Radio review: Like An Angel Passing Through My Room

The Afternoon Play – Like An Angel Passing Through My Room (Radio 4) – was as intense as it was surprising. Christopher Green's account of fandom – in his case, for Anni-Frid Lyngstad, better known as Frida from Abba – meandered through autobiographical musing about his long-held fondness for sad songs. Since childhood, he recalled, he has used these to make himself feel "warm and cosy and just a little bit unhappy". The writing was sharp and vivid from the start, funny and knowing about himself and also about the perils of making drama from such a personal story. The humour worked as a buffer against self-indulgence, as did some postmodern bits of Green talking to actors playing him and Frida in scenes he had written. So far, as expected. But this soon took an unexpected turn, with the focus shifting from Green meeting Frida (she did appear as herself, chatting to Green) to a story about moving on after loss. We heard Frida talking about the death of her husband. The story was also Green's progress in understanding himself. He no longer plays those gloomy songs, but keeps them on a shelf, he explained, at the end of a memoir that was strikingly life-affirming for all the sad strands it contained.