The Reunion (radio series)
Genre | Factual |
---|---|
Running time | 41 minutes |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Language(s) | English |
Home station | BBC Radio 4 |
Hosted by | Kirsty Wark Sue MacGregor (former) |
Produced by | David Prest |
Original release | 27 July 2003[1] – present |
Opening theme | Franz Liszt - "Canzonetta del Salvator Rosa" from Années de pèlerinage[2] |
Website | The Reunion |
The Reunion is a radio discussion series presented by Kirsty Wark which reunites a group of people involved in a moment of modern history.[3][4] It has been broadcast on BBC Radio 4 since July 2003, with 163 episodes presented by the first presenter, Sue MacGregor.[5]
The series brings together four or five participants, sometimes from opposing sides. The first episode reunited the team behind the world's first IVF baby, Louise Brown.[1] Other examples include Robben Island prisoners in Cape Town, South Africa, representatives from Labour and BBC to discuss the Hutton Inquiry,[6] perpetrators and victims of the Brighton hotel bombing, and maids of honour from the 1953 Coronation.[5] The panel discussion is interspersed with archive audio and narration of the event by the presenter.
MacGregor announced that the series of 2019 would be her last.[5] Kirsty Wark was appointed as the new presenter in May 2020, and her first episode, bringing together participants in the Black Wednesday exchange rate crash of 1992, was broadcast on 16 August 2020.[4]
The format for The Reunion was conceived by the series producer David Prest and is owned by Whistledown Productions, who license the programme to BBC Radio 4. The programme won a gold award for the Best Speech Programme at the 2007 Sony Radio Academy Awards[7] and was also voted radio programme of the year at the 2016 Broadcasting Press Guild Awards.[8] In a Radio Times poll in February 2019, The Reunion was voted the 27th greatest radio programme of all time.[9][10]
The Reunion has inspired two feature films. Made in Dagenham (2010) was based on an episode broadcast in September 2003 featuring the women machinists who went on strike at the Ford factory in Dagenham in 1968. The film's producer Stephen Woolley heard the programme, and his company, Number 9 Films, optioned the script from Whistledown Productions, who became consultants to the film and were credited as Associate Producers.[11] Misbehaviour (2020) was similarly inspired by a particularly tense 2010 edition of the programme that brought together the women's liberation protesters who disrupted the 1970 Miss World competition, with former tournament host Michael Aspel, Mecca employee Peter Jolley, and that year's Miss World, Jennifer Hosten.[12]
Programmes
[edit]No | Broadcast date |
Title | Guest | Sourch |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | 27 July 2003 | First "Test Tube Baby" |
|
[13] |
2 | 3 August 2003 | Chariots of Fire |
| |
3 | 10 August 2003 | Concorde |
| |
4 | 17 August 2003 | Iranian Revolution |
| |
5 | 24 August 2003 | Festival of Britain |
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6 | 31 August 2003 | Margaret Thatcher's 1979 election campaign |
| |
7 | 12 September 2003 | Ford Dagenham equal pay strike |
| |
8 | 19 September 2003 | Sinking of the Rainbow Warrior |
| |
9 | 8 August 2004 | Britain's hydrogen bomb tests |
|
[14] |
10 | 15 August 2004 | First women vicars in the Church of England |
| |
11 | 22 August 2004 | Everyman Theatre, Liverpool |
| |
12 | 29 August 2004 | Raising the Mary Rose |
| |
13 | 5 September 2004 | 1975 United Kingdom European Communities membership referendum |
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14 | 12 September 2004 | Terrence Higgins Trust |
| |
15 | 26 December 2004 | 1960s supermodels |
| |
16 | 24 July 2005 | 1980 Summer Olympics |
| |
17 | 31 July 2005 | Not the Nine O'Clock News |
| |
18 | 7 August 2005 | Abortion Act 1967 campaigners |
| |
19 | 14 August 2005 | Child Internees in Japan |
|
[15] |
20 | 21 August 2005 | Today newspaper |
| |
21 | 28 August 2005 | Siege of Sarajevo |
| |
22 | 4 September 2005 | Twyford Down protest |
| |
23 | 11 September 2005 | Edinburgh Festival Fringe | ||
24 | 2 April 2006 | Gulf War |
| |
25 | 9 April 2006 | Serious Fraud Office |
| |
26 | 16 April 2006 | The Family |
| |
27 | 23 April 2006 | England at the 1966 FIFA World Cup |
| |
28 | 30 April 2006 | Wedding of Charles and Diana |
| |
29 | 3 September 2006 | Privatisation of British Rail |
|
[16] |
30 | 10 September 2006 | Robben Island |
| |
31 | 17 September 2006 | TV-am | ||
32 | 24 September 2006 | Marchioness disaster |
| |
33 | 8 April 2007 | Last Debutantes, 1958 |
| |
34 | 15 April 2007 | EastEnders |
| |
35 | 22 April 2007 | Milton Keynes | ||
36 | 29 April 2007 | British Antarctic Survey | ||
37 | 6 May 2007 | Brighton hotel bombing |
| |
38 | 26 August 2007 | Royal Opera House |
| |
39 | 2 September 2007 | 1976 Race Relations Act |
|
[17] |
40 | 9 September 2007 | British veterans of the Korean War | ||
41 | 16 September 2007 | NME Writers |
| |
42 | 23 September 2007 | Bhagwan Rajnees | ||
43 | 6 April 2008 | Bletchley Park code-breakers. |
| |
44 | 13 April 2008 | National Lottery |
| |
45 | 20 April 2008 | D.C.Thomson comics |
| |
46 | 27 April 2008 | Strangeways Prison riots of 1990 | ||
47 | 4 May 2008 | Withnail and I |
| |
48 | 24 August 2008 | Transglobe Expedition |
| |
49 | 7 September 2008 | Hitler Diaries |
|
[17] |
50 | 14 September 2008 | Windsor Castle fire 1992 |
| |
51 | 21 September 2008 | Construction of the Channel Tunnel |
| |
52 | 21 September 2008 | The Navy Lark |
| |
53 | 5 April 2009 | National Theatre |
| |
54 | 12 April 2009 | Hillsborough disaster |
| |
55 | 19 April 2009 | Brit Art |
| |
56 | 26 April 2009 | Thalidomide scandal |
| |
57 | 3 May 2009 | Beirut hostages |
| |
58 | 23 August 2009 | Kerry Packer and the World Series Cricket 1977 |
| |
59 | 30 August 2009 | 1983–1985 famine in Ethiopia |
|
[18] |
60 | 6 September 2009 | Iranian Embassy Siege |
| |
61 | 13 September 2009 | Nelson Mandela Release |
| |
62 | 20 September 2009 | Stonewall |
| |
63 | 4 April 2010 | London Marathon |
| |
64 | 11 April 2010 | Brideshead Revisited |
| |
65 | 18 Apr 2010 | Maze Prison |
| |
66 | 25 April 2010 | Dunblane school massacre |
| |
67 | 2 May 2010 | The Tonight Programme |
| |
68 | 22 August 2010 | Millennium Dome |
| |
69 | 29 August 2010 | Hurricane Katrina |
|
[19] |
70 | 5 September 2010 | Miss World 1970 |
| |
71 | 12 September 2010 | Kindertransport |
| |
72 | 19 September 2010 | Play School |
| |
73 | 6 March 2011 | UNHCR Bosnia |
| |
74 | 13 March 2011 | Comic Relief |
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75 | 20 March 2011 | Brixton Riots |
| |
76 | 27 March 2011 | British Rock and Rollers |
| |
77 | 7 August 2011 | Barings Bank Collapse |
Alan Bloom, administrator of Barings
| |
78 | 14 August 2011 | Courtauld Institute |
| |
79 | 26 August 2011 | Zeebrugge Ferry Disaster |
|
[20] |
80 | 28 August 2011 | Boys from the Blackstuff |
| |
81 | 4 September 2011 | Hunting Ban | ||
82 | 11 September 2011 | Les Miserables |
| |
83 | 1 April 2012 | 1948 Olympic Games |
| |
84 | 8 April 2012 | Greenham Common |
| |
85 | 15 April 2012 | HMS Sheffield | ||
86 | 22 April 2012 | Globe Theatre |
| |
87 | 29 April 2012 | Hong Kong Handover |
| |
88 | 19 August 2012 | 60s Girl Singers |
| |
89 | 26 August 2012 | Ugandan Asians |
|
[21] |
90 | 2 September 2012 | Poll Tax |
| |
91 | 9 September 2012 | Dolly the Sheep |
| |
92 | 16 September 2012 | Big Brother |
| |
93 | 7 April 2013 | Doctor Who |
| |
94 | 14 April 2013 | King's Cross fire |
| |
95 | 21 April 2013 | Coronation Maids of Honour | ||
96 | 28 April 2013 | The Centre for Alternative Technology |
| |
97 | 5 May 2013 | Hutton Inquiry |
| |
98 | 18 August 2013 | Goodness Gracious Me |
| |
99 | 25 August 2013 | Lib Lab Pact |
|
[22] |
100 | 1 September 2013 | Assassination of John F. Kennedy |
| |
101 | 8 September 2013 | Jersey Occupation |
| |
102 | 15 September 2013 | Spare Rib magazine |
| |
103 | 25 December 2013 | The Fast Show |
| |
104 | 6 April 2014 | UK miners' strike (1984–85) |
| |
105 | 13 April 2014 | Four Weddings and a Funeral |
| |
106 | 20 April 2014 | Life on Earth |
| |
107 | 4 May 2014 | Omagh Bombing |
| |
108 | 17 August 2014 | Berlin Airlift |
| |
109 | 24 August 2014 | Sun Newspaper |
|
[23] |
110 | 31 August 2014 | Independence of Zimbabwe in 1980 |
| |
111 | 7 September 2014 | James Bond |
| |
112 | 19 September 2014 | New Labour |
| |
113 | 25 December 2014 | Wallace and Gromit |
| |
114 | 5 April 2015 | Spycatcher |
| |
115 | 12 April 2015 | Fastnet Race Disaster |
| |
116 | 19 April 2015 | Hit Factory |
| |
117 | 26 April 2015 | Far East Prisoners of War |
| |
118 | 3 May 2015 | Peter Brook's A Midsummer Night's Dream |
| |
119 | 16 August 2015 | Guantanamo Bay |
|
[24] |
120 | 23 August 2015 | Food writers | ||
121 | 30 August 2015 | Foot-and-Mouth Disease |
| |
122 | 6 September 2015 | Alan Bennett's Talking Heads |
| |
123 | 13 September 2015 | Birmingham Six |
| |
124 | 3 April 2016 | Nuclear Submarines | ||
125 | 10 April 2016 | Disability Campaigners |
| |
126 | 17 April 2016 | UEFA Euro 1996 |
| |
127 | 24 April 2016 | Maastricht Treaty |
| |
128 | 6 May 2016 | Arrest of Augusto Pinochet |
| |
129 | 21 August 2016 | Yorkshire Ripper Investigation |
|
[25] |
130 | 28 August 2016 | Glastonbury Festival |
| |
131 | 4 September 2016 | Launch of Private Eye |
| |
132 | 11 September 2016 | Contaminated Blood |
| |
133 | 23 September 2016 | Tate Modern |
| |
134 | 2 April 2017 | Vietnamese Boat People |
| |
135 | 9 April 2017 | Libyan Embassy Siege |
| |
136 | 16 April 2017 | Women of Punk |
| |
137 | 23 April 2017 | Challenger Disaster |
| |
138 | 30 April 2017 | Climbie Inquiry |
| |
139 | 13 August 2017 | First all-female Round the World Yacht Crew |
|
[26] |
140 | 20 August 2017 | Wapping Dispute |
| |
141 | 27 August 2017 | Eighties Fashion Designers |
| |
142 | 3 September 2017 | Solidarity |
| |
143 | 10 September 2017 | Northern Rock crisis |
| |
144 | 1 April 2018 | Battle for Basra |
| |
145 | 8 April 2018 | Enfield Poltergeist |
| |
146 | 15 April 2018 | Kyoto Protocol |
| |
147 | 22 April 2018 | Baader-Meinhof |
| |
148 | 29 April 2018 | The Young Ones |
| |
149 | 12 August 2018 | The Rise and Fall of the SDP |
|
[27] |
150 | 19 August 2018 | Auschwitz Survivors |
| |
151 | 26 August 2018 | Murder of Georgi Markov |
| |
152 | 2 September 2018 | Chickenshed Theatre |
| |
153 | 9 September 2018 | Sierra Leone Civil War |
| |
154 | 7 April 2019 | French Resistance |
| |
155 | 14 April 2019 | Parliamentary Expenses Scandal |
| |
156 | 21 April 2019 | Gulf War Aircrew POWs |
| |
157 | 28 April 2019 | Scottish Parliament |
| |
158 | 5 May 2019 | Pioneering Women Newsreaders |
| |
159 | 18 August 2019 | York Minster fire |
|
[28] |
160 | 25 August 2019 | Death on the Rock |
| |
161 | 1 September 2019 | When Rugby Turned Pro |
| |
162 | 8 September 2019 | Alder Hey Organs Scandal |
| |
163 | 15 September 2019 | Cats - The Musical |
| |
164 | 16 August 2020 | Black Wednesday |
| |
165 | 23 August 2020 | Collapse of British Leyland |
| |
166 | 30 August 2020 | Bid for London 2012 |
| |
167 | 6 September 2020 | GM Crops Debate |
| |
168 | 13 September 2020 | Virago Press |
| |
169 | 24 December 2020 | Strictly Come Dancing |
|
[29] |
170 | 30 December 2020 | The COVID-19 ward |
| |
171 | 4 April 2021 | Finding Richard III |
| |
172 | 11 April 2021 | Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill |
| |
173 | 18 April 2021 | Litvinenko Poisoning |
| |
174 | 25 April 2021 | The Romanian Orphanages |
| |
175 | 2 May 2021 | Madness |
| |
176 | 13 August 2021 | Same-Sex Marriage |
| |
177 | 20 August 2021 | The Day Today |
| |
178 | 27 August 2021 | Tiananmen Square Protests |
| |
179 | 3 September 2021 | Pioneers of Women's Football |
|
[29] |
180 | 10 September 2021 | Trial of the Mangrove Nine |
| |
181 | 24 December 2021 | Love Actually |
| |
182 | 1 April 2022 | Boxing Day Tsunami |
| |
183 | 8 April 2022 | McLibel Trial |
| |
184 | 22 April 2022 | Opening Ceremony of the London Olympics |
| |
185 | 29 April 2022 | Dale Farm Evictions |
| |
186 | 6 May 2022 | Silver Jubilee |
| |
187 | 19 August 2022 | Grange Hill |
| |
188 | 26 August 2022 | London Occupy | ||
189 | 2 September 2022 | Deep Blue v Kasparov |
|
[29] |
190 | 4 September 2022 | Island Records |
| |
191 | 1 October 2022 | Maidan Uprising |
| |
192 | 2 April 2023 | British Runners of the 1980s |
| |
193 | 9 April 2023 | The Good Friday Agreement |
| |
194 | 16 April 2023 | Sharpe |
| |
195 | 23 April 2023 | Abu Ghraib |
| |
196 | 5 May 2023 | Eurovision Song Contest |
| |
197 | 18 Aug 2023 | Jerry Springer: The Opera |
| |
198 | 20 Aug 2023 | Lockerbie Bombing |
| |
199 | 27 Aug 2023 | Final Years of John Major's Government |
| |
200 | 3 Sep 2023 | Spitting Image |
| |
201 | 15 Sep 2023 | BLK Art Group |
| |
202 | 29 Dec 2023 | Band Aid |
| |
203 | 12 April 2024 | That's Life! |
|
[30] |
204 | 14 April 2024 | 1996 Mount Everest disaster | Lene Gammelgaard, a mountaineer
| |
205 | 21 April 2024 | Passion of Port Talbot | Michael Sheen, actor
| |
206 | 28 April 2024 | Bush v Gore 2000 |
|
References
[edit]- ^ a b "The Reunion:Louise Brown". BBC Genome. Retrieved 2 August 2020.
- ^ Mahoney, Elizabeth (25 April 2012). "The Reunion: an unmissable radio show that gets better with every listen". The Guardian.
- ^ "The Reunion". BBC Radio 4. Retrieved 16 August 2020.
- ^ a b "Kirsty Wark to host Radio 4's The Reunion". BBC Media Centre. 17 May 2020.
- ^ a b c "Sue MacGregor stands down as host of Radio 4's The Reunion". BBC Media Centre. 23 October 2019.
- ^ Carr, Flora (19 August 2018). "'The space shuttle disaster Reunion was heartbreaking': Radio 4's Sue Macgregor recalls her most memorable The Reunion moments". Radio Times.
- ^ "Sony Radio Academy Awards 2007". The Guardian. 1 May 2007.
- ^ "The 42nd Broadcasting Press Guild Television and Radio Awards". Broadcasting Press Guild. 12 March 2016. Retrieved 21 February 2021.
- ^ O'Hagan, Simon (16 February 2019). "The 30 Greatest Radio Programmes of All Time". Radio Times.
- ^ "Commercial radio ignored in Greatest Radio Shows list". RadioToday. 12 February 2019. Retrieved 22 August 2023.
- ^ "Whistledown Productions". BFI. Archived from the original on 22 April 2019. Retrieved 19 February 2021.
- ^ Moorhead, Joanna (26 February 2020). "'I heard the signal – and threw my flour bombs': why the 1970 Miss World protest is still making waves". The Guardian.
- ^ "BBC Radio 4 - The Reunion - Available now". BBC. Retrieved 21 August 2023.
- ^ "BBC Radio 4 - The Reunion - Available now". BBC. Retrieved 21 August 2023.
- ^ "BBC Radio 4 - The Reunion - Available now". BBC. Retrieved 21 August 2023.
- ^ "BBC Radio 4 - The Reunion - Available now". BBC. Retrieved 21 August 2023.
- ^ a b "BBC Radio 4 - The Reunion - Available now". BBC. Retrieved 21 August 2023.
- ^ "BBC Radio 4 - The Reunion - Available now". BBC. Retrieved 21 August 2023.
- ^ "BBC Radio 4 - The Reunion - Available now". BBC. Retrieved 21 August 2023.
- ^ "BBC Radio 4 - The Reunion - Available now". BBC. Retrieved 21 August 2023.
- ^ "BBC Radio 4 - The Reunion - Available now". BBC. Retrieved 22 August 2023.
- ^ "BBC Radio 4 - The Reunion - Available now". BBC. Retrieved 22 August 2023.
- ^ "BBC Radio 4 - The Reunion - Available now". BBC. Retrieved 22 August 2023.
- ^ "BBC Radio 4 - The Reunion - Available now". BBC. Retrieved 22 August 2023.
- ^ "BBC Radio 4 - The Reunion - Available now". BBC. Retrieved 23 August 2023.
- ^ "BBC Radio 4 - The Reunion - Available now". BBC. Retrieved 23 August 2023.
- ^ "BBC Radio 4 - The Reunion - Available now". BBC. Retrieved 23 August 2023.
- ^ "BBC Radio 4 - The Reunion - Available now". BBC. Retrieved 23 August 2023.
- ^ a b c "BBC Radio 4 - The Reunion - Available now". BBC. Retrieved 25 August 2023.
- ^ "BBC Radio 4 - The Reunion - Available now". BBC. Retrieved 3 May 2024.