Feature: Nights in a Divided Spain

[Richard Tarleton]

No problem. I expect he would have been as good as Dermot Clinch in presenting (and researching) the programme

Couldn't have been much worse! Actually the best programmes about 20th century Spain I've heard on TV have been presented by Ian Gibson, biographer of Lorca....I've enjoyed Portillo's efforts, as far as they go.

[Ferretfancy]

This seemed a rather odd programme, unsure of its audience. Discussion of music in Spain under Franco would have been better done as a studio discussion. Instead we got a rambling analysis of who was who, framing a lengthy and poorly recorded interview in praise of Rodrigo. I would have liked to have heard much more about the politics and the way composer's lives were affected, what we got could have been gleaned from a collection of record sleeves.

The brief musical experts were also very poorly reproduced.
Apologies for the belated comments on this, I've only just listened to the programme from my hard disc

[Ferretfancy]

Re my message 17,

For musical experts read excerpts throughout !

Sorreee!

[french frank]

I'm not sure whether these features are now produced in-house or not. They used to be indie and there were some very interesting ones. This wasn't bereft of interest but it was rather saggy and unbalanced. Spain at the the time of the civil war and Franco's regime were times that merit critical scrutiny, but I'm not entirely sure that the Spain of music and musicians best illustrates this. It doesn't have a lot to say about Lorca, for instance, who was shot.

[tony yyy]

I think "saggy and unbalanced" is a good description. Like Ferretfancy I only caught up with this yesterday (or was it the day before?) and it seemed like an unsorted collection of reminiscences - possibly more interesting for those who know more about the subject than I do.