Radio Times
type: channel
link: https://www.radiotimes.com
date: 2025-10-03T13:05:43.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: Common ground
items: Samara Joy on making her BBC Proms debut: "I didn't really realise the size of it"
items: From victory to defeat
items: Tony Blackburn on retirement: 'I know people who stopped too early – and didn't last long'
items: Blowing his own trumpet
items: "Be the first!"
items: Mary Beard on her fascination with ancient Rome – and why she hasn't got time for Strictly
items: The Archers' Tracy and Jazzer won’t have "smooth" romance
items: The Archers' Mia and Brad: 'They’ve struggled to find people they get on with'
items: The Archers’ stars on being a part of radio drama’s first lesbian couple
items: Ken Bruce: 'It was time to challenge myself rather than wait for the axe'
items: Joanna Lumley, Roger Allam on return of "radical" Conversations from a Long Marriage
items: Jan Ravens – the impressionist who got Liz Truss down to a T
items: Barry Cryer: My life on I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue
items: The Film Programme hosts discuss show's "sad" cancellation after 17 years
items: Radio Times celebrates the voices around the UK who lighten up lockdown
items: Sara Cox, Ken Bruce, Jo Whiley and Rylan Clark-Neal reveal how BBC Radio 2 is operating in lockdown
items: All in the best possible taste: The Food Programme hits 40
items: Desert Island Discs' stock has never been higher – but it will miss the great skill and subtlety of Kirsty Young
items: What are the changes to Radio 2’s schedules and when do the new presenters start?
items: BBC 6 Music changes: Stuart Maconie gears up for his new weekend morning slot
items: Steve Lamacq on BBC 6 Music's schedule shake-up: "You have to keep listening and looking ahead"
items: BBC 6 Music changes: Mary Anne Hobbs breaks new ground with new weekday show
items: BBC Radio 6 Music's Shaun Keaveny unveils his new afternoon show – and explains why he had to leave breakfast
items: Entering Brexit Britain for Womad festival is “so difficult and humiliating” that performers are giving up says organiser
items: British Podcast Awards 2018: Cariad Lloyd's Griefcast sweeps the board
items: Best of the weekend radio: the Royal Wedding, Hugh Grant, British Podcast Awards
items: Best of the weekend's radio: The Kinsey Report — and Karl Marx in the age of the smartphone
items: Best of the weekend's radio and podcasts: Biafra revisited, Sian Phillips in Henry James drama, Nigel Planer and The Young Ones
items: Best of the week's radio & podcasts: Radio 2's Funny Fortnight, Chinese Characters, The Football Ramble

Common ground
type: item
creator: Simon O'Hagan
subject: App
subject: App features
description: Comedian Mark Steel is back In Town — and had much to discuss on a Rutland ramble with Clare Balding
encoded: 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…

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Samara Joy on making her BBC Proms debut: "I didn't really realise the size of it"
type: item
date: 2025-07-18T11:00:20.000Z
creator: Simon O'Hagan
subject: audio
subject: BBC Proms
subject: Music
description: The Grammy-winning jazz singer brings her soaring vocals to the Royal Albert Hall this weekend.
encoded: 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 l…

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From victory to defeat
type: item
creator: Simon O'Hagan
subject: App
subject: App features
description: In 1945, Winston Churchill led the nation to victory – so why, weeks later, did voters turn on him in the general election?
encoded: 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 wit…

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Tony Blackburn on retirement: 'I know people who stopped too early – and didn't last long'
type: item
date: 2025-04-17T14:30:53.000Z
creator: Simon O'Hagan
subject: audio
subject: Radio
subject: Magazine
description: "I was definitely more a Beatles person."
encoded: 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 thou…

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Blowing his own trumpet
type: item
creator: Simon O'Hagan
subject: App
subject: App features
description: The Beatles were big on brass, as Tony Blackburn, who knew the Fab Four, explores in a new documentary
encoded: 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…

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"Be the first!"
type: item
creator: Simon O'Hagan
subject: App
subject: App features
description: Radio 3 presenter Linton Stephens on how his mother inspired him to pick up the bassoon
encoded: 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 Musicia…

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Mary Beard on her fascination with ancient Rome – and why she hasn't got time for Strictly
type: item
date: 2023-11-09T14:03:38.000Z
creator: Simon O'Hagan
subject: audio
subject: Radio
subject: Interview
description: "It was a cruel world, and it was a painful world."
encoded: 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," sh…

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The Archers' Tracy and Jazzer won’t have "smooth" romance
type: item
date: 2023-08-27T11:00:31.000Z
creator: Simon O'Hagan
subject: Soaps
subject: TV
subject: Interview
description: "Both of their lives have been full of quite intense challenges - that means they’re up for anything."
encoded: 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…

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The Archers' Mia and Brad: 'They’ve struggled to find people they get on with'
type: item
date: 2023-08-26T11:00:55.000Z
creator: Simon O'Hagan
subject: Soaps
subject: TV
subject: Interview
description: Love's young dream!
encoded: 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 unt…

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The Archers’ stars on being a part of radio drama’s first lesbian couple
type: item
date: 2023-08-25T11:00:34.000Z
creator: Simon O'Hagan
subject: Soaps
subject: TV
subject: Interview
description: "They find farming funny and each other so entertaining."
encoded: 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 someth…

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Ken Bruce: 'It was time to challenge myself rather than wait for the axe'
type: item
date: 2023-04-11T09:35:42.000Z
creator: Simon O'Hagan
subject: audio
subject: Radio
subject: Interview
description: 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.
encoded: 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 sto…

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Joanna Lumley, Roger Allam on return of "radical" Conversations from a Long Marriage
type: item
date: 2023-02-15T08:00:48.000Z
creator: Simon O'Hagan
subject: audio
subject: Radio
subject: TV
description: Stay passionate and laugh a lot – Joanna Lumley and Roger Allam reveal the secrets of a happy marriage.
encoded: 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 wa…

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Jan Ravens – the impressionist who got Liz Truss down to a T
type: item
date: 2022-12-09T15:39:07.000Z
creator: Simon O'Hagan
subject: audio
subject: TV
description: 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
encoded: 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 …

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Barry Cryer: My life on I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue
type: item
date: 2022-01-27T11:20:19.000Z
creator: Simon O'Hagan
subject: Comedy
subject: TV
description: 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.
encoded: 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 sile…

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The Film Programme hosts discuss show's "sad" cancellation after 17 years
type: item
date: 2021-09-30T11:34:40.000Z
creator: Simon O'Hagan
subject: audio
subject: Radio
description: Francine Stock and Antonia Quirke on why The Film Programme was cancelled and the enduring "great desire" for the cinema experience.
encoded: 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…

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Radio Times celebrates the voices around the UK who lighten up lockdown
type: item
date: 2021-01-12T12:43:52.000Z
creator: Simon O'Hagan
subject: audio
subject: News
subject: Radio
description: Eight famous faces tell us how local radio has helped them over lockdown.
encoded: 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 Jam…

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Sara Cox, Ken Bruce, Jo Whiley and Rylan Clark-Neal reveal how BBC Radio 2 is operating in lockdown
type: item
date: 2020-06-11T10:48:16.000Z
creator: Simon O'Hagan
subject: audio
subject: News
subject: Radio
subject: BBC Radio 2
description: The talent behind some of the station's biggest shows reveal how the global pandemic is shaping their output.
encoded: 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 pla…

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All in the best possible taste: The Food Programme hits 40
type: item
date: 2019-11-17T10:00:00.000Z
creator: Simon O'Hagan
subject: audio
subject: News
subject: Radio
description: Sheila Dillon, longtime presenter of Radio 4’s The Food Programme, tells Simon O’Hagan about campaigning, crossing the Atlantic, and culinary delights
encoded: 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 acc…

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Desert Island Discs' stock has never been higher – but it will miss the great skill and subtlety of Kirsty Young
type: item
date: 2019-07-05T13:57:11.000Z
creator: Simon O'Hagan
subject: audio
subject: News
subject: Radio
description: Young always gave the impression that there was nowhere else she’d rather be, writes Simon O'Hagan
encoded: 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 i…

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What are the changes to Radio 2’s schedules and when do the new presenters start?
type: item
date: 2019-01-19T14:41:00.000Z
creator: Simon O'Hagan
subject: audio
subject: News
subject: Radio
description: Get to know the new-look line-up, including Zoe Ball, Sara Cox, Trevor Nelson and The X Factor's Rylan Clark-Neal
encoded: 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 d…

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BBC 6 Music changes: Stuart Maconie gears up for his new weekend morning slot
type: item
date: 2019-01-13T07:00:00.000Z
creator: Simon O'Hagan
subject: News
subject: Radio
subject: audio
subject: BBC Radio 6 Music
description: The Radcliffe and Maconie show swaps its previous afternoon slot for Saturday and Sunday mornings
encoded: 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 Them…

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Steve Lamacq on BBC 6 Music's schedule shake-up: "You have to keep listening and looking ahead"
type: item
date: 2019-01-07T10:44:00.000Z
creator: Simon O'Hagan
subject: News
subject: Radio
subject: audio
subject: BBC Radio 6 Music
description: The DJ is one of the few presenters retaining his regular radio slot – but he says the station is ready for a change
encoded: 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 lik…

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BBC 6 Music changes: Mary Anne Hobbs breaks new ground with new weekday show
type: item
date: 2019-01-06T11:43:14.000Z
creator: Simon O'Hagan
subject: audio
subject: Entertainment
subject: News
subject: Radio
subject: TV
subject: BBC Radio 6 Music
description: The DJ and presenter discusses the latest move in her remarkable radio career
encoded: 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…

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BBC Radio 6 Music's Shaun Keaveny unveils his new afternoon show – and explains why he had to leave breakfast
type: item
creator: Simon O'Hagan
subject: audio
subject: Entertainment
subject: News
subject: Radio
subject: TV
subject: BBC Radio 6 Music
description: 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"
encoded: 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 u…

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Entering Brexit Britain for Womad festival is “so difficult and humiliating” that performers are giving up says organiser
type: item
date: 2018-07-25T11:01:36.000Z
creator: Simon O'Hagan
subject: News
subject: Radio
subject: audio
description: "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
encoded: 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 …

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British Podcast Awards 2018: Cariad Lloyd's Griefcast sweeps the board
type: item
date: 2018-05-20T08:31:20.000Z
creator: Simon O'Hagan
subject: Entertainment
subject: News
subject: Radio
subject: TV
subject: audio
description: The comedian's podcast about losing a loved one won in three categories
encoded: 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 …

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Best of the weekend radio: the Royal Wedding, Hugh Grant, British Podcast Awards
type: item
date: 2018-05-18T15:51:23.000Z
creator: Simon O'Hagan
subject: audio
subject: Documentaries
subject: News
subject: Radio
subject: TV
description: Simon O'Hagan on another big day for Clare Balding, and where the stars of podcasting will be flocking to (not Windsor)
encoded: 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 S…

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Best of the weekend's radio: The Kinsey Report — and Karl Marx in the age of the smartphone
type: item
date: 2018-05-05T08:00:47.000Z
creator: Simon O'Hagan
subject: News
subject: Radio
subject: audio
description: Simon O'Hagan on how Americans learnt the truth about their sex lives, and 21st-century commodities given the Das Kapital treatment
encoded: 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 10…

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Best of the weekend's radio and podcasts: Biafra revisited, Sian Phillips in Henry James drama, Nigel Planer and The Young Ones
type: item
date: 2018-04-27T14:46:36.000Z
creator: Simon O'Hagan
subject: News
subject: Radio
subject: audio
description: 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
encoded: 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 …

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Best of the week's radio & podcasts: Radio 2's Funny Fortnight, Chinese Characters, The Football Ramble
type: item
date: 2018-04-23T16:33:07.000Z
creator: Simon O'Hagan
subject: News
subject: Radio
subject: audio
subject: Comment
description: Simon O'Hagan's round-up of the week's finest audio gems includes a Jeremy Vine spoof to Japan season on Radio 3
encoded: 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 …

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