The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Review
CHARLOTTE RUNCIE
RADIO CRITIC
Radio this week is all about the light and dark of life, with commemorations of immense suffering taking place alongside celebrations of birth and joy. Archive on 4: The Science of Evil (Saturday, Radio 4, 8.00pm), which ties in with Holocaust Memorial Day on Monday, looks at how the academic discipline of social psychology developed out of attempts to comprehend the Holocaust. David Edmonds speaks to descendants of some of the discipline’s pioneers about attempting to understand evil.
And marking the
75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz is a special edition of Words and Music (Sunday, Radio 3, 5.30pm). Readers Henry Goodman and Maria Friedman perform texts written about what happened at perhaps the most well-known Nazi concentration camp, including the moment of liberation itself. There are also recordings of the voices of survivors, including Primo Levi and Viktor Frankl, and Anita Lasker-Wallfisch, who played the cello in the Auschwitz Women’s Orchestra.
Siobhan Redmond is the perfect voice to read Book of the Week: Motherwell (Monday to Friday, Radio 4FM, 9.45am), the beautiful posthumously published memoir from the late writer Deborah Orr, who died of cancer in the autumn. The book explores Orr’s childhood in which she felt constantly strange and on the outside growing up in Motherwell in North Lanarkshire.
Is the justice system dealing with violent criminals in completely the wrong way? Usman Khan, who killed two people near London Bridge in a knife attack in November, was already known to the criminal justice system. Home Office official and former prison governor
Ian Acheson presents
The Crisis Inside (Tuesday, Radio 4, 11.00am), a documentary which could prove to be explosive, as he draws on the testimony of whistle-blowers to paint a damning portrait of the system.
On a warmer note, it may still be too early to be thinking of spring, and a host of golden daffodils, but get in the mood anyway with In Wordsworth’s Footsteps (Wednesday,
Radio 4, 9.00am), marking 250 years since the poet’s birth in 1770. Professor Jonathan Bate tells the story of Wordsworth’s life and genius, speaking to poet Alice Oswald, writer and Lakes shepherd James Rebanks, and broadcaster Melvyn Bragg along the way. Simon Russell Beale provides the voice of Wordsworth, along with viola music specially composed by Emily Levy.
Comedian Isy Suttie has for several years been providing funny and heart-filled musical and comic explorations of love for the radio, and the new three-part series Isy Suttie’s Guide to Love and Romance (Wednesday, Radio 4 Extra, 11.00am) compiles some of the best bits from the archives along with new material. She is joined by her real-life partner and fellow comedian Elis James
Part of the ongoing year-long celebration of the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth, the Hallé Orchestra launches their Beethoven cycle in a joyful concert live from the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester for Radio 3 in Concert (Thursday, Radio 3, 7.30pm).
And Vicky McClure (Line of Duty) and Justin Brady star in Roots (Friday, Radio 4, 11.30am), a new comedy about a successful businessman who decides to go back to his roots in Nottingham to help disadvantaged children.
Read The Week in Radio by Charlotte Runcie every Wednesday in
The Daily Telegraph
FM 97.6-99.8MHz
FM 88-90.2MHz
FM 90.2-92.4MHz
FM 99.9-101.9MHz
FM 99.9-101.9MHz
FM 99.9-101.9MHz