Recently in Turn off the TV Category

Terry Pratchett’s Nation Radio 7, Saturday 6pm (repeated 12 midnight)
First of an eight-part dramatisation of the novel about a boy who survives a tsunami, which has also been successfully adapated for the stage at the National Theatre.

Between the Ears: The Chekov Challenge - the Sound of a Breaking String Radio 3, Saturday 9.15pm
One of the most engimatic stage directions in theatre history occurs in Chekhov’s play The Cherry Orchard:

Silence reigns, broken only by the mumbling of old firs. Suddenly a distant sound is heard as if from the sky, the sound of a string breaking, dying away, melancholy

Different productions have varied radically in their approach to create the sound. As electro-folk musician Leafcutter John attempts to come up with an appropriate effect, we also hear from Paul Arditti, who used a mix of industrial, musical and bird sounds for Sam Mendes’ production, and Peter Kavanagh, whose recent Radio 3 adaptation opted for a slowed-down gunshot.

Drama on 3: The Seagull Radio 3, Sunday 8pm
Siobhan Redmond and Paul Higgins star in the latest new Chekhov adaptation of the BBC Radio season celebrating the 150th anniversary of the playwright’s birth.

Woman’s Hour Drama: How Does That Make You Feel? (Ordinary’s Not Enough) Radio 4, Monday-Friday 10.45am
Cathy Belton stars as Martha, a therapist who cannot understand why her clients want to be something they are not and why they are surprised that it’s driving them mad. Her clients include Richard Allam as an MP who thinks he knows why he’s not getting promoted to the front benches and Tim McInnerny as both a TV presenter who fears becoming invisible after being moved onto radio and a chef whose 31-year-old son still lives at home. If you miss the individual episodes in the morning and tune in for the usual 7.45pm, don’t worry - while A History of the World in 100 objects is now in that slot, an hour-long monibus edition will feature on Friday at 9pm in the Friday Play hour.

Afternoon Play: The Ditch Radio 4, Monday 2.15pm
A deceased sound recordist had been working on a natural history project in a remote fenland area - but the resulting soundscape has disturbingly terrifying consequences. Written and narrated by Paul Evans, this is a horror tale that is no less effective for being broadcast in the middle of the day.

Afternoon Play: The Right Ingredients Radio 4, Tuesday 2.15pm
Lisa is deep in grief following the death of her six-year-old daughter. Part of her coping strategy is to only buy things from supermarkets that she finds on other people’s discarded shopping lists. When she starts to accumulate the ingredients for the cake recipe she used to enjoy making with her daughter, she begins to reconnect with the world.

Afternoon Play: No Trampy Immigrants Radio 4, Wednesday 2.15pm
Based on events in Belfast in the summer of last year, writer Eoin McNamee tells the story of a community fractured by a shocking racist attack. Adrian Dunbar, Brid Brennan and Frances Tomelty star.

Mark Thomas - The Manifesto Radio 4, Thursday 6.30pm A new series of the show in which comedian and activist Mark Thomas looks as policy suggestions from the audience and works out whether they would actually be practical, and whether they’d make the world a better place if enacted. Transparent 4x4s? A maximum wage? A comedy with a serious edge, nobody does material like this better than Thomas.

PICK OF THE WEEK: A Charles Paris Mystery: Cast in Order of Disappearance Radio 4, Friday 11.30am
Bill Nighy returns as the dipsomaniac actor who could give Jessica Fletcher a run for her moeny when it comes to dead bodies cropping up in his vicinity. Charles has got a role on a vampire movie (not Twilight but something headed straight for DVD). But his costar Jodie (Martin McCutcheon) is embroiled ina blackmail plot, and one that quickly turns to murder. As with most Charles Paris tales, it’s in the telling, and Nighy’s lugubrious narration makes this an unmissable listen.

The rest of this week’s choices are after the jump.

PICK OF THE WEEK: Archive on 4: The ITV Story Radio 4, Saturday 8pm
Remember when ITV was a network of regional broadcasters, each with their own distinctive character and specialisms? If the names Granada, Tyne Tees, HTV and ATV ring any bells, this should be a vital listen. Mark Lawson explores the changes made in ITV over the years by specifically examining one region: Yorkshire TV. Known nationally for Emmerdale Farm, of course, the majority of its network output was light entertainment-based, from the bafflingly incomprehensible game show 3-2-1 to Les Dawson’s Sez Les and Ned Sherrin’s Song by Song series examining the works of the great musical songwriters.

For highlights from the rest of the week’s radio output, follow me after the jump…

What’s So Great About…? Radio 4, Saturday 10.30am
A second three-part series in which Lenny Henry looks at topic which are either not enjoyed or just misunderstood by the public at large. Following 2008’s series (which covered Bob Dylan, method acting and life coaches), future episodes this time around include Samuel Beckett and modern art — but we kick off with an exploration of mathematics. And this being an attempt to popularise maths, it includes the compulsory appearance by former Countdown arithmetician Carol Vorderman.

Classic Serial: The Custom of the Country Radio 4, Saturday 9pm & Sunday 3pm
The festive holidays meant that we missed out on recommending the latest Classic Serial, a 3-part adaptation of Edith Wharton’s 1913 satire about the links between marriage and money in early 20th century American society. Rebecca Night stars as Undine Spragg, daughter of a family new to New York. Dan Stevens, Tom Hollander and Lorelei King also star. Catch the repeat of the first episode on Saturday evening (or on iPlayer) before Sunday’s second episode.

Drama on 3: Fences Radio 3, Sunday 8pm
Danny Sapani leads a strong British cast in this adaptation of the late August Wilson’s Pulitzer and Tony-winning drama about family relationships in the shadow of the civil rights movement, which orignaally starred James Earl Jones and is shortly to be revived on Broadway with Denzel Washington in the lead role. In 1957, once-famous baseball player Troy Maxson (Sapani) is now working as a refuse collector. The Sarah Jane Adventures actor Daniel Anthony plays Troy’s son Cory, whose already tenuous relationship with his father deteriorates further on the news that Troy has been unfaithful to Cory’s mother, Rose (Adjoa Andoh - Casualty, Doctor Who).

Chris Evans / Simon Mayo Radio 2, 7am / 5pm from Monday
And so the new 2010 Radio 2 weekday schedule kicks off in earnest, with Chris Evans returning to breakfasts in Terry Wogan’s old slot (albeit starting a half hour earlier) and Simon Mayo transitioning from Five Live to Radio 2 to take over form Evans at drivetime. Expect the usual headlines about how awful the new line up is, how ratings are slipping as a result, etc., while all the time two of radio’s most effective professionals do what they do best — present damned fine programmes.

Book of the Week: Must You Go? Radio 4, Monday-Friday 9.45am & 12.45am
A little over a year since the sad death of Harold Pinter, his widow Antonia Fraser reads from her memoir of the couple’s time together - from falling in love while they were both married to other people, to her tending his bedside as he succumbs to cancer.

Woman’s Hour Drama: Six Suspects Radio 4, Monday-Friday 10.45am & 7.45pm
Another casualty of our holiday absence: if you hurry, the first five episodes of this ten-episode serial are still available on iPlayer. An adaptation of the novel by Vika Swarup (whose other novel Q&A was filmed as Slumdog Millionaire), it centres around a murder mystery with, as you may have guessed, six suspects. The victim is Vicky Rai, the notorious son of a prominent Indian politician and who had previously shot dead a waitress at a swanky Delhi restaurant. Murdered at the party to celebrate his acquital, just who killed him and why?

Ed Reardon’s Week Radio 4, Monday 11.30am
The bucolic writer returns in a masterpiece of comedic melancholy by Chris Douglas (who also plays Ed) and Andrew Nickolds. Together with Count Arthur Strong, Ed Reardon is one of Radio 4’s finest comedy characters.

Famous Footsteps Radio 4, Tuesday 9.30am
What is it like to raise a family when one or both of the parents has a successful creative career? In the first of a five part series, Fiona Neill looks at the impact on children and adults alike, talking to husband and wife Adiran Edmonson and Jennifer Saunders, Tessa Montgomery (daughter of Daphne du Maurier) and songwriter Guy Chambers.

Towards Zero Radio 4, Wednesday 11.30am
First of a four-part adaptation of one of Agatha Christie’s lesser known detective mysteries. Marcia Warren is Lady Tressilian, an old and humourless woman who invites a curious array of guests to her seaside house for the summer. However, with tennis player Nevile Strange (Hugh Bonneville) under the same roof as his ex-wife Audrey (Claire Rushbrook) and his new wife Kay (Lizzy Watts), romantic misunderstanding ensue — until things take a darker turn when Lady Tressilian is murdered…

On the Blog Radio 2, Thursday 10pm
Caroline Quentin, Simon Greenall and Andy Taylor star in this third series of the sitcom that takes a humorous, if not always well-aimed, swipe at modern technologies as they affect our daily lives. In for a kicking this series, as well as blogging, are social networks and Twitter.

The Friday Play: Deep Cut Radio 4, Friday 9pm
Philip Ralph adapts his own stage play (winner of two Stage Awards upon its premiere at the Edinburgh Fringe in 2008), a magnificent piece of verbatim theatre drawn from the public documents and statements by the people affected by the deaths of four soldiers at Deepcut army barracks between 1995 and 2002 and the judicial review that followed in 2006. Concentrating on the story of 18-year-old Private Cheryl James, who was found in woodland outside the barracks with a single gunshot wound to her forehead in November 1995, Ralph follows the investigation with forensic precision.

Here at TV Today, we’ve been extending our remit with regular radio previews under the Turn off the TV brand for well over a year now. But really, all such previews are are a new-fangled 21st Century version of a well-worn tradition: circling the programmes that interest you in the new Radio Times.

At no time of year is the careful (or scrappy, depending on which member of my family you are) markup more essential, or more fun, than in the ‘legendary’ Radio Times double issue.

Over the last couple of weeks, our friends over at the Radio 4 blog have been showing how some of the station’s most famous names have selected their key shows to listen to. Kirsty Young may have been a bit self-serving when she selected her own programme, Desert Island Discs, but since it was the edition featuring Sir Michael Caine and she places him in her top three guests of all time, we can forgive her.

On the blog, they have also shared some of Timothy Bentinck’s choices. The actor, best known as the voice of David Archer on The Archers, singles out Boxing Day’s Afternoon Play, an adaptation of Educating Rita starring Bill Nighy. Bentinck recently completed a run in the same role at the Watermill, Newbury, in which he was described by The Stage’s reviewer as “perfect as the alcoholic professor who fights his conscience …. both pathetic and poignant”. And of course Radio 4 controller Mark Damazer has drawn our attentions to some of his channel’s output.

The Radio 4 blog team have put a far greater collection of scans up on the photo sharing website Flickr. Joiing Young, Bentinck, and Damazer include selections from presenters Evan Davis, Eddie Mair, Julian Worricker, Libby Purves, Fi Glover and Quentin Cooper as well as Director of Audio & Music Tim Davie.

Turn off the TV will be back in the New Year. In the meantime, Nick’s Smurthwaite’s Christmas picks are still available — and of course you can use the Flickr pages to draw your attention to some of the key programmes available over the air and on iPlayer over the holiday period.

Nick Smurthwaite writes: Who needs the telly when the festive offerings on talk radio are so irresistible?

Kirsty Young welcomes national treasures Michael Caine (Radio 4, December 20 and Christmas Day) and David Tennant (Radio 4, December 27) to Desert Island Discs over the holiday. The latter reveals that as a boy he kept a book in which he noted what was in the pop charts every week.

The outgoing Doctor Who pops up again on Who on Who (Radio 2, December 29), this time in the role of interviewer. His subject is Russell T Davies, who brought the Doctor back from the dead in 2005, introducing the charismatic time traveller to a whole new generation.

I wonder if Sir Michael will be tuning in to the fresh adaptation of Educating Rita (Radio 4, Boxing Day) with Laura Dos Santos — a new name to me — in the title role and the estimable Bill Nighy attempting to reinvent Caine’s old part?

Listen out too for Stephen Merchant’s take on Galton and Simpson in Very Nearly an Armful: The Galton and Simpson Story (Radio 2, Christmas Day), looking back on the writing duo’s success with Hancock’s Half Hour and Steptoe and Son, with the help of contemporary comedy writers such as Ben Elton and David Mitchell.

The News at Bedtime (Radio 4, Christmas Eve) tries to convert old nursery rhymes and songs into up to the minute new stories, with Jack Dee and Peter Capaldi as anchormen Tweedledum and Tweedledee.

Paul Morley examines Elvis Presley’s big-screen career, including missed opportunities — West Side Story, Cat On a Hot Tin Roof, etc. — in Elvis: Movie King or Celluloid Sell-Out? (Radio 2, December 28), while Paul Gambaccini bravely tries to sum up the legacy of the Beatles — 13 albums in seven years — in The Beatles: Here, There and Everywhere (Radio 2, December 30 and New Year’s Eve). Helping him work it out are Mark Ronson, Mika, Jackson Brown, Rick Rubin and Tom Petty.

Keen-eared radio listeners will spot a one-off show on Radio 5 this year from Olly and Helen, looking back over 2009. Those of us in the know will realise that this is the first radio commission for the Sony-nominated podcasting duo behind Answer Me This, one of the leading indep­endent comedy podcasts in the UK. A delightful audio landscape punctuated with viewer questions, it is recommended.

Staying with traditional formats, you have to catch Kevin Pollack’s Chat Show, available as both an audio and video podcast. American actor and comedian Kevin Pollack (Willow, The Usual Suspects) not only reduces the chat show to a black room, two chairs and a table, but takes the accepted seven-minute slot and overruns slightly, with the single-guest shows regularly running for more than two hours.

Back in the UK and Robert Llewellyn (Red Dwarf, Scrap­heap Challenge) has his own unique spin on the same idea. What if you were to give a lift to people, and chat with them while driving? That’s CarPool and has now clocked up close to 50 episodes, with a eclectic mix of British talent including Arthur Smith and Jonathan Ross, relaxing and chatting with no agenda.

With an election coming up, the internet is going to be one of the revolutionary areas that could affect the result. Iain Dale, already one of the UK’s top political bloggers, has launched [Seven Days(http://www.toryradio.com). Part of the Tory Radio website, this weekly podcast with Jonathan Sheppard casts an - admittedly biased - eye over the last week in the political landscape.

Finally, if you’re looking for more science after the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, you need The Naked Scientists. Chaired by Dr Chris Smith, the podcast is a weekly look at the serious and not so serious questions around us, including why holding the aerial improves your TV reception and why poking a stem cell can change its fate.

Here We Come Radio 4, 10.30am
The Monkees were the world’s first “manufactured” boy band. Mancunian Davy Jones, the only Brit in the group, contributes a rare interview to this documentary fronted by John Waite.

Saturday Play: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz Radio 4, Saturday 2.30pm
Kevin Eldon, Burn Gorman and Zubin Varla are the Scarecrow, Tinman and Lion in thiss new adaptation of L Frank Baum’s classic children’s story. Amelia Clarkson is Dorothy Gale, the young girl who gets whisked off to a magical land from her home in Kansas. Emma Fielding stars as the Witches of the North, South and West.

Even Better Than the Real Thing Radio 2, Saturday 10pm
Some thirty years ago, before the Now! That’s What I Call Music series made pop compilations respectable, the Top of the Pops albums tried something similar but on a much cheaper budget. Sharing the name with the BBC’s pop show despite being unrelated to it, the series of pop albums had just as tenuous a relationship with the music inspiring it — rather than being the pop songs in the singles charts, they were cover versions by tribute artists.

Elaine Paige on Sunday Radio 2, Sunday 1pm
With guest performances from the cast of the Arts Theatre, London’s A Christmas Carol.

Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol Radio 7, Sunday 1pm
An adaptation of one of the most famous Victorian Christmas fables ever, starring Michael Gough as Scrooge and narrated by Freddie Jones.

Classic Serial: Matilda Radio 4, Sunday 3pm
Roald Dahl’s delightful children’s novel about a five-year-old genius receives the radio adaptation treatment. Nichola McAuliffe and Claire Rushbrook star, Lauren Mote plays Matilda, and Lenny Henry provides the linking narration.

Woman’s Hour Drama: Someone Like You Radio 4, Monday-Friday 10.45am & 7.45pm
Continuing the Dahl theme, here Charles Dance acts as storyteller for five short, dark comic tales by the author.

Afternoon PLay: McLevy Radio 4, Monday 2.15pm
Brian Cox returns as the Victorian detective for a new series of four dramas, playing out over the next four weeks. This week’s episode, Bolt from the Blue, sees McLevy investigating student pranksters at university who may be associated with a body found floating in Leith docks.

The Santa Tapes Radio 4, Monday-Thursday 3.45pm
Keeping Tradition Alive at Christmas Radio 2, Monday-Thursday 10pm
Two programmes looking at some of the more traditional aspects of Christmas, from tales of people who have donned the red fat suit to carolling traditions around the UK.

Afternoon Play: Black Hearts in Battersea Radio 4, Wednesday & Thursday 2.15pm
Joan Aiken’s children’s adventure is dramatised by Lin Coghlan and plays out over two days. It is the 18th cenutry, and young orphan Simon (Skins’ Joe Dempsie) arrives in London to study art, but soon finds himself caught up in a plot to overthrow the king. John Rowe and Benidorm’s Sheila Reid also star.

The News at Bedtime Radio 4, Thursday & Friday 6.15pm
A seven part comedy series, continuing next week, which sees Jack Dee and Peter Capaldi as newsreaders Tweedledum and Tweedledee, reporting on events in Nurseryland using the conventions of modern broadcast journalism. The first episode covers a young boy Jack and the nasty side effects of the genetically modified beans he has been planting.

Junior Choice Christmas Radio 2, Friday 9am
Ah, a memory from my youth returns, as Ed “Stewpot” Stewart revives his request show for children. Well, it is Christmas!

Afternoon Play: The No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency Radio 4, Friday 2.15pm & 3.15pm
Two new episodes of the radio adaptation of Alexander McCall Smith’s Botswana-set whimsical mystery stories with Clare Benedict as Mma Ramotswe, Nadine Marshall as Mma Makutsi and Ben Onwukwe as Mr JLB Matekoni.

Shelved
Radio 4, Saturday 10.30am
What reasons could there be for a TV programme to be made, but never shown? Shaun Ley looks at three examples from the 1970s in this programme — which seems a bit stingy, as there’s potential for a full half-hour on each. An episode of The Professionals dealt with far-right racist organisations at a time when the National Front was very active — but it was dropped from the schedules at short notice. The final episode of the phenomenally popular World War II resistance drama Secret Army has never been shown. Set 25 years after the events of the main series, it would see the characters reflecting on the whole point of the resistance, even suggesting that in fighting the Nazis, the threat of communism had been overlooked.

The third story dealt with is the Doctor Who story Shada. Written by Douglas Adams and originally intended to conclude Tom Baker’s 1979-80 season, location filming and a small amount of studio scenes had been recorded before industrial action at the BBC meant that production was shut down. It has since been revived in various forms: some scenes were used in 1983’s anniversary special The Five Doctors; a 1992 VHS release had Tom Baker narrating missing scenes; and a ‘webcast’ adaptation (an audio recording with very crude animation) with Paul McGann taking Baker’s role was created in 2003, and is still available on the BBC website. Adams himself would reuse a lot of material from the abandoned story in his novel Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency.

According to a BBC news article written by Shaun Ley, historian Professor Jean Seaton believes that Shada became a line in the sand in the fight between management and unions. Is that true or not? Hopefully this programme will help us decide.

Saturday Play: The Middle
Radio 4, Saturday 2.30pm
I’m really beginning to love Amelia Bullmore as a radio writer. Her recent crime drama series Craven, which went out in the Woman’s Hour slot and starred Maxine Peake, was totally absorbing. Here, she turns her attentions to the family. Emma Cunniffe and Ben Miles are Clare and Martin, a newly married couple. Martin gets on like a house on fire with the rest of Clare’s family - but when he makes a mistake, the whole family is quickly brought to its knees…

Elaine Paige on Sunday
Radio 2, Sunday 1pm
This week’s guest is stage actress and dancer Donna McKechnie.

Giles Wemmbley Hogg Goes Off
Radio 4, Monday 11.30am
Marcus Brigstocke’s inept backpacker Giles Wemmbley Hogg (“Two Ms, Two Gs”) has launched a travel company (Wembbley Hogg Travvel - two Ms, two Gs, two Vs). Things are pretty much guaranteed to go wrong, aren’t they? Great fun as ever.

Harry Worth: The Man in the Window
Radio 4, Tuesday 11.30am
He was one of the most respected TV comedians in the 1960s, but while his peers such as Tony Hancock remain revered, Harry Worth has been more or less forgotten. Hopefully this documentary will go some way to repairing that.

Hard Times: The Short, Sad Life of Stephen Foster
Radio 2, Tuesday 11.30pm
Michael Feinstein presents the first of a two-part tribute to 19th century American songwriter Stephen Foster (1826-64), best known for Oh! Susanna, which became an anthem amongst the California gold rush prospectors.

Afternoon Play: Guilty Until Proved Innocent
Radio 4, Wednesday 2.15pm
Shaken Baby Syndrome has been associated with several high profile miscarriages of justice. Deborah Davis’s play deals with fictional couple Dina and Jake (Maxine Peake and Dan Stevens) who are accused of SBS when their baby falls out of her cot. As their case progresses through the legal system, their progress seems more and more Kafkaesque.

Wake Up To Wogan
Radio 2, Friday 7.30pm
The end of an era, as Sir Terry hands back the keys to the Radio 2 DJ booth ready for Chris Evans to take over in the New Year. First presenting the show in 1972 (although he took a ten-year break), he’s become a figurehead for Radio 2. He’s not going completely, though: come February, he’ll be presenting a Sunday daytime show live from the BBC Radio Theatre in Broadcasting House.

Count Arthur Strong’s Radio Show!
Radio 4, Friday 11.30am
The legendary Count Arthur Strong (Steve Delaney) is off for a cruise… a booze cruise to Calais, to partake in the local “hyperactive supermarket”. Yes, that’s right. Count Arthur Strong and booze. It’s all going to go horribly, hilariously wrong.

The Saturday Play: Dover Beats the Band
Radio 4, Saturday 2.30pm
A mild-mannered stamp collector has been killed in a 1970s holiday camp, and Scotland Yard’s laziest detective is on the case. But as he investigates, even Inspector Dover becomes determined to catch the killer. Kenneth Cranham stars in a repeat of a drama first broadcast in 2007.

Elaine Paige on Sunday
Radio 2, Sunday 1pm
Studio guest is Debbie Allen — best known to a generation as Fame’s Lydia Grant, and now a dance teacher, choreographer and theatre director, her production of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof having transferred to the West End to rave reviews.

Afternoon Play: Zero Degrees of Separation
RAdio 4, Monday 2.15pm Three short plays written and performed by community writing groups: The Bank Van by writers from the An Tobar Arts Centre, Isle of Mull; Crosswords by the Ballycastle Writers Group, Antrim; and Shame on You from the Original Writers Group, Battersea.

Big Toe Books
Radio 7, Monday-Friday 4pm
A BBC children’s programme that continues the BBC’s long tradition of encouraging storytelling, this week features short stories based inspired by the articles of the International Declaration of Human Rights, as a way of marking International Human Rights Day on Thursday.

Monty Python’s Wonderful World of Sound
Radio 2, Tuesday 10.30pm
Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding, otherwise known as the Mighty Boosh, present a two-week exploration of the Monty Python team’s comedy LPs — which, predating as they did the home video market, were often the only way that fans could experience sketches and songs that would otherwise have disappeared from memory.

Afternoon Play: Winter Storm
Radio 4, Tuesday 2.15pm
John Gordon Sinclair stars as a Scottish poet who has taken up a post in a university in the Midwestern US. When he becomes engulfed in a severe blizzard, he muses on the events that led him to be stranded so far from home. A play that concentrates on the sound and meaning of words, it’s the kind of production that can only work on radio.

Andy Zaltzman’s History of the Third Millennium. Series 1 of 100
Radio 4, Thursday 6.30pm
A four part series by comedian Zaltzman (with a little help from Rory Bremner, Bridget Christie, Lucy Montgomery and Kim Wall) examining the first 10 years of the millennium. The title is itself a joke, punning on Radio 4’s predeliction for ultralong series (e.g., This Sceptered Isle). At least, I hope it’s a joke…

Friday Play: Then We Came to the End
Set in the 1990s, this tale of advertising executives being laid off due to an advertising recession is depressingly topical. A dysfunctional company of misfits in an advertising agency try to avoid confronting their fears about redundancy by drinking coffee, taking long lunches, sniping about each other by email and stealing each other’s medication. Rumours that this play is based on The Stage offices are completely unfounded…

The Saturday Play: A Family Affair Radio 4, Saturday 2.30pm
Michael Dobbs, creator of the House of Cards trilogy and a former adviser to Margaret Thatcher, tells the story of the Iron Lady’s last days in power as dissension within the ranks of the Conservative Party in 1990 ended her premiership. Clare Higgins plays Margaret, with Stephen Moore as husband Denis.

The Songs the Beatles Gave Away Radio 2, Saturday 10pm
Well, hardly “gave away” — as well as crafting their own pop hits, Beatles John Lennon and Paul McCartney (and, to a lesser extent, George Harrison) also wrote a number of tunes for other artists of the era. Then, as now, songwriting is the most lucrative element of pop music — and the Lennon/McCartney double act earned plenty by writing songs for Cilla Black, Jackie Lomax, The Fourmost and others.

Archive on 4: Lord Clark - Seeing Through the Tweed Radio 4, Saturday 8pm
Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation is, to this day, characterised as the archetypal BBC documentary — authoritative but with a distinct sense of authorship. 40 years after it first aired, the Archive Hour looks at the art historian’s background, and how his TV series came to be the culmination of a career that reveals much about 20th century Britain.

Desert Island Discs Radio 4, Sunday 11.15am
Private Passions Radio 3, Sunday 12pm
Cast away on a desert island this week is a relaxed, if still melancholic, Morrissey, while Michael Berkeley’s guest is musical comedian Bill Bailey.

Classic Serial: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy Radio 4, Sunday 3pm
Radio 4’s Complete Smiley series reaches arguably the finest novel in the series, and certainly the point at which Simon Russell Beale finally gets to shine, as George Smiley really comes to his own. Forced back from retirement, Smiley is tasked with identifying the mole in his department. While the shadow of the BBC TV adaptation is long, the cast list for this three-part radio version — joining Beale are Anna Chancellor, Alex Jennings, Kenneth Cranham and Maggie Steed — should ensure that it more than holds its own.

Drama on 3: The Changeling Radio 3, Sunday 8pm
A new radio adaptation of Thomas Middleton and William Rowley’s Jacobean drama. Anna Madeley, Zubin Varla and Nicky Henson star.

Sunday Feature: The Good Old Days? Radio 3, Sunday 10pm
The Victorian music hall provides such a rich seam of cultural discussion, it seems. Only a few weeks ago Radio 4 was investigating black-face minstrelsy in music hall. Now, Radio 3 delves deeper, with Billy Bragg examining its place in British folk music.

Our Mutual Friend Radio 4, Monday-Friday 10.45am & 7.45pm
The final week of the Dickens adaptation, which should mean that secrets are revealed, plans come to fruition and chickens come home to roost. All the previous episodes are still available on iPlayer, so there’s still time to catch all of this engrossing story.

The Infinite Monkey Cage Radio 4, Monday 4.30pm
A new, irreverent science show fronted by physicist Brian Cox and comedian Robin Ince. To emphasise how this series, while taking science seriously, won’t be too dry, the first studio guest is comedian (and former cosmologist) Dara O’Briain.

A Jewel in the Comedy Crown Radio 4, Tuesday 11.30am
Jason Manford presents a documentary about Jimmy Jewel, one of the 20th century’s most enduirng light entertainment stars.

He’s Not the Messiah, He’s a Very Naughty Boy Radio 2, Tuesday 10.30pm
From the title, you just know that this docuemntary is going to be about Monty Python’s Life of Brian. The film’s troubled life, from difficulties with funding to struggling with censorship, has been documented extensively already, so fans will likely know most, if not all, of the anecdotes that presenter Sanjeev Bhaskar digs up.

Afternoon Play: A Dangerous Thing Radio 4, Wednesday 2.15pm
John Sessions writes and stars in this tale of the friendship between Alexander Pope (Session) and Jonathan Swift (Timothy Spall).

Off the Page Radio 4, Thursday 1.30pm
The fate of the newspaper critic is under discussion. As paper budgets are cut and cut again, the arts criticism sections of newspapers suffer — but how important are they really? Obviously, we at The Stage believe they’re important, or we wouldn’t review more UK theatre than any other publication.

Afternoon Play: Headliner Radio 4, Thursday 2.15pm
In the Eastern European country of Khovakhia, an up-and-coming stand-up comedian (Laura Solon) is inspired by a visiting US stand-up to try harder, more political comedy. As elections approach in the repressed state, how much should she speak out?

The Friday Play: How Now TV Radio 4, Friday 9pm
Renowned TV documentary marker Paul Watson, whose 1974 series The Family kick started the reality/fly-on-the-wall genre, turns his hand to criticise the whole TV industry in this repeated drama. Tv presenter Daniela Cross (Victoria Shalet) comes up with an idea so awful that it’s bound to succeed.

Saturday Play: The Great Tennessee Monkey Trial Radio 4, Saturday 2.30pm
From the same source material as Inherit the Wind, currently running at the Old Vic, this week’s Saturday Play is a slice of verbatim theatre, adapted from the court transcripts of the Scopes Monkey Trial in 1925. A young teacher is tried when he intentionally violates a Tennessee state law prohibiting the teaching of evolution. A superlative American cast is headed by Neil Patrick Harris (How I Met Your Mother, Dr Horrible’s Singalong Blog), Ed Asner (Lou Grant, Disney Pixar’s Up), Stacy Keach (Mike Hammer, Prison Break) and John de Lancie (Star Trek: The Next Generation).

Elaine Paige on Sunday Radio 2, Sunday 1pm
Returning from her Australian tour, EP wrests back control of the Sunday lunchtime airwaves. The studio guest Jane Horrocks, currently on stage in Annie Get Your Gun, while Priscilla: Queen of the Desert star Oliver thornton sings a number from the show.

The Archers Radio 4, Sunday 7pm
A sad day, as we hear the last contribution to the series of Norman Painting, who played Phil Archer from the series’ inception until his death last month.

Drama on 3: Don Quixote by Thomas D’Urley Radio 3, Sunday 8.30pm
First performed in 1694, this play takes Cervantes’ novel and marries it with music from Henry Purcell and others. Commissioned and originally performed for the 300th anniversary of Purcell’s death in 1995, Don Taylor’s adaptation is repeated here as part of Radio 3’s weekend commemorating the 350th anniversary of his birth. The late Paul Scofield plays Don Quixote, Roy Hudd is his servant Sancho Panza, with other roles played by Roger Allam, Douglas Hodge and Bill Wallis.

Our Mutual Friend Radio 4, Monday-Friday 10.45am, repeated 7.45pm
We reach the halfway point in Dickens’ morality tale. Sadly, the drama isn’t part of BBC Radio’s series catch-up trial on iPlayer, so if you’ve missed the first episodes it’s too late — but it’s a compelling adaptation nonetheless.

Vent Radio 4, Tuesday 11pm
After last week’s Friday Play precursor, we return to the conventional half-hour series format. Neil Pearson is awake from his coma and is returning home in a wheelchair. On the way, he muses about an argument about cheesecake, has an imaginary conversation with Buzz Aldrin, and invents a panel game. Neil Pearson, Fiona Allen and Josie Lawrence star.

Ballylenon Radio 4, Wednesday 11.30am
The whimsical comedy drama set in the Irish town of Ballylenon in the 1950s returns. Which is either a recommendation or a warning, depending on your point of view.

The Now Show Radio 4, Friday 6.30pm
The zodiac of topical satire falls back squarely into the Punt and Dennis constellation after a six-week sojourn in the Toksvig-Hardy cluster.

The Friday Play: Shirleymander Radio 4, Friday 9pm
Tracy-Ann Oberman stars as the Council Leader in Gregory Evans’s tragi-comedy about Dame Shirley Porter and her time in charge of Westminster Council during the 1980s.

Saturday Play: The Shape of the Table Radio 4, Saturday 2.30pm
Tying in with Radio 4’s commemoration of the 20th anniversary of the tumultuous changes in Eastern Europe in 1989, the Saturday Play revives David Edgar’s National Theatre production from 1990. Set in a fictional European country with echoes of Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary, the country’s Communist government sees the writing on the wall and faces a stark choice: suppress the instigators of the uprising or initiate reform. Tim McInnerney and Henry Goodman lead an impressive cast.

Reviewing the original theatre production, The Stage’s then editor, Peter Hepple, said:

Edgar’s skill lies in mastering the degrees of speculation which 1989 brought to the surface. The answers may not be known until the turn of the century and beyond, but the questions, as always, are fascinating and fairly put.

• Read the original review
• Access The Stage Archive to read every issue from 1880 to 2007. Prices for access start at £5.

The play’s author, David Edgar, is on Radio 4’s Word of Mouth on Tuesday at 4pm, exploring the language of Communism with presenter Michael Rosen.

Leaving by Vaclav Havel World Service, Saturday 8pm
A rare appearanace for the BBC World Service in this preview section, with the premiere of Czech playwright Vaclav Havel’s first work since becoming his nation’s president in 1989 — an appointment which is echoed in The Shape of the Table (above).

Vilem Rieger, ex-Chancellor of an unnamed state, is leaving office. But does leaving necessarily mean that he, his mistress and his extended family have to leave the state villa, which has been their home for years? David Haig, Hugh Bonneville, Joanna Scanlan and Simon Russell Beale star.

Archive on 4: Radio Hollywood Radio 4, Saturday 8pm
In the 1930s and 1940s, the New York-based Lux Radio Theater adapated a range of blockbuster films into hour-long radio programmes, often using the original stars. Jeffrey Richards presents this documentary about the show, which featured adaptations including The Wizard of Oz, Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon.

Classic Serial: Fair Stood the Wind for France Radio 4, Sunday 3pm
HE Bates’s tale of a British aircrew whose bomber is downed over wartime occupied France stars Rory Kinnear, Tom Goodman-Hill and Louise Brealey.

Weekday choices follow after the jump.

Where Do You Want Me? (A Comic in Continental Crisis)
Radio 4, Saturday 10.30am
Something that our light entertainment correspondents in The Stage have been covering over recent years is the growth of entertainment prospects in Spanish resorts that cater to British holidaymakers. Johnny Vegas, star of ITV1’s hit comedy series Benidorm, revisits the resort to meet some of the comedians, singers and spesh acts who have moved out there.

Saturday Play: All Quiet on the Western Front
Radio 4, Saturday 2.30pm
First broadcast a year ago on Radio 3 (and highlighted in our Turn off the TV preview), this first radio adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s anti-war novel earns an appropriate repeat on Remembrance Sunday weekend.

Drama on 3: The Promise
Radio 3, Sunday 8pm
When Ariadne Nicolaeff’s English translation of Aleksei Arbuzov’s play, set in World War II during the seige of Leningrad, debuted in London in 1967, the cast comprised Judi Dench, Ian McKellen and Ian McShane. Here, the roles are taken by Ruth Wilson, Russell Tovey and Harry Lloyd. The three play teenagers who are thrown together in a war-torn apartment block, and follows them both during and after the war.

Weekday choices — including the major Dickens adaptation which is the highlight of this week’s radio output — after the jump.

We were very sad here at TV Today to hear of the death of Norman Painting, a world-record holding actor who had played Phil Archer since the trial episodes of the BBC’s long-running radio soap, The Archers.

Painting’s contribution to the legendary soap is huge. He had been been with the series since the five pilot episodes in 1950 (The Archers went national in 1951), the character of Phil maturing from young man to father and then grandfather. It’s a breath-taking achievement and his presence has enriched my enjoyment of The Archers over the years with those calming, avuncular tones.

But away from the recording booths in Birmingham, Painting wrote over 1000 scripts for The Archers between 1966 and 1982. He reportedly left scriptwriting behind due to artistic differences with the then editor of the show, but was happy to continue appearing as Phil for decades to come.

Painting’s passion for The Archers never diminished, penning a history of the show, Forever Ambridge, in the mid-1970s. It was a best seller and was reissued in 1980 to tie in with the 30th anniversary of the soap.