The parish church

Available for 28 days

From church mice to murder at evensong, Thomas Gray's Elegy written in a Country Churchyard to The Great Sermon Handicap featuring Jeeves: today's Words and Music takes inspiration from the parish church. Choral Evensong is the BBC's longest-running outside broadcast programme and first aired on 7 October 1926. Words and Music marks this anniversary with a selection of settings of psalms and favourite hymns like The Lord's My Shepherd and Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring. We feature Howard Goodall's theme music for the TV series The Vicar of Dibley and recordings by Oxford Camerata and the Sacconi Quartet. A number of guides to church visiting have been published in recent years, and you'll hear extracts from some of those alongside poems by Philip Larkin, Walter de la Mare and RS Thomas; writing by Dorothy L Sayers, Barbara Pym and Bill Feaver and modern novels including Catherine Lacey’s Pew, Richard Coles’ Murder Before Evensong and Chibundu Onuzo’s Sankofa. Our readers are Debbie Korley and John Telfer, who plays Reverend Alan Franks in Radio 4's The Archers Readings: R.S. Thomas – Kneeling Here is the Church – trad. Rachel Morley – Church Crawling Walter De La Mare – Frescoes in an Old Church Thomas Gray – Elegy written in a Country Churchyard Graham Oakley – The Church Mouse John Betjeman – Diary of a Church Mouse Thomas Hardy – In Church Dorothy Sayers – The Nine Tailors Nicholas Orme – Going to Church in Medieval England Rev’d Richard Coles – Murder Before Evensong Barbara Pym – Some Tame Gazelle PG Wodehouse – The Inimitable Jeeves: The Great Sermon Handicap The Diary of Samuel Pepys Simon Jenkins – England’s Thousand Best Churches Philip Larkin – Church Going Lamorna Ash – Don’t forget we’re here forever Bijan Omrani – God is an Englishman Zadie Smith – NW Lis Howell – The Chorister at the Abbey Jill Paton Walsh – A Parcel of Patterns Catherine Lacey – Pew Chibundu Onuzo – Sankofa William Feaver – Piperism Cesca Weekes – A Church on the Edge of the World Produced by Ruth Watts