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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

The Essay Podcast

The Essay

Discussion & Talk

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Essays from leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond.

Leading writers on arts, history, philosophy, science, religion and beyond, themed across a week - insight, opinion and intellectual surprise.

The Essay: Weird England: Weird England: Bonfire

Weird England: Bonfire

Weird England

BBC Radio 3 - The Essay, Weird England, Weird England: BonfireClose menu

Writer David Barnes is immersed in history and myth at Lewes Bonfire.

Writer David Barnes, joins the processions, exploring the strange relationship between history and myth on display at Lewes Bonfire.

In this series of Essays, we usher you into a secret world of hidden folklore. Five young writers explore the odder, darker corners of English tradition: this is not an England of bluetits, roses and white cliffs, nor of country lanes and thatched cottages, but an invitation into a compendium of bizarre and sometimes creepy rural rituals. 

Each writer lives or has lived in the area. Their impression of the event stirs childhood memories, fires new convictions, deepens an understanding of ritual and reveals the awkward transposition of ancient ceremonies in contemporary life. In the final essay, the Japanese poet Lila Matsumoto takes her visiting parents to a Staffordshire horn dance. 

This series attempts to hear younger witnesses writing for the times in which we live: dispatches on Englishness from the weird frontline.

3.	Bonfire

Costumed revellers march to the drum beat. Fireworks crackle and explode, making patterns in the sky. Burning crosses move through the streets. And a giant effigy of Donald Trump is paraded through the town. This is Lewes, East Sussex, on Bonfire Night. Writer David Barnes, who grew up near the town, joins the processions, exploring the strange relationship between history and myth on display at Lewes Bonfire.

The Essay: Weird England

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

Five writers explore the odder, darker corners of English tradition.

Five writers explore the odder, darker corners of English tradition, ushering you into a secret world of hidden folklore.

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Weird England

Weird England: Bonfire

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