Recommended Television Programmes

[Nick Armstrong]

BBC4 should really show the brilliant 1977 TV Play Professional Foul, starring Peter Barkworth as a philosopher at a Prague conference....on YT of course, but chopped up and unlicensed....
(Originally BBC2, later adapted for R4)....

Agreed! That stood out in the recent & extremely interesting Yentob interview with Stoppard.

In fact I was surprised the BBC didn’t take the opportunity to rebroadcast Professional Foul as an adjunct to the interview.

[AuntDaisy]

BBC4 should really show the brilliant 1977 TV Play Professional Foul, starring Peter Barkworth as a philosopher at a Prague conference....on YT of course, but chopped up and unlicensed....
(Originally BBC2, later adapted for R4)....

Agreed! That stood out in the recent & extremely interesting Yentob interview with Stoppard.
In fact I was surprised the BBC didn’t take the opportunity to rebroadcast Professional Foul as an adjunct to the interview.

Thrided re. Professional Foul.

There were other tantalising clips...
"After Magritte" ~39:30, "Jumpers" ~42:00, & "The Real Inspector Hound" ~36:58 & "Every Good Boy Deserves Favour" ~54:40, "Night and Day", "On the Razzle".

I'd dearly love to see "After Magritte" with Peter Vaughan, Joan Hickson, Edward Petherbridge & Prunella Scales. I think Jumpers may only a few scenes for the OU.

[jayne lee wilson]

Very welcome rerun.....

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000n1jp

That's the late mini-supper viewing sorted then.....
Nice to get a break from football occasionally (very wittily included in Professional Foul...)....

[Serial_Apologist]

I'm not generally a fan of Melvin Bragg, but Tuesday's South Bank Show feature on Linton Kwesi Johnson, shown on Sky Arts, was exceptionally good, even judging by the usual strengths of this programme. Bragg, uncharacteristically, seemed mesmerised by Linton's charisma, and at one point clearly awed, having asked how come he has turned out such a friendly affable sort of chap, and LKW, after a brief pensive pause, outlined an astonishing personal history involving paternal desertion, racism, hopelessness, involvement in drugs 'n' gun culture, and then moving down here to push himself forward as the budding dub poet who would have seemed so utterly unlikely from his academically failed school years, with footage from early gigs, playing alongside Bob Marley and so on.

[jayne lee wilson]

New Stephen Hawking documentary (Sky Documentaries), no punches pulled, quiet, intimate, utterly revealing and it seems truthful, Mangan's review tells it like it is......

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/sep/20/hawking-can-you-hear-me-review-a-startling-harrowing-look-at-stephens-secret-life

[Bryn]

Current coverage, on various channels, of the German election. Fascinating.

[Nick Armstrong]

I watched and enjoyed the first of the two episodes broadcast last night in the BBC Four 9pm Saturday slot: Paris Police 1900 is atmospheric and lurid, and beautifully shot in a style (at least for exterior scenes) which seemed to me to echo Peaky Blinders to some extent, mixing violence, grimness and glamour.

Will definitely be following

[Cockney Sparrow]

I’ve watched half of this 90 minute film and so far have seen young and Old Barenboim, Ashkenazy, Perlman, Zuckerman and film extracts with Du Pre and Pleeth, Barbirolli, Segovia and others. The emphasis so far has been on Nupen’s developing career, filming techniques etc but I imagine it will be of interest to members here – I can’t see this is a repeat so I trust this is a new posting about the film (and I claim a brownie point because this post is on a musical matter and even more so classical music subject)

"A tribute to Christopher Nupen, who became Britain’s first independent television producer in the 1960s at the dawn of the documentary era. It is also the story of how the talents of a golden generation of artists were forever preserved on film. Nupen came from an unlikely background in South Africa and ‘ticked none of the boxes’, but seizing upon the emerging camera technology and his unique access, he filmed classical music in a completely new and intimate way that broke down the barriers between artists and their public. As a result, this documentary is also an important story about the history of music on television and the great artists who collaborated on the films".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m00109wm/listening-through-the-lens-the-christopher-nupen-films

[subcontrabass]

I watched and enjoyed the first of the two episodes broadcast last night in the BBC Four 9pm Saturday slot: Paris Police 1900 is atmospheric and lurid, and beautifully shot in a style (at least for exterior scenes) which seemed to me to echo Peaky Blinders to some extent, mixing violence, grimness and glamour.

Will definitely be following

All episodes currently available on iPlayer, so binge watching is an option.

[Cockney Sparrow]

I’ve watched half of this 90 minute film and so far have seen young and old Barenboim, Ashkenazy, Perlman, Zuckerman and film extracts with Du Pre and Pleeth, Barbirolli, Segovia and others. The emphasis so far has been on Nupen’s developing career, filming techniques etc but I imagine it will be of interest to members here – I can’t see this is a repeat so I trust this is a new posting about the film (and I claim a brownie point because this post is on a musical matter and even more so classical music)

A tribute to Christopher Nupen, who became Britain’s first independent television producer in the 1960s at the dawn of the documentary era. It is also the story of how the talents of a golden generation of artists were forever preserved on film. Nupen came from an unlikely background in South Africa and ‘ticked none of the boxes’, but seizing upon the emerging camera technology and his unique access, he filmed classical music in a completely new and intimate way that broke down the barriers between artists and their public. As a result, this documentary is also an important story about the history of music on television and the great artists who collaborated on the films.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m00109wm/listening-through-the-lens-the-christopher-nupen-films

[Braunschlag]

Well worth 90 minutes of anyone’s time - maybe fast forward past Lebrecht trying to justify his existence

[Bryn]

Perhaps surprisingly, tonight's QI. A fair few items which were indeed, quite interesting, especially the well put-over question relating to https://www.kent.edu/today/news/say-...deaf-after-all

See also: https://www.theguardian.com/music/20...s-musicologist

[Dave2002]

Light entertainment - which some may like - Guilt. So far quite amusing. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0010lbk

OTOH - just stumbled across some incredible c**p yesterday afternoon - Endeavour - saw the end of it. Worst programme I've seen for a long while.

[antongould]

Light entertainment - which some may like - Guilt. So far quite amusing. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0010lbk

OTOH - just stumbled across some incredible c**p yesterday afternoon - Endeavour - saw the end of it. Worst programme I've seen for a long while.

Agree Dave the Endeavour was appalling

[Ein Heldenleben]

BBC4 should really show the brilliant 1977 TV Play Professional Foul, starring Peter Barkworth as a philosopher at a Prague conference....on YT of course, but chopped up and unlicensed....
(Originally BBC2, later adapted for R4)....

I wish R3 would repeat their quite magnificent original cast recording of the National Theatre Production of ‘The Invention Of Love.’ I think it’s Stoppard’s best play ( of the dozen I’ve read , seen , or heard ) - extraordinarily moving , funny , intelligent. I have an off air cassette recording but a broken TEAC machine. Almost worth buying another just to hear it again,,
For some reason the play wasn’t mentioned in the otherwise excellent recent doc…or if it was it must have been on the ten mins I missed .