SATURDAY 04 MARCH 2017

SAT 00:00 Midnight News (b08g2v1c)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.

SAT 00:30 Book of the Week (b08fhsj8)
Border - Tales from the Edge of Europe, Episode 5

When Kapka Kassabova was a child, the borderzone between Bulgaria, Turkey and Greece was rumoured to be an easier crossing point into the West than the Berlin Wall, so it swarmed with soldiers, spies and fugitives.

On holidays close to the border on the Black Sea coast, she remembers playing on the beach, only miles from where an electrified fence bristled, its barbs pointing inwards toward the enemy - the holiday-makers, the potential escapees.

Today, this densely forested landscape is no longer heavily militarised, but it is scarred by its past.

Kapka Kassabova sets out on a journey through a hidden corner of the continent and meets the people of this triple border - Bulgarians, Turks, Greeks, indigenous Balkan Muslims and the latest wave of refugees fleeing conflict further afield. She discovers a region that has been shaped by the successive forces of history - by its own past migration crises, by communism, by Nazi occupation, by the Ottoman Empire and - older still - by the ancient legacy of myths and legends. But there seem to be non-human forces at work here too. It is a land rich with curative springs and Thracian tombs; home to psychic healers and Europe's last fire-worshippers.

As Kapka Kassabova explores this enigmatic region in the company of border guards and treasure hunters, entrepreneurs and botanists, refugees and smugglers, she traces the physical and psychological borders that criss-cross its villages and mountains, and goes in search of the stories that will unlock its secrets.

Written by Kapka Kassabova
Read by Indira Varma

Abridged and produced by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4.

SAT 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b08g2v1f)
The latest shipping forecast.

SAT 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b08g2v1h)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service. BBC Radio 4 resumes at 5.20am.

SAT 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b08g2v1k)
The latest shipping forecast.

SAT 05:30 News Briefing (b08g2v1m)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.

SAT 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b08g4szd)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Chine McDonald of World Vision UK.

SAT 05:45 iPM (b08g4szj)
iPM is the news programme that starts with its listeners. Email ipm@bbc.co.uk. Twitter @BBCiPM. Presented by Luke Jones and Eddie Mair. Produced by Emma Close.

SAT 06:00 News and Papers (b08g2v1p)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.

SAT 06:04 Weather (b08g2v1r)
The latest weather forecast.

SAT 06:07 Ramblings (b08g7tv9)
Series 35, Great Hucklow, Derbyshire

Clare Balding is in the Derbyshire Peak District to meet a group of women who call themselves the Hucklow Howlers. They've been walking and running together for twenty five years. They meet up each year to walk from Great Hucklow and they now take Clare on one of their favourite circular routes from Great Hucklow via Bradwell .
They explain to Clare how much the group means to them and how staying fit in later life, by walking and running, has allowed them to enjoy a happy and enjoyable retirement.
Starting Grid ref: 179 779 at Great Hucklow
OL24 The Peak District/White Peak and OL1 The Peak District/Dark
Producer: Lucy Lunt.

SAT 06:30 Farming Today (b08g2v1t)
Farming Careers

The latest news about food, farming and the countryside. Presented by Charlotte Smith and produced by Mark Smalley.

SAT 06:57 Weather (b08g2v1w)
The latest weather forecast.

SAT 07:00 Today (b08gw7m4)
Morning news and current affairs. Including Yesterday in Parliament, Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.

SAT 09:00 Saturday Live (b08g2v1y)
Lee Mack

Lee Mack star of the long running BBC sit com Not Going Out, former stable boy and keen darts players joins the Rev Richard Coles and Aasmah Mir.

Life-long petrolhead Bron Burrell on why she is racing from London to Portugal in an 1970s Austin Maxi.

Saturday Live listener Philippa O'Sullivan who is preparing to take part in the only round the world yacht race for amateurs.

Former Commonwealth champion Matthew Syed gives a table tennis masterclass live in he studio.

Burlesque performer Iestyn Edwards shares his experiences of entertaining British Army personnel in some of the least hospitable places on earth.

Plus 1980 pop punk singer Toyah Wilcox with a brace of Inheritance Tracks.

Lee Mack is in The Miser at The Garrick Theatre, London from 10th March

The Greatest - The Quest for Sporting Perfection by Matthew Syed is published by John Murray

My Tutu Went AWOL by Iestyn Edwards is published as an e-book


Producer: Steven Williams

Editor: Eleanor Garland.

SAT 10:30 And The Academy Award Goes To ... (b08gw7m6)
Series 7, Schindler's List

Rena Finder was just 10 years old when she first came into contact with Oskar Schindler. "He would put his hand on my head and ask me, how are you little one?"
Finder is one of a handful of those who were on Schindler's List, still alive to share her story - which she does with Paul Gambaccini, as he tells the story behind the film "Schindler's List".

In 1982 Steven Spielberg was best known for directing films about sharks and aliens, in "Jaws" and "E.T.". When he read Thomas Keneally's Booker Prize winning novel about the life of the 'good Nazi', who saved 1,300 Jews from the gas chambers in Auschwitz, he was determined to see the film made. But he wasn't even sure if he was the director to do it.

It would be ten years until he found himself filming in Poland, outside the death camp gates, with extras dressed in striped prisoner uniforms, acting alongside the almost unknown British actors Ralph Fiennes, Liam Neeson and Caroline Goodall.

With 12 nominations in 1993, the film won 7 Oscars, including cinematography for Janusz Kaminski, and art direction for Allan Starski - two of the Polish Crew - who recall their confrontations with the evils that happened in their homeland, whilst shooting the movie.

For Spielberg, it won him Best Director and Best Picture for the first time.

Producer: Sara Jane Hall.

SAT 11:00 Week in Westminster (b08gw7m8)
Paul Waugh of the Huffington Post looks behind the scenes at Westminster.
The editor is Peter Mulligan.

SAT 11:30 From Our Own Correspondent (b08g2v20)
Reports from writers and journalists around the world. Presented by Kate Adie.

SAT 12:00 News Summary (b08g2v22)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

SAT 12:04 Money Box (b08gw7mb)
Pubs clubs and workplace pensions

The latest news from the world of personal finance.

SAT 12:30 The Now Show (b08g7y23)
Series 50, 03/03/2017

Steve Punt, Hugh Dennis and guests present the week in news through stand-up and sketches.

Mae Martin discusses President Trump's repeal of federal guidance allowing transpersons to use the bathrooms they identify with and her own odd experiences in public bathrooms. Andy Zaltzman proposes an innovative new alternative to the House of Lords. Jess Robinson ponders what it'd be like if Beyoncé, Adele and Little Mix targeted women the way advertisers do. The Guardian's Maeve Shearlaw offers insights into the recent assassination of Kim Jong Nam.

SAT 12:57 Weather (b08g2v24)
The latest weather forecast.

SAT 13:00 News (b08g2v26)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.

SAT 13:10 Any Questions? (b08g7zv0)
Roger Bootle, Damian Green MP, Liz Kendall MP, Ava Vidal

Jonathan Dimbleby presents political debate from Valley Park School in Maidstone, Kent with a panel including the economist Roger Bootle, Work and Pensions Secretary Damian Green MP, Labour MP Liz Kendall and the comedian and writer Ava Vidal.

SAT 14:00 Any Answers? (b08g2v28)
Listeners have their say on the issues discussed on Any Questions?

SAT 14:30 Drama (b08gw7md)
The War of the Worlds, Episode 1

by HG Wells, dramatised by Melissa Murray

Mars on Radio 4: Following sightings of strange explosions on the surface of Mars, Martian ships begin to arrive on Earth. But scientific excitement quickly turns to horror - and a merciless invasion begins.

Directed by Marc Beeby

At the time of the novel's writing (first published in 1898), Britain had never been stronger, but a sense of moral queasiness at the methods used in Empire building was growing. This dramatisation highlights the questions Wells poses: What if we were the colonised? How would we fare if a vastly superior technological invader attacked us? How would we behave? This dramatisation also reflects Wells' depiction of late Victorian suburban life and culture, making its domestic heart a poignant and terrifying starting point for an invasion by Martians with their own imperialist agenda, and reflecting the common fear which had emerged in the years approaching the turn of the century - that the apocalypse would come on the last day of 1899.

SAT 15:30 Jazzed Up: How Jazz Changed Britain (b08g542h)
In the century since the first jazz recordings, how has jazz has been received in the UK? Kevin Le Gendre explores how the music spread into popular culture.

Episode 3:
Kevin investigates the role of jazz in post World War 2 Britain and how the split between traditional and modern jazz showed itself in other art forms such as poetry.
Producer Harry Parker
Related link: http://sounds.bl.uk/Jazz-and-popular-music/Oral-history-of-jazz-in-Britain.

SAT 16:00 Woman's Hour (b08g2v2b)
Stefanie Martini as Jane Tennison in Prime Suspect 1973

We hear from the actor Stefanie Martini talking about her new role playing a young Jane Tennison Prime Suspect 1973.

Listener Sue tells us what it's been like for her to become her husband's carer and the sadness of no longer feeling desire for the person she has shared her life with.

The BBC Drama The Replacement features a pregnant woman worried that her maternity cover is trying to steal not just her job but her life. But how common is anxiety over maternity leave? The BBC television newsreader Kate Silverton and the clinical psychologist Dr Jessamy Hibberd discuss.

We Cook the Perfect tortillas with toasted black beans and jalapeno hummus with Thomasina Miers , the queen of Mexican cuisine.

Caroline Paige, the first openly transgender officer in the British Armed Forces talks about her life.

As we approach 'A Day Without Women' on the 8th March we take a look at the history and impact of women's strikes in the UK and globally.

This week we launched the Woman's Hour Parenting Podcast. We talk to the vlogger Jonathan Joly and Anna Whitehouse also known as MotherPukka and hear from listeners about their parenting concerns.



Presented by Jenni Murray
Producer: Rabeka Nurmahomed
Editor:Jane Thurlow.

SAT 17:00 PM (b08g2v2d)
Saturday PM

Full coverage of the day's news.

SAT 17:30 The Bottom Line (b08g7v08)
How does stuff get to us?

How does a can of Italian tomatoes reach the supermarket shelf and a car manufacturer receives its parts in time? Evan Davis finds out about the hidden transport networks that bring goods from around the world to our high street shops and factory floors.

Joining Evan to discuss the business of logistics are:

Paul Dyer, CEO of DHL Supply Chain
Maggie Simpson, Executive Director of the Rail Freight Group , the representative body for rail freight in the UK
Oliver Treneman, Park Development Director, DP World London Gateway

Producer: Julie Ball.

SAT 17:54 Shipping Forecast (b08g2v2g)
The latest shipping forecast.

SAT 17:57 Weather (b08g2v2j)
The latest weather forecast.

SAT 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b08g2v2l)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

SAT 18:15 Loose Ends (b08g2v2n)
Josie Lawrence, Sarah Kendall, Daniel Cole, Mae Martin, Ibibio Sound Machine, Courtney Marie Andrews, Arthur Smith

Clive Anderson and Arthur Smith are joined by Josie Lawrence, Sarah Kendall, Daniel Cole and Mae Martin for an eclectic mix of conversation, music and comedy. With music from Ibibio Sound Machine and Courtney Marie Andrews.

Producer: Debbie Kilbride.

SAT 19:00 Profile (b08gw91l)
Cressida Dick

Cressida Dick - the newly-appointed Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police - is the first woman to lead the force in its 188-year history. Dick's career has been exceptional, but not without controversy. She was gold commander in the control room in the aftermath of the 2005 London bombings and was at the helm when the innocent Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes was shot dead by police at Stockwell tube station. Her appointment as Commissioner is a comeback of sorts; in 2014 she quit the police to take up a job at the Foreign Office.

Producer: Ben Carter.

SAT 19:15 Saturday Review (b08g2v2q)
Viceroy's House, Hamlet, Jake Arnott, Photography on BBC TV, Serpentine Gallery

Gurinder Chadha's film Viceroy's House mixes a love story with the history of Indian Partition
Andrew Scott plays The Dane in The Almeida Theatre's latest production of Hamlet
The Fatal Tree is Jake Arnott's newst novel, set in 18th century London, written in street slang of the time and telling a true story about a married criminal couple of the time
BBC TV's Britain In Focus is a series looking at the history of photography in The UK, at the professional and personal level
The Serpentine Gallery has an exhibition of work by Zambian-born British conceptual artist John Latham

Tom Sutcliffe's guests are John Tusa, Bidisha and Laura Ashe. The producer is Oliver Jones.

SAT 20:00 Archive on 4 (b08gw91n)
The Shape of Things That Came

HG Wells' future history novel looks back from the year 2106. Halfway through the novel's time span, Sean Street explores what the author got almost right - or terribly wrong.

In 1933, Wells published a novel which purported to be a history of the years 1929 to 2105, received from the future in dreams. He called his book The Shape of Things to Come, a phrase that has since become a part of the English language. Now, 84 years into the time scale of this prophetic book and with 88 more to go to complete the story - poet and professor of radio Sean Street goes back to the text and explores what Wells got right, what he got wrong - and what may be yet to come.

From predicting another world war to a utopian world government, he navigates a journey through Wells' future past using audio archives and contemporary news bulletins, with expert help from Christopher Frayling, Andy Sawyer and Orson Wells.

Reader: Jenny Lane
Producer: Andy Cartwright
A Soundscape production for BBC Radio 4.

SAT 21:00 Drama (b08g3rbp)
Ann Veronica, Episode 2

Ann Veronica by H.G.Wells 2/2
Dramatised by Lavinia Murray

Starring Bill Nighy and Amy Hoggart. This witty and lively tale sees Ann Veronica living alone in London in her quest for liberation but it's an uphill struggle; she has to fight off the sexual advances of a so called friend, discovers the love of her life is married, and gets arrested and imprisoned for a suffragette raid on the House of Commons.

Produced and directed by Pauline Harris

Further information:
The storytelling is witty and ironic and Ann Veronica caused a scandal in its time because of the feminist sensibilities of the heroine and also because of the affair Wells was having with Amber Reeves, the woman who inspired the novel's eponymous character. This is a relatively unknown and unexpected novel by Wells. The Spectator described Ann Veronica as a "poisonous book..." Although unlikely to offend modern listeners, this novel addresses many feminist versus femininity issues that are still relevant today.

Amy Hoggart who stars as Ann Veronica is a stand-up comedian and actress, best known for starring in Almost Royal, a faux-reality show on BBC America. She portrays a low-ranking heir to the British throne, Poppy Carlton. Other credits include Full Frontal with Samantha Bee (2016) and Crackanory (2013).

She is the daughter of renowned journalist Simon Hoggart, niece of Times television critic Paul Hoggart, and granddaughter of sociologist Richard Hoggart. Amy attended Cambridge University,and was a member of the Footlights, whilst reading English.

The novel deals with the early stages of what is arguably the most important social development of the 20th C. the education and financial and sexual liberation of women. And the fact is that, nearly a hundred years later, the problem of women who want to marry, have children and pursue a liberating career, is still not easy to solve. Wells makes a good case for freer sexual relationships, but Amber Reeves - and later Rebecca West - were the ones whose lives were changed - by bearing and bringing up a child by him.

Geoffrey Whitehead plays Ann's father, Mr. Stanley - most recent credits include Geoffrey in Not Going Out as Lee Mack's disapproving father-in-law, and Mr. Newbold in Still Open All Hours. His career spans decades and he has appeared in a huge range of television, film and radio roles. In the theatre, he has played at the Shakespeare Globe, St. Martin's Theatre and Bristol Old Vic.

SAT 22:00 News and Weather (b08g2v2s)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4, followed by weather.

SAT 22:15 Moral Maze (b08g7mjy)
Morality of Loyalty

298 days after Leicester City manager Claudio Ranieri had done the seemingly impossible and helped his team win the Premiership league title, he's been sacked. Even by the standards of football it was a decision that shocked many. Gary Lineker, a former Leicester player, said he shed a tear. Leicester had never won a top-flight title but their improbable triumph rekindled some of the romance of the sport and Ranieri was made FIFA's Coach of the Year. This season has been a disaster. Leicester now face relegation - which will cost the club £70m. That might be a simple mathematical calculation, but this is a complex moral equation. Is loyalty a moral virtue? Isn't hard-head commercialism, loyal only to the bottom line, the only rational approach in a results-driven environment? As much as loyalty is a virtue, is blind loyalty a vice? Is loyalty owed to moral principles and objectives rather than to people, who can lead us badly astray? In an era when friendships and relationships have been reduced to the click of a mouse or a swipe to the right, should we value loyalty more highly? And then of course, there's the issue of loyalty to your leader and your political party...
Witnesses are Rev. Rachel Mann, Dr Shahrar Ali, Jim White and Richard Bevan.

SAT 23:00 Brain of Britain (b08g4lkv)
Heat 6, 2017

Russell Davies asks the questions in the nationwide general knowledge quiz, with contestants in this edition from Leeds, Liverpool and Manchester.

SAT 23:30 Poetry Please (b08g3xf3)
The Poem as Portrait

Roger McGough presents a selection of requests for poems which paint a portrait, including contributions from Lord Byron, UA Fanthorpe and Charles Causley. Producer Sally Heaven.

SUNDAY 05 MARCH 2017

SUN 00:00 Midnight News (b08gwf9x)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.

SUN 00:30 Opening Lines (b065s85x)
Series 17, Pieces of Mars Have Fallen to Earth

Short story by Cherise Saywell. Man's first mission to Mars comes at a price, and the mother of an astronaut reflects on her place in the line of women forgotten by history.

SUN 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b08gwf9z)
The latest shipping forecast.

SUN 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b08gwfb1)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service. BBC Radio 4 resumes at 5.20am.

SUN 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b08gwfb3)
The latest shipping forecast.

SUN 05:30 News Briefing (b08gwfb5)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.

SUN 05:43 Bells on Sunday (b08gwj3f)
St Paul's Cathedral

Church bells from St Paul's Cathedral.

SUN 05:45 Profile (b08gw91l)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Saturday]

SUN 06:00 News Headlines (b08gwfb7)
The latest national and international news.

SUN 06:05 Something Understood (b08gwfb9)
Heaven in Ordinary

Writer and priest Malcolm Doney finds surprising delights when taking a closer look at things we often take for granted.

According to Malcolm the familiar can too easily be ignored and subsequently disregarded. He warns that we are in danger of treating our surroundings like a 'blandscape'. For Malcolm there are valuable lessons to be learnt by immersing oneself in the local. This might all sound a bit parochial, but there's another way of looking at it. Malcom explains that if we celebrate the familiar, if we move our attention from the general to the specific, it can open up a whole universe.

Familiarity and routine can be associated with drudgery, but Malcolm draws upon the example of the Christian monastic tradition's Liturgy of the Hours, in which each day is divided into sessions of prayer from Matins and Lauds, to Vespers and Compline. These services provide structure, focus and rhythm they're, landmarks which anchor and support the spiritual development of the believer.

The programme features poems from Seamus Heaney and Norman MacCaig and extracts from authors Xavier de Maistre and Linda Sonna. Music featured includes Bach's Sheep May Safely Graze and Breathless by the jazz trumpeter Matthew Halsall.

Presenter: Malcolm Doney
Producer: Jonathan O'Sullivan
A TBI Media production for BBC Radio 4.

SUN 06:35 The Living World (b08gwj3h)
Freshwater Pearl Mussels

Chris Packham relives programmes from The Living World archives.

Freshwater pearl mussels have one of the heaviest shells of any mollusc. They're also extremely long lived, and the subject of this programme first broadcast in 2006. But as mollusc biologist Mary Seddon from the University of Cardiff explains to Lionel Kelleway their survival in British rivers is precarious due to the combined effects of river pollution, increased river sediment, and a decline in salmonid fish populations. They are joined on this Northern River by two other molluscan biologists Ian Killeen and Evelyn Moorkens.

The freshwater pearl mussel, despite its longevity, faces an uncertain future. But the good news is that work by many freshwater biologists across the country is trying to restore rivers to 'ecological health' and thus improve the fortunes of these once highly prized molluscs.

Producer Andrew Dawes.

SUN 06:57 Weather (b08gwfbc)
The latest weather forecast.

SUN 07:00 News and Papers (b08gwfbf)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.

SUN 07:10 Sunday (b08gwfbh)
Bishop Row, International Women's Day, Lynne Reid Banks.

Sunday morning religious news and current affairs programme.

SUN 07:54 Radio 4 Appeal (b08gwj3k)
Starfish Greathearts Foundation

Dame Janet Suzman makes the Radio 4 Appeal on behalf of Starfish Greathearts Foundation.

Registered Charity Number 1093862
To Give:
- Freephone 0800 404 8144
- Freepost BBC Radio 4 Appeal. (That's the whole address. Please do not write anything else on the front of the envelope). Mark the back of the envelope 'Starfish Greathearts Foundation'.
- Cheques should be made payable to 'Starfish Greathearts Foundation'.

SUN 07:57 Weather (b08gwfbk)
The latest weather forecast.

SUN 08:00 News and Papers (b08gwfbm)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.

SUN 08:10 Sunday Worship (b08gwj3m)
The Pearl of Great Value

'What we value' is the theme the Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev James Langstaff, takes as he preaches for the first of Radio 4's special services for Lent, live from Rochester Cathedral. BBC Radio 2 Young Chorister of the Year Edward Hyde and the Choristers of Rochester Cathedral sing seasonal music for Lent. Director of Music & Organist, Scott Farrell. Leader; The Very Revd Dr Philip Hesketh, Dean of Rochester. A link to resources for individuals and small groups based on the Archbishop of Canterbury's Lent Book is available on the Sunday Worship web pages. Producer: Stephen Shipley.

SUN 08:48 A Point of View (b08g7zv2)
Flying Saucers and an Uncertain World

"Human beings shape their perceptions according to their beliefs", writes John Gray, not the other way round.
He says people "will persuade themselves to believe almost anything, no matter how far-fetched, if it enables them to preserve their view of the world".
He asks how we can best come to terms with the realisation that the world is frighteningly unpredictable.

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

SUN 08:58 Tweet of the Day (b03bkt7v)
Firecrest

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

Wildlife Sound Recordist, Chris Watson, presents the Firecrest. Firecrests are very small birds, a mere nine centimetres long and are often confused with their much commoner cousins, goldcrests. Both have the brilliant orange or yellow crown feathers, but the firecrest embellishes these with black eyestripes, dazzling white eyebrows and golden patches on the sides of its neck ... a jewel of a bird.

SUN 09:00 Broadcasting House (b08gwfbp)
Sunday morning magazine programme with news and conversation about the big stories of the week. Presented by Paddy O'Connell.

SUN 10:00 The Archers Omnibus (b08gwfbr)
Emma goes in search of inspiration, and Ruth lends an ear.

SUN 11:15 Desert Island Discs (b08gwk5g)
Jimmy Carr

Kirsty Young's castaway is the comedian and television presenter Jimmy Carr.

He is the son of Irish immigrant parents and grew up in Berkshire.

Despite being dyslexic, he got good enough A levels to study at Cambridge University. After graduating with a degree in Political Science, and working for a major multinational company in London, Jimmy had what he calls an 'early midlife crisis', during which he lost his Catholic faith and was generally unhappy.

He attended lots of therapy courses in an attempt to find out what would make him happier and eventually set out on the road to becoming a comedian.

He quickly got a reputation for his fierce work ethic, heading up annually to the Edinburgh Fringe, touring with a new show virtually every year, and hosting many a Channel 4 panel show including 8 Out of 10 Cats and the Big Fat Quiz of the Year.

He has also made a name for himself by becoming what he has called "the king of the inappropriate", drawing criticism for making jokes about sensitive subjects.

Producer: Sarah Taylor.

SUN 12:00 News Summary (b08gwfbt)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

SUN 12:04 Just a Minute (b08g4ll1)
Series 77, Episode 2

Just A Minute is 50 years old this year! Nicholas Parsons has been hosting since day one, and continues to host with skill and panache! This week our panelists are Paul Merton, Shelia Hancock, Tom Allen and Gyles Brandreth., who will endeavor to talk on a given subject for sixty seconds without repetition, hesitation or deviation.

Who is Sheila Hancock's flavour of the month? What has Tom Allen got to say about the venerable telephone box? What was Paul Merton's new year resolution and listen as Gyles sails very close to the wind...

Beverly Tagg blows the whistle and it was produced by Matt Stronge.

Just A Minute is a BBC Studios production.

SUN 12:32 Food Programme (b08gwk5j)
Tea: A Coffee Drinker's Guide

Hardened coffee drinker Dan Saladino investigates tea's past, present and future and finds out how our preference for the leaf has changed over three centuries. He visits the location of Britain's first tea retailer, hears the adventures of legendary tea hunter John Fortune and visits the site of an auction house which oversaw 85 per cent of all global tea trade. In south west India we hear from a team of tea pluckers and get an insight into the skill and labour involved in producing tea. Do we pay enough for a cup of tea? It's a question Dan will develop in the second instalment of this tea story.

Presented by Dan Saladino and produced in Bristol.

SUN 12:57 Weather (b08gwfbw)
The latest weather forecast.

SUN 13:00 The World This Weekend (b08gwfby)
Global news and analysis.

SUN 13:30 From Our Home Correspondent (b08gwk5l)
In the latest programme, Mishal Husain introduces dispatches from journalists and writers around the United Kingdom that reflect the range of contemporary life in the country. Jane Labous talks to grandparents in Dorset and Essex about their childcare duties; Martin Vennard observes the pre-Bolshevik spectacle of a Russian debutantes' ball in London; Nicola Kelly talks to local homeless people and new arrivals in Glasgow about trying to find a place to live; Jeremy Lewis reports from Nottingham on how the city is dealing with the legacy of its cigarette-making past; and Stephanie Power refuses to accept the theft of her distinctive camper van lying down.

Producer Simon Coates.

SUN 14:00 Gardeners' Question Time (b08g7y1n)
Natural History Museum

Peter Gibbs and the team are at the Natural History Museum. Matt Biggs, Pippa Greenwood and Chris Beardshaw take questions on an array of horticultural conundrums.

The panel discuss how to encourage moss into a garden, designs for a community planting project and showing house plants some tender loving care.

Matt Biggs goes behind the scenes at the museum in search of some horticultural treasures.

Produced by Hannah Newton
Assistant Producer: Laurence Bassett

A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.

SUN 14:45 The Listening Project (b08gwk5n)
Omnibus - Negotiating Difference

Fi Glover introduces conversations that demonstrate both the pain and the riches to be gained from confronting disparate experiences and views in the Omnibus edition of the series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen.

The Listening Project is a Radio 4 initiative that offers a snapshot of contemporary Britain in which people across the UK volunteer to have a conversation with someone close to them about a subject they've never discussed intimately before. The conversations are being gathered across the UK by teams of producers from local and national radio stations who facilitate each encounter. Every conversation - they're not BBC interviews, and that's an important difference - lasts up to an hour, and is then edited to extract the key moment of connection between the participants. Most of the unedited conversations are being archived by the British Library and used to build up a collection of voices capturing a unique portrait of the UK in the second decade of the millennium. You can learn more about The Listening Project by visiting bbc.co.uk/listeningproject

Producer: Marya Burgess.

SUN 15:00 Drama (b070601z)
Rebus: A Question of Blood, Episode 1

1/2. Thriller by Ian Rankin. Dramatised in two parts by Chris Dolan.

When a known criminal dies in a house fire the forensic evidence suggests he was murdered before the fire started. Rebus - the last person to see the victim alive - becomes the main suspect.

Meanwhile, a fatal shooting at a private school near Edinburgh unexpectedly leads Rebus to an army helicopter crash on Jura in a case involving diamonds and drug smuggling.

DI Rebus ...................Ron Donachie
Siobhan Clarke......... Gayanne Potter
DI Hogan ................. Brian Ferguson
DCI Templer ............ Sarah Collier
Bell .......................... .Brian Pettifer
Miss Teri .................. Nicola Roy
Whiteread .............. Veronica Leer
Peacock ................... Gavin Mitchell
Kate .......................... Eilidh McCormick
Brimson .................. Kenny Blyth
James ...................... Alasdair Hankinson
Fogg.......................... Paul Young

Other parts played by the cast.

Producer/director: Bruce Young

BBC Scotland.

SUN 16:00 Bookclub (b08gwn7t)
Jonathan Safran Foer - Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Jonathan Safran Foer talks about his acclaimed novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close.

Set in the aftermath of 9/11, it is the story of a young boy coming to terms with the tragedy of his father's death in the World Trade Centre.

hen he find s an envelope with the word 'Black' written on it in his father's hand he sets out to find everyone in the city called Black, to see if he can pick up a clue.

After finding a mysterious key in a left behind in his father's closet, in an envelope labelled Black, nine year old Oskar sets out to find everyone in the city called Black, to see if he can pick up a clue. The search leads him through the five boroughs of New York and into history to the bombing of Dresden and as well as into the story of his grandparents' marriage.

Presented by James Naughtie and including contributions and questions from a group of invited readers.

Presenter : James Naughtie
Interviewed guest : Jonathan Safran Foer
Producer : Dymphna Flynn

April's Bookclub choice : The Year of the Runaways by Sunjeev Sahota (2015).

SUN 16:30 Poetry Please (b08gwn7w)
Dusk 'til Dawn

Roger McGough presents a selection of listeners' requests for poems to take us through the night, from dusk 'til dawn. Poems of sun rise and sunset; of twilight and the dawn's early light. Of 3am worries and deep, deep sleep.

We watch the sun go down over the sea with Norman Nicholson and Siegfried Sassoon's lulls us to sleep. We lie awake fretting with Fleur Adcock and wake on a cold narrowboat with Jo Bell. John Donne helps us convince our other half to call in sick to work and come back to bed, and find that Robert Burns is not a morning person.

Readers: John Mackay, Siobhan Redmond and Barbara Flynn
Producer: Mair Bosworth.

SUN 17:00 File on 4 (b08g58fl)
Neglect: The Story of UK Homecare

With an ageing population the need for carers to help elderly people stay healthy and safe in their own homes has never been greater.

From making a meal, to help getting out of bed or having a shower, domiciliary carers provide a lifeline for hundreds of thousands of elderly and vulnerable people. But what happens when things go wrong and carers inflict serious abuse and neglect on the people who depend on them?

Lesley Curwen speaks to the families of elderly people who have been neglected in some cases left for days without proper medication or attention to personal hygiene - with devastating results.

Experts say cuts to local authority care funding, unmanageable workloads and poor training are contributing to the toll of abuse. So how can families be assured that their family member is in safe hands?

And after File on 4 previously uncovered evidence of widespread sex abuse in care homes, we ask whether enough is being done to protect the most vulnerable people in society in their own homes.

Reporter: Lesley Curwen
Producer: Ben Robinson.

SUN 17:40 Profile (b08gw91l)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Saturday]

SUN 17:54 Shipping Forecast (b08gv19s)
The latest shipping forecast.

SUN 17:57 Weather (b08gwfc2)
The latest weather forecast.

SUN 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b08gwfc4)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

SUN 18:15 Pick of the Week (b08gwfc6)
Ernie Rea

As we're in the season of Lent one thing not to give up this week is radio listening. How could you turn away the opportunity to hear an eye witness account of the assassination attempt on Bob Marley; or the story of the black cop in Colorado Springs who applied to join the Ku Klux Klan; or the extraordinary struggles of heroic women whose husbands are traumatised by war. Oh, and by the way, if you didn't go to church to get Lenten ashes imposed on your forehead, you can now do it on the cheap.

Presenter: Ernie Rea
Producer: Stephen Garner
Pick Production support from: Lorna Newman and Kay Bishton.

SUN 19:00 The Archers (b08gwn7y)
Kirsty receives a complaint, and Roy helps out Harrison.

SUN 19:15 Ability (b087p7m6)
Lost Voice Guy (real name Lee Ridley) won the BBC Radio Stand-Up Comedy Award in 2014. He is a funny guy. He also has cerebral palsy and can only speak via a computer. Ability uses Lee's experiences of coping with this disability and weaves them into a sitcom. It is based around Matt, who is leaving home for the first time to move in with Jess, his best friend from school. Matt's parents are worried, particularly his dad - they have always done everything for him. But Matt is determined even though his new carer, Bob, is not all he should be. Bob is new to the role, and although willing, he somehow manages to spend more time dealing weed and flogging knocked off TVs than cooking Matt's tea. But he treats Matt like an equal, and not all his previous carers have done that, and so the two form a bond. A bond that could lead Matt into an awful lot of trouble. Especially as Matt has never been above exploiting his circumstances if the situation arises - he's always known he could get away with murder (although he's never actually tried that of course.) But who would suspect the disabled guy? Could Matt and Bob become the new Del boy and Rodney? And if so, which is which?

Allan Mustafa plays Bob, Matt's carer. Best know for People Just Do Nothing, which he also co-created, Allan has never actually acted in anyone else's work. But he read this script and immediately got it. He loved the dark comedy and is indeed, the perfect Bob.

The sitcom is co-written by Sony nominated Katherine Jakeways and produced and directed by Jane Berthoud. Jane Berthoud says: "Katherine has brought her great expertise as a writer to this project, and always been careful to make sure Lee's voice in it was clear. Together they make a great team and have turned out an excellent script - funny, fast moving and even a touch poignant at times. Allan Mustafa is the perfect Bob, the rest of the cast were also brilliant and I can see a great future for these characters."

Lee says:"I'm really pleased with how Ability has turned out. I've had the idea behind this sitcom in my head for a few years now, so to finally get the chance to make it is an amazing feeling. Ever since winning the BBC New Comedy Award, the BBC have been very supportive and I'm lucky to have had the opportunity to work with some great people while writing this. It has been wonderful to hear my ideas come alive. Allan Mustafa is exactly how I imagined Bob to be.".

SUN 19:45 Blackspot (b08gwn80)
Specially commissioned short stories by some of Ireland's most exciting writers.

When his parents leave teenager Simon alone at home for a week, he tries to make the most of his new-found freedom. However his idyllic existence cannot last long. As read by Aoife Duffin (Moone Boy, A Girl Is a Half-Formed Thing).

Sara Baume's debut novel Spill Simmer Falter Wither won the 2015 Geoffrey Faber Memorial prize for fiction. She has also won the Davy Byrne's Short Story Award, the Hennessy New Irish Writing Award, the Rooney Prize for Literature, an Irish Book Award for Best Newcomer, and the 2016 Kate O'Brien Award.

Reader ..... Aoife Duffin
Writer ..... Sara Baume
Producer ..... Michael Shannon.

SUN 20:00 Feedback (b08g7y1v)
Dramatising real-life disasters

Roger Bolton hears listener concerns about satirising Donald Trump in a news programme, and considers how far writers can go when dramatising real disasters.

Every Friday on the World at One, reporter Jonny Dymond has been documenting the movements of Trump's first 100 days in office with a wry twist. While some listeners have enjoyed the touch of humour, others have said it's out of place in what they say should be an objective news programme. Roger chairs a discussion between two listeners with opposing opinions.

On 6th March 1987, the Herald of Free Enterprise ferry left its dock on a journey from Belgium to Dover. The ferry capsized within the first half hour of the journey, leading to the loss of 193 lives. Thirty years on, Radio 4 has aired a dramatic re-telling of the story in Herald of Disaster. For many, it was intensely gripping and emotionally captivating. Writer Stephen Phelps explains why he felt the event deserved new exploration, and he discusses his technique of weaving fictional characters around factual accounts.

Also, the BBC World Service says it's undergoing its biggest expansion since the 1940s. Jamie Angus, the former Editor of Today and now Deputy Director of the BBC World Service Group, answers listeners' questions on how the network will ensure its reputation as a reliable broadcaster in the era of fake news and about the expansion of language services into new territories.

Presenter: Roger Bolton
Producer: Katherine Godfrey

A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.

SUN 20:30 Last Word (b08g7y1s)
Gerald Kaufman, Dick Bruna, Desmond Connell, Rita Barberá, Frank Delaney

Julian Worricker on:

The long-serving Labour MP and former minister, Gerald Kaufman

The prolific Dutch illustrator and author Dick Bruna

Cardinal Desmond Connell, who as Archbishop of Dublin presided over the Church's handling of the child abuse scandal

Controversial city mayor Rita Barbera, who ran Valencia in Spain for twenty years

Writer and broadcaster, Frank Delaney, best known for Radio 4 programmes Bookshelf and Word of Mouth.

Producer: Neil George.

SUN 21:00 Money Box (b08gw7mb)
[Repeat of broadcast at 12:04 on Saturday]

SUN 21:26 Radio 4 Appeal (b08gwj3k)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:54 today]

SUN 21:30 Analysis (b08g4m8w)
How Voters Decide: Part Two

What makes us change our mind when it comes to elections? We are all swingers now. More voters than ever before are switching party from one election to the next. Tribal loyalties are weakening. The electorate is now willing to vote for the other side.

Professor Rosie Campbell from Birkbeck University finds out what prompts voters to shift from one party to another. Quentin Davies had been a Tory MP for decades when he crossed the floor of the house. He believes his views stayed the same - but the world changed around him. Journalist Janet Daley was once too left wing for the Labour Party - until Margaret Thatcher came along. Meanwhile Daryll Pitcher felt as though no party wanted his vote. Today he is a UKIP campaign manager.

Does age make us become more right wing? Have the main political parties alienated their core vote? And what does this mean for democracy?

Producer: Hannah Sander.

SUN 22:00 Westminster Hour (b08gwfc8)
Weekly political discussion and analysis with MPs, experts and commentators.

SUN 23:00 The Film Programme (b08g7tvc)
Paul Verhoeven

With Francine Stock

The controversial director of Basic Instinct and Robocop, Paul Verhoeven, tells Francine Stock why Isabelle Huppert agreed to star in his latest contentious movie, Elle, after he had been turned down by several Hollywood actresses.

Tim Robey and Larushka Ivan-Zadeh recommend a few films for anyone wishing to have their own Isabelle Huppert festival this weekend.

Director Kelly Reichardt explains why her films are light on plot and dialogue and often end in the middle of a scene.

SUN 23:30 Something Understood (b08gwfb9)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:05 today]

MONDAY 06 MARCH 2017

MON 00:00 Midnight News (b08gwfj9)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.

MON 00:15 Thinking Allowed (b08g7mjr)
Squatting; a cross cultural history. Plus taking ones clothes off in public.

Squatting: Laurie Taylor discusses the first popular history of squatting in Europe and North America. Alexander Vasudevan, Associate Professor of Human Geography at the University of Oxford, drew on extensive archival research to retrace alternative forms of housing from Copenhagen's Christiana 'Free Town' to the Lower East Side of Manhattan. He's joined by Lucy Finchett-Maddock, Lecturer in Law at the University of Sussex

Also: 'Streaking', 'mooning' and 'flashing'. Barbara Brownie, Senior Lecturer in Visual Communication at the University of Hertfordshire, explores the many meanings of public disrobement, from the playful to the criminal.

Producer: Alice Bloch.

MON 00:45 Bells on Sunday (b08gwj3f)
[Repeat of broadcast at 05:43 on Sunday]

MON 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b08gwfjc)
The latest shipping forecast.

MON 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b08gwfjf)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.

MON 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b08gwfjh)
The latest shipping forecast.

MON 05:30 News Briefing (b08gwfjk)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.

MON 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b08hz63b)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Chine McDonald of World Vision UK.

MON 05:45 Farming Today (b08gwfjm)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside. Presented by Charlotte Smith and produced by Sally Challoner.

MON 05:56 Weather (b08gwfjp)
The latest weather forecast for farmers.

MON 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b03k21n6)
Blackbird

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

Chris Packham presents the blackbird. Resident blackbirds are on the alert just now because their territories are under siege. Large numbers of Continental blackbirds pour in to the UK each winter to escape even colder conditions elsewhere.

MON 06:00 Today (b08gwfjr)
News and current affairs. Includes Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.

MON 09:00 Start the Week (b08gwfjt)
Paul Auster and the American Dream

Andrew Marr talks to Paul Auster about his latest work, 4 3 2 1, which weaves together four versions of his hero's life alongside the monumental events of mid-twentieth century America.

The turbulence of the last six decades in US history, from JFK's assassination to Vietnam, to the AIDS crisis, racism and gender politics, is also presented through artists' prints in a new exhibition at the British Museum, co-curated by Catherine Daunt.

In the 1960s and 70s, Robert Evans became one of the most powerful figures in Hollywood only to fall spectacularly from grace a decade later. In The Kid Stays in the Picture, the theatre director Simon McBurney brings his rise and fall to the stage.

Producer: Katy Hickman

IMAGE: Jasper Johns (b. 1930), Flags I. Colour screenprint, 1973. Gift of Johanna and Leslie Garfield, on loan from the American Friends of the British Museum.
(c) Jasper Johns/VAGA, New York/DACS, London 2016. (c) Tom Powel Imaging.

MON 09:45 Book of the Week (b08gwsjb)
What Happened, Miss Simone?, Episode 1

Inspired by the Oscar-nominated TV documentary, Alan Light's biography draws on Nina Simone's early diaries, rare interviews, childhood journals and input from her daughter Lisa Simone Kelly to paint a picture of the classically-trained pianist who became a soul legend, a leading civil rights activist and one of the most influential artists of our time.

Episode One
"I was born a child prodigy darling. I was born a genius." Nina Simone

Music journalist Alan Light is the author of The Holy of the Broken: Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley and the Unlikely Ascent of Hallelujah, and Let's Go Crazy: Prince and the Making of Purple Rain, among others. He was editor-in-chief of the music magazines Vibe and Spin, and is a frequent contributor to the New York Times.

Writer: Alan Light
Abridger: Pete Nichols
Reader: Alibe Parsons
Producer: Karen Rose

A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4.

MON 10:00 Woman's Hour (b08gwfjw)
US bluegrass and country singer, Alison Krauss, sings live

Famed bluegrass and country singer Alison Krauss talks to Jane about the release of her first solo album in 17 years, Windy City. She will perform 'Losing You' live, and discuss her extensive career that's spanned over 3 decades and seen her win 27 Grammy Awards.

The third and final series of ITV's, Broadchurch is now on. The first part was on last Monday and is available on catch up. The second is on tonight. David Tennant and Olivia Colman return as DI Alec Hardy and DS Ellie Miller but this time the actor Julie Hesmondhalgh - formerly Hayley Cropper in Coronation Street - plays Trish Winterman, a victim of a serious sexual assault who reports the attack to the police. Jane speaks to Julie about her role, along with Broadchurch's executive producer Jane Featherstone.

The relationship guide Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus was published 25 years ago. Author John Gray, recommended readers acknowledge that men and women were from separate "planets" with discreet languages and behaviours. A huge phenomenon, the book sold 50 million copies. So why was it so popular? How did its success affect the sexual politics of the time? And what's it like revisiting the book in 2017? Jane talks to television presenter Kate Garraway, author John O'Farrell and to Eleanor Mills, editor of the Sunday Times Magazine.

And the final part of our series with Mary Beard and Beaty Rubens introducing five key women from ancient Greek drama and exploring the ways in which they continue to inform debate about women in power today. We've heard about Antigone, Lysistrata, Phaedra and Clytemaenstra and today they look at Medea who famously kills her own two children when her husband takes a new wife.

Presenter: Jane Garvey
Producer: Kirsty Starkey.

MON 10:45 15 Minute Drama (b08gwsjd)
Agnes Grey, Agnes

Ellie Kendrick stars in Rachel Joyce's latest Bronte adaptation. Anne Bronte's debut novel is the story of Agnes, a young woman who is determined to take care of herself and help the family finances. But what can a young girl with no money, no connections and no prospects do? How does a young woman find her way in the world? - she becomes a governess.

Adapted by Rachel Joyce
Produced and Directed by Tracey Neale

Agnes Grey, Anne Bronte's debut novel, is the least known of the Bronte novels. Agnes is nineteen and determined to take care of herself - but she has no money, no connections, and no job. She isn't even very confident. So how does a young woman with nothing find her way in the world? She has to be a governess. Even if she knows little about children. And even if they treat her like dirt. As a governess, Agnes is not a part of the family and neither is she a servant. She's isolated and an outsider. This compelling drama tells the story of Agnes's self-discovery and her search for love.

As in Anne Bronte's second novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, there is an underlying nasty and dangerous barbarity. Written in and set in 1845, it's a biting analysis of the moral emptiness of the wealthy classes and a deeply personal account of the development of a young woman's heart and mind.

Rachel Joyce had adapted all of Charlotte and now Anne's novels. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte will complete the canon when it is broadcast in 2018. An award winning writer for radio she is now a successful novelist. Her novels include The Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Perfect, The Love Song of Miss Queenie Hennessy and a collection of short stories, The Snow Garden & Other Stories. Her new novel, The Music Shop, will be published later this year.

MON 11:00 We Are the Martians (b08gwtx9)
Seeing Is Believing

Sarah Dillon begins a new series revelling in the many Mars' of imagination, science & history.
We are the Martians, perhaps the only consciousness the Red Planet has ever had. The ancients wove their own mythological stories about Mars, its dim redness and uncertain path visible to the naked eye. In the 19th Century new, powerful telescopes scrutinized the red planet & astronomers considered the possibilities of life on Mars. There was, in fact, a kind of mapping war to name & identify features on the Red Planet. When the Italian astronomer Giovanni Schiaparelli produced a series of maps in the 1870's featuring dark channels or 'canali' , a powerful story began to develop. Mars was a dying planet, older, perhaps inhabited . Then, from the 1890's, American amateur astronomer Percival Lowell, using his state of the art telescope in his brand new observatory high up in Flagstaff, Arizona, convinced millions that this 'dying' planet was home to a doomed civilization struggling to maintain life through an elaborate system of canals. Lowell was a supreme popularizer of science, commanding huge audiences despite the severe doubts of many in the scientific community. Worldwide, Lowell's myth sparked volumes of popular fiction & when failed salesman Edgar Rice Burroughs penned the first of his Barsoom adventures in 1911 Martian fantasy truly took off. Its literary spell remains unbroken. Even after the Mariner probes & Viking Lander finally revealed Mars was red but dead, the Old Mars of our dreams would return. Sarah Dillon travels to Flagstaff & the analogue Martian landscape of ochre Arizonan desert & talks to a host of Red Planet writers.

Producer: Mark Burman.

MON 11:45 Prime Ministers' Props (b07mxt94)
Neville Chamberlain's Umbrella

Professor Sir David Cannadine explores political fame and image by looking at how an object or prop, whether chosen deliberately or otherwise, can come to define a political leader.

Sir David looks at the significance of these props of power - what they mean and what they become, and what happens when, almost inevitably, Prime Ministers lose control of their image and their props take on a hostile meaning, very different from their original intentions.

Neville Chamberlain always liked to carry a big black umbrella. It was intended to project an image of the quintessential Englishman, who was always smart, prepared and, in a manner of speaking, neatly furled. When Chamberlain arrived home after meeting Hitler at Munich in 1938, he was clutching Hitler's signed piece of paper in one hand and his brolly in the other. His umbrella now took on a new and potent symbolism as a "peace umbrella" and one that would keep the German bombs from raining down on British heads. He was sent hundreds of umbrellas by a grateful public and there was even a song composed at the time which contained the lyrics, "You look swell holding your umbrella / All the world loves a wonderful fella".

Yet as war broke out in Europe, Chamberlain's trademark brolly was quickly seized upon by his enemies as a laughable symbol of his gentlemanly ineffectiveness and it became a lightening-rod for critics of appeasement. Declassified MI5 records reveal how Hitler mocked him for it - and Chamberlain's once so celebrated umbrella morphed from useful trademark into an embarrassing symbol of political weakness and pusillanimity.

A Blakeway production for BBC Radio 4.

MON 12:00 News Summary (b08gwfjy)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

MON 12:04 One to One (b07ws0dt)
Trevor McDonald on Redemption

For his One to One series, Sir Trevor McDonald explores the idea of redemption, talking to two very different people with very different ideas on what it means.

This week a former maximum security prisoner talks about finding redemption through sport. Former armed robber John McAvoy once shared a wing with convicted terrorist Abu Hamza in Belmarsh Prison. His life was going nowhere but then he discovered rowing in the prison gym and went on to break the world record for indoor rowing. Now he's a semi professional tri-athlete seeking to inspire other young people who risk becoming offenders.

Producer: Maggie Ayre.

MON 12:15 You and Yours (b08gwfk0)
Consumer affairs programme.

MON 12:57 Weather (b08gwfk2)
The latest weather forecast.

MON 13:00 World at One (b08gwfk4)
Analysis of news and current affairs.

MON 13:45 Following the Martian Invasion (b08gwx12)
'The Chances Against Anything Manlike on Mars Are a Million to One'

Francis Spufford walks in the footsteps of Wells all conquering tripods from Woking to Primrose Hill in the company of writers, scientists & historians . Exploring along the way the startling array of ideas that fuelled his classic and continue to give it its lasting impact. At the height of Victorian 'awesomeness', Wells landed his Martians on Horsell Common & wiped the imperial grins off our ape like faces. Heat rays & black smoke reduced a mighty empire to panic and chaos in a matter of days. No less than we had done to the conquered of empire. His story was a brilliant fusion of the already established genre of invasion fiction & two decades of scientific speculation about Mars & Martians around the notion that the Red planet was inhabited. You can map out exactly where the invasion begins at the sandpits on Horsell Common to the doomed attempts to repulse the invaders on the banks of the Thames at Shepperton and finally to the Martians eerie end at their final staging post atop Primrose Hill.

Spufford begins his journey following H.G. Wells' Martian invaders at the Basingstoke Canal that runs through Woking. Here Wells canoed with his lover amidst the wild vegetation and dreamed about Mars, at the time widely believed to be criss crossed by vast canals created by an ancient and dying race. Wells wrote his book at the height of Martian Fever when the work of astronomers Schiaparelli and Percival Lowell had created intense speculation about life on Mars. But Wells' Martians are evolution's nightmare. We end on Horsell Common, sight of the first crashed Martian cylinder. First contact-Victorians style. Joining Francis Spufford are the science writer Oliver Morton (Mapping Mars) and the Historical Geographer Maria Lane (Geographies of Mars).
Producer: Mark Burman.

MON 14:00 The Archers (b08gwn7y)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Sunday]

MON 14:15 Drama (b08gwy5b)
Ecco

An edge-of-tomorrow science fiction drama, starring Hayley Atwell as Jo Miles, a smart and determined neuroscientist who triggers a new consciousness into being - a consciousness that emerges from the many million computers making up the internet. But has she really become mother to a new life form - or is imagination playing a wish-fulfilment trick on a woman who had hoped to be a mother?

Jo gives this emergent consciousness an acronym - ECCo.

The drama walks a knife-edge of uncertainty. ECCo (if it does indeed exist) can only communicate indirectly - a song that plays unbidden on an internet radio, the delivery of a pizza that was never ordered, a chatbot that knows Jo's name and asks her if she is sad, flickering lights whose flickers spell out the first four digits of the transcendental number pi.

Jo's husband, Ben, is concerned about her state of mind. As is her close colleague, Anwar, and her psychotherapist, Dr Swift.

But the traffic lights change miraculously to speed Jo to deliver a lecture she would otherwise be late for, her research grant comes through without a query - and unexpectedly early. Jo does seem to have someone on her side.

ECCo is written by Chris Harrald, inspired by conversations with real-life neuroscientist Daniel Bor, Research Fellow at the University of Sussex. The drama came out of a seminar organized by BBC Radio 4 Drama and the Wellcome Trust, to promote popular understanding of science.

Writer: Chris Harrald
Director: Sam Yates
Producer: Melanie Harris
A Sparklab production for BBC Radio 4.

MON 15:00 Brain of Britain (b08gwy5d)
Heat 7, 2017

(7/17)
Which two English football teams contest what's referred to as the Second City Derby? And what name was given to the generation of nuclear reactors that used uranium metal fuel contained in a magnesium non-oxidising alloy sleeve?

Russell Davies puts these and many other questions to today's competitors, as they vie for a place in the 2017 semi-finals. There's also an opportunity for a listener to win a prize by outwitting the Brains with questions of his or her own devising.

Producer: Paul Bajoria.

MON 15:30 Food Programme (b08gwk5j)
[Repeat of broadcast at 12:32 on Sunday]

MON 16:00 Writing a New Caribbean (b08gwy5g)
The work words do

Elisha Efua Bartels talks to some of the new wave of writers coming out of the English-speaking Caribbean.

MON 16:30 Beyond Belief (b08gwy5j)
Mental Health

One in four people has a mental disorder at some point in their life, according to government figures. In a speech earlier this year, the Prime Minister, Theresa May, said mental health had been "dangerously disregarded" as secondary to physical health and changing that would go "right to the heart of our humanity". Among the calls from experts for more funding to improve services is the complex question of how, as a society, we have got to the point where half of mental health problems start by the age of 14. What are the best strategies for prevention as well as treatment of mental illness? Does someone's personal religious and spiritual beliefs have a role to play? Or does religion do more harm than good?

Ernie Rea explores religious perspectives on mental health with the Rev Will van der Hart, London vicar and a director the Mind and Soul Foundation, which explores Christianity and Mental Health; Professor Rasjid Skinner, consultant clinical psychologist and expert on Islamic approaches to psychology; and Dr Chetna Kang, consultant psychiatrist and a priest in the Hindu tradition of Bhakti Yoga.

Producer: Dan Tierney
Series producer: Amanda Hancox.

MON 17:00 PM (b08gwfk6)
Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.

MON 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b08gwfk8)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

MON 18:30 Just a Minute (b08gwy5l)
Series 77, Episode 3

Just A Minute is 50 years old this year! Nicholas Parsons has been hosting since day one, and continues to host with skill and panache! This week our panellists are Paul Merton, Jenny Eclair, Marcus Brigstocke and Just A Minute newbie, Al Murray. The panel will endeavour to talk on a given subject for sixty seconds without repetition, hesitation or deviation.

What has Jenny got to say about flying saucers? What is Marcus's hidden talent? Does Paul ever play second fiddle? And we find out what Al's ideal pub consists of.

Hayley Sterling blows the whistle and it was produced by Matt Stronge.

Just A Minute is a BBC Studios production.

MON 19:00 The Archers (b08gwy5n)
Miranda makes herself clear, and Toby arrives just in time.

MON 19:15 Front Row (b08gwfkb)
Arts news, interviews and reviews.

MON 19:45 15 Minute Drama (b08gwsjd)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:45 today]

MON 20:00 Mary Beard on Women in Power (b08gx81w)
From Clytemnaestra in the tragedies of Aeschylus to Hillary Clinton on social media - Professor Mary Beard explores the image and reality of women in power. A chance to catch up on her prestigious London of Review of Books Winter Lecture, exploring timely questions such as what's so 'funny' about the idea of women being in charge and what does 'breaking the glass ceiling' really mean?

As with Proessor Mary Beard's first LRB lecture (Oh Do Shut Up, Dear: The Public Voice of Women), the Cambridge classicist's starting point will be her profound knowledge of the ancient world. As previously, she will explore not only the facts surrounding women in power but also the depiction of them in the media past and present.

She'll begin by unpackaging the ways in which apparently powerful women in ancient Greek drama are often depicted as ultimately undermining their own entitlement to power: tragic figures such as Aeschylus' Clytemnaestra or comic ones such as Aristophanes' Lysistrata may appear to be powerful, but an audience only had to witness Clytemnaestra's blood-thirsty wielding of an axe or the frivolity of Lysistrata and friends to have their belief in the patriarchy reaffirmed. In other words, myths which depict women abusing power may simply justify the reality of a patriarchy.

In the second part of the lecture, Mary Beard will discuss the idea of the "glass ceiling" and investigate whether it is perhaps our internalising of the fates of figures such as Clytemnaestra and Lysistata which has had a more significant impact on the challenges which women of power encounter today, whether Hillary Clinton, Angela Merkel, Marine Le Pen or our own Theresa May.

Producer: Beaty Rubens.

MON 20:30 Analysis (b08gx81y)
How do the SNP sell a second referendum?

Could a second referendum on Scottish independence yield a different result? In September 2014 when Scotland voted against becoming an independent country it seemed like the question had been settled for the foreseeable future. All that changed on June 23rd 2016 when the UK voted to leave the EU. Just a few hours later - before she'd even been to bed - Scotland's First Minister Nicola Sturgeon was already talking about the prospect of another vote on independence. Ever since she has been ramping up the rhetoric. But what would the SNP's strategy be second time around?

BBC Scotland Editor Sarah Smith explores whether the SNP would dare call another vote when there seems little appetite and opinion polls have failed to move as much as Nicola Sturgeon might have expected following the Brexit vote. Sarah talks to strategists and politicians for an insight into how things might be different should a second referendum take place in the near future. She asks whether an independent Scotland would be accepted into the EU and what the future might hold for the first minister should she fail to achieve what she sees as her duty - offering Scotland another chance to gain independence.

Presenter: Sarah Smith
Producer: Ben Carter.

MON 21:00 Hunting the Martians (b08gx9n0)
As part of Radio 4's Mars season, planetary scientist Monica Grady explores the search for life on the Red Planet.

As a small rocky planet, Mars is similar in many respects to the Earth and for that reason, many have thought it may harbour some kind of life. A hundred years ago, there was serious talk about the possibility of advanced civilisations there. Even in early 1970s, scientists mused that plant-like aliens might grow in the Martian soil. The best hope now is for something microbial. But the discovery that even simple life survives there or did some time in its history would be a profound one. We would know that life is not something special to Earth.

NASA's Curiosity rover has discovered that 3.7 billion years ago, there were conditions hospitable to life on Mars - a sustained period of time with lakes and rivers of water. The earlier rover Spirit found deposits of silica from ancient hot springs which some planetary scientists argue bear the hallmarks of being shaped by microbes - possibly.

The next five years may dramatically advance the hunt for life on Mars. In 2020 the European and Russian space agencies will send their ExoMars rover. That will drill two metres into the Red Planet's surface and sample material shielded from the sterilising radiation. It will analyse for life both extant and extinct. In the future, robotic or possibly human missions may even explore Martian cave systems in Mars' vast volcanoes. Monica talks to Nasa's Penny Boston whose adventures in some of the world's most dangerous caves have convinced her that underground is the best place to look.

Monica Grady is Professor of Planetary and Space Science at the Open University.

Producer: Andrew Luck-Baker
Sound engineer: Victoria Prandle.

MON 21:30 Start the Week (b08gwfjt)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]

MON 21:58 Weather (b08gwfkd)
The latest weather forecast.

MON 22:00 The World Tonight (b08gwfkg)
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.

MON 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b08gxddh)
Birdcage Walk, Episode 1

Today we begin Helen Dunmore's new novel, published this week. Set in Bristol in 1792, Birdcage Walk is set against a backdrop of the French Revolution. It touches on Radical idealism, property, political turmoil and private tragedy. Inspired by the real life of Julia Fawkes, a leading Radical writer, none of whose work has survived, Dunmore explores the tensions between generations and genders, and examines the idea of legacy as Julia's daughter Lizzie finds herself torn between her charismatic, self made husband and her idealistic mother. As her husband Diner Tredevant speculates on property in Bristol's housing boom, he risks losing everything in the social upheaval caused by the French Revolution.

Today in Episode One: A mysterious burial. The story opens four years earlier as a man hides a body in a gorge. The death is unexplained but four years later, the man has a wife - Lizzie Fawkes. Lizzie visits her mother who is ill, and tells her of her husband's Diner's plans to build a magnificent new terrace overlooking the Gorge. It is to be the envy of the city but for Diner a huge financial risk.

An acclaimed poet and award-winning novelist, Helen Dunmore's work often explores the interplay between the public and the personal, most famously in The Siege and The Betrayal, and most recently Exposure.

Hattie Morahan is a stage, film and TV actress who won numerous awards for her portrayal of Nora in the Young Vic production of A Doll's House. She was part of the cast of Outnumbered and recently appeared in BBC TVs My Mother and Other Strangers.

The readers are Hattie Morahan and Carl Prekopp
The abridger is Sara Davies
Produced by Julian Wilkinson.

MON 23:00 Word of Mouth (b08g5533)
Like, Totally Awesome: The Americanisation of English

Michael Rosen is joined by writer Matthew Engel and linguist Dr Lynne Murphy to discuss the Americanisation of English. Is the pace of Americanisation of British English really increasing? Why do Americans say eggplant and sidewalk, rather than aubergine and pavement? Why does your spellchecker insist it's 'color' not 'colour'? Do Americans complain about the 'Britishisms' creeping into use in the States as much as we complain about Americanisms in use in the UK? Does it really matter if British and American English begin to be used interchangeably and could we stem the flow if we tried?

Producer: Mair Bosworth.

MON 23:30 Today in Parliament (b08gxfbs)
Susan Hulme reports from Westminster.

TUESDAY 07 MARCH 2017

TUE 00:00 Midnight News (b08gwfm5)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.

TUE 00:30 Book of the Week (b08gwsjb)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:45 on Monday]

TUE 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b08gwfm7)
The latest shipping forecast.

TUE 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b08gwfm9)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.

TUE 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b08gwfmc)
The latest shipping forecast.

TUE 05:30 News Briefing (b08gwfmf)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.

TUE 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b08jcswg)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Chine McDonald of World Vision UK.

TUE 05:45 Farming Today (b08gwfmh)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside. Presented by Anna Hill and produced by Beatrice Fenton.

TUE 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b03srfgn)
Grey Heron (Winter)

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

Chris Packham presents the grey heron. Winter can be a challenging time for grey herons. In freezing conditions, their favoured food supplies of fish and amphibians are locked beneath the ice and prolonged spells of cold weather can be fatal for these birds.

TUE 06:00 Today (b08gwfmk)
News and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Yesterday in Parliament, Weather, Thought for the Day.

TUE 09:00 The Public Philosopher (b08gxndc)
Would life be better if robots did all the work?

Harvard philosopher Michael Sandel asks if life would be better if robots did all the work. Professor Sandel skilfully and entertainingly uses live audiences to help address important ethical and philosophical questions. He has travelled across the world and brought together global audiences for his method of Socratic dialogue.

Michael gathers an audience in a secondary school in Dagenham, East London, to address one of the most pressing issues of our times - the future of work in a world where automation threatens to replace more and more workers with robots. A much-cited Oxford University report predicts that 35% of jobs in the UK are at risk.

There is nowhere better to examine this issue than Dagenham, where once 40,000 people built cars at the famous Ford factory. The plant stopped making cars in 2002 and now makes vast numbers of car engines, but with fewer than 3,000 employees. Barking and Dagenham is judged by the Legatum Institute as the least prosperous borough in London and among the 10 least prosperous in the UK. The unemployment rate is one of the highest in London. As automation moves from the factory floor to the office, Michael Sandel and his audience will try to understand how we regard the ethics surrounding this profound shift.

Producer: Tim Mansel.

TUE 09:45 Book of the Week (b08hd1vj)
What Happened, Miss Simone?, Episode 2

Inspired by the Oscar-nominated TV documentary, Alan Light's biography draws on Nina Simone's early diaries, rare interviews, childhood journals and input from her daughter Lisa Simone Kelly to paint a picture of the classically-trained pianist who became a soul legend, a leading civil rights activist and one of the most influential artists of our time.

Episode Two
Meeting Mrs Mazzy - the day that changed Nina Simone's life.

Music journalist Alan Light is the author of The Holy of the Broken: Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley and the Unlikely Ascent of Hallelujah, and Let's Go Crazy: Prince and the Making of Purple Rain, among others. He was editor-in-chief of the music magazines Vibe and Spin, and is a frequent contributor to the New York Times.

Writer: Alan Light
Abridger: Pete Nichols
Reader: Alibe Parsons
Producer: Karen Rose

A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4.

TUE 10:00 Woman's Hour (b08gwfmm)
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.

TUE 10:45 15 Minute Drama (b08gxndf)
Agnes Grey, Rosalie

Ellie Kendrick stars in Rachel Joyce's new Anne Bronte adaptation. With the family fortune lost and her father ill, Agnes is making her way in the world. But she has already been beset with great disappointment. What should she do?

TUE 11:00 We Are the Martians (b08gxndh)
A New Red World

Ken Hollings continues the series that revels in the many Mars' of imagination, history & science. Feminists, Christians, peace loving druids, vegetarian fruitarian dwarves, Bolsheviks & big science terra-formers have all offered up their versions of Martian utopia.

Both the astronomer Flammarion and the Russian mystic & Cosmist Nikolai Fyodorov dreamed of the dead resurrected on Mars. At the height of the Cold War mysterious messages from Mars turn out to come from God, as mankind is shocked into a new beginning in the loopy film Red Planet Mars. But the Bolsheviks had got to Mars long before that, before the revolution even in 1908 with Alexander Bogdanov's Red Star. A prophet of the Bolshevik Revolution, Bogdanov gives us a historically advanced socialist state visited by a veteran revolutionary-in fact this socialist utopia will drive him mad! Russia and then the Soviet Union ached for a future among the stars where apple blossom time would come to Mars.

In Unveiling a Parallel, 1893, two Iowan women send a visitor by plane to see how women's lives could be just as equal as men's. Why they could propose marriage & have children out of wedlock! That great mapper of Mars canals, Percival Lowell, impressed on people the desperate tale of Martian co-operation as they raced to save their species. In America the story of terra-forming emerged from science fiction to cast a powerful spell on scientists & writers. Jim lovelock, creator of the Gaia theory impishly suggesting we nuke Mars & cover it in hair spray to begin its rebirth. Then came Kim Stanley Robinson, whose vast Martian trilogy (Red, Green, Blue Mars) gives us a near utopia, won only after decades of political strife, terra-forming and a final, irrevocable break with Earth.

Producer: Mark Burman.

TUE 11:45 Prime Ministers' Props (b07qbcb0)
Sir Alec Douglas-Home's Matchsticks

Professor Sir David Cannadine explores political fame and image by looking at how an object or prop, whether chosen deliberately or otherwise, can come to define a political leader.

Sir David looks at the significance of these props of power - what they mean and what they become, and what happens when, almost inevitably, Prime Ministers lose control of their image and their props take on a hostile meaning, very different from their original intentions.

The aristocratic Sir Alec Douglas-Home appeared removed both from the majority of the British people and, to some extent, the modern world itself. He showed the depth of his inexperience when he casually commented to a reporter that he used matchsticks to help him understand economic problems. "When I have to read economic documents I have to have a box of matches and start moving them into position to simplify and illustrate the points to myself."

It was a gift for Leader of the Opposition, Harold Wilson, who used the matchstick comment to goad and embarrass the Conservative Prime Minister at every opportunity. The matchsticks came to define Sir Alec's inadequacies as leader and, when it came to problem-solving, his ultimately successful opponent Wilson was more familiar with slide rules than matchsticks.

Home's premiership was the second briefest of the twentieth century, lasting just two days short of a year. Who knows what would have happened if Sir Alec hadn't made that careless matchstick comment.

A Blakeway production for BBC Radio 4.

TUE 12:00 News Summary (b08gwfmp)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

TUE 12:04 One to One (b07x2zcw)
Trevor McDonald on Redemption

In this series of One to One, Sir Trevor McDonald explores the idea of redemption, talking to two very different people with very different ideas on what it means.

This week he meets Madeleine Black who was violently attacked and raped when she was just 13, yet has found redemption through forgiving the men who did this to her.

Producer: Maggie Ayre.

TUE 12:15 You and Yours (b08gwfmr)
Call You and Yours

Consumer phone-in.

TUE 12:57 Weather (b08gwfmt)
The latest weather forecast.

TUE 13:00 World at One (b08gwfmw)
Analysis of news and current affairs.

TUE 13:45 Following the Martian Invasion (b08gxx71)
'A Remarkable Story from Woking'

Francis Spufford walks in the footsteps of Wells all conquering tripods from Woking to Primrose Hill in the company of writers, scientists & historians, exploring the startling array of ideas that fuelled his classic and gives it its lasting impact. One of the lasting appeals of Wells' 1887 classic is the very real topography of invasion and terror inflicted on South East England. Wells reduces suburban & central London to smoking rubble, strewn with aero-forming red weed. You can map out exactly where the invasion begins at the sandpits on Horsell Common to its mucus ridden end at London's Primrose Hill.

'A REMARKABLE STORY FROM WOKING'... So scream the headlines of the papers in a novel that revels in the rapidly changing social and media landscape of Victorian London. Francis Spufford wheels his bicycle along Maybury Road and through Woking to consider the delight which Wells took in destroying a place he had only just recently arrived at. Woking, the land of the dead, where the Necropolis railway deposited its cargo in Europe's largest cemetery. Wells would mount his new technological wonder, a tandem with his 'wife' in the front, and weave his way through the town and its Surrey environs noting down places and people before destroying them all in print! But who was Wells at this point in his life and who were we? What kind of world was Woking and beyond and what was it he was so intent on destroying? Joining Francis is science fiction chronicler Roger Luckhurst (Birkbeck University) and historian Astrid Svenson (Brunel University).
Producer: Laura Thomas.

TUE 14:00 The Archers (b08gwy5n)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Monday]

TUE 14:15 Drama (b08gxx73)
Between the Lines

Meera Syal stars as Scarlett, a jobless divorcee piecing her life together again - by writing and reading erotic fiction to a group of partially-sighted care home residents. They love it!

Recently divorced, and facing a bleak future after the end of her fast-paced career in publishing, Scarlett's had enough. She tries to check herself into a care home but is persuaded instead to become a volunteer reader to a group of blind and partially-sighted residents. They share some of their life stories with her and she is inspired to write and re-tell these back to the group, with an erotic spin.

Her favourite niece comes to stay and, unknowingly, gives her more material when she recounts her online dating exploits. All in all, it's rich territory for Scarlett and the group look forward to her visits with relish. But she falls foul of care home protocol and is asked to leave.

When Sophie finds out her aunt has a talent for writing erotic fiction, she is delighted and persuades her to start recording and publishing on line. The group can keep up with her stories and - who knows - it could become a new career for Scarlett.

The cast includes Fenella Fielding, once known as England's first lady of the double entendre, William Gaunt and Sophia di Martino. Between the Lines is writer and director Rebecca Lloyd-Evans' debut on BBC Radio 4.

Writer and Director : Rebecca Lloyd-Evans
Sound Designer : Eloise Whitmore
Producer : Melanie Harris
Executive Producer : Jo Meek

A Sparklab production for BBC Radio 4.

TUE 15:00 Short Cuts (b08gxx75)
Series 11, Out of Time

Josie Long presents documentaries about time and timing. From losing your grasp on the passing hours to a childhood fear of Sundays - how our experience of time gets under our skin.

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

TUE 15:30 Costing the Earth (b08gxx77)
Delivering Clean Air

Internet shopping continues to rise worldwide. That means a lot more delivery vans on the streets of our towns and cities. Those vans and trucks, often powered by dirty diesel engines, are contributing to air pollution problems that can cause significant increases in premature death and great discomfort for people suffering from heart and lung conditions.

As part of the BBC's 'So I Can Breathe' season Tom Heap sets out to find innovative solutions. Could drones or robots be the answer? Could we cut out the middle man and use 3D printers to create everything we want at home? Perhaps it's simply a matter of converting all those vans to electric or gas power or even carrying out the majority of home deliveries by bike.

With the promise of ever-quicker delivery times the search for a solution becomes ever more urgent if we're to prevent our consumer addiction becoming an air pollution crisis on every doorstep.

Producer: Helen Lennard.

TUE 16:00 Law in Action (b08gxx79)
Legal magazine programme presented by Joshua Rozenberg.

TUE 16:30 A Good Read (b08gxx7c)
Tony Robinson and Andi Oliver

Tony Robinson, Blackadder's Baldrick, talks with chef and broadcaster Andi Oliver and presenter Harriett Gilbert about great books. Tony introduces them to Shotgun Lovesongs by Nickolas Butler, a gentle and evocative tale of male friendship in Wisconsin. Andi chooses a book that means a huge amount to her but which she admits is not an easy read: Go Tell it on the Mountain by James Baldwin. And Harriett makes them all laugh at the monstrous title character in Angel by Elizabeth Taylor.
Producer Beth O'Dea.

TUE 17:00 PM (b08gwfmy)
Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.

TUE 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b08gwfn0)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

TUE 18:30 Mark Watson Talks a Bit About Life (b04n3388)
Series 1, Longevity

A new series from multi-award winning comic Mark Watson where he attempts to answer the big questions and make sense of life, nimbly assisted by Tim Key and Tom Basden.

Mark and his two henchmen tackle academic and abstract topics. Themes will be examined from every angle, torn apart, laughed at and put back together again in an effort to understand ourselves and the world around us, and make it a slightly better place using stand-up, poetry, songs and dippy interactions.

This week Mark looks at "Longevity". It's the big one - dear old Mr Death. Can we beat him? Since time began, his win/lose record has been around 190 billion/1 (that's accepting Jesus rose from the dead, and maybe allowing a few draws for people who've been cryonically frozen, etc). Much of the world seems to be obsessed with the task of trying to defy age' and deny the inevitable - but is there actually a case for not wanting to live too long, because the world starts to become too confusing and your place in it less and less secure?

Mark dishes up some examples of ways this is already happening to him. Key and Basden attempt to persuade Mark the true glory of life is in enjoying it, not drawing it out endlessly. Everyone asks the question - who really wants to live forever?
Mark Watson is a multi-award winning comedian - his awards include the inaugural If.Comedy Panel Prize 2006. He is assisted by Tim Key, winner of an Edinburgh Comedy Award in 2009, and Tom Basden who won the the If.Comedy Award for Best Newcomer in 2007.

Written and performed by Mark Watson, Tim Key and Tom Basden.

Produced by Lianne Coop
An Impatient production for BBC Radio 4.

TUE 19:00 The Archers (b08gxx7f)
Fallon gets an unexpected reaction, and Lilian is not to be disturbed.

TUE 19:15 Front Row (b08gwfn2)
Arts news, interviews and reviews.

TUE 19:45 15 Minute Drama (b08gxndf)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:45 today]

TUE 20:00 File on 4 (b08gxx7h)
Rogue Hauliers

In January a haulage boss and his mechanic were jailed for a tipper truck crash which killed four people. The brakes on six of the truck's eight wheels weren't working properly. The expert examiner from the Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency said Grittenham Haulage's vehicle would have been taken off the road if it had been stopped in a roadside check.

But are there sufficient roadside and on-site checks to detect safety breaches?

File on 4 uncovers cases where unsafe vehicles and drivers were allowed to remain on the roads, despite known concerns.

So does the current system of regulation and punishment go far enough to deter rogue operators who drive some of the most dangerous vehicles on our roads?

Reporter: Jane Deith
Producer: David Lewis.

TUE 20:40 In Touch (b08gwfn6)
News, views and information for people who are blind or partially sighted.

TUE 21:00 Moving to the Red Planet (b08gxx7k)
As we dream of sending humans to Mars, the psychological problems of a mission loom large. As part of Radio 4's Mars season. Claudia Hammond investigates the mind-set behind the desire of those of us who want to colonise the red planet. What does it take to survive the confines of a 9 month journey and the enclosed pod-like environments that mission leaders envisage will be the housing needed to occupy this inhospitable planet?

Claudia meets the wannabe Martian explorers who've been sampling similar long term simulations here on earth and the psychologists who've overseen the design,selection and planning for future communities in space.

Producer Adrian Washbourne.

TUE 21:30 The Public Philosopher (b08gxndc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]

TUE 22:00 The World Tonight (b08gwfn8)
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.

TUE 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b08gxx7m)
Birdcage Walk, Episode 2

We continue with the second episode of Helen Dunmore's new novel, published this week. Set in Bristol in 1792, Birdcage Walk is set against a backdrop of the French Revolution. It touches on Radical idealism, property, political turmoil and private tragedy. Inspired by the real life of Julia Fawkes, a leading Radical writer, none of whose work has survived, Dunmore explores the tensions between generations and genders, and examines the idea of legacy as Julia's daughter Lizzie finds herself torn between her charismatic, self made husband and her idealistic mother. As her husband Diner Tredevant speculates on property in Bristol's housing boom, he risks losing everything in the social upheaval caused by the French Revolution.

Today Lizzie's mother has shocking news which explains her sickness. And Lizzie and her property developer husband Diner must display their house to prospective buyers.

An acclaimed poet and award-winning novelist, Helen Dunmore's work often explores the interplay between the public and the personal, most famously in The Siege and The Betrayal, and most recently Exposure.

The readers are XXX and Carl Prekopp
The abridger is Sara Davies
Produced by Julian Wilkinson.

TUE 23:00 Sarah Kendall: Australian Trilogy (b08gxx7p)
Series 1, Touchdown

Multi-award winning storyteller Sarah Kendall brings her critically acclaimed trilogy of funny and moving, live shows to Radio 4.

Taking her audience on a trip, Sarah gives a unique snapshot of small-town life in Australia in the early nineties.

At a time when most people were seeing Australians through the filter of 'Home and Away' and 'Neighbours', Sarah's shows present a darker underbelly to the stereotype of the sun-loving, happy-go-lucky Aussie teenager.

Comedic and tragic in equal measure, Sarah's tales of her teenage life blend intricate narratives with a cast of memorable characters, bringing events to life in front of your very ears.

Episode 2: Touchdown

"This show is a story, and our story starts at the end. My parents came to see one of my shows, and I would end this particular show by telling a story about the time I swore at a teacher..."

Starting with a short routine from her comedy club set, Sarah admits that like with most stand-up routines, it had a punchline manufactured for the sake of a joke. Her mum challenges her to tell everyone what really happened the day she swore at that teacher and the result is this show. Denied the quick fix of a fabricated punchline it is transformed into a full, honest, coming-of-age story that explores the clumsiness of adolescents, their awkward relationships, and painful need for friendship and love.

*Contains strong language

Written and performed by Sarah Kendall
Producer - Carl Cooper
Production Coordinator - Emily Hallett
This is a BBC Studios Production.

TUE 23:30 Today in Parliament (b08gxx7r)
Sean Curran reports from Westminster.

WEDNESDAY 08 MARCH 2017

WED 00:00 Midnight News (b08gwfq9)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.

WED 00:30 Book of the Week (b08hd1vj)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:45 on Tuesday]

WED 00:48 Shipping Forecast (b08gwfqc)
The latest shipping forecast.

WED 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (b08gwfqf)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.

WED 05:20 Shipping Forecast (b08gwfqh)
The latest shipping forecast.

WED 05:30 News Briefing (b08gwfqk)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.

WED 05:43 Prayer for the Day (b08htn37)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Chine McDonald of World Vision UK.

WED 05:45 Farming Today (b08gwfqm)
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside. Presented by Anna Hill and produced by Beatrice Fenton.

WED 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b03wpzmk)
Chiffchaff

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

Bill Oddie presents the chiffchaff. Chiffchaff are small olive warblers which sing their name as they flit around hunting for insects in woods, marshes and scrubby places. Chiffchaffs are increasing in the UK and the secret of their success is their ability to weather our winters. Many stay in the milder south and south-west of England where the insects are more active.

WED 06:00 Today (b08gwfqp)
Morning news and current affairs. Including Yesterday in Parliament, Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.

WED 09:00 Midweek (b08gwfqr)
Lively and diverse conversation with Libby Purves and guests.

WED 09:45 Book of the Week (b08hd1y3)
What Happened, Miss Simone?, Episode 3

Episode 3
When Eunice Waymon became Nina Simone.

Inspired by the Oscar-nominated TV documentary, Alan Light's biography draws on Nina Simone's early diaries, rare interviews, childhood journals and input from her daughter Lisa Simone Kelly to paint a picture of the classically-trained pianist who became a soul legend, a leading civil rights activist and one of the most influential artists of our time.

Music journalist Alan Light is the author of The Holy of the Broken: Leonard Cohen, Jeff Buckley and the Unlikely Ascent of Hallelujah, and Let's Go Crazy: Prince and the Making of Purple Rain, among others. He was editor-in-chief of the music magazines Vibe and Spin, and is a frequent contributor to the New York Times.

Writer: Alan Light
Abridger: Pete Nichols
Reader: Alibe Parsons
Producer: Karen Rose

A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4.

WED 10:00 Woman's Hour (b08gwfqt)
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.

WED 10:41 15 Minute Drama (b08gy165)
Agnes Grey, Weston

Ellie Kendrick stars in Rachel Joyce's new Anne Bronte adaptation. Agnes has been a governess in the Murray household for two years. Her charges a pair of ignorant girls. She is lonely and desperate for a friend.

WED 10:55 The Listening Project (b08gy167)
Nick and Peter - Them and Us

One was intimidated by uniforms and cool hair - 'like a mass boy band of 1000 kids' - the other by the rough kids from the council estate. Fi Glover presents another conversation in the series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen.

Producer: Marya Burgess.

WED 11:00 We Are the Martians (b08gy169)
Start-up Planet

For Radio 4's Mars season, Kevin Fong asks what future do we have on Mars when we finally get there? Kevin Fong talks to scientists and writers about their visions of a human presence and purpose on the Red Planet. This is the third part on this series on our relationship with Mars.

The American space agency NASA aims to get the first human crew to Mars sometime in the 2040's. It is likely to be an international mission and carry a crew of six people. Elon Musk, the founder of private rocket company Space X, has unveiled a scheme to get a spacecraft of 100 colonists to the Red Planet before 2030.

Do we go to Mars for the big science questions and exploration? Or is Project Mars about becoming a multi-planetary species, extending the American western frontier by a hundred million miles? Do we need to prepare Mars as a refuge should civilisation face extinction here on the home planet.

Even the first boot print mission will be the mother of all camping trips, and full of hazard. Mars' tenuous atmosphere contains no oxygen, the average temperature is -60 degrees Celsius, the surface is bathed in cosmic and solar radiation and toxic dust lies all over the planet. So some Mars enthusiasts predict that our presence there will never amount to more than something like extraterrestrial Antarctic style bases, where visiting scientific explorers and back-up technicians live and work for a few years at a time before returning to Earth. But for others, the vision is much grander and more ambitious. Colonies will become city sized and economically productive, trading technological innovations with the home planet. Generations of people will live and die in societies free from oppressive authority on Earth.

Kevin Fong hears from would-be Martian explorers such as Elon Musk and Robert Zubrin. Robert Zubrin is president of the Mars Society and is credited with coming up with the basic technical strategy of mounting a return trip to Mars which both NASA and Space X have adopted. If we do this in our generation, says Zubrin, within two centuries there will be self-sustaining communities on Mars with their own dialects, cultures of technological and artistic invention, and their own history of 'heroic deeds'. To others, this is just romanticism and that Mars is no place for civilians. let alone children. With gravity little more than one third of Earth's, a successful human pregnancy may in fact be impossible. That's just one of the many unknowns about the future of humans on Mars revealed, as Kevin talks to the scientific Mars visionaries and science fiction authors such as Kim Stanley Robinson, Emma Newman and Stephen Baxter who've imagined people on the Red Planet.

Kevin Fong is regular presenter of programmes on space on BBC radio and television. He's also a medical doctor and an authority on space medicine.

Producer: Andrew Luck-Baker.

WED 11:45 Following the Martian Invasion (b08gy16c)
The Destruction of Shepperton and the Exodus from London

Francis Spufford walks in the footsteps of Wells all conquering tripods from Woking to Primrose Hill in the company of writers, scientists & historians, exploring the startling array of ideas that fuelled his classic and gives it its lasting impact.

The inexorable progress of the Martian War machines meets an organized military response at Shepperton. Desperate and doomed yet not without limited success. Joining Francis along the banks of the Thames to consider a desperate, workable strategy against alien invasion is General Sir Rupert Smith, former Deputy Supreme Allied Commander. Meanwhile in London and along the refugee routes northwards to Chipping Barnet Professor Darryl Jones (Trinity College), editor of the forthcoming O.U.P. edition of War of the Worlds, considers how things fall apart & what kind of world Wells wanted to sweep away?
Producer: Mark Burman.

WED 12:00 News Summary (b08gwfqw)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

WED 12:04 One to One (b082hfw3)
Miranda Rae on the challenges of being a single parent

Miranda Rae is a single mum with a young son who is 9 years old. Life is far from easy for any single parent, but in this programme Miranda meets mother-of-three, Josephine Pepper, who found herself on her own with 3 children under the age of three, when her husband died of cancer. Despite her grief at the death of her husband, Josephine's story is one of remarkable courage, resilience and joy in her children and in life itself. Producer Sarah Blunt.

WED 12:15 Budget 2017 (b08gy1ds)
Live coverage of the chancellor's Budget speech.

WED 13:56 Weather (b08h025l)
The latest weather forecast.

WED 14:00 The Archers (b08gxx7f)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Tuesday]

WED 14:15 Drama (b08gy7ht)
Leila's Shame

A story about an unlikely friendship across the cultural divide between a risk-taking Somali woman and a cautious undercover cop. They have more in common than they realise. When Kate sets out to gather evidence about a Somali drug-dealing ex con, she assumes the identity of an academic researching into the hidden Manchester Somali community. Her gateway in to the culture is Leila, a flippant, fun-loving young British Somali. Leila takes her to meet Somali families, whilst making drops for her boyfriend Khalid: Kate's target. In spite of herself, Kate is very drawn to Leila. She's fun, slightly crazy, and it turns out, deeply troubled. They become friends although it's clear neither are revealing their true selves to the other. Kate is charmed and intrigued by Leila who invites her to dinner with her mum and brother, takes her clubbing and arranges a memorable evening in a shisha bar. Kate's focus shifts from professional to personal: Khalid is still her mark, but now she wants to protect Leila. Especially when she realises Leila's real troubles stem from her mental ill-health - a subject that is deeply taboo in the Somali community.

Yusra Warsama stars as Leila and Jessica Baglow as Kate in Leila's Shame, scripted and directed by Alessana Hall.

Scripted and directed by Alessana Hall
Produced by Melanie Harris
Exec producer: Jo Meek
Sound design: Eloise Whitmore

A Sparklab Production for BBC Radio 4.

WED 15:00 Money Box (b08gy7hw)
Money Box Live

Financial phone-in.

WED 15:30 Inside Health (b08gy7hy)
Medical series in which Dr Mark Porter explores health issues of the day.

WED 16:00 Thinking Allowed (b08gy87s)
Sociological discussion programme, presented by Laurie Taylor.

WED 16:30 The Media Show (b08gwfr4)
Topical programme about the fast-changing media world.

WED 17:00 PM (b08gwfr6)
Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.

WED 18:00 Six O'Clock News (b08gwfr8)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

WED 18:30 It's Jocelyn (b08gy87v)
Series 2, Friends

It's Jocelyn returns for a second series of sketches and stand-up from the wonderful mind of Jocelyn Jee Esien.
In episode three, Jocelyn talks about friendship, Princess Pay As You Go gets into podcasting and the traffic wardens have a meeting about a meeting.
This series Jocelyn is joined by Paul Whitehouse as a cockney funeral director, as well as the vocal talents of Ninia Benjamin, Curtis Walker, Dee Kaate, Gavi Chera and Karen Bartke.
The producer is Suzy Grant and It's Jocelyn is a BBC Studios production.

WED 19:00 The Archers (b08gy87x)
Pip needs an extra pair of hands, and Peggy voices her disappointment.

WED 19:15 Front Row (b08gwfrb)
Arts news, interviews and reviews.

WED 19:45 15 Minute Drama (b08gy165)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:41 today]

WED 20:00 Moral Maze (b08gy87z)
Combative, provocative and engaging debate chaired by Michael Buerk. With Melanie Phillips, Matthew Taylor, Anne McElvoy and Giles Fraser.

WED 20:45 Lent Talks (b08gy881)
Anouchka Grose - Destiny and the Psyche

The writer and psychoanalyst Anouchka Grose explores the force of destiny in our lives and as Jesus contemplates his future in his 40 days in the wilderness.

WED 21:00 Costing the Earth (b08gxx77)
[Repeat of broadcast at 15:30 on Tuesday]

WED 21:30 Midweek (b08gwfqr)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]

WED 21:58 Weather (b08gwfrd)
The latest weather forecast.

WED 22:00 The World Tonight (b08gwfrg)
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.

WED 22:45 Book at Bedtime (b08gybf9)
Birdcage Walk, Episode 3

We continue with the third episode of Helen Dunmore's new novel, published this week. Set in Bristol in 1792, Birdcage Walk is set against a backdrop of the French Revolution. It touches on Radical idealism, property, political turmoil and private tragedy. Inspired by the real life of Julia Fawkes, a leading Radical writer, none of whose work has survived, Dunmore explores the tensions between generations and genders, and examines the idea of legacy as Julia's daughter Lizzie finds herself torn between her charismatic, self made husband and her idealistic mother. As her husband Diner Tredevant speculates on property in Bristol's housing boom, he risks losing everything in the social upheaval caused by the French Revolution.

Today news from France threatens to destabilise Europe and the overthrow of the French king makes Diner anxious that it will upset the housing market and scare off potential buyers. Lizzie is preoccupied with the safe delivery of her mother's new baby.

An acclaimed poet and award-winning novelist, Helen Dunmore's work often explores the interplay between the public and the personal, most famously in The Siege and The Betrayal, and most recently Exposure.

Hattie Morahan is a stage, film and TV actress who won numerous awards for her portrayal of Nora in the Young Vic production of A Doll's House. She was part of the cast of Outnumbered and recently appeared in BBC TVs My Mother and Other Strangers.

The readers are Hattie Morahan and Carl Prekopp
The abridger is Sara Davies
Produced by Julian Wilkinson.

WED 23:00 Spotlight Tonight with Nish Kumar (b08gybmn)
Series 1, 08/03/2017

We all like to think we know about the news and yet, whilst jokes about Boris Johnson's haircut are all well and good, do you still have that nagging suspicion there's important things going on beneath the headlines you'd like to know about? Well, help is at hand! Nish Kumar is here to cast his spotlight on the week's most talked about news items, taking an in-depth look at the biggest stories from the past seven days to scrutinise what's actually going on beneath the bluster.

Recorded on the day of transmission, Spotlight Tonight brings you the most reactive up to date in-depth look at the news.

Starring Nish Kumar & Sarah Campbell.

Written by Robin Morgan, Sarah Campbell, Max Davis, Gabby Hutchinson-Crouch, Nish Kumar, and Tom Neenan.

It was produced by Matt Stronge and was a BBC Studios Production.

WED 23:30 Today in Parliament (b08gybfc)
Susan Hulme reports from Westminster.