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Christine Finn explores how authors' archive is kept, now they write on screens not paper.
26 Apr 2011,·30 mins
Peter Curran on earworms; why we sing to ourselves, and why sometimes we can't stop it
28 Aug 2012,·20 mins
Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore's visionary prime minister and his remarkable legacy
29 Jun 1990,·27 mins
Jim Al-Khalili explores what the past would have sounded like to our ancestors.
12 Sep 2011,·28 mins
Alvin Hall on Motown's eight Black Forum spoken word records with the people behind them.
09 Jan 2014,·30 mins
Mispronunciations, fits of giggles, empty air, sometimes it's hard being a BBC announcer
26 Oct 1993,·13 mins
The history and politics of the conservative Prussian statesman Otto von Bismark
23 Oct 1990,·26 mins
Journalist Kirran Shah explores the spirit of Bradford’s spoken-word counter culture.
18 Nov 2019,·28 mins
Naomi Gryn revisits the Holocaust novel The Last of the Just, published 60 years ago.
23 Jan 2020,·28 mins
Dominic Arkwright charts the life of Thomas Middleton, the bad boy of Renaissance drama
11 May 2010,·30 mins
British composer Benajmin Britten examined through his love of Suffolk in England
01 Jan 1981,·30 mins
Japan: Roland Buerk explores why the kimono industry in Japan is in steep decline.
23 Nov 2011,·30 mins
Series 2
Do we need darkness in our lives?
Jay Rayner asks what compels people to look at horrific things.
29 Aug 2014,·58 mins
Martin Reeve follows the fortunes of street theatre in Britain over 40 years.
26 May 2011,·30 mins
Do dyslexia and dyspraxia affect the way you draw? Chris Ledgard investigates.
28 Sep 2015,·30 mins
The Play
The origins, development and purpose of stage drama
30 Apr 1996,·13 mins
2. Doom Metal And Beyond
Maddy Prior, lead singer of Steeleye Span, and her daughter Rose Kemp on musical futures
10 Nov 2015,·30 mins
Susie Dent explores Americanisms in British English – should we love not loathe them?
20 May 2017,·28 mins
We Travel with Songs
Roderick Williams tells the stories of Britain through our songs.
28 Aug 2019,·28 mins
The British will talk about the weather to anyone who'll listen. But why?
20 Dec 1991,·28 mins
Jim Naughtie reflects on the origins of the Edinburgh Festival.
05 Aug 2017,·26 mins
The Inventor's Unpredictable Life
Inventors talk about their weird and sometimes wonderful working lives
17 Dec 2003,·13 mins
Miles Jupp investigates how to write an unputdownable story.
30 Apr 2020,·28 mins
Composer Matthew Herbert takes a critical look at looping and sampling in modern music.
01 Mar 2014,·30 mins
Episode 2
Matthew Sweet explores Chaplin's vast archive of unfinished scripts, letters and cuttings.
28 Feb 2011,·30 mins
Magazines and Newspapers
What part do magazines and newspapers play in the output of the paparazzi?
22 Mar 1996,·13 mins
The battle to save museum collections from insect pests.
31 Aug 2011,·28 mins
Crime writer Val McDermid on how boarding school novels inspired her to be a writer.
20 Sep 2011,·30 mins
A review of the films up for the top prize at the Pan-African Film and Television Festival
28 Feb 2003,·29 mins
Hayden Lorimer asks why we love the beginning and end of art more than art itself.
18 May 2017,·30 mins
