 A weekly documentary or factual programme from BBC Radio 4. A new programme is available each Friday. For more information and the podcast Terms of Use go to www.bbc.co.uk/radio4Primary Format :
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R4Choice: Waldemar at the Venice Biennale 19 Jun 09 Art critic Waldemar Januszczak visits the world's oldest and most prestigious international contemporary art festival. In the century that has passed since the Venice Biennale was established in 1895, this festival of art, founded to showcase the work of artists, has come to attract the attention of politicians. Governments realising the propaganda value of the event have taken an increasing interest in the presence of their artists. Waldemar Januszczak, who attended the opening of the 2009 ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
R4Choice: Ireland: From Boom to Bust 12 Jun 09Olivia O'Leary tells the story of the biggest economic crisis Ireland has ever known and its search for a post-crash identity. For the last 20 years the Irish economy was the pride of Europe. If the rush to riches was very un-Irish, Olivia tries to find out if her country is now reverting to a more familiar state of penance. WB Yeats described the indigenous character trait as an abiding sense of tragedy that sustained people through temporary periods of joy. For many younger people, told t ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
R4Choice: Foes Reunited 22 May 09Until recently it was safe for many to assume that life in Northern Ireland was more settled than it had been for decades. However, research carried out by Queens University, Belfast, pointed out something that many youth workers on the front line, and anyone looking at Bebo or Facebook websites, already knew: that the young people growing up with peace were showing themselves to be just as sectarian as their parents and grandparents. Reporter Andy Martin investigates why the first generati ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
R4Choice: By Jove Carruthers! 15 May 09Miles Jupp goes in search of the real Carruthers, the character who inspired a thousand silly quips and cod Edwardian accents. At least seven different Carruthers crop up in Edwardian boys' tales, but who exactly was he, what did he do, and how did he assume such a strange kind of posthumous fame? Miles finds out about the Carruthers who appears in the Sherlock Holmes short story The Adventure of the Solitary Cyclist and the one which narrates Erskine Childers' 1903 spy novel The Riddle of ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
R4Choice: Ladies of Leisure 08 May 09Felicity Finch travels to Saudi Arabia to find out about a controversial women-only hotel. With its own bell-women and female management team, the Luthan Hotel aims to take advantage of a new rule allowing women in Saudi Arabia to stay in hotels without a male chaperone. Felicity meets some of the staff and guests to hear about their lives and experiences. Some people see the hotel as a sign of progress, but others say that it simply reinforces gender segregation in a nation where women are ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
R4Choice: Hacked to Pieces 01 May 09Ever since the internet became mainstream, we have been hearing warnings about hackers, spammers and other renegades of the online world. The internet security business now threatens to overtake the Chinese army as the largest employer on earth. But what has this army of consultants achieved, apart from spending billions of dollars? Every year the situation gets steadily worse.
Jolyon Jenkins investigates whether we have lost the war on cybercrime and looks at a new criminal economy whic ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
R4Choice: The Hull Truck Story 24 Apr 09Charting the build-up to the move of the Hull Truck Theatre company from its intimate home in a former chapel to a new and larger, purpose-built venue in the centre of Hull. The programme also tells the story of how the company and its creative director, playwright John Godber, have come to occupy a special place in the hearts of many theatregoers.Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
R4Choice: Britishness 10 Apr 09Matthew d'Ancona explores the meaning of 'Britishness'. With contributions from composer Nitin Sawhney, the Archbishop of Canterbury and some Welsh rugby fans.Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
R4Choice: Britishness 03 Apr 09Matthew d'Ancona explores the meaning of 'Britishness'. Is it the glue that can hold us all together or just a word that has lost its meaning?Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
R4Choice: Battling Back 27 Mar 09Frank Gardner joins Operation Snow Warrior, a military winter training exercise with a difference. All the servicemen and women taking part are disabled and, like Frank, have returned to winter sports to prove to themselves that their active lives are not over.Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
R4Choice: Who Killed the Cockney Sparrer? 20 Mar 09Nature detective Tom Heap investigates who, or what, is killing the common sparrow.Once one of our most common garden birds, it is now a rarity. Since the mid-1990s, London alone has lost more than two thirds of its sparrows and there are similar cases in Bristol, Edinburgh and Dublin.In an attempt to unravel the mystery, Tom delivers a dead sparrow to the laboratories of the Zoological Society and observes the autopsy which demonstrates that the cause of death is not always what it seems. ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
R4Choice: What Texting Owes to the Literary Enlightenment 13 Mar 09Chris Addison explores the links between modern-day text-speak and the language of the 18th-Century Literary Enlightenment. He examines the expressive elements of text language, or 'textese', and how it can be seen to echo a ludic art form that became popular in the Romantic era, via insights found in the letters of Jonathan Swift and later works by Lewis Carroll and James Joyce.
Featuring contributions from authors Will Self and Ian Rankin, poet Scott Tyrell and Professors Jeremy Tambli ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
R4Choice: Percy Edwards Showdown 06 Mar 09David Attenborough hosts a celebration of bird impersonator Percy Edwards, who enjoyed a 70-year career impersonating birds and beasts. The programme combines the strange story of Percy's life with archive of his impersonations, interviews with those who knew him and a quiz. Guests include Bill Oddie and the comedian Alex Horne.
Quizmaster David Attenborough plays bird calls for the teams to identify, some of which will not be the birds but Percy's impressions - can they tell the differe ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
R4Choice: Percy Edwards Showdown 06 Mar 09David Attenborough hosts a celebration of bird impersonator Percy Edwards, who enjoyed a 70-year career impersonating birds and beasts. The programme combines the strange story of Percy's life with archive of his impersonations, interviews with those who knew him and a quiz. Guests include Bill Oddie and the comedian Alex Horne.
Quizmaster David Attenborough plays bird calls for the teams to identify, some of which will not be the birds but Percy's impressions - can they tell the differe ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
R4Choice: Colour Me White 27 Feb 09Aasmah Mir reports on the skin lightening industry in Britain and asks why some British Asians feel pressurised by both their peers and the media to have paler skin. Her journey takes her to Oldham and Wembley, and shows how what is happening in Asia is influencing taste and fashion in Britain.Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
R4Choice: It's About Time 02 Feb 09Comedian and writer Dave Cohen seeks help from experts in trying to achieve a 'work-life balance'.
He hardly sees his family, because the only time he is not working he is looking for more work.
Years of freelancing and the current economic climate make it hard to say no to any offer.Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
R4Choice: Burns the Brand 30 Jan 09Comedian, and former accountant, Fred MacAulay attempts to quantify the value of Robert Burns to the British economy, as Scotland celebrates the 250th anniversary of the poet's birth.
He explores how Burns-related brands are being marketed both in Britain and abroad, visits Burns's birthplace and speaks to tourism bosses about the investment in Burns tourism and how new funding will allow a rebranding of Burns's key tourist attraction. He also hears from Scotland's First Minister, Alex S ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
R4Choice: Hot House Kids 23 Jan 09Former prima ballerina Deborah Bull investigates elite child performers in sport and performing the arts.
Deborah investigates the advantages and the pitfalls of being an elite performer in the arts and sport and what young people need to succeed as well as the psychological advantages and problems of attaining perfection.
To achieve the levels of excellence necessary to compete in the global job market, a performer needs to start young, taking advantage of the brain's early plasticit ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
R4Choice: Hot House Kids 16 Jan 09Former prima ballerina Deborah Bull investigates elite child performers in sport and performing the arts.Deborah examines the physiological development of a young person, what happens to the body and the brain of an elite child and what key things are needed to help nurture and realise its potential.She also discovers that if a child is to avoid some of the short and long-term injuries which result in top class training, he or she may have to compromise on standards.Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
R4Choice: Me, Putin and Judo 09 Jan 09Former world judo champion Neil Adams visits Russia on a quest to meet fellow judo expert and Russian prime minister Vladamir Putin, hoping to gain some insight into how judo has influenced his character. He speaks to Putin's childhood friend, the Duma member Vasily Shestakov, who co-wrote a book with Putin on the philosophy of judo. Neil also meets Putin's judo coach Anatoly Rakhlin and discovers how the Russia are preparing for the next Olympics, especially now that judo has become so pop ... Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
R4Choice: The Quest for Virgin Birth 02 Jan 09Geneticist Aarathi Prasad explores the natural phenomenon known as parthenogenesis, or virgin birth. Thanks to a breakthrough in DNA profiling, scientists have found that some species, including sharks, turkeys and komodo dragons, practice parthenogenesis if their survival is threatened. Aarathi explores the ethical and biological implications should new embryonic stem cell technologies be employed to also make it an option for humans.Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
R4Choice: The Eureka Years at Christmas 26 Dec 08Adam Hart-Davis explores the history of the technology of Christmas, with balloons, stars and a stockingful of toys.Listen | Listen in your iPhone | Download | View full cache | Visit Website
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