The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Review
Charlotte Runcie On My Wavelength
Thank you all for making the time to be here today, and I’ll let David Mitchell kick things off. David? In Mitchell on Meetings (Saturday, Radio 4, 10.30am), the comedian investigates the peculiar workplace institution of the meeting, how it took over the world, and any other further points that should be actioned going forwards. He’s helped along the way by Russell Kane, who looks at how different personality types act in meetings; Dutch sociologist Wilbert van Vree, discussing how the modern meeting evolved; and executive coach Sophie Bryan, who provides advice on how to be a good chairman. Or could the entire thing have been an email?
Rufus Sewell, Martin Jarvis and Joanne Whalley star in Sweeney Todd and the String of Pearls (Sunday, Radio 4, 3pm), a horror thriller based on the original penny dreadful story by Thomas Peckett Prest, dramatised for radio by Archie Scottney and directed by Rosalind Ayres. Fleet Street in 1785 is a place of secrets and lies, and clandestine arrangements between unscrupulous demon barbers and their pie shop owning friends. Can Lieutenant Jeffrey (Sewell) unravel the mystery of what’s afoot?
Ten years ago, the journalist Melanie Reid broke her neck and back while horse riding. She has written extensively and beautifully since then about her new life, but A Life Less Vertical (Monday, Radio 4, 11am) also incorporates the experiences of the other people that Reid met on the spinal ward in Glasgow in the first year after her accident. A decade on, Reid catches up with the people who experienced similarly life-changing events to hers, and approached the fallout in very different ways.
Why is pop music obsessed with the experience of being 17 years old? The age has provided inspiration for The Beatles, Chuck Berry, Stevie Nicks, and, this year, Olivia Rodrigo. In Laura Barton’s Notes on Music (Tuesday, Radio 4, 11.30am), a series celebrating the particular qualities and appeal of pop, Laura Barton speaks to Janis Ian and Sharon Van Etten about their versions, and hears from the founding editor of Just Seventeen magazine.
Irish music is the theme of The Classic FM Concert with John Suchet (Wednesday, Classic FM, 8pm), in a special programme to mark St Patrick’s Day. And what could possibly top a bill of classical music celebrating Irish culture? That’s right: a suite from Bill Whelan’s Riverdance. There’ll be no avoiding tapping those toes.
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the American humorist David Sedaris first sharing his thoughts and writing with Radio 4 listeners, and on Thursday evening he returns for an eighth series of Meet David Sedaris (Thursday, Radio 4, 6.30pm), this time recorded at his home in Sussex. Satirical observations and criticism of social absurdities and all the strangeness of contemporary life abound.
On a theme of “Books to Make Space for on the Bookshelf ”, all this week on The Essay (Monday to Friday, Radio 4, 10.45pm), academics on the New Generation Thinker scheme run by BBC Radio 3 and the Arts and Humanities Research Council present their case for an underrated book or author that more of us should make time to read. Literature in the spotlight includes the dark, frank novels of Dennis Cooper; and the work of Inez Holden, who reported on the Nuremberg Trials and was a friend of George Orwell, HG Wells and Stevie Smith. Best get that Blackwell’s order in now.