Often understated and rarely overdone (make your own turkey of a Christmas joke here), it’s been a strong year for The Essay, Radio 3’s flagship airing of interesting brains on interesting things. From Trip Sheets, Michael Goldfarb’s five-parter on being an actor /taxi driver in 70s New York, to discoveries in Islam’s Golden Age, essays on forgiveness and essays on existentialism (yep), it’s been an ambitious and varied bit of commissioning.
This week, the producers asked five contributors to share something under the banner of I’ve Never Told Anyone This Before. Writer Tom Wodika kicked things off by talking about night terrors; the critic Erica Wagner shared stories of her parents. But perhaps the most intriguing one – or at least, the most political – is Kei Miller’s Because Some Things Just Can’t Be Said (By Me To You). A conversation between a black writer talking to his white audience about all the things left unsaid. Well worth 15 minutes if the wall-to-wall annual filler of Now That’s What I Call Christmas – usually made up of Bing Crosby, carols and Dickens adaptations – begins to lose its appeal.
Over on 6, there was a celebration of the station’s favourite female talents with the Three Wise Women strand – in other words, a chance to get St Vincent, Neneh Cherry and Alison Goldfrapp doing their own shows, picking tunes and making festive chat. Annie “St Vincent” Clark went for a “rock-mas” theme (think Nine Inch Nails and Iggy Pop) with some pilfering through the BBC archives to find her favourite Classic Album show (Kate Bush, the Hounds of Love); her 90s Essential (Nirvana, Nevermind) and live performances (Fela Kuti and PJ Harvey as it goes). Neneh Cherry’s choices veered towards the punkier and jazzier end of the spectrum and saw her select two pretty great documentaries for repeat overnight – Looking For the Perfect Beat, a show on the birth of hip-hop first broadcast in 1990, and Way Out West: The Bristol Underground Story. Finally, on Friday, Goldfrapp promises to an indie nostalgic Boxing Day – Air, Stereolab and Radiohead’s 1997 Glastonbury performance are all on her playlist.
