Quincy Jones - The Many Lives of Q
If there’s a better record than Ai No Corrida I don’t know what it is. And if there’s a more interesting, more varied, more tuneful and groovier musical career than that of Quincy Jones then it’s not been made into a BBC4 documentary. From jazz at the Apollo to producing the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, [...]
Alexei Sayle’s Liverpool
Clever comedians. That’s who you need presenting your television programmes. That whole generation of clever alternative comedians from the 80s turn out to be the perfect people to do telly. They can talk well to camera, they can do a laugh and some pathos and they can compress a lot of meaning into the spaces [...]
Sacred Music
Palestrina sounds like planets. To me anyway. When I think of moving in space it’s never to 2001-type Strauss or Ligeti. Nor to the sucking, clanging sound effects of most scientifically illiterate movies. The grace, the slowness of space sounds, to me, like Palestrina. (It’s probably to do with some BBC2 astronomy programme from the [...]
The Politics Show Midlands
One of the lovely things about the iPlayer is the access you get to all of the BBC’s regional programmes. It may mean nothing to you, but I grew quite misty-eyed watching the good people of the Midlands opinionating almost as though they were as good as Southerners or something. (I’M JOKING! I’M MAKING A [...]
Last Orders
I was struggling to know what to say about this. Then I saw that David Hepworth had said it all for me. Have a look at Mr Hepworth’s words, and have a look at the programme. Only telly could do this.
The Sky At Night
I can imagine Watchification turning into a bit of a BBC4 niche, so it’s with great pleasure that we present a programme from that home of the mainstream - BBC 1. Though admittedly it’s The Sky At Night, a monthly programme that struggles to get on before midnight. What a lovely piece of telly though, [...]
Scottish Curling Championships: 2008
It’s easy to forget what an abstract activity sport is. Why, exactly, are people doing this or that thing? Why are they kicking that? Jumping that? Walking that particular way? But we don’t notice the oddness because we see it all the time. And then something like curling comes along and we’re confronted with the [...]
Time Shift: Whatever Happened To Radio 2?
For me, it’s listening to Waggoner’s Walk in the back of Adrian’s Mum’s Mini Clubman on the way to swimming. That’s Radio 2. All this Paul Morley and Jonathon Ross is all very well, but Humph, Desmond Carrington, Mike Harding, “The Organist Entertains” and “Listen To The Band” are what Radio 2 is for.
Ships That Changed The World
This is proper instructive telly. Social, religious, political, military, industrial history wrapped around excellent archive footage, decent writing and editing without Attention Deficit Disorder (I sound like I’m in my fifties don’t I?). And lots and lots of big ships and cranes. Splendid.
Brass Factory
Oooh. Marvellous. I played in a competition against The Cory Band once. They were magnificent. Blew everyone away. Lovely programme. Lovely people. And some beautiful shots too - a red uniformed Euphonium player on a park bench against the green grass.
