Radio 4 Choice

• Updated:
  Weekly
• Average duration:
  25 minutes

Recent episodes (8)

• Oulipo 20 Nov 09

  Fri, 20 Nov 09

  Duration:
  27 mins

  Writer and typographer Ben Schott investigates Oulipo, the French experimental literary group. Founded in 1960 and still in existence, Oulipo create work by imposing playful restrictions the way a text will be produced. Oulipo stands for Ouvroir de Litterature Potentielle, meaning Workshop for Potential Literature. In this humourous history of the French literary group, Ben discovers that recently, Oulipo have even made a bridgehead into English-speaking territory. Oulipo's President, Paul Fournel, describes how Oulipo was founded by Raymond Queneau and Francois Le Lionnais as a reaction to the Surrealist movement to which Queneau in particular had previously attached himself. Instead of freely following the whims of the subconscious, Oulipians deliberately introduced conscious constraints, and discovered the results could be not only plentiful but also intriguing.

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• Calling Time On Student Bars 13 Nov 09

  Fri, 13 Nov 09

  Duration:
  29 mins

  Alcohol sales in student unions have halved in past decade; some bars have closed, and others have downsized. Comedian Ed Byrne returns to the city of his student days, Glasgow, to find out if that notorious institution, the student union bar, has had its day.

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• The Bell Boys 06 Nov 09

  Fri, 6 Nov 09

  Duration:
  29 mins

  In the heart of London's East End, a team of craftsmen preserves a set of skills dating back to the 1500s, turning out bells for churches and cathedrals across Britain and around the world. Poet and closet campanologist Ian McMillan spends a day among Whitechapel's foundrymen, and follows the birth of a new ring of bells set to bring back life to a church tower which has stood silent since the Second World War.

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• Avoiding the Question 30 Oct 09

  Fri, 30 Oct 09

  Duration:
  15 mins

  It's a skill most politicians clearly feel they've got to learn - how to duck out of tricky questions when they're being interviewed. But if you listen carefully you may discover that they're actually giving away more than they think. In the Sunday Supplement, Jon Sopel discusses why politicians are so evasive - and why it's often a bad idea. Here he is then, cutting through all the equivocation, in Avoiding the Question.

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• Texting Andy Warhol 23 Oct 09

  Fri, 23 Oct 09

  Duration:
  29 mins

  Novelist Bidisha considers the role of text in art. Does a picture made from words count as literature or art? She talks to gallery visitors reading Richard Long's words on the walls, asks how it is different from a book by Dali, and considers text as art with Keith Tyson, Fiona Banner, Ed Ruscha and John Baldessari.

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• The Bomb That Changed Politics 16 Oct 09

  Fri, 16 Oct 09

  Duration:
  29 mins

  In 1984, the Provisional IRA mounted their most audacious terrorist attack - attempting to blow up the British cabinet at the Conservative Party conference in Brighton. Michael Dobbs, a former senior adviser to Margaret Thatcher and John Major, was at the Grand Hotel when the bomb detonated. He believes its legacy has had a profound impact on our politics, especially at party conferences and Westminster. Revisiting Brighton for the first time since 1984 and talking to leading political figures, he asks if we have struck the right balance in protecting politicians and ensuring they are not cocooned from the people they serve. Featuring contributions from Lord Tebbit, Ken Livingstone, Alastair Campbell, Charles Clarke, Charles Kennedy and Francis Maude.

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• I Have Heard The Mermaids Singing 09 Oct 09

  Fri, 9 Oct 09

  Duration:
  28 mins

  Janet Ellis heads to Cornwall, Preston and Macclesfield to speak to authors, storytellers and academics about the power of the mermaid image and its origins. The legend of the mermaid is said to date back to the days when sailors far from home would mistake sea mammals like manatees and dugongs for semi-human creatures. Since the days of Homer, the image of the mysterious female luring sailors to their deaths has remained extremely powerful in the popular imagination, and has survived numerous reinventions over the centuries. With the help of the likes of Hans Christian Andersen and Walt Disney, mermaids have become as much a mainstay of modern childhood as pirates and princesses. Janet trawls through the myriad mermaid references in art and literature, from Robert Graves and TS Eliot to the Pre-Raphaelites, who used the mermaid as a powerful image of voluptuous sexuality.

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• Bristol - Cycling City 02 Oct 09

  Fri, 2 Oct 09

  Duration:
  29 mins

  In 2008 Bristol won the bid to be the demonstration 'Cycling City' for the rest of the country, despite having lots of hills, narrow roads and a huge level of car dependency. A year into the launch of Cycling City, Miles Warde bikes round Bristol to find out how the initiative is working on the streets, where the 22.8 million pounds that has been ringfenced for the project is going, and the chances of reaching the highly ambitious target of doubling the number of cyclists in the area within three years. He hears from a range of cyclists, some of the people responsible for the budget, and a couple of cycling visionaries who sense that a better world is within our grasp.

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