Radio
The pleasures and perils of talking about art on the radio
‘I like not knowing why I like it,’ declared Fiona Shaw, the actress, about Georgia O’Keeffe’s extraordinary blast of colour,…
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…
Why I love a bit of death on a Sunday night
There’s nothing like a nice bit of death on a Sunday evening. Radio 4 originally transmit their obituary programme Last…
From Brexit to Beethoven: John Humphrys returns to radio
Some listeners will have had quite a shock first thing on Monday. Turning on at six to Classic FM they…
Can giving voice to the horrors of the past re-traumatise?
It is 50 years since Ronald Blythe published Akenfield, his melancholy portrait of a Suffolk village on the cusp of…
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…
Did Radio 2 really need to give us four days of the Beatles to celebrate Abbey Road?
This Changeling Self, Radio 4’s lead drama this week, clearly ought to have gone out in August. It’s set —…
Radio 4’s The Art of Innovation is a series that — for once — deserves the label ‘landmark’
Radio 4, how do I love thee? Rather as one loves the flocked wallpaper that came with the house. It…
The joys of Radio 4’s Word of Mouth
I first heard Lemn Sissay talking about his childhood experiences on Radio 4 in 2009. At that time he was…
Will you last beyond the madeleine? Radio 4’s In Search of Lost Time reviewed
The madeleine upon which Proust’s seven-volume epic In Search of Lost Time pivots makes its significant appearance after just 18…
An important story but not for the faint-hearted: Deadliest Day podcast reviewed
One of the advantages that podcasts have over the scheduled array of programmes is the space that can be given…
Jonathan Dimbleby is right: we need to rise up and defend the BBC
There’s been a Dimbleby on air since before I was born but last Friday saw the end of that era…
What drives Emily Maitlis?
It can’t be easy to find yourself on the other end of the microphone when you’re a journalist of the…
What Mary Wollstonecraft writes about motherhood is still so relevant
Walking into Fingal’s Cave, after scrambling across the rocks to reach it from the landing stage where the boat from…
Are the Dead Ringers audience told to laugh?
Nine on a Thursday morning is University Hour for those of us who don’t commute to an office every day.…
What would you do if you were a Syrian migrant?
‘Put yourself in their shoes,’ says Zahra Mackaoui, a British-Lebanese journalist who has been following the stories of refugees from…
Forget the The Reith Lectures. To understand the world listen to George the Poet
At last a podcast that takes the medium to its limit, created by someone who loves listening, understands how it…
The mosque where it’s the men who make the tea
On returning from a brief trip to Istanbul, where inside the mosques women are still very much kept to one…
Female contestants in Afghanistan’s X Factor are dicing with death
The cheering fans, the dramatic Hollywood-style drum rolls, the excitable host all sound just like The X Factor or The…
Why do we still use the Qwerty keyboard layout and not Dvorak?
‘Can you fly down this evening?’ she was asked by her boss in the Delhi office of the BBC. ‘Yes,…
Why was Something Understood cut?
It was never given the choicest slot in the schedule, airing first thing on Sunday morning with a repeat at…
The daunting, uplifting prose of The Psalms
As if in defiance of the BBC’s current obsession with programming designed to entice in that elusive young and modish…
The man who changed the sound of radio
He is said to ‘have changed the sound of speech radio’, not just by giving voice to those who until…
Art is often best experienced on the radio
At its best audio can be a much more visual medium than the screen. Making Art with Frances Morris (produced…
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…
