Noise – A Human History

You could say that Neil MacGregor revolutionised radio with his mega-series A History of the World in 100 Objects. In each of those 100 programmes he took us on an extraordinary journey of the mind, to show us what we’ve been up to since the first ‘primitive’ reindeer carvings of the Ice Age. He did this not by the usual route for such grandiose series of going on a whirlwind trip through history, but by looking at the small, often tiny details and drawing from them as much meaning as possible. He also transformed the 15-minute radio slot into a brilliant teaching tool, focusing on the minuscule while at the same time building block upon block of knowledge, so that if we listened to the programmes in sequence we came away feeling jolly clever.

He has not been an easy act to follow. Others have tried to do the same kind of survey series, on the study of the brain and on our passion for sport, for example, but have only shown how difficult it is to achieve the same balance of erudition and entertainment. MacGregor’s scripts were always impeccably accessible without being patronising, and as inviting and vivid as they were informative. They were also purely aural, while being primarily about images and objects. No small feat. (There is still a website of images from the series but you really didn’t need to go there to appreciate the full impact of the radio programmes.)

David Hendy’s new series for Radio 4, Noise: A Human History, is shaping up to be another classic. He’s the professor of media studies at Sussex University and has written a book on the history of the old Home Service network. Sound is his medium and his fascination is with the story of aural communication since that time when we were carving stone and ivory into images of bison, bears and pregnant women.