Saturday Drama: Four Quartets, R4, 14.30- 15.45hrs, Sat, 18 Jan 2014

[Stanley Stewart]

A likely treat for T.S. Eliot devotees. Jeremy Irons reads the Four Quartets after a seven minute introduction with three scholars putting the work into context.

I already have off-air readings by Paul Scofield and Alec Guinness on the shelves and trust that Jeremy Irons will make it a hat trick of sheer delight and enlightenment. A running time of 75 mins will make an ideal CD-R.

[DracoM]

But one of the most complex and challenging poems of the 20th cent not on R3, because R3 is musical [sic] wallpaper? Just wondering.

[DublinJimbo]

That definitely needs to be set to record. I agree with DracoM, though: this would previously have been very much at home on R3, pre-Kenyon/Wright.

[Honoured Guest]

This follows The Waste Land, read by Eileen Atkins and Jeremy Irons, which was broadcast on Friday 31 March 2012 as a BBC Radio 4 Afternoon Drama.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01dvzg7

[french frank]

That definitely needs to be set to record. I agree with DracoM, though: this would previously have been very much at home on R3, pre-Kenyon/Wright.

I fear this is a strategy which is becoming clearer: by the end of RW's 4th term (Nov 2018?), he'll aim to have moved all the drama to Radio 4.

[aeolium]

I fear this is a strategy which is becoming clearer: by the end of RW's 4th term (Nov 2018?), he'll aim to have moved all the drama to Radio 4.

Though long before that, anyone enthusiastic about radio drama will have lost interest in what R3 was offering, as the diet becomes one of repeats, adaptations of novels, single issue topical plays and classics re-imagined by some adapter in a way that completely strips the play of the language, style, cultural background and personality of the original (as imo was the case with the first Oresteia play broadcast last Sunday). What is important is not the strangeness and originality of the author's conception but that it should be rendered accessible and relevant to modern times, the adapter's job being to spare the listener any effort of imagination or understanding. And of course, ensure that the finished product is shunted away into a late Sunday evening backwater.

[french frank]

To stay strictly on topic, this is the link to the Four Quartets, to be broadcast this coming Saturday.

As for:

Though long before that, anyone enthusiastic about radio drama will have lost interest in what R3 was offering, as the diet becomes one of repeats, adaptations of novels, single issue topical plays and classics re-imagined by some adapter in a way that completely strips the play of the language, style, cultural background and personality of the original (as imo was the case with the first Oresteia play broadcast last Sunday). What is important is not the strangeness and originality of the author's conception but that it should be rendered accessible and relevant to modern times, the adapter's job being to spare the listener any effort of imagination or understanding. And of course, ensure that the finished product is shunted away into a late Sunday evening backwater.

This really has to be brought up with the Trust. Their response to an FOI request as to whether they had carried out an investigation into the significant changes made to Radio 3, to consider whether a Public Value Test was needed, received the reply that the Trust considered there was no need because the strategy proposed by Radio 3 "is not a new proposal, but "business as usual’: BBC Management has been seeking for some time to make its content more accessible and welcoming, and will continue to strive to do so. As such, no significance assessment was required.”

This effectively means that Radio 3 can introduce any changes stealthily, without seeking approval, and then present the Trust with a 'fait accompli' which doesn't need to be assessed at all prior to approval.

And note that last week's Radio 4 Saturday Drama was a play by Alan Ayckbourn lasting 90 minutes - genuine 'long form' which has been associated with Radio 3.

[DracoM]

What is so scary is that the Trust is quite deliberately not looking or listening. It is a willed and self-sealing refusal to look at what is taking place under its nose.

The rising tide of dissatisfaction with R3's content, style, aesthetics must, repeat must, have reached Lord Patten in all manner of places he may live and move and have his being, and not just banging at the outside of the apparently soundproof bubble that seems to be the Trust offices.

CFM's recent pretty incandescent submission to the CMS might just possibly be described as industry competitors sniping and special pleading, were it not for the fact that numbers of national newspapers / magazines / websites / regular R3 punters including our own Forum have been, via FF's indefatigable efforts, making regular, highly informed and detailed submissions to the Trust on precisely the same matters. The one place it is NOT being registered / discussed [ surprise surprise] is on R3 itself.

Why is there no major series ON RADIO THREE [ Free Thinking slot??] evaluating R3 and / or R4 in the light of what is likely to be a pretty contentious upcoming Charter Review? Would seem to be exactly the responsible journalism any self-respecting public organisation should be doing, And given that far and away the most important component in the discussion should be the station's own audience, maybe they ought to be PROPERLY consulted about what the station is doing, what it is not doing, where it is going, and where it might go. Not forgetting that that same audience is also in part at least the paymasters.

Patten does, and his cohorts do, know the anxious or even angry restiveness in R3's usually loyal audiences who often listen in spite of rather than because of what the station delivers. RW is stealthily, even covertly shifting R3's look, style, content and aims in a major core way, and as such the Trust should be keenly aware or made aware that many are unhappy about the process, and that the Trust is actually abdicating responsibility for being our eyes and ears on the BBC.

[Stephen Whitaker]

When did CFM last broadcast a concert or recital live, let alone maintain a single orchestra or artist?

It would restore some perspective to the Friends' arguments if all the naysayers actually listed for themselves
and those national newspapers, magazines, websites, etc

all the ways in which Radio 3 does NOT resemble CFM!

[Honoured Guest]

If you enjoy Four Quartets or enjoyed Woman in Mind on Radio 4, would you have somehow enjoyed them more on Radio 3? Is it that you prefer a frisson of pleasure from listening to Radio 3 in the knowledge that you are sharing exclusivity?

10pm on a Sunday is an excellent slot, except for people for whom it is too late. For years and years (mainly through the 1980s), the exact same slot was used on BBC2 for Screen 2 which was the BBC's flagship series of one-off feature-length filmed dramas. At that time of day, most people can more easily settle down and commit to a full programme without distraction. And more people are in on Sunday nights than on any other day of the week, which maximises the potential audience. I agree that it is too late for some people, but then not everyone is free to listen to Radio 4's flagship Saturday Drama at 2.30 in the afternoon.

I don't know if this has been discussed elsewhere on this board, but I personally would prefer it if each programme strand on Radio 3 had two very different schedule slots, so that more people had an opportunity to listen on radio (not i-player only). Some could run concurrently through the year, and others could alternate periodically. So, for example, Drama on 3 might have a weekday early evening slot for part of the year at, say, 7,30pm on a Monday (which was the old longrunning Radio 4 longform Monday Play slot). Similarly, World on 3 might run a shorter edition in a weekend afternoon slot, for example.

[gurnemanz]

A memorable evening at the Donmar a few years ago. In the first half, Stephen Dillane gave an extraordinary rendering of the the complete work, learnt by heart. After the interval, soloists of the Philharmonia played Beethoven’s Opus 132 (which supposedly inspired the verse), seated around a table under the light of a single overhead lamp.

PS I listen to Radio 3 a lot and cannot stomach Classic FM for more than five minutes. So I agree completely with Stephen Whitaker above.

[Russ]

...as the diet becomes one of repeats, adaptations of novels, single issue topical plays and classics re-imagined by some adapter in a way that completely strips the play of the language, style, cultural background and personality of the original (as imo was the case with the first Oresteia play broadcast last Sunday). What is important is not the strangeness and originality of the author's conception but that it should be rendered accessible and relevant to modern times, the adapter's job being to spare the listener any effort of imagination or understanding.

My first reaction to ff's desire to raise this matter with the Trust was to say no. Bashing the hard-pressed R3 Drama Department seems disproportionate to the main target, which is the general dumbing down of R3's overall content. Although I respected completely where aeolium is coming from, I was left with the stark question: on balance, despite questions over the 'quality' and 'authenticity' of the adaptation, was I pleased that R3 should tackle The Oresteia? The answer was yes, if only on the basis that something was better than nothing. And then I got to thinking of the countless other 'adaptations' the play has given rise to, whether it be Wagner's Ring or the average episode of Eastenders, both of which plunder the play (along with other Greek plays) for plot and theme. And in an instant I changed to agreeing with aeolium - with so many secondary derivations abounding, why indeed shouldn't the BBC give us the original text? The problem is I really don't know where to draw any line between aeolium's aesthetic knowledge of the original and an adaptation suitable for a modern audience (I am an ignorant pleb, albeit keen to learn). I guess it boils down to what can be regarded as 'accessible', and on that matter, I don't think any of us could agree on a single approach, but my personal view is that quantity and diversity will promote and occasionally produce excellence. Let's not throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Russ

[french frank]

It would restore some perspective to the Friends' arguments if all the naysayers actually listed for themselves
and those national newspapers, magazines, websites, etc

all the ways in which Radio 3 does NOT resemble CFM!

That falls into the trap of the BBC's 'distinctiveness' criterion. As long as Radio 3 is 'distinctive' from Classic FM (list the ways), 'that is acceptable'. But it's not.

[french frank]

If you enjoy Four Quartets or enjoyed Woman in Mind on Radio 4, would you have somehow enjoyed them more on Radio 3? Is it that you prefer a frisson of pleasure from listening to Radio 3 in the knowledge that you are sharing exclusivity?

The point being made, though, is not whether listeners would prefer to listen to a particular drama on Radio 4 or on Radio 3; it is that Radio 3 should not stealthily offload all its speech/drama programmes so that it becomes another round-the clock classical music station, gradually inching down market to compete for Classic FM's enviable listening millions.

Some drama has minority appeal. It won't get a regular outing on Radio 4 because that is a mass-audience station. Radio 3's smaller audience makes it free to broadcast more esoteric content. Sadly, Radio 3 has been doing it less and less over recent years as well.

[aeolium]

Of course R3 is different from CFM, not least in the size of its budget and its effective ownership of the BBC orchestras and the Proms festival. All of these things are mentioned inter alia in the CFM parliamentary submission discussed on another thread, as well as the significant ways in which CFM perceives R3 as aping its own style and content.

But I am not interested in the ways in which R3 differs from CFM - I never listen to CFM. I am interested in the ways in which R3 is different from - and worse than - the station I used to listen to: in presentational style, in the over-broadcasting of well-known works (cf Suffolkcoastal's survey), in the increase in the number of magazine programmes full of "bleeding chunk" pieces, in the way one of my erstwhile favourite programmes, the Lunchtime Concert, is for the most part re-assembled from a group of different concerts. Unlike gurnemanz I do not listen much to R3 at all now: the Wigmore Hall recital, occasionally an evening concert if something special is on, sometimes an opera, Drama on 3 if there is a new production that looks interesting, BaL. It just seems now to be so far from what a fine radio arts station could be, and so far from what it has been.

Russ

The version of Agamemnon that I know is that by Louis MacNeice. I certainly think the Oresteia is something R3 should be aspiring to broadcast, but in a way that does not attempt to conceal its strangeness in style and artifice from the kind of drama that we know now, and the unfamiliarity of its idiom for a modern audience. To do that seems to me no better than to translate Shakespeare because of the difficulty of some of his language. A couple of weeks back Do3 broadcast (a repeat of) a production of Ibsen's A Doll's House set in India, R3's blurb stating that "This new version....takes a fresh look at the play shining a light on British colonial history and race relations..." But Ibsen was not writing about British colonial history and race relations and it is imv arrogant of the adapter to use Ibsen's play as the vehicle for her own interests. Ibsen's play is perfectly "accessible" without such imaginative baggage and it is the listener who should be encouraged to use his/her imagination to draw out the play's relevance to other contexts.

Sorry to have taken this discussion significantly OT from the Four Quartets, which I will try to hear via LA at some point.