SATURDAY 26 DECEMBER 2015

SAT 00:00 MR James (b06sqq9z)
Oh, Whistle and I'll Come To You
“Easy enough to whistle, but there's no telling what will answer...”
Professor Parkins uncovers a very curious artefact.
MR James’s ghostly story adapted by Michael and Mollie Hardwick.
Starring Michael Hordern as Professor Parkins.
Professor Parkins ...... Michael Hordern
Brown ...... Earle Grey
Purdon ...... James Thomason
Chambermaid/Small Boy ...... Sheila Grant
Waiter ...... Anthony Hall
Colonel Wilson ...... Austin Trevor
Mrs Spenlow ...... Hilda Kriseman
Rogers ...... Rolf Lefebvre
The Thing ...... Malcolm Hayes
Special effects by the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.
Producer: Charles Lefeaux
First broadcast on the BBC Home Service in December 1963.
SAT 00:30 Soul Music (b0075zst)
Series 1
Silent Night
An exploration of one of the world's most popular Christmas carols, and some of unlikely places where it has been sung. From December 2000.
SAT 01:00 Agatha Christie (b007k0bk)
The Sittaford Mystery
5. The Second Seance
Mr Rycroft decides that only by re-enacting the séance which announced the murder of Captain Trevelyan, will the identity of his killer finally be revealed.
The conclusion of Agatha Christie's whodunit starring Geoffrey Whitehead as Inspector Narracott.
Inspector Narracott …. Geoffrey Whitehead
Emily Trefusis …. Melinda Walker
Charles Enderby …. Stephen Tompkinson
Major Burnaby …. Norman Bird
Ellwood …. Jack May
Martin Dering …. David Goudge
Mr. Rycroft …. John Moffat
Ronnie Garfield …. Nigel Greaves
Mrs. Willett …. Susan Westerby
Violet Willett …. Victoria Carling
Brian Pearson …. Charles Simpson
Caroline Percehouse …. Margaret Courtenay
Mrs. Curtis …. Barbara Atkinson
Sergeant Pollock …. Vincent Brimble
Mr. Dacres …. David King
Beatrice …. Alice Arnold
Jennifer Gardner …. Anna Cropper
Brian Pearson …. Charles Simpson
Dramatised and directed by Michael Bakewell.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 1990.
SAT 01:30 Bringing Holly from the Bongs (b06sqkhl)
Christmas 1965: The children of Goostrey Primary School in Cheshire are preparing to perform a special nativity play in the stable of the Crown Inn. Holly from the Bongs has been written especially for them by the famous children’s writer Alan Garner (The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, The Moon of Gomrath, The Owl Service) who lives locally and worked with them to help create the play.
Christmas 2015: The grown-ups who originally performed in the play return to the Crown Inn, 50 years on, to reflect on this unique theatrical experience with Alan Garner – who still regards Holly from the Bongs as his most technically perfect piece of writing.
Leslie Pimlott who played the Doctor in the original production, recalls with other cast members the story of how this customised nativity play was created by Alan Garner. The author spent many afternoons walking the children round the village’s boundaries, fields and The Bongs, the wooded area behind the school to explore the history and living heritage of Goostrey. Leslie celebrates the excitement of taking part in the original production and its memorable first performance half a century ago.
Part nativity play/part mummer’s play Holly from the Bongs is a customised piece of theatre written for the voices of the individual children of Goostrey School in 1965. A stylistic lesson in English writing from the middle ages to the 1960’s that has a very special place in the hearts of the original cast and the village of Goostrey.
Producer: Andy Cartwright
Made for BBC Radio 4 Extra by Soundscape Productions.
First broadcast in December 2015.
SAT 02:00 Tom Bodett - Christmastime at the End of the Road (b007k0bq)
Yet Another New Year
New Year is a time of celebration - and an annual fist fight. But a dense fog descends. Alaskan tales read by author Tom Bodett.
SAT 02:15 A Cause for Caroling (b03lsdg6)
Ring in the New
Jeremy Summerly concludes his history of the carol in Britain pondering the success of new carols over the last century. While King's College, Cambridge organist Stephen Cleobury insures a supply of newly commissioned carols for his massive international audience Jeremy wonders whether the popular songs from Berlin's 'White Christmas' to Slade's 'Merry Christmas' don't help sustain a more genuine caroling tradition.
He also recalls his own first experience of carols at Lichfield cathedral where John Rutter's 'Shepherd's Pipe Carol' was an astonishing discovery for the eager young chorister.
And Jeremy also ponders the continued appeal of the carol and why, while it's been in decline throughout its history, it continues to thrive.
Series Description:
The Christmas carol is as popular now as it was when carolers celebrated the birth of Edward III in 1312. Back then the carol was a generic term for a song with its roots in dance form, nowadays only the strictest scholar would quibble with the fact that a carol is a Christmas song.
But the journey the carol has taken is unique in music history because each shift in the story has been preserved in the carols that we sing today. Go to a carol concert now and you're likely to hear folk, medieval, mid-victorian and modern music all happily combined. It's hard to imagine that happening in any other situation.
In these programmes Jeremy Summerly follows the carol journey through the Golden age of the Medieval carol into the troubled period of Reformation and puritanism, along the byways of the 17th and 18th century waits and gallery musicians and in to the sudden explosion of interest in the carol in the 19th century. It's a story that sees the carol veer between the sacred and secular even before there was any understanding of those terms. For long periods the church, both catholic and protestant, was uneasy about the virility and homespun nature of carol tunes and carol texts. Nowadays many people think that church music is defined by the carols they hear from Kings College Cambridge.
He traces the folk carol in and out of church grounds, the carol hymn, the fuguing carol and the many other off-shoots, some of which survive to this day and many others which languish unloved but ready for re-discovery.
It's a journey full of song describing the history of a people who needed expression for seasonal joy in the coldest, hardest time of the year. And however efficient the heating system may be, the carol still generates warmth. Much of that is to do with the positive nostalgia of this music.
That nostalgia is in part due to the fact that carols are one of the first kinds of song children actually sing rather than hear. Many favourite carols were actually written for Children; Once in Royal David's City the most familiar example. Another factor is the concentration in the texts on the humanity of nativity with tunes garnered from the uninhibited world of folk song and ballad.
The series title is taken from a Thomas Hardy poem in which he ponders of a Darkling Thrush why it should chose to sing - 'so little cause for carolings of such ecstatic sound' - is the question asked. THis series is an attempt to answer why Carols remain so popular and familiar to so many. In fact Hardy himself, in his first novel Under The Greenwood Tree, went some way to answering his own question when he described the Mellstock Quire singing at Midnight on Christmas Eve:
'Then passed forth into the quiet night an ancient and time worn hymn, embodying a quaint Christianity in words orally transmitted from father to son through several generations down to the present characters, who sang them out right earnestly."
Jeremy brings the series up to date with the story of the famous Nine Lessons and Carols service broadcast by the BBC since the 1920s but born originally in Truro. It's a service that commands a worldwide audience measured in many millions, but as Jeremy concludes it has left an imbalance in the appreciation of our caroling tradition, a tradition that has always had one foot in the pub and another in the choir stalls.
Producer:Tom Alban.
SAT 02:30 William Makepeace Thackeray - Vanity Fair (b007jvxl)
Episode 10
1815, the Battle of Waterloo. As George and Rawdon fight, Becky and Amelia wait for news. Narrated by Stephen Fry.
SAT 02:45 And June Whitfield (b007jvfk)
Episode 5
The final chapter of June's life story so far takes us from the News Huddlines to international fame with Absolutely Fabulous.
SAT 03:00 Mystery Theater (b06sqp09)
The Black Museum: Orson Welles 2/2
The Raincoat: Orson Welles' tale inspired by a real case from Scotland Yard's gruesome gallery of crime-related ephemera
Even a simple garment like a raincoat can be connected to the brutal murder of a married woman.
In The Black Museum, Orson is your host and guide through tales based on the grim and ominous collection of objects connected to significant British crimes.
Writer: Ira Marion.
Music: Sydney Torch
Producer: Harry Alan Towers
The films of Orson Welles have guaranteed him a place in the pantheon of film heroes (Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons, Touch of Evil). This series is one of several fascinating sidesteps into a medium which arguably contributed to Welles' success - radio. Thanks to Harry Alan Towers, British radio was host to his dulcet tones for a spell in the early 1950s - including his famous cinematic anti-hero in The Lives of Harry Lime.
Presented by arrangement with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer radio attractions
Produced by Towers of London and first broadcast in the USA in 1952.
4 Extra's MYSTERY THEATER showcases American radio's golden years of the 1940s and 50s, when many of Hollywood's greatest screen stars were regular performers, often re-enacting film roles.
SAT 03:30 Anthony Trollope - Christmas Day at Kirkby Cottage (b00pfkw1)
A young man comes to spend Christmas with the family of his godfather, a clergyman in an English village. Predictably, he falls in love with the beautiful daughter, Isabel - but they need the help of her little sister, Mabel, and the patient counselling of her mother, too, before the course of true love finally runs smooth...
Anthony Trollope's Victorian comedy stars Finty Williams as Isabel Lownd, Chris Larkin as Maurice Archer, John Rhys-Davies as the Reverend John Lownd, Julia McKenzie as Alice Lownd and Lizzie Bowling as Mabel Lownd.
Mary Wimbush (pictured during recording) makes a delightful cameo - in what turned out to be one of her very last recordings - as Miss Dimbleby.
Master novelist Anthony Trollope (1815-82) is best-loved for his Barsetshire Chronicles and Palliser series. But he also wrote a handful of short stories for magazines on Christmas themes, of which this is the most delicate and enchanting.
"This comedy of two young lovers is an entertaining glimpse of mid-Victorian England, and to many will be entirely new, for it has been reprinted only rarely since its appearance in Routledge's Christmas Annual for 1870. Trollope was fifty-five when he wrote this story, but his vast energy and his genial, peppery enjoyment of life were still untouched by age. He had bidden farewell to Barsetshire - and resigned from the Post Office - three years earlier. But some of his best novels were still to come, including The Eustace Diamonds and The Way We Live Now." - WILLIAM STRODE
A Radio Theatre Production. First broadcast on BBC Radio 7 in 2009.
SAT 04:00 The 99p Challenge (b06sqn7w)
Series 4
Episode 6
Crazy panel show capers as host Sue Perkins grills Armando Iannucci, Simon Pegg, Marcus Brigstocke and Jon Holmes.
The game where someone stands to leave the studio 99p richer than when they came in.
Producer: David Tyler
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in March 2003.
SAT 04:30 Mind Your Own Business! (b009sczf)
Two Fingers of Suspicion
Secrets from Brightco's defence job are reaching a foreign power. But who is responsible for a leak?
Bernard Cribbins and Frank Thornton star in Andrew Palmer’s sitcom
Jimmy Bright ...... Bernard Cribbins
Russell Farrow ...... Frank Thornton
Nan Forbes ...... Annette Crosbie
Sue Plant ...... Annee Blott
With John Graham
Written by Andrew Palmer.
Producer: Edward Taylor
First broadcast on BBC Radio 2 in January 1988.
SAT 06:00 Hercule Poirot (b008hsvg)
Hercule Poirot's Christmas
1938: Tyrannical millionaire Simeon Lee has been estranged from most of his family for years. But now, on Christmas Eve, the old man calls them all together once more. Unable to disobey, the children gather uneasily and wonder what their father's intentions are. Does he want to clear up past misunderstandings or cause fresh mischief?
Before they can find out, a deafening crash is heard overhead. Rushing upstairs, they discover a body in a pool of blood. With so many possible suspects, it's lucky for Superintendent Sugden that the Chief Constable has his old friend Hercule Poirot staying with him. It seems to be an impossible case. But, as Poirot knows only too well, things aren't always as they seem.
Agatha Christie's whodunit stars Peter Sallis as Hercule Poirot, Edward De Souza as Superintendent Sugden, Manning Wilson as Colonel Johnson, Cyril Luckham as Simeon Lee, Rachel Gurney as Lydia Lee, Nicky Henson as Harry Lee, Deborah Makepeace as Pilar Estravados and Deryck Guyler as Tressilian, the butler.
From the book first published in 1938 and dramatised by Michael Bakewell.
Director: Enyd Williams
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1986.
SAT 07:25 Agatha Christie - Speaking Her Own Words (b06srxqc)
The Semi-Pro
Courtesy of The Christie Archive, specially selected excerpts from the Queen of the Crime's personal tapes as she dictated her autobiography to her typist using a dictaphone machine. A fascinating chance to hear Agatha Christie's voice and words before she made any amendments for publication. Her secretary later transcribed the tapes into a typescript, which the author then corrected by hand.
Introduced by Agatha Christie's grandson, Mathew Prichard who discovered her tapes.
Completed in 1965, the book was first published in the UK in 1977, the year after her death.
The author's tapes were edited by Radio 4 Extra only to take out pauses and extraneous noises like microphone rumble.
Producer: Peter Reed.
SAT 07:30 Marguerite Patten's Century of British Cooking (b06srv27)
Post War Pleasures 1950-1959
Scampi, Cock-a-Leekie Soup, Hamburgers, Tourneos Rossini, Steak Diane, Quiche Lorraine, Lemon Meringue Pie and Crepes Suzette.
Marguerite Patten mingles recipes of the 1950s with memories of the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth, the Festival of Britain and the end of rationing - in her 10-part history of British cooking.
Marguerite told us how to make the most of our rations during the Second World War in 'Kitchen Front' on the BBC Home Service. She fronted her first BBC TV cookery show in 1947.
Born in Bath, the home economist was widely considered to be the first celebrity cook, and wrote more than 170 books with worldwide sales of 17 million.
A regular contributor to BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour programme from 1946, Marguerite's final appearance was in 2011. She was awarded the OBE in 1991 and CBE in 2011.
Born November 4th 1915, Marguerite Patten died just a few months short of her 100th birthday in June 2015.
Producer: Ian Willox
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1999.
SAT 08:00 Meeting Myself Coming Back (b01k1ls1)
Series 4
Clive James
Another chance to hear the audio memories of the writer, critic, TV personality and poet Clive James who died in November. This programme was first broadcast in 2012.
Clive James was seldom off our television screens in the 80s and 90s. His shows like "Saturday Night Clive" and "Clive James on Television", featured clips of TV around the world and pioneered many techniques that we take for granted today.
But throughout this time, he was also writing memoirs, poems and critical essays. After leaving his native Australia, he began his career writing for literary magazines and later became the TV critic of "The Observer".
This more serious side has often been overlooked because of his TV fame. But, having left TV presenting behind and now having been diagnosed with leukaemia, Clive is re-assessing his life and legacy.
In "Meeting Myself Coming Back", Clive hears clips from moments in his life and discusses his reaction to them with John Wilson. We hear a recording from his student days in Cambridge performing a comic monologue at a college "Smoker" event. There are clips from early appearances on radio, in the company of the novelist Kingsley Amis and also his first attempts at writing and performing on television.
We also hear extracts from his TV shows of the 80s and 90s, when, in addition to his shows about television, he presented travel programmes and a series considering the nature and history of fame in the 20th century.
In an honest and penetrating look back at his life, Clive discusses his achievements, his past mistakes and his illness.
Producer: Emma Kingsley
SAT 09:00 Count Arthur Strong's Radio Show! (b011tsc5)
Extra Strong - Count Arthur Speaks! Mint Extracts
Can it be true? Yes, famed memory man, treader of the boards and gourmand of corner shops Count Arthur Strong allows Mark Radcliffe to probe deeply into his past career and deeds, with a selection of episodes from his life.
The variety star opens up as never before - his childhood, his early forays into show business, his army days, the lack of hot soup in France, and what happened when he owned a barge with Stan Stennett and Roy Walker.
A blistering, some-holds-barred tell-all straight from the mouth of the horse himself. Learn, definitively, how he became a Count.
Asking the probing questions is Radio 2 & 6 Music DJ Mark Radcliffe (Mark and Lard), and he knows where the skeletons are hidden - he produced Count Arthur Strong's Radio Show.
It features a selection of the finest episodes from Radio 4's Count Arthur Strong's Radio Show, the comic creation of Steve Delaney.
SAT 12:00 The Penny Dreadfuls (b008vt7r)
Revolution
The comedy trio tell the epic tale of the French Revolution. Co-starring Richard E Grant and Sally Hawkins. From July 2011.
SAT 13:00 I Am the Very Model of a Modern Major General - Omnibus (b06srwzt)
A Savoy Cocktail - two parts Gilbert and Sullivan and one part the star who sang their famous patter songs. With Simon Butteriss.
SAT 14:05 David Attenborough's Life Stories (b00n5w39)
Series 1
Collecting
Why do we collect things? Is it a male response to ancient hunting instincts to provide food for the family?
Today, collecting by children is in decline, and with it the development of an early fascination with the natural world around them.
Series of talks by Sir David Attenborough on the natural histories of creatures and plants from around the world.
Producer: Julian Hector
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in October 2009.
SAT 14:15 In the Psychiatrist's Chair (b06srxx3)
Yehudi Menuhin
The celebrated violinist Yehudi Menuhin tells Professor Anthony Clare about the influences that shaped his life.
Psychiatrist Dr Anthony Clare's in depth interviews with prominent people from different walks of life.
Born in Dublin, author Anthony Clare held a doctorate in medicine, a master's degree in philosophy and was a fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists. After becoming a regular on BBC Radio 4's Stop the Week in the 1980s, he became Britain's best-known psychiatrist and earned his own vehicle, In the Psychiatrist's Chair. Starting in 1982, this series ran until 2001 and also transferred to TV. Series highlights include conversations with Bob Monkhouse, Cecil Parkinson and Gerry Adams.
Anthony Clare died suddenly in Paris aged 64 in 2007.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in July 1996.
SAT 15:00 Meeting Myself Coming Back (b01k1ls1)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
SAT 16:00 Hercule Poirot (b008hsvg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
SAT 17:25 Agatha Christie - Speaking Her Own Words (b06srxqc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:25 today]
SAT 17:30 Marguerite Patten's Century of British Cooking (b06srv27)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
SAT 18:00 Classic Serial (b01npb18)
The Gothic Imagination
Frankenstein, part 2
The second part of a new production of Mary Shelley's heart-breaking modern myth of obsession, pride and the need for love. In attempting to find some peace from his troubles, Frankenstein has gone walking in the mountains, where he is about to come face to face with what he most hates and fears.
Dramatised by Lucy Catherine.
Directed by Marc Beeby.
SAT 19:00 Count Arthur Strong's Radio Show! (b011tsc5)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]
SAT 22:00 Irish Micks and Legends (b01ntgxf)
Series 1
Deirdre of Sorrows
Aisling Bea and Yasmine Akram become Ais and Yaz and are the very best pals. They are taking their role as Ireland's freshest story-tellers to the British nation very seriously indeed but they haven't had the time to do much research, learn their lines or work out who is doing which parts.
The girls' unconventional way of telling stories involves a concoction of thoroughly inappropriate modern-day metaphors and references to many of the ancient Irish stories.
With a natural knack for both comedy and character voices Yasmine Akram and Aisling Bea will bring you warm, modern re-workings of popular ancient Irish stories.
Today it's Deirdre of Sorrows.
Written and performed by Aisling Bea and Yasmine Akram.
Producer: Raymond Lau.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 2012.
SAT 22:15 Mission Improbable (b01p7by4)
Series 1
Egypt!
The international adventures of journalist Jane, manhunter Lucy and zookeeper Amelia continue - this time in the Egyptian desert.
When Jane's mum reveals that a member of her travel party, the gorgeous Dr Ralph, recently disappeared while they were on a guided tour of King Mufitez's tomb just outside Cairo, Jane reckons she's onto a sure-fire front-pager.
Chronically single Lucy is more than happy to drop everything in pursuit of the good doctor and Amelia is enticed along by the promise of a camel ride. However their sandy quest turns out to be far from straightforward. Our heroes are forced to endure extremes of temperature, fierce desert winds and a ten thousand year-old cobra - with only their foul smelling, asthmatic and worryingly cheap camel to help them.
Will they make it to King Mufitez's tomb? Will they find Dr Ralph? And will they ever get all that sand out of their pants?
Jane...................Catriona Knox
Lucy...................Lizzie Bates
Amelia................Anna Emerson
Angela................Felicity Montagu
Written by Anna Emerson, Lizzie Bates and Catriona Knox.
Audio production by Matt Katz.
Produced by Dave Lamb and Richie Webb.
A Top Dog production for BBC Radio 4.
SAT 22:30 Mordrin McDonald: 21st Century Wizard (b00xw1th)
Series 2
Billirock the Black
Written by David Kay and Gavin Smith, Mordrin McDonald is a 2000 year old Wizard living in the modern world where settling garden disputes and watching Countdown are just as important as slaying the odd Jakonty Dragon.
Step into the magically mundane world that is the life of 21st century wizard Mordrin McDonald. An isolated 2000-year-old sorcerer with enough power in his small finger to destroy a town, yet not even enough clout to get his bins emptied on time by the local council. Even for such a skilful sorcerer - modern life is rubbish!
Mordrin is deadpan, dry and makes delicious jams. He initially set up as a plc for income tax relief, but has found it a useful vehicle to help him bolster his Wizard skill set and his range of services. (Even a wizard has to diversify).
He's been running Fruity Potions from his cave for the past few years, in between completing the odd quest as instructed by the Wizard Council. In the past his services were to help kings in battles of good and evil, or as he prefers to put it, 'assisting with neighbour disputes.'
In this episode Mordrin is recruited to help re-capture evil sorcerer Billirock the Black who has escaped from his prison under Stirling Castle and is hell-bent on exacting his revenge.
Cast:
Mordrin ..... David Kay
Bernard The Blue ..... Jack Docherty
Geoff ..... Gordon Kennedy
Heather ..... Hannah Donaldson
Jill ..... Katrina Bryan
Billirock The Black ..... Greg Hemphill
Producer/Director: Gus Beattie
A Comedy Unit production for BBC Radio 4.
SAT 22:45 Steven Appleby's Normal Life (b007jqqw)
Series 1
The Normal Mind
Cartoonist Steven takes advantage of modern surgical techniques to reveal the inner workings of the creative artist's brain.
Starring Mark Perry as cartoonist Steven Appleby who takes an abnormal look at everyday life.
Steven ...... Paul McCrink
Mum ...... Rosalind Paul
Female Steven ...... Rachel Atkins
Mr Two ...... Ewan Bailey
Dad ...... Nigel Betts
Other parts played by the cast.
Written by Steven Appleby
Producer: Toby Swift
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in August 2001.
SAT 23:00 The Jason Byrne Show (b01p2s1y)
Series 3
I Looked Like Gollum at School
Award-winning comedian Jason Byrne lists the liabilities of looking good.
Stand up and sketches with Laurence Howarth and Daisy Haggard.
Producer: Julia McKenzie
First broadcast on BBC Radio 2 in November 2010.
SAT 23:30 Son of Cliche (b00p1jb9)
The Weird Dimension
Something weird is happening. Nothing is outside of the comedy team’s power!
Winner of 1984 Sony Gold Award for Best Light Entertainment Programme.
Sketch comedy with Chris Barrie, Nick Maloney and Nick Wilton.
Written by Rob Grant and Doug Naylor.
Producer: Alan Nixon
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in August 1983.