David Hepworth on big bands, Essex memories, Red Army marchers, and the sound of Ken Bruce
One of the best moments on Radio 2 happens every day when *Chris Evans* (weekdays, 6.30am, R2) hands over to *Ken Bruce* (weekdays, 9.30am, R2). These two are representatives of a threatened species in that they're proper radio people and you can guarantee that when they do finally retire they're bound to be replaced by middling TV stars.
Being proper radio people they have proper radio voices, albeit very different ones. Evans makes a jaunty sound, like a chromatic harmonica on an old recording of The Goons. Ken Bruce, on the other hand … well, his voice is like the organ of the Royal Albert Hall, an instrument that, as you will know, has 9,997 speaking pipes. I've heard 10-piece bands that hit fewer notes than Ken achieves during a time check. Ken merely has to remark "That was Boz Scaggs there with Lido Shuffle," to engage whole new areas of the audio spectrum, to send up bluebirds from your tweeters and clouds of dust out of your woofers. The BBC really ought to register him alongside their other orchestras.
Speaking of big bands, *When Garry Met Tony* (Saturday, 10.30am, R4) describes what happens when sports presenter Garry Richardson sets out to fulfil his ambition of performing Sinatra with a big band. Richardson has pleasant pipes but the sound made by a 14-piece lineup, which is small by classic-era standards, is so full of itself that it takes an immense vocal personality to avoid being swamped. The Tony of the title is Tony Douglas, who now runs the amateur big band at Morley College in London. Witnesses to the glory days of the big band era, when the very air was full of blare, include Michael Parkinson and Buddy Greco. Buddy now lives in Southend. You heard.
Talking of Southend, *Essex, My Essex* (Friday, 11am, R4) follows author Ian Sansom back to his native county and finds its identity crisis unresolved in spite of 40 years of TV comedy and pop sociology. For his East End grandfather, who would make him beetroot sandwiches while they watched the wrestling together, Ongar was anything but a joke. For a start it was a paradise compared to Poplar.
Sansom, who's a genial presence and a very good interviewer, visits the bunker where the government planned to decamp in case of a nuclear war, talks to a survivor of the Essex Liberation Front, runs his hands over a Henry Moore, and talks to teenagers in Harlow. He also finds someone who confirms his memory of Ongar character Nobby, who had a long white beard, lived in a bus shelter and had tea and toast made for him every morning by the police. The impossibly poignant sound of Wonderful Land by the Shadows is on the verge of being a documentary cliche. It's all over this programme. One of the reasons it became a cliche is because nothing else would sound quite so perfect.
*The Long March* (Wednesday, 11am, R4) marks the 80th anniversary of the 8,000-mile trek undertaken by 86,000 Red Army men and women in 1934. The first thing that Edward Stourton finds out is that lots of those 86,000 were what we would now call children. The second thing is that it wasn't an advance but a retreat. He talks to some Chinese teenagers who are visiting the site of the march and asks them what it has to teach them. One of them uses the expression "iron mind". You wouldn't get that in Harlow. Reported by guardian.co.uk 8 hours ago.
One of the best moments on Radio 2 happens every day when *Chris Evans* (weekdays, 6.30am, R2) hands over to *Ken Bruce* (weekdays, 9.30am, R2). These two are representatives of a threatened species in that they're proper radio people and you can guarantee that when they do finally retire they're bound to be replaced by middling TV stars.
Being proper radio people they have proper radio voices, albeit very different ones. Evans makes a jaunty sound, like a chromatic harmonica on an old recording of The Goons. Ken Bruce, on the other hand … well, his voice is like the organ of the Royal Albert Hall, an instrument that, as you will know, has 9,997 speaking pipes. I've heard 10-piece bands that hit fewer notes than Ken achieves during a time check. Ken merely has to remark "That was Boz Scaggs there with Lido Shuffle," to engage whole new areas of the audio spectrum, to send up bluebirds from your tweeters and clouds of dust out of your woofers. The BBC really ought to register him alongside their other orchestras.
Speaking of big bands, *When Garry Met Tony* (Saturday, 10.30am, R4) describes what happens when sports presenter Garry Richardson sets out to fulfil his ambition of performing Sinatra with a big band. Richardson has pleasant pipes but the sound made by a 14-piece lineup, which is small by classic-era standards, is so full of itself that it takes an immense vocal personality to avoid being swamped. The Tony of the title is Tony Douglas, who now runs the amateur big band at Morley College in London. Witnesses to the glory days of the big band era, when the very air was full of blare, include Michael Parkinson and Buddy Greco. Buddy now lives in Southend. You heard.
Talking of Southend, *Essex, My Essex* (Friday, 11am, R4) follows author Ian Sansom back to his native county and finds its identity crisis unresolved in spite of 40 years of TV comedy and pop sociology. For his East End grandfather, who would make him beetroot sandwiches while they watched the wrestling together, Ongar was anything but a joke. For a start it was a paradise compared to Poplar.
Sansom, who's a genial presence and a very good interviewer, visits the bunker where the government planned to decamp in case of a nuclear war, talks to a survivor of the Essex Liberation Front, runs his hands over a Henry Moore, and talks to teenagers in Harlow. He also finds someone who confirms his memory of Ongar character Nobby, who had a long white beard, lived in a bus shelter and had tea and toast made for him every morning by the police. The impossibly poignant sound of Wonderful Land by the Shadows is on the verge of being a documentary cliche. It's all over this programme. One of the reasons it became a cliche is because nothing else would sound quite so perfect.
*The Long March* (Wednesday, 11am, R4) marks the 80th anniversary of the 8,000-mile trek undertaken by 86,000 Red Army men and women in 1934. The first thing that Edward Stourton finds out is that lots of those 86,000 were what we would now call children. The second thing is that it wasn't an advance but a retreat. He talks to some Chinese teenagers who are visiting the site of the march and asks them what it has to teach them. One of them uses the expression "iron mind". You wouldn't get that in Harlow. Reported by guardian.co.uk 8 hours ago.