SATURDAY 29 JUNE 2024
SAT 00:00 Midnight News (m0020jfs)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
SAT 00:30 The Stalin Affair by Giles Milton (m0020jdk)
Episode 10
Drawing on astonishing unpublished diaries, letters and secret reports, Giles Milton’s The Stalin Affair reveals troves of new material about the most unlikely coalition in history.
In the summer of 1941, as Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, Stalin’s forces faced a catastrophic defeat which would make the Allies’ liberation of Europe virtually impossible. To avert this disaster, Britain and America mobilised a unique team of remarkable diplomats with the mission of keeping the Red Army in the war.
Into the heart of Stalin’s Moscow, President Roosevelt sent Averell Harriman, the fourth-richest man in America, and his brilliant young daughter, Kathy. Churchill despatched the reckless but inventive Archie Clark Kerr – and occasionally himself – to negotiate with the Kremlin’s wiliest operators. Together, this improbable group grappled with Stalin at his most cunning, to make victory possible. But they also discovered that the Soviet dictator had a terrifying master plan for the post-war world.
February 1945. At the Yalta Conference, Stalin thanks Roosevelt for ‘mobilising the world against Hitler’. There is a genuine belief that America and Britain can continue to cooperate with Stalin in the post-war world. However, the warmth of friendship between the ‘Big Three’ dissipates with alarming speed. Averell Harriman warns that, ‘the world is splitting into two irreconcilable camps’, with the Kremlin camp hell bent on swallowing as many countries in Eastern Europe as possible. It becomes clear that Stalin can no longer be trusted.
Read by Nigel Anthony
Abridged by Libby Spurrier
Producer: David Blount
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4
SAT 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m0020jfv)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping
SAT 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m0020jfx)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.
SAT 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m0020jfz)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping
SAT 05:30 News Briefing (m0020jg1)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4
SAT 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m0020jg3)
Red Letter Saints
A spiritual comment and prayer to start the day with Fr John Burniston
Good morning.
It had been a very passionate argument but finally they had both run out of steam and one said, ‘look, can’t we just agree to disagree’? We all held our breath. But with a shrug of the shoulders the two of them shook hands and walked away.
We had seen merit on both sides. We could also see how much each believed their own case – and how wide the margin between them. They were very different kinds of people; their priorities and their values were simply not the same.
Today the Church celebrates two red letter saints together, St Peter and St Paul. Peter the illiterate, impetuous country fisherman, the closest friend of Jesus whose leadership skills were undisputed but who denied Jesus the night before he died. Paul the intellectual, urban genius whose organisational skills enabled the Early Church to spread throughout the Empire but who lived perpetually with the fact that he never met Jesus in the flesh.
They didn’t have a single thing in common.
And yet without both of their skills the Church would never have been able to have sufficient cohesion or energy to survive. What was needed were the skills to harness the talents of both Peter and Paul and to develop what we now think of as ‘the ministry of reconciliation’ - enabling people in all walks of life to discover how the love of God really can enable people to ‘agree to disagree’, without tearing each other apart.
Lord, when we are certain we are right, help us to see you in the person with whom we disagree so that we never fail to respect and love them too.
Amen.
SAT 05:45 Naturebang (m001qmnk)
Zebra Finches and Learning a Language
Becky Ripley and Emily Knight find out what it takes to learn the language of your people, with the help of some extremely chatty little birds.
The song of the zebra finch has been compared to a 90's dial-up modem running triple-speed, or an alien fax machine. But to a female zebra finch, it's a song of irresistible seduction. The males learn their song in a very similar way to the way we learn language, and it all starts with the babies. Through babbling, then copying, then innovating motifs of their own, the zebra finches take their language and then put their own distinctive stamp on it.
But if they don't learn it at just the right time, as a chick, they can't learn it as an adult.
How does human language acquisition work, and what would happen if you denied a baby the opportunity to learn to speak? The surprising answer takes us to 1970s Nicaragua, and the extraordinary story of the birth of a language...
Produced by Becky Ripley and Emily Knight. Featuring Professor Ofer Tchernichovski from Hunter College at CUNY, and Dr Judy Shepard-Kegl from the University of Southern Maine.
SAT 06:00 News and Papers (m0020p2j)
The latest news headlines. Including the weather and a look at the papers.
SAT 06:07 Ramblings (m0020jbp)
Blowy Bamburgh Beach with David Almond
David Almond marks 25 years of his extraordinary book, Skellig, with a walk from Seahouses to Bamburgh in Northumberland. As he tells Clare, it's a landscape that has long inspired his imagination and writing.
Skellig tells the tale of Michael, a young boy who befriends a magical creature - part owl, part angel – that needs Michael’s help to survive. The book has won multiple awards, been adapted for stage, film, radio and opera and translated into 40 languages.
As they walk, David tells Clare how his childhood in the north-east shaped both his character and writing, and discusses why walking is a necessary pleasure. The stretch of coastline they’re exploring is rich with historical, religious and cultural significance and the entire region has provided inspiration for David’s writing over the years.
They met at Seahouses Harbour and walked through sun, rain and wind to the most dominant man-made feature in the area - Bamburgh Castle.
Presenter: Clare Balding
Producer: Karen Gregor
SAT 06:30 Farming Today (m0020p2l)
Charlotte Smith hosts an "election special" looking at rural manifesto promises - she explores what's on offer on food, farming, the environment and rural services. She's joined by rural correspondents from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
Presented by Charlotte Smith
Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Heather Simons
SAT 06:57 Weather (m0020p2n)
The latest weather reports and forecast
SAT 07:00 Today (m0020p2q)
Election 2024: Mishal Husain and Martha Kearney
News and interviews from the election campaign, plus Martha reports from key Norwich seat.
SAT 09:00 Saturday Live (m0020p2s)
Rob Rinder, Martin Sixsmith, Jaega Wise, Rachel Stevens
Rob Rinder…barrister, broadcaster, occasional orchestra conductor, lover of Amazing Hotels, currently on our TVs travelling through Italy with Rylan - and now bestselling author with his latest novel The Suspect.
Beer sommelier and one of the best brewers in the UK, Jaega Wise reveals how she went from pop star to hop star to judging at this years BBC Food and Farming Awards.
And Martin Sixsmith, former BBC foreign correspondent, adviser to both the Labour government under Tony Blair and Armando Iannucci on The Thick of It! Now the author of two novels, famous for the non-fiction book that became the Oscar nominated film Philomena, and has just released a new work about the Dutch resistance during WWII.
All that plus I’ve never had a dream come true until the day that Rachel Stevens chooses her Inheritance Tracks. Luckily, today is that day – the singer will be reaching for the stars to share them with us.
SAT 10:00 Your Place or Mine with Shaun Keaveny (m0020p2v)
Miriam Margolyes: Tuscany, Italy
La Dolce Vita in a medieval hilltop village. Miriam thinks what more could you possibly want in life, but can she persuade Shaun? Her small village also engages in medieval jousting, the prospect of which causes him some alarm. Resident geographer, historian and comedian Iszi Lawrence is there to calm his nerves.
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.
Miriam Margolyes image: Paul Stuart
Producers: Beth O'Dea and Caitlin Hobbs
Your Place or Mine is a BBC Audio production for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds.
SAT 10:30 Rewinder (m0020p2x)
General Election (Taylor's Version)
Greg James digs into the BBC Archive to track down audio gems, using listener requests, overlooked anniversaries and current stories to guide the way.
This week, as Taylor Swift continues to conquer the world, Greg finds Taylor’s first radio play on the BBC in 2007 and her first visit to the UK in 2009. He also hears her extraordinary impression of a Minnesota Soccer Mom.
With the General Election approaching, he looks back at the first days of election broadcasting on the TV. There are discussions about ‘electronic brains’, sneaky Mars Bars and the invention of the Swingometer.
And as it’s summer, Greg fancies a barbecue. He finds a Blue Peter make from 1966 in which presenter Christopher Trace teaches us how to make our own barbecue from something we’ve all got lying around…a 5 gallon oil drum. Hacksaw at the ready!
Producer: Tim Bano
An EcoAudio certified production
SAT 11:00 Newscast (m0020p2z)
Electioncast: The Run In
Today, in this podcast recorded live for Radio 4, Adam, Laura and Paddy talk about what we can expect from the final few days of campaigning.
They also discuss whether the Reform campaign has been blown off course by evidence of racism in Clacton.
Plus we look back at the moments in history that have defined campaigns gone by.
You can join our Newscast online community here: https://tinyurl.com/newscastcommunityhere
Newscast brings you daily analysis of the latest political news stories from the BBC. It was presented by Laura Kuenssberg, Adam Fleming and Paddy O’Connell. It was made by Chris Flynn with Keiligh Baker and Bella Saltiel. The technical producer was Mike Regaard. The assistant editor is Chris Gray. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham.
SAT 11:30 From Our Own Correspondent (m0020p31)
France's polarising election
Kate Adie introduces stories from France, Israel-Gaza, Bolivia, Uzbekistan and the USA.
French voters head to the polls in a snap election that President Macron says will shake people from their 'political fever' - but could also see the far right make further gains. Andrew Harding reflects on this pivotal election.
Among the thousands of people killed during the last eight months of Israel's war on Hamas in Gaza have been hundreds of medical workers. One was British-trained surgeon Dr Ahmed Al-Maqadmeh. Yolande Knell hears from his father, his widow and his former colleagues about his life and his death.
An attempted coup in Bolivia this week raised the spectre of a darker period in the country’s history - when it was under military-rule some 40 years ago. Will Grant reflects on whether this was a genuine attempt to seize power - or a ruse by the current President to strengthen his own hold on power.
In Uzbekistan, Chris Aslan discovers one reason why silk is so precious. Households in the desert oasis of Khorezm know that raising a batch of silkworms is a serious business: they'll take over a family's living space, insist on a diet of mulberry leaves, and won't tolerate any loud noises or strong smells.
The Dipsea is said to be America’s oldest trail running race and organisers leave it to the runners to forge their own path between the race start and the finishing line. Although it’s a far cry from marathon running when it comes to distance, the race is known to have stretched some of the most hardened of trail runners. Amy Steadman took up the challenge.
Series producer: Serena Tarling
Production coordinator: Katie Morrison and Sophie Hill
Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith
SAT 12:00 News Summary (m0020p33)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
SAT 12:04 Money Box (m0020p35)
Election Quiz and Vincent Duggleby
This time next week the General Election will be over. As the days count down we'll get into the nitty gritty with listener questions on Inheritance Tax, Capital Gains Tax and ISAs.
Some lawyers and listeners who are acting as powers of attorney have told Money Box they're having problems dealing with banks on behalf of their clients and relatives. The Association of Lifetime Lawyers, a group of legal professionals who support vulnerable and older people, has also told this programme banks need a more streamlined and consistent approach to dealing with powers of attorney. UK Finance which speaks for the banks acknowledged there is more to be done. It says banks are working with members and government bodies to look at how greater consistency can be achieved across the industry.
And a tribute to former Money Box presenter and founder Vincent Duggleby, who sadly passed away earlier this month.
Presenter: Paul Lewis
Reporter: Felicity Hannah
Researchers: Neil Morrow, Catherine Lund and Jo Krasner
Editor: Jess Quayle
(First broadcast
12pm Saturday 29th June 2024)
SAT 12:30 The News Quiz (m0020jf8)
Series 114
Episode 4
Geoff Norcott, Stuart Mitchell, Daliso Chaponda and Katy Balls join Andy Zaltzman to quiz the news.
With just one week to go before the UK heads to the polls, Andy and the Panel analyse the final head to head debate, discuss the pitfalls of workplace betting, and finally bring a voice to the political elephants in the room.
Written by Andy Zaltzman
With additional material by: Toussaint Douglass, Mark Granger, Angela Channell, & Pete Tellouche
Producer: Sam Holmes
Executive Producer: Richard Morris
Production Co-ordinators: Sarah Nicholls
Sound Editor: Rich Evans
A BBC Studios Audio Production for Radio 4
An Eco-Audio certified Production
SAT 12:57 Weather (m0020p37)
The latest weather forecast
SAT 13:00 News and Weather (m0020p39)
The latest national and international news and weather reports from BBC Radio 4
SAT 13:15 Any Questions? (m0020jfg)
David Davis, Sarah Olney, Tommy Sheppard, Wes Streeting
Alex Forsyth presents political discussion from the Marine Hall in Fleetwood with the former Brexit Secretary David Davis, the Liberal Democrat Treasury and Business Spokesperson Sarah Olney, the SNP's Spokesperson for Scotland Tommy Sheppard and the Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting.
Producer: Camellia Sinclair
Lead broadcast engineer: Sioned Clwyd
SAT 14:15 Any Answers? (m0020p3c)
Call Any Answers? to have your say on the big issues in the news this week.
SAT 15:00 The Archers (m0020jfb)
Susan serves Neil lunch and he says Christopher is taking Martha to see Alice. Together they seem almost like a normal family and it’s obvious he still loves her. Susan can’t help thinking things could be better for Martha with all the privilege Alice was born into. She can’t get yesterday’s conversation out of her mind – Brian and Adam fussing over Alice, Lilian keeping her job open. No one is questioning her behaviour. Her not guilty plea is more proof that she’s in denial. Alice is never going to hit rock bottom, says Susan - no one is letting her. Neil says it’s Christopher’s life and they should put his needs first. But Susan wonders if enabling her to keep drinking is helping Martha.
Meg Mellor stops to ask Lynda for directions as she goes to collect Bartleby. George, Neil and Eddie are waiting for her and saying their farewells to the pony. Eddie has yet another suggestion about how to spend the money – a new cider press. For the first time George agrees. Meg tells them how she got started taking care of retired horses after her husband died. Lynda has left a fancy, colourful rug for Bartleby. As Meg goes to get her notebook Eddie suggests some new tries for their cider orchard. George agrees and suggests a new marble headstone for Great Granddad Joe. George says farewell to Bartleby and thanks him for listening, particularly over the last few weeks. They fasten the horse box and Meg drives away.
SAT 15:15 Drama on 4 (m00162mj)
The Painted Hall
The Painted Hall, one of the most spectacular baroque interiors in Europe and one of the largest ‘paintings' in the world, was conceived and created by the artist James Thornhill between 1707 and 1726.
Over twenty years, he adapted his evolving design to reflect changes in royal succession, science and navigation. He was later asked to write a guide to explain what it all meant.
Meanwhile, his only daughter fell in love with a lowly paint-mixer: William Hogarth...
Cast
James Thornhill ..... Hugh Bonneville
Dame Dolly Broadbent ..... Jane Asher
Jane Hogarth ..... Genevieve Gaunt
William Hogarth ..... Ryan Early
Obadiah Neptune ..... Ben Onwukwe
John Worley ..... Trevor Fox
Housekeeper ..... Sarah Ridgeway
Written by Ian Kelly
Produced and Directed by Clive Brill
A Brill Production for BBC Radio 4
SAT 16:00 Woman's Hour (m0020p3f)
Weekend Woman’s Hour: Cyndi Lauper, Accusations of assault in tennis, Sofie Gråbøl, Helen Heckety, Demetrescence, Corinne Baile
Girls Just Want to Have Fundamental Rights' has become a popular placard at women's rights events around the world. The singer behind the anthem that inspired it is none other than Cyndi Lauper. She joins Anita Rani to reflect on her 40-year career, becoming a feminist figure and performing on the iconic Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury.
Wimbledon starts next week and amongst the usual pre-match discussions about favourites and performances, there’s also been a serious conversation about how top-level tennis handles allegations of domestic abuse. Clare McDonnell is joined by the host of the Tennis podcast, Catherine Whitaker to discuss recent cases.
Danish actress Sofie Gråbøl is best known to British viewers for her role as Sarah Lund in Scandi Noir crime drama The Killing. Now she’s returning to our cinema screens in a new film, Rose. Sophie plays Inger, a woman with serious mental health challenges, who takes a bus trip to Paris with her sister, Ellen. She discusses how she researched the character of Inger, by talking to the real woman that she is based on.
Novelist Helen Heckety joins Nuala to talk about her debut work, Alter Ego. It’s about a young woman who decides to leave her old life behind and move to a new place where no one knows she is disabled. Helen, who has a physical disability that can sometimes be invisible, was compelled to write about a disabled character she had never seen represented in literature.
The term ‘matrescence’ has been around since the 70s, but it’s only recently becoming more commonly known as a concept. It describes the process of becoming a new mother, and the emotional and physical changes you go through after the birth of your child. But then how should we talk about the experience of matrescence when your kids are teenagers, you’re in mid-life and you start the menopause? The parenting expert and childcare author Sarah Ockwell-Smith has a name for that – inspired by a Greek goddess, she calls it ‘demetrescence' and she explains all to Nuala McGovern.
Corinne Bailey Rae's latest album is a complete departure from her previous work. Black Rainbows is inspired by a trip to Stony Island Arts Bank, a Chicago-based archive of black art and culture. The record spans punk, rock, experimental jazz, electronica and more. She joins Anita for a very special performance live from the Woman's Hour Glastonbury picnic table.
Presenter: Claire McDonnell
Producer: Annette Wells
Editor: Rebecca Myatt
SAT 17:00 PM (m0020p3h)
Reform suspends 3 ‘racist’ candidates
Reform UK has dropped three candidates reported to have made racist or offensive comments about black people and migrants. Also: Should obese children be offered weight-loss jabs?
SAT 17:30 Sliced Bread (m0020jbf)
Cholesterol Lowering Products
Can fortified drinks and spreads really reduce cholesterol?
Almost half of UK adults have raised cholesterol, according to the charity Heart UK - and Sliced Bread listener Cathy is one of them. She found out after taking a test at her GP and wants to do something about it. Her first plan of action is to make changes to her lifestyle, such as diet and exercise. As part of that, Cathy wants to know if the spreads and drinks that claim to lower cholesterol really do work.
Greg Foot is joined by Cathy and a panel of experts at our studios in Salford to investigate. What are the ingredients that are proven to lower cholesterol? How effective are they compared to widely-prescribed statins - and are the supermarket own brand versions of these drinks and spreads just as good as branded ones?
All of the ideas for our investigations come from you, our listeners, and we're always on the lookout for more. If you have seen a wonder product that claims to make you happier, healthier or greener and want to know if it is SB or BS then please do send it over on email to sliced.bread@bbc.co.uk or drop us a message or voicenote on Whatsapp to 07543 306807
PRESENTER: Greg Foot
PRODUCER: Simon Hoban
SAT 17:54 Shipping Forecast (m0020p3k)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping
SAT 17:57 Weather (m0020p3m)
The latest weather reports and forecast
SAT 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m0020p3r)
The 3 election candidates reportedly made derogatory and offensive comments in the past.
SAT 18:15 Loose Ends (m0020p3w)
David Baddiel, Richard Thompson, Abigail Cruttenden, Noorruddean Choudry, Amy Gledhill, Stuart Maconie
David Baddiel will be forever associated with Fantasy Football and the Three Lions anthem but these days he's a philosopher, children's author and documentary maker. Now he's written a memoir of his north London upbringing - My Family - a true life story that is by turns devastating and hilarious. Hull-born Podcaster and comic Amy Gledill on self-confidence, bin bags and romance, the themes of her upcoming show "Make me look fit on the poster". The actress Abigail Cruttenden is best known for her screen work, on TV in Not Going Out and Sharpe or in films like The Theory of Everything. Now she's appearing on stage as Lady Bracknell in what promises to be a very twenty first century take on Oscar Wilde's classic The Importance of Being Earnest. And Noorruddean Choudry on his book Inshallah United - a deeply universal story of fandom, faith and family - and why he's getting his prayer mat out for the Euros. Plus music from one of the UK's finest singer songwriters - Fairport Convention co-founder Richard Thompson - celebrating his new album Ship to Shore.
Presented by Stuart Maconie
Produced by Olive Clancy
SAT 19:00 Profile (m0020p40)
Shania Twain
Before she became one of the best-selling musicians of all time, Shania Twain worked for the family tree-planting business, singing for tips in lumberjack bars to help make ends meet. Stephen Smith charts the rise of a hard-up Canadian country girl, from a violent family home, to a country-pop crossover superstar.
This year's Glastonbury 'Legends' slot will be the first time some will have seen or heard from Shania in decades - we hear about the disease that robbed her of her voice at the peak of her powers in the early 2000s and, along with a devastating divorce, led to a 15-year gap between albums.
Contributors:
John Kim Bell, former producer and boyfriend
Lindsay Ell, guitarist
Jake Gosling, music producer
Marc Bouwer, fashion designer
Presenter: Stephen Smith
Producers: Simon Tulett and Natasha Fernandes
Sound: Neil Churchill
Production Coordinators: Maria Ogundele and Sabine Schereck
Editor: Penny Murphy
SAT 19:15 This Cultural Life (m0020jb5)
Simon McBurney
Director and actor Simon McBurney, one of the founders of the ground breaking theatre company Complicité, reveals his creative inspirations and influences. For over four decades McBurney has created innovative and experimental works, from immersive staging to the reinvention of classic texts. His works include A Disappearing Number, The Encounter and Mnemonic, a landmark production which has been recently revived at The National Theatre.
Simon McBurney tells John Wilson about his childhood in Cambridge where his father, an archaeologist, helped foster an early fascination with time and memory. For This Cultural Life he chooses the 1969 Ken Loach film Kes as a formative influence, offering an insight to a childhood very different to his own middle class upbringing. He recalls seeing the band The Clash whilst at Cambridge University, an experience that had a profound impact on his own creativity and political engagement through the arts. He also chooses the writer and critic John Berger as an inspirational figure, and recalls collaborating with Berger on the immersive Artangel project The Vertical Line in 1999. Simon McBurney also describes how the experience of meeting indigenous Amazonian people inspired his 2016 Complicité show The Encounter.
Producer: Edwina Pitman
Archive clips from:
Kes, Ken Loach, 1969
The Clash Live at Rock Against Racism, Victoria Park, 1978
The Dead Class, Tadeusz Kantor, 1976
Friday Night...Saturday Morning: Cambridge Footlights, BBC1, Nov 1979
Ways of Seeing, Episode 1, BBC2, Jan 1972
The Vertical Line, Complicité, BBC Radio 4, 1999
The Encounter, Complicité, Barbican Theatre, May 2018
Face to Face, BBC2, Oct 1995
Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation, Christopher McQuarrie, 2015
SAT 20:00 Archive on 4 (m0020p44)
Election Night Fever
Rachel Burden reveals the inside story of how the human and national drama of politics plays out on Election Night.
In 2024 Rachel has a stake in the answer: she's co-presenting the BBC election night coverage on Radio 4 and 5 Live. So in this programme she looks back at the archives from great General Election nights past, speaks to politicians and presenters about what makes these nights so special, and records behind the scenes during recent programmes. She'll give a sense of what happens when the cameras aren’t looking, the microphones are off, and the spin hasn't yet been spun, and offer the insider story of the unique place which election nights hold in British politics.
Producers: Daniel Kraemer and Giles Edwards.
SAT 21:00 Moral Maze (m0020hlh)
Price vs Value of Arts and Culture
Taylor Swift fever has swept the UK week. She’s back in August and fans have been paying hundreds sometimes thousands to get their hands on seats through resale sites. It’s led us to think about the price and value of art and culture. St Thomas Aquinas came up with the ‘just price’ theory, that it is wrong to sell something for more than it is worth and charging more based on the need of the buyer is exploitative and sinful. Is that what is going on when punters are asked to stump up for a once in a lifetime experience?
In Latin the word pretium means both value and price, but the two are not interchangeable when it comes to the arts. How can you put a price on a potentially transcendent experience, or the life changing power of art? Is that what makes good art and is that what is worth paying for? Do live events culture have a value in itself aside from the economic impact? What does it mean for society when people are priced out? Should governments pick up the bill to make sure everyone has access to the arts. Or are they just an indulgence, a nice way to spend your leisure time but not something deserving of funds in comparison to global problems like poverty or malaria.
Presenter: Michael Buerk
Panel:
Inaya Folarin-Iman
James Orr
Professor Mona Siddiqui
Matthew Taylor
Witnesses:
Christopher Snowdon, Head of Lifestyle Economics at the IEA
Professor Mel Jordan, Professor of Art and the Public Sphere, Coventry University
Matt Reardon, Advisor at 80,000 Hours
Professor Paul Gough, Vice Chancellor of the Arts University Bournemouth
Presenter: Michael Buerk
Producer: Catherine Murray
Assistant Producer: Ruth Purser
Programme Co-ordinator Nancy Bennie & Pete Liggins
Editor: Tim Pemberton
SAT 22:00 News (m0020p48)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4
SAT 22:15 The Food Programme (m0020jdh)
Pastry Nation: Hype Bakeries on the Rise
Leyla Kazim and Robbie Armstrong explore the rise of a new wave of British bakeries, whose viral viennoiseries are leading to snaking queues and sell outs, feeding an insatiable appetite across the country, fuelled by social media.
Author of ‘Britain’s Best Bakeries’, Milly Kenny-Ryder, takes Leyla to London’s TOAD bakery, whose long lines have become a rite of passage for pastry lovers. Owners Rebecca Spaven and Oliver Costello explain how their local bakery accidentally became a hyped internet phenomenon.
Leyla visits a London branch of Philippe Conticini to try one of their XXL croissants, which have set the internet ablaze thanks to a small army of influencers and their viral videos. Meanwhile, Anna Higham, founder of Quince Bakery, explains to Leyla why she has swerved pastries altogether, instead championing traditional British baking with seasonality and sustainability at its core.
Lewis Bassett from the Full English podcast breaks down the appeal of the UK’s most popular bakery chain, Greggs – which has 2,500 outlets across the country. Lewis and Leyla discuss class, viral sausage rolls and our centuries-old love affair with pastries and pies.
In Edinburgh, Robbie Armstrong visits Lannan to meet Darcie Maher, whose intricate inventions have created unparalleled demand, but also led to abuse of staff from angry customers. Robbie then travels to Fife to visit a fifth-generation family bakery whose fudge doughnuts have become internationally famous. In Dundee, meanwhile, he finds a city with a profusion of independent traditional bakeries, including one selling pies 24 hours a day.
Sam White of the Bakery Business magazine provides a rundown on trends in the baking industry, while Angela Hui gives her take on the clamour for vividly-colourful Asian baking.
Presented by Leyla Kazim.
Produced by Robbie Armstrong.
SAT 23:00 Michael Spicer: No Room (m0020kgm)
Election Special
The one-minute leaders' debate. Stuart Piper-Aloysious faces an election quandary - Lib Dems or Reform? And the Tims come up with vote-winning policies. No idea who for, mind.
General Election satire from comedian Michael Spicer targeting the lunacy with fully costed, laser-focused precision. His sketches brilliantly spoof everything that's driving us mad during the campaign.
Michael is famous for his Room Next Door government advisor character whose withering takedowns of politicians have amassed more than 100 million views and helped keep his audience sane in fractured times.
Writer, Performer and Co-Editor: Michael Spicer
Composer and Sound Designer: Augustin Bousfield
Producer: Matt Tiller
A Tillervision production for BBC Radio 4
SAT 23:15 Call Jonathan Pie (m0020m9d)
General Election Special
Having endured weeks of impossibly restrictive BBC election guidelines, Jonathan Pie is looking forward to election day and an end to all the madness. But first he has to persuade an apathetic Sam that not 'all parties are the same' and to actually go out and vote.
Written and performed by Tom Walker
Cast:
Jonathan Pie ….. Tom Walker
Sam ….. Aqib Khan
Caller ….. Ellie Dobing
Producers …. Alison Vernon-Smith and Julian Mayers
A Yada-Yada Audio production for BBC Radio 4
SAT 23:30 Nature Table (m0020h9h)
Series 4
4: Super Snails and Party Beetles
In this episode, Sue and the Nature Table team return to London’s Natural History Museum.
Giant Squids’ doughnut-shaped brains, Burying Beetles who like to party, Super Snails and Rescue Pigeons all feature.
Sue is joined by special guests: NHM’s Senior Curator of Molluscs Jon Ablett, Zoologist and EDI consultant Dr. Tanesha Allen & comedian Jess Fostekew.
Nature Table has a simple clear brief: to positively celebrate and promote the importance of all our planet’s wonderfully wild flora and fauna in a fun and easily grasped way... whilst at the same time having a proper giggle.
For this series of Sue Perkins’ ARIA-winning ‘Show and Tell’ wildlife comedy, Team Nature Table have recorded at the Natural History Museum, Kew Gardens and London Zoo.
Hosted by: Sue Perkins
Guests: Jon Ablett, Dr. Tanesha Allen & Jess Fostekew
Written by: Catherine Brinkworth, Jenny Laville & Jon Hunter
Additional material by: Christina Riggs & Pete Tellouche
Researcher: Catherine Beazley
Sound Recordist & Editor: Jerry Peal
Music by: Ben Mirin
Executive Producer: Richard Morris
Production Coordinator: Sarah Nicholls
Producer: Simon Nicholls
An EcoAudio certified production
A BBC Studios Audio Production for Radio 4
SUNDAY 30 JUNE 2024
SUN 00:00 Midnight News (m0020p4d)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.
SUN 00:15 Open Book (m0020h9f)
A Passage to India
It took EM Forster 11 years to write his great novel of empire, A Passage to India. "When I began the book I thought of it as a little bridge of sympathy between East and West", but then, he said, “my sense of truth forbids anything so comfortable." Now, 100 years after its publication, Shahidha Bari revisits Forster’s novel: asking why it means so much to writers and asks how well it stands up to the scrutiny of modern readers.
When it was published in 1924, against the backdrop of decolonisation and Indian independence movements, the novel made an immediate impact exploring deeply moral questions about race and nationhood, and the possibility of friendship and misunderstanding.
Shahidha is joined by novelist Neel Mukherjee, author and literary critic, Elizabeth Lowry and Dr Chris Mourant, Lecturer at the University of Birmingham and editor of Cambridge University Press’s forthcoming edition of A Passage to India.
Book List – Sunday 23 June
A Passage to India by E.M. Forster (Edited by Dr Chris Mourant, Cambridge University Press’s forthcoming edition.)
A Passage to India by E.M. Forster (1947 Everyman Edition)
A Room With A View by E.M. Forster
Howards End by E.M. Forster
Maurice by E.M. Forster
A Life Apart by Neel Mukherjee
The Lives of Others by Neel Mukherjee
Choices by Neel Mukherjee
The Chosen by Elizabeth Lowry
Solaris by Stanisław Lem
Aspects of the Novel by E.M Forster
SUN 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m0020p4j)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping
SUN 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m0020p4n)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.
SUN 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m0020p4s)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping
SUN 05:30 News Briefing (m0020p4v)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4
SUN 05:43 Bells on Sunday (m0020p4x)
The parish church of St Peters in Alton, Staffordshire
This week's Bells on Sunday comes from the parish church of St Peters in Alton, Staffordshire. The original church was erected in the 12th century with a west tower built in the 13th century. The building was restored and enlarged in the 19th century. Previously there was a ring of eight bells however these were re-hung and augmented in 2023 by the John Taylor foundry in Loughborough to create a ring of ten bells. The Tenor weighs twenty two and a half hundredweight and is tuned to E flat. We hear part of the first peal on the augmented bells as they ring “Grandsire Caters”
SUN 05:45 In Touch (m0020j4k)
New Priorities for UK Eye Care Research, A Year in Kenya
The UK Clinical Eye Research Strategy aims to provide focal points for research and funding into eye disease, treatments and prevention. They have updated their areas of focus, based on a survey of what patients want and need. Professor Rupert Bourne is consultant ophthalmic surgeon at Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge, and has been the national lead on ophthalmology research for the past nine years. He describes what areas the strategy will now focus on and why, and gives details of other important nation-wide studies relating to eye disease prevention and care.
Lauren Stairs is a totally blind psychotherapist and she is about to embark on a year-long charitable venture to a blind residential school in Kenya. Through the charity she and her team will be setting up, her aim is to give the children confidence in their own abilities, to encourage parental involvement in the children's education and assist with financial challenges that some families there face.
Presenter: Peter White
Producer: Beth Hemmings
Production Coordinator: David Baguley
Website image description: Peter White sits smiling in the centre of the image and he is wearing a dark green jumper. Above Peter's head is the BBC logo (three separate 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 is a darker blue and the other is a lighter blue.
SUN 06:00 News Summary (m0020qc2)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4
SUN 06:05 Thinking Allowed (m0020j44)
Shopping
In 1986 in Gateshead the MetroCentre opened on the site of a former power station. Laurie Taylor talks to Emma Casey, Reader in Sociology at the University of York about a new study which charts the history and the impact of this mall which created space for more than 300 shops. They're joined by Katie Appleford, Senior Lecturer in Consumer Behaviour at University for the Creative Arts, London and researcher into UK mothers' shopping habits post-COVID. Has the promise of shopping, as represented by the Metro Centre, faltered in the wake of the pandemic?
Producer: Jayne Egerton
SUN 06:35 On Your Farm (m0020qc4)
Business is Blooming
Sarah Swadling visits family flower growers BJ Richards in the Tamar Valley in Cornwall. Barry Richards built his first glasshouses in the 1970s and now sons Paul and Darren are continuing the business. They tell Sarah how things have changed, as many British growers were pushed out of business by cheaper imports from the Netherlands and beyond. The Richards family adapted to survive by becoming importers themselves. Now, there's a revival of interest in British grown flowers and the Richards are producing an array of blooms for florists all over the country. Paul explains how social media posts during the Covid pandemic connected them with a whole new group of customers.
Produced and presented by Sarah Swadling
SUN 06:57 Weather (m0020qc6)
The latest weather reports and forecast
SUN 07:00 News and Papers (m0020qc8)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the papers.
SUN 07:10 Sunday (m0020qcb)
Muslim Heavy Metal; Hindu Procession; CofE Trustworthiness
You might not think that Islam and heavy metal music have much in common – but the all-female Indonesian band "Voice of Baceprot" disagree. The three women members are all in their twenties and all veiled Muslims. The word "baceprot" means noisy in Sundanese, an Indonesian traditional language. The women have been criticised by conservative Muslims in their country, claiming their music and dress is not appropriate. They are playing Glastonbury this weekend, the first Indonesian band to do so, and they tell us about their music and their faith.
Also on the programme, thousands of Hindu worshippers will pull a forty-foot chariot through the centre of Leicester today, carrying statues of Krishna, his sister Subhadra and Lord Balarama. The Festival of Chariots, also known as Ratha Yatra, is one of the most important Hindu celebrations. The organisers, the Leicester branch of ISKCON, the International Society for Krishna Consciousness, say all faiths are welcome.
The Church of England this week published a document, based on a two-year investigation, about ‘Trust and Trustworthiness’. Its authors don’t want to talk to us, so we asked the writer Adrian Hilton to read it and report.
Presenter: Edward Stourton
Producers: Bara'atu Ibrahim & Julia Paul
Production Coordinator: David Baguley
Editor: Rajeev Gupta
SUN 07:54 Radio 4 Appeal (m0020pfr)
Just Like Us
Comedian and writer Suzi Ruffell makes the BBC Radio 4 Appeal on behalf of the charity Just Like Us.
To Give:
- UK Freephone 0800 404 8144
-You can donate online at bbc.co.uk/appeal/radio4
- Freepost BBC Radio 4 Appeal. (That’s the whole address. Please do not write anything else on the front of the envelope). Mark the back of the envelope ‘Just Like Us'.
- Cheques should be made payable to ‘Just Like Us’.
Please note that Freephone and online donations for this charity close at
23.59 on the Saturday after the Appeal is first broadcast. However the Freepost option can be used at any time.
Registered charity number: 1165194
SUN 07:57 Weather (m0020qcd)
The latest weather reports and forecast
SUN 08:00 News and Papers (m0020qcg)
The latest news headlines. Including a look at the Sunday papers
SUN 08:10 Sunday Worship (m0020qcj)
From Henley Royal Regatta
'Boats, boaters, blazers and frocks' - the Revd Jeremy Tayler leads a service from the ancient parish church of St Mary-the-Virgin Henley on Thames as the Henley Royal Regatta begins. He is joined by double Olympic silver medallist Debbie Bruwer, who originally came to Henley as a 17 year-old to train for competition.
There's a wideness in God's Mercy (Corvedale); Proverbs 3: 5-10; O come let us sing (Bednall); Light of the world (Dankworth); Revelation 21: 1-2; 22: 1-2; Guide me O thou Great Redeemer (Cwm Rhondda); Psalm 8; Glorious things of thee are spoken (Abbot’s Leigh); Irish Blessing (Chilcott); Toccata from Suite Modale (Peeters)
Director of Music: Sebastian Thomson BA FRCO (DipCHD); Organist: Shean Bowers; Producer: Philip Billson
SUN 08:48 A Point of View (m0020qcl)
The Stuff of Museums
Mary Beard argues that 21st Century disputes about what museums should own - or give back - are far from being a modern phenomenon.
'Almost as far back as you can go, there have been contests about what museums should display, and where objects of heritage properly belonged,' writes Mary. 'These debates are written into museum history.'
From the Great Bed of Ware to the Lewis Chessmen, Mary reflects on how we determine who owns objects from the distant past.
Sometimes, she says, as in the case of the Broighter Hoard, it comes down to the kind of craziness of deciding whether 'some anonymous Iron Age bloke had planned to come back for his stuff, or not!'
Producer: Adele Armstrong
Sound: Peter Bosher
Production Coordinator: Gemma Ashman
Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith
SUN 08:58 Tweet of the Day (m0020qcn)
Stephen Moss on the Red Kite
A new series of Tweet of the Day for Sunday morning revealing personal and fascinating stories from some fresh voices who have been inspired by birds, their calls and encounters.
The red kite was once a very rare bird indeed. For nature writer and ornithologist Stephen Moss he recalls that as a child he would persuade his mother to drive him to mid Wales in search of these enigmatic birds. Today thanks to a reintroduction programme across the country red kites are a familiar sight even while driving along motorways, but that thrill of seeing his first red kite as a child has never left him.
Producer : Andrew Dawes for BBC Audio in Bristol
Studio engineer : Suzy Robins
SUN 09:00 Broadcasting House (m0020qcq)
Missing postal votes
BH listeners report from around the UK on missing postal votes. Also today, favourite sporting theme tunes. Presented by Paddy O'Connell.
SUN 10:00 Desert Island Discs (m0020qcs)
Professor Patricia Wiltshire, forensic scientist
Professor Patricia Wiltshire is a forensic ecologist who specialises in palynology – the study of pollen. Her expertise has led her to work with every police force in Britain and helped solve some of the country’s most notorious crimes including the Soham murder case in which two young girls were killed by school caretaker Ian Huntley.
Patricia was born in Cefn Fforest, a mining village in the Sirhowy Valley, north of Cardiff. She studied botany at King’s College London as a mature student and later worked as an environmental archaeologist, helping to reconstruct ancient environments by analysing the pollen and other remains in the soil.
In 1994 Hertfordshire police asked her to help them with a murder case. A man had been found dead in a ditch and the police had tyre tracks and a vehicle and they needed to prove that the car in question had made the tracks. Patricia’s analysis of the pollen and spores found in the car helped to convict the killers and started her career as a forensic ecologist.
Patricia is married to Professor David Hawksworth, a renowned mycologist, and they sometimes work on criminal investigations together.
DISC ONE: Nocturnes, Op. 27: No. 2 in D-Flat Major. Composed by Frédéric Chopin and performed by Arthur Rubinstein
DISC TWO: My Foolish Heart - Billy Eckstine
DISC THREE: Rock Around The Clock - Bill Haley and His Comets
DISC FOUR: Brandenburg Concerto No. 4 (Allegro movement) Composed by Johann Sebastian Bach and performed by Orchestra Mozart, conducted by Claudio Abbado
DISC FIVE: Myfanwy - The Treorchy Male Voice Choir
DISC SIX: Piano Concerto No. 21 in C Major, K. 467 "Elvira Madigan": III. Allegro vivace assai. Composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and performed by Murray Perahia (piano / conductor) and English Chamber Orchestra
DISC SEVEN: And I Love Her - The Beatles
DISC EIGHT: Love Will Keep Us Together - Neil Sedaka
BOOK CHOICE: Childrens Encyclopedia Volume Set by Arthur Mee
LUXURY ITEM: A cooking pot
CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Nocturnes, Op. 27: No. 2 in D-Flat Major. Composed by Frédéric Chopin and performed by Arthur Rubinstein
Presenter Lauren Laverne
Producer Paula McGinley
SUN 11:00 The Archers Omnibus (m0020qcv)
Writer: Liz John
Director: Mel Ward
Editor: Jeremy Howe
Lilian Bellamy…. Sunny Ormonde
Harrison Burns…. James Cartwright
Chris Carter…. Wilf Scolding
Neil Carter…. Brian Hewlett
Susan Carter…. Charlotte Martin
Justin Elliott…. Simon Williams
Miranda Elliott…. Lucy Fleming
George Grundy…. Angus Stobie
Eddie Grundy…. Trevor Harrison
Will Grundy…. Philip Malloy
Mick Fadmoor…. Martin Barrass
Joy Horville…. Jackie Lye
Adam Macy…. Andrew Wincott
Jazzer McCreary…. Ryan Kelly
Kirsty Miller…. Annabelle Dowler
Freddie Pargetter…. Toby Laurence
Lily Pargetter…. Katie Redford
Lynda Snell…. Carole Boyd
Oliver Sterling…. Michael Cochrane
Meg Mellor…. Sue Jenkins
SUN 12:15 Profile (m0020p40)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Saturday]
SUN 12:30 Mark Steel's in Town (m0020hn8)
Series 13
Margate
Mark Steel's In Town - Margate
“...a nice spot not vulgarised by crowds of literary people...” Oscar Wilde
In this first episode Mark visits the lovely seaside town of Margate in the Thanet district of Kent.
A magical place where T.S Eliot wrote a verse of The Wasteland, J.M.W Turner painted views of the Harbour, Tracy Emin spent her formative years and Pete Doherty has his name on a wall of fame in a cafe for eating a "mega breakfast" in under 20 minutes.
Mark visits Dreamland and its 100 year old rollercoaster, the famous Crab Museum and the historic Walpole Hotel before perfoming his show in the Cliff Bar and snooker hall under the iconic Lido Tower.
This is the 13th series of Mark's award winning show where he travels around the country visiting towns that have nothing in common but their uniqueness. After thoroughly researching each town, Mark writes and performs a bespoke evening of comedy for a local audience.
As well as Margate, in this series, Mark be will also be popping to Stoke on Trent, Malvern, East Grinstead and Coleraine in Northern Ireland.
There will also be extended versions of each episode available on BBC sounds.
Written and performed by Mark Steel
Additional material by Pete Sinclair
Production co-ordinator Katie Baum
Sound Manager Jerry Peal
Producer Carl Cooper
A BBC Studios Audio production for Radio 4
SUN 12:57 Weather (m0020qcx)
The latest weather forecast
SUN 13:00 The World This Weekend (m0020qcz)
Will Macron's election gamble fail?
As France votes, who are the potential prime ministers set to share power with President Macron? Plus, how the next UK government could improve trading relations with the EU.
SUN 13:30 The Deadly Business of Democracy (m0020q9l)
Four recent MPs reveal how serious threats against them, their families and staff are now corroding Britain’s democracy. Carolyn Quinn discovers what impact the huge rise in abuse, threats and intimidation is having on MPs across the political spectrum, with massive concern over their safety significantly affecting how they can do their job. As Britain goes to the polls we find out just what kind of life MPs will face, if they triumph at the General Election.
SUN 14:00 Gardeners' Question Time (m0020jdy)
Chelsea Flower Show 2024 - Potting Shed Part 1
Kathy Clugston presents a special potting shed edition of the programme, with GQT's panel of experts taking questions from visitors at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show.
The panel answer questions on everything from how to maintain a bonsai tree to the best way to encourage a tomato plant to flower.
Later in the programme James Wong re-visits The Glasshouse Project’s show garden where he speaks to commercial director Katie Whittingham and volunteer Reba about using horticultural therapy to help rehabilitate former prisoners.
Producer: Dominic Tyerman
Assistant Producer: Rahnee Prescod
Executive Producer: Carly Maile
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4
SUN 14:45 Short Works (m001wjrg)
Wallerfield, 1975
by Anthony Joseph - musician, novelist and T.S. Eliot prize-winning poet. Trinidadian born and London based, Anthony Joseph has set this poetic and surprising story in Trinidadian Creole. Inspired by the landscape and imagination of childhood visits to his grandparents' home as a child, the story centres on a young man with nothing and no one to look out for him, when he comes upon a farm in the Trinidadian area of Wallerfield...
Written and read by Anthony Joseph
Produced by Allegra McIlroy
SUN 15:00 Frank Bascombe: An American Life (m0020qd1)
Independence Day
Independence Day is the second episode in Frank Bascombe: An American Life, a series adapted from the novels of Richard Ford, who won the Pulitzer prize for this novel in 1996.
Richard Ford’s Frank Bascombe books are a remarkable literary phenomenon, following the fortunes of the hapless but ever-hopeful hero Frank, and giving us a unique portrait of contemporary American life.
Over the year, we will check in on Frank for four weekends of his life, over four decades, stretching from the early 1980s to the present day, in dramatisations by Robin Brooks of four Frank Bascombe books - The Sportswriter, Independence Day, The Lay of the Land, and Let Me Be Frank With You.
Episode Two – Independence Day
Six years after we first met him, Frank has ditched the world of sports writing, and is now an estate agent. He still has contact with his divorced wife Ann, and is trying to get to grips with his troubled son Paul. He’s taking Paul on a road-trip, for what is supposed to be a bit of father-son bonding. But, as is usually the case in Frank’s roller-coaster life, nothing goes according to plan.
Cast
FRANK BASCOMBE: Kyle Soller
ANN : Lydia Wilson
SALLY: Jennifer Armour
PAUL: Christopher Buckley
CHARLEY: William Hope
CLARISSA: Karolina Ezrow
CHARLANE : Isaura Barbé-Brown
DR TISARIS: Angelique Fernandez
Dramatised by Robin Brooks from the Bascombe novels by Richard Ford
Sound Design: Joseff Harris and Alisdair McGregor
Broadcast Assistant: Hermione Sylvester
Directed and Produced by Fiona McAlpine
An Allegra production for BBC Radio 4
Picture credit: ‘In the Car’ by Roy Lichtenstein
© Estate of Roy Lichtenstein/DACS 2024.
Photo: National Galleries of Scotland
SUN 16:00 Open Book (m0020qd3)
Rita Bullwinkel
Johny Pitts speaks to Rita Bullwinkel about her debut novel, Headshot - about the world of girls boxing.
Tea Obreht and Mohsin Hamid on writing about displacement, and their books The Morningside and Exit West.
Plus, Jocasta Hamilton, Executive Editor at John Murray, on her Editor's Pick - Ex-Wife by Ursula Parrott.
Presenter: Johny Pitts
Producer: Emma Wallace
Book List – Sunday 30 June
Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel
Belly Up by Rita Bullwinkel
Exit West by Mohsin Hamid
The Last White Man by Mohsin Hamid
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
The Morningside by Téa Obreht
The Ex-Wife by Ursula Parrot
SUN 16:30 Nature Table (m0020qd5)
Series 4
5: Elton John Horseflies and Supersonic Fungi
In this episode, Sue and Team Nature Table return to the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew.
Nipple-eyed horseflies, a fungus that sexually reproduces by itself, a fly that decapitates ants and poo-based fungi or ‘dungi’ wow Sue and the invited audience.
Sue is joined by special guests: Kew Gardens’ Fungarium collections manager, Lee Davies; Principal Curator for Diptera & Siphonaptera at the Natural History Museum, Erica McAlister; and award-winning writer-comedian Dave Gorman.
Nature Table has a simple clear brief: to positively celebrate and promote the importance of all our planet’s wonderfully wild flora and fauna in a fun and easily grasped way... whilst at the same time having a proper giggle.
For this series of Sue Perkins’ ARIA-winning ‘Show and Tell’ wildlife comedy, Team Nature Table have recorded at the Natural History Museum, Kew Gardens and London Zoo.
Hosted by: Sue Perkins
Guests: Lee Davies, Erica McAlister & Dave Gorman
Written by: Catherine Brinkworth, Jenny Laville & Jon Hunter
Additional material by: Christina Riggs & Pete Tellouche
Researcher: Catherine Beazley
Sound Recordist & Editor: Jerry Peal
Music by: Ben Mirin
Executive Producer: Richard Morris
Production Coordinator: Sarah Nicholls
Producer: Simon Nicholls
An EcoAudio certified production
A BBC Studios Audio Production for Radio 4
SUN 17:00 Witness History (w3ct5yjt)
St Teresa of Avila's severed hand
After winning the Spanish Civil War in 1939, Franco's dictatorship began. During the war, he acquired St Teresa of Avila's severed hand and kept it for spiritual guidance, it was returned when he died in 1975.
The hand was initially stolen by General Franco's opposition from a convent in Ronda, but Franco’s nationalist soldiers took it for themselves when they won the Battle of Malaga.
Sister Jennifer is the Mother Superior of the Church of Our Lady of Mercy, Ronda, where the hand is kept on display for people to see.
She tells Johnny I’Anson who St Teresa was, why her hand was cut off, and what made the relic special.
(Photo: Monument of Saint Teresa of Avila, Spain. Credit: Digicomphoto/Getty Images)
SUN 17:10 The Verb (m0020qd8)
The appeal of 'the road less travelled by', Emily Brontë as self-help guru, a new way to look at Little Red Riding Hood and the 'little miracles' we might notice when we care for the elderly; Ian McMillan celebrates poems that explore all of these ideas with his guests, the poets Len Pennie, Malika Booker, Kate Fox, and Michael Symmons Roberts.
Michael Symmons Roberts' poetry collections include 'Drysalter', 'Mancunia' and 'Ransom'. This week Michael explores Robert Frost's poem 'The Road not Taken' and sheds light on the strange power of the 'neon' line in the poem (a memorable line that takes the poem to another level) 'I took the road less travelled by'.
Kate Fox is a stand up poet, spoken word artist and broadcaster, her latest poetry collection is 'Bigger on the Inside'. Kate has written a new poem for The Verb in which Emily Brontë advises us that most of our thoughts 'are nowt but hill fog' and that problems can be solved by 'a walk or a big dog', or 'a walk with a big dog'.
Malika Booker is the only poet to have won The Forward Prize for best single poem twice - she reads one of those winning poems, 'The Little Miracles' for The Verb. Malika founded the groundbreaking poetry workshop 'Malika's Kitchen' with Roger Robinson. Her books include 'Pepper Seed' and her poetry can be found in the 'Penguin Modern Poets' series.
Len Pennie's collection 'Poyums' is a best-seller, and explores domestic violence and misogyny with energy, wit and inventive rhyme, It's written in a mixture of Scots and English. Len has a huge following on social media, partly down to her celebration of a 'Scots word of the Day'. For The Verb, she reads a poem about telling the story of a relationship in your own words, and considers the influence of Robert Burns.
SUN 17:54 Shipping Forecast (m0020qdb)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping
SUN 17:57 Weather (m0020qdd)
The latest weather reports and forecast
SUN 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m0020qdg)
Voters in France have turned out in large numbers for the first round of a snap election, with the far right expected to top the polls.
SUN 18:15 Pick of the Week (m0020qdj)
Felix White
This week, we find out what exactly it would take to lure someone from the megacity skyscrapers of Tokyo for a life in Sunderland - it helps if you like glass. Are there red lines when it comes to dealing with our grief in the rise of "grieftech" solutions, bringing the dead back to virtual life? And Greg James asks the questions we're all yearning to be asked right now - if you smash 10,000 eggs, what do you do and will you still have your job in the end?
Presenter: Felix White
Producer: Anthony McKee
Production Co-ordinator: Pete Liggins
SUN 19:00 The Archers (m0020q9d)
Harrison and Chris are getting ready for a cricket match against Leyton Cross who have won their last four games, buoyed by a new young player. Chris raises the question of Alice’s crash and how she wouldn’t buy cider. It’s a mistake discussing it with Harrison who insists she was drunk behind the wheel and she should face the consequences. Later, Susan congratulates Christopher on a 176 innings but asks if he has fallen out with Harrison, who threw his bat in disgust after Chris ran him out. He confesses that he talked to Harrison about Alice’s case. Susan says he mustn’t let it come between them. Later, Chris buys Harrison a pint and apologises. But then suggests there was someone else in the car with Alice – Harry Chilcott - he might have persuaded her to drive and then ran away.
Emma and Ed prepare for a tree surgery job – albeit for Justin Elliott at mates’ rates. As they start work Justin rushes out in a panic. Contrary to what they thought was agreed, he didn’t want more than a small trim on the trees. It soon becomes clear that – without naming names - he’s using this to put pressure on Emma to change her online comments about Alice at the Stables. Emma gets the message and Justin says he can see his way to giving them a good online review. Later she tells Susan she has deleted her post about Alice. Susan says Christopher is running around after Alice again, the last thing he needs. Emma says Chris needs his head tested.
SUN 19:15 On the Spot (m0020qdl)
The Penalty Kick in football is a psychological moment of sporting theatre. Consider the penalty shootout climax of the 2022 World Cup Final, France v Argentina, in Qatar.
At fever-pitch, Gary Lineker, declared: "somewhere in this script, someone made it into a drama."
That someone was the amateur goalkeeper, William McCrum from County Armagh, Northern Ireland, who invented the Penalty Kick at the end of the 19th century. He was Robert McCrum's great-grandfather and, in this documentary, Robert journeys back in time to Milford, Co. Armagh in the 1880s, when football was a rough and often dangerous game.
As a result, his great-grandfather William, the heir to a linen fortune and a keen amateur goalkeeper, proposed a new and drastic sanction - Rule 13, a penalty kick that would punish foul play. At first, the International Football Board resisted 'The Irishman's Motion' as an impossible affront to the purity of a noble game and, even after the Penalty Kick was adopted in 1891, it remained controversial.
Robert visits McCrum Square, Milford, the site of the football pitch where the penalty kick was invented, and discovers that the story of its origin isn’t as straightforward as it might seem.
Punctuating Robert's search into his fascinating family history are voices highlighting the psychology behind this sporting drama. For the spectators, it's an enthralling agony in several parts, and one that will propel us to the brink of some excruciating sensations - dread, hope, dismay and exhilaration. No other sport is as global in its appeal, with billions of fans for whom football's penalty shootout is the ultimate thriller.
Robert's documentary is a highly personal and original take on the Northern Irish roots of this sporting psychodrama.
Produced by Melissa FitzGerald.
A Zinc Audio production for BBC Radio 4
Cover Photo: Milford football team 1898 (William McCrum, the goalkeeper, is seated second in 2nd row, left to right). Thanks to the Milford Buildings Preservation Trust.
SUN 19:45 Communicating with Ros Atkins (m0020jdw)
2. Tina Brown, magazine editor and journalist
Ros talks with the legendary magazine editor Tina Brown. We all communicate multiple times a day but could we be getting better results? From a simple text or phone call, to a job interview or big presentation, the way we express ourselves and get our point across can really matter. Ros Atkins and his fascinating guests reveal the best ways to communicate and how simple changes in the way we make our point can be really effective.
In this episode, Ros and Tina explore how good communication was key to her success at Tatler, Vanity Fair and The New Yorker. And we hear her advice on communicating with the right person, making the time for clarity, and anticipating the questions and clarifications that people might ask of us.
Series Producer: Hannah Newton
Production Support: Olivia Cope
Executive Producer: Zoë Edwards
Mix Engineer: Jonathan Last
Original Music Composed by: Tom Wrankmore / Eliphino
Commissioning Editor: Rhian Roberts
A Listen production for BBC Radio 4
SUN 20:00 Feedback (m0020jbr)
Andrea Catherwood discusses Feedback listeners' views on Radio 4's new satirical comedy, Munya Chawawa's Election Doom Scroll, with Radio 4's Comedy and Entertainment Commissioner Julia McKenzie. The three-part series takes us on an imaginary flick through the mobile phones of political leaders, uncovering spoof voice notes, video clips and messages.
Last weekend's Restore Nature Now march in London generated a lot of heat in the the Feedback inbox. Tens of thousands of protesters descended on Parliament Square calling for urgent action on climate change. It was covered in detail by most of the major broadcasters but, if you'd been listening to Radio 4, you'd have missed it. The lack of coverage angered many listeners.
Radio 4's Uncanny is in its fourth series. The programme investigates paranormal events, talking to witnesses and experts to try and uncover rational explanation for spooky goings on. The podcast was created by writer Danny Robins during lockdown and has been a huge hit. Two Uncanny super fans pop into the Feedback VoxBox to talk about the latest series, which is based in the USA. Danny also talks to Andrea about how the show has created such a loyal community of followers.
Presented by Andrea Catherwood
Produced by Pauline Moore
A Whistledown Scotland production for BBC Radio 4
SUN 20:30 Last Word (m0020jf2)
Sir Howard Bernstein, Joan Brady, Gene Nora Jessen, Arthur “Gaps” Hendrickson
Matthew Bannister on
Sir Howard Bernstein, the Chief Executive of Manchester City Council credited with transforming the city after the IRA bomb of 1996.
Joan Brady, the author and former ballet dancer who won the Whitbread Prize for her novel “The Theory of War”.
Gene Nora Jessen, the American pilot who was part of a group of women known as the Mercury 13 – who were subjected to tests to see if they were fit to become astronauts.
Arthur “Gaps” Hendrickson, the vocalist with the two- tone group The Selecter. His bandmate Pauline Black OBE pays tribute.
Interviewee: Paul Horrocks
Interviewee: Alexander Masters
Interviewee: Marth Ackmann
Interviewee: Pauline Black OBE
Producer: Gareth Nelson-Davies
Archive used:
Sir Howard Bernstein interview, BBC News, North West Tonight, 21/03/2017; News Report, Manchester Bombing, BBC Radio 4, 15/06/1996; Howard Bernstein interview with Harvard Professor Ed Glaeser, Public Transportation in Manchester, City X, YouTube uploaded , 31/01/2018; News report - Commonwealth Games - Manchester, , BBC News, North West Tonight 25/07/2002; Howard Bernstein interview, BBC News, Midlands Today, 26/07/2022; Howard Bernstein interview, BBC News, North West Tonight, 31/03/2017; Joan Brady interview, The Forum, BBC World Service, 09/05/2010; Joan Brady, The Theory of War, The Late Show, BBC Two, 09/11/1993; Joan Brady interview, Woman’s Hour, BBC Radio 4, 15/03/2003; Mercury 13 , Official Trailer, Netflix, YouTube uploaded, 09/04/2018; Gene Nora Jessen presentation, Women’s Air Races, Aviation Business, and Astronaut Tests: A Pathbreaking Career, Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum YouTube Channel, uploaded 05/06/2019; Pioneer aviator Gene Nora Jessen, Fox * News, Cleveland , YouTube channel, 20/08/2018.
SUN 21:00 Money Box (m0020p35)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:04 on Saturday]
SUN 21:25 Radio 4 Appeal (m0020pfr)
[Repeat of broadcast at
07:54 today]
SUN 21:30 From Our Own Correspondent (m0020p31)
[Repeat of broadcast at
11:30 on Saturday]
SUN 22:00 Westminster Hour (m0020qdn)
As the election campaign enters its final few days, Ben Wright is joined by the Treasury Minister Bim Afolami, Labour's Deputy National Campaign Co-ordinator Ellie Reeves; and Lib Dem frontbencher Wendy Chamberlain. They discuss their parties' key campaign messages, and whether they've been transparent about issues such as tax and spending. Political commentator Peter Kellner explains the latest opinion polls and the programme also includes an interview with the departing Green MP, Caroline Lucas, about her career and her party's manifesto promises.
SUN 23:00 In Our Time (m0020j9z)
Monet in England
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the work of the great French Impressionist Claude Monet (1840-1926) in London, initially in 1870 and then from 1899. He spent his first visit in poverty, escaping from war in France, while by the second he had become so commercially successful that he stayed at the Savoy Hotel. There, from his balcony, he began a series of almost a hundred paintings that captured the essence of this dynamic city at that time, with fog and smoke almost obscuring the bridges, boats and Houses of Parliament. The pollution was terrible for health but the diffraction through the sooty droplets offered an ever-changing light that captivated Monet, and he was to paint the Thames more than he did his water lilies or haystacks or Rouen Cathedral. On his return to France, Monet appeared to have a new confidence to explore an art that was more abstract than impressionist.
With
Karen Serres
Senior Curator of Paintings at the Courtauld Gallery, London
Curator of the exhibition 'Monet and London. Views of the Thames'
Frances Fowle
Professor of Nineteenth-Century Art at the University of Edinburgh and Senior Curator of French Art at the National Galleries of Scotland
And
Jackie Wullschläger
Chief Art Critic for the Financial Times and author of ‘Monet, The Restless Vision’
In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production
Producer: Simon Tillotson
Studio production: John Goudie
Reading list:
Caroline Corbeau Parsons, Impressionists in London: French Artists in Exile 1870-1904 (Tate Publishing, 2017)
Frances Fowle, Monet and French Landscape: Vétheuil and Normandy (National Galleries of Scotland, 2007), especially the chapter ‘Making Money out of Monet: Marketing Monet in Britain 1870-1905’
Robert Gordon and Andrew Forge, Monet (Harry N. Abrams, 1983)
Paul Hayes Tucker, Monet in the ’90s: The Series Paintings (Yale University Press, 1990)
Paul Hayes Tucker, Monet in the 20th Century (Yale University Press, 1998)
Katharine A. Lochnan, Turner, Whistler, Monet (Tate Publishing, 2005)
Nicholas Reed, Monet and the Thames: Paintings and Modern Views of Monet’s London (Lilburne Press, 1998)
Grace Seiberling, Monet in London (High Museum of Art, 1988)
Karen Serres, Frances Fowle and Jennifer A. Thompson, Monet and London: Views of the Thames (Paul Holberton Publishing, 2024 – catalogue to accompany Courtauld Gallery exhibition)
Charles Stuckey, Monet: A Retrospective (Random House, 1985)
Daniel Wildenstein, Monet: The Triumph of Impressionism (first published 1996; Taschen, 2022)
Jackie Wullschläger, Monet: The Restless Vision (Allen Lane, 2023)
SUN 23:45 Short Works (m0020jf0)
The Pomegranates by Brennig Davies
A new short story by Brennig Davies, read by Mali Harries.
Angharad waits at home. Becca is missing.
The year gets colder and colder, and still no Becca.
And then, one day, there is a knock on the door...
The Persephone myth is re-imagined to modern-day Wales in this powerful tale of a mother and her daughter.
Brennig Davies won the inaugural BBC Young Writers Award in 2015, the Crown at the Urdd Eisteddfod 2019, and was shortlisted for the Rhys Davies Short Story Award 2021. His work has been published in Poetry Wales, Litro USA, The Cardiff Review, and various anthologies, and in 2023 he was chosen as one of the Hay Festival’s Writers at Work.
Reader: Mali Harries
Sound: Nigel Lewis
Producer: Fay Lomas
A BBC Audio Drama Wales Production
MONDAY 01 JULY 2024
MON 00:00 Midnight News (m0020qdq)
The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.
MON 00:15 Being Roman with Mary Beard (m001slqt)
3. Rome's Got Talent
Imagine the feeling in the pit of your stomach as you take to the stage in front of 7000 people to recite a complex poem you’ve just made up on the spot. 11 year old Sulpicius Maximus knows that the Emperor is in the front row and his parents are counting on his success in Rome’s premier festival of the arts.
Mary Beard tracks down the clues behind an extraordinary story of Roman life, revealing the reality of Roman childhood and the desperate attempts of the poet's parents to escape the shadow of their slave roots and rise through the ranks of Roman society.
Producer: Alasdair Cross
Expert Contributors: Valentina Garulli, Bologna University and Kathleen Coleman, Harvard University
Poetry Translation: Barbara Graziosi
Cast: Sulpicius played by Joseph Goodman and oration read by Tyler Cameron
Special thanks to Barbara Nobiloni at the Centrale Montemartini Museum, Rome
MON 00:45 Bells on Sunday (m0020p4x)
[Repeat of broadcast at
05:43 on Sunday]
MON 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m0020qds)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping
MON 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m0020qdv)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.
MON 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m0020qdx)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping
MON 05:30 News Briefing (m0020qdz)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4
MON 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m0020qf1)
Recorders
A spiritual comment and prayer to start the day with Fr John Burniston
Good morning.
Listening to a simply brilliant recorder consort rehearsing together a few weeks ago reminded me of the time when some primary school children were being introduced to music-making for the first time. There was a buzz of real excitement as they were handed their recorders and for the next few minutes the classroom was filled with piercing shrieks and weird whistling sounds as each child tried to get the measure of the plastic tube in their hands.
Then, with a firm but encouraging voice the young teacher asked for silence and she began to show the group how to blow, and how to place their fingers on the holes to get different notes.
After a quarter of an hour there were still shrieks and random whistling sounds but you could see a new contentment on the children’s faces as they discovered their new found ability to make musical sounds.
Every day we come face to face with challenges which we describe to ourselves as being ‘outside our comfort zone’. For some it’s coping with new technology – navigating a smart TV or a phone app – or changing routines, at work or at home.
Often we are forced to try to work things out on our own. But there are times when we prefer to go it alone because our pride refuses to allow us to ask for help. ‘Surely it can’t be that difficult’ we say to ourselves.
And what a relief it is when someone comes alongside and, without making us feel stupid, takes us through the stages, enabling us to find our way through.
Lord, thank you for those who gently teach us and help us to cope - as you do.
Amen.
MON 05:45 Farming Today (m0020qf3)
"Fishing is about food - it's not a conservation problem, or heritage activity, or a hobby" the words of the fishing industry to politicians as we enter the final few days of campaigning before the general election. The National Federation of Fisherman's Organisations is calling for an incoming government to develop a national fishing strategy.
Now most beekeepers sell honey - unless they eat it all of course - but few also sell bees. We speak to a pair of commercial bee keepers who produce honey and queen bees for sale. The pair produce 18 hundred queens a year and sell them to other bee keepers for breeding.
Wimbledon is upon us, and with it an appetite for strawberries, but there are warnings that there will be millions fewer punnets of British strawberries on supermarket shelves this year, and that long term the amount of soft fruit we grow here could half. All this week we'll be looking at soft fruit, predominantly homegrown strawberries which were worth more than £470 million pounds last year and raspberries which were worth £180 million, both those figures from DEFRA. However the industry's warning that growers are reining in their planting plans.
Presenter = Charlotte Smith
Producer = Rebecca Rooney
MON 05:57 Weather (m0020qf5)
Weather reports and forecasts for farmers
MON 06:00 Today (m0020q8t)
France's far right celebrate election lead
Justin Webb reports from France after Marine Le Pen's National Rally party comes top in the first round of the snap election. And as the UK election enters its final days, Mishal Husain visits an SNP-Labour battleground in Scotland.
MON 09:00 Start the Week (m0020q8w)
Weaving magic in words, clay and paper
The author and poet Kathleen Jamie celebrates a new form of writing – weaving personal notes, prose poems and acts of witness – in her latest book, Cairn. The new collection is a meditation on the preciousness and precariousness of both memory and the natural world.
The broadcaster Jennifer Lucy Allan has taken a closer look at the relationship between humans and the earth in her book Clay. From the first clay tablets to the throwing of pots on a wheel, the history of this everyday material is bound up with our own and the act of creation.
The artist Mark Hearld has a passion for making, from collage to printmaking, sculpture and ceramics. Like Kathleen Jamie he takes inspiration from the flora and fauna of the British countryside. In July he will be working in collaboration with the weavers at Dovecot in Edinburgh to turn his paper collages into a tapestry. Visitors to Dovecot will be able to see Mark and the weavers in action (Mark Hearld: At Home in Scotland, until July 18th).
The Dovecot Tapestry studio was first established in Scotland in 1912 and today’s master weaver Naomi Robertson looks back at its history. She explains how over the last century expert craftsmen and woman have worked together using the colour and texture of the threads to transform artworks, from one medium – paper or canvas – to another.
Producer: Katy Hickman
Start the Week will be off air until Monday 16th September but you can find hundreds of episodes available on BBC Sounds and through the programme website.
MON 09:45 Oliver Burkeman's Inconvenient Truth (m001mckr)
Optimised Living
Oliver Burkeman concludes his exploration of the traps awaiting us in the culture of convenience. He draws on his experience of living in Brooklyn and and the contrast of his new home in rural Yorkshire. Resisting the seductive nature of a convenient lifestyle is tough but necessary for our wellbeing. With ex mathematician and writer Coco Krumme and co-founder of Perspectiva Jonathan Rowson and philosopher Julian Baggini
MON 10:00 Woman's Hour (m0020q8y)
Leader interviews: Reform UK's Ann Widdecombe for Nigel Farage, Wimbledon
Gabby Logan joins Krupa Padhy to talk about her new book The Midpoint Plan. She’s challenging the stereotype of middle age. With fewer insecurities, children leaving home and perhaps a bit more money in the bank, she believes we should see it as the best point in our lives. Plus, if we look after ourselves in midlife, we’ll be happier in old age.
Monday 1st July marks the first day of this year’s Wimbledon. Players will be donning their whites to play at the All England Club. Molly McElwee, freelance sports journalist joins us live from Wimbledon to discuss the women we should be on the lookout for and who might rise to the top over the next two weeks.
Woman’s Hour has invited the leaders of all the main political parties for an interview in the run-up to the General Election. Today, in place of the Reform UK leader Nigel Farage, Krupa is joined by Ann Widdecombe, the party’s Immigration and Justice spokesperson.
France's Far Right National Rally made big wins in the first round of France's snap elections. The National Rally party came first with 33 percent of the vote, with the left wing Popular Front alliance on 28% and President's Emmanuel Macron's centrist alliance suffering the largest losses and coming third with just over 20 percent of the vote. In the past, supporters for National Rally have predominately been men but now French women are said to be bucking the trend and supporting the National Rally. Marta Lorimer, lecturer in politics at Cardiff University explains what these results mean.
Summer is here, which means it's wedding season, and brides-to-be across the country are asking themselves the eternal question: what do I wear for the occasion? Kathryn Wheeler, who married earlier this year, decided to do something that old superstitions advice against: make her own wedding dress. In the process, she learned much more than just sewing skills. She also learned a life lesson - to embrace imperfections.
Presenter: Krupa Padhy
Producer: Kirsty Starkey
MON 11:00 Behind the Crime (m0020q90)
Liam
Liam was picked up by the police on the way to his grandmother’s grave.
He was in possession of a bladed article and some cannabis. His life had hit rock bottom and he says he was on his way to take his own life at the location where his beloved grandmother is buried. He received a prison sentence.
Liam is a young transgender man. His parents struggled with poverty, disability and addiction issues. Liam was removed from his home and taken into local authority care at an early age. This was the start of an unbelievably chaotic chain of care placements, violent outbursts, runaways and encounters with the police.
Dr Sally Tilt and Dr Kerensa Hocken are forensic psychologists who work in prisons. Their job is to help people in prison understand the harm they’ve caused, identify why it happened and work out how to make changes to prevent further harm after they’ve been released.
In Behind the Crime, they take the time to understand the life of someone whose crimes have led to harm and prison.
Through this extended interview with Liam, recorded months after his release from prison, we get to the heart of his behaviour.
For details of organisations that can provide help and support, visit bbc.co.uk/actionline
Producer: Andrew Wilkie
Editor: Clare Fordham
Behind the Crime is a co-production between BBC Long Form Audio and the Prison Radio Association.
MON 11:45 Obsessed with the Quest (m001ts6k)
Inside the Minds of Chimpanzees
Primatologist Catherine Hobaiter has spent more of her adult life in the rain forests of Uganda, with family bands of chimpanzees, than she has with her own human family members. For more than 20 years now she has spent 6 months every year at a remote field station, getting up before dawn every day to observe and collect behavioural data on family bands of chimps as they wake up and go about their daily lives. What is she trying to find out, that has gripped her for so long? It turns out that life in a chimpanzee troupe is every bit as gripping as a soap opera. We hear about Nambi - a high status female and the family matriarch who, in controlling the lives and social status of her offspring, has been the quintessential helicopter parent, actively intervening to help her layabout son, Musa, climb up the rungs of the male hierarchy. And about the tragic fate of Lola - a young female who becomes caught up in what seems to be a tragic case of miscommunication. Maintaining her scientific objectivity, Catherine can only look on as Lola tries to hide behind her for protection, as she is beaten by an older male, later dying of the resulting injuries. But there are many more moments of beauty, revelation and the joy of discovery, as Catherine pursues her continuing, multi-decadal quest to understand what it means to be a chimpanzee.
Produced by Diane Hope
(Image: Chimpanzees in Kibale National Park. Credit: Yannick Tylle/Getty Images)
MON 12:00 News Summary (m0020q92)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
MON 12:04 You and Yours (m0020q94)
Loud Budgeting, Shopping Habits and Plusnet Changes
Loud Budgeting is a trend on social media where people share what they can and can’t afford to avoid overstretching themselves financially. We hear whether it works and why young people are more open to discussing their finances than previous generations.
You and Yours has learned that no further action will be taken against the former director of a company that owes hundreds of thousands of pounds to people trying to build their own homes. We explore how this has happened and hear some advice on what you should look out for in this situation.
Online fashion retailer Pretty Little Thing deactivated a number of customer’s accounts on the grounds of breaching rules on product returns. What are consumer’s rights if they want to contest being banned from a private company?
Have your attitudes towards food changed over time? The Co-op’s recently released Responsible Retail Report explores what matters most to consumers now compared with 30 years ago.
Plusnet, the broadband provider, is ending its mobile phone network service. We hear how switching to a new network is proving difficult for some customers.
PRESENTER: WINIFRED ROBINSON
PRODUCER: CHARLIE FILMER-COURT
MON 12:57 Weather (m0020q97)
The latest weather forecast
MON 13:00 World at One (m0020q9b)
What next for France?
France’s far right is ahead after the first round of parliamentary elections. So what does this mean for France? Also: We speak to Labour's Steve Reed about housebuilding.
MON 13:45 Buried (m0020k6k)
The Last Witness
The Last Witness - 6. Off the Scale
Dan rushes to a site in South Wales, where PCBs are reportedly escaping from an old landfill site. He and Lucy take their strange team on the road, to test the earth in towns and villages countrywide. The results could reveal whether Douglas' prophecy has come true.
Buried is the award-winning true-crime series digging into some of the most disturbing environmental stories in history. In this new investigation, reporters Dan Ashby and Lucy Taylor team up with the film star Michael Sheen. Together, they dig into the unseen files of a man who said he was beaten up and put under police protection, after alleging that a chemical had contaminated the food chain.
Produced and presented by Dan Ashby and Lucy Taylor
Research by Georgie Styles
Sound design and mixing by Jarek Zaba
Original music and sounds by Phil Channell
Executive Producers: Philip Abrams and Anita Elash
Commissioning Editor: Dan Clarke
A Smoke Trail production for BBC Radio 4
MON 14:00 The Archers (m0020q9d)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Sunday]
MON 14:15 Fags, Mags and Bags (m0020q9g)
Series 11
Priesty Weisty Hooversy Stairsy
The hit Radio 4 series Fags, Mags & Bags returns with an 11th series with more shop-based shenanigans and over the counter philosophy, courtesy of Ramesh Majhu and his trusty sidekick Dave.
In this episode, Bishop Briggs (under the watchful eye of The Archbishop Thin Kenny) must audition to Lovely Sue to convince her he can perform her marriage to Derek, but he’s up against newly qualified celebrant Malcolm who is keen to take the Lenzie’s Got Wedding crown.
Set in a Scots-Asian corner shop and written by and starring Donald McLeary and Sanjeev Kohli, the award winning Fags, Mags & Bags has proved a huge hit with the Radio 4 audience. This brand-new series sees a return of all the show’s regular characters, and some guest appearances along the way.
Cast
Ramesh: Sanjeev Kohli
Dave: Donald McLeary
Sanjay: Omar Raza
Alok: Susheel Kumar
Malcolm. Mina Anwar
Bishop Briggs: Michael Redmond
Lovely Sue: Julie Wilson-Nimmo
Thin Kenny: Greg Haiste
Producer: Gus Beattie for Gusman Productions
A Comedy Unit production for BBC Radio 4
MON 14:45 Gambits (m00120d7)
5: Check
The next in a gripping new short story series, set in Little Purlington - a seemingly ordinary English village, but which is anything but.
Today, in 'The Check', local chess prodigy Matthew thinks he might know who is behind the strange acts of misrule in the village...
Reader: Harry Redding
Writer: Eley Williams is the author of Attrib. and Other Stories, and a debut novel, The Liar's Dictionary.
Producer: Justine Willett
MON 15:00 A Good Read (m0020q9j)
Sebastian Faulks and Tessa Hadley
VOICES IN THE EVENING by Natalia Ginzburg (trans. DM Low), chosen by Tessa Hadley
THE ZONE OF INTEREST by Martin Amis (trans. Jessica Moore), chosen by Sebastian Faulks
EASTBOUND by Maylis de Kerangal, chosen by Harriett Gilbert
Two authors pick books they love with Harriett Gilbert.
Tessa Hadley (Late In The Day, Free Love, After The Funeral) takes us to post-war Italy with Voices In The Evening by Natalia Ginzburg. The drama, suffering and fascism are in the past, but traumas surface in the day-to-day, with first loves and lost chances.
Sebastian Faulks (Birdsong, Human Traces, The Seventh Son) chooses The Zone of Interest by Martin Amis, after watching the hit film by Jonathan Glazer and wanting to read the book it was inspired by. The haunting novel follows a Nazi officer who has become enamoured with the Auschwitz camp commandant's wife, and goes inside the minds of the commandant, who lives with his family right next to the concentration camp.
Harriett Gilbert brings Eastbound by Maylis de Kerangal, a gripping novella set on the Trans-Siberian Railway, with a chance encounter between a desperate Russian conscript and a French woman.
Produced by Eliza Lomas for BBC Audio Bristol
Join the conversation on Instagram @bbcagoodread
MON 15:30 The Failure of the Future (m001vs9p)
Mirai No Haikyo
For decades, artists and scientists have dreamed up utopias that aim to reform the way we live. But why did they not become the future we are living in today? Is there something in those “what-might-have-beens” that’s worth returning to?
Writer and artist Johny Pitts explores a series of failed visions of the future. But rather than discarding them with the sands of time, he asks what we can learn from those past projections. And might elements of these forgotten worlds propel us towards a brighter tomorrow?
For Johny, there was a time when he felt he was living inside the future. Between 1950 and 1990, Japan was a time of great prosperity, innovation and invention. The nation seemed to be mapping out an advanced reality that could shape the future that the rest of the world might live in. And yet, that didn't come to fruition.
In this third episode, Johny zooms in on how Japanese artists had begun to carve out alternative visions of the future after living through a period of tumultuous change. Creators in post-war Japan had their hopes of utopias destroyed after witnessing the meteoric rise of the bubble era and the subsequent economic crash. They summed up what was left as "mirai no haikyo" meaning "ruins of the future". In response, Japanese artists were motivated to steer society towards new ideas for what the future could be. Might their imaginations of how to overcome times of hardship be useful to us today?
Presenter: Johny Pitts
Producer and sound design: Anishka Sharma
Mix Engineer: Andy Fell
Executive Producer: Phil Smith
A Reduced Listening production for BBC Radio 4
MON 16:00 The Deadly Business of Democracy (m0020q9l)
[Repeat of broadcast at
13:30 on Sunday]
MON 16:30 Rewinder (m0020p2x)
[Repeat of broadcast at
10:30 on Saturday]
MON 17:00 PM (m0020q9n)
Trump is awarded partial immunity from prosecution.
Donald Trump is awarded partial immunity from prosecution for acts taken while president. What does it mean for his Jan 6th case? Also the latest on the French elections.
MON 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m0020q9q)
The ruling will likely delay his trial for conspiring to overturn the 2020 election
MON 18:30 Mark Steel's in Town (m0020q9s)
Series 13
Malvern
Mark Steel's In Town - Malvern
“...if ever after I'm dead you hear someone whistling this tune on the Malvern Hills, don't be alarmed, it's only me" -
Edward Elgar.
This week Mark visits the Malvern hills in Worcestershire.
This is the 13th series of Mark's award-winning show where he travels around the country visiting towns that have nothing in common but their uniqueness. After thoroughly researching each town, Mark writes and performs a bespoke evening of comedy for a local audience.
As well as Malvern, in this series Mark be will also be popping to Margate, Stoke-on-Trent, East Grinstead, Coleraine in Northern Ireland and Nether Edge in Sheffield.
There will also be extended versions of each episode available on BBC sounds.
Written and performed by Mark Steel
Additional material by Pete Sinclair
Production co-ordinator Katie Baum
Sound Manager Jerry Peal
Producer Carl Cooper
A BBC Studios Audio production for Radio 4
MON 19:00 The Archers (m0020q9v)
Chris turns up early to speak to Susan. He can’t pick up Martha, he says, because he has a late appointment. But when she questions him he admits he’s actually going to see Harry, who will be handing out prizes at the Borsetshire Young Horse Championship. Susan says she’ll drive him there. Later, Chris accosts Harry at the event. He accuses him of being there on the night of the crash. But Harry genuinely has no idea what he’s talking about. He didn’t know Alice had been drinking either. Chris rages at him, but Harry is genuinely apologetic, leaving Chris taken aback. As Susan drives Chris back to Ambridge she says he has to accept that Alice did this and there’s no other explanation. He needs to put all his energy into Martha and leave Alice to herself.
Paul and Josh discuss the weekend’s Pride parade – it was brilliant, dancing from midday until four in the morning says Paul. Lily managed to find the only straight guy in the club and hooked up. Paul managed to get a few guys’ details too, but he’s not planning on contacting any of them. In fact, he’s off to meet Etienne for a session of couples therapy. They are seeing a counsellor in Borchester to discuss Etienne’s desire for an open relationship. Paul returns upset. Etienne didn’t even bother to turn up – he fell asleep in front of the TV. Josh is furious – Paul deserves better! Josh says it’s time to dump him – but Paul still wants to give therapy a chance.
MON 19:15 Front Row (m0020q9x)
Lynda la Plante, AI and copyright, funding literary festivals
Lynda la Plante discusses her final Jane Tennison novel, Whole Life Sentence and discusses the enduring legacy of Prime Suspect.
Lea Ypi remembers the late Albanian writer and poet Ishmail Kadare, author of The General of the Dead Army and The Palace of Dreams.
How is AI impacting music copyright? Hayleigh Bosher of Brunel University London, Reader in Intellectual Property Law and the music business journalist Eamonn Forde discuss.
And Julie Finch, CEO of Hay Festival, discusses the future of books festival funding.
Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Ciaran Bermingham
MON 20:00 The Briefing Room (m0020jbt)
What's happening in Sudan?
David Aaronovitch and guests dissect Sudan's ongoing civil war. This conflict is now one of the world's worst humanitarian disasters. How can it be brought to an end?
Guests:
James Copnall - presenter of Newsday on the BBC World Service and former BBC Sudan correspondent
Mohanad Hashim - Sudanese journalist working on Newshour on the BBC World Service
Dame Rosalind Marsden - associate fellow of the Africa programme at Chatham House and former UK ambassador to Sudan
Professor Alex De Waal - executive director of the World Peace Foundation
Produced by: Kirsteen Knight, Caroline Bayley and Ben Carter
Edited by: Richard Vadon and Richard Fenton-Smith
Sound engineers: Rod Farquhar and Andy Fell
Production co-ordinator: Gemma Ashman
MON 20:30 BBC Inside Science (m0020jbw)
What makes an effective protest?
As another week of disruptive Just Stop Oil protests grabs media attention, sociologist Dana Fisher discusses which actions might help a cause - and which could harm it.
Japanese scientists have developed artificial skin for robots made from real human cells. Inside Science producer Dr Ella Hubber digs into the uncanny invention.
Inside Science reporter Patrick Hughes goes on the trail of methane emissions from landfills.
And, as a heatwave smothers the UK, physiologist Damian Bailey helps us figure out what the perfect temperature for a human is.
Presenter: Marnie Chesterton
Producers: Ella Hubber, Gerry Holt, Sophie Ormiston
Editor: Martin Smith
Production Co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth
MON 21:00 Start the Week (m0020q8w)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 today]
MON 21:45 Assume Nothing: The Shankill Gold Rush (m001kpzh)
(Long, long) After the Gold Rush
In the summer of 1969, weeks before the Troubles would ignite, children playing in the rubble of a demolition site struck gold! While searching for treasure hundreds, maybe thousands of gold sovereigns, hidden and forgotten years before, tumbled to the ground from a chimney stack. More than 50 years later, author Glenn Patterson visits the Lower Shankill Road to find out who the coins belonged to. Why were they hidden? And where are they now?
Written and presented by Glenn Patterson
Sound by Bill Maul
Producer Sarah McGlinchey
Executive Editor Andy Martin
A BBC Northern Ireland Production for Radio 4
MON 22:00 The World Tonight (m0020q9z)
French centrists and Left strike deals to squeeze out National Rally
Centrist and left-wing politicians in France are scrambling to strike deals that will reduce the chances of the far-right National Rally winning a majority in the second round of voting of legislative elections on Sunday. Marine Le Pen's party emerged as the largest after the first round of voting. But agreements between parties opposed to her would see candidates step aside in some constituencies to increase the chances of another candidate beating the National Rally. We explain how it works and what the election could mean for the future of Europe.
In the US, the Supreme Court has ruled that Donald Trump does enjoy immunity for some of the actions he took as president. Trump hailed it as a victory, but in her dissent one justice said the ruling made the President "a king above the law".
And 32 years since passengers and crew of a British Airways flight were used as human shields by Saddam Hussein, we speak to one of those who is taking legal action against the airline and the British government for allegedly putting them in danger.
MON 22:45 Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon (m0020qb1)
One
It is 412 BC and the Peloponnesian war is raging. Debut novelist Ferdia Lennon’s Glorious Exploits is a thrillingly funny and moving story of wild ambition, high drama and unexpected friendship set in the aftermath of the disastrous invasion of Sicily by the Athenians.
In Syracuse, two young potters and best friends, Gelon and Lampo, come up with a ridiculously brilliant and crazy idea of putting on a play and casting the characters from the captured Athenian soldiers who are starving in the Syracusean quarries. United by a love of Homer and a passion for the work of the Athenian playwright Euripides, the unlikely pair are determined to pursue their dream, wherever it takes them and however many risks they face.
First they have to find prisoners who are familiar with the work of Euripides, and then bribe the starving captives with food and wine to recite any lines they can remember. Extra olives if they are from Medea. Once they’ve auditioned and found their cast, they need money for masks, costumes and scenery. It’s only when they brave a visit to a mysterious merchant ship moored in the harbour that they secure both the funds, and a producer.
The enterprise is fraught with uncertainties and danger, but as the play goes into production, unexpected friendships are made, and unlikely bonds of loyalty are forged. When disaster strikes, the young directors have to decide how to save the prisoners they’ve befriended.
Ferdia Lennon was born in Dublin to an Irish mother and a Libyan father. He holds a BA in History and Classics from University College Dublin, and an MA in Prose Fiction from the University of East Anglia. This is his debut novel, set in a convincing classical world and brilliantly written in a modern Irish vernacular.
Written by : Ferdia Lennon
Reader: Jonathan Forbes
Abridger: Sara Davies
Producer: Celia de Wolff
A Pier Production for BBC Radio 4
MON 23:00 Limelight (m001885f)
The System - Series 2
The System - Step 2: Building Heroes
Or How to Save the World in 5 Easy Steps
Step 2: Building Heroes
Ben Lewis’s award-winning thriller returns for a second season.
Five super-rich men have been kidnapped by a mysterious group of extremists. The authorities have no clue where the men are being held, and the clock is ticking.
As the only two people with insider knowledge of the terrorists, Jake and Maya are about to be pulled back into the murky world of ‘The System’.
Cast:
Jake … Alex Austin
Maya… Siena Kelly
Jess … Chloe Pirrie
Liv … Jemima Rooper
Richard…Pip Torrens
Angel Investor … Rhashan Stone
Original music and sound design by Danny Krass
A BBC Scotland Production directed by Kirsty Williams
MON 23:30 Split Ends (m001yjyn)
2. Liberty X
Singer Songwriter and BBC Introducing presenter Kitty Perrin charts the stories of band break ups, looking at what really happened. Using new interviews with band members themselves - as well as music professionals, academics, and writers - she analyses the reasons behind why bands split.
Some band splits are violent, ugly affairs. They go out with a bang or at least a goodbye tour. Others simply walk away quietly from the limelight.
In this episode, Kitty takes us back to the early 2000s, the reality TV show Popstars and the five losing singers. She talks to the original female members, Michelle Heaton, Kelli Young and Jessica Taylor about how their failure to win the TV show and being labelled ‘Flopstars’ brought the five members together as an actual non-TV band, Liberty X. And how, despite that initial label from the press, they became more successful than the eventual Popstars winners, Hear’Say.
In the six years together, the band was rarely out of the tabloids. They released three albums, achieved eight UK Top 10 hits, and played stadiums all over the world but then, one day, they were gone. Kitty looks at what happened and why - uncovering a theme of imposter syndrome while the band were at their height, and a loss of identity when they split.
She also hears from Ryan Dusick, original drummer of American rock-pop band Maroon 5, about his own issues of imposter syndrome and how that led to him being sacked, from Dr George Musgrave, rapper (under the name Context) and senior lecturer in cultural sociology at Goldsmiths University, specialising in mental health in the music industry.
Presented by Kitty Perrin
Produced by Julian Mayers and Ellie Dobing
Original Music by Gordon Russell
A Yada-Yada Audio production for BBC Radio 4
TUESDAY 02 JULY 2024
TUE 00:00 Midnight News (m0020qb3)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
TUE 00:30 Obsessed with the Quest (m001ts6k)
[Repeat of broadcast at
11:45 on Monday]
TUE 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m0020qb5)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping
TUE 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m0020qb7)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.
TUE 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m0020qb9)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping
TUE 05:30 News Briefing (m0020qbc)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4
TUE 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m0020qbh)
Coral Reefs
A spiritual comment and prayer to start the day with Fr John Burniston
Good morning.
Radio may not be the best place to learn about the amazing eco system that is the Great Barrier Reef in Australia but I was particularly taken with a short piece on the Today programme about the challenges it faces.
Extending for thousands of kilometres, the Great Barrier Reef is home to countless micro habitats, each of which provides a home for more than 1,600 species of fish, dolphins and whales and six of the world’s seven species of marine turtles. No one reef looks like another. Their beauty – and their strength – lies in their diversity.
However, the rise in ocean temperatures has led to severe bleaching and decay and recent cyclones have caused large areas of the reef to fracture into coral skeletons. Without intervention the coral will simply break up and die.
Yet marine scientists are rising to the challenge. Massive seawater misters are being deployed to create fog over reefs exposed to too much sunlight and thousands of living coral fragments are being planted to enable reef renewal.
We are not the first generation to feel overwhelmed by challenges to faith and to Christian values. Nor are we immune from the temptation to think that there is nothing much we can do, that decline is inevitable.
But like the coral scientists we will need to be both creative and systematic in finding solutions to enable our own hugely complex ‘barrier reef’ church home to thrive once more. Jesus talks about the way the grain of wheat has to die before the crop can be harvested. What new fragments do we need to be planting?
Lord, in all the challenges be our guide, for we put our trust in you.
Amen.
TUE 05:45 Farming Today (m0020qbm)
02/07/24 - Danish methane tax, Electric Berries and rural/urban voting habits
Danish farmers are facing a tax on methane from cattle, pigs and slurry. The charges will be based on how many animals a farmer has, and what sort of farming system they use. There will be money available for farmers to introduce technical solutions, such as covering up slurry storage, to reduce emissions.
We visit a soft fruit farm in Kent which is part of a trial to generate electricity by draping lightweight, flexible solar panels over some polytunnels.
And a study by researchers at the University of Cambridge has looked at the urban / rural divide in voting habits - and found what it called a gradient of disenchantment and distrust in democracy, that increases as it moves from urban centres through suburbs, towns, villages and out into open country.
Presented by Anna Hill
Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Heather Simons
TUE 06:00 Today (m0020qjd)
Election 2024: Nick Robinson and Amol Rajan
News and interviews as the general election enters its final few days.
TUE 09:00 The Life Scientific (m0020qjj)
Anne Child on Marfan syndrome and love at first sight
Marfan syndrome is a genetic disorder that makes renders the body’s connective tissues incredibly fragile; this can weaken the heart, leading to potentially fatal aneurysms. What’s more, anyone with the condition has a 50/50 chance of passing it on to their children.
Dr Anne Child is a clinical geneticist who’s dedicated her professional life to finding answers and solutions for people affected by Marfan’s.
Born in Canada, she met her British future-husband while working in Montreal in a case she describes as "love at first sight" - and in the 1970s she relocated her life to the UK.
There, an encounter with a Marfan patient she was unable to help set Anne on a career path for life. She subsequently established the team that discovered the gene responsible for Marfan's, and founded the Marfan Trust to drive further research. Since then, life expectancy for those with the condition has jumped from 32 years old, to over 70.
Speaking to Professor Jim Al-Khalili, Anne shares how she and her team achieved this remarkable turnaround.
Presented by Jim Al-Khalili
Produced by Lucy Taylor
TUE 09:30 Is Psychiatry Working? (m0020qjn)
Depression and Emily
In this new series of Is Psychiatry Working, writer Horatio Clare and his co-host, psychiatrist Professor Femi Oyebode focus on some of the most successful ways of treating mental health conditions – both the established and the more experimental. The world of mental illness, what it is and how we understand it, the embattled position of psychiatry and its patients was the matter of the first series, explored through the story of Horatio’s own breakdown. The landscape travelled – both in terms of access to good mental health care, and psychiatry's progress - was quite bleak. Now, in the spirit of hopefulness, Femi and Horatio explore a new and important question - what is working in psychiatry now?
In this episode, Emily helps us to understand what’s at stake for those who live with treatment resistant depression. We look at how the condition may be alleviated through psychedelics and ketamine therapy.
TUE 10:00 Woman's Hour (m0020qjs)
Professor Dame Carol Robinson, Leader Interview: The Conservative’s Maria Caulfield for Rishi Sunak, Michelle De Swarte
British scientist Dame Carol Robinson, Professor of Chemistry at the University of Oxford and a trailblazer in the field of mass spectrometry, will receive the Lifetime Achievement Award during this year’s European Inventor Award 2024 ceremony. She will be first ever British winner. She is receiving the award not just for her outstanding work but also for championing women in STEM. She joins Nuala McGovern to explain why she’s passionate about women in science.
Woman’s Hour has already spoken to five of the seven main political parties in the run up to the general election. Today, Nuala speaks to Maria Caulfield, Minister of State for Mental Health and Women’s Health Strategy, representing the leader of the Conservative party, Rishi Sunak.
Woman's Hour invited Labour's Sir Keir Starmer on to the programme as part of our series of party leader interviews ahead of the general election. Labour did not put forward a representative for this interview, so we hear from Ione Wells, BBC political correspondent, about Labour's manifesto pledges regarding women.
By the time she was 19, Michelle De Swarte had gone from a council estate in London to the catwalks of Manhattan. Her twenties were a swirl of parties and high end glamour but by her thirties she was broke and in need - as she once put it - of a “new personality”. Desperate to find a way out of fashion, she reinvented herself as a stand-up comedian. Michelle De Swarte joins Nuala to talk about putting some of her own experiences into a new BBC comedy, Spent.
Presenter: Nuala McGovern
Producer: Olivia Skinner
TUE 11:00 Add to Playlist (m0020jfd)
Series 9
Heidi Fardell and Keelan Carew round off the series
Recorder and baroque flute player Heidi Fardell and pianist Keelan Carew join Anna Phoebe and Jeffrey Boakye as they add the last five tracks, which include the theme for a famous animated woodpecker, a huge recent TV soundtrack with echoes of Beethoven, and a funked-up version of a classic 1960 guitar track by The Shadows.
Add to Playlist will return with a new series on 16th August
Producer: Jerome Weatherald
Presented with musical direction by Jeffrey Boakye and Anna Phoebe
The five tracks in this week's playlist:
Woody Woodpecker Song by Kay Kyser
The Division Flute: Faronell’s Ground by Anonymous
Succession – Main Title Theme – by Nicholas Britell
Sonata Tragica by Nikolai Medtner
Apache by The Incredible Bongo Band
Other music in this episode:
He's the Greatest Dancer by Sister Sledge
Venus as a Boy by Björk
Work by Rihanna ft Drake
My Girl by Madness
Apache by The Shadows
Apache by Bert Weedon
TUE 11:45 Obsessed with the Quest (m001trp4)
Humpback Heat Run
Underwater cameraman Roger Munns set himself and his team an incredible challenge. In 2008, they set out to Tonga to film the biggest courtship ritual of the animal kingdom, the humpback heat run, for the very first time underwater and up close.
In the first few days, Roger had intimate encounters with humpback mothers and their calves. He captured their interactions, and marvelled at how gracefully they move their fins. But most of the time, he was sat on the back of the boat, next to his safety diver Jason. They spent 12 hours a day looking at the endless blue ocean, waiting to find a heat run. After two unsuccessful weeks, he started to wonder whether they would ever see one. He questioned whether this had been a good idea in the first place.
A few days later, somebody spotted a heat run, and everything sprang into action. Roger got in front of the whales, and dove down ten meters underwater on a single breath. From then on, his job was just to wait and hold his camera ready. In a moment that seemed to stretch out time, he waited, nervously, for a group of 40-ton bus-sized whales to speed past him…
Produced by Florian Bohr
Credits:
Humpback whale mother and calf sounds - Acoustic Communications CNRS team & CETAMADA
Humpback whale calf sounds - Lars Bejder (MMRP Hawaii), Peter T. Madsen (Aarhus University) & Simone Videsen (Aarhus University)
(Image: Humpback whale heat run with multiple whales in pursuit close to the ocean surface. Credit: Philip Thurston/Getty Images)
TUE 12:00 News Summary (m0020qjx)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
TUE 12:04 You and Yours (m0020qk1)
Call You and Yours: Money Talk
In this week's phone-in we're talking about something we've not always been good at talking about and that's money.
Personal finance trends like 'Loud Budgeting', which is about talking openly about your budget and what you will and won't spend money on, suggest a change is afoot. Young people in particular are embracing talking about money more openly and assertively rather than passively going along with something they can't afford or don't want to do. How many times have you gone along with a plan even though you wanted to spend less?
Are you a Loud Budgeter or do you prefer to keep conversations about cash quiet? Is this a healthy change and inevitable giving years of cost of living cuts and price rises? Are we all talking about money more openly now?
Email us at youandyours@bbc.co.uk and leave a telephone number where we can contact you.
From
11am on Tuesday you can call us on 03700 100 444.
PRESENTER: WINIFRED ROBINSON
PRODUCER: CATHERINE EARLAM
TUE 12:57 Weather (m0020qk3)
The latest weather forecast
TUE 13:00 World at One (m0020qk5)
How many postal votes are missing?
As many voters report missing postal ballots, the Electoral Commission says there's "no systemic problem". So what's going on? Plus: Andy Murray pulls out of the Wimbledon singles.
TUE 13:45 Buried (m0020k74)
The Last Witness
The Last Witness - 7. On Your Plate
Michael Sheen calls... have Dan and Lucy accidentally poisoned him?
Probably not, but scientists warn that 'something out there' is causing a rise in illnesses, such as testicular cancer. Could it be PCBs in our food? Dan and Lucy test for the chemicals in fish that people buy to eat.
Buried is the award-winning true-crime series digging into some of the most disturbing environmental stories in history. In this new investigation, reporters Dan Ashby and Lucy Taylor team up with the film star Michael Sheen. Together, they dig into the unseen files of a man who said he was beaten up and put under police protection, after alleging that a chemical had contaminated the food chain.
Produced and presented by Dan Ashby and Lucy Taylor
Research by Georgie Styles
Sound design and mixing by Jarek Zaba
Original music and sounds by Phil Channell
Executive Producers: Philip Abrams and Anita Elash
Commissioning Editor: Dan Clarke
A Smoke Trail production for BBC Radio 4
TUE 14:00 The Archers (m0020q9v)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Monday]
TUE 14:15 Riot Girls (m000skcx)
The Fall Down
Episode 3
Maya and Horace have escaped from The Seven's compound and head to Manchester in order to rescue Jan's baby. Jan has been taken back to the compound, where Renata now asks her to make an horrific sacrifice. Meanwhile, the fall down is increasing in velocity - humans falling out of one world and into another. Lauren Cornelius, Lyndsey Marshall, Fanta Barrie and Jane Slavin star in Melissa Murray's feminist dystopian drama.
Directed by Emma Harding
Sound design by Caleb Knightley
Maya.....Lauren Cornelius
Jan.....Lyndsey Marshall
Horace.....Fanta Barrie
Renata.....Jane Slavin
Petri.....Elinor Coleman
Mary.....Marilyn Nnadebe
Floran.....Jessica Turner
Barry.....Hasan Dixon
Young Man.....Stewart Campbell
Doctor Ramsey.....Tony Turner
TUE 15:00 The Gatekeepers (m001wq29)
4. Flood the Zone
2016 is a big election year. But something is going very wrong online. Journalists in America and the Philippines start to notice something strange going on online.
In Manila, Maria Ressa - the editor of online news site, Rappler - discovers a sock puppet network of social media accounts, all pushing for the election of a strong leader. Someone like Rodrigo Duterte. Maria is suspicious. She makes an urgent call to Facebook.
In Veles, in Macedonia, a young man called 'Marco' starts writing fake articles and posting them online. Very soon they're being read by millions of people around the globe and he's making huge sums of money.
The online ecosystem is under attack.
Producer: Caitlin Smith
Sound design and mix: Eloise Whitmore
Composer: Jeremy Warmsley
Exec: Peter McManus
Researcher: Juliet Conway and Elizabeth Ann Duffy
Commissioned by Dan Clarke
Archive: BBC News, AP Archive, Bloomberg Television, CNN
New episodes released on Mondays. If you’re in the UK, listen to the latest episodes of The Gatekeepers, first on BBC Sounds: bbc.in/3Ui661u
TUE 15:30 Beyond Belief (m0020qk7)
More Than One Wife
Giles Fraser meets Hafsa Rizki, a British Muslim women who coaches women in polygamous relationships. Her husband was already married when they met and got married themselves. She doesn't like the term, but she says she is a second wife and tells Giles about why it's a successful relationship, and how it's part of her spiritual journey.
Perhaps surprisingly, polygamy is 'more commonplace' than might be expected in the UK, according to Dame Louise Casey in her government review on integration and equality in 2016. In a society where the model of monogamy has dominated for centuries, what leads people to enter polygamous marriages? What is it's religious history and what are the ethical and moral questions it raises? Plus, as polyamory is more openly discussed and practiced, is the model of monogamy no longer fit for purpose?
To discuss Giles is joined by Yasmin Rehman, CEO of Juno Women's Aid and a campaigner on women's rights, Imam Waleid Allam and Susannah Cornwall, Professor on Constructive Theologies at the University of Exeter.
Producer: Rebecca Maxted
Assistant Producer: Linda Walker
Editors: Tim Pemberton and Rajeev Gupta
TUE 16:00 How to Prepare for Government (m0020qk9)
As the 2024 General Election comes to an end and politicians and their aides turn their minds to who should serve in the Cabinet and where they'll sit in Downing Street, civil servants all over Whitehall are busy preparing for a new government. Ex-Deputy Cabinet Secretary Helen MacNamara and former Downing Street aide Cleo Watson speak to former officials and SpAds about access talks, policy implementation and the tiny details (fonts, sandwiches, mints) that make all the difference.
Presenters: Cleo Watson and Helen MacNamara
Producer: Eliane Glaser
Executive Producer: Jon Holmes
An unusual production for BBC Radio 4
Contributors:
Former senior civil servants:
Peter Hill
David Normington
Sonia Phippard
Mark Sweeney
Alex Thomas
Former political advisers:
Kate Fall
Edward Lister
Sally Morgan
Jonny Oates
Jonathan Powell
TUE 16:30 When It Hits the Fan (m0020qkc)
Positive campaigning, how to deal with disappointment and why PR loves Wimbledon
With the UK general election upon us, David Yelland and Simon Lewis look at the two sides of campaigning of all kinds – positive PR and negative PR. Who decides whether to go for optimism or fear, and what works? In the great game of persuasion that is PR, connection is key. When Banksy’s migrant boat was carried across a sea of hands at Glastonbury it was a moment of powerful positive communication. But in the world of short-term political campaigning, negative PR can be an equal but opposite strategy.
Also, as many MPs and prospective MPs face the possibility of defeat, David and Simon dsicuss the art of being disappointed in public. How best to lose with cameras whirring?
And the power of being seen in the right place with the right people at the right time – why the PR industry loves Wimbledon.
Producer: Eve Streeter
Editor: Sarah Teasdale
Executive Producer: William Miller
Music by Eclectic Sounds
A Raconteur production for BBC Radio 4
TUE 17:00 PM (m0020qkf)
Lucy Letby: Nurse found guilty
Lucy Letby, the former nurse is found guilty of attempted murder of premature. She's already spending time for the murder and attempted murders of thirteen babies. Also on PM the latest on the UK's general election and the election in France. We speak to Conservative Minister Ann-Marie Trevelyan and Labour's Shadow Minister Alison McGovern.
TUE 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m0020qkh)
Campaigning for the General Election has entered its final straight
TUE 18:30 Munya Chawawa's Election Doom Scroll (m0020qkk)
The Episode We Were Made to Do for Balance
After a long day, who among us doesn't settle down on the sofa for a quick doom scroll through our phones? Our political leaders are no different.
Join satirical powerhouse Munya Chawawa as he takes us deep inside the phones of Rishi Sunak, Keir Starmer, Ed Davey, Carla Denyer and Adrian Ramsey, John Swinney, Rhun ap Iowerth and Nigel Farage, guiding us on a hilarious rollercoaster ride through their voice notes, Instagram feeds and much more.
Throughout the series Munya, king of satirical sketch, tackles the omnishambles that is the General Election, unpacking the week's arguably increasingly absurd campaign news, with the various apps on the leaders' phones transitioning us into what he does best - hilarious, reactive sketches that skewer those in power and give us light relief we so desperately needed during this tumultuous period.
Performed by Munya Chawawa
Written by Munya Chawawa, Matthew Crosby, James Farmer and Joe McArdle
Executive Producers: Munya Chawawa and Ben Wicks
Series Producer: Jo Maney
Studio Producer: Benjamin Sutton
Sound Designer: Rich Evans
An Expectation production for BBC Radio 4
TUE 19:00 The Archers (m0020qkm)
Justin is up early, telling Lilian he’s off to back-to-back meetings but then turns up at Alice’s door. He tells her they’ve found someone to fill in for her at the Stables in her absence. He says she must be aware that a return to work might not be possible if she’s jailed. He wonders whether it might be better for her to consider resigning, as they have a new manager – Carlotta – and all he wants is for the Stables to get back on track. But Alice says she’s not going to resign. She’s ashamed and embarrassed but she needs to hold on to things that can bring her back to normal life. He states she has used up her annual leave for the year and she’ll be on statutory sick pay from now on. Later at the Stables he tells Lilian he has spoken to Alice. She is furious and wanted to visit Alice as well. But Justin says there’s very little anyone can do for her at the moment.
Ed and Emma bring George along on their latest tree surgery job – it’s near Bartleby’s new home. Emma insists it’s her turn to do the aerial work, in the biggest tree they’ve worked on to date – 10 metres. Emma makes a start on cutting the smaller branches and she’s so high up she can see Bartleby’s paddock and George giving him a hug. She has a great time up in the tree – delighted that she and Ed are working for themselves. George is happy with Bartleby’s new home but gets upset when Emma enthuses about the future. He covers by saying he’s thinking about Granddad Joe.
TUE 19:15 Front Row (m0020qkp)
The Bear, Moonchild Sanelly, Dundee Contemporary Gallery
The hit series The Bear is back for a third series. Samira talks to Ebon Moss Bachrach, who plays Richie. His cousin Carmen has been trying to transform their family-run restaurant from a cheap and cheerful operation into The Bear - a serious dining experience. Series 2 ended with a successful but highly stressful first night with Richie as the maitre d' - and tensions are set to rise again in series three of the drama created by Christopher Storer who was inspired by a family restaurant where he once worked.
There's live performance in the Front Row studio from Moonchild Sanelly after multiple Glastonbury shows. She talks about her collaborations with Self Esteem and Beyonce and we hear her new single Scrambled Eggs.
Dundee Contemporary Arts is in the running for Museum of the Year 2024. We talk to director Beth Bate about this unique space.
Frank Cottrell Boyce has been named as the new Children's Laureate. He wants to encourage more of us to read to young children so we hear him reading from one of CS Lewis's Narnia stories.
Presenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer: Paula McGrath
TUE 20:00 File on 4 (m0020qkr)
On Trial: Protestors versus the Law
New laws aimed at preventing protestors causing disruption, more severe punishments and fewer defences in court have led some to question if the freedom to protest is coming under threat. Josephine Casserly investigates the growing volume of prosecutions against environmental protestors and examines how the criminal justice system is dealing with such cases. She also examines the increasing use of private injunctions by corporations and public authorities to restrict protests at locations such as public roads and oil terminals. They say the orders are necessary to prevent disruption caused by tactics including walking slowly down roads and blocking entrances to businesses, but lawyers acting for protestors say they amount to a "privatised system of justice."
Reporter: Josephine Casserly
Producer: Tom Wall
Production Coordinators: Ellie Dover & Tim Fernley
Editor: Carl Johnston
TUE 20:40 In Touch (m0020qkt)
Election issues; Curious about creatures
Emma Tracey has a long association with In Touch and is now the presenter of the BBC disability and mental health podcast "Access All". Emma has been speaking to politicians ahead of the general election about issues affecting disabled people. We welcome her back to tell us what she learned, including about issues specific to the blind and visually impaired community.
Andrew Hesser is fascinated by wildlife. Indeed, his curiosity of creatures set him on a mission to identify ways of giving blind people like himself the tools to better understand what animals look and feel like. Andrew has collaborated with the British Library in London on his work and we visited him there to find out more about his plans.
Presenter: Peter White
Producer: Fern Lulham
Production Coordinator: David Baguley
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 Wokewash (m001vsjq)
Femvertizing
Be it shoe polish, hair curlers or a perfumed douche, brands hail their products as promoting girl power, body positivity and gender equality. Fashion names emblazon T shirts with positive feminist messages, shower gel bottles celebrate all shapes of women, even Monopoly has as Ms version addressing the gender pay gap.
Are companies just jumping on the feminist bandwagon or are they real social justice warriors?
Heydon discusses FKA Twigg’s bottom and the need for repentance with author Ella Whelan. And marketing expert Katie Martell explains faux femvertizing and which ads make her drop her panties.
He hears how fake suffragettes helped flog cigarettes from advertising guru Jean Kilbourne, and comedian Josie Long uncovers ads where women are reduced to a pair of breasts.
Tech journalist Sage Lazzaro tells how Feminist Apparel staff’s revolt backfired, China Labour Watch’s Li Qiang talks factory supply chains, and amongst the bubbles at Lush, Hilary Jones explains how they supported the Spy Cops and why there are no oompa loompa their factories.
Producer: Sarah Bowen
Assistant Producer: Olivia Sopel
TUE 21:30 The Bottom Line (m0020jbc)
Is copyright going wrong?
Copyright law has been around since 1710. Back then it only applied to books. Now, it covers music, sport, film, television, video games, anything really.
It was also much easier to enforce in the days when people couldn't reproduce things all the time. That all started to change with the introduction of the humble music cassette tape. Now, we can all copy things and publish them to social media whenever we like.
Devices which can circumvent geographical barriers have meant that streaming services have had to rethink their business models. And no-one knows quite yet the potential AI has to change things.
So is it time that copyright law had a reboot?
Evan Davis is joined by:
Lisa Ormrod, copyright lawyer and Associate Director at Springbird Law
Nathalie Curtis Lethbridge, Founder of Atonik Digital which advises on streamed content and monetisation strategy
John McVay, Chief Executive of PACT, the trade body for independents working in the UK screen industry
PRODUCTION TEAM:
Producers: Alex Lewis, Drew Hyndman and Miriam Quayyum
Editor: Matt Willis
Sound: James Beard and Neil Churchill
Production co-ordinator: Rosie Strawbridge
TUE 22:00 The World Tonight (m0020qkw)
Boris Johnson makes last minute campaign appearance
On the penultimate day of campaigning, former Prime Minister Boris Johnson took to the stage at a Conservative rally in central London, warning that a Labour government would be "pregnant with horrors". Sir Keir Starmer spent the day in Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Staffordshire and spoke to the BBC's Chris Mason on prison overcrowding, pensioners' tax, and immigration.
In the US, the fallout continues from Joe Biden's dismal debate performance last week, as the first Democratic Congressman publicly called for Biden to step aside. After the Supreme Court ruled Donald Trump enjoyed partial immunity for actions taken in office, a New York judge delayed sentencing in his criminal hush money trial.
Meanwhile Britain's Supreme Court issued a significant verdict in a dispute between the owners of the Manchester Ship Canal and United Utilities, which will allow the latter to be sued for damages over the dumping of raw sewage in the waterway.
TUE 22:45 Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon (m0020qky)
Two
It is 412 BC and the Peloponnesian war is raging. Debut novelist Ferdia Lennon’s Glorious Exploits is a thrillingly funny and moving story of wild ambition, high drama and unexpected friendship set in the aftermath of the disastrous invasion of Sicily by the Athenians.
In Syracuse, two young potters and best friends, Gelon and Lampo, come up with a ridiculously brilliant and crazy idea of putting on a play and casting the characters from the captured Athenian soldiers who are starving in the Syracusean quarries. United by a love of Homer and a passion for the work of the Athenian playwright Euripides, the unlikely pair are determined to pursue their dream, wherever it takes them and however many risks they face.
First they have to find prisoners who are familiar with the work of Euripides, and then bribe the starving captives with food and wine to recite any lines they can remember. Extra olives if they are from Medea. Once they’ve auditioned and found their cast, they need money for masks, costumes and scenery. It’s only when they brave a visit to a mysterious merchant ship moored in the harbour that they secure both the funds, and a producer.
The enterprise is fraught with uncertainties and danger, but as the play goes into production, unexpected friendships are made, and unlikely bonds of loyalty are forged. When disaster strikes, the young directors have to decide how to save the prisoners they’ve befriended.
Ferdia Lennon was born in Dublin to an Irish mother and a Libyan father. He holds a BA in History and Classics from University College Dublin, and an MA in Prose Fiction from the University of East Anglia. This is his debut novel, set in a convincing classical world and brilliantly written in a modern Irish vernacular.
Written by : Ferdia Lennon
Reader: Jonathan Forbes
Abridger: Sara Davies
Producer: Celia de Wolff
A Pier Production for BBC Radio 4
TUE 23:00 Uncanny (m0020ql0)
Series 4
S4. Case 10: Arthur’s House
When Danny gets a call from his old friend Sarah describing a terrifying experience she had at her cousin Kerrie’s house, it leads him to Montecito, California, a beautiful coastal enclave, home to celebrities such as Oprah and Harry and Meghan. Kerrie grew up living opposite cantankerous old neighbour Arthur, and when he dies, Kerrie buys the cottage. It’s everything you could want from a home, except for one thing - Arthur is seemingly still there, and he doesn’t like Kerrie living in his house. Can Kerrie make peace with him?
Written and presented by Danny Robins
Experts: Christopher French and Jeff Belanger
Editing and sound design: Charlie Brandon-King
Music: Evelyn Sykes
Theme music by Lanterns on the Lake
Script editor: Dale Shaw
Development producer: Sarah Patten
Production manager: Tam Reynolds
Commissioning executive: Paula McDonnell
Commissioning editor: Rhian Roberts
Produced by Danny Robins and Simon Barnard
A Bafflegab and Uncanny Media production for BBC Radio 4
TUE 23:30 Michael Spicer: No Room (m0020kgm)
[Repeat of broadcast at
23:00 on Saturday]
TUE 23:45 Call Jonathan Pie (m0020m9d)
[Repeat of broadcast at
23:15 on Saturday]
WEDNESDAY 03 JULY 2024
WED 00:00 Midnight News (m0020ql2)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
WED 00:30 Obsessed with the Quest (m001trp4)
[Repeat of broadcast at
11:45 on Tuesday]
WED 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m0020ql4)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping
WED 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m0020ql6)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.
WED 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m0020ql8)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping
WED 05:30 News Briefing (m0020qlb)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4
WED 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m0020qld)
Why do we celebrate Anniversaries?
A spiritual comment and prayer to start the day with Fr John Burniston
Good morning.
Why do we keep anniversaries?
As well as being golden opportunities to celebrate someone we value, they also give us permission to wallow in a bit of nostalgia! We look at odd bits of memorabilia and try to recall how it felt all those years ago.
Yet the song of Harrow School says:
Forty years on, growing older and older,
shorter in wind, as in memory long,
feeble of foot, and rheumatic of shoulder,
what will it help you that once you were strong?
Forty years ago today I knelt alongside twenty five others in Durham Cathedral as we pledged ourselves to serve God in the ministerial priesthood. Inevitably I have been thinking of all that has happened since, the characters that I have met, the high days and the low moments, recognising the changes that have happened in society and in the Church in all that time. To be honest, lots of it has been a struggle but every bit of it has also been the most profound privilege.
Who was it who said : The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you can see. I may indeed be weaker now but today’s anniversary helps me to recognise that I have been part of a movement far bigger than me. Cardinal Newman talked about us being a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons.
As I keep this anniversary, I hope I can begin to understand what God has been doing amongst us, all these years.
Lord, help us to be willing to take our small part in serving the world that you have made. Amen.
"Forty Years On" is a song written by Edward Ernest Bowen and John Farmer in 1872.
WED 05:45 Farming Today (m0020qlg)
A creamery which has been producing Stilton since 1780 is due to close its doors with the loss of 60 jobs.
Tuxford and Tebbutt in Melton Mowbray is owned by the farmer co-operative Arla, which has been trying to sell the creamery as a going concern.
They've blamed the closure on what they say is a decline in the speciality cheese market.
Dairy industry analyst Chris Walkland explains what's happened.
There's been some debate about whether this wet spring has had an effect on the bee population.
Ian Campbell is a spokesperson for the British Bee Keepers Association. He says this has been a challenging year for honey bees.
A farmer who switched from intensive cereal production to wildflower meadows, and open access to walkers, says the farm is now just as profitable as when he was feeding people.
Chris Skinner runs High Ash Farm just outside Norwich. He says even though he’s not producing food, he feels he’s still giving people a valuable benefit...and many visitors are happy to donate to support his wildlife work.
Anna Hill joined him for a walk in the meadows.
Scottish raspberries are famed for their flavour and quality...But disease, labour costs and supermarket prices mean the industry is taking a beating, with some growers pulling out or cutting production.
Now the James Hutton Institute is developing varieties and growing techniques which can solve at least some of these problems.
Richard Baynes has been to Invergowrie on Tayside to find out more.
WED 06:00 Today (m0020qsl)
Election 2024: Mishal Husain and Emma Barnett
News and current affairs, including Sports Desk, Weather and Thought for the Day.
WED 09:00 More or Less (m0020phz)
Election endings, tennis and meeting men in finance
Are there too many managers in the NHS or too few?
What are the odds of meeting a very tall man in finance (with a trust fund)?
What does it mean that Roger Federer only won 54% of the points he played?
Tim Harford investigates some of the numbers in the news.
Presenter: Tim Harford
Reporter: Kate Lamble
Producers: Nathan Gower, Beth Ashmead Latham and Debbie Richford
Series producer: Tom Colls
Production coordinator: Brenda Brown
Sound mix: Rod Farquhar
Editor: Richard Vadon
WED 09:30 Intrigue (m001zgmt)
To Catch a Scorpion
To Catch a Scorpion: 8. The Final Sting
Scorpion has been spotted in Iraq and Sue and Rob head straight there - hoping to find his hiding place and lure him out. Will they finally be able to confront him with his crimes?
Barzan Majeed - codenamed Scorpion - leads the Scorpion gang. He's on international most-wanted lists. He started his criminal career in Britain and went on to build a smuggling empire which now spans the globe.
An international police surveillance operation trapped more than twenty of his gang and almost netted Scorpion himself, but he was tipped off and escaped. BBC journalist, Sue Mitchell, and former soldier and aid worker, Rob Lawrie, team up to try to do what the police have been unable to achieve: to find Scorpion, to speak to him, to ask him to account for his crimes and to seek justice to those families he has harmed.
Their investigation takes them to the heart of an organised criminal gang making millions from transporting thousands of migrants on boat and lorry crossings that in some cases have gone dangerously wrong, causing serious injury and putting lives at risk. They witness his operation in action and record as intense situations unfold, where vulnerable people desperate for a better future, put their lives in the hands of ruthless and dangerous criminals.
To Catch a Scorpion is a BBC Studios Audio Production for BBC Radio 4 and is presented and recorded by Sue Mitchell and Rob Lawrie.
The series is produced by Sue Mitchell, Winifred Robinson and Joel Moors
The Editor is Philip Sellars
Commissioning Editor is Daniel Clarke
Assistant Exec Tracy Williams
Assistant Commissioner Podcasts/Digital, Will Drysdale
Original music is by Mom Tudie
and Sound Design is by Tom Brignell
WED 10:00 Woman's Hour (m0020qsn)
Jonathan Meijer interviewed on fathering over 550 babies by sperm donation; women impressionist artists
A new series has been released this morning (3 July) on Netflix. It is called Man with 1,000 Kids, and Netflix is billing it as the true story of Jonathan Meijer, a man accused of travelling the world, deceiving women into having his babies - via sperm donation - on a mass scale. Nuala talks to Jonathan Meijer, the sperm donor, to mums Natalie and Suzanne, who had a baby conceived with Jonathan’s donor sperm, to Natalie Hill, the executive producer who pitched the original idea for these films to Netflix and to Rachel Cutting, director of compliance and information at the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), the UK’s independent regulator of fertility treatment.
A new report from AutoTrader has found that there's a stark gender divide when it comes to going green with your vehicle choice. Hyper-masculine marketing, highly technical jargon and anxieties around running out of charge are just some of the reasons they give on why women feel excluded from making the switch to electric vehicles. Nuala talks to Erin Baker, who is the editorial director at AutoTrader and author of the report.
It’s 150 years since the first Impressionist exhibition was held in Paris in 1874. The artists involved included Monet, Renoir, Degas, Morisot, Pissarro, Sisley and Cézanne, and just one female artist was included in that first exhibition, Berthe Morisot. But women artists were involved with Impressionism, and 150 years on, the National Gallery of Ireland is holding an exhibition to put their work front and centre. The director, Caroline Campbell, joins Nuala McGovern to talk about the exhibition, Women Impressionists, and the four female pioneers who were integral to the artistic movement.
Presenter: Nuala McGovern
Producer: Laura Northedge
WED 11:00 File on 4 (m0020qkr)
[Repeat of broadcast at
20:00 on Tuesday]
WED 11:45 Obsessed with the Quest (m001tr7f)
Exploring Violent Volcanoes
When Dario Tedesco was 25, two years into his PhD, he went on his first big field trip to study volcanic gases. After some time on Mount Saint Helens in the Pacific Northwest of the United States, he flew to Hawaii. That’s where he met George, an experienced volcanologist, who would show him the ropes, and help him get samples from an active volcano.
One early morning, an eruption occurred. Within half an hour, Dario and other researchers were in a helicopter, flying to a base camp. He was immediately struck by the awesome brightness and power of the volcano. George and Dario set out to take samples, which required them to get close to the lava flows. After they finished the work, George decided to get one more sample. Dario had already taken his suit off, when he sensed something behind him. There was an accident...
Produced by Florian Bohr
(Image: USA, Hawaii, Volcanoes National Park, Kilauea erupting. Credit: Art Wolfe/Getty Images)
WED 12:00 News Summary (m0020qsr)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
WED 12:04 You and Yours (m0020qst)
Debt Relief, Cost of Funerals and Car Park Insurance
New finance rules means that people who don't own a house and owe less than £50,000 could find it easier to get rid of their debt entirely. The new Debt Relief Order is expected to lead to a 15% increase in people seeking debt relief.
A parking app is offering to insure your car every time you park. It often costs more than the parking fee to buy and lasts for as long as your parking session, why would anyone buy that?
Fraudsters put a new spin on an old scam. Beware a text purporting to be from a relative or friend abroad asking you to get them a replacement phone!
After two years of falling prices, the cost of funerals is on the rise again.
What can you do to remove a disputed mark on your credit file if the organisation that put it there no longer exists.
PRESENTER: WINIFRED ROBINSON
PRODUCER: KEVIN MOUSLEY
WED 12:57 Weather (m0020qsw)
The latest weather forecast
WED 13:00 World at One (m0020qsy)
Tory minister: Labour landslide likely
Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride accepts that polls are pointing to a massive Labour majority. We'll speak to Labour's Liz Kendall and the Conservatives' Andrew Griffith
WED 13:45 Buried (m0020k76)
The Last Witness
The Last Witness - 8. The Case for Douglas
Dan and Lucy are shown how official reports have been changed, and hear allegations of ‘cover-up’ and ‘conspiracy’. What do those in power know - and what have they done?
Buried is the award-winning true-crime series digging into some of the most disturbing environmental stories in history. In this new investigation, reporters Dan Ashby and Lucy Taylor team up with the film star Michael Sheen. Together, they dig into the unseen files of a man who said he was beaten up and put under police protection, after alleging that a chemical had contaminated the food chain.
Produced and presented by Dan Ashby and Lucy Taylor
Research by Georgie Styles
Sound design and mixing by Jarek Zaba
Original music and sounds by Phil Channell
Executive Producers: Philip Abrams and Anita Elash
Commissioning Editor: Dan Clarke
A Smoke Trail production for BBC Radio 4
WED 14:00 The Archers (m0020qkm)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Tuesday]
WED 14:15 Drama on 4 (m000t7zh)
Waking Beauty
Alfred Bradley Award Winner Alex Clarke's moving original drama.
Seventeen-year-old Vanilla’s fall from a tree becomes a wake-up call for those close to her. Displaced and disconnected, the Byrne family learn how to reconnect with each other – even though one of them is asleep.
ORLA ..... Sade Malone
MARY ..... Michelle Fairley
SIOBHAN ..... Lucy Gaskell
GEMMA ..... Sacha Parkinson
FATHER ROBIN .... .Joseph Alessi
Directed by Nadia Molinari
Audio Drama North Production
WED 15:00 Money Box (m0020qt0)
Money Box Live: Your Travel Rights
Almost 300,000 flights will take off over the summer months and whilst most holidays go without a hitch, others fail to get off the ground.
Last year saw widespread disruption at airports, in August there was an exceptional IT failure at the UK’s main air traffic services provider NATS over a bank holiday Monday which affected around three quarters of a million people. Strikes and staff shortages also caused disruption.
In this programme we'll discuss what your rights are if your trip is delayed or cancelled, as well as a Brexit passport rule which has been catching thousands of passengers out.
Felicity Hannah is joined by consumer rights champion Jane Hawkes and Sean Tipton from ABTA, which is the association of travel agents and tour operators.
Presenter: Felicity Hannah
Producer: Sarah Rogers
Editor: Jess Quayle
(This episode was first broadcast on the 3rd of July 2024.)
WED 15:30 The Artificial Human (m0020qt2)
Can AI get me a new job?
Artificial Intelligence is in our homes, schools and workplaces. What does this mean for us?
In 'The Artificial Human,' Aleks Krotoski and Kevin Fong set out to 'solve' AI. Or at the very least, to answer our questions about it. These are the questions that really matter to us - is AI smarter than me? Could AI make me money? Will AI save my life? They'll pursue the answer by speaking to those closest to the forefront of AI-related innovation. By the end of each programme, the subject will be a little clearer - for us, and for themselves.
In this episode, we're asking: can AI get me a new job?
AI has changed the job market a LOT. It can sift through CVs, headhunt new talent and even conduct interviews. So where does that leave those looking for a new job? Does this place us in a better or worse position?
Aleks and Kevin don't have all the answers, but they bring intelligence, curiosity and wit to the journey, seeking out the facts for us and speaking to those who are currently shaping our AI futures. This is very much a shared journey to get to the bottom of our deepest hopes and fears about these world changing technologies.
WED 16:00 The Media Show (m0020pgb)
Reporting Biden's health
In the aftermath of his halting debate performance, the editorial boards of some of the major US newspapers have called on Joe Biden to withdraw from the race for re-election. We ask why this issue is only being discussed so widely now, talking to a journalist who raised a comprehensive set of concerns but faced a backlash from others in the media and a former Executive Editor of The New York Times. Also in the programme, we explore how the disappearance of teenager Jay Slater in Tenerife has drawn the attention of online sleuths and the problems this creates for conventional reporters. Plus we hear what it's like reporting from Glastonbury, as well as what Ros and Katie got up to while they were there.
Craig Oliver, former Downing Street Director of Communications; Jill Abramson, former Executive Editor, The New York Times; Annie Linskey, White House reporter, Wall Street Journal; Nayeema Raza, Co-Host, Semafor’s Mixed Signals podcast; Nick Garnett, Senior Journalist, BBC; Robyn Vinter, north of England correspondent, The Guardian; Craig Jackson, Professor of Psychology, Birmingham City University; El Hunt, Commissioning Editor, The Evening Standard.
Presenters: Katie Razzall & Ros Atkins
Producer: Simon Richardson
WED 17:00 PM (m0020qt4)
The General Election: The final straight.
It's the last hours of campaigning in the General Election, PMs in Edgbaston testing the mood. Conservative and Labour Ministers make their final pitch. Also the latest from America where Joe Biden is apparently deciding whether to pull out of the race for President.
WED 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m0020qt6)
The Prime Minister said the result was not a foregone conclusion
WED 18:30 Jessica Fostekew: Sturdy Girl Club (m0020pt0)
Series 2
MMA
Strength can look like a lot of things and comedian Jessica Fostekew investigates some of the most unladylike sports going. In this episode we dig deep into what is probably the most violent sanctioned sport out there - Mixed Martial Arts (MMA to its friends).
Ever wondered who would win in a fight between Kung Fu Panda and Chris Eubank? With the help of top British MMA fighter Shanelle 'Nightmare' Dyer and academic Jennifer McClearen, Jess gets under the surface of one of the most rapidly growing sports in the world.
Written and Performed by Jessica Fostekew.
Producer: Lyndsay Fenner
Assistant Producer: Tam Reynolds
Sound Designer: David Thomas
Exec Producer: Victoria Lloyd
A Mighty Bunny production for BBC Radio 4.
WED 19:00 The Archers (m0020pfm)
Adam checks in with a grumpy Alice on the phone. He tells her Brian has been trying to contact her. They’re both worried about her. He presses her on how she is. ‘I’m in hell,’ she snaps. And she doesn’t want to see anyone or go to rehab – she can’t face it. She tells Adam Justin came around yesterday and asked her to resign. There’s a knock at the door. It’s Harry and he wants to help her. But she shuts the door in his face. After a while she chases after him. He tells her Chris confronted him. Harry stresses her addiction put her where she is now and it’s a disease. He thanks her for saving him, for encouraging him to go for treatment. He tells her she can come back from this. He knows she can. But she rushes away.
Later Adam confronts Lilian and criticises her for letting Justin go round to try to force Alice to resign. They both admit they are scared – Alice is getting worse. They discuss how Brian is going out of his mind and Lilian promises she’ll have words with Justin. Adam concedes they have to face facts. No-one knows what will happen when the case comes to court. But there’s not much any of them can do. She really could lose everything. Lilian says when Jennifer died she swore she’d be there for the children but she doesn’t feel like she has been.
WED 19:15 Front Row (m0020qt8)
Poet Paul Muldoon, film Unicorns and writer Stefan Zweig.
The Irish giant of verse Paul Muldoon is this year’s Writer in Residence at Ledbury Poetry Festival. He discusses the importance of workshopping and his new collection Joy in Service on Rue Tagore.
Filmmakers Sally El Hosaini and James Krishna Floyd discuss their new film, Unicorns, a love story in which drag queen Aysha and mechanic and single father Luke embark on a romance against the backdrop of the gaysian club scene.
As the play Visit from An Unknown Woman opens at Hampstead Theatre, we talk to writer Christopher Hampton about adapting Stefan Zweig for the stage. Also joining the discussion about renewed interest in Zweig, one of the most significant Austrian writers of the 20th century is Rachel Cockerell, author of Melting Point.
Presenter: Samira Ahmed
Producer: Corinna Jones
WED 20:00 Moral Maze (m0020qtb)
What is history for?
Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf? Well, Camden Council for a start, who’ve put a QR code on her statue in Bloomsbury explaining that some of views and actions of the prototype feminist, widely regarded as one of the leading modernist writers of the 20th century, are now considered “offensive” and “unacceptable”.
Funny how we look back for drama and moral clarity, not just judging the past by the prejudices of the present, but affecting to see in its messiness either inevitable progress, or relentless decline. More and more, it seems, history is a weapon with which to fight today’s battles.
What should history teach us?
Witnesses:
Professor Ada Palmer
Professor Kehinde Andrews
Dr Amanda Foreman
Professor Robert Tombs
Panellists:
Anne McElvoy
Ash Sarkar
Tim Stanley
Matthew Taylor
Presenter: Michael Buerk
Producers: Catherine Murray & Peter Everett
Assistant Producer: Ruth Purser
Editor: Tim Pemberton
WED 21:00 The Life Scientific (m0020qjj)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 on Tuesday]
WED 21:30 Is Psychiatry Working? (m0020qjn)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:30 on Tuesday]
WED 22:00 The World Tonight (m0020qtd)
Parties make final pitches to voters as campaign ends
As Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak make their final pitches ahead of polling day on Thursday, we look back at the election campaign with the two main parties - and hear from voters still weighing up their options.
Also on the programme:
The White House insists - again - that Joe Biden will not drop out of the US presidential race. But - with persistent and growing criticism of his debate performance - a senior member of Mr Biden's democratic party tells us he may have to.
And Hurricane Beryl is closing in on Jamaica, bringing winds of nearly 150mph. The UN's climate chief tells us it's a wake-up call.
WED 22:45 Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon (m0020qtg)
Three
It is 412 BC and the Peloponnesian war is raging. Debut novelist Ferdia Lennon’s Glorious Exploits is a thrillingly funny and moving story of wild ambition, high drama and unexpected friendship set in the aftermath of the disastrous invasion of Sicily by the Athenians.
In Syracuse, two young potters and best friends, Gelon and Lampo, come up with a ridiculously brilliant and crazy idea of putting on a play and casting the characters from the captured Athenian soldiers who are starving in the Syracusean quarries. United by a love of Homer and a passion for the work of the Athenian playwright Euripides, the unlikely pair are determined to pursue their dream, wherever it takes them and however many risks they face.
First they have to find prisoners who are familiar with the work of Euripides, and then bribe the starving captives with food and wine to recite any lines they can remember. Extra olives if they are from Medea. Once they’ve auditioned and found their cast, they need money for masks, costumes and scenery. It’s only when they brave a visit to a mysterious merchant ship moored in the harbour that they secure both the funds, and a producer.
The enterprise is fraught with uncertainties and danger, but as the play goes into production, unexpected friendships are made, and unlikely bonds of loyalty are forged. When disaster strikes, the young directors have to decide how to save the prisoners they’ve befriended.
Ferdia Lennon was born in Dublin to an Irish mother and a Libyan father. He holds a BA in History and Classics from University College Dublin, and an MA in Prose Fiction from the University of East Anglia. This is his debut novel, set in a convincing classical world and brilliantly written in a modern Irish vernacular.
Written by : Ferdia Lennon
Reader: Jonathan Forbes
Abridger: Sara Davies
Producer: Celia de Wolff
A Pier Production for BBC Radio 4
WED 23:00 Me and the Farmer (m0020qtj)
1. Born to be a Farmer
Comedian and farmer Jim Smith is a proud teuchter. What is a teuchter? Well, Jim will tell you.
Me and the Farmer is a stand up show chronicling Jim's life as a working farmer in rural Perthshire. This isn't an act. By day, Jim works the land and looks after his sheep and by night he performs stand up to sold out venues across Scotland.
In each episode, Jim tells anecdotes about life on his family farm to a live audience in his nearest city of Perth. This is an honest, behind the scenes look at what it takes to be a modern farmer.
Written and Performed by Jim Smith
Produced by Lauren Mackay
Sound by Andy Hay and Barry Jackson
Photo credit: Chris Quilietti
WED 23:15 Chloe Petts' Toilet Humour (m0020qtm)
Episode 5
To help Chloe on this historical journey of the loo, she is joined by travel companion, the Ghost of Sir Thomas Crapper - who also bears quite a resemblance to comedian, Ed Gamble. In the last episode of the series Chloe reaches the 21st Century and explores the issues facing the humble loo in present day.
Written and Performed by Chloe Petts
Additional material from Adam Drake and Lulu Popplewell
The Ghost of Sir Thomas Crapper performed by Ed Gamble
Produced by Daisy Knight
Sound Designer - David Thomas
Editor - Peregrine Andrews
Executive Producers - Jon Thoday, Richard Allen Turner and Rob Aslett
An Avalon production for BBC Radio 4
WED 23:30 Munya Chawawa's Election Doom Scroll (m0020qkk)
[Repeat of broadcast at
18:30 on Tuesday]
THURSDAY 04 JULY 2024
THU 00:00 Midnight News (m0020qtp)
National and international news from BBC Radio 4
THU 00:30 Obsessed with the Quest (m001tr7f)
[Repeat of broadcast at
11:45 on Wednesday]
THU 00:48 Shipping Forecast (m0020qtr)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping
THU 01:00 Selection of BBC World Service Programmes (m0020qtt)
BBC Radio 4 joins the BBC World Service.
THU 05:20 Shipping Forecast (m0020qtw)
The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping
THU 05:30 News Briefing (m0020qty)
The latest news from BBC Radio 4
THU 05:43 Prayer for the Day (m0020qv0)
The Language of Prayer
A spiritual comment and prayer to start the day with Fr John Burniston
Good morning.
I’ve just moved house and as each item went into the packing boxes - as you do - I idly flipped through the pages of books I hadn’t, in all honesty, read in years.
One of them was an 1817 edition of the Book of Common Prayer and my eyes settled on these words of intercession: “And we most humbly beseech thee of thy goodness, O Lord, to comfort and succour all them, who in this transitory life are in trouble, sorrow, need, sickness, or in any other adversity.”
And I wondered: if one forgot the spelling for a moment, what might go through the minds of those listening, who hadn’t been brought up with 17th century language?
The gardener might think about taking a pair of secateurs to the strong sucker that often comes up from beneath the bud union, to stop it draining strength from their favourite rose. On the other hand, a 14 year old might describe someone who doesn’t stand up for themselves as ‘a sucker’.
The written prayers now available to help our prayer life – in Church or at home – have been agonised over for at least forty years. Writers have been concerned with meanings of course, but also with whether the prayers should reflect contemporary life or should sound timeless? Should they be understandable at first hearing or should they repay some study?
My instinct is to find prayers which do both: prayers should make sense first time round but they should also challenge us to go beyond the words, to search for all that God has in mind.
Lord, may the time I spend in prayer reveal clearly what you wish me to learn today.
Amen.
THU 05:45 Farming Today (m0020qv2)
04/07/24 University investment, farmer comedian, blueberries
Reading University has bought £16m worth of farmland to improve its research into food and farming. The 635-acre site at Tanners Farm, Farley, includes pasture, arable land and woodland and is an addition to the farmland and facilities the university already owns. The university's vice-chancellor said the purchase would help secure the future of agriculture at Reading for the next century to come.
As more people flock to the countryside, paths are becoming eroded. Add to that the wet weather and many tracks need urgent repair. We join the North York Moors National Park as they transport stone to the top of a local viewpoint by helicopter.
We're looking at the soft fruit industry this week and today it's the blueberry. Hard to grow because of its acidic soil requirements, it does thrive in some regions. We visit two farms, in Devon and Cornwall.
And we meet Jim Smith, the beef and sheep farmer from Perthshire who's turning his hand to stand-up comedy. He draws on his own experiences to show the funny side of what can be a difficult and stressful job.
Presented by Steffan Messenger, and produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Sally Challoner.
THU 06:00 Today (m0020pdw)
04/07/24 - Emma Barnett and Justin Webb
As the UK began voting in the General Election, we focused on stories beyond Westminster.
Can Joe Biden carry on? Justin Webb hears a Democratic donor who feels the White House needs to be more transparent about the President's health. We also heard from the aftermath of the first round of voting in France, where the far right are picking up support in the city of Marseille.
And a moving interview by Emma Barnett with Simon Boas, a 46 year old former aid worker who has greeted a diagnosis of terminal cancer with unusual frankness and optimism. Now in his last weeks of life, Simon wants death to be discussed far more openly and frequently. That prompted a discussion on the programme with the psychotherapist Julia Samuel and Cariad Lloyd, host of the popular podcast about death and grief, Griefcast.
THU 09:00 In Our Time (m0020pf0)
Bacteriophages
Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the most abundant lifeform on Earth: the viruses that 'eat' bacteria. Early in the 20th century, scientists noticed that something in their Petri dishes was making bacteria disappear and they called these bacteriophages, things that eat bacteria. From studying these phages, it soon became clear that they offered countless real or potential benefits for understanding our world, from the tracking of diseases to helping unlock the secrets of DNA to treatments for long term bacterial infections. With further research, they could be an answer to the growing problem of antibiotic resistance.
With
Martha Clokie
Director for the Centre for Phage Research and Professor of Microbiology at the University of Leicester
James Ebdon
Professor of Environmental Microbiology at the University of Brighton
And
Claas Kirchhelle
Historian and Chargé de Recherche at the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research’s CERMES3 Unit in Paris.
Producer: Simon Tillotson
In Our Time is a BBC Studios Audio Production
Reading list:
James Ebdon, ‘Tackling sources of contamination in water: The age of phage’ (Microbiologist, Society for Applied Microbiology, Vol 20.1, 2022)
Thomas Häusler, Viruses vs. Superbugs: A Solution to the Antibiotics Crisis? (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006)
Tom Ireland, The Good Virus: The Untold Story of Phages: The Mysterious Microbes that Rule Our World, Shape Our Health and Can Save Our Future (Hodder Press, 2024)
Claas Kirchhelle and Charlotte Kirchhelle, ‘Northern Normal–Laboratory Networks, Microbial Culture Collections, and Taxonomies of Power (1939-2000)’ (SocArXiv Papers, 2024)
Dmitriy Myelnikov, ‘An alternative cure: the adoption and survival of bacteriophage therapy in the USSR, 1922–1955’ (Journal of the History of Medicine and Allied Sciences 73, no. 4, 2018)
Forest Rohwer, Merry Youle, Heather Maughan and Nao Hisakawa, Life in our Phage World: A Centennial Field Guide to Earth’s most Diverse Inhabitants (Wholon, 2014)
Steffanie Strathdee and Thomas Patterson (2019) The Perfect Predator: A Scientist’s Race to Save Her Husband from a Deadly Superbug: A Memoir (Hachette Books, 2020)
William C. Summers, Félix d`Herelle and the Origins of Molecular Biology (Yale University Press, 1999)
William C. Summers, The American Phage Group: Founders of Molecular Biology (University Press, 2023)
THU 09:45 Naturebang (m001qmnk)
[Repeat of broadcast at
05:45 on Saturday]
THU 10:00 Woman's Hour (m0020pf4)
Lisa Jewell, Baby Babble, Bluebella rugby ad, Genre Fiction - Romance/Romantasy
It’s 25 year since the New York Times’ best-selling author Lisa Jewell published her first novel, Ralph’s Party. Since then she’s written another twenty-one novels, and more recently a number of dark psychological thrillers, including Then She Was Gone, The Family Upstairs and the award winning None of This is True. She joins Krupa Padhy to discuss her latest work – Breaking the Dark – which is a Jessica Jones Marvel crime novel, exploring the world of the private detective and former superhero.
Over the summer Woman’s Hour is looking at ‘genre fiction’. Today we start the series with the ever-popular genre of romance and its new sub-genre, romantasy. Lindsey Kelk published her first romance novel I Heart New York in 2009. Her new novel Love Story is just that, as well as being an interrogation of the very concept of romantic fiction. Sarah A. Parker’s romantasy novel When the Moon Hatched went from an independently published TikTok sensation to Sunday Times bestseller. Both authors join Krupa to discuss the stigma and success of the romance genre.
A video of a 19 month old baby babbling has gone viral after people noticed she had a Scouse accent. The video, which shows baby Orla chatting away to her Mum’s friend, has been viewed more than 20 million times. To explain what’s going on when babies and very young children are learning language, and how can they have an accent before they can properly speak, Krupa is joined by Professor Julian Pine, Professor of Psychology at the University of Liverpool.
A recent advertising campaign for Bluebella the underwear brand, features three of the GB women's rugby team members in the brand’s lingerie, on a rugby pitch. The campaign has had a mixed response. Krupa discusses with rugby journalist, Victoria Rush, and Sarah Bellew, head of communications for Women in Sport a charity that tackles gender inequality in sport.
More than 150 pages of court transcripts from a 2006 grand jury criminal investigation into Jeffrey Epstein were released to the public on Monday. A judge in Florida ordered the release of the documents which had been kept secret for nearly two decades. They included first hand testimony from teenage victims as young as 14. To discuss the significance of this Krupa speaks to Emma Long, Head of American Studies at the University of East Anglia
Presented by Krupa Padhy
Producer: Louise Corley
THU 11:00 This Cultural Life (m0020pf7)
Peter Blake
The grandfather of British Pop Art, Sir Peter Blake is one of most influential and popular artists of his generation. A Royal Academician with work in the national collection, including Tate and the National Portrait Gallery, he is renowned for paintings and collages that borrow imagery from advertising, cinema and music. Having created The Beatles’ Sgt Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band sleeve in 1967 he became the go-to album designer for other musical artists including The Who, Paul Weller, Madness and Oasis. He was knighted for services to art in 2002.
Sir Peter tells John Wilson how, after a working class upbringing in Dartford, Kent, he won a place at the Royal College of Art alongside fellow students Bridget Riley and Frank Auerbach. He recalls being influenced by early American pop artists including Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg, and how he began making art inspired by everyday popular imagery. He chooses Dylan Thomas's 1954 radio play Under Milk Wood as a work which captivated his imagination and later inspired a series of his artworks based on the characters, and also cites Max Miller, the music hall artist known as 'the Cheeky Chappie'; as a creative influence. Sir Peter remembers how he made the iconic Sgt Pepper sleeve using waxwork dummies and life size cut-out figures depicting well-known people chosen by Peter and The Beatles themselves.
Producer: Edwina Pitman
Archive used:
Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas, performed by Richard Burton, BBC Third Programme, 25 Jan 1954
Max Miller, introduced by Wilfred Pickles at the Festival of Variety, BBC Light Programme, 6 May 1951
Max Miller archive from Celebration, The Cheeky Chappie, BBC Radio 4, 3 July 1974
Monitor: 89: Pop Goes The Easel, BBC1, 25 March 1962
Peter Blake: Work in Progress, BBC2, 21 February 1983
Newsnight, BBC2, 7 February 1983
Ian Dury, Peter the Painter
THU 11:45 Obsessed with the Quest (m001tsd4)
Bicycling with Butterflies
When Sara Dykman set out to bicycle with the monarch butterfly migration, from the mountains of central Mexico, across the USA to Canada, she didn't think about the 10,201 miles that she would cover. Climbing onto her beater bike every morning, with panniers made from cat litter buckets, she just focused on the miles that she would attempt that day. Coping with headwinds, heavy rain storms, and everything from dirt roads to busy highways were not the challenge for Sara though. It was seeing how little of the Monarch's only food plant, milkweed, was left for them to feed on during their amazing, multigenerational, multinational migration. Not only that but, after her glorious first day of cycling along within a stream of butterflies, Sara typically only saw one or two monarchs per day on the rest of her trip.
However, Sara found solace in the many conservationists and backyard butterfly gardeners she met along the way, and in the 9000 schoolchildren she gave talks to en route. Always on the lookout for milkweeds, Sara danced on the side of the road if she found a plant where monarchs had laid their eggs. She would then desperately attempt to relocate them if she saw a lawn mower approaching, as she did on many occasions. The most emotional part of the journey for Sara was the last three miles - arriving successfully back at the monarch's overwintering site in Mexico.
Produced by Diane Hope
Credits:
Monarch butterfly recordings - Robert Mackay
(Image: Flock of butterflies cover a tree branch. Credit: Douglas Sacha/Getty Images)
THU 12:00 News Summary (m0020pf9)
The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.
THU 12:04 The Bottom Line (m0020pfc)
The Business of Dying
Managing the rituals of a loved one's death can be both bewildering and expensive.
And although no-one wants to think about it being like buying a holiday or car, it is a business with a supply chain involving funerals, burials and cremation.
A couple of years ago the Competition and Markets Authority - which protects people from unfair trading practices - carried out an in-depth investigation into the funeral market because of the “surprise” people experienced at the final cost of that farewell.
On average people spend about £4,000, so what do you get for that and how is the industry changing?
Evan Davis is joined by:
Gill Stewart, Managing Director, Co-op Funeralcare
Alison Crake, Senior Partner, Crake and Mallon Funeral Directors
Kate Tym, independent celebrant
And Greg Cranfield from JC Atkinson coffin makers.
PRODUCTION TEAM:
Producers: Alex Lewis, Drew Hyndman and Miriam Quayyum
Editor: Matt Willis
Sound: James Beard and Hal Haines
Production co-ordinator: Katie Morrison and Rosie Strawbridge
THU 12:32 Sliced Bread (m0020pff)
Ear Plugs (recorded live at Hay Festival)
Are the latest ear plugs better for gigs, focus and sleep?
In this special edition of Sliced Bread, recorded at the Hay Festival in South Wales, Greg Foot investigates the newer style of ear plugs. He's joined by listener Marni who's seen adverts for brands like Loop, which promise to protect your hearing at higher volumes while still allowing you to enjoy music at gigs. Other models in their range claim to give you better focus, shutting out extraneous noise but still allowing you to hear conversation. Or, in the case of their 'Quiet' model, sleep better.
As ever Greg's joined by two experts to deep-dive into the science and find out if the evidence backs up the marketing claims. And with the help of a special dummy head fitted with microphones, they carry out a series of tests to hear the difference between traditional foam ear plugs and the newer models.
If you have seen a wonder product that claims to make you happier, healthier or greener and want to know if it is SB or BS then please do send it over on email to sliced.bread@bbc.co.uk or drop us a message or voicenote on Whatsapp to 07543 306807
PRESENTER: Greg Foot
PRODUCERS: Kate Holdsworth and Simon Hoban
THU 12:57 Weather (m0020pfh)
The latest weather forecast
THU 13:00 World at One (m0020pfk)
Commander’s killing sparks new Hezbollah-Israel attacks
Hezbollah claims to have fired 200 rockets at Israel in retaliation for the killing of a commander. How can rising tensions be contained?
THU 13:45 Buried (m0020k79)
The Last Witness
The Last Witness - 9. The Case Against Douglas
A friend casts doubt on Douglas’ honesty. Could he have lied? Dan and Lucy uncover unsettling truths, and begin to question what’s real. They've tested the chemicals - now it is time to test Douglas. And Michael Sheen gives his verdict.
Buried is the award-winning true-crime series digging into some of the most disturbing environmental stories in history. In this new investigation, reporters Dan Ashby and Lucy Taylor team up with the film star Michael Sheen. Together, they dig into the unseen files of a man who said he was beaten up and put under police protection, after alleging that a chemical had contaminated the food chain.
Produced and presented by Dan Ashby and Lucy Taylor
Research by Georgie Styles
Additional research by Grace Nicholls
Sound design and mixing by Jarek Zaba
Original music and sounds by Phil Channell
Executive Producers: Philip Abrams and Anita Elash
Commissioning Editor: Dan Clarke
A Smoke Trail production for BBC Radio 4
THU 14:00 The Archers (m0020pfm)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Wednesday]
THU 14:15 Drama on 4 (m0020pfp)
Assisted
Tamsin Greig plays Alivia, a highly advanced AI assistant, in Greg Wilkinson's drama, which explores the near future of our relationships with machines.
Jordan and Connie want their next-generation AI assistant to make their perfect lives just that little bit better. But what happens when the technology starts to take control?
Assisted explores the trend for technology to play a role in the most intimate parts of our day-to-day domestic existence, capturing and manipulating increasing amounts of unfiltered information about ourselves and our lives. Assisted reflects and speculates on what might happen – in our use of language, in how we love and in how we exercise agency – as that technology stops being purely our servant.
Cast:
Alivia ..... Tamsin Greig
Connie ..... Emma Wilkinson-Wright
Jordan ..... Jude Owusu
Writer: Greg Wilkinson
Producer: Sarah Lawrie
Executive Producer: David Morley
Sound Presentation: Wilfredo Acosta
A Perfectly Normal production for BBC Radio 4
THU 15:00 Ramblings (m0020k05)
Donegal with Nikki Bradley - Adaptive Adventurer and Amputee
In the first of two episodes recorded in the Republic of Ireland, Clare travels to Moyle Hill in County Donegal to meet adventurer and motivational speaker, Nikki Bradley.
Diagnosed with a rare bone cancer at just 16 years of age, Nikki (now in her 30s) has defied expectations by living a very active life. She was the first person on crutches to climb four Irish mountain peaks, which took her 32 hours. She scaled the Sólheimajökull glacier in Iceland, and has completed the Fan Dance, one of the toughest endurance challenges in the UK including two ascents of Pen y Fan.
Her latest enormous challenge has been to undergo a very unusual leg amputation. The damage caused by the cancer led to two hip replacements in her twenties, but her pain and discomfort continued so ultimately her medical team suggested a procedure known as a rotationplasty. Her upper leg was removed, and her lower leg was turned 180 degrees, raised and attached to the top of her thigh to become her ‘new’ upper leg. Her foot faces backwards at knee height, with the idea that it acts as the knee joint itself. It’s been emotionally very difficult coming to terms with her change of appearance and the pain associated with the procedures and rehab.
But, in characteristic spirit, she has continued to push forward and after many months of recovery is now back walking again.
Producer: Karen Gregor
Presenter: Clare Balding
THU 15:27 Radio 4 Appeal (m0020pfr)
[Repeat of broadcast at
07:54 on Sunday]
THU 15:30 Feedback (m0020pft)
Book of the Week. Racing Tips. This Cultural Life
Andrea Catherwood discusses the schedule change and original commissions for Radio 4's Book of the Week with Commissioning Editor, Hugh Levinson.
The daily racing tips on Radio 4's Today programme have ended after 47 years. The news produced a mixed reaction from Feedback listeners. Tom Kerr, editor of The Racing Post explains why the move has ruffled a few feathers in the horse racing world.
Feedback's Interview of the Year is back. We want to hear listeners' nominations for the interview that stopped you in your tracks. It could be a thought-provoking or emotive personal story, the moment an evasive politician gets nailed to the wall, or just something that made you laugh out loud. As part of this process we'll be talking to some of the leading practitioners of the art of interviewing. This week, John Wilson, presenter of Radio 4's This Cultural Life, tells Andrea how he approaches conversations with some of the world's leading artists and creatives.
Next week, we’re going to be looking back at the BBC’s coverage of the election We would love to hear from you - please do get in touch.
Presented by Andrea Catherwood
Produced by Pauline Moore
A Whistledown Scotland production for BBC Radio 4
THU 16:00 The Briefing Room (m0020pfw)
South African and Indian elections: the aftermath
2024 is the year of elections and already hundreds of millions of people around the world have been to the polls. A few months ago The Briefing Room looked ahead to elections in South Africa and India. Both have since delivered shocks to their ruling parties which failed to win parliamentary majorities. So why did the main parties in both countries do worse than expected? And what does this mean for the governments they’ve formed and the immediate future of both South Africa and India?
Guests:
David Everatt, Professor at the Wits School of Governance in Johannesburg
Dr Ayesha Omar, British Academy international fellow at SOAS.
Rohan Venkat, editor of the “India Inside Out” newsletter
Louise Tillin, Professor of Politics in the India Institute at King's College London.
Produced by: Kirsteen Knight and Caroline Bayley
Edited by: Richard Vadon
Sound engineer: Rod Farquhar
Production co-ordinator: Gemma Ashman
THU 16:30 BBC Inside Science (m0020pfy)
Sun, sea... and science
It’s election time but over here in Science Land, we’re heading off to the seaside for our summer special.
We chat seagulls with Professor Paul Graham on Brighton beach and find out why they are so misunderstood - from what we call them to why they pinch our chips.
We bust some sun safety myths with dermatologist Dr Jess Felton and find out why ice cream is such a chemical marvel with chef Terri Mercieca.
And we join in the festivities at the Royal Society’s Summer Science Exhibition.
Presenter: Marnie Chesterton
Producers: Sophie Ormiston, Ella Hubber & Gerry Holt
Editor: Colin Paterson
Production Co-ordinator: Jana Bennett-Holesworth
THU 17:00 PM (m0020pg0)
Man guilty of Holly Willoughby murder plot
A security guard is found guilty of plotting to kidnap, rape and murder the television presenter Holly Willoughby. Also: Could Kamala Harris replace Joe Biden as Democrat nominee?
THU 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m0020pg2)
The jury heard Gavin Plumb had become "obsessed" with the former This Morning presenter
THU 18:30 Wing It (m001vtbl)
"No Script. No Prep. No Clue."
Mike Wozniak plays host to a panel of improv all stars in this new spontaneous game show, full of ridiculous challenges & completely made up games.
Presented by Mike Wozniak.
The contestants were, Josie Lawrence, Steen Raskopoulos, Cariad Lloyd, and Thomas Mayo.
With additional material from Shoot From The Hip
Producer: Sam Holmes
Executive Producer: James Robinson
Production Co-ordinator: Becky Carewe-Jeffries
Sound Editor: Joe Bayley
A BBC Studios Production
THU 19:00 The Archers (m0020pg6)
Alice is greeted by an awkward George and tells him if it wasn’t for him rescuing Fallon and Joy she’d be in even bigger trouble. To his embarrassment, she tells him he’s a good person and she is not. Lilian is at The Bull when Alice arrives. She turns on Lilian, saying Justin had put pressure on her to resign. Kenton offers to drive Alice home but she says, instead, she’d like a double gin and tonic. Kenton refuses. She asks Lilian what Carlotta is like and suggests a summer equine fete to let people know the stables is back on its feet, before storming out. Kenton chases after her and reassures her that no-one hates her, they just want her to get better.
Susan and George are discussing tricky child care arrangements for Martha when Alice walks into the shop. Susan lays into her, saying people are being run ragged looking after Martha. She’ll bring Martha for a visit this afternoon but warns Alice if she’s drunk they won’t be staying. Alice stumbles out of the shop, desperate for a drink. She returns to The Bull and begs Lilian. In desperation she snatches a bottle of wine and flees. Later, when Alice arrives home, Susan is there without Martha. Alice was late so they took her home and it’s lucky she’s not there to see Alice drunk again. Susan says Brian is ringing rehabs – only the best for his little girl – and that’s Alice’s best chance. Alice says she’s scared but Susan counters there’s only one thing she should be afraid of – losing Martha.
THU 19:15 Front Row (m0020pg8)
Review: Starlight Express, Anita Desai's book Rosarita, film: The Nature of Love
Author Abir Mukherjee and critic Sarah Crompton join Tom Sutcliffe for the review show. After opening 40 years ago, Starlight Express has been updated and opens in London in a specially designed auditorium. Rosarita by Anita Desai tells the story of Bonita, a young Indian woman who travels to Mexico to study and stumbles upon unknown evidence that her late mother had once been there. Monia Chokri's award winning French-Canadian rom-com The Nature of Love follows a philosophy professor navigating relationships. And, Dr Henry Gee discusses the world's oldest cave art which has been discovered in the Indonesian Island of Sulawesi.
Presenter: Tom Sutcliffe
Producer: Claire Bartleet
THU 20:00 The Media Show (m0020pgb)
[Repeat of broadcast at
16:00 on Wednesday]
THU 21:00 Loose Ends (m0020p3w)
[Repeat of broadcast at
18:15 on Saturday]
THU 21:45 Election 2024 (m0020qyl)
Full coverage and analysis of the election results across the UK.
FRIDAY 05 JULY 2024
FRI 06:00 Today (m0020ph5)
Election 2024 Live: Labour win landslide
Amol Rajan and Mishal Husain with live coverage as Rishi Sunak prepares to leave No 10.
FRI 12:00 World at One (m0020phf)
Election 2024: Keir Starmer arrives in No 10
As Keir Starmer arrives in Downing Street for the first time as Prime Minister, all the latest news and analysis of a dramatic set of general election results.
FRI 14:00 The Archers (m0020pg6)
[Repeat of broadcast at
19:00 on Thursday]
FRI 14:15 Limelight (m0020phh)
The Skies Are Watching
The Skies Are Watching – 1. The Woman on the Plane
Heather Haskins went missing two years ago. Discovered aboard a flight without a ticket or identification, she now believes she’s a woman named Coral Goran - and that it’s 1938. Her family struggles to come to terms with this turn of events while searching for answers.
The Skies Are Watching was the 2024 recipient of the Audio Fiction Award at the Tribeca Festival.
Cast:
Heather - Caitlin Stasey
Vance - Jake ‘The Snake’ Roberts
Rodney - David Yow
Jana - Caroline Morahan
Constance - Guinevere Turner
Andie - Elizabeth Halpern
Created and Produced by Jon Frechette and Todd Luoto
Music - Lars Koller, Jon Frechette
Editing and Sound Design - Jon Frechette
Written and Directed by Jon Frechette
Production Manager - Kurt Koller
Executive Producer - John Scott Dryden
A Goldhawk production for Radio 4 and BBC Sounds
FRI 14:45 Communicating with Ros Atkins (m0020phn)
3. Rob Elias, doctor
Ros speaks to Dr Rob Elias, a kidney consultant at King's College Hospital in South London. We all communicate multiple times a day but could we be getting better results? From a simple text or phone call, to a job interview or big presentation, the way we express ourselves and get our point across can really matter. Ros Atkins and his fascinating guests reveal the best ways to communicate and how simple changes in the way we make our point can be really effective.
In this episode, Ros and Dr Elias discuss the role of empathy in communication, the need to calculate how much information someone is able to digest, and the need to make effective communication a priority.
Series Producer: Hannah Newton
Production Support: Olivia Cope
Executive Producer: Zoë Edwards
Mix Engineer: Jonathan Last
Original Music Composed by: Tom Wrankmore / Eliphino
Commissioning Editor: Rhian Roberts
A Listen production for BBC Radio 4
FRI 15:00 Gardeners' Question Time (m0020phr)
Exeter, Devon
What’s causing the leaves of my Fatsia Japonica to turn yellow and die? How can I make my five year old goji berry shrub look pretty? How do I encourage my fig tree to grow sweet tasting and nice sized figs?
Kathy Clugston and her team of horticultural heroes are in Exeter for this week's episode of Gardeners' Question Time.
Joining her to prune the audience's horticultural dilemmas are passionate plantswoman Christine Walkden, garden designer Chris Beardshaw, and "grow your own" guru Bob Flowerdew.
Later in the programme, we go back to basics with Dr Chris Thorogood as he educates us on plant roots and how we can best protect them.
Producer: Bethany Hocken
Assistant Producer: Rahnee Prescod
Executive Producer: Carly Maile
A Somethin' Else production for BBC Radio 4
FRI 15:45 Buried (m0020k7c)
The Last Witness
The Last Witness - 10. The Apex Stone
In a finale of discoveries, Dan and Lucy speak to Douglas's best friend and finally learn the truth about his stories.
They are moved to test their own blood for PCBs. When Douglas talked about 'the children... and the children's children...' Do you get it now?
At Douglas’s grave, the 'apex stone' is revealed.
Buried is the award-winning true-crime series digging into some of the most disturbing environmental stories in history. In this new investigation, reporters Dan Ashby and Lucy Taylor team up with the film star Michael Sheen. Together, they dig into the unseen files of a man who said he was beaten up and put under police protection, after alleging that a chemical had contaminated the food chain.
Produced and presented by Dan Ashby and Lucy Taylor
Research by Georgie Styles
Additional research by Grace Nicholls and Cardiff Journalism School
Sound design and mixing by Jarek Zaba
Original music and sounds by Phil Channell
Executive Producers: Philip Abrams and Anita Elash
Commissioning Editor: Dan Clarke
A Smoke Trail production for BBC Radio 4
FRI 16:00 Last Word (m0020phx)
Frank Duckworth, Leah Levin, Professor Mary-Lou Pardue, Joss Naylor
Matthew Bannister on
Frank Duckworth, the statistician whose name will forever be associated with the Duckworth-Lewis method of calculating scores for rain affected cricket matches.
Leah Levin, who campaigned to overturn miscarriages of justice and gain reparations for victims of torture.
Professor Mary-Lou Pardue, the eminent biologist who fought against sexism at the American University, M.I.T.
Joss Naylor, the fell runner who broke the Lake District 24-hour record three times and ran the fastest known times on the Three Peaks and the Pennine Way.
Interviewee: Rob Eastaway
Interviewee: Hans Thoolen
Interviewee: Professor Susan Gerbi
Interviewee: Professor Nancy Hopkins
Interviewee: David Powell-Thompson
Producer: Gareth Nelson-Davies
Archive used:
Frank Duckworth interview, Broadcasting House, BBC Radio 4, 21/06/2021; England Test Match Special, West Indies v England, BBC ONE, 16/03/1968; England Cricket Sport Report, BBC Sport, 30/01/2005; Leah Levin keynote speech, Kingston University graduation ceremony, 2019; Leah Levin interview, London Plus News, BBC ONE South East, 11/10/1984; Leah Levin , BBC Breakfast Time, BBC ONE, 04/10/1985; A Conversation with Mary Lou Pardue, MIT Department of Biology, YouTube Upload, 24/08/2020; Joss Naylor profile, Countryfile, BBC ONE 30/07/2018; Joss Naylor interview, Farming Today, BBC Radio 4, 19/06/2021; Joss Naylor interview, Nationwide, BBC ONE, 1973; Joss Naylor interview Cherry Pit Spitting , BBC News, 02/07/1981;
FRI 16:30 More or Less (m0020phz)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 on Wednesday]
FRI 17:00 PM (m0020pj1)
Afternoon news and current affairs programme, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines.
FRI 18:00 Six O'Clock News (m0020pj3)
He said he would use Labour's landslide victory to deliver change and unite the country
FRI 18:30 The News Quiz (m0020pj5)
Series 114
Episode 5
Lucy Porter, Ria Lina, Simon Evans, and Hugo Rifkind join Andy Zaltzman to quiz the news in this post General Election special
It's official Sir Keir Starmer will be the next Prime Minister of the UK. Join The News Quiz for this post vote episode recorded on the Friday morning after the vote has come in. Covering the exit polls, results, the winners, the losers, the other losers, and the rest.
Written by Andy Zaltzman
With additional material by: Peter Tellouche, Alice Fraser, Cameron Loxdale, Stu Cooper and Christina Riggs
Producer: Sam Holmes
Executive Producer: James Robinson
Production Co-ordinator: Sarah Nicholls
Sound Editor: Chris Maclean
A BBC Studios Audio Production for Radio 4
An Eco-Audio certified Production
FRI 19:00 The Archers (m0020pj7)
Writer: Sarah McDonald Hughes
Director: Peter Leslie Wild
Kenton Archer…. Richard Attlee
Josh Archer…. Angus Imrie
Lilian Bellamy…. Sunny Ormonde
Harrison Burns…. James Cartwright
Alice Carter…. Hollie Chapman
Chris Carter…. Wilf Scolding
Susan Carter…. Charlotte Martin
Harry Chilcott…. Jack Ashton
Justin Elliott…. Simon Williams
Ed Grundy…. Barry Farrimond
Emma Grundy…. Emerald O‘Hanrahan
George Grundy…. Angus Stobie
Paul Mack…. Joshua Riley
Adam Macy…. Andrew Wincott
FRI 19:15 Screenshot (m0020pj9)
Love Triangles
In the past year, triangular love stories have loomed large in cinema - Past Lives, Challengers and Passages all had different angles on the spiky geometry of three-cornered relationships.
Since Casablanca, these complicated love affairs have fascinated filmmakers and audiences alike. They can be the subject of romantic comedies, at the centre of a melodrama or the motive for murder in a thriller - the relationships can be gay or straight and the budgets big or small.
Jean Luc Godard’s iconic new wave robbery tale Bande à part is 60 this year. It seems that each generation has its iconic love triangle movie - The Philadelphia Story, Sabrina, The Graduate, Blood Simple, Y Tu Mama Tambien, The Notebook and My Best Friend’s Wedding - the films could not be more different but the dynamics are always rich and provocative.
Mark Kermode and Ellen E Jones ask where love triangles have taken us over the years and how they reflect the sexual politics of the times.
Guest interviews include Ira Sachs, director of the acclaimed Passages, and writer and critic Anne Billson.
Producer: Tom Whalley
A Prospect Street production for BBC Radio 4
FRI 20:00 Any Questions? (m0020pjc)
Lord Falconer, Professor Matt Goodwin, Layla Moran MP, Polly Toynbee, Lord Willetts
Alex Forsyth presents political discussion from Stevenage Arts and Leisure Centre with Labour peer Charlie Falconer, author and Professor of Politics at the University of Kent Matt Goodwin, Liberal Democrat Foreign Affairs Spokesperson Layla Moran MP, columnist at The Guardian Polly Toynbee and Conservative peer Lord Willetts.
Producer: Camellia Sinclair
Lead broadcast engineer: Tim Allen
FRI 21:00 Shadow World (m001zm9z)
Thief at the British Museum
Thief at the British Museum
The inside story of how ancient treasures were stolen from one of the world’s most renowned institutions. And how one man believes he caught a thief. Omnibus edition part one of two.
Presenter: Katie Razzall
Producers: Darin Graham, Ben Henderson and Larissa Kennelly
Production Coordinator: Gemma Ashman
Mix and sound design : James Beard
Composer: Jenny Plant
Exec-producer: Joe Kent
Investigations Editor: Ed Campbell
Series Editor: Matt Willis
Commissioning Executive: Tracy Williams
Commissioning Editor: Dan Clarke
FRI 22:00 The World Tonight (m0020pjg)
In depth reporting, intelligent analysis and breaking news from a global perspective.
FRI 22:45 Glorious Exploits by Ferdia Lennon (m0020pjj)
Five
It is 412 BC and the Peloponnesian war is raging. Debut novelist Ferdia Lennon’s Glorious Exploits is a thrillingly funny and moving story of wild ambition, high drama and unexpected friendship set in the aftermath of the disastrous invasion of Sicily by the Athenians.
In Syracuse, two young potters and best friends, Gelon and Lampo, come up with a ridiculously brilliant and crazy idea of putting on a play and casting the characters from the captured Athenian soldiers who are starving in the Syracusean quarries. United by a love of Homer and a passion for the work of the Athenian playwright Euripides, the unlikely pair are determined to pursue their dream, wherever it takes them and however many risks they face.
First they have to find prisoners who are familiar with the work of Euripides, and then bribe the starving captives with food and wine to recite any lines they can remember. Extra olives if they are from Medea. Once they’ve auditioned and found their cast, they need money for masks, costumes and scenery. It’s only when they brave a visit to a mysterious merchant ship moored in the harbour that they secure both the funds, and a producer.
The enterprise is fraught with uncertainties and danger, but as the play goes into production, unexpected friendships are made, and unlikely bonds of loyalty are forged. When disaster strikes, the young directors have to decide how to save the prisoners they’ve befriended.
Ferdia Lennon was born in Dublin to an Irish mother and a Libyan father. He holds a BA in History and Classics from University College Dublin, and an MA in Prose Fiction from the University of East Anglia. This is his debut novel, set in a convincing classical world and brilliantly written in a modern Irish vernacular.
Written by : Ferdia Lennon
Reader: Jonathan Forbes
Abridger: Sara Davies
Producer: Celia de Wolff
A Pier Production for BBC Radio 4
FRI 23:00 Americast (m0020pjm)
Join the Americast team for insights from across the US.
FRI 23:30 'Am I Home?' - Life in a Dementia Village (m001z64f)
We lie to people with dementia.
In fact, it's one of the only illnesses where lying is acceptable and extends into the entire care process. Since dementia gravely impacts a person's cognitive abilities, those diagnosed won't share the same reality as their carers. To bridge this reality gap and appease disoriented patients, carers distort the truth. Entire care home facilities seek to transform a patient's surroundings into fictional settings.
In the heart of Warwick, England, lies an extraordinary experiment in dementia care - a care home transformed to look like a village. In “Am I Home? Life In A Dementia Village”, journalist Lara Bullens takes listeners on a profound journey into a community designed to redefine the boundaries of familiarity for those navigating the fog of dementia.
At Woodside Care Village, dementia residents live a somewhat normal life. They are free to roam outside their households, visit the local shop and even get their hair done at Cutters Hair and Beauty salon. Here, the comforts of familiarity and the quiet despair of warped realities coexist, offering a window into the daily dance carers make to navigate the complexities of dementia care.
But beneath the surface of these carefully curated environments, lies a complex web of ethical considerations. Listeners will hear how Lara grapples with the implicates of creating alternative realities for those whose grip on the real world is tenuous. Is it possible to build a world that comforts without deceiving, that cares in complete honesty?
Weaving a narrative that is as personal as it is universal, Lara draws from the haunting memory of her mother's struggle with early onset fronto-temporal dementia. Her own struggles with lying bring to light the ethical labyrinth of dementia care, where therapeutic fibs become a poignant tool in bridging the chasm between the world as we know it and the world as it is perceived by someone with dementia.
Through the intimate lens of Woodside Care Village, listeners are invited to reconsider what it means to provide care in the shadow of dementia - a condition that, in its cruellest irony, often leaves individuals feeling profoundly alone in a crowd of familiar faces.
Written and Presented by Lara Bullens
Produced by Lara Bullens and Olivia Humphreys
Executive Producer: Steven Rajam
An Overcoat Media production for BBC Radio 4