Comedian Mark Steel is back In Town — and had much to discuss on a Rutland ramble with Clare Balding
Mark Steel's In Town is on Tuesday at 6.30pm on Radio 4. Add it to your collection Mark Steel is on the move like never before. He’s currently got his Mark Steel’s In Town Radio 4 programme taking him around the UK, sometimes farther; he’s touring a one-man show, playing dozens of venues from Ramsgate to Inverness; also this autumn he’s squeezing in trips to Dublin and Strasbourg to watch his beloved Crystal Palace football team. But there’s more. On top of all that, Steel’s just become one half of an inspired Radio 4 mash-up that’s brought him together with another star of the network, on an assignment that required him to don his walking boots and stride out across the Rutland countryside. We are of course talking about Clare Balding and Ramblings, an environment with which one might not immediately associate a figure such as Steel. But when you listen to them together, it’s clear how readily the caustic left-wing stand-up comedian and the all-heart Queen of Outdoors took to each other. With both of them being passionate sports fans, it’s not like they were setting off on a tour of Rutland Water – the giant reservoir that takes up much of England’s smallest county – without anything in common. Far from it, in fact. “I think probably four-fifths of what we talked about was sport,” Steel says. The pair had met a couple of times before but didn’t know each other well, and by way of a Ramblings warm-up, Balding put in a cameo appearance on Steel’s In Town in the Rutland town of Oakham. Now both programmes, recorded within a day of each other, are airing in the same week. “She’s such a fascinating soul with so many passions,” Steel says. “We got on really well. I’ve sat and watched her present so much sport and she’s exactly the same in person. I feel she’s this very strong figure, but so amiable.” Spending time with Balding reminded Steel of the occasion he met colourful cricket commentator Henry Blofeld of Test Match Special fame. “I was a guest on TMS when Henry was on, and I remember saying to him, ‘I’m so glad you are the person I always knew.’ It was the same with Clare.” Steel is also full of admiration for Balding’s achievements in pioneering the role of women in sports broadcasting. “One of the joyous things about sport these days is it’s now totally accepted that the women’s side is a fundamental part of how sport operates, and Clare is one of the people who’s made that happen.” The Ramblings format, Steel feels, lends itself to the type of conversation you wouldn’t have in any other circumstances. “I wouldn’t call myself a rambler. I’m more of a cyclist. And when you’re riding a bike, you have to concentrate on the road so much that you might not notice what’s around you. But if you’re just walking along, side by side, it’s so different. The setting dictates the kind of conversation you have, and you’re much more likely to learn things about someone.” That element of Ramblings brought out a more sombre point of contact between the pair – the shared experience they both have of cancer. Steel, who is 65, and Balding, 54, only briefly allude to it on air, but it clearly remains present for both broadcasters for all that they hope it’s behind them. In fact, Steel’s touring stand-up show, The Leopard in My House, directly references how the wild animal of a disease suddenly took up residence in his body, and both he and Balding – their cancers affecting the throat and the thyroid, respectively – see the cruel twist of it targeting their voices, their livelihoods. When Steel says, “I’m not the fittest man in the world but I can manage a five-mile ramble,” the “fittest” clearly isn’t referring to his cancer or physical ability – he’s just not a bloke who would normally go in for this sort of thing. So, would he like to go rambling with Clare Balding again? “Absolutely. I’d really enjoy that.”
Samara Joy on making her BBC Proms debut: "I didn't really realise the size of it"
The Grammy-winning jazz singer brings her soaring vocals to the Royal Albert Hall this weekend.
The song Peace of Mind speaks to an experience that’s probably familiar to anyone who’s ever been on the cusp of fame – that moment when your life speeds up and starts to feel like it’s not quite your own any more. “Where do you find/Your peace of mind/Is it in the places you go/Or the people you meet,” the song begins. For Samara Joy, whose song it is, there’s a need for peace of mind because the prodigiously talented 25-year-old jazz singer from The Bronx in New York has risen to the top at astonishing speed, carving out a glittering career that we can expect to take another leap forward when she makes her BBC Proms debut on Saturday, presenting a show called The Great American Songbook and Beyond, which, as with all the Proms, will air live on Radio 3. “The lyrics came from personal experience,” Samara says, speaking to Radio Times having just flown into London a few days ahead of her Royal Albert Hall performance. “That feeling of being a bit overwhelmed by success – a feeling of entering adulthood and it all being a bit too accelerated.” The three studio albums, the critical acclaim, the five Grammy awards, the worldwide bookings at the most prestigious venues – truly life has come at Samara fast. And yet to see her perform – and to hear her talk – is to be in the presence of naturalness, poise and tremendous self-possession, qualities bestowed on her by an upbringing she describes as “rich in love and family and community”, in which music and singing were all around her. View oEmbed on the source website Samara – born Samara Joy McLendon – is the granddaughter of the founders of a Philadelphia gospel choir. Her father was a professional singer. “I’d sing with my father all the time – in the car driving to school, at Thanksgiving, around the house. Pretty much all I ever wanted to do was music. There was no other career!” Motown, soul and RnB was what she sang along to. “I didn’t discover jazz until I went to college at the age of 17. I didn’t have any formal lessons until then. I just did it all by ear. I want to say that it was constant practice, but I didn’t even realise it was practice.” Could she have gone down the pop route? “I guess I could have, but there are a lot of people in that lane. I feel it’s a bit over-saturated. Also pop requires you to give up so much of yourself in order to fit into some sort of aesthetic that people can hold on to. “What I do is a clear road, and I can be myself. There’s too much traffic in those other lanes! I feel very fortunate to have a lot of leverage. I feel other artists my age might have to make sacrifices in order to do what they really want.” Comparisons with greats such as Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan are being made all the time, but Samara says: “I hope that when people hear me, take the time to listen, they’ll realise that this is not an imitation act, it’s not a jukebox. I wasn’t born in that time or climate, so I’m not going to sound exactly like them.” There’s no doubting that Samara brings her own stamp to bear on some beloved material, with a voice that is a technical marvel, has astonishing beauty, and conveys so much feeling, as a sell-out Albert Hall audience is about to discover. The Great American Songbook means, she says, classics like Stardust and Misty, with the “Beyond” taking in Thelonious Monk, Duke Ellington, Sun Ra, Betty Carter, Billie Holiday and more. With the BBC Concert Orchestra and the Samara Joy Octet behind her, it promises to be an amazing night, but how much did the Proms mean to Samara when the call came last autumn? “I’d seen so many clips of performances, but I didn’t really realise the importance of it, the size of it, until recently.” London is not new to her – she’s performed at the Barbican and at Ronnie Scott’s jazz club – but the Proms is a different level and it means things like heading off for dress fittings, trying on 20 or 30 in order to narrow the choices down to the two she’ll wear on the night, all of which Samara sounds a bit ambivalent about. “I’m not the most fashionable person, but when there’s the opportunity to dress up, I try and show up! Really I like just being comfortable, and that’s another reason why I wouldn’t call myself a celebrity. I usually entrust the fashion duties to someone else. “I’m not this huge personality off-stage. When I get home I try and get back to normality and routine as soon as possible – grocery shopping, signing up for a fitness class! I’m sociable up to a point, and then I retreat.” The point at which, maybe to put it another way, peace of mind comes calling. Read more: How composer Sam Watts took The Traitors to the Proms – and got his break on The Sarah Jane Adventures Boy George hits out at streaming after Top 40 charts success of vinyl-only album BBC Proms: The Great American Songbook and Beyond with Samara Joy airs at 7pm on Saturday 19 July on BBC Radio 3 and BBC Sounds. Check out more of our Audio coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more TV recommendations and reviews, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
In 1945, Winston Churchill led the nation to victory – so why, weeks later, did voters turn on him in the general election?
Postwar is on Radio 4 from Monday-Friday at 1.45pm. Add it to your collection now How did Winston Churchill, whose stirring words helped to keep the nation going through its darkest hour, lose a general election that took place just eight weeks after VE Day? This is the starting point for Postwar, David Runciman’s Radio 4 series that marks the 80th anniversary of the end of the Second World War. It is one of the biggest conundrums in all British political history and one of the “mysteries of 1945 to be explained” over four weeks and 20 episodes in Postwar (starting on 9 June and continuing this week), says Runciman. He aims to shine a light not just on the tumultuous events that followed the war, but also on how those events formed the basis of how we live today. While exploring the BBC archives for answers, the 58-year-old political historian uncovered one vital clue that explained how Churchill came to lose to his Labour opponent, Clement Attlee. “This is one of the big ironies, because Churchill was the supreme orator. He was the master of radio, and Attlee on the radio was frankly pretty terrible. It was the Tories’ secret weapon – just stick Churchill on the radio. But then Churchill made the catastrophic broadcast in which he said that if Labour got in, they’d be like the Gestapo. It was a disaster; Attlee’s response was very measured, very powerful.” Labour’s use of radio served them well, says Runciman: “Unlike the Tories, Labour put up a range of voices, and they included women’s voices. There was Jennie Lee, there was Ellen Wilkinson. The Tories had no leading female politicians at all. People saw the Labour Party as a team that was in keeping with the spirit of the age. The Tories under Churchill seemed more like a personality cult.” War had required Britain to operate as a collective. “We had become a country where the state had taken responsibility for health and education and everything. The question for people at the election was, who do you trust with this new state? And the answer was – well, not Churchill, because we don’t think he really believes in it. And we do trust Attlee. The Conservative line that the Labour Party weren’t patriots just didn’t work. No one believed Attlee wasn’t a patriot. We’d had a coalition government throughout the war; Attlee had fought alongside Churchill as his deputy.” Listeners to Runciman’s series might come for Churchill but stay for Attlee – a figure whose modesty stands in stark contrast to the scale of the changes Labour brought about post-1945. “Why did I want to make this series? Well,” Runciman explains, “as someone said to me, there are hundreds of biographies of Winston Churchill, but hardly any of Clement Attlee.” Runciman says he thought he knew the story of Britain and the wider world in 1945 pretty well, until he started exploring the BBC’s archives. “I discovered all these fascinating stories, and when you think of all the things that happened through 1945, it’s just the most incredible year,” he says. “The dropping of the atom bomb, the end of the war, the death of Roosevelt, the arrival of Truman, the creation of the United Nations, the beginnings of moves towards Indian independence… it takes your breath away what people lived through.” Something was built after the Second World War,” Runciman continues, “but people are now asking, is it still there? Maybe we are coming to the end of the postwar world – the end of the Atlantic alliance, the end of Nato. That was one of the things that was built then. So too were the NHS and the modern British welfare state. Our ideas of what the state owes us and what we owe the state were also built then – I wanted to explore all of that.”
Tony Blackburn on retirement: 'I know people who stopped too early – and didn't last long'
"I was definitely more a Beatles person."
This article first appeared in Radio Times magazine. Tony Blackburn can’t be certain what he was doing on the night of Saturday 2 February 1963, but he reckons he'd have spent it as a member of a dance band performing at the Pavilion Ballrooms in Bournemouth. Then aged 20, the now legendary DJ was a singer and a guitarist in an outfit called the Jan Ralfini Orchestra. They were the purveyors of the kind of entertainment – the quickstep and the foxtrot – that unbeknown to them was about to be swept aside by a phenomenon erupting that very evening, some 300 miles to the north. Nobody can put a precise date on the birth of Beatlemania, but a strong case can be made for this one – the opening night of the band’s first ever UK tour, as one of the acts supporting the teenage singing sensation Helen Shapiro, at the Gaumont Cinema in Bradford. Popular though Shapiro was, it was the Beatles that concertgoers went wild for, as their single Please Please Me was shooting up the UK charts. Bradford turns out to have played a surprisingly significant role in the Beatles story. As the 2025 UK City of Culture, now is the time to explore it, and in a Radio 2 documentary Tony Blackburn is doing just that. Bradford, Brass and the Beatles, which is being broadcast on 20 April as part of a Radio 2 Loves Brass season – it also touches on the Beatles’ connections with the famous Black Dyke brass band – has taken Blackburn back to those days, he tells Radio Times, not least the one time he saw the Beatles in concert, later in 1963, at the Winter Gardens in Bournemouth. "It was terrific. I’d never seen anything like it. The place was packed out, the girls went mad, it was just a great evening. Not musically, because you couldn’t really hear them. I’m not even sure they were plugged in! But what they created was very special." In those days, he explains, you were either a Beatles or a Rolling Stones person, "and I was definitely more a Beatles person. I’ve always loved melody and I just thought their songs were more melodic". Blackburn will always be known as the first voice on Radio 1 when it launched in 1967, and he remains a BBC fixture with his Radio 2 shows Sounds of the '60s (Saturday) and Golden Hour (Sunday). Across his career, he’s met all the Beatles and likes to tell the story of the time he interviewed Paul McCartney and cheekily suggested that he owed him a share of his royalties, thanks to the number of times he’d played Beatles records on the radio. "He just laughed!" The story hints at the possibility that Blackburn played all those Beatles records less from love for them than a sense of duty, and this famous champion of Motown is honest about the pop music that stands highest in his affections. “I do like the Beatles very much, but if you push me on it, I’d rather see Diana Ross or Marvin Gaye or someone like that.” Radio itself is another love that never dies. At 82, it seems remarkable that Blackburn still chooses to wake up every Saturday at 3am to travel from his Berkshire home into Broadcasting House in London, to present Sounds of the 60s live at 6am. "I was offered the chance to pre-record it, but I said no, I’d much rather come in and do it. As long as I can, I always will. With live radio, you get an immediate reaction from the listeners." With his live touring show as well as his broadcasting, Blackburn’s energy levels are prodigious. A vegetarian since the age of five, he has mostly enjoyed excellent health but last year he had a spell in hospital. That was a setback but the experience was alleviated by the opportunity it gave him for contact with his old friend Noel Edmonds – like Blackburn, a huge name across Radios 1 and 2 as well as TV thanks to his 1990s hit show Noel's House Party . "I was having injections every four hours, and because Noel lives in New Zealand it meant he and I could chat on the text when it was the middle of my night-time. For about four weeks, we just talked rubbish together. It was great. It kept me going, it really did." Edmonds, Blackburn says, "was a lovely guy – very unusual". What does he mean by that? "Well. He wears odd shoes. You and I wear the same shoes, don’t we? But Noel will wear different colours – one might be black, the other red. I once said to him, 'Noel, why do you wear odd shoes?' He just answered, 'Because I can!' Then he made up some story of how, where he lives in New Zealand, it’s compulsory to wear odd shoes. He's a one-off – great fun to be with." Long-time fans of Blackburn will be all too familiar with his own capacity for silliness – as expressed in his seemingly limitless capacity for corny puns. They’re a Blackburn trademark – stored up, he reveals to Radio Times, in a dozen or so exercise books, so old and well used that they’re now "falling to bits". The books contain thousands of jokes, but has he got a favourite? "I quite liked one the other day. 'I used to work in an ice cream bar, but I got the sack because I couldn’t do sundaes!'" Blackburn thinks that one of the reasons he's lasted so long is that he doesn't take himself too seriously. "People who take themselves too seriously, that's a bad sign. When I go on stage, my opening line is always, 'I know you're disappointed, you thought I'd be taller!'" Blackburn and his wife have a son and a daughter and two grandchildren who keep them busy, but he says he dreads the idea of retiring. "Getting up in the morning with nothing to do doesn't appeal to me. I know a lot of people have retired too early, and they haven't lasted long. You need something to keep your brain going." The puns, the 3am alarm call, the texts from Noel Edmonds, and of course his love of music – they would all appear to be just that. The latest issue of Radio Times is out now – subscribe here. Bradford, Brass and The Beatles is available now on BBC Sounds and will be broadcast as part of the Radio 2 Loves Brass concert on BBC Radio 2 this Sunday, 20 April (8-10pm). Check out our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
The Beatles were big on brass, as Tony Blackburn, who knew the Fab Four, explores in a new documentary
Bradford, Brass and the Beatles is available on BBC Sounds from Wednesday. Add it to your collection now Tony Blackburn can’t be certain what he was doing on the night of Saturday 2 February 1963, but he reckons he’d have spent it as a member of a dance band performing at the Pavilion Ballrooms in Bournemouth. Then aged 20, the now legendary DJ was a singer and a guitarist in an outfit called the Jan Ralfini Orchestra. They were the purveyors of the kind of entertainment – the quickstep and the foxtrot – that unbeknown to them was about to be swept aside by a phenomenon erupting that very evening, some 300 miles to the north. Nobody can put a precise date on the birth of Beatlemania but a strong case can be made for this one – the opening night of the band’s first ever UK tour, as one of the acts supporting the teenage singing sensation Helen Shapiro, at the Gaumont Cinema in Bradford. Popular though Shapiro was, it was the Beatles that concertgoers went wild for, as their single Please Please Me was shooting up the UK charts. Bradford turns out to have played a surprisingly significant role in the Beatles’ story. As the 2025 UK City of Culture, now is the time to explore it, and Tony Blackburn is doing just that in Bradford, Brass and the Beatles, a documentary being aired as part of a Radio 2 Loves Brass season. It touches on the Beatles’ connections with the famous Black Dyke brass band, and has taken Blackburn back to those days, not least the one time he saw the Beatles in concert (the same year as their Bradford appearance), at the Winter Gardens in Bournemouth. “It was terrific. I’d never seen anything like it. The place was packed out, the girls went mad, it was just a great evening. Not musically, because you couldn’t really hear them. I’m not even sure they were plugged in! But what they created was very special.” In those days, he explains, you were either a Beatles or a Rolling Stones person, “and I was definitely more a Beatles person. I’ve always loved melody and I just thought their songs were more melodic.” Blackburn will always be known as the first voice on Radio 1 when it launched in 1967, and he remains a BBC fixture with his Radio 2 shows Sounds of the 60s (Saturday) and Golden Hour (Sunday). Across his career, he’s met all the Beatles and likes to tell the story of the time he interviewed Paul McCartney and cheekily suggested that he owed him a share of his royalties, thanks to the number of times he’d played Beatles records on the radio. “He just laughed!” Radio itself is another love that never dies. At 82, it seems remarkable that Blackburn still chooses to wake up every Saturday at 3am to travel from his Berkshire home into Broadcasting House in London, to present Sounds of the 60s live at 6am. “I was offered the chance to pre-record it, but I said no, I’d much rather come in and do it. As long as I can, I always will. With live radio, you get an immediate reaction from the listeners.” With his live touring show as well as his broadcasting, Blackburn’s energy levels are prodigious. A vegetarian since the age of five, he has mostly enjoyed excellent health, but last year he had a spell in hospital, which prompted his doctor to advise him to slow down a bit. His agreement was reluctant. “I dread the idea of retiring. Getting up in the morning with nothing to do doesn’t appeal to me. I know a lot of people who retired too early, and they haven’t lasted long. You need something to keep your brain going.” The 3am alarm call would appear to be just that.
Radio 3 presenter Linton Stephens on how his mother inspired him to pick up the bassoon
Classical Live is on Radio 3 on Monday-Friday at 1.00pm. Add it to your collection now. Linton Stephens was 16 and about to embark on his music A-level at a sixth-form college on the Wirral when he discovered Radio 3. His music teacher put him on to it. “She said if I wanted to learn about classical music then Radio 3 was the station to listen to,” Stephens recalls. “I’ll always be grateful to her.” Nearly a quarter of a century on, Stephens is a rising star of Radio 3’s presenting team, bringing not just freshness to its output but, as an orchestral musician himself, depths of insight and understanding. “I feel incredibly lucky,” says Stephens, now 39, which is typical of someone for whom “practising hard and staying humble” are watchwords. And yet, luck appears to have played a very small part in a career that has involved overcoming barriers from the moment that, as an eight-year-old boy growing up as a member of a large, working-class black family, Stephens was captivated watching the Proms on TV and thought to himself, “I want to do that.” “There’s a story I often tell about that moment,” Stephens says. “About turning to my mother and saying, ‘But there’s no one in the orchestra who looks like me,’ and my mother saying, ‘Well, you’d better be the first!’” The initial step Stephens took to realising that ambition was to learn the bassoon – an unlikely instrument, perhaps, but one to which he was drawn “just because it was so different”. The talent he displayed led to a place at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, and set him on his way to playing professionally. Now he’s a busy freelancer, based in south-east London, who’s a regular member of the BBC Concert Orchestra, the Aurora Orchestra and the Chineke! Orchestra – which was founded to give opportunities to black and ethnic minority musicians, for whom gaining a foothold in the profession was, and remains, a challenge. That cause is close to Stephens’s heart, his campaigning work at the Musicians’ Union born of his experience of prejudice. “It was always something I was aware of – stage crews making racist jokes, or the time a member of a choir that my orchestra was working with said, ‘We don’t often get people like you in here.’” The realisation that through the Equalities Committee of the Musicians’ Union he could do something about the situation was “a light bulb moment”. It led to speaking at conferences, which in turn brought him to the attention of Radio 3. The long-established producer Les Pratt heard Stephens and put to him the idea of Listen coming in to do a voice test. Stephens is now a fixture on the recently introduced lunchtime strand Classical Live (for which he is hosting a week of programmes for Black History Month, as well as a Radio 3 in Concert next week). He’s a natural, a voice that feels representative of a changing Radio 3. “Tradition is a great thing but it needs to have relevance to the modern world, and I think that’s how Radio 3 is evolving. Twenty years ago it could dictate what it played and how it played it. Now, when we can all listen to anything we want whenever we want, there’s a new challenge for us presenters – to provide not just company but to add value to the music, to tell the stories behind it.” Stephens says he’s had offers to go and work at other stations, but, “I love Radio 3 and no one can broadcast live music like Radio 3 can.” The fact that Radio 3 broadcasts so much live music is a big driver for him. “Maybe that’s because I’m a musician myself, but there’s nothing like live performance, and I think the way Radio 3 supports it is vitally important.” Stephens’s talents don’t stop with music. He’s also a gifted illustrator currently working on a project for Black History Month – producing a daily illustration of a great figure drawn from the ranks of black and ethnic minority composers (left is Haitian piano virtuoso Ludovic Lamothe). “It’s a way to bring to light these forgotten or lesser-known musicians.” But music always comes first and now Radio 3, the station Stephens only discovered when he was 16, is very much the beneficiary.
Mary Beard on her fascination with ancient Rome – and why she hasn't got time for Strictly
"It was a cruel world, and it was a painful world."
This article was originally published in Radio Times magazine. So, Mary Beard, you’ve immersed yourself in Ancient Rome your whole professional life. It fascinates you and you love it, and your enthusiasm for all things Roman has inspired countless others. Would you actually have liked to live in that time and place? The answer is emphatic. "Absolutely not!" Being Roman is the title of a new six-part series Beard is presenting on Radio 4. It’s a departure for our most cherished historian of the period, in that its focus is less on military and political might than on the whole spectrum of Roman society, from a slave to an emperor. But the idea of living in that society herself fills Beard with horror. "For a start, I'm a woman. That’s quite a good reason in itself for not going back to that time. Women had no political rights. They had limited legal rights — in fact, a kind of ability to control property that wasn't the case in the UK until the 19th or 20th century. "But essentially, a woman's job was to have baby after baby, and they often died in childbirth. They had no possibility of having a public voice at all. So, no thank you! "It was a cruel world, and it was a painful world, whether you were a man or a woman." Beard is in a studio on the sixth floor of Broadcasting House, taking a break from recording her Being Roman script. Now 68, she has retired from academia — she taught Classics at Newnham College, Cambridge, for getting on for 40 years — but her energy and productivity show no sign of waning. She has just travelled down to London on a sleeper train from Edinburgh, where the night before she was giving a lecture that drew an audience of 650, and spending an hour and a half signing 1,500 copies of her new book — Emperor of Rome. And in addition to the radio series and the book, there’s a forthcoming BBC2 documentary that Beard has been filming. Ancient Rome is a lifelong cause for Beard, so how did it all begin? "I just really got into it at school," she says. "Back in the '60s, it was still a time when teenagers could go and volunteer to be on archaeological excavations, which I think would not be possible now. "I did that in Shropshire. I discovered that there's something hugely affecting about being able still to have physical contact with the ancient world — like, a piece of pottery that was once held by a Roman. That's a very trivial example, it's very corny, but I found it quite moving." The trip wasn’t just about the broken bits of Roman pottery. "I remember the exciting social life that I was able to have, out of the clutches of school and parents, camping in a muddy field with a load of other young people, going to the pub and having a good evening’s entertainment in all kinds of ways. I remember that very vividly." Beard benefited so greatly from studying Latin and Greek at school that I wondered where she stood on the teaching of those subjects today. Rishi Sunak recently announced that he wants maths and English to be compulsory to the age of 18, so how about Latin as well? "What a nightmare! I don’t think any subject should be compulsory after the age of 16!" Don’t get Mary Beard wrong. She says we must make sure we don’t lose Latin and the study of ancient Rome, but she is confident that "every generation reinvents it for themselves and finds different things in it". "We feel very pleased with ourselves when we find it again, but we have to remember that people have been finding it again since about the fourth century." One major cause of her optimism is the change in the requirement around studying Latin at university. "There is not a university in the country now where, if you want to, you cannot learn Latin and Greek from scratch to do a Classics degree. Read more: Louis Theroux: It was "challenging" to get Anthony Joshua to be vulnerable How to watch Now and Then film about Beatles' final track "In my day, many universities, if you wanted to do Classics, you already had to have Latin. Now you can learn it from scratch. "Now, that is hugely important because it means that it's not only people who went to the kind of schools that teach Latin and Greek who can go on to do Classics. That completely changes the constituency of the academic discipline." As with all history, the study of Ancient Rome means nothing if we don’t apply its lessons to today, so what are the perspectives on the modern world that Beard thinks the world of 2,000 years ago provides? "I think there are similarities and differences. One thing is the Romans effectively lived in a world with no boundaries. Centuries later, we mark them on the map — this is the end of the province of Britain or whatever, but they're by and large modern fictions. "Romans would look at our issues about illegal migration, say, and wouldn't understand what we meant by that. "They lived in a world in which there was no such thing as places where you were or were not allowed to go, be and live. I'm not saying that one should emulate the Romans, but getting your head around the idea that we could see the world differently, I think is quite interesting." The lessons don’t end there. "Another thing that has struck me from those times is the question of, how do you trust your political leaders? Do you think your political leaders are just performing an act? Do you think they are speaking words in which they believe? Do they lie? "We talk about that these days, and exactly the same it was a focus of debate in antiquity. We are not the first generation to wonder whether our political leaders are having us on." View Green Video on the source website You wonder that? "Of course you wonder that. To be a Roman emperor, was that a performance? Are you always performing some kind of act? That was discussed hugely in relation to Nero. "When we see a prime minister filling up a small car with petrol at a petrol pump, do we think that he's really doing that? Or is it a pose, is it an act? "The emperor Augustus, in a way, almost mirrors this. He was supposed to have had his wife sit in the inner courtyard in his house weaving, with the door open so people could see Livia at her female tasks. That is just the same. No one really believed Livia wove all Augustus’s clothes, although that was one claim. "There was a pretence there. Maybe we want a bit of pretence in politics, but certainly, I think seeing those kinds of issues through the lens of the Romans is quite interesting." Do you live, breathe and sleep ancient Rome? "No! It's a really interesting job, and it does kind of affect the way you see things in the world. But I do occasionally escape from the ancient world." What do you escape into? "Oh, you know — food, a bit of telly, newspapers. All the things everyone escapes into." So what TV have you enjoyed recently? "Well — I, Claudius, of course. But I've missed out on some things I think I would enjoy. If I could get into Strictly, I think I'd really enjoy it, but I never have." Perhaps they need to invite you on? "I think that's a big lose for me, isn't it!" Would you if they asked? "I haven’t got the time, she says judiciously. But no, it’s true, I haven't got the time. My friends watch Strictly, and I’m part of the culture because I can join in the conversations about it, but I've never actually watched it." Come on Strictly, where’s that invitation? Being Roman begins on Radio 4 at 11:30am on Wednesday 8th December. To discover your new favourite programmes, visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. Try Radio Times magazine today and get 10 issues for only £10 – subscribe now and celebrate the 60th anniversary of Doctor Who with a special issue of Radio Times. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times podcast.
The Archers' Tracy and Jazzer won’t have "smooth" romance
"Both of their lives have been full of quite intense challenges - that means they’re up for anything."
Ambridge is full of love at the moment, and two people who are deeply in their romance era are Tracy Horrobin and Jazzer McCreary. Radio Times magazine caught up with Susie Riddell (45) and Ryan Kelly (48) to find out all about their characters' second chance at love on The Archers. As a recap, Tracy is the mother of Chelsea and Brad and a member of the Bull’s bar staff, while Jazzer is a pig tender at Berrow Farm. Tell us about Tracy and Jazzer. Susie: Well, they’re fab! Ryan: Jazzer is a reformed bad boy. Early on, he was stealing cars. I love the idea of being a blind car thief! [The actor has been blind since birth.] He’s a kind of laughter-maker. Tracy is the same. Susie: They bring comedy and light and joy to the show but, with their relationship, the characters have become more in-depth. Both of their lives have been full of quite intense challenges. That means they’re up for anything. Where does the chemistry lie? Susie: They both like to have fun and laugh. Having a shared sense of humour is a major boon to their relationship. They’re both quite self-assured and not afraid. Ryan: They’re not bothered about what the neighbours think. Susie: Yes, I always describe Tracy as having no filter, and I think Jazzer’s the same. Ryan: The only thing that has made those two mellow is age. And they’ve not mellowed that much! Susie: I remember, in our first proper scenes, there was an argument that really kicked off the relationship. But when I saw the way Jazzer and Tracy butted up against each other, I thought, "Hmm, yes, I think they might get together one day." In real life, do you have other halves who make you laugh? Susie: Yes, definitely. That’s the first thing I’d say about my husband – he really makes me laugh. When I’ve been doing argument scenes with Ryan, it feels like I’m having a row with my real-life husband. Ryan: I make my wife mad when she doesn’t want to laugh. But I can make her laugh usually. Susie: That’s true in the green room as well. Ryan is an extremely astute reader of mood. He’s very good at lightening it. Are Brad and Jazzer similar? Susie: No, but they’re both very sweet. Jazzer has come into the family as an older brother/step-father figure who doesn’t overstep the mark. It’s lovely for a step-parent to be shown that way, rather than as a negative change. So you rate their chances? Susie: Oh yes, definitely. It’s been a bit up and down, but essentially they love each other to their core. Jazzer and Tracy’s first attempt at a wedding went disastrously wrong. What about attempt number two? Susie: It doesn’t go smoothly, either! I don’t think anything’s going to go smoothly for them. And I love that. I’d hate it for it to go smoothly, because the comedy and the joy come from that. View Green Video on the source website Read more: The Archers celebrates 20,000th episode: "It's just the beginning!" Coronation Street casts The Archers and Hollyoaks favourites as fiery new duo The Archers is broadcast on BBC Radio 4 at 7pm Sundays to Fridays, with an Omnibus edition on Sundays at 10am, and is available to listen on BBC Sounds. Try Radio Times magazine today and get 10 issues for only £10, PLUS a £10 John Lewis and Partners voucher delivered to your home – subscribe now. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
The Archers' Mia and Brad: 'They’ve struggled to find people they get on with'
As one of the youngest couples in The Archers, Mia Grundy and Brad Horrobin are setting the tone for "beautiful, instant young love". Speaking exclusively to Radio Times magazine, Molly Pipe (25) and Taylor Uttley (23) discuss their characters' blossoming romance and how their differences bring them together. As a reminder, Mia came to Ambridge in 2007 via her mother Nic Hanson’s relationship with Will Grundy. Brad and his sister Chelsea are the children of Tracy. What’s the key to Mia and Brad’s romance? Molly: Well, it’s young love – that beautiful, instant young love, before you’ve experienced too much heartbreak. Taylor: They’ve both struggled to find people their own age that they get on with – Mia because of her eco-warrior shenanigans, and Brad due to his complete lack of social acumen. Brad’s very churned up, isn’t he? Taylor: He’s a maths person and struggles to understand that socialising is not a maths equation. And what about Mia. Have you met young people like her? Molly: Well, the character reminds me of my younger self and all the embarrassing things I did as a teenager. Just being really ideological and annoying, but I would never have the confidence to ask someone to kiss me, whereas Mia seems to have that. Taylor: Yes, I remember at 12 or 13 thinking, "Oh God, what’s the right thing to say? I have to be cool. So how are people cool? How do they do that?" But by the time I was 15, 16, I cared way less – less than Brad does. Are your own lives a bit less complicated? Taylor: I can’t imagine having a life as chaotic as Brad’s. Molly: Yes, mine is. However, I know what it’s like to live in a really small community. I lived on one of the Scilly Isles, with a population of 120, so it was very [much] like Ambridge. The rumour mill was constantly grinding. You could sneeze at one end of the island and they’d know about it at the other. Taylor: I grew up in Dudley, but at weekends I’d visit my grandmother who lives on a farm in Lancashire. It was lovely until I got to be 15, 16, and realised I hadn’t seen anyone my age for maybe four days. Archers listeners tend to be older than you — how did the series come into your lives? Molly: I started with the first Helen and Rob storyline seven or eight years ago, when I would have been about 17 or 18. I was like, "Oh, that’s interesting. And that’s not just about cows!" It had some great storylines. Then you get really into it, and you start to think that they’re real people in a way, and you’re chatting to your mates about it. And it’s weird now because obviously I’m in it, which is cool. Taylor: I’ve a memory of Chelsea having driving lessons. But when I was at drama school in Bristol, we did radio plays and a teacher there turned out to have taught half the cast. I remember her saying, if you can get into The Archers, you’ll be sorted. And we were all like, "Oh, God, that’d be the dream!" And now it’s happened. View Green Video on the source website Read more: The Archers celebrates 20,000th episode: "It's just the beginning!" Coronation Street casts The Archers and Hollyoaks favourites as fiery new duo The Archers is broadcast on BBC Radio 4 at 7pm Sundays to Fridays, with an Omnibus edition on Sundays at 10am, and is available to listen on BBC Sounds. Try Radio Times magazine today and get 10 issues for only £10, PLUS a £10 John Lewis and Partners voucher delivered to your home – subscribe now. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
The Archers’ stars on being a part of radio drama’s first lesbian couple
"They find farming funny and each other so entertaining."
Romance is well and truly in the air over at Ambridge, and Radio Times magazine took a trip to meet several of The Archers cast whose characters are deeply in love. First up is Pip Archer, played by Daisy Badger (33), who works on the family farm, Brookfield, on The Archers. She used to be with Toby Fairbrother, the father of her child, Rosie, but she's since found romance with Stella Pryor. Stella, played by Lucy Speed (47), is the manager of Home Farm. Together, Stella and Pip form the first lesbian couple on the Radio 4 drama. What has brought Stella and Pip together? Lucy: On an everyday level, it’s because they’re both career farmers. Their shared commitment is important. Their timings fit. Daisy: They find farming funny and each other so entertaining. How would you describe Stella? Lucy: She’s quite calm – not overly emotional. She’s not to be messed with work-wise. As a female in a male-driven environment, she’s put romance on the back burner. Pip is at a different stage in her life, isn’t she? Daisy: Pip was on the cusp of embracing her own independence. Now that Toby’s moved on, it feels like the start of a new life. Does a same-sex relationship appear to be a natural progression for both characters? Daisy: Absolutely. It seems obvious and normal, the stuff that’s been happening between Pip and Stella. Nobody is trying too hard with it. Lucy: Yes. Stella is grown-up enough to say to herself, "Look, don’t overthink it and just go with it." But also, I think she’s had same-sex relationships in the past. As a female, you reach a certain stage in life where you go, "Everything can change." It’s the first lesbian relationship in The Archers. Is that an exciting thing to be part of? Lucy: It is for me! Daisy: It should have happened sooner! Well, maybe not should have… Lucy: I have an 11-year-old daughter. And what I’ve noticed is that young people are in this lovely space where they’re allowed to choose and be free, and learn about their sexuality. That’s something I really embrace. What I’ve enjoyed about this storyline is that it hasn’t been a big coming out. Daisy: To me the question of Pip’s sexuality is more a matter of, "Well, we’ll figure that bit out later." That’s really nice. It’s just about the connection between her and Stella. Read more: The Archers celebrates 20,000th episode: "It's just the beginning!" Coronation Street casts The Archers and Hollyoaks favourites as fiery new duo Lucy, you were in EastEnders on and off for a decade. How does The Archers compare? Lucy: The Archers is obviously different, but what’s the same is the sense of family in the cast, where the comedy is brilliant, the support is brilliant, and you get to know each other’s lives. But on radio it’s totally anonymous, no pressure. Nobody goes, "Oh, she looks rough this morning." It’s a real playground for actors. Daisy: It’s brilliant. It’s the first time I’ve really looked forward to going into the studio. View Green Video on the source website The Archers is broadcast on BBC Radio 4 at 7pm Sundays to Fridays, with an Omnibus edition on Sundays at 10am, and is available to listen on BBC Sounds. Try Radio Times magazine today and get 10 issues for only £10, PLUS a £10 John Lewis and Partners voucher delivered to your home – subscribe now. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Ken Bruce: 'It was time to challenge myself rather than wait for the axe'
Speaking to Simon O'Hagan in Radio Times magazine, Ken Bruce discusses his time at Radio 2, his decision to leave and the continuing success of Popmaster.
This interview was originally published in Radio Times magazine. Ken Bruce says he doesn’t listen to records. For Bruce, for more than 30 years until early last month the presenter of the biggest show on Radio 2, the prince of Popmaster, the maestro of music broadcasting and, without doubt, the most beloved DJ in the country, radio is all that matters. "I listen to a lot of radio," he explains. "I like to get my music from radio because – and this is why radio is so great – I don’t know what’s coming next. And you hear something and go, 'Oh I love that!'" Radio 2 certainly didn’t know what was coming next when, back in January, Bruce dropped the bombshell that shocked his millions of listeners and became the biggest talking point in the industry. He was quitting the show. It was time to move on. The station would be losing perhaps its most emblematic figure – Bruce’s warm, mischievous Glaswegian brogue no longer to be heard between 9:30am and 12 noon every weekday morning. The dial was shifting, and so were broadcasting’s tectonic plates. At 72, Bruce is at an age when many people would be thinking about retirement. But no. He has started all over again at Greatest Hits – the station that two years ago snaffled another Radio 2 titan, Simon Mayo. So it’s more good news for Greatest Hits, and more bad news for Radio 2. And, as he goes on to tell me, Bruce leaves with a feeling that the BBC hasn’t treated him as well as it could have. The way he talks about the move, it sounds almost inevitable. "One of the reasons I went is because, having done the show for quite a long time, and with it being the highest-rated programme in Europe for four years, I thought, 'What’s to achieve? What’s left? What mountains are left to climb in this particular place?' And I thought, 'Not really very much.' I didn’t want to go into a slow decline, and have people all looking around and saying, 'When is he going to leave?' I wanted to go rather than hear that." But that’s not the whole story. There were frustrations, too. "I probably wanted to prove a few things to myself, and maybe to some other people, about my worth on Radio 2. There were times when I felt I wasn’t really noticed by either the BBC itself or some listeners. So I thought, ‘I’m going to make these people appreciate me.’ And having done that to my satisfaction, I felt it was time to give myself a little challenge, try something different, rather than become stale and wait for the axe." What made him feel he wasn’t being appreciated? "Well, this is going back a few years, but there were times when all the publicity was about other presenters, people who were off the telly, and I wasn’t mentioned at all. I was just an afterthought. And I thought, ‘Well, I just want to make these people realise that I’m doing quite a good job.’ There was a certain amount of, ‘Oi, I’m over here!’" I suggest to Bruce that he’s been taken for granted. "You’re absolutely right. But I guess that applies to anybody who’s done a good job for a long time in any kind of situation." He is also not best pleased that Radio 2 asked him to step down from the show before his contract had fully expired. His last show was at the beginning of March. "I’m a little bit disappointed by that, I have to say. Because I thought that, after 45 years, I could be trusted to do the right thing for the next few weeks. But obviously it’s up to them. It’s their choice." At Greatest Hits, where his five weekday morning shows will pretty much replicate what he’s been doing at Radio 2, he’s playing more of the music he really loves – the classics from yesteryear – and less of the new music that his old station incorporates into its playlists. "I was brought up with radio in the '70s, '80s and '90s. And when you’ve got such a fantastic depth of music to be able to play from those decades, it’s lovely to be able to do just that. There’s no end to the quality tracks that you can play. Yes, there’s a place for new music, but to concentrate on those decades, and the quality of those decades, it’s a lovely offering and a lovely product. I’m delighted to be a part of it." There’s nothing wrong with new music, Bruce stresses. "I mean, there’s some very high-quality new music. I might take issue with the balance, the proportion of new music against old music. It’s about listening to your audience and hearing what your audience wants. This is one of the rules I learnt years and years ago when I started in hospital radio. You don’t come in and play the music that you like, you play the music that your audience likes." One thing Bruce’s audience really likes is his daily music quiz, Popmaster. He was smart enough to trademark it 25 years ago, and he’s taken it to Greatest Hits. What’s its secret? "It’s successful because of the quality of the questions, the simplicity of the format and the great desire of the British people to share an experience at the same time every day." On Greatest Hits, that time will be 10:30am, and Bruce is clearly hoping that lots of his old Radio 2 listeners will be there to enjoy it. "Radio listenership is a very ingrained thing," Bruce says. "People listen to the same station for a long time, and it’s not easy for them to re-learn how to listen to another station. But I’m hoping that sufficient people will, and if you’ve enjoyed what I’ve been doing on Radio 2, then come and join me somewhere else." View Green Video on the source website Visit our TV Guide, Radio Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what's on. Try Radio Times magazine today and get 12 issues for only £1 with delivery to your home – subscribe now. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast.
Joanna Lumley, Roger Allam on return of "radical" Conversations from a Long Marriage
Stay passionate and laugh a lot – Joanna Lumley and Roger Allam reveal the secrets of a happy marriage.
This interview was originally published in Radio Times magazine. If there’s such a thing as on-screen chemistry, can there not also be such a thing as on-radio chemistry? If we’d only ever heard Lauren Bacall and Humphrey Bogart and never seen them, what would have been the effect? The answer might be something very like Joanna Lumley and Roger Allam in Conversations from a Long Marriage, the hit comedy two-hander that captures the essence of a relationship that’s been through its ups and downs but has endured over many years. Every episode is half an hour of pure chemistry. "Maybe our voices match," Lumley says. "I’ve always believed that when you see a couple, somehow they have to look right together. But they also have to sound right together." Allam agrees. He says that radio producers have said to him that "radio drama is more like cinema than theatre, that a mic is the equivalent of a camera". Lumley and Allam are at a studio in west London, taking a break during the recording of series four of Conversations, alongside the show’s creator/writer Jan Etherington. This family has been together since the show began in 2020, whereupon it quickly turned into one of Radio 4’s most popular comedies of recent years. As well as the series starting this week, Etherington has been commissioned to write a fifth, an almost unheard-of level of commitment on Radio 4’s part, and an endorsement of her conviction that older people and their still very much alive marriages were an under-explored area in radio drama, with rich comic potential. She wrote the show with Joanna Lumley in mind. "I wanted to write about the type of older woman I know," she says. "The older women’s parts I came across were all tetchy divorcees, bossy managers or wet grandmothers in their pinnies. Where were all the women who went to Glastonbury? Where was the humour?" Lumley says that when she read the script, "it was like someone had been listening at my window". When Allam was sent it, he thought it was lovely. "And it was working with Joanna. What’s not to like?" Lumley returns the compliment. "Roger’s done everything – Shakespeare, singing, shows. He’s in a different class." "Joanna does herself down somewhat," says Allam. "Not only has she been a wonderful beauty and a sexy icon, she’s also been incredibly funny. Absolutely Fabulous was a glorious comedy series, and Jo was brilliant in it. And also funny about getting older, I think, as well, about not being the beautiful young sex icon any more, but trying to be." "If you admire the way people work, you know you’re going to get on well with them," says Lumley. "We all have to bring an artifice to the work we do. We have to admire the scripts we actually think are pathetic, and work with actors whose eyes we can see glaze over as they reach their next line. But that could never be the case with Roger. He’s top-notch. He’s a legend." It was a surprise to both of them to realise that, in spite of a combined acting experience of many decades – Lumley is 76, Allam 69 – they had never previously worked together. "There are masses of people we’ve both worked with, but no, our paths had never crossed," Lumley says. She turns to Allam. "I’ve admired you from afar!" And what of their own long marriages? What’s the secret? Lumley has been married to musician Stephen Barlow for more than 30 years, and says that what’s important to her is that she feels thrilled to be with him. "I admire my husband. I admire him because he’s brilliant. I think he's fantastic. I feel lucky to be married to such a brilliant and amazing person. It’s important that you don’t look down on your partner." Allam, long married to actor and writer Rebecca Saire, thinks laughing is the secret. "My wife makes me laugh so much, I sometimes think I’m going to die laughing. I love that. Laughing, liking, loving, and giving each other room to not have to do everything together all the time." Surely, Roger, it works the other way round, and you also make your wife laugh? "Oh, yes, I make her laugh. We make each other laugh. But honestly, sometimes marriage is just about the silliness, the freedom with each other to be silly and ridiculous. And then also serious about things that are more serious, and also just about practical things that have to be done." Allam’s grown-up sons still live at the family home in south-west London. Lumley, whose home is in south London, has grand-daughters who visit. So the two stars are at different marital stages in their private lives, and neither of their situations bears comparison to "Joanna and Roger" in Conversations. Their characters, who never use each other’s names, are childless. Nonetheless, real-life experiences do find their way into the scripts. Lumley, Allam and Etherington collapse with laughter recalling an episode inspired by the arrival of a trampoline in the back garden of Allam’s next-door neighbours. Could Conversations perhaps be accused of idealising long marriages? That in truth, most aren’t like that? "No, no!" they chime. "It’s amazingly truthful," Lumley says. "Jan has a very good ear and a very good perception of the tiny, tedious things that make up marriage – the niggles people sometimes get into, the fantastically petty things. And they usually get over them. And that happens in real life." "In fact, I’d say Conversations is radical, because of this older couple having a very passionate life and love for each other. I think that’s often patronised. But it’s radical." Conversations from a Long Marriage returns to BBC Radio 4 today (Wednesday 15th February) at 6:30pm. Series 1-3 are available now on Audible – sign up now for a free trial. Conversations from a Long Marriage, the book of Jan Etheringto's scripts, is available to buy now. Try Radio Times magazine today and get 12 issues for only £1 with delivery to your home — subscribe now. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to the Radio Times View From My Sofa podcast.
Jan Ravens – the impressionist who got Liz Truss down to a T
The star of radio’s Dead Ringers on the battles she’s fought to have her voice heard – and why she wishes our shortest-serving prime minister had hung around just a bit longer
This feature originally appeared in Radio Times magazine. There probably aren’t too many people who are sorry that Liz Truss’s prime ministership lasted only 50 days, but one person who can be included among that number – at least up to a point – is Jan Ravens. For more than 20 years, Ravens has been the genius voice of countless high-profile women on the Radio 4 impressions show Dead Ringers, a new series of which starts on Friday 9th December. Truss was shaping up to be a Ravens classic, but her time in office was so short that she came and went after one run of Dead Ringers had finished and before the next one began. “She was a golden opportunity,” Ravens says. “If only she’d held back a bit! It was a shame.” Fans of Ravens weren’t entirely deprived, however. The skits on Truss that Ravens posted on Twitter last summer – “Hi everyone! It’s the Trusster here!” – were pure joy. “I was glad I made the most of it when I could,” Ravens says. “It started when she was made Foreign Secretary. I thought, how is this possible? It was like she was this little girl whose daddy had always told her she was funny. She had this untrammelled sense of self-belief.” It was Ravens who came up with the “I know!” catchphrase for Truss – two words that somehow encapsulated all the soon-to-be-PM’s mix of incredulity and smugness, along with a wildly misplaced estimation of her own abilities. “I’m Foreign Secretary! I KNOW!” View oEmbed on the source website The catchphrase “came off the top of my head”, Ravens says, and it was so perfect that it deserved a longer run-out. But Ravens’s regret that it wasn’t to be is purely professional. “Yes I’m an impressionist, but I also live in the real world. I think it’s fair to say that it can only have been a good thing that she moved on so quickly.” Ravens’s gift for impressions manifested itself early. As a child growing up in Hoylake on the Wirral, she would mimic her mother. “She had all these Lancashire phrases like ‘She’s got a face like a fried shoe!’” Then Ravens’s schoolteachers became the object of her mimicry, and soon she was setting herself to become an actor. At Cambridge University, Ravens became the first female president of the Cambridge Footlights, performing alongside Emma Thompson and Stephen Fry. She retained her ambitions to do “serious” acting, and went on to spend a year with the Royal Shakespeare Company. But her destiny really lay in comedy. She was a voice on Spitting Image, and established herself in comedy panel shows on Radio 4. “I actually think comedy is harder to do than ‘straight’ acting,” Ravens says. “And when it comes to impressions, there are so many demands – it’s not just about being funny and being accurate, it’s also about how insightful you are. And yet there’s sometimes this perception that you’re just a kind of ‘turn’.” Reduced status seemed to come with the territory. On Spitting Image she was obliged to accept that Margaret Thatcher was being voiced by a male actor (Steve Nallon), but it felt like an encroachment too far when Nallon started doing the Queen Mother. Then when she joined Dead Ringers in the early 2000s, she found that the only characters she was playing were Posh Spice and a secretary. “I really had to push for more female characters. It was all Tony Blair, George Bush and Gordon Brown. I was always saying, let’s do Tessa Jowell, Harriet Harman, Hazel Blears. I started doing broadcasters – Fiona Bruce, Sue MacGregor, Charlotte Green and so on. The boys all had these sports commentators to mimic, and I’d argue for us to pick up on property programmes like Changing Rooms and Location, Location, Location. “I don’t want to make it sound like I was constantly sitting in a corner fuming – that was only occasionally! – because it was a privilege to do the show, but it seems extraordinary the battles I had to fight.” Now Ravens has a glittering track record of sublime Dead Ringers creations — from the late Queen and Diane Abbott to Laura Kuenssberg and Kirsty Wark. But her favourites, she says, are the less obvious figures. “I enjoyed doing Hilary Mantel when she was giving the Reith Lectures. She had this sort-of toothy, breathless voice. Germaine Greer was another one. And Emma Barnett. I went on Woman’s Hour recently and said I was glad she’d taken over because I felt I could never master Jenni Murray. Some people have a timbre that’s just completely outside your range, and she was one of them. For a long time I felt I couldn’t do Judi Dench. Then I saw her in the Bond movies and it was like I finally I got it.” Does she ever worry that the show goes too far? That her Theresa May and Liz Truss might be regarded as a bit cruel? “Of course I feel sympathy for them as human beings, but if they are going to assume positions of power, they’ve got to be prepared to have the p**s taken out of them. Satire isn’t going to bring down the government but politicians have to be held to account.” Ravens, who is 64, has written and performed two semi-autobiographical one-woman shows, and she says she would like to do more. In recent years she’s been confronted with a huge challenge in her personal life. In 2015, a devastating brain illness befell her then husband Max Hole. His memory of the previous 30 years, including their relationship, had gone, and they have since divorced. Ravens says she has tried writing about the experience, “but it’s just too difficult”. For now, there is the latest Dead Ringers – three editions in the run-up to Christmas – and I wondered if the show might find a way to give Liz Truss an afterlife? “I hope so. We’ll see.” Oh go on. Please. We’d all love a bit more “I know!” Read more: David Jason: ‘I miss Only Fools and Horses terribly’ Mackenzie Crook on Detectorists reunion, plot twist and losing Diana Rigg Dead Ringers is on Radio 4 on Friday 9th December at 6:30pm. Check out more of our Comedy coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to see what's on tonight. The latest issue of Radio Times magazine is on sale now – subscribe now. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to the Radio Times View From My Sofa podcast.
Barry Cryer: My life on I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue
Before his death at the age of 86, Radio Times reflected on I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue with the great Barry Cryer.
In November 2020, before the start of the latest series of the classic Radio 4 comedy panel show I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue, long-time panellist Barry Cryer, who has died aged 86, talked Radio Times' Simon O’Hagan through the show. Earliest memory of Clue I was on the very first series, in 1972. Clue had evolved from I’m Sorry, I’ll Read That Again which I’d worked on with Graeme Garden along with many others including John Cleese. The first series of Clue I actually chaired a couple of editions, and then I switched to be on the panel and Humphrey Lyttelton took over as chair. The funny thing is, the show wasn’t that highly regarded to start with. There was a pilot edition that went out on Boxing Day. The thinking was, “everyone will be drunk on Boxing Day, they won’t really be listening to it”. Amazing, looking back. Tell us about Humphrey Lyttelton When Clue started, some of the BBC suits thought of Humph as just a jazz presenter. They didn’t know how funny he was. He made chairing the show his own. He was just brilliant. He’d make out he was bored with the whole thing. I remember one round when we’d all sung a song or something and there was applause and then it went back to Humph and there was silence and then finally he said, “Right, well that’s 8 across, now 4 down”. And Jack Dee? We had a break after Humph. I think we thought we might never do the show again. But then the BBC decided they wanted us back. We needed a new chair. We tried out Stephen Fry, but he was too knowing. We tried Rob Brydon, who was great. But when we tried Jack Dee, we knew straightaway. We thought, “Oh boy. Sarcastic. Detached. He’s the one.” Jack said, “I can’t fill those shoes,” because he admired Humph so much. But of course he has filled them. I remember one of the first shows we ever did with Jack. It was at the Rose Theatre in Kingston-on-Thames. In the middle of the recording, a man in the audience said very loudly, “Not the same without Humphrey Lyttelton, is it?” Terrible silence. And then Jack Dee said, “Oh, dear Humph, I wonder where he is now. I envy him.” He got a huge round of applause. Quite rightly. And Graeme Garden? Graeme and I go back such a long way. We met on The Frost Report back in the Sixties. On Clue we’ve mostly been on the same team and we just have this chemistry. We invented Hamish and Dougal and we’d do the Sound Charades round in character. Graeme’s got Scottish blood, but I haven’t got a drop of Scottish blood. We were two sort of frauds. They were a bit stereotypical but we had a great time. “You’ll have had your tea,” was our catchphrase. We played Glasgow once, and I thought, “We’re going to get murdered in Glasgow!” They loved it! In the end we got our own little radio series, Hamish and Dougal. And Tim Brooke-Taylor? Dear Tim. He was one of the originals as well. And when you lose somebody that close to you, it becomes very real, you know? He was a good old friend. Graeme always said that Tim was the one the audience identified with, which was an interesting thought. The way he reacted to what me and Graeme were doing – it was like a member of the audience, in a very happy, positive way. In that sense he was the odd one out. Give us a glimpse backstage You don’t have a script but you get the rounds and the running order a few days in advance. It keeps you on your toes because you’ve got to make your own arrangements, and if you hear us laughing at each other’s jokes it’s genuine because we won’t have heard them before. For years we only recorded in London and it was our longtime producer Jon Naismith who insisted we went to other parts of the country. He’d charge a minimal charge for the audience to defray the cost of the theatre. The BBC said, “You can’t charge for a radio recording.” And he said, “We haven’t had a single complaint.” He was amazing, the way he dug his heels in, and the BBC backed off. We always get a tremendous welcome wherever we go. What’s the best location that you visited? For me it has to be the City Varieties in Leeds. Leeds is my home town and the City Varieties was where I’d done my very first professional job back in the 1950s. I’d started there as a stand-up. Except in those days we didn’t call it stand-up. We called it an act or a turn. It was just me telling jokes. Or I did a turn with Bernard Cribbins. I’d also done The Good Old Days in the same theatre. To come back with a radio show years later was quite a night for me. It was marvellous, the nostalgia. Most memorable show Well, there was going to Leeds. But in retrospect I suppose it was Humph’s last show, though we didn’t know it at the time. I think we were in Peterborough. We knew he was going into hospital the next morning, but he insisted on doing two recordings. I remember him at breakfast in the hotel. He had this bowl of prunes. He tasted one and said, how can you bugger up a prune? Apparently in hospital he was asked if he wanted to look at a screen to see his heart and he replied, “I never watch daytime time TV”. He was a great man. And the secret of Mornington Crescent? No comment! Interview by Simon O’Hagan.
The Film Programme hosts discuss show's "sad" cancellation after 17 years
Francine Stock and Antonia Quirke on why The Film Programme was cancelled and the enduring "great desire" for the cinema experience.
This week’s edition of Radio 4’s The Film Programme will be both a first and a last. What’s last about it is that after 17 years the show is coming to an end. What’s first about it is that never before have the programme’s two presenters, who have done it as a job share, come together to present the same edition. The occasion is that historic. For both Francine Stock and Antonia Quirke, the rolling of the credits on a programme that’s been a weekly fixture since 2004 marks a regrettable turn of events. The programme’s sort-of successor will be a show called Screenshot, but it will air fortnightly not weekly. And its mission to “look at the kaleidoscopic world of the moving image” is expected to extend to TV, video and gaming as well as film in the traditional sense. For all the havoc wrought on the film industry by the pandemic, Stock and Quirke still believe in the power of the cinema-going experience, and in the idea of film communities – the community of filmmakers, and that of film consumers. To a great extent, it’s those communities that the programme has existed to serve. “It’s ironic that on the exact day of our last programme, Hollywood is opening the biggest ever movie museum,” Quirke, who is 50, says. “And it’s going to have incredible theatres and screening rooms and programmes of events year-round, so tell me this is a dead form! It’s clearly an alive and exciting, precious form. This idea that it’s time we bowed out and film stood behind long-form television or any other kind of screen iteration is just insane to me.” The axing of the show has also dismayed the wider film world. Some 100 film luminaries – among them Martin Scorsese, Steve McQueen, Emma Thompson, Kristin Scott Thomas, Richard E Grant and Liam Neeson – wrote a letter to The Observer, in which they said that “to axe such a long-standing and much-loved programme represents an unacceptable diminution of the BBC’s dedication to the continuing story of film, whatever programming is intended to replace it”. The Film Programme, the letter said, “has always been an exemplary blend of coverage of current cinema and the film canon, and an active champion of independent film”. How we consume film was undergoing huge change even before the pandemic, with streaming well established and movies turning up on Netflix within days of them going into cinemas. Indeed, this trend will be the topic of the jointly fronted final edition. Nonetheless, says Stock, the evolution of film consumption didn’t limit the scope of The Film Programme. “An enduring thing that I’m very happy with is that we looked not just at the classics, but perhaps at lesser-known but really terrific films from film history that we could just shine a light on. That’s probably the thing I’ve had more response to and letters about than anything – people saying, ‘I would never have discovered this, had I not heard about it on The Film Programme’.” She cites a listener who heard the director Moira Buffini on the programme discussing the 1979 movie Stalker – a work by the Soviet director Andrei Tarkovsky that even its adherents might describe as challenging – and finding that she had opened it up to him. “That was really a guiding element of the programme.” Stock, who is 63, has been to film festivals all over the world, but it’s perhaps significant that her personal highlights are closer to home and reflect the role that cinema plays in everyday lives – a trip she made to Campbelltown in Scotland, when the town was trying to save its Art Deco cinema; and to Lewes in Sussex for a screening of Paper Moon (the 1973 movie starring real-life father and daughter Ryan and Tatum O’Neal) for a junior film club. Of the programme’s demise, Stock says, “I’m sad. I understand that things have to change, and that the industry has changed. But I still think there’s a great desire to watch things communally. And the programme has brought a different way of sharing the film experience. I think of it as something that has allowed enthusiasm to be spread around.” Stock and Quirke give great credit for the programme’s popularity to its longtime producer Stephen Hughes, and between the three of them they established an approach that meant the film world came to them rather than the other way round. The programme seemed to operate outside of the press-junket circuit of film promotion. “We never really held tight to current releases,” explains Quirke. “Of course, we’d always feature a film that was out that week, but it didn’t have to headline the programme. We might headline with a classic film because we’d discovered that someone involved in the making of it, who people thought was long dead, might still be around and living in, I don’t know, Reading. That’s how we found the special-effects artist who masterminded the world-turning-backwards sequence in Superman. One time I interviewed the guy who edited Jagged Edge, which was one of the most exciting films I ever saw when I was growing up.” Quirke chooses as her stand-out interview one she did with Christopher Lee. Perhaps appropriately, the star of many a Hammer Horror movie was, she says, terrifying. “It was for one of The Lord of the Rings films. And he got the wrong end of the stick when I talked to him about Tolkien. Of course, he’d known Tolkien, and got very angry, and there was this great flaring of the nostrils.” She says she also loved interviewing directing duo the Coen Brothers, likewise the actor Willem Dafoe. “That was the lovely thing about The Film Programme. Because it was so respected, you were given proper time with top people.” And now The Film Programme’s own top people are heading off into the sunset. The final edition of The Film Programme is at 4pm on Radio 4 on Thursday 30 September. Looking for something else to watch? Check out our TV Guide.
Radio Times celebrates the voices around the UK who lighten up lockdown
Eight famous faces tell us how local radio has helped them over lockdown.
Local radio has been a life-line for many over the past 12 months, and has not only provided up-to-date information about what the pandemic restrictions mean to each regional area but has importantly been a friendly, familiar voice every day for millions. Below, eight famous faces tell us their favourite regional radio presenters and how they've proven invaluable not only through lockdown, but in everyday life, too. Richard Coles, broadcaster and vicar, on Bernie Keith, BBC Radio Northampton I’m the vicar at Finedon in Northamptonshire, and I’ve been listening to Bernie Keith’s midweek morning show on BBC Radio Northamptonshire for about 10 years. He’s the most wonderful broadcaster. His co-presenter is his schnauzer called Riley. Bernie is very clever, very funny, and he has this extraordinarily close relationship with his listeners. He seems to understand about everything — from the latest roadworks to life itself. He has terrific brio — a sensibility a bit like Graham Norton. He knows how to go far, but not too far. He’s astringent, intelligent, not cheesy, a great advocate for local radio generally. He’s fought a good fight. He’s worked in local radio all over the place, but he’s found a home at BBC Northampton, and I’d say he was as dear to the county as the Spencers of Althorp. I’ve been a guest on the programme many times and it’s always lovely to enter the world of Bernie. There’s something compelling about him. I’m told he’s the highest-paid presenter on local radio, and he deserves to be. He’s like a national figure, but he’s local. When Bernie meets his maker there will be crowds thronging the centre of Northampton. Eliza Carthy, musician, on Sam Hindley, Sheffield Live! I live in Robin Hood’s Bay on the Yorkshire coast and my local radio hero is a music broadcaster on Sheffield Live!, a community radio station that does great work generally. Sam Hindley is a proper champion of folk music — fabulously enthusiastic and knowledgable. He co-presents with James Fagan a weekly show called Thank Goodness It’s Folk Music on a Friday. Sam has cerebral palsy but he doesn’t let his physical difficulties get in the way of anything. Sheffield has a tremendous folk scene and Sam is at the heart of it. Kirill Karabits, chief conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, on Steve Harris and Sarah Farmer, BBC Radio Solent Steve Harris and Sarah Farmer present on BBC Radio Solent and they have always been a great support to us at the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. Lockdown meant the orchestra was forced to take the longest break in its 127-year history, and Sarah was there for our opening rehearsals when we finally made our return to the stage in the autumn. They’re both across every aspect of community life here on the south coast. They have such energy, and an infectious curiosity. DJ Taylor, writer, on Rob Butler, BBC Radio Norfolk Rob Butler does the evening show on BBC Radio Norfolk. He’s a Norwich boy and he’s very down to earth. He does a phone-in and when Norwich City are playing it’s interspersed with commentaries. Rob will go to the home games with a roving microphone. I like that he’s so interested in local culture. He manages to popularise some quite serious stuff about the area’s heritage. He does a weekly feature about the Norfolk dialect, for example, with an expert called Peter Trudgill. It’s all great stuff — an absolute validation of the principle of local radio. Libby Purves, broadcaster and author, on Lesley Dolphin, BBC Radio Suffolk Lesley Dolphin presents the afternoon show on BBC Radio Suffolk. She is always a pleasure to listen to — she’s cheerful, intelligent, interested, and she has always done any necessary homework. She’s never patronising and she puts even the shyest people at their ease. She’s interviewed me a few times, and what I get from her is a real sense of being pleased to talk to a community she understands, rather than wanting to be a “famous personality”. Ricky Ross, musician and broadcaster, on Bryan Burnett, BBC Radio Scotland I’m going to nominate a fellow presenter on BBC Radio Scotland. Get It On with Bryan Burnett is weekdays, 6pm till 8, and is basically a request show, with Bryan picking a theme for the night. Recent themes have been Winter Songs, Secrets and Lies, and The Song that Sums Up the Year, with listeners choosing the songs. The programme could be done quite lazily but the beauty of the thing is that with Bryan every night is like the first night. He presents the show with such commitment. He has real respect for the listener. He’ll try and give people their head, and really listen to what they are telling him. He’s genuinely moved by people’s stories, and his enthusiasm for the music is tremendous. I had COVID in 2020 and was in bed for a while, and listening to Bryan really cheered me up. Robert Bathurst, actor, on Dominic King, BBC Radio Kent I live in East Sussex and the local radio I listen to is Johnny Cantor on BBC Sussex for commentaries on Brighton football matches, and, over the border, Dominic King on BBC Radio Kent. Dominic does an early evening midweek show, very arts-based and he fills it his own playlist. He’s really good. He’s unabashedly Kent and he celebrates Kent. He’s been kind enough to have me on the show a few times. Local radio can be grating, but Dominic just has this very engaging manner. He engages with everyone he talks to. He’s bright without being cheesy, and he’s a tremendous champion of local musicians and arts people. Tanni Grey-Thompson, Paralympian and member of the House of Lords, on Neil Green of BBC Radio Tees. I live in County Durham and I’ve been listening to Neil Green for about 20 years. He’s had various slots on BBC Radio Tees, his current one as co-presenter of the breakfast show. What I like about him is he can be chatty and friendly, but at the same time ask tough questions. He’s brilliant on phone-ins. I’ve done radio presenting myself and I know how difficult they can be. Neil knows exactly how to maintain a conversation, how to end a conversation, deal with people who go off on a tangent. He’s been especially good during lockdown. Local radio relies on local events happening. Without them, Neil has had to work his socks off to make sure the show has stayed relevant. I really admire him. This story originally appeared in the Radio Times magazine. For the biggest interviews and the best TV listings subscribe to Radio Times now and never miss a copy.
Sara Cox, Ken Bruce, Jo Whiley and Rylan Clark-Neal reveal how BBC Radio 2 is operating in lockdown
The talent behind some of the station's biggest shows reveal how the global pandemic is shaping their output.
You’re unlikely to see any tractors in the vicinity of Wogan House – the home of Radio 2 in central London – but for the past few months, the presenter of the station’s biggest show has had to make sure that the rumble of farm vehicles has remained out of earshot of the listener. As with so many BBC radio presenters, lockdown has obliged Ken Bruce to broadcast his daily mid-morning show from home. That home is deep in the Oxfordshire countryside, where there is no shortage of potential hazards for the team behind the most listened-to station in Europe to be mindful of. "We have three teenagers at home, as well as two dogs who bark a fair bit," Bruce says. "Add to that a stables across the road and tractors passing by outside and it can get a bit lively." To keep a broadcasting behemoth like Radio 2 functioning smoothly under the constraints imposed by lockdown is a colossal challenge. What a time, then, for the station’s incoming head, Helen Thomas, whose appointment was announced last month. "We’ve had to change the whole way our shows are produced," she says. Wogan House hasn’t shut down completely, but that doesn’t mean the workforce has been able to carry on as normal. Thomas’s top priority has been the safety of her staff – "putting new technical provisions into the building to enable presenters and producers to interact during shows while keeping them separate from the studio engineer". Sara Cox, who presents at drivetime, continues to broadcast from Wogan House, but says she is in the building as little as possible. "I take a flask of coffee and bottle of water from home so no more munching Popchips with my producer Louise – she’s producing from home via a WhatsApp video. I have an assistant producer through the glass in the production room. They’re on rotation so we can make sure no one person is in the building for too long." Thomas, meanwhile, is working from her home in north London, "missing all my colleagues at Wogan House because it’s such a lovely place to work". It’s clearly a time of high emotion for everyone involved at the station, feelings that Jo Whiley, presenter of the evening show, encapsulates. "Being on the radio at this time has been extraordinary," she says. "I’ve never felt a truer connection between us and the listeners, and never felt a greater responsibility to get it right. The simplest of things have turned into emotional rollercoasters. "One night I asked people to share with me what they were most looking forward to when things got back to normal and I ended up struggling to read the messages through tears and gritted teeth because the answers were so painfully basic – the desire to hold or be held by another human being; to eat cake with friends, walk/run/swim with fellow enthusiasts; to go to a gig or festival and to sing and dance like nothing else matters. The little things in life that I hope we never again take for granted." Whiley’s fellow presenters also feel this sense of responsibility. "It’s a huge privilege to be able to reach people who are stressed, anxious or just plain fed up and to try to help ease those feelings with great music and a hearty dollop of daftness," Cox says. "Radio has always been very personal. It’s my job to provide distraction and I’m honoured to be able to do it during these unfathomable times." Audiences have responded like never before. "The feedback from listeners is lovely," Saturday afternoon presenter Rylan Clark-Neal says. "A lot of people get in touch online saying how they’ve had a bad week, but listening to the show made them forget what’s going on." Whiley describes her role as "providing comfort and reassurance to people who were in an anxious and lonely place". She says she has tried to be a bridge between people who have been parted by the lockdown "by telling their stories and connecting them with a song that is special to them both". The man behind the songs is Jeff Smith, Radio 2’s head of music. Achievements he points to include covering music events like the virtual Cheltenham Jazz Festival at Home, and new live elements such as Radio 2 House Music, which featured James Blunt from his home in Ibiza, Rumer in Georgia in the US, Nell Bryden’s remote performance with the BBC Concert Orchestra, and contributions from Barry Manilow, Kelly Clarkson and Richard Marx. Old favourites remain a vital component of the station’s output, with Spinning Around by Kylie Minogue, Happy by Pharrell Williams, Ain’t Nobody by Rufus and Chaka Khan, and Young Hearts Run Free by Candi Staton among the most frequently played songs. Popular new material includes Kings and Queens by Ava Max; The Greatest by James Blunt; and Break My Heart by Dua Lipa. Throughout lockdown, great moments have abounded. Ken Bruce has his favourite: "In the middle of PopMaster our contestant, who was at his workplace, suddenly found someone else had come into the room he was in. Being a good social distancer, and a natural live broadcaster, he relocated mid-question to the toilet, where he continued seamlessly answering – and scoring rather well." Radio 2: a resourceful radio station with resourceful listeners. Find something to watch tonight with our TV Guide.
All in the best possible taste: The Food Programme hits 40
Sheila Dillon, longtime presenter of Radio 4’s The Food Programme, tells Simon O’Hagan about campaigning, crossing the Atlantic, and culinary delights
There’s a story Sheila Dillon likes to tell about the birth of The Food Programme, the Radio 4 institution that she’s been an integral part of for more than three decades and which is about to celebrate its 40th anniversary. The story concerns the late Derek Cooper, her predecessor as presenter and the man who, in 1979, launched the programme into a very different food world from today’s. “Derek loved good food,” Dillon recalls. “He was first and foremost about the pleasure food can bring. And he believed that everybody has a right to it – that it shouldn’t be a case of rubbish for the poor and the good stuff for the better-off. He persuaded Radio 4 to make a series of six programmes, and the story is that he then went to the commissioning editor and asked if he could make some more, and the answer came back, ‘Really? Is there anything more to say about food after six weeks?’” The fact that some 2,000 editions of The Food Programme have aired since then – with two 40th-anniversary celebration specials coming up – provides an emphatic answer to that question. And the programme is about so much more than food. As its editor, Dimitri Houtart, says, “it’s a lens through which we can look at society”. “It’s amazing,” Dillon says of the programme’s longevity when I sit down with her at her home in Highbury in north London, a box of organic veg having been delivered to her front door that morning. “Amazing and remarkable, especially considering how Derek struggled to get it made.” And while the spirit of Cooper, who died in 2014, will always preside over The Food Programme’s top table, the role that Dillon has played in its history is no less glittering. Since her first involvement in the programme, in 1987, she’s travelled the world – “I’ve lost count of the number of countries I’ve visited” – and interviewed everybody from Jamie Oliver to Paul McCartney. She’s been reporter, producer and, since 2001, the voice of the programme – and an instantly recognisable one. The accent is an amalgam of Lancashire, where she grew up, and the US, where she lived for much of her 20s, but what really distinguishes Dillon is the ease and authority with which she balances the two main aspects of the programme – its celebratory side, and its investigative side. A slight, diamond-bright figure, Dillon isn’t fazed by the arrival in her home of a small delegation from Radio Times, taking care to get everybody’s order right as she makes tea and coffee for us, and the photographer and his team set up. Dillon’s route to The Food Programme was a circuitous one, her upbringing and the early part of her career providing experiences that she’s been able to draw deeply on, whether she’s been sitting down for a chat with a Michelin-starred chef or exposing a food-industry scandal. Her Lancashire upbringing was rural. “We grew up among farms, and from when I was 13 I worked on one – weekends and school holidays. I washed milk bottles. I fed hens. I worked in the dairy.” The big food influence on her life was her mother – “a real life-force”, says Dillon. “She was a great cook and a tremendous food enthusiast. She picked mushrooms, and she’d go around the markets, and was very discriminating. I don’t mean that we had fancy food at all. We didn’t. But she cared. And because it was a village, food was delivered and there was a man who came round with fruit and vegetables, and my mother would go out to his van and she’d come back into the house and shout, ‘He’s got pomegranates!’ or ‘He’s got chestnuts!’, and she conveyed that food could be about pleasure.” It wasn’t an idyllic upbringing by any means. Her parents’ marriage was unhappy, she says, and it affected her education, but in spite of failing the 11-plus, she made it to Leicester University to read English. Even then, she says, she “felt like a fake” and that “it was a miracle I actually finished my degree”. After graduating, she embarked on what would be a peripatetic life. She worked for the British Council in Finland before going to study at the University of Indiana, and then getting a job as an editor at the University of Indiana Press. The next stop was New Zealand. Her boyfriend got a teaching job there, and Dillon gave up her life in the States to go with him – “terrible for a feminist!”. It wasn’t long before they broke up, and Dillon was on the move again. She had her green card so she returned to the US and found a job at the publishers Little, Brown in Boston. It was here that Dillon’s capacity to challenge authority came to the fore. “I was a copy editor in the trade department, and it became obvious that women were being hired and being moved into copy editing, and men were being hired and put into trainee editorships – and they were being paid two and a half times more than the women. So six of us brought a class action, and we won.” The experience was “interesting”, she adds, with some understatement. By now she had met the man who would become her husband – the investigative reporter Peter Koenig, who was from New Jersey – and the two of them moved to California, where Dillon got a job in magazines. She and Koenig decided they would alternate between basing themselves in the US and in the UK – three years in one country, three in the other. That meant a move to Edinburgh, but Dillon’s involvement in food didn’t begin until she was back in the US, living in New York, when a scandal broke on Long Island after pesticides were found to have leaked into the water supply. Dillon was weaning her newborn son Tom, mashing up potatoes for him, and she realised she wanted to act. She got involved in a voluntary project in the Bronx, where fresh food was in short supply, and started working on a magazine called Food Monitor, rising to become its editor. Then she and Koenig returned to the UK, for what would be the final time, and she decided to approach The Food Programme. A producer saw what an asset she could be. “She sent me on a training course to learn how to make radio features. And that’s when I first met Derek. I remember him coming into the office, and he was always very bouncy, you know? ‘It’s such a beautiful day!’ That’s what I remember.” The pair went on to work together for some 15 years. I ask Dillon which of The Food Programme’s many achievements she’s proudest of, and her answer doesn’t come as a surprise. It’s the work she did exposing the scandal of BSE (or “mad cow disease”), when, in the 1990s, officialdom tried to cover up that meat entering butchers and supermarkets could be contaminated as a result of cattle being fed animal products. “I’m very proud of the way we documented the lies and the obfuscation and the denials. I’d go to laboratories, and scientists wouldn’t let me record their answers when I asked them if they’d change their own diets, because of course they had but they were toeing the official line. You’re just a journalist, and the people in power – men in power – want to dismiss you, want to make you seem silly, and you start to doubt things yourself. Well, that’s what power does, doesn’t it?” There’s another achievement to be noted, although Dillon would probably consider it self-indulgent to call it that, which is that since 2011 she has had cancer of the bone marrow and continues to work in spite of its effects and the chemotherapy treatment she is receiving. “But it’s under control,” she says. So how health-conscious are you about your diet, I ask. “Well, it’s sort of embedded in me now. I’ve never eaten that much meat, but when I do, I believe in eating good meat. I don’t worry about fat. I never have. I’ve always eaten butter and I’ve always loved fatty meat.” And what about the rise of veganism? “It’s an interesting development, but I think people should be more cynical about the way the food industry is likely to capitalise on it. You can make vegan junk food easily and you can charge a much higher margin. Look at margarine! It took us a long time to become aware of margarine and what an industrial product it is, and here it is on the rise again.” She says she’s not sure it’s helpful to talk in terms of healthy food. “It’s like what Michael Pollan, the American food writer, says: eat food, not too much, mostly plants, and eat for pleasure.” That word “pleasure” again. It’s why Nigel Slater is right up there in the Dillon pantheon. “He’s just major on pleasure, and I love that about him.” And then there’s the pleasure of The Food Programme itself. Happy 40th birthday, and let’s raise a glass to Sheila Dillon. Two 40th anniversary Food Programmes air at 12:30pm on Sunday 10th and 17th November on Radio 4
Desert Island Discs' stock has never been higher – but it will miss the great skill and subtlety of Kirsty Young
Young always gave the impression that there was nowhere else she’d rather be, writes Simon O'Hagan
Desert Island Discs has been going since 1942 and over the course of its 77 years has had only four permanent presenters. Any change in the presenter’s chair is a major moment in the life of Radio 4, and indeed in the life of its audience, and with the confirmation of Kirsty Young’s departure from the programme after being sidelined through ill-health, the radio landscape shifts and millions of listeners — however much they are enjoying Lauren Laverne as Young’s stand-in — will be saddened. Kirsty Young stands down from Desert Island Discs Desert Island Discs named the greatest radio programme of all time How Desert Island Discs helped solve a Death in Paradise murder case When, earlier this year, Radio Times ran a poll of luminaries to find out the greatest radio programme of all time, Desert Island Discs topped it by some distance. The format might be unbeatable, but for the way Young moved the programme forward once she took over in 2006 — building on the work of Roy Plomley, Michael Parkinson and Sue Lawley — she must take enormous credit for the accolade. There was the voice itself — calm, mellifluous, but with just a hint of steel. There was the mastery of her brief. And there was her inscrutability. Never sycophantic, but never hostile either, she probed her interviewees with great skill and subtlety while giving away nothing of herself. What did she really think and feel about her guests? It was hard to tell, which is exactly how it should be. At the time of DID’s poll triumph, the word that the programme’s longtime producer Cathy Drysdale used to describe Young was “fearless”. Which indeed she was – quite unfazed by the status of any of her guests. All were treated with the same consideration and respect. The professional distance — from Hollywood stars to eminent scientists — remained constant. Drysdale also mentioned the importance of the in-depth research by the DID team but when it comes down to it, the presenter is on their own. Young always gave the impression that there was nowhere else she’d rather be. Desert Island Discs’ stock has never been higher. The hundreds of past programmes now available to download add up to a treasure trove of pure broadcasting gold but Young ensured that this was never just heritage radio going through the motions. Younger listeners continue to discover the programme – its relevance, impact and the general joy it brings greater than ever. Young presented 496 editions of the show. It’s sad she never got to 500 and much sadder still that her 12-year stint has been cut so prematurely short. Laverne, the BBC says, will continue to present for the foreseeable future. Maybe she will become the permanent face of the programme. Whoever ends up in that role will bring their own stamp to bear on it but it’s hard to see the template laid down by Kirsty Young being improved upon.
What are the changes to Radio 2’s schedules and when do the new presenters start?
Get to know the new-look line-up, including Zoe Ball, Sara Cox, Trevor Nelson and The X Factor's Rylan Clark-Neal
It's been all change recently over at BBC Radio 2, with an overhaul of the line-up once dismissed by Woman’s Hour presenter Jane Garvey as “extraordinarily male and entirely pale”. New presenters include Zoe Ball, who is replacing Chris Evans as the new host of the hugely popular Breakfast Show, while Sarah Cox (originally pegged for Ball's new job) is taking over Drivetime following Simon Mayo and Jo Whiley's short-lived pairing. Zoe Ball named the new host of the Radio 2 Breakfast Show Lauren Laverne impresses with her Desert Island Discs debut Zoe Ball's move to Radio 2 is big news – and so is the enduring appeal of radio When do Radio 2's new presenters take over? The new line-up launches on Monday 14th January, so make sure to tune in! Who are the new Radio 2 presenters? Zoe Ball— Weekdays, 6.30-9.30am (takes over from Chris Evans) No act is impossible to follow but Zoe Ball has her hands full taking over the Radio 2 breakfast slot from the colossus that was Chris Evans — her task made all the more daunting by the fact that, over on Virgin, Evans will soon be her direct rival. Then again Ball is a bit of a legend herself — the first woman ever to host the Radio 1 breakfast show (all of 21 years ago), and now the first woman to do the same thing on Radio 2. Life has thrown at a lot at Ball, but — wild child that she once was — she has hardly lacked for spirit and she’s already proved how great she is to wake up to. Sara Cox — Weekdays, 5-7pm (takes over from Simon Mayo and Jo Whiley) How close was Sara Cox to landing the breakfast show? We may never know, but drivetime is a major consolation prize, and with a triumverate of Ball, Cox and Jo Whiley occupying three key weekday slots, Radio 2’s gender balance has a very welcome new look. It’s hard to believe that it’s 20 years since Cox — once the epitome of the ladette — joined Radio 1, moving to Radio 2 in 2011 and launching her Sounds of the 80s show in 2013. “I’m beyond chuffed,” she says of the new show. “To directly quote my mum on hearing the good news, it is indeed ‘fandabbyruddydozy’.” Jo Whiley — Monday-Thursday, 7-9pm Now released from her ill-fated partnership with Simon Mayo, Whiley returns to the solo evening slot (an hour earlier than her last one) over which she presides with such aplomb. “Dream show. Can’t wait!” was her reaction to the switch, and Whiley fans can look forward to a show that will give prominence to guests and live sessions. This year marks the tenth anniversary of Whiley’s debut on Radio 2, and this couldn’t be a better way for her to celebrate it. Whiley will continue to present the Radio 2 In Concert series and will also be standing in for Ken Bruce in 2019 when he is away. Trevor Nelson — Monday—Thursday, 10pm–midnight (takes over from Sara Cox) The Sony gold lifetime achievement award that Trevor Nelson won in 2010 is a measure of his status in the radio pantheon. A pioneer of R&B, Nelson joined Radio 1 in 1996, presenting The Rhythm Nation for 17 years. In 2016, after various roles on Radio 1Xtra, Nelson launched Rhythm Nation on Radio 2 on Saturday evenings; now the show moves to four nights a week. “I’ll be introducing tracks from some soul stars of the future,” he says, “and playing my favourite songs from the past 50 years of dance music. Bring it on!” Rylan Clark-Neal — Saturday, 3—6pm (takes over from Zoe Ball) Since coming fifth on The X Factor in 2012, then winning Celebrity Big Brother in 2013, Rylan Clark-Neal has established himself as a TV and radio presenter. He launched the podcast Step Back in Time in November, in which he and a showbiz friend re-live great pop-culture moments; now he takes over Radio 2’s Saturday afternoon slot, from 19th January. “Expect a mix of fun and Rylan’s inimitable style,” says the head of Radio 2, Lewis Carnie.
BBC 6 Music changes: Stuart Maconie gears up for his new weekend morning slot
The Radcliffe and Maconie show swaps its previous afternoon slot for Saturday and Sunday mornings
At the end of a week of big changes at BBC Radio 6 Music, the Radcliffe and Maconie show moves from an afternoon slot to Saturday and Sunday mornings, 7am till 10am, starting 12th January. The first run of shows see Stuart Maconie go it alone, as co-host Mark Radcliffe recovers from treatment for cancer. Radio Times caught up with Maconie as he prepares for the new show Steve Lamacq on BBC 6 Music's schedule shake-up: "You have to keep listening and looking ahead" BBC 6 Music changes: Mary Anne Hobbs breaks new ground with new weekday show BBC 6 Music is not ”completely safe” from closure says station boss Stuart, you’re starting the new-look Radcliffe and Maconie show without Mark because of his illness. How is he getting on and when can we expect him to join you? He’s doing great. He’s pre-recorded a couple of his Radio 2 Folk Shows. His treatment has finished, and he’s in recovery. I mean, it’s a slow and difficult process but he’s in good spirits. He’s been around this week and hopefully will be up for his first live Radcliffe and Maconie in February. The listeners have got a few weeks just with me and then then the old team will be reunited, which will be wonderful. View oEmbed on the source website We’ll look forward to that but for now it’s just you: have you ever presented a show this early before? I’ve never done it regularly. I’ve sat in on breakfast shows. I’ve deputised for Terry Wogan and Shaun Keaveny, so I’ve done it for short periods but never as a regular gig. I have to say it will be a bit of a shock to the system, but sometimes shocks to the system are good things. I’m past the age when I’m out all night on a Friday night. How’s the preparation going? Does it feel like a new show? Well, yes, it does. We’re going to continue elements of what we’ve done before, but I’ve been keen that we don’t set it in stone. Having said that, we’ve got quite a lot of things planned, plus some old favourites that will be coming with us — The Chain and Tea-Time Theme Time. People will still be having a cup of tea at nine o’clock on a Saturday morning, I’m sure, but I am in the market for better suggestions for what we can call it. I’m also conscious that we’re taking over from Mary Anne Hobbs and that she would include quite a bit of left-field music and I think we’ll keep that going, certainly in the first hour of the show. View oEmbed on the source website Are there any specific new features you can tell me about? We’ve got one we’re calling Sampled Underfoot. I’m aware that there might be a generational relationship going on at that time on a Saturday morning — that younger listeners might know a Kanye West or a Drake record, but only their mum or dad might know what it is they’ve sampled. So we’ll play the two records together. And we’re reviving the “First, Last and Everything” feature that Mark had on his solo Radio 2 show a few years ago — with people telling us about the first record they bought, the last record they bought, and the record that means everything to them. It just seemed perfect for the new slot. it’s a nice, self-contained thing and in Salford Media City we’re perfectly placed for politicians, footballers, poets, people from all walks of life, to come on the show and contribute. We’ll have guests from music and guests from beyond music. Right now I’m on my way to interview Will Poulter from Black Mirror. What else are you up to? I know you have The Freak Zone on 6 Music and you’re writing another book, yes? Called The Nanny State Made Me? That’s right, yes. I was very aware that for 40 years we’ve had this dominant kind of narrative in our political discussion which is that in the 1970s Britain was a mess, that the state was a bloated failure that had to give way to private enterprise. I think this is an idea that’s been almost entirely discredited by what’s happened in the past year or two. So the book is going to be me trying to redress the balance a bit, saying that the post-1945 welfare state was actually a magnificent institution. It’s going to be kind of a love letter to the benevolent state. You know, I don’t want my state to make my curry or my pop music, but I do think the state might be best to run the schools, the hospitals, the prisons, the national parks. Sign up to the RadioTimes.com email newsletter
Steve Lamacq on BBC 6 Music's schedule shake-up: "You have to keep listening and looking ahead"
The DJ is one of the few presenters retaining his regular radio slot – but he says the station is ready for a change
Despite major shake-ups across the BBC Radio 6 Music schedule – Mary Anne Hobbs is moving from weekends to weekdays, while Shaun Keaveny starts up an afternoon show – Steve Lamacq is staying put in his 4pm slot. Radio Times caught up with the presenter as the station enters a new era. BBC Radio 6 Music’s Shaun Keaveny unveils his new afternoon show – and explains why he had to leave breakfast BBC 6 Music changes: Mary Anne Hobbs breaks new ground with new weekday show So amid all these schedule changes, Steve, you’re staying put in your normal daytime slot? Yes, well, I’ve got to have that slot —finish at 7, go to a gig at 8! It wouldn’t work otherwise, would it! How do you feel about not being moved around? Well, I mean, for me it’s perfect. And over the years, we’ve come to understand the people who are listening to the show, and you’re always thinking, where is the listener right now? Because it’s not like a lunchtime programme or a breakfast show, where you pretty much know where people are. You’ve got people who are finishing work, probably travelling home. Then you’ve got the moment where they’re in the kitchen, or they’re having tea. But all the time, we’re trying to pace the show in the right way, so yes I’m really pleased to still be able to do it. View oEmbed on the source website How many gigs do you go to a week? Two or three. In some cases, you’ve got to go and see bands that you might not be sure about. I don’t like having an opinion on a band without having seen them. And the content of the show? Well, part of it’s from the daytime playlist: the new records. Then you get some older records which have come out of the computer, but I can always say, "Not so keen on this", and change it for something else. The rest of it is me picking half old records, and half new records, really. Records that sort of tell a story, or you think might be interesting. I mean, I still work on the Peel Principle — that you play one record that you know the audience will like, one record that you think the audience will like, and one record which you don’t care whether they like it or not, because you like it yourself. I think, if you balance that right, you pretty much please everyone, and you save your soul in the process. How has interaction with the listeners changed the job in terms of your enjoyment of it? It’s slightly easier in a way because you can have conversations with listeners, and you’d never have got as many letters as you get emails. These days you get a much better impression of what people like, and the breadth of what people like, during the course of the week. So what do you like most about the job? Being able to play the records of bands that you think are really good — bands which might be on the periphery, I suppose. Slightly unfashionable. I’ve always liked misfit-style bands, or underdogs. You get a record by an underdog band, play it, and then somebody writes to you and says, “I really liked that record.” Or comes up to you at a gig and says, “That record that you played the other day, I downloaded two of their tracks,” or, “I went to see them live,” and it can just be one person. But it’s a great responsibility, because you can’t abuse that sort of position, so you have to work very hard to earn it. You have to listen to a lot of stuff, I think, and that’s why I go to so many gigs, and spend seven hours on a Sunday going through the post bag. You mentioned pioneering the underdog. Give us us some bands and some acts that you’re proud of having played a part in their success? I suppose, Blur from the early days, and Teenage Fanclub from the early ‘90s. Elastica, who I was involved with – I actually put out the first Elastica album I liked it that much. And Coldplay, a band who had been turned down by 23 record labels when I saw them. View oEmbed on the source website Does Chris Martin still send you chocolates? Well, he hasn’t sent us a box of chocolates. If this gets in the Radio Times, though, Chris, I’d quite like a box of chocolates! But he did send us a very nice message when I celebrated my 25th anniversary on the BBC, which was very nice of him. And 6 Music itself – what’s the secret? Keeping in touch with the audience, I think. I’ve never worked at a radio station where I’ve known the audience so well. I think that’s always going to be key. And we’re not complacent. I think the changes coming in the new year suggest that everyone’s aware of that. We have to always keep thinking — where is music going, where do we want the station to go, how do we represent the musical landscape and the people who are making the music and the people who are listening to it. You have to keep listening and looking ahead, I think. That’s the only way we’ll carry on.
BBC 6 Music changes: Mary Anne Hobbs breaks new ground with new weekday show
The DJ and presenter discusses the latest move in her remarkable radio career
Mary Anne Hobbs is one of a number of BBC Radio 6 Music DJs making big moves in 2019. The presenter will no longer host her show on Saturday and Sunday mornings. Instead, she's launching a new weekday show from 10.30am until 1pm as part of a major shake-up of the BBC Radio 6 Music schedule. Radio Times caught up with the DJ to discuss her plans ahead of the first show on Monday 7th January 2019, the latest chapter in an incredible music career... BBC Radio 6 Music’s Shaun Keaveny unveils his new afternoon show – and explains why he had to leave breakfast 6 Music listeners bid a begrudging farewell to Shaun Keaveny as he hosts his final breakfast show Zoe Ball’s move to Radio 2 is big news – and so is the enduring appeal of radio How do you feel about the big move? I’m incredibly excited about it. I guess for the first time in my entire career, I’ve landed right at the epicentre of the daytime schedule. I’ve been given an opportunity to reimagine what a morning show can actually be, which is incredibly exciting for me, really. I’m thrilled. What will it be like to like to leave behind the weekend show? It feels like it’s gone by in a heartbeat but actually it’s six years I’ve been doing it. And I think that because that show has become so beloved of the listeners, there are certain ideas we can bring across to the daytime show — the arts coverage, for example, that the listeners have responded to so favourably. View oEmbed on the source website What about the type of music that you’ll be playing? I think the music is going to be really diverse. It’s going to feel really vital, very contemporary, and multi-dimensional. So we might be looking at anything from a Japanese master like Ryuichi Sakamoto, all the way through to the most exciting electronic producer in Addis Ababa. He’s called Ethiopian Records. And then obviously via classic music like Talking Heads or Jon Hopkins. So I think it’s going to feel really rich. Because it was the weekend, the old show always had passages of contemplation. Will we still experience those moments? Yes, absolutely We’re working on very specific moments that will land in the show in the form of particular individual tracks and also mixes. But I guess you’re right, it is a real step change and I’m very mindful of that. And it’s a challenge for me because I suppose I’m possibly known as the quietest of all the presenters on 6 Music. But I remember David Bowie saying to me – I interviewed him a couple of times – he talked to me about the idea that actually you were never really moving forward as a creative force unless you stepped outside of your comfort zone. That’s how to determine the fact that you’re actually making progress in this life. And what about in terms of your own lifestyle changing? Weekends lying in bed? I think I’ll probably do quite the opposite. When I was working at Radio 1, I was also DJ-ing live, which I did for seven years right across the world. Now I’ll have an opportunity to do some more of it. And I think that’s going to be something that will be really valuable in terms of the development of programmes and getting right in the thick of the response of people who are listening. How did you first get into music? My story’s quite an interesting one, actually, because when I was a little girl, my dad had banned all music from the house. And I wasn’t allowed to buy records at all. But obviously that didn’t stop me being the belligerent child that I was. But every time he would find another Sex Pistols single in my sock drawer he’d smash it up, unfortunately. But the only thing he never found was a tiny little transistor radio, which was about as big as a can of tuna fish. And I used to lie in bed at night with the blankets pulled over the top of my head and I used to scroll across the dial of this radio, looking for John Peel’s programme. Because I guess, for me, Peel stood at the gateway to an ultimate universe, if you like. And it was a place that I never would have known existed at all in that era had it not been for Peel’s transmissions. I thought to myself, this is a place... I want to reach this place. Sounds like that that was a lifeline for you... Absolutely, yes. Without a shadow of a doubt. I had the great privilege and pleasure of working with him for 10 years when I was at Radio 1. And in spite of the fact that he was never a formal mentor, I was able to watch very carefully the way that John worked and the way that John operated as a human being. Why was your father so against you listening to music? I couldn’t tell you that, to be honest. Myself and my brother and sister, we never really understood the reasons for many such decisions that he made. But he used to have some records of his own that he was very fond of, actually. But they were recordings of old steam trains on 78s and he had an old gramophone with a copper needle in it. And we occasionally would find him sitting on the floor playing these recordings of steam trains. But I think he felt that pop music of any kind was trash and was entirely disposable. But I couldn’t give you a specific reason. Those are the days in which I suppose parents were very much in control of their own domain, really. And they didn’t have to explain things to you; they just implemented them. I think, really, in some ways, it gave me the drive that I needed to go and seek the world that John Peel had shown to me. And so when I was 18 years old, I ran away to London and I lived in a bus in a car park for a year. I lived with a rock band and we lived in this terrible old broken-down vehicle in Hayes in Middlesex, which we called the Blue Goose Hotel. What did you do? Myself and the band always used to work terrible jobs. A couple of the band were gravediggers. The singer and I used to work in a sweet factory. And we saved all our money to repair broken equipment that we’d managed to acquire. And then go out on tour. View oEmbed on the source website How did you break into the music business? I sent a CV to the editor of Sounds music paper, explaining my responsibilities to the band. I said, well, I design their record sleeves and I make their costumes and when we go out on tour I’m their lighting engineer. And of course I’m also the bus mechanic. I’ve also created this little fanzine. And I submitted a couple of issues with my rather colourful CV to the editor of Sounds. He called me into the office and sat me down and he said, “So you live on a bus?” And I said, “Well, yes.” And he said, “Well, what are you doing living on a bus?” And I said, “Well, I always wanted to write for the music press, really, but I imagined I would have to demonstrate that I’d actually worked for a band before you would take me seriously.” And he looked at me incredulously and he said, “Why didn’t you just send a review in?” It had never occurred to me. That’s kind of where it started. And after that? I went to LA at 21 and I lived in a garden shed for a year. And I was working as Sounds’ American music correspondent. But when I came back from there, I was approached by the NME. I got a call from a friend of mine called James Brown, and he said, 'The NME, we’re really good on Marxist politics, but we don’t actually know anything about rock music'. At that point I’d been out in LA writing about artists like Metallica and Jane’s Addiction, Guns N’ Roses, all that generation of rock musicians. So at 23 I was writing for the NME. So that’s the back-story. Was it an unstable existence? I think... that’s a really interesting question. For me it felt like a great adventure. And it felt that there was no pathway to this world that Peel had shown me. I had to forge my own pathway one step at a time. And I guess every time I saw an opportunity or a tiny chink of light or something that looked really exciting and interesting, an opportunity to move forward, I would take whatever risk was necessary. You had a hell of an education, didn’t you? Yes. Nothing formal to speak of. But I think it worked out pretty well for me in terms of a grounding in the industry that I wanted to become involved with. Mary Anne Hobbs' weekday mid-morning show begins on Monday 7th January at 10.30am on BBC Radio 6 Music
BBC Radio 6 Music's Shaun Keaveny unveils his new afternoon show – and explains why he had to leave breakfast
The presenter is excited about not having to get up too early, and tells fans not to be worried about the new show: "this has come along at the perfect time for me"
This January, radio presenter Shaun Keaveny starts a new 1pm show after 11 years presenting the BBC 6 Music breakfast show. But what does Shaun think of the new time slot (and not having to get up so early)? And what plans does he have for his new show? Find out more from the man himself below... 6 Music listeners bid a begrudging farewell to Shaun Keaveny as he hosts his final breakfast show Zoe Ball’s move to Radio 2 is big news – and so is the enduring appeal of radio How does it feel to finish with the breakfast show and move to daytime? It’s a very unusual experience. I was talking to my Dad on the phone yesterday funnily enough, about just general life and it all sort of poured out, I think I was a bit tired and broken, you know? Because it’s two things at once isn’t it? Three things in fact. It’s exciting and it’s terrifying and it’s sad because when you build a radio programme, it’s unlike anything else, I think. Television doesn’t come close to it in the sense of building relationships with audience. Why not? What's so special about radio? I’ve thought a lot about this over the years. It’s like... I don’t know... you know, if you’re like a big film star or something and you do a film, it’s a huge splashdown isn’t it? Everybody in the world wants to speak to you and everybody knows who you are, but with radio it’s just like lots and lots of tiny ripples on the pond every day. It creeps up on you. And before you know it, it’s sort of meaningful to you in some way. View oEmbed on the source website How different will a middle-of-the-day show have to be? Well, glad you asked. It will be very high-energy. There will be a lot of veracity to my statements, everything will be well researched, I will be ‘up and at ‘em’, smiling constantly. Raining down good vibes and general bonhomie... I honestly don’t know how to answer that because we’ve worked pretty hard on trying to reposition it. My current listeners will be slack-jawed to hear that we’ve even tried to come up with a couple of new features. But we’re carrying some of the old favourites across. The thing is, what you begin to realise is that 80 per cent of any good radio programme is just what comes up on the day between you and the listeners. You can’t synthesise or predict that. It’s like trying to predict what’s going to come up in a conversation with your friend at the pub next Wednesday night. It’s absolutely pointless in a way. I suppose one obvious change that’s going to happen is you haven’t got to get up so early in the morning... Yes, it hasn’t crossed my mind actually. No, that’s disingenuous. I’ve thought of nothing else for the past nine months! If I’m completely candid, I would say that for the sake of my family and my sanity, I had to change the time at which I got up. And so this has come along at the perfect time for me. Right. How old are your children? Ten and eight. So you know, they’ve known nothing else apart from their dad being a tired and broken man. So I think it’s an opportunity to give them another aspect of me, really. In the past I’ve taken take time off work just so I can take them to school really and enjoy that horrible maddened panic that every other parent has at that time of the morning. I’ll look for socks and lunchboxes for a couple of weeks. View oEmbed on the source website What about the actual music you’ll be playing? Any adjustments there? I think that inevitably, one of the things I’m looking forward to is getting out more. A combination of getting a bit older and having kids and getting up early means that it precludes you from doing a lot of stuff in the evenings, and that’s when all the music happens. So, we are really looking forward to getting out and about more and seeing more bands. The knock-on effect of that will be I think we’ll be able to inject a bit more passion into that side of things than we’ve perhaps been able to do in the mornings. So your gig going experiences will inform the programme? Yes. That exactly. Also we’re going to get one session per month as well which is perfect for us. We can pick some of our favourite artists and have a little live session and chat with them. So that’s going to be really cool. We’ve already got a few good ones lined up. So that will be a nice new thing for us. Shaun Keaveny's afternoon show on 6 Music kicks off on Monday 7th January at 1pm
Entering Brexit Britain for Womad festival is “so difficult and humiliating” that performers are giving up says organiser
"Artists have accepted our invitation and then looked into the visa process and told us, sorry we’re just not going to do this. That’s a situation we should be ashamed of," says Chris Smith
Securing visas to enter the UK and play at the world music festival Womad is now proving “so difficult and humiliating” that acts are turning down organisers’ invitations and staying away, according to the festival director Chris Smith. Radio 4's Melvyn Bragg: "We used to be the clever country – and now we’re clearly the stupid country" BBC launches app bringing together live radio and podcasts in one place Jennifer Hudson, Taylor Swift, James Corden and Ian McKellen confirmed for Cats musical film On the eve of the 2018 festival — which takes place at Charlton Park in Wiltshire and is a major part of this weekend’s Radio 3 and 6 Music schedules — Smith told Radio Times that it “genuinely broke his heart” to see the effect that the UK visa process was having on many of the world’s greatest musicians. Womad, founded by the musician Peter Gabriel, first took place in 1982. It occupies a unique place on the global festival scene, and has expanded into a number of other countries including Chile and New Zealand. This year’s Womad UK brings together acts from 128 countries. “The best music you’ve never heard of” is the festival slogan, and Smith believes that “the world has never needed events like Womad more than it does now. It stands for tolerance and understanding and learning and open-ness but that culture is being crushed as politicians lurch to the right.” A tightening up of visa controls goes hand-in-hand with the change in the political climate, Smith believes. “There are good people in the Foreign Office trying to help us make Womad work but the message is going out that Britain is a difficult place to get into or even closed. My fear is that the situation is only going to get worse. “We’ve had situations where say an African artist has been due to come who plays a particularly rare instrument, and we’ll be asked, ‘Can’t you find someone in the UK who plays that instrument?’, which is absurd. “The saddest thing is always the number of artists struggling to get visas to come and perform. What we’re seeing this year is unexpected and even more depressing, which is artists saying we’re just not going to tackle the immigration system, saying it’s too difficult and too expensive, and it’s humiliating. Artists have accepted our invitation and then looked into the visa process and told us, sorry we’re just not going to do this. That’s a situation we should be ashamed of.” Womad is trying to tackle the problem by sending members of its team to the Continent to meet artists and help bring them into the country rather than meet them within the UK. “African artists can get as far as say Paris or Rome quite easily,” Smith explained. “It makes me worry for the future. It won’t put us out of business, but after this year’s festival, Peter and I are going to have to have a long conversation about what we do about this — how we can continue to support artists getting across our borders. We want to do everything we can to support them.” Blaming the Brexit vote and the “unforgivable” conduct of politicians, Smith said that Britain “needed to be very cautious about how it is viewed by the rest of the world”. He said that everywhere he went travelling the globe to book acts, the reaction was the same. “It’s always, ‘Brexit — what is happening?’ People can’t understand what we are doing. It certainly isn’t painting the UK in a good light internationally.” Womad is being covered on Radio 3 with a series of broadcasts throughout the weekend, the first at 10pm this Friday, 27th July. On 6 Music, Cerys Matthews’s Sunday morning show (10am) comes live from the festival View oEmbed on the source website
British Podcast Awards 2018: Cariad Lloyd's Griefcast sweeps the board
The comedian's podcast about losing a loved one won in three categories
Death is cheerier than it sounds, says the comedian, actress and writer Cariad Lloyd, whose podcast about bereavement - Griefcast - was the big winner at the British Podcast Awards on Saturday night. Griefcast, which launched in 2016 and is now up to 37 episodes, is a series of conversations Lloyd has - so far mostly with fellow comedians - about dealing with the loss of a loved one. It won two category awards - for Best Entertainment podcast and Best Interview podcast - and then walked off with the biggest award of the night - Podcast of the Year. The 39 best podcasts you need to listen to right now Stay up to date with the RadioTimes.com newsletter View oEmbed on the source website A panel of more than 50 judges decided all the awards except one - the Listeners Award, which for the second year running went to Kermode and Mayo’s Film Review, the podcast version of Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo’s Radio 5 Live show. Also retaining its crown was Beef and Dairy Network, which won for Best Comedy. Smartest Podcast went to language-based The Allusionist, whose creator, Helen Zaltzman, was named Podcast Champion for her contribution to the podcast community. The Best True Crime winner was The Assassination, the story of the murder of the former Pakistan leader Benazir Bhutto, recently heard on Radio 4. Griefcast stole the show, though. Cariad Lloyd’s father died when she was 15, and, she told Radio Times, “I’ve been talking about death ever since”. Now 35, she is a regular on Radio 4, and Griefcast started off as a side project. But with success it has become central to her career. “With grief comes isolation,” she said, “and I guess I decided to make a podcast that I wish had been around when I lost my father. People don’t like to talk about death. We don’t know what to say to someone who has been bereaved for fear of upsetting them but the truth is they are already upset. “Death is a reality and as with all reality it’s not just one thing. There can be humour in death as well as sadness.” With that in mind, Lloyd decided that comedians would make the best interviewees and among those who have appeared on Griefcast are Adam Buxton, Sara Pascoe, Robert Webb and David Baddiel. The hundreds of emails she received after the first episode - with Adam Buxton - went out told Lloyd she was on to something, and she said she planned to continue with the podcast as long as she can, extending it to include people from other walks of life. Who’s top of her wish list? “I would love to have Prince William come on. He’s the same age as me and lost his mother the same age I was when I lost my father. I would love to talk to him about that.” Fearne Cotton, Fi Glover and Josh Widdicombe were among the big names at the awards, which took place at Kings Place in north London and were hosted by Radio 4 and Magic FM broadcaster Olly Mann. The winners were... Best family podcast - Once upon a time in zombieville Represent award - Carousel Radio Best fiction - Imaginary Advice Entertainment - Griefcast Best new podcast - The Tip-Off Smartest podcast - The Allusionist Acast innovation - Podcast Pingback Best comedy podcast - Beef and Dairy Network Best current affairs - The Foreign Desk Most original - The Discovery Adventures Listeners' Choice - Kermode and Mayo Film Review Best Culture - The Two Shot Podcast Best sport podcast - Fight Disciples Best branded - The Discovery Adventures Best Interview - Griefcast Best radio podcast - Short Cuts International Award - Where Should We Begin Best True Crime - The Assassination Podcast Champion - Helen Zaltzman Podcast of the Year - Griefcast Sign up for the free RadioTimes.com newsletter
Best of the weekend radio: the Royal Wedding, Hugh Grant, British Podcast Awards
Simon O'Hagan on another big day for Clare Balding, and where the stars of podcasting will be flocking to (not Windsor)
Stuck for something to listen to this weekend? Radio Times expert Simon O'Hagan lists an eclectic mix of the best radio programmes to tune into on Saturday 19th and Sunday 20th May... When Prince William married Kate Middleton back in 2011, Radio 4 handed presiding duties to James Naughtie and Edward Stourton. It’s a measure of how much the world has changed — and of the different feel to the nuptials of Prince Harry and Meghan Markle — that for Saturday’s big occasion (The Royal Wedding, 11.30am Radio 4), the main voice of the network will be Clare Balding’s, with prominent roles for Eleanor Oldroyd, Gemma Cairney and Rachel Burden. Radio 1 has a royal correspondent for the day in Scarlett Moffatt, while Radio 2’s coverage will be led by Chris Evans (8.00am Radio 2). And the wedding has prompted the reunion of Alan Carr and Mel Sykes (11.30am Radio 2), such a great double act when they stood in for Graham Norton last summer. Radios 1, 3 and 5 Live also feature the wedding in some form or other, and an extensive line-up of presenters includes – among others – Zoë Ball, Sara Cox, Jane Garvey, Aasmah Mir, Nihal Arthanayake, Paul Gambaccini, Jonny Dymond and Paddy O’Connell. Looking for antidotes to what’s going on in Windsor? How about a twisted tale of adultery and murder? That would be the Opera on 3 (Saturday 6.30pm Radio 3) which is Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, in a recent production at the Royal Opera House. Sara Cox keeps busy by co-presenting Loose Ends (Saturday 7.15pm Radio 4) on which guests include Hugh Grant, doubtless keen to talk about his upcoming TV role playing disgraced politician Jeremy Thorpe in A Very English Scandal. Other guests that catch the eye: US folk/pop legend Don McLean on Sounds of the 70s (Sunday 3.00pm Radio 2), adventurer Benedict Allen on Saturday Live (Saturday 9.00am Radio 4), author Anthony Horowitz on Open Book (Sunday 4.00pm Radio 4) discussing his latest James Bond novel, computer scientist and social entrepreneur Sue Black on Desert Island Discs (Sunday 11.15pm Radio 4), and the great French chanteuse Françoise Hardy on Amy Lamé’s 6 Music show (Sunday 4.00pm 6 Music). A comedy voice that will be new to many is Geoff Norcott, one of the few Conservative-leaning stand-ups, who is given his own show in Geoff Norcott: Right Leaning but Well Meaning (Sunday 7.15pm Radio 4). And wit is guaranteed in Matthew Sweet’s history of commuting in Archive on 4: Commuterville (Saturday 8.00pm Radio 4). Both 5 Live and Talksport have live commentary on the FA Cup final (kick-off Satuday 5.15pm). This is also the weekend of the second ever British Podcast Awards, with some starry audio names heading to a venue in north London on Saturday night — among them Fearne Cotton, Simon Mayo, Mark Kermode, Josh Widdicombe and Matt Forde. Shortlists at www.britishpodcastawards.com Look out for a report on RadioTimes.com.
Best of the weekend's radio: The Kinsey Report — and Karl Marx in the age of the smartphone
Simon O'Hagan on how Americans learnt the truth about their sex lives, and 21st-century commodities given the Das Kapital treatment
The Kinsey Report seems to belong to a bygone era — a postwar America of convention and respectability into which the truth about people’s sex lives landed with all the explosive force of a rock falling from a great height into flat-calm water. But who knew that the Kinsey Institute continues its work, documenting sexual behaviour in the 21st century with the same academic rigour and detachment that characterised Alfred Kinsey’s work at the time of Harry S Truman and earlier. This is one of the things to be learnt from Matthew Sweet’s excellent Sunday Feature (Sunday 6:45pm Radio 3) marking 70 years since Kinsey published Sexual Behaviour in the Human Male (Sexual Behaviour in the Human Female followed in 1953). Sweet visits the Kinsey Institute, in Bloomington, Indiana, the town that was home to the pioneering biologist whose first specialism had been the reproductive cycle of the gall wasp. Kinsey himself emerges as just as intriguing a figure as you might expect, and it’s all done with Sweet’s trademark wit. There’s also great cleverness on display in the Radio 4 Saturday afternoon drama, Das Kapital, in which Sarah Woods updates Marx’s signature work, imagining what its author would make of the global economy, with specific reference to the smartphone. It really works, and David Threlfall plays Marx with a sombreness that contrasts beautifully with the modern-day scenes. In other drama, the next Shakespeare in Radio 3’s season is The Winter’s Tale, a repeat of a 2016 production starring Eve Best and Danny Sapani (Sunday 7.30pm), and Radio 4’s Love Henry James season moves on to a dramatisation of The American (Sunday 3pm Radio 4), in which an American businessman falls in love with a French aristocrat. Desert Island Discs is back after a five-week break, with screenwriter Abi Morgan, whose most recent TV credit is The Split, talking to Kirsty Young. Meanwhile Pam Ayres is scheduled to be on both Saturday Live (Saturday 9am Radio 4) and Graham Norton (Saturday 10am Radio 2). Norwegian crime writer Jo Nesbo is good value on Radio 4’s monthly Bookclub (Sunday 4pm), talking about his novel The Snowman. Is it too much of a risk to suggest that winter is finally over? One marker of the season is the “From the Met” live opera relays that are such an adornment to Saturday evenings on Radio 3. The last of the 2017-18 productions we’ll be hearing (Saturday 6.30pm Radio 3) is Gounod’s Romeo et Juliette, conducted by Placido Domingo. I’ll miss it — especially From the Met presenters Mary Jo Heath and Ira Siff, who are a winning double act.
Best of the weekend's radio and podcasts: Biafra revisited, Sian Phillips in Henry James drama, Nigel Planer and The Young Ones
Simon O'Hagan on another great Archive on 4, actors who can't outgrow their past, and how added value is key to podcasting success
The late 1960s was such a tumultuous time in history that 50th anniversaries are coming at us all from all sides, and BBC Radio 4’s Archive on 4 is making the most of them. There are those who look askance at “anniversary journalism”, but the work the programme did in recent weeks on the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy, and then on Enoch Powell’s Rivers of Blood speech, was outstanding, and now it tackles the war in Biafra (Saturday 28th April at 8pm). BBC Radio 4 to air reading of Enoch Powell’s ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech In Britain and Biafra: 50 Years On, Afua Hirsch explores the legacy of a conflict in which hundreds of thousands of people died and which produced images of starvation that seared themselves for ever on to the minds of those who saw them. In one sense, Biafra presaged the famine in Ethiopia some 15 years later in that it marked the first time the public were mobilised to donate to charity on a mass scale for such a cause. It also did much to shape the West’s thinking about Africa generally. Alison Steadman: The Archers is not a “middle-class bubble” – it deals with people’s real worries Love Henry James was a season of programmes that first aired on Radio 4 last year, and now it’s back with an outstanding dramatisation of his novella of deceit and obsession The Aspern Papers (Sunday 29th April at 3pm on Radio 4). There’s a prominent role for the great Sian Phillips, whose voice is one of those that compels you to stop whatever you are doing and just listen. Also on Radio 4, the latest series of The Reunion concludes with a look back at The Young Ones, one of the TV comedy hits of the 1980s (Sunday 29th April, 11.15am). Nigel Planer — who played Neil in The Young Ones — is one of those reunited, and in the latest edition of Radio Times, he writes beautifully about what it was like to be back in the same room as others who worked on the programme, and how different people remember things differently: “The original group dynamic kicks in and we are bickering children once more.” Joining Planer are Christopher Ryan, Stephen Frost, Lise Mayer and Alexei Sayle, with Sue MacGregor presiding over matters with her usual aplomb. For new comedy, the place to head is Lucy Porter in the Family Way (Sunday 29th April, 7.15pm Radio 4) in which the comedian considers the ups and downs of family life. Sign up for the free RadioTimes.com newsletter After last week’s The Merchant of Venice, Radio 3’s Sunday evening drama is Measure for Measure (7.30pm), and earlier in the day on the same network Tom Service’s The Listening Service asks, 'how does video game music work?' (5pm). In Sound of Dance (Saturday 28th April, 3pm Radio 3) Katie Derham looks at Caribbean music and dance. Live guests over the weekend include lyricist Tim Rice on Saturday Live (Saturday 9am Radio 4) and Lulu on Graham Norton (Saturday 10am Radio 2). And it’s been such a lively week in politics that The Week in Westminster (Saturday 11am Radio 4) should be well worth a listen. Kate McCann of the Telegraph presides. I’m a big fan of the American writer Curtis Sittenfeld, so I hung on the three cultural recommendations that Radio 4’s Front Row invited her to make when she went on the programme a few days ago. But here’s the thing: Sittenfeld’s choices didn’t feature in the programme itself — John Wilson’s interview with her focused entirely on her new book, which was fair enough — but were included in the Front Row podcast. Some great people go on Front Row. Material accumulates that’s just too good to waste. And there's always more you want to ask them. Which is where having a podcast version of a radio programme really comes into its own.
Best of the week's radio & podcasts: Radio 2's Funny Fortnight, Chinese Characters, The Football Ramble
Simon O'Hagan's round-up of the week's finest audio gems includes a Jeremy Vine spoof to Japan season on Radio 3
Of all the notable figures to have been given the Dead Ringers treatment in recent years, none has worked better than Jeremy Vine as voiced by the great Lewis MacLeod. The way MacLeod captures Vine's mounting excitement as the Radio 2 broadcaster accelerates towards the end of a sentence is sublime, and it's great that MacLeod's Vine is about to get his own show, as it were. Jeremy Vine: Agony Uncle (10pm Tuesday Radio 2) is one of the highlights of the network's "Funny Fortnight" starting on Monday 23rd April. It's a spoof phone-in in which Vine dispenses advice to famous people, one or two of whom may even be real. The 39 best podcasts to listen to right now New on Netflix: the best TV shows and films to watch now View oEmbed on the source website Funny Fortnight is packed with experimental ideas like this, and it marks a big departure from the music-based programmes that are Radio 2's stock-in-trade. Julian Clary, Sara Cox and Josh Widdicombe are other big names that have programmes structured around them - a mixture of quizzes, panel shows and sitcoms. The Taylors (10pm, Monday, Radio 2) is a comedy pilot by Simon Carlyle, creator of TV's Two Doors Down. In Censored (10.30pm, Monday, Radio 2) Clary and guests have fun with beeped-out words. And What If? (10.30pm, Wednesday, Radio 2) is where Cox chairs a panel show that looks at alternative histories in pop culture. I am delighted that among the panellists is Adam Rutherford, such an engaging host of Radio 4's Inside Science. Radio 3 has a season of its own this week that "explores the unexpected, the shadows and the counter-cultural" in Japanese music and arts. The programmes in "Night Blossoms" run from 10pm every evening and promises to transport the listener to strange and wonderful realms. The Far East is well served by BBC radio at the moment. We're halfway through Rana Mitter's fascinating Chinese Characters (1.45pm, Monday to Friday, Radio 4), a 20-part series in the Neil MacGregor mound in which Mitter – who has one of the most pleasing voices around – explores Chinese history through the lives of key individuals. Elsewhere on Radio 4, Too Young to Veil (8pm, Tuesday) looks at a fraught case involving a school in east London; The Voices Of ... series (11.30am, Tuesday) concludes with a portrait of folk song sisters Rachel and Becky Unthank; All in the Mind is back for a new series (9pm, Tuesday); In Business (8.30pm, Thursday) tackles sexual harassment in the workplace; The Film Programme (4pm, Tuesday) launches a new monthly strand in which presenter Francine Stock talks to women in the British film industry; and in Guilty Architecture (11.30am Thursday) Jonathan Glancey asks whether buildings with a controversial history – such as the site of the Nuremberg Rallies – should be preserved or left to crumble. The sporting highlight of the week is Liverpool v Roma in the first leg of their Champions League semi-final, and Radio 5 Live has live commentary from Anfield (7pm Tuesday, kick-off 7.45pm). With that in mind, a shout-out for the unfailingly entertaining to The Football Ramble podcast which goes from strength to strength and shows that you don't have to be a big-name ex-pro to have something worth saying about the game. Then again the Ramble's quartet of Marcus Speller, Luke Moore, Jim Campbell and Pete Donaldson are turning into quite big names themselves.