The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Review
CHARLOTTE RUNCIE
RADIO CRITIC
In The Documentary (tonight, BBC World Service, 7.06pm), the 17year-old environmental activist Greta Thunberg reflects on her experiences travelling around the world to campaign for more action to be taken against climate change. The programme, which was originally broadcast in Sweden on the nation’s most popular and high-profile radio show, Sommar, is a personal essay accompanied by music, translated by Thunberg from her original Swedish script.
Trevor McDonald, the TV news broadcaster, launches a new series called Sir Trevor McDonald’s Headliners (Sunday, Classic FM, 9.00pm), about various musicians who have headlined memorable concerts and made news headlines themselves, sometimes for their music, and sometimes for entirely different reasons. For instance, the first programme features John Barbirolli with the Hallé Orchestra, which Barbirolli saved from dissolution.
In Simon Schama: The Great Gallery Tours (Monday, Radio 4, 4.00pm), Simon Schama opens the doors of the
Courtauld Gallery in London to discuss his own picks from the Impressionist collection of works by Cézanne, Manet and Gauguin. The series will also go on to feature paintings from the Prado, the Rijksmuseum and the Whitney in New York.
In The Political School (Tuesday, Radio 4, 11.00am), Timandra Harkness explores the mechanics of how the British state functions, and how it might be forced to change after the enormous challenges presented by Covid-19. Harkness begins by exploring the role that forecasting using mathematical models and probability plays in the operations of government, and how it is that a pandemic was top of the government’s risk register and yet still seemed to take everyone by surprise.
One of Nina Simone’s richest and most evocative songs, Feeling Good, is the subject of this week’s Soul Music (Wednesday, Radio 4, 9.00am), which also tells the surprising story behind its composition. Feeling Good was originally written for a now little-known musical called The Roar of the Greasepaint – The Smell of the Crowd, and was performed by Cy Grant, a man who was once a prisoner of war and then forged a successful career in the arts and appeared regularly on British TV. His daughter contributes to the programme along with others for whom the song has a special meaning.
Mat Fraser, who presents What If Everyone Was Disabled? (Thursday, Radio 4FM, 11.30am) is a writer, actor, punk drummer and thalidomide survivor. Here he allows himself to imagine what the world would be like if the majority of people, rather than the minority, had a disability, or if disabled people were more visible in public life. He speaks to designers and campaigners about what might be possible and where things have gone wrong.
And Friday should have been the opening of this year’s BBC Proms, but alas, the pandemic has come for that too. Instead, for First Night of the BBC Proms 2020 (Radio 3, 7.30pm), the BBC is featuring new music and highlights from past Proms, as well as marking the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth. It begins with a mash-up of Beethoven’s nine symphonies, a commission by Iain Farrington recorded in lockdown by a Grand Virtual Orchestra comprising 350 players from the BBC performing groups.
Read The Week in Radio by Charlotte Runcie on Thursday in The Daily Telegraph
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