BBC Radio International Features Catalogue Contents
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BBC Radio International Features Catalogue BBC Radio International offers fascinating, thought provoking features that delve into a wide range of subjects, including factual, arts and culture, science and music, in a varied and entertaining way. Noted for their depth of research and authoritative presentation, BBC features give your listeners access to high profile presenters and contributors as they gain a captivating insight into the world around them. You can easily search the BBC features by clicking on the genre under contents. Take a look through the op- tions available and select from hundreds of hours of content spanning from present day back through the last ten years. Have a question or want to know more about a specific genre or programme? Contact: Larissa Abid, Ana Bastos or Laura Lawrence for more details Contents New this month – September 2021 ...........................................................................................................................1 Factual .......................................................................................................................................................................4 Arts and Culture .......................................................................................................................................................26 Music .......................................................................................................................................................................52 Science ....................................................................................................................................................................75 Life Stories (Desert Island Discs) ............................................................................................................................88 History ......................................................................................................................................................................91 Money ......................................................................................................................................................................99 Comedy ................................................................................................................................................................ 102 Health and Wellbeing/Animals/Sport .................................................................................................................... 103 Twentieth Century People .................................................................................................................................... 105 Travellers Tales .................................................................................................................................................... 108 Home, Lifestyle and Leisure ................................................................................................................................. 111 15 Minute features ................................................................................................................................................ 114 *Please note that these genres offer a loose labelling system https://wspartners.bbc.com/article/features 1 | Page New this month – September 2021 The Blind Astronomer FE544 1 x 30’ Kate Molleson tells the story of the Puerto Rican scientist Wanda Díaz-Merced, who is revolutionising astronomy by turning data from space into audio that can be explored by ear, using sound to explore the universe that first entranced her as a child. A Sense of Music FE545 1 x 30’ Music can make us feel happy and sad. It can compel us to move in time with it, or sing along to a melody. It taps into some integral sense of musicality that binds us together. But what happens when music meets the animal mind? Geoff Marsh investigates. The Digital Human FE546 5 x 30’ Aleks Krotoski presents five episodes from the series that explores the digital world. 1. Fated. Aleks explores how toys have influenced the technology of today and might determine its direction in the future. 2. Treasure. Aleks discovers why information can become more valuable than silver and gold. 3. Novelty. Aleks explores the importance of novelty and asks if the digital world can actually provide it. 4. Dreams. Aleks discovers why people want to control their dreams, and how technology can influence our sleeping subconscious. 5. Find. Aleks discovers how after a 14 year search by thousands of people online, a man called Satoshi was finally found using a single photo, and what this means for our privacy. For more episodes visit the website: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01n7094 Desert Island Discs FE548 5 x 45’ Eight tracks, a book and a luxury... Lauren Laverne invites five more guests to share the soundtrack to their lives. What would they want with them if they were cast away on a desert island? Episode 1 - Paul Costelloe, Fashion Designer Episode 2 - Jessica Ennis Hill, Athlete Episode 3 - Yo-Yo Ma, Musician Episode 4 - Mark Strong, Actor Episode 5 - David Mitchell, Novelist Soul Music FE549 6 x 30’ Six new episodes from the series exploring pieces of music that have a powerful emotional impact through personal stories and reflections. 1. Lean On Me - Bill Withers’ enduring classic that delivers a message of support and friendship. Never more so than in 2020 when it was the musical backdrop to the Covid crisis in the UK, and at Black Lives Matter protests in the US. 2 | Page 2. I Wonder as I Wander - Soul Music leads you through Advent with this Appalachian carol written by American folklorist and singer John Jacob Niles – mysterious and inspiring it reflects on the nativity and the nature of wondering. 3. Once In A Lifetime - Personal stories about Talking Heads’ iconic single, which, with its looped synthesizer and Afrobeat, seemed to pre-empt the consumerism and ennui of the 1980s. 4. Life on Mars? - Musicians and fans talk about the wistful beauty and the philosophical intent of David Bowie's classic song. A special programme remembering Bowie's birthday on January 8th 1947 and commemorating his death on January 10th 2016. 5. We've Only Just Begun - Originally written as a TV advert for a bank, the Carpenters’ song has become a poignant reminder of our youthful hopes and dreams. Fans tell their stories of how it relates to their own life journeys. 6. Take Me Home, Country Roads - From West Virginia to West Jamaica, stories of what the song – written for John Denver and covered by many others – means to people around the world. 3 | Page Factual A Pyrotechnic History of Humanity FE543 4 x 30’ Justin Rowlatt presents a four-part series looking at the energy revolutions that drove human history. 1. Fire. Justin looks at how the mastery of fire by early humans transformed our metabolism, helping us to evolve our uniquely energy-hungry brains. It all began with fire… 2. Agriculture. Some 10,000 years ago our ancestors began to till the soil. Justin explores what was the original solar energy revolution – harnessing the sun’s rays to grow food. 3. Fossil Fuels. Justin looks at how our modern comfortable way of life is only made possible by burning through a finite stock of fossilised chemical energy. 4. The Future. Solar and wind could easily meet all of humanity’s energy needs, but can we switch over before climate disaster strikes? Justin looks at the monumental challenge of weaning ourselves off fossil fuels. Life Changing – The near-death experience that made me a musician FE541 1 x 30’ Tony Kofi is the fifth of seven brothers and was raised by his Ghanaian parents in Nottingham in the late 1960s. Aged 16 as an apprentice carpenter he fell from a roof and landed on his head. While falling he had visions of his future self, playing an instrument he didn’t recognise. Scroll forward many years, Tony is now a highly-acclaimed jazz saxophonist and credits the fall with turning his whole life around. He talks to Jane Garvey about his life changing experience. From the series in which Jane Garvey talks to people who have lived through extraordinary events and discovers how these moments have reshaped lives in the most unpredictable ways. For more: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000v5ng Iran’s Secret Art Collection FE538 1 x 30’ In the decade leading up to the Iranian revolution of 1979, the Shah's wife, Farah Pahlavi was keen to use the country's oil wealth to bring examples of modern western art to the capital, Tehran. The result was a collection of works by Jackson Pollock, Henry Moore, Picasso, Bacon, Chagall and Renoir. Art critic Alastair Sooke tells the story of the most valuable collection of modern western art outside Europe and the US and how it comes to be in a museum basement in Iran. Out of the Ordinary - How to memorise anything FE537a 1 x 30’ “Memory athletes” compete to see who can remember the most random numbers in an hour. Everyone thought the Chinese were invincible, and that we were at the limits of what could be memorised – until 2019 when some teenage North Korean girls turned up at the world championships. Jolyon Jenkins reports. 4 | Page Out of the Ordinary – The Buy Button FE537b 1 x 30’ Half of all money spent on advertising is wasted, but we just don't know which half. Advertisers would love to find a “buy button” in our brains, which when pressed would make us buy their stuff – and a new breed of "neuromarketers" are offering just that. Does it work? Jolyon Jenkins investigates. Out of the Ordinary – Holy