Radio choice Charlotte Runcie

Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber

RADIO 4, 10.45AM

As part of a season of new dramatisations of Angela Carter, the Radio 4 drama serial this week is a selection of five of Carter’s short fairy stories, dramatised for radio by Olivia Hetreed. Much of Carter’s fiction is occupied with interrogating feminism, and her fairy stories do this with a distinctive combination of sparkle and bite. Episode one is a version of the tale of Bluebeard, in which a young pianist marries a wealthy aristocratic widower whose previous wives died in mysterious circumstances. The Essay: My Life in Food RADIO 3, 10.45PM

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The Essay is a tasty latenight feast telling the story of a life through food. In tonight’s episode, Joanna Robertson recalls her childhood fascination with food and how it arrived as if by magic at her house, from the treasure-like sovereigns of gold milkbottle tops at dawn to the warm bounty of the bakery van at lunchtime. During the rest of the week, the story expands to Robertson’s struggle with an eating disorder, decision to train as a chef and experiences living with her family in Rome and Paris.