Mug Shots

Sitting - Our Place in the World

Polly Coles reads the next of her essays on portraiture and our obsession with ourselves.

• 14 mins

Mug Shots

Heads, bodies and legs

Polly Coles reads the last of her essays on portraiture and our obsession with ourselves.

• 14 mins

Odes to Essex

Metropolitan Essex

Billy Bragg explores the London-Essex borderland that fuelled his childhood imagination.

• 14 mins

Odes to Essex

Washed Up in Essex

Writer AL Kennedy takes us on a watery journey through the county she now calls home.

• 14 mins

Odes to Essex

The Refusal of Place

Writer Lavinia Greenlaw takes us back to the formative landscape of her childhood.

• 14 mins

Odes to Essex

Brightening from the East

Writer and social historian Ken Worpole introduces us to Essex's radical past.

• 14 mins

Odes to Essex

The Essex Way

Writer Gillian Darley celebrates the unsung and lesser-known delights of mid-Essex.

• 14 mins

Acting Unrehearsed

What is good acting?

Geoffrey Colman considers the art of acting and asks: what makes a great actor?

• 14 mins

Acting Unrehearsed

How to become an actor?

Geoffrey Colman discusses drama schools in his second Essay on acting.

• 14 mins

Acting Unrehearsed

On stage and on screen

Geoffrey Colman explores the differences between acting on stage and on screen.

• 14 mins

Acting Unrehearsed

How reality TV has changed acting

Geoffrey Colman describes the ways in which reality TV has changed acting.

• 14 mins

Acting Unrehearsed

The acting coach

Geoffrey Colman invites us to join him on a walk through a day as an acting coach.

• 14 mins

Science Notes

Enlighten

Broadcaster James Burke links organisms that might not exist to a freemason’s opera.

• 14 mins

Science Notes

Romance

James Burke links planetary orbits, the teeny-weeny and fake Scottish literature.

• 14 mins

Science Notes

Impression

James Burke connects Italian electricity to Debussy via a baron's seances and your fridge.

• 14 mins

Science Notes

Ivories

James Burke touches on pine trees, chintz, bowler hats – and ends up on the ivories.

• 14 mins

Science Notes

Wind

James Burke leads us via steam engines and iron coffins to the modern orchestra.

• 14 mins

Becoming Animal

Isabel Galleymore

Poet Isabel Galleymore imagines herself as a limpet.

• 14 mins

Becoming Animal

Belinda Zhawi

Writer and sound artist Belinda Zhawi imagines life as a southern African plains Zebra.

• 14 mins

Becoming Animal

Ned Beauman

Writer Ned Beauman explores the world of the Devon beaver.

• 14 mins

Becoming Animal

Sarah Kosar

Playwright Sarah Kosar flies in the night sky with the soprano pipistrelle bat.

• 14 mins

Becoming Animal

Toby Litt

Writer Toby Litt is inspired by the world of the brown hare.

• 14 mins

Rainsong in Five Senses

India and the Sound of Rain

Nandini Das curates essays from across the globe on five different experiences of rain.

• 14 mins

Rainsong in Five Senses

Japan and the Taste of Rain

Nandini Das curates essays from across the globe on five different experiences of rain.

• 14 mins

Rainsong in Five Senses

Australia and the Smell of Rain

Nandini Das curates global essays on five different sensory experiences of rain.

• 14 mins

Rainsong in Five Senses

Paris and the Look of Rain

Nandini Das introduces another essay about the global differences in our response to rain.

• 14 mins

Rainsong in Five Senses

England and the Touch of Rain

Nandini Das curates essays from across the globe on differing sensory responses to rain.

• 14 mins

Shakespeare's Sisters

Maria Anna Mozart

Lucy Powell explores what happened to 'Nannerl' Mozart.

• 14 mins

Shakespeare's Sisters

Sarah Fielding

Lucy Powell asks why history has forgotten the achievements of novelist Sarah Fielding.

• 14 mins

Shakespeare's Sisters

Fanny Dickens

The brilliant women whose success was often eclipsed by their more famous brothers.

• 14 mins