TODAY’S RADIO

SOUL MUSIC

10.30AM, RADIO 4 HHHH

It would have been David Bowie’s birthday yesterday, so to mark the event, we hear from just a few of the fans of Bowie’s enigmatic hit Life On Mars. The cryptic lyrics, with their theme of disillusion and alienation, seem to suit so many situations, while the steady dramatic build of the music draws listeners along into Bowie’s strange interior world.

CALL FOR THE DEAD

2.45PM, RADIO 4 HHHHH George Smiley walks through the foggy streets of 1950s London, investigating the supposed suicide of a Foreign Office civil servant. Spooks lurk under lamp posts, double agents crawl out of the woodwork, and a deadly conspiracy emerges. Simon Russell Beale stars in this classy dramatisation of the late John le Carre’s spy thriller. And if you want to hear the author himself, head over to

BBC2 tonight at 8.30pm for Mark Lawson Talks To John Le Carre (see page 32), which is followed by the 2011 adaptation of his Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (9.30pm).

MOIRA STUART’S HALL OF FAME CONCERT

4PM, CLASSIC FM HHH John Rutter’s A Gaelic Blessing is a serene choral piece, and Moira includes it in her selection of British music. Butterworth’s The Banks Of Green Willow and Maccunn’s The Land Of The Mountain And The Flood are also on her list.

JACK SAVORETTI’S MUSIC WITHOUT BORDERS

9PM, RADIO 2 HHHH

Tonight, Jack takes us on the second of four musical tours. Here, with the help of Icelandic rockers Sigur Ros, he takes us to the far, far north; then, in the company of Amadou and Mariam, he’s off to Mali, where, despite the efforts of religious hard-liners, the music goes on. SUSAN JEFFREYS

Moira Stuart (4pm, Classic FM)