TODAY’S RADIO

KEN BRUCE 9.30AM, RADIO 2

★★★★★ Over the next four weeks, Radio 2 invites 20 top artistes into the Piano Room for a live session at 11.30am on weekdays. Each star will perform three tracks – a classic, a new song and a cover – backed by members of the BBC Concert Orchestra. David Gray opens the bill this morning.

FREE: COMING OF AGE AT THE END OF HISTORY 9.45AM (FM), 12.30AM, RADIO 4

★★★★

The relentlessly cheerful Albanian song A Pickaxe In One Hand, A Rifle In The Other opens this series by author and historian Lea Ypi. She recalls how, under the thumb of Enver Hoxha, Albania was a place of scarcity, spies and executions, but for a child, it seemed a place

David Gray (9.30am, Radio 2) of safety. In 1985, Hoxha died, and the dictator’s cruel regime ended as Communism collapsed – but a whole new set of troubles came.

STANLEY, ALBERT AND THE LION 2.30PM, RADIO 4 EXTRA

★★★★ Marriott Edgar’s tale about the boy who got eaten by a lion at the zoo in Blackpool is fine and funny – and it’s even funnier when you hear the late, great variety star Stanley Holloway delivering it in a strong northern working-class accent. Pete Mccarthy looks at the origins of the story in this programme on Holloway’s life, which includes a recording of The Lion And Albert. With Larry Adler and Roy Hudd.

ANALYSIS

8.30PM, RADIO 4 ★★★

Three lethal outbreaks of coronavirus diseases have spread across the world this century. SARS, MERS and now Covid-19 have shown how dangerous coronaviruses are, and the race is on to find a universal vaccine. Sandra Kanthal reports on progress in this life-and-death battle. SJ