"Was he putting me on, was he joking?" In Radio 4's The Lost Tapes Of Orson Welles, director Henry Jaglom offered up highlights from his private archive of recordings, made during a series of lunches he and Welles had in LA's Ma Maison restaurant between 1983 and 1985.
Unlike so many celebrity interviews we get to hear today, these scratchy tapes are unfiltered by the pressures of public performance – neither party thought they'd be broadcast. Welles is still the great raconteur – but he's also bitter, holding grudges against Hollywood and old colleagues; a wind-up merchant whose spur-of-the-moment rants (Irish-Americans: "They've become a new and terrible race") are met with genuine amazement from the patient Jaglom ("I can't believe you said that Orson!"). They also reveal someone who was lonely, the "shy and thin-skinned man underneath the bravado" – with Jaglom also witness to flashes of laughter, pleasure and the great ambition and drive that had made Welles such an original. In the second part, airing on Boxing Day next week, we're promised more of Orson's thoughts on work, competition and acting (his "only real disappointment"), as well as a story about how he used to get in trouble for keeping President Roosevelt up too late in the White House. Sounds like the ideal festive guest.
They're often the kind of jokes that would make a Christmas cracker blush, but if you're in the right mood, it's hard not to find groans transformed into belly laughs by the relentless wordplay in I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue. Tim Brooke-Taylor's contribution to this week's new dictionary definitions round helped wrap up the end of the 60th series (60th!) with a typically silly riff.
"Adamant: the very first male ant. Buoyant: Adam Ant's son. Descant: an ant with an office job. Distant: an ant who's been slagged off. Equidistant: an ant who's been slagged off by a horse. Hydrant: an ant with three heads. Mutant: an ant who's lost his voice. Tyrant: an ant who works for Kwik-fit. Incessant: an ant who's sleeping with his sister."
• This article was amended on 20 December 2013. The earlier version misnamed Henry Jaglom as Henry Darger, and misnamed Radio 4's comedy panel game as I'm Sorry I Haven't Got A Clue.
