Radio choice Gillian Reynolds

Guilt Trip RADIO 4, 11.30AM

A mother (Felicity Montagu) is waiting for her grown-up daughter (Olivia Nixon) at the station. The meeting gets off to a bad start. The daughter is late, the mother is fretting. Clearly there are past differences between them but, as this is a four-part comedy, they’re meant to bring smiles as they try to resolve them. This reunion is so the women can join a 174mile Thames-side walk to raise £1,000 for charity. It’s meant to bring them both closer. “White knuckle bonding” the daughter calls it. Generation gaps yawn. Old histories haunt.

Joan Collins – A Life in Lipstick RADIO 2, 10.00PM

This is part two of a remarkable life, starting at where her career might have ended, going on through the decades that reestablished as her as a star, lots of pitfalls and personal horrors in between. Three marriages have already passed into history as this part of the story starts. Sit through the tributes galore (Roger Moore, Julian Clary, etc) that pour out at the beginning. Once she starts telling why she took ghastly parts (‘for the money”) and, bit by bit, carved out a whole new career via the hit TV series Dynasty, it’s magic.