Frankly Speaking (BBC Radio 4 Extra) | iPlayer
International Waters (Maximum Fun) | Podcast
Episode 164: The Post Billiards Age (99% Invisible) | Podcast
Some time in the mid- to late 1990s I went to Cuba on holiday (yes, lovely, thanks for asking). One of the strangest aspects of that strange but fabulous country was its news output. The news was everywhere: whenever you caught sight of a TV, if it wasn’t showing a camp-to-the-max soap opera, it was broadcasting the news. Except Cuban news never showed anything new. Instead, it gave us a rerun of old news, of decades-old pro-worker marches and glorious Cuban victories. Black and white films of Fidel Castro looking cool in combat gear, lots of women fighters learning how to load guns. You saw those films over and over. It was a time before mobile phones or the internet, and contemporary news just didn’t exist in Cuba. Just an edited, celebratory past. It was soothing after a while.
I get that Cuban feeling when I listen to Radio 4 Extra. Its replays of BBC triumphs, of once-outre heroes before they became establishment, are a shield against the upsetting, unsolved life of today. Too delicate to face the Today programme’s shouting and questioning? Try The Ken Dodd Show. Or the Goons, Hancock’s Half Hour, Yes Minister, Steptoe and Son… Unlike Cuba, 4 Extra is full of jokes.
Although 4 Extra is not my usual choice of listening, it is for many; this week’s Rajar figures showed that it had overtaken 6 Music as the UK’s most popular digital-only radio station, with 2.17 million listeners, as compared to 6 Music’s 2.06 million. I wonder how long each person listens for? Because, for a station of repeats, 4 Extra repeats those repeats a lot. Missed Dad’s Army at 8am? Don’t worry, the same episode is on at midday and 7pm. They come round again like happy goldfish.
If I’m honest, I can’t handle much of 4 Extra’s output: old comedy doesn’t tickle me as often as I want it to. But the TED Radio Hour is good (if you haven’t discovered it already online), and I’ve been enjoying the station’s interview programme Frankly Speaking. This was a revolutionary series when it started in the 1950s, as the chat was unrehearsed and the questions weren’t gone through beforehand (the impertinence!) Also, you often get two or three people interviewing someone – although as everyone sounds as clipped as each other, it can seem as though there’s only one slightly cheeky, irredeemably snobby questioner.
This week’s interviewee was Flora Robson, an actor who I knew very little about. Interviewed by John Freeman and Philip Hope-Wallace, Robson was lovely: honest and eloquent. She revealed how much her career had been held back by her looks, which she described as “plain”. When asked if she would like to play Cleopatra, she said, “I don’t think I’d have the confidence … I’ve been told so often about my face.”
Another great episode was the Brian Epstein interview, which is up for a few days more. Bill Grundy (of Sex Pistols “what a fucking rotter” fame) is the questioner. The class system comes bellowing out of the radio in both these interviews. Robson refers to a cab as “a common little taxi” and can’t believe how nice working-class people can be. Epstein is charming, but the way he and Grundy talk about the Beatles is astonishing: it’s as though they’re talking about really clever children, or trained monkeys. “Rather untidy stage presentation, not terribly aware,” says Epstein about the first time he saw the Beatles play. “I wouldn’t allow them to appear in jeans after a short time.” “Four bright boys, one is told,” says Grundy at one point, later asking “How long before the sort of noise the Beatles make is out of fashion?” Twelve years later, he was put in a TV studio with the Sex Pistols.
International Waters, a podcast from Maximum Fun, hits its 50th episode this week. It’s a panel show (sorry), about recent news (sorry), but with a twist (oh God), which is that one side is from the UK and one from the US. The host, Dave Holmes, is a boombastic American and there is no holding back re topics or swearing. Grundy would not have been happy, but I think you can all handle it. It’s a hoot.
And last week’s 99% Invisible was ace too, based around how popular the game of billiards used to be. At one point, in the mid-19th century, there were over 800 billiard halls in Chicago, and every single billiard ball was made of solid ivory. A skilled billiard ball maker could get three to five balls per tusk. That is an awful lot of dead elephants, and even if you didn’t mind that, it’s an awful lot of expensive faff (travelling, killing, detusking etc) just to get those balls. Michael Phelan, a big-time billiards promoter, offered $10,000 to anyone who could come up with a decent alternative. And hey presto! Plastic was invented… Sometimes old news is really interesting.
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