Radio
The ties that bound us
Only Neil MacGregor could do it — take us in a single thread from a blackened copper coin, about the…
Speed limit
Slow radio is popping up everywhere at the moment — programmes that have no outward form but just meander through…
Faulty connection
There’s no doubting her passion for the programme of which she is now chief of staff. Talking to Roger Bolton…
Split decision
Think back to that morning in September 1967 when the Light Programme was split in two, Tony Blackburn launching Radio…
Woman of a thousand voices
‘On air, I could be the most glamorous, gorgeous, tall, black-haired female… Whatever I wanted to be, I could be……
Seeing the light
‘You can’t lie… on radio,’ says Liza Tarbuck. The Radio 2 DJ was being interviewed for the network’s birthday portrait,…
The listening project
As Classic FM celebrated its quarter-century on Wednesday with not a recording but a live broadcast of a concert from…
‘Smile, segue and shut up’
Three weeks before Classic FM launched, I was on the radio in Hong Kong, introducing hits by Rick Astley and…
Universal appeal
Yet another sign that we are living in very strange times: a pair of celebrities, their names made by TV,…
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…
What stopped Stoppard?
Two programmes this week presented two radically different world views, or rather ways of life. Aditya Chakrabortty’s series for Radio…
The joy of the Proms
Summer nights, hot and humid, mean just one thing — it’s Proms season again. Sore feet, sweaty armpits, queuing outside…
If you want to know how music really works listen to Classic FM not Radio 3
He’s been billed as the new Pied Piper but it’s going to take a while for Tom Service to quite…
How the BBC made the most unlikely TV hit of the swinging Sixties
‘Comedy is like music,’ said Edwin Apps, one of the characters in Wednesday afternoon’s Radio 4 play, All Mouth and…
Why the World Service is worth every penny
What makes the World Service so different from the rest of the BBC? I asked Mary Hockaday, the controller of…
Radio comedy still misses Kenneth Williams
It’s tempting to believe that somewhere in the bowels of Broadcasting House in London the voice of Kenneth Williams is…
The blind boy who learnt to see with sound
The deadline for Radio 2’s 500 Words competition falls next Thursday. Children between the ages of five and 13 are…
Is Radio 4 encouraging us to overshare?
Much ado about Radio 4’s latest venture into the new smart world of aural selfies. Reaction Time, on Thursday mornings,…
Long before Twitter, Wogan offered continuous conversation
For once, the superlatives that have greeted Terry Wogan’s death from cancer have been entirely in keeping with the man.…
Serial returns with a story of loyalty, resilience and punishment
The new season of the Serial podcast (produced by the same team who make This American Life) was launched last…
Stephen Hawking shows that all is not lost if by mischance you fall into a black hole
You don’t expect to be brought close to tears by the Reith Lectures, which are after all at the most…
Corbyn’s turn on Today was as graceful and twinkle-toed as Bowie himself
Some might say that Jeremy Corbyn is cloth-eared, tone-deaf, socially inept but on Monday morning, as the death of the…
The best - and worst - podcasts
My resolution this New Year is to get to grips with podcasts, to brace up and embrace this new aural…
Radio is flowering because it’s so much more potent than TV
Who would have thought in this visually obsessed age of YouTube, selfies and Instagram that radio, pure audio, no images…
