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PODCAST

Illuminated

Illuminated is 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. This is a chance to meet voices that are not normally heard, open secret doors into concealed chambers and, above all, be transported by

society & culture

All Episodes

28:53

The Piano Boat

Illuminated ·

2025/11/02

The Piano Boat, the floating concert hall where world-renowned concert pianist Masayuki Tayama played, sits empty. His wife, Rhiana, is left with a boat with no captain and a Steinway she was never allowed to play. We join her as she processes her grief and considers the future of The Piano Boat without Masa.Rhiana and Masa commissioned the boat in 2019 and planned to run concert cruises, on board the boat, along the inland waterways. It was a dream project for both of them – a life designed for

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28:53

Problems with Julia Masli

Illuminated ·

2025/10/26

There are so many problems in the world. For the past three years, Estonian clown Julia Masli - armed with a microphone taped to a mannequin leg - has been trying to solve them.So far, during the performances of her live show ha ha ha ha ha ha ha, where Julia asks audience members their problem, she has recorded 1574 problems. A few people feel homesick, some worry about the collapse of society, and many lament their retreating hairlines. But we are not alone with our problems: Janet is not the only

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29:05

The Findhorn Garden

Illuminated ·

2025/10/19

This is a story about a community on the north east coast of Scotland that talked to plants with miraculous results.Established in 1962, the Findhorn community gained international recognition for 40lb cabbages, 8-foot delphiniums, and roses that bloomed in snow.With seemingly no gardening experience, community founders Peter and Eileen Caddy and their friend Dorothy Maclean transformed the barren sand dunes surrounding the 30-foot caravan they were living in, into a modern-day garden of Eden.The

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28:59

Returned to Sender

Illuminated ·

2025/10/12

Clint Buffington spends his time where land meets sea, searching for a very specific treasure - messages in bottles that have drifted across oceans. Over the past 20 years he has recovered more than 140 of them, each carrying a clue - sometimes decades old - waiting to be discovered.Finding a bottle is only the beginning. The real mystery unfolds when Clint carefully extracts the fragile paper in his Utah home lab. He first teases out the faint, salt-blurred words, deciphering a message damaged by

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29:18

Peanuts at 75

Illuminated ·

2025/10/05

On the 75th anniversary of the iconic comic strip Peanuts, psychoanalyst and author Josh Cohen shares how Charlie Brown and the Snoopy gang have become his constant companions—and how they can help us navigate the frustrating squiggle of life.Charles Schultz’s daily newspaper comic strip is perhaps the most enduring, beloved and iconic cartoon ever penned. Even if you’ve never read the strip itself, you are unlikely to have escaped its famous characters’ journeys across the decades and the globe

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28:36

Driving, Driving, Driving on the Autobahn

Illuminated ·

2025/09/28

Alan Dein takes to the road to explore the social and cultural resonances of Kraftwerk’s Autobahn. The music begins the way journeys begin: with a clunking car door and churning ignition, before rolling onwards on a warm rhythmic throb - a 23-minute conceptual road-trip of swerves and curves, gentle gradients and blaring horns, tarmac-rumbling rhythms and doppler-shift effects that simulate the sensory whoosh of passing vehicles.Kraftwerk's lyrical paean to the possibilities of freedom via the

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28:45

How Trains Shrank Time and Space

Illuminated ·

2025/09/21

200 years ago, the modern railway was born. On 27th September 1825, the first ticketed passenger train, powered by steam travelled on a public line in County Durham. Katrina Porteous, a poet with generational connections to the area follows the track of that inaugural journey, accompanied by a rich aural soundscape by Joe Fowler. She also journeys through time, accelerating from the coal mines which fuelled the railway to the modern day, racing to a future of international travel and modern

en

29:31

The Cat Killer Detectives

Illuminated ·

2025/09/07

When decapitated cats start appearing in South London, animal rescue duo Boudicca Rising and Tony Jenkins spring into action. They’ll do whatever it takes to get to the bottom of this mystery.It’s 2015 and the two volunteers running the South Norwood Animal Rescue and Liberty (SNARL) Facebook page, stumble upon a vet’s poster telling locals to keep their pets safe as there have been a series of “mutilations” in the area. When Boudicca and Tony share the vet’s warning, they’re flooded with messages

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28:36

The Watch Case

Illuminated ·

2025/08/24

Watchmaker Rebecca Struthers has been invited to come and examine a watch which its owners claim is the world's oldest - but is it?Until now, Rebecca had only heard rumours of this watch - about the reputation of its famous maker, about the extraordinary circumstances in which it was found, about its unbelievable valuation. It is famous, or infamous, in antiquarian horology circles. But until Rebecca wrote her book 'Hands of Time' (a Radio 4 Book of the Week), few outside that small world had heard

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28:59

Into the West

Illuminated ·

2025/08/17

The red-billed chough is the most dashing crow in the world. These rare, flamboyant, scarlet-legged, scarlet-billed denizens of Britain’s Celtic coasts are communal and comic, intelligent and daring. They’re also sublime aeronauts, riding the breeze as though they’re made of it. For writer Horatio Clare, the chough is his totem. He’s loved the bird since he first encountered it in the 1980s during childhood holidays to Pembrokeshire. And more than forty years on from that joyous first encounter he

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28:34

A Taste of Home

Illuminated ·

2025/08/03

Care packages are a universal love language and a way for families to stay connected across distances. We unbox four from China, India, Ireland and the Philippines, each filled with the tastes, textures and memories of home.In Newton-le-Willows, content creator Aurora unwraps a parcel from her mother in China revealing fragrant spices, dried mushrooms and handmade gifts as a reminder of her native traditions. In Cardiff, dancer Ishika shares a tightly sealed batch of homemade bori, sun-dried

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29:07

Don't Lose Your Head!

Illuminated ·

2025/07/27

When the Reverend Andrew Doarks took on the church of St Gregory's in Sudbury three years ago - he received no warning of what he would discover in the vestry.There - behind a perspex screen and a wooden flap in the wall - is the severed head of the fourteenth century Archbishop of Canterbury Simon of Sudbury. Simon who was decapitated during the Peasant's Revolt in 1381 shares the same space as the church's playgroup and receives visitors by appointment only. It is an unusual arrangement for the

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29:01

Target Girls

Illuminated ·

2025/07/20

“There are so many things you can’t see coming. You can’t see death. You can’t see Mount Vesuvius erupting. The carpet could be pulled out from under you at any second. But I’ll see a knife coming if it’s going to hit me.”Target Girls are the female performers in “impalement arts'', where knives, arrows and even bullets are propelled at humans. Prepare for a full body immersion in this extreme profession, as we pull back the curtain on the hidden world behind the target girl’s silent, singular

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29:24

All Under One Magnetosphere

Illuminated ·

2025/07/13

Electromagnetic waves fill the universe, radiating from solar storms and bursts of lightning, but also from our electronic devices and infrastructures. Using simple, DIY tools, a community of audio enthusiasts translates these waves into sound, uncovering hidden sonic worlds.Five dedicated ‘natural radio’ enthusiasts venture beyond the electromagnetic pollution of the city, tuning into the Earth’s natural static to reveal a rich, textured soundscape, rarely heard.Stephen McGreevy, a cult figure

en

28:56

Still Me

Illuminated ·

2025/07/06

Tracey Okines is witty, stylish, sharp, and fiercely independent. She loves seaside strolls, spontaneous shopping trips, pub outings, and her cat, Meow. She’s a writer, a dreamer, a lover of music, and someone who refuses to be boxed in by anyone’s expectations.At 27, Tracey’s life changed overnight when a misjudged cartwheel caused a massive bleed, leading to a brainstem stroke. She was left with locked-in syndrome, unable to move or speak but fully conscious. Sixteen years on, she communicates

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29:17

Sea Like a Mirror

Illuminated ·

2025/06/29

An atmospheric gathering storm of a documentary exploring the extraordinary history of the Beaufort Scale - a system designed to help find language for the wind.Sea like a mirrorWhistling heard in telegraph wires Umbrellas used with difficulty...In this programme we climb to the top of a lighthouse in the Outer Hebrides, labelled the windiest point in Britain by the Guinness Book of Records, and travel deep into the Met Office archives. With contributions from the writer Scott Huler, author of

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29:16

The Frozen Light

Illuminated ·

2025/06/22

Once a year, residents of Longyearbyen gather where the steps of the old hospital used to be to witness the return of something they have not seen in months – sunlight. The Arctic archipelago of Svalbard, part of Norway, is as far north as humans can live. This dramatic polar world experiences 24-hour daylight in summer and total darkness in winter.But on March 8th, locals and visitors of its largest settlement, Longyearbyen, wait with baited breath until a single ray of sunshine appears upon the

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29:02

Lost and Found

Illuminated ·

2025/06/15

When a dog goes missing it can be devastating. It’s every dog owners worst nightmare. Social media is awash with posts about lost dogs, some of them scams, but many are genuine cries for help from distressed people who have lost an animal they love. Between January 2023 and June 2024 almost 5000 dogs were reported missing in the UK.In March 2025, Roger put a lead on his Jack Russell terrier Betty, as he attended to his boat at Buckden Marina in St Neots, Cambridgeshire. With his back turned for a

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29:00

You've Got Worms

Illuminated ·

2025/06/08

Worms are everywhere - in our soils, our seas, and our selves. Dive down a worm burrow on this sound-rich odyssey to meet our most numerous and intimate animal companion.Science writer Jack Monaghan will guide you through gardens and farms, factories and laboratories to look afresh at our wriggling, wonderful world.Producer and narrator: Jack MonaghanSound design and original music: Robert Moutrey Executive producer: Bridget Harney A Pronk production for BBC Radio 4

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29:12

A Walk in Time

Illuminated ·

2025/06/01

Where do we begin to think about time without humans to count it? Chris Gasson spends every spare moment on his local beach, Seatown on the Jurassic coast of Dorset, looking out for fossils and stones that speak of a past and future too vast for us to easily imagine. On his walks, Chris has found countless time capsules - including a mammoth tooth, plesiosaur vertebrae and the remains of an ichthyosaur 190 million years old, now under research by Craig Chivers. 'It's a fantastic find,' says Craig

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