The Must-Sees of 2016: Radio from Maggie’s Podcasts to A Gremlin in the Works: When Roald Dahl Met Disney

The critics’ guide to the hottest tickets of the year ahead

Radio presenter Victoria Derbyshire (JUDE EDGINTON)

RADIO

Elders

Older people’s voices are rarely heard in a world obsessed with all things fresh and youthful, so hooray for Elders, a brand new podcast series from producer Jane French that focuses exclusively on the lives of the over-70s. Major historical events, relationships, faith and death are all examined with candour and wisdom.

1 January, elderspodcast.com

Sir Michael Grade attends the Great British Talent Event (Getty Images)

Brits in Hollywood

The British invasion of Tinseltown proves a worthy excuse for a series of profiles of some of this country’s greatest actors and actresses. In examining the lure of America and what it takes to make it big across the pond, Michael Grade talks to Helen Mirren, Jenny Agutter, Diana Rigg and David Oyelowo.

5 January, Radio 2

Maggie’s Podcasts

Victoria Derbyshire, currently having treatment for breast cancer, presents the first of this series of podcasts, made to coincide with World Cancer Day 2016. This intimately stylised episode, Altogether Now, looks at the isolation often felt by sufferers and their loved ones.

4 February, maggiescentres.org/podcast

A Gremlin in the Works: When Roald Dahl Met Disney

There will be a slew of programmes about Roald Dahl this summer to coincide with the 100th anniversary of his birth, though few will be as outlandish and fascinating as this. The documentary unearths a lost film the children’s author made with Walt Disney in the 1940s while he was stationed in Washington as a spy for the British government.

TBC, Radio 4

Roald Dahl photographed in the Seventies (Rex Features)

A Musical Map of Britain (working title)

The writer Laura Barton’s music docs are always atmospheric and evocative affairs, and this four-parter on the various musical histories of the British Isles, examined through the lens of landscape, community, memory and climate, promises to be no different.

TBC, Radio 4