The BBC has announced that it has a sustainable plan for the future of the BBC Singers, in association with The VOCES8 Foundation.
The threat to reduce the staff of the three English orchestras by 20% has not been lifted, but it is being reconsidered.
See the BBC press release here.
RADIO-LISTS: BBC RADIO 4
Unofficial Weekly Listings for BBC Radio 4 — supported by bbc.co.uk/programmes/
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
Two friends explore what it means to be young, black and female in the UK today.
Young black women are facing uniquely challenging experiences in all aspects of their lives. And these experiences are not necessarily the same in the UK as they are in the US. So, when best friends Yomi Adegoke and Elizabeth Uviebinené searched for a book that addressed these challenges they realised there was nothing that specifically addressed being black, British, young and female - and you could add to that smart, ambitious and mostly invisible.
Slay in Your Lane is the love child of exasperation and optimism - part guide, part history, part snapshot of the state of the nation. Examining aspects of life including education, work, health, and everyday racism, it's an honest and provocative book offering advice alongside some startling statistics, as well as stories and anecdotes from interviewees including some of the most successful black women in Britain today.
This final extract considers how many black women are struggling with depression and stress, which is often unspoken and internalised, causing further anguish and isolation. Yomi recounts her own experiences.
Written and read by Yomi Adegoke and Elizabeth Uviebinené with additional recorded interviews.
Abridged by Jill Waters and Isobel Creed
Produced by Jill Waters
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
A spiritual comment and prayer for the day with Chine McDonald.
One listener tells of how she discovered a project to establish an independent "space nation" - Asgardia - and how she's now been elected as an MP for it.
Kathy Clugston reads Your News.
Presented by Luke Jones. Produced by Cat Farnsworth.
The latest news headlines. Including the weather and a look at the papers.
In this week's Open Country, Caz Graham asks what impact the huge moorland fires near Saddleworth and at Winter Hill have had on the landscape and the wildlife of the area. She meets farmers, gamekeepers, the RSPB, and members of the local community - who have been doing what they can to help the fire crews battling to stop the spread of the flames. Caz also talks to the local Wildlife Trust and the Peak District National Park Authority. With thousands of acres of moorland already destroyed, how long will it take the ecosystem to recover? And what can be done to try to prevent fires on this scale in future?
Produced by Emma Campbell.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
The latest weather forecast.
News and current affairs. Including Yesterday in Parliament, Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
Patrick Gale is author of 19 novels, one biography, a BBC drama, and claims he has never had a grown up job. He joins Richard and Aasmah in Mousehole, Conrwall to tell us about growing up in Wandsworth Prison and having the westernmost walled rose garden in the country.
Cornwall resident Esmé Page saw disaster on the TV and like many of us, wanted to help - her idea of galvanising the local community has led to over 250 holidays in Cornwall for people affected by the Grenfell Tower tragedy.
Sea shanty singing Fisherman's Friends shot to fame when they got spotted in their home town of Port Isaac, Cornwall, and were signed by record label Universal in 2010. A few records and many rousing performances down the line, they join us to serenade Richard and Aasmah.
Gillian Burke is a biologist and a presenter on BBC's Springwatch, Autumnwatch and Winterwatch. Born in Kenya, she moved to Vienna with her family when she was ten - her mum worked for the UN as an environment officer and now lives in Cornwall with her young family.
We also have the Inheritance Tracks of painter Ken Howard RA and contributions from our lovely Mousehole audience.
Producer: Corinna Jones
Editor: Eleanor Garland.
Jay Rayner and his panel of culinary experts are in Inverness. Professor Barry Smith, Paula McIntyre, Rob Owen-Brown and Rachel McCormack answer the audience questions.
The panellists reveal their kitchen superstitions, chat football pies with the winner of the inaugural Football Pie Category at the British Pie Awards, and debate the perfect picnic snack.
Also, they learn about the history of the Herring Girls, offer up recipes for tinned fish, and discover the bizarre connection between Barbara Cartland and the Highlands.
Produced by Hannah Newton
Assistant Producer: Laurence Bassett
Food Consultant: Anna Colquhoun
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.
Sam Coates of The Times looks behind the scenes at Westminster.
The Editor is Peter Mulligan.
Ever since Jacob Zuma's resignation his family has faced all sorts of legal headaches. Kate Adie introduces correspondents' stories from around the world:
Three years ago, Duduzane Zuma drove his Porsche into the back of a minibus taxi, killing one passenger and injuring others. At the time, a magistrate concluded that the President's son had been negligent, but the state declined to prosecute. Now its had a change of heart. Is the past catching up on the Zumas, wonders Andrew Harding in South Africa?
Peter Morgan witnesses a pink revolution in Norway as salmon replaces cod as the catch of choice and fisherman turn to aquaculture or farming rather than going out to sea, but at what environmental cost?
In Nigeria, Zeinab Badawi meets up with young people weighing up the meaning of life in Lagos' death café.
James Stewart admires the film-set, feel-good atmosphere of Seaside Florida - the town where 'The Truman Show' was filmed twenty years ago.
And Mellissa Van Der Klugt meets the men and women making cheese on the African equator. The extreme weather may not be ideal, but that's not stopped Kenyan fromagiers.
Producer: Joe Kent.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
The latest news from the world of personal finance.
The topical satirical show that mixes political vituperation with media mauling and celebrity savaging.
As England crashes out of the World Cup, Theresa May fights a mass cabinet resignation and Trump visits London, the Dead Ringers team takes aim. Watch out for that blimp!
The series is written by Private Eye writers Tom Jamieson and Nev Fountain, together with Tom Coles, Ed Amsden, Sarah Campbell, Laurence Howarth, James Bugg, Laura Major, Max Davis and others.
The series stars Jon Culshaw, Jan Ravens, Lewis MacLeod, Debra Stephenson and Duncan Wisbey.
A BBC Studios Production.
The latest weather forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
Edward Stourton presents political debate from Largs Campus in Ayrshire, Scotland with the leader of the SNP at Westminster Ian Blackford MP, Shadow Attorney General for England and Wales Baroness Chakrabarti, the economist Dr Gerard Lyons and the Chairman of the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Select Committee Tom Tugendhat MP.
Listeners have their say on the issues discussed on Any Questions?
Terrible things happen even in beautiful places and among highly educated people. Morse, Lewis and Strange are back on their criminally fertile Oxford patch - dealing with a mysterious pair of Oxford students who appear to be fish out of water, a Don found dead in the river, and an attractive philosopher who pleads with Morse to drop his investigation to save her career.
It's still the early 1990s when computers, mobiles, digital media and sophisticated forensic techniques are not yet in use. Morse's detection methods rely on instinct, acutely honed observational skills and dogged gumshoe perseverance. Colin Dexter's Oxford detectives feature in a story devised by former Morse TV writer Alma Cullen, adapted by Richard Stoneman.
Directed by Marilyn Imrie
A Catherine Bailey production for BBC Radio 4.
We'll hear how Helen, a nice middle class mum, became addicted to prescription medication, when she got prescribed strong painkillers for backache.
Lily James talks about her role in Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again!
We have advice about a new sexually transmitted disease known as MGen from Dr Suneeta Soni who explains how infection can cause pelvic inflammatory disease which could leave some women infertile.
Yomi Adegoke and Elizabeth Uviebinene tell us about their book Slay in Your Lane: The Black Girl Bible
The writer director Deborah Haywood talks about her experience of making her first feature film about a mother and daughter who both have to deal with bullying.
The New York based jazz, pop and folk singer, guitarist and composer Becca Stevens performs for us.
Novuyo Tshuma tells us about her debut novel House of Stone about growing up in Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe and discovering the painful truth about the Gukurahundi genocide.
Presented by Tina Daheley
Producer: Rabeka Nurmahomed
Editor: Jane Thurlow.
Coverage and analysis of the day's news.
Commodities are the raw materials which oil the wheels of the modern economy. From minerals to crude oil to coffee, Evan Davis and guests look at how the business of buying and selling commodities works and why it matters to all of us.
GUESTS
Andrew Gowers, Global Head of Corporate Affairs, Trafigura
Jean-Francois Lambert, Founder, Lambert Commodities
Colin Hamilton, MD Commodities Research, BMO Capital Markets.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest weather forecast.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Clive Anderson and Arthur Smith are joined by Peter Hain, Joanna Scanlan, Alex Lawther and Salena Godden for an eclectic mix of conversation, music and comedy. With music from Oi Va Voi and Sabiyha.
Producer: Sukey Firth.
Dominic Raab has been thrust into the key government role of Brexit secretary following the resignation David Davis.
The 44-year-old was tipped for high office from the moment he was elected to the safe Conservative seat of Esher and Walton in 2010.
His rise through the ministerial ranks has not been without controversy, with Theresa May accusing him of fuelling gender warfare by describing some feminists as "obnoxious bigots".
With just months to go to broker a deal with EU negotiators, not to mention steering Brexit through a divided Commons, the amateur boxer and karate black belt has got a real fight on his hands.
Presenter: Mark Coles
Producers: Ben Crighton, Clare Spencer.
A review of the week's cultural highlights.
BBC political correspondent Chris Mason examines the changing accents of politics and politics of accents, with help from politicians, language experts and an impersonator.
The programme examines the ways that stereotypes and prejudices can be loaded onto accents, how the voting public responds to different voices, and what politicians can do and have done about it all.
With the help of the archive, the former Labour leader Neil Kinnock and former Conservative minister Edwina Currie reflect on the political soundtrack of their lifetimes. How have their voices, those of their contemporaries and the sound of the national political conversation changed?
How is it possible and when it is sensible to change your accent? Chris is joined by Steve Nallon, who impersonated Lady Thatcher on Spitting Image, to listen back to her as a new backbencher and later as Prime Minister.
And what about the sound of political reporting? The archive allows the former Today Programme presenter Jack Di Manio to give Chris (a son of the Yorkshire dales) a lesson in speaking 'properly'.
So are we really becoming more open minded about this aspect of political communication? The programme hears from two MPs who say they still struggle to be understood in the Commons today.
Producer: Joey D'Urso.
by Nick Warburton
Series created by Jonathan Ruffle.
Meticulously based on unit war diaries and eye-witness accounts, each episode of TOMMIES traces one real day at war, exactly 100 years ago.
Through it all, we follow the fortunes of Mickey Bliss and his fellow signallers, from the Lahore Division of the British Indian Army. They are the cogs in an immense machine, one which connects situations across the whole theatre of the war, over four long years.
A day of rest behind the lines is not easy for Mickey Bliss and his Signals colleagues. A time for not only parcels, a haircut, a drink or two, and the sourcing of valuable equipment but also bad temper.
Producers: David Hunter, Jonquil Panting, Jonathan Ruffle
Director: David Hunter.
Psychotherapist Susie Orbach explores the private relationship between therapist and patient. We join Susie in her consulting room, where she meets a different client each day.
Today, Susie meets Charles. He's in his 50s and a partner in a successful advertising agency, which is undergoing a merger with a new media company.
All of the clients are played by actors, but these are not scripted scenes. Each client profile has been carefully constructed by therapist Susie, director Ian Rickson (former artistic director at the Royal Court, and director of the highly acclaimed Jerusalem) and radio producer Kevin Dawson. The client profiles have been given to the actors who have learned about the characters' lives, backgrounds, and reasons for seeking therapy. The scenes have then been improvised and recorded on concealed microphones at Susie's surgery.
Throughout the encounters in this series, we get to hear the therapist at work, experiencing what it's like to eavesdrop on the most intimate of exchanges.
To help us with our understanding of the process, Susie Orbach commentates on what is happening in the room, giving us an insight into her role as a therapist and shining a light on the journey both she and her patient have embarked upon.
Psychotherapist: Susie Orbach
Charles: Simon Shepherd
Producer: Kevin Dawson
Director: Ian Rickson
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4, followed by weather.
Historian Margaret MacMillan dissects the relationship between war and the civilian. Speaking to an audience in Beirut, she looks back at the city's violent past and discusses the impact of conflict on noncombatants throughout the centuries. She explores how civilians have been deliberately targeted, used as slaves and why women are still often singled out in mass rapes. And she addresses the proposition that human beings are becoming less, not more violent. The programme is chaired by Anita Anand.
Producer: Jim Frank
Editor: Hugh Levinson.
A funny and dynamic quiz show hosted by Steve Punt - this week from the University of Dundee with specialist subjects including Geography, Art and Physics, and questions ranging from Rachel Whiteread and Röntgen Rays to the Shiba Inu from the meme and Gnasher from The Beano.
The programme is recorded on location at a different University each week, and it pits three Undergraduates against three of their Professors in an original and fresh take on an academic quiz.
The rounds vary between Specialist Subjects and General Knowledge, quickfire bell-and-buzzer rounds and the Highbrow and Lowbrow round cunningly devised to test not only the students' knowledge of current affairs, history, languages and science, but also their Professors' awareness of television, sport, and quite possibly Justin Bieber. In addition, the Head-to-Head rounds see students take on their Professors in their own subjects, offering plenty of scope for mild embarrassment on both sides.
Other Universities featured in this series include Merton College Oxford, Newcastle, Hertfordshire, Sheffield and Brunel.
Produced by David Tyler
A Pozzitive production for BBC Radio 4.
Roger McGough is joined by celebrated poet, writer and playwright, Lemn Sissay MBE, who shares a selection of his favourite poems from the archive of listeners' requests.
Lemn talks about how poets and poems are like his family, his nearest and dearest being choices including the Ethiopian Poet Laureate, Tsegaye Gabriel-Medhin, American Poet Laureate, Tracy K Smith, Michael Rosen, Britain's Poet Laureate, Carol Ann Duffy and Scottish Makar, Jackie Kay.
Also joining Roger and Lemn in the studio is the poet, Caroline Bird, shortlisted for the TS Eliot Award 2017, the Ted Hughes Award 2017, and the Dylan Thomas Prize twice in 2008 and 2010.
Producer: Sarah Addezio.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
By Robert Shearman. A man dies but is turned back at the Pearly Gates and restored to mortal form to attend to some unfinished business.
Robert Shearman has written five short story collections and, between them, they have won the World Fantasy Award, the Shirley Jackson Award and the Edge Hill Readers Prize. He was resident dramatist at the Northcott Theatre in Exeter and regular writer for Alan Ayckbourn in Scarborough, and his interactive BBC radio series The Chain Gang won two Sony awards. But he is probably best known for his work on Doctor Who, bringing back the Daleks for the BAFTA winning first series in an episode nominated for a Hugo Award.
Writer: Robert Shearman
Reader: Miles Jupp
Producer: Jeremy Osborne
A Sweet Talk production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
Church bells from St Mary and St Chad, Brewood.
The latest national and international news.
Screenwriter Frank Cottrell Boyce is intrigued by the way the human voice can spark so many memories and feelings. Something we take for granted so often becomes the focus of his search for the oral fingerprint. To help him in his quest, he invites his friend Steve Coogan to demonstrate some of his impersonations, revealing that the tone of voice can carry more meaning than the words we say.
Frank also trawls the audio archive and finds rare recordings of William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, and the inspirational deaf and blind writer Helen Keller. The voices of Oliver Postgate and the artificially intelligent Alexa join the mix.
Ultimately, Frank is seeking to hear the voice of God but doesn't find it where you might expect. He concludes, "You won't find the voice of the Lord calling to you in an historical document, we hear it in the voices of the people we love. It whispers to us in our childhood sleep, yells at us on the playing field, pleads with us in arguments and says hello when we answer the phone."
Presenter: Frank Cotrell Boyce
Producer: Michael Wakelin
A TBI production for BBC Radio 4.
Most of us are probably unfamiliar with the Kentish Cobnut but over the last few years this English nut- a cultivated variety of hazelnut- has enjoyed a revival. Caz Graham visits Roughway Farm near Plaxtol in Kent, home to John Cannon who has been passionate about this English nut for over eighty years.
She also meets his son, Giles Cannon who now runs the fruit and nut farm and the third generation of Cannons on the farm, Tom who appears to have inherited his grandfather's passion for the Kent cobnut.
Producer: Perminder Khatkar.
The latest weather forecast.
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.
Sunday morning religious news and current affairs programme.
The Radio 4 Appeal on behalf of The Honeypot Children's Charity is made by Bethannie York, a beneficiary.
Registered Charity Number: 1011672
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 'The Honeypot Children's Charity'.
- Cheques should be made payable to 'The Honeypot Children's Charity'.
The latest weather forecast.
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.
A reflection on the Old Testament book of Jonah is the focus of worship from the Chapel of Rugby School. The Chaplain, the Revd Richard Horner explores its teachings on obedience, repentance and forgiveness as he asks: who is the God of Jonah? Hymns include 'Alleluia, sing to Jesus' (Hyfrydol); 'Take my life and let it be' (Nottingham); 'Thine be the Glory' (Maccabaeus) and the anthem, 'Come Let Us Sing of a Wonderful Love' (arr. Bertalot). Readings are from the Book of Jonah. The service is led by the Chaplain and the Choir of Rugby School is directed by Richard Tanner.
Sarah Dunant on her uneasy conundrum over inheritance tax.
"Like most intelligent beings", Sarah writes, "I'm passionate about addressing climate change for future generations. But my urgency of commitment also comes from an attachment to one in particular - the next".
The desire to hand something on has always been with us, but it raises big moral dilemmas.
Producer: Adele Armstrong.
Horror Fiction writer and keen bird watcher Stephen Gregory sets out on his first week selecting favourite episodes from the Tweet of the Day back catalogue. As a keen birdwatcher all of his novels have some elements of an ornithological theme. With either birds in the title such as Wakening the Crow from 2014, or have birds as subject to build the tension into his world of macabre such as Blood of Angels featuring a jackdaw with a broken beak. His first novel The Cormorant based on observing cormorants in Wales received the 1987 Somerset Maugham Award. Stephen recalls how the cormorant bird inspired his work and also how he was impressed by the harpy eagle in South America.
Producer by Maggie Ayre.
Sunday morning magazine programme with news and conversation about the big stories of the week. Presented by Paddy O'Connell.
An old face returns to Ambridge, and Brian finds himself at a crossroads.
Billie Jean King won 39 Grand Slams and a total of 20 Wimbledon titles and is regarded as one of the greatest tennis players of all time.
Born in California in 1943, she was the eldest daughter of Bill and Betty Moffitt. She discovered tennis at the age of ten: at 15 she won in her age bracket at the Southern California championships, and in 1961, she won the women's doubles at Wimbledon with Karen Hantze, the youngest pair to achieve such a victory.
In 1968, when professional competitors were admitted to Grand Slam tournaments, she won Wimbledon for the third time and was paid just £750 while Rod Laver, the Men's champion, took home £2,000. So began her campaign for gender equality, which involved boycotting tournaments and setting up their own professional women's circuit. In 1973, then aged 29, she beat the 55-year-old former tennis champion Bobby Riggs in a match which became known as 'The Battle of the Sexes': it remains the most-watched tennis match ever. That year the US Open awarded the same financial reward to men and women and in 2007 Wimbledon followed suit. Billie Jean also founded the Women's Tennis Association and the Women's Sports Foundation in the 1970s.
She married her husband, Larry, in 1965 but by the late 1960s, she had realised that she was gay. She was outed by a former lover who sued her for palimony in 1981, and although she won the case, she lost almost all her commercial endorsements. She has been with her partner, Ilana Kloss, for nearly 40 years and retired from singles matches in 1983 and doubles in 1990. She was awarded the Medal of Freedom by President Obama in 2009 and has continued to be an ambassador for her sport and for gender equality.
Presenter: Kirsty Young
Producer: Cathy Drysdale.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
The nation's favourite wireless entertainment pays a visit to the Wyvern Theatre in Swindon. Old-timers Barry Cryer and Tim Brooke-Taylor are joined on the panel by Rory Bremner and Pam Ayres with Jack Dee in the chair. Colin Sell provides piano accompaniment.
Producer - Jon Naismith.
It is a BBC Studios production.
For food writer Yasmin Khan, the Balti conjures up family meals out in her childhood home of Birmingham where she would regularly tuck into deep bowls of the city's most iconic dish -- richly spiced chicken or lamb, that she scooped up with freshly made warm naan breads.
In it's heyday, the Sparkhill area of Birmingham was saturated with Balti restaurants, so much so that it became known as the "Balti Triangle", a place which defined Birmingham's food scene and became one of the few parts of the UK where working class, immigrant, food was celebrated.
Since then, the Balti has grown in reputation as one of Britain's truly regional dishes, so much so that a bid was made, albeit unsuccessfully, to give it protected EU status.
Now, Yasmin heads back to Birmingham to explore what this uniquely British-Pakistani dish means to a new generation of people growing up in the so-called 'Balti Triangle'. What she finds is a community with strong bonds and deep pride, that continues to come together around a deep love of food.
Presented by Yasmin Khan
Produced in Bristol by Clare Salisbury.
The latest weather forecast.
Global news and analysis.
These are boom times for the PhD business with more students in the UK than ever before striving for doctorates. But are they really increasing their chances of future success, or just propping up university finances?
Tim Samuels reports on the burgeoning PhD trade, meeting students who dedicate years of their lives - and thousands of pounds - to researching obscure aspects of academia and finding answers to questions that society hadn't necessarily been asking.
Once the preserve of the most able and dedicated students, the number of doctoral candidates has been steadily rising for more than a decade, boosted by an influx of overseas students. There were 23,000 students completing their doctorates in 2017. But with limited openings in academia. where the number of professorial posts is now vastly outnumbered by the number of eager candidates, who really gains from PhDs?
Universities increasingly rely on the finances that accompany each research post, especially when the student comes from overseas. Almost half of all postgraduate students in the UK have moved here to study, with the majority of those from China.
Whether society or the economy benefits from extensive research into skateboarding, Chinese chime stones, forgiveness and repentance in Elizabethan theatre or high-voltage direct current convertors is endlessly debatable - but should that even be a concern for the students hoping to create a "unique contribution to human knowledge"?
Whatever happened to the merits of education for education's sake? A 91-year-old PhD student, Joy Leslie Gibson, certainly isn't hoping for a job at the end of her doctorate.
A Tonic Media production for BBC Radio 4.
Peter Gibbs hosts GQT from the National Space Centre in Leicester. On the intergalactic panel this week are Bob Flowerdew, Bunny Guinness and Matthew Pottage.
They answer questions on potato best-practice, looking after an Aspidistra and keeping an Olive tree happy over winter.
Also, the panellists offer advice on growing strawberries on an allotment, moving a Hepatica, and perking up an aged and ailing Cherry tree.
Throughout the programme, Peter talks to various experts from the UK Space Agency about horticulture away from planet earth, gets his hands on some seeds that have actually been into space and back, and admires the spectacular planetarium ceiling.
Produced by Darby Dorras
Assistant Producer: Laurence Bassett
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.
Fi Glover introduces conversations about getting fit, accepting you'll never have grandchildren, and coming to terms with where you live 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.
Hawk Wounded: Albert the One-Eyed of Habsburg has displaced Norbert and become Holy Roman Emperor, but Wenceslas plots revenge. Disappointed by his philosophical son, Albert takes John of Swabia into his inner circle and Ibrahim settles an old score.
Mike Walker's epic chronicle of the Habsburg dynasty which was to rule most of Europe - as well as much of the New World - for 600 years.
Sound design Nigel Lewis
Director Alison Hindell
BBC Cymru Wales production.
Debut novelist Michael Donkor tells Mariella Frostrup about Hold, the story of Belinda, a young Ghanaian housemaid, who is brought to the UK to live with, and guide, Amma a rebellious and troubled teenager. Together they gradually face up to their prejudices and fears, as they both struggle with feelings of otherness and dislocation.
As Audre Lorde's autobiography is reissued, Jackie Kay reflects on the writer's enduring appeal and her own friendship with this defiant and groundbreaking poet, essayist and campaigner.
Danish novelist Dorthe Nors chooses the Book She'd Never Lend and Ruth Hogan reflects on writers' fascination with cemeteries.
Roger McGough is joined by Billy Letford, who shares a selection of his favourite poems from the Poetry Please archive of listeners' requests. His choices include Robert Louis Stevenson, Jen Hadfield, Emily Dickinson and Tom Leonard.
Billy Letford comes from Stirlingshire and worked in various jobs including his family's roofing business in his twenties. His debut collection Bevel was published in 2012, and his second, Dirt, was published in 2016, both by Carcanet Press.
Producer: Eliza Lomas.
In January, Britain's second biggest construction firm, Carillion, spectacularly collapsed under a £1.5 billion debt pile. Thousands of jobs were lost, pensions were put at risk, and around 30 thousand smaller subcontractors, who'd already completed work on projects, were left being owed a total of £2 billion.
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn called it a 'watershed' moment, and a report by MPs slammed the government contractor's 'rotten corporate culture', claiming those at the top treated suppliers with 'utter contempt'. There was also a stark warning that a similar collapse could happen 'again, and soon'.
But whilst Carillion shone a spotlight on some of the 'reckless' and 'greedy' financial practices used by those at the top of large-scale construction, and left accountants and ministers with questions to answer, has anything changed six months on?
File on 4 investigates an industry treading a financial tightrope - a world of huge turnovers but tiny profit margins, spiralling debts and late payments. Alistair Jackson speaks to subcontractors who say they're still working in 'a climate of fear', and are being pushed to the brink, financially and emotionally, by their bigger construction counterparts.
Reporter: Alistair Jackson
Producer: Mick Tucker
Editor: Gail Champion.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest weather forecast.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Cherylee Houston chooses her BBC Radio highlights.
Alice struggles to come to terms with recent events and Freddie looks to the future.
Gaby Roslin hosts the funny, entertaining film quiz with impressions by Alistair McGowan and Ronni Ancona. This week, team captains John Thomson and Ellie Taylor are joined by special guests Stephen Tomkinson and Sally Lindsay.
Presented by Gaby Roslin
Team Captains: John Thomson and Ellie Taylor
Impressionists: Alistair McGowan and Ronni Ancona
Created by Gaby Roslin
Written by Carrie Quinlan and Barney Newman
Produced by Gordon Kennedy, Gaby Roslin and Barney Newman
An Absolutely production for BBC Radio 4.
Joe Dunthorne, author of Submarine, reads his specially commissioned short story inspired by the Natural History Museum. It's about the world's most powerful microscope and what it can see...and what it can't. Producer Beth O'Dea. Micro-CT Scan image of the cross section of a Bostryx Snail provided by the Natural History Museum.
Roger Bolton talks to Brian Cox as The Infinite Monkey Cage reaches its century, discusses the Proms with director David Pickard and airs controversy over the music played on 1Xtra.
The documentary Spitting Blades aired on BBC Radio 4, but the complaints in the Feedback inbox were about BBC Radio 1Xtra. During the programme, presenter Simeon Moore, also known as the rapper Zimbo, considered whether some rap music could be helping to glamorise gang violence and raised questions about music played on the BBC's urban station, Radio 1 Xtra. Some Feedback listeners were frustrated by BBC executives from the station declining to appear in the documentary.
The Proms started this week with a digital extravaganza projected onto the Royal Albert Hall. Proms director David Pickard discusses gender targets, reaching a younger audience and why he's already booked some performers for 2022.
The BBC has released its annual report, revealing many key indicators of its performance as well as the headline-making salary figures of its top stars. Listeners react, and the former BBC Trustee and Radio 4 Controller Mark Damazer chews over the implications of the document.
Irreverent science panel show The Infinite Monkey Cage has now reached a hundred episodes - an impressive feat for a show that saw plenty of complaints to Feedback when it first aired. Presenter and physicist Professor Brian Cox and producer Alexandra Feachem hear what listeners make of the show now.
Presenter: Roger Bolton
Producer: Will Yates
Executive Producer: Katherine Godfrey
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4.
Photo: Lord Carrington
Matthew Bannister on
Lord Carrington, the Conservative Foreign Secretary who resigned after the Argentine invasion of the Falkland Islands.
Karen Finch, the textile conservator who restored the garments of Bonnie Prince Charlie and Marlene Dietrich among many others.
Claude Lanzmann, the French film maker best known for Shoah, the nine and a half hour documentary about the holocaust.
Harlan Ellison, the outspoken American science fiction writer who published 70 books, more than 400 short stories and countless essays.
Producer: Neil George.
Peter Pomerantsev asks why new techniques in political campaigning have succeeded and what the consequences are for society. He has a different view to most from his past career working inside the TV industry in Moscow.
The future arrived first in Russia. The defeat of communism gave rise to political technologists who flourished in the vacuum left by the Cold War, developing a supple approach to ideology that made them the new masters of politics. Something of this post-ideological spirit is visible in Britain. Centrism no longer seems viable. Globalisation is increasingly resented. Ours is an uncertain political landscape in which commentators and polls habitually fail to predict what is to come. There was a time when if you lived in a certain place, in a certain type of home, then you were likely to vote a certain way. But that is no longer the case. Instead, political strategists imagine you through your data. The campaigns that succeed are the ones that hook in as many groups as possible, using advances in political technology to send different messages to different groups.
Pomerantsev, one of the most compelling voices on modern Russia, is a senior visiting fellow at the London School of Economics and is the author of "Nothing is True and Everything is Possible: Adventures in Modern Russia".
Producer: Ant Adeane.
Weekly political discussion and analysis with MPs, experts and commentators.
Ethan Hawke tells Francine Stock about his role as a tormented priest in Paul Schrader's First Reformed, and why it's still rare to see a priest take the lead role in a Hollywood movie
Directors Beeban Kidron and Hope Dickson Leach discuss the problems of combining child care and film-making, and Beeban reveals why George Lucas thought she was a man.
Perfume expert and film critic Dariush Alavi looks at Apocalypse Now and tells us what napalm really smells like (clue: it doesn't smell like victory.).
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
Suburbia Revisited: Has it ceased to be a place of leafy affluence as poverty has migrated from the city? New research suggests the decline of an American 'golden age' of white picket fences and two garage homes. Laurie Taylor explores the origin, myth and reality of the suburban dream, in Britain as well as the US. Is the suburbanisation of poverty a widespread phenomenon? He's joined by Mark Clapson, Professor of Social and Urban History at the University of Westminster, Scott Allard, Professor of Social Policy at the University of Washington and Anne Power, Professor of Social Policy at the London School of Economics
Producer: Jayne Egerton.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
The latest weather forecast for farmers.
Michael Palin presents the scarlet macaw from Costa Rica. The Scarlet Macaw is a carnival of a bird, eye-catching, noisy and vibrant, with a colour-scheme verging on bad taste. Its brilliant red feathers clash magnificently with the bright yellow patches on its wings, and contrast with its brilliant blue back and very long red tail. It has a white face and a massive hooked bill and it produces ear-splitting squawks. Subtlety is not in its vocabulary.
Scarlet macaws breed in forests from Mexico south through Central America to Bolivia, Peru and Brazil. They use their formidable beaks not only to break into nuts and fruit, but also as pick-axes.
Colourful and charismatic birds usually attract attention and in some areas where the Scarlet Macaws have been collected for the bird trade, numbers have declined. In south-east Mexico where they are very rare, a reintroduction programme is underway to restore these gaudy giants to their ancestral forests.
Producer Andrew Dawes.
News and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
Fi Glover hosts guests in the mobile Booth to celebrate its pottery history and the contemporary scene in Stoke, which includes ceramics but also much more.
Producer: Marya Burgess.
The Olympian, Helen Glover, speaks to world-class badminton player, Gail Emms, about the difficult time she has had since retiring from sport.
Helen Glover is one of our most successful athletes. In a life devoted to rowing, she has won a phenomenal twenty one Olympic, World and European gold medals. But now she is contemplating retirement. And she is discovering that looking to the future - towards a life away from competitive rowing - is as daunting as it is liberating.
Gail Emms, alongside her doubles partner, Nathan Robertson, won a silver medal at the 2004 Olympics and became World Champion in 2006. But when she retired in 2008, she struggled financially and underestimated how hard it might be to find a new sense of identity and purpose.
Producer: Karen Gregor.
An innovative examination of the nature of reality in the 21st century by award-winning author Laurence Scott - part personal memoir, part philosophical exploration. Read by Stephen Mangan.
When he was in his early thirties, Laurence Scott's parents died soon after one another, and he found his whole world altered beyond recognition. He says, "Death runs like radioactive iodine through your sense of reality, allowing this reality to be looked at in high contrast, its structures glowing. It has a way of making things very true, but also, somehow, less real."
As he begins to navigate this new reality, he realises that in politics and public life, the nature of reality - what is true and what is fake - has become an urgent issue. Questions of how we experience the real world, how we access its truths, have become mainstream concerns. Today, in an age of online personas, alternative truths, constant surveillance and an increasingly hysterical news cycle, our realities are becoming more flimsy and more vulnerable than ever before.
In the first episode, Laurence Scott gives a vivid poetic description of the grief he experienced when his parents died, and explores recent discoveries in neuroscience, and the concept of augmented reality.
Laurence Scott is a writer, broadcaster, academic and a Senior Lecturer in English and Creative Writing at Arcadia in London. He is author of The Four-Dimensional Human: Ways of Being in the Digital World, which was shortlisted for the 2015 Samuel Johnson Prize, won the Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Prize, and was named the Sunday Times Thought Book of the Year. In 2011 he was named one of ten New Generation Thinkers by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the BBC.
Read by Stephen Mangan
Adapted by Elizabeth Burke
Produced by Alexandra Quinn
A Loftus production for BBC Radio 4.
The Reverend Rose Hudson-Wilkin is a Church of England Priest and the first woman since 1660 to be appointed Chaplain to the Speaker of the House of Commons. She is also Chaplain to the Queen, priest Vicar at Westminster Abbey and Priest in Charge of St Mary at Hill, City of London. She investigates how we solve knife and gun crime. She highlights the work of the African Prison Project and examines the legacy of the Windrush generation. CeCelia Wickham Anderson sings live in the studio.
Presenter: Jane Garvey
Producer: Dianne McGregor.
by Melissa Murray
Crime or incompetence? When Max returns from travelling he discovers that most of his expected inheritance has disappeared. Who is responsible and what has happened to the money?
Directed by Marc Beeby
The war between the generations has never been more intense. And this time it's more than personal. It's about money. A sharp social comedy that is absolutely of the moment by a truly original writer.
Grace Dent follows Jade, a games designer with autism. She's been invited to a world famous games festival in New York. Can she navigate her condition and make the trip a success?
Coming to the end of University, Jade is determined to build herself a career in the gaming industry. In the games she designs, players are immersed in a simulation of Jade's experience, they must manage some of the effects of autism to advance to the next level.
An opportunity has arisen for her that might be the opportunity she is looking for... a major convention in New York and a platform to share her work so far. It's a chance she just can't miss, so Jade has spent her savings on a ticket to the Big Apple. Jade's autism presents challenges to her daily life. It sometimes makes busy spaces problematic, and can create a lot of anxiety in social situations. A bustling convention, in the middle of one of the world's busiest cities, could present a lot of difficulty for Jade, and she will be travelling there alone.
As the flight draws closer, Jade must manage her nerves and prepare for what could be the trip of a lifetime. She will need to face an environment she has never encountered before in order to follow her dream.
Producer: Sara Parker.
It's still 1952. It's always 1952.
The Quanderhorn crew find themselves on Advanced Lunar Station Q, with no means of returning to Earth and limited oxygen supplies.
Splitting into two teams after a game of Martian Closey-Eyesie, Guuuurk (Kevin Eldon) and Troy (Freddie Fox) fall prey to a ravenous Lunar Man Trap, while Brian (Ryan Sampson) and Gemma (Cassie Layton) stumble upon an intact space craft.
But there are two problems. Gemma's ear is unwinding, rendering her emotionally unstable, and there's no apparent entrance to the craft.
Having rather astonishingly escaped their various dilemmas, the crew encounter yet another conundrum - how exactly is the ship powered?
Jenkins (John Sessions), the professor's factotum, detects a spacecraft approaching Earth which Quanderhorn (James Fleet) orders him to blast out of the sky, apparently unaware his own crew is aboard.
The Quanderhorn Xperimentations - an adventure beyond human understanding.
An Absolutely production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
On this day in 1918, four escaped prisoners of war were captured near Waltham Abbey, while in Devon, Victor and Daniel manage to get away for a while.
Written by Katie Hims
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole.
Some UK supermarkets have started stocking wine in cans. It's been a successful product in the US, and while it makes up only 0.2% of the wine market there, sales more than doubled last year, according to analysts Nielsen. We've already embraced gin and tonic in a can, might a pinot grigio in a tin be the perfect beverage for picnics and festivals? We speak to wine buyers and wine writer Amelia Singer about whether wine in a can stands a chance in Europe.
Havering Council has apologised to tenants following letters that suggested they could be forced to move from their homes to other areas. The council rents some of its temporary housing from private landlords, but it can no longer afford local rents and is looking to rent alternative properties elsewhere. The council has acknowledged that the letters upset some tenants and says everyone will have their circumstances reviewed before being asked to move.
We investigate the parcel insurance that doesn't pay out if the item is lost, damaged or stolen. A listener contacted us after discovering he'd purchased useless insurance for a MyHermes delivery. The item he was posting - a guitar - was on a list of items for which no compensation was available. We examine the list of 50 items that MyHermes will not insure.
Presented by Winifred Robinson
Produced by Beatrice Pickup.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
Are we pursuing happiness, or is the happiness industry pursuing us? And if our model of hedonism isn't working, how do we hack our happiness back? Leo Johnson goes on a year-long journey to pick up life lessons of happiness from modern day practitioners of radically different philosophies.
It's a journey that takes us from Yorkshire's anti-fracking grannies to the slow footballing Vietnamese monks of Plum Village, from self-cutting poets to the Chief Happiness Officers Convention in Paris, from London's asexual community to multi-orgasmic Swedish academics, and from World Champion Muay Thai women kick-boxers to Elvis-loving dementia sufferers.
What emerges is a set of starkly competing visions of the good life - ancient philosophies still duking it out to get punched in as the destination in our psychic Sat Navs.
What we meet is a set of individuals who have questioned the default comforts of the IKEA catalogue, defined the shape of the self, and chosen lives that give us a glimpse of how each of us can reclaim peace, reclaim purpose, reclaim pain, and reclaim pleasure - the real pleasure that hedonism promised.
Episode 1: The Perfect Life
Is hedonism getting hacked? And if it is, how do we hack our happiness back?
The programme features contributions from psychotherapist and author Susie Orbach, 'I had the Dream Life' social media icon Essena O'Neill, Marco Iacaboni, Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioural Science, UCLA, University of California, Chief Happiness Officer and Mr. Happiness Arnaud Collery and sociologist and political economist, Dr. Will Davies of Goldsmiths, University of London.
A Reel Soul Movies production for BBC Radio 4
Photo of Leo Johnson. Copyright Marcus Jamieson-Pond.
A woman waits in a hospital bed while her husband tears across London with a priceless suitcase that may or may not contain one egg - their only chance of having a baby.
Written and performed by Olivia Poulet and Laurence Dobiesz, #blessed is inspired by true events of IVF treatment within the NHS. It's funny, a little-bit heart-breaking and, in the end, life-affirming. It's a love story.
Pippa goes under the anaesthetic for extraction from her one viable follicle. Husband Steven is ready and waiting to take the fluid across London in a heavy metal-plated suitcase as quickly as he can. As she waits in recovery, Pippa longs to hear from him, longs to hear good news. Steven faces train cancellations, passengers suspicious of his strange case, and the anxiety of his own performance when he finally reaches his destination. Will there be an egg? Can he fertilise it? The story unfolds through their own anxious internal thoughts, and by text and phone calls. This is their last chance to become a family.
Director Susannah Tresilian is a theatre director as well as a radio and podcast producer.
Writer and actor Olivia Poulet is best known for her performances in The Thick of It and In the Loop.
Laurence Dobiesz is currently writing the second series of his sitcom podcast, Wastes of Space.
Writers: Olivia Poulet and Laurence Dobiesz
Sound Designer: James Morgan
Director: Susannah Tresilian
Producer: Melanie Harris
Executive Producer: Polly Thomas
A Sparklab production for BBC Radio 4.
A funny and dynamic quiz show hosted by Steve Punt - this week from Merton College Oxford with specialist subjects including History, Biology and Classics and questions ranging from the Rhine Maidens and deponent verbs to Barbie and starfish legs.
The programme is recorded on location at a different University each week, and it pits three Undergraduates against three of their Professors in an original and fresh take on an academic quiz.
The rounds vary between Specialist Subjects and General Knowledge, quickfire bell-and-buzzer rounds and the Highbrow and Lowbrow round cunningly devised to test not only the students' knowledge of current affairs, history, languages and science, but also their Professors' awareness of television, sport, and quite possibly Justin Bieber. In addition, the Head-to-Head rounds see students take on their Professors in their own subjects, offering plenty of scope for mild embarrassment on both sides.
Other Universities featured in this series include Newcastle, Dundee, Hertfordshire, Sheffield and Brunel.
Produced by David Tyler
A Pozzitive production for BBC Radio 4.
Rex Bloomstein goes inside the parole system to reveal how decisions are made regarding the release of prisoners, including those convicted of violent offences.
Gerald is an armed robber who has wielded guns and knives during a lifetime of crime. He's spent more than half his life in prison, and is serving an Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentence for aggravated burglary. A drug and alcohol addict, he cannot be released until a parole panel decides he is no longer likely to commit a serious violent offence. His solicitor says the upcoming parole hearing at Brixton Prison is the "last chance saloon" for her client.
Rex Bloomstein has been given an extraordinary level of access to record Gerald's hearing, along with those of several other prisoners.
He meets the prisoners ahead of their crucial hearings and listens-in on the entire process as parole panels interrogate prisoners and witnesses. The panels discuss evidence from prison staff, probation workers and psychologists, arriving at their conclusions and explaining their decisions - to release or not to release. The consequences of getting it wrong, weigh heavily on them. For the prisoners, the tension leads to tears and anger.
Every year, the Parole Board releases thousands of prisoners, including those convicted of the most serious violent offences, such as murder, rape and arson. In two programmes, Rex Bloomstein talks to Parole Board chief executive Martin Jones, and former chair Nick Hardwick who resigned after the High Court quashed a parole panel's decision to release serial sex offender John Worboys.
Is the Parole Board sufficiently accountable, transparent and effective? Senior parole panel member Judge Jeremy Roberts considers how the way he and his colleagues make decisions might have to change in the wake of the Worboys case.
Producer: Brian King and Rex Bloomstein
A 7digital production for BBC Radio 4.
Brian Cox and Robin Ince are joined on stage by Danny Wallace, mathematician Hannah Fry and science writer Timandra Harkness. They'll be going big on Big Data, and asking just how big is it? They'll be looking at where Big Data comes from, should we be worried about it, and what mysteries are hidden within the seemingly endless amounts of information that is collected about us as we go about our daily lives.
Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
The antidote to panel games pays a return visit to the Wyvern Theatre in Swindon. Old-timers Barry Cryer and Tim Brooke-Taylor are joined on the panel by Rory Bremner and Pam Ayres with Jack Dee in the chair. Colin Sell attempts piano accompaniment.
Producer - Jon Naismith.
It is a BBC Studios production.
Shula is shocked by a request, and Jennifer causes concern.
Arts news, interviews and reviews.
A century ago, the historian Oswald Spengler's melancholy prophecy, The Decline of the West, captivated a Germany on the verge of calamity. Its vision of the Rome-like fall of the Occident had a huge impact - not least on the Nazis.
Yet in the decades that followed, Nazism led nowhere but destruction - and in its wake, a liberal version of the West came to dominate the world.
So in this programme, the BBC's Media Editor Amol Rajan rediscovers this lonely scholar, pacing his Munich flat as Germany fell apart - and sets out to see what Spengler has to tell us about today.
Was he simply wrong that the West was sinking, or was he ahead of the curve? After all, he warned of Asian countries seizing on Western technology, and foresaw a great future for Russia, provided it turns its face against the weakening West.
Today, Russia is increasingly assertive. China and India are rising rapidly. Far-right populism is on a roll across Europe. And the American President is less than enthusiastic about postwar traditions of Western unity. Faith in 'Western values' appears to be waning fast. Democracy; pluralism; the separation of Church and State; and even some of the institutions that upheld the post-1945 global order are enduring a crisis of confidence.
So - is the West now in mortal decline? Or are we seeing an older, anti-liberal version of the West - the 'West' that Spengler really valued - beginning to stir?
With: Detlef Felken, Kishore Mahbubani, Zanny Minton Beddoes, Douglas Murray, Gideon Rachman
PRODUCER: PHIL TINLINE.
In 2016, during the American presidential election campaign, Edward Stourton travelled to the rustbelt of the United States to report on the new political power of Protectionism.
Now, as Donald Trump seems poised for a trade war on two fronts - with China and Europe - he asks how far the American president will go to put "America First".
Producer Smita Patel
Editor Hugh Levinson.
Brett Westwood was twelve years old when he first encountered a pike between the pages of T.H.White's book, The Sword in the Stone and yet the description of the pitiless monster still raises the hairs on the back of Brett's neck. In this, the first in a new series of Natural Histories, Brett has an unnerving encounter with a living pike, and meets an angler, a taxidermy collector, a diver and fish artist, and a heraldry expert as he ventures into dark waters to explore our relationship with this fearsome and predatory fish, which is so powerfully captured by Ted Hughes in his poem, Pike. Producer Sarah Blunt.
Contributors
Mike Ladle - Retired Freshwater Biologist and Angler http://www.mikeladle.com/
David Miller - Wildlife artist - http://www.davidmillerart.co.uk/
Errol Fuller - Painter, writer and taxidermy collector http://errolfuller.com/
Stephen Slater - Fellow of the Heraldry Society - https://www.theheraldrysociety.com/members-arms/slater-stephen/
Erica Fudge - Professor of English Studies at the University of Strathclyde - https://www.strath.ac.uk/staff/fudgeericaprof/
Poem - Pike - Ted Hughes
Georgie Glenn - Scottish actress best known for her stage and television work
Additional sound recordings - Chris Watson.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
The second book in the exquisitely funny Adrian Mole series by Sue Townsend, one of our most celebrated comic writers. Read by Harry McEntire.
Adrian continues to battle valiantly against the slings and arrows of growing up and his own family's attempts to scar him for life. Following on from The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 3/4, it is now 1982 and Adrian is 15.
Adrian's parents are back together and his mother is pregnant, much to Adrian's surprise and embarrassment. As the summer holidays begin, Adrian is still troubled by his spotty skin, but he continues to feel that his intellectual prowess sets him apart from his peers. His aspirations for poetic fame and fortune are undimmed. While his mother heads off with her women's group to Greenham Common, Adrian's own interest in politics starts to grow, alongside his dislike for Margaret Thatcher. As his parents struggle to make ends meet and sort out their differences, Adrian enjoys a more settled relationship with Pandora but is eager to move things on a stage further.
In this instalment of the diaries, Adrian has his first experiences of birth and death. He soldiers bravely on through the many challenges that life throws at him, and wins a place in our hearts with his charming naivety.
Reader: Harry McEntire
Abridger: Sara Davies
Producer: Alexa Moore
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.
Award winning political interviewers Alice Thomson and Rachel Sylvester take leading figures from politics, business and the arts back to their home towns where they spent their childhood.
In Milton Keynes, they meet Nat Wei, who created headlines when he was put in charge of delivering the Big Society - David Cameron's "mission in politics". He was the youngest peer in the House of Lords when he was given his title at 33, and the first British-born person of Chinese origin to enter the House.
Lord Wei goes back to his old school where bullying and drug taking were once commonplace, and talks about how faith, education, his Hong Kong Chinese heritage, and Milton Keynes itself have all influenced his later life as a social entrepreneur.
Producer: Chris Ledgard.
News from Westminster.
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 spiritual comment and prayer for the day with Chine McDonald.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs.
David Attenborough presents the story of the Crossbill. Crossbills are large finches that specialise in eating conifer seeds. To break into the pine or larch cones, they've evolved powerful bills with crossed tips which help the birds prise off the woody scales of each cone. Crossbills breed very early in the year and incubating birds sometimes have snow on their backs.
News and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Yesterday in Parliament, Weather and Thought for the Day.
Historian Margaret MacMillan assesses how the law and international agreements have attempted to address conflict. Speaking to an audience at the Northern Irish Parliament Buildings at Stormont in Belfast, Professor MacMillan outlines how both states and the people have sought to justify warfare - from self-defence to civil war - focusing on examples from Irish and British history. The programme, including a question and answer session, is presented by Anita Anand.
Producer: Jim Frank
Editor: Hugh Levinson.
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.
by Melissa Murray
Crime or incompetence? Max questions his mother about the mysterious disappearance of his inheritance. Linsey is also on the case -- and she's taking no prisoners
Directed by Marc Beeby.
Brett Westwood embraces the Willow. A tree celebrated across cultures for its beauty and versatility, it's the tree we've hugged closer than any other. Brett learns from Joan Armatrading how the willow can take away our pain, and visits the willow fields of the Somerset levels, where tall-growing willows sway like a bamboo forest.
As it weeps by our waterways and whispers in our hedgerows, it's given us endless laments, has been used by witches for magic wands and broomsticks, and has been turned into everything from charcoal to coffins, to painkillers.
Natural Histories - the only programme where Monet and Shakespeare meet The Wicker Man and folk-rock supergroup Steeleye Span.
Producer: Melvin Rickarby.
Music writer Laura Barton visits four locations in Britain and listens closely to the music found in different landscapes. Today - Norwich.
John Betjeman wrote, "What would you be, you wide East Anglian sky / Without church towers to recognise you by?"
But in the shadow of the Anglican Cathedral, Laura discovers that music and mischief seem to go hand-in-hand. She talks with Jenny and Rosa of celebrated teen pop duo Let's Eat Grandma about clapping songs and messing about by the river, electronic music composer Emma Catnip (AKA Catnip and Claws) about mischievous monks and the sound of bouncing balls in the underpass and, in their downtime after Evensong, members of the girls' choir at the Cathedral.
Produced by Alan Hall
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
On this day in 1918, the Tsar of Russia and his family were executed in Ekaterinburg, while in Devon, the Graham family are reunited.
Written by Katie Hims
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole.
Consumer phone-in.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
Are we pursuing happiness, or is the happiness industry pursuing us? And if our model of hedonism isn't working, how do we hack our happiness back? Leo Johnson goes on a year-long journey to pick up life lessons of happiness from modern day practitioners of radically different philosophies.
It's a journey that takes us from Yorkshire's anti-fracking grannies to the slow footballing Vietnamese monks of Plum Village, from self-cutting poets to the Chief Happiness Officers Convention in Paris, from London's asexual community to multi-orgasmic Swedish academics, and from World Champion Muay Thai women kick-boxers to Elvis-loving dementia sufferers.
What emerges is a set of starkly competing visions of the good life - ancient philosophies still duking it out to get punched in as the destination in our psychic Sat Navs.
What we meet is a set of individuals who have questioned the default comforts of the IKEA catalogue, defined the shape of the self, and chosen lives that give us a glimpse of how each of us can reclaim peace, reclaim purpose, reclaim pain, and reclaim pleasure - the real pleasure that hedonism promised.
Episode 2: Self-Harm Nation
Exploring radical alternatives to hedonism. What if happiness isn't about pleasure at all?
The programme features poet Clare Shaw in interview and reading from a poem in her new collection 'Flood', we hear from members of London's asexual community and we meet Dr. Liz Gloyn -author and Classics academic from Royal Holloway, University of London - at Stoicon X.
A Reel Soul Movies production for BBC Radio 4
Photo credit: Photo of poet Clare Shaw by Claire McNamee.
Crystal Yu plays Michelle, a Tiger Girl addicted to gambling in London's casinos. What will it take for her to walk away from family, culture and the empty promise of huge wealth?
Michelle's a paediatrician, being pursued by colleague Roy who wants to get serious. She likes him but she has a big secret to conceal. She's a gambler and a liar - like all addicts.
She's from a family of gamblers, steeped in its culture, and she just can't kick the thrill. She consults her almanac daily, looking to see if it's an auspicious day for Tiger Girls. If the signs are good, she'll drop everything to get to the roulette table. Like her grandma, she was born in the Year of the Tiger and good fortune comes from the South East. But unlike her grandma, she can't walk away after three wins. And she's lost so much already.
Loud, brash and colourful, the drama takes us into the heart of the British-Chinese community.
Writer Amy Ng is a London based Hong Kong-Chinese playwright named on the BBC's New Talent Hotlist. Director Shan Ng is an experienced television and film director making her directorial Radio 4 drama debut.
Writer: Amy Ng
Sound Designer: James Morgan
Additional music: Nick Crofts
Director: Shan Ng
Producer: Melanie Harris
Executive Producer: Polly Thomas
A Sparklab production for BBC Radio 4.
Helen Castor is joined by Flora Samuel, Professor of Architecture in the Built Environment at the University of Reading.
Tom Holland and Dr Matthew Green take a trip down the Thames to Thamesmead, an overspill "new town" that received its first inhabitants fifty years ago this month, but which is better known as the location used by Stanley Kubrick in his dystopian classic A Clockwork Orange. But was this brutalist solution to London's slum housing doomed from the start, or were some of the ideas of Le Corbusier and those who influenced the design of this place fairly similar to the better accepted work of Ebeneezer Howard and the Garden City movement?
Iszi Lawrence is in Fitzrovia with writer, broadcaster and Victorian historian Kathryn Hughes to find out why the lack of public toilets meant women were so inconvenienced in the Victorian and Edwardian period. What lay behind the then-accepted notion that women shouldn't "go" in public?
Monks in Leicestershire are brewing up a storm, the first batch of a new Trappist ale. But what's the historic connection between abbeys and brewing?
Producer: Nick Patrick
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.
Rex Bloomstein goes inside Britain's prisons to observe the parole system in action - revealing how decisions are reached regarding the release of prisoners.
Every year, the Parole Board releases thousands of prisoners, including those convicted of the most serious violent offences, such as murder, rape and arson. The recent controversy over the release of serial sex offender John Warboys has raised major questions about how the parole system works.
Rex Bloomstein meets prisoners ahead of their crucial hearings and listens-in on the entire process as the parole panel interrogates prisoners and witnesses, attempting to establish if release would present a risk of further serious harm to society. The panels are heard discussing the evidence from prison staff, probation workers and psychologists, arriving at their conclusions and explaining their decisions - to release or not to release.
The serious consequences of getting it wrong weigh heavily on them and Rex finds out more about the people who make these crucial decisions on society's behalf, asking if the Parole Board is sufficiently accountable, transparent and effective in what it does.
He talks to Parole Board chief executive Martin Jones as well as former chair Nick Hardwick who resigned after the High Court quashed a parole panel's decision to release Warboys. How might the parole system have to change in the wake of that decision?
The programme also includes Probation Service executive director Sonia Crozier, Victims' Commissioner Baroness Helen Newlove, and solicitors representing the interests of prisoners.
Producers: Brian King and Rex Bloomstein
A 7digital production for BBC Radio 4.
Harriett Gilbert and guests talk favourite books, including Arnold Bennett's The Card, Dylan Thomas' Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog and Daniyal Mueenuddin's In Other Rooms, Other Wonders. Her guests are journalist, broadcaster and documentary-maker Samira Ahmed, presenter of BBC1's Newswatch and Radio 4's Front Row. And comedian Elis James, known for starring in the BBC3 sitcoms Crims and Josh and a familiar face on panel-shows such as Mock the Week and 8 out of 10 Cats.
Producer: Becky Ripley.
Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Helen Lederer reads from her teenage diaries and talks about her school days in South-East London, when she was far more interested in boys than in school work.
Presenter: Rufus Hound
Producer: Harriet Jaine
A Talkback production for BBC Radio 4.
Lilian discovers the truth, and Alistair considers his options.
Arts news, interviews and reviews.
File on 4 goes inside Altcourse Prison in Liverpool to meet the staff trying to stem the supply of drugs into the jail.
Perimeter security has been tightened, searches have been stepped up and new technology is being trialled as officers deal with the influx of new psychoactive substances, such as spice, and more 'traditional' banned drugs, including cannabis and heroin.
More widely, across England and Wales, the availability of drugs in prisons is posing huge challenges to their stability, as well as the health and safety of inmates and officers.
Some prisoners are so desperate to feed their addiction they secrete drugs inside their bodies to by-pass security; others persuade or pressurise friends and family to bring them in.
The demand for contraband is so great that a lucrative trade has developed behind bars, co-ordinated by criminal gangs who use threats, violence and exploitation.
In some cases, vulnerable people are coerced into smuggling drugs, acting as "mules", at great risk to themselves. Offenders who've been let out on licence have been known deliberately to breach the conditions of their release, so they can take supplies into jail when they're sent back there. Some drug-dependent prisoners rack up massive debts which their families are expected to pay off. The BBC's Home Affairs Correspondent Danny Shaw meets those who've got caught up in the sophisticated markets in operation inside the system and reaching out into communities.
The Government has promised to tackle the problem by improving intelligence, investing in new serious and organised crime teams and separating ringleaders from other prisoners.
But ministers are also being urged to improve provision for those who are in the grip of addiction by offering treatment, rehabilitation and opportunities when they leave custody.
Reporter: Danny Shaw
Producer: Sally Chesworth
Editor: Gail Champion.
News, views and information for people who are blind or partially sighted.
Dr Mark Porter presents a series that aims to demystify perplexing health issues.
In Enlightenment After Dark Allan Little hosts a series of discussions in the spirit of the Enlightenment in places with a historical Enlightenment connection. Here he hosts a salon on the Ageing world at Newhailles House near Edinburgh with Professor Sarah Harper of the Royal Institution and writer and theologian Richard Holloway.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
The second book in the exquisitely funny Adrian Mole series by Sue Townsend, one of our most celebrated comic writers. Read by Harry McEntire.
Adrian continues to battle valiantly against the slings and arrows of growing up and his own family's attempts to scar him for life. Following on from The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 3/4, it is now 1982 and Adrian is 15.
Adrian's parents are back together and his mother is pregnant, much to Adrian's surprise and embarrassment. As the summer holidays begin, Adrian is still troubled by his spotty skin, but he continues to feel that his intellectual prowess sets him apart from his peers. His aspirations for poetic fame and fortune are undimmed. While his mother heads off with her women's group to Greenham Common, Adrian's own interest in politics starts to grow, alongside his dislike for Margaret Thatcher. As his parents struggle to make ends meet and sort out their differences, Adrian enjoys a more settled relationship with Pandora but is eager to move things on a stage further.
In this instalment of the diaries, Adrian has his first experiences of birth and death. He soldiers bravely on through the many challenges that life throws at him, and wins a place in our hearts with his charming naivety.
Reader: Harry McEntire
Abridger: Sara Davies
Producer: Alexa Moore
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.
News from Westminster.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4. Followed by Weather.
An innovative examination of the nature of reality in the 21st century by award-winning author Laurence Scott - part personal memoir, part philosophical exploration. Read by Stephen Mangan.
Bereavement forces you to consider how much things matter. In this second episode, Laurence considers our relationship with the things around us. As he says, "When someone close to you is dying, you can begin to feel wary of their everyday belongings. You've heard horror stories about sorting through 'their things' in the weeks afterwards. You look with mounting unease at your mother's dressing gown, her slippers, her purse hanging, uncharacteristically unemployed, on the bathroom hook..."
When he was in his early thirties, Laurence Scott's parents died soon after one another, and he found his whole world altered beyond recognition. As he begins to navigate this new reality, he realises that in politics and public life, the nature of reality - what is true and what is fake - has become an urgent issue. Questions of how we experience the real world, how we access its truths, have become mainstream concerns. Today, in an age of online personas, alternative truths, constant surveillance and an increasingly hysterical news cycle, our realities are becoming more flimsy and more vulnerable than ever before.
Laurence Scott is a writer, broadcaster, academic and a Senior Lecturer in English and Creative Writing at Arcadia in London. He is author of The Four-Dimensional Human: Ways of Being in the Digital World, which was shortlisted for the 2015 Samuel Johnson Prize, won the Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Prize, and was named the Sunday Times Thought Book of the Year. In 2011 he was named one of ten New Generation Thinkers by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the BBC.
Read by Stephen Mangan
Adapted by Elizabeth Burke
Produced by Alexandra Quinn
A Loftus production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.
A spiritual comment and prayer for the day with Chine McDonald.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs.
Kate Humble presents the curlew. The haunting song of the curlew instantly summons the spirit of wild places. By April, most curlews have left their winter refuge on estuaries and marshes and have returned to their territories on moorland or upland pastures. Wherever they breed you'll hear the male birds singing and displaying. It's often called the bubbling song.
Morning news and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Yesterday in Parliament, Weather and Thought for the Day.
Polish artist Miroslaw Balka gives Frances Morris, Director of Tate Modern, an epic tour of the small, cramped spaces that are his studio, store and home in Otwock, near Warsaw.
These rooms are packed with what seem mostly to be discarded everyday objects - offcuts of old wood, old springs, a shock absorber, handles and hooks, a bag of ancient fir tree needles, a string of used soap, a tin can of ash. Many of these items belonged to his grandparents and parents. They are ordinary objects which transform, when orchestrated by Balka in the gallery space, into powerful works of art.
Through Balka's work, Frances Morris finds out about the artist's life, work and modern Poland.
Miroslaw Balka, born in 1958, grew up in post Nazi occupied, Communist Poland with its distinct and powerful Catholic church. He experienced the extremes of Martial Law in the early 1980s and soon the end of the Communist era later that decade.
The house where he grew up, next to his grandparents bungalows and his father's workshop, is where he lives and works today. Otwock had been a weekend resort for many Jews living in Warsaw, and Balka's address is a few streets from what was once the Jewish Ghetto. In 1942 virtually every Jew living in the Nazi designated area, was transported to Treblinka camp and exterminated - they represented half the population of the town, but the atrocity was barely discussed in Balka's childhood.
History haunts his work - a delicately sliced apple, dried and carefully arranged is made from an apple he picked at Treblinka, and his large scale work for Tate Modern's Turbine Hall in 2009, How It Is, was a steel container, recalling a stowaway for refugees or a freight container to transport Jews to the death camp. But the material here is above all, darkness - the visitor walking up a ramp into an intensely dark space.
Balka's sense of space, of presence, of materials and their associations is astute. Standing in front of two vertical, wall mounted planks hinged together can emit a sense of an embrace, while a strange lump of concrete with metal legs nearby leaves the viewer disorientated. His objects are nearly recogniseable - vessels filled with concrete, a spout from the bottom of the wall - a sense that things are being seen in a half light, in the gallery space.
As Frances Morris has written, "There is no rigid border between Balka's life and his art, but there is always a threshold to be crossed."
How does he do it? With fellow artist and admirer Phyllida Barlow, the programme explores how ordinary objects take on meaning and convey stories that resonate and connect us to Balka's own experience. We hear from his students at the Warsaw Academy where Balka runs the Studio of Spatial Activities.
Produced by Kate Bland
A Cast Iron Radio Production for BBC Radio 4.
An innovative examination of the nature of reality in the 21st century by award-winning author Laurence Scott - part personal memoir, part philosophical exploration. Read by Stephen Mangan.
In today's third episode, in an age when - thanks to smartphones - we are all photographers, how does our view of the past change? As Laurence Scott says, "To say that we live in an age of surveillance is an observation that manages to be both banal and urgent. We understand, with paralysed resignation, that we're being watched in all sorts of ways. We startle each other with new examples of eavesdropping, of hijacked webcams, of idling smart- phones butting in on face-to-face conversations, supplying ads related to our pillow-talk. And yet most of us are only startled to a point. References to 1984 are now so common that Big Brother is both a clichéd metaphor and a useful shorthand for the status quo.
"Although our eyes and expectations are adjusting to the glare of the various cameras trained on our daily movements, our role behind the camera's lens is less remarked upon..."
Laurence Scott is a writer, broadcaster, academic and a Senior Lecturer in English and Creative Writing at Arcadia in London. He is author of The Four-Dimensional Human: Ways of Being in the Digital World, which was shortlisted for the 2015 Samuel Johnson Prize, won the Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Prize, and was named the Sunday Times Thought Book of the Year. In 2011 he was named one of ten New Generation Thinkers by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the BBC.
Read by Stephen Mangan
Adapted by Elizabeth Burke
Produced by Alexandra Quinn
A Loftus production for BBC Radio 4.
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.
by Melissa Murray
Crime or incompetence? Things take a turn for the worse when Claire reveals that she is going to be questioned by the police over the disappearance of Max's inheritance.
Directed by Marc Beeby.
For one of them being in drag enables him to express his true self; for the other it's simply a question of turning the dial up. Fi Glover presents another conversation in the series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen.
Producer: Marya Burgess.
When Film Club Leo dies suddenly, Jack and Millie have to make a choice between good behaviour and cheesecake, in this comedy about an older couple trying to grapple with an elusive name, a missing Bette Midler, a rogue knish and a married lifetime's-worth of verbal sparring.
So Millie's son Melvin has given her a new tablet with a voice recorder?
So suddenly Jack and Millie have decided to record everything that happens to them? And for this, we should be grateful?
Well Yes! Because this is a new comedy show written by Jeremy Front (writer of the Charles Paris mysteries for Radio 4) and starring Jeremy Front and Rebecca Front as Jack and Millie Lemman, an older couple who are fully engaged with contemporary life while being at war with the absurdities of the modern world.
Written by Jeremy Front
Produced by David Tyler
A Pozzitive production for BBC Radio 4.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
This day in 1918 was declared Fag Day, raising money for cigarettes for wounded servicemen, while in Seale Hayne Hospital, Howard Argent tries to understand Dr Hurst's unorthodox methods.
Written by Katie Hims
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole.
Consumer affairs programme.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
Are we pursuing happiness, or is the happiness industry pursuing us? And if our model of hedonism isn't working, how do we hack our happiness back? Leo Johnson goes on a year-long journey to pick up life lessons of happiness from modern day practitioners of radically different philosophies.
It's a journey that takes us from Yorkshire's anti-fracking grannies to the slow footballing Vietnamese monks of Plum Village, from self-cutting poets to the Chief Happiness Officers Convention in Paris, from London's asexual community to multi-orgasmic Swedish academics, and from World Champion Muay Thai women kick-boxers to Elvis-loving dementia sufferers.
What emerges is a set of starkly competing visions of the good life - ancient philosophies still duking it out to get punched in as the destination in our psychic Sat Navs.
What we meet is a set of individuals who have questioned the default comforts of the IKEA catalogue, defined the shape of the self, and chosen lives that give us a glimpse of how each of us can reclaim peace, reclaim purpose, reclaim pain, and reclaim pleasure - the real pleasure that hedonism promised.
Episode 3: Fight Club of the Soul
Forget the moral chatter of the Stoics, is what matters denting the universe, unleashing the biggest you?
In Fight Club of the Soul we meet authors and academics, Carl Cedarstrom and Andre Spicer and Muay Thai Women's World Champion Ruqsana Begum in a gym in East London.
A Reel Soul Movies production for BBC Radio 4
Photo caption: Ruqsana Begum.
It is the near future in the Vatican. A charismatic Pope has died with his radical reforming mission incomplete. As the Cardinals gather in the Vatican for the late pontiff's funeral and then the secret conclave that will elect his successor, two men are considered the most likely papabili. One - Cardinal Brendan Faber - would become the first English Pope since Nicolas Brakespeare; the other - Cardinal Dieudonne Simouri - would be the first African pontiff. Faber represents the liberal reformist wing of the Catholic Church; Simouri the conservative, counter-reformist section. They have become symbolic of a struggle for the soul of the church. However, on the eve of the conclave, Faber receives an unexpected visitor in Rome.
Writer ..... Mark Lawson
Producer ..... Eoin O'Callaghan
Director ..... Eoin O'Callaghan.
Financial phone-in.
Sociological discussion programme, presented by Laurie Taylor.
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.
Stand-up comic Josh comes to terms with the impending birth of his first child.
In this second episode, Josh and his wife Monique go to the hospital to attend their twenty week scan. Unfortunately Monique has forgotten the appointment letter, which is the only thing Josh can now think about.
Written by Josh Howie
Produced by Ashley Blaker
A Black Hat production for BBC Radio 4.
Brian's day goes from bad to worse, and Joe is left in an embarrassing position.
Arts news, interviews and reviews.
Combative, provocative and engaging debate chaired by Michael Buerk. With Shiv Malik, Melanie Philips, Matthew Taylor and Claire Fox.
Talks with a personal dimension.
Sathnam Sanghera investigates how children can compete with machines for jobs in the future.
We live in a world where robots, algorithms and the incredible speed of computing have replaced jobs that used to be common. Secretaries, bank clerks and factory workers are becoming rarer. In the future, as robots and computers develop, whole new areas of work will be impacted. Even traditionally safe professions like accountancy, medicine and law could be under threat. So how do we make sure our children get the education they need to compete against machines that haven't even been invented yet?
Sathnam hears from people who have a vision of how to prepare children for the modern world. They include Daniel Charny, the co-founder of Fixperts which gets children to solve practical problems using traditional making skills. Geoff Mulgan, Chief Executive of NESTA, the UK's innovation foundation, talks about what the job market of the future might look like. Andreas Schleicher from the OECD explains how we should begin to measure our children's skills when thinking about the careers they might have in future.
American educationalist Michelle Garcia Winner teaches what she calls social thinking, the kind of skill that no robot could ever match. Sathnam visits the XP school in Doncaster which is dropping some subjects in favour of getting children to conduct "learning expeditions".
Sathnam considers whether, in the end, the best way to beat the robots will be to become more human.
A Wire Free production for BBC Radio 4.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
The second book in the exquisitely funny Adrian Mole series by Sue Townsend, one of our most celebrated comic writers. Read by Harry McEntire.
Adrian continues to battle valiantly against the slings and arrows of growing up and his own family's attempts to scar him for life. Following on from The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 3/4, it is now 1982 and Adrian is 15.
Adrian's parents are back together and his mother is pregnant, much to Adrian's surprise and embarrassment. As the summer holidays begin, Adrian is still troubled by his spotty skin, but he continues to feel that his intellectual prowess sets him apart from his peers. His aspirations for poetic fame and fortune are undimmed. While his mother heads off with her women's group to Greenham Common, Adrian's own interest in politics starts to grow, alongside his dislike for Margaret Thatcher. As his parents struggle to make ends meet and sort out their differences, Adrian enjoys a more settled relationship with Pandora but is eager to move things on a stage further.
In this instalment of the diaries, Adrian has his first experiences of birth and death. He soldiers bravely on through the many challenges that life throws at him, and wins a place in our hearts with his charming naivety.
Reader: Harry McEntire
Abridger: Sara Davies
Producer: Alexa Moore
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.
Everyone craves a place where their mind and body are not applied to a particular task. The nearest faraway place. Somewhere for drifting and lighting upon strange thoughts which don't have to be shooed into context, but which can be followed like balloons escaping onto the air. Late at night, in the dark and in a bunk bed, your tired mind can wander.
The acclaimed Bunk Bed, written by and featuring Patrick Marber and Peter Curran, returns with a dozy vengeance. Recorded in the dark, and in bed.
Tonight, they discuss the failings of James Bond as an English role model compared to Playschool presenter Brian Cant, the link between short trousers and bullying, and the soulfulness of the sock drawer.
"A welcome comfort against the gathering storm clouds" - The Spectator
"Funny, strange, enchanting, and beautifully put together' - The Observer
"You'll love it or hate it...but stick with it, it's gold" - Sunday Telegraph
"Bunk Bed on Radio 4 is beloved by broadsheet critics, but don't let that put you off" - Metro
Producer: Peter Curran
A Foghorn production for BBC Radio 4.
Episode 3 - The Marriage Marathon
Getting married is like a sprint. You work together towards a finishing line, and once you're over the line there are cheers and applause. Staying married? That's a marathon. A long, hard slog, that takes its toll mentally and physically. Sindhu has been married to her Danish husband for nearly 20 years, and despite culture clashes, interference from in-laws, and three London-born children who prefer to call her "bruv" her marriage is still going strong.
Written and performed by Sindhu Vee
Script Editor ................................ Robin Morgan
Producer ...................................... Victoria Lloyd
A BBC Studios Production.
News from Westminster.
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 spiritual comment and prayer for the day with Chine McDonald.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
Actor and keen birdwatcher Samuel West on hearing first the call of a dipper above the water of a fast flowing river.
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: Tom Bonnett
Photo: Keith Docherty.
Morning news and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Yesterday in Parliament, Weather and Thought for the Day.
Public debate across the West is often polarised, angry and hysterical. Social media amplifies extreme and strident views. People tend to think the worst of their opponents and often believe or disbelieve things because it suits their preconceived ideas.
This programme aims to be an optimistic antidote to the shouting and echo chamber debates heard around the country. It sets out to apply reason and civility to navigate a path through complex social problems.
Each programme will examine the arguments around one emotive issue in a calm and rational way. It will try to foster agreement, not argument; and where there is disagreement it will work out in precise ways where it comes from.
In this edition Evan Davis and guests discuss whether the term patriarchy has had its day or is it still a useful way of seeing gender imbalances.
Clare Balding visits contrasting stables in Brixton and Edgware, North London to see how horses are being used to help people with mental and physical health problems. Can equine therapy offer hope to young people affected by gang violence and addiction?
The Ebony Horse club in Brixton, under the railway arches and tower blocks of in Coldharbour Lane, is located in one of the most socially challenged and economically deprived areas of London. Each day the horses here are ridden by local young people and the impact the stables has had on these children and the area is dramatic. These are not the pony club member stereotypes many envisage. They also work with those with specific problems - ex gang members, addicts, children with learning difficulties. Ebony offers an alternative to the lives they may have experienced. This connection with horses has transformed many lives.
In High Barnet, Clare visits Dr Jemma Hockley, founder of Strength and Learning Through Horses. A qualified clinical psychologist, Jemma uses equine therapy to help young people with a variety of mental health and social problems. Jemma doesn't teach her clients to ride, but helps them learn by contact with the horses on the ground. She has seen tremendous results, especially in young, socially disenfranchised young men. She has also taken horses into prisons and is about to begin a partnership with Help for Heroes, to help military veterans with injuries and PTSD. Clare meets clients and therapists and sees young people learning with horses at first hand.
Could horses, as Dr Jemma Hockley believes, help humans who have failed to help each other?
Producer: Lucy Dichmont
A Testbed production for BBC Radio 4.
An innovative examination of the nature of reality in the 21st century by award-winning author Laurence Scott - part personal memoir, part philosophical exploration. Read by Stephen Mangan.
In today's fourth episode - how are you feeling? It takes in developments in robotics, Charles Darwin, and why animals don't blush.
Laurence Scott says "We are all now quizzed on or invited to share our emotions, as a matter of daily life. The first thing to greet me on my Facebook page is a question: 'What's on your mind?' But all social-media posts occupy a paradoxical space: are they diary entries or press releases? Every idea, every proposition, is potentially subjected to international peer-review. Having a feeling in public is a dangerous pastime, since our feelings are often not up to such scrutiny..."
Laurence Scott is a writer, broadcaster, academic and a Senior Lecturer in English and Creative Writing at Arcadia in London. He is author of The Four-Dimensional Human: Ways of Being in the Digital World, which was shortlisted for the 2015 Samuel Johnson Prize, won the Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Prize, and was named the Sunday Times Thought Book of the Year. In 2011 he was named one of ten New Generation Thinkers by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the BBC.
Read by Stephen Mangan
Adapted by Elizabeth Burke
Produced by Alexandra Quinn
A Loftus production for BBC Radio 4.
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.
by Melissa Murray
With their relationship under increasing strain, Max and Linsey continue trying to find out what happened to Max's inheritance, while Fig has a disturbing story to tell.
Directed by Marc Beeby.
Reports from writers and journalists around the world. Presented by Kate Adie.
In the second part of Radio 4's series 'The Great Exhibition of the North', Lauren Laverne sets out to explore the music scene in the region today. This is, of course, a region whose musical past is rightly celebrated as one of the richest in the world - but the story of that past has been told often and at length.
In this programme, Lauren wants instead to celebrate what's going on now, and hear from acts who in some cases weren't even born when the likes of The Smiths and The Stone Roses were in their pomp. How closely do they associate themselves with an area no longer bound tightly together by heavy industry, how far is their creativity the thing filling the gap left behind, and how far is their geographic musical inheritance as much a suffocating curse as a blessing?
Lauren sets out to demonstrate that northern music is about much more than gloomy four-piece indie bands made up of young men staring at their feet, meeting artists from a range of different genres who are all contributing to a diverse and lively music scene.
They include PINS, an all female band from Manchester playing post-punk tunes powerful enough to attract Iggy Pop to collaborate with them; Skinny Pelembe, who was born in Johannesburg, then raised in Doncaster, and who is now one of the most exciting and unclassifiable performers in the country; the Young 'Uns, the much feted folk troupe from Stockton on Tees singing about a very modern north-east; Sara Lowes, who has composed a contemporary classical piece born from a residency with the inventors of graphene - and Maximo Park, whose collaboration with the Royal Northern Sinfonia will be played out across the River Tyne at the Great Exhibition's opening ceremony.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
On this day in 1918, the Board of Agriculture reported an increase in German PoW farm workers from 800 to 10,000, while at Halecot Farm, Elspeth has all the help she needs.
Written by Katie Hims
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole.
Consumer affairs programme.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
Are we pursuing happiness, or is the happiness industry pursuing us? And if our model of hedonism isn't working, how do we hack our happiness back? Leo Johnson goes on a year-long journey to pick up life lessons of happiness from modern day practitioners of radically different philosophies.
It's a journey that takes us from Yorkshire's anti-fracking grannies to the slow footballing Vietnamese monks of Plum Village, from self-cutting poets to the Chief Happiness Officers Convention in Paris, from London's asexual community to multi-orgasmic Swedish academics, and from World Champion Muay Thai women kick-boxers to Elvis-loving dementia sufferers.
What emerges is a set of starkly competing visions of the good life - ancient philosophies still duking it out to get punched in as the destination in our psychic Sat Navs.
What we meet is a set of individuals who have questioned the default comforts of the IKEA catalogue, defined the shape of the self, and chosen lives that give us a glimpse of how each of us can reclaim peace, reclaim purpose, reclaim pain, and reclaim pleasure - the real pleasure that hedonism promised.
Episode 4: Existential Cool - Buddhism and the art of acceptance
Forget self-actualisation, does true happiness, Nirvana, come from dissolving the self?
This episode was recorded on location at Plum Village Buddhist Monastery near Bordeaux, France, set up by Thich Nhat Hahn, the monk who persuaded Martin Luther King to oppose the Vietnam War. We meet the Brothers and Sisters of Plum Village including Sister True Dedication, Brother Phap Ng and Sister Trenian and at the Happy Farm we meet Brother Simon.
A Reel Soul Movies production for BBC Radio 4
Photo: 16 Buddhas, Plum Village Buddhist Monastery. Copyright Plum Village CBZ.
Shakespeare died four hundred years ago on the same day as Cervantes, the author of Don Quixote. Except they didn't. The calendars of their two countries were ten days apart. Cervantes has got wind of this and plots to outwit his appointed death by nipping out of Spain. If he can do this and get to Stratford, he intends to get Shakespeare out of his death bed and jump the life to come with the other great literary adventurer of their shared age. Immortality beyond their artistic reputation would be assured that way. The only obstacle in the Spaniard's way is Shakespeare distractingly beautiful young housekeeper, Regina, and also the bard's somewhat odd collection of bottled coloured liquids. A new play by Jonathan Holloway. Cervantes: Simon Callow; Shakespeare: Nicky Henson; Regina: Laura Elphinstone. Producer: Tim Dee.
Helen Mark explores landscapes of the future, of the imagination and of the past, at the Great Exhibition of the North, which is centred in Newcastle and Gateshead. It's a three-month celebration of the impact of northern England's creators, inventors, artists and designers.
Helen meets environmental artist Steve Messam to hear his sound sculpture 'Whistle', a series of steam engine whistles echoing around the city walls. There's Naho Matsuda whose 'data poetry' is created by people's interaction with the cityscape and displayed on a split-flap display board at the Theatre Royal in Newcastle. Helen will follow one of GetNorth's story trails with the multi-award winning author David Almond and investigate public transport of the future with Sophie Connor of Ryder Architecture. And she'll find out how local children respond to highlights of the exhibition.
Producer Mary Ward-Lowery.
Lauren Greenfield exposes Generation Wealth, the consumer culture of excess, pornography, and cosmetic surgery and tells Francine Stock why she trained the lens on herself as part of her documentary.
Adam Rutherford investigates the news in science and science in the news.
The latest shipping forecast.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
Joe Lycett explores the nation's weird and wonderful obsessions by getting to know a selection of famous and not so famous guests. Joining Joe on the sofa this week, comedian Katherine Ryan shares her love of the Kardashians, whilst Radio 1 DJ Greg James introduces Joe to the world of cricket. Joe also welcomes members of the public to share their secret passions, as well as this week's VOP (very obsessed person), Mattie Faint the curator of The Clown Gallery and Museum.
Joe Lycett's Obsessions was written and performed by Joe Lycett, with material from James Kettle and additional material from Laura Major and Mike Shepherd. The production coordinator was Hayley Sterling. The producer was Suzy Grant and it was a BBC Studios production.
There's an emergency for Toby, and Johnny is touched by an act of kindness.
Arts news, interviews and reviews.
Series looking at important issues in the news. Presented by David Aaronovitch.
Evan Davis hosts the business conversation show.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
The second book in the exquisitely funny Adrian Mole series by Sue Townsend, one of our most celebrated comic writers. Read by Harry McEntire.
Adrian continues to battle valiantly against the slings and arrows of growing up and his own family's attempts to scar him for life. Following on from The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 3/4, it is now 1982 and Adrian is 15.
Adrian's parents are back together and his mother is pregnant, much to Adrian's surprise and embarrassment. As the summer holidays begin, Adrian is still troubled by his spotty skin, but he continues to feel that his intellectual prowess sets him apart from his peers. His aspirations for poetic fame and fortune are undimmed. While his mother heads off with her women's group to Greenham Common, Adrian's own interest in politics starts to grow, alongside his dislike for Margaret Thatcher. As his parents struggle to make ends meet and sort out their differences, Adrian enjoys a more settled relationship with Pandora but is eager to move things on a stage further.
In this instalment of the diaries, Adrian has his first experiences of birth and death. He soldiers bravely on through the many challenges that life throws at him, and wins a place in our hearts with his charming naivety.
Reader: Harry McEntire
Abridger: Sara Davies
Producer: Alexa Moore
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.
The Missing Hancocks recreates those episodes of the classic Hancock's Half Hour that have been wiped or lost from the archive. Something else has gone missing in this episode from the second series - the lad 'imself, who had absconded to Rome. In 1955, he was replaced for the first three episodes by the Goon Show's Harry Secombe. In this recreation, he has been replaced by Andy Secombe - Harry's son. Not heard since then, this is a real piece of comedy history.
The first modern sitcom, Hancock's Half Hour made stars of Tony Hancock, Sid James and Kenneth Williams, and launched Ray Galton and Alan Simpson on one of the most successful comedy-writing partnerships in history. But 20 episodes of the show are missing from the BBC archives. Now, after two highly successful series, another five of those episodes have been lovingly re-recorded in front of a live audience at the BBC Radio Theatre.
Tonight's episode: The Crown Jewels. As Hancock is absent, Bill is staying with Harry Secombe. They decide to show Andree the sights of London but get caught up in Sid's plot to steal the Crown Jewels.
Written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson, and with the classic score newly recorded by the BBC Concert Orchestra, the show stars Andy Secombe, Kevin Eldon, Simon Greenall, Robin Sebastian and Susy Kane. The Crown Jewels was first broadcast on the 26th April, 1955.
Produced by Ed Morrish & Neil Pearson.
Written by Ray Galton & Simpson
Music recorded by the BBC Concert Orchestra, conducted by Levon Parikian.
A BBC Radio Comedy Production.
News from Westminster.
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 spiritual comment and prayer for the day with Chine McDonald.
The latest news about food, farming and the countryside.
Tweet of the Day is the voice of birds and our relationship with them, from around the world.
Miranda Krestovnikoff presents the Galapagos Islands blue-footed booby. Far off the Ecuador coastline the Galapagos Archipelago is home to a strange courtship dance and display of the male blue-footed booby and his large bright blue webbed feet. The intensity of the male's blue feet is viewed by the female as a sign of fitness and so he holds them up for inspection as he struts in front of her. She joins in, shadowing his actions. As the pair raise and lower their feet with exaggerated slow movements, they point their bills sky-wards while spreading their wings, raising their tails and calling.
Morning news and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Yesterday in Parliament, Weather and Thought for the Day.
An innovative examination of the nature of reality in the 21st century by award-winning author Laurence Scott - part personal memoir, part philosophical exploration. Read by Stephen Mangan.
In today's final episode, he explores the vogue for obsessive personal accounting - taking in fit-bits, Scrooge, posts about death on the internet, and the author's sense of his own parents' presence after their death, a benign haunting.
Laurence Scott says, "Any fluctuating, quantifiable thing - daily footsteps, calories burnt, number of re-tweets, YouTube views, Airbnb reviews, crypto-currency values - invites an obsessive and solipsistic sort of accountancy. We 're regularly provided with new ways to think about our lives numerically, giving us a model for our realities that favours concretion over abstraction, quantity over quality. We can now track so many aspects of life that they stream like stock prices along the bottom of our minds. As a consequence, we 're spending more and more time locked in the existential counting house, poring over ledgers that could only possibly be of interest to ourselves..."
Laurence Scott is a writer, broadcaster, academic and a Senior Lecturer in English and Creative Writing at Arcadia in London. He is author of The Four-Dimensional Human: Ways of Being in the Digital World, which was shortlisted for the 2015 Samuel Johnson Prize, won the Royal Society of Literature Jerwood Prize, and was named the Sunday Times Thought Book of the Year. In 2011 he was named one of ten New Generation Thinkers by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and the BBC.
Read by Stephen Mangan
Adapted by Elizabeth Burke
Produced by Alexandra Quinn
A Loftus production for BBC Radio 4.
Programme that offers a female perspective on the world.
by Melissa Murray
Matters have come to a head, and Max, Linsey and Fig wait to hear the outcome of his Claire's trial for embezzlement.
Directed by Marc Beeby.
Journalist Marverine Cole explores why some black women in the UK are more prone to anxiety and depression.
Research suggests that women of African-Caribbean heritage living in the UK are more likely to suffer from anxiety, depression, panic attacks and OCDs than white women. A recent study by academics at Cambridge University also revealed a disturbing rise in the rates of self-harm among black women aged 16-34.
Is the age old "strong, independent and sassy" black woman stereotype to blame? Or, as some clinical experts argue, are there far deeper issues at play like culture and black history?
Marverine meets Jay, 33 and Jade, 39 - two Birmingham women who bravely discuss the challenges their mental illnesses present, from the harrowing experience of being sectioned and hospitalised, through to the frustrations they have about their own treatment and community care. She follows Jay and Jade as they attempt to stay positive and focus their lives on the things they enjoy and want to achieve.
For decades, the rates of detention under the Mental Health Act among people with a black or minority ethnic background have been disproportionate compared to white people and, last October, the Government finally sanctioned an independent review of the act to find ways of improving treatment and outcomes across the UK.
The programme investigates the practical steps and actions mental health managers and grassroots workers are already taking in the West Midlands to improve mental health care for the African-Caribbean population. And, away from the formality of treatment, Marverine sheds light on her own personal experience of depression and therapy, and discovers a burgeoning form of self-help which has attracted hundreds of people in London, Birmingham and Manchester.
A Made in Manchester production for BBC Radio 4.
Episode 4 - 2013-2017
John O'Farrell looks back at the last 20 years in British politics, to try to make sense of where we are now. It was a time of self-inflicted wounds - from the "Ed Stone", to David Cameron's decision to hold a referendum on Brexit to unite the Conservative Party. Trump won a fantastic victory in the US presidential elections,, but lost the popular vote. In the bloody war of Miliband v Miliband, Ed may have won the battle. But did David win the war?
written and read by John O'Farrell
Produced by Victoria Lloyd
A BBC Studios Production.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
On this day in 1918, it was reported that Benjamin Tillett MP described the country as 98% anti-German, while in Devon, Kitty is called out in the middle of the night to see Dieter.
Written by Katie Hims
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole.
Consumer news and issues.
The latest weather forecast.
Analysis of news and current affairs.
Are we pursuing happiness, or is the happiness industry pursuing us? And if our model of hedonism isn't working, how do we hack our happiness back? Leo Johnson goes on a year-long journey to pick up life lessons of happiness from modern day practitioners of radically different philosophies.
It's a journey that takes us from Yorkshire's anti-fracking grannies to the slow footballing Vietnamese monks of Plum Village, from self-cutting poets to the Chief Happiness Officers Convention in Paris, from London's asexual community to multi-orgasmic Swedish academics, and from World Champion Muay Thai women kick-boxers to Elvis-loving dementia sufferers.
What emerges is a set of starkly competing visions of the good life - ancient philosophies still duking it out to get punched in as the destination in our psychic Sat Navs.
What we meet is a set of individuals who have questioned the default comforts of the IKEA catalogue, defined the shape of the self, and chosen lives that give us a glimpse of how each of us can reclaim peace, reclaim purpose, reclaim pain, and reclaim pleasure - the real pleasure that hedonism promised.
Episode 5: Beyond Happiness
What if happiness isn't about the self at all?
Programme 5 features environmentalist Eddie Thornton and members of the Kirby Misperton anti-fracking community in Yorkshire, the Breathing Space group for those with dementia and their carers at Hoot Creative Arts in Huddersfield and author, neuroscientist and pleasure supremo Professor Morten Kringlebach, Fellow of Queens College, Oxford and member of the Hedonia Transnational Research Group.
A Reel Soul Movies production for BBC Radio 4
Photo: Breathing Space group at Hoot Creative Arts. Copyright Hoot Creative Arts.
The Sheffield Blitz. On 12th December 1940 the city suffered 9 hours of sustained bombing as the Luftwaffe sought to destroy its heavy industry. Kieran Knowles' drama tells the story of 4 steelworkers who fled to what they hoped was the safety of the Marples Hotel. The stage play version has just returned from an acclaimed run at the 2018 Brits Off-Broadway season in New York.
Directed by Toby Swift
Operation Crucible began life as a stage play at the Finborough Theatre in 2013 before a sell-out run at Sheffield's Crucible Theatre in 2016 and then a season in New York in May/June this year.
Just before midnight on 12th December 1940, the Marples Hotel in the centre of Sheffield suffered a direct hit from a 500kg bomb, reducing it to rubble. Seventy people were killed; seven survived. The drama features 4 fictional characters caught up in the events of that night.
"as the four actors go through their characters' rituals of work and friendship...an entire civilization is conjured in homey, microcosmic detail. A world that might, in other contexts, feel mundane acquires the bright, searing poetry that illuminates things familiar when they're about to disappear forever." (NYT Critic's Pick) New York Times.
Horticultural panel programme.
Writers choose poems as inspiration for new stories.
Nest Eggs
A teacher encourages his pupils to take imaginative flight in David Almond's story inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson's poem.
Writer... David Almond
Reader... Simon Donaldson
Producer... Eilidh McCreadie
A BBC Scotland production for BBC Radio 4.
Obituary series, analysing and celebrating the life stories of people who have recently died.
Radio 4's forum for comments, queries, criticisms and congratulations.
Mother and son reflect on the pride instilled in them by their heritage and the unequal struggle they still face. Fi Glover presents another conversation in the series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen.
Producer: Marya Burgess.
Eddie Mair with interviews, context and analysis.
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
An energetic, intelligent female-anchored show with a female panel - using the events, trends and talking points they think should really be top of the news agenda in a series of fresh and funny challenges.
Host Jo Bunting is joined by a panel of women including Jo Brand, Zoe Lyons and Doctor Janina Ramirez.
Jo Bunting is a producer and writer of topical comedy and satire, with credits including Have I Got News For You, the Great British Bake Off spin off show An Extra Slice with Jo Brand, and the successful topical chat show That Sunday Night Show presented by Adrian Chiles on ITV. Jo was a guest interviewer on Loose Ends for several years and a panellist on Loose Women.
An Avalon production for BBC Radio 4.
Jennifer's heart breaks, and Jazzer inadvertently leads a friend down a dark path.
News, reviews and interviews from the worlds of art, literature, film and music.
Edward Stourton presents political debate from the Crescent Theatre in Birmingham with the General Secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation Sharan Burrow, Defence Minister Tobias Ellwood MP and the journalist and political commentator Tim Montgomerie.
A weekly reflection on a topical issue.
The fifth omnibus of Season 14, Needs Must When the Devil Drives, set in Devon, in the week, in 1918, when the Board of Agriculture reported an increase in German PoW farm workers from 800 to 10,000.
Cast
Victor Lumley ..... Joel MacCormack
Isabel Graham ..... Keely Beresford
Howard Argent ..... Gunnar Cauthery
Elspeth Taverner ..... Kelly Williams
Kitty Lumley ..... Ami Metcalf
Klaus Hofstadter ..... Atilla Akinci
Hetty Cox ..... Adie Allen
Daniel Marriott ..... Jonathan Bailey
Juliet Cavendish ..... Lizzie Bourne
Howard Argent ..... ..... Gunnar Cauthery
Sylvia Graham ..... Joanna David
Silas Morrow ..... Shaun Dooley
Arthur Hurst ..... Mark Heap
Isaac Cox ..... James Lailey
Rose Fairweather ..... Helen Longworth
Victor Lumley ..... Joel MacCormack
Betty Newcombe ..... Annie McKenzie
Cora Gidley ..... Joanna Monro
Adeline Lumley ..... Helen Schlesinger
Dieter Lippke ..... Joe Sims
Mrs Ferrier ..... Jane Slavin
Effie Taverner ..... Lizzie Stables
Charles Summer ..... Rufus Wright
Connie Cavendish ..... Darcey Brown
Grace Cavendish ..... Grace Doherty
Peter Lumley ..... Beatrice White
Written by Katie Hims
Story-led by Sebastian Baczkiewicz
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole
Sound: Martha Littlehailes
Composer: Matthew Strachan
Consultant Historian: Maggie Andrews.
In-depth reporting and analysis from a global perspective.
The second book in the exquisitely funny Adrian Mole series by Sue Townsend, one of our most celebrated comic writers. Read by Harry McEntire.
Adrian continues to battle valiantly against the slings and arrows of growing up and his own family's attempts to scar him for life. Following on from The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole aged 13 3/4, it is now 1982 and Adrian is 15.
Adrian's parents are back together and his mother is pregnant, much to Adrian's surprise and embarrassment. As the summer holidays begin, Adrian is still troubled by his spotty skin, but he continues to feel that his intellectual prowess sets him apart from his peers. His aspirations for poetic fame and fortune are undimmed. While his mother heads off with her women's group to Greenham Common, Adrian's own interest in politics starts to grow, alongside his dislike for Margaret Thatcher. As his parents struggle to make ends meet and sort out their differences, Adrian enjoys a more settled relationship with Pandora but is eager to move things on a stage further.
In this instalment of the diaries, Adrian has his first experiences of birth and death. He soldiers bravely on through the many challenges that life throws at him, and wins a place in our hearts with his charming naivety.
Reader: Harry McEntire
Abridger: Sara Davies
Producer: Alexa Moore
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.
News from Westminster.
His mother's attitude to life has inspired and guided his own - apart from her love of fashion. Fi Glover presents another conversation in the series that proves it's surprising what you hear when you listen.
Producer: Marya Burgess.