[BBC Radio 6] - The Story of Pink Floyd - Wished You'd Been Here

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Bob Harris looks at the career of Pink Floyd. The first of a two part programme. From 1966 psychedelic quirky days through to 1973 when the band had become a fully functioning rock band.

Download Episode 2 Here

Bob Harris takes a look at the career of Pink Floyd. Last part of a two part programme starting in 1973 and their breakthrough album ' Dark Side Of The Moon'. Pink Floyd had been part of the music scene for 7 years from psychedelic quirky band to a fully functioning rock band.Harris looks at their infamous live shows and the arrival of punk and the DIY culture. Interviews from Annie Nightingale and Bob Geldof.

[BBC Radio 3] - Leland's Travels

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A fascinating story.

In 1533 Henry VIII commissioned John Leland to catalogue monastery libraries, ostensibly to discover what books were present in the realm. But, unknown to Leland, the real purpose of the visits was to identify which of the monasteries should be hit first in Henry VIII's upcoming still secret plan for 'dissolution of the monasteries'.

Leland seems to have gone mad when he realised that he'd been a cat's paw.

Complete with readings from Leland's journal of the visits.

Fascinating.

Presented by David Wallace
Readings by Jeremy Northam
Produced by Paul Quinn
Broadcast April 26, 2009

[BBC Radio 4] - George Orwell - 'Shooting An Elephant'

Look at that man...

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George Orwell's tale about colonial officialdom in Burma, and the importance of keeping face.


Produced by Martin Jarvis
Broadcast July 25, 2010

[BBC Radio 4] - More Plain Tales From The Raj

Milligan Chota Sahib - The Indian Childhood Of Spike Milligan

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'Plain Tales From The Raj' was a BBC R4 series broadcast in 1974 in which different aspects of life in British Empire India were described by people who experienced them.

Several years later the BBC made another similar series called 'More Plain Tales From The Raj' in which individuals were invited to make complete programs.

This edition is the one made by Spike Milligan, who was born into an army family in India.

[BBC Radio 7 - National Poetry Day] - Spike's Fleas, Knees And Hidden Elephants

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Spike Milligan reads some of his magical poems, in his own inimitable style.

Duration: 15 minutes

First broadcast: Thursday 08 October 2009

[BBC Radio 3] - Christopher Marlowe's '... Faustus' [1993 Production]

The Tragical History Of Doctor Faustus

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Superb production of Marlowe's great work. Haunting in both senses of the word. 
Excellent supporting music too. This one is about as good as it gets.

Broadcast in BBC R3's 'Marlowe, The Complete Plays' season, to mark the 400th anniversary of Marlowe's death.

Adapted by Sue Wilson
Music by Anthea Gomez and Tim New
Directed by Sue Wilson
Broadcast June 13, 1993

[BBC Radio 2] - The Richard Burton Legacy

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"Coal dust and rain"

Michael's intention is to try and measure how much of Burton's life and work still resonates today. Is it the stage performances that entranced audiences in Stratford, London and on Broadway, or the films, some less than memorable but others as good now as the day they were launched? Or perhaps it's the Burton story, the myth he made, including Le Scandale - the grand Celtic passion with Taylor for which he sacrificed a family and raised the hornets nest of national and international paparazzi which has been on a feeding frenzy for similar targets ever since. And there's also the story of the family, the Welshmen and women he kept so close, none more so than his beloved elder sister Cecilia who brought him up after his mother died when he was only two.

There's Burton the King of 'Camelot' the musical, Burton the narrator voice in Jeff Wayne's rock album 'War of the Worlds' and then there's his own writing, the notebooks and diaries which are to be published soon and of course his letters.

But perhaps the Burton legacy is at its most lasting in his championing of the people he revered above all others. A copy of Shakespeare's plays was always at his side, not that he needed it much having committed huge swathes of it to memory. And the poets, Hopkins, Donne and perhaps above all others his friend Dylan Thomas. One of the greatest treasures in the BBC archive is Under Milk Wood and there, beguiling the listeners and conjuring the imaginings of Thomas is the Burton voice at its very best.

It'll be an hour rich in 'Rich' riches with a very personal view from one of today's great actors at its heart.


56 mins
Broadcast on 18 August 2010

[BBC Radio 4 - Poetry Please] - William Blake

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Readings from William Blake's works to celebrate the 250th anniversary of his birth.

Includes

Prologue - O For A Voice Like Thunder

Piping Down the Valleys

A Dream

London

The Tyger

The Schoolboy

A Poison Tree

Preface to Milton

'And did those feet ...' from Jerusalem

To the Accuser who is the God of this World

The Garden of Love

A Little Boy Lost

Readers

Samuel West

Janet Suzman

David Collins

Presented by  Roger McGough
Produced by Peter Everett
Broadcast November 18, 2007

[BBC Radio 4] - Grand Guignol

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At the end of the nineteenth century, in the seediest quarter of Paris, a new theatre opened its doors offering a recipe of blood and terror - and soon the Grand Guignol was to become as big as an attraction in the city as the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe. The success of an evening's performance - made up of a succession of short comedy and horror plays - was measured by how many members of the audience fainted, as they witnessed gougings, garrottings and gory murders on a nightly basis. 

After more than sixty years the theatre finally closed its doors, but only after helping influence the development of horror in the cinema, as well as introducing the phrase Grand Guignol into common parlance as a byword for shocking, blood-soaked terror. Sheila McClennon visits Paris to revisit the scene of this most shocking of theatre movements, and also comes to London to find out how the likes of Joseph Conrad and Noel Coward got involved in its English incarnation, which fought a staunch but unsuccessful battle with the censors at the beginning of the 1920s.


Broadcast on 17 Aug 2010
28mins

[BBC Radio 4] - Why Russia Spies

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The Cold War is over. But some habits die hard. Since 2007 Russian nuclear bombers have been flying provocatively close to UK airspace, triggering interception by RAF fighters. The Royal Navy has encountered Russian 'hunter-killer' submarines. And as the recent discovery of a spy ring in the United States revealed, Russian agents remain active against the West. 

With remarkable access to Britain's military and intelligence worlds, Peter Hennessy examines the scale of Russian activity - and what it tells us about the Russia-NATO relationship.

[BBC Radio 3 - Sunday Feature] - Desperately Seeking Mozart

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Paul Robertson searches for the real Mozart.

He speaks to academics, psychologists and
musicians who have dedicated their lives'
work to paring away the mythology.


Broadcast January 22, 2006