The Essay

Tom Shakespeare challenges stereotypical ideas about creativity and disability, by celebrating five disabled artists, discussing how their impairments fuelled their genius and demonstrating the variety and achievement of disabled lives.Abul 'Ala Al-Ma'arri became visually impaired in childhood and went on to become the most famous poet in the Arab world, but is still barely known in Britain. He was born near Aleppo in the year 973. Although welcomed in the literary salons of Baghdad, al-Ma'arri became an ascetic, who avoided other people, and refused to sell his poetry. Al-Ma'arri was notable as a religious sceptic; he deemed it a matter of geographical accident what faith people adopted, and rejected the idea that Islam had a monopoly on truth. He opposed all violence and killing, becoming a vegan and avoiding the use of animal skins in clothing and footwear. Al-Ma'arri is a distinguished, if rare, example of a rationalist in the Islamic world, and one who was writing half a millennium before the Enlightenment thinkers of the West such as Voltaire.

One hundred years ago the First World War set the course for the modern world: for the countries that took part nothing would be the same again. In these special editions of The Essay we gain an international perspective on the war as we hear from cultural figures from around the world taking part in an international series of events called The War That Changed The World, made in partnership with the British Council and the BBC World Service. Herlinde Koebl, is an artist and photographer known for her in-depth, political and thematic work. In this essay she draws on the experience of her latest project 'Targets' which was a series of documentary photographs of the targets used for training by soldiers in 30 countries. Contrasting accounts of First World War training, and quoting from contemporary soldiers, Herlinde Koebl asks what makes a soldier able to kill? The essay is performed in front of an audience at the Bundeswehr Military Museum in Dresden.

One hundred years ago the First World War set the course for the modern world: for the countries that took part nothing would be the same again. In these special editions of The Essay we gain an international perspective on the war as we hear from cultural figures from around the world taking part in an international series of events called The War That Changed The World, made in partnership with the British Council and the BBC World Service. Haris Pasovic lived through the Siege of Sarajevo and was the producer of Susan Sontag's legendary 1993 'Waiting for Godot', produced in the city during the war. Since then he has developed theatrical spectaculars with a special focus on the impact of war including The Red Line (11,500 chairs representing those killed in the siege) and 'The Conquest of Happiness' (a massive open-air theatre event for Derry Year of Culture based on the works on Bertrand Russell). His essay 'Divine Uncertainty' is a personal take the war in Bosnia and the First World War. In this essay, recorded at the Sarajevo Theatre of War, Haris explains how he sees politics as a force woefully out of step with science and playfully suggests that a theory of 'political relativity' is needed in which cultural identity is cushioned by tolerance.

One hundred years ago the First World War set the course for the modern world: for the countries that took part nothing would be the same again. In these special editions of The Essay we gain an international perspective on the war as we hear from cultural figures from around the world taking part in an international series of events called The War That Changed The World, made in partnership with the British Council and the BBC World Service. Joanna Bourke stunned academics and the reading public alike with her extraordinary study 'An Intimate History of Killing', since which she has written studies of Fear, Rape, Pain and Humanity. Shell Shock and the Shock of Shells draws on the letters and diaries of soldiers and their families. In this essay she returns to the First World War to reflect not only on shell shock, but also on the actual shells themselves, presenting her latest research into their physical impact and the language which evolved to describe them. Her essay was recorded with an audience at the Imperial War Museum in London.

One hundred years ago the First World War set the course for the modern world: for the countries that took part nothing would be the same again. In these special editions of The Essay we gain an international perspective on the war as we hear from cultural figures from around the world taking part in an international series of events called The War That Changed The World, made in partnership with the British Council and the BBC World Service. Tatyana Tolstaya is an internationally acclaimed Russian novelist and broadcaster, and well known in Russia as a scion of the country's most famous literary family. In this essay 'White Flowers', she tells a moving story from her own family, the story of her grandmother's chance encounter with British journalist William Stead. This is a poetic story about revolution, ideology and the individual, through which we glimpse a different future for Russia and for Europe. It is recorded with an audience at the Hermitage in St Petersburg, which was known as the Winter Palace when it was 'stormed' in 1917.

Christian Carion, Heroism and the Christmas TruceChristian Carion, Heroism and the Christmas TruceOne hundred years ago the First World War set the course for the modern world: for the countries that took part nothing would be the same again. In these special editions of The Essay we gain an international perspective on the war as we hear from cultural figures from around the world taking part in an international series of events called The War That Changed The World, made in partnership with the British Council and the BBC World Service. Christian Carion is the director of the French film 'Joyeux Noël' shortlisted for an Oscar in 2006. He is a child of farmers of the fields of northern France and grew up among the battlefields of the First World War. He has lost friends to the live ordnance which is still being ploughed up every year. This is a war which still claims lives. For this Christmas edition of The Essay, recorded with an audience at Hotel National des Invalides, in Paris - the historic and ceremonial heart of the French Arrmed Forces - Christian Carion will look at heroism and the truce of Christmas 1914.

Oscar-winning screen writer Frederic Raphael reads the final essay in his new series about living abroad across Europe, this time in Greece.It's the early 1960s, and the country is as yet undisturbed by mass tourism. As Raphael travels to a remote island, echoes of the classical world rub up against the realities of post civil war division, and a village life which has barely changed for centuries.

Part four sees the writer journey to early 1960s Italy, where he mixes ancient Roman history, with a very personal experience of some of the key players in the Italian film industry.

Oscar-winning screen writer Frederic Raphael continues his essay series about living abroad across Europe.In programme three Raphael gives an off-the-beaten-track perspective on Franco's Spain, during the late 1950s, where he lived in a small artistic community and witnessed the impact of grand politics on Spanish village life.

'Every man has two countries, his own and France' says Frederic Raphael, quoting Thomas Jefferson, as he begins part two of his essay series about living abroad across Europe.In this programme he explores his life as a young writer in the post-war Paris of Jean-Paul Sartre, and remembers his time living in the Cote d'Azur before it was a popular tourist destination.

Oscar-winning writer Frederic Raphael reads the first of his essay series about living abroad throughout Europe between the 1940s and 60s, beginning with the first foreign country he ever lived in: England.Uprooted from New York City as a young boy, the writer paints a child's-eye portrait of wartime Britain, with all its class conscious peculiarities, but seen through the eyes of a young American kid used to waffles, zips and Buicks.Producer: Jo Wheeler.

The last of five personal essays on the voice and radio. Broadcaster Fi Glover on how radio voices make the global local and the local global. Fi Glover has worked in almost every job that radio offers and is currently presenting the Listening Project on BBC Radio 4 - a programme in which her voice hardly appears whilst the voices of its contributors (ordinary people often at corners of their lives) are rich in personality and incident. Is radio good at not presenting and just listening? Has the BBC traditionally over-managed those who speak on its airwaves? And what of hate speech and hate radio? Why does the radio voice still reach deep into our hearts and minds in the era of screen-based living and social media?An essay given in front of an audience at the British Academy in London in October 2014 as part of a series of events marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of Dylan Thomas. Producer: Tim Dee.

The fourth of five personal essays on the voice and radio. BBC Radio Merseyside presenter Roger Phillips describes his job as the listening anchorman of the station's daily phone-in programme. What is is like to be the in the middle of a city as it talks to and of itself every day of the week? How does the city's voice manifest itself in the way it talks? Are there as many talkers in Newcastle or Bristol? What does the Liverpool voice do to the Liverpool mind? Thoughts too on victim culture and Scally jokes. An essay given in front of an audience at the British Academy in London in October 2014 as part of a series of events marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of Dylan Thomas. Producer: Tim Dee.

The third of five personal essays on the voice and radio. Former BBC journalist and now media professor David Hendy explores how, in the early years of radio, the voices coming through the airwaves were heard and regarded. Why did a heard voice carry more swaying power than written words, why did a radio voice carry - so experiments and test showed - even more potency? How did radio become a tool for demagogues? Why are our ears susceptible?An essay given in front of an audience at the British Academy in London in October 2014 as part of a series of events marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of Dylan Thomas. Producer: Tim Dee.

The second of five personal essays on the voice and radio. Journalist and broadcaster Olivia O'Leary describes her autobiography in radio from Irish nuns at her boarding school hunting down wicked wirelesses to thoughts on the speed of the Irish voice by comparison with the English. Olivia O'Leary has worked in radio for decades and is well known - as a voice - for her penetrating yet tactful interviewing skills. She shares some of her secrets.An essay given in front of an audience at the British Academy in London in October 2014 as part of a series of events marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of Dylan Thomas, himself one of the most famous radio voices of all time. Producer: Tim Dee.

The first of five essays on the voice and radio - all delivered by seasoned broadcasters and practitioners. Actor Samuel West explores the art of performance and declarative language. How should an actor speak? What is the best way to read poetry on the radio? How does radio drama get by without images? Are the pictures really better?Recorded in front of an audience at the British Academy in London in October 2014 as part of a series of events marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of Dylan Thomas, himself one of the best known radio voices of all time.Subsequent essays from the British Academy come from veteran Irish broadcaster Olivia O'Leary, Professor of Media David Hendy, Radio Merseyside's phone-in host Roger Phillips and Radio 4's Fi Glover - all sharing their varied perspectives on the art of radio.Producer: Tim Dee.

Serial entrepreneur Luke Johnson celebrates the simple but powerful messages of the self-help classic, "The Magic of Thinking Big" by David J Schwartz." "His book is not great literature," he admits. "Indeed, it is popular psychology at its most obvious." However, Johnson defends its power as "basic but also profound" - and it has influenced his huge success with a series of household name businesses. Producer: Smita Patel.

Children's Laureate Malorie Blackman on how Alice Walker's novel "The Color Purple" legitimised her need to be a writer. She writes how the novel was "about the triumph of the human spirit". Reading it for the first in her early 20s it "blasted open a door which I thought was locked and barred to me. Actually it blasted open a door which I didn't appreciate even existed. A door that could lead to a writing career of my own... this book and its author showed that it was possible for me to not only be an author but to have my own voice."Producer: Smita Patel.

Actor/director Simon McBurney of Theatre de Complicite describes how John Berger's "And Our Faces, My Heart, Brief as Photos" plays with ideas of connection, memory, narrative and mortality which are essential to his theatrical work. "Berger digs in the vulnerable earth of human experience, and joins the fragments he uncovers with an eye as sure as an astronomer, a gesture as gentle as a carpenter," McBurney says. This slim work has been a point of reference for his art and his life. Producer: Smita Patel.

Singer Tracey Thorn describes how she as a rebellious teenager she seized on the feminist classic "The Female Eunuch" by Germaine Greer. "It seemed brand new, and it spoke to me of things I'd long thought and felt without ever having words or names for," she says. She explains how the book was a deep influence on the lyrics she wrote for her band Everything but the Girl. But now she is herself a mother, she finds herself questioning Greer's contemptuous dismissal of parenting. "As feminists, I feel we are more forgiving now than Greer was; more inclusive, less dismissive, and perhaps that's because greater freedoms have brought with them greater liberties for us to be so. It's not such a threat now to admit to being happily married and enjoying motherhood when we are not utterly constrained and defined by these roles." Producer: Smita Patel.

Former Home Secretary Alan Johnson describes how "David Copperfield" by Charles Dickens mirrored his poor and troubled childhood in West London. After the death of his mother, the discovery of this great novel gave him the hope to build a happy and secure adult life. "I was thirteen years old and had read lots of books but nothing like this complex saga; so moving, so emotionally intertwined. I loved Peggoty, laughed at Micawber, loathed Uriah Heep. And I cried. Tears that never fell for my mother fell for Ham." Producer: Smita Patel.

Gabriele Ferrario of the Genizah Research Unit reveals the most secretive side of the Genizah collection: the manuscripts relating to alchemy and magic.The Cairo Genizah is a treasure trove of manuscripts from the Ben Ezra synagogue in Old Cairo that portrays over 800 years of community life. Rediscovered in the 19th century, this vast communal paper-bin contained hundreds upon thousands of scraps of rag-paper and parchment - an unedited archive of prayers, letters, poems, magical spells, alchemical recipes, children's exercise books, divorce deeds and pre-nuptial agreements that paints a lively and intimate picture of daily medieval life in Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean.Produced by Michele Banal and Miranda Hinkley.First broadcast in May 2013.

Daniel Davies of the Genizah Research Unit sheds light on three very different lives by reading the private documents of the legendary philosopher Maimonides, community leader Solomon ben Judah and Indian Ocean trader Abraham ben Yiju,They are all from the Genizah papers. The Cairo Genizah is a treasure trove of manuscripts from the Ben Ezra synagogue in Old Cairo that portrays over 800 years of community life. Rediscovered in the 19th century, this vast communal paper-bin contained hundreds upon thousands of scraps of rag-paper and parchment - an unedited archive of prayers, letters, poems, magical spells, alchemical recipes, children's exercise books, divorce deeds and pre-nuptial agreements that paints a lively and intimate picture of daily medieval life in Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean.Produced by Michele Banal and Miranda Hinkley.First broadcast in May 2013.

Melonie Schmierer-Lee of the Genizah Research Unit reveals the fortunes of women in medieval Cairo by looking at marriage and divorce deeds, as well as some incredibly detailed pre-nuptial agreements.The Cairo Genizah is a treasure trove of manuscripts from the Ben Ezra synagogue in Old Cairo that portrays over 800 years of community life. Rediscovered in the 19th century, this vast communal paper-bin contained hundreds upon thousands of scraps of rag-paper and parchment - an unedited archive of prayers, letters, poems, magical spells, alchemical recipes, children's exercise books, divorce deeds and pre-nuptial agreements that paints a lively and intimate picture of daily medieval life in Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean.Produced by Michele Banal and Miranda HinkleyFirst broadcast in May 2013.

Ben Outhwaite, Head of the Genizah Research Unit, shows how private letters between medieval merchants reveal an international trading network that united Jews, Muslims and Christians across Europe, North Africa and the Middle East.The Cairo Genizah is a treasure trove of manuscripts from the Ben Ezra synagogue in Old Cairo that portrays over 800 years of community life. Rediscovered in the 19th century, this vast communal paper-bin contained hundreds upon thousands of scraps of rag-paper and parchment. It's an unedited archive of prayers, letters, poems, magical spells, alchemical recipes, children's exercise books, divorce deeds and pre-nuptial agreements that paints a lively and intimate picture of daily medieval life in Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean.Produced by Michele Banal and Miranda Hinkley.First broadcast in May 2013.

The Cairo Genizah is a treasure trove of manuscripts from the Ben Ezra synagogue in Old Cairo that portrays over 800 years of community life. Rediscovered in the 19th century, this vast communal paper-bin contained hundreds upon thousands of scraps of rag-paper and parchment. It's an unedited archive of prayers, letters, poems, magical spells, alchemical recipes, children's exercise books, divorce deeds and pre-nuptial agreements that paints a lively and intimate picture of daily medieval life in Egypt and the Eastern Mediterranean.In this first essay, Dr Esther-Miriam Wagner of the Genizah Research Unit tells the story of the discovery of the Genizah inside the ancient and crumbling synagogue of Al-Fustat, a suburb of modern day Cairo. Featuring a legendary curse, a pair of intrepid Scottish twins, an eccentric scholar and one very generous rabbi.Produced by Michele Banal and Miranda Hinkley. A Nightjar production.First broadcast in May 2013.

Five Essays about the 19th-century German composer Johannes Brahms. Part 5 of 5.Recorded in front of an audience at St. Georges, Bristol, as part of BBC Radio 3's Brahms Experience - a week-long exploration of Brahms' life and music.Brahms lived in a time of tremendous change. The idea of the 'future' was never far from peoples' minds: new technology was emerging, the political map of Europe redrawn, and long-cherished ideas of art and culture overturned.But how did Brahms, a composer who mined the music of the past for inspiration, fit in with a world where progress was king?Pianist and writer Natasha Loges looks at Brahms' views on the future: recording technology, piano design - and his own place in the future of music.Producer: Melvin Rickarby.

Five Essays about the 19th-century German composer Johannes Brahms. Part 4 of 5.Recorded in front of an audience at St. Georges, Bristol, as part of BBC Radio 3's Brahms Experience - a week-long exploration of Brahms' life and music.Brahms and and Freud co-existed in Vienna, as psychoanalysis was being born. But they belong to two vastly different epochs: what can we learn by setting them side by side?Often at a loss for words, frequently gruff and spiky, Brahms was a man with complex personal traits. Devastated by his parents' disintegrating marriage, he found relationships exceptionally difficult.A question Freud once asked of us all might help us understand the hidden personality of Johannes Brahms: what is the sublimation of sexual desire, and how much unfulfilled libido can we bear?Writer Lesley Chamberlain takes us back to the Vienna of the 1890s, where Brahms was composing his late masterpieces and Freud was carrying out his groundbreaking early work.Producer: Melvin Rickarby.

Five Essays about the 19th-century German composer Johannes Brahms. Part 3 of 5.Recorded in front of an audience at St. Georges, Bristol, as part of BBC Radio 3's Brahms Experience - a week-long exploration of Brahms' life and music.Brahms lived in a time of great political change. In his late thirties he saw the birth of a unified German nation under the 'Iron Chancellor' Otto von Bismarck. The question of what this Germany was to be became one of the great issues of the day.Writer and pianist Natasha Loges explores the nationalist elements of Brahms' music. She examines his famous feud with the more openly patriotic Richard Wagner, and the ways in which Brahms' 'German' image was manipulated in the next century by the Nazis.Producer: Melvin Rickarby.

Five Essays about the 19th-century German composer Johannes Brahms. Part 2 of 5.Recorded in front of an audience at St. Georges, Bristol, as part of BBC Radio 3's Brahms Experience - a week-long exploration of Brahms' life and music.Interaction with nature is one of the cornerstones of 19th-century Romantic music. Writer Lesley Chamberlain offers a chance to join Brahms for a creative ramble and sets his work in the climate of German ideas about nature.In the German Romantic tradition Nature is Art's rival and the artist's consolation. Brahms' love of nature, which came to him in hours of shared and solitary walking, intensified the demands he made on himself as a composer.Producer: Melvin Rickarby.

Five Essays about the 19th-century German composer Johannes Brahms. Part 1 of 5.Recorded in front of an audience at St. Georges, Bristol, as part of BBC Radio 3's Brahms Experience - a week-long exploration of Brahms' life and music.To this day Brahms has a reputation as a rather terse, fearsome personality who wrote dark, serious music. But his tender, intimate chamber music gives a clue to how he behaved behind closed doors and among friends. Pianist and writer Natasha Loges looks at what lies behind Brahms' famously gruff public persona, and discovers his tender, private side. She offers an invitation into Brahms' inner circle: music making at home, coffee and conversation with friends, the food he enjoyed, and the women he flirted with.Producer: Melvin Rickarby.

Stephen Johnson considers how five seminal pieces of music would have been appreciated by the audiences who heard them first. He probes the societies and cultures that shaped the experience of those original listeners to reveal what our modern ears might be missing.It's easy for us to recognise, in Stravinsky's first ballet score, portents of the musical revolution that would soon follow. This is music that teeters on the brink of a breakdown in traditional tonality, and points forward to the complex, fractured world of twentieth century art. Did that first Parisian audience of 1910 glimpse such things in The Firebird? Or were they simply seduced by its colourful oriental influences, which were the height of fashion in Europe at the time. People were fascinated by the outlandish, the gothic, the occult; and they gorged themselves on Firebird's exotic pleasures.

Stephen Johnson considers how five seminal pieces of music would have been appreciated by the audiences who heard them first. He probes the societies and cultures that shaped the experience of those original listeners to reveal what our modern ears might be missing.Since its revival in the 19th century, Bach's St. Matthew Passion has been hailed as one of the pillars of Western music; universally regarded, and with a powerful influence that reaches into our own time. How differently, then, would his music have fired imaginations in the provincial church-goers of 18th century Leipzig? People whose experience of music was so much more limited than our own, and whose pietist religious sensibilities coloured every aspect of their daily lives.

Stephen Johnson considers how five seminal pieces of music would have been appreciated by the audiences who heard them first. He probes the societies and cultures that shaped the experience of those original listeners to reveal what our modern ears might be missing.The delightful charm of Schumann's Scenes from Childhood masks a surprising sophistication which marks them among his most popular pieces. Today, we might prefer to look past his music's sentimentality to plumb its hidden subtleties; Schumann's audience would have revelled in it. In his world, domesticity and gentility were something to be cherished and celebrated. Individual expression, too, was a new credo for all kinds of artistic endeavours; perhaps the listener for whom this music held the deepest meaning was the composer himself.

Stephen Johnson considers how five seminal pieces of music would have been appreciated by the audiences who heard them first. He probes the societies and cultures that shaped the experience of those original listeners to reveal what our modern ears might be missing.The Lamentations by Victoria offer modern listeners a window into a Golden Age of sacred harmony, a period when the ethereal harmonies of Renaissance masters seemed to mirror the ageless music of the spheres. Might Victoria's own congregation have detected more human qualities in his music? He lived and worked in Rome, a city rife with evangelical zeal and foul corruption. As a naïve young priest, he was plunged into this swarming, cultural melting-pot with, at its heart, a church that burned with the muscular, newly re-energised faith of the Catholic Counter-Reformation.

Stephen Johnson considers how five seminal pieces of music would have been appreciated by the audiences who heard them first. He probes the societies and cultures that shaped the experience of those original listeners to reveal what our modern ears might be missing.Haydn's famous Symphony No.100, his "Military Symphony", stands as model of classical elegance. Its famous bugle and percussion effects feel, by modern standards, sophisticated and refined. However, in 1794, war with France was a frightening reality; his first London audiences would have included a good few aristocratic refugees from revolutionary Paris. One contemporary critic remarked: "It is the advancing to battle; and the march of men, the sounding of the charge, the thundering of the onset, the clash of arms, the groans of the wounded, and what may well be called the hellish roar of war increase to a climax of hellish sublimity.".

Five essays about one of the twentieth century's most fascinating playwrights, Samuel Beckett, recorded in front of an audience at the 2014 Happy Days International Beckett Festival in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland. Authors include actor Lisa Dwan, now regularly performing his work; Mark Nixon, head of the Beckett International Foundation and journalist and commentator Fintan O'Toole.In this edition, photographer John Minihan, who took some of the best-known black and white portraits of Samuel Beckett, remembers spending time with a playwright who was often a reluctant subject.Producers: Conor Garrett & Stan Ferguson.

Five essays about one of the twentieth century's most fascinating playwrights, Samuel Beckett, recorded in front of an audience at the 2014 Happy Days International Beckett Festival in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland. The authors include John Minihan, the photographer who captured some of the best known images of Beckett, actor Lisa Dwan, now regularly performing his work, and journalist and commentator Fintan O'Toole.In this edition, opera director Netia Jones explores the relationship between words and music in Samuel Beckett's work.Producers: Conor Garrett & Stan Ferguson.

Five essays about one of the twentieth century's most fascinating playwrights, Samuel Beckett, recorded in front of an audience at the 2014 Happy Days International Beckett Festival in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland. The authors include John Minihan, the photographer who captured some of the best known images of Beckett, actor Lisa Dwan, now regularly performing his work, and journalist and commentator Fintan O'Toole.In this edition, Beckett expert Dr Mark Nixon talks about editing Echo's Bones, the Beckett short story recently published some 80 years after it was written.Producers: Conor Garrett & Stan Ferguson.

Five essays about one of the twentieth century's most fascinating playwrights, Samuel Beckett, recorded in front of an audience at the 2014 Happy Days International Beckett Festival in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland. The authors include John Minihan, the photographer who captured some of the best known images of Beckett, actor Lisa Dwan, now regularly performing his work, and Mark Nixon, head of the Beckett International Foundation.In this edition, journalist and commentator, Fintan O'Toole, reflects on themes of mortality and death in Beckett's work.Producers: Conor Garrett & Stan Ferguson.

Five essays about one of the twentieth century's most fascinating playwrights, Samuel Beckett, recorded in front of an audience at the 2014 Happy Days International Beckett Festival in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland. The authors include John Minihan, the photographer who captured some of the best known images of Beckett, the writer Fintan O'Toole and Mark Nixon, head of the Beckett International Foundation.In this edition, Irish actor Lisa Dwan describes the demands of performing Beckett and her encounters with some of the actors most closely associated with his work, including Billie Whitelaw.Producers - Conor Garrett & Stan Ferguson.

"Slate is our stone, from the quarries of Snowdonia", writes the Welsh poet Gillian Clarke in her Cornerstones essay, "just as the coal in the grate is ours, from the south Wales coalfield. We tread on slate every day." For her slate was inescapabable, ubiquitous: "In city, town, village and upland farm, we sleep under Welsh slate. Rain sings on it. It roofed every house I have ever lived in."Gillian's is the fourth and last of these essays in which writers and artists reflect on the way their bedrock geology - their cornerstones - have shaped their favourite landscapes. "To this day" she says, "the sight of slate-tips in rain never fails to fill me with awe, such an unbearable weight of angles and shards, of greys, purples, silvers, broken pieces of sky, so many deaths, so much lost life. So much geological and human history."In the other essays, Sue Clifford, co-founder of Common Ground reflects on her favourite limestone landscapes, the walker and geologist Ronald Turnbull addresses sandstone, and the sculptor Peter Randall-Page tells us what it's like working with something as unforgiving as Dartmoor's obdurate granite boulders.Producer: Mark Smalley.

For 25 years the sculptor Peter Randall-Page has worked Dartmoor's obdurate and unforgiving granite boulders. He reflects on what it's like trying to wrestle with it: "granite is stuff personified, quintessentially dumb matter, it is what the earth is made of, congealed magma, planetary and galactic, inert and unintelligible." Peter's is the third of four essays in which writers and artists reflect on the way their bedrock geology - their cornerstones - have shaped their favourite landscapes. Peter Randall-Page realises that he's worked his way back through geological time to work with granite: "beginning with the relatively young sedimentary limestone of Bath, through the metamorphic marble of Carrara to the most ancient material of granite."In the other essays, Sue Clifford, co-founder of Common Ground reflects on her favourite limestone landscapes, the walker and geologist Ronald Turnbull addresses sandstone and the Welsh poet Gillian Clarke addresses the human dimension of mining Snowdonia's slate.Producer: Mark Smalley.

The walker, writer and geologist Ronald Turnbull reflects on how some of his favourite landscapes across the UK are softly shaped by sandstone. The ease of carving it, he says, accounts for its attractions to mankind across time. This is the second of four essays in which writers reflect on the way their bedrock geology has shaped their favourite landscapes. The sandstone that characterises his home in Dumfries, Ronald Turnbull says, is similar to the sandstone of North America, Siberia and elsewhere, because it was all created as part of the same hot, desert landmass millions of years ago. In the other essays, Sue Clifford, co-founder of Common Ground reflects on limestone landscapes, the sculptor Peter Randall-Page describes what it's like working with Dartmoor's obdurate granite boulders, and the Welsh poet Gillian Clarke evokes the human stories shaped by Snowdonia's slate.Producer: Mark Smalley.

Sue Clifford, co-founder of the arts and environment organisation Common Ground, reflects on what England's limestone landscapes mean to her, the way water has carved out vast underground cave systems.This is the first of four essays in which writers reflect on the way their bedrock geology has shaped their favourite landscapes. Limestone, as Sue Clifford says, is not only the stone of choice for many of Britain's architectural landmarks, but in the wild it also supports a wealth of flowers, creating its own micro-climates in the klints and grykes that characterise karst scenery. Limestone, she acknowledges, rejoices in its own specific vocabulary.In the other essays, the walker and geologist Ronald Turnbull addresses sandstone, the sculptor Peter Randall-Page describes what it's like working with Dartmoor's obdurate granite boulders, and the Welsh poet Gillian Clarke writes about Snowdonia's slate.Producer: Mark Smalley.

Continuing the Sound of Cinema season, the Rev Richard Coles ponders heaven and hell in the classic 1946 Powell and Pressburger film A Matter of Life and Death, starring David Niven.Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, together known as The Archers, were one of the most influential and audacious film-makers of the 1930s and 40s. Their groundbreaking works include: 'The Red Shoes', 'The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp', 'A Matter of Life and Death' and 'Black Narcissus'.The Rev Richard Coles is a cleric and broadcaster. Producer: Justine Willett.

Continuing the Sound of Cinema season, ballerina, writer and broadcaster Deborah Bull gives a dancer's take on Powell and Pressburger's best-known film, the 1948 classic 'The Red Shoes', starring Moira Shearer, and based on the classic Hans Christian Andersen fairytale.Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, together known as The Archers, were one of the most influential and audacious film-makers of the 1930s and 40s. Their groundbreaking works include: 'The Red Shoes', 'The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp', 'A Matter of Life and Death' and 'Black Narcissus'.Writen and read by Deborah Bull. Bull joined The Royal Ballet in 1981 and became a Principal Ballerina in 1992. After her 20-year career in ballet, she went on to become Creative Director of the Royal Opera House, as well as an author and broadcaster. She is currently Director of Cultural Partnerships at King's College, London. Producer: Justine Willett.

Taking Robert Graves' phrase Goodbye to All That as their starting point, five writers from countries involved in the First World War reflect on a turning point moment in their own histories and interpret the phrase with the ambiguity that Graves intended.These five essays that have been curated by writer Lavinia Greenlaw to mark the centenary of the outbreak of World War One, as part of 14-18 Now, a major cultural programme across the United Kingdom.Tonight, Jeanette Winterson examines her own sense that recent years have seen a turning point in British attitudes to the importance of the arts.Written and read by Jeanette Winterson Produced by Emma Harding.

Taking Robert Graves' phrase Goodbye to All That as their starting point, five writers from countries involved in the First World War reflect on a turning point moment in their own histories and interpret the phrase with the ambiguity that Graves intended.These five essays that have been curated by writer Lavinia Greenlaw to mark the centenary of the outbreak of World War One, as part of 14-18 Now, a major cultural programme across the United Kingdom.Tonight, Chinese-born author, Xiaolu Guo, contemplates the role of Chinese 'coolies' on the battlefields of the First World War. Written and read by Xiaolu Guo Produced by Emma Harding.

Taking Robert Graves' phrase Goodbye to All That as their starting point, five writers from countries involved in the First World War reflect on a turning point moment in their own histories and interpret the phrase with the ambiguity that Graves intended.These five essays that have been curated by writer Lavinia Greenlaw to mark the centenary of the outbreak of World War One, as part of 14-18 Now, a major cultural programme across the United Kingdom.Episode Three: A Visit to the MagicianTonight, German writer Daniel Kehlmann reflects on recent German history through the prism of a hypnotism show taking place in a central Berlin theatre. Written and read by Daniel Kehlmann Translated by Carol Janeway Produced by Emma Harding.