BBC Radio 4 in the context of "The Lady in the Van"

The Lachish reliefs are a set of Assyrian palace reliefs narrating the story of the Assyrian victory over the kingdom of Judah during the siege of Lachish in 701 BCE. Carved between 700 and 681 BCE, as a decoration of the South-West Palace of Sennacherib in Nineveh (in modern Iraq), the relief is today in the British Museum in London, and was included as item 21 in the BBC Radio 4 series A History of the World in 100 Objects by the museum's former director Neil MacGregor. The palace room, where the relief was discovered in 1845–1847, was fully covered with the "Lachish relief" and was 12 metres (39 ft) wide and 5.10 metres (16.7 ft) long. The Lion Hunt of Ashurbanipal sequence was found in the same palace.

NHK Radio 1 (NHKラジオ第1放送, NHK Rajio Dai-ichi Hōsō), known by its callsign NHK AM, is Japan's oldest radio station operated by the public broadcaster, NHK. Its programming output, which consists of news, current affairs, and information is broadly similar to the BBC's Radio 4 in the United Kingdom, Radio National in Australia, National Public Radio in the United States, CBC Radio One in Canada, Deutschlandfunk in Germany and Radyo 1 in Turkey. NHK Radio 1 is available mainly on AM. The callsign is JOAK in Tokyo. It began broadcasting on July 12, 1925. During World War II, it often broadcast official announcements.

Sharmishta Chakrabarti, Baroness Chakrabarti CBE PC (born 16 June 1969) is a British politician, barrister, and human rights activist. A member of the Labour Party, she served as the director of Liberty, a major advocacy group which promotes civil liberties and human rights, from 2003 to 2016. From 2016 to 2020, she served as Shadow Attorney General for England and Wales.

Chakrabarti was born in the London Borough of Harrow, and studied law at the London School of Economics. After graduating, she was called to the Bar and then worked as an in-house legal counsel for the Home Office. When she was the director of Liberty, she campaigned against what Liberty considered "excessive" anti-terror legislation. In this role, she frequently contributed to BBC Radio 4 and various newspapers, and was described in The Times as "probably the most effective public affairs lobbyist of the past 20 years". She was one of the panel members of the Leveson Inquiry into press standards throughout 2011 and 2012. Between 2014 and 2017, she served as Chancellor of the University of Essex.

A History of the World in 100 Objects was a joint project of BBC Radio 4 and the British Museum, consisting of a 100-part radio series written and presented by British Museum director Neil MacGregor. In 15-minute presentations broadcast on weekdays on Radio 4, MacGregor used objects of ancient art, industry, technology and arms, all of which are in the British Museum's collections, as an introduction to parts of human history. The series, four years in planning, began on 18 January 2010 and was broadcast over 20 weeks. A book to accompany the series, A History of the World in 100 Objects by Neil MacGregor, was published by Allen Lane on 28 October 2010. The entire series is also available for download along with an audio version of the book for purchase. The British Museum won the 2011 Art Fund Prize for its role in hosting the project.

In 2016, a touring exhibition of several items depicted on the radio programme, also titled A History of the World in 100 Objects, travelled to various destinations, including Abu Dhabi (Manarat Al Saadiyat), Taiwan (National Palace Museum in Taipei), Japan (Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum in Tokyo, Kyushu National Museum in Daizafu, and Kobe City Museum in Kobe), Australia (Western Australian Museum in Perth and National Museum of Australia in Canberra), and China (National Museum of China in Beijing, Shanghai Museum in Shanghai and Hong Kong Heritage Museum in Hong Kong).

BBC Radio is an operational business division and service of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a royal charter since 1927. The service provides national radio stations covering the majority of musical genres, as well as local radio stations covering local news, affairs, and interests. It also oversees online audio content.

Of the national radio stations, BBC Radio 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 Live are all available through analogue radio (1, 2, 3 and 4 on FM and 5 Live on MW; BBC Radio 4 additionally broadcasts on longwave) as well as on DAB Digital Radio and BBC Sounds. BBC Radio 1Xtra, 1 Dance, 1 Anthems, 3 Unwind, 4 Extra, 5 Sports Extra, 6 Music, Asian Network and the World Service broadcast only on DAB and BBC Sounds.All of the BBC's national radio stations broadcast from bases in London and Manchester, usually in or near to Broadcasting House or MediaCityUK. However, the BBC's network production units located in Belfast, Birmingham, Bristol, Cardiff and Glasgow also make radio programmes.

David James Stuart Mitchell (born 14 July 1974) is a British comedian, actor, and writer. He rose to prominence alongside Robert Webb as part of the comedy duo Mitchell and Webb. The duo starred in the Channel 4 sitcom Peep Show, in which Mitchell plays Mark Corrigan. He won the British Academy Television Award for Best Comedy Performance in 2009 for his performance. Mitchell and Webb have written and starred in several sketch shows including Bruiser, The Mitchell and Webb Situation, That Mitchell and Webb Sound, That Mitchell and Webb Look, and Mitchell and Webb Are Not Helping. They have also starred in the British version of Apple's "Get a Mac" ad campaign. Their first film, Magicians, was released in 2007. They starred in the short-lived TV series Ambassadors in 2013, and in the Channel 4 comedy-drama Back from 2017 to 2021.

Mitchell starred as Owen in the BBC Radio 4 sitcom Think the Unthinkable, as Dr. James Vine in the BBC One sitcom Jam & Jerusalem, and as William Shakespeare in the BBC Two historical comedy Upstart Crow. He has starred in the BBC One detective comedy-drama Ludwig since 2024. He is a frequent participant on panel shows, as a team captain on Would I Lie to You?, the host of The Unbelievable Truth on BBC Radio 4, and the former host of The Bubble and Was It Something I Said?; as well as guesting on other panel shows including QI, The Big Fat Quiz of the Year, Mock the Week, 8 Out of 10 Cats Does Countdown, and Have I Got News for You. He was also a co-host of the comedy news-show 10 O'Clock Live. As a writer, he contributes opinion pieces to the newspapers The Observer and The Guardian.

Kristen Lippincott is a London-based art historian and museums consultant. From 1990 to 2006 she worked for the National Maritime Museum, and was its Deputy Director (2000–2006) after being Director of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich (1998–2001).

In October 2013 she appeared on BBC Radio 4's The Museum of Curiosity and chose to donate "The Eureka Moment" to the hypothetical museum.

Maida Vale Studios is a complex of seven BBC sound studios, of which five are in regular use, in Delaware Road, Maida Vale, west London.

It has been used to record thousands of classical music, popular music and drama sessions for BBC Radio 1, BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio 3, BBC Radio 4 and BBC Radio 6 Music from 1946 to the present. On 30 October 2009, BBC Radio 1 celebrated 75 Years of Maida Vale by exclusively playing 75 tracks recorded at the studios over the years. Snow Patrol played a live set from the studio with Fearne Cotton to celebrate 75 years of live music from the venue.