Seriously...

Curse of the Werewolf, The Brides of Dracula, Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell – films from the height of Hammer Films’ prolific output in the late 1950s and 1960s. Many of the horrific music soundtracks, carefully calibrated to set the pulse racing, were composed by leading British modernists of the late 20th century. Hammer’s music supervisor Philip Martell hired the brightest young avant-garde composers of the day – the likes of Malcolm Williamson (later Master of the Queen’s Music), Elisabeth Lutyens, Benjamin Frankel and Richard Rodney Bennett made a living scoring music to chill the bones to supplement their concert hall work.

Prising open Dracula’s coffin to unearth the story of Hammer’s modernist soundtracks, composer and pianist Neil Brand explores the nuts and bolts of scary music – how it is designed to psychologically unsettle us – and explores why avant-garde music is such a good fit for horror. On his journey into the abyss, Neil visits the haunted mansion where many of the Hammer classics were made, at Bray Studios in Berkshire, and gets the low-down from Hammer aficionado Wayne Kinsey, film music historian David Huckvale, composer Richard Rodney Bennett, and one of Hammer’s on-screen scream queens, actress Madeline Smith.

Producer: Graham Rogers

Lauren shares handpicked gems from the Desert Island Discs back-catalogue with Radio 1 presenter Vick Hope, including Bob Mortimer, Maya Angelou, Joe Wicks, Sophia Loren, Tom Hanks, Dame Pat McGrath and Sinéad Burke.

Jack Fenwick explores how the think tanks and pressure groups behind the black door of an anonymous building in Westminster have shaped the last decade of British politics - and asks how they might shape the next few years.

For this programme Jack has spoken to more than 50 current and former government insiders about how the organisations based at 55 Tufton Street have influenced British public life. He reveals how organisations including the Taxpayers Alliance, Brexit Central and the Global Warming Policy Foundation helped set the narrative on issues such as austerity, Brexit and climate change. He tracks how some of their ideas become government policy, explores the issue of whether the rules governing these organisations need to change and, with a new Prime Minister in Number 10, he asks how the ideas developed behind one black door might influence policy behind the most famous black door in Britain.

Producer and presenter: Jack Fenwick

General Idi Amin seized power in in Uganda in 1971. His brutal dictatorship is synonymous with the deportation of the country's 80,000-strong Asian population fifty years ago this year. As the popular story goes, Asians built the economy and the country. Then a brutish African leader exiled them from their adopted homeland. Some 28,000 arrived in the UK in the summer of 1972. The story of industrious, virtuous Asian families being thrown out for no reason and succeeding against all odds, has been endlessly recycled according to Ugandan-born journalist and broadcaster. But, she argues, though powerful and moving, it is incomplete and simplistic.

Their story in East Africa has much more humble beginnings and goes as far back as the Victorian era. The colonial rulers had set Asians up to be the buffer between them and and the lowly black Africans. At the time native Ugandans had little or no education, little or no knowledge of how to do business, to access loans, trade etc. Asian middlemen ran everything and were seen as the oppressors.

Among the reasons Amin gave for their expulsion were that they were exploiters who made no attempt to integrate with black African Ugandans and that they invested their profits abroad rather than in Uganda. Even though black Ugandans suffered most under Amin - the so-called "Butcher of Uganda" tortured his own people and killed an estimated million of them during his eight-year rule - yet there was still a sense of liberation when the Asians left. These, according to Yasmin, are inescapable truths - truths that Asians wished to forget but black Ugandans never have. Some still maintain that for all the terrible things Amin did, they finally got their country back.

Yasmin delivers a sharp reappraisal of this secret history and delves into the forgotten, concealed past from which the Ugandan Asians do not escape without blame.

Producer: Mohini Patel

Misha Glenny explores the world of rare earth metals. In this final episode he hears how Russia's interest in Ukraine might be partially motivated by its huge mineral deposits.

Guests:

Producer: Ben Carter

Misha Glenny explores the world of rare earth metals. He asks whether the EU can end its dependency on China's supply of critical raw materials to fuel the green transition.

Guests:

Olivia Lazard, fellow at Carnegie Europe.

Producer: Ben Carter

Misha Glenny explores the world of rare earth metals. Neodymium is vital for wind turbines and electric motors but can the world become less dependent on China to supply it?

Guests:

Producer: Ben Carter

Misha Glenny explores the world of rare earth metals. Reducing CO2 emissions requires critical raw materials like lithium, cobalt and nickel but mining and processing them can pose a serious threat to the environment. Can we solve the paradox?

Guests:

Producer: Ben Carter

Misha Glenny explores the world of rare earth metals and other critical raw materials. They are vital for the future of technology and the green transition. But some see China's monopoly on production as a major global threat.

In the first of five episodes, Misha finds out what the 17 rare earth metals are and hears about their weird and wonderful applications. He also discovers how China has managed to dominate the mining and refining of them.

Guests:

Producer: Ben Carter

A recent visit to Taiwan by Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, has heightened tensions between the US and China. America has accused China of dangerous military provocations in the region. China has warned the US not to play with fire. Add to all that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and concerns that China could be contemplating something similar in Taiwan, and it’s time to ask the question: Will the US and China go to war over Taiwan?

Contributors: James Lin from the University of Washington and expert on Taiwanese history Dr Yu Jie, Senior Research Fellow on China, Chatham House