A Date With Dolly: Michael Ball Meets Dolly Parton and Belfast: Re-imagining the City

If A Date With Dolly: Michael Ball Meets Dolly Parton (Radio 2) seemed a bit of a mouthful, Ball offered a shorter version. "When Bally met Dolly," he suggested. It doesn't matter who you send in to interview her, though, as the impression's the same: a brilliant businesswoman who carefully manages her image. "I'm just a very professional Dolly Parton," she said. "I know a lot about me." So there wasn't much that was new here, though I liked the sound of her husband of 43 years. "Nobody ever sees him," she explained. "He buys all these old tractors." On the secret of such a long marriage, Parton was pithy. "The fact that I stay gone a lot," she laughed. Bill Drummond travelled, too, in Belfast: Re-imagining the City (Radio 4). He began with a bit of a rant. "Dublin is so proud of itself," he seethed. Belfast, in contrast, felt unloved when he first visited, especially when he realised the city wasn't twinned with anywhere. "I instantly felt sorry for the place," he said. In content this was strong, and I liked the atmospheric production – much ambient noise left in – but Drummond's delivery was stilted in places. He needed to sound less as though he was reading as he wandered around the city he so clearly loves. Elisabeth Mahoney