BBC Radio 4’s Broadcasting House opened with a gag yesterday at 9.00 am. After the pips, I heard the tranquil sound of waves lapping on a seashore, followed by a delightful Eric Coates melody.
A sleepy lagoon,
A tropical moon,
And two on an island…
Desert Island Discs! It must be 10 o’clock. Of course! The clocks sprang forward last night. For a moment I was discombobulated. But it was only a typical Paddy O’Connell gag. Paddy being Paddy. I had to laugh.
I’m a bit allergic to change. Now that we’re back on British Summertime, I wish we could just stay put, as I prefer light in the evening to light in the morning. There is an argument that early morning light in winter is better, and safer, for commuters, particularly school pupils. But, especially in this age of working from home, can’t we be a little more flexible, and alter our habits, rather than the clocks? Winter is surely a time to hunker down. I’d be happy to stay indoors in the dark, with my oil lamp, mending my fishing nets.
But talking of change, I was more concerned about the announcement ten minutes before the 9 o’clock pips, rendered in Neil Nunes’ sonorous tones following Sunday Worship, that next up was to be the last A Point of View, ever. A Point of View is, was, a continuation and evolution of Alistair Cooke’s Letter from America, and had therefore been on the go since 1946. Alistair will be turning in his grave! (Except, of course, that not only was he cremated, but his bones were first purloined in a bizarre and macabre Burke and Hare act of malicious larceny. But that’s another story.)
So I listened to the last A Point of View, given by Howard Jacobson. Appositely, it was a reflection on the art of composing, and expressing, on air, a point of view, a reflection on the nature of the essay form. Jacobson is a fine essayist. Like his fellow presenters, Michael Morpurgo, and Will Self, he can be acerbic. Perhaps it is a kind of Point of View house style. Anyway, it came to an end, to be followed by Tweet of the Day, which has already been reduced to Tweet of the Week. I thought, surely A Point of View won’t go quietly. There will be audience “push-back” on Feedback. I’m quite good at anticipating what will turn up on Feedback. When Emma Barnett got really aggressive with the conservative politician Robert Jenrick the other day on the Today programme, I thought, you’ve crossed the line, Emma. You’ll be on Feedback. Sure enough.
With respect to A Point of View, Feedback got its retaliation in early, and invited a “controller” in to justify the axing of the programme, even before the audience had time to complain, on the grounds that the topic would end up on Feedback come what may.
I can’t say I was convinced by the controller’s justification for ending A Point of View. Apparently there are plenty more equivalent formats on the airwaves. (Are there?) And cost is, as ever, a consideration. (Is it? Sticking a leading writer in front of a microphone doesn’t strike me as being a particularly expensive exercise. They said the same thing about Tweet of the Day. Maybe the birds, like divas, were charging exorbitant fees. Didn’t Lord Reith try to stop Beatrice Harrison accompanying a nightingale in her garden with her cello? Reith thought the nightingale would be a prima donna and refuse to perform.)
I don’t object to change, per se. But sometimes I think the BBC rejects that which is tried and trusted, in favour of the hip, the trendy. It’s a managerial trait. I once heard a hospital manager say, without a trace of irony, “If it works, break it.” Moreover, it strikes me that there could even be something sinister about cancelling a programme with the title A Point of View. The clue is in the name. The public space has become fearful of opinion, particularly of the lone voice, of dissent. We see this in the way universities have clamped down on offering a platform to people whose opinions diverge from received groupthink. Their opinions are “egregious” in the literal sense – e grex – removed from the herd. Why would you take the trouble to give the “oxygen of publicity” to somebody who might well stir things up, when you could more easily put on another game show?
Is the BBC dumbing down? As the essayists Joseph Addison and Richard Steele had their character Sir Roger De Coverley remark, much can be said on both sides. On the one hand, I find the trailers, particularly for drama, excruciating. Then there is the relentless deployment of musical wallpaper behind discourse. David Dimbleby is currently trailing a forthcoming series about free market economics, Invisible Hands, to a background of musical dross. The controllers are terrified of dead air. Much radio comedy is too smug, complacent and self-satisfied to be truly funny. And some programmes are definitely tired. Any Questions is frankly boring and tedious because the politicians don’t want to say anything controversial. They don’t want to be e grex. And besides, curator Alex Forsyth says it all for them, all the pros and cons. But nothing strange or startling. What else? Shouldn’t Friday night is music night be on Radio 2 and not Radio 3? Or am I a musical snob?
On the other hand, Radio 3 did more or less devote Sunday entirely to the music of Pierre Boulez, the 100th anniversary of whose birth we are celebrating, which just about stretched me to breaking point. And there are still plenty of good programmes. They seem to me to be characterised by simplicity of form, and directness of subject matter. Michael Rosen’s Word of Mouth is a programme about linguistics. Laurie Taylor’s Thinking Allowed is about the Social Sciences. Last Word is quite simply a series of obituaries. Tim Harford’s More or Less is about statistics and is a triumph in making interesting a subject which could quite easily sound very dry. But in this day and age of fake news, political propaganda, and blatant lies, its fact checking has become indispensable.
Equally indispensable is Michael Barclay’s Private Passions. Michael Barclay is simply the best interviewer currently broadcasting and, in a rare example of bucking the trend and going against the tide, Private Passions has been expanded from 60 to 90 minutes in length. There is yet hope. Call it musical snobbery (again), but it is superior to Desert Island Discs.
Then again, that’s just my point of view.
jamescalumcampbell 