The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.

The Dodo is byword for extinction, or at least it has been. Evolutionary biologist Ben Garrod discovers how the skeletal remains of this extinct bird may hold the key to life beyond the grave and that extinction could be a thing of the past. Producer Sarah Blunt.

In the 1950s, David Attenborough, the naturalist and broadcaster grasped a life changing opportunity which led him to travel the world finding rare and elusive animal species for London Zoo and filming the expeditions for the BBC television series, Zoo Quest. Today, he reads from his account of his trip to Argentina and the mystery of the vanishing armadillo.

Abridged by Richard Hamilton
Produced by Elizabeth Allard.

The latest shipping forecast.

The latest shipping forecast.

The latest news from BBC Radio 4.

A reflection and prayer with Rev Dr Bert Tosh.

A husband on rebuilding his marriage after his affair. iPM is the news programme that starts with its listeners. Email ipm@bbc.co.uk. Twitter: @BBCiPM. Presented by Luke Jones and Eddie Mair.

The latest news headlines. Including the weather and a look at the papers.

Helen Mark visits the Cairngorms in Scotland to find out why this landscape was an inspiration and a refuge for writer Nan Shepherd. Shepherd's neglected book 'The Living Mountain' has found new audiences with a resurgence in the popularity of nature writing in recent years and recognition of her importance has resulted in her image featuring on the new Scottish five pound note.

Helen meets Nan's long-time friend and 'adopted family member' Erlend Clouston, as well as local people who share her passion for the wilderness of the mountains here. Ospreys became extinct and were reintroduced to the Cairngorms during Nan Shepherd's lifetime: Helen discusses this and some of the more glamorous jobs of RSPB warden Fraser Cormack, including ditch-blocking. She'll talk about winter climbing with Helen Geddes and rare plants and how to protect them with Gwenda Diack to build up a picture of what Shepherd loved about this wild and remote area of Scotland.

Producer... Mary Ward-Lowery.

On a Wednesday evening in 1937 a series of autumn radio talks began on the BBC under the title 'Farming Today'. 80 years later the programme's name is known by millions and it is firmly established as a mainstay of early morning broadcasting. Although the sound and style of the modern 'Farming Today' would be unrecognisable to the first speaker at the microphone all those years ago; the Cambridge academic and popular agricultural broadcaster, William Mansfield.

Unlike many of the BBC's longest-running radio productions, the story of 'Farming Today' is unpredictable and unconventional. It didn't start with a bang but instead it was born out of another, already well-established programme called, unappealingly, 'For Farmers Only'. Over the decades the format and time slot have changed; the programme has moved from network to network; it disappeared from the airwaves completely in the 1950s and several times over the last 80 years it has come perilously close to being axed. Yet for many listeners it is as much a part of the Radio 4 schedule as the chimes of Big Ben and the Shipping Forecast.

The BBC's official historian, Professor Jean Seaton, is drawn to the "muddiness and breakfastness" of 'Farming Today', former Prime Ministers Margaret Thatcher and Gordon Brown tuned in and it's true that many of the keenest listeners have no connection with the countryside at all.

Presented by Charlotte Smith.
Produced by Vernon Harwood.
Readers: Juliet Browne and Alan Morgan.

The latest weather forecast.

News and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.

The poet Lemn Sissay, lexicographer Susie Dent and conservationist Ian Redmond join the Reverend Richard Coles and Aasmah Mir.

Lemn Sissay is a poet and broadcaster who has written extensively about his childhood in care. His new collection of poetry Gold from the Stone is published by Canongate Books.

Susie Dent is a lexicographer who is the resident word expert in Dictionary Corner on Countdown and 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown. Her book Dent's Modern Tribes - The Secret Languages of Britain is published by John Murray Publishers.

Ian Redmond is a wildlife biologist and conservationist, renowned for his work with great apes and elephants, who worked closely with the late Dr Dian Fossey,

JP Devlin meets singer Barry Manilow and singer and activist Mavis Staples shares her inheritance tracks - Will the Circle Be Unbroken by the Staple Singers and What's Going On by Marvin Gaye.

Producer: Paula McGinley
Editor: Eleanor Garland.

Jay Rayner and his panel of cooking and eating experts are in Dumfries. Andi Oliver, Tim Anderson, Rachel McCormack and Professor Barry Smith answer the audience questions on whisky, oysters and salt.

They also embrace the Hogmanay spirit, taking part in many a New Year tradition, and, as usual, Barry Smith has some nifty experiments up his sleeve to baffle even the panellists' experienced palates.

David Thomson from Annandale Whisky Distillery and Rob Lamont, fisherman of exclusive Loch Ryan oysters, are on hand to discuss the local delicacies.

Produced by Darby Dorras
Assistant Producer: Laurence Bassett

Food Consultant: Anna Colquhoun

A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.

For millennia people have used fragrance to scent both their bodies and their surroundings. With just one drop, perfume has the potential to stir memories, awaken the senses and even influence how we feel about ourselves. But what's the story behind this liquid luxury in a bottle, now found on the shelves of department stores - and homes - worldwide?
In this programme, Bridget Kendall explores the modern history of perfume from its ancient roots to the scientific discoveries that have made it what it is today, with scientist and critic Luca Turin, writer and curator Lizzie Ostrom and the perfumer Thomas Fontaine.

Photo: Perfume bottles and smelling strips (Getty Images).

The migrants clinging to hope, NATO military manoeuvres and a jungle prince. Kate Adie introduces some memorable moments correspondents have shared on the programme in 2017.

Benjamin Zand encounters 'lies, lies and more lies" as he follows the treacherous migrant route that hundreds of thousands of people have followed in the hope of reaching Europe from Africa.
Shaimaa Khalil recalls growing up in Egypt and her first experience of sexual harassment aged 11 #metoo.
Emily Unia watches a NATO display of military might in Romania, but can't escape noticing that some members of the press pack don't seem to be taking it seriously.
Tim Whewell tries to talk his way into Abkhazia - a country which most of the world refuses to recognise.
And Justin Rowlatt has the tale of the lonely death of an Indian prince reduced to living in abject poverty in a hunting lodge in a forest in Delhi.

Producer: Joe Kent.

The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

Price comparison websites have become the first port of call when we shop for many of the products that run our lives. We compare prices on offer for necessities such as insurance, energy and broadband deals. We search for the best deals on flights and hotels when we plan our holidays.
These sites are free of charge and easy to use, and they seem to be the consumer's best friend.
But they are also very lucrative businesses which can earn commission every time we switch from one provider to another.
Lesley Curwen investigates the business models behind these sites and talks to the regulator about how some may be acting against healthy competition, which could drive up prices rather than bring them down.
Is it time to be more savvy about price comparison websites?

Presenter: Lesley Curwen
Producer: Sandie Kanthal
Editor:Andrew Smith.

Topical impressions show that offers a satirical take on politics, media and celebrity.

The latest weather forecast.

The latest news from BBC Radio 4.

Senior BBC journalists forecast what is likely to happen over the coming year.

Penzance-born Rory McGrath writes and performs a Cornish song at the SUNS International Festival - a multilingual alternative to the Eurovision song contest, where English is banned.

Rory talks with fellow performers, and to academics, about how the internet and the spread of English as a lingua franca is threatening to smother small languages. The United Nations predicts that 90% of Europe's 200 minority languages will have ceased to exist by the end of the 21st century.

A Terrier production for BBC Radio 4.

Anansi Boys is a magical web of a story that spans the old world and the new, from South London to the Southern US, to the fictional Caribbean island of St Andrews, and the Mountains at the End of the World. Or the Beginning of the World. Depending on which way you're heading.

Jacob Anderson is a musician (as Raleigh Ritchie) as well as an actor. Starring as Fat Charlie, a young man who struggles to find his voice, he has also written and performed a specially commissioned song - Charlie's Song - which forms part of the magical fabric of Anansi Boys.

The stellar cast of the series also includes Earl Cameron, Tanya Moodie, Adjoa Andoh, Joseph Marcell, Jacob Anderson, Lenny Henry, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, Sheila Atim, Pippa Bennett-Warner, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Cecilia Noble, Angela Wynter, Ariyon Bakare, Julie Hesmondhalgh, Danielle Vitalis, Ronke Adekoluejo, Clifford Samuel, and Tayla Kovacevic-Ebong.

Writer ..... Neil Gaiman
Adaptor ..... Dirk Maggs
Sound Design ..... Wilfredo Acosta
Producer ..... Allegra McIlroy
Director ..... Allegra McIlroy.

Cathy FitzGerald considers what we can learn about the body by experiencing it through the senses of artists.

Imagine you're experiencing the human body for the very first time. Look at the spiderweb of lines on a palm, how delicate the skin is at the pulse-point on the wrist. Feel the squishy warmth of an ear lobe, the dry honeycomb of elbow-skin. What does it sound like when a hand brushes a cheek? Do the shoulders smell different to the back?

We're surrounded by images of the body - and yet perhaps less in touch with our own fleshy selves than at any time in history. Many of us know our bodies only in terms of illness or deficiency - how they let us down.

Cathy FitzGerald explores the surface of the body as a terra incognita in the company of three artists, who each work with a different sense - sound-artist Matthew Herbert (who creates an 'audio-nude'), Wolfgang Georgsdorf who works with smell, and the Scottish painter Alison Watt. She also attends a life-drawing class at the National Gallery, led by drawing tutor and art-historian Karly Allen.

Produced and Presented by Cathy FitzGerald
A White Stiletto production for BBC Radio 4.

Highlights from the Woman's Hour week.Presented by Jenni Murray
Producer: Sophie Powling
Editor:Jane Thurlow.

Full coverage of the day's news.

The latest shipping forecast.

The latest weather forecast.

The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

Clive Anderson and Nikki Bedi pick their Loose Ends highlights from 2017. Conversation, comedy and music comes courtesy of an eclectic line up: Gina Yashere, Jason Isaacs, Stephen Fry, Sir Trevor McDonald, Stormzy, Dave Johns, Frank Gardner, Meera Syal, Rupert Everett, Margaret Cho, Noel Clarke, Jayde Adams, Frank Skinner, Ibibio Sound Machine, Mica Paris, Sampha, Brandy Clark and Rick Wakeman.

Producer: Paula McGinley.

A hunch about Online gambling has made Denise Coates from Bet365 Britain's best paid boss. Chris Bowlby discovers how this elusive figure from Stoke masterminded a global betting revolution. We follow her career from the tough world of 1990s betting shops to today's lucrative round the clock business. But why has hardly anyone - even in her home town - ever heard of her?

Producer: Smita Patel
Editor: Emma Rippon.

A review of the week's cultural highlights.

A look back at programmes and recordings from the BBC archives.

John Godber's comedy was commissioned for the Hull 1992 Festival. 25 years on, John and Jane Godber revisit the roles they played in the original stage production. Bet wins a 'Romantic Break' in Paris and drags a reluctant Al along with her as they sample life outside England for the first time.

Directed by Toby Swift

April in Paris is the third of John Godber's stage plays to come to BBC Radio 4 following September in the Rain (2011) and Happy Jack (2015). All three have been performed by Jane and John, just as the original theatre productions were. In 2015 they toured the UK together in a new play, Shafted!, for The John Godber Company, in partnership with Theatre Royal Wakefield. A radio version will come to Radio 4 in March.

The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4, followed by weather.

Although many people who have been buried at sea were sailors or navy personnel, anyone can have their body committed to the deep.

Few people choose the sea as their final resting place but, for those that do, there is a small band of funeral directors, skippers and coffin makers around the country who know how it's done.

A body can't be buried anywhere. There are designated sites around the country and a license is required to protect human health and the marine environment.

The Marine Maritime Organisation issues licences for burials in England. Applicants must supply a doctor's certificate to confirm that the body is free from infection and fever. It cannot be embalmed, must be lightly dressed in biodegradable clothing and tagged with durable ID.

The sea coffin itself looks a bit like a treasure chest. Built to withstand impact and to ensure it drops swiftly to the seabed, two hundred kilograms of iron, steel and concrete is strapped around the coffin and clamped to its base. To aid its sinking, dozens of holes are drilled into its softwood surface to let the seawater rush in.

Joan Bakewell and her panel discuss this little known mode of burial and explore how our naval history has shaped modern day practice. Joan also gets some tips on the best way to scatter ashes at sea.

Producer: Beth Eastwood.

Russell Davies welcomes four experts from the theatre and the world of Shakespeare studies, to determine who knows most about William Shakespeare and his works.

This special edition of the nation's longest-running general knowledge quiz was originally recorded in 2016 to mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death. The competition pits the much-loved theatre and film actors Fiona Shaw and John Sessions against experts Carol Rutter of the University of Warwick and Paul Edmondson of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. The questions range across Shakespeare's life, plays and poems, and there'll be plenty of musical and archive extracts to identify. The winner will lift the trophy as the official BBC 'Bard Brain of Britain'.

Producer Paul Bajoria.

Poet Michael Symmons Roberts gets under the glowing domes of Manchester's Intu Trafford Centre, the largest shopping centre ever seen in the UK when it was built in 1998, to argue that it makes a unique poetic and architectural statement. It's a landmark that attracts more than thirty million visitors a year, and displays over two thousand works of art. Michael ventures behind its facades to ask whether we've been looking at this building in the right way, and to find inspiration for new poetry.

The main dome of this shopping centre is one of its most evocative and striking features - Michael has long thought of it as a relative of Samuel Taylor Coleridge's 'stately pleasure dome' from his great poem 'Kubla Khan'. Michael discovers that this 'people's palace' has uncanny echoes of 'Kubla Khan' - from the dome itself, through to the 'intermittent fountains' and the presiding figure of 'Kubla Khan'.

Music was specially composed for this documentary by Scanner, a musician who has long experimented with the terrain between sound, space, and image. Scanner was asked to help Michael find a way to tune into the visual music of a building that can hard be to take in - because of its sheer scale and detail. He has previously worked on projects with artists including Bryan Ferry, Wayne MacGregor, Michael Nyman, Steve McQueen, and Laurie Anderson. Michael Symmons Roberts' new collection of poems 'Mancunia' will be published later this year.

Coleridge's 'Kubla Khan' is also part of the soundscape, performed here by members of INTU staff, who work under the changing light of a real stately pleasure dome.

Presenter: Michael Symmons Roberts
Composer: Scanner
Studio Manager: Sue Stonestreet
Producer: Faith Lawrence.

The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.

Evolutionary biologist Ben Garrod stares into the jaws of a man-eating tiger and learns how samples from the bones are providing vital evidence in understanding the role of predation on our evolutionary behaviour. Were our early ancestors primarily hunters or hunted? Producer Sarah Blunt.

A new story for Radio 4 by the Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Jhumpa Lahiri. Set in a remote Italian village, a teenage girl, of immigrant parents, wonders why her life is so different from those of the happy, glossy young families who come to holiday there.

Author: Jhumpa Lahiri has won numerous awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for her debut short story collection, The Interpreter of Maladies and the Frank O'Connor Award for her collection Unaccustomed Earth. She has recently been awarded the 29th PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short story
Reader: Deeivya Meir
Abridged and produced by Justine Willett.

The latest shipping forecast.

The latest shipping forecast.

The latest news from BBC Radio 4.

This week's Bells on Sunday comes from St. Petroc's Church, South Brent in Devon. The six bells hang in a substantial Norman tower. They were all cast in 1759 by Thomas Bilbie, a renowned West Country bell foundry of the time. We hear them ringing, Devon Style Call Changes on all six bells.

The latest national and international news.

For New Year's Eve, former Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams looks back over what has been a stormy year in many ways, and reflects on our limited ability to control the world we live in.

For Dr Williams, a storm offers us two truths. One is that there's ultimately no defence against human fragility - we can't postpone forever the acknowledgement that we are not all-powerful over the world. The other is the fact that the comfort we make for ourselves repeatedly blocks out the reality of other people's experience of fragility and risk.

Dr Williams argues, "Unless we remember how much of a lie it is that we can make ourselves completely safe, we shall train ourselves not to notice how the majority in our world continue to live." He explains that, at the heart of our experience of storms, is a religious revelation that there is no guarantee of safety but a promise that we shall be held through it all and not defeated.

According to Dr Williams, "When we show ourselves ready to stand alongside those who face the worst upheavals, trials and pains, we reflect just a little of the steady presence at the root of everything that never disappears, the pulse that continues to beat even when we can hardly discern it - the presence we call God."

Presenter: Dr Rowan Williams
Producer: Michael Wakelin
A TBI Media production for BBC Radio 4.

Brett Westwood relives programmes from The Living World archives. This episode from 2012 sees Miranda Krestovnikoff with Jeremy Biggs then from Pond Conservation (now known as Freshwater Habitats Trust) for a special Living world devoted to the ponds of the New Forest.

Jeremy has chosen these as some of the finest of their type because they are keep open by grazing ponies and deer, don't suffer from pollution from roads or agricultural run-off , and are some of the cleanest ponds in the United Kingdom. When they go pond-dipping , kneeling in muddy water in chest-waders, he proves it by finding some of our rarest plants and animals including the mud snail which thrives in shallow pools whose margins dry out in summer . Damselfly larvae prowl among the plants and there are even newts active in January , animals which have grown too slowly in the previous summer and are spending the winter as youngsters. Best of all, in the shallows of the pond are clumps of the year's first frogspawn, in mid -January.

This pond contains water all year round, but temporary ponds are a speciality of the New Forest. At Burley, Jeremy shows Miranda a roadside pool which fills with water in winter but is a grassy hollow in summer. Here they dip for one of Britain's rarest animals , the delicate fairy shrimp which can only survive in pools which dry out. These beautiful creatures are some of the oldest living animals on the planet, virtually unchanged in appearance from their ancestors 400 million years ago. Their eggs can survive in soil until the rains fill their ponds again in autumn and a new generation hatches to swim safe from fishes in the New Forest's temporary ponds.

Producer: Andrew Dawes.

The latest weather forecast.

The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.

Sunday morning religious news and current affairs programme, presented by Edward Stourton.

The actor and director Kenneth Branagh makes the Radio 4 Appeal on behalf of Over The Wall.

Registered Charity Number: 1075361
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 'Over The Wall'.
- Cheques should be made payable to 'Over The Wall'.

Photo credit: Johan Persson.

The latest weather forecast.

The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.

From the chapel of Castle Howard in Yorkshire, the former Bishop of Liverpool, the Right Reverend James Jones reflects on the different ways in which we respond to the grace of God as we approach a new year. With music from the Ebor Singers, including A New Year Carol by Britten, and Byrd's O God that guides the cheerful sun. Music Director: Paul Gameson. Organist: Keith Wright. Producer: Ben Collingwood.

"It isn't just because they have become platforms for propaganda and interpersonal odiousness that we should declare war on the social media", writes Howard Jacobson. "It is because they reduce all discourse to a shout".

Howard appeals for a re-discovery of the subtlety of language and explains why he believes we should leave behind the "frozen wastes of Emojiland".

"A thumb up or thumb down culture has given up on the idea that difference of opinion comes in shades, that thought is gradual and graded, that argument is more about adjustment than it is about assertion".

Producer: Adele Armstrong.

During this season of goodwill our thoughts turn to crackling fires, being with the family and for many a song or a carol to bring merriment to the colder days. Tweet of the Day has been entertaining early morning listeners to the Radio 4 schedule every day since 2013, but this Christmas we will delight in an avian offering of the well known song the Twelve Days of Christmas.

Reaching the the final verse of the song brings a requirement for twelve drummers drumming. As actress Alison Steadman recalls, is that the sound of drumming a distant drum-roll I can hear? Or maybe just a male snipe on an amorous fly by?

Producer : Andrew Dawes
Photograph: Steve Waddingham.

Sunday morning magazine programme with news and conversation about the big stories of the week. Presented by Paddy O'Connell.

Lynda is on top form, and Pat gets a surprise gift.

75 Years of Desert Island Discs - Kirsty Young ends the programme's anniversary year with some gems from the archive, including the creator of the format, Roy Plomley, actress Bebe Daniels, broadcaster Richard Dimbleby, trumpeter Louis Armstrong, politician Dame Barbara Castle and cellist Jacqueline du Pre.

Kirsty also chooses some of her favourite moments with Dame Judi Dench, Sir David Attenborough, comedian Sarah Millican, the surgeon David Nott and rugby referee Nigel Owens.

The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

A special edition of Just a Minute to celebrate the 50th anniversary, featuring some of your favourite panellists from across the years, with regular voices and a few surprises.

Nicholas Parsons presents a one-off programme in which guests from across the programme's history are brought together for one night only. Listeners of a sensitive nature should be warned that wanton hesitation, repetition and deviation will feature from the start.

Produced by Gareth Gwynn
A BBC Studios Production.

Champagne sceptic Dan Saladino travels to the world famous French region in search of wine mavericks. A movement is underway to encourage us all to rethink a most familiar brand.

Produced and presented by Dan Saladino.

The latest weather forecast.

Global news and analysis.

In this final episode of 2017, broadcaster and acclaimed historical novelist Sarah Dunant, delves into the past to help frame moments from the year, as picked by historians, bringing to life worlds that span the centuries.

From the East India Company in the 17th Century to corporate power in the White House of 2017; from the second coming of the Ku Klux Klan and an immigration ban in 1920, via fake news in 17th century France to an Irish history lesson that's become vital in this month's Brexit negotiations.

The programme takes its name from the industrialist Henry Ford who, in 1921, reportedly told the New York Times, "History is Bunk" and asked "What difference does it make how many times the ancient Greeks flew kites?"

Presenter: Sarah Dunant
Producers: Katherine Godfrey and Nathan Gower
Executive Producer: David Prest
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.

Peter Gibbs and the panel visit the Garden Museum in Lambeth. Pippa Greenwood, Anne Swithinbank and Matt Biggs answer questions from the audience.

The panellists give suggestions for a bumper winter allotment crop, advise on the best way to grow Stinking Hellebore and propose the best cutting-garden plants.

Also, Peter Gibbs takes a tour of the newly refurbished museum with director Christopher Woodward. Christopher tells Peter about the highlights of the museum's history and even explains the Garden Museum's connection with Steve Jobs.

As part of the programme's 70th anniversary celebrations, a special Gardeners' Question Time exhibition has been installed at the Garden Museum, including the original 1947 acetate disks of the programme, various scripts from years gone by and some quirky merchandise. The exhibition is open to the public from the first week of January until the end of March 2018.

Produced by Dan Cocker
Assistant Producer: Laurence Bassett

A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.

Fi Glover introduces conversations about forgiveness after the 1987 Enniskillen Remembrance Sunday bombing, learning from cancer, and being a female vicar, 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.

A bold new version of John Wyndham's science fiction classic by Graeae, a disabled led theatre company.

Jenny Sealey, Graeae artistic director, has her own understanding of The Midwich Cuckoos, based on growing up feeling different and has cast deaf and disabled actors who also identify with the Cuckoos and what it is to be 'other' in society.

While being faithful to the original, this production brings a new sensitivity to the iconic novel, trying to grapple with the complexity of difference.

This brave modernisation is by award winning writer Roy Williams, with original music from composer Oliver Vibrans.

Episode 1
Professor Zellerby and his 8 year old daughter Michaela survive the strange blackout of Midwich one afternoon in September 2009. Nine months later, some extraordinary children are born. Zellerby starts tracking their amazing development, secretly reporting on them to concerned government authorities. Michaela finds herself caught between her difficult relationship with her father, and the Cuckoo children who immediately learn to sign and therefore communicate with her better than her own father.

Composer.....................................Oliver Vibrans
Co-directors...................................Polly Thomas and Jenny Sealey
Producer/Sound designer.................... Eloise Whitmore
Studio engineer...............................Lee Aston
Shadow writer................................Amy Bethan Evans
BSL interpreters..............................Ruth Andrews, Beverley Roberts, Tony Redshaw
Production coordinator.....................Sarah Kenny
Executive Producer..........................Joby Waldman

A Naked Productions/Graeae Theatre co-production for BBC Radio 4.

2017 has seen a rush of dystopian novels, and 2018 looks to be following that same trend. Mariella discusses what makes a good dystopia and why they are so popular now, with writers Luke Kennard, Abi Curtis and Gregory Claeys.

Robert Pugh reads an evocative new story from Cynan Jones, this year's winner of the BBC National Short Story Prize. With sound and music woven through it and written for this dark moment at the turn of the year, Wintertide is a poetic meditation on the season, myth and waiting.

It features music by Terje Insungst, Kimmo Pohjonen and Sharron Kraus.

Produced by Natalie Steed for BBC Wales
Sound design by Natalie Steed and Mike Frost.

Algorithms are the powerful mathematical tools which shape so much of modern life, from the news which appears in our timelines to the adverts which pop up on our computer. But with algorithms now assessing CVs for jobs, or mortgage applications, the need to understand what they do, and if necessary challenge them is greater than ever before. So how do we exert legal or democratic control over the Unaccountable Algorithm? Emily Bell investigates.

The latest shipping forecast.

The latest weather forecast.

The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

Liz Barclay chooses her BBC Radio highlights.

Alice is determined to have a good time, and Roy needs to talk.

Martin Jarvis performs the second of two Just William stories by Richmal Crompton in front of an enthusiastic, invited audience at the Riverhouse Barn Theatre, Walton on Thames in Surrey.

In Violet Elizabeth Runs Away, Martin tells the tale of six year old control-freak Violet Elizabeth Bott and her determination to latch onto William Brown and his faithful friends, the Outlaws. If they don't let her stick with them following her escape from school, she'll "scweam and scweam and scweam 'til she's sick". She can too. Reluctantly, William allows her to spend the afternoon with them. But then fate takes an unexpected turn.

Director: Rosalind Ayres
A Jarvis and Ayres production for BBC Radio 4.

When a girl goes missing in the heart of England how far back do you have to go to find the truth?

Tamsin Greig reads the penultimate story in Jon McGregor's gripping 15-part series. A Peak district village has been rocked by the disappearance of teenager Becky Shaw on a midwinter walk on the moors. The aftershocks of the tragedy continue to ripple through the community, sparking memories, opening old wounds, and prompting new stories. Now, a family friend thinks back to a memorable meal on the bitterly cold night before Becky and her family returned to the village...

The fifteen stories of The Reservoir Tapes each stand alone but together build a compelling portrait of a community rocked by tragedy, as they explore events that precede and follow the disappearance of the teenage girl. A prequel to Jon McGregor's critically acclaimed Man Booker longlisted novel Reservoir 13, these stories and their different perspectives offer tantalizing glimpses as to what might have happened to Becky.

Writer: Jon McGregor is an acclaimed British novelist who has been longlisted for the Man Booker Prize three times. His third novel, Even the Dogs, won the International Dublin Literary Award.
Reader: Tamsin Greig, is an Olivier Award-winning stage and TV actor, known best for her roles in Episodes, Black Books and Friday Night Dinner.
Producer: Justine Willett.

Clive James is a poet, essayist, novelist, documentarist, critic, talk show host, travel writer, cultural commentator - and red-hot tango dancer. James Naughite and audience talk to Clive about Unreliable Memoirs, which covers his boyhood years in Kogarah, a suburb of Sydney. Clive was born in 1939; the other event that year (he says) was the outbreak of war, from which his father never returned. Clive tells Bookclub how that event has dominated his whole life.

The programme was first broadcast in 2010 and forms part of the outstanding Bookclub archive which includes writers like Muriel Spark, Douglas Adams, Zadie Smith and JK Rowling.

Presenter : James Naughtie
Interviewed guest : Clive James
Producer : Dymphna Flynn.

Obituary series, analysing and celebrating the life stories of people who have recently died.

Why can you phone in sick with flu but not with depression? Mental health is a big deal in the workplace at the moment. Following recent celebrity and Royal disclosures about their own mental health issues, it's become a hot topic. But away from the glare of publicity what's actually going on - what are employers actually doing? In this edition of In Business David Baker asks how far companies should go in managing their employee's mental health. With technology and an on-call culture increasingly blurring the lines between our work and home, what are the boundaries between issues at the office and those which should remain part of our private lives?

Producer: Jim Frank.

From the triggering of Article 50 to Brexit negotiations, the snap general election, the Grenfell Tower tragedy and terror attacks in Manchester and London, 2017 has been an incredibly busy year for news. How have those stories shaped and changed our lives? Jonny Dymond and guests discuss the year in news.

Francine Stock talks to West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin about his directorial debut Molly's Game. Based on the true story of a woman who ran underground poker games for the rich and famous, Sorkin reveals why he didn't name the Hollywood actors who were regular punters.

Composer Neil Brand tickles the ivories and shows how Ron Goodwin's theme for 633 Squadron changed the sound of the war movie.

Briony Hanson and Scott Jordan Harris slug it out to get their directors in the A to Z of film-makers. This week it's Kelly Reichardt versus Satyajit Ray.

The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.

Working class actors: Laurie Taylor asks if acting is becoming an increasingly exclusive and elite profession. He talks to the actor Julie Hesmondhalgh and to Dave O'Brien, Chancellor's Fellow, Cultural and Creative Industries at the University of Edinburgh, and author of a new study which suggests that working class actors face increasing economic, as well as cultural obstacles, comparable to skydiving without a parachute. Also, class and classical music. Anna Bull, lecturer in the School of Social, Historical and Literary Studies at the University of Portsmouth, considers why this musical genre is seen as such a middle class preserve.

Producer: Jayne Egerton.

The latest shipping forecast.

The latest shipping forecast.

The latest news from BBC Radio 4.

A reflection and prayer with Rev Dr Bert Tosh.

Baron Plumb of Coleshill has just retired from the House of Lords at the age of 92 - but he's still out shifting cattle in the snow and can't imagine a day when he'll stop contributing to the debate about British farming. Henry Plumb is a stocksman at heart, he left school at 15 during the Second World War to work on the family farm near Birmingham but he's spent the last 50 years at the heart of UK agricultural politics and is the only Briton to have been President of the European Parliament. Caz Graham joins him on his Warwickshire farm to hear his thoughts on the year ahead, Brexit and retirement.

The latest weather forecast for farmers.

In the first of five recollections about his encounters with birds in Antarctica, wildlife cameraman Doug Allan recalls hearing a Emperor Penguin chick for the first time.

Tweet of the Day has captivated the Radio 4 audience with its daily 90 seconds of birdsong. But what of the listener to this avian chorus? In this new series of Tweet of the Day, we bring to the airwaves the conversational voices of those who listen to and are inspired by birds. Building on the previous series, a more informal approach to learning alongside a renewed emphasis on encounter with nature and reflection in our relationship with the natural world.

Producer: Sarah Blunt
Photograph: Christopher Michel.

Preview of the week's politics with politicians, pundits and experts.

News and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.

Monica McWilliams was one of only two local women who were at the table during negotiations which led to the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. BBC Chief International Correspondent Lyse Doucet visits Belfast to hear her story. "How could we be locked out," Monica asked, "when we have been tramping the streets and the communities for 30 years and saving children from being killed ... and then not to have any voice?"

This five-part series features in-depth interviews with remarkable women about the relationship between women and democracy, on the 100th anniversary of the first time British women won the vote. Lyse travels across the globe, meeting women from Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Liberia and Iceland to discover that the victory of 1918 in Britain has continued to resonate through the century. She hears reflections from some of the world's most influential women's rights activists, including former presidents, and shares her own experiences in reporting from some of the most troubled regions.

Producer: Ben Carter
Researcher: Louise Byrne.

Mark Steel's guest this week is impressed by his flow-state, but would like him to reduce his dependence on ironing. She is sports psychologist, Dr. Faye Didymus, from Leeds Beckett University.

Mark believes that his two addictions have much in common - they are stand-up comedy (his job) and sport (watching, playing, talking about it). He's sure that there is a link between the way comedians and sporting types deal with performance anxiety, crowd hostility, risk taking and more. Dr. Didymus, who works with sports stars at the highest level, casts light upon this theory.

In this series, Mark speaks to the former Premiership and England footballer, Graeme Le Saux. And he meets former World Champion snooker player, John Parrott. All three programmes are available as podcasts, and the Parrott & Le Saux podcasts have extra bits.

Producer: Karen Gregor.

A colourful portrait of one of the twentieth century's great writers. When journalist Alan Taylor travelled to the Italian town of Arezzo to interview Muriel Spark, it was the beginning of a friendship which would last for years. On regular visits to her Italian villa and on trips accompanying the author to literary festivals across Europe Taylor gained a unique insight into the character of this fascinating artist.
Abridged by Laurence Wareing
Read by Paul Higgins
Producer: Eilidh McCreadie.

Turning 18 can feel like a massive transition from adolescence to adulthood, and a whole new world of responsibility. Today we meet some young women who'll all be 18 in 2018.

If you're born into or live in unusual family circumstances, how does it affect your perceptions of being an adult? Jayde became a mum when she was 15. Rachel is in foster care and Nicola is a young carer.

The concept of a 'job for life' is rapidly disappearing, but the roots into employment are becoming more fluid. What impact does that have on how you view the world of work? Alaina and Blessie are both studying for their A-Levels. Blessie wants to go on to study Further Maths or Law at university - whereas Alaina is more of an entrepreneur, and has already produced her own magazine.

But, what if you have a chronic illness or condition? Cerys lives in Fife and although not officially diagnosed has symptoms linked to ME. Georgia lives in Hampshire and has Cerebral Palsy.

And, as young millennials increasingly use social media to get involved in their community - how will they engage in politics in the future? Amika George is campaigning for school girls on free school meals to also receive free tampons and towels. Chloe has founded her own anti-bullying awareness charity. And Bethan has hosted a number of refugees at her college campus.

Presented by Jane Garvey
Producer Olivia Cope.

It begins with a summons from Queen Catherine Parr: "Master Shardlake, I would welcome your personal counsel on a case..." It ends with the sinking of the warship, the Mary Rose: "So tall, so grand. I was on her when she went down..." In between, lawyer-detective Matthew Shardlake and his assistant Jack Barak find themselves embroiled in two murky investigations - the first involving the "monstrous wrongs" allegedly perpetrated by wealthy cloth merchant Sir Nicholas Hobbey against his young ward, Hugh Curteys; the second concerning the troubled past of a Bedlam inmate called Ellen Fettiplace. A patient for nearly 20 years, Ellen is frightened and lonely - and in love with Shardlake.

The Hobbey-Curteys case leads Shardlake and Barak to Sir Nicholas's estate near Portsmouth, in Hampshire. "And the way to Hampshire lay through West Sussex. Where Ellen came from."

Two mysteries to unravel. A parade of intriguing characters to interview and interrogate - some disdainful of the hunchbacked lawyer; some obstructive and even dangerous; some not at all what they seem... And as Shardlake and his sidekick travel the countryside in their search for the truth, everywhere they see signs of preparations for war. For just across the Channel the French fleet is getting ready to attack.

Justin Salinger and Bryan Dick return as Matthew Shardlake and Jack Barak in Colin MacDonald's atmospheric dramatisation of the best-selling novel by CJ Sansom.

Other parts played by members of the cast.

Writer ..... C. J. Sansom
Dramatist ..... Colin MacDonald
Director ..... David Jackson Young.

Mary is 86 and facing an eye test to decide if she can continue to drive. Will the test put an end to her 65 year driving career - or can she carry on?

She's been diagnosed with several eye conditions including glaucoma, cataracts and macula degeneration, and now she faces the field of vision test - the test which will decide whether she's fit to continue to drive.

She lives in rural Somerset, where public transport is scarce. For 40 years she had the same Morris Traveller and now she drives a Fiat. Although she says, "a car is only necessary in that it has four wheels. And a roof is quite useful." If she has to stop driving, she'll have to depend on her daughter - this is not what she wants. "It's absolutely typical of my age - we fear that if we once give way, the flood gates will open, and we will become dependent."

This is more than a story about driving - it's about independence and the possible loss of it. But is there something else in Mary's life that could pose a greater threat to her driving than any eye test?

Produced in Bristol by Polly Weston.

Joanna Lumley and Roger Allam play a couple who have been married for over 40 years. Children of the Sixties, they're still free spirits, drawn together by their passion for music - and each other.

The show follows their conversations that take them from the local café, to their kitchen table, taking in her resentment of new glasses - a symbol of ageing - and fury at being lectured by the dental hygienist. He has a dodgy knee and is on statins, and when they discuss the marriage break-up of their closest friends, Sally and Peter, there's jealousy and talk of affairs. She suggests there are advantages to single beds, separate holidays and wants to go clubbing in Ibiza for her imminent 'big' birthday.

When a couple stop kissing each other, the marriage is in trouble, she believes, 'what it says in the Shoop Shoop Song is so true. It IS in his kiss!'

Written for Joanna Lumley by award-winning comedy writer and journalist Jan Etherington, who herself has been married for 33 years. Jan has created and written many long-running radio and television series with her husband Gavin Petrie (Second Thoughts, Next of Kin, Faith in the Future) and has written sketches for the likes of Radio 4's Ayres on the Air, but this is her first solo-scripted, half hour comedy. She says: "Conversations from a Long Marriage will resonate with couples of any age but especially those who are still dancing in the kitchen, singing in the car and trying to keep the passion alive."

Producer: Claire Jones
A BBC Studios production for BBC Radio 4.

The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

On this day in 1918, Kaiser Wilhelm II declared, "We face with firm confidence and iron will the year 1918", and in Tynemouth, Duncan Chadwick tries to make a new start.

Written by Katie Hims
Directed by Allegra McIlroy
Editor: Jessica Dromgoole.

In this special edition of You and Yours, Shari Vahl investigates ways to get more physically active this New Year.
With the help of the BBC's science journalist, Dr Michael Mosley, she looks at how to get started and the secret to sticking to a new exercise routine.
With self-deprecating humour, she finds inspiration in surprising places and learns to cope with failure along the way.
Shari sets out to discover what's stopping her - and around 20 million other people in the UK - from doing regular exercise.
According to the British Heart Foundation, 39% of adults - a third of the population - are just like her, doing no exercise at all.
Both the figures and the public health messages are stark - physical inactivity increases the risk of heart disease, dementia and some cancers.
Experts tell us that if current trends continue, half of the population will be classified as obese by 2050.
In her quest to get fit for the New Year, Shari tries strength training, high-intensity interval training or HIIT, hot yoga and running for beginners.
Along the way, she speaks to experts including Dr Charlie Foster, the Chair of the UK's Chief Medical Officers' Expert Committee for Physical Activity, and Professor Angela Clow, a psycho-physiologist at Westminster University.
She also visits Rotherham in South Yorkshire where 76 per cent of the population is either overweight or obese. She meets Dr Matthew Capehorn who runs the Rotherham Institute for Obesity to discuss the role of exercise in getting people back to a healthy weight.

Presenter: Shari Vahl
Producer: Tara Holmes

Analysis of news and current affairs.

Economist and author Paul Seabright begins a series that explores of our trading story, from the earliest exchange networks in child-care and food, right up to the modern day. He discusses the links between trade and war, the different phases of globalization, and how the history of trade features major setbacks as well as extraordinary progress.

In episode one, Paul Seabright visits the Café Bibent in Toulouse, to talk about the city's connections with two key moments in the history of trade: Adam Smith and his great book The Wealth of Nations, and the outbreak of World War One.

Producer: Chris Ledgard.

By Sebastian Baczkiewicz

Set in an alternative Europe in the 1930s, Elsinore imagines the turbulent world of the Danish Court in events that take place some years before the story told in Shakespeare's Hamlet.

King Hamlet's brother, Claudius, is sent to Spain as Denmark's new ambassador. On the way, he is captured by the infamous pirate Captain True. Back in Elsinore, meanwhile, the King must deal with a possible rebellion.

Directed by Marc Beeby & Sasha Yevtushenko

ELSINORE is a prequel to Shakespeare's Hamlet, exploring the relationships at the Danish court, particularly the troubled, not to say murderous relationship between King Hamlet and his brother Claudius. The plays are set in an alternative Europe in the early 1930s. Denmark is a powerful, militarised country with a small Empire around the Baltic which it is fighting hard to maintain. There is more than a hint of totalitarianism in the air. The realism of this is sometimes combined with moments of magical otherworldliness, not out of keeping with Shakespeare's original play.

(7/12)
In a special programme recorded at last summer's Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the South of England take on Scotland, with both teams hoping to score a victory this time after a draw the last time they met. Marcus Berkmann and Paul Sinha play for the South of England while the Scots are Val McDermid and Alan McCredie.

Tom Sutcliffe asks the cryptic and complex questions, which include: Why might Private Atkins, the Marble Man and Clive Dunn find themselves working with Agent J? The more help the teams need from Tom in unravelling the solutions, the fewer points they'll get.

Tom will also have the answer to the teaser puzzle he set before Christmas.

Producer: Paul Bajoria.

Laura Barton explores the little known story of a pioneering group of women who unknowingly challenged conventional notions of femininity and their working roles. The Pit Brow Lasses worked within the collieries of 19th century Wigan, Lancashire. Their unique re-appropriation of men's 'breeches' worn underneath hitched up skirts was originally adopted as a functional response to working within mines. These early adopters of trousers reached a similar degrees of notoriety that street-style stars do today.

When Women Wore the Trousers explores the history of trousers in the workplace and in fashion and discusses the impact that this every day garment had on society. Women were liberated by their work in the munitions factories and on the land during both World Wars but there was a fear that these 'new men' would continue donning trousers and become too independent. Coco Chanel famously appropriated sailors tops and trousers to create work-wear in its most elevated form and the fashion for utilitarian clothing continues to thrive today as discussed by fashion designers Faye and Erica Toogood. What do modern working women wear in the work place in the 21st Century? Chef Angela Harnett wears a uniform of a white shift and baggy trousers in her restaurant kitchen but it is a look that could be seen as fashionable in a different context.

With readings from the actor Maxine Peake, a discussion with Pit Brow Lass, Rita Culshaw about her choice of clothing in the pits and interviews with fashion curators Amy de la Haye and Fiona McKay and Wigan historian Alan Davies, we discover how women have worn trousers as a means of empowerment and the enduring appeal of work-wear in contemporary fashion.

Producer: Belinda Naylor.

For the Christian world, January 1st is New Years' Day but for many religious communities it is not a particularly auspicious day because religious calendars differ and, consequently, different religions celebrate the beginning of their New Year on different dates. The difference in religious calendars is just one way in which religions disagree about the nature of time. Some, notably Christianity, Judaism and Islam think it is linear; that time began at the moment of creation and is leading us to the End. However, Hindus, Buddhists and Sikhs believe that time is cyclical; that it goes round in an unceasing circle of birth, death and re-incarnation. Does it matter? And does what we believe about time affect the way we live our lives? Joining Ernie Rea to discuss differing concepts of Time in religious traditions are Eleanor Nesbitt, Professor Emeritus in the Religions and Education Research Unit at the University of Warwick; Shayk Soheeb Saeed, an Academic and Quran scholar at the University of Edinburgh where he is also the Muslim Chaplain; and Dr Andrew Crome, Lecturer in Early Modern History at Manchester Metropolitan University. Ernie also talks to Richard D Lewis - the author of 'When Cultures Collide' - who talks about the novel approach to time keeping held by the people of Madagascar.

Producer: Helen Lee.

Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.

The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

As part of the special programming celebrating 50 years of Just a Minute, Paul Merton talks to Nicholas Parsons about his life, and his 50 years of hosting Radio 4's beloved panel show, with guest appearances from some of the many regulars who have appeared over the years.

In a career which started in 1945, Nicholas Parsons has worked with an extraordinary range of people - from the golden age of British cinema in the 50s and 60s, to the seedy glamour of the Windmill Theatre where he rubbed shoulders with the cream of stand-up talent including Bruce Forsyth and Tommy Cooper. He formed a famous double act with the legendary comic Arthur Haynes, and worked with him on both sides of the Atlantic - all before Just a Minute was even thought of. In later years he worked with Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson, guest starred in Doctor Who, and will shortly be heard as the voice of God in a TV adaptation of Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett's Good Omens.

Not bad for a lad who started his career as an engineering apprentice on the Glasgow Docks...

Produced by Victoria Lloyd
A BBC Studios Production.

Will is on tenterhooks, and Jennifer tries to be peacemaker.

Arts news, interviews and reviews.

The Infinite Monkey Cage Christmas Special: The Science of Magic

The Infinite Monkeys bring their own brand of yule friendly science and comedy to the BBC Radio 4 Christmas schedule, and this year add an extra sprinkling of festive magic. Brian Cox and Robin Ince will be joined on stage by some very special guests to look at the science behind some of our best loved magic tricks and illusions. Actor, writer and illusionist Andy Nyman,actor and comedian Diane Morgan, Professor of Psychology and magician Richard Wiseman, and theologian and broadcaster Professor Francesca Stavrakopoulou will all be demonstrating how basic human psychology and evolution allow us to see and believe the seemingly impossible. They'll be exploring how some basic psychology can lead to some truly impressive deceptions, and ask how easy it is to trick the human mind, even a mind like Brian's. Prepare to be amazed.

Producer: Alexandra Feachem.

A journey up the 'suicidal' Pilcomayo river that separates Paraguay from Argentina... The Pilcomayo is the life-force of one of Latin America's most arid regions. But it is also one of the most heavily silted rivers of the world. As it courses down from the Bolivian Highlands in the months of December and January, half is water, half sand. This means it often causes flooding. Or, it changes course, failing to deliver water to those who depend on it. So in order to benefit communities, this is a river system that needs careful management, and a lot of human input to ensure the water flows. Compounding the fickleness of the Pilcomayo are 3 years of drought in the region. Gabriela Torres travels north from Asuncion up the course of the Pilcomayo during the dry season, visiting communities where the wildlife is dying and the economy under threat. How will the people - and animals - cope this year?

Broadcasting legend James Burke returns to the airwaves to discuss the biggest change to humanity in 10,000 years. In 50 years or so he predicts nanotechnology will give us capabilities we've only imagined of in science fiction. In labs around the world the foundations are being laid for the 'nano-fabricator' a device that will allow us to assemble just about anything, atom by atom; including itself. IT COULD MEAN THE END OF SCARCITY ITSELF.

As far-fetched as it seems it's an idea that was first posited as long ago as 1959 by physicist Richard Feynman and then popularised as the 'replicator' in Star Trek. But this is no fantasy - in Manchester Professor David Leigh has made the world's first nano-robot, an arm a millionth of a millimetre in size that will assemble the molecules you programme into it. While at MIT's Centre for Bits and Atoms they're taking the replicator as their inspiration and are working on materials and methods to make our physical world as programmable as our digital one.

What fascinates James isn't so much the revolution in the technology but what it will mean for us as a species; one whose raison d'etre has been about managing the scarcity of what we need or want. It's been the impetus to human development since our very beginning and the reason why we have markets and jobs and governments and maths and every other innovation that's helped us along the way to get us to now. By taking us on a high speed journey through our history of scarcity busting invention James will demonstrate just how disruptive what's coming will be. For him it will be nothing less than the next stage in our evolution.

In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.

Tom Hazard has a rare condition - he ages very, very slowly, with the result that, while he looks about 41, he is in fact over 400 years old. Over the centuries it has been a dangerous condition to have, so he has continually changed identities and moved from place to place. And he has travelled the world. Now, in a search for at least the pretence of normality, he has returned to London.

Episode Six
The witch-finder William Manning tracks Tom down to the Globe Theatre.

Matt Haig is the bestselling author of Reasons To Stay Alive. An award-winning writer of books for children and young adults, he has written five novels for adults.

Writer: Matt Haig
Abridger: Jeremy Osborne
Reader: Tom Hollander
Producer: Lisa Osborne

A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4.

Will Young takes us on a tour of his favourite bits of writing, songs, entertainment and art including Lord of the Rings, Joni Mitchell, Magritte, Cabaret and King Lear. Along the way he'll talk about his life and his career. And there'll be live music and performance from Will himself plus a range of special guests.

The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.

The latest shipping forecast.

The latest shipping forecast.

The latest news from BBC Radio 4.

A reflection and prayer with Rev Dr Bert Tosh.

The Secretary of State for the Environment, Michael Gove, is expected to outline a potential post-Brexit farm payment system, as he addresses attendees of the Oxford Farming Conference and the Oxford Real Farming Conference this week -, both of which Farming Today will be attending.
One thing is already clear: farmers can expect change, with a capital C. Charlotte Smith asked Essex farmer Ed Ford, chairman of the National Federation of Young Farmers' Clubs, about what the next generation of farmers are hoping for in 2018.

At the Oxford conferences, there'll undoubtedly be some discussion over the importance of attracting new blood into agriculture - possibly taking inspiration from a new Scottish Government-backed initiative, that's appointing young ambassadors to persuade their peers to consider a career in the sector. BBC Scotland's Northern Isles reporter Ewan Murrie met up with one of the newly-appointed industry champions at his family farm on the mainland of Shetland.

To another Scottish farmer now - and Jim Smith from Perthshire has found a rather unique way to diversify: stand-up comedy. Richard Baynes has been finding out more.

This week, Farming Today will be broadcasting from the two big agricultural meetings of the new year: the Oxford Farming Conference, which has been running since 1936, and the Oxford Real Farming Conference, which was established nine years ago to offer an 'antidote' to the original event and which shines a spotlight on sustainability and the environment. Increasingly delegates try to make it to both events and there is one joint session, which this year is all about beer. But Nessie Reid, the ORFC programme manager, tells Charlotte there are some integral differences between the two as well.

In the second of five recollections about his encounters with birds in Antarctica, wildlife cameraman Doug Allan recalls ringing Snow Petrels with mixed feelings.

Tweet of the Day has captivated the Radio 4 audience with its daily 90 seconds of birdsong. But what of the listener to this avian chorus? In this new series of Tweet of the Day, we bring to the airwaves the conversational voices of those who listen to and are inspired by birds. Building on the previous series, a more informal approach to learning alongside a renewed emphasis on encounter with nature and reflection in our relationship with the natural world.

Producer: Sarah Blunt
Photograph: Doug Allan.

News and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.

Lyse Doucet travels to Saudi Arabia to meet Madeha Al Ajroush, who battled for 30 years to get women the right to drive. It's a battle she's now won, as women in the kingdom will legally be allowed to drive later this year. As a Saudi woman, she says, "you'll always be treated like a child and never like an adult. And that was a problem, and it continued till this day - but things are opening up now."

This five-part series features in-depth interviews with remarkable women about the relationship between women and democracy, on the 100th anniversary of the first time British women won the vote. Lyse travels across the globe, meeting women from Afghanistan, Liberia, Northern Ireland and Iceland to discover that the victory of 1918 in Britain has continued to resonate through the century. She hears reflections from some of the world's most influential women's rights activists, including former presidents, and shares her own experiences in reporting from some of the most troubled regions.

Producer: Ben Carter.

Mark Steel is obsessed with sport. Obsessed! And he's certain there's a strong link between sport and stand-up comedy - risk taking, dealing with a hostile crowd, performance anxiety. In this programme he muses on his theory with the snooker player known as 'The Entertainer', John Parrott.

For this series of three programmes, he also meets sports psychologist and former figure skater, Dr. Faye Didymus; and also the former Premiership and England footballer Graeme Le Saux.

You can hear extra bits from both interviews on the podcasts, just go to the Radio 4 website.

Produced in Bristol by Karen Gregor.

After striking up a friendship with his subject, journalist Alan Taylor meets Muriel Spark's Tuscan social circle and tackles head-on rumours about the author and her long term companion, sculptor Penelope Jardine.

When Alan Taylor travelled to the Italian town of Arezzo to interview Muriel Spark, it was the beginning of a friendship which would last for years. Accompanying the author as she visited literary festivals across Europe and rediscovered old haunts in New York, Taylor gained a unique insight into the character of this fascinating artist.
This vibrant portrait of one of the twentieth century's great writers was abridged by Laurence Wareing and is read by Paul Higgins.
Producer: Eilidh McCreadie.

Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.

CJ Sansom's Tudor mystery featuring lawyer-detective Matthew Shardlake.

How do we prepare for the distant future? Helen Keen meets the people who try to.

If our tech society continues then we can leave data for future generations in huge, mundane quantities, detailing our every tweet and Facebook 'like'. But how long could this information be stored? And if society as we know it ends, will our achievements vanish with it? How do we plan for and protect those who will be our distant descendants and yet may have hopes, fears, languages, beliefs, even religions that we simply cannot predict? What if anything can we, should we, pass on?

Frances Fyfield continues her series celebrating the handwritten scores of great pieces of classical music with another visit to the Ricordi Archive in Milan. This time she and the South African soprano Golda Schultz are allowed the rare chance to explore the huge orchestral manuscript of Puccini's final and unfinished opera 'Turandot'. At this stage in his career Puccini was the star of the Ricordi music publishing establishment, as evidenced by the specially monogrammed manuscript paper and the sheer scale of orchestra with which he was encouraged to work. With the guidance of the archival scholar Gabriele Dotto, Frances, Golda and the musicologist Nigel Simeone explore the score's many operatic highlights including the death of the slave girl Liu and the famous tenor aria Nessun Dorma, beloved of opera and football fans alike. Ricordi have also preserved the sketch material for the final, unfinished Act, left behind at the time of Puccini's untimely death. We know how he intended the piece to end, and a version with the icy Princess Turandot melting in the face of the love of Prince Calaf is familiar to many opera goers. However, Gabriele Dotto believes that the sketches and the state of the Opera as he left it suggest Puccini might have had second thoughts.

Producer: Tom Alban.

The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

On this day in 1918, Polar exploration ship the Aurora was officially declared missing, and at Collingwood Cressida Marshall remembers her late husband.

Written by Katie Hims
Directed by Allegra McIlroy
Editor: Jessica Dromgoole.

Call You and Yours - how hard have you found it to lose weight? The UK is the most obese nation in Western Europe, with rates rising faster than any other developed nation. It costs the NHS £6bn a year to treat the medical costs of conditions related to being overweight or obese and a further £10 billion on diabetes.
We want to know if you've tried to lose weight and what worked for you. If you succeeded, did you keep the weight off? And if you didn't - what did you try and why didn't it work?
Email youandyours@bbc.co.uk and leave a phone number so we can call you back.

The latest weather forecast.

Analysis of news and current affairs.

Paul Seabright examines how goods and services were exchanged in our earliest history. He talks to the primatologist Sara Hardy about hunter-gatherer child-care arrangements, and what they teach us about the willingness of human beings to trade. And in New Zealand, Paul meets the historian Kerry Howe to learn about the origins of early trade networks across the Pacific Ocean.

Producer: Chris Ledgard.

By Sebastian Baczkiewicz

Claudius returns to Elsinore where he must confront his brother about the failure to pay the ransom demanded by Captain True. He must also deal with a strange Danish farmer who wants to give King Hamlet a gift of very fine horses.

Set in an alternative Europe in the 1930s, Elsinore imagines the turbulent world of the Danish Court in events that take place some years before the story told in Shakespeare's Hamlet.

Directed by Marc Beeby & Sasha Yevtushenko.

Tom Holland is joined by Dr Alice Taylor from King's College in London and the historian of pop culture, Travis Elborough.

Helen Castor charts the course of the Prague Spring, that period of liberalisation in Czechoslovakia brought in when Alexander Dubcek became leader in January 1968. She hears from those who were there and those who study that period now and asks whether people had any inkling what an extraordinary year it would be.

Alice Taylor introduces a new project which will celebrate the 700th anniversary of the Declaration of Arbroath in 2020. She explains how fact and fiction were brought together to create the notion of a Scottish nation and a document that would heavily influence the Constitution of the United States.

French Journalist Agnes Poirier leafs through the pages of Our Island Story, the 1905 children's book that some argue not only re-imagined English history but then shaped the world-view of some of our political leaders.

Fresh from the publication of his book of twentieth century diary extracts, Travis Elborough discusses if the diary is dead in the digital post-truth age.

And Iszi Lawrence enlists the help of the world wide web in her search for the origins of the expression "hair of the dog".

Producer: Nick Patrick
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.

What does the way we speak say about us? Why do we still judge each other that way? And why do so many of us still feel the need to "improve" our accent to fit in?

Cole Moreton did that as a teenager, trying to escape the East End, but now he goes back to understand where he came from - and to search for the unique but vanishing voice of his late grandmother's generation.

They grew up during and after wartime listening to posh announcers on the wireless and sounded half Cockney, half like the Queen. Can there be any women like that left in the same place today, transformed as it is by immigration and gentrification?

The East Enders have left for Essex and Kent and experts say true Cockney will die out within a couple of decades. Meanwhile a new accent is emerging on the old streets - Multicultural London English. Cole meets modern grandmothers of all backgrounds in the East End today, as he searches in vain for the voice of his Nan.

The real Queen sounds more like a Cockney than she used to - but she's not available for interview. Dame Vera Lynn sings him a bedtime lullaby. June Brown, who plays Dot Cotton, says they don't talk proper Cockney on EastEnders any more - it's all "lazy talk" now.

But finally, Cole finds Beryl, a formidable force in Forest Gate at the age of 91, who sounds exactly like his Nan.

Presenter: Cole Moreton
Producer: Jonathan Mayo
A TBI Media production for BBC Radio 4.

Helen Arney, self confessed science nerd, stand-up entertainer, and once nicknamed a "geek songstress", tells Matthew Parris why she's chosen Hertha Ayrton, the pioneering Victorian physicist, inventor and suffragette, as her great life. Ayrton, we hear, was the first woman to be admitted into membership of what is today known as the IET, the Institution of Engineering and Technology. Their archivist Anne Locker knows Ayrton's life and works and fields the questions from Matthew and Helen.

They talk about how Hertha (1854-1923) overcame considerable obstacles to be the first woman who was proposed for the fellowship of the Royal Society. Her candidature was refused on the grounds that as a married woman she had no legal existence in British law. This did not stop her from patenting over 20 of her inventions, which included a large electric fan designed to disperse mustard gas from the Trenches during the First World War. Fascinated by electricity, her achievements also ranged across mathematics and physics.

Helen Arney, who's one third of the Festival of the Spoken Nerd, the comedy group that makes science entertaining for audiences, explains why she's championing Ayrton. Hertha's father was a Jewish immigrant, a watchmaker from Poland, who hawked goods at markets. Nonetheless, Hertha was among the first generation of women to study at Girton College, Cambridge.

Producer: Mark Smalley.

Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.

The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

Mark Steel's In Town - Hull

Mark Steel returns to Radio 4 with the 8th series of his award winning show that travels around the country visiting towns that have nothing in common but their uniqueness. After thoroughly researching each town, Mark writes and performs a bespoke evening of comedy for the local residents.

In this episode Mark visits Hull. He has a wonderful time exploring the 2017 City of Culture exhibits as well as all the other normal stuff like the world's smallest window and white phone boxes. He talks to a man who painted himself blue and walked naked through the town as part of the Sea of Hull installation, samples the delights of Chip Spice and patties and gets to the bottom of why they call their aquarium a submarium.

Written and performed by ... Mark Steel
Additional material by ... Pete Sinclair
Production co-ordinator ... Hayley Sterling
Sound Manager ... Jerry Peal
Producer ... Carl Cooper

Picture Credit ... Tom Stanier

This is a BBC Studio Production.

Noluthando uses her initiative, and Freddie strikes a bargain.

Arts news, interviews and reviews.

How do young Germanys, who've grown up in a reunified nation with Angela Merkel as Chancellor see the future ? Anne McElvoy of the Economist, who was based in Berlin in the late eighties, teams up with Tilo Jung, a German video blogger, political journalist and millennial, to find out. Born in the former East Germany, Tilo was a child when the Berlin wall came down. He and Anne go back to his home town of Malchin to meet his family and friends. They ask what next for Germany, potentially without Angela Merkel as Chancellor?

Dr Fred and Etta Reid are both blind and met at the Royal School for the Blind in Edinburgh. They have been married for over fifty years. In that time they have raised three sighted children. Fred was a lecturer at Warwick University and Etta was a physiotherapist in the NHS. They also set up a volunteer reader service for blind people in Kenilworth where they both still live. They talk to Peter White about the pleasures and pressures of combining family and working life alongside their campaigning work for people with a visual impairment.

Presenter: Peter White
Producer: Cheryl Gabriel.

Can dogs smell cancer? Ever since Hippocrates the odour of disease has been used to aid diagnosis but has this simple technique been forgotten? Dr Mark Porter investigates the evidence for whether canine super noses can be used to accurately detect cancer. There have been plenty of anecdotes reported but what about hard science? Studies since 2004 from the Medical Detection Dogs Centre in Milton Keynes have shown convincing results and they've now teamed up with MIT in the US, specialists in 'e-noses'. Could devices the size of a mobile phone be used to sniff for disease?

In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.

Tom Hazard has a rare condition - he ages very, very slowly, with the result that, while he looks about 41, he is in fact over 400 years old. Over the centuries it has been a dangerous condition to have, so he has continually changed identities and moved from place to place. And he has travelled the world. Now, in a search for at least the pretence of normality, he has returned to London.

Episode Seven
In 1607, Tom and Rose have a daughter, Marion. For a while they live happily. But nowhere is safe for long.

Matt Haig is the bestselling author of Reasons To Stay Alive. An award-winning writer of books for children and young adults, he has written five novels for adults.

Writer: Matt Haig
Abridger: Jeremy Osborne
Reader: Tom Hollander
Producer: Lisa Osborne

A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4.

British comedy's only contrarian libertarian antiquarian, Liam Mullone tackles the universal theme that sums up all human endeavour - disappointment.

In this comedy lecture dedicated to history's losers Liam celebrates some enormously bad ideas from the world of technology.

He tells the hubristic story of Sweden's 17th Century warship, The Vasa, which was even more disappointing than The Mary Rose. Some of NASA's most inspiration-lacking ventures are laid bare. And Frenchman Marcel Lucont honours countryman Jacques Cousteau and his cigarette smoke-filled Conshelf stations in a song.

Performers: Liam Mullone with Alexis Dubus and Eri Jackson
Writer: Liam Mullone
Producer: Aled Evans.

Luke Jerram is that rare bird, a genuinely popular yet acclaimed contemporary artist. And he's obsessed with the moon. So he's made one: seven metres wide featuring 120dpi detailed NASA imagery, and he's taking it around the world. This is his story, as well as the moon's..

Every day Luke Jerram cycles to his studio across the river in Bristol and watches its dramatic changes. It has the second highest tidal range in the world and it's the moon that makes this happen. Luke's become fascinated with finding out everything he can about the cultural, artistic and poetic significance of the moon, and the latest scientific developments around it. It both reflects our culture and inspires it.

Being colourblind he's interested in all forms of light, and moonlight is fascinating and has very particular properties. The fact we see 'the man in the moon' is a perceptual and optical illusion. But again, different cultures see different imagery - in China they see the Hare in the Moon.

Luke presents his own story of making these works and hearing people's responses to them, woven in with the new soundtrack he's commissioned from composer Dan Jones. We talk to fellow contemporary moon obsessives James Attlee and Jay Griffiths, but it's all filtered through the very particular consciousness of one artist and his imagination, and the hard slog of his creative process.

Producer Beth O'Dea.

The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.

The latest shipping forecast.

The latest shipping forecast.

The latest news from BBC Radio 4.

A reflection and prayer with Rev Dr Bert Tosh.

The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.

In the third of five recollections about his encounters with birds in Antarctica, wildlife cameraman Doug Allan recalls watching an opportunistic Snowy Sheathbill taking advantage of a young Adelie Penguins to get an easy meal.

Tweet of the Day has captivated the Radio 4 audience with its daily 90 seconds of birdsong. But what of the listener to this avian chorus? In this new series of Tweet of the Day, we bring to the airwaves the conversational voices of those who listen to and are inspired by birds. Building on the previous series, a more informal approach to learning alongside a renewed emphasis on encounter with nature and reflection in our relationship with the natural world.

Producer: Sarah Blunt
Photograph: Murray Foubister.

Morning news and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.

In 1980, the tiny country of Iceland did something no other nation had done. They elected a female head of state. BBC Chief International Correspondent Lyse Doucet travels to Reykjavik to meet Vigdis Finnbogadottir. Now 87, she was president for exactly sixteen years and remains the longest-serving elected female head of state of any country to date. "That's what I have given to the girls of this country," she says: "If she can, I can."

This five-part series features in-depth interviews with remarkable women about the relationship between women and democracy, on the 100th anniversary of the first time British women won the vote. Lyse travels across the globe, meeting women from Afghanistan, Liberia, Northern Ireland and Saudi Arabia to discover that the victory of 1918 in Britain has continued to resonate through the century. She hears reflections from some of the world's most influential women's rights activists, including former presidents, and shares her own experiences in reporting from some of the most troubled regions.

Producers: Ben Carter and Anne Dixey
Researcher: Louise Byrne.

Martin Padfield was a Scientologist for 28 years, after meeting a member of the group when he was just 19 years old. He joined the elite corps at the heart of Scientology, as his whole life became dominated by the teachings and strictures of the movement. But after he married, he started to question the way he and his new family were treated. He began to doubt the organisation's integrity, and embarked on a journey that forced him to confront the reality that his whole identity was defined by Scientology.

Martin tells Dominic Lawson how hard it was to extricate himself from what many consider to be a powerful cult, and how tough the journey has been to rediscover an identity lost from the point in his youth when he threw himself into the unusual world of L Ron Hubbard and his disciples.

In "Why I Changed My Mind", Dominic Lawson interviews people who have changed their mind on controversial matters.

Producer: Jonathan Brunert.

Journalist Alan Taylor accompanies his friend Muriel Spark on her triumphant return to America. Invited to attend the 75th birthday celebrations of the New Yorker Magazine, an early publisher of her work, the author's memories turn to life in 1960s New York.

When Alan Taylor travelled to the Italian town of Arezzo to interview Muriel Spark, it was the beginning of a friendship which would last for years. Accompanying the author as she visited literary festivals across Europe and rediscovered old haunts in New York, Taylor gained a unique insight into the character of this fascinating artist.
This vibrant portrait of one of the twentieth century's great writers was abridged by Laurence Wareing and is read by Paul Higgins.
Producer: Eilidh McCreadie.

Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.

CJ Sansom's Tudor mystery featuring lawyer-detective Matthew Shardlake.

Bereavement resulted in relationship-breakdown between father and son, but sharing their loss has brought them closer than ever. Fi Glover presents another conversation in the series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen.

Producer: Marya Burgess.

Award winning political interviewers Alice Thomson and Rachel Sylvester take leading figures from politics, business and the arts back to their childhood towns and cities.

The actress Frances Barber, whose work ranges from the RSC to Doctor Who, Inspector Morse and Silk, grew up on a Wolverhampton estate. Her father ran a betting shop and her mother was a school dinner lady. She was one of six children, and the only one to go to grammar school and university.

Frances explores the Wolverhampton of her childhood, where Enoch Powell was her MP, and discusses how her own left wing and pro-European views were shaped by her upbringing and the place where she grew up.

Producer: Chris Ledgard.

Series 11 of the show where one week's interviewee becomes the next week's interviewer. The first episode of Chain Reaction was broadcast on BBC Radio Five in 1991 when John Cleese was the first comedian in the hot seat. Now, 25 years on, a new series sees another raft of the world's best-loved comedians talking to each other about their lives and work. This week, two heavyweights of stand-up are in conversation as Ed Byrne interviews Al Murray.

Ed Byrne is an Irish stand-up comedian and actor who has been a favourite on the international comedy scene for twenty years. His celebrated observational routines made him a leading light of the UK stand-up circuit in the mid nineties and he went on to tour internationally, playing festivals and theatres across the world. In 1998 he was nominated for the prestigious Perrier Award at the Edinburgh Festival alongside eventual winner Tommy Tiernan, Peter Kay and his interviewee today, Al Murray.

After an early foray into stand-up as a character called 'The Murderer', Al Murray created his famous Pub Landlord character in the mid nineties as part of a touring show with Harry Hill. The Pub Landlord went on to tour venues and festivals worldwide before making his own chat show and sitcom for Sky. Outside of the Pub Landlord, Al is well known as a presenter of history documentaries and more recently as a candidate for parliament when he stood against Nigel Farage in South Thanet during the UK General Election of 2015.

In this programme, Ed tackles Al on a vast array of topics from Thackeray's attitude to the Irish to the thorny issue of offence in comedy via how best to talk to McFly.

Producer: Richard Morris
A BBC Radio Comedy Production.

The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

On this day in 1918, nearly all shipyards in the North East were at a standstill due to snow, hail and high winds, and in Tynemouth Alan Lowther is despondent.

Written by Katie Hims
Directed by Allegra McIlroy
Editor: Jessica Dromgoole.

Consumer affairs programme.

The latest weather forecast.

Analysis of news and current affairs.

To cut a deal or to start a war? Paul Seabright and his guests explore the long and multi-faceted relationship between trade and violence.

Producer: Chris Ledgard.

By Sebastian Baczkiewicz

Claudius has been sent to the mysterious - and magical - Kingdom of Carpathia to negotiate for the Princess of Carpathia to become King Hamlet's wife. In the process he learns some uncomfortable truths about himself and his brother.

Set in an alternative Europe in the 1930s, Elsinore imagines the turbulent world of the Danish Court in events that take place some years before the story told in Shakespeare's Hamlet.

Directed by Marc Beeby & Sasha Yevtushenko.

Financial phone-in.

The housing crisis and beyond: Laurie Taylor talks to Anna Minton, Reader in Architecture at the University of East London & author of 'Big Capital: What Is Housing For?' and David Madden, Assistant Professor in Sociology at the LSE. They explore the way in which homes have come to be seen as sites of capital investment and accumulation rather than as places of shelter and security.
Also, the anthropologist, Nazima Kadir, discusses her study of the 'autonomous' life of politically motivated squatters in Amsterdam.

Producer: Jayne Egerton.

Topical programme about the fast-changing media world.

Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.

The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

Jeremy Hardy returns with his brand new series that not only seconds that emotion, but explains it too. In this show, Jeremy is feeling... hopeful.

Radio 4's most passionate polemicist returns to the airwaves with a new format which promises to be both personal and profound, and to present sides of Jeremy you won't have heard before. He may even sing. (He won't sing.)

The News Quiz and I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue" regular, proud progenitor of ten series of Jeremy Hardy Speaks To The Nation, and winner of numerous awards and almost certainly the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, Jeremy is famous for lines like:

"Kids should never be fashion slaves, especially in the Far East. My 12-year old daughter asked me for a new pair of trainers. I told her she was old enough to go out and make her own."

and -

"Islam is no weirder than Christianity. Both are just Judaism with the jokes taken out."

His unique world view once lead him to be likened to "an incendiary vicar". Gillian Reynolds called him, "an idealist, a dissenter, a polemicist and moralist - he's a salutary reminder that jokes can, and should, be about big things."

The show is produced by Jeremy's long-standing accomplice, David Tyler, whose radio credits include Cabin Pressure, Thanks A Lot, Milton Jones!, Marcus Brigstocke's The Brig Society, Kevin Eldon Will See You Now, Armando Iannucci's Charm Offensive, Giles Wemmbley Hogg Goes Off, The Castle, The 99p Challenge, Deep Trouble, My First Planet, Radio Active and Bigipedia. His TV credits include Paul Merton - The Series, Spitting Image, Absolutely, The Paul Calf Video Diary, Coogan's Run and exec producing Victoria Wood's dinnerladies.

Written by Jeremy Hardy
Produced by David Tyler

A Pozzitive production for BBC Radio 4.