The Archive
Seriously interesting documentaries from Radio 4.
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Can a shaman cure writer's block? Playwright David Greig tries to find out.
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People talk frankly about the challenging experience of sitting with a dying parent.
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Eight years after she met him in Mississippi, Chloe Hadjimatheou searches for Tobias.
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David Bramwell sets out to prove that anyone can be a good public speaker.
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Step inside the voice booth to find out what is the value of talking at all.
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Oona King reveals how West Indian Asquith Xavier fought a colour bar at Euston station.
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Nina Plapp takes her cello Cuthbert to Rajasthan in search of the roots of gypsy music.
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Andrew Ross Sorkin traces the reputation of UK and USA bankers through history.
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Cinema's great love story - UK director Michael Powell and US editor Thelma Schoonmaker.
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Ian Peddie studies new Texan laws allowing concealed handguns into classrooms.
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Historian Dan Cruickshank asks if new garden cities are the answer to our housing crisis.
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The Singer sewing machine has whirred its way through history as Maria Margaronis unravels
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The rise and fall of the Black Panther Party and its legacy for American black insurgency.
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Laurence Llewelyn Bowen explores the exponential rise in tattooing across the UK.
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The Jack Reacher author Lee Child investigates the unusual life of author John D Macdonald
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Doon Mackichan asks if we need a moratorium on glossy TV dramas with female victims.
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Stephen Barber calls on politicians to resist the urge to act and instead do nothing.
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Clare Jenkins explores the emotional challenges faced clearing out her parents' home.
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Laurence Llewelyn Bowen explores the exponential rise in tattooing across the UK.
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Olivia Laing presents an imaginative portrait of the musician Arthur Russell.
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Alexei Sayle on the cultural impact of the Dada movement, 100 years since it was founded.
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What is wrong with being black and curvy? Bridgitte Tetteh investigates.
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Charlotte Higgins explores the work of the UN's peacekeeping agency.
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Toby Jones celebrates the mercurial world of the villain.
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Leprechauns, sprites, imps and elves - Ian Sansom is searching for the diminutive other.
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Tulip Mazumdar finds young people in Japan rejecting intimacy and a population in decline.
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Mark Hodkinson revisits the sitcom Love Thy Neighbour, 40 years after it was last shown
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Garden designer James Wong asks if British gardening is stuck in the past.
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Clarke Peters follows the croon and practitioners of the art including Rudy Vallee.
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Sir David Attenborough examines new evidence on a controversial theory of human origins.
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Five Muslim mums come together to discuss the hate messages their children are exposed to.
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Abdul-Rehman Malik explores the longstanding relationship between Islam and coffee.
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Aside from the physical landscape, what does graffiti and street art actually change?
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Anjana Ahuja believes we should take control of our online identity before it is too late.
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Alice Roberts goes in search of the man who taught us how to control our own dreams.
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Alan Dein takes a breakneck tour through the history of the public information film.
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The artist asks why collections from Oceania, the Americas and Africa are hidden from view
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The courageous journey of refugee Yusra Mardini, from war-torn Syria to the Rio Olympics.
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Former Lehman Brothers banker Henry Dodds explores our relationship with money.
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The changing accents on the UK's longest rail journey, the 0820 from Aberdeen to Penzance.
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How do Sunni-Shia couples handle the deepening gulf between their two sects of Islam?
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An immersive river journey through the city of Sheffield and its industrial past.
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An apple, a car, even a super yacht... Why are so many things called Jazz?
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Jane Garvey reflects on women and cars with presenter Suzi Perry and driver Susie Wolff.
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Kevin Fong boldly goes in search of Star Trek's 50-year-old vision of the future.
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Simon Read explores the psychological impact on people who fall victim to fraudsters.
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Viv Groskop explores Gustave Courbet's notorious and explicit painting.
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Financial guru Alvin Hall returns to his Florida hometown.
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Psychotherapist Philippa Perry investigates when and why children lie.
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Stephen Smith takes a wry look at the mid-life crisis.
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Seventy years ago, an article about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima rocked the world.
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David Wilson talks to former bank robber Noel 'Razor' Smith about his life in crime.
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Vivienne Parry asks if the NHS can deliver the benefits of genomic medicine for all.
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Maya Amin-Smith explores the legacy of the Grunwick dispute, four decades after it began.
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Marie-Louise Muir explores the tradition of keening for the dead in Ireland.
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Film-maker and writer Jane Darke puts out to sea with the Cornish poet Charles Causley.
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What did the Birmingham Six case alter - could such miscarriages of justice happen today?
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Animal wisdom, mothers and sons. What do killer whales tell us about the human menopause?
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Nihal Arthanayake presents a portrait of contemporary Britain in an epoch of terror.
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Mark Vernon explores the phenomenon of the Sunday Assembly.
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A look at the support provided for victims of stalking and ways to stop stalkers.
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Sound expert Julian Treasure explores how open plan design affects us.
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Marie-Louise Muir explores 25 years of Signature Theatre company with founder Jim Houghton
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Film-maker Isis Thompson considers the impact of the 2011 riots five years on.
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Can a long-lost design classic be rediscovered at the bottom of the Thames?
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Joss Ackland narrates a search through Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ archives for unheard gems from JRR Tolkien.
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Simon Callow explores one of the earliest forms of human interaction.
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Giles Dilnot uncovers what the most mysterious figures in parliament really do.
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An archive of the most powerful people, shaping the monumental events of modern history.
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Michael Rosen visits the house of the late poet, Adrian Mitchell.
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Profane rubbish or bold rebellion? How did Viz become an acclaimed, best-selling magazine?
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Hugh Muir charts the movement of ethnic minorities from cities to the English countryside.
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Aditya Chakrabortty reports on the fate of India's all-night classical music concert.
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Cartoonist Gerald Scarfe tells the story of one of the greatest movies never made.
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Mary Beard tells the intriguing story of the history of exams.
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Julia Langdon uncovers how women spooks have been recruited over the years.
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Roald Dahl tells his own story in his own words with the help of his granddaughter Sophie.
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Mary Ann Sieghart is not rude, she just cannot identify people by their faces.
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Anna Nguyen journeys to Vietnam rediscover the war-torn country her parents fled in 1975.
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The extraordinary hostage rescue story that changed the Middle East.
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Maria Margaronis explores worlds of hope and chaos for refugees and islanders in Greece.
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David Hockney embarks on an ambitious new portrait series from his Californian studio.
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Jane Garvey examines the topic of menstruation and asks if attitudes are finally changing.
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Critic and broadcaster Gillian Reynolds celebrates 50 years' professional radio listening.
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The story of how easy credit changed British society forever.
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Mukti Jain Campion explores the surprising origins of modern yoga practice.
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Sarfraz Manzoor tells the story of Pakistani writer Sa'adat Manto and assesses his legacy.
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Elis James's polemical appraisal of football's role in constructing modern Welsh identity
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Michael Symmons Roberts examines the myth that the 1996 bomb heralded Manchester's rebirth
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The story of Jimmy Scott, one of the 20th Century's most overlooked vocalists.
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Two-part documentary looking at the second most remote community in the world.
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A musical portrait of how the jazz trumpeter Miles Davis became a painter in later life.
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Mark Hodkinson looks at the impact of punk rock in Yorkshire.
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Winifred Robinson reports on the lives of thousands of families being tracked in Bradford.
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A night out in the Latino suburbs with the mariachis of Boyle Heights, East LA.
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Bafta award-winning film-maker Molly Dineen examines the concept of truth in documentary.
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Lucy Cooke explores our seeming obsession with all things cute.
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Alistair McGowan uncovers the sensational, creative life of the Irish composer John Field.
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Jarvis Cocker celebrates the life and work of literary wunderkind Carson McCullers.
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A timely retracing of the passionate Subtopia campaign against postwar town planning.
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The story of how two of the greatest albums of all time were released on the same day.
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Is small the next big? Leo Johnson explores the radical vision of EF Schumacher.
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Dane Hurst takes a dance floor to South Africa for use by underprivileged children.
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A timely retracing of the passionate Subtopia campaign against postwar town planning.
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Peter McGraith hears personal accounts of same-sex marriage in post equality Britain.
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David Tennant explores the autobiographical back story to Osborne's revolutionary play.
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Dr Shahidha Bari looks at the history of the sari.
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Insiders discuss the decisions that have transformed the record industry.
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Google dominates internet searching. Rory Cellan-Jones asks if it is too powerful.
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Robert McCrum journeys across Obama's America in search of Shakespeare and what he means to Americans today.
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Oliver Burkeman explores the frequent human experience of feeling like a fraud.
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Fergal Keane explores the cultural landscape of the 1916 Easter Rising.
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A meditation on loss, with real and imagined stories bound by sound and silence.
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Why do so many university students fail to finish their degrees?
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Comedian Rich Hall investigates the true meaning of American southern hospitality.
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How the portrayal of the working class and poor in film and TV has changed over 70 years.
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Harriet Sergeant investigates whether empty commercial buildings could house the homeless.
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Radio 4 announcer Kathy Clugston is anosmic. She cannot smell - and wants to know why.
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How a reclusive maths prodigy terrorised America - and how the media amplified his cause.
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Ian McMillan presents the story of a baffling game with three sides and only three rules.
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Can psychedelic drugs overcome their notoriety to become accepted for routine medical use?
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A major investigation reveals how the world's most notorious regimes get around sanctions.
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Notorious Soviet spy Kim Philby as he's never been heard before.
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Mary-Ann Ochota visits Bangladesh and India to ask why 2.3bn people lack adequate toilets.
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Documentaries about dance, dancers and dancing.
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Philip Hensher explores the art of the gloriously eccentric Molesworth books.
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Comedian and musician Richard Morton recalls the heyday of the classic TV theme.
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Succeeding against the odds. What does it take to turn your life around?
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Could we, and should we, eradicate mosquitoes? Professor Adam Hart investigates.
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Songwriter Amy Wadge investigates the history and potential of the harmonica.
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How should Britain manage its returning foreign fighters?
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Kenneth Steven explores Edwin Muir's poetic search for the lost Eden of his childhood.
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Clarke Peters explores the art of the lyricist to mark My Fair Lady's 60th anniversary.
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Kate Mossman tells the story of the long-overlooked female music writers of the 1960s.
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A two-part Seriously following Tim Robbins's acting classes in LA's Norco prison.
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Two-part celebration of the development and impact of the record-playing turntable.
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Neil Innes looks at the collision of art, humour, music and anarchy in Bonzo Dog.
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Ex-convicts tell intimate stories of how they renounced lives of crime.
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Grey-haired professor Mary Beard investigates why fewer people are now glad to be grey.
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Michael Rosen tells the little-known story of how the poem She Walks in Beauty was set to Jewish music.
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Will the sale of harvested rhino horn help to stop poaching?
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Mike Thomson reports on an extraordinary series of diaries on life inside 'Islamic State'.
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Five years after Japan's tsunami, some survivors report seeing the ghosts of the dead.
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Michael Palin tells the story of a group of refugees welcomed in by a small Somerset town.
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Gareth Gwynn uncovers the fantastical world of a Welsh cultural lodestone Iolo Morganwg.
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Meteorologist Peter Gibbs returns to Antarctica, where he spent two years in the 1980s.
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American satirist Joe Queenan explores the importance of not doing what one is told.
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Deborah Coughlin examines the value of art to communities and cities.
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Lauren Laverne celebrates Kenneth Grahame's classic tale The Wind in the Willows.
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Simon Schama offers some context for the destruction of antiquities in Syria and Iraq.
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Joseph Harker asks why Britain's classical music scene remains so resolutely white.
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Naomi Alderman presents a history of interactive fiction.
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The colourful career of British composer and transgender pioneer Angela Morley.
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20 years after Trainspotting's release, the real-life addicts who inspired the actors.
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How 3 months in rural Devon influenced one of the greatest chroniclers of urban New York.
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Natalie Haynes finds out why adultery remains such a regular subject in popular culture.
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Benjamin Ramm explores one of the strangest chapters in China's history - mango mania.
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A blind musical prodigy learns echolocation from Daniel Kish.
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A collection of documentaries on films, film-making and film-makers.
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Comedian Tim Key spins his own surreal tale of one of Russia's greatest short stories.
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Matthew Cobb explores the excitement and concerns about the new genome editing technology.
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Moby-Dick was made in England. Paul Farley tells a story of fast fish and loose fish.
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Journalist Lynne Truss prepares to cringe as she investigates embarrassment.
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David Aaronovitch asks why Mao's Little Red Book captured the imagination of the west.
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A mysterious note sends a visitor to Belfast on a labyrinthine journey through the city.
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Zareer Masani returns to Mumbai to measure India's changing attitudes to homosexuality.
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Adam Hart reveals how humanity is altering the evolutionary paths of other creatures.
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David Bowie's extraordinary life and career told in his own words.
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Geoff Ryman explores stories about women and men in future worlds. Plus original story No Point Talking.
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Gavin Esler tells the story of Hermann Goering's brother, who claimed he saved people from Nazi persecution.
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The story of how ethnic fear has been used from the republic through to Donald Trump.
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Why are orchids so popular? Jim Endersby offers a new scientific history of their allure.
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Michael Symmons Roberts the book behind one of our most influential ideas: Utopia.
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Composer Adam Gorb goes on a journey to listen to the lost music of concentration camps.
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Seriously podcast presenter Femi Martin's autobiographical documentary.
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The late Bruce Lacey reflects on his life in this 2014 documentary.
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How do government ministers take decisions in the 21st Century?
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Samira Ahmed meets British Asian women who, like her, were inspired by David Bowie.
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What has happened to traditional French values since the Charlie Hebdo killings?
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Professor Andrew Hussey asks why we should let the toad of work squat on our lives.
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A family of Syrian migrants risks everything in a remarkable journey to Germany.
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Before she died, Jonathan Freedland's sister's left a unique audio legacy - her own Desert Island Discs.
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Hashi Mohamed follows the trail of of unaccompanied child migrants arriving in Europe.
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Self-confessed greedy pig Jay Rayner gets serious about porkers
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Miranda Sawyer explores the magic of the school nativity play.
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Restaurateur Henry Dimbleby unravels the deep-seated attachment of the British to eating meat.
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Sharmini Selvarajah meets interfaith families facing the 'December dilemma'.
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A centenary celebration of the life and work of Frank Sinatra.
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Caroline Nin listens to those drawn to sing the music of the legendary French performer.
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Mukti Jain Campion discovers how Indians are embracing the online shopping revolution.
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Sukhdev Sandhu tells the story of a book of hippy philosophy that defined the 1960s.
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Why has the white collar worker has become a central figure in TV series and comic books in Japan?
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The extraordinary story of the day an epic Holocaust documentary was premiered in Israel.
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Archive on 4 uncovers the forgotten history of Britons in space.
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How has Chinese ownership changed a Scottish castle after it spent generations in the same family?
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Stephen Evans goes deep into the Milky Way to look at the phenomenon of StarCraft.
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How the American record industry responded to the assassination of President Kennedy.
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Internet security is vital, but increasingly fragile. Edward Lucas explores online trust.
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Jim Al-Khalili investigates whether there is a link between age and scientific creativity.
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Clare Jenkins presents a personal insight into the world of premature babies.
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US Air Force veteran and poet Lynn Hill opens up the alien soul of 21st Century warfare.
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Jim Al-Khalili and fellow physicists explain why they think equations are beautiful.
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A collection of documentaries on modern and contemporary classical music.
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Lucy Kellaway explores UK office culture in a three-part series.
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Mat Fraser meets the former showgirls getting back on stage in their 70s and 80s.
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Siouxsie Sioux celebrates Alice's Adventures in Wonderland on its 150th anniversary.
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Anna McNamee explores atomic science as poetic inspiration.
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What can animals tell us about the origins of our numerical abilities?
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Glenda Jackson travels to Paris for documentary about influential French writer Emile Zola.
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Neil Kinnock assesses the poetry of a fellow Welshman, Idris Davies.
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How did an 18th Century British Army bugle call become a sacred anthem of remembrance?
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Maddy Prior and daughter Rose Kemp swap musical genres - folk rock and doom drone.
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The work of Imam Alyas Karmani, counselling those Muslims who have troubled sex lives.
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The story of Pete Atkin and Clive James, one of the most enduring songwriting relationships in history.
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Lewis Carroll's roots in the north east of England are uncovered by Simon Farnaby.
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Seven magnificent documentaries chosen and introduced by the legendary radio maker.
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Nomia Iqbal learns how youth radio has played a part in Myanmar's shift from military rule
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Michael Symmons Roberts on the life and legacy of visionary philanthropist Thomas Horsfall.
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Clap those hands, stamp those feet! Chris Stewart goes on the trail of flamenco in Granada.
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A two-part look at the complex man at the heart of the Black Arts movement in 1960s America.
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Actor Jack Shepherd goes backstage to unearth the strange tales of haunted theatres.
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Horatio Clare meets the German student duellists for whom a scar is a badge of honour.
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The story of abolitionist and freed slave Frederick Douglass's time in Scotland.
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Jolyon Jenkins reports on Spiral Tribe, the 90s free party sound system, still raving.
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Julian Joseph recounts how jazz diplomacy was used during the Cold War.
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Christopher Bigsby traces the life and work of Arthur Miller, mostly in Miller's own words.
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Ben Hammersley investigates fictional universes, from Harry Potter to Game of Thrones.
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Sophie Thompson and Phyllida Law celebrate 50 years of The Magic Roundabout.
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Comedian Hugh Dennis travels to Gallipoli to discover how his great uncle died in World War I.
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Andy Kershaw re-examines the Bob Dylan album that changed popular music and his life.
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Stephen Smith embarks on a journey to rediscover the lost joys of getting lost.
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The son of a US soul singer father and Sheffield mother seeks his American roots.
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Folk singer Eliza Carthy finds a new song to sing from Manchester's 19th Century broadside ballads.
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Performer Byron Vincent tries to overcome his paralysing fear of social situations.
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A reluctant bearer snaps at the cultural significance of gap teeth.
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The daughter of a former Chernobyl engineer returns to her father's workplace.
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Residents discuss Van Morrison's return to the east Belfast neighbourhood of his youth for gigs commemorating his 70th birthday.
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Nichi Hodgson asks whether there's scope for an ethical code for producing porn.
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The 6 Music DJ discusses private pressings with DIY musicians from the 1970s and 1980s.
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Dotun Adebayo explores his teenage obsession with James Dean.
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Writer Neil Gaiman examines the Orpheus myth in literature.
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Lauren Laverne looks into a cultural phenomenon - the selfie.
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An aspiring pop star meets Jacques Attali, a polymath who in 1976 predicted today's music industry crisis.
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Lainy Malkani uncovers her family's roots on the sugar plantations of British Guiana.
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Former MI5 boss Stella Rimington investigates the startling case of a woman hanged during WW1.
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Alan Bennett and musicians young and old consider the orchestral heritage of Yorkshire.
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A reflection in sound on the life of Virginia Fiennes, first wife of explorer Sir Ranulph.
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A look at the violence and tribalism present at music gigs in the late 1970s and 1980s.
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Gordon Brown tells the story of James Keir Hardie, Labour's first leader.
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The story of two New York churches that survived 9/11 and are now healing the community.
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Photographer Eamonn McCabe curates his own photo exhibition on the radio.
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Have computers helped us amass too much information for us to understand?
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Gerald Scarfe explores the activity of the Walt Disney Studio during World War Two.
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Harry Shearer takes stock in his hometown of New Orleans, a decade after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.
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Two decades after his death, why does Sun Ra continue to inspire an obsessive following?
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Leala Padmanabhan investigates problem drinking among older people in the UK, starting with the story of her own father.
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1000s of cassettes were found in Osama Bin Laden's abandoned Kabul compound in 2002. What was on them?
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Five decades after The Beatles played Shea Stadium, Kate Mossman traces a history of stadium rock.
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What does your body mass index really tell you about how healthy you are?
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The story of Lord Byron's abandoned daughter, whose tragic life haunted her father's imagination.
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Stuart Maconie asks, what's so special about friendships between men from the north of England?
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The real Japan and the Japan depicted in Western media are two different places. How have they influenced each other?
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Seth Lakeman investigates the history and influence of the Newport Folk Festival.
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The story of a mysterious find on Morecambe beach by one man and his dog.
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Fearless, fanatical and female. Bridget Kendall investigates women who turn to terror.
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Think it's just simple playground game? Think again.
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From false memories to brain trauma - a collection of programmes about what goes on inside the head.
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Does working the night shift reduce your lifespan? Sarah Montague investigates.
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A collection of programmes about weird instruments and unearthly rhythms.
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A quiet celebration of the rich and various virtues of silence.
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Five women who worked as WW2 codebreakers in their youth tell their incredible stories.
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Fascinating facts in 15 minutes.
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Comedian Stewart Lee introduces his private passion - free improvised music.
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Award-winning author Philip Hoare attends a porpoise necropsy and thinks about going inside a whale.
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Unexpected stories from across the globe.
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Series following 30 East End kids who helped London secure the Olympics.
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Susan Calman finds out why our feline overlords rule cyberspace.
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A collection of programmes detailing the facts behind the funny.
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Speed drummers and guitar shredders: the world of the virtuoso.
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Young females are dating wealthy older men via websites. Who is being exploited?
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Weird words and marginalia from fisher poets and hepcats.
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Are you ready for Scottee's personal brand of fat activism?
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Moving stories from magical musicians.
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Ten years of Antony Gormley's epic installation on Crosby beach.