Stereo

with John Humphrys and Sue MacGregor

Chris Dunkley , of The
Financial Times, airs your letters and comments on BBC programmes and policy.
Producer MOHINI PATEL
0 COMMENTS: to Feedback, BBC. London W1A 1AA

Producers CAROLE LACEY and ADAM RAPHAEL

The Drunkard by FRANK O'CONNOR
Read by Gerard Murphy Producer eoin O'CALLAGHAN BBC Northern Ireland

Ye holy angels bright; Psalm 146; Philippians
4,vv 4-13; Through all the changing scenes of life. Director of Music
LESLIE OLIVE. Stereo

(Details Thursday 8.00pm)

Dilly Barlow finds out if Big Ben feels the cold and investigates the burning question of people disappearing in a puff of smoke.
Producer HILARY NORRISH
0 WRITE: with any question, to: Enquire Within, BBC, London W1A 1AA

Presenter John Howard

A chance to check your gardening knowledge against two teams led by Irene Thomas and Norman Painting. This week's guests are Carole Boyd
Edna Healey , Rod Hull and Ernie Wise. Questionmaster
Dr Stefan Buczacki Producer IAN STRACHAN BBC Manchester. Stereo

Presenter Brian Widlake

Naughty Granny Plays Cricket (5) Stereo

from Newcastle.
With Rosemary Hartill Serial: Walking Across Egypt (2)

by CHARLES DICKENS adapted in seven episodes by NICK MCCARTY. With and 4: Beginnings
The atmosphere of love and devotion synonymous with Lucie continues. However, across the Channel an air of vengeance hovers. With RICHARD TATE ,
PETER CRAZE, NICHOLAS COURTNEY , JOHN WARNER , GEOFFREY WHITEHEAD , KEN CUMBERLIDGE , MICHAEL GRAHAM COX and JO KENDALL.
Music by Wilfredo Acosta Directed by IAN COTTERELL Stereo

A five-part series in which John Humphrys talks to people at the top of their chosen career.
2: Peter Buxton, Governor of Winson Green Prison. Producer BRIAN KING BBC Pebble Mill

Stereo (Details Thurs 9.45pm)

with Frances Coverdale and Bill Frost.
Including a report on Golf: The Open at Royal Troon

and Financial Report

Susan Marling presents the programme with ideas of what to do in your free time, with Alex Lester.
Producer CAROLINE DALY
0 See David Gillard , page 76

(Repeatednext Monday 1.40pm)

Author Sue Townsend presents her selection of the week's listening. Producer FIONA COUPER Stereo

The Rt Hon
Cecil Parkinson , mp, Secretary of State for Energy. The Rt Hon John Smith , qc, mp,
The Rt Hon David Steel , mp, and Ann Leslie , journalist.
From Cambridge.
Chair Jonathan Dimbleby Producer CAROLE STONE BBC Bristol

with Marcel Berlins
Producer GARETH BUTLER

Margaret Thatcher's comments on the two hundredth anniversary of the French revolution, and the role of President Bush at the 1989 economic summit in Paris.

(Details as Monday 8.42am)

by Alistair Cooke

Voices from the Renaissance
John Amis talks to leading choirs who research and perform music from the 15th and 16th centuries, including
Gothic Voices, the Hilliard Ensemble and the Tallis Scholars.
Producer PHILIP JORDAN Stereo

Fantasy and Fugue (3) Stereo

with Richard Kershaw

The first of five programmes examining life in a small village, where Mrs Roberts has been head of the Parish Council for ten years and A Toll Tax has just been introduced....

(Stereo) (Repeated tomorrow 5.25pm LW)
(See David Gillard, right)

First Lady impressions
Former Footlighter and Radio 4 regular Jo Kendall takes on the guise of 'our leader' in the highly-topical political satire "Little Blighty on the Down".
In 1963 a Cambridge Footlights revue called Cambridge Circus came to the Lyric Theatre in London to introduce a then unknown young comedy team that included John Cleese, Bill Oddie, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graham Chapman, David Hatch (now the BBC's Managing Director of Network Radio) and a sole female representative, Jo Kendall.
Looking out my old programme, I find that the jokey biographies of the cast described Cleese as 'utterly trendless.. an apostate lawyer, his only interest is food and he has an aunt called Gladys who lives in Weston-super-Mare', Hatch as '5ft 6ins and High Church... destined to teach, his ambition is to be 5ft 7ins' and Kendall as 'well-known in Cambridge for her occasional female impersonations. The BBC wants her. We've got her'.
Not any more, for today the BBC has got her. Currently a member of the Radio Drama Company, Jo can be heard in everything from "The Archers" and "Citizens" to "A Tale of Two Cities" and, this week, "Little Blighty on the Down". And she's still doing impressions - a Mrs Thatcher impersonation ('it's more in the character than the voice') as the town's chief Rotarian, Mrs Roberts.
For Little Blighty is a comic microcosm of a country not a million miles away and Mrs Roberts, says Jo, 'is she who must be obeyed'. The series, first heard last year, is the brainchild of Week Ending writers and topicality is assured because each programme is written only the day before the broadcast.
'I think you'll recognise life in Little Blighty,' says Jo. 'There's a threatened conveyance charge across the village bridge (the Toll Tax), lengthening queues outside Dr Figgers's surgery and the possibility of outside traders flooding the local market with cheap produce...'
Jo's had a varied and successful stage and TV career but radio comedy has always played its part. Her first radio show was "I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again" in 1964 with her Footlights friends Cleese, Brooke-Taylor, Oddie and Hatch and she followed that with a long stint in The Burkiss Way.
Now, to celebrate the 25th anniversary of "I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again", Jo's helping to devise a special radio reunion for later this year. When we spoke she was searching unsuccessfully for John Cleese. He was probably in Weston-super-Mare with his aunt. (D.G.)
Little Blighty on the Down, Friday 11.35pm