Canary
Tweet of the Day is the voice of birds and our relationship with them, from around the world.
Chris Packham presents the Atlantic canary singing in the Tenerife treetops. The ancestor of our cage-bird canaries is the Island or Atlantic Canary, a finch that is native to the Azores, Madeira and Canary Islands, which include Tenerife. The Canary Islands were named by early travellers "the islands of dogs from 'canis', the Latin for dogs, because of the many large dogs reputedly found there. And so the common and popular song-bird which is now a symbol of the islands became known as the canary. Unlike their domestic siblings, wild Island canaries are streaky, greenish yellow finches: males have golden- yellow foreheads, females a head of more subtle ash-grey tone. But it's the song, a pulsating series of vibrant whistles, trills and tinkling sounds; that has made the canary so popular. They were almost compulsory in Victorian and Edwardian parlours; a far cry from the sunny palm -fringed beaches of the Atlantic islands.
TUE 06:00 Today (m000zdpx)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
TUE 09:00 The Life Scientific (m000zdq1)
Hannah Fry on the power and perils of big data
‘I didn’t know I wanted to be a mathematician until I was one’ says Hannah Fry, now a Professor in the Mathematics of Cities at University College London. Her mother pushed her hard at school, coming down on her like a tonne of bricks when she got a C for effort in mathematics. Never mind that she was top of the class. By the time she’d finished a PhD in fluid dynamics, she had realised that she probably wasn’t going to hairdresser and pursued her other passion, Formula One. Sadly F1 wasn’t the dream job she’d imagined: all the interesting equations were wrapped up in computer simulations and no further maths was needed.
Keen to continue doing mathematics, she joined the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis at University College London just as people were starting to us data to understand human behaviour. (Yes. If you zoom out enough and use some mathematical tools, there are parallels between the airflows around racing cars and the way humans behave.) She has studied everything from the mathematics of love, to civil unrest, advising governments and Deep Mind, the artificial intelligence research lab owned by Google.
At a public lecture in Berlin in 2018, she learnt the hard way that it’s a mistake to detach data from its context. Never again will she forget to ask, what do these numbers represent? How else could my algorithms be used? Is this something we, as a society, want?
Data and algorithms help humans to solve problems. Big, difficult problems like climate change and Covid-19. Mathematics can help us to police a riot or find love. But the idea that maths and numbers are value-neutral is deeply flawed, Hannah says. The artificial intelligence we create is a reflection of who we are. It can discriminate horribly. But, applied wisely, it could help us to start to overcome our unconscious biases and prejudice.
We humans are not perfect. Neither is AI. If we scrutinise the algorithms that now make so many decisions for us and make sure that their priorities are our priorities, then perhaps we can get the best of both. In the Age of the Algorithm, humans have never been more important
Hannah Fry tells Jim Al-Khalili about her life as a mathematician and why her attitude to risk and statistics changed dramatically earlier this year.
Producer: Anna Buckley
TUE 09:30 One to One (m000zdq3)
Escapes: Anna Freeman talks to Brian Robson
In this episode of One to One, the writer Anna Freeman speaks to Brian Robson. In 1962, Brian was so desperate to return home to the UK from Australia, that he hatched a plan to mail himself home in a crate.
He became the first person in history to fly for nearly five days in a crate across the Pacific Ocean; an incredibly dangerous feat. Anna hears how behind this daring tale was a young man willing to risk his life, just to make it home.
Producer for BBC Audio in Bristol: Caitlin Hobbs
TUE 09:45 The Daughters of Kobani, by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon (m000zdrm)
Episode 2
In 2014, north eastern Syria might have been the last place you would expect to find a revolution centred on women's rights. But that year, an all-female militia faced off against ISIS in a little town few had ever heard of - Kobani.
By then, the Islamic State had swept across vast swathes of the country, taking town after town and spreading terror as the civil war burned all around it.
From that unlikely showdown in Kobani emerged a fighting force that would wage war against ISIS across northern Syria alongside the United States. In the process, these women would spread their own political vision, determined to make women's equality a reality by fighting - house by house, street by street, city by city - the men who bought and sold women.
Based on years of on-the-ground reporting, The Daughters of Kobani is the unforgettable story of the women of the Kurdish militia that improbably became part of the world's best hope for stopping ISIS in Syria. Drawing from hundreds of hours of interviews, author Gayle Tzemach Lemmon introduces us to the women fighting on the front lines, determined to not only extinguish the terror of ISIS but also prove that women could lead in war and must enjoy equal rights come the peace.
'An extraordinary account of brave, defiant women fighting for justice and equality' - Hillary Clinton
Read by Sarah Lambie
Abridged by Polly Coles
Produced by Clive Brill
A Brill production for BBC Radio 4
TUE 10:00 Woman's Hour (m000zdq7)
Screenwriter, director, producer and actor Michaela Coel.
In 2015, Michaela Coel’s Channel 4 series "Chewing Gum", adapted from a one-woman play she wrote while in drama school, about an awkward virgin became an instant hit. She's an established screenwriter, director, producer and actor and now well know for shows like " I May Destroy You," a story based on her own experience.. She talks to Emma Barnett about her first book ‘Misfits: A Personal Manifesto’ which is a call for honesty, empathy, inclusion and champions those who don’t fit in.
TUE 11:00 The Nuclear Priesthood (m000zdq9)
How do we send a warning a hundred millennia into the future?
Poet Paul Farley considers how we might warn people three thousand generations from now about the radioactive waste we’ve left in geological disposal facilities deep underground. As he does so he explores the essence of communication and storytelling and the elements of our language, art and culture which are truly universal.
In countries across the world, including the UK, USA, France and Finland, the hunt is on for underground sites which will survive shifting tectonic plates or passing ice ages and remain secure for tens of millennia - maybe a hundred thousand years - until the radioactive waste they contain is no longer a danger. And once it’s buried, how do we leave a clear, unambiguous warning message - that this site is dangerous and should not be disturbed - for a society which may be utterly different from our own?
Can we still use written language? Would pictures and symbols be more easily understood? Or could we construct a landscape of vast monuments to instil fear in anybody who saw them. Paul talks to writer Helen Gordon about her experience of visiting the Onkalo nuclear repository in Finland and the challenges of warning the future about what it contains.
He hears from Jean-Noël Dumont, Manager of the Memory for Future Generations programme for the French nuclear agency Andra. For several years Andra has asked artists to devise a warning of the existence of a nuclear repository. Stéfane Perraud and Aram Kebabdjian responded with the idea of a Zone Bleue – a forest of genetically-modified blue trees which act as a memorial rather than a warning.
In 1981 linguist Thomas Sebeok proposed the idea of a ‘nuclear priesthood’. The idea takes its inspiration from world faiths which have passed on their message for thousands of years. At an ancient Christian site in the shadow of Heysham nuclear power station Paul meets Robert Williams, Professor of Fine Art at the University of Cumbria who, with American artist Bryan McGovern Wilson, has brought to life the idea of a Nuclear Priest, imagining their vestments, their rituals and role.
There’s compelling evidence that oral traditions can carry memories of events not just for centuries but for thousands of years. Professor Patrick Nunn has been researching Indigenous Australian stories which appear to carry the folk memory of a time after the last ice age when sea levels were much lower – around ten thousand years.
So could a story, a poem or a song be the answer? As the programme unfolds, Paul devises a poem to carry a warning to distant generations.
Producer: Jeremy Grange
Programme image courtesy of Robert Williams and Bryan McGovern Wilson with Michael Coombs. It was taken during the Alchemical Tour of Archaeological Sites in Cumbria and North Lancashire, as part of the Cumbrian Alchemy Project.
TUE 11:30 Dante 2021 (m000r36h)
Inferno
Dante's 14th-century masterpiece reveals its 21st-century meanings to Katya Adler as she travels through the first region of the afterlife with Dr Margaret Keane.
Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy is commonly considered the greatest single work of all European literature, but this three-part epic poem isn't only for those with a taste for medieval Italy.
Seven hundred years after Dante's death in 1321, Katya Adler, the BBC's Europe Editor and lover of all things Italian, sets out to discover why the Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso are such key works for the 21st Century.
With Michael Sheen as Dante.
Three guides conduct Katya through their region of the afterlife - just as Virgil, and Dante’s great lost love Beatrice, do in the original - taking her to Hell and back again.
Each guide proposes seven reasons why Dante (a great lover of numerology as well as a great poet) is such a powerful contemporary read - adding up to 21 reasons in the 21st year of the 21st century.
Just as Dante himself starts his iconic journey "nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita / mi ritrovai per una selva oscura....", so Katya learns how, in the middle of the journey of our life, Dante might help us out of the current dark woods of Covid, the American election and post-Brexit polarisation, the environmental crisis and other troubles.... leading her to conclude that each of us contains a spark of Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso.
Specially commissioned music by Emily Levy, sung by Michael Solomon Williams, Jon Stainsby, Emily Levy.
Katya's guides are Dr Margaret Kean from St Hilda's College, Oxford; Professor Matthew Treherne from the Centre for Dante Studies, University of Leeds; Vittorio Montemaggi, senior lecturer in Religion and Art, Kings College London and Acting Director of the Von Hugel Institute in Cambridge.
Further contributions from Ken Hollings, Joseph Luzzi, Fatemeh Keshavarz, Alessio Baldini
Producer: Beaty Rubens
TUE 12:00 News Summary (m000zf66)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
TUE 12:04 The Fortnight in September, by RC Sherriff (m000zdqf)
Episode 2
‘The man on his holidays becomes the man he might have been, the man he could have been, had things worked out a little differently. All men are equal on their holidays’.
In his autobiography, RC Sherriff describes how he had the idea for The Fortnight in September during his own holiday in Bognor Regis, when he started to wonder about the lives of the ordinary people he saw coming and going there.
He found himself itching to write about an imaginary family – Mr and Mrs Stevens and their three children, one still at school and two on the verge of adulthood – leaving their house in Dulwich and travelling by train to stay in a boarding house by the sea for two weeks. Deceptive in its simplicity and brimming with poignant observation, Sherriff describes how the family while away the days with beach cricket and swimming in the sea, and the warm evenings strolling along the promenade and listening to the band playing on the bandstand. He explores the importance of a break from work and humdrum routines, giving people an opportunity to reconnect with family, some time to reflect and make resolutions, and perhaps a chance for some romance or an adventure.
Sherriff’s understated novel, published in 1931, celebrates an era when going abroad was still the privilege of the few, and returning to the simple pleasures and familiar rituals of an English seaside holiday was the much-anticipated yearly treat for the majority.
Written by RC Sherriff
Reader: Adrian Scarborough
Abridger: Sara Davies
Producer: Alexa Moore
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4
TUE 12:18 You and Yours (m000zdqh)
News and discussion of consumer affairs
TUE 12:57 Weather (m000zdqk)
The latest weather forecast
TUE 13:00 World at One (m000zdqm)
Forty-five minutes of news, analysis and comment, with Sarah Montague.
TUE 13:45 A History of the World in 100 Objects (b00txhf1)
Tolerance and Intolerance (AD 1550-1700)
Miniature of a Mughal Prince
This week Neil MacGregor's history of the world is looking at the co-existence of faiths - peaceful or otherwise - across the globe around 400 years ago. Today he is in one of the great Islamic empires of the 16th and 17th centuries - in Mughal India. He tells the story of the Mughal rulers and their relationship with Hindu India through a miniature painting (dated around 1610) that shows an encounter between a noble man and a holy man. Neil describes an early mood of religious tolerance and the development of this exquisite art form. Asok Kumar Das discusses the function of miniature painting in India and the historian Aman Nath reflects on encounters between holy men and men of political power throughout Indian history.
Producer: Anthony Denselow
TUE 14:00 The Archers (m000zcfj)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Monday]
TUE 14:15 Brief Lives (m0008wp7)
Series 11
Episode 3
Brief Lives by Michael Livesey
Frank and Sarah are holidaying in the Yorkshire Dales when they encounter a tragedy.
FRANK....... David Schofield
SARAH...... Kathryn Hunt
ANN/ KATH/ MAGGIE..... Emma Gr
DS NICHOLLS....... Jason Done
JANICE...... Kate Coogan
KARL.......... Martin Wenner
Producer/Director Gary Brown
TUE 15:00 Short Cuts (m000zdqq)
Repetition
Short documentaries about repetition with Josie Long. A writer stumbles across another version of himself online, delving into the world of positive affirmation and a tender exchange over breakfast.
Curatorial team: Alia Cassam and Andrea Rangecroft
Series Producer: Eleanor McDowall
Executive Producer: Axel Kacoutié
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4
TUE 15:30 Costing the Earth (m000zdqs)
Canoeing the Cam
Britain's rivers are in crisis, with only 14% of them deemed to be in a good ecological state. Chalk streams are particularly vulnerable, as so much is taken out of them for use in our water supplies. Pollution from sewage and agricultural run-off only add to the problem. In this programme Tom Heap takes a canoe trip along a waterway he knows well, the River Cam, to see for himself what's going on. He talks to environmental groups and local people, and asks whether the rapid expansion of homes and businesses in the area can sustainably continue in such a water-stressed area. He concludes that urgent action is needed if rivers like the Cam are not to run dry.
Producer: Emma Campbell
TUE 16:00 Song of the Thames (m000z6wy)
Singer and song collector Sam Lee traces a map in stories, folklore and song along England’s longest and most famous river, the Thames.
Beginning at its underground source in the idyllic Gloucestershire countryside, Sam follows the Thames from a trickling stream to a majestic river carrying a myriad of human and animal lives. He witnesses its changes of mood and meaning as it squeezes through its busy, embanked, central London stretch searching for the soul of the river - the deep stories of its waters and banks.
Through folklore, music, ecology and lives lived along 215 miles of water, Sam uncovers the past, present and future influence of the river’s deep cultural roots. Who is fed and who is starved by the Thames now and what does it mean to the people who come under its influence?
With storyteller, Druid and mead maker Chris Park at Thames Head, via author and land rights activist Nick Park on his houseboat in Oxfordshire, Debbie Leach of Thames 21 working to help communities reconnect with and clean up the river in London, retired Thames lighterman Dave Jessop and Sourav Niyogi who explains the river’s significance to many in London’s Hindu community, Sam explores a flow of ideas running from source to sea.
Finally, with author Rachel Lichtenstein, he stands on Two Tree Island on the Essex shore of the Thames estuary and gazes out across the Thames’s final incarnation, as a 5 mile wide delta mouth.
We are a world away from the pure waters of the river's beginnings as Sam considers the ambiguous future of the Thames, its communities and the attention owed to it by the people who live along its banks.
Presenter: Sam Lee
Producer: Michael Umney
Executive Producer: Katherine Godfrey
A Novel production for BBC Radio 4
TUE 16:30 Great Lives (m000zdqv)
Peggy Seeger on her husband Ewan MacColl
Ewan MacColl sang "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face" to Peggy Seeger down the phone. When they met, Peggy says, he was in the grip of his midlife crisis. "I'm fond of saying the poor boy didn't stand a chance," she tells Matthew Parris. This programme is her attempt to set the record straight. "I'd like to do a bit of justice to him, because there's an awful lot of myths, an awful lot of bad talk, misunderstandings."
Ewan MacColl was born Jimmy Miller in Salford, which he wrote about in 1949 in his song, "Dirty Old Town." He made his name in theatre, was married to Joan Littlewood, and after the Second World War he was a powerful force behind the folk revival. He also with Peggy Seeger and Charles Parker created the famous Radio Ballads. Peggy is joined in discussion by Peter Cox, author of Set Into Song. The programme is heavily illustrated with MacColl's music and his voice.
The producer for BBC audio in Bristol is Miles Warde
TUE 17:00 PM (m000zdqx)
Afternoon news and current affairs programme, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines.
TUE 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m000zdr1)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
TUE 18:30 The Birthday Cake Game (m000zdr3)
Series 1
Episode 2
A brand new comedic quiz hosted by Richard Osman that poses one simple question - do you know how old people are? Part quiz show, part panel show, and sometimes part chat show - The Birthday Cake Game is always play-along and full of entertaining guesses, with some surprising take home facts.
The trio joining Richard this week, battling to prove they're the best at working out ages and to take home the coveted birthday cake, are Nadia Shireen, Simon Evans and Ingrid Oliver. Tune in to find out who comes out on top and see if you can beat the players and score higher at home.
Production Manager: Ellie Threlfall
Production Executive: Gemma Whitford
Producer: Tamara Gilder
A Remarkable production for BBC Radio 4
TUE 19:00 The Archers (m000zdr5)
Neil attempts to do the right thing, and Joy finds herself manipulated.
TUE 19:15 Front Row (m000zdr7)
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
TUE 19:45 Prime Ministers' Props (b0bd8hqx)
Series 2
Benjamin Disraeli's Novels
David Cannadine examines the careers of British prime ministers through their props of power.
In producing his 17 novels, Benjamin Disraeli was unusual among British prime ministers in that he created his own props. Indeed, his duel public persona as author and politician brought him public acclaim and prominence and transformed him into one of the first ever media celebrities. But this turned out to be a very high-risk strategy. Disraeli's novels prompted a great deal of distrust among both his political opponents and those within the Conservative party, and they were used to portray him as an opportunist who was not to be trusted.
David Cannadine visits Hughenden Manor in Buckinghamshire, Disraeli's former home and the place where he wrote his most famous novels, to explore how this prime minister merged fact and fiction in his life and in his work.
Readings by Ewan Bailey and Will Huggins
Series Producer: Melissa FitzGerald
Series Researcher: Martin Spychal
A Blakeway production for BBC Radio 4
TUE 20:00 File on 4 (m000zdr9)
Tackling Online Abuse in Football
When three black England footballers missed penalties in the Euro 2020 football final, they were bombarded with online racist abuse. The Football Association condemned the ‘offensive and racist’ messages saying it was ‘appalled’ and would do everything it could to assist Marcus Rashford, Jadon Sancho and Bukayo Saka. File on 4 examines what many describe as institutional racism within the game and amongst supporters and asks what, if anything, is being done to stop it from happening? With access to new analysis charting the peaks and flows of online abuse, the programme explores who is really behind some of the most egregious comments.
Arrests have been made in the wake of the Euro 2020 game, but what long-term measures are in place to eradicate this poisonous behaviour, which has spread from the terraces to online platforms with little in place to stop it.
Reporter: Athar Ahmad
Producer: Mick Tucker
Editor: Carl Johnston
TUE 20:40 In Touch (m000zdrc)
News, views and information for people who are blind or partially sighted
TUE 21:00 Three Pounds in My Pocket (m000c2h4)
Series 3
Episode 1
For the past five years, Kavita Puri has been charting the social history of British South Asians in post-war Britain. Many came with as little as three pounds due to strict currency controls. By the 1980s, the ‘three pound generation’ had been here for decades – they were not going back. And their children – many born here – were coming of age. This series begins with the aftermath of race riots in 1981.
The 1980s saw a cultural flourishing take place for the South Asian community in Britain, but later in the decade there would be a backlash. And in 1984, events on the Indian subcontinent would prove to be of monumental significance for British Sikhs. The Indian Army’s storming of the Golden Temple in Amritsar, the holiest shrine of Sikhism, created anger and disbelief among British Sikhs – and led them to question their relationship both with India and the UK.
Producer: Ant Adeane
Editor: Hugh Levinson
Historical consultants:
Dr Florian Stadtler, University of Exeter
Dr Edward Anderson, University of Cambridge
TUE 21:30 The Life Scientific (m000zdq1)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 today]
TUE 22:00 The World Tonight (m000zdrf)
In-depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective
TUE 22:45 The Fortnight in September, by RC Sherriff (m000zdqf)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:04 today]
TUE 23:00 Fortunately... with Fi and Jane (m000v2tb)
201. Submersible Eyebrows and Nipple Descriptions, with Robert Peston
Fortunately is back after a summer break. On today's podcast, Fi Glover and Jane Garvey chat to ITV Political Editor Robert Peston. Robert gives the lowdown on his new novel The Whistleblower, a thriller set in the world of media and politics in the late 1990s. He also chats to Fi and Jane about spotting sociopaths, wearing Miami Vice suits and lessons from his great uncle. Before Robert says hello we have reflections on submarine drama Vigil, Fi is angry and Jane has fallen in love again.
Get in touch: fortunately.podcast@bbc.co.uk
TUE 23:30 Today in Parliament (m000zdrh)
Today in Parliament
News, views and features on today's stories in Parliament
WEDNESDAY 08 SEPTEMBER 2021
WED 00:00 Midnight News (m000zdrk)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.
WED 00:30 The Daughters of Kobani, by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon (m000zdrm)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 on Tuesday]
WED 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m000zdrp)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
WED 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m000zdrr)
BBC Radio 4 presents a selection of news and current affairs, arts and science programmes from the BBC World Service.
WED 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m000zdrt)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
WED 05:30 News Briefing (m000zdrw)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4
WED 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m000zdry)
A reflection and prayer to start the day with Andrea Rea
WED 05:45 Farming Today (m000zds0)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
WED 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b04t0p28)
Brown Skua
Tweet of the Day is the voice of birds and our relationship with them, from around the world.
Liz Bonnin presents brown skua, hunting over an Antarctic landscape. These bulky brown birds with their hooked death dealing bills are often cast as villains alongside the apparently helpless and lovable penguins. But skuas are highly efficient predators, their skills honed to find the maximum food they can in a largely barren landscape. They're resourceful pirates, forcing other birds to drop or disgorge their catches. They also scavenge around fishing boats or loiter at seal colonies where carcases are easy meat. But a penguin rookery that may have hundreds of pairs of birds provides a real bounty, where waiting for an opportunity, the keen-eyed skua swoops to seize its next victim which if it is small enough, will even swallow it whole.
WED 06:00 Today (m000zdt9)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
WED 09:00 More or Less (m000zdtc)
Tim Harford explains the numbers and statistics used in everyday life.
WED 09:30 Four Thought (m000zdtf)
Mum... again
Angela Frazer-Wicks tells her extraordinary story of being a mother.
Years ago, Angela's sons were taken into care and adopted, and in this powerful talk she describes her heartbreak as they gradually lost contact and she lost faith in the future. But as she explains, with support from some very unexpected places, Angela is now in a position to help other women and families going through similar experiences.
Producer: Giles Edwards
WED 09:45 The Daughters of Kobani, by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon (m000zdth)
Episode 3
In 2014, north eastern Syria might have been the last place you would expect to find a revolution centred on women's rights. But that year, an all-female militia faced off against ISIS in a little town few had ever heard of - Kobani.
By then, the Islamic State had swept across vast swathes of the country, taking town after town and spreading terror as the civil war burned all around it.
From that unlikely showdown in Kobani emerged a fighting force that would wage war against ISIS across northern Syria alongside the United States. In the process, these women would spread their own political vision, determined to make women's equality a reality by fighting - house by house, street by street, city by city - the men who bought and sold women.
Based on years of on-the-ground reporting, The Daughters of Kobani is the unforgettable story of the women of the Kurdish militia that improbably became part of the world's best hope for stopping ISIS in Syria. Drawing from hundreds of hours of interviews, author Gayle Tzemach Lemmon introduces us to the women fighting on the front lines, determined to not only extinguish the terror of ISIS but also prove that women could lead in war and must enjoy equal rights come the peace.
'An extraordinary account of brave, defiant women fighting for justice and equality' - Hillary Clinton
Read by Sarah Lambie
Abridged by Polly Coles
Produced by Clive Brill
A Brill production for BBC Radio 4
WED 10:00 Woman's Hour (m000zdtk)
Women's voices and women's lives - topical conversations to inform, challenge and inspire.
WED 11:00 Power to Which People? (m000xv7q)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 on Monday]
WED 11:30 The Pin (b08zdffq)
Series 3
Ep 4: Christmas
"The most exciting new comedy duo working today" - David Walliams
Their hugely successful second series won critical acclaim and a slew of awards. Now double-act The Pin are back with more of their trademark offbeat nonsense.
In this episode, Alex and Ben are putting out a Christmas special - in the height of summer, to avoid competition....
"One of the smartest, punchiest new comedy duos to have appeared in a while...had me laughing out loud on my own in an empty room" The Guardian
"Exquisitely silly and very funny...makes you feel as though you might be hearing the next Mitchell and Webb" The Times
"Genuine moments of hilarity and a real breath of comedic fresh air" RadioTimes
Written and performed by Ben Ashenden and Alex Owen.
Featuring Mark Benton, Margaret Cabourn-Smith and Liam Williams.
Produced by Sam Bryant.
A BBC Studios Production.
WED 12:00 News Summary (m000zdtm)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
WED 12:04 The Fortnight in September, by RC Sherriff (m000zdtp)
Episode 3
‘The man on his holidays becomes the man he might have been, the man he could have been, had things worked out a little differently. All men are equal on their holidays’.
In his autobiography, RC Sherriff describes how he had the idea for The Fortnight in September during his own holiday in Bognor Regis, when he started to wonder about the lives of the ordinary people he saw coming and going there.
He found himself itching to write about an imaginary family – Mr and Mrs Stevens and their three children, one still at school and two on the verge of adulthood – leaving their house in Dulwich and travelling by train to stay in a boarding house by the sea for two weeks. Deceptive in its simplicity and brimming with poignant observation, Sherriff describes how the family while away the days with beach cricket and swimming in the sea, and the warm evenings strolling along the promenade and listening to the band playing on the bandstand. He explores the importance of a break from work and humdrum routines, giving people an opportunity to reconnect with family, some time to reflect and make resolutions, and perhaps a chance for some romance or an adventure.
Sherriff’s understated novel, published in 1931, celebrates an era when going abroad was still the privilege of the few, and returning to the simple pleasures and familiar rituals of an English seaside holiday was the much-anticipated yearly treat for the majority.
Written by RC Sherriff
Reader: Adrian Scarborough
Abridger: Sara Davies
Producer: Alexa Moore
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4
WED 12:18 You and Yours (m000zdtr)
News and discussion of consumer affairs
WED 12:57 Weather (m000zdtt)
The latest weather forecast
WED 13:00 World at One (m000zdtw)
Forty-five minutes of news, analysis and comment, with Sarah Montague.
WED 13:45 A History of the World in 100 Objects (b00tyr5v)
Tolerance and Intolerance (AD 1550-1700)
Shadow Puppet of Bima
The history of humanity - as told through one hundred objects from the British Museum in London - is in South East Asia. This week Neil MacGregor, the museum's director, is with the objects from across the world around 400 years ago that explore the relationships between religion and society. Today he is with a shadow puppet from the Indonesian island of Java, asking how a puppet watched by a predominantly Muslim audience is a character from a Hindi epic. He describes the history of the theatre of shadows and explores how it reveals the religious traditions that have shaped Indonesian life. He talks to a puppet master from Java. And the Malaysian novelist Tash Aw discusses the influence of shadow theatre on the region today.
Producer: Anthony Denselow
WED 14:00 The Archers (m000zdr5)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Tuesday]
WED 14:15 Drama (m000846d)
Great North Run
Will promised to do the Great North Run with Em. But when that's not an option, Beyonce, The Black Eyed Peas, The Pharcyde, Moby, the Dixie Chicks, Laura Branigan, Bruce Springsteen, Kate Bush and Florence (and the Machine) become his running mates. A funny sad play by Tom Wells with an incredible playlist.
Cast
Will ..... Andrew Finnigan
Em ..... Amy Cameron
Sean ..... Joseph Ayre
Janet ..... Susan Jameson
Becky ..... Helen Clapp
The Night ..... Michael Bertenshaw
Writer ..... Tom Wells
Director ..... Jessica Dromgoole
WED 15:00 Money Box (m000zdtz)
Student Money
As students across the UK set off for university, we’re taking a look at the big student money dilemmas. E-mail moneybox@bbc.co.uk with your experiences, ideas and questions now.
From student loans to bank accounts, scholarships and finding a job. Felicity Hannah and guests will be ready with help and advice about paying your way through university.
Joining Felicity are:
Tom Allingham, Save The Student.
Pamela Lockhart, Student Money Adviser, Dundee University.
Rachel Springall, Moneyfacts Comparison Site.
We’d love to hear from you too, e-mail moneybox@bbc.co.uk with your experiences and questions and please include a phone number if you’d like to join the conversation on Wednesday 8 September at
3pm.
Presenter: Felicity Hannah
Producer: Diane Richardson
Editor: Emma Rippon
WED 15:30 Prison Break (m000vz86)
Episode 4: How did it come to this?
Former 'prison wife' Josie Bevan confronts the failings of the prison system.
Josie traces the evolution of what we've inherited as the UK penal system, our definitions of crime, harm, punishment, justice - and the history of 'reform'. She talks with Sir Robert Neill MP, the Chair of the Parliamentary Select Committee on Justice, Frances Crook of the Howard League for Penal Reform, Chris Daw QC, author of Justice on Trial, and Dr Adam Elliott-Cooper, a sociologist and Black Lives Matter activist.
Josie's previous podcast series Prison Bag - one family's unflinching confrontation with the prison system - is available on BBC Sounds.
Produced by Rebecca Lloyd-Evans and Alan Hall
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4
WED 16:00 Thinking Allowed (m000zdv1)
Laurie Taylor explores the latest research into how society works.
WED 16:30 The Media Show (m000zdv3)
Social media, anti-social media, breaking news, faking news: this is the programme about a revolution in media.
WED 17:00 PM (m000zdv5)
Afternoon news and current affairs programme, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines.
WED 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m000zdv7)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
WED 18:30 My Teenage Diary (m000zdv9)
Series 10
Joe Thomas
Rufus Hound's guest is Inbetweeners star Joe Thomas. Joe was a keen cub scout who loved rules and sometimes got his mum to write his diary for him.
A Talkback production for BBC Radio 4
WED 19:00 The Archers (m000zcbk)
Chris has a dilemma on his hands, and Ben comes clean.
WED 19:15 Front Row (m000zdvc)
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
WED 19:45 Prime Ministers' Props (b0bf630w)
Series 2
William Gladstone's Axe
David Cannadine examines the careers of British prime ministers through their props of power.
Standing in a fireplace in his Temple of Peace at Hawarden Castle in Wales, is a selection of axes used by William Gladstone to chop down trees. David meets Charlie Gladstone, the current resident at Hawarden, to examine these axes and discuss the attraction of tree-felling for his ancestor, William. It was a vigorous physical activity that took his mind off everything else, especially public affairs.
Gladstone's axe was a prime minister's prop that also became a powerful political metaphor. Gladstone was often depicted by his supporters as swinging his axe to eliminate wrongdoing and error, literally root and branch. And the image of him retreating to Hawarden, working away with his axe, appealed to working people who, as one historian has commented, "found a great statesman and popular leader in the plain clothes of a labourer".
To his critics however, Gladstone's axe was an apt metaphor for his increasingly radical politics, which seemed to them to be violent and destructive. For Tory opponents, and for Queen Victoria, the contrast with William Gladstone's great political rival Benjamin Disraeli was striking. For while Gladstone chopped down trees on his country estate at Hawarden, Disraeli planted them at Hughenden Manor, his rural retreat in Buckinghamshire.
Readings by Ewan Bailey and Will Huggins
Series Producer: Melissa FitzGerald
Series Researcher: Martin Spychal
A Blakeway production for BBC Radio 4
WED 20:00 9/11: The Arc of History (m000zdvf)
It was Barack Obama, borrowing a phrase from Martin Luther King, who talked often about an “arc of history” that could be “bent towards the hope of a better day”. And he illuminated what he meant when he described the United States being “on the right side of history”. Behind that rhetoric lies the idea that history is driven by values; that it is not just economic and military power that makes some nations winners in history’s game but what they believe in and stand for. After recent events in Afghanistan - 20 years after 9/11 - that arc looks bent brutally out of shape. That’s the framework for this discussion chaired by Edward Stourton with contributions from: the historian Margaret Macmillan; Mark Malloch-Brown, formerly of the UN; Richard Haas, president of America’s Council of Foreign Relations; and David Richards, who commanded NATO forces in Afghanistan.
Producer Smita Patel
Editor Carl Johnston
WED 20:45 Four Thought (m000zdtf)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:30 today]
WED 21:00 Costing the Earth (m000zdqs)
[Repeat of broadcast at
15:30 on Tuesday]
WED 21:30 The Media Show (m000zdv3)
[Repeat of broadcast at
16:30 today]
WED 22:00 The World Tonight (m000zdvh)
In-depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective
WED 22:45 The Fortnight in September, by RC Sherriff (m000zdtp)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:04 today]
WED 23:00 Helen Lewis: Great Wives (m000zdvk)
Series 1
Thanks for Typing
For two decades, Great Lives on Radio 4 has explored what it takes to change the world. But Helen Lewis wants to ask a different question: what does it take to live with someone who changes the world?
Behind the history of genius lies a second, hidden history: the stories of people who give geniuses the time they need to flourish. This series explores the many "supporting roles" needed to sustain an apparently "singular" genius.
In this episode, Helen turns her attention to those less well-known other halves who have taken on not just the role of Great Wife but also that of typist. We meet Sonya Tolstaya, Vera Nabokov and hear what happened when the English professor Bruce Holsinger researched the phrase "my wife typed".
Written by Helen Lewis with additional voices from Joshua Higgott
Producer: Richard Morris
Production Coordinator: Sarah Nicholls
Sound Design: Chris Maclean
A BBC Studios Production
WED 23:15 Rhys James (b09m10bz)
Series 1
Rhys James Is... Privileged
Comedian Rhys James explores different aspects of himself through live stand up, spoken word poetry and interview clips. In this first episode, he examines his privileged status and chats to his mum and dad.
Written and performed by... Rhys James
Rhys's mum and dad... Rhys's mum and dad
Music by... Steve Dunne
Sound by... David Thomas
Produced by... Carl Cooper
A BBC Studios production
WED 23:30 Today in Parliament (m000zdvm)
Today in Parliament
News, views and features on today's stories in Parliament
THURSDAY 09 SEPTEMBER 2021
THU 00:00 Midnight News (m000zdvp)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.
THU 00:30 The Daughters of Kobani, by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon (m000zdth)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 on Wednesday]
THU 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m000zdvr)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
THU 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m000zdvt)
BBC Radio 4 presents a selection of news and current affairs, arts and science programmes from the BBC World Service.
THU 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m000zdvw)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
THU 05:30 News Briefing (m000zdvy)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4
THU 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m000zdw0)
A reflection and prayer to start the day with Andrea Rea
THU 05:45 Farming Today (m000zdw2)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
THU 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b04sy3qh)
Brown Thrasher
Tweet of the Day is the voice of birds and our relationship with them, from around the world.
Chris Packham presents the brown thrasher, usually seen in North America. Brown thrashers are related to mockingbirds that breed across most of eastern and central North America. They're famous for their vast repertoire which can include over 1000 song types. They spend much of their time skulking in dense shrubs at woodland edges and in parks and gardens. They're russet on top, white below and heavily streaked like a large thrush but with much longer tails and stout curved bills. Their name comes from the noisy thrashing sound they make as they search the leaf litter for food. Normally, brown thrashers are short distance migrants within North America but in 1966, in November of that year, in Dorset, birdwatchers almost dropped their binoculars in disbelief when they heard the call of a brown thrasher coming from a coastal thicket. It remained here until February 1967 and is the only British record.
THU 06:00 Today (m000zc9q)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
THU 09:00 Citizens of Somewhere (m000zc9s)
Perth
John Harris present the last of his series about the lives of people in four places in the UK with strong identities. This week he and producer Leala Padmanabhan are in Perth in central Scotland. How do its citizens feel about their lives in 2021 and how do they see the future?
THU 09:30 Questions Answered (m000vz8q)
Rowena
Chris Mason and Anita Anand discover more about the lives of some of the listeners to Any Questions and Any Answers. Today, Chris takes a trip to east London where he meets Rowena who called into Any Questions earlier this year.
THU 09:45 The Daughters of Kobani, by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon (m000zc9w)
Episode 4
In 2014, north eastern Syria might have been the last place you would expect to find a revolution centred on women's rights. But that year, an all-female militia faced off against ISIS in a little town few had ever heard of - Kobani.
By then, the Islamic State had swept across vast swathes of the country, taking town after town and spreading terror as the civil war burned all around it.
From that unlikely showdown in Kobani emerged a fighting force that would wage war against ISIS across northern Syria alongside the United States. In the process, these women would spread their own political vision, determined to make women's equality a reality by fighting - house by house, street by street, city by city - the men who bought and sold women.
Based on years of on-the-ground reporting, The Daughters of Kobani is the unforgettable story of the women of the Kurdish militia that improbably became part of the world's best hope for stopping ISIS in Syria. Drawing from hundreds of hours of interviews, author Gayle Tzemach Lemmon introduces us to the women fighting on the front lines, determined to not only extinguish the terror of ISIS but also prove that women could lead in war and must enjoy equal rights come the peace.
'An extraordinary account of brave, defiant women fighting for justice and equality' - Hillary Clinton
Read by Sarah Lambie
Abridged by Polly Coles
Produced by Clive Brill
A Brill production for BBC Radio 4
THU 10:00 Woman's Hour (m000zc9z)
Women's voices and women's lives - topical conversations to inform, challenge and inspire.
THU 11:00 Crossing Continents (m000zcb1)
The Mystery of Havana Syndrome
Gordon Corera investigates the mysterious illness that has struck American diplomats and spies. It began after some reported hearing strange sounds in Havana 2016, but reports have since spread around the world. Doctors, scientists, intelligence agents and government officials have all been trying to find out what exactly causes these sounds and the lingering health effects. Some call it an act of war, others wonder if it is some new and secret form of surveillance while others believe it could even be in the mind. So who or what is responsible?
Producer, Emma Wells.
Editor, Bridget Harney.
THU 11:30 Safe Space (m000zcb3)
The term ‘safe space’ has migrated from university campus politics into the arts - in all aspects of performance, in arts education and practice, from theatre, public galleries and museums to spoken word and dance. It has become a fundamental idea to community and identity-based art collectives and groups.
Defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as ‘…an environment in which people, especially those belonging to a marginalised group, can feel confident that they will not be exposed to discrimination, criticism, harassment or emotional harm…’, safe spaces are not just physical art spaces like galleries and rehearsal rooms. They are metaphorical, therapeutic: spaces free from judgemental speech and unwelcome criticism where identity, at both an individual and group level, is affirmed, nurtured and supported.
The term 'safe space' has its roots in psychotherapy and connects with the idea of art as therapy. But it also joins up with anxiety around identity politics. For many young artists from diverse backgrounds, safe spaces are vital in a hostile world, offering protection from prejudice against women and people of colour, against the LGBTQ and trans communities, from Islamophobia. The term has become a key idea in arts education too, now embraced by institutions and students alike.
But should the arts really be a ‘safe space’? Isn’t the purpose of art to challenge, interrogate identity and our ideas of who we are? The struggle is between protecting artistic self-expression in a controlled environment, encouraging previously excluded voices on the one hand - and then, on the other, the easy slide into a silencing of troubling ideas, excluding ideas or projects that might make people feel vulnerable, offended or uncomfortable but that have artistic worth nonetheless.
Critics of the safe space movement are arguing that art is valuable because it must be, in the best sense, an ‘unsafe’ space. Whereas art once produced manifestos and disrupted safe spaces, it now creates them, looking inward rather than engaging outward.
Hearing from artists across a range of backgrounds and disciplines, as well as critics, students and philosophers, this programme explores the history and politics of ‘safe space’ and its growing hold on the arts today.
Produced by Simon Hollis
A Brook Lapping production for BBC Radio 4
THU 12:00 News Summary (m000zcb5)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
THU 12:04 The Fortnight in September, by RC Sherriff (m000zcb7)
Episode 4
‘The man on his holidays becomes the man he might have been, the man he could have been, had things worked out a little differently. All men are equal on their holidays’.
In his autobiography, RC Sherriff describes how he had the idea for The Fortnight in September during his own holiday in Bognor Regis, when he started to wonder about the lives of the ordinary people he saw coming and going there.
He found himself itching to write about an imaginary family – Mr and Mrs Stevens and their three children, one still at school and two on the verge of adulthood – leaving their house in Dulwich and travelling by train to stay in a boarding house by the sea for two weeks. Deceptive in its simplicity and brimming with poignant observation, Sherriff describes how the family while away the days with beach cricket and swimming in the sea, and the warm evenings strolling along the promenade and listening to the band playing on the bandstand. He explores the importance of a break from work and humdrum routines, giving people an opportunity to reconnect with family, some time to reflect and make resolutions, and perhaps a chance for some romance or an adventure.
Sherriff’s understated novel, published in 1931, celebrates an era when going abroad was still the privilege of the few, and returning to the simple pleasures and familiar rituals of an English seaside holiday was the much-anticipated yearly treat for the majority.
Written by RC Sherriff
Reader: Adrian Scarborough
Abridger: Sara Davies
Producer: Alexa Moore
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4
THU 12:18 You and Yours (m000zcbb)
News and discussion of consumer affairs
THU 12:57 Weather (m000zcbd)
The latest weather forecast
THU 13:00 World at One (m000zcbg)
Forty-five minutes of news, analysis and comment, with Sarah Montague.
THU 13:45 A History of the World in 100 Objects (b00tz2d7)
Tolerance and Intolerance (AD 1550-1700)
Mexican Codex Map
The history of humanity as told through one hundred objects from the British Museum in London. This week Neil MacGregor is looking at the co-existence of faiths - peaceful or otherwise - across the globe around 400 years ago. Today he is with a document that shows what happened after Catholic Spain's conquest of Mexico - it's an old map, or codex, that was made at the height of the Spanish church building boom in Mexico. Neil uses the object to consider the nature of the Spanish conquest and to explore what happened when Catholic beliefs were assimilated alongside older pagan beliefs. The historian Samuel Edgerton offers an interpretation of the map that shows churches alongside older temples, and the Mexican born historian Fernando Cervantes considers the ongoing legacy of the great Christian conversion.
Producer: Anthony Denselow
THU 14:00 The Archers (m000zcbk)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Wednesday]
THU 14:15 Drama (m0004skv)
Off Grid
By Ben Lewis.
Quirky and dark psychological drama about a young woman who joins a zero-impact community in the remote Scottish Highlands where things become increasingly uncanny.
Credits:
Kirsten ….. Shauna Macdonald
Moira ….. Anita Vettesse
Ava ….. Tori Burgess
Oak ….. Benny Young
Sound Designer: Danny Krass
Director: Kirsty Williams
THU 15:00 Ramblings (m000zcbm)
White Stags and Kidney Donation in Fife
Clare is in Fife hiking with John Fletcher who, in 2009, was the first man in Scotland to donate a kidney to a stranger. In another pioneering first, he launched Britain's first commercial deer farm back in 1973.
Their route begins on John's farm in Auchtermuchty, surrounded by rare white stags. Walking brings John great joy and he - along with a fellow kidney donor, and a renal nurse – takes Clare on one of his favourite rambles.
See the 'related links' section at the bottom of the Ramblings webpage for a list of organisations, including the NHS blood and transplant website.
Presenter: Clare Balding
Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Karen Gregor
THU 15:27 Radio 4 Appeal (m000zcbp)
[Repeat of broadcast at
07:54 on Sunday]
THU 15:30 Bookclub (m000zcbr)
[Repeat of broadcast at
16:00 on Sunday]
THU 16:00 The Film Programme (m000zcbt)
Film programme looking at the latest cinema releases, DVDs and films on TV.
THU 16:30 BBC Inside Science (m000zcbw)
A weekly programme that illuminates the mysteries and challenges the controversies behind the science that's changing our world.
THU 17:00 PM (m000zcby)
Afternoon news and current affairs programme, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines.
THU 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m000zcc0)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
THU 18:30 Dr Phil's Bedside Manner (m000zcc2)
Series 1
Dr Phil Hammond visits the Royal United Hospital in Bath
An innovative mix of comedy performance and documentary in a new series presented by Dr Phil Hammond.
As a doctor and a comedian, Phil knows that humour and laughter are vital coping mechanisms in the NHS, as he travels the UK on a mission to listen to the beating heart of a national institution.
The programmes are an adventurous, hilarious, thought provoking mix of humour and happiness, tragedy and reflection as the personal thoughts, opinions, experiences and hopes of people who work for and use the NHS are revealed.
In each programme, Phil visits one NHS hospital somewhere in the UK and speaks to porters and patients, cleaners and cardiologists, visitors and volunteers, the managers and the medics.
And at each location Dr Phil performs a free stand-up comedy show for the staff, based on his listening experiences at that location and the stories of the people he has met.
A Ride production for BBC Radio 4
THU 19:00 The Archers (m000zcc4)
Writer, Liz John
Director, Rosemary Watts
Editor, Jeremy Howe
Brian Aldridge ….. Charles Collingwood
Jennifer Aldridge ….. Angela Piper
Ben Archer ….. Ben Norris
Chris Carter ….. Wilf Scolding
Neil Carter … Brian Hewlett
Susan Carter… Charlotte Martin
Beth Casey … Rebecca Fuller
Amy Franks ….. Jennifer Daley
Eddie Grundy ….. Trevor Harrison
Shula Hebden Lloyd ….. Judy Bennett
Joy Horville ….. Jackie Lye
Oliver Sterling … Michael Cochrane
THU 19:15 Front Row (m000zcc6)
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
THU 19:45 Prime Ministers' Props (b0bfyv44)
Series 2
Winston Churchill's Cigar
David Cannadine examines the careers of British prime ministers through their props of power.
It was during the Second World War that Winston Churchill adopted the cigar as his most indispensable prime ministerial prop and he rarely appeared in public without it. Clenched tightly between his jaws, his cigar signified defiance and determination, resolve and resolution.
Glowing brightly and accompanied by expansive gestures, it radiated confidence and hope. But the fact that Churchill liked cigars was a sign for Hitler that he was a weak man and a poor leader, and Nazi propaganda depicted Churchill and his cigar as decadent and self-indulgent.
David visits Chartwell, Churchill's Kent country home, to view his famous cigar cabinet, which now houses paints in his studio. He discusses the way in which Churchill's cigar became synonymous with his political image - so much so that, towards the end of his life, he gave out cigars as a calling card and his global fame meant they went for thousands at auction.
Readings by Ewan Bailey and Will Huggins
Series Producer: Melissa FitzGerald
Series Researcher: Martin Spychal
A Blakeway production for BBC Radio 4
THU 20:00 The Briefing Room (m000zcc8)
David Aaronovitch presents in-depth explainers on big issues in the news.
THU 20:30 Elon Musk: The Evening Rocket (m000xstm)
Iron Man
How Silicon Valley capitalism is as much about narrative as the bottom line. In 2008 when Tesla Motors launched their first car, the completely electric Roadster, Tesla was a great story. Something genuinely new. An engineering marvel. Elon Musk as CEO was an even better story. He had already disrupted banking and aerospace. Now the automobile industry. That same year, the superhero film Iron Man was released. Its creators turned to Musk to help shape this version of the character of Tony Stark, a billionaire arms dealer who believes everything is achievable through technology, and private enterprise. Musk was on the cover of countless magazines, under headlines like “Elon Musk AKA Tony Stark, Wants to Save the World.” He was becoming a celebrity, on a superhero scale.
The Evening Rocket is presented by Jill Lepore, professor of American history at Harvard University and staff writer at The New Yorker. Her latest book is If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future. She is also the host of The Last Archive, a podcast from Pushkin Industries.
Producer: Viv Jones
Researcher: Oliver Riskin-Kutz
Editor: Hugh Levinson
Mixing: Graham Puddifoot
Original music by Corntuth
THU 21:00 BBC Inside Science (m000zcbw)
[Repeat of broadcast at
16:30 today]
THU 21:30 Citizens of Somewhere (m000zc9s)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 today]
THU 22:00 The World Tonight (m000zccb)
In-depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective
THU 22:45 The Fortnight in September, by RC Sherriff (m000zcb7)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:04 today]
THU 23:00 The Absolutely Radio Show (b08x4s7t)
Series 2
Episode 3
The cast of TV's hugely popular sketch show return for their second series on BBC Radio 4. Pete Baikie, Morwenna Banks, Moray Hunter, Gordon Kennedy and John Sparkes revisit some of their much-loved sketch characters, while also introducing some newcomers to the show.
In 2013, the group that made their name on Channel Four in the 1980s and 90s got back together for Radio 4's Sketchorama: Absolutely Special - which won the BBC Audio Drama Award for Best Live Scripted Comedy. The first series of The Absolutely Radio Show picked up a Celtic Media Award nomination for Best Radio Comedy.
The third episode of the series features the Little Girl with her views on what is or isn't the Truth, Frank Hovis inviting us to support his new charity, the Reverend McMinn having a surprise encounter in his local minimart with a visiting President, the Tour Guide taking us on a trip round what may possibly be Edinburgh and Calum Gilhooley giving some unhelpful and unwelcome advice to a train ticket collector. There are songs about addiction to being healthy and the joys or otherwise of middle age, a look at the perils of box set bingeing and a brand new, same-as-all-the-rest police drama about a TV detective who is always off the case.
Cast:
Peter Baikie
Morwenna Banks
Moray Hunter
Gordon Kennedy
John Sparkes
Gus Beattie
Gordon Kennedy
Produced by Gordon Kennedy and Gus Beattie.
An Absolutely/Gusman production for BBC Radio.
THU 23:30 Today in Parliament (m000zccd)
Today in Parliament
News, views and features on today's stories in Parliament
FRIDAY 10 SEPTEMBER 2021
FRI 00:00 Midnight News (m000zccg)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.
FRI 00:30 The Daughters of Kobani, by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon (m000zc9w)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 on Thursday]
FRI 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m000zccj)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
FRI 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m000zccl)
BBC Radio 4 presents a selection of news and current affairs, arts and science programmes from the BBC World Service.
FRI 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m000zccn)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
FRI 05:30 News Briefing (m000zccq)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4
FRI 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m000zccs)
A reflection and prayer to start the day with Andrea Rea
FRI 05:45 Farming Today (m000zccv)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
FRI 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b04mlvz1)
Madagascar Harrier-hawk
Tweet of the Day is the voice of birds and our relationship with them, from around the world.
Chris Packham presents the Madagascan Harrier-hawk from Madagascar. Among the branches of a Madagascan forest, there's a flutter of wings and a flash of double-jointed feet. The Madagascan harrier-hawk is a striking bird, uniform grey above and finely barred beneath with black wing-tips and a white-banded black tail. There's a patch of sulphurous skin around its bill and eyes: and its long legs are also bright yellow. Those long legs help the harrier-hawk hunt for food that's beyond the reach of most other birds of prey. Using its wings for balance and twisting its flexibly jointed legs at seemingly impossible angles, the harrier-hawk inserts its talons into tiny holes, relying on its sense of touch to locate its prey. Madagascan Harrier-hawks do hunt more conventionally by gliding over the forest, seizing small birds, reptiles and mammals such as the Verreaux's sifaka.
FRI 06:00 Today (m000zfdx)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
FRI 09:00 The Reunion (m000zd9n)
[Repeat of broadcast at
11:00 on Sunday]
FRI 09:45 The Daughters of Kobani, by Gayle Tzemach Lemmon (m000zfdz)
Episode 5
In 2014, north eastern Syria might have been the last place you would expect to find a revolution centred on women's rights. But that year, an all-female militia faced off against ISIS in a little town few had ever heard of - Kobani.
By then, the Islamic State had swept across vast swathes of the country, taking town after town and spreading terror as the civil war burned all around it.
From that unlikely showdown in Kobani emerged a fighting force that would wage war against ISIS across northern Syria alongside the United States. In the process, these women would spread their own political vision, determined to make women's equality a reality by fighting - house by house, street by street, city by city - the men who bought and sold women.
Based on years of on-the-ground reporting, The Daughters of Kobani is the unforgettable story of the women of the Kurdish militia that improbably became part of the world's best hope for stopping ISIS in Syria. Drawing from hundreds of hours of interviews, author Gayle Tzemach Lemmon introduces us to the women fighting on the front lines, determined to not only extinguish the terror of ISIS but also prove that women could lead in war and must enjoy equal rights come the peace.
'An extraordinary account of brave, defiant women fighting for justice and equality' - Hillary Clinton
Read by Sarah Lambie
Abridged by Polly Coles
Produced by Clive Brill
A Brill production for BBC Radio 4
FRI 10:00 Woman's Hour (m000zff1)
Women's voices and women's lives - topical conversations to inform, challenge and inspire.
FRI 11:00 The Digital Human (m000b4r3)
Series 18
Devotion
When a homeless man was accidentally killed by a train on 11/08/18 in The Dalles, Oregon, no one realised how many people it would effect. The man was a computer programmer called Terry Davis and he was on a mission from God.
He'd designed an entire operating system called Temple OS and according to Terry its creation had been a direct instruction from God himself. As a fellow programmer explained it, 'you can imagine how over time one man might build a house, but this is like building a sky scraper, on your own!' And this was all done while Terry battled a diagnosis of schizophrenia.
Aleks Krotoski searches the emails, web posts and live streams to piece together the life of a remarkable individual whose work touched so many and is now celebrated not just as a technological achievement but an artistic one.
Producer: Peter McManus
Researcher: Elizabeth Ann Duffy
FRI 11:30 A Charles Paris Mystery (m000zff3)
A Deadly Habit
Episode 2
by Jeremy Front
based on the novel by Simon Brett
Charles ..... Bill Nighy
Frances ..... Suzanne Burden
Maurice ..... Jon Glover
Brendan ..... Jonathan Kydd
Kit ..... Joseph Ayre
Kelly ..... Jane Slavin
Nina..... Marilyn Nnadebe
D.S. Dalby ..... Stewart Campbell
Directed by Sally Avens
Charles is playing a monk in a play in the West End when a cast member falls down stairs. A nasty accident or something more sinister? Charles can't help but be suspicious.
FRI 12:00 News Summary (m000zff5)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
FRI 12:04 The Fortnight in September, by RC Sherriff (m000zff7)
Episode 5
‘The man on his holidays becomes the man he might have been, the man he could have been, had things worked out a little differently. All men are equal on their holidays’.
In his autobiography, RC Sherriff describes how he had the idea for The Fortnight in September during his own holiday in Bognor Regis, when he started to wonder about the lives of the ordinary people he saw coming and going there.
He found himself itching to write about an imaginary family – Mr and Mrs Stevens and their three children, one still at school and two on the verge of adulthood – leaving their house in Dulwich and travelling by train to stay in a boarding house by the sea for two weeks. Deceptive in its simplicity and brimming with poignant observation, Sherriff describes how the family while away the days with beach cricket and swimming in the sea, and the warm evenings strolling along the promenade and listening to the band playing on the bandstand. He explores the importance of a break from work and humdrum routines, giving people an opportunity to reconnect with family, some time to reflect and make resolutions, and perhaps a chance for some romance or an adventure.
Sherriff’s understated novel, published in 1931, celebrates an era when going abroad was still the privilege of the few, and returning to the simple pleasures and familiar rituals of an English seaside holiday was the much-anticipated yearly treat for the majority.
Written by RC Sherriff
Reader: Adrian Scarborough
Abridger: Sara Davies
Producer: Alexa Moore
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4
FRI 12:18 You and Yours (m000zff9)
News and discussion of consumer affairs
FRI 12:57 Weather (m000zffc)
The latest weather forecast
FRI 13:00 World at One (m000zfff)
Forty-five minutes of news, analysis and comment, with Edward Stourton.
FRI 13:45 A History of the World in 100 Objects (b00tzmkc)
Tolerance and Intolerance (AD 1550-1700)
Reformation Centenary Broadsheet
Neil MacGregor's world history as told through things that time has left behind. This week Neil is looking at the co-existence of faiths - peaceful or otherwise - across the globe around 400 years ago. So far he has looked at objects from India and Central America, Iran and Indonesia that embody the political consequences of belief. Today he is back in Europe, with a document that marks an anniversary and that is designed to raise morale. It's a woodblock print, a broadsheet, commissioned in Saxony in 1617 to mark a hundred years of the Protestant Reformation and anti-Catholic sentiment. Neil describes the broadsheet and the uncertain Protestant world that produced it. Was this the first time that an anniversary was commemorated in this way, with a kind of souvenir? The broadcaster and journalist Ian Hislop considers the broadsheet as an early equivalent to the tabloid press while the religious historian Karen Armstrong describes the reforming motivation that the broadsheet celebrates.
Producer: Anthony Denselow
FRI 14:00 The Archers (m000zcc4)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Thursday]
FRI 14:15 Nuremberg (m000zffj)
Will There Be Rabbit Tonight?
August 1945 and the evidence is being amassed in Nuremberg. If anything, there’s too much paperwork – the Nazi machine insisted on recording absolutely everything. But are these documents sufficient – or should they hear from witnesses?
Roger Barrett, the lawyer running the Documents Room, watches this debate unfold. Some argue that documents don’t lie, others that they must hear from the victims themselves. All the more so after the first shock discovery of the concentration camps in Germany.
When they start taking affidavits from prisoners, they hear about a place in the East called Auschwitz-Birkenau – and the witnesses talk about gas chambers and industrial-scale killing. It’s almost unbelievable – a camp designed only to exterminate.
Meanwhile, two Jewish German refugees now in the British Army begin their War Crimes Investigation into Tesch & Stabenow, which appears to be a harmless pest-control company - but it also provided the SS with Zyklon B, the principal poison used in the gas chambers.
Cast:
Roger Barrett - LUKE NORRIS
Robert Storey- HARI DHILLON
John Amen - JOSEPH ALESSI
Charles Bendel - HENRY GOODMAN
Robert H Jackson - JOSEPH MYDELL
Alfred Zaun and other roles - NIGEL LINDSAY
Secretary - ROSIE SHEEHY
Colonel Leo Genn and other roles- NICHOLAS WOODESON
Captain Smallwood and other roles - MARK EDEL-HUNT
Major Williams and other roles - NATHAN WILEY
Bruno Tesch and other roles - JONATHAN CULLEN
Emil Sehm and other roles - JASPER BRITTON
ACC Officer and other roles - ANDREW WOODALL
Quartermaster Sergeant and other roles - CLIVE WOOD
Sound Designer - ADAM WOODHAMS
Studio Manager - MARK SMITH
Original Score - METAPHOR MUSIC
Writer and Director - JONATHAN MYERSON
Producer - NICHOLAS NEWTON
A Promenade production for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds
FRI 14:45 A History of Ghosts (m000nll2)
Ancient Ghosts
Illustration by Seonaid Mackay
'When was the first time a human felt haunted?'
Kirsty Logan travels back to the world’s earliest civilisations to uncover where tales of ghosts first emerged.
From the earliest evidence of belief in an afterlife, seen in decorated bones in early grave sites, to Ancient Egyptian letters to the dead, and predatory Chindi unleashed to wreak deadly vengeance in the snowy wastes of North America, Kirsty tells the tales of the spirits that haunted our most ancient forebears, and became the common ancestor for ghost stories across all of human history.
FRI 15:00 Gardeners' Question Time (m000zffl)
GQT at Home
Horticultural programme featuring a group of gardening experts, hosted by Peter Gibbs. Joining him this week are Anne Swithinbank, Matthew Wilson, Christine Walkden and a virtual audience.
Producer - Hannah Newton
Assistant Producer - Bethany Hocken
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4
FRI 15:45 Short Works (m000zffn)
Every Second Saturday
A new story from prize-winning author Rachael Fulton, read by Andy Clark.
In this hard-hitting piece from the Scottish author and journalist, a man rails against the custody settlement which limits time with his son. Brought up short by a shocking crisis on the way to the football, he is forced to examine his past behaviour.
Rachael Fulton’s fiction has been published by the Bridport Prize, The Common Breath and The Sunday Herald. She was shortlisted for the Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award 2021, Highly Commended in the Bridport Prize 2020 and won Elle Magazine’s New Talent Award. She is currently working on a short story collection and her debut novel from her home in Scotland.
Producer: Eilidh McCreadie
FRI 16:00 Last Word (m000zffq)
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 (m000zdtc)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 on Wednesday]
FRI 17:00 PM (m000zffs)
Afternoon news and current affairs programme, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines.
FRI 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m000zffv)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
FRI 18:30 The News Quiz (m000zffx)
Series 106
Episode 2
Andy Zaltzman presents a look back at the week's headlines
FRI 19:00 Front Row (m000zffz)
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
FRI 19:45 Prime Ministers' Props (b0bgg1d0)
Series 2
Margaret Thatcher's Handbag
David Cannadine examines the careers of British prime ministers through their props of power.
In an inconspicuous-looking box, in a locked drawer, deep in the archives at Churchill College, Cambridge sits Margaret Thatcher's handbag. David comes face-to-face with this artefact, which came to represent the most visible symbol of our first female prime minister's power to command. As Charles Moore put it in his official biography, "her handbag became the sceptre of her rule." It was a prop that Mrs Thatcher would produce at meetings to show she meant business.
Although Margaret Thatcher didn't like the connotation, by the time of the Falklands conflict, a new verb entered the English language - "to handbag", meaning to subject your opponent to a forthright verbal assault or strident criticism. For the rest of her life, Mrs Thatcher's handbag was almost as newsworthy an item as she was herself and on the day she died, one of her handbag-makers saw a sharp rise in sales of her favourite black structured design.
Readings by Ewan Bailey, Will Huggins and Claire Vousden
Series Producer: Melissa FitzGerald
Series Researcher: Martin Spychal
A Blakeway production for BBC Radio 4
FRI 20:00 Any Questions? (m000zfg1)
Sir Ed Davey MP, Andrea Jenkyns MP, Bridget Phillipson MP
Chris Mason presents political debate and discussion from the University of York with the leader of the Liberal Democrats Sir Ed Davey MP, the Conservative MP Andrea Jenkyns and the Labour MP and Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury Bridget Phillipson MP.
Producer: Emma Campbell
Lead broadcast engineer: Phil Booth
FRI 20:50 A Point of View (m000zfg3)
Weekly reflections on topical issues from a range of contributors.
FRI 21:00 A History of the World in 100 Objects (b00vryv3)
Tolerance and Intolerance (AD 1550-1700)
Another chance to hears Neil MacGregor, the director of the British Museum in London, as continues his global history as told through objects from the Museum's collection. In this episode, he looks at the great religions of the 16th and 17th centuries.
The Protestant Reformation split the western Church into two rival factions and triggered Europe's final major religious war. The failure of either side to achieve victory in the Thirty Years War would lead to a period of religious tolerance in Europe. Three great Islamic powers dominated Eurasia: the Ottomans in Turkey, the Mughals in India and the Safavids in Iran. The Mughals promoted religious tolerance, allowing the Indian subcontinent's largely non-Islamic population to continue to worship as they pleased. In Iran the Safavids created the world's first major Shi'i state. Exploration and trade provided opportunities for religions to attract new followers. Catholicism in Central America and Islam in South East Asia both adapted to accommodate the existing rituals of their new converts.
Producer: Paul Kobrak
FRI 22:00 The World Tonight (m000zfg6)
In-depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective
FRI 22:45 The Fortnight in September, by RC Sherriff (m000zff7)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:04 today]
FRI 23:00 Great Lives (m000zdqv)
[Repeat of broadcast at
16:30 on Tuesday]
FRI 23:30 Today in Parliament (m000zfg8)
Today in Parliament
News, views and features on today's stories in Parliament