Radio review: Death in Kabul | Queen Victoria’s iPod | The Essay

A Scot killed in Afghanistan, a bereaved family seeking the truth, even a “dodgy dossier”... it all sounds horribly contemporary, but in death in Kabul, Mark Jardine investigates the events of 1842, following the assassination of the Scottish explorer and spy Alexander Burnes in Kabul.

Following his death during an insurrection, and the disastrous British retreat of January 1842, it emerged that some of his dispatches had been tampered with so as to convey opinions contrary to his own, while scandalous revelations emerged about British officers’ sex lives. Jardine speaks to author William Dalrymple and Craig Murray, former British ambassador to Uzbekistan.

Around that time, when not concerning herself with the state of her empire, Queen Victoria was listening to and indeed playing music, written for her and Prince Albert to play in a duet by Felix Mendelssohn. In queen victoria’s ipod this morning, composer and broadcaster David Owen Norris holds court at Buckingham Palace, hosting royal biographer Kate Williams, cultural commentator Matthew Sweet and Victorian music specialist Jeremy Dribble and listening to songs performed by Thomas Guthrie and jazz singer Gwyneth Herbert.

Meanwhile music of a more elemental sort concerns this week’s the essay on Radio 3, inspired by the Earth Music Bristol festival. The widely acclaimed nature writer Richard Mabey opens the series on Monday with The Glee Instinct, reflecting on the apparent compulsion of so many organisms to sing together, be they insects or humans. All together now ...

Death in kabul

Monday, Radio Scotland, 2:05pm

Queen Victoria’s iPod

Saturday, Radio 4, 10:30am

The Essay

Mon-Fri, Radio 3, 10:45pm