Helena Merriman returns to BBC Radio 4 with new series

Helena Merriman is returning to BBC Radio 4 with immersive stories of life-changing diagnoses in a new series called Room 5.

It will be broadcast every Tuesday at 9am on Radio 4 and available on-demand only on BBC Sounds from Tuesday 11 January 2022.

There’s always a room where it happens – where a doctor solves a medical mystery by providing a diagnosis, leaving the patient changed forever. For Helena Merriman, that room was Room 5.

In her new radio series and podcast for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds, Helena – the journalist, author and broadcaster behind the BBC podcast Tunnel 29 – brings us eight such stories.

Helena Merriman said: “Three years ago, on a hot August day, I walked into Room 5 at a doctor’s surgery. The consultant gave me a diagnosis that would change my life. Ten minutes later, I left the room, a slightly different person to the one who’d come in.

“On the bus home, I found myself reaching for my phone, reading story after story, about others – like me – who’d walked into a room, been given a diagnosis, and who’d been spun back out into the world, forever changed.

“Room 5 is a collection of stories about lives changed and the process of recovery. I hope listeners find them as inspiring as I do.”

Richard Knight, Commissioning Editor for Factual at BBC Radio 4, said: “This gripping series takes us into the fascinating world of medicine and into the lives of some remarkable people at a moment of profound change. The result is full of insight and drama.

“I hope listeners will find these beautifully-crafted programmes not just absorbing but illuminating and perhaps helpful too. Room 5 tells us something about medicine. It tells us a great deal about how we handle uncertainty and adversity.”

Room 5 is composed by Jeremy Warmsley. Sound designers are Eloise Whitmore and Steve Bond. It is a BBC Long Form Audio production for BBC Radio 4. The editor is Emma Rippon. It was commissioned for Radio 4 by Richard Knight.