The Radio 4 Blog Feed

'Taught, yelled at, encouraged and licked into shape': A childhood at the BBC

2013-02-15T17:26:00+00:00

Editor's note: Celebrate Radio Drama at 90 by listening to the first ever radio drama, a scene from Julius Caesar, re-recorded for the anniversary and performed by Harriet Walter and Jenny Jules from 16 February on BBC Radio 4 Extra

Family around a wireless

It was something - being on the wireless in the days when there was no television, no mobile phones. The Brownies or choir practice tried to keep the young entertained after school. Going to the bad didn't seem to be an option so the young stayed home like everyone else and listened to the radio. Fabulous radio. And, most of the time, it was enough.

I couldn't quite believe it when I found myself ON the radio, and for terror and elation few things have matched those childhood years working for the Welsh Home Service. Even at its most relaxed and un-live, radio is a "hot' medium. Live radio is like flying too close to the sun.

Waiting for my small turn, I watched, as real grown up actresses, all beautifully turned out (stocking seams straight, make-up and hair spruced up specially for transmission) began to weave their way in and out of their places at the microphone. They were concentrated, controlled, elegant even, but I knew that they were silently humming like dynamos, ready on the turn of a page to erupt like volcanoes.

The puppy in Children's Hour. Children's Hour was broadcast from 1922 to 1964.

(l-r) Willie Joss, Jimmy Logan, Madeleine Christie, Stanley Baxter, Sheila Prentice.

It'll never be me I thought, despairing. My first star turn on Children's Hour, playing an obnoxious tom cat, had left me dishevelled, wild eyed and breathless... I watched and watched and nothing they did, good or bad, escaped my attention. I was equally transfixed by the nonchalant expertise of the engineers and studio managers.

While I was taught, yelled at, encouraged and generally licked into some sort of shape by the directors, I was indulged by the studio staff and allowed into their glory hole of an office as they figured out their spot effects and after a few years and after a lot of coaxing and practicing (and keeping well out of sight of the director's window onto the studio floor) I was allowed to take part in a spectacular, horse driven coach crash. My contribution, involving two coconut shells, a couple of nuts and bolts, a chain and a handful of tin tacks went out live on Saturday Night Theatre. I must have done a bit of acting but I only remember giving my all to the coconut shells. Whew.

What price Hedda Gabler?

Sian Phillips in a radio drama for Welsh Service 1958.

Celebrate the 90th birthday of Radio Drama with a re-recording of a scene from Julius Cesar performed by Harriet Walter and Jenny Jules from 16 February on BBC Radio 4Xtra

Take a trip down memory lane with the Radio Drama at 90 Audio Slideshow

Read birthday messages from Stephen Mangan, Celia Imrie and Toby Jones

Read Jeremy Mortimer's blog on Radio Drama at 90

In Our Time reaches 500

2011-03-03T08:00:12+00:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qykl

On 15th October 1998 Melvyn Bragg welcomed listeners to a new Radio 4 programme called In Our Time. "In this series," he said, "I hope we'll look at the ideas and events which have shaped the century." The first subject was War in the Twentieth Century; Melvyn's guests were the military historian Sir Michael Howard and the writer (and now leader of the Canadian Liberal Party) Michael Ignatieff.

Thirteen years later, on March 10th, IOT will celebrate its 500th edition. In Our Time was originally produced by Olivia Seligman and she and Melvyn worked together on the format for the programme. It has changed quite a bit since those early days. In 2000 it was extended from half an hour to 45 minutes, and the original two guests became three. And the programme's original remit - to survey the key ideas of the 20th century- seemed a bit passé post-millennium; so Melvyn, Olivia and his then producer Charlie Taylor came up with the brilliantly simple formula that persists, a decade on.

I've been a fan since that first series, and many highlights still stick in my mind: a gripping account of the writing of the Encyclopedie; a lively discussion of Robin Hood, whose many surprises included Melvyn's on-air debut as a singer; and a fascinating programme about gravity and what causes it.

That diversity of subject matter has always been one of IOT's great strengths. Even the first few programmes included discussions of brain function, the nation state and attitudes to work. Melvyn Bragg, as one of the few people to have been made a Fellow of both the Royal Academy and the Royal Society, is as interested in science as he is in history and literature. Look back through previous IOT subjects and you'll find quantum physics rubbing shoulders with medieval philosophy, calculus with Egyptology.

When we came to plan the 500th programme, Melvyn and I were determined to show off that range as much as we could. So number 499 will look at the age of the universe - and the state of current knowledge of the subject - with a panel which includes the Astronomer Royal, Martin Rees; the 500th examines one of the oldest problems of philosophy, Free Will (are we free to act as we choose?); and the 501st will look at the medieval universities and the tremendous influence they exerted on European intellectual life.

One of the great joys of taking over as producer of In Our Time a year ago was browsing the archive (every programme is available on our website) and finding juicy subjects the programme had never covered. Here was a great excuse to learn more about Pliny's Natural History, random numbers and Foxe's Book of Martyrs. So on the list they went; and thus our current run of programmes reflects my interests, as it does Melvyn's and those of our contributors.

In future weeks we'll be covering subjects including Hinduism, the Iron Age and neutrino physics. But, as I quickly discovered, we've still barely scratched the surface of several millennia of human endeavour. So we'd love to know what subjects you think we should discuss - and also what your highlights of the last 499 programmes have been. Please do make your suggestions - either by submitting a comment below or on Twitter, using the hashtag #IOT500.

Tom Morris is producer of In Our Time

As Tom points out, you can listen to the whole In Our Time archive on the Radio 4 web site - the largest programme archive at the BBC.
Get In Our Time delivered to your computer automatically every week - sign up for the In Our Time podcast.
Sign up for the free In Our Time newsletter - a rather clever and often very funny weekly update written by Melvyn Bragg - often while he's crossing St James's Park on the way to the office.
In The Guardian, Radio reviewer Elisabeth Mahoney asks "Is In Our Time Radio 4's best programme?"

From the Archers blog - The Archers editor on the 60th anniversary

2011-01-10T09:21:08+00:00

A week on from marking our 60th anniversary, and it's clear it's not just the residents of Ambridge who are talking about recent events in Borsetshire.

I have a two inch high pile of press cuttings before me. Many celebrate the amazing achievement of a drama having reached its diamond jubilee, making it currently the longest running soap in the world. Others look back at the storylines that have gripped Archers fans over the last 60 years. Beside that, a report showing hundreds of listener comments about the anniversary episode. And then one of the team pops in to tell me that during the anniversary episode on 2 January, The Archers and 'SATTC' was the most discussed subject on Twitter in the world.

Read the rest of Vanessa's post and leave a comment on the Archers blog...

Joining in with the Archers 60th anniversary episode

2010-12-29T14:41:28+00:00

Join us on The Archers blog between 10am and 7.30pm on Sunday 2 January to celebrate the 60th anniversary of The Archers as it happens.

Consider yourselves warned (and warmly invited). The special 60th anniversary episode of The Archers is only days away and we want you to join in.

All day, from the beginning of the Radio 4 omnibus episode at 10am until the climax of the 30-minute special episode at 7.30pm we'll be running a live chat on the Archers blog, keeping time with Radio 7's simultaneous day-long Archers epic (classic episodes and omnibuses from the history of the programme running up to the big episode).

We'll be publishing your comments about characters and storylines plus the building speculation about the event expected to 'shake the Archers to the core.' We'll also bring you pictures and stories from the history of the drama all day. Visit the Archers blog at any time from 0945 on Sunday to join in - and tell your friends.

Then, during the anniversary episode itself (an unprecedented double-length programme starting at 7pm), visit The Archers homepage for a 'tweetalong' - The discussion about the anniversary episode on Twitter (which is sure to be lively) will be animated on the page in an app developed specially for the anniversary. Join in by using the hashtag #TheArchers on Twitter.

Steve Bowbrick is editor of the Radio 4 blog

The Archers has five million weekly listeners. It's the longest-running broadcast drama anywhere in the world. Listen on Radio 4 at 7pm Sunday to Friday (and Monday to Friday at 1400 for the repeat) and on Sunday at 1000 for the weekly omnibus.
Download The Archers to listen to on your computer or MP3 player. Subscribe to podcasts for the daily programme and weekly omnibus
The Archers messageboards are among the most popular at the BBC. Follow @BBCTheArchers on Twitter for behind-the-scenes updates, links and RTs.
The picture shows the party to celebrate the 2000th episode of The Archers in 1958. It's from the BBC's picture archive and the caption reads: "picture shows (left-right) Patricia Green (Jill Archer), Norman Painting (Philip Archer), Joy Davis? (Mrs Fairbrother), unidentified female, and Thelma Rogers (Peggy Archer)." Update: Tim Bentinck, who plays David Archer, points out that the unidentified female is Leslie Saweard, who has been playing Christine since 1953.

Analysis at forty

2010-10-25T13:12:02+00:00

The BBC is famously good at marking anniversaries. Wars, coronations, Darwin's birth, 'Dad's Army.' So it is right that the fortieth anniversary of Radio Four's Analysis, which takes place this year, should be marked in some way. It was at 21:15 on Friday 10 April 1970 that the voice of the urbane Ian McIntyre was heard presenting the very first edition of the programme, "Next Tuesday sees the annual enactment of a classical piece of British folk ritual. Budget Day ranks with the Grand National or a deciding Test against Australia."

For students of radio, those who think that radio, and in particular its history, is worth studying, Analysis is high up the list of significant programmes. I think the reason can be found right at the very beginning, in 1970. Interestingly, the first Analysis was broadcast on the day that Paul McCartney announced the break-up of the Beatles; the end of one era, the 'swinging sixties' and the beginning of a new, more serious times, and Analysis was most certainly serious. Ian McIntyre as presenter and his producer, the formidable Hungarian émigré, George Fischer, took the Reithian values of the old BBC very seriously indeed and gave Analysis a deep commitment to the highest standards of research.

One of my favourite editions of Analysis from this period featured Ian McIntyre in Egypt and began in typical style, "A great place for jokes Cairo. I suspect they have a certain therapeutic value; without them the chaos that is Cairean traffic and the inert mindlessness of the bureaucracy would drive everyone screaming up the walls of the Mohammed Ali mosque." A year earlier, also in tourist mode, McIntyre had visited Salisbury, the capital of the former Rhodesia, which got a similar treatment, it was "an agreeable town" with "better curio shops than most cities in Southern Africa" and McIntyre was not one to ignore "the glory of the jacaranda trees."

An article of faith which underpinned the early Analysis was a deeply held commitment to radio itself. Throughout its 40 years, the programmes has been based on a belief that radio, uncluttered by pictures and carefully-manicured presenters, does the job of explaining the world better than any television programme. Which is not to say that Analysis has never had its stars; most notable of these was Mary Goldring who was the main presenter from 1975 to 1984. Her first Analysis in May 1975 began in her famously direct style, "Did you vote in local government elections today? Did you even know that elections were going on outside Northern Ireland?" Mary Goldring probably deserves the accolade of the foremost current affairs broadcaster of her generation and she used Analysis as her main platform. She was not afraid to be outspoken; in 'Whipping the Cream' in June 1981, she made it perfectly clear that she would close 'failing' universities, that the government failed to do so was due to "the vestigial awe of universities" we have and as a result, "the government has lost an unrepeatable opportunity to throw some redundant institutions to the wolves." Ouch!

Analysis today remains Radio Four's most authentically intellectual programme. Listening to Michael Blastland present the most recent Analysis I felt the founding fathers would have recognised in that thoughtful, unadorned and truly 'analytical' edition the qualities of thorough research and rigour to which they aspired, 40 years earlier.

Hugh Chignell is Associate Professor of Broadcasting History at Bournemouth University

Listen to tonight's 40th anniversary edition of Analysis, presented by Michael Blastland, an Analysis producer from the 1990s and now a regular presenter, and produced by Linda Pressly.
There are pictures of early presenters and producers on the programme's web page. Also an archive episode, presented by Ian McIntyre, from 1971.
The picture shows McIntyre in 1977, during his time as Controller of Radio 4

A year of anniversaries on Radio 4

2010-10-06T09:22:28+00:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qps9

So You and Yours is forty. Congratulations. The programme launched in October 1970 to give Radio 4 listeners advice five lunchtimes a week on 'everyday affairs from savings to sex, from holidays to health'. It swallowed-up older programmes such as Can I Help You, Listening Post, and You and Your Money. And although in the four decades since it's often been parodied mercilessly, it was quickly judged a success, adding to the network's listening figures and drawing praise for its down-to-earth manner.

You'll no doubt have noticed quite a few other series on Radio 4 celebrating their anniversary this year: PM, The World Tonight, Analysis. The coincidence might seem strange. After all, the network itself had been born out of the ashes of the BBC's Home Service not in 1970, but in 1967. Yet it was in 1970 that the really big programme changes came.

One man in particular lay behind it all. Radio 4's Controller at the time was the young and dynamic Tony Whitby (pictured), a former civil servant and television current affairs editor. Whitby had a reputation for shrewdly picking out the ideas of others and embellishing them by throwing out his own thoughts and suggestions. He'd no intention of creating a new schedule from scratch. But he wanted a more topical and a more varied flavour - to make Radio 4, in his words, like a 'well-labelled library that has a few surprises in it'. So, in 1970, along came the unashamedly serious Analysis and the magisterial World Tonight, the bright and breezy 'commuter magazine' PM Reports and a phone-in called It's Your Line, the satirical sketch-show Weekending, and, of course, You and Yours.

None of this happened without a good deal of grumbling from listeners and critics. Some thought there were too many magazine programmes. With their succession of disparate items, magazines seemed like an abandonment of quality - suspiciously tailor-made for a distracted, inattentive audience. They were, the Observer muttered, the 'great ragbags of our times': cheap, predictable, and banal.

This was a little unfair. Very different programmes were being lumped-together, then stereotyped crudely. Looking back at the schedule as a whole, what's most striking about Whitby's revolution of 1970 is how genuinely eclectic it made Radio 4, with programmes stretching across a suddenly wider spectrum, from the intellectually demanding or disturbing at one end to the faintly scurrilous or comforting at the other. The changes 40 years ago set Radio 4 on its long-term trajectory: away from the dusty tones of the somewhat middlebrow old Home Service, to the tougher, livelier, more authoritative, network we have today.

David Hendy is the author of Life on Air: a History of Radio Four. He teaches broadcasting history at the University of Westminster.

You & Yours producer Clare Walker wrote about her visit to the archive here on the blog.
Listen to Peter White's history of the programme on the Radio 4 web site.
David Hendy's page on the University of Westminster web site.
There's a fascinating audio slideshow about the changes to BBC Radio's branding that also happened in 1970 on this page from the History of the BBC site.
The picture shows Radio 4 Controller Tony Whitby in 1970, alongside Broadcasting House, Radio 4's headquarters. It's from the BBC's archive.

Dr Johnson's syllables - selections from his dictionary

2009-09-10T07:23:10+00:00

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/features/johnson-syllables/

Editor's note - Simon Elmes is Radio 4's Creative Director, producer of some of the network's most important arts programming and author of a history of Radio 4. He's recorded 18 definitions from Dr Johnson's great 1755 dictionary for broadcast between programmes between 5 and 18 September - from 'art' to 'world', via 'credit', 'mayor' and 'woman'. I asked him to record a short item about the task. SB.

Listen to all 18 definitions and to the other programmes in the A-Z of Dr Johnson.
Follow Dr Johnson on Twitter. Honestly.

Poetry Please is 30

2009-05-15T16:50:45+00:00

The first time I came down the hill on my bike and turned into the back gate of the BBC in Bristol, I tried to cycle as I tell my actors to read the poems for Poetry Please - ordinarily, as if for the first time, as if nothing was easier in the world, as if there wasn't a microphone in front of them, or - in my case - Karen McGann of BBC4 with a camera to her eye, leaning out the window of a van cruising slowly alongside me.

The take was fine, but once in television is never enough. The next time the wind had got up; how would Byron cycle into work, I wondered. Again Karen and the van tracked past. Poets, famously, don't drive, but I couldn't remember any great cycling poems either. We like to think of Philip Larkin in bicycle clips but what about Coleridge (doped in charge of a penny farthing?), or Stevie Smith (not waving but indicating?), or T. S. Eliot (at least his trousers wouldn't get caught in the chain). When was the first bike anyway (could Chaucer ride one?), and why couldn't I resist throwing some nonchalant I'm-not-looking-at-the-camera-look that could only show me as an arty tosser - the poetry producer, for God's sake, on his bike, of course.

I can do radio, but doing radio for the TV wasn't easy. Next up after the Ben Hur bike ride was me in my office. I found having to act reading or typing or moving listeners' request letters across my desk incredibly hard - every gesture seemed hammy, a pantomime performance of "work", the opposite of the beautiful simplicity of the programme I was trying to show being put together. The talking was easier. The programme is very popular even if a detractor might see it as a mildewed bit of public service - a request show with a poetry DJ - tucked away in a corner of the West Country. I was keen to trip that version up. I too had derisory words for Poetry Please once, but I have changed my mind and have something of the zeal of the convert about me. So I plugged away and said what I thought. The set helped too. My office is echt BBC arts producer, with beetling cliffs of poetry books and CDs and old newspapers. And though I was crap at looking like I was reading it, having a collected A. E. Housman to hand helped somehow. Karen filmed on.

One received idea of the programme - spare me please, an angry performance poet who thinks they are shaking up the establishment - is that it trades in literary warm beer, cricket, English spinsters on bicycles (ah, my imagined poetic cyclist peddles past at last): a world long extinct if indeed it was ever extant, but this is far too crude an account. On Poetry Please we do Grantchester and honey and blue remembered hills and oh to be in England but we do much else as well. Peter Reading and Kathleen Jamie are there, as well as laureates old and new, there are black readers, gay poems, fresh work alongside most-loved lines, and I guarantee everyone will hear new things in every edition of the programme - and by new I mean poems that - as Ezra Pound said they must - make news that stays news. This is what I tried to say.

Making the programme for me is a repeated education - first in poetry itself; it is extraordinary and wonderful that so many Radio 4 listeners carry so much poetry with them; second it offers wider lessons in humankind, that people who write letters on bunny rabbit headed paper or who declare their age to excuse their wobbly hand are not silent and morose or swamped by television or debt but are getting on with their lives, living with poetry that makes reading their letters an uplifting privilege. As producers we must try to rise to the request: the best readings by the best readers (we are good at that, after my clumsy office acting, Karen filmed Kenneth Cranham reading - peerlessly - from 'A Shropshire Lad' for the programme), then the simplest of presentation from the warmest of hosts (Roger McGough, who is marvellous at that), and that's it, then shut up and let A. E. Housman tell you how it was to love a man who died and tell you in such a way that you can never hear enough of him telling you it over again though every time it makes you cry.

Roger McGough reading the poem he wrote to mark the 30th anniversary:

Poetry Please: Thirty Years of the People's Poetry. The BBC Four television documentary is on Sunday evening at 2130.
Poetry Please on the Radio 4 web site.
Let poetry into your life: the BBC's Poetry Season on television and radio in May, June and July.
Roger McGough's page on the Radio 4 web site, his own web site and and his Wikipedia entry.
A nice article from the BBC Shropshire web site about A.E. Housman's 150th birthday.