Podcasts

The format of this blog is to write about a single thing that has made me cheerful in the week. Having already written about Detectorists and Catastrophe (my two favourite shows on the box), I was at a loss as to what to write about. Therefore, I’ve decided to write about things that have been keeping me entertained all year round. 

I have a podcast obsession; I listen to them everywhere: on the john, in the bath, whilst cooking, ensconced in bed and travelling to work. If I’m honest, this medium of talk has replaced my music listening habit - I can’t remember the last time I sat down to savour an album.  An old colleague prophesied this might happen.  He said that after thirty he never listened to anything current; that music for him was tied up in being a teenager; it was what gave him identity, a tribe to belong to, a fashion to pursue; but now older and more content he had found his place and was therefore happy to listen again to the old without listening out for the new. 

To some extent, I feel the same. 

Podcasts are my new favourite bands. I find I’m always recommending them to people and telling them to get into them. The trouble with podcasts is that people either fall into two camps: believers or non-believers. There are very few agnostics. When I’m telling my Irish dominated department to listen to Jarlath Regan’s An Irishman Abroad podcast I can hear a choir of furrowed brows sing, ‘Podcast? What’s that when it’s at home?’ People either listen to podcasts or they don’t. In my experience it’s harder for a podcast to pass through the ear of the uninitiated than it is for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. But in this blog I hope to change that. Because today I’ll be chronicling the podcasts that entertain me on a weekly basis. And I’ll be doing this via the exciting medium of a countdown. From 5-1: here are my favourites.

5/ Desert Island Discs

Desert Island Discs has been on Radio 4 before the wireless was even invented. Its current incarnation is presented by the purr that is Kirsty Young (my girlfriend has given me a pass to run off with her voice should the chance ever arise). The format of the show is a guest of notable repute – might be a celebrity, might not – is interviewed about their life and its works whilst choosing eight tracks they would take with them on a desert island. The joy of the show comes from hearing an insightful, incisive interview with a person that doesn’t have a film or tour to promote. I love Graham Norton, but the need for a celebrity to entertain a studio audience comes at the expense of them saying anything noteworthy or interesting – the privacy of the radio studio allows intimate talk to take place. My favourites from the archive are Johnny Vegas, David Walliams, Kathy Burke and Morrissey.

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/desert-island-discs/id342735925?mt=2

4/ A Good Read

I’m one of those people who knows a lot about books without having read any. (This lame attempt at an Austen witticism is only partially true: I do read but it’s mainly book reviews, saying what I should read). A Good Read is presented by Harriet Gilbert and involves her and her two guests bringing in a book they recommend. Through listening I’ve read Jeremy Paxman’s choice, Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk, which I loved; Colin Murray’s choice, In Watermelon Sugar, which contains my all-time favourite line - “Hands are very nice things, especially after they have travelled back from making love” ­– and been reminded why I love The Great Gatsby. 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006v8jn

3/ The Football Ramble

 I used to listen to The Guardian Football Podcast because I had a man-crush on honey-toned journalist, Barry Glendening. Then, my brother recommended The Ramble, saying it was much more fun and engaging. He was right. The Ramble feels completely fresh, despite dealing with the time-worn formula of men discussing football. The knockabout humour that defines the show showcases what banter used to mean (good-natured ribbing between friends) as opposed to what it means now (euphemistic bullying). Pete is mocked for his unique brand of Geordie surrealism; Luke for being the Michael Fish of football forecasting; Jim, the professional stand-up, for being the least funny of the four; and Marcus for his unwillingness to divulge if he actually supports a team. Lovely stuff.

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-football-ramble/id254078311?mt=2

2/ The Comedians’ Comedian

Presenter Stuart Goldsmith has described the show as ‘Inside The Actor’s Studio for Comedians.’ Goldsmith, a comedian himself, started the podcast because he was curious about how other people crafted their stand-up, and how they found the perverse situation of travelling alone round the country to entertain a roomful of people. What has been most enriching is seeing Goldsmith’s evolve his interviewing technique from good cop slap-on-the-back to bad cop interrogation. When he gets a lead that someone might be unhappy with a part of their work, he chases it down until they capitulate into confession. A wonderful listen hosted by a thoroughly charming bloke.

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/comedians-comedian-podcast/id513734888?mt=2

1/ The Kermode and Mayo Film Show

For me, Kermode’s word is gospel. If he doesn’t like a film then I ain’t going to like it either. You might think this shows a lack of independence on my part - I don’t care. Kermode’s knowledge of film is hard-won: he’s sat through Michael Bay films so we don’t have to. Alongside him is Simon Mayo, a consummate radio professional, that keeps the good ship wittertainment on course. The two bicker endlessly (Mayo thinks Kermode is pretentious; Kermode thinks Mayo is a philistine) but the show would collapse into self-indulgence without one and insipidness without the other. If you want to see Kermode at his masterful best, check out his reviews of Sex and The City 2 and Entourage: never has a spleen been so poetically vented.  

Kermode and his flappy hands.

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/kermode-and-mayos-film-review/id73802698?mt=2

Detectorists

In Jerusalem’s fields two middle-aged men comb the land. In one hand stalks an oscillating detector; in the other a sentinel trowel. A machine's beep causes a Pavlovian going to ground: will this be the day their prayers are answered? Moving through the soil, there is anticipation of what is to come: is this the day the land coughs gold?  Lifted from the womb of the earth, the dirt is washed clean, enabling them to determine what it is: the realisation that- instead of treasure -a discarded ‘Jim’ll Fix It’ medal has been found is met with a wry smile. It doesn’t matter. The joy comes through being out in the open air, away from life’s pressures, able to breathe out after a week of breathing in. The beauty is in the search; the discovery can wait.

Detectorists is the brainchild of former star of The Office, Mackenzie Crooks. In a recent interview with The Guardian he explained how his father inspired him to write the show. His dad was a man of niche pastimes: dark evenings were spent holed up in lamp-lit sheds, poring over coins and other crafts that his young son failed to see the fascination with. Now a father himself, Crooks shares his father's fascination, realising a dormant love for the esoteric. His show then is a homage to men like his father who wile away hours on hobbies that are at best defined eccentric; at worst weird.

Crooks as Gareth Keenan in The Office.

Lance (Mackenzie Crooks) and Andy (Toby Jones) are the eponymous detectorists; land pirates navigating Suffolk’s green seas in search of nature’s plunder. Andy’s wife, albeit supportive of his pastime, can’t countenance why he spends so much time looking for the past when he should be searching for a future. With his toilsome job and recreational activity, Andy’s life - literally and figuratively - is looking down. Moreover, she is frustrated that he spends more time with Lance than her. This is understandable: Lance on the surface is a pompous bore: a car enthusiast, all too happy to play smug with specialist knowledge, but a lift under the bonnet would reveal the intricacies of his character. Like Andy, Lance is dissatisfied with life: his job shifting pallets is hardly the stuff of dreams; further his beloved Maggie’s desertion has left him heartbroken.  Lance and Andy, therefore, are linked by a shared love of the earth and a frustration with the world around them.

“See University Challenge last night?”

“Yeah.”

“Anything?”

“No.”

“Nearly got Benjamin Britten.”

“You can’t nearly get an answer.”

“I had it in my head. Didn't say anything though. Chickened out.”

“Were you on your own?”

“Yeah.”

“But you were still too scared to say it out loud.”

“Yeah.”

The offering above illustrates how naturalistic and perfectly judged the conversation is. It is clear why Lance can't move on from his ex-wife when he can't even pluck up the courage to answer a quiz show answer. Lance and Andy are so risk-averse they wouldn't take the gamble on a quiz show, even if they were playing at home. They are caught in arrested development, wanting to progress in life without having the spine to do so; consequently, more of their dialogue is spent on petty concerns of how people celebrate on University Challenge (“I hate the ones who have a sip of water and frown as if it’s no big deal") as opposed to how they can fix their love lives.

Although Lance and Andy are the focal points, there are wonderful secondary characters too. The pair are part of the DMDC (Danbury Metal Detecting Club), a seven-strong band of brothers – and sisters- that meet weekly to show and tell their troves. Other than exhibiting their spoils, there are special Q&A’s on subjects as riveting as ‘the history of buttons.’ (Andy: Are you going? Lance: Fuck that! Later scene: Andy and Lance seated for ‘button presentation.’) The club in many ways resembles Peter Kay’s Phoenix Nights with its group of outsiders trying and failing to get more people through the door. Other favourite characters are rival detectorists, ‘Simon and Garfunkel,’ so called because they physically resemble the songwriting duo. When the teams cross path, a merry skirmish of wits ensues with DMDC usually coming out on top.

Rival detectorists: Simon and Garfunkel,

The first series of the show earned Crooks a BAFTA for writing; it is easy to see why. In an age of loud obnoxiousness, the sitcom is a quiet work of finesse; it doesn't shout its virtues at you, instead like a good painting it makes you stand back and revel in its artistry. When asked in a recent interview if he wanted the BBC4 show promoted to BBC2, Crooks replied that he felt like the channel was its natural home, that only BBC4 would have allowed him to create the kind of sitcom Thomas Hardy may have enjoyed. Far from the madding crowd is where his baby belongs.

So readers, leave the mainstream terrestrial rat-race by taking a jaunt with The Detectorists. Let your lungs breathe in that comedy goodness. I promise you'll feel better for the walk.

Detectorists Season 1 is available on DVD. Series 2 is available on iPlayer.

The Dresser

This week I've been enjoying BBC 2's adaptation of The Dresser.

Ronald Harwood’s play, The Dresser, is about a touring theatre company set against the backdrop of the Second World War. The troupe are headed by a mildly talented despot, known to the audience as ‘Sir’ (Anthony Hopkins). The group are a makeshift band of amateurs, only earning their place because better men, better actors are away at war. For them, the irony is that in escaping war with one fascist, they have to work with another. 

The play the actors are currently in is King Lear. Hamlet is the part all young actors want; Lear is the part all old actors want. Where Hamlet is about a character wanting to make sense of the world; Lear is about a character that has made sense of it and realised it’s not for them. King Lear explores what happens to a person when they’re stripped – literally and metaphorically – of their status. It asks what happens to the great and good when it’s their time to leave the stage. Will they be remembered, and if so, for what?

Lear on the heath.

Harwood’s creation, in another nod to Shakespeare, is a play within a play. Sir is playing Lear, but you get the sense Lear is playing him too. At the beginning, Norman (Ian McKellen), Sir’s dresser, informs Her Ladyship, Sir’s wife, about her husband’s uncommon behaviour. During the day a frenzy overtook him, causing him to disrobe in the streets and wail like Lear on the heath. Perturbed, Norman took him to hospital, believing he still lies there. Her Ladyship understands that this is curtains for tonight’s production and orders Madge, the Stage Manager, to cancel the play. Norman won’t countenance such a plan: still in theatre today the cliché, ‘the show must go on,’ pertains. During the Second World War, this was thought more so: with airwave and air raid warnings commonplace, the theatre offered people escape. Famously when Churchill was asked to re-direct art funding to the war effort, he quipped: “then what are we fighting for.” In a period that had yet to birth television, the stage was people’s emergency exit from the horrors of war.

Right on cue, Sir arrives from hospital, explaining how he checked himself out. Despite being clearly exhausted, he vows to perform. Concerned for his physical wellbeing, Her Ladyship protests. Concerned for his theatrical reputation, Norman complies. The dressing room dynamic that follows between Sir and Norman is delicious, the kind of stuff psychoanalytic therapists dream of. 

McKellen and Hopkins.

Norman and Sir's friendship is based on a shared view: they both love Sir. Norman is a working class lapdog: fawning and loving he will do whatever he’s ordered. While Sir sits slumped, appearing physically unable to perform, Norman awakens in him a zeal to rage forwards to the coming of the light. Essentially, it is a vicarious relationship where Norman lives his theatrical ambitions through Sir. After all, Norman knows the lines (he goes through them with Sir); he knows theatrical parlance (everyone is called “ducky”); to all extents and purposes, he is a resident of luvviedom; but for all of that, he is no actor. Unable to obtain his own dreams, he settles for sharing in someone else’s. Only the periodic reaches for the gin bottle shows he has any problem with this.

Just as King Lear moves from vanity to empathy, Sir does too. At the beginning, he is unkind to the other players, believing they’re a necessary evil to putting on a play. If he had it his own way, he would be Midsummer Night’s Dream’s Bottom and play all the parts. Moreover, he alleges that the repertory group are a “band of brothers” but really they’re subservient children to his tyrannical father. In performing Lear’s part with dwindling health, he learns the lessons of the character and returns to the dressing room aware he too has neglected those closest to him.

'In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is King.'

Ultimately, names are the thing in this play. Conventional Norman wants the stardom that his name denies; self-appointed Sir craves the fellowship that his ego prohibits. It is a play of dissatisfaction, one that I found hugely satisfying.

Fans of theatre: don't have regrets the size of Lear - watch this play.

The Dresser is available on BBC iPlayer.

Rome

Another reporter: Which of the cities visited did Your Highness enjoy the most?

General Provno: [prompting] Each, in its own way...

Princess Ann: Each, in its own way, was unforgettable. It would be difficult to - Rome! By all means, Rome. I will cherish my visit here in memory as long as I live.

Audrey Hepburn (centre) as Princess Ann in Roman Holiday.

I’m not a man for holidays abroad. I didn’t go on a plane until I was 17, and then I only went because my History teacher strong-armed me into going, reasoning a weekend in Berlin would be useful for my A Level study. I’ve tried to enjoy the travel experience. After teacher training college, I went on a TopDeck coach tour of Eastern Europe. Arriving in Budapest I met the group I would be sharing three weeks with: all bar one were Australians. Now, I don’t want to stereotype a people; I think it’s wrong to assume all individuals share a nation’s characteristics - (I mean recently I met an Australian male that is thoughtful, intelligent and kind. Although possessing these personality traits has meant he’s been branded a traitor, making him turn to Britain for political asylum) - but in some cases generalisations ring true. Essentially, the lads I had to share a coach with were thick slabs of meat, marinated in misogyny, preserved in protein shakes. 

Despite then experiencing the baths of Budapest, the mines of Krakow and the castles of Prague, I longed for the site of the Mothercare warehouse, the building that lies on the horizon of my family home.

For years I didn’t go abroad; I simply took my holidays at home- like a family from the age of black and white or a Prime Minister from the period of media spin. Then a girl walked into my life. Consequently, this year we’ve been to Paris for her birthday; Madrid for a friend’s wedding and now Rome for my 30^th birthday. Paris, Madrid and Rome: my life now reads like a James Bond movie; admittedly a James Bond movie where the hero’s chief gadget is an illuminative Argos watch. Now I’m an expert in foreign travel, I can reveal that Italy and therefore Rome is the best place in the world. Yes, I haven’t been to 190 countries, and yes detractors may say my opinion is therefore invalid, arguing I don’t have the empirical evidence to make such a claim, but what I say to those people is … your mum.

I went on a David Hasselhoff pub crawl in Berlin. This wasn't even the lowest point of the trip.

Rome is a great city. It’s so great that I didn’t once hanker for the sight of the Zone 6 residential car park (where my new home looks out onto). Primarily, I liked it because the whole place felt old. Even though I’m a secondary school teacher, I’ve always had more affinity with the elderly than the young. As a child when people asked me what I wanted to be when I was older, I’d remark: ‘retired.’ Now with the Tory government's purge on pension this life-long ambition is looking slimmer by the day; the dream of having a mid-morning pint and paper in Wetherspoons the stuff of pie and sky.

On the first day in Rome we went to the Colosseum. The gladiatorial amphitheater opened in 80 AD, which makes it older than Jesus and Des O'Connor combined. The building’s façade is simply awe-inspiring. Owing to time’s degradation, its lack of complete symmetry means it looks like a gorgeously incomplete picture puzzle. On the other hand, the interior is less majestic and more suggestive. After pressure from the Papacy to end its violence, the Colosseum was closed. With the building lying vacant, its assets were stripped and used to build houses, workshops and quarters for religious orders. Fortunately, there is enough in its foundations, shape and arrangement for you to imagine what was. A nice fact I heard on my audio guide was that people were seated according to their value to society: teachers, considered learned channels of knowledge, were seated near the front. Today, we would be put in the car park behind a pillar.

Inside the Colosseum. Picture courtesy of Harriet Woodhouse.

After the Colosseum we went to Keats and Shelly’s memorial museum. The building was Keats’ final residence; he died young in 1821. Shelly, a contemporary of Keats, also died in Italy, which is why the museum twins the two’s legacy. The reason we went to the museum had nothing to do with the fact Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon visited the location for The Trip to Italy and everything to do with the fact that I studied Shelly and Keats at university.

The next day we went to the Vatican. I'm an atheist, but owing to my religious secondary education I’ll forever be imbued with Catholicism. Each morning in school I would have to say ‘The Lord’s Prayer;’ each week I would attend ‘Chapel lessons,’ where a man with a goatee taught us PSHE without the sex bits; each half-term I would have to attend mass, where as a non-Catholic I would have to watch my mates get their fill of Jesus whilst I sat hungry in the pews; each year my guilt over my part in Jesus’ death grew – despite not knowing whether I believed in him. I guess what I’m saying is I have all the guilt of a Catholic without the relief of absolution.

The Ministry for Cover-Ups AKA 'The Vatican.' Picture courtesy of Harriet Woodhouse.

 The Vatican is a hell of a show it has to be said. I thought, given the reputation of Sistine Chapel, the Vatican State was just an impressive ceiling on stilts. The Vatican State is more than that: it is a nation within a city. Its museum runs for miles. It doesn’t just house works by Raphael and Michelangelo, but Egyptian artefacts, Etruscan treasures and modern art collections too. Undoubtedly, the finest piece in the Museum is the Sistine Chapel: originally, Michelangelo was commissioned to paint the twelve apostles, but got bored of the idea so went rogue and produced the most esteem piece of art. Let this be a lesson to the bureaucrats in middle management: let your employees think for themselves and they’ll work wonders.

Following the Vatican, we went to get ice cream from the world famous, Giolitti. Apparently, Gelato isn’t like typical ice cream: it contains less butterfat and is frozen for a shorter period of time. Forget the Blumenthal science though and just enjoy the Nigella sensation of eating the gorgeous thing. I went for two scoops- one Bailey’s and one lemon – with pouring cream on top. They say, ‘It’s better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.’ Those people haven’t tasted gelato. Everything I’ve eaten since has tasted like a big bag of lemons. I wished I’d never had that gelato. Will life ever taste as good again?

The best ice cream in town.

Finally on the Friday we went to the park. For the first time in twenty years I went on a bike ride. The last time I went on a bike ride I fell in a bed of nettles and cried until I was admitted to hospital with dehydration. Aware I was fearful, Harriet supported me by ignoring to tell me the rental man had given me a girl’s bike, then laughed at my feeble attempts to get the pedals turning. Over time though I rediscovered the joys in cycling: there really is nothing better then feeling the breeze on your bald patch and the wind in your sails.

The proverb runs, 'all roads lead to Rome;' going up the M25 this morning for a day of work-time drudgery, I thought, 'if only.'