Archive treasures

It’s a bit of a surprise to discover that my young nephews are huge fans of radio. Since Radio 4 abandoned programmes designed for children, and CBeebies disappeared from the airwaves, radio has become a kids-free zone. What on earth do they find to listen to? Why, of course, Radio 4 Extra, and especially the comedy classics, The Navy Lark, Beyond Our Ken and The Men from the Ministry. Kids are getting the listening bug from programmes that were created more than 50 years ago. Brilliant. To them, these treasures from the archives sound as weird and fantastical as Harry Potter. As Mary Kalemkerian, Radio 4 Extra’s director of programming, has proved so pertinently in these straitened times, who needs vast amounts of money to be creative?

Her station, which began life in 2002 as Radio 7 (the BBC’s answer to the commercial words-only station One Word), has put on half a million listeners since it was relaunched last year as the archive arm of Radio 4. Another half million and it will catch up with the Radio 3 audience. On an unbelievably tiny budget, Kalemkerian has taken the best of what she and her researchers have discovered in the vast library of BBC classics, mixed them up with a few newly made programmes, and created a schedule designed to appeal to anyone who, like her, did their homework while listening to Children’s Hour. This week, for instance, you could have heard the inimitable Beryl Reid in a 1990s version of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden, repeats from that epic 216-episode history series, This Sceptred Isle, and new versions of three short plays by the underappreciated dramatist Shelagh (A Taste of Honey) Delaney.