While Stephen Fry was being fawned over on BBC2 in Fry At 50, he was simultaneously (such are his magical powers) on Radio 4, taking part in the network's 40th anniversary celebrations by fronting Radio 4: This Is Your Life, with Matt Lucas embodying the network as an out-of-touch but louche old fart. He probably lost the core audience in the first five minutes with an entirely gratuitous f-word, but after that it settled down to a stream of cosy in-jokes for Radio 4 aficionados, some quite funny, others utterly lame. The programme that preceded it - a big round table affair - was more satisfactory. I'm sure most bloggers would agree that Radio 4 is worth celebrating once in a while, and well worth preserving as a truly unique national institution, one that can be seriously annoying but which we certainly wouldn't wish to be without.
Oddly, there was yet another anniversary celebration last night - of the 25th birthday of Channel 4 on More4 (Dame Liz Forgan, fresh from Radio 4, was in this as well - though not, by some oversight, Fry). This programme was deeply depressing - a succession of smug (and spectacularly ugly) kidults congratulating themselves on all the 'transgressive' and 'subversive' things they'd done. It was like watching a stop-motion compendium of all that has gone wrong with this country (and TV) in the past 25 years. Looking back over the 40-year history of Radio 4, by contrast, brought no such sense of loss, decay and witless self-destruction. Channel 4 has never grown up. Radio 4 was always grown up.
Monday, October 01, 2007
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
Radio 4 is the closest anyone has got to broadcasting perfection. It is just a shame they don't do (a lot) more music.
ReplyDeleteMind you, The Archers! What's all that about then? (it couldn't have been this that caused the F-word because you explained it was ''entirely gratuitous'')
The Archers is a much misunderstood documentary. I've never quite got over the disappointment of discovering (at a very early age, I hasten to add) that it wasn't about those fine fellows with the longbows who did for the Froggies at Agincourt and elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteR$ would be a good deal closer to perfection without You and Yours and Woman's Hour
ReplyDeleteThe best thing about Radio 4 is TMS on longwave – somehow it's not the same on digital. No interruptions at key moments from the Shipping Forecast.
ReplyDeleteAn interesting thing about The Archers (and other radio dramas) is how you 'visualise' the action. Apparently some listeners can 'see' every detail in glorious technicolour, down to the half-empty cornflakes boxes in the kitchen, whereas for others (like me) it all happens in a sort of shadowy not-quite real nether-world (perhaps a Platonic form-world).
Yeah, I noticed they shoe-horned in the script about bluetongue - i imagined it came written on a post-it note. I catch it now and again and always wonder WTF is this?
ReplyDeleteAre you implying your personal choice would be closest to broadcasting perfection, Bryan?! You're in the wrong game then.
Yeah, Radio 4 is good. But don't you think Humphries, Montague and Naughtie are a bit pompous and up themselves? Fi Glover grates too. In fact, a developing theme today is that the media is very much up itself. Perhaps it's one of the reasons why we're turning off and tuning into our ipods and youtube. As for the Archers, don't get me started. My wife's a devotee but every time I hear that tune I bolt for the door. Honestly.
ReplyDeleteYeah, you can really visualise them coconut halves clopping together and the gravel sliding along the baking tray! I can't get too much of it myself...
ReplyDeleteYes, spongebob. It's my turn not to get and I don't get Humphrys the interviewer. He all too often gets into a personal rant which wastes time and doesn't get the answers we want to hear. Eddie Mair is the king of interviewers, imo. He picks his mark like a canny heron compared to Humphrys tasmanian devil.
ReplyDeleteLike Andrew Marr the whole gang are spread too thin for their modicum of talent.
ReplyDeleteAnother of the mysterious irritations of Radio 4 - Libby Purves's The Learning Curve. What on earth is that doing on national network radio? It should be on some niche channel for teachers. And it's on twice a week...
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