Category: History

Darwin Songs

 

dsEight top folk singers from Britain and the USA are holed up for 7 days in a remote Shropshire farmhouse at the invitation of the Shrewsbury Folk Festival. Their task: to write new songs inspired by the life and work of the eminent naturalist Charles Darwin in time for a public concert at the new Theatre Severn, near where Darwin was born 200 years ago. (1 x 28′)

First broadcast  March 2009  BBC Radio 4

Contributors include: Rachel MacShane of Bellowhead, Stu Hanna of Megson, Emily Smith, Chris Wood, Mark Erelli, Krista Detor, Karine Polwart and Jez Lowe. Randall Keynes – great, great, grandson of Charles Darwin, Jon King – director, Shrewsbury Darwin Festival

Producer Chris Eldon Lee        

Radio choice: The Daily Telegraph, The Times and The Guardian

The Drawings on the Wall

 

dotwArchaeologist Dr George Nash of Bristol University visits five of Western Europe’s most significant prehistoric rock art sites to examine whether the modern mind can ever successfully interpret the mysterious graffiti created by our ancestors. ( 5 x 14′)

First broadcast February 2008   BBC Radio 4

Producer Chris Eldon Lee

 

 

1.The Legless Ladies of Creswell Crags  Church Hole cave  in Derbyshire has spectacular images of prehistoric animals. But who was carving them and why? And what is the modern equivalent?

2. Graffiti Gorge George Nash meets Dr Mila Simoes de Abreu, whose bitterly-fought campaign in the Côa Valley saved thousands of prehistoric tribal rock carvings from being lost under the waters of a proposed reservoir.

3. Irish Illusions Dr Muiris O’Sullivan of University College, Dublin inside Fourknocks Passage Grave, Eire

4. The Master of Paspardo Italian archaeologists Professor Angelo Fossati and Dr Andrea Arca explore the biggest rock art area in Europe.

5.Architecture of Death Mike Yates and rock art photographer Adam Stanford visit Barclodiady-Gawres Neolithic burial chamber in Anglesey

See the BBC website for the series.

Radio 4 Pick of the Week

Bengal to Baker Street in 80 Paintings

Mukti Jain Campion discovers the story of pioneering Indian modern artist Jamini Roy (1887 – 1972) and how the largest collection of his work came to hang in a private apartment in central London. (1 x 28′)

See Slideshow of the paintings discussed in the programme.

First broadcast March 2014  BBC Radio 4

Contributors include: Professor Nirmalya Kumar (pictured), Collector of Jamini Roy’s paintings; Richard Blurton, Curator of South Asian Art at the British Museum; Partha Mitter, Emeritus Professor of Art History, University of Sussex; Sona Datta, art historian, curator and author of book on Jamini Roy “Urban Patua”; Artist Sir Howard Hodgkin

Producer Mukti Jain Campion

This is a fascinating programme about art, its collection, its inspiration, its social value and how attitudes of critics and art historians change over time – Gillian Reynolds, The Daily Telegraph

 

Radio Choice: The Times, The Daily Mail, The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, The Observer and Radio Times

Broken Paradise

 

bpAcclaimed translator Lakshmi Holmström introduces some of the most powerful Tamil poetry to emerge from the 26 year long conflict in Sri Lanka in which an estimated 70,000 people were killed as the militant Tamil Tigers tried to establish a separate Tamil state in the north of the island. (1 x 28′)

First broadcast   April 2013        BBC Radio 4

Poets featured include Cheran, M.A.Nuhman, Sivaramani, Shanmugam Sivalingam and Kutti Revathi.

Poem readings by Hiran Abeysekara, Vayu Naidu and Vignarajah

Producer Mukti Jain Campion

 

In a Time of Burning (Arc Publications 2013) is a collection of Cheran poems translated by Lakshmi Holmström

How Folk Songs Should Be Sung

 

flk

Ewan MacColl

Singer Martin Carthy listens to long-lost recordings that reveal the rise and fall of Ewan MacColl’s “Critics’ Group”, a controversial driving force of the 1960s folk revival.

First broadcast  January 2012  BBC Radio 4

Contributors: Peggy Seeger, Richard Snell, Frankie Armstrong, Sandra Kerr, Brian Pearson, Phil Colclough

Producers Genevieve Tudor and Chris Eldon Lee

How good it was to hear Carthy as narrator, someone who really knows the subject, the people, the factions, the history. – Gillian Reynolds, The Daily Telegraph

 

Read Gillian Reynold’s full review in The Daily Telegraph

Imperial Gardens

ig

Garden historian Caroline Holmes explores how former empires transplanted their plants and garden designs to the countries they ruled.  (3 x 28′)

First broadcast    April 2000  BBC Radio 4

Producer  Mukti Jain Campion

1: The Roman Gardens at Fishbourne Palace, England

2: The Moorish Gardens of the Alhambra, Spain

3: Nuwara Eliya, the Garden City of Sri Lanka

Sheer, unadulterated pleasure for the listener – Martin Hoyle, Financial Times

Radio Choice: The Independent, The Observer, Daily Mail, The Evening Standard, The Financial Times, Radio Times

Radio 4 Pick of the Week

Crossing the Black Waters

 

ctbwFrom the first sailing of its ships to India in 1607, the English East India Company began a movement of people, goods and ideas that has linked the imaginations and fortunes of the people of Britain and the Indian subcontinent for 400 years. Mukti Jain Campion explores the extraordinary social legacy of the Company and of the early travellers who crossed the kala pani, into the unknown. (3 x 28′)

First broadcast January 2002 BBC Radio 4

Contributors include: Dr Huw Bowen, Dr Kate Teltscher, Rozina Visram, Professor Om Prakash, Rudrangshu Mukherjee, Dr Laxshmi Subramanian, Dr Indira Ghose and Tapati Guha Thakurta.

Readers: Vincent Ebrahim, Christopher Holmes & Malindi O’Rorke

Producers Mukti Jain Campion & Chris Eldon Lee

 

A compelling listen – Paul Donovan, The Sunday Times

 

 1: Identity  How the Company changed the way Indians and Britons looked at themselves, and each other.

2: Sex  The Company’s role originated many of the enduring myths about each country’s sexual behaviour.

3: Wealth  How the Company changed the fortunes of millions of Indians and Britons.

Radio Choice: The Guardian, The Mail on Sunday, Time Out, The Sunday Times

Radio 4 Pick of the Week

 

Like Another Mahabharata: Indian Soldiers in the Great War

 

lam“This is not a war. It is the ending of the world. This is just such a war as was related in the Mahabharata about our forefathers.” – an Indian soldier’s letter from the Western Front

On Remembrance Day Mukti Jain Campion pays tribute to the contribution of over a million men from the Indian subcontinent who volunteered to fight for the British in the First World War. A fascinating insight into the soldiers’ experiences on and off the battlefields of the Western Front comes from the poetic and poignant letters they wrote home. (1 x 28′)

First broadcast November 1999 BBC Radio 4 & November 2000 BBC World Service

 

The message powerfully and feelingly conveyed in Mukti Jain Campion’s documentary is that First World War historians have signally failed to acknowledge the part played by those Indian volunteers who fought on Britain’s side.  -Peter Davalle, The Times

 

Contributors include: Dr David Omissi, Professor Linda Colley, Dominic Rai, and Dominiek Dendooven

Letter readings by Vincent Ebrahim, Rez Kempton and Dev Sagoo.

Soldiers’ songs performed by Baluji Shrivastav and the Man Mela Theatre Company.

Producer  Mukti Jain Campion

Radio Choice: The Times, The Independent, The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Sunday Times, Daily Mail, The Scotsman, The Observer, Evening Standard, Time Out, Radio Times

Radio 4 Pick of the Week

Photograph: IWM photos Q53887

The Flight of Tiny Feet

 

totfIn early 1942 the Japanese invaded Burma, forcing fifty thousand refugees to embark on a 1000-mile trek to India, mostly on foot. Overcome by the effects of disease and monsoon, more than half of them died. Stephen Brookes, Evan Edwardes and Yolande Rodda, three children who had once been at kindergarten together, did survive the arduous journey. Now in their seventies, they recall their harrowing experience through children’s eyes. (1 x 28′)

First broadcast January 2003  BBC Radio 4

Producer Chris Eldon Lee

Remarkable and moving – WH, The Guardian

 

Radio Choice: The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, Daily Mail, The Independent on Sunday, The Times, The Sunday Telegraph

Radio 4 Pick of the Week

From Telford to the Stream of Dragons

 

ftsdThe journey of a lifetime as Hsiao-Ying Tseng travels from Shropshire to south China to visit the two sisters she has never met. Her moving story reveals one human legacy of the Communist victory of 1949 when thousands of Chinese fled to Taiwan, leaving loved ones behind forever. (1 x 28′)

First broadcast Oct 2001   BBC Radio 4

Producer Chris Eldon Lee

Radio 4 Pick of the Week