[BBC Radio 4] - Siegfried Sassoon - A Friend

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In 1954 Edmund Blunden introduced Dennis Silk to Siegfried

Sassoon. They remained friends until Sassoon's death in 1967.

During the period of their friendship Silk tape recorded Sassoon

in conversation and reading his poems. This programme consists

Silk's reflections on Sassoon and a selection of the recordings.

Includes Sassoon reading:

The General

Base Details

Died of Wounds

Everyone Sang

Presented by Dennis Silk
Produced by Tom Auburn
Broadcast July 4, 2004

[BBC Radio 4] - Crazy For Love: Layla and the Mad Poet

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The inspiration for Eric Clapton's seminal pop song, 'Layla and Majnun' is said to be the most beautiful poem in the Arab world and beyond.

Pre-empting Romeo and Juliet by centuries, Layla and Majnun is the classic Middle East love story. Sitting at the heart of pre-Islamic Arab culture, its message is universal and it has since crossed borders and transcended language barriers even spreading as far as India and Turkey.

Based on a tale of thwarted love and poetry sent on the wind, Anthony Sattin tells the tale of its creator - Majnun - whose name is the word for 'mad' or 'crazy' in Arabic and tries to find out if he, or the object of his love, were real or imagined, fact or fiction.


Producer: Sara Jane Hall.
Briadcast: 05 September 2010
Duration:  28 mins

[BBC Radio 4] - Penguin, Puffin, and the Paperback Revolution

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Children's author Michael Morpurgo tells the story of Penguin books, which was founded 75 years ago by his father-in-law, Allen Lane. The idea for the iconic publishing house came when Allen was waiting for a train to take him from Exeter back to London. He went into a bookshop to look for something to read and all he found were badly produced, low quality books with gaudy covers. He realised that there was a gap in the market for high quality, well designed paperbacks available to everyone at the price of a packet of cigarettes.

Michael grew up in a house that was especially full of Penguins and Puffins because his step-father, Jack Morpurgo, was one of the editors there. He remembers being intimidated as a child when Sir Allen Lane came over for dinner. When they met again, Michael was in his late teens and had fallen in love with Allen's eldest daughter Clare. They decided to get married - something Lane was not overjoyed about. It was only seven years later that Allen Lane died of cancer, so Michael never really got to know his father-in-law and never understood what had motivated him.

[BBC Radio 4] - The Shipwrecked Bears

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Gyles Brandreth investigates the mystery of three thousand missing teddy bears, the first ever made.

Three thousand teddy bears went missing in 1903, supposedly en route for New York from their native Germany. Bear expert and storyteller-par-excellence Gyles Brandreth attempts to discover what really happened to these earliest toy bears.

In 1902 the first ever toy bear was designed in Germany by Richard Steiff: Bär 55 PB, a lifelike bear with joints, a humped back and a snout. A New York toy company placed an order at the Leipzig Toy Fair in 1903 for three thousand of the bears - a novelty - to be ready in time for the Christmas market. The bears were made and packed up for shipment, but there is no record of them reaching their destination and none of this load of US-bound bears has ever been found. The templates, patterns and even photos of this bear exist but not even one sample was kept. One popular explanation is that there was a shipwreck and the bears had a watery end. All that is certain is that if one of these bears turned up now it would be 'open chequebook' time for certain museums and collectors.

Witty, magical and heart-warming, the documentary reveals fascinating detail behind the making of the bears, including a trip to the Steiff factory and a riffle through their detailed archives, as Gyles delights us with this little-known story, and imagines where water-logged bears might have washed up.


Producer.: Mary Ward-Lowery.
Broadcast: 27 July 2011
Duration: 27 min

[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