BBC - Stories Of Ray Bradbury (Series 1)

EP 1 - A rocket ship's mission to the sun and an unexpected turn of events for visitors to Mars.
EP 2 - A couple try to cope when their newborn baby arrives in the form of a blue pyramid.
EP 3 - Children witness a rare break in the rainfall on Venus, and lighthouse workers find out what lies beyond.
EP 4 - A hunter gets to time travel and shoot a dinosaur - with unexpected consequences EP 5 - How do the Earth people living on Mars cope when they discover there is no way back home? Download Here

BBC Radio 2 - The Richard Burton Legacy

Michael Sheen grew up in the shadow of the steel and coal industries of South Wales but there was another towering figure in his youth as he started showing signs of what was to become a glittering acting career. That figure was his fellow South Walian Richard Burton.

Rich, as he was known to his friends, was one of the world's richest and most famous men in his day. But above all else he was a proud Welshman and an actor of extraordinary power both on stage and on screen. And then of course there were the exploits beyond drama. His marriage to Elizabeth Taylor dominated the tabloids of the nineteen sixties and his reputation as a drinker is legend.

In this programme Michael looks back at the Burton legacy with the help of a selection of family, friends and colleagues including his last wife Sally, his nephew Guy Masterson, his close friend Robert Hardy, his biographer Melvyn Bragg and the film critic Barry Norman.

And there's also plenty of the man himself with that extraordinary voice suffused with 'coal dust and rain' according to Burton himself.

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.

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BBC Radio 4 - Grand Guignol

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.

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BBC Radio 4 - From The Front Line

Readings from letters, diaries, and poems written
at the front line during World War 1.

Readers
Ian McKellen - Poems by Wilfred Owen
Marcus Stolberg - Letters & Diaries of Medical Corps Corporal Ludwig Kutner
Ivan Cutting - Letters of George Stofer of Saxmunden, Suffolk

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BBC Radio 2 - Wireless Kenny Everett

Kenny Everett's first love was always "the wireless" because he knew the pictures would always be better when you listened to his wildly imaginative features on the radio. Paul Gambaccini explores how, and why, Kenny fell under the spell of radio and celebrates his legacy, with many examples of the DJ having fun on the wireless.

Wireless Kenny Everett covers his first approach to the Beeb; broadcasting on pirate Radio London; finding Where It's At on the Light Programme; and the innovation - and trouble - he created at Radio One. There will be comments from Kenny's early BBC champions Johnny Beerling and Angela Bond. His pirate and Capital Radio colleague Dave Cash will also discuss Kenny's craft.

The creation of what Everett called "the fiddly bits" has had an enormous impact on generations of DJs. Kenny loved the technical side of radio and used phasing, stereo trickery, editing and sound effects to create his memorable jingles, 'Singalonga Beatles tracks' and audio competitions. Inspired by the 1950s radio adventures of Journey Into Space, Kenny also created his own sci-fi serial - "with smut, jokes and sound effects" - Captain Kremmen.

His other characters included Chris P. Bacon, Rock Salmon (Masked Accountant), his "Gran" and butler Crisp. This combination of humour with innovative production impressed DJ Steve Wright, who describes the impact of Kenny's shows upon him.

Kenny's love of music was always at the forefront of his programmes. His shows bubbled with surprises: from the "tuney" bits from classical music, to the awful but hilarious Bottom Thirty records suggested by his listeners for The World's Worst Wireless Show.

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BBC Radio 4 - Schrodinger's Quantum Kittens

Robin Ince examines Schrodinger's Cat, the paradox at the heart of quantum physics, and discovers its influence on science and popular culture. Fifty years after the death of Nobel laureate Erwin Schrodinger, the quantum mysteries of his cat-in-a-box paradox still continue to drive physicists in research today. Can a living thing be both alive and dead at the same time?

Schrodinger's experiment was an almost playful creation, but one that stabbed at the heart of the 1930s physics establishment. By the 1950s, US physicist Hugh Everett concluded that, indeed, both a dead cat and an alive cat can exist, but in separate universes. His 'Many Worlds' theory inspired authors, from Philip K Dick to Philip Pullman.

Robin follows in the Austrian physicist's footsteps to Oxford University, where Schrodinger was once a fellow, and unearths some original archive at Magdalen College. Physicist Sir Roger Penrose speaks about its impact on quantum theory to this day. Why has Schrodinger's Cat gained such currency not just in science but popular culture? Writer Alan Moore tells how it created a new wave of 1960s sci-fi literature.

So why has Schrodinger's Cat caught the imagination of non-scientists? How is it misinterpreted and used to explain mankind's many unknowns? What is its place at the cutting edge of quantum physics? Robin meets today's physicists and thinkers who still tangle with the idea. And we find, no doubt, that Schrodinger's Cat (in all probability) is very much alive today.

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BBC Radio 4 - The Good Conductor

Bernard Hare, former social worker and author of the cult classic "Urban Grimshaw and the Shed Crew" tells a moving tale of the power of human compassion. He recounts a story from his younger years, of a night when he was desperate to get from London to his home town of Leeds to see his mother on her deathbed. He had no money, and the train schedule meant it looked like he could not get home in time. Then came the saintly intervention of the man Bernard calls "The Good Conductor."

The story, and the lesson taught by The Good Conductor, is one that Bernard himself regularly tells to the young people he cares for as an unofficial social worker: "Pass it down the line."

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BBC Radio 7 - Classic Tales of Horror

Series 1
E01 - My Own True Ghost Story
E02 - The Man In The Bell
E03 - Caterpillars
E04 - Narrative Of The Ghost Of A Hand
E05 - The Mezzotint
E06 - Dr Heidegger's Experiment
E07 - The Masque Of The Red Death
E08 - A Terribly Strange Bed

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Lovely spookers :P

BBC Radio 4 - Science vs The Stradivarius

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Can modern technology identify the elusive components that give Stradivarius violins a unique voice? Analysts have submitted the master instruments to a battery of tests, from CT scans to burning original samples of varnish, but are they just chasing a myth? Professor Trevor Cox investigates

BBC Radio 6 - The History of Psychedelia

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Episode 1
Writer and comedian David Quantick examines the lasting impact of psychedelia on music and popular culture from the 1960s onwards.

Episode 2
Writer and comedian David Quantick concludes his examination of the lasting impact of psychedelia on music and popular culture.

BBC Radio 4 - The Feynman Variations

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 Size: 53.59 MB

Richard Feynman (1918-88) was one of the most remarkable and gifted theoretical physicists of any generation. He was also known as the 'Great Explainer' because of his passion for helping non-scientists to imagine something of the beauty and order of the universe as he saw it. 

A tribute to Richard Feynman, brilliant physicist, and all round smart guy. Includes most of the key stuff, and some new material from people who knew him.

For some short BBC TV files, see:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/feynman/


Enjoy!

Roald Dahl - Boy: Tales of Childhood

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Boy: Tales of Childhood (1984) is the first autobiographical book by British writer Roald Dahl. It describes his life from birth until leaving school, focusing on living conditions in Britain in the 1920s and 1930s, the public school system at the time, and how his childhood experiences led him to writing as a career. It ends with his first job, working for Royal Dutch Shell. His autobiography continues in Going Solo.

BBC Radio 4 - Why Russia Spies

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.

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BBC Radio Scotland - When Standing Stones Come Down to Drink

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In lowland Scotland we associate scary stories and the presence of the dead with Halloween, but in the Northern Isles all those customs belong to Christmas. It began life not as a jolly day for children but as the feast of the returning dead: Yule. At Yule a truce was declared with the living, all work on the farm was stopped and large quantities of strong ale were brewed for the feast. Now hauntings were at their peak and uncanny things walked. Viking undead, with their supernatural strength and hunger for flesh, were not to be trifled with - they could tear your roof or your head off at this time of year.

On Tulya's E'en, seven days before Christmas, the Trows [trolls] were granted permission to leave their underground homes "in the heart of the earth and dwell, if it so pleased them, above the ground." , so the sign of the cross had to be made on everything. According to folklore, the Trow becomes more active and more dangerous as Yule approaches - just like the undead of the Viking sagas. At this point it was believed that the undead were allowed to leave neolithic mounds and barrows to trouble the living. Even Orkney's standing stones, the Great Ring of Brodgar, the stones of Stenness, might be seen leaving their ancient places to go for a drink, dipping down to the waters of burn and loch, nodding to each other as they progressed, like Ents moving from a stone forest. Tom Morton explores the spookiest time of the year in the Northern Isles.

Dylan Thomas - Under Milk Wood

To Begin at the Beginning….

Allow me to start this wondrous entry with the words of Dylan Thomas as read in the mellisonant tones of Richard Burton. One of my most treasured books, I offer you to borrow indefinitely, switch off the lights and take your imagination for a walk.

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Under Milk Wood is a 1954 play for radio by Dylan Thomas, later adapted for the stage. A film version, Under Milk Wood directed by Andrew Sinclair, was released in 1972. Thomas’s poetic writing and an unforgettable cast of characters makes this a landmark play in the history of both radio and theatre.
An all-seeing narrator invites the audience to listen to the dreams and innermost thoughts of the inhabitants of an imaginary small Welsh village, Llareggub.
They include Mrs Ogmore-Pritchard, relentlessly bossing her two dead husbands; Captain Cat, reliving his seafaring times; the two Mrs Dai Breads; Organ Morgan, obsessed with his music; and Polly Garter, pining for her dead lover. Later, the town wakes and, aware now of how their feelings affect whatever they do, we watch them go about their daily business.

In November 2003, as part of the their commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of Thomas’s death, the BBC broadcast a new production of the play, imaginatively combining new actors with the original 1954 recording of Richard Burton playing ‘First Voice’. Digital noise reduction technology allowed Burton’s part to be seamlessly incorporated into the new recording, which was intended to represent Welsh voices more realistically than the original.