Category: History

Hobson-Jobson

 

hjPoet 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

Read BBC News article

 

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

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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

Man vs God

 

iqbalStoryteller 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

 

My Heart is in the East

 

MiriMedieval 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

 

 

Madam Mao’s Golden Oldies

 

Anna modeloperasAnna 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

Stories from Notting Hill

 

KwamePlaywright 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

 

  1. Origins    Kwame explores the beginnings of the Notting Hill Carnival and the difficult social conditions from which it emerged
  2. Innovation  How a motorway flyover gave the Notting Hill Carnival a new direction.
  3. Carnival Clash  The complex relationship between Carnival and the police.
  4. Enterprise  The highs and lows of the Notting Hill Carnival as it moved into a new era of sponsorship and expansion in the 1980s.
  5. Legacy   How the Notting Hill Carnival is positioning itself in a new era of tighter regulations and diverse stakeholders.

Photo of Kwame courtesy of Simon Marhold

 

Schumacher’s Big Society

 

smallbeautifulJonathon 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

 

St Ives & Me

 

St Ives and MEWriter and performer Anna Chen presents an intimate look at the rich cultural life of St Ives, past and present. Writers and artists from JMW Turner to Barbara Hepworth have been coming to this famous Cornish fishing village for the past 200 years, attracted by its special light and bohemian spirit. Anna has been holidaying there since she was a child and has a passionate connection to the place. She recalls long afternoons as a teenager watching artist Patrick Heron working in his studio, and meeting freespirits such as Molly Parkin. She visits her favourite haunts and performs at the annual St Ives Festival. (1 x 28′)

First broadcast  December 2011 BBC Radio 4

Producer Chris Eldon Lee

A lovely evocation of the town and what makes it special  – Clare Heal, The Sunday Express

 

Radio Choice:   Radio Times, The Observer, The Times, The Daily Mail, The Daily Telegraph, Time Out.

New Shoots, Old Tips

 

New Shoots Caroline and Katie*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

 

  1. Through Cunning with dibble
  2. Spread whole baskets of dung
  3. Seeds should be tried like witches
  4. To the realms of light I summon the worms

Radio Choice: The Times, Sunday Times, Daily Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph, Daily Mail, Radio Times.

Radio 4 Pick of the Week