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Evocations of seascapes lie behind some of the loveliest music and writing ever made and this programme, in honour of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution's 200-year history, looks to the full range of encounters with the waves. We will hear the imagined words of children planning sea adventure in Michael Morpurgo and Eva Ibbotson, the terrifying descriptions of cliff-like waves in Sebastian Junger’s The Perfect Storm, The Shipping News from E Annie Proulx , swashbuckling tales from Patrick O’Brian and tales of trade in the Horn of Africa from Abdulrazak Gurnah. We will hear the Irish RNLI lifeboat helm and poet Eleanor Hooker's poem Float to Live and more. All of these are accompanied by sea-inspired music – orchestral pieces from the likes of Peter Maxwell Davies, that come close to aural metaphor for the ocean itself to sea shanties and traditional sea hymns giving thanks for rescue. We will journey out hopeful, encounter a sudden storm, face disaster, rescue and return to port as seasoned sea dogs. The readers are Carla Henry, Josh Bryant Jones and Blue Lights actor Martin McCann.

Producer in Salford: Olive Clancy

Readings:
Katherine Mansfield - A Little Boys Dream
Zora Neale Thurston - Their Eyes Were Watching Gods
Michael Morpurgo - Kensuke’s Kingdom
Amy Sackville - Orkney
Robert Louis Stevenson - Treasure Island
Abdulrazak Gurnah - By the Sea
Patrick O’Brian - The Nutmeg of Consolation
Horace - Stormy Seas
Samuel Taylor Coleridge - The Rime of the Ancient Mariner (extract)
Eva Ibbotson - Journey to the River Sea
Thomas O’Crohan - A currach in the midst of a storm
Yann Martel - Life of Pi
William Shakespeare - The Tempest
E Annie Proulx - The Shipping News
Sebastian Junger - The Perfect Storm
Ben Fogle/James Cracknell - The Crossing
Alfred, Lord Tennyson - The Kraken
Bruce Chatwin - In Patagonia
Eleanor Hooker - Float to Live
William Wordsworth - Grace Darling (extract)
Oliver Jeffers - Lost and Found
Derek Mahon - Everything is Going to Be Alright