Speechification

An unusual pleasure: curating a curator. And not just any curator. Here's a programme by Sara Paul - a student piece she made while at The Salt Institute for Documentary Studies in Maine (which sounds like a fantastically cool place). And the curator is Ronan Kelly, producer of the marvellous Flux and Curious Ear on RTE Radio 1.

And he picked this because he was reminded of it by an Irish news story back in July, which is the kind of semi-random motivation that just wouldn't work on the BBC (but ought to!). Ronan also brought to my attention the excellent Saltcast podcast - which packages work by Salt students. And his own RTE podcast is one of my favourites (now rolled up with the Doc on One podcast). MP3 (8:21).

Picture, Blackfoot Diner, by Mark Heard. Used under licence.

The Curious Ear is Ronan Kelly's feature strand for RTE Radio 1 in Ireland. Kelly wins awards all over the place for this stuff. It's always playful, often very moving (maybe sometimes a bit too arch). This one's lovely. It's about the people you'll find under the stands at Dublin's legendary GAA venue Croke Park while there's a game on (some of them praying).

The Curious Ear goes out in the Doc on 1 slot on RTE Radio 1 and there's an excellent podcast. Here's the programme's web page and the MP3.

Over at RTE Ronan Kelly has got a bit of an NPR thing going on. He's making documentaries that have that disarming, dreamy feel that I expect from the best output of American public radio stations like Chicago Public Radio and WNYC. Here's a really excellent show that went out around Paddy's Day in March about being Irish. Not being Irish in the hard-hitting sociological-analytical kind of way but being Irish in the allusive, poetic kind of way. This is open-ended, discursive radio that rarely arrives at a conclusion. Stories don't resolve neatly, segments are loosely-linked, themes approximate.

Some people really don't like this. They find it lazy and purposeless and want something tougher and better organised. Sometimes I agree but that's mostly because it's such a difficult technique to get right. It would be very easy to make something slack and undemanding from this material. I'd like to hear more like it in Britain, though. I'd like to hear what would happen if some of Britain's factual radio talent was let off the hook a bit and allowed to play. With the occasional exception on Radio 3, though, the BBC's really too uptight to create such loosely-structured radio here. I think Feedback would be swamped if Mark Damazer routinely ran shows like Kelly's (or like This American Life or Radio Lab, for that matter). Pity.

Anyway, this show is full of good stories. In one segment some really good material comes from the simple device of phoning people up who happen to be called 'Patrick Day'. A treat (MP3).

The Irish State broadcaster's equivalent to Radio 4 (which, confusingly, is called Radio 1) has a show called The Curious Ear. Ronan Kelly records people and events with the kind of wry, slightly sideways attitude you normally get from features on NPR (like the Lost and Found Sounds shows from last week). You don't get this kind of stuff on Radio 4. It's too gentle, a bit purposeless. I think people would complain. Anyway, this one's about the World Draughts Championships which took place in Buncrana, Co. Donegal in October. Lovely (MP3, podcast and here's a page showing all the RTE factual podcasts. Lots of good stuff here).