One of the purposes of this blog is to draw attention to the huge variety of programmes that go out on Radio 4, very often with no attention from the professional media at all. Radio doesn’t get the attention it deserves and speech radio is almost ignored.
Mark Damazer has made a start by talking about programmes he likes and we’re also going to do regular round-ups of the noble handful of journalists whose job it is to actually listen to speech radio and of other stories relating to Radio 4. Where possible, we’ll provide links to the programmes’ iPlayer pages so you can listen again. Here’s my first round-up.
Chris Maume in The Independent thinks Jon Ronson “comes over as a brainier version of Louis Theroux” in his Jon Ronson and the Quest for the Aryan Cow which went out last Tuesday. Listen again on iPlayer.
The Telegraph and The Mail both picked up on Mark Damazer’s blog post about repeats from last Friday. Both focus on Damazer’s calculation that about a fifth of the network’s programmes are repeats and both quote the same frustrated listener who says: “While the number of repeats does annoy, I am far more puzzled about why some items never get a repeat.”
Maxton Walker in The Guardian picks the new Radio 4 Book of The Week, Iain Sinclair’s Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire (listen to the first episode again here).
Miranda Sawyer in The Observer didn’t like God.com, last week’s documentary about the effect of the net on religion – “a documentary of doughty dullness” – and wasn’t bowled over by The Sarah Party, about a gathering of eccentric women, all named Sarah, either. Her pick of the week’s documentaries actually came from 1Xtra. You can hear The Sarah Party again here.
Gillian Reynolds in The Telegraph, seeks refuge from distressing reality in the comforting output of Classic FM, Radio 3 and especially Radio 7 and is impressed by the new Classic Serial, Evelyn Waugh’s Scoop: “Jeremy Front has done a deft, sly adaptation, bringing out the brilliance of the characters.” Listen to the first episode again here.
Ann Alexander, solicitor and presenter of last Thursday’s Could Shipman Happen Again has a fascinating short essay about delays in the introduction of legislation meant to stop it happening again on the BBC News web site.