Radio review: Stephen Fry on the Phone

The changes to Radio 4's schedules are still bedding in and it does feel a bit lumpy at lunchtime to have two 15-minute programmes following the extended World at One. But when one of the short programmes preceding the repeat of The Archers is as good as Stephen Fry on the Phone , you quickly adjust. This history of the mobile phone is intriguing, funny and well told by Fry (pictured), a famously early adopter of new technology. Yesterday's opening programme was about the huge technical challenges in setting up a mobile network. In the 60s, we heard, the few mobile phones that existed contained a crystal in an oven for each channel they accessed. A full mobile system would involve hundreds of channels. As one engineer put it: "Are you going to have a tractor trailer trailing the user with all these ovens and crystals in it?" The programme was full of it'll-never-catch-on warnings, surprises (a key pioneer chuckled as he admitted to Fry that he only got a mobile phone himself three years ago), and stubborn resistance to opening up the radio spectrum for mere phone calls. The engineers, frustrated by lack of progress, kept a sign in German above their desks. It read, Fry translated, "All art or planning is in vain when an angel relieves herself on your flintlock." Elisabeth Mahoney