Adam Henson presents Countryfile, often from his 650-hectare farm in the Cotswolds. Having studied Agriculture at college, Adam took over Bemborough Farm from his father, Joe. The farm now grows wheat, spring barley and oilseed rape, runs a flock of 400 commercial ewes and has the UK's leading collection of rare breeds, many of which are in demand for film sets and advertisements. Cotswold Farm Park (www.cotswoldfarmpark.co.uk) offers a total countryside experience for all the family, welcoming more than 100,000 visitors each year. 
 
Adam presented Lambing Live with Kate Humble, writes for Countryfile magazine and has appeared on Radio 4's On Your Farm and Farming Today. He is the author of three previous books, Adam’s Farm: My Life on the Land, the Sunday Times bestseller, Like Farmer, Like Son and A Farmer and His Dog.

Adam Henson

Adam Henson is perhaps the best-known farmer in the UK, presenting on BBC's Countryfile to millions of viewers each Sunday evening. He's also appeared on Lambing Live, Secret Britain, Coast and Inside Out. Adam also runs the award-winning Cotswold Farm Park in Gloucestershire, which welcomes family visitors all year round and is home to many rare breeds. He has a monthly column in Countryfile magazine, as well as the Cotswold Life magazine. He has written several books including the Sunday Times bestseller Like Farmer, Like Son. This is his first children's book and it is the perfect introduction to the farm.

Adam Higginbotham writes for The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Wired, GQ, Businessweek, Smithsonian, Men’s Journal, and The Atavist. He began his career in magazines and newspapers in London, where he was the editor-­in-chief of The Face and a contributing editor at The Sunday Telegraph. The author of Midnight in Chernobyl, he lives in New York City.

Adam Higginbotham

Adam Hills is an internationally recognised comedian and host of award-winning Channel 4 show The Last Leg. His collection of stories from a life in comedy, Best Foot Forward, was a Times bestseller.

Adam Hills

Adam Howling

Adam J. Kurtz

Adam Jacot de Boinod

ADAM JOHNSON won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2013 for his second novel, the New York Times bestseller The Orphan Master’s Son (‘Excavates the very meaning of life’ New York Times). His short story 'Nirvana' won the prestigious Sunday Times/EFG Short Story Award. He is the author of acclaimed story collections, Fortune Smiles and Emporium and the novel Parasites Like Us. He teaches creative writing at Stanford University and lives with his family in San Francisco.

Adam Johnson

Adam Kay is a former doctor who has written five million books and sold seven copies. No, hang on – he’s written seven books and sold five million copies. His debut book, This is Going to Hurt, is a literary sensation: a Sunday Times number one bestseller for over a year, winning a record-breaking four National Book Awards and selling over 3 million copies. Kay adapted This is Going to Hurt as a BAFTA-winning comedy-drama series for the BBC. Adam Kay’s children’s books have been translated into 32 languages and sold over 1 million copies, making him one of the UK’s bestselling children’s authors. Kay’s Anatomy became the fastest-selling children’s general non-fiction hardback of the decade. His first picture book, Amy Gets Eaten, was published in 2023, and his first children’s novel, Dexter Procter the Ten-Year-Old Doctor, was published in September 2024.

Adam Kay

Adam studied illustration and animation, and received a BA followed by an MA from the Edinburgh College of Art. As a student he won a competition to create a short film for MOMI and Channel 4, and once his career producing animated commercials was under way, he became an illustrator as well. He has regular columns in the UK and the US.

Adam Larkum

Adam Lashinsky

Adam Macqueen

Adam Mars-Jones

Adam O'Riordan was born in Manchester in 1982, where he currently lives. In 2008 he became the youngest Poet-in-Residence at The Wordsworth Trust, the Centre for British Romanticism. His first collection In the Flesh (2010) win a Somerset Maugham Award. He is the Academic Director of the Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Adam O'Riordan

Adam Phillips, formerly Principal Child Psychotherapist at Charing Cross Hospital, London, is a practising psychoanalyst and a visiting professor in the English department at the University of York. He is the author of numerous works of psychoanalysis and literary criticism, including most recently On Giving Up, On Wanting to Change, Attention Seeking, In Writing, Unforbidden Pleasures and Missing Out. He is General Editor of the Penguin Modern Classics Freud translations, and a Fellow of The Royal Society of Literature.

Adam Phillips

Adam Rackley

Adam Richardson is the UK's top trending health and fitness coach with a rapidly growing audience across both TikTok and Instagram. Adam is passionate about removing barriers to exercise and movement, a philosophy that is key to his work as a Personal Trainer in which he strives to help his clients feel more confident, as well as more fit and healthy.

Adam Richardson

Adam Roberts is the author of The Amateur Gourmet and Secrets of the Best Chefs, and coauthor of Give My Swiss Chards to Broadway. He started his food blog, The Amateur Gourmet, in 2004 and currently writes The Amateur Gourmet Newsletter on Substack. Roberts has also written for The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times, and for film and television. He lives in Brooklyn with his husband and their dog, Winston. Food Person is his first novel.

Adam Roberts

Adam Roberts is acknowledged as the senior scholar of international relations in the UK. He was Montague Burton Professor of International Relations at Oxford University 1986-2007, and President of the British Academy 2009-13 - the head of humanities in Britain. He was on the Council of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, London (2002-08), a member of the UK Defence Academy Advisory Board (2003-15) and is now on the Board of Advisers of the Lieber Institute for Law and Land Warfare at the United States Military Academy, West Point.

Adam Robinson is based in the Middle East and is a regular contributor to newspapers in the Arab world and also to the British media. He is the author of numerous books on the region, including Bin Laden: Behind the Mask of the Terrorist.

Adam Robinson

Adam Ross

Adam Rutherford is an award-winning writer, broadcaster, and geneticist at University College London. His books include A Brief History of Everyone Who Ever Lived, The Book of Humans, and the Sunday Times bestseller How to Argue with a Racist. He has written and presented numerous documentaries for BBC radio and television, including Inside Science and The Cell. Adam has also worked as a science advisor on many films, including the Oscar-winning Ex Machina (2015) and Annihilation (2018).

Adam Rutherford

Adam Smith

Adam Smyth runs the 39 Step Press, an experiment in printing, from a cold barn in Oxfordshire. He is also Professor of English Literature and the History of the Book at Balliol College, University of Oxford.

Adam Smyth

Adam Sweeting

Adam Tandy

Adam Thirlwell was born in London in 1978. The author of three previous novels, his work has been translated into thirty languages. His essays appear in the New York Review of Books and the London Review of Books, and he is an advisory editor of the Paris Review. His awards include a Somerset Maugham Award and the E. M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; in 2018 he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He has twice been selected by Granta as one of their Best of Young British Novelists.

Adam Thirlwell

Adam Thorpe was born in Paris in 1956. His first novel, Ulverton, appeared in 1992 and he has published two books of stories and ten further novels, most recently Missing Fay (2017), and six poetry collections. 
 
 
www.adamthorpe.net

Adam Thorpe

Adam Tooze is the author of the highly praised Crashed, The Deluge and The Wages of Destruction, all published by Allen Lane. He has been the recipient of the Wolfson Prize for History, the Longman-History Today Book of the Year Prize and the Lionel Gelber Prize. Tooze has taught at Cambridge and Yale and is now Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Professor of History at Columbia University.

Adam Tooze

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Jimmy Perry

David Croft

Twenty episodes from the first BBC Radio series plus an hour-long Christmas special, starring Arthur Lowe, John Le Mesurier and Clive Dunn. 
 
In 1973 the BBC adapted its hit TV series for radio, featuring the original TV cast and characters. Three series were broadcast between 1974 and 1976, with episodes adapted from their TV counterparts by Harold Snoad and Michael Knowles. 
 
Now you can enjoy once again these unique recordings, with a supporting cast including John Laurie, James Beck, Arnold Ridley and Ian Lavender. Among the twenty-one episodes are The Man and the Hour, The Battle of Godfrey’s Cottage, Sgt Wilson’s Little Secret, Something Nasty in the Vault, The Menace from the Deep and No Spring for Frazer.

Dad’s Army

The Complete Radio Series One

Mark Jones

A unique collection of historic recordings covering events from the last days of peace to the Christmas truce, 1914. 
 
At midnight on 4 August, Britain had declared war on Germany. The pacifist Bertrand Russell was shocked by the pro-war euphoria on the streets, yet young men enlisted willingly because “it would all be over by Christmas”. It was not. Instead the opposing armies had become entrenched. It was the beginning of a long and bitter stalemate. 
 
In this new audio compilation, troops of the British Expeditionary Force vividly recall the exhausting retreat from Mons, the success at the Marne, and the first battle of Ypres, where the Territorials arrived in bright red London buses. For reconnaissance pilots, the battlefield was defined by blazing villages, and fields alive with German troops. 
 
Among the items which powerfully capture the mood of the time are an eyewitness account of the Kaiser’s reaction to the news from Sarajevo on 28 June; Margot Asquith, wife of the Prime Minister, remembering their despair at the inevitability of war; and the poignant reminiscences of civilians and soldiers.

First World War: 1914: Voices From the BBC Archive

Mark Bostridge

Alan Bishop

A selection of the powerful and poignant wartime letters of Vera Brittain and her friends.‘If war spares me,’ wrote Vera Brittain to her brother Edward in 1916, ‘it will be my one aim to immortalise in a book the story of us four.’ Seventeen years later, Vera was to achieve her aim with the acclaimed Testament of Youth. 
 
This series of letters was the inspiration behind Testament. Written between Vera, her brother, her fiancé Roland Leighton and their two best friends Victor Richardson and Geoffrey Thurlow, they give a unique perspective on the most horrifying conflict the world has ever seen. 
 
They show the heartbreaking disillusionment of an idealistic public-school generation, raised on ideas of patriotism and duty, as the reality of war emerged. Yet they also give a fascinating insight into the era as a whole: their generation’s literary tastes and the place of women in society. 
 
Read by Amanda Root, Jonathan Firth, Rupert Graves, James Wallace and Robert Portal, and first heard on BBC Radio 4, these deeply moving letters let us hear for ourselves the voices of Vera Brittain’s lost generation.

Letters from a Lost Generation

First World War letters of Vera Brittain and four friends

First-hand accounts by those who planned and took part in the Normandy landings, and eyewitness reports from BBC correspondents travelling with the troops on 6 June 1944. 
 
In 1940, after the evacuation of the British army from Dunkirk, Winston Churchill vowed that Allied Forces would return to “cleanse Europe of the Nazi Pestilence”. The logistics of Operation Overlord were daunting, but an inspired campaign of deception successfully diverted Hitler’s attention away from the Normandy beaches until it was too late. Rommel had privately declared the battle must won in the first twenty-four hours or it would be the beginning of the end for Germany. By midnight on D-Day, a beachhead had been established. The Allies were back in Europe, and Rommel was right. 
 
The reminiscences of civilians, military strategists, German officers and Allied servicemen powerfully evoke the events of seventy years ago. The courage of the troops is evident, yet their individual stories reveal their deepest fears. Some were haunted by the carnage, others exhilarated by the action, but, in the words of one officer, “obviously there were tragic moments, frightening moments too, but on the whole it had to be done and we did it.”

D-Day: The Road to Normandy

Two BBC Radio programmes exploring President John F. Kennedy's shocking assassination on 22 November 1963. In Something Is Terribly Wrong, first broadcast in 2003, Alan Thompson charts the confusion and disbelief after the assassination. He returns to key sites in Dallas, and talks to eyewitnesses including Nellie Connally (ex-First Lady of Texas), Jim Leavelle (ex-Dallas detective), Jim Ewell (ex Dallas Morning News correspondent), Aubry Rike (ambulance driver/witness), and Ken Dowe, from Dallas radio station KLIF. Using rare, vivid archive material, he relives the events as they unfolded over three days that shocked the world. In Letter from America, first broadcast two days after the President's assassination, renowned broadcaster Alistair Cooke uses his weekly radio missive to reflect upon the legacy of John F. Kennedy, and to observe that the American nation feels it has been robbed of a brother.

The Last Day Of JFK

Matt Thompson

This 30-part Radio 4 series explores how our interactions with sound have shaped us over 100,000 years. These specially extended episodes, recorded on location around the world and in collaboration with curators of the British Library Sound Archive, take us from prehistory to the present, encompassing the shamanistic music of our cave-dwelling ancestors, the massacre of noisy cats in pre-revolutionary Paris, the nerve-destroying din of trench warfare, right through to the cacophony of the modern metropolis. This is sound as life and death, pleasure and pain, power and revolution. Written and presented by Professor David Hendy from the University of Sussex. Produced by Matt Thompson for Rockethouse Productions. Theme tune composed by Joe Acheson from Hidden Orchestra. Readings Director Cherry Cookson. Assistant Producer - Cathy FitzGerald  Includes a specially-composed 15-minute companion piece by electronic musician Matthew Herbert in which he retells the story of the whole series using only the sounds themselves.

Noise A Human History - The Complete Series

Michael Goldfarb

Michael Goldfarb looks back to the Europe of the 1930s and asks how artists, writers and film-makers responded to the poverty, mass unemployment and poltical instability of the Great Depression. 
 
Through the work of Bertolt Brecht, George Orwell, Jean Renoir and others, Michael charts the devastating impact of the slump as economic crisis impoverished the continent, engulfing both highly-industrialised nations such as Germany and the more agrarian economies of Greece, Spain and Ireland. And as economic faultlines threaten to divide Europe once again, Michael asks whether a new art of austerity is now emerging. 
 
The novelists Anne Enright and Justin Cartwright are among Michael's guests as he considers how writers are responding to the latest wave of banking crises, spending cuts and popular protest. 
 
Produced by Julia Johnson. 
 
First broadcast on BBC Radio 3, 29 April 2012 
 
 
©2012 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (P)2012 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

Europe - The Art Of Austerity

Charles Hazlewood

The Royal Albert Hall has attracted some of the biggest names in showbiz throughout its 140-year history. From rock events to The Proms, Cirque du Soleil to the Chelsea Arts Ball, it has played host to an huge variety of performers. In these two programmes, Charles Hazlewood introduces a montage of artists who have graced the stage of the Hall, including the Rolling Stones, Pavarotti, Gillian Weir, Jimi Hendrix and Russell Watson. There are contributions from Sir Cliff Richard, Katherine Jenkins, Jamie Cullum, Hayley Westenra,  Jools Holland, Sir Andrew Lloyd-Webber, Mike Batt and Jeff Wayne. In the company of V &amp; A design curator Abraham Thomas, historian Helen Rappaport and others, Hazlewood explores the Hall's history, discusses some of the spectaculars that have taken place under its roof and tells how various charitable organisations have found a home there, including the Prince's Trust, Amnesty International and Music for Youth.

Celebrating The Royal Albert Hall

Guy de la Bédoyère

A guided tour of Roman Britain with historian Guy de la Bédoyère, as heard on BBC Radio 4. In 55 BC, Julius Caesar invaded Britain, which was then on the edge of the known world. But he was unable to conquer it. Where Caesar failed the Emperor Claudius, in AD 43, succeeded and the mighty Roman Empire came to stretch from Cairo to Carlisle. The Romans in Britain tells the story of four hundred tumultuous years under Roman rule. A colourful and cosmopolitan people, the Romano-British created a unique corner of the ancient world by merging their own Celtic traditions with the sophistication of Roman civilization. Presented with warmth and wit, historian and archaeologist Guy de la Bédoyère takes us on a fascinating tour through Britain which is as much an adventure in social geography as it is a lively and surprising history.

Romans In Britain

Allan Little

Allan Little investigates key moments and issues that brought the EU to the current crisis. In this three-part series, he looks at the transformation of Europe following the fall of the Berlin Wall, probes the failure to enforce the rules of the Stability and Growth Pact and examines new resentments and divisions within the EU exposed by the crisis.

Europe's Choice

Rory Cellan-Jones

Rory Cellan-Jones traces the roots of social networking from the counterculture of the 197s through early bulletin board systems such as California's The WELL and the first networks on the World Wide Web, finding out how a geeky hobby became a mass phenomenon. He discovers how Facebook became the world's biggest social network, looks at the sites of the future and asks where the phenomenon is heading. His interviewees include Lee Felsenstein, co-founder of Community Memory, Larry Brilliant, co-founder of The WELL, Andrew Weinrich, founder of SixDegrees.com, Jonathan Abrams, co-founder of Friendster, Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder and CEO of Facebook, Chris DeWolfe, co-founder of MySpace, Michael and Xochi Birch, co-founders of Bebo, Wayne Ting, co-founder of Campus Network, David Kirkpatrick, author of The Facebook Effect, Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter, Dennis Crowley, co-founder of Foursquare and Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn.

The Secret History Of Social Networking

Katie Hickman

In this fascinating BBC Radio series, Katie Hickman examines the lives of 'diplomatic women' through their letters and diaries. From the first exploratory expeditions into foreign lands, through the heyday of the British Empire and still today, the foreign service has been shaped and run behind the scenes by the wives of ambassadors and minor civil servants. Accompanying their spouses in the most extraordinary, tough, sometimes terrifying circumstances, they have struggled to bring their civilization with them. Their stories - from ambassadresses downwards - never before told, are a feast of eccentricity, genuine hardship and genuine heroism, and make for a hilarious and compelling series.

Daughters Of Britannia

Armando Iannucci

A compilation of readings from the book of the same name by the co-creator of the comedy series, Knowing Me, Knowing You . Iannucci proffers his inaccurate insights into science, the arts, and such topics as the first fist-fight on the moon, an Official History of Noises, the War between Savoury Eaters and the Sweet-toothed Peoples and the Existence of Nonsense. Read by Armando Iannucci.

Facts & Fancies

Will Gompertz

The Royal Collection is one of the most wide-ranging collections of art and artefacts in the world and provides an intriguing insight into the minds of the monarchs who have assembled it. In this series, BBC Arts Editor Will Gompertz examines dozens of these unique objects, in a quest to 'use the Collection as a prism through which to better understand the art of being a monarch'. From intimate portraits to epic tapestries, from the Coronation pen to the Investiture sword, from a treatise against Martin Luther to the first televised Christmas message, each has an absorbing history. Famous objects such as the Gold State Coach and the Imperial State Crown rub shoulders with lesser-known but still fascinating artefacts such as the Exeter Salt and the Wriothesley Garter Book. With the help of historians, academics and Royal Collection curators, Gompertz selects choice items to find out what secrets they reveal about the art of monarchy.

The Art Of Monarchy

Clare Balding

Apart from the English language itself, the invention of modern sport has been our major cultural legacy to the rest of the world. In this 30-part narrative history series, with the help of the academic team from the International Centre for Sports History and Culture at De Montfort University, Clare looks at the unique and vital role sport has played, and continues to play, in our national life. Clare travels to Rugby, which can claim to be the birthplace of the modern Olympics, and she also investigates the role our sporting heroes play in shaping national identity - and rivalry. She discovers the vital role gambling has played, as well as the change from amateur to professional sport. From the birth of broadcasting to the way television has changed our relationship with sport forever - via the British Empire and the importance of sport between both world wars - this is a historic series about our national passion and how the British took sport to the world. Due to copyright reasons, this contains edited versions of the episodes that were originally broadcast.

Sport And The British

Kathryn Tempest

The Essay is a BBC Radio series exploring cultural topics. In these five episodes, I Confess: The Power of the Confession looks at the history of confessions, which links the legal world of Cicero to our own. In Episode one, Dr Kathryn Tempest of Roehampton University excavates the roots of one of the most powerful legal concepts of all time. Episode Two sees Professor John Arnold of Birkbeck College, University of London, taking us into the mental world of the inquisitions. In Episode Three, witchcraft scholar Dr Emma Wilby of Exeter University investigates the confessions of 17th-century peasant woman, Isobel Gowdie, who was accused of witchcraft - and meets Isobel herself, through her own words read by actress Gerda Stevenson. Episode Four finds Dr Iain Lauchlan of Edinburgh University exploring the Moscow show trials of 1938, and in the last episode, journalist and writer Andrew Brown considers the modern public role of confession.

I Confess

The Power Of Confession

Richard Coles

Richard Coles examines same sex desire through the ages, in a journey reaching from the UK to India, Egypt, Greece and Native America. In episode one, his quest takes him to Saqqara, Egypt and the contested tomb of two men, Khnumhotep and Niankhkhnum. Were the men lovers or brothers? He explores the ideas of the 'sexologists' and tells the story of Anne Lister, a 19th century Yorkshirewoman who had same sex relationships. In episode two, Richard explores the homosexuality of the ancients, tracing the transition from classical celebration to religious repression. Part three focuses on the complex relationship between sexuality and gender as Richard surveys the so-called 'third sex' in places such as India, Indonesia and Thailand. He concludes the series by looking at the globalisation of gay identity. Is the West attempting to promote ideas of gay liberation which are alien to the developing world? Producer: Laurence Grissell.

Out In The World A Global Gay History

The RMS Titanic  sailed from Southampton en route for New York on her maiden voyage with 2228 passengers and crew on board. On the 14th April at twenty minutes before midnight, sailing at almost full speed, she struck an iceberg and sank in just two and a half hours. Over 1500 lives were lost. This is the story of a great tragedy described by the surviving passengers, officers and crew who were on board that night. Firsthand accounts help to explain why so few of the passengers took to the lifeboats and later describe the miraculous survival of those forced to jump into the icy waters of the North Atlantic. The story of the Titanic is ultimately one of simple human loss and these laconic Edwardian voices bring it vividly to life. The hold that these events have on our imagination is as strong now as it ever has been in the 100 years since the great ship went down.

Titanic, The Voices From The BBC Archive

Wolfgang Stoecker

Wolfgang Stoecker is on a mission to explore the cultural meanings of dust. Cologne-based artist Stoecker has collected samples of dust from historic buildings across Europe and beyond. With the help of scientists and an electron-microscope, he has analysed the dust and discovered it contains tiny fossils, particles from the Sahara, pollutants of various kinds and human debris. He is fascinated by what dust can tell us about human culture and history, and proves an engaging and charismatic host in this thought-provoking, witty documentary.  Produced by Mary Ward-Lowery.

My Empire Of Dust

Melvyn Bragg

Broadcaster and arts presenter Melvyn Bragg fronts 'The Written World', a five-part BBC Radio 4 series following the origins of writing from its first appearance 6,000 years ago and exploring how it has shaped the world's intellectual history.  In the first programme he looks at the technology of writing, and how making signs on clay, wood or parchment enabled the development of human culture. The second programme sees Bragg considering the impact of the invention of the book and examining one of the earliest surviving examples. The third programme examines the role of writing in the spread of religions and the fourth programme looks at how the invention of writing made it possible to record history, and how oral poetry traditions were transformed into the new medium of literature. Bragg concludes his survey of the written word by considering how the invention of writing made the scientific revolution of the Englightenment possible.

In Our Time

The Written World

Dr David Musgrove

To accompany the August 2011 issue of BBC History Magazine, expert historians discuss the life and reigns of the five Tudor monarchs with BBC History Magazine editor Dr David Musgrove. 
 
Dr Steven Gunn, of Oxford University, discusses Henry VII. Professor George Bernard, of Southampton University, introduces us to Henry VIII. Reading University’s Professor Ralph Houlbrooke talks about Edward VI. Dr Anna Whitelock of Royal Holloway University of London invites us to reconsider Mary I. Oxford University’s Dr Susan Doran reviews the reign of Elizabeth I.

The Tudors (BBC History Magazine)

Brian Johnston

Down Your Way was one of the most popular programmes on BBC Radio from 1946 until 1992. Every week the presenter would visit a different city, town or village in the UK and interview six local people about its history, traditions and customs. Brian Johnston presented the series for fifteen years and for this recording, his son Barry has selected more of the fascinating people and places that his father visited on his travels. Brian meets famous people such as the former England footballer Nat Lofthouse, Australian cricket legend Sir Donald Bradman, and steeplejack and TV personality Fred Dibnah, as well as marvellous local characters, including the British snuff champion, a lady gurning champion, and a Scottish sheep shearer. He also takes a boat trip down the River Thames, visits Tower Bridge and Abbey Road studios, and goes to Salisbury Cathedral and Wigan Pier. This delightful recording illustrates the rich and colourful heritage of the people and places of Great Britain.

Brian Johnston Down Your Way: Favourite People And Places Vol. 2

Isabel Hilton

1911 saw the fall of the Qing Dynasty and the abdication of the last Emperor in China. 100 years on, Isabel Hilton describes how China coped with the collapse and looks for any lingering legacy in this BBC Radio 3 report originally broadcast as the 'Sunday Feature' on 23 January 2011.  After living under the comparative stability of an Imperial system for so long, Isabel explains what happened when the young Emperor, Puyi, was forced to stand down. She reports from the Chinese capital, Beijing, on how China set about finding a new system to govern. 100 years on, she asks whether the country has fully recovered from the trauma of this rupture from such an ancient past, and if it has finally settled on its replacement.  Isabel goes in search of the shadow of the emperor, and describes China's current relationship with its Imperial past.

Shadow Of The Emperor The (BBC Radio 3 Sunday Feature)

First-hand accounts featuring the RAF pilots who took part in the Battle of Britain - one of the chief turning points of World War Two.   'Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few' - Winston Churchill.   The 'Few' were the nearly 3,000 RAF pilots who fought against the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain, which raged in the skies over southern England and the English Channel in the summer of 1940.   With a new Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, Britain fought alone in Europe - and under the threat of invasion from Hitler's Germany.   Douglas Bader, Flight Lt Richard Hillary, 'Ginger' Lacey and Flight Lt. Brian Kingcombe describe the strains they had to face as pilots: 'I didn't have butterflies in my stomach - I had vultures' and the 'long, boring hours interspersed with moments of tremendous exhilaration'. Their determination, bravery, and skill are evident as, outnumbered, they fought doggedly in their superior Hurricanes and Spitfires.   With news bulletins, reportage, personal accounts from the ground crews, and excerpts from Churchill's famous speeches, this recording undeniably shows why, for the victorious RAF pilots, 'This was their finest hour'.

The Battle Of Britain

Complete

Down Your Way was one of the most popular programmes on radio and spanned six decades. Every week the presenter would visit towns and villages throughout the UK, discovering fascinating people and places. Brian Johnston presented the series for fifteen years and 733 programmes. For this recording, his son Barry has selected the most eccentric, famous and interesting people, and the most colourful places, that his father visited on his travels. Along the way Brian meets such famous people as Sir Roger Bannister, HRH Prince Philip, Denis Compton and John Laurie (Private Frazer in Dad’s Army), as well as Frank Searle, who has spotted the Loch Ness Monster. Brian also takes in Land’s End, Alice Springs, and even goes underground to visit the Cabinet War Rooms and the Bank of England’s gold vault. Released for the first time on audio, this recording includes part of Brian Johnston’s final programme. It presents a timeless view of Britain, a land peopled by countless characters among its rich heritage.

Brian Johnston Down Your Way: Favourite People And Places Vol. 1

John le Carré

George Smiley is one of the most brilliantly realised characters in British fiction. Bespectacled, tubby, eternally middle-aged and deceptively ordinary, he has a mind like a steel trap and is said to possess ‘the cunning of Satan and the conscience of a virgin’.   When word reaches 'The Department' - an ailing section of British intelligence - that Soviet missiles are being installed close to the West German border, it seems the perfect opportunity to show Control and Smiley, their rivals over at the Circus, that The Department still has value. Former spy Fred Leiser is lured back from retirement to investigate, and manages to cross the border into East Germany in a dangerous night-time operation.   But the world has changed since The Department's glory days during the Second World War. The harsh realities of the Cold War now prevail, and there is no place for heroes...   Starring the award-winning Simon Russell Beale as Smiley, and with a distinguished cast including Ian McDiarmid and Philip Jackson, this compelling dramatisation perfectly captures the atmosphere of le Carré's chilling novel of deception and betrayal.

The Looking Glass War

Jonathan Bardon

From The Ice Age to Northern Ireland's Peace Settlement and everything in between, the acclaimed academic Dr Jonathan Bardon presents a history of Ireland spanning 10,000 years. 
 
Beginning with the Ice Age and Ireland's first plants and wildlife, this history encompasses the arrival of Christianity, the age of the Celts, the Viking era, Brian Boru, the Norman invasion, the plantation and the famine through to rebellion, partition and the creation of the Irish Free State. 
 
Recorded to mark BBC Radio Ulster's 30th birthday, this landmark series gets behind the historical headlines to produce a marvellous mosaic of Ireland's rich and turbulent history, delivered with clarity and narrative skill. 
Each programme was read by local actors Frances Tomelty, James Greene and Richard Dormer, who interweave eye-witness accounts, letters and diary extracts from the times with the historical facts.

A Short History Of Ireland

Hugh Cunningham

Written by Hugh Cunningham and presented by award-winning children's author Michael Morpurgo, this genuinely ground-breaking history of British childhood teaches us about the key elements that have shaped children's lives. The Invention of Childhood explores how gender, geography and ethnicity has impacted the development of children throughout the ages. Beginning from the year 1000, Cunningham studies the many important events in history for our children, ranging from Britain's earliest child-care guru in the Middle Ages to the first ever Foundling Hospital in the 18th Century. This hugely enjoyable piece of teaching that delves into the idea of how childhood has been constantly reinvented through the centuries, and why the role of children in society continues to obsess us today. 
 
Fascinating and thought-provoking, it will appeal to parents, grandparents and anyone who has ever been a child themselves.

The Invention Of Childhood

Simon Schama

Timothy West reads the second volume of Simon Schama’s compelling chronicle of the British Isles. The British wars began on the morning of 23 July 1637, heralding two hundred years of battles waged within and away from our isles. Most would be driven by religious or political conviction, as Republicans and Royalists, Catholics and Protestants, Tories and Whigs, and colonialists and natives vied for supremacy. Of those battles not fought on home territory, a great number took place across Europe, America, India and also at sea. Schama’s examination of this turbulent period reveals how the British people eventually united in imperial enterprise, forming what he calls ‘Britannia Incorporated’. The story of that change evokes the memory of such enduringly influential people as Oliver Cromwell, as well as lesser known but equally extraordinary individuals. A story of revolution and reaction, progress and catastrophe, this is a vivid account of two centuries which changed Britain.

A History Of Britain

Volume 2 - The British Wars 1603-1776

Volume 3 - The Fate of Empire 1776-2000

Volume 1: At The Edge Of The World? 3000BC - AD 1603

Misha Glenny

More series of Misha Glenny’s BBC Radio 4 show about the borders, the stories and the people of countries worldwide 
 
Former BBC Central European correspondent Misha Glenny investigates the borders, the histories and the people that make different nations what they are today. 
 
Aided by a wealth of expert contributors, he discovers the geographical quirks, Game of Thrones-style battles and history-changing personalities that have defined each nation - busting some persistent myths and stereotypes along the way. 
 
'Every series is a revelation' Daily Telegraph 
'One of the jewels in the BBC radio crown' Radio Times 
 
This collection takes a deep dive into Scandinavia, Bangladesh, Poland, Russia, Turkey, China, Taiwan, Hugary and more.

How to Invent a Country: A Second Collection

Ten More Nations and the Histories that Made Them

Black Star Series

Blacklist

Set inside Blandings Castle, this comedy series follows Lord Emsworth and his pig Empress as they meet with his dysfunctional family and friends, and the havoc that follows.

Blandings

Blandings Castle

Blood City Rollers

Bloodlines

Blossom Street

Blue Ant

Bluey

Bodyguard

Bodyguard Series

Bollocks to Alton Towers

Book of Dust Series

Borderlands

Born Wicked

Boudica: the last defender of the Celtic culture; the only woman openly to have led her warriors into battle; the only British warrior to have stood against the might of Imperial Rome - and triumphed. 
 
This is her story.

Boudica

Boy Soldier

Brain Chemicals

Brave Bunnies

Bridge

Bridget Jones's Diary

Brief Encounters

Bright Young Things

Brotherband

Arthur Bryant and John May are Golden Age detectives living in the modern world. Together they head up the Peculiar Crimes Unit, ready to solve any of the weird and wonderful crimes that fall across their desks.

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