John Lennon: BBC Radio 2 to dramatise singer's last day

The programme marks the 75th anniversary of the former Beatle's birth

The Liverpool actor Ian Hart has played John Lennon on three other occasions (Sky Arts)

The assassination of John Lennon by Mark Chapman will be dramatised in a Radio 2 programme which charts the former Beatle’s final day.

Stephen Kennedy, the writer of John Lennon’s Last Day, which airs next week to mark the 75th anniversary of the Beatle’s birth, said that the sequence in which Chapman shoots Lennon dead outside his New York home would be treated “sensitively”.

Ian Hart, the Liverpool actor who has played Lennon on three separate occasions, narrates the hour-long docudrama, which uses archive recordings and music to accompany a monologue guiding listeners through Lennon’s movements on the 8th of December 1980.

The programme details a busy day for Lennon, including an Annie Leibovitz photo session in the morning and a final recording session where he accompanies his wife, Yoko Ono, on guitar

He first encounters Mark Chapman outside the Dakota Building, signing a copy of his latest album for his would-be assassin, who then waits for Lennon to return later in the evening.