Authors
My Nights In With the Prof
The writer Charlotte Bogard Macleod on the inspiration behind Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight, a new drama about love and statistics, starring Andrew Scott.
Radio Times' Pick of the Week: Warhorses of Letters
Editor's note: Warhorses of Letters starts on Radio 4 this Tuesday 25 October at 11pm. As the Radio Times puts it: "Only on Radio 4 would one find a gay, epistolary romance in which the letter writers are horses". Stephen Fry and Daniel Rigby (who won a BAFTA for his portrayl of Eric Morecambe o...
Family quiz "Keep It In The Family" on Radio 4 Extra
Ed's note: Fred MacAulay is a regular guest on many Radio 4 panel games, most notably on The News Quiz. But this week and next, he's sitting on the other side of the mic, hosting The 4 O'Clock Show's brain-teasing Keep It In The Family. Each day, two parent and child combinations (mum and son, g...
BBC National Short Story Award winner: DW Wilson
Ed's note: If you're quick you can still download this year's winner DW Wilson for free from the Radio 4 podcast page as it's due to expire tomorrow - PM. The 2011 shortlist (l to r): DW Wilson (winner), Alison MacLeod, KJ Orr, MJ Hyland and Jon McGregor I'm not how many of us judge...
A History of the World returns
Editor's note: We're hosting Neil MacGregor's post here on the blog to mark the beginning of the second set of objects from A History of the World in 100 Objects on Radio 4 today. You'll find regular posts by curators and editors over on the History of the World blog and on the project's Faceboo...
Where Memories Go: Why Dementia Changes Everything
Sally Magnusson is daughter of journalist Mamie Baird and broadcaster Magnus Magnusson. Her account of her mother's dementia - Where Memories Go: Why Dementia Changes Everything - is this week's Book of the Week.
Leap for PM
Today is a very special day. Like Oliver Reed in his heyday, it comes round only once every four years. Sandwiched precariously between 28 February and 1 March, it creates children of adults and newlyweds of couples who've been together for years. People who are born or get married on 29 Febr...
What does a revolutionary look like?
What does a revolutionary look like? I have to admit I did have some preconceived ideas on that front, which involved Che Guevara T-shirts, miscellaneous bits and bobs of clothing from army surplus shops, and yes, a bandana. All of this was of course kicked into the long grass as soon as I met H...
Radio 4 Extra's Book at Beachtime: To the Moon and Back by J Mansell
Editor's note: Radio 4 Extra have been running a season of readings for the summer, Book at Beachtime. Each of the books in the series has been adapted in five parts and is broadcast on 4 Extra Monday to Friday at 2.30pm and is then available to listen online for seven days afterwards. This week...
My Own Shakespeare - Andrew Marr
Editor's note: The 'My Own Shakespeare' series is made up of short two and a half minute programmes which are being broadcast across BBC Radio 3, 4 and 4 Extra. We asked public figures from a wide variety of spheres which was their favourite piece of Shakespeare - our interviewees included Steph...
The Last Jews of Iraq
Hannah Marshall: "This is the picture of my grandfather and his family. It shows my grandfather, his mother and three brothers. The picture was taken in Basra in 1918. My grandfather is the boy standing at the back of the picture, with the black jacket and tie." My grandfather was an ...
Earworms
My name is Shaun Keaveny, I am a music broadcaster, and a long-term sufferer of a sometimes debilitating condition. It is devastatingly virulent, indiscriminate, and can strike the patient down at any time, anywhere. It is the Earworm. An earworm is a parasitic little fragment of music that b...
Cerys Matthews: Bob Dylan and Me
Editor's note: Bob Dylan's 70th birthday is on 24th May. There are many Dylan-related programmes on Radio 2, Radio 4 and 6 Music. To help mark the occasion the Radio 4 blog asked Cerys Matthews what Dylan means to her. When I was a child, my father would make me mixes on cassette tapes. He wa...
Armistead Maupin on Tales of the City
Armistead Maupin blogs about Tales of the City, his saga of San Francisco life and culture which started as a newspaper serial in the San Francisco Chronicle, became a literary sensation and is now a 15 minute Drama on Radio 4.
The Loving Ballad of Captain Bateman: How an Old Folk Song Became a Modern Radio Drama
‘The Loving Ballad of Captain Bateman’, a radio play with a difference. It is new and modern, and ancient and traditional, all at once.
Charlotte Green's leaving card
Do you have any special memories of Charlotte Green's time on Radio 4? What would you sign in her leaving card? Let us know by leaving a comment below.
The Listening Project and the Art of Editing
(Editor's note: The Listening Project is a new partnership between BBC Radio and the British Library, aiming to capture (and archive) the nation in conversation. BBC radio producers from across the country have been gathering conversations and editing them down for broadcast on Radio 4 and BBC l...
Torchwood: The Lost Files on Radio 4
Torchwood fans don't miss much. Earlier this year when Gareth David-Lloyd suddenly cancelled a gig with his band to go to Los Angeles, where Torchwood: Miracle Day was being filmed, the rumours soon started flying. In fact, he was being flown out by BBC Cymru/Wales Radio Drama to reco...
Interrail Tales
'It had seemed a good idea at the time to go interrailing,' I thought, as the heavily armed Italian soldiers ordered us to put our hands up and lie on the ground. Lesley McAlpine and friend Mandy on their interrailing trip It was July 1982 and I was on my first trip backpacking aro...
