SATURDAY 08 JULY 2017

SAT 00:00 Andrew McGibbon - The Routemasters (b007jnsh)
Wolfie and BeetieHildegard wants to make music, while Bernie finds out who, or what, is driving the bus. Stars Amanda Donohoe and Karl Minns.
SAT 00:30 Soul Music (b03lpfww)
Series 17, Brahms' German RequiemHow Brahms' German Requiem, written as a tribute to his mother and designed to comfort the grieving, has touched and changed peoples lives.
Stuart Perkins describes how the piece arrived at the right time in his life, after the death of his aunt.
Axel Körner, Professor of Modern History at University College London, explains the genesis of the work and how the deaths of Brahms' friends and family contributed to the emotional power of the piece.
Daniel Malis and Danica Buckley recall how the piece enabled them to cope with the trauma of the Boston marathon bombings.
Simon Halsey, Chief Conductor of the Berlin Radio Choir, explores how Brahms' experience as a church musician enabled him to distil hundreds of years of musical history into this dramatic choral work.
For Imani Mosley, the piece helped her through a traumatic time in hospital. Rosemary Sales sought solace in the physical power of Brahms' music after the death of her son. And June Noble recounts how the piece helped her find her voice and make her peace with her parents.
Producer: Melvin Rickarby.
SAT 01:00 15 Minute Drama (b01mk37j)
CJ Sansom - Dissolution, Episode 5C. J. Sansom's bestselling Tudor crime novel, adapted for radio by Colin MacDonald.
Winter, 1537, the South Kent Coast. Lawyer-detective Matthew Shardlake's investigation into the murder of a King's Commissioner is further complicated by the discovery of another suspicious death at Scarnsea Monastery.
Produced and directed by Kirsteen Cameron.
SAT 01:15 Jean Rhys - Wide Sargasso Sea (b00m2dbv)
A New PerilAntoinette and Rochester's honeymoon develops into an intense love affair in Dominica. Read by Adam Godley.
SAT 01:30 Songs for Madame Vasnier (b0194mvs)
On the 150th anniversary of the birth of Claude Debussy, Richard Langham Smith relishes the lyrical riches of Théodore de Banville, Alfred de Musset, Paul Bourget, Théophile Gautier and Paul Verlaine, the poets Debussy chose to express his love for an older, married woman, Marie Blanche Vasnier.
Hearing her sing moved Debussy, then an impressionable young student, to create a treasury of songs specially with her voice in mind. Among the many songs he wrote for Madame Vasnier, is the unpublished "La fille aux cheveux de lin". It was the starting point of Debussy's fascination with setting words to music, an obsession that reached a high point in "Pélleas et Mélisande" some twenty years later. But it's Madame Vasnier Debussy acknowledges as "the only muse to ever inspire musical feelings", and that's he confesses, "only to talk of the musical ones!".
SAT 02:00 Book at Bedtime (b01cks5j)
Deborah Levy - Swimming Home, Episode 5'Life is only worth living because we hope it will get better and we'll all get home safely"
When beautiful Kitty Finch lands in the middle of what seems a conventional holiday set up - two couples, one teenage daughter and a villa in the south of France - no-one quite knows the effect she will have, though at once the ground shifts.
In the fierce heat of July, fissures yawn open, prised apart by Kitty's unsettling presence. Is she benign? What does she want? Is she an admiring fan or a darker foe? And who is keeping secrets, most of all from themselves?
Deborah Levy's first novel in fifteen years has garnered much praise. Witty and acute by turn, its deceptively simple setting belies the fractured relationships and the sense of imminent chaos that threatens all the characters. In today's episode: 'Especially when it rains'.
Abridged by Sally Marmion
Produced by Di Speirs
Directed by Elizabeth Allard
The Reader is Juliet Aubrey.
SAT 02:15 Plants: From Roots to Riches (b04bryyz)
Patterns from Crossed PeasIn 1900 three papers by three botanists, unknown to each other, appeared in the same scientific journal. Each had independently "rediscovered" the rules of inheritance that Gregor Mendel had found four decades earlier in his solitary investigations of pea plants.
Kathy Willis reassesses Mendel's famous pea experiments in the light of his attempts to uncover what happens over several generations when hybrid plants are created. As historian Jim Endersby explains, Mendel's initial results may have stunned him and shown what plant breeders might have suspected for decades, but science now had mathematical laws to create new varieties.
Historian Greg Radick sheds light on how Mendelism, in the years leading up to the First World War, became heavily promoted by Cambridge botanist William Bateson and was put into action by the first Professor of Agricultural Botany, Roland Biffen. His success in creating new wheat hybrids is explained by a unique international assembly of wheat ears from the early 1900s, curated by Mark Nesbitt, Head of Kew's economic botany collection.
Producer Adrian Washbourne.
SAT 02:30 15 Minute Drama (b03jfk1x)
Alexander Pushkin - Eugene Onegin, Episode 5By Alexander Pushkin
Adapted by Duncan Macmillan
Drama based on one of Russia's best loved poems, and the life of the man who wrote it. Pushkin and Onegin have both fought their duels and everyone must now struggle with the consequences.
Directed by Abigail le Fleming
About the adapter
Duncan Macmillan is an award winning writer and director. Former Writer in Residence at Paines
Plough and the Royal Exchange Theatre, he has written extensively for theatre in addition to
working in radio and television.
Duncan is currently writing new plays for the National Theatre, Soho Theatre, Paines
Plough and BBC Radio and is adapting George Orwell's 1984 with director Rob Icke for
Headlong/Nottingham Playhouse.
SAT 02:45 A Voyage to Lundy (b008tzzn)
Episode 5Writer and poet Gwyneth Lewis visits the remote island in the Bristol Channel as she contemplates a change in direction in her life. She considers the satisfaction of adventure close to home.
SAT 03:00 EM Forster - Howard's End (b01091p5)
Episode 2Helen Schlegel is unhappy that her sister Margaret has agreed to marry Henry Wilcox.
Starring John Hurt as the Narrator, Lisa Dillon as Margaret Schlegel, Jill Cardo as Helen Schlegel, Tom Ferguson as Tibby Schlegel, Alexandra Mathie as Aunt Juley, Malcolm Raeburn as Henry Wilcox, Ann Rye as Ruth Wilcox and Joseph Kloska as Charles Wilcox.
EM Forster's classic English novel adapted for radio in two parts by Amanda Dalton.
Produced in Manchester by Susan Roberts.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2009.
SAT 04:00 Who Goes There? (b0075yzs)
Series 4, Episode 3Martin Young hosts the famous people quiz, with team captains Francis Wheen and Fred Housego and guests Vivienne Parry and Jonathan Meades. From November 2000.
SAT 04:30 Nikolai Gogol - Three Ivans, Two Aunts and an Overcoat (b00p2hb2)
The Diary of a MadmanA civil servant's dull existence is transformed when he overhears two dogs talking. With Griff Rhys Jones. From May 2002.
SAT 05:00 Ayres on the Air (b00m6f4m)
Series 3, In the DoghousePam Ayres returns with a new series packed with poetry, anecdotes and sketches.
Poems include Toaster, about Pam's son's dog and its phobia; I'm the Dog Who Didn't Win a Prize, written by Pam after she was asked to be a judge at a competition; and Tippy Tappy Feet, about the things you miss when your best friend goes to the great kennel in the sky.
Pam is joined on stage by actors Geoffrey Whitehead and Felicity Montagu for sketches on what dogs talk to each other about and how a new puppy can cause more excitement in some families than a new baby.
SAT 05:30 The Absolutely Radio Show (b08wmyc7)
Series 2, Episode 2The cast of TV's hugely popular sketch show return for their second series on BBC Radio 4. Pete Baikie, Morwenna Banks, Moray Hunter, Gordon Kennedy and John Sparkes revisit some of their much-loved sketch characters, while also introducing some newcomers to the show.
In 2013, the group that made their name on Channel Four in the 1980s and 90s got back together for Radio 4's Sketchorama: Absolutely Special - which won the BBC Audio Drama Award for Best Live Scripted Comedy. The first series of The Absolutely Radio Show picked up a Celtic Media Award nomination for Best Radio Comedy.
Cast:
Peter Baikie
Morwenna Banks
Moray Hunter
Gordon Kennedy
John Sparkes
Gus Beattie
Gordon Kennedy
Produced by Gordon Kennedy and Gus Beattie.
An Absolutely/Gusman production for BBC Radio 4.
SAT 06:00 JB Priestley - The Linden Tree (b08xgz68)
England, 1947: Rationing and austerity seem to have fostered opportunism, escapism and confrontation within the Linden family.
Professor Linden wants only to continue teaching in a world that no longer seems to share his quiet ideals. His family urge him to retire from the fight, but the Professor is not so easily deterred...
JB Priestley's stage play made its debut in 1947. Adapted for radio by Mollie Greenhalgh.
Starring Geoffrey Banks as Professor Linden, Kathleen Helme as Isabel, Christopher Godwin as Rex Linden, Carole Hayman as Dr Jean Linden, Joanna Wake as Marion de Saint Vaury, Penelope Reynolds as Dinah Linden and David Mahlowe as Alfred Lockhart.
Cellist: Rosalind Gonley
Directed at BBC Manchester by Kay Patrick.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1997.
SAT 07:30 Painting the Clouds with Sunshine (b0076vlh)
Episode 2Jazz musician and broadcaster Humphrey Lyttelton explores the world of British dance band leaders in the 1940s. From November 2005.
SAT 08:00 The Archive Hour (b00chbpn)
The New York '77 BlackoutAn exploration of the blackout on 13 July 1977 that plunged a sweltering and near-bankrupt New York City into chaos as the lights went out at 9.27pm. Music stations switched to rolling news and the sound of store alarms was the prelude to a night of fear and unprecedented lawlessness.
SAT 09:00 Dr John Cooper Clarke: Complete Control (b06p4syp)
Made for 4 Extra. The poet and cultural icon Dr John Cooper Clarke has been given Complete Control of Radio 4 Extra to select three hours of his favourite programmes from the BBC Radio Archives.
This Includes;
Stand-up from Bob Hope, recorded at the London Palladium in 1953
A collection of comedy from the golden age of radio variety with Vic Oliver, Al Read and Jimmy 'Wheel 'em in' Wheeler.
Some audio interference from the pioneering DJ Jack Jackson.
An episode of 'The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole 13 ¾
A creepy reading of Edgar Allan Poe’s ‘The Black Cat’ by James Stewart (yes, that James Stewart)
Vincent Price and Peter Cushing coming face-to-face in ‘The Price Of Fear’
The classic Western ‘The Shootist’, starring Brian Cox and Michelle Fairley
So enjoy three hours of thrills, chills and laughs, all introduced by the man who is in Complete Control, Dr John Cooper Clarke.
SAT 12:00 Vinyl Cafe (b007jzcb)
Dream BunniesStuart Maclean regales a theatre audience in Canada with tales of rabbits who live in the glove compartment.
From the Empire Theatre in Belleville, Ontario.
With John Sheard, Joe Grass, and Harmony Trowbridge.
First broadcast by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation from 1994, the variety show Vinyl Cafe sadly lost its host, author and humourist Stuart McLean, after his death in February 2017.
First broadcast by CBC in 2007.
SAT 13:00 Tales of the City - The Days of Anna Madrigal (b08xh9tt)
Episode 1Omnibus: Anna Madrigal is now 92, but key ghosts in her past are troubling her. Is she prepared to confront them? Stars Kate Harper.
SAT 14:10 Inheritance Tracks (b08xh9xq)
Russell KaneComedian Russell Kane inherits Barry White 'Can't Get Enough of Your Love, Babe' and wants to pass on Einaudi's 'The Waves'.
SAT 14:15 Down Your Way (b08xhb4m)
Sheila Hancock in Workington"To be perfectly honest, I had never even heard of Workington," admits actress Sheila Hancock, but after a visit with the Royal Shakespeare Company, she took the town and its people to her heart.
On her return in 1988, she discovered the community - devastated by closures in the steel industry - was fighting back. She also found time to indulge in Workington's passion for rugby league...
Down Your Way was a schedule staple for decades - starting on the BBC Home Service in 1946 and ending its run on BBC Radio 4 in 1992. Using a variety of hosts, including Richard Dimbleby and Brian Johnston, the programme toured villages, towns and cities across the UK. At the height of the series' success in the 1950s, it was attracting ten million listeners a week.
Producer: John Holmes
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 1988.
SAT 15:00 The Archive Hour (b00chbpn)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
SAT 16:00 JB Priestley - The Linden Tree (b08xgz68)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
SAT 17:30 Painting the Clouds with Sunshine (b0076vlh)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
SAT 18:00 Doctor Who (b08xhbbt)
The Lost Stories: The Song of Megaptera, Episode 1The Sixth Doctor and his companion Peri are taken for eco-warriors by hunters of space whales.
An adventure originally written for the BBC's Doctor Who TV series but never made.
Colin Baker stars as the Sixth Doctor.
With Nicola Bryant as Peri, John Benfield as Captain Greeg, Neville Watchurst as Stennar, John Banks as the Caller, Susan Brown as the Chief Engineer, Toby Longworth as Stafel and Alex Lowe as Axel.
Written by Pat Mills.
Director: John Ainsworth
Producer: David Richardson
Made by Big Finish and reversioned for broadcast by BBC Radio 4 Extra.
SAT 18:50 Doctor Who - The Making of The Song of Megaptera (b08xhbkq)
4 Extra Debut. The cast, writer and director describe how a story originally called 'The Song of the Space Whale' finally came to be recorded.
SAT 19:00 Dr John Cooper Clarke: Complete Control (b06p4syp)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]
SAT 22:00 Saturday Night Fry (b007jt12)
Episode 6Stephen Fry hosts humorous banter and sketches with Hugh Laurie, Jim Broadbent, Emma Thompson and Phyllida Law. From June 1988.
SAT 22:30 John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme (b01l1dl0)
Series 2, Episode 1John Finnemore, the writer and star of Cabin Pressure, regular guest on The Now Show and popper-upper in things like Miranda and Family Guy, records a second series of his hit sketch show.
The first series was described as "sparklingly clever" by The Daily Telegraph and "one of the most consistently funny sketch shows for quite some time" by The Guardian. It featured Winnie the Pooh coming to terms with his abusive relationship with honey, how The Archers sounds to people who don't listen to the Archers and how Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde decided whose turn it was to do the washing up.
This episode doesn't feature any of those things, but it does feature an awkward celestial relationship, surprisingly easy contract negotiations, and a trailer for a film about the only mode of transport that hasn't had a film made about it yet.
John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme is written by and stars John Finnemore. It also features Margaret Cabourn-Smith, Simon Kane, Lawry Lewin and Carrie Quinlan. It is produced by Ed Morrish.
SAT 23:00 The Mark Steel Solution (b007jmsj)
Series 1, All Judges Must Be Ex-ConvictsRadical proposals to improve our lives, with the comedian's legal shake-up. From October 1992.
SAT 23:30 28 Acts in 28 Minutes (b009ly1p)
Series 2, Episode 3John Humphrys gives 28 performers 60 seconds each to entertain. With Phil Cornwell and John Finnemore. From January 2008.

SUNDAY 09 JULY 2017

SUN 00:00 Doctor Who (b08xhbbt)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:00 on Saturday]
SUN 00:50 Doctor Who - The Making of The Song of Megaptera (b08xhbkq)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:50 on Saturday]
SUN 01:00 Tales of the City - The Days of Anna Madrigal (b08xh9tt)
[Repeat of broadcast at 13:00 on Saturday]
SUN 02:10 Inheritance Tracks (b08xh9xq)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:10 on Saturday]
SUN 02:15 Down Your Way (b08xhb4m)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:15 on Saturday]
SUN 03:00 The Archive Hour (b00chbpn)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 on Saturday]
SUN 04:00 JB Priestley - The Linden Tree (b08xgz68)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 on Saturday]
SUN 05:30 Painting the Clouds with Sunshine (b0076vlh)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 on Saturday]
SUN 06:00 Alexander Pushkin - Eugene Onegin: Omnibus (b03jrz8d)
As Pushkin prepares to fight a duel, his wife begs to hear his most famous story. Based on the poem. Stars Geoffrey Streatfeild.
SUN 07:15 Nan Woodhouse (b03j5dh0)
NightingaleYoung maid Sarah poses for a famous 19th-century photographer. But how long can her enchantment last? Read by Elizabeth Conboy.
SUN 07:30 Tom Wrigglesworth's Hang-Ups (b04svfsc)
Series 2, The SeparatistsWhen the lights from a new zebra crossing outside Tom's parent's house causes insomnia in the Wrigglesworth household, Tom's dad is forced to take matters into his own hands and cause a fuss. Not perhaps in the way everyone else would though...
Meanwhile, Tom is down in London preparing himself for a visit from the bailiffs.
SUN 08:00 Educating Archie (b009gc5s)
Archie in AustraliaA rare Australian outing for schoolboy Archie Andrews and his mentor Peter Brough.
Radio ventriloquism recorded in Sydney. With Ronald Chesney, Reg Quartley, Ray Barrett, Betty Parker, June Salter, Wendy Blacklock and Reginald Goldsworthy
Running from 1950-1958, Educating Archie introduced a number of soon-to-be household names to listeners, including Tony Hancock, Benny Hill, Harry Secombe, Dick Emery, Hattie Jacques, Bruce Forsyth and Max Bygraves - all taking a turn in tutoring Archie.
Music by from the ABC Dance Band
Producer: Harry Freeman
From a series made by ABC in Australia and also first broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in September 1957.
SUN 08:30 Whack-O! (b06451cb)
From 25/07/1961Professor Jimmy Edwards' plans to bribe the boys with a sumptuous meal are all washed up. With June Whitfield.
Starting life on BBC TV before transferring to radio, Chiselbury School is run "for the sons of gentlefolk".
Headmaster, Professor James Edwards, M.A. never misses a trick when it comes to exploiting the students and their parents. Sports pitches are given over to growing vegetables, which the boys nurture for their head to sell. Classes never exceed 95 pupils - 50 if private tuition is paid for at five guineas extra. It's only thanks to the efforts of the devoted deputy head, Mr Pettigrew, that the school exists at all.
Written by Frank Muir and Denis Norden and adapted for radio by David Climie.
Producer: Edward Taylor
First broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in July 1961.
SUN 09:00 Big Pig, Little Pig: Omnibus (b08xptmt)
A story of increasing attachment between an author and two pigs in France and the ethics of meat eating. Read by Imogen Stubbs.
SUN 10:10 The Listening Project (b04yk4b2)
Alex and Rolf - Sing Our Own SongFi Glover introduces a conversation about musical roots, getting used to success, and the allure of writing your own songs rather than covering someone else's.
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 learn more about The Listening Project by visiting bbc.co.uk/listeningproject
Producer: Marya Burgess.
SUN 10:15 Desert Island Discs Revisited (b08xpw41)
Islands, Frank Kermode4 Extra Debut. From Handel to Strauss, the influential teacher and literary critic shares his castaway choices with Sue Lawley. From September 1997.
SUN 11:00 Radiolab (b08xpwy2)
Defying OddsRadiolab with stories of foolhardy flipping and derring-dos. Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich explore the world of risk-taking.
Radiolab is a Peabody-award winning show about curiosity. Where sound illuminates ideas, and the boundaries blur between science, philosophy and the human experience.
First broadcast on public radio in the USA.
SUN 12:00 Educating Archie (b009gc5s)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
SUN 12:30 Whack-O! (b06451cb)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
SUN 13:00 Alexander Pushkin - Eugene Onegin: Omnibus (b03jrz8d)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
SUN 14:15 Nan Woodhouse (b03j5dh0)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:15 today]
SUN 14:30 Ray Bradbury - Fahrenheit 451: Omnibus (b08wz6rl)
Episode 1Fireman Guy Montag loves his job. But as his life unravels he begins to question all his beliefs. Read by Alex Jennings.
SUN 15:45 Irish Icons - The Titanic (b01g6ggv)
The triumph and the tragedy of The Titanic are keenly remembered by people in Belfast, where the ship was built.
SUN 16:00 Saturday Drama (b00v11t7)
Jonathan Holloway - The Kane ConspiracyIn 1941 Orson Welles' film Citizen Kane, now regularly voted top in critics' and audience polls, picked up nine Oscar nominations and was already being spoken of as a work of genius. But there were powerful forces lobbying hard against it, not least among them William Randolph Hearst, the media mogul on whom the story is based, and FBI supremo J Edgar Hoover.
As the Oscar nominations are announced, Welles suffers an uncharacteristic attack of anxiety. And not without cause: FBI supremo J.Edgar Hoover has tasked a small-time FBI agent, Special Agent RB Wood, with making sure the film doesn't triumph at the Oscars ceremony. Hearst has banned any mention of the film across his media empire, RKO, the distributor, is looking shaky, and while the movie plays to capacity houses in art-house cinemas, no major theatres or cinema chains will take it. A chance encounter in an elevator leads to a highly charged head-to-head between Hearst and Welles when the two men lay their cards on the table. At the ceremony in February 1941 the film only wins one Oscar, and Welles' reputation in America never recovers.
Only the character of Agent Wood is imagined, although he is based on a documented but shadowy figure mentioned in the FBI archives. And it is Wood who finally confronts Welles with the uncomfortable truth about the film: in hijacking Hearst's life for Citizen Kane, Welles has replaced it with his own.
Orson Welles.........Jeff Harding
J. Edgar Hoover........Toby Jones
Herman Mankiewicz.....John Guerrasio
William Randolph Hearst...Peter Marinker
George Schaefer.......Garrick Hagon
Agent Wood..........Val Jobara
Radio Interviewer.......Paul Mundell
Written by Jonathan Holloway
Producer: Sara Davies.
SUN 17:00 Poetry Extra (b08xq771)
Between the Ears: Crex CrexBBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry with 'Between the Ears: Crex, Crex', featuring a poem to a special bird.
Kathleen Jamie, poet and birder, travels to the Isle of Coll to hear male corncrakes as they "crex crex" their way through the Hebridean summer night. She enlists the help of the birds themselves, the island's RSPB warden Sarah Money and the Coll Drummers.
Producer: Tim Dee
First broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in 2004.
SUN 17:30 Tom Wrigglesworth's Hang-Ups (b04svfsc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
SUN 18:00 Afternoon Drama (b03mfwjs)
Katie Hims - Listening to the Dead, Four Sonsby Katie Hims. It's 1914, and Clara Tully, a Leeds baker's wife and the proud mother of four beautiful boys, knows the war won't be over by Christmas. And she knows a much darker secret besides.
Directed by Jessica Dromgoole.
SUN 18:45 Book at Bedtime (b03d6j3j)
Algernon Blackwood's Ghost Stories, The TransferUncle Frank is coming to visit his young nephew Jamie. But Jamie is a sensitive soul, and his governess has watched a strange obsession growing in him, and an unexplained terror at the forthcoming visit.
Stories abridged by Robin Brooks
Read by Ruth Gemmell
Producer: Clive Brill
A Pacificus production for BBC Radio 4.
SUN 19:00 Radiolab (b08xpwy2)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:00 today]
SUN 20:00 Big Pig, Little Pig: Omnibus (b08xptmt)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]
SUN 21:10 The Listening Project (b04yk4b2)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:10 today]
SUN 21:15 Desert Island Discs Revisited (b08xpw41)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:15 today]
SUN 22:00 Tom Wrigglesworth's Hang-Ups (b04svfsc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
SUN 22:30 The Brig Society (b04fchm4)
Series 2, ReligionUh-oh - Marcus Brigstocke has been put in charge of a thing!
Each week, Marcus finds he's volunteered to be in charge of a big old thing and each week he starts out by thinking "Well, it can't be that difficult, surely?" and ends up with "Oh - turns out it's utterly difficult and complicated. Who knew...?"
This week, glory be, Marcus Brigstocke has decided to form his own religion - based on peace, loving, kindness and probably war.
Among his acolytes and apostates are Rufus Jones (W1A, Holy Flying Circus), William Andrews (Sorry I've Got No Head) and Margaret Cabourn-Smith (Miranda)
The show is a Pozzitive production, and is produced by Marcus's long-standing accomplice, David Tyler who also produces Marcus appearances as the inimitable as Giles Wemmbley Hogg. David's other radio credits include Jeremy Hardy Speaks To The Nation, Cabin Pressure, Thanks A Lot, Milton Jones!, Kevin Eldon Will See You Now, Armando Iannucci's Charm Offensive, The Castle, The 3rd Degree, The 99p Challenge, My First Planet, Radio Active and Bigipedia.
Written by Marcus Brigstocke, Jeremy Salsby, Toby Davies, Nick Doody, Steve Punt and Dan Tetsell.
Produced by David Tyler
A Pozzitive production for BBC Radio 4.
SUN 22:55 The Comedy Club Interviews (b08yg1gq)
Morgan and WestFrom 10pm to midnight, the Comedy Club has two hours of comedy. Plus the Victorian time-travelling magicians Morgan and West have a trick or two up their sleeve for Arthur Smith.
SUN 23:00 Irish Micks and Legends (b01ntgxf)
Series 1, Deirdre of SorrowsAisling Bea and Yasmine Akram become Ais and Yaz and are the very best pals. They are taking their role as Ireland's freshest story-tellers to the British nation very seriously indeed but they haven't had the time to do much research, learn their lines or work out who is doing which parts.
The girls' unconventional way of telling stories involves a concoction of thoroughly inappropriate modern-day metaphors and references to many of the ancient Irish stories.
With a natural knack for both comedy and character voices Yasmine Akram and Aisling Bea will bring you warm, modern re-workings of popular ancient Irish stories.
Today it's Deirdre of Sorrows.
Written and performed by Aisling Bea and Yasmine Akram
Producer: Raymond Lau.
SUN 23:15 Don't Start (b01mwvld)
Series 2, Pillow TalkA potential burglary brings out Frank's inner hero.
What do long term partners really argue about? Sharp new comedy from Frank Skinner returns for a second series. Starring Frank Skinner and Katherine Parkinson.
The first series of Don't Start met with instant critical and audience acclaim:
"That he can deliver such a heavy premise for a series with such a lightness of touch is testament to his skills as a writer and, given that the protagonists are both bookworms, he's also permitted to use a flourish of fine words that would be lost in his stand-up routines" - Jane Anderson, Radio Times.
"Writing and starring in the four-parter Don't Start (Radio 4) Frank Skinner gives full rein to his sharp but splenetic comedy. He and his co-star Katherine Parkinson play a bickering couple exchanging acerbic ripostes in a cruelly precise dissection of a relationship" - Daily Mail.
"a lesson in relationship ping-pong".. - Miranda Sawyer, The Observer.
Series 2 follows hard on its heels. Well observed, clever and funny, Don't Start is a scripted comedy with a deceptively simple premise - an argument. Each week, our couple fall out over another apparently trivial flashpoint - the Krankies, toenail trimming and semantics. Each week, the stakes mount as Neil and Kim battle with words. But these are no ordinary arguments. The two outdo each other with increasingly absurd images, unexpected literary references (the Old Testament, Jack Spratt and the first Mrs Rochester, to name a few) and razor sharp analysis of their beloved's weaknesses. Underneath the cutting wit, however, there is an unmistakable tenderness.
Frank says:
"Having established, in the first series, that Neil and Kim are a childless academic couple who, during their numerous arguments, luxuriate in their own, and each other's, learning and wit, I've tried, in the second series, to dig a little deeper into their relationship. Love and affection, occasionally splutter into view, like a Higgs boson in a big tunnel-thing, but can such emotions ever prevail in a relationship where the couple prefers to wear their brains, rather than their hearts, on their sleeves? Is that too much offal imagery?"
Directed and Produced by Polly Thomas
Executive Producer: Jon Thoday
An Avalon Production for BBC Radio 4.
SUN 23:30 I Think I've Got a Problem (b007wp39)
Series 1, Episode 1Tom Caine wakes up and hears music everywhere, but it's not the food of love. Stars Suggs and Bob Monkhouse. From July 2001.

MONDAY 10 JULY 2017

MON 00:00 Afternoon Drama (b03mfwjs)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:00 on Sunday]
MON 00:45 Book at Bedtime (b03d6j3j)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:45 on Sunday]
MON 01:00 Alexander Pushkin - Eugene Onegin: Omnibus (b03jrz8d)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 on Sunday]
MON 02:15 Nan Woodhouse (b03j5dh0)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:15 on Sunday]
MON 02:30 Ray Bradbury - Fahrenheit 451: Omnibus (b08wz6rl)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:30 on Sunday]
MON 03:45 Irish Icons - The Titanic (b01g6ggv)
[Repeat of broadcast at 15:45 on Sunday]
MON 04:00 Saturday Drama (b00v11t7)
[Repeat of broadcast at 16:00 on Sunday]
MON 05:00 Poetry Extra (b08xq771)
[Repeat of broadcast at 17:00 on Sunday]
MON 05:30 Tom Wrigglesworth's Hang-Ups (b04svfsc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 on Sunday]
MON 06:00 15 Minute Drama (b01mk37x)
CJ Sansom - Dissolution, Episode 6C. J. Sansom's bestselling Tudor crime novel, adapted for radio by Colin MacDonald.
Winter, 1537, the South Kent Coast. Lawyer-detective Matthew Shardlake interrogates Brother Jerome, whose hatred for the murdered King's Commissioner, has marked him out as a prime suspect.
Produced and directed by Kirsteen Cameron.
MON 06:15 Jean Rhys - Wide Sargasso Sea (b00m52xm)
Episode 6Antoinette and Rochester's intense love affair on the beguiling Caribbean island of Dominica is threatened by rumour and betrayal...
Jean Rhys's most famous novel read by Adjoa Andoh and Adam Godley - tracing the early life of the first Mrs Rochester from Jane Eyre.
Abridged by Margaret Busby
Producer: Claire Grove
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2004.
MON 06:30 Peter Bogdanovich's Saturday Morning Pictures (b007zzjx)
Episode 1The golden age of Hollywood, before the 1960s dawned.
American actor, author and film director Peter Bogdanovich shares his views of the movie industry in Hollywood, using his own archive of recordings. Featuring James Stewart, John Ford, Howard Hawks and Alfred Hitchcock in conversation and Cybill Shepherd reveals what it was like to have Orson Welles as a house guest.
Producer Penny Vine
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2007.
MON 07:00 On the Rocks (b03kvby1)
Series 1, Moviesby Christopher William Hill. It's 1937 on the remote Scilly Island of St. Martin's, where the islanders are resisting the attempts of the Penzance GPO man to modernise the post office - around which their world revolves.
Episode 3: Movies. Morwenna is bored of island life.
Directed by Mary Peate.
Sound by Jenni Burnett, Anne Bunting and Caleb Knightley
Production Co-ordinator, Jessica Brown.
MON 07:30 I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue (b08wn9md)
Series 67, Episode 2The 67th series of Radio 4's multi award-winning 'antidote to panel games' promises more homespun wireless entertainment for the young at heart. This week the programme pays a return visit to the Yvonne Arnaud Theatre in Guildford where regulars Barry Cryer and Tim Brooke-Taylor are once again joined on the panel Andy Hamilton and Jo Brand, with Jack Dee in the chair. At the piano - Colin Sell. Producer - Jon Naismith. It is a BBC Studios production.
MON 08:00 The Burkiss Way (b007jsl5)
Series 5, Write Extremely Long Programme Titles the Burkiss WayIt's time to meet the Muppets with President Nixon.
Starring Fred Harris, Jo Kendall, Nigel Rees and Chris Emmett.
Cult sketch comedy series which originally ran from 1976 to 1980.
Scripted by David Renwick and Andrew Marshall.
Producer: David Hatch
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 1980.
MON 08:30 Dad's Army (b007jntl)
Series 2, Getting the BirdLance Corporal Jones is short of meat at his butcher's shop, so Private Walker arranges a special off-ration supply.
Starring Arthur Lowe as Captain Mainwaring, John Le Mesurier as Sergeant Wilson, Clive Dunn as Corporal Jones, John Laurie as Private Frazer, Ian Lavender as Private Pike, Arnold Ridley as Private Godfrey, Larry Martyn as Private Walker and Frank Williams as the Vicar.
Adapted for radio from Jimmy Perry and David Croft's TV scripts by Harold Snoad and Michael Knowles.
Producer: John Dyas
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in May 1975.
MON 09:00 The Write Stuff (b01bbb6d)
Series 15, Gustave FlaubertAuthor of the Week is Gustave Flaubert - French modernist novelist and firebrand, who created perhaps the best novel of all time in the form of "Madame Bovary".
Team captains Sebastian Faulks and John Walsh are joined by comedy writer and author of "May Contain Nuts", John O'Farrell, and literary critic and Guardian journalist, Alex Clark to answer questions about the great Frenchman's life and work.
For the finale of the show, the teams are asked to imagine a 2012 update of Flaubert's "Dictionary of Received Ideas".
MON 09:30 North East of Eden (b01flnpj)
Episode 2As Marcia adjusts to the Paradise Island diet, a ministry man snoops about. Stars Rebecca Front and Joan Sims. From June 1997.
MON 10:00 Virginia Woolf - The Waves (b01130n9)
Episode 1Louis, Bernard, Neville, Jinny, Susan and Rhoda look back on childhood and their first forays into adulthood.
One of Virginia Woolf's most original titles, The Waves charts the lives of six friends from early childhood through to middle age.
Dramatised and directed in two parts by one of the UK's most original film makers, Terence Davies.
With Janet Suzman as the Narrator, Jon Cartwright as Bernard, Geraldine James as Susan, Anna Massey as Rhoda, Peter Guinness as Neville, Jane Lapotaire as Jinny and Don Warrington as Louis.
Producer: Polly Thomas
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2007.
MON 11:00 Short Works: The World of Somerset Maugham (b08xr1n3)
Mr Know-AllMax Kelada claims to know everything, but will a string of pearls prove his undoing? A bet is placed to see if he knows their real value. But he is not a man who is easily fooled.
Interviewed in 1933, Maugham said "It has always seemed to me that literature can only find its fullest and freest expression in the essay or short story." He wrote more than 100 stories, at least 14 of which he burned on one of his "bonfire nights", after Winston Churchill warned that they contravened the Official Secrets Act. Of the stories that do survive, he said "some of them deal with circumstances and places to which the passage of time and the growth of civilisation will give a romantic glamour....."
What we plan to broadcast over the next year are twenty five of Maugham's best stories with tales from home and abroad. Tales of intrigue from far flung colonial outposts and tales of passion from quintessentially British hearths.
Maugham writes perfect vignettes - snapshots of human life in all its diversity - captured at a moment of crisis or revelation.
Abridged by Eileen Horne
Read by Daniel Weyman
Produced by Clive Brill.
A Brill Production for BBC Radio 4 Extra.
MON 11:15 Afternoon Drama (b01ljgv2)
Kenneth Emson - Eight Hundred and Thirty Seven Point NineConor left Ireland at eighteen. He's lived in England ever since, much to the annoyance of his brother Gareth who still lives back in Newry. It's been a year since Gareth and Conor's younger sister died. Gareth's been talking about doing something to raise some money for a cancer charity in her honour for most of that year. But that's just what Gareth does - talk.
So when he turns up on Conor's doorstep and tells him he is going to cycle from Land's End to John O'Groats and he needs his brother driving behind him to carry his stuff, he doesn't believe him at first. But as the two brothers set off on the journey with only the AA route finder to guide them the eight hundred and thirty seven point nine miles, Conor realises that this time his brother might not be just talking.
A story of family, endurance and the power of loss. As the two brothers, devoid of a valid driving licence, any real cash or actual planning, make the journey across the country they are forced to confront their own relationship and the times they have missed together as they have grown up apart.
Kenneth Emson is a first time writer for radio. He won the Old Vic US/UK Exchange in 2009 for his play Sonderkommando, won the Adopt a Playwright Award in 2010, and took part in the Royal Court Supergroup attachment where he developed his new play White.
Written by Kenneth Emson
Producer: Clive Brill
A Pacificus Production for BBC Radio 4.
MON 12:00 The Burkiss Way (b007jsl5)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
MON 12:30 Dad's Army (b007jntl)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
MON 13:00 15 Minute Drama (b01mk37x)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
MON 13:15 Jean Rhys - Wide Sargasso Sea (b00m52xm)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:15 today]
MON 13:30 Peter Bogdanovich's Saturday Morning Pictures (b007zzjx)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 today]
MON 14:00 Book at Bedtime (b01n6263)
Summer Lies, The Night in Baden-Baden, Part 1Bill Nighy reads from the new collection of short fiction by the author of The Reader, Bernhard Schlink.
He begins with a three-part story called The Night in Baden-Baden. An author goes to the first night of his first play, which is being performed in Baden-Baden. To celebrate the occasion he invites Therese to go with him. But Therese is not his girlfriend.
Abridged and produced by Jane Marshall
A Jane Marshall production for BBC Radio 4.
MON 14:15 Plants: From Roots to Riches (b04cb9gw)
Towards the LightThe Nobel prize for Chemistry was awarded to German scientist Richard Willstatter in 1915 for his analysis of the green plant pigment chlorophyll. It marked a significant moment in the long history of piecing together the many elements that contribute to photosynthesis - the process by which plants draw in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and together with light and water can generate their own glucose and release oxygen back into the air. The limits of this process were now clear
Kathy Willis hears from historian Jim Endersby about defining moments in photosynthesis' long history and from Kew's Head of Conservation Biotechnology about how artificially elevating levels of carbon dioxide in the air,a technique long developed by horticulturists to produce bigger fruit and vegetable crops, is now having dramatic effects on successful reintroduction of cultivated endangered plants back into the wild.
And as scientists understand the different methods that plants use to photosynthesise, Kathy Willis hears from Oxford plant scientist Jane Langdale who's part of a network of international scientists who are attempting to mend a fundamental flaw in the process of photosynthesis which could improve future rice yields by 50%
Producer Adrian Washbourne.
MON 14:30 15 Minute Drama (b02m7fzc)
The Dogs and the Wolves, Episode 1The Dogs and The Wolves Episode 1/5
by Irene Nemirovsky, translated by Sandra Smith
Dramatised by Ellen Dryden
Ada Sinner grows up during the Jewish pogroms in the Ukraine in the early 20c. When her Aunt Raisia and cousins come to live with her and her father, she feels more alone than ever. But then Ada discovers another cousin, the rich and distant, Harry Sinner, and a life long passion and love for Harry begins.
FURTHER INFO:
The French title - Entre chien et loup, meaning twilight, the time when the light is too dim to distinguish a dog from a wolf. This is a novel about family, about fate, about the power of love and about money. Of the banking crash that precipitates her novel's final tragedy, Némirovsky writes with eerie resonance. This was Némirovsky's last published novel.
MON 14:45 Book of the Week (b01kjqzn)
Burying the Typewriter, Episode 1On March 10th, 1983 when her mother was away from home, Carmen Bugan's father Ion put on his best suit and drove his Dacia into Bucharest to display placards and distribute leaflets, demanding freedom from oppression. It was a display of defiance that would change forever his life and the life of his family.
Burying The Typewriter is Carmen Bugan's memoir of growing up in Romania in the 1970s and 1980s when the country was governed by Ceausescu, and his network of agents and informers, the Securitate, exerted a malign influence in every sphere of society.
Carmen Bugan was educated at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) and Balliol College, Oxford, where she was awarded a doctorate. Her first book of poetry, Crossing The Carpathians, was published by Oxford Poets/Carcanet in 2004.
"A beautiful, vivid memoir..."
The Guardian
"It is the more moving and powerful for being so quiet and thoughtful..."
The Independent
"A warm and humane work..."
The Observer
Reader: Anamaria Marinca
(BAFTA award winner for 'Sex Traffic' 2005)
Abridged by Pete Nichols
Produced by Karen Rose
A Sweet Talk Production for BBC Radio 4.
MON 15:00 Virginia Woolf - The Waves (b01130n9)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:00 today]
MON 16:00 The Write Stuff (b01bbb6d)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]
MON 16:30 North East of Eden (b01flnpj)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:30 today]
MON 17:00 On the Rocks (b03kvby1)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:00 today]
MON 17:30 I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue (b08wn9md)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
MON 18:00 Paradise Lost in Cyberspace (b007jpdb)
Episode 1In 22nd-century Britain, the collapse of the pensions system means compulsory euthanasia for all 70-year-olds. But a clerical error sparks implications for George... Smith...
Colin Swash's dystopian comedy stars Stephen Moore as George, Patsy Byrne as Doris, Geoffrey McGivern as O'Connell and Lorelei King as Andrea Sunbeam. Other parts by Melanie Hudson, Christopher Douglas and Lewis MacLeod.
Producer: Richard Wilson.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1998.
MON 18:30 A Good Read (b0076lf6)
Stuart Maconie & Rebecca FrontSue MacGregor and her guests - broadcaster Stuart Maconie and actress Rebecca Front - discuss favourite books by Dirk Bogarde, Richmal Crompton and Anita Loos. From 2004.
A Short Walk From Harrods, by Dick Bogarde
Publisher: Penguin
William at War, by Richmal Crompton
Publisher: Macmillan
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, by Anita Loos
Publisher: Penguin.
MON 19:00 The Burkiss Way (b007jsl5)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
MON 19:30 Dad's Army (b007jntl)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
MON 20:00 15 Minute Drama (b01mk37x)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
MON 20:15 Jean Rhys - Wide Sargasso Sea (b00m52xm)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:15 today]
MON 20:30 Peter Bogdanovich's Saturday Morning Pictures (b007zzjx)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 today]
MON 21:00 Short Works: The World of Somerset Maugham (b08xr1n3)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:00 today]
MON 21:15 Afternoon Drama (b01ljgv2)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:15 today]
MON 22:00 I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue (b08wn9md)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
MON 22:30 The Consultants (b060002m)
Series 4, Episode 2Award-winning comedy from Justin 'Lofty' Edwards, Neil 'Professor' Edmond and James 'Shortstop' Rawling. From October 2005.
MON 23:00 Dead Ringers (b08wr9gg)
Series 18, 07/07/2017Recorded the day before transmission, the satirical sketch show remains as sharp and topical as ever. Impressions and caricatures are the charming couriers of explosively satirical truth-bombs.
The series is written by Private Eye writers Tom Jamieson and Nev Fountain, together with Tom Coles, Ed Amsden, Sarah Campbell, Laurence Howarth, James Bugg, Laura Major, Max Davis, Jack Bernhardt and others.
The series stars Jon Culshaw, Jan Ravens, Lewis MacLeod, Deborah Stephenson and Duncan Wisbey.
A BBC Studios Production.
MON 23:30 A Look Back at the Future (b01rszvs)
2021Recorded in July 1994, Brian Perkins, Kate Robbins and Tony Hawks find helium in the air and 'Casablanca: The Sound Man's Cut'.

TUESDAY 11 JULY 2017

TUE 00:00 Paradise Lost in Cyberspace (b007jpdb)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:00 on Monday]
TUE 00:30 A Good Read (b0076lf6)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:30 on Monday]
TUE 01:00 15 Minute Drama (b01mk37x)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 on Monday]
TUE 01:15 Jean Rhys - Wide Sargasso Sea (b00m52xm)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:15 on Monday]
TUE 01:30 Peter Bogdanovich's Saturday Morning Pictures (b007zzjx)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 on Monday]
TUE 02:00 Book at Bedtime (b01n6263)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:00 on Monday]
TUE 02:15 Plants: From Roots to Riches (b04cb9gw)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:15 on Monday]
TUE 02:30 15 Minute Drama (b02m7fzc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:30 on Monday]
TUE 02:45 Book of the Week (b01kjqzn)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:45 on Monday]
TUE 03:00 Virginia Woolf - The Waves (b01130n9)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:00 on Monday]
TUE 04:00 The Write Stuff (b01bbb6d)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 on Monday]
TUE 04:30 North East of Eden (b01flnpj)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:30 on Monday]
TUE 05:00 On the Rocks (b03kvby1)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:00 on Monday]
TUE 05:30 I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue (b08wn9md)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 on Monday]
TUE 06:00 15 Minute Drama (b01mk38h)
CJ Sansom - Dissolution, Episode 7C. J. Sansom's bestselling Tudor crime novel, adapted for radio by Colin MacDonald.
Winter, 1537, the South Kent Coast. The search for a murder weapon has led to the discovery of a third body. When the victim is identified, Shardlake realises that the case is even more complicated than he had realised.
Produced and directed by Kirsteen Cameron.
TUE 06:15 Jean Rhys - Wide Sargasso Sea (b00m5711)
Episode 7Antoinette seeks advice, as malicious gossip puts a strain on her marriage to Rochester. Jane Eyre prequel read by Adjoa Andoh.
TUE 06:30 Peter Bogdanovich's Saturday Morning Pictures (b0080lss)
Episode 2The Last Picture Show placed Peter Bogdanovich in the vanguard of what was dubbed New Hollywood.
The director and historian looks at the changes in Hollywood since his arrival there in 1961 - from the rise of independent film makers to the influence of television.
Producer Penny Vine
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2007.
TUE 07:00 Lucky Heather (b0075smn)
High Noon16 years ago, Heather's best friend Dawn ran off with Heather's man Joe. Now Dawn has the cheek to ask Heather to check if Joe is having an affair!
Just this side of nosey, Heather is western movie-mad. She's also the Sherlock Holmes of the rundown Sutter Estate.
Sue Teddern's six-part comedy series star Lindsey Coulson as Heather. (Carol Jackson in BBC TV's EastEnders until 2015)
With Tessa Peake-Jones as Dawn, Dearbhla Molloy as Maev, Abigail Hart as Natalie, Ben Crowe as Ryan, Gavin Muir as Joe, Gerard McDermott as Lou and David Holt as the Waiter.
Director: David Hunter
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in March 2000.
TUE 07:30 Meet David Sedaris (b08wp5cq)
Series 6, 04/07/2017The globetrotting, trash-picking, aisle-rolling storyteller is back with more words of wit and wisdom. He opens this series with a new story fresh from the pages of The New Yorker, Untamed, and extracts from his book Theft By Finding, a compilation of diary entries from 1977-2002.
With sardonic wit and incisive social critiques, David Sedaris has become one of America's pre-eminent humour writers. The great skill with which he slices through cultural euphemisms and political correctness proves that he is a master of satire and one of the most observant writers addressing the human condition today.
David Sedaris's first book, Barrel Fever (1994), which included The SantaLand Diaries. was a critical and commercial success, as were his follow-up efforts, Naked (1997), Holidays on Ice (1997) and Me Talk Pretty One Day (2000). He became known for his bitingly funny recollections of his youth, family life and travels, making semi-celebrities out of his parents and siblings.
David Sedaris has been nominated for three Grammy Awards for Best Spoken Word and Best Comedy Album. A feature film adaptation of his story C.O.G. was released after a premier at the Sundance Film Festival (2013). He has been a contributor to BBC Radio 4 since 1996.
Producer: Steve Doherty
A Giddy Goat production for BBC Radio 4.
TUE 08:00 Steptoe and Son (b007k4gh)
Series 6, And So to BedHarold hopes a brand new bed will impress his girlfriends.
Starring Wilfrid Brambell as Albert and Harry H Corbett as Harold. With Norma Ronald and Michael Burlington.
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.
Written for TV and adapted for radio by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson.
Produced by Bobby Jaye
First broadcast on the BBC Radio 2 in March 1976.
TUE 08:30 The Men From the Ministry (b00zvcml)
The Moving TargetThe bumbling bureaucrats take charge of Britain's first space launch.
A weekly tribute to all those who work in government departments.
Stars Richard Murdoch and Deryck Guyler. With Norma Ronald, John Graham and Ronald Baddiley.
Written by Edward Taylor and John Graham.
'The Men from the Ministry' ran for 14 series between 1962 and 1977. Deryck Guyler replaced Wilfrid Hyde-White from 1966. Sadly many episodes didn't survive in the archive, however the BBC's Transcription Service re-recorded 14 shows in 1980 - never broadcast in the UK, until the arrival of BBC Radio 4 Extra.
Producer: Edward Taylor
First broadcast on the BBC Radio 4 in July 1970.
TUE 09:00 Dead Ringers (b07j7nvf)
Series 16, Episode 4It's out with Farage, Gove, Boris, Hodgson, Chris Evans and David Cameron. And in with the new: Andrea Leadsom?
TUE 09:30 Getting Nowhere Fast (b008jdf4)
Series 2, Episode 4Pamela has had enough of men, including Merv, so she joins a women's group. Stars Mervyn Stutter. From May 2003.
TUE 10:00 Virginia Woolf - The Waves (b01137gm)
Episode 2As the life-long friends each try to come to terms with Percival's death, more secrets are uncovered. Stars Geraldine James.
TUE 11:00 Short Works: The World of Somerset Maugham (b08y32qz)
Neil MacadamMacadam works in the museum at Kuala Solor and despite his best intentions attracts the earnest attentions of the curator's Russian wife.
Interviewed in 1933, Maugham said "It has always seemed to me that literature can only find its fullest and freest expression in the essay or short story." He wrote more than 100 stories, at least 14 of which he burned on one of his "bonfire nights", after Winston Churchill warned that they contravened the Official Secrets Act. Of the stories that do survive, he said "some of them deal with circumstances and places to which the passage of time and the growth of civilisation will give a romantic glamour....."
What we plan to broadcast over the next year are twenty five of Maugham's best stories with tales from home and abroad. Tales of intrigue from far flung colonial outposts and tales of passion from quintessentially British hearths.
Maugham writes perfect vignettes - snapshots of human life in all its diversity - captured at a moment of crisis or revelation.
Read by Lucy Robinson
Abridged by Elaine Bedell
Produced by Clive Brill
A Brill Production for BBC Radio 4 Extra.
TUE 11:15 Afternoon Drama (b01mx2sy)
Colin Hough - Hard Boiled Eggs and Nutsby Colin Hough.
Glasgow 1906. Theatre manager Arthur Jefferson is training his sixteen year old son in all aspects of front-of-house. But young Stanley hankers for a life on the stage. His father, a former actor, knows of the perils and is vehemently against his son following in his footsteps. The boy has an ally, however, in his mother Madge. Stanley secretly secures a spot at rival theatre, the Panopticon. His first professional job is not an immediate success and the notoriously rough crowd are initially hostile towards the boy. What he doesn't know is that his father is in the front row and by the time he exits the stage, the career of comedy legend Stan Laurel has been born.
Stan's song was composed by Eoin Millar and the pianist was David McGuinness
Producer/Director ..... Gaynor Macfarlane.
TUE 12:00 Steptoe and Son (b007k4gh)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
TUE 12:30 The Men From the Ministry (b00zvcml)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
TUE 13:00 15 Minute Drama (b01mk38h)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
TUE 13:15 Jean Rhys - Wide Sargasso Sea (b00m5711)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:15 today]
TUE 13:30 Peter Bogdanovich's Saturday Morning Pictures (b0080lss)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 today]
TUE 14:00 Book at Bedtime (b01n7h2w)
Summer Lies, The Night in Baden-Baden, Part 2A playwright has taken an old friend to the opening night of his first play but, when his girlfriend, finds out she isn't pleased. The more he claims the date was innocent, the more her jealousy escalates and he reflects that it is just this sort of jealousy that prompted his deception in the first place.
Bill Nighy reads from Bernhard Schlink's collection of short fiction..
Abridged and produced by Jane Marshall
A Jane Marshall production for BBC Radio 4.
TUE 14:15 Plants: From Roots to Riches (b04cc1wy)
Multiple GenesIn 1903 a cluster of evening primrose in an abandoned potato field outside the Dutch town of Hilversum caught the eye of German botanist Hugo de Vries. Its huge blooms and large leaves appeared to suggest the sudden development of a new species. Around the same time in Kew Gardens a mysterious primula hybrid appeared. The new discipline of plant genetics soon revealed that this curious trick was being driven by multiplication of chromosomes inside the plant cell nucleus.
Professor Kathy Willis examines this phenomenon - known as polyploidy ( "multiple forms") - and how insights into this peculiarity can contribute to the evolutionary success of plants. It may also hold the answer to one of the botanical world's greatest mysteries - why so soon after appearing in the fossil record did the flowering plants suddenly explode into the bewildering range of species we see today.
With contributions from historian Jim Endersby, Keeper of Kew's Jodrell Lab Mark Chase, and Jodrell Laboratory geneticist Illia Leitch.
Producer Adrian Washbourne.
TUE 14:30 15 Minute Drama (b02mqmq6)
The Dogs and the Wolves, Episode 2The Dogs And The Wolves ep2/5 by Irene Nemirovsky, translated by Sandra Smith
dramatised by Ellen Dryden
Early 20c. We travel from the Jewish Pogroms of the Ukraine to Paris. Ada secretly loves a distant rich cousin, Harry Sinner. When both families move to Paris she doesn't catch sight of him again until several years later when she's a young woman. He's moving in elite French company whilst Ada is a poor seamstress. After a terrible row with her cruel Aunt Raissa, Ada runs away. Ben, Raissa's son, who is hard and cunning but loves Ada, offers her a solution.
TUE 14:45 Book of the Week (b01kq2l9)
Burying the Typewriter, Episode 2Shortages at her father's shop show Carmen a different side to the villagers. At home, her father excites the children by bringing the family a typewriter.
Burying The Typewriter is Carmen Bugan's memoir of growing up in Romania in the 1970s and 1980s when the country was governed by Ceausescu, and his network of agents and informers, the Securitate, exerted a malign influence in every sphere of society.
Carmen Bugan was educated at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) and Balliol College, Oxford, where she was awarded a doctorate. Her first book of poetry, Crossing The Carpathians, was published by Oxford Poets/Carcanet in 2004.
"A beautiful, vivid memoir..."
The Guardian
"It is the more moving and powerful for being so quiet and thoughtful..."
The Independent
"A warm and humane work..."
The Observer
Reader: Anamaria Marinca
(BAFTA award winner for 'Sex Traffic' 2005)
Abridged by Pete Nichols
Produced by Karen Rose
A Sweet Talk Production for BBC Radio 4.
TUE 15:00 Virginia Woolf - The Waves (b01137gm)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:00 today]
TUE 16:00 Whispers (b007k2kg)
Series 1, Episode 1Gyles Brandreth chairs the scandals quiz with Anthony Holden, Stella Duffy, Jenny Colgan and Rosie Millard. From October 2003.
TUE 16:30 The Six Mothers-in-Law of Henry VIII (b0076jd8)
Episode 6The King acquires a sixth wife, Catherine Parr - now thrice-married - and a near-professional mother-in-law.
An unreliable history, created and written in six parts by Barry Grossman.
Starring Jonathan Coy as Henry VIII, Milton Jones as Thomas Cromwell, Alfred Burke as the Chronicler, Rachel Atkins as Catherine Parr and Sally Grace as Mother. Music by Jim Parker.
Producer: John Fawcett Wilson
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2003.
TUE 17:00 Lucky Heather (b0075smn)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:00 today]
TUE 17:30 Meet David Sedaris (b08wp5cq)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
TUE 18:00 Paradise Lost in Cyberspace (b007jpdq)
Episode 2Lucky old George Smith - it's not everyone who has their own compulsory euthanasia broadcast on national TV at the age of 69.
Colin Swash's dystopian comedy stars Stephen Moore as George, Patsy Byrne as Doris, Geoffrey McGivern as O'Connell and Lorelei King as Andrea Sunbeam. Other parts by Melanie Hudson, Christopher Douglas, Lewis MacLeod and Peter Serafinowicz.
Producer: Richard Wilson.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1998.
TUE 18:30 Sounds Natural (b08xr5jc)
Andrew SachsFawlty Towers actor Andrew Sachs shares his life-long love of wildlife with Derek Jones,
Gibbons and White Tigers are among his choice of recordings from the BBC Sound Archives.
Produced in Bristol by John Burton.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1980.
TUE 19:00 Steptoe and Son (b007k4gh)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
TUE 19:30 The Men From the Ministry (b00zvcml)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
TUE 20:00 15 Minute Drama (b01mk38h)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
TUE 20:15 Jean Rhys - Wide Sargasso Sea (b00m5711)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:15 today]
TUE 20:30 Peter Bogdanovich's Saturday Morning Pictures (b0080lss)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 today]
TUE 21:00 Short Works: The World of Somerset Maugham (b08y32qz)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:00 today]
TUE 21:15 Afternoon Drama (b01mx2sy)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:15 today]
TUE 22:00 Meet David Sedaris (b08wp5cq)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
TUE 22:30 The Maltby Collection (b00mbbkh)
Series 3, Episode 2A hard decision gets harder thanks to 'favours' being offered. Starring Geoffrey Palmer and Julian Rhind-Tutt. From August 2009.
TUE 23:00 As Told to Craig Brown (b00vhf5y)
Craig Brown's Lost Diaries, July and AugustJuly & August. School's out for Barack Obama, Frank McCourt and Emma Thompson.
Satirist Craig Brown dips into the private lives of public figures from the 1960s to the present day.
Voiced by Jan Ravens, Alistair McGowan, Lewis McLeod, Ewan Bailey, Margaret Cabourn-Smith and Dolly Wells.
Written by Craig Brown.
Produced by Victoria Lloyd.
TUE 23:25 The Comedy Club Interviews (b08yg1kg)
Elf Lyons 1/2From 10pm to midnight, seven days a week, the Comedy Club has two hours of comedy. Plus Jon Holmes chats to Elf Lyons.
TUE 23:30 Bird Island (b01k2b18)
Series 1, Episode 3On one hand, Ben is on the trip of a lifetime to Sub-Antarctica. On the other, he's trapped in an icy hell with one other person, a dodgy internet connection and a dictaphone. Loneliness is something of a problem. His fellow travelling scientist Graham should alleviate this, but the tragi-comic fact is, they are nerdy blokes, so they can only stumble through yet another awkward exchange. Ben experiences all the highs and lows that this beautiful, but lonely place has to offer but fails miserably to communicate this to Graham. So, Ben shares his thoughts with us in the form of an audio 'log'.
Apart from his research studying the Albatross on the Island, Ben attempts to continue normal life with an earnestness and enthusiasm which is ultimately very endearing. We're with him as chats awkwardly with Graham, telephones his mother and as he tries to form a long distance relationship with a woman through Chemistry.com. In fact, we follow Ben as everything occurs to him. We also hear the pings and whirrs of machinery, the Squawks and screeches of the birds and the vast expanse outside. Oh, and ice. Lots of ice.
EPISDE THREE:
Bird Island is the story of Ben, a young scientist working in Antarctica, trying to socially adapt to the loneliness by keeping a cheery audio diary on his Dictaphone. An atmospheric 15 minute non-audience comedy.
Ben and Graham encounter a seal cub that's been attacked. He takes it home and carefully nurses it back to life and share the pup's progress with his mum and Dad.
EPISDE THREE CAST:
Ben ..... Reece Shearsmith
Graham ..... Julian Rhind-Tutt
Beverley..... Alison Steadman
Robin..... Gerard Mcdermott
Written by ..... Katy Wix
Produced by ..... Tilusha Ghelani.
TUE 23:45 Tina C (b0076q9g)
Tina C's Tiny Island Tour, IrelandThe country singer and global activist, the comic creation of Christopher Green, searches for her forebears in Ireland. 'Four Bears? Gosh, language is so complicated.' From 2005.

WEDNESDAY 12 JULY 2017

WED 00:00 Paradise Lost in Cyberspace (b007jpdq)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:00 on Tuesday]
WED 00:30 Sounds Natural (b08xr5jc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:30 on Tuesday]
WED 01:00 15 Minute Drama (b01mk38h)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 on Tuesday]
WED 01:15 Jean Rhys - Wide Sargasso Sea (b00m5711)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:15 on Tuesday]
WED 01:30 Peter Bogdanovich's Saturday Morning Pictures (b0080lss)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 on Tuesday]
WED 02:00 Book at Bedtime (b01n7h2w)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:00 on Tuesday]
WED 02:15 Plants: From Roots to Riches (b04cc1wy)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:15 on Tuesday]
WED 02:30 15 Minute Drama (b02mqmq6)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:30 on Tuesday]
WED 02:45 Book of the Week (b01kq2l9)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:45 on Tuesday]
WED 03:00 Virginia Woolf - The Waves (b01137gm)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:00 on Tuesday]
WED 04:00 Whispers (b007k2kg)
[Repeat of broadcast at 16:00 on Tuesday]
WED 04:30 The Six Mothers-in-Law of Henry VIII (b0076jd8)
[Repeat of broadcast at 16:30 on Tuesday]
WED 05:00 Lucky Heather (b0075smn)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:00 on Tuesday]
WED 05:30 Meet David Sedaris (b08wp5cq)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 on Tuesday]
WED 06:00 15 Minute Drama (b01mk5lw)
CJ Sansom - Dissolution, Episode 8C. J. Sansom's bestselling Tudor murder mystery, adapted for radio by Colin MacDonald.
Shardlake leaves Scarnsea for London, hoping that a contact in the Tower Armoury can identify the markings on the weapon used to kill Commissioner Singleton. While there, he is summoned to Westminster and questioned closely about the progress of his investigation by an impatient Thomas Cromwell.
Produced and directed by Kirsteen Cameron.
WED 06:15 Jean Rhys - Wide Sargasso Sea (b00m5qln)
Episode 8Antoinette opens up to her husband Rochester, but the following events lead to a betrayal. Jane Eyre prequel read by Adjoa Andoh.
WED 06:30 You Must Take the A Train (b01k2f7s)
New Yorker columnist and author Adam Gopnik confesses to 'a perverse love' of his city's subway system. In particular, he likes the two hour run of the A train from the tip of Manhattan to the Atlantic Ocean in the outer borough of Queens.
Along the way he encounters vendors, preachers, rappers, beggars and the homeless passengers who live in the subway cars and in the tunnels.
As a jazz lover, he celebrates Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn's song as an anthem of black migration. which imitates the sound of the train and insists:
"You must take the A train
To go to Sugar Hill way up in Harlem."
In 1932 punters queued to take the first A train ride as it went express along the west side of the city. It opened up suburbs, with a fast commute for workers in the Garment District, Times Square and in the offices and restaurants of Midtown. It also linked the dynamic established community of Harlem with the newer black neighbourhoods in Brooklyn.
Gopnik admits to enjoying the graffiti that spread across the subway cars in the seventies and eighties but acknowledges that this was a sign of how New York had lost control. Since most New Yorkers don't own a car and the subway is the artery of a city, that dysfunctional slide was disastrous.
It's only in the last fifteen years that the system has become safe and comparatively pleasant again. For a reporter like Gopnik, it's a perfect way to indulge in people watching and the best subway line to get a real sense of the city. However, depending on your mood, it can either be enervating or profoundly depressing, because it still reveals the seedy, aggressive, desperate and heartbreaking side of New York.
Producer: Judith Kampfner
A Corporation For Independent Media production for BBC Radio 4.
WED 07:00 Electric Ink (b0121pjk)
Series 1, Episode 6Job cuts are predicted with circulation dropping, but who will survive the bloodbath? Stars Robert Lindsay. From July 2009.
WED 07:30 John Finnemore's Double Acts (b08tcp50)
Series 2, Here's What We DoIt's Pidge and Gavin! The old team back together again for one last mission.
Kieran Hodgson and Ethan Lawrence star in another two-hander written by Cabin Pressure's John Finnemore.
Written by John Finnemore
Produced by David Tyler
A Pozzitive production for BBC Radio 4.
WED 08:00 The Navy Lark (b00ttpgd)
Series 1, Number One's ChairCPO Pertwee's stores requisition spirals out of control.
Starring Leslie Phillips as the Sub-Lieutenant, Jon Pertwee as the Chief Petty Officer, Dennis Price as Number One, Richard Caldicot as Captain Povey, Heather Chasen as Heather, Michael Bates as Commander Shaw, Ronnie Barker as AS Johnson and Tenniel Evans as the Warrant Officer Pertwee.
The Navy Lark ran for an impressive thirteen series on BBC Radio between 1959 and 1976.
Scripted by Lawrie Wyman.
Producer: Alastair Scott Johnston.
First broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in April 1959.
WED 08:30 Hancock's Half Hour (b007jny1)
Series 5, The Grappling GameThe lad and Miss Pugh head to a wrestling match at Cheam Baths - with a shock result!
Starring Tony Hancock. With Sidney James, Bill Kerr, Hattie Jacques and Kenneth Williams.
Written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson.
Theme and incidental music written by Wally Stott.
Producer: Tom Ronald
First broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in April 1958.
WED 09:00 It's Not What You Know (b01d2rz3)
Series 1, Episode 4Miles Jupp presides over more relation revelations in the show where it's not what you know that matters, but who. And more importantly, how well you know them.
Writer and broadcaster, Emma Freud, stand-up Tom Wrigglesworth and breakfast show host on BBC 6Music, Shaun Keaveny, each nominate one of their intimate circle to answer a series of questions and they then have to second-guess how their nominees responded. Emma picks her son, Jake, Tom his dad, Richard, and Shaun plumps for younger brother, Paul.
Producer: Sam Michell.
WED 09:30 Married (b008cbyc)
Series 3, Episode 4Going for a drive through a time anomaly, Robin, Leslie and Dirk end up in Texas.
Hugh Bonneville stars in the third series of the comedy drama about a confirmed bachelor Robin Lightfoot dealing with life in a parallel universe where he has kids and an ex-wife who hates him.
With Josie Lawrence as Lesley, Stephen Frost as Dirk, Julian Clary as Adrian, Ann Gosling as Maxine, Kate Robbins as Doctor/Newsreader/Glop, Christopher Kelham as Alan And Arthur Smith as Arthur Smith.
Written by Tony Bagley.
Producer: Claire Jones
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in July 2001.
WED 10:00 Jane Austen (b007jr87)
Mansfield Park, The Family at MansfieldJane Austen's unlikely heroine Fanny Price is plucked from her impoverished family and brought up by her wealthy relatives at Mansfield Park.
Classic tale dramatised in three parts by Elizabeth Proud.
Starring Hannah Gordon as Jane Austen, Amanda Root as Fanny, Michael Williams as Sir Thomas Bertram, Jane Lapotaire as Mrs Norris, Robert Glenister as Edmund Bertram, Louise Jameson as Lady Bertram, Teresa Gallagher as Mary Crawford and Andrew Wincott as Henry Crawford.
Music composed by Anthea Gomez and played by Christian McKay, Jill Heartfield, Audrey Douglas and Katharine Gittings.
Directed at BBC Pebble Mill by Sue Wilson
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1997.
WED 11:00 Short Works: The World of Somerset Maugham (b08y3nm4)
Colonel's LadyPeregrine's wife has published some poetry. She suddenly becomes a celebrity and all at once he realises he knows nothing about her.
Interviewed in 1933, Maugham said "It has always seemed to me that literature can only find its fullest and freest expression in the essay or short story." He wrote more than 100 stories, at least 14 of which he burned on one of his "bonfire nights", after Winston Churchill warned that they contravened the Official Secrets Act. Of the stories that do survive, he said "some of them deal with circumstances and places to which the passage of time and the growth of civilisation will give a romantic glamour....."
What we plan to broadcast over the next year are twenty five of Maugham's best stories with tales from home and abroad. Tales of intrigue from far flung colonial outposts and tales of passion from quintessentially British hearths.
Maugham writes perfect vignettes - snapshots of human life in all its diversity - captured at a moment of crisis or revelation.
Read by Daniel Weyman
Abridged by Elaine Bedell
Produced by Clive Brill
A Brill Production for BBC Radio 4 Extra.
WED 11:15 Afternoon Drama (b00sp5ch)
Adam Ganz - Nuclear ReactionsAt the end of the war, Germany's most talented nuclear physicists were brought to England to discover exactly what they knew about the atomic bomb.
Producer / Director - Eoin O'Callaghan
Nuclear Reactions stars Nick Dunning and Nickolas Grace. At the end of WWII, Germany's most talented and formidable nuclear physicists were rounded up and brought to England. The British were keen to discover exactly what they knew about the atomic bomb, but they also wanted to ensure that the powerhouse of German thought remained intact, and capable of regenerating a defeated nation.
WED 12:00 The Navy Lark (b00ttpgd)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
WED 12:30 Hancock's Half Hour (b007jny1)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
WED 13:00 15 Minute Drama (b01mk5lw)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
WED 13:15 Jean Rhys - Wide Sargasso Sea (b00m5qln)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:15 today]
WED 13:30 You Must Take the A Train (b01k2f7s)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 today]
WED 14:00 Book at Bedtime (b01n7h6w)
Summer Lies, The Night in Baden-Baden, Part 3A playwright has taken an old friend to the opening night of his first play but, when his girlfriend, finds out she isn't pleased. The more he claims the date was innocent, the more her jealousy escalates and he reflects that it is just this sort of jealousy that prompted his deception in the first place.
Bill Nighy reads from Bernhard Schlink's collection of short fiction..
Abridged and produced by Jane Marshall
A Jane Marshall production for BBC Radio 4.
WED 14:15 Plants: From Roots to Riches (b04cffpd)
Battling Bark and BeetleBy the end of the First World War the mysterious sudden death of elms was a common sight across Belgium and the Netherlands. Dutch researchers managed to elucidate the real culprit amidst rumours of drought or wartime gas poisoning. It was a fungus thought to originate from America, carried by a beetle and the disease rather unfairly gained its name Dutch elm disease. Diagnosis produced no cure and it soon advanced across the channel to Britain.
Professor Kathy Willis talks to the head of Kew's arboretum, Tony Kirkham, on the disease's impact amidst complacency, and how the emergence of a vigorous new fungal strain was to completely transform the landscape during its peak in the 1970's.
Now that the principle replacement for lost elms, ash, itself has fallen victim to the latest disease to hitch a ride on incoming nursery stock, Paul Smith, Head of Kew's Millennium Seed Bank, explains why this new disease could be easier to control.
Producer Adrian Washbourne.
WED 14:30 15 Minute Drama (b02qd1rq)
The Dogs and the Wolves, Episode 3The Dogs And The Wolves by Irene Nemirovsky, translated by Sandra Smith
Dramatised by Ellen Dryden
Ep3/5
Paris, 1920's. Ada buys Harry a rare book she's seen him admire in a bookshop and sends it anonymously to his house. Ben is working long hours and Ada has started painting full time. She paints two small pictures of scenes from her childhood in the Ukraine and has them displayed in the bookshop.
Harry, now married for three years, sees the paintings, and becomes enchanted with them.
Produced and directed by Pauline Harris.
WED 14:45 Book of the Week (b01kq2m6)
Burying the Typewriter, Episode 3With his wife and his youngest daughter away from home, Ion Bugan decides it's time to make his statement. Carmen knows that she cannot dissuade him.
Burying The Typewriter is Carmen Bugan's memoir of growing up in Romania in the 1970s and 1980s when the country was governed by Ceausescu, and his network of agents and informers, the Securitate, exerted a malign influence in every sphere of society.
Carmen Bugan was educated at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) and Balliol College, Oxford, where she was awarded a doctorate. Her first book of poetry, Crossing The Carpathians, was published by Oxford Poets/Carcanet in 2004.
"A beautiful, vivid memoir..."
The Guardian
"It is the more moving and powerful for being so quiet and thoughtful..."
The Independent
"A warm and humane work..."
The Observer
Reader: Anamaria Marinca
(BAFTA award winner for 'Sex Traffic' 2005)
Abridged by Pete Nichols
Produced by Karen Rose
A Sweet Talk Production for BBC Radio 4.
WED 15:00 Jane Austen (b007jr87)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:00 today]
WED 16:00 It's Not What You Know (b01d2rz3)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]
WED 16:30 Married (b008cbyc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:30 today]
WED 17:00 Electric Ink (b0121pjk)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:00 today]
WED 17:30 John Finnemore's Double Acts (b08tcp50)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
WED 18:00 Paradise Lost in Cyberspace (b007jpf4)
Episode 3Fresh from incarceration, 69-year-old George Smith finally comes face to face with the evil leader of the OAPs, Mrs Cookson.
Colin Swash's dystopian comedy stars Stephen Moore as George, Patsy Byrne as Doris, Geoffrey McGivern as O'Connell, Edna Dore as Mrs Cookson, Lorelei King as Andrea Sunbeam, Melanie Hudson as Dawkins, Christopher Douglas as Ronnie. With Lewis MacLeod and Peter Serafinowicz.
Producer: Richard Wilson.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1998.
WED 18:30 Off the Page (b0174gkq)
Follow the Yellow Brick RoadFollow the Yellow Brick Road - three writers discuss heart, courage and brains. With Guardian blogger, Stuart Heritage; Yachtswoman, Dee Caffari, and journalist Neil McCormick.
Stuart hates personal contact so much he moved to South Korea where they're "not huggers. They're not really handshakers. They're not even that fond of eye contact, the travel guide said. Brilliant."
Dee Caffari has solo circumnavigated the globe, braving icebergs in the Southern Ocean along the way: "We surf down huge waves on the edge of control at breakneck speeds - any collision would be the end of the race. Rescue is often days away and our closest chance of survival is a fellow competitor."
Neil talks about how intelligence may be over-rated and that sometimes it's better just to let your mind make itself up.
Producer: Toby Field.
WED 19:00 The Navy Lark (b00ttpgd)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
WED 19:30 Hancock's Half Hour (b007jny1)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
WED 20:00 15 Minute Drama (b01mk5lw)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
WED 20:15 Jean Rhys - Wide Sargasso Sea (b00m5qln)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:15 today]
WED 20:30 You Must Take the A Train (b01k2f7s)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 today]
WED 21:00 Short Works: The World of Somerset Maugham (b08y3nm4)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:00 today]
WED 21:15 Afternoon Drama (b00sp5ch)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:15 today]
WED 22:00 John Finnemore's Double Acts (b08tcp50)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
WED 22:30 What Does the K Stand For? (b0507mbg)
Series 2, A Royal VisitStephen K Amos' sitcom about his own teenage years, growing up black, gay and funny in 1980s South London.
Written by Jonathan Harvey with Stephen K Amos. Produced by Colin Anderson.
WED 23:00 Bridget Christie Minds the Gap (b01rgmfd)
Series 1, Episode 4The last in the series of Bridget Christie on the state of modern feminism. This week it's women in comedy as she answers that old chestnut 'Are Women Funny?' Featuring Fred MacAulay.
WED 23:30 The Big Booth (b007k2ph)
Series 1, Episode 6Tasty monologues and sketches starring Boothby Graffoe. With Stephen Frost and guitarist Antonio Forcione. From February 2000.

THURSDAY 13 JULY 2017

THU 00:00 Paradise Lost in Cyberspace (b007jpf4)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:00 on Wednesday]
THU 00:30 Off the Page (b0174gkq)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:30 on Wednesday]
THU 01:00 15 Minute Drama (b01mk5lw)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 on Wednesday]
THU 01:15 Jean Rhys - Wide Sargasso Sea (b00m5qln)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:15 on Wednesday]
THU 01:30 You Must Take the A Train (b01k2f7s)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 on Wednesday]
THU 02:00 Book at Bedtime (b01n7h6w)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:00 on Wednesday]
THU 02:15 Plants: From Roots to Riches (b04cffpd)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:15 on Wednesday]
THU 02:30 15 Minute Drama (b02qd1rq)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:30 on Wednesday]
THU 02:45 Book of the Week (b01kq2m6)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:45 on Wednesday]
THU 03:00 Jane Austen (b007jr87)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:00 on Wednesday]
THU 04:00 It's Not What You Know (b01d2rz3)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 on Wednesday]
THU 04:30 Married (b008cbyc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:30 on Wednesday]
THU 05:00 Electric Ink (b0121pjk)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:00 on Wednesday]
THU 05:30 John Finnemore's Double Acts (b08tcp50)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 on Wednesday]
THU 06:00 15 Minute Drama (b01mk8zn)
CJ Sansom - Dissolution, Episode 9C. J. Sansom's bestselling Tudor crime novel, adapted for radio by Colin MacDonald.
Shardlake makes a shocking discovery and rushes back to Scarnsea monastery, ready to confront the murderer.
Produced and directed by Kirsteen Cameron.
THU 06:15 Jean Rhys - Wide Sargasso Sea (b00m5tkx)
Episode 9Antoinette returns home distressed. Husband Rochester makes plans to leave the island. Jane Eyre prequel read by Adam Godley.
THU 06:30 Arch Rivals (b0076qjk)
Felicity Finch balances the claims of rival ballet shoe makers who are striving to keep dancers 'on pointe'. From February 2005.
THU 07:00 Richard Barton: General Practitioner! (b00758fv)
Episode 6Dick running up a tab in the pub? Strange behaviour from the unimpeachable special agent. With Robert Bathurst. From May 1998.
THU 07:30 Paul Sinha's History Revision (b08wqs1g)
Series 3, Episode 4Comedian and quizzer Paul Sinha returns to Radio 4 for a third series of his award-winning History Revision. In previous series, Paul has told you how Portugal's invasion of Morocco in 1415 lead directly to the 2014 World Cup; how the 1909 launch of an Austro-Hungarian submarine prevented Dr Zhivago winning an Oscar; and the story the black woman who refused to give up a seat on an Alabama bus and ended up changing the law - no, it wasn't Rosa Parks.
This series will once again see Paul shine a light on the important historical moments that you never got taught at school, and explain why so much of what you did learn is wrong. There will also, as ever, be puns.
In this final episode, Paul looks at some political blunders which have not yet been turned into films, and also the history of historical films - from the first ever film, to the least accurate film, to the film that killed off the greatest percentage of its cast and crew, he celebrates cinema's documentation of the otherwise undocumented.
Paul Sinha's History Revision was the winner of the 2016 Rose d'Or for 'Best Radio Comedy'.
Written and performed by ... Paul Sinha
Producer ... Ed Morrish
Production co-ordinator ... Tamara Shilham
A BBC Studios production.
THU 08:00 Marriage Lines (b04wjsjw)
Series 1, The DivorceWhen some friends split up, Kate and George become rather nervous.
A series based on the mutual love and mistrust of two newlyweds. Starring Richard Briers as George Starling and Prunella Scales as Kate Starling.
With Philip Guard, Rosemary Miller, Peter Gilmore, Isabel Rennie and John Baddeley.
This 1960's newlyweds sitcom brought Richard Briers and Prunella Scales to prominence. Originating on BBC TV, it was adapted for radio due to its popularity. A decade later, Richard Briers went on to play Tom Good in The Good Life and Prunella Scales went on to star as Sybil in Fawlty Towers.
Written by Richard Waring.
Producer: Charles Maxwell
First broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in August 1965.
THU 08:30 The Goon Show (b007jln0)
The Greatest Mountain in the WorldNeddie Seagoon attempts to climb a peak even higher than Everest. Stars Spike Milligan and Harry Secombe. From March 1954.
THU 09:00 Act Your Age (b00pxn13)
Series 2, Episode 1Simon Mayo hosts the comedy show that pits the comic generations against each other to find out which is the funniest.
Team captains Jon Richardson, Lucy Porter and Adrian Walsh are joined by Kevin Bridges, Jason Byrne and Johnnie Casson.
THU 09:30 HR (b00hg6mz)
Series 1, An AppraisalCaught verbally abusing a client, an angry senior manager faces his HR officer. Stars Jonathan Pryce. From February 2009.
THU 10:00 Jane Austen (b007jrc2)
Mansfield Park, Mr Crawford Changes TackThe Crawfords cause confusion for Fanny Price, and her brother William returns. Stars Hannah Gordon and Michael Williams.
THU 11:00 Short Works: The World of Somerset Maugham (b08yb41j)
The VergerThe Verger of St Peter's has never learned to read or write. It has come to the attention off the authorities. Can he possibly stay on as verger with such a lack?
Interviewed in 1933, Maugham said "It has always seemed to me that literature can only find its fullest and freest expression in the essay or short story." He wrote more than 100 stories, at least 14 of which he burned on one of his "bonfire nights", after Winston Churchill warned that they contravened the Official Secrets Act. Of the stories that do survive, he said "some of them deal with circumstances and places to which the passage of time and the growth of civilisation will give a romantic glamour....."
What we plan to broadcast over the next year are twenty five of Maugham's best stories with tales from home and abroad. Tales of intrigue from far flung colonial outposts and tales of passion from quintessentially British hearths.
Maugham writes perfect vignettes - snapshots of human life in all its diversity - captured at a moment of crisis or revelation.
Read by Daniel Weyman
Abridged by Eileen Horne
Produced by Clive Brill
A Brill Production for BBC Radio 4 Extra.
THU 11:15 Afternoon Drama (b01m19nl)
Lindsay Williams - A Little Bit of LatitudeA Little Bit of Latitude
When Marie wakes up the morning after a drunken first night at Latitude Festival, the last thing she expects is to be arrested by festival security for a suspected assault. With her boyfriend missing, her clothes soaked in blood and her memory hazy, Marie decides to take drastic action to find out the truth. A comic drama recorded on location at Latitude Festival.
Written by Lindsay Williams
Produced by Charlotte Riches
Directed by Nadia Molinari.
THU 12:00 Marriage Lines (b04wjsjw)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
THU 12:30 The Goon Show (b007jln0)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
THU 13:00 15 Minute Drama (b01mk8zn)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
THU 13:15 Jean Rhys - Wide Sargasso Sea (b00m5tkx)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:15 today]
THU 13:30 Arch Rivals (b0076qjk)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 today]
THU 14:00 Book at Bedtime (b01n7jpj)
Summer Lies, Stranger in the Night, Part 1A man sits beside a stranger on an overnight flight to Frankfurt and tells him the story of his life. A bond is formed in the dark cabin - but can either rely on the other or believe what they have been told?
Bill Nighy reads the first part of this haunting two part story from Bernhard Schlink's collection of short fiction.
Abridged and produced by Jane Marshall
A Jane Marshall production for BBC Radio 4.
THU 14:15 Plants: From Roots to Riches (b04cfhqt)
Hunt for DiversityAgriculture tends to favour the best food varieties but this is often a trade off with beneficial traits such as resistance to disease or tolerance to drought. During the 1920s the Russian botanist Nikolai Vavilov, having witnessed famine on a large scale, became increasingly concerned about the potential loss of locally adapted varieties and spent his life studying crop plants in their wild habitats.
Professor Kathy Willis examines Vavilov's pioneering work and his search for pools of genetic variability - so called "centres of origin" amongst the wild relatives of our domesticated crops that could help sustain future plant breeding for human use.
Vavilov's story has a tragic end but, as we hear, his legacy lives on in seedbanks such as Kew's Millennium Seedbank at Wakehurst Place whose Crop Wild Relatives Project is collecting and assessing new potential amongst the original progenitors of our domestic crops.
With contributions from archaeobotanist Dorian Fuller, Kew's curator of economic botany Mark Nesbitt, Crop Wild Relatives Project coordinator Ruth Eastwood, and head of the Millennium Seedbank Paul Smith.
Producer Adrian Washbourne.
THU 14:30 15 Minute Drama (b02qncrc)
The Dogs and the Wolves, Episode 4The Dogs and The Wolves by Irene Nemirovsky, translated by Sandra Smith
dramatised by Ellen Dryden
Ep 4/5
Ada and Harry begin an affair. Ben has been working for Harry's uncles for some time making deals for the bank. But when he discovers their affair there is a furious row and Ben runs out and disappears.
Harry's relationship with Laurence has deteriorated, she also knows about the affair, and divorce proceedings are about to begin. At last Ada and Harry can be together.
Produced and directed by Pauline Harris.
THU 14:45 Book of the Week (b01kq31r)
Burying the Typewriter, Episode 4The consequences of her father's actions are soon brought home to Carmen, who discovers the insidious methods of the state first-hand.
Burying The Typewriter is Carmen Bugan's memoir of growing up in Romania in the 1970s and 1980s when the country was governed by Ceausescu, and his network of agents and informers, the Securitate, exerted a malign influence in every sphere of society.
Carmen Bugan was educated at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) and Balliol College, Oxford, where she was awarded a doctorate. Her first book of poetry, Crossing The Carpathians, was published by Oxford Poets/Carcanet in 2004.
"A beautiful, vivid memoir..."
The Guardian
"It is the more moving and powerful for being so quiet and thoughtful..."
The Independent
"A warm and humane work..."
The Observer
Reader: Anamaria Marinca
(BAFTA award winner for 'Sex Traffic' 2005)
Abridged by Pete Nichols
Produced by Karen Rose
A Sweet Talk Production for BBC Radio 4.
THU 15:00 Jane Austen (b007jrc2)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:00 today]
THU 16:00 Act Your Age (b00pxn13)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]
THU 16:30 HR (b00hg6mz)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:30 today]
THU 17:00 Richard Barton: General Practitioner! (b00758fv)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:00 today]
THU 17:30 Paul Sinha's History Revision (b08wqs1g)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
THU 18:00 Paradise Lost in Cyberspace (b007jpfm)
Episode 4The Old-Age Paramilitaries have developed a secret weapon to destroy the Central Database computer. George Smith is the man to use it.
Colin Swash's dystopian comedy stars Stephen Moore as George, Patsy Byrne as Doris, Geoffrey McGivern as O'Connell, Edna Dore as Mrs Cookson, Lorelei King as Andrea Sunbeam, Melanie Hudson as Dawkins, Christopher Douglas as Ronnie. With Lewis MacLeod, Dave Lamb and Peter Serafinowicz.
Producer: Richard Wilson.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1998.
THU 18:30 Great Lives (b00lyfm8)
Series 19, Joe SlovoMatthew Parris presents the biographical series in which his guests choose someone who has inspired their lives.
David Miliband discusses the life of Joe Slovo, a leading member of the African National Congress and the first housing minister in Nelson Mandela's government. Slovo's daughter, Gillian, joins in the discussion.
THU 19:00 Marriage Lines (b04wjsjw)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
THU 19:30 The Goon Show (b007jln0)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
THU 20:00 15 Minute Drama (b01mk8zn)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
THU 20:15 Jean Rhys - Wide Sargasso Sea (b00m5tkx)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:15 today]
THU 20:30 Arch Rivals (b0076qjk)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 today]
THU 21:00 Short Works: The World of Somerset Maugham (b08yb41j)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:00 today]
THU 21:15 Afternoon Drama (b01m19nl)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:15 today]
THU 22:00 Paul Sinha's History Revision (b08wqs1g)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
THU 22:30 Thom Tuck Goes Straight to DVD (b01rl8nd)
Steven SeagalIn his debut solo Radio 4 show, comedian Thom Tuck recounted heart-rending tales of loves lost while drawing comparisons with 54 Straight-to-DVD Disney movies he'd watched, so we don't ever have to.
Thom now turns his attention to other genres of Straight-to-DVD movies - seeking out further underrated gems and drawing parallels with captivating personal tales from his own life experience, backed by cinematic music, so we can rest easy.
In this first episode, Thom looks at the action film genre. Steven Seagal has made 27 sub-masterpieces of Straight-to-DVD action films. Thom has managed to extricate himself from the same number of scrapes during his life. He grabbed a man's face! Seagal punched a man's face!
"...a seductive experience" The Guardian
Produced by Lianne Coop.
THU 22:55 The Comedy Club Interviews (b08yg20r)
Elf Lyons 2/2From 10pm to midnight, seven days a week, the Comedy Club has two hours of comedy. Plus Jon Holmes chats again to Elf Lyons.
THU 23:00 And Now in Colour (b007jmn1)
Series 1, IntercityThe sketch show team takes the audience to Margate and asks 'Whose Pencil Line is it Anyway?' With Tim Firth. From March 1990.
THU 23:30 Shedtown (b01ppn91)
Series 2, Shed ReportWho hasn't thought about running away from it all at some time or other? Throwing caution to the wind, wrenching oneself out of a long established orbit to head for the deep space of the unknown?
In series two of Shedtown, our wooden icon of escape and isolation - the shed - continues to be a symbol of possibility and change. Our Sheddists arrived and survived - and, now waking from a beach-baked slumber, the familiar residents find faces old and new on the sand.
Episode 1:
Deborah Dearden arrives back at the beach. Not such a stranger - yet stranger still.
Barry............................Tony Pitts
Jimmy..........................Stephen Mangan
Eleanor..................Ronni Ancona
Colin........................Johnny Vegas
Deborah.....................Emma Fryer
William..................Adrian Manfredi
Diane....................Rosina Carbone
Dave......................Shaun Dooley
Father Michael........James Quinn
Wes......................Warren Brown
Nell...........................Eleanor Samson
Narrator.................Maxine Peake
Music....................Paul Heaton and Jonny Lexus
Written and Directed by Tony Pitts
Produced by Sally Harrison
A Woolyback Production for BBC Radio 4.

FRIDAY 14 JULY 2017

FRI 00:00 Paradise Lost in Cyberspace (b007jpfm)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:00 on Thursday]
FRI 00:30 Great Lives (b00lyfm8)
[Repeat of broadcast at 18:30 on Thursday]
FRI 01:00 15 Minute Drama (b01mk8zn)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 on Thursday]
FRI 01:15 Jean Rhys - Wide Sargasso Sea (b00m5tkx)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:15 on Thursday]
FRI 01:30 Arch Rivals (b0076qjk)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 on Thursday]
FRI 02:00 Book at Bedtime (b01n7jpj)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:00 on Thursday]
FRI 02:15 Plants: From Roots to Riches (b04cfhqt)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:15 on Thursday]
FRI 02:30 15 Minute Drama (b02qncrc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:30 on Thursday]
FRI 02:45 Book of the Week (b01kq31r)
[Repeat of broadcast at 14:45 on Thursday]
FRI 03:00 Jane Austen (b007jrc2)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:00 on Thursday]
FRI 04:00 Act Your Age (b00pxn13)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 on Thursday]
FRI 04:30 HR (b00hg6mz)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:30 on Thursday]
FRI 05:00 Richard Barton: General Practitioner! (b00758fv)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:00 on Thursday]
FRI 05:30 Paul Sinha's History Revision (b08wqs1g)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 on Thursday]
FRI 06:00 15 Minute Drama (b01mkzgc)
CJ Sansom - Dissolution, Episode 10C. J. Sansom's bestselling Tudor crime novel, adapted for radio by Colin MacDonald.
Betrayed and abandoned by Mark, Shardlake must act alone to catch the killer of Orphan Stonegarden, Novice Whelplay and Brother Gabriel.
Produced and directed by Kirsteen Cameron.
FRI 06:15 Jean Rhys - Wide Sargasso Sea (b00m5wdt)
Episode 10Distressed Antoinette must come to terms with her future. Prequel to Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre concluded by Adjoa Andoh.
FRI 06:30 Pop in Translation (b008gf1n)
From 'She Loves You' in German, to 'Space Oddity' in Italian - it wasn't unusual in the 1960s to find pop artists from the Beatles to David Bowie, attempting to boost their sales with foreign language versions of their British hits.
Mark Radcliffe looks at one of pop music's quirkier episodes.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2007.
FRI 07:00 Ayres on the Air (b00mbz1c)
Series 3, On Yer BikePam Ayres returns with a new series packed with poetry, anecdotes and sketches.
Pam is joined by Geoffrey Whitehead and Felicity Montagu for poems about French cycling holidays, the up-side to riding a tandem, getting fit on gym bikes and how to banish the middle-age blues by getting kitted out with a motorbike and leathers.
FRI 07:30 The Absolutely Radio Show (b08x4s7t)
Series 2, Episode 3The cast of TV's hugely popular sketch show return for their second series on BBC Radio 4. Pete Baikie, Morwenna Banks, Moray Hunter, Gordon Kennedy and John Sparkes revisit some of their much-loved sketch characters, while also introducing some newcomers to the show.
In 2013, the group that made their name on Channel Four in the 1980s and 90s got back together for Radio 4's Sketchorama: Absolutely Special - which won the BBC Audio Drama Award for Best Live Scripted Comedy. The first series of The Absolutely Radio Show picked up a Celtic Media Award nomination for Best Radio Comedy.
The third episode of the series features the Little Girl with her views on what is or isn't the Truth, Frank Hovis inviting us to support his new charity, the Reverend McMinn having a surprise encounter in his local minimart with a visiting President, the Tour Guide taking us on a trip round what may possibly be Edinburgh and Calum Gilhooley giving some unhelpful and unwelcome advice to a train ticket collector. There are songs about addiction to being healthy and the joys or otherwise of middle age, a look at the perils of box set bingeing and a brand new, same-as-all-the-rest police drama about a TV detective who is always off the case.
Cast:
Peter Baikie
Morwenna Banks
Moray Hunter
Gordon Kennedy
John Sparkes
Gus Beattie
Gordon Kennedy
Produced by Gordon Kennedy and Gus Beattie.
An Absolutely/Gusman production for BBC Radio.
FRI 08:00 I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again (b00sjp2j)
Series 3, Episode 11Tales of Merrie England and an insight into show-jumping.
More quick-fire sketches, terrible puns, humorous songs and parodies.
Stars Tim Brooke-Taylor, John Cleese, Graeme Garden, David Hatch, Jo Kendall and Bill Oddie.
Written by Graeme Garden, Peter Hutchins, Eric Idle, Peter Vincent and David McKellar,
Originating from the Cambridge University Footlights revue 'Cambridge Circus', ISIRTA ran for 8 years on BBC Radio and quickly developed a cult following.
Music and songs by Dave Lee, Bill Oddie and Leon Cohen.
Producer: Humphrey Barclay
First broadcast on the BBC Home Service in May 1966.
FRI 08:30 Doctor at Large (b00b3h85)
Dr Sparrow of Harley StreetMayhem ensues when Simon Sparrow goes to work at Sir Lancelot Spratt's rather posh practice
The misadventures of newly qualified doctor, Simon Sparrow - adapted for radio by Ray Cooney from Richard Gordon's 'Doctor at Large' published in 1955.
Starring Richard Briers as Simon Sparrow, Geoffrey Sumner as Sir Lancelot Spratt, Ray Cooney as Tony Benskin, Howard Marion Crawford as the Duke, Richard Caldicot as Sir Raymond Beecham, Garard Green as the Butler, Rosalind Adams as the Nurse and Fenella Fielding as Kitty Buckingham.
Producer: David Hatch
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in August 1969.
FRI 09:00 Who Goes There? (b0075z3c)
Series 4, Episode 4Martin Young hosts the famous people quiz show with team captains Francis Wheen and Fred Housego and guests Claire Rayner and David Aaronovitch. From November 2000.
FRI 09:30 Gush (b04y52ct)
Episode 1Ian Hislop and Nick Newman's epic tale of bitter rivals whose destinies are tragically intertwined.
Written by master storyteller "Archie Jeffries", this six-part series is set in Durban at the Transworld Oil Conference - with the world on the brink of war.
What could divide two close friends, the aristocratic Foxwell Cravate (Martin Jarvis) and American tycoon Max Pomeroy (Mac Macdonald), so far apart that their rivalry has come to threaten the human race? There's only one way to find out - with flashbacks - as we discover how their rivalry began at Cambridge.
The two women in the rivals' lives are Lolanthe Diamond (Caroline Quentin) and Arabella Derbyshire (Felicity Montagu). Also featuring Mandy Knight, Julian Dutton and Jonathan Coy.
Spoofing the novels of Jeffrey Archer, Private Eye editor Ian Hislop originally joked that the series was adapted from the blockbuster novel of the same name - aping the style of the best TV mini-series of the 90s.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in November 1994.
FRI 10:00 Jane Austen (b007jrff)
Mansfield Park, Portsmouth and AfterBoth Fanny and Tom face disappointment and hope in equal measure. Stars Hannah Gordon, Amanda Root and Jane Lapotaire.
FRI 11:00 Short Works: The World of Somerset Maugham (b08ybqf7)
Before the PartyA year after Harold's death, his grieving family discover the shocking truth about the way he came to die.
Interviewed in 1933, Maugham said "It has always seemed to me that literature can only find its fullest and freest expression in the essay or short story." He wrote more than 100 stories, at least 14 of which he burned on one of his "bonfire nights", after Winston Churchill warned that they contravened the Official Secrets Act. Of the stories that do survive, he said "some of them deal with circumstances and places to which the passage of time and the growth of civilisation will give a romantic glamour....."
What we plan to broadcast over the next year are twenty five of Maugham's best stories with tales from home and abroad. Tales of intrigue from far flung colonial outposts and tales of passion from quintessentially British hearths.
Maugham writes perfect vignettes - snapshots of human life in all its diversity - captured at a moment of crisis or revelation.
Read by Lucy Robinson
Abridged by Elaine Bedell
Produced by Clive Brill
A Brill Production for BBC Radio 4 Extra.
FRI 11:15 Martyn Wade - Book Lovers (b00760k2)
4 Extra Debut. When Gillian decides to set up a book club, the turnout is disappointing. Undeterred, the group continues. Stars Maggie Steed.
FRI 12:00 I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again (b00sjp2j)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
FRI 12:30 Doctor at Large (b00b3h85)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
FRI 13:00 15 Minute Drama (b01mkzgc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
FRI 13:15 Jean Rhys - Wide Sargasso Sea (b00m5wdt)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:15 today]
FRI 13:30 Pop in Translation (b008gf1n)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 today]
FRI 14:00 Book at Bedtime (b01n7kfx)
Summer Lies, Stranger in the Night, Part 2A stranger tells his seatmate a chilling story on a night flight to Germany and then asks for his help. But is this soft-voiced, smiling man capable of murder? Bill Nighy reads the concluding instalment of Stranger in the Night from Bernhard Schlink's new collection of short fiction.
Abridged and produced by Jane Marshall
A Jane Marshall production for BBC Radio 4.
FRI 14:15 Plants: From Roots to Riches (b04cfvg3)
Botanical MedicineIn 1947 Sir Robert Robinson received the Nobel prize for Chemistry "in recognition of his investigations of plant products of biological importance, especially the alkaloids". This powerful family of plant chemicals was proving a potent medical tool.
Professor Kathy Willis traces the natural role of alkaloids in plants and the first attempts to isolate one of the best know - quinine, from chinchona bark growing in the Andes. This development gave rise to the emergence of a new kind of laboratory scientist equally able to handle botanical and chemical data. As Mark Nesbitt, Keeper of Kew's Economic Botany Collection explains, this was to eliminate the chance and guesswork in identifying "good" plants from "bad".
Professor Monique Simmons of Kew's Jodrell Laboratory, assesses why chemicals from the plant kingdom are still needed in the fight against some of our most challenging diseases, from breast cancer to cardiovascular disease, and how making the nuanced connections between plant species is central to success in this field.
Producer Adrian Washbourne.
FRI 14:30 15 Minute Drama (b02qt7vk)
The Dogs and the Wolves, Episode 5The Dogs and The Woves by Irene Nemirovsky, translated by Sandra Smith
Dramatised by Ellen Dryden
Ep.5/5
Ben turns up suddenly at Ada's. There is a warrant out for his arrest for fraud and Harry's family bank has crashed. There will be a scandal. Ada is faced with a terrible dilemma - in order to save Harry from financial ruin, she turns to his rich wife, Laurence.
Produced and directed by Pauline Harris.
FRI 14:45 Book of the Week (b01kq345)
Burying the Typewriter, Episode 5Life is becoming untenable for the Bugan family and when a courier is needed, it's Carmen who volunteers.
Burying The Typewriter is Carmen Bugan's memoir of growing up in Romania in the 1970s and 1980s when the country was governed by Ceausescu, and his network of agents and informers, the Securitate, exerted a malign influence in every sphere of society.
Carmen Bugan was educated at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor) and Balliol College, Oxford, where she was awarded a doctorate. Her first book of poetry, Crossing The Carpathians, was published by Oxford Poets/Carcanet in 2004.
"A beautiful, vivid memoir..."
The Guardian
"It is the more moving and powerful for being so quiet and thoughtful..."
The Independent
"A warm and humane work..."
The Observer
Reader: Anamaria Marinca
(BAFTA award winner for 'Sex Traffic' 2005)
Abridged by Pete Nichols
Produced by Karen Rose
A Sweet Talk Production for BBC Radio 4.
FRI 15:00 Jane Austen (b007jrff)
[Repeat of broadcast at 10:00 today]
FRI 16:00 Who Goes There? (b0075z3c)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]
FRI 16:30 Gush (b04y52ct)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:30 today]
FRI 17:00 Ayres on the Air (b00mbz1c)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:00 today]
FRI 17:30 The Absolutely Radio Show (b08x4s7t)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
FRI 18:00 Paradise Lost in Cyberspace (b007jpgs)
Episode 5Now a fully-fledged OAP, George Smith is set for a special mission with Andrea Sunbeam and Mrs Cookson.
Colin Swash's dystopian comedy stars Stephen Moore as George, Patsy Byrne as Doris, Geoffrey McGivern as O'Connell, Edna Dore as Mrs Cookson, Lorelei King as Andrea Sunbeam, Melanie Hudson as Wilma P Random. With Christopher, Lewis MacLeod and Peter Serafinowicz.
Producer: Richard Wilson.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1998.
FRI 18:30 Soul Music (b03zb49y)
Series 18, Rhapsody in Blue"I'm convinced it's the best thing ever written and recorded in the history of things written and recorded" - Moby.
Rhapsody in Blue was first heard exactly 90 years ago when it premiered on February 12, 1924, in New York's Aeolian Hall. Through its use at the opening of Woody Allen's 'Manhattan' it has become synonymous with the city that inspired its creation. But for people around the world, George Gershwin's "experiment in modern music" has become imbued with the most personal of memories.
LA based screen writer Charles Peacock reflects on how this piece has become entwined with his life and how, on an evening at the Hollywood Bowl this music "healed him". When Adela Galasiu was growing up in communist Romania, Rhapsody in Blue represented "life itself, as seen through the eyes of an optimist". For world speed champion Gina Campbell, the opening of that piece will forever remind her of the roar of the Bluebird's ignition as it flew through the "glass like stillness of the water" and brings back the memories of her father, the legendary Donald Campbell - it was played at his funeral when he was finally laid to rest decades after his fatal record attempt on Coniston Lake.
Featuring interviews with Professor of Music Howard Pollock and musician Moby.
FRI 19:00 I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again (b00sjp2j)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
FRI 19:30 Doctor at Large (b00b3h85)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:30 today]
FRI 20:00 15 Minute Drama (b01mkzgc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
FRI 20:15 Jean Rhys - Wide Sargasso Sea (b00m5wdt)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:15 today]
FRI 20:30 Pop in Translation (b008gf1n)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:30 today]
FRI 21:00 Short Works: The World of Somerset Maugham (b08ybqf7)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:00 today]
FRI 21:15 Martyn Wade - Book Lovers (b00760k2)
[Repeat of broadcast at 11:15 today]
FRI 22:00 The Absolutely Radio Show (b08x4s7t)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
FRI 22:30 BBC New Comedy Award (b08xrbs0)
2017, Heat 3 - ManchesterThe third heat of the BBC New Comedy Award 2017 will be recorded at Manchester's Comedy Store with host Barbara Nice.
The judges will be the comedian Phil Ellis, BBC Radio Comedy Editor Simon Nicholls, and Steve Bennett from Chortle.
Ten new comedians will perform in the hope of making it through to the semi-final at the Edinburgh Festival.
FRI 23:25 The Comedy Club Interviews (b08yg25h)
Simon Brodkin 1/3From 10pm to midnight, seven days a week, the Comedy Club has two hours of comedy. Plus Arthur Smith chats to Simon Brodkin.
FRI 23:30 Alice's Wunderland (b01kt4ck)
Series 1, Episode 2A trip round Wunderland, the Poundland of magical realms. It's a kingdom much like our own, and also nothing like it in the slightest. Stay a while and meet waifs and strays, wigshops and witches, murderous pensioners and squirrels of this delightful land as they go about their bizarre business.
A sketch show written and performed by Alice Lowe.
Also starring Richard Glover, Simon Greenall, Rachel Stubbings, Clare Thompson and Marcia Warren.
Produced by Sam Bryant.