Celebrity Choice - the latest erosion?

[Serial_Apologist]

You know those 'celebrity interviews', usually in magazines, where they ask people to describe themselves in a couple of adjectives? Somehow, I always think of 'bubbly' and 'fun-loving' as being particularly inappropriate for me .

Somehow one maintains the sunny exterior, "pour encourager les autres".

[kernelbogey]

I listened to the Darcey Bussell Monday night programme last night from Sounds. I had hoped that Darcey would have interesting things to say about music and dance.

I came to it with a prejudice against Sean Rafferty, as I don't like his broadcasting style, and so never listen to In Tune.

I had the impression. reading betwen the lines, that DB had only a tangential relationship to making the music choices. She had danced to the Mahler 5 Adagietto, to the Mendelssohn Midummer Night's Dream in New York; and is putting on a gala at the Albert Hall on 5 May in which she hopes the Mozart overture to Figaro will be danced there. But a guitar piece was clearly chosen for her and I was unclear whether she had chosen the Bach.

There were a couple of times where she began to talk about dance and music - but was not invited to develop her thoughts... about the importance of dance to all of us, about how rhythm is crucial in learning a piece - and therefore how difficult it is to learn Stravinsky ballets with their changing time signatures - about how Kenneth MacMillan mentored her.

At one point SR said, of ballet, 'Put one foot wrong, and you're finished': ignorant, inaccurate and crass. Essentially he did his jokey schtick throughout and got almost nothing by way of interesting talk out of her, and stifled what there was.

I've no interest in listening to any of the other programmes this week. (Heard a little of Joanna Lumley - even worse than the above.)

This Celebrity Choice is an absolute disaster, and should be stifled at birth.

I hope Alan Davey reads this.

[oddoneout]

I listened to the Darcey Bussell Monday night programme last night from Sounds. I had hoped that Darcey would have interesting things to say about music and dance.

I came to it with a prejudice against Sean Rafferty, as I don't like his broadcasting style, and so never listen to In Tune.

I had the impression. reading betwen the lines, that DB had only a tangential relationship to making the music choices. She had danced to the Mahler 5 Adagietto, to the Mendelssohn Midummer Night's Dream in New York; and is putting on a gala at the Albert Hall on 5 May in which she hopes the Mozart overture to Figaro will be danced there. But a guitar piece was clearly chosen for her and I was unclear whether she had chosen the Bach.

There were a couple of times where she began to talk about dance and music - but was not invited to develop her thoughts... about the importance of dance to all of us, about how rhythm is crucial in learning a piece - and therefore how difficult it is to learn Stravinsky ballets with their changing time signatures - about how Kenneth MacMillan mentored her.

At one point SR said, of ballet, 'Put one foot wrong, and you're finished': ignorant, inaccurate and crass. Essentially he did his jokey schtick throughout and got almost nothing by way of interesting talk out of her, and stifled what there was.

I've no interest in listening to any of the other programmes this week. (Heard a little of Joanna Lumley - even worse than the above.)

This Celebrity Choice is an absolute disaster, and should be stifled at birth.

I hope Alan Davey reads this.

Very much chimes with my impressions. I did think that there was the germ of a TV idea there, with the right producer and presenter(s), to develop the ideas you mention about rhythm etc with visual examples. I quite like DB but do feel that this did her a disservice; it would have been preferable to broadcast her Private Passions slot with extended music contributions?

[Ein Heldenleben]

I listened to the Darcey Bussell Monday night programme last night from Sounds. I had hoped that Darcey would have interesting things to say about music and dance.

I came to it with a prejudice against Sean Rafferty, as I don't like his broadcasting style, and so never listen to In Tune.

I had the impression. reading betwen the lines, that DB had only a tangential relationship to making the music choices. She had danced to the Mahler 5 Adagietto, to the Mendelssohn Midummer Night's Dream in New York; and is putting on a gala at the Albert Hall on 5 May in which she hopes the Mozart overture to Figaro will be danced there. But a guitar piece was clearly chosen for her and I was unclear whether she had chosen the Bach.

There were a couple of times where she began to talk about dance and music - but was not invited to develop her thoughts... about the importance of dance to all of us, about how rhythm is crucial in learning a piece - and therefore how difficult it is to learn Stravinsky ballets with their changing time signatures - about how Kenneth MacMillan mentored her.

At one point SR said, of ballet, 'Put one foot wrong, and you're finished': ignorant, inaccurate and crass. Essentially he did his jokey schtick throughout and got almost nothing by way of interesting talk out of her, and stifled what there was.

I've no interest in listening to any of the other programmes this week. (Heard a little of Joanna Lumley - even worse than the above.)

This Celebrity Choice is an absolute disaster, and should be stifled at birth.

I hope Alan Davey reads this.

This is a shame because Darcey has been interviewed before about her career and usually has something interesting to say. I only heard a fragment of Kwame Kwei-Armah blaming Matthew Arnold for putting working class people off “High culture “ partly because of the standards of behaviour expected at concerts, theatre , galleries and the knowledge needed to appreciate it etc. This , of course , was completely unchallenged. I thought Matthew Arnold was much more worked up about the emerging middle classes not giving a fig for anything other than money. I believe he was quite keen on education for all ...wasn’t he a one man OFSTED? ( but one with some talent).

[LezLee]

I think Darcey B has a remarkable lack of personality. I was looking forward to her Scottish West Coast travels, renowned for its beauty, birds and wildlife and I managed to spot 2 corncrakes. It was mostly about people and structures. So disappointing.

[french frank]

I haven't listened and don't intend to. But I can only hope that people less weary than I am will be bombarding Radio 3 with their similar comments. What sticks in the craw particularly is that this is supposed to be the evening concert, not a chat programme. Like dominoes, the slots fall one by one to the audience that doesn't know anything about classical music and isn't awfully keen on finding out about it.

As for the tired cliché of lazy-minded people blaming the audiences instead of themselves. Why is a classical music concert any different from going to the theatre? It's not that much different from going to the cinema (except that you don't eat bags of popcorn - but you do concentrate on the film). It would be the same as going to a church/chapel meeting if they went, which they presumably don't.

The good news is - it's not on next week

[kernelbogey]

The good news is - it's not on next week

For this relief, much thanks.

It really was just a sort of In Tune Redux. Michael Berkeley demonstrates each week on Private Passions how to get his guest to talk about what a piece of music means to them. They obviously have talked previously; and also sometimes the guest's comment is cut off because of time. But Private Passions is streets ahead of In Tune for insights into guests' musical tastes and loves (IMVVHV ).

Aunt Daisy has shown that writing direct to Alan Davey can get a reply, and presumably what she wrote had some kind of impact.

I'll be getting out my fountain pen and bottle of green Quink tomorrow to write to him a version of my post above.