Radio drama
Hearing Percy Bysshe Shelley read aloud was a revelation
Last week I heard the actor Julian Sands give a virtuoso performance of work by Percy Bysshe Shelley to mark…
It's amazing how little insight Paul McCartney has into the Beatles' genius
The Paul people are out in force these days. A New Yorker profile, a book and a new documentary have…
The joy of Radio 4 Extra
The best thing on the radio last week was, without question, Kind Hearts and Coronets. You may have missed it…
Adapting Wodehouse for the radio is a challenge – but the BBC has succeeded brilliantly
Everyone knows a Lord Emsworth. Mine lives south of the river and wears caterpillars in his hair and wine on…
Ill-disciplined and self-indulgent: The Guilty Feminist podcast reviewed
With theatres shut, radio must lighten the darkness. The Guilty Feminist is a wildly popular podcast performed by Deborah Frances-White…
The Polish electronic music revolution of the 1950s
It was created in November 1957, a year before the BBC’s fabled Radiophonic Workshop, and was far more influential in…
Without Joe Grundy The Archers feels lost
There was something really creepy about listening to the ten-minute countryside podcast released last weekend by Radio 4 supposedly transporting…
Listening to plays in a foreign language is a weirdly engaging experience
As the ravens circle around Broadcasting House in London’s West End, presaging difficult times ahead for BBC Radio, with less…
I always come away more confused after listening to Moral Maze
Is it me or are we now faced (or perhaps I should say fazed?) much more often by stories in…
The story of the River Clyde
It sounds like something out of Dickens or a novel by Thackeray, a classic case of high-minded Victorian philanthropy, but…
Why the BBC International Playwriting Competition really matters
We don’t know whether ‘Aziz H’ listened to radio plays as he grew up in Yemen. In fact we don’t…
When haddocks flirt, they sound like a motorbike revving up
Flies buzzing, strange rustling, crunching sounds, and then the most chilling screech you’ll have heard all week. Vultures were feeding…
A week of extraordinarily direct and honest radio on the World Service
The most inspiring voice on radio this week belongs to Hetty Werkendam, or rather to her 15-year-old self as she…
Rod Liddle is wrong: if anything we still hear too much from male presenters on Radio 4
I don’t know which day Rod Liddle travelled down from the northeast and found nothing but women’s voices cluttering up…
Donald Hankey: a remarkable – and neglected – English voice
Last year the BBC radio drama department received 3,797 scripts from hopeful authors, of which just 33 were recommended to…
Only Radio 4 would allow Ian McKellan and Joanna Lumley to play Mr and Mrs God
One sphere that podcasts have so far not much penetrated is drama. Audible.co.uk is itching to develop its own brand…
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…
‘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…
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…
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…
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…
India in a day
Bold programming by the powers-that-be at Radio 4 meant it was possible to listen to all seven episodes of Ayeesha…
Big Auntie
It’s sneaky, the way in which the BBC, so much regarded as part of the family as to be nicknamed…
The Archers v the cricket: which was the more dramatic?
It was a toss-up on Sunday between the atmosphere in the Radio Five Live Sports Extra studio in Kolkata for…
