5. Detention
The internationally acclaimed artist and activist's memoir turns to his detention in 2011, and he considers why freedom is precious. Benedict Wong reads.
In this intimate and compelling memoir by one of the art world’s superstars, Ai Weiwei charts his journey as an artist and a human rights activist. It also tells the story of Ai Weiwei's father, Ai Qing arguably China’s most celebrated poet. During the Cultural Revolution Ai Qing was banished, along with his sons Ai Weiwei and Gao Jian, to a remote region of China. He was subjected to degrading work, while Ai Weiwei endured a harsh childhood. Later, aged 19 Ai Weiwei left for America where he studied art. Later, his career as a major artist took off with projects like his installation of 100 million ceramic sunflower seeds at Tate Modern. Ai Weiwei’s art has always been informed by his social activism. His criticism of China, and especially its human rights record, has brought him to the attention of the authorities, culminating in his detention in 2011. While imprisoned he reflected on his father's life, and thoughts of his own son, Ai Lao occupied him. Fathers and sons, China’s totalitarianism, the role of art, freedom of expression, and the need to protect it at all cost, are at the heart of this inspiring life story.
Benedict Wong reads, he played Ai Weiwei in Howard Brenton's play, The Arrest of Ai Weiwei at the Hampstead Theatre in 2013. For Marvel fans, he is known for playing Wong in Dr Strange. He has also played Kublai Khan in the acclaimed Netflix series Marco Polo.
Photo: Ai Weiwei with Ai Qing at Tiananmen Square, Beijing, China, November 1959
Translated by Allan H. Barr
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 environmentalist and theologian Martin Palmer.
Many people seem to believe that the best way to describe our relationship with Nature is to say we are stewards and it is often said that is what Christianity teaches. However, in the Orthodox Churches, we are not described as stewards with the implication that we are managers of Nature. Instead we are described as having a God given role to help the rest of Nature offer up thanks and to be simply yet gloriously the channel for God’s blessing on the whole of Creation. Instead of managers we are called to be a blessing!
This is why the Orthodox Churches were the first Christian tradition to realise the scale of the threat we posed to Nature – and ourselves and in 1989 created the first ever Day of the Protection of the Environment – September 1st. Now around the world Orthodox Christians focus their action, thoughts and prayers around being a blessing to the rest of Nature in parishes, schools and places of pilgrimage.
To honour this, a prayer has been created drawing upon the words of the great Russian writer Fyodor Mikhail Dostoevsky:
May we discover how to love all God’s creation, the whole of it - every grain of sand. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light! Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If we love everything, we will perceive the divine mystery in all things. And once we have perceived it, we will begin to comprehend it, more and more every day.
And we will come at last to love the whole world with an abiding universal love. Love every living thing as God does and therefore do not trouble them, torture or deprive them of their joy, so we do not go against God’s intent.
Step into the world of circus manager Roxana Icu as she works frantically backstage to ensure the kids are kept entertained out front.
Episode three 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're backstage with the company manager of Giffords Circus as she pulls out all the stops to ensure that everything goes to plan out front. Highly skilled circus artists performing dangerous acts must be kept happy, the ponies and sausage dogs must make their entrances on cue - and wardrobe malfunctions remain an ever present danger.
The latest news headlines. Including the weather and a look at the papers.
Kinloch Castle, an Edwardian hunting lodge on the Hebridean Isle of Rum, was built in the 1900s by a Lancashire textile magnate, Sir George Bullough. The estate had its own hydro electric scheme, Japanese gardens and palm house, reputedly stocked with humming birds and an alligator! In Kinloch's grand hall Sir George installed a magnificent orchestrion, an early form of home entertainment centre. One of the largest ever built, it has 264 tuned pipes which can recreate the sounds of flutes, trumpets, clarinets, baritones, trombones and piccolos. Sir George used it to summon his guests to the dining room.
Today the orchestrion, like the rest of the castle, is in a sad state of disrepair, boarded up and at the mercy of winter storms. Fiona Mackenzie ,who lives on the neighbouring Island of Canna, finds out more about the castle's history and talks to a group of campaigners who are passionate about restoring it. She meets conservationist, Ali Morris, who spends much of her time on Rum's spectacular hillsides, working on the Red Deer Research project which has been running since 1953. It's the rutting season, - a noisy, busy time of the year!
Four families moved to Rum, last year, in response to an appeal for newcomers to boost the island's population which had fallen to just thirty. Fiona finds out how some of them have been settling in. She also talks to Fergus McGowan and his fellow entrepreneurs who have recently launched a drinks venture on the island. Using local botanicals, including sea kelp, spruce and meadowsweet, they've hit on the bright idea of making rum on Rum!
COP26 is underway in Glasgow, and for agriculture this means discussions about emissions and what farmers are and aren’t doing to combat climate change. Costing the Earth's Tom Heap reports on what it's like being a delegate at COP and why farming is conspicuous by its absence from proceedings. Charlotte speaks to Nick Shorter about the role of on-farm carbon off-setting. All four of the UK's farming unions respond to the news that the the UK has signed up to the global pledge on reducing methane by 30% by 2030, and whether this means that everyone needs to eat less meat and dairy. Professor Myles Allen from University of Oxford says that whilst methane reduction is a good thing, it's always the impact on global temperature that needs to be considered rather than just carbon footprint.
Jimmy Carr joins Richard Coles and Nikki Bedi. After deciding to pursue a comedy career in his mid-twenties Jimmy has now toured the world as a stand up and is a household name thanks to programmes such as Channel 4’s 8 out of 10 Cats. Jimmy talks about the power of laughter and how it's transformed his life.
Dr Richard Shepherd has been a forensic pathologist for over 30 years and has been involved in the investigation of over 23,000 cases, including 9/11 and the Bali bombings. He discusses what drew him to his career and the impact his work has had, personally and psychologically.
Miriam Margolyes shares her Inheritance Tracks: MacCrimmon’s Lament sang by Jeannie Robertson and Cecilia Bartoli singing the aria Agitata Da Due Venti by Vivaldi.
Julie Fowlis is an award-winning Gaelic singer and musician. Growing up in North Uist, her native landscape influences her work. She's had global success, singing on the soundtrack of Hollywood blockbuster Brave and performing at the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, but Julie explains that she never intended to be a performer.
Jimmy Carr’s Before and Laughter is out now.
The Fiddle by Natalie Cumming is out now.
The Seven Ages of Death by Dr Richard Shepherd is out now.
This Much is True by Miriam Margolyes is out now.
Julie Fowlis is part of the Voices Unwrapped festival next year at King’s Place in London. Her first performance which launches the festival will be on January 14th.
Jay Rayner hosts the culinary panel show packed full of tasty titbits. For the final episode of this series, Rachel McCormack, Sumayya Usmani, Jeremy Pang and Dr Annie Gray take questions from a virtual audience.
The series goes out with a bang as our panellists tell some flaming hot stories from the kitchen. They also talk through some eggcellent recipes, and share their top tips for the perfect chicken kiev (that's chicken Kevin to some).
The panel is joined this week by drinks expert Alice Lascelles who educates the team on cocktail garnish dos and don'ts, and tells us how to make the perfect Irish coffee to see us through the winter months.
Insight, wit and analysis from BBC correspondents, journalists and writers from around the world.
Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis present the week via topical stand-up and sketches from the BBC Radio Theatre in front of a remote audience.
Joining them from a safe distance is Glenn Moore talking about returning back to the office, Daliso Chaponda on the future of the Metaverse and Stiff & Kitsch with a song about all the things we can now worry about again now the pandemic is over (kind of).
Chris Mason presents political debate and discussion from Carlisle College with the Labour North of Tyne mayor Jamie Driscoll, the Conservative MP and Transport Minister Trudy Harrison, the GBNews Political Correspondent and Presenter Tom Harwood and the Liberal Democrat Treasury Spokesperson Christine Jardine MP.
We are sitting more than ever before - and our sedentary lives are having a big impact on our long term health. In this episode, Michael stands up to the allure of the couch and reveals the science behind how just standing up - without even doing any exercise - can burn more calories and lower blood sugar levels. With Dr John Buckley, Michael explores how the experience of astronauts in space proves how important the force of gravity is on our bodies - and how standing up can help keep our bones and muscles strong.
Step into Tudor Chambers. It’s got addiction, abuse, drugs, financial ruin, scandal and violence. And that’s just the barristers.
Tamika starts at Tudor Chambers full of hope and idealism - only to be confronted by some harsh truths about the broken criminal justice system and the integrity of some of her colleagues.
Barred is a contemporary thriller about a young black barrister trying to establish her career. She believes the law is a wonderful thing: “It’s freed slaves and humbled tyrants.” The problem is the Head of Chambers believes the law is simply a machine for making as much money as possible: “Justice doesn’t come into it.”
As tensions rise, the truth about a violent sexual assault in Tamika’s past starts to emerge but, rather than support her, colleagues use this vulnerability to manipulate and undermine her.
Barred sits on a fault line between ordinary people and the institutions that are supposed to serve them - written with the knowledge of an insider and the passion of an outsider.
Thandi Lubimbi spent much of her childhood growing up in deprived areas of the country. She joined the army to get away, worked as a Senior Intelligence Officer for a law enforcement agency and then retrained as a barrister prosecuting criminal offences.
Richard Kurti has written extensively for radio and television, with award winning dramas for BBC Radio 4 (I, Robot, The Boy from Aleppo who Painted the War) and Audible (The Effect), and has two prize winning YA novels published by Walker Books.
Fourteen years ago this week, 21-year-old British student Meredith Kercher was sexually assaulted and killed in a brutal attack in her apartment in the Italian city of Perugia. As the world's media descended, a narrative quickly emerged around Amanda Knox - Meredith’s American flatmate - and her then boyfriend Rafaele Sollecito. After being found guilty and serving four years in prison, Amanda was fully exonerated by the Italian Supreme Court on appeal in 2015. Amanda Knox talks to Emma about trying to restore her reputation, losing control of her identity, and speaking out.
The starting gun has fired on COP26 - we hear from Laurence Tubiana, France's Climate Change Ambassador and Special Representative for COP21, and Amber Rudd - Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change at the time of Paris and the then leader of the UK's COP21 negotiating team.
Kathleen Stock was, until last week, a professor of philosophy at the University of Sussex. In the last few years she has become better known for her gender critical views, contributing to the highly charged public debate over trans rights and what she and others see as the re-defining of the word ‘woman’. She gives an exclusive interview to Emma Barnett.
We meet the first woman to write a James Bond novel. Award-winning author Kim Sherwood is to write three new books set in the iconic world of James Bond.
The National Lottery contract is up for grabs. While the results aren't scheduled to be announced until early 2022, the bids are in and being considered - and across the industry it seems that this is the closest competition yet with four major players in the running. How do lotteries, large and small, operate? And what obligations does the industry have towards customers who might be vulnerable? Evan Davis speaks to Camelot, who have been running The National Lottery since its inception 27 years ago, and to industry leaders, about the changing world of lotteries.
Stephen Fry, Bidisha, Polly Creed, Reverend Billy and The Stop Shopping Choir, Dal:um, Annie MacManus, Clive Anderson
Clive Anderson and Annie MacManus are joined by Stephen Fry, Bidisha and Polly Creed for an eclectic mix of conversation, music and comedy. With music from Reverend Billy and The Stop Shopping Choir and Dal:um.
He shot to fame as a teenage punk star from Derry, enjoyed hits as a solo artist and later worked behind the scenes for years in the music industry. But now Feargal Sharkey is enjoying a belated second burst of fame as a leading voice in the campaign against river and waterway pollution.
His life-long love of fly fishing has led to a deep knowledge of the chalk streams of Southern England, and now Sharkey finds himself being quoted with approval in parliament by MP’s and peers.
Adrian Goldberg talks to those who know him well, and hears about cigarette smuggling, stag dos – and a decidedly PRIVATE private life.
Film-maker Mike Leigh talks to John Wilson about his cultural influences and some of the moments that had an impact on his creative life. He reveals how a life-drawing class at art college proved to be a formative influence on his later filmmaking career. He also discusses the influence of 1960s world cinema, particularly the French new wave, and explores in detail his unique process of filmmaking in which actors develop their roles through improvisation.
Move over fake news, welcome fake history. False historical memes are being widely shared on social media. Jolyon Jenkins investigates a few - an elephant in Belfast, a bear in the second world war, some stunning first world war aerial dog fight photos, and a photo of a "colonial master" being carried on an Asian woman's back. Plus, the widespread sharing of "inspirational" quotes by Winston Churchill which the man never said. If we're all so internet-savvy, why are we also so internet-credulous?
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.
Parted from her translator, a deaf student tries to find her way in a new country.
A reflective story inspired by Laozi's 'Tao Te Ching' by author and artist Louise Stern.
Writer ..... Louise Stern
Reader ..... Karen Bartke
Producer ..... Eilidh McCreadie
An all-star cast reunites to relive the early days of one of Saturday night TV's greatest success stories.
Many of those who took part in the very first series of Strictly in May 2004 had reservations about the idea of bringing ballroom dancing back to our TV screens. Dance consultant John Byrnes had to convince the other professional dancers that the programme would be a winner, even though he was not sure himself. Natasha Kaplinsky, who was at the top of her news presenting career, feared she would lose all credibility by agreeing to become one of the celebrity dancers. She finds out from judge Craig Revel Horwood that he thought her first routine was "dull, dull, dull". But Natasha went on to be the first winner and still has her prize glitter ball.
Celebrity dancer and star soprano Lesley Garrett loved taking part so much that she considered switching careers. although her training was so gruelling that she lost two stone. Her partner. Anton Du Beke, reveals how grateful he was to be paired with Lesley and says he may never have continued if the first series had not been such fun.
Executive producer Karen Smith knew the show would be a winner with Bruce Forsyth at the helm but reveals why a rhinestone-studded glove was needed to help with his cues.
It took a few weeks for the show to find its feet with the audience but, before long, viewers were spellbound by the transformations in the celebrities and the sheer fun on the dance floor. The withering remarks of the judging panel made it appointment viewing in millions of living rooms and a long awaited success story in the fight for Saturday night ratings.
The last four of this year's Brain of Britain semi-finalists join Russell Davies to decide who'll take the only remaining place in the 2021 Final.
What's the name of the statue that stands on top of the Old Bailey court building in London? Which fictional planet was the birthplace of Superman? Who had a no.1 hit with the song Don't Cry For Me Argentina, from Evita, but never appeared in the stage musical?
These, and many other questions from all fields of knowledge, stand between the contestants and the Final place. With all four of them having come through the heats with their general knowledge credentials intact, the contest is sure to be closely fought.
As always, a listener also stands to win a prize if questions he or she has devised succeed in outwitting the panel.
Retired policeman Alan Godfrey tells us the story of the case that has obsessed him for his whole life. When Alan tries to solve a weird and seemingly impossible murder in the small northern town of Todmorden, it leads to a bizarre UFO sighting and then a strange and sinister government cover up that ends up affecting Alan’s life.
Danny Robins explores if there is real evidence of extra-terrestrial visits to Earth. Did Alan genuinely have an alien encounter and, if not, why were the real-life ‘men in black’ from the government so interested?
SUNDAY 07 NOVEMBER 2021
SUN 00:00 Midnight News (m0011bh0)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.
SUN 00:15 Green Inc (m00114t1)
The Green Tick
Cop26 is upon us. The usually imperturbable IPCC’s latest report can best be translated as ‘Panic!’ and our Facebook feeds and Twitter timelines are littered daily with biblical scenes of infernos and flooding.
If we're going to save the planet while maintaining our quality of life we’re going to have to look to technological innovation for the answers. The good news is that every multi-billion-dollar behemoth in Silicon Valley has gone green, and just as vocal as the companies about their climate targets are the billionaire bosses behind them.
In an anarchic and challenging documentary, BAFTA winning activist and satirist Heydon Prowse, who’s been part of calls for businesses to do more for years, asks have they listened?
Presenter: Heydon Prowse
Producer: Georgia Catt
SUN 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m0011bh2)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
SUN 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m0011bh4)
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 (m0011bh6)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
SUN 05:30 News Briefing (m0011bh8)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4
SUN 05:43 Bells on Sunday (m0011bhb)
All Saints Church, East Pennard in Somerset
Bells on Sunday comes from All Saints Church, East Pennard in Somerset. The church, which dates from the 15th Century, held a ring of three bells until 1740 -when two heavier bells were added - creating the heaviest ring of five in the world rung using ropes. The tenor, tuned to the key of C, weighs twenty four and three quarter hundredweight. The bells were rehung in 1972 and we hear them ringing call changes.
SUN 05:45 Profile (m0011bgp)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Saturday]
SUN 06:00 News Summary (m0011bwj)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4
SUN 06:05 Something Understood (b01m9mps)
Familiarity Breeds Content
Familiarity plays an important part in life. Familiar people, familiar places, familiar objects can provide us with security, strength and comfort. Why is it then that the most common phrase that we associate with the word familiarity is that it breeds contempt? Mark Tully asks whether it is actually more likely to be a source of happiness and investigates the paradox that causes this common source of contentment to be so frequently overlooked. With music by Lyle Lovett and Sir Henry Wood and with readings from Katherine Mansfield and U. A. Fanthorpe, he celebrates the pleasures of the familiar.
The readers are Philip Franks and Grainne Keenan.
Produced by Frank Stirling
A Unique Production for BBC Radio 4.
SUN 06:35 On Your Farm (m0011bwl)
Crofting in the Hebrides
Nancy Nicolson visits the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, where windspeeds can reach more than a hundred miles an hour. She meets crofter Donald Macsween who's lived here all his life, and farms cattle, sheep, pigs and hens. He sells his produce locally - meat, eggs, sheepskin and wool - and this year has missed the customers normally brought in by visiting cruise ships. Nancy meets Donald's mother Annie, who was born and brought up in a crofting family - like her father and grandfather before her. Donald also has his own television programme on BBC Alba, the BBC's Gaelic language service. He tells Nancy about the challenges of trying to look after livestock in this windswept location on the edge of the Atlantic, as he chats to his animals in Gaelic.
Produced and presented by Nancy Nicolson
SUN 06:57 Weather (m0011bwn)
The latest weather reports and forecast
SUN 07:00 News and Papers (m0011bwq)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.
SUN 07:10 Sunday (m0011bws)
Leonard Cohen's Spirituality; Is Faith Being Left Out Of COP 26?; St Cuthbert
The singer Leonard Cohen, who died five years ago, tells the story that a friend once told him: "You never met a religion you didn't like". Listen in to our investigation of his spiritual life and we're fairly confident you'll never hear a Cohen song in quite the same way again. Though he fell out with the Montreal Jewish community he grew up in, his music fuses Judaism and Christianity as well as ideas from Zen Buddism. We hear Cohen's own views on faith from the BBC archive, talk to Harry Freedman author of Leonard Cohen: The mystical roots of genius and of course, hear those songs alongside their inspirations from the Talmud, the Kabbalah and the Bible.
Is faith central to the debate about caring for the environment? This week the UK's Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis said religious leaders were left to "scramble around" for the chance to make their voices heard at COP 26, the UN summit aimed at bringing climate change under control. As the conference enters a second week Edward Stourton talks to faith leaders about their experiences, what exactly they have to add to the debate and how they're going to make themselves heard in week two.
Also in the programme: the young German Catholics attempting to get the church to spell God with a gender star. They say that the image of a male, white God is putting many young people off religion. And where's Cuthbert? This week York Minster replaced a window dedicated to the influential St Cuthbert. Its one of the largest surviving narrative windows in Europe and the only one telling the story of the saint who was a Medieval superstar. Edward finds out what the window tells us of the hermit and how to pick out Cuthbert himself from a window that is celebrated as a "Lancastrian who's who's".
SUN 07:54 Radio 4 Appeal (m0011bwv)
Carers Worldwide
Journalist and former carer Jackie Ashley makes the Radio 4 Appeal on behalf of Carers Worldwide.
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 ‘Carers Worldwide’.
- Cheques should be made payable to ‘Carers Worldwide’.
- You can donate online at bbc.co.uk/appeal/radio4
Registered Charity Number: 1150214
SUN 07:57 Weather (m0011bwx)
The latest weather reports and forecast
SUN 08:00 News and Papers (m0011bwz)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.
SUN 08:10 Sunday Worship (m0011bx1)
A Service for COP26
Live from the Memorial Chapel of Glasgow University, with perspectives from the global south and voices of many faiths as the Conference continues in the city of Glasgow.
Preacher: Rev James Bhagwan, General Secretary of Pacific Conference of Churches.
Led by the University Chaplain, Rev Dr Carolyn Kelly, with Rev Dr Doug Gay of Trinity College, Glasgow.
The service reflects the shared human sense of belonging to creation and its deep-rooted connection with our spirituality, demanding a response to challenges faced particularly by the world’s most disadvantaged people.
Introit: Words of Chief Seattle from 'I Share Creation' (Chilcott)
Hymns: Great God of every shining constellation (Highwood)
Oh, the Life of the World is a joy and a treasure
All Creatures of our God and King (Lasst uns Erfreuen)
Kyrie - For the Beauty of the Earth (Harold Thalange)
Lord's Prayer (Sir James MacMillan)
Taize: The Kingdom of God is Justice and Peace
Glasgow University Chapel Choir directed by Kathryn Cooper. Organist: Kevin Bowyer.
Producer: Mo McCullough
Sundayworship@bbc.co.uk
SUN 08:48 A Point of View (m00114v6)
The Eve of Destruction
Sarah Dunant argues that if we can't agree on wearing masks in a crowded space, this doesn't bode well for our ability to adapt to the monumental changes we'll soon have to make to avert the climate crisis.
She reports from the Italian city of Mantova where she finds a rather un-Italian attitude to all of this.
Producer: Adele Armstrong
SUN 08:58 Tweet of the Day (b03dwvx5)
Barnacle Goose
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs.
Martin Hughes-Games presents the barnacle goose. Yapping like terriers, skeins of barnacle geese leave their roosts on mud-flats and fly inland at dawn to feed in grassy fields.
SUN 09:00 Broadcasting House (m0011bx3)
The Sunday morning news magazine programme. Presented by Paddy O'Connell.
SUN 10:00 The Archers Omnibus (m0011bx5)
Writer, Sarah Hehir
Director, Marina Caldarone
Editor, Jeremy Howe
Pip Archer ..... Daisy Badger
Kenton Archer ..... Richard Attlee
Pat Archer ..... Patricia Gallimore
Tom Archer ..... William Troughton
Natasha Archer ...... Mali Harries
Lilian Bellamy ..... Sunny Ormonde
Leonard Berry ..... Paul Copley
Harrison Burns ..... James Cartwright
Justin Elliott ..... Simon Williams
Rex Fairbrother ..... Nick Barber
Toby Fairbrother ..... Rhys Bevan
Shula Hebden Lloyd ..... Judy Bennett
Jazzer McCreary ..... Ryan Kelly
Kirsty Miller ..... Annabelle Dowler
Lynda Snell ..... Carole Boyd
Roy Tucker ..... Ian Pepperell
Blake ..... Luke MacGregor
SUN 11:00 Desert Island Discs (m0011bx7)
Joanne Harris, writer
Joanne Harris is a writer who is best known for her novel Chocolat, which was made into an Oscar-nominated feature film starring Juliette Binoche and Johnny Depp.
The daughter of an English father and French mother, Joanne was born in Barnsley and her first few years were spent living above her grandparents’ sweet shop. Her parents were both teachers, and her first language was French. She went on to read modern and medieval languages at Cambridge University and taught French for 15 years, writing fiction in her spare time.
Her first two novels were not successful and initially Chocolat looked set to follow suit: some publishers thought it was too indulgent to appeal readers in any great number, but the story’s combination of food and magic won many fans and it became a word of mouth hit.
Since then, Joanne has written 18 more novels, along with novellas, short stories, the libretti for two short operas, several screenplays and three cookbooks. Her books are now published in over 50 countries and have won a number of British and international awards.
Joanne lives in Yorkshire and works from a shed in her back garden.
Presenter Lauren Laverne
Producer Paula McGinley
SUN 11:45 Four Thought (m000y6n4)
The Tyranny of Positivity
Sian Ejiwunmi-Le Berre argues against the tyranny of positivity which forms part of a culture of "performative wellness", which she says sees illness as a form of personal failure. When extrapolated to other aspects of human life, this attitude is a "poison to society".
Presenter; Olly Mann
Producer: Sheila Cook
SUN 12:00 News Summary (m0011bx9)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
SUN 12:04 The Museum of Curiosity (m00114hf)
Series 16
Episode 3
Professor of Ignorance John Lloyd and the Museum’s latest curator Holly Walsh are joined by impressionist Jon Culshaw, comedian Rosie Jones and writer Elisabeth Robinson.
Jon Culshaw shares both his favourite people to impersonate and his passion for astronomy. Rosie Jones talks about becoming Team GB’s cheerleader at the 2021 Paralympic Games and her passion for puzzles. And Elisabeth Robinson discusses what she’s learned about the creative process in Hollywood as well as her fascination with the high seas.
This series of The Museum of Curiosity has been recorded remotely.
The Museum’s exhibits were catalogued by Mike Shephard, Mike Turner and Mandy Fenton and Lydia Mizon 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.
SUN 12:32 The Food Programme (m0011bxc)
COP26: The Case for Cattle and Pigs.
Less but better? With the COP26 climate summit underway Dan Saladino looks at how meat and dairy can play a positive role for the future of people and planet.
Produced by Dan Saladino.
SUN 12:57 Weather (m0011bxf)
The latest weather forecast
SUN 13:00 The World This Weekend (m0011bxh)
Jonny Dymond looks at the week’s big stories from both home and around the world.
SUN 13:30 The Listening Project (m0011bxk)
Welcome to my World
Fi Glover presents four conversations between strangers. This week: Michael and Tabassum talk about life in Glasgow and what it’s like to live in the shadow of Cop26; Phil and Niamh share stories from opposite ends of the house share cycle; Cathy and Pricilla talk about their shared passion for Korean pop music and culture; and Bobbie and Derek reflect on being ginger haired and how ‘gingerism’ has dogged them since childhood.
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 (m00114tm)
GQT at Home: Sustainable Plots and Salad Pots
Kathy Clugston hosts the gardening Q&A, with Anne Swithinbank, Matt Biggs and Chris Beardshaw answering questions sent in by listeners.
This week, the panellists share some insect friendly planting ideas and explain how to keep the squirrels away from newly planted spring bulbs. And as we all strive towards a greener planet, they discuss the best carbon-capturing tree planting practices.
Meanwhile, with COP26 well underway, Peter Gibbs investigates sustainable gardening around the UK. He speaks with director of The Tangled Bank project in Fife, Harry Watkins, about how the St Andrews Botanic Garden is putting sustainability above all else. Peter also meets with sustainable gardener Sally Nex to discuss what we can all do to make a positive impact from our gardens.
Producer - Jemima Rathbone
Assistant Producer - Aniya Das
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4
SUN 14:45 A Home of Our Own (m00107vv)
Crowborough Road, Tooting, South London
Lynsey Hanley visits 32-year-old Danielle who still lives with her mum Lydia in their Edwardian house in Tooting, south London, 11 years after graduating.
Every home has a story to tell about the UK's housing crisis. NHS worker Danielle wants to buy a home but has been priced out of her local area. It was very different for mum Lydia who moved here 30 years ago when property was still affordable. Lynsey explores why Danielle's experience is so different to her mum's - and she examines the effect that living at home for so long has had on Danielle's confidence and development.
House historian Melanie Backe-Hansen researches Crowborough Road's history and Professor Paul Cheshire of the London School of Economics puts Danielle's experiences in context.
Producer: Laurence Grissell
SUN 15:00 Drama (m0011bxm)
In the Shadow of Man
In the Shadow of Man, by Jane Goodall, first published in 1971, is the seminal account of Jane’s first ten years with the chimpanzees of Gombe. Her revelatory observation in 1960 that chimpanzees make and use tools forever redefined our understanding of the relationship between humans and other animals. The drama starring Jeany Spark, by award-winning playwright Sarah Woods, takes us deep into the Tanzanian forests with Jane, telling us of the remarkable discoveries she made as she came to know the chimps and they came to know her. A conversation between Sarah and Jane weaves through the drama, as Jane reflects on the past, the present - and the future. Today Dr. Jane Goodall, DBE, is Founder of the Jane Goodall Institute and a UN Messenger of Peace.
Young Jane.....Jeany Spark
Vanne.....Marilyn Le Conte
Rashidi.....John Kamau
Hugo.....Geoffrey Breton
Dominic.....Ery Nzaramba
David.....Sam Dale
Production co-ordinator.....Lindsay Rees
Sound design..... Nigel Lewis
Director.....Emma Harding
Producer.....James Robinson
A BBC Cymru Wales production for BBC Radio 4.
Photo of Jane Goodall in Gombe by Hugo van Lawick
SUN 16:00 Bookclub (m0011bxp)
Maja Lunde - The History of Bees
The History of Bees by Maja Lunde is set in three different times and in three different countries - nineteenth century England, present day Ohio and Beijing at the end of the 21st century. Each storyline considers the lot of bees and beekeepers: William is designing a new type of hive, George; in Ohio, is trying to stick with traditional methods even though beekeeping and farming are becoming increasingly industrialised and Tao, in 2098, works as a human pollinator as all all the bees have died out.
Maja Lunde joins James Naughtie, and Bookclub listeners to talk about this complex , timely novel; about the ecological beliefs which drive her writing and her hopes for the future.
In November, Rachel Joyce will be joining James Naughtie for the next Bookclub recording, answering your questions about her bestseller The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry. Do get in touch via the website (click Take Part In A Recording) if you would like to ask Rachel a question.
SUN 16:30 The Poetry Detective (m0011bxr)
Episode Two
A new series about the poems we carry with us through life. Poems that speak to us so strongly that we return to them in times of confusion or fear… loneliness or joy… love or doubt. Some of us might scribble these words on Post Its and stick them next to the mirror or on the fridge door. Some of us send them to friends or read them at funerals. Some of us mutter them under our breath like a mantra in moments of stress. Some of us ink them permanently into our skin. How much do we know about these words that move us so deeply? What are the stories behind the poems that we carry and that carry us in turn?
The poet Vanessa Kisuule speaks to people about the poems - and bits of poems - that mean the most to them. She finds out why the poems matter, and then unfolds the backstory of the poem itself - who wrote it, what was the context it came out of and how does it work on us?
This week, stories of people reading poems out loud and finding their voice.
Agnes Frimston was in a public bathroom in London when she heard a woman sobbing in the next stall. She asked if the woman was OK and if she'd like to hear a poem. We hear the backstory of the poem she read, talk to its author - the American poet Kim Addonizio - and hear how it went viral, offering comfort to people around the world.
Marvin Tate grew up in Chicago in the 1960s. He was witness to a lot of violence in his youth and developed a stammer. One day, his sister gave him a poem and encouraged him to learn it by heart. A poem that would prove to be lifechanging for him, as it has been for many others. A poem that - we learn from poet and teacher Peter Kahn - inspired a whole new poetic form.
Produced in Bristol by Mair Bosworth for BBC Audio
SUN 17:00 File on 4 (m00114ch)
Controlled, Abused and Criminalised
Livvy Haydock investigates whether women are being unfairly treated by the criminal justice system when coercive and controlling behaviour by a partner is behind their offences. Six years ago, the UK led the world in making coercive and controlling behaviour a crime. In a 2019 landmark judgement, Sally Challen’s murder conviction was quashed when the Court of Appeal ruled that years of abuse had contributed to her murdering her husband. But has the criminal justice system really evolved enough to recognise the complex relationship between prolonged abuse and violent crime by women?
Reporter: Livvy Haydock
Producer: Jim Booth
Editor: Nicola Addyman
SUN 17:40 Profile (m0011bgp)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Saturday]
SUN 17:54 Shipping Forecast (m0011bxt)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
SUN 17:57 Weather (m0011bxw)
The latest weather reports and forecast
SUN 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m0011bxy)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4
SUN 18:15 Pick of the Week (m0011by0)
Peter Curran
We have a cavalcade of joyous delusional audio fun OR a cello of a programme - poignant, ruminative and seductively sad!
Amongst it all will be David Attenborough, Ai Weiwei, Armando Iannucci and Lyse Doucet. Tennessee Williams in the gutter and Jean Paul Sartre on slime. The changing face of council estates and coral reefs. All life is here.
Presenter: Peter Curran
Producer: Emmie Hume
Production Coordinator: Elodie Chatelain
Studio Manager: John Benton
SUN 19:00 The Archers (m0011by2)
A fit of the blues drags down Kirsty, while Tony smells a rat.
SUN 19:15 The Confessional (m0011by4)
Series 2
The Confession of Konnie Huq
Stephen Mangan takes another confession in the comedy chat show about shame, embarrassment and a guilty conscience.
Each week, Stephen 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. Settle back for more revelations of guilt and mortification.
This week, Stephen talks to Konnie Huq, broadcaster, writer, children’s author and the longest serving female Blue Peter presenter. This ambassador for The Prince’s Trust and the British Asian Trust describes herself as a ‘goody two shoes’. So what, if anything, is troubling her conscience? They discuss cheating, indiscretions involving ice cream and a misdemeanour in 10 Downing Street.
Other guests in the series include Olivia Williams, Anthony Horowitz, Ed Byrne, Shaparak Khorsandi and David Quantick.
Written and presented by Stephen Mangan
With extra material by Nick Doody
Produced by Frank Stirling
A 7digital production for BBC Radio 4
SUN 19:45 Gambits (m0011by6)
2: The King
Stephen Mangan continues a new short story series, set in what might seem like and ordinary Essex village, but is anything but. Today, in 'The King', Little Purlington has been gripped by chess fever, but the father of the local chess prodigy struggles to understand his son...
Reader: Stephen Mangan is a British actor, known best for his TV roles in Episodes, I'm Alan Patridge and Green Wing.
Writer: Eley Williams is the author of Attrib. and Other Stories, and a debut novel, The Liar's Dictionary.
Producer: Justine Willett
SUN 20:00 Feedback (m00114tt)
Is the BBC’s journalism impartial? The Government doesn’t think so, which is tricky for the Corporation as it negotiates the next licence fee settlement.
The BBC has now produced a ten-point plan to improve matters, Roger Bolton examines it with a member of the BBC Executive Committee, Rhodri Talfan Davies, who is also the BBC’s Director of Nations.
Roger also hears from the BBC broadcaster Stephen Nolan on why he is investigating his own employer, and why he is frustrated with the Corporation’s non-co-operation.
And was a Radio 4 programme called White Mischief, truly mischievous? Listeners give their views.
Presenter: Roger Bolton
Producer: Kate Dixon
Executive Producer: Samir Shah
A Juniper Connect production for BBC Radio 4
SUN 20:30 Last Word (m00114tr)
Sir Michael Rutter (pictured), Christopher Wenner, Sister Megan Rice, Jeanette Altwegg
Matthew Bannister on
Sir Michael Rutter who was known as the 'father of child psychiatry'. He pioneered research into many aspects of child development.
Christopher Wenner - also known as Max Stahl - who changed career from Blue Peter TV presenter to intrepid documentary film maker.
Sister Megan Rice, the American nun who campaigned against nuclear weapons. She was arrested and sent to prison for breaking into a uranium processing plant.
Jeanette Altwegg, the last British woman to win the individual Olympic Gold Medal for figure skating back in 1952.
Producer: Neil George
Interviewed guest: Edmund Sonuga-Barke
Interviewed guest: Stephen Scott
Interviewed guest: Martin Wenner
Interviewed guest: David Butcher
Interviewed guest: Carole Sargent
Interviewed guest: Peter Mason
Interviewed guest: Susan D Russell
Archive clips used: BBC Radio 4, The Life Scientific - Sir Michael Rutter 03/06/2014; BBC TV, Blue Peter 18/06/1979; JOURNEYMAN TV, REF 4701 Dili Massacre 12/07/1994; ABC Australia, British journalist and television presenter passes away 28/10/2021; MSNBC, Nun Prisoned For Anti-Nuclear Protest Released 21/05/2015; British Pathé, Atomic Tests in Nevada 1955; Washington Post, The Nun Who Broke Into a US Nuclear... 30/04/2013; War Register's International, Sister Megan Rice Talk In London 08/02/2016; British Pathé, British Amateur Figure Skating 1947; British Movietone, British Women in Winter Olympics 25/02/1952; BBC Sound Archive, Olympic Games Skating 02/02/1952; AP /Movietone, Jeannette Altwegg wins European Figure Skating 08/02/1951.
SUN 21:00 Money Box (m0011bfy)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:04 on Saturday]
SUN 21:25 Radio 4 Appeal (m0011bwv)
[Repeat of broadcast at
07:54 today]
SUN 21:30 Analysis (m00114hm)
Revenge of the Workers
The shortage of HGV drivers has been hitting the headlines, but other sectors are affected by a lack of staff too, from care homes to restaurants. This despite wages going up, and the end of the furlough scheme. What's going on? Could it be that power is shifting away from employers to workers, for perhaps the first time since the 1970s?
Since the 2008 financial crisis public opinion has increasingly been unfavourable towards globalisation, immigration and big corporations. This has been reflected in a shift away from an assumed pro-business stance among the mainstream political parties too. Philip Coggan speaks to a range of experts to find out what's been happening, whether workers really will gain more power, and what that might mean for the economy.
Guests:
Ben Clift, Professor of Political Economy at the University of Warwick
Dame DeAnne Julius, Distinguished Fellow for Global Economy and Finance, Chatham House
Kate Bell, Head of Rights, International, Social and Economics at the Trades Union Congress
Rob Ford, Professor of Political Science at the University of Manchester
Jonathan Portes, Professor of Economics and Policy at King’s College, London
Kate Nicholls, chief executive of UK Hospitality
Shereen Hussein, Professor of Health and Social Care Policy at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Gerwyn Davies, Public Policy Adviser and Senior Market Analyst at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development
Producer: Arlene Gregorius
Sound: Gareth Jones
SUN 22:00 Westminster Hour (m0011by8)
Radio 4's Sunday night political discussion programme.
SUN 23:00 The Curious Cases of Rutherford & Fry (m00114n5)
Series 18
The Slippery Situation
'What is the slipperiest thing in the world?' asks 8 year old Evelyn? 'Why do my feet slip on a wet floor but when my feet are even slightly moist it's nearly impossible to put on a pair of socks without falling over and cursing the universe. What is going on here?' asks Evelyn's Dad, Sam. Hannah and Adam investigate the science of friction and lubrication - so called 'tribology' with the help of tribologists and mechanical engineers Professor Ashlie Martini from California University Merced and Professor Roger Lewis from the University of Sheffield. With their help Hannah and Adam find out why leaves on the line are so slippery, what happens to graphite in space and what is the slipperiest food. Professor of Materials, Mark Miodownik from University College London explains what's going on when friction stops two materials sliding past each other and wonders whether the slipperiest substance was actually discovered accidentally in a lab by scientists looking for something completely different. Also in the programme why the ability to reduce friction, even by minuscule amounts could have a huge impact for sustainability and reducing energy use.
Producers: Jen Whyntie and Pamela Rutherford
SUN 23:30 Something Understood (b01m9mps)
[Repeat of broadcast at
06:05 today]
MONDAY 08 NOVEMBER 2021
MON 00:00 Midnight News (m0011byb)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.
MON 00:15 Sideways (m0011549)
17. The Endurance of Arlene Blum
Arlene Blum has scaled some of the most treacherous peaks in the Himalayas. When she’s not climbing mountains, she’s fighting to get toxic chemicals banned from everyday household goods. Arlene says that her experience leading expeditions has helped her acquire the personal skills and attributes required to push through bold new science policies.
Matthew Syed asks whether transferable resilience from one field to another is the secret to reaching the top not just once, but throughout our lives.
Arlene is not alone in her experience. Riteesh Mishra, a retired pro-footballer turned coach and talent manager, is a big advocate for “dual careers". Likewise, Professor Julia Richardson has led a study looking into how sportspeople can adapt their skills to second careers, drawing on their experiences in one area in order to excel in another.
Living a dual life as a mountaineer and a chemist has equipped Arlene with resilience and determination, but there’s something else that’s led Arlene to the top, and that’s the ability to question the ways things have always been done. Professor Steven Nadler, a philosopher specialising in early modern philosophy, says that Arlene can be considered a modern heretic. Do we need a bit more heretical thinking to get to the top of our own mountains?
Presenter: Matthew Syed
Producer: Claire Crofton
Series Editor: Katherine Godfrey
Researcher: Nadia Mehdi
Music, Sound Design and Mix: Nicholas Alexander
Theme Music: Seventy Times Seven by Ioana Selaru
A Novel production for BBC Radio 4
MON 00:45 Bells on Sunday (m0011bhb)
[Repeat of broadcast at
05:43 on Sunday]
MON 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m0011byd)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
MON 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m0011byg)
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 (m0011byj)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
MON 05:30 News Briefing (m0011byl)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4
MON 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m0011byn)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with environmentalist and theologian Martin Palmer.
Buddhism – Right Mindfulness
In Buddhist thought, the entire cosmos is a vast collaboration – a cooperative if you like. From the planets, the sun and stars existing together down to the humans, animals, trees and the earth – we are a mutual interdependent cooperative enterprise.
Understanding that we are held in a web of relationships is about taking us, our species, our nation, our race or our religion out of the equation and instead seeing that all these are but parts of a Greater Whole. And this is best captured in our relationship with trees.
Some years ago faiths with major forests came together to explore the significance of environmental care through forests for the earth. Key Christian organisations proposed that all faiths should describe the forests they have as Faith Protected Forests.
The Buddhists and Japanese Shinto – were shocked. “We don’t protect the forests.” They said. “They protect us.” And of course they are right. The forests absorb CO2; provide habitat for food sources, wood for making things, places for wildlife and beauty. They make life on earth liveble. This is captured in a prayer from the Venerable Thich Nhat Hahn:
Let us be aware of the source of being, common to us all and to all living beings.
Evoking the presence of the Great Compassion of the Divine, let us fill our hearts with our own compassion – towards ourselves and all living beings. Let us pray that we ourselves cease to be the cause of suffering to each other.
Let us plead with ourselves to live in a way which will not deprive other living beings of air, water, food, shelter, or the chance to live.
With humility, with awareness of the existence of life, and of the sufferings that are going on around us, let us pray for the establishment of peace in our hearts and on earth.
MON 05:45 Farming Today (m0011byq)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
MON 05:56 Weather (m0011bys)
The latest weather forecast for farmers.
MON 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b09l02hs)
Andy Radford on the Robin
The variety of sounds produced by Robins has long fascinated Professor Andy Radford, a Behavioural Biologist at the University of Bristol.
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: Sarah Blunt
Photograph: Laurie Robinson.
MON 06:00 Today (m0011cg5)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
MON 09:00 Start the Week (m0011cg7)
Internet influencers and generation gaps
At times it can feel as though we’re in the middle of a generational war, with the baby boomers battling the much maligned post-millennials. But in Generations the Director of The Policy Institute at King’s College London, Bobby Duffy explores just how far when we’re born determines our attitudes to money, sex, politics and much else. He tells Andrew Marr how the data from more than 40 countries unravels many of our preconceptions.
Born since the mid-1990s, Generation Z is the first age group never to know the world without the internet. It is also the generation most often pilloried in the press as replete with woke snowflakes, obsessed by identity. But the linguist Sarah Ogilvie believes that young people have much to teach about how to live in the digital world. She is the co-author of GenZ, Explained which seeks to draw a more optimistic and nuanced portrait of this generation, and delves into their specific cultural language.
Olivia Yallop is young enough to be part of the digital generation and in Break the Internet she explores the royalty of the attention economy, influencers (such as Molly-Mae Hague, pictured above). In the new media landscape online celebrities dominate and their value is estimated in billions of pounds. Yallop traces how online personas are built, uncovering what it is really like to live a branded life and trade in a ‘social stock market’.
Producer: Katy Hickman
MON 09:45 All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days by Rebecca Donner (m0011cg9)
1. Berlin, 1932. Unsettling Times
The powerful and true story of Mildred Harnack, the brave woman at the heart of Germany's underground resistance to the Nazis. Today, it's 1932 and an 11 year old boy is visiting his American tutor, but all is not what it seems. Kelly Burke reads.
Mildred Harnack's remarkable story is told by her great-great-niece, Rebecca Donner, who draws on diaries, letters, notes smuggled out of German prisons and de-classified intelligence reports to reconstruct the story of a woman of extraordinary bravery and compassion. In the early 1930s, living in Berlin, Mildred and her husband, Arvid, are horrified by Hitler's rapid and meteoric rise to power. Both find themselves compelled to act and take extraordinary and audacious risks to pass secrets to the Allies as World War II looms. But soon the Gestapo start to close in, and a high price is exacted.
Rebecca Donner is the author of the critically acclaimed novel, Sunset Terrace, and Burnout, a graphic novel about ecoterrorism. Her essays, reportage, and reviews have appeared in numerous publications, including the New York Times and Guernica.
Abridged by Julian Wilkinson
Produced by Elizabeth Allard
MON 10:00 Woman's Hour (m0011cgc)
Women's voices and women's lives - topical conversations to inform, challenge and inspire.
MON 11:00 The Untold (m0011cgf)
After the Army
Nick is one of those lucky people who always knew what he wanted to do. He joined the army and had a glittering career, serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. But when it comes to an end, life seems far less obvious, and he struggles. Help comes in the unlikely form of the village amateur dramatic group. But how do they react to the battle-hardened officer in their midst?
Presented by Grace Dent, and produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Joanna Jolly.
MON 11:30 Loose Ends (m0011bgm)
[Repeat of broadcast at
18:15 on Saturday]
MON 12:00 News Summary (m0011cw4)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
MON 12:04 The Last Resort (m000qxml)
Pete
A caravan-park on the Northern Irish coast is beset by a series of impossible thefts, forcing its disparate group of residents to come together to find their missing belongings. However, in this uncanny place where static caravans teeter on an eroding a cliff-edge overlooking the ocean, each holidaymaker soon finds themselves similarly wavering between certainty and doubt; one world and the next; the past and the present; and even reality and fantasy.
Author
Jan Carson is a writer and community arts facilitator based in Belfast. Her most recent novel ‘The Fire Starters’ was awarded the EU Prize for Literature 2019 and the author was acclaimed as “one of the most exciting and original Northern Irish writers of her generation” by the Sunday Times. She has also written ‘Wings’ for BBC Three, ‘UnRaveling’ for BBC Radio 3, several short stories for BBC Radio 4’s ‘Short Works’ series and was shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award 2020.
Reader: Patrick Buchanan
Writer: Jan Carson
Producer: Michael Shannon
A BBC Northern Ireland production.
MON 12:18 You and Yours (m0011cgl)
News and discussion of consumer affairs
MON 12:57 Weather (m0011cgn)
The latest weather forecast
MON 13:00 World at One (m0011cgq)
Forty-five minutes of news, analysis and comment, with Sarah Montague.
MON 13:45 A History of the World in 100 Objects (b00v6htv)
Mass Production, Mass Persuasion (1780 - 1914 AD)
Ship's chronometer from HMS Beagle
Neil MacGregor's history of the world as told through things. Throughout this week he is examining the global economy of the 19th century - of mass production and mass consumption. Today he is with an instrument that first helped Europeans to navigate with precision around the world - a marine chronometer. The one Neil has chosen actually accompanied Darwin on his great voyage to South America and the Galapagos Islands - a journey that was to help lead him to his revolutionary theories on evolution.
The geographer Nigel Thrift and the geneticist Steve Jones celebrate the chronometer and the profound changes it prompted.
Producer: Anthony Denselow
MON 14:00 The Archers (m0011by2)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Sunday]
MON 14:15 Drama (m0011cgt)
Little Miss Burden
Matilda Feyisayo Ibini draws on her own journey of sharing life with LGMD, in a whirlwind of 90s pop, video games and the joy of having sisters. Little Miss Burden is her most recent award winning stage drama, reimagined for her Radio 4 debut.
Big Sis, Little Sis and Little Miss are inseparable, the coolest, fiercest, most super talented-est girl band ever assembled. At 13, Little Miss is given a gift which cannot be returned. It’s a part of her. She has to share her body and life with it. And she needs to find a way for the two of them to get along as they can’t both be Player One.
This coming-of-age tale smashes together 90s nostalgia, Nigerian family, East London and Sailor Moon to tell the sometimes tricky, often funny truth about growing up with a physical impairment.
Matilda Feyisayo Ibini is an award-winning bionic, queer playwright, screenwriter and (occasional) facilitator from London (a Nigerian Londoner if you will). She has Limb Girdle Muscular Dystrophy and is a wheelchair user. Her work often centres women, disabled people, queer people and the Black British experience through a magical realist lens.
Her debut play, Muscovado for BurntOut Theatre, premiered in October 2014. Muscovado subsequently co-won the Alfred Fagon Audience Award 2015. The Grape that Rolled Under the Fridge was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in 2019. Little Miss Burden premiered at the Bunker Theatre in 2019, was a finalist for an OffWestEnd Award for Best New Play and won a Popcorn Finalist Award.
Co-producer Debbie Hannan's forthcoming stage productions include The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester.
Cast:
Little Miss…………………………… Saida Ahmed
Lil Sis………………………………….Ani Nelson
Big Sis…………………………………Ewa Dina
Mum………………….……………….Diana Yekinni
Co-Directors ………………………..Polly Thomas and Debbie Hannan
Illustration……………………………Geroff My Visuals
Sound Recordist……………………John Merriman, Crown Lane Studios
Sound Designer……………………..Alisdair McGregor
Thanks to dramaturg Jules Howarth.
Executive Producer………………….Eloise Whitmore
A Naked production for BBC Radio 4
MON 15:00 Brain of Britain (m0011cgw)
The Final, 2021
(17/17)
Russell Davies welcomes the four competitors whose wide general knowledge has propelled them through heats and semi-finals, who now take their place on the stage for the 2021 Brain of Britain Final.
Their knowledge will be truly put to the test in order for them to leap the final hurdle and hold the trophy. Which Greek letter is used in physics to denote wavelength? Which was the first US state to ratify the constitution? What would you take an antitussive medicine for?
An appreciative audience is on hand to encourage the competitors and cheer the eventual champion, who'll become the 68th official BBC Brain of Britain.
Assistant Producer Stephen Garner
Producer Paul Bajoria
Brain of Britain is a BBC Audio North production for Radio 4
MON 15:30 The Food Programme (m0011bxc)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:32 on Sunday]
MON 16:00 Laura Barton's Notes on Music (m00114mj)
Laura Barton Goes West
In this third episode, Laura Barton explores music's idea of the West, from the strings, sustained harmonies and open fifths of Western film scores, to the percussion, nasal pitch and perfect fourths favoured by indigenous Plains Indians, and how they connect or confront ideas of frontier thesis, manifest destiny, and the relationship with the land itself.
With contributions from Samantha Crain, a Choctaw songwriter from Oklahoma; Bryce Dessner, guitarist with The National and provider of music for the 'early western' film The Revenant; and Professor Philip Deloria, a specialist in Native American, Western American and environmental history.
Music:
Aaron Copland - Barley Wagons (Music for Movies)
Burl Ives - Wayfaring Stranger
Woody Guthrie - This Land Is Your Land
Samantha Crain - Elk City
The National - Not in Kansas
Aaron Copland - Rodeo (Four Dance Episodes)
Aaron Copland - A Gift To Be Simple (Appalachian Spring)
Alfred Newman - How the West Was Won
Arthur Farwell - Navajo War Dance
Samantha Crain - Red Sky, Blue Mountain (acoustic)
Aaron Copland - Fanfare for the Common Man
Navajo Horse Riding Song
The Flute Clan - Desert Shadows
Paul Revere and the Raiders - Indian Reservation
Bryce Dessner - Imagining Buffalos (The Revenant)
Samantha Crain - Red Sky, Blue Mountain
Ry Cooder - Paris, Texas
Samantha Crain - If I Had a Dollar
Produced by Alan Hall
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4
MON 16:30 The Digital Human (m0011cgz)
Series 24
Taint
From a Parisian asylum via the tropical rainforests of Papua New Guinea, Aleks Krotoski traces the history of affect - or emotion - recognition AI.
Research on whether or not our facial expressions reveal what we're feeling inside has been a contested for almost two centuries.
So why are tech companies building a multi-billion dollar AI industry on discredited science?
Producer: Caitlin Smith
MON 17:00 PM (m0011ch1)
Afternoon news and current affairs programme, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines.
MON 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m0011ch5)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
MON 18:30 The Museum of Curiosity (m0011ch7)
Series 16
Episode 4
Professor of Ignorance John Lloyd and the Museum’s latest curator Holly Walsh are joined by comedian, actor and presenter Griff Rhys Jones, bestselling author Mary Roach and award-winning poet Lemn Sissay.
Mary Roach talks about her latest book Animal, Vegetable, Criminal which is about animals who break the law. Lemn Sissay explores the role of a poet and his Christmas Day Project to provide Christmas dinners for care leavers. Griff Rhys Jones discusses his time on Not The Nine O’Clock News and his love for the River Lea.
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 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 (m0011ch9)
Johnny’s hackles are raised at work, and Lynda feels betrayed.
MON 19:15 Front Row (m0011chc)
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
MON 20:00 A Summer of Fire and Flood (m0011chf)
The End of Evia?
As world leaders gather to respond to the global climate crisis Radio 4 visits three places devastated by extreme weather events. In the final programme Maria Margaronis travels to the Greek island of Evia where vast areas of centuries old forests, olive groves & houses were burnt by a week long inferno. And now come the rains, bringing polluted water & mudslides.
Presented by Maria Margaronis and produced by Mark Burman.
MON 20:30 Analysis (m0011chh)
Baby Boom or Bust
Birth rates in many countries, including China, Japan, Italy and the UK have dropped below replacement level. Clare McNeil asks if we should be concerned about this, and the burden it will place on taxpayers and the young, or welcome it as a good thing for climate change, where some think that the fewer consumers and CO2 emitters the better. But with fertility rates of
1.58 in England and Wales, and only
1.29 in Scotland, society is aging, with the higher healthcare and pension costs to be borne by the taxpayers of working age. What role could or should the government play in increasing the birthrate?
Presenter: Clare McNeil
Producer: Arlene Gregorius
Editor: Jasper Corbett
Speakers:
Angie Hobbs, Professor of the Public Understanding of Philosophy, the University of Sheffield
Lord David Willetts, President of the Resolution Foundation
George Monbiot, environmental campaigner and author
Felix Pinkert, Assistant professor of Philosophy and Economics, University of Vienna
Jacob Hacker, Professor of Political Science, Yale University
Jade Sasser, Associate Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies, University of California, Riverside
Ronald Lee, emeritus professor of Demography and Economics, University of California, Berkeley
MON 21:00 No Ball Games (m001149j)
Who gets to tell the story of a 100-year old housing estate? Who shapes its future? And where does art fit into this?
Becontree, in Dagenham, is only a few miles from the City of London – but it’s a whole world away. One resident says "it's Britain’s biggest council estate, yet nobody's talking about it".
But they do want to talk about it. So, as Becontree marks its centenary, BBC Radio 4 hands the microphones to three residents.
Rodrigo is a young queer painter, rapper and musician who’s lived in Becontree since he was 11.
Gill is a lifelong Becontree resident. She’s a retired school secretary and local volunteer whose garden is her “pride and joy”.
Gary has “been called all sorts of things” in his life. Today he’s a philosopher who lives in one of the remaining council flats on the estate.
Rodrigo, Gill and Gary are our guides, our storytellers, our holders-to-account. They’ll lead us around their homes, then around the estate – passing the ubiquitous “No Ball Games” signs – to interview friends and neighbours, local characters and decision makers.
Our three residents met through a project connecting artists and communities, to mark Becontree’s big moment in 2021. What’s the purpose of such projects? What responsible role should artists perform? And when the birthday party’s over, what’s next for Becontree?
Producers: Jesse Lawson & Steve Urquhart
A Boom Shakalaka production for BBC Radio 4
MON 21:30 Start the Week (m0011cg7)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 today]
MON 22:00 The World Tonight (m0011chl)
In depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective
MON 22:45 Careless by Kirsty Capes (p09gp2cg)
Episode 1
Meet Bess, the feisty, courageous heroine of Careless by Kirsty Capes. She’s 15 years old and lives with her foster parents in Shepperton, but it’s her best friend Eshal who she turns to for love and support. When 19-year-old Boy steals her bike, Bess’s life turns upside down and she finds herself having to make some very adult decisions. Careless is the story of a funny, brave, vulnerable young girl struggling to find a sense of herself. In this first episode, Bess takes a pregnancy test...
Careless by Kirsty Capes is abridged by Katrin Williams, produced by Nicola Holloway and read by Abbie Andrews.
MON 23:00 Have You Heard George's Podcast? (p09ts3mx)
Chapter 3
Episode 26 - Vibrations
There was a moment, somewhere between the 1980s and 1990s, when Black music turned gangsta. This moment shaped two of the world’s most influential genres: American Rap and Jamaican Dancehall. The story behind the music is one of oppressed Africans unlocking the ancient powers of their ancestors to break free. The dark side of this story is that many of those Africans, descended from slaves, embraced the pattern of violence that had cursed them for so long and slowly turned against each other. Was gangsta music the explosion of Black culture, or the implosion of Black power? In the end, the market decides.
Warning: This episode contains very strong language and language which may offend, as well as adult themes.
Credits:
Written by George the Poet
Produced by Benbrick and George the Poet
Mixing, recording and editing by Benbrick.
With music from:
Bob Marley - Get Up Stand Up
The Sugarhill Gang - Rapper’s Delight
Billy Boyo - One Spliff A Day
Ninja Man - Murder Dem
Eric B. & Rakim - Paid in Full
Super Cat - Boops
Ice-T - New Jack Hustler (Nino’s Theme)
Mad Cobra - Bad Boy
Bounty Killer - Copper Shot
The Notorious B.I.G - Juicy
Craig Mack - Flava In Ya Ear Remix
Bounty Killer - Disrespect
The Notorious B.I.G - Hold Ya Head (feat. Bob Marley)
All original music is written by Benbrick and recorded by the BBC Concert Orchestra.
Thank you to:
Benbrick, my Groomsmen and my nephews. My team: Sandra, Vidhu and Birungi. Dylan Haskins and the team at BBC Sounds, Alex Entwistle, Adam Eland. BBC Concert Orchestra.
Archive:
The first four clips document scenes of street violence and are taken from various YouTube channels. The channel names are Toyin Made (used at
01:14), axolotol (used at
01:18), Eyez-wide-Videos (used at
01:41), and The Scuttlebutt Report (used at
02:01).
The clip of Sam Cooke used at
03:27 is taken from his interview with Dick Clark on American Bandstand.
The clip about Rastafari used at
03:51 is taken from the BBC documentary “Roots, Reggae, Rebellion”.
The clip about Black people expressing their true selves used at
04:21 is taken from the BBC documentary “Soul Deep: The Story of Black Popular Music”
The two clips used at
05:06 and
05:22 are taken from the BBC documentary Jamaica 40: Blood and Fire.
The clips used at
07:55,
08:03 and
08:08 are taken from the ABC News 20/20 Hip Hop special report from 1981.
The clips used at
19:40,
20:36 and
21:01 about Bounty Killer are taken from the 1994 classic feature with Jamaica TVJ ER host Anthony Miller.
The clips used at
19:51,
20:21 and
20:58 is taken from the Yendi Phillipps Untold Journeys interview with Bounty Killer.
The clip used at
20:46 is taken from the BBC documentary “Reggae: The Story of Jamaican Music”
Have You Heard George’s Podcast? is a George the Poet production for BBC Sounds.
Commissioning Assistant Producer: Adam Eland
Commissioning Senior Producer: Alex Entwistle
Commissioning Executive for BBC: Dylan Haskins
MON 23:30 Today in Parliament (m0011chp)
News, views and features on today's stories in Parliament.
TUESDAY 09 NOVEMBER 2021
TUE 00:00 Midnight News (m0011chr)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.
TUE 00:30 All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days by Rebecca Donner (m0011cg9)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 on Monday]
TUE 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m0011cht)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
TUE 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m0011chw)
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 (m0011chy)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
TUE 05:30 News Briefing (m0011cj0)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4
TUE 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m0011cj2)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with environmentalist and theologian Martin Palmer.
Judaism – God in all life
The Hebrew Bible confronts us with two powerful images of our relationship with God and the rest of Nature. Psalm 8 says:
what is humanity that you are mindful of them,
human beings that you care for them?
You have made them a little lower than the angels
and crowned them with glory and honor.
You made them rulers over the works of your hands
Yet in Job Chapter 38 God says:
Who is this that obscures my plans
with words without knowledge?
Brace yourself;
I will question you,
and you shall answer me.
Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
That God is the Master of the Universe is beyond question. But what are we in God’s Great plan? Are we Masters of the Earth or are we upstarts? Judaism has wrestled with this question in the light of the environmental crisis and created environmental movements which have focused for example on food production that is ethical, organic and healthy for all species involved, at its heart showing our affinity with all Creation. This is captured in the prayer of the 18th century Rabbi Nachman of Breslov:
Master of the Universe: Grant me the ability to be alone; may it be my custom to go outdoors each day among the trees and grass - among all growing things and there may I be alone, and enter into prayer, to talk with the One to whom I belong. May I express there everything in my heart, and may all the foliage of the field - all grasses, trees, and plants - awake at my coming. Send the powers of their life into the words of my prayer so that my prayer and speech are made whole through the life and spirit of all growing things, which are made as one by their transcendent Source.
TUE 05:45 Farming Today (m0011cj4)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
TUE 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b03bkfmv)
Brambling
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 Brambling. Bramblings are the northern equivalent of the chaffinch and breed across huge areas of Scandinavia and Russia. In autumn they migrate south in search of seeds and are particularly fond of beech-mast. The largest recorded gathering of any living bird species in the world is of a flock of over 70 million bramblings at a roost in Switzerland in the winter of 1951.
TUE 06:00 Today (m0011cpl)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
TUE 09:00 Things Fell Apart (m0011cpq)
1. 1000 Dolls
It's the early 1970s. Frank Schaeffer is an American kid living in the Swiss Alps – the son of an influential Christian art historian - who daydreams of one day making Hollywood films. But for that he needs a show-reel to prove himself. The ripples of Frank's creative ambitions will help trigger one of America's most violent culture wars - one that rages to this day.
Written and presented by Jon Ronson
Produced by Sarah Shebbeare
Original music by Phil Channell
TUE 09:30 One to One (m0011cpt)
Re-inventing Yourself: Malaika Kegode chats to Polly Meech
Malaika Kegode has always been drawn to stories of people who manage to re-invent themselves and this is what inspired her to leave her rural Devon home in her early twenties, to escape a situation where drugs and violence had become part of her life. She made the decision to leave and try to start again with the support of her parents and she’s now a successful Bristol-based writer and performer. In this programme, Malaika talks to someone she met in the theatre world at the very start of her own career. Polly Meech was a theatre manager at Bristol’s Tobacco Factory venue. But losing her mother to cancer and her own diagnosis with the same disease, led Polly to re-assess her life and make some pretty big changes.
Produced by Jo Dwyer for BBC Audio in Bristol
TUE 09:45 All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days by Rebecca Donner (m0011crf)
2. A Circle of Espionage in Nazi Germany
The true story of the courageous woman at the heart of the German resistance to the Nazis continues. Today, Mildred Harnack and her beloved husband, Arvid take ever increasing risks to defy Hitler. Kelly Burke reads.
Mildred Harnack's remarkable story is told by her great-great-niece, Rebecca Donner, who draws on diaries, letters, notes smuggled out of German prisons and de-classified intelligence reports to reconstruct the story of a woman of extraordinary bravery and compassion. In the early 1930s, living in Berlin, Mildred and her husband, Arvid, are horrified by Hitler's rapid and meteoric rise to power. Both find themselves compelled to act and take extraordinary and audacious risks to pass secrets to the Allies as World War II looms. But soon the Gestapo start to close in, and a high price is exacted.
Rebecca Donner is the author of the critically acclaimed novel, Sunset Terrace, and Burnout, a graphic novel about ecoterrorism. Her essays, reportage, and reviews have appeared in numerous publications, including the New York Times and Guernica.
Abridged by Julian Wilkinson
Produced by Elizabeth Allard
TUE 10:00 Woman's Hour (m0011cpy)
Women's voices and women's lives - topical conversations to inform, challenge and inspire.
TUE 11:00 Political Time Zones (m0011cq0)
Bending Time
Time might not be the first thing that comes to mind when we think about politics. But it actually underpins the very idea of modern democracy. Representative democracy is a system of deliberation that puts a brake on decision-making. It has a highly artificial rhythm - of checks, of balances, of electoral cycles. In a technology-fuelled world with a need for speed, democracy was designed to be slow.
In this three-part series, David Runciman looks at how democracies might think more deeply about time to tackle the challenges of the future. He moves through space and time, from Ancient Greece to our automated future, via 1930s America, post-communist Eastern Europe, and a stretch of motorway around Newport, Wales. In order to tackle the existential threats facing our societies and our natural world, do we need to find a way for politics to get up to speed?
In episode one, David looks at how power bends time. How do political leaders speed things up and slow things down? How does time change in a crisis? And what can we learn from the past to stop democracy being beaten by the clock?
Presenter: David Runciman
Producer: Ant Adeane
A Novel production for BBC Radio 4
TUE 11:30 Pride or Prejudice: How we Read Now (m0011cq3)
Writing Novels
Novels have always sparked controversy. Lady Chatterley's Lover, Lolita and American Psycho were all subject to fierce attacks.
But something is happening now that feels different - a rolling boil of social media outrage and news stories that are not about one novel but about the very nature of reading and writing fiction.
As publishers call in sensitivity readers, universities introduce content warnings and authors face charges of cultural appropriation, Abigail Williams, Professor of English at the University of Oxford, looks beyond the outrage to explore the power of the novel.
Episode 3: Produced by Julia Johnson and Leo Hornak
Series Producer: Julia Johnson
Executive Producer: Steven Rajam
An Overcoat Media production for BBC Radio 4
TUE 12:00 News Summary (m0011crw)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
TUE 12:04 The Last Resort (m000r31z)
Lois
A caravan-park on the Northern Irish coast is beset by a series of impossible thefts, forcing its disparate group of residents to come together to find their missing belongings. However, in this uncanny place where static caravans teeter on an eroding a cliff-edge overlooking the ocean, each holidaymaker soon finds themselves similarly wavering between certainty and doubt; one world and the next; the past and the present; and even reality and fantasy.
Author
Jan Carson is a writer and community arts facilitator based in Belfast. Her most recent novel ‘The Fire Starters’ was awarded the EU Prize for Literature 2019 and the author was acclaimed as “one of the most exciting and original Northern Irish writers of her generation” by the Sunday Times. She has also written ‘Wings’ for BBC Three, ‘UnRaveling’ for BBC Radio 3, several short stories for BBC Radio 4’s ‘Short Works’ series and was shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award 2020.
Reader: Roísín Gallagher
Writer: Jan Carson
Producer: Michael Shannon
A BBC Northern Ireland production.
TUE 12:18 You and Yours (m0011cq7)
News and discussion of consumer affairs
TUE 12:57 Weather (m0011cq9)
The latest weather forecast
TUE 13:00 World at One (m0011cqc)
Forty-five minutes of news, analysis and comment, with Sarah Montague.
TUE 13:45 A History of the World in 100 Objects (b00v71qr)
Mass Production, Mass Persuasion (1780 - 1914 AD)
Early Victorian tea set
This week Neil MacGregor's history of the world is looking at how the global economy became cemented in the 19th century, a time of mass production and mass consumption. He tells the story of how tea became the defining national drink in Britain - why have we become so closely associated with a brew made from leaves mainly grown in China and India? The object he has chosen to reflect this curious history is an early Victorian tea set, made in Staffordshire and perfectly familiar to all of us. The historian Celina Fox and Monique Simmonds from Kew gardens find new meaning in the ubiquitous cuppa.
Producer: Anthony Denselow
TUE 14:00 The Archers (m0011ch9)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Monday]
TUE 14:15 Drama (m0008wt8)
The Call of the Rewild
The last wolf in Scotland was killed in 1680. When a rich businessman announces plans to re-introduce wolves to his Highland estate he advocates the benefits of predators helping to control red deer numbers, a boost to tourism, and an increase in forestation. But he needs to convince the sceptics, including local sheep farmers who fear his wolves will prey on their livestock and threaten the survival of a way of life that’s lasted for generations. By Kieran Lynn.
Marcus Ross ..... Robin Laing
Dorothy MacLennan ..... Anne Lacy
Anna MacLennan ..... Helen Mackay
Gillian ..... Julie Duncanson
PC/Presenter/Journalist ..... Simon Donaldson
Producer/director: Bruce Young
TUE 15:00 The Kitchen Cabinet (m0011bfp)
[Repeat of broadcast at
10:30 on Saturday]
TUE 15:30 Costing the Earth (m0011cqg)
COP26: A Turning of the Tide?
World leaders have offered up a suite of promises at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow but how many of them will make a real dent in our greenhouse gas emissions? Tom Heap talks to experts in sustainable finance, methane emissions, deforestation, clean technology and energy to gauge the impact made so far. He's also joined by two veterans of many COP meetings, University of East Anglia climate scientist, Corinne Le Quéré and Bernice Lee of Chatham House. What do they make of the conference that the world is watching?
Producer: Alasdair Cross
TUE 16:00 Law in Action (m0011c5y)
Long-running legal magazine programme featuring reports and discussion.
TUE 16:30 A Good Read (m0011cdk)
Muriel Gray and Leah Davis
The broadcaster and writer Muriel Gray champions The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton because she believes books that deal with the supernatural are often unfairly dismissed as unworthy of literary praise. But she says you can't argue with a Pulitzer Prize winning author such as Wharton who decided to write a collection of ghost stories as a way of overcoming her own fears. As well as being disturbing and downright spooky the stories contain a lot of social commentary about the values and prejudices of early 20th century society.
Leah Davis is the voice of late night RnB and hip hop on Capital Xtra. She also runs a book club on her show. Her choice is Luster by Raven Leilani, a rather nihilistic tale of a young New Yorker who is struggling to make it in life, unable to hold down a job and living in a vermin infested apartment. She gets involved with an older married man with surprising results.
Harriett's choice is How To Be A Woman by Caitlin Moran a poignant and sometimes hilarious account of middle age and motherhood. A discussion about Botox ensues.
Produced for BBC Audio Bristol by Maggie Ayre
TUE 17:00 PM (m0011cqj)
Afternoon news and current affairs programme, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines.
TUE 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m0011cqn)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
TUE 18:30 Jayde Adams: Hometown Glory (m0011cqq)
Episode 1
After over a decade in London, comedian Jayde Adams is returning to her hometown of Bristol. Why? It’s cheaper. But also because of reasons that are much deeper than that, and which she told Radio 4 would probably take two half-hour episodes to explain.
Over the course of this mini series, Jayde is going to be asking what ‘feeling at home’ really means; why we leave home; and why some of us, at least, feel the draw to go back.
Not that Jayde’s story isn’t interesting enough on its own - girl lives in same house for eighteen years, moves to London, moves back again - Jayde’s also spoken to Dawn French, Victoria Scone, Keala Settle and Sophie Willan about their own experiences of home; where they’ve made home; and how it’s made them.
Performed by Jayde Adams
Script editor: Simon Alcock
Producer: Hayley Sterling
Production Coordinator: Sarah Nicholls
Sound Design: Chris Maclean
A BBC Studios Production
TUE 19:00 The Archers (m0011cqt)
Oliver’s kindness knows no bounds, and Lillian takes a bow.
TUE 19:15 Front Row (m0011cqw)
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
TUE 20:00 File on 4 (m0011cqy)
Furlough Fraud
An estimated £66 billion was spent by the government during the pandemic on paying towards the wages of people who couldn’t work, or whose employers could no longer afford to pay them. That’s around one fifth of the money the government spent on the response to Covid. It says 11.6 million jobs were supported by the furlough scheme. But the scheme also exposed the government to fraud and is expected to result in billions of pounds of additional losses to the tax payer. In September of last year, only after 6 months of the scheme running, HMRC was already estimating up to £3.5 billion of fraud and error in furlough payments. Now the scheme has closed, Paul Kenyon investigates businesses that claimed furlough money but asked their employees to carry on working.
Reporter: Paul Kenyon
Producer: Anna Meisel
Editor: Carl Johnston
TUE 20:40 In Touch (m0011cr0)
News, views and information for people who are blind or partially sighted
TUE 21:00 All in the Mind (m0011cr2)
Programme exploring the limits and potential of the human mind. Producer: Deborah Cohen.
TUE 21:30 Things Fell Apart (m0011cpq)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 today]
TUE 22:00 The World Tonight (m0011cr4)
In depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective
TUE 22:45 Careless by Kirsty Capes (p09gp2l9)
Episode 2
Even though he stole her bike, Bess has not been able to stop thinking about Boy. In this episode of Careless by Kirsty Capes, Bess remembers their second encounter when he comes to her rescue at the school gates after an angry fight.
Careless by Kirsty Capes is read by Abbie Andrews
It was abridged by Katrin Williams and produced by Nicola Holloway.
TUE 23:00 Fortunately... with Fi and Jane (m0011cr7)
210. Wobbly Ladders and Telemachus, with Parm Sandhu
This week on Fortunately, Fi and Jane are joined by former Met Police Chief Superintendent Parm Sandhu. Parm talks to Fi and Jane about her role as an expert on the murder mystery reality show Murder Island, our interest in crime dramas as a society and current discussions about the police. Before Parm logs in, there is a good old fashioned piazza encounter and a dog taking the U-Bahn.
Get in touch: fortunately.podcast@bbc.co.uk
TUE 23:30 Today in Parliament (m0011cr9)
Today in Parliament
News, views and features on today's stories in Parliament
WEDNESDAY 10 NOVEMBER 2021
WED 00:00 Midnight News (m0011crc)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.
WED 00:30 All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days by Rebecca Donner (m0011crf)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 on Tuesday]
WED 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m0011crh)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
WED 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m0011crk)
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 (m0011crm)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
WED 05:30 News Briefing (m0011crp)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4
WED 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m0011crr)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with environmentalist and theologian Martin Palmer.
Sikhism – World burning
The founder of Sikhism in the 15th century, Guru Nanak, said the reality that humans create around themselves is a reflection of their inner state. The current instability of the earth’s natural systems is a reflection of the instability and pain within humans. The increasing barrenness of the earth’s terrain is a reflection of the emptiness within us.
The Sikh Holy Book the Guru Grant Sahib says:
The world is burning due to four rivers of fire;
Rivers of violence, material attachment, greed and anger,
The solution to the crises in our world lies in prayer and in accepting God’s hukam. Hukam is not the easiest concept of Sikhism to express but it is perhaps best described as a combination of God’s will, order, and system. With an attitude of humility, and surrender to the Divine Spirit, we can respond to the current crises of the environment and of social justice. In the Sikh Way this is done through the guidance of the Guru, who is the Divine Master and messenger of God.
Sikhism opposes the idea that the struggle of the human race is against nature and that human supremacy lies in the notion of “harnessing” nature. The objective is harmony with the eternal—God—which implies a life of harmony with all existence. Around the world Sikhs are creating hundreds of sacred forests for all wildlife and human beings to delight in and working on environmental justice striving for a life of harmony with God and all creation.
This prayer is taken from the Guru Granth Sahib:
The world is going up in flames –
Shower it with Your Mercy and save it!
Save and deliver it, by whatever method it takes.
O Nanak, one is saved and one can save others by holding tight to kind and compassionate deeds.
WED 05:45 Farming Today (m0011crt)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
WED 05:58 Tweet of the Day (m0001h1h)
Brian Briggs and the Chaffinch Song
Former Stornoway band member Brian Briggs with a story of how the chaffinch song was the first he recognised. Brian, now a reserve manager at the Wetlands and Wildlife Trust's Llanelli Wetland Centre, remembers how his first job as an ecologist at Oxford's Wytham Woods ignited his journey into learning the language of birds throughout the seasons.
Producer: Andrew Dawes
WED 06:00 Today (m0011cy3)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
WED 09:00 Life Changing (m0011cy7)
Jane Garvey talks to ordinary people about an extraordinary turning point in their life.
WED 09:30 In My Head (b0bhmw7z)
The Boxing Trainer
It's the build up for fight night as boxing trainer Peter Stanley prepares his protégé Simon Corcoran for his professional debut.
Part of a new series of immersive features which allow the listener to step inside the heads of a compelling character and explore their world. Recorded in binaural stereo using the latest recording techniques for a rich, lifelike, 3-D 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.
Recorded at the legendary York Hall in London's East End, experience the night as they did - backstage and in the ring - where the stakes are high for Simon.
Producer Neil McCarthy
WED 09:45 All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days by Rebecca Donner (m0011czj)
3. The Handshake
The true story of the woman at the heart of the German resistance to the Nazis continues. Today, Mildred and Arvid Harnack take audacious risks to defy and ultimately bring down the Fuhrer. Kelly Burke reads.
Mildred Harnack's remarkable story is told by her great-great-niece, Rebecca Donner, who draws on diaries, letters, notes smuggled out of German prisons and de-classified intelligence reports to reconstruct the story of a woman of extraordinary bravery and compassion. In the early 1930s, living in Berlin, Mildred and her husband, Arvid, are horrified by Hitler's rapid and meteoric rise to power. Both find themselves compelled to act and take extraordinary and audacious risks to pass secrets to the Allies as World War II looms. But soon the Gestapo start to close in, and a high price is exacted.
Rebecca Donner is the author of the critically acclaimed novel, Sunset Terrace, and Burnout, a graphic novel about ecoterrorism. Her essays, reportage, and reviews have appeared in numerous publications, including the New York Times and Guernica.
Abridged by Julian Wilkinson
Produced by Elizabeth Allard
WED 10:00 Woman's Hour (m0011cyc)
Women's voices and women's lives - topical conversations to inform, challenge and inspire.
WED 11:00 A Summer of Fire and Flood (m0011chf)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 on Monday]
WED 11:30 John Finnemore's Double Acts (b08snhwp)
Series 2
Mercy Dash
Malcolm needs some help. Sue has a spot of time on her hands. Winchester beckons...
Julia McKenzie and Gus Brown star in the second of six two-handers written by Cabin Pressure's John Finnemore.
Written by John Finnemore
Produced by David Tyler
A Pozzitive production for BBC Radio 4.
WED 12:00 News Summary (m0011d00)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
WED 12:04 The Last Resort (m000rbq1)
Richard
A caravan-park on the Northern Irish coast is beset by a series of impossible thefts, forcing its disparate group of residents to come together to find their missing belongings. However, in this uncanny place where static caravans teeter on an eroding a cliff-edge overlooking the ocean, each holidaymaker soon finds themselves similarly wavering between certainty and doubt; one world and the next; the past and the present; and even reality and fantasy.
Author
Jan Carson is a writer and community arts facilitator based in Belfast. Her most recent novel ‘The Fire Starters’ was awarded the EU Prize for Literature 2019 and the author was acclaimed as “one of the most exciting and original Northern Irish writers of her generation” by the Sunday Times. She has also written ‘Wings’ for BBC Three, ‘UnRaveling’ for BBC Radio 3, several short stories for BBC Radio 4’s ‘Short Works’ series and was shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award 2020.
Reader: Christopher Grant
Writer: Jan Carson
Producer: Michael Shannon
A BBC Northern Ireland production.
WED 12:18 You and Yours (m0011cyh)
News and discussion of consumer affairs
WED 12:57 Weather (m0011cyk)
The latest weather forecast
WED 13:00 World at One (m0011cym)
Forty-five minutes of news, analysis and comment, with Sarah Montague.
WED 13:45 A History of the World in 100 Objects (b00v72n6)
Mass Production, Mass Persuasion (1780 - 1914 AD)
Hokusai's The Great Wave
The history of humanity - as told through one hundred objects from the British Museum in London - is once again in Japan. This week Neil MacGregor, the museum's director, is looking at the global economy in the 19th century - at mass production and mass consumption.
Today he is with an image that rapidly made its way around the world - Hokusai's print, The Great Wave, the now familiar seascape with a snow topped Mount Fuji in the background that became emblematic of the newly emerging Japan. Neil explores the conditions that produced this famous image - with help from Japan watchers Donald Keene and Christine Guth.
Producer: Anthony Denselow
WED 14:00 The Archers (m0011cqt)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Tuesday]
WED 14:15 Stone (b082xc03)
Series 6
Disclosure
First episode of the sixth series of Stone created by Danny Brocklehurst.
In Disclosure written by Richard Monks, DCI John Stone and his team are called to a school following a suspected arson attack. As their investigation deepens they uncover threats, blackmail and dark secrets.
DCI JOHN STONE.....Hugo Speer
DI TANNER..…Craig Cheetham
DS SUE KELLY.....Deborah McAndrew
BRYANT / TREVOR GALTON.....Jason Done
LORNA/ DONNA / MRS GALTON.....Rebecca Callard
RAY/FRANK.....Kevin Harvey
STEPHEN / SCOTT.....Ceallach Spellman
Directed by Nadia Molinari
WED 15:00 Money Box (m0011cyq)
Paul Lewis and a panel of guests answer calls on personal finance. Producer: Emma Rippon
WED 15:30 All in the Mind (m0011cr2)
[Repeat of broadcast at
21:00 on Tuesday]
WED 16:00 Sideways (m0011cys)
Tongue-Tied
At a school assembly, 16-year-old Simon Day discovers an acute fear of public speaking. Faced with a crowd of expectant faces, panic begins to set in.
Soon, Simon finds that words fail him at almost every turn, threatening his career, relationships and, ultimately, his happiness.
Matthew Syed follows Simon’s journey to find his voice, uncovering the science of how we speak and the complex factors that leave us lost for words.
With Joe Moran, author of Shrinking Violets: The Secret Life of Shyness; psycholinguistics expert Dr Alissa Melinger; and former palliative care consultant Dr Kathryn Mannix, author of Listen: How to Find the Words for Tender Conversations.
Presenter: Matthew Syed
Producer: Pippa Smith
Series Editor: Katherine Godfrey
Music, Sound Design and Mix: Nicholas Alexander
Theme Music: Seventy Times Seven by Ioana Selaru
A Novel production for BBC Radio 4
WED 16:30 The Media Show (m0011cyv)
Social media, anti-social media, breaking news, faking news: this is the programme about a revolution in media.
WED 17:00 PM (m0011cyx)
Afternoon news and current affairs programme, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines.
WED 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m0011cz1)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
WED 18:30 The Cold Swedish Winter (m0001g8y)
Series 4
Equality
In Danny Robins’ sitcom, Geoff (Adam Riches), persists in his efforts to assimilate in his new country. With Brexit looming, he has become a Swedish citizen, married his Swedish girlfriend , Linda (Sissela Benn) and their son, John (or Yon) is now old enough to start attending dagis (nursery school). But Geoff is still confused, entranced or infuriated by the unexpectedly Scandinavian on a daily basis. This year Geoff has to learn about conflicting attitudes towards health and safety, the perils of Pippi Longstocking and how to get ahead on the Swedish comedy circuit.
Last week, Geoff launched himself onto the job market. This week he struggles to get his head round the differences between British and Swedish attitudes to gender issues. His son wants to be a witch, his family accuse him of being a male chauvinist and his brother-in-law the Death Metal fan, Anders (Fredrik Andersson), is too frightened to ask the love of his life for a date.
Cast:
Geoff: Adam Riches
Linda: Sissela Benn
Anders: Fredrik Andersson
Gunilla: Anna-Lena Bergelin
Sten: Thomas Oredsson
Mattias: Thomas Eriksson
John: Harry Nicolaou
Woman in Supermarket: Johanna Wagrell
Written by Danny Robins
Produced and directed by Frank Stirling
A 7digital production for BBC Radio 4
WED 19:00 The Archers (m0011c5b)
It’s full steam ahead for the Grundys, and Oliver finds himself on a pedestal.
WED 19:15 Front Row (m0011cz3)
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
WED 20:00 Life Changing (m0011cy7)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 today]
WED 20:30 Descendants (p09jjqk1)
James Cleverly MP and Deadria Farmer-Paellmann
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 and its legacy.
Government Minister, James Cleverly, the first British MP of Sierra Leone descent, takes us back through his family history and the way his experiences of Sierra Leone helped shape his perspective on Britain and colonialism. It's a history which is directly linked to Britain's role in slavery, and its aftermath. He understands he is descended from the Mende tribe. A few thousand miles away, Deadria Farmer-Paellmann has also discovered she is descended from the Mende tribe - but her ancestors were enslaved and trafficked to South Carolina. The discovery becomes part of her life's mission to try to get reparations for the descendants of the enslaved.
Producers: Polly Weston, Candace Wilson, Rema Mukena
Editor: Kirsten Lass
Academic consultants: Matthew Smith and Rachel Lang of the UCL Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery
Additional genealogical research is by Laura Berry
WED 21:00 Costing the Earth (m0011cqg)
[Repeat of broadcast at
15:30 on Tuesday]
WED 21:30 The Media Show (m0011cyv)
[Repeat of broadcast at
16:30 today]
WED 22:00 The World Tonight (m0011cz5)
In depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective
WED 22:45 Careless by Kirsty Capes (p09gp682)
Episode 3
In this episode of Careless by Kirsty Capes, Bess and Eshal go to Brighton with Boy and Keris and despite an unromantic visit to Boy's father, the relationship between Boy and Bess deepens.
15-year-old Bess lives with her foster family in Shepperton, and Careless is the story of her first, unhappy relationship - with a 19-year-old simply called Boy. Careless is set in the late 1990s.
Read by Abbie Andrews
Abridger: Katrin Williams
Producer: Nicola Holloway
WED 23:00 Lasties (m0011cz8)
The Unknown Pint
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.
Ray’s taken to going for walks around the pub and Boo doesn’t like it. On one of his constitutionals, Ray finds an abandoned pint and is beguiled by it. Can he claim it? Derek – an old snake of a landlord – watches on with interest.
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 The Skewer (m0011czb)
Series 5
Episode 2
Your new news fix. Jon Holmes's The Skewer returns to twist itself into current affairs.
WED 23:30 Witness (b01k9npb)
Greensboro Lunch Counter Sit-in
Franklin McCain was one of four young black men who asked to be served at a 'whites-only' lunch counter in a branch of Woolworths in Greensboro North Carolina in 1960. What happened next would change America. In this edition of Witness, Franklin McCain speaks to Alan Johnston.
WED 23:45 Today in Parliament (m0011czd)
News, views and features on today's stories in Parliament.
THURSDAY 11 NOVEMBER 2021
THU 00:00 Midnight News (m0011czg)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.
THU 00:30 All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days by Rebecca Donner (m0011czj)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 on Wednesday]
THU 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m0011czl)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
THU 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m0011czn)
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 (m0011czq)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
THU 05:30 News Briefing (m0011czs)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4
THU 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m0011czv)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with environmentalist and theologian Martin Palmer.
Islam – All creatures live in community
Both the climate and biodiversity crises have made us more aware how important the balance of the whole of nature is to the survival of our world. We are so consumed with our own wants and needs that we forget about the importance of mizan – a word meaning balance, for example simplicity and modesty as against selfishness, greed and recklessness. A balance for the well-being of all life on earth.
This especially applies to consumption and what we take from the natural world entrusted to us by God – a world of many communities and many species. The Quran says:
“He raised the heavens and established the balance so that you would not transgress the balance. He laid out the earth for all living creatures.” Surah 55:7 - 10
“All living beings roaming the earth and winged birds soaring in the sky are communities like yourselves.” Surah
6:38
Recently attention has been focused within Islam on Greening the Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Makkah. This has led to major changes in the way this pilgrimage is undertaken – for example using proper water bottles made from gourds and bags made from hemp instead of plastic.
It is no accident that the first chapter or Surah in the Quran speaks through prayer directly to this:
In the Name of God, the Merciful Lord of Mercy.
Praise be to God, the Lord of all being,
The merciful Lord of Mercy,
Master of the Day of Judgement.
You alone we serve: to You alone we come for aid.
Guide us in the straight path,
The path of those whom You have blessed,
Not of those against whom there is displeasure
Nor of those who go astray.
The First Surah, The Fatihah
THU 05:45 Farming Today (m0011czx)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
THU 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b09k8qz7)
Doug Allan on the Giant Petrel
In the last of five recollections about his encounters with birds in Antarctica, wildlife cameraman Doug Allan recalls his encounters with Giant Petrels with mixed feelings as he recalls their baleful stare, steely grey blue eyes and predatory intent!
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: Sarah Blunt
Photograph: Christopher Mckenzie.
THU 06:00 Today (m0011c4m)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
THU 09:00 In Our Time (m0011c4p)
William and Caroline Herschel
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss William Herschel (1738 – 1822) and his sister Caroline Herschel (1750 – 1848) who were born in Hanover and made their reputation in Britain. William was one of the most eminent astronomers in British history. Although he started life as a musician, as a young man he became interested in studying the night sky. With an extraordinary talent, he constructed telescopes that were able to see further and more clearly than any others at the time. He is most celebrated today for discovering the planet Uranus and detecting what came to be known as infrared radiation. Caroline also became a distinguished astronomer, discovering several comets and collaborating with her brother.
With
Monica Grady
Professor of Planetary and Space Sciences at the Open University
Carolin Crawford
Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge and an Emeritus Fellow of Emmanuel College, University of Cambridge
And
Jim Bennett
Keeper Emeritus at the Science Museum in London.
Studio producer: John Goudie
THU 09:45 All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days by Rebecca Donner (m0011c4r)
4. A Catastrophic Error
In the account of the woman at the heart of the German resistance to Hitler, Mildred Harnack and her husband Arvid are in a race against time as Stalin's spymasters place them in great peril. Kelly Burke reads.
Mildred Harnack's remarkable story is told by her great-great-niece, Rebecca Donner, who draws on diaries, letters, notes smuggled out of German prisons and de-classified intelligence reports to reconstruct the story of a woman of extraordinary bravery and compassion. In the early 1930s, living in Berlin, Mildred and her husband, Arvid, are horrified by Hitler's rapid and meteoric rise to power. Both find themselves compelled to act and take extraordinary and audacious risks to pass secrets to the Allies as World War II looms. But soon the Gestapo start to close in, and a high price is exacted.
Rebecca Donner is the author of the critically acclaimed novel, Sunset Terrace, and Burnout, a graphic novel about ecoterrorism. Her essays, reportage, and reviews have appeared in numerous publications, including the New York Times and Guernica.
Abridged by Julian Wilkinson
Produced by Elizabeth Allard
THU 10:00 Woman's Hour (m0011c4v)
Women's voices and women's lives - topical conversations to inform, challenge and inspire.
THU 11:00 From Our Own Correspondent (m0011c4x)
Insight and analysis from BBC correspondents around the world.
THU 11:30 Dostoevsky and the Russian Soul (m0011c4z)
Rowan Williams’ fascination with Russia began when, as a boy, he watched Sergei Eisenstein’s Ivan the Terrible on television. After that he became a born again Russophile, learned the language, and even completed a doctorate on Russian Christianity. But no Russian figure has held his fascination more than Fyodor Dostoevsky.
Dostoevsky is still considered among the greatest novelists the world has ever produced. But his talent for writing complex, often contradictory characters is rooted in a single traumatic moment when, as a young man, he found himself before a firing squad. The event changed his life, his writing, and his views on Russia’s place in the world.
Now that tensions between Russia and the West are once again running high, Rowan considers what the author’s life and thought can tell us about the country today.
Ultimately, Rowan finds, what makes Dostoevsky such a wonderful novelist is his humanity. At a time of deep divides, this is a writer with something to offer us all.
A Just Radio production for BBC Radio 4
THU 12:00 News Summary (m0011c51)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
THU 12:04 The Last Resort (m000rm9w)
Anna
A caravan-park on the Northern Irish coast is beset by a series of impossible thefts, forcing its disparate group of residents to come together to find their missing belongings. However, in this uncanny place where static caravans teeter on an eroding a cliff-edge overlooking the ocean, each holidaymaker soon finds themselves similarly wavering between certainty and doubt; one world and the next; the past and the present; and even reality and fantasy.
Author
Jan Carson is a writer and community arts facilitator based in Belfast. Her most recent novel ‘The Fire Starters’ was awarded the EU Prize for Literature 2019 and the author was acclaimed as “one of the most exciting and original Northern Irish writers of her generation” by the Sunday Times. She has also written ‘Wings’ for BBC Three, ‘UnRaveling’ for BBC Radio 3, several short stories for BBC Radio 4’s ‘Short Works’ series and was shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award 2020.
Reader: Jo Donnelly
Writer: Jan Carson
Producer: Michael Shannon
A BBC Northern Ireland production.
THU 12:18 You and Yours (m0011c53)
News and discussion of consumer affairs
THU 12:57 Weather (m0011c55)
The latest weather forecast
THU 13:00 World at One (m0011c57)
Forty-five minutes of news, analysis and comment, with Sarah Montague.
THU 13:45 A History of the World in 100 Objects (b00v72x8)
Mass Production, Mass Persuasion (1780 - 1914 AD)
Sudanese slit drum
Neil MacGregor's history of the world as told through things. Throughout this week he is examining the great shifts in the global economy and in imperial power in the 19th century. Today he is with a large wooden drum that the legendary Kitchener of Khartoum brought from Sudan for Queen Victoria, just after his army had killed 11000 Sudanese soldiers in battle. The drum takes Neil back to the extraordinary history that has played out along the Nile and to the great internal power struggles of the period. The writer Dominic Green and the broadcaster Zeinab Badawi reflect on the meaning of the drum and its place in Sudanese history.
Producer: Anthony Denselow
THU 14:00 The Archers (m0011c5b)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Wednesday]
THU 14:15 This Thing of Darkness (m0011c5d)
Series 2
Part 1
The winner of the British Podcast Award for Best Fiction 2021 returns with a gripping drama about trauma, obsession and why we harm the things we love.
Part 1 of 7
Written by Anita Vettesse with monologues by Eileen Horne.
Dr Alex Bridges is an expert forensic psychiatrist and psychotherapist, assessing and treating perpetrators of violent crime.
Alex assesses a young woman as she is released from prison. Sarah has served ten years for Arson. Does she still present a risk?
Alex … Lolita Chakrabarti
Sarah ….. Melody Grove
Paul ….. Robert Jack
Ros ….. Lois Chimimba
Dog Walker ….. Anita Vettesse
Series created by Lucia Haynes, Eileen Horne, Gaynor Macfarlane, Anita Vettesse and Kirsty Williams.
Series consultant: Dr Gwen Adshead
Produced by Gaynor Macfarlane and Kirsty Williams
A BBC Scotland Production directed by Gaynor Macfarlane
THU 15:00 Open Country (m0011c5h)
Britain's Forgotten Rainforest
Did you know that we have rainforest, lush, green rainforest, right here in the UK? Many don't, yet it's once of our most ancient - and threatened - habitats. Gnarled trees, twisted with age, covered from root to tip in mosses and lichens, epiphytic ferns dripping from every branch.
Once existing in a vast swathe right down the west coast of Britain, "temperate rainforest" is one of the world's rarest habitats. There are species living here that can live nowhere else, but it's been gradually encroached on by humans for centuries. Now clinging on in small pockets, you can find patches of rainforest if you know where to look: in places like Dartmoor, West Wales and the west coast of Scotland. But there may be other patches out there - quietly enduring the passing centuries.
Helen Mark takes a walk into the secret forests of Britain to find out how we can save them. In Wales, projects are underway to save and expand the 'Celtic Rainforests', rescuing them from invading rhododendrons and the nibbling of grazing cattle. And a new project is launched this year, aiming to find and map the full extend of the British rainforest for the first time. They need your help to track down every last bit of it.
Presented by Helen Mark
Produced in Bristol by Emily Knight
THU 15:27 Radio 4 Appeal (m0011bwv)
[Repeat of broadcast at
07:54 on Sunday]
THU 15:30 Bookclub (m0011bxp)
[Repeat of broadcast at
16:00 on Sunday]
THU 16:00 The Curious Cases of Rutherford & Fry (m0011c5k)
Series 18
The Venomous Vendetta
Whilst watching a documentary about some poisonous frogs, Curio Janni in Amsterdam, started to wonder what would happen if a frog licked itself or another frog of the same species. She asks Dr Adam Rutherford and Professor Hannah Fry to investigate whether an animal would react badly to a toxin it itself produces? In essence, 'can a venomous snake kill itself by biting itself?'
Of course the answer is complicated, but the sleuths know exactly who to ask.
Steve Backshall, award-winning wildlife explorer, best known for his BBC series 'Deadly 60'. Author of 'Venom – Poisonous Creatures in the Natural World'. Steve has been bitten, stung and spat at by a plethora of venomous creatures during his career. He also studied the first-known venomous newt - the sharp-ribbed newt - a creature that has sharpened ribs that when it's under attack, it will squeeze its body force those ribs out through its skin, coating them in venom, which is then delivered into the mouth of an attacker.
Professor Nick Casewell, studies venomous snakes and their impact on humans. He works on treatments for snakebites at the Liverpool School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Snakebites have a huge impact on communities in South Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa and South America. It's now been reinstated as one of the most serious neglected tropical diseases by the World Health Organisation. Traditional treatments - antivenins - can be expensive, difficult to access and don't always work - Nick is looking into alternative medicines to treat snakebite victims.
Dr. Ronald Jenner is Principle Researcher in the Comparative Venomics group at the Natural History Museum's Life Sciences, Invertebrates Division and co-wrote the book ‘Venom -the secrets of nature's deadliest weapon.’ He explains the evolutionary arms race between venomous predators and their prey and poisonous prey and their predators. He explains how resistance to venom has evolved and how venom has evolved to be more or less powerful over time, answering another Curio - Scott Probert's question on the evolution of venom.
Christie Wilcox wrote 'Venomous – How Earth’s Deadliest Creatures Mastered Biochemistry'. She studied the molecular basis of lionfish venom. Christie describes how venom and immunity to venom works at the molecular level.
Presenters - Adam Rutherford and Hannah Fry
Produced by Fiona Roberts
THU 16:30 BBC Inside Science (m0011c5m)
A weekly programme that illuminates the mysteries and challenges the controversies behind the science that's changing our world.
THU 17:00 PM (m0011c5p)
Afternoon news and current affairs programme, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines.
THU 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m0011c5r)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
THU 18:30 Relativity (m000kvkd)
Series 3
Episode 1
Drawing on his own family, the third series of Richard Herring’s comedy drama builds on the warm, lively characters and sharply observed family dynamics of previous series.
His affectionate observation of inter generational misunderstanding, sibling sparring and the ties that bind will resonate with anyone who has ever tried to show their dad which remote turns the television on.
Amid the comedy, Richard broaches some more serious highs and lows of family life. In this series, he focuses on the roller coaster ride of first time parenting, how to maintain a long standing marriage and brass rubbing.
Richard Herring is a comedian, writer, blogger and podcaster and the world's premier semi-professional self-playing snooker player.
Episode 1:
Ian and Chloe are new parents to their much loved but incessantly crying baby, Don. Meanwhile sister Jane has had enough of husband Pete, while Ken and Margaret are simply trying to turn the television on.
Cast:
Margaret…………….Alison Steadman
Ken……………..Phil Davis
Jane…………….Fenella Woolgar
Ian……………….Richard Herring
Chloe…………..Emily Berrington
Pete………………..Gordon Kennedy
Holly………………...Tia Bannon
Mark………………Fred Haig
Nick………………..Harrison Knights
Written by Richard Herring
Sound Design by Eloise Whitmore
Producer: Polly Thomas
Executive Producers: Jon Thoday and Richard Allen Turner
An Avalon Television production for BBC Radio 4
THU 19:00 The Archers (m0011c5t)
Writer, Caroline Harrington
Director, Peter Leslie Wild
Editor, Jeremy Howe
Pat Archer ..... Patricia Gallimore
Tony Archer ..... David Troughton
Helen Archer ..... Louiza Patikas
Clarrie Grundy ..... Heather Bell
Eddie Grundy ..... Trevor Harrison
Harrison Burns ..... James Cartwright
Inspector Norris ..... Bharti Patel
Johnny Phillips ..... Tom Gibbons
Lilian Bellamy ..... Sunny Ormonde
Mia Grundy ..... Molly Pipe
Natasha Archer ..... Mali Harries
Adam Macy ..... Andrew Wincott
Kirsty Miller ..... Annabelle Dowler
Lynda Snell ..... Carole Boyd
Oliver Sterling ..... Michael Cochrane
Rex Fairbrother ..... Nick Barber
Roy Tucker ..... Ian Pepperell
Susan Carter ..... Charlotte Martin
Tracy Horrobin ..... Susie Riddell
THU 19:15 Front Row (m0011c5w)
Live magazine programme on the worlds of arts, literature, film, media and music
THU 20:00 Law in Action (m0011c5y)
[Repeat of broadcast at
16:00 on Tuesday]
THU 20:30 The Bottom Line (m0011c60)
Evan Davis chairs a discussion providing insight into business from the people at the top.
THU 21:00 BBC Inside Science (m0011c5m)
[Repeat of broadcast at
16:30 today]
THU 21:30 In Our Time (m0011c4p)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 today]
THU 22:00 The World Tonight (m0011c63)
In depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective
THU 22:45 Careless by Kirsty Capes (p09gp6b2)
Episode 4
Back in Shepperton after their trip to Brighton, and their first kiss, Bess and Boy continue their on-off relationship. Bess's social worker, Henry and her foster family are concerned but Bess is determined to carry on seeing Boy.
Careless by Kirsty Capes is read by Abbie Andrews.
Abridged by Katrin Williams, produced by Nicola Holloway.
THU 23:00 Date Night (m0011c66)
Series 2
Episode 3
Second series of the semi-improvised comedy show written and performed by Marc Wootton with Hammed Animashaun, Rosie Cavaliero, Monica Dolan, Katherine Parkinson and Catherine Tate.
Together, they portray a series of couples who are all embracing the modern phenomenon of date night.
DATE NIGHT, noun: A pre-arranged occasion when a couple who have been together for a long time commit to a regular night out in order to keep their relationship alive.
The series follows a collection of couples who are desperately trying to keep their relationship functioning with a weekly date night intervention. For some, the relationship is already clearly broken. For others it is a pre-emptive strike in the hope of new-found longevity.
Date Night is written and created by Marc Wootton whose previous credits include High & Dry (Ch4), La La Land (Showtime), Shirley Ghostman (BBC) and My New Best Friend (Ch4).
Cast:
Terry / Patrick / Harry / Fiona / Patrick ….. Marc Wootton
Terri ….. Catherine Tate
Carol ….. Monica Dolan
Linda ..... Rosie Cavaliero
Jamali ..... Hammed Animashaun
Maddy ..... Katherine Parkinson
Narrator ...... Fi Glover
Editor: Chris Maclean
Producer: James Peak
An Essential Radio production for BBC Radio 4
THU 23:30 Sweet Mother KD (b07pgvjn)
Laura Barton sorts through myth and misdirection to tell the story of Karen Dalton, the folk world's answer to Billie Holiday.
Karen Dalton was a mesmerising singer, the queen of Greenwich Village. Playing 12-string guitar or long-neck banjo, she sang blues, folk, country, pop, Motown – re-making each song in her own inimitable, heartbreaking style. She was never known as a songwriter in her lifetime, but rather as an interpreter of other people’s songs. Dalton's sometime harmonica player Bob Dylan wrote in his memoir, "my favourite singer was Karen Dalton... she had a voice like Billie Holiday's and played the guitar like Jimmy Reed and went all the way with it."
She went all the way with it. Karen Dalton went so far that it seems not many people were prepared to follow and her life story is peppered with gaps and sadness, a catalogue of tall tales left in her wake. She was married and divorced twice, with two children, while still in her teens. Some say she was half-Cherokee, that she kidnapped one of her own children and ran away to New York City. Some say that she had to be tricked into recording her first album, and that her missing teeth came at the hands of a jealous lover. Some say she was homeless, penniless and that she died of AIDS on the New York streets. That particular detail happens not to be true, but what is certain is that she was a powerful singer and performer who – whether through disinterest on her part, lousy timing, bad luck or bad habits – never really realised her potential.
The mysteries that surround her life may be part of the reason for a recent resurgence of interest in Karen Dalton. In the last few years, several CDs of reissued and previously unreleased material have appeared.
But there’s been another, more illuminating, if bitter-sweet, reinvention as well.
After Karen Dalton’s death, her papers came into the possession of her friend Peter Walker. Contained in these folders, among the transcriptions of traditional songs, mementoes, doodles and fragments, are a number of original poems and songs that shed a new light on a performer previously only known for giving heart-breaking voice to other people’s material.
Featuring Sharon Van Etten, Dan Hankin, Josh Rosenthal, Peter Stampfel and Peter Walker.
More information about the Remembering Mountains project here: http://www.tompkinssquare.com/
Producer: Martin Williams
FRIDAY 12 NOVEMBER 2021
FRI 00:00 Midnight News (m0011c68)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.
FRI 00:30 All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days by Rebecca Donner (m0011c4r)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:45 on Thursday]
FRI 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m0011c6b)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
FRI 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m0011c6d)
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 (m0011c6g)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.
FRI 05:30 News Briefing (m0011c6j)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4
FRI 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m0011c6l)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with environmentalist and theologian Martin Palmer.
Daoism – Finding the balance
A key idea of Daoism, the ancient traditional belief of China, is wu wei. It means actionless action. It is about being, and through the nature of being, making things change but without forcing that change. The word Dao means Way, a Divine, universal Way. If we can be quiet long enough we can hear and see Nature guiding us. For example how a river will slowly yet surely wear away a giant rock that falls into it. Through this Daoism has been able to work with nature rather than against it for millennia.
The Daoists are one of the major groups working to stop the illegal wildlife trade that threatens to wipe out species such as tigers and pangolins. First of all they point out that real Traditional Chinese Medicine never used animals just plants and then they set up nurseries to grow organic herbal medicine plants. They have also created eco-towns where the balance between human needs and those of the rest of nature can be ensured. In other words, they have created the Way of Life, the Dao of Life that enables all of life to find a space to live within.
This is captured in this reflective prayer from chapter 11 of Daoism’s key text the Dao de Jing:
Thirty spokes on a wheel
Go towards the hub that is the centre
But look, there is nothing in the centre and that is precisely why it works! It you mould a cup, you have to make a hollow: it is the emptiness within that makes it useful.
In a house or room, it is the empty spaces – the doors, the windows - that make it usable. They all use what they are made of to do what they do but without their nothingness they would be nothing.
Chapter 11 Dao de Jing
FRI 05:45 Farming Today (m0011c6n)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
FRI 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b09v35t6)
Jennifer Border on the Whinchat
Jennifer Border of the British Trust for Ornithology has a special affection for whinchats even though research trips don't always go to plan as she recalls when following the song of a whinchat resulted in a broken signpost and a cracked car bumper!
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 encounters with nature and reflections on our relationship with the natural world.
Producer: Sarah Blunt
Photograph: Jez Nunn.
FRI 06:00 Today (m0011cc3)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
FRI 09:00 Desert Island Discs (m0011bx7)
[Repeat of broadcast at
11:00 on Sunday]
FRI 09:45 All the Frequent Troubles of Our Days by Rebecca Donner (m0011cc5)
5. The Letter
The true story of Mildred Harnack, the American woman at the heart of the German resistance to Hitler continues as the Gestapo close in on her, and husband Arvid. A letter reveals the power of their love for one another in the face of adversity.
Mildred Harnack's remarkable story is told by her great-great-niece, Rebecca Donner, who draws on diaries, letters, notes smuggled out of German prisons and de-classified intelligence reports to reconstruct the story of a woman of extraordinary bravery and compassion. In the early 1930s, living in Berlin, Mildred and her husband, Arvid, are horrified by Hitler's rapid and meteoric rise to power. Both find themselves compelled to act and take extraordinary and audacious risks to pass secrets to the Allies as World War II looms. But soon the Gestapo start to close in, and a high price is exacted.
Rebecca Donner is the author of the critically acclaimed novel, Sunset Terrace, and Burnout, a graphic novel about ecoterrorism. Her essays, reportage, and reviews have appeared in numerous publications, including the New York Times and Guernica.
Abridged by Julian Wilkinson
Produced by Elizabeth Allard
FRI 10:00 Woman's Hour (m0011cc7)
Women's voices and women's lives - topical conversations to inform, challenge and inspire.
FRI 11:00 Green Inc (m0011cc9)
Going Going Green
In an anarchic and challenging documentary series, BAFTA winning activist and satirist Heydon Prowse gives us his personal take on the great greening of some of the world's biggest companies and corporations.
With increasing consumer demand for more sustainable stuff, companies are today falling over themselves to meet increased consumer demand for more sustainable products. In this episode, Heydon he unpacks the green repackaging of the food and drink industry. Are we seeing the world’s largest companies shift in a more sustainable direction or is all this slick advertising just lulling us into a false sense of security?
Presenter: Heydon Prowse
Producer: Georgia Catt
FRI 11:30 Saucer (m0011ccc)
In space no one can hear you squabble. Saucer - a comedy about six people just trying to make it in the world... except they're not on the world.
For decades, sitcom characters have hung out in flats and houses and pubs where they would joke, laugh, argue, kiss, cry, bicker, get on each other’s nerves and hug (lots of hugging).
What’s the one thing all those places have in common? None of them were 35,786 kilometres above the Earth. But that is where the unlikely roommates in Saucer find themselves. Trapped aboard an abandoned UFO in orbit around the planet with no means of getting back down to Earth and no means of getting some personal space from their fellow abductees, the characters in Saucer are going where no sitcom characters have gone before.
Cast (in order of appearance):
DJ - Andrew Kreisberg
Todd - David Mumeni
Todd’s Father - Justin Edwards
Sat nav voice - Rebecca Webb
Tracey - Katie Cassidy
Stewart - Gordon Kennedy
Dane - Adjany Salmon
Siobhan - Helen Cripps
Gray - Fraser James
Nichelle - Desiree Birch
Created and written by Andrew Kreisberg
Edited by Leon Chambers
Produced and directed by Andrew Kreisberg and Gordon Kennedy
Recorded at The Soundhouse Studios, London
An Absolutely production for BBC Radio 4
FRI 12:00 News Summary (m0011ccf)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
FRI 12:04 The Last Resort (m000rv84)
Vidas
A caravan-park on the Northern Irish coast is beset by a series of impossible thefts, forcing its disparate group of residents to come together to find their missing belongings. However, in this uncanny place where static caravans teeter on an eroding a cliff-edge overlooking the ocean, each holidaymaker soon finds themselves similarly wavering between certainty and doubt; one world and the next; the past and the present; and even reality and fantasy.
Author
Jan Carson is a writer and community arts facilitator based in Belfast. Her most recent novel ‘The Fire Starters’ was awarded the EU Prize for Literature 2019 and the author was acclaimed as “one of the most exciting and original Northern Irish writers of her generation” by the Sunday Times. She has also written ‘Wings’ for BBC Three, ‘UnRaveling’ for BBC Radio 3, several short stories for BBC Radio 4’s ‘Short Works’ series and was shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award 2020.
Reader: Ignacy Rybarczyk
Writer: Jan Carson
Producer: Michael Shannon
A BBC Northern Ireland production.
FRI 12:18 You and Yours (m0011cch)
News and discussion of consumer affairs
FRI 12:57 Weather (m0011cck)
The latest weather forecast
FRI 13:00 World at One (m0011ccm)
Forty-five minutes of news, analysis and comment, with Edward Stourton.
FRI 13:45 A History of the World in 100 Objects (b00v73z9)
Mass Production, Mass Persuasion (1780 - 1914 AD)
Suffragette-defaced penny
Neil MacGregor's world history told through objects from the British Museum in London. The objects he has chosen this week have reflected on mass production and mass consumption in the 19th century. Today' he is with the first object from the 20th century, a coin that leads Neil to consider the rise of mass political engagement in Britain and the dramatic emergence of suffragette power. It's a penny coin from 1903 on which the image of King Edward V11 has been stamped with the words "Votes for Women". The programme explores the rise of women's suffrage and the implications of the notorious suffragette protests. The human rights lawyer and reformer Helena Kennedy and the artist Felicity Powell react to this defaced penny coin.
Producer: Anthony Denselow
FRI 14:00 The Archers (m0011c5t)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Thursday]
FRI 14:15 Limelight (m0011ccq)
Harland
Harland - Episode 3: Thursday
Lucy Catherine's supernatural thriller set in the new town of Harland. A man in a hare mask appears to guide DI Ward to the missing Evie Bennett but who is he? And why can't the CCTV system capture his image even when he's there.
Sarah ..... Ayesha Antoine
Dan ..... Tyger Drew-Honey
Sadie ..... Melissa Advani
Jim ..... Chris Jack
Lori ..... Grace Cooper Milton
Jess ..... Lizzie Mounter
Lindsay ..... Jasmine Hyde
Pete ..... Michael Begley
Counsellor ..... Christine Kavanagh
Aldo ..... Sam Dale
MC ..... Justice Ritchie
Sound design by Caleb Knightley
Directed by Toby Swift
FRI 14:45 A History of Ghosts (m000ntz1)
10. Did You Hear That?
Illustration by Seonaid Mackay
'You set up a tape recorder and leave it running, recording silence. You ask your questions into the silence, leaving a sufficient pause for a response. Later, you listen back to the recording. Through the mush and static, if you listen very carefully, you may be able to just about make out people speaking.'
Kirsty Logan explores the modern quest to capture a ghost in a machine, from Telsa and Edison feuding over a spirit phone, to the apparent capture of voices in white noise and on tape. And she discovers that somewhere in the 21st century our wish to contact the dead has changed, we went from wanting to catch the spirit of the dead, to creating ghosts of ourselves.
FRI 15:00 Gardeners' Question Time (m0011ccs)
Horticultural programme featuring a group of gardening experts.
FRI 15:45 From Fact to Fiction (m0011ccv)
Travis Alabanza takes inspiration from events in this week's news to create a fictional response.
Travis is an award-winning writer, performer and theatre maker. Their work surrounds gender, trans identity and race and has been described as 'mesmerising' (The Guardian) and 'the future of theatre' by the Evening Standard, which also listed them as one of the 25 most influential under-twenty-five year olds in 2019.
Bernardine Evaristo described them as a 'cultural change maker of tomorrow'. Pink News said 'There aren't enough stars in the universe to put on Travis Alabanza's (show) 'Burgerz'.' (On their show 'Overflow') 'Alabanza’s funny, tender study of allyship and the bravery of being who you are could become a future classic. “
– Evening Standard
Producer...Mary Ward-Lowery
FRI 16:00 Last Word (m0011ccx)
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 (m0011ccz)
Radio 4's forum for comments, queries, criticisms and congratulations
FRI 17:00 PM (m0011cd1)
Afternoon news and current affairs programme, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines.
FRI 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m0011cd3)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
FRI 18:30 The Now Show (m0011cd5)
Series 59
Episode 3
Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis present the week via topical stand-up and sketches in front of a remote audience - and all from their own home!
Joining them from a safe distance is Michael Spicer and Priya Hall with music supplied by Ignacio Lopez.
Voice Actors: Luke Kempner and Karen Bartke.
Producer: Pete Strauss
Production Co-Ordinator: Sarah Sharpe
BBC Studios Production
FRI 19:00 Four Thought (m000zdtf)
Mum... again
Angela Frazer-Wicks tells her extraordinary story of being a mother.
Years ago, Angela's sons were taken into care and adopted, and in this powerful talk she describes her heartbreak as they gradually lost contact and she lost faith in the future. But as she explains, with support from some very unexpected places, Angela is now in a position to help other women and families going through similar experiences.
Producer: Giles Edwards
FRI 19:15 Add to Playlist (m0011cd7)
Cerys Matthews and Jeffrey Boakye present a programme that explores the rich web of connections in music.
FRI 20:00 Any Questions? (m0011cd9)
Joanna Cherry QC MP, Lord Forsyth, Gillian Mackay MSP
Chris Mason presents political debate and discussion from the Seaboard Centre in Balintore with a panel that includes Conservative peer and former Scottish Secretary Lord Forsyth, SNP MP Joanna Cherry QC MP and Scottish Greens Health and Social Care Spokesperson Gillian Mackay MSP.
Producer: Camellia Sinclair
Lead broadcast engineer: Ken Garden
FRI 20:50 A Point of View (m0011cdc)
Weekly reflections on topical issues from a range of contributors.
FRI 21:00 A History of the World in 100 Objects (b00w2452)
Mass Production, Mass Persuasion (AD 1780-1914)
Neil MacGregor, the director of the British Museum in London, continues his global history as told through objects from the Museum's collection. In this episode, Neil concentates on the period between the French Revolution and the First World War, when the countries of Europe and the USA were transformed from agricultural to industrial economies. At the same time, their empires around the world grew. Technological innovation led to the mass production of goods and growing international trade. Previously luxuries, like tea and Wedgewood pottery, became affordable to the masses. In many countries, movements pressed for political and social reforms, including the right for all men and women to be able to vote. The industrial revolutions of the West were partly funded by resources from Europe's expanding colonial empires. Only one non-western country, Japan, successfully embraced modernisation and emerged as an imperial power in its own right.
Producer: Paul Kobrak
FRI 22:00 The World Tonight (m0011cdg)
In-depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective.
FRI 22:45 Careless by Kirsty Capes (p09gp6dn)
Episode 5
15-year-old Bess, who lives with her foster family, is pregnant. She confides in her friend Eshal that she would like to end the pregnancy and together they decide to take matters into their own hands, with disastrous and distressing results.
Careless by Kirsty Capes is read by Abbie Andrews
Abridger: Katrin Williams
Producer: Nicola Holloway
FRI 23:00 A Good Read (m0011cdk)
[Repeat of broadcast at
16:30 on Tuesday]
FRI 23:30 Comedy from the Wilderness (m00109vz)
The Wilderness Festival in Oxfordshire was one of the few UK summer festivals to go ahead this year. Join Molly, Jack, Will, Rob and James Peak as they report back on all the fun stuff you may have missed - including Letters Live with Jordan Stephens and Amanda Abbington; Gallic miserabilist Marcel Lucont; top festival hype-man Robin Clyfan; the fabulous Missy Fatale; Queen B and the Cabaret Fatale; Tom Hodgkinson and The Idler Magazine; Sanderson Jones and Sunday Assembly’s mass lockdown wedding; and not forgetting Henry Blofeld, who is coaxed from Test Match Special retirement to join Timmy Sampson in commentating on the annual WCC Goodies v Baddies Cricket Match.
Original Music by Tollon Adkins
Edited by Andre Jacquemin.
Produced and Presented by James Peak.
An Essential Radio production for BBC Radio 4