RADIO CHOICE

CHARLES BLISS died feeling he had been a failure, but he was wrong. Born into poverty in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, he suffered from anti-Semitism and was sent to Dachau and Buchenwald concentration camps during World War II, but escaped to England. Drawing on his training as an engineer, Bliss came up with a new language, based on symbols, that he hoped would end global conflict. This ideogramatic language didn’t bring world peace, but it did, decades later, become a means of communicating with children with cerebral palsy. Michael Symmons Roberts tells the tale of THE SYMBOLS OF BLISS (RADIO 4 (FM), 11.30AM).

THE director Christopher Nolan (pictured) is on THE FILM PROGRAMME (RADIO 4 (FM), 4PM) to talk about his epic new drama, Dunkirk. Much of the

film was shot on the beaches at Dunkirk, and the story is told from the air, the land and the sea. Nolan tells Francine Stock about what was for some a heroic rescue, but for so many others, an ordeal that ended in death.

THE great film composer John Williams celebrated his 85th birthday earlier this year. By way of celebration, BBC PROMS 2017 (RADIO

3, 7.30PM) has the excellent BBC Concert Orchestra playing music from some of his scores, including Star Wars, Indiana Jones and ET, plus A Prayer For Peace from Munich and Dry Your Tears, Afrika from Amistad.