Radio Week
The picks of the best of this week’s radio
ENTERTAINMENT Toast
THURSDAY, 12.30PM, BBC RADIO 4 ★★★★
Well-sourced, high-quality Italian food at decent prices, with a side order of stardust… What could possibly go wrong? Chef Jamie Oliver opened his first Jamie’s Italian restaurant in Oxford in 2008, and critic Tracey MacLeod was among those impressed by what felt
‘like a passion project’. But after a golden few years, painful change came, and although Jamie’s Italian is still open in Dublin’s Dundrum, the last UK restaurant in the chain has now gone. Sean Farrington asks how it all went so wrong for what appeared to be a perfect business.
Vernon Kay
FRIDAY, 9.30AM, BBC RADIO 2 ★★★★
Two-times Brit Award-winner Gabrielle is today’s guest in the Piano Room, performing with the BBC Concert Orchestra. Gabrielle overcame childhood bullying and thoughts of suicide to top the charts in 1993 and 2000 with Dreams and Rise. More recently, her soulful voice was hidden behind the Harlequin costume on The Masked Singer in 2021. She has a new album entitled A Place In Your Heart coming out in May, and she will also be hitting the road in her 30 Years Of Dreaming tour in the summer with a show at St Anne’s Park in Dublin.
FACTUAL
The Miners’ Strike: Return Journey
TUESDAY, 9.30AM, BBC RADIO 4 ★★★★
Forty years on from the divisive miners’ strike in Britain, this powerful series meets some of those involved from different sides to reflect on the conflict. Chris Jackson, a reporter in south Wales at the time, starts by meeting fourth-generation miner Neil Foster, who was young and single and went on strike for a year. He came to understand why some men with families crossed the picket line, but still can’t forgive others who, he feels, ‘betrayed’ him.
An Cúinne Dána SUNDAY, 6.30PM RNAG ★★★★
January’s book of the month on Raidió na Gaeltachta is Cathal Ó Searcaigh’s Saighdiúir, a novel set during World War 1. The horrors of war are vividly captured in this new book and joining Tristan Rosenstock to discuss it are critics Síobhra Aiken and Caitlín Nic Íomhair.
DRAMA
Agatha Christie’s Murder
On The Orient Express
MONDAY, 11AM/4PM, BBC RADIO 4 EXTRA ★★★★★
A glorious whodunnit treat with John Moffatt as Hercule Poirot, plus a stellar cast including Francesca Annis, Joss Ackland and Sylvia Syms. Poirot is on board the fully booked Orient Express from Istanbul when the train gets stuck in a snowdrift. One of the glittering international list of passengers is found dead in his cabin and the killer is still aboard, and could strike again.
MUSIC
RTE Lyric Live With Paul Herriot FRIDAY, 7PM, LYRIC FM ★★★★
Paul Herriott presents live from the National Concert Hall as the National Symphony Orchestra begins the Stanford 100 centenary. The programme features Charles Villiers Stanford’s enchanting Clarinet Concerto performed by Carol McGonnell paired with music of his peers, Wagner and Brahms, all conducted by Mihhail Gerts.