About 	 Lucy Rycroft: Lucy is the founder of The Hope-Filled Family, a ministry encouraging Christian parents, carers and all those investing in the younger generation. She is the author of several books for adults and children, including Busy Family Devotional and the Mighty Girl, Mighty God series. She is mum to four children ages 11 to 16, who arrived by birth and adoption, and is married to Al, a church leader in York, England.

	 Lucy Rycroft

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A A Gill

About A D Swanston: Andrew Swanston read law at Cambridge, but was inspired to write by his lifelong interest in early modern history. His Thomas Hill novels – The King’s Spy, The King’s Exile and The King’s Return – are set against the backdrops of the English Civil War, Cromwell’s Commonwealth and the early Restoration respectively. He is also the author of Waterloo: The Bravest Man and Beautiful Star and Other Stories. His first historical thriller set during the reign of Elizabeth I – Incendium (published in paperback as The Incendium Plot) – introduced readers to the academic, lawyer and intelligencer Dr Christopher Radcliff, whose adventures continue in Chaos. Andrew Swanston lives in Surrey.

A D Swanston

A E Langsford

A G Hopkins

About A J Baime: A. J. BAIME is the New York Times best-selling author of The Arsenal of Democracy: FDR, Detroit, and an Epic Quest to Arm an America at War and Go Like Hell: Ford, Ferrari, and Their Battle for Speed and Glory at Le Mans. Both books are in development for major motion pictures. Baime is a longtime regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal, and his articles have also appeared in the New York Times, Popular Science, and Men’s Journal. He lives in Granite Bay, California. Visit him at facebook.com/ajbaime and trumanbook.com.

A J Baime

A J Jacobs

A J P Taylor

About A J Pollard: Anthony James Pollard is a British medieval historian, specialising in the fifteenth century and in particular the Wars of the Roses. A leading authority in the field, he is profesor emeritus of Teesside University. His books include North-Eastern England during the Wars of the Roses, Richard III and the Princes in theTower, Imagining Robin Hood: the Late Medieval Stories in Historical Context and Warwick the kingmaker: Politics, Power and Fame.

A J Pollard

A J Rochester

About A K Benjamin: A K Benjamin is a clinical neuropsychologist and the author of Let Me Not Be Mad: A Story of Unravelling Minds.

A K Benjamin

About A L Berridge: A. L. Berridge read English at Oxford, and taught for ten years before moving into television, where her production credits range from period drama and thrillers to long-running soaps. She has written two previous novels, Top Ten besteller Honour and the Sword and In the Name of the King. Into the Valley of Death is her third novel.

A L Berridge

About A L Gaylin: Alison Gaylin's first job was as a reporter for a celebrity tabloid, which sparked a lifelong interest in writing about people committing despicable acts. More than a decade later, she wrote and published her Edgar-nominated first novel, HIDE YOUR EYES. 
 
She's since published nine more books, including the USA Today and international bestselling Brenna Spector suspense series, which has been nominated for the Edgar, Anthony and Thriller awards and won the Shamus award. 
 
She lives in upstate New York with her husband, daughter, cat and dog.

A L Gaylin

A Maxwell-Hyslop

A McArthur

A P Wavell

About A S Webb: A.S. Webb is the Sunday Times bestselling author of Daughter of Chaos, the first instalment of The Dark Pantheon Trilogy. She is inspired by stories rooted in history and mythology, that push the boundaries of imagination and urge us to reflect on what it means to be human.

A S Webb

About A. A. Dhand / A. A. Dhand: A. A. Dhand is the author of six previous novels, and has been shortlisted for the CWA Steel Dagger Award. His DI Harry Virdee novels are currently being adapted for TV by the BBC. He was raised in Bradford and spent his youth observing the city from behind the counter of a small convenience store. After qualifying as a pharmacist, he worked in London and travelled extensively before returning to Bradford to start his own business and begin writing. The history, diversity and darkness of the city have inspired all his novels. For more information about A. A. Dhand and his books, follow him on X @aadhand, and on Instagram @aa_dhand.

A. A. Dhand

A. A. Gill

A. A. Milne

A. Anatoli

About A. B. Poranek / A. B. Poranek: A. B. Poranek grew up sharing her time between Ontario, Canada and rural Poland, and eventually completed a veterinary degree at the Warsaw University of Life Sciences. A lover of mythology and history, she enjoys exploring both in her writing. Her debut novel, Where the Dark Stands Still, an instant New York Times bestseller, is an ode to Poland's folktales, while A Treachery of Swans transports readers to a world inspired by 17th century France.

A. B. Poranek

A. Bradley

About A. C. Grayling / A. C. Grayling: Professor A. C. Grayling is Principal of the New College of the Humanities at Northeastern University, London, and a Supernumerary Fellow of St Anne's College, Oxford. He has written and edited over thirty books on philosophy, history, science and current affairs. For several years he wrote columns for the Guardian newspaper and The Times and was the chairman of the 2014 Man Booker Prize.

A. C. Grayling

About A. D. Miller / A. D. Miller: A.D. Miller is the author of Snowdrops, The Earl of Petticoat Lane and The Faithful Couple. Snowdrops was a bestseller and was shortlisted for many prizes including the Man Booker and the CWA Gold Dagger. It was translated into 25 languages. As Moscow Correspondent of The Economist A.D. Miller has travelled across the former Soviet Union and covered the Orange Revolution in Ukraine; he is now the magazine’s Culture Editor based in London. 
 
admillerbooks.com

A. D. Miller

A. E. Ellis

A. E. W. Mason

A. Humphreys

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Simon Park

Wreckers sinks the old narratives of imperialism, revealing the violent, chaotic and improvised reality of empire-building from the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries. 
 
'Clever and compelling book. The storytelling and the scholarship fairly spark off each other. It could be a model for how academics should write history for a general audience' The Times 
 
‘A flowing, gripping narrative, Wreckers is distinguished by enchanting stories’ Peter Moore, Literary Review 
 
While figures such as Christopher Columbus, Vasco da Gama and Ferdinand Magellan are celebrated for their maritime achievements – reaching the Americas, India, and circumnavigating the globe – focusing solely on these voyages distorts our perspective on the past. Many explorers ended up as castaways, clinging to the splintered timbers of their wrecked ships, while those who survived often faced resistance and ridicule from indigenous communities across the globe. 
 
Drawing on maritime stories from various languages and continents – from Brazil and Southeast Africa to India and the Philippines – Wreckers shares dramatic tales of the sea and the events on land that followed. This offers an alternative timeline for the century after Columbus’ 1492 voyage and sheds light on the fractures and fault lines that accompanied the increasing geographical range of European ships. 
 
Simon Park argues that even when Europeans arrogantly claimed their own superiority, the truth was that they were often driven by a profound sense of greed and envy, and their actions included numerous mishaps. For example, in his hunt for gold, Martin Frobisher – who fancied himself England’s Columbus and Cortés combined – transported worthless rocks across the Atlantic by the tonne. In the search for spices, Captain and profiteer Manuel de Sousa de Sepúlveda’s ship was so overladen, it spewed its fragrant cargo when it crashed off the coast of South Africa. Moreover, in every place they went, Europeans depended on local know-how and goodwill – relying on indigenous knowledge of languages, geography, food and medicines. 
 
Wreckers reveals the precarious balance between imperious European powers, cunning locals who colluded to further their own agendas, and others who showed great tenacity in their resistance to European incursions. By focusing on stories of failure, defiance and comeuppance, Wreckers – a term Park uses to refer both to those who were wrecked and those involved in wrecking – offers a gripping and original account of a tumultuous period. It challenges the notion of unstoppable European dominance and enables a reimagining of history as a space of possibilities then, now and in the future.

Wreckers

Disaster in the Age of Discovery

BBC Radio Comedy

24 more archive editions of the much-loved BBC Radio 4 panel game chaired by Nicholas Parsons 
 
As if to prove the point that good humour never dates, this collection of archive Just a Minute includes episodes broadcast across four decades, from 1973 to 2009. As usual, players must attempt to speak for one minute on a given subject without hesitation, repetition or deviation and while at the mercy of both the stopwatch and their fellow contestants’ buzzers. Mirth, merriment and silliness are bound to follow, in a fashion that has made ‘JAM’ a beloved institution not only in this country but also around the world. Nicholas Parsons welcomes listeners to each episode and gives his firm but fair adjudication to the many tricky challenges that ensue. 
 
Regular players Kenneth Williams, Peter Jones, Derek Nimmo and Paul Merton pit their wits against each other and guests Sheila Hancock, Jean Marsh, Magnus Pyke, Joan Bakewell, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Barry Took, Jan Ravens, Brian Johnston, Gyles Brandreth, Martin Jarvis, Simon Bates, Craig Ferguson, Stephen Fry, Pete McCarthy, Steve Frost, Jenny Eclair, Kit Hesketh-Harvey, Maria McErlane, Julian Clary, Linda Smith, Tony Hawks, Graham Norton, Tim Rice, Sue Perkins, Wendy Richard, Bill Bailey, Chris Neill, Charles Collingwood, Janey Godley, Shappi Khorsandi and Liza Tarbuck. 
 
Please note: Contains mild innuendo. The humour in these programmes sometimes reflects the era in which they were first broadcast. Due to the archive nature of some of the episodes, the sound quality may vary. 
 
Cast and credits 
 
Devised by Ian Messiter 
Chaired by Nicholas Parsons 
Episode selection by Michael Stevens 
Music: The Minute Waltz (Waltz in D Flat Major, Op. 64) by Chopin 
With thanks to Keith Wickham and the Radio Circle for archive assistance. 
 
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on the following dates: 
 
Episode Guide 
1 01 October 1973 
Featuring Sheila Hancock, Peter Jones, Derek Nimmo, Kenneth Williams 
 
2 26 November 1973 
Featuring Peter Jones, Jean Marsh, Derek Nimmo, Kenneth Williams 
 
3 19 January 1977 
Featuring Peter Jones, Derek Nimmo, Magnus Pyke, Kenneth Williams 
 
4 27 March 1979 
Featuring Joan Bakewell, Peter Jones, Derek Nimmo, Kenneth Williams 
 
5 9 May 1981 
Featuring Tim Brooke-Taylor, Peter Jones, Barry Took, Kenneth Williams 
 
6 25 April 1983 
Featuring Peter Jones, Derek Nimmo, Jan Ravens, Kenneth Williams 
 
7 16 May 1983 
Featuring Brian Johnston, Peter Jones, Derek Nimmo, Kenneth Williams 
 
8 30 June 1984 
Featuring Gyles Brandreth, Martin Jarvis, Derek Nimmo, Kenneth Williams 
 
9 1 February 1986 
Featuring Simon Bates, Peter Jones, Derek Nimmo, Kenneth Williams 
 
10 8 March 1993 
Featuring Craig Ferguson, Peter Jones, Paul Merton, Derek Nimmo 
 
11 8 January 1994 
Featuring Stephen Fry, Peter Jones, Pete McCarthy, Paul Merton 
 
12 4 February 1995 
Featuring Steve Frost, Peter Jones, Paul Merton, Derek Nimmo 
 
13 25 February 1995 
Featuring Jenny Eclair, Kit Hesketh-Harvey, Peter Jones, Paul Merton 
 
14 22 June 1998 
Featuring Steve Frost, Peter Jones, Maria McErlane, Paul Merton 
 
15 15 January 2001 
Featuring Julian Clary, Kit Hesketh-Harvey, Paul Merton, Linda Smith 
 
16 4 February 2002 
Featuring Jenny Eclair, Tony Hawks, Graham Norton, Tim Rice 
 
17 29 July 2002 
Featuring Tony Hawks, Kit Hesketh-Harvey, Sue Perkins, Wendy Richard 
 
18 17 February 2003 
Featuring Bill Bailey, Tony Hawks, Chris Neill, Linda Smith 
 
19 21 March 2005 
Featuring Tony Hawks, Chris Neill, Tim Rice, Linda Smith 
 
20 24 July 2006 
Featuring Charles Collingwood, Tony Hawks, Paul Merton, Sue Perkins 
 
21 3 March 2008 
Featuring Gyles Brandreth, Janey Godley, Tony Hawks, Kit Hesketh-Harvey 
 
22 12 January 2009 
Featuring Charles Collingwood, Shappi Khorsandi, Paul Merton, Graham Norton 
 
23 9 February 2009 
Featuring Gyles Brandreth, Paul Merton, Sue Perkins, Liza Tarbuck 
 
24 10 August 2009 
Featuring Charles Collingwood, Jenny Eclair, Stephen Fry, Paul Merton 
 
 
© 2026 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. (P) 2026 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

Just a Classic Minute

A Timeless Anthology

David Rooney

‘Vivid and compelling’ John Lancaster 
‘A delectable serving of escapist nostalgia’ The Times, Book of the Week 
 
 A non-stop flight across the Atlantic might seem routine today. But it is only possible because of those who went first. 
 
Newfoundland, 1919. Buffeted by winds, an unwieldy aircraft – made mainly from wood and stiff linen – struggled to take off from the North American island’s rocky slopes. Cramped side by side in its open cockpit were two men, freezing cold and barely able to move, but resolute. They had a dream: to be the first in human history to fly, non-stop, across the Atlantic Ocean. But there were three other teams competing against them, and as the waves raged a few miles below, memories of wartime crashes resurfaced . . . 
 
Mining letters, diaries and evocative unpublished photographs, David Rooney’s deeply researched account of this audacious contest shows how it was the airmen’s thrilling wartime experiences that ultimately led them to the ‘Big Hop’, and brought old friends together for one more daring adventure. 
 
‘An excellent book… The Big Hop consists of colourful biographical sketches of the aviators who took part in the competition and thrilling accounts of their efforts’ Daily Mail 
 
‘The Big Hop is a glorious romp through an overlooked part of aviation history, stuffed full of intriguing characters and white-knuckle courage’ Sunday Times

The Big Hop

The first flight across the Atlantic and the ordinary heroes who risked their lives for it

The First Non-stop Flight Across the Atlantic and Into the Future

Andy Wilman

Top Gear turned gloomy Sunday nights into celebratory Friday nights. It made household names of presenters Clarkson, Hammond and May, their unique chemistry and buddy movie antics proving irresistible to a global audience, earning them the Guinness World Record for the world's most popular factual TV show. Then, a short while later, it was gone. How did a thoroughly sensible little consumer advice programme on cars become a global phenomenon? How did it all go wrong? And how did they rise from the ashes as The Grand Tour? One man has all the answers - co-creator, and Jeremy’s oldest friend, Andy Wilman.

Mr Wilman’s Motoring Adventure

Top Gear, Grand Tour, Clarkson and Me

Noemi Orvos-Toth

Inherited Fate

Family trauma and the ways of healing

James Aldred

Join James Aldred on a captivating journey, encountering master craftsmen, British wildlife, and a deep passion for a remarkable landscape. 
 
There are some moments in childhood that are frozen in time, vivid and vital, an anchor. When James Aldred tracked down an old horse-drawn wagon he once played in, he found himself inside one such moment again. Though brambles had overtaken its rotted boards and its wheels were barely there, it transported him to a magical summer in the New Forest forty years ago and awakened in him the possibility of reliving it with his young family. Pairing an ambition to restore the wagon to its former glory with a determination to share the Forest with his children, he embarked on a remarkable journey. 
 
In his evocative memoir, Aldred chronicles his return to a cherished childhood landscape, rich with the history of the Romani families who once roamed freely there. As he painstakingly restores the wagon, Aldred delves into both the New Forest's natural history and storied past, tracing its roots back to the 16th century and even further to the time of William the Conqueror. Camera traps reveal otters hunting in the brook, while the nearby goshawk nest and fox earth speak to the area's thriving wildlife. 
 
Masterfully observed, A Wagon in the Woods is a celebration of both people and place, and the timeless bond between land, history and the enduring spirit of adventure.

A Wagon in the Woods

Pursuing a dream in an ancient forest

BBC Comedy

All 30 soundtrack episodes of the BBC TV version of Just a Minute 
 
Just a Minute is a radio perennial. Loved by listeners for almost 60 years, it’s the BBC’s longest-running and most popular panel game, having clocked up over 1000 episodes on Radio 4. And now, you can enjoy 30 more, with these sparkling soundtrack episodes from the BBC TV run of the show. 
 
First broadcast on BBC One in 1999 and BBC Two in 2012, they are chaired by the one and only Nicholas Parsons, who presides over a host of celebrity wordsmiths including Paul Merton, Pam Ayres, Clare Balding, Jo Brand, Gyles Brandreth, Barry Cryer, John Sergeant, Brian Sewell, Hugh Bonneville, Marcus Brigstocke, Julian Clary, Stephen Fry, Phill Jupitus, Miles Jupp, Shappi Khorsandi, Graham Norton, Sue Perkins and Liza Tarbuck. 
 
Though the format may be different, the aim of the game is still the same: to speak on a given theme for 60 seconds, without hesitation, repetition or deviation. Among the topics testing the panellists’ verbal dexterity are Ever Decreasing Circles, Mumbo Jumbo, Garden Gnomes, Yorkshire Pudding, Charlie Chaplin, A New Rule for Just a Minute, My 45th Birthday and Writer’s Block. 
 
So ready your ears for a feast of comic improvisations, magical monologues, cheeky challenges and outrageous one-upmanship, as the panellists set their sights on that rarest of beasts: a perfect, uninterrupted minute... 
 
NB: Contains mild innuendo. The humour in these programmes sometimes reflects the era in which they were first broadcast. 
 
 
Cast and credits 
Devised by Ian Messiter 
Chaired by Nicholas Parsons 
BBC One series produced and directed by Helena Taylor 
BBC Two series produced by Andy Brereton and Jamie Ormerod and directed by Richard van't Riet 
 
Episode list: 
 
BBC One 
19 Apr 1999: Barry Cryer, Su Pollard, John Sergeant and Brian Sewell 
20 Apr 1999: Tony Hawks, Wendy Richard, Steve Frost and Clare Baldin 
21 Apr 1999: Isla Blair, Gyles Brandreth, Linda Smith and Gary Wilmot 
22 Apr 1999: Pam Ayres, Peter Jones, Wendy Richard and Linda Smith 
23 Apr 1999: Jo Brand, Gyles Brandreth, Tony Hawks and Peter Jones 
26 Apr 1999: Barry Cryer, Stephen Frost, Tony Hawks and Wendy Richard 
27 Apr 1999: Michael Cashman, Peter Jones, Maria McErlane and Linda Smith 
28 Apr 1999: Liza Goddard, Richard Morton, Tom O’Connor and Richard Vranch 
29 Apr 1999: Clare Balding, Stephen Frost, Tony Hawks and Wendy Richard 
30 Apr 1999: Barry Cryer, Su Pollard, John Sergeant and Brian Sewell 
3 May 1999: Isla Blair, Gyles Brandreth, Linda Smith and Gary Wilmot 
4 May 1999: Maria McErlane, Steve Punt, Wendy Richard and Linda Smith 
5 May 1999: Gyles Brandreth, Ken Bruce, Liza Goddard and Richard Morton 
6 May 1999: Pam Ayres, Peter Jones, Wendy Richard and Linda Smith 
10 May 1999: Tony Hawks, Wendy Richard, Barry Cryer and Stephen Frost 
11 May 1999: Michael Cashman, Peter Jones, Maria McErlane and Linda Smith 
12 May 1999: Jo Brand, Gyles Brandreth, Tony Hawks and Peter Jones 
13 May 1999: Maria McErlane, Steve Punt, Wendy Richard and Linda Smith 
14 May 1999: Gyles Brandreth, Ken Bruce, Liza Goddard and Richard Morton 
26 May 1999: Liza Goddard, Richard Vranch, Richard Morton and Tom O'Connor 
 
BBC Two 
26 Mar 2012: Paul Merton, Graham Norton, Sue Perkins and Phill Jupitus 
27 Mar 2012: Paul Merton, Julian Clary, Stephen Fry and Russell Tovey 
28 Mar 2012: Paul Merton, Sue Perkins, Marcus Brigstocke and Ruth Jones 
29 Mar 2012: Paul Merton, Liza Tarbuck, Gyles Brandreth and Miles Jupp 
30 Mar 2012: Paul Merton, Josie Lawrence, John Sergeant and Jason Manford 
2 Apr 2012: Paul Merton, Graham Norton, Sue Perkins and Tony Hawks 
3 Apr 2012: Paul Merton, Shappi Khorsandi, Hugh Bonneville and Jason Manford 
4 Apr 2012: Paul Merton, Sue Perkins, Marcus Brigstocke and Stephen Mangan 
5 Apr 2012: Paul Merton, Liza Tarbuck, Gyles Brandreth and Tony Hawks 
6 Apr 2012: Paul Merton, Julian Clary, Stephen Fry and Shappi Khorsandi 
 
© 2026 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. (P) 2026 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

Just a Minute: The Complete BBC TV Collection

Every Soundtrack Episode from the Hit BBC Comedy Show

Malcolm Gaskill

Malcolm Gaskill knew two things about his great-uncle Ralph’s wartime adventures: he’d been a prisoner in Italy, and he’d cut his way out of a train with a knife and fork. Apart from that, he’d faded into family folklore, lost to view. Until, one hot afternoon in an English country garden, a chance conversation set Gaskill on his uncle’s trail… 
 
What Ralph really did in the war was, he discovers, even more extraordinary than the exaggerations of family myth. From last-ditch fighting in the Libyan desert and incarceration in a Puglian prisoner-of-war camp, to desperate, dramatic escapes and the assuming of an entirely new identity among the peasants and partisans of the Italian Alps, Gaskill traces a life transformed by conflict, while lifting the curtain on a long-forgotten episode of the Second World War. 
 
Yet The Glass Mountain is about more than war: it’s a haunting exploration of what it means to encounter the past, and how we remember, forget and recover it. As he follows his uncle’s path through dusty archives and the landscapes, towns and villages of present-day Italy, Gaskill finds himself confronted by questions that go to the heart of how we think about the people who came before us: Why do stories matter? How much of the past can ever be true?

The Glass Mountain

Escape and Discovery in Wartime Italy

Joe Dunthorne

Joe Dunthorne had always wanted to write about his great-grandfather, Siegfried: an eccentric scientist who invented radioactive toothpaste and a Jewish refugee from the Nazis who returned to Germany under cover of the Berlin Olympics to pull off a heist on his own home. 
 
The only problem was that Siegfried had already written the book of his life – an unpublished, two-thousand page memoir so dry and rambling that none of his living descendants had managed to read it. And, as it turned out when Joe finally read the manuscript himself, it told a very different story from the one he thought he knew… 
 
Thus begins a mystery which stretches across the twentieth century and around the world, from Berlin to Ankara, New York, Glasgow and eventually London – a mystery about the production of something much more sinister than toothpaste. On the trail of one ‘jolly grandpa’ with a patchy psychiatric history and an encyclopaedic knowledge of poison gases, Joe Dunthorne is forced to confront the uncomfortable questions that lie at the heart of every family. Can we ever understand where we come from? Is every family in the end a work of fiction? And even if the truth can be found – will we be able to live with it? 
 
Children of Radium is a remarkable, searching meditation on individual and collective inheritance. Witty and wry, deeply humane and endlessly surprising, it considers the long half-life of trauma, the weight of guilt and the ever-evasive nature of the truth.

Children of Radium

A Buried Inheritance

Alistair Wood

As a boy, Alistair Wood lived within the walls of an MI6 training camp. After all, he was family. His mother was one of a handful of women to have operated behind the lines in post-war Berlin. His father, once one of Britain’s most highly-regarded intelligence officers, was an absent and perplexing figure, the reasons for his sudden departure from the Service still classified to this day. 
My Family and Other Spies is a gripping exploration of an extraordinary family, a globe-trotting spy story spanning pre-Second World War to the fall of Communism, and a son’s reckoning with the secrets of the past.

My Family And Other Spies

Simon Weisz

For the first eighteen years of Simon Weisz’s life his parents were at pains to keep their past concealed from him. All he knew for sure was that they had grown up in Hungary and that they had arrived in Britain after the Second World War. It was only as he reached manhood that they started to confide their carefully guarded secrets to him: that they were Jewish, and that his mother had experienced the appalling horrors of Nazi persecution.In conversations over the following decades, Simon’s mother gradually, often reluctantly, revealed more of her past: from the growing oppression her family had had to endure in the late 1930s, to her deportation first to Auschwitz and then to Ravensbrück, to the brutal death march she withstood from the ruins of Berlin in 1945. As he pieced her testimony together, Simon came to realise how the memories she had fought so hard to suppress continued to haunt her in the form of terrifying flashbacks and moments of extreme frustration and anger. And he started to understand how her concealed trauma had, in turn, shaped his own development and the course of his life.Himmler’s Curtains is both a visceral account of a Holocaust survivor’s experiences, and an impressive study of the impact of suffering on two generations of a family. It also movingly reveals the high psychological price exacted by silence.

Himmler’s Curtains

A Memoir of Loss and Concealment

Jarred McGinnis

There is no meant to be but the love I’ve known has made it hard to believe that. 
 
Jarred McGinnis was born to a Southern US clan where masculinity, resilience and physical violence were intertwined. In There Is No Meant to Be he unearths the legends, secrets and scars that have shaped his family line, from his outlaw Irish ancestors to his mother Momo’s gift of foresight, and the ghosts – both real and remembered – that follow him into adulthood.Two decades on from the near-fatal accident that left him in a wheelchair, McGinnis is married and the father of two girls, living first in East London and now Marseille. He writes about love within the context of care and of the particular vulnerability that comes from being a parent with a disability. In a daring imaginative leap, he writes of the end of life too, reaching beyond his own death to look at what truly makes a life.Inventive, funny and deeply moving, this is a family epic unlike any other: part love story, part elegy, part reminder that even in the mess of family and memory there is something to laugh about.

There Is No Meant to Be

A Family Story

Scott Bateman

Nothing like Boeing's 747 had ever been seen before. The biggest, heaviest, most powerful and ambitious airliner ever to take to the air would go on to become an icon, described by Bill Gates as “the world’s first world wide web.” Since that landmark first flight in 1968, the 747 has served Presidents as Air Force One, explored the origins of the universe for NASA, fired airborne lasers, launched space rockets, performed dramatic rescues, bombed forest fires and survived extraordinary close escapes to bring her passengers home safely. Former 747 pilot Scott Bateman tells the story of this 'Queen of the Skies.'

Jumbo

Mark Smith

Sunday evenings wouldn't be the same without Mark Smith on Antiques Roadshow. 
 
Seeing beyond military memorabilia to the human stories at their heart has made him a national treasure. 
 
Mark’s fascination was fostered by his WWII veteran father, who shared stories of flying special operations for the RAF. But Smith Snr was also haunted by the loss of his best friend, Harry, on a secret mission over the Indian Ocean. 
 
From the pages of his father’s unpublished wartime memoir, to a pilgrimage to a Chennai cemetery, Mark takes us on his most personal journey, bringing closure to his father’s story.

Medal Man

Julian Sancton

'full of heroism, greed, piracy, sunken treasure and adventure on the high seas... it's even more remarkable because it's true' ERIC SCHLOSSER New York Times bestselling author of Command and Control and Fast Food Nation 
 
'a splendid historical tale that’s been researched meticulously and told exceptionally well' HAMPTON SIDES, New York Times bestselling author of 'The Wide Wide Sea' 
 
'a rousing slice of narrative history, and a rip-roaring tale from bow to stern' TELEGRAPH 
 
The riveting true story of a legendary Spanish galleon that sunk with over $1 billion in gold and silver—and one man’s obsessive quest to find it—from the Sunday Times bestselling author of Madhouse at the End of the Earth 
 
Roger Dooley wasn’t looking for the San Jose. But an accidental discovery in the dusty stacks of a Spanish archive in the 1980s led him to the story of a lifetime—the journey of a ship that had gathered a mountain of riches from the New World for a long-awaited delivery to the King of Spain nearly three centuries earlier. But that ship, the galleon San Jose, never reached its destination. Instead, the Spanish treasure fleet was drawn into a pitched battle with British ships of war off the coast of Cartagena. When the smoke cleared, the San Jose had disappeared into the ocean. 
 
Though a diver at heart, Dooley was an unlikely candidate to find the San Jose. Half Cuban by birth, he lived a life that stretched from the ballfields of Brooklyn to the shores of Castro’s Havana at the dawn of revolution, where he would help birth a fledgling nation’s diving program and make films with Jacques Cousteau, before finding himself placed on an international watch list and barred from the United States. Dooley had little in the way of serious credentials, yet his tenacity and single-minded devotion to finding the San Jose led him to breakthroughs once thought impossible. As he jousted with famous treasure hunters and well-funded competitors, Dooley ultimately homed in on a patch of sea that might contain a three-hundred-year-old shipwreck—or nothing at all. 
 
Neptune's Fortune plunges into a rarified world through the eyes of an idiosyncratic protagonist, one whose work would spark the hopes of presidents and make real the dreams of a nation. This tale of temerity and treasure is a one-of-a-kind story of a lost fortune and the decades-long quest to shine a light on the bounty at the bottom of the sea. 
 
'brilliantly written... if I were to choose one book to exemplify the fascination and folly of treasure-hunting, this would be it' DAVID GIBBINS, author of A History of the World in Twleve Shipwrecks 
 
'a thoroughly engrossing read' SUSAN ORLEAN, bestselling author of The Orchid Thief and The Library Book 
 
'Sancton is a masterful storyteller... Readers are in for a rare treat' SCOTT ANDERSON, New York Times bestselling author of Lawrence in Arabia

Neptune’s Fortune

The Billion-Dollar Shipwreck and the Ghosts of the Spanish Empire

Sue Perkins chairs these two scintillating series from 2025 
 
The BBC’s longest-running radio panel game is back for twelve more episodes, as host Sue Perkins challenges contestants to extemporise for 60 seconds on any subject that comes up on the cards – without hesitation, deviation or repetition. 
 
Topics include Snake Oil, Getting Butterflies, Negotiating with a Toddler, The Life of a Strawberry, Mr Darcy, When I Was Staying at The White Lotus, My Favourite Pizza Topping, Oasis Tickets and Paddington Bear. Tackling these tricky themes are a host of star guests including Paul Merton, Gyles Brandreth, Julian Clary, Josie Lawrence, Desiree Burch, Emma Sidi, Paterson Joseph, Charlotte Ritchie, Daliso Chaponda and – returning to play the game after ten years away – Stephen Mangan. 
 
All are funny, fluent and fearless – but can they avoid trips, slips, stutters and hiccups to gain the glory of a perfect, uninterrupted minute? 
 
 
Production credits 
Devised by Ian Messiter 
Chaired by Sue Perkins 
Produced by Rajiv Karia and Georgia Keating 
Production Coordinator: Sarah Nicholls 
Sound Editor: Marc Willcox 
Executive Producer: James Robinson 
Additional material by Eve Delaney 
 
Series 94 featuring: Paul Merton, Laura Smyth, Julian Clary, Desiree Burch, Tony Hawks, Ian Smith, Zoe Lyons, Charlotte Ritchie, Josie Lawrence, Ivo Graham, Sara Pascoe, Daliso Chaponda 
 
Series 95 featuring: Paul Merton, Lucy Porter, Zoe Lyons, Stephen Mangan, Tony Hawks, Desiree Burch, Gyles Brandreth, Emma Sidi, Julian Clary, Paterson Joseph, Rachel Parris 
 
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4, 20 January-24 February 2025 (Series 94), 18 August-22 September 2025 (Series 95) 
 
© 2025 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. (P) © 2025 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

Just a Minute 2025: The Complete Series 94 & 95

The BBC Radio 4 Topical Comedy

All three series of the award-winning topical panel show from 2025 
 
Andy Zaltzman returns for a triple helping of comic quizzing, as he serves up a satirical smorgasbord of choice news morsels for his esteemed panellists to feast on. Making short work of them are some of the biggest names in British and international comedy and journalism, including Sara Barron, Ria Lina, Nish Kumar, Pierre Novellie, Armando Iannucci, Zing Tsjeng, Ava Santina, Mark Steel, Adam Kay, Geoff Norcott, Susie McCabe and Ian Smith. 
 
Kicking off with a ‘Best of 2024’ compilation episode, revisiting and revelling in the previous year’s funniest moments, the team proceed to tuck into 2025’s most pertinent topics, among them the presidential inauguration, the election of the world’s first American Pope, Donald Trump’s tariff turmoil, the Birmingham bin workers’ strike, Budget talks, the Boriswave and the stripping of both Royal titles and Royal crown jewels. 
 
They also take time to savour some of the year’s smaller stories – including the overdue return of the woolly mammoth, the death of the semi-colon, pop stars popping to the stars, Yorkshire gladiators, telepathic Google searches and chimps drunk on fruit. And as soaring cocoa prices impact Britain’s sweet treats, the panel chew over the big question of the moment: are things better or worse than they used to be? 
 
Production credits 
Written and hosted by Andy Zaltzman 
With additional material by Simon Alcock, Rebecca Bain, Chris Ballard, Daman Bamrah, Samira Banks, Carwyn Blayney, Catherine Brinkworth, Angela Channell, Ruby Clyde, Cody Dahler, Eve Delaney, Tasha Dhanraj, David Duncan, Jain Edwards, Milo Edwards, Alice Fraser, Jade Gebbie, Marty Gleeson, Alexandra Haddow, Miranda Holmes, Ruth Husko, Alex Kealy, Ralph Jones, Sam Lake, Sascha LO, Cameron Loxdale, Laura Major, Christian Manley, Stuart McPherson, Meryl O'Rourke, Alfife Packham, Ben Pope, Christina Riggs, Mike Shephard, Peter Tellouche and John Tothill 
 
Produced by Sam Holmes, Rajiv Karia and Gwyn Rhys Davies 
Executive Producers: James Robinson, Pete Strauss and Richard Morris 
Production Co-ordinators: Jodie Charman, Beanna Olding, Caroline Barlow and Giulia Lopes Mazzu 
Sound: Sean Kerwin, David Thomas, Mark Willcox 
 
Series 116 featuring: Anushka Asthana, Angela Barnes, Sara Barron, Scott Bennett, Simon Evans, Daniel Finkelstein, Alice Fraser, Ayesha Hazarika, Athena Kugblenu, Nish Kumar, Jay Lafferty, Laura Lexx, Ria Lina, Zoe Lyons, Alex Massie, Andrew Maxwell, Susie McCabe, Val McDermid, Stuart Mitchell, Glenn Moore, Geoff Norcott, Pierre Novellie, Lucy Porter, Hugo Rifkind, Paul Sinha, Ian Smith and Zing Tsjeng 
 
Series 117 featuring: Anushka Asthana, Sara Barron, Alasdair Beckett-King, Ed Byrne, Daliso Chaponda, Jessica Fostekew, Armando Iannucci, Alex Kealy, Athena Kugblenu, Marie Le Conte, Ria Lina, Zoe Lyons, Andrew Maxwell, Glenn Moore, Geoff Norcott, Pierre Novellie, Lucy Porter, Hugo Rifkind, Ava Santina, Ian Smith, Mark Steel, Zing Tsjeng, Felicity Ward and Cindy Yu 
 
Series 118 featuring: Celya AB, Sara Barron, Alasdair Beckett-King, Scott Bennett, Stephen Bush, Daliso Chaponda, Kate Cheka, Neil Delamere, Simon Evans, Ayesha Hazarika, Adam Kay, Coco Khan, Laura Lexx, Ria Lina, Zoe Lyons, Andrew Maxwell, Susie McCabe, Geoff Norcott, Pierre Novellie, Lucy Porter, Hugo Rifkind, Ava Santina, Ash Sarkar, Ahir Shah, Ian Smith, Tiff Stevenson and Cindy Yu 
 
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4, 3 Jan 2025, 10 Jan-28 February 2025 (Series 116), 18 Apr-6 Jun 2025 (Series 117), 5 Sep-24 Oct 2025 (Series 118) 
 
© 2025 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. (P) 2025 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

The News Quiz 2025: The Complete Series 116, 117 and 118

The Topical BBC Radio 4 Panel Show

Mark Wolynn

'Groundbreaking' – Tara Brach, psychologist and bestselling author of Radical Acceptance 
 
The bestselling guide to transforming traumatic family legacies, from the acclaimed psychologist 
 
Depression. Anxiety. Chronic pain. Phobias. Obsessive thoughts. The evidence is compelling: the root of these difficulties may reside in the traumas of our parents, grandparents and even great-grandparents. The latest research affirms that traumatic experience is passed on to future generations and that this emotional inheritance, hidden in everything from our gene expression to everyday language, plays a greater role in our health than ever previously understood. 
 
Building on the work of leading experts in neuroscience and posttraumatic stress, Mark Wolynn has developed a pioneering approach to identifying and breaking these inherited family patterns. Having worked with individuals and groups on a therapeutic level for more than twenty years, It Didn't Start With You is his accessible, pragmatic and transformative guide to a method that has helped thousands of people reclaim their lives.

It Didn't Start With You

How inherited family trauma shapes who we are and how to end the cycle

Mat Watson

A highly entertaining, clued-up and panoramic guide to cars by Mat Watson, the world’s most followed car journalist on social media. 
 
Mat Watson knows everything there is to know about cars. 
 
In his 25-year career as a motor journalist, he has driven and tested every vehicle under the sun, from engineering marvels such as the Bugatti Chiron and Ferrari F40, to the grand-touring stalwarts of highways and motorways the world over – Audis, Volvos, Fords, Fiats, Citroens, Mercedes and Teslas – to absolute crapheaps which should never have made it out of the factory gates. He has crawled into hundreds of boots, peered under thousands of bonnets, kicked tens of thousands of tyres, and has perfected a nose for what makes a beautiful, brilliant and, sometimes truly atrocious, car. 
 
Mat is trusted and loved by his many millions of followers online, and his seal of approval is highly sought-after by car manufacturers the world over. His signature unserious yet highly informed style has granted him exclusive access to the biggest launches, the most exclusive cars, and the best in-car snacks. 
 
In Auto Biography, his long-awaited first book, Mat presents his own 100% completely correct and highly opinionated guide to the world of cars. From Aston Martin to Kia, BMW to Porsche, he offers up discerning and pithy takes on all the major car manufacturers, telling stories and sharing industry information that has never before been heard. 
 
Whether you're in the market for a hatchback or a hypercar, an SUV or an EV – or if you just want to know what it's like to drag-race a Koenigsegg – this is the book for you.

Auto Biography

An A-Z Exposé of Cars

Steve Punt

David Tyler

The complete second collection of the quiz show where a team of three University students take on a team of three of their professors, hosted by Steve Punt (star of BBC Radio 4’s The Now Show and the brains behind Horrible Histories), including the complete final series 15. 
 
The show is recorded on location at a different University each week, and pits three Undergraduates against three of their Professors in this fresh take on an academic quiz. The General Knowledge rounds include a quickfire bell-and-buzzer finale and the ‘Highbrow & Lowbrow’ round is cunningly devised to test not only the students’ knowledge of history, art, literature and politics, but also their Professors’ awareness of TV, music and sport. Meanwhile there are the three Specialist Subject rounds, in which students take on their Professors in their own subjects, and where we find out whether the students have actually been awake during lectures... 
 
In the eighth series the universities are Newcastle, Hertfordshire, Dundee, Merton College Oxford, Sheffield and Brunel. Questions range from Bach and benzene rings to Gnasher from The Beano and why eating detergent is wrong. 
 
In the ninth series the universities are Royal Holloway, Aberdeen, Plymouth, St Catharine’s College Cambridge, Brighton, and Oxford Brookes. We’ll hear about Lego, Scottish Gaelic fishing jargon and horse teeth via Jack Straw, James Bond and Dick Dastardly. 
 
In the tenth series the universities are Bournemouth, Imperial College, Reading, Durham, Ulster, and Mansfield College Oxford. Questions range from sarcophagi to cocktail ingredients to Jack Reacher, with a bit of Tristram Shandy thrown in. 
 
In the eleventh series the universities are Southampton, Cumbria, Brasenose College Oxford, Anglia Ruskin, Northampton, and Nottingham Trent. Subjects include brothels, bats and robbing a bank, plus there’s a chance to brush up on Plato, piercings, and postage. 
 
In the twelfth series the universities are UCL, Leeds Beckett, Gonville & Caius College Cambridge, Warwick, Bangor, and Lancaster. Questions range from the isotropy of the universe and Kartvelian Languages to Yellow Submarines and a song about sausage rolls. 
 
In the thirteenth series the universities are Exeter, Strathclyde, Somerville College Oxford, Keele, King’s College London, and Portsmouth. Subjects include a giant spider, Kate Winslet, and why it's no longer illegal to commit champerty. Also, there's your chance to hear the most-played piece of music ever. 
 
In the fourteenth series the universities are Leicester, St Andrews, Loughborough, Falmouth, Robinson College Cambridge, and UEA. We’ll meet a five-legged sheep and a Belgian biscuit, and discover how to luff a jib, how to deconstruct a dodecagon, and the one thing Hannibal Lecter really shouldn’t eat… 
 
In the fifteenth series the universities are Bristol, Queen Mary London, University of Kent, Worcester College Oxford, Manchester Metropolitan University and more. Specialist subjects include Environmental Science, Drama, and History, so naturally we’ll be discussing Boron/Calcium pH proxy analysis, Noël Coward’s wartime satire and St Cuthbert’s A-level results. All this and the world’s hottest chili pepper to boot. If not to eat. 
 
Hosted by Steve Punt 
Devised & produced by David Tyler 
First broadcast 25 June 2018 – 19 October 2025 
A Pozzitive Production for BBC Radio 4©2025 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. (P)2025 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd.

The 3rd Degree: Series 8-15

The BBC Radio 4 Brainy Quiz Show

Richard Coles

Charles Spencer

Cat Jarman

Join the trio behind the hit history podcast, The Rabbit Hole Detectives, Richard Coles, Charles Spencer and Cat Jarman in their first trivia book as they investigate weird and wonderful facts and stories rescued from obscurity. From the earliest recorded examples of practical jokes to a whistle-stop tour of the world's ghost towns to a history of red heads, The Rabbit Hole Book is a fascinating and entertaining dive into all the things you didn't know you wanted to know.

The Rabbit Hole Book

99 adventures into the history of stuff

James Fox

Britain has always been a craft land. For generations what we made with our hands defined our identities, built our communities and shaped our regions. Craftland chronicles the vanishing skills and traditions that once governed every aspect of life on these shores. 
 
Travelling the length of Britain, from the Scilly Isles to the Scottish Highlands, James Fox seeks out the country’s last remaining master craftspeople. Stepping inside the workshops of blacksmiths and wheelwrights, cutlers and coopers, bell-founders and watchmakers, we glimpse not only our past but another way of life — one that is not yet lost and whose wisdom could shape our future. 
 
For as long as there are humans, there will be craft. It is all around us, hiding in plain sight, enriching even the most modest things. And in this increasingly digital age, it is perhaps more valuable than ever. Craftland is a celebration of that deeply necessary connection between our creative instincts and the material world we inhabit, revealing a richer and more connected way of living.

Craftland

A Journey Through Britain’s Lost Arts and Vanishing Trades

Lea Ypi

When Lea Ypi discovers a photo of her grandmother, Leman, honeymooning in the Alps in 1941 posted by a stranger on social media, she is faced with unsettling questions. Growing up, she was told records of her grandmother’s youth were destroyed in the early days of communism in Albania. But there Leman was with her husband, Asllan Ypi: glamorous newlyweds while World War II raged.What follows is a thrilling reimagining of the past, as we are transported to the vanished world of Ottoman aristocracy, the making of modern Greece and Albania, a global financial crisis, the horrors of war and the dawn of communism in the Balkans. While investigating the truth about her family, Ypi grapples with uncertainty. Who is the real Leman Ypi? What made her move to Tirana as a young woman and marry a socialist who sympathized with the Popular Front while his father led a collaborationist government? And why was she smiling in the winter of 1941?By turns epic and intimate, profound and gripping, Indignity explores what it means to survive in an age of extremes. It reveals the fragility of truth, both personal and political, and the cost of decisions made against the tide of history. Through secret police reports of communist spies, court depositions, and Ypi’s memories of her grandmother, we move between present and past, archive and imagination, fact and fiction. Ultimately, she asks, what do we really know about the people closest to us? And with what moral authority do we judge the acts of previous generations?

Indignity

A Life Reimagined

Dominic Frisby

The Secret History of Gold tells the epic tale of the world’s oldest, and most treasured, currency. From its origins in the formation of the solar system to its pivotal role in both ancient myth and modern finance, Dominic Frisby explores, with wit and brevity, how gold has defined the entire course of human civilisation. 
 
Gold has inspired men to do the most brilliant – and terrible – things. The most stolen metal in history, it has lured explorers, conquerors and thieves. It has sparked wars, it has built empires, it has empowered leaders – from Alexander the Great to Adolf Hitler – good and bad. As nations today such as China and Russia mine and hoard gold at record rates, Frisby examines its enduring significance in the digital age and its potential to influence global peace and power. 
 
This is the untold story of gold: its past, its present and its future.

The Secret History of Gold

Myth, Money, Politics and Power

Nate Silver

In the bestselling The Signal and the Noise, Nate Silver showed how forecasting would define the age of Big Data. Now, in this timely and riveting new book, Silver investigates "The River," or those whose mastery of risk allows them to shape—and dominate—so much of modern life. 
 
These professional risk takers—poker players and hedge fund managers, crypto true-believers and blue-chip art collectors—can teach us much about navigating the uncertainty of the 21st century. By embedding within these worlds, Silver offers insight into a range of issues that affect us all, from the frontiers of finance to the future of AI. 
 
The River has increasing amounts of wealth and power in our society, and understanding their mindset—including the flaws in their thinking—is key to understanding what drives technology and the global economy today. There are certain commonalities in this otherwise diverse group: high tolerance for risk; appreciation of uncertainty; affinity for numbers; skill at de-coupling; self-reliance and a distrust of the conventional wisdom. For the River, complexity is baked in, and the work is how to navigate it, without going beyond the pale. 
 
Taking us behind-the-scenes from casinos to venture capital firms to meetings of the effective altruism movement, On the Edge is a deeply-reported, all-access journey into a hidden world of powerbrokers and risk takers.

On the Edge

The Art of Risking Everything

James Rebanks

One afternoon many years ago, James Rebanks met an old woman on a remote Norwegian island. She lived and worked alone on a tiny rocky outcrop, caring for wild ducks and gathering their down. Hers was a centuries-old trade that had once made men and women rich, but had long been in decline. Still, somehow, she seemed to be hanging on. 
 
Back at home, Rebanks couldn’t stop thinking about the woman on the rocks. She was fierce and otherworldly – and yet strangely familiar. Years passed. Then, one day, he wrote her a letter, asking if he could return. Bring work clothes, she replied, and good boots, and come quickly: her health was failing. And so he travelled to the edge of the Arctic to witness her last season on the island. 
 
This is the story of that season. It is the story of a unique and ancient landscape, and of the woman who brought it back to life. It traces the pattern of her work from the rough, isolated toil of bitter winter, to the elation of the endless summer light, when the birds leave behind their precious down for gathering, like feathered gold. 
 
Slowly, Rebanks begins to understand that this woman and her world are not what he had previously thought. What began as a journey of escape becomes an extraordinary lesson in self-knowledge, forgiveness and how to make lasting change.

The Place of Tides

24 more archive editions of the much-loved BBC Radio 4 panel game chaired by Nicholas Parsons 
 
This new collection of previously unpublished editions, first broadcast between 1979 and 2009, comes brimming with Just a Minute’s unique blend of wit, wordplay and one-upmanship beloved by listeners all around the world. Hilarity is guaranteed whenever the intrepid players attempt to speak without hesitation, repetition or deviation from the given subject, all whilst under the scrutiny of their fellow players and the stopwatch. Nicholas Parsons is once more in the chair to introduce proceedings and adjudicate on challenges. 
 
Long-time players Kenneth Williams, Peter Jones, Derek Nimmo and Paul Merton compete alongside guests including Joan Bakewell, Wendy Richard, Richard Stilgoe, Tim Rice, Tony Hawks, Graham Norton, Neil Mullarkey, Greg Proops, Blythe Duff, Maria McErlane, Stephen Frost, Stephen Fry, Jenny Eclair, Sue Perkins, Ross Noble, Fred MacAulay, Nick Revell, Gyles Brandreth, Charles Collingwood, Liza Tarbuck, Kit Hesketh-Harvey, Chris Neill, Alun Cochrane, Chris Addison, Julian Clary, Ian McMillan, Shappi Khorsandi, the sadly missed Janey Godley and Richard Herring. 
 
 
Please note: Contains mild innuendo. The humour in these programmes sometimes reflects the era in which they were first broadcast. Due to the archive nature of some of the episodes, sound quality may vary. 
 
 
Cast and credits 
 
Devised by Ian Messiter 
Chaired by Nicholas Parsons 
Episode selection by Michael Stevens 
Music: The Minute Waltz (Waltz in D Flat Major, Op. 64) by Chopin 
 
All episodes first broadcast on BBC Radio 4: 
 
Episode Guide 
1 6 February 1979 
Feat. Joan Bakewell, Peter Jones, Derek Nimmo, Kenneth Williams 
2 12 January 1991 
Feat. Peter Jones, Tim Rice, Wendy Richard, Richard Stilgoe 
3 2 March 1996 
Feat. Tony Hawks, Peter Jones, Derek Nimmo, Graham Norton 
4 15 February 1997 
Feat. Peter Jones, Paul Merton, Neil Mullarkey, Derek Nimmo 
5 31 January 1998 
Feat. Paul Merton, Derek Nimmo, Graham Norton, Greg Proops 
6 6 July 1998 
Feat. Blythe Duff, Tony Hawks, Paul Merton, Derek Nimmo 
7 13 July 1998 
Feat. Stephen Frost,Peter Jones, Maria McErlane, Paul Merton 
8 17 January 2000 
Feat. Peter Jones, Stephen Fry, Maria McErlane, Paul Merton 
9 26 February 2001 
Feat. Jenny Eclair, Tony Hawks, Graham Norton, Tim Rice 
10 16 July 2001 
Feat. Tony Hawks, Ross Noble, Sue Perkins, Tim Rice 
11 2 February 2004 
Feat. Gyles Brandreth, Fred MacAulay, Maria McErlane, Nick Revell 
12 9 February 2004 
Feat. Charles Collingwood, Kit Hesketh-Harvey, Paul Merton, Liza Tarbuck 
13 2 January 2006 
Feat. Gyles Brandreth, Paul Merton, Graham Norton, Sue Perkins 
14 6 February 2006 
Feat. Gyles Brandreth, Paul Merton, Graham Norton, Sue Perkins 
15 6 March 2006 
Feat. Kit Hesketh-Harvey, Paul Merton, Chris Neill, Liza Tarbuck 
16 22 January 2007 
Feat. Alun Cochrane, Paul Merton, Chris Neill, Tim Rice 
17 29 January 2007 
Feat. Tony Hawks, Paul Merton, Neil Mullarkey, Sue Perkins 
18 5 March 2007 
Feat. Tony Hawks, Paul Merton, Neil Mullarkey, Sue Perkins 
19 13 August 2007 
Feat. Alun Cochrane, Paul Merton, Chris Neill, Tim Rice 
20 1 September 2008 
Feat. Chris Addison, Julian Clary, Paul Merton, Sue Perkins 
21 22 September 2008 
Feat. Tony Hawks, Shappi Khorsandi, Ian McMillan, Paul Merton 
22 17 August 2009 
Feat. Gyles Brandreth, Kit Hesketh-Harvey, Shappi Khorsandi, Paul Merton 
23 31 August 2009 
Feat. Janey Godley, Richard Herring, Paul Merton, Sue Perkins 
24 7 September 2009 
Feat. Charles Collingwood, Jenny Eclair, Stephen Fry, Paul Merton 
 
 
©2025 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (P)2025 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

A Heritage Collection

Paul Sinha

'That night, I'd survived my life flashing before me, with my dignity intact. 
Yes, this chaotic life has always been a gamble. 
... But what a gamble.' 
 
Paul Sinha is an award-winning comedian, a quizzing mastermind and a happily-married husband. But for much of his life none of these seemed remotely imaginable. 
 
As a boy, Paul struggled to find his place in a world where he didn't quite fit. Who was he? An over-achieving schoolkid with the world's knowledge at his fingertips? A traditional Bengali son, destined for a career in medicine that he never once craved? A young gay man yearning to breathe freely? Or was he yet another flawed human being on a self-destruct mission? 
 
Amid life's mayhem, it was frequently Paul's love of facts in which he found solace, whether funding his lifestyle through quiz machines or simply trying to show off to his mates. Stumbling serendipitously into both a career in stand-up and a clandestine network of competitive quizzers introduced him to a new sense of purpose, a new identity, and, eventually, new love... 
 
A hilarious and moving coming-of-age memoir of one man's search for fulfilment, One Sinha Lifetime is an unconventional odyssey through love, family, and the joy of general knowledge.

One Sinha Lifetime

Comedy, disaster and one man’s quest for happiness

Kelly Clancy

We play games to learn about the world, to understand our minds and the minds of others, and to make predictions about the future. They're also a lot of fun. But what happens when we mistake games for reality? 
 
Playing With Reality explores the riveting history of games since the Enlightenment, weaving an unexpected path through military theory, biology, artificial intelligence, neuroscience, cognitive psychology and the future of democracy. As neuroscientist and physicist Kelly Clancy shows us, games have been deeply intertwined with the arc of history. War games shaped the outcomes of real wars in nineteenth and twentieth-century Europe. Game theory warped our understanding of human behaviour and brought us to the brink of annihilation - yet still underlies basic assumptions in economics, politics and technology. We used games to teach computers how to learn for themselves, and now we are designing games that will determine the shape of society and future of democracy. 
 
Lucid, thought-provoking, and masterfully told, Playing With Reality makes the bold argument that the human fascination with games is the key to understanding our nature.

Playing with Reality

How Games Shape Our World

A brand-new collection of previously unpublished episodes taken from the programme’s first four decades 
 
Shimmering like jewels on a velvet backcloth of world events, this collection presents 14 vintage episodes from BBC Radio 4’s long-running panel show, chaired by Barry Took and Simon HoggartJoining regular panelists Alan Coren, Richard Ingrams, Jeremy Hardy and Francis Wheen to sparkle humorously are guest players including Kate Adie, Peter Cook, Andy Hamilton, Tony Hawks, Ian Hislop, Armando Iannucci, Julia Langdon, Ann Leslie, Fred MacAulay, Stan McMurtrie, Eve Pollard, Oliver Pritchett, Steve Punt, Libby Purves, Gillian Reynolds, Gay Search, John Sergeant, Linda Smith, Mark Steel, Mark Steyn and Michael White. The original Radio 4 broadcast dates are 01/01/1981, 07/05/1983, 24/03/1984, 30/11/1989, 21/03/1992, 10/04/1993, 21/03/1998, 17/04/1998, 28/05/1999, 17/03/2000, 06/10/2000, 11/05/2001, 13/12/2002, 25/11/2005Cast and credits:Chaired by Barry Took & Simon HoggartFeaturing: Kate Adie, Peter Cook, Alan Coren, Andy Hamilton, Jeremy Hardy, Tony Hawks, Ian Hislop, Armando Iannucci, Richard Ingrams, Julia Langdon, Ann Leslie, Fred MacAulay, Stan McMurtrie, Eve Pollard, Oliver Pritchett, Steve Punt, Libby Purves, Gillian Reynolds, Gay Search, John Sergeant, Linda Smith, Mark Steel, Mark Steyn, Francis Wheen, Michael WhiteNewsreaders: Corrie Corfield, Peter Donaldson, Eugene Fraser, Charlotte Green, John Marsh, Brian PerkinsProduced by Lucy Armitage, Jenny Campbell, Louise Coates, Danny Greenstone, Armando Iannucci, Simon Nicholls, Alan Nixon, Jon Rolph, Colin Swash, Katie TyrrellWritten by Debbie Barham, Paul Carenza, Dave Cohen, Rhodri Crooks, Tom Jamieson, John Langdon, Simon Littlefield, Paul McKenzie, Iain Pattinson, George Poles, Felix Riley, Hugh Ryecroft, Robert Fraser SteeleEpisode selection by Michael Stevens©2025 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (P)2025 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

The News Quiz: Gems from the Archive

Highlights from the Topical Radio 4 Panel Show

The year is 1Q84. This is the real world, there is no doubt about that. But in this world, there are two moons in the sky. Discover the 1Q84 Trilogy by Haruki Murakami.

1Q84

365 Days of Art

A BBC Christmas

A Black Book Thriller

A Box Full of Murders

A Cal Leandros Novel

A Christmas Mystery

The intelligent and capable police commissioner Guido Brunetti confronts crime in and around his home town of Venice.

A Commissario Brunetti Mystery

A DC Smith / Kings Lake Investigation Series

A Daisy Story

Chronicling the lives of over three hundred characters, unrivalled for its scope and humour, this is a unique evocation of life in twentieth-century England.

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