CAN you spot the inconsistency? “Though Eleanor of Aquitaine lived 900 years ago, she is a very modern woman. At 16, she inherits the richest province in France . . .” Quite apart from the present historic, which promises that Eleanor Rising (Radio 4, Sunday) is going to be one of those modishly contemporary accounts, there is the small problem that inheriting Aquitaine is not something with which the average teenage girl has to contend.

We have reached the third series in Shaun McKenna’s drama. Eleanor — queen, diplomat, and artistic patron — attracts the kind of cultural translation that one associates with Disney’s recent features: a character formed by an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion committee rather than a historian.

Here, Eleanor is “Ellie”, and speaks in a Yorkshire accent. She speaks some Arabic, and harbours some sympathy for the Crusader foe. She is surrounded by useless men, but generally manages to outwit them. And, on the evidence of Sunday’s episode, religion is significant only in its political manifestation.

None of this need matter. But the central crime here is that, in making “Ellie” a modern woman, the production team have created a merely ordinary and rather tedious narrative, peopled by Raymonds and Ralphs, and containing lines so banal that a scriptwriter on Neighbours might think twice about them. “If I want my husband to do something, I make him think it’s his idea,” confides “Petra” (aka Petronilla of Aquitaine, Queen Consort of France).

There is a place for the commonplace; and, in Richard Herring’s comedy Relativity (Radio 4, Friday), the tension between the ordinary and the tragic is movingly poised. I have come late to this show, which is now in its fourth season; and by now the writers clearly feel that they have earned the right to explore more darkly humorous areas — in particular, the “Big C”.

Herring himself suffered from testicular cancer, and the banter that he writes into the show beautifully mimics the insecure humour of those confronting real-life crises. As listeners, we share the same squeamishness as the characters about what jokes are appropriate — which is not to say that this is a wholly uncomfortable experience. Last week’s episode concluded with a touching scene between Herrick and his father, and contained surely the best testicular-cancer euphemism yet contrived: “unexpected item in the bagging area”.

Even by the high standards normally achieved by Words and Music (Radio 3, Sunday), last week’s was outstanding: an aural collage on the theme of Northumbria, featuring all sorts of exotic and eccentric items. I won’t be rushing out to buy the disc of Marcello Psalms as reconceived by Charles Avison, but was very happy to be introduced to them. I have, however, already returned to The Poems of Basil Bunting to re-read Briggflats, with the trilling Rs of the poet’s rendition ringing in my ears.