Bbc

Thursday

Kate Chisholm

The listening project

As Classic FM celebrated its quarter-century on Wednesday with not a recording but a live broadcast of a concert from Dumfries House in Scotland — Bach, Mendelssohn, Chopin and Liszt, and the première of a specially commissioned work by the Welsh composer Paul Mealor — Radio 3 has upped the ante by announcing an autumn schedule that promises to be ‘an antidote to today’s often frenzied world’. Its new programming ranges from a special opera season and a series of organ and choral music to ‘an immersive audio impression’ of what it feels like to hang vertically on the side of a mountain, wind whistling through the ears, feet teetering

Thursday

James Delingpole

Straight to hell

No, The State (Channel 4) wasn’t a recruiting manual for the Islamic State, though I did feel uneasy about it throughout the four episodes. The fundamental problem is this: if you’re going to make a watchable drama about bad people doing terrible things, you inevitably have to humanise them. And from there it’s just a short step to making them sympathetic. Peter Kosminsky’s drama followed four British Muslims to Syria to join IS. Shakira, a black convert with a nearly-ten-year-old son, wanted to apply her skills as a doctor; Ushna was a teenager seeking to be a ‘lioness for lions’; Ziyaad was an amiable lunk looking for adventure; and his

Petroc Trelawny

‘Smile, segue and shut up’

Three weeks before Classic FM launched, I was on the radio in Hong Kong, introducing hits by Rick Astley and Wet Wet Wet. I’d just turned 21, and was working as a presenter for British Forces Radio. A phone call came from London. ‘My name is Michael Bukht. I’m setting up a new radio station and have heard good things about you. We’d like you to present our afternoon show. By the way, do you know anything about classical music?’ Michael Bukht would not have fared well in today’s consensual media world, where respect is the watchword. He was a bit of a bully, capable of exploding at anyone promoting

Thursday

Kate Chisholm

Universal appeal | 24 August 2017

Yet another sign that we are living in very strange times: a pair of celebrities, their names made by TV, have switched over to radio for their next project. Not starring in their own series on BBC2 or Channel 4, but on a medium that could have become redundant yet is refusing to give way (the latest Rajar figures indicated that listening is on the up across all networks). Plenty of stars made by radio have gone on to household-name status on TV (Steve Coogan, David Mitchell, Chris Morris). But Eric Monkman and Bobby Seagull, who began trending on Twitter because of their appearances on BBC2’s University Challenge — Monkman,

Friday

Liam Stokes

Animal rights groups fail to rally outside of social media

Another attempt to bring animal rights activism off social media and into the real world has faltered. Nothing changes, does it? But before we move on past another small march in Westminster, it might be an idea to stop and take stock of the irregularities. There are lessons to be learned for politicians, for the media and for the BBC in particular. If you missed it, and you probably did, there was a march in Westminster this past weekend. There may have been more than one for all I know; small protests in London are not uncommon. But the march in question was led by the BBC’s own Chris Packham, with

Wednesday

Steerpike

Stick around for a Corbyn premiership? ‘I’d rather walk to Sudan,’ says Channel 4 star

A brief trawl of the Foreign Office’s travel advice for Brits thinking of paying a visit to Sudan will tell you that’s it’s not the best idea – with cholera, the threat of terrorism and clashes between government forces and rebel groups on the menu. What’s more, the British Embassy no longer registers UK nationals in Sudan so help in times of crisis may be limited. However, for Levison Wood, it sure sounds a lot better than living in the UK under a Corbyn government. In an interview with the Telegraph, the Channel 4 adventurer says that if Jeremy Corbyn becomes Prime Minister, he would leave the country and… walk to Sudan: ‘For

Thursday

Kate Chisholm

Big Auntie

It’s sneaky, the way in which the BBC, so much regarded as part of the family as to be nicknamed ‘Auntie’, has introduced the need to login (or register) whenever you want to listen to something on iPlayer. Maybe I’m doing something wrong because the alert message assures me I will be kept logged in, and that I should only have to login once. But even that is once too much. After all, until now, we’ve had the chance to listen again to whatever we fancy with very little fuss and almost instantly. That freedom feels very different if you have to rummage around in your memory for the password

Thursday

Damian Thompson

Losing our religion

Sir James MacMillan’s European Requiem, performed at the Proms on Sunday, isn’t about Brexit. The composer had to make this clear in a Radio 3 interview just before the broadcast, because the BBC was just itching to cast the work — a melancholy score, despite its thunderous drumbeats — as a lament for us leaving the EU. That would have been neat, given that the second half of the concert consisted of Beethoven’s Ninth, whose ‘Ode to Joy’ has been clumsily appropriated by Brussels. Incidentally, some Remainers in the audience chattered through the symphony’s first three movements, impatient for their Big Tune. I don’t know if there were any ancient

Thursday

James Walton

1967 and all that

As you may have spotted, the BBC is marking the 50th anniversary of the decriminalisation of male homosexuality with an extended gay season. (And if you haven’t, I can only assume you’ve seen and heard no BBC trailers for months.) The centrepiece this week was Against the Law (BBC2, Wednesday), which dramatised the story of Peter Wildeblood, a Daily Mail journalist imprisoned for 18 months in 1954 for the possibly overlapping crimes of buggery and gross indecency. But — double entendre alert — Wildeblood didn’t take this lying down. After his release, he published a book making the case for legalisation. In the central role, Daniel Mays captured Wildeblood’s reluctant

Monday

Joanna Williams

The BBC sisterhood has made the ultimate sacrifice – and asked for a pay rise

The sisterhood is, apparently, ‘in full flow’ at the BBC. Since the publication last week of the salaries of its 96 highest paid presenters, discussion of the institution’s gender pay gap has filled air time and column inches. How can it be right that Clare Balding is paid less than Gary Lineker? Or that John Humphrys earns more than Sarah Montague? But if being paid less than their male colleagues wasn’t bad enough, female presenters must, it seems, also use their ‘strong and loud voices’ on ‘behalf of all’ to tackle the entrenched sexism endemic not just within the BBC but everywhere. In an open letter to the BBC’s Director

Steerpike Steerpike

Shouldn’t Labour’s ‘gender pay audit’ begin at home?

This weekend, Jeremy Corbyn was full of beans during an appearance on the Andrew Marr show. As well as frank comments on immigration and student debt, the Labour leader found time to turn his ire on the BBC over the gender pay gap. Discussing the disclosure that two thirds of the corporation’s highest earners are men, Corbyn said the Beeb needs to ‘look very hard at itself’ – adding that a Labour government would insist on a pay audit of every organisation. Strong words indeed. But is Corbyn just repeating empty platitudes? This time last year, Corbyn made a similar pledge. In the Labour leadership contest, he announced that if in power, companies with more

Thursday

Charles Moore

The Spectator’s notes | 20 July 2017

We went to the first night of the Proms last week. Thinking it was all over, we left the auditorium just before Igor Levit came back on for a delayed encore in which he played Beethoven’s Ode to Joy (transcribed by Liszt) as an anti-Brexit gesture. We loved Levit’s earlier rendering of a Beethoven piano concerto, but were spared his political views, so it was a perfect evening. Two nights later, Daniel Barenboim took advantage of the Proms conductor’s podium to make an unscheduled speech in which he deplored ‘isolation tendencies’. All good Brexiteers deplore isolation tendencies, which is one of the reasons we don’t like a European Union with

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Single mothers, not wealthy presenters, are the real victims of the BBC’s gender disparity

There is a group of women who have every reason to feel aggrieved to learn that the BBC is paying Gary Lineker £1.8 million a year and John Humphreys between £600,000 and £650,000. But it doesn’t include Jane Garvey and Emily Maitlis, both of whom appear to be grubbing by on a little below £150,000. It is the 101,000 women found guilty last year of evading the TV licence. If you want a genuinely worrying gender disparity, forget the BBC’s highest-earners and look at the balance of people at the bottom of society who are being dragged through the courts for the non-payment of the tax. The Perry Review into the TV licence,

Stephen Daisley Stephen Daisley

In defence of the BBC: a force for unity in a divided Britain

The BBC is our other national religion and like the NHS it inspires a devotional intensity that can be a little creepy. The disclosure of star salaries over £150,000 certainly brought out the worst in the Corporation’s self-styled defenders. Their argument could have been designed to annoy: market dogmatists wanted to destroy the BBC because it’s too successful, they say. But not so successful that it could survive without the Licence Fee – which by the way isn’t a tax and at £147 is actually great value for money. If anything, we should be grateful the BBC deigns to broadcast to us. Anyway, this was just the wicked press attacking a

Kate Chisholm

The joy of the Proms

Summer nights, hot and humid, mean just one thing — it’s Proms season again. Sore feet, sweaty armpits, queuing outside the ladies loos, home on the Underground with a head and heart buzzing with Bruckner or Bacharach, Handel or Honegger. Just as special is the nightly feast on Radio 3 — a live concert, guaranteed every evening, and on top of that specially commissioned talks and literary events to get us thinking. On Sunday afternoon, in between the Mozart and Schumann performed by Bernard Haitink and the Chamber Orchestra of Europe (COE) at the Royal Albert Hall, Sarah Walker took us inside the working life of an orchestra. What does

Richard Bratby

Hadyn recreated

‘Rarely, rarely, comest thou, Spirit of Delight!’ wrote Elgar, quoting Shelley, at the top of his Second Symphony. He should have listened to more Haydn. Sir Simon Rattle certainly has. Rattle becomes music director of the London Symphony Orchestra in September, and for the last concert before their union becomes official, he’d trawled through Haydn’s immense back-catalogue to assemble an unbroken 55-minute sequence of orchestral movements from Haydn’s symphonies, oratorios and half-forgotten operas. ‘This is an adventure,’ he declared, in that slightly goofy way that gets audiences instantly onside even while it infuriates those who, after four decades of achievement unsurpassed by any British conductor ever, still fail to understand

Henry Keswick

By Patten or design?

My old friend Richard Ingrams was said always to write The Spectator’s television reviews sitting in the next-door room to the TV set. I’m more assiduous: I have actually read this book under review. And Chris Patten’s latest memoir is a very enjoyable read — the account of a life of considerable privilege. Born into a middle-class family in suburban London, Patten won an exhibition to Balliol before — after a brief dalliance with US politics — he became a Conservative apparatchik and, in due course, an MP. Once he’d reached the cabinet, he was a made man — and from his middle years onward garnered a succession of agreeable

Wednesday

Steerpike

Revealed: the BBC stars who earn more than the Prime Minister

Oh to be a fly-on-the-wall at BBC Broadcasting House this morning. The broadcaster has had to publish the salaries of its top earners – and it makes for an interesting read. Gary Lineker – the people’s champion who recently boasted of his loyalty for staying at the BBC when he could earn more elsewhere – is in the £1,750,000 – £1,799,999 pay bracket. However, it’s Chris Evans – the man who ruined Top Gear – who has the dubious honour of being the Beeb’s top earner, he is in the £2,200,000 – £2,249,999 bracket. Meanwhile, the next Today programme will be fun. John Humphrys earns over £600,000 while his colleague Mishal Husain

Ross Clark Ross Clark

Don’t fall for the BBC spin on presenters’ pay

Nothing seems to excite BBC reporters more than covering stories about the BBC. You can tell it in the tone of their voice. Look at us, they are saying, we’re so professional and impartial that we dare do stories on our own bosses in the same way as we would on the government or on some miscreant private sector company. It was inevitable, therefore, that the revelation of the identities of 96 BBC presenters paid more than £150,000 a year, would top the BBC news agenda this morning. I wouldn’t take too seriously stories that the presenters themselves are nervous about the public reaction – my guess is that those

Monday

Norman Lebrecht

Barenboim’s Brexit speech was out of order – the Proms are, and must be, politically neutral

This post was first published on Slipped Disc On the first night of the BBC Proms, the German-based pianist Igor Levit played Beethoven’s Ode to Joy in Liszt’s solo-piano reduction as a token of his opposition to Britain leaving the EU. His was a reasoned and reasonable gesture by an artist who has strong views and wished to express them in music alone. Not so Daniel Barenboim who, before his Prom last night, announced that ‘Elgar makes the best case against Brexit … because he was a pan-European composer’ and then, from the podium, after a performance of Elgar’s Second Symphony, added ‘isolationist tendencies and nationalism in its very narrow