Adam Usden

Adam Wagner

Adam Wasson

Adam Weymouth's work has been published widely, including in Granta, The Atlantic, The Observer and the BBC. His first book, Kings of the Yukon, won the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year, the Lonely Planet Adventure Travel Book of the Year and the Prix Paul-Emile Victor. He has been named by the National Writing Centre as one of ten writers shaping the UK's future.

Adam Weymouth

Adam Wisniewski-Snerg (1937-95) was born on the outskirts of Warsaw. His science fiction writing is largely focused around the consequences of totalitarianism. Although largely unread during his lifetime, after his suicide in 1995 his work began to receive major critical attention. He is now considered to be, along with Stanislaw Lem, one of Poland's greatest science fiction writers.

Adam Wisniewski-Snerg

Ade Edmondson

Adele Lang

Adele Nozedar is an author and photographer. Previously, she was in a cult indie band, then ran her own indie record label and became A&amp;R Director/General Manager of a major record company. 
 
Her wide-ranging passions are reflected in her books, which include The Hedgerow Handbook (2012), The Signs and Symbols Sourcebook (2011), The Secret Language of Birds (2006), and The Element Encyclopedia of Native Americans (2013).

Adele Nozedar

Adele Puhn

Adeline Yen Mah

Adelle Waldman is a freelance writer and book critic. She worked as a reporter at the New Haven Register and the Cleveland Plain Dealer, and wrote a column for the Wall Street Journal's website. Her articles also have appeared in The New York Times Book Review,The New Republic,Slate,The Wall Street Journal, and other national publications. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Adelle Waldman

Aditi Kakade Beaufrand is an Indian illustrator based in France. She likes experimenting with bright, happy colours. She grew up reading fairytales, watching animated films and imagining adventure stories, and her style is an embodiment of her Indian heritage and western culture. She loves animals and taking long walks on the beach, but she is never too far away from a pencil and a paper to draw her perception of the world.

Aditi Kakade Beaufrand

Aditya Chakrabortty

Adiva Geffen is a bestselling writer and playwright. Her plays have appeared on major stages in Israel, she lectures and leads numerous writing workshops and she is a board member of the Israeli Writers’ Association. 
 
 Geffen started out as a special-education teacher, before serving as the spokesperson for the Habima National Theatre for more than a decade. She founded and subsequently led the Israeli Theatre Award for ten years, and now serves as head of The Gnazim Institute of the Hebrew Writers Association, the largest Hebrew literature archive in the world. 
 
 Born in Haifa, Israel and the mother of three sons, Geffen now lives in Tel Aviv with her partner Aharon Meidan.

Adiva Geffen

Adnan Sarwar, 35, is a former British soldier who served in the Iraq War.  He has since worked as a military consultant to film and is a writer based in London.  Read more at www.adnansarwar.com / @adnansarwar

Adnan Sarwar

Adolf Hitler

Adolf Loos (1877-1933) was a leading Austro-Hungarian architect, perhaps most famous for the revolutionary 'Loos House' opposite the Hofburg Palace in Vienna, which caused outrage when it was built in 1912, and the wonderful American Bar, also in Vienna. He wrote extensively on architecture and design, working in reaction to the elaborate mass of decoration celebrated by the Vienna Secession movement.

Adolf Loos

Adolfo García Ortega

Adomnan of Iona

Adonis

Adriaan Van Dis

Adrian Bean

Adrian Bliss is a creator, writer and performer from London, best known for his comedy sketches which, explore everything from history to natural science to religion. Adrian's work has earned him nearly 20 million followers across social media and has been featured in CNN, The Times and Vogue. Adrian was named one of the New Faces of Comedy at Just For Laughs, and his one-man play Inside Everyone sold out its debut run at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival prior to opening.

Adrian Bliss

Adrian Desmond

Adrian Edmondson

Adrian Fort

Adrian Gilbert

Adrian Henri

Adrian House

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All ten episodes of BBC Radio 4’s ambitious global series, presented by Neil MacGregor 
 
‘Insightful, provocative, satisfying’ Telegraph 
 
With the United Kingdom on the brink of potentially momentous change, historian and broadcaster Neil MacGregor embarks on a worldwide voyage to discover how Britain is perceived from abroad. 
 
Visiting Germany, Egypt, Nigeria, Canada, India, Singapore, the United States, Spain, Australia and Poland – all countries with significant historical links to the UK – he talks to leading opinion formers to find out how they, as individuals and members of their wider communities, see Britain. 
 
His interviewees reveal what they learnt about Britain at school, and how key events and cultural influences, as well as their own personal experiences, have shaped their impressions of the country now. Each has a defining image that symbolises the UK to them: from Shakespeare to Monty Python, the 1966 World Cup, the Suez Crisis, the Financial Times, ‘99’ ice cream and The Crown. 
 
Throughout his travels, MacGregor uncovers tensions and frustrations, admiration and affection – along with an underlying sense of hope and a desire to retain close links with Britain as it prepares to reevaluate its relationship with Europe and the world.

As Others See Us

The BBC Radio 4 series

Doris Lessing

Dramatisations and readings of novels and short stories by Nobel laureate Doris Lessing – plus a bonus documentary, Open Book, examining her life and career 
 One of the most celebrated and important authors of the 20th Century, Doris Lessing was awarded a Nobel Prize for the ‘visionary power’ of her fiction, which spans a variety of genres and explores themes such as racism, feminism and social and political upheaval. This collection includes the radio productions of three of her acclaimed novels and four short stories, as well as a fascinating discussion of her life and work. 
 
The Good Terrorist – Olivia Vinall stars in this adaptation of Doris Lessing’s satire of incompetent revolutionaries in a London squat. 
 
Lucy Grange – Exiled from the sophistication of her homeland, stylish Lucy seeks solace and comfort, and learns 'to accept the second-rate'. Read by Estelle Kohler. 
 
The Grass is Singing – In this powerful exploration of racial politics in 1940s Rhodesia, adapted from Doris Lessing’s first novel, a white woman’s troubled relationship with her black houseboy comes to a violent end. Starring Alison Pettit and Tracy-Ann Oberman. 
 
Flight – A laughing, teasing granddaughter and a dovecote full of strutting birds are an old man's only escape from his cold family home. Read by Jack Klaff. 
 
The Golden Notebook – Susannah Harker stars in this dramatisation of Doris Lessing’s ground-breaking novel about marriage, motherhood, mental breakdown and communism. 
 
The Death of a Chair – A lived-in chair is bought at auction, where it begins its final journey towards discovery and destruction. Read by Barbara Marten. 
 
 
Open Book: Doris Lessing 
Mariella Frostrup talks to Doris Lessing about her long and extraordinarily varied writing career.

Doris Lessing: A BBC Radio Collection

Dramatisations and readings including The Golden Notebook, The Grass Is Singing & The Good Terrorist

Jim Eldridge

All ten series of the BBC Radio 4 comedy drama set in a small junior school 
 
‘The Sistine Chapel of radio drama’' - The Times 
 
Running for ten series between 1985 and 1988 (with a sequel, King Street Junior Revisited, airing from 2002-2005), this hugely popular school-based sitcom was one of the BBC’s most successful radio programmes. Created by award-winning writer Jim Eldridge, it follows the headmaster and staff of an inner-city primary as they deal with unruly pupils, problem parents, school governors and OFSTED inspectors. 
 
From Parents’ Evening to the PTA, and from supply teachers to staff room squabbles, every day brings fresh challenges for headmaster Mr Beeston. Among the problems facing him are a flu epidemic, a shortage of computers, a phantom prune thief and a mysterious graffiti artist – and there’s trouble in store when in comes to sex education, school trips and Sports Day. 
 
Meanwhile, idealistic newcomers Mr Brown and Mr Sims learn some lessons about teaching, and their battle-scarred colleagues vie for promotion – or look forward to retirement. And as each new term rolls around at King Street Junior, they all prepare to shape the minds of a brand new generation... 
 
Peter Davison stars as Eric Brown, Karl Howman as Philip Sims and James Grout as Mr Beeston, with guest stars including John Craven and Michaela Strachan as themselves. 
 
Created by Jim Eldridge 
Written by Jim Eldridge, Paul Copley, Richard Stoneman, Ivan Shakespeare, Dave Single and Martin Davies 
Produced by John Fawcett Wilson 
Violinist: Sarah Hallam 
Pianist: Max Harris

King Street Junior

A BBC Radio 4 comedy

All four series of the popular follow-up to King Street Junior 
 
King Street Junior and its sequel, King Street Junior Revisited, ran for 20 years and 100 episodes between 1985 and 2005, and were among the BBC’s most successful and popular radio programmes. 
 
In these four series, we return to the inner-city primary in the new millennium. A different Head is in charge, but the challenges remain the same: from planning a big fundraising concert, to searching for a truant, to coping with wintry weather and a disappearing lollipop lady. 
 
In addition, the teachers contend with personal and professional upheavals as Mr Maxwell’s attempts to maintain playground order land him in trouble, Mr Long suffers a painful little problem, Miss Featherstone is arrested – and a surprise awaits the staff as they return from their summer holidays. 
 
But King Street Junior continues to survive and thrive, and as the series draws to a close, the children and teachers prepare to celebrate the centenary of the school’s foundation. 
 
Written by the award-winning Jim Eldridge, this acclaimed sitcom stars Carolyn Pickles as Mrs Devon, Marlene Sidaway as Miss Lewis and Brigit Forsyth as Mrs Eastwood, with a guest appearance from James Grout as Mr Beeston. 
 
 
Created and written by Jim Eldridge 
Produced by John Fawcett Wilson

King Street Junior Revisited

Lenny Henry

Lenny Henry presents this groundbreaking BBC radio series exploring a century of black British theatre, TV and film 
 
In this fascinating ten-part series, Lenny Henry traces the long and painful road that black Britons have travelled on stage and screen, from the overt racial discrimination of the 19th Century, via the thinly veiled slurs that persisted through the first 70 years of the 20th, to today's more equal society. 
 
Interviewing playwrights, actors, directors and filmmakers – including Mustapha Matura, Roy Williams, Lolita Chakrabarti, Michael Buffong, Horace Ové and Steve McQueen – he tells the story of black drama and the influential artists who have shaped it over the past hundred years. 
 
Beginning with the breakthrough arrival of Kwame Kwei-Armah's celebrated tragedy Elmina's Kitchen to the West End, he goes on to examine the evolving depiction of Afro-Caribbeans on TV from Love Thy Neighbour to Desmond’s; explores the complex stage history of Othello; focuses on how Caribbean migration has been reflected on stage and screen; and journeys back to the 1960s and 70s to explore the spirit of protest that welled up with the advent of the Black Power movement. 
 
In addition, he looks at the burgeoning black theatre companies of the 1970s and 80s; charts the breakthrough of a host of powerful new voices in the 90s; scrutinizes attitudes towards homosexuality; investigates the current blossoming of new theatrical voices with roots in Africa and concludes with a look at future prospects and opportunities for black British talent.

Raising the Bar: 100 Years of Black British Theatre and Screen

Oliver Burkeman

Oliver Burkeman explores the virtues of negativity and shows how it can be a surprisingly powerful route to joy, success and satisfaction

The Power of Negative Thinking

and how it can be a powerful route to joy, success and satisfaction

Various

A collection of insightful interviews, documentaries and comedy that celebrates LGBTQ+ in Britain, publishing to coincide with the 50th Anniversary of the Stonewallriots. 
 
The Ben Hunte Interviews: Presenter and journalist Ben Hunte interviews his LGBTQ heroes about their unforgettable gay moments. Guests include Paul O’Grady, Stephen K Amos, Peter Tatchell, Ruth Hunt (CEO of Stonewall), Stephanie Hirst, Youtuber Calum McSwiggan. 
 
The Essay: The Love That Wrote Its Name: Simon Callow, Stella Duffy, Gregory Woods, Neel Mukherjee and Louise Welsh explore and celebrate five gay relationships of writers and artists. 
 
Queer Icons: Plato’s Symposium: Shahidha Bari discusses LGBTQ in the history of philosophy. 
 
Who Decides if Gay is OK?: What brought about decriminalisation in the UK and why has it not happened in Zambia, which largely inherited the British legal system? 
 
Highlights from Front Row’s Queer Icons project: Celebrating LGBTQ culture from the poetry of Sappho to the songs of Frank Ocean, guests are asked to champion a piece of LGBTQ artwork that is special to them. Presented by Alan Carr, with guests including Mary Portas, Olly Alexander, Christine and the Queens, Stella Duffy, and the Oscar-winning writer of Moonlight, Tarell Alvin McCraney. 
 
Happy That Way: Special compilation programme made in 2017 celebrating the best out and proud BBC Radio comedy from the past five years. Features Susan Calman, Graham Norton, Stephen Fry, Sue Perkins, Al Porter, Mae Martin, Stephen K Amos, Suzi Ruffell, Paul Sinha and Sandi Toksvig.

Gay Britannia

Celebrating Pride in the UK

Maya Angelou

Six BBC Radio 4 dramatisations of Maya Angelou's evocative, extraordinary memoirs, starring Adjoa Andoh and Pippa Bennett-Warner 
 
The books that make up the life and times of Maya Angelou are among the most beautiful and haunting pieces of autobiography ever written. Joyous, direct and searingly honest, they run the gamut from life-affirming to tragic, and back again. 
 
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings charts Maya’s childhood in the Deep South in the 1930s; while Gather Together In My Name recounts her descent into prostitution and narcotics. Singin’ and Swingin’ and Gettin’ Merry Like Christmas sees her forging a career in showbusiness, and in The Heart of a Woman, she moves to New York and becomes involved in civil rights. All God’s Children Need Travelling Shoes explores her time in Ghana during the 1960s, and in A Song Flung up to Heaven, she returns to America to work with Malcolm X and Martin Luther King. When tragedy strikes, her friend James Baldwin helps her out of her devastation – and new opportunities beckon for Maya. 
 
Angelou’s memoirs have become modern classics, beloved worldwide, and these stunning dramatisations illuminate her incredible resilience, creativity and power, painting an extraordinary portrait of 20th century black America.

The Maya Angelou Autobiographies

Six BBC Radio 4 dramatisations

Caitlin Moran

A dramatisation of Caitlin Moran's bestseller, the book that brought feminism into the mainstream again. 
 
Adapted and narrated by Caitlin Moran, this brand new radio adaptation intersperses dramatised scenes from Moran's life (from her teenage years in a crowded council house in Wolverhampton, to setting out as a music journalist, to getting married and having children) with her thoughts on subjects that range from the necessity of big knickers, to the experience of giving birth and having an abortion. 
 
Provocative, controversial and very funny - this book is the gateway drug to the feminist resurgence. 
 
Produced by Mary Peate

How To Be A Woman

A BBC Radio 4 dramatisation

Lyse Doucet

Five remarkable women. Five stories from across the world, where these influential people made an impact on democracy in their nations. 
 
Broadcast in January 2018 to mark the 100th anniversary of the first time British women won the vote, this fascinating series sees BBC Chief International Correspondent Lyse Doucet travel across the globe, meeting women from Northern Ireland, Saudi Arabia, Iceland, Afghanistan and Liberia. She hears reflections from some of the world's most influential women's rights activists, including former presidents, and shares her own experiences of reporting from some of the most troubled regions. 
 
In Belfast Lyse speaks to Monica McWilliams, who was one of only two local women who were at the table during negotiations which led to the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. She then travels to Saudi Arabia to meet Madeha Al Ajroush, who battled for 30 years to get women the right to drive. 
 
In 1980, Iceland did something no other nation had done: they elected a female head of state. Lyse Doucet travels to Reykjavik to meet Vigdis Finnbogadottir. Now 87, she was president for exactly sixteen years and remains the longest-serving elected female head of state of any country to date. 
 
Lyse then meets the formidable Shukria Barakzai, Afghanistan's ambassador to Norway. Shukria was one of only a handful of female MPs to speak up for women's rights in Afghanistan, and faced death threats for her views. Finally, Lyse Doucet travels to Liberia to talk to President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the first elected female head of state in Africa. 
 
These inspiring in-depth interviews reveal the behind the scenes stories of key moments in our global history, and show that the victory of 1918 for women in Britain has continued to resonate through the last century. 
 
Originally broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in January 2018 as Her Story Made History. 
 
Producer: Ben Carter 
Researcher: Louise Byrne

Remarkable

Five women who dared to make a difference

Why is everyone so angry nowadays, and what is it doing to the world? 
 
In the developed world we live in a blessed epoch, a time and a place where life has never been better. Infant mortality has been all but abolished, we have greater personal choice than ever before, we have access to technology that would have been seen as the stuff of science fiction little more than a decade ago. We are safer and wealthier than at any time in human history. So why are we so damn angry about everything? 
 
On-line, in the street, in the ballot box, anger is the most dominant public emotion of our age. So what are we so angry about, and how is our anger shaping our world? We know the issues that people seem to be angry about - the iniquities of globalisation, diversity, democratic disconnect - but why has anger become our default emotion when responding to the state of the world- and what is anger doing to the world we live in? 
 
Oliver Burkeman is an award-winning feature writer for the Guardian. He writes a popular weekly column on psychology, ‘This Column Will Change Your Life’, and has reported from London, Washington and New York.

Why Are We So Angry?

And what is it doing to the world?

Will Self

Will Self takes a 1,000-mile tour of the UK by bus and coach, exploring urban Britain and British identity at a time of flux. Bus and coach windows afford him a different perspective on the nation. He eschews the bright lights of the big cities, heading instead for smaller urban centres. His objective is to speak to Britons about how they view their cities and themselves in 2018. 
 
Over ten programmes, Will's trip takes him to Plymouth, Swansea, West Bromwich, Wolverhampton, Preston, Middlesbrough, East Kilbride and Derry-Londonderry. In the fish and chip shops, the B&amp;Bs, the pubs and car repair garages, Will debates the state of British identity - and discovers that Britain today has become a highly debatable land. 
 
Produced by Laurence Grissell.

Will Self's Great British Bus Journey

There's a ritual of the modern workplace - one you've heard and most likely indulged in yourself. It's the call and response we go through when you ask a workmate how they're doing: "Busy!" "So busy." It is pretty obviously a boast disguised as a complaint. And our simultaneously grim and half chuckled reply comes as a kind of congratulation: "Ha, better than the opposite." When did we start doing that? 
 
As if he didn't have enough to do, Oliver Burkeman explores this epidemic of busyness to reveal that it may not be what it at first seems. He asks if we are talking ourselves into feeling overwhelmed with busyness, and if our problem with busyness is not that we do not have the time but rather we literally do not have the head space. He questions whether people have become addicted to busy, either because it makes them feel like heroes fighting the odds, or because problems can be avoided by never sitting still. 
 
Finally, he examines whether the solution to busyness is perhaps not to work harder and organise ourselves, but to indulge in a little idleness. 
 
Oliver Burkeman is an award-winning feature writer for the Guardian. He writes a popular weekly column on psychology, ‘This Column Will Change Your Life’, and has reported from London, Washington and New York. 
 
Produced by Peter McManus. 
This programme was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 as 'Oliver Burkeman Is Busy.'

Addicted to Busy

Why life has got so hectic

Francine Stock

Francine Stock sets out to explore the elusive quality that is charisma. 
 
Can charisma – variously combining charm, magic and power – ever really be pinned down? 
 
Moving from St Paul’s coining of the word in the first century of the Christian Era right up to the present day, charisma continues to be a powerful influence, not always for the good, in the fields of politics, banking, terrorism, theatre and film. 
 
Along the way, Francine takes in early medieval mystics such as Margery Kempe and Joan of Arc; the Elizabethan belief in the so-called "Royal Touch" and its different manifestations today; the powerful healing claims of Franz Mesmer; and radical charismatic leaders from Garibaldi to Osama Bin Laden. She explores the power and appeal of charisma with stars such as Sarah Bernhardt; self-made businessmen such as W.K.Kellogg, Henry Ford and Steve Jobs; totalitarian leaders including Hitler, and new forms of political extremism such as the so-called Islamic State; civil rights leaders, Nelson Mandela and the Dalai Lama; and the volatile world of contemporary banking. 
 
There is a continuing hunger for charisma; can this gift of grace be turned to a shared advantage? 
 
Produced by Beaty Rubens 
 
©2018 BBC Worldwide Ltd (P)2018 BBC Worldwide Ltd

Charisma

An exploration of that elusive quality

David Mitchell

David Mitchell sets out on a vigorous but impeccably polite investigation into the confusing world of manners. Are they really in decline, as many would have us believe? Or are we just throwing off the shackles of the Victorian obsession with etiquette? 
 
Over the course of the series, David eats his lunchtime sandwiches with children in a primary school, and later goes to a street market to see manners - good and bad - in action. He explores where our manners come from with Professors Steven Pinker from Harvard University and the author Henry Hitchings. What do we mean by 'civility' and 'good manners' in public places? Why are people still pinching vicars' bottoms, and what can the state do to improve standards of public behaviour? And, David asks, how is the digital age changing our sense of public space? 
 
Produced by Chris Ledgard.

Behaving Ourselves

David Mitchell on Manners

Timandra Harkness

We seem to have forgotten how to argue about important things without descending into tribalism, insults, and generally thinking the worst of our opponents. This is no good. We'll never get out of the bitter divisions cleaving society if we don't learn to disagree fruitfully. 
 
In this series, Timandra Harkness explores the best ways to disagree with other people - constructively. 
 
She examines how clashes of interests, competing moral visions, factual disputes, arguments about strategies and even different personal preferences over which film to watch at the cinema can all be managed better. 
 
With the help of a trade union negotiator, an expert on neighbour disputes, and scientists, Timandra examines how best to deal with competing points of view, and – when it comes to personal preferences – asks why we try so hard to find reasons for what we want to do or believe. 
 
And she has a disagreement over the merits of disagreement. 
 
Produced by Martin Rosenbaum.

How to Disagree

A beginner's guide to having better arguments

Adam Buxton

Adam Buxton takes a sideways look at some of our confusing modern ideas, and explains why you're definitely doing it all wrong. 
 
Across five episodes he explores the worlds of work, parenting, diet, the environment and family. 
 
Is the idea of a 'dream job' - one that inspires and fulfils us and makes our lives worth living - really possible? Does your toddler eat strictly rationed organic produce, or are they allowed to eat what they want? Does installing solar panels and despairing over plastic bottles make a difference if we continue to jet off on holidays and eat imported guava?! 
 
It doesn't really matter what you answer to these incessant questions, as long as you know that you are wrong wrong wrong! 
 
Produced by Emily Knight.

You're Doing It Wrong

Mike Walker

Jonathan Holloway

A series of four BBC Radio full-cast dramas exploring the disjuncture between the man who was Eric Blair and the writer who was George Orwell. 
 
George Orwell - the pen name of Eric Blair - was a writer and political commentator who is very hard to pin down. He is a complex mass of confusions - an anti-establishment, pro-English, ex-Etonian, ex-policeman, and socialist, who was ardently anti-authoritarian. He was as anti-fascist as he was anti-communist, a former Spanish Civil War soldier who was anti-war but pro the Second World War. 
 
Burma: After an undistinguished academic career at Eton, Eric leaves in December 1921. When the girl he hopes to marry rejects him, he sets sail for Burma to join the colonial police. His experiences in Burma will affect him profoundly. When he rejects the Empire and returns to England, Blair begins to spend more and more time with the poor. 
 
Dreaming: In September 1938, Eric and Eileen Blair leave London for Marrakech. He is hoping that the climate will be good for his health, and that he will be able to complete his novel, Coming Up for Air. But the bruising reception he received following the publication of Homage to Catalonia is troubling Eric. And both Eric and Eileen are still feeling guilty about the fate of one of their Spanish Civil War comrades, Georges Kopp. 
 
Loving: Eric Blair's relationship with the opposite sex could be a distraught one; over the course of his lifetime, he made several awkward marriage proposals to different women. But his relationship with Eileen O'Shaugnessy, whom he married in 1935, had a huge influence both on his life and his writing. 
 
Jura: In 1947, the year after Eileen's death, Eric leaves London and moves to Jura in the Scottish Hebrides, with his sister Avril, and his three year old son. He is suffering from tuberculosis but is determined to try and make a go of living off the land. But most of all he is determined to finish Nineteen Eighty-Four, his final book. 
 
Cast: 
Eric Blair . . . Joseph Millson 
Eileen Blair… Lyndsey Marshall 
Jacintha Buddicom . . . Sophie Roberts 
Wilson . . . Joseph Kloska 
Inspector d'Souza . . . Ernest Ignatius 
Georges Kopp…Ewan Bailey 
Avril Blair…Liza Sadovy 
Ricky Blair…James Foster 
Other parts played by Armaan Kirmani, Derek Riddell, Alun Raglan, Paul Stonehouse, Ben Crowe, Will Howard, Alun Raglan, Alexandra Guelff, Lizzy Watts. 
 
Burma was written by Mike Walker and directed by Kate McAll. 
Dreaming was written by Mike Walker and directed by Jeremy Mortimer. 
Loving was written by Jonathan Holloway and directed by Kate McAll. 
Jura was written by Jonathan Holloway and directed by Jeremy Mortimer.

The Real George Orwell

The complete BBC Radio 4 dramas

Bridget Kendall

Bridget Kendall presents an oral history tracing decisive moments of the Cold War. 
 
The Cold War is one of the furthest-reaching and longest-lasting conflicts in modern history. It spanned the globe - from Greece to China, Hungary to Cuba - and lasted for almost half a century. It has shaped political relations to this day, drawing new physical and ideological boundaries between East and West. 
 
Bridget Kendall explores the Cold War through the eyes of those who experienced it first-hand. This landmark series draws on exclusive interviews with individuals who lived through the conflict's key events, offering a variety of perspectives that reveal how the Cold War was experienced by ordinary people. From pilots making food drops during the Berlin Blockade and Japanese fishermen affected by H-bomb testing, to families fleeing the Korean War and children whose parents were victims of McCarthy's Red Scare, Cold War covers the full geographical and historical reach of the conflict. This is essential listening for anyone seeking to understand how the tensions of the last century have shaped the modern world, and what it was like to live through them. 
 
1. The Greek Civil War 
2. The Czech Coup 
3. The 1948 Election in Italy 
4. The Berlin Blockade 
5. The Fall of Shanghai 
6. The Korean War 
7. McCarthyism 
8. The H-Bomb 
9. The East German Uprising 
10. The Iran Coup 
11. Khrushchev’s Thaw 
12. The Hungarian Revolution 
13. The Congo Coup 
14. The Berlin Wall Crisis 
15. The Cuban Missile Crisis 
16. The Fall of Khrushchev 
17. The Chinese Cultural Revolution 
18. The Prague Spring 
19. America’s Vietnam War 
20. The Coup in Chile 
21. The Fall of Saigon 
22. Ostpolitik 
23. The Angolan Civil War 
24. The Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan 
25. The Birth of Solidarity in Poland 
26. The New Cold War 
27. Gorbachev’s Perestroika 
28. The Fall of the Berlin Wall and German Reunification 
29. The Baltic Singing Revolution 
30. The Collapse of the Soviet Union

Cold War: Series 1 and 2

Stories from the Big Freeze

Jeremy Bowen

BBC Middle East Editor Jeremy Bowen presents a personal history of the Middle East. 
 
Over these 25 programmes, Jeremy reflects on the present and the past of the Middle East, after reporting from the region for more than a quarter of a century. He combines first-hand accounts from the front line with an in-depth look into the region's history. He has witnessed endless wars between individuals, religious groups and full-sized states, jostling for military, political and economic power. He has interviewed dictators, fanatics and fundamentalists as well as the ordinary people caught up in their dangerous games. In that time, the past has always been present, providing motivation and political ammunition. Bowen has made headlines himself and he has paid a personal price, coming under fire and losing a colleague in the course of reporting - on the worst day, he says, in his life. 
 
1. The Giant Awakens: On America's dramatic intervention in the region during the massive military build-up to the first Gulf War 
2. All Flesh is Glass: Bowen recalls the devastation of the first Gulf War, as he witnessed the aftermath of the bombing of a shelter in Baghdad 
3. Retreat to the Mountains: The story of the Kurds of Iraq 
4. Jerusalem: On the allure and challenge of the Holy City 
5. Recipe for Disaster: How the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin changed the region's history 
6. Crossing the Divide: How a gas container explains the divide between the Israelis and the Palestinians 
7. Death on the Nile: On the trail of Osama Bin Laden 
8. The Final Frontier: Looking back to December 1998, when the West sent bombers into Baghdad 
9. A Blunt Instrument: Bowen recalls his tricky dealings with the Iraqi Ministry of Information 
10. The Nearness of Death: Bowen describes the worse day of his working life - the day he and his colleagues came under fire from the Israeli Defence Force 
11. A Strike to the Heart: The dark days following 9/11 
12. The Drums of War: The fallout from the invasion of Iraq in 2003 
13. The Unravelling: On what went wrong, as Iraq descended into chaos in the months after the US invasion in 2003 
14. Guns and Olive Branches: The life of Yasser Arafat 
15. Missiles and the Ballot Box: Exploring Gaza 
16. A Taste of Fire and Smoke: The impact of religious divisions across the Middle East 
17. A Flash of Nail Varnish: On Iran's strategic position in the Middle East and its attitudes to the West 
18. The Revolving Revolution: The popular revolution in Egypt during the Arab Spring 
19. Unfollow the Leader: The overthrow of Colonel Gaddafi in Libya 
20. Crossing the Line: The dramatic eruption of opposition to the Assad regime in Syria 
21. A Mini World War: On the many different layers of war in Syria 
22. Oil and Water: The conflict in Yemen and the role of Saudi Arabia 
23. The New Sultan: Turkey's dramatic changes under the leadership of President Erdogan 
24. Cruelty Without Borders: On the rise and fall of the Islamic State group 
25. Through a Glass Darkly: Bowen looks at some of the lessons of the past 25 years - what happens next in the Middle East? 
 
Produced by Mark Savage and Cara Swift. 
 
The audio for this title has been updated as of December 2019.

Our Man in the Middle East

First-hand accounts from the front line

A BBC Radio 4 dramatisation of Maya Angelou's poignant, powerful autobiography, starring Adjoa Andoh, Indie Gjesdal and Pippa Bennett-Warner. 
 
Abandoned by their parents, Maya and her older brother Bailey are sent to live with their grandmother and uncle in the small Southern town of Stamps in Arkansas. Struggling with rejection, they endure the prejudice of their white neighbours and suffer several racist incidents. 
 
One day, their father unexpectedly returns and takes the children to live with their mother in St Louis, Missouri. Aged only eight, Maya is abused by her mother's boyfriend, an experience that haunts her for a lifetime. Filled with guilt and shame, she refuses to speak to anyone except Bailey – until she meets Mrs Bertha Flowers, who encourages her love of books, helping her to find her voice and regain her own strong spirit. 
 
Maya Angelou’s debut memoir is a modern American classic, beloved worldwide, which recounts a youth filled with curiosity, wonder, disappointment, frustration, tragedy, and hard-won independence. This radio dramatisation, starring Adjoa Andoh, Indie Gjesdal and Pippa Bennett-Warner, plays out her extraordinary story with dramatic verve and poetic brilliance. 
 
Cast: 
Narrator (Older Maya)...Adjoa Andoh 
Maya...Indie Gjedsal/Pippa Bennett-Warner 
Bailey...Roshawn Hewitt 
Momma...Cecilia Noble 
Uncle Willie/Freeman/Daddy...Richard Pepple 
Steward/Lawyer...John Lightbody 
Girl...Francesca Elise 
Mother...Ellen Thomas 
Bertha Flowers...Nikki Amuka-Bird 
Spanish voices... Maider Jáuregui, Rocío Mesonero, Celia Romo, Julio Villa-García, Hugo Sánchez and Francisco Oda-Ángel @ Instituto Cervantes,Manchester 
Receptionist...Lauren Cornelius 
 
Dramatised by Patricia Cumper 
Produced by Pauline Harris

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

Sara Pascoe

Sara Pascoe explores our modern social world though theories of evolutionary psychology and more. 
 
In a brand new stand up show recorded in front of live audiences in museums, Sara asks how our past influences our modern lives, and how come we can still get emotionally hijacked by our primitive emotions? 
 
Sara says: "I've been obsessing about the ape behaviours visible in our 'civilised' human interactions for nearly as long as I've been plotting to get a Radio 4 series. I'm thrilled that I've been given the opportunity to use the latter to explore the former - I'm off to eat lice out of friends' fur to celebrate." 
 
"Always clever and sometimes exquisite." The Independent 
 
"Pascoe's lively mind teases out big questions with intelligence, silliness and self-deprecation to make a near-perfect show." The Guardian

Sara Pascoe: The Modern Monkey

Joanna Bourke

Eyewitness accounts from the BBC Archive are at the heart of this unique history of the latter half of the 20th Century, narrated by Tim Pigott-Smith. 
 
The events of 1950-1999 are described by the people who saw them happen, from the Festival of Britain in 1951 through to dawn of a new millennium at the end of 1999. 
 
Inbetween are the eras of the Angry Young Men, the Teddy Boys and the Punk Rockers; the arrival of rock and roll and the permissive society; the advent of industrial strife in England and sectarian unrest in Northern Ireland; the rise to power of Margaret Thatcher; the miners’ strike, three day week and Winter of Discontent; the Queen’s Silver Jubilee; the IRA’s campaign of bombing and the eventual Good Friday agreement; the marriage of Prince Charles, the death of Princess Diana, the Poll Tax riots, and the British participation in wars in the Middle East and Bosnia. 
 
Events both joyful and sorrowful are illustrated with fascinating and rarely heard archive recordings, with a linking narration by the historia Joanne Bourke. Thought-provoking and moving, these are the voices of the past speaking to the present day.

Eyewitness: 1950-1999

Voices from the BBC Archives

C.S. Lewis

An absolute must for fans of The Chronicles of Narnia, this is a beautifully rendered performance of every single volume in this beloved series. Balancing a solid narrative that relies on fantastical action sequences with an overarching mythology, this magical, immersive performance is not to be missed. 
 
C.S. Lewis's acclaimed and universally loved novels spring to life in these spellbinding full-cast BBC dramatisations. 
 
Anyone who's visited Narnia wants to go back again, and these radio dramas make for a hugely entertaining first-time or return journey, with a cast including Bernard Cribbins, Maurice Denham, Richard Griffiths, Martin Jarvis, Sylvester McCoy, John Sessions, Fiona Shaw and Timothy Spall. 
 
The Magician's Nephew: When Polly and Digory discover some magic rings, they begin the most exciting and dangerous journey of their lives - and encounter the mighty lion Aslan... 
 
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: Lucy, Peter, Edmund and Susan enter a magical world of talking fauns and flying horses, where the evil White Witch has cast Narnia in perpetual winter. 
 
The Horse and His Boy: Shasta and his talking horse Bree flee from a life of slavery and head for the freedom of Narnia, facing many perils along the way. 
 
Prince Caspian: Peter, Susan, Lucy and Edmund are called upon to help Caspian free Narnia of his evil uncle's regime and reclaim freedom and happiness. 
 
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader: Edmund, Lucy and Eustace join King Caspian on a perilous mission to find his friends, the seven lost Lords of Narnia. 
 
The Silver Chair: Jill and Eustace set out to find King Caspian's lost son, and in the grim land of the Earthmen they encounter the wicked Green Lady. 
 
The Last Battle: The King is in danger, and Narnia faces its darkest hour. Eustace and Jill must help its people fight for the future of the once-glorious kingdom. 
 
 
 ©2014 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (P)2014 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

The Complete Chronicles of Narnia

The Classic BBC Radio 4 Full-Cast Dramatisations

Mark Jones

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

Tina Pepler

Martha's posting to Agok, in South Sudan, gives her the chance to make amends for the mistake that caused her to be sent home from her last posting. As Project Manager, she's in charge of a small team facing an escalating crisis, with more and more refugees arriving across the border from the North, and violence never far under the surface. Mistakes and misjudgements are all too easy to make, and the tensions within the team add to her feel of isolation.  As Martha's team try to deal with an ever-increasing number of refugees, she has a crisis of her own to deal with inside the compound.

Crisis

Complete Series

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

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

Described by his creator as 'short, fat and primitive', Evert Bäckström is a rather unique homicide detective but he is undeniably the real deal with it comes to modern policing. 
 
This series is blackly comic, thrillingly compelling and utterly real.

Bäckström

CAMP GOLD

Caedmon Aisquith

Cairo Trilogy

Can You Solve the Murder?

Capital

Care Bears

Cartoon Kid

Cath Kidston

A crime-fiction series with a twist - private investigator Catherine Berlin, is a damaged soul struggling with a heroin addiction, but she still manages to do her best, even when her own neck is on the chopping block.

Catherine Berlin

Celeste Express

Central Intelligence

Chaos and Flame

Charles Hayden

Charles Paris Dramatisations

Charlie Bass

Charlie Changes Into a Chicken

Charlie and Lola

Cherry Blossoms After Winter

Chevalier

Chinese Cinderella

Life at Tanglewood isn't all sleepovers, picnics and beach parties. Cherry, Summer, Skye, Coco and Honey all face some tough life challenges in this delicious series from bestselling girls' favourite Cathy Cassidy. Every sister has a secret to share. Which one will be your favourite?

Chocolate Box Girls

Christmas

Chronicles of Vladimir Tod

Churchminister

Welcome inside the violent, treacherous world of Roman politics, and learn how one man - clever, compassionate, devious, vulnerable - fought to reach the top.

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