Robert Robinson RIP

[doversoul1]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14514388

It feels particularly sad when we are seriously concerned with the quality of radio presenters. RIP.

[Lateralthinking1]

I am also sad to hear this news. Other people might wish to discuss his television career. For me, Robert Robinson was at his strongest on radio where he was one of the very best. His generally civil, gentlemanly, manner was natural but also an art, particularly when combined with that quiet, gentle, wit. Always something of an antidote to the brasher kinds of presentation, it was a style that is rarely heard at all these days. I would hear the legacy of Reith in that presentation. The average teenager today would simply be bewildered by it and yawn. After all, he looked and sounded like a librarian or a bank manager more than any librarian or bank manager does now. However, some thirty and forty years ago, it showed me that impressions can be formed too quickly. He had an imaginative way with words and a complete absence of stuffiness. In fact, he could be very good fun.

And there have never been too many natural wordsmiths around. Wogan was too contrived and Fry is highly egotistical. Jack Dee has hints of it and so too did the excellent Ray Moore but it is an individual talent. Obviously, neither could possess it in quite the same way. What this ability meant in essence was that while RR's stint on the Today programme was to be noted and applauded, news was never his forte. Along with many other reasonably sophisticated types - here Humphrey Lyttelton particularly springs to mind but you could almost include in the list Bob Monkhouse and RR's fellow surprise Liverpudlian John Peel - he was able to be great in light entertainment, albeit where there was a puzzle or the scope for muse. If television's "Mastermind" and "University Challenge" have arguably improved with a change of presenter, no one could really ever adequately replace RR on "Brain of Britain." He - and Mycroft - were as much the programme as the format, the questions, the participants and the theme tune.

Of all the programmes, I'd choose "Stop The Week", a programme that could - no would - have been dire left in the wrong hands. But in the era of Ann Leslie, Laurie Taylor, Benny Green, Milton Schulman, Anthony Clare and, of course, Beachcomber by reference, RR enabled it to be the best programme that was ever on R4 during Saturday teatime. Highly entertaining, sometimes fiercely competitive and always thought provoking - you could laugh along with it while also learning something - it was also reliably suitable for family listening. The only time that I personally have heard anything like it elsewhere was in the early 1980s : dear Laurie holding forth with university friends in the Charles and the Derry pubs in Heslington, York. It wasn't quite the same though without the steadiness of RR there! Robert Robinson RIP. An excellent broadcaster. Sadly missed. Appreciated by many.

http://www.transdiffusion.org/radio/bbc/stop_the_week

[french frank]

Apart from the fact that he was such a lovable personality (whether he 'sneered at everything' or not, I feel he always had the ordinary proles behind him, 'sneering' when he 'sneered'), it's sad that his departure did/does represent the demise of something very fine in broadcasting.

[salymap]

I can't add anything to that except to say that I always enjoyed his programmes. One of the great all-rounders and a mine of information and good stories. RIP RR.

[BBMmk2]

Agreed Salymap. I found him always worthwhile television time. RIP RR

[amateur51]

He and the wonderful John Timpson made a great pairing on Today, I recall.

I loved it when he'd receive a wild answer from someone keen to pick up a bonus on Brain of Britain - 'always worth a go, Mrs Herrington but on this occasion, I'm afraid no'

He'll be much missed, which is as it should be.

Condolences to his family & friends

[makropulos]

Sad news.As well as all the broadcasting, he also wrote an entertaining detective novel called "Landscape with Dead Dons". I have it as a green Penguin - it's great fun.

[Lateralthinking1]

This made me laugh in places. I liked him. I liked the fact that his diffidence entertained and didn't hurt anybody. I think he was quietly rebellious by being the very opposite of what generally rebellion entails. Some memories here too of the excellent John Timpson but what for me is most interesting is Robinson's view of politicians in the early 1970s. ""Never-ending effrontery" whose every word, he believed, was spoken for advantage".

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/tv-radio-obituaries/8699379/Robert-Robinson.html

And from the BBC website, in the first post, ""It's impossible to make the bastards reply to a straight question," he once said......Bored by what he called the "sonorous drivel" of politicians, he revelled in the role of quizmaster on such long-running shows as Radio 4's Brain of Britain, where, as he said, "at least you knew it was a game"."

But this on the Today programme is an absolute classic: "On one particularly threadbare morning, the programme devoted a full minute and a half to a woman whose knickers had fallen off in Selfridges. "If that's news," mused Robinson aloud at the end of the item, "on what principle is anything ever left out?" The director-general Ian Trethowan fired off a testy memo about this and other examples of Robinson's perceived Maoist tendencies".

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

What a brilliant man he was.

[amateur51]

This made me laugh in places. I liked him. I liked the fact that his diffidence entertained and didn't hurt anybody. I think he was quietly rebellious by being the very opposite of what generally rebellion entails. Some memories here too of the excellent John Timpson but what for me is most interesting is Robinson's view of politicians in the early 1970s. ""Never-ending effrontery" whose every word, he believed, was spoken for advantage".

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/culture-obituaries/tv-radio-obituaries/8699379/Robert-Robinson.html

And from the BBC website, in the first post, ""It's impossible to make the bastards reply to a straight question," he once said......Bored by what he called the "sonorous drivel" of politicians, he revelled in the role of quizmaster on such long-running shows as Radio 4's Brain of Britain, where, as he said, "at least you knew it was a game"."

But this on the Today programme is an absolute classic: "On one particularly threadbare morning, the programme devoted a full minute and a half to a woman whose knickers had fallen off in Selfridges. "If that's news," mused Robinson aloud at the end of the item, "on what principle is anything ever left out?" The director-general Ian Trethowan fired off a testy memo about this and other examples of Robinson's perceived Maoist tendencies".

Great memories, Lat!

I recall his being interviewed once about a cure for baldness - he had a truly magnificent state-of-the-art comb-over - and his reply revealed an unsuspected vanity expressed as wonderful self-deprecation: "If I were told that if I were to put my head into a bucket of goose sh*t then my hair would grow back, I would do it!"

A marvellous broadcaster

[Stillhomewardbound]

A very original and distinctive broadcaster who always seemed to be there from the days of Call My Bluff with Frank Muir and Paddy Campbell all the way up to the perennial Brain of Britain which he continued to steward in very recent times. A one off, indeed.

[Serial_Apologist]

Apologies for being the odd man out here, but RR was always a bit too "lofty" for me, and I interpreted it as a kind of learned superciliousness. As for Paxman being a better presenter of Univedrsity Challenge - superiority, look-I-know-the-answer, COME ON NOW sheer rudeness, well - I just can't watch it!

I still mourn the loss of Linda Smith

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

[Lateralthinking1]

S_A - We can agree on Linda Smith. Again, no one new has been able to replace her, but the return of Sheila Hancock to Just a Minute has been a joy - Lat.

[antongould]

Apologies for being the odd man out here, but RR was always a bit too "lofty" for me, and I interpreted it as a kind of learned superciliousness. As for Paxman being a better presenter of Univedrsity Challenge - superiority, look-I-know-the-answer, COME ON NOW sheer rudeness, well - I just can't watch it!

I still mourn the loss of Linda Smith

For once don't agree S_A, to me he was a wonderful broadcaster and Lat's posts remind me of all the great names we have lost Ray Moore and Benny Green were also particular favourites.