Gillian Reynolds

If ever a show deserved a handsome Christmas hardback it is Bleak Expectations. The comedy itself (Radio 4, Tuesdays) is a brilliant Dickens pastiche by Mark Evans, a mash-up of plots and characters that is scholarly, irreverent, affectionate and topical all at once. On radio it is perfectly cast and directed (Mark Evans again). On the page it has utterly wonderful footnotes, too.

Polyoaks (Radio 4, 11.30am), a bitingly topical satire (written by Dr Phil Hammond and David Spicer) on changes currently sweeping the National Health Service, continues with ambitious Doctor Hugh (Simon Greenall) scheming to get on even faster with the powers that be by playing squash. Difficult, as his hip isn't working very well and he hates seeing a doctor.

Here's something for all us anoraks, the first, indeed the only radio comedy by Rowan Atkinson, a 1979 four-part series, co-written by Atkinson and Richard Curtis (later to write Four Weddings and a Funeral and other big screen hits), produced by Griff Rhys-Jones (before he became a star comedian himself) and featuring Howard Goodall, now composer in residence and presenter on Classic FM. Each show is a pretend interview with a great man; tonight esteemed actor and almighty bore Sir Corin Basin.

At last, a less than totally reverential show about 007, the British agent still licensed to kill after half a century of mayhem, as David Quantick brings to light some of James Bond's darker and dafter secrets in The Blagger's Guide. Such as? How many millions of dollars has the Bond franchise earned over the years, how many Shirleys have sung a Bond theme and how many of Bond's on-screen personifiers are partial to wearing a wig (and don't say that last one's easy, with Quantick there's usually a twist to the answer).

Here's a surprise. This is a Seventies sitcom by Jim Eldridge (who went on to write the peerless King Street Junior). It's about a sleepy backwater railway station where all the trains run late and it had a marvellous cast: Arthur Lowe, Ian Lavender, Kenneth Connor, Liz Fraser. All the episodes were thought to have been lost. Or hiding under someone's bed. Then a listener wrote in, sending the missing programmes and Keith Skues, the original BBC announcer on the series, came in to recreate the original opening and closing announcements (seems they are still missing). Worth hearing and not just out of historic interest (it's repeated throughout the day, in true Radio 4 Extra form).

Living with Mother (Radio 4, 11.15pm) brings more four comic gems about sons who don't leave home (a subject once dear to my heart and probably many another). Meet Marlon (Mark Gatiss) who has entered a talent contest. Helen, his mother, (Susan Jameson) warns him. But does he listen? It's by Alex Kirk, whom I strongly suspect of canny eavesdropping around our house in recent years.

You may want to tune into Radio 2 on Thursday at 9.30pm to hear their New Comedy Awards 2012, the first of two semi-finals in a nationwide talent search. At London's Leicester Square Theatre, Patrick Kielty hosts six acts (from over 800 entries) competing for the prize of £1,000 and a commission from radio comedy. Six more semi-finalists next week, from The Sage Gateshead.

Gloomsbury (Radio 4, Friday) is the Bloomsbury of Harold Nicholson, Vita Sackville-West, Virginia Woolf and Violet Trefusis as re-imagined by clever Sue Limb and recreated by a brilliant cast (Miriam Margolyes, Alison Steadman, Nigel Planer, Morwenna Banks, Jonathan Coy). It bustles along, shifting assorted real-life infatuations, elopements and enthusiasms into the higher planes of nonsense. Oddly, however, the thrust of the performances seemed greater than the grip of the narrative.

Fags, Mags and Bags (Radio 4, Wednesdays) is that sitcom set in a Glasgow corner shop with an Asian proprietor whose capacity for scrapes and misunderstandings is endless. Somebody must love it. It runs to series after series. No sooner have I finished avoiding its repeats in the 6.30pm slot than the jingling signature tune signals a new run in the mornings. If Radio 4 were to bring in a show called The Aagh Factor this would be my first nomination. Perhaps someone to whom it appeals could explain why it never seems to leave the air.

The Secret World (Radio 4, Tuesdays) provides none of them. Here's a comedy show that, through the employment of mimics, invites us to imagine what happens in the private lives of famous people. Sean Connery has a baking competition with James Gandolfini of The Sopranos, William Hague tries to entertain Angela Merkel in the absence of Prime Minister Cameron, Nick Clegg successively telephones Sandi Toksvig, Miranda Hart and Jo Brand, trying (always in vain) to get them to come to a party. It sounds stale, as if every situation has been chosen to fit the voices available rather than for any intrinsic wit.