Reminiscences of life on the polar ice as writer Chris Eldon Lee travels with a party of British Antarctic Survey veterans to revisit the “elaborate garden sheds” in which they spent their winters during the ’50s and ’60s. In near permanent subzero temperatures these huts have become museums, literally frozen in time. (1 x 28′)
First broadcast December 2001 BBC Radio 4
Producer Chris Eldon Lee
A real taste of adventure – Peter Barnard, Radio Times
Radio 4 Pick of the Week
Two travel documentaries in which Mukti Jain Campion accompanies her children back to the childhood homes of their two grandmothers – a rural village in India and a remote crofting community in the Scottish Highlands – and discovers that the two women have more in common than just grandchildren. (2 x 28′)
First broadcast November 1997 BBC Radio 4
Original Music by Nick Sargent
Producers Mukti Jain Campion & Chris Eldon Lee
Two documentaries of the kind radio does well: contrasting social histories told by people who have lived them. The moving spirit in more ways than one is the producer Mukti Jain Campion – Peter Barnard, The Times
Radio Choice: The Times, The Independent, The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Sunday Times, The Evening Standard, Radio Times
Radio 4 Pick of the Week
Poet Daljit Nagra revels in the legendary dictionary of British India which brought hundreds of Indian words such as bungalow, shampoo and dinghy into the English language. With a new edition due to be published in 2013, Daljit looks back at its history and how it has seduced countless writers and poets since it was first published in 1886.
First broadcast July 2012 BBC Radio 4
Contributors include: Dr Kate Teltscher, Professor Javed Majeed, Tom Stoppard and Amitav Ghosh.
Readings by Tim Pigott-Smith and Vincent Ebrahim
Producer Mukti Jain Campion
Radio Choice: The Mail on Sunday, The Sunday Telegraph, The Scotsman, The Daily Mail, The Times, The Independent
Radio 4 Pick of the Week
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Storyteller Seema Anand explores Muhammad Iqbal’s epic poem Shikwa, one of the most famous and enduring works of Islamic literature. The poem is an extended and heartfelt complaint in lyrical Urdu about all the many ways in which God has let Muslims down. When it was first recited by Iqbal at a public gathering in Lahore in 1911, a fatwa was issued by Islamic scholars who were shocked by its seemingly outrageous impudence. (1 x 28′)
First broadcast March 2011 BBC Radio 4
Contributors: Professor Javed Majeed and Navid Akhtar
Readings by Sagar Arya, Saeed Jaffrey and Pervaiz Alam
Producer Mukti Jain Campion
Medieval historian Miri Rubin explores the rich history of the most famous of Hebrew poems and the extraordinary journey made by the poet Yehuda Halevi from Spain to the city he yearned for in his work: Jerusalem. (1 x 28′)
First broadcast August 2013 BBC Radio 4
Contributors: Professor Nicholas de Lange, Dr Ben Outhwaite and Dr Tamar Drukker.
Readings by Vincent Ebrahim
Producer Mukti Jain Campion
Radio choice: The Daily Telegraph
Anna Chen revisits the Cultural Revolution Model Operas that she first heard as a child in sixties’ London and discovers how they are, somewhat surprisingly, enjoying a new lease of life. (1 x 28′)
First broadcast July 2012 BBC Radio 4
Contributors: Conductor Jindong Cai, journalist Sheila Melvin, novelist Anchee Min and film director Yan Ting Yuen.
Producer Mukti Jain Campion
Radio Choice: The Daily Mail, The Daily Telegraph, The Independent
Playwright and director Kwame Kwei-Armah takes an intimate look at the spirit and history of the Notting Hill Carnival. (5 x 14′)
First broadcast August 2011 BBC Radio 4
Producer Pam Fraser Solomon
Radio Choice: The Independent, Mail on Sunday, Time Out
Radio 4 Pick of the Week
Photo of Kwame courtesy of Simon Marhold
Jonathon Porritt delves into the archives to assess the legacy of economist E.F. Schumacher on David Cameron’s ideas for the Big Society. Described as “one of the few original thinkers of the 20th Century”, Fritz Schumacher was the author of the seminal 1973 book Small is Beautiful: Economics as if people mattered. The programme includes extracts from Schumacher’s 1976 speech to the Findhorn Community in Scotland. It was his last UK public lecture before his death, here digitally remastered and broadcast for the first time for Archive on 4. (1 x 57′)
First broadcast July 2011 BBC Radio 4
Contributors include: Satish Kumar of Schumacher College and editor of Resurgence Magazine, George McCrobie co-founder of Practical Action, Wilfred Beckerman author of Small is Stupid and members of the Schumacher family.
Producer Chris Eldon Lee
Executive Producer Mukti Jain Campion
Radio choice: The Daily Telegraph, The Daily Mail
Radio 4 Pick of the Week
*Winner of the Garden Writers Guild Award for Radio Broadcast of the Year 2001
Weird and wise gardening advice from the past two thousand years, sifted for modern day practical tips by garden historian Caroline Holmes and horticultural experts. (4 x 14′)
First broadcast May 2001 BBC Radio 4
Readings: Christopher Holmes & Malindi O’ Rorke
Producer Mukti Jain Campion
Just when you thought there was no such thing as an original gardening show, here comes an original gardening show. – Peter Barnard, The Times
Radio Choice: The Times, Sunday Times, Daily Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph, Daily Mail, Radio Times.
Radio 4 Pick of the Week
More weird and wise gardening tips from the past two thousand years, sifted for modern day practical tips by garden historian Caroline Holmes with horticultural experts. (5 x 14′)
First broadcast November 2002 BBC Radio 4
Readings by Christopher Holmes & Anni Kurmis
Producer Mukti Jain Campion
A luscious mini series – Gillian Reynolds, The Daily Telegraph
Radio choice: The Daily Telegraph, The Daily Mail, Radio Times, The English Garden
Radio 4 Pick of the Week
