'The Meaning of Life According to AJ Ayer', Radio 4

Par for the course for British intellectuals, AJ Ayer was Swiss-Jewish-Dutch (his mother was a Citroen). The man who brought philosophy to the popular media, from radio's The Brains Trust to chats with David Frost, was also at ease with women (three spouses in four marriages), enjoyed partying and sport and had a stand-off with Mike Tyson. The Meaning of Life According to AJ Ayer (Radio 4, Saturday 8pm) makes one eager for the movie, preferably with Benedict Cumberbatch.

Ayer's youthful succes de scandale, Language, Truth and Logic, written in his twenties, caught on years later. Philosophers followed his demolition of Oxford linguistics. Non-philosophers followed his passion for Tottenham Hotspur. Gossips followed his life with the glitterati, affairs and rumoured illegitimate children. Yet his (twice-married) wife, the journalist Dee Wells, says he was "never truly disloyal or unkind". His stepson Dominic Lawson recalls Ayer's marriage to Vanessa Lawson as "rather sweet". Insecurity rather than selfishness explained his apparent impatience with the bereaved Nigella after her mother's early death: "Everybody loses their parents. I've lost my wife."

It's amazing that the insecurity never surfaced more aggressively. At Eton, Ayer attracted attention from a brutal housemaster who hated foreignness and cleverness. Despite his refusal to acknowledge anything resembling a god, one suspects the image of a bullying housemaster dogged him, as when he shook his fist to the sky shouting "If you do exist, you've got a bloody lot to answer for."

This programme, presented by friend and pupil AC Grayling, is informative and entertaining. Ayer placed himself in "the very first rank of the second-rate"; was there something aspiringly English in his ostentatious middlebrow tastes (Kojak, Busby Berkeley)? Perhaps it was protective camouflage. He admitted to a nightmare: knighted and feted by the establishment, he expected to be tapped on the shoulder and asked "What are you doing here, you dirty little Jew?" There were depths to the chat show guest yet to be explored.

Photograph: John Hedgecoe/Topfoto

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