Understand

During the early weeks of the pandemic, Tim Hayward spent 14 days in a coma. He remembers this time vividly – his days and nights filled with strange, incandescent visions and hallucinations. That experience is something he would never choose to revisit but, around the world, large numbers of people are deliberately seeking out powerfully altered states. In this ten-part series, Tim sets out to better understand a group of substances that induce altered states: psychedelics. There’s been a surge of interest in their therapeutic potential for various mental health conditions - as well as a range of other clinical possibilities. As research around the world ramps up after years of taboo and prohibition he tries to get to grips with - or at least get a clearer sense of - how science, culture, politics and business might all interact in this changing psychedelic landscape, and what it all might mean. Presenter: Tim Hayward Producer: Richard Ward Executive Producer: Rosamund Jones Editor: Kirsten Lass Written by Tim Hayward and Richard Ward Sound Design and Mixing: Richard Ward Researcher: Grace Revill Commissioning Editor: Daniel Clarke A Loftus Media production for BBC Radio 4

The new government is trying to get a grip of HS2, with yet another reset. Kate challenges the new minister, Lord Hendy, on the project’s future and also considers the legacy of HS2. Will Britain ever attempt something like it again? And will its image transform again once trains are actually, finally running? Presenter: Kate Lamble Producer: Robert Nicholson Executive Producer: Will Yates Sound Design and Mix: Arlie Adlington A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4

The arrival of Rishi Sunak in Downing Street revived the hopes of those who wanted to see HS2 cancelled entirely. One leg - to Leeds - had already been chipped away. And on the eve of the Tory party conference in Manchester, Rishi Sunak was persuaded to announce that that city would not now get HS2 either, in the face of intense resistance from the mayors of both Birmingham and Manchester itself. Presenter: Kate Lamble Producer: Robert Nicholson Executive Producer: Will Yates Sound Design and Mix: Arlie Adlington A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4

After successfully defeating a number of fracking projects, a wave of hardened environmentalists join the anti-HS2 protest movement. Locking themselves to fences and ancient trees, civil disobedience arrived at the frontline of building sites. But injunctions and evictions clear the protest camps, and the added cost is a drop in HS2’s very large bucket. The bigger threat to HS2’s national image arrived in the unlikely form of a notorious environmental mitigation: the Sheephouse Wood Bat Mitigation Structure - or as it’s better known, the Bat Tunnel. Presenter: Kate Lamble Producer: Robert Nicholson Executive Producer: Will Yates Sound Design and Mix: Arlie Adlington A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4

Costs began to truly spiral out of control. In search of the culprit, Kate goes through the mess HS2 made of some its largest contracts. Much of HS2 was being built by massive consortiums of engineering firms. A short lived effort to unload the project’s risk to these firms saw costs continue to rise beyond the original estimates. And, as the price increased, politicians faced further pressure to curtail the project. Presenter: Kate Lamble Producer: Robert Nicholson Executive Producer: Will Yates Sound Design and Mix: Arlie Adlington A Whistledown production for BBC Radio 4