Illuminated

For much of their lives, Micki, Esther, Nicola and Colin were devoted members of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Nigerian Deeper Life Bible Church and Mormonism, respectively. Each recounts the moments when certainty began to unravel.
In raw and honest detail, their stories explore the difficult line between deep religious devotion and unhealthy control. Along the way, for each of them, the balance tipped. Eventually, the effort of holding on became harder than letting go.
With thanks to Faith to Faithless, a Humanists UK service guided by people with lived experience of leaving controlling religious environments.
Original music by Steve Urquhart.
(Photograph: Nicola Brophy)
Produced by May Robson
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4

Young Polish field-recordist Izabela Dłużyk travels to the Amazonian rainforest of Peru. Izabela, blind from birth, is a self-taught recordist with a wonderful ears for sound and limitless passion for the natural world. She is ‘rather shy and modest’ by her own account, but indefatigable in her adventurous pursuit of lovely recordings, leaving her recorders running night and day. She knows around 300 creature sounds by heart and in Peru she meets Red Howler Monkeys, Scarlet Macaws, Cobalt winged parakeets and many others. But what do these names and animals mean to someone who 'cannot imagine' colour or any other visual mapping? Izabela in Peru leads sighted listeners to a deeper understanding of blindness, especially the innate blindness that has shaped her inner world. Join Izabela as she climbs fearlessly up a 40 metre scaffolding rig to record above the tree canopy. 'I cannot understand height emotionally or intellectually,' Izabela says 'I cannot touch it with my hands or feet...what is 40 metres?'
Izabela first delighted BBC audiences with ‘Izabela in the Forest’ in 2023 when she guided us around the ancient forest of Białowieża in her native Poland.
Producer Monica Whitlock
Mix by Peter Ringrose

Radio 4 is marking the arrival of the Bayeux Tapestry in Britain with a day of programmes on the Norman Conquest and its lasting legacy today.
George Parker, political editor of the Financial Times, was first captivated by the tapestry as a young boy when he was taken to see it on a family holiday to Normandy. He went on to discover why the tapestry is first and foremost a deeply political object.
Tracing an extraordinary history over nearly 1000 years, George singles out the moments which show the power of a 70-metre-long piece of embroidered cloth with its stories of war, ambition and betrayal.
Why do some see it as an 11th century war ‘dossier’, justifying the Norman conquest of Britain and the building of a new nation?
Why did Napoleon have it brought to the Louvre as he plotted a new invasion across the Channel?
Why were the Nazis obsessed with the fine details of the tapestry - and how were they thrillingly stopped in their quest to claim it at the climax of the Second World War?
And how has a piece quintessentially associated with Anglo-French conflict come to symbolise the reverse – a new ‘entente amicale’ in the post-Brexit era?
George talks to historical experts and key players from politics and diplomacy. Guests include former prime minister Theresa May, George Osborne, Chris Bryant, French culture minister Catherine Pégard, Philippe Bélaval, Peter Ricketts, Professor Shirley Ann Brown and Dr Dave Musgrove.
With thanks to the City of Sheffield Festival Band.
Producer: Leela Padmanabhan
Sound Design: Hal Haines

Footsteps on a metal walkway. The jangle of keys and the resonant clang of thick steel doors slamming.
The clamour of voices raised in conversation, or argument, or laughter… their echoes ricocheting off brick and concrete.
TVs and radios, all tuned to different stations, fighting it out with each other, overlapping and blurring into a muddle of sound.
Prison is a swirling soundscape. A cacophony of disparate elements bouncing off the walls, assaulting your ears - and your mind. And each sound has a meaning, a resonance, both to prisoners and prison officers.
Nowadays Ric Renton is a playwright and screenwriter. But two decades ago that soundscape was part of his life... day and night. In his late teens he served time, first in a Young Offenders’ Institution and later in HMP Durham. And in the 20 years since he left, he’s often thought back to the sound of those places.
In this Illuminated he considers the significance of sound in prison - its impact on prisoners in an environment where they can’t escape it, the rhythms of its rise and fall across the day, and the way sound gives you clues about the prevailing mood... whether everybody’s relaxed or whether there’s tension in the air.
Ex-prisoners Valentine, Will, Yasmine and Nassri reflect on the barrage of noise they encountered in prison and the impossibility of escaping from it.
Valentine recalls sounds echoing and bouncing off the walls. And wrapped up in the cacophony was pain and trauma - and truth too. It seemed to patrol the prison corridors, even in the relative quiet of the night when inmates were banged up in their cells. Ric Renton remembers, at HMP Durham in the depths of the night, the warders’ shout when they discovered that a prisoner had taken their own life: the sudden, chilling cry of “One off!”
And former prison officer Alex South recalls how she and her colleagues could read the mood of the wing just by listening. If the shouting had diminished and everything was quieter, if people were murmuring and watchful, then there was probably trouble brewing.
The programme is soundtracked by recordings made on location in prison - the sounds as prison officers kit up at the beginning of their shift, the cacophony which explodes onto the wing at morning unlocking, the alarms, the gates, the keys, the prison officers’ radios, the procession and accumulation of sounds which mark the passing of another day inside.
Noise, bodies and minds - bouncing off the walls.
With thanks to the Prison Radio Association, Synergy Theatre Company and HMP Berwyn for their assistance in the making of this programme.
Presenter: Ric Renton
Producer: Jeremy Grange
Executive Producer: Olivia Humphreys
An Overcoat Media production for BBC Radio 4

You might know Birmingham's Bullring as one of the UK's premiere shopping destinations, or somewhere to pass through on your way to visit Birmingham's famous Christmas Market. But at the heart of the Bullring is a special church – one of only three churches in the world to have 16 bells. And bells have been rung on this site for almost 500 years.
The bellringers of Birmingham are arguably the best in the world at change ringing. They are preparing to compete at the annual National 12-Bell Striking Contest at York Minster - and they are the team to beat. Will they add to their formidable winning record, or will the York team have enough home advantage to beat them?
Special thanks to all those taking part:
the Bellringers of St Matins in the Bullring and the Birmingham 12-Bell Striking Contest Team - Alistair Cherry, Mike Wilby, Mark Eccleston, Stephanie Warboys, Jimmy Yeoman, Oliver Bates
Bellringing commentator and presenter Matthew Tosh
Judges of the National 12-Bell Striking Contest - Jo Holden and Jennie Earis
Canon Presenter James Milne of York Minster.
Sound recordist; Mike Rucinski
Sound engineer Nigel Appleton
Producer: Rosie Boulton
A Must Try Softer production for BBC Radio 4