RADIO WEEK

The picks of the best of this week’s radio

ENTERTAINMENT

Tara Stewart

SUNDAY, 9PM, 2FM ★★★★ Tara showcases the best in new music from the biggest chart singles to the most underground bands and chats to the most exciting artists in music right now.

It’s A Fair Cop

TUESDAY, 6.30PM, BBC RADIO 4 ★★★★ Each week, Alfie Moore, the policeman and comedian, takes us through a true-life crime he has had to investigate. In this episode, we hear of an outbreak of garden gnome-napping.

Open Country

THURSDAY, 3PM, BBC RADIO 4 ★★★★ The great Julie Walters shares memories of her favourite childhood park and finds out how lockdown has affected this historic site.

Louise McSharry

SATURDAY, 9AM, 2FM ★★★ This eclectic show brings everything from the newest beauty products to rights for renters, catching up on the headlines in the news with studio 8 sessions shining a light on new music.

FACTUAL

Private Passions: Helen MacDonald

SUNDAY, 12PM,BBC RADIO 3 ★★★★ The author of the 2014 best-seller H Is For Hawk reveals her favourite music, which has an unsurprising bird theme: Stravinsky’s The Firebird, for example. Macdonald also talks about writing about nature to hold the world to account.

Documentary on One

SUNDAY, 7PM, RTE RADIO 1 ★★★★ Felix Gretarsson lost both his arms in a work accident in Iceland in 1998. After years struggling with the consequences, he turned his life around and now lives in France, as he waits to receive the world’s first full double arm transplant.

Grandma Benches of Zimbabwe

TUESDAY, 3PM, BBC WORLD SERVICE ★★★★ The story of how grandmothers were used as lay health workers to combat mental health problems in Zimbabwe. The idea of using a Friendship Bench to sit and talk proved more successful than conventional treatment and it is now spreading around the world.

Women Talking About Cars

WEDNESDAY, 6.30PM,BBC RADIO 4 ★★★★ Famous women talk about the cars they have had, the journeys they made and what they keep in the boot for emergencies. In the first of four episodes, Dawn French (pictured) names the comedian who ruined her beloved Cortina and extols refrigerated glove compartments.

Guilty Men

FRIDAY, 11AM,BBC RADIO 4 ★★★★ Heroes lacking proper protection and equipment were sent to their deaths because of austerity measures and poor planning by government ministers. This story from the Second World War shows history’s nasty habit of repeating itself.

DRAMA

Six Suspects

MONDAY, 7.45PM, BBC RADIO 4 ★★★★ Ten-part Indian whodunnit by diplomat Vikas Swarup, whose novel Q&A became the film Slumdog Millionaire. When the playboy son of an Indian politician is murdered while lavishly celebrating his acquittal for murder, police gather six suspects, all with a gun and a motive.