Book of the Week: Family Britain, 23 - 27 November 2009. BBC Radio 4
Produced and Abridged by Jane Greenwood
Read by Dominic West
Driven by the letters, diaries and memories of ordinary people, Family Britain describes a largely cohesive, ordered, deferential society gratefully starting to move away from the painful hardships of the 1940s towards domestic ease and affluence.
We hear diarist Nella Last discussing Princess Margaret’s love life with her cleaning lady; an East End housewife describing the drudgery of an average day; and a Cambridge undergraduate nervously joining an anti-war march during the Suez crisis. We also encounter well-known figures along the way: Margaret Thatcher, Ned Sherrin and Noel Coward all share their very different memories of the Coronation.
A History Of Private Life, 28 September - 30 November 2009. BBC Radio 4.
Produced by Elizabeth Burke
Award-winning historian Amanda Vickery presents a series which reveals the hidden history of private life in Britain over 400 years.
This Landmark series for BBC Radio 4 unlocks the front door of the Englishman's castle, to peer into the privacies of life at home over the last 400 years, from around 1600 up to 1939. It will vividly recreate the texture of life at home, from bed bugs and insects breeding behind the wallpapers, to new goods, fashions and rituals, from the performances of the drawing room to the secrets of the dressing room, from the comforts of the domestic fireside to the horrors of domestic violence, home making and home breaking. Domestic life is coming out of the closet.
Now Wash Your Hands, 31 October 2009. BBC Radio 4.
Produced by Francis Byrnes.
The story of the original Izal Medicated, in the words of people who have a soft spot for hard toilet paper. Featuring songs written by the presenter, Sally Goldsmith, and sung by a Professor of Infectious Diseases at the University of Sheffield and locals of the city, where the paper was originally made
Merry Widows, 31 August 2009. BBC Radio 4.
Produced by Elizabeth Burke and Kim Normanton
An antidote to soul-searching programmes about bereavement: women of a certain age talk about how happy they have been since they’ve been widowed. No meals to cook, no snoring to endure, just female friends – and freedom, for the first time in their lives.
Many older women discover a new lease of life on their own. This programme hears their stories. It’s not that they were unhappily married, but all marriages, particularly when the husband is retired and around the house, produce their constraints. For the first time in their lives, these older women are free!
The Hybernaculam, 23 August 2009. BBC Radio 3.
Produced by Matt Thompson
Long before Darwin wrote "The Origin of the Species", an obscure country parson collected together and published forty years of letters and observations. His name was Gilbert White and his book "The Natural History of Selborne" has been continuously in print for over two hundred years. It is still admired for its beauty and for its attitude to nature. The Natural History was tremendously influential on the Romantic poets, like Wordsworth. Even modern observers of life in the wild, for instance, Sir David Attenborough, spring directly from Gilbert White.
"The Hybernaculum" follows a single day, when Gilbert's beloved tortoise Timothy, goes missing and the household hopes to witness a hot air balloon fly over. Against those external happenings, Gilbert fights an internal battle with "obsessive ruminations", odd echoes, noises, snatches of words, birds and music which he cannot quieten. Overcome by this form of madness, he seeks refuge in the distractions of the natural world, creating his own 'hybernaculum', a place of hibernation and calm, where his mind can be still again.
Accepting Jack: Six Years On, 24 August 2009. BBC Radio 4.
Produced by Kim Normanton
In 2003, Kim Normanton spoke to a set of parents coming to terms with having a child with special needs. She revisits them to see how their stories have developed.
In the original programme Kevin, father to Jack who has Down's Syndrome, felt unable to celebrate his son's birth. Now Kevin is a secondary school teacher and talks regularly to his students about his son. Jack, now eight, has two siblings and several good friends in his mainstream school.
In the original programme Jo, mother to Briony who was born with learning difficulties and is partially deaf, couldn't bring herself to even hold her daughter, fearing that she wouldn't be able to bear the pain of losing her. Brionny is now a healthy 15-year-old and a day pupil at a school for deaf children. She has a close relationship with her mother, who works for Mencap and champions the cause of families with children with special needs.
The Job Clinic, 15th, 16th,17th June 2009. BBC Radio 4.
Produced by Hilary Dunn
Liz Barclay follows a group of unemployed men and women as they look for work, and provides them with access to expert mentors: business guru and innovative management thinker Charles Handy; coach and consultant with over 30 years experience of getting people the jobs they want Jenny Rogers; and founder of Coffee Republic Sahar Hashemi.
They can’t find them jobs – but they can encourage, support and force them to think in a new way about their future, and how they should direct their search. The series tracks their progress.
The Many Lives Of Roald Dahl, 23rd May 2009. BBC Radio 4.
Produced by Anna Horsbrugh Porter
Sophie Dahl looks at the life, writing and passions of the children’s author, Roald Dahl - acerbic, funny, inventive and clever – what made him the writer he became?
Sophie guides us through her grandfather’s life. His Norwegian background but very British education, his early life in Washington and Hollywood, marriage to a movie-star – personal tragedies and life at home in Buckinghamshire, looking after his children and writing the stories which would make him one of the most famous authors of the twentieth century.
A Tale Of Two Emirates, 27th April and 4th May 2009. BBC Radio 4.
Produced by Tom Jackson
The shiny towers of Dubai sprouted from the sand at an alarming rate turning it into the world's fastest growing tourist destination and biggest building site. Now the credit crisis has hit, and the future looks increasingly precarious. Speaking to nervous expats and locals in the first programme, Jenny Clayton investigates how the boomtown in the desert is coping.
In the second programme, Jenny visits the less well-known, wealthier neighbour of Dubai, Abu Dhabi which has never sought the limelight. But, with potentially disastrous timing in the light of the global economic crisis, the emirate has embarked on a massive cultural development programme including beach resorts, housing, art galleries, museums and an opera house.
Leland's Travels, 26 April 2009. BBC Radio 3.
Produced by Paul Quinn
Professor David Wallace tells the story of how brilliant humanist scholar John Leland travelled the length and breadth of the country on the eve of the Reformation, recording its treasures, making the first authoritative geographical and cultural map of the nation. How Leland's travels led to the destruction of what he lovingly recorded; and his own descent into madness.
What’s In Your Head, 17th April 2009. BBC Radio 4.
Produced by Elizabeth Burke and Kim Normanton
Under pressure, when we are on our own, many of us hear the words we learnt by heart as a child. In this feature people talk about how these words have helped them in situations of extreme pressure and danger.
Reasons To Be Cheerful, 18th, 25th April, 2nd May 2009. BBC Radio 4.
Produced by Annie Caufield and Kim Normanton
Peter White, Stephen K Amos and Diana Quick go on personal missions to dispel the notion that modern Britain has gone to hell in a handcart and to challenge the culture of nostalgia which threatens to overtake us. They take to task a well known grumpy of their choice and attempt to convert them with their Reasons to be Cheerful.
Honestly, things are better than you think.
The Wire: Salmonella Men On Planet Porno, 28th February. BBC Radio 3.
Directed by Matt Thompson
On a planet where love not war governs the laws of evolution astronauts fight off the unwanted attentions of hybridised animals, birds and even plants. Their quest takes them to Newdopia where the naked inhabitants have no concept of the obscene.
Head In The Clouds, 23rd, 24th, 25th and 26th February 2009. BBC Radio 3.
Produced by Paul Quinn
Clouds and cloudscapes are a vital part of the history of art and culture, and play a crucial part in our cloud-gazing dreams and mushrooming nightmares. These essays trace the shifting, drifting role of clouds in art, architecture and the cultural imagination. In these programmes writers, cultural historians, art historians and architects engage in some blue-sky thinking.
The Last Smoker, 20th February 2009. BBC Radio 4.
Translated by Andrew Driver, Directed by Matt Thompson
Julia Dover's adaptation of a short story by Yasutaka Tsutsui, set in modern-day Japan. Cantankerous novelist Haruki, the world's last smoker, is hounded to a fate worse than death by do-gooders and self-righteous journalists, as they try to eradicate smoking once and for all.
God.com, 9th February 2009. BBC Radio 4.
Produced by Madeleine Brolly
Dr Robert Beckford weighs up the issues of religion online. From its inception, the internet has provided religious groups with ever more diverse ways of exploring and expressing their faith. If the printing press led to the Reformation, what is the internet doing to religion?
Book of the Week: Bluebird, 19th–23rd January 2009. BBC R4.
Written by Vesna Maric, Produced by Jane Greenwood
Gemma Arterton reads the touching and funny memoir of Vesna Maric who arrived in Britain as an asylum seeker at the age of only sixteen.
2009 radio programmes
© Loftus Audio 2010
Loftus Audio Ltd no. 6471982 registered in England
Vat Registration No: 927 7811 91
Registered Office: 27 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3BL
