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All Fingers and Thumbs

With readings from Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes and Sarah Waters by Clare Perkins and Sean Barrett and music by performers including Martha Argerich and Anoushka Shankar.

Fingers and thumbs define us – they can signify our identity and family heritage. One of the first things a baby does is suck its thumb, until Struwwelpeter’s great tall tailor comes to cut it clean off.

Sylvia Plath contemplates her bleeding thumb stump, while Ted Hughes remembers her fingers leaping and somersaulting across the keyboard. There are magic fingers, hitchhiking thumbs, spin bowling experts and light-fingered thieves, with readings from Roald Dahl, Sarah Waters, Ian McEwan and Lorna Goodson – brought to life by Clare Perkins and Sean Barrett.

Musically, dextrous fingers predominate as players – from Martha Argerich to Anoushka Shankar – ply them with great skill. The piano, harp, drums and the thumb piano, the mbira are all on show with works from Rachmaninov, Sally Beamish and Thomas Ades.

Producer: Katy Hickman

READINGS:
Omar Khayyám – ‘The Moving Finger Writes’
Sinead Morrissey – Genetics
H. Frith and E.H. Allen – Chiromancy, Or the Science of Palmistry
Sylvia Plath – Cut
Ted Hughes – Fingers
Lorna Goodson – I Am Becoming My Mother
Darian Leader – Hands, What We Do With Them
Dr Heinrich Hoffmann – The Story of Little Suck-A-Thumb
Roald Dahl – The Magic Finger
Ian McEwan – Lessons
Emily Dickinson – I Held A Jewel In My Fingers
Sir Thomas Wyatt – Of his love that pricked her Finger with a Needle
Thomas Hood – Song of the Shirt
Stephanie Norgate – Variations On A Plain Theme
E.T.A Hoffman, translated by Martyn Clarke – Musical Writings
F.N.S. Creek – Teach Yourself Cricket
Sarah Waters – Fingersmith
Hadara Bar-Nadav – Thumb
Tom Robbins – Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

20 days left to listen

1 hour, 29 minutes

Last on

Sun 31 Aug 2025 18:00
ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Radio 3

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Music Played

Timings (where shown) are from the start of the programme in hours and minutes

  • 00:00

    Niccolò Paganini

    Caprice No 24 in A Minor

    Performer: Julia Fischer.
  • 00:01

    Anoushka Shankar

    Flight

  • 00:05

    Jools Holland

    All Fingers and Thumbs

  • 00:09

    Domenico Scarlatti

    Sonata in D minor, Kk.141

    Performer: Martha Argerich.
  • 00:13

    Babatunde Olatunji

    Tr Oya (Primitive Fire)

  • 00:16

    Sally Beamish

    Awuya Lullaby

    Performer: Keziah Thomas.
  • 00:20

    Thomas Adès

    Piano Concerto

    Performer: Kirill Gerstein. Orchestra: Boston Symphony Orchestra.
  • 00:28

    Unsuk Chin

    Etude No.1 (Corona)

    Performer: Jenny Lin.
  • 00:30

    Johann Sebastian Bach

    Prelude in C major (The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1)

    Performer: Sir András Schiff.
  • 00:32

    ABBA

    Slipping Through My Fingers

  • 00:34

    Don Walker

    I held a jewel in my fingers (Four Poems of Emily Dickinson)

    Performer: Chorus Ars Brunensis.
  • 00:36

    Anna Meredith

    HandsFree

    Orchestra: The National Youth Orchestra.
  • 00:41

    Catrin Finch & Seckou Keita

    Clarach

  • 00:47

    Rick Jones

    Fingerbob

  • 00:48

    Sergey Rachmaninov

    Piano Concerto no.2 in C minor, Op.18 (1st mvt: Moderato)

    Performer: Khatia Buniatishvili. Orchestra: Czech Philharmonic.
  • 00:56

    Ella Fitzgerald

    It Don't Mean a Thing

  • 01:02

    Lionel Bart

    You've Got to Pick a Pocket or Two (Oliver!)

    Ensemble: Cast.
  • 01:05

    Stella Chiweshe

    Tapera

  • 01:09

    Junior Mance Trio

    Deep

Broadcasts

  • Sun 4 Sep 2022 17:30
    ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Radio 3
  • Sun 31 Aug 2025 18:00
    ÃÛÑ¿´«Ã½ Radio 3

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