Peacefully In Their Sleeps

The first of a new obituary series, Peacefully in Their Sleeps (11pm, Radio 4), looks at the life of 20th-century chef, Rene Fortesque-Spencer-French, perhaps best known for the infamous incident in which she force-fed fois gras to Linda McCartney live on the Parkin- son show. Yes, it's a spoof, but it's beautifully done: "You could eat your dinner off her kitchen floor. Sometimes you had to - she was quite clumsy."

Comedy of an oddball kind, with Roydon Postlethwaite, presenter, played by Geoff McGivern, who for the next six weeks pays tribute to a different, made-up celebrity via merciless lampoons of postwar popular culture using fake archive footage and interviews. The most beautiful footballer of all time will naturally feature, but first we meet the first celebrity chef, Rene Fortiscue Spencer French, played by Elizabeth Spriggs. It's an acquired taste, you might say, and gloriously bonkers. Bear with it and it could well grow on you.

Occupying a terrifying space between Margaret Thatcher and Fanny Craddock, Renee Fortescue-Spencer-French was the first celebrity chef - at least according to this engagingly silly new series of fake celebrity profiles. Presenter Roydon Postlethwaite (Geoff McGivern) recalls some of the highlights of this formidable lady's life, including her work spying on German eating habits during the war, for which she won the Victoria Sponge and the George Cross Bun, and her fervent campaign against the legalisation of vegetarianism. As one "leading feminist" says, "she held women back almost as much as our inability to throw or read maps".