Radio Week
The picks of the best of this week’s radio
ENTERTAINMENT Moira Stewart
SUNDAY, 9PM, CLASSIC FM ★★★★
Derren Brown is an intelligent, interesting man with deep insights into human behaviour. The award-winning illusionist also exposes the tricks employed by fake psychics and mind readers to fool audiences. Derren joins Moira to talk about magic, misdirection and fakery and to share some of his favourite music. Elgar’s unjustly neglected work, The Dream of Gerontius is on Derren’s list.
The Lyric Feature
SUNDAY, 6PM, LYRIC FM ★★★★
Ash is one of the commonest of Irish trees and a rich supporter of native wildlife. Anja Murray and Brían Mac Gloinn explore the sonic world of bats foraging through ash trees at dusk with entomologist and bat conservation specialist Tina Aughney. This inspires a new composition by percussionist Matthew Jacobson. Bat Speak reinterprets the intriguing super-sonic sounds of hunting bats. The pair also travel to North Cork to talk to woodworker Feargus De Brún about making hurleys and working with ash.
Brían, Matthew and fiddler Jesse Smith perform both traditional tunes and newly composed songs about ash.
FACTUAL The Coming Storm
SUNDAY, 1.30PM, BBC RADIO 4 ★★★★
Gabriel Gatehouse’s series on the terrifying rise of mad conspiracy theories that have a grip on America makes for chilling listening. In this episode, Gabriel speaks to Louis Theroux and they share their experiences of QAnon and some of the other organisations that seem hell-bent on destroying American democracy.
The Infinite Monkey Cage
THURSDAY, 4PM, RADIO 4 ★★★★
Mars can often be seen in our night skies and has exerted a fascination over us Earthlings for thousands of years. Soon, thanks to data from the Mars Rovers, we will know much more about the Red Planet. Brian Cox presents a special edition of the science show from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, bringing us up to date on the ongoing hunt for signs of life on Mars and beyond.
DRAMA Beautiful World Where Are You?
MONDAY-FRIDAY 2ND 10.45PM, BBC RADIO 4 ★★★★
Niamh Algar is the narrator for this ten-part adaptation of Sally Rooney’s best-selling novel of desire, delusion, sex and friendship. It follows two friends, Alice and Eileen. They feel their youth is slipping away, but the lives they dreamed of never seemed to get nearer. Woven in among the accounts of break-ups and heartbreak, Sally Rooney’s powerful, poetic writing takes a deeper look at the way Alice and Eileen’s pursuit of love hijacks their lives.
The Lights
MONDAY, 2.15PM, BBC RADIO 4 ★★★★
Clare (Irish actress Denise Gough, pictured), the daughter of a lighthouse keeper, has returned to the Irish coast to clear out her dead mother’s house. As she sorts through the clothes and the paperwork she becomes increasingly aware of strange activities going on around her. Are the lights and noises connected with a local church mission, or is something more sinister afoot?
Psycho
WEDNESDAY, 6PM, BBC RADIO 4 EXTRA ★★★★
On a dark rainy night, Mary Crane, with $40,000 of her boss’s money in her possession, takes a wrong turn off the highway. She checks into Bates Motel and we all know how that turns out...