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The Week in Westminster

Radio 4's weekly assessment of developments at Westminster

Week in Westminster

The Week in Westminster: 13/12/2008

13/12/2008

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A look behind the scenes at Westminster with Peter Oborne.

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.

From Our Own Correspondent

Kate Adie introduces insight, wit and analysis from BBC correspondents and writers.

Kate Adie introduces insight, wit and analysis from BBC correspondents, journalists and writers telling stories from around the world.

From Our Own Correspondent: 13/12/2008

BBC Radio 4 - From Our Own Correspondent, 13/12/2008

Kate Adie introduces BBC foreign correspondents with the stories behind the headlines.

BBC foreign correspondents with the stories behind the world's headlines. Introduced by Kate Adie.

News Headlines; Shipping Forecast

News, weather and Shipping Forecast updates. 

News Headlines; Shipping Forecast: 13/12/2008

BBC Radio 4 - News Headlines; Shipping Forecast, 13/12/2008

National and international news and the shipping forecast.

The latest national and international news headlines, followed by the shipping forecast.

BBC Radio 4 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced BBC Home Service.

Money Box

The latest news from the world of personal finance

The latest news from the world of personal finance plus advice for those trying to make the most of their money.

Money Box: 13/12/2008

BBC Radio 4 - Money Box, 13/12/2008

Paul Lewis with the latest news from the world of personal finance.

Paul Lewis with the latest news from the world of personal finance. Examining the strength of the new deals being offered by credit card companies to struggling customers.

Paul Lewis with the latest news from the world of personal finance. Including the new deals being offered by credit card companies to struggling customers, the financial implications of the fall in the value of sterling, what is being done about the mounting shortfalls in the Pension Protection Fund and the rise of fuel poverty.

The Now Show

Comedy sketches and satirical comments from Steve Punt, Hugh Dennis and guests

The Now Show: Series 25

The Now Show: Series 25: Episode 3

Episode 3

Series 25

BBC Radio 4 - The Now Show, Series 25, Episode 3

Comedy sketches and satirical comments from Steve Punt, Hugh Dennis and the team.

Comedy sketches and satirical comments from Steve Punt, Hugh Dennis and the team including Mitch Benn, Marcus Brigstocke, Laura Shavin and Jon Holmes.

Comedy sketches and satirical comments from Steve Punt, Hugh Dennis and the team

Weather

Weather: 13/12/2008

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News Briefing

News Briefing: 13/12/2008

BBC Radio 4 - News Briefing, 13/12/2008Close menu

The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4.

Any Questions?

Topical discussion posing questions to a panel of political and media personalities

Topical discussion in which a panel of personalities from the worlds of politics, media and elsewhere are posed questions by the audience. From a different location each week

Any Questions?: 12/12/2008

12/12/2008

BBC Radio 4 - Any Questions?, 12/12/2008

Jonathan Dimbleby chairs the topical debate in Hagley in the West Midlands.

Jonathan Dimbleby chairs the topical debate in Hagley in the West Midlands. The panel are Phil Woolas MP, Baroness Pauline Neville-Jones, David Laws MP and Fraser Nelson.

Jonathan Dimbleby chairs the topical debate in Hagley in the West Midlands. The panel are immigration minister Phil Woolas, shadow security minister Baroness Pauline Neville-Jones Liberal Democrat spokesman David Laws and political editor of The Spectator, Fraser Nelson.

Any Answers?

Listeners respond to the issues raised in the preceding edition of Any Questions?

Any Answers?: 13/12/2008

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Jonathan Dimbleby takes listeners responses to this week's Any Questions?

Jonathan Dimbleby takes listeners' calls and emails in response to this week's edition of Any Questions?

Saturday Drama

Thrillers, mysteries, love stories and detective fiction.

Thrillers, mysteries, love stories and detective fiction, as well as an occasional special series

Saturday Play

Saturday Drama: Blithe Spirit

Blithe Spirit

BBC Radio 4 - Saturday Drama, Blithe Spirit

At a seance at his house, a writer receives a ghostly visitation from his dead first wife.

Bert Coules's adaptation of the Noel Coward comedy. At a seance at his country house, writer Charles Condomine receives a ghostly visitation from his dead first wife.

Bert Coules' adaptation of the Noel Coward comedy. 

When writer Charles Condomine invites a medium to hold a seance at his country house, he receives a ghostly visitation from his dead first wife, to the chagrin of his very much alive second one.

Charles ...... Roger Allam
Madame Arcati ...... Maggie Steed
Elvira ...... Zoe Waites
Ruth ...... Hermione Gulliford
Dr Bradman ...... David Killick
Mrs Bradman ...... Tilly Tremayne
Edith ...... Natalie Cassidy

Directed by Philip Franks.

Weekend Woman's Hour

Highlights of the week's Woman's Hour programmes

Highlights of the week's Woman's Hour programmes, featuring the best the long-running magazine has to offer

Weekend Woman's Hour: 13/12/2008

BBC Radio 4 - Weekend Woman's Hour, 13/12/2008

Highlights of this week's Woman's Hour programmes with Jane Garvey.

Highlights of this week's Woman's Hour programmes with Jane Garvey. Including an interview with Carly Fiorina, businesswoman and John McCain campaign adviser.

Highlights of this week's Woman's Hour programmes with Jane Garvey. Including an interview with Carly Fiorina, businesswoman and John McCain campaign adviser; reviewing the achievements of the female Olympians; supporting teenagers in abusive relationships; gender equality in 2008; growing mistletoe and Sharia law in the UK.

Afternoon news and current affairs programme

Afternoon news and current affairs programme, reporting on breaking stories and summing up the day's headlines

PM: 13/12/2008

BBC Radio 4 - PM, 13/12/2008

Coverage and analysis of the day's news with Carolyn Quinn, plus sports headlines.

Full coverage and analysis of the day's news with Carolyn Quinn, plus the sports headlines.

iPM is the news programme that starts with its listeners.

The weekly interactive current affairs magazine featuring online conversation and debate.

iPM: 13/12/2008

BBC Radio 4 - iPM, 13/12/2008

Shipping Forecast

The latest weather reports and forecasts for UK shipping

Shipping Forecast: 13/12/2008

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Six O'Clock News

The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4

Six O'Clock News: 13/12/2008

BBC Radio 4 - Six O'Clock News, 13/12/2008

The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4, followed by Weather.

Loose Ends

An eclectic mix of conversation, music and comedy

Loose Ends: 13/12/2008

BBC Radio 4 - Loose Ends, 13/12/2008

Clive Anderson is joined by Frank Skinner, Stephen Bayley and Ruth Watson.

Clive Anderson is joined by Frank Skinner, Stephen Bayley and Ruth Watson, and Emma Freud talks alternative careers with Peter White. Plus music from Seun Kuti and Fela's Egypt 80.

Clive Anderson presents an eclectic mix of conversation, comedy and music. He is joined by Frank Skinner, Stephen Bayley and Ruth Watson, and Emma Freud discusses alternative careers with Peter White. Plus music from Seun Kuti and Fela's Egypt 80 and comedy from Sarah Millican.

Profile

An insight into the character of an influential figure making news headlines

Profile: Simon Cowell

Simon Cowell

BBC Radio 4 - Profile, Simon Cowell

Colin Patterson talks to associates and family of X-Factor supremo Simon Cowell.

Colin Patterson talks to associates and family of Simon Cowell to find out how the X-Factor supremo has come to dominate the music industry and our television schedules.

With his sights set on a fourth consecutive Christmas number one single, X-Factor supremo Simon Cowell remains one of the most powerful figures in the British music business. Colin Patterson talks to Pete Waterman, former X-Factor winner Steve Brookstein and Cowell's own family to find out how he has come to dominate the music industry and our television schedules.

Saturday Review

Sharp, critical discussion of the week's cultural events, with Tom Sutcliffe and guests

Presenter Tom Sutcliffe and guests offer sharp, critical discussion of the week's cultural events

Saturday Review: The Day the Earth Stood Still, Derek Jacobi in Twelfth Night and the Christmas Lights

The Day the Earth Stood Still, Derek Jacobi in Twelfth Night and the Christmas Lights

BBC Radio 4 - Saturday Review, The Day the Earth Stood Still, Derek Jacobi in Twelfth Night and the Christmas Lights

Derek Jacobi in Shakespeare’s Christmas play, Keanu the alien and the lights over London.

Tom Sutcliffe and guests review the cultural highlights of the week.

Joining Tom this week:

Novelist Lawrence Norfolk 
Actor Kerry Shale
Broadcaster and critic Bidisha

Twelfth Night
Derek Jacobi has played Francis Bacon, Guy Burgess, the title role in I, Claudius and a host of Shakespeare characters. Now, in the latest production in the Donmar Warehouse’s residency in the West End, he pulls on the yellow stockings of one of Shakespeare’s grouchiest creations, Malvolio, in a production by feted director Michael Grandage. But will West End audiences warm to this production of Shakespeare’s Christmas play?

Twelfth Night is at the Wyndham’s Theatre in central London until 7 March 2009.

The Day the Earth Stood Still 
In 1951, at the height of the Cold War, a movie called The Day the Earth Stood Still had an alien land on Earth and warn that humankind would pay dearly for its nuclear aggression. 57 years later, the alien is back - looking a lot like Keanu Reeves - and this time he wants to wipe us out to save the Earth’s ecosystem. But are ‘alien invasion’ stories as good at tapping into our fears, now that we no longer live under the shadow of imminent atomic war?

The Day the Earth Stood Still is on release from Friday 12 December, certificate 12A.

Land of Marvels
Historical novelist Barry Unsworth, joint winner of the Booker Prize for Sacred Hunger in 1992, has found pre-echoes of the present in a wide range of times and places. Now he excavates pre-First World War Iraq to uncover a narrative about Imperial ambition in the Middle East, centred on an archaeological dig.

Land of Marvels by Barry Unsworth is published by Hutchinson in the New Year.

The Magnificence of the Tsars
If the diplomatic relationship between the UK and Russia is rather frosty at the moment, the cultural links between Moscow and London seem to be thriving this winter. In the wake of an exhibition of 18th and 19th century British fashion in the Russian capital, the V&A now plays host to an exhibition of the clothes the Tsars wore to get crowned, hold court, attend funerals and lead armies. What do they reveal about the deep tensions in the heart of Russian power, pulling the country now towards the West, now towards the heartlands?

The Magnificence of the Tsars is at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London until 29 March.

Christmas Lights
The lights over London’s Regent Street strike a rather different note to those of previous years. In place of the colourful displays of the past, Portuguese design company Castros have created a series of white stars. They’ve also decorated two other central London streets – Bond Street and Jermyn Street. So do their creations make Tom, Kerry, Lawrence and Bidisha’s eyes light up?

The Archive Hour

BBC Radio 4 Extra

A look back at programmes and recordings from the BBC archives

The Archive Hour: Men in Bow Ties

07/07/2007

Men in Bow Ties

BBC Radio 4 Extra - The Archive Hour, Men in Bow Ties

Lars Tharp explores the changing relationship between the antiques trade and the public.

Lars Tharp explores the changing relationship between the antiques trade and the British public with their insatiable appetite for old things.

Lars Tharp explores the changing relationship between the antiques trade and the British public with their insatiable appetite for old things. He also considers the way in which television has transformed the image of the antiques business, from Arthur Negus and Lovejoy to Bargain Hunt and David Dickinson.

Classic Serial

Adaptations of works which have achieved classic status

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Classic Serial: The Hunchback of Notre Dame: Episode 2

Episode 2

BBC Radio 4 - Classic Serial, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Episode 2

Dramatisation of Victor Hugo's classic tale set in 15th-century Paris.

Dramatisation of Victor Hugo's classic tale set in 15th-century Paris. Repeated to mark the fire in the iconic cathedral.

Adaptation of Victor Hugo's classic tale set in 15th-century Paris, dramatised in a collaboration between the BBC and Graeae, the disabled-led theatre company. Starring deaf actor David Bower, artistic director of Signdance Collective.

Quasimodo ...... David Bower
Esmeralda ...... Candis Nergaard
Frollo ...... Kevin Doyle
Madame Poutine ...... Susan Twist
Madame La Fayette ...... Rita May
Phoebus ...... Joseph Kloska
Mikael Leduc ...... Roger Morlidge
George ...... Garry Robson
Guillaume ...... Terence Mann

Writer, Jack Thorne
Producer, Susan Roberts

Classic Serial: The Hunchback of Notre Dame

Dramatisation of Victor Hugo's classic tale set in 15th-century Paris

Adaptation of Victor Hugo's classic tale set in 15th-century Paris, dramatised in a collaboration between the BBC and Graeae, the disabled-led theatre company

News and Weather

The latest national and international news and weather reports from BBC Radio 4

News and Weather: 13/12/2008

BBC Radio 4 - News and Weather, 13/12/2008

The latest national and international news from BBC Radio 4, followed by weather.

Moral Maze

Live debate examining the moral issues behind one of the week's news stories. #moralmaze

Combative, provocative and engaging live debate examining the moral issues behind one of the week's news stories. #moralmaze

Moral Maze: 10/12/2008

10/12/2008

BBC Radio 4 - Moral Maze, 10/12/2008

Michael Buerk chairs a debate about legalising assisted dying.

Michael Buerk chairs a debate with Clifford Longley, Kenan Malik, Melanie Phillips and Claire Fox about legalising assisted dying.

Michael Buerk chairs a debate with Clifford Longley, Kenan Malik, Melanie Phillips and Claire Fox about legalising assisted dying. Has the public's opinion on the subject shifted or is the right to life being undermined and euthanasia being introduced by the back door?

Brain of Britain

General knowledge in which listeners compete for the title of Brain of Britain.

The nationwide general knowledge contest in which 48 listeners from all parts of the UK fight their way to the final. The prize is a silver salver and the title Brain of Britain.

Brain of Britain: 08/12/2008

08/12/2008

BBC Radio 4 - Brain of Britain, 08/12/2008

The penultimate heat of the general knowledge contest, chaired by Robert Robinson.

The penultimate heat of the perennial general knowledge contest, chaired by Robert Robinson at the BBC's Maida Vale studio.

Adventures in Poetry

Programme exploring the background, effect and lasting appeal of some well-loved poems

Adventures in Poetry: Series 9

Adventures in Poetry: Series 9: Episode 3: I Am

Episode 3: I Am

Series 9

I Am

BBC Radio 4 - Adventures in Poetry, Series 9, I Am

Peggy examines Clare's expression of feelings of dispossession.

Peggy Reynolds explores the background, effect and lasting appeal of some well-loved poems. Peggy examines Clare's expression of feelings of dispossession.

Peggy Reynolds explores the background, effect and lasting appeal of some well-loved poems. 

Peggy examines the poem's expression of feelings of dispossession engendered by the land grab of the agricultural enclosures of the early-19th century, and Clare's residency in a lunatic asylum at the time of writing it.

Peggy Reynolds explores the background, effect and lasting appeal of some well-loved poems

Midnight News

The latest news and weather forecast from BBC Radio 4.

Midnight News: 14/12/2008

14/12/2008

BBC Radio 4 - Midnight News, 14/12/2008

The Late Story

The Late Story: Back Chat

The Late Story: Back Chat: Episode 4: Blue Thought

Episode 4

Episode 4: Blue Thought

Back Chat

Blue Thought

BBC Radio 4 - The Late Story, Back Chat, Blue ThoughtSearch BBC

A prone man seeks solace by talking to his bones. Read by Dermot Crowley.

Stories exploring the subject of back pain. A prone man seeks solace by talking to his bones. By AL Kennedy, read by Dermot Crowley.

Series of specially commissioned stories exploring the traumatic and occasionally comical subject of back pain.

A prone man seeks solace by talking to his bones. By AL Kennedy, read by Dermot Crowley.

Series of stories exploring the traumatic and occasionally comical subject of back pain

Five part series of specially commissioned stories exploring the traumatic and occasionally comical subject of back pain

Accessibility links

Programme Index

The Week in Westminster

13/12/2008

Genres

Brand

Weather

13/12/2008

Genres

Brand

Shipping Forecast

13/12/2008

Genres

Brand

Weather

13/12/2008

Genres

Brand

Shipping Forecast

14/12/2008

Genres

Brand

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