Brood X

Original version

BBC Radio 4 LW

BBC Radio 4 FM

Documentaries

Factual

BBC Radio 4 - Brood X

Stories and memories of four summers when the Brood X cicadas came to town.

Every 17 years in the eastern United States, a roaring mass of red-eyed insects emerge from the ground. These are the stories of four summers when the Brood X cicadas came to town.

Every seventeen years in the eastern United States, a roaring mass of millions of black-bodied, red-eyed, thumb-length insects erupt from the ground. For a few glorious weeks the periodical cicadas cover the trees and the air vibrates with their chorus of come-hither calls. Then they leave a billion eggs to hatch and burrow into the dirt, beginning the seventeen year cycle all over again. 

Sing. Fly. Mate. Die. This is Brood X or the Great Eastern Brood. It’s an event which, for the residents of a dozen or so US states, is the abiding memory of four, maybe five, summers of their lives. 

In a programme that’s both a natural and a cultural history of the Great Eastern Brood we re-visit four Brood X years....1970, 1987, 2004 and 2021…. to capture the stories of the summers when the cicadas came to town. 

Princeton University's Class of 1970 remember the cicadas’ appearance at their graduation ceremony, during a time of student unrest and protest against the Vietnam War; a bride looks back to the uninvited - but welcome - cicada guests attending her wedding;  a musician recalls making al fresco music with Brood X; and an entomologist considers the extraordinary life cycle of an insect which is seems to possess both great patience and the ability to count to seventeen. 

Brood X cicadas spend 17 years underground, each insect alone, waiting and listening. In 2021, as Brood X stirred and the air began to thicken with the cicadas’ love songs, we all shared with them that sense of emerging from the isolation of lockdown and making a new beginning.

Featuring: Elias Bonaros, Liz Dugan, Anisa George, Ray Gibbons, Peter Kuper, Gene Kritsky, Gregg Lange, David Rothenberg, Gil Schrage and Gaye Williams

Producer: Jeremy Grange


Cicada audio recorded by Cicada Mania and David Rothenberg

Programme Image: Prof. Gene Kritsky

BBC Radio 4

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

Accessibility links

Programme Index

Brood X

Genres

Formats

BBC Radio 4 LW

About BBC Radio 4