Having been sidelined by a particularly virulent bug (imagine a percussion section playing fortissimo on your insides...) I've had rather longer than anticipated to consider my thoughts on this concert performance of Hans Werner Henze's Phaedra.

One of my best DVD buys in recent years was Henze's glorious L'Upupa und der Triumph der Sohnesliebe  - I must have listened to it at least a dozen times already and still find so much to discover and enjoy.  So when I heard that his latest operatic work Phaedra was to receive its UK premiere this weekend at the Barbican, I knew I had to be there.

Phaedra occupies a different sound world to L'Upupa by using a smaller orchestra of 23 players - 14 woodwind and brass alongside a harp, celesta, piano, array of percussion and just 4 strings, brilliantly performed here by the virtuosic instrumentalists of Frankfurt's Ensemble Modern under the expert direction of conductor Michael Boder.  With this combination Henze creates a vivid range of orchestral colour, every bar of music seemed distilled down to the bare essentials, much more so than in the frequently lush, exotic sound-world of L'Upupa.

Phaedra doesn't possess a pretty plot.  Instead it offers betrayal, rape, incest, murder, suicide, seduction, mutilation and much more.  This isn't the journey to enlightenment that we travelled on in L'Upupa, rather an emotion and event driven drama played out by the four main protagonists:  Phaedra (Maria Riccarda Westerling, mezzo), Hippolytus ( John Mark Ainsley, tenor), Aphrodite ( Marlis Petersen, soprano), Artemis (Axel Koehler, counter-tenor) as well as the smaller but key role of the Minotaur (sung by Lauri Vasar, baritone).  

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We've a long interview with Martin Amis coming up in Night Waves next Thursday - the occasion of course is his new novel which is already stirring up debate and I'm looking forward to hearing his conversation with Philip Dodd.

But it was something Martin Amis wrote some time ago that came to my mind earlier this week. It's a short story, and I've not read it for a while, but I remember it inverts to wonderful comic effect the worlds of Hollywood and poetry publishing - so that screenplay writers submit their work to little magazines and poets are flown to Los Angeles first class. It struck me that Amis might have chosen radio feature-makers instead of poets for this absurd reversal of fortunes when on Tuesday night I was listening to independent radio producer Alan Hall introduce the first event from a new organisation - In The Dark.

He described radio documentary makers as occupying a territory between journalism and art. For those of us that love the crafted radio feature, that's often its great strength but lack of easy categorisation may also contribute to its relatively low profile against other cultural forms plus of course the nature of the medium. In the Dark aims to challenge this and is devoted to celebrating and enriching the culture of radio documentary and claiming a place for it alongside film and TV, photography, journalism and the arts.

It was formed last year by a documentary filmmaker turned radio enthusiast, Nina Garthwaite, who plans a series of public listening events aimed at creating a community of discussion and criticism around radio feature-making. Tuesday's event also marked the beginning of a partnership with the London International Documentary Festival which has inspired her. It was a hugely enjoyable and thought-provoking night packed with radio professionals and listeners from this country and abroad. I was rather relieved it wasn't held completely in the dark but the lights were certainly dimmed low as we sat back to listen whilst looking, someone said afterwards, as if we were all gazing up at an invisible screen watching the programmes in our heads.

Though the main event was 'Mighty Mac' a prize-winning documentary from Ireland's RTE, the evening began with a couple of shorter extracts from seminal programmes including, to launch it all, an extract from Monument - 'The Twist' composed by Ian Gardiner and produced by Alan Hall in 1993. This programme launched Radio 3's Between the Ears series and went on to win a Prix Italia. I admit to having felt rather proud in this international company that Radio 3's longstanding support for adventurous radio features was being acknowledged in this way.

This coming Saturday the latest Between the Ears takes as its theme a moment in Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard once described as the most significant sound effect in world drama. Within the programme the theatre director Tom Morris talks about the incredible power of sound in theatre claiming 'the ear is often a freer gateway to the imagination than the eye.' It's a sentiment that would have gone down well at In The Dark.

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For some reason I always wake up very, very early: between half past four and five o'clock in the morning. I put this down to the fact that for years a milkman (who also conducted one of the local Male Voice Choirs) came down our street at that time and his rattling and clinking woke me up. Colin Leech has been retired for a long time, but I guess there must be some kind of fossilised aural memory there that clangs my eyes open.

I can't get up at that time so I listen to my radio on my headphones, catching something lovely on Through the Night and then getting the news on Five Live. Then, on a Wednesday, a normal Verb recording day, I get up about half-past five, do some geriatric exercises, eat some Fruit and Fibre* and make sure I've got all the books I need for the show. I make my way to Doncaster to catch the 07.30 train to London. It's first stop King's Cross and, amazingly, we get there at 09.07; I like to sit in the little vestibule between the carriages: it's like having my own little room, with a bench and toilet. Every now and then the guard will tell me there are seats available but I like my vestibule. It gives me time to think Verby thoughts. People sometimes say 'Do you have to stay over in London?' and they're amazed when I tell them that the last train home is the 23.30 so there's hardly ever any need for a hotel bed. 

At King's Cross I scuttle down to the tube and go to Great Portland Street station. At Great Portland Street I buy a banana, and then I start to eat it in the lift at Broadcasting House. I stroll into the seventh floor, get the kettle on, and my producer Laura Thomas and I go through the script and think of some questions. Then, at 13.00 it's into the studio and the recording can begin! I'm a creature of habit...
 

This week will be different, though; the day will have a different rhythm because The Verb is live from the lovely Radio Theatre at Broadcasting House. We do a Live Edition every six weeks or so and, although the day still begins at the crack of dawn, I don't have to go down to London until later on; I find I'm like a man waiting to start an afternoon shift, pacing the house until it's time to leave. It will feel odd not going to London on a Wednesday; this Wednesday I'm visiting a junior school in Accrington with my cartoonist pal Tony Husband, making poems and cartoons. I'll sneak a banana in somewhere!

The day of a live show builds towards the event; we go through the script, we check out the Radio Theatre, we welcome the guests and get them soundchecked, I watch the audience coming in and try to welcome them all personally, I go on stage and do a warmup, I get my headphones on and then suddenly it's 21.15 and the show is on the air...

And I'll be waking up in the morning at half-past four, in time for a little slice of Through the Night and dollop of news...

*Other breakfast cereals are available ... [Ed.]

• Ian's live edition of The Verb is on Friday 29 January at 9.15pm on BBC Radio 3. For programme details, follow this link.
• Free tickets are available - for details, follow this link.
  

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