Renowned baritone Roderick Williams explores how songs and singing can help us help us to define who we are and connect to the communities we inhabit.

The instinct to sing is as old as humans themselves and, in Britain, we have been singing our story, consciously and unconsciously, all through our history. Songs that harness a fleeting thought, capture a mood, tell a tall tale, or simply make us smile.

In this four part series, Roderick Williams explores different aspects of our British story, through the lens of the songs we sing. He’ll show how songs can transport us across all classes, all eras and all areas of the UK. Each song can tell us something essential about our nation at different times and places by teleporting us right inside the experience of someone who was there. We’ll see how songs have passed from singer to singer, from listener to listener, reflecting who we are as a nation, and celebrating the things we hold most dear.

In this first programme Roderick looks at the power of song to express a sense of identity and belonging.

He visits Kilmarnock, where Eddi Reader explains how the songs of Robert Burns brought her back to an essence of Scotland after many years living away. In Aberystwyth, Georgia Ruth talks about passing on the songs of the Welsh language to her young son and the inspiration of the pioneering song collector Ruth Herbert Lewis. And we join siblings Cuthbert and Lydia Noble as they build a dry stone wall in Shepley, West Yorkshire.

Featuring, Billy Bragg, Fay Hield, Cuthbert Noble, Lydia Noble, Eddi Reader and Georgia Ruth.

Producer: Martin Williams Show less