The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Review
Gerard O’Donovan On My Wavelength
For those who prefer to listen, rather than watch, the Eurovision Song Contest, Radio 2’s entire focus shifts to Malmö from 8am today (when 1969 winner Lulu joins Dermot O’Leary on his show), the climax being live coverage of the grand final at 8pm, hosted by Scott Mills and Rylan Clark. For something marginally less melodramatic, there’s Opera on 3 (Radio 3, 6pm), streaming Puccini’s Madama Butterfly live from the New York Met; or, for some comedy, try Archive on 4: Gareth Gwynn Hasn’t Fin- (also Saturday, Radio 4, 8pm), in which the comedy writer entertainingly explores his fascination with unfinished projects.
Walter Tevis is a writer whose screen adaptations (The Hustler, The Queens’ Gambit) are better known than the books that they’re based on. Sunday’s Drama: The Man Who Fell to Earth (Radio 4, 3pm) revisits his 1963 novel made famous when David Bowie took the lead role in the film version. Here, Harry Treadaway plays the alien who turns up in Kentucky hoping to save humanity from itself, with Christopher Eccleston in support.
Book of the Week: The Immune Mind (Mon-Fri, Radio 4, 11.45am) is by Dr Monty Lyman. In Monday’s opener, he looks at how, traditionally in medicine, the brain and immune system were regarded as separate entities – until a “Eureka!” moment in
2014 revealed a complex interdependence. Shadow War: China and the West (Mon-Fri, Radio 4, 1.45pm) is BBC security correspondent Gordon Corera’s 12-part exploration of the West’s increasingly strained relationship with China. He begins by looking at tensions surrounding the handover of Hong Kong.
Somehow, actors talking about acting inevitably sound pretentious. So, all credit to Michael Sheen Gets into Character (Tuesday, Radio 4, 4pm) for making the inevitable interesting and fun, too. This week Sheen discusses training, being open to the moment, and Method acting with Simon McBurney and Adrian Lester. Earlier, the second episode of Being Roman with Mary Beard (Tuesday, Radio 4, 9am), takes us on a cruise down the Nile with travel-mad Emperor Hadrian, his boyfriend Antinous, and court poet Julia Balbilla.
A must-listen for many will be Emma Barnett’s debut on Today (Wednesday, Radio 4, 6am), ahead of Martha Kearney’s departure later this year. Barnett’s skills as a ferocious interviewer – forged on 5 Live and cemented on Woman’s Hour – should make her a fascinating addition in the lead-up to the general election.
Radio 3’s The Essay (Mon-Fri, 10.45pm) can be a mite overcerebral sometimes but this week it hits just the right note with
Katie Derham’s Music in Bloom, in which the presenter muses on the profound links between gardening and music. Thursday’s edition is particularly lovely, with Derham visiting Glyndebourne to talk with head-gardener
Kevin Martin about the gardens’ contribution to that unique operatic experience, before moving on to explore the musical legacy of the glorious gardens designed by Susanna Walton, wife of composer Sir William, on the Italian island of Ischia.
On Friday an atmospheric documentary Heart and Soul (World Service, 1.30pm) whisks us off to the sun-splashed hills of southern France, and the cloistered world of a Bendictine Abbey whose winemaking pedigree has, in recent years, been revived to help local small winemakers survive.