Benjamin Zephaniah once found the leg of a man in the back of a Ford Cortina
‘For me rhyming was normal,’ said Benjamin Zephaniah, reading from his autobiography on Radio 4. Back in the 1960s, on…
All the world’s a stage
How to stage Shakespeare on air and bring the text to life without the benefit of set, costumes, choreography and…
Why be so frightened of Enoch Powell’s speech now?
It was a provocative decision by the producers of Archive on 4, 50 Years On: Rivers of Blood (Nathan Gower…
Martha Kearney’s arrival at Today is a breath of fresh air
Like a breath of fresh air Martha Kearney has arrived on Radio 4’s Today programme, taking over from Sarah Montague…
Why British radio plays can’t compete with those from the Continent
To Herne Bay in Kent for the UK International Radio Drama Festival: 50 plays from 17 countries in 15 languages…
Paradise Lost is made for radio – but you need to concentrate
It’s a tough listen, Paradise Lost on Radio 4 at the weekend. In bold defiance of the demands of a…
The BBC admit they’re not ready to switch off analogue radio
As Bob Shennan, the BBC’s director of radio and music admitted this week, there are almost two million podcast-only listeners…
Who was the Isdal Woman? And how did she die?
‘Close your eyes and be absorbed by the storytelling,’ urged Jon Manel (the new head of podcasting at BBC World…
I never expected to last the full hour: Carla Bruni’s C’est la Vie reviewed
You can’t move for women’s voices on the airwaves at the moment — Julie Walters on Classic FM leading off…
‘We’re using the same Aga and Belfast sink as Jill Archer’: how Radio 4 made Home Front
It feels like a long time since the launch of Home Front on Radio 4 back in June 2014, retracing…
Ramblings takes an unexpected turn
This week’s edition of Ramblings with Clare Balding did all the usual things: a walk in the country (cue breathy…
Radio’s role in winning the Cold War
Some of us grew up worrying about reds under the bed, which was perhaps not as foolish as all that…
BBC Arabic’s version of Woman’s Hour is rather different to Radio 4’s
When the BBC’s Arabic-language network went out on air for the first time 80 years ago, on 3 January 1938,…
The joy of buses
It’s a pity Will Self didn’t embark on his bus tour round Britain before the Brexit vote. If he had,…
Is forgetting a modern disease?
If you were to ask me by the end of the week what I had written about in this column…
Nothing about Radio 4’s Across the Red Line suggested it would be as riveting as it was
On paper and on air, there’s nothing to suggest that the Radio 4 series Across the Red Line will have…
What Rwanda can teach us about gender equality
What an incredible statement we heard on My Perfect Country. ‘I can walk into a boardroom and forget I am…
Podcasts have a long way to go to catch up with radio
It’s racing up the UK podcast charts, overtaking (as I write) the established favourites such as No Such Thing as…
Radio 3 offers a refreshing antidote to the current conversations about Europe
The season of Advent, for most children, means anticipation, gleeful waiting, the counting down of days. But after a certain…
What it feels like to hold a heart
It’s been heart week on Radio 4, celebrating the anniversary of the first ‘successful’ heart transplant in 1967, which was…
If you like Schoenberg, you’ll like Björk’s Utopia
At the launch of the Christmas radio schedules last week, James Purnell, director of radio (and much more) at the…
Who will be the first woman on the moon?
Wally Funk is on a mission — to make real her dream that a woman will walk on the moon…
Why local radio is thriving
It’s 50 years since the first local radio stations were launched by the BBC in yet another instance of the…
I never understood the appeal of Ken Dodd
It’s always odd to hear a familiar voice on a different programme, playing an alternative role. They never sound quite…
Why talking about death is a essential part of living
Mandy was 38 when she was told she was ‘in the end stage’, suffering from COPD and finding it more…
