Speechification

I’m a little late with this, but things pertaining to Sir Arthur C. Clarke tend to have a timeless quality. Just after his recent death, ABC Radio National’s Late Night Live show re-broadcast an interview with Clarke from 2001. It’s a gentle listen, as host Philip Adams carefully and respectfully coaxes memories out of Clarke - on such matters as working with Stanley Kubrick, science and religion, marriage, writing, pondering death and satellites, and so on. We also discover that 2001 is one of the Pope’s favourite movies. All of this quietly and humbly revealed in Clarke’s warm Somerset burr, still detectable over a crackly line from Sri Lanka to Sydney.

Late Night Live: Arthur C. Clarke [mp3]

Next in this sequence of great factual programmes is the second half-hour from Hugh Levinson’s really interesting and surprising two-parter about science in Africa. Not, as I might have expected, a hopeless story: in fact quite the reverse (MP3).

Geoff Emerick and James Lock are two pioneering sound engineers who helped shape the sound of the last 40 years: Emerick as the teenage tech behind the experimental sound of the Beatles and former Decca guru Lock as the classical mastermind behind recordings like Pavarotti’s Otello.

In The Sound Makers (here’s the homepage and MP3) Paul Gambaccini - who’s going through something of a purple patch on Radio 4 at the moment - guides them along as they dole out reminiscences of working on some of the most legendary recordings of our lifetimes… including Emerick’s tale of how he got “a letter from the management” about his microphone positioning during the recording of Revolver.

Half an hour didn’t feel like quite enough - sound geeks will probably be itching for more by the end, as the discussion broadens out - but it’s intriguing listening that had me reaching for my record collection.

This is just proper, informative radio. Nothing flashy. No comedians. Just the complicated science and engineering of a nuclear reactor being decommissioned; being explained well. Both episodes are still up on the Radio 4 site but aren’t listed on Listen Again, which is odd given how topical this stuff is. The first episode is here, the second is here.