... Has Radio an identity crisis? By MOIRA PETTY THERE has been a perceptible blurring at the edges of radio this past week or so. Neatly-tended identities have been thrown aside sufficiently for us to assume that this is not mere misfortune or even carelessness. We are in for a period of upheaval and realignment, in the manner of internal organs which shift around the body tor weeks alter ...

... By MORIA PETTY THE ACTING profession is notably adept at paying tribute to its own. At countless memorial services and awards ceremonies, the cult of the ego is hijacked in the cause of an anthem to the great and the good. So it was with both anticipation and apprehension that I tuned into The Tragedy of King Lear (R3 co-production with Renaissance Theatre Co.; Sunday, April 10), in which a ...

... By MOIRA PETTY DATELINE: Somewhere in East Anglia. Sometime in the Middle Ages. Sexual ing is alive and well and every politically incor rect disease known to the modem workplace is rampant in Gabrielle and the Gargoyles (BBC North for R4; Monday, April 25) by Barbara Machin. Gabrielle is the Barbara Hepworth of her day, inheriting her genius at stone carving from her father. A chip off ...

... Stott's Ghosts haunted me By MOIRA PETTY I THOUGHT I had the measure of Sweet Dreams and Swedish Ghosts (R4, Saturday, May 21), the first radio play for seven years by Mike Stott, author of the theatrical perennial Funny Peculiar. All the clues were that this was a pleasurable, light comedy, chronicling the effect of an extraor dinary phenomenon on ordinary lives. Lancashire minicab driver ...

... Radio Morse goes with the flow by MOIRA 'PETTY IT MUST be awful to step into shoes still warm from their previous occupation by an actor who has made a role so thoroughly his own. John Thaw's Morse has taken on the stature of a national institution, while Kevin Whately's Lewis nas oecome a prototype ior pui- upon sidekicks everywhere. Even James Grout as the peren nially ill-tempered Chief ...

... Catching up on childhood heroes by MOIRA PETTY I'VE ALWAYS thought it was a reckless act which caused librarians, in a mass reflex action, to sweep Enid Blyton from the shelves. Her tales of larky schoolgirls and adventurous children, who were never more than adults cut off at the knees, now tend to provoke responses of hilarity and indigna tion. But it's just what the baby- toothed need to ...

... Harden is a delight among the mayhem and murder by MOIRA PETTY THE LATTER part of this century has seen a burgeoning of religious fundamentalism, of sects, and, if recent reports arc to be believed, a wave of affirmative Christianity in which worshippers speak in tongues. Peter Roberts' play Devil's Province (BBC Pebble Mill for R4; Monday, June 20) was rather timely then, with its ...

... Bronte's ghostly tale gets an Eyre-ing by MOIRA PETTY DEMURE governess falls for her Byronic, tormented employer. Can she overcome the obstacles including the cackling, demented Mrs Byron locked away in the west wing-that stand in the way of their love? My precis of Jane Eyre, which I read in early adolescence and have neatly sidestepped ever since, reads like the flyleaf of any old trash ...

... Priestley's people all remain beaten by time ONE author famously preoccupied with time was JB Priestley, or perhaps he just preferred to play God with his characters. A season celebrating the centenary of his birth sent shrill, terribly English types all over the radio, the most prescient of them having the ter rible fortune of being able to look back to what they had lost, or for ward to ...

... It's for posterity, my dear Watson by MOIRA PETTY SHOWBUSINESS used to be full of Cockneys like Benny Green, cheeky chappies with purist accents that seem almost affected next to the pervasive Estuary-Speak. You couldn't help reflecting, on hearing Green's week long series Music Hall Memoirs (Green Mann Productions for R3; from Monday, September 26), that it can't be long before he's ...

... Hearing the final notes of horror by MOIRA PETTY LIFE'S last, long drawn out gasp was a death rattle that echoed all that had gone before, in David Rudkin's virtuoso play The Haunting of Mahler (BBC Pebble Mill for R3, Sunday, October 16), directed by Phillip Martin. I he composer s near death scenes were as much the beginning as the end, in a drama that was a symphony in blacks and greys. ...

... Great fun to be had from Pontac's parodies by MOIRA PETTY THE TWO best radio comedies of recent weeks, both parodies of great works, have come from the same pen, that of the excoriatingly witty Perry Pontac. His Prince Lear (R3, Friday, November 18) was a miniaturised prequel to the rather more famous King Lear, artfully composed in the Stratford house style with fluent blank verse, flowery ...