SATURDAY 02 NOVEMBER 2013

SAT 00:00 Brian Aldiss - Hothouse (b00mtpl0)
Episode 5
A parting of the ways for the Morel and Gren, but the search for a home goes on.
Millions of years in the future, a colossal banyan tree covers much of the Earth. In its boughs, the last remnants of humanity are fighting for survival, terrorized by carnivorous plants and grotesque insect life.
The Earth has stopped rotating and the Sun's output has increased. Plants are engaged in a constant tropical forest-style frenzy of growth driving other life forms to extinction...
Conclusion of Brian Aldiss's 1962 sci-fi fantasy read by Gareth Thomas.
Abridged by Lu Kemp.
Producer: Eilidh McCreadie
Made for BBC Radio 7 and first broadcast in 2009.
SAT 00:30 Arthur C Clarke Stories (b010tbkp)
The Nine Billion Names of God
The Sentinel
The story from which Arthur C Clarke developed the film '2001: A Space Odyssey' with Stanley Kubrick. Read by John Shrapnel.
SAT 00:45 E Nesbit - Hurst of Hurstcote (b007jmyy)
"John! John! Let me go! For Heaven's sake let me go! Then she fell back dead."
John Hurst's murky past returns to haunt him when his wife dies unexpectedly of marsh fever.
Linus Roach reads E Nesbit’s Gothic Horror story.
Producer: Gemma Jenkins
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in October 1996.
SAT 01:00 The Toff (b007jrjk)
The Toff and the Runaway Bride
5. Motive for Murder
With fresh clues discovered over Barbara's history - the Toff is Paris-bound, when police stop his car...
Terence Alexander stars as the Toff - upper-class amateur sleuth, the Honourable Richard Rollison.
John Creasey's thriller dramatised by Roy Lomax.
The Toff ...... Terence Alexander
Jolly ...... Robert Dorning
Inspector Ellerby ...... Roger Gartland
Lady Gloria ...... Peggy Ann Wood
Sergeant ...... David Graham
Police Constable ...... John Bull
Producer: John Fawcett Wilson.
First broadcast on the BBC World Service in June 1975.
SAT 01:30 Israel Zangwill - Cheating the Gallows (b007jq4t)
Odd couple, Tom Peters and Everard G Roxdal are two inseperable lodgers - but a bank robbery threatens their intense friendship. And what about the cash?
Israel Zangwill's story is read by Lloyd Hutchinson.
Israel Zangwill was a writer and political activist (1864 – 1926)
Producer: Joanne Reardon
Made for BBC 7 by BBC Radio Drama, Manchester.
First broadcast in 2003.
SAT 02:00 Millport (b0075t3w)
Series 1
Lineage
Big brother Gordon has returned to Millport on the tiny Isle of Cumbrae, off the west coast of Scotland.
But Irene wonders why anyone would return once they've had the chance to escape?
Bittersweet comedy written by and starring Lynn Ferguson as 30-something barmaid Irene Bruce, who hankers after a better life on the mainland.
Irene ...... Lynn Ferguson
Moira ...... Janet Brown
Alberto/Robert/Bob ...... Lewis McLeod
Ena/Bunty ...... Gabriel Quigley
Doogie ...... Matt Costello
Gordon/Minister ...... Robert Paterson
Producer: Lucy Bacon
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in March 2000.
SAT 02:30 The Change (b00nd0tk)
Series 1
The Great Pretender
Life for George and Carol was just fine and now that their daughter is married they'll have time for themselves again. Carol's looking forward to it being just the two of them.
George, however, thinks the time is right to finally be honest with his wife and introduce her to Georgina.
Lynda Bellingham and Chris Ellison star as troubled hormonal wife Carol whose husband George finally reveals that he's a transvestite.
Sitcom by Gavin Petrie and Jan Etherington.
Carol ...... Lynda Bellingham
George ...... Chris Ellison
Violet ...... Sylvia Syms
Maureen ...... Maureen Beattie
Dave ...... Mark Powley
Ken ...... James Vaughan
Jerry ...... Richard Standing
Producer: Maria Esposito
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 2001.
SAT 03:00 Charles Dickens (b01b3fqd)
Little Dorrit
Episode 5
After her father's death Little Dorrit is still in Italy when the newly-married Fanny has a strange visit from Mr Merdle.
Arthur is struck by disaster and Mrs Clennam is forced to reveal the family secret at last.
Conclusion of Charles Dickens's masterpiece of social satire and imprisonment.
Starring Sir Ian McKellen as Charles Dickens.
Recorded on location in London.
Charles Dickens ...... Ian McKellen
Arthur Clennam ...... Julian Wadham
Mrs Clennam ...... Margaret Tyzack
Little Dorrit ...... Jasmine Hyde
Fanny Dorrit ...... Indira Varma
John Chivery ...... Ben Crowe
Flintwinch ...... Ioan Meredith
Mr Pancks ...... Philip Joseph
Mr Doyce ...... Jonathan Keeble
Mr Merdle ...... Kenneth Cranham
Chivery ...... Gordon Reid
Dramatised by Doug Lucie.
Music by Mia Soteriou
Director: Janet Whitaker
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 2001.
SAT 04:00 Joanne Harris - Jigs and Reels (b00cl32x)
Fule's Gold
After 40 years teaching creative writing, sneaky Mr Fisher discovers a masterpiece. Short story read by Stephen Moore.
SAT 04:15 Sherlock Holmes (b007k2mx)
The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes - Series 1
The Gloria Scott
Cruel blackmail and mutiny at sea, as the Baker Street sleuth recalls his very first case. Starring Clive Merrison and Michael Williams.
SAT 05:00 Beachcomber... By the Way (b0089jcr)
Series 2
Episode 2
JB Morton's whimsies as performed by Richard Ingrams, Patricia Routledge, John Sessions and John Wells. From July 1991.
SAT 05:30 The Right Time (b0076mj9)
Series 4
Episode 4
Getting mad at the milkman, a rocking DJ – and a very intuitive answerphone.
Sketch show about growing older disgracefully.
Stars Eleanor Bron, Dudley Sutton, Roger Blake and Paula Wilcox.
Written by Nicholas Barber & Glenn Dakin, Jill Brodie & John Pidgeon, Dave Dixon, Mike Haskins, George Poles, Alan Stafford, Dudley Sutton and Chris Thompson & Pete Reynolds.
Script editor: George Poles.
Music by Ronnie & The Rex.
Producer: Katie Marsden
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in July 2004.
SAT 06:00 Martin Conisby's Vengeance (b007jwfq)
The seafaring hero faces more pirates and battles afloat. Jeffrey Farnol's swashbuckling saga with Steven Pacey and Julia Swift.
SAT 07:30 The Six Faces of Henry VIII (b00kj2dy)
With the help of writers, historians, musicologists, film buffs and Alan Bennett, Ian Hislop sets out to analyse six images of Henry VIII which turn out to be rather better portraits of the periods in which they were created than they are historical insights into the King himself. However, given that his most famous portrait, by Hans Holbein, is itself an artfully drawn propaganda tool we shouldn't be all that surprised.
Henry has always been associated with numeric scale. The eighth Henry with six wives; nothing associated with him comes in ones and twos. And so it is with the images of our glowering, beefy, puffy-cheeked monarch. The range is enormous, from Hans Holbein's splay-footed heavyweight to the surly athleticism of Jonathan Rhys Meyers in BBC One's The Tudors.
Shakespeare produced an understandably careful dramatic portrait, but the Director Alexander Korda used his 1930's film The Private Life of Henry VIII to show us Charles Laughton as the consummate spoilt brat, a glutton with the heart of a valiant schoolboy and the stomach of several kings. This was the first time we saw a Henry who chucked chicken bones over his shoulder, slapped his thigh and laughed loudly, sure in the knowledge that the world would laugh with him.
And then there are the Operatic versions supplied in the 19th century by Saint Saens and Donnizetti respectively. Here Henry is more monster than man alongside the sad heroines Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn. They were, of course, coming from a rather more Catholic perspective. Meanwhile in Restoration History books he's a seventeenth century Hercules.
So who gets closest to the real King?
Ian Hislop enjoys nothing better than debunking myth, and there's plenty of myth that has accrued around Henry, or as the music-hall song had him 'our 'Enery'. But there's quite a lot of truth as well, not about the King but about the ages in which he was re-created. It seems that he and his doings are a perennial story for 'our' times, whenever those times might be.
But if the various images of Henry only serve to enlighten us about other periods long after the Tudors should we resort to the simple shock tactics of Alan Bennett's savvy teacher in The History Boys and say 'for Henry VIII think Stalin?' Who better to answer that than Alan Bennett himself who joins Ian to create a sixth and, for our age, a final image of Henry VIII.
Producer: Tom Alban.
SAT 08:00 Garrison Keillor's Radio Show (b0186byz)
Series 7
Episode 9
From New York City, the funny man welcomes mini-orchestra Pink Martini and renowned operatic baritone Nathan Gunn. From 2010.
SAT 09:00 4 Extra at Bletchley Park (b03g8lxl)
Maggie Philbin traces the remarkable history of IT through the BBC sound archives from the birthplace of the world's first electronic computer, Bletchley Park.
When Maggie joined the BBC's Tomorrow's World team in the early 1980s, there wasn't a single computer in the office. Today, along with the internet, they've reshaped the way we live, work, communicate and play. Her selection features:
* Magic Moments - Computers:
1994 was incredibly, a year when there were still only 623 websites in the world. This is a potted history of computers as seen 20 years ago.
* Mothers of Invention: Ada Lovelace:
Jerome Vincent's short drama from 2002 about the Victorian technology visionaries Lovelace and Charles Babbage.
* Electronic Brains: LEO the Lyons Computer:
Famed for it's "nippy" waitresses - how catering company J Lyons became Britain's unlikely post-war teashop IT pioneers. From 2001.
* The Levin Interview
Bernard Levin interrogates Sir Clive Sinclair, the man who brought computers into our homes. From 1984.
* Electric Journeys:
Tim Berners-Lee, a revealing portrait of the man credited with creating the World Wide Web. From 2001
* I Was a Teenage Dot Com Millionaire:
A classic tale of dot com boom and bust. From 2010.
Three denizens of the digital world - authors Aleks Krotoski and Tom Chatfield, plus Chris Monk from the National Museum of Computing join Maggie at Bletchley Park. There's also a peek behind the scenes with authors Michael Smith and Joel Greenburg revealing how the Buckinghamshire site could have been the UK's very own Silicon Valley.
Made for BBC Radio 4 Extra by Pier Productions.
First broadcast in November 2013.
SAT 12:00 Beatrice Hitchman - Petite Mort (Omnibus) (b03g8nhd)
Episode 1
A 1914 silent film called Petite Mort holds the key to an infamous murder trial.
Honor Blackman, Shelley Conn, Mariah Gale and Samantha Spiro star in Beatrice Hitchman's thrilling debut, adapted by Miranda Davies
1967, Paris. A young journalist, Juliette Blanc (Shelley Conn) investigates the mystery of a missing section of film from a recently rediscovered silent film print from 1914 - Petite Mort. She is contacted by an elderly woman, Adele Roux the star of that infamous film, who seems keen to tell her story.
1913, Paris. The young Adele Roux (Mariah Gale) arrives at the gates of the Pathe film studios, determined to fulfil her ambition to become a screen actress, like her heroine 'Terpsichore' - the beautiful actress, Luce Durand But her path to fame is not straightforward.
Madame Adele Roux....Honor Blackman
Juliette Blanc....Shelley Conn
Adele Roux....Mariah Gale
Andre Durand....Marcus D'Amico
Luce Durand ("Terpsichore")....Samantha Spiro
Camille Roux....Georgie Fuller
Pere Simon/ Peyssac...David Seddon
Mathilde/ Aurelie....Mar.ia Teresa Creasy
Feuillade/ Paul LeClerc/ Lazard....John Norton
Elodie Kernuac....Priyanga Burford
Inspector Japy/ Harbleu/ Rinaldi....Michael Bertenshaw
Dr Langlois/ Judge....Sean Murray
Director: Emma Harding.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2013.
SAT 13:10 Chain Gang (b03g8rjf)
Series 4
Episode 5
Made for 4 Extra. The story told by its listeners, which began with a mistimed proposal and a wrong turning. Join in at bbc.co.uk/radio4extra.
SAT 13:15 Dickens Confidential (b01kn6d8)
Series 1
Innocence
Charles Dickens draws Agnes and Jack into a murky world of prostitution and opium, and an old adversary appears. Stars Jamie Glover.
SAT 14:00 Hancock's Half Hour (b007v1p4)
Series 4
Agricultural 'Ancock
The lad turns farmer - unaware that sneaky Sid's sold him a top cricket ground.
Starring Tony Hancock.
With Sidney James, Bill Kerr, Kenneth Williams and Hattie Jacques.
Written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson.
Theme and incidental music composed by Wally Stott. Recorded by the BBC Revue Orchestra conducted by Harry Rabinowitz.
Producer: Dennis Main Wilson
First broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in February 1957.
SAT 14:30 Dad's Army (b00q9gk2)
Series 2
Uninvited Guests
Calamity strikes when the Home Guard and ARP wardens share the church hall.
Starring Arthur Lowe as Captain Mainwaring, John Le Mesurier as Sergeant Wilson, Clive Dunn as Corporal Jones, John Laurie as Private Frazer, Ian Lavender as Private Pike, Arnold Ridley as Godfrey and Bill Pertwee as Hodges.
Adapted for radio from Jimmy Perry and David Croft's TV scripts by Harold Snoad and Michael Knowles.
Producer: John Dyas
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in March 1975.
SAT 15:00 Garrison Keillor's Radio Show (b0186byz)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
SAT 16:00 Martin Conisby's Vengeance (b007jwfq)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
SAT 17:30 My Teenage Diary (b01ks9zd)
Series 4
Toby Young
My Teenage Diary returns with six more brave celebrities ready to revisit their formative years by opening up their intimate teenage diaries, and reading them out in public for the very first time.
IN this fourth programme in the series, comedian Rufus Hound is joined by writer Toby Young who revisits his teenage years, when he had a lot of fun playing knock down ginger, shooting pea shooters, and skateboarding - but let his academic work suffer.
He reflects on his mis-spent youth and talks about how it has changed his perceptions of young offenders today.
Producer: Harriet Jaine
A Talkback production for BBC Radio 4.
SAT 18:00 Fear on 4 (b007jm5g)
Series 1
Every Detail But One
The Man in Black reveals how a sinister voice sparks a trail of terror for Jenny. Stars Edward de Souza and Helena Breck.
SAT 18:30 HG Wells (b007jwdh)
The Sea Raiders
After a suspicious-looking object is washed in by the tide, flesh-eating monsters from the deep are soon terrorising residents along the Devon coastline.
HG Wells's thrilling adventure story was first published in 1896.
Read by Robert Bathurst.
English author and political philosopher, HG Wells (1866-1946) is recognised as one of science-fiction's founding-fathers, producing more than 80 books.
George Orwell believed that 'the minds of all of us, and therefore the physical world, would be perceptibly different if Wells never existed.'
Producer: Gemma Jenkins
Made for BBC 7 and first broadcast in 2006.
SAT 19:00 4 Extra at Bletchley Park (b03g8lxl)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]
SAT 22:00 Jeremy Hardy Speaks to the Nation (b007jq39)
Series 2
How to Be a Father, pt 2
Naming and rearing baby minus sleep. More of the host's comic lectures, with Debbie Issit and Gordon Kennedy. From November 1994.
SAT 22:30 Saturday Night Fry (b007jt12)
Episode 6
Stephen Fry serves up a final portion of witty banter and sketches.
With Hugh Laurie, Jim Broadbent, Emma Thompson and Phyllida Law.
Written by Stephen Fry with additional material by Ian Brown and James Hendrie.
Producer: Dan Patterson
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in May 1988.
SAT 23:00 VI Warshawski (b007jnmq)
Deadlock
The Long Goodbye
Clayton Phillips's body could only have got into the hold of the Gertrude Rutton one way. VI uses the same vehicle to confront the villain and ends up swimming for her life.
Sara Paretsky's thriller stars Kathleen Turner as VI Warshawski. With Bill Nighy as Roger Ferrant, Peter Marinker as Nils Greyfalk and Kerry Shale as Murray.
Eleanor Bron as Lottie, William Hootkins as Bobby Mallory, James Aubrey as Martin Bledsoe, Peter Marinker as Nils Greyfalk, Teresa Gallagher as Paige Carrington and William Roberts as Clayton Phillips.
Sara Paretsky has created one of the most popular female sleuths in modern crime-fiction. Her heroine, VI Warshawski, is a strong female character in a male-dominated world. VI is comfortable packing heat and trailing nasty suspects but she never loses touch with her basic femininity. Paretsky says of her Warshawski: "I was troubled by the way women were portrayed in (detective fiction) they always seemed either evil or powerless. I thought it was time for a tough, smart, likeable female private investigator".
Kathleen Turner also starred in the same role in the 1991 film 'VI Warshawski'.
Dramatised by Michelene Wandor.
Director: Janet Whitaker
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1993.
SAT 23:30 Murder Most Foul (b03g8w4n)
The Body in the Trunk
TRUE CRIME: True tales of murder from the days when police cars had bells and the men from the Yard word Trilby hats.
For Tony Mancini the prospects of acquittal looked slim in May 1934. The police had discovered the body in his flat, and there seemed little doubt as to the murderer - but with Norman Birkett defending him, he still had a chance. Nick Ross narrates.
Stars Peter Hugo-Daly as Tony Macini and Anthony Bate as Norman Birkett.
Written by John Scotney. Producer: Tim Suter.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1991.