TODAY’S RADIO

DERMOT O’LEARY 8AM, RADIO 2 ★★★★

Adam Kay worked for six years as a doctor. His first book, This Is Going To Hurt – which has just been adapted for TV, and stars Ben Whishaw as Adam – takes a grimly funny view of life on the front line of the NHS. Adam joins Dermot this morning to talk about comedy and medicine.

WORLD BOOK CLUB 12.06PM, BBC WORLD SERVICE ★★★★

Emira is a hard-working, goodnatured childminder who shows the little girl she looks after more love, care and affection than Alix, the child’s mother, does. Alix is an ambitious, rich New Yorker who makes her money telling other women how to live their lives. When Emira is wrongly accused by a store detective of kidnapping,

things take a nasty turn. Kiley Reid talks about her sharp debut novel.

OPERA ON 3 6.30PM, RADIO 3

★★★

The glamorous American mezzosoprano Joyce Didonato stars in this powerful new version of Theodora, Handel’s opera about oppression and resistance. The opera, which had its premiere at Covent Garden in 1750, comes live from the Royal Opera House, and is set in an alternative modern world where Roman rule holds sway.

ARCHIVE ON 4: DISGUSTED, MARY WHITEHOUSE 8PM, RADIO 4

Mary Whitehouse, a teacher and activist, complained and campaigned against what she considered obscenity in print, in the theatre and on TV. She also complained about a documentary on Belsen concentration camp and coverage of the Vietnam War as she found them ‘off-putting’. Mary became a joke figure, but, as Samira Ahmed points out, her campaigns against child exploitation and the normalisation of pornography are more relevant than ever.

Joyce Didonato (6.30pm, R3)