This week’s best radio: the woman who ran away to Mexico

The remarkable life of the artist Leonora Carrington is the subject of Radio 4’s book of the week. Plus: the faces of the Sgt Pepper artwork discuss the album

The Surreal Life of Leonora Carrington (Weekdays, 9.45am, Radio 4) is Joanna Moorhead’s account of her father’s cousin, who ran away from a conventional upper-class life in Britain to hang out with artists in Paris in the 30s. She ended up – after adventures and misadventures – in Mexico, where she became something of a national treasure and one of the country’s most prominent artists. Moorhead, who had grown up simply knowing that there was one member of the family who was something of a black sheep, only linked up with Leonora in the last few years of her life, but it was in time to get her story and learn some valuable lessons.

The Stars Of Sgt Pepper (3 June, 9am, Radio 4 Extra) is a good way of filling 13 hours of speech radio. Samira Ahmed presents a mix of dramas, documentaries and comedies featuring some of the famous faces on Peter Blake and Jann Haworth’s montage, which must be the best-known example of pop art in the world. Thus you get Diana Dors on Desert Island Discs, Alan Bennett reading Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Benny Green’s look at Max Miller, Dylan Thomas reading his poetry and even John Sessions and Robbie Coltrane playing Laurel and Hardy.