Category: BBC

For Bloomsday this year (16 June 2012) the BBC will be handing Radio 4 over to Ulysses. Throughout the day there will be readings of a special adaptation of the text, along with live broadcasts from Dublin (where fans re-enact moments from this complex book. Sadly, this may not prove accessible to all countries.

This will be an edited version, not the ‘complete’ text which was broadcast in 1982 (which took nearly 30 hours).

The details below are from the BBC Media Centre (without permission) which contains further information.

Here, at a glance, are the main Bloomsday broadcasts on Radio 4:

Part 1 09.00 – 10.30: Saturday Live From the Martello Tower to School
Sian and Richard present a special Bloomsday edition of the show, which will include the first three extracts from the drama as well as discussion and location reports, with input from Mark Lawson in Dublin.

Part 2 10.30 – 11.00 From Bloom’s House, through the Morning Streets, to a Funeral

Part 3 12.00 – 12.30 From the Beach, to a Newspaper Office, into Davy Byrne’s Pub

Part 4 14.30 – 15.30 The Library, Through the Lunchtime Streets, to the Ormond Hotel

Part 5 17.30 – 18.00 In Barney Kiernan’s Pub

Part 6 20.00 – 22.00 From Sandymount Beach at Evening, to the Maternity Hospital, and into Nighttown

22.15 – 23.00: Ulysses Today Mark Lawson chairs a discussion about the abiding popularity of Ulysses and its relevance today, with Declan Kiberd, author of Ulysses And Us – The Art Of Everyday Living; Professor Anne Fogarty, Director of the Dublin James Joyce Summer School; and others.

Part 7 23.00 – 00.00 From a Cab-man’s Shelter, to Eccles Street and Home

In the week before the Bloomsday broadcasts, Radio 4 and Radio 4 Extra will be broadcasting a number of programmes on the theme of Ulysses:

James Joyce had a fine singing voice and sang professionally as a young man. In James Joyce’s Playlist, David Owen Norris and guests will listen to some of Joyce’s favourite songs in the Martello Tower in Dublin where he lived for a time. This will be broadcast on Saturday, June 9th.

On Thursday, June 14th In Our Time will discuss the background to Ulysses, considering its historical and literary context, its themes, contents and style, and the impact it has had since publication. Melvyn Bragg will be joined by Steven Connor, Professor of Modern Literature and Theory at Birkbeck College, London; Jeri Johnson, Fellow and Tutor in English at Exeter College, Oxford; and Richard Brown, Reader in Modern Literature at the University of Leeds.

4Extra: Blind Date With Bloomsday – another chance to join Peter White on his Bloomsday visit to Dublin, during which he meets some enthusiastic celebrants. Friday, June 15th.