Catherine Tate to star in Radio 4 drama

Play of Hollywood rivalry to feature Catherine Tate as Bette Davis alongside Tracy-Ann Oberman as Joan Crawford.

Tracy-Ann Oberman plays Dame Shirley Porter with style in Gregory Evans's bold drama of power, personality, ambition, delusion and downfall. Dame Shirley ran Westminster City Council in the Thatcher years and, she hoped, in similar resolute style. But Dame Shirley, in this account, lacks the brain to count the consequences of her actions which is why, after selling off graveyards and council flats, she's astonished to be beaten at the polls and doesn't foresee how an assiduous local government employee could dig up enough evidence to make her flee the country.

Big Train seems to be achieving belated cult status. There are several reasons for the delayed reaction, perhaps most notably the cast's subsequent successes: in the second series from 2002, which is showing this weekend, Shaun of the Dead star Simon Pegg and Green Wing's Mark Heap are joined by a pre-fame Catherine Tate and a pre-EastEnders Tracy-Ann Oberman. But it is the off-the-wall humour of the writers, Graham Linehan and Arthur Matthews, the creators of Father Ted, that really makes this one comedy repeat worth devoting a significant part of your weekend to.