SATURDAY 06 DECEMBER 2014

SAT 00:00 Sue Townsend - Adrian Mole: The Wilderness Years (b007jtgh)
Episode 3
Adrian moves house again, becomes a cat and babysitter, and finally gets rid of his blazer. Read by Nicholas Barnes.
SAT 00:15 Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen's History of Home (b009j65v)
David Hicks
Laurence looks at the career of a flamboyant and influential decorator, who became a superstar of the 1960s. From March 2008.
SAT 00:30 George Eliot - Adam Bede (b007jnwb)
Episode 10
Preacher Dinah visits her cousin Hetty, who languishes under sentence of death in jail. Stars Katherine Igoe and Vicki Liddelle.
SAT 00:45 Simon Gray - Coda (b00t2cn6)
Episode 5
Coming to terms with his terminal cancer, the playwright experiences the joys of a christening, then goes to collect the results of his scan. Read by Toby Stephens.
SAT 01:00 The Museum of Curiosity (b00schhg)
Series 3
Episode 2
While Jon Richardson is detained by the volcano Eyjafjallajokull, John Lloyd is joined by emergency guest curator Dave Gorman to welcome poet Ruth Padel, Madness frontman Suggs and Bo Selecta comedian Leigh Francis, who are offering us the Great Exhibition of 1851, a tiger reserve and some Spidermans, and all for public display.
SAT 01:30 My Life in Five Books (b00tt607)
Series 1
Anthony Horowitz
Anthony Horowitz is the creator of the best-selling Alex Rider novels and was identified by Labour's then Education Secretary Alan Johnson as the secret weapon to get boys reading. In conversation with Stuart Cosgrove, Anthony reveals the five most significant books in his life. From Tin Tin to War and Peace we hear what books have shaped the life of this acclaimed author.
SAT 02:00 Cadfael (b007jlbz)
Monk's Hood
5. Judgement
With a fresh arrest made for murder, Brother Cadfael is keen to see justice delivered.
Conclusion of Ellis Peters's medieval thriller starring Philip Madoc as Brother Cadfael.
Sir Michael Hordern is the narrator.
From the Chronicles of Brother Cadfael, dramatised by Bert Coules.
Narrator ...... Sir Michael Hordern
Brother Cadfael ...... Phillip Madoc
Sergeant William Warden ...... Ian Hogg
Brother Mark ...... Ian Targett
Prior Robert ...... Geoffrey Whitehead
Martin Bellecott ...... Timothy Carlton
Edwin Gurney ...... Richard Pearce
Edwy Bellecott ...... Stephen Garlick
Brother Petrus ...... Fraser Kerr
The Judge ...... Norman Jones
Hugh Beringar ...... Alan Barker
Maerreg ...... Kenneth Price
Brother Simon ...... Michael Turner
Brother Barnabas ...... Terrence Edmond
Father Heribert ...... Timothy Bateson
Producer: Lissa Evans
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September 1991.
SAT 02:30 Shake It, Baby (b0076yxd)
Libby Purves meets leading figures in the UK's neo-burlesque revolution, combining titillation with saucy humour whilst divesting themselves of elaborate costumes. From June 2006.
SAT 03:00 Ivan Goncharov - Oblomov (b0076t2t)
Episode 1
Gentle, intelligent Oblomov completely fails to deal with life.
He lives in a flat in St Petersburg. He is always about to go and sort out his estate but he rarely gets out of bed. Never doing today what he can put off till tomorrow,
Toby Jones stars as Oblomov - a tragic-comic hero for a couch potato generation.
Russian writer, Ivan Goncharov's 1859 novel dramatised in two-parts by Stephen Wyatt.
Oblomov …. Toby Jones
Zahar …. Trevor Peacock
Tarantyev …. Gerard McDermott
Doctor …. Clive Swift
Stolz/Bailiff …. Nicholas Boulton
Olga …. Claire Skinner
Olga's Aunt …. Richenda Carey
Director: Claire Grove
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in August 2005.
SAT 04:00 Elizabeth Taylor - Dangerous Calm (b0076h31)
Hotel du Commerce
An overheard argument in a French hotel exposes the fragility of a honeymooning couple's own relationship.
Read by Joanna David.
Elizabeth Taylor's collection of short stories abridged by Richard Hamilton
Producer: Emma Harding
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2003.
SAT 04:15 Drama (b00770hp)
RK Narayan - A Tiger for Malgudi
By R K Narayan, dramatised by Ronald Frame.
Now the companion of a Sadu, an ageing tiger looks back on his life. A rich evocation of Indian life in the 1970s, this comic narrative views human absurdities through the eyes of a wild animal.
Directed by Lu Kemp.
SAT 05:00 After Henry (b007k4gw)
Series 3
Lines of Communication
'It's been wonderfully peaceful. Or it would have been if I hadn't felt so guilty all the time.'
Sarah and her mother Eleanor wage a war of attrition, until Russell steps in.
Simon Brett's comedy about three generations of women - struggling to cope after the death of Sarah's GP husband - who never quite manage to see eye to eye.
Sarah ...... Prunella Scales
Eleanor ...... Joan Sanderson
Russell ...... Benjamin Whitrow
Clare ...... Gerry Cowper
Four radio series were made, but instead of moving to BBC TV - Thames Television produced 'After Henry' for the ITV network.
Producer: Pete Atkin
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in October 1987.
SAT 05:30 Spangles 'n' Tights (b04stqd5)
The Movie
Great excitement when the Dublin Theatrical costumiers provide the uniforms for an American film company.
Christopher Fitz-Simon's five-part comedy.
Dessie Doyle …. David Kelly
Violet Doyle … Pauline McLynn
Atony Gogan …. Eugene O'Brien
Mr McNamara …. Frank Kelly
Mike …. Dan Gordon
Mouser Dolan …. Kevin Flood
Ron Berglas as Buddy Kowalski
Gwynne McElveen as Starlet.
Music played by John Trotter.
Directed at BBC Belfast by Roland Jaquarello.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in October 1998.
SAT 06:00 Oscar Wilde (b007jv0p)
The Importance of Being Earnest
London, 1895: crafty friends Jack and Algernon are living a double life.
This production of Oscar Wilde's comedy was mounted to celebrate the centenary of the play's first night at London's Haymarket Theatre on 14th February 1895.
Starring Dame Judi Dench as Lady Bracknell, Martin Clunes as Algernon Moncrieff, Michael Sheen as Jack Worthing, Miriam Margolyes as Miss Prism, John Moffatt as Canon Chasuble and Michael Hordern as Lane.
Pianist: Terence Allbright. Produced by Glyn Dearman
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1995.
SAT 08:00 Archive on 4 (b01m49vh)
Your Starter for Ten: 50 Years of University Challenge
Fifty years after episode one was shown on ITV, the geek fest that is University Challenge has not only survived but also flourished.
In this Archive on 4, former Radio 4 controller now Master of St Peter's college Oxford, Mark Damazer, pays tribute to his favourite quiz.
Delving into its history he uncovers a programme that began against the backdrop of a shake up in Britain's university system and came from the entrepreneurial spirit of Manchester's Granada studios.
Mark meets former contestants like Gail Trimble, Sean Blanchflower and Luke Pitcher who have all won the coveted University Challenge title. Through personal anecdotes from the archives from Bamber Gascoigne and in a new interview with Jeremy Paxman, Mark discovers how competing students have, across the decades, delighted its hosts.
Mark Thompson and ITV's John Whiston debate how University Challenge works as piece of television and why it has endured for half a century.
The show has ever been controversial. In a protest about Oxbridge being allowed to enter so many college teams, Manchester University, which included future broadcaster David Aaronovitch, answered most of the questions with silly answers. David tells Mark why he regretted taking his place on the team. Quentin Smith, now a lawyer, was the man behind the Manchester University controversy and tells his version of the story for the first time.
There are also plenty of starters for ten: What sort of brain do you need to be good at it? Has it got deliberately easier or harder? And how do you put together the best team? Answers will be revealed in this loving homage to one of Britain's most admired television shows.
Produced by: Jo Meek
A Sparklab production for BBC Radio 4.
SAT 09:00 Comedy Controller (b007jpfr)
Stephen Fry
Stephen Fry, actor, writer, wit and naughty national treasure chooses his favourite comedies from the BBC radio archive.
For Stephen, radio comedy inhabits the very way 'I write and think'. He takes us back to his childhood, curled up and listening to programmes like Men From the Ministry (1972). He remembers his friend Douglas Adams, who Stephen recalls thought the whole world through...only backwards, no better displayed than in the very first Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (1978).
He relives the thrill of being offered the chance to write his very own radio show, and asking his friends Hugh Laurie and Emma Thompson to help out in Saturday Night Fry (1988). Stephen marvels at the brilliance of the team behind the ultimate news show On the Hour (1992) including Armando Iannucci, Chris Morris and Steve Coogan.
He explains what it's like to experience, from the comedy coal face, an absolute radio classic, the antidote to panel games: I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue (2003). And chooses his own antidote to radio phone in shows, the award winning Down The Line (2007), starring Paul Whitehouse and Charlie Higson - who Stephen knew as comedy saplings.
For Stephen, TV is often a greedy, one dimensional medium. For him listening to radio "is so much more".
Producer: Peter McHugh.
SAT 12:00 Patricia Highsmith - Carol (Omnibus) (b04t1yt8)
A tender and unsettling love story about two women - one of them married, and the other 19 - who risk everything to be together.
Written by Patricia Highsmith, who's best-known as one of the 20th-century's most accomplished thriller-writers - a role she assumed overnight when Alfred Hitchcock turned her sublimely disturbing first novel, Strangers on a Train, into a hit movie in 1951.
Written a year later, Carol broke all the rules for the portrayal of lesbians in American fiction. Despite warnings from her publisher and her agent that a lesbian novel would ruin her new-found reputation, the book became a major best-seller, with over a million sales when it was released in paperback - and Highsmith went on to write thirty more books before her death in 1995.
Carol is a genuinely groundbreaking classic - and a truly modern love story.
A struggling, young theatre designer - nineteen-year old Therese Belivet - takes a temporary Christmas job in a New York store. A week before Christmas, a glamorous stranger comes into the toy department to buy a doll for her daughter - and suddenly Therese's life will never be the same again.
Carol..............Miranda Richardson
Therese...........Andrea Deck
Mrs Robichek....Beverley Klein
Miss Davis........Liza Ross
Richard.............Gunnar Cauthrey
With Barbara Barnes and David Jarvis
Omnibus adapted and directed by Neil Bartlett
Producer: David Blount
A Pier production first broadcast in five parts on BBC Radio 4 in December 2014.
SAT 13:15 John Mortimer - Rumpole of the Bailey (b007jz92)
Rumpole Redeemed
The barrister faces a conundrum over whether offenders can ever go straight. John Mortimer's drama stars Timothy West.
SAT 14:00 The Consultants (b0076pvy)
Series 2
Episode 4
Taking register at stunt school, Tarzan learns the alphabet and meet Buck Stark, known to millions as naked superhero Captain Buff.
The Consultants are Neil Edmond, Justin Edwards and James Rawlings.
Producer: Will Saunders
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2003.
SAT 14:30 Dead Ringers (b0076jx6)
The Best of Dead Ringers
Overseas versions of The Archers and David Beckham in Brazil. Highlights with Jon Culshaw and Kate Robbins. From January 2004.
SAT 15:00 Archive on 4 (b01m49vh)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
SAT 16:00 Oscar Wilde (b007jv0p)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
SAT 18:00 Charles Chilton - Space Force (b007jn65)
Series 2
Unto Death - And Beyond
Stranded on the Golden Planet, the Space Force crew must find a way to return to Mars.
Conclusion of Charles Chilton's second intergalatic adventure starring Barry Foster.
Captain Saxon Berry ...... Barry Foster
Chipper Barnett ...... Nicky Henson
Magnus Carter ...... Nigel Stock
Lodderick Sincere ...... Tony Osoba
With Wendy Murray, Willoughby Goddard, Bernard Brown and Mia Soteriou.
Charles Chilton wrote and produced many popular and successful radio programmes for the BBC - including the classic 1950s serial 'Journey into Space' - charting the adventures of Captain Jet Morgan. This fired the imagination of millions, years before the first moon landing. It was the last radio drama to record higher ratings than the new young upstart television!
Producer: Paul Mayhew-Archer
First broadcast on BBC Radio 2 in June 1985.
SAT 18:30 Planet B (b00yqqs6)
Series 3
Disaster!
In the last hours of Planet B, what is better than a farewell party? Virtual reality saga by Matthew Wilkie. Stars Lloyd Thomas.
SAT 19:00 Comedy Controller (b007jpfr)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]
SAT 22:00 Mark Watson's Live Address to the Nation (b017mv2v)
Tolerance
Mark Watson continues his quest to improve the world, nimbly assisted by Tim Key and Tom Basden
As broadcast live with an audience in November 2011 - Mark asks the big questions that are crucial to our understanding of ourselves and society - in a dynamic and thought provoking new format he opens the floor to the live audience and asks them to jump into the conversation via tweets and messages to work out how we can all make the world a better place.
This time Mark looks at "Tolerance" - Religious tolerance, moral tolerance, not striking the person next to you on the bus because they haven't worked out you can send a text without your phone beeping every time you press a key.
It's important to tolerate others' faults, their little quirks, and their massive despicable crimes. But can tolerance make us into doormats, allowing evil to thrive? Probably. Shame, that.
Producer: Lianne Coop.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 2011.
SAT 22:30 The Mark Steel Revolution (b00g1zs8)
The Theory of Evolution
Radical comic Mark Steele reassesses Darwin's description of the development of life.
A series of lectures on the theme of revolution, Mark examines some of the major historical forces at work during revolutions as well as holding up a mirror to our own age.
With Martin Hyder and Carla Mendonca.
Producer: Phil Clarke
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in August 1998.
SAT 23:00 BBC New Comedy Awards (b04t6pqs)
2014
Semi-final, part 1 - Extended
Extended edition, made for 4 Extra. Patrick Kielty presents this first semi-final of the 2014 BBC Radio New Comedy Award from the Birmingham Glee Club.
SAT 23:45 No Tomatoes (b0082dsm)
Retro Rocket
A harp goes back in time with Paul Copley and Helen Moon. Sketch show mixing up language and sounds. From October 2007.