What are your fave programmes on Radio 4?

[Blinder Data]

Come on middle-class Cabbers, out yourselves

My radio is tuned to Radio 4 80% of the time. I love Paul Lewis with his Money Box, seeking justice for 10 grannies who invested in some dodgy Albanian property scheme decades ago. I love From Your Own Correspondent with a bunch of people getting up to scrapes in far-flung places and Kate Adie who sounds like she's recorded her links in a box. I used to love PM when Eddie Mair was in charge, though Evan Davis is a pretty great guy (and the Bottom Line is actually a really interesting listen).

HOWEVER, my absolute fave has to be The Reunion. Sue MacGregor gets a bunch of people who did something together and they talk about it. The "thing" could be anything: some civil war, a long-forgotten disastrous/successful government policy - it could be sport, culture, science...

What I love about it is it couldn't be more Radio 4 if it tried. The theme music sounds like a 12 year old doing their Grade 2 piano exam, the presenter is an elderly lady speaking perfect RP, and it treats all the topics in exactly the same format. And it's nearly always fascinating.

There are 111 episodes available and I hope to listen to them all. Recent highlights include the Enfield Poltergeist, Rise and Fall of the SDP and the Wapping Dispute, which unusually gets pretty heated thanks to having union officials and Kelvin MacKenzie in the same room.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007x9vc/episodes/player?page=1

So that's my fave. What are yours? This can be a general Radio 4 thread of course, if you want

[gatchamandave]

Yup, The Reunion is always worth a listen. Anything by John Finnemore goes down well with me, David Sedaris has an excellent voice for radio, Ed Reardon's Week, and Claire in The Community

[olliebean]

The Unbelievable Truth is a perennial favourite, just started a new series on Monday.

[gilbertharding]

I usually only listen to Radio 4 these days if Elaine Page, Jeremy Vine or Fearne Cotton is on the other side.

But I like A Good Read, and Book Club with Marijuana Fuckdup. Often listen to the Archers, although it's shit. And Desert Island Discs (ditto).

Completely allergic to The Fucking Listening Project. Also Poetry Please, and that dreadful pretend vicar they have on Saturday Mornings.

[jobotic]

never listen to it now. From Our Own Correspondent is also on the World Service which is what iIlisten to now if there's no football on 5.

Today has poisoned Radio 4 for me.

[Norton Canes]

The Venn diagram of R4 programmes I don't like would pretty much be a circle with 'The Archers' written inside.

[DrGreggles]

Clue and Finnemore.
That's about it.

[Puce Moment]

Clue, News, Woman's Hour.

The sound of the Archers theme tune when I am on a long drive and need some news makes me mildly homicidal.

Does anyone listen to the dramas? I have heard a couple that I liked, but in general I can't stand it.

[buttgammon]

In Our Time is good, especially when it covers subjects that I know nothing about.

[studpuppet]

Non-comedy series I've downloaded recently are:

As Other See Us
The Boring Talks - is this on R4 or just a Podcast? Mostly ace though.
How To Invent A Country
Intrigue: The Ratline - again this may have been a podcast but I think it was broadcast as well.

[gatchamandave]

Clue, News, Woman's Hour.

The sound of the Archers theme tune when I am on a long drive and need some news makes me mildly homicidal.

Does anyone listen to the dramas? I have heard a couple that I liked, but in general I can't stand it.

The Toby Stephens Bond dramatisations are rather good and you get the likes of Alfred Molina as Blofeld, Ian McKellen as Goldfinger and a truly demented Dr No from David Suchet. They are up on YouTube if you want a go. I'd also recommend McLevy with Brian Cox as a Victorian detective working in Edinburgh and Bill Nighy in the Charles Paris Mysterys. Original dramas tend to be ropey and you can usually tell how they are going to end well in advance, particularly the ones on after The Archers in the afternoon.

[gatchamandave]

Clue, News, Woman's Hour.

The sound of the Archers theme tune when I am on a long drive and need some news makes me mildly homicidal.

Does anyone listen to the dramas? I have heard a couple that I liked, but in general I can't stand it.

And now, because you're stuck in your car in a three mile tail back it's time we subjected you to some Archers head-fucking

TUMtetumtetumtetum, dumdediddlydido

- Oh, hello one of the young men in the cast who's always on the edge of getting married, how are the marriage preparations going ?

- Oh, hello woman who can't quite do the accent. Not too well, I'm afraid.

- Oooh, arr, why be that then ?

- No, that's actually worse than before. Anyway, I just can't find anyone to be my best man. I asked the nebulous character who i think has a teenage daughter but it turns out that he doesn't actually like me, I asked the psychopath but he's busy that day burying my sister under his patio, and I've no idea what the hell Joe Grundy said....

- Larks. Why not ask your brother ?

- Oh, do i have a brother then ?.Well, I'll try him.

- Foin, that's that saarted then, ba goom

- Yes, that sounded more rural

Tumtetumtetumtetumdiddlydidodeedum

[sick as a pike]

Saturday Live with the pretend vicar already mentioned earlier in a wrong opinion. ISIHAC. Desert Island Discs. The Unbelievable Truth.  In Our Time, especially when it's a science/maths subject and Lord Bragg is out of his depth and reduced to asking questions like "and... how big is it?"

Kate Adie has spoiled From Our Own Correspondent recently. The show used to be reliably introduced "... presented by Kate Adie," then a nicely timed gap so I could say "Hello" in a deep voice, to be apparently answered by Kadie saying "Hello" back to me in a similar voice. But she's been mixing it up a bit, by sometimes just launching into the first subject.

You and Yours is obviously "run across the room to get to the off switch" radio, though to be fair to them on one occasion when I left it on they were banging on about something tedious and I emailed "Please stop moaning."  Within seconds the presenter said "...and we've just had an email from Richard who says "please stop moaning." Well Richard, you're in luck, because we're about to as it's the end of the show."

Does anyone else have to remind themselves every so often that "Cross Incontinence" is actually titled "Crossing Continents?"

[ZoyzaSorris]

Science has taken a real downturn on R4. Used to love material world and frontiers, now it's by and large a load of chirpy dumbed down shite that mirrors the total collapse of TV science programming like Horizon into One Show style gravity-free inanity. In our time science episodes are ok though again not what they used to be with Melvyn Bragg's advancing years and partial succumbment to Humphry's Syndrome. Also life scientific can be interesting.

All their current affairs, global geopolitics, modern history and economics stuff is hideously riddled with the moribund dogma of hardline pro-establishment imperialist neoliberalism and can only be tolerated with a gargantuan pinch of salt.

Today prog is a cavalcade of cunts.

Most of the comedy is shite, give or take the occasional Ed Reardons Week or similar. Probably 90% rubbish that must only exist due to old school ties between agents and commissioning editors,  8% tolerably mediocre and 2% genuine gems.

I was a heavy R4 user but feel like it's on a long and irreversible downhill trajectory, but that just may be me getting old and increasingly curmudgeonly.

[holyzombiejesus]

OP's favourites (Reunion aside) are my most hated Rad4 shows. That and You & Yours. Moneybox live is foul; loads of cunty people ringing in to 'invest' in property and all that talk of ombudsmen. I also hate that poetry programme because I think Roger McGough has the most punchable voice. I like Gardeners Question Time though. I avoid their comedy like the plague but used to like that thing with John Thompson, written by the guy out of Absolutely. I think I even started a thread for that.

[jfjnpxmy]

I really liked Round Britain Quiz until i noticed the fella that hosts it is pretty fucking racist. He'll help South of England all the way and be all "Oh well you didn't need too much prodding, have five points" whereas anyone who isn't from London can rattle out the answer with the speed and confidence of a Gilbert & Sullivan patter song and still get shagged for "needing help" and get two. Fucken biased English poofter. Voting yes on Indyref 2, I am.

[Jittlebags]

The Food Program when they had Derek Cooper on It
Kitchen Cabinet
Life Scientific if they've got someone not too wishy washy on
A lot of the Tuesday 6:30 pm comedies
The Shittpping Forecast

[MojoJojo]

John Finnemore.

[Replies From View]

Is the Primary Phase of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy still on?

If so, that.

[Ray Travez]

The Unbelievable Truth is a perennial favourite, just started a new series on Monday.

oh nice one. For my money the funniest thing around, tv or radio.

[studpuppet]

The Toby Stephens Bond dramatisations are rather good and you get the likes of Alfred Molina as Blofeld, Ian McKellen as Goldfinger and a truly demented Dr No from David Suchet. They are up on YouTube if you want a go. I'd also recommend McLevy with Brian Cox as a Victorian detective working in Edinburgh and Bill Nighy in the Charles Paris Mysterys.

If we're allowed previously aired dramas I'll also recommend The Complete Smiley, which are radio dramas of all nine of Le Carre's books that feature him, even if he's a side character (Simon Russell Beale plays Smiley with a nod to Guinness). The other one I enjoyed was the Martin Beck Killings with Stephen Mackintosh and Neil Pearson.

Original dramas tend to be ropey

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p02vk5fy

[gatchamandave]

Oooh. Thanks for that though

[Captain Crunch]

The Fast Show Reunion is worth a listen:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03m7slh

I love You & Yours.  Someone forking out £300,000 on a holiday chalet in Ilfracombe only to find out it was made from coconut meringue then running to the BBC in disgust.  Sometimes they send poor slow Melanie out to eat sushi or talk about recycling or something but best of all is the Tuesday phone-in.  I'm positive Simon Day has called in doing his 'beat that' character at least once.

I like most of the book programmes and GQT but I don't really get The Listening Project.  I heard one that was a half hour special about a baby's funeral.  Why would anyone want to record that let alone listen to it? 

[Blinder Data]

The dramas are nearly always utterly dreadful. When it's set in a specific historical period or the actors attempt an American accent, that's my "run across the room to switch off" moment.

I used to listen to File on 4. It produces valuable investigative journalism but in the end I just found it too depressing. Oh, the councils are desperately underfunded, are they? The NHS is covering up its mistakes? Our tax laws are woefully ineffective? And there's nothing we can do? Thanks, that's my Sunday night ruined.

[Emma Raducanu]

I enjoy the listening project.

I just listen to r4 roughly between 4pm and 6pm most days and it's good especially the reading club and women's hour.

[idunnosomename]

I like most of the book programmes and GQT but I don't really get The Listening Project.  I heard one that was a half hour special about a baby's funeral.  Why would anyone want to record that let alone listen to it?

*plinky-plinky-plonk-plonk*
Hello it's me, Fi Glover, professional smuggest person on radio, and here's a conversation that might be interesting in like three hundred years but now it's just some tedious natter between two boring people

*I can't even make fun of the dialogue because it's so fucking boring*

There will be another one, just before midnight! And so on, apparently: FOR FUCKING EVER.

At least Home Front has finished now good god. "HELLO CARDBOARD CHARACTER, I SEE IN THE NEWSPAPER THAT The Japanese destroyer Isonami was torpedoed and sunk in the Banda Sea by the American submarine Tautog. NOW LET'S HAVE A MILD DOMESTIC INCIDENT WITH TERRIBLE ACTING"

[gilbertharding]

Yes File on Four is grim. Perhaps it's the fact that it is part of the Sunday schedule which juxtaposes it with the unrelentingly middle-class The Food Programme (Sheila Dillon meets a man with a beard who is hoping to spend his trust fund make a living from making an incredibly expensive new kind of sausage he discovered while trekking across the Andes on his gap year), Poetry Please (Poetry No Thanks, as we call it), The Listening Project omnibus, and Pick of the Week (in which one of the usual suspects rounds-up some of the coldest leftovers from the week's radio) and Profile (always about someone dreadful from the week's news).

But then there's Last Word - the obit show which is paradoxically entertaining.

[sick as a pike]

But then there's Last Word - the obit show which is paradoxically entertaining.

What unsettles me about it is the cheery way they trail who they're going to talk about, like it's a chat show. "And, on Last Word this week! Double Oscar winning actor, Sally Corpse!  Philanthropist and bee Keeper, Sir Brian Dead! And grand prix driver and playboy who rose to fame in the 1950s, Charlie Not-Breathing!"

[Ray Travez]

Sad news about Sir Brian Dead :(

[Emma Raducanu]

Just drove home listening to a programme about aphex twin followed by a graphic account of catherine de medici s rule. Sometimes I just love it.