5 everyday household items that are toxic for you – from dishwasher tablets to air fresheners
Scientist and broadcaster Mark Miodownik reveals the toxins that lurk in our homes.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Modern technology has allowed us to create homes of unparalleled comfort and convenience, but in doing so we have unwittingly exposed ourselves to invisible dangers through some of the products we buy. These dangers originate from the chemicals created by talented scientists trying to solve human problems and deliver miracle materials, some of which have been shown to be dangerous to human health and the biodiversity of the planet. Here are five everyday household items to look out for: Dishwasher tablets Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) are chemicals with carbon–fluorine bonds, which give them properties such as non-stick, water-proofing and stain resistance in products like cookware, clothing, packaging and even dishwasher tablets. They gain these properties because the carbon-fluorine bonds are so strong that they do not chemically react with almost anything. But they are so stable and inert it’s hard to get rid of them as there are few micro-organisms that can break them down – hence why they are called forever chemicals. Their prevalence means they end up in our food and water. Evidence is mounting that as the concentration in our organs increases, they can cause illnesses and even cancers. Plastic food containers Plastics are wonderful and versatile materials. In the form of packaging they make food last longer and so prevent food waste and reduce prices. However, during the manufacturing of plastics, additives are added to give them strength and durability. Many of these chemicals have been shown to have a detrimental impact on human health. These include Bisphenol A (BPA), which interferes with the body’s hormones, affecting reproductive and metabolic systems. BPA acts like the hormone oestrogen, affecting the immune system – it’s also been linked to many other disorders. The EU has now banned BPA in all food-contact plastics, but in the UK it has only been banned for use in babies’ bottles. Avoid heating up food in plastic containers containing BPAs to reduce their ability to leach into the food. Synthetic clothing Another emerging problem with plastics is their ability to fragment and form tiny particles called microplastics. These fragments are often invisibly small and go unnoticed. They find their way into our food, drinks and even the air we breathe. One of the biggest sources of these particles are car tyres. The microplastics are produced as the tyres wear and are then washed into rivers and nearby land. The smallest ones are so light they become airborne and we breathe them in. Other major sources are synthetic clothing, paints and packaging. It’s not yet clear how they affect human health, although experiments show that they create an inflammatory response in cells and tissues. Evidence is growing that they are accumulating in our bodies as well as nature, affecting the health of everything from plants to fish. Air fresheners Many very useful products in the home are manufactured using volatile organic substances (VOCs). These are carbon-based substances like solvents that have low boiling points so in a warm environment like a home, they become gases and are part of the air you breathe. Since many VOCs are toxic, there can be a significant health impact, especially for people with respiratory conditions. Long exposure to VOCs can come from cleaning products, paints, personal care products, carpets and furniture. Many VOCs, such as solvents and air fresheners, smell nice but are often dangerous, nonetheless. Pet flea treatments The active chemicals responsible for killing fleas on cats, dogs and other pets are insecticides such as fipronil and imidacloprid. They work by attacking the nervous system of the parasites. They are powerful and indiscriminate and can kill a variety of pollinators, invertebrates and aquatic life. They are banned for use in agriculture in the UK, but are still used in “spot-on” treatments. Studies show that these chemicals are quickly spread around the home by pets, including on to their owners. The health risks are not well researched but there is evidence they are linked to diabetes and high blood pressure. If washed into rivers their impact on biodiversity is dramatic. Mark Miodownik presents Toxic! on Monday 16 February at 11am on Radio 4. The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Check out more of our Audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
The Archers at 75: Reflecting on the British institution with BBC Radio stars and its celebrity fans
From cake competitions to coercive control, The Archers has captivated its devoted listeners for 75 years and counting.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. For all the gentle storylines about lemon-drizzle cake and family tiffs, there is something oddly majestic about The Archers and its survival for 75 years. It’s not about thriller events – though there’s a grand shock revelation coming very soon. The more solid pleasure of the radio drama lies in getting to know the characters over years, watching them arrive, reveal themselves, scrape against the others, maybe intermarry and bear children, with all recognisable tensions and worries and rows. And the reason that this tapestry of lives becomes sort of majestic is its sheer longevity: the following of fictional lives in real time. And in a largely urban society, it perhaps helps to remind those in cramped cities that food comes from hard work and green fields. When you meet the long-serving actors they always stress that peculiar sense of living in a parallel reality. Pat Gallimore, who has played Tony Archer’s wife Pat for 52 years, says: “If anyone had told me at that audition in 1974 that I would be around for half a century, it’d be unbelievable. But like your own life it becomes part of you, surviving and thriving. A second life, a second family.” Gallimore’s character Pat is a classic example of a figure listeners have heard evolving over the years: from a Welsh-accented CND firebrand and leftist, who cancelled Tony’s Express for The Guardian, we’ve heard her support the farm going organic “way before it was mainstream”. The Archers was part of that new acceptance just as it reflects today’s rewilding enthusiasm. Her Pat also worked through a delicate handling of grief over her elder son’s death on a tractor. I remind her how furious farming people were when the then-editor giggled in an interview about his departure as a “fun” plot. “Yes,” says Gallimore thoughtfully, “we all know that things can hit people personally. It matters.” Another storyline that hit people personally, making national news, was the “coercive control” story between Pat’s daughter Helen and Rob. She portrayed a mother entirely unaware of what the listener – in genuinely troubling scenes – had heard happening. “I did argue a little bit at the time, asking why hadn’t Pat spotted what’s going on,” protests Gallimore. “But I suppose she had come to trust Rob, he helped on the farm.” That was a big story, but over 75 years there have been many smaller ones that gripped listeners, with news of them sometimes (as in my case) drawing back midlife listeners who got irritated or bored and gave up for two or three years. Returners easily fall back into the entangled stories of imaginary Ambridge, amused by changes in half-familiar characters, soothed by the rhythm of life. And of death, too: my generation has seen the end of several, from the roguish Joe Grundy and Walter Gabriel to wicked but repentant Rob and, just lately, the formidable matriarch Peggy herself. It’s a narrative hymn to humanity and mortality, and that is no small thing. My mother once said, “It helps us age, it’s company.” When the performance and script are particularly well done (right now under Jeremy Howe, a serious veteran of radio drama, it is on a high), it can touch hearts and change attitudes. A modern-slavery story a while back made many listeners say they became more conscious of how a plausible gangmaster would exploit homeless men, chillingly alluding to them as “the horses”. But all this wasn’t really the aim, back in 1951 when it launched nationally on New Year’s Day. When farmer Dan Archer was invented, paired with a London girl called Doris in a fictional village called Ambridge, it was actually an educational project for farmers: there was still rationing after the Second World War and it was vital to boost the national food supply. The BBC, with government urging, wanted to publicise new ways forward, beyond the plough-horses and steam threshing machines. But its first editor Godfrey Baseley realised that, actually, it would be family and neighbourhood relationships that kept the interest going. He gradually created a balance, so that the agricultural story editor’s rather plodding information wouldn’t overwhelm the general listener who just wanted “an everyday story of country folk” to calm them down while making supper. Successive editors devised non-farming plots to run alongside the informative stuff about dairy and arable problems, and kept up with changes in society. The Archer family – spreading sideways into the Aldridges with the marriage of Peggy’s daughter Jennifer to the rakish, affluent Brian – has always dominated, but gradually, to the relief of many, the working-class Grundys and Horrobins have been elevated from mere cartoon yokels. (Neil Kinnock once said The Archers should be called “The Grundys and Their Oppressors”.) Add Radio Times as a Preferred Source on Google Keep up to date on what’s worth watching with your favourite entertainment news from Radio Times – see more of our exclusive news and interviews featured prominently in Top Stories when using Google. The economic pressures on all classes are woven in: whether it’s Brian fretting about the cost of a £150,000 farm machine, old Peggy’s will supporting Alzheimer’s research and rewilding rather than her family members, or Emma’s heart breaking because she will never own a house. The introduction of Asian characters has been gradual (artfully, the first one fell in love and married the vicar). That again reflects the nation, albeit sometimes stretching rural probability: the old joke is that it’s the only village in England where the year revolves round Diwali and the Pride festival. The latest, touchingly, is Akram Malik (Asif Khan), husband of the new local doctor, who involves himself with the Ambridge farm people because he is homesick for family farming in Pakistan. But aside from race and technology, producers also, with cautious but determined steps, had to keep up with changes in morals and family values since the staid 1950s. Doris Archer’s stout-knickered world is not ours. At a BBC event celebrating the life of June Spencer – who played Peggy for 70 years – I was asked to speak about the changes this matriarch had seen. I mischievously listed the “sexual rewilding” of Britain – Archers coping with adultery, divorce, hookups, abortion, single mothers with multiple baby daddies (including an anonymous donor and a “friend with benefits”), gay and lesbian couples, surrogacy, a granddaughter drunk while pregnant, and even a family grandson selling sex as an escort. Some more traditionally minded listeners objected to this, especially the acceptance of uncommitted hookups, but it does reflect modern mores just as faithfully as Brian’s £150,000 seed-drill and bovine TB anxieties reflect modern farming. Sunny Ormonde, who for 20 years has played the ageing femme fatale of the Archer family, cheerfully observes, “Lilian seems to have had affairs with almost everybody in the village, though never Brian. “When I started in 2000, I wanted to check whether listeners would take this middle-aged manhunter on board... but it’s interesting how things change as the long story goes on. With the loss of Peggy as well as her sister Jennifer, family dynamics change. There’s nobody left to put Lilian in her place, she’s had to grow up. Be the new matriarch.” Like several of the other professionals who receive scripts and recording dates, Ormonde completes the curious, beguiling loop between listener and actors that the series has created. “You see, I am a listener as well as being part of it. Sometimes I hear something that I didn’t know anything about and think, ‘Oh, my goodness!’ And I’m in it!” Indeed, the urge to be in it for a few lines of cameo has captured over the decades starry names from Princess Margaret to Queen Camilla, Dame Judi Dench to Sir Terry Wogan and Sir Bradley Wiggins. The jury that finally acquitted poor Helen of stabbing evil Rob included Catherine Tate and Dame Eileen Atkins. It’s become a bit like being asked to be in Who’s Who. As to the real cast, any theatre company talking to journalists can paint itself as a happy family, whether in truth it is or not. But I have over the years run into a fair few of the Archers cast, and it really does seem to be a reality in that sense. Certainly those who get killed off tend to strike a slightly wistful note, and there are apocryphal tales of senior actors complaining at not getting enough scenes (it is, of course, piece-work!). Pat Gallimore reflects, “I can’t remember any major fallings-out. Certainly not with me involved. One thing about it is, even though you’re together in scenes for years, it’s not claustrophobic like a real family. You do your work and come home. In the studio, we particularly enjoy the table scenes, loading the dishwasher and arguing about who’s making the supper, all together. But of course,” she adds, “as an actor it’s much more fun to play conflict or crisis. “I remember dear Colin Skipp [the original Tony] saying, when John [Pat and Tony’s son] died, that in a way those scenes are easier to play because there’s something to react against. Doing the workaday stuff, feeding the cows, doing the shopping, is actually far more difficult to get right. But you’re hardly going to win an Oscar for saying, ‘Let’s go and make some blueberry yogurt,’ are you?” Read more: The Archers confirmed for live 75th anniversary tour as fans can celebrate beloved radio drama Bridge Farm to be brought to life at new RHS show to celebrate The Archers' 75th anniversary Celebrity fans Ruth Jones The Archers is my little 13-minute daily sanctuary. I’m not going to lie, they’re in bed with me almost every night. Sometimes I get really frustrated with it but that’s part of its joy. I nearly stopped listening when David and Ruth Archer almost lost the farm when it was threatened by a new road. I can picture all the characters in my mind, and yes, I do have favourites. I love Jazzer and in more recent times George and Brad. But Susan is also a joy, as is Tracy. My absolute top favourite though is Lilian (Sunny Ormonde, top right). Her wicked gin-swilling laugh, and her life-affirming, life-grabbing presence cheer me up every time she’s in a scene. Though the truth is I love ’em all. Seventy-five years – I won’t be around in another 75, but I do hope The Archers will. Brad Horrobin might be the future Joe Grundy, Martha Carter may be the future Lilian and who knows if the Bull will still be serving, but I’ll keep listening into my old age if I’m lucky enough! Sir Stephen Fry One of my very earliest memories is of fitting myself under the chair that my mother sat on and listening with her to The Archers. The theme tune was as familiar to me as Pop Goes the Weasel, Happy Birthday or Baa, Baa, Black Sheep. In fact, I cannot really remember a time when I didn’t think of The Archers as a natural and inevitable part of my life, like the milkman and the chimney sweep. Those have more or less stepped away from our world, but The Archers is still there. I listen to it more religiously, rarely missing an episode, much more when I’m abroad than when I’m at home. Because it always takes me right back to England. And, like England, it can be as banal, embarrassing and ridiculous as it can be charming, brave and lovable. The people of Ambridge are for the most part sound, well intentioned, friendly, forgiving and kind. It is always the same, but it changes with the times without one quite noticing. There’s minimum tillage and mob grazing on the farm now, and Pat and Tony’s yogurts are kefirs. Alan Titchmarsh Thirty years ago, my wife told me that she would only consider that I had “made it” when I’d appeared in The Archers. I thought there was no chance. Then I was asked if I would judge the Ambridge Best Garden competition – as myself. I got to meet Lynda Snell and was driven around the village by Joe Grundy (actors Carole Boyd and Edward Kelsey, right) in a pony and trap pulled by the legendary Bartleby. The fact that the “trap” was one table upturned on another with two broom handles placed between them to allow movement mattered not a jot. What a fun day. But I can’t for the life of me remember who won! Still, my wife now admits I’ve made it. David Mitchell My mum has been listening to The Archers for as long as she can remember, almost since it began, and I think she still does. So I heard a lot of it during my childhood. I haven’t entirely kept up, but I’m very glad it’s still going. And in a frightening and changing world, I think it’s great that some things continue. And it’s the original soap opera, isn’t it? Congratulations to it! Emma Freud My favourite characters have to be the Grundys — not because they’re easy to like (they’re not), but because they’re written without flattery. They’re flawed, often irritating, and test our sympathy, but even when they’re horrendous, I find myself rooting for them. I want them to win, to prosper. Maybe I want them to take over Ambridge? The Rob and Helen storyline was a slow, devastating depiction of coercive control. Each episode contained so much thoughtfulness, research and creative discipline. The writers didn’t hold back: scenes were as uncomfortable as they were impactful. But for every Rob and Helen storyline, there’s delightful eccentricity – such as the “soiled pants” competition, where characters buried their underwear to test the soil. Only The Archers. I love the low dramas – precious episodes when life just potters on with its moments of sweetness, meanness, small wins, small losses, long-term love, loneliness, Clarrie’s arthritis. It’s life… and it’s gently talked about in a way that only happens behind closed doors. I know some villagers better than my own family but I never have to buy them Christmas presents. I also love the lack of money. We rarely hear details of salaries, house prices, rents or the cost of a gift. This means we can exist in a world where we aren’t constantly looking through the lens of finance for status or position or value. It’s a subtle but welcome omission. The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Check out more of our Audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Iconic Radio 1 DJ Andy Kershaw confirms cancer diagnosis and is now "unable to walk"
"I am in good spirits, feeling very positive and planning another podcast."
Former Radio 1 DJ Andy Kershaw has revealed that he is battling cancer which is affecting his spinal column and has left him "unable to walk". Kershaw's friend and podcast producer Peter Everett shared the news on Facebook this week, confirming that the broadcaster has been receiving treatment including chemotherapy, radiotherapy and physiotherapy. Fans had been expressing their concern for the 66-year-old as no new episodes of his self-titled podcast had been posted for more than six months. Everett shared a comment from Kershaw himself, who despite his diagnosis had maintained his typical sense of humour. "I am in good spirits, feeling very positive and planning another podcast," he said. "I am determined not to die before Benjamin Netanyahu, Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump and Ant’n’Dec. That should keep me going for a while." Everett himself added: "My friend Andy has been going through a difficult time. Although we’ve not been able to put together any podcasts in the last six months, we are very grateful to all the patrons and supporters who have stuck with us." Kershaw began his career in radio first, but in 1984 he enlisted as a new presenter for BBC2’s Whistle Test before getting his own show on BBC Radio 1 the following year. He presented his own music show for 15 years, which was characterised by his boredom of Anglo-American music and had a strong African influence. Over his broadcast journalism career he also worked for BBC Radios 3 and 4, reporting on stories from around the world, notably the Rwandan genocide, Angola's civil war in 1996, Sierra Leone in 2001 and repeatedly from Haiti. In 2021, Kershaw launched The Andy Kershaw Podcast as a continuation of his much-loved former BBC Radio 1 show. He officially describes the premise of his podcast as "Andy Kershaw plays some bloody great records". There are currently 37 episodes of his podcast which can be listened to on its website. The last upload was in June 2025 and whilst Kershaw and Everett have confirmed that a new episode is coming, they have not revealed when fans can expect to see it. Check out more of our Audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Vote now for the Radio Times Readers' Drama Award
Radio is famously the “theatre of the mind” and that’s most apparent in audio drama, where listeners can be transported from a cosy village pub to the far reaches of the galaxy, all from the comfort of their bed, bath or beyond. Alison Hindell, commissioning editor for drama and fiction at Radio 4, says the best audio drama “enlightens and illuminates, leading the listener into lives they will never lead and to places they may never go. Every listener will experience an entirely unique production, and be touched in different, individual ways, because for each of us it all happens within our own imaginations.” To celebrate this transportive genre, we have established our own Radio Times Readers’ Drama Award, for dramas broadcast or released between 1 October 2024 and 31 October 2025, and now invite you to vote for your favourite from a 30-strong shortlist (see below along with clips to jog your memory) drawn up by a panel of our expert critics. They range from gritty one-man shows to star-laden adaptations of literary classics and from meditative pieces on loss to heart-thumping thrillers. Chris Jones, senior director of production for Europe at Audible, highlights the three elements that comprise good dramas: “First, writing – a script designed to be heard, where every line of dialogue, every breath, sound effect or moment of silence earns its place to reveal character or carry action. "Then, casting – the right actor doesn’t just read lines, they embody the character. Lastly, sound design – treating the acoustics of an environment or the footsteps of a character not as background, but as storytelling itself.” Bear these in mind when you cast your vote. The vote closes at 11:59pm on Friday 20 February and the winner will be announced at the BBC Audio Drama Awards ceremony on Sunday 1 March and revealed in the issue of Radio Times on sale Tuesday 3 March. The vote follows below - make sure you choose carefully as you only have one vote. The shortlist is below. View Riddle on the source website Radio Times Readers’ Drama Award shortlist Gatsby in Harlem - Radio 3 Ncuti Gatwa, Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Malachi Kirby star in Roy Williams’s re-imagining of F Scott Fitzgerald’s classic on the streets of Harlem. Listen now Central Intelligence - Radio 4 Kim Cattrall, Ed Harris and Johnny Flynn return in the second series of the drama about the CIA. Listen now Moorgate - Radio 4 Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran’s retelling of the 1975 Moorgate Tube disaster, in which Marks’s father died. Listen now One Hundred and Fifty Days - Radio 4 A posthumous play from dramatist Oliver Emanuel, comprising his unfinished last audio drama and his writing about his brain cancer. Listen now The Fever - Radio 4 Cate Blanchett performs Wallace Shawn’s polemic monologue about global trade, adapted from his play. Listen now Buzz: the Man and the Moon - Podcast John Lithgow stars as Buzz Aldrin in a series that delves into the Apollo 11 astronaut’s complex personality and issues. Listen now Star - Radio 3 Drama from Sarah Wooley about the making of the movie A Star Is Born, Judy Garland’s 1950s comeback bid. Listen now Breaking the Rules: O Is for Orson - Radio 4 A dramatisation of the events behind the making of Orson Welles’s masterpiece, Citizen Kane. Listen now When Alan Met Ray - Radio 4 Paul Whitehouse and Harry Enfield star in the story of the beginning of the Galton and Simpson writing partnership, famous for Hancock’s Half Hour and Steptoe and Son. Listen now Waiting for Waiting for Godot - Radio 4 Adrian Edmondson writes and stars in a play about a play disrupted by lockdown. Listen now The Film - Radio 4 Retelling the wartime role of Alfred Hitchcock in bringing the horrors of Bergen-Belsen to the wider world. Listen now An Inspector Calls on Moscow - Radio 4 Rory Kinnear stars as JB Priestley in a recounting of how his play An Inspector Calls came to be premiered in Soviet Russia. Listen now Secrets and Lies: Mona Best and the Beatles - Radio 4 A reimagining of the integral part Mona Best, Pete’s mum, played in the Beatles’ early years. Listen now High Cockalorum - Radio 4 Jeremy Dyson’s Bradford-based play about a young lad’s encounter with Hollywood royalty. With Mark Gatiss, Reece Shearsmith, Steve Pemberton and Monica Dolan. Listen now Samhain - Radio 4 Drama infused with storytelling and song, inspired by the myths and rituals surrounding the pagan festival of Samhain. Listen now Aldrich Kemp and the Rose of Pamir - Radio 4 The latest series of the spy thriller sees Clara Page and Aldrich Kemp on a hunt across the globe. Listen now Exemplar - Radio 4 The second series of the award-winning series about forensic audio analysts, starring Gina McKee. Listen now Murder in Aland - Radio 4 A Baltic noir in which a murder on a storm-lashed island draws a grieving investigator and a retired officer into a web of espionage, betrayal – and forbidden love. Listen now It Can’t Happen Here - Radio 4 Sinclair Lewis’s prescient 1936 satirical novel about the rise of an unlikely US president, adapted for radio by Mike Walker. Listen now Faith Healer - Radio 4 A radio adaptation of Brian Friel’s acclaimed stage play telling the story of a charismatic travelling healer, starring Aidan Gillen, Michelle Fairley and Daniel Mays. Listen now Up in Smoke - Podcast Adam Buxton and Mei Mac star in a “true crime podcast” about a fictional event, a house fire in a small village that supposedly left a teenager dead. Listen now Chicken Burger N Chips - Radio 4 An adaptation of Corey Bovell’s one-man play, a raw coming-of-age story about growing up in a changing south London. Listen now The Yafa Cherry Orchard - Radio 4 Hassan Abdulrazzak relocates Chekhov’s masterpiece to Palestine as an aristocratic family attempt to hang on to their estate during the country’s partition in 1948. Listen now The ABC Murders - Audible Peter Dinklage leads a starry cast as Hercule Poirot in Audible’s Agatha Christie dramatisation. Listen now Secrets and Lies: The Final Touch - Radio 4 Roy Williams’s story of warring brothers, born to West Indian parents and fostered to a white couple, trying to make it as professional footballers. Listen now King Lear - Radio 4 At the age of 88, Richard Wilson takes on Shakespeare’s great role for the first time. With Greta Scacchi, Tamsin Greig, Phoebe-Loveday Raymond, Toby Jones and David Tennant. Listen now Only One Word for Love - Radio 4 Jessica Raine and Rupert Evans star in Susie Dent and Peter Souter’s play about love, recovery and lexicography. Listen now When Maggie Met Larry - Radio 4 Frances Barber and Derek Jacobi star as Margaret Thatcher and Laurence Olivier in a reimagining of their meetings in which Larry taught Maggie how to project her voice. Listen now A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian - Radio 4 Tanika Gupta’s adaptation of the late Marina Lewycka’s witty and tender novel about emigrating and immigration, sisterly rivalry and the lure of a green satin brassiere. Listen now Hersey’s Hiroshima - Radio 4 A dramatisation of John Hersey’s New Yorker account of the 1945 bombing of Hiroshima, written after two weeks spent interviewing citizens in the city. Listen now The vote closes at 11:59pm on Friday 20th February and the winner will be announced at the BBC Audio Drama Awards ceremony on Sunday 1st March. For more recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Bridge Farm to be brought to life at new RHS show to celebrate The Archers' 75th anniversary
Designer Jo Thompson has created a garden for the inaugural RHS Badminton Flower Show.
As part of The Archers’ 75th anniversary celebrations, the show has teamed up with the Royal Horticultural Society and garden designer Jo Thompson to bring to life a location central to the drama for decades, Bridge Farm. Remarkably the farm went fully organic in 1984 and has been innovating regularly ever since, moving into organic milk production and running its own dairy. The Archers 75th Anniversary Garden at the new RHS Badminton Flower Show will look to reflect that commitment to organic farming and be a similarly pioneering, productive, sustainable, welcoming, family centred and optimistic space. Though it’s more recent Bridge Farm history that has inspired the overarching spirit of the garden – the sewage spill last year that caused havoc for the Archers’ business and had listeners across the land gagging at the sloshing sound effects. The plot is designed to be a hopeful front garden, lovingly rebuilt after the damage from the spill. That rebuilding will be reflected on air throughout the year, with references to the replanting of the Bridge Farm garden in the programme, some of which will then be on show at RHS Badminton. Jeremy Howe, editor of The Archers, says: “For the past 75 years [The Archers] has been reflecting rural life in the UK. The RHS garden will be a wonderful opportunity for fans to see Bridge Farm brought to life as never before – we can’t wait.” Thompson says: “I’ve been a long-time Archers fan, so creating a Bridge Farm garden to mark the programme’s 75th anniversary has been an absolute joy. The Archers world feels incredibly familiar to so many people, and everyone has their own idea of what Bridge Farm looks like – which has made it both exciting and a little daunting, in the best possible way. I can’t wait to see it come to life, with plenty of small details that will feel familiar to listeners.” Some of those details in the 12m by 18m feature garden, will include Bridge Farm’s visitor entrance and noticeboard with bunting and pots; orchard fruit trees growing within a wildflower meadow; a cheese making area; and a potting bench with branded Bridge Farm vegetable boxes. There will also be a wildlife pond. Speaking via video at the launch of the RHS Badminton Flower Show, Thompson has also teased, “there’s also a nod to goats!”, in reference to the burgeoning herd of goats at the farm. View oEmbed on the source website She adds: “It’s also really exciting to be bringing this garden to the new RHS Badminton Flower Show. Set within a working landscape, it feels like exactly the right place for this garden to be. It’s not a judged garden, it’s simply there for people to enjoy.” Whether any of the Archers cast will be there enjoying the garden is yet to be revealed, but we’d hope to be able to have a taste of Borsetshire Blue and perhaps bump into Eddie Grundy trying to get his ferrets involved somehow. RHS Badminton Flower Show will take place 8–12 July. It is one of the RHS’s new touring Shows – alongside RHS Sandringham Flower Show for 2026 — and the first RHS Flower Show to take place in the beautiful Badminton Estate set within the South Gloucestershire countryside. Visit rhs.org.uk to purchase tickets and find out more about the show. Read more: The Archers confirmed for live 75th anniversary tour as fans can celebrate beloved radio drama The Archers stars David and William Troughton talk being father and son in iconic radio soap and in real-life You can listen to The Archers on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds. Check out more of our Soaps coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what else is on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Amol Rajan confirms exit from major presenting role: "It's time to get my coat"
Rajan also presents University Challenge.
Amol Rajan has announced he is leaving his role on BBC’s Today programme after five years. The presenter, who joined the staple radio show in 2021, revealed in a statement that he is unleashing his "inner entrepreneur" to launch his own unspecified company. The BBC said that Rajan will continue to work for the BBC, hosting University Challenge and the Radical podcast. "The pips have sounded, and it's time to get my coat," Rajan said in a statement, adding: "Leaving Today might be mad. This team is the best of the best: consistently world class, and exceptionally well-led by Owenna Griffiths and Mohit Bakaya. I will always feel like I played in the editorial version of Alex Ferguson's Manchester United, or Steve Waugh's Australia." He continued: "I genuinely couldn't be prouder of Amol Rajan Interviews, which will stand the test of time. Travelling all around the world (or indeed Essex) to spend so much time with so many icons has been an unforgettable privilege. Speaking about his reasons for his departure, he added: "Twenty years after I first flirted with the idea, I'm extremely excited to jump into the Great Digital Narnia of the Creator Economy, and build my own company. I'll still do Britain's oldest TV quiz and most exciting podcast. "But Del Boy was my hero growing up, and it's time to unleash my inner entrepreneur. I am very much not leaving the BBC, Britain's noblest cultural institution, whose Reithian spirit is such a generous gift to a world in flux. It's that world I'm heading for, and I'm excited." Rajan took over from Jeremy Paxman as the host of University Challenge for the 53rd series in 2023. Before joining the BBC, Rajan worked as the editor of The Independent, becoming the first non-white editor of a national newspaper in over a century. He quit the role in 2016 when he was appointed the BBC’s first media editor, before joining Radio 4’s Today programme five years later. Owenna Griffiths, editor of Today, praised Rajan’s "rare combination of intellectual dexterity, impressive breadth of interest" and "brilliant sense of humour", adding that "It has been enormous fun working with him on Today and setting up Radical. He will be sorely missed." Mohit Bakaya, Director of Speech and Controller of BBC Radio 4, said it will be really sad to lose Rajan’s "distinctive intellectual energy and curiosity" but said he was pleased that he will still be a regular presence on Radio 4. John McAndrew, Director of Live and Daily News, added: "Amol’s a huge talent who’s been a fantastic addition to the Today line-up. I’d like to thank him for everything he’s done and I’m delighted he’ll continue presenting for the BBC. "Amol has brought a real breath of fresh air to Today and we will keep evolving the programme as we continue to refresh the presenting team in the months ahead." Check out more of our Audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Bookish star Mark Gatiss adapts and stars in classic cosy crime tale – and it airs on Monday
Gatiss's audio drama adaptation of Murder Every Monday first aired in 2008.
As fans of Mark Gatiss's period crime drama Bookish wait for it to return for season 2 later this year, another crime story from Gatiss is set to air on Monday (12th January 2026). This time, it's an audio adaptation of Pamela Branch's novel Murder Every Monday, which Gatiss dramatised and starred in for BBC Radio 4 back in 2008. The hour-long drama is set to air again on Radio 4Xtra, with broadcasts of it at 3pm and again at 9pm on Monday 12th January, and another at 5am on Tuesday 13th January. The synopsis for the audio drama says: "Asterisk Club founder Clifford Flush hasn't murdered anyone for years. But when the urge comes upon him to bump off his bridge partner (the man's bidding was really quite unforgivable), he and the rest of the club are forced to leave London in bit of a hurry. "Once out of harm's way, in the rural hamlet of Krunte Abbas, they acquire the dilapidated Dankry Manor and set themselves up as homicide consultants." The dramatisation of Pamela Branch's novel, which was first published in 1954, stars Simon Williams, John Castle, Barbara Kirby, Graham Crowden, David Ryall, Stephanie Beacham, Mark Benton, Ian Hallard and Cal Jaggers, as well as Gatiss himself in a supporting role. Gatiss has plenty of history when it comes to both crime dramas and adaptations, as he is not only behind hit original series Bookish, in which he also stars as bookshop owner and amateur detective Gabriel Book, but also acclaimed modern Arthur Conan Doyle adaptation Sherlock. Gatiss has also adapted a host of classic Ghost Stories for his annual BBC Two programme A Ghost Story for Christmas, most recently A Room in the Tower, which starred Tobias Menzies and Joanna Lumley. Murder Every Monday by Pamela Branch will air on Radio 4Xtra at 3pm and 9pm on Monday 12th January, and again at 5am on Tuesday 13th January 2026. Check out more of our Audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Emma Willis to host new BBC Radio 2 programme as Zoe Ball steps down
Emma Willis will replace Zoe Ball's BBC Radio 2 Saturday lunchtime programme, as the presenter today announced she will step down later this month. Willis will be on the airwaves from January 2026 each Saturday lunchtime between 1pm and 3pm. The BBC has teased her programme will be jam-packed with special guests. Emma said of the announcement: "I'm a huge fan of Radio 2, so I'm absolutely chuffed to be joining the family - and it's a real honour to follow in the huge footsteps Zoe leaves behind, who's someone I admire and adore. I'm very much looking forward to spending my Saturday lunchtimes with the Radio 2 audience and I’ll happily be the filling to a Romesh and Rylan sandwich!" Willis has spent six years co-presenting Sunday mornings on Heart Radio alongside Stephen Mulhern. And since 2019, she has been a regular voice on Radio 2, often deputising for Sara Cox, and Claudia Winkleman and Romesh Ranganathan. Helen Thomas, Head of Radio 2, commented: "Emma is one of the UK’s most popular broadcasters, so I’m thrilled that she’s joining the all-star Radio 2 family of presenters. I’m certain that our loyal listeners will welcome her with open arms. "I can’t wait to hear Emma’s new show as a part of our Superstar Saturday weekend schedule, which features Tony Blackburn, Dermot O’Leary, Romesh Ranganathan, Rylan, Liza Tarbuck, Gary Davies and Fearne Cotton." Read more: Rum Punch's Travis Jay: "I've got a right to grab the attention of someone who's like me" BBC Radio Christmas 2025 line-up confirmed – with Hollywood legend set as guest editor for the Today programme Zoe Ball will present her last programme on Saturday 20th December, though she will continue to host specials on the station, which she has done throughout the year. Zoe said: "Spending Saturday lunchtimes with the Radio 2 gang has been an absolute hoot, the listeners, the stories, and of course my weekly giggles with Romesh and Rylan. I’m over the moon for the fabulous Emma to take the reins, she’s pure sunshine and is going to bring all the joy (and tunes!) to your Saturdays." Helen added: "Huge thanks to Zoe for keeping Saturday lunchtimes cheerful and warm. She’s much loved by our audience and amazing team of presenters. Zoe will always be a highly valued member of the Radio 2 family." Check out more of our Audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Rum Punch's Travis Jay: "I've got a right to grab the attention of someone who's like me"
Having cut his teeth in the world of comedy, Travis Jay chats to Pass the Mic about returning to BBC Radio 4 for a full season of award-winning sitcom Rum Punch.
After the success of his pilot episode of Rum Punch last year, comedian Travis Jay is back for a fully fledged series of his radio sitcom – and it's only set to be the start of something greater, should the stars align for Jay who also has dreams for Rum Punch beyond the airwaves. As we speak before the release of the BBC Radio 4 series and even ahead of the live recording of his second batch of episodes, Jay is admittedly "super excited" for the release of the full season. "I think the response to the pilot was definitely eye opening. It was a real surprise because it's an audience I'm not familiar with, on a platform I'm also not familiar with. While I listen to podcasts, the idea of being on Radio 4 was just like, 'Okay, everybody speaks so positively about this'. It's just something I still didn't know. So, the response has been far bigger than I imagined," he says. And a positive reaction was definitely recieved around Rum Punch's initial episode, with the pilot going on to scoop up the award for Best Comedy Sitcom at BBC's 2025 Audio Drama Awards. Winning that was "something else", Jay beams, with it proving that the positive feedback "is not in my head and it really did connect". "I genuinely didn't know that we'd be in the running for something like that. When you start writing, it's the furthest thing from my mind. Then it's like – bam, nominations are in," he laughs. He continues: "It's my first comedy award, and I've been doing this for 16 years. I'm just grateful the people are enjoying the project. I think it's a powerful story to tell and I think the feeling it leaves is the thing I really aim for. "I'm one of these stand up comics – I do touch on serious things. Previous specials I've done, I've touched on grief, losing my grandfather. It would seem like, how did you make that funny? But I know that there's value in real life and authentic stories. "The comedy will come, I trust my bones to find comedy. But dealing with real subjects is also quite a powerful thing. The fact that a story like this could connect like that and we go to a full series in an audience I'm not familiar with in that way, it made me feel really, really proud." Describing Rum Punch as a "multigenerational family sitcom", the series follows Jay in the lead role as Marley, an aspiring boxer who has dreams outside of working in his family's Caribbean restaurant. Set in Lewisham, the family comedy follows the Campbell family as they come together to keep the business afloat but also, pursue their own individual ambitions. Upon first listening to it, many will likely be warmly reminded of other Black-led sitcoms that have aired alongside many of us growing older. Desmond's, My Wife and Kids and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air were all shows that were staple to Jay's experience growing up, he tells me. "It's a nod to the legacy of Black sitcoms," Jay says, with those shows remaining so iconic all these years on for a variety of reasons. The studio sitcom format gives viewers "a deeper connection" to many lead characters, Jay says. "The connection runs so deep, it's that real life experience. You're in the room laughing with them and I really wanted to touch on that because it's just things I grew up loving," he says. In reality, the laughter you hear dotted throughout the episodes is all real, recorded live in front of an audience. It's a part of the series that was special to Jay, he admits, but is was always part of the plan when a stand-up comedian is at the helm of the series. "I think if we're going to call it a comedy, it belongs in front of the audience. I think the fact it's real laughter, it lets you know in the moment whether this worked or it didn't. These are stakes that I like, that I'm used to having." The embracing of Rum Punch as an outright comedy is something that Jay says he's doing unashamedly. "I think sometimes we take a shot at comedy but we might fall a bit short so we might say, 'Hey, it's a comedy drama'. "Whereas, I'm like – nah, it's a comedy. We're going to shoot for comedy and if it doesn't hit, that means I didn't do my job. These are the stakes that I think comedy belongs in so I really embrace that challenge." Having gone to one of the live recordings myself, it seemed far from a challenge for Jay to leave the audience in hysterics. Just like the series itself, the audience was made up of all different ages, with jokes landing seamlessly across the auditorium. Just from the material itself, you wouldn't think that Jay wasn't the biggest consumer of audio dramas or really, a listener of BBC Radio 4 ahead of penning Rum Punch. It's refreshing to hear, I tell the comedian once he admits that, but the lack of a personal connection to the form or the platform was a challenge that Jay wholeheartedly embraced. "I thought that if I'm not familiar with this platform and consuming this type of content like this, I've got a right to grab the attention of someone who's like me. It was a real good challenge as a writer, to write blind," he says. "There's no visual aid, your script is setting the tone of the imagination that you try to capture." Jay describes himself as a "very competitive guy", saying that once he sets a goal then he becomes "laser-focused" on it, which is something that the wider Rum Punch team fully supported him in. When it came to sitting down to writing Rum Punch's full series, Jay said one thing was at the forefront of his mind: "Alright, I've got to write for someone like me." He adds: "Because if we're going to drag these new ears to this space, we've got to do it with a big bang. That's why with the pilot, we went full-fledged into it. It was a nice challenge, I'm glad that the response is positive." Riding that high of positive feedback going into the full series must be a lovely feeling for any writer, with Jay saying that many remarked that listening to the pilot felt like watching a TV show due to the excellent visual storytelling at the heart of it. "A lot of people were just like, 'We need this on TV' or 'I haven't seen a family like this in so long'. So, I'm really grateful for that," Jay smiles. Part of the family appeal of the show comes down to the family at the heart of Rum Punch, a cast that Jay couldn't be more proud to work alongside. As well as his own mother, comedian Angie Le Mar, starring as his mother in Rum Punch, the cast also includes The Real McCoy legend Eddie Nestor, Jay's real-life best friend Kevin 'KG' Harry (Ted Lasso), comedian Kyrah Gray, 3 Non-Blondes star Ninia Benjamin and more. Describing them as "a cast of dreams", Jay says that transferring his stand-up comedy writing skills to Rum Punch really underlined the importance of teamwork, both in the realms of crafting narratives for a group of people and not himself, but also ensuring that every cast member felt supported and as though they can shine on stage. Although his mother couldn't make the pilot, she's now in the series and it's a role that Jay had written for her, describing working with her as a "phenomenal experience". "There's a lifetime of memories with this person and they're side by side with you," he says. He recalls one thing his comedian mother had taught him over the years and that's that if you have to explain the joke, it simply isn't funny. "The rules of comedy have been embedded in me from early," he smiles. When it came to crafting the story at the heart of Rum Punch, Jay also credits another anecdote from his mother, who told him to write what he knows. Simply put, the show is the life that I've lived, Jay remarks. "This is the community that I'm from. So, I know the textures and the nuances like the back of my hand." Jay says that most people can likely think of a cultural community hub, like the restaurant in Rum Punch. While he wanted to touch on those elements of relatability, Jay couldn't shy away from the fact that more serious topics do crop up. "Black sitcom has always been impactful," he says. "There's something that it does that just leaves people with a feeling. I think today, there is a little bit of a gap in terms of where we might see that on TV." When it comes to resonating with so many people, Jay also highlights the important of sticking true to the story you want to tell. "I always like to be in that pocket of authenticity all the time. That's why I'm quite stubborn, I'm quite a difficult person to work with because if I feel like we're straying away from authenticity, I'll dig my heels in," he admits. It's an admirable quality to have for any writer, I tell Jay, with the Rum Punch creator saying: "A lot of time we do focus on – especially when shows come out and it's created by a Black person – it's about, 'Okay, explain the Black experience'. Well no, it doesn't need to be explained actually because if I explain myself, it suggests that I have to explain myself. "With this show, it's not a case of anybody explaining why or how they are. Everybody's just living their lives. That's what I really wanted to capture." When it comes to the future of Rum Punch, Jay – as previously mentioned – is thinking big and would love to take the idea for the show to the screen. "I'm incredibly grateful for the radio opportunity we have, because what it's done for my pen has just been ... writing without visual has made my pen a lot stronger. So I think, if TV was available, I'd be ready for it," he says. No stranger to the screen himself with a recent notable role in Netflix's Supacell, Jay says that starring in such a hit Netflix series and working with Rapman opened up his eyes to how much he "really fought for the authentic capture of South London within a superhero show". It was inspiring to witness and was something that Jay took into Rum Punch, further proving that authenticity really can achieve what people think it does. In terms of what he hopes listeners get from Rum Punch, Jay says first and foremost that he wants people to laugh – it is a comedy, after all. "Outside of that, I hope that you see a family that you can connect with. I would love for somebody in the show to almost speak to your experience in some kind of way." He adds: "It's always nice when you've got somebody fighting for your perspective in a conversation. So, I hope that somebody feels represented in the show. We all come from different families, have different networks. That's really what I hope for – that connection is what comes when you listen to Rum Punch." Rum Punch airs on Thursday 27th November at 6:30pm on Radio 4, and is also available to listen to on BBC Sounds. Check out more of our Audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
BBC Radio Christmas 2025 line-up confirmed – with Hollywood legend set as guest editor for the Today programme
Six festive guest editors for BBC Radio 4's Today programme have been announced.
The BBC has unveiled its Christmas 2025 radio line-up, with Cate Blanchett, Baroness Theresa May and acclaimed historian Tom Holland among the celebrities set to guest edit BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this festive season. They will be joined by broadcaster Melvyn Bragg, inventor Sir James Dyson and AI entrepreneur Mustafa Suleyman, and each be curating an episode between 24th December and 31st December. The festive takeover kicks off on Christmas Eve, with a special guest edit from Bragg, where he will be exploring the origins of the nativity story. Dyson will use his episode on Boxing Day to explore how Britain can get its inventive streak back, while Blanchett’s guest edit, which will broadcast on 27th December, will examine a range of topics including the impact of AI technology on women in the film industry and beyond. Suleyman’s guest edit on 29th December will ask how we can navigate the realities of a post-superintelligence world. Holland will edit the programme on 30th December, hosting an early celebration for England’s 1100th birthday and examining the impact of AI on academic research. Finally, May will explore the themes of domestic violence, trust in politics and modern slavery in her guest edit on 31st December. Owenna Griffiths, Editor of the Today programme, said: "Every Christmas on Today, a new set of guest editors take up residence and bring with them a wonderful range of new stories, fresh ideas and, hopefully, a sprinkling of joy." She continued: "This year is no exception. In a rapidly changing world, this year's guest editors will help bring illumination and understanding and I'm enormously grateful to all of them for giving up the time to take part." Elsewhere on the BBC radio Christmas line-up, TV presenter Lorraine Kelly is set to make her Radio 2 debut. Kelly is set to take over Jeremy Vine’s slot during the festive period, while the station will also host a Jane McDonald special and a celebration of the music of Stevie Wonder presented by Trevor Nelson. Over on Radio 4, fans can expect a festive edition of Desert Island Discs with Kate Winslet, as well as a celebration of 75 years of The Archers, a new adaptation of P.G. Wodehouse’s Joy in the Morning, and a new performance of T.S. Eliot’s Murder in the Cathedral. Radio 1 will present the exclusive reveal of the official Christmas No. 1, while the return of the Presenter Takeover will give brand new DJs an opportunity to front some of the network’s most recognised programmes. Meanwhile, Radio 3 will aim to "blend tradition, reflection and celebration" with Carols Across The Country, live broadcasts from dawn to dusk, and a landmark Advent service from St John’s College, Cambridge. Read more: 'Lust is a great creative force': David Bowie reveals what drove him in exclusive interview Silent Witness star Emilia Fox on new true crime series: 'It's left up to the listener to decide' The BBC’s Orchestras and Choirs will also be presenting concerts on the stations throughout the Christmas period. Over on Radio 5 Live, fans can look forward to a packed schedule of live sport and special shows, including Elis James and John Robins celebrating their 500th episode, Roman Kemp and Tom Grennan’s festive You About?, and The Wayne Rooney Show. On Radio 6 Music, Jarvis Cocker and Bill Nighy sit in for Iggy Pop, Beth Ditto will curate indie disco hits, Nick Grimshaw will look back on the year, and Craig Charles will deliver funk and soul. Check out more of our Audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Rick Edwards reveals why fatherhood has changed his presenting work for ever - and talks his modelling past
The 5 Live DJ on the joys of fatherhood, the downside of modelling — and crying on air.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. What’s the view from your sofa? It’s a fireplace that I think I like, but I’m not completely sure about. It’s very ornate, with a wooden surround that incorporates a mirror above it. It probably dates from, and hasn’t been changed since, the 1920s. Then there’s the TV, which is small and probably temporary, and keeps tilting backwards because I mounted the little feet on it badly. Sounds like you need a TV upgrade! We left the TV that we loved in our old house because it was wall-mounted, was perfect in the space and it felt like a nice thing to do, to leave it for the next people. My wife Emer [Kenny, Karen Pirie writer and actor] and I really regret that now. You began your career as a model — when did you realise you’re handsome? I was a cute kid, I think, and then, from 10 to 16, which is the worst age for this to be the case, I was not a good-looking boy. At all. I wonder if, in those formative years, it was character-building. Then, around 17 or 18, the proportions of my face sort of settled down, and from that point, it’s been fine. It’s weird to go from being not-good-looking to, a couple of years later, getting scouted for modelling work. I did it when I was at university and just after. That was odd. I didn’t like it one bit. Aside from the models, who seemed fine, it’s an industry of a lot of not very nice people. I found it a bit grubby. What’s the best TV programme you’ve watched recently? Your Friends & Neighbours on Apple TV starring Jon Hamm. He’s great – the whole cast is good – and it has some quite interesting things to say about family. As a fairly new father, with anything that says anything at all about family and fatherhood, I am quite likely to cry. How do you juggle family life and, among other things, 5 Live Breakfast? It’s tricky, because both Emer and I work and I’m very conscious of ensuring that she still has all the time she needs to work. Trying to dovetail it all together is a complicated jigsaw. One good thing is that, although the hours of my job are horrendous, doing a breakfast show does mean I’m home in the day and I get to spend time with my son then. You have to make it work. How ready were you for fatherhood? It was definitely something we wanted to do, and I thought and read about it quite a lot. But there is absolutely no way you can be prepared for what it’s like. There’s a depth of feeling you really can’t get your head around before you experience it. It’s crazy how it’s massively heightened my emotional response to almost everything, because you just see everything through a new lens of: “What is that going to mean for his future?” How has it affected your work? My emotions are much closer to the surface, so when we have people on who have distressing stories, I’m very affected by them. In my first year doing 5 Live Breakfast, Russia invaded Ukraine. In those first few weeks, we were speaking to Ukrainians and it was like nothing I’d ever done before. It was completely overwhelming and I really struggled. I’ve definitely cried on air, and I think the audience kind of get that because it’s quite a human response, but you don’t want someone crying all the time. How’s your relationship with your dad? My dad was and is terrific. The world I live in is probably quite different from the world he lived in and lives in, but I still go to him for advice, even when I know he won’t know much about the thing I’m asking him, because I’m still interested to get his take. He’s a safe person for me. What has surprised you most about becoming a parent? Sometimes, being a parent is hard, sometimes boring, sometimes annoying. But you don’t let those fleeting emotions override the core emotion, which is “this is brilliant, this is special”. What it has made me realise is how much my mum and dad must love me. The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Rick Edwards presents 5 Live Breakfast Mon—Fri 6am/Fighting Talk 11am Sat/The Inside Track podcast Mondays. Check out more of our Audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Caroline Wyatt gets candid about life with MS - and why she thinks the BBC will endure
A diagnosis of multiple sclerosis disrupted BBC correspondent Caroline Wyatt’s career. But 10 years on she’s unbeaten and still broadcasting.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Caroline Wyatt uses the word “luck” a lot. Lucky to have started out in journalism at a time when the world seemed to be changing for the better. Lucky to still be broadcasting, even though it leaves her exhausted and bed-bound. And, yes, lucky to have only been struck down by what she describes as a “gentler” version of the chronic illness multiple sclerosis. “Some people get it very aggressively from the beginning, so yes, I have been so lucky with the way that my MS has developed.” She’s sunny and speaks with no hint of self-pity, even though she acknowledges, with almost a newsreader’s detachment, that her condition is deteriorating. “I am slowly getting worse and I have got to the stage where I’ve had all the drugs I’m eligible for with the NHS. The thing that I really notice now is the way my brain is changing. I can’t focus and concentrate as much… it’s like accelerated ageing.” She also has to contend with crushing fatigue. “You wake up in the morning feeling as if you haven’t been to bed. And the older I get [she’s 58], the worse it gets.” We last met 10 years ago in her central London flat, where she spoke for the first time about the hospital results confirming she had MS. Today, as that diagnostic anniversary approaches, we’re at the BBC’s HQ, from where she broadcasts a 30-minute version of Radio 4’s PM programme every Saturday. She laughs – as she does frequently – about the support she needs from colleagues in getting the programme on air. “My eyesight is really quite unreliable now, so if I’m nervous or have a lot of adrenaline in my system I find it really hard to read words on a screen. I ask the team to print out a script in big letters, which these days is the equivalent of saying I’m a dinosaur, but it just makes it a lot easier.” Today is also the day that Donald Trump is in town and the world’s broadcast media are in tow. Considering she was the BBC’s woman in Berlin not long after the reunification of East and West Germany, was Moscow correspondent at the time of Putin’s rise to power and the corporation’s first female defence correspondent covering wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, does she miss the cut and thrust of it all? “A bit,” comes the reply, quickly followed by a story – despite self-proclaimed memory failings she’s a wonderfully detailed storyteller – of why she took her leave of the front line. It was 2014, and in northern Iraq Isis was committing a genocide of the Yazidi people. Wyatt was there as religion correspondent and reporting, as she describes it, “appalling stories of rape, murder and retribution”. “I came home after that and decided I really can’t do that again. I think everyone has a limit and I had reached my limit of witnessing other people’s suffering. I just thought I am really pleased that I have these amazing colleagues who are going to carry on reporting wars and extreme situations, but I can’t do it any more.” Part of it, she acknowledges, was also physical. The as-yet undiagnosed MS was taking its toll. “In those situations you need to be fit enough to get out quite quickly. But I thought if they [Isis] did come to kidnap us, or worse, I couldn’t run.” These days she uses a walking stick to get about and admits to episodes of tripping over “because my foot doesn’t lift in the right way”. Her MS is now classified as “secondary, progressive”, so how does she manage the symptoms? “I try not to fight it and just acknowledge that I need a lot more rest and sleep. If I work on a Saturday, I try not to arrange too much on Sunday and Monday and hope that by Tuesday I can go and see friends. Pacing myself has been a massive lesson that I haven’t quite cracked yet. I still try to do too much and then I crash.” Does she ever despair? “Yeah, of course I get down and depressed and despondent.” What lifts her spirits? “I think friends and family… all the normal things. Being able to talk to other people who understand.” Cue more throaty laughter. “There are four of us women near where I live, all with MS. The hospital we go to got us together and we’re supposed to meet once a month, but because we’ve all got MS we cry off at least every other month!” Her Saturday stint on PM is, she agrees, a lifeline. For all its debilitating aftermath, she still enjoys the challenge of live broadcasting, though admits she had to step back from the hour-long show on Fridays because of exhaustion. “By the end of the programme I was gripping the desk to keep focused. I feel so lucky to still be there and still working. But I don’t know how long it’s going to last, because I don’t know what’s going to happen in health terms or in BBC terms.” Her own future health may be as uncertain as the BBC’s, but she has faith in both. “There are lots of people at my stage of the disease where the thing you need most is hope – that something’s going to come along that will halt or slow down the progression. There’s lots of research going on. I just want them to hurry up.” And what of the BBC? Is it robust enough to withstand the body blows it’s receiving from all sides? “I think it is. I hope it is. I can see that the BBC is in the crosshairs a lot of the time – certainly on social media – but we do live in an age of partisan debate, and having something that’s available to everyone in a society that is increasingly atomised is really important.” What’s important to Wyatt is maintaining a sense of perspective and appreciating there’s much in life still to be enjoyed. Though she rarely travels abroad now, she’s enjoying discovering unfamiliar parts of the UK. A study of her social media feed on X reveals daily repostings of beautiful paintings. She explains: “Algorithmically, I was getting war, killing, death, doom and destruction, so to influence the algorithm I went to other stuff, and that way it feeds me beautiful pictures every morning. Going to art galleries is one of the things I’ve started doing a lot more – sitting, looking and contemplating. It’s been a revelation. Although it’s quite knackering, they’ve got really good cafés – so tea and cake at the end!” More laughter. Her motto is simple: “Be glad, be grateful. One of the things the job taught me was how incredibly lucky we are.” There it is again, that word luck. The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Check out more of our Audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
BBC Radio 2 host Sara Cox details key differences between her radio and podcasting work
Sarah Cox spoke exclusively to RadioTimes.com about her podcast and radio career.
Sara Cox has been a mainstay on the audio waves for years, having hosted BBC Radio 2's drivetime show since 2019, and she's showing no signs of slowing down! Alongside her radio show, she also hosts The Teen Commandments, a podcast in which she and best friend Clare Hamilton reminisce and commiserate as they attempt to write the 'commandments' of modern teenagedom. Because after all, the best teen advice comes from those who have already been through it. While the outputs of her radio show and podcast are different, there is so much more that differs between the shows that listeners may not realise. Speaking exclusively to RadioTimes.com at the British Podcast Awards 2025, Cox said: "The difference is that on the radio I've got everyone at the table, so I've got four year olds and teenagers and everything from sort of seven hours old to 107 listen to Radio 2, and I love that about it that you're just speaking to everybody at the table. "But I feel like with podcasting you do have that little bit more freedom to be a little bit wild. And it's exactly like how me and Clare speak to each other in real life, and to have that freedom is really refreshing and quite exciting." Hamilton and Cox launched the podcast back in February and have been having a blast ever since. "Getting to work together with your best mate is the dream," Hamilton told RadioTimes.com. "It's not like work, we forget the microphones are there and we just have a real giggle!" Cox added: "I've got loads of lovely jobs and I've been doing this for nearly 30 years now but without doubt this, creatively, and the heart of it is really the most satisfying thing I've done for a while. "It's just so different to have so much control. And podcasting is so different from radio or any kind of broadcasting that I've done before so I feel like it's really special. "You feel like your listeners are a community that comes together." Check out more of our Entertainment coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
BBC launches three new radio stations: "It's all about the audience"
The Radio 1 and Radio 3 spin-offs were approved while Radio 2 and 5 Sports Extra proposals were dismissed.
Twenty-three years since it last launched new national radio stations – BBC 6 Music, 1Xtra and Asian Network – the BBC has three starting on the same day. Previously available since November 2024 as live streams on BBC Sounds, Radio 1 Anthems, Radio 1 Dance (which has been on Sounds since 2020) and Radio 3 Unwind passed full competition assessments undertaken by the industry’s regulatory body Ofcom in July of this year and will start broadcasting on DAB+ on Friday 12 September. The three stations were part of wider proposals from the BBC, which also included the launch of a Radio 2 spin-off and the extension of the broadcasting hours of 5 Sports Extra. Both the Radio 2 spin-off and the extension of 5 Sports Extra were refused by Ofcom for the negative impact it was deemed they would have on commercial competitors. Sam Jackson, the controller of Radio 3, says that while he couldn’t be certain that Unwind would get approval, “I wasn't surprised, because I think we made a very, very strong case. I was very proud of the submission that we made, I felt we did a good job of arguing why this was distinctive and why it would be welcomed.” He points out that around 8,000 different pieces of music will be played on Unwind each year, from a broad repertoire but with a focus on recordings from the past 10 years – even of Baroque or classical pieces – and a mission to introduce new contemporary works, including from performers or composers who aren’t signed to record labels. Radio 1 controller Aled Haydn Jones is similarly robust in his defence of why we need two new stations: “It’s all about the audience. Ofcom has pointed out that the BBC needs to be doing better with young audiences. Having services for young people is a public service. Radio 1 is the biggest radio station for youth audiences in the UK, so having stations with the Radio 1 brand offering more is a pretty special thing.” Both men are keen to stress the differences between what their stations are offering and what can be found on commercial radio, with Haydn Jones claiming that Radio 1 plays more tracks in a week than its nearest commercial competitor does in a year, though he understands the commercial imperative that may account for that disparity. “Commercial stations are going to pick the songs that work best for their audience and play them as frequently as they want to play them. Whereas Radio 1 are about new artists coming through; over 50 per cent of Radio 1 tracks are within the last six weeks of release and Radio 1 Dance will do the same for UK dance DJs and producers coming through.” On the back of that he expects Radio 1 Dance to play around 3,000 unique tracks a year – in previous years on BBC Sounds it has averaged around 3,200. Sam Jackson takes an additional angle in his argument as to how Radio 3 Unwind is distinct from its competitors, saying: “If you compare what we do with Classic FM Calm where, I believe, there are no presenters, we have programmes that are presented by experts in their field.” He points to mid-morning presenter Sian Williams, who as well as being a respected broadcaster also has now an NHS practice in the field of trauma mental health, working with first responders. “She brings with her this other side to what she does. She's a broadcaster, she loves classical music but she's also trained professionally in mental health and wellbeing.” Continuing in the comparison with Classic FM Calm, he’s at pains to point out he’s highlighting differences not setting out to denigrate the competition: “This isn't meant to be a slight on what they do. They do what they do, they do that very well, but they have a kind of jukebox of music that is played with no presenters. There's an audience for that, there's an audience for a version of that on Spotify as well and I think anything that introduces more people to classical music is a good thing. “But I think we have to collectively have the confidence to say there's room for everybody and then let the audience decide what they want to listen to.” Haydn Jones also points to the breadth of presenting talent on Radio 1 Dance, which includes many big cheeses from the dance music world, from veterans like Pete Tong to newer names such as Charlie Hedges and the Blessed Madonna. Defending Radio 1 Anthems, which has a stated mission of serving up nostalgia for young people with a playlist of “bangers” from the Noughties to now, against accusations that it’s just like any number of commercial “decades” stations (Absolute 90s, Heart 80s, etc etc) is a bit tougher but Haydn Jones remains staunch. “The people who are presenting it are in some of the first presenting jobs, they've had out of university. We work with the Student Radio Association, where we had a panel of students playlist our shows, but also inform the Radio 1 team about songs they grew up with or remember. “But then also we add our curation with our knowledge of young people under 24 to find out which pockets of eras or genres we could delve a bit deeper into to give them ‘new to me’ music; things that they might not have discovered as they were growing up. For us, it's about the target audience and trying to ensure that they have a service that's dedicated to them.” He also points to the fact that getting Ofcom approval is recognition from the broadcast industry that there needs to be a focus on young audiences, and that the BBC is better placed than any to serve that audience. “It may not be where the easiest money is for our commercial friends, there are going to be more affluent age demographics that can pay bills. The fact that we are able to say we want to make sure that young audiences do not move away from DAB or from broadcast media and drift to streaming, I think is an important one. "So, I think the fact that we were successful with these is great. It won't be the full answer to our problems of ensuring that young audiences get what they need from broadcast media and BBC specifically but it's a brilliant step.” Asked whether there could be any more spin-offs from their stations, Sam Jackson is cautiously optimistic, saying: “Could there be a Radio 3 jazz station, a Radio 3 live music station? I love the idea of launching some new services that introduce Radio 3 to even more people so long as we keep the main network as healthy and as strong as ever.” Everything would, of course, be subject to the same lengthy Ofcom approvals process that the new stations have already gone through and it’s this that makes Haydn Jones more reluctant to say yes to more Radio 1 stations: “No one is asking for that right now. And I'm imagining at the pace these things take, if there ever is in the future, I'll be long gone by then.” Check out more of our Audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Jeremy Dyson shares "pure joy" of reuniting The League of Gentlemen stars for brand new project
The cast of The League of Gentlemen team up again in a new radio comedy drama written by Jeremy Dyson.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. There is a picture on the wall of Jeremy Dyson’s office, and he is gazing at it as we speak: “It’s the four of us riding the log flume at Blackpool Pleasure Beach after the end of our first big tour. We’re all screaming with joy, and it sums up the miracle of the journey – an absolute thrill-ride that we went on together.” Now, 24 years on, the quartet – Dyson and fellow The League of Gentlemen stars Reece Shearsmith, Steve Pemberton and Mark Gatiss – is reuniting for High Cockalorum, a gentle Radio 4 comedy drama penned by Dyson and inspired by his uncle’s brush with stardom. Commissioned as part of the BBC’s Contains Strong Language festival (there’s a live playout and Q&A at St George’s Hall, Bradford, on 20 September), Dyson describes the 1978-set story as “a mini road movie about an encounter between a humble lad from West Yorkshire and a Hollywood film star”. In real life, Dyson’s uncle worked for a record label, where he was occasionally called on to look after actors working on soundtrack albums – which is how he once came to spend time with James Mason, star of such films as A Star Is Born and Lolita. Dyson says: “When I told Mark this story, he joked, ‘You write it, I’ll play it.’ Eighteen months later, here we are.” As well as the charm of two very different people brought together by circumstance, High Cockalorum explores how fame can change people. It’s a subject Dyson has long had opportunity to witness first hand, as he and his League friends reached dizzying heights after winning the prestigious Perrier Comedy Award at the Edinburgh Fringe in 1997. Unlike the other three, Dyson has opted to stay mostly behind the camera, giving him what he says is “the best of both worlds”. On the pros and cons of the instantly recognisable celebrity experienced by his colleagues, Dyson muses: “The inconveniences strike me more. You get hassled everywhere and there’s not much upside to that. I don’t feel deprived.” He continues: “I have a love-hate relationship with what Alan Bennett calls ‘the tinsel’. “There’s a lot I struggle with – the insincerity, the manipulation. A party full of famous people is not conventional. All the social cues that operate normally disappear, it’s highly status-driven and who’s where in the pecking order governs how much attention they get. You need a thick skin to navigate all that, which I don’t have. But I’m fascinated by it all, and the tinsel remains. It’s a simultaneous fascination and repulsion.” If the public side of The League of Gentlemen’s success tested Dyson, the friendships at its heart have brought him nothing but delight. “Up to when I met Mark, I had a particular set of interests that I’d had since I was seven years old, from Doctor Who to horror movies, plus TV comedy. I had friends who covered bits of that, but then a mutual friend, Gordon, met Mark, and within five minutes, he was on the phone: ‘There’s someone you have to meet…’” Through Gatiss, Dyson met Shearsmith and Pemberton – and the troupe was born. What did each of them bring? Dyson can’t pin it down, saying instead they were united in temperament and commitment. “Nobody was looking to go off to Hollywood; we just wanted to do good work. It was all pleasure. It’s strange looking back on it, but I guess it’s the story of any successful group endeavour, the gravity that pulls people together.” It’s a pull that has remained strong, most recently when an episode of Good Omens two years ago was conceived as a League reunion, and now High Cockalorum. Dyson is freshly appreciative: “It’s pure joy. In the first two minutes, we all collapse crying with laughter and it continues in that vein, in pure hysteria from start to finish. That’s what it’s like and why whenever we get the opportunity, we grab it. The older you get the more you become aware of the preciousness of it all.” The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Check out more of our Audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
BBC Radio 1 confirms Love Island: Aftersun favourite and more fresh faces to join presenting line-up
The presenting line-up is expanding this autumn.
BBC Radio 1 has announced a dazzling new line-up of presenters joining the Friday Early Breakfast monthly rotation and the station's Life Hacks this autumn. Beth Wallace, Jack Remmington and Ash Holme have been confirmed as the next wave of presenters set to host Fridays 5am - 7am. Wallace, who has been part of the Radio 1 family since last Christmas, will kick off the rotation in September. She also presents a show on the Scottish-based local Forth 1 and was nominated for Best New Presenter at the 2025 ARIAS. "I'm absolutely buzzing to be part of the Radio 1 team for the next few weeks," said Wallace. "Radio 1 is a station I’ve always adored and it’s gonna be an absolute pleasure to kick start Fridays, get folk in the weekend mood early. Laughs, good vibes and fun times coming your way." Presenting duo Jack Remmington and Ash Holme will be taking the October slot, with both of them known for their hilarious videos on social media. Holme has built a following of over two million on social media, and was part of this year's Love Island: Aftersun panel. Remmington is known for his pop culture commentary and hosting red carpets, as well as his work on the podcast Famously... In Love. The duo said: "We're sooo excited to be back at BBC Radio 1 and this time soundtracking your Fridays through October - tune in to liven up your mornings and enjoy the energy and chaos we’re bringing your way." And while Shanequa Paris is on maternity leave, Charley Marlowe and Lina Nielsen will join Lauren Layfield to co-host Radio 1's Life Hacks, with Marlowe taking over in September and Nielsen in October. The pair will also co-host The Official Chart: First Look alongside Lauren Layfield. Nielsen said: "I’m thrilled to have this opportunity with Radio 1 and the Life Hacks team. Having been a guest on the show before the Olympics, I’ve always loved catching up with them live on air. Now, I can’t wait to join as a co-host throughout October." Aled Haydn Jones, Head of Radio 1, commented on the new presenter signing: "Supporting and developing new presenting talent is at the heart of what we do at Radio 1, and the schedule this autumn is a great example of that. "I’m excited to welcome Beth, Jack, Ash, Charley and Lina to the station and can’t wait to see the energy and creativity they bring to their shows." Check out more of our Audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
The Archers star reveals how Game of Thrones role left him with “agony”
Actor Rupert Vansittart, who plays The Archers’ latest bounder, has form.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. You know summer’s really here when you’re sitting on the boundary watching a cricket match,” said Usha, solicitor and wife of Alan, the local vicar, in a recent episode of The Archers. “Freshly mown grass, the players in their cricket whites...” The recorded thwack of willow on leather conjured a timeless English idyll. Except, being The Archers, village cricket is more often the inspiration for a strong plotline. The latest involves Lawrence Harrington, chair of the rival Roserran Cricket Club, who first appeared when Lynda Snell, chair of the Ambridge Cricket Club, asked his advice after the team rose up the league. He promptly made a pass at her, undeterred by the fact she is happily married, and horrified her with snide, implicitly racist remarks about her friends the Maliks, the newly arrived Muslim family. Now the cricket season is in full swing, Lawrence is back. And if his distinctive voice is familiar, it’s because he’s played by Rupert Vansittart, regularly called on to play a not very nice toff. His notable roles include Lord Ashfordly in Heartbeat, MI5 boss Sir Alec Myerson in the final two series of Foyle’s War, and Lord Yohn Royce in Game of Thrones. “You don’t think of me if you want a drug dealer in Newcastle,” he says, entirely pragmatic. “If people want me to play a man in a tweed suit throwing a tenant out of their cottage, well, why not? It’s only acting.” And while there are pleasures to be had in TV drama – “I spent my time as Lord Ashfordly driving around gorgeous settings in Yorkshire in a Rolls-Royce” – there are downsides to TV roles, such as having to wear historic costumes. “With Game of Thrones, I tried to make the costume halfway comfortable with huge foam pads under my shoulders – the breastplate was agony.” But there are other reasons why he’s enjoying The Archers. “Radio is you and the script. It’s elegant and straightforward, and you’re not being watched,” he says. “And I knew a lot of the cast already. I’d worked with them or met them before.” The distinctive Vansittart voice you hear today is, he says, a reaction to changing times. “When I went to drama school I had a very public school accent. But it has toned down. That happened with a lot of people – like the [late] Queen. You can’t talk like that any more.” A keen radio listener since he hid his transistor under the bedclothes at boarding school, Vansittart, now 67, has long been an Archers fan – not least because, having moved with his wife to the Cotswolds and found some villagers welcoming and others decidedly frosty, he knows from his own experience that it’s true to life. But then he comes from a larger-than-life family, with links to entertainment. One grandmother was in the Ballets Russes, while other relatives worked at the BBC and as film scriptwriters. They form part of the Vansittart history, from their 12th-century origins as Dutch merchant venturers, arriving here, by way of Germany and the Baltic, in 1674. It’s a story – all in a bound volume handed down the generations – involving rogues, illegitimate children, maidservants making good and land sell-offs to George III. It would make a rollicking family saga – and who better to play a leading, roguish role than Vansittart himself? As to whether Lawrence is truly a cad, he says it’s up to the listeners to judge. “My job is to say the lines as well as I can. But if he’s adding a bit of spice, that’s great.” The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Check out more of our Audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
The Archers star Lucy Speed reveals her pride in show embracing "important" new BBC initiative
"As someone who plays a farm manager, I really want our content and storylines to be as real as possible so that they honour the legacy of farming at the heart of the show."
On Thursday 7 August, BBC Farmwatch will see farmers taking over the airwaves, broadcasting for 24 hours nonstop across local radio, BBC Sounds and BBC News. As the initiative offering a comprehensive look at the daily realities of modern farming returns for a second year, with an emphasis on discussing some of the most pressing issues currently facing the industry. Stories to be featured include a 25-year-old farmer in Herefordshire who unexpectedly took over the family farm at 17 – leaving her in charge of a 200-acre site, with more than 1500 sheep and cattle; investigating the financial and emotional cost of farm fires in the East and West Midlands; meeting a fifth-generation wool farmer in County Durham; and 12 hours of outside broadcasting from a mixed farm in Somerset which makes its own gelato. There will also be a live broadcast from a combine harvester — with a so-called “Combine-Cam” — showing a field being harvested and allowing viewers to ask questions directly to farmers while they’re working. Harriet Cowan, the popular farmhand from Clarkson’s Farm, and Mike Wilkins, the fourth-generation Wiltshire farmer who starred in last year’s Great British Bake Off, will be presenting a live programme on every BBC Local Radio station across England. Yet, anything on BBC radio linked to farms and farming has to pay a visit to the nation’s most famous farmers in Ambridge, with The Archers on BBC Radio 4 featuring a special BBC Farmwatch storyline in which some of the Ambridge residents tune into their local radio station and are inspired by what they hear. Talking to Radio Times about the initiative, The Archers actor Lucy Speed said, “Farmwatch is a brilliant BBC Local Radio initiative that shines a light on the real stories behind British farming, and it’s something I’m proud to see reflected in The Archers.“ Her character, Stella Pryor, has been at the heart of a recent story that explores the conflict between environmental initiatives such as rewilding and farms’ food production capacity and profitability, with the harvest proving a pivotal plot point in the battle between the entrenched points of view of two old rivals, Justin Elliott and Brian Aldridge. So it’s unsurprising the view she takes of the importance of the public learning more about farming, “Our storylines are rooted in real agricultural life so it’s vital they are authentic. That’s why campaigns like Farmwatch are so important, not only because they celebrate the community spirit that defines rural Britain, but also reflect the everyday challenges our farmers face.” One of the Archers’ farming and countryside advisers, Fiona Mountain, adds to that, “’70 per cent of land in Britain is farmland, so farmers have a huge impact on all our lives, whether we live in the town or the countryside. Many people who listen to The Archers gain an impression of rural life and farming through the drama, which is why we do our utmost to convey farming and countryside issues authentically. Farmwatch builds on this by showcasing real life farmers who play such a crucial role in providing us with food and acting as custodians of the land.” Lucy Speed also links Farmwatch back to the rural soap and the work of Mountain and her fellow adviser Sybil Ruscoe in keeping everything in Ambridge as grounded in reality as possible, “As someone who plays a farm manager, I really want our content and storylines to be as real as possible so that they honour the legacy of farming at the heart of the show.” We’re not sure how Eddie Grundy’s madcap schemes fit into that, but if you tune into Farmwatch on 7 August and learn of a farmer building a “Ferret Wheel”, do let us know! Farmwatch will air on Thursday 7th August. Check out more of our Audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
All 4 League of Gentlemen legends reunite for all-new BBC comedy-drama
The gang is back together for a special coming to Radio 4.
The cast of cult favourite BBC comedy The League of Gentlemen are reuniting for an audio drama due to be broadcast next month, with a Bradford-based listening session and Q&A marking the launch. High Cockalorum is written by Jeremy Dyson, and features the voices of Mark Gatiss, Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton, all of whom previously collaborated on the darkly comic The League of Gentlemen. The audio drama takes place in West Yorkshire in 1978 and revolves around a "touching, funny and unlikely encounter between a Hollywood superstar and a humble lad from Leeds thrown together by circumstance". The synopsis reveals that the story is inspired by true events and serves as "a meditation on fame, success and what ultimately matters". It will be broadcast at 2:15pm on BBC Radio 4 on Thursday 18th September 2025. The BBC shared an image of Dyson, Gatiss, Shearsmith and Pemberton back together for High Cockalorum (see below) – joined by Monica Dolan, who co-stars in the audio drama alongside Goldie Crane. Dolan previously worked with Shearsmith and Pemberton on an episode of their anthology series Inside No. 9, while she's also earned acclaim for turns in Mr Bates vs The Post Office, A Very English Scandal and The Thief, His Wife and The Canoe. Fans of the creatives behind High Cockalorum may want to consider attending the BBC's Contains Strong Language Festival – an event showcasing poetry, performance and spoken word – where the audio drama will be played. The BBC has confirmed both a public listening session and a Q&A to be included on the festival timetable, although it has not yet announced which creatives will be participating in the latter. You can find more details on the Contains Strong Language Festival on the BBC and Bradford City of Culture websites. The event will be held from 18th-21st September in the West Yorkshire city. High Cockalorum will be broadcast at 2:15pm on BBC Radio 4 on Thursday 18th September 2025. Check out more of our Audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Greg James on his Radio 1 future – and meeting childhood hero Michael Palin
From shows on Radio 1 and Radio 4 via podcasts, Greg James continues to add to his CV — but who inspired all that enthusiasm and curiosity?
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Perched on a deckchair outside Sheffield City Hall, Greg James is enthusing about having just been on stage with his childhood hero and favourite son of the city, Michael Palin. “Michael massively inspired me. I must have been about eight or nine when I watched Around the World in 80 Days, and I just saw him as this wonderful travel presenter, but then I went on this voyage of discovery and realised this very funny man was also part of the greatest comedy group of all time, and a scriptwriter, an actor, a director and an author.” The pair were recording a live episode of James’s Radio 4 series, Rewinder, at the Crossed Wires podcast festival, which featured a trove of archive clips linked to the former Python’s life and career – from his first screen performance in a saucy Ken Dodd sketch to his old geography teacher reminiscing about Palin’s school days. The previous evening James hosted another show at the festival, Nobody Expects the Michael Palin Podcast, in which ostensibly he tried to persuade Palin – surely one of the few famous people not to have a podcast – that he needs one. “One thing I love about him is that he is endlessly curious – he loves meeting new people, experiencing new things and finding out about stuff, and I think finding out about podcasts is an extension of everything else that he does.” But the podcast wheeze was really a red herring: “It was an excuse to interview him about his life in Sheffield. That was the magic.” An endless curiosity is perhaps something that could also be attributed to the 39-year-old Radio 1 Breakfast presenter, Radio 4 archivist, Tailenders cricket podcast host, children’s author and, from this year, creative director of Crossed Wires. When asked where that drive comes from, he returns to the influence of Michael Palin, “He approaches everything he does with such enthusiasm and genuine passion – I try to do that as well. You need role models and I don’t think there’s a better one than him. He’s a great example of ‘nobody is just one thing’.” Yet one does wonder whether the multiple strands of James’s career are in fact a strategy for a man about to bid farewell to his 30s, whose main job for the past 18 years has been on a pop radio station famous for sidelining presenters when they don’t fit its young demographic. Is his Radio 4 work, Tailenders and the podcast festival an insurance against the time when Radio 1 bosses decide he’s outgrown his audience? “No, I don’t look at it like that. I take on too many things because I enjoy them, not because I won’t have any work. I love Radio 1 with my whole heart, it’s all I’ve listened to since I was a kid, and actually I didn’t think I’d still want to be on it, but I’m still finding new challenges with it. It’s fantastic, I still find the listeners endlessly fascinating and funny.” James says he has a good relationship with his bosses, who he checks in with every year to make sure they still want him to continue in the job and that, if in that annual review they decided it was enough, “I would have no regrets. I would go, ‘OK, I’ve got more to give but I’m cool with it.’” As he’s being given an extra 30 minutes each morning over the summer, that day isn’t quite here yet, and there are hints an early exit would not be greeted quite so coolly. “I feel incredibly lucky to still be on Radio 1, it’s a real privilege to be there so I don’t want to go too soon. It takes a long time to get to the breakfast show, so I want to make sure that when I leave, it’s the exact right time.” When that time does come, James will no doubt be emulating his hero and boarding a train for a new adventure. The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Check out more of our Audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
BBC Shipping Forecast announcer shares advice for Pulp's Jarvis Cocker
The singer recorded a forecast for a live show at Crossed Wires Podcast Festival in Sheffield, but it seems it wasn't perfect.
Two days before his band’s “surprise” appearance at Glastonbury, Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker recorded a special version of the Shipping Forecast, to mark the 100th anniversary of the BBC Radio 4 mainstay. Cocker’s version was played out to the audience at a live show on Friday 4th July – the exact day of the 100th anniversary – at the Crossed Wires Podcast Festival in Sheffield, including two discerning pairs of ears, Shipping Forecast regular presenters Lisa Costello and Viji Alles, who weren’t slow to review Cocker’s efforts. Costello was taken with the timbre of the Pulp frontman (and erstwhile radio broadcaster on 6 Music and Radio 4’s Wireless Nights), saying: “You can just swim in that voice!” Alles however, had his reservations about Cocker’s slow and low delivery: “He needs to work on the pacing. You do need to get the whole forecast out in 11 minutes.” Cocker said that reading “The Ships” as it’s known at Radio 4 “might be one of the best moments of my life”. He admitted that, like many, he used to listen while going to sleep, citing that “the repetitive nature” and “the soothing nature of the person who reads it” helped him to drop off. Costello and Alles later read out a very localised version of the bulletin that referenced Sheffield areas and beloved institutions, including the now defunct Coles department store in which the event was held. Talking to Radio Times backstage after the event, Costello and Alles reiterated how important timing is to the one Radio 4 programme that remains a fixed point in the schedule – most famously during the Fifth 2011 Ashes Test match in which, with England on the verge of a famous victory, Test Match Special on LW was interrupted by the Shipping Forecast. Frantic cricket fans returned to the match only to hear that the final Australian wicket had fallen and England had won Down Under for the first time in a quarter of a century – a historic event that had happened while Radio 4 was bringing us the latest maritime weather updates from Fastnet and Lundy. Costello admitted to the burden that carries: “I feel that weight of responsibility. We have a little announcer’s bible for reference and about a quarter of it is devoted to the language and rhythm of the Shipping Forecast. “What’s hammered home is first check the date and time of the script you’ve picked up from the printer, because if it went out at the wrong time, you’d have to arrange a rebroadcast. That’s lived in the back of my head ever since.” Given that timing is paramount for The Ships, it feels strange that you can download the Forecasts as a podcast from BBC Sounds, but Costello explains: “It has a shelf life, because if you miss one it is still valid until the next one is issued.” And Alles picked up on what Jarvis Cocker said about how he used the Shipping Forecast to get to sleep. “People do use it as a form of entertainment, whether it’s as poetry, whether it’s to put them to sleep, or just something to bookend their day. A lot of people, the last thing they do before they go to sleep is listen to the Shipping Forecast. This is the end of another day.” Costello was aware of this, long before she started reading the forecast in 2017. “Thirty years ago my boyfriend of the time couldn’t go to sleep unless he’d listened to the Shipping Forecast.” It must be strange for him now to hear his old girlfriend’s voice just as he drops off, but reading something on the radio that is so meaningful to so many people – whether mariners, poets, insomniacs, or pop stars — means that the continuity announcers can be recognised just by their voices in the most unlikely of places. Alles recalled that it happened to him most recently at a book launch in London, “I was just a member of the audience and asked a question of the author, and somebody came up to me afterwards and said, ‘What’s your name?’, ‘Viji Alles’, and he replied, ‘I listened to you announcing from Bangalore in India.’ He’s an Indian national who studied here briefly about 30 years ago, got hooked on Radio 4 and continues to listen.” Alles never ceases to be amazed when recognised in public. “The first rule of radio is you’re talking to one person not an audience, and when you’re doing the late forecast, you’ll be the only person in that studio, you may be the only person in the whole of Broadcasting House, so when someone comes up and tells you where they listen to you from, it’s quite mind-boggling.” The Shipping Broadcast airs on BBC Radio 4 and is also available on BBC Sounds. Check out more of our Audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
BBC Radio 2 spin-off and 5 Sports Extra stations rejected as three new stations confirmed to go ahead
Radio 1 Dance, Radio 1 Anthems and Radio 3 Unwind have all been approved.
Ofcom has made a ruling after the BBC proposed launching four new DAB+ radio stations last year - and there is both good news and bad news for the broadcaster. The BBC had proposed launching Radio 1 Dance, Radio 1 Anthems, a Radio 2 spin-off channel, and Radio 3 Unwind, as well as expanding the broadcasting hours of Radio 5 Sports Extra. The BBC and Ofcom are required to consider the effects on competition of material changes to its TV, radio and online public services, so Ofcom carried out full Competition Assessments, examining whether the public value justified the likely impact on fair and effective competition. The regulator has now determined that the BBC can proceed with plans for the Radio 1 Dance, Radio 1 Anthems and Radio 3 Unwind stations, but not its proposals for the BBC Radio 2 spin-off or the expansion of Radio 5 Sports Extra's hours. Ofcom stated that the new stations which have been approved would have "limited impact on fair and effective competition," which would be justified by the public value of the proposals. These will be covered by existing operating licence conditions. However, the Radio 2 extension, which would broadcast music and archive content from the '50s, '60s and '70s, was deemed to not have enough public value to outweigh the potential to reduce investment incentives for commercial radio operators. Read more: Disney+ confirms Miley Cyrus visual companion to her new album Something Beautiful Lewis Capaldi on course for Number 1 single after Glastonbury 2025 performance A similar judgement was made regarding the expansion of Radio 5 Sports Extra's hours, a proposal which Ofcom said would have a significant impact, particularly on the talkSPORT network. A BBC spokesperson said: "We are pleased that Ofcom has approved Radio 1 Anthems, Radio 1 Dance and Radio 3 Unwind. The extensions with their brilliant programming have already proved popular on BBC Sounds and will now reach even more listeners on DAB+. "However, we are disappointed that in a thriving audio market, we are not able to launch the new Radio 2 extension or expand the content offer on Radio 5 Sports Extra. They would have provided audiences with a unique BBC take on the music, stories and archive performances from 1950s, 60s and 70s, and helped more listeners across the UK discover our diverse sports podcasts. "We believe our plans for Radio 2 and Radio 5 Sports Extra were distinctive and formed an important way for us to reach those audiences who currently get less from the BBC. We significantly redeveloped the proposals following an extensive consultation with the industry, so that they would complement the offer across the market for the benefit of listeners." When the proposals were first unveiled back in November 2024, a spokesman for Radio Centre, which represents commercial radio stations, said that they were an attempt "to directly imitate the recent success of commercial stations that already provide these genre stations following years of significant investment made by our sector". When it comes to the newly approved stations, BBC Radio 1 Dance have already been available on BBC Sounds since 2020, but will now be coming to DAB, while Radio 1 Anthems has been available on Sounds as a genre-based stream. Meanwhile, Radio 3 Unwind will offer ambient classical music and mood programming. Check out more of our Entertainment coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Unforgotten's Nicola Walker and Blackadder star's paranormal drama is airing again on BBC Radio 4
The audio drama comes from Doctor Who director Julian Simpson.
Unforgotten favourite Nicola Walker stars alongside Blackadder and Notting Hill actor Tim McInnerny in three-part sardonically humorous paranormal audio drama Mythos. It's written and director by Julian Simpson, whose credits include episodes of Doctor Who as well as BBC Radio 4's The Lovecraft Investigations. Mythos is described as a series that looks at British folklore through a quasi-scientific prism. It centres on a secretive government agency which investigates supernatural and otherworldly threats. Walker stars as the ghost of a nun, while McInnerny plays her boss. In the first episode, her character searches for a spell book in a remote village. Mythos also stars Wicked and Bridgerton actor Jonathan Bailey, as well as Van der Valk's Emma Fielding and Underworld actor Steven Mackintosh. It was first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 back in 2017 but the 45-minute first episode, titled Mythos, will be airing again on the station tomorrow, Sunday 1st June, at 4pm. The second episode, Glamis, airs the following Sunday (8th June) at the same time and the third, Albion, is broadcast a week later at 4pm on Sunday 15th June. Mythos starts Sunday 1st June at 4pm on BBC Radio 4.
Radio Times Moment of the Year crowned at ARIAs 2025
The biggest night in radio has just wrapped up for another year, with the great and the good from the airwaves picking up awards at the 2025 ARIAs. Radio Times proudly hosted one award – Moment of the Year – and the winner was announced after 7,000 public votes. The award went to... Coldplay go Orange for Luton – BBC Three Counties Radio. Radio 1's Big Weekend was held in Luton last year, with Coldplay as the headliners, but Luton Town FC fans wondered if they would change their bestselling single Yellow as their rivals Watford FC are synonymous with the colour. A bit of tongue-in-cheek banter turned into a shock event when Coldplay announced they'd written a new song called Orange, dedicated to Luton Town. Host Justin Dealey previously explained: "It just all happened organically. Greg James was going to be introducing Coldplay on stage and got a message to Chris Martin. "I’m always banging on about how Luton gets bad press. The people of Luton deserved that moment, because they’ve been kicked for years, and here was a huge festival coming to their town off the back of the Premier League success." The full list of nominees for the category was as follows: A listener unexpectedly calls Cristo Foufas’ final show to thank him for saving his life – TALK BBC Radio 4’s Today: Mishal Husain and James Cleverly – BBC News Coldplay go Orange for Luton – BBC Three Counties Radio - WINNER Dan Noble speaks out about the far-right riots across the UK – Absolute Radio Frank off the Radio – The Frank Skinner Project, Avalon ‘I want my mum to die’ – Stuart George on BBC Radio Stoke Johnnie Walker’s final show on Sounds of the 70’s – Listen for BBC Radio 2 Marjorie Taylor Greene blames media for Trump assassination attempt – Times Radio Radio 4’s PM - Laura Trott interview – BBC Radio 4 Sunday Love Songs remembering Steve Wright – BBC Radio 2 The star-studded event took place on Wednesday 14th May at ODEON Luxe, Leicester Square. Read more Radio news and features: Radio 3's Michael Berkeley on the 30th anniversary of Private Passions – and how the format has plenty left to give Elaine Paige says advice from the late Steve Wright gave her confidence to host her own Radio 2 show Café Hope host Rachel Burden: 'Bad news drives clicks – but people still want uplifting stories too' If you're looking for something to watch, head over to our TV Guide. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Joanna Lumley, Roger Allam on Conversations from a Long Marriage, bad habits and Desert Island luxuries
Lumley and Allam are back to star in the sixth season of the radio series from Jan Etherington.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. What would you say is the secret to a long marriage? Roger: "Probably a sense of humour. Laughing and giving each other room to be elsewhere and do things on your own or with other people, not having to be together all the time." Joanna: "A sense of humour helps navigate life full-stop. But complementary personalities can be a symbiotic yin and yang in a marriage." What is your best trait? Roger: "It’s a form of torture answering this! What is my best trait? Probably my self-delusion that I look like Cary Grant, but my bad eyesight means I don’t notice that I don’t." Joanna: "He’s a sensational actor, with one of the best voices you could hear and he’s heaven to work with." Roger: "Joanna has so many good traits. Perhaps her unfailing courtesy to everyone she meets – and also her interest and curiosity about the world." What is your worst trait? Roger: "I can be bad-tempered sometimes. My worst trait is getting irritable when being interviewed about things!" Joanna: "I seem to be a bit of a butterfly who flits from one thing to the next." Roger: "Joanna’s worst trait? No idea. There’s not a list. It seems to me she undervalues her great skill as an actor." How would you deal with a serious betrayal of trust? Roger: "I don’t know. It would depend. I mean, the presence of this son, it’s not something that he’s kept hidden from her – it’s a huge surprise and shock for him as well. There’s huge anxiety on both sides about destabilising what is a long and happy marriage. If it was something really treacherous, if he’d known about the son but kept it secret, then I think it would be completely justified for her to walk out. I wouldn’t like to say if Joanna is like this in real life." Joanna: "I think he’s more trustworthy than she is – she’s definitely more economical with the truth. But I don’t think either of [our characters] has ever done anything particularly bad – there’s been no infidelity, I am sure of it. She sands over her tracks, certainly." Roger: "It would depend upon the nature of the betrayal. If it was something really cruel, that’s a different matter to if it’s something that happened when we weren’t together. That’s rather different." What would be Joanna’s luxury item on Desert Island Discs? Roger: "Oooh, I really don’t know. Gosh. Maybe she’d take her cleansing routine." Joanna: "I’ve done Desert Island Discs twice so my luxuries are on the record, as it were. [They were a painting of her family and friends by the artist John Ward and the film, Monsieur Hulot’s Holiday.] As I imagine I’ve got those luxuries stashed on my island already, I’d take another film – but I don’t know what." What would be Roger’s luxury item then? Joanna: "I’d like to think he’d take me, but he wouldn’t. He might want to take his dog, but he wouldn’t be allowed. So, it would be something fantastically lazy like a big, comfortable chair with a huge screen with football on it. Or some good wine." Roger: "Could I take a good cooker? A log-burning one. I do most of the cooking and I tend to listen to music when I’m doing it." What’s your studio snack of choice? Roger: "Joanna’s would be a carrot baton or a fingernail, I think." Joanna: "Having been a model in the '60s, I can go a whole day without anything except a cup of builder’s tea. I don’t like eating in the studio and I don’t like eating at work. I don’t like someone eating while they’re on the phone to me and one of the reasons I don’t love going to the cinema is the general rustling, eating and slurping that goes on. I don’t know if you’ve noticed on Gogglebox, but they always seem to have food and drink in front of them and that seems very odd to me. I’ve been on Gogglebox, but that’s not the way I live. I don’t ever yearn for snacks." Roger: "I try to avoid biscuits, but sometimes I fail, so if it was a biscuit, it would be a dark chocolate and stem ginger one." Joanna: "Roger has to eat at certain times. He has to have his coffee at a certain time. He’s very regimented in that respect." Who corpses the most? Roger: "Oh, I think we’re tied on that really. I wouldn’t say one of us corpses more than the other." Joanna: "Roger doesn’t really and I hardly ever do. We don’t have time – we do one episode in a morning and one in the afternoon so we must rattle along. Corpsing comes from the fear that you’re going to get it wrong, live, in the theatre. I like to think that we are both quite professional." What’s your favourite scene? Roger: "I can’t remember anything about the series. Joanna’s much better at this than me. You see, I can’t remember at all. It all goes out of my head. "We meet for three days and do the whole thing. And it’s gone, you know. I love doing it, I love seeing everyone and it’s the most enormous fun, but I certainly don’t know what Joanna’s favourite scene might be. I can’t put my finger on one, I’m afraid. My finger is unavailable!" The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Conversations From a Long Marriage season 6 starts at 2:15pm on Monday 19th May on BBC Radio 4. Check out more of our Audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Elaine Paige says advice from the late Steve Wright gave her confidence to host her own Radio 2 show
"Who could have imagined that I'd have had this life?"
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. When, in 2004, Elaine Paige was first offered the opportunity to host her own Radio 2 show celebrating musical theatre, she turned to her manager and asked: "Who shall I be?" The answer, of course, was herself. Up until that point, she had willingly immersed herself in any part she was playing. "I lacked self-confidence, which may sound strange for someone who'd been in the public eye for so long. But it was always as someone else. It’s via radio that I discovered who I really was. Until then, without a character, I’d always felt a bit lost." The First Lady of West End Musicals (a moniker first coined by Tim Rice) had found her true voice. Broadcaster Angela Rippon is a great friend. "She had a radio show when I started mine. I told her I wasn’t sure what I was meant to do. She told me not to worry: 'Just think of it', she said, 'as if you were sitting across the kitchen table having a chat with a friend over a cup of tea'. That's what I still try to do." There was advice, too, from Steve Wright – "God rest his soul" – who had a studio one down from where Paige broadcast. "We’d meet at the coffee machine and he’d say to me: 'We don't need to hear you at the back of the stalls, love!' That may sound harsh but he was right. What he was saying was that I could make it more conversational. In the theatre, and particularly musical theatre, everything’s larger than life – big, broad strokes. Radio, on the other hand, is a much more intimate medium." After 21 years on air, there’s no doubting her hard-won confidence and its effect on the devoted audience of her popular show. Paige’s success lies in her warmth, her anecdotes, that distinctive laugh – somewhere between a giggle and a gurgle – endearing her to her listeners. But it also has something to do with the show’s content. Why does she think musicals are enjoying such a golden hour? "Escapism. Look at the world we’re living in. I think people want to be transported into another time and place." She has been transported herself, since the show has given her the chance to interview some of her idols. "Who would have thought I’d get to meet Burt Bacharach and Liza Minnelli, Bette Midler and Elton and Sting? Incredible." It was her manager who pointed out last year that the two of them had been together for 30 years and that Paige’s career had lasted twice as long. "I was 16 in September 1964 when I was cast in the chorus for the tour of the musical Roar of the Greasepaint, Smell of the Crowd. So, we came up with the idea of a celebration of six decades in the business that will run from September 2024 to September 2025." But it was Helen Thomas, head of Radio 2, who came up with the idea of a concert at the London Palladium in Paige's honour. So it was, that on 25th April, she found herself sitting in the theatre’s royal box while a succession of West End stars sang numbers from her hit musicals. The concert, hosted by Zoe Ball, is broadcast on Radio 2 this Sunday. Among others, Samantha Barks, Clive Rowe, Charlie Stemp and Julian Ovenden sang a selection of songs from – deep breath – Hair, Jesus Christ Superstar, Grease, Billy, Evita, Cats, Chess, Anything Goes, Piaf, Sunset Boulevard, The King and I, Sweeney Todd and Follies. "Who could have imagined that I’d have had this life?" she says. "I still stop and pinch myself." She shakes her head in wonder. "Not bad for a suburban girl from Barnet." Not bad indeed. The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Radio 2 Celebrates Elaine with a concert, Elaine Paige: 60 Years in Showbusiness, and Zoe Ball Meets Elaine Paige – both available now on BBC Sounds. Elaine Paige: 60 Years on Stage is on BBC Four and iPlayer on Sunday 11th May as part of a night of programmes celebrating her incredible career. Check out more of our Audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Café Hope host Rachel Burden: 'Bad news drives clicks – but people still want uplifting stories too'
The BBC Radio 4 show is a virtual coffee shop, where guests pop in for a brew and a chat to tell us what they're doing to make the world a better place.
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. "April Fools' Day is cancelled this year because no made-up prank could match [what's] going on in the world right now." You probably saw the meme last month and, rather than laugh, just silently acknowledged the sad truth at the heart of it. Conflict in Ukraine and the Middle East, the re-election of a man to the top job in the White House that comedian John Mulaney famously compared to a horse being allowed into a hospital, followed shortly by $1 trillion wiped off the stock market amid a seemingly random tariff war certainly make the world look like an unfunny joke. And these are just some of the events Rachel Burden could be talking about when she says, "Anyone who works in news media these days, whether that’s radio, digital or TV, is aware that there's only so much that an audience can take." In a fine case of nominative determinism, the Radio 5 Live weekday breakfast show presenter has frequently found herself breaking bad news to the nation as it has woken up over the last 14 years. She feels the despair. "People are turning off the news because it's overwhelming. They feel they’ve no agency and are curating their own universe in terms of the media they consume." For all the reasons above, that may well now include Café Hope, a Radio 4 show she has also been hosting since last year. In keeping with a slew of recent books such as Utopia for Realists and Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong about the World – and Why Things Are Better than You Think and other initiatives like The Uplift on the CBS News app, Radio 4 "wanted to do something around finding a bit of hope and optimism in a very dark world", explains Burden. "I jumped at the chance to be involved because it’s just so different to what I do every day." Although she is careful to stress that, alongside the rolling news, her 5 Live show also tries to make “the audience smile or give them opportunities to feel hopeful”, the format for Café Hope revolves around a virtual coffee shop where guests drop by to talk about positive things they have done or are trying to achieve in their lives. "It’s such a simple concept," she explains. "It’s a space where you’re sitting down, taking time out in a little community of people who all have very different backgrounds and life experiences but are joined together by doing really lovely things for other people. "They’re not already well-known or successful, or have big established charities, they’re people who have the day-to-day pressures that everyone has but they do something extra and it is usually prompted by what we call a ‘sofa moment’ – ie the thing that took them from sitting on the sofa, frustrated with the way the world works, to getting off the sofa and doing something about it. And that’s a reason to celebrate them." But is it the job of journalists to search out good news stories? Didn’t TV anchor and newsreader Martyn Lewis run into a wall of criticism when he suggested having more positive stories in news bulletins in 1993? "That was years ago," replies Burden, a touch defensively. "Local radio, where I started in journalism, has always done this kind of thing brilliantly, so I see what we do as an extension of stuff that’s been going on for years. "I don’t think there’s a huge difference between what I do on the 5 Live breakfast show and here, other than leaving behind the cynicism you need on a news programme. You can take this show entirely at face value but that’s not to say we don’t ask questions like, ‘How do you deal with conflicts of interest?’ or whatever." Read more: Radio 3's Michael Berkeley on the 30th anniversary of Private Passions – and how the format has plenty left to give Radio 2 is a religion, says DJ Trevor Nelson Guests who have dropped in for a virtual coffee have included a woman who lost her child and set up an organisation called Emily’s Star to provide boxes of the special kit parents need when a baby is born prematurely, a group of volunteers who use drones to track lost pets, a man with Down's syndrome who runs his own business, homeless people who have become tour guides, and a woman who rescues chickens. "Yes, bad news, conflict and division drive clicks,” she says, “but there is a space and there is an appetite for stuff that people find uplifting and reassuring, and Café Hope is a place where they can come and find that." The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Café Hope continues Monday at 9:45am on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds, where previous episodes are available on catch-up. Check out more of our Audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Tony Blackburn on retirement: 'I know people who stopped too early – and didn't last long'
"I was definitely more a Beatles person."
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Tony Blackburn can’t be certain what he was doing on the night of Saturday 2 February 1963, but he reckons he'd have spent it as a member of a dance band performing at the Pavilion Ballrooms in Bournemouth. Then aged 20, the now legendary DJ was a singer and a guitarist in an outfit called the Jan Ralfini Orchestra. They were the purveyors of the kind of entertainment – the quickstep and the foxtrot – that unbeknown to them was about to be swept aside by a phenomenon erupting that very evening, some 300 miles to the north. Nobody can put a precise date on the birth of Beatlemania, but a strong case can be made for this one – the opening night of the band’s first ever UK tour, as one of the acts supporting the teenage singing sensation Helen Shapiro, at the Gaumont Cinema in Bradford. Popular though Shapiro was, it was the Beatles that concertgoers went wild for, as their single Please Please Me was shooting up the UK charts. Bradford turns out to have played a surprisingly significant role in the Beatles story. As the 2025 UK City of Culture, now is the time to explore it, and in a Radio 2 documentary Tony Blackburn is doing just that. Bradford, Brass and the Beatles, which is being broadcast on 20 April as part of a Radio 2 Loves Brass season – it also touches on the Beatles’ connections with the famous Black Dyke brass band – has taken Blackburn back to those days, he tells Radio Times, not least the one time he saw the Beatles in concert, later in 1963, at the Winter Gardens in Bournemouth. "It was terrific. I’d never seen anything like it. The place was packed out, the girls went mad, it was just a great evening. Not musically, because you couldn’t really hear them. I’m not even sure they were plugged in! But what they created was very special." In those days, he explains, you were either a Beatles or a Rolling Stones person, "and I was definitely more a Beatles person. I’ve always loved melody and I just thought their songs were more melodic". Blackburn will always be known as the first voice on Radio 1 when it launched in 1967, and he remains a BBC fixture with his Radio 2 shows Sounds of the '60s (Saturday) and Golden Hour (Sunday). Across his career, he’s met all the Beatles and likes to tell the story of the time he interviewed Paul McCartney and cheekily suggested that he owed him a share of his royalties, thanks to the number of times he’d played Beatles records on the radio. "He just laughed!" The story hints at the possibility that Blackburn played all those Beatles records less from love for them than a sense of duty, and this famous champion of Motown is honest about the pop music that stands highest in his affections. “I do like the Beatles very much, but if you push me on it, I’d rather see Diana Ross or Marvin Gaye or someone like that.” Radio itself is another love that never dies. At 82, it seems remarkable that Blackburn still chooses to wake up every Saturday at 3am to travel from his Berkshire home into Broadcasting House in London, to present Sounds of the 60s live at 6am. "I was offered the chance to pre-record it, but I said no, I’d much rather come in and do it. As long as I can, I always will. With live radio, you get an immediate reaction from the listeners." With his live touring show as well as his broadcasting, Blackburn’s energy levels are prodigious. A vegetarian since the age of five, he has mostly enjoyed excellent health but last year he had a spell in hospital. That was a setback but the experience was alleviated by the opportunity it gave him for contact with his old friend Noel Edmonds – like Blackburn, a huge name across Radios 1 and 2 as well as TV thanks to his 1990s hit show Noel's House Party . "I was having injections every four hours, and because Noel lives in New Zealand it meant he and I could chat on the text when it was the middle of my night-time. For about four weeks, we just talked rubbish together. It was great. It kept me going, it really did." Edmonds, Blackburn says, "was a lovely guy – very unusual". What does he mean by that? "Well. He wears odd shoes. You and I wear the same shoes, don’t we? But Noel will wear different colours – one might be black, the other red. I once said to him, 'Noel, why do you wear odd shoes?' He just answered, 'Because I can!' Then he made up some story of how, where he lives in New Zealand, it’s compulsory to wear odd shoes. He's a one-off – great fun to be with." Long-time fans of Blackburn will be all too familiar with his own capacity for silliness – as expressed in his seemingly limitless capacity for corny puns. They’re a Blackburn trademark – stored up, he reveals to Radio Times, in a dozen or so exercise books, so old and well used that they’re now "falling to bits". The books contain thousands of jokes, but has he got a favourite? "I quite liked one the other day. 'I used to work in an ice cream bar, but I got the sack because I couldn’t do sundaes!'" Blackburn thinks that one of the reasons he's lasted so long is that he doesn't take himself too seriously. "People who take themselves too seriously, that's a bad sign. When I go on stage, my opening line is always, 'I know you're disappointed, you thought I'd be taller!'" Blackburn and his wife have a son and a daughter and two grandchildren who keep them busy, but he says he dreads the idea of retiring. "Getting up in the morning with nothing to do doesn't appeal to me. I know a lot of people have retired too early, and they haven't lasted long. You need something to keep your brain going." The puns, the 3am alarm call, the texts from Noel Edmonds, and of course his love of music – they would all appear to be just that. The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Bradford, Brass and The Beatles is available now on BBC Sounds and will be broadcast as part of the Radio 2 Loves Brass concert on BBC Radio 2 this Sunday, 20 April (8-10pm). Check out our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
BBC Radio 2 legend and Eurovision favourite Colin Berry dies, aged 79
The newsreader and presenter began his career on 'pirate radio' back in the 1960s.
BBC Radio 2 DJ Colin Berry has died at the age of 79. The presenter’s passing was confirmed by the radio station, where he had worked since 1973 – covering for a host of faces including Sir Terry Wogan and Sir Jimmy Young. He also spent 25 years as the spokesperson for the Eurovision Song Contest – delivering the UK public's voting results between 1977 and 2002. Paying tribute to Berry, Tony Blackburn wrote on X: "I'm so sad my friend Colin Berry passed away yesterday, Phil Swern, Colin and I used to have great times in the 60's as Colin was a part of Radio Caroline and then a newsreader and DJ on the BBC. "I saw him last week and was due to see him today but sadly he passed away yesterday afternoon. He was a great friend and I send his family my love at this sad time. RIP Colin xx" Helen Thomas, head of Radio 2, added: "All of us at Radio 2 were saddened to hear of the passing of Colin Berry, who was part of our on air family for many years. We send our condolences to his family and friends." Berry first started his radio career in 1965 as part of the team of Radio Caroline – one of the iconic ‘pirate radio’ stations. View oEmbed on the source website He later went on to work at Yorkshire Television on its launch, before becoming a record promoter and hosting BBC Radio Medway’s team as the Saturday afternoon presenter. Berry joined the BBC Radio 2 team as a presenter and newsreader in 1973, and appeared on some of its biggest late night shows including The Late Show, Night Ride, Band Parade and Music Through Midnight, as well as covering daytime presenters. He remained one of the station's most familiar voices until September 2012, at which point he continued to host the BBC's local radio stations. Check out more of our Entertainment coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Radio 3's Michael Berkeley on the 30th anniversary of Private Passions – and how the format has plenty left to give
'Music is not the preserve of one class of person.'
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Private Passions celebrates its 30th birthday on 15th April, and composer Michael Berkeley, who has presented every edition since 1995, believes the format has plenty left to give. “I certainly helped to form what it is, but it began because [then Radio 3 controller] Nicholas Kenyon wanted something to replace Man of Action,” he says. “I’ve always loved talk, going right back to John Freeman’s Face to Face, and music is a wonderful way of getting people to reveal things. “Indeed, when psychoanalyst and writer Adam Phillips was on the show, he said, ‘You do realise what you’re doing is a bit like what I do? Because I don’t ask people direct questions about their lives, I get them to tell me stories. And using music, you’re doing much the same.’ I rather got the impression he clammed up a bit after that!” Berkeley sees a clear distinction between Private Passions and Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs. “Desert Island Discs is wonderful, but it’s a very different animal. We wouldn’t have somebody who didn’t feel passionately about classical music. The odd pop song, piece of jazz, folk music, ethnic music — all these are in the mix, but the driving force has to be a love of classical music.” The range of guests has been wide. “I love it when people play me something I’m not familiar with. I remember Germaine Greer chose Peggy Lee’s Is That All There Is? It was absolutely devastating. And anthropologist Stephen Hugh-Jones brought in an instrument from the Amazon he had to warm up by rubbing its resinous part.” Berkeley admits not everything is to his taste. “To be honest, there have been pieces where I’m not as interested as I might be! But it’s the guest’s list, not mine. And some of the best programmes are when people say, 'I’m not a musician, I can’t really talk about it like this.' And then they are more insightful than any musicologist, drawing analogies with painting, or literature — even brain surgery!” What are some of his favourite memories? “Isaiah Berlin was wonderful — hearing him talk about watching the Russian Revolution from a balcony in St Petersburg was pretty amazing. More recently, Walter Murch, the sound editor on The Godfather and Apocalypse Now, talked wonderfully of how to use music in films… And we had a champion boxer, Hannah Rankin, who was also a bassoonist! Getting people you wouldn’t normally expect, sports people for example, brings in a wider audience and shows music is not the preserve of one class of person.” By his own admission, he had a privileged childhood. His father, Lennox Berkeley, was a well-known composer, and as a child Michael sang as a chorister with Benjamin Britten and met Stravinsky, Shostakovich, and William Walton. But he says he enjoys pop — going to concerts by Neil Tennant. He also enjoys the music of Pet Shop Boys — and reveals that when he was a student, he played keyboards in a band. “We were called the Seeds of Discord. We had guitarists, a drummer, a singer called Dave McTavish, and drove around in a Commer van. It was so thrilling to go to Brentford Town Hall or somewhere and turn a thousand wallflowers into a gyrating mass.” Was this his rebellion against “serious” music? “My father certainly thought so as we used to rehearse under his study! Someone would ring and say, ‘I want to book the Seeds. I want them to give me Satisfaction.’ And of course, he’d never even heard of the Stones!” Berkeley says he’ll keep on doing Private Passions while he still enjoys it: “I believe if you’re having fun making something, there’s a good chance the audience will, too.” What does he make of criticisms levelled at Radio 3 under controller Sam Jackson? “As long as the core subject matter is being serviced — and that means the Proms, adventurous series such as the 20th Century Radicals and programmes like Composer of the Week — I’m happy for people to tinker on the sides to try to open the network to a wider audience. I went to the Barbican and saw a very big house listening to Pierre Boulez for an entire day for Radio 3. I don’t think you’d ever get that on Classic FM.” The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.