Radio Week
The picks of the best of this week’s radio
ENTERTAINMENT The Lyric Feature
SUNDAY, 6PM, LYRIC FM ★★★★
Willow was the material which baskets were made from, so for this fourth episode of Root And Branch, Brían Mac Gloinn and Anja Murray interview celebrated basket maker Joe Hogan about the history and culture of basket making in Ireland. Brían sings a traditional song about weeping willow, and performs a song he has written to reflect the folklore of the tree. Anja discovers the importance of willow catkins as an early source of pollen to bees when few flowers are in blossom, and talks to Jane Stout, a specialist in plant animal interactions in the botany department of Trinity College, Dublin.
Moira Stuart Meets Hugh Bonneville
SUNDAY, 9PM, CLASSIC FM ★★★★
Hugh Bonneville got so used to getting upper class roles that he took to turning up for auditions in shabby old clothes, in the hope of shaking off the toff image. Hugh tells Moira about the problems of typecasting, the joys of working on Downton Abbey and his recent memoir, Playing Under The Piano. Hugh, who knows how to tell a story, shares some on and off stage anecdotes as well as choosing some of his favourite classical works.
Music To Scream To
MONDAY, 4PM, BBC RADIO 4 ★★★★ Neil Brand takes us on a tour of the riverside mansion that was once home to various vampires, several Draculas and a legion of ghosts. Many a horror film was set in this 17th century house, adjacent to Bray Studios in Berkshire. As Neil takes us along the corridors, he features some of the modern music, designed to set nerves on edge, that played a big part in the success of Hammer Horror films.
Ken Bruce
MONDAY, 9.30AM, BBC RADIO 2 ★★★★ Rita Wilson (pictured) was in The Brady Bunch and has been working on stage, TV and in films ever since. She’s also toured, as a singer with the band Chicago, and has a new album out, called Rita Wilson: Now And Forever. Rita, who’s married to Tom Hanks, takes a bit of break from all this to join Ken to pick her Tracks Of My Years. Carole King, Joni Mitchell and Bruce Springsteen are on her list.
Pet Classics
FRIDAY, 5PM, CLASSIC FM ★★★★
Pets will be cowering and whimpering with the noise from fireworks in the run-up to Halloween, so Classic FM, in partnership with the RSPCA, will broadcast a two-part series of soothing music, designed to help keep pets calm.
FACTUAL John Burnside: From The Other Side
SUNDAY 4.30PM, BBC RADIO 4 ★★★★★ ‘Because I could not stop for Death, he kindly stopped for me.’ Poet Emily Dickinson’s lines came to John Burnside as he hovered on the margin between life and death. The poet and novelist had been rushed to A&E, where his heart stopped. As he looked down on his lifeless body, an entire poem formed in his mind. He reads some of that poem today in this thoughtful poetic programme about a journey that we all, in the end, must make.
DRAMA Spoken Stories
SUNDAY, 7.30PM, RTE RADIO 1 ★★★★ Law Of The Instrument by Lisa McInerney is read by Stephen O’Leary. Eoin’s mother will be dead twenty years next week. He was two when his father solicited her to be killed and they still live where the three of them used to as a family.