Late-evening pleasures on Radio 3

[Bella Kemp]

I'd love to see the Radio 3 listings in an old Radio Times from, say 1976 - (or was it still the Third Programme back then?)

[LMcD]

I'd love to see the Radio 3 listings in an old Radio Times from, say 1976 - (or was it still the Third Programme back then?)

The Third Programme became Radio 3 in 1967
I think my title for this thread may have been subconsciously inspired by John Betjeman's 'Late Flowering Lust'.

[AuntDaisy]

I'd love to see the Radio 3 listings in an old Radio Times from, say 1976 - (or was it still the Third Programme back then?)

Genome has the listings & it was Radio 3 in 1976.

Or, here's a page from Tuesday's RT for 23rd November 1976.
Lots & lots that I'd happily listen to and enjoy - wide range of music, features, explorations, explanations, poetry, drama... There were two "Drama Now"s on that week, plus a Paul Scofield monologue!

[vinteuil]

... here's a page from Tuesday's RT for 23rd November 1976.
Lots & lots that I'd happily listen to and enjoy

Thank you for that : an exhilarating read.

And of course, with that Radio Times page you could see what was coming and decide what you wanted to listen to - an amazing idea!
Quite why, with all the electronic systems that have been developed since then, the BBC is no longer 'able' to provide such information in advance...

What would Christopher Rainbow have to say (6:30pm Lifelines) - he "looks at the way in which our use of the computer has developed in recent years and asks whether we have yet learnt to live with it sensibly." Good question from 1976, Mr Rainbow






.

[oddoneout]

Genome has the listings & it was Radio 3 in 1976.

Or, here's a page from Tuesday's RT for 23rd November 1976.
Lots & lots that I'd happily listen to and enjoy - wide range of music, features, explorations, explanations, poetry, drama... There were two "Drama Now"s on that week, plus a Paul Scofield monologue!

More concerts and recitals in one day than we now get in one week and, as you say, all the other things as well.
No doubt the 'Tuesday afternoon divertissement' wouldn't be considered 'A Little Light Music' now, possibly too advanced to even be Afternoon not-live-nor-a-concert fare.

[AuntDaisy]

Thank you for that : an exhilarating read.

And of course, with that Radio Times page you could see what was coming and decide what you wanted to listen to - an amazing idea!
Quite why, with all the electronic systems that have been developed since then, the BBC is no longer 'able' to provide such information in advance...

What would Christopher Rainbow have to say (6:30pm Lifelines) - he "looks at the way in which our use of the computer has developed in recent years and asks whether we have yet learnt to live with it sensibly." Good question from 1976, Mr Rainbow

Later RTs would be ringed and some clippings kept...

For comparison, here's the "slash Programmes" BBC listing (I refuse to buy Radio Times) for today - mainly Presenters as eye candy (as an American friend called images / icons).
The rabid adherence to "on-the-hour" (& half-hour) scheduling is fairly obvious & tedious - I used to love those short filler programmes.

[oddoneout]

Thank you for that : an exhilarating read.

And of course, with that Radio Times page you could see what was coming and decide what you wanted to listen to - an amazing idea!
Quite why, with all the electronic systems that have been developed since then, the BBC is no longer 'able' to provide such information in advance...

What would Christopher Rainbow have to say (6:30pm Lifelines) - he "looks at the way in which our use of the computer has developed in recent years and asks whether we have yet learnt to live with it sensibly." Good question from 1976, Mr Rainbow

.

Absolutely. It was when the R3 content got compressed(partly by reducing the font size to difficult -to-read, partly by leaving much of it out altogether) that I stopped buying the RT. Such TV content as I needed I could find in the listings pages of the local rag, which for a time also included summaries of radio listings, and the magazine aspect of the RT was of no interest whatsoever.
The "why not online" plaint is one I regularly make, not least because what content does appear has an unacceptable level of errors and omissions - and not even an E&OE caveat.
I don't need to return to the days of marking up the pages each week when the RT came out, although looking at what goodies lay ahead was a source of pleasure and marking them up avoided missing something for want of not knowing it was there, but is it so unreasonable to want an alternative fit for this digital age? So ironic in view of that Lifelines listing...

[Pulcinella]

Presumably they'd claim that they have to be responsive to customer requests, especially if it's the pet budgerigar tweeting in on the listener's behalf, so they can't publish in advance even with an E&OE caveat as they need more flexibility.

[Belgrove]

...not Hoyle's 'big bang' - he was a fervent opponent of the theory, and always promoted 'steady state'. He never accepted the big bang, even tho' all the evidence was in its favour way before his death in 2001

Indeed so, but he did coin the term, meant in a disparaging way. Ironic that it’s stuck.

[french frank]

Quite right, ff. The old Radio 3 , like the Third,was never just music, but drama,poetry, discussons, talks on recent developments in science ...

As for drama, Otway's Venice Preserved is the play tomorrow (available to listen to now as it's a repeat from 2022), advertised as "A political thriller about power, revolution, sex and betrayal" which will attract the cultured masses until they find it a disappointment. Poetry schmoetry. The Verb has departed to R4 I think but the poet Alan Brownjohn - who taught Ian McMillan - said several years ago it was not an R3 programme and would be better on R4. I suppose PPs has sensible discussion sections though it's more entertainment than anything very deep. And CotW has an element of discussion, but there are no discussion programmes now. And the nearest to a 'talks' programme is The Essay, it's only 15 minutes at a time dear, and looking at this week's theme I wouldn't say it amounted to a serious talk, interesting though it may be if the subject happens to interest you.

[AuntDaisy]

As for drama, Otway's Venice Preserved is the play tomorrow (available to listen to now as it's a repeat from 2022), advertised as "A political thriller about power, revolution, sex and betrayal" which will attract the cultured masses until they find it a disappointment. Poetry schmoetry. The Verb has departed to R4 I think but the poet Alan Brownjohn - who taught Ian McMillan - said several years ago it was not an R3 programme and would be better on R4. I suppose PPs has sensible discussion sections though it's more entertainment than anything very deep. And CotW has an element of discussion, but there are no discussion programmes now. And the nearest to a 'talks' programme is The Essay, it's only 15 minutes at a time dear, and looking at this week's theme I wouldn't say it amounted to a serious talk, interesting though it may be if the subject happens to interest you.

It's not a patch on the 1960 Third Programme version with Donald Wolfit, Barbara Jefford, Carleton Hobbs & Norman Shelley. It was released on TS disc as World Theatre 113 / 190.

Auntie has made it available (in middling Audible audio quality) as part of her "Humour and Madness: Early Restoration Comedies" set.

'Loyalties,' says a character in Galsworthy's play of that name, ' cut up against each other sometimes ... Criss-cross, we all cut each other's throats for the best of motives.' These words of 1922 seem an appropriate comment on a play presented at the Duke's Theatre in Dorset Garden 240 years earlier - Thomas Otway's Venice Preserved (Wednesday, Third), a full-blooded thriller which is one of the best examples of Restoration tragedy. For Otway's drama of a plan to overthrow the Venetian Republic in 1618 is above all a play of conflicting loyalties.
Pierre, a rebellious and disgruntled soldier, Jaffeir, who has married a Venetian senator's daughter in spite of his father-in-law's opposition, and Jaffeir's beautiful wife Belvidera are at the centre of this conflict. It begins in scenes strongly reminiscent of the conspiracy in Julius Caesar, in which Pierre persuades Jaffeir to join in a plot to massacre the Venetian Senate, and as a pledge of loyalty to his fellow-conspirators Jaffeir entrusts Belvidera to their care.
Soon, however, the treatment given to Belvidera by one of the conspirators causes Jaffeir to re-assess his loyalties, and he accepts Belvidera's advice to betray the plot and save Venice. The grim and absorbing scenes which end the play show how Jaffeir's old friendship for Pierre is reawakened, though too late to avert a tragic denouement for all three of them.
To appreciate Venice Preserved fully one should remember that it was in its day a strongly political play. It was written only a few years after the 'Popish Plot' and it contained many topical allusions for audiences who were fully alive to the threat of conspiracies against the State. For example, the unpleasant byplay between Antonio, the vicious old senator, and Aquilina, Pierre's mistress, is more understandable when it is realised that Restoration audiences saw in Antonio a caricature of the disgraced politician Shaftesbury.
Edgar Holt

[Bella Kemp]

More concerts and recitals in one day than we now get in one week and, as you say, all the other things as well.
No doubt the 'Tuesday afternoon divertissement' wouldn't be considered 'A Little Light Music' now, possibly too advanced to even be Afternoon not-live-nor-a-concert fare.

Oh That's fantastic! Thanks so much for finding this. Gosh what treasures there were back then!

[Bella Kemp]

Genome has the listings & it was Radio 3 in 1976.

Or, here's a page from Tuesday's RT for 23rd November 1976.
Lots & lots that I'd happily listen to and enjoy - wide range of music, features, explorations, explanations, poetry, drama... There were two "Drama Now"s on that week, plus a Paul Scofield monologue!

Oh sorry Aunt Daisy - it was your post originally. Thanks!!

[french frank]

Thanks to Aunt Daisy for info on Venice Preserved

I was just reading an article by Alexandra Wilson, sometime contributor to R3, incl Breakfast, in this month's Critic. She was looking back to the days (1975) when BBC TV had a programme like Face the Music - and yes, I do remember what has been said here about the programme, but 1975 was 1975. The thing that struck me was the popularity of the programme: it 'reached' 4m people, which was then 7% of the entire population (this is the nearest I can get to any broad comparison). AW compares it with the present reach of MasterChef - 3.5m or 5% of the entire 1975 population.

Clearly, broadcasting choice has expanded hugely so the fact that there was altogether less to watch in 1975 explains the difference. But the comparison between the two is immaterial: factually, a figure representing 7% of the total population could and did watch a regular programme - Face the Music - devoted to classical music. And the fact that they can't watch a regular 'popular' programme like that at all now means that there is more choice, but less of many things - like top quality arts and cultural broadcasting. And that seems to be the reason why people here are content to tolerate a bastion of such programming spiralling downwards. That is, they hardly notice, or just like people facing shipwreck they hang on as long as possible to a lifebelt. And praise the lifebelt!

When people are given more choice, minorities lose out as lowest common denominator returns the big audiences.

[hmvman]

I look at that page and could weep...!