It is reasonable to assume that Fix Radio, the new “radio station for tradespeople”, has been launched with an eye on a slice of the advertising for van hire and building materials out of which TalkSport has made a very nice business. The Fix promise is music and the kind of weather-forecasting valued by people who spend a lot of time on top of scaffolding. It also promises to reflect the cosmopolitan nature of its likely listenership by featuring the occasional hit record from eastern Europe. At the moment Fix Radio is only available on DAB in the London area but you can sample it online.
During the run-up to a general election, the enthusiasm of news presenters grows as the audience gets more jaded. Radio 4 Extra always offers you the option of living in the past, which can be particularly precious first thing in the morning, as in an episode of Wendy Craig’s Not in Front of the Children from 1969 (15 May, 8am, Radio 4 Extra). This is part of the station’s week-long celebration of the family, which reaches back to the 40s with a Desert Island Discs Revisited (14 May, 10.15am, Radio 4 Extra) starring wartime radio star Bebe Daniels and a repeat of the 1989 production of Noël Coward’s stiff-upper-lip saga This Happy Breed (13 May, 6am, Radio 4 Extra).
The Book at Bedtime is Francis Spufford’s acclaimed Golden Hill (Weekdays, 10.45pm, Radio 4), which is set in 18th-century Manhattan but is read in a refreshingly lace-free style by Jamie Parker.
Nicholas Parsons fronts the 50th-anniversary edition of Just A Minute (15 May, 6.30pm, Radio 4) with contestants including Paul Merton, Josie Lawrence, Graham Norton and Stephen Fry. The song featured in Soul Music (17 May, 9.30pm, Radio 4) is Ray Davies’s 1967 Waterloo Sunset, which seems to grow in stature with every passing decade.
Quake is described as Radio 4’s first virtual reality radio programme. It’s a drama concerning the survivors of an earthquake that seeks to take advantage of recent advances in VR. It comes in 12 parts, each of which concerns different victims of the disaster, but the middle 10 can be listened to in any order. It’s not actually broadcast but can be found on the Radio 4 website, the station’s YouTube channel and via podcasts. Quake is launched on Monday with a five-minute immersive, 360-degree, 3D film of the first episode in the series. That’s for those of you with a VR headset standing by.
The winner of best new podcast at the recent Podcast Awards was The Cinemile. This features Dave Corkery and Cathy Cullen discussing the film they’ve just seen on the way home from the pictures. It’s a neat idea that, apart from anything else, illustrates that people who aren’t reading the plot from a synopsis supplied at the press screening don’t always agree on what actually happened on the screen, let alone what they think of it.
