What the Thunderer Said

In praising a new dramatic version of T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland to be broadcast tonight on Radio 3, and Radio 3 drama more generally, the Sunday Times's Patricia Nicol takes a passing shot at Radio 4 drama:

[Radio 3] only has one drama to produce weekly, but it often seems a more invigorating listen than so many of the tediously worthy, issue-led dramas found next door on Radio 4.

“Tediously worthy” and “issue-led” will also do for Radio 4 more generally.

Cod liver oil commissioning

Sunday Times arts columnist Patricia Nicol has written a piece headlined Why changes are needed at Radio 4. 

Despite the headline, she's a huge fan of BBC Radio 4 and doesn't accept many of the criticisms being made of it. Her only real beefs with the channel are with its comedy and drama output. “When did a new comedy format on Radio 4 last make you laugh out loud? Or a drama warm your cockles?”, she asks. 

My favourite line from her column is:

Too much of Radio 4’s drama feels like cod liver oil commissioning, sternly administered to do you good.

Don Quixote and his hapless squire had many such adventures, each more similar than the last

Don Sylvester

Amid all the wearying worthiness of so much of Radio 4's daily output these days it's a pleasure to stumble across a bit of pure pleasure-giving BBC broadcasting. And my recommendation today is yesterday's Radio 4 Drama, The Penny Dreadfuls Present: Don Quixote - a very funny take on a book which, like most people who've tried it, I've started but not finished. And it had an intelligent sting in the tail too (which I won't spoil).

It wasn't long before Sancho his new master stumbled across arguably their most famous adventure. It didn't earn this status because it was particularly remarkable, you understand, but because it was the first one and most people don't get very far through the book....

And all shall be well and/ All manner of thing shall be well

Whether we BBC critics like it or not, Radio 4 has a lot of devoted listeners who will defend it, it purely metaphorical terms of course, to the death. 

And if they keep on asking Jeremy Irons to read T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets I might well join them.

A people without history
Is not redeemed from time, for history is a pattern
Of timeless moments. So, while the light fails
On a winter's afternoon, in a secluded chapel
History is now and England.

And, as the dark penetrates our windows on a winter's night, in a crowded house in Morecambe, blogging is now and England, and here are the mystical closing lines of Little Gidding...

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, remembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always—
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flames are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.