Illuminated

"And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you..." Late at night, the writer, audio artist and sleep-deprived parent of a newborn, Ross Sutherland, is staring into infinity... "Usually, my phone becomes my window into a bigger world. Not just bigger- endless. Unmeasurably vast. You can scroll social media feeds forever and never hit the bottom of the chasm. I know it's objectively bad for me but I can’t stop myself. I'm craving endlessness- I need space! Vast, endless interior space... to compensate for the smallness of my waking days." Sinking into the infinite scroll of his phone (a web design technique - created to encourage addiction as your webpage never ends...) he weaves a woozy, funny, adventurous audio essay through sonic experiments, illusions and mirror worlds that invite us to reckon with the infinite.Including archive from ReThinking with Adam Grant 'Aza Raskin on why technology – and democracy– are in an imagination crisis' (courtesy of TED). Original music composed by Jeremy Warmsley Written and produced by Ross Sutherland A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4

The years after Sybil Phoenix's arrival in England from British Guiana in 1956 follow a not unfamiliar pattern - trying to find a home and secure a livelihood, learning how to manage the endemic racism in Britain and, above all things, building a community.Fostering countless children, setting up the famous Moonshot youth club in south-east London and dealing with the reaction from right-wing extremists bound together her personal and public lives. In 1972 she accepted - not without controversy - an MBE, the first black woman to do so. With her new status she set up a hostel for young women, the Marsha Phoenix Memorial Trust.Now aged 97, Sybil's story is shared by her son Woodrow and daughter Loraine, the activist Eric Huntley, who's known her for over 80 years, and through previously not heard recordings that touch on her troubled early life, the death of her daughter Marsha, the New Cross Fire and much else.Produced by Cherise Hamilton-Stephenson and Alan Hall A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4

Peter Riley was 13 when he saw his first dead whale. It was a sperm whale. He spent most of the day with it on a Norfolk beach, and then watched on as someone carried away a trophy from its carcass. That night marked the beginning of Peter’s lifelong fascination with whales. Now, as an author and a Herman Melville scholar, Peter is seeking to understand the ancient and complex relationship between humans and whales.According to the Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme, there are approximately 550-800 strandings of whales, dolphins and porpoises in the UK every year. Although no one is completely certain why this happens, we do know they've been doing it for thousands of years.For as long as there have been stranded whales, there have been humans drawing meaning from their arrival - a warning, a symbol of hope, endings or new beginnings. So what news might they be bringing us now?In our current state of unprecedented abundance and advancement, in our pandemic of isolation and individual “strandedness”, the whales seem to be calling us again. As Peter speaks with cetacean experts, chases down whale remains and witnesses a whale stranding himself, he discovers what these magical creatures might be revealing about who we are, what we've become and where we might be headed.A Sound & Bones production for BBC Radio 4

In 2023, Scout Tzofiya Bolton entered a grocery store in the small town where she lived, carrying a toy gun. The only thing she knows about what happened next is what she's seen on CCTV footage - she pointed the toy gun at the person behind the counter and shouted to give her the money or she'd shoot.A few hours later, four police officers knocked at her door and took her away. She didn't return home for six months.Scout was released from prison wearing a 'sobriety tag' – a tool increasingly being used to help people control their problematic alcohol use. This is the story of Scout's relationship with alcohol, and with the tag that monitors her, told through Scout's dazzling poetry. Scout has a long history of psychosis combined with alcoholism. This was the first time she had been sent to prison. The lead-up was a prolonged psychotic episode, characterised by 'grandiose' behaviour. Scout believed she was a famous celebrity. She would wear ballgowns and walk up and down the high street. Everyone was looking at her – because, she believed, she was famous. In the grocery store, she believed she was making an action scene in a film. She'd called up friends to tell them it was going to be a great day's filming. Scout needed help. She found it in prison. For the first time ever, Scout had an extended conversation with a forensic psychiatrist who got to grips with her complex needs. Sobriety tags take a sweat sample every 30 minutes. The data is automatically sent to probation. There are currently around 3,000 people in England and Wales with sobriety tags as part of their probation conditions.Music and words: Scout Tzofiya Bolton Producers: Andrew Wilkie and Ellen Orchard Sound design: Micky Curling Executive Producer: Phil MaguireA PRA production for BBC Radio 4

When broadcaster Jaz Singh revealed on BBC reality TV show The Traitors that his father had a secret second family, he received hundreds of messages from people who had lived through similar experiences.As Jaz movingly explores his own feelings, he meets others who have also discovered that their loved ones are leading double lives. A wife who, after years of being happily married, discovered on social media that her husband was married to another woman. A daughter whose father had an entirely separate family and children - but whose existence was only revealed after he died.Jaz tries to understand the psychology of these second lives, asking what drives people to weave such complicated webs of deception. How do they manage to deceive so entirely? And how can those who have been betrayed forgive and heal?Producer: Helen Clifton Executive Producer: Jo Meek Sound Design: Craig EdmondsonAn Audio Always production for BBC Radio 4

In recent years, thousands of Britons have become German citizens via a restoration programme for German-Jews and their descendants, whose nationality was stripped from them during the Nazi regime. This is not without controversy. Some see it is a clear righting of wrongs, but for others the idea of becoming German is abhorrent. For presenter Lois Pryce and her special guests, Matt Lucas and Ben Elton, it's personal. Had it not been for Britain's willingness to accept Jewish refugees in the 1930s, none of them would be here today. Lois and Ben share a direct relationship with German physicist Max Born, the Nobel prize-winning scientist and a founding father of quantum theory. He escaped Nazi Germany and fled to Britain in 1933. Descendants from this side of the family also include Olivia Newton-John as well as other luminaries in music, medicine and arts - all directly descended from German Jews seeking sanctuary.In this programme, Lois, Ben and Matt look at this new wave of German citizens, give voice to the strong feelings on both sides, and investigate their own family's refugee story, including receiving an official apology at the German embassy in London.By tackling the circular nature of the story, our hosts also examine the wider point that, in the 1930s, the UK benefited culturally and economically by welcoming this family and others from Germany. But now it is Germany that is restoring citizenship and welcoming refugees while the UK has become, according to some, a hostile environment. Will this shift in attitude ultimately damage the country’s economy as well as its reputation on the world stage?Presenter: Lois Pryce Contributors: Ben Elton, Matt Lucas Producer: Louise Orchard Sound Design: Rowan BishopA 2 Degrees West production for BBC Radio 4

“Sound is the barometer of the health of the planet.”It's almost 60 years since 11-year-old Martyn Stewart made his first recording near his house in Birmingham using a reel-to-reel machine borrowed from his older brother. From that day forward, he set out to capture all the natural sounds of the world, amassing nearly one hundred thousand recordings.Now, musician and sound artist Alice Boyd retraces his steps to three locations in Britain to document how these environmental soundscapes have changed, revealing vanishing ecosystems, amplified human noise and the return of endangered species.(Photograph courtesy of Tom Bright.) With archive from Martyn Stewart's library, The Listening Planet. Location recordings and original music by Alice Boyd. A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4

Poet Ian McMillan has a gift for the art of small pleasures; the joy of close observation; revelling in everyday things, places and encounters; describing and re-describing them endlessly. In the company of fellow poets Helen Mort, Steve Ely and Dave Green he takes us to ordinary places that fascinate him: a railway platform with a striking red bench, on a bus journey, to a village cafe, and a local museum of curiosities; where we discover they can be portals into different ways of thinking, of feeling, and of being, where anything can happen, where the ordinary can become the extraordinary if we simply open our eyes and our ears. Presented by Ian McMillanProduced by Cecile Wright

"The north London heroin trade is almost folklore at this stage."For decades, calculated gang warfare involving Turkish, Turkish Cypriot, and Kurdish heroin dealers has played out on the streets of north London, in the midst of dry cleaners, empty market stalls, and oddly abundant carpet shops. In this intimate documentary, we hear the careful accounts of women and young people on the edges of that world."It is a life-or-death situation to say the wrong thing."Featuring creative direction and original poetry from Tice Cin, an award-winning interdisciplinary artist from Tottenham and Enfield. "The best way to put it is if you look at the Turkish word ‘suskunluk’ ... It's the honour thing, you can't be bad-mouthing your own community."Presented by Tice Cin Produced by Jude Shapiro with Tice Cin Executive Producer: Jack Howson Mixed by Arlie Adlington - including music composed by Tice Cin with Oscar Deniz KemanciA Peanut & Crumb production for BBC Radio 4(Programme Image by Peri Cimen & Tice Cin; © Neoprene Genie)

We lie to people with dementia.In fact, it's one of the only illnesses where lying is acceptable and extends into the entire care process. Since dementia gravely impacts a person's cognitive abilities, those diagnosed won't share the same reality as their carers. To bridge this reality gap and appease disoriented patients, carers distort the truth. Entire care home facilities seek to transform a patient's surroundings into fictional settings.In the heart of Warwick, England, lies an extraordinary experiment in dementia care - a care home transformed to look like a village. In “Am I Home? Life In A Dementia Village”, journalist Lara Bullens takes listeners on a profound journey into a community designed to redefine the boundaries of familiarity for those navigating the fog of dementia. At Woodside Care Village, dementia residents live a somewhat normal life. They are free to roam outside their households, visit the local shop and even get their hair done at Cutters Hair and Beauty salon. Here, the comforts of familiarity and the quiet despair of warped realities coexist, offering a window into the daily dance carers make to navigate the complexities of dementia care. But beneath the surface of these carefully curated environments, lies a complex web of ethical considerations. Listeners will hear how Lara grapples with the implicates of creating alternative realities for those whose grip on the real world is tenuous. Is it possible to build a world that comforts without deceiving, that cares in complete honesty? Weaving a narrative that is as personal as it is universal, Lara draws from the haunting memory of her mother's struggle with early onset fronto-temporal dementia. Her own struggles with lying bring to light the ethical labyrinth of dementia care, where therapeutic fibs become a poignant tool in bridging the chasm between the world as we know it and the world as it is perceived by someone with dementia.Through the intimate lens of Woodside Care Village, listeners are invited to reconsider what it means to provide care in the shadow of dementia - a condition that, in its cruellest irony, often leaves individuals feeling profoundly alone in a crowd of familiar faces.Written and Presented by Lara Bullens Produced by Lara Bullens and Olivia Humphreys Executive Producer: Steven Rajam An Overcoat Media production for BBC Radio 4

It's 25 years since London suffered three vicious nail bomb attacks - holdalls filled with 4-inch nails and hand-made explosives planted in Brixton market, Brick Lane and in the bar of the Admiral Duncan pub in Soho, intended to cause damage to those in the immediate vicinity and to the notion of a tolerant, diverse capital city. The attacks are recorded in photographs shared at the time by the press - of London streets strewn with damaged buildings and injured people, an x-ray of a toddler with a nail embedded in his skull, the wedding photograph of two victims (one killed, the other severely injured) and the police mugshot of the perpetrator, a far right terrorist who hoped to start a 'racial war in this country'.Fragments looks again at these images - some taken by Chris Taylor who happened to be on assignment in Soho's market photographing vegetables - to consider what it means for an instant to be captured and to endure in our memories and understanding of traumatic events.Including contributions from photographer Chris Taylor; Jonathan Cash, who survived the Soho attack, Emdad Talukder, who was injured in Brick Lane and business owner Leo Epstein. Music composed by Alan Hall, with Eleanor McDowall (chimes) and Alan Hall (trumpet)Producer: Alan Hall A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio Four(Photo credit: ChrisTaylorPhotography.com)

James lives in Manchester and earns his living as a landscape gardener. Since he was a child he has believed himself to be God, and is on a mission to bring peace to the world. He is part of an organisation that runs community events, fitness sessions, games evenings and he shares his ideas at regular Q&A meetings with a group of people, including many who share his belief that he is a divine figure. Over the last four years journalist Darryl Morris has been spending time with James and some of the members of the group, and attending some of the events they stage. He’s trying to find out what it’s like for James to live his life understanding himself to be God, what he is hoping to achieve, and what he offers those who consider themselves lucky enough to be among the first to recognise his presence.Producer: Geoff Bird Executive Producer: Jo MeekAn Audio Always production for BBC Radio 4

A preview of what to expect from Illuminated, BBC Radio 4’s home for creative and surprising one-off documentaries that shed light on hidden worlds. Welcome to a place of audio beauty and joy, with emotion and human experience at its heart. The programmes you will find in this feed explore the reality of contemporary Britain and the world, venturing into its weirdest and most wonderful aspects. New episodes are available weekly on Sunday evenings from 4 August, 2024.The clips are taken from the following documentaries:The Beauty of Everyday Things Shifting Soundscapes How Much Can You Say? Fragments - The London Nail Bomb