Michael Pearce, a reclusive and barely functional novelist, is on a train one day when he tries to chat up a woman who is reading one of his books. She makes an indecent proposal, but not the kind he was hoping for. Alice works for a vanity publishing company, and she has a commission for him. There's an awful lot of money on offer from a batty old woman who wants her powerful and corrupt family exposed.

Michael isn't interested - he's already working on a "passionate, sexy" novel. But he soon finds that he can't do passionate or sexy, in real life or on the page. He takes the job ...

What a Carve Up! (11pm, Radio 4) is an eight-part dramatisation of Jonathan Coe's satirical portrait of 80s Britain. The adaptation's by David Nobbs, and stars Robert Bathurst, Fiona Allen, Charlie Higson, Alan Davies, Geraldine McNulty, Geoffrey Palmer and Arthur Smith. With names like that, it can't go wrong.

- 8:33 am