SATURDAY 26 JANUARY 2019

SAT 00:00 Simon Bovey - Slipstream (b009mbjn)
Fight for the Future
Jurgen and Kate are desperate to get the weapon away before all is lost...Conclusion of Simon Bovey's sci-fi adventure series set during the Second World War.Stars Rory Kinnear as Jurgen Rall, Tim McMullan as Major Barton, Joannah Tincey as Kate Richey, Ben Crowe as Lieutenant Dundas, Rachel Atkins as Trudi Schenk, Peter Marinker as Brigadier Erskine and Laura Molyneux as Slipstream. Other parts played by Simon Treves, Sam Pamphilon, Alex Lanipekun and Lloyd Woolf.Producer: Marc BeebyMade for BBC 7 and first broadcast in 2008.
SAT 00:30 Off the Page (b00769r8)
Fashionable Opinions
4 Extra Debut. Irish novelist Anne Enright and journalist Bill Hagerty join Peter Rhodes to consider received wisdom. From September 2002.In each programme, Matthew Parris introduces a group of writers of fact and fiction: new talent and established names. In the context of a discussion of one of the ideas and pre-occupations of our times, each presents a piece on this week's topic.The best new writing and the freshest conversation from 2002.
SAT 01:00 Henri Castang - Not as Far as Velma (b07wb50w)
A Landlady Goes Missing
In a Northern French town, a young widow vanishes.Newly-promoted Commissaire Henri Castang wonders why the last name in the register of the tiny hotel she runs is that of a Jewish painter who never set foot there...?Van der Valk creator, Nicolas Freeling's thriller stars Keith Barron as Castang, Edita Brychta as Vera, Clive Swift as Marklake, Auriol Smith as Gabrielle, Michael Kilgarriff as Goubin and Nigel Carrington as NelsonFirst published in 1989, this is the 11th novel in Freeling's sixteen strong series featuring Henri Castang. The London-born author died 2003 aged 76.Dramatised by Michael Bakewell.Producer: Matthew WaltersFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1990.
SAT 01:30 Music from Beyond the Veil (b00ljyn0)
Prof Paul Robertson examines the claims and counter-claims for musical mediumship and asks whether musical inspiration comes from within ourselves or if it could come from somewhere beyond. He recounts the story of how, 40 years ago, a Balham housewife and medium with little musical training created a sensation when she claimed to have received new works from beyond the grave from Liszt, Brahms, Beethoven, Rachmaninov and other great composers. Rosemary Brown's abilities divided the musical world, with her supporters convinced that the works were genuine while her critics dismissed them as pastiche.
SAT 02:00 EJ Howard - Odd Girl Out (b04wxmvg)
Episode 5
Edmund's attraction intensifies, but Arabella seems to be cooling off. Meanwhile, his absence is noted. Read by Claire Skinner.
SAT 02:15 The Invention of Childhood (b00sm8nf)
Charlie Chaplin Went to France to Teach Ladies How to Dance
Michael Morpurgo discovers new forms of entertainment available to children in the first half of the 20th century.
SAT 02:30 Jacqueline Susann - Valley of the Dolls (b00mfhv8)
Episode 10
Neely has won an Academy Award, but her second marriage is already on the rocks. Jacqueline Susann drama with Madeleine Potter.
SAT 02:45 Book of the Week (b03s9y35)
Germaine Greer - White Beech: The Rainforest Years
Episode 5
Germaine Greer returns from a six month stay in England to find some exciting plantlings in her propagation unit in the rainforest. And though they look nothing like their parent, she is sure she knows what they will grow into. It is a triumph that makes all the hard work, worry and expense worthwhile.Read by Germaine GreerAbridged and produced by Jane MarshallA Jane Marshall production for BBC Radio 4
SAT 03:00 Patrick Hamilton - Twenty Thousand Streets under the Sky (b07gcj61)
The Plains of Cement
London, 1927. Bob gives Jenny an ultimatum and Ella confronts Mr Eccles.Starring Steven Pacey as Bob, Annette Badland as Ella, Emily Morgan as Jennyand John Moffatt as Ernest EcclesPatrick Hamilton’s semi-autobiographical trilogy set in working class, inter-war London.Ella's mother ..... Anna CropperProsser.....Geoffrey WhiteheadPrunella ..... Elizabeth MansfieldSammy.... Tina MarianAndy ... David GoudgeGuvnor .... David KingMrs Guvnor .... Jo KendallOther parts ..... Donald Gee, Michael Kilgarriff & Marcia KingDramatised for radio in three parts by Frederic Bradnum.Producer: Glyn DearmanFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1989.
SAT 04:00 Foul Play (b00yy8yz)
Series 4
Deadline News
Crime writers Ruth Dudley Edwards and Robert Richardson try to solve the murder of a model.With the help of witnesses played by Maria McErlane and Lee Simpson.Murder mystery panel game chaired by Simon Brett.Producer: Liz AnsteeFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September 1998.
SAT 04:30 Anything Legal (b0085hnm)
Episode 4
George and Charles tackle a horrid child and a bizarre giant in their new business offering anything legal... A Tale of Two City Gents by Wally K DalyStarring Donald Hewlett as Charles, Michael Knowles as George, Madeline Smith as Isabel, Stephen Grief as Little Willy, Elizabeth Proud as Simon and Frances Jeater as Miss Folliate.Theme music by Jim ParkerProducer: John Fawcett WilsonFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 1984.
SAT 05:00 Two Doors Down (b008h68b)
Series 2
Druids and Draws
Edith Black's lodger, Victor, the Ulster-Scots poet, has fallen in love with a Celtic druid, Anashuya - and brought her back to BelfastSeries two of Annie McCartney's four-part sitcom about the bohemian residents of Marlborough Road in Belfast saved from chaos by their cleaning lady, Sally.Starring Stella McCusker as Sally, Marcella Riordan as Clare, Katy Gleadhill as Evie, Alan Mckee as Victor, Laura Hughes as Anashuya, Roma Tomelty as Miss Black, Gerard Murphy as Fintan, Emily Walmsley as Layla, Richard Clements as Rory, Gerry Anderson as Himself and Hannah R Gordon as Anna.Director: Tanya NashFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in August 2002.
SAT 05:30 The Rivals (b082x79t)
Series 4
The Mystery of the Scarlet Thread
By Jacques Futrelle.Dramatised By Chris Harrald.Inspector Lestrade was made to look a fool in the Sherlock Holmes stories. Now he gets his own back, with tales of Holmes' rivals. Lestrade enlists the help of 'the Thinking Machine' Professor SFX Van Dusen with what he suspects may be a series of attempted murders. City dealer Nicholas Henley, has nearly been gassed three times in apparent accidents in the luxury flats of Malplaquet House. All the residents have secrets, but which one of them is out to get Henley?Lestrade ..... James FleetVan Dusen .... Tony GardnerNicolas Henley .... Nick UnderwoodCharlotte Lipscombe .... Joannah TinceyReginald Cabell .... James LaileyMiss Regnier .... Kirsty OswaldBurlingame .... Brian ProtheroePemberley .... Sean BakerProducer: Liz Webb.
SAT 06:00 Peter Reynolds - Garden Tiger (b0075427)
Toby loves to sit in Grace's garden as a refuge from his motorbiker wife. But how long will he stay?Peter Reynolds' sparkling comedy of adultery, etiquette, entomology and motorbiking amongst the middle classes.Stars Angela Thorne as Grace, Charlotte Cornwell as Emma, Peter Jeffrey as Toby, Alex Lowe as Robert and Alison Pettitt as Alison.Directed by Sally AvensFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1991.
SAT 07:30 Swansong (b01ntfvn)
The Smiths' Strangeways, Here We Come
In the summer of 1987 Britain's best loved indie band abruptly came to end when guitarist Johnny Marr sensationally quit. The Morrissey/Marr partnership that had produced such a wealth of finely crafted pop tunes was over, just weeks after the group finished recording their fourth album, "Strangeways, Here We Come." Since then, all four band members have separately pronounced the LP as their best work. Bass player Andy Rourke and drummer Mike Joyce also claim that, at the time, they were blissfully unaware of any conflict. So what happened?In this final part of the Swansong series, Stuart Maconie examines the circumstances surrounding the final recording by The Smiths, revealing the reasons behind one of the most famous breakups in British pop history. With new interviews from Mike Joyce, Andy Rourke and producer Stephen Street and contributions from music journalist Sian Pattenden and Morrissey biographer Simon Goddard.
SAT 08:00 Ed Doolan Interviews... (b00s7gcx)
Bill Kerr
'Hancock's Half Hour' stalwart Bill Kerr recalls the classic BBC comedy show that made him famous, plus his other career highlights and some favourite music.Ed Doolan was one of Britain’s best-known BBC local radio presenters, broadcasting to the West Midlands for over 40 years. Ed died aged 76 in 2018.First broadcast on BBC WM in 2001.
SAT 08:50 Inheritance Tracks (b05wcl3w)
Stephen Fry
The actor and raconteur chooses the Overture to Tannhauser by Richard Wagner, and 'The Spanish Flea' by Herb Alpert and Tijuana Brass.
SAT 09:00 Angela Barnes's Cold War Secrets (m00027jc)
Comedian Angela Barnes is an ardent nuclear bunker enthusiast with a passion for all things Cold War. Angela's latest Edinburgh show - Fortitude - featured nuclear bunkers heavily and whilst in Edinburgh, Angela performed her show in a decommissioned Cold War bunker in Fife.Featuring a perfect blend of archive and studio interviews, Angela Barnes' Cold War Secrets explores this fascinating, frightening and relevant period in modern history. Using both factual and comic archive to reveal what we didn't know then but we do know now, the show brings a unique and surprising insight into the Cold War - from bunkers and other civil defence plans, to the Royal Observer Corps, numbers stations and the secret police services behind the Iron Curtain.In her journey to find out more about this period of history, Angela talks to Author Anna Funder (Stasiland), discusses pre unification Germany with Henning Wehn and strategizes for the end of the world with comedian John Robins.Batten down the hatches, ready the invisible ink and prepare your code names.Programmes featured include:• Le Carre on Spying – A very special comedy offering from sketch group The Penny Dreadfuls. Prepare to enter 1960s Germany and a hotbed of intrigue and espionage, starring The News Quiz’s Miles Jupp as David Cornwell and Mark Heap as the narrator.• The Bed-Sitting Room - This atmospheric, surrealist play was originally written by John Antrobus and Spike Milligan, and has been adapted for radio by John Antrobus and Paul Merton with an all-star cast including Derek Jacobi, Catherine Tate and Bernard Cribbins.• Excerpts from documentaries ‘Broadcast from the Bunker’ and ‘The Stasi Jigsaw Puzzle’.Producer: Adnan Ahmed for BBC StudiosMade for BBC Radio 4 Extra.
SAT 12:00 The 99p Challenge (b007js37)
Series 2
Episode 2
Crazy panel show capers as host Sue Perkins grills Simon Pegg, David Quantick, Peter Baynham and Richard Herring.The game where someone stands to leave the studio 99p richer than when they came in.Producer: David TylerFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in June 2000.
SAT 12:30 Crazy Big Fish (b0075z0w)
Fish is Back in Hull
The adventures of five everyday Hull women as they struggle with learning lines, grumpy parents, stiletto heels and a poorly petAn uplifting six-part series by Gill Adams about being extraordinary and ordinary all at once.Stars Deborah McAndrew as Rita, Ruth Holden as Gladys, Rachel Davies as Pauline, Katy Cavanagh as Sandy, Sally Walsh as Babs and Terence Mann as Billy.Director: Polly ThomasFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2000.
SAT 13:00 Irene Nemirovsky: The Misunderstanding (Omnibus) (m00027jf)
Yves is a disappointed young man, scarred by the First World War. He returns to the Spanish resort where he spent blissful childhood holidays, and becomes infatuated by the beautiful, bored Denise, whose rich husband is away on business and Denise falls passionately in love with him.But their relationship is snagged by both personal and social thorns and back in Paris their love is challenged by a mutual misunderstanding. The story alternates from the perspective of the lovers.Yves - Joseph KloskaDenise - Sarah SmartFrancette - Charlotte Sienna LeeJessaint - Jake FerrettiWaiter - Evan JonesPublished in 1926, The Misunderstanding has been described as Nemirovsky's Madame Bovary.Nemirovsky displays a kind of hidden regret that human beings are so imperfect. Real excoriating passionate emotion, expressed with truthful intensity and cool wit leaps from every page/scene. Fire banked down with ice. It's a brilliant synthesis that illuminates the gaping fissures in the French class system wrought by the First World War and industrialisation.Translated by Sandra SmithDramatised by Lin CoghlanDirector: Pauline Harris First broadcast in five parts on BBC Radio 4 in January 2019
SAT 14:10 Inheritance Tracks (m00027jh)
Eric Idle
Comic actor Eric Idle chooses Here Comes the Sun by The Beatles and Always Look on the Bright Side of Life by Monty Python.
SAT 14:15 Frankly Speaking (b05rd9by)
Dr Mary Stocks
Social activist, writer and broadcaster Dr Stocks discusses her career, in the pioneering BBC Home Service series from July 1964.Launched in 1952 on the BBC Home Service, Frankly Speaking was a novel, ground breaking series. Unrehearsed and unscripted, the traditional interviewee/interviewer pairing was initially jettisoned for three interviewers firing direct questions. Early critics described it as 'unkempt', 'an inquisition' and described the guest as prey being cornered, quarry being pursued - with calls to axe the unscripted interview. But the format won out and eventually won over its detractors.Only 40 or so of the original 100 programmes survive.First broadcast on the BBC Home Service in 1964.
SAT 14:45 Peter Tinniswood - Tales From a Long Room (m00027jk)
Series 1
Our Own Dear Queen
Had Queen Victoria become a Test cricketer, would there still be a British Empire?Robin Bailey reads the first of five stories from Peter Tinniswood's cricket tales.Abridged for radio by the author.Producer: Tony CliffFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1981,
SAT 15:00 Ed Doolan Interviews... (b00s7gcx)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:00 today]
SAT 15:50 Inheritance Tracks (b05wcl3w)
[Repeat of broadcast at 08:50 today]
SAT 16:00 Peter Reynolds - Garden Tiger (b0075427)
[Repeat of broadcast at 06:00 today]
SAT 17:30 Swansong (b01ntfvn)
[Repeat of broadcast at 07:30 today]
SAT 18:00 Ivan the Fool and Vasilisa the Wise (m00027jp)
“This is a very peculiar story....”And so it is, with a man-eating witch, a talking doll, a dead princess and a live skeleton - the source of all the world's evil.But the course of true love never did run smooth and Ivan the Fool is determined to marry the beautiful Vasilisa, no matter what the obstacles...Nicholas McArdle narrates Stephen Mulrine’s magical drama. With Jonathan Tafler as Ivan the Fool, John Rye as Koschei, Victoria Carling as Vasilisa the Wise, Pauline Letts as Baba Yaga, Caroline Gruber as Doll, Julie Berry as Tsaritsa and Alan Dudley as the Priest.Director: Matthew WaltersFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1987.
SAT 19:00 Angela Barnes's Cold War Secrets (m00027jc)
[Repeat of broadcast at 09:00 today]
SAT 22:00 My Teenage Diary (b04v5fk2)
Series 6
Robert Newman
Rufus Hound is joined by the comedian and author Robert Newman, who reads from his 1981 teenage diaries. The young Newman goes on a CND rally, meets Tony Benn and Joe Strummer, and falls in love on the bus... twice.Produced by Harriet JaineA Talkback production for BBC Radio 4.
SAT 22:30 Chain Reaction (b013gfnh)
Series 7
Kevin Eldon interviews Mark Steel
Chain Reaction is Radio 4's tag-team interview show. Each week, a figure from the world of entertainment chooses another to interview; the next week, the interviewee turns interviewer, and they in turn pass the baton on to someone else - creating a 'chain' throughout the series.Kevin Eldon is a writer and actor for whom it would probably be quicker to list the brilliant programmes he's not been in than those he has - which include Brass Eye, 15 Storeys High, Spaced, Look Around You, Black Books, Big Train, World of Pub, Jam, I'm Alan Partridge and Attention Scum!. He also wrote and starred in Radio 4's Poets' Tree, in character as the Islington poet Paul Hamilton, and is the singer in Beergut 100.Mark Steel has presented a range of his own programmes on Radio 4, from The Mark Steel Solution, The Mark Steel Revolution, The Mark Steel Lectures to, most recently, the Sony Silver Award and Writers Guild Award-winning Mark Steel's In Town. He also occasionally appears in programmes that don't have his name in the title, such as The News Quiz.
SAT 22:55 The Comedy Club Interviews (m0002c8l)
Sarah Keyworth 2/3
Angela Barnes chats to the Comedy Award nominated comedian Sarah Keyworth.
SAT 23:00 The Simon Day Show (b01kbld1)
Series 2
Brian Pern
Simon Day and his characters welcome listeners to The Mallard, a small provincial theatre somewhere in the UK. Each week one of Simon's comic characters come to perform at The Mallard while the staff struggle with rivalries, self-doubt and the new owner's vision for the theatre's future.This week brings washed up rocker, Brian Pern to the Mallard Theatre as he's interviewed on stage by pretend 6Music journalist, Ben (Rhys Thomas).Cast list:Brian Pern ..... Simon DayEmanuel Akinyemi ..... Felix DexterPat Bennet ... Morwenna BanksRon Bone / Wozak ..... Simon GreenallBen ... Rhys ThomasWritten by Simon Day with additional material from Rhy Thomas and Felix DexterOriginal music arranged by Steve BurgeProduced by Colin Anderson.
SAT 23:30 Mark Watson Makes the World Substantially Better (b00dhg7k)
Series 2
Humility
The comedian ponders the virtue of living more modestly. With poetry and songs by Tim Key and Tom Basden. From September 2008.