Radio 3
Was Queen Victoria’s doctor the first psychoanalyst?
Queen Victoria began to experience dark visions after giving birth to her second child. Concerned that she might have inherited…
‘I’ve seen controllers come and go’: Radio 3’s Michael Berkeley interviewed
A few years ago I had a panic-stricken phone call from a female friend. ‘Help!’ she wailed. ‘Remind me what…
Heaven is an oeuf en gelée
The cherry blossom was at its finest as I made my last early morning trip through Regent’s Park to Broadcasting…
The liberating, invigorating music of Pierre Boulez
‘When you’re not offensive in life, you obtain absolutely nothing,’ declares a twinkly-eyed Pierre Boulez in one of the archive…
It’s moving to think how happy Van Gogh was in Brixton
When a phrase really takes off in the political sphere, you will recognise it by the frequency with which it…
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…
All the rage
Welcome back to Room 101, which has returned to the radio – after nearly 30 years on TV – and…
Lost worlds
One so often hears about famous people who are horrible when they think no one important is looking – barking…
A dose of sanity
Listening to BBC Radios 3 and 4 over the past week has been like meeting an old friend who, after…
Never let it go
Who doesn’t love Eurovision? All that razzmatazz. The ghastly frocks and gloopy pop songs, the false bonhomie and bare-faced bias…
Fresh knickers
Last April Fools’ Day, Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo wound up their award-winning film review show on BBC Radio 5…
Disappearing doilies
This week marks the beginning of modernism season on BBC Radio 3 and 4, which means it’s time for some…
Sent to Coventry
The story is likely apocryphal — and so disgraceful I almost hesitate to tell it — but it goes like…
Inside stories
Prison-based podcast Banged Up, now in its second series, is far more uplifting — and less soapy — than its…
Sitting pretty
With the arts world still largely in hibernation, the launch of a big podcast is as close as we get…
Concrete poetry
Since technology is developing at such light-speed pace, why does it feel so strangely slow? There is a sense that…
Spreading the word
Nineteen fifty-six: the Suez crisis, the first Tesco, Jim Laker takes 19 wickets in a match. But also: Trinidadian pianist…
In two minds
Can people of one race really understand the experience of another? asks Colin Grant
Live and let die
Remember when 2020 was going to be Beethoven year? There were going to be cycles and festivals, recordings and reappraisals;…
Watcher of the skies – and the coffee pot
‘To be recognised and accepted by a peregrine,’ wrote J.A. Baker in 1967, ‘you must wear the same clothes, travel…
Letters
Divine works Sir: Luke Coppen writes that livestreamed services ‘lack the vital communal dimension of worship’ and ‘are, at times,…
Radio 3 presenters
Anyone who has listened regularly to Radio 3 over the decades — not to mention the Third Programme, which Radio…
And did those feet
Writers like walking. When people ask us why, we say it’s what writers do. ‘Just popping out to buy a…
