Cher and Other Things to Believe In at Christmas

Available for over a year

Greg James dives into the BBC Archive to track down audio gems, using listener requests, overlooked anniversaries and current stories to guide the way. It’s 25 years since Cher’s pop classic Believe topped the charts, so Greg goes looking for the idol herself in the archives. Where did she choose to debut the single? The National Lottery of course. She returned to the programme a few years later to talk to Dale Winton about her Christmas cookie traditions. As children up and down the country put tea towels on their heads, Greg heads to a nativity play in Sunderland in 1962 to hear about the showbiz drama behind the scenes. In Gelligaer in Wales he discovers a presenter obsessed with his own childhood appearance as Herod. And he uncovers some touching transatlantic conversations between refugee children and their parents, broadcast live on Christmas Day during the Second World War. Producer: Tim Bano