Including at 6.15 Pause for Thought.
With Sounds of the 60s.
Stands in for Jonathan Ross.
1.00 That Mocking Bird
John Bird presents a series exploring the theory and practice of comedy. In today's programme his guest is playwright, actor, broadcaster and diarist Alan Bennett.
1.30 Punt and Dennis: It's Been a Bad Week
Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis take a comic look at who has had a bad week and why. With Jon Culshaw, Emma Clarke and Mitch Benn.
(Repeated from Thursday)
With Pick of the Pops.
With Janice Long.
With America's Greatest Hits.
Mark Goodier presents a revealing new three-part documentary exploring the career of David Bowie. In this first programme Bowie reflects on his early career and recordings, with comments from, among others, producers Gus Dudgeon and Ken Scott, and pianists Mike Garson and Rick Wakeman.
Songs featured include Space Oddity, Life on Mars? and Changes, plus tracks from the album Ziggy Stardust.
Choice
Today a new three-part series begins, carefully delineating the Golden Years - the David Bowie Story (7.00pm R2). Such treatment is like being immortalised on a limited edition of commemorative china, but Bowie is man enough to take, survive and surmount it - and besides, a little nostalgia doesn't hurt.
Earlier the biographer Richard Holmes tracks the Runaway Lives (2.30pm R4) of Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny Osbourne. He was 29, penniless and "a mere complication of cough and bones" when he turned up in California determined to marry her. Though she was older and already married they overcame all obstacles and achieved lasting happiness. Holmes toasts them, very properly, with wine from a vineyard they visited in 1879.
Alan Bennett is John Bird's lunchtime guest, in That Mocking Bird (1.00pm R2). (SG)
Highlights from concerts previously broadcast on Radio 2.
With Richard Allinson.
Lionel Richie presents a series of soul, R'n'B and musical anecdotes.
Tonight's programme features music from artists including Earth, Wind and Fire, Diana Ross and the Supremes, the Temptations, Chuck Berry and Thelma Houston.
Including at 2.30 Pause for Thought with Chris Mann.
Including at 6.15 Pause for Thought.
