| Programme Name: | Details: |
|---|
| Arthur Smith's Balham Bash | ...BENJAMIN ZEPHANIAH, Stephen K Amos and Matt Holness join regular contributor Pippa Evans, as singer-songwriter Loretta Maine ... |
| Belief | ...Poet and Rastafarian BENJAMIN ZEPHANIAH ... |
| Dirty Dozens, The | ...BENJAMIN ZEPHANIAH, known for his own high-octane performance poetry, tells the story of The Dozens, a 17th century language game and precursor to today's rap battles.... |
| Dread, Beat An Blood | ...BENJAMIN ZEPHANIAH reassesses dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson's 1978 debut album. Dread Beat an' Blood expressed the black British experience as it had never been heard before. Using his trademark spoken word style set to an instrumental reggae beat, the record voiced the frustration of a generation. Linton discusses the issues he tackled on the record, such as police harassment, the National Front and the criminal justice system. Thirty years on, how much has changed?... |
| Feature | ...BENJAMIN ZEPHANIAH visits Maasailand to explore the status of this world famous tribe in the modern era. As Kenya works to create a new sense of national unity, the brightly-clothed Maasai remain one of the defining images of a reborn democracy. But as their nomadic lifestyle becomes less and less viable in a 21st century economy, BENJAMIN ZEPHANIAH asks the Maasai if their way of life is destined to disappear.... |
| Fine Lines | ...Christopher Cook takes the chair for poetry and conversation with guests BENJAMIN ZEPHANIAH and Joolz Denby, two of the country's best-known performance poets.... |
| Great Lives | ...Poet BENJAMIN ZEPHANIAH joins Humphrey Carpenter to explore the life of reggae legend Bob Marley. From his musical origins in the squalor and dynamism of the Trench Town district of Kingston, Jamaica to global superstardom, Marley remained passionate about music with a message. Marley biographer Chris Salewicz also helps to explore why, since his death in 1981, Marley's stature in the developing world has grown from rebel leader to redeeming hero.... |
| Hurricane Dub | ...BENJAMIN ZEPHANIAH's play of verse and rhythm, marking 1987's English hurricane in rap.... |
| Listen To Your Parents | ...BENJAMIN ZEPHANIAH's drama portrays domestic violence through the eyes of a football and poetry loving boy. With James Smith.... |
| Long View, The | ...BENJAMIN ZEPHANIAH joins Jonathan Freedland to reveal a story of thuggery and intimidation in medieval Leicestershire which sheds light on today's gang crime.... |
| Maadai-kara | ...Interwoven with a performance of the epic Altai poem from southern Siberia the Maadai-Kara, BENJAMIN ZEPHANIAH explores the ancient oral tradition of throat singing that conjures spirits and celebrates the legends of these remote and distant lands.... |
| Mind Your Slanguage | ...BENJAMIN ZEPHANIAH explores the moral panic surrounding language change and asks why Jamaican patois remains the slang of choice for British teenagers.... |
| Music Group, The | ...Poet BENJAMIN ZEPHANIAH, writer Lynn Barber and comedian Arthur Smith discuss such diverse subjects as a musical desire to sleep with common people and a joyful Parisian explosion.... |
| Out Of The Blue | ...Peggy talks to Ruth Rendell, AS Byatt, BENJAMIN ZEPHANIAH, Tim Lott, Tim Binding and Grace Nicholls about how the great storm of 1987 affected their writing.... |
| Pieces Of A Man | ...With contributions from BENJAMIN ZEPHANIAH and Chuck D.... |
| Place Called Home, A | ...McCarthy talks to a range of people - from a Big Issue vendor to a refugee, from Felicity Kendal to BENJAMIN ZEPHANIAH, and from a family of gypsies to the kids in Strawberry Fields Care Home - for whom `home' has become a state of mind rather than a physical place.... |
| Poetry Please | ...Robert Louis Stevenson tells us of windswept nostalgic thoughts of times long gone, and other offerings include gems from Carol Ann Duffy and BENJAMIN ZEPHANIAH. The readers are Tom Lawrence, Kate Littlewood and Patrick Romer.... |
| Something Understood [world Service] | ...This week’s edition of Something Understood is presented by the Canadian broadcaster Chris Brookes. Recently, he received payment for one of his programmes in the form of a tab, set up at his local pub in St John’s, Newfoundland. This set him wondering about the nature and value of payments in cash and in kind. He draws upon poems by BENJAMIN ZEPHANIAH and others, music by Martin Carthy, Ernest Bloch and Billie Holiday and reflections on life in Newfoundland to explore the two main currencies that we deal in - money and human kindness. That’s The Currency Exchange, this week’s Something Understood.... |
| Something Understood | ...With readings from works by BENJAMIN ZEPHANIAH, Bruce Chatwin and Cathy Stanton and music including Over the Rainbow sung by Israel Kamakawiwo Ole.... |
| Time For Verse | ...BENJAMIN ZEPHANIAH... |
| Walk On The Milky Way, A | ...Poet Brian Patten offers more children's verse to excite the senses, from Thomas Hardy to BENJAMIN ZEPHANIAH ... |
| What's My Name? | ...A documentary presented by former boxer and poet BENJAMIN ZEPHANIAH revealing the man behind the gloves - from Muhammad Ali's rise to become champion at the age of 22 up to that historical moment where he lit the Olympic flame in Atlanta.... |
| Word On The Street | ...This edition finds her in Birmingham, where she meets Handsworth-born poets BENJAMIN ZEPHANIAH and Roy Fisher.... |