Radio choice Charlotte Runcie

In the Studio WORLD SERVICE, 11.30AM

This is the behind-thescenes story of Irish novelist Colm Tóibín staging a re-telling of the ancient Irish folk legend The Tain, a tale of two brothers forced by their mother to fight one another to the death. A new version is performed at Princeton University in the United States, where the words have been refashioned by poet Paul Muldoon in a way which resonates with modern-day Ireland – the collapse of the Irish economy after the 2008 global recession and the emergence of a new, depressing landscape of drugs-riddled estates.

The Documentary WORLD SERVICE, 8.06PM

 What an evocative subject for a documentary: fireflies. When Kashif Qamar was a child, he used to collect fireflies in jars and use them as living lamps. He remembers them as poetic symbols of hope and joy in the darkness. But with spreading urbanisation and light pollution in Karachi, fireflies have become so scarce that Qamar’s young daughters don’t know their magic. In this documentary, titled The Magic of Fireflies, he collects poetry and folklore about fireflies to try to connect his children with the history of these beautiful, ethereal creatures.