Sunday Feature

In-depth documentaries which explore music, history, science, philosophy, film, visual arts and literature.

Radio 3,537 episodes

Episodes

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The Messy Guide to AI
Jennifer Walshe considers what AI means for creative authenticity and music culture.
31 May 2026,44 mins
Opera on the terraces
Oskar Jensen discovers the popularity of opera for football fans.
24 May 2026,14 mins
South African Arias
Lindsay Johns explores the flourishing of operatic talent in post-Apartheid South Africa.
10 May 2026,44 mins
Finding Florence Mills
Allyson Devenish goes in search of the 1920s sensation Florence Mills.
03 May 2026,44 mins
Afterwords: Elgar Howarth
An exploration of the trumpet player, composer and conductor Elgar - Gary - Howarth.
26 Apr 2026,44 mins
Afterwords: Rosemary Brown
Afterwords explores the work of musician and spirit medium Rosemary Brown.
19 Apr 2026,44 mins
Afterwords: Richard Rodney Bennett
An exploration of the musical versatility of Richard Rodney Bennett.
12 Apr 2026,44 mins
Shostakovich and Us
Nick Mohammed explores Russian composer Shostakovich's encounters with UK audiences.
15 Mar 2026,44 mins
Richard Strauss and Us
Nick Mohammed traces how British audiences first responded to composer Richard Strauss.
08 Mar 2026,44 mins
Bartok and Us
Nick Mohammed traces the first British encounters with Hungarian composer Bela Bartok.
01 Mar 2026,44 mins
Samurai culture
Samurai: warrior or poet and musician? Chris Harding visits a British Museum exhibition.
22 Feb 2026,14 mins
The "new Josephine Baker"
Adjoa Osei uncovers the story of performer spy Miss Bartira whose act landed her in prison
15 Feb 2026,14 mins
Ralph Vaughan Williams and fenland music
Poet Jade Cuttle visits the landscape which inspired a young Vaughan Williams
08 Feb 2026,14 mins
Music and miscarriage
Sabina Dosani, consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist, explores music and childbirth
01 Feb 2026,14 mins
The Eglantine Table at Hardwick Hall
Ellie Chan visits Hardwick Hall in search of a fascinating relic of Tudor musical culture.
25 Jan 2026,14 mins
The Music Man for Africa
A celebration of the life and work of broadcaster and cultural ambassador Leo Sarkisian.
18 Jan 2026,44 mins
New Music New York
Richard King explores the conditions for musical creativity in New York City in the 1970s.
11 Jan 2026,44 mins
Reeking of Cowpats - Peer Gynt
150 years on, how have Ibsen’s play and Grieg’s incidental music stood the test of time?
04 Jan 2026,44 mins
Wolf Biermann - the German Bob Dylan exiled by the GDR
Why was Wolf Biermann - the German Bob Dylan - exiled from East Germany?
28 Dec 2025,44 mins
One Singular Sensation
Celebrating the 50th anniversary of a musical theatre classic, 'A Chorus Line'.
21 Dec 2025,44 mins
Taped letters
How exchanging cassette tapes connected communities world wide in the pre-digital age.
07 Dec 2025,14 mins
The Russia I Lost
Tatyana Movshevich explores her Russian cultural past.
30 Nov 2025,44 mins
James Blades - Pandemonium of the One-Man Band
A journey through the life and work of James Blades, famous 20th-century percussionist.
23 Nov 2025,54 mins
The Great Egyptian Music Mystery
Ellie Chan traces the story of a set of unique and puzzling manuscripts
16 Nov 2025,44 mins
When the Words Leave
The poet Caroline Bird explores the silences when it feels like the words have left you.
09 Nov 2025,44 mins,
Sir Henry Unton's Music
Christina Faraday looks at possibly the first image of amateur music playing in England.
02 Nov 2025,14 mins
The Waltz Paradox
John Suchet unlocks the complex makeup of the Waltz King, Johann Strauss II.
26 Oct 2025,44 mins
Requiems for the Firestorm - Dresden's Musical Aftermath
Katja Hoyer explores many musics created in the aftermath of Dresden's fiery destruction.
19 Oct 2025,44 mins
The Artificial Composer - Music and AI
Composer Tarik O'Regan explores the collision of classical music and AI in Silicon Valley.
05 Oct 2025,44 mins
Joining the dots - 200 years of Braille Music
The story of Braille music and its impact on blind musicians over the last 200 years.
28 Sep 2025,44 mins