Women Talking About Cars

Presented by the charming Victoria Coren Mitchell, this is an odd one: part interview, part vehicular rumination. The interviewee is asked to view their life through their cars, from their parents' to their current motor. Obviously a device, but it's a patchy one: the first episode, with chatty, confiding Dawn French, worked well, but Olivia Colman, this week, was pricklier. Coren Mitchell asked a couple too many yes/no questions, to which Colman often gave a one-word answer. In both shows I enjoyed it when the conversation expanded a little. Coren Mitchell made a great point about women feeling both safe and adventurous in a car. More of that, please!

Of all the formats BBC radio employs to ensure that you're never more than half an hour away from hearing the same two-dozen comics and presenters chatting companionably with each other, Women Talking About Cars is one of the easiest to forgive. In this episode presenter Victoria Coren Mitchell takes Olivia Colman through all the cars she has owned or driven in her life. These include her early Morris Minor, which she named Moomin. She claims to have fixed the rotor arm of said vehicle with nail varnish, which can't be in the manuals. What's valuable is the light shed on aspects of her life that have nothing to do with cars, such as the fact that even Colman, seemingly one of the most in-demand actors in the UK, can expect to be out of work for half of the year.