Drama to be eradicated from Radio 3

[french frank]

Someone else who doesn't know much about R3?
https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...in-playwrights

It's a personal Comment Is Free but my kneejerk reaction is to cancel my Guardian subscription.

(I don't do kneejerks, but really The Guardian is generally pretty philistine. Music? Ho ho ho ho ho ho. Not.)

[smittims]

'Kate Maltby writes about theatre, politics, and culture'. But not very well. To describe R3 as 'dedicated ' to classical music is ridiculous since the change to snippets, trailers and chat. .

[Sir Velo]

Client journalism is the scourge of modern life. Only a couple of years ago The Guardian, no less, described Elon Musk as a "fierce proponent of free speech." I think we all know where that one is heading.

[oddoneout]

'Kate Maltby writes about theatre, politics, and culture'. But not very well. To describe R3 as 'dedicated ' to classical music is ridiculous since the change to snippets, trailers and chat. .

Given her credentials I would have expected better. But Sam must be pleased that so many take his description of R3 at face value and repeat it?

http://www.katemaltby.com/about-me/

[oddoneout]

Client journalism is the scourge of modern life. Only a couple of years ago The Guardian, no less, described Elon Musk as a "fierce proponent of free speech." I think we all know where that one is heading.

Well it could be argued that he is a proponent for free speech - for himself?

[LMcD]

Well it could be argued that he is a proponent for free speech - for himself?

Changing one's opinion of prominent Americans seems to have become rather fashionable for some reason.

[Ein Heldenleben]

It's a personal Comment Is Free but my kneejerk reaction is to cancel my Guardian subscription.

(I don't do kneejerks, but really The Guardian is generally pretty philistine. Music? Ho ho ho ho ho ho. Not.)

Very good of you to subscribe when it’s free. They are always asking me to do the same though I had a Kindle subscription for years.
The Guardian has (or more likely had - they are always laying people off ) one or two columnists who’ve been consistently critical of the changes - one such article is mentioned in one of our threads . Stories on Radio 3 in the paper always seem to attract a lot of intelligent comments from readers - many of which could come straight from this thread.

Kate Maltby is she is the corset / Damian Green downfall story . (all on wiki )

She is a excellent at generating controversy . The headline, as so often , exaggerates a more nuanced article.

[smittims]

It reminds me of Carrie in 'King of Queens' (frequently repeated on Channel 4).

'The Home of Classical Music. Why would they say that if it wasn't true?'

[oddoneout]

Very good of you to subscribe when it’s free. They are always asking me to do the same though I had a Kindle subscription for years.
The Guardian has (or more likely had - they are always laying people off ) one or two columnists who’ve been consistently critical of the changes - one such article is mentioned in one of our threads . Stories on Radio 3 in the paper always seem to attract a lot of intelligent comments from readers - many of which could come straight from this thread.

Kate Maltby is she is the corset / Damian Green downfall story . (all on wiki )

She is a excellent at generating controversy . The headline, as so often , exaggerates a more nuanced article.

They may well have done?

[Serial_Apologist]

It reminds me of Carrie in 'King of Queens' (frequently repeated on Channel 4).

'The Home of Classical Music. Why would they say that if it wasn't true?'

In order to contravene the Trades Description Act and get away with it.

[AuntDaisy]

Drama on 3 is repeating the 1971 Hamlet with Ronald Pickup on 2nd March. Possibly a swansong, but a very welcome repeat...
It's currently in a 3 hour slot and the original was ~8 mins longer than that. Add in Andrea Smith and I suspect a handsaw (or a hawk) may have been at work.

Hamlet

Drama on 3 presents a hidden treasure, a restored archive production of Shakespeare's classic tragedy, unheard since 1971, starring Ronald Pickup and produced by John Tydeman, with a score by Malcolm Clarke of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop.

The play is introduced by Dr Andrea Smith, English lecturer at the University of Suffolk, and author of Shakespeare On The Radio: A Century of BBC Plays.

CAST
Hamlet, son of the late King and nephew to the present King: Ronald Pickup
Claudius, King of Denmark: Robert Lang
Gertrude, Queen of Denmark, Hamlet's Mother: Maxine Audley
Polonius, the Lord Chamberlain: William Squire
Ophelia, Polonius's daughter: Angela Pleasence
Horatio, friend of Hamlet: Martin Jarvis
Marcellus, an officer: Michael Kilgarriff
Ghost of Hamlet's Father: Rolf Lekebvre [typo! Lefebvre]
Laertes, Polonius's son: David Spenser
Rosencrantz: Michael Spice
Guildenstern: Leslie Heritage

This restoration was made possible with help from Keith Wickham at the Radio Circle, and was produced by James Peak at Essential Radio.

It's not unheard, Auntie released it in 1988 (I have the BBC Radio Collection tapes) & in 2016 via Audible.
Keith does a lot of radio restoration and is part of the Radio Circle.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00288rj

[Ianbrowne]

A lot of the focus seems to be on the potential damage to contemporary dramatists, but speaking as a listener, the real damage is the opportunities listeners have to hear the full range of European drame by people long dead. I grew up in a small northern town and Radio 3 offered the only opportuity I had to experience great drama. At the age of 17 I heard Radio 3's dramatisation of Titus Andronicus and was mesmerised. Ii had no idea the theatre could be so rich and compelling. It would take me an hour to list the plays I have had the opportuity to enjoy in the course of my life. But suffice it to say that most of them are extremely unlikely to be performed in the theatre, and none of them will ever by on TV, Radio 4 or Audible or whatever ersatz "drama" we are told to access to replace Radio 3. I will simply mention, as an example of the opportunities that Radio 3 offered, Divine Words by Ramon del Valle-Inclan, (translated/adaped by David Johnston). If anyone thinks tha a 40 minute drama on Radio 4 of this work is in the offing, they need their head examined. Similarly, it unlikely to appear in any British theatre in the next 50 years. And as for the chance of this featuring as TV drama .... why broadcast something like this when Inspector Morse is available for "drama lovers".

I gave up on BBC news about 2 years ago, after I discovered aljazeera. I have now given up entirely on the BBC. It's Reithian missionis dead in the water. Britain is becoming an island of utter mediocrity where the idea of cultural life being valuable for its own sake is almost unintelligible to most people.

[Serial_Apologist]

A lot of the focus seems to be on the potential damage to contemporary dramatists, but speaking as a listener, the real damage is the opportunities listeners have to hear the full range of European drame by people long dead. I grew up in a small northern town and Radio 3 offered the only opportuity I had to experience great drama. At the age of 17 I heard Radio 3's dramatisation of Titus Andronicus and was mesmerised. Ii had no idea the theatre could be so rich and compelling. It would take me an hour to list the plays I have had the opportuity to enjoy in the course of my life. But suffice it to say that most of them are extremely unlikely to be performed in the theatre, and none of them will ever by on TV, Radio 4 or Audible or whatever ersatz "drama" we are told to access to replace Radio 3. I will simply mention, as an example of the opportunities that Radio 3 offered, Divine Words by Ramon del Valle-Inclan, (translated/adaped by David Johnston). If anyone thinks tha a 40 minute drama on Radio 4 of this work is in the offing, they need their head examined. Similarly, it unlikely to appear in any British theatre in the next 50 years. And as for the chance of this featuring as TV drama .... why broadcast something like this when Inspector Morse is available for "drama lovers".

I gave up on BBC news about 2 years ago, after I discovered aljazeera. I have now given up entirely on the BBC. It's Reithian missionis dead in the water. Britain is becoming an island of utter mediocrity where the idea of cultural life being valuable for its own sake is almost unintelligible to most people.

Welcome to the forum, lanbrowne.

[french frank]

I have now given up entirely on the BBC. It's Reithian missionis dead in the water. Britain is becoming an island of utter mediocrity where the idea of cultural life being valuable for its own sake is almost unintelligible to most people.

Indeed, welcome to the forum, Ian. This was the great disappointment for me too. When the gentle (my opinion) decline of Radio 3 was already taking place there was a brief flowering of European/world classic theatre c. 2000(?). For3 had a meeting with the then controller and the R3 head of speech/drama (Jenny Abramsky), and under her there were great productions of Racine, Calderón, Lope de Vega, Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Goethe, Chekhov, Tennesse Williams &c &c. The irony is that we asked then why they didn't rebroadcast archive material of some of the great productions. The answer was a slightly vague 'acting styles were different then'. So now we're to get a rebroadcast of Hamlet just prior to abandoning the genre altogether. And for what?

[AuntDaisy]

A lot of the focus seems to be on the potential damage to contemporary dramatists, but speaking as a listener, the real damage is the opportunities listeners have to hear the full range of European drame by people long dead. I grew up in a small northern town and Radio 3 offered the only opportuity I had to experience great drama. At the age of 17 I heard Radio 3's dramatisation of Titus Andronicus and was mesmerised. Ii had no idea the theatre could be so rich and compelling. It would take me an hour to list the plays I have had the opportuity to enjoy in the course of my life. But suffice it to say that most of them are extremely unlikely to be performed in the theatre, and none of them will ever by on TV, Radio 4 or Audible or whatever ersatz "drama" we are told to access to replace Radio 3. I will simply mention, as an example of the opportunities that Radio 3 offered, Divine Words by Ramon del Valle-Inclan, (translated/adaped by David Johnston). If anyone thinks tha a 40 minute drama on Radio 4 of this work is in the offing, they need their head examined. Similarly, it unlikely to appear in any British theatre in the next 50 years. And as for the chance of this featuring as TV drama .... why broadcast something like this when Inspector Morse is available for "drama lovers".

I gave up on BBC news about 2 years ago, after I discovered aljazeera. I have now given up entirely on the BBC. It's Reithian missionis dead in the water. Britain is becoming an island of utter mediocrity where the idea of cultural life being valuable for its own sake is almost unintelligible to most people.

Welcome from me as well.

Was that the Michael Aldridge "Titus Andronicus"? And the 1998 "Divine Words"?
World Service also did a lot of "foreign" plays - sadly, there's little drama there now. There was an excellent 1992 "Blood Wedding" with Juliet Stevenson, Alan Rickman & Anna Massey.