The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Review
On My Wavelength
It’s 20 years since a US-led coalition invaded Iraq, which means that there’s a new generation of Iraqi adults who grew up under foreign occupation. In Iraq: Generation Invasion (today, World Service, 12.06pm), four ambitious young people discuss their upbringings and their hopes and fears for the future.
A Room with a View (Sunday, Radio 4, 3pm), EM Forster’s witty, complex Florence-set romance, is dramatised by Marcy Kahan for Radio 4 in two parts, starring Rosie Day as Lucy Honeychurch and Rosie Cavaliero as Lucy’s cousin, Charlotte. When the pair arrive at Pension Bertolini to discover there’s no view from their rooms, another guest offers to swap with them, and events unfold that begin to unravel the conventions of Edwardian society.
In Taking Issue with Shakespeare (Monday to Friday, Radio 4, 1.45pm), public figures speak to Emma Smith, professor of Shakespeare studies at the University of Oxford, about how the Bard might help us address and understand contemporary issues. On Monday, the focus is on the nature of populism
(and Julius Caesar), featuring a discussion with former prime minister Gordon Brown and investment banker and chair of the Royal Shakespeare Company, Baroness Shriti Vadera. Across the week, Smith also speaks to Michael Gove, Will Self, Mercy Muroki and Fiona Shaw.
Why have we still not cracked how to have a totally energyefficient, functional home, without relying on fossil fuels? That’s the question addressed by Steve Backshall in this week’s Costing the Earth (Tuesday, Radio 4, 3.30pm). Backshall, himself, has tried his best: he lives in a home that functions almost totally off-grid. But he’s found the process difficult, time-consuming and costly. In a time when heating our homes is expensive, and we’re all encouraged to reduce our carbon footprint, he explores what’s being done to make that aim more achievable and affordable.
Delightful comedy news this week: the Room 101 format, latterly a TV panel show loosely inspired by George Orwell’s 1984, is going back to its ingeniously simple roots, as Paul Merton revives it in its original one-to-one incarnation on radio instead of TV. In Room 101 with Paul Merton (Wednesday, Radio 4, 6.30pm), he interviews famous guests to find out which things they hate most and would accordingly like to banish to Room 101. First up is The Traitors host Claudia Winkleman, who wants to banish picnics, whispering and alliteration.
Emma Sidi and Barney Fishwick star in Nightmare(ish) (Thursday, Radio 4, 2.14pm), a new drama by Ollie George Clark. Amy and Ben are a couple who, like most writers and actors, aren’t always swamped with work, so find themselves at a loose end. They set out towards fame and fortune by doing what any self-made creator does: they attempt to make a hit true-crime podcast. However, it’s not long before they start redefining the word “true”.
And comedian and former Strictly star Jayde Adams returns for a second series of Welcome to the Neighbourhood with Jayde Adams (Friday, Radio 4, 2.45pm), a comedy celebration of local gossip as expressed via community Facebook and WhatsApp groups and local message boards. In each episode she invites a different guest to sift through listeners’ submissions of their own local examples of beef, intrigue, and (often unintentional) comedy gold.