Parky at 80

Happy 80th Birthday today to Michael Parkinson.

Parky’s career is pretty well-known: cub reporter on the South Yorkshire Times, National Service (Private Parkinson RAPC, army number 23131269), back to Civvy street and reporting for the Barnsley Chronicle, Yorkshire Evening Post, Manchester Guardian, ABC Television (at their Didsbury studios), down to Fleet Street to work on the Daily Express, back north to Granada TV (Scene at 6.30 and Cinema), a stint with the Beeb on 24 Hours, sports column in the Sunday Times and a daytime show for Thames, Tea Break. And all this was before the start of his eponymously-titled chat show.

 
As Michael recalled in his autobiography; “Tony Preston was head of variety at the BBC. One day in the spring of 1971 he called and said he wanted to suggest me as the host for a new late-night talk show the BBC was contemplating, Would I be interested?” By then he was thirty-six and “never imagined the show I was about to do would define my working life for the next thirty-six years”.   

Meanwhile over on BBC radio Michael was fast becoming ‘Parky the DJ’ on Radio 2. In 1969 he was one of the presenters of Late Night Extra and a couple of years later on the rota for the daily magazine show After Seven. There were also stints deputising for Pete Murray on Open House.

On Radio 4 he was an occasional panellist on Any Questions and teamed up with wife Mary on the talk show Mr and Mrs Parkinson. In 1971 and 1972 he was an occasional presenter on Today. In late 1985 there was a six-part series titled Michael Parkinson, though you didn’t hear that much of him. Instead it was merely a vehicle for clips from the BBC’s Sound Archives. In this, the first edition from 12 November, you’ll hear Malcolm Muggeridge, Jonathan Miller, Round the Horne, Robb Wilton, Arthur Marshall, Peter Sellers and a classic interview about the delights of living in Tunbridge Wells that you’ll have probably heard before.    

When Parkinson himself had appeared on Desert Island Discs in 1972 he’d found it “a profoundly depressing experience.” So when some thirteen year later Radio 4 controller David Hatch asked him to take over the show following the death of its creator Roy Plomley he had “reservations”.

“The problem”, opined Parky, “was Plomley himself. He seemed bored with the show, not the slightest bit interested in the guest’s story, more in favour of a long lunch at the Garrick with a bottle of wine before the interview took place in what seemed like a broom cupboard at Broadcasting House.”  Plomley’s widow, Diana Wong, didn’t think much of the appointment, favouring either John Mortimer or Richard Baker, and thought Michael not “civilised enough”.

With his journalistic background the interview part of Desert Island Discs became more probing and enquiring, perhaps a little intrusive at times, but this was to become the template of the show ever since. Michael’s first guest when DID returned to the airwaves in January 1986 was the film director Alan Parker. This is my recording of the full show. 

Parky’s tenure on Desert Island Discs lasted until March 1988. Two years he was one of the re-launched LBC Newstalk team, along with his old TV-AM colleague Angela Rippon. His daily mid-morning show ran for a couple of years. 

Aside from the cinema and the Great American songbook Michael’s other passion was sport. Between 1994 and 1997 he presented the weekly Radio 5 Live show Parkinson on Sport.   

Parkinson’s Sunday Supplement first aired on 31 March 1996 as part of a number of schedule changes implemented by controller Jim Moir, who’d joined the station the previous November. Moir’s objective was “to gain listeners, especially among the group that every radio station in the country is fighting for – the fortysomethings. My first changes are to signal to them that Radio 2 is on the move on Saturdays and for two hours on Sunday. We want to share our music with a generation that feels a bit dispossessed and give them a radio station that doesn’t just play hits in a repetitive way.” For listeners to the Sunday Supplement this inevitably led to plenty of plays for Sinatra, Jamie Cullum and Diana Krall.

This is a full show from late in the programmes run and was broadcast on Radio 2 on 4 November 2007. Michael’s guests are John Dankworth and Cleo Laine. Helping to review the Sunday papers is Gillian Reynolds and the entertainment guide is provided by Hilary Oliver.

By 2007 Michael had announced his retirement from regular broadcasting, signing off from both the Sunday Supplement and his TV chat show, now over on ITV. Of course he never quite said goodbye. In the interim he’s spent much of the time popping on TV in perfecting his role as an old curmudgeon remarking how TV production at the BBC isn’t what it was and meantime offering daytime viewers of a certain age a free Parker pen. On Radio 2 there have been two series of My Favourite Things.   

Many happy returns Sir Michael!

The Long Runners

So what are the long-running programmes on UK radio still on air today?

Yesterday when I posted about Desert Island Discs I originally wrote: “The UK’s second-longest running radio programme celebrates its 70th anniversary this Sunday on Radio 4”. In fact the first part of that sentence was utter bunkum, and has now been amended.

Choral Evensong billing on 14 September 1948

So, after the result of a little more research and perhaps stepping into something of a minefield, here’s the Top 10:

1^st - Choral Evensong, October 1926

2^nd – The Daily Service, January 1928

3^rd – The Week in Westminster, November 1929

4^th - Sunday Half-Hour, July 1940

5^th  – Desert Island Discs, January 1942

6^th  – Today in Parliament, 1945

7^th – Woman’s Hour, October 1946

8^th – Round Britain Quiz, 1947

9^th – Sports Report, January 1948

10^th – Any Questions, October 1948  

I have ignored the news, weather and the shipping forecast here. Though Today in Parliament started on the Home Service in 1945 I’ve not established when Yesterday in Parliament first aired other than it was in the late 40s, so this would change my top 10.

Paul Donovan’s book The Radio Companion states that Farming Today began as a weekly series in 1937 which would place it at number 4. However, the author of the Wikipedia article on the programme gives its first broadcast on Network Three in 1960. I have found evidence of an earlier occasional 10-minute talk series called Farming Today but for the most part the regular farming programmes consist of the morning Market Report for Farmers and magazine programmes such as Farm Fare and The Farmer.

I have also left out Gardeners’ Question Time. This is listed as starting in April 1947 but at the time it was known as How Does Your Garden Grow?,  changing  its title to the present one at a later date, but I’m not sure when.

An honorary mention should also go to The Week’s Good Cause which ran from 1926 until 1998 when it became known as Radio 4 Appeal.    

Of course not all these programmes have run continuously. Desert Island Discs itself had a five-year break between 1946 and 1951. In terms of the sheer number of programmes, The Daily Service, must take the record.  

Marooned for 70 Years – Desert Island Discs

The UK’s longest running record programme celebrates its 70^th anniversary this Sunday on Radio 4 and around the nation on BBC local radio stations,  Radio Scotland and Radio Wales.

The inspiration for the programme came to its creator, the late Roy Plomley, one evening in November 1941. He typed out this letter to BBC producer Leslie Perowne:

Dear Leslie,

Here is another idea for a series. DESERT ISLAND DISCS. If you were wrecked on a desert island, which ten gramophone records would you like to have with you? – providing of course, that you have a gramophone and needles as well!

The BBC top brass gave the programme the go ahead for an initial eight week run. The number of discs was reduced from 10 to 8 to fit into the half-hour timeslot. Three potential theme tunes were considered: By A Sleepy Lagoon by Eric Coates, Summer Afternoon Idyll by the same composer and incidental music to the play Mary Rose by Norman O’Neill.  By A Sleepy Lagoon won out, with added seagulls. 

The first castaway was planned as Professor C.E.M. Joad, of Brain’s Trust fame, but he was unavailable so that honour went to comedian Vic Oliver, at the time appearing in the hugely popular radio show Hi- Gang! The first programme aired on the Forces Programme on 27 January 1942.

Since 1942 there have been nearly 3,000 castaways (with a break between 1946 and 1951) with Arthur Askey having the good fortune, or perhaps misfortune, in taking top prize as being stranded on the desert island four times.

The Desert Island Discs website has nearly 500 programmes available online to listen again. (Edit: now over 2,000). In this post I’m featuring two shows that currently aren’t available.

Just three guests have been members of the British Royal family: Princess Margaret in 1981, Princess Michael of Kent in 1984 and David Linley in 2002. Here’s Princess Margaret’s show as broadcast on 17 January 1981. Edit: since this blog post was published this edition is now available online here: BBC Radio 4 - Desert Island Discs, HRH Princess Margaret    

From 18 August 1984 this is part of the programme with comedian, cartoonist and writer Willie Rushton. Edit: since this blog post was first published this edition is now available online here: BBC Radio 4 - Desert Island Discs, Willie Rushton

And finally a clip from a 1980 edition of Feedback in which Roy Plomley gets a ticking-off for not name-checking his castaways during the programme.

Listen out for the Radio 4 programme on Vic Oliver this week.

Kirsty Young tells the story of the programme in Archive on 4 available here: BBC Radio 4 - Archive on 4, Castaway: 70 Years of Desert Island Discs

Desert Island Discs

This week BBC Radio has a rare piece of cross-network co-operation when one long-running programme pays tribute to another. Tomorrow night Friday Night is Music Night celebrates Desert Island Discs in a special two-hour concert.

For this post I’m going back to Sue Lawley’s first programme in 1988. She had just taken over the hot seat from Michael Parkinson. As an interviewer, she told the Radio Times, she falls between Parky and Roy Plomley (programme creator and host from 1942 to 1985). “I’m terribly aware it mustn’t be any kind of interrogation – it calls for a very gentle style. You tamper with the fundamentals at your peril, but I would like to take three or four steps back and recapture the mystique of the desert island.”

Sue’s first castaway was Quintin Hogg, better known as Lord Hailsham. The programme was broadcast on Sunday 27 March 1988 and you can find further details on the Desert Island Discs website. Here’s an edited version of the programme.

Desert Island Discs

From January 1992 a BBC tv promo for the Radio Times when the programme was celebrating its 50^th birthday.

Read more about Desert Island Discs on Suite 101.