Speechification

I think I’ll keep rolling out the Barrell as long as the ABC keep rolling them out of their archives. Here are two shorter, lighter pieces. ‘Smoker’s Corner’, from the mid-90s, was made as something of a counterpoint to the campaign to ban smoking from public places but is light-hearted and full of characters. Then ‘Three by three’: a more impressionistic piece about trios, triples or thirds - in this case the cricketing position of ‘third man’ (brilliant idea to get a Noo Yoiker to explain the rules of cricket, contrasted with a sonorous Henry Blofeld and the music from the film ‘The Third Man’), the mysterious third eye and the equally mysterious ’70s telly conspiracy known as ‘Alternative 3′.

Radio Eye: Smokers Corner/Three by three [mp3]

Here’s a reminder of the richness and surprise that’s on offer all over the BBC’s radio output. Watchification contributor Jem Stone told me I ought to nip over to Radio 2’s web site and listen to Jarvis Cocker’s programme about Sheffield, which he said was excellent. But I was too late, by about half an hour. So I poked around a bit and came across this really marvelous one-hour feature—presented by one-time guest Joan Rivers—about The Ed Sullivan show, on the occasion of its Sixtieth birthday. Perfection (MP3).

One of the things we decided to do with this new version of speechification is try to give the programme makers more props than we’ve done before - and more than the BBC often does. ie we thought we’d try and mention the names of the people who actually made the things. Such was my intention in posting this splendid documentary about Peter Falk’s Columbo, its debt to Crime And Punishment and its illustrious band of creators. And it really is worth listening to.

But I can tell you very little about who made it. The programme page tells us Mark Billingham presented it and “contributors include star Peter Falk, creator William Link, writer Steven Bochco, director Jonathan Demme and guest star villain Robert Vaughn” but that’s about it. The Radio 4 page says the same stuff. And if you google Mark Billingham and the programme name you get this great page with lots of info and links relating to the programme. The producer, Peter McHugh, gets a credit at the end of the audio, and it you google him and “Radio 4″ you find the BBC Press Office page, which says the same stuff, but longer. And if you dive deeper into the search results you discover he’s made a bunch of other fine programmes. Some of which I think we’ve stuck up on here.

But you also begin to wonder if he’s the same Peter McHugh who’s the programming director of GMTV. Does that make sense? Could he be. And you don’t hear about any production company involvement or anything else. So you’re a bit mystified.

Anyway, don’t worry about it. Just listen to 30 minutes of damn fine radio and we’ll get on the case to try and work out who made all these things, and maybe try and give those people some credit for their work. Because we reckon it would be nice one day if you could filter your audio that way, rather than just by the order it comes out of your radio. (MP3)