Sense and sensibility

Sex is never any good on radio. Think of all those excruciating scenes in The Archers — Sid and Jolene in the shower, or, for those addicts with a good memory, Shula on a picnic rug with that seamy journalist from the Borchester Echo. On radio, without the carefully crafted images of a film-maker and instead just the sound effects — splashy kisses and primeval squeals — it’s ludicrous. Worse still, when listening to sexual antics rather than watching them on screen you’re left with space in your head to wonder at the absurdity of a couple of actors standing at a microphone pretending to make all that noise. Paul Scott showed brilliantly how comical, or even distasteful, sexual antics can be if overheard by mistake in an unforgettable scene from The Raj Quartet when the naive Miss Batchelor accidentally comes across Susan and Sarah’s mother in flagrante with a young army officer.