TODAY’S RADIO

THE SPARK 11AM, RADIO 4

★★★

Sam Bowman is an economist with some down-to-earth suggestions for improving society. Sam is the first guest for a fourpart series in which Helen Lewis talks to people with bright ideas that could shape our futures.

This morning, Sam explains how building more homes could solve a range of problems – and how that could be achieved through a new approach to local democracy.

I HAVE NO MOUTH, AND I MUST SCREAM 6PM, RADIO 4 EXTRA ★★★★

A Third World War has all but wiped out humanity, and only five humans hang on to life in an underground labyrinth. Their slim chances of survival are made all the worse by the existence

of a psychotic, human-hating computer called AM. David Soul stars in this chilling radio adaptation of Harlan Ellison’s disturbing 1967 sci-fi classic.

SOUNDS OF THE 80S 8PM, RADIO 2

★★★★

A schoolteacher once called young William Broad ‘idle’, and

William, unabashed, took that description for his stage name. Billy Idol joins Gary Davies this evening to talk about his 1980s career, beginning with Billy’s arrival in New York in 1981, his highly successful partnership with the guitarist Steve Stevens, and the making of his third studio album, Whiplash Smile.

THE CLASSIC FM CONCERT 8PM, CLASSIC FM

★★★ Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony, evoking lush green landscapes and verdant woods filled with birdsong, is on tonight’s bill in this special show dedicated to the great conductor Bernard Haitink, who died last month at the age of 92. John Suchet selects four great works with Haitink on the rostrum, closing the show with Vaughan Williams’s Norfolk Rhapsody. SJ

Singer Billy Idol (8pm, Radio 2)