The Week in Radio

WHEN A young tutor fancies his pupil, and she him, and there's no one else around, then they can sometimes end up in compromising positions. Especially if he's been given the additional task of administering "discipline" as and when required. Such was the pleasurable existence of Abelard and Heloise until her uncle caught them at it. And 12th-century France being what it was, they paid dearly for their sins.

She ended up in a nunnery, he was castrated, and they spent the rest of their years apologising to each other by letter. Abelard and Heloise (Radio 4, Wednesday) portrayed the doomed lovers in later years, separated by monastic walls and competing to save their souls with confessions. Anton Lesser had the perfect voice for Abelard: the tremulous whining of someone who'd been forcibly prevented from committing further sins, but who suspected he may be sent to Hell all the same. Meanwhile, Lynsey Baxter was suitably contrite as Heloise, wailing desperately that she was "the wretchedest woman in Christendom". Yes, well if the two of them had had a little more self-control they wouldn't have got into trouble in the first place.

Keeping men and women separate was just one of the functions of workhouses in 19th-century Britain. When Honor Dickerson was caught throwing bread to her husband over the wall that divided them, she was sentenced to six hours in a punishment cell. Life in the Workhouse (Radio 4, Monday) told this and other stories of social deprivation, sometimes from the mouths of people who'd actually been born there. One old girl had done 41 years in the laundry, resulting in severe arthritis, but none the less sounded alarmingly jolly: "All the others have died, poor things," she said. "Ooh, we had some fun." Another voice came from the side of authority. An elderly matron remembered going round the dormitories issuing a sweet here and a bun there. "We must have been very unpopular," she acknowledged. Not as unpopular as the unmarried mother of two who was determined to live in the married quarters. For some reason the married women didn't want her among them, but she won the day by wedding a one-legged man. After that, they had no choice but to accept her. The one-legged man, however, lived somewhere else.

The Marquis of Worcester, the Duke of Argyll, the Earl of Craven and the Lord Palmerston may sound like a list of pubs, but they were actually the customers of Harriette Wilson (1786-1855). The greatest of all London courtesans once said "no" to the Prince of Wales, but most of the time she said "yes". Her career was recounted in The True Memoirs of Harriette Wilson (Radio 4, Monday). Played maturely by Julia St John, Miss Wilson confessed that the depravity of her heart was the main driving force behind her exertions. At one point it sounded as if penetrative sex was being had on the wireless, but it can't have been because it was only 10 to three in the afternoon. When she lost her looks, Harriette Wilson was induced to tell all to a drooling public, and her famous clients were invited to be left out of her memoirs, for a suitable fee.

"Publish and be damned!" replied the Duke of Wellington. She did, and most probably was.