Few radio shows feature both Al Bowlly and ZZ Top on their
playlist, but Desmond Carrington's The
Music Goes Round was such a show, a Radio 2 Friday night fixture for twelve
years. Prior to that Desmond had hosted the Sunday lunchtime All Time Greats from 1981 to 2004 with a
music selection, chosen by listeners, that could be equally diverse, even
though it did tend to veer towards easy listening and the nostalgic. That 36
year run of weekly music shows finally came to a dignified and poignant end in
October 2016 when ill-health forced Desmond to finally hung up his headphones.
Desmond Herbert Carrington was born and raised in Bromley
where he attended the County Grammar School. Perhaps sensing that his future
was in the arts his first job was as an office boy at Macmillan's the
publishers for 18/- a week. But his calling was acting and his first
professional role was as a Cockney schoolboy in Goodbye Mr Chips at the Theatre Royal, Nottingham. He then secured
regular repertory work with the Penge Court Players.
In the early years of the Second World War Desmond joined
the army, serving in the Royal West Kent Regiment, initially posted to Northern
Ireland before serving out in India and Burma. Here he got his first
opportunity to broadcast by opening up Rangoon Radio after the Japanese army
had left. By 1946 he was serving as a commissioned officer out of Colombo in
Ceylon and managed to wangle a job at the new forces station Radio SEAC (South
Eastern Asia Command). Based in a palm grove some 15 miles outside Colombo
the coverage was immense, taking in
India, East Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Indo-Chine, Japan, the Pacific and
the west coast of the States. On the team with Carrington were David Jacobs -
they would remain firm friends thereafter - McDonald Hobley, Charles Chilton
and Alexander Moyes.
On demob Desmond knocked on the door of the BBC but they
sent him away telling him that he was not of "sufficient promise" for
them to offer him a job. However he would eventually secure a post as part of
the BBC Drama Repertory company where he worked across a range of schools
broadcasts and drama productions such as Children's
Hour, Paul Temple and Mrs Dales Diary.
In parallel to his acting career Desmond pursued his other
great passion of cinema by carving out something of a specialism as an adapter
of film screenplays for radio broadcast. He'd presented some film programmes on
Radio SEAC and back in Britain he'd come up with the idea of recording the
soundtrack from the film projector using a sound mirror and a tape recorder.
With the agreement of the film companies he then used the edited highlights
from the recording to form a radio programme. He took the idea to both Radio Luxembourg
where the scenes would be linked together by Wilfrid Thomas in a series titled Movie Magazine. Later Desmond himself
would present a number of shows for the station that included film soundtracks
as well as interviews and film scores in programmes such as Hollywood Calling and the sponsored Alka-Seltzer Movie Parade. He continued
to appear on Luxembourg into the mid-50s.
Meanwhile back at the BBC that same idea of film adaptations
were featured in a number of programmes including Picture Parade (1948) and Sunday
Cinema (1949-50). Desmond returned to cinema related work at the BBC when
he and Spencer Hale (both pictured below) compiled and presented the Stargazing segment -basically star interviews with accompanying
film clips - and then the quiz segment Sounds
Familiar of the long-running film magazine Merry- Go-Round (Light Programme 1956-60)
Desmond's big break finally came in 1958 when he got a
telephone call from a colleague who was now producing Emergency Ward Ten asking if he'd like to play the part of the son
of a patient. Desmond leapt at the chance to do some live television over three
months. His performance was deemed a success and he was invited back to play
the part of a doctor - the part of Dr Chris Anderson. He remained in the show
until 1964 appearing in over 200 episodes.
Of his time on Emergency
Ward 10 Desmond would later recall the problems of having to memorise
"some appallingly difficult and long medical terms, Then I had the bright idea of writing them on the
inside of the sink as we were always scrubbing up for the operations on the
shows. During rehearsal, it worked fine, as there was no running water in the
sinks. When it came to the live transmission I watched in horror as my medical
terms were washed away as I started to scrub up. There was nothing for it but
to improvise".
Ironically it was Desmond's TV fame that led to his future
career as a disc jockey. In 1962 he was invited to compere Housewives' Choice for a fortnight whilst he was still appearing as
Dr Anderson and, as the Radio Times
billing adds, also appearing on stage in Doctor
in the House at Streatham Hill Theatre. He got repeat bookings on Housewives' Choice for the remainder of
its run between 1963 and 1967. In 1963 he was playing music from stage and
screen on the Light Programme's Twelve
O'Clock Spin. For the second half of 1964 it was more songs from the
musicals in Record Showtime with the Radio Times billing helpfully informing
us that he was appearing in Wanted on
Voyage at the Grand Theatre, Leeds - by now he'd just left Emergency Ward 10. The following year it
was a back to the world of film in Music
from the Movies, a series scripted by Movie-Go-Round's
Peter Haigh and produced by announcer Robin Boyle (a second series, produced by
Tony Luke followed in 1966). And, in case you were wondering, Des was now in Face to Face at the Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury.
Throughout 1966 Desmond could be heard every weekend hosting
Open House with "records of
assorted speeds, sizes, and styles to suit people with assorted tastes".
In 1967 he was back with more Music from
the Movies, this time working with the future radio comedy producer Richard
Willcox. There seemed to be no room for Desmond on Radio 2 when it replaced the
Light in September 1967 but in 1968 he was back adapting film soundtracks with
Spencer Hale for Radio 4's Disney Time
that included Mary Poppins, Dumbo and Bambi. Finally, from December 1968, and running until September
1972, Desmond had a daily show on Radio 2 playing the latest releases in Album Time. Aside from three appearances
in charge of After Seven in 1973
there was radio silence for the next eight years.
Desmond was invited back into the Radio 2 fold in early 1981
to introduce a series of shows featuring The
Magic of Stanley Black (other programmes would also feature Mantovani,
Ronnie Aldrich and Robert Farnon, John Gregory, Geoff Love and John Fox). He
owed his return to producer Paul Walters who, Paul reminded him on their first
meeting, had swung the boom on some of those old Emergency Ward 10 broadcasts at the ATV's Highbury studios.
The success of the Magic
of... shows led to an invitation to present the Sunday morning All Time Greats. Desmond expected it to
run for a month or so but after the first recording producer Jack Dabbs told
him, "well that's your pension, Desmond". He was right, it ran for 23
years!
In October 2011 Desmond gave listeners to The Music Goes Round and Round an
opportunity to hear again the first edition of All Time Greats. Although the BBC hadn't kept a copy, Desmond had.
Initially just an hour in duration, All Time Greats was extended to 90 minutes and then two, and for a
while three, hours and settled into what was more or less the old Family Favourites slot. It was a record
request show too so anything went, but as Desmond told the Radio Times in October 1985, the music choice was often vintage:
"It's the listeners' programme, not mine. They choose
the records". He gets about 500 suggestions a week requesting favourites
pieces and reckons some 6,000 records have been chosen by Radio 2 listeners
over the past four years. "Some people misquote the title as Old-Time Greats but it's certainly not
that. We can play records right up to the present day, though I admit that most
requests are for music from the 50s backwards. Most requested record? Without a
doubt Glen Miller's Moonlight Serenade.
Bunny Berigan's I can't get started
is a close second.
Still acting in the late 80s as evidenced by
this Radio Times article 17 January 1987
In August 2004 network controller Lesley Douglas decided to
have a re-shuffle and the Sunday lunchtime All
Time Greats came to an end. In this broadcast from 8 August 2004 Des tells
his listeners that the decision was not his, "and I should like to make
that clear".
In 1995 Dave Alyott and Desmond formed Foldback Media to
produce the shows for the BBC
The follow-up series, The
Music Goes Round, now on a Tuesday evening, was the same eclectic mix
condensed into an hour with each show adopting a theme for all or part of that
hour. Come April 2010 Desmond moved to Friday nights where he remained until
last year. For many years he'd been broadcasting from his home studio but by
now the show's opening was always the memorable "Evening all from home in
Perthshire, Scotland". Home being near Dunning where he lived with
producer and long-time partner Dave Aylott and, often curled up at Des's feet
during the show, cat Golden Paws Sam.
In 2013 Desmond spoke to Tim Blackmore about his radio
career in a Radio Talk podcast for
the Radio Academy.
In May 2016 Desmond celebrated his 90th birthday with this
special edition of The Music Goes Round.
Golden Paws Sam taking it easy
What listeners didn't know. and for a while neither did
Radio 2 management, was that Desmond's health was failing as he was battling
with cancer and Alzheimer's disease. In December 2015 he'd suffered a second
heart failure but was back at the microphone a few days later. However in
October 2016 he announced that after 70 years on the air he was reluctantly
having to "hang up my headphones" and say "enough is
enough". Here is that final show from 28 October.
Yesterday, on the day Radio 2 had already scheduled a tribute to Desmond, it was announced that he'd died. The voice of a true radio
all time great silenced.
Ninety years ago this month the first live sports commentary
was broadcast by the BBC. That "first broadcast description", as the BBC Hand Book described it, was on the
rugby match between England and Wales at Twickenham. The commentator was
Captain H.B.T. Wakelam. But who was Captain Wakelam and how come he was given
that task of covering that match. And, as it was the first ever such broadcast (at
least on this side of the Atlantic) how did he know what to do? The answers can
be found in Wakelam's 1938 autobiography Half-Time
"The Mike and Me".
Firstly a brief biographical portrait. Henry Blythe
Thornhill Wakelam, known as Teddy, was born in 1893 in Herefordshire were his
father was the County Engineer, a very keen all-round sportsman and "an extremely
good shot". The family moved to London when his father was appointed to a
job in Middlesex. Young Teddy was educated at the Middleton School in Bognor
where he was sent as a boarder. Here he developed his love for playing sport;
he'd go on to play rugby, cricket, football, hockey and tennis which stood him
in good stead years later when he was asked to commentate on a range of sports
for the BBC. He continued his education
firstly at Marlborough College, Wiltshire and then Pembroke College, Cambridge
where he initially studied medicine but due to "a very distinct aversion
from corpse dissecting" switched to history. While at Pembroke he played
rugby for a number of clubs before joining Harlequins for whom he turned out on
many occasions over three years up until the war. Indeed he was so busy on the
sporting field that he feared he was spreading himself too thinly: "I
think ... that I attempted too much in those days. Four days a week I was
playing either rugger or hockey for Pembroke, and my Saturdays were also fully
taken up playing either for the Varsity at one of other game, or for the Quins.
Perhaps had I concentrated more I might have been successful."
On the outbreak of World War One, Teddy was accepted as a
2nd Lieutenant in the Royal Fusiliers; by 1917 he'd been promoted to Captain of
the 96th A.A. Section. He saw service in France, Gallipoli, Egypt and Palestine.
After the war there was a period of post-war liaison work for the Army in
Poland and Germany and he started to play rugby again, initially for the Public
Schools Services and then for a reformed Harlequins where he'd eventually
captain the team. He gained employment with the contractors and building firm
John Mowlem & Co, mainly working on contracts for the London County
Council. In 1922 he married Vera Greenhill, the following year they had their
only child Elizabeth. By 1924 Wakelam was forced to retire playing rugby due to
a knee injury but he very much remained part of the sport as well as taking on
duties as a Wimbledon umpire.
Meanwhile over at Savoy Hill the British Broadcasting
Company had become a Corporation on 1 January 1927 and gained some additional
rights to broadcast reports of sporting events, rights that the press had
previously jealously guarded. The BBC had already decided to introduce the type
of live commentary that American radio was doing and it was on the lookout for
possible commentators, broadcasters who would be pioneers in the field. On 7
January the Director of Entertainment, Roger Eckersley, issued a memo to
Station Directors expounded on the subject, suggesting that the person giving
the running commentaries "probably will be difficult to find, as he should
have the journalistic instinct, a decent voice, a sound communicable knowledge
of the subject, and the power to make listeners feel as though they were
present at the event".
Asking around the name of Teddy Wakelam came to the BBC's
attention, especially useful as the first commentary game was to be a rugby
match. Such were the hurried and last minute arrangements that the commentary,
on 15 January 1927, was not billed in the Radio
Times. Wakelam's autobiography takes up the story at this point in some
detail and I've reproduced a few paragraphs of it below.
The other players in this story are Lance Sieveking who
joined the BBC in April 1926 with special responsibilities for topical talks
and news. He'd recently returned from a trip to the States to witness how US
radio covered baseball matches. He later work mainly in drama, producing and
script editing for both BBC radio and TV. Wakelam's number two was a chap
called Charles Lapworth who seemed to have no obvious connection to rugby. He
was a former editor of the Daily Herald and
had worked at other newspapers both in the UK and the USA. This was his one and
only appearance as Wakelam's sidekick. The reference to "a St Dunstan's
man" is the home for the blind for ex-servicemen and women, now known as
Blind Veterans UK.
"One afternoon I was sitting at my table working out
some details of a tender, when my telephone rang. An unknown voice at the other
end then asked me if I was the same Wakelam who had played Rugger for the
Harlequins, and upon my saying 'Yes' went on to inform me that the owner of it
was an official of the British Broadcasting Corporation, who would much like to
see me at once on an urgent matter. Turning up at the arranged meeting-place, I was welcomed by
Lance Sieveking, the gentleman in question, who thereupon explained to me the
reason for his call. Briefly it was this. Since the BBC in January 1927 had
become a national institution, its scope had become considerably wider, and it
had been decided to follow a recent American innovation, and to put out running
commentaries on important sporting events. It was proposed a start should be
made with the Rugby International at Twickenham, between England and Wales, on
January 15, and would I be prepared to undergo there and then a studio
microphone test in order to see if my voice was suitable, and then, should such
prove to be the case, to take part in an actual field trial to be held the next
day on the Guy's Hospital Ground at Honor Oak Park? On the principle of 'try anything
once,' and also with the confined conviction that if an American could do it I
could, I agreed, and duly passed the 'Mike' test. The next day, three days
before the actual match, together with Sieveking, a man called Lapworth, who
had the vast knowledge of the American film world. and two other competitors, I
went down to the Guy's ground as arranged, but alas, something had gone wrong,
and no engineers or microphones turned up! This was a bad start; but things
grew even worse when eventually we did find them, in Greenwich Park, watching a
game between Blackheath Wednesday and the Royal Naval College, Greenwich, for
no sooner had they started to get their elaborate and fearsome-looking gear
when up came a large and very important park-keeper, full of righteous
indignation, and we departed sadder but considerably wiser men. By this time it
was too late to seek other fields, so we were asked by a most apologetic
Sieveking to parade again the next day, if a match could be found upon which we
could give a try-out. There proved to be one at the Old Deer Park, Richmond, an
inter-schoolboy affair, where the same party again assembled, and after the
lines and so on had been run out and fixed up, we started on our 'dummy run.'
After it was over, Sieveking came up to me, and asked me if I would have shot
at doing the match as proposed. I agreed, subject, of course, to suitable
financial remuneration, a point upon which both of us very naturally were quite
at sea. That, however, was put aside for the moment, and we set out
straightaway for Twickenham to examine the selected position and to study the
arrangements.
Arriving at Twickenham, Sieveking and I were met by
Commander Cooper, an old and valued friend of mine, and together we examined
our perch, which was a somewhat rickety-looking hut mounted on a scaffold
platform at the end of the then single-decker West Stand, in the south-west
corner. Here the engineers were hard at work wiring up and installing the
microphones, and we for our own part worked out in detail our proposed plan of
campaign. here the first squared plan of the field came into being, the
facsimile of which so often nowadays is printed for the benefit of listeners in
the Radio Times, and here was put up
a notice for our own particular benefit, a notice which, printed in large red
letters, was 'DON'T SWEAR' (not that I any more than the rest of my fellow-men
am addicted to the use of strong language, but sometime, watching Rugger, one
is apt to get carried away!). The order of the seating was also decided upon,
and Sieveking finally was struck with a most brilliant idea, which was to prove
of the utmost worth to me on the day. He decided to get hold of a St Dunstan's
man who, before his terrible misfortune, had been a keen Rugger follower, and
to invite him to sit just in front of the open window of the box so that I
could talk as if explaining the game directly to him, and so perhaps lose some
of my very natural stage-fright. Having fixed these and other small details, we
returned to town, and duly reassembled n the site an hour or so before the game
on the fateful day. Then I learnt that Charles Lapworth should be my 'No. 2,'
or, as someone immediately and appropriately remarked my 'Dr Watson.' In many
ways he was very well suited to his job, for he was the personification of cool
and calm collectedness, though his knowledge of the actual game itself was
rather limited. In fact, the only football he really knew at all was the American
game, as one of his remarks was to prove. Ten minutes before the kick-off, we came on the air,
Sieveking first to give the atmosphere, reading out the now familiar copyright
notice and doing the introductions, and then a somewhat shy and diffident me,
to give out the details of the game and the names of those taking part in it.
On the stroke of the appointed time, the match was started, and we were off.
Straightway I forgot all my nervousness and stage-fright, all my previously and
arduously collected phrases, and all the, as I thought, snappy and pithy
expressions which I had anxiously culled from the leading sporting writers of
the day. I was so wrapped up in following the flight and fortunes of that ball,
and so desperately keen to keep my St Dunstan's man fully informed, that I
raced away like a maniac and then and there, I think, got into the habit which
I still maintain is essential) of being just a fraction ahead of the actual
game. By that I mean the necessity of starting to speak of a man as passing
just as he is shaping to pass, a poor description and example to illustrate my point,
but nevertheless a correct one, for it is actually the truth. My memories of the actual game itself that day are, I am
afraid, very vague indeed, in fact I do believe when it was over that I could
recall one single football incident, though I do remember some of the
gap-filling remarks which are, of course, essential when play is temporarily
held up for this or that reason.
Once Lapworth, doing a hero's work in all conscience, said
to me in one of these pauses, 'Do they always play with an oval ball?' a remark
which may to any Rugger player appear ludicrous, but it reminded me that many
of my audience were not familiar with the game, and so helped me to keep away
from being too technical (a most serious fault). Again, he said, after one of
the Englishmen had been hurt, and had to leave the field, 'Who will they send
on instead?' another apparent bloomer, but a chance for me to fill in b y
saying that the practice of replacements had not so far (and I sincerely hope
never will) become part of the Rugby football creed. And so, back to earth, and
tempting my Celtic fervour, with Sieveking's commanding hand sometimes waving
me back when I crowded on to the mike and so was in danger of blasting, and
with the 'Don't swear' notice ever before my eyes, I got somehow to half-time.
and a welcome breathing-space, filled in by atmosphere from the outside mike,
and a few more remarks from Sieveking.
Hereabouts I am popularly supposed to have remarked, sotto voce (which of course makes no
difference), 'What about having a drink?' but if such was the case, I have no
recollection of it, and prefer to treat it as a canard. In five minutes we were off again, and though towards the end
I do recall becoming rather breathless and hoarse, my general memory of the
second half is as blank as that of the first.
The press response to Wakelam's commentary was mixed:
"Some were definitely hostile, talking about quick-fire football and even
quick-fire comedians, being obviously and decidedly against such an innovation,
which perhaps might tell against their circulation. Some were inclined to be a
bit haughty and to damn with faint praise, and I must have gone through the
whole gamut of a leading actor's sensations after a 'first night' until I
opened the pages of The Times and
read a most delightful little bit by Bernard Darwin ... (who) went on to say in
his own inimitable way that he supposed that in the course of time all sports
and leading outdoor events would be so reported."
The listening public was more positive though there was a
letter of complaint from the wife of a Welsh ex-international who dubbed
Wakelam a plague and a menace "for her husband had got so excited
listening-in that he had started playing himself and had smashed up most of her
sitting-room furniture".
Those first early experiments with running commentaries set
the tone and style for what was to follow. The St Dunstan's man who'd sat in
front of Wakelam observed "It seemed to me that you were just talking to
me, and to me only, and just as if you were telling me something in an ordinary
conversation." Wakelam went on to
list four basic rules which have stood the test of time:
The first: Simplicity - Use ordinary everyday sentences.
Don't be too technical. Don't be too facetious. BE NATURAL.
The second: Continuity - Keep going as well as you can,
without padding up with too much uninteresting and dry material. Wander away
very occasionally on to something which is only remotely connected with the
game, such as a helicopter overhead, or an outstanding figure in the crowd (it
helps the atmosphere). Work in sympathy with your No. 2, and thus avoid double
talking. BE CLEAR.
The third: Praise but don't criticise. BE FAIR.
The fourth: Know your man - 'Eye and brain' I have tried to
explain, but the second and more important part of this fourth rule can be
summed up in two words: BE FRIENDLY.
The BBC viewed Wakelam's commentary as a success and offered
him a contract to cover a further ten events, in the event he remained with the
BBC for another 12 years. For his next rugby match his No.2 was former Welsh
international Rhys Thomas 'Rusty' Gabe, though, Wakelam notes "I am afraid
we were guilty of a good deal of overlapping".
Next Wakelam was asked to do the first football commentary.
Although he knew the game his knowledge of current players was lacking so he
wrote a note to one of the team managers only to receive this unhelpful reply
on a postcard: "Dear Sir, as you have been chosen to broadcast this match,
presumably you already know all about the players".
In February 1927 Wakelam participated in what was a bizarre
piece of experimental commentary. The match was a rugby international between
Wales and France and he was asked if he could intersperse some short pieces in
French for the benefit if listeners in France. Although he did speak a little
of the language he set about looking up all the rugby terms and expressions in
French that he could find. By a stroke of luck when he arrived at the hotel in
Swansea, prior to the broadcast, he was greeted by a French businessman
resident in the town who agreed to sit next to him in the commentary box and write
down some of the salient features of play in colloquial French.
Commentaries on other sports followed. As he'd played a
little tennis and was a part-time umpire at Wimbledon he was asked to cover the
Championship games in the summer of 1927 (alongside another military-styled
chap, Colonel R.H. Brand). Commentating on the men's semi-finals he recounts
another incident that still occasionally affects live sports coverage, getting
cut-off at a crucial stage in the match. At two sets a piece and six games to
five in the final set the match was on a knife edge. "I made some kind of
remark about a desperate prospective finish and how terribly exciting and
thrilling it was. I was not destined to put that finish over though, for when
the score reached 30-15, my companion touched me on the shoulder and held up
his hand for silence. In his beautifully modulated and honey-toned voice he then
gave out the announcement: We are leaving here now and going over to the Girls'
Friendly Society Concert at the Albert Hall." Wakelam apparently
"felt like throwing the mike through the window"
Cricket commentary followed on 6 August 1927 with the County
Championship match between Surrey and Middlesex. Wakelam immediately
encountered a perennial problem for cricket commentators when he recalled that
batsman "Andy Sandham was holding the fort, perhaps one of the best men
possible in such a case but the rate of scoring, from a broadcasting point of
view, was the most distressing, and the high spots and desperately exciting
incidents upon which we had gaily dwelt beforehand were absolutely non-existent".
Finally another piece of bizarre broadcasting occurred when
the BBC covered the 1929 FA Cup Final. The Corporation had been unable to get permission
to provide a proper commentary of the Portsmouth Town vs Bolton Wanderers match
so it was just billed as "Eye Witness Accounts". In practice this
meant that the BBC rented a flat near the ground to install all the microphones
and other equipment. They then purchased eight tickets for the eight reporters
who would cover the game, each of them witnessing their allotted 15 minutes of
play and then leaving the stadium and running at full speed to the flat and
relaying what they had seen from their notes for about nine or ten minutes.
Gramophone records were on hand to fill any gaps with music. One of the team
had been a cross-country runner so his dispatch was given without him sounding
breathless. Another, P.W. Adams, marred his report by talking about "Mr
So-and-so then passed to Mr Someone-else". And finally an older member of
the team, Tommy Usher, arrived a "trifle distressed" and told the
audience that "Chelsea have scored", presumably momentarily mislead
by the fact that Portsmouth were playing in blue. One writer later described the coverage as
"the most humorous item on the BBC programme of 1929."
As well as radio Teddy Wakelam also provided some of the
first 'sight commentaries' when BBC TV covered Wimbledon in 1937. In addition
he appeared on some of the pre-war Monthly
Sports Bulletins broadcast from Alexandra Palace as well as writing on
rugby for The Morning Post and
providing commentaries for British Movietone News. He continued to work for BBC
radio until early 1940 (as far as billings in the Radio Times are concerned). Post-war the biographical details are
very sketchy though he continued to write about his beloved rugby and in 1954
published Harlequin Story. He died in
July 1963 aged 70.
Here's Teddy Wakelam in action:
Sources:
Half-Time 'the Mike
and Me' by H.B.T. Wakelam (Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1938)
The History of
Broadcasting in the United Kingdom: Volume 1 The Birth of Broadcasting by
Asa Briggs (OUP, 1995)
The History of
Broadcasting in the United Kingdom: Volume 2 The Golden Age of Wireless by
Asa Briggs (OUP, 1995)
I go back far enough to remember when Radio 2 (and Radio 1)
closed down at midnight and didn't come back on-air until 6am. There was
nothing but dead air, save for the occasional test tone. Insomniacs and night
shift workers (always the two 'groups' that are trotted out on these occasions)
could only get their overnight radio on Luxembourg, until 3am, the World
Service, one of the many foreign stations on medium wave and long wave or one
of the few ILR stations that provided a 24-hour service.
All that changed, at least as far as Radio 2 was concerned,
when You and the Night and the Music
filled the 'gap' from January 1979 and there was a friendly voice, picked from
the team of continuity announcers, to either lull you to sleep or keep you
awake, depending on whether you were operating heavy machinery or not!
I mention this bit of radio history in light of the
announcement from Radio 2 this week that from next month there will be no live
overnight programmes on the station between midnight and 5 am. (And indeed from
10pm to 5 am on some nights of the week). All due to budget cuts of course. The
fallout from this is the loss of Janice Long and Alex Lester, aka The Dark
Lord, both of whom enjoy a loyal following. Those overnight shows apparently
pick up an audience of about 900,000. Huey Morgan and Bob Harris's shows at the
weekend remain unscathed, and re-scheduled at a more user-friendly hour.
In their place we are promised the continuation of the
repeat of some music shows, e.g. Pick of
the Pops, Sounds of the 60s and,
rather more curiously, Radio 2 Playlists
"which are uniquely curated by our leading music presenters and music team
and that our audience can enjoy on the radio or on demand". In other words
a 3-hour jukebox service. The fact that it can be enjoyed "on demand"
is a little disingenuous; so can the rest of Radio 2's output including the
shows that currently get an overnight repeat. And while we're on the subject
since when did "curated" replace "selected" or "chosen"?
So far the reaction to this announcement has, understandably,
been critical. How can what is claimed to be Europe's top music station not
offer live overnight radio? Why cut the After Midnight shows when other
presenters (insert name here) are paid mega-bucks? Given that the big
commercial groups offer live radio in the wee small hours why can't the BBC?
By my reckoning this change pushes the total number of
pre-recorded shows (or not live) from 19% to 32% of the station's weekly output
- the actual figure depending on whether or not Paul O'Grady makes it into the
studio and if Dermot O'Leary is on X Factor
duty.
After 38 years of night-time broadcasting it's a pretty
sorry state of affairs when a substantial part of the station's listenership
are disenfranchised and can no longer enjoy the intimacy and companionship that
only live radio can offer.
As for Janice and Alex they will, we are told, continue to broadcast on BBC radio. The
reality is, I suspect, that we'll see
them get a regular gig on BBC local radio. You can hear Alex Lester talking candidly to Stuart Clarkson about Radio 2's decision on this week's Radio Today podcast.
For the record
The current schedule with two hours of overnight repeats
started in October 2014 but Radio 2 wasn't averse to putting out repeats
before, albeit limited to just an hour. When You and the Night and the Music (1979-84) started it was live music
and chat with pre-recorded features. The budget was a pittance and needletime
so restricted that it only allowed for two records in a 3 or 4 hour show. An
hour's worth of repeats of the like of Two's
Best or Folk on 2 started in 1982
but between 1985 and January 1990 it was music all the way with an hour long
sequence called A Little Night Music filling
the gap.
Again there were repeats in 1990 and 1991 but the majority
of the overnight hours consisted of Night
Ride (which incorporated A Little
Night Music until July 1992) and an early show kicking off at 4am, both
presented by a roster of continuity announcers. Alex Lester started his
reign as king of the overnights from September 1993 with a 3am show. The Night Ride title was dropped in 1995 but
the presenters remained unchanged with either Steve Madden or Charles Nove
taking the lion's share of the midnight to 3am slot. By late 1998 Katrina
Leskanich was drafted into the post-midnight show until April 2000 when Janice
Long took over. Alex and Janice have remained as the main weekday overnight
presenters ever since.
Ahead of this evening's classified football results on Sports Report I'm briefly going back to
January 1969 when Liverpool and Leeds topped Division 1.
Sports Report, then
running as part of the Sports Service
on Radio 3, was beginning its 21st year on air and was still produced by its
founding father Angus Mackay. "He is the brains and heart of the show. The
man behind the microphone who leads and guides and inspires and cajoles".
Taking a look behind the scenes of Sports Report in 1969 was Harry Brown writing in the January
edition of Football League Review.
I'm grateful to John Flitter who kindly scanned these pages for me.
Eagle-eyed readers will spot that the photos on page 17 have
been transposed; the set starting with Vincent Duggleby are actually at the
bottom of the page and vice-versa.
Exactly twenty five years and 1991 draws to a close. Radio
1's Newsbeat team review the year.
The Gulf War comes to an end. (A long sequence is played over Oleta Adams's Get There: "You can reach me by
caravan, cross the desert like an Arab man.") Right Said Fred get too sexy
for their shirts. The death of Freddie Mercury. There's a wind of change blowing through the Soviet
Block (cue the Scorpions). Bryan Adams hangs onto the number one spot for an
eternity. The grey Prime Minister has his first full year as PM. Terry Waite is
released.
News 91 Review of the Year was broadcast on BBC Radio 1 on
31 December 1991.
Here's a fascinating piece of analysis that, according to The Guardian, is the "most
comprehensive analysis ever carried out of comedy panel shows". Conducted
by Stuart Lowe of the Open Data Institute it concludes that "only once in
the history of British TV and radio has a programme had an all-female line-up".
Lowe observed that few women appeared on panel games and was
determined to undertake a more scientific approach to analysing whether or not
this was actually the case. The Guardian
report continues: "Of more than 4,700 individual episodes examined ...
1,488 programmes since 1967 have been made up solely of men. But only on one
occasion in 49 years has there been a programme in which the presenter and all
the panel were women – an episode of BBC Radio 4’s Heresy in January 2012 presented by Victoria Coren-Mitchell".
Whilst Lowe appears to overlook Petticoat Line (1965-74) which arguably became a more comedic show -
a sort of all-women Does the Team Think
- and was always 100% female then in theory this edition from the eighth series
of Heresy is a piece of broadcasting
history.
According to Coren-Mitchell “the thing that surprised me is
that it turned out to be the silliest episode of the series. My theory is that,
because productions usually put one woman on a panel show (or none) and stop
there, women get used to having to (at some wearisome level) ‘represent’ female
humour when we appear on these shows ... but with four women the pressure was
off. It was nobody’s individual responsibility to prove anything. So we all got
the chance to just mess about, relax and make free jokes like men do.”
So here is that edition of Heresy from 4 January 2012 (though I think my recording is of a
subsequent repeat). With Victoria Coren-Mitchell are Sue Perkins, Cerys
Matthews and Maureen Lipman.
Postscript
Since I first drafted this blog post last week I've been in
touch with Stuart about the Petticoat
Line and he's now updated his data and created a Wikipedia article on the
show. I was pretty sure I had a couple of audio clips but so far I've only
tracked this one down from 1969.
Petticoat Line
aside Stuart's basic arguments remain that on radio and TV "nearly all
these long-running shows under-represent women even if you ignore the regulars.
Few shows have equal representation amongst guests."
It was the kind of shock ending to Christmas Day that you'd expect from one of the soaps. But this news was real enough. As I sit drafting this post at 2 am on Boxing Day listening
to the hits of George Michael, currently playing back-to-back on Heart, I fear
my words cannot do justice to his music and career. But oh, what a voice.
So instead let's hear George talking about himself and
performing in concert twenty years ago. The
interview, conducted by Chris Evans, was part of the warm-up for a concert
recorded in October 1996 in the Radio Theatre at Broadcasting House. He touches
on smoking, the Sony lawsuit, sexuality and the reasons he wants to get back on
stage.
This programme, An
Audience with George Michael, was first heard on BBC Radio 1 on 8 December
1996. My tape started partway through the interview so I've tidied it up a
little. And if anyone has the first 30 or so minutes please contact me.
