Pick of the day

Sandwiched between Radio 4's coverage of the most depressing Budget ever (from 12pm) and some miserabilist raking over the ashes on Money Box Live (3pm), comes lightish relief in the shape of the Afternoon Play, Alan Plater's The Gallery (2.15pm, Radio 4). On the eve of an art-gallery opening on Tyneside, everything is going horribly wrong: the security system is on the blink; the centrepiece artwork, Ashes to Ashes, has been vaccuumed up by a cleaner; and there's a local journalist on the prowl. It's fertile ground for Plater's social commentary and snappy one-liners ("I thought canapés were there to keep the rain off"), as the employees of the gallery, on the site of a former shipyard, compare their lives with those of their ancestors who worked in the same building.

There's another uplifting experience on Radio 3 (7pm), with the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain in concert at Leeds town hall, playing a programme of music inspired by dance including works by Ades, Rachmaninov, Benjamin and Ravel.