Stuart Maconie’s contribution to Archive Hour, Working Class Heroes & Poverty Porn (Saturday, 8pm, Radio 4) contains many interesting reflections on the entertainment world’s occasional interest in characters from lower income groups. He and contributors Maxine Peake and Matthew Sweet note that the working-class heroes in the kitchen-sink films of the 60s were notable for not wishing to remain working class one minute longer than they had to, and being quite happy to clamber over anyone in their way. We also get an opportunity to marvel once again at Laurence Harvey’s non-specific northern accent when he played Joe Lampton in Room At The Top. It still sounds like a man trying to tune a radio and unable to quite settle on a particular station.
Shakespeare And The American Dream (Tuesday, 9am, Radio 4) features some wonderful voices. In the course of the first part of Robert McCrum’s study of the relationship between the new world and the bard, which began when the ink was still dry on the fourth Folio, we hear Homer Simpson, Malcolm X, senator Robert Byrd and a rich rebel voice declaring “O for a Muse of fire”. This last introduces a production of Henry V staged in Nashville and set in the days before the American civil war. It’s said that the two books which had pride of place in the homes of educated Americans were the King James Bible and Shakespeare. The latter often served as “a lightning rod for the unresolved tension of American life”. It’s easy to hear why. This programme is a co-production with the World Service which also broadcasts it as part of a four-part series The Compass: Shakespeare And The World (Thursday, 10pm, BBC World Service).
Sounds Of Shakespeare is the name of Radio 3’s celebration of the 400th anniversary of his death, which begins with In Tune (Friday, 4.30pm, Radio 3) and carries on throughout the evening. The highlight is Shakespeare’s Odes, a concert from the church in Stratford where he was baptised and buried, featuring contributions from Ex Cathedra and City Musick, Samuel West, Sally Beamish and Carol Ann Duffy.
A Global Queen (Wednesday, 7.30pm, BBC World Service) is the story of the British monarchy as a major overseas brand. Presented by David Cannadine, it features the gratifying sound of him addressing his students at Princeton University in New Jersey on the subject of “the most successful monarchy of all time, the British monarchy under Queen Victoria”. He also looks at George III, who thought he could make his writ run in the colonies by being a hard-ass, and the present Queen, who has maintained her prominence by deploying the soft power of PR, glamour and heritage.
If the writers of Fags Mags & Bags (Monday, 11.30am, Radio 4), Sanjeev Kohli and Donald Mcleary, named one of the characters who patronise their Scottish-Asian cornershop “Mr Hepworth” purely in order to pique the interest of this column then they have succeeded at least as far as putting a spotlight on this, the first in a new series. Desert Island Discs – Long-play (Sunday, 10.15am, Radio 4Extra) is the expanded version featuring James Corden, who is as candid on the subject of growing up in the bosom of the Salvation Army as he is on how he came to commit the unpardonable sin of becoming famous on US television. The Forsytes Continues (Saturday, 2.30pm, Radio 4) is back following the Great War, with a 90-minute special focusing larely on the frivolous pursuits of Soames Forsyte’s flapper daughter Fleur.
