Before Midnight

From sunset until sunrise on the solstice, Verity Sharp presents a special dream-like night of radio documentaries from Radio 3's archives, celebrating the imaginative possibilities of radio and accompanied by music for enchantment.

During nine hours of overnight programming, Between the Ears documentaries are interspersed with music that speaks to the theme of the night (midsummer, nighttime, dreams, the forest, enchantment...). Midsummer Dreaming also pays homage to the spirit of the Third Programme, Radio 3’s predecessor, which took to the air 80 years ago in 1946.

Approaching the midnight hour, two radio compositions that dance - Jocelyn Pook's joyful, musical transformation of her answerphone messages from 1999 and a new Between the Ears created especially for tonight - Dancing on Air.

22.41
Portraits in Absentia (1999)
Composed by Jocelyn Pook
Produced by Marilyn Imrie

Our voices, with their tunes, rhythms and dynamics, are the most immediate and poignant objects of tenderness, recognition and regret. Composer Jocelyn Pook weaves musical portraits of people who leave the music of their voices in her memory and in her life.

23.09
Dancing on Air (2026)
Produced by Eleanor McDowall and Alan Hall

A choreography of dreams and dance steps from birth until death. Fragments of archival interviews with Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, Pina Bausch and, from a recording in 2016, the poet and dancer Eve Pearce interweave with newly recorded interviews with dancer Reena Bhattacharjee, football choreographer Mike Delaney and the dancers Meryl Tankard and John Giffin, both of whom worked with Pina Bausch at the beginning of their careers. Meryl and John have recently returned to a performance they helped create with Pina back in the 1970s, dancing alongside footage of their younger selves in Kontakthof - Echoes of '78 (a Sadler’s Wells, Pina Bausch Foundation and Tanztheater Wuppertal Pina Bausch co-production).

Midsummer Dreaming was produced by Alan Hall and Eleanor McDowall
Exec produced by Phil Smith from Reduced Listening
A Falling Tree production for BBC Radio 3