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Start The Week
''Start the Week'' is a discussion programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4 which began in April 1970. The current presenter is the former BBC political editor and the BBC's former political Sunday morning presenter Andrew Marr. The previous regular presenters were Richard Baker, Russell Harty, Melvyn Bragg and Jeremy Paxman. It is broadcast (usually) live on Monday mornings between 9:02am and 9:45am, and repeated in a shortened, edited version at 9:30pm the same evening. Its guests typically come from the worlds of politics, journalism, science and the arts. Prior to Marr the programme had a number of regular secondary presenters including Ken Sykora, Kenneth Robinson (who began in 1971 during the Baker era), Rosie Boycott, Catherine Bennett and Lisa Jardine. History Richard Baker (1970–1987) The original programme differed from its current form; for the first year or so it was entirely pre-recorded. Produced by Michael Ember, a flamboyant producer from the BBC Hungarian Ser ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasting House, London. The station controller is Mohit Bakaya. Broadcasting throughout the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands on FM, LW and DAB, and on BBC Sounds, it can be received in the eastern counties of Ireland, northern France and Northern Europe. It is available on Freeview, Sky, and Virgin Media. Radio 4 currently reaches over 10 million listeners, making it the UK's second most-popular radio station after Radio 2. BBC Radio 4 broadcasts news programmes such as ''Today'' and ''The World at One'', heralded on air by the Greenwich Time Signal pips or the chimes of Big Ben. The pips are only accurate on FM, LW, and MW; there is a delay on digital radio of three to five seconds and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sue Lawley
Susan Lawley (born 14 July 1946) is a retired English television and radio broadcaster. Her main broadcasting background involved television news and current affairs. From 1988–2006, Lawley was the presenter of ''Desert Island Discs'' on BBC Radio 4. Early life and education Sue Lawley was born at Sedgley, near Dudley, in July 1946, and was a pupil at Dudley Girls High School. She studied modern languages at the University of Bristol, where she dropped her Dudley accent in favour of received pronunciation. Career She began her professional career as a trainee reporter on the '' Western Mail'' and ''South Wales Echo'' between 1967 and 1970, during which time she shared a house in Cardiff with Michael Buerk. She then moved to BBC Plymouth as a subeditor and freelance reporter from 1970 until 1972. In 1972, she worked as a sound recordist and then gained prominence as one of the reporters/presenters of BBC TV's news magazine '' Nationwide''. She appeared on the show until 1975 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Joan Smith
Joan Alison Smith (born 27 August 1953) is an English journalist, novelist, and human rights activist, who is a former chair of the Writers in Prison committee in the English section of International PEN and was the Executive Director of Hacked Off. Life and work Smith was born 27 August 1953 in London, the daughter of Alan Smith, a park superintendent, and Ann Anita Smith (''née'' Coltman). She attended the Girls’ Grammar School in Stevenage and Basingstoke High School for Girls before reading Latin at the University of Reading in the early 1970s. After a spell as a journalist in local radio in Manchester, she joined the staff of ''The Sunday Times'' in 1979 and stayed at the newspaper until 1984, although Smith still contributes book reviews, usually on crime fiction, to the publication. She has had a regular column in ''The Guardians Weekend supplement, also freelancing for the newspaper and has contributed to ''The Independent'', ''The Independent on Sunday'', and th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Libby Purves
Elizabeth Mary Purves, (born 2 February 1950) is a British radio presenter, journalist and author. Early life and career Born in London, a diplomat's daughter, Purves was raised in her mother's Catholic faith and educated at convent schools in Israel, Bangkok, South Africa and France, and at Beechwood Sacred Heart School, Royal Tunbridge Wells. Purves won a scholarship to St Anne's College, Oxford, where she was awarded a first class degree in English. She was elected Librarian of the Oxford Union. In 1971, she joined the BBC as a studio manager. By the mid-1970s she was a regular presenter on BBC Radio Oxford where she could be frequently heard on the station's early morning shows. In 1976, she joined the BBC Radio 4's ''Today'' programme as a reporter and became the programme's first woman presenter, alongside Brian Redhead and John Timpson, two years later. In 1983 she was editor of ''Tatler'' magazine for six months. Later career For her column in ''The Times'' news ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Armistead Maupin
Armistead Jones Maupin, Jr. ( ) (born May 13, 1944) is an American writer notable for ''Tales of the City'', a series of novels set in San Francisco. Early life Maupin was born in Washington, D.C., to Diana Jane (Barton) and Armistead Jones Maupin. His great-great-grandfather, Congressman Lawrence O'Bryan Branch, was from North Carolina and was a railroad executive and a confederate general during the American Civil War. His father, Armistead Jones Maupin, founded Maupin, Taylor & Ellis, one of the largest law firms in North Carolina. Maupin was raised in Raleigh. – in ''The Independent'' of Raleigh, North Carolina, June 1988 – autobiographical memoir Maupin attended Ravenscroft School and graduated from Needham Broughton High School in 1962. He attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he wrote for ''The Daily Tar Heel.'' [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kathy Lette
Kathryn Marie Lette (born 11 November 1958) is an Australian-British author whose works have been best-sellers. Early life Lette was born on 11 November 1958 in Sydney's southern suburbs. She appeared in ''The Sydney Morning Herald'' of 20 August 1978 pictured in Martin Place with her friend Gabrielle Carey in an article titled "Buskers Lose Freak Tag". They were standing up for buskers' rights not to be moved on as Sydney City Council enforced a 1919 Act of Parliament in New South Wales. Career Lette first attracted attention in 1979 as the co-author (with Gabrielle Carey) of ''Puberty Blues'', a strongly autobiographical, proto-feminist teen novel about two 13-year-old southern suburbs girls attempting to improve their social status by ingratiating themselves with the "Greenhills gang" of surfers. The book was made into a film in 1981 and a TV series in 2012. She subsequently became a newspaper columnist and sitcom writer, but returned to the novel form with ''Girls' Ni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Brenda Maddox
Brenda, Lady Maddox ( Murphy; February 24, 1932 – June 16, 2019) was an American writer and biographer, who spent most of her adult life living and working in the UK, from 1959 until her death. She is best known for her biographies, including on Nora Barnacle, the wife of James Joyce, and for her semi-autobiographical book, ''The Half-Parent: Living with Other People's Children''. Education and early life Born Brenda Murphy in Bridgewater, Massachusetts in 1932, she graduated from Harvard University (class of 1953) with a degree in English literature. She also studied at the London School of Economics. Career She was a book reviewer for ''The Observer'', ''The Times'', ''New Statesman'', ''The New York Times'', and ''The Washington Post'', and regularly contributed to BBC Radio 4 as a critic and commentator. Her biographies of Elizabeth Taylor, D.H. Lawrence, Nora Joyce, W. B. Yeats and Rosalind Franklin have been widely acclaimed. She received the ''Los Angeles Times'' Bi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ben Elton
Benjamin Charles Elton (born 3 May 1959) is an English comedian, actor, author, playwright, lyricist and director. He was a part of London's alternative comedy movement of the 1980s and became a writer on the sitcoms '' The Young Ones'' and ''Blackadder'', as well as continuing as a stand-up comedian on stage and television. His style in the 1980s was left-wing political satire. Since then he has published 17 novels and written the musicals ''The Beautiful Game'' (2000), ''We Will Rock You'' (2002), '' Tonight's the Night'' (2003), and '' Love Never Dies'' (2010), the sequel to ''The Phantom of the Opera''. His novels cover the dystopian, comedy, and crime genres. Early life and education Elton was born on 3 May 1959 at University College Hospital in Fitzrovia, London, the son of Mary (née Foster), an English teacher from Cheshire, and physicist and educational researcher Professor Lewis Elton. He is a nephew of the historian Sir Geoffrey Elton and a third cousin of singer Oliv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was published on Saturday 26 March 2016, leaving only the online edition. The newspaper was controlled by Tony O'Reilly's Irish Independent News & Media from 1997 until it was sold to the Russian oligarch and former KGB Officer Alexander Lebedev in 2010. In 2017, Sultan Muhammad Abuljadayel bought a 30% stake in it. The daily edition was named National Newspaper of the Year at the 2004 British Press Awards. The website and mobile app had a combined monthly reach of 19,826,000 in 2021. History 1986 to 1990 Launched in 1986, the first issue of ''The Independent'' was published on 7 October in broadsheet format.Dennis Griffiths (ed.) ''The Encyclopedia of the British Press, 1422–1992'', London & Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1992, p. 330 It was produc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Loose Ends (radio)
''Loose Ends'' is a British radio programme originally broadcast on Saturday mornings, and then transmitted early Saturday evenings from 1998 by BBC Radio 4. It was hosted by Ned Sherrin until 2006 and has been hosted by Clive Anderson, Nikki Bedi and Peter Curran since 2007. The programme brings together guests, generally from the world of entertainment, in a mix of interviews, sets by comedians and musical sessions. History First broadcast in 1986, it developed out of ''The Colour Supplement'', a Sunday morning programme which had featured early ''Loose Ends'' contributors such as Stephen Fry, Robert Elms and Victor Lewis-Smith. The latter's contributions to ''Loose Ends'' were recorded packages, being a mischievous and disruptive element of the programme. Originally commissioned comedy had, by 2006, been phased out almost entirely, with comic performers tending to deliver existing material from their repertoires although, in June/July 2006, the Scots comedian and writer J ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Desert Island Discs
''Desert Island Discs'' is a radio programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4. It was first broadcast on the BBC Forces Programme on 29 January 1942. Each week a guest, called a " castaway" during the programme, is asked to choose eight recordings (usually, but not always, music), a book and a luxury item that they would take if they were to be cast away on a desert island, whilst discussing their life and the reasons for their choices. It was devised and originally presented by Roy Plomley. Since 2018 the programme has been presented by Lauren Laverne. More than 3,000 episodes have been recorded, with some guests having appeared more than once and some episodes featuring more than one guest. An example of a guest who falls into both categories is Bob Monkhouse, who appeared with his co-writer Denis Goodwin on 12 December 1955 and in his own right on 20 December 1998. When ''Desert Island Discs'' marked its 75th year in 2017, ''The Guardian'' called the show a radio classic. In Februar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Midweek (BBC Radio 4)
''Midweek'' was a British weekly radio magazine series broadcast on BBC Radio 4. It was aired on Wednesday at 09.00 and repeated later the same day at 21.00. For most of its run it was presented by Libby Purves and each week several guests discussed various topics with her. ''Start the Week'' and '' Stop the Week'', also broadcast on Radio 4, employed similar formats. The programme ended in March 2017 as part of a schedule change. History The first edition, initially billed in the ''Radio Times'' as ''Mid-week'' (billed as ''Midweek'' from October 1981), was broadcast on Thursday 23 November 1978. The programme moved to Wednesday mornings in October 1979. The original presenter was television documentary maker Desmond Wilcox. Other presenters between 1979 and 1983 included Russell Harty, Benny Green, Des Lynam, Elaine Stritch, Valerie Singleton, Ned Sherrin, Mavis Nicholson, Pete Murray, Noel Edmonds, Henry Kelly and Clare Francis. Purves had originally joined the programme i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
