Illuminated

In an engaging programme full of beautiful music, Joanna Robertson eavesdrops on a cast of talented young opera singers from around the world, as they work on favourite arias to perfect the style of "bel canto" ("beautiful singing"). They have come to the bel canto summer school of the Georg Solti Accademia, in the small Italian seaside town of Castiglione della Pescaia in Tuscany. The academy was...

Every seventeen years in the eastern United States, a roaring mass of millions of black-bodied, red-eyed, thumb-length insects erupt from the ground. For a few glorious weeks the periodical cicadas cover the trees and the air vibrates with their chorus of come-hither calls. Then they leave a billion eggs to hatch and burrow into the dirt, beginning the seventeen year cycle all over again. Sing. Fl...

"And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you..." Late at night, the writer, audio artist and sleep-deprived parent of a newborn, Ross Sutherland, is staring into infinity... "Usually, my phone becomes my window into a bigger world. Not just bigger- endless. Unmeasurably vast. You can scroll social media feeds forever and never hit the bottom of the chasm. I know it...

The years after Sybil Phoenix's arrival in England from British Guiana in 1956 follow a not unfamiliar pattern - trying to find a home and secure a livelihood, learning how to manage the endemic racism in Britain and, above all things, building a community. Fostering countless children, setting up the famous Moonshot youth club in south-east London and dealing with the reaction from right-wing ext...

Peter Riley was 13 when he saw his first dead whale. It was a sperm whale. He spent most of the day with it on a Norfolk beach, and then watched on as someone carried away a trophy from its carcass. That night marked the beginning of Peter’s lifelong fascination with whales. Now, as an author and a Herman Melville scholar, Peter is seeking to understand the ancient and complex relationship between...

In 2023, Scout Tzofiya Bolton entered a grocery store in the small town where she lived, carrying a toy gun. The only thing she knows about what happened next is what she's seen on CCTV footage - she pointed the toy gun at the person behind the counter and shouted to give her the money or she'd shoot. A few hours later, four police officers knocked at her door and took her away. She didn't return...

When broadcaster Jaz Singh revealed on BBC reality TV show The Traitors that his father had a secret second family, he received hundreds of messages from people who had lived through similar experiences. As Jaz movingly explores his own feelings, he meets others who have also discovered that their loved ones are leading double lives. A wife who, after years of being happily married, discovered on...

In recent years, thousands of Britons have become German citizens via a restoration programme for German-Jews and their descendants, whose nationality was stripped from them during the Nazi regime. This is not without controversy. Some see it is a clear righting of wrongs, but for others the idea of becoming German is abhorrent. For presenter Lois Pryce and her special guests, Matt Lucas and Ben E...

“Sound is the barometer of the health of the planet.” It's almost 60 years since 11-year-old Martyn Stewart made his first recording near his house in Birmingham using a reel-to-reel machine borrowed from his older brother. From that day forward, he set out to capture all the natural sounds of the world, amassing nearly one hundred thousand recordings. Now, musician and sound artist Alice Boyd ret...

Poet Ian McMillan has a gift for the art of small pleasures; the joy of close observation; revelling in everyday things, places and encounters; describing and re-describing them endlessly. In the company of fellow poets Helen Mort, Steve Ely and Dave Green he takes us to ordinary places that fascinate him: a railway platform with a striking red bench, on a bus journey, to a village cafe, and a loc...

"The north London heroin trade is almost folklore at this stage." For decades, calculated gang warfare involving Turkish, Turkish Cypriot, and Kurdish heroin dealers has played out on the streets of north London, in the midst of dry cleaners, empty market stalls, and oddly abundant carpet shops. In this intimate documentary, we hear the careful accounts of women and young people on the edges of th...

We lie to people with dementia. In fact, it's one of the only illnesses where lying is acceptable and extends into the entire care process. Since dementia gravely impacts a person's cognitive abilities, those diagnosed won't share the same reality as their carers. To bridge this reality gap and appease disoriented patients, carers distort the truth. Entire care home facilities seek to transform a...

It's 25 years since London suffered three vicious nail bomb attacks - holdalls filled with 4-inch nails and hand-made explosives planted in Brixton market, Brick Lane and in the bar of the Admiral Duncan pub in Soho, intended to cause damage to those in the immediate vicinity and to the notion of a tolerant, diverse capital city. The attacks are recorded in photographs shared at the time by the pr...

James lives in Manchester and earns his living as a landscape gardener. Since he was a child he has believed himself to be God, and is on a mission to bring peace to the world. He is part of an organisation that runs community events, fitness sessions, games evenings and he shares his ideas at regular Q&A meetings with a group of people, including many who share his belief that he is a divine...

A preview of what to expect from Illuminated, BBC Radio 4’s home for creative and surprising one-off documentaries that shed light on hidden worlds. Welcome to a place of audio beauty and joy, with emotion and human experience at its heart. The programmes you will find in this feed explore the reality of contemporary Britain and the world, venturing into its weirdest and most wonderful aspects. Ne...