During the war, air-raid warden and novelist Graham Greene complained that people who left lights burning in London University’s white Senate House were guilty of transforming it into a beacon for German bombers. George Orwell worked inside the same building for the Ministry of Information and had it in mind as the headquarters of the Ministry of Truth in his novel Nineteen Eighty-four. It was further rumoured that Hitler had it earmarked as his London office following the invasion. In a new profile of one of London’s most mysterious buildings, The Bloomsbury Lighthouse (28 May, 6.45pm, Radio 3), we learn, among other things, that the building Hitler actually had his heart set on was Whiteleys department store.
John Finnemore’s Double Acts (31 May, 6.30pm, Radio 4) is back for another series. In the first one his Cabin Pressure co-star Stephanie Cole plays Queen Victoria and Kerry Godliman is Mabel, a commoner sent to Osborne House to amuse the sovereign. Victoria is hoping for a conjuror and is disappointed to find Mabel is actually here to introduce her to her newly invented voice recording apparatus. Furthermore, she hopes to persuade the Empress of India to allow her voice to be heard by her subjects all over the world. Does she cooperate? You’ll have to listen to find out.
Another counterfactual is Paul Merton’s Beatles (29 May, 10pm, Radio 2) in which the comedian speculates about what would have happened had the band settled their differences in 1974 and reunited for a concert and album. Elsewhere on the Fab front there’s How Sgt Pepper’s Changed The World (27 May, 2pm, BBC World Service), which marks the 50th anniversary of what writer Langdon Winner called “the closest western civilisation has come to unity since the Congress of Vienna in 1815” with contributions from Tom Stoppard, Joe Boyd, Germaine Greer, Sandra Rhodes and many others.
Donald Trump has been a gift for the podcasting business. Shows such as Pod Save America and Trumpcast simply have to open the fader and respond to his latest convulsion to get themselves a show of some kind. The people doing these pods claim to find his behaviour exasperating but you can hear the excitement in their voices. Inside Donald Trump, by contrast, presents itself as documentary. It’s fronted by Michael Buerk and written by Andy Hamilton, who claims this is his move into factual programming, presumably on the grounds that the events of the last year couldn’t possibly be made up. It’s described not as a programme or a podcast but as an “audio project” and is being distributed through the crowdfunding publisher Unbound. The idea is that supporters who pledge money will be able to get prior access to the three 20-minute episodes before they become available to the general public.
