TODAY’S RADIO

SKELETONS IN THE CUPBOARD

11.30AM, RADIO 4 (FM) ★★★ Alison Steadman and Morwenna Banks play two sisters who have escaped unsatisfactory domestic arrangements in England to set up home deep in rural France. They can’t quite enjoy their new French life to the full as they’ve been putting off dealing with some tricky matters on the other side of the Channel. This sitcom, which began in 2019, is by Sue Limb, who’s written many a fine radio comedy; sadly, this isn’t one of her best.

39 WAYS TO SAVE THE PLANET

1.45PM, RADIO 4 ★★★★ As the series on innovations that might save us from an ecological disaster ends, Tom Heap and Tamsin Edwards hear about enhanced photosynthesis, which could increase our ability to grow Donald Trump (2.15pm, Radio 4) more food on less land, and have an impact on carbon emissions.

THE REPUBLICANS

2.15PM, RADIO 4 ★★★★ Lewis Macleod, a star of Dead Ringers, gives us his frighteningly good impersonation of Donald Trump in Jonathan Myerson’s drama about America’s 45th President. Taking Trump’s comment that ‘I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters’ as its theme, the drama follows Trump – from temper tantrums on the golf course to erratic behaviour in the White House – through his bizarre four-year Presidency.

THE CLASSIC FM CONCERT

8PM, CLASSIC FM ★★★ For just a few minutes every year – on or around December 16 – the low winter sun lights up the interior of Fingal’s Cave. There is a theory that Felix Mendelssohn deliberately finished his stirring work Fingal’s Cave on December 16, 1830 to mark that magical moment. John Suchet includes the work in this selection of Mendelssohn’s music.