You can’t beat a radio programme about a legendary chinook helicopter. Not all chinook’s, a specific one - Bravo November. The jargon, the bravery, the incident, the relationships makes for great, dramatic documentary, but it was the sound that really made me love this programme; the bleeps, the sirens, the engines. Even the chinook’s nickname - wokka - is a great sound. You couldn’t do this with any other medium. MP3 here.
Steve recently posted an episode of the Reunion. It’s a great show and the most recent episode, which reunites the creators of Withnail and I (surely one of the best British films of all time), is possibly the best yet. [MP3]
Sue MacGregor introduces and interviews Richard E Grant (Withnail), Paul McGann (Marwood), Ralph Brown (Danny) and Bruce Robinson (the writer & director) as well as an interview with Richard Griffiths (Monty).
At the end of the Seventies John Cooper Clarke lived in a little house opposite the front gates of my Secondary school in not-very-glamorous-but-not- very-gritty-either Stevenage, which is a new town at the wrong end of Hertfordshire. His presence there (I didn’t imagine it did I? Is there any evidence that he did live there?) was so unlikely and such a mad, peacock-haired challenge to the dreary suburban surroundings that boys I knew used to gather outside his house and throw chip papers and coke cans at him when he came out.
He passed by, implacable and apparently unmoved. Later he’d show up as support at practically every gig I ever attended. In fact I seem to remember thinking he must be resident at The Hammersmith Palais (or was it The Lyceum?). So here’s a lovely half hour about the man from the other reason I cut my hair weird and bought an Oxfam overcoat: Paul Morley (MP3).
Here’s the programme’s web page and here’s its press release, which has some more information.
This is brilliant radio; media paying attention to the stuff of everyday life, specifically holes in the road. Taxi drivers complaining, road menders explaining. Lovely. MP3 here.
On the face of it the brief is deeply boring: “This lecture is part of the BBC’s programme of consultation with the creative industries, which forms part of the BBC’s response to the Ofcom review of public service broadcasting.” But Stephen Fry, of course, makes it interesting, funny and thoughtful. It only seems to have been broadcast on BBC Parliament, don’t know why. There’s even a transcript. It’s right up our street of course, a neat summary of the history of the Beeb, an admonition that anything that’s streamed online will be recorded and redistributed (See!) and a splendid argument for and about the future of the BBC. If Fry cannot be persuaded to become PM or Mayor of London he should at least be made Director General. MP3 here.
Thoroughly entertaining memoir of the events of May ‘68 in Paris, London, New York and San Francisco. From David Zane Mairowitz, who was both there and can recall enough of it to vividly conjure it up for us. Some fabulous archive footage, some hilariously frank, half-remembered incidents.
(Bonus points for starting with the beautiful, sparkling tones of ‘Dark Star’, double-bonus for some interstellar Syd-era Pink Floyd in the middle, and triple-bonus points for a raucous splash of Albert Ayler at the end.)
Here’s a excellent programme from RTE’s Documentary on One strand that’s got the strange history of British colonial rule written right through it. Savour this profoundly odd fact: a longish stretch of one of Ireland’s best fishing rivers belongs to… The 12th Duke of Devonshire. The fascinating thing is that the colonial history—700 years of slavery and all that—doesn’t even come up. Nor does the messy disentanglement of the two states that followed independence.
I think there’s something about modern Irish self-confidence and the instinctive resistance to what the Australians call ‘the cultural cringe’ that prevents contributors to the programme from even mentioning the ugly history that enabled a British aristocrat to acquire and retain huge swathes of Irish land. Can you build a modern, post-colonial state while deliberately forgetting the circumstances that produced it? Looks like it. MP3.
Read about the programme here. There’s a substantial archive of previous Documentary on One shows here and there’s a podcast too.
4 Stands Up is an occasional standup comedy show on Radio 4. This week, Michael McIntyre (with the really interesting voice) introduces Josie Long, Colin and Fergus and Ed Byrne. [MP3]
If you’re reading this and you happen to work at the BBC, you might be interested to know that either the listen again page or the programmes page for this show seems to be confused. This episode was broadcast last night (6th May) and stars Josie Long, Colin and Fergus and Ed Byrne, which I think makes it episode 4, yet seems to be linked from the page for episode 3 (despite it not being the one with Shappi Khorsandi, Wil Hodgson and Rhod Gilbert). Of course, Programmes is a beta (and it’s great, and getting better) so all is forgiven. Thanks.
Rather enjoyable, this late-night audio dérive across Hong Kong. Reminds me a little of the collaboration between Jeff Noon and David Toop a while back, in its combination of found sounds and narrative, yet also includes oblique fragments of interview. So it hovers somewhere between a documentary and an impressionistic collage. Also, apparently part of some wider narrative piece, involving videos to be remixed. Intriguing.
A blog of Radio 4. Not about Radio 4 but of it. We point to the bits we like, the bits you might have missed, the bits that someone might have sneakily recorded. Other speech radio from around the world will no doubt find its way here too.
Of course, one day this might turn into something else, maybe a new way of curating speech radio, or maybe it won’t.
Your hosts on this not very wild ride are Steve Bowbrick, Russell Davies, Dan Hill, Bobbie Johnson and Roo Reynolds. Drop us a line with your thoughts, unless you wish to complain about continuity announcers and their accents.
Things tagged with 'speechification'
