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Six Silver Strings (1999)
BBC Radio 4: 1 x 30 minutes

Examining the international trade in vintage guitars built to play popular music, Nick Baker searches for the first instrument worth a million dollars, and discovers a world of forgery and fraud. The only Testbed production in which the presenter receives a death threat as part of the narrative.

Producer: Tess Bed

What the Critics said:
"Recently a half million pounds was paid for the guitar on which Jimi Hendrix played the Star Spangled banner at Woodstock. The programme intriguingly suggests that this guitar isn't all the purchaser thought it was."
"The Great Rock n Roll Swindle"
The Independent

Little Criminals and Good Ol' Boys: The Randy Newman Story (1999)
BBC Radio 2: 1 x 60 minutes

Randy Newman talks about thirty years of songwriting to the man who allegedly insulted Short People in song, as well as providing the music for Toy Story.

Presenter: Glenn Tilbrook
Producer: Steve Shepherd

What the Critics said:
"A fascinating interview, LC and GO Boys takes us from his childhood to his latest album, Bad Love - his first collection of songs in 10 years."
Terry Ramsey
Evening Standard

Punk Jazz (1999)
BBC Radio 3: 4 x 30 minutes

Portrait of the "Jimi Hendrix of the Bass Guitar" "Burn bright die young" is a rock star motto rather than a jazz one. All too often Jaco Pastorius's life story is reduced to this banal idea. Woven into this story of drugs, genius and egoism, there's mental illness, extraordinary virtuosity and murder.

Presenter: Charles Shaar Murray
Producer: Steve Shepherd

What the Critics said:
"Charles Shaar Murray tells the story and Steve Shepherd, his producer, has helped create a sound to the programmes (there are four in all, this first one is repeated on Friday Night) that matches the excitement and kick of the music."
Gillian Reynolds
The Daily Telegraph

Fag End (1998)
BBC Radio 2: 1 x 60 minutes

Naturally, smoking is banned at Eton. Yet once it was compulsory there. Miles Kington plus archive, music and celebrities on the social history of smoking . Including how Warren Mitchell's mother colluded in his habit, and how Simon Hoggart once set fire to a fellow audience member (Mia Farrow) in a cinema. A programme designed to be buried in a time capsule and rebroadcast to a smokeless Britain in 2098.

What the Critics said:
"an entertaining documentary . former smoker Miles Kington assembles a marvelous collection of smoking anecdotes"
Stephanie Billen
Observer

"Miles Kington's entertaining history of smoking"
Terry Ramsey
Evening Standard

Impostors (1998)
BBC Radio 4: 3 x 30 minutes

History features about great impostors: Dr James Barry, medical reformer, who carried his secret to his deathbed. Buffalo Child Long Lance, champion of Native American culture, who turned out not to be Native American at all and Louis de Rougemont, explorer extraordinaire, whose exploits with turtles, cannibals and young native brides were all made up.

Written by: Sara Burton and Nick Baker
Presented by: Nick Baker

"exemplary speech radio"
Roland White
Radio Times

Revealed Lives (1998)
BBC Radio 4: 6 x 15 minutes

Impromptu talks, told almost entirely off the cuff by Frank Delaney, revealing telling scenes from famous and not so famous lives, including Vincent Van Gogh and Gilbert White

Producer: Liz Jensen

The Colour of Words (1997)
(Nominated for a 'Race in the Media' award) BBC Radio 4: 1 x 30 minutes

Lump together black poetry as a genre and you miss the point. On the other hand, if you overlook the special nature of contributions made by people of colour - Indian, Caribbean, African and black British and you miss out on some important verse. Presenter-poet Lemn Sissay treads the difficult path to find out whether poetry is colour blind,

Producer: Kirsten Lass

A Brief History of the Future (1996)
BBC Radio 4: 4 x 30 minutes

"Everything that can be invented has been invented" observed one not very far sighted future watcher. These historical investigations into how previous generations saw their futures - in terms of thought and belief, technology, culture and politics often demonstrated amazing lack of foresight.

Written and presented by: Mark Lawson
Producers: Steve Shepherd, Anne Marie Cole
Devised by: Nick Baker

What the Critics said:
"Mystic Megs suffering from PMT (that's Pre-Millennial Tension) will relish A Brief History of the Future"
Linda O'Callaghan
Radio Choice
Daily Mail

So Long Hong Kong (1996)
BBC Radio 4: 1 x 60 minutes

Landmark documentary about Hong Kong from a Radio 1 listener's perspective. What happens to rebellious music and youth once Hong Kong is ruled by the People's republic. Reporter in Hong Kong, Emily Maitlis.

Producer: Alison Vernon Smith

Burning for Atlanta (1996)
BBC Radio 4: 1 x 45 minutes

Warts and all landmark documentary broadcast on the eve of the Olympic Games, about the host city, with some spookily prescient observations on the likelihood of trouble.

Written and presented: Mark Lawson
Producer: Anne Marie Cole

You Probably Think this Song is About You (1996)
BBC Radio 4: 2 series, 14 programmes

When Suzanne took Leonard Cohen down to her place by the river, she had no idea that her name was to be immortalized in song. And while she did serve him tea and oranges, she recalls that Mr Cohen's motives were far from poetic. Two successful series, told the stories of the songs using the voices of women who accidentally gave their names to them: The real Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, Claire, Lady Jane, and the strange story of the Beatles fan who really did Come in Through (Paul McCartney's) Bathroom Window.

Presenter: Kate Saunders
Producer: Joanna Rahim

What the Critics said:
"Radio 4 has a great series on 'the originals of' at the moment called You Probably Think This Song is About You'. Confidently presented by Kate Saunders, it goes back to find the people about whom famous pop songs have been written, trying to find out what, if anything they have done to deserve immortality. As a practical demonstration both of the futility and the comedy of referring back to 'the original of' this little programme could hardly be bettered."
David Sexton
Sunday Telegraph

People Say We Monkey Around (1996)
BBC Radio 1: 1 x 60 minutes

Can an ageing US teen-band make a comeback? Did those loveable lads play their own instruments, back in the days when they jangled a million female teenage hormones in the late sixties? Presenter Stuart Maconie met the first artificially constructed boy band, now in their fifties, as they lumbered onto their comeback tour and asked them about the adulation and exploitation.

Producer: Alison Vernon Smith

Testing Times (1992)
BBC Radio 4: 6 x 15 minutes

A party where a plume of parrots get a sex test, an undercover test to see if a restaurant will make it into the Egon Ronay Guide, a Sun reader takes the Mensa test.

Producers: Viv Black, Liz Jensen
Presenter: Nick Baker

Testing Times was the first ever Testbed production and gave the company its name.