The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Review
Gerard O’Donovan On My Wavelength
‘I’m interested in how the world has changed for young people since I made my first record back in 1983,” says Billy Bragg in Archive on 4: I Was 21 Years (today, Radio 4, 8pm). The title quotes the opening words of his song A New England, a time capsule of a 21-year-old’s concerns in the Blighty of the early 1980s. Consumed by the idea that young people today delay taking on adult responsibilities until their thirties, he digs into the archives to trace four decades of changing attitudes.
Songs aren’t what the name Prince Albert brings to mind these days. Yet it seems that Queen Victoria’s husband had a talent for composition. On their engagement in 1839, he presented her with three volumes of love songs, and composed a duet for their wedding ceremony. The Songs of Prince Albert (Sunday, 9pm) is a Classic FM “exclusive” – to mark the King’s 75th birthday this week – featuring songs orchestrated for the first time and performed at the recent Windsor Festival, by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and tenor Andrew Staples.
A gripping five-part thriller Spores (Monday to Friday, Radio 4, 2.15pm) is stripped across the afternoon drama slots all week. Kate O’Flynn plays Cassie, a social worker and mother whose discovery of a mould infestation in a client’s flat sets off an unstoppable mental health crisis. Writer Marietta Kirkbride cleverly combines the insidious health risks of invisible spores with echoes of the Greek myth of Cassandra to create spine-tingling psychological horror.
Entertaining and enlightening, Becky Ripley and Sophie Ward join forces for Seven Deadly Psychologies (Tuesday, Radio 4, 11am), a series taking a “cold, hard look” at the beliefs and science behind one of society’s oldest moral checklists: the Seven Deadly Sins. Among them lust, envy, wrath and sloth, but first up is pride, or “original sin”. What is the neuroscience behind it and what, if any, is its evolutionary function?
Marking the 60th anniversary of John F Kennedy’s assassination, a rare chance to hear Something is Terribly Wrong (Wednesday, Radio 4 Extra, 8pm), a powerful documentary first broadcast in 2003. The title quotes Dallas radio reporter Gary DeLaune’s on-air response in the seconds after shots rang out across Deeley Plaza. Either side of this moment, presenter Alan Thompson creates a vivid soundscape of the day’s events, piecing together clips from radio archives and talking to eye witnesses.
Sue Mitchell’s documentary Million Dollar Lover (Thursday, Radio 4, 8.30pm) gets its hook in early. In an idyllic Californian coastal town, wealthy widow Carolyn is 80 and her handsome handyman lover, Dave, who moved in within two weeks, is 57, with a long history of drug addiction and criminality. Carolyn’s daughters are worried about their inheritance. It’s an age-old story but with extra twists, because these are Mitchell’s neighbours, living on her street and, as an English journalist abroad, she has the skills to dig deep into Dave’s past.
In Doctor Who: 60 Years of Friends and Foes (Friday, Radio 4, 9pm), Sue Perkins celebrates the 60th anniversary of Britain’s favourite sci-fi. Juggling archive material and interviews with stars past and present – and former showrunner Steven Moffat – she recalls the show’s most memorable moments. And how, across six decades, 14 doctors and more than 850 episodes, Doctor Who has kept a finger on the national pulse.