home.social

#bbcradio4 — Public Fediverse posts

Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #bbcradio4, aggregated by home.social.

  1. Oh, well, since YOU put it like THAT, this guy sounds COMPLETELY REASONABLE! 👍

    interview 2026-09-07 1310ish

    #Dover #DoverMarches
    #BBCRadio4 #BBCTheWorldAtOne #BBCWato

  2. (yet another look at UK education)

    Comps
    Archive on 4

    Financial Times columnist turned teacher Lucy Kellaway takes a personal journey through the education revolution launched fifty years ago to replace grammars and secondary moderns with comprehensives. The ambition was noble: the same opportunities for every child. But the story of Comps suggests that when lofty ideals collide with reality, things don’t always turn out as planned.

    Lucy visits two very different models of comp trying to reconcile the history and their local demands and priorities, and speaks to three of the most influential politicians responsible for shaping today's state secondary school system - Lords Baker, Blunkett and Gove. She also discovers the deep roots of the tensions and challenges facing today's comps in a journey through a rich archive that charts the evolution of the comprehensive system in the last fifty years.
    Producer: Jonathan Brunert

    Show less

    57 minutes

    On air

    Today
    20:00
    BBC Radio 4
    More episodes

    #BBCRadio4 #BBCArchiveOn4

    bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00316l1

  3. ( ... there are possibly some David Sedaris fans out in Fediverseland ... )

    David Sedaris
    Take Four Books

    Presenter James Crawford speaks to American author and humourist David Sedaris on his new collection of essays, The Land and Its People. From navigating the realities of ageing to reflecting on his personal relationships, Sedaris explores a wide range of experiences across the book's 28 essays.

    He also discusses the three works that inspired the collection: Raymond Carver's Cathedral (1981), Joy Williams's Taking Care (1982), and Alan Bennett's Talking Heads (1988).

    Producer: Rachael O’Neill
    Editor: Gillian Wheelan
    This was a BBC Audio Scotland production.

    Show less
    Download
    Choose your file
    Higher quality (128kbps)
    Lower quality (64kbps)

    Available now

    29 minutes

    On air

    Today
    16:00
    BBC Radio 4

    #BBCRadio4 #DavidSedaris #BBCTakeFourBooks

    bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00301w4

  4. Episode 1
    Drama on 4
    Libra Episode 1 of 2

    Don DeLillo’s fictionalised reimagining of the events surrounding the 1963 assassination of John F Kennedy, adapted for audio by Ben Lewis.
    Starring Fisher Stevens and Tucker St. Ivany.

    A CIA analyst is tasked with pulling together all the facts, theories and suppositions surrounding this founding moment in recent American history. Drawing them together, he tries to imagine how and why JFK was killed. Cutting between the story of Lee Harvey Oswald’s life and two men conspiring to assassinate the president, it builds a picture of a fractured America during the cold war era.

    This is a work of fiction inspired by fact. Don DeLillo’s novel - and this adaptation - draw on real events and on some real people. But characters, incidents and dialogue are predominantly works of fiction. Real people have been placed in imagined situations whilst other characters have been created entirely for the purposes of storytelling.

    Part of Radio 4’s Story of America - a major collection of dramatisations of milestone American titles marking 250 years since the Declaration of Independence and the foundation of the United States.

    Cast:
    The Analyst… Fisher Stevens
    Lee Harvey Oswald…Tucker St. Ivany
    The conspirators…Tyler Collins and Michael Nardone
    Marguerite Oswald…Nicole Cooper
    The Marine…Michael Guest
    Bobby Dupard…Reuben Joseph
    Marina Oswald…Holly Howden Gilchrist
    George de Mohrenschildt…Grant O’Rourke
    David Ferrie…Robin Laing

    All other parts were played by the company

    BBC Audio Scotland Production
    Production Co-ordinators: Bethany Woodhead and Minnie Harrop
    Studio Production and sound editing: Andrew Hay and Gav Murchie
    Sound Design and original scoring: Danny Krass

    Adapted by Ben Lewis
    Directed by Kirsty Williams

    Archive: CBS Evening News, November 22nd 1963

    Show less

    Release date:09 August 2026
    57 minutes


    On radio

    Today
    15:00
    BBC Radio 4

    #DonDeLillo #BBCDrama #BBCIssues #BBCOpeningLines #BBCRadio4 #BBCDramaOn4

    bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00301w1

  5. Libra - Episode One

    Opening Lines

    For the 100th title to be explored in Opening Lines, John Yorke picks up the 1998 novel Libra by the heavyweight American writer, Don DeLillo. The book centres around the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the event DeLillo says marked ‘a turning point in consciousness’ for Americans. He presents a fragmented portrait of the country at the height of the Cold War, following the misfortunes of disaffected loner Lee Harvey Oswald - as well as the large cast of rogue operators planning to use him to bring the President down.

    In the first of two-parts, John looks to find what makes this widely acclaimed novel stand out from the hundreds of other books and films spawned by the world-shaking events in Dealey Plaza back in November 1963. He speaks with, among others, Pulitzer Prize winning novelist Jennifer Egan, a self-proclaimed DeLillo acolyte, who says of Libra that the “sense of the chaos and the noise of contemporary life invading the narrative I was very drawn to, and, you know, have tried to emulate, frankly.”

    John Yorke has worked in television and radio for over 30 years and shares his experience as he unpacks the themes of the books, plays and stories dramatised in BBC Radio 4’s Sunday Drama series. As former Head of Channel Four Drama and Controller of BBC Drama Production he has worked on some of the most popular shows in Britain - from EastEnders to The Archers, Life on Mars to Shameless. He created the BBC Writers Academy and trained a generation of screenwriters - now with thousands of hours of television to their names. His acclaimed books Into the Woods and Trip to the Moon explore the structure and power of narrative, and he writes, teaches and consults on all forms of storytelling, including many podcasts for R4.

    Libra by Don de Lillo is the 100th title covered by Opening Lines. The series began in January 2023 with Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Since then John Yorke has explored novels from Anna Karenina to Gone with the Wind, plays from Shakespeare to Eugene O’Neill and ground-breaking non-fiction like John Hersey’s Hiroshima. Each episode provides background, context and some expert discussion in advance of Radio 4’s Sunday afternoon drama, and all 100 titles can be heard on BBC Sounds.

    Contributors: Pullitzer Prize winning author Jennifer Egan & Professor Jesse Kavadlo.
    Sound:
    Researcher: Henry Tydeman
    Production Hub Coordinator: Dawn Williams
    Producer: Geoff Bird
    Executive Producer: Sara Davies

    A Pier production for BBC Radio 4

    Show less
    Download
    Choose your file
    Higher quality (128kbps)
    Lower quality (64kbps)

    Available now

    14 minutes


    On air

    Today
    14:45
    BBC Radio 4

    #DonDeLillo #BBCDrama #BBCIssues #BBCOpeningLines #BBCRadio4

    bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00300kp

  6. Now listening: Crossing Continents - Getting Gaza back online

    How amid the tents and the rubble Gaza is developing once again as an unlikely tech hub.

    bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002zrnw

    #BBCRadio4 #Radio4 #R4 #CrossingContinents #FreePalestine

  7. Interesting episode of More or Less this week, particularly factchecking the greenwash around the “carbon capture” from restoring whale populations (which we should do because it is good to do regardless, not for bullshit financial/monetised benefits).

    bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m002ybnf?

    #MoreOrLess #Radio #BBCRadio4 #Radio4