Complaint about Saturday Live

[Guest]

When it comes to dumbing down on Radio 4, I think of several programmes broadcast at 9am. They are not the only culprits but are among the worst of the output. Today's "Saturday Live" really scraped the bottom of the barrel. Fiona Shaw was asked to pick two inheritance tracks. This is the feature in which someone describes a piece of music they would like to be left to them on someone's death and another that they would leave to someone else. The second of this morning's choices by the actress was the last chorus of Poulenc's "Dialogues of the Carmelites", a serious piece of music about which she made several serious points.

Wikipedia describes the chorus as follows: The nuns are all arrested and condemned to death, but Mother Marie is away (with Blanche, presumably) at the time. The chaplain tells Mother Marie that since God has chosen to spare her, she cannot now voluntarily become a martyr by joining the others in prison. The nuns (one by one) slowly mount the scaffold, singing the Veni Creator Spiritus, the hymn traditionally used when offering one's life to God. At the last minute, Blanche appears, to Constance's joy, and joins the condemned community. Having seen all the other nuns executed as she mounts the scaffold, Blanche concludes their hymn with its final verse, Deo Patri sit gloria... ("Glory to God the Father").

As soon as the item finished, there was no presentation. Instead, the listeners were greeted to several seconds of disrespectful giggly laughter by the two presenters who were for some reason amused about the sombre nature of the piece. "Stop it Richard", the Radio 2 presenter said, while the Reverend was so overtaken by chortling that he offered nothing at all. "Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep" the first continued. No - but the programme was precisely that, chaotic, crass, in very bad taste, and it was a comedian who had to bring them to their senses. "It is becoming like The One Show" he said or words to that effect. Sickening all round.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...ve_15_12_2012/ (1.02 onwards)

[Lateralthinking1]

.....Incidentally, this was not the only moment on R4 this week that was troubling. Fi Glover, another Radio 2 presenter in my view, currently introduces the sound bite show "The Listening Project". This features short discussions between "ordinary people" with the objective of building a historical archive. This week, the discussion featured a posh woman and her adult daughter. The latter had serious hearing problems in childhood and the mother had taken the difficult decision to send her for an operation. It had all ended well. Like many, the daughter eventually got to Oxford University and left it with a solid enough degree. The listener was presumably intended to sympathise with the early predicament and to note that triumph could come through adversity.

While one had to try to ignore the self-congratulatory air of the contributors, it managed to work until the moment when the mother recalled her feelings at the time. Other people had suggested with good heart that there would be a good outcome and that her daughter could achieve academically. Her opinion of those who suggested that she would in time be an Oxford graduate? Quote - "I could have punched them in the face". Personally, I find life is better without these types parading their violence on the airwaves, particularly when other people face far greater hardship with dignity. It concerns me that BBC producers and presenters have learnt nothing about sensitivity from the recent catastrophes and, actually, that people like them are roaming around.

[handsomefortune]

it's supposedly 'edgy' .... lemmings spring to mind?

i am not too keen on either of those two r4 programmes personally, so i no longer listen.

[scottycelt]

The one good thing about Saturday Live is that it makes some of us automatically reach for the remote to switch to MacGregor's CD Review on R3.

I've never really understood the idea of this R4 programme which doesn't help any further comprehension for a start. I've also had a lifelong aversion to trendy men of the cloth and presenters chattering excitedly with various guests about personal trivia.

Regarding my suspicion of trendy priests/vicars, this dates back to when I was a teenager my best mate and I thought it would be fun to go on a male Catholic youth retreat in Glasgow, the main speaker being a very trendy priest from Yorkshire who had disgustingly long hair just like us. He cracked a few well-rehearsed and unfunny jokes, some vaguely about girls and sex to presumably indicate he was really just like us, and then ultimately announced that he was hoping 'a very famous person' would shortly arrive to speak to us. Well, the 'famous' person never actually turned up and it transpired the elusive celebrity was none other than a DJ called Jimmy Savile. I now rest my case regarding trendy priests/vicars. They might mean well, but ...

Why this thoroughly baffling programme exists on what is otherwise a generally intelligent and excellent radio station I haven't the foggiest ...

[Nick Armstrong]

When it comes to dumbing down on Radio 4, I think of several programmes broadcast at 9am. They are not the only culprits but are among the worst of the output. Today's "Saturday Live" really scraped the bottom of the barrel. Fiona Shaw was asked to pick two inheritance tracks. This is the feature in which someone describes a piece of music they would like to be left to them on someone's death and another that they would leave to someone else. The second of this morning's choices by the actress was the last chorus of Poulenc's "Dialogues of the Carmelites", a serious piece of music about which she made several serious points.

Wikipedia describes the chorus as follows: The nuns are all arrested and condemned to death, but Mother Marie is away (with Blanche, presumably) at the time. The chaplain tells Mother Marie that since God has chosen to spare her, she cannot now voluntarily become a martyr by joining the others in prison. The nuns (one by one) slowly mount the scaffold, singing the Veni Creator Spiritus, the hymn traditionally used when offering one's life to God. At the last minute, Blanche appears, to Constance's joy, and joins the condemned community. Having seen all the other nuns executed as she mounts the scaffold, Blanche concludes their hymn with its final verse, Deo Patri sit gloria... ("Glory to God the Father").

As soon as the item finished, there was no presentation. Instead, the listeners were greeted to several seconds of disrespectful giggly laughter by the two presenters who were for some reason amused about the sombre nature of the piece. "Stop it Richard", the Radio 2 presenter said, while the Reverend was so overtaken by chortling that he offered nothing at all. "Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep" the first continued. No - but the programme was precisely that, chaotic, crass, in very bad taste, and it was a comedian who had to bring them to their senses. "It is becoming like The One Show" he said or words to that effect. Sickening all round.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...ve_15_12_2012/ (1.02 onwards)

I've never listened to this programme, but it does sound crass and nauseating. And at the risk of getting too earnest, coming on the morning when the world was reeling at news of the apparent execution of those twenty 6-year-olds and their six lady teachers by a madman at Sandy Hook school, almost beyond belief in terms of smug insensitivity.

[Resurrection Man]

We've noticed a recent general increase in the use of swear words and references to genitalia in many of the comedy/satirical programmes such as Have I Got News For You. Don't get me wrong, I cuss with the best of them but even I've found it off-putting at times.

[handsomefortune]

sunday morning on r4 is much better with 'broadcasting house'....

or why not put a 'late junction' episode on, and skip the talk talk talk completely on saturday mornings lat!?

[ahinton]

Fi Glover, another Radio 2 presenter in my view, currently introduces the sound bite show "The Listening Project". This features short discussions between "ordinary people" with the objective of building a historical archive. This week, the discussion featured a posh woman and her adult daughter. The latter had serious hearing problems in childhood and the mother had taken the difficult decision to send her for an operation. It had all ended well. Like many, the daughter eventually got to Oxford University and left it with a solid enough degree. The listener was presumably intended to sympathise with the early predicament and to note that triumph could come through adversity.

While one had to try to ignore the self-congratulatory air of the contributors, it managed to work until the moment when the mother recalled her feelings at the time. Other people had suggested with good heart that there would be a good outcome and that her daughter could achieve academically. Her opinion of those who suggested that she would in time be an Oxford graduate? Quote - "I could have punched them in the face". Personally, I find life is better without these types parading their violence on the airwaves, particularly when other people face far greater hardship with dignity. It concerns me that BBC producers and presenters have learnt nothing about sensitivity from the recent catastrophes and, actually, that people like them are roaming around.

My compatriot Fig Lover's website displays quite a number of spelling mistakes, one of the more egregious of which is "Heston Blummenthal"; ah, well - she was once described as the school prefect that one would never cared to have had and, since I didn't attend that kind of school, I cannot comment from direct personal experience, but I did at least prick up my ears when I heard her described by someone else as the unthinking man's Kirsty Young...

[Lateralthinking1]

sunday morning on r4 is much better with 'broadcasting house'....

or why not put a 'late junction' episode on, and skip the talk talk talk completely on saturday mornings lat!?

Yes. Thank you. A good suggestion - or I might listen even more to Andrew McGregor. Choices about music or talk on the radio - and which kind - depend very much on mood but I won't be listening to that programme again or the other one I mentioned.

My preference is to listen to the same programmes at the same time each week and on the radio rather than the computer - sense of structure, flexibility in the house, cost - but it becomes increasingly difficult. I don't know if others on the forum feel the same?

I recognise that the two things I have said sound contradictory. When things were predictable, the first flowed from the second.

[teamsaint]

Lat, you touch on an interesting point.
We are all creatures of habit. Back before multi platform , multi everything media age, we were tied to the BBC schedules. This was not always a bad thing...collective responses were stronger, even though choice was limited.
Today, the world of mediacan be bewildering. There is more choice of music available than we can sensibly deal with. Changing our own habits and preferences to take advantage of the new world isn't alway easy....before you have done it, another change comes along.
I agree that a sense of structure is important. I think we just have to learn how to develop our own. Its all too easy to be swept along on a tide of content......(at the expense, sometimes of "Real Life").

[Serial_Apologist]

Lat, you touch on an interesting point.
We are all creatures of habit. Back before multi platform , multi everything media age, we were tied to the BBC schedules. This was not always a bad thing...collective responses were stronger, even though choice was limited.
Today, the world of mediacan be bewildering. There is more choice of music available than we can sensibly deal with. Changing our own habits and preferences to take advantage of the new world isn't alway easy....before you have done it, another change comes along.
I agree that a sense of structure is important. I think we just have to learn how to develop our own. Its all too easy to be swept along on a tide of content......(at the expense, sometimes of "Real Life").

Well said, ts.

Goalposts... the moving thereof... who, or even what, benefits?

[teamsaint]

Well said, ts.

Goalposts... the moving thereof... who, or even what, benefits?

I think some of the portsmouth forwards might benefit from moving goalposts...they can't seem to do anything with the static type !!

"Who benefits?" is almost always a useful question, S-A.

[underthecountertenor]

I had to listen to this to believe it. Utterly disrespectful, unfunny and inane.

CD Review on Saturday was excellent, by the way.

[handsomefortune]

maybe nine out of ten cats prefer listening to their radio, rather than their pc?

it's a good idea that the bbc make archives though, as evidenced when i listened to some recordings of people talking about their lives in the 1960s and made by the beeb.

but isn't all recorded stuff an 'archive' of sorts?

to produce and broadcast current day 'archives' is something else entirely surely?

'the listening post' definitely gets me wincing that's for sure.

personally, i think the rev coles is okish, (if you're in the mood for early babble on a saturday). but best to avoid both programmes perhaps, leave the radio off till 'the news quiz' theme music begins ....works well for me.

[underthecountertenor]

But be prepared for the shock when, occasionally, you don't get the 'News Quiz' theme but that for the dreadful 'Now Show'. Then it's straight back to Radio 3 for me.