‘Is there anybody there?’ is the question that Anne McElvoy could have asked Diane Abbott in their now-infamous Today programme interview last Wednesday.
‘Is there anybody there?’ is the question that Anne McElvoy could have asked Diane Abbott in their now-infamous Today programme interview last Wednesday. If by chance you missed this classic radio moment, Ms Abbott had just been telling us how she intends (as a candidate for the leadership of the Labour party) to address the issues that ‘ordinary members’ of the party want to talk about — rather than to indulge in the highfalutin conversations of those who walk the corridors of power. With remarkable adroitness, Ms McElvoy then dropped the bombshell question. So what about your son James who’s in private education? What will the ordinary members of the party think about that? Ms Abbott’s reply spoke volumes. Or rather it didn’t. She said not a word. Not a squeak. Not even a harrumph of protest or sigh of indignation. All we got was the crackle and pop of the ether for 17 whole seconds, as we, the listeners, digested the fact that a politician had for once been totally silenced.
I rather wish Ms McElvoy had kept us all in suspense for a while longer before interrupting, ‘Aren’t you going to comment on that?’ Silence is never dead space — but surprisingly it’s rarely used on radio, the perfect medium for exploring the powerful resonances of non-verbal communication in the aftermath of an incident, a thought, a moment of insight. Seventeen seconds was just not long enough for Ms Abbott to reflect on the question, and for us to ponder her reply as the reactions of interviewee and interviewer crackled through the ether.
Radio itself killed off silence for ever, punctuating our every wakeful moment with voices and music transmitted to us invisibly by means of electronic signals about which most of us have little comprehension and much fear. Sunday night’s drama on Radio 3, Between Two Worlds, took us back to those early days of wireless communication, developed commercially by Marconi, Tesla, Fessenden and Hertz while other scientists such as Dr Oliver Lodge were intrigued not so much by the possible communication in the here and now but by what else they might be able to tap in to once it became possible to create connections through space. What about all those voices flying around in the ether, the voices of the once-dead? Will these new wireless boxes enable us to make contact with them? Is it their voices, struggling to get in touch, that we can hear in the popping, scratching and squeaking of the static between radio signals? The crackle of the universe.
Lodge lectured at the Royal Institution as an eminent physicist exploring this brave new world of electronic technology, but he also dabbled in psychic phenomena, believing that wireless might allow the spirits of people from other ages to speak to us. When his son Raymond is killed in the first world war, he and his wife Mary make contact with mediums and begin to hold seances in the hope that they can keep Raymond alive in the spirit, if not in the flesh. The conversations in these seances were transcribed and form the framework of the play by Adrian Bean and David Hendy. Like Lodge before them, their interest was not so much in the technical development of wireless communication but in ‘radio’ as a philosophical possibility, in what’s out there hovering between signals, between plays, between stations. Is there anybody there?
A clever bit of writing on Radio 4 last week melded fact and fiction rather differently in a play that drew me straight in because of the directness of its dialogue, its raw actuality. The Orchestra (devised and directed by Rosie Boulton) told the fictional story of David Adams, a conductor, approaching 49, who’s experiencing something of a midlife crisis and losing confidence in his ability to command the respect of his players. He argues with his troublesome brass section, messes up a rehearsal, begins to think that he’s going to be sacked after a disastrous tour with poor reviews. At home he whinges to his wife, while she worries about his state of mind.
All this was played out against the real-life world of the BBC Philharmonic, which is preparing for a ‘live’ Radio 3 broadcast of music by Elgar. Fictional characters blended with the real-life conductor, Rumon Gamba; speeches were sometimes written down, at others improvised by a combination of actors and actual musicians. When David (played by Philip Franks) seeks advice on how to regain his composure and win back his orchestra he talks to his former tutor at the Royal Academy of Music whom he calls Harry but who is actually played by Colin Metters, the head of conducting at the Academy. When Colin/Harry spoke you could tell he was really struggling there and then to find the right words of consolation — compelling listening in the here and now.
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