Factual programmes commissioned in and since the last round.xlsx
TX Title
Comm Brief Description Proposal Synopsis
AMERICA GOES TO WAR
9 O'Clock Series
Bringing Up Britain
Fry's English Delight Series 9
9 O'Clock Series
9 O'Clock Series
Inside the Ethics Committee
9 O'Clock Series
Playing the Skyline Series 2
9 O'Clock Series
The Global Philosopher
9 O'Clock Series
The Matter of the North
Soundstage
9 O'Clock Series
15' Feature
A Different Story
15' Feature
A Guide to Coastal Wildlife
Dr Brok's Casebook
Everything you think about sport is
wrong
15' Feature
15' Feature
Free Speech
Give It a Year
15' Feature
15' Feature
In A Chord
15' Feature
In Search of Eden
15' Feature
In Therapy
15' Feature
Interracial Love in Shakespeare: A
Personal Journey
Nights at the Museum
15' Feature
15' Feature
15' Feature
From April 1917 America fought its first conflict to 'make the world safe for democracy' and in so doing so helped
reshape Europe and made a new role for itself in world affairs -but at what cost? This is the story of how a divided nation
and a remarkable President made history and war.
Mariella Frostrup returns with the series about parenting and family life which mixes sharp and informed studio
discussion with carefully-built case-study features drawing on new research and expertise in partnership with the Open
University.
Series 9 of Stephen Fry's popular language series
Another series of the acclaimed and insightful debate programme about medical ethics Inside the Ethics Committee
chaired by Joan Bakewell.
Presented by Tim Marlow. Another series in which composers and musicians create brand new music following skylines,
revealing their creative processes and relationship to these places.
Harvard professor Michael Sandel tackles a pressing contemporary philosophical dilemma with an audience of
contributors from across the globe.
In this 15 part series Melvyn Bragg brings all his passion and knowledge to a subject that has enthralled and fascinated
him throughout his life - the pivotal role of England's North in the shaping of modern Britain.
Revelatory and immersive audio journeys.
An ambitious new series inspired and introduced by the world-class Nigerian novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and
directly inspired by her famous 2009 TED talk denouncing the "danger of a single story" - that's to say the dangers of
promulgating over-simplistic portraits of current stories, individuals or nations.
Brett Westwood joins naturalist Phil Gates and wildlife sound recordist Chris Watson on the coast in this informative and
entertaining guide to some of our commonest and most curious seaside wildlife.
Dr Paul Broks and Jolyon Jenkins go on a neuro-philosophical detective hunt in search of the self.
Sports writer Simon Barnes sets out five principles of how he understands sport using them to explain why the way most
of us think about sport is all wrong.
It's one of the simplest principles in public life: the right to freedom of speech. But what does it really mean? . Timothy
Garton Ash has spent the last three years in a global conversation online and in person debating these questions.
One year. Five single radio producers. A world of romantic possibilities.
Following the success of Key Matters Ivan Hewett explores ways in which five musical chords directly reflect the times in
which they were written.
The story of the Garden of Eden has long been fertile ground for scholars artists and paradise seekers. In this series,
neuroscience takes its turn. Paul Howard-Jones discovers that in this ancient myth there are ideas about our cognitive
evolution which speak to a modern audience.
15 years after the publication of her ground-breaking study of the therapeutic relationship 'The Impossibility of Sex' we
have discussed a sequel with Susie Orbach. 'The Possibility of Love' will be written by Orbach and her former patient
now partner Jeanette Winterson and narrated by actors
"Shakespeare was my first white love" says Yasmin Alibhai-Brown. "No one has ever captured the joy and lunacy and
power of love better than William Shakespeare. And his transgressive depictions of love in particular remain
unsurpassed."
Guest curators explore the treasures beneath the tip of the iceberg.
February 2016
Factual programmes commissioned in and since the last round.xlsx
TX Title
Comm Brief Description Proposal Synopsis
One to One
15' Feature
Our Man in Greeneland
15' Feature
Clap Clap: A Brief History of Applause 15' Feature
The Boy Who Gave His Heart
15' Feature
The Ideas That Make Us
The Power of Negative Thinking
15' Feature
15' Feature
The Pursuit of Power
15' Feature
The River
15' Feature
Travels with Bob
15' Feature
Unforgettable
15' Feature
After Cathy
Could the Birmingham Six Happen
Again?
High Street Fashion, weaving new
threads part 2
Tuesday Documentary
How to Turn Your Life around
Tuesday Documentary
Out in Africa: A Mother's Journey w/t
Tuesday Documentary
The Battle for the US Constitution
The Returnees
Tuesday Documentary
Tuesday Documentary
The Vulnerable
Tuesday Documentary
WHO OWNS HEALTH?
Tuesday Documentary
Tuesday Documentary
Tuesday Documentary
One to One is the home of revelation and surprise and is fast becoming the interview series that broadcasters are
queuing up to do. It's where the most skilled interviewers go beyond their day job and in a one to one conversation with
people of their own choosing uncover a new perspective that gets to the heart of the way we live now.
To accompany a major season of Graham Greene dramas, five BBC correspondents - in Cuba, Liberia, Haiti, Mexico
and Vietnam follow in the footsteps of Graham Greene and visit key locations that inspired his work.
An exploration of one of the earliest and most universal systems people have used to interact with each other: the
clapping of hands.
This is a factual cliffhanger. A gripping tale of life and death.
Award-winning historian and broadcaster Bettany Hughes reveals the surprising origins of invigorating ideas from the
foundations of Western civilisation.
Want to get a job done? Decide you can't do it!
Where does real power lie? Peter Oborne wants to know. He conducts conversations with 5 individuals who have held it.
And gets their suggestions for the next interviewee.
A series of sound portraits exploring the image and reality of the 'river' as interpreted by a philosopher a wild swimmer ,
a religious thinker, a fisherman and a wildlife sound recordist.
A vibrant sound-rich programme about the characters and nature of the British Isles presented by Paddy O' Connell who
travels with his dog Bob. There are coastal walks in Scotland, great industrial heritage trails and meanderings through
the Lake District and beyond.
A dialogue between the living and the dead that visits the past, the present and the future. Each episode facilitates a
conversation someone has always wanted to have with a figure from the(ir) past. Recordings are treated and edited to
give the impression of real conversations across time and cultures.
In 1966 Cathy Come Home shocked Britain by revealing the desperate state of housing and its human implications. Fifty
years on the film's director Ken Loach says the situation is much worse.After Cathy tells the harrowing personal stories
that lie behind today's headlines.
Chris Mullin explores what changed in legal procedures and judicial attitudes as a result of the Birmingham Six case
which he investigated and asks whether a similar miscarriage of justice could be repeated today.
The Guardian's Sarah Butler returns to Bangladesh to follow Tao the New York based private equity firm as it invests in
a clothing factory. Can Tao's experience and knowledge transform the clothing industry?
Anna Woodhouse and Byron Vincent travel to Leeds to explore how people living extremely troubled lives decide to turn
them around.
An exploration of homophobia in Africa - and what can be done to help African parents and their communities embrace
their adult lesbian, gay and bisexual children.
The Fourteenth Amendment is the keystone of the US Constitution. Without it the history of modern America, the very
idea of an American citizen makes no sense. So why is a growing movement in America fighting to have it repealed?
Gordon Corera looks at attempts to de-radicalise extremists returning to Britain.
Owen Bennett-Jones discovers what happened to the first group of 123 Syrian refugees allowed into the UK on
humanitarian grounds. They arrived in April 2014: what do their powerful human stories tell us about asylum and
integration in Britain today?
How open is healthcare research? Andrew Holding is a breast cancer researcher and believes in a fundamental
commitment to making the results of his research openly available.
February 2016
Factual programmes commissioned in and since the last round.xlsx
TX Title
Comm Brief Description Proposal Synopsis
Agree to Differ
Wednesday Debate
FutureProofing
Wednesday Debate
Psychology of Money
Wednesday Debate
The Shadow Jury
Wednesday Debate
Unreliable Evidence
Wednesday Debate
WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT DEATH Wednesday Debate
A River of Steel
Science - Documentary
All in the Womb
Science - Documentary
Almost Human Rights
Science - Documentary
Can We Cure Cancer?
Science - Documentary
Caravans in Space
Science - Documentary
Down the Generations
Science - Documentary
Editing Life
Science - Documentary
Evolving our biology
Science - Documentary
GOOD PSYCHOLOGIST, BAD
PSYCHOLOGIST
Imposter Syndrome
Science - Documentary
Science - Documentary
Life Under Glass
Science - Documentary
MEET THE CYBORGS
Science - Documentary
Matthew Taylor chairs the debate which allows protagonists to approach their subject in a different way
Examines the implications - social and cultural economic and political - of the big ideas that are set to transform our
society.
Claudia Hammond chairs a debate about how money changes the way we think the way we feel and the way we
behave. As well as hearing from the expert panel the audience will have the chance to take part in live experiments.
How do juries reach decisions? In a unique experiment Radio 4 creates The Shadow Jury to sit through a full real-life
case.
A new series of the programme in which Clive Anderson invites the country's most eminent judges and lawyers together
with other concerned parties to discuss legal issues of national and international importance.
Mortality is often on Joan Bakewell's mind. Using personal testimony to stimulate this series of debates, Joan pulls back
the veil that has been obscuring our understanding of what happens today in Britain when we die and reflects on how
drastically it's changed since she was young.
This programme is a journey in sound, time and industrial evolution.
Is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder a 'transmissible disease'?
With the news that two chimps have been granted "legal personshood", evolutionary anthropologist Volker Sommer
takes us on a journey from laboratory to courtroom to explore whether this is the beginning of a new expansion in human
rights and what the practicalities of such a movement would be.
Graham Easten asks why science has so far failed to cure cancer. Is it a question of ideas, money, politics, or all three?
When humans leave the planet, could an ambitious plan to create giant mobile homes in space be a better option than
the Moon or Mars?
How economists are revealing that what happened to your grandparents may be affecting the life you lead and how you
are - and how the inheritance of bad health can hold back whole societies. Politics, culture and biology coincide in this
exploration of inter-generational health.
In this documentary, Matthew Cobb asks how the world should respond to the challenges created by CRSPR-CAS9.
As humans, we can perceive less than a ten-trillionth of all light waves. "Our experience of reality" says neuroscientist
David Eagleman "is constrained by our biology." What kind of world is possible with enhanced senses as many animals
do? What are the possible uses? How could this change the future?
Who were the psychologists behind the CIA's torture programme and does academic psychology agree with them on
their techniques and conclusions? Psychiatrist Raj Persaud embarks on a journey to talk to the psychologists behind the
CIA torture programme and finds out on what basis did they come up with their techniques?
Could owning up to our inner imposter help us beat imposter syndrome?
The extraordinary story of the sideshow doctor who changed the course of medical science and saved the lives of 6500
premature babies.
Last year in 'Hack My Hearing' Radio 4 listened in to the changing world of Frank Swain. Diagnosed with early hearing
loss aged 32 Frank became determined to turn this 'disability' to his advantage. Now Frank has succeeded in his goal to
hack his hearing aid to create a unique new sense. In this programme he meets others who are using technology to
modify their bodies to become more than human.
February 2016
Factual programmes commissioned in and since the last round.xlsx
TX Title
Comm Brief Description Proposal Synopsis
Playing Tennis in A Coma (previously
Tennis In A Coma)
Science - Documentary
Rise - The Science of Resilience
Saving science from the scientists
(w/t)
Science Stories
Science - Documentary
TEST CASE 2
Science - Documentary
THE ANATOMY OF REST
Science - Documentary
The Death of Sleep?
Science - Documentary
Matthew Taylor follows a team of neuroscientists at the University of Cambridge as they try to determine whether a
patient in a persistent vegetative state is conscious of their surroundings.
Sian Williams examines the growing body of scientific research into mental resilience and how it can help us deal with
life's most difficult challenges. In this deeply personal account, she reveals her recent experience of trauma and frankly
assesses her own psychological response and ability to bounce back.
Science journalist Alok Jha argues that scientific practice today fails to live up to the ideals of impartial searching for
truth and explores what can be done to put matters right.
Ten history programmmes telling some of science's most extraordinary stories.
Presented by Deborah Bowman, Professor of Clinical Ethics & Law at St George's Hospital. We reunite an awardwinning team who use drama and factual programming to explore the heart of medical ethics. Twinned programmes
explore the story and legacy of a celebrated Test Case.
Claudia Hammond explores the concept of rest in the modern world. Her journey is sometimes restful and at others busy
as she asks whether the mind and body can ever truly rest.
Are the demands of the modern economy at war with our need to sleep? Professor Simon Williams explores the science
and politics of slumber and investigates the tricky balancing act between sleep as the enemy of productivity and sleep as
its ally.
The Discordant Heart
The Far Future
Science - Documentary
Science - Documentary
From the heart of Michael Blastland comes a very personal and philosophical eulogy to the rhythm of the body's prime
organ of life. This would ideally be placed as part of the 50th anniversary of the first heart transplant season in 2017.
How can we plan for the distant future? Should we even try?
The Human Hive
Science - Documentary
The King of Dreams (ex Dream
Maker)
Science - Documentary
The Neglected Sense
Science - Documentary
The Power of Cute
Science - Documentary
THE RISE OF THE ROBOTS
Science - Documentary
THE WHALE MENOPAUSE
Science - Documentary
Unhappy Child, Unhealthy Adult
Science - Documentary
Unnatural Selection
Science - Documentary
Science - Documentary
Science - Documentary
In the programme, we explore the biology of true animal sociality. Questions about the drivers of behaviour divide
scientists in truly intractable ways - this programme explores why and contrary to scientific practice opinion matters.
If you could control your dreams, what would you do? Score the winning goal at Wembley, or live out your fantasies?
The ability of one French aristocrat to control his dreams gave him insights that are now revolutionising dream research
today. Alice Roberts tells his story through her own dreamworld.
We may fear going blind, deaf or dumb but few of us worry about losing our olfactory senses -and yet more than
200,000 people in the UK are anosmic - they cannot smell, but would we ever know it?
The zoologist Lucy Cooke investigates the power of cute. What is it about baby pandas that turn sane people into
webcam clicking junkies?
Adam Rutherford charts the rise of the robots. He explores where they already are transforming our lives, what they will
do in the future, and why we should think carefully. Are they our slaves or our friends?
There are just two animal species which go through the menopause - humans and killer whales. Only women and
female orca live for decades beyond the child-bearing years. Radio 4 follows killer whale matriarchs off the Pacific coast
of North America with a boatful of biologists trying to understand the point of the menopause.
We already know that unhappy events in childhood are more likely to lead to mental health issues in later life but what is
becoming clear is that childhood stress, trauma and anxiety trigger dramatic physiological changes leading to serious
physical health problems in adulthood such as obesity, heart disease, stroke and cancer.
Humans have been altering animals for millennia. We select the most docile livestock, the most loyal dogs to breed the
animals we need. This "artificial selection" is intentional. But as Adam Hart discovers, our hunting fishing and harvesting
are having unintended effects on wild animals. Welcome to the age of unnatural selection.
February 2016
Factual programmes commissioned in and since the last round.xlsx
TX Title
The League of Extraordinary
Housewives
The Natural History of the
Stockbroker
Comm Brief Description Proposal Synopsis
Archive on 4
Archive on 4
Tolkien: The Lost Recordings
Archive on 4
A Guide to the Modern Snob
Archive on 4: A Brief History of
Disobedience
Archive on 4
Archive on 4
Being Boring: the importance of doing
nothing
Archive on 4
Working Class Heroes and Poverty
Porn
Archive on 4
Dictators on the Couch
Archive on 4
Don't be Rude on the Road (w/t)
Archive on 4
Embarrassment
Heath at 100 - A reappraisal (w/t)
How Marx made the Right
(previously Karl Marx, Father of
Conservatism)
Archive on 4
Archive on 4
In the Bluff
Archive on 4
Key on Hancock
Archive on 4
Lenny Bruce - in his own, unheard,
words
Archive on 4
Lloyd George's Revolution
Archive on 4
Look Back In Anger
Archive on 4
Archive on 4
In the 1940s 100,000 angry housewives formed an association to fight austerity and the welfare state. The soap-operatic
story of their battle against state interference in 'home affairs' is the starting-point for an analysis of the housewife, her
politics and economics. Is she gaining credibility as feminism fails to deliver?
The rise and fall of the reputation of the stockbroker.
A dragon's hoard of lost interviews with Tolkien. 80 years after the 'The Hobbit' (Tolkien's first foray into Middle Earth)
was published, the 1.5 hours of material unheard for 50 years reveals insights into Tolkien (man and writer) that
surprise, amuse and provoke.
WM Thackeray, author of "The Snobs of England: By One of Themselves" believed most of early-Victorian life was
snobbish. 170 years later, allegations of snobbery are levelled from 'Plebgate' to Emily Thornberry's sacking. DJ Taylor
examines snobbery today using archive from the Mitfords to "Kilroy", comparing it to snobbery of old.
The American satirist Joe Queenan follows up programmes on Anger, Irony, Blame and Shame with A Brief History of
Disobedience. So 'let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine'.
Boredom is under threat. Constant multi-media 'engagement' and social media pressure is forcing us to chase
supposedly fulfilled and interesting lives. So have we forgotten how to be bored? Steve 'interesting' Davis explores what
has happened to boredom and finds out why we still need to sometimes do nothing.
Working class people used to be depicted seriously in fiction film and drama. Now they're often supernumaries - or
worse still they're to be looked down upon. Stuart Maconie asks why.
Psychoanalysing Dictators from Stalin to Saddam.
As "Charley Says" is resurrected in the voice of David Walliams, Alan Dein charts the rise and fall - and possible future of the Public Information Film.
Embarrassment - the sensation of being found wanting in public - is an everyday fear and fact for millions; an internal
phenomenon authored by external events. Lynne Truss explores the agony of this primitive emotion: why we suffer it
what it means, and its role in shaping societies.
A reappraisal of Edward Heath 100 years after his birth, using previously unbroadcast recordings.
150 years from the publication of Das Kapital, Tim Stanley, a former Marxist, makes the case that the Right's ideological
debt to Marx is at least as large as the Left's.
Paul Farley will be at his mischievous and creative best exploring a human skill that's been expertly honed by presidents
and paupers, general and ne'er-do-wells, throughout the course of human history: the art of the bluff.
Four complete pieces of radio and television are transformed, deconstructed, commentated upon, disfigured and
recontextualised - in a unique form of textual analysis through archive.
In August 2016, it will be 50 years since Lenny Bruce died of a drugs overdose. This documentary looks at the legacy of
Lenny Bruce using previously unheard archive material which was donated last year to Brandeis University Boston by his
daughter Kitty, and with the help of contemporary comedians.
This programme will show how Lloyd George galvanised Britain into a war-winning effort and revolutionised the way
British government operated through ruthlessly ousting Asquith as PM and radically changing the office of Prime Minister
and the Cabinet.
60 years ago one small play shocked British theatre to its core and started a cultural revolution. John Osborne, a writer
from an unfashionable Midlands city, put ordinary lives on stage and made them an extraordinary comment on post-war
Britain.
February 2016
Factual programmes commissioned in and since the last round.xlsx
TX Title
Comm Brief Description Proposal Synopsis
OPTIMISM - Our Enemy
Archive on 4
Panthers
Archive on 4
Period Drama Politics
Archive on 4
Pevsner: Through Outsider's Eyes
Pushing the Envelope
Archive on 4
Archive on 4
Return to Subtopia
Archive on 4
Reynolds' Radio Years (WT)
Rising Voices
Archive on 4
Archive on 4
Roald Dahl In His Own Words
Roy Jenkins - Father of the
Permissive Society?
Archive on 4
Archive on 4
Seventy Years in the Planning
Archive on 4
Skill, Stamina and Luck
Archive on 4
STAR TREK - THE UNDISCOVERED
FUTURE
Archive on 4
The Art of the Lyricist
The Art Of The Obit
Archive on 4
Archive on 4
The Bathrooms Are Coming: An
Internal History of Corporate Comms
Archive on 4
The Bomb That Made Manchester?
The Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band:
Anarchy Must Be Organised
Archive on 4
The Camera Never Lies
Archive on 4
Archive on 4
A polemic that tilts at the current cult of optimism of 'positive thinking' and the relentlessly upbeat mantras of
corporations and media.
An immersive, authentic, fast moving and gripping account of the rise and fall of the Black Panther Party for SelfDefence, their sound world- a group we think we know but arguably we do not.
Whenever the economy hits a crisis, Britons turn to period dramas which reconcile social tensions within a hierarchical
setting. This is more than escaping into harmless nostalgia; Steven Fielding argues that these dramas use the past to
encourage support for overtly conservative means of resolving contemporary social and political problems.
Tom Dyckhoff delves into the broadcast archive and looks at the nation through Nikolaus Pevner's eyes, questioning his
view of the adopted homeland he spent his life describing.
In search of the moment the avant-garde died.
The distinguished architectural historian Gillian Darley retraces the story of "Subtopia", one of the most significant
architectural debacles of the post-war era, and considers its long shadow.
As she turns 80, doyenne of radio writers Gillian Reynolds tells the story of the medium then, now and to come, as
filtered through her life as a listener, critic (for 50 years - anniversary 2017) and broadcaster - both for BBC and
commercial radio and television.
Feargal Keane explores the language, literature and song that inspired and immortalised the 1916 Easter Rising.
To mark the centenary of the birth of the man dubbed 'The World's Number 1 Storyteller' this programme mines the rich
seam of public and private interviews with Roald Dahl, to explore his unique combination of darkness, mischief and
invention which has spawned a creative legacy that continues to grow.
The remarkable story of how Roy Jenkins transformed Britain within two years in the mid-1960s by dramatically
liberalising laws on morals and civil rights - but did he create a civilised society or a permissive one?
Created seventy years ago, the 1947 Town and Country Planning Act balanced the state and the property owning
democracy. Will Self examines how idealism turned into the broken planning system we have today. His father was
TCPA chairman, and this is a personal journey from green belt to new town.
Armed with a pencil and a pair of dice, Naomi Alderman goes on an adventure into interactive fiction.
50 years after the first episode of 'Star Trek' aired, Kevin Fong asks what happened to the inspiring future that the iconic
TV series promised him?
As "My Fair Lady" marks its 60th anniversary with hit songs such as "I Could Have Danced All Night" and "On the Street
Where You Live", we explore the life, career and legacy of its lyricist, Alan Jay Lerner, and investigate the art of lyricists
in general through the BBC archive.
Matthew Bannister celebrates the culture, style, purpose and panache of the obituary.
The corporate jargon spouted by Jessica Hynes in full Siobhan mode may seem extreme, but behind it lie decades-old
questions which are prevalent in the world of internal communications. How do you sell your brand, motivate your staff
and engage a workforce? The language and formats have often been surprising.
It was the biggest bomb to explode on mainland Britain since WW2 and it destroyed a third of Manchester's city centre.
Twenty years on and a narrative has developed suggesting this was the turning point in the city's fortunes: but it's a
narrative that Michael Symmons Roberts will question.
The legendary Neil Innes looks back at the influence and influences of the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band and the collision of
art, humour, music, language and chaos that permeated the band's career.
Find a story' is the advice given to journalists. But at what cost? An examination of how the concept of truth in
documentaries has become skewed and what impact it's having today.
February 2016
Factual programmes commissioned in and since the last round.xlsx
TX Title
Comm Brief Description Proposal Synopsis
The Great Civiliser: How the Sewing
Machine Made the Modern World
Archive on 4
The Many Faces Of Ebenezer
Scrooge
Archive on 4
The Real Summer of Love
Archive on 4
The Shape of Things That Came
Archive on 4
The Unabomber
Archive on 4
The Villain in 6 Chapters
Archive on 4
Faith and Society (w/t)
Narrative History
Against The Grain
Narrative History
During Wind and Rain: A British
History in Weather
Narrative History
England: Made in the Middle (working
title)
Narrative History
Maria Margaronis unpicks the threads of how the Sewing Machine made the modern world.
Victorian families sat around the fire and read Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, published in 1843, over the festive
season. It became an annual ritual. This programme will explore the circumstances in which A Christmas Carol was
written and some of the key adaptations.
50 years on, historian Dominic Sandbrook punctures the myth of the Summer of Love, arguing that 1967 was a drab
parade of schmaltzy hits, mass conformism, and a notable lack of public nudity.
Seán Street presents a unique way of accessing archive material by juxtaposing HG Well's 1933 'future history' novel '
The Shape of Things to Come ' with recordings of what actually came to pass.
Twenty years after his final fatal attack, an exploration of the Unabomber's notorious campaign of terrorism against the
'tyranny' of mass technology.
We live in the age of the anti-hero; characters who proliferate pop culture and are no longer simply goodies and baddies.
This programme bemoans the rise of the anti-hero and fears s/he will kill off the villain. With a nefarious cast, it
celebrates the best of bad through the ages.
Neil MacGregor returns with a British Museum-BBC Radio 4 partnership project in which he examines the role of religion
and ideas of the sacred in societies around the globe and from the dawn of time.
The history of farming is the story of Britain and its relationship with post-war Europe. From wartime rationing, through
the butter mountains of the 1970s, to the in/out Referendum, how does agriculture shape our lives?
2000 years of life under grey skies and a fitful sun - this is the story of Britain told through weather. Alexandra Harris
narrates a cultural history of a countrywide obsession that has remained at the heart of a (changing) national
conversation.
Everyone knows what they think of the North and South of England. But what about the seemingly anonymous bit of the
country squeezed between those great self-mythologising power blocs: the Midlands?
Friends & Foes - A Narrative History
of Diplomacy ( previously Diplomacy) Narrative History
History of Marketing
Narrative History
Inglorious Isolation: A European's
History of Britain
Narrative History
They grease the cogs of international relations, yet as agents of history are all too often overlooked. In this series, David
Rothkopf charts the role of the international diplomat throughout post war history.
We go inside the history of one of the most important inventions of the modern world: marketing.
Prime Minster's Props
Scenes from Student Life
Manifesto!
Narrative History
Narrative History
Narrative History
Britain’s Black Past
The History of Secrecy
Narrative History
Narrative History
The Infinite: A Narrative History
Narrative History
The Robber Barons
Narrative History
David Cannadine explores the political image of five British Prime Ministers through the 'props' that came to define them.
A wide ranging engaging and pertinent history of the experience of higher education from the student perspective.
A bold, narrative history of modern art, drawing on a variety of different artists' manifestos.
The enormous success of 12 Years a Slave shines an important light on the daily life and dangers of slavery in America.
But what was life like for black people in Britain?
Tiffany Jenkins presents a narrative history of secrecy.
A philosophical, mathematical and cultural history of the infinite. Each episode focuses on one individual and explores
their contribution to our understanding of the infinite.
Gould, Carnegie, Morgan, Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, Mellon, Frick, Sears, Stanford and Ford built modern capitalism. They
still shape us but we know little about them. With the gap between the superrich and the rest now matching the 1890s
Adam asks: were these visionaries who built modernity? Or "Robber Barons" who strangled the little man's American
Dream?
A humorous and psychoanalytical history of the British from the European perspective.
February 2016
Factual programmes commissioned in and since the last round.xlsx
TX Title
Comm Brief Description Proposal Synopsis
Voices of The First World War
Narrative History
Frightened of Each Other's Shadows The 28' Documentary
Three sided football
The 28' Documentary
24 Hour Countdown
The 28' Documentary
A Bleeding Shame
The 28' Documentary
A Call from Joybubbles
The 28' Documentary
A Casual Clearance
The 28' Documentary
A Dirty Secret
The 28' Documentary
A Journey Through English
The 28' Documentary
A WASTE OF SPACE
The 28' Documentary
Abadan: the most profitable colony
Britain never had
After The Riots
The 28' Documentary
The 28' Documentary
Aftermath
The 28' Documentary
Age of Consent
Allen Carr: the man who wanted to
cure the world of smoking
The 28' Documentary
The 28' Documentary
Are Human Rights Really Universal?
w/t
The 28' Documentary
As Many Leaves
The 28' Documentary
A series in which we unite contemporary families with audio recordings of relatives involved in the Great War, animating
the lives of the Great War for a new generation.
Nihal presents a portrait of modern Britain in an epoch of terror.
Every weekend, a revolutionary game is played: a three-sided version of football. In this action-packed programme, Ian
McMillan gets his boots on and discovers the bewildering reality of Three- Sided Football with some of Britain's best
teams, including Philosophy Football FC, the Deptford Three Sided Football Club, the Strategic Optimists FC and the
New Cross Irregulars.
A series taking young offenders back over the 24 hours before their crimes unpicking events in the search for the
triggers involved. Listeners have no knowledge of how each programme ends and focusing on one case at a time gives
insight into the many missed moments and lost opportunities in any criminal act.
"Time of the month"; "women's troubles"; "Aunt Flo" -just some of the euphemisms for menstruation. Something
experienced by half the populatio, it is still associated with fear ,embarrassment, shame and cleanliness. Jane Garvey
explores the effect periods have on our lives and the billion dollar industry that caters to them.
The story of a subculture: the phone phreaks who honed their skills on the phone system and went on to play a key role
in modern computing. And the story of Joybubbles the blind genius at the centre of that subculture.
Many of us at some point have to bring in the auctioneers and house clearance experts to blitz a family home. So what
do we keep?
What's it like to own a toilet? For 1.1 billion people it's an unimaginable luxury - one that would confer status and help
prolong life.
A poetic radio journey through the accents of the English language - travelling across the country on the UK's longest
train journey - from North East Scotland to the South West.
A Waste of Space reveals and explores the ever more unusual spaces that city dwelling Brits are being forced to live in
as dramatically escalating rents, soaring property prices and the possible proscription of occupying vacant commercial
properties result in the need for new living solutions and creative environments.
This last British empire, the empire of oil has 'paid' better than any other.' John Strachey MP in The End of Empire. This
is the untold story of the city of Abadan and Britain's symbiotic relationship as told by the people - British and Iranian who lived it.
Five years after the August 2011 riots, Isis Thompson investigates what happened to the rioters
When the media circus leaves, we arrive. This is the story of what happens to a community in the aftermath of a major
incident that has rocked it to its core.
Drawing on her legal background and with an open philosophical approach, Helena Kennedy explores the idea of
consent.
A look back at the life and legacy of the most famous anti-smoking guru of recent times - Allen Carr.
Helena Kennedy QC explores the worldwide origins of human rights far from an exclusively 'Western' concept and long
predating the French and American revolutions and 'The Rights of Man' - they have been present around the whole
globe and present for a very long time.
A radio producer presents the most brutally honest and open tape she never wanted to record. A documentary about
divorce, love, loss and recovery.
February 2016
Factual programmes commissioned in and since the last round.xlsx
TX Title
Comm Brief Description Proposal Synopsis
Asquith Xavier is wonderful but sadly unfamiliar name. It belonged to a West Indian man who ought to be celebrated as
a hero because his 1966 fight for the right to work as a porter at Euston Station led to a strengthening of the Race
Relations Act.
On his return to the UK after 12 years living in the United States, writer and broadcaster Gary Younge meets six people
from African and Caribbean backgrounds, their friends and family, and explores what it's like to be young British and
black today.
Asquith's Fight For Equality
The 28' Documentary
Black Britain
The 28' Documentary
Black Flight and the New Suburbia
The 28' Documentary
Boarding School Messes
The 28' Documentary
Bootylicious
The 28' Documentary
Born in Bradford
The 28' Documentary
Bursting the Social Network Bubble
The 28' Documentary
Multiculturalism has previously been confined to our inner-cities, but as the latest census shows, this is changing quickly.
Hugh Muir explores the movement of BAME communities from urban areas to the English countryside.
How did public school educated Jonathan Asser manage to gain the trust of some of the UK's most violent offenders at
Wandsworth Prison? Even though they were at either end of the social spectrum, they had much in common; they all
grew up in institutions.
Beyoncé sings "my body is too Bootylicious for ya babe." What does that description of the black female physique mean
in the UK today? Bridgitte Tetteh asks why are African-Caribbean community more likely to be obese than their white
counterparts; why is it OK to be black and fat?
Winifred Robinson continues with her exclusive access to the largest health study of its kind ever undertaken and
involving 14,000 babies tracked since birth in the West Yorkshire city of Bradford.
Bobby Friction is addicted to social media - but the bubble he operates in is starting to suffocate him. We follow his
attempts to break out of the filtered boundaries of his social network. How hard can it be?
The 28' Documentary
The WAG moves east as a growing number of young Chinese women seek out a sugar daddy to sponsor a lifetime of
shopping. The BBC's China editor Carrie Gracie unpicks the motivating factors - or lack of - driving these modern-day
concubines and explores government measures to restore self-respect among young Chinese women.
China's Bland Ambition
Copyright or Wrong
Corbyn - the Inside Story (w/t)
The 28' Documentary
The 28' Documentary
Dancing Across Oceans
The 28' Documentary
Defending Freud (wt)
The 28' Documentary
Double-Talk
The 28' Documentary
Andrew Lloyd Webber has a trade mark to Evita's hands-raised pose.the BBC claims copyright theft against a Dr Who
knitting pattern.pro-piracy parties take seats in the European Parliament.copyright law has come a long way from an
18th century monopoly for book printers. Presented by leading copyright lawyer and author Richard Taylor Copyright or
Wrong explores its history its uncertain future in the internet age and whether the law is overreaching itself.
The inside story of Jeremy Corbyn's election as Labour leader and what followed.
Writer and broadcaster Roisin McAuley leaves her husband on shore as she is whisked on board and into the world of
the cruise-ship dance host.
A highly-authored and deeply philosophical argument in favour of traditional Freudian psychoanalysis in the face of the
growing public and political favouring of more measurable - and cheaper - forms of therapy.
A one-off, free form feature that explores the idea of the dialogue - as a cornerstone for how we communicate, how we
think; a framework in discussion in philosophy in politics in psychoanalysis.
The 28' Documentary
As Schumacher College in Devon celebrates it's twenty-fifth anniversary, Leo Johnson, brother of Boris, former
employee at the World Bank and the green sheep of the family explores the legacy of economist E.F. Schumacher. Was
he a visionary realist or a romantic idealist? And why is Schumacher's 'small is beautiful' thinking so relevant today?
E.F. Schumacher - Is Small Really
Beautiful
February 2016
Factual programmes commissioned in and since the last round.xlsx
TX Title
Comm Brief Description Proposal Synopsis
Europe: Strangers on my doorstep
The 28' Documentary
Everybody Hates Me
The 28' Documentary
Fair Shares
For Better or Worse
The 28' Documentary
The 28' Documentary
Green Cities From Bricks And Mortar The 28' Documentary
Grey Flares... Grey Hairs
Hardeep's Sunday Lunch
I Work For The Government, And
Let's Leave It At That
The 28' Documentary
The 28' Documentary
Ian Sansom and The Little People
The 28' Documentary
In Search of Southern Hospitality
The 28' Documentary
In the Criminologist's Chair
The 28' Documentary
It's Obscene!
James Wong's Alternative Country
Garden
The 28' Documentary
Journey of a Lifetime
The 28' Documentary
The 28' Documentary
The 28' Documentary
Jutland: The Battle that Won the War The 28' Documentary
Lifer
The 28' Documentary
One Day In Entebbe
The 28' Documentary
Our Man in China: The Diaries
The 28' Documentary
In 2015, more than a million migrants arrived in Europe, many fleeing wars in Syria and Iraq. Keith Morris goes to a
Swedish village which used to have a population of 600 but where there are now 800 migrants. In Germany, Chris
Bowlby explores how the nation's recent history has influenced its approach to refugees. Maria Margaronis travels to
Hungary.
James Walton explores what's it like to have a job that guarantees you'll spend your working life being despised by the
public. What personal qualities are needed to put up with it? What if any are the psychological costs? Do these jobs
attract people who have a thick skin to begin with or do you have to develop one in order to survive?
Aditya Chakrabortty investigates one of the key questions of our time - how do employees get a fair share for their work?
Three years on is, marriage amongst same sex couples meeting expectations?
DAN CRUICKSHANK explores what it takes to make a garden city work; how architects planners and residents views
differ and how welding possibilities of technology with imagination can create a garden city with a liberating landscape in
which communities can not only thrive - but be happy.
In 'Grey Shorts and Sandals,' Christopher Matthew and Martin Jarvis returned to their childhood homes and
remembered their schooldays of a by-gone age.
Hardeep Singh Kohli cooks Sunday lunch for people with remarkable stories.
Julia Langdon, who might well have become a spy, uncovers the surprising ways women have been recruited into the
British secret services and reveals how important that process is today.
Ian Sansom goes in search of the little people of the Cooley mountain peninsula and meets the last leprechaun
whisperer in Ireland.
This light hearted program will explore whether southern hospitality of old is still thriving in the modern cynical world.
Criminologist Professor David Wilson interviews three former criminals. He explores not just the individual
circumstances of their cases but the extent to which criminology can make sense of their actions. Each programme
illustrates a different facet of criminology.
Matthew Syed of the Times takes an axe to one of the holiest totems of consensual opinion: the idea that leading
sportsmen's pay and the gender pay gap are "obscene".
Gardening evangelist James Wong excavates our attachment to a Victorian gardening idyll proposing a radical new
vision for his own Country Garden.
A marker for the continuing and highly successful partnership with the Royal Geographical Society in which a young
competition-winning adventurer takes a microphone to record their journey to a place otherwise inaccessible to Radio 4 and to almost all of us.
Lord West tells the story of the Battle of Jutland arguing that it was the most important military confrontation of the First
World War, tipping the scales decisively in favour of Britain and her allies.
A unique insight into the world of Lifers - the prisoners who will never be released.
The impact of the extraordinary 1976 Entebbe operation is still felt in today's ongoing war against terrorism. Through
interviews and compelling archive, we hear how the Entebbe rescue reshaped the world's most enduring conflict - and
transformed Binyamin Netanyahu, whose brother was the raid's commander and only military casualty.
The extraordinary story of the Irishman who became one of the most senior officials in the Chinese court witnessing and
documenting life as China's ancient dynastic rule collapsed.
February 2016
Factual programmes commissioned in and since the last round.xlsx
TX Title
Comm Brief Description Proposal Synopsis
Out of the Ordinary
Power of the Whips: the Silent
Enforcers
The 28' Documentary
The Intimate Art of Tattoo
The 28' Documentary
The Work of the Peace Keeper
(working title)
The 28' Documentary
The 28' Documentary
Renaissance Man to Portfolio Person The 28' Documentary
Self's Search For Meaning
The 28' Documentary
Shrinking Population: How Japan Fell
Out Of Love With Love
The 28' Documentary
ST HELENA - JOINING THE REST
OF US
The 28' Documentary
Standing up to the Sharing Economy
The 28' Documentary
Supply And Demand
The 28' Documentary
Sushi Marriagesn (w/t)
The 28' Documentary
Swansong
Swapping Psalms For Pop Songs The Story Of The Atheist Church
The Women behind the Grooming
Men
The 28' Documentary
Europe - Roots of an Identity
The 28' Documentary
Civilisation - a Sceptic's Guide
The Deobandis
The Anglo-Irish Century
The 28' Documentary
The 28' Documentary
The 28' Documentary
The 28' Documentary
The 28' Documentary
Jolyon Jenkins tells extraordinary stories of ordinary people acting on the fringes of normal behaviour.His intimate
presenting style brings us closer to the subjects and makes us re-examine how we ourselves behave.
Giles Dilnot explores the dynamics of the political enforcers: the Government Whips. Using rare access to the new
(Conservative) regime he tells the story of the most powerful people in Parliament.
Laurence Llewelyn Bowen chooses a design, rolls up his shirtsleeve and prepares to join the estimated 25% of the
British population who have a tattoo. He wants to subvert listeners' scepticism fear and repulsion of body art and to find
out what's driving more and more of us to acquire permanent inkings.
Charlotte Higgins, cultural journalist and writer turns her watchful eyes from the BBC to UNESCO, another world
renowned institution set up 70 years ago with great optimism and purpose, in this case after the Second World War, with
the remit to propel the world out of conflict.
As Renaissance Man is replaced by Portfolio Person, Sarfraz Manzoor investigates the role of the modern specialist expert, precise and deep or limited, narrow and unsuited to today's portfolio careers?
In a three part series Will Self asks key opinion makers from the fields of Science Philosophy and Faith to share their
conclusions about the nature and meaning of our existence. In the absence of certainty what strengthens their
convictions and can their ideas imbue our own lives with purpose?
As their young embrace singledom, rejecting 'troublesome' partners for relationship substitutes, Japan's authorities are
tackling rapid population decline with speed-dating, better childcare and increased paternity allowances.
In 2016, the long promised airport on St Helena will be finally built. Joe Hollins, island vet, follows the months leading up
to the opening and the end of the bi-annual Royal Mail ship as the island struggles with a new fast link to the wide world
outside.
The sharing economy, once just casual transactions between friends and family, is now a global movement oft
ransactions worth millions -so how can traditional companies who are now losing out fight back?
"When I used to be a supply teacher my life was hell". This documentary will give warts and all account of supply
teaching through a day in the life of three supply teachers.
When a Sunni and a Shia Muslim in Britain tie the knot this is jokingly referred to as a Sushi marriage. Such marriages,
while not uncommon, have become more complex as Zubeida Malik discovers: the wars in Syria and Iraq have polarized
Britain's Muslim community along sectarian lines.
Under the EBU's international Åke Blomström award scholarship, feature maker Hana Walker-Brown offers a moving
and evocative portrait of a loved one's last hours.
The surprising phenomenon sweeping the globe - the atheist church.
This documentary hears from the women in the Asian community affected by the convictions of their grooming men. For
the first time, their views will be heard.
Historian Margaret MacMillan discovers the real roots of European life. Visiting Rome, Tallinn and Amsterdam she
discovers constant tension between what's united and what's divided. From empires to small towns, high ideals to low
conflict, frontiers to food, railways to religion, an exploration of a Europe in constant creation.
Following our success with 'Nationalism', David Cannadine addresses another divisive and dangerously simplistic
human grouping : CIVILISATION.
Owen Bennett-Jones traces the history and controversial links of Britain's largest Islamic network.
The story of 100 years of Anglo-Irish relations after the Easter Rising in 1916.
February 2016
Factual programmes commissioned in and since the last round.xlsx
TX Title
Comm Brief Description Proposal Synopsis
The Barclaycard Gamble
The 28' Documentary
The Borders of Sanity
The 28' Documentary
The Business of Music with Matt
Everitt
The 28' Documentary
The Case for Doing Nothing
The 28' Documentary
The Drop Out Boogie
The 28' Documentary
The English Fix
The 28' Documentary
The Great Egg Freeze
The 28' Documentary
The Green Book w/t
The Half: A Countdown To
Performance
The 28' Documentary
The Inevitable
The 28' Documentary
The Islamic Cold War (w/t)
The 28' Documentary
The Secret History of Yoga
The Sigh
The 28' Documentary
The 28' Documentary
The Tarpaulin - A Biography
The 28' Documentary
The Truth About Children Who Lie
The Vigil
THE WEB SHEIKH AND THE
MUSLIM MUMS
The 28' Documentary
The 28' Documentary
The remarkable story of how a six page document and an investment of just £20,000 became the first step on a road
that changed British society forever.
Christopher Harding asks if the medicalisation of mental illness obscures the wide variation between countries and
cultures and means missing the role of meaning in psychiatric disorders.
We're in the midst of the greatest music industry disruption of the past 100 years. Last year, music streaming and
downloading surpassed physical CD sales. With Apple set to launch a streaming service that could change the dynamic
once more, Matt Everitt asks: who really runs the music business?
From the biggest of issues to the most trivial, there are huge pressures on governments to act, to initiate and to
modernise. But would it sometimes be better for politicians to simply 'do nothing'?
Dropping out used to be the hip counter-cultural thing to do - but in an age where young people are subjected to such
immense pressure to succeed, dropping out of University goes entirely against the prevailing wind. Recent drop-out
Ruby Tandoh meets others who've taken the brave/foolhardy step.
Patrick Wright has spent much of his career thinking about English identity - a question which has become more
pressing in recent years.
Fi Glover considers the controversial trend of egg freezing offered by employers as a corporate benefit - using unique
access she has gained to testimonies from a diversity of women. This is personal - Fi once considered this choice for
herself.
For black motorists in the mid-twentieth century, The Green Book was a catalogue of refuge and tolerance in a hostile
and intolerant world.
Performers from different disciplines reveal what they do in the 30 minutes before facing an audience. A documentary in
real-time.
Patrick McGuinness unpicks the historical, political and rhetorical uses of The Inevitable in a playful, provocative,
intellectually adventurous journey from classical Fate to modern market forces.
Tarek Osman gets to grips with one of the most misunderstood and important divides of our time - the Sunni-Shia split and looks to history for both explanation and enlightenment.
BBC Radio 4 looks at the rapidly-changing 'wild-west' economy of social media marketing, driven largely by a generation
of young people growing up in the digital age. What do these changes mean for the future of media and does it infringe
people's expectations of so-called 'user-generated content'.
The unknown story of the fastest-rising ideology of our age.
Mukti Jain Campion discovers the yoga she's been practising along with tens of millions of other people in the West has
a very surprising hidden history - very different from the spiritual Indian one that most people imagine.
The psychology of the science and the cultural significance of sighing.
There is a terrifying and growing global problem: statelessness. Across the world, the stateless are denied basic human
rights. A simple fabric offers them protection: the tarpaulin. Historian Dr Dina Gusejnova will argue that the story of the
tarpaulin reveals much about the human condition.
Lying is a hot topic: for philosophers and psychologists, economists and linguists, there's a huge current interest in public
and private deception and what we should make of it. In this programme, psychotherapist Philippa Perry looks at the
fascinating work being done to understand the development of lying in children.
A fascinating insight into a profound, everyday, but rarely discussed experience: sitting with a dying parent.
The 28' Documentary
We accompany a rarely-heard group of Muslim Mums as they investigate the world of online preachers.
The 28' Documentary
THE KIDS WHO DECIDE WHAT ALL
THE OTHER KIDS TALK ABOUT
The 28' Documentary
The Libertarians
The 28' Documentary
February 2016
Factual programmes commissioned in and since the last round.xlsx
TX Title
Comm Brief Description Proposal Synopsis
This Series Has Been Redacted
The 28' Documentary
To Whom It May Concern
The 28' Documentary
Too Many Helping Hands
The 28' Documentary
At times, liberal society must be defended by illiberal means. With hate speech more common and socially corrosive
than ever before, Melanie Phillips argues that limiting free speech is an essential tool in defending life and liberty in a
free society.
Proinsias Ó Coinn goes in search of the rightful owner of a military jacket which he bought nearly 10 years ago in
Belfast.
"Inclusion" of disabled people has become an educational article of faith. This programme challenges that status quo
though the fascinating stories of two sets of blind siblings from different generations.
Who are you again?
The 28' Documentary
Mary Ann Sieghart, writer and broadcaster, has prosopagnosia - face blindness. She cannot identify faces, sometimes
even of those closest to her. She uncovers this rare life-long condition and how it affects every minute of her day.
You May Now Turn Over Your Papers The 28' Documentary
Mary Beard tells the intriguing story of the history of exams.
February 2016