Recommended Television Programmes

[oddoneout]

Disappointing and annoying - endless ACTORS!. I wish the producers had given this to John Bridcut. His music documentaries, in my view, have all been excellent, often moving and put the music first. Though I realise he wouldn't have had any of Mozart's contemparies to interview!

Yes, the combination of fancy dress and talking head actor input rather buried the supposed purpose of the exercise. Apart from banging on about the child prodigy aspect(which isn't necessarily what genius is about) I didn't get much of a feel for the genius aspect and I don't think anyone who was not that familiar with WAM and his work would be any the wiser. What a missed opportunity.
It is possible that subsequent episodes might do better and this was just scene setting, but I have no inclination to find out, not least as I am not a fan of dramatised content as a feature of such programmes.
Question: the opening scenes showed a "reconstruction/dramatisation" scenes of what the talk suggested was a memorial performance of the Requiem, where the two top lines were women. Would that have been the case?

[Ein Heldenleben]

Yes, the combination of fancy dress and talking head actor input rather buried the supposed purpose of the exercise. Apart from banging on about the child prodigy aspect(which isn't necessarily what genius is about) I didn't get much of a feel for the genius aspect and I don't think anyone who was not that familiar with WAM and his work would be any the wiser. What a missed opportunity.
It is possible that subsequent episodes might do better and this was just scene setting, but I have no inclination to find out, not least as I am not a fan of dramatised content as a feature of such programmes.
Question: the opening scenes showed a "reconstruction/dramatisation" scenes of what the talk suggested was a memorial performance of the Requiem, where the two top lines were women. Would that have been the case?

Very many great composers have been child prodigies . Shostakovich and Britten to name but two. Mozart was nothing out of the ordinary in that - he was out of the ordinary in writing music of the quality of the Da Ponte Operas , later symphonies piano concerti , chamber works -etc etc a list so long it would take a week of continuous listening. One of the most astounding geniuses in human history.
It was Hans Keller who pointed out that Beethoven wrote the odd masterpiece in his teens - earlier than Mozart who took longer to mature though he started earlier.
I took one look at the cast of actors being interviewed and thought they have nothing interesting to say about him. Good they put the doc on BBC Two though.

[smittims]

HS2: The Railway that blew billions: on BBC1 (I think) iPlayer.

Even as a railway enthusiast I was against HS2 from the start and felt it would be a disaster . I wrote to the consultation excercise that it wasn't worth the cost for the difference in time it would make and the money would be better spent on improving trhe existing system , principally putting right the mistakes of the Beeching closures. So there were no surprises for me there. What did disturb me though, were the repeated complaints by honest hard-working employees who simply tried to tell their bosses that the cost figures weren't true, only to be screamed and shouted and sworn at and then sacked, to prevent them revealing the truth. And to think that this was taxpayers' money when essential services such as maternity care, care for the elderly and for children with special needs, were crying out for funding , makes one wonder about those responsible.

One of the main arguments for HS2 was capacity, yet no-one mentioned that we had plenty of capacity before Beeching: the Great Cental line for instance, a high-speed line built to continental loading gauge with spare space for quadrupling designed into it. Even today many stations have abandoned platforms that could be brought back into use (five at Crewe, for instance).

Perhaps the saddest part was the people who had their land taken off them for Phase 2 and now won't even get it back. .

[Serial_Apologist]

HS2: The Railway that blew billions: on BBC1 (I think) iPlayer.

Even as a railway enthusiast I was against HS2 from the start and felt it would be a disaster . I wrote to the consultation excercise that it wasn't worth the cost for the difference in time it would make and the money would be better spent on improving trhe existing system , principally putting right the mistakes of the Beeching closures. So there were no surprises for me there. What did disturb me though, were the repeated complaints by honest hard-working employees who simply tried to tell their bosses that the cost figures weren't true, only to be screamed and shouted and sworn at and then sacked, to prevent them revealing the truth. And to think that this was taxpayers' money when essential services such as maternity care, care for the elderly and for children with special needs, were crying out for funding , makes one wonder about those responsible.

One of the main arguments for HS2 was capacity, yet no-one mentioned that we had plenty of capacity before Beeching: the Great Cental line for instance, a high-speed line built to continental loading gauge with spare space for quadrupling designed into it. Even today many stations have abandoned platforms that could be brought back into use (five at Crewe, for instance).

Perhaps the saddest part was the people who had their land taken off them for Phase 2 and now won't even get it back. .

I couldn't agree more. Regarding all the grass-roots warnings and the way those making them were abominably treated should be a lesson on the vital need for protecting whistle blowers, as has been proven time and time again in other scandals revealed all-too late for adequate redress and anything to be brought to bear to mitigate. But you don't have to be a cynic or resort to populist "explanations" of abused power to see the reasons why nothing will change until everything is changed.

Wednesday's 5-parter Kent: the Garden of England (Channel 5 8pm), like its predecessor on East Anglia, voiced over by actor Bill Nighy, is proving pleasant, escapist entertainment - while I rather suspect "the other Kent" on the Thames marshes and shorelines beloved of Nigel Farage may not get a look-in, I was very surprised to learn among other useful things that the county hosts more orchards today than it did back in the 1950s.

For once I must speak up for BBC TV News, at any rate today's lunchtime broadcast, which managed to cram in indispensable news information about yesterday's ostensible Israeli attack on Hezbollah by way of the pagers it switched to from using mobile phones for its communcations. The extraordinarily swift moves to uncover the sourcings in Hungary for the technology used to make these devices go off is in the very best traditions of investigative journalism.

[Nick Armstrong]

Good to see that joining Call My Bluff in the Monday evening nostalgia slot on BBCFour this week will be Face The Music (21.25)

[LMcD]

Presenter: Joseph Cooper
Panellists: Joyce Grenfell, Richard Baker, Robin Ray
Performer: Tamas Vasary

[LMcD]

Good to see that joining Call My Bluff in the Monday evening nostalgia slot on BBCFour this week will be Face The Music (21.25)

For only the second time, I recognized a word on Call My Bluff the moment it appeared (Iapetus).

[vinteuil]

... much enjoying on BBC I-player the two-part drama from 2002 - The Project, starring among others the (young!) Matthew Macfadyen : the inside story of the Labour Party from the 1992 defeat through to victory in 1997 and on to re-election in 2001. Extraordinary (depressing) how many of the issues (more pay for the nurses vs not raising taxes) still so present. Nice contemporary news footage.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Project_(film)

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[kernelbogey]

Disappointing and annoying - endless ACTORS!. I wish the producers had given this to John Bridcut. His music documentaries, in my view, have all been excellent, often moving and put the music first. Though I realise he wouldn't have had any of Mozart's contemparies to interview!

The irritation of this format was slightly dulled by novelty with the first episode - but on the second episode last night for me it undermined the narrative more. The musicians and musical scholars can be justified but the ubiquitous Stephen Fry was otiose. I fundamentally dislike 'reenactment' scenes in historical tv programmes. There were a couple of weird moments musically: Mozart playing "Ah, vous dirai-je, maman" variations in the Clementi 'duel' was filmed showing only the right hand playing some of the time. And although the orchestra in the pit for Figaro was tiny, the sound featured a full modern orchestra.

[Belgrove]

... much enjoying on BBC I-player the two-part drama from 2002 - The Project, starring among others the (young!) Matthew Macfadyen : the inside story of the Labour Party from the 1992 defeat through to victory in 1997 and on to re-election in 2001. Extraordinary (depressing) how many of the issues (more pay for the nurses vs not raising taxes) still so present. Nice contemporary news footage.
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Yes it’s good - I don’t recall seeing it at its first showing. It’s rather sad and depressing drama charting of how idealism and good intentions curdle into compromise and disappointment in the world of realpolitik. Not a good advertisement for the aspirant politician.

[Serial_Apologist]

Yes it’s good - I don’t recall seeing it at its first showing. It’s rather sad and depressing drama charting of how idealism and good intentions curdle into compromise and disappointment in the world of realpolitik. Not a good advertisement for the aspirant politician.

Only if people believe the overwhelmingly right wing-biassed mass media in this country, of course.

[Pulcinella]

I will definitely be watching more of 'Nightsleeper' which started last night on Channel 1. Thrilling first episode, well set up, I thought.

Watched five episodes so far and quite taken with it, despite some implausibility; much more satisfying than Colin from Accounts, which I started to watch (Series 1) and quickly gave up on. Why on earth would they not try to trace the owner of the dog? It was well looked after, and not obviously a stray.

Tenebrae concert tonight though, so the conclusion of Nightsleeper will have to wait.

[vinteuil]

It’s a rather sad and depressing drama charting how idealism and good intentions curdle into compromise and disappointment in the world of realpolitik...

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Only if people believe the overwhelmingly right-wing biased mass media in this country, of course.

... no, serial. It's a very straight and honest account of how reality impinges on idealism. To believe otherwise is polyannaism


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[Serial_Apologist]

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... no, serial. It's a very straight and honest account of how reality impinges on idealism. To believe otherwise is pollyannaism


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I know - I too can be facetiously simplistic.

[eighthobstruction]

.....try 10 minutes this imagined wordy diatribe /polemic from 1975 by Arthur Hopcraft......it's Party Conference time and all is not well on the Left Wing of t' Labour Party...https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nol9CURRH0g&t=2203s..