SATURDAY 14 DECEMBER 2019

SAT 00:00 Midnight News (m000c4t5)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


SAT 00:30 Three-a-Penny (m000c4rk)
The Detection Club

Diana Quick reads the autobiography of Lucy Malleson, a detective writer of the 1930s and 40s who wrote under the name Anthony Gilbert.

As her novels begin to be published, Lucy Malleson’s reputation as a writer grows and she is invited to become a member of “the Detection Club” by the famous Dorothy Sayers.

Becoming a member of this writers’ club involves a highly theatrical ceremony. It stars both Dorothy Sayers and G KChesterton, who is the President of the club, and features a procession with torches, long black robes, and a skull. Lucy gives a humorous description of this peculiar ceremony and looks back wryly at her own somewhat snobbish ambitions as an aspiring writer.

Meanwhile, though, unemployment is growing in the early 1930s.

“By 1933 the Slump had spread like the plague. For the unemployed, the cry of 'Too old at 40' was becoming 'Too old at 30'. One felt most for the men, because as a rule they had families to support, but it was bad for the women too. When nobody wants what you have to offer you begin to doubt your own value as a human being.”

Lucy decides to investigate for herself what it’s like trying to find employment as a secretary, and talks to others who are also looking for work.

“’You see stars at first,’ said one unemployed man to me,’and then you see sense. You realise that there are only a certain number of jobs left, and in every job, like a rabbit in a hole, some other chap is crouched. What you’ve got to do it watch till he’s off his guard and then bounce him out of his hole. The devil of it is everybody’s got the wind up. Everybody’s on guard now.'”

Lucy Malleson’s sharp and astonishingly modern account of working life is vividly brought to life by Diana Quick.

Reader: Diana Quick
Producer: Elizabeth Burke

A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4


SAT 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m000c4t8)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.


SAT 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m000c4tg)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


SAT 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m000c4tn)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping.


SAT 05:30 News Briefing (m000c4tw)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4.


SAT 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m000c4v1)
A spiritual comment and prayer to start the day with Bishop Jo Bailey Wells

Good morning.

Last week I was on crowded a commuter train. That itself wasn’t unusual but what was utterly radical to someone who lives in the South East, was that PEOPLE WERE TALKING. As you might guess, this was not Surrey but Yorkshire. Of course I couldn’t help but listen in. We were in one of those trains with 3-seater rows, facing each other knee-to-knee. It began with two people comparing their phone covers and it ended up including 5 of the 6 of us, covering everything from fridge-freezers and teenagers’ phone contracts to protecting the elderly from scammers and the demands of work that day. I was hesitant to join in at first; but with hindsight it felt like a gift, a gift of inclusion, the kindness of strangers. It was just a 20-minute commute but it transformed the rest of my day.

"I've always depended on the kindness of strangers" said Blanche DuBois in ‘A Streetcar named Desire’. So why did I resist it here? I wonder: what strangers might I encounter today? Where is the scope for showing kindness or receiving kindness? It costs so little yet its potential to transform is so great.

So our prayer today is very specific. Just see how God might answer it!

God of radical inclusion, enlarge my world today through the gift of a stranger. Open my eyes to where I may show kindness. And open my heart to receiving kindness from others. I ask that such kindness might transform this day so strangers become friends, after the example of our Lord Jesus Christ, who dares to call us his friends.

Amen.


SAT 05:45 Four Thought (m000c4tp)
Life In Transit

Louise Doughty, whose novels include Apple Tree Yard, explains why Peterborough railway station, the setting of her latest novel, has particular significance in her life as a place of transit. As she journeys back into her past, she discovers her own personal history sheds light on the experience of others.
Recorded at Primadonna literature and arts festival in Suffolk.
Presenter: Farrah Jarral
Producer: Sheila Cook


SAT 06:00 News and Papers (m000cbt0)
The latest news headlines. Including the weather and a look at the papers.


SAT 06:07 Open Country (m000d0x6)
Painshill in Surrey - lost and found

In the 18th Century Charles Hamilton created Painshill, an early example of the English Landscape Garden. He redeveloped land in Cobham in Surrey to create a circuit garden with buildings inspired by his grand tours and he introduced plants being brought to Britain by traders. He aimed to create a living work of art with changes in mood and creating a 'hide and reveal' of the features. It was hugely influential with visitors from the USA and across Europe coming to view and recreate his new style of garden - seen as a work of art in itself. Yet the land was sold and passed through different hands and became overgrown, the buildings crumbled and Painshill forgotten about. In the 1960s a teenage local history enthusiast, David Taylor, read about the place and rediscovered it one dramatic night. He wrote an article for the local paper urging an effort to chart what was there before it was lost entirely. His words inspired a stronger momentum and the land was bought by the council and work began to research the original vision and recreate Hamilton's Painshill Park. The work has lasted decades and while featured like the Gothic Temple, crystal grotto and Turkish Tent have been done, the Temple of Bacchus interior is the new challenge for 2020. Helen Mark finds out more about how Hamilton's influential vision was almost lost and how those involved just can't give up working to restore it. Produced by Anne-Marie Bullock, BBC Radio and Music Production Bristol


SAT 06:30 Farming Today (m000cbt2)
Farming Today This Week

The latest news about food, farming and the countryside


SAT 06:57 Weather (m000cbt4)
The latest weather forecast.


SAT 07:00 Today (m000cbt6)
News and current affairs. Including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.


SAT 09:00 Saturday Live (m000cbt8)
Jason Manford

Jason Manford began his stand up career at the age of 17 and was nominated for the Perrier Award in Edinburgh in 2005 at just 24. As he embarks on a starring role in the West End run of Curtains, Jason tells Richard Coles and Aasmah Mir why he won't be pigeonholed.

Justin Myers had been secretly detailing his romantic encounters and reviewing dates in the Blind Date column in the Guardian Weekend Magazine on his blog The Guyliner for ten years. Then he began to receive messages threatening to reveal his true identity. After deciding to unmask himself, Justin’s career has taken off; he published his first novel last year and his second novel The Magnificent Sons is out next year.

Esther Rutter grew up on a sheep farm in Suffolk, where she learned to knit at the age of seven. She’s been an enthusiastic knitter ever since and last year, she set out to write a history of the craft, a journey which took her across the country, from Shetland to Guernsey.

Lara Band is a listener who emailed Saturday Live about her unusual hobby - creating dioramas of Pre-Raphaelite paintings using mummified rodents.

Producer: Laura Northedge
Editor: Eleanor Garland


SAT 10:30 James Veitch's Contractual Obligation (m000cbtb)
Deepfakes

Comedian star James Veitch enters the murky world of deepfakes.

James is concerned the BBC may not commission another series of his show.

He hits on an idea which might persuade BBC bosses: deepfake his producer.

Producer: Laurence Grissell


SAT 11:00 Electioncast (m000cbtd)
Adam Fleming and the BBC's politics team bring you the essential guide to the 2019 UK general election.


SAT 11:30 From Our Own Correspondent (m000cbtg)
Insight, wit and analysis from BBC correspondents, journalists and writers from around the world.


SAT 12:00 News Summary (m000ccmj)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


SAT 12:04 Money Box (m000cbtl)
The battle for buying your freehold at a fair price

It's been described as a "David and Goliath" contest. Hundreds of leasehold home owners have joined together - for the first time - to begin a legal fight to take control of the freehold on their properties. They want investment companies, which bought the freeholds, to sell them for a fair price.

Renovare is a new 'banking solution' for ex-offenders, charging £7.99 a month for its services. We speak to Chief Executive David Bright about their funding model.

And now we know Brexit will happen, what do we know it will mean for your consumer rights and personal finances?

The battle for a fair price to buy your freehold

Presenter: Paul Lewis
Reporter: Dan Whitworth
Producer: Alex Lewis
Editor: Emma Rippon


SAT 12:30 Dead Ringers (m000c4sj)
Christmas Specials 2019

Election Special 2019

With each sketch being written within moments of the results, this promises to be the most up-to-the-minute show in the programme’s history. Recorded at lunchtime and edited in the afternoon, every twist, turn and embarrassing face-saving platitude will be examined.

Staring Jon Culshaw, Jan Ravens, Lewis McLeod, Duncan Wisbey, Deborah Stevenson.

The writing team for the series: Tom Jamieson & Nev Fountain, Laurence Howarth, Sarah Campbell, Ed Amsden & Tom Coles, James Bugg, Sara Gibbs, Simon Alcock, Alex Hardy and others.


SAT 12:57 Weather (m000cbtn)
The latest weather forecast


SAT 13:00 News (m000cbtq)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4.


SAT 13:10 Any Questions? (m000c4sr)
Therese Coffey MP, Barry Gardiner MP, Liam Halligan, Layla Moran MP

Chris Mason presents political debate from Saffron Hall in Essex with the Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey MP, Shadow International Trade Secretary Barry Gardiner MP, the journalist Liam Halligan and the Liberal Democrat's Education spokesperson Layla Moran MP.
Producer: Lisa Jenkinson


SAT 14:00 Any Answers? (m000cbts)
Have your say on the issues discussed on Any Questions?


SAT 14:45 Three Sisters Rewired (m000cbtv)
Episode 1

Three Sisters Rewired, written and directed by established team Polly Thomas and Jenny Sealey, is a radical reworking of Chekhov.

This is not a faithful modernisation of the Russian original – it is a complete overhaul exploring how, even in the modern world, isolation and stagnation are the daily lot of many. Set in 21st century Yorkshire, Moscow becomes London. On an isolated farm, three sisters - Olivia, Maisie and Iris – struggle to survive on a financially draining farm, with intermittent internet, and a sense of dislocation from the rest of the world.

Jenny Sealey, artistic director of Graeae Theatre, has always wanted to tackle Three Sisters through the prism of Deafness. She was struck by Chekhov's characters being metaphorically deaf (as Michael Frayn points out in his foreword) and how little the three sisters actually talk in the play. This new take gives a voice to three sisters and makes them literally Deaf.

Jenny says, "Deaf people do arguably exist within their own monologue, unhindered by outside distraction of sound, but in order to communicate, they have to look intently so as not to miss any information. Their varying degrees of Deafness also can underpin the hierarchy between them – who is more Deaf, who heard what, who is the best lipreader? The sisters’ frustration with the world is not because they are Deaf, but because they are bored. Their longing for London is paramount, to get away from the dullness of their existence, but naturally their Deafness unconsciously informs everything. Three Sisters Rewired is about how we listen or don’t listen, how whether we are deaf or not, we all have selective communication, closing our ears and eyes to the world around us."

As in previous productions for Radio 4 by Graeae Theatre and Naked Productions, the cast is a mix of Deaf, disabled and non-disabled actors. The flute is played by Deaf flautist, Ruth Montgomery, who taught herself to play through the vibrations of the instrument.

Episode 1:
We meet Olivia, Maisie and Iris on Iris’ 20th birthday. Olivia, the eldest, is single and a teacher in an all girls school. Maisie works the farm, and is unhappily married to local teacher, Kevin. Iris is a vlogger, hoping army boy Tyrone – or maybe Sean - will take her to the bright lights of London. Angus, their brother, is a thwarted Quietism academic, trapped by his love for local small-town girl Natalie. A year later, Angus and Natalie have a son, Bobby, Their housekeeper Anna, tries to keep the family together as Angus gambles, Iris pits Tyrone and Sean against each other, Maisie falls in love with the married Colonel Victoria Thomas and Olivia roams Tinder, looking for love.

Cast:
Olivia………………Genevieve Barr
Maisie ………………..Lara Steward
Iris…………………Alexandra James
Angus…………….Jonathan Keeble
Natalie……………Steph Lacey
Anna………………Kay Purcell
Victoria……………Alexandra Mathie
Tyrone…………….Tachia Newall
Sean………………Chris Jack

Original music by Alice Trueman
Flute played by Ruth Montgomery

Sign Language Interpreters: Jude Mahon, Beverly Roberts, Kate Labno, Jan Guest

Written and directed by Polly Thomas and Jenny Sealey, inspired by Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters

Produced by Eloise Whitmore
Executive Producer: Jeremy Mortimer

A Naked/Graeae Theatre production for BBC Radio 4


SAT 15:45 One to One (m00095bq)
Benjamin Zephaniah meets Terri Clothier

Terri Clothier discusses how her husband’s fertility problems affected her and their relationship. When Terri married Richard (who we heard from in the previous programme ) she knew she wanted a family. They both did. Terri imagined life with two children. But this hasn’t happened. They were unaware that Richard had a fertility problem. Whilst friends and family were starting their own families Richard and Terri felt alone and isolated. A feeling they describe as grieving. Producer Sarah Blunt.

Support Organisations

Fertility Network UK offers information, advice and support for anyone suffering from infertility related problems.
http://fertilitynetworkuk.org

The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority is the UK's independent regulator overseeing the use of gametes and embryos in fertility treatment and research. The website offers details of licensed fertility clinics across the UK.
www.hfea.gov.uk

NHS Fertility
https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/infertility/causes/


SAT 16:00 Woman's Hour (m000cbty)
Alison Lapper, HRT Shortage & Women in Space

The artist Alison Lapper talks about her latest exhibition featuring a painting of her son Parys who died this summer aged just 19.

Why is there a shortage of HRT in the UK? The investigative journalist Emma Hartley who writes for the online magazine Tortoise told us what she has discovered.

The first British astronaut Helen Sharman, Dr Varsha Jain, a gynaecological researcher interested in the impact of spaceflight and zero gravity on the human body, and Liz Seward, a senior space strategist at Airbus, discuss the future of women in space.

We hear about the case involving Myanmar’s leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has been defending her country against allegations of genocide at the UN International Court of Justice in the Hague. Our correspondent in The Hague Anna Holligan tells us the latest.

How should parents talk to teenagers about losing their virginity? Flo Perry the author of How to have Feminist Sex and Rachel Fitzsimmons, the sex educator and lecturer in sexual health at the University of Lancashire discuss.

Three students Bukunmi, Osose and Hannah discuss the impact of ‘racist’ hair regulations at their school Townley Grammer in London. Their English Teacher Lauren Binks talks about how she worked with students to get rid of the hair regulations and Emma Dabiri the author of ‘Don’t Touch My Hair’ talks the history and politics around black hair.

Presented by: Jane Garvey
Producer: Rabeka Nurmahomed
Editor: Beverley Purcell


SAT 17:00 PM (m000cbv0)
Full coverage and analysis of the day's news, plus the sports headlines.


SAT 17:30 The Inquiry (m000cbv2)
Should we ban billionaires?

Excluding dictators and royalty, there are around 2,000 people in the world who are billionaires. Some inherit wealth while others might build fortunes through inventions, businesses or investments. Some say individuals holding onto extreme amounts of money is wasteful because it could be diverted to other areas that would benefit more people such as education and healthcare. Others reason than some billionaires should keep what they have because they drive economic growth and inspire others to innovate. Are billionaires the right focus or should attention move to the systems and processes that enable them to make and keep huge amounts of money?

Contributors:
Dr Paul Segal, Senior Lecturer in Economics, King’s College London
Roxanne Roberts, Reporter, Washington Post
Caroline Freund, Global Director of Trade, Investment and Competitiveness, the World Bank
Will Wilkinson, Vice President for research at the Niskanen Center

Presenter: Celia Hatton
Producer: Charmaine Cozier


SAT 17:54 Shipping Forecast (m000cbv4)
The latest shipping forecast.


SAT 17:57 Weather (m000cbv6)
The latest weather forecast.


SAT 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m000cbv8)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


SAT 18:15 Loose Ends (m000c9lv)
Mackenzie Crook, Paterson Joseph, Ruth Madeley, Penn Jillette, Simply Red,Nikki Bedi, Clive Anderson

Clive Anderson and Nikki Bedi are joined by Mackenzie Crook, Paterson Joseph, Ruth Madeley and Penn Jillette for an eclectic mix of conversation, music and comedy. With music from Simply Red.


SAT 19:00 Profile (m000cbvc)
Pink trams, flying squirrels and a taste for rock music. Mark Coles finds out about the life and character of Finland's new Prime Minister, Sanna Marin.

The first to graduate in her family, Sanna Marin entered politics at the age of 20 and rose quickly through the ranks of the Social Democratic (SDP) party becoming an MP in 2015. She now leads a five-party governing coalition.

Mark Coles asks colleagues and friends what drives the world's youngest Prime Minister.


SAT 19:15 Saturday Review (m000cbvf)
Aquarela, Swive, Robert Musil, Theaster Gates, Sticks and Stones

Aquarela is a movie about water...filmed at 96 frames per second- four times faster than normal and there are fewer than a handful of cinemas in then world with equipment to show it properly. What's them point?
Swive (Elizabeth) at The Sam Wannamaker Playhouse imagines Elizabeth I from teenager to monarch and the wiles and strength ways she needed to keep on top
Robert Musil's most famous book The Man Without Qualities was published in 1943 and a follow-up Agathe has just been published. Compiled by scholars it pulls together notes and drafts to make a sequel. Will the reviewers consider it worth the effort?
Theaster Gates is an African American social practice installation artist who has a major new exhibition opening at Tate Liverpool
Mike Bartlett wrote the wildly popular Dr Foster but hasn't quite matched its success since. Will his new ITV series Sticks and Stones (about workplace bullying) reestablish his success?

Tom Sutcliffe's guests are Natalie Haynes, Abigail Morris and Bidisha. The producer is Oliver Jones

Image: Nina Cassells
(c) Johan Persson

Podcast Extra recommendations

Bidisha - Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen
Abigail - Essays of E B White and Chernobyl podcast
Natalie - Peaky Blinders and Lizzo
Tom - Jo Jo Rabbit


SAT 20:00 Archive on 4 (m000cbvh)
The Problem of Leisure

Documentary-maker Phil Tinline explores the history of a phantom fear - that automation will make work redundant, and leave us nothing to do.

Jump twenty-five years into the future and we have accidentally made life hell for ourselves. Technology has become so pervasive and efficient that workers sit idle, reduced to working a two-day week, if they have work at all. Social unrest boils.

That was the view in the 1960s, as laid out in detail on TV in a dystopian documentary called 'Time On Our Hands', which looks back on 1963 from an imagined 1988,

It never happened - but now the anxiety is back. Phil mines the archives to try to work out whether it was simply wrong, or whether AI soon prove it right.

In 1930, JM Keynes predicted a two-day week by 2030 - but worried that, if the idle rich were anything to go by, we might struggle to spend our time wisely. In Depression America, well-meaning social reformers were aghast at how Americans were spending their growing free time. The New Deal tried to coax people away from malign pursuits like movies and jazz in favour of outdoor pursuits and communal dancing.

After the War, the advent of modern computing triggered fresh visions of ordinary people rendered redundant by the machines, and rebelling against the managers and engineers who now ruled them. But by the 1990s, all this had faded once more, in favour of the opposite worry: overwork.

So what can we learn from this today, as the anxiety floods back amid stories about AI - captured in books like The Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of Mass Unemployment? Will we finally confront the problem of leisure?

With: Susan Currell, Richard Davies, Caroline Edwards, Martin Ford, Carl Frey, Robert Skidelsky, Oriel Sullivan
Producer: Phil Tinline


SAT 21:00 Dickens Confidential (m000cbvk)
Series 1

Innocence

Episode Six - Innocence
Written by Mike Walker

Through a chance encounter with a young woman of the night, Charles Dickens embroils The Herald in another dangerous investigation. Drawn into the murky world of prostitution and opium Agnes and Jack encounter a formidable adversary from the past.

Dickens ..... Jamie Glover
Agnes ..... Jasmine Hyde
Jack ..... Freddy White
Catherine ..... Charlotte Emmerson
Colonel Corbet ..... Clive Swift
Pimp ..... Gerard Murphy
Hawker. ..... Anthony Glennon

Produced & Directed by David Hunter
Executive Producer - Alison Hindell


SAT 21:45 Book at Bedtime (b08n1ksg)
Rabbit, Run

Episode 5

The post-war novel that summed up middle-class white America and established John Updike as the major American author of his generation. Rabbit, Run is the first in a virtuoso Pullitzer Prize-wining quintet featuring hapless Harry Angstrom, whom we meet as a 26 year old former high school basketball star and suburban paragon in the midst of a personal crisis.

Episode 5 (of 10):
Ruth's been losing weight to please Harry, but somehow she's gaining again. Rabbit revels in a lack of consequences for his behaviour, and insists that Ruth prove her love to him.

Rabbit, Run established Updike as one of the major American novelists of his generation. In the New York Times he was praised for his "artful and supple" style in his "tender and discerning study of the desperate and the hungering in our midst's".

Radio 4 plans to broadcast all five novels in the series over the next few years.

Read by Toby Jones
Abridged by Eileen Horne
Produced by Clive Brill
A Brill production for BBC Radio 4.


SAT 22:00 News and Weather (m000cbvm)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4.


SAT 22:15 The Spark (m000c4xq)
Emily Oster and evidence-based parenting

Helen Lewis meets the writers and thinkers who are breaking new ground.

From politics to economics, from tech to the study of how we live, things are changing fast. Old certainties have not been under such challenge for decades.

So each week, we give the whole programme over to a single in-depth, close-up interview with someone whose big idea is bidding to change our world.

Helen’s challenge is to make sense of their new idea, to find out more about the person behind it – and to test what it has to offer us against the failures of the past.

This week, Helen talks to American economist Emily Oster, author of Expecting Better and Cribsheet, about how to apply rational, evidence-based decision making to the sleep-deprived fog of myth and misinformation that surrounds parenting.

Questions about what to eat in pregnancy, whether to have an epidural during childbirth, and whether to sleep-train your baby are fraught with controversy and attract a great deal of anxiety and guilt. Yet the actual data on the pros and cons is surprisingly hard to come by. Emily Oster sought to fill that information gap and she tells Helen Lewis why this can have a life-changing impact on babies – and their exhausted parents.

Producer: Eliane Glaser


SAT 23:00 Quote... Unquote (m000c4w7)
Sir Tim Rice, Robin Stevens, Shazia Mirza

Quote … Unquote, the popular celebrity quotations quiz, returns for its 55th series.

Join Nigel as he quizzes a host of celebrity guests on the origins of sayings and well-known quotes, and gets the famous panel to share their favourite anecdotes.
Across forty years, Nigel Rees has been joined by writers, actors, musicians, scientists and various comedy types. Kenneth Williams, Judi Dench, PD James, Sir Ian KcKellen and Peter Ustinov... have all graced the Quote Unquote stage.

Episode 2
Lyricist and author Sir Tim Rice
Novelist Robin Stevens
Stand-up comedian and writer Shazia Mirza

Quotes read by Charlotte Green
Production Coordinator: Candace Wilson

Producer: Victoria Lloyd
A BBC Studios production for BBC Radio 4


SAT 23:30 Power Lines (m000c3fx)
Class

Poet, playwright and performer Sabrina Mahfouz looks at working class poetics, talking to poets across the UK about their work and how performing poetry shows has been an avenue into theatre and page poetry for many who would have otherwise been excluded due to class.

Poets:
Bridget Minamore
Fran Lock
Toria Garbutt
Anthony Anaxagorou
Wayne Holloway Smith
Jamie Thrasivoulou

A Wire Free production for BBC Radio 4