Speechification

Radio 4 broadcasts 13,000 programmes per year so maybe it's inevitable that some programmes and formats seem hidden or under-promoted. From Fact to Fiction is the kind of thing that would be in the Sunday papers or on the front of the Radio Times if it was on the TV. But it's on the radio so there's a reasonable chance you've never heard of it.

The premise is simple: a weekly short drama about a story from the news - the whole thing necessarily put together in a few days. It's usually a short play - about the BA strike or 'Binge Britain' or demonised teens - but this one's a monologue. Writer/comic AL Kennedy riffs on the Gulf oil spill in a surprising and moving way. MP3 - 14:08.

The picture is from one of BP's mesmerising live video streams from the sea bottom (which are still on-air, by the way, as of this writing, unlike From Fact to Fiction, which will be back later this year).

"I was born in this City. I was going to school in this city, I went to University in Kabul, I consider myself a Kabuli girl. I love Kabul."

A heartbreaking 23:25 presented and produced by Meena Baktash, a journalist in the BBC World Service's Afghanistan Pashto and Dari Service. Her story conveys the awful, inconsolable melancholy of her home city in the years since the "golden decade" of the 1970s.

The programme is one of an excellent series of five "...made by BBC producers across the organisation's language services - from Pashto and Dari, Sinhala, Uzbek, Spanish American to Persian." You can download them all from the World Service web site. It was also selected for the World Service's Documentary Archive podcast, which is a treasure in its own right.

The photograph is from the programme's web page and shows Meena as a child. There are more pictures in this audio slideshow and here's the MP3 (23:25).

At the end of June, Radio 4 broadcast an amazing episode of Peter White's No Triumph No Tragedy. White interviewed historian Tony Judt in his New York home. The programme was universally praised - it was a very moving account of the late stages of Motor Neurone Disease (Lou Gehrig's in the US). How late we could only have guessed but on 6 August Judt died in New York.

So here's the programme (MP3 - length: 41:38) and a couple of episodes of Radio 3's Night Waves in which he also appears - one from before his diagnosis in 2008 (discussing his book of essays Reappraisals) and one from after (discussing his final book, Ill Fares The Land).

Judt wrote regularly for the NYRB over many years - most recently a series of very moving and direct sketches from his life. All of his NYRB stuff is here (some of it behind a paywall, but not this lovely one about the food his mother cooked in the fifties). He was interviewed for NPR's Fresh Air in March. Here's a good obit from The Telegraph.

Jem, Beatles nut, recommended this one. Clever John Harris on John Lennon. Nice (MP3 - length: 27:37).

Picture by gw1. Used under licence.

Lose yourself in this - half an hour spent in a Marrakesh square called Djemaa el Fna. And no ordinary square: a 'masterpiece of the oral and intangible heritage of humanity', according to UNESCO. Wonderful radio (MP3 - length: 28:28).

More info on the Radio 3 programme page. Picture, taken with a Lomo toy camera, by Molemaster. Used under licence.

Toby Amies, authentic crate digger, presented this. And Tamsin Hughes produced it. It's what Archive on 4 is for. Recent history bottled. Lovely (MP3 - length: 56:57).

Picture by Joshua. Used under licence.

Another Speechification exclusive (you won't hear this anywhere else). Steve Shepherd (the man who made the Lenny Bruce programme we published here in April), produced this portrait of divine eccentric Moondog for Radio 3 (MP3). The narrator is again Charles Shaar Murray.

Steve sent me these words about the making of the programme:

Moondog was another of my heroes/obsessions, a legendary NYC street performer and driven outsider who made some of the strangest records on the planet. Charles Shaar Murray shared my fascination with him and when I managed to sell the idea to R3 he jumped at the chance of presenting. The budget for these 30min jazzfile docs was very low so it was basically an illustrated talk but we managed to find two people who had actually experienced Moondog on the streets of New York: Charles knew musician Patti Palladin from way back and I was friendly with composer John Zorn. I think their eye witness statements bring this piece alive alongside the incredible Moondog interview I found buried in the BBC archive. The hardest thing to source when we were making the show was the Moondog / Julie Andrews collaboration. It's since been reissued but at the time it seemed as if someone had invented it just to give me something to search for. We eventually tracked down a copy via a Julie Andrews completist in Holland - the things we do for radio! Hope you enjoy Moondog - spread the word about him and if you're going buy some of his music get the early stuff.

(The video uses numbers from Flickr to illustrate a Moondog piece called 'Fog On The Hudson (425 West 57th Street)'. I found it on YouTube).

Something quite humbling from Holland. Michele Ernsting made this lovely programme for Radio Netherlands Worldwide (it's in English) and the BBC World Service transmitted it as part of the Global Perspective series. It says here:

Every year up to twenty people die completely alone in Amsterdam. There are no friends or family to prepare their funeral or mourn over the body. Sometimes these people are illegal migrants, drug mules, or simply people who for one reason or another, cut-off all social contacts. Poet Frank Starik decided that these people also deserved to be eulogized. He contacted the Amsterdam city services and asked if he could take part in these forgotten funerals. Producer Michele Ernsting of Radio Netherlands Worldwide brings us the story of the Lonely Funeral.

Here's the MP3.

Billy Childish is the permanent outsider, but a few more people are starting to hear his name and - if very lucky - his music, too. The ICA is about to launch a large exhibition of his work, so his reputation will only be growing. John Wilson explores his work and his world. [MP3]

I first heard about police departments podcasting a while ago, and the Tulsa Police Department's "Street Stories" in particular, but when I had a look, the official Tulsa PD website hadn't been updated since last April, so I rather lost interest. Thank goodness for Crossing Continents then, who just reignited it with a whole half hour of absolute gems from Officer Jay Chiarito-Mazarrella.

"This midget Don King stuff happens all the time." Enjoy. [MP3]