Speechification

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation still aren’t scraping the bottom of the Barrell, though my puns now are. Here’s another set of documentary features from producer Tony Barrell, who’s moving on from Auntie (yes the ABC is also known as Auntie.) Three shorter programmes, again showing what a master of the form he is. Nothing as darkly compelling as ‘Tokyo’s Burning’ here, but the first, ‘Ambiguity Okinawa’, also explores Japanese culture to great effect. The kind of programme that makes you want to read books about the place, then visit, eat the food, talk to local taxi drivers, and listen to the music. Actually, the music I’ve been a fan of for a few years, and this piece uses it wonderfully.

The other features are ‘The Valentich Mystery’, on the fall-out from a notorious disappearance over the Bass Strait in 1978, and ‘That was Then and So is This’, a light-hearted piece broadcast in 1999, on the media’s obsession with the year 2000. Remember that?

Radio Eye: Ambiguity Okinawa, The Valentich Mystery and That was Then and So is This [mp3]

This entry was posted by by dan on Monday, August 18th, 2008 at 12:35 pm . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.