The grunge grand dame tells her anarchic life story through the music she loves, while Charlotte Church has a tender chat with her ‘dada’. Plus, a deep dive into the Falklands war and Neil Tennant’s Smash Hits days

Courtney Love’s Women (6 Music) | BBC Sounds
Kicking Back With the Cardiffians | BBC Sounds
The Belgrano Diary | London Review of Books
Word in Your Ear | Acast

Sometimes it feels like we will never reach the peak of the celebrity podcast phenomenon, but few lives burst with the lively detail required for a multi-part series. Then along comes Courtney Love.

Lovers Alistair and Denise are busily smooching in every corner of the veterinary surgery, but it looks unlikely to end well. And will George Grundy stop being grumpy about TikTok?

The agony of Alistair Lloyd, veterinary surgeon and secret admirer of Denise, veterinary nurse, is over. Sort of. After months of painful attraction, after a nearly-kiss at Christmas, after hours of workplace longing and frustrated desire over the scalpels, swabs and sutures, it’s out there. He has told her he loves her. She has reciprocated. They have kissed (no sound effects, thankfully – a merciful edit). They have kissed again, and again – passionate bouts of snogging in the medical supplies cupboard, almost discovered by Denise’s son and colleague Paul, the practice’s other vet nurse. The course of this true love is not going to run smooth. As it is, Alistair has already threatened twice to leave the practice – once when he thought his adoration was unrequited, and once when he mistakenly understood Denise to say that she wanted to work on her marriage. For yes, Denise is still married (separate lives!) to Paul’s dad, currently in the Caribbean tending to his dying mother. Paul keeps bleating on about his father’s needing Denise, and why doesn’t she go out there to join him. For a sensitive soul, he hasn’t noticed the obvious. For the moment. I foresee storms.

The Crabbe, or is it Goyle of Ambridge, George Grundy, may have passed through his full-on Andrew Tate phase, but has not yet, it seems, shed the signs of being a malicious little so-and-so. This month he’s been full of spite to Hannah, his erstwhile boss at the pig unit, whose chief crime against him was being a woman. He’s also been wonderfully ungracious about the fact that his uncle, farrier Chris Carter, joint chief contender for hottest man in Ambridge along with Swedish vet Jakob, overshadowed him in some tedious TikTok he was making about the ancient Grundy family pony, Bartleby. He’s also got himself banned from the Bull, after a grim little incident in which he was outrageously rude to Jolene. Emma, George’s mum, has resigned as a bartender in protest at her son’s treatment. That doesn’t seem the wisest of moves, financially, when she and her husband Ed are about to launch a tree surgery concern, part funded by Ed’s brother Will. That, by the way, is a bit like Cain and Abel going into business together – if Cain and Abel had once been sleeping with the same woman (the aforementioned Emma herself). Be that as it may, I declare a shot to be drunk whenever one of George’s deluded family members refer to him as “a good lad”.

The darling of the far right recently appeared on The Breakfast Club and Joe Budden’s podcast – exploiting Black America’s willingness to forgive

As a provocateur, Candace Owens stands alone. The recently fired Daily Wire host built a reputation as one of the few Black voices in rightwing media by tossing Black culture and Black people under the conservative bus. She embraced Donald Trump’s lawlessness while castigating Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and Black victims of police brutality as “thugs” and criminals . For Owens, the January 6 insurrection was “ virtually nothing ”, while the Black Lives Matter movement “ is about Black anarchy ”. She told a congressional subcommittee that “white supremacy and white nationalism is not a problem that is harming Black America”.

According to her, everything wrong with Black America is caused by Black culture and white liberals, but affirmative action is an affront to whites. Like her former bosses at the rightwing youth organization Turning Point USA, Owens doesn’t believe in systemic racism because she’s “ never been a slave in this country ”. When it comes to anti-Blackness, she is as remarkably consistent as the angry throngs that spat on third-graders desegregating schools while painting the civil rights movement as “ violent ”.

The grandaddy of podcasts reassesses the US terrorist detention camp; a rerun of Pinter and Potter plays is not to be missed. And at last, a genuinely funny new radio comedy…

Serial season 4: Guantánamo (Serial) | New York Times
Hidden Treasures: The Dumb Waiter; Traitor (Radio 4) | BBC Sounds
Dial F for Football (Furious Styles/Keep It Light Media) | Apple Podcasts

Serial is back, with the OG combination of presenter-producer Sarah Koenig and producer-presenter Dana Chivvis (this time Chivvis is a co-host). They’re here to tell us the true story of Guantánamo . You remember, of course, Guantánamo: the US prison camp in Cuba, created to hold the hundreds of suspected Islamic militants swept up by America after the 9/11 attacks. Since it was opened in 2002, it has housed 779 people for interrogation.

He rose to fame as foul-mouthed drag star, Lily Savage, then abandoned the wig and became a national treasure. Friends including Sandi Toksvig, Amanda Holden and Gaby Roslin remember a true, terrific one-off

‘I can’t believe it’s been a year,” says Malcolm Prince, the producer of Paul O’Grady’s long-running Sunday teatime Radio 2 show. “Awful, awful, awful, awful. It’s been such a very difficult year. I’m embarrassed to say how tricky it’s been.”

O’Grady’s death on 28 March 2023 , from sudden cardiac arrhythmia, came as a shock to the world. For decades, he had achieved the rare feat of presenting himself to the public as he truly was: funny, sharp, outspoken and compassionate in roughly equal measure. To some, he was best known as a comedian, to others a gameshow host, or an animal lover, or a political firebrand, or an LGBTQ+ pioneer. O’Grady’s appeal was so broad that people argued about what his legacy should be after he died; even ITV’s big Good Friday show this year, a documentary entitled The Life and Death of Lily Savage, can’t begin to contain the multitudes in O’Grady’s life, instead choosing to focus on the years he spent in drag.

The broadcaster talks about getting up early and enjoying her Sundays, with mint tea, books and being outside in nature

Early riser? I try not to lie in too late – I’m normally awake for 9am – because I want to make the most of it. There’s a real nice feeling on a Sunday. I like the vibe.

Coffee or alcohol? There’s a little coffee shop near to where I live that does a great flat white. I used to have a glass of red wine with my dinner, but I’m drinking a lot less than I ever used to because the hangovers are getting worse. Now I sip a cup of mint tea – not very rock’n’roll, I know.

Mark Radcliffe and Marc ‘Lard’ Riley were the unlikely lads of 90s radio. Twenty years after their final show, they’re back, touring the UK with tales from the wireless’s wildest ride

You’ll remember Mark Radcliffe and Marc “the Boy Lard” Riley from their riotous Radio 1 shows in the 90s and early 00s, first late night on the graveyard shift in 1993, then in a short, ill-fitting turn as bleary-eyed DJs on the Radio 1 breakfast show in 1997, before conquering early afternoons from 1997 to 2004. (Riley’s nickname came after a back injury when he made the mistake of admitting he needed to “shift some lard”.) They brought us memorable catchphrases – “Stop … carry on!”, “by Jovi” and “wickedy wickedy warp” – as well as characters such as Fat Harry White (who was really just Radcliffe doing a Barry White impression into a vocoder). And they cared about the music, championing new bands, just so long as it wasn’t (as they pronounced it) the Stere- O phonics.

The pair haven’t appeared together on the radio since 2004, with Radcliffe going on to find a new chum in Stuart Maconie on Radio 2 and 6 Music, and Riley hosting his own show on 6, before teaming up with Gideon Coe. But now they’re back for Carry on: An Evening With Mark and Lard , which promises chat, music and plenty of reminiscing. We caught up with the pair while they were getting suited up at the tailors to chat Kylie, Bowie, where it all went right … and where it all went horribly wrong. Biggedy biggedy bong!

The character comic on gigging with chickens, harnessing the power of embarrassment and her spoof Radio 4 current affairs show

What first drew you to character comedy?
As a kid I loved television, especially whatever my parents watched. Dad liked the anarchic 80s stuff like The Young Ones . Mum liked the 90s situational stuff like The Vicar of Dibley and The Royle Family . My taste was an amalgamation of theirs, plus The Simpsons. For a weird kid, it was glorious to see huge, strange characters being laughed at and celebrated for their stupidity, eccentricity and energy. When I started gigging, it was a no-brainer to do character comedy. Standups create a persona anyway, so I thought: why not make a persona who is much more fun to play than me?

How did you get into comedy?
For ages, wanting to do comedy was a secret I was too scared to admit. As a teen I came up with the most roundabout ways that I could to end up “accidentally” doing comedy. One plan was to get a job presenting BBC Breakfast with Charlie and Susanna. Then the BBC would ask me on Let’s Dance for Sport Relief. I’d say, “Ohh scary hehehe,” and I’d end up being hilarious and everyone would laugh at me. Eventually a confident pal took me to a workshop run by a university improv troupe, who ended up scouting me for their show. Officially funny and cool people telling me I was funny was the boost I needed to admit I wanted to try it properly.

Lorna Rose Treen: Skin Pigeon is at Soho theatre, London , 3-6 July. Time of the Week will air on BBC Radio 4 in the spring

Readers respond to Nell Frizzell’s article on pop music being played as she waited for a medical appointment

If you think listening to Carly Rae Jepsen in a hospital waiting room is bad ( Sweating with fear, I waited to hear the doctor’s verdict. Then the radio started playing Call Me Maybe …, 13 March ), try being wheeled in for an abortion to the sound of – I kid you not – Barry White. A moment so surreal that I often think I must have imagined it. But I know it happened because it was before they gave me the drugs. Everything went smoothly, as you can imagine.
Name and address supplied

• Eight years ago in Fairbanks, Alaska, I was about to go under to have a cataract removed. I was asked what music I’d like. The Buena Vista Social Club , I replied. Less than 60 seconds later, I drifted off to those warm notes before I had time to be surprised that first, the specialist knew of it, and second, that they had it to hand. I like to think my improved eyesight owes a little to that relaxing music.
Flora Grabowska
Crovie, Aberdeenshire