The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Review
On My Wavelength
As part of the Radio 2 Celebrates Musicals season, You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught (Saturday and Sunday, Radio 2, 9pm) looks at the messages and resonances behind the high-kicking, catchy choruses of some classic musicals. From Show Boat’s 1927 explorations of race relations along the Mississippi, to Hamilton’s fresh look at the story of the American Revolution in 2015, musicals are unafraid of tackling major social and political issues. Olivier Award-winning actress Sharon D Clarke brings together interviews and archive material from musical stars, writers and academics, including the voices of Lin-Manuel Miranda, Paul Robeson, Sammy Davis Jr, Lena Horne and Alice Walker.
Scottish singer-songwriter Eddi Reader begins a new four-part series for Scala Radio focusing on folk music from around the UK, looking in particular at the relationship between folk and classical music. Each edition of Eddi Reader’s Scala Songbook (Sunday, Scala Radio, 6pm) combines classical picks with folk songs, and explores the work of classical composers who incorporated traditional tunes in their pieces. The first episode takes the theme of storytelling in music, including work by Beethoven and Mendelssohn.
In Trading Spaces (Monday to Friday, Radio 4, 1.45pm), Professor of Design History Deborah Sugg Ryan looks at the pandemic’s impact on the high street. The high street was already in peril before lockdowns closed businesses across the UK. Has the pandemic driven us further towards online shopping at the expense of a thriving high street, or has the “stay local” initiative given us new appreciation for our nearest businesses?
YouTube’s Life in a Day documentary, made ten years ago and using footage from people around the world all shot on a single day, was a moving record of life on Earth. A decade on, executive producer Ridley Scott and director Kevin Macdonald have reunited to make another, Life in a Day 2020. In the Studio (Tuesday, World Service, 1.30pm) follows the team as they sift through 324,000 videos submitted by people from 192 countries to make the new film.
The comedy-drama Ability (Wednesday, Radio 4, 11.30am) returns for a third series. It’s the semi-autobiographical co-creation of the 2018 Britain’s Got Talent winner, Lee Ridley, also known as Lost Voice Guy. Matt, 27, meets Anna (Lisa Hammond), a woman who he likes, and who seems to like him too. She’s a wheelchair user, so they can compare annoyed notes on some people’s attitudes to disabilities; but this is a comedy, so things may not run smoothly.
What did dinosaurs really sound like? Are the scary Hollywood movie roars realistic? The Lost Sounds Orchestra (Thursday, Radio 4, 11.30am) meets scientists, historians and musicians who search for sounds of the past.
And all this week on The Essay: Science Notes (Monday to Friday, Radio 3, 10.45pm), the broadcaster and science historian James Burke presents a series on the connections between science and classical music. After spending the week looking at romance, enlightenment, impressions and ivory, in Friday’s final essay, on the theme of “wind”, he charts a course through steam engines, precision instruments, waterworks and iron coffins, highlighting their role in the development of the modern orchestra.