The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Review
On My Wavelength
Sir David Jason is among the impressive names involved in the thoughtful, heart-warming drama The War After The War (Saturday, Radio 4, 3pm). He plays 81-year-old Bernard, struggling to cope with caring for his traumatised soldier granddaughter Layla (Natalie Davies), who suffered a life-changing injury while serving abroad. Written by Paul Coates and directed by Johnny Vegas, there are some lovely touches – such as the reading, by Joe Gaffney, of Patrick MacGill’s First World War poem Matey, threaded throughout.
A topical edition of The Archbishop Interviews (Sunday, Radio 4, 1.30pm), as the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby’s guest is the former Chief of the Defence Staff, General Sir Nick Carter. On his retirement in November, Carter identified Russia as the greatest threat to security today; an assessment that’s proved all too accurate. Doubtless his thoughts on the role of faith in the military will be well worth hearing.
A sweeping history of historywriting is Radio 4’s fascinating Book of the Week. Richard Cohen’s Making History: The Storytellers Who Shaped the Past (Mon-Fri, Radio 4FM, 9.45am) argues that history is created by historians just as much as by the politics, wars and other forces they record, interpret and embroider. In today’s opening chapter, he explores the legacy of the very earliest historians, including Herodotus and Thucydides.
The Documentary (World Service, 9.06am) is a dispatch from Bougainville, the Pacific island preparing to become the world’s newest country since 98 percent of the population voted, in 2019, for independence from Papua New Guinea. It looks like a tropical paradise but the island has a long history of colonisation and unrest. Local reporter Louiseanne Laris meets the people still scarred by the civil war. They want justice, economic stability and assurances of safety. But does Bougainville have the resources to govern itself ?
In his thought-provoking piece The Essay: Multitudes (Wednesday, Radio 3, 10.45pm), zoologist and underwater soundrecordist Hamza Yassin talks about the impact noise pollution is having on marine life. Comparing the results of experiments made in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks with others made during the recent lockdowns, he reveals the extent to which marine life is having to compete against man-made sounds.
A quarter of a century ago, Peter Flannery’s Our Friends in the North (Thursday, Radio 4, 2.15pm) was TV’s most exciting drama series and a launchpad for some of the best young acting talent in Britain at the time: Daniel Craig, Christopher Eccleston, Gina McKee and Mark Strong. It’s proof of the quality of Flannery’s writing his characters still reach out so vividly in this 10-part adaptation for radio (including a new episode, by Adam Usden, that takes us to the present day). The story opens in 1964, when 20-year-old Nicky (James Baxter) returns to Newcastle after an inspiring summer in the US.
Neil MacGregor’s The
Museums That Make Us (Friday, Radio 4, 1.45pm) stops off at the Brighton Museum, in the Royal Pavilion gardens. There he meets the original owners of the objects chosen by the museum to represent it: the wedding clothes worn by locals Ciara Green and Abbie Lockyer when they married in 2016. They feature in the museum’s Queer Looks gallery, which tells the story of Brighton’s reputation as Britain’s most “out there” city since Regency times, and its status as the UK’s unofficial LGBTQ+ capital.