The big event of the week – cultural, legal and, of course, radiophonic – is the trial of Helen Titchener. She is charged with doing what most of the nation would have done more than a year earlier, which is ventilating her oleaginous spouse Rob with a kitchen implement without benefit of anaesthetic. Opening arguments will be given in The Archers (Sunday, 7pm, Radio 4) and the case will continue throughout the week.
The longest continuous rail journey in the UK wends from Aberdeen to Penzance, taking in a surprising number of regions on the way. A Journey Through English (Saturday, 10.30am, Radio 4) hops aboard and talks to travellers about how they would describe the way they speak and how they feel about the sound that comes out of their mouths. Most of them have a defensive sort of pride that they are quick to contrast with the sound of RP, which they invariably associate with those who think they are better than them.
It’s 350 years since the Great Fire of London, an anniversary marked by an event called London’s Burning, in the course of which a giant model of the old city will be set on fire and installations, projections and a giant domino-fall will summon up visions of the cataclysm. This is being organised by Artichoke, the company that previously paraded a giant working model of an elephant through the city. Great Fire 350 (Saturday, 3.30pm, Radio 4) is produced by a team who have been embedded with the event’s people as they dealt with its logistical challenges. Sponsorship isn’t easy to find. As soon as you mention fire, people get nervous. Of course, if you want to know what the fire was actually like, nothing beats the greatest diarist of all. The 2013 dramatisation of Pepys: Fire Of London (Saturday, 2.30pm, Radio 4) is repeated and its companion piece Pepys: After The Fire goes out the following week (Weekdays, 7.45pm, Radio 4).
“She looked lithe and blonde and happy and successful,” says the narrator of Morven Crumlish’s story Tourists (Sunday, 7.45pm, Radio 4) as she waits to meet up with an old university friend. The first two adjectives are weighted with even more bitterness than the second pair. Elsewhere, James Naughtie’s guest on Bookclub (Sunday, 4pm, Radio 4) is Don DeLillo, who’s talking about his 1997 novel Underworld.
Ben Ashenden and Alexander Owen, otherwise known as The Pin (Wednesday, 11pm, Radio 4), are one of the smartest, punchiest new comedy duos to have appeared in a while and this, their second series, has a Baa-Baa Black Sheep sketch that had me laughing out loud on my own in an empty room.
The old production of Lord Peter Wimsey: Have His Carcase (Thursday, 6am, Radio 4 Extra) never stales. Ian Carmichael plays Lord Peter Wimsey for eternity. “It is a little early for refreshments, but I always drive more mellowly on a pint of beer.” Gawd bless you, guvnor.
