TODAY’S RADIO

THINGS FELL APART 9AM, 9.30PM, RADIO 4

★★★★ Tammy Faye Bakker and her husband, Jim, were television evangelists, who raised enough money from their fundraising to build a Christian theme park. They seemed outwardly happy, but Tammy Faye was addicted to prescription medication, and Jim had a cellar-full of dark secrets. One day, Tammy Faye made a bold move that was to change her life and the lives of countless others. Jon Ronson tells her story.

BIOHACKING 9.30AM, RADIO 4

★★★

DNA can now be changed using a form of genome editing that exists naturally in bacteria. Matt Loose and Chris Denning demonstrate to Jonathan Ball how this process,

which has the potential to correct hereditary disorders, could be done in a hotel room with the aid

of a laptop and a coffee machine.

A GOOD READ 4.30PM, RADIO 4

★★★★ Nigel Slater’s brilliant book Toast is about growing up hungry in the 1960s and 1970s, and a battle – fought with food – for his father’s affection. Toast is on the menu this afternoon in this regular book programme, and today’s guests are the designer Kaffe Fassett and The Police’s guitarist, Andy Summers.

THE CASEBOOK OF MAX AND IVAN 6.30PM, RADIO 4 ★★★

Joanna Lumley plays Lavinia Moncrief, a former B-movie actress whose career has faded away, so she scratches up a living by giving bizarre acting classes. Lavinia is also the chief suspect in a series of thefts at the Nunhead Community Centre. The private detectives Max and Ivan are on her trail – with the help of some bell-ringers, a weary caretaker and a mutant Komodo dragon – in this repeat of the oddball comedy series written by Max Olesker and Ivan Gonzalez. SJ

Tammy Faye (9am, 9.30pm, R4)