TV & RADIO

THE WEDDING DETECTIVES

Streaming now

BBC Sounds

It’s safe to say that The Wedding Detectives arrived in the BBC Radio 4 schedule with comparatively little fanfare. But having caught up with the show on BBC Sounds, we would advise anyone with an interest in social history and genealogy to do the same.

The premise is brilliant. Charlotte Sibtain collects old wedding photographs, which she buys from online auction sites, car-boot sales and antiques fairs., in part as a way of rescuing the past. “It makes me sad that this is somebody’s most special day,” she says. “They’ve got married, they’ve dressed up, but then [the photographs] just get tossed away and discarded. And then you never know who [the couple] are, you never know where they came from or what their life was like.”