SATURDAY 18 NOVEMBER 2023

SAT 00:00 Midnight News (m001sf1q)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.


SAT 00:30 Irresistible: How Cuteness Wired Our Brains and Conquered the World by Joshua Paul Dale (m001sdsd)
The Future of Cuteness

Why are some things cute, and others not? And how did cuteness go global, from manga cartoons to Disney characters? These are questions explored by Joshua Paul Dale, a Professor in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at Tokyo Gakugei University. He’s a pioneer in the field of cuteness studies, and his new book looks at how the cute aesthetic spread around the globe, from Lolita fashion and emojis to the unstoppable rise of Hello Kitty.

In Episode 5, he tells the story of how emojis were invented by Japanese schoolgirls, looks back to the origins of manga, and explores the future of cuteness with a new kind of furry robot – designed to outlive its owner. He also puts on a “fur-suit” to attend a convention of 9,000 “furries” in Pittsburgh, exploring first-hand what it takes to become cute.

“Cuteness opens doors in our brains that would otherwise remain shut, it breaks down barriers and gives us an opportunity to experience another sort of existence – one in which we guard ourselves a little less and invite others in a little more. In a world that feels increasingly polarised, is this such a bad thing?”

Reader: Adam Sims
Abridged and produced by Elizabeth Burke
A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4


SAT 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m001sf1z)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping


SAT 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m001sf27)
World Service

BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


SAT 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m001sf2h)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping


SAT 05:30 News Briefing (m001sf2p)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


SAT 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m001sf2t)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Francis Davis, Academic and social entrepreneur

Strength of the Elders

Good morning.

What have an elderly lady with burn scars, a missing gallon of water, a rural shack and the Bible got to do with each other?

Well, it went like this: I had been invited to interview hundreds of rural Rwandan elders on how they were doing 25 years after that country’s genocide. This lady, let’s call her Mary, had invited me into her house with a smile that could melt glaciers. But she was embarrassed she could not offer me a drink.

The problem was that she’d given some local lads a few cents from her $3 dollar a month income and asked them to walk with her bucket to fetch water from the river a while away. Teenagers being teenagers, she said, they hadn’t returned.

Without taps or pipes the upshot was she was out of water and, because of high blood pressure, had had a funny turn the day before trying to dig her little plot of land because the teenagers had failed in that regard too.

Mary had been set on fire during the genocide. She’d lost four of her five children as well.

Yet while there was no water Mary bubbled like a brook with warmth, and agency. She scooped up the bible next to her and rifled its pages seeking laments and wisdom. Clearly intimately acquainted with this precious book she sang to us, embarrassed no more. No wonder the local choir popped in once a week after their practice to cook her a meal. Water, a shack, some burns and a transformational bible. It’s a thing to think about.

For those who find new words and humbling joy in forgotten places I give thanks.

Amen


SAT 05:45 Close Encounters (m001mtf9)
Simon Singh and Alan Turing

In this final episode of Close Encounters, Martha Kearney's series marking the re-opening of the National Portrait Gallery after three years of renovation, Martha is joined by the Mathematician and writer Simon Singh. He chooses to celebrate a very simple photographic portrait of the code breaker Alan Turing. Simon was part of a Bank of England panel that saw to it that Turing would be the image we see on our fifty pound notes and he explains why this quiet figure whose image is comfortably the smallest in the gallery in which it is displayed, is the most important figure in science and mathematics since Sir Isaac Newton.
It's a story that reveals much about the way Britain has changed in the last half a century and rounds off the series which itself illustrates the tone and impact the National Portrait Gallery is endeavouring to deliver as it opens its doors to the public once again.

Producer: Tom Alban


SAT 06:00 News and Papers (m001sld8)
The latest news headlines. Including the weather and a look at the papers.


SAT 06:07 Open Country (m001sdx2)
Caves and Dragons: Pembrokeshire by Paddleboard

Anna Jones paddleboards the rocky coastline of Pembrokeshire, listening to the mysterious growling sounds of the sea caves. As the tide rises, water sloshes into holes in the rock and squeezes out puffs of air - or could it, maybe, be a dragon? Paddling in and out of the caves and coves, Anna and local instructor Libby Chivers allow their imaginations to run wild, picturing dragons and sea monsters deep in the darkness.

It's easy to get carried away - literally - on an inflatable paddleboard, so Libby shares her top tips for staying safe on the sea. With Stand-Up Paddleboarding becoming ever more popular with water sports amateurs like Anna, rescues are on the rise. Libby shares her story of pulling a panic-stricken girl from the water and explains how lifeguards helped thirty paddleboarders back to the shore in a single day on one Welsh beach.

Swept up by the atmosphere of the sea caves, Anna dries off and heads into Fishguard to learn more about the town's legends and folklore. Amid mysterious tales of pirates, smugglers and mermaids, there's the real-life story of the last invasion of Britain - when French soldiers landed at Fishguard in 1797. Local historian Edward Perkins shares the amazing story of Welsh heroine Jemima Nicholas, who fended them off armed only with a pitchfork.

Presented and produced by Anna Jones


SAT 06:30 Farming Today (m001sldb)
18/11/23 - Farming Today This Week: Falsified soil samples, brassicas and river health

The widespread use of fake evidence in planning applications from livestock farms may have led to increased water pollution in Northern Ireland, including the toxic blue-green algae we reported on this summer in Lough Neagh. That’s according to the Belfast based investigative journalism network, The Detail.
Since 2015 farmers in Northern Ireland wanting to build new sheds to house livestock like pigs and poultry have had to submit soil samples to show their land will be able to absorb the extra animal waste, or slurry, without it running off into rivers and causing pollution. The Detail’s investigation says that the Northern Ireland Environment Agency found that between 2015 and 2022, 87 percent of those samples - that’s more than a hundred - were fabricated or doctored to get around planning regulations.

After weeks of heavy rainfall, we join one farmer trying to harvest sprouts in a quagmire.

And presenter, Caz, braves the cold water to meet a group of swimmers as they travel from "source to sea" along the River Eden in Cumbria.

Presented by Caz Graham
Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Heather Simons


SAT 06:57 Weather (m001sldd)
The latest weather reports and forecast


SAT 07:00 Today (m001sldg)
Including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.


SAT 09:00 Saturday Live (m001sldj)
Aldo Zilli, Philippa Langley, Levy Rozman, Miles Jupp

Italian chef, restaurateur, writer and buongustaio Aldo Zilli, learned to cook at his mother’s knee and started dreaming of his own Italian restaurants in 1970’s Soho, under the watchful eyes of the mafia, and at a time when you could only buy olive oil in a chemist.

Levy Rozman – the international chess master with millions of subscribers - who’s moving the game into the digital age after retiring from the game for the sake of his mental health.

Historian Phillipa Langley, not content with finding Richard III under a car park, she’s now looking to try and re-write British history once again hunting for the truth about the Princes in the Tower.

Plus the beautiful and powerful Inheritance Tracks of actor and comedian Miles Jupp.

Presenters: Nikki Bedi and Jon Kay
Producer: Ben Mitchell


SAT 10:00 Your Place or Mine with Shaun Keaveny (m001sldl)
Salma El-Wardany: Cairo, Egypt

Shaun is tempted by partying at the Pyramids and watching the Parade of the Mummies. Will BBC presenter Salma be able to move a man who's about as mobile as a Mummy himself? Resident geographer, historian and comedian Iszi Lawrence has her doubts.

Your Place Or Mine is the travel series that isn’t going anywhere. Join Shaun as his guests try to convince him that it’s worth getting up off the sofa and seeing the world, giving us a personal guide to their favourite place on the planet.

Producers: Beth O'Dea and Sarah Goodman

Your Place or Mine is a BBC Audio production for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds.


SAT 10:30 The Kitchen Cabinet (m001sldn)
Series 42

Glasgow

Jay Rayner and his panel of food fanatics are in the thriving city of Glasgow for this week’s episode of The Kitchen Cabinet.

Joining Jay are food historian Dr Annie Gray, food writer Sumayya Usmani, recipe developer and presenter Rachel McCormack, and food blogger Fliss Freeborn.

Whether it be nostalgia-fuelled packaging, or the perfect pakoras, the panel discuss an array of culinary questions. Among the quick-fire Q and A, the audience debate whether spitting out pomegranate seeds is acceptable, which snack they’d throw out the window, and their favourite winter soups.

Also in the programme, Jay chats to Andrew Ramsay from butchers Ramsay’s of Carluke to find out how they make their renowned black pudding

Producer: Dan Cocker
Assistant Producer: Rahnee Prescod
Executive Producer: Hannah Newton
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4


SAT 11:00 The Week in Westminster (m001sldr)
What's the future for the UK's plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda? Does Rishi Sunak have an ideological core? What are the UK's big challenges on the world stage? And what role does the 'people's channel' GB News have in political culture?


SAT 11:30 From Our Own Correspondent (m001sldt)
An Emergency Summit in Riyadh

Kate Adie presents stories from Saudi Arabia, the West Bank, Spain, Chile and Taiwan.

Amid glittering chandeliers and floral bouquets, leaders from 57 Arab and Muslim countries gathered in the Saudi Arabian capital for an Emergency Summit on the situation in Gaza. So, did it produce anything beyond the speeches? Our Security Correspondent Frank Gardner was there.

The occupied West Bank has also seen an increase in outbreaks of violence since the Hamas massacre in October. There are now concerns Israel’s conflict in Gaza is spilling over into the wider region. Joe Inwood visited an Israeli settlement where Israelis and Palestinians live near each other and found a creeping unease has taken root.

In Spain, the Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez clinched a vote in parliament to lead Spain for another term as PM. However, a deal he has made with Catalan nationalists triggered a fierce backlash, suggesting this could be an extremely turbulent legislature. Guy Hedgecoe reports from Madrid.

In Chile, the protests against inequality that took place a few years ago drew hundreds of thousands of people to the streets. But the unrest also left 34 people dead and many more injured in clashes with the security forces. A group of musicians, who were among those injured during the protests, have found other ways of making their voices heard as Charis McGowan discovered.

As Presidents Xi and Biden met last week, Taiwan remained a sticking point between the leaders. But Taiwan faces another serious threat beyond that of Chinese invasion: its rapidly declining birth rate, which has implications for its economic future. Nuala McGovern was in Taipei.

Series Producer: Serena Tarling
Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith
Production Coordinator: Gemma Ashman


SAT 12:00 News Summary (m001sldw)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


SAT 12:04 Money Box (m001sldy)
QR Code Scams and Bank Account Access

The number of reported scams involving QR codes has nearly quadrupled in less than three years according to figures seen by Money Box. The data was revealed by City of London Police and gathered from reports made to Action Fraud. The Charted Institute of Trading Standards is warning those reports are likely to be just the tip of the iceberg. We'll hear the story of one woman who was scammed after using a QR code in a car park.

The government's cost of living support payments to help people on low incomes cope with rising bills have not been enough to meet the scale of the problem. That's the warning from Parliament's Work and Pensions Committee which this week called on the government to consider widening the eligibility for future payments. The Department for Work and Pensions says the payments have provided a significant financial boost to millions of households and are just one part of the record £94 billion support package - which includes a 10.1% rise to benefits earlier this year and a more than £2 billion Household Support Fund to help with the cost of household essentials.

A young disabled man was denied access to a high interest savings account - after his parents, who have a court order to deal with his finances, tried to open the account. How common is this and what can you do?

And what can you expect from the Autumn Statement?

Presenter: Paul Lewis
Reporters: Joanna Morris and Jo Krasner
Producer: Dan Whitworth
Researcher: Sandra Hardial
Editor: Jess Quayle

(First broadcast 12pm, Saturday 18th November 2023)


SAT 12:30 The Now Show (m001sdyd)
Series 63

Episode 3

Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis present the week via topical stand-up and sketches. They are joined by Zoe Lyons, with some news of recent rare sightings, Pierre Novellie, exploring the latest in middle class crazes, and Jess Robinson, singing about the real stalwart of 10 Downing Street.

The show was written by the cast with additional material from Mike Shephard, Tasha Dhanraj, David Duncan and Cody Dahler.

Voice Actors: Jason Forbes & Roisin O'Mahony

Producer: Sasha Bobak
Production Coordinator: Katie Baum

A BBC Studios Production for Radio 4


SAT 12:57 Weather (m001slf0)
The latest weather forecast


SAT 13:00 News and Weather (m001slf2)
The latest national and international news and weather reports from BBC Radio 4


SAT 13:10 Any Questions? (m001sdz7)
Shevaun Haviland, Baroness Smith, Enver Solomon, Theresa Villiers MP

Alex Forsyth presents political discussion programme from Here East in Hackney with Shevaun Haviland - Director General of the British Chambers of Commerce, Baroness Angela Smith - Shadow Leader of the House of Lords, Enver Solomon - Chief Executive of the Refugee Council and Conservative MP Theresa Villiers.
Producer: Ed Prendeville
Lead broadcast engineer: Richard Earle


SAT 14:00 Any Answers? (m001slf4)
Call Any Answers? to have your say on the big issues in the news this week


SAT 14:45 The Planet Earth Podcast (m001slf6)
4. Story Is Everything

In this episode we discover the secret sauce that makes a Planet Earth sequence. Mike Gunton shares his insights on how to find a great animal story, from dynamic characters to recognisable narrative arcs. Planet Earth III Series Producer Matt Brandon talks about the steps of finding the right stories to fit the Planet Earth brand, whilst filmmakers Charlotte Bostock and Kiri Cashell reveal how they go about constructing animal sequences that will touch, surprise and shock audiences, and ultimately make them care about our planet.


SAT 15:00 Drama on 4 (m000q3gp)
iPromise

By Martin Jameson

A quantum cryptocurrency audio heist movie and psychological tech thriller exploring the illusory nature of money itself.

Bit – real name Rebecca “Becky” Isobel Troughton, BIT, get it? – is in trouble. Big trouble. She’s only gone and hacked into US mainframes and brought the entire eastern seaboard to a standstill. And now she’s on everybody’s Most Wanted list.

But Bit is no hacking ‘gun for hire’. She’s driven by principle and she’s the very best at what she does. So when shady government organisations come knocking in a bid to secure her services, she just sends them packing. Well, sort of.

But there are some offers even Bit can’t refuse. Like the search for 494 million’s worth of missing iPromises - a brand-new un-hackable cryptocurrency that’s the sexy place to put your pennies.

But before Bit can even think about those 800 giant servers in the middle of an Icelandic wilderness, there are more pressing matters to deal with closer to home. Like finding a safe place to live and avoiding her estranged father. And why does she feel like she’s being followed?

In Bit’s head, the references to The Wizard of Oz keep stacking up, but we are definitely not in Kansas anymore.

Cast:
Bit & Infinity Bit ….. Tamara Lawrance
Kevin Straw ….. Jonathan Forbes
Tinaya ….. Skye Lourie
Leon ….. Gunnar Cauthery
Emir & Clive ….. Nabil Elouahabi
Frank & Grimmur Ekkert ….. Danny Sapani

Other characters are voiced by the cast

Sound design ….. Adam Woodhams
Mix ….. Steve Bond
Executive producer ….. Sara Davies
Directed & produced by Nicolas Jackson

An Afonica production for BBC Radio 4


SAT 16:00 Woman's Hour (m001slf8)
Weekend Woman's Hour: Dame Kelly Holmes, justice secretary Alex Chalk, history of eyeliner

Olympic champion Dame Kelly Holmes spoke publicly about her sexuality for the first time last year. Her new memoir, Unique, details how serving in the military in the late 1980s - when it was illegal to be gay in the military – was a major factor in contributing to her decades-long silence. She joins us to speak about her experience.

After a reshuffle that left the government with no women in the “big four” offices of state, we speak to Justice Secretary Alex Chalk about the impact of the reshuffle as well as sentencing reforms which will affect women.

From Nefertiti to Amy Winehouse, what is the personal and political power of eyeliner? We discuss with Zahra Hankir, author of Eyeliner: A Cultural History.

Tish Murtha is a celebrated photographer whose images of working-class life in North East England can be found in the National Portrait Gallery and Tate Britain. But in her lifetime, Murtha struggled to find work of any kind. Now her daughter, Ella, has made a film about Murtha’s life and work. We speak to Ella and producer of the documentary, Jen Corcoran.

How is our interaction with AI shifting our concepts of intimacy and sexuality as humans? We discuss with Kate Devlin, Reader in Artificial Intelligence & Society at King's College London, and to Trudy Barber, Senior Lecturer at Portsmouth University in Media Studies.

In April 2020, Debenhams in Ireland closed all 11 of its stores, informing its staff they had been let go in the process. What ensued were pickets and protests across Ireland that lasted for 406 days. As a new film is released on the subject, we're joined by two women who were involved, Carol Ann Bridgeman and Jane Crowe.


SAT 17:00 PM (m001slfb)
Full coverage of the day's news


SAT 17:30 Political Thinking with Nick Robinson (m001slfd)
The Kishwer Falkner One

Nick Robinson sits down with the Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, to discuss multiculturalism, transgender rights and challenging the UK government on its asylum policies.


SAT 17:54 Shipping Forecast (m001slfg)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping


SAT 17:57 Weather (m001slfj)
The latest weather forecast


SAT 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m001slfl)
UN agency condemns attacks on schools sheltering displaced Palestinians in Gaza.


SAT 18:15 Loose Ends (m001slfn)
Tony Iommi, Emeli Sandé, Steven Knight, Ellie Simmonds, Nathan Queeley-Dennis, Soweto Kinch, Clive Anderson

Clive Anderson and Soweto Kinch are joined by Tony Iommi, Steven Knight and Ellie Simmonds for an eclectic mix of conversation, music and comedy. With music from Emeli Sandé and Nathan Queeley-Dennis, recorded at The Old Rep Theatre, Birmingham.


SAT 19:00 Profile (m001slfq)
James Cleverly

Born and raised in south east London, James Cleverly once dreamed of being an artist, then opted for an army career. But never expected to become a politician. Yet now, after swiftly climbing the cabinet ladder, the high-flying statesman has made the step up from Foreign Secretary to Home Secretary. But with a bulging in-tray - including the government's troubled plan to deport asylum seekers to Rwanda - can he rise to the challenge? Charismatic, convivial and sometimes cautious, does James Cleverly have the skills needed for the job? Paul Connolly talks to friends and colleagues about Cleverly's fast political ascent, his ability to stay the course and his passion for spicy food.

Presenter: Paul Connolly
Producers: Sally Abrahams, Kirsteen Knight, Julie Ball
Production co-ordinator: Maria Ogundele
Sound engineer: James Beard
Editor: Bridget Harney


SAT 19:15 The Infinite Monkey Cage (m001slfs)
Series 28

The Science of Coincidence

Are some people just lucky? Is there any scientific formula behind coincidences? Is randomness the norm? Brian and Robin team up with comedian Sophie Duker, mathematician Marcus Du Sautoy and statistician David Speigelhalter to uncover the reality and the maths behind seemingly incredible coincidences. How many people do you need in a room to find two with the same birthday? What is the weirdest coincidence that the panel have ever encountered? Is there a mathematical formula to being lucky? How good are we at judging how likely something is to happen? The answer is not very, as Brian and Robin unluckily discover.

New episodes released Wednesdays. If you're in the UK, listen to the newest episodes of The Infinite Monkey Cage first on BBC Sounds: bbc.in/3K3JzyF

Executive Producer: Alexandra Feachem.


SAT 20:00 Archive on 4 (m001slfv)
I Was 21 Years...

Marking the 40th anniversary of the release of his seminal song A New England, Billy Bragg is digging into the BBC archives to uncover the similarities and differences in the experience of young people coming of age in 1983, versus 2023.

“It's the archetypal Billy Bragg song, which I'm really pleased of because obviously a lot of people, when they think of me, think of political song writing,” he says. “But I like to think A New England is more reflective of who I really am. It kind of has the implications of politics in it and saying, I don't wanna change the world. But really it's about the struggle for relationships and making sense of the world.”

In 1983, when he released A New England, Billy was angry and he was loud. He was operating within a youth culture, straining against ageing ideas of adulthood, charged by radical politics, vibrant subcultures and existential angst. Now he’s older and maybe wiser, Billy is interested in how young people think today - where do they put their anger, their hopes? How do they experience the freedom and fear that comes with emerging into adulthood?

Billy speaks to Developmental Psychologist Jeffrey Arnett from Clark University, Worcester, Massachusetts, who pioneered the theory of Emerging Adulthood - a new life stage that has emerged since 1983, capturing those aged 18 to 30. Dame Rachel Whiteread remembers her experience as a young artist in the 1980s, and Billy joins anthropologist, photographer and writer Ted Polhemus on the Kings Road to reminisce about the central role played by subculture in the 1980s. He also talks to a group of young people, living out their early 20s in the 2020s. What do they think about the society they live in? And are they looking for a new England?

Produced by Maia Miller-Lewis
Executive Producer Jo Rowntree
Associate Editor Anne Harbin
A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4
Photographs by Jacob Blickenstaff, Paul Slattery, and Nicki Rogerson.


SAT 21:00 GF Newman's The Corrupted (m000w4sk)
Series 6

Episode 6

It's now 2006 and Brian Oldman is still in jail for a crime he didn't commit.

He found a man in jail able to prove his innocence - but that man was soon discovered dead in his cell. He suspects that Joseph Oldman, now Lord Olinska, organised the killing.

In this final series, taking us to 2008, Joseph Olinska gets ever more involved in New Labour, while Brian Oldman becomes a vegan and studies law in jail in a bid to win justice for himself. Tony Wednesday continues to work behind the scenes for Sir Joseph at the same time as moving ever further up the ranks of the police force.

GF Newman's The Corrupted weaves fiction with real characters from history, following the fortunes of the Oldman/Olinska family - from small-time business and opportunistic petty crime, through gang rivalries, to their entanglement in the highest echelons of society. It's the tale of a nexus of crime, business and politics that’s woven through the fabric of 20th and 21st century greed, as even those with hitherto good intentions are sucked into a web of corruption.

Whose fortunes will prosper? Who will get their just deserts?

Joey Oldman, an uneducated Jewish child immigrant from Russia, has a natural instinct for business and a love of money - coupled with a knack for acquiring it. His first wife Cath is as ruthless in both the pursuit of money and the protection of her son, Brian. Joey built his empire with the help of a corrupt bank manager in the 1950s, starting with small greengrocer shops before moving into tertiary banking and property development, dealing with many corrupt policemen on the way - and befriending Lord Goodman, Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair. Joseph now helps New Labour with their finances, while continuing to invest heavily in Russia, the US and a pharmaceutical company specialising in cancer drugs.

The characters are based on GF Newman's novels.

Cast

Lord Olinska - Toby Jones
Brian - Joe Armstrong
Tony Wednesday - Alec Newman
Sonia Hope - Sarah Lambie
Catherine - Isabella Urbanowicz
Margaret - Flora Montgomery
Clive Bunter / Brad Thompson / Justice Deed - Matthew Marsh
PO Rogers / Paul Linthwaite - Paul Kemp
Julian Tyrwhitt - Jonathan Tafler
Jeremy Corbyn - Christopher Harper
EXO Avedlund - Nigel Pivaro
Professor King / Tim Listfield - Charles Davies
Mrs Jinks - Suzan Sylvester
FBI Agent Pyke - Will Meredith
Mr Kumar - Akbar Kurtha
Mr Justice Balardy - Christian Roadska

Produced and directed by Clive Brill
A Brill production for BBC Radio 4


SAT 21:45 The Skewer (m001sd3z)
Series 10

Episode 6

Fresh from winning Gold for Best Comedy at the British Podcast Awards (and Highly Commended as Podcast of the Year), Jon Holmes's comedy current affairs concept album returns for its 10th series to remix the news into satirical shapes.

This week - Nadine vs The Evil Dead, It’s Always Sunny in Philadeph-kier, and The Return of David Cameron.

Creator / Producer: Jon Holmes

An unusual production for BBC Radio 4

This week – among much more:
Homer Simpson takes charge of the Cabinet cuts
Nadine Dorries’s book is bound in human flesh from The Evil Dead
I’m A Celeb contestant Nigel Farage meets the casts of Disney’s The Jungle Book
Hagrid off of Harry Potter's dog falls foul of the Dangerous Dogs Act
Kier Starmer is Always Sunny In Philadelphia
Carol Vorderman takes to Countdown to vent her frustration at being axed from the BBC


SAT 22:00 News (m001slfx)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4


SAT 22:15 Add to Playlist (m001sdyx)
Fraser T Smith and Amanda Whiting enjoy some Gin and Juice

Fraser T Smith - producer, musician and collaborator with artists including Adele, Stormzy, Dave and Sam Smith - and Welsh jazz harpist Amanda Whiting, add the next five tracks to the growing playlist. With Cerys Matthews and Jeffrey Boakye they go from a Snoop Dogg 1994 hit to Brazil via some serious jazz piano.

Producer Jerome Weatherald
Presented, with music direction, by Cerys Matthews and Jeffrey Boakye

The five tracks in this week's playlist:

Gin and Juice by Snoop Dogg
Passion Dance by McCoy Tyner
Deacon Blues by Steely Dan
String Quartet No 2 in A Minor: II Andante Cantabile by Florence Price
Oye Como Va by Eliane Elias

Other music in this episode:

Higher Ground by Stevie Wonder
I Got the... by Labi Siffre
Blinded by Your Grace Pt 2 by Stormzy
Set Fire to the Rain by Adele
Black by Dave
I Know You by Craig David Feat. Bastille
Fallin' by Alicia Keys
I'd Rather Go Blind by Etta James
He's Got the Whole World In His Hands by Wanda Jackson
The Banana Boat Song by Harry Belafonte
Oye Como Va by Tito Puente
Chanchullo by Arcaño y sus Maravillas
Oye Como Va by Santana


SAT 23:00 Brain of Britain (m001sd59)
Semi-Final 2, 2023

(14/17)
Russell Davies welcomes another four semi-finalists to the Radio Theatre in London where one of them will take a step closer to being named Brain of Britain 2023.

Appearing in today's contest are
Dan Adler from Farnham in Surrey
Jude Cole from Sheffield
David Cowan from Swansea
Mickie Wynne-Davies from Oxted in Surrey.

The competition for the buzzer is bound to be fierce and the contenders may find it tougher to pull away from the pack as they did in their respective heats. They'll also face a challenge from a listener hoping to Beat the Brains with fiendish questions they have devised.

Assistant Producer: Stephen Garner
Producer: Paul Bajoria


SAT 23:30 Uncanny (m001slfz)
Series 3

S3. Case 4: Elton’s Phone

Christmas 1982, and 6-year-old Elton loves playing with his younger sister's present, a toy telephone. But joy turns to fear when it starts ringing by itself.

Can an object really be haunted? Or is something unseen playing with the telephone?

Written and presented by Danny Robins
Editing and sound design: Charlie Brandon-King
Music: Evelyn Sykes
Script edtor: Dale Shaw
Theme music by Lanterns on the Lake
Produced by Danny Robins and Simon Barnard

A Bafflegab and Uncanny Media production for BBC Radio 4

SUNDAY 19 NOVEMBER 2023

SUN 00:00 Midnight News (m001slg1)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.


SUN 00:15 The Exploding Library (m001sd18)
Parable of the Sower, by Octavia E. Butler

Comedian Desiree Burch unravels Octavia Butler's visionary 1993 novel Parable of the Sower and its sequel Parable Of The Talents, an eerily-prescient dystopian portrait of society in collapse after being torn apart by climate change and corporate greed - with a populist demagogue US president who rides to power with the slogan "Make American Great Again".

Oh, and the story - pure fantasy of course, imagined by Butler three decades ago in the early 1990s - is set initially in 2024.

Now this all seems to Desiree just a little bit too close to reality for comfort. But is there hope - even optimism - beneath the surface of this chillingly bleak vision?

Warped literature series The Exploding Library returns for a new run, as another trio of comedians explode and unravel their most cherished cult books, paying homage to the tone and style of the original text - and blurring and warping the lines between fact and fiction.

As our hosts shine the spotlight on strange, funny and sometimes disturbing novels by Angela Carter, BS Johnson and Octavia Butler, listeners are invited to inhabit their eccentric worlds - gaining a deeper understanding of their workings and the unique literary minds that created them.

With the comedic voices of Kiri Pritchard-Mclean, Rob Auton and Desiree Burch, and featuring the work of award-winning producers Leonie Thomas, Benjamin Partridge (Beef and Dairy Network), and Steven Rajam (Tim Key and Gogol’s Overcoat), this is an arts documentary series like no other.

Producer: Steven Rajam
An Overcoat Media production for BBC Radio 4


SUN 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m001slg3)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping


SUN 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m001slg5)
World Service

BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


SUN 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m001slg7)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping


SUN 05:30 News Briefing (m001slg9)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


SUN 05:43 Bells on Sunday (m001slgc)
The church of St Eadburgha in Ebrington, Gloucestershire

Bells on Sunday comes from the church of St. Eadburgha in Ebrington, Gloucestershire. The tower contains a ring of six bells five of which were cast in the 17th and 18th century by the Bagley family foundry which was renown for casting bells with many decorations. The tenor bell, cast in 1678 by Henry Bagley, weighs twe;ve and a half hundredweight and is tuned to F sharp. We hear them ringing the rarely heard, 'Grandsire Minor'.


SUN 05:45 Profile (m001slfq)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Saturday]


SUN 06:00 News Summary (m001slgz)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4


SUN 06:05 Something Understood (m001slh3)
The Illusion of Progress

Mark Tully explores the growing conviction that The Enlightenment has sold us a bill of goods. In conversation with Professor John Gray of the London School of Economics, he considers the argument that belief in human progress is a secular myth and dangerous illusion.

First broadcast in 2005.

A Unique Broadcasting Company production for BBC Radio 4


SUN 06:35 On Your Farm (m001slh7)
Cider Harvest

Sheppy's Cider, in Somerset, is one of the world's oldest independent cider makers. Sarah Swadling meets David and Louisa Sheppy as their farm is alive with the sights, sounds, and smells of apple pressing. They tell Sarah how they're adapting their business for changing times and tastes whilst staying true to six generations of cider-making heritage.

Produced and presented by Sarah Swadling


SUN 06:57 Weather (m001slhb)
The latest weather reports and forecast


SUN 07:00 News and Papers (m001slhd)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.


SUN 07:10 Sunday (m001slhg)
Same Sex Blessings in the Church of England

This week Church of England leaders voted narrowly to allow special services of blessing for gay couples. At a meeting in London, the church’s General Synod approved the move on a trial basis. It has been a hugely divisive issue and there are fears that it could split the church. Equality campaigners insist that gay Anglicans should be able to marry in church like everyone else. But some conservatives say that the church is straying from scripture, which teaches that marriage can only be between a man and a woman.

The Labour Party leadership was hit by a major rebellion this week in the Commons when 56 MPs defied party policy and voted for a ceasefire in Gaza. Eight shadow ministers also resigned their positions in support of an immediate ceasefire. Muslim party members, councillors and MPs have been vociferous in pushing for an end to the violence in Gaza as the death toll has soared. Labour usually enjoys strong support from Muslims, but could this issue lose the party votes, or even seats at the General Election?

Why have human beings always been so attracted to stories about the end of the world? Across cultures and history, stories and works of art have reflected ideas of the apocalypse. It's the subject of a new exhibition which includes poems by T. S. Eliot and W. B. Yeats. The exhibition's venue is a Victorian house in Bedford, which once belonged to a now defunct Christian apocalyptic movement, called the Panacea Society. We'll hear the history of this eccentric organisation and also examine the strangely enduring appeal of the apocalypse.

Presenter: Edward Stourton
Producers: Jonathan Hallewell and Bara'atu Ibrahim
Editor: Helen Grady
Studio Managers: Helen Williams and Sue Stonestreet


SUN 07:54 Radio 4 Appeal (m001slhj)
Children in Need

Broadcaster and journalist Charlotte Smith makes the Radio 4 Appeal on behalf of the charity Children in Need.

To Give:
- Call 03457 33 22 33. Standard geographic charges from landlines and mobiles will apply.
- Donate online at bbc.co.uk/pudsey

Registered Charity Number: 802052


SUN 07:57 Weather (m001slhm)
The latest weather forecast


SUN 08:00 News and Papers (m001slhq)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the Sunday papers.


SUN 08:10 Sunday Worship (m001slhs)
Visionary Storytellers

A service to mark the 60th Anniversary of the deaths, on the same day, of visionary storytellers: Aldous Huxley, John F. Kennedy and C.S. Lewis.

The preacher is the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. The service is led by the Revd Lucy Winkett.

The music includes: O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go, and Who Would True Valour See.

Producer: Alexa Good


SUN 08:48 A Point of View (m001sdzs)
The Strangeness of Dreams

From clay tablets in Mesopotamia two and a half thousand years ago to the stuff of dreams today, Sarah Dunant examines the continuing mystery of the function and meaning of dreams.

'As science digs further into every nook and cranny of our brains,' writes Sarah, 'the elusive, individual nature of dreams is possibly the most magical element of human existence that remains.'

Producer: Adele Armstrong
Sound: Peter Bosher
Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman
Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith


SUN 08:58 Tweet of the Day (b04dv7fc)
Blue Bird of Paradise

Tweet of the Day is the voice of birds and our relationship with them, from around the world.

Sir David Attenborough presents the blue bird of paradise. The crow sized blue birds of paradise provide a spectacular flash of blue in the Papua New Guinea rainforests yet it is the males dazzling courtship performance which grabs a female's attention. Tipping forward from his perch he hangs upside down fluffing out and shimmering his gauzy breast feathers. As if this weren't enough, as the female approaches, he increases the frequency of his calls to produce a hypnotic mechanical buzzing, more like the song of a giant cicada than any bird.

Producer : Andrew Dawes


SUN 09:00 Broadcasting House (m001slhw)
The Sunday morning news magazine programme. Presented by Paddy O'Connell


SUN 10:00 The Archers Omnibus (m001slj0)
WRITER: Naylah Ahmed
DIRECTOR: Kim Greengrass

Ben Archer …. Ben Norris
Helen Archer …. Louiza Patikas
Pat Archer …. Pat Gallimore
Lilian Bellamy …. Sunny Ormonde
Alice Carter …. Hollie Chapman
Harry Chilcott …. Jack Ashton
Alan Franks …. John Telfer
Usha Franks …. Souad Farass
Shiv Gupta …. Pushpinder Chani
Jakob Hakansson …. Paul Venables
Joy Horville …. Jackie Lye
Kate Madikane …. Perdita Avery
Miles Titchener …. Adam Astill
Rob Titchener …. Timothy Watson
Annie …. Jessica Tomchak


SUN 11:15 Desert Island Discs (m001slj3)
Pia Sinha, Director Prison Reform Trust

Pia Sinha is the Director of the Prison Reform Trust and a former prison governor. She was awarded the St Martin’s Award for Prison Governance for her role in turning around HMP Liverpool, which was widely described as Britain’s worst jail in 2018, following a highly critical report by HM Inspectorate of Prisons.

Pia was born in north India and she and her family came to the UK when she was 14. After studying economics and psychology at university, she pursued a career as a psychologist, and her work took into prisons. Whilst she was training, she also ran a London pub with her first husband.

After many years working as a psychologist in male and female prisons she was encouraged to apply for the Senior Prison Manager Programme aimed at training governors of the future. In 2013 she became the governor of HMP Thorn Cross, and was the first Asian woman to a run a prison in England and Wales.

Earlier this year she joined the Prison Reform Trust as its Director.

DISC ONE: Kathy’s Song - Simon & Garfunkel
DISC TWO: Ek Ladki Ko Dekha - Kumar Sanu
DISC THREE: Back to Life - Soul II Soul
DISC FOUR: Melt - Leftfield
DISC FIVE: Andmoreagain - Love
DISC SIX: Black (featuring Norah Jones) - Danger Mouse & Daniele Luppi
DISC SEVEN: The Power of Love - Frankie Goes to Hollywood
DISC EIGHT: Hometown Glory - Adele

BOOK CHOICE: A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry
LUXURY ITEM: Chilli sauce
CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Kathy’s Song - Simon & Garfunkel

Presenter Lauren Laverne
Producer Sarah Taylor


SUN 12:00 News Summary (m001smkh)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


SUN 12:04 I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue (m001sd6x)
Series 80

Episode 1

Radio 4's multi award-winning ‘antidote to panel games’ promises yet more quality, desk-based entertainment for all the family.

The series begins at the Pavilion Theatre in Bournemouth where Marcus Brigstocke and Rachel Parris are pitched against Tony Hawks and Miles Jupp, with Jack Dee in the role of reluctant chairman. Regular listeners will know to expect inspired nonsense, pointless revelry and Colin Sell at the piano.

Producer - Jon Naismith.
It is a BBC Studios production.


SUN 12:32 The Food Programme (m001slj7)
Older Men Learning to Cook

Jimi Famurewa talks to men learning or rediscovering cooking later in life, maybe due to a change of circumstance or loss of a partner, to hear how it's changing their lives.

In the programme we meet the participants of the latest Man with a Pan cookery course, run by Community Chef at Lewes Community Kitchen, as well as a weekly class run by Age UK in north London. Jimi also chats to the team behind Men’s Pie Club, which uses food as a tool to help tackle loneliness and social isolation with men, getting them in a room once a week, to make a pie, connect and meet people.

Presented by Jimi Famurewa and produced by Sophie Anton for BBC Audio in Bristol.


SUN 12:57 Weather (m001slj9)
The latest weather forecast


SUN 13:00 The World This Weekend (m001sljc)
Radio 4's look at the week's big stories from both home and around the world


SUN 13:30 Gangster (p0gjb7lr)
Killing Death Row

Killing Death Row: 5. What’s the Cost?

The people of Jasper sought the death penalty for the brutal men who murdered James Byrd. But the cost of the trial was crippling and served as a warning to other small districts. In this episode, we’ll examine how cost plays a part in the number of US executions, as does a better understanding of institutional racism.
Join Livvy Haydock as she takes us deep into Death Row in the USA. While support for the Death Penalty in the US remains at over 50 per cent, there’s been a steady decline in executions – from the modern era peak of 98 in 1999 to just 20 in 2023 so far. Only a handful of states actually carry out the killings. It’s even become more difficult for executioners to get hold of the drugs used in lethal injections, which is what led Livvy Haydock to a surreal story about a man in Acton, West London, who was supplying these lethal drugs to state penitentiaries in the US, and on to the macabre world of Death Row – and the people who live, work, and die on it.
Whether it’s the hunt for new lethal injection supplies, or the tip of the glasses that mark an executioner’s signal, Livvy goes right behind the scenes into the chamber itself to examine the pressures on the system that have left just 5 US states actively carrying out executions this year and around 2,400 Death Row prisoners in limbo. We’ll hear from an inmate waiting to die, and one saved at the last moment. We’ll chat to the wardens who make it happen, and the campaigners who want to stop it. And throughout it all, we’ll discover the possible future for Death Row in the only western democracy still carrying out capital punishment.

New episodes released weekly. If you’re in the UK, listen to Gangster Presents… Killing Death Row first on BBC Sounds: bbc.in/40W5Chz

Archive: KTVT-TV

Presenter: Livvy Haydock
Series producer: Anna Meisel
Researcher: Ella Rule
Sounds design and mix: Richard Hannaford
Editor: Clare Fordham
Production coordinator: Janet Staples


SUN 14:00 Gardeners' Question Time (m001sdwz)
Freshwater

Kathy Cluggston and her team of horticultural experts are in Freshwater on the Isle of Wight, inspired by the poetry of former local Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

Joining Kathy on the panel today are grow-you-own guru Bob Flowerdew, pest and disease expert Pippa Greenwood, and curator at RHS Wisley Matthew Pottage.

Producer: Dominic Tyerman

Assistant Producer: Rahnee Prescod

Executive Producer: Hannah Newton

A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4.


SUN 14:45 Opening Lines (m001sljg)
The Manxman

John Yorke looks at The Manxman by the Sir Thomas Hall Caine, a love story set on the Isle of Man. The novel broke sales records and changed the book industry forever when it was published in 1894. Hall Caine was globally famous, hugely successful, adored by readers and feted by royalty. The story was adapted for film by Alfred Hitchcock, translated into 12 languages and performed on stage. Yet today, The Manxman and Hall Caine are almost completely forgotten.

John looks at this hugely successful Victorian melodrama, to discover a curiously powerful story, set in a location rarely found in literature, that has plenty of resonance for audiences today.

John Yorke has worked in television and radio for nearly 30 years, and he shares his experience with Radio 4 listeners as he unpacks the themes and impact of the books, plays and stories that are being dramatised on BBC Radio 4. From EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless, he has been obsessed with telling big popular stories. He has spent years analysing not just how stories work but why they resonate with audiences around the globe and has brought together his experience in his bestselling book Into the Woods. As former Head of Channel Four Drama, Controller of BBC Drama Production and MD of Company Pictures, John has tested his theories during an extensive production career working on some of the world’s most lucrative, widely viewed and critically acclaimed TV drama. As founder of the hugely successful BBC Writers Academy John has trained a generation of screenwriters.

Contributors:
Mary Hammond, professor of English and Book History at the University of Southampton.
Catherine Harvey, writer, actor, and broadcaster, who adapted The Manxman for BBC Radio 4.

Readings by Stephen Bent.
Excerpts from The Manxman by Hall Caine, 1894.
Excerpt from My Story by Hall Caine, 1908.
Excerpt from The Manxman - Manx Life and Manxland, by T.E. Brown, 1894.

Researcher: Nina Semple
Sound: Sean Kerwin
Producer: Jack Soper
Executive Producer: Caroline Raphael
Production Manager: Sarah Wright

A Pier production for BBC Radio 4


SUN 15:00 Love Stories (m001sljj)
The Manxman

The Manxman is the story of a love triangle that leaves a woman on the Isle of Man torn between desire and duty and facing the consequences of betrayal.

Childhood friends, fisherman Peter Quilliam and eminent lawyer Phillip Christian are both in love with Kate Cregeen. Kate loves Pete, but her father is against the match, forcing Pete to seek his fortune abroad. When false news comes of Pete's death, Kate becomes involved with Philip, but Pete's return leads to conflict - an unhappy marriage, a tussle for a child, and the creation of a fictional life.

Catherine Harvey's adaptation focuses on the heart of Thomas Hall Caine’s novel - the love triangle between Kate, Philip and Pete - while drawing on the strong sense of community and legend that are present in the original novel, their story told here by a narrator played by Rakie Ayola.

Hall Caine's story mixes humour and pathos, juxtaposing the personal and the mythic. Its themes have a strong modern resonance - fate, love and loss, the guilt of betrayal, the conflict of friendship and desire, the effects of marrying the wrong man for the right reasons, and whether advancement and ambition should be pursued at any cost - ultimately suggesting that sacrifice is necessary to obtain happiness.

With a cast including several native Manx actors and partly recorded on the Isle of Man, The Manxman draws on the distinctive soundscape of the island as well as the unique accent and dialect of the island's people.

Cast:
Shennaghee the Storyteller - Rakie Ayola
Kate Cregeen - Evie Killip
Pete Quilliam - Benjamin Karran
Philip Christian - Tom Ward-Thomas
Caesar Cregeen / Peter Christian of Ballawhaine - Stephen Bent
Grannie Cregeen - Annie Kissack
Ross Christian / Doctor / Parson / Governor - Will de Renzy-Martin
Auntie Nan - Aalin Clague
Young Pete - Rafferty McKenna
Young Phil - Finn Franklin
Young Kate - Aalish Kilgallon
Young Ross - Ned Hampton

Other parts were played by Phil Gawne, John Dog Callister, Winnie Callister, Bill Corlett, Richard Corlett, Greg Joughin, Chris Sheard, Chloe Woolley, and members of the cast.

Sound designer: Iain Mackness
Music: David Kilgallon, Kiaull Manninagh, Phynnoderee, Caarjyn Cooidjagh, Cairistìona Dougherty, Skeeal, and The Albert Players

The Manxman was recorded partly on location in the Isle of Man.
Production adviser: Annie Kissack
Special thanks to Culture Vannin, The Bunscoill Ghaelgagh, The Albert Hotel and Maughold Church.

Directed by Iain Mackness
Produced by Ashley Byrne and Kurt Brookes
Adapted from the novel by Thomas Hall Caine by Catherine Harvey

A Made in Manchester production for BBC Radio 4


SUN 16:00 Open Book (m001sljl)
Femi Kayode

Crime writer Femi Kayode joins Johny Pitts to discuss Gaslight, the second in his Philip Taiwo series. In this book, Taiwo finds himself reluctantly investigating a crime involving a Nigerian Bishop whose wife has disappeared.

Bestselling novelist Michael Connelly talks about his response to the ongoing campaigns banning books in American school libraries, and novelist Alex Sarkis sends a postcard from West Sydney, where literary life is thriving.

Book List – Sunday 19 November and Thursday 23 November

Gaslight by Femi Kayode
Lightseekers by Femi Kayode
Girl with the Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier
The Harry Bosch Series by Michael Connelly
Resurrection Walk by Michael Connelly
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky
To Kill a Mocking Bird by Harper Lee
Something Blue by Alex Sarkis
Losing Face by George Haddad
Son of Sin by Omar Sakr
The Cult of Romance by Sarah Ayoub
Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens by Shankari Chandran


SUN 16:30 Doctor Who: The Wilderness Years (m001sljn)
In December 1989 - after 26 years on TV, 694 episodes and seven different Doctors - Doctor Who, the longest running series in the history of British television, was quietly exterminated by the BBC. It remained off air for 16 years until the series was revived in 2005, quite spectacularly under the auspices of Russell T Davies with Christopher Eccleston as the Time Lord.

But the period between 1989 and 2005 was a very special interregnum. Known as the Wilderness Years, they belonged to the true keepers of the flame, Doctor Who fans - and never had a wilderness proved so fertile.

Fans had campaigned to stop the show being cancelled by BBC1 controller Michael Grade as early as 1985, when it was first in peril. There was a song, Doctor in Distress, featuring Bobby G from Bucks Fizz and sponsored by The Sun, winning the show another four years of life. But, by the late 1980s, it had fallen from the heights of its 1970s popularity with Jon Pertwee and then Tom Baker playing the Time Lord. Ratings had been falling steadily and, for many viewers, the writing was becoming more improbable, culminating in a monster made of liquorice allsorts. It was widely felt the programme was unloved by the BBC.

Doctor Who’s cancellation was monumentally traumatic for fans of the show. But this was no ordinary show, and Doctor Who fans are not ordinary fans. After the initial waves of disbelief and protest against the decision died down, a kind of creative and moral transfer of ownership took place - as one more militant Whovian put it, ‘If the BBC wouldn’t make Doctor Who… we would. We were not going to let it die’. Never give up, never give in.

What followed was an incredible period of invention, imagination, pathos, delusion, devotion and wish-fulfilment; a genuinely strange - but critical - period in Doctor Who’s history. There were new adventures in books published by Virgin, new video and audio from Big Finish, animation and computer games, even experiments in theatre. There were magazines and bulletins, fan-made documentaries, a proliferation of Doctor Who conventions and even a canonical 1996 TV movie pilot with a new Doctor, played by Paul McGann. Far from being a ‘wilderness’, this intensely creative period became a bridge between the original series and its 21st century comeback, the momentum behind the Doctor's triumphant return.

Writer and broadcaster Matthew Sweet tells the story of the longest hiatus in one of TV's longest running series and the extraordinary willpower of a community who could not - would not - allow the flame to die. We hear from the writers and actors from multiple eras of the show, editors and architects of the 'Wilderness Years' - and also from the agitators, the fans who financed their own audio and video adventures of the Doctor, his companions and the TARDIS.

Rich with archive, this feature explores the love, pathos, occasionally unhinged devotion, creative endeavour and bloody-minded determination that made the 'Wilderness Years' some of the most inventive in Doctor Who's 60-year history.

Contributors include Paul McGann, Mark Gatiss, Sophie Aldred, Nick Briggs, Sylvester McCoy, Michael Grade, Graham Kibble-White, Paul Cornell, Ian Levine and Karen Davies.

Presenter: Matthew Sweet
Producer: Simon Hollis

A Brook Lapping production for BBC Radio 4

Image features Eighth Doctor Paul McGann with presenter Matthew Sweet

Clips from 'The Zero Imperative' and 'More than a Messiah' courtesy BBV productions.co.uk


SUN 17:00 Today (m001sd71)
The Today Debate: Israel Gaza - What happens when the war ends?

The Today Debate is all about taking a subject and discussing it with more time than we could ever have during the morning.

Mishal Husain is joined by a panel of guests to discuss what happens when the Israel Gaza war ends.

On the panel are Jeremy Bowen, BBC International Editor; Daniel Levy, director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations; Lord Ricketts, former chair of the UK’s intelligence committee under Tony Blair and former national security adviser to David Cameron, former national security advisor and chair of the Joint Intelligence Committee; Ghada Karmi, Palestinian academic and author and joining from Washington Evelyn Farkas, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for President Obama.


SUN 17:40 Profile (m001slfq)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Saturday]


SUN 17:54 Shipping Forecast (m001sljq)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping


SUN 17:57 Weather (m001sljs)
The latest weather forecast


SUN 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m001sljv)
The Palestinian Red Crescent says 31 premature babies have been evacuated from al Shifa hospital in Gaza.


SUN 18:15 Pick of the Week (m001sljx)
Felix White

How can one person's life affect another - we explore it this week through romance, family, art and loss. Either side of it we are surfing the big and small. What does space smell like? What's the most dismissive way to accept the Nobel Prize for Literature? When was the recorder the sound of the streets? And stories of hope and community in moments of deep despair in Israel and Palestine…

Presenter: Felix White
Producer: Elizabeth Foster
Production Co-ordinator: Pete Liggins


SUN 19:00 The Archers (m001sljz)
Whilst destressing on his allotment, Adil tells Azra the reason he came back to Ambridge is the terrible guilt he feels over messing things up so badly for Oliver, Lynda, Ian and everyone else. Azra probes into why he hasn’t been keeping in touch with Sabha’s parents. Adil admits how difficult he finds it talking to them about her. They keep their front room as a shrine to her memory. He also admits he isn’t always honest with people about Sabha being his fiancée when she died, rather than his wife. He thinks fiancée sounds lesser somehow. Then Azra tells him she’s applied for a permanent position as a GP at the surgery. Adil would have liked more warning of her working close by, and Azra admits that if she gets the job she will definitely want to move somewhere local, though not necessarily Ambridge itself.

As she helps Tom with the veg boxes, Helen ignores several calls and texts from Miles. She tells Tom how awful it was on Thursday, with Rob. In the end she just couldn’t bear the idea of being there when he died. It wouldn’t have felt right sharing that intimate moment with someone she didn’t love. Tom tells her not to beat herself up – she did the right thing. Miles messages again and Helen doesn’t read it, dreading what she knows it will say. Tom reads it for her: Rob died last night at 9.09pm. Helen works out what she was doing then, before admitting how confused she is about how she feels.


SUN 19:15 Stand-Up Specials (m001slk2)
BBC New Comedy Awards 2023

Host Rosie Jones is joined by judges Zoe Lyons, Darren Harriott and Head Judge Josh Pugh as six of the UK's most exciting new comedy acts compete for the coveted title at the Kings Theatre in Glasgow.

This year's finalists are Chantel Nash, Dean T. Beirne, Frankie Monroe, Hester Ectomy, Jin Hao Li, and Paddy Young. Our 2023 finalists all came through as heat winners at our shows at Leith, Bethnal Green, Bangor, Ballymena, Nottingham, and Sunderland.

Past winners and finalists of the BBC New Comedy Award include Alan Carr, Peter Kay, Lee Mack, Sarah Millican, Russell Howard, Joe Lycett, Josie Long, and Lost Voice Guy.

Producers: Lindsay Jex and Gus Beattie
Assistant producer: Nicola Clyde
A Phil McIntyre Television production for BBC Radio 4


SUN 19:45 The State of the Art (p0gm23c7)
4: The Mona Lisa Scam

Tom Hollander continues William Boyd's brilliantly funny short story series skewering the contemporary art world.

Giles Flint-Greenfield, a St James' art dealer with a penchant for post-war British watercolours, is finding his world rather small. But when Ludo Abernathy, an old and far more successful art dealer friend, cuts him in on the mother of a deal, new and potentially terrifying horizons open up for him in East London. All too soon Giles has swapped his tweed for black leather, and St James’ for a car maintenance shop, and is feeling very much out of his depth among the art lovers of Leyton.

In today's story, Giles' gallery out in Leyton is now on the map. And 'Art consultant' Ludo Abernathy is making his name, and quite a lot of money in the contemporary art world. But are his methods entirely legit?

Reader: Tom Hollander is an acclaimed screen and stage actor, known most recently for his roles in White Lotus, Rev and The Night Manager.
Writer: William Boyd
Producer: Justine Willett


SUN 20:00 Feedback (m001sdxk)
The programme that holds the BBC to account on behalf of the radio audience


SUN 20:30 Last Word (m001sdxf)
Peter Betts, Audrey Salkeld, Heather Rogers KC, Louise Meriwether

Matthew Bannister on Peter Betts, who was the UK’s lead negotiator at international climate change summits.

Audrey Salkeld, the mountaineering historian best known for her work on the ill-fated Mallory and Irvine expedition.

Heather Rogers KC, the lawyer who championed freedom of speech in many high profile cases

Louise Meriwether, the author and journalist whose acclaimed novel “Daddy was a Number Runner” told the story of her childhood during the depression in Harlem.

Interviewee: Fiona MacGregor
Interviewee: Caoilfhionn Gallagher KC
Interviewee: Geoffrey Robertson KC
Interviewee: Adam Salkeld
Interviewee: Ed Douglas
Interviewee: Cheryl Hill

Reading extract by: Susan Abebe

Producer: Gareth Nelson-Davies

Archive used:

News report following 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference, Copenhagen, BBC News, 12/19/2009; News report, The Paris Agreement, UN Climate Change Conference (COP21), BBC News, 13/12/2015; Pete Betts interview, 194: Making a Difference, Outrage + Optimism podcast, Outrage + Optimism Ltd, uploaded 30/03/2023; Spycatcher ruling, Newsnight, BBC Two, 13/10/1988; David Irving, HardTalk, BBC News, 28/04/2000; Denial - official movie promo, IMDB, uploaded 2016; Louise Meriwether Lecture, Lectures to the Black Experience in the Arts course, University of Connecticut 14/03/1972;


SUN 21:00 Money Box (m001sldy)
[Repeat of broadcast at 12:04 on Saturday]


SUN 21:25 Radio 4 Appeal (m001slhj)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:54 today]


SUN 21:30 Loose Ends (m001slfn)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:15 on Saturday]


SUN 22:00 Westminster Hour (m001slkh)
Ben Wright is joined by the Conservative former minister Kit Malthouse, Shadow Attorney General Emily Thornberry and Professor of Politics, Tim Bale. They preview the Chancellor's Autumn Statement and discuss whether the government can salvage its troubled Rwanda policy. Paul Waugh from the "i" newspaper brings additional insight and analysis. And Jack Fenwick reports on public perceptions of "levelling up".


SUN 23:00 Uncharted with Hannah Fry (m001qw4s)
1. The Returning Soldier

It’s 1973 and the UK is in crisis: runaway inflation, industrial strike action and political turmoil. Unnoticed at the time - in hospitals and front rooms around the country - something odd is happening with the country’s newborns. A higher proportion of boys are being born than ever before in the 20th Century. What was behind this puzzling trend?

Hannah Fry follows one researcher’s obsessive mission to unravel the mystery.

Presenter: Hannah Fry
Executive Producer: Martin Smith
Series Producer: Lauren Armstrong-Carter
Episode Producer: Ilan Goodman

A series for Radio 4 by BBC Science in Cardiff.

MONDAY 20 NOVEMBER 2023

MON 00:00 Midnight News (m001slkw)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.


MON 00:15 Sideways (m001scxr)
53. Stories of a Father

Violinist and composer Diana Yukawa lost her father, Akihisa Yukawa, in the Japan Air Lines Flight 123 plane crash of August 1985. The crash was just five weeks before she was born. As she grew up, Diana wanted to get to know her father.

Matthew Syed, explores the profound relationship that can exist between parent and child separated by a loss of this kind, and the role of storytelling in creating those connections.

Writer Ashley Reese’s husband, Rob, died of cancer in 2022. Ashley is planning to get pregnant with hers and Rob’s child using IVF. She is making plans for their future child to know their father.

Featuring Diana Yukawa, Ashley Reese and clinical psychologist Dr Emma Svanberg.

Presenter: Matthew Syed
Producer: Amalie Sortland
Series editor: Katherine Godfrey
Sound design and mix: Naomi Clarke
Theme tune by Ioana Selaru
A Novel production for BBC Radio 4


MON 00:45 Bells on Sunday (m001slgc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 05:43 on Sunday]


MON 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m001sll6)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping


MON 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m001sllk)
World Service

BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


MON 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m001sllx)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping


MON 05:30 News Briefing (m001slm8)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


MON 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m001slmm)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Francis Davis, Academic and social entrepreneur

Walking in Silence

Good morning.

Each year I walk from New Milton to Emsworth in Hampshire.

In case you don’t know it, New Milton stands where, sitting next to the Solent’s crashing waves, you can view the Needles nestling off the Isle of Wight. Emsworth, by contrast, is a village in the now ecologically significant Chichester Harbour which, in 1902, provided oysters for a dinner party said to have terminally poisoned the Dean of a famous Cathedral.

The 60 mile walk between these two points is illuminating: For the most part one journeys with the sea as a constant companion. On the landside though everything changes: Salt marshes give way to yacht marinas, rare birds to chasing sea gulls. Visibly wealthy hamlets are passed towards small towns. Those sitting on the prom now rely on wheelchairs and electric scooters for their mobility.

Some who you pass are old and frail. Others are young but limbless following military service in far away places. Shared cups of tea crack open lost smiles.

I walk to be silent; to listen again to a snapshot of England. The smells, the noises, plants and people, even the crunch of stones underfoot, are never quite the same each year. I also walk because, for all my luck, my experience of childhood violence and working in conflict zones can, sometimes, beckon my thoughts to despairing places. In this – well beyond the Hampshire coast – I know I am not alone this morning and every morning.

Dear God, wherever you may be, walk with me today. Help me to hope, and to cherish anew every encounter of people, place, water and words with a complete tranquillity in all my senses.

Amen


MON 05:45 Farming Today (m001sln2)
Known as 'black gold', cuttlefish is one of the most valuable species for fishing fleets in the South West of England. The Government is proposing new rules to safeguard numbers of the species but fishermen claim they could see 40% of their catch, and millions of pounds, lost without any real benefit to cuttlefish stocks.
The proposal is to set a minimum landing size of 23 cm so any cuttlefish smaller than that would get thrown back. But cuttlefish don’t live very long if they’re out of water and so by the time they are measured and thrown back they’d most likely be dead.

Regenerative agriculture has become a real buzz phrase in farming over the last decade. Very broadly speaking it’s farming in a way that improves the soil, by removing or reducing ploughing and artificial fertiliser, using fewer resources for the benefit of the environment. It has farmers flocking to events like Groundswell, Carbon Calling in Cumbria and the Oxford Real Farming Conference to exchange ideas. Global food and farming businesses like Nestle, McDonalds and Unilever say they’re doing it too. All this week we’re going to be looking into regenerative farming: what is it, who is doing it and why.

A fungus that’s extremely rare in the UK has been found in Kent. Artomyces pyxidatus, also known as candelabra coral, was discovered by enthusiasts who weren’t sure what it was. Kent Wildlife Trust says it was thought to have become extinct, with no record of it in the entire 20th Century.

Presented by Caz Graham and produced by Beatrice Fenton.


MON 05:56 Weather (m001slnh)
The latest weather forecast for farmers.


MON 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b03bkc26)
Redwing

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

Wildlife Sound Recordist, Chris Watson, presents the Redwing. The soft thin 'seep' calls of redwings as they fly over at night are as much a part of autumn as falling leaves, damp pavements and the smoke of bonfires. In winter up to a million redwings pour into our islands, most of them from Scandinavia and Iceland.


MON 06:00 Today (m001slk3)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.


MON 09:00 Start the Week (m001slk7)
Monet and machine vision

The Impressionist painter Claude Monet wrote that he was driven ‘wild with the need to put down what I experience’. In his long career he revolutionised painting and made some of the most iconic images of western art. The art critic Jackie Wullschläger’s biography of Monet looks at the man behind the famous artist.

Monet’s late series of paintings of water lilies became less and less concerned with a conventional depiction of nature. The artist Mat Collishaw’s latest works also draw on evocative imagery from the natural world, including use of AI technology. At an exhibition at Kew Gardens (until April 2024) Collishaw takes inspiration from 17th century still life paintings of flowers, but on closer inspection the viewer sees the flowers morph into layers of insects.

Humans have always used technology to expand our limited vision, from the stone mirror 8,000 years ago to facial recognition and surveillance software today. Jill Walker Rettberg is Professor of Digital Culture at the University of Bergen. In her book, Machine Vision, she looks at the implications of the latest technologies, and how they are changing the way we see the world.

Producer: Katy Hickman


MON 09:45 The Race to the Future: The Adventure that Accelerated the Twentieth Century by Kassia St Clair (m001slvd)
Episode 1

Ostensibly about the world’s first car race, but really about the world at this decisive turning point at the beginning of the 20th century, this amazing tale is packed with fascinating characters while charting pan-continental technological progress.
 
More than its many adventures, the Peking to Paris race provided the impetus for profound change. The world of 1907 is poised between the old and the new: communist regimes will replace imperial ones in China and Russia; the telegraph is transforming modern communication and the car will soon displace the horse.

Author Kassia St Clair traces the fascinating stories of two interlocking races - setting the derring-do (and sometimes cheating) of one of the world's first car races against the backdrop of a larger geopolitical and technological rush to the future, as the rivalry grows between countries and empires, building up to the cataclysmic event that changed everything - the First World War.

Written by Kassia St Clair
Abridged by Polly Coles
Read by Adjoa Andoh

Produced by Clive Brill
A Brill production for BBC Radio 4


MON 10:00 Woman's Hour (m001slkq)
Angela Rippon, Jamie Bernstein on Maestro, Scorchio! The history of The Weather Girl

After being the latest celebrity contestant to be voted off Strictly Come Dancing at Blackpool’s Tower Ballroom, Angela Rippon tells Emma Barnett about forming a lifelong friendship with her 28-year-old dance partner Kai Waddington. At 79, she was the oldest competitor in the series and has wowed the judges and the audience with her flexible dance moves.
Sam Fraser started working as a standby weather presenter for BBC South in 2012. When a fan club for her bottom surfaced online and she became a topic on the YouTube channel, Babes of Britain, she soon realised her public reception was not on par with her male counterparts. She turned to stand-up comedy as an outlet – and compiled the experiences of women in her job to produce an Edinburgh Fringe Show, as well as Scorchio! The Story of the Weather Girl, which is on BBC Radio 4 this week.
Yvette Greenway-Mansfield won a record settlement of at least £1 million from the NHS in September after her vaginal mesh implant following a hysterectomy caused traumatic complications. We hear her story and about her ongoing campaign on behalf of other sufferers.
The legendary composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein’s eldest daughter Jamie talks to Emma about her father and the new film about his life, Maestro, which is released this week.
And Noam Sagi talks about waiting for news of his mother currently being held hostage in the Israeli-Gaza war.

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


MON 11:00 Fed with Chris van Tulleken (m001sll0)
Series 1: Planet Chicken

4. The Ethical Consumer's Dilemma

We’ve heard about the potential problems around chicken welfare. But how does that square with their impact on the environment?

Dr Chris van Tulleken finds out what it takes to produce the most eco-friendly chicken meat possible. And makes a devastating discovery. Welfare concerns, and environmental credentials, often pull in OPPOSITE directions. Does he want to eat the happiest birds, or the ones kindest to the planet?

Halfway through his poultry quest, Chris remains massively conflicted: he loves chicken, but some of what he’s discovered makes him question how much he eats it. Will he still be able to look at it the same way as he goes deeper down the rabbit hole? And more importantly, should he keep serving it up to the family?

Produced by Emily Knight and Lucy Taylor.


MON 11:30 The Bottom Line (m001sdys)
Meetings

On the agenda for the final programme of the current series is meetings. Virtual or in person, it's difficult to avoid a work meeting. So how do you ensure a good meeting? What should their purpose be, how many people should attend, who should speak and when? Evan Davis and guests discuss.

GUESTS

Dave Brittain, Business Development Director, Amazon Fashion Europe

Phil Jones, MD Brother UK

Dr. Sarah Woolley, Senior Research Fellow, Warwick Business School

CLIPS

Series 3 Episode 3 W1A

Writer: John Morton

Rob Mayhew
Brother Meeting Manifesto
Writer: Rob Mayhew

PRODUCTION TEAM

Producer: Julie Ball
Editor: China Collins
Sound: Rod Farquhar and James Beard
Production Co-ordinator: Gemma Ashman


MON 12:00 News Summary (m001sm7p)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


MON 12:04 You and Yours (m001sllh)
Full Fibre Broadband, Standing Charges and Stolen Houses

Telecoms regulator, Ofcom says just over half of us can now enjoy full fibre broadband. But some BT customers who've been told they can get it have been left in tears without a basic phone service. We find out why and what you can do before you sign a contract.

No matter how many things you switch off or how much you turn down the thermostat, there's a part of your energy bill that never comes down – the standing charges. Martin Lewis says they've ballooned by 60% since 2021. Now, Ofgem is starting a consultation on their future and whether they should be binned for good. We get up to speed with you everything you need to know.

Finally, our investigation in to stolen houses takes a very unexpected turn. It’s one of our stories that's gripped millions of readers online. Shari Vahl returns to the studio with an exclusive and jaw dropping update you won't want to miss.

Presenter: Winifred Robinson
Producer: Julian Paszkiewicz


MON 12:57 Weather (m001sllw)
The latest weather forecast


MON 13:00 World at One (m001slm5)
Forty-five minutes of news, analysis and comment.


MON 13:45 Legacy of War (m000kw3r)
Episode 6

Stella Collis was born in London in 1947 but it wasn’t until 2009 that Stella learnt the full details about her father, Gottfried Rabe. Gottfried was a German prisoner of war who at the end of the war was interned at Wormwood Scrubs. In 1947, despite having fathered a child, he was repatriated back to Germany. Tragically Stella Collis passed away in 2018, however between 2009 and 2017 Stella recorded several interviews as she gained access to German military files and her father’s story began to unfold. These revelations completely transformed Gottfried’s legacy and Stella’s life. Stella’s daughter Juliet Weller helps to tell this remarkable story.

This programme is dedicated in the memory of Stella.

Produced by Kate Bissell


MON 14:00 The Archers (m001sljz)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Sunday]


MON 14:15 Limelight (m001slmj)
Spores

Spores – Episode 1: Growth

A psychological horror story set in rural Wales amid the mysterious world of mycelium.

When social worker Cassie discovers mould in the flat of a vulnerable service user she puts it down to poor quality housing. But then she discovers it in her own house and begins to fear for the safety of her family.

For partner Morgan and young son Bryn, it’s not the mould that troubles them but Cassie’s mental health. As the fungus continues to grow and spread, Cassie resorts to more extreme measures to combat it. But why will no one listen to her when she warns of danger? The appearance of a mysterious Polish girl adds fuel to the friction within the family.

In Greek mythology, Cassandra was condemned to speak the truth yet never be believed. A story of trust and what happens when we lose it. And of a hidden threat attacking the very thing that makes us powerful.

Written and created by Marietta Kirkbride

Cassie …… Kate O’Flynn
Interviewer ….. Laurel Lefkow
Morgan ..... Owain Gwynn
Joyce ….. Kezrena James
Bryn …… Macsen Ovens
Huw …… Richard Corgan
Ola …… Aggy K. Adams

Other voices played by the cast

Production Manager: Anna de Wolff Evans
Production Assistant: Teresa Milewski
Executive Producer: Sara Davies

Title Music: Ioana Selaru & Melo-Zed
Sound Design: Jon Nicholls

Directed and Produced by Nicolas Jackson

An Afonica production for BBC Radio 4


MON 14:45 Taking Issue with Shakespeare (m001l23q)
Episode 1

Major public figures in conversation with Professor Emma Smith explore whether Shakespeare might help us resolve some challenging contemporary issues.

Across the week, Emma talks with Michael Gove on the “levelling up” agenda and King Lear, Will Self on toxic masculinity and Hamlet, Fiona Shaw on post-Covid decisions to move from city to countryside and As You Like It, and Mercy Muroki on whether the monarchy can unite the nation and Richard II.

In this opening episode she discusses the national and international challenges of populism with senior British statesman, Gordon Brown, and Chair of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Baroness Shriti Vadera.

Shakespeare anniversaries can seem to come thick and fast. 2014 saw the 450th anniversary of his birth and 2016 the 400th anniversary of his death, but this major series marks the most significant anniversary of all. In 1623, the first collected edition of Shakespeare’s plays was published – the so-called First Folio. Without the First Folio, many of the biggest plays – Macbeth, Julius Caesar, Twelfth Night, The Tempest – would probably have been lost forever. More importantly, without the First Folio, we wouldn’t have that cast of characters, scenarios and quotations which reverberate across time and inform our thinking.

Emma Smith is Professor of Shakespeare Studies at the University of Oxford and author of This Is Shakespeare. She brings to bear her deep knowledge of Shakespeare’s plays and of the era in which he wrote them – an era sometimes similar to our own and sometime very different – and her passionate interest in contemporary issues. Can Shakespeare help us grapple with these?

With contributions from Professor Paul Prescott

Producer: Beaty Rubens
A Just Radio production for BBC Radio 4


MON 15:00 Brain of Britain (m001slmx)
Semi-Final 3, 2023

(15/17)
Another four contenders take a step closer to being named the 70th BBC Brain of Britain, as Russell Davies chairs the third semi-final at the Radio Theatre in London. To win through to the Final they'll have to know about Broadway musicals and medieval poetry, British wildlife and professional darts, the structure of the brain and the history of radio comedy. Not much to get your head around...

Taking part are:
Eleanor Ayres from Cambridge
Sue Brearley from South London
Jason Butler from Sittingbourne in Kent
John Esling from Suffolk.

A listener also stands to win a prize by suggesting questions that might outwit the panel's collective brainpower, in 'Beat the Brains'.

Assistant Producer: Stephen Garner

Producer: Paul Bajoria


MON 15:30 The Food Programme (m001slj7)
[Repeat of broadcast at 12:32 on Sunday]


MON 16:00 The Infinite Monkey Cage (m001slfs)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:15 on Saturday]


MON 16:30 Across the Divide (m001slnq)
Gaza and Southern Israel

Families from the many sides of the Gaza/Israeli dispute share and reflect on their own personal histories and day-to-day existence.


MON 17:00 PM (m001slp8)
Afternoon news and current affairs programme, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines


MON 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m001slq8)
Sir Patrick Vallance said he saw the scheme would lead to increased Covid transmission


MON 18:30 I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue (m001slqp)
Series 80

Episode 2

This series of Radio 4's multi award-winning ‘antidote to panel games’ promises more homespun wireless entertainment for the young at heart.

This week the programme pays a return visit to the Pavilion Theatre in Bournemouth where Marcus Brigstocke and Rachel Parris are pitched against Tony Hawks and Miles Jupp, with Jack Dee in the chair. At the piano - Colin Sell.

Producer - Jon Naismith

It is a BBC Studios production for Radio 4.


MON 19:00 The Archers (m001slr4)
It’s Brian’s eightieth birthday and he’s been thrown out of Blossom Hill while Adam, Ian, Kate, Jakob and Alice prepare a party for him.
Despite Adam’s reservations about pushing Brian into having a party Tom thinks Brian will love it. Tom then passes on the news about Rob’s death and Helen’s confused reaction. Jakob mentions a mystery guest Brian’s invited, Natalia. There’s much speculation, particularly from Kate, about her being Brian’s new girlfriend. But Brian confesses to Stella how much he misses Jennifer on a day like this, and does the same later with Adam. He could never have imagined losing her so soon, admitting that he misses her every day.

Later, the party’s already in full swing, with meat evangelist Freddie as DJ, when Josh and Paul turn up. They have a present for Brian: a fancy, initialled pen-knife. Josh then joshes Paul about avoiding Ruairi, while dissing Paul’s current boyfriend, before they both add to the speculation about who exactly Natalia is. Adam’s surprised when Helen turns up. She tells him she needs the distraction from thinking about Rob, before Jakob consoles Helen in his own, inimitable blunt manner. Brian admits to Adam that he’s enjoying himself, while Natalia turns out to be a great dancer, leading Brian on the dance floor. Neither Adam nor Stella think Brian has any designs on Natalia, which Adam reiterates to Josh and Paul later. Then, when a cake with candles is produced, Brian makes a very moving speech about his beloved Jenny, before the dancing resumes.


MON 19:15 Front Row (m001slrl)
The Alehouse Boys, Sarah Bernstein and AS Byatt

Thomas Guthrie and “The Alehouse Boys” bring the music of Schubert to pubs with their new album Schubert's Die schöne Müllerin. Their arrangements of Schubert’s song cycle intend to break free from the formality of established lieder recitals, returning to its original improvisational form.

In the last of our Booker shortlist series this week, Samira interviews Canadian 2023 Giller Prize-winning novelist Sarah Bernstein. Her second novel, Study for Obedience, explores the inner thoughts of its unnamed protagonist who moves to a new area to stay with her brother and quickly becomes a feared stranger.

And the critic Boyd Tonkin discusses the remarkable literary output of the author, critic and poet AS Byatt who has died aged 87.


MON 20:00 Fairy Meadow (m001sls0)
Bonus Episode: A New Lead

Jon Kay updates his investigation into the disappearance of 3 year old Cheryl Grimmer from an Australian beach in 1970. Cheryl's family are determined to get her case back into court.

Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Chris Ledgard


MON 20:30 Analysis (m001slsl)
What's the future of nudge?

The term nudge has become a byword for the application of behavioural science in public policy, changing how governments the world over create policies designed to encourage, or nudge, people to make choices that better benefit themselves and society as a whole.

Over the last fifteen years much has been learned about what works, as well as what doesn’t, when it comes to this way of supporting us in making decisions about our health, our money and how we lead our lives.

Magda Osman is Principal Research Associate at the Cambridge Judge Business School, The University of Cambridge, and Visiting Professor at Leeds University Business School. Through her work she has examined the problems, and the opportunities, with this way of creating policy. She talks to those working in the field of behavioural change and examines what has been discovered over the last fifteen years, what concerns remain around this way of doing things and what the future is for the behavioural change methods known as nudge.

Presenter: Professor Magda Osman
Producer: Steven Hobson
Editor: Clare Fordham

Contributors:
Dr Michael Hallsworth, Managing Director, Behavioural Insights Team Americas
Colin Strong, Head of Behavioural Science, Ipsos and Professor of Consumer and Behavioural Psychology, Nottingham University Business School
Rory Sutherland, Vice Chairman, Ogilvy
Laura Dodsworth, author and journalist
Professor Neil Levy, Senior Research Fellow, Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, University of Oxford
Katy Milkman, James G. Dinan Professor, The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania


MON 21:00 The Reinvention of Italy (m001sd1h)
Anne McElvoy goes on the road in Italy in the latest in her series exploring the convulsions of political and cultural change sweeping through Europe’s great nations. The election last September of the right wing populist Giorgia Meloni shocked the political establishment. Her declared mission: to restore and defend Italy’s national identity. But what does it mean to be an Italian today?

We visit Padua in the North Eastern region of Veneto - a city steeped in ancient culture, boasting the oldest university in Europe and the exquisite frescos of the Scrovegni Chapel. It's also at the heart of Italy's more prosperous North - the engine of the country's economy which draws in migrants from inside and outside Italy. A good place to explore the tensions between the old ways and the new which are rumbling through Italian life in the wake of Meloni's election.

Touring the city and its regions, we ask Italians from all walks of life - migrant workers, a female-led design and manufacturing business, a demographer and other experts on Italy's political and social culture. How do they see themselves in 2023 and what are the challenges of the future?

Why is a country built on the bedrock of the family facing a decline in the birth rate so severe it threatens to wreck the economy? Why is a country whose citizens have emigrated around the world throughout history so uneasy about inward migration? Could a new political era also signal a revival of an Italian economic miracle?

Producer: Leala Padmanabhan


MON 21:30 Start the Week (m001slk7)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]


MON 22:00 The World Tonight (m001slt7)
Covid Inquiry: Boris Johnson was 'bamboozled' by scientific data

The UK's former chief scientific advisor Sir Patrick Vallance has told the Covid Inquiry how the then Prime Minister Boris Johnson struggled to fully understand scientific data during the pandemic. We speak to one of the scientists that sat on the government's advisory committee. Also on the programme - with reports tonight that a deal to free some of the hostages held by Hamas could be imminent - we hear from one of their relatives. And can Argentina's new president Javier Milei keep his promise to turn around the economy?

(Image Credit: Former chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance giving evidence at Dorland House in London, during its second investigation exploring core UK decision-making and political governance. Issue date: Monday November 20, 2023. PA Photo).


MON 22:45 Brother of the More Famous Jack by Barbara Trapido (m001sltk)
Episode 6

Brother of the More Famous Jack is Barbara Trapido’s first novel. Published in 1982, it soon acquired countless fans as well as winning prizes and, in more recent years, admirers including :

'The perfect book' - Meg Mason

'The best possible company in this difficult world' - Ann Patchett

'A daisy bomb of joy' - Maria Semple

'Funny, charming, teeming with life, and real' - Nick Hornby

'I adored it . Redolent of classics like The Constant Nymph with both its true voice and wonderfully sage and sanguine heroine' - Sophie Dahl

'Reading it again is as comforting as eating toast and Marmite between clean, fresh sheets' - Rachel Cooke, Sunday Times

Eighteen-year-old Katherine - bright, stylish, frustratedly suburban - doesn't know how her life will change when the brilliant Jacob Goldman first offers her a place at university. When she enters the Goldmans' rambling bohemian home, presided over by the beatific matriarch Jane, she realises that Jacob and his family are everything she has been waiting for.

Sally Phillips, much loved star of Clare in the Community, returns to BBC Radio 4 with this delightful comic tale of the joys and anguish of young love.

Abridged by Mark Kilfoyle and Jill Waters
Produced by Jill Waters
Read by Sally Phillips
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4


MON 23:00 Lights Out (m001sltt)
Series 6

Dust

"I noticed that language seems to fail us. How do you write about the foundations of our existence? That is how mythology enters very naturally into the story, because history is about ideas, religions, empires, wars and culture. Mythology is about the fundaments. Sun, moon, wind, oceans, great floods and tragic gods... We are living in mythological times, where we are shaking the fundaments." - Andri Snær Magnason

Drawing on ideas in his book, On Time and Water, the Icelandic writer Andri Snær Magnason and the Scottish artist Katie Paterson explore how our imagination can help us hold the moment we live in. From handfuls of dust to watching geological time mark the landscape, this documentary flows from the night skies into the deepest known point in our oceans.

Archive recording from Raddir - Voices: Recordings of Folk Songs courtesy of the Árni Magnússon Institute
'Vatnajökull (the sound of)' recording courtesy of Katie Paterson

Recording of the journey to Okjökull by Guðni Tómasson
Music composed and performed by Phil Smith and Zac Gvi

Produced by Eleanor McDowall
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4


MON 23:30 Today in Parliament (m001slv0)
News, views and features on today's stories in Parliament

TUESDAY 21 NOVEMBER 2023

TUE 00:00 Midnight News (m001slv6)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.


TUE 00:30 The Race to the Future: The Adventure that Accelerated the Twentieth Century by Kassia St Clair (m001slvd)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:45 on Monday]


TUE 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m001slvh)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping


TUE 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m001slvm)
World Service

BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.


TUE 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m001slvr)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping


TUE 05:30 News Briefing (m001slvw)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4


TUE 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m001slw0)
A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Francis Davis, Academic and social entrepreneur

Hope in remote places

Good morning.

From Lusaka it takes about 17 hours by car to reach Katibunga. For a day you follow the Great North Road that runs from Zambia’s capital towards Tanzania. Then, at Mpika, a small municipal district the size of Holland, you turn right. Here the road is hard but made of mud. It runs, judderingly, along the foot of the Muchinga escarpment and then, you have arrived at an important place.

Katibunga is an important place because if you live there and a leopard should damage your face it is home to the only clinic for miles around; likewise, if you are in labour and your baby is in breach. In the small river there is a hydro pump that generates electricity for the valley. A mill grinds mealie meal flour and stores this, the local staple diet, for times of scarcity. Large plantations reveal fruit, corn and other crops and there is a school.

At night it literally feels for the visitor that you are in the middle of the proverbial nowhere as silence descends so deep it can almost be touched.

And yet you are actually at the heart of a social, economic and environmental hub organised by followers of St Benedict. These young African monks have, working with villagers, established all these enterprises for mutual benefit. And at the heart of this contemporary social innovation the monastic community also keeps a cycle of prayer, silence, chant and hospitality as old as the ages.

God of ages past and present. Bless those places and people who, even when we feel at our most remote-at our lowest ebb – create the conditions of hope that will revive us.

Amen


TUE 05:45 Farming Today (m001slw4)
21/11/23 - Naked Clams, a regenerative field trial and a new Welsh National Park

The shipworm is a bi-valve mollusc - like an oyster or a mussel - which is known as a marine pest because it eats through sea-water submersed wood. Now, scientists at Cambridge and Plymouth Universities have developed a system for farming them, in a highly controlled environment using waste wood for feed. To make them a more appealing meal, they're re-branding the shipworm as a Naked Clam!

Rothamsted Research is renowned for its Broad Baulk field crop experiment which is celebrating its 180th anniversary this year. Now, a new long term field trial is being developed, looking at Regenerative Farming. There is no agreed definition, but generally speaking regenerative agriculture focuses on improving soil health by reducing or removing cultivation, growing cover crops and using fewer chemical inputs. It can also involve re-integrating livestock into an arable system.

And the Welsh government has commissioned Natural Resources Wales to evaluate the case for a fourth national park, in the North East. Three Parks already exist - Eryri, The Pembrokeshire Coast, and Bannau Brycheiniog. We hear from people living and working in the proposed new park area about what it could mean for them.

Presented by Anna Hill
Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol


TUE 05:58 Tweet of the Day (b02ty530)
Lesser Black-backed Gull

Tweet of the Day is a series of fascinating stories about our British birds inspired by their calls and songs. Steve Backshall presents the lesser black-backed gull.

These smart gulls are charcoal grey on top and white beneath. Like herring gulls, their close relatives LBBs have moved into urban areas and now breed on flat roofs in the centre of cities. It seems almost any flat surface will do. In just three hours, one bird in Gloucester built a nest on a car roof and laid an egg in.


TUE 06:00 Today (m001sm7r)
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.


TUE 09:00 The Life Scientific (m001sm7t)
Sir Michael Berry on phenomena in physics' borderlands

Professor Jim Al-Khalili meets one of Britain's greatest physicists, Sir Michael Berry. His work uncovers 'the arcane in the mundane', revealing the science that underpins phenomena in the world around us such as rainbows, and through his popular science lectures he joyfully explains the role of quantum mechanics in phones, computers and the technology that shapes the modern world. He is famed for the 'Berry phase' which is a key concept in quantum mechanics and one Sir Michael likes to explain through an analogy of holding a cat upside and dropping it, or parallel parking a car.

Presenter: Jim Al-Khalili
Studio Producer: Tom Bonnett
Audio Editor: Gerry Holt


TUE 09:30 One to One (m001sm7w)
Nathan Filer talks to Sara Pascoe

Nathan Filer wants to know how to talk to his children about pornography, and in a frank discussion, consults Sara Pascoe, who has written about porn in her book 'Sex Power Money'.

Produced in Bristol by Sally Heaven


TUE 09:45 The Race to the Future: The Adventure that Accelerated the Twentieth Century by Kassia St Clair (m001sm7y)
Episode 2

Ostensibly about the world’s first car race, but really about the world at this decisive turning point at the beginning of the 20th century, this amazing tale is packed with fascinating characters while charting pan-continental technological progress.
 
More than its many adventures, the Peking to Paris race provided the impetus for profound change. The world of 1907 is poised between the old and the new: communist regimes will replace imperial ones in China and Russia; the telegraph is transforming modern communication and the car will soon displace the horse.

Author Kassia St Clair traces the fascinating stories of two interlocking races - setting the derring-do (and sometimes cheating) of one of the world's first car races against the backdrop of a larger geopolitical and technological rush to the future, as the rivalry grows between countries and empires, building up to the cataclysmic event that changed everything - the First World War.

Written by Kassia St Clair
Abridged by Polly Coles
Read by Adjoa Andoh

Produced by Clive Brill
A Brill production for BBC Radio 4


TUE 10:00 Woman's Hour (m001sm80)
Carry On women, Unexpected news at baby scans

Barbara Windsor, Hattie Jacques and Joan Sims were some of the iconic women who starred in the Carry On films from the late 1950s onwards. From Carry on Camping to Carry on Up the Khyber, the humour relied largely on innuendo, double entendre and slapstick comedy, with the women viewed as objects for male desire. But were they really sexist? Emma Barnett speaks to Gemma Ross, co-author of The Carry On Girls, who argues it was the women who came out on top and were more sexually confident than the men, as well as actor Anita Harris who was in Carry On Doctor.

The experiences of staff in the NHS are the subject of a report out today which has found that female NHS workers face an ‘embedded culture of misogyny.’
The campaign group Surviving in Scrubs has gathered testimony of 150 staff members through their website that launched last year and finds "systemic and institutional sexual violence" with experiences ranging from sexism to rape in the workplace. Emma is joined by Dr Chelcie Jewitt, a specialist trainee in emergency medicine at Merseyside hospitals and co-founder of Surviving in Scrubs, and Professor Dame Jane Dacre, former President of the Royal College of Physicians.

The podcast series Intrigue - Million Dollar Lover looks at love in later life and the question of inheritance when someone with adult children finds a new partner. Sue Mitchell follows the unlikely love story of Carolyn, who is 80 and has properties worth a few million dollars, and Dave, 57, a former drug addict who is homeless and has spent a decade in jail. Sue joins Emma ahead of the series release on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds.

Coaching for sonographers, the professionals carrying out the scans, on how to deliver unexpected and potentially devastating pregnancy news has been successfully tested in new research from the University of Leeds. We hear from the lead researcher, Dr Judith Johnson, and also from Karen, who says she was left with PTSD after receiving unexpected news about the health of her baby during a scan.


TUE 11:00 Seven Deadly Psychologies (m001sm82)
Pride

Becky Ripley and Sophie Ward take a cold hard look at the psychology behind each of the seven deadly sins. Rolling with the order established by Pope Gregory the Great, first up is pride, followed by greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and (finally) lazy old sloth. Why have we evolved these ugly emotions? What’s going on in the brain and the body when we feel them? And how best can we live alongside them - in ourselves and with others?

Pride - also known as the "original sin" - is now a bit of a double-edged word. The good side is motivating and self-affirming: to be proud of your work, your kids, or your identity. But then there’s the ugly side of pride: thinking you’re better than others. Arrogance, narcissism, an inflated sense of superiority. How can we have one without the other? Confidence without arrogance? Self-worth without self-aggrandisement?

To guide us through this mess is evolutionary anthropologist Dr Anna Machin from the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Oxford, neuroscientist and clinical psychologist Professor Ian Robertson from the Department of Psychology at Trinity College Dublin, self-aware narcissist and motivational speaker Lee Hammock, Professor Jessica Tracy from the Department of Psychology at the University of British Columbia, and a parade of people at a Pride march.

Producer: Becky Ripley


TUE 11:30 Moving Pictures (m001sm85)
Winter Scene on a Canal by Hendrik Avercamp

Cathy FitzGerald invites you to discover new details in old masterpieces. Each episode of Moving Pictures is devoted to a single artwork – and you’re invited to look as well as listen, by following a link to a high-resolution image made by Google Arts & Culture. Zoom in and you can see the pores of the canvas, the sweep of individual brushstrokes, the shimmer of pointillist dots.

We’re out on the ice this episode - a frozen river in the Dutch Republic in the early 17th century. Avercamp gives us a people-watching delight, filling his scene with tiny figures, each with a story of their own. Sledding, shopping, a quick round of colf: it’s an encyclopaedia of Dutch winter fun.

To see the high-resolution image of the painting made by Google Arts & Culture, visit www.bbc.co.uk/movingpictures. Scroll down and follow the link to explore Winter Scene on a Canal.

Interviewees: Pieter Roelofs, Bianca du Mortier, Betsy Wieseman, Jonathan Bikker, Rosamund Oates and Leah Kharibian.

Producer and presenter: Cathy FitzGerald

Executive producer: Sarah Cuddon
Mix engineer: Mike Woolley
Art history consultant: Leah Kharibian
Sensitivity consultant: Jessamy Carlson

A White Stiletto production for BBC Radio 4.

Picture credit: Hendrik Avercamp (Dutch, 1585-1634), Winter Scene on a Canal, Detail, about 1615, Toledo Museum of Art (Toledo, Ohio), Purchased with funds from the Libbey Endowment, Gift of Edward Drummond Libbey, 1951.402


TUE 12:00 News Summary (m001sm87)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.


TUE 12:04 You and Yours (m001sm89)
Call You and Yours: Black Friday

In this week's Call You and Yours we're talking about Black Friday sales. Its hard to avoid Black Friday these days with the endless ads and promotions from retailers. But while the noise around the event grows ever louder do people still believe it will guarantee them a bargain? Some analysts predict sales will be down this year while others say spending per head is expected to be higher. There are warnings that many deals don't offer real savings while data suggests, with the cost of living squeeze on finances, people are using the event more than ever to spread the cost of Christmas. Then there's the spike in scams and fake deals. So with so much mixed messaging we want to know, do you really think its worth shopping on Black Friday? What's your experience?

Get in touch. Email us now - you and yours @ bbc.co.uk or call us on Tuesday from 11am on 03700 100 444

PRESENTER: WINIFRED ROBINSON
PRODUCER: CATHERINE EARLAM


TUE 12:57 Weather (m001sm8c)
The latest weather forecast


TUE 13:00 World at One (m001sm8f)
Forty-five minutes of news, analysis and comment.


TUE 13:45 Legacy of War (m000l6mz)
Episode 8

Sean Bean presents a series exploring the ways in which wartime experiences have filtered down through the generations.

A proudly Irish family endorsed Dr Aidan MacCarthy's decision to serve as an RAF medic in World War Two, but his daughters Niki and Adrienne knew nothing of what he had experienced.

Finally, in the 1970s, Dr MacCarthy began to talk about what he had faced. From Dunkirk to the Far East, he had offered medical support to the sick and dying, in battle and as a prisoner of war. His extraordinary legacy was to take Niki on a journey to Nagasaki, Japan, to the site where the second atomic bomb was dropped in 1945.

She was to discover the truth behind a gleaming Japanese ceremonial sword, brought back by Dr MacCarthy and kept in the family home ever since the end of the war.

Producer Mark Rickards


TUE 14:00 The Archers (m001slr4)
[Repeat of broadcast at 19:00 on Monday]


TUE 14:15 Limelight (m001sm8h)
Spores

Spores – Episode 2: Seed

A psychological horror story set in rural Wales amid the mysterious world of mycelium.

When social worker Cassie discovers mould in the flat of a vulnerable service user she puts it down to poor quality housing. But then she discovers it in her own house and begins to fear for the safety of her family.

For partner Morgan and young son Bryn, it’s not the mould that troubles them but Cassie’s mental health. As the fungus continues to grow and spread, Cassie resorts to more extreme measures to combat it. But why will no one listen to her when she warns of danger? An ethereal “sporing event” forces Cassie to make a desperate decision.

In Greek mythology, Cassandra was condemned to speak the truth yet never be believed. A story of trust and what happens when we lose it. And of a hidden threat attacking the very thing that makes us powerful.

Written and created by Marietta Kirkbride

Cassie …… Kate O’Flynn
Morgan…… Owain Gwynn
Interviewer ….. Laurel Lefkow
Bryn …… Macsen Ovens
Joyce ….. Kezrena James
Huw …… Richard Corgan
Hywel ….. Lloyd Meredith

Other voices played by the cast

Production Manager: Anna de Wolff Evans
Production Assistant: Teresa Milewski
Executive Producer: Sara Davies

Title Music: Ioana Selaru & Melo-Zed
Sound Design: Jon Nicholls

Directed and Produced by Nicolas Jackson

An Afonica production for BBC Radio 4


TUE 14:45 Taking Issue with Shakespeare (m001l27b)
Episode 2

Major public figures, in conversation with Professor Emma Smith, explore whether Shakespeare might help us resolve some challenging contemporary issues.

In this second episode, Emma sets out to persuade Will Self that the kind of toxic masculinity expressed by the self-professed misogynist Andrew Tate finds a chilling counterpart in the misogynist play and character, Hamlet.

Initially, Will is not convinced, but a lively discussion ensues in which the two agree on one thing - the profound impact in Shakespeare’s era of non-gendered child-rearing until the age of seven followed by the “breeching” of boys, which separated them from women and children into their adult lives.

With contributions from Professor Paul Prescott

Producer: Beaty Rubens
A Just Radio production for BBC Radio 4


TUE 15:00 The Kitchen Cabinet (m001sldn)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:30 on Saturday]


TUE 15:30 Lady Killers with Lucy Worsley (p0c259c8)
8. Esther Lack

Lucy Worsley investigates the crimes of 19th century women in the UK, North America and beyond from a contemporary, feminist perspective.

Here, Lucy tells the story of the murderess Esther Lack and asks whether she was a cold-blooded child killer, or a loving mother driven to despair by poverty and ill health.

In the early hours of the morning at the 22nd of August 1865 John Lack, a nightwatchman at a warehouse on the south bank of the River Thames, walked the short distance back to his home, three tiny, overcrowded rooms in a squalid alley called Skin Market Place, and discovered a scene of unimaginable horror.

His wife Esther had taken his razor and cut the throats of their three youngest children, Christopher aged ten, Eliza aged six and baby Esther who was just two.

Lucy visits London’s South Bank with historian Rosalind Crone to get a sense of Esther’s life and the desperate circumstances that led her to kill her own children. She had given birth to 12 children over 20 years and six of them, including a set of triplets, died in infancy. Friends and family described her as a decent woman and a loving mother, but she was nearly blind, and was suffering from fits and infections.

To gain a contemporary perspective on the Esther Lack case, Lucy talks to Dr Gwen Adshead, a forensic psychiatrist and psychotherapist who has a particular interest in mothers who harm or kill their children.

Lucy asks what might have been Esther’s state of mind when she committed this horrendous crime. Are mothers who kill their children usually mentally ill? What modern understanding of neonatal mental health can we bring to this case?

And is there a link between poverty and harm to children that remains to this day?

Producer: Jane Greenwood
Readers: Clare Corbett and Jonathan Keeble
Sound Design: Chris Maclean

A StoryHunter production for BBC Radio 4


TUE 16:00 The Bright Side of Life (m001sm8k)
Episode 1

Early in 2023, the sculptor Nicholas Dimbleby fell ‘flat on his face’ on a pavement in central London. Soon afterwards he was diagnosed with Motor Neurone Disease - a progressive condition for which there is no known cure. Confronting the reality of this, Nicholas decided he wanted to share his thoughts and feelings about living with a terminal illness and asked his brother, Jonathan to record these, joking “I shall have to be called Dwindleby now”.

Over the following six months, the brothers sat and talked at Nicholas’s kitchen table in Devon. They recorded their conversations to the sound of a ticking clock and occasional interventions from the family kitten. Nicholas describes how he shared the news with the family; the strange feeling of knowing your ‘sell by date’; and yet the benefits of being able to say ‘goodbye’ properly. He also speaks about his urge to have some control over the manner and timing of his own death, feeling himself to be almost a ‘ghost person’, semi-removed from the world.

He talks to Jonathan about his vision of heaven – in which he has no belief - but imagines it would be crowded with interesting people like his beloved Bach, Handel and Shakespeare. ‘I’d be in good company!’ he says. He also explores the thought that the real afterlife is the legacy you leave for others - in his case, the feelings that have inspired his work as an artist.

In this first episode, the disease progresses rapidly. Nicholas – who a few months earlier was carrying heavy sacks of clay around his studio – begins to use a Zimmer frame and comes to rely on a stairlift. More critically, as Motor Neurone Disease attacks the muscles in his tongue, throat, jaw and lips, drinking, eating and swallowing becomes progressively harder. The risk of choking to death or starving becomes a matter of intense concern. The crisis comes to a head and Nicholas accepts that he needs a feeding tube – a prospect that he had rejected outright when he was first diagnosed. He likens this decision to becoming a foetus again but accepts it because he does not allow himself to ‘shrivel’ away to nothing like a piece of "chewed up chicken”. However, he wants the right to ‘choose when to cut the cord this time'. More practically, the operation will give him time to tidy his studio and put his financial affairs in order.

Presented by Nicholas and Jonathan Dimbleby, with thanks to the family.

Produced by Catherine Carr and Jo Rowntree

A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4

Details of help and support with MND are available at bbc.co.uk/actionline


TUE 16:30 A Good Read (m001sm8n)
Janet Ellis and Jason Arday

Janet Ellis and Jason Arday join presenter Harriet Gilbert to discuss The Cut Out Girl by Bart van Es; Rise, the memoir of South African rugby player Siya Kolisi and Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann.

Three readers choose favourite books and discuss themes of war, rugby and tightrope walking.

Writer and former Blue Peter presenter Janet Ellis chooses The Cut Out Girl by Bart van Es, the true story of a Dutch Jewish girl during the Second World War. Cambridge's youngest black professor Jason Arday champions Rise, the memoir of South African rugby player Siya Kolisi who went from a tough start in a township to the very top of his game. Harriett's choice, Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann, tells the story of a tightrope walk between the twin towers and the lives unfolding on the ground below.

Producer Sally Heaven, BBC Audio Bristol


TUE 17:00 PM (m001sm8q)
Afternoon news and current affairs programme, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines


TUE 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m001sm8s)
Benjamin Netanyahu is meeting his War Cabinet to talk through the agreement with Hamas


TUE 18:30 Best Medicine (m001sm8v)
Series 1

7. Failure, Detection, Herpes, Climate Change

Joining Kiri this week are Dr Lindsey Fitzharris who brings with her a Victorian clockwork surgical saw to demonstrate why failure can sometimes be the best medicine, while Professor Kevin Harrington explains how he uses molecular scissors to modify the herpes virus to attack cancer cells. We also hear from his patient Nigel who went from palliative care to cancer-free. Dr Aravinthan Varatharaj talks about playing detective when diagnosing neurological diseases, and comedian Dr Matt Winning says doing something about climate change is the best medicine.

Best Medicine is your weekly dose of laughter, hope and incredible medicine. Award-winning comedian Kiri Pritchard-McLean is joined by funny and fascinating comedians, doctors, scientists and historians to celebrate medicine’s inspiring past, present and future.

Each week, Kiri challenges her guests to make a case for what they think is 'the best medicine', and each of them champions anything from world-changing science to an obscure invention, an everyday treatment, an uplifting worldview, an unsung hero or a futuristic cure.

Whether it’s micro-robotic surgery, virtual reality syringes, Victorian clockwork surgical saws, more than a few ingenious cures for cancer, world-first lifesaving heart operations, epidurals, therapy, dancing, faith or laughter - it’s always something worth celebrating.

Hosted by Kiri Pritchard-McLean

Featuring: Dr Lindsey Fitzharris, Professor Kevin Harrington, Dr Aravinthan Varatharaj, and Dr Matt Winning

Written by Laura Claxton, Toussaint Douglass, Edward Easton, Kiri Pritchard-McLean and Ben Rowse

Producer: Ben Worsfield

Assistant Producer: Tashi Radha

Executive Producer: Simon Nicholls

Theme tune composed by Andrew Jones

A Large Time production for BBC Radio 4


TUE 19:00 The Archers (m001slt8)
Miles turns up at Bridge Farm without warning and persuades Helen to go for a walk. He apologises for not being there when Helen visited Rob last week, grateful she stayed as long as she did, before admitting he now believes what she said in Court about her relationship with Rob. Nevertheless, Miles also talks about how protective Rob was towards him when they were children, and how difficult their upbringing was. Miles goes on to say he was with Rob when he died, remarking on how Rob looked more serene in death than he ever did in life. He tells Helen about Rob’s last wish, that she should have his wedding ring to keep. Helen is appalled by the idea, before taking the ring and throwing it as far away as she can.

Denise teases Paul about his hangover, after Brian’s party last night. Brian was still going strong when Paul left at 2.00 am. Josh is equally hungover, but he’s managed to blag a day off work to recover. Josh brings up the subject of Ruairi with Paul, who admits he didn’t want to end up in a drunken snog last night, then reaffirms his commitment to his current boyfriend. Josh queries how much longer Denise is going to stay with them at the Stables and Paul promises to talk to her. When Denise comes back in though they talk instead about Paul’s rather dull relationship with reliable Etienne. Denise knows Paul fancies Ruairi and suggests he should follow his heart rather than settle for second best.


TUE 19:15 Front Row (m001sm8x)
Ridley Scott's Napoleon, Albert Hall tickets resales, Bob Mortimer's winning comedy fiction

Tom Sutcliffe talks to director Ridley Scott about his new film Napoleon - a subject that takes him back to an actor who’s played an emperor for him before – Joaquin Phoenix was Commodus in Gladiator – and back to the period in which his very first film. The Duellists was set.

A fifth of the seats at the Royal Albert Hall are owned by just over 300 people - who can choose to enjoy performances or sell the tickets on at a profit. We hear from Richard Lyttelton, a former President of the Royal Albert Hall who believes that making money out of the seats doesn't really align with the original vision of the venue.

A Gloucester Old Spot pig has been named The Satsuma Complex - in honour of comedian Bob Mortimer's first book, which has won this year's Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse prize for the best comic novel. He's joined by fellow comedian and member of the judging panel Pippa Evans to explore what makes fiction funny.


TUE 20:00 File on 4 (m001sm8z)
Lost in Translation

When people who don't speak English, including refugees arriving in the UK after fleeing war, they are entitled to receive the support of interpreters when dealing with public sector organisations.
The service provides a lifeline for some of society's most vulnerable people to help them navigate places like hospitals, social services and courts.
But reporter Matthew Hill hears allegations the service is seriously failing those who need it most - with tragic consequences.
Data obtained exclusively by File on 4 has revealed over the past five years at least 80 babies have died or suffered serious brain injuries in NHS maternity units in England, where interpreting and communication problems due to language difficulties, were a contributing factor.
The programme also hears from an alleged victim of serious sexual abuse who says she was unable to give police an accurate account of her ordeal because the interpreter was so poor.
Campaigners claim huge disparities in the levels of qualifications required in public service organisations and poor rates of pay have caused an exodus of qualified interpreters, which they claim is putting some of society's most vulnerable people at risk of harm.

Reporter: Matthew Hill
Producers: Ben Robinson and Surya Elango
Editor: Carl Johnston


TUE 20:40 In Touch (m001sm91)
AbilityNet Tech Conference; Love on the Run

AbilityNet TechShare Pro was a technology conference that happened last week, hosted by HSBC and organised by the charity AbilityNet. AbilityNet's ambition is to get more disabled people involved with technology. The conference brought together some of the biggest names within the tech industry to discuss recent developments and what can be expected in the future, including artificial intelligence and legislation.

Kelly Barton and Mike Leatherbarrow were once strangers but they met and fell in love whilst running. Kelly is visually impaired and Mike is Kelly's sighted guide runner. They recently got married and they tell us how their love blossomed over the miles.

Presenter: Peter White
Producer: Beth Hemmings
Production Coordinator: Liz Poole
Website image description: Peter White sits smiling in the centre of the image, wearing a dark green jumper. Above Peter's head is the BBC logo (three individual white squares house each of the three letters). Bottom centre and overlaying the image are the words "In Touch" and the Radio 4 logo (the word Radio in a bold white font, with the number 4 inside a white circle). The background is a bright mid-blue with two rectangles angled diagonally to the right. Both are behind Peter, one of a darker blue and the other is a lighter blue.


TUE 21:00 All in the Mind (m001sltz)
Belief in conspiracy theories, exercising before work, and living with OCD

It’s not hard to find headlines about conspiracy theories these days, and on social media, they appear everywhere. It would be easy to think that more people are falling victim to conspiracies than ever before, but is there any evidence that this is the case? Claudia Hammond talks to Joe Uscinski, professor of political science at the University of Miami, whose work polling the public on their belief in conspiracy theories has revealed some surprising findings.

The term ‘OCD’ is often thrown around without any knowledge of what it really means to live with obsessive compulsive disorder: a condition that, for some, can be debilitating and disabling. Meg, who has lived with OCD for over 30 years, tells Claudia how her OCD affects all aspects of her life, how the pandemic worsened the condition, and who in her life helps her manage the symptoms.

And Claudia is joined in the studio by Daryl O’Connor, professor of psychology at the University of Leeds. Daryl takes us through some of the latest findings in neuroscience and psychology, including the best interventions to change cortisol levels, the benefits of exercising before work, and the association between private renting and biological ageing.

Presenter: Claudia Hammond
Producer: Sophie Ormiston
Studio Manager: Jackie Margerum
Production Coordinator: Siobhan Maguire
Editor: Holly Squire


TUE 21:30 The Life Scientific (m001sm7t)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]


TUE 22:00 The World Tonight (m001sm93)
Israel's cabinet votes on hostage deal and pause in fighting

Will the board of OpenAI rehire the CEO they sacked?

Why a Supreme Court verdict on Deliveroo riders is a landmark ruling for the gig economy


TUE 22:45 Brother of the More Famous Jack by Barbara Trapido (m001sm95)
Episode 7

Brother of the More Famous Jack is Barbara Trapido’s first novel. Published in 1982, it soon acquired countless fans as well as winning prizes and, in more recent years, admirers including :

'The perfect book' - Meg Mason

'The best possible company in this difficult world' - Ann Patchett

'A daisy bomb of joy' - Maria Semple

'Funny, charming, teeming with life, and real' - Nick Hornby

'I adored it . Redolent of classics like The Constant Nymph with both its true voice and wonderfully sage and sanguine heroine' - Sophie Dahl

'Reading it again is as comforting as eating toast and Marmite between clean, fresh sheets' - Rachel Cooke, Sunday Times

Eighteen-year-old Katherine - bright, stylish, frustratedly suburban - doesn't know how her life will change when the brilliant Jacob Goldman first offers her a place at university. When she enters the Goldmans' rambling bohemian home, presided over by the beatific matriarch Jane, she realises that Jacob and his family are everything she has been waiting for.

Sally Phillips, much loved star of Clare in the Community, returns to BBC Radio 4 with this delightful comic tale of the joys and anguish of young love.

Abridged by Mark Kilfoyle and Jill Waters
Produced by Jill Waters
Read by Sally Phillips
A Waters Company production for BBC Radio 4


TUE 23:00 Now You're Asking with Marian Keyes and Tara Flynn (m001sm97)
The Squirrel Problem

Content warning - this show contains rodents! Squirrels, to be precise. What can you do to keep them away? Marian and Tara also tackle dealing with prejudice around autism and what to do if you'd rather not go to another birthday party.

Marian Keyes is a multi award-winning writer, with a total of over 30 million of her books sold to date in 33 languages. Her close friend Tara Flynn is an actress, comedian and writer. Together, these two friends have been through a lot, and now want to use their considerable life experience to help solve your biggest - and smallest - of the things that keep us awake at night.

Previous series were welcomed by listeners and critics: "Both are warm and kind enough to not only be funny but also offer genuinely thoughtful, if left-field, advice." (Miranda Sawyer, The Observer) "Keyes and Flynn are my new favourite double-act." (Jane Anderson - Radio Times) "I found their compassion endlessly soothing." (Rachel Cunliffe - The New Statesman)

Recorded in Dublin with emails received from listeners around the world, the hosts invite you to pull up a chair at their virtual kitchen table as they read and digest their inbox.

Got a problem you want Marian and Tara to solve? Email: marianandtara@bbc.co.uk.

Producer: Steve Doherty.
A Giddy Goat production for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds


TUE 23:30 Today in Parliament (m001sm99)
The government unveils a new plan for overseas aid and the new foreign secretary, David Cameron, makes a lighthearted first speech in the House of Lords.