''Something Understood'' is a weekly radio programme broadcast on

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of Talk radio, spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history fro ...

since 1995 which deals with topics of

religion Religion is usually defined as a social- cultural system of designated behaviors and practices, morals, beliefs, worldviews, texts, sanctified places, prophecies, ethics, or organizations, that generally relates humanity to supernatural ...

, spirituality, and the larger questions of human life, and took a particular spiritual theme, exploring it through

speech Speech is a human vocal communication using language. Each language uses phonetic combinations of vowel and consonant sounds that form the sound of its words (that is, all English words sound different from all French words, even if they are th ...

music Music is generally defined as the The arts, art of arranging sound to create some combination of Musical form, form, harmony, melody, rhythm or otherwise Musical expression, expressive content. Exact definition of music, definitions of mu ...

prose Prose is a form of written or spoken language that follows the natural flow of speech, uses a language's ordinary grammatical structures, or follows the conventions of formal academic writing. It differs from most traditional poetry, where the f ...

, and

poetry Poetry (derived from the Greek '' poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings ...

. It is broadcast early on Sunday mornings with a repeat late on Sunday evening. While still broadcast, new episodes have not been produced since 2019.

Arrangement

Pieces of music - popular as well as classical - were often used at the beginning and end of the programme. It was hosted regularly by Sir Mark Tully, but also by other contributors. The programme was first broadcast in 1995; the BBC, having announced its cessation earlier in the year, broadcast the last new programme on Easter Sunday 21 April 2019. In 2009, the Archbishop of Canterbury,

Rowan Williams Rowan Douglas Williams, Baron Williams of Oystermouth, (born 14 June 1950) is a Welsh Anglican bishop, theologian and poet. He was the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury, a position he held from December 2002 to December 2012. Previously the Bi ...

, was interviewed on a programme talking about prayer. In February 2013, a special edition of the programme consisted of the

Dalai Lama Dalai Lama (, ; ) is a title given by the Tibetan people to the foremost spiritual leader of the Gelug or "Yellow Hat" school of Tibetan Buddhism, the newest and most dominant of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism. The 14th and current Dal ...

talking about the mind. The name of the programme is a quotation from

George Herbert George Herbert (3 April 1593 – 1 March 1633) was an English poet, orator, and priest of the Church of England. His poetry is associated with the writings of the metaphysical poets, and he is recognised as "one of the foremost British devot ...

's 1633 poem 'Prayer'.

External links

*
''Something Understood'' at LOFTUS Productions
- some older programmes and summaries

References

BBC Radio 4 programmes British religious radio programmes {{BBC-radio-stub

Arrangement

See also

External links

References