Progressive Entertainment News
Journalist Robert Fisk will be guest on Radio 4’s Desert Island Duscs tomorrow morning; for those not aware of the programme, it’s been going for 60-odd years and guests have included No?l Coward, the last 5 prime ministers, Dame Judi Dench, John Malkovich, Princess Margaret, George Clooney, Stephen Hawking, and Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams.
Guests pick the eight records they’d like to have with them on a desert island ( they also get the Bible or religious book of their choice and the complete works of Shakespeare, plus one luxury item that can’t be useful for escaping) and say why they made those choices, sort of a Friday Random 10 but not on Friday and not random and not 10.
Lots of Brits carry their own desert island list in their head, just in case some day, no matter how unlikely it seems, a guest drops out, the magic call comes from the BBC and they find themselves broadcasting their life to the nation on Sunday norning.
DID can be much more illuminating than a straightforward interview – even, or maybe especially when, as many political figures have, guests’ve chosen their list with an eye to PR. It’s so easy to tell they’ve done that and it really says all you need to know about them. There’s also that horrible feet-of-clay moment when someone you quite liked turns out to have execrable musical tastes. Conversely, sometimes you find yourself liking a figure you’d previously despised purely because of a mutual love of Wreckless Eric – and of course there are some lists that just confirm your original impression of the person, ie that they’re a tasteless, boring shit.
Until very recently it was presented by my homegirl Sue Lawley, who has a voice like a cut-glass chandelier and an attitude to match Lawley’s also famous for asking Chancellor Gordon Brown outright if he was gay on his edition of the programme – ” “People want to know whether you’re gay or whether there is some flaw in your personality”. But this series Scots former news journalist and presenter Kirsty Young is taking over. Too early to tell how she’ll be ( the Fisk programme is only her second), but she’s shown herself on Have I Got News For You to have a wicked wit and a very attractive voice.
British BBC radio obsessives like me obsess about changes like this. A change of presenter can be a disaster to listeners because Radio 4 to us is much more than a radio station. We’ve been listening to it literally all our lives. We’ve imbibed it like mother’s milk. We own it. The BBC have learnt that to their cost several times when making changes; for example when removing the UK theme ( a musical medley) at the endstart (Tsk. Call yourself a Radio 4 listener? –ed.) of the broadcasting day. Questions were even asked in Parliament:
The announcement led to mass coverage in the British media and even to comments in its support by Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown. On the 24th of January, several British MPs submitted Early Day Motions about the theme which led to a question being asked at Prime Minister’s Questions, with Prime Minister Tony Blair referring to the “strong feeling” around the country. Also, BBC Newsnight presenter Jeremy Paxman played the UK Theme to end the programme on a number of occasions and several British orchestras and institutions have also pledged to play the theme. These include British supermarket chain ASDA, and London speech radio station, LBC.
If the BBC try and cut Sailing By I predict a riot – the nation can’t go to sleep without it. But I digress, as Radio 4 obsessives are wont to do.
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In other entertainment news, the Secret Policeman’s Ball is back. tonight at the Royal Albert Hall. I remember those fundraisers for Amnesty International the first several times around, when money was being raised to fight government torture in Chile, Argentina, Russia and many other places.
Back then it was hip to be fair. But the liberal arts and media culture that the Right now vociferously condemns was actually twenty or more years ago, in the seventies and early eighties, not now. Times have changed; now the fundraiser’s to fight torture in and by the USA. Maybe because of that this time around the whole event seems somewhat lacklustre and lacking in something. (Or maybe it’s just benefit concert fatigue.)
I do think though that it’s very telling that the biggest US ‘star’ they could get to appear is… Chevy Chase. Has no other US comic the courage to speak out against torture on the international stage, really? Has it got that bad?
Did the organisers even ask Jon Stewart or Chris Rock or any other US comic? Or did they ask and they chickened out? It would be interesting to find out.
Read more: Progressive politics, Media, BBC, Radio 4, Desert Island Discs, Human Rights, Fundraising, Amnesty International , Secret Policemans Ball
