What is going on in the mind of Vladimir Putin? A new Radio 4 series has been trying to answer that question. Roger Bolton asks the Presenter of ‘Putin’, Jonny Dymond, if he thinks he knows, and puts listener reaction to him Neil MacGregor discusses his latest Radio 4 series The Museums that Make us. What does he think museums are for? And two non-radio listeners are exposed to a French and Saunders radio comedy. Did they enjoy the experience? Presenter: Roger Bolton Producer: Kate Dixon Executi...
Apr 29, 2022•28 min
After almost 40,000 questions over 75 years, is Gardeners’ Question Time in danger of running out of new questions? The programme's presenter Kathy Clugston gives an answer to that, and a range of other listener comments. And what do Radio 4 listeners make of the station’s science programmes? Presenter: Roger Bolton Producer: Kate Dixon Executive Producer: Samir Shah A Juniper Connect production for BBC Radio 4
Apr 22, 2022•28 min
What can the BBC’s latest news podcast Ukrainecast offer listeners which its news programmes cannot? Roger Bolton puts that question to the podcast’s Producer Jonathan Aspinwall, and also asks him if his podcast is one-sided. The Producer of Radio 4’s Lent Talks Dan Tierney explains why we need to talk about dying and, 40 years after the Falkland’s War, what do the Out of Your Comfort Zone listeners already know about a war they can’t remember? Presenter: Roger Bolton Producer: Kate Dixon Execut...
Apr 15, 2022•28 min
Radio 4’s Tom Sutcliffe responds to listener criticism of Front Row's discussion on the views of JK Rowling. The presenter of Money Box, Paul Lewis, talks about the appalling financial frauds his programme has been investigating. And is the musician Gary Barlow a good interviewer? Two listeners give their verdict. Presenter: Roger Bolton Producer: Kate Dixon Executive Producer: Samir Shah A Juniper Connect production for BBC Radio 4
Apr 01, 2022•28 min
As the airwaves and social media are flooded with disinformation, how can listeners find out what is really happening in Ukraine, and see through the conspiracy of lies pouring out of Russia? Roger Bolton talks to the BBC World Service’s Disinformation Editor Rebecca Skippage, about the darkening fog of war. Also, John Wilson talks about Radio 4’s This Cultural Life, and how he tries to get to the heart of the creative process. And has the new Radio 4 adaptation of the award-winning TV serial Ou...
Mar 25, 2022•28 min
Are there some subjects radio comedy programmes should steer clear of? For example, the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The BBC executive in charge of both The News Quiz and The Now Show Julia McKenzie explains why those topical comedies sought to use humour as the prism for this dreadful tragedy. Roger Bolton also examines the commercial logic behind the BBC’s decision to restrict access to its podcasts. And the Out Of Your Comfort Zone listeners discuss the merits of a Radio 4 docudrama. Presente...
Mar 18, 2022•28 min
Adam Fleming is the main presenter of the BBC’s most popular podcast Newscast. He explains to Roger Bolton what he thinks makes it work. The Archers is the most popular programme on BBC Sounds, and Annabelle Dowler who plays one of its most loved characters, Kirsty, talks about the challenges her character has faced in the last few years. And, have any of the Out of Your Comfort Zone contributors actually changed their listening habits since last appearing on Feedback? Presenter: Roger Bolton Pr...
Dec 26, 2021•28 min
One of Radio 4’s Factual Commissioning Editors Dan Clarke explains his decision to axe the Film Programme and discusses its replacement Screenshot. He also talks about the new music series Add to Playlist, and why it is broadcast on Radio 4 when so many other BBC networks are devoted to music. And two listeners give their views on another of his commissions Jon Ronson’s Things Fell Apart. Presenter: Roger Bolton Producer: Kate Dixon Executive Producer: Samir Shah A Juniper Connect production for...
Dec 17, 2021•28 min
The audience for the BBC World Service is booming but misinformation and conspiracy theories are flourishing as well. Roger Bolton talks to the outgoing Controller of BBC World Service English, Mary Hockaday, about those concerns and the increasing threats to the lives of journalists. And Jane Garvey explains how she extracts such frank and intimate revelations in her Life Changing series, which includes a former nun describing how she learned about sex at 60. The Out of Your Comfort Zone listen...
Dec 10, 2021•28 min
Is BBC Radio 2 so concerned about recruiting younger listeners that it is neglecting its loyal, older audience? In Feedback this week, Roger Bolton puts this and other concerns from listeners to the Head of Station, Helen Thomas, and asks whether Radio 2’s remit has changed. And Martha Kearney, Presenter of Radio 4’s Today programme, gives the behind-the-scenes story on being interrupted live on air by a fire alarm and obliged to flee the studio. Presenter: Roger Bolton Producer: Kate Dixon Exec...
Dec 03, 2021•28 min
Why did World at One decide to carry a long interview with one of the brothers of Ghislaine Maxwell? WATO’s Editor Natasha Shallice responds to listeners’ criticisms in an interview with Roger Bolton. Also did Radio 4’s You and Yours do enough to fact check the claims made when it put antivaxxers on the air? And two listeners give their verdict on a podcast about the rise, fall and trial of the Fake Heiress Anna Delvey. Presenter: Roger Bolton Producer: Kate Dixon Executive Producer: Samir Shah ...
Nov 26, 2021•28 min
In a programme broadcast during COP 26, Radio 4’s The Food Programme looked at “how meat and dairy can play a positive role for the future of people and the planet”. Did it analyse the argument or promote it, and did presenter Dan Saladino need to record from inside an abattoir in such graphic detail? He answers these questions and others from listeners. One of the BBC’s key podcast commissioners talks about whether she thinks there is a future for broadcast radio. And two listeners have a spark...
Nov 19, 2021•28 min
Is the climate crisis so serious that the BBC should start campaigning about it? As COP26 comes to a conclusion, that’s one of the questions from listeners put to the BBC’s outgoing Science Editor David Shukman. And Feedback tries to seduce two listeners with some unusual classical music on a Radio 3 programme, did it work? Presenter: Roger Bolton Producer: Kate Dixon Executive Producer: Samir Shah A Juniper Connect production for BBC Radio 4
Nov 12, 2021•28 min
Is the BBC’s journalism impartial? The Government doesn’t think so, which is tricky for the Corporation as it negotiates the next licence fee settlement. The BBC has now produced a ten-point plan to improve matters, Roger Bolton examines it with a member of the BBC Executive Committee, Rhodri Talfan Davies, who is also the BBC’s Director of Nations. Roger also hears from the BBC broadcaster Stephen Nolan on why he is investigating his own employer, and why he is frustrated with the Corporation’s...
Nov 05, 2021•28 min
Is the country over the worst of the latest surge in Covid cases, and is there an end in sight to the pandemic? If anyone at the BBC knows the answer to these questions it is surely Health Editor Hugh Pym. Roger Bolton asks him for reassurance - will he get it? Radio 6 Music’s ratings are going up, so why is the station changing its presenter line-up? And can a cricket and crime podcast attract two radio listeners, one of whom doesn’t listen to any BBC radio? Presenter: Roger Bolton Producer: Ka...
Oct 29, 2021•28 min
After ten years of programmes is there still life in The Life Scientific? Presenter Jim Al-Khalili joins Roger Bolton to discuss the programme and science coverage in general on BBC radio. Feedback has been copied-in to an email from the BBC’s Director General responding to a listener critical of Today’s Nick Robinson. Discover what Tim Davie had to say about the interview in which presenter Nick Robinson told the Prime Minister to ‘stop talking’. Presenter: Roger Bolton Producer: Kate Dixon Exe...
Oct 22, 2021•28 min
'Stop talking!'; that is what Nick Robinson, as presenter of Radio 4’s Today programme, told the prime minister on air last week. Was this a necessary tactic or a piece of typically pompous presenter rudeness? In the first Feedback of the new series, listeners give their reactions, and Matthew Parris discusses whether the political interview is now dead in the water. And the commissioner of comedy for Radio 4 defends Richard Osman’s the Birthday Cake Game, after complaints from listeners. Roger ...
Oct 15, 2021•28 min
Do people exist as more than through their memory? If you lose it, do you cease to exist? That is the question Sir Jonathan Miller wanted to explore shortly before his death. This week, his son William talks to Roger Bolton about the Archive on 4 programme he made about his polymath father - Jonathan Miller: Lost Memories - and why he wanted to carry on investigating memory after his father’s death. Rory Cellan-Jones is soon to leave his job as the BBC’s Technology Correspondent. He explains how...
Aug 27, 2021•28 min
It would appear that leaders of western governments have been caught napping by the speed of the Taliban takeover in Afghanistan, but was the BBC also taken by surprise? Jamie Angus, Senior Controller, BBC News Output and Commissioning, answers listeners’ questions on the coverage of events. Also, Matthew Syed talks about his Radio 4 series Sideways, which eschews conventional thinking. And two listeners try out the dazzling - or is it daunting - world of podcasts. Presenter: Roger Bolton Produc...
Aug 20, 2021•29 min
The BBC’s departing New York correspondent, Nick Bryant, thinks America has stopped being great. Is this perhaps why he is going? Nick discusses audience comments on the BBC's reporting of Donald Trump, Joe Biden and America in general. Should Radio 4’s Front Row have devoted most of a programme to an interview with Sarah, Duchess of York? Some listeners thought the interview about her first adult novel, a Mills and Boon romance, should not have featured on the arts programme at all. And did Rad...
Aug 13, 2021•28 min
Are a third of us, from both sides of the political spectrum, attracted by authoritarianism? That's a claim made in Radio 4’s The Spark. Roger Bolton asks its presenter Helen Lewis about that claim, and about the sort of sparks she is seeking to create. The series producer of Radio 4's Sunday Worship, Philip Billson, discusses the decision to make an edition of the programme commemorating the anniversary of last year's catastrophic explosion in Beirut. And the Out of Your Comfort Zone listeners ...
Aug 06, 2021•28 min
How does the comedian Mark Steel get away with cheekily satirising towns and cities that he visits in his eponymous Radio 4 programme? Mark Steel’s in Town has been running for over a decade, but now he has broken new ground writing and appearing in a radio sitcom, Unite. Mark tells Roger Bolton he thinks all comedians are actors at heart, and questions whether there is such as think as left-wing comedy. And two listeners review Alun Cochrane: Centrist Dad? Part of a series of stand-up specials ...
Jul 30, 2021•27 min
The Proms are back but will there be a full audience in the Albert Hall to hear them, who will they be listening to, and will the flags be flying for the Last Night? Questions for the Proms Director, David Pickard. Also, Feedback has heard criticism from some listeners about the BBC’s coverage of the riots in South Africa, which many believe pose the greatest threat to the country since the end of apartheid. A leading academic gives his view. And two listeners discuss a Radio 2 documentary about...
Jul 23, 2021•28 min
Should BBC sports commentators remain impartial during football matches involving home nations? Some listeners think they are openly biased in favour of England, Roger Mosey, the former Director of BBC Sport, gives his views. Does Radio 4’s Rethink series needs to be rethought for not being radical enough? And 25 years after the Spice Girls crashed through some glass ceilings, did two radio listeners really, really want to listen to a Radio 2 documentary about them? Presenter: Roger Bolton Produ...
Jul 16, 2021•28 min
The Deputy Director of BBC News Jonathan Munro discusses impartiality, cronyism, and the tendency for guests to disappear at a vital moment in an interview. The writer Jan Etherington talks about her award winning Radio 4comedy series Conversations from a Long Marriage, starring Joanna Lumley and Roger Allam. And in the Out of Your Comfort Zone feature, two listeners examine a documentary which claims that emojis have changed the course of history. Presenter: Roger Bolton Producer: Kate Dixon Ex...
Jul 09, 2021•28 min
Listeners have been enjoying the conclusion of long-running Radio 4 fictional serial The Corrupted this week. The author GF Newman explains how he sees corruption everywhere in our most respected circles and how, as a child, his eyes were first opened to it. And what is more important to the new presenter of the News Quiz, who is also the Test Match Special statistician, Andy Zaltzman, comedy or cricket? Andy responds to listener comments and questions. In the Out of Your Comfort Zone feature, a...
May 21, 2021•28 min
With listeners concerned about cuts to BBC radio drama and asking if it's still a priority for Radio 4, a former head of BBC Radio Drama tells Roger Bolton she shares those concerns. And the Editor of The Reunion discusses the usually acclaimed programme and replies to criticism of an edition about Romanian orphanages, which one listener describes as, “flaunting of British superiority”. And can you make a successful radio programme about cartoon music when you can’t see the cartoons? Two listene...
May 14, 2021•28 min
The Editor of Woman’s Hour, Karen Dalziel, talks about how her new presenters are bedding into the long-running programme which celebrates its 75th birthday this year. She also discusses the decision to extend the programme to a whole hour at the expense of the daily 15 minute drama. One of the BBC’s journalists gives an insight into reporting from India as the pandemic overwhelms the country’s health services. And two listeners give their views on a BBC 6 Music talk show. Presenter: Roger Bolto...
May 07, 2021•28 min
BBC Radio 1 has launched a new streaming service called Relax, Roger Bolton hears the views of listeners and asks the Head of Radio 1, Aled Haydn Jones, whether it really is public service broadcasting, and how he can afford it. Aled also talks about presenter changes at Radio 1, and how they have been reaching out to young DJs around the country. And two listeners review a World Service programme about a sporting personality, before he made his name famous throughout the world. Presenter: Roger...
Apr 30, 2021•28 min
Roger Bolton hears more views from listeners about the BBC's coverage of the death of HRH the Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. Does Danny Robins, the writer and producer of the Radio 4 programme and podcast The Battersea Poltergeist, believe that ghosts exist? And did making his programme change his mind? And two drama students review Radio 4’s Front Row. Would they recommend it to their college colleagues? Presenter: Roger Bolton Producer: Kate Dixon Executive Producer: Samir Shah A Juniper Co...
Apr 23, 2021•28 min
