TODAY’S RADIO

DISABILITY: A NEW HISTORY

2.45PM, RADIO 4 HHHH Lady Monatagu was an 18thcentury beauty – then, smallpox robbed her of her good looks. Peter White looks at the lives of disabled people in the 18th and 19th centuries, when a cruel belief persisted that deformity was a sign of inner wickedness.

SOUNDS OF THE 70S

3PM, RADIO 2 HHHH

David Bowie will be celebrated across the stations today, marking the fifth anniversary of his death. BBC 6 Music will feature Bowie’s music from 7am to midnight, while Radio 2 salutes the British music icon with this mix of music and memories from Johnnie Walker. Johnnie, who promoted Bowie’s music from the very start, plays tracks from this important decade David Bowie (3pm, Radio 2) in Bowie’s career, and includes a 1972 Radio 1 session featuring Changes, Space Oddity, Oh! You Pretty Things and Starman.

PEKING NOIR

7.30PM, RADIO 3 HHHHH This true-crime drama documentary, set in Peking between the wars, is perfect listening for a long winter’s night. Paul French has spent years on the trail of a mysterious figure called Shura Giraldi. Shura emerged from the White Russian community that fled to Peking after the Revolution. He was thought to have his finger in many crimes – including a daring bank raid – but, as we hear, Shura’s identity remains clouded in mystery.

TOP BRASS

9PM, RADIO 2 HHHH

Brass music comes in many forms, as we hear in the second of this series presented by the trumpet virtuoso James Morrison. James, an enthusiast of trumpets, trombones, flugelhorns, tubas and sousaphones, includes all kinds of music, from jazz to ska, from the 1930s to the present day, in tonight’s music selection. SJ