June 22: Bannockburn Begins
Novelist Louise Welsh explores some of the meanings, ancient and modern, of the battle of Bannockburn on its 700th anniversary
Jun 26, 2014•44 min
The Radio 3 Documentary
In-depth documentaries which explore a different aspect of history, science, philosophy, film, visual arts and literature. The Sunday Feature is broadcast every Sunday at 6.45pm on BBC Radio 3.
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Episodes
Sunday Feature: Dennis Potter
The playwright Dennis Potter died twenty years ago. Matthew Sweet reassesses the legacy of the author of 'The Singing Detective' and 'Pennies from Heaven' and hears from his friends and colleagues, including Michael Grade, Alan Yentob, Melvyn Bragg, Janet Suzman, Kika Markham, Kenith Trodd, Jon Amiel and Tony Garnett.
Jun 15, 2014•45 min
Sonic Art Boom
Dan Jones, composer and sound designer, considers why it has taken so long for Sound Art to get a hearing, he goes hunting for sound at CERN with Bill Fontana, Janet Cardiff talks about her 40 part Motet, Barbara London, MOMA curator, tells of the difficulties of displaying sound, Stan Shaff shows us round the first sound theatre, and David Toop and Richard Cork help untangle the history of sound art - plus an unexpected appearance on the streets of London by Joseph Young expounding the Art of N...
Jun 08, 2014•44 min
Sunday Feature: Dylan Thomas the Radio Poet
Writer Rachel Trezise - the first winner of the annual Dylan Thomas Prize - tells the story of Dylan Thomas's broadcasting life. Dylan Thomas often remarked that his poetry was written as much for the voice as for the page. So it's perhaps not surprising that the writer and poet became a remarkable broadcaster as well. From the late 1930s until his death in 1953, Dylan Thomas was a regular broadcaster for the BBC - for the Home Service, the Overseas Service and, from 1946, for the newly founded ...
May 04, 2014•44 min
Sunday Feature: Educating Isaac
Could your child compose like Mozart? While searching for a creative and fun way to teach his 3-year-old son, Nick Baragwanath discovered a forgotten history of music completely different from the usual dull routine of practice and graded exams. In the 18th century, the conservatoires (orphanages) of Naples developed an education system that enabled destitute children to become professional-level composers and performers by their early teens. Almost every famous musician of the time was trained ...
Apr 28, 2014•43 min
Sunday Feature:Merchant Ivory
Style, flair, individuality, ideas... and stars. The filmic output of the remarkable three-person association of creative talents that is collectively known as 'Merchant Ivory' has endured since the early 1960s.
Apr 06, 2014•44 min
Sunday Feature: Music and the Jews (3/3)
Norman Lebrecht presents the last of three programmes examining the complex relationship between music and Jewish identity. Spanning thousands of years, from King David and the creation of the Psalms, to composers writing today including Steve Reich and Robert Saxton, Norman uncovers a wealth of fascinating stories about the role music has played at some of the key points in Jewish history. Taking as his starting point the moment at which the Jews were finally able to enter the Western classical...
Mar 23, 2014•45 min
Music and the Jews (2/3)
Norman Lebrecht presents the second of three programmes examining the complex relationship between music and Jewish identity. Women, in the Jewish religion, are not meant to sing, and yet Jewish women have shrugged off that inhibition to become some of the most powerful figures in the popular imagination. We hear from some of the most successful women singing in Israel and indeed on the world stage today, including the eighth-generation Yiddish singer Myriam Fuks and Achinoam Nini, the latest in...
Mar 20, 2014•45 min
Music and the Jews (1/3)
Norman Lebrecht presents the first programme in a three-part series examining the complex relationship between music and Jewish identity. Spanning thousands of years, from King David and the creation of the Psalms, to composers writing today including Steve Reich and Robert Saxton, Norman uncovers a wealth of fascinating stories about the role music has played at some of the key points in Jewish history. Today, the acclaimed Ladino singer Yasmin Levy explains why music and memory became so inter...
Mar 19, 2014•44 min
Shanghai World City Redux
Rana Mitter reveals how Shanghai today is forging its identity as an ultramodern city – by rediscovering its glamorous 1920s past, when 'Shanghai' meant movies, neon and jazz.
Jan 26, 2014•47 min
Somme
Paul Farley journeys down France's sleepiest river whose character belies its violent history, a history intertwined with the English since medieval times.
Jan 05, 2014•44 min
Anything But Banal - the Fascination of the Villain
Paul Allen explores the allure of evil through great villains, from Hollywood baddies to Shakespearean antiheroes and real people, with great British actors, directors and writers.
Jan 03, 2014•44 min
15th December: Ideas of Germany
Anne McElvoy finds out how those active in Germany's cultural world see the identity of Europe's largest and most powerful nation evolving.
Dec 15, 2013•44 min
The Invisible Theatre
Tom Service and others explore the history of the festival theatre in Bayreuth that Wagner built for the staging of his music dramas.
Dec 08, 2013•46 min
Sunday Feature: 1 December 2013 - Ken Adam Profile
Matthew Sweet meets Ken Adam, the 92-year-old designer of iconic sets from Dr No and Goldfinger to Doctor Strangelove and the Ipcress File.
Dec 03, 2013•46 min
Albert Camus: Inside the Outsider
Professor Hussey celebrates the life, work and tragic death of literature's enigmatic Outsider Albert Camus, one hundred years on from his birth, and asks if the fatal car crash may have been a KGB inspired execution.
Nov 03, 2013•44 min
Sunday Feature - Production Line Living
How has the factory production line changed us? AL Kennedy finds out.
Oct 27, 2013•46 min
Sound of Cinema: Composing for Hollywood
Once upon a time Hollywood composers were classically schooled European maestros. Today many of the most successful ones are drawn from the world of pop and rock. In this documentary journalist Jonathan Coffey is in Los Angeles to meet some of the biggest names in the industry to assess the business of writing for the movies.
Sep 23, 2013•44 min
Significant Others ep 2
The thousand-year-old story of the Jewish presence in Poland was all but ended by the Nazis. But now a new Poland is experiencing an unexpected return of history and memory. Presented by author Eva Hoffman
Jul 15, 2013•44 min
Significant Others 1
The story of the Jewish presence in Poland
Jul 09, 2013•44 min
Sunday Feature - Stirring Up A Revolution
Author and journalist Tarek Osman returns to the Middle East to explore how the apparently unassuming establishment of the Café has served as a vibrant hub of change in the political tsunamis that have swept - and are still sweeping - through the region.
Jun 09, 2013•43 min
Sunday Feature - Wagner: Making a National Hero
As part of Wagner 200, Stephen Johnson explores the worlds of Wagner's heroes, from Norse myths to his own Tannhauser, Siegfried and Parsifal. He charts how Wagner himself became a national hero.
May 19, 2013•45 min
Jan Morris, Travels Round My House
Writer Anthony Sattin visits Jan Morris's Welsh home on the 60th anniversary of the ascent of Everest to talk about her role in the story and other tales to be gleaned about her life from the objects in her home (including a gravestone and a posthumous book awaiting publication!). Producer: Sara Jane Hall.
May 13, 2013•45 min
Sunday Feature - Piano's Music Boxes
Renzo Piano is the architect behind the tallest building in Western Europe, The Shard at London Bridge. He grew up wanting to be a musician, and Tom Service discovers how he sees the basic elements of music as fundamental to his way of thinking about his buildings. His landmark buildings include cultural centres and concert halls around the world. Tom visits IRCAM in Paris, and the Parco della musica in Rome, meeting Piano's fellow architects, the acousticians, and the musicians who use the buil...
May 07, 2013•46 min
Sunday Feature - The Idea of Sin (3 of 3)
The Reverend Richard Coles visits Lincoln Cathedral, the focus of Medieval pilgrimage, to begin the last of his series exploring contemporary and historical ideas about sin. Having looked at the central place Temptation still has for many in both religious and secular societies the attention now swings to methods of redemption, purification and the goodness that is defined only by its counter to the idea of sin.
Mar 11, 2013•44 min
Sunday Feature - The Idea of Sin (1 of 3)
In this first of three programmes, Richard explores what exactly is meant by sin, and its origins in man's earliest ethical structures.
Mar 11, 2013•44 min
Sunday Feature - The Idea of Sin (2 of 3)
The Reverand Richard Coles explores notions of temptation and its part in contemporary and ancient societies.
Mar 07, 2013•44 min
Margaret are you Grieving? A Cultural History of Weeping
Throughout our cultural history, tears have been intimately connected with the arts, whether as inspiration or response. Thomas Dixon is director of the UK's first Centre for the History of the Emotions at Queen Mary University London. In this programme he explores the history of weeping as an aesthetic response to works of art: paintings, writing, music, theatre and film. What it is about works of art and religious symbols that induce weeping and why do we shed tears over performances by actors...
Feb 04, 2013•44 min
Modernism Redux
Will Self broadcasts an imaginary archive of modernist radio and discusses the influence of modernism today. In a secret laboratory underneath the BBC archive there is a small room containing a special machine. It's a BBC prototype 'RP-1 Ethermatic remitter'. An experimental machine designed to retrieve ('remit') past radio signals back out of the air. Although partially successful during field trials in 1922 it was never made fully operational...until now. Will Self has been given access to the...
Feb 04, 2013•43 min
A Brief History of Being Cold
Sunday Feature: Alexandra Harris presents a cultural history of the cold. With the help of writers including Simon Armitage, A.S. Byatt, Katherine Swift and Adam Gopnik Alex looks at the way our literature began with work mesmerised by the beauty and horror of cold. In Yorkshire Simon Armitage discusses Sir Gawain and the Green Knight imagining the Pennines crossed by Gawain, hung with icicles on his hunt for the Green Knight. And Katherine Swift takes us on a winter tour of her garden in Shrops...
Jan 29, 2013•44 min
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