SATURDAY 07 MARCH 2015
SAT 00:00 The Seventh Test by Vikas Swarup (b04471vk)
The Candy Van
Sapna Sinha works as a sales assistant in a TV showroom in New Delhi. Being the only bread-winner in the family she works long hours to provide for her widowed mother and younger sister. But then a man walks into her life with an extraordinary proposition: pass seven "life" tests of his choosing and she will have wealth and power. At first the tests seem easy, but things are not quite as they seem. Dramatised by Ayeesha Menon and John Dryden from Vikas Swarup's best-selling novel "The Accidental Apprentice".
5) The Candy Van
A thriller set in India from the author of "Slumdog Millionaire".
A van appears in Sapna's neighbourhood, luring children away with sweets, to work in factories. Sapna intervenes, but in so doing sets off a chain of events that lead her into the path of danger. Dramatised from Vikas Swarup's best-selling novel "The Accidental Apprentice".
Writers:
Vikas Swarup is an Indian diplomat and a best-selling novelist. His first novel "Q & A" was made into the Oscar winning film "Slumdog Millionaire" as well as Sony Award winning radio drama serial for BBC Radio .
Ayeesha Menon dramatized Vikas Swarup's other novels SIX SUSPECTS and Q & A, which won a Sony Award for Best Drama. She also wrote for Radio 4 THE MUMBAI CHUZZLEWITS, UNDERCOVER MUMBAI, THE CAIRO TRILOGY and MY NAME IS RED. Her stage play PEREIRA'S BAKERY AT 76 CHAPEL ROAD, which was developed with the Royal Court Theatre, was recently staged by the Curve Theatre, Leicester.
John Dryden wrote the original three-part dramas series SEVERED THREADS, THE RELUCTANT SPY and PANDEMIC, which won the Writer's Guild Award for best radio drama script. His dramatisation of BLEAK HOUSE won a Sony Award for Best Drama. Other dramatisations include A SUITABLE BOY, A HANDMAID'S TALE and FATHERLAND one of the most repeated dramas on R4 Extra.
Overflow and notes:
Production:
Sound Design - Steve Bond
Editing Assistant - Varun Bangera
Script Editor - Mike Walker
Assistant Producer - Toral Shah
Music - Sacha Putnam
Dramatised by Ayeesha Menon and John Dryden from the novel "ACCIDENTAL APPRENTICE" by Vikas Swarup.
Director - John Dryden
Producer - Nadir Khan
A Goldhawk Production for BBC Radio 4.
SAT 00:15 Cosmic Quest (b00c84kg)
Are We Alone?
Heather Couper presents a narrative history of astronomy.
She looks at the prospects for life elsewhere in our own solar system. Could evidence of life have even been discovered already on Mars? She tells the story of the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence as scientists scan the skies for messages from the stars.
Readers are Timothy West, Robin Sebastian, Julian Rhind-Tutt and John Palmer.
SAT 00:30 Book of the Week (b03c31w7)
Seamus Heaney - Beowulf
Episode 5
After King Hrothgar's great victory feast for Beowulf Grendel's mother appears to avenge the death of her son.
Produced in Salford by Susan Roberts.
Radio Drama North.
SAT 00:45 Book of the Week (b00rp7qm)
Hilary Spurling - Burying the Bones
Episode 5
Lindsay Duncan reads the final extract from Hilary Spurling's new book: "Burying The Bones". The distinguished biographer's subject is the astonishing life of Pearl Buck, one of the most successful and popular American novelists of the 20th Century.
In today's episode we learn that as she entered old age, Pearl's indomitable spirit continued to shine as she shocked and surprised her family with a series of bizarre life choices. Pearl never quite recovered her equilibrium after the death of her second husband and, surrounded by a coterie of flamboyant young men, became increasingly cloistered - receiving visitors in a 'throne' room; a strange echo of the last days of her childhood heroine, the last empress of China.
Though her work has now fallen out of fashion, in her day Pearl Buck was a phenomenal bestseller. The novel that made her name was "The Good Earth" which depicted for the first time the gruelling conditions of China's rural poor. Born to Presbyterian missionaries in 1890s China, Buck's first hand experience of the language and people informed her writing and helped to change Western perceptions of that country forever; in recognition of which she won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1938.
Abridger: Alison Joseph.
Producer: Kirsteen Cameron.
SAT 01:00 The Museum of Curiosity (b015yt4k)
Series 4
Ince, Highfield, Edwards
Hosted by the Professor of Ignorance from the University of Buckingham John Lloyd C.B.E. and the intensely curious comedian Dave Gorman.
This week's guests:
Coming from a long line of vicars, Robin Ince is the UK's most rational comedian, and he tests his reason to the limit once every year by performing at least four shows a day at the Edinburgh fringe. His infamous Bad Book Club, which in which he invites his fellow comedians to celebrate awful literature, has become an institution, and his massive Christmas show Nine Lessons and Carols For Godless People is now a huge event, featuring the likes of Jarvis Cocker, Dara O Briain and Richard Dawkins.
Roger Highfield is a scientist, science author and the editor of New Scientist, but if you met him, you wouldn't immediately guess that science is his thing. He's jolly and worldly and has the hearty laugh of a comic supervillain. He first made his name as a scientist be being the first person ever to bounce a neutron off a soap bubble. Roger has written and co-written 9 best-selling science books, including a book on the hows and whys of Dolly the sheep, an explanation of the science of Harry Potter and a biography of Einstein.
Gareth Edwards is a filmmaker whose success and methods of achieving it have sent ripples of fear through the studios of Hollywood. His movie Monsters is an apocalyptic blockbuster which he made for one five hundredth of the budget for Avatar by shooting with a small, mobile team, hiring non-actors on the spot and using dazzling-but-cheap CGI effects.
SAT 01:30 My Life in Five Books (b012rbts)
Series 2
Robin Pilcher
Robin Pilcher didn't take up writing until he was 48 years old but he has made up for his late start by publishing many successful books. An Ocean Apart in 1999 was followed by Starting Over and A Risk Worth Taking and all three were adapted for television. His latest novel, A Matter of Trust has now been published in paperback.
Robin is also passionate about short stories and is a co-director of the website Shortbread Stories.
Chatting to Stuart Cosgrove about his 5 books Robin reveals his love of maps, picks a life changing book and they share a love of John Buchan's books.
Robin picks the following five books:
1: Favourite Childhood Book: A HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA by Richard Hughes
2: Life-Changing book: I HEARD THE OWL CALL MY NAME by Margaret Craven
3: Favourite Reference Book: AA ROAD MAP OF THE BRITISH ISLES
4:Book you've read most often: THE THIRTY-NINE STEPS by John Buchan
5: Favourite novel no one has heard of: LOVESONG by Alex Miller.
Produced by Mike Walker.
First broadcast on Radio Scotland in 2011.
SAT 02:00 The Blackburn Files (b007w3zt)
Series 2
4. A Case of Whistle and Run
A routine case for private eye Stephen J Blackburn starts to look like his final investigation
One of four more cases for the private investigator and his government scheme-funded assistant Tracey. Set in a South Yorkshire town that's seen better days.
CAST:
Stephen J. Blackburn …. Finetime Fontayne
Tracey Duggan …. Judy Flynn
Mam …. Rita May
Angela …. Daryl Fishwick
Rodney …. Christopher Kent
Scripted by Ian McMillan, Martyn Wiley and Dave Sheasby
Producer: Dave Sheasby
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in July 1991.
SAT 02:30 Freedom Song (b008q0sr)
Tony Phillips tells the story of a memorable performance.
On 9th April 1939, 75,000 concert-goers heard African-American contralto Marian Anderson give a solo recital at the Lincoln Memorial. Across America, millions more listened to the live radio broadcast. Yet Anderson was a victim of racism, barred from Constitution Hall, the largest indoor location in Washington DC, because of her colour.
Contributors include historian John Hope Franklin, concert organiser Dorothy Height, Prof Allan Keiler, soprano Barbara Hendricks and Harry Belafonte.
Music includes Schubert's Liebesbotschaft and Ave Maria.
SAT 03:00 Classic Serial (b03xcxdx)
Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice
Episode 3
by Jane Austen
Dramatised by Charlotte Jones
Elizabeth has misjudged Wickham's character and he is about to bring further shame on her family. Can she hope to ever see Mr Darcy again after rejecting his offer of marriage?
Directed by Sally Avens
Elizabeth has rejected Darcy's offer of marriage but is beginning to reappraise her judgement of his character after she learns of how Wickham attempted to seduce Darcy's sister. Darcy may have put his proposal badly, pointing out their differences in birth and the behaviour of her family. He may also have attempted to separate her sister Jane from Mr Bingley But it appears he believed that Jane did not love Bingley. And Elizabeth knows that her mother and younger sisters do not always behave with the decorum that might be expected of them and her father is too lazy to correct them. Perhaps the fault is not entirely on Darcy's side.
Published just over 200 years ago Pride and Prejudice remains one of the Nation's favourite novels; with its intellect and wit it appeals to a broad range of readers. It stands the test of time by dealing with the timeless issues of love, social class, money and mistaken judgements and by having a witty and clever though flawed heroine at its heart. Elizabeth Bennet is a thorough radical for her time and perhaps the first heroine to ask is it possible to have it all?
Pippa Nixon takes on the role of Elizabeth; she received rave reviews for her Rosalind in 'As You Like It' ' a rising young star'.
Jamie Parker (Darcy) has played Henry V at the National and is shortly to portray Hamlet on Radio 4.
Double Olivier Award winner Samantha Spiro takes on Mrs Bennet and Toby Jones Mr Collins.
SAT 04:00 Jane Gardam Stories (b054c6gr)
Miss Mistletoe
A large family 'welcomes' a regular Christmas visitor, but one year Miss Mistletoe doesn't join them. Read by Rachel Atkins. From March 2015.
SAT 04:15 Drama (b00771rc)
Juliet Ace - Chocolate Frigates
A naval chef plans a grand farewell dinner for his captain, just as his son is sent to fight in the Iraq war. Stars Todd Carty, Lindsey Coulson, Jamie Kenna and Nick Sayce.
SAT 05:00 Beachcomber... By the Way (b0081b4f)
Series 1
Episode 2
Moonlight on Mrs Parsons, newts in Lord Shortcake's trouser turn-ups, and the police - as ever - on Captain Foulenough's tail.
Richard Ingrams, John Wells, John Sessions and Patricia Routledge recreate the world of the JB Morton.
Running in the Daily Express from 1924 to 1975 – JB Morton’s surreally comic ‘Beachcomber’ column paved the way for a great deal of modern humour.
Adapted by Michael Barfield with Richard Ingrams.
Announcer: Brian Perkins
Producer: Harry Thompson
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1989.
SAT 05:30 Living with the Enemy (b00771l8)
Episode 4
Gyles takes Nick and Sophie to a swanky art exhibition in Mayfair. He's desperate to curry favour and maybe make some money. Can Nick save the day?
Sitcom about a Tory MP-turned-media celebrity and a comedian-turned-holistic therapist.
Written by and starring Nick Revell and Gyles Brandreth
Gyles Brandon ...... Gyles Brandreth
Nick Reynolds ...... Nick Revell
Sophie Okuyu ...... Gugu Mbatha-Raw
Charles Danbury ...... Nickolas Grace
Richard Dowdeswell ...... Martin Hyder
Jana ...... Maria McErlane
Producer: Ed Morrish
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2006.
SAT 06:00 Shelagh Stephenson - The Memory of Water (b0076z7r)
4 Extra Debut. Ahead of their mother's funeral, three sisters tackle unresolved childhood conflicts and blurred memories. Stars Linda Bassett, Lesley Manville, Elizabeth Berrington.
SAT 07:30 Freedom Pass (b00sqcq3)
Episode 5
Using free bus travel, Alan Coren helps Christopher Matthew to try and find the house where he was born. From September 2005.
SAT 08:00 Archive on 4 (b00nmzp7)
This Is the Army, Mr Jones
Actor and entertainer John Barrowman tells the story of Irving Berlin's groundbreaking army show, This Is The Army, that came to bomb-ravaged London in 1943 before setting out on a world tour that raised military morale from Glasgow to Guam.
The show's choreographer, Robert Sydney, and Irving Berlin's daughter, Mary Ellin Barrett, recall how the show was put together and the effect it had in places as far afield as Washington DC and Tehran, via Bristol, Birmingham, Glasgow, London and the fiercest area of fighting in the south of Italy shortly after the British and American landings there.
Also remembering the show are members of the audience in Birmingham, Glasgow and London, where a young airman by the name of Denis Norden was spellbound by the show at The Palladium.
The programme also features archive recordings made especially for the BBC in the winter of 1943, including a performance from Irving Berlin himself.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 2009.
SAT 09:00 30 Years of Comic Relief (b054q675)
Simon Mayo looks back through the BBC Radio Archive at 30 Years of Comic Relief, including rare interviews and fundraising appeals, Radio 4's The Reunion, Radio 3's In Tune and Radio 1's Record-Breaking Longest Ever Radio Show.
SAT 12:00 The Haunted Road - Omnibus (b054q677)
Police camera operator Leslie Burden assists a colleague in the hunt for a missing woman. With David Caves and Niamh McGrady.
SAT 13:15 John Peacock - London Particulars (b008pbw2)
Out on the Drag
Victorian Peelers Pip and Thomas go undercover to infiltrate a gang, but get more than they bargained for. Stars Todd Carty.
SAT 14:00 Ivy Benson: Original Girl Power (b04lp3x7)
Melanie Chisholm celebrates the musical legacy of British band leader Ivy Benson - who rose to fame in the 1940s with Her All Girl Band - and speaks to some of the surviving members from that era.
Ivy Benson was a gutsy and glamourous woman. 50 years before Melanie was shouting about Girl Power as a member of The Spice Girls, Ivy her band members were risking their lives entertaining Allied troops in war-torn Europe and fighting their very own battle of the sexes back at home.
She was born in Holbeck, Leeds in 1913 and formed her all girl band in 1939 in an attempt to address the inequalities in pay between male and female musicians. Within a few years, Ivy rose to become one of the Britain's best known band leaders with bookings 52-weeks-a-year at top venues including the London Palladium.
In 1943, Ivy won a prestigious contract to become one of the BBC's resident dance bands. This appointment caused controversy in the male dominated musical establishment and led to what became known as The Battle of the Saxes. The Band Leaders Section of the Musicians' Union even sent a delegation to Broadcasting House to complain about Ivy's appointment.
"Speaking from personal experience, I find it incredibly inspiring to hear of Ivy's story. It seems a real shame she isn't better known to my generation. I hope this programme goes a little way to change that. She certainly was the originator of Girl Power!" (Melanie Chisholm).
Contributors include Joyce Clark, June Smith, Margaret Chappell, Gloria Russell, Sylvia England and Patsy O'Hara, who were all members of Ivy's band during its heyday of the 1940s.
Producer: Clair Wordsworth
A Sue Clark production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in October 2014.
SAT 14:30 Yes Minister (b007jznv)
Series 1
The Devil You Know
Cabinet reshuffle rumours unsettle MP Jim Hacker and Sir Humphrey
Starring Paul Eddington, Nigel Hawthorne and Derek Fowlds.
Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn's satirical sitcom ran on BBC TV between 1980 and 1984. Yes Minister is centred around the hapless Jim Hacker and a collection of civil service underlings headed by the Machiavellian Sir Humphrey Appleby and obsequious Bernard.
Jim Hacker ...... Paul Eddington
Sir Humphrey Appleby ...... Nigel Hawthorne
Bernard ...... Derek Fowlds
Annie ...... Diana Hoddinott
Sir Arnold ...... John Nettleton
George ...... Arthur Cox
Waiter ...... Stuart Organ
Adapted for radio by producer Pete Atkin.
First broadcast on Radio 4 in December 1983.
SAT 15:00 Archive on 4 (b00nmzp7)
[Repeat of broadcast at
08:00 today]
SAT 16:00 Shelagh Stephenson - The Memory of Water (b0076z7r)
[Repeat of broadcast at
06:00 today]
SAT 17:30 Gloomsbury (b01nlbff)
Series 1
He's Got to Be Stopped
Vera Sackcloth-Vest is bracing herself for the departure of her adored husband Henry on a Foreign Office posting to Romania.
Her friends Ginny and Lionel Fox have come down to Sizzlinghurst to support her, along with her slightly demented devotee Venus Traduces. Whilst maintaining a veneer of cheerful serenity, Vera is inwardly desperate and hatches several intricate plots to detain him: an ominous dream, a succession of spurious telegrams, an extensive repertoire of ailments. She even attempts, disastrously, to persuade the cook to stage a staff crisis.
Meanwhile, down in the gazebo at midnight, Venus encourages Henry to resist all Vera's attempts to detain him as she will surely give in at the last moment and go with him to Romania.
Cast:
Vera Sackcloth-Vest ..... Miriam Margolyes
Henry Mickleton ..... Jonathan Coy
Mrs Gosling ..... Alison Steadman
Venus Traduces ..... Morwenna Banks
Lionel Fox ..... Nigel Planer
Mrs Ginny Fox ..... Alison Steadman
Mr Gosling ..... Nigel Planer
Produced by Jamie Rix
A Little Brother production for BBC Radio 4.
SAT 18:00 Bruce Bedford - The Gibson (b007js9x)
Episode 6
On the day of the festival, Saul and the Guardians prepare to fight.
Conclusion of Bruce Bedford's time-hopping supernatural thriller serial set in - and under - Bath.
Robert Glenister .... Saul Judd
Sharon Duce .... Elise Judd
Freddie Jones .... The Scribe
Kate Binchy .... The Scribe's Wife
Timothy West .... Selwyn Fist
Zoe Hicks .... Miss Dewhurst
Katy Carmichael .... Tracky
Sam Dastor .... Karim El Hatel
June Barrie .... Chairwoman
Zoe Hicks .... Miss Dewhurst
Melanie Hudson .... Patricia Gwent
Geoffrey Collins .... Control
Phillip Manikum .... Punch
Paul Cresswell .... John
John Adams .... Guardian
Original music composed by Thomas Johnson.
Music realised by Robin Lever.
Special effects: Dick Mills (Radiophonic Workshop)
Directed at BBC Bristol by Andy Jordan
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1992.
SAT 18:30 Paradise Lost in Cyberspace (b007jphb)
Episode 6
The future of the OAPs and, indeed, of the whole of civilisation, hangs in the balance.
Stephen Moore stars in the conclusion of Colin Swash's dystopian comedy set in 22nd-century Britain.
George ...... Stephen Moore
Doris ...... Patsy Byrne
O'Connell ...... Geoffrey McGivern
Mrs Cookson ...... Edna Dore
Andrea Sunbeam ...... Lorelei King
Other parts played by Melanie Hudson, Joanna Brookes, Christopher Douglas, Peter Serafinowcz and Lewis MacLeod.
Producer: Richard Wilson.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in March 1998.
SAT 19:00 30 Years of Comic Relief (b054q675)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 today]
SAT 22:00 Meera Syal's Asian Comedy Night (b037sf5k)
Episode 2
Hosts, Meera Syal and Tommy Sandhu continue a special celebration of British Asian stand up comedy from the BBC Radio Theatre in London.
With the Asian Provocateurs, Mickey Sharma, Shazia Mirza, Imran Yusuf, Humza Badman, Kulvinder Ghir, Hyde Panesar and Sami Shah.
Producer: Jon Holmes
Made for the BBC Asian Network by Tonic Productions and first broadcast in July 2012.
SAT 22:30 The Lawrence Sweeney Mix (b00k9pcb)
Series 1
Episode 2
Lover's Leap, a Moon expedition - and so much more!
Josie Lawrence and Jim Sweeney make it up as they go along!
Faced with a live studio audience and a couple of microphones - the masters of improve create sketches from shouted out suggestions.
Producer: Dawn Ellis
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in March 2007.
SAT 23:00 Mark Steel's in Town (b00s9f90)
Series 2
Kirkwall
The last episode in the series sees the comedian visits Kirkwall in Orkney and encounters Thorfinn The Skullsplitter; an extraordinarily violent ball game and why it's pointless being a hairdresser on the island. From May 2010.
SAT 23:25 The Comedy Club Interviews (b05h7j7g)
From
10pm to midnight, seven days a week, the Comedy Club has two hours of comedy. Plus Arthur Smith chats to writer Craig Green.
SAT 23:30 The Last Hurrah - Interview With the Snowman (b054qc4v)
Episode 1
Rik Mayall is Elton the last remaining talking Snowman - an alcoholic, war-mongering, immortal, immoral tyrant. Duncan Pow is Ed Mullet, an eager young ghost-writer tasked with interviewing Elton for a forthcoming collection of memoirs.
Elton invites Ed to The Last Hurrah, a notorious, near mythical, highly secret and highly disgusting gentlemen's club. As the sherry flows, Elton becomes increasingly inept at hiding his long life of crime.
Specially adapted for radio from the original series "The Last Hurrah" - Rik Mayall is at his anarchic best, in his last great leading role.
Produced by Sweetchuck Productions.
SUNDAY 08 MARCH 2015
SUN 00:00 Bruce Bedford - The Gibson (b007js9x)
[Repeat of broadcast at
18:00 on Saturday]
SUN 00:30 Paradise Lost in Cyberspace (b007jphb)
[Repeat of broadcast at
18:30 on Saturday]
SUN 01:00 Archive on 4 (b00nmzp7)
[Repeat of broadcast at
08:00 on Saturday]
SUN 02:00 The Haunted Road - Omnibus (b054q677)
[Repeat of broadcast at
12:00 on Saturday]
SUN 03:15 John Peacock - London Particulars (b008pbw2)
[Repeat of broadcast at
13:15 on Saturday]
SUN 04:00 Shelagh Stephenson - The Memory of Water (b0076z7r)
[Repeat of broadcast at
06:00 on Saturday]
SUN 05:30 Gloomsbury (b01nlbff)
[Repeat of broadcast at
17:30 on Saturday]
SUN 06:00 Vikas Swarup - The Seventh Test Omnibus (b044jhrs)
Episode 1
Offered a chance to change her life, sales assistant Sapna must pass seven tests. Thriller set in India. Stars Rasika Dugal.
SUN 07:15 Whatever Happened to the Teapots? (b00npf9t)
Episode 1
In the 1980s, Roger Law of Spitting Image went to Stoke-on-Trent to get some novelty Margaret Thatcher teapots made. Now Roger returns to meet up with the craftsmen who helped him get a handle on Mrs T.
SUN 07:30 Clare in the Community (b015pbhd)
Series 7
Debt of Honour
Episode Four - Debt of Honour
Clare is being plagued by Brian's marriage proposals. Her driving lessons lead to an unexpected encounter and there is an unveiling of a piece of public art at the Sparrowhawk Family Centre.
Sally Phillips is Clare Barker the social worker who has all the right jargon but never a practical solution.
A control freak, Clare likes nothing better than interfering in other people's lives on both a professional and personal basis. Clare is in her thirties, white, middle class and heterosexual, all of which are occasional causes of discomfort to her.
Each week we join Clare in her continued struggle to control both her professional and private life
In today's Big Society there are plenty of challenges out there for an involved, caring social worker. Or even Clare.
Episode Four - Debt of Honour - Cast
Clare: SALLY PHILLIPS
Brian: ALEX LOWE
Megan / Nali: NINA CONTI
Ray / Nick Powell: RICHARD LUMSDEN
Helen/ Lady Mayoress/Carol Morley: LIZA TARBUCK
Simon / Frankie 'The Fruitcake' Finnigan: ANDREW WINCOTT
Libby: SARAH KENDALL
Spartacus /'James Naughtie': GERARD McDERMOT
Written by Harry Venning and David Ramsden
Producer Katie Tyrrell.
SUN 08:00 All Gas and Gaiters (b007jp2q)
Series 1
The Bishop Meets a Bird
An unwelcome visitor threatens the quiet life at St. Ogg's Cathedral.
The ecclesiastical sitcom started life as a TV pilot in Comedy Playhouse, ahead of a run on BBC1 from 1966 to 1971. Selected scripts were revised and re-recorded for radio.
CAST:
The Archdeacon …. Robertson Hare
The Bishop …. William Mervyn
The Reverend Mervyn Noote …. Derek Nimmo
The Dean …. John Barron
Stanley Bird …. Peter Jones
Written and adapted by husband-and-wife team, Pauline Devaney and Edwin Apps.
Producer: David Hatch.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 1971.
SUN 08:30 Life With The Lyons (b00zmbzb)
Home Again
Father Ben sparks family chaos after losing the keys to their house.
Starring real-life American family: Ben Lyon and his wife Bebe Daniels and their children, Richard and Barbara.
With Doris Rogers as Florrie, Molly Weir as Aggie, Horace Percival as Mr Wimple, David Enders, Clive Baxter and Hugh Morton.
Life With the Lyons was one the BBC's most popular radio sitcoms between1950 and 1961. It was also adapted for BBC TV.
Written by Bebe Daniels, Bob Block and Bill Harding.
BBC Variety Orchestra conducted by Paul Fenoulhet.
Incidental music by Arthur Wilkinson
Producer: Tom Ronald
First broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in November 1952.
SUN 09:00 Alan Garner - Elidor (b0106x20)
Episode 1
Roland, Helen, David and Nicholas Watson have escaped to Manchester to avoid helping out at their house move. After a detour down a creepy backstreet, they come upon a derelict church and a mysterious fiddle player.
Little do the children know that chance didn't bring them there, but a prophecy hundreds of years old. One by one they realise that the church isn't all it seems, as the fabric of time and space opens and they are propelled into the dying and strange world of Elidor...
Alan Garner's classic fantasy adventure dramatised in four-parts by Don Webb.
Stars Mossie Cassidy as Roland, Raffey Cassidy as Helen, William Rush as Nicholas, Stephen Hoyle as David, Toby Hadoke as Malebron and Fiona Clarke as Mrs Watson.
Original music composed by Ian Williams
Directed at BBC Manchester by Charlotte Riches.
Made for BBC Radio 4 Extra and first broadcast in April 2011.
SUN 09:30 Michelle Magorian - Back Home (b010x9qg)
Episode 1
Wartime evacuee Rusty returns to Britain with an American accent, and meets a mother she doesn't recognise. Stars Mary Wimbush.
SUN 10:00 Desert Island Discs Revisited (b054tptd)
Parky at 80
Jackie Stewart
4 Extra Debut. From the Beatles to Mozart, champion racing driver Jackie Stewart makes his castaway choices. With Michael Parkinson. From June 1986.
SUN 10:45 Afternoon Reading (b00tj89x)
Claire Keegan - Foster
Episode 3
By Claire Keegan
Abridged by Neville Teller
A heartbreaking, haunting story of childhood, loss and love by one of Ireland's most acclaimed writers. A small girl is sent to live with her mother's people on a farm in rural Ireland, without knowing when she will return home. In the strangers' house, she finds a warmth and affection she has not known before and slowly begins to blossom in their care. And then a secret is revealed, and suddenly, she realizes how fragile her idyll is.
Winner of the Davy Byrnes Memorial Prize, Foster will be published in a revised and expanded version by Faber on 2nd September 2010. Beautiful, sad and eerie, it is a story of astonishing emotional depth, showcasing Claire Keegan's great accomplishment and talent.
Claire Keegan's first collection of short stories, 'Antarctica', was completed in 1998 and was awarded the Rooney Prize for Literature. Her second short story collection, 'Walk the Blue Fields', was published to enormous critical acclaim in 2007 and won her the 2008 Edge Hill Prize for Short Stories. Claire Keegan lives in County Louth, Ireland.
'Foster' is read by Evanna Lynch, best known to many for her portrayal of Luna Lovegood in the Harry Potter films.
Producer Heather Larmour.
SUN 11:00 TED Radio Hour (b054trsd)
Series 1
Simply Happy
A journey through fascinating ideas based on talks by riveting speakers on the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) stage.
Guy Raz investigates how being happy may be simpler than you think. With musician Pharrell Williams.
SUN 11:45 Roddy Doyle - Bullfighting (b01dlff5)
Sleep
From the mind of Chris Morris leaks onto radio in this dreamlike combination of comedy and music. Julia Davis, Kevin Eldon, David Cann, Mark Heap and Amelia Bullmore.
Are you still lying curare-still, seeking relief in feigning dead? Then welcome, oo-tazz welcome. Chris Morris is here to help you wallow in the melancholy, for third series of this subversive radio classic.
Immediately prior to Blue Jam's initial burst on radio, Chris Morris had caused a furore with Channel 4's Brass Eye. Yet Blue Jam managed to be a total departure from his previous work. Originally airing in the early hours on BBC Radio 1, it's a blend of ambient music, deadpan ( sometimes brutal ) sketches and offbeat monologues. A whole audio landscape of the subconscious, the ad-hoc low-fi sheen of production lending it a kind of verisimilitude.
In sharp contrast with the personality-led comedies of recent years, Blue Jam makes a virtue of anonymity. Borat scribe Pater Baynham and Father Ted creator Graham Linehan are among the writers. Rightly winning a clutch of Sony Awards, it remains unique - nothing before or after was remotely like it.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 1 in January 1999.
SUN 12:00 Vikas Swarup - The Seventh Test Omnibus (b044jhrs)
[Repeat of broadcast at
06:00 today]
SUN 13:15 Whatever Happened to the Teapots? (b00npf9t)
[Repeat of broadcast at
07:15 today]
SUN 13:30 John Osborne - The Entertainer (b007k2ll)
Bill Nighy stars as Archie Rice, a seedy third-rate comic in a tatty twice-nightly seaside show.
Set in the 1950s, Archie's tragedy mirrors not only a dying music hall, but a dying era, symbolic of the decline of post-war Britain. John Osborne's potent drama was first produced on stage in 1957.
With David Bradley as Billy Rice, Cheryl Campbell as Phoebe Rice, Sarah-Jane Holm as Jean Rice and Bertie Carvel as Frank Rice.
Music directed by Colin Sell with percussionist: Paul Girbow and trumpeter: Phil Revens.
Adapted by John Foley.
Producer: Marion Nancarrow
First broadcast on the BBC World Service in 2004.
SUN 15:00 All Gas and Gaiters (b007jp2q)
[Repeat of broadcast at
08:00 today]
SUN 15:30 Life With The Lyons (b00zmbzb)
[Repeat of broadcast at
08:30 today]
SUN 16:00 Mel's Mix: The Best of The 4 O'Clock Show (b04t6kxr)
Puffin Pianos, Morris Gleitzman and Island Life
Mel Giedroyc introduces highlights from this week's 4 O'Clock Shows including puffin pianos, author Morris Gleitzman's Inheritance Books and a celebration of island life.
SUN 17:00 Alan Garner - Elidor (b0106x20)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 today]
SUN 17:30 Michelle Magorian - Back Home (b010x9qg)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:30 today]
SUN 18:00 Bryony Lavery - 272 Attempts (b0076mn4)
An isolated house. The discovery of children's graves. A large number of tagged children in the house.
Award- winning playwright Bryony Lavery explores the world of genetics.
CAST:
Patrick Lear …. Malcolm Sinclair
Helen Lear …. Penelope Wilton
Chisobe Oylele …. Adjoa Andoh
Dr Serkassie …. Deborah Findlay
Chavez …. Stephen Hogan
Cupido …. Alice Hart
Colonel Treves …. John Rowe
Dr Cortes …. Philip Fox
Dr Chang …. Joanna McCallum
Father Sifacis …. Jon Glover
with Lulu Popplewell, Anton Rice and Jessica Crossley
Director: Claire Grove
First Broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in August 2004.
SUN 19:00 TED Radio Hour (b054trsd)
[Repeat of broadcast at
11:00 today]
SUN 19:45 Roddy Doyle - Bullfighting (b01dlff5)
[Repeat of broadcast at
11:45 today]
SUN 20:00 All Gas and Gaiters (b007jp2q)
[Repeat of broadcast at
08:00 today]
SUN 20:30 Life With The Lyons (b00zmbzb)
[Repeat of broadcast at
08:30 today]
SUN 21:00 Desert Island Discs Revisited (b054tptd)
[Repeat of broadcast at
10:00 today]
SUN 21:45 Afternoon Reading (b00tj89x)
[Repeat of broadcast at
10:45 today]
SUN 22:00 Clare in the Community (b015pbhd)
[Repeat of broadcast at
07:30 today]
SUN 22:30 The Richest Man in Britain (b00nlx7p)
The Interview
Sitcom by Nick Hornby and Giles Smith about an ageing rock star and his search for fulfilment.
Trillionnaire rocker Dave Mabbutt is persuaded to preview his 'drums-only' version of 1970s classic album, Temple of the Human Mind.
Dave Mabbutt ...... Mark Williams
Dom ...... Russell Tovey
Dave's Mum ...... Lynda Bellingham
Jane the Guardian journalist ...... Kerry Fox.
SUN 23:00 Newsjack (b0547zsc)
Series 12
Episode 2
This week's stories lovingly bashed, mashed and moulded into sketches, one-liners and vox-pops by the public. Trying to make sense of it all is our host, Nish Kumar.
SUN 23:30 Meet David Sedaris (b00s0vqr)
Series 1
Kookabura; With a Pal Like This...
From Carnegie Hall to the BBC Radio Theatre - American humourist David Sedaris reads from his extensive collection of published stories and articles.
"Kookabura", and "With a Pal Like This...."
The producer is Steve Doherty.
This is a Boomerang Plus production for BBC Radio 4.
MONDAY 09 MARCH 2015
MON 00:00 Bryony Lavery - 272 Attempts (b0076mn4)
[Repeat of broadcast at
18:00 on Sunday]
MON 01:00 Desert Island Discs Revisited (b054tptd)
[Repeat of broadcast at
10:00 on Sunday]
MON 01:45 Afternoon Reading (b00tj89x)
[Repeat of broadcast at
10:45 on Sunday]
MON 02:00 All Gas and Gaiters (b007jp2q)
[Repeat of broadcast at
08:00 on Sunday]
MON 02:30 Life With The Lyons (b00zmbzb)
[Repeat of broadcast at
08:30 on Sunday]
MON 03:00 Clare in the Community (b015pbhd)
[Repeat of broadcast at
07:30 on Sunday]
MON 03:30 John Osborne - The Entertainer (b007k2ll)
[Repeat of broadcast at
13:30 on Sunday]
MON 05:00 Alan Garner - Elidor (b0106x20)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 on Sunday]
MON 05:30 Michelle Magorian - Back Home (b010x9qg)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:30 on Sunday]
MON 06:00 Jedediah Berry - The Manual of Detection (b01pzvjb)
The Missing Detective
Travis Sivart, 'the detective's detective' has gone missing. Raymond Chandler meets Kafka in this surreal tale of skulduggery and somnambulism.
Somewhere in an unnamed, rainy city, Charles Unwin, a lowly but efficient clerk in a big detective agency, finds his world turned upside down when his detective boss, Travis Sivart, disappears.
Unwin is suddenly promoted to the role - and forced out into the field for the first time in his life. Unprepared and untrained, armed only with his trusty umbrella and The Manual of Detection, he sets out on his first mission: to find out what happened to his boss.
Unwin begins a frantic search while all around him, Sivart's closed cases have sprung open again...
Read by Toby Jones
Abridged by Eileen Horne
Produced by Clive Brill
Made for BBC Radio 4 Extra by Pacificus Productions.
MON 06:30 The Ping Pong Diplomats (b00c4fld)
4 Extra Debut. How President Nixon and table tennis thawed relations between the US and communist China in 1971. With Garry Richardson. From June 2008.
MON 07:00 Know Your Place (b01874kv)
Not to Be Used for Babies
Caretaker Ramsay awards cleaner Elsie her own storeroom, but he’s keen to ensure the perk isn't abused.
Ramsay Potts is the jobsworth caretaker at a crumbling Edwardian block of flats, pursued by the over-amorous cleaner Elsie.
Starring Roy Dotrice as Ramsay and Patricia Hayes as Elspeth Spurgeon.
8-part sitcom written by Andrew Palmer and Nell Brennan.
With Pat Coombs, John Graham and Sue Holderness.
Producer: Edward Taylor
First broadcast on BBC Radio 2 in January 1982.
MON 07:30 Just a Minute (b0540h05)
Series 71
Episode 4
Radio 4's classic panel game, in which the contestants are challenged to speak on a given subject for a minute without hesitation, repetition or deviation.
Sheila Hancock, Graham Norton, Paul Merton and The Infinite Monkey Cage's Robin Ince are trying their hand at the game under the watchful eye of Nicholas Parsons. Although none of them seem to know very much about Marco Polo...
MON 08:00 Dad's Army (b007js9w)
Series 1
A Stripe for Frazer
When Captain Mainwaring promotes Private Frazer, his new powers go straight to his head...
The comic exploits of a Second World War Home Guard platoon in Walmington-on-Sea.
Adapted for radio from Jimmy Perry and David Croft's TV scripts by Harold Snoad and Michael Knowles.
Captain Mainwaring …. Arthur Lowe
Sergeant Wilson …. John Le Mesurier
Corporal Jones …. Clive Dunn
Private Walker …. James Beck
Private Godfrey …. Arnold Ridley
Private Pike …. Ian Lavender
Private Frazer …. John Laurie
Captain Bailey …. Michael Knowles
Colonel Square …. Geoffrey Lumsden
Announcer …. John Snagge
Producer: John Dyas
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in March 1974.
MON 08:30 The Michael Bentine Show (b008yrw8)
From 26/02/1984
From the Metropolitan Police to a dead newsreader.
Michael Bentine stars in the ultimate one man show written and performed by the host.
Producer: Jamie Rix
First broadcast on BBC Radio 2 in February 1984.
MON 09:00 The Write Stuff (b019h2bb)
Series 15
Sir John Betjeman
James Walton hosts another series of the book-based panel show. This episode's Author of the Week is former poet laureate, Sir John Betjeman.
Sebastian Faulks is joined by children's author, Sue Limb, and John Walsh is joined by Sir Andrew Motion, a previous poet laureate himself, to solve more literary challenges, based on Betjeman's life and work, as posed to them by James Walton.
The teams are also asked to imagine what Betjeman might have written about were he alive today, and still poet laureate.
MON 09:30 The Brig Society (b0368fx0)
Series 1
Hospital
Uh-oh - Marcus Brigstocke has been put in charge of a thing! Each week, Marcus finds he's volunteered to be in charge of a big old thing - a hospital, the railways, British fashion, a prison. And each week he starts out by thinking "Well, it can't be that difficult, surely?" and ends up with "Oh - turns out it's utterly difficult and complicated. Who knew...?"
This week, he's been given his very own hospital, complete with doctors, nurses and pyjama smokers outside so you know it's a proper one. Do we have too many bureaucrats? Is privatization of health care a good or a bad thing? And are alternative medicine and homeopathy utter rubbish or merely complete drivel? Marcus gives you the results - albeit two weeks later and mixed up with those of another programme!
Assisting him with the procedures are Rufus Jones (Hunderby, Holy Flying Circus), William Andrews (Sorry I've Got No Head) and Margaret Cabourn-Smith (Miranda).
The show is produced by Marcus's long-standing accomplice, David Tyler, who also produces Marcus appearances as the inimitable as Giles Wemmbley Hogg.
Written by Marcus Brigstocke, Jeremy Salsby, Toby Davies, Nick Doody, Steve Punt and Tom Neenan.
Produced by David Tyler
A Pozzitive production for BBC Radio 4.
MON 10:00 Saturday Drama (b013r8fd)
Winston Graham - Marnie
It's 1961 and blonde and stunning Marnie Elmer poses as a secretary in order to steal from her employers and fund her mother's existence in Torquay. But she's yet to meet handsome company director, Mark Rutland, whose pursuit of her will ultimately lead to her downfall.
Winston Graham is probably best known for his "Poldark" series, but also wrote a number of taut thrillers, of which "Marnie" (written in 1961) may be the best remembered - having been filmed by Alfred Hitchcock in the early 1960s. This new adaptation for radio returns to the heart of the book itself.
Dramatised for radio by Shaun McKenna
Director: Marion Nancarrow
The dramatist, Shaun McKenna's, many radio credits include "The Complete Smiley", "The Postman Always Rings Twice", "The Cry of the Owl" and "East of Eden".
MON 11:00 Winston Graham Short Stories (b03ymztf)
The Old Boys
A stroll down memory lane turns into an unexpectedly heated encounter when two 'old boys' meet in the grounds of their old school. Read by Nicholas Farrell.
Winston Graham was one of the most successful and prolific novelists of the 20th century. He wrote in many genres but his best known body of work was undoubtedly the 12 historical novels set in Cornwall at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries which became known as The Poldarks.
Although it's the Poldarks that brought Winston Graham the most fame, he also wrote more than 30 other novels, six of which have been filmed including the thriller, Marnie directed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1964.
This selection celebrates the range of his work and offers a glimpse into the enduring appeal of his most famous characters, Ross and Demelza who are soon set to return to BBC screens in a new adaptation.
Made for BBC Radio 4 Extra by The Waters Partnership.
MON 11:15 Loose Ends (b054gxpj)
Arthur Smith, David Mitchell, Arlene Phillips, Sandi Toksvig, Yasmin Evans, John Shuttleworth, Spoek Mathambo, Fantasma
Clive Anderson is joined by Arthur Smith, David Mitchell, Arlene Phillips, Sandi Toksvig, Spoek Mathambo and Yasmin Evans for a special Comic Relief edition of Loose Ends, in the BBC Radio Theatre. With music from Fantasma and John Shuttleworth.
Producer: Sukey Firth.
MON 12:00 Dad's Army (b007js9w)
[Repeat of broadcast at
08:00 today]
MON 12:30 The Michael Bentine Show (b008yrw8)
[Repeat of broadcast at
08:30 today]
MON 13:00 Jedediah Berry - The Manual of Detection (b01pzvjb)
[Repeat of broadcast at
06:00 today]
MON 13:30 The Ping Pong Diplomats (b00c4fld)
[Repeat of broadcast at
06:30 today]
MON 14:00 The Seventh Test by Vikas Swarup (b044gmfg)
The Talent Show
Sapna Sinha works as a sales assistant in a TV showroom in New Delhi. Being the only bread-winner in the family she works long hours to provide for her widowed mother and younger sister. But then a man walks into her life with an extraordinary proposition: pass seven "life" tests of his choosing and she will have wealth and power. At first the tests seem easy, but things are not quite as they seem. Dramatised by Ayeesha Menon and John Dryden from Vikas Swarup's best-selling novel "The Accidental Apprentice".
6) The Talent Show
A thriller set in India from the author of "Slumdog Millionaire".
When Sapna's sister, Neha enters India's top musical talent show "Pop Star No 1", she attracts the attention of blind music producer, Raoji. But not in the way she would have hoped. Sapna must come to her rescue. Dramatised from Vikas Swarup's best-selling novel "The Accidental Apprentice".
Writers:
Vikas Swarup is an Indian diplomat and a best-selling novelist. His first novel "Q & A" was made into the Oscar winning film "Slumdog Millionaire" as well as Sony Award winning radio drama serial for BBC Radio .
Ayeesha Menon dramatized Vikas Swarup's other novels SIX SUSPECTS and Q & A, which won a Sony Award for Best Drama. She also wrote for Radio 4 THE MUMBAI CHUZZLEWITS, UNDERCOVER MUMBAI, THE CAIRO TRILOGY and MY NAME IS RED. Her stage play PEREIRA'S BAKERY AT 76 CHAPEL ROAD, which was developed with the Royal Court Theatre, was recently staged by the Curve Theatre, Leicester.
John Dryden wrote the original three-part dramas series SEVERED THREADS, THE RELUCTANT SPY and PANDEMIC, which won the Writer's Guild Award for best radio drama script. His dramatisation of BLEAK HOUSE won a Sony Award for Best Drama. Other dramatisations include A SUITABLE BOY, A HANDMAID'S TALE and FATHERLAND one of the most repeated dramas on R4 Extra.
Production:
Sound Design - Steve Bond
Editing Assistant - Varun Bangera
Script Editor - Mike Walker
Assistant Producer - Toral Shah
Music - Sacha Putnam
Dramatised by Ayeesha Menon and John Dryden from the novel "ACCIDENTAL APPRENTICE" by Vikas Swarup.
Director - John Dryden
Producer - Nadir Khan
A Goldhawk Production for BBC Radio 4.
MON 14:15 Shakespeare's Restless World (b01dp526)
England Goes Global
Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum, returns to Radio 4 with a new object-based history. Taking artefacts from William Shakespeare's time, he explores how Elizabethan and Jacobean playgoers made sense of the unstable and rapidly changing world in which they lived.
With old certainties shifting around them, in a time of political and religious unrest and economic expansion, Neil asks what the plays would have meant to the public when they were first performed. He uses carefully selected objects to explore the great issues of the day that preoccupied the public and helped shape the works, and he considers what they can reveal about the concerns and beliefs of Shakespearean England.
Programme 1. ENGLAND GOES GLOBAL - How Sir Francis Drake's circumnavigation of the globe changed the way Shakespeare's audiences viewed the world and their country's place on it. For the first time, England was engaging with the whole world.
Producer: Paul Kobrak.
MON 14:30 Book of the Week (b03c3bhv)
Seamus Heaney - Beowulf
Episode 6
Radio 4 pays tribute to Seamus Heaney, Nobel Prize-winning poet, internationally recognised as one of the greatest contemporary voices who passed away in September at the age of 74.
Composed towards the end of the first millennium, the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf is one of the great Northern epics and a classic of European literature. Seamus Heaney's translation , completed near the end of the second millennium is both true, line by line, to the original, as well as being an expression of his own creative, lyrical gift.
Here, in a recording made ten years ago, Seamus Heaney brings his vibrant powerful writing to life as he reads ten fifteen minute extracts from the narrative.
The poem is about encountering the monstrous, defeating it, and then living on, physically and psychically exposed, in that exhausted aftermath. It is not hard to draw parallels between this story and the history of the twentieth century, nor can Heaney's Beowulf fail to be read partly in the light of his Northern Irish upbringing.
But it also transcends such considerations, telling us psychological and spiritual truths that are permanent and liberating.
Beowulf's fight with the evil Grendel's mother.
Produced in Salford by Susan Roberts.
Radio Drama North.
MON 14:45 Book of the Week (b00rqqy8)
Graham Robb - Parisians
Episode 1
"The idea was to create a kind of mini Human Comedy of Paris, in which the history of the city would be illumined by the real experiences of its inhabitants."
So says the author Graham Robb about his new book 'Parisians'. And a whole host of characters walk, scuttle jump, run and flounce across his pages, beginning with the French Revolution and ending in more current times. These inhabitants are natives and visitors, and it is the likes of Charles Axel Guillaumot, Marie Antoinette, Alexandrine Zola, Adolf Hitler and Charles de Gaulle who lighten and darken the city's streets
in five episodes for BOOK OF THE WEEK. The series narrator is Stephen Boxer.
In this first episode, the city is saved from sinking in 1776 by a mysterious
individual called Charles Axel Guillaumot. Narrated by Stephen Boxer
and the series abridger is Katrin Williams
Producer Duncan Minshull.
MON 15:00 Saturday Drama (b013r8fd)
[Repeat of broadcast at
10:00 today]
MON 16:00 The 4 O'Clock Show (b0544gcl)
Greyhound of a Girl, Elephants' Trunks and Dick and Dom
Dick and Dom with the science behind the everyday in How Dangerous Is Your School? Today, they're making a lot of noise! Plus in Just So Science, how the elephant got its trunk.
MON 17:00 A Whole New Ball Game (b00c5r8c)
Series 1
The Mould in the Gold
Father Benedict is holding a Golden Oldie night in honour of the late Gregory Patterson. But is it the right occasion for a eulogy from his only son, Robert?
Not when Barbara Patterson is determined to ruin the evening.
A six-part black comedy by Martin Davies
Stars Desmond Barrit as Father Benedict, Brenda Blethyn as Mrs Patterson, Paul Parris as Robert Patterson, Charlotte Coleman as Barbara Patterson, Martino Lazzeri as Guy Entwhistle, Mark Straker as Andy, Claire Skinner as Janet and Jill Meers as the Manageress.
Producer: Lissa Evans
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in February 1993.
MON 17:30 Know Your Place (b01874kv)
[Repeat of broadcast at
07:00 today]
MON 18:00 The Write Stuff (b019h2bb)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 today]
MON 18:30 A Good Read (b0075lq4)
Richard Holmes and Hilary Mantel
4 Extra Debut. Sarah LeFanu, biographer Richard Holmes and Hilary Mantel discuss books by Molly Keane, Arnold Wesker and Henry James. From July 1999.
The Birth of Shylock and the Death of Zero Mostel, by Arnold Wesker
Publisher: Quartet Books
Good Behaviour, by Molly Keane
Publisher: Abacus Fiction
The Turn of the Screw, by Henry James
Publisher: Penguin Popular Classics.
MON 19:00 Dad's Army (b007js9w)
[Repeat of broadcast at
08:00 today]
MON 19:30 The Michael Bentine Show (b008yrw8)
[Repeat of broadcast at
08:30 today]
MON 20:00 Jedediah Berry - The Manual of Detection (b01pzvjb)
[Repeat of broadcast at
06:00 today]
MON 20:30 The Ping Pong Diplomats (b00c4fld)
[Repeat of broadcast at
06:30 today]
MON 21:00 Rik Mayall's Bedside Tales (b00m6gpk)
Mountain Girl
Settle down, brush your teeth, do whatever it is you do at this time of night. But, most of all, listen because Rik would like to talk to you. One on one. Tonight he'd mostly like to tell you about The Mountain Girl.
Performer ..... Rik Mayall
Writers ..... Rik Mayall & John Nicholson
Producer ..... Steven Canny.
MON 21:15 Loose Ends (b054gxpj)
[Repeat of broadcast at
11:15 today]
MON 22:00 Just a Minute (b0540h05)
[Repeat of broadcast at
07:30 today]
MON 22:30 The Brig Society (b0368fx0)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:30 today]
MON 23:00 The News Quiz Extra (b054yhzd)
Series 13
Episode 3
A satirical review of the week's news, chaired by Sandi Toksvig. Susan Calman, Camilla Long and Bob Mills join regular panellist Jeremy Hardy.
MON 23:45 Helen Keen's It Is Rocket Science (b00zm0mp)
Series 1
Episode 3
Helen Keen's off-beat but true account of the history of space flight.
With Peter Serafinowicz and Susy Kane.
* The breathtaking drama of the space race and its evil twin the Cold War
* The brilliant but secret life and tragically banal death of the Soviet Union's best rocket scientist
* The surprising tale of the last man on the moon (so far) and the songs he sang.
Written by Helen Keen and Miriam Underhill.
Producer: Gareth Edwards
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in March 2011.
TUESDAY 10 MARCH 2015
TUE 00:00 The Seventh Test by Vikas Swarup (b044gmfg)
[Repeat of broadcast at
14:00 on Monday]
TUE 00:15 Shakespeare's Restless World (b01dp526)
[Repeat of broadcast at
14:15 on Monday]
TUE 00:30 Book of the Week (b03c3bhv)
[Repeat of broadcast at
14:30 on Monday]
TUE 00:45 Book of the Week (b00rqqy8)
[Repeat of broadcast at
14:45 on Monday]
TUE 01:00 The Write Stuff (b019h2bb)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 on Monday]
TUE 01:30 A Good Read (b0075lq4)
[Repeat of broadcast at
18:30 on Monday]
TUE 02:00 Jedediah Berry - The Manual of Detection (b01pzvjb)
[Repeat of broadcast at
06:00 on Monday]
TUE 02:30 The Ping Pong Diplomats (b00c4fld)
[Repeat of broadcast at
06:30 on Monday]
TUE 03:00 Saturday Drama (b013r8fd)
[Repeat of broadcast at
10:00 on Monday]
TUE 04:00 Winston Graham Short Stories (b03ymztf)
[Repeat of broadcast at
11:00 on Monday]
TUE 04:15 Loose Ends (b054gxpj)
[Repeat of broadcast at
11:15 on Monday]
TUE 05:00 A Whole New Ball Game (b00c5r8c)
[Repeat of broadcast at
17:00 on Monday]
TUE 05:30 Know Your Place (b01874kv)
[Repeat of broadcast at
07:00 on Monday]
TUE 06:00 Jedediah Berry - The Manual of Detection (b01q0khk)
The Museum Coffin
Unwilling investigator Charles Unwin discovers that the disappearance of Detective Sivart is connected to a mystery corpse, two green eyed twins with murder in mind, and a mysterious siren with a limp...can his Manual help him to untangle this knotty challenge? Read by Toby Jones.
Somewhere in an unnamed, rainy city, Charles Unwin, a lowly but efficient clerk in a big detective agency, has found his world turned upside down when his detective boss, Travis Sivart, disappears.
Suddenly promoted to the role - Unwin's been forced out into the field for the first time in his life. Unprepared and untrained, armed only with his trusty umbrella and The Manual of Detection, his first mission is to find out what happened to his boss.
Abridged by Eileen Horne
Produced by Clive Brill
Made for BBC Radio 4 Extra by Pacificus Productions.
TUE 06:30 The Wreck of the Alba (b00lh37d)
Michael Bird, an art historian and surfer, uncovers the universal and local significance of one of the most popular pictures in the Tate, St Ives - The Wreck of the Alba by Alfred Wallis.
He interviews people in St Ives who remember the disaster, when the steamer's crew was wrecked on Porthmeor beach in January 1938. Michael also gains access to many recordings of people who knew Wallis, made in the 1960s by Dr Roger Slack, a St Ives GP, and speaks to Chris Stephens, senior curator at the Tate, and to people looking at the painting and surfers on the beach.
TUE 07:00 Nineteen Ninety-Eight (b01cvp13)
Episode 5
Even Edward's allies find themselves absorbed by AmJap. Orwellian sitcom with David Threlfall and Hugh Laurie. From May 1987.
TUE 07:30 Trodd en Bratt Say 'Well Done You' (b048nr1v)
Series 1
Episode 4
Nominated for Best Comedy in the BBC Audio Drama Awards 2015, Trodd en Bratt Say 'Well Done You' is a comedy sketch show written and performed by Ruth Bratt and Lucy Trodd, stars of Radio 4's Showstoppers.
This week Ruth gets carried away when she's put in charge of the sound effects for Lucy's serious radio drama; Adam and Oliver finally build up the courage to speak their minds about their tiny roles in the show, and there's an advert for a decisiveness course. Probably.
Written and performed by Ruth Bratt and Lucy Trodd
Supporting cast: Adam Meggido and Oliver Senton
Script Editor: Jon Hunter
Composer: Duncan Walsh Atkins
Producer: Ben Worsfield
A Lucky Giant production for BBC Radio 4.
TUE 08:00 Round the Horne (b00j05vh)
Series 1
Episode 1
The bona beginnings of one of the BBC's most popular comedies. The story so far, the BBC's Backroom Boys and part one of The Clissold Saga.
Starring Kenneth Horne. With Kenneth Williams, Hugh Paddick, Betty Marsden and Bill Pertwee.
Recorded at the BBC's Paris Studio in Lower Regent Street, London. Announcer: Douglas Smith
Round The Horne was born out of the demise of BBC radio comedy Beyond Our Ken, after the end of writer Eric Merriman's involvement. Using the same cast and producer, Barry Took and Marty Feldman were persuaded to write the scripts - which led to four series that ran between 1965 and 1968 - packed full of parodies, recurring characters, catchphrases and double-entendres.
Music by Edwin Braden and the Hornblowers and The Fraser Hayes Four.
Producer: John Simmonds
First broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in March 1965.
TUE 08:30 The Ken Dodd Show (b054yttg)
From 12/07/1964
Ornithology tips from Ivor Wagtail, a trip to a Diddy farm and the world's worst bobby.
Starring Ken Dodd.
With Judith Chalmers, John Slater, Patricia Hayes, Peter Hudson, Wallas Eaton and Percy Edwards.
Music from The Barry Sisters.
BBC Revue Orchestra, conducted by Malcolm Lockyer.
Script by Ken Dodd and Eddie Braben.
Producer: Bill Worsley
First broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in July 1964.
TUE 09:00 The News Quiz Extra (b054yhzd)
[Repeat of broadcast at
23:00 on Monday]
TUE 09:45 Helen Keen's It Is Rocket Science (b00zm0mp)
[Repeat of broadcast at
23:45 on Monday]
TUE 10:00 RL Stevenson - Kidnapped (b01c7rym)
The House of Shaws
Scotland is in turmoil after the Jacobite rebellion, as young David sets off to Edinburgh. Robert Louis Stevenson's historical adventure stars David Rintoul.
TUE 11:00 Winston Graham Short Stories (b03yngnh)
At the Chalet Lartrec
Driving through the Swiss Alps in the 1960s, a young Englishman seeks shelter from a storm, but his hosts at the Chalet Lartrec are not pleased to see him. Read by Ewan Bailey.
Winston Graham was one of the most successful and prolific novelists of the 20th century. He wrote in many genres but his best known body of work was undoubtedly the 12 historical novels set in Cornwall at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries which became known as The Poldarks.
Although it's the Poldarks that brought Winston Graham the most fame, he also wrote more than 30 other novels, six of which have been filmed including the thriller, Marnie directed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1964.
This selection celebrates the range of his work and offers a glimpse into the enduring appeal of his most famous characters, Ross and Demelza who are soon set to return to BBC screens in a new adaptation.
Made for BBC Radio 4 Extra by The Waters Partnership.
TUE 11:15 Lloyd Peters - A Higher Education (b007jw1y)
What happens when you combine a university drama lecturer locked in a studio with a shy student, a real gun and a copy of Hamlet?
Add Black Forest gateau, a scheming dean, a drunken parent and the police, sprinkle liberally with sharp one-liners, slapstick and comic tension, and you have a combination guaranteed to ruin any head of department's day.
Lloyd Peters' comedy stars Rik Mayall as Don, Helen Lederer as Sophie, Philip Glenister as Ronnie/Roy, Judi Earl as Deidre/Ms Jones-Juggler and Gary Brown as Inspector Snoddy/Dennis.
Directed in Manchester by Polly Thomas
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2000.
TUE 12:00 Round the Horne (b00j05vh)
[Repeat of broadcast at
08:00 today]
TUE 12:30 The Ken Dodd Show (b054yttg)
[Repeat of broadcast at
08:30 today]
TUE 13:00 Jedediah Berry - The Manual of Detection (b01q0khk)
[Repeat of broadcast at
06:00 today]
TUE 13:30 The Wreck of the Alba (b00lh37d)
[Repeat of broadcast at
06:30 today]
TUE 14:00 The Seventh Test by Vikas Swarup (b044gty3)
The Protest
Sapna Sinha works as a sales assistant in a TV showroom in New Delhi. Being the only bread-winner in the family she works long hours to provide for her widowed mother and younger sister. But then a man walks into her life with an extraordinary proposition: pass seven "life" tests of his choosing and she will have wealth and power. At first the tests seem easy, but things are not quite as they seem. Dramatised by Ayeesha Menon and John Dryden from Vikas Swarup's best-selling novel "The Accidental Apprentice".
7) The Protest
A thriller set in India from the author of "Slumdog Millionaire". Increasing rent prices, send Sapna's elderly neighbour, Nirmila Ben on a crusade against corruption. But when no one notices her protest and her frail health begins to fail, Sapna must find a way to save her. Dramatised from Vikas Swarup's best-selling novel "The Accidental Apprentice".
Writers:
Vikas Swarup is an Indian diplomat and a best-selling novelist. His first novel "Q & A" was made into the Oscar winning film "Slumdog Millionaire" as well as Sony Award winning radio drama serial for BBC Radio .
Ayeesha Menon dramatized Vikas Swarup's other novels SIX SUSPECTS and Q & A, which won a Sony Award for Best Drama. She also wrote for Radio 4 THE MUMBAI CHUZZLEWITS, UNDERCOVER MUMBAI, THE CAIRO TRILOGY and MY NAME IS RED. Her stage play PEREIRA'S BAKERY AT 76 CHAPEL ROAD, which was developed with the Royal Court Theatre, was recently staged by the Curve Theatre, Leicester.
John Dryden wrote the original three-part dramas series SEVERED THREADS, THE RELUCTANT SPY and PANDEMIC, which won the Writer's Guild Award for best radio drama script. His dramatisation of BLEAK HOUSE won a Sony Award for Best Drama. Other dramatisations include A SUITABLE BOY, A HANDMAID'S TALE and FATHERLAND one of the most repeated dramas on R4 Extra.
Cast:
Sapna ... Rasika Dugal
Acharya ... Vijay Chrishna
Karan ... Neil Bhoopalam
Nirmila Ben / Rosie ... Radhika Mittal
Sapna's Mother ... Shernaz Patel
Raja ... Sumeet Vyas
Kuldeep Singh / Roaji ... Rajit Kapur
Neha ... Amrita Puri
Priya Capoor / Pushpa / Female Judge ... Ayesha Raza
Badan Singh / Politician / Constable ... Kenny Desai
Madan ... Vivek Madan
Neelam / Babli ... Prerna Chawla
Rent Collector ... Satchit Puranik
Production:
Sound Design - Steve Bond
Editing Assistant - Varun Bangera
Script Editor - Mike Walker
Assistant Producer - Toral Shah
Music - Sacha Putnam
Dramatised by Ayeesha Menon and John Dryden from the novel "ACCIDENTAL APPRENTICE" by Vikas Swarup.
Director - John Dryden
Producer - Nadir Khan
A Goldhawk Production for BBC Radio 4.
TUE 14:15 Shakespeare's Restless World (b01g61vf)
Communion and Conscience
Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum, returns to Radio 4 with a new object-based history. Taking artefacts from William Shakespeare's time, he explores how Elizabethan and Jacobean playgoers made sense of the unstable and rapidly changing world in which they lived.
With old certainties shifting around them, in a time of political and religious unrest and economic expansion, Neil asks what the plays would have meant to the public when they were first performed. He uses carefully selected objects to explore the great issues of the day that preoccupied the public and helped shape the works, and he considers what they can reveal about the concerns and beliefs of Shakespearean England.
Programme 2. COMMUNION AND CONSCIENCE - The communion cup that Shakespeare may well have used sheds light on the dramatic religious changes that came in the aftermath of the Reformation
Producer: Paul Kobrak.
TUE 14:30 Book of the Week (b03c3cmp)
Seamus Heaney - Beowulf
Episode 7
Beowulf , home after ridding the Danes of Grendel and his mother, is welcomed at the court of Hygelac, King of the Geats.
Produced in Salford by Susan Roberts.
Radio Drama North.
TUE 14:45 Book of the Week (b00rqqpb)
Graham Robb - Parisians
Episode 2
"The idea was to create a kind of mini Human Comedy of Paris, in which the history of the city would be illumined by the real experiences of its inhabitants."
So says the author Graham Robb about his new book 'Parisians'. And a whole host of characters walk, scuttle jump, run and flounce across his pages, beginning with the French Revolution and ending in more current times. These inhabitants are natives and visitors, and it is the likes of Charles Axel Guillaumot, Marie Antoinette, Alexandrine Zola, Adolf Hitler and Charles de Gaulle who lighten and darken the city's streets
in five episodes for BOOK OF THE WEEK.
In today's episode, Marie Antoinette must flee the Palace and find the king's
carriage, but who to trust in forbidding streets? Reader Stephen Boxer.
TUE 15:00 RL Stevenson - Kidnapped (b01c7rym)
[Repeat of broadcast at
10:00 today]
TUE 16:00 The 4 O'Clock Show (b0546bgt)
Wellies, Patrick Duffy and Dick & Dom
Mel celebrates Patrick Duffy's birthday, and Dick and Dom are back at school investigating the science of food.
TUE 17:00 Capital Gains (b007r5d3)
Series 1
Venture Capital
Absconding with £4,601,7
40.72 of someone else's money proves more challenging than it sounds for Julius Hutch.
Peter Jones stars as Julius Hutch.
Written by Collin Johnson.
Julius Hutch ...... Peter Jones
Pauline Tone ...... Celestine Randall
Sexton Lewis ...... Jeffrey Wickham
Peter Fang ...... Peter Whitman
News Reader ...... Collin Johnson
Kate ...... Justine Midda
Producer: Andy Jordan
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 1995.
TUE 17:30 Nineteen Ninety-Eight (b01cvp13)
[Repeat of broadcast at
07:00 today]
TUE 18:00 Hidden Treasures (b054z4kp)
Petworth House
A reclining marble sculpture, a very peculiar chair, and some weird and wonderful objects from the kitchen.
Lars Tharp chairs the light-hearted Antiques Quiz from the North Gallery of Petworth House in West Sussex - crammed with works of Turner, William Blake, Reynolds and Gainsborough.
With Eric Knowles, Clive Farahar and Hilary Kay.
Producer: Annie Bristow
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in April 1998.
TUE 18:30 How Tickled Am I? (b007m5v6)
Series 2
Will Hay
Mark Radcliffe profiles the stage, film and radio actor best remembered for his Diary of a Schoolmaster as well as his contribution to astronomy.
Series exploring some of the North's best-loved and most influential comedians.
Producer: Libby Cross
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2000.
TUE 19:00 Round the Horne (b00j05vh)
[Repeat of broadcast at
08:00 today]
TUE 19:30 The Ken Dodd Show (b054yttg)
[Repeat of broadcast at
08:30 today]
TUE 20:00 Jedediah Berry - The Manual of Detection (b01q0khk)
[Repeat of broadcast at
06:00 today]
TUE 20:30 The Wreck of the Alba (b00lh37d)
[Repeat of broadcast at
06:30 today]
TUE 21:00 Rik Mayall's Bedside Tales (b00n5ngk)
Train to Paris
Settle down, brush your teeth, do whatever it is you do at this time of night. But, most of all, listen because Rik would like to talk to you. One on one. Tonight he'd mostly like to tell you about Train to Paris
Performer ..... Rik Mayall
Writers ..... Rik Mayall & John Nicholson
Producer ..... Steven Canny
We open a small and peculiarly shaped window in to the mind of Rik Mayall. Written by Rik and John Nicholson, it's a woozy, strange and resonant series from one of the country's most loved comic performers. Rik wants to sit with you in your room - one on one. He wants to let you know things - important, secret things, things about your neighbours. About him. About you.
TUE 21:15 Lloyd Peters - A Higher Education (b007jw1y)
[Repeat of broadcast at
11:15 today]
TUE 22:00 Trodd en Bratt Say 'Well Done You' (b048nr1v)
[Repeat of broadcast at
07:30 today]
TUE 22:30 I've Never Seen Star Wars (b00hq2xz)
Series 2
Jan Ravens
Marcus Brigstocke invites his guest to try things they've never done before. Whether the experiences are banal or profound, the show is all about getting out of our comfort zones and embracing the new.
Host: Marcus Brigstocke
Guest: Jan Ravens
Devised and produced by: Bill Dare.
TUE 23:00 Strangers on Trains (b00d45p4)
Episode 1
Travellers, including a love-struck postie, share their darkest secrets. Stars Nat Segnit and Stewart Wright. From August 2008.
TUE 23:15 Ivor Cutler - A Wet Handle (b00cgss2)
Episode 1
'I Am a Yellow Fly' and the tale of a greasy button.
Songs, stories and poems from humourist Ivor Cutler, with Craig Murray-Orr, Dylan Edwards and Beverley Crew.
Producer: Neil Cargill
First broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in June 1997.
TUE 23:30 Rudy's Rare Records (b00yj2hq)
Series 3
Lights Out
Father and son comedy set in the finest old-school record shop in Birmingham.
Rudy is determined to prove to his girlfriend Doreen that she's finally met her match. He's even persuaded Adam to keep out of the way while he cooks Doreen a romantic meal for her birthday. The power supply across the West Midlands, however, has even more surprising treats in store.
Written by Danny Robins
Produced by Lucy Armitage.
WEDNESDAY 11 MARCH 2015
WED 00:00 The Seventh Test by Vikas Swarup (b044gty3)
[Repeat of broadcast at
14:00 on Tuesday]
WED 00:15 Shakespeare's Restless World (b01g61vf)
[Repeat of broadcast at
14:15 on Tuesday]
WED 00:30 Book of the Week (b03c3cmp)
[Repeat of broadcast at
14:30 on Tuesday]
WED 00:45 Book of the Week (b00rqqpb)
[Repeat of broadcast at
14:45 on Tuesday]
WED 01:00 Hidden Treasures (b054z4kp)
[Repeat of broadcast at
18:00 on Tuesday]
WED 01:30 How Tickled Am I? (b007m5v6)
[Repeat of broadcast at
18:30 on Tuesday]
WED 02:00 Jedediah Berry - The Manual of Detection (b01q0khk)
[Repeat of broadcast at
06:00 on Tuesday]
WED 02:30 The Wreck of the Alba (b00lh37d)
[Repeat of broadcast at
06:30 on Tuesday]
WED 03:00 RL Stevenson - Kidnapped (b01c7rym)
[Repeat of broadcast at
10:00 on Tuesday]
WED 04:00 Winston Graham Short Stories (b03yngnh)
[Repeat of broadcast at
11:00 on Tuesday]
WED 04:15 Lloyd Peters - A Higher Education (b007jw1y)
[Repeat of broadcast at
11:15 on Tuesday]
WED 05:00 Capital Gains (b007r5d3)
[Repeat of broadcast at
17:00 on Tuesday]
WED 05:30 Nineteen Ninety-Eight (b01cvp13)
[Repeat of broadcast at
07:00 on Tuesday]
WED 06:00 Jedediah Berry - The Manual of Detection (b01q0v62)
A Surfeit of Alarm Clocks
Rookie Detective Unwin is plunged deeper into the mystery of his missing boss, and struggles to apply the wisdom of the chapters in his Manual to a series of events that seem to make no sense at all - but an explanation is in sight when he is given the secret to Chapter 18.....now if only he can find it. Read by Toby Jones.
Somewhere in an unnamed, rainy city, Charles Unwin, a lowly but efficient clerk in a big detective agency, has found his world turned upside down when his detective boss, Travis Sivart, disappears.
Suddenly promoted to the role - Unwin's been forced out into the field for the first time in his life. Unprepared and untrained, armed only with his trusty umbrella and The Manual of Detection. His first mission is to find out what happened to his boss.
Abridged by Eileen Horne
Produced by Clive Brill
Made for BBC Radio 4 Extra by Pacificus Productions.
WED 06:30 The Ancient Novel (b00d45vl)
Tibor Fischer explores the ancient novel. 2,000 years before Hollywood, Greek and Latin writers were producing tales that read like film scripts, from romances to religious mystery texts. They incorporate plot twists, bawdy humour and magical episodes in ways that are strikingly similar to their modern counterparts, and their influence on world literature is vast. At the International Conference on the Ancient Novel, Tibor talks to leading academics about this relatively unknown literary genre.
WED 07:00 Believe It! (b03m7p12)
Series 2
Danger Man
Jon Canter's "radiography" of Richard Wilson returns for a second series.
Celebrity autobiographies are everywhere. Richard Wilson has always said he'd never write one. Based on glimmers of truth, Believe It is the hilarious, bizarre, revealing (and, most importantly, untrue) celebrity autobiography of Richard Wilson.
He narrates the series with his characteristic dead-pan delivery, weaving in and out of dramatised scenes from his fictional life-story. He plays a heavily exaggerated version of himself: a Scots actor and national treasure, unmarried, private, passionate about politics, theatre and Manchester United (all true), who's a confidant of the powerful and has survived childhood poverty, a drunken father, years of fruitless grind, too much success, monstrosity, addiction, charity work and fierce rivalry with Sean Connery and Ian McKellen (not true).
The title - in case you hadn't spotted - is an unashamed reference his famous catchphrase.
Written by Jon Canter
Produced and Directed by Clive Brill
A Pacificus Production for BBC Radio 4.
WED 07:30 Chain Reaction (b05417lh)
Series 10
Bob Mortimer talks to Vic Reeves
One half of comedy double-act Vic & Bob, Bob Mortimer, talks to the other half of comedy double-act Vic & Bob, Vic Reeves. Vic & Bob are best know as the creators and stars of The Smell of Reeves and Mortimer, Shooting Stars and House of Fools.
Chain Reaction is the long running hostless chat show where last week's interviewee becomes this week's interviewer.
Producer: Charlie Perkins
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in March 2015.
WED 08:00 The Navy Lark (b00zfz9k)
Series 2
A Crisp Romance
Povey probes the odd coincidence of Pertwee's liaison with a barmaid - and a snack order.
Starring Leslie Phillips as the Sub-Lieutenant, Jon Pertwee as the Chief Petty Officer, Stephen Murray as Number One, Richard Caldicot as Commander Povey, Ronnie Barker as AS Johnson,Heather Chasen as Heather, Michael Bates as Ginger, Tenniel Evans as Goldstein and June Tobin as Maisie.
The Navy Lark ran for an impressive 13 series on BBC Radio between 1959 and 1976.
Scripted by Lawrie Wyman.
Producer: Alastair Scott Johnston.
First broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in January 1960.
WED 08:30 I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again (b0092s7l)
Series 4
Episode 6
Uncle John brings you Music for Schools - and The Curse of the Flying Wombat.
More quick-fire sketches, terrible puns, humorous songs and parodies.
Stars Tim Brooke-Taylor, John Cleese, David Hatch, Jo Kendall and Bill Oddie.
Written by Graeme Garden, Eric Idle, Bill Oddie, Peter Hutchins, Peter & David Lund
Originating from the Cambridge University Footlights revue 'Cambridge Circus', ISIRTA ran for 8 years on BBC Radio and quickly developed a cult following.
Music and songs by Dave Lee and Bill Oddie.
Producer: Humphrey Barclay
First broadcast on the BBC Home Service in November 1966.
WED 09:00 So Wrong It's Right (b0100ljr)
Series 2
Episode 5
Charlie Brooker hosts the comedy panel show about the wrong side of life with comedians Frank Skinner and Josie Long plus Harry Hill TV Burp writer Daniel Maier competing to suggest the best in bad ideas.
Charlie's challenges in this episode see the panel recall 'the most embarrassing thing they've done in public' plus suggesting concepts for a terrible chain of shops. Can anyone top Frank Skinner's suggestion of the drinking accessory franchise 'Oddbinge'?
Added to this are the panel's nominations for the worst irritants of modern life - including Josie Long selection of 'comment' sections on the web or as she calls them 'the bottom half of the internet'.
The host of So Wrong It's Right, Charlie Brooker, also presents BBC4's acclaimed Newswipe and Screenwipe series - and is an award winning columnist for The Guardian. He also won Best Newcomer at the British Comedy Awards 2009.
Produced by Aled Evans
A Zeppotron Production for BBC Radio 4.
WED 09:30 Spread a Little Happiness (b0100j8w)
Series 2
If Music Be the Food of Love, Stop Now!
It's not Hope's birthday, so why is everyone bringing her presents?
Debra Stephenson and Nicola Duffet star in episode 6 of John Godber and Jane Thornton's comedy set in a sandwich bar in Beverley, near Hull.
'Spread A Little Happiness' is sung by Debra Stephenson
Cast:
Hope ..... Debra Stephenson
Maria ..... Nicola Duffett
Dave ..... Neil Dudgeon
Mam ..... Anne Reid
Ray ..... Shaun Prendergast
Gavin ..... Ralph Brown
Jenny ..... Sarah Moyle
Anita ..... Sherry Baines
Carrie ...... Elizabeth Godber
Eve ..... Helen Longworth
Bob ..... Ben Crowe
Monty ..... Stephen Critchlow
Blinds man ..... James Weaver
Producer/Director: Chris Wallis
An Autolycus production for BBC Radio 4.
WED 10:00 RL Stevenson - Kidnapped (b01c7x03)
Murder in Appin
David Balfour is shipwrecked off Scotland's coast. Cast ashore, he heads to Appin and a fateful encounter. Robert Louis Stevenson's historical adventure stars Paul Young.
WED 11:00 Winston Graham Short Stories (b03ynmf3)
The Cornish Farm
In search of a rural idyll a couple buy a farm in Cornwall but it turns out to be a property with a recent 'history'. Read by Nicholas Farrell.
Winston Graham was one of the most successful and prolific novelists of the 20th century. He wrote in many genres but his best known body of work was undoubtedly the 12 historical novels set in Cornwall at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries which became known as The Poldarks.
Although it's the Poldarks that brought Winston Graham the most fame, he also wrote more than 30 other novels, six of which have been filmed including the thriller, Marnie directed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1964.
This selection celebrates the range of his work and offers a glimpse into the enduring appeal of his most famous characters, Ross and Demelza who are set to return to BBC screens in a new adaptation.
Made for BBC Radio 4 Extra by The Waters Partnership.
WED 11:15 Drama (b01dvzg7)
TS Eliot - The Waste Land
Eileen Atkins and Jeremy Irons read The Waste Land by T.S.Eliot introduced by Dr Rowan Williams former Archbishop of Canterbury, Jackie Kay, Matthew Hollis and Sean O'Brien
The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot is arguably one of the most important poems of the 20th century . In 1921, Eliot took leave from his job in a bank for a break in Margate with his wife, Vivienne Haigh-Wood Eliot. Here he began working on the poem. The Eliots travelled on to Paris where they were guests of the poet Ezra Pound. Eliot was en route to Lausanne, Switzerland, for treatment for his nervous disorder by Doctor Roger Vittoz whilst Vivien remained at a sanatorium just outside Paris. In Lausanne, Eliot produced a longer version of the poem . Pound then made detailed editorial comments and significant cuts to the manuscript. Eliot later dedicated the poem to Pound.
Eliot originally considered titling the poem He do the Police in Different Voices - a phrase taken from Charles Dickens' novel Our Mutual Friend. This would help the reader to understand that, while there are many different voices in the poem, some critics believe there is only one central consciousness.
In the end, the title Eliot chose was The Waste Land. In his first note to the poem he attributes the title to Jessie L. Weston's book on the Grail legend, From Ritual to Romance. The allusion is to the wounding of the Fisher King and the subsequent sterility of his lands.
WED 12:00 The Navy Lark (b00zfz9k)
[Repeat of broadcast at
08:00 today]
WED 12:30 I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again (b0092s7l)
[Repeat of broadcast at
08:30 today]
WED 13:00 Jedediah Berry - The Manual of Detection (b01q0v62)
[Repeat of broadcast at
06:00 today]
WED 13:30 The Ancient Novel (b00d45vl)
[Repeat of broadcast at
06:30 today]
WED 14:00 The Seventh Test by Vikas Swarup (b044h9bf)
Acid Rain
Sapna Sinha works as a sales assistant in a TV showroom in New Delhi. Being the only bread-winner in the family she works long hours to provide for her widowed mother and younger sister. But then a man walks into her life with an extraordinary proposition: pass seven "life" tests of his choosing and she will have wealth and power. At first the tests seem easy, but things are not quite as they seem. Dramatised by Ayeesha Menon and John Dryden from Vikas Swarup's best-selling novel "The Accidental Apprentice".
8) Acid Rain
A thriller set in India from the author of "Slumdog Millionaire". Having passed six of the "life tests", Sapna is within reach of changing her life forever - but not in the way she had anticipated. As the consequences of her Faustian pact become apparent, she realizes there is no escape. Dramatised from Vikas Swarup's best-selling novel "The Accidental Apprentice".
Writers:
Vikas Swarup is an Indian diplomat and a best-selling novelist. His first novel "Q & A" was made into the Oscar winning film "Slumdog Millionaire" as well as Sony Award winning radio drama serial for BBC Radio .
Ayeesha Menon dramatized Vikas Swarup's other novels SIX SUSPECTS and Q & A, which won a Sony Award for Best Drama. She also wrote for Radio 4 THE MUMBAI CHUZZLEWITS, UNDERCOVER MUMBAI, THE CAIRO TRILOGY and MY NAME IS RED. Her stage play PEREIRA'S BAKERY AT 76 CHAPEL ROAD, which was developed with the Royal Court Theatre, was recently staged by the Curve Theatre, Leicester.
John Dryden wrote the original three-part dramas series SEVERED THREADS, THE RELUCTANT SPY and PANDEMIC, which won the Writer's Guild Award for best radio drama script. His dramatisation of BLEAK HOUSE won a Sony Award for Best Drama. Other dramatisations include A SUITABLE BOY, A HANDMAID'S TALE and FATHERLAND one of the most repeated dramas on R4 Extra.
Cast:
Sapna ... Rasika Dugal
Acharya ... Vijay Chrishna
Karan ... Neil Bhoopalam
Nirmila Ben / Rosie ... Radhika Mittal
Sapna's Mother ... Shernaz Patel
Raja - Sumeet Vyas
Kuldeep Singh / Roaji ... Rajit Kapur
Neha ... Amrita Puri
Priya Capoor / Pushpa / Female Judge ... Ayesha Raza
Badan Singh / Politician / Constable ... Kenny Desai
Madan ... Vivek Mada
Neelam / Babli ... Prerna Chawla
Rent Collector ... Satchit Puranik
Production:
Sound Design - Steve Bond
Editing Assistant - Varun Bangera
Script Editor - Mike Walker
Assistant Producer - Toral Shah
Music - Sacha Putnam
Dramatised by Ayeesha Menon and John Dryden from the novel "ACCIDENTAL APPRENTICE" by Vikas Swarup.
Director - John Dryden
Producer - Nadir Khan
A Goldhawk Production for BBC Radio 4.
WED 14:15 Shakespeare's Restless World (b01drtc2)
Snacking through Shakespeare
Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum, returns to Radio 4 with a new object-based history. Taking artefacts from William Shakespeare's time, he explores how Elizabethan and Jacobean playgoers made sense of the unstable and rapidly changing world in which they lived.
With old certainties shifting around them, in a time of political and religious unrest and economic expansion, Neil asks what the plays would have meant to the public when they were first performed. He uses carefully selected objects to explore the great issues of the day that preoccupied the public and helped shape the works, and he considers what they can reveal about the concerns and beliefs of Shakespearean England.
Programme 3. SNACKING THROUGH SHAKESPEARE - A luxury fork discovered on the site of the Rose theatre helps explain what people were nibbling on when they first heard: "Is this a dagger I see before me?"
Producer: Paul Kobrak.
WED 14:30 Book of the Week (b03c45hh)
Seamus Heaney - Beowulf
Episode 8
After the death of King Hygelac, Beowulf rules
the land of the Geats wisely for fifty winters. Then, a dragon awakes.
Produced in Salford by Susan Roberts.
Radio Drama North.
WED 14:45 Book of the Week (b00rqqpd)
Graham Robb - Parisians
Episode 3
"The idea was to create a kind of mini Human Comedy of Paris, in which the history of the city would be illumined by the real experiences of its inhabitants."
So says the author Graham Robb about his new book 'Parisians'. And a whole host of characters walk, scuttle jump, run and flounce across his pages, beginning with the French Revolution and ending in more current times. These inhabitants are natives and visitors, and it is the likes of Charles Axel Guillaumot, Marie Antoinette, Alexandrine Zola, Adolf Hitler and Charles de Gaulle who lighten and darken the city's streets
in five episodes for BOOK OF THE WEEK. The series narrator is Stephen Boxer.
In today's episode, Emile and Alexandrine Zola ascend the new Eiffel Tower, before later
revelations change their lives forever. Reader Stephen Boxer.
WED 15:00 RL Stevenson - Kidnapped (b01c7x03)
[Repeat of broadcast at
10:00 today]
WED 16:00 The 4 O'Clock Show (b05472r0)
Dick and Dom, Ronnie Corbett and Greyhound of a Girl
Dick and Dom bravely investigate the science behind bugs and germs. Find out what happens if you do not wash your hands! Plus veteran comedy star Ronnie Corbett's favourite music.
WED 17:00 Flying the Flag (b007jx74)
Series 1
Notes from the Underground
In which mushrooms are picked, the right questions are not asked, and a sign of civilisation is revealed.
Confusion reigns as the British Embassy prepares a report on the local political outlook.
Alex Shearer's Eastern bloc embassy sitcom.
Starring Dinsdale Landen as HM Ambassador Mackenzie, Peter Acre as William Frost, Moir Leslie as Helen Waterson, Stephen Greif as Spiro, Michael Bilton as Yakov and Sue Broomfield as Eugenia.
Producer: Pete Atkin
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in May 1987.
WED 17:30 Believe It! (b03m7p12)
[Repeat of broadcast at
07:00 today]
WED 18:00 So Wrong It's Right (b0100ljr)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 today]
WED 18:30 Off the Page (b0076kh3)
The Great British Public
Matthew Parris welcomes Giles Coren, Terence Blacker and Julia Darling to discuss how they feel about the public.
In each programme, Matthew Parris introduces a group of writers of fact and fiction: new talent and established names. In the context of a discussion of one of the ideas and pre-occupations of our times, each presents a piece on this week's topic.
The best new writing and the freshest conversation from 2004.
WED 19:00 The Navy Lark (b00zfz9k)
[Repeat of broadcast at
08:00 today]
WED 19:30 I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again (b0092s7l)
[Repeat of broadcast at
08:30 today]
WED 20:00 Jedediah Berry - The Manual of Detection (b01q0v62)
[Repeat of broadcast at
06:00 today]
WED 20:30 The Ancient Novel (b00d45vl)
[Repeat of broadcast at
06:30 today]
WED 21:00 Rik Mayall's Bedside Tales (b00n8pdp)
22nd May
Settle down, brush your teeth, do whatever it is you do at this time of night. But, most of all, listen because Rik would like to talk to you. One on one. Tonight he'd mostly like to tell you about The 22nd of May.
Performer ..... Rik Mayall
Writers ..... Rik Mayall & John Nicholson
Producer ..... Steven Canny
We open a small and peculiarly shaped window in to the mind of Rik Mayall. Written by Rik and John Nicholson, it's a woozy, strange and resonant series from one of the country's most loved comic performers. Rik wants to sit with you in your room - one on one. He wants to let you know things - important, secret things, things about your neighbours. About him. About you.
WED 21:15 Drama (b01dvzg7)
[Repeat of broadcast at
11:15 today]
WED 22:00 Chain Reaction (b05417lh)
[Repeat of broadcast at
07:30 today]
WED 22:30 Count Arthur Strong's Radio Show! (b00d8pgg)
Series 2
Oxford Union
The former variety star addresses the Oxford Union's 'Creationism versus Evolution' debate. With Steve Delaney and Sue Perkins.
WED 23:00 Giles Wemmbley Hogg Goes Off (b01jhydc)
Series 3
Ireland
The hapless gap-year student is off to Ireland. Can he get a job on a newspaper? Stars Marcus Brigstocke. From March 2005.
WED 23:30 The Penny Dreadfuls (b00gpbcn)
The Brothers Faversham
Leonidas Faversham
The story of Victorian Britain's most reckless living explorer - Leonidas Faversham.
The comedy sketch trio present swashbuckling tales of four brothers born into the same privileged aristocratic family - Horatius, Theseus, Leonidas and Augustus.
Written by and starring Humphrey Ker, David Reed and Thom Tuck.
Alexandra Faversham ... Ingrid Oliver
Narrator... Miles Jupp.
Producer: Julia McKenzie
Made for BBC Radio 7 and first broadcast in January 2008.
THURSDAY 12 MARCH 2015
THU 00:00 The Seventh Test by Vikas Swarup (b044h9bf)
[Repeat of broadcast at
14:00 on Wednesday]
THU 00:15 Shakespeare's Restless World (b01drtc2)
[Repeat of broadcast at
14:15 on Wednesday]
THU 00:30 Book of the Week (b03c45hh)
[Repeat of broadcast at
14:30 on Wednesday]
THU 00:45 Book of the Week (b00rqqpd)
[Repeat of broadcast at
14:45 on Wednesday]
THU 01:00 So Wrong It's Right (b0100ljr)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 on Wednesday]
THU 01:30 Off the Page (b0076kh3)
[Repeat of broadcast at
18:30 on Wednesday]
THU 02:00 Jedediah Berry - The Manual of Detection (b01q0v62)
[Repeat of broadcast at
06:00 on Wednesday]
THU 02:30 The Ancient Novel (b00d45vl)
[Repeat of broadcast at
06:30 on Wednesday]
THU 03:00 RL Stevenson - Kidnapped (b01c7x03)
[Repeat of broadcast at
10:00 on Wednesday]
THU 04:00 Winston Graham Short Stories (b03ynmf3)
[Repeat of broadcast at
11:00 on Wednesday]
THU 04:15 Drama (b01dvzg7)
[Repeat of broadcast at
11:15 on Wednesday]
THU 05:00 Flying the Flag (b007jx74)
[Repeat of broadcast at
17:00 on Wednesday]
THU 05:30 Believe It! (b03m7p12)
[Repeat of broadcast at
07:00 on Wednesday]
THU 06:00 Jedediah Berry - The Manual of Detection (b01q19tr)
The City Archive
Unwin and the Manual's author, Edwin Moore, join forces to try and solve the mystery, but the whole city is sleepwalking, and the only possible explanation lies deep in the Agency archives. Read by Toby Jones.
Somewhere in an unnamed, rainy city, Charles Unwin, a lowly but efficient clerk in a big detective agency, has found his world turned upside down when his detective boss, Travis Sivart, disappears.
Suddenly promoted to the role - Unwin's been forced out into the field for the first time in his life. Unprepared and untrained, armed only with his trusty umbrella and The Manual of Detection. His first mission is to find out what happened to his boss.
Abridged by Eileen Horne
Produced by Clive Brill
Made for BBC Radio 4 Extra by Pacificus Productions.
THU 06:30 Bombay's Beatle (b00hv1dt)
Sarfraz Manzoor visits Mumbai to visit some of the musicians who were recruited in 1968 by George Harrison to help him record the soundtrack to the psychedelic film Wonderwall
THU 07:00 The Pickerskill Reports (b0132k5b)
Series 2
Timothy Spoontz
Written and Directed by Andrew McGibbon.
When the new progressive headmaster Mike Poulson Jabby decides to impose an austerity drive in the seventies, the quality of the school's food is compromised as part of the tedious process. But the inventive agricultural talents of young boarder, Timothy Spoontz, helped by his successful father's growing agricultural business, provide the school and Castlereagh House with it's own privately delivered supply of food - until Mike Poulson Jabby gets wind of it.
Cast:
Dr Henry Pickerskill ...... Ian McDiarmid
Timothy Spoontz ....... Harry McEntire
Mike Poulson Jabby ...... Mike Priest
Lefty Rogers ....... Tony Gardner
Stanislaw ....... Mike Sarne
Stealgroynes ...... Jack Edwards
Calman ........ Kris Saddler
Moorcroft ...... Joe Cooper
Matron ... ... Mia Soteriou
Producers: Nick Romero and Andrew McGibbon
A Curtains For Radio Production for BBC Radio 4.
THU 07:30 Brian Gulliver's Travels (b01mk5nk)
Series 2
Hermicia
Brian Gulliver, a seasoned presenter of travel documentaries, finds himself in a hospital's secure unit after claiming to have experienced a succession of bizarre adventures.
More memories as Brian relives his experiences in Hermicia where charity is strangely in abundance.
Brian Gulliver ..... Neil Pearson
Rachel Gulliver ..... Mariah Gale
Kalfa ..... Colin Hoult
Mena ..... Nina Conti
Boria ..... Martin Treneman
Doctor ..... Patrick Brennan
Rimanda ..... Amaka Okafor
Producer: Steven Canny
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in July 2012.
THU 08:00 Brothers in Law (b0552vxc)
Series 1
Separation Order
Can Roger overcome a conflict of interests when his girlfriend asks for legal advice?
Starring Richard Briers as Roger Thursby, Richard Waring as Henry Blagrove, Ann Davies as Sally Mannering and James Beck as Fred Tanner.
With guest stars Liz Fraser as Mrs Trench and Frank Thornton as The Magistrate
Adapted for radio by Richard Waring from the BBC TV scripts.
Restored from BBC Transcription Service tapes - originally edited for sale abroad.
Published in 1955, Henry Cecil's comic legal novel Brothers in Law was adapted first for TV in 1962 by Frank Muir and Denis Norden. It provided the first regular starring role for Richard Briers, who later reprised his role of the idealistic young lawyer Roger Thursby for BBC Radio between 1970 and 1972.
Produced by David Hatch.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in July 1970.
THU 08:30 Not in Front of the Children (b0552w74)
Series 1
A Drop of the Soft Stuff
The facts-of-life conversation is enough to drive Henry to drink.
Starring Wendy Craig and Francis Matthew.
The comedy mishaps of the Corner family - Jennifer and Henry and their three kids Trudi, Amanda and Robin.
Four series were first shown on BBC TV from 1967 to 1970. Richard Waring adapted his own scripts for this radio version, now fully restored from the original reel-to-reel tapes. Wendy Craig won a Best Actress BAFTA award for the TV version of Not in Front of the Children in 1969.
Jennifer Corner ...... Wendy Craig
Henry Corner ...... Francis Matthews
Mary ...... Charlotte Mitchell
Mr Barratt ...... Felix Felton
Trudi ...... Roberta Tovey
Robin ...... Hugo Keith-Johnston
Amanda: ...... Jill Riddick
Music by Ronnie Hazlehurst
Producer: Trafford Whitelock.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in October 1969.
THU 09:00 It's Your Round (b018wb95)
Series 2
Episode 2
Angus Deayton presides over another episode of the show conceived not for the panellists but by them. This time, Sandi Toksvig, Clive Anderson, Humphrey Ker and Milton Jones have each brought their own rounds for them all to play.
The rounds this episode include:
Clive Anderson's "I Fought The Law", a selection of questions based around the idiosyncrasies of British Law.
Sandi Toksvig's "Lost for Words", in which panellists must guess the meaning of various foreign words that have no direct translation in English.
Humphrey Ker's "Pet, Lunch or Hat", a variation on "Snog, Marry, Avoid".
And Milton Jones' "Joke Jeopardy" in which panellists are given punchlines to cracker jokes and the panellists must guess the set-ups.
Producer: Sam Michell.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 2012.
THU 09:30 House on Fire (b013r01y)
Series 2
Haunting
The return of the comedy series written by Dan Hine and Chris Sussman.
Vicky has invested in a top of the range kitchen blender and Matt feels compelled to put its claim to blend anything to the test. Meanwhile, all is not going well with Vicky's father's new girlfriend. Kelly has been acting suspiciously and Colonel Bill has come to the conclusion she must be having an affair. Commando tactics are called for - along with some help from the spiritual world.
Cast:
Vicky ..... Emma Pierson
Matt ..... Jody Latham
Colonel Bill ..... Rupert Vansittart
Peter ...... Philip Jackson
Kelly ....Kellie Shirley
Additional characters are played by Fergus Craig and Colin Hoult
Producer: Clive Brill
A Pacificus production for BBC Radio 4.
THU 10:00 RL Stevenson - Kidnapped (b01cj485)
The Flight in the Heather
David Balfour has witnessed the murder of the Red Fox at Appin and must flee from the pursuit of the redcoats. Robert Louis Stevenson's historical adventure stars Paul Young.
THU 11:00 Winston Graham Short Stories (b03yqfx1)
Ross and Demelza
An extract from the first of the historical novels set in Cornwall, Ross Poldark. Ross takes his new wife and sometime serving girl and ward, out to see the pilchard harvest. Read by Ewan Bailey.
Winston Graham was one of the most successful and prolific novelists of the 20th century. He wrote in many genres but his best known body of work was undoubtedly the 12 historical novels set in Cornwall at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries which became known as The Poldarks.
Although it's the Poldarks that brought Winston Graham the most fame, he also wrote more than 30 other novels, six of which have been filmed including the thriller, Marnie directed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1964.
This selection celebrates the range of his work and offers a glimpse into the enduring appeal of his most famous characters, Ross and Demelza who are set to return to BBC screens in a new adaptation.
Made for BBC Radio 4 Extra by The Waters Partnership.
THU 11:15 Drama (b00vkwvf)
Nick Warburton - Setting a Glass
By Nick Warburton
A man is summoned to a hospital where his elderly mother is fading away. He arrives in the middle of the night and walks through empty corridors looking for a coffee machine. So why is he avoiding sitting at his mother's bedside?
He gets talking to an auxiliary nurse, a disgruntled but determined young woman whose life is starting, just as his mother's is ending. As he tells this complete stranger about his mother's uneventful life, her small achievements, he comes to understand some of the mechanisms at play in his strange inability to sit with her.
Directed by Peter Kavanagh.
THU 12:00 Brothers in Law (b0552vxc)
[Repeat of broadcast at
08:00 today]
THU 12:30 Not in Front of the Children (b0552w74)
[Repeat of broadcast at
08:30 today]
THU 13:00 Jedediah Berry - The Manual of Detection (b01q19tr)
[Repeat of broadcast at
06:00 today]
THU 13:30 Bombay's Beatle (b00hv1dt)
[Repeat of broadcast at
06:30 today]
THU 14:00 The Seventh Test by Vikas Swarup (b044j7pn)
The Visitor
Sapna Sinha works as a sales assistant in a TV showroom in New Delhi. Being the only bread-winner in the family she works long hours to provide for her widowed mother and younger sister. But then a man walks into her life with an extraordinary proposition: pass seven "life" tests of his choosing and she will have wealth and power. At first the tests seem easy, but things are not quite as they seem. Dramatised by Ayeesha Menon and John Dryden from Vikas Swarup's best-selling novel "The Accidental Apprentice".
9) The Visitor
A thriller set in India from the author of "Slumdog Millionaire".
In jail for murder, Sapna is trying to make sense of the past few months. But there is hope in an unexpected visit from someone she has helped in the past. Dramatised from Vikas Swarup's best-selling novel "The Accidental Apprentice".
Writers:
Vikas Swarup is an Indian diplomat and a best-selling novelist. His first novel "Q & A" was made into the Oscar winning film "Slumdog Millionaire" as well as Sony Award winning radio drama serial for BBC Radio .
Ayeesha Menon dramatized Vikas Swarup's other novels SIX SUSPECTS and Q & A, which won a Sony Award for Best Drama. She also wrote for Radio 4 THE MUMBAI CHUZZLEWITS, UNDERCOVER MUMBAI, THE CAIRO TRILOGY and MY NAME IS RED. Her stage play PEREIRA'S BAKERY AT 76 CHAPEL ROAD, which was developed with the Royal Court Theatre, was recently staged by the Curve Theatre, Leicester.
John Dryden wrote the original three-part dramas series SEVERED THREADS, THE RELUCTANT SPY and PANDEMIC, which won the Writer's Guild Award for best radio drama script. His dramatisation of BLEAK HOUSE won a Sony Award for Best Drama. Other dramatisations include A SUITABLE BOY, A HANDMAID'S TALE and FATHERLAND one of the most repeated dramas on R4 Extra.
Cast:
Sapna ... Rasika Dugal
Acharya ... Vijay Chrishna
Karan ... Neil Bhoopalam
Nirmila Ben / Rosie ... Radhika Mittal
Sapna's Mother - Shernaz Patel
Raja ... Sumeet Vyas
Kuldeep Singh / Roaji ... Rajit Kapur
Neha ... Amrita Puri
Priya Capoor / Pushpa / Female Judge ... Ayesha Raza
Badan Singh / Politician / Constable ... Kenny Desai
Madan ... Vivek Madan
Neelam / Babli ... Prerna Chawla
Rent Collector ... Satchit Puranik
Production:
Sound Design - Steve Bond
Editing Assistant - Varun Bangera
Script Editor - Mike Walker
Assistant Producer - Toral Shah
Music - Sacha Putnam
Dramatised by Ayeesha Menon and John Dryden from the novel "ACCIDENTAL APPRENTICE" by Vikas Swarup.
Director - John Dryden.
Producer - Nadir Khan
A Goldhawk Production for BBC Radio 4.
THU 14:15 Shakespeare's Restless World (b01g637c)
Life without Elizabeth
Radio 4 with a new object-based history. Taking artefacts from William Shakespeare's time, he explores how Elizabethan and Jacobean playgoers made sense of the unstable and rapidly changing world in which they lived.
With old certainties shifting around them, in a time of political and religious unrest and economic expansion, Neil asks what the plays would have meant to the public when they were first performed. He uses carefully selected objects to explore the great issues of the day that preoccupied the public and helped shape the works, and he considers what they can reveal about the concerns and beliefs of Shakespearean England.
Programme 4. LIFE WITHOUT ELIZABETH - Painted in 1571 to justify and celebrate Elizabeth I's position in the Tudor succession, by the 1590s, with no direct Tudor heir, this image had very different implications.
Producer: Paul Kobrak.
THU 14:30 Book of the Week (b03c46dc)
Seamus Heaney - Beowulf
Episode 9
Beowulf, who has now ruled the Geats for fifty winters, fights the dragon.
Produced in Salford by Susan Roberts.
Radio Drama North.
THU 14:45 Book of the Week (b00rqqpg)
Graham Robb - Parisians
Episode 4
"The idea was to create a kind of mini Human Comedy of Paris, in which the history of the city would be illumined by the real experiences of its inhabitants."
So says the author Graham Robb about his new book 'Parisians'. And a whole host of characters walk, scuttle jump, run and flounce across his pages, beginning with the French Revolution and ending in more current times. These inhabitants are natives and visitors, and it is the likes of Charles Axel Guillaumot, Marie Antoinette, Alexandrine Zola, Adolf Hitler and Charles de Gaulle who lighten and darken the city's streets
in five episodes for BOOK OF THE WEEK. The series narrator is Stephen Boxer.
In today's episode, the city is occupied and a foreign invader has designs on its beautiful
buildings... Reader Stephen Boxer.
THU 15:00 RL Stevenson - Kidnapped (b01cj485)
[Repeat of broadcast at
10:00 today]
THU 16:00 The 4 O'Clock Show (b0547zcp)
Dick and Dom and Space Elevators
Mel finds out if an elevator to space is possible, and Dick and Dom go back to school to uncover the science of PE.
THU 17:00 No Commitments (b00t1bnp)
Series 4
Not a Leg to Stand On
A broken leg makes Anna an unwilling recipient of sister Victoria's bedside manner. Stars Rosemary Leach. From August 1996.
THU 17:30 The Pickerskill Reports (b0132k5b)
[Repeat of broadcast at
07:00 today]
THU 18:00 It's Your Round (b018wb95)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 today]
THU 18:30 Great Lives (b0076hd1)
Flora Sandes
Kate Adie discusses Flora Sandes, Britain's first commissioned female officer in World War One. With Humphrey Carpenter. From February 2003.
The biographical series in which a distinguished guest chooses someone who's inspired their life. Will their hero stand up to intensive scrutiny and merit the description of having led a great life? From 2003.
THU 19:00 Brothers in Law (b0552vxc)
[Repeat of broadcast at
08:00 today]
THU 19:30 Not in Front of the Children (b0552w74)
[Repeat of broadcast at
08:30 today]
THU 20:00 Jedediah Berry - The Manual of Detection (b01q19tr)
[Repeat of broadcast at
06:00 today]
THU 20:30 Bombay's Beatle (b00hv1dt)
[Repeat of broadcast at
06:30 today]
THU 21:00 Rik Mayall's Bedside Tales (b00nfqzs)
Jimmy's Bangkok Coffee
Settle down, brush your teeth, do whatever it is you do at this time of night. But, most of all listen, because Rik would like to talk to you. One on one. Tonight he'd mostly like to tell you about Jimmy's Bangkok Coffee.
Performer ..... Rik Mayall
Writers ..... Rik Mayall & John Nicholson
Producer ..... Steven Canny
We open a small and peculiarly shaped window in to the mind of Rik Mayall. Written by Rik and John Nicholson, it's a woozy, strange and resonant series from one of the country's most loved comic performers. Rik wants to sit with you in your room - one on one. He wants to let you know things - important, secret things, things about your neighbours. About him. About you.
THU 21:15 Drama (b00vkwvf)
[Repeat of broadcast at
11:15 today]
THU 22:00 Brian Gulliver's Travels (b01mk5nk)
[Repeat of broadcast at
07:30 today]
THU 22:30 Newsjack (b054t8pr)
Series 12
Episode 3
This week's stories lovingly bashed, mashed and moulded into sketches, one-liners and vox-pops by the public. Trying to make sense of it all is our host, Nish Kumar.
THU 23:00 Old Harry's Game (b00j4kbz)
Series 7
Episode 5
Hell is not what it was since the baby turned up.
Satan's become a one-man adoption agency whilst his chief demon is reading Penelope Leach. But can Satan place the baby with a good family?
Stars Andy Hamilton as Satan, Annette Crosbie as Edith, Robert Duncan as Scumspawn and Jimmy Mulville as Thomas.
Other roles played by Mike Fenton Stevens, Philip Pope and Felicity Montagu.
Written by Andy Hamilton.
Producer: Paul Mayhew-Archer
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in March 2009.
THU 23:30 Hut 33 (b00lv795)
Series 1
Don't Bet on It
The Bletchley Park codebreakers must play football against Italian prisoners of war.
Set in Bletchley Park in 1941, three code-breakers are forced to share a draughty wooden hut, as they try to break German ciphers. Unfortunately, they hate each other.
CAST:
Charles …. Robert Bathurst
Archie …. Tom Goodman-Hill
Minka …. Olivia Colman
Gordon …. Fergus Craig
Mrs Best …. Lill Roughley
Joshua …. Alex MacQueen
Written by James Cary.
Producer: Adam Bromley
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in July 2007.
FRIDAY 13 MARCH 2015
FRI 00:00 The Seventh Test by Vikas Swarup (b044j7pn)
[Repeat of broadcast at
14:00 on Thursday]
FRI 00:15 Shakespeare's Restless World (b01g637c)
[Repeat of broadcast at
14:15 on Thursday]
FRI 00:30 Book of the Week (b03c46dc)
[Repeat of broadcast at
14:30 on Thursday]
FRI 00:45 Book of the Week (b00rqqpg)
[Repeat of broadcast at
14:45 on Thursday]
FRI 01:00 It's Your Round (b018wb95)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 on Thursday]
FRI 01:30 Great Lives (b0076hd1)
[Repeat of broadcast at
18:30 on Thursday]
FRI 02:00 Jedediah Berry - The Manual of Detection (b01q19tr)
[Repeat of broadcast at
06:00 on Thursday]
FRI 02:30 Bombay's Beatle (b00hv1dt)
[Repeat of broadcast at
06:30 on Thursday]
FRI 03:00 RL Stevenson - Kidnapped (b01cj485)
[Repeat of broadcast at
10:00 on Thursday]
FRI 04:00 Winston Graham Short Stories (b03yqfx1)
[Repeat of broadcast at
11:00 on Thursday]
FRI 04:15 Drama (b00vkwvf)
[Repeat of broadcast at
11:15 on Thursday]
FRI 05:00 No Commitments (b00t1bnp)
[Repeat of broadcast at
17:00 on Thursday]
FRI 05:30 The Pickerskill Reports (b0132k5b)
[Repeat of broadcast at
07:00 on Thursday]
FRI 06:00 Jedediah Berry - The Manual of Detection (b01q1h08)
Chapter 18
All Unwin's dreams of returning to his day job rest on rescuing his boss Travis. But will he make it in time? The dark forces of Enoch Hoffmann are closing in. Concluded by Toby Jones.
Somewhere in an unnamed, rainy city, Charles Unwin, a lowly but efficient clerk in a big detective agency, has found his world turned upside down when his detective boss, Travis Sivart, disappears.
Suddenly promoted to the role - Unwin's been forced out into the field for the first time in his life. Unprepared and untrained, armed only with his trusty umbrella and The Manual of Detection. His first mission is to find out what happened to his boss.
Abridged by Eileen Horne
Produced by Clive Brill
Made for BBC Radio 4 Extra by Pacificus Productions.
FRI 06:30 The Man Who Was Bojangles (b00d1ypt)
4 Extra Debut. Kwame Kwei-Armah unravels the myths behind the man and soubriquet bestowed on tap dancer Bill 'Bojangles' Robinson. From August 2008.
FRI 07:00 Living with the Enemy (b00771qx)
Episode 5
Sophie is mistaken for an asylum seeker, and Nick and Gyles are desperate to help her.
Sitcom about a Tory MP-turned-media celebrity and a comedian-turned-holistic therapist.
Written by and starring Nick Revell and Gyles Brandreth
Gyles Brandon ...... Gyles Brandreth
Nick Reynolds ...... Nick Revell
Sophie Okuyu ...... Gugu Mbatha-Raw
Piers ...... Martin Hyder
Immigration officer ...... Dan Mersh
Olga ...... Barunka O'Shaughnessy
Producer: Ed Morrish
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2006.
FRI 07:30 John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme (b01l1dl0)
Series 2
Episode 1
John Finnemore, the writer and star of Cabin Pressure, regular guest on The Now Show and popper-upper in things like Miranda and Family Guy, records a second series of his hit sketch show.
The first series was described as "sparklingly clever" by The Daily Telegraph and "one of the most consistently funny sketch shows for quite some time" by The Guardian. It featured Winnie the Pooh coming to terms with his abusive relationship with honey, how The Archers sounds to people who don't listen to the Archers and how Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde decided whose turn it was to do the washing up.
This episode doesn't feature any of those things, but it does feature an awkward celestial relationship, surprisingly easy contract negotiations, and a trailer for a film about the only mode of transport that hasn't had a film made about it yet.
John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme is written by and stars John Finnemore. It also features Margaret Cabourn-Smith, Simon Kane, Lawry Lewin and Carrie Quinlan. It is produced by Ed Morrish.
FRI 08:00 Hancock's Half Hour (b00j283n)
Series 3
The Bequest
The lad is set to inherit a fortune, but only if he can find a wife!
Starring Tony Hancock.
With Bill Kerr, Sidney James, Andree Melly and Kenneth Williams.
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 November 1955.
FRI 08:30 The Men from the Ministry (b011kvmq)
Transatlantic Trouble
The bumbling bureaucrats welcome a niece from America and face up to a new Under-Secretary.
A weekly tribute to all those who work in government departments.
Stars Richard Murdoch and Deryck Guyler. With Norma Ronald, Ronald Baddiley and John Graham.
Written by Edward Taylor and John Graham.
'The Men from the Ministry' ran for 14 series between 1962 and 1977. Deryck Guyler replaced Wilfrid Hyde-White from 1966. Sadly many episodes didn't survive in the archive, however the BBC's Transcription Service re-recorded 14 shows in 1980 - never broadcast in the UK, until the arrival of BBC Radio 4 Extra.
Producer: Edward Taylor
First broadcast on the BBC Radio 4 in September 1971.
FRI 09:00 The Museum of Curiosity (b0167zkv)
Series 4
Haynes, McCandless, Crystal
Hosted by the Professor of Ignorance from the University of Buckingham John Lloyd C.B.E. and the intensely curious comedian Dave Gorman.
This week's guests:
Natalie Haynes is an author, comedian and critic. Her book, The Ancient Guide To Modern Life is all about the wisdom and lifestyles of the ancient Greeks and Romans and uses them to give us a better perspective of our own time. Natalie is bubbling with facts and loves busting cherished myths about the classical past. Natalie is also a massive fan of detective fiction, to which she has applied her prodigious intellect. An obsessive Diagnosis Murder fan, Natalie would give up a year of her life to live in the time in which Dick Van Dyke was the "biggest star in the world".
David McCandless is a journalist and the author of Information Is Beautiful, a book which uses imaginative new ways to display complex statistical information, using novel graphics. David was also once the UK's Doom video game champion, narrowly beaten in the world final by a 14-year-old boy with a moustache.
David Crystal is the Professor of Linguistics at the University of Wales, Bangor. He is without doubt Britain's top linguist. He has written over a hundred books on the subject, including the standard texts read by every linguistics student in the country, and edited the Cambridge Encyclopaedia of the English language. He knows exactly how many different words there are in an average edition of the Sun, because he's counted them, knows just why people are wrong when they say that txtspk is the death of English, and once sold two dozen adjectives at a shilling each.
FRI 09:30 The Cavity Within (b00770js)
Episode 3
Having lost their patients, the dental team take extreme measures to rustle up a clientele. So why are Marty and Pete dining in the dark?
Written by Jim Poyser
Starring Chris O'Dowd as Marty, Jeff Rawle as Pete, Mark Straker as Tim, Christine Kavanagh as Anna, Sarah Crowe as Daisy, Mark Straker as Tim, John Rowe as Mr Holmes.
Other parts played by Tracy Wiles, Sam Dale, Paul Biggin and Emma Noakes.
Director: Peter Kavanagh
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2006.
FRI 10:00 RL Stevenson - Kidnapped (b01cj9yd)
Across the Forth
Still a fugitive, David Balfour is near Edinburgh and looks to the law to help him claim his inheritance. Robert Louis Stevenson's historical adventure stars Paul Young.
FRI 11:00 Winston Graham Short Stories (b03yqp4r)
Meeting Demelza
Shortly before his death in 2003, Winston Graham wrote a story for the Cornish magazine, Scryfa. He recounts an imaginary meeting with his best-loved and most spirited creation. Read by Ewan Bailey
Winston Graham was one of the most successful and prolific novelists of the 20th century. He wrote in many genres but his best known body of work was undoubtedly the 12 historical novels set in Cornwall at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries which became known as The Poldarks.
Although it's the Poldarks that brought Winston Graham the most fame, he also wrote more than 30 other novels, six of which have been filmed including the thriller, Marnie directed by Alfred Hitchcock in 1964.
This selection celebrates the range of his work and offers a glimpse into the enduring appeal of his most famous characters, Ross and Demelza who are set to return to BBC screens in a new adaptation.
Made for BBC Radio 4 Extra by The Waters Partnership.
FRI 11:15 Neil Brand - Joanna (b00r9xm6)
An old piano recalls the hands that played her, and the passion and pain she has observed. Musical drama starring Haydn Gwynne.
FRI 12:00 Hancock's Half Hour (b00j283n)
[Repeat of broadcast at
08:00 today]
FRI 12:30 The Men from the Ministry (b011kvmq)
[Repeat of broadcast at
08:30 today]
FRI 13:00 Jedediah Berry - The Manual of Detection (b01q1h08)
[Repeat of broadcast at
06:00 today]
FRI 13:30 The Man Who Was Bojangles (b00d1ypt)
[Repeat of broadcast at
06:30 today]
FRI 14:00 The Seventh Test by Vikas Swarup (b044jh6l)
The Noose
Sapna Sinha works as a sales assistant in a TV showroom in New Delhi. Being the only bread-winner in the family she works long hours to provide for her widowed mother and younger sister. But then a man walks into her life with an extraordinary proposition: pass seven "life" tests of his choosing and she will have wealth and power. At first the tests seem easy, but things are not quite as they seem. Dramatised by Ayeesha Menon and John Dryden from Vikas Swarup's best-selling novel "The Accidental Apprentice".
10) The Noose
A thriller set in India from the author of "Slumdog Millionaire".
Sapna must revisit her past to make sense of her present. But nothing can prepare her what she finds there. Dramatised from Vikas Swarup's best-selling novel "The Accidental Apprentice".
Writers:
Vikas Swarup is an Indian diplomat and a best-selling novelist. His first novel "Q & A" was made into the Oscar winning film "Slumdog Millionaire" as well as Sony Award winning radio drama serial for BBC Radio .
Ayeesha Menon dramatized Vikas Swarup's other novels SIX SUSPECTS and Q & A, which won a Sony Award for Best Drama. She also wrote for Radio 4 THE MUMBAI CHUZZLEWITS, UNDERCOVER MUMBAI, THE CAIRO TRILOGY and MY NAME IS RED. Her stage play PEREIRA'S BAKERY AT 76 CHAPEL ROAD, which was developed with the Royal Court Theatre, was recently staged by the Curve Theatre, Leicester.
John Dryden wrote the original three-part dramas series SEVERED THREADS, THE RELUCTANT SPY and PANDEMIC, which won the Writer's Guild Award for best radio drama script. His dramatisation of BLEAK HOUSE won a Sony Award for Best Drama. Other dramatisations include A SUITABLE BOY, A HANDMAID'S TALE and FATHERLAND one of the most repeated dramas on R4 Extra.
Cast:
Sapna ... Rasika Dugal
Acharya ... Vijay Chrishna
Karan ... Neil Bhoopalam
Nirmila Ben / Rosie ... Radhika Mittal
Sapna's Mother ... Shernaz Patel
Raja ... Sumeet Vyas
Kuldeep Singh / Roaji ... Rajit Kapur
Neha ... Amrita Puri
Priya Capoor / Pushpa / Female Judge ... Ayesha Raza
Badan Singh / Politician / Constable ... Kenny Desai
Madan ... Vivek Madan
Neelam / Babli ... Prerna Chawla
Rent Collector ... Satchit Puranik
Production:
Sound Design - Steve Bond
Editing Assistant - Varun Bangera
Script Editor - Mike Walker
Assistant Producer - Toral Shah
Music - Sacha Putnam
Dramatised by Ayeesha Menon and John Dryden from the novel "ACCIDENTAL APPRENTICE" by Vikas Swarup.
Director - John Dryden
Producer - Nadir Khan
A Goldhawk Production for BBC Radio 4.
FRI 14:15 Shakespeare's Restless World (b01g65gz)
Swordplay and Swagger
Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum, continues his new object-based history. Taking artefacts from William Shakespeare's time, he explores how Elizabethan and Jacobean playgoers made sense of the unstable and rapidly changing world in which they lived.
With old certainties shifting around them, in a time of political and religious unrest and economic expansion, Neil asks what the plays would have meant to the public when they were first performed. He uses carefully selected objects to explore the great issues of the day that preoccupied the public and helped shape the works, and he considers what they can reveal about the concerns and beliefs of Shakespearean England.
Programme 5. SWORDPLAY AND SWAGGER - The essential accoutrements of any self-respecting gentleman illustrate the extent of violence in Elizabethan London - both onstage and off.
Producer: Paul Kobrak.
FRI 14:30 Book of the Week (b03c46nt)
Seamus Heaney - Beowulf
Episode 10
The funeral of Beowulf.
Produced in Salford by Susan Roberts.
Radio Drama North.
FRI 14:45 Book of the Week (b00rqqpj)
Graham Robb - Parisians
Episode 5
"The idea was to create a kind of mini Human Comedy of Paris, in which the history of the city would be illumined by the real experiences of its inhabitants."
So says the author Graham Robb about his new book 'Parisians'. And a whole host of characters walk, scuttle jump, run and flounce across his pages, beginning with the French Revolution and ending in more current times. These inhabitants are natives and visitors, and it is the likes of Charles Axel Guillaumot, Marie Antoinette, Alexandrine Zola, Adolf Hitler and Charles de Gaulle who lighten and darken the city's streets
in five episodes for BOOK OF THE WEEK. The series narrator is Stephen Boxer.
In this final episode, we witness gunshots at Notre Dame, which heralds decades of danger for
a new French leader... Reader Stephen Boxer.
FRI 15:00 RL Stevenson - Kidnapped (b01cj9yd)
[Repeat of broadcast at
10:00 today]
FRI 16:00 The 4 O'Clock Show (b0556g30)
Science Tricks and A Greyhound of a Girl
Dick and Dom reveal science tricks to impress your friends. Gabriel Quigley reads the last episode of Roddy Doyle's moving story A Greyhound of a Girl.
FRI 17:00 Beachcomber... By the Way (b0081s34)
Series 1
Episode 3
Cads and Swine, The Giddy Girlhood of Mrs Wretch, plus a few problems with parrots.
Richard Ingrams, John Wells, John Sessions and Patricia Routledge recreate the world of the JB Morton.
Running in the Daily Express from 1924 to 1975 – JB Morton’s surreally comic ‘Beachcomber’ column paved the way for a great deal of modern humour.
Adapted by Michael Barfield with Richard Ingrams.
Announcer: Brian Perkins
Producer: Harry Thompson
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1989.
FRI 17:30 Living with the Enemy (b00771qx)
[Repeat of broadcast at
07:00 today]
FRI 18:00 The Museum of Curiosity (b0167zkv)
[Repeat of broadcast at
09:00 today]
FRI 18:30 My Life in Five Books (b012x1hy)
Series 2
Andy Merriman
Andy Merriman was born into a life of comedy. His father Eric was one of the first radio comedy writer's producing scripts for the likes of Kenneth Horne and Dave Allen.
Andy has written biographies of Margaret Rutherford and Hattie Jacques but it is his book called A Minor Adjustment which is the story of his daughter Sarah who has Down's syndrome which has had the biggest impact on him.
Talking to Stuart Cosgrove he explains why he's loves these books:
THE IDYLL OF MISS SARAH BROWN by DAMON RUNYON
THE RADIO TIMES GUIDE TO TV COMEDY by MARK LEWISOHN
A MINOR ADJUSTMENT by ANDY MERRIMAN
THE GLORY GAME by HUNTER DAVIES
BIRD LIVES by ROSS RUSSELL.
Produced by Mike Walker.
First broadcast on BBC Radio Scotland in 2011.
FRI 19:00 Hancock's Half Hour (b00j283n)
[Repeat of broadcast at
08:00 today]
FRI 19:30 The Men from the Ministry (b011kvmq)
[Repeat of broadcast at
08:30 today]
FRI 20:00 Jedediah Berry - The Manual of Detection (b01q1h08)
[Repeat of broadcast at
06:00 today]
FRI 20:30 The Man Who Was Bojangles (b00d1ypt)
[Repeat of broadcast at
06:30 today]
FRI 21:00 Rik Mayall's Bedside Tales (b00nkp1y)
Red Coat
Settle down, brush your teeth, do whatever it is you do at this time of night. But most of all listen, because Rik would like to talk to you. One on one. Tonight he'd mostly like to tell you about Red Coat.
Performer ..... Rik Mayall
Writers ..... Rik Mayall & John Nicholson
Producer ..... Steven Canny
We open a small and peculiarly shaped window in to the mind of Rik Mayall. Written by Rik and John Nicholson, it's a woozy, strange and resonant series from one of the country's most loved comic performers. Rik wants to sit with you in your room - one on one. He wants to let you know things - important, secret things, things about your neighbours. About him. About you.
FRI 21:15 Neil Brand - Joanna (b00r9xm6)
[Repeat of broadcast at
11:15 today]
FRI 22:00 John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme (b01l1dl0)
[Repeat of broadcast at
07:30 today]
FRI 22:30 The League against Tedium (b03bsl3s)
Episode 5
A 'reservoir of malice' is created in this discordant mix of surreal comedy and easy listening, with Simon Munnery. From February 1997.
FRI 23:30 Can't Tell Nathan Caton Nothing (b01c7s29)
Series 1
About Nightmare Relatives
This is the story of young, up-and-coming comedian Nathan Caton, who becomes the first in his family to graduate from University - only to opt for a career in comedy - much to his family's annoyance who want him to get a 'proper job' using his architecture degree.
Each episode is designed to show the criticism, interference and rollercoaster ride that Nathan endures from his family as he pursues his career. The episodes are a mix of Nathan's stand-up intercut with scenes from his family life.
Can Nathan persuade his family to support his career choice?
Mum is probably the most lenient of the disappointed family members. She loves Nathan, but she ain't looking embarrassed for nobody!
Dad works in the construction industry and was looking forward to his son joining him to work together in the same field. But now Nathan has blown that dream out of the window Martin feels he has to get Nathan back into getting a real job.
Grandma cannot believe Nathan turned down architecture for comedy. She didn't leave the paradise in the West Indies and came to the freezing United Kingdom for a better life so that her grandson could 'tell jokes!'
So with all this going on in the household what will Nathan do? Will he be able to persist and follow his dreams? Or will he give in to his family's interference?
Nathan ..... Nathan Caton
Grandma ..... Mona Hammond
Mum ..... Adjoa Andoh
Dad ..... Curtis Walker
Reverend Williams ..... Don Gilét
Written by: Nathan Caton
Additional material by: Ola and Maff Brown
Script Editor: James Kettle
Producer: Katie Tyrrell.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in February 2012.
FRI 23:45 Tina C (b0196rq2)
Tina C's Global Depression Tour
The United States
Country legend Tina C challenges the Secretary for the US Treasury, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve and the former CEO of Goldman Sachs.
Where they have failed, she can come up with a solution to the Global Recession.
So Tina sets off on a six country tour to prove it - and her first stop is the United States of America.
Tina C ...... Christopher Green
"Christopher Green's Tina C is one of the great comic creations of the age. A genuinely fine country singer, but with a twist of satire and insight which is rare and highly to be prized." STEPHEN FRY.
With:
Financial journalist, Gillian Tett
Victoria Inez Hardy
James Lailey
Musical arrangements by Duncan Walsh Atkins and Christopher Green
Director: Jeremy Mortimer
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2012.