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

[Beresford]

The cultural highlight of my time at Liverpool University in the sixties was a performance of "Quartets by T S Eliot and Beethoven" at the opening of part of Liverpool Cathedral. Would R3 or R4 have broadcast that?
And I borrowed from the library an LP of T S Eliot reading the quartets himself - the phrasing was fascinating. Why is it no longer available?

[mercia]

did your LP look like this ?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ga8tQrG4ZSw

[amateur51]

But committed audiences seek out specialist programmes in the schedules. and late evening is a less busy time for many people when they can more easily settle down to attentively listen to a programme.

They can seek it out but if it occurs only after 22:00 my guess is that many will decline the offer, as a good night's sleep and work tomorrow beckon.

Writing as a retired person of 63, the 22:00 cut-off is internally automatic these days - the roller blinds just roll down & I'm off

But another of the joys of 21st century retired life is the iPlayer

[french frank]

When the Eliot programme is eventually broadcast, no doubt people will post on the most relevant thread. Meanwhile, my research started with a week in the controllership of John Drummond, w/b Sat 26 November, 1988.

In brief:

There were three plays: Studio 3 (a short piece by Gabriel Josipovici, roughly equivalent to The Wire in length) 35 mins, Drama Now, a modern play for radio by Nigel Gearing, 75 minutes, and the main Friday Play at 9.50pm, Büchner's Woyzeck, 85 minutes. There were also a short story (not an interval feature), two programmes (of a series of four) of readings from The Idylls of Theocritus, 30 minutes and 35 minutes, The Island is Always with You: Iain Crichton-Smith reading some of his poetry and discussing central themes, 45 minutes. There was a daily series called Third Ear at 7.05 which was usually discussions with artists and writers, 25 minutes. The Reith Lecture which that year was The Rediscovery of Politics, Prof G Hosking, 30 minutes, and Critics' Forum, 1 hour.

Total E&OE: 9 hours 45 minutes.

I have to assume that that was a typical week - it was selected at random. If so, it shows that in 1988 the output was more varied than now, with more drama and poetry. Critics' Forum was the most similar to Night Waves/Free Thinking in discussing more general topics like films and novels but was a weekly programme. The only thing remotely [sic] resembling the Crichton-Smith programme is The Verb ... A Büchner play has been on R3 in recent years (Woyzeck?). Theocritus???

[Ed. R3 did Woyzeck and Dantons Tod in 2011/12]

[Honoured Guest]

I think that a more typical week then may have had two plays (Drama Now and Friday Play - NB 85 mins at 9.50 sounds just like now, doesn't it?) and a feature instead of that third Studio 3 play. Now we have one Drama on 3 and one Sunday Feature. We also now have occasional Between the Ears and The Wire, but of course The Wire is ending very shortly (or maybe has just ended) as a budget cut. Also, Drama now breaks for two whole months during the Proms - again for budget reasons - unless they use some of The Wire savings to broadcast a few dramas during this year's Proms.

Third Ear was very similar to the interviews and some discussions in Free Thinking (nee Night Waves).

Critics' Forum (Sat 5.45 to 6.35, weekly) has been replaced by Saturday Review (Sat 7.15 to 8.00, weekly, Radio 4) which is almost identical in format, although without the "top table, cut glass" tone of Philip French's Radio 3 seminal programme. Also, as you say, there are occasional live reviews on FT (NW).

I think the Reith Lectures were originated on Radio 4 and repeated in-week on Radio 3, so they're a bit of a red herring.

The most noticeable difference (at least in presentation) is the almost total disappearance of individual short stories, poetry and other readings. You may have hit on a bumper sample week, but your point stands. Their equivalents today are the two regular weekly sequenced strands, The Wire and Words and Music (two hours per week, including music).

Interval talks have migrated to The Essay in a regular daily timeslot.

I think that Drama has now been cut to the bone, in terms of the quantity of new productions and also of total broadcasts. I know you will accuse me of buying the BBC line, but I still think that the (few) productions which are still made do still stand up, in their quality and length and in their variety of drama genres.

In summary, apart from the cuts to Drama and the replacement of whole readings by sequenced reading programmes, you've shown us less Speech change over the last quarter century than I thought!

[french frank]

The Friends of Radio 3 are complaining about the repertoire and presentation style of the Titanic's band as the ship goes down.

You mean FoR3 shouldn't complain about it, but just take what's being given in order to ensure the BBC survives? What about our other activities (excluding running this forum). I liked the viewer's tweet: "No public execution of Gary Barlow for the New Year show. Sometimes I wonder if the BBC even read my letters at all." (I know how he feels.)

HG

In summary, apart from the cuts to Drama and the replacement of whole readings by sequenced reading programmes, you've shown us less Speech change over the last quarter century than I thought!

Looking at this week, I make the speech output 5 hours 15 minutes, not much more than half the 1988 figure.

[Honoured Guest]

SPEECH
Presumably because your own interest doesn't lie with classical music (unless, as you said elsewhwere, it's introduced by a celebrity presenter who doesn't necessarily expect to tell the audience anything about the music).

Ah, yes, the budgets. Your 'suspicions', if I may say so, seem based on very little. Looking at the Radio 1 and Radio 2 weekly timetables doesn't seem to show much for their budget increases that might be considered improved quality. The majority is still presenter-led sequences, with or without guests. I suppose bigger budgets will pay higher salaries for the celebs.

Tom Courtenay, Robert Lloyd, Richard Sisson, Rana Mitter, Jack Liebeck, Kathryn Stott, Richard Wilson, Michel Roux Jr, Anthony Horowitz, Jessica Duchen, Stuart Maconie, Noriko Ogawa - the last three months' Saturday Classics presenters. It's a bit reductive to label all of them as celebrity presenters who don't necessarily expect to tell the audience anything about the music.

I think you're referring to my wish for a weekly Late Junction -esque classical music programme, with the creative presenter choosing the sequence of tracks by the sound of the music or some other factor - so tracks could be juxtaposed due to rhythm or instrumentation or performer or language, for example, and the creative presenter's links would help the listener to hear and think about the connexions, and NOT (for just 90 mins a week) read out a script in a fruity voice listing Koechel numbers, etc. When I posted that comment, I'd forgotten about Saturday Classics and I was thinking more of a regular presenter, like the current 11.00 programmes have.

Radios 1 and 2 have significant amounts of live and specially recorded music, not all immediately apparent from most weekly timetables.

[Honoured Guest]

Looking at this week, I make the speech output 5 hours 15 minutes, not much more than half the 1988 figure.

Sunday Feature (45m) plus Drama on 3 (1h 30m) plus Free Thinking (3 @ 45m) plus The Verb (45m) totals 5h 15m

plus Between the Ears (30m) plus Words and Music (Est. speech 30m) totals 6h 15m.

The 1988 week total contains Critics' Forum (1h) and the Reith Lectures (30m) which have both migrated to Radio 4, so the comparable 1988 total was 8h 15m. The timings you quote add up to 7h 10m, excluding the untimed short story which must have been 1h 5m according to your total, which seems a tad long for a short story...?

For consistency, I excluded The Essay (5 @ 15m) from my 2014 total because I believe that you excluded the interval talks from your 1988 total.

[french frank]

I'm not sure that I'm going to allow you to remove two of the 1988 programmes (Reith and Critics' Forum) on the grounds that they 'have both migrated to Radio 4', since the fact that some programmes have been on Radio 4 rather than Radio 3 is one cause of complaint. If those particular programmes were deemed more suitable for Radio 4, why not replace them with other speech programmes on R3 to fill the gaps?

However, the Reith lecture is interesting, surely an idea of what happens when a programme is on R4 rather than R3 - it becomes populist, interactive entertainment, thumbing its nose at anything more erudite and serious, revelling in 'Playing to the Gallery'. That isn't to regard such a treatment as not valuable/interesting/worth broadcasting: it is pointing out that Radio 4 is not going to do things as Radio 3 can do them. Making fun of the way Radio 3 does them shows a rather restricted vision. So with drama: Radio3 can do plays which Radio 4 can't, so no way should all its drama ever be shunted off on to Radio 4 on the grounds that 'it doesn't matter which station you hear it on'. But more poetry programmes like the Crichton-Smith and Theocritus would be rather more welcome than The Verb - which would easily fit with Radio 4's style.

Words and Music might approach the kind of programme you were asking for as being a 'classical' version of Late Junction. Since many listeners regretted the fact that it was moved from its original late night slot to early evening, perhaps I could suggest that it replaces one of the editions of Late Junction?

[I checked the timings. The 1988 ones were correct at 9 hours 45 minutes - Third Ear was a daily programme at 25 minutes, 7 days a week. That was at least 3 hours more than now, per week, even allowing for the fact that I did omit a couple of programmes.]

[aeolium]

The kind of week's arts broadcasting that ff recalls was as I remember it pretty much representative of drama/speech in the Drummond era, and he was not averse to mounting special evenings devoted to particular themes (in June 1989, for instance, with a 4-hour "An Evening with Sir Isaiah Berlin" which included talks given by IB and extracts from his lectures on the Roots of Romanticism). In fact it was Drummond's evident preoccupation with ideas that for me was the strongest quality of his influence on R3's style and content at that time: whether in the way music was presented and discussed, in philosophical talks and discussions, in the kind of drama that was put on. And also it was the fact that he created the impression that what was broadcast on R3 was serious and important to him (even if it apparently wasn't to his colleagues and his bosses).

It was soon after Kenyon took over that spoken arts content on R3 was cut by a quarter, giving a clear indication of the fate of this part of R3 content without a Controller who was interested in it. And so it has continued to become even more anonymous under Wright, while desperately striving after "relevance" and "accessibility" and accompanied by a growth in trivialising interactivity. It is not so much the reduction in quantity of arts broadcasting - that is merely a symptom. The difference is that, under Drummond, spoken arts on R3 still mattered to people in a way it hardly does now.

[amateur51]

The kind of week's arts broadcasting that ff recalls was as I remember it pretty much representative of drama/speech in the Drummond era, and he was not averse to mounting special evenings devoted to particular themes (in June 1989, for instance, with a 4-hour "An Evening with Sir Isaiah Berlin" which included talks given by IB and extracts from his lectures on the Roots of Romanticism). In fact it was Drummond's evident preoccupation with ideas that for me was the strongest quality of his influence on R3's style and content at that time: whether in the way music was presented and discussed, in philosophical talks and discussions, in the kind of drama that was put on. And also it was the fact that he created the impression that what was broadcast on R3 was serious and important to him (even if it apparently wasn't to his colleagues and his bosses).

It was soon after Kenyon took over that spoken arts content on R3 was cut by a quarter, giving a clear indication of the fate of this part of R3 content without a Controller who was interested in it. And so it has continued to become even more anonymous under Wright, while desperately striving after "relevance" and "accessibility" and accompanied by a growth in trivialising interactivity. It is not so much the reduction in quantity of arts broadcasting - that is merely a symptom. The difference is that, under Drummond, spoken arts on R3 still mattered to people in a way it hardly does now.

Only the other day did I ask myself when was the last time that George Steiner contributed to Radio 3?

[aeolium]

Only the other day did I ask myself when was the last time that George Steiner contributed to Radio 3?

It might have been on this occasion:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/bbc-in-the-firing-line-for-pandering-to-populism-1170930.html

[french frank]

I've found another Drummond schedule - some scribbled notes I made several years ago. This was for 22-28 September, 1990, and consists again of just short of 10 hours (so the last one more likely to be typical than a 'bumper sample'). The feeling one gets is that arts and music are coherently related (a story by Adolfo Bioy Casares precedes two programmes about Argentinian music and dance) and the schedule is aimed at "an audience" which will take an intelligent interest in a programme about Seamus Heaney (Poet of the Month!) as much as Annie Fischer plays Schumann or Wedding Music from Zanzibar.

The Friday Play was the NT production of Pravda by Howard Brenton and David Hare, and starring Anthony Hopkins (2 hrs) and Drama Now was Peter Luke's The Last of Baron Corvo. It feels as comfortable 'with its own time' as with the near and distant past.

[amateur51]

It might have been on this occasion:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/bb...m-1170930.html

Many thanks aeolium - and such an apposite subject too

[french frank]

Many thanks aeolium - and such an apposite subject too

Cripes!

"Mr Kenyon said the professor had supported what he had always tried to do - to broadcast serious music but help audiences understand it. "I think that is exactly what Radio 3 is about."

Well, it doesn't do that now.