Radio
Big Auntie
It’s sneaky, the way in which the BBC, so much regarded as part of the family as to be nicknamed…
What stopped Stoppard?
Two programmes this week presented two radically different world views, or rather ways of life. Aditya Chakrabortty’s series for Radio…
The joy of the Proms
Summer nights, hot and humid, mean just one thing — it’s Proms season again. Sore feet, sweaty armpits, queuing outside…
If you want to know how music really works listen to Classic FM not Radio 3
He’s been billed as the new Pied Piper but it’s going to take a while for Tom Service to quite…
How the BBC made the most unlikely TV hit of the swinging Sixties
‘Comedy is like music,’ said Edwin Apps, one of the characters in Wednesday afternoon’s Radio 4 play, All Mouth and…
Why the World Service is worth every penny
What makes the World Service so different from the rest of the BBC? I asked Mary Hockaday, the controller of…
Radio comedy still misses Kenneth Williams
It’s tempting to believe that somewhere in the bowels of Broadcasting House in London the voice of Kenneth Williams is…
The blind boy who learnt to see with sound
The deadline for Radio 2’s 500 Words competition falls next Thursday. Children between the ages of five and 13 are…
Is Radio 4 encouraging us to overshare?
Much ado about Radio 4’s latest venture into the new smart world of aural selfies. Reaction Time, on Thursday mornings,…
Long before Twitter, Wogan offered continuous conversation
For once, the superlatives that have greeted Terry Wogan’s death from cancer have been entirely in keeping with the man.…
Serial returns with a story of loyalty, resilience and punishment
The new season of the Serial podcast (produced by the same team who make This American Life) was launched last…
Stephen Hawking shows that all is not lost if by mischance you fall into a black hole
You don’t expect to be brought close to tears by the Reith Lectures, which are after all at the most…
Corbyn’s turn on Today was as graceful and twinkle-toed as Bowie himself
Some might say that Jeremy Corbyn is cloth-eared, tone-deaf, socially inept but on Monday morning, as the death of the…
The best - and worst - podcasts
My resolution this New Year is to get to grips with podcasts, to brace up and embrace this new aural…
Radio is flowering because it’s so much more potent than TV
Who would have thought in this visually obsessed age of YouTube, selfies and Instagram that radio, pure audio, no images…
Glenda Jackson is brilliant in Radio 4’s Zola adaptation - and terrifying
It was a stroke of genius to invite Glenda Jackson to make her return to acting as the star of…
You can’t forget what Will Self says - even if you wish you could
It lasted for just a few seconds but was such a graphic illustration of the statistics behind the bombing campaign…
Was Bach really a ‘tasteless and chaotic composer’?
It’s just not what you expect to hear on Radio 3 but I happened upon Music Matters on Saturday morning…
Radio 4’s ‘online first’ facility will destroy what makes the station so great
There’s been a lot of fanfare and trailers about BBC Radio’s new ‘online first’ facility. We can now get hold…
Agincourt was neither necessary, nor great. We’re mad to celebrate it
Can anyone explain this sudden enthusiasm for Agincourt, that unexpected victory over the French, now being celebrated, or rather commemorated,…
What’s it like to talk to a serial killer?
‘I’ve never met a human being who doesn’t appreciate being listened to, being taken seriously,’ said Asbjorn Rachlew, the Norwegian…
National Poetry Day's mistake: letting normal people do the reading
Imagine what Brennig Davies must have felt like just before 11 o’clock last Tuesday evening. The 15-year-old was about to…
Why we should embrace being average
Maybe what we love about radio is the way that most of its programming allows us the luxury of staying…
The Baroque composer who was a world music pioneer
On Private Passions this week the writer Amitav Ghosh gave us a refreshingly different version of what has become a…
Late Night Woman’s Hour assumes that all women think about is dating, desire and drinking
Late Night Woman’s Hour has created a Twitter storm with its twice-weekly (Thursdays and Fridays) doses of ‘mischievous and unbridled…
