Radio 4 Extra Live - but for how long?

Like many other listeners I have been distressed to learn that by next spring Radio 4 Extra may be no more - as a radio station, that is. Its archive, so we are told, will remain, though how easily programmes will be accessible remains to be seen. At present they are available for a set number of days after a repeat broadcast then vanish until - or unless - broadcast again some time - maybe even years - later. I know that Ray Connolly was frustrated when trying to make the case for a play of his being retained on the website, so it seems highly unlikely that absolutely everything will be there to hear again at the click of a mouse and that we are all supposedly fussing over nothing. But even if that were magically to be the case it still wouldn't make up for the serendipitous discoveries for the regular listener to the DAB station.

So - assuming the Beeb prove impervious to protests and petitions - the first question is: without a recent broadcast as the main criterion just which programmes will those who log on to BBC Sounds be able to hear? Will they change from week to week? Or perhaps day by day, a lucky dip? Will new additions continue to be made to the archive or will the task of hunting out and restoring forgotten treasures also be considered an expense too far?

Some years ago the station - possibly when it was still known as BBC 7 - had a season of plays by Rhys Adrian, a name which often cropped up in those once-annual volumes of radio plays which had won the Giles Cooper Award. Missing from the works selected for rebroadcast, however, was a drama I remembered with particular fondness entitled Toytown, and it was a joy to hear it again at last more recently on Radio 4 Extra; presumably it had finally been located or a copy handed in by someone. 

But the point is: where else would I have heard such a piece again but on that station? Not in its original home, that's for sure, given the cutbacks in drama on Radio 4 and its increasing reliance on series rather than the single play, not to mention its greater focus in recent years on issue-driven plays. 

What is Toytown about, you ask? Er, well, it's about some park keepers. What happens in it? Not too much - or at least not the sort of thing which can be gleaned from a pitch. It doesn't teach you anything - or at least nothing which can be reduced to a slogan. 

I'm guessing that once upon a time radio drama at the Beeb was like its TV equivalent, to judge from commentaries I've heard on DVDs of Dennis Potter's and Andrew Birkin's work: once a project had been accepted, it was more or less trusted that the writer and director knew what they were doing and were left to get on with it. Andrew Birkin has spoken of his discovery, when writing his superlative series about J.M. Barrie, that he would need much more screen time to tell the story he was discovering; he got it. 

Readers already familiar with the protests about Radio 4 Extra's closure - including one, tellingly, from the editor of the Radio Times - won't find much new in what I am saying in this post but two essential points bear repeating ad nauseam by all who care about keeping this station on the air. 

One is that it's not enough to have an online archive, regardless of how many programmes are available at the click of a mouse. One of the joys of Radio 4 Extra, in addition to reacquainting yourself with old friends, is happening upon an unfamiliar drama or documentary or quiz or obscure sitcom (or whatever) simply because you happened to be listening to the station that day. 

And the second, related, point is that BBC radio has such a rich fund of material, especially with an archive of radio drama of a quality unequalled anywhere else in the world, why - for relatively small savings in its overall budget - why is it taking the self-destructive step of limiting its reach by switching off the station designed to promote and preserve its distinguished history? 

As Jimmy Clitheroe, who is all there with his cough drops, would say: Make It Make Sense. 

 

A petition to save Radio 4 Extra has been set up by the Chortle website; you can sign it here. 

Billy Shelton

Sorry to learn that Billy Shelton, whom I had the privilege of interviewing, is unwell. Jan D'Agostino Trapani recently posted the following on Facebook: 

My good friend and fellow performer Billy Shelton (The Spaniels) has been placed in Hospice Care in Indiana. If you enjoyed Billy's singing and beautiful voice, I'm sure he would appreciate cards or notes from those who followed him during his long career, and the pleasure and positive demeanor he exuded. His address is Billy Shelton, Dyer Nursing and Rehabilitation, 601 Sheffield Ave, Dyer, IN 46311. Let's make this a card shower. 

 

Billy Shelton: Spaniel Forever 

 

In Which Edward Bear Scores a Century

 

 Today marks 100 years since that perennial children's favourite, Winnie the Pooh, was published. It wasn't the writer's first work for children: in addition to When We Were Very Young, in which an as-yet-unnamed Pooh made his first appearance, A.A. Milne had already written a play called Make-Believe and a novel-length fairytale entitled Once on a Time (though the latter was half-intended for adults). 

The Pooh books - "These four trifles for the young", as he dismissively called them in a late poem - have long overshadowed his other work but during his lifetime Milne made several reputations for himself as a writer. In the early 1900s, as Assistant Editor of Punch, his articles and light verse were very popular indeed with readers; writing Milne's obituary in that magazine fifty years later, H.F. Ellis (of A.J. Wentworth fame) described the "genuine stylistic innovation" which his writing represented. 

Birkenhead to Barrow or The Moving Theatre

If you saw the documentary Freddie Davies: A Life in Show Business on Talking Pictures TV recently you will have caught a glimpse of his grandfather, Jack Herbert, walking past a theatre and standing on its stage (above).The footage comes from a 1969 documentary about Sid Field, the sketch comic revered by Tony Hancock; Jack and Sid had worked together in revue in the 1920s, Sid as juvenile lead and feed to Jack, an up-and-coming comedian by then, thanks to his success in several revues produced by Clara Coverdale. 

Sadly, however, there is very little of Jack Herbert on film; the two-part Field programme, part of a Thames Television series called Applause! Applause!, contains almost all there is, and he had retired from performing by then - or rather, as Freddie has put it, "the business gave him up": theatres began to close in the fifties and not all variety acts were able to adapt to the brasher style demanded by the clubs.

Freddie Davies documentary on Talking Pictures TV

If you missed the broadcast yesterday, Martyn Tott's "chatumentary", as he has called it, about Freddie Davies is currently available to watch online on TPTV Encore. You will need to subscribe but provided you can tolerate the adverts it's free to watch. It was made in 2017, three years after the publication of Funny Bones, Freddie's autobiography (what I cowrote), and yesterday was its first screening on the Talking Pictures TV channel, though Freddie has already been involved with them, appearing in a couple of their live events; on one of those occasions, calling to mind his time as a Redcoat at Butlins, he led the audience in a singalong.

No leading definitions: R.C. Sherriff

 

A distinction drawn in Radio 4's Today programme between the genres of autobiography and memoir  may be less than wholly convincing - is "a work of literature that is verging on fiction" really an adequate definition of a memoir? - but it did remind me of my feelings when reading the comprehensive 2016 biography of the playwright and screenwriter R.C. Sherriff, best remembered for Journey's End. 

Musical differences: Sven Klang's Combo

 

At last the film Sven Klang's Combo (as it was known on its UK release) is - at the time of writing, anyway - available to watch online. This is a big deal as when I last checked a few years ago it wasn't possible to buy a DVD with the appropriate subtitles - and it's well worth seeing.  Benny Green reviewed it very warmly in Punch as the most convincing portrayal of a band's interactions he had ever seen on film. 

Of Gospel Groups and Coastal Cottages ...

 

 

When I first heard the Flamingos' doo wop classic Golden Teardrops I was puzzled by the reference to "a cottage by the sea", which seemed an arbitrary place in which to picture the loved one. Did it perhaps signify something to the record's original audience which I had missed? ... I'll remember, 

No matter where you'll be -
In a crowded room 
Or a busy street
Or a cottage by the sea  ...

That was around fifty years ago but I didn't think to investigate further - until now.

Kommendable Kinks Kompositions

 

As the Guardian has published a list of the Kinks' 40 greatest songs which omits several of my favourites I've dusted off these notes about some of Raymond Douglas Davies's finest. 

Summer day reflections on two socially distanced Leitch gatherings

Hard to believe but Donovan, that seeming child of faerie, recently turned eighty. He is still performing and only a week or two ago on social media trumpetingly denounced as "fake news" the possibility of his retiring. At the time of writing his most recent concert was four days ago, in Cork; another, in Galway, is scheduled for October.

I don't think I'll be buying a ticket should he ever venture to England again, but I'm glad I went to see him a few months ago at Richmond Theatre; it felt like a final farewell to one whose music had once meant a great deal to me.

Settling into my (very comfortable) seat an usher handed me a Donovan CD. Possibly this happened to everybody - I was rather late in arriving, so don't know - but for a moment it felt like a "thank you" from the veteran troubadour himself, a way of acknowledging all the cash I must have thrown his way over the years, though later I did entertain the unworthy thought that his merch people might have been trying to offload copies of the less well-known albums which hadn't attracted many buyers in the foyer.

A few years ago in these pages I described my disappointment at a 2004 Dono-concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, the first experience to test my Dono-faith, nevermore to resume residence in my heart with the same ardency. As I finished that piece, I found myself being pulled two ways: he had meant so much, even if he was no longer what he had been. Then, still searching for the precise words with which to tie a ribbon neatly around the experience of those long years of fandom, I noticed that his official site had a link to a live concert in Germany ...

Click.