Tom Ravenscroft returns with a second series of Peel Acres. Each week, he welcomes a different music lover to the home of his late father, former BBC Radio DJ John Peel, and his legendary record collection. Tom's guests lend a hand (and two ears) in making sense of this vast music archive, which is comprised of more than 120,000 albums, 12 inches and seven inches, collected over a lifetime and meticulously catalogued. This episode sees Jarvis Cocker return to the house, which he first visited wi...
Jan 16, 2023•10 min
Jarvis goes into hospital for a routine procedure, and the anaesthetic gives him some very strange nocturnal visions. As Dr Ed Patrick administers the anaesthetic, Jarvis is transported far, far away. One moment he's on a Scottish lighthouse at midnight with artist and writer Peter Hill, who spent time as a lighthouse keeper in the 1970s. Then, in the blink of an eye, he's in a blizzard in the far north of Norway with Sunniva Sorby and Hilde Fålun Strøm, who became the first women in history to ...
Dec 13, 2021•28 min
In this edition of Wireless Nights, Jarvis Cocker discovers what happens here on earth on the night of the full moon. He'll be meeting the planet's inhabitants, both man and beast, as they divulge what light of the full moon does to them. Jarvis heads to the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London to search for the full moon. His guide and telescope operator is astronomer Dr Emily Drabek-Maunder. Jarvis also discovers what others are getting up to on this full moon night. On a beach in Merseyside...
Dec 10, 2021•28 min
Jarvis Cocker gets lost in the forest at night and encounters a series of rather intriguing characters. As darkness falls on the forest, Jarvis realises he's hopelessly lost. Disorientated and desperately trying to find his way out, his nocturnal woodland walk takes a series of increasingly dark turns. He stumbles upon members of Essex Ghost Hunters who are mounting some rather spooky paranormal investigations. Another presence in the woods tonight is storyteller Lisa Schneidau who recounts some...
Nov 29, 2021•28 min
Jarvis Cocker is back with a new series of Wireless Nights Tonight, armed with a bat detector Jarvis sets off through a wetland in search of bats and bat stories. He finds ecologist John Altringham crouched beside a cave in North Yorkshire awaiting a swarm of bats that come once a year to dance the night away. Jayne Hyde Dryden is using her powers of echo location to find her way around on a night walk. Being blind, this helps her see in sound. And Gail Armstrong is on watch at the Bat Hospital ...
Nov 26, 2021•28 min
From somewhere deep in lockdown, Jarvis trawls the Wireless Nights archive looking for relief from isolation. From the darkness of Lundy Island to a snowbound white out, from a man sending radio signals to the moon to a castaway in the North Sea, Jarvis tunes into stories of isolation and endurance with fellow travellers as they make it through the long night. Produced by Laurence Grissell and Neil McCarthy
May 25, 2020•28 min
Jarvis Cocker continues his nocturnal exploration of the human condition. He often lies awake at night trying, unsuccessfully, to nod off. But, not one to give up, his New Year's resolution is to crack this habit and attain the perfect night's sleep. His restless search leads him to fellow insomniac Marina Benjamin, sleep coach Max Kirsten, Greek goddesses and a cave where night meets day and peace may possibly reside. Producer Neil McCarthy
Jan 01, 2019•28 min
Jarvis Cocker hosts a special festive edition, telling stories of a shepherdess and a miracle birth, whilst a wise man looks out for bright lights in the Christmas skies. On a cold and frosty Christmas night, a baby is set to enter the world in the most inauspicious circumstances, a pair of shepherds keep watch over their flocks and a star gazer scans the heavens for unusual signs. Producer: Laurence Grissell
Dec 25, 2018•28 min
Jarvis Cocker’s series exploring the human condition after dark boards the Wireless Nights Express to hear tales of night people on sleeper - or sleepless - trains. He begins on the Caledonian Sleeper, leaving the noise and crowds of London Euston to make a night-time journey across the country to the Scottish Highlands. In the dining car and corridors he meets fellow passengers and stewards. And as he starts to drift off in his cabin, the train makes some unscheduled stops. Geoff MacCormack rec...
Dec 18, 2018•26 min
Jarvis Cocker's series exploring the human condition after dark returns with a night wander around Dungeness. Sometimes referred to as Britain's only desert, it's a shingle headland in Kent jutting into the English Channel. Sparsely populated, with wooden shack cottages and star filled night skies, a lighthouse sweeping its beam out to sea and a nuclear power station glowing with electric light like a city suspended in the darkness. But Jarvis isn't alone as he explores this untamed landscape, t...
Dec 11, 2018•28 min
Jarvis Cocker's nocturnal exploration of the human condition leads him to Berlin. Walking in the shadowlands of the Wall he reflects on a once divided city and hears stories of thenacht. Between East and West, he encounters a 1930s musical salon run by a cabaret diva; a ballroom dancing escapee from East Berlin; an underground den of iniquity and vice; and Iggy Pop, held prisoner. Amid the street-lit ruins of the Berlin Wall, he considers the scar left behind.
Apr 03, 2017•27 min
Jarvis Cocker navigates the ether as he continues his nocturnal exploration of the human condition. On a night voyage across a sea of shortwave he meets those who broadcast, monitor and harvest electronic radio transmissions after dark. Paddy McAloon, founder of the band Prefab Sprout, took to trawling the megahertz when he was recovering from eye surgery and the world around him became dark. Tuning in at night he developed a ghostly romance with far-off voices and abnormal sounds. Artist Katie ...
Mar 27, 2017•30 min
Jarvis Cocker rides in the driver's cab of a late night Tube train, hearing tales of nocturnal travellers across London. With Beyoncé-loving Night Tube driver Kylie at the controls, Jarvis is whisked along the Victoria line late into the night. En route he hears from a cast of characters embroiled in their own dramas as they make their way around the capital in the small hours - including a late night reveller who fell sleep on the train and got more than she'd bargained for. Producer: Laurence ...
Mar 20, 2017•29 min
Jarvis Cocker returns to Radio 4 with his nocturnal explorations of the human condition. In tonight's Wireless Night, Jarvis travels to a remote village in the Rif Mountains of Morocco to join the Master Musicians of Joujouka. Their ancient Sufi trance music is said to heal crazy minds. Jarvis wonders if his own troubled mind can find tranquillity there but encounters the wild living embodiment of the God Pan, half man and half goat, who has other ideas. The Master Musicians of Joujouka were fir...
Mar 13, 2017•30 min
Jarvis Cocker is snowed in for tonight's nocturnal exploration of the human condition. With the snow piling high outside his farmhouse and long hours to kill, Jarvis's mind drifts to other snowbound dramas and dilemmas as he tries to distract himself from a creeping solitude. But as night draws on, can he be sure he's really alone? Producer Neil McCarthy.
Jan 15, 2016•29 min
Jarvis Cocker invites you to a night out in Soho on his nocturnal exploration of the human condition. Below street level he finds drama and delirium as clubbers play out their lives after dark. From a dimly lit ska joint to an after hours speakeasy, Jarvis is night guide to the smoke and mirrors of underground Soho - brushing shoulders with a club angel, a psychic mod and a singing waitress in among the shadows. (Free dance lesson included) Producer Neil McCarthy.
Dec 15, 2015•28 min
Jarvis Cocker continues his nocturnal exploration of the human condition. Tonight: an unlucky trucker, a hopeful hitch-hiker and a host of Scottish ghostbusters. As Jarvis climbs up into the Wireless Nights monster truck, he hears from a long distance lorry driver who received a nasty surprise, a hitcher trying to make it to Liverpool and he travels along the most haunted stretch of road in Scotland. Producer: Laurence Grissell.
Nov 30, 2015•28 min
Jarvis Cocker's nocturnal exploration of the human condition takes him beneath the waves in this special edition of Wireless Nights. Accompanied by the BBC Philharmonic at this year's Proms, as Jarvis drifts off to sleep he soon finds himself on an underwater voyage down to the endless night of the ocean bed. En route, he meets psychoanalyst Carl Jung, two submariners called Roger trapped in a tiny submersible and a free-diver experiencing "the rapture of the deep". The BBC Philharmonic creates ...
Nov 24, 2015•28 min
In the second part of his nocturnal Icelandic adventure, Jarvis goes on a journey through the long, light summer night. He meets Megas, the island's best known poet and rock and roll legend, who warns of wandering demons as he embarks on an overnight road trip. Along the way he stops to hear ghost stories in Reykjavik's oldest cemetery, meets an elf seer in a lava field and is led to a sacred waterfall, behind which he makes a wish. But will he make it back before the hour of the wolf? Producer ...
Nov 03, 2014•28 min
Jarvis Cocker wanders the lava fields of Iceland in search of the unseen forces of night. In the midnight shadow of Snaefellsjokull, the volcano featured in Jules Verne's Journey to the Centre of the Earth, Jarvis considers the timelessness of the landscape, until he discovers sheep time. His sheep guides only lead him further into the unknown, through a hole in the lava floor and on a journey through a magma underworld, finding there a symphony orchestra, human seals and a wake. Producer Neil M...
Oct 27, 2014•28 min
Jarvis Cocker attempts to fly to the moon, with the aid of astronaut Chris Hadfield - famous for his rendition of David Bowie's Space Oddity on the International Space Station. En route he hears stories of those touched by the moon in its many manifestations. Producer: Laurence Grissell
Oct 20, 2014•28 min
To mark the winter solstice, a chance to hear a programme first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 on 1st October in which Jarvis Cocker brought his award winning series Wireless Nights to Salford, forming part of this year's BBC Philharmonic Presents... series, a celebration of orchestral music in its many different forms. In front of a studio audience, Jarvis Cocker and the BBC Philharmonic weave tales of insomnia, nocturnal inspirations and dark imaginings from the world of classical music - against th...
Oct 13, 2014•28 min
Jarvis Cocker stars in his own horror movie as he continues his nocturnal examination of the human condition, exploring the battle between the forces of darkness and light. He hears from horror movie goers at the Electric Cinema in Birmingham, keen to turn the lights off and let the scares begin; the National Grid control room which is charged from keeping the lights on; and Lundy Island in the Bristol Channel - where the electricity switches off at midnight. What is lurking in the basement as J...
May 30, 2013•28 min
Tonight, Jarvis Cocker's award-winning nocturnal exploration of the human condition takes to the sea. Join him on the midnight sailing of a Channel ferry as he contemplates night crossings mythic and modern. As he moves across dark waters, he hears the miraculous story of Jeni, a castaway lost and found in the North Sea whose epic struggle took place at night. He meets Sean, a young wrestler who slips through the ropes of the ring for his first fight night and embarks on his own rite of passage....
May 23, 2013•28 min
Jarvis Cocker becomes a nightwatchman in a high rise office block as he continues his nocturnal exploration of the human condition. Decked out in regulation uniform and armed with a powerful torch, Jarvis starts his rounds protecting London's 36 storey Euston Tower. Along the way, he hears tales from others keeping watch during the dark hours. Among those who share their stories of late night vigilance are the parents of a young girl with a rare condition which causes her to stop breathing when ...
May 16, 2013•28 min
Jarvis Cocker returns to Radio 4 with his award-winning feature series exploring the human condition after dark. Tonight is the 'Night of the Hunter' and Jarvis turns his eye to the starlit sky with his mind on hunters and their quarry. Taking his bearings from Orion, he follows a lamper across farmland hunting foxes by torchlight. A soldier takes him on a top secret mission behind enemy lines when the hunter became the hunted. He accompanies a young man nervously preparing for his first date, i...
May 09, 2013•28 min
Jarvis Cocker continues his prowl through the dark in the last of his new series Wireless Nights. This evening he invites you on a curb crawl around the seamy side of town as he explores the theme 'night manoeuvres'. Driving through London he weaves his way in and out of the lives of other night riders who are always on the move. He joins a private invstigator in Nottingham on a car chase and stake out on the trail of a man suspected to be having an affair; he finds a minicab driver lost in the ...
Apr 26, 2012•28 min
Jarvis Cocker takes to the streets to peer through stained windows, cold steel bars and Japanese paper screens, to find out just what goes on Behind Closed Doors at night time. He joins a lock-in where the time bell is never rung, and peers into the deepest recesses of a lock-in brain that belongs to Jack, reliving the night when the doors shut in his brain. On his nocturnal sojourn Jarvis recalls old times, on the streets of post-industrial Sheffield, and shares the loneliness of the long sente...
Apr 19, 2012•28 min
Continuing his new series of nocturnal meditations, Jarvis Cocker prowls the nation's night. This evening's theme is 'they only come out at night'. Jarvis slips between the shadows to find punks, poets, poker dens and an alcohol fuelled badger watch and eavesdrops on a series of nocturnal dreams and dramas. His guide to the dark is poet, author and explorer of the night Al Alvarez. In this trip through the night Al points him towards a gambling club where players never see daylight and nerves be...
Apr 19, 2012•26 min
Jarvis Cocker prowls the dark, finding stories of the night people in a Prix Italia winning series. Tonight, in an edition which won the Prix Italia for Extraordinary Originality and Innovation - a top European radio prize - the theme is Overnight Delivery. Jarvis boards the red-eye, taking a transatlantic flight of the imagination - peering down at the human dramas beneath as the world slowly rotates - accompanied by Jarvis' own musical selections. As Jarvis reaches cruising altitude, he finds ...
Apr 19, 2012•28 min
