Today’s radio

DERMOT O’LEARY

8AM, RADIO 2 HHHH

Daniel Radcliffe will be appearing at the Old Vic in an adaptation of Samuel Beckett’s dark comedy Endgame. The play has four characters, two of whom live in dustbins. It’s not, as Daniel explains to Dermot this morning, exactly knock-about humour, but it does have a surreal power.

ANIMAL FARM

2.45PM, RADIO 4 HHHH

‘All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.’ This chilling sentence from George Orwell’s satire on life in the Soviet Union has echoed down the decades. Animal Farm is written in a simple style, but the book is a frighteningly accurate account of the corrupting effects of power. In this dramatisation of

Daniel Radcliffe (8am, Radio 2) Orwell’s classic, Tamsin Greig is the narrator, while Nicky Henson and Toby Jones play the pigs Napoleon and Squealer, who, having been oppressed by humans, become the oppressors of their fellow animals.

SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES

5PM, CLASSIC HHH The Oscars season approaches, prompting Andrew Collins to compile a two-part series on Academy Award-winning film music. Andrew opens with Alan Menken’s score for The Little Mermaid, and includes music from Pinocchio – another winner from Disney. Then, looking ahead to the Oscars, he puts together a list of worthy nominees from 2019, including John Williams’s final Star Wars score, the theme from Joker, and Alexandre Desplat’s big music for Little Women.

ROUND BRITAIN QUIZ

11PM, RADIO 4 HHHHH

Tom Sutcliffe gets teams from Scotland and Wales, including that brainbox Val Mcdermid, to answer bafflingly cryptic questions. If you like TV’S Only Connect, then you will relish this, radio’s longestrunning quiz.