If you wish to understand how tenuous the link between talent and reward in the entertainment business can be, ponder the fact that the costume worn by Bert Lahr as the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard Of Oz recently sold for £3m dollars. This is a good deal more than Bert got for exhibiting a lifetime’s worth of performing skills in it. The story is one of the gems mentioned by his son, the author and critic John Lahr, when he guests on Private Passions (Sunday, 12pm, Radio 3). Lahr is a wonderful talker – “I came to England to be inoculated against ambition” – and a good chooser as well: his selections range from Schubert through Inez & Charlie Foxx to Elaine Stritch doing Why Do The Wrong People Travel?, which is the most striking piece of music I’ve heard recently. Lahr talks about working with Stritch on her successful revue and his admiration for the genius it took to make it on the Broadway stage, a genius often born of desperation: “The old school had nothing else. They just had one gift. If Dad hadn’t succeeded he would have been a tailor. Or a thief.”
Since it doesn’t have to earn its money in the traditional fashion, the BBC can sometimes treat commerce as if it’s incidental to daily life rather than, as it is for most people, crucial. Therefore it’s important to have In Business (Sunday, 9.30pm, Radio 4) with Peter Day and The Media Show (Wednesday, 4.30pm, Radio 4) with Steve Hewlett making up the deficit. They’re both excellent programmes hosted by worldly-sounding sorts. The Media Show sets itself the job of reacting to the latest events in what is traditionally a fast-moving business, while In Business focuses on particular issues with wider implications. This week, that means the effect that four years of drought in California have had on the erstwhile pastures of plenty. Peter Day has a beautiful voice with a hint of sternness about it. He’s the perfect person to front a story of how much the necessities of life can be utterly dependent on business. As one of his Californian interviewees says, quoting Mark Twain: “Whiskey’s for drinking, water’s for fighting over.”
To get the most from Decoding The Masterworks (Thursday, 11.30am, Radio 4) you need to look for the picture being decoded by Janina Ramirez and her accompanying art experts. This you are encouraged to find via your favourite search engine, which gives the programme a pleasingly “are you sitting comfortably?” tone. This week’s pick is Manet’s A Bar At The Folies-Bergère. If you have the picture in front of you, it’s a fascinating listen. Is the barmaid looking at the customer or having a moment of secret sadness? Do you realise how provocative it was that she appeared ungloved? What’s going on with the trapeze artist’s legs dangled into frame top-left? Is that Bass triangle the first case of product placement in art? Ideal listening for people who wish that galleries had better captions.
At the Proms, the Aurora Orchestra under conductor Nicholas Collon play Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony from memory (Sunday, 3.30pm, Radio 3); the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra under Donald Runnicles play Mahler’s Fifth (Monday, 7.30pm, Radio 3); and on the electronic side, the 6Music Prom (Wednesday, 10.15pm, 6Music) features Nils Frahm and A Winged Victory For The Sullen in a concert from the Royal Albert Hall, which promises to build to “an exclusive centrepiece collaboration”. The show is also available in vision on the red button.
