The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Review
CHARLOTTE RUNCIE
RADIO CRITIC
There are poignant echoes of the past on the radio this week, not least in Archive on 4:
The Phoney War (Saturday, Radio 4, 8.00pm), in which Edward Stourton looks at the strange and tense atmosphere of Britain in 1939-40, and of the BBC’s coverage of this so-called phoney war. Here was a time when all expected an immediate and dramatic bombing campaign, cinemas were closed and children evacuated to the country, but instead there was at first just an eerie silence and a sense of waiting for the storm.
A more colourful and positive period in history is under the spotlight in The People’s Songs (Sunday, Radio 2, 9.00pm), a chance to relive the revolutionary cultural year of 1963, when the National Theatre opened and
The Beatles were about to change things forever. Stuart Maconie hears memories from the people who were told by Prime Minister Harold Macmillan that they’d “never had it so good”.
Speaking of history, Greg Jenner, historical consultant to CBBC’s riotous comedy history series Horrible Histories, presents Home School History (Monday, Radio 4, 9.30am), a new series of family-friendly history programmes as part of the BBC’s home education programming while schools are closed. Each 15-minute history lesson covers a topic linked to the curriculum, from the Stone Age to the Space Race, combining facts with humour.
The NHS Front Line (Tuesday, Radio 4, 11.00am) features diaries from NHS staff working on Covid-19 wards, with fascinating and important insights into the
Herculean efforts going into treating patients suffering from the virus. Dr John Wright has been recording on the wards with the help of frontline NHS staff at all levels.
Lockdown restrictions mean no birthday parties this year, and even the Queen is no exception. So for Her Majesty’s 94th birthday, Classic FM provides a special edition of The Full Works Concert (Tuesday, Classic FM, 8.00pm) in her honour, with contributions from different Masters of the Queen’s (or King’s) Music, from William Boyce during the reign of King George II, to Judith Weir who was appointed the first female Master of the Queen’s Music in 2014.
More or Less (Wednesday, Radio 4, 9.00am), the programme that examines the truth behind statistics, is more welcome now than ever, as viral misinformation spreads almost as quickly as coronavirus itself. This edition looks at whether or not face masks help to prevent contagion and how the coronavirus death toll is affected by delays in reporting. And, after reports of shortages in available contraception, are we really nine months away from a post-pandemic baby boom?
There’s a welcome sense of freedom from the pandemic in The Essay: Migrants (Monday to Friday, Radio 3, 10.45pm), as broadcaster and birdwatcher Tom McKinney discusses different aspects of bird migration. He asks why birds migrate on long, high-risk journeys, and why some don’t travel very far from their home throughout their lives.
And increased time spent at home means a busier life for some, and an emptier one for others. Is now the time to revel in the art of the daydream? Late Junction (Friday, Radio 3, 11.00pm) focuses on music that encourages us to slow down and drift, with music for boredom and contemplation.
Read The Week in Radio by Charlotte Runcie every Wednesday in
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