World Service
I've lost patience with podcasts and their presenters
‘To be recognised and accepted by a peregrine,’ wrote J.A. Baker in 1967, ‘you must wear the same clothes, travel…
How podcasts have transformed radio
As if on cue, Lemn Sissay’s new series for Radio 4 tackles all those questions we would rather ignore in…
Why 80 per cent of young people in this Macedonian town have turned to posting ‘fake news’
It’s such a relief to turn on the radio and hear the voice of Neil MacGregor. That reasoned authority, his…
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,…
Is the increasing secularisation of funerals a good thing?
‘You’re thinking these girls all wrong,’ Miss Mai tells Enid in Winsome Pinnock’s play Leave Taking, adapted from the recent…
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 the first world war ended, many soldiers were left with ‘a terrible empty feeling’
‘It was so unreal,’ said one of the first world war veterans about the long-awaited Armistice. It was the most…
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 warning to those who argue that we live in a visual society
‘Can one person really grasp the significance of what another person has been through?’ asks Dr Rita Charon in this…
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,…
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…
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,…
Face time
The inimitably pukka voice of Jacob Rees-Mogg echoed through Radio 4 on Thursday morning. He was not, though, talking about…
The listening project
As Classic FM celebrated its quarter-century on Wednesday with not a recording but a live broadcast of a concert from…
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…
Radio 4's bold challenge to government policy
Monday’s ‘World on the Move Day’ on Radio 4 was a bold challenge to government policy and proof that radio…
Might Eurovision determine the outcome of the EU referendum?
You might not think that the Eurovision Song Contest (screened live from Stockholm tonight) could have any connection with how…
How trauma is passed down through the generations in our DNA
Sue Armstrong’s programme on Radio 4 All in the Womb (produced by Ruth Evans) should be required listening for anyone…
Could radio save Syria?
Could radio, and in particular a weekly soap, have a role to play in the Syrian crisis? You might think,…
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…
Could a change of body language make a difference to American policing?
One of the most shocking items of recent news has been the bald statistic that the number of people shot…
A gripping Start the Week from a Paris on the edge
It was as if Andrew Marr and his guests on Start the Week on Monday morning were standing on the…
Just writing about this radio programme makes me feel nauseous
If you’re in the least bit squeamish you’d better stop reading now. What follows is not for those who blanch…
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…
Why Bette Davis loathed theatre
It was called Frankly Speaking and by golly it was. The great screen actress Bette Davis was being interviewed by…
