Walking and talking

It’s all in the voice.

It’s all in the voice. Whether or not the person speaking is seeking to engage the listener, or just saying what comes into their head without much thought of what they are trying to get across, or of who they are talking to and why they might want to listen. I reckon it’s not easy. Clare Balding has a gift for it, taking us along with her every step of the way as she walks the country for her Ramblings series on Radio 4 (Saturdays). Dominic Arkwright and his guests on Off the Page (Thursday) never got further than the studio mike.

They were discussing what it means to be ‘foreign’, that feeling of being a stranger — not unwelcome, just different. When did you first realise that not everyone was like you? Arkwright asked Joe Queenan, Amanda Mitchison and Elvis MacGonagall (not his real name but a pastiche devised for his comedy act). The discussion could have become quite metaphysical — after all, it takes us to the heart of that mysterious process in childhood when we start thinking like an adult, and realise we are part of a wider world. It would have done so under the guidance of the professor of the airwaves, Melvyn Bragg.

The trouble with Off the Page lies in the format. Arkwright asked each of his guests to talk on the subject one-by-one, rather than getting them to converse with each other. Joe Queenan gave us a mini-speech about his childhood in Philadelphia as an Irish-American, and the exotic aura of the Italian delis in his neighbourhood. But it felt as if we were being harangued rather than informed and I switched off from what he was saying almost immediately.