Will She Do? is the story of a girl from a council estate in Tottenham, born in 1934 to an electric-meter reader and a seamstress, and determined to be an actress. Candid and witty, this memoir takes her from her awkward performances in working-men's clubs at six years of age as dancing Baby Eileen, through the war years in London, to her breakthrough at 32 on Broadway.
She co-created Upstairs, Downstairs and wrote the screenplay for Mrs Dalloway (for which she won an Evening Standard Award) and, at age 86,, this is her first autobiographical work.
Characterised by an eye for the absurd, a terrific knack for storytelling and an insistence on honesty, Will She Do? is a wonderful raconteur's tale about family, about class, about youthful ambition and big dreams and what really goes on behind the scenes.
Made a Dame in 1991, Eileen Atkins has been on American and British stage and screen since 1957 and has won an Emmy, a BAFTA and is a three-time Olivier Award winner. Her theatre performances include The Height of the Storm, Ellen Terry and All that Fall, and she has appeared in television and films ranging from Doc Martin to Cranford and The Crown.
BBC Radio 4 presents a selection of news and current affairs, arts and science programmes from the BBC World Service.
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with the Rev Canon Dr Jennifer Smith
Good morning.
Each year, it seems like the pre-Christmas marketing season starts earlier and earlier. Artificial trees and snow displays are already creeping into shop windows, the colour of packaging has turned red and gold, and the rush is on.
The market near me already has metres of tinsel on display and stacks of boxes of that most old fashioned thing, the Christmas card.
Of course many people who used to send Christmas or holiday cards now opt for a mass electronic greeting , in the name of reducing paper waste and saving on postage. Sometimes the greeting will even include a note saying to which charity the sender has given the cost of postage. This is of course a good and worthy thing, and I would be a churlish friend to complain.
And yet, there is something about knowing someone sat and took time and care to remember us that warms the heart. By time and care to remember us, I mean not just with a mouse click, but by choosing cards and buying stamps, digging out our actual street address, and sitting down to do that less and less usual thing, write by hand.
Ironically, when Henry Cole sent Christmas cards in 1843, increasing their fashion, he intended them to be a time saver. Using the convenience of the Victorian penny post, one could send greetings all across the land with hardly any effort at all!
We need not rush the holiday season, but it is never too early to remember our friends.
Dear God, in our time poor, cash strapped society, may we find tangible ways of remembering one another. Help us to begin even now, today and not to wait - that no one be forgotten.
Inside the head of paparazzo George Bamby as he goes in search of Fern Britton and David Cameron.
Episode one of a new series of immersive features which allow the listener to step into the world of a compelling character with an extraordinary job. Recorded in binaural stereo using the latest recording techniques for a rich, lifelike and intimate sound. Subjects wear a small microphone in each ear, picking up sound just like the human ear. Whatever they hear, we hear - how they hear it. The series is best heard on headphones.
In episode one, we inhabit the world of paparazzi photographer George Bamby as he travels to Padstow in Cornwall in search of some lucrative shots of TV personality Fern Britton and ex-PM David Cameron. While the beaches are packed with holiday-makers enjoying the hot summer, Bamby has his binoculars out, scanning the sun seekers for famous faces. Bamby starts the day bullish, confident he'll get his shots - but things don't quite go to plan...
The latest news headlines. Including the weather and a look at the papers.
Blackbirds, wrens, reed warblers, yellowhammers, sparrows and crows - this is a programme about British birds and the places where they live.
One day botanical painter Susan Ogilvy found a strange object on her lawn. It was damp and green, and had been blown out of a tree by a storm. Once it had dried it fluffed up into a beautiful chaffinch nest. Susan was entranced and began to paint it.
"Birds follow their own architecture but they use the materials they find around them - twigs and grasses and leaves, and they use them in the spring when they are young and bendy. When we see them in the autumn they've dried up, so everything has become much more brittle."
Over the last five years she's painted another seventy abandoned nests, and she's been increasingly helped by neighbours who find them, plus a local expert, Deon Warner. This programme is as much about Deon as it is about Susan herself. Together they stride out across the local Somerset landscape to see what they can find.
Radio 4's Saturday morning show brings you extraordinary stories and remarkable people.
Jay Rayner hosts the culinary panel show packed full of tasty titbits. Tim Hayward, Anna Jones, Nisha Katona and Dr Annie Gray share some of their favourite recipes and help answer the questions.
This week, the team are bursting with ideas on how to avoid that soggy bottom on a Beef Wellington, what to do with leftover coconut milk, and how best to use up one listener's large supply of Victorian plums.
Resident food historian Dr Annie Gray reveals the origins behind the very first waffle, and the team are joined by Chef Lara Lee, who shares some of her favourite recipes from a journey she took tracing the smells and flavours of her family's Indonesian roots.
For decades the difficult problem of social care - how to fund it, how to provide it - has been kicked into the long grass by government after government. But last month the Prime Minister announced a policy which he said meant no-one would have to sell their house to fund their social care. He also promised more money for social care - though not immediately. A "health and social care levy" is to be created through an increase in National Insurance contributions. So is the problem of social care being fixed?
Peter Beresford, visiting Professor in the School of Health Sciences, University of East Anglia
Jill Manthorpe, Professor of Social Work and Director, NIHR Health & Social Care Workforce Research Unit, King's College London.
Insight, wit and analysis from BBC correspondents, journalists and writers from around the world
Catherine Bohart, Michael Deacon, Chris McCausland and Eshaan Akbar join host Andy Zaltzman to look back over the week's news. This week, they look at the COVID report's findings, Boris Johnson's holiday hobby, the Northern Ireland Protocol and a sacked wizard.
The chair's script is written by Andy Zaltzman, with additional material by Alice Fraser, Catherine Brinkworth, Rhiannon Shaw and Rajiv Karia.
Chris Mason presents political debate from Barracks Conference Centre, Stirling with a panel which includes the Conservative party vice chair Andrew Bowie MP, the Labour party chair Anneliese Dodds MP, journalist and broadcaster Leslie Riddoch and the SNP Shadow Leader of the Commons Pete Wishart MP.
John Milton was a successful poet and political activist. By the time he began writing Paradise Lost in the 1650s, he had become blind. Poet Michael Symmons Roberts has turned Paradise Lost into a vital, gripping piece of storytelling, broadcast in two parts, that will ricochet off the events that are turning our own political and social landscape upside own.
Milton wrote scathing pamphlets against corruption in the Anglican Church and its ties to King Charles. At one point Milton was jailed for recording his thoughts on paper. Paradise Lost, as much as anything, is a series of arguments put forth by the characters.
It follows the exploits of a hero (or anti-hero); it involves warfare and the supernatural; it begins in the midst of the action, with earlier crises in the story brought in later by flashback; and it expresses the ideals and traditions of a people. The poem is in blank verse, that is, non-rhyming verse.
The central storyline is built around a few paragraphs in the beginning of Genesis - the story of Adam and Eve. The epic also uses elements from many other parts of the Bible, particularly involving Satan's role. Focusing his poem on the events surrounding the fall of Adam and Eve, Milton intended, in his words, to "justify the ways of God to men," by tracing the cause and result for all involved.
Milton's mission was to show not only what caused man's fall, but also the consequences upon the world, both bad and good. A concept central to this tale is that of the "felix culpa" or fortunate fall. This is the philosophy that the good which ultimately evolves as a result of the fall leaves us in a better place, with opportunity for greater good than would have been possible without it. The characters in Paradise Lost find themselves in situations which genuinely are political. In directing the Son to create earth, God the Father is conducting an act of rulership, which is inescapably political.
Likewise, Satan's attempts to rouse the fallen angels in Book I really are reminiscent of Milton's desire to rally support for the Cromwellian government. The mid 17th century was a time of great social and cultural turmoil. A series of political and military conflicts, the English Civil War or the English Revolution raged intermittently between Parliamentarians and Royalists from 1642 to 1651. Many factors contributed to the tensions between Crown and Parliament - Charles' marriage to a Catholic, his desire to be involved in wars with Europe and ideological questions that were being raised about the nature of government and authority. Sounds familiar ?
Milton's response to what he perceived as the disintegration of society and turmoil around him was to reach back to the very beginning of time to search for the events that had led to this political and social upheaval to look for answers and ask questions about how society had arrived at a place of dysfunction. Staying true to the blank verse, the adaptation includes a blind narrator - Milton, played by Ian McKellen, whose eyesight worsens throughput the development of the drama.
Cush Jumbo, Predatory marriage, Equality in 2021, Tall women and dating, Sexual assault, consent and 'grey areas'
Cush Jumbo, star of The Good Wife and The Good Fight on her latest role playing Hamlet.
Predatory marriage involves a vulnerable adult being led into a marriage, which financially benefits their new spouse. We hear from Daphne Franks, who believes that her mother was a victim of a predatory marriage.
What's it like for tall women when it comes to dating? Comedian Andrea Hubert, and Sarah Ivens, author of Get Real discuss.
In her new book Rough, Rachel Thompson looks at how violence has found its way into the bedroom. A study released this summer set out to gauge the extent of violence against women. One shocking finding revealed that half of respondents had "woken up to their male partner having sex with them or performing sex acts on them whilst they are asleep." Rachel Thompson and Dr Jessica Taylor, co author: Understanding the Scale of Violence Committed Against Women in the UK Since Birth.
In 2020, the pandemic hit, and the world locked down. Suddenly white-collar staff went from working in the office, to working remotely. But now we are opening up, will people want to return? Hybrid working has become the buzzword of employers across the country, allowing individuals to have more flexibility over where they work. So how likely is this to function effectively? How do businesses manage staff and productivity? And will there ever be anyone in the office on Fridays....? Join Evan Davis and guests to find out.
Chris Hadfield, Roddy Doyle, Gabby Hutchinson Crouch, Simon Frederick, Joy Crookes, Dakota Jones, Anneka Rice, Clive Anderson
Clive Anderson and Anneka Rice are joined by Chris Hadfield, Roddy Doyle, Gabby Hutchinson Crouch and Simon Frederick for an eclectic mix of conversation, music and comedy. With music from Joy Crookes and Dakota Jones.
An insight into the character of an influential person making the news headlines
Author Bernardine Evaristo talks to John Wilson about the formative experiences and cultural influences that have had a profound effect on her work.
She looks back on her early childhood in South London, the racism she encountered and how she found her artistic voice attending a youth theatre group. She reveals the influence of her Catholic upbringing on her writing, and the personal relationships that had the biggest impact on her creativity.
Two police officers stood trial in 1971 accused of the manslaughter of Nigerian vagrant David Oluwale. Few questions were asked about the circumstances of his death, until a whistleblowing young police cadet implicated two senior policemen. The trial shook and shamed Leeds.
Not far away, Tony Phillips was growing up in the only black family on his Leeds estate. The name David Oluwale reaches far back into his childhood memory of becoming black, black and Yorkshire, and black and British.
In Remember Oluwale, Tony reflects on the impact of David’s story, exposing the lasting importance and relevance of the story today.
He uses archive and face to face interviews with people who knew Oluwale - Gabriel Adams who, like David, stowed away, arriving in the UK from Nigeria in the late 1940s, and Tom Booth who knew Oluwale after he was sent to Menston Pauper’s asylum in 1953.
Tony examines a particular altercation with the police that year which appears to have catapulted David on the road to decline, and his ultimate death in the River Aire.
We meet defence lawyer Ronnie Teeman who argues that race had nothing to do with Oluwale’s death, and use archive of the late Donald Herrod, for the prosecution, who was convinced the two officers killed David – although they were only ever convicted of assault.
With cross-bench peer Victor Adebowale, Tony highlights the inequalities in mental health and policing that continue to adversely affect black people in this country, while Joe Williams, who runs the Black History Tours in Leeds and remembers Oluwale as a frightening figure on Leeds streets, puts the whole story in the context of colonialism.
With contributions from Linton Kwesi Johnson and music by Ellen Smith, David Oluwale’s story becomes social history and political statement - examining how a constellation of public issues impacted on one man’s body, how we so easily forget our inglorious past, and how misunderstood the deep, underlying problems of racism are.
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.
An entrancing story inspired by Thomas Hardy's poem about life after death. By the award-winning playwright, Oliver Emanuel.
Writer ..... Oliver Emanuel
Reader ..... Shauna Macdonald
Producer ..... Kirsty Williams
Kirsty Wark gathers management, workers and union leaders from the giant car-maker British Leyland.
In 1968, the Labour Government instigated the merger of two leading motoring manufacturers to form the British Leyland Motor Company. The ambition was to create an industrial powerhouse, capable of building more than a million cars a year and challenging the global dominance of America's Ford and Vauxhall.
At its peak, British Leyland employed 250,000 workers in scores of plants, but throughout the 1970s the model range was incoherent, bitter internal rivalries dogged production and industrial relations were atrocious. Successive governments poured in millions of pounds to stop the company from going bankrupt and forcing a spike in the dole queue.
In the 1980s, state support faded. Margaret Thatcher's government clamped down on the unions and privatised nationalised businesses. British Leyland was broken up and sold off, bringing an end to British-owned motor manufacturing.
Joining Kirsty to discuss those turbulent times are five people who were in the thick of it:
Harold Musgrove started in 1945 and rose through the ranks to become chairman and chief executive of what became the Austin Rover Group.
John Power started at Cowley in the 60s on the brand new Mini and became a shop steward on his first day.
Chris Green was 16 when he started as a commercial apprentice at British Leyland’s vast Longbridge plant.
The motoring journalist and former Top Gear presenter Chris Goffey test drove the cars and watched as the company fell by the wayside.
Brain of Britain reaches the semi-final stage, as the first four of this year's heat winners and high scorers play off for a place in the 2021 Final. Russell Davies asks the questions. Will the contenders know what the French football referee Stephanie Frappart was the first to do? Or which is the largest castle in Wales? Or who was the first Australian performer to win a Grammy award?
As always, there will also be the chance for a Brain of Britain listener to win a prize by stumping the Brains with questions he or she has devised.
SUNDAY 17 OCTOBER 2021
SUN 00:00 Midnight News (m0010n8h)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.
SUN 00:15 Green Originals (m000dgbb)
Chico Mendes
When Chico Mendes was gunned down in the Amazon in December 1988, his assassin, a rancher named Darcy Alves, hoped to kill off his campaign to prevent forest clearance. Instead, it raised the alarm on the issue in Brazil and across the world, influencing a generation of conservationists and policy makers. Mendes is now a symbol of the global environmental movement in South America.
After starting to tap rubber as a child in Acre state in Brazil’s far west, Mendes co-founded the local branch of the rural workers union and organised demonstrations to stop thousands of square kilometres of rainforest being destroyed for timber and ranching, saving hundreds of families from destitution.
“He showed what we could do against the power of these people who had money, and gunmen, and the protection of the judiciary,” says Marina Silva, a former environment minister and presidential candidate.
The Brazilian singer Monica Vasconcelos reflects on the work of the union leader who only learned to read at 18 but went on to become a powerful advocate for forest people.
“Since Jair Bolsonaro became Brazil’s president at the start of last year, his government has weakened forest protections and encouraged land grabbers to move in. As we face an increase in violence towards local communities and deforestation in the Amazon, its worth looking back and remembering Chico’s extraordinary life,” she says.
Producer: Emily Williams
Series Editor: David Prest
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4in association with The Open University
SUN 00:30 New Frequencies (m0010hpw)
Episode 3
A new series showcasing the work of writers between the ages of 16 and 21.
Part Three
The Oracle’s Husband by Jennifer Henderson
and
The Cave People by Shoaib Raja
Writers: Jennifer Henderson and Shoaib Raja
Reader: Amir El-Masry
Producer: Jeremy Osborne
A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4
SUN 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m0010n8k)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
SUN 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m0010n8m)
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 (m0010n8p)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
SUN 05:30 News Briefing (m0010n8r)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4
SUN 05:43 Bells on Sunday (m0010n8t)
All Saints, East Meon in Hampshire.
Bells on Sunday comes from All Saints, East Meon in Hampshire. There were six bells in the tower up to 1890 when they were partially recast, augmented to eight and hung in a new wood and iron frame by Taylor’s Foundry of Loughborough. In 1990, the same foundry retuned and augmented them to a ring of ten with a tenor weighing eighteen hundredweight and tuned to E. We hear them ringing Spliced Plain and Little Bob Royal
SUN 05:45 Profile (m0010n87)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Saturday]
SUN 06:00 News Summary (m0010pmj)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4
SUN 06:05 Something Understood (b01dmdmm)
Mindfulness
Mark Tully meditates on the art of being still, and the benefits of quiet contemplation, as medical science borrows from the practices of religious traditions.
He talks to Mark Williams, Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Oxford who teaches 'Mindfulness' techniques and whose research has shown that daily meditation can reduce the occurrence of severe depression at least as much as anti-depressants do.
Featuring music by Edward Elgar, Arvo Part and Jules Massenet, and words by Rainer Maria Rilke and Octavio Paz, this programme looks at how else regular contemplative sessions can enrich our lives in an increasingly busy world. For some it is a way of experiencing God, for others a means of coming to terms with their own failures, and for many it can produce profound changes in their lives.
As Mark Tully perceives, through the practice of Mindfulness people can drink from the well of religious insight whether they have a religious faith or not. He even accepts in the end that he should, perhaps, overcome his own reluctance to make the commitment that meditation requires, and curb the distractions that can make our minds rampage, 'like an untrained elephant'.
The readers are Emily Raymond and David Holt.
Producer: Adam Fowler
A Unique production for BBC Radio 4
SUN 06:35 Natural Histories (b07q7jl2)
Spider
Brett Westwood blows away the cobwebs to reveal tales of spiders as objects of fear, merciless femmes fatales and tricksters too. Featuring interviews with the Natural History Museum's spider curator Jan Beccaloni, naturalist Rosemary Winnall, president of Buglife and writer Germaine Greer and tarantula keeper Gemma Wright.
Original Producer: Tom Bonnett
Archive Producer : Andrew Dawes for BBC Audio in Bristol
Originally broadcast on 30th August 2016 in a longer form.
SUN 06:57 Weather (m0010pmm)
The latest weather reports and forecast
SUN 07:00 News and Papers (m0010pmp)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.
SUN 07:10 Sunday (m0010pmr)
A look at the ethical and religious issues of the week
SUN 07:54 Radio 4 Appeal (m0010pmt)
Ethiopiaid
Jane Garvey makes the Radio 4 Appeal on behalf of Ethiopiaid.
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 ‘Ethiopiaid’.
- Cheques should be made payable to ‘Ethiopiaid’.
- You can donate online at bbc.co.uk/appeal/radio4
Registered Charity Number: 802353
SUN 07:57 Weather (m0010pmw)
The latest weather reports and forecast
SUN 08:00 News and Papers (m0010pmy)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.
SUN 08:10 Sunday Worship (m0010pn0)
A New Song
A celebration of the contribution that women have made to church music from Ely Cathedral.
It's 30 years since the first English Cathedral opened its choirstalls to girls on the same basis that boys had been welcomed for centuries. After the foundation of the girls' choir at Salisbury, choral foundations bringing girls into choral music, have sprung up all around the country. Ely Cathedral Girls' Choir first sang in 2006. Their voices now celebrate the contribution that women have made to church music.
The preacher is the Reverend Canon Dr Jessica Martin with music from Ely Cathedral Girls Choir and Lay Clerks directed by Sarah MacDonald.
Producer: Katharine Longworth
SUN 08:48 A Point of View (m0010hqd)
Not in My Movie
"In the 1880s," writes Sara Wheeler, "the scientific community began to recognise and categorise neurodiversity."
We've come a long way since then, she says. But there's a long way to go.
And as neurological research presses on, she argues that we, as a society, must try to keep up with its findings.
Producer: Adele Armstrong
SUN 08:58 Tweet of the Day (b03x45jq)
Goldeneye
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs.
Bill Oddie presents the goldeneye. Although they’re a common winter visitor, you’ll need to travel to Speyside in the Scottish Highlands to see goldeneyes in their breeding season where, since 1970, a small population has bred there. Unlike dabbling ducks, such as mallard and teal, they don’t need muddy shorelines and lots of vegetation. Goldeneyes are diving ducks that feed mainly on shellfish and crustaceans.
SUN 09:00 Broadcasting House (m0010pn2)
The Sunday morning news magazine programme. Presented by Paddy O'Connell
SUN 10:00 The Archers Omnibus (m0010pn4)
Writer, Keri Davies
Director, Marina Caldarone
Editor, Jeremy Howe
Ruth Archer ….. Felicity Finch
Josh Archer ….. Angus Imrie
Pip Archer ….. Daisy Badger
Brian Aldridge ….. Charles Collingwood
Lilian Bellamy ….. Sunny Ormonde
Alan Franks ….. John Telfer
Amy Franks ….. Jennifer Daley
Martyn Gibson ….. Jon Glover
Shula Hebden Lloyd ….. Judy Bennett
Chelsea Horrobin ….. Madeleine Leslay
Russ Jones ….. Andonis James Anthony
Alistair Lloyd ….. Michael Lumsden
Jazzer McCreary ….. Ryan Kelly
Lily Pargetter ….. Katie Redford
Johnny Phillips ….. Tom Gibbons
Stella ….. Lucy Speed
SUN 11:00 Desert Island Discs (m0010nsp)
Deborah Meaden, businesswoman
Deborah Meaden is a businesswoman and entrepreneur. She’s been one of the investment ‘Dragons’ in the BBC TV series since 2006.
Destined to be a successful entrepreneur, Deborah Meaden launched her first business straight out of college at nineteen years old, importing artisan Italian glass and ceramic homeware goods to the UK.
After running various franchise businesses, she joined her family company, Weststar Holidays and eventually became Managing Director. A few years later, when her parents wanted to retire, she bought them out of the business and later sold the company making her a multi-millionaire.
Deborah is now a full time investor with a wide ranging portfolio. For the last fifteen years, she has been one of the investment Dragons on BBC TV’s Dragon’s Den. Even though she has many millions in the bank, she has no plans to step back from business. “Why would I stop doing something that I love?”
She lives in Somerset with her husband, Paul.
Presenter: Lauren Laverne
Producer: Sarah Taylor
SUN 11:45 Just One Thing - with Michael Mosley (m0010pn6)
Think Yourself Stronger
Pumping iron in the gym is the only way to improve strength, right? Wrong. In this episode, Michael explores the power of the mind to boost strength by up to 24%... Our willing human guinea pig Tom has a go at improving his goal-shooting skills with his mind, and Michael speaks to cognitive neuroscientist Dr Helen O’Shea to reveal how your thoughts can influence your muscles and why it’s surprisingly similar to doing the actual thing.
SUN 12:00 News Summary (m0010pxs)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
SUN 12:04 Just a Minute (m0010ggf)
Series 87
Episode 6
Sue Perkins hosts Radio 4’s longest running panel show, Just a Minute. Sue challenges guests Paul Merton, Anneka Rice, Dane Baptiste and Lucy Porter 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
SUN 12:32 The Food Programme (m0010ndd)
Follow the Money: Investor power and the Future of Food
Dan Saladino finds out how groups of influential investors are using the trillions of dollars they control to shape the future of food.
It's argued that it is their decisions, not those of governments which will determine if we can solve the biggest challenges we're facing, from climate change to obesity.
These funds, including our savings and pensions, are invested in the global food system. This money makes it possible for fast-food chains to expand, for supermarkets to grow and farming businesses to survive. How that money is allocated, and which food businesses are now seen as carrying too much risk, is an increasingly important factor in deciding how we will farm and eat in the future.
Dan Saladino meets Jeremy Coller, a Chief Investment Officer who controls billions of dollars of assets about the power of investors. In 2016, Coller has set up the FAIRR Initiative (Farm Animal Investment Risk and Return), a source of data and analysis of business performance in the meat industry. Coller, a vegetarian, argues that future global risks such as pandemics and climate change are being increased by factory farming.
Instead of waiting for governments to act, he believes networks of investors, and their decisions on meat based businesses (from processors to burger chains), entirely based on risk, will transform the food system.
Produced and presented by Dan Saladino.
SUN 12:57 Weather (m0010pnc)
The latest weather forecast
SUN 13:00 The World This Weekend (m0010pnf)
News with Jonny Dymond, including how politicians are aiming to regulate Facebook. Plus the patrol of pigs that is keeping airline passengers in the Netherlands safe.
SUN 13:30 The Listening Project (m0010pnh)
Breaking Barriers
Fi Glover presents four conversations between strangers.
This week: two women, Jo and Maggie, on their love of space and space exploration and making a career out of it; Paul and Beth talk tattoos and how he wants even more and she wants rid of hers; Marian who is Irish and Amena who is British Muslim, share their painful stories about the effects of prejudice on their lives; and Dee and Dave wax lyrical about motorbikes with sidecars and life on the road.
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 (m0010hpt)
GQT at Home: Salvias and Soap Nuts
Peter Gibbs and his panel of experts answer your gardening questions. Joining him this week are Matthew Wilson, Bob Flowerdew and Anne Swithinbank.
This week, the panel are tasked with suggesting some herbaceous plants for a beautiful early June display. They discover one listener's natural alternative to laundry detergent, soap nuts, and share some other soap-alternative plants for the garden.
Away from the panel, we explore the world of Amelanchiers with Christine Walkden, and Claire Ratinon heads South East to speak with parakeet expert Dr Hazel Jackson to learn more about the UK's only naturalised parrot.
Producer - Dan Cocker
Assistant Producer - Aniya Das
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4
SUN 14:45 Green Originals (m000dgbb)
[Repeat of broadcast at
00:15 today]
SUN 15:00 Paradise Lost (b09wrdr9)
Episode 2
John Milton was a successful poet and political activist. By the time he began writing Paradise Lost in the 1650s, he had become blind. Poet Michael Symmons Roberts has turned Paradise Lost into a vital, gripping piece of storytelling, broadcast in two parts, that will ricochet off the events that are turning our own political and social landscape upside own.
Milton wrote scathing pamphlets against corruption in the Anglican Church and its ties to King Charles. At one point Milton was jailed for recording his thoughts on paper. Paradise Lost, as much as anything, is a series of arguments put forth by the characters.
It follows the exploits of a hero (or anti-hero); it involves warfare and the supernatural; it begins in the midst of the action, with earlier crises in the story brought in later by flashback; and it expresses the ideals and traditions of a people. The poem is in blank verse, that is, non-rhyming verse.
The central storyline is built around a few paragraphs in the beginning of Genesis - the story of Adam and Eve. The epic also uses elements from many other parts of the Bible, particularly involving Satan's role. Focusing his poem on the events surrounding the fall of Adam and Eve, Milton intended, in his words, to "justify the ways of God to men," by tracing the cause and result for all involved.
Directed in Salford by Susan Roberts
Milton's mission was to show not only what caused man's fall, but also the consequences upon the world, both bad and good. A concept central to this tale is that of the "felix culpa" or fortunate fall. This is the philosophy that the good which ultimately evolves as a result of the fall leaves us in a better place, with opportunity for greater good than would have been possible without it. The characters in Paradise Lost find themselves in situations which genuinely are political. In directing the Son to create earth, God the Father is conducting an act of rulership, which is inescapably political.
Likewise, Satan's attempts to rouse the fallen angels in Book I really are reminiscent of Milton's desire to rally support for the Cromwellian government. The mid 17th century was a time of great social and cultural turmoil. A series of political and military conflicts, the English Civil War or the English Revolution raged intermittently between Parliamentarians and Royalists from 1642 to 1651. Many factors contributed to the tensions between Crown and Parliament - Charles' marriage to a Catholic, his desire to be involved in wars with Europe and ideological questions that were being raised about the nature of government and authority. Sounds familiar ?
Milton's response to what he perceived as the disintegration of society and turmoil around him was to reach back to the very beginning of time to search for the events that had led to this political and social upheaval to look for answers and ask questions about how society had arrived at a place of dysfunction. Staying true to the blank verse, the adaptation includes a blind narrator - Milton, played by Ian McKellen, whose eyesight worsens throughput the development of the drama.
SUN 16:00 Open Book (m0010pnk)
Lauren Groff
Johny Pitts talks to Lauren Groff about her latest novel Matrix. It continues themes of women and climate change explores in her previous books, Fate and Furies, Florida, and The Monsters of Templeton but the historical world she constructs couldn’t be more different.
The novel opens with illegitimate 17-year-old Marie of France being banished from the court of her half-brother Henry II by his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine. Leaving behind all her comfortable trappings, she's sent to an abbey in a cold, isolated part of 12th-century England. There she inspires a new generation of nuns to build a sort of utopia, free of men and surrounded by an elaborate labyrinth built to keep the outside world - outside.
Written almost thirty years apart, Swan Songs by Lee Scott and Junglist by Two Fingers and James T. Kirk (Eddie Otchere and Andrew Green) are novels that read as offbeat documentations of working-class life in Britain. Johny talks to Eddie Otchere and Lee Swan about their approaches to writing and the urban music that inspired them.
And the American writer and filmmaker Ruth Ozeki, whose new novel is The Book of Form and Emptiness, shares her love of Shakespeare in The Book I've Never Lend.
Image copyright: Eli Sinkus
Southbank Centre: https://www.southbankcentre.co.uk/whats-on/literature-poetry/open-book
Book List – Sunday 17 October and Thursday 21 October
Matrix by Lauren Groff
Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff
Florida by Lauren Groff
The Monsters of Templeton by Lauren Groff
Swan Songs by Lee Scott
Junglist by Eddie Otchere and Andrew Green
The Riverside Shakespeare by William Shakespeare
The Book of Form and Emptiness by Ruth Ozeki
SUN 16:30 The Talented Ms Highsmith (m0010pnm)
To mark Patricia Highsmith’s centenary and the release of her never before published private diaries, journalist Sarah Dunant reveals the inside story behind the writing of The Price of Salt.
Highsmith published this love story between two women, based on her own experiences, in 1952 - under a pseudonym to avoid derailing her reputation as a thriller writer. She only admitted to being the author in a 1990 BBC interview with Sarah Dunant. She never wrote another novel like it, and later became best known for her thrillers starring charming psychopath Tom Ripley.
Now, Sarah returns to the time when those ideas that defined Patricia’s iconic characters and novels were first forged - in the pages of a personal romance.
Framed around diary readings by Miranda Richardson, and featuring interviews with biographer Andrew Wilson, forensic psychiatrist Gwen Adshead and screen writer Phyllis Nagy who adapted the Price of Salt as a hit 2015 film starring Cate Blanchett and Rooney Mara.
Book extracts courtesy: Virago and imprint of the Little, Brown Book Group (’The Talented Mr Ripley’), Bloomsbury Publishing Plc (‘Carol’). Diary readings from ‘Diaries and Notebooks: 1941-1995 by Patricia Highsmith, published by Wiedenfeld & Nicolson, Text © 2021 Diogenes Verlag AG Zürich.
Presented by Sarah Dunant
Produced by Clem Hitchcock
A Just Radio production for BBC Radio 4
Patricia Highsmith by Rolf Tietgens, Photo Courtesy: Keith De Lellis Gallery (NY).
SUN 17:00 The Patrick Vallance Interview (m0010gkl)
Could the lessons learnt during the pandemic put us in a stronger position to tackle other big science-based challenges ahead, such as achieving carbon net zero, preserving a diversity of species, and protecting our privacy and slowing the spread of misinformation online?
As Chief Scientific Advisor to the government during a pandemic, Patrick Vallance's calm, clear summaries of the state of our scientific understanding of the virus were welcomed by many. But what was going on behind the scenes? In this extended interview with Jim Al-Khalili, Patrick opens up about the challenges involved in presenting scientific evidence to government and together they explore that trickiest of relationships - the one between scientists and politicians.
He also looks to the future. Scientists gain prominence during a crisis but the need for scientific input to government is ever present. as head of the new Office for Science and Technology Strategy, based in the Cabinet Office, Patrick hopes to put science and technology at the heart of policy making in government. Science should be as central to government as the economy, he says and tells Jim how he thinks that could be achieved.
Producer: Anna Buckley
SUN 17:40 Profile (m0010n87)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Saturday]
SUN 17:54 Shipping Forecast (m0010pnp)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
SUN 17:57 Weather (m0010pnr)
The latest weather reports and forecast
SUN 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m0010pnt)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4
SUN 18:15 Pick of the Week (m0010pnw)
Myfanwy Alexander
This week we trawl the audio oceans for extraordinary treasures.
Join us in Orkney where we whistle for seals and in Cornwall where we spot celebs. We have sin-eaters, brothers, bets, death, doubt and DuoLingo.
In the week after Tyson Fury’s win, we ask the question, does a great boxer need a great rival?
And, for the not so competitive of us, is it the winning or the taking part that counts?
Scientists ponder as to whether they need to get out more on The Life Scientific and there’s a powerful conversation about IVF with Mark Rae and Christ Hawkins on 6Music.
Presenter: Myfanwy Alexander
Producer: Emmie Hume
Production support: Pete Liggins
Studio Manager: Sue Stonestreet
SUN 19:00 The Archers (m0010nd8)
Kenton and David have their eye on the prize but Justin isn’t in the mood for horseplay.
SUN 19:15 The Confessional (m0010pny)
Series 2
The Confession of Anthony Horowitz
Stephen Mangan is back with the comedy chat show about shame and guilt.
Each week Stephen Mangan invites a different eminent guest into his virtual confessional box to make three 'confessions' to him. This is a cue for some rich and varied storytelling, and surprising insights as their confessions are put under the microscope. Settle back for a stimulating journey through the realms of shame, regret, guilt and toe-curling embarrassment
This week Stephen meets the prolific novelist and screen writer Anthony Horowitz, author of The Alex Rider Novels, Foyle’s War, and talks to him about posthumous revenge, family relationships and the delights of making things up at inappropriate moments.
Other guests in the series: Olivia Williams, Ed Byrne, Shaparak Khorsandi, Konnie Huq and David Quantick.
Written and presented by Stephen Mangan
With extra material by Nick Doody
Produced by Frank Stirling
A 7digital production
SUN 19:45 Miss Bessemer Saves the Train (m0010pp0)
'Citizens of Sussex! You've Nothing to Lose But Your Trains...!'
Penelope Keith is Madge Bessemer in this 5-part serial inspired by the true story of one woman’s fight to halt the closure of her local railway.
Village Guide Captain Madge Bessemer is not a particular fan of railways. Who needs trains when you’ve got a 1948 Austin Princess to tootle around in? However, when she discovers that, as part of their closure plans, British Rail are going to auction off the line side footpath, which holds precious memories for her, she determines to put a stop to proceedings.
Supported by The Lewes and East Grinstead Railway Fighting Committee - two Girl Guides, two train spotters, one pigswill man and a dog - Madge takes her battle right to the heart of government.
But the Prime Minster has just been humiliated by Colonel Nasser and has no intention of suffering a further humiliation at the hands of a village Girl Guide leader. John Profumo, Under Secretary of State to the Minister of Transport and a rising star in the government, is tasked with seeing that Miss Bessemer’s plans are consigned to the dustbin of history.
All seems lost but, as Madge gains strength from the ghosts of her past, an unlikely idea for a railway of the future takes shape.
Everyone loves a fighter and Madge becomes a national hero, finding herself midwife not just to the birth of the world’s first preserved standard gauge passenger railway –the Bluebell Line - but also to the UK’s multi-million pound heritage railway industry.
Writer: Roy Apps
Reader: Penelope Keith
Director: Celia de Wolff
Sound Design: Matt Bainbridge
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4
SUN 20:00 Feedback (m0010hq0)
'Stop talking!'; that is what Nick Robinson, as presenter of Radio 4’s Today programme, told the prime minister on air last week. Was this a necessary tactic or a piece of typically pompous presenter rudeness?
In the first Feedback of the new series, listeners give their reactions, and Matthew Parris discusses whether the political interview is now dead in the water.
And the commissioner of comedy for Radio 4 defends Richard Osman’s the Birthday Cake Game, after complaints from listeners. Roger Bolton asks Sioned Wiliam will it get recommissioned, and how did she decide on who was to be the new presenter of Just a Minute?
Presenter: Roger Bolton
Producer: Kate Dixon
Executive Producer: Samir Shah
A Juniper Connect production for BBC Radio 4
SUN 20:30 Last Word (m0010hpy)
Abdul Qadeer Khan (pictured), R. Allen Gardner, Joyce Jackson, Beresford King-Smith
Matthew Bannister on
Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, once described as the world’s most dangerous man - but hailed as a hero in his native Pakistan for leading the country’s development of nuclear weapons.
Dr. R. Allen Gardner, the American ethologist who trained a chimpanzee to use sign language.
Beresford King-Smith, who played a key backstage role in the success of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra.
And memories of the long life of Joyce Jackson who has died aged 107.
Interviewed guest: Stephen Maddock OBE
Interviewed guest: Mary Lee Jensvold
Interviewed guest: Umer Farooq
Interviewed guest: Gordon Corera
Interviewed guest: Mary Lee Jensvold
Interviewed guest: Sarah Allatt
Archive clips used: DocsOnline, Nuclear Tango 26/05/2009; AP, Clinton condemns Pakistans Nuclear Tests 28/05/1998; Al Jazeera English, Abdul Qadeer Khan 10/10/2021; Geo News, Funeral prayers for Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan 10/10/2021; WGBH, BBC Horizon - Washoe the Chimp 04/11/1974; YouTube, Unidentified clip of Beatrix and Allen Gardner with Washoe the Chimp 13/02/2009; Sarah Allatt, Private interviews of Joyce Jackson 2021; BBC, Scrapbook for 1924 23/02/1955; British Pathé, Sir Alan Cobham shows how he will refuel in the air 1934; Inter-Pathé History, British Declaration of War 03/09/1939; BBC Radio 4, On The Town - Birmingham 02/01/1980; Central Television, Simon Rattle on the Record 1988.
SUN 21:00 Money Box (m0010n7k)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:04 on Saturday]
SUN 21:25 Radio 4 Appeal (m0010pmt)
[Repeat of broadcast at
07:54 today]
SUN 21:30 Analysis (m0010ggp)
Look who's talking - the rise of ‘voice cloning’
When you listen to a radio programme, watch an animated film, or even receive a phone call, it’s unlikely you’ll question whether the words you’re hearing are coming from the mouth of a human being. But all that could be about to change thanks to the rise of ‘voice cloning’.
Elaine Moore is a tech columnist at the Financial Times and she’s interested in the ramifications of this new technology. Thanks to artificial intelligence, cloning a human voice can be achieved with just a few minutes of recorded audio. As the technology becomes more sophisticated and its use more widespread, how will this affect our society, our politics and our personal interactions? And is it time we were able to control what happens to our own voice both now and when we die?
With contributions from:
Carlton Daniel, lawyer at Squire Patton Boggs.
Tom Lee, co-founder of LOVO.
David Leslie, Ethics Theme Lead at the Alan Turing Institute.
Rupal Patel, founder & CEO of VocaliD.
Tim McSmythurs, AI Researcher and creator of Speaking AI.
James Vlahos, co-founder of HereAfter AI.
Producer: Craig Templeton Smith
Editor: Jasper Corbett
SUN 22:00 Westminster Hour (m0010pp2)
Radio 4's Sunday night political discussion programme.
SUN 23:00 The Curious Cases of Rutherford & Fry (m0010fb1)
Series 18
The Weirdness of Water Part 1
“I don’t really understand why water has so many properties on different scales ranging from very large and cosmic to very small quantum and quarky - Could you help by zooming in and out on water to explain what is known about it? Asks Neil Morton in Stirling. Rutherford and Fry learn about the special hydrogen bonds that makes water such an unusual liquid.
Quantum physicist Professor Patricia Hunt, at the Victoria University in Wellington in New Zealand explains to Hannah the quantum properties of individual water molecules and how they link up with other water molecules in liquid water and solid ice. She describes the hydrogen bonds that give water some of it’s weird and wonderful properties such as why ice floats, why water is able to store huge amounts of heat and why water has such a strong surface tension.
Science writer and author of ‘H2O – a biography of water’ Philip Ball describes how in the 18th century it was discovered that water was not one of the classical elements, but a compound liquid of water and hydrogen and explains to Adam why there are at least 15 different types of ice.
Physicist Dr. Helen Czerski sets the record straight on how ice forms in oceans and lakes and why water is at it’s densest at 4 degrees Centigrade and not zero.
Presenters: Hannah Fry & Adam Rutherford
Producer: Fiona Roberts
SUN 23:30 Something Understood (b01dmdmm)
[Repeat of broadcast at
06:05 today]
MONDAY 18 OCTOBER 2021
MON 00:00 Midnight News (m0010pp4)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.
MON 00:15 Thinking Allowed (m0010gy3)
Love and Romance
LOVE & ROMANCE – Laurie Taylor unpacks different conceptions of love. He’s joined by Raksha Pande, Senior Lecturer in Social Geography at Newcastle University, whose latest research explores arranged marriages amongst people in the British-Indian diaspora. She finds that they have skilfully adapted cultural norms to carve out an identity narrative that portrays them as modern migrants offering a different take on romantic love. She’s joined by Eva Illouz, Rose Isaac Chair of Sociology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who considers the ways in which romantic affairs in Western culture fail to spark or break up. What can ‘the end of love’ tell us about the effects of consumer culture on personal relationships?
Producer: Jayne Egerton
MON 00:45 Bells on Sunday (m0010n8t)
[Repeat of broadcast at
05:43 on Sunday]
MON 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m0010pp6)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
MON 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m0010pp8)
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 (m0010ppb)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
MON 05:30 News Briefing (m0010ppd)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4
MON 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m0010ppg)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with the Rev Canon Dr Jennifer Smith
Good morning.
A few weeks ago I needed to take a five AM train from London Euston, so found myself on the night bus from my local stop at just after four thirty. During the day and well into the night, London Transport is usually busy and anonymous. I find folk are generally kind, helping where needed and giving up seats for someone less able, but there’s an unwritten code to respect each other’s space. We avoid eye contact, attention glued to phones or less frequently now, newspapers and books.
At
4.30 AM the night bus was different. The seats were full, but it was immediately clear that everyone here knew each other, even down to who would get on or off and at which stop. There was food, and banter between those just starting work, and those who were on their way home. Some were asleep. Two women were planning a wedding party for one of their daughters, and another man was video-calling his family in the Philippines. Several were on their way to work whilst others made their journey home after a night shift.
I had have a moment waiting in the dark at the bus stop by myself in the early hours that maybe I should have splurged for a taxi? But any reservations I had about getting the night bus disappeared instantly when I stumbled up the steps, and discovered its accidental community. There is safety in being known and connected with other people; community is an antidote to fear.
God of peace, make neighbours out of strangers today, and bless us on our way.
Amen.
MON 05:45 Farming Today (m0010ppj)
18/10/21 - Attracting new butchers, Small abattoirs, Apple harvest
Well abattoirs and meat processing plants say they have around 1,500 vacancies, and the Government’s announcement of 800 six-month visas to allow butchers from abroad to work here is clearly only a temporary solution. What then will work in the longer term? We hear from Simon Taylor from Surrey Hills Butchers - Captain of the UK Butchery Team!
In recent years, many small and medium sized units have closed and there are concerns more may follow. Gareth Barlow, himself a former slaughter man, reports on warnings that if more smaller abattoirs are lost, there may be significant consequences for rural economies.
And it’s harvest time in apple orchards across the country. But it's been a difficult year with weather and labour challenges.
Presented by Charlotte Smith
Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Heather Simons
MON 05:56 Weather (m0010ppl)
The latest weather forecast for farmers.
MON 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b03k279n)
Fieldfare
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs.
Chris Packham presents the fieldfare. Fieldfares are thrushes, and very handsome ones. They have slate-grey heads, dark chestnut backs and black tails and their under parts are patterned with arrows. Although birds will stick around if there's plenty of food available, fieldfares are great wanderers and are quick to move out in freezing conditions.
MON 06:00 Today (m0010ncj)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
MON 09:00 Start the Week (m0010ncl)
Rationality in an Irrational Age
In his new book, Rationality, the experimental psychologist Steven Pinker argues that human beings have the power to think, act and behave rationally, if given the right tools to do so. He asks why rationality so often plays second fiddle to opinion, bias and prejudice. And he believes that in order to ensure our survival as a species we need to learn how to apply rational thought to our daily lives.
Our attitudes towards sexual desire may not always be regarded as rational. Amia Srinivasan is Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory at Oxford University and in ‘The Right to Sex’ she considers this universal topic from a modern feminist perspective – a collision of pleasure, ethics and gender politics.
If physical relationships are often the result of irrational decisions, then the belief in ghosts takes the human scope for irrationality to a whole new level. In The First Ghosts: Most Ancient of Legacies, British Museum curator Irving Finkel goes right back to the beginning and shows how the Sumerians, Babylonians and Assyrians believed in the spirit world and considers why this enduring belief in ghosts is something that spans diverse cultures and historical periods.
Producer: Natalia Fernandez
MON 09:45 Manifesto by Bernardine Evaristo (m0010nfc)
Episode 1
Bernardine Evaristo took her rightful place in the spotlight when she won the Booker Prize in 2019 with 'Girl, Woman, Other'. Now the trailblazing author, teacher and activist charts how she made history, her way.
Bernardine considers heritage, childhood, family and origins as she explores the elements that determined the writer she would become.
Written and read by Bernardine Evaristo
Abridged by Patricia Cumper
Producer: Eilidh McCreadie
MON 10:00 Woman's Hour (m0010ncq)
Women pig farmers and mental health, Modern slavery, The cave woman rebuilding her business after Covid
According to a new survey on mental wellbeing in agriculture, 58% of women in farming experience anxiety compared to 44% of men. What's the reason behind it? How much impact has Brexit and the pandemic had on the problem? We discuss with Alicia Chivers, Chief Executive of the Royal Agricultural Benevolent Institution, and East Yorkshire pig farmer Kate Moore.
We've been following the work of the Salvation Army who have the Home Office contract to support all victims of modern slavery in England and Wales and have been given exclusive access to their annual report which shows that demand for their services is soaring. Young Albanian women make up the largest group of survivors who escape from their traffickers after being sexually exploited. Many of these women are waiting to hear if the Home Secretary will appeal against what's described as a landmark High Court ruling last week. It was brought by a Vietnamese woman who was trafficked to the UK and if upheld will affect hundreds of others like her.
We hear from Ahmed Aydeed from law firm Duncan Lewis the woman's solicitor. Plus reporter Carolyn Atkinson talks to a survivor and to Kathy Betteridge, Major Director of Anti Trafficking and Modern Slavery at the Salvation Army.
Plus Emma catches up with a woman in the Yorkshire Dales who's spent over a hundred hours in a cave. Lisa Bowerman owns Stump Cross Caverns, and on Friday night she completed 105 hours underground. She runs the caves as a family business and they'll usually a big attraction for tourists. She explains why she hopes the stunt will give the business a lift post-Covid.
Presenter Emma Barnett
Producer Beverley Purcell
MON 11:00 The Untold (m0010ncs)
Out of the Red!
James 33 and Courtney 28 were fed up of struggling to make ends meet and decided on a radical solution: they swapped their rented house for a bright orange sprinter van which they’ve converted and affectionately christened DeeDee. Instead of working longer hours, they’ve halved their working week and still think they can pay off their debts and save enough for a place of their own.
Producer Sue Mitchell hears what happens as they put their plan into action and set off on the open road. They made their decision just before covid hit and as many people grappled with remote ways of working, James and Courtney were one step ahead. Their life transformation had entailed reducing their work commitments and ensuring that they could do everything online, with DeeDee’s excellent internet capabilities allowing them to work from the most remote locations.
The move to this lifestyle has brought challenges of its own and particularly with their new travel companion, a Spanish rescue dog called Sally Sausage. Their adventures embrace storms, floods, frantic dog searches and costly breakdowns. But throughout it all their goal keeps them going and as covid restrictions lift they find themselves with difficult decisions to reach. The debts have been paid off and they’ve managed to save, so what will they do next?
Courtney says the lifting of their financial woes has given them both a sense of empowerment: “making the decision to get the van was the catalyst for a complete mindset change, seeing the world is the bigger picture. We were both in full time employment earning a lot more and we couldn’t save. Now we are in part time employment we are able to save 1,000 a month.
“We’ve designed our life around it. The life we had before wasn’t for us and I think the decision now isn’t about going back to that life. The idea of having a base to go back to that’s ours that feels like our home, is one we want. At the moment home is wherever we park our van, so I can see us having that base to put down roots and then we won’t have to carry everything with us. There are decisions ahead but we’ve proved that we don’t need lots of stuff to enjoy life.”
The couple are also recording their travels for their You Tube Channel https://youtube.com/c/CourtsMeeks & Instagram Https://instagram.com/courtsandmeeks, Courts and Meeks, with thousands of followers tuning in to share in their adventures.
MON 11:30 Loose Ends (m0010n85)
[Repeat of broadcast at
18:15 on Saturday]
MON 12:00 News Summary (m0010pvc)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
MON 12:04 Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead (m0010ncy)
Episode 6: Boudoir Shots
Set in 1960s Harlem, the Pulitzer-winning author of The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys spins a sizzling tale of shakedowns, audacious heists and kickbacks.
“Ray Carney was only slightly bent when it came to being crooked...”
To his customers on 125th street, Ray Carney is an upstanding salesman of reasonably-priced furniture. Not many people know he descends from a line of uptown crooks, and that his façade of normalcy has more than a few cracks in it.
When his cousin Freddie falls in with a crew who pull off one of Harlem’s most outrageous heists, Ray finds himself in way above his head. Can he succeed in living a good life in a very bad world?
Today: sweet revenge and the downfall of Wilfred Duke...
Read by Rhashan Stone
Writer: Colson Whitehead is the acclaimed US author of eight novels, including the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys.
Abridger: Richard Hamilton
Producer: Justine Willett
MON 12:18 You and Yours (m0010nd0)
News and discussion of consumer affairs
MON 12:57 Weather (m0010nd2)
The latest weather forecast
MON 13:00 World at One (m0010nd4)
Forty-five minutes of news, analysis and comment, with Sarah Montague.
MON 13:45 39 Ways to Save the Planet (m0010nd6)
Zero Carbon Flight
Flying, for business or pleasure, has long been seen as one of the biggest carbon villains. As airports gear up again after Covid it's clear not every business wants to keep meetings online or holidaymakers settle for a staycation.
But what if we could fly without the guilt? Tom Heap meets some of the pioneers of zero carbon flight: hitching a ride with Harbour Air in Canada who have retrofitted one of their planes to fly on electric battery power; visiting the equivalent of the Batcave with a Bristol company making EVTOLs - electic vertical take off and landing vehicles- which could see us zipping between cities; and asking about the use of sustainable aviation fuels. Dr Tamsin Edwards joins him to discuss how much carbon dioxide - and more - this could potentially save.
Produced in association with the Royal Geographical Society. Special thanks for this episode to Dr Andy Jefferson from Sustainable Aviation and Tim Johnson from the Aviation Environment Federation.
Producer: Anne-Marie Bullock
Researcher: Sarah Goodman.
MON 14:00 The Archers (m0010nd8)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Sunday]
MON 14:15 Blood, Sex and Money by Emile Zola (b07zzr8y)
Season 3 - Money
5. Inheritance
Blood, Sex and Money by Emile Zola, Season 3 - Money
Inheritance by Lavinia Murray
Award winning drama series continues. Starring Glenda Jackson, David Schofield and Angela Griffin. First of a two part drama set in the depths of rural France where families fight over ownership of land, and the earth takes precedence over humanity. An unflinching and gritty account of rural life in 19th century France, inspired largely by Zola's novel The Earth.
Dide ...... Glenda Jackson
Jean ...... Matthew McNulty
Lise ...... Angela Griffin
Francoise ...... Emma Rigby
Fouan ....... David Schofield
Buteau ....... Jason Done
Jesu ...... Danny Kirrane
Fanny ....... Natasha Cowley
Produced and directed by Pauline Harris
Further info:- Animals from Season 1, Blood Series won BBC Audio and Music Award's Best Drama.
MON 15:00 Brain of Britain (m0010ndb)
Semi-Final 2, 2021
(14/17)
Another four semi-finalists take their places for the latest round of the challenging general knowledge contest, with a place in the 2021 Final up for grabs. Russell Davies is in the questionmaster's chair. Will the competitors know which Roman god was supposedly the father of the twins Romulus and Remus? Or which member of the Dad's Army cast was also a successful playwright? Or which Elton John song Kate Bush has had a Top 20 hit with?
Appearing today are
Heather Auton, a retired marketing director from Amersham
Edward Brunt, a retired IT analyst from Altrincham
Innis Carson, a researcher from Belfast
Alan Hodgson, a customer service assistant from Macclesfield.
There's also a chance for a Brain of Britain listener to win a prize if his or her questions are chosen to challenge the Brains.
Assistant Producer: Stephen Garner
Producer: Paul Bajoria
MON 15:30 The Food Programme (m0010ndd)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:32 on Sunday]
MON 16:00 The Dreams We Live Inside (m0010f97)
Dreams in the Earth
What do we ask for, and what do we receive from the built environment?
Engineer Roma Agrawal explores how the visions and dreams of architects and designers are experienced, co-created and changed by the people who live in their buildings.
In this episode, Roma considers our need to partner with nature in architecture, delving back into Ian McHarg’s landscape architecture manifesto Design with Nature. McHarg was a 70s Scottish architect who developed a method to study the landscape before building. Professor Richard J Weller (co-executive director of The Ian L. McHarg Center) examines what McHarg's work meant at the time and what it means now.
We visit the NHS Forth Valley Royal Hospital and Larbert Woods in Larbert, a project which won the 2020 Building with Nature award. One of the landscape architects, Sheena Rayburn, explains the unusual ways in which the NHS partnered with specialists in the landscape, while oncology nurse Linnet McGeever explains how the hospital and woods have changed the experience for patients and workers.
Palawa Architect Sarah Lynn Rees explores indigenous perspectives on partnering with nature in architecture, and London based architect Micheal Pawlyn reveals his nature-inspired architectural solutions.
Presenter: Roma Agrawal
Producer: Sandra Jean-Pierre
Executive Producer: Katherine Godfrey
Researcher: Nadia Mehdi
Music and sound design by Phil Smith
Mix by Graham Puddifoot
A Novel production for BBC Radio 4
MON 16:30 The Digital Human (m0010ndg)
Series 24
Servitude
Aleks Krotoski explores the relationships between social media content creators and their audience, asking how does it get complicated when money starts to change hands.
These are often described as para-social relationships. Ones were the audience knows a lot about the content creator and they know next to nothing about the viewers. This can lead to misunderstandings and even behaviours that border on coercive control.
How can this new breed of celebrity navigate this world when what their subscribers are paying for is their own piece of them?
Producer: Peter McManus
MON 17:00 PM (m0010ndj)
Afternoon news and current affairs programme, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines.
MON 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m0010ndn)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
MON 18:30 The Museum of Curiosity (m0010ndq)
Series 16
Episode 1
Professor of Ignorance John Lloyd and the Museum’s brand new curator Holly Walsh are joined by comedian and writer Jamie MacDonald, art critic and author Jennifer Higgie and artist Francis Hamel.
Jamie MacDonald discusses the time he met Britain’s only certified blind wood turner and donates a blue badge to talk about the ways the country is becoming more accessible. Jennifer Higgie donates the first self portrait ever painted of an artist at work at the easel – painted by Catharina van Hemessen in 1548 and Francis Hamel talks about the challenges of portrait painting and the spell which trees hold over him.
This series of The Museum of Curiosity has been recorded remotely.
The Museum’s exhibits were catalogued by Mike Shephard, Mike Turner and Jack Chambers and Emily Jupitus of QI.
The Production Co-Ordinator was Sarah Nicholls.
The Producer was Anne Miller.
The Executive Producer was Julia McKenzie.
Edited by David Thomas.
A BBC Studios production.
MON 19:00 The Archers (m0010ndt)
Ruth welcomes an outsider and Ian is lost for words.
MON 19:15 Front Row (m0010ndw)
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
MON 20:00 White Mischief (m0010ndy)
Dream for a moment
Ekow Eshun is a writer and a curator of art exhibitions. He looks at the images and ideas that we use to build our view of the world - and, as a black man living in a mainly white society, he’s been thinking about race all his life. In this series, he’s on a personal journey to explore what he believes could be one of the most influential and elusive ideas of the modern age - whiteness.
In this final episode, Ekow asks whether we can live without whiteness. He speaks to writers Bernadine Evarasto, Nikesh Shukla, and Ronan Bennett to investigate the notion of white privilege. And he finds out how ideas of race and class percolate into politics, with Robert Halfon MP and former ministerial advisor Peter Cardwell.
Ekow discovers how ideas about whiteness have changed over time and how they’re likely to change again. Finally, he returns to his friend, the artist Grayson Perry, to talk about the importance of curiosity and openness in moving beyond the fraught politics of whiteness.
Producer: Philly Beaumont
Executive Producer: John Shields
A Loftus Media production for Radio 4
MON 20:30 Analysis (m000wrnx)
Funny Money
What is the money in your pocket really worth?
Come to think of it now we’re virtually cashless, do you even keep money in your pocket?
Maybe you’re worried about the growth of government debt during the pandemic you now store your wealth in commodities such as gold or silver? Or maybe you’re a fan of another asset class: bitcoin. Are cryptocurrencies the future of money or a giant bubble waiting to burst?
Why are governments and companies such as Facebook so interested in developing their own digital currencies?
Fifty years on from the ‘Nixon Shock’, when President Richard Nixon changed global currencies forever by taking the US off the gold standard, the BBC’s Ben Chu is on a mission to find out what money means to us today.
Where does its value come from in this increasingly online world? Are we witnessing a revolution in the transfer of value into the metaverse? And how should make sense of this funny money business?
Guests include:
Historian Niall Ferguson
Economist and academic Stephanie Kelton
Investor Daniel Maegaard
Investment strategist Raoul Pal
Financial commentator Peter Schiff
Economist Pavlina Tcherneva
Producer Craig Templeton Smith
Editor Jasper Corbett
MON 21:00 The Black and the Green (m0010gjl)
British-Jamaican audio artist and DJ Weyland McKenzie-Witter explores the sometimes uneasy relationship between the Black and the Green, as political movements and ideas.
It's the untold story of their longstanding relationship, first as political movements developing in the United States, a wariness that continues today between new organisations such as Black Lives Matter and Extinction Rebellion – the latter (along with the wider environmental movement) criticised for being overwhelmingly white, idealistic and middle-class. Climate activists meanwhile have sometimes dismissed what they’ve called ‘identity’ politics as too parochial in terms of looming global climate disaster. It’s a real tension, with very different emphases between local and global; material issues vs idealism.
As radical movements, both the Black and the Green have their roots in 1960s political consciousness and activism. But there were key cultural moments when they came together, around the release of Marvin Gaye’s classic 1971 album ‘What’s Going On’ and in the work of eco-conscious, Black Power spoken word group The Last Poets. Both artists addressed environmental racism within the ghetto and the promise of a new Black ecology.
By drawing on his Jamaican lineage, Weyland explores the deeper affinity between the Black and the Green, symbolically joined by the Jamaican national flag, the Black of the People and the Green of the land are inseparable, crossed by the Gold of the sun. But Jamaica and the Caribbean are also highly vulnerable to the devastation of climate change. Weyland writes: ‘As the climate catastrophe becomes worse, the effect it is having on our homelands is something affecting Black people uniquely. With the face of climate activism being so predominantly white, and with Black political attention elsewhere, which voices will be heard?"
This feature explores the differences and reasons for separation of the movements, but asks if there might be a growing alignment between the Black and the Green with new thinking around ‘climate justice’.
Contributors include founding member of the Last Poets Abiodun Oyewole, barrister and author Ulele Burnham, Professor Michael Taylor, a climate scientist at the University of the West Indies, theatre maker and actor Fehinti Balogun, co-founder of Extinction Rebellion Dr Gail Bradbury, Black Lives Matter organiser Adam Elliott-Cooper, journalist Greg McKenzie, author on climate justice Jeremy Williams and Kevin Le Gendre, who has written extensively on the history of Black music.
Produced by Simon Hollis
A Brook Lapping production for BBC Radio 4
MON 21:30 Start the Week (m0010ncl)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 today]
MON 22:00 The World Tonight (m0010nf3)
In depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective
MON 22:45 Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead (m0010ncy)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:04 today]
MON 23:00 Have You Heard George's Podcast? (m0010nf5)
Chapter 3
Episode 22 - Mavado & Vybz
In his teens, “Gangsta for life” was the signature war-cry sung by one of George’s favourite singers - Mavado. But after Mavado’s epic clash with rival, Vybz Kartel, George saw the line as a mentality...one that had empowered and terrorised Jamaicans for decades. Music, money and murder all feature in this complex case study of Black urban street culture.
Warning: This episode discusses adult themes and has some graphic descriptions of violence.
Credits: Written by George the Poet
Produced by Benbrick and George the Poet
Mixing, recording and editing by Benbrick
With music from:
Mavado - Last Night
Vybz Kartel - Badda Dan Dem
Mavado - Sunrise ft. Vybz Kartel
Damian Marley - Welcome to Jamrock
Mavado - Hope and Pray
Vybz Kartel - Mr Officer
Vybz Kartel - Bicycle
Stephen "Di Genius” McGregor - Day Break Riddim
Vybz Kartel - Broad Daylight
Mavado - Nuh Bleach Wid Cream
DJ Khaled & Mavado - Unchanging Love
All original music is written by Benbrick and recorded by the BBC Concert Orchestra.
Thank you to: My team Sandra, Vidhu, and Birungi. Dylan Haskins and the team at BBC Sounds, BBC Concert Orchestra, BBC 1Xtra, Jamaica TVJ, Georgette, Aneeka, BBC World Service, Former Commissioner of Police Carl Williams, and finally Aza Auset. And shout out to Cutts barber shop.
Archive: The vocal samples used at
03:38,
03:41, and
03:56 are taken from the Vybz Kartel records "Touch a Button” and “Badda Dan Dem"
The clip of Vybz Kartel used at
04:20 and
05:05 is taken from a 2006 interview with Chris Goldfinger on BBC 1Xtra.
The news report on Kartel and Mavado used at
06:31 and the clips of Mavado and Vybz talking at
07:33 is taken from a 2009 Jamaica TVJ News report entitled “We Are Not Enemies"
The clip of Michael Manley used at
10:45 talking about their friendship with Cuba.
The clip used at
11:47 talking about Edward Seaga is taken from the BBC documentary "Blood And Fire - Jamaica’s Political History”.
The clip of Damian Marley talking about being human used at
12:11 is taken from his interview with Seani B on 1Xtra.
The clip of Bob Marley talking about the shooting used at
12:41 is taken from his interview with Gil Noble for WABC-TV’s “Like It Is”.
The clip of Vybz Kartel used at
15:28 is taken from TVJ Entertainment Report.
The clip of Vybz Kartel talking about dancehall going through a happy phase used at
18:02 is taken from his interview with Robbo Ranx on 1Xtra from the Amsterdam Reggae Festival.
The clip of Former Commissioner of Police Carl Williams talking about Violent Crime, and anti Dancehall Campaigner Aza Auset used at
18:43 and
18:52 are both taken from the BBC World service documentary “Jamaica: Does music shape society?”
Soundtrack:
Mavado - Last Night
00:17 -
02:55
Benbrick - The Underworld
03:03 -
04:09
Vybz Kartel - Badda Dan Dem
04:10 -
05:01
Mavado - Sunrise ft. Vybz Kartel
05:13 -
05:43
Benbrick - The Underworld
05:58 -
09:01
Damian Marley - Welcome to Jamrock
10:11 -
13:27
Mavado - Hope and Pray
16:13 -
17:06
Vybz Kartel - Mr Officer
17:06 -
17:58
Vybz Kartel - Bicycle
17:58 -
18:15
Benbrick - Empty
18:41 -
20:56
Stephen "Di Genius” McGregor - Day Break Riddim
20:59 -
21:15
Vybz Kartel - Broad Daylight
21:15 -
21:30
Mavado - Nuh Bleach Wid Cream
22:11 -
22:28
Benbrick - The Underworld
23:04 -
24:43
DJ Khaled & Mavado - Unchanging Love
24:55 -
25:21
Benbrick - Empty
25:45 -
27:54
Have You Heard George’s Podcast? is a George the Poet production for BBC Sounds.
Commissioning Executive for BBC: Dylan Haskins
MON 23:30 Today in Parliament (m0010nf7)
News, views and features on today's stories in Parliament
TUESDAY 19 OCTOBER 2021
TUE 00:00 Midnight News (m0010nf9)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.
TUE 00:30 Manifesto by Bernardine Evaristo (m0010nfc)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 on Monday]
TUE 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m0010nfg)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
TUE 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m0010nfj)
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 (m0010nfl)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
TUE 05:30 News Briefing (m0010nfn)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4
TUE 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m0010nfq)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with the Rev Canon Dr Jennifer Smith.
Good Morning.
In church, as in business, education, and other institutions, we assess risk to try to anticipate, quantify and avoid all possible accidents and catastrophes – we spend time trying to imagine what risks might be waiting for us, and how we might respond. This includes things like fire or flood that happen in an instant, and other things like ‘loss of community trust’ that can happen so slowly they are easy to miss, but no less devastating.
Risk assessments are a good thing, if a bit fiddly to get one’s head around at first. If (God forbid) we are ever dealing with a major disaster where I live and work, I will be very grateful not to have to rely solely on my instincts, but to have a plan.
But when we were reviewing our ‘major incident plan,’ I was struck by a difference in culture from the versions of yesteryear. Our protocols today quite rightly mandate specific actions with the priority on protecting vulnerable people, communicating well, and protecting property in that order. This is good.
By contrast the oldest plans, laughably quaint but no less wise, focussed on equipping persons on the ground and left specific actions to their good judgment. ‘Put on a pair of stout shoes,’ one from several decades ago began. ‘Make up a round of sandwiches, and a flask of tea.’
Some risks in life we can prepare for, others will take us by surprise. Then we will need to have confidence not only in policies, but in our own and others’ judgment and character, wearing whatever shoes we put on that morning, with or without a flask of tea.
Gracious God, protect your weak ones today, give us kindness, strength, and wisdom to face whatever comes.
Amen.
TUE 05:45 Farming Today (m0010nfs)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
TUE 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b03bkdkt)
Ortolan Bunting
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about the British birds inspired by their calls and songs.
Wildlife Sound Recordist, Chris Watson, presents the Ortolan Bunting. Ortolan Buntings are smart relatives of our yellowhammer. They're migrants which winter in Africa and small numbers of birds heading south for the winter may turn up on our coasts in autumn. But until recently in parts of southern Europe, their arrival was welcomed by hunters with nets.
The sound archive recording of the ortolan bunting featured in this programme was sourced from:
Volker Arnold, XC139765. Accessible at www.xeno-canto.org/139765.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2013.
TUE 06:00 Today (m0010ptv)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
TUE 09:00 The Life Scientific (m0010pv0)
Tim Spector and personalised diets for long-term health
Many of us take dietary rules for granted such as eating little and often, not skipping meals and keeping a check on our calorie intake. But genetic epidemiologist Professor Tim Spector argues we need to re-evaluate what we think we know about a good diet: diversity in both the types of food we eat and in the unique mix of microbes we nurture in our gut is the most important factor for health.
In a multidisciplinary career following early training as a rheumatologist, Tim founded the UK Twins Registry at King’s College London to unravel the extent to which genes contribute to a vast range of human conditions and diseases. But the puzzling differences he observed in identical twins would fuel his current research on the gut microbiome and the discovery that each of us have a unique mix of gut bacteria – in effect a chemical factory that dictates our highly individual responses to different foods.
Tim tells Jim Al-Khalili how his research has evolved to successfully develop a new scientific approach to personalised nutrition – through technology that during the pandemic has famously been pressed into service to track Covid symptoms across the UK, and that’s now revealing how a diverse diet has huge implications for Covid-19 outcomes.
Producer Adrian Washbourne
TUE 09:30 One to One (m0010pv2)
Faces of Fame: Janet Ellis and Sophie Ellis Bextor
Sophie Ellis-Bextor has the kind of fame which brings with it high profile television shows and recognition in the street. Her mum, Janet Ellis was in millions of living rooms every week but the only perk Sophie can remember was jumping the queue at Madame Tussauds. Mother and daughter talk about fame, and how the whole experience has changed over the decades.
Producer Sally Heaven
TUE 09:45 Manifesto by Bernardine Evaristo (m0010px1)
Episode 2
Bernardine Evaristo took her rightful place in the spotlight when she won the Booker Prize in 2019 with 'Girl, Woman, Other'. Now the trailblazing author, teacher and activist charts how she made history, her way.
Bernardine remembers some of the rooms, flats, houses and homes that nurtured her on her path to success.
Written and read by Bernardine Evaristo
Abridged by Patricia Cumper
Producer: Eilidh McCreadie
TUE 10:00 Woman's Hour (m0010pv6)
Women's voices and women's lives - topical conversations to inform, challenge and inspire.
TUE 11:00 Glasgow: Our Last Best Hope? (m0010pv9)
Douglas Alexander witnessed disappointment first hand as part of the British Ministerial Delegation to COP in Copenhagen in 2009. Now the biggest summit the UK has ever hosted is coming to his home city of Glasgow, Douglas asks leading international figures including John Kerry, Christiana Figueres, Mark Carney and Alok Sharma what it will take to make a success of COP26.
If the conference does set an ambitious agenda for reaching net zero carbon emissions, what will it mean for the city and indeed all of us? Douglas hears from Sir Anton Muscatelli, Principal of Glasgow University, Chief Executive of Scottish Power Renewables Lindsay McQuade, Professor Tahseen Jafry, Director of the Centre for Climate Justice at Glasgow Caledonian University, cleansing worker and GMB representative Chris Mitchell, and Laura Young, a climate activist known as Less Waste Laura.
TUE 11:30 The End of the World Has Already Happened (m000d8s5)
3: Cue The Sinister Music
Writer and philosopher Timothy Morton continues to share his ideas about our psychological relationship with global warming. How could we cope better with our feelings about what’s happening, so we can get on with something better for our planet?
In this final episode, he finds sources of hope for the future.
There are no solutions to the climate crisis in this programme. But by opening up different ways of relating to other humans, and non-humans, might we then find it easier to act?
Tim spends time in a cat cafe and a nightclub, and listens to a children’s story, the worldview of the Lakota people and a hacked nature documentary, as well as the voices of young people engaged in climate protests.
The aim? To liberate humans from the ‘patriarchal, hierarchical, heteronormative possibility space’, and to relearn our connectedness to everything on the planet.
With contributions from environmental scientist and writer Liam Heneghan, artist Amy Cutler, activists Sarah Eagleheart, Colibrí Sanfiorenzo Barnhard, George Monbiot and Hilton Kelley, and psychotherapist Caroline Hickman, as well as a reading by Laurie Anderson.
Produced by Chris Elcombe
A Reduced Listening production for BBC Radio 4.
Featured music:
Alexandra Spence - Immaterial (Longform Editions)
Anna Peaker - Realm of Perfume and Lights (Longform Editions)
Dawn of Midi - Nix & Io (Thirsty Ear)
Felicity Mangan - Stereo’frog’ic (Longform Editions)
Ondness - Malta Inquieta (Discrepant)
Siavash Amini - A Recollection of the Disappeared (Room40)
Tomoko Sauvage - Making of a Rainbow
TUE 12:00 News Summary (m0010qcj)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
TUE 12:04 Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead (m0010pvg)
Episode 7: The Briefcase
Set in 1960s Harlem, the Pulitzer-winning author of The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys spins a sizzling tale of shakedowns, audacious heists and kickbacks.
“Ray Carney was only slightly bent when it came to being crooked...”
To his customers on 125th street, Ray Carney is an upstanding salesman of reasonably-priced furniture. Not many people know he descends from a line of uptown crooks, and that his façade of normalcy has more than a few cracks in it.
When his cousin Freddie falls in with a crew who pull off one of Harlem’s most outrageous heists, Ray finds himself in way above his head. Can he succeed in living a good life in a very bad world?
Today: with riots and protests, things are hotting up in Harlem. And that's before Freddie turns up with a locked briefcase...
Read by Rhashan Stone
Writer: Colson Whitehead is the acclaimed US author the Pulitzer Prize-winning novels, The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys.
Abridger: Richard Hamilton
Producer: Justine Willett
TUE 12:18 You and Yours (m0010pvj)
News and discussion of consumer affairs
TUE 12:57 Weather (m0010pvl)
The latest weather forecast
TUE 13:00 World at One (m0010pvn)
Forty-five minutes of news, analysis and comment, with Sarah Montague.
TUE 13:45 39 Ways to Save the Planet (m0010pvq)
Local Wisdom
There are different schools of thought on how land (and sea) are best managed but often in the rush for economic development indigenous practices and knowledge are overlooked. Observations and understanding from living on the land can inform how to protect and preserve it . Tom Heap meets Victor Steffensen, a descendent of the aboriginal Tagalaka people and an indigenous fire practitioner. He explains how cultural burns can help manage the land, reduce the fuel load and the likelihood of destructive wildfires. Yet he feels while there are calls to incorporate this knowledge more, it doesn't go far enough. Diana Mastracci is a researcher working with groups in the Amazon and Arctic to give them equal participation and benefits from research and runs hackathons for software ideas that could use and value their knowledge more and says academics have a long way to go to fully appreciate this knowledge.
Dr Tamsin Edwards weighs up just how much carbon dioxide could potentially be saved by adopting indigenous land management practices.
Producer: Anne-Marie Bullock
Researcher Sarah Goodman
Produced in association with the Royal Geographical Society. Special thanks for this episode to Dr Jem Woods and Miss Abi Croker from Imperial College London and to Dr Caroline Lehmann from the University of Edinburgh.
TUE 14:00 The Archers (m0010ndt)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Monday]
TUE 14:15 Blood, Sex and Money by Emile Zola (b08015rq)
Season 3 - Money
6. Reap
Blood, Sex and Money by Emile Zola, Season 3 - Money
Reap by Lavinia Murray
Award winning drama series continues. Starring Glenda Jackson, David Schofield and Angela Griffin. Concluding part of drama set in the depths of rural France where families fight over ownership of land, and the earth takes precedence over humanity. Francoise lies dying on her farm, after being attacked by her cousin and sister, husband and wife, Buteau and Lise. An unflinching and gritty account of rural life in 19th century France, inspired largely by Zola's novel The Earth.
Dide ...... Glenda Jackson
Fouan/Lambourdieu ...... David Schofield
Jean ...... Matthew McNulty
Lise ....... Angela Griffin
Buteau ...... Jason Done
Francoise ...... Emma Rigby
Jesu/Doctor ..... Danny Kirrane
Fanny ....... Natasha Cowley
Gendarme ...... Luke MacGregor
Produced and directed by Pauline Harris
TUE 15:00 The Kitchen Cabinet (m0010n7c)
[Repeat of broadcast at
10:30 on Saturday]
TUE 15:30 Costing the Earth (m0010p24)
Earthshot: The Winners
Taking inspiration from President Kennedy’s Moonshot which united people around a goal to put man on the moon and spurred the development of new technology in the 1960s, the Earthshot Prize is centred around five simple but ambitious goals for our planet. Chhavi Sachdev announces the winners of the inaugural prize and discusses how smart ideas from individual innovators and small companies can influence the upcoming climate debate at COP26 in Glasgow. Prizes like this prove that there are clever ideas being developed to ease our pressure on the environment, but how can those ideas be harnessed and scaled up to make a big difference globally? Chhavi and her expert panel discuss the best ways to make smart ideas part of the solution to the planet's biggest problems.
Producer: Alasdair Cross
TUE 16:00 100 Years of Exile (m0010pvs)
How do refugee crises end?
Katy Long concludes her history of 100 years of refugee politics, as she examines how to 'solve' a refugee crisis.
A century on from a refugee crisis on Europe's borders which lead to the first High Commissioner for Refugees being appointed, Katy is examining how refugee crises start, what it is like to be a refugee, how the business of supporting refugees has changed (and grown), and how refugee crises end. She's speaking to refugees and former refugees, to those who work with them and to the politicians who decide what will become of them.
In this third and final episode Katy will examine how refugee crises end - how they might be solved. Hearing stories from Paraguay to Israel and Rwanda to the United States, Katy will examine return and resettlement, but in the end she asks who are these solutions really for.
Producer: Giles Edwards
Assistant Producer: George Dabby.
TUE 16:30 A Good Read (m0010nv9)
Mona Arshi & Malaika Kegode
Mona Arshi is a poet and novelist. Her choice of book is Summer Book by Tove Jansson which of which she says: "I'm glad it exists in the world". She loves its simplicity and quietness in its exploration of the relationship between a grandmother and a young girl and the unspoken grief that exists between them as they spend the summer on an island off the coast of Finland. Malaika Kegode chooses a book with a very different take on family: White Oleander by Janet Fitch about a young girl Astrid and her beautiful dangerous, selfish mother who makes her daughter feel she is a burden. It's a book Malaika read as a teenager and which she says bridged her passage into reading adult fiction.
Jonathan Coe's novel Mr Wilder and Me is Harriett's choice. It's what Malaika calls 'a wish fulfillment novel' as it tells the story of a young woman who gets to work with the legendary Hollywood director Billy Wilder and how her life changes for good.
Producer: Maggie Ayre for BBC Audio, Bristol
TUE 17:00 PM (m0010pvv)
Afternoon news and current affairs programme, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines.
TUE 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m0010pvz)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
TUE 18:30 Daliso Chaponda: Citizen of Nowhere (m0010pw1)
Series 3
Tolerance
Episode 2 Tolerance
Malawian comedian Daliso Chaponda is back with a third series of his Rose D’Or nominated show where he examines divisive global issues.
Over the course the two previous series Daliso has covered colonialism, slavery, political corruption, charity, immigration, cultural relativism, dictators, and how different countries deal with the sins of their past.
In this second episode of the new series, through comedy routines and guest interviews, Daliso will be tackling the subject of ‘Tolerance'.
Performer… Daliso Chaponda
Writer… Daliso Chaponda
Guest… Jennifer Bilec
Additional Material… Scott Bennett
Production Coordinator... Mabel Wright
Producer… Carl Cooper
This is a BBC Studios Production.
TUE 19:00 The Archers (m0010p1k)
There are first day nerves at Berrow and Shula has reservations.
TUE 19:15 Front Row (m0010pw5)
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
TUE 20:00 The Nuremberg Legacy (m0010pw9)
It's 75 years since the judgement at the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg. Nineteen high ranking Nazis were found guilty of war crimes, crimes against peace, crimes against humanity and conspiracy to commit those crimes. Twelve of them were condemned to death. The trial, which lasted almost a year, made history and the principles of international criminal law first established there are still fundamental to international justice today. The writer and lawyer, Philippe Sands examines the legacy of Nuremberg in subsequent war crimes trials and the founding of the International Criminal Court in the Hague 50 years later. He speaks to people who were there in Courtroom 600 in Nuremberg, as well as leading judges and lawyers in today's international justice system.
Producer Caroline Bayley
Editor Jasper Corbett
Image: View of the judges bench in Nuremberg International Military Tribunal (IMT) court in September 1946.
Credit AFP via Getty Images
TUE 20:40 In Touch (m0010pwd)
News, views and information for people who are blind or partially sighted
TUE 21:00 Inside Health (m0010p1p)
A weekly quest to demystify the health issues that perplex us.
TUE 21:30 The Life Scientific (m0010pv0)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 today]
TUE 22:00 The World Tonight (m0010pwj)
In depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective
TUE 22:45 Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead (m0010pvg)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:04 today]
TUE 23:00 Fortunately... with Fi and Jane (m0010pwn)
207. Soup Making and Self-Pleasure, with Poppy Jay and Rubina Pabani
This week on Fortunately, Fi and Jane chat to Poppy Jay and Rubina Pabani, hosts of Brown Girls Do It Too on the BBC Asian Network. Poppy and Rubina's award -winning podcast discusses sex as a British Asian woman. They tell Fi and Jane about breaking taboos, negotiating generation gaps and translating Harry Potter. Fi and Jane then make a triumphant return to the piazza, where there's Women of the Year envy and matrimonial conundrums.
Get in touch: fortunately.podcast@bbc.co.uk
TUE 23:30 Today in Parliament (m0010pws)
News, views and features on today's stories in Parliament.
WEDNESDAY 20 OCTOBER 2021
WED 00:00 Midnight News (m0010pwx)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.
WED 00:30 Manifesto by Bernardine Evaristo (m0010px1)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 on Tuesday]
WED 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m0010px5)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
WED 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m0010px9)
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 (m0010pxf)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
WED 05:30 News Briefing (m0010pxj)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4
WED 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m0010pxl)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with the Rev Canon Dr Jennifer Smith.
Good Morning.
If, on a Wednesday morning like today you ask someone who went to church last Sunday what the sermon was about, it’s quite possible that they will have to put some effort into remembering. It’s not that they weren’t listening, but spoken words fade unless they are particularly shocking, like Jesus saying ‘Love your enemies’ or ‘blessed are the meek.’
But ask someone who went to church last Sunday what the hymns were, and we are much more likely to remember, and an eager Methodist like me, might even begin to sing, which can be embarrassing!
Why does the memory of song persist in us where the memory of speech fades? Sometimes, even long after someone living with dementia has lost the memory of speech, they will remember song. All over the world, folk use song to pass necessary information and bring people together: a football or rugby crowd is just an audience until it begins to sing; even now we still make new songs. We buy and sell them, and borrow their words to express our emotions, especially when we are heartbroken, or in love.
Singing can be political as well, or subversive: enslaved people in the nineteenth century southern United States shared news about escape routes by singing. A work song like the spiritual ‘Follow the drinking gourd…’ taught folk to use the constellation known as the ‘big dipper’ to find the north star and navigate by it to freedom.
So my prayer today borrows the a verse from one of Charles Wesley’s most well-known hymns: Love divine, all loves excelling, joy of heaven to earth come down, fix in us thy humble dwelling, all thy faithful mercies crown. Jesu, thou art all compassion, pure, unbounded love thou art; visit us with thy salvation, enter every trembling heart.
Amen.
WED 05:45 Farming Today (m0010pxn)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
WED 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b092clll)
Amy Liptrot on the Arctic Tern
Orcadian author and conservationist Amy Liptrot laments of the disappearance of breeding Arctic terns from her family farm for Tweet of the Day.
Tweet of the Day has captivated the Radio 4 audience with its daily 90 seconds of birdsong. But what of the listener to this avian chorus? In this new series of Tweet of the Day, we bring to the airwaves the conversational voices of those who listen to and are inspired by birds. Building on the previous series, a more informal approach to learning alongside a renewed emphasis on encounter with nature and reflection in our relationship with the natural world.
Producer Mark Ward.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2017.
WED 06:00 Today (m0010p0v)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
WED 09:00 Life Changing (m0010p0x)
The phone call that changed everything
Jemma Bere had an unusual childhood. Her mum was a primary school teacher who chose to homeschool her so they could move around a lot. They lived on a boat in Turkey, travelled to Thailand, Bali and across Europe. In her teens they finally settled in Wales after her mum met a new partner. He was a big drinker and home life became a bit chaotic but they muddled along.
Jemma’s mum and stepdad moved to Spain in her second year of A-levels. By now the couple had two kids: Alex and Billie. Then, just as Jemma was doing her exams, her mum died, she’d been hit by a car. The children were looked after by their dad and an amazing nanny who kept everything together while he continued to drink. Jemma would visit all the time; by now she had started university, but the situation wasn’t brilliant and when the nanny had to leave to look after her sick mother everything fell apart.
At the age of 23, fresh out of university with no home of her own and no job, Jemma made a life-changing split-second decision. Many of her friends and some of her family thought she was crazy but Jemma was stubborn and stuck to her guns. She tells her story to Jane Garvey.
If you have a story you would like to share you can contact the programme at Lifechanging@bbc.co.uk
WED 09:30 In My Head (b0bhj84v)
The Bomb Disposal Officer
Bosnian bomb disposal officer Sead Vrana has to detect and dispose of a powerful anti-tank warhead hidden high in the mountains above Sarajevo, on the former front line of the Bosnian War.
Episode two of a new series of immersive features which allow the listener to step into the world of a compelling character with an extraordinary job. Recorded in binaural stereo using the latest recording techniques for a rich, lifelike and intimate sound. Subjects wear a small microphone in each ear, picking up sound just like the human ear. Whatever they hear, we hear - how they hear it. The series is best heard on headphones.
In this episode we inhabit the world of Bosnian explosive ordnance technician Sead Vrana as he searches for an anti tank weapon. Vrana defused his first landmine at the age of just seventeen as a young soldier in the Bosnian Army, in the early days of the Bosnian War. Over two decades later, we're with him every step of the way as he executes the dangerous task of detecting and disposing of a warhead that could rip through 40cm of steel.
Producer: Laurence Grissell
WED 09:45 Manifesto by Bernardine Evaristo (m0010p0z)
Episode 3
Bernardine Evaristo took her rightful place in the spotlight when she won the Booker Prize in 2019 with 'Girl, Woman, Other'. Now the trailblazing author, teacher and activist charts how she made history, her way.
Bernardine sets out her relationship history and examines the love, sex, romance and flings that would accompany her creative journey.
Written and read by Bernardine Evaristo
Abridged by Patricia Cumper
Producer: Eilidh McCreadie
WED 10:00 Woman's Hour (m0010p11)
Women's voices and women's lives - topical conversations to inform, challenge and inspire.
WED 11:00 White Mischief (m0010ndy)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 on Monday]
WED 11:30 What's Funny About ... (m0010p13)
Series 2
5. John Cleese on Fawlty Towers
TV veterans Peter Fincham and Jon Plowman are joined by comedy legend John Cleese to discuss his sitcom masterpiece, Fawlty Towers.
John traces the beginnings of Basil Fawlty all the way back to his work on Monty Python (“nice though the abattoir is…”), and talks about the real hotelier who inspired the character.
He tells us about the writing and casting of the show, and discusses some of the challenges of bringing a character like Fawlty to the screen.
And John talks about the doomed American effort to remake Fawlty , but with one tiny change – writing Basil out!
WED 12:00 News Summary (m0010p15)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
WED 12:04 Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead (m0010p17)
Episode 8: Park Avenue
Set in 1960s Harlem, the Pulitzer-winning author of The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys spins a sizzling tale of shakedowns, audacious heists and kickbacks.
“Ray Carney was only slightly bent when it came to being crooked...”
To his customers on 125th street, Ray Carney is an upstanding salesman of reasonably-priced furniture. Not many people know he descends from a line of uptown crooks, and that his façade of normalcy has more than a few cracks in it.
When his cousin Freddie falls in with a crew who pull off one of Harlem’s most outrageous heists, Ray finds himself in way above his head. Can he succeed in living a good life in a very bad world?
Today: things come to a head across uptown.
Read by Rhashan Stone
Writer: Colson Whitehead is the acclaimed US author the Pulitzer Prize-winning novels, The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys.
Abridger: Richard Hamilton
Producer: Justine Willett
WED 12:18 You and Yours (m0010p19)
News and discussion of consumer affairs
WED 12:57 Weather (m0010p1c)
The latest weather forecast
WED 13:00 World at One (m0010p1f)
Forty-five minutes of news, analysis and comment, with Sarah Montague.
WED 13:45 39 Ways to Save the Planet (m0010p1h)
Floating Solar Power
Generating renewable energy from solar power has been a great resource but land for this purpose can come into conflict with other uses or receive opposition from those who don't enjoy the view. But can floating solar panels on water - which accounts for most of the surface of the planet - provide an alternative?
Tom Heap meets Mark Bennett, a farmer from Berkshire, who created a reservoir for soft fruit production and was curious to see if it had more potential. After a quick internet search he went to visit Ciel et Terre, a French company who were developing floating solar panels. He installed them for power at the farm and to demonstrate to others. Meanwhile the company founder Bernard Prouvost talks to Tom about the countries around the world which are adopting this, where he feels floating panels are appropriate and if the potential to partner with hydrodams. Climate Scientist Dr Tamsin Edwards assesses their carbon cutting potential.
Producer: Anne-Marie Bullock
Researcher: Sarah Goodman
Produced in association with the Royal Geographical Society. Special thanks for this episode to Dr Tasmiat Rahman from the University of Southampton and Grant Feasey from AES Solar.
WED 14:00 The Archers (m0010p1k)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Tuesday]
WED 14:15 Blood, Sex and Money by Emile Zola (b0801l0n)
Season 3 - Money
7. Fate
Blood Sex and Money, an epic 24 hours of drama inspired by the works of literature’s greatest whistle blower, Emile Zola.
Season 3. Money. Episode 7. Fate
By Oliver Emanuel.
Two Rougon brothers, Eugene and Aristide, head to Prussia. One on a diplomatic mission to prevent war, one chasing an arms deal. When their worlds clash, the repercussions are monumental.
Glenda Jackson, Robert Jack and Samuel West star.
Cast:
Dide … Glenda Jackson
Eugene … Robert Jack
Aristide ... Samuel West
King of Prussia ... John Bett
Ancient Woman … Colette O’Neil
French Paper-boy and Passer-by … Gavi Singh Chera
Prussian Paper-boy … Sean Graham
Directed by Kirsty Williams
WED 15:00 Money Box (m0010p1m)
Turning Our Money Green
Many financial products are labelled as green, sustainable or ethical but how can you be sure that your mortgage, investment or pension really does have a positive environmental impact? What are the options and where can you find the information you need?
Why not join the conversation with Felicity Hannah and guests on Wednesday's Money Box Live. E-mail moneybox@bbc.co.uk now and please include a phone number if you'd like to take part.
Presenter: Felicity Hannah
Producer: Diane Richardson
Editor: Emma Rippon
WED 15:30 Inside Health (m0010p1p)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Tuesday]
WED 16:00 Thinking Allowed (m0010p1r)
Laurie Taylor explores the latest research into how society works.
WED 16:30 The Media Show (m0010p1t)
Social media, anti-social media, breaking news, faking news: this is the programme about a revolution in media.
WED 17:00 PM (m0010p1w)
Afternoon news and current affairs programme, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines.
WED 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m0010p1y)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
WED 18:30 The Cold Swedish Winter (b093hdkw)
Series 3
4. The Latte Pappas
Edinburgh Comedy award winner Adam Riches stars as the bemused and culturally challenged comedian abroad - recorded in Sweden with a cast of the country's most popular comedy actors, and written by Danny Robins.
It's three years since Geoff moved to the tiny north Swedish town of Yxsjö with his girlfriend Linda (Sissela Benn from the Swedish version of The Office). It has been quite a culture shock and they've been through a lot in three years - rotting herring, moose and bears, battles with language, perfect ex-boyfriends and ice hockey, the birth of a son, a marriage proposal and plumbing. With the help of his loved-up parents-in-law, Sten and Gunilla (Thomas Oredsson and Anna-Lena Bergelin), Geoff is now looking forward to a settled family life. But who is going to paty for all this?
In the final episode of this series, Geoff negotiates the generous Swedish parental benefits system, the rewards - and otherwise - of dealing with a marauding toddler, and the terrifying perfectionism of his fellow Swedish dads.
Written by Danny Robins
Directed by Frank Stirling
A 7digital production for BBC Radio 4.
WED 19:00 The Archers (m0010p20)
Lilian has a cunning plan and Jazzer faces an uphill struggle
WED 19:15 Front Row (m0010p22)
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
WED 20:00 Life Changing (m0010p0x)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 today]
WED 20:30 Descendants (m000wm4b)
Malik and Mark
One year on from the toppling of the Colston Statue in Bristol, Descendants asks... how close is each of us to the legacy of Britain's role in slavery? And who does that mean our lives are connected to?
Yrsa Daley-Ward narrates seven episodes telling the stories of people whose lives today are all connected through this history.
Malik was a lost teenager in Liverpool when a chance encounter with Gil Scott-Heron set him on a path to find out more about his history. His journey to uncover his ancestry would take him to Guyana where he would discover the way Britain's role in slavery shaped the lives of his family today. But it also led him to discover his connection right back to the place where he began, and to the heart of power in Britain. In Liverpool, 200 years ago, Malik's ancestors would clash with Mark's ancestor, a prominent abolitionist called James Cropper. To this day Mark runs the family paper mill, James Cropper PLC, and the legend of James Cropper has travelled right down through the generations... yet Mark makes a shocking discovery when he learns that there's another side to his ancestry after all.
Producers: Polly Weston, Candace Wilson, Rema Mukena
Editor: Kirsten Lass
Academic consultants: Matthew Smith and Rachel Lang of the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery at UCL
Additional genealogical research by Laura Berry
WED 21:00 Costing the Earth (m0010p24)
[Repeat of broadcast at
15:30 on Tuesday]
WED 21:30 The Media Show (m0010p1t)
[Repeat of broadcast at
16:30 today]
WED 22:00 The World Tonight (m0010p26)
In depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective
WED 22:45 Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead (m0010p17)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:04 today]
WED 23:00 Lasties (m0010p28)
Coat
The bell rings in Boo and Ray’s local, and they have fifteen minutes to drink up. A series of four comic plays written by and starring John Kearns and Tim Key.
Boo wants to leave, Ray wants him to take his big coat off. The wrong person’s on the piano and Ray’s furious. Derek – an absolute hog of a landlord – is giving them the hurry up. Terrible conditions for Ray to open up his love life.
Written by and starring John Kearns and Tim Key
Producer: Andy Goddard
Executive Producer: Max O’Brien
A Novel production for BBC Radio 4
WED 23:15 Tarot: Soundbleed (m0010p2c)
Episode 3
Tarot: Soundbleed is the brainchild of multi-award winning sketch supergroup Tarot, which unites Gein's Family Giftshop and Goose, alongside stand-up and writer Kiri Pritchard-McLean.
In August 2019, Tarot were the 5th best-reviewed act in Edinburgh, the fourth best show of the year according to The List, and the best show of the year according to Chortle. The Guardian called it 'bark-out-loud funny', and The Telegraph called it 'hilarious'. Throughout their richly soundscaped first series, Soundbleed harnesses the group's inventive writing, rapid gag rate and fine ear for character. In Episode Three we hear a self-defence class, the recording of an audiobook and the alibi of a ‘professional’ ghost hunter.
Written and Performed by Adam Drake, Edward Easton, Kath Hughes, Ben Rowse and Kiri Pritchard-McLean.
Producer: Hayley Sterling
Production Coordinator: Sarah Nicholls
Sound Editor: Chris Maclean
A BBC Studios Production
WED 23:30 Today in Parliament (m0010p2f)
News, views and features on today's stories in Parliament.
THURSDAY 21 OCTOBER 2021
THU 00:00 Midnight News (m0010p2h)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.
THU 00:30 Manifesto by Bernardine Evaristo (m0010p0z)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 on Wednesday]
THU 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m0010p2k)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
THU 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m0010p2m)
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 (m0010p2p)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
THU 05:30 News Briefing (m0010p2r)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4
THU 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m0010p2t)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with the Rev Canon Dr Jennifer Smith
Good morning.
Today marks fifty five since Aberfan. When a Junior School and row of houses were buried under tons of slurry from a coal spoil tip saturated by rain, and a community lost huge swathes of its future generations.
116 children were killed, and 28 adults. Residents of the town, among them parents and neighbours of the children who had only just dropped them off, made a desperate attempt to dig out the school as the morning went on. Days later, the body of the deputy head was found with his arms around five of the children, as if to protect them. The nation grieved, and the tragic waste of life caused great shock, sadness, and then anger.
Years of legal and political battles followed as communities including Aberfan sought for other tips to be cleared. And hopefully, lessons were learned from the conclusions of the enquiry.
The memory of Aberfan burns hot when we consider the disproportionate effect of industrial waste on communities. And our prayers must be for better protection and post-industrial clean up, not just for comfort for those who lost loved ones and those who still grieve.
Dear Lord, stir our hearts to remember the children and adults killed in Aberfan. Comfort those who grieve, and re-build every community that has suffered loss. Let us all learn from the past. Strengthen all who work to prevent the pollution or destruction of communities today, and bring your peace.
Amen.
THU 05:45 Farming Today (m0010p2w)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
THU 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b0939c8b)
Tara Robinson on the Oystercatcher
For Tara Robinson the sound of oystercatchers recalls her father taking her to Loch Fleet as a child and being quizzed by him about the birds she saw, for this Tweet of the Day.
Conversational voices of those who listen to and are inspired by birds. An encounter with nature and reflection in our relationship with the natural world.
Producer Mark Ward.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2017.
THU 06:00 Today (m0010q8y)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
THU 09:00 In Our Time (m0010q90)
Iris Murdoch
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the author and philosopher Iris Murdoch (1919 - 1999). In her lifetime she was most celebrated for her novels such as The Bell and The Black Prince, but these are now sharing the spotlight with her philosophy. Responding to the horrors of the Second World War, she argued that morality was not subjective or a matter of taste, as many of her contemporaries held, but was objective, and good was a fact we could recognize. To tell good from bad, though, we would need to see the world as it really is, not as we want to see it, and her novels are full of characters who are not yet enlightened enough to do that.
With
Anil Gomes
Fellow and Tutor in Philosophy at Trinity College, University of Oxford
Anne Rowe
Visiting Professor at the University of Chichester and Emeritus Research Fellow with the Iris Murdoch Archive Project at Kingston University
And
Miles Leeson
Director of the Iris Murdoch Research Centre and Reader in English Literature at the University of Chichester
Producer: Simon Tillotson
THU 09:45 Manifesto by Bernardine Evaristo (m0010q92)
Episode 4
Bernardine Evaristo took her rightful place in the spotlight when she won the Booker Prize in 2019 with 'Girl, Woman, Other'. Now the trailblazing author, teacher and campaigner charts how she made history, her way.
The author remembers her roots in political theatre as she traces her journey from community activist to writer of books.
Written and read by Bernardine Evaristo
Abridged by Patricia Cumper
Producer: Eilidh McCreadie
THU 10:00 Woman's Hour (m0010q94)
Women's voices and women's lives - topical conversations to inform, challenge and inspire.
THU 11:00 From Our Own Correspondent (m0010q96)
Insight, and analysis from BBC correspondents around the world
THU 11:30 Laura Barton's Notes on Music (m0010q98)
Laura Barton Comes Alive
Spring 2008, and pretty much the only album Laura Barton wants to listen to is Bon Iver's For Emma, Forever Ago. She plays it constantly.
That May, she goes to every show on Bon Iver's short UK tour. It's their second show, at The Social in London, that she remembers best - the audience pressed into a hot basement bar. The reverence, the silence, the singalong. The songs played down among the crowd. The sense of the night and the city alive. The thought that no gig could ever be better.
Laura revisits that night with Justin Vernon, Bon Iver's songwriter and frontman; Robin Turner, co-owner of The Social; and Paul Burnley, the Social's sound engineer,
Produced by Alan Hall
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4
THU 12:00 News Summary (m0010q9b)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
THU 12:04 Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead (m0010q9d)
Episode 9: Fathers and Sons
From the author of The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys, a sizzling tale of heists and shakedowns, kickbacks and hoods, set in 1960s Harlem.
“Ray Carney was only slightly bent when it came to being crooked...”
To his customers on 125th street, Ray Carney is an upstanding salesman of reasonably-priced furniture. Not many people know he descends from a line of uptown crooks, and that his façade of normalcy has more than a few cracks in it.
When his cousin Freddie falls in with a crew who pull off one of Harlem’s most outrageous heists, Ray finds himself in way above his head. Can he succeed in living a good life in a very bad world?
Today: Freddie is in hot water. Will Ray save his feckless cousin yet again?
Read by Rhashan Stone
Writer: Colson Whitehead is the acclaimed US author the Pulitzer Prize-winning novels, The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys.
Abridger: Richard Hamilton
Producer: Justine Willett
THU 12:18 You and Yours (m0010q9g)
News and discussion of consumer affairs
THU 12:57 Weather (m0010q9j)
The latest weather forecast
THU 13:00 World at One (m0010q9l)
Forty-five minutes of news, analysis and comment, with Sarah Montague.
THU 13:45 39 Ways to Save the Planet (m0010q9n)
The Happiness Index
How well is your country doing? The GDP - gross domestic product - has long been a measure of growth and success but some argue judging purely on economics is too narrow-sighted.
Tom Heap meets 'chopsy' Sophie Howe, the Future Generations Commissioner for Wales who will challenge if a decision being made will be detrimental for children and those yet to be born. If the cost and inheritance to them is high it risks getting kicked out. She takes him to the wetlands she helped save from a planned M4 development. Katherine Trebeck explains alternatives measures of national success, the factors they take in and why many feel happier about using them. Dr Tamsin Edwards assesses what an alternative viewpoint could do for carbon cutting.
Producer Anne-Marie Bullock
Researcher Sarah Goodman
Produced in association with the Royal Geographical Society. Special thanks for this episode to Dr Lukas Hardt from WEAll Scotland, to Dr Paul Brockway from the University of Leeds and to Dr Chris Hope from the University of Cambridge.
THU 14:00 The Archers (m0010p20)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Wednesday]
THU 14:15 The Attendant (m0010q9q)
Zombies
Strange things happen when you shake your hard-boiled egg in a packet of crushed up Monster Munch. A hilarious, unorthodox love story set on the night shift at a petrol station.
Petrol attendant Alex is desperate to find someone to share his life with, but too scared to do anything about it. A film-obsessive, he works the night shift at an isolated petrol station on the outskirts of a two-bit town. Awkward, and with no real friends to speak of, he confides in his only ‘colleague’ - a smiley-faced vacuum cleaner named Keith, whose voice only Alex can hear.
Ella is a cycling-mad woman of action, prepared for anything and curious about everything. By chance, Alex and Ella's lives intersect. These two lonely souls are made for each other, even if they don’t know it.
This is their story.
Tonight a mysterious crimson cloud pours red rain over the town, turning those caught in the storm into smooching - crazed zombies. Ella, returning home from Plumbing Enthusiasts Club, seeks shelter at the petrol station. Alex and Ella - along with a sandwich-loving truck driver named Jonny Tenaka – subsequently find themselves trapped in the petrol station shop, defending themselves against the zombie horde. Will they too become ‘infected’?
Cast:
Alex……..…………………………….…………Will Merrick
Ella……….…………………………..………Patricia Allison
Keith and the ‘How To Tapes’....Kenneth Collard
Jonny Tenaka………………………………Tim Downie
Barry Oatcakes…………………………Joseph Tweedale
Written and created by The Cullen Brothers
Script Editor: Abigail Youngman
Producers: Alison Crawford and Mary Ward-Lowery
Sound Design: Ilse Lademann
Includes original music by Tom Constantine
Director: Alison Crawford
THU 14:45 The Things We Leave Behind (m000wc15)
Episode 3
A five-part series specially written for Radio 4 by Mary Paulson-Ellis.
The Things We Leave Behind tells the story of a life in five objects. Starting near the end of her life and moving backwards in time, the defining moments of Rosalind Goddard’s life are revealed through seemingly random accumulated items.
Read by Alexandra Mathie.
Producer - Gaynor Macfarlane
THU 15:00 Open Country (m0010q9s)
The right to paddle?
Did you buy a kayak or perhaps a paddle board after lockdown? And do you know where you can go now? According to Nick Hayes - who lives on a houseboat on the River Thames - you can only legally access around three to four percent of England's waterways. Scotland has the right to roam. Nick is the author of The Book of Trespass and uses his canoe to go shopping and take out his rubbish too. This is fine on his section of the Thames, but he has been confronted on other rivers .... so who owns our waterways, and what exactly are the rules?
With further contribution from Ben Seal of British Canoeing, and produced in Bristol by Miles Warde.
THU 15:27 Radio 4 Appeal (m0010pmt)
[Repeat of broadcast at
07:54 on Sunday]
THU 15:30 Open Book (m0010pnk)
[Repeat of broadcast at
16:00 on Sunday]
THU 16:00 The Curious Cases of Rutherford & Fry (m0010q9v)
Series 18
The Weirdness of Water Part 2
“I don’t really understand why water has so many properties on different scales ranging from very large and cosmic to very small quantum and quarky - Could you help by zooming in and out on water to explain what is known about it? Asks Neil Morton in Stirling.
“Why does boiling water sound different to cold water?’ asks Barbara Dyson in Brittany in France
Ollie Gordon, Christchurch in New Zealand wants to know ‘why water is essential for all life as we know it?’
And many more questions on the weirdness of water are tackled by super science sleuths Hannah and Adam helped by quantum physicist Professor Patricia Hunt, at the Victoria University in Wellington in New Zealand, science writer and author of ‘H2O – a biography of water’ Philip Ball and physicist and bubble expert in the department of Mechanical Engineering at UCL Dr. Helen Czerski
Presenters: Hannah Fry & Adam Rutherford
Producer: Fiona Roberts
THU 16:30 BBC Inside Science (m0010q9x)
A weekly programme that illuminates the mysteries and challenges the controversies behind the science that's changing our world.
THU 17:00 PM (m0010q9z)
Afternoon news and current affairs programme, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines.
THU 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m0010qb1)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
THU 18:30 The Break (m000kfq9)
Series 3
4. The Agreement
Andy (James Northcote) and Jeff (Philip Jackson) find they have a big problem to solve - each other.
Fish Shop Frank (Mark Benton) suggests Couples Therapy as it worked so well for his ex-wife (and for him too, if he’d turned up). After a session with unorthodox therapist Dr Coulson (Alison Steadman), the treatment is such a success that Andy decides to move out.
Jeff, though wounded, puts a brave face on it and gets on with his life as best he can. Meanwhile, Andy, by contrast, is living the high life. He’s run into an old friend from London, Sean (Rasmus Hardiker), and they’re visiting nightclubs and restaurants and comedy gigs together.
Will Andy learn to appreciate true friendship? Will Jeff stop complaining about Andy cluttering up the hall with his shoes? When will Andy start to miss the plain but honest things that Jeff has to offer - like a really fierce and satisfying game of Scrabble?
Starring:
Philip Jackson
Alison Steadman
Mark Benton
Shobna Gulati
Rasmus Hardiker
James Northcote
Created and Written by Ian Brown and James Hendrie
Studio Engineered and Edited by Leon Chambers
Production Manager: Sarah Tombling
Produced and Directed by Gordon Kennedy
Recorded at The Soundhouse Studios, London
An Absolutely production for BBC Radio 4
THU 19:00 The Archers (m0010ntd)
Writer, Daniel Thurman
Director, Dave Payne
Editor, Jeremy Howe
Jill Archer ….. Patricia Greene
David Archer ….. Timothy Bentinck
Ruth Archer ….. Felicity Finch
Kenton Archer ….. Richard Attlee
Tom Archer ….. William Troughton
Tony Archer ….. David Troughton
Jennifer Aldridge ….. Angela Piper
Lilian Bellamy ….. Sunny Ormonde
Ian Craig ….. Stephen Kennedy
Justin Elliott ….. Simon Williams
Shula Hebden Lloyd ….. Judy Bennett
Adam Macy ….. Andrew Wincott
Jazzer McCreary ….. Ryan Kelly
Blake Goddard….. Luke MacGregor
Stella ….. Lucy Speed
Corey ….. Alec Fellows-Bennett
THU 19:15 Front Row (m0010qb3)
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
THU 20:00 The Briefing Room (m0010qb5)
David Aaronovitch presents in-depth explainers on big issues in the news.
THU 20:30 The Bottom Line (m0010qb7)
Evan Davis chairs a discussion providing insight into business from the people at the top.
THU 21:00 BBC Inside Science (m0010q9x)
[Repeat of broadcast at
16:30 today]
THU 21:30 In Our Time (m0010q90)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 today]
THU 22:00 The World Tonight (m0010qbb)
In depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective
THU 22:45 Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead (m0010q9d)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:04 today]
THU 23:00 Geoff Norcott: I Would Never Be Friends With... (m00111tx)
Can you be friends with someone who’s politically very different? Are anti-vaxxers welcome in your house? Have you fallen out over anyone over Meghan Markle? What about climate change deniers? Someone who insists All Lives Matter? Someone who boos footballers taking the knee? Someone who paid to go and see Nigel Farage?
In Geoff Norcott's new Radio 4 show – I Could Never Be Friends With... - he'll be looking into the new divisions there are between us Brits. Whether they've come out of Brexit, Covid, Black Lives Matter or Meghan Markle.
He'll be talking to his audience about their own experiences and to Tom Walker (Jonathan Pie) about the criticism his comedy has had, particularly from the Left. Where are the limits of free speech, why do we all get offended so easily now and where are your own personal red lines?
His special guest is Athena Kugblenu. Additional writing by Kevin Day.
Producer Alison Vernon-Smith
Exec Producer: Caroline Raphael
Sound Engineer: David Thomas
A Pier Production for BBC Radio 4
THU 23:30 Today in Parliament (m0010qbd)
News, views and features on today's stories in Parliament.
FRIDAY 22 OCTOBER 2021
FRI 00:00 Midnight News (m0010qbg)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.
FRI 00:30 Manifesto by Bernardine Evaristo (m0010q92)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 on Thursday]
FRI 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m0010qbj)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
FRI 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m0010qbl)
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 (m0010qbn)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
FRI 05:30 News Briefing (m0010qbq)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4
FRI 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m0010qbs)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with the Rev Canon Dr Jennifer Smith.
Good Morning.
In recent years I have started to use software to manage my email and diary electronically. Every morning it sends me a daily check in – it reads through my emails and finds phrases like ‘…I’ll get back to you Tuesday,’ or ‘I will send you a copy’, and asks me if I want these things to become tasks for which I will get reminders during the day. Alternately I have the choice to mark them as ‘done’ or ‘remind me tomorrow’ in which case they disappear.
Of course, when I say the software ‘reads’ through my emails, it does not: it simply looks for combinations of words that show I have made a commitment or a promise, or asked for one to be made to me, and puts these in a list with a cheery ‘good morning’ at the top of it.
But the software feels to me like it ‘reads’ my emails. It has become a friendly conscience so I don’t miss things as often.
The irrational thing is I feel I need to apologise or explain when I press ‘remind me later’ for the fourth or fifth day in a row, to do with some small task. I know the software doesn’t click its tongue, or shake its head sympathetically about work I’m avoiding. It’s ‘good morning’ is never passive aggressive. The problem is, the rewards and encouragement it gives me are also an illusion. Its green tick marks and ‘good jobs when I’ve worked through the list are a poor substitute for the real thing.
Today Lord, let us notice the people we are too busy to see. We pray for genuine communication, real relationship. May we see and be seen, as you see us, with love.
Amen.
FRI 05:45 Farming Today (m0010qbv)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
FRI 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b03zdkjv)
Snipe
Kate Humble presents the snipe. The snipe is an intricately patterned wader, not much bigger than a blackbird but with an enormously long bill. In the breeding season they fly high above their territories before dashing earthwards and then sweeping upwards again. Throughout this display you'll hear a bleating sound, known as 'drumming'. Find out how the sound is made in today's programme.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2014.
FRI 06:00 Today (m0010nsk)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
FRI 09:00 Desert Island Discs (m0010nsp)
[Repeat of broadcast at
11:00 on Sunday]
FRI 09:45 Manifesto by Bernardine Evaristo (m0010nvh)
Episode 5
Bernardine Evaristo took her rightful place in the spotlight when she won the Booker Prize in 2019 with 'Girl, Woman, Other'. Now the trailblazing author, teacher and activist charts how she made history, her way.
As she shares her manifesto for those who want to make their mark, Evaristo lays out the influences, traits and tenacity that led her to success.
Written and read by Bernardine Evaristo
Abridged by Patricia Cumper
Producer: Eilidh McCreadie
FRI 10:00 Woman's Hour (m0010nst)
Women's voices and women's lives - topical conversations to inform, challenge and inspire.
FRI 11:00 The Young Farmers (m0010nsw)
Episode 3
The trials and triumphs of young farmers.
FRI 11:30 Charlotte and Lillian (m0010nsy)
Series 3
THE JUMP
Charlotte (Helen Monks) and Lillian (Miriam Margolyes) are back, continuing with a Befriend the Elderly scheme despite not liking each other much. Both are convinced they’re doing the other a favour - Charlotte by providing company for a lonely old lady, Lillian by filling gaps on the CV of a self-absorbed millennial.
Episode 4: The Jump
In the last episode of the series, self-absorbed Charlotte, ever keen to do good and feel good, signs up for a charity bungee jump - inadvertently discovering that her fear of death is far greater than Lillian's. An unexpected discovery in Lillian's house leads to them both contemplating life, death and the prospect of being forgotten.
Miriam Margolyes is one of the most recognisable actresses working today. This year, at the age of 80, she has told her life story, which is being published as a memoir.
Helen Monks is the Co-Artistic Director of Lung Theatre, and the co-host of Bitchin', a podcast with Tilly Steele. She plays Shakespeare's daughter Susanna in Upstart Crow, and the young Caitlin Moran in Raised by Wolves.
Written by Kat Sommers.
A Giddy Goat production for BBC Radio 4
FRI 12:00 News Summary (m0010nvw)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
FRI 12:04 Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead (m0010nt2)
Episode 10: Strivers' Row
From the author of The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys, a sizzling tale of heists and shakedowns, kickbacks and hoods, set in 1960s Harlem.
“Ray Carney was only slightly bent when it came to being crooked...”
To his customers on 125th street, Ray Carney is an upstanding salesman of reasonably-priced furniture. Not many people know he descends from a line of uptown crooks, and that his façade of normalcy has more than a few cracks in it.
When his cousin Freddie falls in with a crew who pull off one of Harlem’s most outrageous heists, Ray finds himself in way above his head. Can he succeed in living a good life in a very bad world?
In today's final episode: Freddie's in way above his head, and Ray heads uptown for a final showdown with his captors...
Read by Rhashan Stone
Writer: Colson Whitehead is the acclaimed US author the Pulitzer Prize-winning novels, The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys.
Abridger: Richard Hamilton
Producer: Justine Willett
FRI 12:18 You and Yours (m0010nt4)
News and discussion of consumer affairs
FRI 12:57 Weather (m0010nt6)
The latest weather forecast
FRI 13:00 World at One (m0010nt8)
Forty-five minutes of news, analysis and comment, with Sarah Montague.
FRI 13:45 39 Ways to Save the Planet (m0010ntb)
Better Batteries
Batteries are powering the electric car revolution, but can we make them longer lasting, faster charging and smaller and lighter? Beyond electric cars and other vehicles, the more applications means more renewable energy can be stored and used, driving us away from fossil fuels. Tom Heap visits UKBIC - the UK Battery Industrialisation Centre in Coventry - a vast facility to develop better batteries. He dons full protective gear to see some of the processes involved in making batteries and testing new chemistries and engineering. He speaks to Isobel Sheldon from British Volt about the goals and potential that could be realised by improving batteries and climate scientist Dr Tamsin Edwards assesses how much carbon dioxide this could potentially save.
Producer: Anne-Marie Bullock
Researcher Sarah Goodman
Produced in association with the Royal Geographical Society. Special thanks for this episode to Dr Solomon Brown from the University of Sheffield and Dr Carlos Fernandez at Robert Gordon University.
FRI 14:00 The Archers (m0010ntd)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Thursday]
FRI 14:15 Napoleon Moon (m000dynd)
Britain of the future is a confusing and silly place: the Britannia Archipelago is a flooded sprawl of walkways drenched in chemical-rain; homeless robots living abandoned in shop doorways; oligarchs partying in their zero-gravity masquerades as the workers sleep soundly in their cars, which circle the swirling maelstrom of bio-gak that was once our sky. In this dystopian cityscape, one man with a large and fragile ego, is about to fall from the very highest pedestal, only to land on someone else's feet. His name is Napoleon Moon.
Napoleon Moon...Paterson Joseph
Cash...Kemah Bob
All other roles played by Emma Dennis-Edwards and David Reed
Writer, David Reed
Producer, Julia McKenzie
A BBC Studios Production
FRI 14:45 A History of Ghosts (m000nv3l)
7. The Tell-Tale Ghost
Illustration by Seonaid Mackay
‘In Greenbrier County, West Virginia, USA, there is a trail marker with the following emblazoned on it. ‘Interred in nearby cemetery is Zona Heaster Shue. Her death in 1897 was presumed natural until her spirit appeared to her mother to describe how she was killed by her husband Edward. Autopsy on the exhumed body verified the apparition's account. Edward, found guilty of murder, was sentenced to the state prison. Only known case in which testimony from a ghost helped convict a murderer.’
Kirsty tells the story of The Greenbrier ghost, and explores why tales of murder victims coming back to seek justice have always loomed large in the history of ghost lore.
FRI 15:00 Gardeners' Question Time (m0010ntg)
GQT at Home
Kathy Clugston hosts the horticultural programme featuring a group of gardening experts. This week's panel of experts are Pippa Greenwood, Christine Walkden, and James Wong answering questions from a virtual audience.
Producer - Hannah Newton
Assistant Producer - Bethany Hocken
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4
FRI 15:45 Short Works (m0010ntj)
Gentle
A chance find in a bookshop prompts a pregnant woman to reflect on the journey she’s taking to becoming a mother, on the journey her family once took when they sought refuge in the United States, and wonder who has the right to tell these stories.
Dima Alzayat’s debut collection, Alligator and Other Stories, was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas and James Black Memorial Prizes.
Gentle is read by Nadia Albina
FRI 16:00 Last Word (m0010ntl)
Matthew Bannister tells the life stories of people who have recently died, from the rich and famous to unsung but significant.
FRI 16:30 Feedback (m0010ntn)
Radio 4's forum for comments, queries, criticisms and congratulations
FRI 17:00 PM (m0010ntq)
Afternoon news and current affairs programme, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines.
FRI 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m0010ntv)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
FRI 18:30 The News Quiz (m0010ntx)
Series 106
Episode 8
Andy Zaltzman presents a look back at the week's headlines
FRI 19:00 Four Thought (m000p0vh)
Seeing Differently
Adam Morse, who is registered blind, explains how he directed an award winning film by seeing differently. When he was diagnosed at the age of nineteen with a rare eye condition, he feared at first that his ambitions to act and direct might be thwarted. A decade later, his dreams are being fulfilled and he hopes to blaze a trail for other artists with disabilities.
Presenter: Olly Mann
Producer: Sheila Cook
Adam Morse @themorseforce
FRI 19:15 Add to Playlist (m0010ntz)
Music Programme on Radio 4
FRI 20:00 Any Questions? (m0010nv1)
Claire Coutinho MP, Christina McAnea, Nick Timothy
Chris Mason presents political debate from Sydney Russell School, Dagenham with a panel including Conservative Claire Coutinho MP, General Secretary of UNISON Christina McAnea and the columnist and writer Nick Timothy.
Producer: Camellia Sinclair
Lead broadcast engineer: Richard Earle
FRI 20:50 A Point of View (m0010nv3)
Weekly reflections on topical issues from a range of contributors.
FRI 21:00 39 Ways to Save the Planet (m0010nv5)
Five Cunning Carbon-Cutting Ideas
From electric planes to the application of indigenous knowledge, fighting climate change needs the smartest ideas from the sharpest minds. Tom Heap profiles five of his favourite ideas and joins climate scientist, Dr Tamsin Edwards to calculate their true impact on the planet.
Producer: Anne-Marie Bullock in association with the Royal Geographical Society
Researcher: Sarah Goodman
FRI 22:00 The World Tonight (m0010nv7)
In-depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective.
FRI 22:45 Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead (m0010nt2)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:04 today]
FRI 23:00 A Good Read (m0010nv9)
[Repeat of broadcast at
16:30 on Tuesday]
FRI 23:30 Today in Parliament (m0010nvc)
News, views and features on today's stories in Parliament.