The BBC has announced that it has a sustainable plan for the future of the BBC Singers, in association with The VOCES8 Foundation.
The threat to reduce the staff of the three English orchestras by 20% has not been lifted, but it is being reconsidered.
See the BBC press release here.

Radio-Lists Home Now on R4 Contact

RADIO-LISTS: BBC RADIO 4
Unofficial Weekly Listings for BBC Radio 4 — supported by bbc.co.uk/programmes/



SATURDAY 19 MARCH 2022

SAT 00:00 Midnight News (m0015bcf)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.


SAT 00:30 Making History: The Storytellers Who Shaped The Past by Richard Cohen (m0015bch)
Monsieur Voltaire and Mr Gibbon

Richard Cohen examines the storytellers of the past, how they worked and how their writings still influence our ideas about history.

Who were the historians who changed the way history is written? How did their biases affect their accounts? Is there such a thing as objective history?

The series explores lives and works from the Greek historian Herodotus, through the great Roman historians Tacitus and Livy, with their great epic stories of war and plagues, all of them inventing stories to be more reader friendly, and then moving through Arab and Islamic writings, to the medieval historians like Bede and Geoffrey of Monmouth – the latter famous for his economy with the truth, in other words, making it all up.

The great Italian Niccolo Machiavelli became a historian by accident, Voltaire and Edward Gibbon changed the way history was written, breaking away from a God centred universe. Then there's the Red historians from Marx (always in debt and crippled by boils on his skin) to Eric Hobsbawm, the emergence of female historians, and false accounts of history.

Episode 5
Monsieur Voltaire and Mr Gibbon. These two, their lives overlapping, changed the way history was written, denigrating organised religion. The Frenchman was self promoting, always in trouble, a leading controversialist. His History of Charles XII was a bestseller and, in his old age, he lived on his country estate, running a weaving business and a watch making business. The Englishman Edward Gibbon, only 4 feet high, ugly and afflicted with gout, is famous for The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - still a classic today.

Author: Richard Cohen
Abridger: Libby Spurrier
Reader: Alex Jennings
Producer: Celia de Wolff

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4


SAT 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m0015bck)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.


SAT 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m0015bcm)
BBC Radio 4 presents a selection of news and current affairs, arts and science programmes from the BBC World Service.


SAT 05:33 Shipping Forecast (m0015bcp)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.


SAT 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m0015bct)
Spiritual reflection to start the day with Linden Bicket, teacher of literature and religion at Edinburgh University's School of Divinity.


SAT 05:45 Lent Talks (m0015bcw)
"I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink"

Lent Talks is a series of personal reflections inspired by an aspect of the story leading up to Easter. This year’s theme is the power of hospitality, based on Jesus’ encouragement in Matthew’s gospel to feed the hungry, welcome the stranger and look after the sick.

In this episode, the historian and theologian Revd Dr Miranda Threlfall-Holmes considers the words, "I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink"

Producer: Dan Tierney.


SAT 06:00 News and Papers (m0015kp9)
The latest news headlines. Including the weather and a look at the papers.


SAT 06:07 Ramblings (m0015b7v)
Around Dulwich Woods with Floella Benjamin

Baroness Floella Benjamin DBE joins Clare for a walk around one of her favourite woodlands in London. Starting in Dulwich College where her mother worked in the laundry and later her son attended, Floella and husband Keith head off into the woods on a rainy March day. Their walk takes them up from the College past the Golf range and into the woods where parakeets dart among the trees shrieking and providing a dash of bright emerald green on a grey day. Along the way Floella talks about her life and all her achievements.
She was born in Trinidad and emigrated with her family in the 1960s settling in London. After leaving school she worked in a bank before becoming an actress and then getting her break into children's television in Play School. The education and wellbeing of children is one of her greatest priorities and she is hugely proud of all that she has achieved in this field.
The walk takes them along routes she has walked for many years from when her own children were small. She and Keith are great walkers and love to hike in the Lake District but when that's not possible, a walk in these woods is a sanctuary in the middle of the city - a place to relax, think and destress.

Producer: Maggie Ayre


SAT 06:30 Farming Today (m0015kpc)
19/03/22 - Inflation, food security, seasonal labour and badger culling

Inflation is hitting farmers with increased costs for fuel, energy and fertiliser. Some are benefiting from selling wheat at record prices - but for those buying animal feed, that means more costs. As glasshouses stand empty because of the cost of the gas to heat them and some farmers consider selling their fertiliser stocks rather than planting crops - Charlotte Smith asks the DEFRA Secretary George Eustice whether our food supply is secure.

The badger cull has long been one of the most controversial Government policies. New research suggests it hasn't been effective - but not everyone agrees.

And clarity after weeks of confusion over seasonal worker pay.

Presented by Charlotte Smith
Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Heather Simons


SAT 06:57 Weather (m0015kpf)
The latest weather reports and forecast


SAT 07:00 Today (m0015kph)
Including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.


SAT 09:00 Saturday Live (m0015kpm)
Siobhán McSweeney

Siobhán McSweeney joins Nikki Bedi and Richard Coles. The actor talks Derry Girls, the significance of going back to West Cork for her latest role and manifesting her Great British Pottery Throwdown gig.

Gary Stevenson became a very successful City trader but he explains why he left to become an inequality economist.

Listener Stefan Jennings got in touch and shares how finding his chef father’s journal revealed a dad he never knew.

Andrew Garfield chooses his Inheritance Tracks: Just a Gigolo by Louis Prima and Vincent by Don McLean.

Producer: Claire Bartleet
Editor: Alice Feinstein

Holding continues on Monday at 9pm on ITV and all four episodes are available on ITV Hub.
Andrew Garfield stars in tick, tick…BOOM! which is available to stream now on Netflix.


SAT 10:30 My Dream Dinner Party (m0015kpp)
Sophie Ellis-Bextor's Dream Dinner Party

Singer-songwriter Sophie Ellis-Bextor hosts a dinner party with a twist - all her guests are from beyond the grave, long-time heroes brought back to life by the wonders of the radio archive.

Sophie is joined by children's author and illustrator Judith Kerr, TV presenter and writer Paula Yates, Dracula actor Christopher Lee, writer and actor Carrie Fisher – and Carrie Fisher's mother, Hollywood legend Debbie Reynolds.

As the guests help themselves to salmon and salad, they discuss fame and the paparazzi, life as a refugee, dancing with Fred Astaire and Dracula's erotic power.

There's knife throwing, laughter, glamour, and some fireworks between mother and daughter.

Written and presented by Sophie Ellis-Bextor
Produced by Sarah Peters and Peregrine Andrews
Researcher: Edgar Maddicott
BBC Archivist: Tariq Hussein
Executive Producer: Iain Chambers

A Tuning Fork and Open Audio production for BBC Radio 4


SAT 11:00 The Week in Westminster (m0015kpr)
Ben Wright is joined by former foreign secretary Jeremy Hunt MP to assess the Ukraine war and the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.

The plight of the Ukrainian refugees is discussed by the Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey MP who visited the Ukraine-Poland border this week and the Conservative peer, Baroness Arminka Helic who came to the the UK in the 1990s as a refugee from the Bosnian war.

Labour peer, Lord David Blunkett and Merryn Somerset Webb, editor-in-chief of Moneyweek debate whether Britain is heading back to the sort of economic turmoil last seen in the 1970s.

And the chairman of the Association of Conservative peers, Lord Michael Forsyth and Director of the Constitution Unit at UCL, Professor Meg Russell look at House of Lords appointments.


SAT 11:30 From Our Own Correspondent (m0015kpt)
On Kharkiv's Frontline

Ukraine saw further indiscriminate attacks across the country this week, including an attack on a theatre sheltering civilians in Mariupol. The city of Kharkiv has also been under constant attack, and the dead are often left in the street as it's too dangerous to bury them. Quentin Sommerville reflects on the horror unfolding on the ground.

Russia's tactics in Ukraine are familiar to the people of Syria, where Vladimir Putin’s military support for President Assad helped raze cities to the ground. Leila Molana-Allen spoke to some of the people still living through that war, who are now watching events unfold in Ukraine.

Western intelligence sources have expressed concerns about Russian activity in Moldova, which neighbours Ukraine. Moldova is also a former Soviet state, with a Russian-speaking separatist insurgency in the east. Newsnight’s Sima Kotecha spoke to Moldova’s Prime Minister about her fears of what may lie ahead, and hears how the country is struggling to cope with the influx of refugees.

In rural Kenya, most of the population live and work on the farms that are the backbone of the country’s economy., but access to electricity is sparse. Mercy Juma visited the village of Kenyanjeru, where a young entrepreneur decided to give himself a crash course in engineering, so he could supply power to his neighbours.

Last year, Chile elected Gabriel Boric as their new president - a landslide victory for the radical left wing, ex-student leader. Mr Boric, keen to diverge from the style of his predecessors, has embarked on a property hunt in a working-class district in downtown Santiago. Jane Chambers went to explore his new neighbourhood.

Presenter: Kate Adie
Producer: Serena Tarling and Polly Hope
Editor: Emma Close and Richard Fenton-Smith


SAT 12:00 News Summary (m0015krv)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


SAT 12:04 Money Box (m0015kpy)
Cryptocurrency scammers steal a man's house

We report on a man who was fed up with poor returns on his savings and tried to invest in cryptocurrency instead. But he ended up losing his savings, his car, and his house as thieves stripped him bare. Money Box reporter Dan Whitworth investigates.

The government is about to announce changes to who is eligible to receive the Warm Home Discount in England and Wales. This £140 payment off one electricity bill will be raised to £150 from next winter. But charities are warning that there will be more than 200,000 disabled people who will no longer get the payment even though, overall, it will go to more people. We hear from Louise Rubin, Head of Policy and Campaigns at the disability equality charity, Scope.

One in four households will not be able to pay their electricity and gas bills in October if prices rise again as they are expected to - that's according to Citizens Advice, as the cost of heating our homes rises much faster than our incomes. Already millions of households are in what is called fuel poverty — unable to afford to heat and light their home. We hear from Caroline Flint, the newly appointed chair of the government’s Committee on Fuel Poverty.

And there are two weeks left to top up your 2021/22 tax free ISA. But would you do better using a regular savings account? We hear from Anna Bowes, co-founder of SavingsChampion.co.uk

Presenter: Paul Lewis
Producer: Paul Waters
Reporter: Dan Whitworth
Producer: Louise Clarke-Rowbotham
Editor: Richard Vadon


SAT 12:30 The Now Show (m0015bbz)
Series 60

Episode 2

Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis present the week via topical stand-up and sketches. They're joined by Jess Fostekew, Ken Cheng and Jazz Emu.

Jess talks us through all the things she's doing to distract herself from the news, Ken takes on the cost of living crisis and Jazz Emu issues a challenge to Gordon Ramsay.

Voice Actors: Luke Kempner and Gemma Arrowsmith

Producer: Pete Strauss
Production Co-Ordinator: Sarah Sharpe

BBC Studios Production


SAT 12:57 Weather (m0015kq0)
The latest weather forecast


SAT 13:00 News and Weather (m0015kq2)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4


SAT 13:10 Any Questions? (m0015bc5)
Wera Hobhouse MP, Delyth Jewell MS, Bob Seely MP, Nick Thomas-Symonds MP

Chris Mason presents political debate and discussion from Coleg y Cymoedd Rhondda Campus in Llwynypia.
Our panel;

Wera Hobhouse is the MP for Bath. She is the Liberal Democrat Spokesperson on Justice, Women and Equalities
Delyth Jewell is the MS for South Wales East. She is the Plaid Cymru Spokesperson on Energy and Climate Change
Bob Seely is the Conservative MP for the Isle of Wight. He is a member of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee
Nick Thomas-Symonds is the MP for Torfaen. He is the Labour Shadow Secretary of State for International Trade

Producer: Richard Hooper
Lead broadcast engineer: Tim Allen


SAT 14:00 Any Answers? (m0015kq4)
Have your say on the issues discussed on Any Questions?


SAT 14:45 Drama (m0013h9g)
I Must Have Loved You

Jess Doyle, (Frances McNamee) the lead singer with the legendary '80s band Heaton Park is a star, and is not afraid to say it - even to her overbearing and dismissive father, Vince (Sting).

A record deal and a run of chart busting songs launches her into the stratosphere, where it's made plain that if she is going to make it she is going to have to leave Newcastle, jettison her manager (Stephen Tompkinson) and her friend and co-founder of the band (Deka Walmsley).

A move to the USA follows but, as she comes under pressure to complete her second album, Jess, without the support of those who love and support her, crashes and burns and, to the mystification of her record label and her millions of fans, disappears into the Arizona desert never to be seen again - leaving millions of dollars untouched in an LA bank account.

But then a young American called Bonny (Bridget Marumo) pitches up on the door step of Jess’ family in Newcastle. She has some questions she wants to ask. Whether intentionally or not she opens old wounds, and asks painful and often uncomfortable questions - why did Jess abandon everything and everyone who ever loved her, and indeed the place that made her?

The answers Bonny finds aren’t always expected and she and all those who knew Jess are about to find out that her disappearance is stranger than anyone could have imagined.

Written by Michael Chaplin
Featuring the songs of Sting

VINCE ..... Sting
JESS ..... Frances McNamee
TOMMY BRASS ..... Stephen Tompkinson
MALCOLM ..... Deka Walmsley
STELLA ..... Charlie Hardwick
CLODAGH ..... Phillippa Wilson
BONNY ..... Bridget Marumo
SING ..... Farshid Rokey

Directed by Eoin O'Callaghan
A Big Fish Radio production for BBC Radio 4


SAT 16:15 Woman's Hour (m0015kq6)
Weekend Woman's Hour: Foreign Secretary Liz Truss MP on Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe's release, Barbara Lisicki & Cook for Ukraine

As Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe comes home after six years in Iranian detention, Emma spoke to the Foreign Secretary Liz Truss MP about what it took to secure her release along with another British-Iranian hostage Anoosheh Ashoori.

In true popstar fashion, singer Rihanna announced her pregnancy in January with a New York photoshoot alongside her boyfriend, the rapper ASAP Rocky, wearing a bright pink coat, with layers of gold jewellery and chains resting on her new baby bump. And since that announcement, she’s been seen wearing a number of eye-catching outfits. But is there a bump fashion revolution coming? And what could this mean for the everyday pregnant woman? We speak to celebrity stylist Jennifer Michalski-Bray and pregnant content creator Zara Bentley.

The history of civil rights changed when Barbara Lisicki met Alan Holdsworth. The two were disabled cabaret performers in the 1980s when they met, fell in love and founded the disabled people’s Direct Action Network (DAN). They became the driving force behind the campaign that ultimately led to the passing of the 1995 Disability Discrimination Act. A new BBC Two drama, Then Barbara Met Alan, tells their story. Anita Rani hears from the real-life Barbara Lisicki, and Ruth Madeley, the actor who plays her.

Even in the face of war, food has a special power in bringing people together. Russian Chef Alissa Timoshkina and Ukrainian Chef Olia Hercules are best friends who have joined forces to set up Cook for Ukraine, a culinary campaign raising funds to support the humanitarian effort in Ukraine. They are encouraging people to celebrate Ukrainian and Eastern European culture by cooking traditional food. They talk about their experiences as friends from opposing frontiers.

Presented by Anita Rani
Produced: Surya Elango
Editor: Louise Corley


SAT 17:00 PM (m0015kq8)
Full coverage of the day's news


SAT 17:30 The Bottom Line (m0015b91)
Levelling Up

Evan Davis and guests examine the prospects for business in this government priority for increasing economic activity beyond the Southeast of England. How important is political devolution? Or are practical changes, like transport links and skills education more significant?

Guests:
Andrew Carter, chief executive, Centre for Cities
Akash Paun, senior fellow at the Institute for Government
Steve Cole, maritime business improvement director for BAE Systems
Lucy Winskell, chair of the North-East Enterprise partnership

Producer: Lucinda Borrell
Sound: Graham Puddifoot
Production Coordinators: Siobhan Reed and Sophie Hill
Editor: Hugh Levinson

The programme was produced in partnership with the Open University


SAT 17:54 Shipping Forecast (m0015kqc)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.


SAT 17:57 Weather (m0015kqf)
The latest weather reports and forecast


SAT 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m0015kqh)
Ukrainian forces in the southern port of Mariupol are continuing to fight fierce street battles to prevent Russian troops gaining control.


SAT 18:15 Loose Ends (m0015kqk)
Barry Humphries, Andy Hamilton, Laura Neal, Nilüfer Yanya, Pictish Trail, Arthur Smith, Clive Anderson

Clive Anderson and Arthur Smith are joined by Barry Humphries, Andy Hamilton and Laura Neal for an eclectic mix of conversation, music and comedy. With music from Pictish Trail and Nilüfer Yanya.


SAT 19:00 Profile (m0015kqm)
Jacqueline Wilson

One of Britain’s most popular authors, Dame Jacqueline Wilson is famous for stories of sassy children, troubled teens and struggling parents. Her books explore themes including death, divorce and depression. Now, the award-winning writer, who created characters like Tracy Beaker, Hetty Feather and Vicky Angel, has just released a new story - her 114th novel to date, about teenage pregnancy.

The novelist lived through a difficult childhood and her own marriage ended in divorce. But, after decades as a writer, she finally hit the big time in her middle age. Now 76, she has a wife, a fandom and a string of TV and stage adaptations under her belt.

Mark Coles profiles the former Children's Laureate, who's sold over 40 million books worldwide.

Produced by: Sally Abrahams and Ellie House
Editor: Damon Rose
Sound Engineer: Rod Farquhar


SAT 19:15 This Cultural Life (m0015kqp)
Brian Cox

Olivier and Emmy-winning actor Brian Cox is best known these days as Logan Roy, the tyrannical media mogul and disappointed father in the hit series Succession. It’s a character familiar to him having played King Lear, along with virtually every other classical role during a sixty year stage career at the National Theatre, the RSC and repertory theatres throughout the UK. On screen he’s made a name for himself as the go-to character actor of his generation, with roles in the Bourne trilogy, Troy, Braveheart and many more. Villains are his speciality and include the original portrayal of Hannibal Lector on screen in the film Manhunter.

In a wide-ranging conversation, he tells John Wilson about the most formative influences on his career which started when he worked as a stage hand at the Dundee Rep Theatre in his home city. He reminisces about working with directors including Lindsay Anderson and John Schlesinger, and how seeing Albert Finney on screen in the 1960s made him realise there were new opportunities for working class actors. He also reflects on the international fame he has found playing Logan Roy.

Producer: Edwina Pitman


SAT 20:00 Archive on 4 (m0015kqr)
Lines of Duty

The extraordinary untold story of a very British hero. A man called Reg, who risked his life and liberty to save Britain’s railways. The secret document he leaked became known as Britain’s Pentagon Papers - and what started out as an attempt to expose the truth soon became a fight for the freedom of the press.

Fifty years on, Lines of Duty tells the incredible story using the whistleblower’s own unpublished account, brought to life by actor Toby Jones, alongside interviews with many of those involved.

Presented by railway historian and broadcaster Tim Dunn, this remarkable tale lifts the lid on the world of Government secrets, espionage and an undercover fightback by a group of railway enthusiasts.

Presented by Tim Dunn
Produced by Phil Higginson
Original music by Brollyman

With contributions from Chris Dawson, Ian Yearsley, Chris Bushell, Leslie Huckfield, Colin Hope, Diane Drummond and Lord Faulkner of Worcester.

A Yellow Barrels / Terrier Production for BBC Radio 4


SAT 21:00 Riot Girls (b0717pgp)
Katy

Third of three plays charting feminism through three generations of women. Set in 2015, Ella Hickson's play is the unflinching story of a young student's determination to make a stand on issues of consent and sexual violence. When traditional campaigning proves ineffective, she's tempted to compromise her own principles.

CAST

Katy.....Lorna Nickson Brown
Emma.....Sarah Smart
Stephen.....David Moorst
Carol.....Susan Jameson
Penny.....Scarlett Brookes
Anna.....Nicola Ferguson
PC Peters.....Adie Allen
Sam.....Sargon Yelda

All other parts played by Sam Rix, Nick Underwood and members of the company

Directed by Emma Harding
Produced by Abigail le Fleming


SAT 21:45 Border Crossing (b078wsdp)
The Homsi Wolf & Cry Wolf

A series of programmes that sets up a unique pairing between writers from countries challenged by refugee and migration issues with short story writers from Britain. Each foreign story was given to a British writer who wrote their own response, in an exchange of fiction that aims to explode myths, explore shared concerns and extend the boundaries of the short story.

In The Homsi Wolf by Mahmoud Al Hussein, a Syrian father tries to protect his family from the bombing raids on his village and comes face to face with an enemy on the ground. The reader is Amir El Masry.

In Sara Maitland's response, Cry Wolf, a mother returns with her young daughter to her family home in the Highlands, where she has a strange and frightening encounter. The reader is Sara Markland.

Mahmoud Al Hussein is a Syrian writer, dramatist, actor and director who specialised in Syria in children’s theatre. He now lives in Turkey and is developing drama for radio. Sara Maitland is a novelist, short-story writer, columnist and essayist, and author of much-praised non-fiction books including The Book of Silence and Gossip from the Forest.

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4


SAT 22:00 News (m0015kqt)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4


SAT 22:15 Moral Maze (m0015bfn)
Refugees and borders

Nearly three million people have fled Ukraine since the Russian tanks crossed the border at the end of February. Some say the UK was slow to respond but many thousands of people are now signed up to a government scheme to turn their houses into homes for Ukrainian refugees - the first should arrive soon. There has been an outpouring of generosity and goodwill toward those suffering in this conflict, but uncomfortable questions remain. Are we really doing enough? Why such generosity now, when we have spent years discussing how to keep migrants out? Is it morally acceptable to feel more comfortable welcoming large numbers of Ukrainian - rather than Syrian or Afghan - refugees? Is racism a factor, or is it simply that these people are fleeing an enemy who threatens us too?

Shortly the Nationality and Borders Bill will return to be voted on in Parliament. Campaigners say the bill is at odds with rhetoric about welcoming refugees as it could criminalise those who arrive to seek asylum in the UK without first filling in the correct forms. Is it right to put up yet more barriers? Perhaps it is a failure of moral imagination to turn away any individual who wants to make a better life? Some economists argue that the free movement of workers makes nations prosperous, but there’s more to Britain than its economy, and not everyone wants to do away with borders. How, without fierce gate-keepers, can we protect the places where we feel at home? With the human rights campaigner Bella Sankey; David Goodhart, who researches integration at the centre right think-tank Policy Exchange; the Chair of Britain’s oldest Immigration Museum, Susie Symes; and the former MEP and journalist Patrick O'Flynn.

Produced by Olive Clancy


SAT 23:00 Counterpoint (m00159ql)
Series 35

Semi-final 3, 2022

(12/13)
In the last of the semi-finals for 2022, the three competitors who won the North of England heats earlier in the series return to contest the one remaining Final place. From Stevie Wonder and Billy Joel to Elgar and Bizet, they'll have to demonstrate the breadth of their knowledge of music in all its variety, as the pace intensifies at this stage in the tournament.

As always, in addition to musical general knowledge they each have to choose a set of individual questions on a topic or theme of which they've had no prior warning.

Today's semi-finalists are:
Joanna Munro from Liverpool
Sarah Trevarthan from Manchester
Neil Wright from the Wirral.

Assistant Producer: Stephen Garner
Producer: Paul Bajoria


SAT 23:30 Belief in Poetry (m00159xt)
John Donne

Poet and theologian Pádraig Ó Tuama considers metaphysical poet and preacher John Donne's complex faith life through his poetry, 450 years on from his birth.

Pádraig talks about Donne's belief with Julie Sanders, Professor of English Literature and Drama at Newcastle University; Mark Oakley, writer and Dean of St John’s College, Cambridge; and Michael Symmons Roberts, poet and Professor of Poetry at Manchester Metropolitan University.

The reader is Sir Simon Russell Beale and the featured poems are:

Holy Sonnets: Death, be not Proud
Holy Sonnets: Batter my Heart, Three-person'd God
Hymn to God, My God, in My Sickness
A Hymn to God the Father

John Donne was born in London in 1572 into the very precarious world of English recusant Catholicism. His mother was the grand-niece of Catholic martyr Thomas More. Religion would go on play a hugely significant but complex role throughout Donne’s life.

After Oxbridge (where he never received degrees, due to his Catholicism) he studied law at Lincoln’s Inn and looked destined for a legal or diplomatic career. In his early 20s, much of his time and money was spent on women, books and travel as well as writing most of his famous love lyrics and erotic poems.

At 25, he was appointed private secretary to Sir Thomas Egerton, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England. He held his position for several years and it's likely that, around this period, Donne converted to Anglicanism.

In 1601 he secretly married Sir Egerton’s niece, the 16-year-old Anne More. Disapproval of this clandestine marriage led to Donne being fired and there followed eight years in a wilderness of relative poverty.

In 1610, Donne published his anti-Catholic polemic work winning him King James I’s approval. He was ordained and was soon appointed Royal Chaplain. His flair for dramatic language led to him becoming a great preacher.

In 1617, Donne’s wife died shortly after giving birth to their 12th child. Donne devoted his energy to more religious poetry and writings. Four years later, he became Dean of St. Paul’s Cathedral. He died at the age of 59.

Producer: Rosie Boulton
A Must Try Softer production for BBC Radio 4



SUNDAY 20 MARCH 2022

SUN 00:00 Midnight News (m0015kqw)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.


SUN 00:15 Tom Mayhew Is Benefit Scum (m000t49m)
Scroungers

Working Class comedian Tom Mayhew takes you on an autobiographical journey through the benefits system in a stand-up series that takes a wry, sideways look at the prejudices that people have towards benefits claimants and turns those assumptions on their head. In this episode Tom looks at the benefits system and asks if it actually works.

Tom Mayhew is a critically acclaimed comedian, whose material about being working-class – mixing the personal and the political, with the punchline-rate of a one-liner comic – sets him apart from any other act on the circuit. Tom Mayhew is Benefit Scum is based on Mayhew's acclaimed Edinburgh show I, Tom Mayhew which transferred to a sell out run at the Soho Theatre.

Produced by Benjamin Sutton
Production Coordinator...Carina Andrews
A BBC Studios Production


SUN 00:30 A Pocketful of Rye (b062j2y0)
A Rye Boy

An evocative tale of how a farmer struggles to deal with his wife when a sculptor comes to town. She becomes distressed and things get out of hand.

One of a series of three stories set in and around Rye in East Sussex.

Written by Marian Garvey and read by Niall Buggy.

Producer: Celia de Wolff

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in July 2015.


SUN 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m0015kqy)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.


SUN 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m0015kr0)
BBC Radio 4 presents a selection of news and current affairs, arts and science programmes from the BBC World Service.


SUN 05:33 Shipping Forecast (m0015kr2)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.


SUN 05:43 Bells on Sunday (m0015kr6)
The University Church of St Mary the Virgin in Oxford

Bells on Sunday comes from the University Church of St Mary the Virgin in Oxford which stands at the very heart of the University surrounded by various colleges of the University and overlooking the famous round library, the Radcliffe Camera. The 13th century tower of St Mary’s houses a heavy of ring of six bells that were cast by a number of founders between 1611 and 1894. The tenor is in the note of D, weighs twenty six and a half hundredweight and is rung before every University degree ceremony. We hear them ringing Spliced Surprise Minor.


SUN 05:45 Profile (m0015kqm)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Saturday]


SUN 06:00 News Summary (m0015ks1)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4


SUN 06:05 Something Understood (b01s0307)
Humility

Classical scholar and Anglican minister Teresa Morgan reflects on the concept of humility and whether or not it remains relevant today.

With readings from Aesop, Rudyard Kipling and Charles Dickens, alongside music by Aretha Franklin, James Vincent McMorrow and Hubert Parry.

Producer: Eleanor McDowall
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4


SUN 06:35 Natural Histories (b0b9249m)
Willow

Brett Westwood embraces the Willow. A tree celebrated across cultures for its beauty and versatility, it's the tree we've hugged closer than any other. Brett learns from Joan Armatrading how the willow can take away our pain, and visits the willow fields of the Somerset levels, where tall-growing willows sway like a bamboo forest.

As it weeps by our waterways and whispers in our hedgerows, it's given us endless laments, has been used by witches for magic wands and broomsticks, and has been turned into everything from charcoal to coffins, to painkillers.

Natural Histories - the only programme where Monet and Shakespeare meet The Wicker Man and folk-rock supergroup Steeleye Span.

Originally broadcast in a longer form on 17th July 2018
Original producer: Melvin Rickarby.
Archive Producer for BBC Audio in Bristol : Andrew Dawes


SUN 06:57 Weather (m0015ks4)
The latest weather reports and forecast


SUN 07:00 News and Papers (m0015ks6)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.


SUN 07:10 Sunday (m0015ks8)
Religious images in wartime; Inviting a refugee into your home; Russian Orthodox Christians split over war

There is a long history of religious images being used during wartime, to support propaganda. During the current conflict in Ukraine one image, created to help raise money for the country, has gone viral. Mary Magdalene is depicted clutching an anti-tank missile. Her halo and gown are in the blue and yellow of the Ukrainian flag. The image, known as "St Javelin" has been widely circulated on social media as a representation of Ukraine's strength and defiance. We examine the power of images like this to stir us, and in this case, encourage us to donate money.

Russky Mir or ‘Russian World’ is cited as the ideology behind Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Reporter Harry Farley and producer Orla O’Brien unpack the mixture of theology and nationalism behind this idea and ask why so many Orthodox leaders are rejecting it. They discover the implications both for Ukraine’s churches and also its people.

Thousands of people in the UK have already expressed an interest in providing a home for refugees from Ukraine. Many have felt moved by images of people forced to flee their homes and seek a safe haven in another country. People are keen to help, but there is also anxiety. What if it all goes wrong? What if we don't get on? What are the risks? Two people with long experience of providing a home to refugees tell us what it is like, and how their faith led them to help.

Presenter: Edward Stourton
Producers: Jonathan Hallewell and Rahila Bano
Editor: Helen Grady

Saint Javelin Image – Courtesy Christian Borys


SUN 07:54 Radio 4 Appeal (m0015ksb)
Red Nose day for Comic Relief

Broadcaster and cultural commentator Emma Freud makes the Radio 4 Appeal on behalf of Comic Relief.

To Give:
- UK Freephone 0800 404 8144
-You can donate online at bbc.co.uk/appeal/radio4
- 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 ‘Comic Relief’.
- Cheques should be made payable to ‘Comic Relief’.
Please note that Freephone and online donations for this charity close at 23.59 on the Saturday after the Appeal is first broadcast. However the Freepost option can be used at any time.

Charity registered in England & Wales with number 326568 and in Scotland with number SC039730


SUN 07:57 Weather (m0015ksd)
The latest weather reports and forecast


SUN 08:00 News and Papers (m0015ksg)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.


SUN 08:10 Sunday Worship (m0015ksj)
A Passion for Hospitality: I was a Stranger

A Passion for Hospitality: I was a stranger. During Lent Sunday Worship is considering how, as the nation emerges from a long period of isolation, we can better reach out both to neighbour and stranger, and especially to the most marginalised and disadvantaged. On the third Sunday in Lent Father Dermot Preston leads a service from St Dominic's Priory in Newcastle, taking the vision of the bridges across the River Tyne as a parable of building links between strangers both personally and globally. Reading: John 4. Also taking part: Christine Frazer, community coordinator from Gateshead. Producer Andrew Earis.


SUN 08:48 A Point of View (m0015bc7)
Every Picture Tells a Story

"When war smashes its way into our living rooms as it did three weeks ago", writes Sarah Dunant, "it is pictures rather than words that hit hardest".

Sarah discusses the impact of images from war through the centuries and the history they write.

And she ponders which image from Putin's war will represent this moment in the future.

Producer: Adele Armstrong
Sound: Peter Bosher
Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman
Editor: Hugh Levinson


SUN 08:58 Tweet of the Day (b03zrccd)
Little Owl

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs.

Kate Humble presents the little owl. Little owls really are little, about as long as a starling but much stockier with a short tail and rounded wings. If you disturb one it will bound off low over the ground before swinging up onto a telegraph pole or gatepost where it bobs up and down, glaring at you fiercely through large yellow and black eyes. Today, you can hear the yelps of the birds and their musical spring song across the fields and parks of much of England and Wales.


SUN 09:00 Broadcasting House (m0015ksl)
The Sunday morning news magazine programme. Presented by Paddy O'Connell


SUN 10:00 The Archers Omnibus (m0015ksn)
Writer, Naylah Ahmed
Director, Dave Payne
Editor, Jeremy Howe

Tony Archer ….. David Troughton
Brian Aldridge ….. Charles Collingwood
Lilian Bellamy ….. Sunny Ormonde
Harrison Burns ….. James Cartwright
Alice Carter ….. Hollie Chapman
Chris Carter ….. Wilf Scolding
Neil Carter ….. Brian Hewlett
Susan Carter ….. Charlotte Martin
Justin Elliott ….. Simon Williams
Alan Franks ….. John Telfer
Usha Franks ….. Souad Faress
Jakob Hakansson ….. Paul Venables
Jim Lloyd ….. John Rowe
Kirsty Miller ….. Annabelle Dowler
Fallon Rogers ….. Joanna Van Kampen
Roy Tucker ….. Ian Pepperel
Peggy Woolley ….. June Spencer
Nora ….. Ellie Darvill


SUN 11:00 Desert Island Discs (m0015ksq)
Alan Cumming, actor

Alan Cumming's wide-ranging career on stage includes playing Hamlet, starring opposite Daniel Radcliffe in Samuel Beckett’s Endgame and – perhaps most notably - taking the role of the Emcee in the musical Cabaret in London and New York to great acclaim: his 1998 Broadway performance won seven awards, including a Tony. He’s also appeared in films including GoldenEye and Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut, and in the TV series The Good Wife.

Alan was born in Perthshire in 1965. His father was a forester and the family moved to the Panmure estate on the east coast of Scotland. Encouraged by his English teacher, Alan grew up loving drama at school but his childhood was blighted by his violent and abusive father. He worked for the publisher DC Thomson as a sub-editor before going to the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. There he launched his performing career with fellow student Forbes Masson: together they were Victor and Barry, a comedy and music double-act. They drew on these characters for their BBC TV sit-com The High Life, based around a fictional Scottish airline.

Alan has published a novel and three memoirs: his 2014 autobiography Not My Father’s Son detailed his very difficult relationship with his father, both in his early years and later in his life.

In 2022 Alan is developing a solo dance-theatre work, focusing on the personal history of the Scottish poet Robert Burns, which he will perform in Scotland and New York. He’s now also the co-owner of a bar, Club Cumming, in Manhattan.

DISC ONE: Dignity by Deacon Blue
DISC TWO: L’Amour Looks Something Like You by Kate Bush
DISC THREE: Barcelona by Freddie Mercury & Montserrat Caballé
DISC FOUR: I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles) by The Proclaimers
DISC FIVE: Whenever Wherever Whatever by Maxwell
DISC SIX: Give Me Back My Heart by Dollar
DISC SEVEN: Catalani: La Wally : Ebben? ne andrò lontana Act 1 by Maria Callas and Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Tullio Serafin
DISC EIGHT: These Are My Mountains by Peter Morrison

BOOK CHOICE: Desert Gardening for Beginners: How to grow vegetables, flowers, and herbs in an Arid Climate by Cathy Cromell, Linda A. Guy, Lucy K. Bradley
LUXURY ITEM: Marijuana seeds
CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Give Me Back My Heart by Dollar

Presenter Lauren Laverne
Producer Sarah Taylor


SUN 11:45 Letter from Ukraine (m0015jjq)
A cold spring

Ukrainian writer Andrey Kurkov gives a personal account of the new routines of life in a country at war.

Written and read by Andrey Kurkov
Translated by Elizabeth Sharp
Produced by Emma Harding

Production co-ordinator Eleri McAuliffe
Technical producer Nigel Lewis

A BBC Cymru Wales production for BBC Radio 4


SUN 12:00 News Summary (m0015kwk)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


SUN 12:04 Just a Minute (m00159qz)
Series 88

Episode 4

Sue Perkins challenges Lucy Porter, Shaparak Khorsandi, Julian Clary and Paul Merton to speak for 60 seconds without repetition, deviation or hesitation.

The long running national treasure of a parlour game is back, with subjects this week ranging from Fear of Flying to Victoria Wood.

Production co-ordinator: Caroline Barlow
Sound editor: Marc Willcox
Producer: Hayley Sterling

A BBC Studios Production


SUN 12:32 The Food Programme (m0015ksv)
The True Cost of Food

The price of food is rising alongside fuel, energy and other costs, and experts are warning that households face the biggest squeeze on disposable incomes for at least 30 years. On average the lowest income families spend twice as much on food and housing bills as the richest families, so increasing food price inflation will disproportionately affect families already struggling to get by, according to the Resolution Foundation.

As millions more people are on the brink of being pushed into food poverty, the food industry faces a turning point. The publication of a government white paper responding to the recommendations of The National Food Strategy is expected soon. The strategy’s assessment was dramatic – that Britain needs to change what it eats and how it produces food, in order to reverse the damage it does to our health and the environment.

In today’s programme Sheila Dillon is joined by three guests to discuss the true cost of our food, and some of the issues we face in reforming the system. In these extreme conditions we now live in, how can we provide everyone with a decent diet that will underpin the UK as a healthy nation? With Tim Benton, Research Director of the Environment and Society Programme at Chatham House and Professor of Population Ecology at the University of Leeds; Kathleen Kerridge, anti-food poverty campaigner and Chair of the Lived Experience Panel at The Food Foundation; and Professor Corinna Hawkes, Director of the Centre for Food Policy at City, University of London.

Presented by Sheila Dillon and produced by Sophie Anton for BBC Audio in Bristol.


SUN 12:57 Weather (m0015ksx)
The latest weather forecast


SUN 13:00 The World This Weekend (m0015ksz)
Radio 4’s look at the week’s big stories from both home and around the world.


SUN 13:30 The Archbishop Interviews (m0015kt1)
Clare Moriarty

In this series, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has deep conversations with people who have made a significant contribution to public life about what they believe. How have they navigated their inner life alongside their public profile? What has been their moral ‘touchstone’ through the good times and the bad? How do they engage with faith and spirituality?

This week's guest is the Chief Executive of Citizens Advice Dame Clare Moriarty. Before taking up her current role last year, she had a distinguished 35-year career in the civil service. In that time, she became a highly respected figure whose last government job was as permanent secretary to the Department for Exiting the European Union. In 2017, she became a ‘faith and belief champion’ in the civil service, saying, “of all the diversity characteristics, faith and belief is the one we talk about least”.

Producer: Dan Tierney for BBC Audio North.


SUN 14:00 Gardeners' Question Time (m0015bbl)
GQT at Home: Euryops and Euonymus

Kathy Clugston hosts the horticultural programme featuring a group of gardening experts. This week's panellists are the ever-knowledgeable Chris Thorogood, Bob Flowerdew, and Bunny Guinness.

On this week's programme, the panel answer the question of whether it's possible to grow your own cup of tea. Keeping it in the kitchen, they also assess whether a passionfruit plant grown from seed will ever fruit, and explain what is going on with a confused ginger plant.

Away from the questions, Matt Biggs heads to Special Plants nursery in Bath to ask Derry Watkins for her best seed harvesting tips, and Advolly Richmond sings the praises of an often overlooked plant, common ivy.

Producer - Hannah Newton
Assistant Producer - Aniya Das

A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4


SUN 14:45 1922: The Birth of Now (m0013r18)
The Shabolovka Tower and the Gherkin

1922: The Birth of Now - Ten programmes in which Matthew Sweet investigates objects and events from 1922, the crucial year for modernism, that have an impact today. An omnibus edition of four programmes broadcast this week

1. The Shabolovka Tower and the Gherkin. In 1922 Vladimir Shukhov built a tower in Moscow radically modernist in purpose - to transmit radio - and in design. He used a diagonally intersecting framework, his diagrid system, which uses less steel and requires no columns. This was a catalyst of Soviet modernism. Norman Foster describes the Shabolovka Tower as “a structure of dazzling brilliance and great historic importance.” Inspired by it he used Shukhov's diagrid system in the design of 30 St Mary Axe - The Gherkin - from the top of which Matthew Sweet looks at the streets and churches T. S. Eliot mapped in The Waste Land.

Producer: Eliane Glaser

Readings: Neil McCaul


SUN 15:00 Drama (m0015kt3)
Some Kind of Black, Episode 1

Tough, wry Black British classic about a young man navigating his way through love, politics and violence in 90s Britain. Adapted from his hit novel by Diran Adebayo.

When Dele graduates from Oxford, the real world bites him harder than he could ever have imagined. Now his sister is comatose in hospital and he must work out how this happened and what he's going to do about it.

Dele .... Kenneth Omole.
Dapo .... Danielle Vitalis
Concrete .... Stephen Odubola
Helena .... Laura Christy
Tamsin .... Georgie Lomax Ford
Jonathan .... Tayla Kovacevic-Ebong
Gabriel .... Kwabena Ansah
Lermontov .... Matthew Durkan
Andria .... Thea Gajic
Cheryl .... Elexi Walker
Mother .... Yetunde Oduwole
Father .... Cyril Nri
Celia .... Nneka Okoye
Dawn .... Kemi Durosinmi
PC Mills .... Matthew Durkan
PC Daniels .... Michael Begley
Duty Sergeant .... Neil McCaul
Gerry ... Neil McCaul
Sol .... Zackary Momoh
Fitzroy .... Chris Jack

Technical Producer .... Caleb Knightley
Technical Producer .... Jenni Burnett
Technical Producer .... Martha Littlehailes
Technical Producer .... Keith Graham
Production Co-ordinator .... Ben Hollands

Writer and dramatist .... Diran Adebayo
Director .... Femi Elufowoju jr
Producer .... Abigail le Fleming

A BBC Audio production for Radio 4

About the writer...
Diran Adebayo is an author, critic and academic best known for his stylish tales of Afro-British lives. His debut novel, the picaresque Some Kind of Black, set among the sounds and slangs of the early nineties, was hailed as breaking new ground for the ‘London novel’, and won him numerous awards, including the Writers Guild of Great Britain’s New Writer of the Year Award, the 1996 Saga Prize, a Betty Trask Award, and The Authors’ Club’s ‘Best First Novel’ award. It was also long listed for the Booker Prize and is now a Virago Modern Classic. His second novel, the neo-noir fable My Once Upon a Time was also widely praised.

Diran has written stories and scripts for television and radio, including the 2005 documentary ‘Out of Africa’ for BBC2, and for anthologies such as ‘OxTales’. He has toured and performed extensively, both domestically and internationally, from the Oxford Union to California State Prison, In 2017, he was one of 20 people to have their portraits taken by Oxford University for permanent display, as part of its “Diversifying Portraiture” initiative.

Born in London, Diran read Law at Oxford University, before becoming a print and television journalist. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

About the director...
Nigerian director Femi Elufowoju jr made his operatic debut with a new production of Rigoletto for Opera North in the 2021/22 season. Femi will direct - and create a new version - of L'Amant Anonyme, a neglected 1780 chamber opera by Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges for Theater St Gallen in 2022.
In early 2021, Femi co-directed - with Annabel Arden - a film of The Soldier’s Tale by Stravinsky with The Hallé, conducted by Sir Mark Elder.
In the theatre, Femi’s recent engagements include his new production of The Little Prince adapted by Inua Ellams which opened in London, in January 2020; and his reinterpretation of The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams, described as a “radical new reimagining,” in May 2019 for Watford Palace Theatre and Arcola Theatre. He won the Best Director Award at the “Off West End Awards (Offies)” for The Secret Lives of Baba Segi’s Wives.
In 1997, Femi became the first theatre director of African descent to establish a national touring company in the UK: “Tiata Fahodzi.” He has since served as an Associate at the Almeida Theatre, West Yorkshire Playhouse and the Royal Court Theatre


SUN 16:00 Open Book (m0015kt5)
Karen Joy Fowler on the infamous Booth family, Michel the Giant, Lisa Taddeo on Fever Dream

Johny Pitts talks to Karen Joy Fowler, author of The Jane Austen Bookclub and We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, about her new novel Booth. It tells the story of the brilliant and ill-fated thespian Booth family. Junius is the patriarch, a celebrated Shakespearean actor, and a man of terrifying instability, his children grow up in a remote farmstead in 1820s rural Baltimore, while the country draws ever closer to the boiling point of secession and civil war. Of the six Booth siblings who survive to adulthood, one is John Wilkes Booth who makes the terrible decision that will change the course of history - the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

Johny travels to Paris to meet Tété-Michel Kpomassie. He grew up in 1950s Togo, West Africa, but when he discovered a book on Greenland as a teen, this distant land became an instant obsession and he embarked on the adventure of a lifetime. His newly reissued book of that trip, Michel the Giant, is a glorious, colourful memoir of his young life. Now at 81 years old, he tells Johny about his plans to return to the country of his dreams.

And the author of Three Women and Animal, Lisa Taddeo, shares the Book I'd Never Lend. Fever Dream by Samantha Schweblin, translated by Megan McDowell, is a chilling tale of maternal anxiety and ecological menace.

Book List – Sunday 20 March and Thursday 24 March

Booth by Karen Joy Fowler
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler
Michel the Giant: An African in Greenland by Tété-Michel Kpomassie
Animal by Lisa Taddeo
Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin: Translated by Megan McDowell


SUN 16:30 Cold as a Mountain Top (m0015kt7)
WH Murray was one of a pioneering group of climbers in Scotland in the 1930’s, establishing new routes in Glencoe, Ben Nevis and The Cuillin. But it was one particular mountain that he loved – and climbed – the most; the iconic Buachaillie Etive Mor at Glencoe. This was the last mountain he climbed just before leaving for war in 1941.

Murray was captured in the African desert but his life was saved when he uttered the words, ‘Cold as a mountain top.’ The German officer was also a mountaineer and took him prisoner instead of shooting him on the spot. During his imprisonment in Italy and Czechoslovakia he wrote the seminal ‘Mountaineering in Scotland’ completely from memory, recalling the intimate details of climbs he undertook in the 1930’s.

The book has been a talismanic text for climbers like Robert Macfarlane. He's turned to it often, particularly when the cold of the mountain top has felt very far away during recent periods of confinement. In this immersive audio voyage, Robert returns to Murray’s beloved Buachaille with 'Mountaineering in Scotland' by his side.

Produced by Helen Needham in Aberdeen.
Readings by Cal MacAninch.
Sound design and composition by Anthony Cowie.
Sound consultation and mixing by Ron McCaskill.
Our mountain Guide was Richard Parker.

Thanks to Robin Lloyd-Jones, WH Murray's biographer, for help with the preparation of this programme.


SUN 17:00 File on 4 (m0015b0b)
Ukraine: War Stories

Day by day, hour by hour, people all over Ukraine tell the story of the Russian invasion. We hear from people packing up and leaving with their children and those who remain in the eye of the storm, some fighting for survival amidst food shortages and shelling and others taking up arms to defend their country. Since the war began, many of those affected have been recording their daily struggles for File on 4 - keeping audio diaries, sharing their innermost thoughts at their most vulnerable.

Among them, a language teacher from Mariupol who doesn’t even know if her parents are still alive - and a young beautician-turned-soldier who now patrols the streets of Kyiv with a Kalashnikov.

Reporter: Paul Kenyon
Production team: Jim Booth, Annabel Deas, Nicola Dowling, Hayley Mortimer and Mick Tucker
Technical Producer: Richard Hannaford
Editor: Carl Johnston


SUN 17:40 Profile (m0015kqm)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Saturday]


SUN 17:54 Shipping Forecast (m0015kt9)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.


SUN 17:57 Weather (m0015ktc)
The latest weather reports and forecast


SUN 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m0015ktf)
The authorities in the Ukrainian city say the art school was sheltering around 400 people.


SUN 18:15 Pick of the Week (m0015kth)
Nicola Beckford

The best of BBC Radio this week.


SUN 19:00 The Archers (m0015ktk)
The future of Berrow pig unit weighs heavy on Neil and Hannah. Brian confronts them about spreading word that the unit may close as it seems it’s now village gossip and the Borchester Land board have got wind of it. Brian warns if the board oust him, there’ll be no hope for the unit. Back at home, Neil asks Susan if she has told anyone about Berrow being at risk of closure. Susan is offended that he’s asked and assures him that she hasn’t and she’s not a gossip. Later, Neil apologies to Susan. She reveals how hard it’s been not being able to share the worry or give Tracy a heads up that Jazzer’s job could be in danger.

Justin turns up to the first training session of Tracy’s over-65s Ambridge cricket team. He’s keen to join and has even brought his old bat. Afterwards, in The Bull, Tracy can only sing Justin’s praises – good with a cricket bat and first to the bar, what’s not to like? Tony is put out by this favouritism and mentions Berrow. He quickly realises Jazzer and Tracy are unaware of the rumours and has to come clean that Justin plans to close Berrow down. Tracy confronts Justin who won’t be drawn on the subject. He then confirms it is an option being considered by the BL board. Tracy sacks Justin from the cricket team and Jazzer wonders what he will do without his job at Berrow?


SUN 19:15 Stand-Up Specials (m00132k3)
George Fouracres: Black Country Gentlemon

A new Sunday night stand-up special from celebrated comedy star, George Fouracres (Daphne, Pls Like, Raised by Wolves) who tells his story of growing up living with his Grandad and brothers in Wolverhampton.

Expect tales of wearing a bowtie on childhood trips to McDonalds (always dress for dinner), being woken up at 4:30am by his Grandad’s screeching mynah bird in the kitchen and really really wanting to become a priest. This is the story of George's love for the Black Country and how his eccentric upbringing has made him a true Black Country ‘Gentlemon’.

Producer: Richard Morris
Production co-ordinator: Beverly Tagg

A BBC Studios Production


SUN 19:45 Still Life in the Old Dog (b08cv1g7)
A tale from American award-winning essayist, poet and undertaker Thomas Lynch, set in the far North of his home state, Michigan.

The Upper Peninsula is sparsely populated, heavily forested and has long cold snowy winters. It's home to Doyle Shields who, at the grand age of 90, has more life behind him than ahead. But when his reverie on the end of days is interrupted by a visit from Emma, he realises he's still ready to risk one last chance at love.

Directed by Kate McAll
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4


SUN 20:00 Feedback (m0015bbq)
Are there some subjects radio comedy programmes should steer clear of? For example, the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

The BBC executive in charge of both The News Quiz and The Now Show Julia McKenzie explains why those topical comedies sought to use humour as the prism for this dreadful tragedy.

Roger Bolton also examines the commercial logic behind the BBC’s decision to restrict access to its podcasts.

And the Out Of Your Comfort Zone listeners discuss the merits of a Radio 4 docudrama.

Presenter: Roger Bolton
Producer: Kate Dixon
Executive Producer: Samir Shah

A Juniper Connect production for BBC Radio 4


SUN 20:30 Last Word (m0015bbn)
Mary Coombs, Paul Farmer, Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper, William Hurt (pictured)

John Wilson on Mary Coombs, the world's first female computer programmer in the commercial sector; Paul Farmer, a medical anthropologist who saved millions of lives in the world's poorest countries; Leslie Lonsdale-Cooper, who had a run-in with General Eisenhower and later went on to translate the comic book Tintin; and William Hurt, Oscar-winning actor.

Producer: Neil George

Interviewed guest: Fred Frank Land OBE
Interviewed guest: Georgina Ferry
Interviewed guest: Sheila Davis
Interviewed guest: Sue Brown
Interviewed guest: Michael Goldfarb

Archive clips used: Putney High School YouTube Channel, Mary Coombs - 125th Anniversary Alumnae Portrait Exhibition 09/11/2018; LEO Computer Society / The Centre for Computing History, Sounds of the Leo Computer - LEO III in Operation 1964; Google / computingheritage YouTube Channel, Mary Coombs shares her story 25/09/2013; Partners in Health YouTube Channel, Paul Farmer - I believe in healthcare as a human right 21/05/2009; Decades TV Network, America Enters World War II 1941; British Movietone, Festival of Britain Opening 03/05/1951; BBC Cymru / Moulinsart, Tintin's Adventure with Frank Gardner 30/10/2011; Ellipse Programme/Nelvana Ltd, Tintin - The Crab With The Golden Claws (DVD) 1992; BBC Radio 4 Extra, The Adventures of Tintin By Hergé - Explorers On The Moon (Radio Drama) 06/02/1992; The Ladd Company, Body Heat (1981) film; HB Filmes / FilmDallas, Kiss of The Spiderwoman (1985) film; Marvel Studios / Vita-Ray Dutch Productions (III) / Studio Babelsberg, Captain America - Civil War (2016) film.


SUN 21:00 Money Box (m0015kpy)
[Repeat of broadcast at 12:04 on Saturday]


SUN 21:25 Radio 4 Appeal (m0015ksb)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:54 today]


SUN 21:30 Analysis (m00159r7)
Can the UK ever be a low tax economy again?

As tax rises hit pay packets next month is this an end to traditional Conservative low tax policy? The UK government has so far defied calls from across the political spectrum to shelve the planned 1.25 per cent increase in National Insurance, despite millions of households grappling with a rising cost of living at a time of great economic uncertainty as war rages in Ukraine. A greater proportion of the nation’s income will go to the taxman than at any point since the 1950s. Yet Brexit was billed by some as the UK’s chance to go it alone and create its own economic model, a “Singapore on Thames” – a low tax, light touch economy to attract outside investment. Instead, corporation tax is to increase from 19 percent to 25 per cent by 2023, while a new £12 billion annual levy to fund the NHS and social care comes in from April, initially in the form of higher national insurance payments. Prime Minister Boris Johnson has broken his election manifesto pledge not to raise such taxes to meet, he argues, the cost of supporting the economy through the pandemic. His chancellor hopes this will permit future tax cuts. But with policy priorities such as levelling up and a transition to net zero, and the realities of an ageing population, BBC Economics Correspondent Dharshini David asks whether we're seeing a fundamental shift in traditional Conservative low tax philosophy and whether that's a temporary choice - or an unavoidable permanent reorientation?
Guests:
Sir John Redwood MP
Sir Charlie Bean, professor of economics at the London School of Economics and Political Science
Lord Nick Macpherson, former permanent secretary to the Treasury
Dame DeAnne Julius, distinguished fellow, Chatham House
Dr Jill Rutter, senior fellow, The Institute of Government

Producer: Caroline Bayley
Production Coordinators: Maria Ogundele and Jacqui Johnson
Sound: Graham Puddifoot
Editor: Hugh Levinson


SUN 22:00 Westminster Hour (m0015ktm)
Nick Watt discusses the prospects for the Chancellor's spring statement, with the Conservative MP and party vice-chair, Bim Afolami; Shadow Culture Secretary Lucy Powell; and the SNP's foreign affairs spokesman at Westminster, Alyn Smith. Katy Balls - deputy political editor of The Spectator magazine - brings additional expert analysis.


SUN 23:00 The Curious Cases of Rutherford & Fry (m0015b80)
Series 19

The Turn of the Tide

Mathematician Hannah Fry and geneticist Adam Rutherford investigate your everyday science queries. Today, they get stuck into two questions about tides. Lynn Godson wants to know why isn’t high tide at the same time at all points around the coast? Whilst Tim Mosedale asks, could we ever harness tidal power commercially?
Did you think tides are caused by the pull of the Moon? And that they come in and out twice a day? Well, yes, that’s true but it turns out there’s so much more to it than that, especially here in the UK, which has the second largest tidal range in the world at the Seven Estuary near Bristol, coming in at an average of 15 metres (50ft in old money). But why should high and low tide times be so different even in places that are relatively close to each other?

The answer partly lies in something called bathymetry (which has more to do with baths than you might think – well basins at any rate). As for harnessing sea power, there are some ambitious projects currently in development and predictions that wave and tidal could make up as much as 15 percent of the UK’s energy needs in future. But how realistic is this and how do you ensure that your power generators can survive the rigours of the ocean – storms, saltwater and all those pesky barnacles?

To help answer these queries, Hannah and Adam are joined by Physicist and Oceanographer, Helen Czerski and Professor Deborah Greaves OBE, who heads up the COAST lab at the University of Plymouth which studies marine renewable energy technologies.

Producers: Rami Tzabar and Jen Whyntie


SUN 23:30 Something Understood (b01s0307)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:05 today]



MONDAY 21 MARCH 2022

MON 00:00 Midnight News (m0015ktp)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.


MON 00:15 Wireless Nights (m00127gl)
Series 7

Full Moon

In this edition of Wireless Nights, Jarvis Cocker discovers what happens here on earth on the night of the full moon. He'll be meeting the planet's inhabitants, both man and beast, as they divulge what light of the full moon does to them.

Jarvis heads to the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London to search for the full moon. His guide and telescope operator is astronomer Dr Emily Drabek-Maunder. Jarvis also discovers what others are getting up to on this full moon night.

On a beach in Merseyside he encounters Moon Goddess Gatherings, a mass ritual where hundreds of women watch the full moon rise and embrace the energy of the lunar cycle.

The writer Lewis Coleman reflects on his own relationship with the full moon as is teases him with lunacy and lycanthropy.

And ecologist Rachel Grant reveals how a moonlit Italian jeep ride led her to discover that it’s not just wolves driven wild by the full moon, but amphibians too.

Lewis Coleman is the author of Drinking The Moon and other works.
Rachel Grant specialises in behavioural and evolutionary ecology at London South Bank University.
Dr Emily Drabek-Maunder is an astrophysicist and Senior Manager of Public Astronomy at the Royal Observatory Greenwich.
Karlee Matthews is Lead Pathfinder for Moon Goddess Gatherings.

Produced by Sam Peach


MON 00:45 Bells on Sunday (m0015kr6)
[Repeat of broadcast at 05:43 on Sunday]


MON 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m0015ktr)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.


MON 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m0015ktt)
BBC Radio 4 presents a selection of news and current affairs, arts and science programmes from the BBC World Service.


MON 05:33 Shipping Forecast (m0015ktw)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.


MON 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m0015kv0)
Spiritual reflection to start the day with Linden Bicket, teacher of literature and religion at Edinburgh University's School of Divinity.


MON 05:45 Farming Today (m0015kv2)
21/03/22 No more free range eggs, lamb industry update

From today free range eggs are no longer free range. This is all to do with the restrictions imposed across the UK because of avian flu. They mean that all birds must be kept inside as the disease is usually passed from wild migrating birds flying above the commercial flocks. For the past 16 weeks a grace period has meant that free range chickens, and their eggs, have kept that label, even though the hens are no longer ranging free, but that comes to an end today.

There are around 45,000 sheep farms in the UK, which range in size from just a handful of animals to several thousand. In all there are about 15 million ewes in the UK and the industry is worth £1.3 billion. As part of this week's focus on the lamb industry, we get the latest from the National Sheep Association on trade, trees and morale.

Presented by Charlotte Smith and produced by Beatrice Fenton.


MON 05:56 Weather (m0015kv4)
The latest weather forecast for farmers.


MON 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b03dx6nq)
Willow Tit

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 Willow Tit. Willow Tits are declining rapidly in many areas: they are very similar to marsh tits, so alike in fact that no-one realised that they existed here until 1897 and their identity as a breeding bird in the UK was confirmed three years later.


MON 06:00 Today (m0015lkk)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.


MON 09:00 Start the Week (m0015lkm)
Welsh identities

In May Wales will hold local elections to elect members of all twenty-two local authorities. Richard Wyn Jones, professor of Welsh politics, examines the issues facing the country. He tells Helen Lewis how nationalism plays an important role in politics in Wales, but that its national identity is a complex mix of Welsh, English and British.

What does it meant to be Welsh today? And what of the future of Wales? These are the questions posed in a series of essays, Welsh [Plural]. The poet Hanan Issa is one of the co-editors, and is looking to get beyond the stereotype images of castles, coal and choirs, and understand the full rich diversity of Welsh identities.

The historian Dr Marion Loeffler explores how pivotal works of art and literature have helped shape Wales. In a landmark BBC series, Art That Made Us (on BBC2 in April) she looks back to the 7th century poem Y Gododdin and the painter Penry Williams’ depiction of Cyfarthfa Ironworks Interior at Night, 1825.

Wales’s industrial landscape is at the centre of Richard King’s oral history, Brittle With Relics, which focuses on the huge changes that took place during the second half of the 20th century. The story of the effects of deindustrialisation, loss of employment and social cohesion, as well as the fight for a voice, language and identity, is told through the people who lived through it.

Producer: Katy Hickman

Image credit: BBC ClearStory - Artist and Performer Sean Parry with a byddar drum


MON 09:45 Making History: The Storytellers Who Shaped The Past by Richard Cohen (m0015lm6)
Who Tells Our Story?

Richard Cohen examines the storytellers of the past, how they worked and how their writings still influence our ideas about history.

Who were the historians who changed the way history is written? How did their biases affect their accounts? Is there such a thing as objective history?

The series explores lives and works from the Greek historian Herodotus, through the great Roman historians Tacitus and Livy, with their great epic stories of war and plagues, all of them inventing stories to be more reader friendly, and then moving through Arab and Islamic writings, to the medieval historians like Bede and Geoffrey of Monmouth – the latter famous for his economy with the truth, in other words, making it all up.

The great Italian Niccolo Machiavelli became a historian by accident, Voltaire and Edward Gibbon changed the way history was written, breaking away from a God centred universe. Then there's the Red historians from Marx (always in debt and crippled by boils on his skin) to Eric Hobsbawm, the emergence of female historians, and false accounts of history.

Episode 6
Who tells our story? Black historians from the earliest chroniclers of the Black experience in the 19th century like George Washington Williams, to Carter G Woodson who founded Black History month, Booker T Washington, a former slave, who founded a college for Blacks in Alabama, and 20th century historians like CLR James, and John Henry Clarke, who criticised the way Black history had been taught, and Black women historians making their voices heard.

Author: Richard Cohen
Abridger: Libby Spurrier
Reader: Alex Jennings
Producer: Celia de Wolff

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4


MON 10:00 Woman's Hour (m0015lkr)
Maggie Murray, Melinda Simmons, Emma Beddington and Sandy Black, Tina Backhouse, Matthew Greenwood

A new exhibition, Photographing Protest: Resistance through a feminist lens, features striking protest images by women and explores how images of resistance resonate across generations from 1968 to the present day. Maggie Murray, a prolific photographer of protest, whose images feature throughout the exhibition. As a founding member of Format photo agency, she documented ground-breaking protests of the 1980s and 1990s and tells Emma about her work.

Currently based in Warsaw, Melinda Simmons has been the British Ambassador for the Ukraine since September 2019. She left Kyiv on 19 February 2022 and only finally left Ukraine on 7th March 2022 eleven days after the Russian invasion. She joins Emma to discuss Putin, Ukrainian refugees and the support role she and her team are now playing for Ukrainian citizens from Poland.

We talk about the cost-of-living crisis and the ends some women are going to to make ends meet with Matthew Greenwood head of debt at the Centre for Social Justice.

Would you wear the same dress for 100 days? Could you do it? Emma Beddington made it to 40 days wearing the same dress as a challenge. We speak to her and Sandy Black, Professor of Fashion and Textile Design and Technology, about the power, sustainability and history of wearing the same item over and over again.

Are you struggling to get hold of your HRT? Menopausal women are reporting being forced to turn to the so-called black market as demand for prescriptions in England has doubled in the last five years. We speak to Tina Backhouse the General Manager of Theramex, one of the largest suppliers of HRT to the UK market about what is causing the current problems.

Presenter: Emma Barnett
Producer: Lisa Jenkinson
Studio Manager: Tim Heffer

Photo credit: Maggie Murray


MON 11:00 My Name Is... (m0015lkt)
My Name Is Bex

The reality of youngsters in Britain not having a proper bed to sleep on shocked Bex Wilson into taking immediate action: she's founded a charity, Zarach, which makes deliveries to families in need and over Christmas alone more than 50 beds were delivered to youngsters in Leeds.

Bex says it continually surprises her how many kids don't have beds. It was something she first noticed as a teacher, when a little boy who was normally fine in lessons was having a bad morning. At the end of the lesson she talked to him and was shocked when he told her he was always tired and didn’t have a bed to sleep on.

She says at first she couldn’t believe it, but then he pulled up his jumper and she saw bed bug bites across his stomach from an infected sofa cushion that he and his sister had put on the floor and were sharing each night. She decided to act and in this programme she explains what she feels needs to be done to combat this terrible disadvantage.

Realising that many other families across Leeds and Yorkshire face similar situations of being unable to afford adequate beds for their children, she gathered together friends and colleagues and set up the charity, Zarach, which means "rising light" in Hebrew. The name came from the gratitude expressed by that first mother, who told them they had brought much needed hope in her darkest days.

They have provided beds to nearly 1,400 children across Yorkshire since 2018 and the charity has grown from a family operation to a team of over 58 volunteers. They work with more than 200 schools and partner organisations to receive referrals and teachers in other areas are looking into how they can establish something similar to help those who have nothing proper to sleep on.

Produced by Sue Mitchell
Presented by Bex Wilson


MON 11:30 Loose Ends (m0015kqk)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:15 on Saturday]


MON 12:00 News Summary (m0015lpd)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


MON 12:04 Passing by Nella Larsen (m0015lkz)
Episode 1

In mid-1920s America, the Harlem renaissance of black culture and society may be underway but racism still runs deep through the habits and laws of the country. Clare Kendry has severed all ties to her impoverished past in the black community of Chicago. Elegant, fair-skinned and ambitious, she is now married to a wealthy white man who is unaware of her African-American heritage.

When she renews her acquaintance with her childhood friend Irene, who is similarly light skinned but has not hidden her background, both women are forced to reassess their friendship and loyalties.

Nella Larsen's intense and psychologically nuanced portrayal of lives and identities dangerously colliding, first published in 1929, has recently found new audiences in the cinema and now also as an English literature A -level set text.


Written by Nella Larsen
Read by Ayesha Antoine
Abridged by Isobel Creed
Produced by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4


MON 12:18 You and Yours (m0015ll1)
Supermarket Shakeup; Electric Vehicle charging on the motorway

Supermarkets are getting ready for the 'biggest change in a generation' aimed at cutting childhood obesity. New rules about where they can place unhealthy foods and bans on BOGOF deals on such products come into force in October. It'll mean you won't see chocolate at checkouts or aisle ends. Hear from retail analyst Bryan Roberts who has seen shops trying their new layouts and Katherine Jenner from Action on Sugar and Salt who influenced the change

Plenty of people swipe right for a love interest but have you ever done it find a best friend? Friendship apps are growing in popularity. Winifred talks to two women who paired up online.

Most people will have to pay for lateral flow tests from April 1st. Competition is driving down the costs in shops but many people especially those with relatives in care homes with feel the cost if they have to pay. We'll hear from them and the National Pharmacy Association

Winifred talks to the head of Gridserve, a company that took over all of the electric charge points run by Ecotricity. Toddington Harper promised to spend millions to improve the experience for EV drivers but then the government's competition watchdog decided their deal to exclusively run charging points at some motorway services needed to be looked at. You'll hear what happened and what it means for the future of electric motoring.

PRESENTER: WINIFRED ROBINSON

PRODUCER: CATHERINE MURRAY


MON 12:57 Weather (m0015ll3)
The latest weather forecast


MON 13:00 World at One (m0015ll5)
Forty-five minutes of news, analysis and comment, with Sarah Montague.


MON 13:45 Past Forward: A Century of Sound (m0015bc1)
Dinner is Served

Historian Greg Jenner hears an evocative fragment of archive recorded at Smithfield Market in 1935, and reflects on British food culture and supply chains then and now, with his guests, the food historian Annie Gray and Professor of Food Policy at City University Tim Lang

Marking the centenary of the BBC, Past Forward uses a random date generator to alight somewhere in the BBC's vast archive over the past 100 years. Greg Jenner hears an archive clip for the first time at the top of the programme, and uses it as a starting point in a journey towards the present day. The archive captures a century of British life in a unique way - a history of ordinary people’s lives, as well as news of the great events. Greg uncovers connections through people, places and ideas that link the archive fragment to Britain in 2022, pulling in help from experts and those who remember the time, and looking at how far we've come since then.

Produced by Megan Jones


MON 14:00 The Archers (m0015ktk)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Sunday]


MON 14:15 Drama (m0015ll7)
Song of the Reed

Bittern

Conclusion of this seasonal drama following life on a wetlands nature reserve in Norfolk over one year. Starring Sophie Okonedo and Mark Rylance.

Ian (Mark Rylance) returns to Fleggwick for the first time since suffering serious injuries during the winter’s flood and finds it as beautiful and full of life as ever, but still endangered as Liv (Sophie Okonedo) struggles to find a way to keep the Reserve going.

This is the fourth and final episode of an innovative drama, with instalments recorded on location at RSPB Strumpshaw Fen in Norfolk every three months, documenting the extraordinary wetlands habitat as it changes through the seasons.

This episode features the Bittern as its special guest star – a characterful bird known for its booming call.

Song of the Reed, by Steve Waters, is informed by the sounds of the reserve as well as the real work and science of conservation taking place in the face of rapid environmental change in the wetlands of Norfolk, and everywhere.

Cast:
Liv - Sophie Okonedo
Ian - Mark Rylance
Tam - Ella Dorman Gajic
Kay - Molly Naylor
Theo - Tom Goodman-Hill
Nikki - Karen Hill
Sadegh - Zaydun Khalaf
Voice of the Reed - Christine Kavanagh
Other parts played by staff and volunteers at RSPB Strumpshaw Fen

Written by Steve Waters
Music by Michael Somerset Ward with Rebecca Hearne
Sound design by Alisdair McGregor
Produced and Directed by Boz Temple-Morris

A Holy Mountain production for BBC Radio 4


MON 15:00 Counterpoint (m0015ll9)
Series 35

The Final, 2022

(13/13)
The three competitors who've won their way through the heats and semi-finals of the 2022 tournament line up to face Paul Gambaccini's questions for the last time this year, in a bid to become the 35th BBC Counterpoint champion.

Dvorak and Liszt line up alongside Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark and the Beatles, in the unpredictable array of questions facing the Finalists this year. Breadth of knowledge of musical eras and genres counts for a lot, but speed on the buzzer can also be crucial when the stakes are so high. All of our Finalists have proved they know their music, so who will triumph on the day? After a series when the overall standard has been so impressive, a close and hard-fought Final is guaranteed.

Assistant Producer: Stephen Garner
Producer: Paul Bajoria


MON 15:30 The Food Programme (m0015ksv)
[Repeat of broadcast at 12:32 on Sunday]


MON 16:00 Banding: Love, Spit and Valve Oil (m0015b70)
The pursuit of excellence

Martin Green looks at why brass bands are so good and asks if the cut-throat culture around contesting is worth it.

Coming from the world of folk music where the notion of competition is much more controversial, Martin questions if there should really be winners and losers in music. What does pressure and adrenaline bring to the pursuit of excellence?

Having written a piece of brass band music to soundtrack this series, Martin now needs to record it. A bespoke band is compiled by baritone player Amy Ewen, who introduces us to a room full of exceptionally virtuosic musicians. These players are all the more impressive when you consider this is an amateur movement.

We follow Amy and others through their day at the National Brass Band Championship at the Royal Albert Hall to better understand the rollercoaster ride that is contesting.

Produced by Rebecca Gaskell and Martin Green

A Sparklab and Lepus co-production for BBC Radio 4


MON 16:30 The Digital Human (m0015lld)
Series 25

Anticipation

Aleks Krotoski asks why we're always yearning for next technological solution to our problems?

What is it that has driven us to the current, seemingly relentless cycle of innovation. It’s not all explained by consumerism, there appears to be a deeper motivation - as if we’re already half living in an imagined future of ever greater technological possibilities.

Is this how we’re evolving, instead of adapting to the world like other species, we’re adapting the world to suit us?

Producer: Peter McManus


MON 17:00 PM (m0015llg)
Afternoon news and current affairs programme, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines.


MON 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m0015lll)
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has questioned why it's taken six years and five foreign secretaries to secure her release.


MON 18:30 Just a Minute (m0015lln)
Series 88

Episode 5

Sue Perkins challenges Zoe Lyons, Gyles Brandreth, Shazia Mirza and Paul Merton to speak for 60 seconds without repetition, deviation or hesitation.

The long-running national treasure of a parlour game is back, with subjects this week ranging from She Sells Sea Shells to My Irish Roots.

Production co-ordinator: Caroline Barlow
Sound editor: Marc Willcox
Producer: Hayley Sterling

A BBC Studios Production


MON 19:00 The Archers (m0015llq)
Hannah tries to explain to Jazzer that she and Neil are working on a cost-cutting plan to save Berrow from closure. This doesn’t give Jazzer any hope, he doesn’t trust Hannah will not cut his job. Later, Hannah finds Jazzer in The Bull and implores him to listen to her properly. She reveals that if she loses her job, she won’t be able to support her mum and stepdad with respite care for her mum’s dementia. Justin overhears their conversation and warns them not to gossip. Jazzer and Hannah push back against Justin’s warning and once he’s gone agree that they are on the same side.

Alice calls in at The Vicarage asking after Amy. Usha and Alan present a united front explaining that Amy is still away in Nottingham. When Alice asks them if Amy is OK, Alan struggles to answer. Alice wants to be there for Amy as she has been then for her, but Amy hasn’t been answering her calls. Once Alice has gone, Alan calls out to Amy who is hiding in her room. He’s never lying to her friends for her again. Over dinner, Alan and Usha press Amy for the reason behind her avoidance of Alice but have no success.

Amy calls in on Alice at The Nest and confesses that she and Chris slept together. Alice laughs and then realises Amy isn’t joking. Alice insists that Amy tells her everything about how it happened. Alice is incredulous of Amy’s explanations and her anger builds to screaming at Amy to get out of her house. As Amy goes, Alice dissolves into tears.


MON 19:15 Front Row (m0015lls)
Hew Locke, Ivo Van Hove, Danielle de Niese, Ernesto Ottone and Dr Maya Goodfellow

The latest in Tate Britain’s series of annual commissions is an installation by the artist Hew Locke. It’s called The Procession and is comprised of approximately 150 life-size figures - adults, children, animals - arranged in a hundred-yard-long parade. Each one is unique, dressed in colourful fabrics, many specially printed, and wearing masks. It evokes carnival parades, protest marches and funeral corteges. Tom talks to Hew about how he set about making such an ambitious and complicated artwork and finds out about his fascination with obsolete share certificates.

Theatre director Ivo Van Hove and soprano Danielle de Niese join Tom to explore why Jean Cocteau’s play La Voix Humane is having a moment, with various stage, screen and opera productions opening this spring.

As the war in Ukraine continues, we talk to UNESCO’s Assistant Director-General for Culture, Ernesto Ottone, about the organisation’s activities protecting Ukrainian culture and heritage artefacts. We also discuss UNESCO’s recent report on the economic impact of the pandemic on creativity across the globe.

And Moment of Joy – our occasional series which celebrates those intense moments when watching a film or a play, reading a book or poem, listening to music or looking at a picture makes your heart soar. Dr Maya Goodfellow, academic and professor at The School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London on why Elena Ferrante’s novel ‘My Brilliant Friend’ makes her joyful.


MON 20:00 Pay Freezes (m0015llv)
From the Crash to Today

Labour shortages and the cost of living are back as big issues for the first time in years.

There are predictions that the biggest pay squeeze in decades is imminent.

So in this new three-part series for BBC Radio 4, documentary-maker Phil Tinline traces the ups and downs of the politics of pay in Britain since 1945. How did we get here? And what can our history tell us about where we might now be heading?

As Britain entered the new millennium, with low inflation and steady growth, all seemed well. But in this final episode, Phil traces how the impact of the Crash in 2008 laid the ground for a decade of flat-lining pay and productivity, amid political shocks and crises, culminating in Covid.

Does the post-pandemic cheering of 'key workers' - along with the furlough scheme - point towards a future of greater state intervention? Ministers from the PM down have called for a higher pay, high productivity economy in the wake of Brexit. But currently, prices are outstripping pay. Does that mean that more radical action will be needed to ease the cost of living?

Series contributors include: Kate Bell, Margaret Beckett, Neil Carberry, John Edmonds, Stuart Hill, Linda Hoffman, Gavin Kelly, Tara Martin Lopez, Lucy Neville-Rolfe, Rain Newton-Smith, Michael Portillo, Dominic Sandbrook, Stefan Stern, Selina Todd, Norman Tebbit, Nick Timothy

Producer/ Presenter: Phil Tinline


MON 20:30 Analysis (m0015llx)
The Court of Putin

In the wake of the greatest crisis to hit Europe since the Second World War, former Moscow correspondent Tim Whewell examines the president, people and processes that led to that momentous decision, and others like it.

Radical advisers, tame oligarchs, intelligence agencies scared to tell Putin the truth and the domestic repercussions of NATO’s political moves - Tim brings together the variety of causes that have led to deep dysfunction and the concentration of power in a single man who risks becoming synonymous with the state itself.

Interviewees include investigative journalists Catherine Belton and Andrei Soldatov, and former NATO Secretary General George Robertson.

Producer: Nathan Gower
Sound: Nigel Appleton
Production Coordinators: Siobhan Reed and Sophie Hill
Editor: Hugh Levinson


MON 21:00 The Anatomy of Kindness (m0015bdb)
In the Anatomy of Kindness, a three part documentary series, broadcaster, author and psychologist Claudia Hammond interrogates what it means to be kind, who we are kind to and the benefits of being a kind boss.

For the first of the three programmes Claudia examines our motivations and decision making around kindness. She meets a super altruist who risked his life for a stranger, his motivation, he says, is to make the world a better place. A car accident left neuroscientist Professor Abigail Marsh stranded on the outside lane of an American freeway facing the oncoming traffic. In a split second a stranger made the decision to run into the oncoming traffic and save her, without thinking of the danger. This act of heroism shaped Abigail’s research. She looks at such extreme altruists and her work explores the relationship between psychopathy and extraordinary altruism.
Professor of Philanthropy Sara Konrath was surprised to discover that narcissists are just as likely to give to charity as very empathic people, but a remarkable act of empathy was her inspiration to research this topic and we discover what she owes to a very kind person who entered her life at a pivotal time.

But what about the everyday acts of kindness? Can we ever say we do something for someone else without expecting something in return? Psychologist Jo Cutler says that we weigh up the effort to do something for someone else every time we act, even when it’s as simple as holding the door open. Nichola Raihani, Professor of Evolution and Behaviour and author of "The Social Instinct, how cooperation saved the world" thinks we've evolved to be altruistic, it’s the reason why we have been so successful as a species and altruism brings reputational and status benefits. But how cynically do we act when we are kind?
Claudia examines the evidence and decides whether you can ever carry out an act of pure kindness.


MON 21:30 Start the Week (m0015lkm)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]


MON 22:00 The World Tonight (m0015lm0)
New curfew in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv

In-depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective.


MON 22:45 Passing by Nella Larsen (m0015lkz)
[Repeat of broadcast at 12:04 today]


MON 23:00 You're Dead To Me (p086dx47)
Josephine Baker

Greg Jenner is joined by historical expert Dr Michell Chresfield and comedian Desiree Burch to travel to 1920s Paris and meet the phenomenal Josephine Baker.

Josephine Baker was a renowned performer and entertainer, a civil rights activist and even a spy during the German occupation of France. But just how did the daughter of a laundress in St Louis find herself at the centre of some of the most pivotal moments in history?

A Muddy Knees Media production for BBC Radio 4


MON 23:30 Today in Parliament (m0015lm2)
News, views and features on today's stories in Parliament



TUESDAY 22 MARCH 2022

TUE 00:00 Midnight News (m0015lm4)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.


TUE 00:30 Making History: The Storytellers Who Shaped The Past by Richard Cohen (m0015lm6)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:45 on Monday]


TUE 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m0015lm8)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.


TUE 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m0015lmb)
BBC Radio 4 presents a selection of news and current affairs, arts and science programmes from the BBC World Service.


TUE 05:33 Shipping Forecast (m0015lmd)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.


TUE 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m0015lmj)
Spiritual reflection to start the day with Linden Bicket, teacher of literature and religion at Edinburgh University's School of Divinity.


TUE 05:45 Farming Today (m0015lml)
22/03/22 - P&O Ferry disruption, lambcam and the future of pigs

P&O Ferry services between Scotland and Northern Ireland are still suspended after the company sacked 800 UK staff and the National Sheep Association has expressed 'serious concern' over the impact it could have on the movement of breeding sheep. Most livestock moving between GB and Northern Ireland has until now used the P&O route from Cairnryan in Dumfries and Galloway, to Larne in County Antrim, where there is a Border Control Post to check the animals. There’s another ferry route from Cairnryan - run by the company Stena - but it goes into Belfast, where there’s no Border Control Post.

After months of disruption in the pig industry the Government says its preparing a consultation document about its future, following a ‘summit’ with farmers, retailers and processors. The consultation is due to come out this spring. As feed, fuel and building costs rise, the profitability of keeping your own herd of pigs has diminished, and the recent problems with the bottle-neck of stock on farms has made everything worse. Some have been pushed out of business - but others are finding new ways to stay in pigs. Anna Hill visits one farmer who has stopped breeding his own pigs after 50 years and switched to what he calls ‘bed and breakfast’ for pigs.

And at the St Fagans National Museum of History outside Cardiff they’re delivering lambs straight to people’s homes - courtesy of their lambcam.

Presented by Anna Hill
Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Heather Simons


TUE 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b03x45q5)
Ruff

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs.

Bill Oddie presents the ruff. The glory of the ruff lies in its extravagant courtship displays. For most of the year these waders look similar to our other long-legged water-birds such as redshanks or sandpipers but in the breeding season the males sprout a multi-coloured ruff. The impressive ruffs of feathers come in infinite variety, black, white, ginger, or a mixture of these. The males gather at traditional spring leks with the aim of winning one or more mates.


TUE 06:00 Today (m0015ls4)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.


TUE 09:00 The Life Scientific (m0015ls8)
Ben Garrod on conservation and extinction

Ben Garrod is an obsessive bone collector and wild animal behaviourist. He was destined for a career in medicine but a chance encounter with primatologist Jane Goodall reignited his life long passion for conservation and led to him managing and researching the habituation of wild chimpanzees in Africa. It was a chance to record primate behaviour that had never been seen before and examine how resilient chimps can be to anthropogenic change. Further extraordinary insights into the speed of evolution through the clues in the bones of island monkeys was to follow.

He is a professor of Evolutionary Biology and Science Engagement at the University of East Anglia and the presenter of several landmark TV series on animal bones and extinction, such as The Secrets of Bones and most recently, Attenborough and the Mammoth Graveyard. Ben shares his passion for the contrasting insights into conservation and extinction, the value they play, and describes his own extraordinary journey from exploring animal remains washed up on Norfolk beaches to years spend tracking chimps in Uganda to eminent science communicator and public figure.

Producer Adrian Washbourne


TUE 09:30 Witness (b03pdh78)
The First Panda in the West

In 1936 American socialite Ruth Harkness and her Chinese-American guide, Quentin Young, captured a giant panda cub in the forests of China. Ruth Harkness took the panda to the USA and kept it in her New York flat, before selling it to a Chicago zoo. It was the first time the animal had been seen outside China and panda-mania ensued. It was named 'Su-Lin' and celebrities such as Shirley Temple and Al Capone flocked to see it. Hear from Quentin Young's neice, Jolly Young, about the expedition in search of the panda.
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TUE 09:45 Making History: The Storytellers Who Shaped The Past by Richard Cohen (m0015ltt)
The Red Historians

Richard Cohen examines the storytellers of the past, how they worked and how their writings still influence our ideas about history.

Who were the historians who changed the way history is written? How did their biases affect their accounts? Is there such a thing as objective history?

The series explores lives and works from the Greek historian Herodotus, through the great Roman historians Tacitus and Livy, with their great epic stories of war and plagues, all of them inventing stories to be more reader friendly, and then moving through Arab and Islamic writings, to the medieval historians like Bede and Geoffrey of Monmouth – the latter famous for his economy with the truth, in other words, making it all up.

The great Italian Niccolo Machiavelli became a historian by accident, Voltaire and Edward Gibbon changed the way history was written, breaking away from a God centred universe. Then there's the Red historians from Marx (always in debt and crippled by boils on his skin) to Eric Hobsbawm, the emergence of female historians, and false accounts of history.

Episode 7
The Red historians, from Karl Marx who suffered from boils and was always broke but loved visiting Margate to see the Punch and Judy shows, and wrote The Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital, with his friend Engels, to Leon Trotsky whose finest books were written in exile. The Communist Party Historians Group in London in the late 1940s – Raphael Samuel, Christopher Hill and EP Thompson, all writing about the working classes – to the most famous of them all, Eric Hobsbawm.

Author: Richard Cohen
Abridger: Libby Spurrier
Reader: Alex Jennings
Producer: Celia de Wolff

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4


TUE 10:00 Woman's Hour (m0015lsd)
Who was Ellen Wilkinson? Mary-Ellen McGroarty from the UN World Food Programme, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe speaks out.

Who was Ellen Wilkinson? Poet and playwright Caroline Bird aims to tell us all about her as her new work Red Ellen goes on tour.

Yesterday Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe faced a room of journalists and cameras. She knew what she wanted to say, and what she didn't want to say after six years away from home. Despite the trauma she's been through why do some people feel she needs to express more gratitude? What are their reasons? And how surprising is it to see these comments? We hear from Gina Miller who took the Government to court - and won - over how it tried to implemented Brexit without approval from Parliament.
Emily Thornberry a former Shadow Foreign Secretary.

With millions experiencing food insecurity in Afghanistan what impact does this have on women’s rights? Emma speaks to Mary-Ellen McGroarty, director of the United Nations World Food Programme in Afghanistan.

Are you someone who can’t help but pick up a gossip magazine? Do you love nothing more than finding out about the latest celebrity break up? Chartered clinical psychologist Dr Hamira Riaz; and Dr Aisha K. Gill, Professor of Criminology at the University of Roehampton discuss why do we do it and whether it's good for us to watch relationships breakdown in public.

And the study from Cardiff University that suggests that hybrid working may encourage more women to take up local politics.

Presenter Emma Barnett
Producer Beverley Purcell


TUE 11:00 Putin (m0015njm)
Out of the shadows

Operation successor: the story behind the Russian president's mysterious rise to power. From bag carrier to the most powerful man in Russia. In just a few years Vladimir Putin went from working for the mayor of St Petersburg to being prime minister, then president.

To make sense of how he did it, Jonny Dymond is joined by:

Misha Glenny, former BBC correspondent and author of ‘McMafia’
Natalia Gevorkyan, co-writer of the first authorised biography of Vladimir Putin published in 2000, and of “The Prisoner of Putin” with Mikhail Khodorkovsky
Oliver Bullough, writer, journalist. former Moscow correspondent for Reuters and author of “Butler to the world”

Production coordinators: Sophie Hill and Siobhan Reed

Sound engineer: James Beard
Producers: Caroline Bayley, Sandra Kanthal, Joe Kent
Series Editor: Emma Rippon
Commissioning Editor: Richard Knight


TUE 11:30 China's Stolen Treasures (m0015lsg)
Buyers and Sellers

It’s late February 2009 inside the Grand Palais in Paris, and the Christie’s auction of the estate of designer Yves Saint Laurent is in full swing. The room is packed. A bank of telephones stands to one side, as bidders call in or raise their paddles. A hush comes over the crowd as a digital projector displays the bronze heads of a rat and a rabbit.

Bidding surged beyond the estimate. This pair of bronze animal heads were two of the twelve that decorated the Zodiac Fountain at the imperial Old Summer Palace in Beijing until they were looted by British and French troops in 1860. They sell for £15 million each.

Normally, that would mark the end of an auction story. But in this case, it was only the beginning. Because the buyer, a wealthy Chinese businessman and adviser to China’s National Treasures Fund, Cai Mingchoa, never intended to pay. He bid and won in protest because he felt that China should not have to buy back their cultural heritage from the west.

In this episode of China’s Stolen Treasures, Noah Charney explores the market in Chinese antiquities, from auction houses to collectors, trailing the famous Zodiac heads that once decorated a great water clock and fountain in the Chinese emperor’s Old Summer Palace.

With artist Ai Weiwei, art dealer William Chak, Christie’s specialist Kate Hunt, collector Christopher Bruckner, art investigators Dick Ellis and Arthur Brand and police superintendent Kenneth Didriksen.

Writer and Presenter - Dr Noah Charney
Producer - Caroline Finnigan
Executive Producer - Rosie Collyer
Researcher - Nadia Mehdi
China Producer - Coco Zhao
Sound Designers - David Smith and Tom Berry for Wardour Studios
Music Composer - Nicholas Alexander
Voice Over Artists - Bernard O'Sullivan and Oliver Zheng

A Novel production for BBC Radio 4


TUE 12:00 News Summary (m0015lv8)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


TUE 12:04 Passing by Nella Larsen (m0015lsl)
Episode 2

In mid-1920s America, the Harlem renaissance of black culture and society may be underway but racism still runs deep through the habits and laws of the country. Clare Kendry has severed all ties to her impoverished past in the black community of Chicago. Elegant, fair-skinned and ambitious, she is now married to a wealthy white man who is unaware of her African-American heritage.

When she renews her acquaintance with her childhood friend Irene, who is similarly light skinned but has not hidden her background, both women are forced to reassess their friendship and loyalties.

Nella Larsen's intense and psychologically nuanced portrayal of lives and identities dangerously colliding, first published in 1929, has recently found new audiences in the cinema and now also as an English literature A -level set text.

Written by Nella Larsen
Read by Ayesha Antoine
Abridged by Isobel Creed
Produced by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4


TUE 12:18 You and Yours (m0015lsn)
Call You & Yours: Are you thinking about offering your home to a Ukrainian refugee?

Today on Call You & Yours we want to know - Are you thinking of taking in a Ukrainian refugee?

And if you are - what do you want to know?

More than three million people have fled Ukraine so far. The UK government has set up a Homes for Ukraine scheme that allows people to offer their homes. So far over 120,000 households have registered their interest.

Have you signed up? Do you know what happens next?

Do you have questions about providing transport, food, or helping people find school places or jobs?

We'll be joined by Enver Solomon, Chief Executive of the Refugee Council on the programme. The UK based charity offers support and advice to refugees.

Email the programme at youandyours@bbc.co.uk and please leave a phone number so we can call you back. From 11:00am on Tuesday 22nd March, you can call us direct on 03700 100 444.

Presented by Winifred Robinson.
Produced by Beatrice Pickup.


TUE 12:57 Weather (m0015lsq)
The latest weather forecast


TUE 13:00 World at One (m0015lss)
Forty-five minutes of news, analysis and comment, with Sarah Montague.


TUE 13:45 Past Forward: A Century of Sound (m0015lsv)
Get out of my Pub

Greg Jenner looks at the evolution of the pub across the last half century, after hearing a clip from 1976 of a man saying that men ‘aren’t very keen’ on women joining them for a game of darts in the bar. He's joined by Dr Thomas Thurnell-Read and Rhondell Stabana, to discuss changes in drinking culture and alcohol-free bars.

Marking the centenary of the BBC, Past Forward uses a random date generator to alight somewhere in the BBC's vast archive over the past 100 years. Greg Jenner hears an archive clip for the first time at the top of the programme, and uses it as a starting point in a journey towards the present day. The archive captures a century of British life in a unique way - a history of ordinary people’s lives, as well as news of the great events. Greg uncovers connections through people, places and ideas that link the archive fragment to Britain in 2022, pulling in help from experts and those who remember the time, and looking at how far we've come since then.

Produced by Dan Potts


TUE 14:00 The Archers (m0015llq)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Monday]


TUE 14:15 Broken Colours (m0015lsx)
Episode 5

Jess now knows the truth about Ronnie Vaz's relationship to Dan. But she's sucked even deeper into the violent world of his drug gang. Holli Dempsey and Josef Altin star in a new thriller of conflicting perception from Matthew Broughton (the creator of Tracks).

Jess.....Holli Dempsey
Dan.....Josef Altin
Melissa......Alexandria Riley
Petal.....Rina Mahoney
Mother.....Christine Kavanagh
Ronnie.....Alun Raglan
Gallery Director....Jasmine Hyde
Magner.....Neil McCaul

Sound design by Catherine Robinson and Nigel Lewis
A BBC Cymru Wales production for BBC Radio 4, directed by John Norton and Emma Harding


TUE 15:00 Short Cuts (m0015lsz)
Where The Wild Things Are

As we reach the ten year anniversary of his death, Josie Long presents short documentaries and audio adventures inspired by the worlds of Maurice Sendak.

We're In The Den
Feat. Carol Doose, Evan Roberts and Sofia Beverley Turnham
Produced by Phoebe McIndoe

In the Hard Rock Night Kitchen
Written and read by Tiffany Murray
Additional material Joan Graham

Extract from Terry Gross's interview with Maurice Sendak
Originally aired 20th September 2011 on Fresh Air from WHYY

Series Producer: Eleanor McDowall
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4


TUE 15:30 Costing the Earth (m0015lr9)
Energy Prices

Energy prices have hit new heights. Gas and electricity bills will rocket for most people at the end of this month as the price cap is lifted and nobody filling their car could fail to notice record prices at the pumps. Energy too is at the heart of the biggest conflict in Europe for decades. Russia’s war machine is paid for with oil and gas and the West’s response is shaped by our reliance on that power source.

What does all this mean for the environment? Can we maintain focus on carbon emissions when Russian tanks are belching their way down Ukrainian streets? Or is it an opportunity to hasten our detox from fossil fuels as we see our addiction funding war?

Tom Heap discusses our energy future with James Murray of Business Green magazine, Emma Pinchbeck, Chief Executive of Energy UK and the expert on new energy finance, Michael Liebreich.

Producer: Alasdair Cross


TUE 16:00 Law in Action (m0015lt1)
The Justice Secretary's Plans

Justice Secretary Dominic Raab speaks to Joshua Rozenberg about the UK's support for the International Criminal Court's efforts to prosecute any Russians who may have committed war crimes in Ukraine. He outlines plans to boost the legal aid budget, and thus the incomes of criminal barristers - but when will they actually get any of the money? Mr Raab also explains why he is replacing the Human Rights Act with a new Bill of Rights.

The vast majority of senior judges are former barristers, and most are white men. Is the recruitment system skewed against solicitors and minorities? Solicitors insist it is, but the Judicial Appointments Commission strongly denies this. Joshua hears the arguments on both sides.

“No fault divorce” is set to come into effect in April. Will it free couples from unnecessary acrimony and costs, or make it too easy to split up?

Producer: Arlene Gregorius
Researchers: Octavia Woodward and Imogen Serwotka
Production Coordinators: Maria Ogundele and Jacqui Johnson
Sound: Rod Farquhar
Editor: Hugh Levinson


TUE 16:30 A Good Read (m0015l1k)
Joanna Scanlan and Sabine Durrant

BAFTA winning actor Joanna Scanlan champions The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Tom Wolfe's tale of Ken Kesey, the Merry Pranksters and US counter culture. Writer Sabine Durrant's favourite is Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan, a simple but powerful story of a man's moral predicament in a small Irish community. Harriett enjoys Georgette Heyer's romance set in 1816, The Grand Sophy.
Producer Sally Heaven


TUE 17:00 PM (m0015lt3)
Afternoon news and current affairs programme, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines.


TUE 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m0015lt7)
He calls for western nations to impose even tougher sanctions on Russia whose relentless shelling, he says, means there is now 'nothing left' in Mariupol


TUE 18:30 The World of Simon Rich (m0015lt9)
Series 3

Episode 3

Simon Rich is a one-man comedy phenomenon, described by The Guardian as "the funniest man in America" and with credits including The Simpsons, Pixar movies and Saturday Night Live. He created the hit sitcom Miracle Workers starring Steve Buscemi and Daniel Radcliffe, and his debut movie An American Pickle was released in 2020, starring Seth Rogen.

Now Simon returns to Radio 4 with a third series of his charmingly absurd stories, performed by a top-drawer British cast. Featuring parenting pirates, a baby detective, an unlikely retelling of Beauty And The Beast, and a super monster being promoted into management, this is unlike anything else you’ll hear this year.

Starring Mat Baynton, Ed Eales-White, Kieran Hodgson, Cariad Lloyd, Claire Price and Adjani Salmon
Produced by Jon Harvey and Clarissa Maycock
Editor: David Thomas
Executive Producer: Polly Thomas
A Naked production for BBC Radio 4


TUE 19:00 The Archers (m0015lqc)
Tracy tells Susan she still feels she’s in the doghouse with Oliver; he’s barely spoken to her since he caught her and Jazzer in the hotel room. Tracy can’t risk losing her job especially when Jazzer’s is under threat. She wouldn’t have coped financially the last few months without Jazzer’s help. Susan shares her worry over Chris and Alice’s divorce. When Susan explains she’s worried about overloading Neil who he’s been worrying about Berrow for weeks, Tracy catches her out. Tracy’s only known about the threat to Berrow since Sunday. Tracy’s angry at Susan for not letting her and Jazzer know sooner. Susan’s stung when Tracy discredits her loyalty, saying she’s in cahoots with Brian to only save managerial jobs. Tracy orders her to leave.

Chris is woken by Alice banging on his door. Amy has told Alice about them and is worried that Alice might start drinking again. But when Chris rushes round to Alice’s, she’s calm and sober. When Chris admits he messed up and it shouldn’t have happened, Alice tells him she’s heartbroken and devastated. Chris points out that he’s single and it was Alice that left him. If it was up to him, they’d still be a couple. But Alice won’t take any responsibility for Chris sleeping with Amy and says that she no longer wants to feel guilty. She’ll be in touch with her solicitor; she knows she’s a good person and is going to fight for her daughter.


TUE 19:15 Front Row (m0015ltc)
Joachim Trier, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Angus Robertson

Director Joachim Trier has been nominated for the Best Original Screenplay and Best International Film Oscars for The Worst Person in the World. If the title refers to his protagonist that’s rather harsh. Julie is, after all, only trying to navigate relationships and career and find happiness and meaning in her life in contemporary Oslo. Trier talks to Nick Ahad about using a novelistic form – prologue, chapters, epilogue – in the creation of a film, working with Cannes Best Actress winner Renate Reinsve, and how his film is full of light, warmth and humour - the very opposite of Scandi Noir.

Clare Lilley, curator and new director of the Yorkshire Sculpture Park discusses the first major UK exhibition of American painter, sculptor and printmaker Robert Indiana and the Park's future.

There have been several announcements recently from the Scottish Government about funding and supporting the revival of Scotland’s cultural landscape in the wake of the pandemic. We talk to Angus Robertson, the Cabinet Secretary for the Constitution, External Affairs and Culture, about his Government’s plans for culture, north of the border.

Presenter: Nick Ahad
Producer: Ekene Akalawu

Image: Robert Indiana, LOVE (Red Blue Green), 1966–1998, installation view at Yorkshire Sculpture Park,
2022. Photo: © Jonty Wilde, courtesy of Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Artwork: © 2022 Morgan Art
Foundation Ltd./ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/DACS, London


TUE 20:00 Bad Apples (m0015ltf)
Reporter Cara McGoogan investigates shocking claims of bullying, sexual harassment and violence within the ranks of the police towards female officers.

When the revelations about toxic behaviour at Charing Cross Police Station emerged, including WhatsApp messages boasting of graphic sexual violence against female police, officers up and down the country would have been deleting their messaging history. So says an ex-officer who has spoken to Cara McGoogan: “There’ll be a lot of people worried about the information they’ve shared.”

But the behaviour goes much deeper than WhatsApp messages. Female officers tell Cara they have been bullied, harassed, emotionally abused and sexually assaulted - all at the hands of their colleagues. They paint a picture of a broken system - victims are punished, perpetrators promoted.

As Cara’s investigation deepens, more and more women approach her from inside the police, Some, having won sex discrimination complaints, feel free to speak openly. Others feel intimidated, too fearful of reprisals and revenge. Disloyalty is often punished, “career suicide” says an anonymous speaker. Others say the police operate like a gang, protecting their own and pushing out women who ‘grass’.

Sue Fish, former chief constable at Nottinghamshire Police, strongly disputes the defence of a few ‘bad apples’. So are the police guilty of institutional misogyny - and a cover-up?

Presenter: Cara McGoogan
Produced by Sarah Peters
Executive Producer: Iain Chambers

A Tuning Fork and Open Audio production for BBC Radio 4


TUE 20:40 In Touch (m0015lth)
European Blind Union on Ukraine, what3words

The European Blind Union represent the interests of 30 million blind and partially sighted people across Europe and with the war in Ukraine still ongoing, we wanted to know how the EBU are helping visually impaired people in Ukraine and those who have evacuated to neighbouring countries. We put this question to the EBU's director, Lars Bossleman.

For some, no matter how skilfully you use a cane, guide dog or technology to navigate to a certain place, often locating the front door of your final destination can be the tricky bit - especially when there are many different entrances. what3words is a navigation system that has split the entire world (even the ocean!) into three by three metre squares and it can help blind or partially sighted people pin point that illusive door or share their exact location with others. It is by no means a new technology or even the perfect solution but The RNIB have recently praised what3words as being a helpful tool for independence for blind and partially sighted people - when it is used alongside other navigation systems, such as Google Maps. We speak to the co-founder and CEO of what3words, Chis Sheldrick about how it all works and the RNIB’s Senior Manager of Inclusive Design and Innovation, Robin Spinks about how this service can really benefit visually impaired people.

Presenter: Peter White
Producer: Beth Hemmings
Production Coordinator: Liz Poole

Website image description: a gentleman is sat on a bench in a built up area with his smart phone held up to his ear. He has his red and white cane folded up in his hand and resting on his lap. He is wearing a navy flat cap, sunglasses and a blue shirt. The image represents the use of technology in providing some independence for visually impaired people when travelling alone.


TUE 21:00 Inside Health (m0015lqk)
The Power of the Dog

This week James Gallagher finds out if the Power of the Dog is true. No not the movie, but the claim that dogs can make us live longer. He’s also doing press ups in the studio to see if small amounts of muscle building exercise can help boost our health no matter how old we are. Then, inspired by the last episode on long Covid, James goes in search of the lost art of convalescence.


TUE 21:30 The Life Scientific (m0015ls8)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]


TUE 22:00 The World Tonight (m0015ltk)
Zelensky says "nothing left" but ruins in Mariupol

In-depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective.


TUE 22:45 Passing by Nella Larsen (m0015lsl)
[Repeat of broadcast at 12:04 today]


TUE 23:00 Fortunately... with Fi and Jane (m0015ltm)
227. Drinking coffee in unison with Tim Lovejoy and Simon Rimmer

This week on the podcast, Fi and Jane talk to Sunday Brunch hosts Tim Lovejoy and Simon Rimmer. They discuss the perils of bottomless brunches, origin stories and a celebrity lottery win rumour.

Plus listener emails and Jane’s had a compliment from her dentist. Sort of…

Sunday Brunch celebrates its tenth anniversary 27th March.

Get in touch:
fortunately.podcast@bbc.co.uk


TUE 23:30 Today in Parliament (m0015ltp)
News, views and features on today's stories in Parliament



WEDNESDAY 23 MARCH 2022

WED 00:00 Midnight News (m0015ltr)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.


WED 00:30 Making History: The Storytellers Who Shaped The Past by Richard Cohen (m0015ltt)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:45 on Tuesday]


WED 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m0015ltw)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.


WED 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m0015lty)
BBC Radio 4 presents a selection of news and current affairs, arts and science programmes from the BBC World Service.


WED 05:33 Shipping Forecast (m0015lv0)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.


WED 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m0015lv4)
Spiritual reflection to start the day with Linden Bicket, teacher of literature and religion at Edinburgh University's School of Divinity.


WED 05:45 Farming Today (m0015lv6)
23/03/22 - Seed potatoes sent to Russia, money for tree planting and a new breed of sheep

A large consignment of seed potatoes is being sent from Scotland to Russia, despite a plea from the Scottish government, for businesses to ‘disengage from trade with Russia’ in response to the war in Ukraine. The shipment by Saltire Seed is believed to be for Pepsi-Co, which grows potatoes in Russia and owns Lays Crisps.

We find out about the England Woodland Creation Offer which will provide “financial incentives to help you plant the right tree, in the right place, for the right reason.”

And a group of farmers in South West England have bred a new type of sheep which don’t need shearing, they lamb safely outdoors and are parasite resistant. They are called the "Exlana" - it’s Latin for "without wool". Under lockdown the group started selling their animals online, and they’ve even been exporting their genetics to New Zealand.

Presented by Anna Hill
Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Heather Simons


WED 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b01sby1j)
Blackcap

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. David Attenborough presents the Blackcap. Many Blackcaps winter in sub-Saharan Africa, but increasingly birds have been wintering in the Mediterranean and over the last few decades spent the winter in the UK.


WED 06:00 Today (m0015lpl)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.


WED 09:00 The Anatomy of Kindness (m0015lpq)
In the Anatomy of Kindness Claudia Hammond asks who we are kind to. Professor Nichola Raihani from University College London says there are circles of connections, so family and friends, work colleagues, neighbours continuing out to everyone on the planet. Different people will put their boundaries in different places. One of the mechanisms we have to move these boundaries is empathy says Sara Konrath associate professor at the Lily Family School of Philanthropy. And being able to elicit empathy in strangers is an important part of raising awareness of challenging issues according to Lyndall Stein who has raised money for HIV, refugees and the homeless.
But how do we expand who us is, (whatever that means)? Sunder Katwaler of the think tank British Future says that in part it’s about making connections, which is something Gillian Sandstrom from the University of Sussex studies would agree with. She studies talking to strangers and why that is beneficial.

Presenter Claudia Hammond
Producer Geraldine Fitzgerald
Sound Engineer Sarah Hockley
Sound Designer Eleni Hassabis


WED 09:30 Ingenious (m000xz3q)
The Fat Gene

Many of us have got a bit chunkier over the last difficult year, but can you blame your genes if you no longer fit into your jeans? Or is it all about willpower?
Dr Kat Arney finds out with the help of eating experts Dr Giles Yeo and Professor Theresa Marteau… and some irresistible cookies.

Presenter: Kat Arney
Producer: Beth Sagar-Fenton
Sound mix: James Beard
Editor: Penny Murphy


WED 09:45 Making History: The Storytellers Who Shaped The Past by Richard Cohen (m0015lrp)
Herstory

Richard Cohen examines the storytellers of the past, how they worked and how their writings still influence our ideas about history.

Who were the historians who changed the way history is written? How did their biases affect their accounts? Is there such a thing as objective history?

The series explores lives and works from the Greek historian Herodotus, through the great Roman historians Tacitus and Livy, with their great epic stories of war and plagues, all of them inventing stories to be more reader friendly, and then moving through Arab and Islamic writings, to the medieval historians like Bede and Geoffrey of Monmouth – the latter famous for his economy with the truth, in other words, making it all up.

The great Italian Niccolo Machiavelli became a historian by accident, Voltaire and Edward Gibbon changed the way history was written, breaking away from a God centred universe. Then there's the Red historians from Marx (always in debt and crippled by boils on his skin) to Eric Hobsbawm, the emergence of female historians, and false accounts of history.

Episode 8
Her story – female historians from Chinese Ban Zhoa in 45 AD, the Byzantine scholar Anna Kommene from Constantinople, to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu in the 18th century who went with her husband to Turkey and said that previous travel literature had been written by boys and was superficial. Mary Wollstonecraft and Madame de Stael both pioneered a new female approach to history, to Cecil Woodham Smith and Veronica Wedgewood – the latter wearing mens’ clothing as she tramped around battlefield sites - and female winners of the Pulitzer Prize.

Author: Richard Cohen
Abridger: Libby Spurrier
Reader: Alex Jennings
Producer: Celia de Wolff

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4


WED 10:00 Woman's Hour (m0015lpv)
Ash Barty retires from tennis, Growing up in poverty, Shame, Threads, Men and sexual entitlement

Ash Barty, the Australian three time grand slam champion is retiring from tennis. Her achievements are matched only by her fellow player, Serena Williams. Andy Murray tweeted "Happy for Ash, gutted for tennis. What a player". We hear from Gigi Salmon, tennis commentator for the BBC who has interviewed Ash Barty many times over the years, and has been at all her three major wins.

The concept of shame first named in the bible when Eve plucked the apple from the tree of life is invariably seen as negative force in society. But in a new book by the author Cathy O Neil she suggests that shame can be a powerful and sometimes a useful tool for good: when we publicly shame corrupt politicians, abusive celebrities or predatory corporations. She joins Emma Barnett to discuss hew new book ‘The Shame Machine: Who Profits in the New Age of Humiliation’.

The government is under increasing pressure to tackle Britain’s cost of living crisis in its spring statement today. With rising food and fuel costs, inflation at the highest rate for 30 years and a record increase in household energy bills, households are facing mounting pressures to pay the bills. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation estimates that 1.8 million children today are growing up in very deep poverty. What’s it like to grow up in poverty? And how does it shape you? Skint is a new BBC 4 series of drama monologues all about the lived experience. Kerry Hudson grew up in extreme poverty and has written Hannah’s story.

Woman's Hour listener Fran heard one of the conversations in our series Threads which explores the emotional power of old clothes. She remembered a tiny dress and cardigan which she last wore more than 60 years ago. I spoke to her and asked her to describe them.

‘Am I That Guy?’ is a new Radio 4 documentary about sexual entitlement that puts men at the forefront of the conversation. Instead of telling women how to protect themselves from danger it focuses on how men can improve their behaviour. Graham Goulden is a consultant on Police Scotland’s viral ‘Don’t Be That Guy’ campaign and a contributor to the doc.

Presenter: Emma Barnett
Producer: Kirsty Starkey

Interviewed Guest: Gigi Salmon
Interviewed Guest: Kerry Hudson
Interviewed Guest: Felicity Hannah
Interviewed Guest: Cathy O'Neill
Interviewed Guest: Graham Goulden


WED 11:00 Am I That Guy? (m0015mgx)
Scottish writer and broadcaster Alistair Heather is not proud of some of his past interactions with women. In a previous job as a builder’s labourer, he would watch and laugh as co-workers wolf-whistled and cat-called passing women. In the street, on trains, in cafes, bars and other public places, he would see it as his right to approach and talk to women.

He knows that in behaving like that he has contributed to women and girls feeling excluded and unsafe. Now he wants to find out what he should be doing to help change the culture for the better.

Alistair discusses ‘locker room talk’ with former Aston Villa youth player and Dundee United Hall of Famer Seán Dillon, challenges an old friend and explores Police Scotland’s much-praised campaign which urged men to address their attitudes to women with a hard-hitting viral video telling them: “sexual violence begins long before you think it does. Don’t be that guy".

Producer Dave Howard
Researcher Carys Wall
Sound design Joel Cox


WED 11:30 Maureen & Friends (m0015lpx)
Episode 4

Maureen Lipman’s unique collection of musings, monologues, duologues and amusing anecdotes about her life and popular culture.
This second programme includes a frustrating experience at an airport and the return of Hester from the Home Counties.
For this second series, recorded in front of an audience at the BBC Radio Theatre, Maureen is joined by Oliver Cotton. Together they give life and opinions to various animals.

Written and performed by Maureen Lipman with a special guest performance from Oliver Cotton.

Produced and Directed by Tracey Neale


WED 12:00 News Summary (m0015lwb)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


WED 12:04 Passing by Nella Larsen (m0015lq1)
Episode 3

In mid-1920s America, the Harlem renaissance of black culture and society may be underway but racism still runs deep through the habits and laws of the country. Clare Kendry has severed all ties to her impoverished past in the black community of Chicago. Elegant, fair-skinned and ambitious, she is now married to a wealthy white man who is unaware of her African-American heritage.

When she renews her acquaintance with her childhood friend Irene, who is similarly light skinned but has not hidden her background, both women are forced to reassess their friendship and loyalties.

Nella Larsen's intense and psychologically nuanced portrayal of lives and identities dangerously colliding, first published in 1929, has recently found new audiences in the cinema and now also as an English literature A -level set text.

Written by Nella Larsen
Read by Ayesha Antoine
Abridged by Isobel Creed
Produced by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4


WED 12:18 You and Yours (m0015lq3)
Inflation rises, Exempt accommodation, Suits, Spring statement

Inflation is now at its highest level for three decades - so we catch up with two listeners to find out what is costing them more.

We have live reaction to the Chancellor's Spring Statement from Helen Barnard, Associate Director of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and Sarah Pennells, a Consumer Finance Specialist at pensions company Royal London.

We hear about the rogue landlords who are gaming the housing benefits system, using a loophole in the law to claim enhanced payments for providing vulnerable tenants with care and support services, when they are not providing them. An investigation by this programme has found that councils trying to stop it, are being taken to Tribunal by some of these rogue landlords. We speak to Under-Secretary of State for Housing and Rough Sleeping Eddie Hughes MP about the problem.

The ONS have taken a man's suit out of the basket of goods and have replaced it with a blazer. Are you still wearing suits or are you dressing down for work? Let us know youandyours@bbc.co.uk

Presenter: Winifred Robinson
Producer: Miriam Williamson


WED 12:57 Weather (m0015lq5)
The latest weather forecast


WED 13:00 World at One (m0015lq7)
Forty-five minutes of news, analysis and comment, with Sarah Montague.


WED 14:00 The Archers (m0015lqc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Tuesday]


WED 14:15 Drama (m0015lqf)
Norman Bows Out

A poignant moving drama, by Helen Kluger and starring Jim Broadbent, about a fading pantomime star nearing the final curtain.

Norman Monk is a legendary comedian and panto star, most famous for his ventriloquist act. Aware that he is about to embark on what will be his final tour, Norman decides to give his dummy, Willy, a final outing. Unfortunately, he collapses on stage during rehearsals and is rushed to hospital where his director is informed of the worst news and left with no choice but to re-cast Norman.

Luckily, his theatrical landlady Betty decides to let him stay with her, in the knowledge that he has nowhere else to go. They shore up a bond and share stories of abandonment and betrayal. But things take a darker turn when Norman is visited by his threatening ex-army young lover Kenny.

The show must go on ……..but can it ? A poignant moving drama about a fading pantomime star nearing the final curtain.

Cast:
Norman Monk .......... Jim Broadbent
Lyle Toastman .......... Michael Simkins
Betty Conway .......... Christine Kavanagh
Kenny .......... Tom Glenister.

Written by Helen Kluger

Directed by Celia de Wolff

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4


WED 15:00 Money Box (m0015lqh)
Spring Statement 2022

The chancellor, Rishi Sunak, gives an update on the health of the UK economy. What will it mean for your household finances?

A panel of experts will analyse what he says and we want to hear your thoughts too. Are you cheered or concerned by the state of the nation's finances? And how will it affect the way you spend or save your hard-earned cash? Also, looking ahead to the new tax year, we'll discuss the tax rises which begin in April and the outlook for our personal finances over the next twelve months.

Guests:

Heather Self, Corporate Tax Partner, Blick Rothenberg

Mike Brewer, Chief Economist, The Resolution Foundation

Laura Suter, Head of Personal Finance, A J Bell

Presenter: Paul Lewis

Producer: Drew Hyndman

Editor: Emma Rippon


WED 15:30 Inside Health (m0015lqk)
[Repeat of broadcast at 21:00 on Tuesday]


WED 16:00 Rewinder (m0014wmd)
Bill and Ben and Batman

Greg James, host of the Radio 1 Breakfast show and self-confessed 'proud radio nerd', uses his access-all-areas pass to the BBC Archives to track down audio gems, using listener requests, overlooked anniversaries and current stories as a springboard into the vast vaults of past programmes.

This week, as a new Batman film hits the cinemas, Greg hunts the Caped Crusader in the archives. He finds Adam West, who recalls acting with a mask for most of the time, a man called Mr Batman, and a bizarre experiment on Blue Peter in 1966.

To celebrate the centenary of Judy Garland's birth, Greg tracks down interviews with the elusive star, and also finds memories of her from her daughter Liza Minnelli.

A hunt for one listener's grandad leads Greg to a programme about stunt performers, and following a query about the soothing voice heard at the start of every edition of Rewinder, he looks into the life of Patricia Driscoll, presenter of Picture Book on Watch With Mother.

And - who's in Greg's envelope? We have the hugely anticipated results of last week's telepathy experiment... but you knew that already.

Producer Tim Bano


WED 16:30 The Media Show (m0015lqn)
Netflix's Hollywood Ambition

The Media Show is in Hollywood this week, ahead of the 94th Academy awards. Netflix’s The Power of the Dog is nominated for 12 Oscars, including the coveted Best Picture. Katie Razzall meets Scott Stuber, Netflix's Head of Global Film, to find out how the platform continues to disrupt the film industry.

Scott discusses his beginnings in the business with a cameo appearance in Free Willy 2, his strategy for luring legendary directors like Steven Spielberg to the platform, and his response to critics who claim that streaming services are killing cinema.

Producer: Dan Hardoon

Presenter: Katie Razzall

Editor: Richard Hooper


WED 17:00 PM (m0015lqq)
Afternoon news and current affairs programme, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines.


WED 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m0015lqy)
Rishi Sunak has set out measures to soften the impact of rising prices. And a senior adviser to President Putin has resigned.


WED 18:30 Conversations from a Long Marriage (m0015lr1)
Series 3

Don't Throw Your Love Away

Joanna Lumley & Roger Allam star in Jan Etherington’s award-winning comedy, as a couple who are passionate about life and each other. This week: Roger`s caught talking in his sleep - and attempts to appease Joanna backfire, so she walks out. But when Joanna babysits for friends, she has to ask for Roger’s help and is surprised to find he’s a ‘baby whisperer’.
Conversations from a Long Marriage won the Voice of the Listener & Viewer Award for Best Radio Comedy in 2020.
‘Joanna Lumley and Roger Allam have had illustrious acting careers but can they ever have done anything better than Jan Etherington’s two hander? This is a work of supreme craftsmanship.’ RADIO TIMES
‘Peppered with nostalgic 60s hits and especially written for the pair, it’s an endearing portrait of exasperation, laced with hard won tolerance – and something like love.’ THE GUARDIAN
‘The delicious fruit of the writer, Jan Etherington’s experience of writing lots of TV and radio, blessed by being acted by Joanna Lumley and Roger Allam. Treasure this one, produced by Claire Jones. Unlike many a current Radio 4 ‘comedy’, this series makes people laugh’ GILLIAN REYNOLDS. SUNDAY TIMES
‘You’ve been listening at my window, Jan’. JOANNA LUMLEY
‘The writing is spot on and Joanna Lumley and Roger Allam exquisite. So real, so entertaining. Please never stop making such terrific radio’. BBC DUTY LOG
‘Absolutely brilliant!! May it never end!’ BBC DUTY LOG
Conversations from a Long Marriage is written by Jan Etherington. It is produced and directed by Claire Jones. It is a BBC Studios Production.


WED 19:00 The Archers (m0015lr3)
Freddie tells Russ about his plans to upgrade his DJ kit to get more bookings and Lily excitedly announces her idea of having a Lower Loxley Easter Bunny again this year. When Russ refuses to wear the costume again, Freddie and Lily bet on whether he can be persuaded. Later, they spot the Easter Bunny and although the costume’s slightly different, they think Russ must’ve changed his mind. Later Russ is confused when Freddie and Lily congratulate him. He insists he’s been painting all day. Freddie wins the bet and Lily cringes as she remembers patting the bunny on his bum! They wonder who it was.

Tony’s still feeling the effects from Sunday’s cricket training. He admits to Brian that he unwittingly spilt the beans about the threat to Berrow to Tracy and Jazzer. Talk turns to Tamworth pigs as Tony’s looking to source them for the rewilding site. He says he’s really enjoying his advisory role for the project; Rex and Kirsty talk a lot of sense. While Tony champions the nurturing aspect of rewilding, Brian wonders where food will come from if land continues to be taken out of production. Adam joins the healthy debate.

Adam and Brian discuss the impact of Chris and Amy’s liaison on Alice. Brian says that Jennifer’s furious with Chris; she’s worried it will push Alice back to alcohol. Adam says Chris is a free agent although it’s not very classy getting together with Amy. Brian agrees and understands Jennifer’s concerns, but he has faith in Alice. She’s determined to win custody of Martha and won’t do anything to jeopardise that.


WED 19:15 Front Row (m0015lr5)
Bridgerton showrunner Chris van Dusen, choreographer Ivan Michael Blackstock, William Morris wallpaper

Bridgerton is based on Julia Quinn's best-selling novels, set in the competitive world of Regency era London's ton during the season. The series follows the eight close-knit Bridgerton siblings as they navigate London high society in search of love. Produced by Shonda Rhimes, the showrunner is Chris van Dusen and he joins Front Row to talk about its success.

Acclaimed choreographer Ivan Michael Blackstock, known for his work on Beyoncé videos, talks about his new dance performance piece, Traplord, which explores and challenges the stereotyping of Black men in contemporary western society.

A new exhibition at Dovecot Studios in Edinburgh is showcasing the wallpaper designs of the Victorian polymath William Morris. Joining Elle to discuss seeing his intricate patterns afresh, his inspiration from the natural world and his efforts to democratise design are curator Mary Schoeser and Paul Simmons, co-founder of the Glasgow based design studio Timorous Beasties.

Presenter: Elle Osili-Wood
Producer: Sarah Johnson


WED 20:00 Moral Maze (m0015lr7)
Cleaning the Internet

For a brief moment this month Ukrainians were allowed to call for the death of Vladimir Putin on Instagram and Facebook. That freedom was subsequently withdrawn – “hate speech” isn’t tolerated on those platforms after all. But can Ukrainians really be expected to hold back on how they feel about the Russian military? And maybe we, as bystanders, could do with seeing that anger expressed without the filter of online ‘etiquette’ policies devised by a Silicon Valley CEO. Maybe our rage about Mariupol is all we’ve got, so is it wrong to share it. How should we strike the right balance between reason and raw emotion, without on the one hand caring too little, or on the other hand losing perspective.

The trouble is, if we allow ‘hate speech’ about the Russian President, where do we then draw the line? And what about propaganda, misinformation and conspiracy theories. The social media platforms spend millions on trying to sort truth from lies, but why should it be an internet company that gets to decide? The just-published Online Safety Bill sets out plans to punish internet companies for failing to censor material that is ‘legal but harmful’. The aim is to protect us from the effects of dark images and suggestions. But is it foolish to imply that we can make the internet ‘safe’. And if we agree that the internet will always be dangerous, shouldn’t we cultivate a healthy suspicion of it, rather than a misplaced trust in its moderators. Might it not it be better, and more moral, to teach our children – and trust our fellow-citizens – to think for themselves? With digital researcher Ellen Judson; CEO of Index on Censorship Ruth Smeeth; internet safety expert Will Gardner and former teacher and author Joanna Williams.

Produced by Olive Clancy


WED 20:45 Past Forward: A Century of Sound (m0015lq9)
Talking Technology

Greg Jenner discovers a 1990 innovation that allowed blind people to access newspapers, and speaks to accessibility engineer Leonie Watson and author and disability campaigner Dr Amit Patel about the evolution and implications of digital voice technology.

Marking the centenary of the BBC, Past Forward uses a random date generator to alight somewhere in the BBC's vast archive over the past 100 years. Greg Jenner hears an archive clip for the first time at the top of the programme, and uses it as a starting point in a journey towards the present day. The archive captures a century of British life in a unique way - a history of ordinary people’s lives, as well as news of the great events. Greg uncovers connections through people, places and ideas that link the archive fragment to Britain in 2022, pulling in help from experts and those who remember the time, and looking at how far we've come since then.

Produced by Amelia Parker

[Image description: Presenter Greg Jenner stands holding a microphone - the left side of his body is styled like it's 1922, his right side 2022]


WED 21:00 Costing the Earth (m0015lr9)
[Repeat of broadcast at 15:30 on Tuesday]


WED 21:30 The Media Show (m0015lqn)
[Repeat of broadcast at 16:30 today]


WED 22:00 The World Tonight (m0015lrc)
Zelenksy: Russia trying to show that only "cruel force" matters

In-depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective.


WED 22:45 Passing by Nella Larsen (m0015lq1)
[Repeat of broadcast at 12:04 today]


WED 23:00 The Damien Slash Mixtape (m0015lrf)
Series 4

Episode 3

Multi-character YouTube star Damien Slash is back for a fourth round of zeitgeisty sketches in this new fast-paced, one-man sketch comedy show.

In this edition of the mixtape, we find out the original of Facebook’s algorithm, and how to stop it, Gen-Z return to SAS Who Dares Wins, and a football commentator can’t keep his mind on the beautiful game.

Written by and starring Damien Slash (aka Daniel Barker)
Additional material by Tom Savage

Guest starring Natasia Demetriou.

Production Coordintator: Sarah Sharpe
Sound Editor: Rich Evans

Produced by Gwyn Rhys Davies. A BBC Studios production


WED 23:15 Chris Neill: Raging Enigma (m0015lrh)
Wish You Were Here

Holidays don't always go quite to plan, do they? Chris Neill is joined by Isy Suttie and Martin Hyder, hacking back the undergrowth of his life for the comedy stories buried within.

“A rapid-fire English David Sedaris. Every word is perfectly chosen and perfectly used.” - Miranda Sawyer, The Observer

After ten episodes of Woof, in Raging Enigma Chris Neill continues to reveal the unvarnished realities of being a really quite mediocre man. Memoir continues to underpin these illustrated stand-up shows, and the subject matter will be as varied as before…. But this time without the studio audience.

“Chris Neill’s show is a consummate masterpiece” - Susan Nickson

“Blissfully well written. Neill may be first and foremost a comedian, but his observations are as acute as any novelist’s. Sweet, sharp and very funny.” - The Times

Written by: Chris Neill
Producer: Steve Doherty
A Giddy Goat production for BBC Radio 4


WED 23:30 Today in Parliament (m0015lrk)
All the news from Westminster including the Chancellor's spring statement and a report on Prime Minister's Questions. Presented by Susan Hulme



THURSDAY 24 MARCH 2022

THU 00:00 Midnight News (m0015lrm)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.


THU 00:30 Making History: The Storytellers Who Shaped The Past by Richard Cohen (m0015lrp)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:45 on Wednesday]


THU 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m0015lrr)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.


THU 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m0015lrt)
BBC Radio 4 presents a selection of news and current affairs, arts and science programmes from the BBC World Service.


THU 05:33 Shipping Forecast (m0015lrw)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.


THU 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m0015ls0)
Spiritual reflection to start the day with Linden Bicket, teacher of literature and religion at Edinburgh University's School of Divinity.


THU 05:45 Farming Today (m0015ls2)
24/03/22 - The Welsh NVZ, manure instead of fertiliser and selling lamb direct

A farmer in Lancashire is reported to be spending a lottery win on...fertiliser! The cost of artificial fertilisers has quadrupled this year - some farmers tell us they’re being asked to pay around £1,000 a tonne. The DEFRA Secretary George Eustice says the long term solution is using more manure. We ask an expert whether that could work.

Meanwhile, farmers in Wales face stricter rules on the use of manures - and yesterday NFU Cymru lost its legal bid to change that. The High Court ruled the Welsh Government had not acted illegally in making the whole country a Nitrate Vulnerable Zone to tackle water pollution.

And though over the past few years as a country we’ve been eating less lamb, we visit a farm where a meat box scheme has uncovered a new enthusiasm for the meat.

Presented by Charlotte Smith
Producer for BBC Audio in Bristol by Heather Simons


THU 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b08r1sk7)
Kane Brides on the Coot

Kane Brides of the Slimbridge Wetland Centre on why the humble coot means so much to him.

Producer Miles Warde.


THU 06:00 Today (m0015lwd)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.


THU 09:00 In Our Time (m0015lwj)
Antigone

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss what is reputedly the most performed of all Greek tragedies. Antigone, by Sophocles (c496-c406 BC), is powerfully ambiguous, inviting the audience to reassess its values constantly before the climax of the play resolves the plot if not the issues. Antigone is barely a teenager and is prepared to defy her uncle Creon, the new king of Thebes, who has decreed that nobody should bury the body of her brother, a traitor, on pain of death. This sets up a conflict between generations, between the state and the individual, uncle and niece, autocracy and pluralism, and it releases an enormous tragic energy that brings sudden death to Antigone, her fiance Haemon who is also Creon's son, and to Creon's wife Eurydice, while Creon himself is condemned to a living death of grief.

With

Edith Hall
Professor of Classics at Durham University

Oliver Taplin
Emeritus Professor of Classics, University of Oxford

And

Lyndsay Coo
Senior Lecturer in Ancient Greek Language and Literature at the University of Bristol

Producer: Simon Tillotson


THU 09:45 Making History: The Storytellers Who Shaped The Past by Richard Cohen (m0015lyl)
The Annales School

Richard Cohen examines the storytellers of the past, how they worked and how their writings still influence our ideas about history.

Who were the historians who changed the way history is written? How did their biases affect their accounts? Is there such a thing as objective history?

The series explores lives and works from the Greek historian Herodotus, through the great Roman historians Tacitus and Livy, with their great epic stories of war and plagues, all of them inventing stories to be more reader friendly, and then moving through Arab and Islamic writings, to the medieval historians like Bede and Geoffrey of Monmouth – the latter famous for his economy with the truth, in other words, making it all up.

The great Italian Niccolo Machiavelli became a historian by accident, Voltaire and Edward Gibbon changed the way history was written, breaking away from a God centred universe. Then there's the Red historians from Marx (always in debt and crippled by boils on his skin) to Eric Hobsbawm, the emergence of female historians, and false accounts of history.

Episode 9
The Annales School – the magazine founded in 1929 in France by Marc Bloch and Lucien Febvre where nothing would be out of bounds to the historians writing for it. The most notable of these was Fernand Braudel – his book on the Mediterranean and Philip II was a bestseller – and his heir was Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, bestselling author of the story of religious persecution and goings on in a medieval village called Montaillou in the South of France.

Author: Richard Cohen
Abridger: Libby Spurrier
Reader: Alex Jennings
Producer: Celia de Wolff

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4


THU 10:00 Woman's Hour (m0015lwn)
Actor Ruth Wilson. Kinship Care. Rear Admiral Jude Terry. Body hair in history.

Best known for The Affair and Luther, and more recently playing her own grandmother in a BBC drama, actor Ruth Wilson joins Emma to talk about her two latest roles – on the London stage in The Human Voice and on screen in True Things.

Jude Terry is the first female Rear Admiral in the Royal Navy’s history. Since joining the Navy in 1997, she has served aboard HMS Scott, and spent two spells with helicopter carrier HMS Ocean, during operations in the Baltic and the Gulf. Two months into her post, Emma talks to her about her new role.

What’s the best way of looking after children who can no longer stay with their birth parents when a family breaks down? Woman’s Hour understands that the Independent Review of Social Care in England is set to recommend that there should be a renewed focus on alternatives to care with a major focus on kinship care. As the charity Kinship sets out its vision of what needs to change, Emma talks to its Chief Executive, Dr Lucy Peake, and to Meyrem, about what it’s like to be a kinship carer.

Woman's Hour delves into the archive to remember Madeleine Albright, the first US Secretary of State.

As the Taliban announces girls will not be allowed to attend secondary school, we hear the voices of girls heartbroken by the decision and the reaction of Malala Yousafzai.

Why don't women in period dramas have body hair? TV shows go to huge lengths with their sets, costumes and wigs to make you feel like you’re looking back at the past but why – given hair removal is a fairly modern development - is body hair so rarely seen? Historian, Dr Marissa C Rhodes joins Emma to discuss.

Presenter: Emma Barnett
Producer: Alison Carter

Photo Credit: Jan Versweyveld.


THU 11:00 From Our Own Correspondent (m0015lwq)
Ukraine's Unified Resistance

It’s one month since Russia first invaded Ukraine, under the pretext of 'denazifying' the country. But President Putin’s calculation that his troops would be greeted as liberators by Russian-speaking Ukrainians has proved to be wrong. Nick Sturdee has found that the invasion appears to have unified disparate parts of the Ukrainian population.

Romania's Prime Minister pledged 'unconditional political support' for Ukraine in February, and so far has welcomed more than half a million refugees. Jen Stout has been to one of the border crossings and finds the arrival of the Ukrainians has helped locals forget their own differences.

In Washington DC, the process of holding those responsible for the storming of the US Capitol last year reached a new phase, as the first trial came to court earlier this month. Tara McKelvey spent time watching the trial of Guy Reffitt, whose own son took to the stand to testify against him.

This year, Ecuador’s president signed a declaration to expand the boundaries of the Galapagos Marine Reserve by more than 23,000 square miles. Mark Stratton finds out how this will make a difference to the lives of local fisherman.

The Caribbean island of Martinique is an overseas territory of France. Today it has a semi-autonomous status, but over the last decade, relations have deteriorated with their old colonisers. Lindsay Johns remembers a soldier from Martinique, who fought proudly for the French while still having to endure racism.

Presenter: Kate Adie
Producer: Serena Tarling
Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith


THU 11:30 Whipped (m0014x7s)
The role of the Government Whips’ Office has been at the centre of the recent storm engulfing Boris Johnson. The Whips have traditionally provided a vital link between the Prime Minister and the backbenches, but that relationship has been tested to breaking point. Ben Wright looks at whether the system of whipping in Parliament can endure and whether there are now too many conflicting loyalties for MPs. Will the combination of Brexit divisions, the pandemic and a crisis of leadership change the way the Whips operate on both sides of the House of Commons?

Contributors include William Wragg MP, Caroline Nokes MP, Mark Harper MP, Mark Tami MP, Lord McLoughlin, Miriam Cates MP and Bronwen Maddox.

Producer: Peter Snowdon


THU 12:00 News Summary (m0015m1c)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


THU 12:04 Passing by Nella Larsen (m0015lwv)
Episode 4

In mid-1920s America, the Harlem renaissance of black culture and society may be underway but racism still runs deep through the habits and laws of the country. Clare Kendry has severed all ties to her impoverished past in the black community of Chicago. Elegant, fair-skinned and ambitious, she is now married to a wealthy white man who is unaware of her African-American heritage.

When she renews her acquaintance with her childhood friend Irene, who is similarly light skinned but has not hidden her background, both women are forced to reassess their friendship and loyalties.

Nella Larsen's intense and psychologically nuanced portrayal of lives and identities dangerously colliding, first published in 1929, has recently found new audiences in the cinema and now also as an English literature A -level set text.

Written by Nella Larsen
Read by Ayesha Antoine
Abridged by Isobel Creed
Produced by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4


THU 12:18 You and Yours (m0015lwx)
Fuel Prices; Renting Furniture; Boiler Upgrade Scheme

The chancellor yesterday cut fuel duty by 5p in a bid to try to ease the cost of living crisis. Analysts are watching carefully to see if the cut is passed on by retailers at the pumps. The supermarket Asda was the first to respond, cutting prices by 6p, before others followed suit. But reports say the cut only puts prices back to where they were at fortnight ago. We hear from motorists on whether it'll make much difference.

Rishi Sunak also reduced VAT on air source heat pumps to 0%, down from five per cent. It comes as the Government's new plan to persuade us to give up our gas boilers launches next week. It's a grant scheme that offers £5,000 off the upfront cost of an air source heat pump. We look at what's involved in switching to a heat pump.

And the idea of renting furniture isn't new but has it taken off? John Lewis started a trial in London in 2020 and have since expanded to other cities including Bristol, Manchester, Reading and Liverpool. We'll hear the pros and cons and speak to one entrepreneur who's launching his own furniture rental business.

PRESENTER: Winifred Robinson
PRODUCER: Simon Hoban


THU 12:57 Weather (m0015lwz)
The latest weather forecast


THU 13:00 World at One (m0015lx1)
Forty-five minutes of news, analysis and comment, with Sarah Montague.


THU 13:45 Past Forward: A Century of Sound (m0015lx3)
The Teen Age

Greg Jenner hears a clip from 1961 sitcom Citizen James, and chats to social historian Carol Dyhouse and social entrepreneur Daisy Cresswell about generational differences between teenagers and their parents.

Marking the centenary of the BBC, Past Forward uses a random date generator to alight somewhere in the BBC's vast archive over the past 100 years. Greg Jenner hears an archive clip for the first time at the top of the programme, and uses it as a starting point in a journey towards the present day. The archive captures a century of British life in a unique way - a history of ordinary people’s lives, as well as news of the great events. Greg uncovers connections through people, places and ideas that link the archive fragment to Britain in 2022, pulling in help from experts and those who remember the time, and looking at how far we've come since then.

Produced by Amelia Parker


THU 14:00 The Archers (m0015lr3)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Wednesday]


THU 14:15 Our Friends in the North (m0015lx5)
Episode 2: 1966

Peter Flannery once famously said of Our Friends in the North, "I've always said it's just a posh soap opera - but it's a posh soap opera with something to say."

And now he has rewritten his multi-award winning and highly acclaimed television series as an audio drama for BBC Radio 4.

Ambitious in scale and scope, the drama chronicles the lives of four friends over three decades beginning in the 1960s. The series tackles corporate, political and police corruption in the 1960s, the rise and fall of the Soho porn empires in the 1970s, the nouveau riche and the Miners’ Strike of the 1980s and the rise of New Labour in the 1990s. Some of the stories are directly based on the real-life controversies involving T. Dan Smith and John Poulson in Newcastle during the 60s and 70s.

And the adapted series will now end with a new, tenth episode by writer Adam Usden, bringing the story up to the present day.

The second episode opens in 1966, with Mary and Tosker married and bringing up their baby in a brand new high-rise council flat. Both the flat and the marriage are already showing cracks. Geordie’s in London, soon working for porn baron Benny Barratt, who’s facing crackdowns from the police and a Soho turf battle with a rival gang. Geordie is exactly who Barratt needs. In Newcastle, Nicky and Mary miss seeing each other, but she’s pregnant again and determined to make her marriage work. Nicky is increasingly disillusioned with Austin Donohue and his connections with developer John Edwards. He’s on the brink of another life-changing decision.

Cast
Austin Donohue / Charlie: Tom Goodman-Hill
John Edwards: Maanuv Thiara
Nicky: James Baxter
Geordie: Luke MacGregor
Mary / Julia: Norah Lopez-Holden
D.S. Conrad: Andrew Byron
Benny Barratt: Tony Hirst
Tosker / D.I Salway: Philip Correia
Ernie: Des Yankson
Arthur Watson: James Gaddas

Writer: Peter Flannery
Studio Engineer: Paul Clark
Sound Design: Eloise Whitmore
Producer: Melanie Harris
Executive Producer: Jeremy Mortimer

A Sparklab production for BBC Radio 4


THU 15:00 Ramblings (m0015lx7)
Old and New Winchelsea with historian Dr Matthew Green

The walk begins on the shingle at Winchelsea Beach - the possible site of the drowned city that was engulfed by waves in the 11th century. Crossing the marshy fields inland Clare and Matthew climb the steep hill to the gate of the rebuilt and fortified town of Winchelsea that was once a thriving wine port. They walk through the town passing open wine cellars as they go. The town was built on a grid system and as with similar towns in France and Italy it became known as a medieval Manhattan. Trade with European ports in France, Italy, Spain and Portugal was vibrant and it was said that in the Middle Ages Winchelsea was close to becoming the wine capital of Europe. Fierce fighting took place between its citizens and bands of marauding pirates from across the Channel to protects its wealth and prosperity.
Dr Matthew Green specialises in walking as a way of understanding history and gives wine and gin tours in London. He says he prefers to try and understand how people lived and felt at the time they were living rather than to focus on the politics and conflicts of the past.
Crossing into fields on the south side of Winchelsea they walk over buried streets of houses, a hospital and the market place down to the stone towngate on the road to Icklesham.
Having submerged the original town, the sea then played another cruel trick on Winchelsea. Large deposits of shingle amassed meaning ships could no longer enter the harbour. Trade dwindled and the town declined. Only around a third of the original settlement remains.

Producer: Maggie Ayre


THU 15:27 Radio 4 Appeal (m0015ksb)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:54 on Sunday]


THU 15:30 Open Book (m0015kt5)
[Repeat of broadcast at 16:00 on Sunday]


THU 16:00 The Curious Cases of Rutherford & Fry (m0015lx9)
Series 19

The Colour Conundrum

The world is full of colour! But, wonders listener Maya Crocombe, ‘how do we see colour and why are some people colour blind?’

Dr Rutherford and Professor Fry set out to understand how special light-sensitive cells in our eyes start the process of colour perception, why people sometimes have very different experiences of colour and whether, in the end, colour is really just ‘in our heads’.

Dr Gabriele Jordan from Newcastle University explains why lots of men struggle to discriminate between certain colours and why there were lots of complaints from colour-blind viewers when Wales played Ireland at rugby.

Professor Anya Hurlbert, also from Newcastle University, tackles the most divisive of internet images: The Dress! Did you see it as blue-black or yellow-gold? Anya explains why people see it so differently, and why our ability to compensate for available light is so useful.

Finally, Dr Mazviita Chirimuuta, a philosopher at the University of Edinburgh, gives us her take on what all this means: are colours real, or just in our minds?

If you want to see some of the images and activities referenced in the episode read on...
To take the colour perception test which Hannah and Adam do in the epsiode, search for the 'Farnsworth Munsell Hue test' - you can do it online for free.
To see the Dunstanborough Castle illusion as described in the episode, check out the Gallery section on the Curious Cases BBC website.
To learn more about colour blindness, and for support and resources go to colourblindawareness.org

Producer: Ilan Goodman


THU 16:30 BBC Inside Science (m0015lxc)
Racial inequality in UK science

This month the Royal Society of Chemistry released a shocking report on racial inequality at all stages of academia, from research funding to career progression. Black scientists in particular are unfairly disadvantaged when it comes to funding allocation. This is bad for them, bad for science, and bad for society. So how do we change things? Dr Diego Baptista from the Wellcome Trust, Professor Melanie Welham from the UKRI, and Dr Addy Adelaine, from the non-profit organisation Ladders4Action, join us to discuss the issue.

Both of Earth’s poles were hit by heatwaves this week. The Arctic was 30 degrees above average for this time of year, and the Antarctic was an unprecedented 40 degrees above average. We are seeing more extreme temperatures everywhere on earth, but for both poles to experience such heatwaves at the same time is highly unusual. Ed Blockley of the Met Office’s Polar Climate Group explains what’s going on.

One of the simplest ways to improve your local environment is to plant a hedge, which not only helps wildlife but can reduce flooding and pollution. But what kind of hedge should you plant? Scientists at the University of Reading and the Royal Horticultural Society are beginning a two year experiment to see which combinations of hedges bring the most benefits. Dr Tijana Blanusa tells us why planting hedges and generally greening our gardens is so important in the current climate.

Presented by Gaia Vince
Producer Cathy Edwards
Assistant Producer Emily Bird


THU 17:00 PM (m0015lxh)
Afternoon news and current affairs programme, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines.


THU 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m0015lxr)
Nato to deploy thousands more troops to Eastern Europe because of 'a new security reality'

NATO approves deployment of thousands more troops to eastern Europe. Ukraine claims to have destroyed massive Russian warship. P&O boss admits breaking the law over mass sackings


THU 18:30 Big Problems with Helen Keen (b09c0pw8)
Series 2

Personality

This week's Big Problem with Helen Keen is; Personality

Who are we? Why do we have a personality? Do different brains give us different personalities? Does our environment shape our personality? Is, as they believed in Shakespeare's day, the liver still the seat of the passions?

As humanity faces a very big raft of very varied problems, many of them of its own making, here is a series of optimistic, scientifically literate yet comically nimble shows that offer a sweeping overview of the biggest challenges we face and the science behind them. We look at the often surprising solutions of past generations and the likely and unlikely solutions of the future and present a scrupulously researched comedy celebrating human ingenuity.

Written by Helen Keen, Jenny Laville, Lloyd Langford and Carrie Quinlan and special thanks to Professor Richard Wiseman.
Cast: Helen Keen, Jon Culshaw and Susy Kane.
Producer was Katie Tyrrell and it was a BBC Studios Production.


THU 19:00 The Archers (m0015l0n)
Beth bumps into Lily in a Felpersham chocolate shop and they get chatting about siblings. Later over cocktails Lily recounts cuddling the Easter Bunny who she thought was Russ. When Beth teases Lily about her and Russ’ relationship, Lily reveals she slept with a colleague a few months ago. Beth is shocked at the admission and gets cross. Lily asks her not to tell anyone else. Lily explains her infidelity has helped her see that she does love Russ and that she needed to connect with him properly. Things between them are better now.

Ian pops over to Ambridge View to share some gossip about the Gleeson twins being champion ballroom dancers in their youth. The chat cheers Ian who is feeling down about Grey Gables having so few customers since lockdown. Talk turns to comfort food and Susan’s surprised to hear Ian’s choice would be tomato soup with cheese and bread followed by a particular instant dessert. Ian’s over the moon when Susan pulls a packet of that very dessert from the cupboard.

After languishing in her room for days, Amy tells Usha and Alan about sleeping with Chris. They are both understanding and remind Amy that Chris also has responsibility for what happened. Amy shares with them how she poured vodka away for Alice and worries that her and Chris’ liaison might push Alice back to drinking. Alan says that alcoholism is a complex illness and she can’t take responsibility for the decisions Alice makes. He comforts sobbing Amy as she apologises for making a mess of everything.


THU 19:15 Front Row (m0015lxw)
The Hermit of Treig film and Anne Tyler's novel French Braid reviewed; Erich Hatala Matthes on art and morality

Critics Viv Groskop and Hanna Flint review The Hermit of Treig, a documetary film made by Lizzie Mackenzie who follows Ken Smith, a man who has spent the past four decades living in a log cabin nestled near Loch Treig, known as 'the lonely loch' – an intimate and warm picture of a man whose choice of the hermit life becomes more challenging as he ages.

Anne Tyler’s latest novel, French Braid, is sure to be welcomed by her legions of fans. As always, it’s the story of a Baltimore family - this time she follows their foibles over the decades. Her books are praised for their deceptively simple style hiding a world of complexity and insight. Viv and Hanna assess whether – at age 80 - this is a vintage story from the novelist.

In his book Drawing the Line, philosopher Erich Hatala Matthes explores the relationship between artworks of all kinds and the morality of the minds behind them. Are our aesthetic views tainted by the knowledge that the artist is unethical or immoral? How should we react? Should we boycott or ban them based on the views or behaviour of the creators? Erich joins Tom Sutcliffe to discuss the dilemmas raised by these issues.

Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Harry Parker

Photo: Ken Smith in a still from the film The Hermit of Treig Credit: Aruna Productions


THU 20:00 The Briefing Room (m0015ly0)
Russia's invasion: what more can the west do to help Ukraine?

It's a month now since Russian forces invaded Ukraine. The west have sanctioned Russia and provided aid packages to Ukraine but what more can it do to help Ukraine win the war?

Joining David Aaronovitch in The Briefing Room are:

Gustav Gressel, senior policy fellow with the Wider Europe Programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) Berlin office.

Dr Sarah Schiffling, International research fellow at the Humanitarian Logistics Institute in Helsinki, Finland and senior lecturer in supply chain management at Liverpool John Moores University.

Javier Blas, energy and commodities columnist at Bloomberg and co-author of the 'The World for Sale’.

Algirde Pipikaite, cybersecurity and digital transformation policy expert at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland.

Producers: Ben Carter, Kirsteen Knight, Octavia Woodward and Louise Clarke-Rowbotham
Production Co-ordinators: Iona Hammond and Siobhan Reed
Studio Manager: Neil Churchill
Editor: Richard Vadon


THU 20:30 The Bottom Line (m0015ly4)
Business and Energy

How will soaring energy costs affect UK corporations? Prices are spiking, not least because of the war in Ukraine. Energy is essential for everything from heating offices to transportation to manufacturing, so what happens when it just becomes too expensive? Evan Davis and guests discuss the current energy crisis and ask how long is it likely to last and what we can do to reduce the vulnerability of our businesses.

GUESTS
Michael Lewis, Eon Energy
Natalie Quail, Founder Smiletime
Tina McKenzie, Federation of Small Businesses
Gareth Stace, UK Steel
Producer: Lucinda Borrell
Production Coordinators: Siobhan Reed and Sophie Hill
Sound: Neil Churchill and Rod Farquhar
Editor: Hugh Levinson

The programme was produced in partnership with the Open University.


THU 21:00 BBC Inside Science (m0015lxc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 16:30 today]


THU 21:30 In Our Time (m0015lwj)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]


THU 22:00 The World Tonight (m0015lyb)
Emergency NATO summit in Brussels

In-depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective.


THU 22:45 Passing by Nella Larsen (m0015lwv)
[Repeat of broadcast at 12:04 today]


THU 23:00 Gaby's Talking Pictures (b0b9109v)
Series 1

Episode 5

Gaby Roslin hosts the funny, entertaining film quiz with impressions by Alistair McGowan and Ronni Ancona. This week, team captains John Thomson and Ellie Taylor are joined by special guests Tiff Stevenson and Kerry Howard.

Presented by Gaby Roslin
Team Captains: John Thomson and Ellie Taylor
Impressionists: Alistair McGowan and Ronni Ancona
Created by Gaby Roslin
Written by Carrie Quinlan and Barney Newman

Produced by Gordon Kennedy, Gaby Roslin and Barney Newman
An Absolutely production for BBC Radio 4.


THU 23:30 Today in Parliament (m0015lyg)
Sean Curran reports on a grilling for the boss of P&O Ferries after he sacked 800 workers.



FRIDAY 25 MARCH 2022

FRI 00:00 Midnight News (m0015lyj)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.


FRI 00:30 Making History: The Storytellers Who Shaped The Past by Richard Cohen (m0015lyl)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:45 on Thursday]


FRI 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m0015lyn)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.


FRI 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m0015lyq)
BBC Radio 4 presents a selection of news and current affairs, arts and science programmes from the BBC World Service.


FRI 05:33 Shipping Forecast (m0015lys)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.


FRI 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m0015lyx)
Spiritual reflection to start the day with Linden Bicket, teacher of literature and religion at Edinburgh University's School of Divinity.


FRI 05:45 Farming Today (m0015lyz)
25/03/22 - NI badger cull, shellfish deaths and lamb imports

There is to be a badger cull in Northern Ireland as part of measures to control TB in cattle. Announcing the move the Agriculture Minister, Edwin Poots, said the cull would be only in targeted areas and will not be a wholesale removal of badgers. Farmers in Northern Ireland have been critical of the time it has taken to get this decision, but wildlife charities said the policy is unjustifiable and morally wrong, and legal challenges have already been issued against the proposed cull.

Fishers in Whitby say they’re unsure the industry will ever recover after widespread shellfish deaths along the North East Coast of England last winter. As we’ve reported they’re unhappy with official explanations about what's causing the problem - but now the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has closed its investigation into the deaths for a second time. It says surveys done this month found healthy catches of crabs and lobsters - but fishermen are still concerned.

And talks between Canada and the UK about a Free Trade Agreement are underway. Canada is the world’s fifth largest exporter of agricultural and agri-food products.

Presented by Charlotte Smith
Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Heather Simons


FRI 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b08r2n4c)
Peter Cranswick on the Common Scoter

Peter Cranswick of the Slimbridge Wetland Centre on the amazing common scoter.

Tweet of the Day has captivated the Radio 4 audience with its daily 90 seconds of birdsong.

Producer Miles Warde.


FRI 06:00 Today (m0015kzx)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.


FRI 09:00 Desert Island Discs (m0015ksq)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:00 on Sunday]


FRI 09:45 Making History: The Storytellers Who Shaped The Past by Richard Cohen (m0015l1w)
Bad History - truth versus patriotism

Richard Cohen examines the storytellers of the past, how they worked and how their writings still influence our ideas about history.

Who were the historians who changed the way history is written? How did their biases affect their accounts? Is there such a thing as objective history?

The series explores lives and works from the Greek historian Herodotus, through the great Roman historians Tacitus and Livy, with their great epic stories of war and plagues, all of them inventing stories to be more reader friendly, and then moving through Arab and Islamic writings, to the medieval historians like Bede and Geoffrey of Monmouth – the latter famous for his economy with the truth, in other words, making it all up.

The great Italian Niccolo Machiavelli became a historian by accident, Voltaire and Edward Gibbon changed the way history was written, breaking away from a God centred universe. Then there's the Red historians from Marx (always in debt and crippled by boils on his skin) to Eric Hobsbawm, the emergence of female historians, and false accounts of history.

Episode 10
Truth telling versus patriotism. The Hungarian government and the Japanese governments covering up atrocities, the US covering up the My Lai massacre, Putin working with the Stasi in East Germany to destroy incriminating documents in the 1980s which are now being restored. Oral history, history programmes on television from AJP Taylor to the American Ken Burns’ series on the American Civil War. And what should a historian ideally be?

Author: Richard Cohen
Abridger: Libby Spurrier
Reader: Alex Jennings
Producer: Celia de Wolff

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4


FRI 10:00 Woman's Hour (m0015l03)
Separate duvets, Asma Khan, South Asian women in Regency England

Ammu, a term used mostly in South Asian Muslim homes for mother, is the title of Asma Khan’s new book. Part memoir, part cookbook 'Ammu' is a celebration of the food she loves to make but also of the woman who nurtured her and taught her to cook. Drawing on her experiences during the pandemic, the chef and founder of the acclaimed restaurant Darjeeling Express, celebrates the power of home cooking and the link between food and love.

How important are your sleeping arrangements in a relationship? Recently the journalist Sally Peck swapped one duvet for two in bed with her husband, and now she can’t imagine going back. Sally joins Chloe to explore what difference this simple change made to her marriage.

The second series of Bridgerton starts today and features Simone Ashley, a British actor of South Asian descent, in a lead role. She plays Kate Sharma, who has recently arrived in London and quickly draws the attention of Anthony Bridgerton. But what was life really like for South Asian women in Britain during this era? Professor Durba Ghosh lectures on Modern South Asia, the British empire and Colonialism at Cornell University.

Presenter: Chloe Tilley
Producer: Kirsty Starkey

Interviewed Guest: Asma Khan
Interviewed Guest: Sally Peck
Interviewed Guest: Professor Durba Ghosh


FRI 11:00 The Smugglers' Trail (m0015l05)
The UK Based Gangs

With the smuggling operations becoming ever more sophisticated and with networks now spanning the globe, Sue Mitchell and Rob Lawrie are on the trail of British based gangs involved in human trafficking.

In this programme they hear from people in those gangs about how things work and the risks that are taken with human life. Confronting one smuggler leads to his admission that the profits are so huge from illegal boat and lorry crossings that he can not stop. He admits there are dangers to the migrants involved, but claims that he has also had a hard life and needs this financial security.

Another smuggler talks of ways they avoid detection, including paying off French police - an account which is later put to the French authorities. From the UK investigative side the head of the National Crime Agency's Organised Immigration Crime Division, Martin Grace, says there are more than fifty operations underway and there have been a number of successful prosecutions to date. One problem faced is the delicate balancing act, where the need to collect evidence has to be weighed against the need to intervene when risks are faced at sea.

Throughout this programme we follow the experiences of fifteen year old Bit Bok: two years ago she was on the French camp negotiating the passage for her, her brother, sister and parents. They are now settled in Gateshead and she is on the brink of seeing her acting dreams become a reality: she's auditioning for a place on a prestigious course. The bravery she showed in the boat crossing is even playing a part in the dramatic monologue she performs at her audition and as she waits to hear the results she reflects on the direction her life has taken.

Reporter: Sue Mitchell


FRI 11:30 Ankle Tag (b0939hpp)
Series 1

The Church

Bob gets a job as a bingo caller, and Gruff and Alice want to get Carys baptized.

Elis James and Katy Wix star as new parents Gruff and Alice, whose lives are disrupted after career fraudster Bob moved in.

Written by Gareth Gwynn and Benjamin Partridge.

Gruff ...... Elis James
Alice ...... Katy Wix
Bob ...... Steve Speirs
Father Mike ...... Mike Wozniak
Ena ...... Morwenna Banks
Ruby ...... Shola Adewusi

Producer: Victoria Lloyd

A BBC Studios production for BBC Radio 4, first broadcast in 2017.


FRI 12:00 News Summary (m0015lzx)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


FRI 12:04 Passing by Nella Larsen (m0015l09)
Episode 5

In mid-1920s America, the Harlem renaissance of black culture and society may be underway but racism still runs deep through the habits and laws of the country. Clare Kendry has severed all ties to her impoverished past in the black community of Chicago. Elegant, fair-skinned and ambitious, she is now married to a wealthy white man who is unaware of her African-American heritage.

When she renews her acquaintance with her childhood friend Irene, who is similarly light skinned but has not hidden her background, both women are forced to reassess their friendship and loyalties.

Nella Larsen's intense and psychologically nuanced portrayal of lives and identities dangerously colliding, first published in 1929, has recently found new audiences in the cinema and now also as an English literature A -level set text.

Written by Nella Larsen
Read by Ayesha Antoine
Abridged by Isobel Creed
Produced by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4


FRI 12:18 You and Yours (m0015l0d)
Travel vaccination rules, British fish tastes, Property market

In the last week coming home from a trip abroad has become a lot easier. There's no paperwork or tests to worry about any more. It's just like it was before the pandemic - but only when you're coming back. On the way out of the UK, the rules are still set by the country you're heading off to. Most still have some restrictions in place and entry requirements can also change at any point. But as travellers emerge from the depths of the pandemic, many are struggling to understand different countries' rules on vaccinations. We hear from a listener trying to make sense of France's vaccination rules for people entering from the UK. We also speak to Simon Calder, Travel Editor of the Independent and Sean Tipton from ABTA - The Travel Association.

We explore whether renaming some fish might make it more appealing to British taste buds. The Cornish Fish Producers Organisation says it can make a real difference. They've rebranded two types of fish - Megrim sole has been renamed Cornish sole and Spider crab is now known as Cornish King crab. Both are big exports but very little stays in the UK. The chef, Jack Stein, born and bred in Cornwall, tells us why he thinks the rebrand could change minds and hearts.

House prices across the UK just keep on climbing. For the first time, the average asking price for a new property is more than £350,000. According to Rightmove, there's now twice as many buyers as sellers active in the market. But some experts say it won't be long before the property bubble bursts. We speak to Henry Davis, a property developer with more than 30 years experience and author of a new book, The Truth about Property.

Presenter: Peter White
Producer: Tara Holmes


FRI 12:57 Weather (m0015l0g)
The latest weather forecast


FRI 13:00 World at One (m0015l0j)
Forty-five minutes of news, analysis and comment, with Edward Stourton.


FRI 13:45 Past Forward: A Century of Sound (m0015l0l)
Louie Hooper sings Lord Rendall

Greg Jenner hears a recording of the song Lord Rendall (sometimes known as Lord Randall) by Somerset folk singer Louie Hooper.

The recording was made in 1942 by the pioneering radio producer Douglas Cleverdon.

With his guests, the playwright Nell Leyshon and Tom Gray from the band Gomez, Greg explores the idea of musical ownership and how musicians are remunerated today.

Marking the centenary of the BBC, Past Forward uses a random date generator to alight somewhere in the BBC's vast archive over the past 100 years. Greg Jenner hears an archive clip for the first time at the top of the programme, and uses it as a starting point in a journey towards the present day. The archive captures a century of British life in a unique way - a history of ordinary people’s lives, as well as news of the great events. Greg uncovers connections through people, places and ideas that link the archive fragment to Britain in 2022, pulling in help from experts and those who remember the time, and looking at how far we've come since then.

Producer: Martin Williams


FRI 14:00 The Archers (m0015l0n)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Thursday]


FRI 14:15 Drama (m0015l0q)
The Road and the Miles to Dundee

Renowned Scottish crime writer Val McDermid’s semi-autobiographical queer tale of avoiding love on the rebound and the power of family memory, with songs from Barbara Dickson as you’ve never heard her before.

Famous writer Stella has always been haunted by the song her dad used to sing at family gatherings, The Road and the Miles to Dundee. Coming out of a bad break up, and in tears from hearing that song again, Stella meets Jen, a new writer, headed for the same literary festival.

They hit it off at once. Stella becomes tempted to break her own long-standing rules but that damn song just keeps getting in the way.

With flashbacks to her formative experiences, and family songs and renditions that she cherishes and loathes in equal measure, Stella enables Jen to see the woman behind the famous novelist. Stella however, is expert at shooting herself in the foot, and meeting Jen is no exception.

The two women have very different visions of what should happen next, but whose vision will prevail?

CAST
Stella … .…………………Louise Oliver
Jen .………………….…. Susannah Laing
Aunt Jean/Betty ……….. Barbara Dickson
Dad… ……………. ……. John Kazek
Andy …..…….………… Michael Monroe
Tenor …………………… Cameron Goodall

Written by Val McDermid
Produced and directed by Turan Ali
A Bona Broadcasting production for BBC Radio 4

The Road and the Miles to Dundee is the third of three LGBTQ+ short dramas commissioned by Radio 4 for this Friday half hour slot from queer BAME production company Bona Broadcasting. The other two dramas are written by Rikki Beadle-Blair (Whoopsie, 3rd December 2021) and Philip Meeks, (Twenty Odd, 4th February 2022) - both available to hear on BBC Sounds.


FRI 14:45 Helen Lewis: Great Wives (m000zdvk)
Series 1

Thanks for Typing

For two decades, Great Lives on Radio 4 has explored what it takes to change the world. But Helen Lewis wants to ask a different question: what does it take to live with someone who changes the world?

Behind the history of genius lies a second, hidden history: the stories of people who give geniuses the time they need to flourish. This series explores the many "supporting roles" needed to sustain an apparently "singular" genius.

In this episode, Helen turns her attention to those less well-known other halves who have taken on not just the role of Great Wife but also that of typist. We meet Sonya Tolstaya, Vera Nabokov and hear what happened when the English professor Bruce Holsinger researched the phrase "my wife typed".

Written by Helen Lewis with additional voices from Joshua Higgott
Producer: Richard Morris
Production Coordinator: Sarah Nicholls
Sound Design: Chris Maclean

A BBC Studios Production


FRI 15:00 Gardeners' Question Time (m0015l0s)
Gardeners' Question Time: Exbury Gardens

Kathy Clugston is in the village of Exbury in Hampshire. She's joined by Pippa Greenwood, Matthew Wilson and Christine Walkden to answer the audience's horticultural queries.

This week, the panellists discuss the best way to eliminate horsetail and green fly, pollinator-friendly plants for year-round flowers, and the use of the word 'dirt'.

Stepping away from the questions, Pippa Greenwood meets Exbury Gardens' Head Gardener Tom Clarke as he shows her around the dragonfly pond.

Producer: Daniel Cocker
Assistant Producer: Bethany Hocken

A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4


FRI 15:45 After Wonderland (b03z3kt0)
Yellow Brick Road

The last of three monologues by Sheila Yeger imagining the adult lives of characters from children's literature.

Dorothy de la Rue has become a Grande Dame of Romantic Fiction. But this sharp-tongued southern empress holds a terrible, wonderful secret.

Dorothy is played by Sandra Dickinson; the producer is James Cook.


FRI 16:00 Last Word (m0015l0v)
Bruce Page, Dottie Frazier, Josephine Veasey (pictured), Maynard Davies

Matthew Bannister on

Bruce Page, the investigative journalist best known for leading the Sunday Times Insight team’s expose of the Thalidomide scandal.

Dottie Frazier, the pioneering American scuba diver who kept a boa constrictor as a pet and rode a motorcycle until she was in her nineties.

Josephine Veasey, the British mezzo-soprano acclaimed for her performances in works by Wagner and Berlioz.

And Maynard Davies, who left school unable to read and write, went on to become a well-known bacon curer and chronicled his extraordinary life in a series of books.

Producer: Neil George

Interviewed guest: Magnus Linklater
Interviewed guest: Peter Kellner
Interviewed guest: Alec Peirce
Interviewed guest: Karen Straus
Interviewed guest: Una Barry
Interviewed guest: Karen McCall

Archive clips used: AP Archive, How West Germany Treats Thalidomide Children 10/12/1972; BBC One, The Editors: Press and Politicians 02/07/1978; Alec Peirce Scuba Channel, Dottie Frazier - A Diving Legend 09/01/2020; BBC Radio 4, A Musical Evening - Josephine Veasey 01/08/1985; YouTube - TheScottReaProject/Channel 4, Interview with Maynard Davies 1996; BBC Radio 4, The Food Programme - Interview with Maynard Davies 23/07/2000; AmericanRhetoric.com/YouTube Channel, Madeleine Albright - International Women's Day speech 08/03/2010.


FRI 16:30 Feedback (m0015l0x)
As the airwaves and social media are flooded with disinformation, how can listeners find out what is really happening in Ukraine, and see through the conspiracy of lies pouring out of Russia? Roger Bolton talks to the BBC World Service’s Disinformation Editor Rebecca Skippage, about the darkening fog of war.

Also, John Wilson talks about Radio 4’s This Cultural Life, and how he tries to get to the heart of the creative process.

And has the new Radio 4 adaptation of the award-winning TV serial Our Friends In The North made friends with our listeners?

Presenter: Roger Bolton
Producer: Kate Dixon
Executive Producer: Samir Shah

A Juniper Connect production for BBC Radio 4


FRI 17:00 PM (m0015l0z)
Afternoon news and current affairs programme, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines.


FRI 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m0015l13)
Moscow says it's changing it's strategy in Ukraine, to focus on two Russian-backed separatist areas

Moscow says the focus of its campaign in Ukraine will now be on the Donbas region, including Russian-backed separatist areas


FRI 18:30 The Now Show (m0015l15)
Series 60

Episode 3

Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis present the week via topical stand-up and sketches.


FRI 19:00 Letter from Ukraine (m0015nr9)
Displaced Lives

Ukrainian writer Andrey Kurkov gives a personal account of the adjustments and displacements of war.

Written and read by Andrey Kurkov
Translated by Elizabeth Sharp
Produced by Emma Harding

Production co-ordinator Eleri McAuliffe
Technical producer Catherine Robinson

A BBC Cymru Wales production for BBC Radio 4


FRI 19:15 Add to Playlist (m0015l17)
Ayanna Witter-Johnson and Joe Stilgoe round off the latest playlist

Vocalist, cellist and composer Ayanna Witter-Johnson, and pianist and performer Joe Stilgoe, help Cerys Matthews and Jeffrey Boakye complete the series.

A feminist anthem and a heart-warming classic rub up against some very high bpm as they round off this playlist of 40 tracks.

Presenters Cerys Matthews and Jeffrey Boakye
Producer Jerome Weatherald

The five tracks in this week's playlist:

I'm a Woman by Koko Taylor
9 to 5 by Dolly Parton
The Typewriter by Leroy Anderson
Original Nuttah by UK Apache and Shy FX
God Only Knows by The Beach Boys

Other music in this episode:

Anthem by N-Joi
Blockbuster by Sweet
Wang Dang Doodle by Koko Taylor
More Than a Woman by Aaliyah
This Woman's Work by Kate Bush
Lose Yourself by Eminem
Sleigh Ride by Leroy Anderson
Amen Brother by The Winstons
I Desire by Salt-N-Pepa
Straight Outta Compton by N.W.A.
Firestarter by The Prodigy
You Know I'm No Good by Amy Winehouse


FRI 20:00 Any Questions? (m0015l19)
Stella Creasy MP, Alexander Downer, Miatta Fahnbulleh, Baroness Neville-Jones

Chris Mason presents political debate and discussion from Wyvern School in Ashford with a panel which includes the Labour MP Stella Creasy; the Former Foreign Minister of Australia, Alexander Downer; the Chief Executive of The New Economics Foundation Miatta Fahnbulleh, and the Conservative peer and former Chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee Baroness Neville-Jones.
Producer: Richard Hooper
Lead broadcast engineer: Simon Tindall


FRI 20:50 A Point of View (m0015l1c)
Tolstoy in Our Time

Adam Gopnik seeks enlightenment for our time in Tolstoy's War and Peace, finding parallels in Tolstoy's thinking for today's war in Ukraine.

Reflecting on how Russian characters in the book converse in fluent French, Adam considers how mixed identities should not undermine national integrity, writing that the composite nature of Ukrainian identity does not cast doubt on its integrity as a country.

He also explores Tolstoy's debunking of the 'great man' theory of history, and a reminder that 'history lies outside the control of any one hero, or heroine' while conceding that heroism is in itself a plausible concept, and 'if great men and women do not cause history, they surely make history. We seem to be seeing it made in action right now.'

Producer: Sheila Cook
Sound: Peter Bosher
Production Coordinator: Gemma Ashman
Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith


FRI 21:00 The Hackers (m0015l1f)
Gabriella Coleman investigates one of the most misunderstood cultures of the modern world


FRI 22:00 The World Tonight (m0015l1h)
In-depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective.


FRI 22:45 Passing by Nella Larsen (m0015l09)
[Repeat of broadcast at 12:04 today]


FRI 23:00 A Good Read (m0015l1k)
[Repeat of broadcast at 16:30 on Tuesday]


FRI 23:30 Today in Parliament (m0015l1m)
News, views and features on today's stories in Parliament




LIST OF THIS WEEK'S PROGRAMMES
(Note: the times link back to the details; the pids link to the BBC page, including iPlayer)

1922: The Birth of Now 14:45 SUN (m0013r18)

A Good Read 16:30 TUE (m0015l1k)

A Good Read 23:00 FRI (m0015l1k)

A Pocketful of Rye 00:30 SUN (b062j2y0)

A Point of View 08:48 SUN (m0015bc7)

A Point of View 20:50 FRI (m0015l1c)

Add to Playlist 19:15 FRI (m0015l17)

After Wonderland 15:45 FRI (b03z3kt0)

Am I That Guy? 11:00 WED (m0015mgx)

Analysis 21:30 SUN (m00159r7)

Analysis 20:30 MON (m0015llx)

Ankle Tag 11:30 FRI (b0939hpp)

Any Answers? 14:00 SAT (m0015kq4)

Any Questions? 13:10 SAT (m0015bc5)

Any Questions? 20:00 FRI (m0015l19)

Archive on 4 20:00 SAT (m0015kqr)

BBC Inside Science 16:30 THU (m0015lxc)

BBC Inside Science 21:00 THU (m0015lxc)

Bad Apples 20:00 TUE (m0015ltf)

Banding: Love, Spit and Valve Oil 16:00 MON (m0015b70)

Belief in Poetry 23:30 SAT (m00159xt)

Bells on Sunday 05:43 SUN (m0015kr6)

Bells on Sunday 00:45 MON (m0015kr6)

Big Problems with Helen Keen 18:30 THU (b09c0pw8)

Border Crossing 21:45 SAT (b078wsdp)

Broadcasting House 09:00 SUN (m0015ksl)

Broken Colours 14:15 TUE (m0015lsx)

China's Stolen Treasures 11:30 TUE (m0015lsg)

Chris Neill: Raging Enigma 23:15 WED (m0015lrh)

Cold as a Mountain Top 16:30 SUN (m0015kt7)

Conversations from a Long Marriage 18:30 WED (m0015lr1)

Costing the Earth 15:30 TUE (m0015lr9)

Costing the Earth 21:00 WED (m0015lr9)

Counterpoint 23:00 SAT (m00159ql)

Counterpoint 15:00 MON (m0015ll9)

Desert Island Discs 11:00 SUN (m0015ksq)

Desert Island Discs 09:00 FRI (m0015ksq)

Drama 14:45 SAT (m0013h9g)

Drama 15:00 SUN (m0015kt3)

Drama 14:15 MON (m0015ll7)

Drama 14:15 WED (m0015lqf)

Drama 14:15 FRI (m0015l0q)

Farming Today 06:30 SAT (m0015kpc)

Farming Today 05:45 MON (m0015kv2)

Farming Today 05:45 TUE (m0015lml)

Farming Today 05:45 WED (m0015lv6)

Farming Today 05:45 THU (m0015ls2)

Farming Today 05:45 FRI (m0015lyz)

Feedback 20:00 SUN (m0015bbq)

Feedback 16:30 FRI (m0015l0x)

File on 4 17:00 SUN (m0015b0b)

Fortunately... with Fi and Jane 23:00 TUE (m0015ltm)

From Our Own Correspondent 11:30 SAT (m0015kpt)

From Our Own Correspondent 11:00 THU (m0015lwq)

Front Row 19:15 MON (m0015lls)

Front Row 19:15 TUE (m0015ltc)

Front Row 19:15 WED (m0015lr5)

Front Row 19:15 THU (m0015lxw)

Gaby's Talking Pictures 23:00 THU (b0b9109v)

Gardeners' Question Time 14:00 SUN (m0015bbl)

Gardeners' Question Time 15:00 FRI (m0015l0s)

Helen Lewis: Great Wives 14:45 FRI (m000zdvk)

In Our Time 09:00 THU (m0015lwj)

In Our Time 21:30 THU (m0015lwj)

In Touch 20:40 TUE (m0015lth)

Ingenious 09:30 WED (m000xz3q)

Inside Health 21:00 TUE (m0015lqk)

Inside Health 15:30 WED (m0015lqk)

Just a Minute 12:04 SUN (m00159qz)

Just a Minute 18:30 MON (m0015lln)

Last Word 20:30 SUN (m0015bbn)

Last Word 16:00 FRI (m0015l0v)

Law in Action 16:00 TUE (m0015lt1)

Lent Talks 05:45 SAT (m0015bcw)

Letter from Ukraine 11:45 SUN (m0015jjq)

Letter from Ukraine 19:00 FRI (m0015nr9)

Loose Ends 18:15 SAT (m0015kqk)

Loose Ends 11:30 MON (m0015kqk)

Making History: The Storytellers Who Shaped The Past by Richard Cohen 00:30 SAT (m0015bch)

Making History: The Storytellers Who Shaped The Past by Richard Cohen 09:45 MON (m0015lm6)

Making History: The Storytellers Who Shaped The Past by Richard Cohen 00:30 TUE (m0015lm6)

Making History: The Storytellers Who Shaped The Past by Richard Cohen 09:45 TUE (m0015ltt)

Making History: The Storytellers Who Shaped The Past by Richard Cohen 00:30 WED (m0015ltt)

Making History: The Storytellers Who Shaped The Past by Richard Cohen 09:45 WED (m0015lrp)

Making History: The Storytellers Who Shaped The Past by Richard Cohen 00:30 THU (m0015lrp)

Making History: The Storytellers Who Shaped The Past by Richard Cohen 09:45 THU (m0015lyl)

Making History: The Storytellers Who Shaped The Past by Richard Cohen 00:30 FRI (m0015lyl)

Making History: The Storytellers Who Shaped The Past by Richard Cohen 09:45 FRI (m0015l1w)

Maureen & Friends 11:30 WED (m0015lpx)

Midnight News 00:00 SAT (m0015bcf)

Midnight News 00:00 SUN (m0015kqw)

Midnight News 00:00 MON (m0015ktp)

Midnight News 00:00 TUE (m0015lm4)

Midnight News 00:00 WED (m0015ltr)

Midnight News 00:00 THU (m0015lrm)

Midnight News 00:00 FRI (m0015lyj)

Money Box 12:04 SAT (m0015kpy)

Money Box 21:00 SUN (m0015kpy)

Money Box 15:00 WED (m0015lqh)

Moral Maze 22:15 SAT (m0015bfn)

Moral Maze 20:00 WED (m0015lr7)

My Dream Dinner Party 10:30 SAT (m0015kpp)

My Name Is... 11:00 MON (m0015lkt)

Natural Histories 06:35 SUN (b0b9249m)

News Summary 12:00 SAT (m0015krv)

News Summary 06:00 SUN (m0015ks1)

News Summary 12:00 SUN (m0015kwk)

News Summary 12:00 MON (m0015lpd)

News Summary 12:00 TUE (m0015lv8)

News Summary 12:00 WED (m0015lwb)

News Summary 12:00 THU (m0015m1c)

News Summary 12:00 FRI (m0015lzx)

News and Papers 06:00 SAT (m0015kp9)

News and Papers 07:00 SUN (m0015ks6)

News and Papers 08:00 SUN (m0015ksg)

News and Weather 13:00 SAT (m0015kq2)

News 22:00 SAT (m0015kqt)

Open Book 16:00 SUN (m0015kt5)

Open Book 15:30 THU (m0015kt5)

Our Friends in the North 14:15 THU (m0015lx5)

PM 17:00 SAT (m0015kq8)

PM 17:00 MON (m0015llg)

PM 17:00 TUE (m0015lt3)

PM 17:00 WED (m0015lqq)

PM 17:00 THU (m0015lxh)

PM 17:00 FRI (m0015l0z)

Passing by Nella Larsen 12:04 MON (m0015lkz)

Passing by Nella Larsen 22:45 MON (m0015lkz)

Passing by Nella Larsen 12:04 TUE (m0015lsl)

Passing by Nella Larsen 22:45 TUE (m0015lsl)

Passing by Nella Larsen 12:04 WED (m0015lq1)

Passing by Nella Larsen 22:45 WED (m0015lq1)

Passing by Nella Larsen 12:04 THU (m0015lwv)

Passing by Nella Larsen 22:45 THU (m0015lwv)

Passing by Nella Larsen 12:04 FRI (m0015l09)

Passing by Nella Larsen 22:45 FRI (m0015l09)

Past Forward: A Century of Sound 13:45 MON (m0015bc1)

Past Forward: A Century of Sound 13:45 TUE (m0015lsv)

Past Forward: A Century of Sound 20:45 WED (m0015lq9)

Past Forward: A Century of Sound 13:45 THU (m0015lx3)

Past Forward: A Century of Sound 13:45 FRI (m0015l0l)

Pay Freezes 20:00 MON (m0015llv)

Pick of the Week 18:15 SUN (m0015kth)

Prayer for the Day 05:43 SAT (m0015bct)

Prayer for the Day 05:43 MON (m0015kv0)

Prayer for the Day 05:43 TUE (m0015lmj)

Prayer for the Day 05:43 WED (m0015lv4)

Prayer for the Day 05:43 THU (m0015ls0)

Prayer for the Day 05:43 FRI (m0015lyx)

Profile 19:00 SAT (m0015kqm)

Profile 05:45 SUN (m0015kqm)

Profile 17:40 SUN (m0015kqm)

Putin 11:00 TUE (m0015njm)

Radio 4 Appeal 07:54 SUN (m0015ksb)

Radio 4 Appeal 21:25 SUN (m0015ksb)

Radio 4 Appeal 15:27 THU (m0015ksb)

Ramblings 06:07 SAT (m0015b7v)

Ramblings 15:00 THU (m0015lx7)

Rewinder 16:00 WED (m0014wmd)

Riot Girls 21:00 SAT (b0717pgp)

Saturday Live 09:00 SAT (m0015kpm)

Selection of BBC World Service Programmes 01:00 SAT (m0015bcm)

Selection of BBC World Service Programmes 01:00 SUN (m0015kr0)

Selection of BBC World Service Programmes 01:00 MON (m0015ktt)

Selection of BBC World Service Programmes 01:00 TUE (m0015lmb)

Selection of BBC World Service Programmes 01:00 WED (m0015lty)

Selection of BBC World Service Programmes 01:00 THU (m0015lrt)

Selection of BBC World Service Programmes 01:00 FRI (m0015lyq)

Shipping Forecast 00:48 SAT (m0015bck)

Shipping Forecast 05:33 SAT (m0015bcp)

Shipping Forecast 17:54 SAT (m0015kqc)

Shipping Forecast 00:48 SUN (m0015kqy)

Shipping Forecast 05:33 SUN (m0015kr2)

Shipping Forecast 17:54 SUN (m0015kt9)

Shipping Forecast 00:48 MON (m0015ktr)

Shipping Forecast 05:33 MON (m0015ktw)

Shipping Forecast 00:48 TUE (m0015lm8)

Shipping Forecast 05:33 TUE (m0015lmd)

Shipping Forecast 00:48 WED (m0015ltw)

Shipping Forecast 05:33 WED (m0015lv0)

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Shipping Forecast 05:33 THU (m0015lrw)

Shipping Forecast 00:48 FRI (m0015lyn)

Shipping Forecast 05:33 FRI (m0015lys)

Short Cuts 15:00 TUE (m0015lsz)

Six O'Clock News 18:00 SAT (m0015kqh)

Six O'Clock News 18:00 SUN (m0015ktf)

Six O'Clock News 18:00 MON (m0015lll)

Six O'Clock News 18:00 TUE (m0015lt7)

Six O'Clock News 18:00 WED (m0015lqy)

Six O'Clock News 18:00 THU (m0015lxr)

Six O'Clock News 18:00 FRI (m0015l13)

Something Understood 06:05 SUN (b01s0307)

Something Understood 23:30 SUN (b01s0307)

Stand-Up Specials 19:15 SUN (m00132k3)

Start the Week 09:00 MON (m0015lkm)

Start the Week 21:30 MON (m0015lkm)

Still Life in the Old Dog 19:45 SUN (b08cv1g7)

Sunday Worship 08:10 SUN (m0015ksj)

Sunday 07:10 SUN (m0015ks8)

The Anatomy of Kindness 21:00 MON (m0015bdb)

The Anatomy of Kindness 09:00 WED (m0015lpq)

The Archbishop Interviews 13:30 SUN (m0015kt1)

The Archers Omnibus 10:00 SUN (m0015ksn)

The Archers 19:00 SUN (m0015ktk)

The Archers 14:00 MON (m0015ktk)

The Archers 19:00 MON (m0015llq)

The Archers 14:00 TUE (m0015llq)

The Archers 19:00 TUE (m0015lqc)

The Archers 14:00 WED (m0015lqc)

The Archers 19:00 WED (m0015lr3)

The Archers 14:00 THU (m0015lr3)

The Archers 19:00 THU (m0015l0n)

The Archers 14:00 FRI (m0015l0n)

The Bottom Line 17:30 SAT (m0015b91)

The Bottom Line 20:30 THU (m0015ly4)

The Briefing Room 20:00 THU (m0015ly0)

The Curious Cases of Rutherford & Fry 23:00 SUN (m0015b80)

The Curious Cases of Rutherford & Fry 16:00 THU (m0015lx9)

The Damien Slash Mixtape 23:00 WED (m0015lrf)

The Digital Human 16:30 MON (m0015lld)

The Food Programme 12:32 SUN (m0015ksv)

The Food Programme 15:30 MON (m0015ksv)

The Hackers 21:00 FRI (m0015l1f)

The Life Scientific 09:00 TUE (m0015ls8)

The Life Scientific 21:30 TUE (m0015ls8)

The Media Show 16:30 WED (m0015lqn)

The Media Show 21:30 WED (m0015lqn)

The Now Show 12:30 SAT (m0015bbz)

The Now Show 18:30 FRI (m0015l15)

The Smugglers' Trail 11:00 FRI (m0015l05)

The Week in Westminster 11:00 SAT (m0015kpr)

The World This Weekend 13:00 SUN (m0015ksz)

The World Tonight 22:00 MON (m0015lm0)

The World Tonight 22:00 TUE (m0015ltk)

The World Tonight 22:00 WED (m0015lrc)

The World Tonight 22:00 THU (m0015lyb)

The World Tonight 22:00 FRI (m0015l1h)

The World of Simon Rich 18:30 TUE (m0015lt9)

This Cultural Life 19:15 SAT (m0015kqp)

Today in Parliament 23:30 MON (m0015lm2)

Today in Parliament 23:30 TUE (m0015ltp)

Today in Parliament 23:30 WED (m0015lrk)

Today in Parliament 23:30 THU (m0015lyg)

Today in Parliament 23:30 FRI (m0015l1m)

Today 07:00 SAT (m0015kph)

Today 06:00 MON (m0015lkk)

Today 06:00 TUE (m0015ls4)

Today 06:00 WED (m0015lpl)

Today 06:00 THU (m0015lwd)

Today 06:00 FRI (m0015kzx)

Tom Mayhew Is Benefit Scum 00:15 SUN (m000t49m)

Tweet of the Day 08:58 SUN (b03zrccd)

Tweet of the Day 05:58 MON (b03dx6nq)

Tweet of the Day 05:58 TUE (b03x45q5)

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Tweet of the Day 05:58 FRI (b08r2n4c)

Weather 06:57 SAT (m0015kpf)

Weather 12:57 SAT (m0015kq0)

Weather 17:57 SAT (m0015kqf)

Weather 06:57 SUN (m0015ks4)

Weather 07:57 SUN (m0015ksd)

Weather 12:57 SUN (m0015ksx)

Weather 17:57 SUN (m0015ktc)

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Weather 12:57 FRI (m0015l0g)

Westminster Hour 22:00 SUN (m0015ktm)

Whipped 11:30 THU (m0014x7s)

Wireless Nights 00:15 MON (m00127gl)

Witness 09:30 TUE (b03pdh78)

Woman's Hour 16:15 SAT (m0015kq6)

Woman's Hour 10:00 MON (m0015lkr)

Woman's Hour 10:00 TUE (m0015lsd)

Woman's Hour 10:00 WED (m0015lpv)

Woman's Hour 10:00 THU (m0015lwn)

Woman's Hour 10:00 FRI (m0015l03)

World at One 13:00 MON (m0015ll5)

World at One 13:00 TUE (m0015lss)

World at One 13:00 WED (m0015lq7)

World at One 13:00 THU (m0015lx1)

World at One 13:00 FRI (m0015l0j)

You and Yours 12:18 MON (m0015ll1)

You and Yours 12:18 TUE (m0015lsn)

You and Yours 12:18 WED (m0015lq3)

You and Yours 12:18 THU (m0015lwx)

You and Yours 12:18 FRI (m0015l0d)

You're Dead To Me 23:00 MON (p086dx47)