Radio Radio

Broadcasting a nightly evening show On BBC West Region for the past two weeks has put a crimp in the blog. Sorry. One more week to go and I should be back to normal.

The kind of radio shows I like to do are stream of consciousness, go anywhere programmes that you hear so seldom. To be given the freedom to broadcast this kind of show seldom happens. Everything is tightly formatted, all the music is pre chosen by a computer programme, every link timed, every piece of the jigsaw's edges smoothed so the listening will be lulled into believing what they are listening to is 'great radio'. That, of course, is bollocks.

I won't retread my arguments about this again, I've written about this subject before. What I will say is that sitting there for the past two weeks with 'nothing' is for me the most freeing experience a broadcaster can have. Some hate it. Like the writer scared of the blank page. I love it. A colleague said to me the other night, who gets the programme ready for you? I told her no-one, I fly by the seat of my pants.

She said, "How do you know what to say?".

If you work in radio and have to ask that question you wouldn't understand my answer.

I don't know what I'm going to say until I open the mic. No idea. The record ends and I start to speak....hopefully it is amusing, entertaining, bizarre, surreal, informative and worth listening to. I arrive ten minutes before the show, with a few notions scribbled on a scrap of paper and off we go. I go where the listener takes me and I lead them where I think they might like to go. It's a fool who expects the listen to come up with comedy gold but I've been doing this, on and off, for enough years to know how to create the smoke and mirrors necessary to make it work. It helps if you know your listeners and they know you. I'm in that lucky position.

Comedy on this kind of show works in a different way to the kind of thing we'd recognise on TV or the stage or film. Here the atmosphere is more intimate. You are talking to ONE PERSON. The text machine gives me access to comments and stories - but here's the mistake I hear so many young broadcasters make:

They read what is in front of them.

Not enough.

You need to play around with it, read ahead, comment, go off at a tangent, speak directly to the writer, speak to the listener, get conspiratorial about things, 'we are all in this together', it's you and me versus THEM, whoever they may be. It's those atmospheres that create the tone of the show.

I know I'm swimming against the tide of received management wisdom - they believe everything must be the same. I believe in constant surprise and innovation.

But then if I didn't believe that I wouldn't be a writer.

Long Ago and Far Away

Back when I was still at primary school kid's TV was a lure once the school bell signalled the end of the day. We'd run home to catch an hour of our favourite shows before heading out to play.

An hour.

Not come home, flop in front of the TV, retreat to the bedroom and fire up the X box and stay all night. An hour of kids TV.

There were usually two programmes and that was it, the end of children's telly for the day. Seems incredible now that kids have so much 'choice'. Of course that choice is to sit and watch five hours of Hannah Montanna. Canned laughter is alive and well and plastered all over American teen comedy shows.

For us, an hour was just enough. We'd fill our heads with Robin Hood and William Tell, The Lone Ranger, Timeslip, Just William and Ivanhoe and off we'd go to recreate the moves our heroes had just made - or kick a ball around.

The 'choices' available to kids today aren't choices at all. By giving them what they want, endless episodes of one show, we give them no variety. Some of our shows may have been corny but we had variety; Casey Jones, Circus Boy, The Freewheelers - one about a train engineer, one about a kid in a circus troupe, one that involved lots of speed boat chases and kids searched for Nazis in 1970's England! (Surf Nazis Must Die!)

And then the thing that prompted this blog, a show that suddenly pooped into my head after 40-odd years - Mr Piper.

Suddenly there it was, the opening song from the show and I couldn't get it out of my mind. It was sung by a rotund tenor called Alan Crofoot who was Mr Piper. From what I recall he introduced various segments, 'Down on Animal Farm' and 'Port of Call' I remember. I think there were cartoon in there too.

But how about that. More than 45 years on, not only I am singing the words to the theme tune (in my head) but I can remember bits of the show. I wonder if the kids watching TV now will have the same kind of fond memories of their shows as I do.

Hunky Dory, 1976 and The Long Hot Summer

I grew up in the 60's and 70's. A kid in the 60's - which looking back seemed more like the 50's, grey, old old cars, nothing open on Sundays, church. I was a teenager for most of the 70's, I loved the 70's. I can taste what that decade felt like; taste it, smell it, I can close my eyes and see it.

Ricky Gervais tried to capture it in Cemetery Junction, and went some way to bringing it to life. Some way, it has plenty of flaws.

But watching Hunky Dory, the new British indie movies, felt like I was back there, living it all over again. You sometimes wish you could go back - step into a time machine, relive moments in your life, or watch as a spectator from the future. Flip back, take a look, flip forwards. This movie was my time machine.

It is set against the heatwave of the the summer of 1976 that had we Brits gasping for water, filling bottles from stand pipes and being told to take baths together,  the birthrate went up 9 months later. Here, we find ourselves in South Wales where keen drama teacher Vivienne (Mini Driver) fights the heat, curmudgeons in the school and general teenage apathy to put on an end of year musical version of Shakespeare's The Tempest. 

All the songs are covers of classic pop songs from the 70’s, including The Who, The Beach Boys, Pink Floyd, and a brilliantly glamorous performance of David Bowie’s song Life on Mars (a track off the record Hunky Dory, from which the film takes its name). Not only are the young cast all immensely talented singers, in particular the focal student Davey, played by Aneurin Barnard, but there was also not a bad performance to be seen.

Beautiful boy Aneurin Barnard (he is going to be such a big star) leads the teenage contingent, growing up, having his heart broken, falling for 'Miss', singing like an angel. But this is an ensemble piece and every single character that speaks a line here has an arc. They all have a story, however small, they are all three dimensional. That director Marc Evans and writer Laurence Coriat have managed such a feat in such a small - but wonderful picture - should be shouted from the rooftops. It can be done, it can be done.

This is quite glorious, funny and dramatic, full of hippy weird and full-on racist attacks (the skinheads here felt horribly real) performances that capture the teachers of the time and the kids and parents too.

 

There were just four of us in the cinema, it was lunchtime, but laughter rang out - and tears were wept. It did that thing Alan Bennett does so well; shows you something you think only happens inside your head, or something only you think you've experienced. Suddenly you discover that amongst the universal truth up there is also a specific truth. 

It's supposed to be a feelgood film - and it is - but it has 'bottom' as they say. It really affected me; watching my youth up there on the screen portrayed almost perfectly. You never feel a period prop has been placed, a room decorated, a costume newly made. This feels like the real thing. 

It won't get much publicity - and what the tired critics will do is link it in some way to Glee. That's bollocks, this is way better, a marvellous little movie, a gem. When people sing here there are real musicians, playing real instruments. 

And it feels just like the real summer of 76. Go and see it - it deserves to find an audience.

Oscars

So, it's all over for another year. The statues were handed out the speeches were made. Applause, applause, applause.

As a Brit I have two choices how I watch - stay up and go right through the night, or record and watch later. Well, what would you do?

Recording means I can skip the ads...and the walk ups...make it tighter so it zips along. Except Oscar never zips along. This year he stumbled along like an 84 year old on a zimmer frame.

Nowhere in my dreams have I ever dared to think about being the recipient of one of those little golden men, it ain't gonna happen, it's not on the radar. But I have been to other awards ceremonies where I've been nominated and also won things. Let me tell you this - you spend all day waiting for your category to come up and then it's over and done in the blink of an eye, moments if your lucky, a minute or two if you're a star.

Awards ceremonies generally suck. Was that always the case? Maybe I've just grown bored with the notion, I'm sure the presenters were funnier in days gone by, the recipient speeches sharper, better thought out. Thank God for Christopher Plummer this year, a man who'd thought about what he wanted to say, said it, got a laugh and went off smiling.

And Meryl too. She done good too. But best make-up for The Iron Lady - winning over harry Potter? What? Don't ask me.

Most of what transpired on Oscar's big night this year was...dross! There, I've said it. It was not a good show.

And can someone tell me why Angelina Jolie thought that standing on stage posed like some kind of skeletal hooker was a good thing?

Billy Crystal chalked another mark on the presenting duties wall, nine times! He's been good in the past - which is where his career is, and where most of his jokes this year would sit better. Seen it, done it Bill. Look, I've laughed along with Billy but when you come out glistening like a white billiard ball, pumped that full of botox you can't furrow your brow any more I start wondering where the self-awareness has gone?

So many gags fell on deaf ears this year - better to be deaf, you didn't have to hear them, they stank so bad. I had to open my window to let the stench out after Robert Downey Jr and Gweneth Paltrow did their 'hilarious' skit to announce best documentary. Jeez Louise! This is Hollywood, where you have the pick of every comedy writer in town and they go with that? Sheesh.

There were no surprises, all awards went pretty much with the betting - except Girl With The Dragon Tattoo beat Hugo to Best Editing. Otherwise the bookies lost nothing. Not a red cent.

When we came out of the cinema after seeing The Artist I said 'That could win the Oscar for best picture' I said that. Predicted it, all those weeks ago. Me and everyone else who came out smiling. It is a wonderful picture, shame only four people in the US have gone to see it. What do they know, Transformers 950 just took 4 billion dollars.

So that's it for another year. the dresses have gone back, the suits, the shoes - you didn't think the stars actually bought those did you? All is done and dusted for another year. What I shall treasure from this years ceremony is the look on Gary Oldman's face as time after time the marvellous Tinker Tailor... lost out to inferior movies. But then, do little golden statues matter?

You bet they do.

Downton Abbey v Upstairs Downstairs

Downton Abbey has taken the television world by storm whilst poor old Upstairs Downstairs - which began it's second 'series' on Sunday - is in some people's eyes the the unwanted bastard interloper.

A lot of the critics who approached Downtown's first series with noses held higher than Maggie Smith's Dowager Countess have since fallen for its charm. They emerged from Lady Sybil's coattails this week to pronounce Upstairs Downstairs not a patch on the Abbey. Hmmm. For me, is the other way around.

Downton is melodrama, riddled with cliches and plot holes, historical inaccuracies and cardboard cut out villains. On the other hand what Heidi Thomas has created, in her reawakening of Upstairs Downstairs, is a more thoughtful, dramatic piece that draws heavily on pre WWII history shedding an authentic light on late 1930's England.


And that might be the problem.

One has the construction of soap opera - albeit very well dressed,shot and acted - whilst the other is an out and out historical drama. DA is an entertainment - fluff - short scenes that almost all end on a tiny cliffhanger but let's not be snobbish about it, people love it. Love it to bits.

Okay, Upstairs Downstairs has missed several tricks, despite being the better of the two shows dramatically. Julian Fellows plundered the old Upstairs Downstairs in coming up with his Downton Abbey and in doing so he recognised that far from being battered old stereotypes the characters the public loves are pretty much the ones who inhabit the Abbey. Damn it, DA's Lords, Ladies, Maids, Footmen and Butlers are just more...colourful. But then this is his world, he's a lord married to one of the Queen's Ladies in waiting. If anyone should be able to write about class devide it should be him. Having said that the continual hob-nobbing that goes on between the Earl of Grantham's family and the servants who butter their toast and pick up their knickers is quite unbelievable, as many have pointed out.


The colour in Upstairs Downstairs was mainly supplied by Eileen Atkins and Jean Marsh. Eileen Atkins jumped ship before the second series citing differences in opinion over her character's development whilst poor Jean Marsh (Rose from the original 70's series and the housekeeper in the new one) suffered a stroke and had to be written out. Both these actors were instrumental in creating the original series and their absence from the new series leaves two gaping holes. 

I read one reviewer this week who criticised Upstairs Downstairs for not be funny enough! Come on, there wasn't a better line on televison this week than Pritchard the butler commanding "Place this hot water bottle 18 inches from the bottom of Lady Agnes's bed, slightly to the left."Whilst the show isn't trying to be funny it has it's moments of humour - but it wouldn't hurt to have a few more lighter moments and some more intrigue. 

I shall stick with Upstairs, let's see what this full series brings.

Strictly Gershwin

On Valentine's night I got a real birthday treat, a seat to see a great show - Strictly Gershwin, presented by English National Ballet at the Hippodrome, Bristol.

Whoa, hang on there big fella - Ballet? Really?

Yep.

I can't pretend I know much about the subject beyond seeing the Red Shoes/Black Swan/one previous outing to see ENB's Cinderella and all those extended ballet equences in Gene Kelley Movies. I know nothing. Technicaly I am an ignoramus. I react to what I see on a purely instinctive level. And what I saw here was magical.

What was so wonderful about this show was there was so much to react to. Great orchestra, great dancing - no fabulous dancing - ballet, tap, ballroom - and one added little gem.  I grew up playing the trumpet so my eyes always scan the tumpet section first - and sitting in the first trumpet seat was Mike Lovatt. I could barely contain myself - I know I was there to see the Ballet but Mike Lovatt is a hero of mine. His brilliant playing has graced countless movie soundtracks including the James Bond films ‘Tomorrow Never Dies’, ‘Die Another Day', ‘Chicago,’ ‘Beyond the Sea’, ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’, ‘Madagascar’, and Tim Burton’s ‘The Corpse Bride’. His solo trumpet and Cornet was featured in the George Fenton score for ‘Mrs Henderson Presents.’

He also plays with the John Wilson Orchestra who for the past three years have been the must see Orchestra at the BBC proms.

So now the night is working on lots of levels - not least of which is the music the orchestra is playing: Gershwin. George Gershwin was my way into classical music. The jazz melodies chimed with my early preferences. Rhapsody in Blue was glorious, it opened doors to other composers, other eras.

I can praise it no higher than saying this is as good a show as I've ever seen - and I've seen a few. It's currently on tour in the UK an if you get the chance to see it it's worth selling your furniture, your house and your children to get a ticket. Okay, maybe not the house.

Valentines Day - Movies and Massacres

Valentines day gets muddied for me because it's also my birthday.
When I was a kid the St Valentines Day marketing machine had yet to get into full swing. I remember watching the iconic children's TV show Blue Peter as they 'told the story of how St Valentine's day came into being' accompanied by a montage of hand drawn pictures - where is that kind of TV now!!! And then they showed us how to MAKE a Valentines card - I'm not even sure that you could  buy one in the 60's.

The whole point of the Valentine was to send it to someone you Secretly Admired WITHOUT signing it. It would get them guessing and the next time you were around that person you could smile in a knowing way and she/he might put two and two together. Oh, such innocent times.

Nowadays the card shops are full of red Valentine cards/balloons/mugs/cuddly toys/plastic roses/dangly key ring things/badges (Be My Valentine)/bags/wrapping/inflatable sheep. "For my Husband/Wife/Girlfriend/Boyfriend/Ex/Next/Newsagent. Every possibility is covered. I've just watched a news report where the Duchess of Cambridge (Kate) was handed some flowers by a little girl who said 'Happy Valentines Day'. All meaning has disappeared.

Me, I'd like a card with some gangsters on.

St Valentines Day was the day in 1929 when seven mobsters were gunned down as part of an on-going war of the hoods between Al Capone and Bugs Moran. It also featured in Billy Wilder's 'Some Like It Hot'. It's the event that puts struggling musicians Tony Curtis and Jack Lemon in jeopardy. Once the gangsters know the boys have witnessed the killing they have to be silenced. Quipsters though they may be, Curtis and Lemon don't hang around long enough to try and talk their way out.

As we all know - and if you don't, shame on you, go and find this film immediately - their way out was to dress as 'Dames', join an all girl band and take a train heading for Florida. I don't know how many times I've watched this movie over the years but it never gets tired. Curtis and Lemon are on top form, Marilyn Munroe was never better.

So forget the chocolates and the roses and the Simpson's novelty Homer-Valentine underpants, the perfect Valentine's present for me? A night in with a magical Billy Wilder film.