BBC R3 - Louis MacNeice's 'Christopher Columbus'

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First perfomed in 1942 to celebrate the 450th anniversary of Columbus'
first great voyage of discovery. This production made and broadcast
to celebrate the 500th anniversary. Far less theatrical/more natural
than the original production.

The music is intrusive up front, but after about five minutes settles
down and supports - rather than competes with - the action.

Music by BBC Symphony Orchestra

BBC R4 - Your World - Dreaming Dickens

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A dream-walk with Charles Dickens through the London night.

In the 200 years since his birth, Charles Dickens has become an institution - the archetypal Victorian novelist, whose works have spawned countless costume dramas on television.

But he also left another, very different legacy: some of the strangest and most surreal writing in the English language.

At times so cosy and sentimental, Dickens’ novels are full of transgressive desires and fears - murderous rage, anarchic glee, cannibalistic threats, and sexual obsession.

In this documentary-fantasy we bring the danger back to Dickens.

Slipping in and out of his weird and brilliant imagination, we see modern London as he might have done, travelling through the city's streets at night to crack dens and strip-joints as the police sirens wail.

We meet characters from his novels and characters who would be in his novels if he were still alive today.

Starring Sandy Grierson and Madeline Brolly.

------- File Information ---------

Broadcast BBC WS, 04 Feb 2012 

BBC R4 - The Spike Show - Milligan Remembered

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Made for 4 Extra. Agent and friend Norma Farnes reflects on Spike Milligan, 10 years after his death. Includes clips from classic shows.

Thanks for visiting, a lot of you out there like the history of the British in India, or Spike Milligan, or hopefully both!

BBC R4 - 'In The Glenn Miller Mood'

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Tribute programme broadcast to celebrate the hundredth anniversay of Glenn Miller's birth.

Simon Townley talks to musicians to find out why audiences remain in the mood for Miller.

Broadcast March 2, 2004

BBC WS - Your World: Down and Out in Paris and London

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With a fierce debate raging across Europe over public finances, this documentary has gone back to basics to compare conditions for the poor today with life before the introduction of the welfare state.

We've re-traced the steps of the author George Orwell who, in 1929, stepped from his own life of privilege into a battle against dirt and hunger, for his work published as Down and Out in Paris and London.

When he lived in France, Orwell was often starving and desperate for money, but when he crossed the Channel to seek his fortune in Britain, the novelist lived the life of those who'd fallen even lower - he became a tramp on London's streets.

This of course, was more than 80 years ago - on the eve of the Great Depression - yet, as Emma Jane Kirby found out, as Europe tries to fend off another financial crisis, it's still very possible to follow Orwell's footsteps.

[BBC Radio 4] - Libraries, Labyrinths, Borges, And Me

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Peter White is very interested in Jorge Luis Borges' work. He travels to Buenos Aires to find out what why Borges seems to be more quoted than read, and to use his own blindness to bring new perspective Borges' his life and work.
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Presented by Peter White
Reader Peter Woolf
Produced by Mark Smally
Broadcast May 19, 2009

[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 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 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