US Edition
Patti was furious: “You must be ashamed of yourselves, BBC. I’m horrified!” She was but one angry listener among many on Feedback (Radio 4). The cause of their rage? The Archers omnibus is moving from Sundays at 10am to – brace yourself – Sundays at 11am. Wars have been fought over less.
“We have to be really careful about this stuff,” admitted Radio 4 controller Mohit Bakaya. Facing listeners’ criticism on Feedback, he made a decent fist of defending next month’s schedule changes, but I do wish he wouldn’t keep calling Radio 4 an “enchanted forest”. It’s not Narnia.
The enchanted forest will soon have less birdsong in it. Bakaya disclosed that Tweet of the Day will no longer air midweek, prompting “BBC axes show” headlines. In fact, the opposite is true. The brief birdcall programme was essentially axed years ago – Radio 4’s been playing repeats since then.
Now it’s being revived: we’ll get new episodes (at weekends) rather than ancient reruns Monday to Friday. Still, I’ll miss the daily chirrup. If you’d like an alternative two-minute nature show to fill the gap, why not try Frog of the Week, a whimsical long-running podcast which does for croaks what Tweet did for tweets.
Tweet of the Day’s two-minute slot will now pad out Farming Today. It’s part of a trend towards longer programmes – The Media Show is another beneficiary – though Feedback isn’t getting any extra time. “So, an assortment of journalists will have more time to talk about themselves, but not licence fee payers,” complained one listener. “The Media Show is also on air almost 52 weeks a year,” they continued. “Feedback has only just returned from its Christmas break. I get the impression that viewers and listeners’ comment programmes are treated as a chore which has to be undertaken by BBC managers, if they bother, that is.” (It’s a similar picture on TV; Points of View hasn’t aired since Bonfire Night.)
But it is to Bakaya’s credit that he did bother – unlike Amol Rajan, who was “unavailable” to discuss his divisive Today interview with Jeremy Hunt. If Rajan couldn’t spare six minutes last week, he should have offered to appear on the following episode. As a former BBC Media Editor, he’ll know how bad it looks to avoid a Feedback grilling. To snub this show is to snub the listeners. It smacks of cowardice.
I can imagine Alecky Blythe creating one of her verbatim theatre pieces from Feedback’s chorus of peeved, beleaguered voices. Best known for her musical London Road, she’s devoted years to crafting state-of-the-nation plays from vox pops, memorised and recited by actors, a technique she learnt from the actor Mark Wing-Davey (better known to Radio 4 listeners as Zaphod Beeblebrox).
Blythe’s latest, Family Business (Radio 4), drew on 10 years of interviews with shoppers and employees in John Lewis. After plays about murders, riots, refugees and a siege, it was refreshing to see her tackle something really hard-hitting.
“You know, you dip into the lives of people,” mused a John Lewis stylist, who remembered serving a married couple and then – months later – helping the wife pick an outfit for her husband’s funeral. This was a fascinating hour of eavesdropping. I was delighted when a young woman who just wanted nice curtains split up with her useless boyfriend.
The scene-stealer was a posh, resilient, slightly dotty older woman who lived with her bachelor brother and a pair of dog-shaped draft excluders they called “John” and “Lewis”. An unorthodox life surfaced in glimpses. She’d been an archaeologist (“in Libya, doing some digging”), and married (“just one year, it didn’t work”). When her husband left, she asked her cigar-smoking, bowtie-loving brother to help raise her son. She was recovering from the “nuisance” of a broken pelvis: “Things just happen, don’t they?”
Lastly, a cause for celebration: the award-winning Imaginary Advice marked its 100th episode last week, with an edition that would make a fine introduction to this eclectic podcast.
Blissfully ad-free, funded by donations, it’s been a 10-year labour of love for playwright and poet Ross Sutherland, who recorded early episodes at erratic intervals from his wardrobe in Peterborough. In the 100th, authors and podcasters left voicemail messages requesting clips from their favourite episodes. The joke was, none of those episodes existed – so Sutherland made new ones to meet their requests. A retelling of Genesis through sound-effects? No worries. An adventure drama about a scientist, with choose-your-own options in different headphones? Sure.
Imaginary Advice is the kind of mad, quixotic one-off that makes the podcast world worth exploring.
No more birdsong! Moving The Archers! What is Radio 4 playing at?
Listeners have been left furious by scheduling decisions at Radio 4, but at least its controller wasn’t hiding – unlike some colleagues