Great Dane

I have never watched "Friday Night Dinner", the Channel 4 sitcom from 2011, featuring the weekly gathering of a Jewish family. It is still available on various streaming platforms, maybe one of these days I will get round to it. I know the two leading characters are played by Tamsin Greig [I first encountered her on radio playing Debbie Aldridge in The Archers] and the late Paul Ritter  [I saw him live on stage in 2013, playing John Major, in "The Audience"] Both brilliant actors, with wonderful comedic timing, gifted at serious as well as humorous roles. 

This week I have enjoyed listening to them on the Radio. They played a Suffolk farmer's wife, and the curator of a Danish Museum - who become unlikely penpals. 

Fact - 75 years ago, the remains of an Iron Age man were found in a peat bog. He was named "Tollund Man" and is still on display in the Silkeborg Museum. I remember learning about him at school in the late 1960s.

Fiction - Tina, in Suffolk, also learned about him at school, and one day over 40 years later, decides to write to the Danish man who came and gave a talk, telling how she always dreamed of visiting the Museum and seeing Tollund Man.
Anders, the curator writes back, and explains that the Professor has died ["he would be 104 if he were still here..."] but he will answer her questions instead, if he can.

Thus begins the correspondence - it is an epistolary novel, alternate chapters are the letters read by one or the other. It works incredibly well on Radio. I found this story charming, moving, and generally utterly enthralling. I was listening as I worked at my sewing machine, and loved every minute.
Somebody mentioned last week that all my recent book reviews were non-fiction. I've been too tired at bedtime to cope with anything complicated. But here's a fiction review of an audio-book. It is in the same vein as Helene Hanff "84 Charing Cross Road" [although that was wholly fact based] and equally delightful. 
If you can find it on BBC Sounds, do listen to it, otherwise find the book in the library. 

This is definitely  *****