Podcast
Wireless Nights
Hosted by BBC Radio 4 · EN
Jarvis Cocker explores the human condition after dark, with stories of night people
10episodes
Episodes
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Introducing... The Collection: Peel Acres
Jan 16, 202300:09:44Tap to summarizeTom Ravenscroft returns with a second series of Peel Acres. Each week, he welcomes a different music lover to the home of his late father, former BBC Radio DJ John Peel, and his legendary record collection.Tom's guests lend a hand (and two ears) in making sense of this vast music archive, which is comprised of more than 120,000 albums, 12 inches and seven inches, collected over a lifetime and meticulously catalogued.This episode sees Jarvis Cocker return to the house, which he first visited with Pulp in 1995, as they released their Mercury Music Prize-winning album Different Class.Presenter: Tom Ravenscroft Producers: Paul Sheehan and Becca Bryers
Transcribe →On The Edge
Dec 13, 202100:27:34Tap to summarizeJarvis goes into hospital for a routine procedure, and the anaesthetic gives him some very strange nocturnal visions.As Dr Ed Patrick administers the anaesthetic, Jarvis is transported far, far away. One moment he's on a Scottish lighthouse at midnight with artist and writer Peter Hill, who spent time as a lighthouse keeper in the 1970s. Then, in the blink of an eye, he's in a blizzard in the far north of Norway with Sunniva Sorby and Hilde Fålun Strøm, who became the first women in history to overwinter solo in the Arctic. The visions just keep coming as ice turns to fire, and Jarvis finds himself on the top of a mountain watching forest fires burn through the night with author Philip Connors who spends half of every year as a fire lookout high up in the mountains of New Mexico. In a night of vivid encounters, everyone Jarvis meets has stepped away from their every day lives, to live life on the edge.Doctor and comedian Ed Patrick is the author of 'Catch Your Breath: The Secret Life of a Sleepless Anaesthetist' Peter Hill is the author of 'Stargazing: Memoirs of a Young Lighthouse Keeper' Philip Connors is the author of 'Fire Season: Field notes from a wilderness lookout'. Details of the work of Sunniva Sorby and Hilde Fålun Strøm are at heartsintheice.comProducer: Laurence Grissell
Transcribe →Full Moon
Dec 10, 202100:27:50Tap to summarizeIn this edition of Wireless Nights, Jarvis Cocker discovers what happens here on earth on the night of the full moon. He'll be meeting the planet's inhabitants, both man and beast, as they divulge what light of the full moon does to them. Jarvis heads to the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, London to search for the full moon. His guide and telescope operator is astronomer Dr Emily Drabek-Maunder. Jarvis also discovers what others are getting up to on this full moon night.On a beach in Merseyside he encounters Moon Goddess Gatherings, a mass ritual where hundreds of women watch the full moon rise and embrace the energy of the lunar cycle.The writer Lewis Coleman reflects on his own relationship with the full moon as is teases him with lunacy and lycanthropy.And ecologist Rachel Grant reveals how a moonlit Italian jeep ride led her to discover that it’s not just wolves driven wild by the full moon, but amphibians too.Lewis Coleman is the author of Drinking The Moon and other works. Rachel Grant specialises in behavioural and evolutionary ecology at London South Bank University. Dr Emily Drabek-Maunder is an astrophysicist and Senior Manager of Public Astronomy at the Royal Observatory Greenwich. Karlee Matthews is Lead Pathfinder for Moon Goddess Gatherings.Produced by Sam Peach
Transcribe →Lost in the Forest
Nov 29, 202100:27:36Tap to summarizeJarvis Cocker gets lost in the forest at night and encounters a series of rather intriguing characters.As darkness falls on the forest, Jarvis realises he's hopelessly lost. Disorientated and desperately trying to find his way out, his nocturnal woodland walk takes a series of increasingly dark turns. He stumbles upon members of Essex Ghost Hunters who are mounting some rather spooky paranormal investigations. Another presence in the woods tonight is storyteller Lisa Schneidau who recounts some very strange fairy tales and legends of the forest after dark. He then runs into mountaineer Nick Bullock who recalls his own terrifying encounter in the forests of Alberta, Canada. But just as the darkness of the forest seems to be at its most impenetrable, Jarvis runs into bushcraft expert David Willis who guides him back to the light.Lisa Schneidau is the author of 'Woodland Folk Tales of Britain and Ireland', and Nick Bullock is the author of 'Tides: A Climber's Voyage'. Producer: Laurence Grissell
Transcribe →Bat Night
Nov 26, 202100:27:49Tap to summarizeJarvis Cocker is back with a new series of Wireless NightsTonight, armed with a bat detector Jarvis sets off through a wetland in search of bats and bat stories.He finds ecologist John Altringham crouched beside a cave in North Yorkshire awaiting a swarm of bats that come once a year to dance the night away.Jayne Hyde Dryden is using her powers of echo location to find her way around on a night walk. Being blind, this helps her see in sound.And Gail Armstrong is on watch at the Bat Hospital in Lancashire, nursing injured bats back to good health and finally returning them to the wild. Thanks to Lisa Woodward at the London Wetland CentreProducer Neil McCarthy
Transcribe →Lockdown
May 25, 202000:28:17Tap to summarizeFrom somewhere deep in lockdown, Jarvis trawls the Wireless Nights archive looking for relief from isolation.From the darkness of Lundy Island to a snowbound white out, from a man sending radio signals to the moon to a castaway in the North Sea, Jarvis tunes into stories of isolation and endurance with fellow travellers as they make it through the long night.Produced by Laurence Grissell and Neil McCarthy
Transcribe →A New Year's Resolution
Jan 1, 201900:27:47Tap to summarizeJarvis Cocker continues his nocturnal exploration of the human condition. He often lies awake at night trying, unsuccessfully, to nod off. But, not one to give up, his New Year's resolution is to crack this habit and attain the perfect night's sleep. His restless search leads him to fellow insomniac Marina Benjamin, sleep coach Max Kirsten, Greek goddesses and a cave where night meets day and peace may possibly reside.Producer Neil McCarthy
Transcribe →Destiny's Child
Dec 25, 201800:27:58Tap to summarizeJarvis Cocker hosts a special festive edition, telling stories of a shepherdess and a miracle birth, whilst a wise man looks out for bright lights in the Christmas skies.On a cold and frosty Christmas night, a baby is set to enter the world in the most inauspicious circumstances, a pair of shepherds keep watch over their flocks and a star gazer scans the heavens for unusual signs. Producer: Laurence Grissell
Transcribe →Night Train
Dec 18, 201800:26:09Tap to summarizeJarvis Cocker’s series exploring the human condition after dark boards the Wireless Nights Express to hear tales of night people on sleeper - or sleepless - trains. He begins on the Caledonian Sleeper, leaving the noise and crowds of London Euston to make a night-time journey across the country to the Scottish Highlands. In the dining car and corridors he meets fellow passengers and stewards. And as he starts to drift off in his cabin, the train makes some unscheduled stops.Geoff MacCormack recalls taking the Trans-Siberian express with his childhood friend David Bowie and a sobering stop at the East German border. Tessa Smit boards a 24 hour party train; and travel writer Colin Thubron on the time he got off his train, in the middle of Siberia.Producer: Georgia CattFirst broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in December 2018.
Transcribe →Dungeness
Dec 11, 201800:27:48Tap to summarizeJarvis Cocker's series exploring the human condition after dark returns with a night wander around Dungeness. Sometimes referred to as Britain's only desert, it's a shingle headland in Kent jutting into the English Channel. Sparsely populated, with wooden shack cottages and star filled night skies, a lighthouse sweeping its beam out to sea and a nuclear power station glowing with electric light like a city suspended in the darkness.But Jarvis isn't alone as he explores this untamed landscape, torch in hand. Also on the move are Paddy Hamilton and Bridget Wilkins who leave the cosiness of their old railway carriage home for a night walk on the beach, bumping into a Chinese fishing party along the way. At the Bird Observatory, moth trappers Sean Clancy and David Walker keep vigil as they wait for a specimen to fly into the light and recall other things that went bump in the night. Doreen Thomas, the matriarch of a Dungeness fishing family, reflects on nights gone by. And Mark Daniels is out there somewhere, swimming in the cold black inky waters. Producer Neil McCarthy
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