The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Review
On My Wavelength
How did Paris become the cradle of world football? There were 11 Parisians in France’s squad for the World Cup, which is maybe not that surprising, but get this: players born in Paris also currently represent Morocco, Tunisia, Senegal, Qatar, Cameroon, Ghana, Portugal and Germany. The Documentary: Paris: Football’s Greatest Talent Factory (today, World Service, 12.06pm) explores why high-class football flourishes in the City of Light.
I’ve always thought it was a shame that Burns Night wasn’t celebrated more widely around the UK, and not just in its home territory in Scotland. It’s the perfect way to bring light, warmth and feasting into January, otherwise surely the most depressing month of the year. In The Food Programme (Sunday, Radio 4, 12.30pm), Sheila Dillon explores the celebration.
Radio 3 is this week celebrating the 70th anniversary of some of the most famous radio works ever made, kicking off with Dylan Thomas’s Under Milk Wood, first broadcast in January 1954 on the BBC’s Third Programme. Inspired by the spirit of Thomas, for Under Milk Woods (Mon-Fri, Radio 3, 10.45pm), five different Welsh writers, including Joe Dunthorne and Manon Steffan Ros, have each been commissioned to write a dramatic portrait of a place in Wales, performed for radio by a cast including Gavin & Stacey’s Ruth Jones.
The joy of comedy may be limitless, but there are surprisingly few basic joke formats that underpin a lot of the things that make us laugh. In other words, it’s the way they tell ’em. For Ian Hislop’s Oldest Jokes (Mon-Fri,
Radio 4, 1.45pm), a delightful 10-part series, the Private Eye editor and Have I Got News For You panellist traces the (very long) history of British comedy through types of jokes that continue to entertain us, including puns, double entendre, and animals being generally amusing.
If you tend to struggle to read the latest winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature in their original language, then worry not: Scenes from a Childhood (Mon-Fri,
Radio 4, 10.45pm) is a very palatable selection of stories, helpfully translated from the original Norwegian, by last year’s winner Jon Fosse. Clear-eyed, evocative vignettes of childhood overlap between memoir and fiction, translated by Damion Searls and read for radio by
John Mackay.
How do companies like to try to convince us that they’re totally inclusive and progressive, and how much of it is actually total nonsense? Heydon Prowse’s previous series exploring the greenwashing sins of the companies that try to convince the world they’re eco-friendly (when they’re often anything but) is followed by Wokewash (Thursday, Radio 4, 4pm), a new examination of just how inclusive major companies can really claim to be, and why they want us to think so. This first episode focuses on how companies herald their own LGBTQ+ inclusivity, corporate connections with Pride month, and the boycotts and backlashes they’ve faced.
And Friday’s edition of Ian McMillan’s special interviews with writers for The Verb (Friday, Radio 3, 10pm) features novelist Tessa Hadley. Having published her first novel Accidents in the Home at 46, Hadley’s sharp observations on domestic life, rich in psychological nuance, have earned her a loyal readership. She makes for fascinating company.