Radio Review

Billy Bunter's Birthday Bash (Radio 4) is such a Gyles Brandreth title, all rich alliteration and plump plosive sounds. Brandreth has a voice that demands attention and isn't short of self-regard, so much so that every time we went back to him in this otherwise enjoyable program, I found myself noticing the voice all over again. But his enthusiasm for Bunter was clearly genuine, as was his pique that the BBC didn't take up his offer of a new television adaptation of Frank Richards' Greyfriars stories. "They simply laughed in our faces," he said. "You can't make fun of a fat boy," he was told.

There were lots of jolly comments from Bunter fans ("a horrific kind of character, but so brilliantly drawn") but the intrigue at the heart of the program was Richards himself, a man of much mystery, 26 pseudonyms and a writing output of more than 70 million words. He loved gambling more than anything, but always spoke about the Greyfriars world as absolutely enchanting and real to him. "They told me there had been an earthquake shock," he recalled of a lunch meeting after a morning's writing. "I hadn't noticed it; I was at Greyfriars at the time."