"Penny plain and twopence coloured...."
A phrase familiar to generations of pre-TV children that describes the toy theatres of Benjamin Pollock, a printer from Hoxton in London.
Simon Callow explores the magic world of the cardboard actor, which tel
Read more…Somewhere in a small English village, a boy with unkempt hair and dirty knees, falling-down socks and wild hair, is righting wrongs and causing havoc - and is forever 11.
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the publication in May 1922 of the fi
Read more…The astonishing story behind 120 years of Post Office cat employment.
Presented by Beryl Reid
Produced by Rosemary Watts
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Queen of crime Ruth Rendell tells Professor Anthony Clare why she's jaundiced about the idea of the 'happy family'.
Ruth Rendell was born in 1930 and died in 2015.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in July 1994.
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Beatle fans and musicians gather to re-experience The Beatles' top-selling album, which came to be known as The White Album. Among the guests are Beatle author Steve Turner who shares the stories behind each of the White Album tracks. Also, a panel o
By Paula Byrne, abridged by Julian Wilkinson
Paula Byrne's joyous and illuminating new biography of one of the twentieth century's wittiest novelists.
Philip Larkin regarded her as the era's very own Jane Austen and yet today Barbara Pym is little
Read more…George Eliot - notable among Victorian novelists not only for her books but also for her personal life-story - explored through five of her fictional characters
It's sometimes said that George Eliot never wrote an autobiography because she had writt
Read more…The Frequency of Laughter is a six-part history of radio comedy, covering 1975-2005, presented by journalist and radio fan Grace Dent. In each episode she brings together two figures who were making significant radio comedy at the same time, and ask
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Jacob A Riis - Police Lodging Room, Church Street Station, 1895
Colin Ford explains how Riis's photographs of the New York slum had an immediate and extraordinary impact on society.
Julia Margaret Cameron: Portrait of Thomas Carlyle, 1867
Colin
Read more…Actress and birdwatcher Alison Steadman tells the story of why and how so many birds that make up the avifauna of Britain are aliens from elsewhere..
The Pheasant
Alison Steadman tells the story of how and why many birdwatchers regard the pheasant
Read more…Anneka Rice goes on the hunt for her Madame Tussaud's waxwork head. This leads her into a hilarious and honest look back at her own life and career.
It's time to ask some tough questions. Why did she even have a waxwork in the first place? Is it b
Read more…Renowned Irish writer Edna O'Brien reads the first of five extracts from her memoir, in which she recalls her childhood in 1930s Co Clare, and her strict Catholic upbringing. She begins by detailing her early years, spent in the faded grandeur of he
Read more…From film school to the Oscars – This is the story of Wallace and Gromit's first adventure – A Grand Day Out.
Nick Park celebrates his award-winning creations, Wallace and Gromit, three decades after they were introduced to the world.
The animated
Read more…Recorded 30 years from now, What the Future plunges into the world of tomorrow and investigates how decisions and actions concerning the current topics of today could have massive repercussions on our later lives. Dealing with issues ripped from the
Read more…Ian Peacock examines the veracity behind claims that time seems to speed up the older a person gets. He speaks with psychologists, children and centenarians to discover why perceptions of time differ so greatly between generations, and sets out to
Read more…By Charlotte Gordon, abridged by Sara Davies.
A biography of pioneering feminist Mary Wollstonecraft and her novelist daughter Mary Shelley, who wrote Frankenstein.
Read by Juliet Aubrey and Ellie Kendrick.
Produced by Elizabeth Allard
Read more…The kiss is the most deceptive gesture. Seemingly simple - it is in fact a highly complex action and depending on the depth of passion used - can ignite a plethora of emotional, sensual and physical reactions including lowering blood pleasure, ext
Read more…As she approaches her 80th year, Penelope Simpson decides to paint her own coffin.
She keeps it in her garden shed, which acts as her studio. As the year passes, she paints the lid with flowers from every season picked from her garden. Then she in
Read more…"I gotta ‘orse!"
Comedian Stephen K Amos investigates the story of Ras Prince Monolulu, the early 20th-century horse-racing tipster whose extravagant sense of style and larger-than-life personality transformed him into a national treasure.
His
Read more…The Christmas song "Baby It's Cold Outside" has become the cause of intense controversy in the US where it's been described as a "hymn to rape" .
"As the father of a teenage daughter" writes Adam Gopnik, "I will stand down to no one in the fight a
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