SATURDAY 31 DECEMBER 2016

SAT 00:00 Doctor Who (b0869kfh)
Demon Quest, Sepulchre 2/2
In a thrilling conclusion, the Fourth Doctor and Captain Yates learn who's really responsible for the chain of events in the Demon Quest.
Stars Tom Baker as the Doctor, Susan Jameson as Mrs Wibbsey, Richard Franklin as Captain Mike Yates and Nigel Anthony as the Wizard
Written by Paul Magrs
Director: Kate Thomas
Made by BBC Audio and reversioned for broadcast by BBC Radio 4 Extra.
SAT 00:30 Soul Music (b0145x7m)
Series 12, Dear Lord and Father of Mankind
The words of one of our most loved hymns, Dear Lord and Father of Mankind, were taken from the last six verses of John Greenleaf Whittier's poem, The Brewing of Soma, an attack on ostentatious and overt religious practise. But it wasn't until over fifty years later, that a school master at Repton in Derbyshire had the inspiration to pair it with a tune by Sir Hubert Parry, thus confirming it as a favourite for school assemblies, funerals and weddings. The current Director of Music at Repton, John Bowley, explains how this happened, while composer and conductor Bob Chilcott explains why this was a musical mariage made in heaven.
We hear from those for who whom the hymn has special significance, including the MP from Gloucester, Richard Graham; when briefly imprisoned in a Libyan gaol in 1978 he found enormous comfort in the words and tune. Pipe Major Ross Munro remembers recording the piece in the swelting heat of Basra with members of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards and film director Joe Wright recalls how the inclusion of this hymn was central to the power of his famous scene depicting the evacuation of Dunkirk in his film, Atonement.
Producer: Lucy Lunt.
SAT 01:00 Wimsey (b007jwgl)
Busman's Honeymoon, The Mysteries of Married Life
Honeymooners Lord Peter Wimsey and his wife soon find their marital bliss disturbed - by something nasty in the cellar.
Starring Ian Carmichael as Lord Peter Wimsey, Sarah Badel as Lady Wimsey, Peter Jones as Bunter, Rosemary Leach as Miss Twitterton and Pearl Hackney as Mrs Ruddle.
British gentleman detective Lord Peter Wimsey features in a number of detective novels and short stories by English crime writer, Dorothy L Sayers. Busman's Honeymoon was first published in 1937.
Classy and sharp-witted, aristocratic amateur sleuth Lord Peter Bredon Wimsey was born in 1890 and educated at Eton and Oxford, before serving in the military during the First World War.
Ian Carmichael appeared as Lord Peter Wimsey for BBC Radio from 1973 to 1983, in addition to the BBC TV adaptations that were broadcast between 1972 and 1975.
Adapted for radio in six episodes by Alistair Beaton.
Producer: Martin Fisher.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 1983.
SAT 01:30 The Ice Cream Van Cometh (b012w944)
Sound designer Jim Carey celebrates the colourful history of one of our great national treasures - the British ice cream van.
For over a hundred years extravagantly painted wagons have been delivering extravagant looking ice creams to the streets of Britain. What are the origins of these curvacious and pastel skinned creatures? Why are there so many people of Italian origin involved? What has Margaret Thatcher got to do with it? And, providing the acoustic backdrop for generations of British summers, where do those evocative chimes come from?
Carey's quest leads us headlong into the rich whippy world of all things ice cream van; a story of art, science, music, cuisine, royalty, turf war and childhood. Francis Rossi (co-founder of Status Quo and ex-ice cream van man), Johnny Vegas (entertainer and ice cream enthusiast) and Banksy (graffiti artist and ice cream van owner) join historians, engineers, and ice cream people to help piece together the story of how ice cream vans have charmed and chimed their way into our subconsciousness as icons of British cultural life.
Written and presented by Jim Carey
Produced by Jim Carey
A Loftus production for BBC Radio 4.
SAT 02:00 Oscar Wilde (b007k0vk)
The Remarkable Rocket
A collection of celebratory fireworks discuss the nature of love, and one of them gets his comeuppance. Read by John Moffat.
SAT 02:15 The Good Samaritan (b00n52kx)
Jamie's Story
Dominic Arkwright talks to the Sheffield man who came to the rescue of a distraught teenager.
Producer John Byrne.
SAT 02:30 15 Minute Drama (b00fny8v)
Julian Fellowes - Snobs, Episode 5
Satire on English snobbery, adapted from his own novel by Julian Fellowes.
Edith and Simon move in together, leaving Charles devastated. But life with an actor is not as glamorous as Edith had hoped and, when she makes an unfortunate discovery, she is forced to make a choice.
Narrator ...... Nicholas Farrell
Edith ...... Sophie Roberts
Charles ...... Hugh Bonneville
Lady Uckfield ...... Celia Imrie
Lord Uckfield ...... Richard Mitchley
Isabel ...... Sophie Thompson
David/Eric ...... Rupert Vansittart
Caroline ...... Caroline Harker
Simon ...... Julian Rhind-Tutt
Bella ...... Bernice Stegers
Singer ...... David Benson.
SAT 02:45 Book of the Week (b01jsw4q)
Dear Lupin, Episode 5
David Horovitch and Nicky Henson conclude their reading from the collected correspondence of a long-suffering father to his wayward son.
"My Dear Lupin, How are things going with you? Are you (a) On the verge of becoming a millionaire? (b) On the brink of insolvency? (c) The subject of investigation by the Fraud Squad?" or (d) Cruising along like me, in genteel poverty?
Abridged and Produced by Jane Marshall
A Jane Marshall production for BBC Radio 4.
SAT 03:00 Mystery Theater (b06sg52c)
Rocky Fortune: Frank Sinatra, part 3
Always in need of a job, genial drifter Rocky lands in a complex identity scam in 'Steven in a Rest Home'.
Frank Sinatra portrayed "footloose and fancy-free young man" Rocky Fortune for NBC for 25 episodes during an album-recording hiatus that ended with the release of the legendary 'Songs for Young Lovers' in 1954.
Cast includes: Frances Eurey, Maurice Hart, Jack Maither and Herb Ellis.
Directed by Andrew C Love.
Announcer: Eddie King.
First broadcast in the USA on NBC (National Broadcasting Company) in 1953
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 Great Lives (b00k3zns)
Series 18, Frank Sinatra
Broadcaster Colin Murray chooses Francis Albert Sinatra in the biographical series in which Matthew Parris asks his guests to choose someone who's inspired their lives.
"Fiercely competitive", "aggressive", "utterly masculine" and "supremely talented". Just some of the words - Matthew Parris says - that might be used to describe one of the greatest entertainers of the 20th century.
Colin calls Frank omnipresent. Enchanted by his songs he says: "It's not about the notes you hit for me, it's about the simplicity and the honesty. And for me he had it in bucket loads"
New York author and music critic Will Friedwald vividly describes the singer's life history, from his early years to the marriages and through his recording and screen career.
Featuring excerpts of many of Sinatra's greatest recordings.
Produced by Beth O'Dea
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2009.
SAT 04:00 The Museum of Curiosity (b03f92qc)
Series 6, Llewellyn, Rocos, Warwick
This week, the Professor of Ignorance John Lloyd and his curator Humphrey Ker welcome the author, presenter and actor Robert Llewellyn; comedian, socialite and tequilera Cleo Rocos and the partly-robotic professor of cybernetics at the University of Reading, Professor Kevin Warwick. This week, the Museum's Steering Committee discusses the joys of mobile chat shows; the demise of the internal combustion engine; the advantages of higher quality alcohol; the possibility that intelligent machines will make slaves of us all; and the late, lamented trees of our youth.
The show was researched by James Harkin, Molly Oldfield and Stevyn Colgan of QI.
The producers were Richard Turner and Dan Schreiber.
SAT 04:30 No Commitments (b007k3qk)
Series 12, Settling Down
More sisterly bickering in Beckenham, but why is Victoria learning to speak French? Stars Angela Thorne. From April 2006.
SAT 05:00 The Secret Life of Rosewood Avenue (b007k1rc)
Moving In
'What's Rosewood Avenue like? Very quiet. Very sedate. Very residential. Just the sort of place you'd feel at home in ...'
A hapless vicar discovers life behind suburbia's net curtains isn't what he expected.
Stephen Sheridan's six-part series stars James Grout as the Reverend Timothy Carswell, Margaret Courtenay as Miss Tilling, Jean Heywood as Miss Tapp and Christopher Good as Dr Warlock.
Producer: Lissa Evans.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in February 1991.
SAT 05:30 Count Arthur Strong's Radio Show! (b085t2l0)
Series 8, Randolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
After causing confusion with his Christmas nuts selection, Arthur attempts to round up reindeer and build Mont Fuji for his own Japanese themed Christmas wonderland.
All false starts and nervous fumbling badly covered up by a delicate sheen of bravado and self-assurance, an expert in everything from the world of entertainment to the origin of the species, everyday life with Arthur is an enlightening, sometimes frustrating, never dull experience.
Count Arthur Strong is supported in the Christmas special by his Radio Repertory Company (like the RSC, only better) - Alastair Kerr, Dave Mounfield, Mel Giedroyc and Alfie Delaney as Billy.
Steve Delaney has been performing as Count Arthur Strong since the late 90s. In the last 15 years the character has evolved from Edinburgh cult to a mainstay of BBC comedy, with seven series on BBC Radio 4 and a TV sitcom that has stepped from BBC2 to BBC1 and will return for a third series in 2017.
A Komedia Entertainment production for BBC Radio 4.
SAT 06:00 Peter Ackroyd - The Mystery of Charles Dickens (b007jvp1)
Fagin, Bill Sykes, Micawber and many more. Simon Callow recounts the remarkable life of Charles Dickens - with a showcase of the colourful characters in his novels.
Callow's exhilarating one-man show by Peter Ackroyd is an unforgettable and mesmerising journey into the life and times of one of our best-loved Victorian writers.
Producer: Stephen Wright
Director: Gemma McMullan
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2001.
SAT 07:30 Cheers! (b018v0jc)
For New Year's Eve, John Sergeant invites his guests to a musical celebration of the ancient art of toasting. The programme is recorded in Clare College Cambridge, in the fellows' Senior Combination Room, with its wood panelling and huge fireplace.
Toasting has a fascinating history. The way you toasted revealed your politics - whether you were for or against the monarchy, and which political party you supported. It wasn't just the rich who toasted - farm labourers had elaborate ritual toasts for harvest time (they toasted in cider). Men toasted women, of course - women could even become known as "a toast", which was tantamount to being called a slut.
John Sergeant hosts a party and invites three food and drink historians to tell stories about toasting in the past: Scottish wine buff Billy Kay, food historian Ivan Day, and Professor of Literature Judith Hawley. There is also music during the party: toasting songs arranged by David Owen Norris and performed by student members of the Clare College Choir. These include drinking songs 'For Auld Lang Syne' and 'Here's a health unto his Majesty', as well as a revolutionary toast sung by English supporters of the French Revolution. There is also a sexy musical toast from the 17th century to a woman with wonderful thighs.
We may have forgotten the history of toasting, but something of it remains deep in our collective memory, when we look each other in the eye and chink glasses. Cheers!
Produced by Elizabeth Burke and Hilary Dunn
A Loftus Audio Production for BBC Radio 4.
SAT 08:00 Archive on 4 (b0076jhd)
Old Year's Night
Towards the end of every year, thousands of people head north of the border at a time when the days are bewilderingly short and the weather, at best, unpredictable. The reason? Hogmanay.
In this archive hour, James Naughtie investigates the history and traditions behind this peculiarly Scottish celebration.
Producer: Caroline Barbour
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2003.
SAT 09:00 Sherlock Holmes: The Game's Afoot (b00cm07d)
Hear the evidence gathered clue by clue - as Sherlock Holmes enthusiast, Nick Utechin investigates how the Baker Street sleuth has been portrayed on radio across the decades.
Stretching from the Forties to the Noughties, this 3 hour showcase of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's great detective features some rare recordings of Holmes and Watson in action:
* The Adventure of the Speckled Band (17/05/1945)
Why did Helen Stoner's twin sister die in mysterious circumstances on the eve of her wedding? Stars Cedric Hardwicke as Sherlock Holmes and Finlay Curry as Dr Watson.
* The Red-Headed League (19/10/1954);
The strange case of an ad seeking only red-haired men... Stars Ralph Richardson as Holmes and John Gielgud as Watson.
* The Boscombe Valley Mystery (12/12/1966)
The sleuth probes a murder in Herefordshire, but the crime's roots are down under. Stars Carleton Hobbs as Holmes and Norman Shelley as Watson.
* The Return of Sherlock Holmes: The Solitary Cyclist (17/03/1993)
The sleuth investigates who's following music teacher Violet Smith. Stars Clive Merrison as Holmes and Michael Williams as Watson.
* The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes: The Abergavenny Murder (18/05/2004)
When a man dies in his Baker Street apartment, the detective is bound to investigate. Stars Clive Merrison as Holmes and Andrew Sachs as Watson.
Plus: Nick talks to writer and dramatist Bert Coules.
Produced by Sarah Wade for BBC Radio 4 Extra.
SAT 12:00 Thank You, Mrs Fothergill (b0868wsf)
'Alice Foster, This Is Your Life!'
There's a surprise in store for chairman, Alice at the Annual General Meeting of the Ladies' Evening Guild, in the northern English town of Cloughbottom.
Keith Parry's sitcom about the comic mishaps of the Cloughbottom Ladies' Evening Guild.
Starring Sheila Hancock as Alice Foster, Pat Coombs as Phyllis Middleton, Avis Bunnage as Mrs Fothergill and Clovissa Newcombe as Ethel and Peggy.
Produced in Manchester by Bob Oliver Rogers.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 2 in November 1978.
SAT 12:30 Mark Tavener - In the Red (b007jzh9)
Episode 1
London is plagued by a series of bizarre murders of bank managers.
Hot on the trail of the killer are an old-style Chief Police Inspector and BBC Radio's anarchic crime correspondent, George Cragge.
A blackly humorous murder mystery set in the world of City finance, the BBC and political parties. Dramatised in seven-parts by Mark Tavener and Peter Baynham from Mark Tavener's novel.
Starring Michael Williams as George Cragge, Stephen Moore as Geoffrey Crichton-Potter, Julian Rhind-Tutt as Henry and Barry Foster as Frank Jefferson
Music by Tony McAnaney.
Producer: Paul Schlesinger
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1995.
SAT 13:00 Northanger Abbey Omnibus (b087kz86)
Episode 2
Henry Tilney enraptures Catherine with tall tales of gothic mysteries of Northanger Abbey. Satire narrated by Miriam Margolyes.
SAT 14:10 Inheritance Tracks (b087l4d8)
Johnny Marr
Guitarist Johnny Marr chooses 'Walk Right Back' by the Everly Brothers and 'Slow Emotion Replay' by The The. From December 2016.
SAT 14:15 Sentimental Journey (b00755qc)
Simon Callow
Arthur Smith accompanies Simon Callow to Goring-on-Thames in search of the actor's eccentric preparatory school.
Producer: Rebecca Moore
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 1998.
SAT 14:45 Uncle Mort's South Country (b007jqzh)
Series 1, We've Only Just Started
Carter Brandon drives his uncle down south, but trouble looms at a pub stop. Peter Tinniswood's adventures with Stephen Thorne.
SAT 15:00 Archive on 4 (b0076jhd)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
SAT 16:00 Peter Ackroyd - The Mystery of Charles Dickens (b007jvp1)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
SAT 17:30 Cheers! (b018v0jc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
SAT 18:00 Atomic Tales (b007jx6v)
Their Gaze Was Green
Space heroes Jack and Chip tackle green Venusian terrorists in the 1950s American sci-fi spoof.
Starring John Guerrasio, Jeff Harding, Allison Warnyca, Lewis McLeod, Colin Stinton and Liza Ross.
Written by Adam Tandy and Nat Sones.
Producer: Adam Bromley.
Made for BBC 7 and first broadcast in July 2006.
SAT 18:30 Ursula Le Guin - Earthsea (b05pktvt)
Shadow
Ursula Le Guin's enduring fantasy saga set on the magical archipelago rich with wizards and dragons. Made for BBC Radio 4 Extra.
Based on the novels A Wizard of Earthsea and The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula Le Guin. Adapted by Judith Adams.
Hungry for power and knowledge, the young wizard Ged tampers with long-held secrets and releases a terrible shadow into the world. Meanwhile, Tenar is taken away from her home and family to become Arha, the guardian of the ominous Tombs of Atuan.
Published between 1968 and 1972, the first three books of Ursula Le Guin's Earthsea cycle (A Wizard of Earthsea, The Tombs of Atuan, The Farthest Shore) are re-told across six intertwined episodes. Set on a vast archipelago of islands, where magic is a central part of life, they tell the stories of Ged and Tenar. Ged is a boy from the island of Gont, born with innate magical talent and a reckless nature, who releases a terrible shadow into the world and must risk everything in order to restore the balance. Tenar, a girl from the island of Atuan, is taken from her home and family to become Arha, the Priestess Ever Reborn, guardian of the ominous Tombs of Atuan. Deep within the Tombs, Ged and Tenar encounter one another and seek a way of bringing peace to the troubled archipelago.
Ged ..... James McArdle
Tenar ..... Aysha Kala
Young Ged ..... Kasper Hilton-Hille
Young Tenar ..... Nishi Malde
Ogion ..... Paul Hilton
Manan ..... Zubin Varla
Thar ..... Souad Faress
Father ..... David Hounslow
Boy ..... Adam Thomas-Wright
Oarsman ..... Mark Edel-Hunt
Witch ..... Jessica Turner
Serret ..... Lucy Hutchinson
Shipmaster ..... Stephen Critchlow
Original music by Jon Nicholls.
Sound design by Caleb Knightley.
Directed by Sasha Yevtushenko.
SAT 19:00 Sherlock Holmes: The Game's Afoot (b00cm07d)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]
SAT 22:00 The Simon Day Show (b01j6t0s)
Series 2, Tommy Cockles
Simon Day and his characters once again welcome listeners to The Mallard, a small provincial theatre somewhere in the UK. Each week one of Simon's comic characters come to perform at The Mallard while the staff struggle with rivalries, self-doubt and the new owner's vision for the theatre's future.
This week popular, blazered entertainer Tommy Cockles arrives at the theatre to find it transformed. There's a new Nigerian owner, soundman Goose has been replaced by an authoritarian ex-copper and receptionist Catherine has disappeared off to India to find herself.
Cast list:
Tommy Cockles ..... Simon Day
Catherine ..... Catherine Shepherd
Emanuel Akinyemi ..... Felix Dexter
Pat Bennet ..... Morwenna Banks
Ron Bone ..... Simon Greenall
Written by Simon Day
Produced by Colin Anderson.
SAT 22:30 Revolting People (b007jrzv)
Series 1, Tons of Storm Clouds
A revolutionary orator is after more than just Mary's support. 1770 America sitcom stars Andy Hamilton. From February 2000.
SAT 23:00 The Mary Whitehouse Experience (b007jmp2)
From 24/02/1990
Manchester's 1996 Olympic bid is mocked. Sketches, stand-up and general ranting from David Baddiel, Rob Newman, Steve Punt, Hugh Dennis and others. From February 1990.
SAT 23:30 4 at the Store (b00d7jpz)
Series 2, Episode 2
Simon Bligh hosts the stand-up from London's Comedy Store with Alan Carr, Richard Morton and Gina Yashere. From January 2002.

SUNDAY 01 JANUARY 2017

SUN 00:00 Atomic Tales (b007jx6v)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:00 on Saturday]
SUN 00:30 Ursula Le Guin - Earthsea (b05pktvt)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:30 on Saturday]
SUN 01:00 Northanger Abbey Omnibus (b087kz86)
[Repeat of broadcast at 13:00 on Saturday]
SUN 02:10 Inheritance Tracks (b087l4d8)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:10 on Saturday]
SUN 02:15 Sentimental Journey (b00755qc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:15 on Saturday]
SUN 02:45 Uncle Mort's South Country (b007jqzh)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:45 on Saturday]
SUN 03:00 Archive on 4 (b0076jhd)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 on Saturday]
SUN 04:00 Peter Ackroyd - The Mystery of Charles Dickens (b007jvp1)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 on Saturday]
SUN 05:30 Cheers! (b018v0jc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 on Saturday]
SUN 06:00 Julian Fellowes - Snobs Omnibus (b04y9p6z)
On a chance visit to a stately home, accountant's daughter Edith Lavery meets an extremely eligible earl. Stars Hugh Bonneville.
SUN 07:15 Pursued by Bears - Paddington (b0076jdy)
A wartime evacuee and a post-war displaced person: the story behind Paddington Bear.
Paul Vaughan explores his story and place in bear literature with his creator, author Michael Bond, Marina Warner, Julia Eccleshare and zookeeper Ray Charter.
Producer: Beaty Rubens
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in May 2004.
SUN 07:30 Isy Suttie's Love Letters (b01rlngr)
Series 1, Peter and Anne
Isy Suttie (Dobby from Channel 4's Peep Show and double British Comedy Award nominee) returns to BBC Radio 4 with these unique tales, recounting a series of love stories affecting people she's known throughout her life, told partly through song.
Sometimes Isy has merely observed other people's love lives; quite often she's intervened, changing the action dramatically - for better or worse. Intertwined within these stories are related real life anecdotes from Isy's own, often disastrous, love life.
In this first episode, Isy and her first ever boyfriend, Darren Jones, conspire to write love notes that bring two shy bell-ringers together, Peter and Anne.
With her multi-character and vocal skills, plus her guitar, Isy creates a hilarious and deeply moving world, sharing with us her lessons in life and love.
"A voice you want to swim in" The Independent
Produced by Lianne Coop.
SUN 08:00 Take It From Here (b01dtg79)
From 04/12/1958
Napoleonic double-doings, while Ron's latest news shocks broody Eth in 'The Glums'.
Starring Professor Jimmy Edwards, Dick Bentley and June Whitfield.
Announcer: Brian Matthew
Music from Wallace Eaton and the Keynotes and the BBC Revue Orchestra conducted by Harry Rabinowitz.
Scripted by Frank Muir and Denis Norden.
Producer: Charles Maxwell
First broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in December 1958.
SUN 08:30 The Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise Show (b01jl8hs)
Series 1, Episode 2
Can marriage guidance counsellor Ernie help an angry couple? And Eric reckons Ern needs to spruce-up his act - so how about writing a musical?

Special singing guest: Salena Jones.

Written by Eddie Braben

With Anne Hamilton, Michael Segal and Arthur Tolcher.

Music by Dennis Wilson & His Orchestra.

Producer: John Browell

First broadcast on BBC Radio 2 in February 1975.
SUN 09:00 Snow: Omnibus (b087lc5q)
From the French Alps, Marcus Sedgwick shares winter memories and asks why snow is so powerful to our imagination.
SUN 10:10 Inheritance Tracks (b087lc5s)
Emma Bridgewater
Ceramics designer Emma Bridgewater with Francoise Hardy's 'Le Premier Bonheur du Jour' and 'Gulf Coast Highway' by Emmylou Harris and Willie Nelson.
SUN 10:15 Desert Island Discs Revisited (b087lc5v)
Absent Friends, Arnold Wesker
4 Extra Debut. Playwright Arnold Wesker shares his second castaway selection with Kirsty Young. From 2006.
SUN 11:00 The Moth Radio Hour (b087lcbq)
Series 4, Family, Neighbors and Extraordinary Proof
True stories told live in in the USA: Meg Bowles introduces stories about neighbourhood, childhood and going against the grain.
The Moth is an acclaimed not-for-profit organisation dedicated to the art and craft of storytelling based in the USA. Since 1997, it has celebrated both the raconteur and the storytelling novice, who has lived through something extraordinary and yearns to share it. Originally formed by the writer George Dawes Green as an intimate gathering of friends on a porch in Georgia (where moths would flutter in through a hole in the screen), and then recreated in a New York City living room, The Moth quickly grew to produce immensely popular events at theatres and clubs around New York City and later around the USA, the UK and other parts of the world.
The Moth has presented more than 15,000 stories, told live and without notes, to standing-room-only crowds worldwide. The Moth podcast is downloaded over 27 million times a year.
Featuring true stories told live on stage without scripts, from the humorous to the heart-breaking.
The Moth Radio Hour is produced by Jay Allison and Atlantic Public Media in Woods Hole, Massachusetts and is distributed by the Public Radio Exchange.
SUN 11:55 The Listening Project (b047cdx2)
Floyd and Tommy - Losing the Beautiful Game
Fi Glover introduces a conversation between two footballers, who reflect on the importance of the game in their lives, and their dread of life without it.
The Listening Project is a Radio 4 initiative that offers a snapshot of contemporary Britain in which people across the UK volunteer to have a conversation with someone close to them about a subject they've never discussed intimately before. The conversations are being gathered across the UK by teams of producers from local and national radio stations who facilitate each encounter. Every conversation - they're not BBC interviews, and that's an important difference - lasts up to an hour, and is then edited to extract the key moment of connection between the participants. Most of the unedited conversations are being archived by the British Library and used to build up a collection of voices capturing a unique portrait of the UK in the second decade of the millennium. You can upload your own conversations or just learn more about The Listening Project by visiting bbc.co.uk/listeningproject
Producer: Marya Burgess.
SUN 12:00 Take It From Here (b01dtg79)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
SUN 12:30 The Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise Show (b01jl8hs)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
SUN 13:00 Julian Fellowes - Snobs Omnibus (b04y9p6z)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
SUN 14:15 Pursued by Bears - Paddington (b0076jdy)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:15 today]
SUN 14:30 Jane Austen - Persuasion: Omnibus (b087lc5x)
Episode 1
The Elliot family, finding themselves in debt, are forced to rent out their baronial home to an Admiral of the Navy.
SUN 15:45 Short Stories by John Mortimer (b007k0bn)
Rumpole and the Widow Twankey
1960, Hilda has had a baby. Rumpole defends a safe-blower, and exposes a dubious senior police officer. Read by Timothy West.
SUN 16:00 Saturday Drama (b01p9f5p)
Carlo Collodi - Pinocchio
Carlo Collodi's classic tale of a wooden puppet who wants to be a boy dramatised by Linda Marshall Griffiths.
When Geppetto's wooden puppet miraculously comes to life, Geppetto names him Pinocchio and imagines a bright future together. Pinocchio must understand what it is to be a boy and the first step is school. But danger and folly lurk around every corner and it is hard for Pinocchio to find the right path. The world is full of temptation, contradiction and fear. Will Pinocchio find his way to becoming a real boy?
Original Music by Olly Fox
Sound Design by Steve Brooke
Directed by Nadia Molinari.
SUN 17:00 Poetry Extra (b087ldt3)
Ursula Vaughan Williams, Poet and Muse
BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive and selects a love story.
Ursula Vaughan Williams was most famous for being the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams's second wife. However, she was a published poet who contributed poems for her husband to set and collaborated creatively on various occasions with him and other composers.
The writer Irma Kurtz tells her story and looks at her poetry with the help of the Vaughan Williams' friends and colleagues. She discovers a true love story. Ursula met Vaughan Williams when they were both married to other people. He was much older than her. Her husband died during the war and Ralph's wife spent much of her life in a wheel chair. Ursula became the lover and creative collaborator of the composer, even moving into his marital home with the blessing of his first wife. When Adeline Vaughan Williams died, Ralph and Ursula could be married.
Ursula's poetry speaks of love, nature and memory . Her masterpiece, The Dictated Theme was written in the days after Vaughan Williams died and she described the feeling that he was with her, dictating the verse.
Until her own death in 2007, aged 96, Ursula remained a leading figure on the artistic and social scene of London and continued her husband's work supporting English music.
Interviews include Michael Kennedy, biographer of Ralph Vaughan Williams; close friends Joyce Kennedy and Eva Hornstein; Stephen Connock, editor of Ursula Vaughan Williams' collected poems; and Hugh Cobbe, formerly Head of Music Collections for the British Library.
Readings by Isla Blair.
Producer: Laura Parfitt
A White Pebble Media production for BBC Radio 4
First broadcast in 2013.
SUN 17:30 Isy Suttie's Love Letters (b01rlngr)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
SUN 18:00 Gerry Jones - Time After Time (b087ldt5)
Paul Wood finds himself in a strange hotel. He doesn't know how or why he's there - or even how he got there. Every time he tried to "escape", he's brought back and the vicious circle begins again.
Is it a nightmare? Has he lost his memory, or it is, perhaps, even more extraordinary?
Stars John Pullen as Paul Wood, Nigel Anthony as Robert Carter and Sarah Badel as Ann.
Written by award-winning dramatist, Gerry Jones.
Director: Martin Jenkins
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in May 1979.
SUN 18:45 Jan Mark - Black and White (b087ldt7)
In Black and White
4 Extra Debut. Marjorie has premonitions. But no-one could have guessed how true they would be on the day of the school photo. Read by Ann Rye.
SUN 19:00 The Moth Radio Hour (b087lcbq)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:00 today]
SUN 19:55 The Listening Project (b047cdx2)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:55 today]
SUN 20:00 Snow: Omnibus (b087lc5q)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]
SUN 21:10 Inheritance Tracks (b087lc5s)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:10 today]
SUN 21:15 Desert Island Discs Revisited (b087lc5v)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:15 today]
SUN 22:00 Isy Suttie's Love Letters (b01rlngr)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
SUN 22:30 Innes Own World (b0178mxy)
Episode 2
Spoofing the Today programme, and memories of playing a club in Bolton. Songs and sketches from Neil Innes. From January 2003.
SUN 23:00 Cabin Pressure (b00cdsj8)
Series 1, Boston
Sitcom about the pilots of a tiny charter airline for whom no job is too small and many jobs are too difficult.
A routine flight to Boston is disrupted by a routine fire, a routine lawsuit and a routine corpse.
Carolyn Knapp-Shappey ...... Stephanie Cole
First Officer Douglas Richardson ...... Roger Allam
Capt Martin Crieff ...... Benedict Cumberbatch
Arthur Shappey ...... John Finnemore
ATC Fitton ...... Ewen MacIntosh
Hamilton Leeman ...... Kerry Shale
Paramedic ...... Matilda Ziegler
Written by John Finnemore.
SUN 23:30 Old Harry's Game (b007k078)
Christmas Special 2002, Knocking on Heaven's Door
Satan's epic quest ends as he meets Death, St Peter and his rottweilers - and Davina McCall.
Continuing Andy Hamilton's two-part festive special from Hell.
Starring Andy Hamilton as Satan, James Grout as The Professor, Jimmy Mulville as Thomas, Robert Duncan as Scumspawn and Claire Skinner as Hope. With Philip Pope, Felicity Montagu and Michael Fenton Stevens.
Producer: Paul Mayhew-Archer
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2002.

MONDAY 02 JANUARY 2017

MON 00:00 Gerry Jones - Time After Time (b087ldt5)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:00 on Sunday]
MON 00:45 Jan Mark - Black and White (b087ldt7)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:45 on Sunday]
MON 01:00 Julian Fellowes - Snobs Omnibus (b04y9p6z)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 on Sunday]
MON 02:15 Pursued by Bears - Paddington (b0076jdy)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:15 on Sunday]
MON 02:30 Jane Austen - Persuasion: Omnibus (b087lc5x)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:30 on Sunday]
MON 03:45 Short Stories by John Mortimer (b007k0bn)
[Repeat of broadcast at 15:45 on Sunday]
MON 04:00 Saturday Drama (b01p9f5p)
[Repeat of broadcast at 16:00 on Sunday]
MON 05:00 Poetry Extra (b087ldt3)
[Repeat of broadcast at 17:00 on Sunday]
MON 05:30 Isy Suttie's Love Letters (b01rlngr)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 on Sunday]
MON 06:00 Wimsey (b007jwgz)
Busman's Honeymoon, Credit Where Credit Is Due
With William Noakes dead, Superintendent Kirk has his suspicions, but posh sleuth, Lord Peter Wimsey is not so sure...
Starring Ian Carmichael as Lord Peter Wimsey, Sarah Badel as Lady Wimsey, Peter Jones as Bunter, Pearl Hackney as Mrs Ruddle, Roger Lloyd Pack as MacBride, Kenneth Cranham as Frank Crutchle, Peter Vaughan as Superintendent and John Westbrook as the Narrator.
British gentleman detective Lord Peter Wimsey features in a number of detective novels and short stories by English crime writer, Dorothy L Sayers. Busman's Honeymoon was first published in 1937.
Classy and sharp-witted, aristocratic amateur sleuth Lord Peter Bredon Wimsey was born in 1890 and educated at Eton and Oxford, before serving in the military during the First World War.
Ian Carmichael appeared as Lord Peter Wimsey for BBC Radio from 1973 to 1983, in addition to the BBC TV adaptations that were broadcast between 1972 and 1975.
Adapted for radio in six episodes by Alistair Beaton.
Producer: Martin Fisher
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 1983.
MON 06:30 Make Me a National Treasure (b018gqz5)
Gyles Brandreth discovers what it takes to become a national treasure and achieve the cultural status of figures like June Whitfield, Sir Alan Bennett and Sir David Attenborough.
Twiggy, Dame Judi Dench and Tony Benn are national treasures. But many other public figures are not.
Gyles sets out to discover the process by which a few personalities - but only a few - get to become one of our celebrity jewels. He finds out whether 'national treasure' status comes down to longevity, eccentricity or several ungainly appearances on Strictly Come Dancing.
He hears from national treasures including Sir Terry Wogan and Dame Edna Everage - who naturally considers herself to be an international treasure - and finds out what our national treasures reveal about British identity and our changing attitudes to heroism, and to our history.
And, using his rigorously devised National Treasure Matrix, Gyles assesses his own chances with an exacting focus group comprising journalist Danny Finkelstein plus writers and broadcasters Natalie Haynes and Bidisha.
Will Gyles's weakness for teddy bears and gaudy jumpers be enough?
Producer: Paula McGinley.
MON 07:00 Do Nothing 'Til You Hear From Me (b0076h4q)
Series 1, Body and Soul
At a bandmate's funeral, musicians Roy and George face up to their own mortality. Stars Ram Jam Holder. From September 2003.
MON 07:30 The Tim Vine Chat Show (b085tn6j)
The Tim Vine Christmas Chat Show
Fresh from a critically acclaimed Radio 4 debut in 2016 ("A delightful show full of laugh-out-loud moments in which Vine's razor sharp wit and warmth shine through" Radio Times) The Tim Vine Chat Show returns for a one-off Christmas Special. Polish off your Boxing Day leftovers and tune in for an early evening treat as Tim talks to the Great British Public about their favourite Christmas memories.
Expect a brand new house band taking over from The Conkers ("they had a string of hits") and some more preposterous games to play along with at home. The guests (who are plucked from the audience on the night of recording) include a former air hostess from the land of Santa Claus, a budding Widow Twanky and a man with a nail-biting story about brussels sprouts.
Join internationally acclaimed stand-up Tim for the one sure-fire way of topping up your quota of cracker jokes this Christmas.
Producer: Richard Morris
A BBC Studios Production.
MON 08:00 Thank You, Mrs Fothergill (b087llxb)
At Home With The Brontes
Bronte sisterly stage shenanigans as the ladies of the guild enter the district drama festival - and Madam Chairman Alice lands the lead role...
Keith Parry's sitcom about the comic mishaps of the Cloughbottom Ladies' Evening Guild.
Starring Sheila Hancock as Alice Foster, Pat Coombs as Phyllis Middleton, Avis Bunnage as Mrs Fothergill and Clovissa Newcombe as Ethel and Peggy.
Produced in Manchester by Bob Oliver Rogers.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 2 in December 1978.
MON 08:30 It Sticks Out Half a Mile (b007jq3p)
The Builder
The nationality of a workman reignites old Home Guard hostilities for Wilson, Hodges and Pike.
A seaside saga of pier perpetuation starring John Le Mesurier as Arthur Wilson, Ian Lavender as Frank Pike, Bill Pertwee as Bert Hodges, Vivienne Martin as Miss Perkins, Glynn Edwards as Guthrie and Stella Tanner as Myrtle.
After a pilot episode was made in 1981, Arthur Lowe sadly died. So this 13-part series was revamped to feature the Dad's Army characters played by Pertwee and Lavender instead. The series was later adapted for ITV by Yorkshire TV.
Written by Harold Snoad and Michael Knowles, based on the characters originally created by Jimmy Perry and David Croft.
Producer: Martin Fisher
First broadcast on BBC Radio 2 in August 1984.
MON 09:00 Just a Minute (b00q3cm1)
Series 56, Episode 4
Nicholas Parsons chairs the devious word game with David Mitchell, Paul Merton, Julian Clary and Gyles Brandreth. From January 2010.
MON 09:30 The Change (b0076d2r)
Series 2, Episode 5
George and Carol return from a weekend away to find a nasty surprise. Stars Lynda Bellingham and Chris Ellison. From March 2003.
MON 10:00 Classic Serial (b01pf6f7)
The Eustace Diamonds, Episode 1
Rose Tremain's dramatisation of Anthony Trollope's enthralling novel stars Pippa Nixon as the beautiful Lizzie Eustace, fighting to retain possession of her magnificent diamond necklace, which she claims was left to her, as a gift, by her late husband Florian.
Her immediate relatives, spurred on by the intransigent family lawyer, Camperdown, argue that the diamonds are an heirloom, and on no account can be retained by her. The dispute colours all Lizzie's subsequent relationships - with her cousin Frank, her new lover Lord Fawn, and her admirer Lord George. As gossip and scandal intensify, Lizzie is driven to increasingly desperate behaviour in an attempt to retain her jewels.
Original Music: Lucinda Mason Brown
Produced and directed by Gordon House
A Goldhawk Essential production for BBC Radio 4
Harpist: Cecilia De Maria
Cellist: Alison Baldwin.
MON 11:00 Go West (b01r0c5w)
A Story to Be Told
Five new stories produced from Bristol
1. A Story to be Told
by Gillian Tindall
Read by Wendy Brierley
Swimming up through layers of post-operative anaesthetic, Jennifer judges it time to tell an important secret about her past life before it vanishes with her.
Produced by Christine Hall.
MON 11:15 The Lady Detectives (b00cq1d6)
The Redhill Sisterhood
Autumn,1897: Victorian undercover agent Loveday Brooke investigates a group of nuns who appear to have forsaken their vows - and taken to burglary.
From the Golden Age of the crime short story, 'The Lady Detectives' is a series of four female sleuths to rival the great Sherlock himself.
Catherine Louisa Pirkis' mystery stars Gayanne Potter as Loveday Brooke, Paul Young as Inspector Gunning, Neil McKinven as Sergeant Blaine, Noreen Leighton as Sister Monica and Lucy Paterson as Sister Anna.
Dramatised by Roger Danes.
Producer: Patrick Rayner
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2005.
MON 12:00 Thank You, Mrs Fothergill (b087llxb)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
MON 12:30 It Sticks Out Half a Mile (b007jq3p)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
MON 13:00 Wimsey (b007jwgz)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
MON 13:30 Make Me a National Treasure (b018gqz5)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 today]
MON 14:00 Joanna Trollope - Other People's Children (b007jlkw)
Episode 1
The complications facing parents when a marriage breaks down and a new relationship begins. Read by Penelope Wilton.
MON 14:15 Promises, Promises: A History of Debt (b05447pc)
The Moral Power of Debt
Anthropologist David Graeber explores the ways debt has shaped society over 5000 years. In this episode, he examines the moral power that debt holds over us.
David argues that whenever we think about debt we end up in a deep moral confusion. We resent the "deadbeats" who fail to pay us back and yet many of us believe that people who get us into debt - money lenders - are immoral if not downright evil.
Gangsters like Don Corleone frame what they do in terms of debt. They do so in the knowledge that debt is a powerful tool for taking even pure extortion and making it seem like it's the debtor who is in the wrong. We can't help but believe Don Corleone when he tells us we owe him one.
It's not just gangsters who utilise the moral power of debt. Over the course of history commanders of foreign armies, wealthy landlords, corrupt officials, and local thugs have been able to tell their victims that those victims owe them something. If nothing else, they "owe them their lives" (a telling phrase) because they haven't killed them.
For most of human history, most human beings have been told that they are debtors. In this series, David examines the human consequences which have profound implications for the politics of the present day.
Producer: Max O'Brien
A Juniper production for BBC Radio 4.
MON 14:30 15 Minute Drama (b043wvxj)
Vikas Swarup - The Seventh Test, The Proposition
1) The Proposition
A thriller set in India from the author of "Slumdog Millionaire".
Sapna Sinha works as a sales assistant in a TV showroom in New Delhi. Being the only breadwinner 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 tests and he will make her the CEO of his global empire. Sapna is suspicious. 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.
Producer - Nadir Khan
Director - John Dryden
A Goldhawk Production for BBC Radio 4.
MON 14:45 Book of the Week (b01cjm4f)
Wilkie Collins, Episode 1
Written by Peter Ackroyd.
Read by Michael Pennington.
Peter Ackroyd charts the life of Wilkie Collins. From his childhood as the son of an artist, to his struggles to become a writer, and his life-long friendship with Charles Dickens.
Short and oddly built, with a head too big for his body, extremely short-sighted, unable to stay still, dressed in colourful clothes, 'as if playing a certain part in the great general drama of life' Wilkie Collins looked distinctly strange. But he was none the less a charmer, befriended by the great, loved by children, irresistibly attractive to women - and avidly read by generations of readers.
Peter Ackroyd follows his hero, 'the sweetest-tempered of all the Victorian novelists', from his childhood as the son of a well-known artist to his struggling beginnings as writer, his years of fame and his life-long friendship with the other great London chronicler, Charles Dickens. A true Londoner, Collins, like Dickens, was fascinated by the secrets and crimes -- the fraud, blackmail and poisonings - that lay hidden behind the city's respectable facade. He was a fighter, never afraid to point out injustices and shams, or to tackle the establishment head on.
As well as his enduring masterpieces, "The Moonstone" - often called the first true detective novel - and the sensational "Women in White," he produced an intriguing array of lesser known works. But Collins had his own secrets: he never married, but lived for thirty years with the widowed Caroline Graves, and also had a second liaison, as 'Mr and Mrs Dawson', with a younger mistress, Martha Rudd, with whom he had three children. Both women remained devoted as illness and opium-taking took their toll: he died in 1889, in the middle of writing his last novel - Blind Love.
Told with Peter Ackroyd's inimitable verve this is a ravishingly entertaining life of a great story-teller, full of surprises, rich in humour and sympathetic understanding.
Abridged by Libby Spurrier
Producer: Joanna Green
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.
MON 15:00 Classic Serial (b01pf6f7)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:00 today]
MON 16:00 Just a Minute (b00q3cm1)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]
MON 16:30 The Change (b0076d2r)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:30 today]
MON 17:00 Do Nothing 'Til You Hear From Me (b0076h4q)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:00 today]
MON 17:30 The Tim Vine Chat Show (b085tn6j)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
MON 18:00 Alex Garland - The Coma (b007jtvm)
Episode 1
A young man, Carl, is beaten up on a train late one night. As he falls into a coma, we travel with him on his journey through the bizarre world of his subconscious as he struggles to wake up.
Tom Goodman-Hill reads Alex Garland's surreal fantasy exploring the lucid, but powerless workings of the mind of a coma patient. This surreal fantasy play tricks on both the story's protagonist and the listener.
Alex Garland is the bestselling author of cult classic, The Beach. He also wrote the screenplay for the zombie hit, 28 Days Later, plus Sunshine, Never Let Me Go and Dredd.
Producer: Gemma Jenkins
Made for BBC 7 and first broadcast in 2004.
MON 18:30 A Good Read (b0076fzl)
Maureen Lipman & Christina Odone
Sue MacGregor and her guests - actress and writer, Maureen Lipman and journalist, Christina Odone - discuss books by Carole Shields, James Lees-Milne and Elinor Lipman. From 2003.
'Ancient as the Hills' by James Lees-Milne
Publisher: John Murray
'Unless' by Carol Shields
Publisher: Fourth Estate
'The Pursuit of Alice Thrift' by Elinor Lipman
Publisher: Fourth Estate.
MON 19:00 Thank You, Mrs Fothergill (b087llxb)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
MON 19:30 It Sticks Out Half a Mile (b007jq3p)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
MON 20:00 Wimsey (b007jwgz)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
MON 20:30 Make Me a National Treasure (b018gqz5)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 today]
MON 21:00 Go West (b01r0c5w)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:00 today]
MON 21:15 The Lady Detectives (b00cq1d6)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:15 today]
MON 22:00 The Tim Vine Chat Show (b085tn6j)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
MON 22:30 The Lee Mack Show (b00bfq1c)
Midge Ure
The Ultravox star joins the quick-fire comic for stand-up, sketches and music. With Angela McHale and Steve Brown. From March 2005.
MON 23:00 Dead Ringers (b085z40h)
Series 17, Episode 2
The team look back at the year that never was, imagining what life would be like had Remain won, Trump lost and a host of other events that just might have happened.
PRODUCED AND CREATED BY
Bill Dare
A BBC Studios production.
MON 23:30 The 21st Century for Time Travellers (b01k2cfh)
Of all the periods open to the Personal Time Machine user an often over-looked and fascinating destination is early years of the 21st Century. Yes, this is a period famous not only for the romance of the war on terror and the decadent glamour of the London Olympic riots, but also for such legendary figures as the Enigmatic James Corden.
But for the unwary time traveller, the customs, language and behaviour of the 21st Century can be confusing. After all, these were simpler times when it was common for people to actually laugh at adverts in the cinema. Simpler, more disturbing times.
The show is hosted by the crotchety Wilson Thomas, forced to guide us on behalf of the 21st Century Tourist Board. He manages to thinly veil his contempt for the guests, who demonstrate everything a time traveller might need to survive in the savage 21st century. He also tolerates Martin, the member of the public sent back in time at the show's expense.
CAST:
Wilson ..... Dan Tetsell
Martin ..... Fergus Craig
Denise ..... Bridget Christie
Dixon, Alexei ..... Rufus Jones
Zammo ..... Katy Brand
Other parts ..... The cast
Additional material ..... Tom Neenan
Written by ..... Dan Tetsell
Produced by ..... Tilusha Ghelani
For Radio 4, Dan has co-written The Museum of Everything, Paperback Hell and Rudy's Rare Records and his own Writer's Guild Award-winning show Sins of the Grandfathers as a Friday Play. He has written for, among others, Armando Iannucci's Charm Offensive, Dead Ringers,and Lucy Montgomery's Variety Pack. For television Dan has written for a wide variety of other shows including BBC 1 sitcom After You've Gone, and The Omid Djalili Show and BBC 3's recent hit Mongrels, which he also starred in as Marion.

TUESDAY 03 JANUARY 2017

TUE 00:00 Alex Garland - The Coma (b007jtvm)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:00 on Monday]
TUE 00:30 A Good Read (b0076fzl)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:30 on Monday]
TUE 01:00 Wimsey (b007jwgz)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 on Monday]
TUE 01:30 Make Me a National Treasure (b018gqz5)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 on Monday]
TUE 02:00 Joanna Trollope - Other People's Children (b007jlkw)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:00 on Monday]
TUE 02:15 Promises, Promises: A History of Debt (b05447pc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:15 on Monday]
TUE 02:30 15 Minute Drama (b043wvxj)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:30 on Monday]
TUE 02:45 Book of the Week (b01cjm4f)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:45 on Monday]
TUE 03:00 Classic Serial (b01pf6f7)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:00 on Monday]
TUE 04:00 Just a Minute (b00q3cm1)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 on Monday]
TUE 04:30 The Change (b0076d2r)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:30 on Monday]
TUE 05:00 Do Nothing 'Til You Hear From Me (b0076h4q)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:00 on Monday]
TUE 05:30 The Tim Vine Chat Show (b085tn6j)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 on Monday]
TUE 06:00 Wimsey (b007k47f)
Busman's Honeymoon, A Policeman's Lot
As questioning over William Noakes's murder continues, there's some revelatory evidence from Lord Peter Wimsey's cleaner.
Starring Ian Carmichael as Lord Peter Wimsey, Sarah Badel as Lady Wimsey, Peter Jones as Bunter, Rosemary Leach as Miss Twitterton, Peter Vaughan as Superintendent Kirk and Christopher Beeny as Constable Sellon.
British gentleman detective Lord Peter Wimsey features in a number of detective novels and short stories by English crime writer, Dorothy L Sayers. Busman's Honeymoon was first published in 1937.
Classy and sharp-witted, aristocratic amateur sleuth Lord Peter Bredon Wimsey was born in 1890 and educated at Eton and Oxford, before serving in the military during the First World War.
Ian Carmichael appeared as Lord Peter Wimsey for BBC Radio from 1973 to 1983, in addition to the BBC TV adaptations that were broadcast between 1972 and 1975.
Adapted for radio in six episodes by Alistair Beaton.
Producer: Martin Fisher
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 1983.
TUE 06:30 Ayckbourn in Action (b014gdqz)
Alan Ayckbourn's talent as a director has often been obscured by his global success as a playwright.
In this programme - amid rehearsals for his latest (75th!) stage play, Neighbourhood Watch - we analyse what makes him such a deft and consummate director of his own plays and those of others.
With contributions from Julia McKenzie, Michael Gambon, Peter Bowles, Suzie Blake, Penelope Wilton and Martin Jarvis we find out about his skill in handling actors and in prompting performances that delicately balance the comedy and the pain of life.
Producer: Susan Marling
A Just Radio production for BBC Radio 4.
TUE 07:00 Life in London (b01167w4)
In Training for a Swell
Cocksure Tom and his country cousin Jerry tour the sprawling post-Regency metropolis. Stars Greg Wise and Mark Gatiss. From May 2006.
TUE 07:30 John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme (b085wj14)
Series 6, Episode 1
John Finnemore, writer and star of Cabin Pressure and John Finnemore's Double Acts and regular guest on The Now Show and The Unbelievable Truth, returns for a sixth series of his multi-award-winning Souvenir Programme, joined as ever by Margaret Cabourn-Smith, Simon Kane, Lawry Lewin, Carrie Quinlan and, at the piano, Susannah Pearse.
Expect sketches! Expect songs! They're what made up the previous five series, so it seems a pretty safe bet that that's what will be in this series as well. And, well, since you ask him for some tall tales...
John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme was described by The Radio Times as "the best sketch show in years, on television or radio", and by The Daily Telegraph as "funny enough to make even the surliest cat laugh". Already the winner of a BBC Audio Drama Award and a Radio Academy Silver Award, John was named the 2016 Radio Broadcaster of the Year by the Broadcasting Press Guild for his work on Souvenir Programme.
1/6
The sixth series of Souvenir Programme kicks off with a seasonal special, taking in TV adverts, woodland talent contests, a song about the best day of the Christmas season and what is almost certainly the greatest story a Finnemore has ever told.
Written by & starring ... John Finnemore
Cast ... Margaret Cabourn-Smith
Cast ... Simon Kane
Cast ... Lawry Lewin
Cast ... Carrie Quinlan
Original music composed and performed by ... Susannah Pearse
Producer ... Ed Morrish
A BBC Studios Production.
TUE 08:00 Steptoe and Son (b007jzsd)
Series 3, Steptoe and Son and Son
A visitor brings Harold Steptoe some unexpected news.
Starring Wilfrid Brambell as Albert and Harry H Corbett as Harold. With Gwendolyn Watts and Richard Griffiths.
Following the conclusion of their hugely successful association with Tony Hancock, writers Ray Galton and Alan Simpson wrote 10 pilots for the BBC TV's Comedy Playhouse in 1962. The Offer was set in a house with a yard full of junk, featuring the lives of rag and bone men Albert Steptoe and his son Harold and it was the spark for a run of 8 series for TV.
Adapted for radio from Galton and Simpson's TV script by Gale Pedrick.
Produced by Bobby Jaye
First broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in May 1971.
TUE 08:30 The Men From the Ministry (b018jpg3)
Pardon My French
Trying to get Europe playing cricket, the bungling duo are on a sticky wicket. Stars Richard Murdoch. Re-recorded April 1980.
TUE 09:00 Dead Ringers (b085z40h)
[Repeat of broadcast at 23:00 on Monday]
TUE 09:30 Instant Sunshine (b007qtrm)
From 12/04/1985
David Barlow, Peter Christie, Miles Kington and Alan Maryon-Davis entertain with songs and sketches. From April 1985.
TUE 10:00 Classic Serial (b01ph7fc)
The Eustace Diamonds, Episode 2
Rose Tremain's dramatisation of Anthony Trollope's The Eustace Diamonds stars Pippa Nixon as the beautiful Lizzie Eustace, fighting to retain possession of her magnificent diamond necklace, which she claims was left to her as a gift by her late husband Florian.
Her immediate relatives, spurred on by the intransigent family lawyer, Camperdown, argue that the diamonds are an heirloom and on no account can be retained by her. The dispute colours all Lizzie's subsequent relationships - with her cousin Frank, her new lover Lord Fawn, and her admirer Lord George. As gossip and scandal intensify, Lizzie is driven to increasingly desperate behaviour in an attempt to retain her jewels.
Harpist: Cecilia De Maria
Cellist: Alison Baldwin
Original Music: Lucinda Mason Brown
Produced and directed by Gordon House
A Goldhawk Essential production for BBC Radio 4.
TUE 11:00 Go West (b01r525t)
41 Rue Monge
Five short stories from Bristol.
2. 41 Rue Monge
by Jenny Solomons
Victor is a Parisian piano-tuner who has fallen on hard times - people just aren't having their pianos tuned as often as they used to. Now he's behind on his rent and can't think where to turn except to his estranged businessman brother Claude. It's a visit which changes Victor's life.
Produced by Christine Hall.
TUE 11:15 The Lady Detectives (b00cq611)
Mr Bovey's Unexpected Will
Miss Florence Cusack, one of Victorian London's most clever and determined private consulting detectives, investigates a case where a man's fate depends on his weight in gold.

From the Golden Age of the crime short story, 'The Lady Detectives' is a series of four female sleuths to rival the great Sherlock himself.
LT Meade and Robert Eustace's mystery stars Elizabeth Conboy as Miss Cusack, Crawford Logan as Dr Lonsdale and Paul Young as Inspector Schilling.
Dramatised by Roger Danes.
Producer: Patrick Rayner
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2005.
TUE 12:00 Steptoe and Son (b007jzsd)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
TUE 12:30 The Men From the Ministry (b018jpg3)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
TUE 13:00 Wimsey (b007k47f)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
TUE 13:30 Ayckbourn in Action (b014gdqz)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 today]
TUE 14:00 Joanna Trollope - Other People's Children (b007jn4k)
Episode 2
After her marriage breaks down, Nadine is fuelled with bitterness towards her ex-husband. Read by Penelope Wilton.
TUE 14:15 Promises, Promises: A History of Debt (b054420y)
What is Debt?
In the second episode, anthropologist David Graeber asks the obvious question - what actually is a debt?
It might seem that the answer is perfectly simple - a debt is a promise by one person to pay another person a certain sum of money, usually under certain specified terms and conditions, at some point in the future. But what about other forms of debt that have nothing to do with money? We also speak of debts to society, debts of honour and debts of gratitude.
Attitudes to debt vary wildly across the globe. We hear an account written by a European missionary in a distant land of a situation in which he saved a native's life only to find that, as a result, he was now in the native's debt.
Debts have a very different meaning when there is a power imbalance between debtor and creditor. Normally, when a debt is between equals it can be renegotiated and even written off entirely. However when the creditor has all the power, debts transform into absolute imperatives that must be repaid, no matter what the cost.
Crucially, David argues that a debt is an obligation which can be quantified. It's not just a matter of owing someone a favour. We can specify exactly what is owed. This has the advantage that we can know precisely when the debt has been paid. But it has further effects - it means a debt is impersonal, and transferable.
Producer: Max O'Brien
A Juniper production for BBC Radio 4.
TUE 14:30 15 Minute Drama (b04471l3)
Vikas Swarup - The Seventh Test, The Choice
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.
2) The Choice
A thriller set in India from the author of "Slumdog Millionaire".
As Sapna struggles to support her widowed mother and sister, she decides to go ahead and sign a contract which will subject her to a series of "life tests". What the tests are and when they will come, she does not know.
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.
TUE 14:45 Book of the Week (b01cqrsl)
Wilkie Collins, Episode 2
Written by Peter Ackroyd.
Read by Michael Pennington.
Following the death of his beloved father William, Wilkie embarks on a memoir to celebrate his life.
in colourful clothes, 'as if playing a certain part in the great general drama of life' Wilkie Collins looked distinctly strange. But he was none the less a charmer, befriended by the great, loved by children, irresistibly attractive to women - and avidly read by generations of readers.
Peter Ackroyd follows his hero, 'the sweetest-tempered of all the Victorian novelists', from his childhood as the son of a well-known artist to his struggling beginnings as writer, his years of fame and his life-long friendship with the other great London chronicler, Charles Dickens. A true Londoner, Collins, like Dickens, was fascinated by the secrets and crimes -- the fraud, blackmail and poisonings - that lay hidden behind the city's respectable facade. He was a fighter, never afraid to point out injustices and shams, or to tackle the establishment head on.
As well as his enduring masterpieces, "The Moonstone" - often called the first true detective novel - and the sensational "Women in White," he produced an intriguing array of lesser known works. But Collins had his own secrets: he never married, but lived for thirty years with the widowed Caroline Graves, and also had a second liaison, as 'Mr and Mrs Dawson', with a younger mistress, Martha Rudd, with whom he had three children. Both women remained devoted as illness and opium-taking took their toll: he died in 1889, in the middle of writing his last novel - Blind Love.
Told with Peter Ackroyd's inimitable verve this is a ravishingly entertaining life of a great story-teller, full of surprises, rich in humour and sympathetic understanding.
Producer: Joanna Green
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.
TUE 15:00 Classic Serial (b01ph7fc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:00 today]
TUE 16:00 Trivia Test Match (b007jshf)
From 08/10/1991
Brian Johnston umpires as Willie Rushton and Alfred Marks battle Tim Rice and Paul Merton. From October 1991.
TUE 16:30 Flying the Flag (b00f6p4z)
Series 4, End of Term
Ambassador Mackenzie packs his diplomatic bags for good, but faces one final crisis. Stars Dinsdale Landen. From August 1982.
TUE 17:00 Life in London (b01167w4)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:00 today]
TUE 17:30 John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme (b085wj14)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
TUE 18:00 Alex Garland - The Coma (b007m5v9)
Episode 2
Carl fears the attack has caused brain damage, as he keeps having blackouts. Tom Goodman-Hill reads Alex Garland's novel.
TUE 18:30 How Tickled Am I? (b007jnxs)
Series 1, Jimmy Clitheroe
Mark Radcliffe profiles the diminutive entertainer who starred as a schoolboy on radio. Was he ever allowed to grow up? From April 1999.
TUE 19:00 Steptoe and Son (b007jzsd)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
TUE 19:30 The Men From the Ministry (b018jpg3)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
TUE 20:00 Wimsey (b007k47f)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
TUE 20:30 Ayckbourn in Action (b014gdqz)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 today]
TUE 21:00 Go West (b01r525t)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:00 today]
TUE 21:15 The Lady Detectives (b00cq611)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:15 today]
TUE 22:00 John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme (b085wj14)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
TUE 22:30 What to Do If You're Not Like Everybody Else (b00tmtwm)
Series 1, Communication
What lengths do we need to go to "look good"? Do we really need to communicate with our fellow men? How important is it to work? Or to have a relationship?
What To Do If You're Not Like Everybody Else is a four part mini-series of short comedic monologues on BBC Radio 4 written and performed by stand-up comedian Andrew Lawrence. In these he takes a light-hearted look at various aspects of conventional living and the pressure we feel to conform to social norms and ideals.
Each episode is fifteen minutes long and was recorded in front of an audience, the first two episodes at South London comedy club 'Up The Creek', the final two recorded at the Edinburgh Comedy Festival.
This second episode examines the difficulties of human interaction and communication.
TUE 22:45 Date With Fate (b008zq34)
Along for the Ride
Colin impersonates a film producer with dangerous consequences. Stars Charles Gray and Michael Troughton. From February 1996.
TUE 22:55 The Comedy Club Interviews (b088tc7h)
The best in contemporary comedy. Alex Riley chats to Josh Howie.
TUE 23:00 Trodd en Bratt Say 'Well Done You' (b047c476)
Series 1, Episode 2
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 there's a robbery in the Fings and Bobs shop, but Anja and Benjio are only too happy to help the robber find his way around. Meanwhile, Mary's dark secret threatens to ruin her church choir's concert; and Ruth tries to confront a colleague with a distracting verbal tick.
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 23:30 The In Crowd (b00slxxy)
Series 3, Episode 4
Sketch show from Manchester's Comedy Store with Robin Ince, Helen Moon, Smug Roberts and Kate Ward. From August 2002.

WEDNESDAY 04 JANUARY 2017

WED 00:00 Alex Garland - The Coma (b007m5v9)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:00 on Tuesday]
WED 00:30 How Tickled Am I? (b007jnxs)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:30 on Tuesday]
WED 01:00 Wimsey (b007k47f)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 on Tuesday]
WED 01:30 Ayckbourn in Action (b014gdqz)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 on Tuesday]
WED 02:00 Joanna Trollope - Other People's Children (b007jn4k)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:00 on Tuesday]
WED 02:15 Promises, Promises: A History of Debt (b054420y)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:15 on Tuesday]
WED 02:30 15 Minute Drama (b04471l3)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:30 on Tuesday]
WED 02:45 Book of the Week (b01cqrsl)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:45 on Tuesday]
WED 03:00 Classic Serial (b01ph7fc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:00 on Tuesday]
WED 04:00 Trivia Test Match (b007jshf)
[Repeat of broadcast at 16:00 on Tuesday]
WED 04:30 Flying the Flag (b00f6p4z)
[Repeat of broadcast at 16:30 on Tuesday]
WED 05:00 Life in London (b01167w4)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:00 on Tuesday]
WED 05:30 John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme (b085wj14)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 on Tuesday]
WED 06:00 Wimsey (b007k48n)
Busman's Honeymoon, Not Why, But How
Lord Peter Wimsey and his new bride try to recreate the lead-up to the mysterious circumstances of Noakes's murder.
Starring Ian Carmichael as Lord Peter Wimsey, Sarah Badel as Lady Wimsey, Peter Jones as Bunter, Rosemary Leach as Miss Twitterton and Kenneth Cranham as Frank Crutchley.
British gentleman detective Lord Peter Wimsey features in a number of detective novels and short stories by English crime writer, Dorothy L Sayers. Busman's Honeymoon was first published in 1937.
Classy and sharp-witted, aristocratic amateur sleuth Lord Peter Bredon Wimsey was born in 1890 and educated at Eton and Oxford, before serving in the military during the First World War.
Ian Carmichael appeared as Lord Peter Wimsey for BBC Radio from 1973 to 1983, in addition to the BBC TV adaptations that were broadcast between 1972 and 1975.
Adapted for radio in six episodes by Alistair Beaton.
Producer: Martin Fisher
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 1983.
WED 06:30 Angels in the North (b016ld4z)
In the early 1970s, five of Britain's leading Artistic Directors had a vision. Tired of regional theatre-goers being treated as second-class citizens, they wanted to breathe life into the country's cultural landscape. They wanted to create a theatre outside London with national standards - not another testing ground for West End transfers - but a distinct, individual voice for the regions. From the humble beginnings of the Century and 69 Theatre Companies, Manchester's Royal Exchange Theatre opened in 1976. Designer Richard Negri's innovative plans - inspired by the interior of a beehive - took shape in the city's old Cotton Exchange building, a magnificent building in itself, symbolic of Manchester's strength as the power house of the industrial revolution. A seven-sided, glass-walled module, literally suspended from huge marble pillars in the Great Hall, its pioneering design broke free of the confinements of the proscenium arch. It remains the world's largest theatre-in-the-round.
In this programme, actress Gabrielle Drake chats to founding Artistic Director Braham Murray about the success of the theatre over its 35 year history. The calibre of actors, directors and new work it has attracted, and the effect the theatre has had on the region. We hear how, in 1996, the theatre was badly damaged by an IRA bomb, but carried on producing plays in the city until the fully re-furbished theatre opened two years later.
We trace the roots and development of regional theatre in Britain with The Guardian theatre critic Lyn Gardner, Artistic Director of Manchester's Library Theatre Chris Honer, and Professor of Theatre Tony Jackson. We look at funding issues in light of the recent biting Arts Council cuts and discuss the way forward for British theatre.
Producer: Elizabeth Foster.
WED 07:00 Robin and Wendy's Wet Weekends (b0141v9z)
Series 3, Anniversary Waltz
Queasy Wendy tackles party food for Maureen, as Robin tries to bond with their foster child. Stars Kay Stonham. From July 2004.
WED 07:30 State of the Nations (b085xcfk)
Wales
Star of BBC3's Josh and Radio 4 News Quiz regular Elis James hosts four stand-up shows from the four nations of the United Kingdom which explore what it means to be variously Welsh, English, Scottish and Northern Irish in today's United Kingdom.
For the first programme in the series, Elis visits The Lyric theatre in his home town of Carmarthen where he is joined by Tudur Owen, Mike Bubbins and Kiri Pritchard-McLean to hear their thoughts on Wales and Welshness.
Producer: Richard Morris
A BBC Studios Production.
WED 08:00 The Navy Lark (b0187xy4)
The Slogan Contest
A recruitment drive sparks some creative writing aboard HMS Troutbridge, but the Chief does some creative scheming.
Stars Leslie Phillips as the Sub-Lieutenant, Jon Pertwee as the Chief Petty Officer, Stephen Murray as the Commanding Officer, Richard Caldicot as Captain Povey, Heather Chasen as Mrs Povey, Tenniel Evans as the Admiral and Michael Bates as the Rear Admiral.
Laughs afloat aboard British Royal Navy frigate HMS Troutbridge. The Navy Lark ran for an impressive thirteen series between 1959 and 1976.
Scripted by Lawrie Wyman and George Evans.
Producer: Alastair Scott Johnston.
First broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in June 1971.
WED 08:30 Hancock's Half Hour (b007m9f5)
Michelangelo 'Ancock
The lad takes up sculpting. But when he runs out of rocks, it's Sid to the rescue.
Starring Tony Hancock, Sidney James, Bill Kerr, Kenneth Williams and Hattie Jacques.
Written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson.
Theme and incidental music composed by Wally Stott. Recorded by the BBC Revue Orchestra conducted by Harry Rabinowitz.
Producer: Dennis Main Wilson
First broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in November 1956.
WED 09:00 Heresy (b02x98fp)
Series 9, Episode 6
Victoria Coren Mitchell presents another edition of the show which dares to commit heresy.
Her guests this week are comedians Katy Brand and David Baddiel and television presenter Richard Osman.
Producers: Victoria Coren Mitchell and Daisy Knight
An Avalon Television production for BBC Radio 4.
WED 09:30 The Newly Discovered Casebook of Sherlock Holmes (b00b01jz)
The Case of the Clockwork Fiend
The spoof sleuth probes mystery deaths from some new fangled inventions. Stars Roy Hudd and June Whitfield. From January 1999.
WED 10:00 Classic Serial (b01pnltg)
The Eustace Diamonds, Episode 3
Rose Tremain's dramatisation of Anthony Trollope's The Eustace Diamonds stars Pippa Nixon as the beautiful Lizzie Eustace, fighting to retain possession of her magnificent diamond necklace, which she claims was left to her as a gift by her late husband Florian.
Her immediate relatives, spurred on by the intransigent family lawyer, Camperdown, argue that the diamonds are an heirloom and on no account can be retained by her. The dispute colours all Lizzie's subsequent relationships - with her cousin Frank, her new lover Lord Fawn, and her admirer Lord George. As gossip and scandal intensify, Lizzie is driven to increasingly desperate behaviour in an attempt to retain her jewels.
Harpist: Cecilia De Maria
Cellist: Alison Baldwin
Original Music: Lucinda Mason Brown
Produced and Directed by Gordon House
A Goldhawk Essential production for BBC Radio 4.
WED 11:00 Go West (b01r9620)
Of All the Whole Wild World
Five stories made in Bristol
3. Of All the Whole Wild World
by Kerry Hood
Jodie comes to offer her commiserations to her neighbour Peta, who has just lost her mother. She's made a card: "This comes to say I'm sad, Someone has died and that's quite bad." From this inauspicious start, things can really only improve.
Produced by Christine Hall.
WED 11:15 The Lady Detectives (b00cqf3n)
The Golden Slipper
The vivacious Miss Violet Strange shines in the best New York society. But, unknown to her friends, she's also a professional agency detective. Here, in a case from 1910, she investigates 'The Inseparables', four rich young women suspected of a series of thefts.
From the Golden Age of the crime short story, 'The Lady Detectives' is a series of four female sleuths to rival the great Sherlock himself.
Anna Green's mystery stars Teresa Gallagher as Violet Strange, Crawford Logan as Driscoll, Lesley Hart as Alicia and Gayanne Potter as Theresa.
Dramatised by Roger Danes.
Producer: Patrick Rayner
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2005.
WED 12:00 The Navy Lark (b0187xy4)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
WED 12:30 Hancock's Half Hour (b007m9f5)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
WED 13:00 Wimsey (b007k48n)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
WED 13:30 Angels in the North (b016ld4z)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 today]
WED 14:00 Joanna Trollope - Other People's Children (b007jn4y)
Episode 3
Josie wants to be the perfect stepmother for her partner's children. Read by Penelope Wilton.
WED 14:15 Promises, Promises: A History of Debt (b054423q)
The Origin of Money
In this episode, anthropologist David Graeber explores the origin of money. Defining money is a surprisingly tricky task. We use it all the time and yet, even among economists, there's no consensus about what money actually is.
You'll commonly hear that money is a measure of value, a store of value and a means of account. David argues that this all boils down to a central question - is money merely an abstraction, an accounting technique, a way of saying five of these things equal six of those, or is it primarily an object, a commodity, a physical thing, that passes from hand to hand?
We're so familiar with money, we rarely stop to think about how it actually originated. Those who do tend to come across the same story: "Once upon a time there was no money, so everyone had to make do with barter. People would simply swap things directly with one another and prices could be negotiated by supply and demand."
This barter story appears in every economics textbook. But there's a problem - it simply isn't true. David Graeber reveals that the barter narrative is in fact a myth and that when anthropologists fanned out across the globe, nowhere did they find people swapping goods as the economists describe.
We tend to think of buying on credit as a modern phenomenon, however David reveals that the earliest transactions were all carried out on credit. He concludes by arguing that money itself emerged not from barter, but as a way of measuring debts.
Producer: Max O'Brien
A Juniper production for BBC Radio 4.
WED 14:30 15 Minute Drama (b04471lv)
Vikas Swarup - The Seventh Test, The Wedding
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".
3) The Wedding
A thriller set in India from the author of "Slumdog Millionaire".
Sent to a village outside Delhi to install electrical appliances, TV sales assistant, Sapna Sinha, discovers a wedding about to take place - and that the young bride is being married against her will. What Sapna decides to do about it will be a matter of life and death. Could this be one of the seven tests that she has signed up for?
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.
WED 14:45 Book of the Week (b01cqvcx)
Wilkie Collins, Episode 3
Written by Peter Ackroyd.
Read by Michael Pennington.
Wilkie meets Caroline Graves in unusual circumstances and, little does he know, she will become a close companion for the rest of his life.
Short and oddly built, with a head too big for his body, extremely short-sighted, unable to stay still, dressed in colourful clothes, 'as if playing a certain part in the great general drama of life' Wilkie Collins looked distinctly strange. But he was none the less a charmer, befriended by the great, loved by children, irresistibly attractive to women - and avidly read by generations of readers.
Peter Ackroyd follows his hero, 'the sweetest-tempered of all the Victorian novelists', from his childhood as the son of a well-known artist to his struggling beginnings as writer, his years of fame and his life-long friendship with the other great London chronicler, Charles Dickens. A true Londoner, Collins, like Dickens, was fascinated by the secrets and crimes -- the fraud, blackmail and poisonings - that lay hidden behind the city's respectable facade. He was a fighter, never afraid to point out injustices and shams, or to tackle the establishment head on.
As well as his enduring masterpieces, "The Moonstone" - often called the first true detective novel - and the sensational "Women in White," he produced an intriguing array of lesser known works. But Collins had his own secrets: he never married, but lived for thirty years with the widowed Caroline Graves, and also had a second liaison, as 'Mr and Mrs Dawson', with a younger mistress, Martha Rudd, with whom he had three children. Both women remained devoted as illness and opium-taking took their toll: he died in 1889, in the middle of writing his last novel - Blind Love.
Told with Peter Ackroyd's inimitable verve this is a ravishingly entertaining life of a great story-teller, full of surprises, rich in humour and sympathetic understanding.
Abridged by Libby Spurrier
Producer: Joanna Green
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.
WED 15:00 Classic Serial (b01pnltg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:00 today]
WED 16:00 Heresy (b02x98fp)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]
WED 16:30 The Newly Discovered Casebook of Sherlock Holmes (b00b01jz)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:30 today]
WED 17:00 Robin and Wendy's Wet Weekends (b0141v9z)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:00 today]
WED 17:30 State of the Nations (b085xcfk)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
WED 18:00 Alex Garland - The Coma (b007mw9w)
Episode 3
As Carl gets used to his coma world, he looks for triggers to wake him up. Tom Goodman-Hill reads Alex Garland's novel.
WED 18:30 Off the Page (b00p31l0)
Everyone's A Critic
Are you worried about the future of criticism? You should be. When newspaper editors are forced to make cutbacks, it is critics who are the first in the firing line. But do we really need critics and criticism? Critic and journalist Toby Young is joined by blogger Lynne Hatwell and occupational psychologist Clive Fletcher to write about and discuss criticism and the critics. Dominic Arkwright presents.
WED 19:00 The Navy Lark (b0187xy4)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
WED 19:30 Hancock's Half Hour (b007m9f5)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
WED 20:00 Wimsey (b007k48n)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
WED 20:30 Angels in the North (b016ld4z)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 today]
WED 21:00 Go West (b01r9620)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:00 today]
WED 21:15 The Lady Detectives (b00cqf3n)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:15 today]
WED 22:00 State of the Nations (b085xcfk)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
WED 22:30 Meet David Sedaris (b01n9whw)
Series 3, Memory Lapse; If I Ruled the World
The multi-award winning American essayist brings more of his wit and charm to BBC Radio 4 with a series of audience readings. This week, the stories include childhood memories of competitive parenting in "Memory Lapse", and a character monologue imagining what life would be like "If I Ruled The World!"

Producer: Steve Doherty
A Boom Pictures Cymru production for BBC Radio 4.
WED 23:00 Life: An Idiot's Guide (b043xdf0)
Series 3, Breaking Up
Stephen K Amos is joined by comedians Susan Murray, Tom Craine and Josie Long to present a guide to breaking up.
WED 23:30 Hut 33 (b00wlldq)
Series 2, Yankee Diddle
The Bletchley Park codebreakers' attempt to fleece a wealthy American backfires. Stars Robert Bathurst. From June 2008.

THURSDAY 05 JANUARY 2017

THU 00:00 Alex Garland - The Coma (b007mw9w)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:00 on Wednesday]
THU 00:30 Off the Page (b00p31l0)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:30 on Wednesday]
THU 01:00 Wimsey (b007k48n)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 on Wednesday]
THU 01:30 Angels in the North (b016ld4z)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 on Wednesday]
THU 02:00 Joanna Trollope - Other People's Children (b007jn4y)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:00 on Wednesday]
THU 02:15 Promises, Promises: A History of Debt (b054423q)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:15 on Wednesday]
THU 02:30 15 Minute Drama (b04471lv)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:30 on Wednesday]
THU 02:45 Book of the Week (b01cqvcx)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:45 on Wednesday]
THU 03:00 Classic Serial (b01pnltg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:00 on Wednesday]
THU 04:00 Heresy (b02x98fp)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 on Wednesday]
THU 04:30 The Newly Discovered Casebook of Sherlock Holmes (b00b01jz)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:30 on Wednesday]
THU 05:00 Robin and Wendy's Wet Weekends (b0141v9z)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:00 on Wednesday]
THU 05:30 State of the Nations (b085xcfk)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 on Wednesday]
THU 06:00 Wimsey (b007k4c3)
Busman's Honeymoon, Crossed in Love
As murder victim, William Noakes's debts start mounting up, Lord Peter Wimsey grows suspicious of one of his relatives.
Starring Ian Carmichael as Lord Peter Wimsey, Sarah Badel as Lady Wimsey, Peter Jones as Bunter, Rosemary Leach as Miss Twitterton, Peter Vaughan as Superintendent Kirk and Kenneth Cranham as Frank Crutchley.
British gentleman detective Lord Peter Wimsey features in a number of detective novels and short stories by English crime writer, Dorothy L Sayers. Busman's Honeymoon was first published in 1937.
Classy and sharp-witted, aristocratic amateur sleuth Lord Peter Bredon Wimsey was born in 1890 and educated at Eton and Oxford, before serving in the military during the First World War.
Ian Carmichael appeared as Lord Peter Wimsey for BBC Radio from 1973 to 1983, in addition to the BBC TV adaptations that were broadcast between 1972 and 1975.
Adapted for radio in six episodes by Alistair Beaton.
Producer: Martin Fisher
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 1983.
THU 06:30 78 Revolutions (b010t6pb)
Jenny Hammerton - a DJ of 78s - explores why the old discs are still alive and kicking. The 78rpm record lasted longer than any other format. Enrico Caruso recorded on 78s and Beatles records were cut on 78s in India in the late 1960s. And for some the old grooves and the heavy shellac discs are still the best. Record collectors swear the sound quality of 78s has never been surpassed and young afficienados are cutting their new pop songs on 78s. Sound artists and composers meanwhile are drawn to the patina of age that the old records carry in their scratch and hiss and some are making new music out of old noises. In the digital world where music has shrunk to invisible sound files, the wind up gramophone, a metal stylus and a box of heavy aromatic 10 inch discs seem more and more like precious and necessary demonstrations of the reality of things.
THU 07:00 Mark Tavener - In the Red (b007jzr4)
Episode 2
Can anarchic BBC reporter George Cragge keep his job and get nearer to the murderer?
London is plagued by a series of bizarre murders of bank managers. Hot on the trail of the killer are an old-style Chief Police Inspector and BBC Radio's anarchic crime correspondent, George Cragge.
A blackly humorous murder mystery set in the world of City finance, the BBC and political parties. Dramatised in seven-parts by Mark Tavener and Peter Baynham from Mark Tavener's novel.
Starring Michael Williams as George Cragge, Stephen Moore as Geoffrey Crichton-Potter, Julian Rhind-Tutt as Henry, Barry Foster as Frank Jefferson, Stephen Fry as Controller Radio 2, John Bird as Controller Radio 4 and Peter Serafinowcz as Andrew James.
Music by Tony McAnaney.
Producer: Paul Schlesinger
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1995.
THU 07:30 The Cold Swedish Winter (b04d1kvg)
Series 1, Winter
A sitcom from Danny Robins, writer of the Lenny Henry comedy Rudy's Rare Records. This series is set and recorded in Sweden and stars Adam Riches, Danny Robins and some of Sweden's most popular TV comedy actors.
Geoff, a marginally successful stand-up comic from London, is moving to the tiny, cold and unpronounceable village of Yxsjö in northern Sweden - a culture shock forced on him by his Swedish girlfriend Linda's decision to move home to raise their child.
Geoff has to contend with snow, moose, pickled herring, unemployment, snow, Maypole dancing, snowmobiles, snow, meatball rolling, saunas, social democracy, snow, the weirdest pizzas in Europe, bears, deep forests, death metal, illegal alcohol, snow.
Above all, he has a new family to contend with. The Andersson's bewilder him - from father Sten who has a worrying tendency to growl like a bear and threaten him with any blunt instrument to hand, to Gunilla who threatens him with naked folk-dancing.
It's worth it all for Linda, of course - apart from her new found urge to conform with everything and except for her brother, a Goth with a propensity to set fire to things.
Episode 1: Winter
In which Geoff attempts to start a career as a comedian in Yxsjö. In a town with barely any shops, where the venue is run by Linda's father, getting an audience is going to be a problem.
Writer: Danny Robins
Director: Frank Stirling
A Unique production for BBC Radio 4.
THU 08:00 Stop Messing About! (b007jx1g)
Series 1, Episode 4
Movie spoof '2002 A Space Oddity' and the tale of Florence & The Plumber in 'Crackerjackanory'.
Starring Kenneth Williams, Hugh Paddick, Joan Sims and announcer, Douglas Smith.
After the unexpected death of Kenneth Horne in 1969, plans for the next series of Round The Horne were axed. Instead - using an old catchphrase of Kenneth Williams as a series title - Kenneth joined Hugh Paddick to continue the comedy tradition and was also reunited with his "Carry On" film co-star Joan Sims.
Written by Johnnie Mortimer, Brian Cooke and Myles Rudge
With the Max Harris Group.
Producer: John Simmonds
First broadcast on BBC Radio 2 in April 1969.
THU 08:30 The Michael Bentine Show (b00k9dbv)
From 22/04/1984
From duelling kings to a Commons washroom attendant, it's the ultimate one-man show, written by the host. From April 1984.
THU 09:00 The Personality Test (b007s27h)
Series 3, Lorraine Kelly
Breakfast TV queen Lorraine Kelly quizzes a panel about herself. With Sue Perkins, Lucy Porter, Robin Ince and Will Smith. From July 2007.
THU 09:30 Taking It up the Octave (b087q4sx)
Episode 3
Should local council cash be spent on Opera Sunderland, or a chemical-flush public convenience? Stars Godfrey James. From June 1997.
THU 10:00 Classic Serial (b00j2j2g)
LG Gibbon - Sunset Song, Episode 1
Gerda Stevenson's dramatisation of the 1932 novel by Lewis Grassic Gibbon, set in north-east Scotland before and during the First World War.
Chris Guthrie is torn between her love of the land and her ambition to become a teacher. As Chris' domineering father struggles with the harshness of the land, her mother's fear of childbirth leads her to despair.
Chris Guthrie ...... Lesely Hart
John Guthrie ...... Liam Brennan
Jean Guthrie ...... Bridget McCann
Will Guthrie ...... Gordon Brandie
Mistress Munro ...... Estrid Barton
Long Rob ...... Matthew Zajac
Chae Strachan ...... Douglas Russell
Kirsty Strachan ...... Shonagh Price
Margot Strachan ...... Sally Reid
Ewan Tavendale ...... Finn Den Hertog
Directed by David Ian Neville.
THU 11:00 Go West (b01rfy5y)
Different Voices
Five stories made in Bristol
4. Different Voices
by Paula Williams
Read by John Telfer
Being invisible is no joke, particularly when it's your birthday and everyone's more interested in your clever older brother. The only person who seems to be interested is Grandpa John, the war hero who's now batty and goes shopping in his pyjamas, and what help is he going to be?
Producer Christine Hall.
THU 11:15 The Lady Detectives (b00cql2n)
The Law and the Lady
From the author of 'The Woman in White' and 'The Moonstone', the sensational, Gothic tale of Valeria Woodville's quest to clear her husband of murdering his first wife.
From the Golden Age of the crime short story, 'The Lady Detectives' is a series of four female sleuths to rival the great Sherlock himself.
Wilkie Collins' mystery stars Abigail Docherty as Valeria Woodville, Richard Conlon as Eustace and Ralph Riach as the Reverend Starkweather.
Dramatised by Roger Danes.
Producer: Patrick Rayner
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2005.
THU 12:00 Stop Messing About! (b007jx1g)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
THU 12:30 The Michael Bentine Show (b00k9dbv)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
THU 13:00 Wimsey (b007k4c3)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
THU 13:30 78 Revolutions (b010t6pb)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 today]
THU 14:00 Joanna Trollope - Other People's Children (b007jn5f)
Episode 4
Bitter Nadine struggles with her unexpected new life as a single mum in a story about adjusting to life with a step-family. Read by Penelope Wilton.
THU 14:15 Promises, Promises: A History of Debt (b0544243)
The Theology of Debt
Anthropologist David Graeber explores the theology of debt.
The Bible is peppered with the language of debt. Sin, forgiveness, reckoning, redemption - all of these words actually derive from the language of ancient finance. What's more, this seems to be true in all the great religious traditions - not just Judaism and Christianity, but Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and Islam - all of their texts are filled with financial metaphors, many of which relate to issues surrounding debt.
We tend to think of these religions as teaching us that we must repay our debts. But the truth is that the financial metaphors in religious texts are oddly ambivalent. The original translation of the Lord's Prayer from 1381 reads "Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors". But do we forgive our debtors? Actually, most of us don't.
David Graeber explains that the great religions talk about the forgiveness of debt more than the repayment of debt and that the deeper teachings they offer is that it is the annihilation of debt which is ultimately divine. To understand why all the religious texts discuss the forgiveness of debt with such frequency, David examines the historical context of when these works were written and reveals that, in the ancient world, the institutionalised forgiveness of debts was commonplace.
Producer: Max O'Brien
A Juniper production for BBC Radio 4.
THU 14:30 15 Minute Drama (b04471qc)
Vikas Swarup - The Seventh Test, The Ring
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".
4) The Ring
A thriller set in India from the author of "Slumdog Millionaire".
Bollywood actress Priya Capoor arrives at the showroom to promote a new range of TV's. But when her diamond ring goes missing, the suspicion falls on Sapna.
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.
THU 14:45 Book of the Week (b01cqwsv)
Wilkie Collins, Episode 4
Written by Peter Ackroyd.
Read by Michael Pennington.
By 1863, Wilkie Collins has found great literary success with works including The Woman in White. And soon another woman enters his life.
Short and oddly built, with a head too big for his body, extremely short-sighted, unable to stay still, dressed in colourful clothes, 'as if playing a certain part in the great general drama of life' Wilkie Collins looked distinctly strange. But he was none the less a charmer, befriended by the great, loved by children, irresistibly attractive to women - and avidly read by generations of readers.
Peter Ackroyd follows his hero, 'the sweetest-tempered of all the Victorian novelists', from his childhood as the son of a well-known artist to his struggling beginnings as writer, his years of fame and his life-long friendship with the other great London chronicler, Charles Dickens. A true Londoner, Collins, like Dickens, was fascinated by the secrets and crimes -- the fraud, blackmail and poisonings - that lay hidden behind the city's respectable facade. He was a fighter, never afraid to point out injustices and shams, or to tackle the establishment head on.
As well as his enduring masterpieces, "The Moonstone" - often called the first true detective novel - and the sensational "Women in White," he produced an intriguing array of lesser known works. But Collins had his own secrets: he never married, but lived for thirty years with the widowed Caroline Graves, and also had a second liaison, as 'Mr and Mrs Dawson', with a younger mistress, Martha Rudd, with whom he had three children. Both women remained devoted as illness and opium-taking took their toll: he died in 1889, in the middle of writing his last novel - Blind Love.
Told with Peter Ackroyd's inimitable verve this is a ravishingly entertaining life of a great story-teller, full of surprises, rich in humour and sympathetic understanding.
Abridged by Libby Spurrier.
Producer: Joanna Green
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.
THU 15:00 Classic Serial (b00j2j2g)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:00 today]
THU 16:00 The Personality Test (b007s27h)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]
THU 16:30 Taking It up the Octave (b087q4sx)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:30 today]
THU 17:00 Mark Tavener - In the Red (b007jzr4)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:00 today]
THU 17:30 The Cold Swedish Winter (b04d1kvg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
THU 18:00 Alex Garland - The Coma (b007jtw7)
Episode 4
Panic kicks in as Carl's dream-world dissolves into a void. Will he ever wake up? Tom Goodman-Hill reads Alex Garland's novel.
THU 18:30 Great Lives (b00b1czw)
Series 15, Paul Robeson
Series of biographical discussions with Matthew Parris.
Anna Ford nominates singer, actor and civil rights activist Paul Robeson. From Shakespeare to Showboat, his success as a stage actor was matched by his popularity as a singer, until he fell foul of the House of Un-American Activities Committee.
THU 19:00 Stop Messing About! (b007jx1g)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
THU 19:30 The Michael Bentine Show (b00k9dbv)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
THU 20:00 Wimsey (b007k4c3)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
THU 20:30 78 Revolutions (b010t6pb)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 today]
THU 21:00 Go West (b01rfy5y)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:00 today]
THU 21:15 The Lady Detectives (b00cql2n)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:15 today]
THU 22:00 The Cold Swedish Winter (b04d1kvg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
THU 22:30 Brian Gulliver's Travels (b01mk5nk)
Series 2, Hermicia
by Bill Dare
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. This week, he 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
This is the second series of this satirical adventure story from Bill Dare. The series has attracted an excellent cast led by Neil Pearson and including, Duncan Wisby, Vicki Pepperdine, Lisa Dillon, Colin Hoult, Toby Longworth, Adrian Scarborough, Dan Tetsell, Barunka O'Shaughnessy, Debra Stephenson, Colin Hoult, Nina Conti, Jo Bobin and Marcus Brigstocke.
For years Bill Dare wanted to create a satire about different worlds exploring Kipling's idea that we travel, 'not just to explore civilizations, but to better understand our own'. But science fiction and space ships never interested him, so he put the idea on ice. Then Brian Gulliver arrived and meant that our hero could be lost in a fictional world without the need for any sci-fi.
Gulliver's Travels is the only book Bill Dare read at university. His father, Peter Jones, narrated a similarly peripatetic radio series: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
THU 22:55 The Comedy Club Interviews (b088tccn)
The best in contemporary comedy. Alex Riley chats to Josh Howie.
THU 23:00 King Cutler (b008s3cc)
Episode 2
Phyllis King and Ivor Cutler present offbeat humorous songs, stories and poems. With Craig Murray-Orr. From January 1990.
THU 23:30 Night Class (b00769ph)
Episode 5
On the day of reckoning for his student potters as an examiner grades their unorthodox work, Johnny Vegas is late. From September 2002.

FRIDAY 06 JANUARY 2017

FRI 00:00 Alex Garland - The Coma (b007jtw7)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:00 on Thursday]
FRI 00:30 Great Lives (b00b1czw)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:30 on Thursday]
FRI 01:00 Wimsey (b007k4c3)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 on Thursday]
FRI 01:30 78 Revolutions (b010t6pb)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 on Thursday]
FRI 02:00 Joanna Trollope - Other People's Children (b007jn5f)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:00 on Thursday]
FRI 02:15 Promises, Promises: A History of Debt (b0544243)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:15 on Thursday]
FRI 02:30 15 Minute Drama (b04471qc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:30 on Thursday]
FRI 02:45 Book of the Week (b01cqwsv)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:45 on Thursday]
FRI 03:00 Classic Serial (b00j2j2g)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:00 on Thursday]
FRI 04:00 The Personality Test (b007s27h)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 on Thursday]
FRI 04:30 Taking It up the Octave (b087q4sx)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:30 on Thursday]
FRI 05:00 Mark Tavener - In the Red (b007jzr4)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:00 on Thursday]
FRI 05:30 The Cold Swedish Winter (b04d1kvg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 on Thursday]
FRI 06:00 Wimsey (b007k4d8)
Busman's Honeymoon, A Chain of Circumstance
With no clear murder suspect, the arrival of the removal men helps Lord Peter Wimsey to spot a vital clue.
Starring Ian Carmichael as Lord Peter Wimsey, Sarah Badel as Lady Wimsey, Peter Jones as Bunter, Rosemary Leach as Miss Twitterton, Pearl Hackney as Mrs Ruddle, Peter Vaughan as Superintendent Kirk, Kenneth Cranham as Frank Crutchley and Gerald Sim as the Rev Goodacre.
British gentleman detective Lord Peter Wimsey features in a number of detective novels and short stories by English crime writer, Dorothy L Sayers. Busman's Honeymoon was first published in 1937.
Classy and sharp-witted, aristocratic amateur sleuth Lord Peter Bredon Wimsey was born in 1890 and educated at Eton and Oxford, before serving in the military during the First World War.
Ian Carmichael appeared as Lord Peter Wimsey for BBC Radio from 1973 to 1983, in addition to the BBC TV adaptations that were broadcast between 1972 and 1975.
Adapted for radio in six episodes by Alistair Beaton.
Producer: Martin Fisher
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 1983.
FRI 06:30 Hey Mr Salinger (b00y1vxk)
For a year in 1996, Joanna Smith Rakoff was in charge of answering JD Salinger's fanmail. Salinger was famously reclusive, wanting nothing to do with his fans and Rakoff was supposed to send out a standard letter. But as she read the letters she found herself pulled into their lives, and secretly, surreptitiously she started answering them.
In this confessional documentary Joanna rediscovers the letters she answered and meets the people who wrote them. She introduces us to the teenager struggling at school, told by her teacher she would get an A for English if she received a reply from Salinger. We hear about the Japanese girl who wrote two letters, one in Japanese and one in English because she thought that Salinger was so smart he would probably know Japanese. Joanna remembers the woman whose daughter loved the short story 'A Perfect Day For Bananafish'. When her daughter died young, her mother wanted to set up a literary magazine and asked if she could call it 'Bananafish'. As Joanna says "if at first I found [them] weird, after a few months I found [them] - well, still weird, but also many other things: sad, sweet, stupid, hopeful, obsessive."
Until she worked at Ober, Rakoff was not a fan of Salinger's, but through reading his correspondence she saw what an incredible connection he made with his readers. She found herself reading Catcher in the Rye and Franny and Zooey with new eyes, seeing it as not the cutesy fiction she remembered, but as something more honest and troubled. It helped her move from being an uptight critic to becoming a writer.
And once, during one of his rare visits to New York, she even met the great man himself. We hear how tempted she was to give him one of the most touching and personal letters she ever received and why she decided not to
Producer: James Crawford
A Loftus production for BBC Radio 4.
FRI 07:00 The Secret Life of Rosewood Avenue (b007jx3p)
Entertaining Edwin
"Whenever you're passing , look me up" you said. "No need to let me know, stay as long as you like..."
An old school chum visits hapless vicar Timothy Carswell, while two teenage tearaways terrorise residents.
Stephen Sheridan's six-part series stars James Grout as the Reverend Timothy Carswell, Margaret Courtenay as Miss Tilling, Jean Heywood as Miss Tapp and Christopher Good as Dr Warlock.
Producer: Lissa Evans.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in March 1991.
FRI 07:30 Pauline Pepys Dowry (b00tbkfx)
Samuel Pepys' diaries make occasional mention of his sister Pauline who has come to visit. She appears not to have been an entirely welcome guest. This comedy is inspired by Pauline, and by many other unwelcome love-lorn house-guests throughout human history...
Meet Pauline Pepys. Her love life is in tatters, her sister-in-law wants her to move out of the spare room, and her best friend is her worst enemy. Oh, and this being London in the 1660s there's a nasty spot of plague about. This episode sees Pauline fall for a handsome executioner, but when he seems to prefer Charlotte she offers to fix Pauline up with a very romantic poet. Meanwhile Elizabeth has arranged for a lavish portrait of herself and Samuel that is not altogether going to plan. And the maid is doing something awful with a dead fish and a goat.
A new historical comedy starring Olivia Colman as hopeless romantic Pauline, Sharon Horgan as her best friend Charlotte the vainest woman in Britain, David Mitchell as a distinctly itchy Samuel Pepys, Katherine Parkinson as Elizabeth his wife, who is very stressed about making the right impression on society; and Tom Hollander as Russell de Bret, a man who in the twenty first century would be a rock star, but has chosen instead the career of public executioner; with Rebekah Staton as the peculiarly fish-obsessed house maid Jane and Dave Lamb as Joth a very angry painter and Wilston, a very sad poet...
Pauline Pepys' Dowry is written by Amy Shindler and Beth Chalmers and produced by Gareth Edwards.
FRI 08:00 Yes Minister (b007k14t)
Series 2, The Whisky Priest
Facing a moral dilemma over the sale of British-made weapons, Jim Hacker tries to shun Sir Humphrey's advice.
Starring Paul Eddington as Jim Hacker, Nigel Hawthorne as Sir Humphrey Appleby, Derek Fowldes as Bernard and Anton Rodgers as Major Saunders.
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.
Adapted for radio by producer Pete Atkin.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 1984.
FRI 08:30 The Goon Show (b007jvj0)
The Pam's Paper Insurance Policy
Moriarty and Grytpype-Thynne set about trying to drown Neddy Seagoon - for money. Stars Spike Milligan. From November 1958.
FRI 09:00 The Museum of Curiosity (b03g9b1f)
Series 6, Frost, Sinha, Aderin-Pocock
John Lloyd and curator Humphrey Ker welcome objects from Paul Sinha, Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock and David Frost. From April 2013.
FRI 09:30 No Commitments (b007jn72)
Series 12, Darling Daughters
Charlotte and Victoria's daughters take centre stage in the sisters' one-upmanship. Stars Angela Thorne. From April 2006.
FRI 10:00 Classic Serial (b00j5tt9)
LG Gibbon - Sunset Song, Episode 2
Gerda Stevenson's dramatisation of the 1932 novel by Lewis Grassic Gibbon, set in north-east Scotland before and during the First World War.
After her father's death, Chris is determined to stay and work the farm alone if need be. Joined by Ewan Tavendale in marriage and on the farm, Chris gives birth to a son. But the outbreak of the First World War brings devastating change to her family, the rural landscape and the community.
Chris Guthrie ...... Lesely Hart
Ewan Tavendale ...... Finn Den Hertog
Chae Strachan ...... Douglas Russell
Long Rob ...... Matthew Zajac
Mistress Munro ...... Estrid Barton
Kirsty Strachan ...... Shonagh Price
Rev Colquohoun ...... Fraser Sivewright
Rev Gibbon ...... Keith Hutcheon
Directed by David Ian Neville.
FRI 11:00 Go West (b01rl1y5)
The Most Beautiful Man in the World
Five stories made in Bristol
5. The Most Beautiful Man in the World
by Katherine Mitchell
A comic monologue recorded at the Bath Literature Festival
Producer Christine Hall.
FRI 11:15 Afternoon Drama (b01p0fpl)
Beryl: A Love Story on Two Wheels
As an ill child, Beryl Burton was told never to exercise. And then she met a young cyclist called Charlie: "The first year I pushed her, the second year I rode with her, and the third year she was at the head of the bunch".
Maxine Peake writes and stars in this true love story of Beryl Burton, a working class mum from Morley in Leeds who, with no financial backing or training, combined farm work with global domination in all areas of cycling competition from the 1950s to 1970s.
Drama is intertwined with contributions from Charlie Burton, now in his 80s, and their cycling champion daughter, Denise Burton Cole. Their perspective provides an intimate, funny and moving portrayal of Beryl, recorded on bikes in various locations around Saddleworth and in Harrogate.
Cast includes residents of Saddleworth as cyclists and Morley Club supporters
Contributors:
Charlie Burton
Denise Burton Cole
Sound Engineer Sound Designer: Eloise Whitmore
Assistant Producer: Cath Ames
Production Assistant: Claire Ennion
Executive Producer: Melanie Harris
Directed and produced by Justine Potter
A Savvy production for BBC Radio 4.
FRI 12:00 Yes Minister (b007k14t)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
FRI 12:30 The Goon Show (b007jvj0)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
FRI 13:00 Wimsey (b007k4d8)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
FRI 13:30 Hey Mr Salinger (b00y1vxk)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 today]
FRI 14:00 Joanna Trollope - Other People's Children (b007jn5v)
Episode 5
Tom plans a third marriage to Elizabeth, but how will they cope with his possessive daughter? Read by Penelope Wilton.
FRI 14:15 Promises, Promises: A History of Debt (b05442ft)
The Classical World
Anthropologist David Graeber examines debt in the Classical period. It was during this age that coinage first emerged as an efficient way of paying soldiers.
The spread of coinage had enormous political and intellectual consequences. It was invented on the fringes of military operations - whether in Greece, India, or China - but was quickly taken up by enterprising kingdoms, some of which gradually gobbled up their neighbours. Eventually, vast empires emerged - the Athenian, Hellenistic, and Roman empires, Magadha, Nanda, the Qin, the Han. Armies are expensive to run and, in the end, we witnessed a cycle of violence and repayment in coinage.
Debt has an important role to play in the story of coinage. While coins were invented to pay soldiers, it was through taxation that they became embedded in the lives of entire populations. Ancient rulers indebted their subjects by demanding taxes which had to be paid in coinage. David reveals that this system of taxation was in fact an ingenious ploy to make subjects feed and provide for the army by creating a universal need for coinage.
Under ancient conditions, keeping say 50,000 men supplied with provisions was an extremely challenging undertaking. By distributing coins to soldiers, which could be exchanged with locals for provisions, ancient rulers co-opted their populations into keeping their armies fed, watered and primed to keep on conquering.
Producer: Max O'Brien
A Juniper production for BBC Radio 4.
FRI 14:30 15 Minute Drama (b04471vk)
Vikas Swarup - The Seventh Test, 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.
FRI 14:45 Book of the Week (b01cqx0f)
Wilkie Collins, Episode 5
Written by Peter Ackroyd.
Read by Michael Pennington.
His first child with Martha Rudd is born, Caroline Graves returns to Gloucester Place and Wilkie Collins' great friend and collaborator, Charles Dickens, dies.
Short and oddly built, with a head too big for his body, extremely short-sighted, unable to stay still, dressed in colourful clothes, 'as if playing a certain part in the great general drama of life' Wilkie Collins looked distinctly strange. But he was none the less a charmer, befriended by the great, loved by children, irresistibly attractive to women - and avidly read by generations of readers.
Peter Ackroyd follows his hero, 'the sweetest-tempered of all the Victorian novelists', from his childhood as the son of a well-known artist to his struggling beginnings as writer, his years of fame and his life-long friendship with the other great London chronicler, Charles Dickens. A true Londoner, Collins, like Dickens, was fascinated by the secrets and crimes -- the fraud, blackmail and poisonings - that lay hidden behind the city's respectable facade. He was a fighter, never afraid to point out injustices and shams, or to tackle the establishment head on.
As well as his enduring masterpieces, "The Moonstone" - often called the first true detective novel - and the sensational "Women in White," he produced an intriguing array of lesser known works. But Collins had his own secrets: he never married, but lived for thirty years with the widowed Caroline Graves, and also had a second liaison, as 'Mr and Mrs Dawson', with a younger mistress, Martha Rudd, with whom he had three children. Both women remained devoted as illness and opium-taking took their toll: he died in 1889, in the middle of writing his last novel - Blind Love.
Told with Peter Ackroyd's inimitable verve this is a ravishingly entertaining life of a great story-teller, full of surprises, rich in humour and sympathetic understanding.
Abridged by Libby Spurrier
Producer: Joanna Green
A Pier production for BBC Radio 4.
FRI 15:00 Classic Serial (b00j5tt9)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:00 today]
FRI 16:00 The Museum of Curiosity (b03g9b1f)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]
FRI 16:30 No Commitments (b007jn72)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:30 today]
FRI 17:00 The Secret Life of Rosewood Avenue (b007jx3p)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:00 today]
FRI 17:30 Pauline Pepys Dowry (b00tbkfx)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
FRI 18:00 Alex Garland - The Coma (b007jtwc)
Episode 5
Fear of never waking up turns to fear of waking up as Carl starts to stir. Tom Goodman-Hill concludes Alex Garland's novel.
FRI 18:30 Soul Music (b014fdbp)
Series 12, Let's Face the Music and Dance
The enduring Irving Berlin classic, Let's Face the Music and Dance is celebrated by those for whom it has a special significance. Written in 1932 as one of the dance numbers for Follow The Fleet, a movie starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, it's since taken on a life of it's own, being recorded by hundreds of artists from Diane Krall to Shirley Bassey, Frank Sinatra to Vera Lynn, Ella Fitzgerald to Matt Munroe.
For Sir John Mortimer's widow, Penny, it conjures up the very essence of her husband, who loved life, romance and dancing - even though he was no Fred Astaire , a fact he always deeply regretted.
Lawrence Bergreen , Berlin's biographer and academic Morris Dickstein explain why this song has such a unique place in popular culture and the cabaret singer and composer, Kit Hesketh Harvey explains why the melody continues to haunt us.
We hear from the bride and groom who decided to dance down the aisle to it after their wedding and the redundant welder for whom the song will be forever associated with the demise of our ship building industry. While one insurance executive recalls how the the song became central to their advertising campaign, bringing success to the firm and also placing Nat King Cole's version back in the charts nearly sixty years after it was written.
Producer: Lucy Lunt.
FRI 19:00 Yes Minister (b007k14t)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
FRI 19:30 The Goon Show (b007jvj0)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
FRI 20:00 Wimsey (b007k4d8)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
FRI 20:30 Hey Mr Salinger (b00y1vxk)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 today]
FRI 21:00 Go West (b01rl1y5)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:00 today]
FRI 21:15 Afternoon Drama (b01p0fpl)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:15 today]
FRI 22:00 The Guns of Adam Riches (b01kbldf)
2011 Edinburgh Comedy Award winner Adam Riches makes his Radio 4 debut with 'The Guns of Adam Riches!' A fast-paced, fully-loaded bandolier of character comedy that brings you such man-weapons as 'Coach Coach', 'MasterMind', 'Daniel Day Lewis', 'The Drifter' and 'Cube-Voice Guy', plus live music and improvisation from whoever happens to be sat on the front row!
Written by Adam Riches
Produced by Simon Mayhew-Archer and Rupert Majendie.
FRI 22:30 Sarah Millican's Support Group (b00qx458)
Series 1, Episode 2
Comedy by Sarah Millican, who plays Sarah, life counsellor and modern-day agony aunt.
Sarah tackles the problems, 'My Mother is behaving like a teenager - she's 50 not 15!' and I'm a sensitive butcher who loves meat jokes and innards but is too nice to find a girl - where am I going wrong?'
Sarah ...... Sarah Millican
Marion ...... Ruth Bratt
Terry ...... Simon Daye
Shirley ...... Janice Connolly
Julie ...... Emma Fryer
David ...... Tim Key.
FRI 22:55 The Comedy Club Interviews (b088jnwk)
The best in contemporary comedy. Arthur Smith is joined in the Comedy Club by Mark Thomas.
FRI 23:00 Armando Iannucci's Charm Offensive (b007yd2k)
Series 3, Episode 5
Armando makes more topical mischief. With guests Russell Howard, Michael McIntyre and Andy Zaltzman. From September 2007.
FRI 23:30 Hamish and Dougal: You'll Have Had Your Tea (b007k1wk)
Series 2, The Monster in the Loch
The elderly Scotsmen have a monstrous encounter in the great outdoors. Stars Barry Cryer, Graeme Garden and Alison Steadman. From March 2004.
FRI 23:45 Self Storage (b01hn1q8)
Dating
Judy fixes Dave up on his first date since his marriage broke up. Stars Reece Shearsmith. From October 2007.