Radio Reviews

For the remainder of this review Sir Alec Douglas-Home will be referred to as Baillie Vass.

Well maybe not, but Private Eye did have fun with the PM who lasted less than a year. History does not look back too fondly on this period of the Tory parties time in power.  The government was already damaged  by Profumo and when they chose a hereditary peer as a Prime Minister in 1963 the country was not entirely convinced about this, and it seemed to represent the broken nature of the Tory government.

Based on the bizarre true events of a near kidnap of Douglas-Home as he stayed in a house near Aberdeen (with no bodyguard) make for a fascinating little play. Whilst the situation is largely true, the dialogue and resolution are spun from the imagination of Martin Jameson, and it leads to a great 40 minute play. The cast is does a great job, and Tim Mcinnery is spot on as the doubt ridden PM.

We will never know what conversation was had between the PM and the angry students that led them to abandoning their attempt (though the fact that Home believed it would lead to a Tory victory instead of Wilson was interesting). There is enough tension, and the suggestion of anger and violence to make this great drama.  What it also does is highlight the current concern of the dislocation of politicians from the public, and some relevance to the position of Mr Brown… but not too obviously, it lets the dialogue make the points.

For such a strange situation the dialogue seems very real, and whislt we can see times where issues and history are highlighted writer Martin Jameson wisely refrained from making the dialogue too ‘knowing’ which it is easy to do from 45 years distance.

Well worth a listen, and another great bit of historical drama from the BBC.

RadioArchive
http://radioarchive.cc/torrents-details.php?id=5959

Well apologies to all for not posting too much, work is still marching on at a pace and bucking the credit crunch keeping me busy, and despite plenty of listening, not too much writing…  So it was the 40th Anniversary of the moon landings, quite rightly something we can SHOUT about as a world and be damned proud of.

I realise I tend have have the educated reader visiting this site so lets forget the crap of conspiracy and look at how BBC radio celebrated this anniversary.  There were several programmes highlighting the this great achievement and I have chosen a couple to highlight and maybe give a listen.

Maybe?  That hints at something I guess, whilst these programmes do not represent the best and worst of radio documentaries, they show one that hits the mark and one that just misses. Moonbathing, a radio 2 documentary misses the mark but has a much more difficult job.  Trying to equate a bunch of egotistical rockers enjoying spaced out visions with the people featured in Walking on the Moon who actually did the deed was always going to be a tricky job.  The problem lies in comparing the obvious pomposity of rock and pop music with the awe inspiring job done by the Apollo team in 1969.

Now with music ,one cannot be entirely impartial, one has tastes, biases and ears.  What I hoped for in this documentary was something about the process behind the creativity of some great music. Music inspiring or referencing the moon landings.  Gliding serenely above the rest was Brian Eno’s ‘Apollo Atmospheres’ which got a scant few minutes airtime in this documentary.  A beatiful album produced by Eno and Lanois to support the film “For All Mankind” produced in 1983.  It is also the only music that appears in both documentaries.

The documentary was interesting, I liked the Joe Meek stuff, the obvious mention of a Seraphim, the link to sputnik, 2001 etc.  What one gets is a kind of travelogue through space rock. This is  OK but the link to the moon is only by association.

The programme starts with Pink Floyd’s music for the BBC’s images of the moon landings, a relevant and interesting point yet covered in no real detail,then we go into Haydn’s Creation and Holst’s Planet  Suite,   followed by some twee 50’s country music to start the discussion about the ‘Space race’ and sputnik, cue “satellite baby” and in we go to Les Paul…

This is just the first 5 minutes.  The problem here for me is it never fell into either camp, it was neither seriously investigating the cultural (and popular) impact of sci-fi and space, nor was is highlighting some key space music moments, instead it rattled through a shopping list of space moments and music.

Now all that said, give it a listen, but it is only vaguely associated to the Moon landings, instead think of journey through space music and you’ll enjoy it. It is well researched and presented but the sheer volume of material covered lessens any memorable impact it may have.

Onto Walking on the Moon, how good is this documentary?  Listen to the first 10 seconds and try not get hooked, the music ( for much of the programme Brian Eno’s Apollo Atmosphere’s), Buzz Aldrins incredulous opening statement, inspiring stuff. I am going to have difficulty reviewing this programme without constantly heaping praise on it, but like so many other great Radio Four documentaries these programmes are just superb.

The confidence they have to let archive material and superb interviews tell the story is stunning. This should show other radio and TV documentaries that you do not need flashy technique or gimmicks to sell a historical documentary, just great interviews, confidence in the story and great editing.

The use of the original BBC coverage to drive the very basic narrative of the moon landing makes the journey seamless and it links into the comms traffic of the flight and back to more interviews. You learn so much about the feelings, the pressure and the hope that existed during the build up and eventual landings on the moon.

The interviews are wide enough to cover the story (the astronauts, control, wives) but still focused enough that the story and that focus is never lost (except once for me but more on that later).

When Buzz Alsdrin started to talk about the technical but fascinating detail of the actual landing, you slowy realise just how big, how important and how astonishing this feat actually was.  His voice drifting over the occasional music is hypnotic, his matter of fact explanation of this astonishing journey is fantastic. As we drift through interviews and comms traffic through to touchdown (via vintage BBC coverage) we get more and more tense til the final moment of the Moon landing. You get a sense of the tension at Mission Control and lastly and most importantly you get a vision of what it was like to walk on the moon, stunning material, beautifully assembled. The Gene Kranz interview is absolutely wonderful, interesting and personal.  He gives a great feel of the human side of mission control.

The only slight complaint I had was the vox pops of ordinary people’s recollection of the moon landing, what it mean to them, how they felt etc.  These are great and very interesting, but for those few minutes we lose the granduer, the power of the story. The very normality of these interviews is great but it just jars against the stunning storytelling of the last 30 minutes. It sounds apart and different from the rest of the programme (both stylistically as well as content) and may have worked better as a footnote, but this is a minor niggle.

The documentary picks up again after this ‘island’ and carries on to a great finish, and I cannot recommend this highly enough, great – great listening. Forget the visual spectacle listen to this documentary.

BBC Link.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00lj8zs

Radioarchive
http://radioarchive.cc/torrents-details.php?id=5907
http://radioarchive.cc/torrents-details.php?id=5963

Something is terribly wrong.

Grassy Knolls, second shooters, patsies, conspiracies galore…the 22nd November 1963 was probably the most infamous day in American History til 9/11.  They were both tragic days where violence attacked democracy, they were also days that have sadly developed a wealth of conspiricy theories.

I have nothing against a good conspiracy theory (after all how did Bruce Forsyth get on Strictly Come Dancing if it wasn’t for some Masonic entertainment organization) but sometimes they get in the way of truth, memory and indeed celebration (in the case of the ridiculous Moon landing conspiracies which try to darken the work of some brilliant and brave men).

JFK has become canonized since his untimely death, and whilst he was far from an angel, his charisma and acute political ability made his a popular figure, more so since his death.

Arguably the Kennedy Whitehouse used more wiretaps and buggings than the Nixon presidency, but as history looks back I am not sure I can imagine JFK having quite the same squalid conversations as Nixon had with Dean, Erlichman and Haldeman.

JFK’s ability to ‘get away with it’ was one of Nixon’s main bugbears, but watching and listening to JFK speak one can see why he made such an impact.  He had looks , charisma, confidence and great oratory.  Maybe people just wanted to believe this was the real thing that was going to make everything better.

Don’t forget that this is the early 60’s and the world had spent the last 15 years or so recovering from a terrible war.  The youth of the day was beginning to have it’s own identity, and for a while there was hope of a new future for the world and JFK was of course part of that.

The 6 day war, Bader Meinhof, the Angry Brigade and Vietnam had yet to break the love generation ,so maybe people had the right to be hopeful.

Radio 4 did a great series of programmes on JFK and his importance and this was perhaps my favourite, much against my preconceptions.

Trying to report what happened on that day is not easy.  It’s not just that some of the facts are a little vague, and contradictory it’s mainly the fact we are all ingrained to believe there was a conspiracy.

What Alan Thompson does in this excellent documentary is try to get to get across the story of the day without hyperbole, without opinion – and it is all the more powerful for that.

He let’s the interviews run and often ramble, from the policeman, newspapermen and the only living member of the Kennedy car Nellie Connolly.

Her interview is very upsetting, all the more for the way in which she tells it, a lady clearly still affected by what she saw in those 6 seconds. There are no experts to tell us what may have happened, no second hand stories of shady dealings, no pomposity from a US historian, just very ordinary people in an extraordinary time.

The extraordinary story is followed through to the end as Jack Ruby shoots Lee Harvey Oswald.

It is astonishing to think that Oswald was initially arrested for the callous murder of Officer Tibbet before the station put two and two together and realized here was not just a cop killer.

The murder of Oswald by Ruby is more like a farce than a murder and the various interviews very clearly show what kind of man Ruby was and also how simply he was able to get in a position to shoot Oswald.

It also shows how different the day could have been, if we agree that Oswald fired the 3 shots, his $8 sight performed well, but also he was undoubtedly lucky to get that second shot on Kennedy, Ruby was very lucky to get a lethal shot Oswald.  A few bullets, a few inches difference and a very different day.

If you want scandal and revelation, conspiracy and surprise, then don’t listen to this.  If you want an honest attempt to simply present the day as several different people believe it happened then this is fascinating listening.

At the end of this I am not sure you can doubt the testimony of the eye witnesses, whilst you may doubt whether Oswald worked alone.

But ultimately all the politics and mafia rumours which may or may not have influenced Oswald’s assassination attempt and subsequent murder by Ruby fade when we hears the extraordinary events of those three days.

A compulsive and slightly unsettling programme that answered no questions, but wisely never promised to. I defy anyone not to feel emotion when you hear Nellie Connoly speak or the KLIF radio reporting ‘Something is terribly wrong’.  I had a slight feeling of despair at hearing the events unfold like some Greek tragedy, so many things that may have happened differently and changed history for all of us.

BBC Radio information

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/history/kennedy.shtml

Why you shouldn’t question the moon landings.

http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html

Radioarchive link

http://radioarchive.cc/torrents-details.php?id=4475