Illuminated

BBC Radio 4
  • 4.8 (9)
  • Society & Culture
  • Weekly

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 the art and inventiveness of the very best programme makers. Just press the switch. New episodes are available weekly on Sunday evenings. Subscribe on BBC Sounds to make sure you don't miss an episode.

  1. 3d ago

    Making Them Count

    'What gets counted, counts'. Working from this simple proposition, the Dying Homeless Project has for some years provided the UK's most complete - and, at times, its only - record of deaths among those who've experienced homelessness. Run by Museum of Homelessness as a memorial to a community that can so easily become invisible, this year the report identified 1720 men, women and children who had lost their lives across the whole of the UK in 2025. This autumn, for the first time in four years, the Office of National Statistics also issued a bulletin estimating that 974 people had died in England and Wales during 2025, an increase, they noted, of 77% over the last twelve years. Now, with the government launching an initiative to get 'everyone in for Christmas', this episode of Illuminated includes the Minister for Homelessness, Florence Eshalomi MP; attends the annual service of commemoration at St Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square, where Angel Madden's sister Colleen's name will be among those read out; hears also from Jon and Elodie, whose friend Sparky died on a bench in Regent's Park; talks with Jess and Matt Turtle of the Museum of Homelessness in north London, as well as Maeve McClenaghan, the journalist who initiated the DHP, Gill Taylor, Strategic Lead for the project, and David Mais who compiles the figures for the ONS. Produced by Alan Hall and Eleanor McDowall A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4

  2. Oct 25

    Epilepsy and the Electric Spirit

    A moment in the cinema, watching a horror film, made Daniel Kraemer look at his condition - epilepsy - in a new way. Why has epilepsy consistently been painted by society as being a supernatural power? When you hear from the people who have seizures - across the huge range of types of the condition - a fascinating yet uncomfortable answer emerges. Presenter and Producer: Daniel Kraemer Executive Producer: Giles Edwards Sound: Hal Haines

  3. Oct 18

    The Mysterious Case of Annie Elizabeth

    Lois Pryce has a mystery growing in her garden. On the banks of the River Thames stands an enormous old apple tree, producing fruit unlike any she has seen before. For years, Lois has wondered what it is. So she sends off a handful of clues - apples, leaves and a twig - to the experts at the National Fruit Collection. The answer comes back - Annie Elizabeth. It sounds more like a person than an apple. So who was Annie Elizabeth, and why did someone give her name to a tree? Lois sets off on the trail, entering the eccentric world of Britain’s apple detectives. Her search leads from thousands of trees in the orchards of Kent to a house in Leicestershire with a remarkable survivor in its garden. Along the way there are Victorian records to decipher, an unlikely marriage, a missing baptism, a child who seems to vanish from the records - and one tantalising name that keeps leading Lois deeper into the past. Eventually, armed with a map and one last lead, Lois finds herself on her hands and knees in an overgrown churchyard, tearing ivy from a gravestone that has been hidden for decades. What emerges is a Victorian family mystery of love, respectability, scandal, grief and an extraordinary living connection between a little girl born more than 160 years ago and the apple tree still growing in Lois’s garden today. Blending present-day detective work with specially created Victorian drama, The Mysterious Case of Annie Elizabeth asks how a name can survive long after almost everything else has been forgotten. Writer & Presenter: Lois Pryce Producer: Louise Orchard Sound Design: Rowan Bishop Original Music: James Aplin A 2 Degrees West production for BBC Radio 4

  4. Oct 9

    Grandchildren of the ’56 Revolution

    The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 cemented the Cold War, confirming the USSR’s dominance over Eastern Europe and the limitations of NATO. Many thousands were killed. As we approach the 70th anniversary, Nathalie Olah, whose own grandfather was one of 200,000 people to flee Hungary as the working-class uprising was violently suppressed by Soviet tanks, visits Budapest in search of its traces. The Parliament building is still marked with bullet holes. On the facade of the Magyar Radio building, once occupied by students, she finds a sculpture commemorating four of those killed. After decades of suppression, the uprising is now highly symbolic and used in recent years to serve different political agendas. Nathalie speaks with younger people touched in different ways by ’56. Kornélia Deres is a poet whose family stood on different sides of the conflict, and whose work is informed by intergenerational trauma. Noémi Varga is a filmmaker who observes the memory culture of ’56 and its uses in public discourse. Elemer Balazs is a musician who performed Liszt's Funérailles (composed after the crushing of the 1848 Hungarian Revolution) at the inauguration of the new Prime Minister, Peter Magyar, ushering in what many wish to believe is a new era of hope. Presented by Nathalie Olah Produced by Alan Hall A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 4

  5. Oct 4

    Third Man Syndrome

    In 1916, struggling across the mountains of South Georgia after the loss of the Endurance, Ernest Shackleton sensed that his party of three had become four. T.S. Eliot carried the idea into The Waste Land with "Who is the third who walks always beside you?", also a reference to the biblical tale of the Road to Emmaus where a mysterious unseen companion accompanies two disciples. The Third Man has shadowed explorers ever since - the belief, at the far edge of exhaustion, fear or grief, that someone unseen has come to walk alongside. Poet Kathleen Jamie has written a new narrative poem in which that presence speaks, and sets it among people who have met it: Stephen Venables, descending alone from the summit of Everest; Peter Hillary, on the long haul to the South Pole; and Chamonix mountain guide Jean-Franck Charlet who remembers a glacier he had to cross alone, roped to an unknown companion. In a deer hide in the Scottish hills, mountaineer Sandy Allan recalls the white rabbit in a red waistcoat that kept him company on Nanga Parbat, and Liz Duff, the first Scottish woman on Everest, describes the day in 1985 when she and two others watched a figure carry a load along Everest's North-East Ridge. The climbers at the next camp saw no one arrive. Is it the mind protecting itself, or something else? Between the voices, the wind and the ice, Kathleen Jamie listens for who is there. With thanks to Globule Radio Chamonix for recording Jean-Franck. Presenter: Kathleen Jamie Producer: Victoria Ferran A Just Radio production for BBC Radio 4

  6. Sep 27

    Faithless

    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

  7. Sep 20

    Izabela in Peru

    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

  8. Sep 1

    The Power of the Bayeux Tapestry

    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

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Ratings & Reviews

4.8
out of 5
9 Ratings

About

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 the art and inventiveness of the very best programme makers. Just press the switch. New episodes are available weekly on Sunday evenings. Subscribe on BBC Sounds to make sure you don't miss an episode.

Information

  • Creator
    BBC Radio 4
  • Years Active
    2024 - 2026
  • Episodes
    115
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © (C) BBC 2026
  • Show Website
    Illuminated

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