#bbcradio4 — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #bbcradio4, aggregated by home.social.
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(Irvine swears throughout this then beats up Jim ...)
Irvine Welsh
BookclubThe award-winning Scottish writer Irvine Welsh speaks to Bookclub, presented by James Naughtie, about his era-defining 1993 debut, Trainspotting.
Following a non-linear plot and written in Scots and Scots English, the novel is more of a collection of interconnected stories told from multiple viewpoints, all centred around a group of friends, who have become household names - Renton, Sick Boy, Spud and Begbie - as they battle, among other things, heroin addiction, poverty, and a burgeoning HIV/AIDS crisis. The novel had sold well over a million copies in the UK by the year 2015 and has been translated into thirty languages. The novel was turned into a 1996 film, often described as a modern classic, directed by Danny Boyle and starring Ewan McGregor, Jonny Lee Miller, Robert Carlyle, Ewen Bremner and Kelly Macdonald. This episode was recorded at the Edinburgh International Books Festival in August 2026.Producer: Dominic Howell
Editor: Gillian Wheelan
This was a BBC Audio Scotland production.Show less
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Available now28 minutes
Last onToday
00:15
BBC Radio 4 -
(boils down to nuclear or renewables)
Can Britain’s Broken Energy System Be Fixed?
CurrentlyBritain has some of the highest electricity prices in the world. As of last year, nearly two and half million people live in fuel poverty, and it’s crippling our industries too. How did we get here?
In 2024, a record 50.4% of our electricity came from renewable sources. We don’t need to pay for the wind to blow and the sun to shine, and solar panels have been getting less expensive every year. But creating an electricity grid that can cope with the challenges of renewable energy isn’t cheap – and it’s certainly not straightforward either.
Yet as we emerge from another summer of record temperatures, wild fires and global fossil fuel price shocks, the question of how we manage our transition to clean energy has never been more important or more complicated.
Journalist Jonathan Ford speaks to economists, policy makers and industry leaders who shed light on the past, present and potential future of the UK’s electricity system, and finds out what can be done.
Presenter: Jonathan Ford
Producer: Artemis Irvine
Executive Producer: Robert Nicholson
A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4Show less
28 minutes
On airToday
13:30
BBC Radio 4 -
(i'm not (yet) a fan of this show but the last 6 maybe 8 minutes of this episode are good)
2. Something for Everyone
Unspeakable
Series 4 Episode 2 of 6In this episode we hear Jenny Eclair’s word for pride-induced highs, Charlie Higson's description for the sense of relief when your personal trainer cancels your class, and Ria Lina’s newly invented word for throwing someone under the bus.
Ever struggled to find the right word for a feeling or sensation? Unspeakable sees comedian Phil Wang and lexicographer Susie Dent invite celebrity guests to invent new linguistic creations, to solve those all too relatable moments when we're lost for words.
Hosts: Phil Wang and Susie Dent
Guests: Jenny Eclair, Charlie Higson and Ria Lina
Created by Joe Varley
Writers: Matt Crosby and Katie Storey
Recorded by Jerry Peal
Producer: Jon Harvey
Executive Producers: Joe Varley and Akash LockmunA Brown Bred production for BBC Radio 4
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Ray Winstone
This Cultural LifeActor Ray Winstone talks to John Wilson about his formative cultural influences and inspirations. A schoolboy boxing champion, he built a reputation playing tough, working class characters after being cast in the borstal drama Scum at the age of 17. Winstone won huge acclaim for his performance as an alcoholic abusive husband in the film Nil By Mouth, directed by Gary Oldman, and Jonathan Glazer’s Sexy Beast in which he played a bank robber forced out of retirement. Other big screen roles include the Martin Scorsese gangland drama The Departed, and Anthony Mingehella’s American civil war film Cold Mountain. On television, he’s played Henry the Eighth, Magwitch in Great Expectations and most recently, an imprisoned crime boss in the Netflix series The Gentlemen.
Producer: Edwina Pitman
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Available now43 minutes
Last onYesterday
19:15
BBC Radio 4 -
Ray Winstone
This Cultural LifeActor Ray Winstone talks to John Wilson about his formative cultural influences and inspirations. A schoolboy boxing champion, he built a reputation playing tough, working class characters after being cast in the borstal drama Scum at the age of 17. Winstone won huge acclaim for his performance as an alcoholic abusive husband in the film Nil By Mouth, directed by Gary Oldman, and Jonathan Glazer’s Sexy Beast in which he played a bank robber forced out of retirement. Other big screen roles include the Martin Scorsese gangland drama The Departed, and Anthony Mingehella’s American civil war film Cold Mountain. On television, he’s played Henry the Eighth, Magwitch in Great Expectations and most recently, an imprisoned crime boss in the Netflix series The Gentlemen.
Producer: Edwina Pitman
Show less
Available now43 minutes
Last onYesterday
19:15
BBC Radio 4 -
Ray Winstone
This Cultural LifeActor Ray Winstone talks to John Wilson about his formative cultural influences and inspirations. A schoolboy boxing champion, he built a reputation playing tough, working class characters after being cast in the borstal drama Scum at the age of 17. Winstone won huge acclaim for his performance as an alcoholic abusive husband in the film Nil By Mouth, directed by Gary Oldman, and Jonathan Glazer’s Sexy Beast in which he played a bank robber forced out of retirement. Other big screen roles include the Martin Scorsese gangland drama The Departed, and Anthony Mingehella’s American civil war film Cold Mountain. On television, he’s played Henry the Eighth, Magwitch in Great Expectations and most recently, an imprisoned crime boss in the Netflix series The Gentlemen.
Producer: Edwina Pitman
Show less
Available now43 minutes
Last onYesterday
19:15
BBC Radio 4 -
Ray Winstone
This Cultural LifeActor Ray Winstone talks to John Wilson about his formative cultural influences and inspirations. A schoolboy boxing champion, he built a reputation playing tough, working class characters after being cast in the borstal drama Scum at the age of 17. Winstone won huge acclaim for his performance as an alcoholic abusive husband in the film Nil By Mouth, directed by Gary Oldman, and Jonathan Glazer’s Sexy Beast in which he played a bank robber forced out of retirement. Other big screen roles include the Martin Scorsese gangland drama The Departed, and Anthony Mingehella’s American civil war film Cold Mountain. On television, he’s played Henry the Eighth, Magwitch in Great Expectations and most recently, an imprisoned crime boss in the Netflix series The Gentlemen.
Producer: Edwina Pitman
Show less
Available now43 minutes
Last onYesterday
19:15
BBC Radio 4 -
Ray Winstone
This Cultural LifeActor Ray Winstone talks to John Wilson about his formative cultural influences and inspirations. A schoolboy boxing champion, he built a reputation playing tough, working class characters after being cast in the borstal drama Scum at the age of 17. Winstone won huge acclaim for his performance as an alcoholic abusive husband in the film Nil By Mouth, directed by Gary Oldman, and Jonathan Glazer’s Sexy Beast in which he played a bank robber forced out of retirement. Other big screen roles include the Martin Scorsese gangland drama The Departed, and Anthony Mingehella’s American civil war film Cold Mountain. On television, he’s played Henry the Eighth, Magwitch in Great Expectations and most recently, an imprisoned crime boss in the Netflix series The Gentlemen.
Producer: Edwina Pitman
Show less
Available now43 minutes
Last onYesterday
19:15
BBC Radio 4 -
First Contact
Archive on 4Horatio Clare explores the idea of First Contact.
It begins with a news item.
A group of indigenous people living around the border between Brazil and Peru emerge from the depths of the forest, cross a river and make what is described as first contact with the outside world.
The film of this encounter is fascinating and uncanny.
Within it we can discern a dim shadow of encounters that stretch back through history. James Cook in Botany Bay, Hernan Cortez in Mexico, Christopher Columbus in the Caribbean. Centuries of history seem to show us first contact as conquest – a prelude to catastrophe for the contacted people.
But what do we mean by “first contact” anyway? Can there really still be uncontacted people in this day and age? Uncontacted by whom?
The news clip that fascinates Horatio Clare cuts off as the indigenous people seemingly return back across the river to the edge of the forest – a border of sorts, between one world and another.
But what happened next? And what should happen next?
Is there always a winner and a loser when we make first contact?
Featuring Mark Anstice, Julia Blackburn, Wade Davis, Felipe Milanez and Sarah Shenker.
Readings by Sagar Arya and Sumaiya Chaudhary.
Producer: Martin Williams
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Available now57 minutes
Last onYesterday
20:00
BBC Radio 4 -
Loose Ends
Liam Ó Maonlaí, Michael Fry, Emma Southon, Olivia McVeigh, Dónal O'Connor, Neil Martin, Clare Sands
Loose Ends
Stuart Maconie finds himself "i lár an aonaigh" - at the heart of craic, ceol, and much more at the Fleadh Cheoil na hÉireann (All-Ireland Fleadh), as Belfast hosts the festival celebrating Irish music and culture for the very first time.
The Fleadh comes second nature to frontman and lead singer of Hothouse Flowers Liam Ó Maonlaí, who was brought up in a household full of traditional Irish music and song. As the band prepares for their "Greatest Hits" tour later this year, Liam reflects on the poignant story behind their hit single "Don't Go", and the time he was left behind by the band's tour bus.
Olivia McVeigh mightn't be in a band, but alongside her fellow podcasters of The Girls Groupchat she's taking the show onstage, alongside Irish girl group legends B*witched and even to ABBA Voyage. She tells Stuart about how her diagnosis of alopecia changed her entire career trajectory, into a world of advocacy and empowering others with the condition.
Emma Southon may have had a very different career as historian if she hadn't hated history so much at school. She talks about her new book Servus: How Slavery Made the Roman Empire, which sets out to give readers a full picture of the reality of enslaved people in Ancient Rome.
And Michael Fry muses on how a period of pure boredom pushed him towards comedy, and why he thinks the medium of radio is ripe for laughs, ahead of his third series of Lunchtime with Michael Fry on BBC Radio Ulster.
Plus, musicians Dónal O'Connor, Neil Martin and Clare Sands give us just a "blaiseadh beag" - a very small taste of the great music coming out of the Fleadh.
Presenter: Stuart Maconie
Producer: Anthony McKee
Technical Producer: Davy Neill
Production Co-ordinators: Sylvie Conway and Caoilfhinn McFaddenShow less
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Available now42 minutes
Last onThu 13 Aug 2026
21:00
BBC Radio 4#BBCRadio4 #BBCLooseEnds #Fleadh
#StuartMaconie #EmmaSouthon -
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.
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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).
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@Laplantgenetics Yes! A few weeks ago i turned on #BBCRadio4 and, by chance, there was a programme about what to do in a #Heatwave and what the #UK overall needs to do for #ClimateAdaption. Good of course but hearing BBC voices talking about this made it all so much more real; brought home that this really is it now. I found this atrangely upsetting and surreal, even after years of campaigning and asking for more media coverage.
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#BakeForUkraine on😃#BBCRadio4
#TheFoodProgramme #podcast!On BBC Radio 4
📻👍⏯ https://bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001np4rAnyone can SUPPORT them via their WE AID page
😇💛➡ https://WE-AID.org/en/initiativesn/initiatives/bake-for-ukraine/#yesWEAID #humanitarian #relief #emergencyaid #radio #airplay #bread #baking #bakingbread #bakery #education #recipe #socent #entrepreneur #startup #liveunited #unitedway #uplifting #inspiring #solution #giveback #news