The nights are drawing in, the clocks have gone back and there’s no better time for radio dramas with roots in the world of frightening films. The star attraction on Radio 4’s Fright Night (Saturday, 10pm, Radio 4) is film-maker Peter Strickland’s reimagining of Nigel “Quatermass” Kneale’s chiller The Stone Tape, which was first broadcast on BBC2 at Christmas in 1972. Jane Asher starred in that production; this time she plays the mother of her original character, who’s now played by Romola Garai. Julian Rhind-Tutt is the driven doctor trying to harness sound waves to make his fortune and who suspects the others aren’t taking his project seriously enough. A team of researchers move into a new laboratory in a remote Victorian mansion. The air is rent with a scream in the middle of the night. Now listen on. Particularly if you’re tuning in online in the binaural stereo treatment that has been specially developed by BBC boffins for the occasion.
Those who find themselves insufficiently frit by The Stone Tape can switch over to The Exorcist (Saturday, 12midnight, Radio 4 Extra) and remain terrified right into the next day. This 2014 dramatisation of William Peter Blatty’s 1971 chiller stars Robert Glenister as the titular Karras and Lydia Wilson as Regan, she of the unpredictable spin-cycle.
Originally written by Alfred Hitchcock with Ernest Lehman following their success with North By Northwest, The Blind Man makes a strong case for Unmade Movies (2.30pm, Saturday, Radio 4). Hugh Laurie is Larry Keating, the blind jazz pianist who is given the eyes of a murder victim during a transplant; Rebecca Front plays the glamorous, sinister widow; and Peter Serafinowicz does a masterful turn as Hitchcock, the great narrator himself. It’s set in California back in the days of huge convertibles, men in trilbys and women in head scarves: the sunny, sinister America that plays for ever in our mental cinemas.
Once downloaded via the iPlayer, The Blind Man is a fine accompaniment for a long walk. You could also take Blithe Margaret, Stephen Fry’s tribute to Margaret Rutherford, who Kenneth Tynan once likened to “Cleopatra in the shape of an entire lacrosse team”, and also Knowing Steve, Knowing You, Frank Cottrell Boyce’s interview with Steve Coogan, which is particularly good on how Coogan developed his early characters while at university.
Misha Glenny follows his series on Brazil with The Invention Of France (Monday, 11am, Radio 4). This episode focuses on the period in European history when the Burgundians were warring with the Armagnacs and the English king took advantage of their tussle to stake a successful claim for dominance. It also reminds us of the enduring symbolic importance of Joan Of Arc to the French.
This year’s Free Thinking festival gets under way from the Sage in Gateshead with In Tune (Friday, 4.30pm, Radio 3), which features folk trio Bridie Jackson And The Arbour. Radio 3 In Concert (Friday, 7.30pm) comes from the main hall at the Sage and features works by Stravinsky, Strauss and Mozart. It’s followed by World On 3 (11pm) which has live music from Peggy Seeger and Britain’s foremost a cappella group the Wilson Family.
Stephen King inaugurates a new series of Paperback Writers (Sunday, 1pm, 6 Music) with AC/DC, Danny And The Juniors and his running buddy John Mellencamp. Other best-selling authors waiting outside the DJ booth for their turn in the coming weeks include Marlon James, Belinda Bauer and Mark Billingham.
