PODCASTS/AUDIOBOOKS
Hitler, Stalin, Mum and Dad BBC Sounds, review by Yvette Huddleston
For BBC Radio 4’s book of the week slot, journalist and politician Daniel Finkelstein reads from his moving memoir. His book tells the heartbreaking story of his parents’ experiences of persecution, resistance and survival during World War Two. Finkelstein’s father Ludwik was born in the Polish city of Lwow, now Lviv, the only child of a wealthy Jewish family. After Hitler and Stalin carved up Poland in 1939, the Finkelstein family was rounded up by the communist secret police – his grandfather Dolu was arrested and disappeared while his then 10-year-old father and his grandmother were sent to work as slave labourers on a collective farm in Siberia. Once there, they had to face incredibly harsh conditions, not least the freezing winters.
Soul Music BBC Sounds, review by Yvette Huddleston
This affecting series returns with another season of songs that have played a significant part in people’s lives. Each week a range of contributors share their associations with the particular piece of music chosen for that episode. This time round it is I Will Always Love You, written by Dolly Parton but a song which most people will know as Whitney Houston’s 1992 record-breaking hit. Dr Marie Thompson of the OU reveals the story behind the song and among those sharing candid memories are Nagham Kewifati whose mother Mayada Bseliss had a huge hit in Syria with an Arabic version of the song and MP Jim Shannon who introduced an unusual Early Day Motion to celebrate the song’s 50th anniversary this year.
Shaun Keaveny’s Daily Grind Various platforms, review by Yvette Huddleston
Listeners to Shaun Keaveny’s now no longer running 6Music breakfast show will be delighted to find him back in the studio making a daily podcast series that has a similar laidback, chatty and entertaining vibe. He invites celebrity guests to come in for a chat with the aim of focussing on less that starry subjects – in the opening episode we hear from comedian and broadcaster Joe Lycett who shares his thoughts on buses. Keaveny also gets out and about, talking to people he meets on a towpath and there are segments recorded in a pub. Gary Kemp also pops up, because it is his birthday, and there is a feature called On This Day. All in all, it makes for extremely easy and pleasurable listening.
A Matter of Life and Death BBC Sounds, review by Yvette Huddleston
Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s classic 1946 movie, starring David Niven, routinely features in film reviewers’ top ten films of all time. Commissioned by the Ministry of Information as a propaganda exercise to aid British-US relations, the director and screenwriter delivered instead an epic romantic drama about love, life, death and afterlife. Here it is brilliantly adapted for radio by Ben Cottam with Will Tudor playing Peter Carter, the Second World War pilot who jumps from his burning plane and cheats death because of a celestial mistake. Lydia West plays June Archer, the American radio operator he falls in love with, before the heavenly authorities track him down and demand that he returns. Peter makes an appeal, but will they let him live?