...AND THE BEST RADIO
SUNDAY BEATLEJUICE
UNION JACK RADIO, 10AM
Beatles superfan and expert Geoff Lloyd starts a 12-part series on the Fab Four (McCartney and Lennon, right), promising a pacy, packed twohour show with live recordings and insider interviews. Expect plenty of the band’s biggest hits, as well as a look at those who influenced the Liverpudlian quartet and their relevance today.
THE EMPIRE RADIO 2, 9.30PM
Indian writer and comedian Anuvab Pal features in his own pilot BBC show set in Darjeeling, India, in 1917, as an assistant district magistrate who has to deal with the arrival of a new, and rather clueless, boss fresh out of Oxford. Stephen Fry is the local Viceroy and Green Wing’s Michelle Gomez plays a scheming local businesswoman.
MONDAY
KLARA AND THE SUN
RADIO 4, 12.05PM & 10.45PM, MON-FRI
The Nobel prize-winner offers a futuristic vision in his latest novel, in which the titular Klara is an Artificial Friend bought as a companion for a 14-year-old girl with a mysterious illness. Typically restrained, the novel tackles themes of loneliness, the meaning of love and what it means to be human. See Craig Brown review, p72
RADIO 3 LUNCHTIME CONCERT RADIO 3, 1PM
To mark International Women’s Day, Radio 3 gives over its schedule to women composers. In this concert, pianist Isata Kanneh-Mason plays works by Clara Schumann and Sofia Gubaidulina, and there’s the world premiere of Nightscapes 2020 by Natalie Klouda.
DRAMA: THE CHRISTOPHER BOY’S COMMUNION RADIO 4, 2.15PM
The UK premiere of a Faustian drama from the pen of David Mamet (Glengarry Glen
Ross) and directed by Martin Jarvis. In New York, a devout Catholic (Rebecca Pidgeon, Mamet’s wife) embarks on a campaign to free her son from jail as he awaits trial for mutilating the body of his Jewish girlfriend.
WEDNESDAY
ALEXEI SAYLE’S THE ABSENCE OF NORMAL RADIO 4, 11.30AM
A series of dark, comic plays adapted by Sayle from his short stories begins with the dilemma of a TV commissioning editor who is incapable of making decisions (clearly, some bitter personal experience here). Then he meets two producers who are determined he will green-light their screenplay.
FRIDAY KEN BRUCE RADIO 2, 9.30AM
Luke Combs has won numerous awards, achieved ten consecutive Billboard Country No1 singles and beaten Taylor Swift’s record of having a chart-topping album for 24 weeks. He performs from his house in Nashville.
CONSPIRACIES: THE SECRET KNOWLEDGE RADIO 4, 11AM
Everyone loves a conspiracy theory these days. Here, Phil Tinline examines why this has happened and how we can separate baseless theories from real conspiracies by talking to historians and analysts of internet culture.