Kate Chisholm

All the world’s a stage

28 April 2018 9:00 am

How to stage Shakespeare on air and bring the text to life without the benefit of set, costumes, choreography and…

Why be so frightened of Enoch Powell’s speech now?

21 April 2018 9:00 am

It was a provocative decision by the producers of Archive on 4, 50 Years On: Rivers of Blood (Nathan Gower…

Martha Kearney’s arrival at Today is a breath of fresh air

14 April 2018 9:00 am

Like a breath of fresh air Martha Kearney has arrived on Radio 4’s Today programme, taking over from Sarah Montague…

Why British radio plays can’t compete with those from the Continent

7 April 2018 9:00 am

To Herne Bay in Kent for the UK International Radio Drama Festival: 50 plays from 17 countries in 15 languages…

Paradise Lost is made for radio – but you need to concentrate

31 March 2018 9:00 am

It’s a tough listen, Paradise Lost on Radio 4 at the weekend. In bold defiance of the demands of a…

The BBC admit they’re not ready to switch off analogue radio

24 March 2018 9:00 am

As Bob Shennan, the BBC’s director of radio and music admitted this week, there are almost two million podcast-only listeners…

Who was the Isdal Woman? And how did she die?

17 March 2018 9:00 am

‘Close your eyes and be absorbed by the storytelling,’ urged Jon Manel (the new head of podcasting at BBC World…

I never expected to last the full hour: Carla Bruni’s C’est la Vie reviewed

10 March 2018 9:00 am

You can’t move for women’s voices on the airwaves at the moment — Julie Walters on Classic FM leading off…

‘We’re using the same Aga and Belfast sink as Jill Archer’: how Radio 4 made Home Front

3 March 2018 9:00 am

It feels like a long time since the launch of Home Front on Radio 4 back in June 2014, retracing…

Ramblings takes an unexpected turn

24 February 2018 9:00 am

This week’s edition of Ramblings with Clare Balding did all the usual things: a walk in the country (cue breathy…

Radio’s role in winning the Cold War

17 February 2018 9:00 am

Some of us grew up worrying about reds under the bed, which was perhaps not as foolish as all that…

BBC Arabic’s version of Woman’s Hour is rather different to Radio 4’s

10 February 2018 9:00 am

When the BBC’s Arabic-language network went out on air for the first time 80 years ago, on 3 January 1938,…

The joy of buses

3 February 2018 9:00 am

It’s a pity Will Self didn’t embark on his bus tour round Britain before the Brexit vote. If he had,…

Is forgetting a modern disease?

27 January 2018 9:00 am

If you were to ask me by the end of the week what I had written about in this column…

Nothing about Radio 4’s Across the Red Line suggested it would be as riveting as it was

20 January 2018 9:00 am

On paper and on air, there’s nothing to suggest that the Radio 4 series Across the Red Line will have…

What Rwanda can teach us about gender equality

13 January 2018 9:00 am

What an incredible statement we heard on My Perfect Country. ‘I can walk into a boardroom and forget I am…

Podcasts have a long way to go to catch up with radio

6 January 2018 9:00 am

It’s racing up the UK podcast charts, overtaking (as I write) the established favourites such as No Such Thing as…

Radio 3 offers a refreshing antidote to the current conversations about Europe

16 December 2017 9:00 am

The season of Advent, for most children, means anticipation, gleeful waiting, the counting down of days. But after a certain…

What it feels like to hold a heart

9 December 2017 9:00 am

It’s been heart week on Radio 4, celebrating the anniversary of the first ‘successful’ heart transplant in 1967, which was…

If you like Schoenberg, you’ll like Björk’s Utopia

2 December 2017 9:00 am

At the launch of the Christmas radio schedules last week, James Purnell, director of radio (and much more) at the…

Who will be the first woman on the moon?

25 November 2017 9:00 am

Wally Funk is on a mission — to make real her dream that a woman will walk on the moon…

Why local radio is thriving

18 November 2017 9:00 am

It’s 50 years since the first local radio stations were launched by the BBC in yet another instance of the…

I never understood the appeal of Ken Dodd

11 November 2017 9:00 am

It’s always odd to hear a familiar voice on a different programme, playing an alternative role. They never sound quite…

Why talking about death is a essential part of living

4 November 2017 9:00 am

Mandy was 38 when she was told she was ‘in the end stage’, suffering from COPD and finding it more…

The ties that bound us

28 October 2017 9:00 am

Only Neil MacGregor could do it — take us in a single thread from a blackened copper coin, about the…