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Radio 4 Extra: Corruption Season

2016-10-28T08:05:59+00:00

Dastardly! Dishonest! Deceitful! Dare we entice you to enjoy 4 Extra’s Corruption Season of comedy and dramas shining a spotlight on unethical or fraudulent conduct. Catch crooks, racketeers, charlatans and swindlers galore:

Rebus: Let it Bleed

Alexander Morton stars as hard-boiled detective, John Rebus in Ian Rankin’s hard-hitting thriller uncovering the dark underbelly of 1990s Scotland. Saturday 29 October, 6.00 – 7.30 5am (rpt 4.00 – 5.30pm)

What A Carve Up!

Robert Bathurst stars in Jonathan Coe's wickedly funny, black comedy, inspired by the immorality, greed, corruption and ambition of 1980s Britain. Adapted by David Nobbs in 8-parts and stripped across 4 Extra’s Comedy Club.

Saturday 29 October – Friday 4th November
Ep 1-6/8 - 10.30 – 11.00pm Saturday 29th October – Thursday 3rd November
Ep 7-8/8 double-ep conclusion: 10.00-11.00pm Friday 4th November

Fraud

Philip Glenister and Angela Wynter star in Caroline Gawn’s stylish detective story where a daring and amoral female crook pits her wits against a top policeman. Monday 31 October - 10.00 – 11.00am (rpt 3.00 – 4.00pm)

The Loss Adjuster

A flood on a housing estate ends in death and the revelation that corruption and cynicism lie behind the building of houses on a flood plain. Stars Neil Dudgeon. Tuesday 1 November - 10.00 – 11.00am (rpt 3.00 – 4.00pm)

In The Woods

Lynda Baron, Anne Reid and Pik-Sen Lim star in Kevin Wong’s quirky comedy drama about corruption, adultery and fraud… in a crown green bowling club! Wednesday 2 November - 10.00 – 11.00am (rpt 3.00 – 4.00pm)

Edgar Wallace: The Man Who Wrote Too Much?

2015-03-14T12:19:11+00:00

Mark Billingham on Ludgate Hill, at the top of Fleet Street in London.

It’s such a strange feeling walking down a street that you have known in your imagination all of your life. Fleet Street in London is like that. Somewhere that instantly conjures images of newspaper inked pages, and the sounds of printing presses and typewriters in smoky rooms.

As I walked along with crime writer Mark Billingham, even with all the newspapers now gone, the street’s architecture is still quite magical. Along one side there are cobbled alleyways threading down to the ancient Inns of Courts. In other places the buildings loom over you as you approach the Royal Courts of Justice. Mark says that in the 1920s the street was a crime nexus. It was the British Empire’s beating heart of criminal gossip that fed the journalism, and bestselling thriller writing career, of the star of this Saturday’s 4 Extra archive showcase: Edgar Wallace: The Man Who Wrote Too Much?

Mark Billingham on the sometimes imposing Fleet Street.

Edgar Wallace's (1875-1932) life seems the stuff of fiction. Adopted by a Billingsgate fish porter in London, and largely self-educated, he was the newspaper boy who became one of the most famous writers in the world. He sold millions of books, but he was plagued by debts. He left Britain for the United States in 1931, only to die in Hollywood in 1932, aged 56, after writing the original story for King Kong. His body was returned by ocean liner in honour, only to be reunited with an ocean of outstanding bills.

Mark wanted to investigate why a crime writer, whose publisher declared him the 'King of Thrillers', a celebrity superstar whose books sold in their millions, seems to be fading from memory today. Even during his own prolific lifetime Wallace experienced literary snobbery, despite his incredible success. Mark’s search was a London journey. The city was Wallace’s criminal muse. On its streets Mark tracked down some experts that could help with the Wallace mystery, like biographer Neil Clark (Stranger Than Fiction: The Life of Edgar Wallace, The History Press). There’s no Edgar Wallace museum, so Mark and Neil met at the next best thing, the Edgar Wallace pub, just of Fleet Street.

Mark Billingham and Edgar Wallace biographer Neil Clark, outside the Edgar Wallace pub in London, renamed in 1976 one year after Wallace’s centenary.

From the BBC archive we hear some of Wallace best creations, including sleuthing in The Mind of Mr JG Reeder (Radio 7 2007), and comedy in the racing tips of Educated Evans (Radio 4 1996) starring Roy Hudd. We also hear from Edgar’s daughter Penelope Wallace (who sadly died in 1997), talking about her father’s storytelling abilities. And at the British Library’s Sound Archive Mark meets Dr Stacy Gillis, teacher of detective fiction at Newcastle University, who is fascinated by Wallace’s ability to promote himself. Remarkably we can hear Wallace doing just that, in 1928 recording, reading his story The Man in the Ditch.

Mark Billingham, Tom Ruane (British Library Sound Archive) and Dr Stacy Gillis (Newcastle University) at the British Library Sound Archive with the 1928 record of Edgar Wallace.

The final part of Mark’s odyssey sees him arrive at Portland Place, very close to BBC Broadcasting House, where Wallace brought his family, and servants, to live for a time. The house is now part of the Chinese Embassy. On the pavement outside is where Mark met Professor David Glover, from Southampton University author of Wallace’s entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. When we arrived David was clutching something precious too him, a still brilliantly yellow 1927 edition of an Edgar Wallace classic novel. David Glover’s thoughts on Wallace’s career, and the fate of most popular fiction writers, serve as prelude to the final archive treat: a 1951 BBC radio version of one of Wallace’s biggest successes, a tale of murder and vigilante revenge, The Ringer (1926).

Mark Billingham and Professor David Glover (Southampton University) with his original 1927 edition of Edgar Wallace’s The Strange Countess, on Portland Place, in London.

At one point Mark Billingham asks one of our Wallace experts: “with my heart thumping, is this the fate of the popular thriller author, to largely fade from view and memory?” For a moment I thought Edgar Wallace was in the room with us.

Peter McHugh is the producer of Radio 4 Extra’s Edgar Wallace: The Man Who Wrote Too Much?

• Listen to Edgar Wallace: The Man Who Wrote Too Much? at 0900 and 1900 Saturday 14th March 2015 and BBC iPlayer Radio and on the Radio 4 extra web site.

• Archive Featured: Sweet Tea and Cigarettes (Sweet Talk Production for BBC Radio 4, 2004), The Mind of Mr JG Reeder (Radio 7, 2007), To Keep the Memory Green (Radio 4, 1989), Educated Evans (Radio 4, 1996) and The Ringer (BBC Radio Light Programme, 1951).

Serial on Radio 4 Extra

2014-12-18T14:07:35+00:00

Sarah Koenig image for Serial on Radio 4 Extra (photo credit: Elise Bergerson)

The final episode of global hit show Serial is imminent and I’m excited to confirm that we will be bringing the final episode to Radio 4 Extra on the same day it is published worldwide on Thursday 18 December at 9pm.

There is still time for those of you who have not heard the global phenomena that Serial has become, to catch up with the story. This US podcast series has showcased the power of spoken word and great storytelling, and if you love speech radio and have not heard it, these are some of the reasons why you should.

Think TV box set season length ‘who-done-it’ - but for radio. Except it is not ‘who-done-it?’ but an ‘are-we-sure-he–did-it’? And if not him, whom?

You hear recorded police interviews, cross examination from the court house, witnesses and bystanders to the story trying to remember something that happened fifteen years ago.

The storyteller is not a jaded misunderstood detective or young policeman keen to prove themselves. It is a journalist who shares her research, her notes, her faltering doubts, her bewilderment and her exasperation with us. We hear her workings, her thinking aloud - this becomes part of the narrative too.

And then consider that everything you are going to hear is real.

Then try and resist getting hooked.

We know Radio 4 Extra listeners love detective stories. They know exceptional speech radio and storytelling when they hear it. So what a splendid combination to bring to the network. Our station celebrates the best of speech radio and has been broadcasting Serial’s only radio transmission.

Tipped off by Twitter in the early autumn I was not sure I wanted to listen to Serial. Having just done jury service, I had been immersed in the small details of legal cases and other people’s broken lives, defendants and victim. As jurors, we were rightly advised not to play detective, not to try to be a Sherlock Holmes. But in Serial we are given full permission to do just that. Discuss the case. Speculate. There are over-excited internet forums. Podcasts about the podcast.

This is also more than just a podcast. The series has provoked fascinating debate about the nature of journalism, new forms of storytelling and issues of privacy, all of which are topics that interest many of our discerning Radio 4 Extra listeners.

Caroline Raphael is commissioner for BBC Radio 4 Extra

Listen to Serial on Radio 4 Extra

Go to the Serial download

Be Sure Your Sin Will Find You Out: Mark Billingham's Rule Book of Crime

2013-03-01T11:38:16+00:00

Listen to 'Mark Billingham’s Rule Book of Crime', a 3 hour special where Mark chooses his favourite radio detectives, from Saturday 2 March

Asking a magician how do you do that? Maybe it's an inbuilt human curiosity to know how things are done that makes us try and uncover the secret rules of the creative process. Movies at home now come with directors' commentary, and behind the scenes secrets, letting you discover that the scary alien was actually made from boxes of oysters. Will I be scared next time I watch? It feeds a need but does it nurture the dreams found in the suspension of disbelief?

Mark Billingham - bestselling crime writer and creator of Detective Inspector Tom Thorne - and I, made a Radio 4 programme together about the TV detective Columbo. It was a labour of love. Behind the raincoat, cigar and forgetfulness was a story of tantrums, Oscar winning directors and inspiration in great Russian literature.

Mark Billingham on Agatha Christie and the golden age of crime writing.

It was fascinating to go behind the wizard's curtain, but I had mixed feelings when we talked again about Mark choosing some of his favourite crime solvers on the radio. Especially when we plumped for the title: Mark Billingham's Rule Book of Crime. Is it fair to give the game away?

Crime writing, is after all, a puzzle. Crime writers have Hansel and Gretel DNA – forever dropping clues. Trying to bring order to the chaos at the scene of a crime. Mark thinks all crime writers 'borrow', that all 'are standing on the shoulders of giants'. Even if those shoulders are often those of the 'little old ladies' of the Agatha Christie 'Golden Age' of crime in the 1920s & 30s.

Agatha Christie

June Whitfield

Mark's crime obsession was kick-started in school by an unusual teacher's love of the greatest detective of them all, Sherlock Holmes. Mark's taste for the darker side led him to the mean streets of Raymond Chandler and a rejection of the 'cosy' world of the whodunit. Of course tastes change, the crime formula is refined in the webs of PD James's Inspector Adam Dalgliesh, another of Mark's favourites. Currently the world is in the chilly grip of 'Scandi-crime'. Mark was taken with the thoughts of Swedish crime writer Henning Mankell – creator of Wallander – on crime and punishment, when he appeared on Radio 4's Bookclub.

Sherlock Holmes

But there is nothing like discovering a hidden gem, the vital clue in a story, for yourself. And that's what Mark did in the BBC archive when he found a radio detective series original. It ran from the late 1970s into the early 1980s on BBC national radio. It starred an actor who was in a one off 60s TV classic and was the voice of a classic children's cartoon. It was penned by a writer that worked on TV police dramas Z Cars and Softly Softly. Just who and what could it be?

Like every good crime novel, the final twist will be revealed in Mark Billingham's Rule Book of Crime.

Listen to Mark Billingham's Rule Book of Crime

Visit the 4 Extra website

The Rivals: The Return of Inspector Lestrade

2011-10-18T14:00:00+00:00

Editor's note: The Rivals, starring the often forgotten Arthur Conan Doyle creation Inspector Lestrade, starts on Radio 4 this Wednesday 19 October at 11.30am - PM.

The idea for The Rivals came about when writer Chris Harrald expressed a desire to dramatise a series of re-vamped Victorian detective stories for Radio 4.

He argued that although Conan Doyle dominated the canon, there were plenty of great short stories out there that featured extraordinary sleuths. His research revealed a treasure trove of material, and he set about assembling a collection of stories that would be enjoyed by an audience familiar with the originals and surprise those new to them.

At this stage we hadn't yet figured out a way of linking these stories together - a way to encourage listeners to stay with a series across a number of episodes.

That was the remaining challenge.

We both felt that an important criteria was the personality of the detective in each short story. They should all have the potential to be rivals of Sherlock Holmes. We began by selecting a story that predates Sherlock Holmes by over forty years.

Most historians of the genre argue that Auguste Dupin in Edgar Allan Poe's The Murders In The Rue Morgue represents the first detective in fiction and is the literary prototype for Conan Doyle's hero.

He certainly has eccentricity that would give Holmes a run for his money. We also looked at a short story by Jacques Futrelle, an American writer who perished onboard the Titanic. His story features Professor Augustus SFX Van Dusen, an individual so gifted with intelligence that he is able to think his way out of a locked prison cell.

Again, we felt that he was a natural rival to Sherlock Holmes.

Chris had the idea of using this sense of rivalry to connect a number of stories.

That's when he hit upon the idea of giving Inspector Lestrade a unifying role. The Scotland Yard detective is in many ways the loser in the Sherlock Holmes stories. His reasoning is portrayed as commonplace. Dr Watson, the narrator of the Holmes stories, even describes him snootily as "a lean, ferret-like man, furtive and sly-looking".

With this sort of insult levelled at him, perhaps he would enjoy promoting other, lesser-known detectives? Perhaps it would be a good way of deflating Sherlock Holmes' considerable reputation?

In discovering Lestrade, we had found a way of connecting a number of classic short stories. We catch up with him as he is being pursued by a young journalist intent on interviewing him about Sherlock Holmes. He refuses to answer her questions, instead introducing her to one of Holmes' many rivals. From this point, we jump into the original story, and we have even adapted them in such a way as to give the Inspector an important role in each mystery.

At last, he's been given a chance to rehabilitate his reputation.

Sasha Yevtushenko is a producer for BBC Radio Drama in London

The Rivals starts on Radio 4 Wednesday 19 October at 11.30am. You can hear it shortly afterwards on the Radio 4 website.
James Fleet plays the Inspector, and he introduces a new 'rival' each week: Auguste Dupin (played by Andrew Scott); Professor SFX Van Dusen (Paul Rhys); Paul Beck (Anton Lesser); and Loveday Brooke (Honeysuckle Weeks).
The illustration's original caption was "He held out his hands quietly" from the Strand magazine and is by Sidney Paget (1860-1908) via Wikimedia Commons.
More Crime Drama from Radio 4 to hear online

Just One More Thing: Columbo!

2011-08-01T09:39:29+00:00

The raincoat, the cigar, the spluttering convertible car, the villain's deed in the first scene and the final "...just one more thing".

The American TV detective series Columbo was a literature inspired, award-winning, rule-breaking, television original spanning over thirty years. It turned the 'whodunit?' into the 'how-do-you-catch-them?'

But just who were the people that were able to keep millions of people around the world glued to their seats when you already knew who had committed the crime in the first five minutes?

That was the question that presenter, crime writer Mark Billingham, and myself wanted to answer in 2007. For both of us, Just One More Thing: Columbo! was a true labour of love. There were setbacks, delays and might-have-beens. Yet, in the end, with a little of that Columbo tenacity, we managed to assemble a truly all star cast. The Emmy Award-winning Bill Link as: The creator of Columbo; Steven Bochco, creator of Hill Street Blues and LA Law as: The story editor on Columbo; Oscar-winning Jonathan Demme, director of Silence of the Lambs as: Director of Columbo. Guest star Robert Vaughn (Magnificent Seven et al) as: The villain.

And of course, always looking for a pencil, Columbo himself: Mr Peter Falk. When we spoke with him he was warm, charming and befitting his thoughts on his most famous creation, "very, very, funny".

In the programme we hear about the raincoat, Dostoevsky and the inverted mystery form. From class war to voyeurism. From fights over the scripts, to people being banned from the film lot. From the pressure to deliver the big 'pop' ending, to the wife you never saw (or did you?). What came across most, though, was a feeling of love for Columbo - the character and the man playing him.

Sometimes television, and especially so called 'genre' television, can be seen as being 'disposable'. Yet, we found that Columbo was a touchstone for American Presidents as well as for people around the world. In recent days, MPs reviewing the success of police enquires said it was Columbo, not Clouseau, that would be the benchmark for forensic analysis. That's quite an achievement for a forgetful, fictional, TV detective.

I tried my utmost to make Lt. Columbo a guest at his own biography. He often helps the programme along, with little pointers and reminders. Of course there had to be one final question, and as Mark Billingham has recently said, the thrill of Peter Falk, as Columbo, asking "er... just one more thing, Mr Billingham, Mr McHugh", will be something we will treasure for a very long time.

I hope the chance to hear this documentary again will stand as a small tribute to mark the passing of one of the great screen actors, Peter Falk.

Peter McHugh is the producer of Just One More Thing: Columbo!

Listen to Just One More Thing: Columbo! at 2330 on Wednesday 27th July and for seven days after transmission, on the Radio 4 web site (Ed's note: Listen to it now, you're running out of time! PM)

Radio 4 Extra: Responding to your feedback

2011-04-24T10:00:00+00:00

Hello again,

I've been reading your comments and feedback on the blog and elsewhere and wanted to respond to some of the points that people have made. I commented last week on the blog and Streetlight2 has identified some of the other things many of you are asking about so I've based my answers around them:

The presenters on 4Extra - what's the thinking behind changing them from the R7 team?

Now that Radio 4 Extra is aligned with Radio 4, the presentation teams are working together. Some of the Radio 4 presenters were keen to work on Radio 4 Extra, which is very different from reading the news on Radio 4! Of course Jim Lee, a stalwart of Radio 7/4Extra, has worked on both networks for over 8 years and Alan Smith, who was with Radio 7 in the early days, is now back with us again. Former Radio 7 presenters will have the occasional presence on 4Extra; in fact you can hear Helen Aitken in a couple of weeks interviewing a comedy troupe performing a Sherlock Holmes spoof.

All of the presenters have other work of course, both on radio and television, and fans of Alex Riley can see him popping up regularly on BBC Three.

What about the lack of drama programming?

The drama remit for Radio 7 was originally to broadcast a minimum of 50 hours per week. As Radio 4 Extra, we committed to a minimum of 55 hours of drama per week, and we actually broadcast more than that. You might be surprised to know that on Radio 4Extra, we broadcast on average of 68 hours per week, including of course the 24-hour overnight repeats.

As Head of Programmes launching Radio 7 over 8 years ago, and faced with a blank sheet of paper, I was keen to schedule longer drama on the archive station, and introduced two 90 minute plays at weekends, plus a 75-minute Woman's Hour archive omnibus on Sundays. The omnibus has been popular, and to build on that we have introduced a second 75 minute omnibus on Saturdays, made up of the previous week's Radio 4 Woman's Hour serial. With adding some new elements to the schedule, we stopped broadcasting the 90 minute drama on Sundays, but brought in the 60 minute children's/family drama slot, commissioning 8 new dramas in the process.

But of course, radio stations evolve and as with any radio station we will continue to review our output.

On Radio 4 Extra I was also keen to retain the 60 minute dramas, daily from Monday to Friday, plus the daily 45 minute dramas. These have included Fortunes of War, Howard's End and Ben Hur, three terrific and substantial dramas, plus currently for Easter, the landmark Dorothy L Sayer's production, The Man Who Would be King, in twelve 45 minute episodes. We have had good feedback on these productions, and are planning to follow-up with the Complete Smiley dramatisations, beginning in May.

The 7th Dimension and Crime and Thriller hours have remained the same, with the 1.00am repeat of the Crime and Thriller Hour being re-instated for the night owls from the week beginning 16 May.

Complaints about broadcasting The Archers, Ambridge Extra and Desert Island Discs. If some of these programs are available on Radio 4, then why put them on Radio 4 Extra?

Following the research and consultation we undertook, the BBC Trust wanted to ensure that there wouldn't be too many changes in the re-branding and in fact 85% of the Radio 4 Extra schedule has remained unchanged.

The Archers and Desert Island Discs are very popular strands, so we decided to build on these strengths to attract Radio 4 listeners (many of whom were/are unaware of the existence of Radio 7).

Regarding The Archers, we considered some archive programming, but with some missing programmes this would be difficult to sustain; we also felt that a repeat of the omnibus was not quite right, so the decision was made to commission a short, new Archers serial - Ambridge Extra. This will be running until the end of June, followed by a summer break.

I was interested to note that in the most recent podcast chart, Ambridge Extra came in at number 2 - just behind Adam and Joe.

When I started Radio 7, archive Desert Island Discs was on my shopping list, and I was keen to group the DID programmes in batches featuring The Comedians, The Actors, The Musicians etc. I have always thought that listeners would value the opportunity to hear archive editions of DID and the launch of 4Extra provides this as does the new DID website, updating information on the castaway, linking into the schedule when possible. For example, we began with children's authors, and when Jacqueline Wilson was last week's castaway, we broadcast one of her readings on the 4 0'Clock Show.

We will be following up with The Authors and The Comedians.

Any change to a network can be difficult to accept, and when the idea was initially mooted to change Radio 7, I admit I had my reservations.

Like some listeners, I was concerned that the station might become too serious.

However, I truly believe that there are many benefits in being so closely aligned with Radio 4. Some fresh ideas have been introduced, but at the same time I feel that we have managed to retain the entertainment essence that launched Radio 7 eight years ago - we continue to bring you great radio comedy and drama.

It would be impossible to please all of our listeners all of the time, but I hope that all of you manage to find entertaining programmes to listen to on Radio 4 Extra most of the time,

Best wishes

Mary

Mary Kalemkerian is Head of Programmes at BBC Radio 4 Extra

The photograph is from the BBC picture library. The caption reads "Picture shows (l-r) Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graeme Garden, Jo Kendall, David Hatch and Bill Oddie, five young comedians from the world-travelled 'Footlights Revue' Cambridge Circus, who star in the new comedy revue series I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again, which begins in the BBC Light Programme on Monday 4th October, 1965."

Bad drivers and unreliable witnesses - Mind Changers is back

2011-02-10T14:28:35+00:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b008cy1j

UPDATE: episode one of Mind Changers was postponed because of extended coverage of the events in Egypt. The series will now start on Sunday 20 February with the episode about Walter Mischel's Marshmallow Study and you'll be able to hear the episode discussed here on 17 April - SB.

For someone as obsessed with psychology as me, Mind Changers is a dream series to make. There's just one downside. And that's the driving styles of some eminent psychologists. This is the fifth series of Mind Changers, the programmes which take classic psychological experiments and trace both their history and the impact they have had on modern thinking. The idea came to me back in 2003 and with producer Marya Burgess I've now covered more than twenty landmarks in psychology.

We've deliberately not made the series in chronological order, although if you do listen back to the programmes in order it does provide a potted history of 20th century psychology. Instead we aim to provide contrasting stories within each series. People ask how we choose the studies and I'll confess that it is a personal selection; these are studies which most fascinated me as a psychology student and which have gripping enough stories to keep anyone listening. The producer studied psychology at university too, which means that she really understands these experiments too.

And although a lot of students tweet me about the programmes, they're aimed at anybody who is interested in people, which of course is most of us. You don't have to know anything about psychology to wonder how it's really possible to convince someone that they met Bugs Bunny at Disneyland as a child, when they definitely didn't because he's a character that doesn't appear in Disney films, but belongs to Warner Bros. This study appears in the first programme of the new series which looks at groundbreaking research questioning the reliability of eyewitness testimony in court.

Making these programmes we're discovered that the standard retelling of these studies in textbooks often includes inaccuracies and it's fascinating to see how and why these myths persist. Somehow these experiments begin to take on a new life of their own.

So much of the major work in psychology in the 20th century has taken place in the U.S. that these programmes have taken us on a tour of the Ivy League universities and we're lucky enough to have had the chance to interview some of the most eminent psychologists in the world, so eminent that as a student I'd assumed they must all be long dead.

Our annual trips to the U.S. mean that we're getting to know our way around many a psychology department and starting to remember the locations of the canteens with the best Thai noodles. And this is where the driving comes in. To stay within our budget where possible we go by train or on foot. This horrifies some of the psychologists we interview who have usually booked parking spaces for us, but it's true to say that they are very generous with lifts. So many famous psychologists have lived in the pretty streets on the hills behind Stanford University that when we were making the current series one even took us on the equivalent of the Hollywood movie stars' homes tour, except that these were the greatest psychologists past and present (and for me, I have to admit, just as exciting).

We've learned that psychology professors in the U.S. have very nice cars, often hybrids, but they can have some rather erratic driving styles. One drove me through so many red lights in Philadelphia that in the end I pretended I was very keen to visit a random shop just so that I could get out. "But this is miles from your hotel. I can wait for you," he protested. Then in San Francisco a professor wanted to show us his favourite coffee shop where they did pretty leaf patterns on top of the lattes. This was kind, but sitting in the front passenger seat I noticed cars heading straight for us. "Is this a one-way street?" I asked, trying not to sound rude. "Not you as well!, he said, "People always complain when I drive on the left, but I thought since you're from England you wouldn't mind."

But we've survived all these journeys and we're busy working out which four psychologists to feature in the next series.

Claudia Hammond writes and presents Mind Changers

Listen to the first in the new series of Mind Changers, about Elizabeth Loftus on Sunday at 1330. Listen to programmes from the archive on the Radio 4 web site.
Claudia Hammond is on Twitter and on the web.
The picture shows a car crash in Toronto in 1930. You'll need to listen to the programme to understand why. It's from the City of Toronoto Archives. Some rights reserved.

Ballads from the Old Bailey

2010-07-22T12:34:16+00:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00t0dbn

If only we could hear voices from the past: the other couples whispering in our bedroom, the other children shouting up the stairs. As a radio producer I often think about what the past sounded like. That's why I was excited when I realised there is a way of hearing those voices: the records of criminal trials in the Old Bailey. Thanks to the court short-hand writers we have records of everyday speech from the 18th century: teenagers, servants and prostitutes and scholars and highwaymen, all recorded.

I had no idea this rich resource existed until I worked with Amanda Vickery on her last Radio 4 series, 'A History of Private Life'. She brought me vivid material - ordinary people describing their everyday lives - and some of it from the Old Bailey archives. From that came the idea for this series. Amanda is a leading social and cultural historian, and we have used the archive to explore everyday life in London, the streets, the parks, the shops, children's homes. The programme in which poor children speak about their lives is very moving.

I'm indebted to the two wonderful founders of the Old Bailey Online, Professor Tim Hitchcock (University of Hertfordshire) and Professor Bob Shoemaker (University of Sheffield), who helped me at every stage of the production process, explaining everything I didn't understand. Queries about the courts - what did a judge say when he sentenced someone to death? - were answered by Professor Peter King (Open University) & Professor John Styles (University of Hertfordshire). Musician and scholar Jeremy Barlow tracked down ballads, and singers Gwyn Herbert and Tom Guthrie, and fiddler Sharon Lindo, brought them to life. We did try to sing outside for a more authentic sound but were bedevilled by planes, sirens, and local workmen joining in... Jon Calver recorded the music, Hannah Marshall found the locations, Jo Coombs helped develop the format, and David Smith mixed the sound.

We needed a lot of readers to bring these voices from the Old Bailey to life: some are actors, but some are the modern counterparts of the people speaking in the 18th century. So, the children's speech (in next week's programme about children appearing as witnesses, victims and defendents) is read by local school children; the voice of the wonderfully camp Italian scholar in the last programme is read for us by an Italian lawyer working in London, and so on. And the really interesting thing was how easily and quickly it came to life: 18th century speech is astonishingly modern.

Elizabeth Burke is producer of Voices from the Old Bailey

Here are two ballads from the period, recorded for the series: both are touching and the second is rather frank in its description of the hardships of the time:

Episode two of Voices from the Old Bailey was on Radio 4 this morning (repeated tonight at 2130). Listen again and read more about the series on the Radio 4 web site.
Search the Old Bailey archive for yourself. See if an ancestor appeared there.
The picture shows a handbill about workhouse cruelty from the period: "Being a full and true account of one Mrs Mary Whiftle, a poor woman..." There are more pictures from the period in the Radio 4 group on Flickr.

Bringing the voices of the Old Bailey to life

2010-07-15T14:45:50+00:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00t0dbn

The job of the historian is to make the long dead speak again - we take dusty, unpromising documents and breathe life back into the faded hand-writing. It can be a magical craft, akin to necromancy - trying to communicate with the spirits of the dead. Scribbled love letters, desperate diaries, accounts and lists are all grist to my mill.

But what of the vast majority of people in the past who could not write? The unlettered and unsung. Beneath the tip of the iceberg of literacy, lies the hulking majority who could not record their struggles and successes on paper for posterity. But there was one special place where the words of the poor and the illiterate were recorded verbatim - the criminal court. Read court transcripts and you can hear at last the hubbub of the people.

This is why historians are so excited about court records. At the Old Bailey fifty thousand cases were heard in the eighteenth century alone. A great cast of characters had their day in court, the snooping neighbour, the innocent by-stander, the local gossips, as well as the beleaguered victim and accused criminal. Some are witty, some wily and some wistful - but all reveal the very rhythm of life in the salty vernacular - all taken down in shorthand by the clerks.

The Old Bailey was the principal court for London and Middlesex, but it tried cases from much further afield. London doubled in size over the eighteenth-century from half a million to a million souls. The metropolis drew people like a magnet, from all over the UK, from Ireland, but also from Africa, America and South Asia, as well as continental Europe. It was Europe`s biggest capital, a heaving city of migrants, particularly young women looking for work. The whole country flowed through the city: half of the entire urban population experienced London life at some point in their lives. So, the Old Bailey records are not in any way narrowly London-centred, they are a window on a booming nation.

Historians use the records of the Old Bailey to study criminal justice and the criminal underclass, but you can also use them to recreate work and play, relationships and attitudes, street-life and shopping, the list goes on and on. I am awed by the magical access they give to a world we have lost - and could recapture in no other way. I use them in this series, to offer pin-sharp impressions of ordinary people - under pressure, acting out the most dramatic episode of their existence, sometimes arguing for their very lives.

I first used the Old Bailey Online for my book Behind Closed Doors: At Home in Georgian England to re-imagine the interiors of London lodgings. I looked at theft cases to chart the pans, tea pots and boxes ordinary people had in their possession, and at burglary cases to think about privacy, rebuilding the boundaries that Georgian people, rich and poor alike, sought to defend. However as I read the cases I was struck again and again by the panorama of characters and the juiciness and grip of their stories. Here is the first script for that perennial staple - the court room drama. The dialogue is so fresh. It was just asking to be made into radio.

Professor Amanda Vickery writes and presents Voices from the Old Bailey

Voices from the Old Bailey began on Radio 4 this morning with episode one of four: 'Highwaymen' (repeated tonight at 2130). Listen again and read more about the series on the Radio 4 web site.
Search the Old Bailey archive for yourself. See if an ancestor appeared there.
There are more pictures from the period in the Radio 4 group on Flickr.

Female Sexual Abuse - Breaking the Silence

2009-10-05T12:27:22+00:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00n80b3

We've made a late change to the schedule tonight at 2000 to put in a programme; Female Sexual Abuse - Breaking the Silence - presented by Penny Marshall. The programme - about women who sexually abuse children - talks to those who have been abused and includes accounts from those who have been abusers.

We have been working on this for a while - and had thought we would broadcast it after the judicial process had run its course in the Vanessa George case. We had expected that to be a little later than now... but the documentary was more or less made by the time of last week's court case ( with the guilty plea ) and so we decided to transmit it a little earlier - with the George case fresh in the memory.

It's a moot point as to how often we should make this sort of change. This one was a tight call. In the end it's a matter of judgement and instinct about when the programme will be at its freshest and/or sharpest for its audience.

So some of the newspaper listings and The Radio Times (through no fault of theirs) is wrong . We have deferred transmission of the programme that was due to be broadcast at 8 pm tonight - the second of a two part documentary series on the attempt to regenerate Morecambe - for a fortnight.

Female Sexual Abuse: Breaking the Silence is on Radio 4 this evening at 2000.