Last Word

Last updated

Last Word
GenreFactual
Running time28 minutes
Country of originEngland
Language(s) English
Home station BBC Radio 4
Hosted by Matthew Bannister
Original release10 February 2006 
present
Website BBC website page

Last Word is a radio obituary series broadcast weekly on BBC Radio 4. Each week, the lives of recently-deceased famous people are summarised with narration and interviews with people who knew them. It is normally presented by Matthew Bannister, although occasionally it has been presented by others, including Kate Silverton and Julian Worricker.

The programme was first broadcast on 10 February 2006. [1] On 29 September 2006, a biography of American songwriter Paul Vance (1929–2022) was broadcast, including an interview with Vance himself, after his death was announced in the media by mistake. [2]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jonathan Ross</span> English broadcaster, film critic, actor, and comedian (born 1960)

Jonathan Stephen Ross is an English broadcaster, film critic, comedian, actor, writer, and producer. He presented the BBC One chat show Friday Night with Jonathan Ross during the 2000s and early 2010s, hosted his own radio show on BBC Radio 2 from 1999 to 2010, and served as film critic and presenter of the Film programme.

<i>Today</i> (BBC Radio 4) BBC Radio 4s long-running early morning news and current affairs programme

Today, colloquially known as the Today programme, is BBC Radio 4's long-running morning news and current-affairs radio programme. Broadcast on Monday to Saturday from 06:00 to 09:00, it is produced by BBC News and is the highest-rated programme on Radio 4 and one of the BBC's most popular programmes across its radio networks. In-depth political interviews and reports are interspersed with regular news bulletins, as well as Thought for the Day. It has been voted the most influential news programme in Britain in setting the political agenda, with an average weekly listening audience around 6 million.

Charles Frederick William Chilton MBE was a British presenter, writer and producer who worked on BBC Radio. He created the 1950s radio serials Riders of the Range and Journey into Space, and also inspired the stage show and film Oh, What a Lovely War!.

Sir Trevor Lawson McDonald is a Trinidadian-British newsreader and journalist, best known for his career as a news presenter with Independent Television News (ITN).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tony Blackburn</span> British radio presenter, offshore broadcaster

Anthony Kenneth Blackburn is an English disc jockey, singer and television presenter, whose career spans 60 years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vanessa Feltz</span> British broadcaster

Vanessa Jane Feltz is an English television personality, broadcaster, and journalist. She has appeared on various television shows, including Vanessa (1994–1998), The Big Breakfast (1996–1998), The Vanessa Show (1999), Celebrity Big Brother (2001), The Wright Stuff (2003–2005), This Morning (2006–present), and Strictly Come Dancing (2013).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Gambaccini</span> American-British radio and television presenter

Paul Matthew Gambaccini is an American-British radio and television presenter and author. He is a dual citizen of the United States and United Kingdom, having become a British citizen in 2005.

What The Papers Say is a British radio and television series. It consists of quotations from headlines and comment pages in the previous week's newspapers, read in a variety of voices and accents by actors. The quotes are linked by a script read by a studio presenter, usually a prominent journalist. The show did not have a regular host, and was intended as a wry look at how British broadsheets and tabloids covered the week's news stories. The programme was most recently broadcast on BBC Radio 4.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Radio Academy Awards</span> British radio industry awards (1983–2014)

The Radio Academy Awards, started in 1983, were the most prestigious awards in the British radio industry. For most of their existence, they were run by ZAFER Associates, but in latter years were brought under the control of The Radio Academy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tommy Vance</span> British radio presenter (1940–2005)

Richard Anthony Crispian Francis Prew Hope-Weston, known professionally as Tommy Vance, was an English radio broadcaster. He was an important factor in the rise of the new wave of British heavy metal, along with London-based disc jockey Neal Kay, in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Vance was one of the first radio hosts in the United Kingdom to broadcast hard rock and heavy metal in the early 1980s, providing the only national radio forum for both bands and fans. The Friday Rock Show that he hosted gave new bands airtime for their music and fans an opportunity to hear it. He used a personal tag-line of "TV on the radio". His voice was heard by millions around the world announcing the Wembley Stadium acts at Live Aid in 1985.

Alexander Norman Charles Lester is a British broadcaster. He presented the weekday overnight/early-morning programme on BBC Radio 2 from 1992 until 2014. From October 2014 until January 2017, he presented the midnight to 3 am programme every Friday, Saturday and Sunday. He also temporarily replaced Russell Brand on Saturday evenings in late 2008, between 9 and 11 pm, following Brand's resignation over his infamous prank calls row.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Andrew McGibbon</span> English comedian and musician (born 1961)

Andrew McGibbon is an English comedian, actor, writer, musician and composer. He has also produced and directed extensively, chiefly for radio.

The Museum of Curiosity is a comedy talk show on BBC Radio 4 that was first broadcast on 20 February 2008. It is hosted by John Lloyd. He acts as the head of the (fictional) titular museum, while a panel of three guests – typically a comedian, an author and an academic – each donate to the museum an 'object' that fascinates them. The radio medium ensures that the suggested exhibits can be absolutely anything, limited only by the guests' imaginations.

Gillian Reynolds is an English radio critic. After writing for The Guardian from 1967 to 1974, she was the radio critic for The Daily Telegraph for over 42 years, from 1975 to 2018. She then continued her career at The Sunday Times, where she wrote about radio until 2021.

Elaine Paige on Sunday is a British radio programme broadcast on BBC Radio 2 on Sunday afternoons from 1:00pm to 3:00pm, that is hosted by the actress and singer Elaine Paige. The show launched on 5 September 2004, replacing All Time Greats hosted by Desmond Carrington. The launch producer was Malcolm Prince. It features music and news from stage and screen productions, as well as listener requests, on-stage mishap stories, and the occasional interview from a celebrity guest. Paige has presented a special Tony Awards show, featuring interviews and music from nominees since 2015. Elaine Paige on Sunday attracts around two million listeners a week. Since 2012, the producer has been Jessica Rickson.

<i>Adam and Joe</i> (radio show) British comedy radio talk show

Adam and Joe was a radio show on BBC Radio 6 Music presented by Adam and Joe – comedians Adam Buxton and Joe Cornish. The show began in October 2007 and ran for three hours in a Saturday morning slot, originally from 9:00am to 12:00pm before moving to 10:00am to 1:00pm. After a hiatus from 26 December 2009, the series returned for three months on 2 April 2011. The show also briefly returned in late 2012, with Edith Bowman replacing Joe Cornish as Adam's co-presenter.

<i>David Attenboroughs Life Stories</i> Series of radio monologues on the subject of natural history

David Attenborough's Life Stories is a series of monologues written and spoken by British broadcaster David Attenborough on the subject of natural history. They were broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2009 as part of the station's "Point of View" strand, in the weekly timeslot formerly occupied by Alistair Cooke's Letter from America. In each of the 20 programmes, Attenborough discusses a particular subject of personal resonance, drawing on his experience of six decades filming the natural world. The series was produced by Julian Hector, head of radio at the BBC Natural History Unit.

Parkinson's Sunday Supplement was the incarnation of the Sunday morning programme on BBC Radio 2, between 31 March 1996 and 2 December 2007. It was presented by the journalist and broadcaster Michael Parkinson. The programme featured newspaper reviews and entertainment summaries with the help of journalists and a lengthy interview with a media personality.

<i>Last Tango in Halifax</i> British Drama television series

Last Tango in Halifax is a British comedy-drama series that began broadcasting on BBC One on 20 November 2012 until its final episode which was broadcast on 15 March 2020. The series stars Derek Jacobi and Anne Reid as Alan and Celia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Simon Vance</span> British audiobook narrator

Simon Vance is an audiobook narrator and actor who performs contemporary literary works as well as classics, children's books, and nonfiction. He has won 16 Audie Awards since 2002. Specializing in single-voice narration, he was named the American Library Association's Booklist Magazine Voice of Choice in 2008, and has earned AudioFile Magazine's Earphones Award for more than 60 performances since 1998. He has also narrated audiobooks under the names of Richard Matthews and Robert Whitfield. He lives in Los Angeles, California.

References

  1. Reynolds, Gillian (10 February 2006). "Today's TV & radio choices". The Daily Telegraph. London. Radio choices by Gillian Reynolds. Retrieved 22 July 2017.
  2. "BBC Radio 4 – Last Word, Amanda Claridge, Sidhu Moose Wala (Pictured), Mark Sykes, Paul Vance".