Greg James, host of the Radio 1 Breakfast Show and self-confessed 'proud radio nerd', rummages through the BBC's vast archives of audio, video and documents, using current stories and listener suggestions as a springboard into the vaults.

The recent news that NASA plans to send probes further into space than ever before leads Greg in search of extra-terrestrial life in the archives. He finds languages from distant planets, close encounters - and wonders why aliens heading to Earth chose Banbury, Oxfordshire, as their favourite destination.

As the domestic de-cluttering guru Marie Kondo makes headlines by opening an online shop, we hear earlier expert advice on how to free your home from junk, and Rod Stewart's current British tour prompts a return to a landmark documentary from the mid-1970s - including two devoted, patient fans waiting at Heathrow, and the moment when a French radio interviewer kept Rod waiting - and waiting.

As RuPaul's Drag Race UK reaches its grand finale, Greg's archive searches take him to performers catalogued as 'female impersonators', and eventually lead him to a series of programmes which won vast audiences and changed public opinion.

And a request from a listener introduces a sound now lost from Farming Today, with a lyricism which - according to our listener - rivals the Shipping Forecast.

Producer Paula McGinley Show less