Something of the Night

Who can say what the night might bring?

Fireworks and frivolity? A party? Music and dancing? The night is where we have the most fun. Or you could be reading in bed, between clean sheets, before falling into deep restful sleep and sweet dreams.

And who knows? The night might bring romance, or love or sex, if you play your cards right.

Or the night could be where we work. Millions of people do. If everyone slept all night, Britain would cease to function.

Or the night could be indifferent; cold, haunted, inhuman. When you look up into the night sky, you see that you are nothing. An insignificant mote of dust.

Or the night could be all too human.Hen parties in skimpy dresses and fairy wings are being slammed into the back of a police van. Prostitutes walk the streets; business men go to lap dancing clubs to forget what waits at home.

On an after-hours journey around the British Isles - investigating nightingales in the Cotswolds, meteors in Shropshire, dog-racing in Belfast, a service station in Lancaster and Bonfire celebrations in East Sussex - Ian Marchant sets out to discover the different ways that we while away that half of our lives normally spent in darkness.