On August 22 1922, as the Irish civil war raged, a 31-year-old man was shot dead in an ambush at Beal na mBlath, County Cork. Michael Collins was commander-in-chief of the National Army and - take your pick according to political prejudice - a hero of Irish independence, a traitor to the republican cause or a murdering Fenian terrorist. He had smuggled arms, been elected to the House of Commons, helped run the IRA, created an assassination squad called the Twelve Apostles and played a key part in the settlement that created the Irish Free State. As a fundraiser, he was so successful that Lenin went cap in hand to him after the Russian revolution. He was known as the Big Fellow.
Film producer David Puttnam takes a closer look in a new series of Great Lives (11pm, Radio 4). Historian Tim Pat Coogan will be helping him examine what distinguishes terrorists from freedom fighters.
There's not much room for debate about Major Overath, the darkness at the heart of To Encourage the Others (9pm, Radio 4). Overath (Russell Dixon) is a four-star nutter who lets nothing stand in the way of his love of God and America. He's been up to something dodgy in Afghanistan, where America and its allies are purportedly carrying out a war on drugs, and those who get too close to the truth have a habit of disappearing. But has he met his match in investigative journalist Stephen Fisher (Andrew Lincoln)? Jim Poyser directs Sean O'Brien's over-explained but entertaining play.
