Bigness as usual
By Ian Parker
Section
Culture
Arts, entertainment, television, theatre and more.
37,094 stories · Page 1765 of 1767
Culture stories
An Offa you can't refuse
Next time we're negotiating the interchange between the M40 and the M6 at Spaghetti Junction, I shall replay Jonathan Davidson's treatment for radio of Mercian Hymns (Radio 4) by Geoffrey Hill to remind me that Birmingham isn't as awful as it looks from up there. You can tell by the 11.30pm scheduling of this gloriously original piece what they think of experimental radio at the Beeb.
By Sue Arnold·
Listening Brief
How did we manage to dissipate the reputation British films gained in the postwar years? Michael Freedland starts a four-part history of the industry over the past 60 years. A Very British Story (Radio 2, 7.0pm) seems aptly titled. After the long decline, we are on a roll at the moment: lottery money has poured in and productions like Four Weddings And A Funeral, The Full Monty and Sliding Doors have impressed the international market. But can it last? We still rely heavily on American finance. Freedland interviews most of the major figures who've helped shape the business.
By Harold Jackson·
Last night's TV
Castrating a guinea pig isn't easy at the best of times. They tend to retract their testicles even under anaesthetic and, frankly, who can blame them? So what you have to do is massage them out again - the testicles. Quite fiddly given the scale of things.
By Sam Wollaston·
Dish of the day
An outbreak of stubble in the new series of ER (Sky One, 9.30pm); all the docs now bristle their jaws at the lens, not just Clooney. Music is getting intrusive: we don't need the piano equivalent of an IV dripping in emotion.
By Vera Rule·
Watching Brief
Dispatches (C4, 9.0pm) A six-foot security guard is knocked unconscious, stabbed and beaten by his five-foot girlfriend. A weeping police officer describes how his wife tried to suffocate him with a pillow while he slept. And a woman justifies pouring bleach on her partner's genitals while he was in bed. In this analysis of the largest-ever survey of male victims of domestic violence, Dispatches reveals the shame many men feel about their predicament and explores why so many - like their female counterparts - remain with abusive partners.
By Francesca Turner·
Radio
It's not much help on radio, of course, but the philosopher Helena Cronin has commented that her own build represents 'the perfect female shape'. She should know: her PhD dealt with Darwinian theory, from which the evolutionary ideal for female waist-to-hip measurements derives. Not that she's concerned with that today. Her return engagement with Melvyn Bragg is to join Germaine Greer for a discussion of the present state of feminism in In Our Time (Radio 4, 9.0am).
By Harold Jackson·
And it's Norman, by a couple of lengths
They said it couldn't be done. With a smile he went right to it. He tackled that thingThat couldn't be doneAnd couldn't do it.
By Nancy Banks-Smith·
So whose daughter are you?
There are certain conventions you have to respect when talking about my family, suggests Jemma Redgrave. Certain preferred words and phrases. 'Firebrand', for example, is a must - to describe the politics of Redgrave's father Corin and Auntie Vanessa, both of whom were active in the Workers' Revolutionary Party. And then there's 'theatrical dynasty', of course. As in grandfather Michael and grandmother Rachel Kempson, dropping a generation to Vanessa, Lynn and Corin, dropping another generation to Natasha and Joely Richardson (Vanessa's children) and Redgrave herself.
By Simon Hattenstone·
Listening Brief
Diving for underwater treasure, once seen as a rather dotty hobby, has gradually expanded into a major business. As an example, one well-financed consortium recently claimed to be on the trail of bullion and jewellery from wartime Atlantic wrecks. In The Reclaimers (Radio 4, 11.0am) Peter Benchley (author of Jaws) paints a portrait of people like himself, prepared to risk not only danger but extreme boredom in their quest for oceanic riches.
By Harold Jackson·
Last night's TV
Professor Gus McClain has it all - a beautiful lawyer wife, a lovely home, terrific good looks and a Volvo, which according to all the ads is a big deal. So the guy has it coming to him, right? Things can only get worse (as they now sing in the Labour Party).
By Desmond Christy·
Watching brief
Dream House (BBC-1, 7.30pm) Introducing the Millennium Home - a green, eco-friendly, intelligent-technology house of the future, the erection of which will be followed stage by stage in the course of this six-part series. Also applying itself to high-tech makeovers of Real Houses, and consumer-testing state-of-the-art domestic appliances, it's presented inevitably by Millennium Dame herself, Carol Vogueperson.
By Sandy Smithies·
Dish of the day
Confession: we didn't wholly take to the new Cider With Rosie (ITV2, 8.0pm). It looked as if they were trying to transpose Malick's Days Of Heaven to Gloucester, only there are no wide horizons to the village of Slad. Juliet Stevenson as Laurie Lee's mum: yeah, but we first saw Rosemary Leach in the part - that was Mrs Lee as Lol Lee recalled his mam, daft in a clatter of pans, or tumbling downhill to stop the bus to Stroud. Now that LL himself has gone, how we remember the first version's end, with the real Lol in age passing his acted childhood self down the lane.
By Vera Rule·
Dish of the Day
Jean Renoir's Boudu Saved From Drowning (FilmFour, 6.0pm) dates from 1932, but you'd never notice, since the tramp who is saved and taken in as unpaying guest in a previously civilised household is a very 1968 figure - somebody who needs there to be system and order so he can blithely ignore them. All done with the social knowingness of Renoir (esp. the tramp's seduction of his saviour's wife) and his modern easiness about mobility of camera - amazing when you think how the early talkies rigidified the shooting of scenes. It's all very swift and light.
By Vera Rule·
Television Tuesday
Weight Of The Nation (BBC-1, 8.0pm) Out with the Old Year and in with the New You, exhorts the Beeb, urging us to put recent excesses behind us, stick to the resolutions and go for a fresh start. The new Fighting Fat, Fighting Fit season of programmes, running on both TV and radio, is a heavyweight health campaign aimed at getting the nation into better shape. The new-look, reduced-fat Dale Winton eases us in with an entertaining assessment of British attitudes to eating and exercising, which also introduces the campaign's teams of experts and guinea-pigs.
By Sandy Smithies·
Radio
As the Christmas decorations come down, Ainsley Harriott confirms the end of the festive season with Fighting Fat, Fighting Fit, Radio 2's contribution to a BBC radio and television health campaign. It's been sparked by the discovery that nearly one quarter of the British population is already overweight, largely through gluttony. The breakfast-table audience gets the first blast from Sarah Kennedy (Radio 2, 7.30am).
By Harold Jackson·
Last night's TV
The Cops were not real cops but they were sold as being more real than the real thing. Already there are adverts for a new police documentary series which tells us that now that we have seen The Cops we can see real cops in Mersey Blues, a documentary about a real police force. It can only be a matter of time before the fake thing, such as The Cops, appears more real than the real thing, such as Mersey Blues. We will have to wait until tomorrow night to find out how Mersey Blues measures up.
By Desmond Christy·
So farewell, Alf, you old skinflint
"Dead don't make you better" - comedian Alan King's father on his brother-in-law Nat Alf Roberts, spookily named after Mrs Thatcher's father, who was also a grocer and alderman, died in his chair at a New Year's Eve party. No one noticed for a while. With Alf, you had to look closely.
Television Monday
Carol Vorderman's Better Homes (ITV except Ulster, 8.30pm) Not to be confused with Dream House, about futuristic architecture, which starts on BBC-1 on Wednesday, presented by. . . you guessed? This takes the home makeover challenge a stage beyond Changing Rooms (which returns the same night and hasn't as yet been Vordermanned, but give it time). Two lots of neighbours are asked to make structural alterations; the ones who improve their property value the most get a cash prize.
By Sandy Smithies·
Radio: Listening Brief
As eleven nations give birth to the Euro, Wake Up To Money (Radio 5 Live, 5.45am) and Today (Radio 4, 6.0am) report from the currency dealing rooms on its early progress.
By Harold Jackson·