Category: History

Darwin Songs

 

dsEight top folk singers from Britain and the USA are holed up for 7 days in a remote Shropshire farmhouse at the invitation of the Shrewsbury Folk Festival. Their task: to write new songs inspired by the life and work of the eminent naturalist Charles Darwin in time for a public concert at the new Theatre Severn, near where Darwin was born 200 years ago. (1 x 28′)

First broadcast  March 2009  BBC Radio 4

Contributors include: Rachel MacShane of Bellowhead, Stu Hanna of Megson, Emily Smith, Chris Wood, Mark Erelli, Krista Detor, Karine Polwart and Jez Lowe. Randall Keynes – great, great, grandson of Charles Darwin, Jon King – director, Shrewsbury Darwin Festival

Producer Chris Eldon Lee        

Radio choice: The Daily Telegraph, The Times and The Guardian

The Drawings on the Wall

 

dotwArchaeologist Dr George Nash of Bristol University visits five of Western Europe’s most significant prehistoric rock art sites to examine whether the modern mind can ever successfully interpret the mysterious graffiti created by our ancestors. ( 5 x 14′)

First broadcast February 2008   BBC Radio 4

Producer Chris Eldon Lee

 

 

1.The Legless Ladies of Creswell Crags  Church Hole cave  in Derbyshire has spectacular images of prehistoric animals. But who was carving them and why? And what is the modern equivalent?

2. Graffiti Gorge George Nash meets Dr Mila Simoes de Abreu, whose bitterly-fought campaign in the Côa Valley saved thousands of prehistoric tribal rock carvings from being lost under the waters of a proposed reservoir.

3. Irish Illusions Dr Muiris O’Sullivan of University College, Dublin inside Fourknocks Passage Grave, Eire

4. The Master of Paspardo Italian archaeologists Professor Angelo Fossati and Dr Andrea Arca explore the biggest rock art area in Europe.

5.Architecture of Death Mike Yates and rock art photographer Adam Stanford visit Barclodiady-Gawres Neolithic burial chamber in Anglesey

See the BBC website for the series.

Radio 4 Pick of the Week

Bengal to Baker Street in 80 Paintings

Mukti Jain Campion discovers the story of pioneering Indian modern artist Jamini Roy (1887 – 1972) and how the largest collection of his work came to hang in a private apartment in central London. (1 x 28′)

See Slideshow of the paintings discussed in the programme.

First broadcast March 2014  BBC Radio 4

Contributors include: Professor Nirmalya Kumar (pictured), Collector of Jamini Roy’s paintings; Richard Blurton, Curator of South Asian Art at the British Museum; Partha Mitter, Emeritus Professor of Art History, University of Sussex; Sona Datta, art historian, curator and author of book on Jamini Roy “Urban Patua”; Artist Sir Howard Hodgkin

Producer Mukti Jain Campion

This is a fascinating programme about art, its collection, its inspiration, its social value and how attitudes of critics and art historians change over time – Gillian Reynolds, The Daily Telegraph

 

Radio Choice: The Times, The Daily Mail, The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, The Observer and Radio Times

Broken Paradise

 

bpAcclaimed translator Lakshmi Holmström introduces some of the most powerful Tamil poetry to emerge from the 26 year long conflict in Sri Lanka in which an estimated 70,000 people were killed as the militant Tamil Tigers tried to establish a separate Tamil state in the north of the island. (1 x 28′)

First broadcast   April 2013        BBC Radio 4

Poets featured include Cheran, M.A.Nuhman, Sivaramani, Shanmugam Sivalingam and Kutti Revathi.

Poem readings by Hiran Abeysekara, Vayu Naidu and Vignarajah

Producer Mukti Jain Campion

 

In a Time of Burning (Arc Publications 2013) is a collection of Cheran poems translated by Lakshmi Holmström

Like Another Mahabharata: Indian Soldiers in the Great War

 

lam“This is not a war. It is the ending of the world. This is just such a war as was related in the Mahabharata about our forefathers.” – an Indian soldier’s letter from the Western Front

On Remembrance Day Mukti Jain Campion pays tribute to the contribution of over a million men from the Indian subcontinent who volunteered to fight for the British in the First World War. A fascinating insight into the soldiers’ experiences on and off the battlefields of the Western Front comes from the poetic and poignant letters they wrote home. (1 x 28′)

First broadcast November 1999 BBC Radio 4 & November 2000 BBC World Service

 

The message powerfully and feelingly conveyed in Mukti Jain Campion’s documentary is that First World War historians have signally failed to acknowledge the part played by those Indian volunteers who fought on Britain’s side.  -Peter Davalle, The Times

 

Contributors include: Dr David Omissi, Professor Linda Colley, Dominic Rai, and Dominiek Dendooven

Letter readings by Vincent Ebrahim, Rez Kempton and Dev Sagoo.

Soldiers’ songs performed by Baluji Shrivastav and the Man Mela Theatre Company.

Producer  Mukti Jain Campion

Radio Choice: The Times, The Independent, The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Sunday Times, Daily Mail, The Scotsman, The Observer, Evening Standard, Time Out, Radio Times

Radio 4 Pick of the Week

Photograph: IWM photos Q53887

The Flight of Tiny Feet

 

totfIn early 1942 the Japanese invaded Burma, forcing fifty thousand refugees to embark on a 1000-mile trek to India, mostly on foot. Overcome by the effects of disease and monsoon, more than half of them died. Stephen Brookes, Evan Edwardes and Yolande Rodda, three children who had once been at kindergarten together, did survive the arduous journey. Now in their seventies, they recall their harrowing experience through children’s eyes. (1 x 28′)

First broadcast January 2003  BBC Radio 4

Producer Chris Eldon Lee

Remarkable and moving – WH, The Guardian

 

Radio Choice: The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, Daily Mail, The Independent on Sunday, The Times, The Sunday Telegraph

Radio 4 Pick of the Week

From Telford to the Stream of Dragons

 

ftsdThe journey of a lifetime as Hsiao-Ying Tseng travels from Shropshire to south China to visit the two sisters she has never met. Her moving story reveals one human legacy of the Communist victory of 1949 when thousands of Chinese fled to Taiwan, leaving loved ones behind forever. (1 x 28′)

First broadcast Oct 2001   BBC Radio 4

Producer Chris Eldon Lee

Radio 4 Pick of the Week

Frozen in Time

 

fitReminiscences of life on the polar ice as writer Chris Eldon Lee travels with a party of British Antarctic Survey veterans to revisit the “elaborate garden sheds” in which they spent their winters during the ’50s and ’60s. In near permanent subzero temperatures these huts have become museums, literally frozen in time. (1 x 28′)

First broadcast  December 2001 BBC Radio 4

Producer  Chris Eldon Lee

A real taste of adventure – Peter Barnard, Radio Times

 

Radio 4 Pick of the Week

Grandmothers’ Footsteps

gfTwo travel documentaries in which Mukti Jain Campion accompanies her children back to the childhood homes of their two grandmothers – a rural village in India and a remote crofting community in the Scottish Highlands – and discovers that the two women have more in common than just grandchildren. (2 x 28′)

First broadcast November 1997 BBC Radio 4

Original Music by Nick Sargent

Producers Mukti Jain Campion & Chris Eldon Lee

Two documentaries of the kind radio does well: contrasting social histories told by people who have lived them. The moving spirit in more ways than one is the producer Mukti Jain Campion – Peter Barnard, The Times

Radio Choice: The Times, The Independent, The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Sunday Times, The Evening Standard, Radio Times

Radio 4 Pick of the Week

Hobson-Jobson

 

hjPoet Daljit Nagra revels in the legendary dictionary of British India which brought hundreds of Indian words such as bungalow, shampoo and dinghy into the English language. With a new edition due to be published in 2013, Daljit looks back at its history and how it has seduced countless writers and poets since it was first published in 1886.

First broadcast  July 2012   BBC Radio 4

Contributors include: Dr Kate Teltscher, Professor Javed Majeed, Tom Stoppard and Amitav Ghosh.

Readings by Tim Pigott-Smith and Vincent Ebrahim

Producer Mukti Jain Campion

Radio Choice: The Mail on Sunday, The Sunday Telegraph, The Scotsman, The Daily Mail, The Times, The Independent

Radio 4 Pick of the Week

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