Box 39

Box 39 is brimming with gadgets and gizmos - whether older, redundant, influential, or redundant, these inventions reflect their times, and speak about our expectations and our changing views of our communities and society.  Adrian supplies the music via a 1981 Sony Walkman, and live house band Ausgang Exit are are connected to a Sinclair ZX Spectrum computer from 1979.  

From cleaning glass eyes to the measurement of lemons - it's tomorrow's world...today!

With Bill Lawrance, Adrian Coen, Bob May and Simon Grinham.

Memories - Powerful, emotional, and sometimes unreliable - no one knows how memory works, but it's one of the central aspects of our lives. Bill Iain and Mike remember, recollect and reminisce - with the original house band Ausgang Exit, special guest Donna From Norwich, and an appearance from Alan Partridge too.

With Bill Lawrance, Mike Harwood, Iain Tallentire and Adrian Coen

To mark the start of Season 5 of Box 39, Ade chats to Rob Jelly at BBC Essex about his adventures in Japan, Australia and Java, Indonesia, after he left Essex in the early 1990s...

With Adrian Coen & Rob Jelly.

It's Bill's last radio show - after 5966 shows with the radio station he's moving on, to become the online voice of a digital merchandising website. To celebrate Bill's 45 year love affair with radio, he's hoping that several old radio and showbiz chums will drop by during his last show, to say farewell.

With Bill Lawrance & Yvonne Pini

Live from Studio One, our feast of all things ‘summer’, as Box 39 fills your plate, and satisfies your appetite.  Our recipe includes: live cooking on the radio, some wandering poets, clever scientific stuff, and some creamy spatulas.  And served with a big side dish of great music, of course!  And don’t worry about doing the washing up, we’ll do it in the morning… 

With Bill Lawrance, Andrew Oldershaw, Iain Tallentire and Adrian Coen

Bill speaks to Rob Jelly at BBC Essex about the 100th edition of Box 39, 'Bill's Last Show'  - coming soon.

It's Bill's last radio show - after 5966 shows with the radio station he's moving on, to become the online voice of a digital merchandising website.  To celebrate Bill's 45 year love affair with radio, he's hoping that several old radio and showbiz chums will drop by during his last show, to say farewell.   It should be quite a party. 

But this is live radio...

And love affairs have a habit of ending in tears...

With Bill Lawrance, Yvonne Pini and Adrian Coen

SIX - that mysterious, beautiful and rather gorgeous number, beloved by many, hated by a few, and which has been at the heart of the rise and fall of Kings, and dominated the Surgeon’s invoice to the Bionic Man. It’s the hour when we hear our news, it’s when we say ‘over’,  and it’s the perfect handful of strings on our guitars, though is 50% too many on a violin

Live studio joy, in a very SIX-Y way...

With Bill Lawrance, Adrian Coen, Bob May, Mike Harwood and The Ausgang Six...

Join Bill and May, as they travel around East Anglia in the Colne Radio staff sports car, investigating disused World War 2 airfields, examining their important history, their key locations and finding out what they have become today.  And with great music too!

With Bill Lawrance and Bob May

Box 39 is live in the studio for a special show, with TV Maths wizard Johnny Ball, and The Man with Animal Magic, Johnny Morris.  However, wrong Ball and wrong Johnny - and its soon becomes a celebration of local hero John Ball, priest and advocate of the power of the people over despicable authority, whose brave words and actions 640 years ago encouraged the Peasants Revolt, and who has inspired revolutionaries across the world ever since.  

With reflections on the great traditions of English Morris Dancing, and with Ausgang Solo playing live in the studio, its not long before Bill and Natalie step up for a unique moment in Radio History, as with bells, sticks and garlands, they begin a Morris Dance, live in Studio One...

With Bill Lawrance, Adrian Coen and Natalie Eldred