Episódios
-
The story of how a heterosexual, Indian immigrant to England, ignorant of the gay scene, ended up delivering heartfelt eulogies to 30 homosexual men at the height of the AIDS crisis.
The experiences of Suresh Vaghela take us behind the headlines of the infected blood scandal and into a transformative relationship between a hemophiliac and the people who he came to regard as his new family.
(Including extracts from the BBC Sound Archive and from the 1975 World In Action documentary Blood Money, Granada TV)Music by Jeremy WarmsleyProduced by Nicolo MajnoniExecutive Producer: Alan HallA Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4
-
The 2001 Foot and Mouth crisis forced North Devon farmers into a traumatic 6 month lockdown, cut off from their neighbours and living with the death and destruction of their animals. When restrictions were finally eased, the ringing of church bells signalled the end of the lockdown, bringing communities back together.
For artist and farmer Marcus Vergette it was a sound that would change his life.
Marcus was struck by the ancient power of bells to unite and resurrect a community and he embarked on a project that would span the length and breadth of the UK. His Time and Tide Bells project is a monumental work of both sculpture and social enterprise, 13 massive bells mounted along the British shoreline, each one ringing out twice a day with the tide and telling a unique story about its surrounding community. In Harwich a teacher uses the bell as a catalyst for marine biology lessons. In Aberdyfi, a town on the verge of collapse, their bell might just pull a disintegrated community back together. And in Par, their bell is facilitating conversations between generations that were once impossible.
But closer to home, Marcus faces an urgent challenge. The church bells in the village of Highampton - the ones whose sound signalled the end of the Foot and Mouth outbreak - are under threat. In a story that is common across the country, the church has seen a steep decline in use and has become redundant. The tower is crumbling, and if the tower goes, the bells go too.
Aside from their personal connection to Marcus, these bells have historic significance, dating as they do from between 1200 and 1500 AD. Marcus is determined to save them, but the forces of bureaucracy are against him.
We follow Marcus on his quest to save the Highampton Bells and learn about the lives he has touched through the bells he created.
A Sound & Bones production for BBC Radio 4
-
Estão a faltar episódios?
-
Over 80% of people in Britain choose to be cremated rather than buried after death and the scattering of a loved one's ashes is a ritual that's increasingly familiar to many of us.
In a lyrical and bittersweet meditation on grief and memory, writer and producer Tim Dee reflects on a West Country road trip to scatter his father’s mortal remains in places of significance to both of them. Each stop has a unique story and forms part of a revealing and poignant commemoration.
In the car, the cardboard tube of John Dee's cremated remains travels in the passenger seat, safely buckled up. Then at each place, some of the contents are decanted into an recycle Indian Takeaway container for the act itself.
They are cast into the wind from the top of Dunkery Beacon on Exmoor, from a bridge over the River Horner nearby. A pot of ashes is put into a paper boat as an attempt to sail John out to sea from Madbrain Sands in Minehead.
Then to Bristol. To the family home on Sion Hill to remember domestic rancour between father and mother. And below the bridge over the Avon Gorge, a place of profound early trauma for son Tim.
All this is set to a soundtrack of remembrance on the car stereo with songs from The Beach Boys, Julie Andrews, Taylor Swift and the recorded memories of Tim's father from a conversation they had 20 years before his death.
Presenter: Tim DeeProducer: Alastair LaurenceExecutive Producer: David PrestA Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4
-
Memory is fragile. We are driven to capture it. But is this possible when the memories of the person we love have fragmented?
Julian’s mother has no memory. Both her long and short term memory were destroyed by different viruses. His mother still has an emotional memory of Julian. She recognises him - his personality, his manner. But she doesn’t know how old he is, what he does for a living, or that he has a partner. And she doesn’t realise that she can’t remember. So their relationship is stuck in a loop, consisting of repeated conversations and activities.
But Julian’s found a way to connect with his mother. He is a photographer and he is constantly trying to capture his mother’s image. His sister thinks he’s trying to catch glimpses of their mum as she would have been had she not got ill. Julian isn’t so sure. For him, taking photographs of his mum is simply a way for them to pass time together - to connect.
Chatting in her care home, going to the café for tea and cake, listening to music in the car, celebrating a birthday - the lens of Julian’s camera brings us into the relationship between a mother and a son, divided by a loss but bound together by love.
The Memory Catcher takes us on a journey into their relationship but also our relationship with memory. Who are we when we cannot make memories, even as simple as who has just said hello? When memory is faulty, fading, or lost altogether, what can be captured by another?
Recorded by artist and writer Julian LassProduced by Maia Miller-Lewis and Jo Rowntree Composer Maia Miller-Lewis With thanks to Kirsten and Monika and the wonderful staff at Monika’s care home.
A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4
-
Siblings Sam and Bon Stone are angry. Sam directs her anger inwards while Bon’s anger can be explosive. Through sharing parts of their lives with each other for the first time, they explore how we process anger and whether we can change it.
With contributions from Noel Oganyan of Forrest Flowers (recorded at the New Cross Inn, London in November 2024) and Ronnie Turner, founder of The Anger Clinic.
Original music by Jennifer WaltonProduced by Sam StoneA Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4
-
For some, burnout feels like an unravelling - a slow, creeping dissolution where the threads of your life and identity loosen and fray until you are completely undone.
For others, it’s a breaking point - a sharp, sudden, collapse where everything shatters all at once. It doesn’t just kill physical vitality it also guts the entire internal mechanism of us. Like lifting the hood off a car and finding no engine. There’s nothing, a void, which feels very shameful and fragile to those who have defined themselves by performance and always had the ability to bounce back.
Driven by extensive rumination both burnout and shame thrive in silence.
Stories are often how we create shape from the mess, they turn shame into something softer; something shared. They are how we make sense of the world, and often how we survive it. Giving us the power to hold what feels unholdable and ultimately creating a space where someone else can say, “me too”.
And sometimes what is required isn’t the courage to keep it all together, but to surrender and come apart.
Recovery is messy, non-linear but also deeply creative.
This is where the feature maker Hana Walker-Brown finds herself in this tender and intimate programme, sifting through the fragments, the scattered pieces of a life upended, considering how to start putting it back together.
With contributions from Luca and Theo Walker-Brown, Hana’s swimming companions Zoë and Gabby, Dr Sophie Mort, Dr Aaron Balick, Andrew Tobert and Services Director for Calm Wendy Robinson.
With thanks to Kenwood Ladies Pond and Campaign Against Living Miserably (CALM)
Featuring the use of "Prayer" by PJ Harvey
Produced and presented by Hana Walker-Brown
Sound design and original music by Hana Walker-Brown
Executive Producer: Anishka Sharma
Mix and Mastering: Peregrine Andrews
A Reduced Listening production for BBC Radio 4
-
Distracted, privatised, enchanted - do you ever think about how you listen? For the last 20 years, sound anthropologist Dr Tom Rice has been collecting different ways of listening from the world’s leading sound experts. He’s gathered more than 100 – some of these may be quite familiar, others will definitely surprise you.
We are at a critical moment when it comes to listening. The world is increasingly busy with sound, and it’s placing more and more demands on our ears. There’s an awareness that our culture and economic circumstances influence our perception, concern about growing pressures on our attention, and anxiety about our relationship to the environment. With the pace at which technology is developing, can we even be sure of what it is we’re listening to?
We need to be skilful and agile listeners. By recognising the vast scope and extraordinary complexity of listening, we can develop our awareness and sharpen our perception, helping us to survive and even thrive in the complex sound world of the 21st century.
Contributors: Bernd Brabec, University of Innsbruck; Ruth Herbert, University of Kent and City University; Dylan Robinson, University of British Columbia.
Special thanks to: Michel Chion – semantic listening; Martin Daughtry – palimpsestic listening; Michael Gallagher, Jonathan Prior, Martin Needham and Rachel Holmes – embodied listening, expanded listening; Stefan Helmreich – soundstate; David Huron – ecstatic listening; James M. Kopf – anal listening; Pierre Schaeffer – acousmatic listening; Murray Schafer, David Toop – clairaudience; Kai Tuuri – critical listening.
Written by Tom Rice and Ben LewisProduced by Eve Streeter and Tom RiceSound design by David ThomasMusic by Max WalterA Raconteur Studios production for BBC Radio 4
-
What drives us? What makes us who we are? For one of the BBC’s most experienced foreign correspondents, the multi-award-winning Mike Thomson, it was a near-death experience in Australia’s worst natural disaster this century. Having been kicked out of school at 17 for refusing to cut his hair, Mike opts to go travelling. With an older family friend, Mick Kendall, he journeys overland from Ivybridge in Devon to Australia’s 'top end' via Turkey, Afghanistan, India, Burma and Indonesia. Mike arrives in Darwin in December 1974. However, the search for fun and adventure with Mick and their new friend, Daryl Johnson, turns to terror when an “evil wind” known as Cyclone Tracy strikes on Christmas Eve and flattens the city in one night. For days Mike’s parents think their youngest child is "presumed dead" His name is on a list of causalities when in fact Mike was being well looked after as a refugee and evacuated to a farm in Western Australia. Why the confusion? Who is this ‘other’ Thomson? Now, 50 years on, Mike returns to Darwin to answer these questions and search for the two friends who helped him through the ordeal that shaped him.
For more stories like this, search for Illuminated on BBC Sounds. It was produced by Ed Prendeville for BBC Audio Wales and Jane Ray for Cat Flap Media. Sound design is by John Wakefield, original music by Ben Goodman. This edition of ILLUMINATED was written and presented by Mike Thomson.
With thanks to Rod Louey-Gung on behalf of the Northern Territories Museum for use of their archive.
-
It's the most intimate moment of the Radio 4 schedule: The late-night Shipping Forecast, a prelude to the close-down of the station, read every night at 00:48. But who is really listening along, and why? Guided by Radio 4 Announcer Al Ryan, we'll cross the world to meet the people who find comfort in this unique broadcast for a variety of reasons.
Produced by Luke Doran
-
Ceefax has just reached its 50th birthday, and to celebrate this unique golden anniversary, the BBC's once-mighty teletext news service is receiving the greatest gift of all - the gift of life, courtesy of the greatest novelty politician in the omniverse, Count Binface.
For eight years, Binface has pledged in his election manifestos to bring back Ceefax and now, at last, the BBC is granting his wish. With just one small hitch - it's on the radio. Still, you've got to start somewhere.
Featuring the stellar talents of Rory Bremner, Emma Clarke and Jon Harvey, get ready for an aural event like no other, with the unlikely return to the airwaves of the much-missed Ceefax. Or should that be Hearfax?
Starring: Rory Bremner, Emma Clarke, Leah Marks and Jon HarveyAnd introducing Ceefax, 4-Tel and The Oracle
Script Writers: Jon Harvey and Matthew CrosbySound Design: Tony ChurnsideProducer: Jon HarveyIllustration: Dan FarrimondExecutive Producer: Eloise Whitmore
A Naked production for BBC Radio 4
-
Every year's end, as the days shorten and the nights grow darker, you might be fortunate enough to hear a distinctive knock at your door. Upon opening it, you'll be met with a group of Guisers - men in disguise - here to perform their mystery play, part of the ancient Mumming tradition. There's the Enterer In, Saint George, The Prince of Paradise, The King, The Old Woman, The Quack Doctor, Beelzebub, Little Johnny Jack with his wife on his back, Little Devilly Doubt, The Groom, and The Horse.
And it's the vision of The Horse At The Door that has stayed with Isy since childhood.
Isy hasn’t seen the Guisers for over 30 years, but that horse and the clack of its jaw frightened her so much, she thinks of it often.
In The Horse At The Door, Isy will see if she can come face to face with her fears and see whether that black painted skull still holds the same magic and power. She will speak to local pub owners and residents about The Guisers habit of bursting in, to the folklorist Richard Bradley about the Derbyshire traditions of mumming and guising, to the psychotherapist Jane Watson about why we enjoy being scared, and to The Winster Guisers themselves about the traditions they are keeping alive – and the children they are scaring.
Can Isy finally look that horse in its red bulging eyes?
The Horse At The Door is written and presented by Isy SuttieThe Music is by Jane Watkins and Isy SuttieThe Sound Design is by Jane WatkinsIt is produced by Laura GrimshawIt’s a Mighty Bunny production for BBC Radio 4.
With thanks to The Winster Guisers, Richard Bradley, Jane Watson, Colette Dewhurst at The Barley Mow, The Miners Standard and - especially - The Old Horse.
-
The best stories have a certain WTF factor.. a weird little fact that draws you in…something you can’t ignore because it’s so contrary to what you previously thought.
So it was for Geoff Lloyd when he heard that the story that Karaoke was invented in Stockport, by a charismatic shopkeeper called Roy Brooke who claimed the Japanese adopted his discovery and marketed it around the world.
Geoff’s a massive Karaoke fan and remembers his halcyon days in the 90s, judging karaoke competitions in the town with his friend Caroline Aherne, so he sets off on a quest to get to the bottom of this tale; a quest that sees him chat to Stockport hitmakers Blossoms, comedy writing legend Craig Cash and a Japanese academic said to have backed up Roy's crazy claim.
On the way he discovers a town so in love with Karaoke that it's home to the country's only dedicated league, a secretive world jampacked with big voices and human drama. 12 pub teams meet every Monday for chance to be champions of the New Stockport Fun Karaoke League. But have some of the teams starting taking it too seriously and forgotten about the fun?
Will Geoff track down Roy Brooke and hear his side of the story and find out why Karaoke has taken root so strongly in Stockport?
Presenter: Geoff LloydProducer: Catherine MurrayAdditional recording by George HerdProduction Co-ordination: Mica NepomucenoStudio mix: Nat Stokes Executive Producer: Richard McIlroy
Featuring Blossoms, Craig Cash, Professor Hiroshi Ogawa, and Matt Alt, author of Pure Invention: How Japanese Culture Conquered the World.
Special thanks to the Blossoms Bees and The Barnhouse teams and all the members of the New Stockport Karaoke Fun League
-
For 2000 years beneath layer upon layer of peat, the remains of two bodies - a man and a woman - lay buried in the earth. Within 12 months of each other, they were discovered on Lindow Moss, the cut-over peat bog in Cheshire.
It's now 40 years since the remains of Lindow Man were found, the best-preserved bog body ever discovered in the UK. A year before that, the skull of Lindow Woman was found, with major ramifications for a modern-day mystery. We still don’t know who these people were or in the case of Lindow Man, why he met his violent death. Was it ritual sacrifice to the gods, private scores settled or a public execution?
Their spirits remain in the place of their burial - a small corner of Cheshire filled with myth, mystery and history. Together with one of the original peat cutters at that time, the first journalist on the site, a professor of pre-history, a conservator and material from archive, we tell the story of this remarkable archaeological discovery.
And a slight twist - listening in on proceedings are Lindow Man and Lindow Woman. What might they make of the celebrations around the anniversary of the bodies in the bog?
Contributors: Melanie Giles Professor in European Prehistory, University of Manchester; Stephen Dooley, former peat cutter; Rachel Pugh, writer and journalist; Velson Horie, conservation consultant and the late Rick Turner (archive) former County Archaeologist, Cheshire. Lindow Man is played by Fisayo Akinawe and Lindow Woman by Eve Shotton.
Produced and written by Geoff BirdExecutive Producer: Mel HarrisSound Engineer: Eloise WhitmoreMusic composed & performed by Laetitia Stott & mixed and mastered by Geoff SouthallA Sparklab production for BBC Radio 4
-
Mike is a carpenter, a boat builder, and a keen amateur sailor. Now, in his 60s he feels the time has come for a big adventure, so he signs on as crew for a transatlantic sailing voyage. But when the skipper turns to tyranny and his only ally on board loses touch with reality, Mike is faced with his own demons.
There's no storm, no shipwreck, no sea monster - only three men trapped together, each battling for their own sanity.
With only the endless sea surrounding them, Mike soon realises he is the only one who can pull the crew and himself out of a very dangerous place. Will he surrender to the dark line that runs through all of us?
Produced by Guy NatanelExecutive Producers: Shannon Delwiche and Chris JonesOriginal Music by Pat Moran
A Sound and Bones production for BBC Radio 4
-
Composer Aidan Tulloch is fascinated by the physical process of making music – but fears he knows very little. He gains a unique insight from some of the most precise and gifted technicians in the country – members of the Association of Blind Piano Tuners. Aidan traces their journey into this field, goes along to their annual curry lunch, and finds out why the highly skilled craft of piano tuning was once a popular career for blind and partially sighted people: now their numbers are dwindling. They also reflect on how we listen to and perceive sound and music, and the joy it brings.
Presenter: Aidan TullochProducers: Maryam Maruf and Emily WebbEditor: John GoudieMix: Giles Aspen
(Photo: Piano tuner Martin Locke tuning a piano. Credit: Maryam Maruf)
-
The story of Anthony Ray Hinton who spent years on death row for crimes he didn't commit, with a soundtrack composed by Harvey Brough and performed by Vox Holloway Community Choir.
In June 1988, Mr Hinton was convicted of two murders, in one of the most shockingly cynical miscarriages of justice in US history. He spent the next 28 years on death row, before all charges were dropped and he was finally released in April 2015.
The Sun Does Shine is the title of his memoir, in which he tells how he found life and freedom on death row. His story reflects the compassion, faith and heroic courage of a remarkable man. In prison he befriended Henry Hays, a member of the Ku Klux Klan, who was convicted and eventually executed for a racist murder.
The unlikely friendship of Hinton and Hays lies at the heart of this story.
The Sun Does Shine features an extended interview with Hinton, in which he talks about how he survived years of imprisonment, facing the constant threat of execution, and how the multiple appeals launched by his lawyer Bryan Stevenson ultimately led to his release.
His words are accompanied by an oratorio composed by Harvey Brough, based on Hinton's memoir and performed by the Vox Holloway Community Choir. Vox Holloway’s work on The Sun Does Shine was supported by Arts Council England
Since leaving prison, Anthony Ray Hinton has worked tirelessly, alongside Bryan Stevenson, campaigning for the abolition of the death penalty and for reforms to the criminal justice and prison systems in America PRESENTER: Christina GillPRODUCERS: Abigail Morris and Sam Liebmann with Osman Teezo KargboCOMPOSER: Harvey BroughEXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Andrew Wilkie and Tricia ZipfelA Vox Holloway / Prison Radio Association production
-
Are we ever really alone nowadays, what with the extraordinary velocity of contemporary social circulation, whether this be the madness of the crowds, or the relentless churn of social media? Does anyone really experience reclusion? A conscious choice to withdraw from the social realm. What would it be like?
For decades, Will Self lived his life as a very public figure. An acerbic satirist and giant man of letters he was constantly on the move, driven by his insatiable curiosity about the world. “I once flew to Scotland, climbed Ben Lomond, and flew back to London the same day”.
In a series of powerful soliloquies, Self reveals how he’s gradually withdrawn from the social realm. He began by abandoning acquaintances and remoter colleagues, then started cutting off friends, close colleagues, and eventually family.
“It’s been over a year since I’ve read a newspaper report, looked at a news website, or heard more than a three-minute news bulletin. Most days I see only my wife and youngest child who I live with.”
In this powerful piece of radio, Will Self reaches down to the very bottom of how the self is socially constructed – and then dismantles that scaffolding from around it, to see what’s still standing.
A half-hour that will leave the listener feeling as if they’ve been staring at their reflection for so long in a mirror, that this image appears totally uncanny to them.
Presenter: Will SelfProducer: Emily Williams
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4
-
When Clive Hammond was 31, he had a cardiac arrest. His heart stopped for eight minutes. But he can't remember any of it.
What happens when the heart stops - and then what happens next?
Clive sets out to piece together what happened to him. He speaks to his wife Victoria about what went on while he was unconscious, and the impact it had on their lives. He compares notes with fellow cardiac arrest survivor Meg Fozzard about what it's like to have a cardiac arrest as a young person. Former head of first responders at London Ambulance Chris Hartley-Sharpe tells him what goes on in the body during a cardiac arrest, and how they can affect medical professionals afterwards. And he hears the incredible story of Steve Morris, who started carrying a defibrillator in his car after having a cardiac arrest - and then used it to help save someone else's life.
Presenter: Clive HammondProducer: Lucy BurnsEditor: Clare FordhamTechnical production: Richard Hannaford
-
In 1980, Prestonwood Mall in Dallas contacted the Center for UFO Studies (CUFOS) with a unique request. It was the opening weekend of The Empire Strikes Back, and the mall’s marketing team wanted an additional attraction. Sensing an opportunity, John P Timmerman, the owner of a family air-conditioning business in Ohio and a dedicated volunteer at CUFOS, packed his car with an eye-catching collection of UFO photographs and embarked on a cross-country journey for the weekend.
What began as a simple photography exhibit turned into a 12year research expedition across the malls of America.
In front of plexiglass panels, between the skylights and shiny floors, Timmerman interviewed curious shoppers with stories to tell. What he captured on his small tape recorder was the “raw material of ufology” - candid, first-hand accounts of strange lights, silver discs, and close encounters.
Between 1980 and 1992, Timmerman recorded 1,179 witness reports across 120 tapes that cover every aspect of the UFO phenomena. The collection is considered one of the largest ever put together by a single investigator.
John P Timmerman spent years travelling far from his quiet family life in the Midwest searching for insights into our place in the universe. What he found, among the hum of escalators and muzak, was connection - or ‘contact’ - with thousands of ordinary people, all searching for the same thing.
Produced, Edited & Sound Designed by Oliver SandersArchive Digitisation & Co-Production by James TimmermanExecutive Producer: Lucia ScazzocchioSpecial thanks to Dr Mark Rodeghier, Dr Michael Swords, Dr Michael West, The Center For UFO Studies, The Timmerman Family, Dominic De Vere, Francesca Thakorlal, Ben Plumb, Hannah Kemp-Welch.
A Social Broadcasts production for BBCRadio 4
-
On their last tour, the award-winning folk band The Young'uns took with them an old suitcase, some blank luggage tags and marker pens, and asked audience members to fill the case with ideas for songs. Hundreds poured in with stories of hope, remembrance, love, grief and joy. In this programme, singer-songwriter Sean Cooney opens the case to find a myriad of voices all waiting...wanting to be heard.
He follows three stories of love... from a couple who found each other in their 70s through their shared passion of Middlesbrough Football Club, to a story of love, loss and renewal on the banks of the Thames. He meets up with Angela to hear a tale of how some borrowed boots outside a disco led to several dates, a marriage and three children. Inspired by this wonderful story, Sean writes a song to surprise the man with the borrowed boots - Angela's now-husband.
Presenter: Sean CooneyProducer: Elizabeth Foster
- Mostrar mais
