WHILE the black art of TV scheduling takes on an even darker hue at Christmas, the radio schedules move into tried-and-tested mode. So you know, for instance, that there's going to be a clutch of Christmas stories, a roster of guest editors on BBC Radio 4's Today programme (among them this year, actress Carey Mulligan, who'll look at dementia) and one or two carols.
But away from those tent-pole programmes there are plenty of other treats. Starting today, an all-star cast including Charlotte Riley (soon to play the Duchess of Cambridge on TV), Frances Barber, Matthew Beard and Sophie Rundle feature in a two-part adaptation of Neil Gaiman's fantastical novel Stardust (BBC Radio 4, today, 2.30pm and tomorrow, 3pm). Oh, and Gaiman's long-time friend Tori Amos makes her radio drama debut – playing a copper beech tree – and Gaiman himself has a cameo.
Still with drama, Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey has been turned into a 10-part serial to run throughout the Christmas period, for those who like their literary adaptations to have more of a period feel (BBC Radio 4, Monday-Friday 10.45am/7.45pm, from December 19 to December 30). Georgia Groome leads a cast which includes Miriam Margolyes.
The pick of the musical offerings is Bruce Springsteen's Desert Island Discs appearance (BBC Radio 4, tomorrow, 11.15am); BBC Radio 6 Music's now-traditional Wise Women takeover, which this year features Laura Marling, Natasha Khan and Annie Nightingale (Christmas Eve to Boxing Day, 8pm); Kate Tempest's New Year New Music show (BBC Radio 6 Music, New Year's Day, 1pm); and a fascinating programme in which national treasure David Attenborough reveals a love of world music as he plays some of the dozens of field recordings he has made over the years (Sunday Feature, BBC Radio 3, Christmas Day, 6.45pm).
For the high-minded, actor Jeremy Irons repeats last year's Christmas Day TS Eliot marathon by returning to read more Eliot poems in five stages on New Year's Day (BBC Radio 4, from 9am). For the not-so-high-minded (and because Christmas is also the season of repeats) Roy Hudd undercuts BBC One's new series of Sherlock by taking a comic look at the fictional detective in a six-part programme first broadcast in 1999 (The Newly Discovered Casebook Of Sherlock Holmes, BBC Radio 4 Extra, from Wednesday January 4, 9.30am).
Among the pick of the rest, meanwhile, are Radio 1's Movies That Made Me (BBC Radio 1, December 27, 4pm), in which Matt Damon, Emily Blunt and James McAvoy lift the lid on some of the biggest films they have appeared in; The Infinite Monkey Cage Christmas Special (BBC Radio 4, December 27, 9am), in which Brian Cox and Robin Ince are joined by Mark Gatiss, among others, for a festive edition of the ever-pleasing science show; and The New World (BBC Radio 4, from January 2, Monday-Friday, 9am), a series of five specially-commissioned programmes in which guests such as economist Jim O'Neill and political columnist John Harris look at the issues of the past year and how they will play out in the one ahead. Mouth-watering stuff.
And the promised carols? They come courtesy of A Festival Of Nine Lessons And Carols, of course, broadcast from the chapel of King's College, Cambridge (BBC Radio 4, Christmas Eve, 3pm/BBC Radio 3, Christmas Day, 2pm).
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