Radio Week

The picks of the best of this week’s radio

ENTERTAINMENT

Jennifer Zamparelli MONDAY-FRIDAY, 9AM, 2FM HHHH

Nailing the day with her distinctive dose of humour and edge Jennifer Zamparelli tells it like it is and hears from listeners and guests from 9am until noon.

Thanks A Lot, Milton Jones! MONDAY, 6.30PM, BBC RADIO 4 HHHH Milton Jones rattles off gags at the speed of a machine gun and, often as not, hits a bull’s-eye. He’s back with a new, six-part series, which has the wild-haired comedian doing his best to sort out all of life’s problems.

It’s A Fair Cop

FRIDAY, 11.30AM, BBC RADIO 4 HHHH Former police sergeant turned comedian Alfie Moore swears the audience in as police officers, then presents them with some reallife policing dilemmas, in this deft and funny four-part series.

FACTUAL

Brainstorm

SUNDAY, 7PM, RTÉ RADIO ONE HHHH

Ella McSweeney (pictured) is joined by Paul Deane and Piyush Verma, both from UCC, as they ask ‘how do we feed our insatiable hunger for energy?’ and if it is time to go nuclear.

Drivetime

MONDAY-FRIDAY, 4.40PM, RTÉ RADIO ONE HHHH

Mary Wilson presents an information packed evening news magazine with all the stories of the day.

Tech Talk

SATURDAY, 5PM, NEWSTALK

Tech Talk highlights how technology affects you, as Jess Kelly decodes the jargon to explain exactly what you need to know and answers your questions.

DRAMA

This Thing Of Darkness

MONDAY, 2.15PM, BBC RADIO 4 HHHHH This grippingly good series, based on the work of a forensic psychiatrist, follows the murder of a young man. In this fifth episode, the victim’s sister makes a revealing disclosure. Catch up on previous episodes on BBC Sounds.

The Blackrock Girl

THURSDAYFRIDAY, 2.15PM, BBC RADIO 4 HHHH

A nurse who has spent years caring for the poor moves to Ireland. She soon makes friends, but her story doesn’t quite add up, and the truth about her past begins to emerge in Lucy Gannon’s two-part psychodrama.

The Lyric Feature

SUNDAY, 6PM, LYRIC FM HHHH

The friendship between US poet John Berryman and Irish composer Brian Boydell and their collaboration on A Cradle Song is explored.

Back in 1937, when both were students at Clare College in Cambridge, England, Boydell and Berryman met and struck up a friendship. While at the college, the two men bonded over their love of music and the poetry of Yeats.

After an extraordinary evening on February 22, 1937, later known as The Curlew Party, when they listened in the dark to the unsettling music of Peter Warlock, they decided to work together.