If you had been told in 1967 that in 50 years’ time there would be a broadcasting brouhaha over the fact that veteran Brian Matthew had been eased away from the helm of Sounds Of The Sixties (Saturday, 6am, Radio 2) in order to make room for that young tearaway Tony Blackburn, you would have been, to say the least, surprised. The authorities at Radio 2 have taken advantage of the upheaval to move the show to an earlier start. In doing this, they have presumably decided that people who remember the Troggs don’t waste time lying in. The reshuffle allows Dermot O’Leary to move to an 8am start, Graham Norton to anchor the schedule at 10am and Zoe Ball’s new show to debut at 3pm.
There’s a tendency to locate the cliche of the “strong woman” exclusively in the present day, as if those many women who endured such inconveniences as the Depression and the second world war were porcelain compared to, say, Amy Schumer. In The Essay: Five Screen Goddesses (Weekdays, 10.45pm, Radio 3) Sarah Churchwell talks about growing up in Chicago in the 80s in a house where the old black-and-white films on TV were watched by choice and via which she came to admire such shrinking violets as Joan Crawford, Bette Davis, Katharine Hepburn, Barbara Stanwyck and Jean Harlow, all of whom gave female cinemagoers plenty worth identifying with and any one of whom could take all of this year’s shortlist for best actress with one hand behind their backs.
Intrigue: Murder In The Lucky Holiday Hotel is a podcast put together by the BBC’s Carrie Gracie that investigates the story behind the death of British businessman Neil Heywood in the Chinese city of Chongqing in 2011. It begins with a seemingly well-to-do Chinese woman turning up at a British holiday resort hoping to buy some hot-air balloons. From there, the plot thickens considerably. There are five weekly episodes that will be available indefinitely. You can find it on the BBC website.
Seriously… is a quirkier, friendlier version of what Radio 4 used to call the Documentary Of The Week podcast. Twice a week, two new podcasts are posted on the BBC site. These are factual programmes that have previously been broadcast in various BBC documentary slots that you will probably have missed. But in Seriously… they’re re-contextualised with introductions from Rhianna Dhillon that are refreshingly different from the standard Radio 4 fare and are perfect for the general audience who just want something to listen to in the car or on the train. Subjects range from cybernetics to Miles Davis.
There should be more of this kind of thing. Maybe they should sample the NPR One app from National Public Radio. This gives you a news bulletin and then follows it with a selection of stories from NPR’s rich output. Over time, the selection responds to your preferences.
