Seriously...

Football is the Welsh national sport. Yes, you read that right. Comedian and writer Elis James gives a polemical appraisal of football's role in constructing modern Welsh identity. (1/2)The story of football in Wales tells a richer, geographically-wider, more socially-inclusive national story than rugby, the country's much vaunted "national sport". The Welsh football story has long embraced crosspollination from ethnic communities, the influx and growth of industries other than coal and steel, and the myriad geographical, social and linguistic divisions that crisscross Wales. In 2016, more Welsh people watch football and follow their local team than rugby; six times as many Welsh women play football than its oval-balled cousin.But no-one's listening. Across Offa's Dyke and within the Welsh media, we're being sold a myth. Rugby articulates a set of comfy, uninterrogated clichés about a fabled Welsh national psyche (Poetry! Coal mines! Celts! Oppressed by the English!) that's ossified. Only in the story of Welsh football - virtually ignored by British sporting media - does one find laid bare the difficult, rich tapestry of Wales today.As the Welsh national football team embarks on its first major tournament for nearly sixty years, Elis James examines why sport plays such a key role - within Wales and to all of us - in constructing different kinds of national, ethnic and personal identities. What are the difficulties and myths that are generated when a sport is elevated to "national" status? And for small nations like Wales taking confidence from the patriotism their national teams generate - how much does a national sport help them stand on their own two feet - and how much does it distract from the hard questions of what it means to be a nation?In the first episode, Elis James explores the extent to which football has played second-fiddle to rugby in Wales. How much does the constant veneration of a mythologised national sport - and football's failure to break through into the popular imagination - hold Wales back from being a forward-looking, modern nation?With contributions from Martin Johnes, Sarah Dunant, Laura McAllister, Dai Smith and Simon Kuper.Producer: Steven Rajam.

A plumber eating a mushroom, and a spiny mammal jumping on a golden ring - you'd be forgiven for thinking these actions would make pretty indistinct or ambiguous sounds. But comedian, writer and musician Isy Suttie discovers why - thanks to Super Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog - they're some of the most evocative sounds of the 1980s and 90s. Along with these sounds, the plinky plonky music of early video games buried itself inside a generation of ears growing up among Commodores, Ataris, Segas and Nintendos. Loosely referred to as "chiptune", many musicians and producers now use the jagged, electronic textures in their songs, going to great lengths to deliberately limit their audio palette for the sake of authenticity; some even rip apart old computers and consoles to build instruments faithful to the original sounds. Its ubiquity in film and TV scores is another testament to its efficiency in evoking that era.Isy traces the evolution of chiptune from early electronic music, looking at how composers like Hirokazu Tanaka and Koji Kondo created the catchy and unmistakeable themes of Tetris and Super Mario Brothers. She meets current chiptune artists, including the band whose instruments are joysticks and game controllers, and uses their advice to write her own digital classic. But can she convince the organisers of a die-hard gaming event to use it as their theme tune, and survive silicon scrutiny? Produced by Benn Cordrey.

Moss Side Gym Stories - Part 1: Moss Side is a small neighbourhood just outside of Manchester's city centre. In the 19th century Elizabeth Gaskell, inspired by the area, made her literary debut with the novel Mary Barton. She described Moss Side as a place of rural charm where Victorian workers and their families came to talk, play and relax. By the later part of the 20th century, the green fields that Gaskell knew had been replaced by housing estates, and Moss Side's reputation for riots, gangs and guns had spread nationwide. Growing up in Moss Side, Manchester's award winning poet Mike Garry, saw another side. Among its terraced rows Mike discovered a place where he could hear an echo of the qualities that caused Gaskell to put pen to paper - the Moss Side Leisure Centre. In the first of a two part programme Mike returns to the leisure centre to perform his epic poem, Men's Morning, an ode to the Friday morning male patrons of the centre. He spends time with the men who use the gym today to discover what, if anything has changed since he wrote the poem 20 years ago.In the next programme Jackie Kay, acclaimed poet and Scotland's new Makar, writes her own poem inspired by time spent at the leisure centre, this time focusing on the women who use it.Part 2: Jackie Kay, acclaimed writer and Scotland's new Makar, writes a poem, commissioned by the BBC and inspired by the women who use Manchester's Moss Side Leisure Centre.Close to the Centre are streets named in honour of one of the city's most famous residents, Elizabeth Gaskell, who moved to Manchester in the 1830s and knew these streets, as fields. In her debut novel, Mary Barton, Gaskell described this area as a place of serene rural beauty, where Manchester's families would come to walk, talk, rest and rejuvenate.By the later part of the 20th century, the green fields had been replaced by housing estates. Moss Side's reputation for riots, gangs and guns spread nationwide but its ability to inspire writers remained intact, and a peaceful oasis - otherwise known as the Moss Side Leisure Centre - could still be found. In the first of these two programmes, the poet Mike Garry returned to the Moss Side Leisure Centre to perform his epic poem, Men's Morning, inspired by the Centre and the men who used it.In this programme, Jackie Kay premieres her 21st century response - Moss Side Mirrors - an ode to the women who, like their 19th century antecedents immortalised by Elizabeth Gaskell, have found in this neighbourhood a place to escape from the pressures of daily life - to breathe deeply, unwind, and renew themselves.Produced in Salford by Claire Press and Ekene Akalawu.

At Coney Island amusement park between 1903 and 1943 there was an extraordinary exhibit: tiny, premature babies. 'Dr. Martin Couney's infant incubator' facility was staffed by nurses in starched white uniforms and if you paid a quarter, you could see the babies in their incubators.Journalist Claire Prentice has been following the story and tracked down some of those babies, now in their 70s, 80s and 90s, who were put on show. She discovers how Dr. Couney brought the incubator to prominence in the USA through World's Fairs and amusement parks, and explores how a man who was shunned by the medical establishment changed attitudes to premature babies and saved countless lives.Producer Mark Rickards.

Does documentary ever really tell the truth?BAFTA award winning filmmaker Molly Dineen examines the concept of truth and the creation of narrative in documentary film making. Robert Flaherty's 'Nanook of the North' is considered the first documentary ever made, and much of it was specially set up for the cameras. We think that modern 'Scripted Reality' is a new phenomenon, but does it have its roots in the earliest days of documentary? We look at the making of a documentary, from idea, to casting, filming and editing to find out how documentary makers craft their story.Molly Dineen looks at nearly 100 years of documentary making from the archives, as well as looking back on her own career. Her first film 'Home from the Hill' followed retired Solider Hilary Hook returning to England after a career in Kenya, and she has also filmed the London Zoo in crisis, in her BAFTA award winning series 'The Ark', modern celebrity in her portrait of ex-Spice Girl Geri Halliwell, and a Prime Minister in waiting in the 1997 Party Political Broadcast for the Labour Party. Molly's observational style sees her immersing herself in the worlds she shoots, but we also take a look at modern 'Fly on the Wall' programming, speaking to TV producer Jonathan Stadlen about his series 'GP's: Behind Closed Doors'. There's more factual programming around now than ever; but is this a good thing? Are the schedules clogged with cheap programming that sacrifices the truth for style, using fast cutting, music and voice over rather than allowing people to speak for themselves?We also hear from Kim Loginotto, whose films examine the lives of women worldwide, Radio Producer Simon Elmes and TV Critic AA Gill.Presenter: Molly Dineen Producer: Jessica Treen.

Zoologist and broadcaster Lucy Cooke explores the science behind our seeming obsession with all things adorable. There has been an explosion in interest in cuteness, particularly online, with an ever growing number of websites dedicated to pandas, kittens, puppies and of course babies. If you are feeling a bit down in the dumps, what better way to brighten your day then looking at some cute baby animal frolicking about. But what is it that makes these creatures so darn attractive to us and can you be addicted to cute? Lucy investigates the latest scientific research looking at just what makes babies cute, and what looking at them does to our brain, with some surprising results. She visits London Zoo to visit her number one cute creature of choice, the sloth, to find out why sloths hit the top of the cute charts, but the Chinese giant salamander definitely doesn't, and why in terms of conservation, that matters.

The distinguished architectural writer Gillian Darley retraces the story of "Subtopia", one of the most significant architectural debacles of the post-war era, and considers its long shadow.Her story starts with Ian Nairn, the maverick young architectural journalist, who invented the word "Subtopia" in the mid-1950s, when the Architectural Review ran a campaign against unsightly clutter and the blurring of distinctions between town and country.Nairn drew upon a recent road journey he had made, stating that the outcome of "Subtopia" would be that "the end of Southampton will look like the beginning of Carlisle; the parts in between will look like the end of Carlisle or the beginning of Southampton."He continued uncompromisingly: "The whole land surface is becoming covered by the creeping mildew that already circumscribes all of our towns. Subtopia is the annihilation of the site, the steamrollering of all individuality of place to one uniform and mediocre pattern."Gillian Darley brings together lively original archive featuring Nairn himself, Gilbert Harding, Sir Hugh Casson, Sir John Betjeman and others, to re-trace the story.She talks on location in Southampton with the architectural photographer Gareth Gardner about his new project to re-trace and photograph once more the locations which Nairn visited. In studio, she explores the original and contemporary picture with the architect Janice Murphett, and the architectural writer, Gavin Stamp.And she wonders whether, if the short-lived and unhappy Ian Nairn were alive today, what would he feel about the British landscape?Producer: Beaty Rubens.

Google dominates internet searching across most parts of the globe. The algorithm which produces its search results is highly secret and always changing, but is crucial in influencing the information we all obtain, the viewpoints we read, the people we find out about, and the products we buy.It dominates the market because it's so effective. Rivals find it difficult to compete. But however good the algorithm, however carefully crafted to give us what Google thinks we actually want, is it really healthy for one search engine, and one company, to have so much impact?Rory Cellan-Jones explores Google's uniquely powerful role at the centre of today's information society.Producer: Martin Rosenbaum.

Writer and activist Peter McGraith married his long-term partner David in March 2014, the first gay wedding registered in the UK.Two years on he meets gay and lesbian couples and speaks with them about their relationships - why did they decide to get married? Or stay in a civil partnership? And why, for some, will marriage never be an option?Peter explores what kind of effect marriage is having on gay and lesbian couples... and how it might be affecting us as a society, for better or worse.And what does the marriage, for so long a cherished goal of equality campaigners, look like from the inside? Does it look and feel like heterosexual unions or is it, as some academics believe, re-building the institution from the ground up?Radio 4 hears personal accounts of queer marriage in post equality Britain, meeting couples, co-parents, friends and lovers along the way.Producer: Caitlin Smith

What does it take to succeed if you are born into poverty and neglect? Two people who have done just that explore whether it was down to personality, circumstances or plain luck. Why do so few people manage it?Byron Vincent, a writer and poet, and Dr Anna Woodhouse, a university lecturer and outreach worker, talk to experts to try and discover if their own triumph over lives that were blighted by abuse, drug addiction, homelessness and hunger could have been predicted. They talk to experts about the sort of traits an individual needs to overcome adversity, things like resilience, grit and will power, and discover the latest thinking on what really helps. They explore the way science is looking at the role of genes in determining character. And they look at the importance of outside forces; education, family support, mentors and the role of the Government. At the end, they discuss what they have found with former Welfare Minister and current Chair of the Work and Pensions Select Committee Frank Field, to see what government can do to help lift individuals out of poverty and get them to turn their lives around.Producer: Jenny Sneesby.

Grammy Award-Winning songwriter Amy Wadge fell in love with the harmonica after winning one in a fancy dress competition (she was dressed in a bin liner!). Now she investigates the history and potential of the diatonic instrument, a European the toy which in the hands of expert players became the iconic sound of the Mississippi Delta and the Chicago Blues. Not bad for what was originally a child's toy produced then, as now, in Germany!As music historian Christoph Wagner explains, the very first example of the instrument goes back to Vienna. But millions would soon find their way to the USA, taken there by German emigres fleeing poverty. The poor person's introduction to music, the harmonica would soon find its way to around the globe, from Britain to Australia and even China. But it was in America that it scored its biggest success. And it was there that harmonica technique underwent a transformation, as Chicago -based Joe Filisko explains. Instead of exhaling air, blues players would draw air in, and bend notes to achieve the characteristic sounds of the blues.Amy tries her hand at bending, under the expert tutelage of Steve Lockwood - one of very few people to have studied the harmonica to degree level, and she speaks to one of Britain's best-known players, Paul Jones.It may be the sound of the amplified harmonica popularised the instrument in the 1950s and 1960s, but has it moved on from Chicago Blues and Beatles covers? Canadian beat-boxer Benjamin Darvill - "Son of Dave" - has explored new possibilities with the instrument, and with an original sound that's been heard in edgy TV dramas and commercials. Just going to prove that for all its limitations - 10 holes and 3 octaves - there's life yet the harmonica.

Kate Mossman tells the story of the long-overlooked female pop and rock writers of the 1960s.As a music journalist herself, when Kate entered the profession she found herself surrounded by men - men who had very definite ideas about how it should be done... writing for monthly magazines that were aimed at men and covering artist who were mainly men. The whole industry of writing about 'serious' popular music seemed to have been established in the late 1960s and the mid-1970s with the writer-characters of Rolling Stone and our own New Musical Express.But there was a time before all this - a time when the newly invented teenagers were finding their feet... and a new kind of journalism was emerging to chronicle the rapidly changing time. A journalism spearheaded by women.There was Nancy Lewis, who wrote for Fabulous and the NME; June Harris, who wrote for Disc, then went to New York and contributed to Rave (as well as marring legendary rock agent and promoter Frank Barsalona); Maureen O'Grady who began her career as a music journalist at Boyfriend and progressed onto Rave, where she also joined Dawn James. And the doyennes of them all was the Evening Standard's Maureen Cleave, to whom John Lennon claimed that the Beatles were bigger than Jesus.Kate Mossman meets them and celebrates the tone of their writing that was so fascinatingly different from rock journalism as we came to know it, and yet captured all the confusion, excitement and social changes of the time.Producer: Paul Kobrak

On an August bank holiday in 2014, Shiraz Maher at the International Centre for Study of Radicalisation at Kings College London received an email sent by a disillusioned British jihadist from Syria."We came to fight the regime and instead we are involved in gang warfare. It's not what we came for but if we go back to Britain we will go to jail. Right now we are being forced to fight - what option do we have?"The man in his twenties claimed to represent dozens of other jihadists' desperate to return to the UK but fearing long prison sentences.Gordon Corera explores the British government's response to managing returnees. In the last two years Britain has brought in temporary exclusion orders and is able to confiscate passports to prevent people preparing to travel to Syria.France has gone one step further - since the Paris attacks in November police has placed over 400 citizens under house arrest and can strip French born dual nationals of citizenship. Denmark and Germany have taken a different approach and instead try to rehabilitate rather than imprison; helping young men and women get jobs, housing and education.The Home Office estimates that around 800 British nationals have travelled to Syria since the start of the conflict and that around half of those have returned, though experts say these are conservative figures. What's the best way to deal with this growing threat, particularly when returnees are responsible for attacks such as those in Paris last November?Gordon Corera speaks with Shiraz Maher, Rashad Ali of the Institute of Strategic Dialogue, solicitor Gareth Peirce, Hanif Qadir of the Active Change Foundation and counter-terrorism officer DAC Helen Ball. We also hear from a returnee.Producer: Caitlin Smith.

A two part Seriously following actor Tim Robbins and Rajesh Mirchandani and the theatre programme the Actors' Gang in Norco prison.Part 1: The Actors' GangJust outside of LA in the Californian desert, presenter Rajesh Mirchandani joins 'Shawshank Redemption' star Tim Robbins as he leads acting classes with the segrgated inmates from Norco prison. Rajesh witnesses the transformation of inmates, from tough gangsters into respectable men and gains a unique insight into some of America's toughest social challenges.Rajesh recorded inside the prison with Tim Robbins over a two month period, gaining unique access not only to Tim but also to the inmates. Tim visibly enjoys cult status among the inmates and quickly gains their trust. He is no stranger to prisons, having played an innocent man convicted of murder in "The Shawshank Redemption" and was nominated for a Best Director Oscar for "Dead Man Walking" - a film about a death row inmate. He formed The Actor's Gang, an acting troupe, which runs prison theatre workshop for inmates having spent time in some of LA's toughest prisons whilst researching both films. With re-offending a more likely scenario once they are out of prison, Robbins believes that more should be done whilst they are inside to help them change their ways.Robbins' Hollywood master class ranges from Shakespeare to Commedia dell' arte, a style that originated in 16th-Century Italy and involves actors in masks playing basic character types. Robbins explains that inmates learn to portray four different emotions: happiness, sadness, fear and anger. One of the inmates who Rajesh follows over the course is Mike who is serving a lengthy prison sentence. Mike says, "In the yard, gangs stick to their patch but these classes have helped to make guys see that we don't need to be violent.".Part 2: The Actors' Gang on the OutsideWe followed actor Tim Robbins' work with prisoners on the inside of LA's tough prison system in the acclaimed Radio 4 documentary The Actor's Gang. Three of the actors who we heard in the first documentary have now been released.In the Actor's Gang on the Outside, Rajesh Mirchandani catches up with them to hear their stories. Has taking part in the The Actor's Gang Prison Project helped them turn their lives around and has the acting course had any long term effects on helping with their rehabilitation and adapting to life outside prison?This promises to be a compellingly gritty portrait of crime, second chances and the power of drama.

2016 marks the 50th anniversary of the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band going "professional" - kick-starting the chaos with a performance on the bastion of psychedelia and avant-garde: Blue Peter.The legendary Neil Innes looks back at the influence and influences of the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band and the collision of art, humour, music, language and anarchy that permeated the band's career.Archive interviews and performances accompany new interviews with Legs Larry Smith, Rodney Slater, Vernon Dudley Bowhay Nowell, Sam Spoons, and Bob Kerr and contributions from friends and fans including Terry Gilliam, Adrian Edmondson, Kevin Eldon, Diane Morgan, Rick Wakeman and Stephen Fry.

Daniil Kharms (1905-1942) is one of Russia's great lost absurdists - a writer whose world still alarms, shocks and bewitches more than half a century after he died in prison during the siege of Leningrad.In his short, almost vignette-like writings, nothing is sacred or as it seems. His narrators dip in and out of moments, describing curious, often disturbing events before getting bored and leaving his characters to their fates. Old ladies plummet from windows, townsfolk are bludgeoned to death with cucumbers, others wander around in search of glue, sausages or nothing. By turns pointless and harrowing, they are funny. Very funny. And they are funny now.Comedian, Russophile and crumpled polymath Tim Key has been entranced by Kharms' beautiful, horrible, hilarious world for years. But is there more to Kharms than a series of curious happenings cooked up by an eccentric mind in a troublesome world? Key suspects there is. And he's prepared to delve.As he delves, he encounters Noel Fielding, Alice Nakhimovsky, Matvei Yankelevich, Peter Scotto, Tony Anemone and Daniil Kharms.

"Oh my goodness, look at that sign over there. Keep Off The Grass. Makes me wonder who put it there. Makes me wonder why I should keep off the grass. And it makes me want to go on the grass!" American satirist Joe Queenan presents A Brief History of Disobedience, the follow up to his programmes on Blame, Shame, Anger and Irony. He travels in time from the Old Testament to Tarrytown, his home in suburban New York. He aims to discover the importance of not doing what we are told. So let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine.With notable contributions from the archive - Gandhi, the Suffragettes, the Greenham Common Peace protestors. Our Heroes of Disobedience include Martin Luther, Geronimo, Woody Guthrie and The Doors. Plus Matthew Parris on Margaret Thatcher, Bill Finnegan on his barbarian days as a surfer and Karen Moline on writing dirty books. And finally, helpful hints about how to be usefully disobedient in everyday life.Joe Queenan is an Emmy award winning broadcaster and writer. The producer in Bristol is Miles Warde.

Professor Mary Beard is a distinguished Cambridge Classical scholar with a string of highly-regarded books on Ancient Rome to her name, so it's slightly irksome to her that she is almost better known for her long grey hair.In this highly-authored documentary, Mary Beard investigates a growing reluctance to embrace grey hair.Starting in the Mayfair salon of "hair colourist to the stars", Jo Hansford, she's informed that her hair is "dreadful" and given a personal consultation by Jo herself about how and why she should colour it.In favour of choice and the fun of colouring hair, (she has always hankered after pink streaks), Mary is particularly disturbed by the pressures in society for women to conceal their age.It's not just about women, though. Mary has recently come to recognise that far more men now colour their hair, but why won't any of them talk to her about it? Eventually, fellow Cambridge Classicist, Professor Simon Goldhill, agrees to "come out" on air. In defending his use of colour and challenging Mary's own choice, he gives her a philosophical run for her money.Ultimately, Mary has to admit the paradox of making a radio programme about grey hair, so she turns to a surprise, high-profile television presenter to learn more about the pressures on women in the public sphere to colour their hair.Concluding that ageism may be the new "glass ceiling", Mary insists upon the right to be both an "enfant terrible" and also an "eminence grise".The all-grey production team consists of production coordinator Anne Smith and producer Beaty Rubens.

Lauren Laverne has long been a firm fan of Kenneth Grahame's classic children's book 'The Wind in the Willows', in particular that most sparky of characters Mr. Toad, whose desire to have everything and anything new makes him such a vibrant fore-runner of the modern consumer. Lauren sets about telling the story of the book and its creator, Kenneth Grahame, who came up with the adventures of Mole, Ratty and friends as bedtime stories for his headstrong young son Alistair - thought by many to be the model for Mr. Toad himself. Along the way Lauren will visit the school that once was home to the Grahame family, and where he turned the stories into the book we're now so familiar with. She'll also hear from the author of the 'How to Train Your Dragon' series of books, Cressida Cowell, about her own love of 'Wind in the Willows', as well as Tom Moorhouse, an Oxford University Ecologist who is writing a series of sequels to Grahame's classic tale.Featuring the composition 'Nur Musik' by Mark Simpson.

Is everyone in the world really connected by only six links?A famous experiment by social psychologist Stanley Milgram in the 1960s claimed that it took on average only six steps for a message to pass between two strangers in America. Since then the idea has become part of popular culture. But is it true? And if so, does it matter? Julia Hobsbawm investigates how social networks work, whether we should all pay more attention to our network connections, and whether governments can use social networks to promote - for instance - messages about health. Maybe, she discovers, it's not the six degrees of separation that matter, but the three degrees of influence.

Stuart Barr uncovers the colourful career of British composer and transgender pioneer, Angela Morley.In 1972, Wally Stott's transition to Angela Morley made front page news. Wally was famous. He was composer for the Goon Show and Hancock's Half Hour, and music director to stars like Frankie Vaughan and Shirley Bassey. "TV Music Man changes his sex" screamed the headlines. Where would Angela go from here? Stuart talks to Angela's friends and colleagues to discover how she made her mark in the music business, as a woman and a man. And he explores the special qualities of the music she wrote and arranged, from the famous 'Hancock' tuba theme to her work alongside John Williams on blockbusters like Star Wars and Superman.

Ethan was born blind. He's now a 10 year-old boy who collects sounds on his 51 dictaphones, composes music, and performs on stage in concerts. Until now he's been home-schooled, but last year he was offered a place at St Mary's Music School in Scotland - one of the best in the country. The problem is he struggles to get around. This is where Batman comes in. His real name is Daniel Kish and like Ethan he's blind. He's a master of echolocation. He makes clicking noises - like a bat - to build a picture of the world around him. Neuroscientists have done experiments on him and found that he's managed to activate the visual part of his brain. He's taught people all over the world to "see through sound" and he's so good at it that he goes hiking, cycling and rock-climbing. "Batman" (Daniel) comes to Scotland to spend 10 days with Ethan, to teach him echolocation and help him prepare for his new school. The documentary follows Ethan's progress as he learns from Daniel Kish. Listeners are introduced to the principles of echolocation, they follow Ethan practicing at home, on the train and at his new school. They're brought into Ethan's world, through music composed specially by Ethan, and they're with him on his birthday, on long walks in the Scottish hills, right through to his experience at school. We follow Ethan up to his final day of term to find out how he's done, and see how he copes with his biggest challenge yet: playing an accordion solo with the orchestra at the school concert. Produced and presented by Helena Merriman.

"Your breasts look fantastic in that dress." From abysmal chat-up lines like this, to love at first sight in Victoria Train Station, BBC Radio Four listeners have some incredible relationship stories. Reaction Time broadcasts them to the nation, in a programme composed entirely of smartphone contributions from the public. BBC Radio Four shouted out for stories about love on social media - gave out the [email protected] email address and received poignant, funny and downright odd tales - which have been crafted into a half-hour of dreadful dates, poignant memories and one incredible relationship that begins with a heart attack. Contributors simply recorded their two minute stories on their phone recorders - and emailed the sound file in. The contributor Narelle Lancaster, was called back and asked to record the script over her phone - so it's 100% listeners in a programme made on phones - a new way of creating a programme, and a unique platform for the wit and inventiveness of the BBC Radio 4 audience. Presented by Narelle Lancaster Produced by Kevin Core.

The writing of Carson McCullers has perhaps never been as popular or acclaimed as that of contemporaries such as Harper Lee and Tennessee Williams, but nonetheless she remains one of the most remarkable and individual writers to come out of twentieth century America. She only wrote a few works, in large part because rheumatic fever left her paralysed in her left arm, and she was beset by ill health and alcoholism for many of her fifty years. Her writing style was enormously sensuous, filled with the heat, sounds and smells of the American south, and the characters who populated books like 'The Ballad of the Sad Cafe', 'The Heart is a Lonely Hunter' and 'A Member of the Wedding' were most commonly troubled misfits. Her personal life was similarly idiosyncratic - the man she married twice committed suicide having tried to get her to do the same - though it is her very particular writing style, with a strong musicality drawn from the years she spent training as a classical pianist, that has made many of her fans so vociferous in their attachment to her. Jarvis Cocker hears from a number of them, including academic Carlos Dews, author Laura Barton and musician Suzanne Vega, who has not only written and starred in three versions of a play about Carson, but often feels herself to be in conversation with her spirit. Jarvis explains his own personal devotion, explaining how Carson's ability to bypass the brain and connect straight to the heart is what makes her such an important figure to him.

Why is homosexuality still illegal in the world's so-called largest democracy? In his celebrated family memoir 'And All is Said', historian Dr Zareer Masani made no bones about his own homosexuality and the problems it posed growing up in the India of the 1950s and '60s. Much seemed to have changed in the intervening half century. But with a renewed Hindu nationalism dominant in both political and cultural life, Zareer returns to Mumbai (formerly Bombay) to find out whether growing acceptance of gay rights is being put in reverse. Attempts were made in the recent past to overthrow an old colonial law making homosexuality a crime punishable by life imprisonment. The Delhi High Court held that this section of India's criminal law was unconstitutional; but that decision was overturned by India's Supreme Court two years ago. Zareer asks Justice Shah, who gave the earlier, landmark judgement decriminalising homosexuality, whether its liberal impact can really be reversed. He talks to the various gay and lesbian groups who are active in Mumbai, and to prominent, openly gay individuals like Mr Gay India 2014. Zareer returns to Bombay's elite Anglican school where he once suffered homophobic bullying. And he spends a day with the amazing Humsafar Trust, that provides everything from HIV treatment to counselling and legal advocacy for LGBT men and women outside Bombay's affluent, liberal middle class bubble. In his youth, Zareer found it impossible to live an openly gay life in the country of his birth. This programme is his journey back home to find out whether the liberalisation he's observed during his lifetime has now been halted by the moral policing of governments and religious extremists. Producer: Tom Alban.

In 1915 women could neither vote, divorce nor work after marriage, yet in that same year the American writer Charlotte Perkins Gilman envisaged a revolutionary world populated entirely by women who were intelligent, resourceful and brave. Her great science fiction novel Herland tells the story of three men who crash land on an island where the men have died out; women reproduce by parthenogenesis.Until Gilman's book was published, most visions of utopia, though turning the world on its head, struggled to envisage a place where gender had changed. Fantastical machines could be imagined alongside marvellous advances in medicine and technology, but the idea of woman functioning fully in the new utopias was too much for many to imagine.In this programme the award winning science fiction writer Geoff Ryman uses Herland as a starting point to ask why it's been so had to imagine a world where gender dissolves. In the course of the programme he will write his own short story, avoiding the pitfalls that have skewered many before him. The story No Point Talking is included in the podcast.Presenter: Geoff Ryman Producer: Nicola Swords Contributors: Stephanie Saulter, author of the Evolution Trilogy; Laurie Penny, writer and journalist; Dr Sari Edelstein, The President of the Charlotte Perkins Gilman Society; Sarah Le Fanu, former Senior Editor at The Women's Press; Dr Caitríona Ní Dhúill, author of Sex and Imagined Spaces; Sarah Hall, author of The Carhullan Army and The Wolf Border Original music composed by Scanner.

For the past few decades music teacher and pianist Francesco Lotoro has been collecting music written in concentration camps from the Second World War. Francesco's life is entirely given over to recovering the creations of composers and performers, many of them Jewish, who died in the camps. A massive amount of music was written in camps. Classical music by established composers, but also songs, symphonies, sonatas, operas, lullabies, jazz riffs often scribbled on old sacks, toilet paper or scratched into mess tins. Francesco has discovered works by important composers as Hans Krasa, the Czech creator of the masterpiece 'Brundibar', as well as Viktor Ullmann and Gideon Klein - all killed by the Nazis in 1944, but writing music until the very end. Composer Adam Gorb is head of composition at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester. Working closely with the BBC Philharmonic, Adam travels to Italy to meet Francesco and together they pick through his 8000 piece archive, much of which has never been heard before. In this special documentary, which broadcasts in the days running up to Holocaust Memorial Day, Adam Gorb returns to Britain with a piece of unfinished music written by Viktor Ullman before his death. This piece will be performed by the Philharmonic for the first time. Producer: Caitlin Smith.

What is it really like to make decisions affecting millions of people, knowing that a mistake might be pounced upon instantly and your career left in tatters? Government ministers face this challenge every day, and now under ever-rising pressures - not just 24 hour news, but also hugely influential social media and far stronger demand for more open and accountable decision-making. Elinor Goodman finds out from senior politicians, civil service leaders and their advisors how government ministers make decisions in the face of growing pressure from this instant all-pervasive information culture. How is the quality of decision-making affected when the demands for faster and more transparent policy-making become impossible to resist? As information circulates ever faster, can ministers actually keep up and make good decisions rather than succumb to the demands for swifter ones? Where once there was just a news cycle to manage, now there is a need for instant replies to all manner of questions and challenges about the detail and purpose of policies themselves - and sometimes this happens before the policy has actually been finalised. David Cameron leads a government that can only dream of the time and space afforded to his political hero Harold Macmillan, who was able to take weeks deliberating on subjects which today's PM must sometimes resolve in minutes. So, what are the pressures and processes that contribute to ministerial decision-making in the 21st century? Producer: Jonathan Brunert.

Many of us have grown up with the belief that a strong work ethic is a positive thing, and that by contrast idle hands are the devil's playthings. According to Professor Andrew Hussey, that argument makes very little sense. Starting off with a line from the Cilla Black song 'Work is a Four Letter Word' he offers a powerful counter-argument by navigating the ideas of, among others, Bertrand Russell, John Ruskin and the Situationists in France, whose graffiti slogan 'Ne Travaillez Jamais' - never work - still appears regularly on Parisian streets. Hussey argues that the corporate culture in particular, born out of mid-20th Century America and built upon ideologies of work developed during the industrial revolution and on through to the development of the assembly line, can have a hugely corrosive impact on people's lives. The programme features the voices of workers from the 1930s through to the present day, describing working life in call centres where even a trip to the toilet is timed by management. Hussey doesn't however suggest that we all take to the sofa to watch TV and eat crisps, though; instead he argues that by taking control of the work we do and the way we do it, work can actually become a positive force in our lives, once stripped of what he regards as the caustic power of modern managerialism.

How many stories are there in the world? According to William Wallace Cook, dime novelist and prolific producer of American pulp, there were precisely 1,462 and in Plotto, his "Master Book of All Plots", he anatomised them all in the service of struggling writers everywhere. Plotto, published in 1928, was nothing less than a manual of fictional devices, intended to sit on a writer's shelf between the dictionary and the thesaurus. Any writer stuck for inspiration could leaf through Plotto to discover plots like "a ventriloquist, captured by savages and threatened with death, makes an animal talk-and is given his freedom" or "a reporter, writing up an imaginary interview as fact, quotes a man as being in town on a certain day. The man, subsequently accused of a crime, establishes an alibi through an interview innocently faked by the reporter." Cook hailed his own book as "an invention which reduces literature to an exact science." But it was weird science. Nevertheless it worked for Cook, who churned out up to 50 novels a year. It also worked for Perry Mason creator Earl Stanley Gardner who borrowed liberally from Plotto. Even the young Alfred Hitchcock had a copy. And if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery then Cook must have been delighted by the appearance of "The Plot Robot," whose name promised much but which, rather disappointingly was a cardboard circle with a pointer attached to it. Miles Jupp investigates the Plot Device that promises to make writing easy, with the help of crime writers Val McDermid and John Harvey.

The comedian and actor Isy Suttie sets out to explore how creativity is influenced by the mysterious and medically controversial phenomenon ASMR (Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response). Ever since she was little, Isy has been experiencing what she and her family describe as 'head squeezing' - a euphoric, incredibly relaxing version of goose bumps that starts around the head or face and travels around the body. A few years ago she realised not everyone got this feeling, that it's got a name - ASMR, or 'brain tingles'. There are hoards of online videos designed to trigger the feeling - often involving whispering women offering to book you a golfing holiday, test your eyes, wrap your gifts or tutor you on how to fold the perfect towel. Isy watches some ASMR videos with fellow comedian Joe Lycett, who's also experienced it, as has the journalist and musician Rhodri Marsden. Zoe Fothergill and Claire Tolan are two artists who've made work inspired by ASMR videos. Isy speaks to Charlotte Luke aka The ASMR Angel who has thousands of internet followers. She meets Dr Nick Davis who's carried out research into ASMR and she heads off to Sheffield University where she's wired up to a machine which tests her responses to different videos, to try to unravel how and when ASMR occurs.

Sukhdev Sandhu travels to the epicentres of countercultural America in Woodstock and San Francisco to tell the story of a book of hippy philosophy that defined the 1960s and intimated how the internet would grow long before the web arrived. With Luc Sante, Eliot Weinberger, Kenneth Goldsmith, Ed Sanders, Lois Britton, and Fred Turner Producer: Tim Dee.

How is Russian President Vladimir Putin perceived by the people in his own country? How is his intervention in Syria shaping the public mood? In a series of reports, Steve Rosenberg investigates Putin's Russia.From December 2015.

Stephen Evans goes deep into the Milky Way to look at the phenomenon of StarCraft and reveals how, in South Korea, it is more than just a computer game and is a key part of the rapidly growing multi-billion dollar world of esports. Worth over $620 million globally, with a worldwide audience of over 135 million people, esports are now big business, and in South Korea much of this thanks to the impact of certain computer game called StarCraft. StarCraft is essentially a sci-fi, military-based real-time strategy (RTS) game developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment. It was released in 1998 and in the years since has become one of the world's most popular computer game titles shifting over 11 million copies and spawning a mainstream cultural sensation in South Korea where thousands of fans pack into stadiums across the country to watch the best StarCraft players in the world battle it out for big money stakes. From the importance of PC Bangs - the ubiquitous street corner hubs for gaming fans - to the multi-million dollar world of professional StarCraft and esports Soul-based journalist and broadcaster Stephen Evans joins the dots of how this game took root in a South Korean society that embraced super fast broadband and was thirsty for a multi-scenario, multi-player and multi-layered challenge. Socially inclusive, cheap and available to everyone, since the late 1990s online gaming has taken this nation of 50 million people by storm, and StarCraft is central to this way of life. This way of life has brought dizzying successes and change, but with it the issue of addiction and related health problems the South Korean government have been forced to regulate this brave new world to tackle issues that are becoming increasingly relevant to policy makers outside of the Korean peninsular.