Radio 3
Radio 3 Unwind is music for the morgue
Soon after the launch of Classic FM in 1992, the then controller of Radio 3, Nicholas Kenyon, asserted that his…
The mutilation of Radio 3
On Saturday 12 December 1964, Harold Wilson addressed his first Labour party conference as prime minister, George Harrison was photographed…
A Radio 3 doc that contains some of the best insults I’ve ever heard
A recent Sunday Feature on Radio 3 contained some of the best insults I have ever heard. Contributors to the…
Perfect radio for a nation of grumblers: Radio 4’s Room 101 with Paul Merton reviewed
Welcome back to Room 101, which has returned to the radio – after nearly 30 years on TV – and…
Looking for a male role model? Check out the silverback gorilla
One so often hears about famous people who are horrible when they think no one important is looking – barking…
BBC radio has excelled itself over the past week
Listening to BBC Radios 3 and 4 over the past week has been like meeting an old friend who, after…
Why we must defend Radio 3 from threatened cuts
Who doesn’t love Eurovision? All that razzmatazz. The ghastly frocks and gloopy pop songs, the false bonhomie and bare-faced bias…
Boldly and brilliantly unoriginal: Kermode and Mayo’s Take reviewed
Last April Fools’ Day, Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo wound up their award-winning film review show on BBC Radio 5…
Disappointingly conventional and linear: BBC radio's modernism season reviewed
This week marks the beginning of modernism season on BBC Radio 3 and 4, which means it’s time for some…
The Sunday Feature is one of the most consistently interesting things on Radio 3
The story is likely apocryphal — and so disgraceful I almost hesitate to tell it — but it goes like…
Seldom less than gripping: Banged Up podcast reviewed
Prison-based podcast Banged Up, now in its second series, is far more uplifting — and less soapy — than its…
Is the hottest new podcast, The Apology Line, worth sticking with?
With the arts world still largely in hibernation, the launch of a big podcast is as close as we get…
Boldly going where hundreds have gone before: Brave New Planet podcast reviewed
Since technology is developing at such light-speed pace, why does it feel so strangely slow? There is a sense that…
A beautiful radio adaptation: Radio 4’s The Housing Lark reviewed
Nineteen fifty-six: the Suez crisis, the first Tesco, Jim Laker takes 19 wickets in a match. But also: Trinidadian pianist…
The most important book on black Britishness has one flaw: its author was white
Can people of one race really understand the experience of another? asks Colin Grant
The musical event of the year: Wigmore Hall BBC Radio 3 Special Broadcasts reviewed
Remember when 2020 was going to be Beethoven year? There were going to be cycles and festivals, recordings and reappraisals;…
I've lost patience with podcasts and their presenters
‘To be recognised and accepted by a peregrine,’ wrote J.A. Baker in 1967, ‘you must wear the same clothes, travel…
Letters: The ban on public worship has enabled more of us to experience spiritual riches
Divine works Sir: Luke Coppen writes that livestreamed services ‘lack the vital communal dimension of worship’ and ‘are, at times,…
Why do Radio 3 presenters adopt the tone stupid adults use when addressing children?
Anyone who has listened regularly to Radio 3 over the decades — not to mention the Third Programme, which Radio…
Why do writers enjoy walking so much?
Writers like walking. When people ask us why, we say it’s what writers do. ‘Just popping out to buy a…
The joy of Radio 3’s Building a Library
So, you’ve fallen in love with a piece of classical music and you want to buy a recording. The problems…
How podcasts have transformed radio
As if on cue, Lemn Sissay’s new series for Radio 4 tackles all those questions we would rather ignore in…
The pleasures and perils of talking about art on the radio
‘I like not knowing why I like it,’ declared Fiona Shaw, the actress, about Georgia O’Keeffe’s extraordinary blast of colour,…
The Polish electronic music revolution of the 1950s
It was created in November 1957, a year before the BBC’s fabled Radiophonic Workshop, and was far more influential in…
Can giving voice to the horrors of the past re-traumatise?
It is 50 years since Ronald Blythe published Akenfield, his melancholy portrait of a Suffolk village on the cusp of…
