RADIO CHOICE

STUDENT numbers have soared over the past two decades as universities have expanded and polytechnics reinvented themselves. A change in the way student loans will be administered could change all that, making a large hole in university finances and forcing a limit on admissions. Branwen Jeffreys investigates THE UNIVERSITY TIME BOMB (RADIO 4, 11AM).

MICHAEL BOLTON (pictured), who has sold more than 75 million records in a career spanning more than four decades, is on stage at the London Palladium for this week’s FRIDAY NIGHT IS MUSIC NIGHT (RADIO 2, 8PM). The BBC Concert Orchestra and guest singers Carly Paoli and Sam Bailey join Michael to give a new sound to some of his past hits, including Said I Loved

You . . . But I Lied, How Am I Supposed To Live Without You? and When A Man Loves A Woman.

MICHAEL ONDAATJE’S novels include The English Patient, a story of love and death that was made into an Oscar-winning film. The theme of death winds through much of his work; his most recent novel, Warlight, is set in the aftermath of World War II. Michael joins the poet Ian McMillan on the ‘cabaret of words’ THE VERB (RADIO 3, 10PM) to talk about music and writing, and gives a reading of his poem Death At Kataragama.