AMBITION Sunday 03 September 2008
Mark Tully explores the role of ambition – which is often considered a necessary force to succeed in life. But it is such a powerful force – can too much ambition be dangerous – especially in political life? And can it stop us growing spiritually?
The programme includes an interview with the distinguished political commentator, Anthony Howard.
LIMBO Sunday 06 July 2008
In this week’s Something Understood, Mark Tully will be considering limbo - a state in which time stands still and we cannot move on. For some the very prospect of such a place leads to a feeling of despair, while for others it has a spiritual dimension and can offer the opportunity to share in The Eternal.
The programme includes an interview with Paul Lamplugh*, whose daughter Suzy disappeared twenty-two years ago. The police investigation lasted for twelve years – and Paul explains that in his experience, you have to take positive action in order to get out of limbo.
DOWNSIZING Sunday 15 June 2008
Mark Tully considers how people cope when they are forced to downsize through financial necessity. And what is the difference when someone chooses to downsize – are there any benefits to a simpler, scaled-down life?
The programme includes an interview with Rajmohan Gandhi, whose grandfather, the Mahatma Gandhi, had strong views on living the simple life uncluttered by materialism.
COMMITTEES Sunday 25 May 2008
What is the role of committees in our lives - are they good or bad for us? Are they an excuse for not making decisions, or can they provide opportunities for creative and innovative thinking?
The programme includes an eclectic range of reflections on the topic including the thoughts of the late Pope John Paul 23rd and an interview with the Bishop of Kingston, the Right Reverend Richard Cheetham.
THE PAST Sunday 13 April 2008
What happens when we look back at our pasts with regret and sadness or alternatively, with nostalgia or thankfulness – what difference does this make to our present?
Wise and witty words from P G Wodehouse and music from Ella Fitzgerald help Mark Tully investigate. He also asks what we have to do to move on from our past.
PRIVACY Sunday 30 March 2008
How much privacy do we need, and is it a selfish thing to want? Mark Tully considers in Something Understood – I want to be left alone – at 6 o’ clock this Sunday morning / half past eleven this Sunday evening. He’ll also be pondering how we square the need for privacy with our responsibilities to others? And asking how much privacy people in public life entitled to – aided, as ever, with plenty of eclectic musical and literary inspiration. Join Mark Tully at five past six this morning /half past eleven tonight in Something Understood, here on BBC Radio 4.
RUNNING AWAY Sunday 23 September 2007
Mark Tully considers the human need to escape - from the modern world, from other people, from ourselves - and asks: is religion an escape?
Including a conversation with the Jungian psychiatrist Rashna Imhasly-Gandhy.
Readers: Gareth Armstrong, Julia Ford, Gerard Murphy, Simon Tcherniak and Laila Vakil.
Researcher: Libby Spurrier
Producer: Nigel Acheson
THE CARER AND THE CARED FOR Sunday 12 August 2007
Mark Tully considers the relationship between people who are gravely ill and the people who care for them.
Including a conversation with the author and broadcaster Elizabeth Urch.
Readers: Gareth Armstrong, Julia Ford, Simon Tcherniak and Laila Vakil.
Researcher: Libby Spurrier
Producer: Nigel Acheson
KEEP ON RUNNING Sunday 08 July 2007
Mark Tully considers the spiritual dimensions of exercise and sport.
Including a conversation with the Reverend Chris McQuillen-Wright, Vicar of St. Columb Minor, Cornwall.
Readers: Gareth Armstrong, Julia Ford, Simon Tcherniak and Laila Vakil.
Researcher: Libby Spurrier
Producer: Nigel Acheson
EMERGING FROM THE RUINS Sunday 10 June 2007
When your world falls down around you, is it really possible to emerge a stronger person than before? Mark Tully considers life after downfall - personal, emotional, financial.
Including a conversation with the writer and former Conservative Cabinet Minister Jonathan Aitken.
Readers: Julia Ford, Mat Fraser and Gerard Murphy.
Researcher: Libby Spurrier
Producer: Nigel Acheson
SQUARE PEGS Sunday 13 May 2007
Mark Tully considers the lot of those who don't quite fit in.
Including a conversation with the Indian director, actor and broadcaster Bhaskar Ghose.
Readers: Julia Ford, Mat Fraser and Gerard Murphy.
Researcher: Libby Spurrier
Producer: Nigel Acheson
ENDURING Sunday 08 April 2007
Life is sometimes described as an endurance test. Mark Tully considers the qualities that help people survive its tribulations.
Readers: Julia Ford, Mat Fraser and Gerard Murphy.
Researcher: Libby Spurrier
Producer: Nigel Acheson
SACRIFICES ON THE ALTAR OF LOVE Sunday 24 September 2006
The writer Bel Mooney explores the sacrifices we called on to make during our lives - for children, for partners and for God.
Readers: Gareth Armstrong, Hannah Gordon and Andrew Watson
Producer: Libby Spurrier
GROWING OLD WISELY Sunday 17 September 2006
As Autumn approaches, Dr Tina Beattie considers the challenges and opportunities of ageing. In a culture that values youth, beauty and success, how do we cope with the inevitability of loss and death?
Readers: Gareth Armstrong, Hannah Gordon, Laila Vakil and Andrew Watson
Producer: Libby Spurrier
CARRIED ON THE WIND Sunday 10 September 2006
The storyteller Pamela Marre reflects on the invisible power of the wind, drawing on ancient tales which advise us not to fight it, but instead to bend and remain unbroken.
Readers: Gareth Armstrong, Hannah Gordon and Andrew Watson
Producer: Kim Normanton
DOUBTING THOMAS Sunday 13 August 2006
My God, my God! Why hast Thou forsaken me?
In conversation with Canon John Shepherd, Mark Tully considers the doubt in people's faith - from Thomas to Jesus Himself.
Readers: Adjoa Andoh, Gareth Armstrong and Simon Tcherniak
Researcher: Libby Spurrier
Producer: Nigel Acheson
SLEEPLESS NIGHTS Sunday 6 August 2006
When you wake unexpectedly in the night and the mind starts to churn, why do life's little problems and irritations seem much worse than they really are? Mark Tully contemplates the perspective of the sleepless.
Including a conversation with the writer and journalist Virginia Ironside.
Readers: Adjoa Andoh, Gareth Armstrong and Simon Tcherniak
Researcher: Libby Spurrier
Producer: Nigel Acheson
THE PLEASURE OF WORK Sunday 30 July 2006
In a society which defines people by what they do, those who enjoy their job are fortunate indeed. Mark Tully considers the pleasures of working, whether it be digging the garden or writing a script.
Readers: Adjoa Andoh, Gareth Armstrong, Simon Tcherniak and Laila Vakil
Researcher: Libby Spurrier
Producer: Nigel Acheson
SPIRIT Sunday 5 February 2006
Susan Beattie is a puppeteer. She produced a theatre show based on her fascination with ordinary people's spirituality which had the unexpected effect of shaking to the core her own belief in God.
Producer Matt Thompson
ONE DAY AT A TIME Sunday 8 January 2006
Taking the long view is important; but today Mark Tully considers the importance of appreciating the present moment - and of achieving each day a small goal.
Readings & music research: Libby Spurrier
Producer: Nigel Acheson
THE POWER OF SONG Sunday 11 December 2005
At school Mark Tully was told that he couldn't sing and would not be able to join the school choir. Many others before and since have been told the same thing. What have they missed out on? To find out Mark talks to Joan Taylor of the 'Can't Song Choir' at Morley College, London.
Readings & music research: Libby Spurrier
Producer: Nigel Acheson
COURAGE & COWARDICE Sunday 13 November 2005
In conversation with Lieutenant-General Satish Nambiar PVSM AVSM VRC (rtd) of the Indian Army, Mark Tully considers the borderlines between fear and cowardice. How do we find the courage to face our fears, whether it be in wartime, or in our daily lives?
Readings & music research: Libby Spurrier
Producer: Nigel Acheson
WEEPING & TEARS Sunday 11 September 2005
'Jesus wept' is the shortest verse in the Bible. Mark Tully considers what happens when we cry - bitter tears, crocodile tears, tears of joy.
Music & readings research: Libby Spurrier
Producer: Nigel Acheson
HEARING & LISTENING Sunday 14 August 2005
Mark Tully considers the distinction between hearing and listening and realises that the way we respond to things often matters more than the thing itself.
Music & readings research: Libby Spurrier
Producer: Nigel Acheson
NO PLACE LIKE HOME? Sunday 17 July 2005
Now we all seem to move houses several times in our lives, author Michael Morpurgo wonders where exactly home is. Is it just an idea that has ceased to have any meaning?
Producer: Matt Thompson
WHY DO WE SING? Sunday 12 June 2005
Professor Arnold Maran was a leading surgeon who specialized in the voice. He's operated on some of the world's leading opera and pop singers. But why should we be able to sing in the first place? After all giraffes are mute. And how did we get from squeaks, grunts and barks to being able to sing so beautifully?
Producer: Matt Thompson
THE REAL ME Sunday 15 May 2005
Lionel McCalman is a teacher and musician. Born in Guyana he's now lived in London for thirty years. He plays in a big Steel Drum band and he's seen people from all cultures and backgrounds having a go.
Which brings him back to himself, who is Lionel?
Producer: Kim Normanton
A HUNDRED YEARS A FOREST Sunday 10 April 2005
Writer and storyteller Vayu Naidu reflects on spring, fertility and the natural cycles of our changing bodies.
Producer: Kim Normanton
GLIMPSES IN THE GARDEN Sunday 13 March 2005
As a young art therapist, Joyce Laing noticed that the intensity of paintings by her TB patients eerily prefigured their bouts of illness. This led to a lifelong interest in the art of the insane. Joyce connects the visions of William Blake to the surrealists and finally to a tiny woven offering she found beneath a holly bush in the grounds of a mental asylum.
Producer: Matt Thompson
A CHAIN OF VOICES Sunday 13 February 2005
Storyteller Hugh Lupton believes when he tells a story, the person who told it to him is standing behind him like a ghost. And behind that person is another and so it goes back to our earliest ancestors in an unbroken line. But what possible evidence could he have for such thoughts?
Producer: Matt Thompson
A ROOM OF ONE'S OWN Sunday 19 December 2004
Mark Tully considers the importance of having one's own personal space - physical, mental and spiritual. Including a conversation with the yoga teacher Bijoylaxmi Hota.
Readings & music research: Libby Spurrier
Producer: Nigel Acheson
CAN CREATIVITY BE TAUGHT? Sunday 5 December 2004
Poet Professor Douglas Dunn teaches creative writing at St Andrew's University. He wonders if imagination can be taught and wishes he could get to his own shed at the bottom of his overgrown garden to write
"I would not have wished to miss a single word of Sunday's Something Understood on Radio 4. In the dark cold of the very early morning here was Douglas Dunn, poet and academic, talking about whether creative writing can be taught, discussing why he is so often asked the question... Matt Thompson produced, leaving in the odd rustle of Dunn's pages and an occasionally mumbled aside, somehow making the formal words of the script more human, more intense." - Gillian Reynolds, Daily Telegraph
Producer: Matt Thompson
DESERT PLACES Sunday 7 November 2004
The desert is a metaphor for despair, depression, emptiness. But it is also seen as spiritual place, where one can be closer to God. Mark Tully explores those remote places that can be just around the corner, or even inside ourselves. Including a conversation with the American art historian Mitch Abdul Karim.
Readings & music research: Libby Spurrier
Producer: Nigel Acheson
ACHILLES' HEEL Sunday 10 October 2004
Mark Tully considers the ways in which we acknowledge and deal with the flaws and weaknesses of our own character. Including a conversation with the Indian philosopher Chaturvedi Badrinath.
Readings & music research: Libby Spurrier
Producer: Nigel Acheson
SHIELDS Sunday 5 September 2004
Mark Tully considers the ways we protect ourselves - from misfortune, from other religions, from God. Including a conversation with Father Dominic Emmanuel, Director of Communications for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Delhi.
Readings & music research: Libby Spurrier
Producer: Nigel Acheson
MUSIC FOR PAIN Sunday 11th July 2004
Composer Nigel Osborne has witnessed the power of music to transform lives in his work with children caught up in wars.
Producer: Matt Thompson
FOOD FOR THOUGHT Sunday 6 June 2004
Mary Contini Juggles a directorship at Edinburgh food emporium Valvona and Crolla with being a mother. How and why?
Producer: Matt Thompson
GILES Sunday 2 May 2004
Dame Stephanie Shirley considers the experience of bringing up a severely autistic son.
Producer: Matt Thompson
FORGIVENESS Sunday 28 March 2004
The creator of The Ladies No. 1 Detective Agency writer and Law Professor Alexander McCall Smith is obsessed by the complexities of forgiveness in his fiction and in real life.
Producer: Matt Thompson
THE PHILISTINES Sunday 22 February 2004
The sculptor Alexander Stoddart will never win a Turner prize. Sunday 22 February 2004 His work cannot be summed up in a witty one-liner. Official contemporary artists scoff at his busts of people like the Queen. By analysing the characteristics of the philistine Alexander gets closer to the indefinable mystery that is art.
Producer: Matt Thompson
THE SOLACE OF ROUTINE Sunday 25 January 2004
Mark Tully considers the effect of routine on our lives.
Music and readings research: Libby Spurrier
Producer: Nigel Acheson
IN PRAISE OF SHADOWS Sunday 11 January 2004
Retired radio producer Piers Plowright uses Tanizaki's eloquent and perverse essay on the Japanese sense of beauty to celebrate the magic of shadows.
Producer: Matt Thompson
ON THIS ROCK Sunday 21 December 2003
The importance of firm foundations - for buildings, for faith, for life.
Music and readings research: Libby Spurrier
Producer: Nigel Acheson
TEMPEST TOSSED Sunday 16 November 2003
Julian of Norwich reminds us: 'He did not say, 'You shall not be tempest tossed'. Mark Tully considers the ways we cope with the storms in our lives - spiritual, emotional and physical.
Music and readings research: Libby Spurrier
Producer: Nigel Acheson
PET THEORIES 12 October 2003
Walking his labrador in a Delhi park, Mark Tully considers what we can learn from the behaviour of domestic animals - and what they can learn from us.
Music and readings research: Libby Spurrier
Producer: Nigel Acheson
TWILIGHT TIME Sunday 7 September 2003
Mark Tully considers how the fading light of day influences our thoughts and mood. Including a conversation with Indian artist Anjolie Ela Menon.
Music and readings research: Libby Spurrier
Producer: Nigel Acheson
A CLOUD OF UNKNOWING Sunday 3 August 2003
Mark Tully considers the way clouds affect our lives - from mirrors of mood to harbingers of life itself.
Music and readings research: Libby Spurrier
Producer: Nigel Acheson
MUST THE SHOW GO ON? Sunday 15 June 2003
Actress, singer and mother Maria Friedman talks about heroes - big ones and small ones.
Producer: Matt Thompson
SILENT WITNESS Sunday 18 May 2003
Composer and Choral Director Antony Pitts listens out for the silent moments in music, poetry and life.
Producer: Matt Thompson
THE BURIED LIFE Sunday 13 April 2003
The author of 'Miss Garnet's Angel', Salley Vickers, is also a Jungian psychotherapist. The describes her lifelong fascination with the hidden: the treasure in the depths of the human psyche concealed by fear and convention.
Producer: Matt Thompson
SOMETHING UNDERSTOOD Sunday 16 March 2003
Poet Professor Douglas Dunn won the Whitbread Prize with Elegies. He wonders why we remember some poems, or moments in movies, novels and plays, rather than others.
Producer: Matt Thompson
THOUGHTS IN PICTURES Sunday 16 February 2003
Like all authors, crime writer Frances Fyfield has a panoply of strategies for putting off the dreaded writing. She likes to while away the time staring at the pictures on the walls in her house and making up stories. This leads her to question what exactly art is for.
Producer: Matt Thompson
LET THE HEALING FOUNTAIN START Sunday 2 February 2003
In conversation with Saeed Naqvi, Mark Tully considers the symbolism and imagery of fountains, both in Christianity and in Islam.
Music and readings research: Libby Spurrier
Producer: Nigel Acheson
IT WAS A VERY GOOD YEAR Sunday 19 January 2003
Dr Jeevan Singh Deol, research fellow in Indian history at Cambridge University, wonders how public commemoration is entangled with private mourning and our identity.
Producer: Matt Thompson
MAPS & CHARTS Sunday 29 December 2002
On the eve of the New Year, Mark Tully considers the reliability - and otherwise - of some of the tools we use to plot a course into the future.
Music and readings research: Libby Spurrier
Producer: Nigel Acheson
ON A CLEAR DAY Sunday 17 November 2002
Does history always repeat itself? Mark Tully considers how a clear understanding of past events could help us see the way ahead.
Readers: John Rowe, Richard Mitchley and Maria Corcobado
Music and readings research: Libby Spurrier
Producer: Nigel Acheson
HARVESTING & HOARDING Sunday 13 October 2002
As squirrels hoard conkers for the winter, Mark Tully contemplates the preparations we make to survive lean times. Including a conversation with John McCarthy.
Readers: Julie Berry, John Lewes and Richard Mitchley
Music and readings research: Libby Spurrier
Producer: Nigel Acheson
SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL Sunday 11 August 2002
Mark Tully explores the virtues of focusing on the smaller things of life, and discovers that size really does matter.
Readers: Vicky Ntetema, Julie Berry, John Lewes and Richard Mitchley
Music and readings research: Libby Spurrier
Producer: Nigel Acheson
OFSIBYL Sunday 16 June 2002
Visionary mystic Hildegard of Bingen is recruited as a school inspector by headmistress Frances Gumley-Mason. How does she do?
Readers: Hilary Neville-Towle and Gareth Armstrong
Producer: Matt Thompson
BECOMING JIMMY Sunday 12 May 2002
Used car salesman turned consultant Professor Gus McGrouther talks of his journey into becoming a leading plastic surgeon. Poems by Danny Abse.
Reader: Danny Abse
Producer: Matt Thompson
A MATTER OF CLASS Sunday 12 April 2002
Pat Cumper was born in Jamaica. But when she emigrated to Britain she became 'invisible' and had to find her identity in unexpected places. With poems by Keats, Walcott and Breeze.
Readers: Jean 'Binta' Breeze, Bert Caesar and John Lewes
Producer: Matt Thompson
something understood
Every Sunday at 6.05 a.m. and repeated at 11.30 p.m.
Something Understood has been broadcasting contemplative programmes to insomniacs, early risers and night owls since 1995. Its original and principal presenter is Sir Mark Tully, former BBC correspondent and author of a number of books about India. Other presenters have included Fergal Keane, Sheena Macdonald, Bonnie Greer and Joan Bakewell. The series was originated and is still mostly produced by Unique, the Production Company. Now Loftus contributes 6 programmes a year to the series: all of them presented by Mark Tully. A further six programmes, with a range of different presenters, are produced by Falling Tree Productions.
Presenters choose a theme that interests them and then pick pieces of music, poetry and prose. Often the starting point is something in life that is puzzling or doesn't seem to fit: an unexplained gesture, an angry thought. Small themes often work better than grand thoughts. The presenter then circles around the grit until the end of the programme, when they may or may not have an answer. Spiritual rather than religious, Something Understood is about the thoughtful moments in life.