Radar: My Recent Cultural Picks 29.09.25

Find out what Andrew has been watching and listening to recently.

Listening

There is an absolute feast of excellent radio programmes at the minute, and I'm starting to wonder if, actually, we're living in a golden age of radio. We're certainly spoiled for choice and I'm excited to share some of my recent favourites here.

Three of my five top radio picks are written by novelist Carlo Gébler, who while an acclaimed novelist in his own right, is also the son of Edna O'Brien and Ernest Gébler, two highly notable Irish authors. Gébler while considering himself Irish (he currently lives in Enniskillen and teaches at Trinity College Dublin), and having spent much of his childhood in Ireland, with Irish parents, grew up in England and attended Bedales boarding school. As a result, Gébler has an English accent with subtle inflections of an Irish accent. I'm mentioning this as I think that one of the most essential ingredients of good radio is the voice of the presenter, particularly its cadence, its accent, its texture, and all I can say is that Gébler's lends itself beautifully to the radio. There is a precision in his speaking balanced with an emotional engagement with his subjects. When we listen to the radio, we want to shut off screens and the visual world and immerse ourselves in the world painted for us by the words and speech of the radio presenter - of all the radio shows I've listened to recently Gébler, not only seems to understand this, but excels at conjuring it with his descriptions. His training as a novelist, and the way in which he's able to prioritise the showing over the telling in his descriptions is particularly helpful in radio broadcasting.

In 'A Soft Day' (BBC Sounds) Gébler discusses his love of rain in a programme which he peppers with readings of Irish poems which feature all manner of showers and drizzles and downpours. The selection is carefully done, but some of the best parts featured Gébler himself describing the rain-drenched walk he takes on a regular basis. Who would have thought half an hour of listening to the rain would have been this interesting?

The second of Gébler's programmes, Inside Stories, was also on BBC Sounds as part of their Sunday Feature, and was a documentary recounting his days of teaching creative writing in the Maze prison. From an aural point of view, the contrast of Gébler's southern English accent with the Belfast twang of the prisoners gave the audio a varied texture to say the least, but it was fascinating to hear from the prisoners and their own reflections on how creative writing shaped their time in prison. There are stories of hope and prisoners who have used the writing skills learnt in prison to go own to earn a living by becoming copywriters, and it's clear that creative writing in prisons is valuable in giving them sense of self-reflection even if it might not change their pasts. I found it particularly moving when one inmate when asked what he would do with the pile of writing he'd created in his cell when he got released replied that he would burn it, suggesting perhaps that writing had no place in his world beyond prison.

Gébler continued on this thread of the Maze prison as part of BBC's The History podcast 'Escape from the Maze'. Gébler had written this ten-part series of fifteen-minute episodes and it was captivating from start to finish. I was particularly impressed with his ability to walk the line of impartiality, and when there was blame to be apportioned that it was traced back to the NIO (Northern Ireland Office). He also walked the line between giving us the history in an engaging way without glamourising it. The interviews from the IRA members (mostly now deceased) were intriguing and the character of Brenadan 'Bik' McFarlane spoke in a slow and measured way that was at odds with his violent and audacious actions as he told described them. Gébler ends the podcast by describing the state of the Maze prison as it is now calling 'a mess'. We can't help but feel this is also a comment on the events taken or not taken by the NIO which led to this breakout, resulting in the deaths of prison guards, and, ironically, the official release of Gerry Kelly and Bik MacFarlane. It's at once a fascinating, sad, tragic, dramatic period of Northern Irish history handled with admirable sensitivity by Gébler.

Glenn Patterson's The Brighton Bomb also on The History Podcast recounted the bombing of the Grand Hotel in Brighton by Patrick Magee, who like McFarlane and Kelly was also ultimately released even though his release was under the auspices of the Good Friday Agreement. I must admit I knew little about the Brighton Bomb before I listened to this, and found it interesting with Patterson rarely getting in the way of the story itself. Was Patrick Magee a narcissistic nihilist (he drew detailed diagrams of the bombs he built) who suffered from a traumatic childhood, or was he a brave freedom fighter, committed to the Republican cause of opposing Thatcher's oppressive government? Patterson ends the podcast by quoting an American novelist E. L. Doctorow whose point could be applied to both Magee and Thatcher: "The philosophical conservative is someone willing to pay the price of other people s suffering for his principles."

Finally, I got round to listening to Brian Friel's Faith Healer on BBC Sounds. I hadn't read the play and didn't know how I felt about the prospect of listening to 2 hours of monologues, but I found that the ending was certainly worth it. The play is comprised of three monologues: Frank Hardy, the Faith Healer; his lover Grace; and his manager Teddy. They each give different accounts of their travels together and the elliptical ending with Frank facing the three locals and cripple he suggests he can heal is surely among Friel's most powerful and memorable moments of drama. Coulf it have been a bit shorter? I reckon so. Did the character who voiced Frank get the tone wrong? I wonder if a less grizzly tone would have helped in this respect. Teddy's monologue, played by Daniel Mays, was, for me, by far, the most engaging and convincing. It's a dark play about memory, selfishness, love, and differing versions of history - an excellent piece of writing by Friel, brought to life fairly convincingly by this group of actors.

Watching

The Belfast playwright of prizewinning Cyprus Avenue, David Ireland, is responsible for ITV's latest crime thriller Coldwater. I'm not entirely sure how to describe this show: it's a kind of bonkers mix of crime, horror, and comedy while commenting on the dangerous crisis of masculinity, and what's more surprising is that it seems to get away with it, all while featuring that guy from Teachers, and Spud from Trainspotting. That's all I have to say about this one really - I'm still trying to process what's happened in the first two episodes.