The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Review
On My Wavelength
Is it really 70 years already since The Archers first began?
Apparently so, as celebrated in Archive on 4: A Social History of The Archers (Saturday, Radio 4, 8pm). Using plenty of extracts from classic episodes, along with new interviews with the cast, production crew and affectionate admirers of the long-running rural drama, a story unfolds of how
The Archers has evolved across seven decades. The historian
David Kynaston charts the changes in society that The Archers has reflected over the years, and finds out what the programme can tell us about ourselves.
Firmly in the present, what scientists have achieved in developing a new vaccine in a matter of months is extraordinary. In The Documentary – Breakthrough: The Race for the Covid Vaccine (Sunday, BBC World Service, 9.06am), Dr Kevin Fong gains behind-the-scenes access to the researchers’ process and talks to those who seem to have achieved what once felt impossible. He asks them how they tackled the challenge, the biggest barriers they faced, and what it’s been like to be doing potentially life-saving research, against the clock, and with the eyes of the world watching them.
It’s a new dawn for a Radio 4 institution this week, as Woman’s Hour (from Monday, Radio 4, 10am) welcomes its new main presenter, Emma Barnett, following the departure of both Jenni Murray and Jane Garvey last year. Under her command, what will the future of Woman’s Hour sound like? Listening is the only way to find out.
Eliza Lomas meets Wallace & Gromit creator Nick Park for In the Studio (Tuesday, BBC World
Service, 1.30pm) to hear about the new venture from Aardman Animations. Wallace and Gromit are back, and this time they’re interactive, for a story taking place on smartphones. Park reflects on his own childhood dreams of being an inventor, and shares his work-in-progress sketches and creative process.
In Sonnets for Albert (Wednesday, Radio 4, 4pm), the poet Anthony Joseph presents a poetic meditation on absence, loss and fatherhood, as he addresses his own relationship with his father, who was not a constant presence during his childhood. He speaks to the poet Raymond Antrobus, the singer Gregory Porter and the Trinidadian film-maker Mariel Brown to discuss their various experiences of making creative work in memory of parents.
Sarah Millican returns with a new series of Elephant in the Room (Thursday, Radio 4, 6.30pm), her comedy panel show in which the panellists are asked personal questions that have also been asked of the general public, and the winner is the person who is the most average (donned Average Jolene). But the joint winner is the person who is the most bizarre (the Maverick Matilda). Susan Calman, Shazia Mirza, Kirsten O’Brien and Nick Mohammed join the fun.
And 39 Ways to Save the Planet (Monday to Friday, Radio 4,
1.45pm) is a 10-part series on the future of conservation and the fight to mitigate climate change, in partnership with the Royal Geographical Society, detailing ideas to relieve the effects of climate change. Tom Heap and Dr Tamsin Edwards from King’s College London look for fresh perspectives including small things that can add up to make big differences, such as super-strong building timber, and robots that can maintain offshore wind turbines in dangerous locations.