Why wasn’t Poetry Please in the Radio Times’s top 30 greatest radio shows of all time?
With the upsurge of listeners to Classic FM (now boasted to be 5.6 million listeners each week) and the imminent…
The story of the River Clyde
It sounds like something out of Dickens or a novel by Thackeray, a classic case of high-minded Victorian philanthropy, but…
The man who never cried
It was odd listening to Jim Al-Khalili being interviewed on Radio 4 on Tuesday morning rather than the other way…
The attempt to bring back topicality to Ambridge has been far too effective
It’s becoming clear that the travails afflicting all the major players in The Archers, Radio 4’s flagship drama, are intended…
Why the BBC International Playwriting Competition really matters
We don’t know whether ‘Aziz H’ listened to radio plays as he grew up in Yemen. In fact we don’t…
Zoë Ball has the voice and warmth but not so much the chat
Whether by accident or design, Zoë Ball took over the coveted early-morning slot on Radio 2 this week just as…
Neil MacGregor’s intense, impassioned new radio programme is shamelessly anti-Brexit
I suspect that whether or not you admire Neil MacGregor’s latest series for Radio 4, As Others See Us (produced…
How did the BBC’s podcast Unexpected Fluids ever get made?
You may have noticed the flood of podcasts that’s been pouring out of the BBC since the launch of its…
Remembering the 1968 Apollo mission – when the world was reaching to the future rather than drawing in
Take yourself back to (or try to imagine) Christmas 1968; a year full of disturbances, dashed hopes and extreme violence…
![British poet Salena Godden presenter of Mrs Death Misses Death on Radio 4. [Photo: Roberto Ricciuti / Getty Images]](https://spectatorau.imgix.net/content/uploads/2018/12/Radio.jpg?auto=compress,enhance,format&crop=faces,entropy,edges&fit=crop&w=410&h=275)
Listening to people talking about death can be strangely consoling
‘Without death,’ says Salena Godden, ‘life would be a never-ending conveyor belt of sensation.’ For her death is what gives…
The story of the cook who spent 10 years preparing food for those on death row
You don’t need headphones to appreciate, and catch on to, the unique selling point of radio: its immediacy, its directness,…
Is Michelle Obama a secret Archers fan?
I wonder what Michelle Obama, the former First Lady who remade that role in her own image, would make of…
Radio 3 had the most simple yet effective way of reflecting on war’s impact
Amid all the remembrance, Radio 3 came up with a simple yet effective way of reflecting on war’s impact. Threaded…
When the first world war ended, many soldiers were left with ‘a terrible empty feeling’
‘It was so unreal,’ said one of the first world war veterans about the long-awaited Armistice. It was the most…
Why has BBC Radio been replaced by ‘BBC Sounds’?
You may have noticed that BBC iPlayer (for radio programmes) has been replaced this week with the new BBC Sounds…
What are the writers of The Archers trying to achieve with the Freddie Pargetter story?
‘I’m not here to rehabilitate,’ says Pamela, who teaches creative writing to prisoners in Northern Ireland. She doesn’t think of…
When haddocks flirt, they sound like a motorbike revving up
Flies buzzing, strange rustling, crunching sounds, and then the most chilling screech you’ll have heard all week. Vultures were feeding…
Radio 4 treats its radio listeners as second-best in favour of those who listen to podcasts
How very odd of Radio 4 not only to release The Ratline as a podcast before broadcasting it on the…
A week of extraordinarily direct and honest radio on the World Service
The most inspiring voice on radio this week belongs to Hetty Werkendam, or rather to her 15-year-old self as she…
Angela Carter was a master of radio drama
The writer Angela Carter (born in 1940) grew up listening to the wireless, her love of stories, magic and the…
What it was like to be a black lawyer in the deep south in the 60s
To have been a black lawyer in the deep south of America in the early 1960s would have taken a…
Podcasts still have a long way to go to challenge the best of conventional radio
Here’s a thought. Matthew Bannister, former Radio 1 controller turned presenter of programmes such as Outlook on the World Service…
The power of Sue MacGregor’s The Reunion
The return of Sue MacGregor’s long-running Radio 4 series The Reunion (produced by Eve Streeter) is a welcome reminder of…
Another side of John Humphrys
‘What can you tell me just now,’ asks Audrey Gillan. She’s talking to Tara, who’s been sleeping rough on Fournier…
Robert Redford turns his hand to radio
Much ado is being made of the latest listening figures, which have suggested that the percentage of those aged between…
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