Half-Life

Short documentaries and adventures in sound presented by Josie Long - available to download as a podcast: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01mk3f8/episodes/downloads

Short Cuts

Also available as a podcast from BBC Radio 4: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0bfykqm/episodes/downloads

Tara and George

"The memory of a kiss is so wonderfully unstable..."

In conversation with Caroline Bird, Richard Scott and Fleur Adcock, the poet Rachel Long explores the craft of writing a kiss.

How might we hold the wordless intimacy of the act - its blurring of selves and disrupted time?

In this documentary we weave between fragmentary memories - sensual, funny, erotic... the kisses we describe over and over, the kisses we keep a secret.

Also featuring glimpses of kisses from Nadia Molinari, Ian Rawlinson, Sayre Quevedo and Laura Barton amongst others.

Photo credit: Amaal Said

First broadcast 2nd February 2023, BBC Radio 4
Presented by Rachel Long
Produced by Eleanor McDowall

A Kiss

Listen to the music of decomposing mushrooms, look through a photographer's lens at a surprising streak of streaking in the 1970s, and explore the world of a Danish hospital clown who opens up a pocket of a different reality.

Josie Long presents short documentaries and audio adventures about the joys that lurk beneath the surface of things.

Mushroom Music
Featuring Mati Araoz
Produced by Seb Masters

A Different Reality
Featuring Boaz Barkan
Produced by Nanna Hauge Kristensen

The Streak!
Featuring Ron Harr
Including original compositions by Alan Goffinski
Produced by Alan Goffinski

Image credit Karamell https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mushroom_Forest.jpg

First broadcast 21st March 2023, BBC Radio 4
Curated by Axel Kacoutié, Eleanor McDowall and Andrea Rangecroft
Series Producer: Eleanor McDowall

S34: Short Cuts: Dig For Joy 2/6

From handfuls of dust to watching geological time mark the landscape, this documentary flows from the night skies into the deepest known point in our oceans.

"I noticed that language seems to fail us. How do you write about the foundations of our existence? That is how mythology enters very naturally into the story, because history is about ideas, religions, empires, wars and culture. Mythology is about the fundaments. Sun, moon, wind, oceans, great floods and tragic gods... We are living in mythological times, where we are shaking the fundaments." - Andri Snær Magnason

Drawing on ideas in his book, On Time and Water, the Icelandic writer Andri Snær Magnason and the Scottish artist Katie Paterson explore how our imagination can help us hold the moment we live in. 

TRANSCRIPT: https://downloads.bbc.co.uk/radio4/Lights_Out/Dust_Transcript.pdf

Archive recording from Raddir - Voices: Recordings of Folk Songs courtesy of the Árni Magnússon Institute
'Vatnajökull (the sound of)' recording courtesy of Katie Paterson

Recording of the journey to Okjökull by Guðni Tómasson
Music composed and performed by Phil Smith and Zac Gvi

First broadcast 20th November 2023, BBC Radio 4
Produced by Eleanor McDowall

Lights Out: Dust 6/6

Audio-makers from around the world take over The Essay to offer a series of Radio 3's innovative Between the Ears features in miniature – each inspired by one of the five senses.

Producer Neena Pathak has been conducting a smell experiment with her dad, Jitendra. As his health declines, she prompts him with different smells that yield a flood of memories from years ago to more recent. You'll hear a journey through past and present that shows one way to mourn and celebrate someone still living.

Neena Pathak is a writer, producer and editor whose work has appeared in podcasts like Invisibilia, The Daily, This American Life, Still Processing, and Another Round. Her work has been honoured by the Pulitzer Prize Board, National Press Foundation, Asian American Journalists Association, Hearsay International Audio Festival, and Third Coast International Audio Festival.

Sound Designer: Chloe Prasinos
Editor: Eleanor McDowall
Special thanks to: Schuyler Swenson, Joanna Leigh Simon, Stella Tan, Eleanor Kagan, Michael Simon Johnson, Sangeeta and Vilas Mandlekar, Uma Pathak, and the Monson Arts Residency.

First broadcast 27th November 2023, BBC Radio 3
Produced by Neena Pathak

Between the Ears: Miniatures: Smell Smelling 1/5

Leonard Cohen's muse when he turned from poetry to song-writing was a beautiful Norwegian woman immortalised in the song So Long, Marianne - this is their story, based on the award-winning programmes made for NRK by Kari Hesthamar. 

"...both of the interviews had a dreamy quality and listening to the two voices of Leonard and Marianne all these years later made for a programme you want to hear again and again." - BBC Radio 4 Pick of the Week 3.8.08 

"...a melancholic and incredibly moving memoir."  - Radio Times

First broadcast on 2nd August 2008 BBC Radio 4
Produced by Alan Hall

Leonard And Marianne

An hour east of Dallas, you'll find the small town of Poetry, Texas. Pejk ventures out to uncover the poetry of Poetry.

"...a goosebumpy wonder, all layers of sound-texture, mesmerising voices and a lyrical narration by Malinovski as he described the town in ordinary terms elevated into something hypnotic by the key word: 'For a traveller, there's nowhere to sleep in Poetry.'" - The Guardian, 18th May 2012

First broadcast on 14th May 2012 BBC Radio 4
Produced by Pejk Malinovski

Poetry Texas

The story of the day Jeff Buckley arrived on the UK music scene, March 18th 1994, from a photo shoot with Kevin Westenberg in the morning, a live appearance on GLR in the afternoon and a gig at Bunjies folk club that was so over-booked that a second concert was arranged for later that evening at the 12 Bar.  Told by those who were there: manager Dave Lory, booking agent Emma Banks, photographer Kevin Westenberg and tour manager Steve Abbott.  With exclusive interview and music recordings featuring Jeff.

"Truly great singers all have moments at the start of their career when they were raw, pure, still within reach, yet already with one foot on another planet. That tingly intimacy courses through this memory of Jeff Buckley’s 1994 UK tour." - Radio Times, July 2014

"It was terrific, rich in detail and shot through with a melancholy of what would come later." - The Independent, 10th July 2014

First broadcast on 5th July 2014 BBC Radio 4
Produced by Alan Hall

The Grace of Jeff Buckley

A documentary about World War Two's finest British poet, Keith Douglas, who was killed in action with the Sherwood Rangers in Normandy three days after the D-Day landings.
Presented by Sean Street, with contributions from Anne Stevenson, Desmond Graham, Stuart Hills, Tim Kendall, JC Hall and voices from the BBC Sound Archive.

"an unsentimental and challenging portrait and The padre who buried him spoke, as did poets, his biographer and people who knew him. In parallel, we received a first-rate analysis of his verse, how it changed after desert combat, loosening in structure, tightening its impact." - Daily Telegraph

First broadcast 1st January 2004 BBC Radio 3
Presented by Sean Street
Produced by Alan Hall

Landscape With Figure

When we think of the sound of sport on TV or radio, it's generally commentary. But what's around the commentary? Broadcast sport would be nothing without the crowds, the kicks, the thwacks and the grunts. This programme is about those sounds and why they matter.

During the World Cup of 2010, the Vuvuzelas made many people realise that the sound of a sports event, something they took for granted, does matter.

Dennis Baxter's job is to think about the sound of sport, and he is our guide. For nearly 20 years he's worked on the Olympics, defining how the broadcast will sound, always trying to increase drama and excitement. For him, closer is generally better. If he can put a microphone on an athlete, he will.

At the Oxford-Cambridge boat race, the TV coverage is enhanced by microphones on the cox in each boat. Whilst Wimbledon has a special sonic drama all of its own, as we learn from Bill Whiston who mixed the Bafta-nominated sound of the 2008 finals.

When good sound isn't available, it's not uncommon for a prerecorded sound to be added to cover the shot. Is this cheating or merely giving us what we expect?

The experience of "live" events can be highly produced, very different from the experience of being there. Is this enhanced sound so very different from that of a film or a video game? We meet a Hollywood sound effects specialist and a video game sound designer to find out what they do to create a sense of authenticity and excitement. Are they raising our expectations of how "real" sport should sound?

As we approach the 2012 Olympics, this programme will make you think more about what you hear when you watch sport.

First broadcast on 30th April 2011 BBC Radio 4
Presented by Dennis Baxter
Produced by Peregrine Andrews

The Sound of Sport

Time capsules and yesterday's dreams of tomorrow, Josie Long presents short documentaries and audio adventures exploring lost futures.

That’s Merely an Adjective
Produced by Zara Karschay

Time Play by Chelsea Kigano, Lily Sloane, Lilia Vega, and Emily Shaw
Originally made as part of The 24-Hour Radio Race from KCRW's Independent Producer Project
Music and sound design by Lily Sloane, with Time Ain't Gonna Make Me Stay by Ed Andrews
Special thanks to David Lee

Letters
Produced by Mika Golubovsky and Sasha Borzenko
Featuring Zehnya Feldman and Natasha Zotova

Higher Ground
Produced by Leila Goldstein
Featuring Winda Safitri, Yoppi and Naya Hidayatul Alialna

First broadcast 10th December 2024, BBC Radio 4
Curated by Axel Kacoutié, Eleanor McDowall and Andrea Rangecroft
Produced by Axel Kacoutié

S40: Short Cuts: Lost Futures 2/6

Feeding the birds, sharing meals and chaotic menus - Josie Long presents short documentaries and audio adventures about eating together.

Bird Feeder
Produced by Stella Sims

And to Start...
Produced by Mae-Li Evans

Foodhall
Produced by Nadia Mehdi

First broadcast 17th December 2024, BBC Radio 4
Curated by Axel Kacoutié, Eleanor McDowall and Andrea Rangecroft
Series Producer: Eleanor McDowall

S40: Short Cuts: Feast 3/6

A friendship forged working the land, memories of volcanic eruptions from 800,000 years ago frozen in Antarctica’s ice cores, and the importance of wild, patient gardens. Short documentaries presented by Josie Long that rise up from the earth.


Wintering
Music by Jules Bradley
Produced by Jules Bradley

Melt Tones
Featuring Dr Dieter Tetzner
Produced by Anton Spice

Sue’s Garden
Featuring Sue Trolle
Music by Sóley
Produced by Rikke Houd

First broadcast 29th December 2024, BBC Radio 4
Produced by Andrea Rangecroft
Curated by Axel Kacoutié, Eleanor McDowall and Andrea Rangecroft

S40: Short Cuts: Earth 5/6

A criminal defence lawyer finds a surprising new job foisted upon him and a son attempts to recover his joyfulness on a family holiday. Josie Long presents short festive documentaries and merry sonic adventures.

Family Yoga
Produced by Kit Callin

A Conversation with my Mum at Christmas
Featuring Rhik Samadder
A version of this story first appeared in Rhik Samadder's memoir, I Never Said I Loved You
Music by The Enchanted Cinema
Produced by Sarah Cuddon

Miracle on the George Washington Bridge
Produced by Luke Green

Santa Calls
Featuring Matt Storrs
Produced by Talia Augustidis

First broadcast 24th December 2024, BBC Radio 4
Curated by Axel Kacoutié, Eleanor McDowall and Andrea Rangecroft
Series Producer: Eleanor McDowall

S40: Short Cuts: Merry Christmas 4/6

Josie Long presents short documentaries and audio adventures as the clock slips closer to midnight.

In the last Short Cuts on BBC Radio 4, 13 years after the broadcast of our first ever episode 'Misadventures', we listen to radio waves after dark with the Shortwave Collective, tumble into a radio poem alongside a sleeping child, tune into a late night pirate radio station from the early 1960s, and raise a parting glass.

At Least
Featuring Xelis de Toro
Produced by Phil Smith

Voice of Nuclear Disarmament
With thanks to the British Library Sound Archive, and the family of John Hasted
Produced by Jonny Matfin

Perhaps at Midnight, When All Boundaries Are Lost
Produced by the Shortwave Collective

Good Company
Featuring Jesse Lawson, Izzy Yon and Femi Oriogun-Williams
Produced by Jesse Lawson

First broadcast 7th January 2025, BBC Radio 4
Curated by Axel Kacoutié, Eleanor McDowall and Andrea Rangecroft
Series Producer: Eleanor McDowall
Mix by Mike Woolley
Executive Producer: Alan Hall

S40: Short Cuts: Midnight 6/6

The frontline sonic journal of a Ukrainian musician-soldier.

Wartime soundscapes recorded by Ukrainian experimental musician-turned-soldier Timur Dzhafarov: sketches on a broken piano in an abandoned house near Bakhmut, rain on a field hospital roof, dogs howling in tune to the sirens…

Before Russia's full-scale invasion, Timur made experimental electronic music in Kyiv under the name John Object. He walked through life with open ears, picking up unusual sounds to use in his compositions. Then on the third day of the invasion, he joined the Ukrainian Army. As a soldier, Timur still finds a few moments to tune into the sounds around him: the staccato firing of a rifle, the dissonant tone of air-raid sirens, a pianist playing in the mess hall. But his relationship to the aural environment is to change as the war drags on.

Location recordings by Timur Dzhafarov
Music by Timur Dzhafarov (recording as John Object)

First broadcast 2nd February 2025, BBC Radio 3
Producer: Cicely Fell

East Piano

Drawn to a family legend about his German-Jewish family’s dramatic escape from Nazi Germany in 1936, the writer Joe Dunthorne accidentally discovers a far more disturbing history.

A conversation with his granny, who spent her childhood brushing her teeth with the radioactive toothpaste her father Siegfried manufactured, leads Joe to finally read his great-grandfather's nearly 2000-page long unpublished memoir. Hidden on page 1692 he finds an unsettling confession.

Written and presented by Joe Dunthorne, (based on his book Children of Radium: A Buried Inheritance)
Produced by Eleanor McDowall
Music by Jeremy Warmsley
Mixing engineer, Mike Woolley
Story consultant, Sarah Geis
Executive producer, Alan Hall
First broadcast 7th May 2025, BBC Radio 4

Half-Life: Daughter of Radium 1/8

Dangers lurk beneath the soil, in the town where Joe's great-grandfather worked.

First broadcast 14th May 2025, BBC Radio 4
Written and presented by Joe Dunthorne
Produced by Eleanor McDowall
Music by Jeremy Warmsley
Mixing engineer, Mike Woolley
Story consultant, Sarah Geis
Executive producer, Alan Hall

Half-Life: The Quiet Town By The River 2/8

Joe's research into his great-grandfather's work takes him to Ammendorf, south of Berlin - one of the key sites of Nazi Germany's chemical weapons production.

Written and presented by Joe Dunthorne
Produced by Eleanor McDowall
Ammendorf recordings by Marta Medvešek
Music by Jeremy Warmsley
Mixing engineer, Mike Woolley
Story consultant, Sarah Geis
Executive producer, Alan Hall

Half-Life: Lost 3/8

Joe follows in his great-grandfather's footsteps to Turkey where he was employed, it seems, making gas masks.

First broadcast 28th May 2025, BBC Radio 4
Written and presented by Joe Dunthorne
Produced by Eleanor McDowall
Music by Jeremy Warmsley
Mixing engineer, Mike Woolley
With thanks to David McDowall
Story consultant, Sarah Geis
Executive producer, Alan Hall

Half-Life: Young Republic 4/8

A letter from Joe’s great-grandfather, leads him to the east of Turkey and the story of a massacre, kept silent for many years

First broadcast 4th June 2025, BBC Radio 4
Written and presented by Joe Dunthorne
Produced by Eleanor McDowall
Music by Jeremy Warmsley
Mixing engineer, Mike Woolley
With thanks to Jaclynn Ashly and David McDowall
Story consultant, Sarah Geis
Executive producer, Alan Hall

Half-Life: The Road Through the Mountains 5/8

Playing a musical instrument - whether you're professional or amateur - rarely follows a simple trajectory of practice and progress and it makes psychological as much as physical demands that can come to define a person. Alan Hall - who's returned to trumpet playing after a three decade hiatus - talks with musicians about the nature of their relationship to their chosen instrument.

Today, the bass guitar player Yolanda Charles, who has her own funk band, Project pH, made her name playing with Paul Weller, Robbie Williams and many others.
Including extracts from Project pH's Only You (feat. Vanessa Haynes) and Yolanda's demo When Someone...

First broadcast 11th June 2025, BBC Radio 3
Presented and Produced by Alan Hall

Instrumental: Yolanda Charles, Bass Guitar

Five audio-makers from around the world take over The Essay to offer a series of Radio 3's innovative Between the Ears features in miniature. Each edition inspired by a different aspect of the weather.

With original music and field recordings, the writer, musician and audio producer HJ Radia creates a memory space for the monsoon winds. A collage of associations with the Western Indian Ocean trade winds, from the primordial to the personal - a meditative exploration of the polyphonies we carry.

With thanks to Professors Kwame Anthony Appiah and Abdulrazak Gurnah. We also hear the voice of the late Pan-Africanist writer, political commentator and former BBC journalist Ahmed Rajab.

Including extracts from the BBC Sound Archive.
Sarangi excerpt of Raag Jog by Pandit Ramesh Mishra - with thanks to Lyle Wachovsky at India Music Archive.
Music by Sonic Soma - Maitreya & Radia

First broadcast 4th July 2025, BBC Radio 3
Produced by HJ Radia

Between the Ears: Miniatures: Monsoon 5/5

Nombulelo Booi last saw her father – anti-apartheid activist James Booi – in 1963. He was dragged into an armoured police vehicle in the early hours of the morning and never seen again. Decades later, Nombulelo works with South Africa’s Missing Persons Task Team to find the remains of her father.

Based on four years of fieldwork by collaborators Bongani Kona and Catherine Boulle, ‘Time, Paper, Bone’ is an intimate portrait of one woman’s lifelong quest for closure, and South Africa’s long reckoning with the injustices of the past.

This story was made possible with the support of The Whickers Radio and Audio Funding Award and The Whickers/Sheffield DocFest Podcast Pitch Award.

With special thanks to:
Nombulelo and Zola Booi
Madeleine Fullard and the Missing Persons Task Team
Professor Nicky Rousseau
Nolubabalo Tongo-Cetywayo and the Robben Island Museum
Jane Ray
Ibby Caputo
Rhulani Maboko and the National Archives and Records Service of South Africa
Erika le Roux and the Western Cape Archives and Records Service
Sipho Rala and the National Library of South Africa's Cape Town campus
Marcus Solomon and Moyisile Douglas Tyutyu
Archival tape courtesy of: the SABC, the National Archives and Records Service of South Africa, Gallo Images, Journeyman Pictures and Villon Films.

First broadcast 19th July 2025, BBC Radio 4
Presented by Bongani Kona
Written by Bongani Kona and Catherine Boulle
Translated by Thenjiwe Kona
Music by Charl-Johan Lingenfelder
Produced by Catherine Boulle

Time, Paper, Bone

In late 19th century Hammersmith, two titans of the printing scene, Emery Walker and Thomas Cobden-Sanderson, form a deep friendship. They hang out at the same printing events and socialist meetings, they move into houses four doors apart, they work in the same building, their families go on holidays together.

Then in 1900, they set up the ground breaking Doves Press together - whereupon their friendship swiftly implodes, and they spend the rest of the decade fighting over the custody of their in-house typeface, Doves. And then things get even uglier.

Souvenirs explores broken friendship, typefaces, lost words, self-destruction, and the legacies we didn’t intend to leave. With type designer Robert Green.

Written and performed by The Allusionist’s Helen Zaltzman, with an original score by Martin Austwick (performed by him and Adrienne LaBelle, violin).

First broadcast 22nd July 2025, BBC Radio 4
Produced by Helen Zaltzman and Martin Austwick

Souvenirs

In 1931, during the Depression, an unknown young black woman took her new-born son to a Pittsburgh orphanage. And so began jazz pianist Horace Parlan´s life. At the age of five, he was struck by polio and lost the use of three fingers on his right hand, yet somehow, against the odds, he managed a long career as a professional musician. Now, aged 84, he lives in a nursing home outside Copenhagen, Denmark.

His journey through life was always guided by music – and still is. From the spirituals of his upbringing to his experiences as a musician in 1960’s New York City. Then, in 1972, he moved to Denmark and joined Ben Webster, Dexter Gordon, Oscar Pettiford and other Afro-American jazz musicians who had found a haven there during those turbulent years. Most of his colleagues left, but Horace stayed, marrying a Danish woman, Norma, with whom he shared his life for 37 years.

Despite his disability Horace found his own sound as a pianist and played with some of the biggest names – Charles Mingus and Archie Shepp among them. But now, blind for eight years, wheelchair-bound and widowed two years ago, he spends his days in a small coastal town outside Copenhagen. His long piano fingers are stiff - he no longer plays - but he spends every day surrounded by music and looks forward to regular trips to Copenhagen’s legendary Montmartre Jazz Club. Rikke Houd presents a portrait of Horace Parlan.

First broadcast 14th July 2015, BBC World Service
Produced by Rikke Houd

A Portrait of Horace Parlan

"If you're not angry, you're not paying attention," says one character in Dawn King's play about the climate crisis, The Trials.

"I learnt at an early age what it is to be angry - angry and helpless." In Look Back in Anger, a youthful Jimmy Porter rages against church, country and the docility of those he loves.

People working in theatre now - amid war, injustice and increasing authoritarianism - reflect on anger as a motivation for the 'art of words', its creative limitations and the eroding effect of the passing years.

With playwrights Dawn King and Georgia Bruce, director Atri Banerjee and Cress Brown of Cutting the Tightrope.

Including extracts from the 1959 film Look Back in Anger. Original music (Homage to Jimmy Porter) written and performed by Alan Hall.

First broadcast 4th August 2025, BBC Radio 4
Produced by Alan Hall

Angry and Young

Forty years ago, Route 66, the highway that ran the 2448 miles from Chicago, Illinois to Santa Monica, California, was formally decommissioned, usurped by a more modern, high-speed interstate. But the road has lived on in the collective imagination — a symbol of freedom, adventure, and new beginnings, of America's concept of itself.

In this meditation on the Mother Road, as John Steinbeck christened it, Laura Barton explores 66's shifting identity, from migratory route to America's Main Street.

With contributions from Angel (the "Angel of Route 66") and his daughter Clarissa Delgadillo in Seligman, Arizona; Mike Cowen who set up his own Historic Route 66 museum in Williams, Arizona; Leigh Anne Isbell of the Devil's Rope Museum in Texas and Candacy Taylor, who's written about Route 66 in relation to The Green Book.

Written and presented by Laura Barton
With extracts from John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath read by Corey Johnson.
Location recording producer, Diane Hope

First broadcast 14th September 2025, BBC Radio 4
Produced by Alan Hall

Where The Distance Shimmers

There are so many problems in the world. For the past three years, Estonian clown Julia Masli - armed with a microphone taped to a mannequin leg - has been trying to solve them.

So far, during the performances of her live show ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, where Julia asks audience members their problem, she has recorded 1574 problems. A few people feel homesick, some worry about the collapse of society, and many lament their retreating hairlines. But we are not alone with our problems: Janet is not the only one with a broken fridge. Simon shares his back pain. Alexandra might feel lonely, but Aisha does too.

This clown might not be able to solve all of our problems, but she’s going to try.

Photo: Cameron Whitman
Original music composed by Alessio Festuccia
Produced by Talia Augustidis and Julia Masli
Dramaturgy by Kim Noble (director of ha ha ha ha ha ha ha)
Executive producers Alan Hall and Eleanor McDowall

First broadcast 26th October 2025, BBC Radio 4

Problems with Julia Masli

Humourous and tender, this documentary takes a long-haul view of the life of modern truckers in Europe - exploring working class masculinity on the road, all nighters and long journeys from the inside of a truck driver's cab.

What does it mean to be a trucker in an era shaped by global events like pandemics and geopolitical crises? Where drivers often find themselves on the frontlines of change?

We follow these modern nomads across borders, exploring themes of in(ter)dependence, home, and the evolving identity of truckers within the European landscape.

First broadcast 30th October 2025, BBC World Service
Produced by Suvi Tuuli Kataja

The Last Cowboys

Saxophonist Pauli Lyytinen travels to Sápmi, to Ohcejohka (Utsjoki), the northernmost municipality of Finland and the European Union, to visit his friend, writer–musician Niillas Holmberg. The two artists go rowing in the river, improvise under the Sámi bridge, and make music with birds. Along the way, with researcher Karoliina Lummaa, they confront questions of understanding: do the birds understand them—or do they understand the birds? And does it even matter?

Sound design and field recording: Suvi Tuuli Kataja and Jussi Liukkonen
Script consultant: Elli Salo
Background research: Roosa Stenroos
Music: Niillas Holmberg and Pauli Lyytinen
Poem (in Northern Sámi and English translation): Niillas Holmberg
Production manager: Pinja Korhonen

First broadcast 2nd November 2025, BBC Radio 3
Produced by Suvi Tuuli Kataja

Ohcejohka - Saxophone, Joik and Birds

For Caroline Bird, writing poetry has always occurred in 'seasons.' 'I'll have a year or two of frantic writing, where every billboard, every conversation, sparks a magpie thirst in me and the words just seem to connect and spark off each other. And then it will disappear. Suddenly, overnight...'

In this documentary, Caroline Bird seeks out the company of other poets to explore these anxious silences, where it feels as if words have abandoned you. She speaks with Marie Howe, Vanessa Kisuule, Liz Berry, Oliver Carmichael, Jack Underwood and Hannah Copley.

Original music composed by Phil Smith

First broadcast 9th November 2025, BBC Radio 3
Produced by Eleanor McDowall

When the Words Leave

The value of art 'has become mysterious', to quote the critic John Berger. Artists, commentators and voices from the BBC Sound Archive consider Berger's question: 'where does this value come from?'

Including extracts from:
The Moral Maze, Radio 4
Private Passions, Radio 3 (featuring Keir Starmer)
Favourite Things, BBC TV (featuring Margaret Thatcher)
Coronation Street, Granada Television
Desert Island Discs, Radio 4 (featuring Maria Balshaw)
Headliners with Nihal Arthanayake, BBC Sounds (featuring Stewart Lee)
Harry & Paul, Tiger Aspect Productions
Yes Minister, BBC TV
Lord Keynes, Home Service, The Arts Council: Its Policy and Hopes

With readings by the poet Dorothy Spencer and the writer Carl Cattermole, including statistics from the Campaign for the Arts/University of Warwick, the Panic! Survey and an Industria inquiry based on Artist Leaks.

First broadcast 7th December 2025
Produced by Alan Hall
Archive Producer: Phoebe McIndoe

Art Class

Katherine Rundell unearths the Christmas ghost story from pagan origins to Dickens, Susan Hill and 1970s folk horror television and considers what these curious bedfellows say about our complex relationship with this time of year.  

Ghost stories have always been best told on a midwinter night — preferably aloud, around a blazing fire. Katherine joins Jeanette Winterson at the hearth of her haunted home to share ghostly archival tales from MR James, Elizabeth Gaskell and Charles Dickens and to trace what she describes as ‘the greatest of pleasures’ - that combination of an icy haunting dark, hemming a Christmas globe of light. 

She learns how midwinter, not Halloween, is the traditional time to usher in a world beyond ours. In the company of Professor John Mullan, Katherine returns to some of our oldest texts including Beowulf to discover how spectres and ghouls have allowed us to express loss, resolution and rage around the fire over centuries.

Reading from her childhood diary, writer Sarah Waters describes her own long fascination with ghost tales in midwinter and reflects on the BBC’s reigniting of this tradition with its ‘A Ghost Story for Christmas’ adaptations in the 1970s and then again more recently. She examines yuletide motifs for horror including ancient houses where families gather once a year, creaking staircases and children’s faces at snowy windows.

Music by The Cabinet of Living Cinema and Zac Gvi

First broadcast 20th December 2025, BBC Radio 4
Produced by Sarah Cuddon

A Ghost Story For Christmas

"A dancer dies twice", the legendary choreographer Martha Graham said, "once when they stop dancing, and this first death is the more painful."

This is a documentary about first deaths and last dances, about what happens when an instrument as finely tuned as a dancer's body begins to change.

From the music which prompts a twitch of muscle memory to the comedown which follows a burst of performance adrenaline, we hear stories of the last dances and what comes next from Gabriella Schmidt, Isabel Mortimer from Dancers' Career Development, and former principal ballerinas Natasha Oughtred and Wendy Whelan.

We eavesdrop on the training of young dancers at the Royal Ballet School as they shape muscle and bone into elegant lines, diving into the visceral excitement of pounding pointe shoes and powerful leaping bodies. And we visit Sage Dance Company and the Company of Elders as they work with dancers who move with grace and beauty in defiance of their changing bodies.

From the first anxious glance in the mirror to the last touch - how does the language of our bodies change as we age?

Produced by Eleanor McDowall
First broadcast 4th April on BBC Radio 4

A Dancer Dies Twice

W.H.Auden’s Paysage Moralisé [1934] in a polyphonic setting for radio, featuring voices recorded in Berlin [2015 - 2017], and original music by producer Phil Smith.   

Producer: Phil Smith
Executive Producer: Alan Hall 
A Falling Tree Production
First Broadcast: 16th May 2017, BBC Radio 4.    

TRANSCRIPT: https://www.scribd.com/document/371956742/IFC-2018-TRANSCRIPTION-AVeryDifferentTime-PhilipSmith

W.H. Auden's 1934 poem Paysage Moralisé, written in 1934, is a poem that floats across time and landscape, expressing something of that search for home, for peace, for safety and for meaning which shapes our existence on this planet. 

Berlin-based producer Phil Smith brings the poem into a contemporary light, interweaving Auden's lines with the voices of those who have chosen - for very different reasons - the German capital city as their home. The poem's images of shipwreck and sorrow reverberate with snapshots from the lives of a Syrian refugee (fleeing war) and a West-African refugee (fleeing poverty, seeking a better life), while we also hear the words of an American musician on a European tour, an Italian-German academic who spends some of her time in Berlin, and a German who moved to the city to escape small-town life. There is no presenter to introduce our protagonists; rather, they step out from the city crowd to offer fragments of their personal  stories. 

Part radio poem, part documentary ballad, part composed feature, A Very Different Time addresses the hopes and fears that surround movement and migration, timeless themes that resonate strongly in today’s Europe.

Lights Out: A Very Different Time

At sunrise, on the banks of the Ganges river, the poet and radio producer Pejk Malinovski picks out a cow at random and starts to follow her. He continues to follow her until sunset.

The cow was here long before man arrived. Does the fact that human beings have maths, space travel and doughnuts really make us superior to all other beings on earth? What does the cow have that we don't have? Four stomachs. Hooves. A lot of patience.

A meditative journey unfolds within the sonic backdrop of the ancient city of Varanasi - until suddenly the two of them find themselves on the set of a Bollywood dance film.

A consideration of the nature of radio, a pondering of inter-species relationships, Pejk's programme invites you to un-follow your digital stream and exercise your ability to be just present.

Written and produced by Pejk Malinovski.
First broadcast 24th February 2018, BBC Radio 3

A Cow A Day

Life on the streets is hard and precarious but every soul who sleeps on a pavement has a story. Tara and George is a six-part series exploring the lives of two people in their late forties who sleep rough in London's Spitalfields. It asks the simple questions - what led them there and why do they remain?

Journalist Audrey Gillan has come to know them as neighbours in this diverse and fashionable area of the capital, and has been recording her conversations with Tara and George for nearly two years.

In this first episode, More Issues than Vogue, named after the wording on one of Tara's T-shirts, the pair introduce us to their world and reveal how they are each other's anchor in a sea of chaos.

First broadcast 14th August 2018, BBC Radio 4
Written and presented by Audrey Gillan
Produced by Audrey Gillan and Johnny Miller
Original music by Francis MacDonald
Series Producer: Alan Hall

Image courtesy of Gilbert and George / White Cube

Tara and George: More Issues Than Vogue 1/6

Life on the streets is hard and precarious but every soul who sleeps on a pavement has a story. Tara and George is a six-part series exploring the lives of two people in their late forties who sleep rough in London's Spitalfields. It asks the simple questions - what led them there and why do they remain?

Journalist Audrey Gillan has come to know them as neighbours in this diverse and fashionable area of the capital, and has been recording her conversations with Tara and George for nearly two years.

In this second episode, Tara goes walkabout and George, sitting in his favourite spot on the doorstep of the house lived in by the collaborative art duo Gilbert and George, shares alarming news about his health.

First broadcast 21st August 2018, BBC Radio 4
Written and presented by Audrey Gillan
Produced by Audrey Gillan and Johnny Miller
Original music by Francis Macdonald
Series Producer: Alan Hall

Image courtesy of Gilbert and George / White Cube

Tara and George: Looking For Tara 2/6

Life on the streets is hard and precarious but every soul who sleeps on a pavement has a story. Tara and George is a six-part series exploring the lives of two people in their late forties who sleep rough in London's Spitalfields. It asks the simple questions - what led them there and why do they remain?

Journalist Audrey Gillan has come to know them as neighbours in this diverse and fashionable area of the capital, and has been recording her conversations with Tara and George for nearly two years.

In this episode, Audrey travels north. Before running away to London on a National Express coach "at the age of 12", as he tells it to Audrey, George grew up in the former pit village of Nettlesworth, County Durham. Still living in a house across from George's family home, Audrey finds his aunt Lillian. In an attempt to capture a sense of what George left behind - and ran away from - Audrey goes in search of other members of his family.

First broadcast on 28th August 2018, BBC Radio 4
Written and presented by Audrey Gillan
Produced by Audrey Gillan and Johnny Miller
Original music by Francis Macdonald
Series Producer: Alan Hall

Image courtesy of Gilbert and George / White Cube

Tara and George: County Durham 3/6

Life on the streets is hard and precarious, but every soul who sleeps on a pavement has a story. Tara and George is a six-part series exploring the lives of two people in their late forties who sleep rough in London's Spitalfields. It asks simply, what led them there and why do they remain?

Journalist Audrey Gillan has come to know them as neighbours in this diverse and fashionable area of the capital, and has been recording her conversations with Tara and George for nearly two years.

In this episode, Tara opens up, little by little, about her childhood in London, missing her mum and what led to her three children being taken away from her.

First broadcast 4th September 2018, BBC Radio 4
Written and presented by Audrey Gillan
Produced by Audrey Gillan and Johnny Miller
Original music by Francis Macdonald
Series Producer: Alan Hall

Image courtesy of Gilbert and George / White Cube

Tara and George: The Life of Tara 4/6

Life on the streets is hard and precarious but every soul who sleeps on a pavement has a story. Tara and George is a six-part series exploring the lives of two people in their late forties who sleep rough in London's Spitalfields. It asks the simple questions - what led them there and why do they remain?

Journalist Audrey Gillan has come to know them as neighbours in this diverse and fashionable area of the capital, and has been recording her conversations with Tara and George for nearly two years.

In this fifth episode, Tara and George endure the hottest summer the country has experienced for years, Tara carries signs of having suffered an assault and George, his health visibly deteriorating, returns increasingly often to his hostel.

First broadcast 11th September 2018, BBC Radio 4
Written and presented by Audrey Gillan
Produced by Audrey Gillan and Johnny Miller
Original music by Francis MacDonald
Series Producer: Alan Hall

Image courtesy of Gilbert and George / White Cube

Tara and George: The Long, Hot Summer 5/6

For a man whose musical demeanour comes across as rough-hewn with a potency that's barely contained, Richard Dawson in person is gentle with a soft smile and opinions that are precisely worded though almost tentatively shared. He admits to a high level of everyday anxiety, yet has left a mark on contemporary folk music in England that testifies to an innate confidence in his musical vision. His albums (notably Nothing Important of 2014 and Peasant in 2017), as well as being critically acclaimed, have taken folk music into new territory that's at once ancient and avant-garde.

Speaking at his home in the north-east of England, Richard reflects on the particular qualities of his voice, the life that music has opened up to him and his ever-present companion, Trouble the cat.

First broadcast 29th June 2019, BBC Radio 4
Presented and produced by Alan Hall

The Voices Of... Richard Dawson

As a teenager, Zakia Sewell became entranced by English folk music, initially through Pentangle's haunting rendition of the traditional song, The Cuckoo.

But with this enchantment came a tension - a question - of whether such a song could really belong to her. Being of Caribbean and British descent, Zakia is sensitive to the darker histories that connect these two places and yet is drawn to a vision of Albion - an ancient, mythical land evoked in so many folk songs, symbols and stories.

Spiralling out from the personal to the national, from the present into the past - both real and imagined - Zakia grapples with the complexities of British national identity with the intent of resolving her own inner conflict and finding hopeful visions for the future.

With artist Ben Edge, musician Cohen Braithwaite-Kilcoyne and his mum Mignon, warden of Kilpeck Church, Hesketh Millais, members of Boss Morris - a feminist Morris Side - and Zakia's dad, Caspar.

First broadcast 17th November 2020, BBC Radio 4
Produced by Zakia Sewell and Alan Hall

My Albion: The Cuckoo 1/4

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