Rewind radio: Richard Bacon; Don't Start; Lord Gnome Aged 49 and Three Quarters; PM; Woman's Hour – review

Richard Bacon's interview with Alan Partridge emphasised the 5 Live presenter's Partridge-isms, while Robert Peston sounded unusually human on PM

Frank Skinner, whose new series, Don't Start, is 'a lesson in relationship ping-pong'. Photograph: Richard Saker for the Observer

Richard Bacon (5Live) | iPlayer

Don't Start (R4) | iPlayer

Lord Gnome Aged 49 and Three Quarters (R4) | iPlayer

PM (R4) | iPlayer

Woman's Hour (R4) | iPlayer

How strange it was listening to Richard Bacon interviewing Alan Partridge on Wednesday. I like Richard, but surely he's the closest thing to Partridge that 5 Live has? "Do you understand the format of a rhetorical question?" he asked Alan at one point, very Partridge-ly. Anyway, Alan revealed many things, including how he likes to relax (driving, listening to the "Very Very Best of Tears for Fears") and how he hates political correctness. "You can't even say boo to a goose," he pointed out. "You can't even say goose, you have to say… feathered dog." It was funny, of course.

Also funny, though in a too-close-for-comfort way, was Don't Start, a new 15-minute comi-tragi-drama series written by Frank Skinner. It's just a couple arguing. Well, not arguing, exactly, more squabbling and point-scoring. Last week's contretemps was triggered by Neil (Skinner) receiving a text that made him chuckle. The resulting shape-shifting, all-encompassing bickerthon between him and Kim (Katherine Parkinson) made me squirm and, eventually, laugh, simply through cumulative effect: all that petty triumphalism, the bashing to and fro of grievances large and tiny. It was a lesson in relationship ping-pong.

Lord Gnome Aged 49 and Three Quarters didn't make me laugh, though its subject, Private Eye, has on many occasions. This was a workmanlike documentary on the 50-year-old satirical publication, still laid out by hand as it's quicker to "rip out half the paper and start again". Which happens a lot: we heard the staff rejigging an entire issue in a few hours after the Murdochs' and Rebekah Brooks's parliamentary grilling over Hackgate. The Eye's front cover was the three of them with "Gotcha!" as the headline. The issue sold 253,000 copies: 47,000 more than usual, but any magazine that sells 206,000 every fortnight these days is a force to be reckoned with. But I did think that the presenter might have tried a follow-up question when he asked Ian Hislop whether he thought that Private Eye could be sexist (it can). "No, I don't think so" isn't good enough. Private Eye reporters would have gone in harder.

With the Tories and the Cat Flap™ and the recession all over the news, it was good to hear PM letting Robert Peston show a different side to his strangely mannered self. He gave a good account of why Bert Jansch, who died on Wednesday, was an important guitarist, and managed to make himself sound human. Which is hard when your natural radio voice is wrongly programmed humanoid, who keeps… pausing… andthenspeakingreallyquickly, as Peston often does. Interesting to hear, also, that he used to go and see bands such as Culture.

And finally, a short appeal. Could whoever programmes Woman's Hour have a rethink, please? It's becoming unlistenable. An interview with duller-than-the-average-actress Kirsten Dunst? A puff piece for the BBC's Mixed Britannia season? Cook the perfect choux pastry? And the drama… Argh! It's all too polite and too old-fashioned. Not every woman at home these days is a housewife. Jenni Murray and Jane Garvey are excellent journalists, but the subjects just aren't meaningful to many. The discussion of whether the Tories had lost their appeal to women (on Wednesday) was a classic example: informed guests, topical subject, but the resulting discussion was boring.

Woman's Hour does far better when it gets a subject and goes in deeper, as it did when it explored the idea of women being childless by choice. It needs more depth, stronger journalism and – please – some humour. Perhaps the producers should start listening to PM.

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