Going radio gaga From Dolly to Dickens

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 19

Dolly Parton’s Good List, Radio 2, 9pm

Dolly Parton talks to Claudia Winkleman about Christmas while choosing a few of her favourite country and seasonal songs. Hopefully, her own Hard Candy Christmas will be one of them.

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 20,

Desert Island Discs, Radio 4, 11am

Sir Clifford of Richard (as Smash Hits used to call him) was first sent to Radio 4’s desert island back in 1960. Now six decades on, at the age of 80, Britain’s first proper pop star is back to reflect on his life as he talks to Lauren Laverne.

Open Book, Radio 4, 4pm

John Mullan, Armando Iannucci and Thomas Keneally discuss the work of Charles Dickens, while food historian Pen Vogler looks at the meals recorded in Dickens’s novels.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 21

The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Radio 4, 10.45am/7.45pm

And talking of Dickens, Radio 4 launches a new dramatisation of Dickens’s final, unfinished novel in daily 15-minute instalments. Adapted by Mike Walker, it stars Pippa Nixon and Peter Davison, with Iwan Davies as Edwin Drood.

Christmas Eve

Rachel Joyce offers up a festive story in this new drama starring Niamh Cusack and Robert Lindsay. Cusack plays a recently widowed 64-yearold who sees an older man seemingly drowning in a lake.

Sunshine Sound Walk, Radio 3, 3pm

By Christmas afternoon you might want to get out of the house. But if the weather isn’t co-operating then you could always turn to Radio 3 for Horatio Clare’s walk along the Northumberland coast as he heads for Lindisfarne. Sonically soothing slow radio for when the day is getting on top of you.

BOXING DAY

Archive on 4: It’s Behind You, Radio 4, 8pm

Subtitled “The Weird and Wonderful Story of British Pantomime”, cultural historian Christopher Frayling dips into the BBC archive to reconstruct the history of this much loved (and sometimes loathed; or is that just me?) festive tradition, tracing it back to Shakespeare’s times. Frayling also asks how panto stands now in the wake of political correctness and this year’s pandemic.

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 27

Classical Music in and after the Lockdown, Scala Radio, 6pm

Mark Forrest talks to Nicola Benedetti, Tasmin Little and Evelyn Glennie about the impact of the pandemic on classical music. Originally broadcast in June, this documentary has been updated to

take in everything that has happened since.

MONDAY, DECEMBER 28

Comedy Map of Scotland, Radio Scotland, 1pm

First of a new two-part series that maps the humour of Scotland. In the first episode presenter Chris Forbes talks to comedian

Jim Smith and Absolutely star Moray Hunter and tries to work out where Stoneybridge actually is.

The Death of Nuance, Radio 4, 1.45pm

Oliver Burkeman begins a new series that examines the coarsening of public discourse in recent years, beginning with an examination of our seeming need for binary options.

HOGMANAY

Party with Robyn, BBC 6 Music

Scandinavia’s second greatest popster (after Ms Gudmundsdottir, obvs), Robyn makes her BBC 6 Music debut as a presenter with a two-hour show to set us up for the bells.

NEW YEAR’S DAY

New Year’s Day Concert from Vienna, Radio 3, 10.15am

The Vienna Philharmonic’s annual concert sees the orchestra play Strauss (and son) from the Musikverein in Vienna. It’s tradition, innit.

TEDDY JAMIESON