Engagement & the beauty of the human voice.

Possibly the ponciest title I could find. 

I was struck, today (metaphorically, you understand) as I was unloading the dishwasher.  

On my own, in the kitchen, with the family phaffing about in another room, and the self-consciously eccentric Stanley Baxter Playhouse having just finished - I was joined by someone else: Nicola Walker.

She wasn't really in the room with me (that would have been weird and probably rather awkward) but I became utterly absorbed by her voice and the story she was telling.

It was the second episode of three of Annika Stranded, a new Scandanavian detective character (there weren't enough) whom the blurb says is "not as astute as Sarah Lund or Saga Norén perhaps, but probably better company".  I think the blurb is right!

I had every intention of reviewing Desert Island Discs, with guest Aung San Suu Kyi - an excellent edition for lots of reasons - but I realised, bent over the crockery, I had become that most precious artefact, sought by every practitioner of radio from community station volunteer to World Service controller: an engaged listener.

Engagement is an over-used word in communications - but rarely happens with the consumer (in our case, listener) and if it does, not for very long. 

It is true that there is more and more to distract us from what we ought to be doing - but that's one of the things that makes radio so tremendous. I was supposed to be emptying the dishwasher (Oh! The glamour of the blogosphere!) - which Twitter or the TV would probably have made a whole lot clumsier. A story being told to me and me alone captured me and my imagination and yet enabled me to do what needed to be done, dull as it was.

Nicola Walker

No speech radio snob, here - a dose of Dan and Phill on Radio 1 or Christian's Choice Cuts on Absolute - might do a similar job, but for me it was the beautiful voice of Nicola Walker and the words of Nick Walker (related? Don't know...) which drew me in. 

In the heady world of showbiz I occasionally inhabit, actors give credit to writers and writers (occasionally) to performers. The truth is, it's the synergy between the words, the voice and the technical jiggery-pokery which creates an arena for engagement.  The sum of its parts, plus VAT.

All the programme makers left to chance was that bit of magic which kept the kids out of the kitchen for half an hour!

Annika Stranded is a beautifully crafted gem and I recommend you give it fifteen minutes when you can. 

It's available on the BBC Radio iPlayer till Sunday.  Each programme works as a short story, so it doesn't matter if you've missed the first in the series.

As ever, I'd be glad to hear from you, below. Is there an aspect of radio you'd like me to cover or discuss?

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In and Out of the Kitchen - Review - 21 Jan 13

A picture of Miles Jupp I borrowed
from the BBC Website

I have very few regrets, except putting a "coins into piggy-bank" sound effect over a recording of a poem by Spike Milligan.

He had given a beautiful reading of "Pennies from Heaven" which I had the audacity to think I could illuminate. I was probably wrong - it was too "on the nose" (snout?) and the programme would have been better without it.

No one seemed to mind, though Roger the engineer gave me an "are you sure" sort of look - it was only one of the 40 or so poems - and, bizarrely, said cassette is still on sale via via Amazon for $551.19. World's gone mad.

Anyway, sound effects can make, or mar, a radio production and this week's "pick" (with one notable exception) uses them superbly.

Today I listened to the first episode of the second series of Miles Jupp's superb, In and Out of the Kitchen. A total joy. I shall not burden you with plot - if truth be told there isn't a great deal to burden you with - but the production, writing and especially performances make this a real highlight.

Well, how would YOU illustrate
sound effects?

I don't mean to get hung up on the FX (too late!) but there are two (maybe more, doesn't matter for now) "schools" of thought: The Archers school where the listener might believe the action is really taking place in a pub / field / Jazzer's bedroom sections; and the more impressionist school where the effects are counter-realistic, but create atmosphere, pace and (in this case) comedy.

Producer Sam Michell has - notably in the recipe bits - added effects with such grace and rhythm that it feels almost like a musical accompaniment.  As a listener, you might not even notice them (sometimes that's the point, too) but they add considerably to the overall enjoyment of the programme.

Miles Jupp's performance as Damien Trench is superb (he'll not thank me for reminding you he was Archie the Inventor in nursery edu-soap Balamory) - perhaps because he's not a million miles from Jupp himself: awkward, self-effacing and hilarious. He's teamed with the hugely likeable Justin Edwards (both, co-incidentally, alumni of topical comedy sketch show Newsjack on BBC Radio 4 Extra).  They're the straightest gay couple outside Ambridge and their scenes together are witty and engaging, but too few.

This episode is fairly conventionally structured with an A-plot conceding a restaurant review and the hunt for a suitable lodger: "Am I really going to have to use the phrase guest bedroom?" The B-plot concerns Trench's literary agent, from whom I suspect we can expect to hear considerably more as the series progresses.

It's a scene with the agent that, if forced, I might take minor issue with - and it's sound effect related! In a script filled with originality, and a scene with some beautifully observed drunken dialogue, the section with expletives obscured by car horns and police sirens, felt rather out of place. Easy jokes more readily at home on a topical comedy sketch show, perhaps.

When you're enjoying the world created by radio you can forgive it a momentary lapse (we've all had them) and I enjoyed this world very much.  Did I mention it was also very, very funny?

IN AND OUT OF THE KITCHEN can be heard on BBC Radio 4, 
Mondays at 1130am from 21st January and via the BBC Radio iPlayer.

Click HERE for the programme's page on the Radio 4 website.

I'd be delighted to hear your views on the programme - or any aspect of radio - in the section below.

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Tom Thumb Redux - Review - BBC Radio 4 11 Jan 2013

An awful lot of unrest in the world.

There tends to be a lot of shouting in radio drama - most of it in cars.

To be fair, they don't always shout - quite often there's a good deal of muttering and a stately pause as the actor girds him or her self for a good old roar. And sometimes it's in a field or outside a pub.

On a good day the shouting is enough to stop a passer-by in his or her tracks as they pass my office door. I smile weakly and say, "it's just Radio 4..."

Either that or it's someone washing up and reflecting on a few lessons learned in the previous 40 minutes.

Of course - I exaggerate. But not much.

Friday's play (sorry - DRAMA. I don't know why they don't call them plays any more. I am sure the meeting will have used the word contemporary more than once) was one of those absolutely ear-catching exceptions to the rule.  I listened to it again, tonight, and I insist that you do, too.

Ron Cook - actor

Tom (played by Ron Cook, pictured) is not having a good day when the story opens. It looks likely he's going to get the sack from his job as a research scientist (the money's run out and he doesn't seem the easiest man in the world to get along with, either at home or at work) - He feels fat and unloved.

I am not going to tell you much more of the plot - I hate that in reviews - but some rash, drink fuelled, self-experimentation leads to Tom ... shrinking. How he, his wife and his colleague deal with it and the situation it leaves them in makes for a splendid 45 minutes listen.

This is a prime example of when original radio drama works - it carries the listener, at first by comedy and then by horror, into the minds of the characters. We are right there asking ourselves how on earth the character might deal with the situation - and ultimately how we might react in similar (if unlikely) circumstances.

The dialogue, expertly provided by writer Melissa Murray, is augmented superbly by the un-credited provider of the music which fitted the mood perfectly. (Maybe it was just something plucked from the depths of the library by producer / director Marc Beeby - in which case a hat-tip to his decisions). Also the way in which the central character's voice was "shrunk" worked perfectly. No helium-filled comedy-squeeking, here. This was pitch-perfect.

The overall atmosphere of the piece was unsettlingly disjointed - an effect subtly created by breaking one of the rules of drama production. Instead of scenes smoothly and almost unnoticeably eliding into one another, these abruptly cut and re-started (a technique used in TV & film, but rarely in radio) to great effect.  And make sure you listen all the way to the end...

I wanted to confidently recommend a production in my first blog, especially to reluctant "not for me" non-drama listeners. Give this a go. Tell me what you think. 

Don't make me shout about it.

Click HERE. Tom Thumb Redux, by Melissa Murray. BBC Radio 4

The world needs another blog like I need another chocolate biscuit.

Not me - but it might as well have been

I have decided to try and get my thoughts about speech radio - and most notably comedy and drama - scrawled as coherently as I can on this virtual toilet wall.

I've never done anything like it before.

Why?

I have probably listened to the radio every single day of my life since I was a tiny child - I've been entertained, informed, amused, aghast, impressed and deflated by the sounds I've heard. This is the approach I wish to take with my blog - a listener with something to say. 

And hopefully a listener who can persuade, encourage and tempt non-listeners into a world of information, stimulation and imagination.

Taking the piss or pointing out short-comings is easy. So I'll probably do that at first ... but what I really want to do is have something constructive to say about an aspect of popular culture in the UK about which I care passionately.

I have no idea if anyone will ever read this - but there's little point in the false modesty of thinking "I'm doing this for me" - I already know what I think about stuff.  I want to find and converse with others who might share my point of view - or oppose it.

I just hope I can make it interesting (and short!) enough to catch somebody's attention.

Biscuit, anyone?

Yummy