Listeners beware. Especially those of you who are unashamed Archers addicts. The antics of the denizens of Ambridge might seem like casual, everyday stuff, but they’ve probably been carefully designed to indoctrinate us with the ‘right’ kind of behaviour. That’s if a two-part documentary on the World Service, hosted by none other than Debbie Archer (alias Tamsin Greig), is to be believed.
Soap Operas: Art Imitating Life took us back to those first radio serials in America, funded in the 1930s by the big soap manufacturers to market their latest products. Yes, soap operas are so-called because they were originally given the means to go viral by firms like Colgate-Palmolive. We might think that product placement is a post-recession invention by corporations desperate to find new ways to flog their products. Not a bit of it. Back in 1931 SuperSuds funded Clara, Lu and Em, the first daytime daily drama, produced and aired by Chicago’s WGN-AM station. Clara and co. were gossipy housewives who twittered on about their boring neighbours and brash husbands while recommending the best suds to get that whiter-than-white finish.
Serial dramas were soon recognised as ‘a powerful tool’. They still are. Greig talked to executives at companies with names like the Population Media Center and PCI Media Impact about their work developing and broadcasting soaps around the world. They call it ‘education entertainment’.
A formula for success has been developed: no more than six to ten characters, some of whom are positive, some negative and some ‘transitional’. The soaps are driven not by stories, plot, drama, but by these characters, who are made up of a series of key ‘values’ and have a serious message to convey. This ‘methodology’ works very well, we were told. Afghans are warned about landmines, in between conversations about the price of bread, South Sea Islanders are asked to welcome gays into their communities, Botswanans (where Aids has become known as ‘the radio disease’) are told about condoms.
It should be heart-warming stuff. And perhaps it is. But everyone on the programme, even Greig, talked in such ad-speak — smooth, glossy and determinedly upbeat — that it all began to sound rather sinister. ‘A bold and beautiful vision is manifested in a few key characters,’ said one interviewee. In my notes I’ve written ‘Ever felt manipulated?’
On radio, we were told, you have to create a world through words only. We’d all agree with that. But then our informant added, ‘You have no images except what you can plant in the person’s mind.’ It was that ‘plant in the mind’ which spooked me — especially this week when we’re all being wrung out emotionally by Ian’s tears over Adam and Usha’s shocking news about Amy’s too-good-to-be-true boyfriend. What’s going on behind the scenes in The Archers? What’s the hidden message? We need to know.
Nothing hidden about the gospel singer, Mahalia Jackson, famous for her versions of ‘Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho’ and ‘Amazing Grace’. On Wednesday, Cerys Matthews gave us Conjuring Halie (Radio 4), a celebration of Jackson’s fantastically rich, warm, devil-raising voice. Born in 1911, Jackson grew up poor in New Orleans, the granddaughter of an African slave. She learnt spirituals from the men singing on the riverfront, gospel in church and the blues when she moved up to Chicago to find work during the Depression. Her first big hit was ‘Move On Up a Little Higher’ in 1948. On tour she bought herself a Cadillac and slept in it most nights because the hotels would not let her as a black woman have a room.
She pushes her voice to the limit, but it’s never too much. It never grates, or sounds forced. Why is that? Because, as Matthews was told, ‘You’re hearing 400 years of struggle and survival. That’s what gives Mahalia’s voice its magnificence.’
If only this had been on Radio 2, where there’s a chance it could have been given two one-hour slots, instead of a measly half-hour. Jackson is still being cheated of her due. We needed to hear more of that amazing voice.
A love of words, and meanings, gave Jackson her power and authority. Every word to her meant something, as she rolled it around her vocal cords, playing with the rhythm, the tone, the sense, the spirit. In Lynne Truss’s series of monologues, Tidal Talk from the Rockpool, most of the laughs come from playing around with the meanings of words. The jokes will look ridiculous in print. You have to hear them, especially when told by her genius cast. Geoffrey Palmer glugs around at the bottom of the pool as the Hermit Crab moaning about the Ragworm’s inefficiency at cleaning up and the Anemone’s thumping dance music. Bill Wallis as the Periwinkle discovers what the innards of a ravenous Seagull look like: ‘My enemy’s enema is my friend.’ I told you it would look silly in print. Go listen (Radio 4, late on Tuesday nights).
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