...AND THE BEST RADIO
SUNDAY IMRAN YUSUF: RELABELLED RADIO 4, 7.15PM
Comedian Yusuf’s first show for Radio 4 asks what it means to be a man, a label shared by half the population. This autobiographical account charts his own experiences, from his role models as a boy (Jackie Chan), how his thoughts about being male have changed as he got older (thanks mainly to a woman), and where he is today.
MONDAY A PERFECT SPY RADIO 4 EXTRA, MON-WED, 10AM AND 3PM
John le Carré’s partly autobiographical 1986 novel, in which intelligence officer Marcus Pym (Julian Rhind-Tutt) disappears after his father’s funeral and a manhunt ensues to stop his defection. The plot is interspersed with Pym’s reflections on his life, a memoir on why he betrayed his country. Bill Paterson also stars.
DRAMA: BECAUSE I’M A MOTHER RADIO 4, 2PM
Jessica Hynes, of Years And Years and W1A fame, stars in Caroline Bird’s play, about an artist who has the chance to create a show about motherhood in New York. The only problem is that she has to leave her baby son at home for ten weeks, putting a strain on her relationship with her female partner.
TUESDAY THE CRY OF THE OWL RADIO 4 EXTRA, 6AM & 8PM
Queen of the psychological thriller Patricia Highsmith, whose books inspired 12 film adaptations (Hitchcock’s Strangers On A Train, The Talented Mr Ripley and Carol among them), would have been 100 today. This is a typical tale of obsession and its fallout when a man going through a painful divorce starts spying on another woman.
WEDNESDAY CLASSIC FM CONCERT: GEORGE GERSHWIN CLASSIC FM, 8PM
John Suchet introduces a celebration of the man responsible for some of the 20th Century’s greatest melodies. A highlight is Rhapsody In Blue, with Leonard Bernstein conducting and on keyboard with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. Plus performances of An American In Paris, Summertime, Porgy And Bess and Embraceable You with violinists Yehudi Menuhin and Stéphane Grappelli.
BUNK BED RADIO 4, 11PM
Elbow singer Guy Garvey and actor Rachael Stirling (below) – daughter of the late, great Diana Rigg – are this week’s incumbents in the dark room with hosts Patrick Marber and Peter Curran. Subjects touched on include the benefits of separate beds, the call of the eider duck and an eyebrowraising story about house-sharers Frankie Howerd and Bob Monkhouse.
FRIDAY DRAMA: ISLANDER RADIO 4, 2.15PM
This award-winning a cappella musical from the 2019 Edinburgh Fringe is a two-hander set on a fictional Scottish island. Kirsty Findlay and Bethany Tennick play all the parts and also sing all the songs in a myth-influenced tale about one woman’s dreams of a new life and the arrival of a stranger on the island.