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The whinge of change keeps whistling over the airwaves

Time spent listening to most of Radio 4 is time well spent, even when the programmes are unsung

Miles Kington
Tuesday 27 October 1998 00:02 GMT
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I sometimes tune in to Chris Dunkley's programme Feedback on Radio 4 for the sheer pleasure of hearing Radio 4 listeners in full whinge, rather as Roger Scruton must enjoy the sound of the foxhounds in full cry. ( They don't write to Chris Dunkley much in praise of anything, except to defend something which has been attacked by somebody else.)

What is odd, though, is that all Radio 4 listeners assume that any change is drastic and that anything that is changed was previously carved in stone. Melvyn Bragg is taken away from starting the week... Woman's Hour's time slot is changed... The Archers are given another weekly helping... and the way people react you would think that they were taking some books out of the Bible which weren't getting very good reading figures, and putting a few new gospels in.

But everything that is changed was new in its own day. Melvyn Bragg, after all, wasn't the first person to start the week. When I first remember it, it was being done by Richard Baker in a much more dumbing-down way than seems possible now. Yet I am sure that when Richard Baker was ousted in favour of Bragg, people protested that this new-fangled chap would never come up to Baker's affable standard.

Bragg totally changed the tone of Start the Week until it came to seem the norm. Any Questions, too, has changed out of all recognition over the years. Last week they celebrated the 50th anniversary of Any Questions with a special edition which included on the panel Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, former Chancellor Kenneth Clarke, Lib Dem luminary Charles Kennedy and Ann Leslie - in other words, three politicians and one real person. This is the modern pattern of Any Questions, to have three political figures from three different parties and a lay person, which naturally enough invites people to submit politically angled topical questions.

Any Questions is now therefore almost entirely a party political talk shop, and most listeners must assume that it always has been. But I once spent a season in the BBC Radio Archives listening to the past, and discovered that for many years Any Questions steered clear of party politics and aimed for much more interesting areas. Guests tended to be people with spiky opinions like Malcolm Muggeridge or Marganita Laski, and they were asked unexpected questions, like what they thought of folk music, what value going to university had or which British county they most disliked. Can you imagine a question like that being asked on Any Questions (or Question Time) these days?

Would you be surprised to learn that the first question selected on the grand anniversary Any Questions was predictably and drearily about the rights and wrongs of arresting General Pinochet? Maybe that's just my personal taste. Maybe other people do like earnest speculation about fly- by-night topics.

But time spent listening to most of Radio 4 is time well spent, even when the programmes are unsung and unreviewed. When did you last read a review of Derek Cooper's The Food Programme? Yet it is far and away better than any other food or cookery programme on radio and TV.

Have you read any reviews of World of Pub, a Radio 4 comedy programme by Tony Roche repeated last week, which I think is the funniest thing since the first time it was broadcast?

When did a reviewer last point out that In the Psychiatrist's Chair is consistently fascinating, even if you keep expecting Anthony Clare to say, "What record have you chosen next?" and that The News Quiz is funnier than any topical show on TV, even if nowadays also filthier...

Oddly enough, it is The News Quiz I think of whenever people mention Princess Diana's death. In my humble opinion, Radio 4 hit rock bottom in a sea of syrup the week after she died, treating her as if she were a goddess who had been taken from among us. Yet in the months before her death she was, if anything, a figure of fun.

Did I say months? The day before she died there was a question about her and about land-mines on The News Quiz, and Alan Coren said: "Well, I don't know much about land-mines and I don't know much about Princess Diana, but I do know that you poke either at your peril." Much laughter on the show.

The next day she died. That disreputable edition of The News Quiz never, as far as I know, got its usual repeat. I am glad I happened to have taped it. I have kept a copy of it, as a reminder that Radio 4 doesn't always lose its marbles.

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