Episodes
Tom 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...
Published 01/16/23
Jarvis 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...
Published 12/13/21
In 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...
Published 12/10/21
Jarvis 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...
Published 11/29/21
Jarvis Cocker is back with a new series of Wireless Nights
Tonight, 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...
Published 11/26/21
From 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
Published 05/25/20
Jarvis 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
Published 01/01/19
Jarvis 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
Published 12/25/18
Jarvis 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...
Published 12/18/18
Jarvis 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...
Published 12/11/18
Jarvis Cocker's nocturnal exploration of the human condition leads him to Berlin. Walking in the shadowlands of the Wall he reflects on a once divided city and hears stories of the nacht.
Between East and West, he encounters a 1930's musical salon run by a cabaret diva; a ballroom dancing escapee from East Berlin; an underground den of iniquity and vice; and Iggy Pop, held prisoner.
Amid the street-lit ruins of the Berlin Wall, he considers the scar left behind.
Published 04/03/17
Jarvis Cocker navigates the ether as he continues his nocturnal exploration of the human condition.
On a night voyage across a sea of shortwave he meets those who broadcast, monitor and harvest electronic radio transmissions after dark.
Paddy McAloon, founder of the band Prefab Sprout, took to trawling the megahertz when he was recovering from eye surgery and the world around him became dark. Tuning in at night he developed a ghostly romance with far off voices and abnormal sounds.
Artist...
Published 03/27/17
Jarvis Cocker rides in the driver's cab of a late night Tube train, hearing tales of nocturnal travellers across London.
With Beyonce-loving Night Tube driver Kylie at the controls, Jarvis is whisked along the Victoria line late into the night. En route he hears from a cast of characters embroiled in their own dramas as they make their way around the capital in the small hours - including a late night reveller who fell sleep on the train and got more than she'd bargained for.
Producer:...
Published 03/20/17
Jarvis Cocker returns to Radio 4 with his nocturnal explorations of the human condition.
In tonight's Wireless Night, Jarvis travels to a remote village in the Rif Mountains of Morocco to join the Master Musicians of Joujouka. Their ancient Sufi trance music is said to heal crazy minds. Jarvis wonders if his own troubled mind can find tranquillity there but encounters the wild living embodiment of the God Pan, half man and half goat, who has other ideas.
The Master Musicians of Joujouka...
Published 03/13/17
Jarvis Cocker is snowed in for tonight's nocturnal exploration of the human condition. With the snow piling high outside his farmhouse and long hours to kill, Jarvis's mind drifts to other snowbound dramas and dilemmas as he tries to distract himself from a creeping solitude. But as night draws on, can he be sure he's really alone?
Producer Neil McCarthy.
Published 01/15/16
Jarvis Cocker invites you to a night out in Soho on his nocturnal exploration of the human condition. Below street level he finds drama and delirium as clubbers play out their lives after dark.
From a dimly lit ska joint to an after hours speakeasy, Jarvis is night guide to the smoke and mirrors of underground Soho - brushing shoulders with a club angel, a psychic mod and a singing waitress in among the shadows.
(Free dance lesson included)
Producer Neil McCarthy.
Published 12/15/15
Jarvis Cocker continues his nocturnal exploration of the human condition.
Tonight: an unlucky trucker, a hopeful hitch-hiker and a host of Scottish ghostbusters.
As Jarvis climbs up into the Wireless Nights monster truck, he hears from a long distance lorry driver who received a nasty surprise, a hitcher trying to make it to Liverpool and he travels along the most haunted stretch of road in Scotland.
Producer: Laurence Grissell.
Published 11/30/15
Jarvis Cocker's nocturnal exploration of the human condition takes him beneath the waves in this special edition of Wireless Nights.
Accompanied by the BBC Philharmonic at this year's Proms, as Jarvis drifts off to sleep he soon finds himself on an underwater voyage down to the endless night of the ocean bed. En route, he meets psychoanalyst Carl Jung, two submariners called Roger trapped in a tiny submersible and a free-diver experiencing "the rapture of the deep".
The BBC Philharmonic...
Published 11/24/15
In the second part of his nocturnal Icelandic adventure, Jarvis goes on a journey through the long, light summer night. He meets Megas, the island's best known poet and rock and roll legend, who warns of wandering demons as he embarks on an overnight road trip.
Along the way he stops to hear ghost stories in Reykjavik's oldest cemetery, meets an elf seer in a lava field and is led to a sacred waterfall, behind which he makes a wish. But will he make it back before the hour of the...
Published 11/03/14
Jarvis Cocker wanders the lava fields of Iceland in search of the unseen forces of night. In the midnight shadow of Snaefellsjokull, the volcano featured in Jules Verne's Journey to the Centre of the Earth, Jarvis considers the timelessness of the landscape, until he discovers sheep time. His sheep guides only lead him further into the unknown, through a hole in the lava floor and on a journey through a magma underworld, finding there a symphony orchestra, human seals and a wake.
Producer...
Published 10/27/14
Jarvis Cocker attempts to fly to the moon, with the aid of astronaut Chris Hadfield - famous for his rendition of David Bowie's Space Oddity on the International Space Station.
En route he hears stories of those touched by the moon in its many manifestations.
First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and repeated on 6 Music to mark the Winter Solstice.
Producer: Laurence Grissell.
Published 10/20/14
Jarvis Cocker brings his award winning series Wireless Nights to Salford, forming part of this year's BBC Philharmonic Presents... series, a celebration of orchestral music in its many different forms.
In front of a studio audience, Jarvis Cocker and the BBC Philharmonic weave tales of insomnia, nocturnal inspirations and dark imaginings from the world of classical music - against the backdrop of a President embroiled in the Vietnam War. There's also a special performance from Jarvis...
Published 10/13/14
Jarvis Cocker stars in his own horror movie as he continues his nocturnal examination of the human condition, exploring the battle between the forces of darkness and light.
He hears from horror movie goers at the Electric Cinema in Birmingham, keen to turn the lights off and let the scares begin; the National Grid control room which is charged from keeping the lights on; and Lundy Island in the Bristol Channel - where the electricity switches off at midnight.
What is lurking in the basement...
Published 05/30/13
Tonight, Jarvis Cocker's award winning nocturnal exploration of the human condition takes to the sea. Join him on the midnight sailing of a Channel ferry as he contemplates night crossings mythic and modern.
As he moves across dark waters he hears the miraculous story of Jeni, a castaway lost and found in the North Sea whose epic struggle took place at night. He meets Sean, a young wrestler who slips through the ropes of the ring for his first fight night and embarks on his own rite of...
Published 05/23/13