Saturday, January 21
THE ARCHIVE HOUR
Radio 4, 8pm
On August 11, 1979, 303 yachts — including boats skippered by the politician Edward Heath and the media mogul Ted Turner — began the annual race from the Isle of Wight, round the Fastnet Rock off the Irish coast, and back to Plymouth. Then a killer storm struck. The transatlantic yachtsman David Lomax tells the story.
Sunday, January 22
THE EARLY MUSIC SHOW
Radio 3, 1pm
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Lucie Skeaping plays some of the 500 works — most of them choral — written by the 16th-century Slovenian composer Jacob Händl, who latinised his name to Jacobus Gallus Carniolus (a nod to his homeland, Carniola). Had he lived 200 years later, he could have kept the real name and made a fortune in misplaced royalties.
Monday, January 23
STAGE AND SCREEN
Radio 3, 4pm
Edward Seckerson returns to the days when film soundtracks had the power to stir emotions as strong as those being shown on the screen, and tells the story of Miklós Rózsa. A child prodigy, Rózsa turned to Hollywood to make ends meet, and ended up painting sound pictures for such blood-and-guts epics as Ben-Hur, Quo Vadis and El Cid.
Tuesday, January 24
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WHAT IS IT ABOUT THE MAGHREB?
Radio 4, 8pm
What indeed? The region north of the Sahara and west of the Nile — inthis case Morocco and Tunisia — is something of a political conundrum. While both countries are conspicuously pro- Western, both are also the centres of a thriving terrorist-exporting industry. Mike Whitaker attempts to square the apparent circle.
Wednesday, January 25
THE MORAL MAZE
Radio 4, 8pm
Yes, I know, it just hasn’t been the same since Hugo Gryn died (nearly ten years ago? Can it be?), but even so Michael Buerk and his gang of astringent interlocutors are still required listening. And this time Michael Portillo, the former Cabinet minister- turned-media face, makes his debut as a regular panellist. Let battles commence.
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Thursday, January 26
MATERIAL WORLD
Radio 4, 4.30pm
Radio lovers, cross yourselves — He Who Must Not Be Named is about to be. Eighty years ago today John Logie Baird — boo! hiss! — assembled 50 scientists from the Royal Society to gaze at a screen on which was just about discernible a 30-line red and black image. If only it had ended there — but no, television had been born.
Friday, January 27
A RIGHT ROYAL RESCUE
Radio 4, 11am
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On January 29, 1945, Roy Halliday and Norman Richardson had reason to be thankful to the Royal Family. For, as they floated around in a sinking liferaft after their plane had been shot down, who was the first lieutenant on board HMS Whelp? The future Duke of Edinburgh, of course. Now all three tell the story.