Radio 4
How The Archers tried to derail the launch of ITV
Two significant anniversaries, each very different but both reflecting the BBC’s mission and the reasons for its continued success. From…
The Baroque composer who was a world music pioneer
On Private Passions this week the writer Amitav Ghosh gave us a refreshingly different version of what has become a…
Late Night Woman’s Hour assumes that all women think about is dating, desire and drinking
Late Night Woman’s Hour has created a Twitter storm with its twice-weekly (Thursdays and Fridays) doses of ‘mischievous and unbridled…
Why are we so silent over Hiroshima?
It’s 70 years since the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and yet there has been no rush to…
If the government have their way, will Radio 4’s dramas be broken up by ads for dentures?
‘Bait by Cartier,’ she growls as her priceless diamond bracelet is strapped to a piece of rope and dropped overboard…
Turn the licence fee into a digital currency – and save more than just the BBC
What follows is a proposal for reducing the BBC licence fee and improving the corporation’s output while saving the British…
Why it would be absurd to sell off Radio 2 - even if it could do with a refresh
The idea that Radio 2 should be sold off by the BBC to a commercial rival is as nonsensical as…
Why sound beats image when it comes to memory
It’s often not visual images that stimulate memory but a smell, a taste, the sound of pebbles crashing on to…
Why I love The Bottom Line
Evan Davis’s series on business life, The Bottom Line (made in conjunction with the Open University), has become one of…
When Dr Johnson went to Tahrir Square
Goodness knows what the Great Cham would have made of Radio 4 airing an adapted version of his philosophical fable,…
The history of India in 50 personalities
The idea of using objects — salt, cod, nutmeg, silk — to turn history lessons into something popular and accessible…
What happened to the children who survived the Holocaust?
‘I call Zelma Cacik who may be living in London,’ says the announcer, in the clipped RP accent of the…
This radio programme almost made me like Piers Morgan
An extraordinary black-and-white photograph of a young black boy taken on the Isle of Wight by Julia Margaret Cameron in…
Britain has the lowest percentage of women engineers in Europe. Why?
‘It’s hard to know how to tell this story,’ she said as she began. ‘Because it’s so loaded. It’s so…
Did Radio 4 have to deal with the Germanwings disaster as it did?
‘You can hear pretty clearly the sound of one of the helicopters and you can see it in the darkness,’…
Does the future of radio really lie in podcasts?
To a debate on the future of radio at the BBC where it turns out not to be a discussion…
Radio is the best way to mug up on the classics
If ever I found myself at a pretentious literary party obliged to play David Lodge’s ‘Humiliation’ game and to confess…
All radio drama should be as good as this Conrad adaptation
The aching hum of crickets. The susurrus of reeds. The lapping of waves. The unmistakable noise of a sound technician…
Why Putin is even less of a human than Stalin was
LBC likes to tell us it’s ‘Leading Britain’s Conversation’, though in the case of weekday pre-lunch presenter James O’Brien you’ll…
The amazing story of the blind photographer
Perhaps the news that Radio 5 live will be the only BBC station (under the new broadcasting rights agreements) to…
The man who discovered Ebola
By some quirk of fate, just as news reached the papers that the Scottish nurse who had contracted Ebola while…
Radio 4’s War and Peace: almost as good as the book
To have listened to Radio 4’s marathon ten-hour adaptation of Tolstoy’s War and Peace as it was being broadcast on…
Was Beethoven influenced by yoga?
How many digital radios have you bought over the years? How many are still working? Of the four I used…
Without childhood traumas, how did Alan Bennett ever become a writer?
‘So — take heart,’ said Alan Bennett, sending us out from his play, Cocktail Sticks, on a cheery note. The…
What parenting meant in 1914
‘Not still War and Peace!’ exclaimed my husband on 1 January during the all-day Tolstoy splurge on Radio 4. In reality…
