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 Radio 4 Autumn season
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Autumn highlights and the new Spring schedule on 91Èȱ¬ Radio 4
Introduction
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Today Mark Damazer, Controller 91Èȱ¬ Radio 4, announced some changes to the pattern of broadcasting on Radio 4 and new programmes for the Autumn and Spring.
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Schedule headlines
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 A new weekly Profile slot on Saturday evenings at 7.00pm
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A weekly obituary programme on Fridays at 4.00pm
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The Film Programme moves to Friday afternoons at 4.30pm (from Saturdays)
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Great Lives to be presented by Matthew Parris on Tuesdays at 4.30pm
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Programme highlights
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This Sceptred Isle: Empire - 90-part narrative history
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Faces Of Islam – a look at British Muslims
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Dawn French stars in new comedy series
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Dave Gorman in Genius
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Ross Noble returns to Radio 4
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New play from Sir John Mortimer
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Alan Bennett reads his new book
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Michael Portillo takes on the big beasts in Natural Despots
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Tsunami special
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Trafalgar programmes
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John Lennon remembered
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John Peel's autobiography - Margrave Of The Marshes
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The schedule
from January
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Radio 4 presents a new Profile series (from Saturday 7 January at 7.00pm).
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It will give listeners the background and relevance of the people making the news: be they politicians, performers, artists or sports stars.
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The programme will be bright, lively, entertaining and will provide real insights that go beneath the headlines.
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The new - and as yet un-named - obituaries programme begins in February (Friday 3 February at 4.00pm).
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The programme will cover figures of note that have recently died.
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Using features, interviews, authored pieces, archive and discussions, its subjects will include the famous and the celebrated; high achievers from politics, culture, science, business and other fields - people who led important lives in their own fields – as well as the lesser-known who have made a contribution to the world and people around them.
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By examining people's lives, the programme will throw light on our society and the currents within it.
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There are new placings for some old favourites: The Film Programme airs on Fridays at 4.30pm (from 3 March), to whet listeners' cinema and DVD appetites for the coming weekend.
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Radio 4's acclaimed biographies series, Great Lives, moves from its current late-night slot to a new time of 4.30pm on Tuesdays, and acquires a new presenter in Matthew Parris (from 4 April).
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It will run in tandem with A Good Read.
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The Message goes turn-and-turn-about with Feedback at 1.30pm on Fridays, and Law In Action and Word Of Mouth will occupy the 4.00pm slot on Tuesdays (from 31 January and 4 April respectively).
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Mark Damazer said: "People are always fascinated by others' lives and what they can reveal about the way we are as a society - and these new programmes will strengthen Radio 4's offering in this area.
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"I want Radio 4 to be even more responsive and agile, to give the audience the best possible platform from which to reflect on the passing week."
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Programme Highlights
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Ten years ago, This Sceptred Isle broke new ground in narrative history and has a claim to have invented the format of making source material as important as the telling of the bare facts. Ìý
Now, Christopher Lee uses the same techniques to create a 90-part history of the British Empire.
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The series starts in the 12th century and takes listeners all the way through to the aftermath of the independence of India and Pakistan in 1947.
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The series is divided into three runs of six weeks each, beginning on Monday 26 September at 3.35pm.
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Parts two and three follow in January and May 2006.
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Juliet Stevenson is the narrator and the contemporary material is read by Rob Bryden, Martin Freeman, Anna Massey, Mark Heap and Robert Powell.
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Coming right up-to-date, Faces Of Islam is a three-part series looking at Islam today.
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How Islam Got Political investigates the politicisation of the religion and how this infiltrated Britain; The Life Of A Suicide Bomber looks at what turned Mohammad Sidique Khan into the suicide bomber of 7 July. In the final programme, Inside A Muslim School, Jenny Cuffe goes into a school to find out what values are really being promoted and how the children are reacting to the post-July climate (Thursdays 10, 17 and 24 November at 8.00pm).
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Edward Stourton follows In The Footsteps Of Jesus (Monday 21 November at 8.00pm).
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Over three weeks, Ed looks at Jesus as a Galilean Jew, how the idea of Jesus as a divinity stemmed from a non-Jewish tradition and finally at how Jesus became the official God of the Roman Empire, the richest and most powerful in the world.
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A lifetime in politics should have prepared Michael Portillo for his new three-part series about power and power struggles in the animal kingdom in Natural Despots (Saturday 10 December at 10.30am).
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Six months after the tsunami devastated parts of Asia and Africa, Radio 4 presents an audio memorial. Over the last few months Radio 4, World Service and the Asian Network have been collecting people's audio memories, to capture the sounds and stories that evoke the area in its richness and diversity - from Indonesian fishermen bringing in their fish to the traffic-filled streets of Thailand.
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The Tsunami Audio Memorial commemorates the region and its people (Saturday 17 December at 8.00pm).
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One man's tsunami story is highlighted in It's My Story - Overturning The Tide.
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Karibeeran Paramesvaran lives in India and he lost his children and six other relatives. He has kept an audio diary which provides an insight into how he and his town have coped in the aftermath of destruction (Monday 19 December at 8.00pm).
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John Peel, the much-loved broadcaster, is remembered with a special edition of 91Èȱ¬ Truths, the programme he presented since 1998, which features a special interview with his widow Sheila Ravenscroft (Saturday 22 October at 9.00am).
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Radio 4 also reads John's autobiography (Margrave Of The Marshes), which was completed by Sheila after his death. The reading is in five parts (Book Of The Week from Monday 24 October at 9.45am).
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Another John is remembered in December. It is 25 years since the death of John Lennon. Radio 4 marks the anniversary with a broadcast of interviews, with the founder of Rolling Stone magazine, that have never been broadcast in the UK.
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The week is completed with a series on John's songs and a play based on a real encounter.
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The other big anniversary is, of course, Trafalgar and Radio 4 has plays, documentaries and features (a look at other Trafalgar Squares), which all provide fresh insights into the man and the myth (from Monday 10 October, various times).
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Comedy
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Dawn French stars in her first comedy for Radio 4 in Mastering The Universe, in which she plays Professor Joy Klamp, an expert in sulking and ruining other people's fun, who will teach listeners the best way to be a spoilsport (Wednesday 2 November 11.00pm).
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Ross Noble comes home to Radio 4 in Ross Noble Goes Local (Thursday 9 March at 6.30pm) and The National Theatre of Brent strut their stuff in The Arts And How They Was Done (Thursday 26 January at 6.30pm).
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Dave Gorman brings Genius to Radio 4, in which Dave and celebrity guests chew over the ridiculous, unworkable but sometimes genuine inventions, schemes and policies suggested by the studio audience (Thursday 27 October at 6.30pm).
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Miles Jupp (Archie in Balamory) and Count Arthur Strong are two new names on the comedy rota (Miles Jupp's Real World, Wednesday 5 October at 11.00pm; Count Arthur Strong's Radio Show, Friday 23 December at 11.30am).
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Clare In The Community (Friday 4 November at 11.30am) and Ed Reardon's Week (Wednesday 21 December at 11.30am) return for second series.
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Drama
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Sir John Mortimer has written The Last Adventure, a new play for the network, starring Michael Sheen as Lord Byron (Saturday 1 October at 2.30pm).
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Alan Bennett reads five extracts from his newly-published Untold Stories (Book Of The Week, Monday 10 October at 9.45am).
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Frederic Raphael's seminal novel The Glittering Prizes has been newly dramatised for Radio 4 by the author. It stars Benedict Cumberbatch, Geoffrey Palmer, Jemma Redgrave, Robert Bathurst, Henry Goodman and Jamie Glover (Classic Serial, Sunday 20 November at 3.00pm).
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David Copperfield is the Woman's Hour Drama at the end of November (20 parts, beginning Monday 28 November at 10.45am).
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It stars Robert Glenister as Charles Dickens, with Diana Quick, Deborah Findlay, Eve Best, Adrian Scarborough and Nicholas Le Provost.
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