THE WEEK’S BEST RADIO

SUNDAY

JAYDE ADAMS: FROM ASDA TO DIVA RADIO 4, 7.15PM

The comedian and entertainer (right) once worked on Asda’s fish counter (we cod you not), but that didn’t stop her rise to fame – often with a suitably foodie theme, presenting Crazy Delicious with Heston Blumenthal. Here Adams gives her own slant on class, body positivity, being a Bristolian – and she sings up a storm, too.

MONDAY

THE THURSDAY MURDER CLUB RADIO 4, 12.05PM & 10.45PM, MONDAY-FRIDAY

Peak Practice and Drop The Dead Donkey star Haydn Gwynne reads Pointless presenter Richard

Osman’s best-selling debut murder mystery, set in an upscale retirement village where four residents turn detectives. Two follow-ups are planned, and the film rights have been bought by Steven Spielberg.

TUESDAY

ARCHIVE ON 4: FEMMES FATALES RADIO 4 EXTRA, 11AM & 9PM

Kathleen Turner made a memorable femme fatale in the 1981 thriller Body Heat. So the husky-voiced actress is well placed to present this celebration of the likes of Lauren Bacall, Barbara Stanwyck, Rita Hayworth, Joan Crawford and Lana Turner. Such characters will always be relevant, she says, ‘because men will always be terrified of women’.

MAX: THE LITERARY KINGMAKER RADIO 4 FM, 11.30AM

Editor of Virago Lennie Goodings profiles Maxwell Perkins, the man responsible for nurturing writers such as Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Wolfe, and reveals what it takes to spot and develop literary talent.

RADIO 3 LUNCHTIME CONCERT RADIO 3, 1PM, TUESDAY-FRIDAY

A series of four concerts recorded at LSO St Luke’s in London last year, featuring work by Russian composers such as Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich, opens with pianist Steven Osborne playing Rachmaninov, including his first piano sonata from 1908, inspired by Goethe’s Faust.

THURSDAY

DRAMA: VOODOO MACBETH RADIO 4, 2.15PM

In 1936, a radical production at the Lafayette Theatre in Harlem of Shakespeare’s tragedy was directed by a precocious 20-year-old director called Orson Welles. Sharon Oakes’s drama describes the mind-boggling venture – a cast of 150, including Haitian voodoo drummers and a witch doctor – which was seen by integrated audiences. Welles regarded it as ‘by all odds, my greatest achievement’.

FRIDAY

MUSICALS: THE GREATEST SHOW RADIO 2, FRIDAY-SUNDAY

More show tunes and musical stars than you can poke a spangly stick at as Radio 2 celebrates the genre over three days. Highlights include the shows Sounds Of The 1960s– 1990s, with hosts such as Petula Clark, Jennifer Holliday and Jason Donovan. Evita star Elaine

Paige reveals the nation’s favourite song on her Sunday show at 1pm.