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BBC Radio 4 Extra

Poetry Extra

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Weekly opportunity for listeners to revisit the riches of the BBC radio poetry archive

A brand new poetry slot on Radio 4 Extra gives listeners a weekly opportunity to revisit the riches of the BBC radio poetry archive

Poetry Extra: Beacons and Blue Remembered Hills

19/06/2016

Beacons and Blue Remembered Hills

BBC Radio 4 Extra - Poetry Extra, Beacons and Blue Remembered Hills

Daljit Nagra introduces Beacons and Blue Remembered Hills - the poetry of AE Housman.

4 Extra Debut. Daljit Nagra introduces Beacons and Blue Remembered Hills - the poetry of AE Housman. With Elvis McGonagall. From September 2011.

BBC Radio 4's Poet in Residence, Daljit Nagra revisits the BBC's radio poetry archive with 'Beacons and Blue Remembered Hills'. 

An examination of the enduring popularity of AE Housman in a journey through the Shropshire of his most famous sequence of poems. 

Actor, poet and broadcaster Elvis McGonagall (aka Richard Smith) takes Housman's longest sequence (written when he was in London) to the places that the poet was remembering as he explored some of the themes at the core of his work. At the heart of 'A Shropshire Lad' is a real sense of Englishness, unusual in a collection that concerns itself with personal and political themes in such a raw and vulnerable way - loss, grief, suicide, sexuality, nature and joy. What did the settings of 'A Shropshire Lad' - Shropshire and Worcestershire - mean to Housman? 

Elvis visits many of the locations that inspired Housman's verse - London, Bromsgrove, Bredon Hill, Ludlow, The Wrekin and talks to people along the way about these evocative landscapes, asking them to read their favourite poems on the way.

Contributors include Andrew Motion, Martin Newell, Wendy Cope, Colin Dexter, Antique Roadshow's Henry Sandon and the many Housman fans of Worcestershire and Shropshire. Elvis attempts to meet Housman himself, listens to the bells of Bredon, goes in search of the loveliest of cherry trees and even finds poetry in a Brewery.

Producer: Frank Stirling
An Unique production for BBC Radio 4 first broadcast in 2011.

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