Documentaries

The Silent Mind
What’s it like to have a silent mind? Psychologist Charles Fernyhough investigates.
01 Aug 2022,28 mins
Life on the Edge of Oil
A prospective new oil field has big implications for Shetland, finds reporter Jen Stout.
27 Feb 2023,28 mins
Into the Manosphere
Follow activist Phillip Tanzer on a tour of the men’s rights community.
29 Oct 2019,37 mins
The Day When God Is Dead
The little-known story of the day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday.
07 Apr 2023,28 mins
Scarred
Ukraine is built on soil, but its soil is under threat
19 Mar 2025,28 mins
The New Guinea Singing Dog
Could a strange dog from remote New Guinea have been man's first best friend?
07 Jan 2008,30 mins
A Society of Recordists
A sonic portrait of the Wildlife Sound Recording Society.
17 Apr 2022,29 mins
The Black Chair
The story of the Welsh poet Hedd Wyn, killed at Passchendaele in 1917.
13 Jul 2017,28 mins
Jock Purdon, the Miners' Poet
Billy Bragg tells the story of Jock Purdon and the history of songwriting about mining.
02 Mar 2015,28 mins
Stealing Power
Meter tampering is dangerous and illegal yet reports of it are rising at an alarming rate.
20 Mar 2024,28 mins
Revisiting the 14-Day Rule
Episode 2
Matthew Hill asks if the 14-day limit on research on human embryos should be extended.
24 Jan 2017,28 mins
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The Reinvention of Germany
Why Europe's dominant power is struggling with a deep identity crisis.
18 Apr 2023,37 mins
Who Runs Labour?
A look back at Labour's civil war in the 1980s and whether there is currently a re-run.
02 Nov 2015,28 mins
The Business of Music with Matt Everitt
2. The Stream Age
Matt Everitt explores the key decisions that transformed the record industry.
25 Apr 2016,30 mins
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Imagiste
Jean Sprackland explores the subversive beauty of female Imagist poets H.D. and Amy Lowell
18 Sep 2022,28 mins
Macau: Monte Carlo of the Orient
How Macau overtook Las Vegas to become the gambling capital of the world.
24 Apr 2015,28 mins
But First, This...
Radio 4’s continuity announcers invite you into their world.
31 Dec 2023,57 mins
The Pedant's Progress: An Intimate History of the Arts Scholar
The image of the humanities academic, past and present, in the public imagination.
13 May 2013,28 mins
Rap Gets Real
Can rap help to change black men's attitudes towards mental illness? Guvna B investigates.
08 Mar 2022,30 mins
The Deadly Business of Democracy
How serious threats against MPs, their families and staff put the UK's democracy at risk.
30 Jun 2024,28 mins
The Falklands Now
On the war's 40th anniversary, Mike Wooldridge reports on life in the Falklands today.
05 Apr 2022,37 mins
The Rock That Brexit Forgot
Guy Hedgecoe hears how uncertainty over Brexit is affecting those in and around Gibraltar.
01 Dec 2024,28 mins
The Politics of Pandas
As the world watches the pandas in Edinburgh zoo, Philip Dodd investigates their allure.
20 Jan 2012,28 mins
Exonerated
John Toal meets two former death row inmates now helping the wrongly convicted.
02 Jan 2017,28 mins
How Would We Know If Democracy Had Died?
The American Guardrails
Can democracy ever be safe?
28 Oct 2024,42 mins
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Simon Schama: The Obliterators
Simon Schama offers some context for the destruction of antiquities in Syria and Iraq.
28 Feb 2016,30 mins
A Recipe for Love
Sophie Ward makes a scientifically-accredited love potion. Don't try this at home.
14 Feb 2022,28 mins
Germany Without Merkel
How do young Germans imagine a future after Angela Merkel?
02 Jan 2018,38 mins
The Khalsa
Healthy, Happy - and Unorthodox?
A look at American Sikhs, who follow the teachings of Yogi Bhajan
20 Mar 1999,29 mins
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Broken Politicians, Broken Politics
With personal testimonies from across Parliament we ask, is British politics broken?
19 May 2024,27 mins