BBC Radio 4 announces Artworks, a brand new podcast strand

The BBC has launched a new podcast feed, Artworks, the home for imaginative documentaries about culture and the arts from BBC Radio 4. Alongside existing podcast strands on BBC Sounds, such as Intrigue, Extreme, World of Secrets, Illuminated and Limelight, the Artworks strand will ensure high quality single programmes about culture are more discoverable for audiences.

As the go-to place for arts documentaries, listeners will have access to the incredible stories behind creative figures who have shaped our culture – today and in the past. Artworks will explore inspirational and influential poets, contemporary artists who are pushing boundaries, singers, actors, painters, dancers, writers and directors from across the world.

The new strand launches with the release of the latest run of Role Play: a series in which actors from across the world reflect on a single part they have all played: Episode One features performers including Dame Judi Dench and Dame Janet Suzman describe what it’s like to play Cleopatra, taking us through the character’s journey in William Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra. Subsequent episodes focus on Blanche Dubois from Streetcar Named Desire, with contributors including Cate Blanchett and Patsy Ferran; and Charles Dicken’s Fagin, with Christopher Eccleston, Omid Djalili and Simon Lipkin amongst others.

Looking ahead, further documentaries being added to the Artworks umbrella strand include: Talk Talk: Living in Another World, which sees Elbow frontman Guy Garvey explore the mystery surrounding the pop group Talk Talk, their reclusive leader Mark Hollis, and the album ‘Spirit of Eden’, that saw him eschew fame and fortune in favour of something radically different; Hip Hop Homework, a look at Nkem Ifejika’s relationship with hip hop and how he will share that with his young children and his worries about explicit aspects of the music and its culture; Art That Conquered the World, where art historian James Fox explores the twists of fate, changing fashions, auctions, thefts and memes that propelled the most well-known artworks into the artistic stratosphere; Paul Simon’s Political Storm, where South African reporter Lynsey Chutel investigates the legacy of one the most controversial album roll-outs ever – Paul Simon’s 1980s album ‘Graceland’; Surrounded by Sound: Ray Dolby and the Art of Noise Reduction, where Matthew Sweet investigates the life of inventor Ray Dolby, and the transformative impact his sound system has had on cinema; and Orchestras of Auschwitz, where young conductor and composer Leo Geyer collaborates with the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum to study the concentration camp prisoner orchestras and decode their arrangements;

Previously released documentaries including What a Shocker! The Life of Leigh Bowery, Beyond Burns, 50 Years of the Koln Concert, Dreaming of Connie Converse and The Hazard of the Die will now also be located under the Artworks strand on BBC Sounds.

Matthew Dodd, Commissioning Editor for Arts at BBC Radio 4, says “We are excited to launch the new digital strand, Artworks, as a go-to spot to distribute BBC Radio 4’s arts and culture documentaries on BBC Sounds. Following the success of other strands, such as ‘Limelight’ – which ranked as the fifth most listened to podcast feed last quarter on BBC Sounds – we want to ensure arts documentaries and series are easily and readily accessible to all, whilst keeping up with the changing nature of the current audio landscape.”

The new series of Role Play lands on 24 February 2025.

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