The Daily Telegraph

1.09.12

All Lit Up: a Century of Illumination in Blackpool. Presented by Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, creative curator of the Illuminations, produced by the brilliant Susan Marling, it will show why Blackpool's motto, Progress, fits the town.

The Radio times

1.09.12

All Lit Up: a Century of Illumination in Blackpool. Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen...guides us around the architectural heritage of the first resort in Britain for workers. His sublime use of the English language makes every description as bright and pulsating and glamorous as the million-plus coloured lights. Never has a tramway sounded so gorgeous.

The New Statesman

13.08.12

The Smart Dumb Blonde. There was so much here to enjoy... Maureen Dowd - a Pulitzer-winning columnist for the New York Times may have been born in Washington but sounds pure New Jersey. Her offs are owfs. Her beautifuls byuwdiful.... Ben Lyon - the 20th Century Fox executive who "discovered" Monroe - sounded as gloriously, confidently, bamboozle-ishly 1950s as someone selling a condo in Aspen while wearing tin buttons and shoes with the sole flapping off.... These sort of great American voices are rarely heard now. The loss of their variety and sly energy is as sad as anything you could say about Monroe.

The Radio Times

22.08.12

The Smart Dumb Blonde. This is a quality piece of radio and gives women of every hair colour something to think about.

The Financial Times

28.01.12

When You're Gone, You're Gone. A meditation on death, with words, music & comments from friends... Composer Jocelyn Pook’s piece includes contributions from her dying mother. Intriguing, haunting, not at all mawkish

The Radio Times

31.01.12

When You're Gone, You're Gone. A truly beautiful piece of work in which the composer Jocelyn Pook and producer Kate Bland seamlessly weave repeated words, phrases and interviews around haunting songs and music. It is Pook's very personal examination of death and what, if anything, comes afterwards.  She explains at the start that her father died when she was 12 and her sister when she was 18. Jocelyn and her mother, recorded just before she died, have a particularly strong need to question the existence of an afterlife, which I will not spoil by attempting to rationalise, just warn you that it is desperately sad.

The Times

28.01.12

When You're Gone, You're Gone is a beautful, life-affirming meditation with words and music by the composer Jocelyn Pook.

The Independent

30.12.11

David Hockney - New Ways of Seeing. A rare and intimate portrait of David Hockney, imminent subject of a Royal Academy retrospective, in which the artist talks to Rachel Campbell-Johnston at his home in Bridlington about photography, plein-air painting and his fascination with new technology that has led him to create art on an ipad.

The Spectator

28.01.12

David Hockney - New Ways of Seeing. (Hockney) spoke with such passion, such clarity, you didn't need to see the canvas to believe it.

The Radio Times

03.12.11

Hemingway in Havana. As with every programme that radio producer Susan Marling makes, there's an intense feel for the place that she visits. Her previous programmes have often been about areas of the world that inspired painters but now she's turned her attention to the years in which the writer Ernest Hemingway lived in Cuba. The programme opens with the sound of a heaving ocean breaking on the shore and we soon discover that chatting with local sailors and the ownership of a beloved fishing boat called Pillar became the inspiration for Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea. Marling talks with Valerie Hemingway, the woman who worked as the writer's secretary before marrying his son, and to the team who now maintain his house on a hill near Havana - it's just as he was when he left it in 1960. A year later he committed suicide and the Cuban government turned it into a museum. This intimate look inside his home is top-quality radio and paints just as powerful a picture of Hemnigway as it does of his Havana hideaway.

The Financial Times

15.10.11

 Archive on 4: The Red Bits Are British is a superb survey of left, right and in-between educational attitudes, taking in old voices chanting mnemonics, fiction (Miss Brodie, The History Boys), schools broadcasts... - plus politics, naturally. Provocative, informative, exhilarating.

The Spectator

08.10.11

Barbara Windsor's Funny Gals. An engagingly nostalgic series on great American female comics.

The Daily Telegraph

15.09.11

Ayckbourn in Action. This programme explores (Ayckbourn's) marvellous record not only as a director of plays but as the artistic director of the Stephen Joseph Theatre in Scarborough. His are talents that don’t necessarily go hand in hand but the fascinating thing about this documentary (by Susan Marling) is that it sheds light on how he makes it all work. We hear from actors, critics, his biographer Paul Allen. It’s not a luvvie love-in but as brisk and full of insight as an Ayckbourn play. 

The Guardian

14.09.11

Ayckbourn in Action is primarily a show about Alan Ayckbourn (pictured) as director, a role in which his talents have, we're told, been eclipsed by his skill as a playwright. The impressive cast of interviewees – including Michael Gambon, Penelope Wilton and Julia McKenzie – have ample first-hand experience of Ayckbourn the director, from which they draw stories warmly and generously. From interviews with these actors and the man himself, we get a sense not only of his directorial tastes and style, but of his relentless energy and perfectionism... If you've ever wondered why he keeps going, and how, you will find the answers here.

The Daily Telegraph

10.09.11

Ayckbourn in Action. As (Ayckbourn's) 75th stage play Neighbourhood Watch opens, this documentary (by brilliant Susan Marling for independents Just Radio) hears from actors who have worked with him - Julia McKenzie, Michael Gambon, Peter Bowles, Penelope Wilton and Martin Jarvis - about his skill with actors, his gift for inspiring performance.

The Daily Telegraph

30.08.11 

Pete Townshend - Before I Get Old. Distrurbingly frank and unexpectedly moving...his producer is marvellous Susan Marling, a person in whom even the wariest would have confidence.

The Daily Telegraph

20.08.11

Pete Townshend - Before I Get Old. A scoop, a coup. Pete Townshend, rock star, writer, gives...a full account of his life and career as a musician...The producer is marvellous Susan Marling, whose work is more often on Radios 3 and 4.

The Independent

21.07.11

Barry Humphries in Weimar was an almost perfect match of presenter and theme...an exuberant recollection of "music from a society on the brink of cataclysm, dancing on a volcano."

The Daily Mail

16.07.11

Barry Humphries in Weimar. Barry talks about his Weimar obsession, then Dame Edna Everage shimmers into the studio, all beaded and feathered, for a bit of old Berlin fun.

The Spectator

09.07.11

Mabey In The Wild. Mabey could make a dandelion sound like a lily, he’s such a persuasive talker, and so deeply knowledgeable. Yet he never talks down to us, his listeners, but rather invites us to share in his enthusiasm.

The Observer

02.07.11

Mabey In The Wild. In a welcome new series, naturalist Richard Mabey makes us think twice about British wild flowers as he explores their natural and cultural history.

The Sunday Times

03.07.11

Mabey In The Wild. Richard Mabey's essay on (daffodils), lyrically immortalised by Wordsworth, is a model of concision and blends botany with culture.

The Times

24.03.11

House Beautiful. Llewelyn-Bowen's enthusiasm is infectious as he recounts the rise of the Aesthetic Movement as a backlash against dreary mass-produced goods coming from all those dark satanic mills.

The Daily Telegraph

24.03.11

House Beautiful. This excellent documentary marks the Victoria & Albert's upcoming exhibition The Cult of Beauty, which celebrates the achievements and legacy of the late 19th century Aesthetic Movement. Llewelyn-Bowen explores how Aestheticism's focus on the home as a means of personal expression laid the foundations for our modern obsession with decor.

The Daily Telegraph

19.03.11

House Beautiful. Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, who did such a good series on domestic architecture on this network (Just Radio's Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen's Story of Home), is our guide, taking us from the single-minded opulence of the public rooms in Lord Leighton's London house (worth a visit since its recent refurbishment) to the heart of suburbia. What he'll point out is how much we're still in the grip of a trend that began in the 1870s. Produced by Susan Marling, for aesthetically aware independents, Just Radio.

The Guardian

06.12.10

The Sunday Feature is a quiet gem. You sort of stumble upon it, and then it astonishes with its scope and cleverness. I've read lots about Zaha Hadid, the subject yesterday, and feel I've got a sense of her through her buildings, but this programme was quite revelatory.

The Guardian
05.07.10

The Sinking of the Lancastria. Allan Little interviewed survivors and their descendants in St Nazaire, as the crusade, in a quiet way, to have the tragedy recognisd by the establishment...It was a moving, lingering programme.  


The Observer
29.05.10

The Mary Whitehouse Effect. In an excellent programme, Joan Bakewell had several run-ins with her during her early days at the BBC but here she puts aside her own liberal views to try to understand where she was coming from. Contributions come from Warren Mitchell, Peter Tatchell and, in recordings, the campaigner for decency herself. Out of step as she seemed, she paved the way for a society where viewers do have a say and programme-makers regularly censor themselves.

The Observer
23.05.10

On Radio 2, docu-mentaries are really picking up. Pete Waterman's two-part series, Last Orders at the Spinning Disc, on the demise of record shops is thoroughly entertaining, if littered with his own music (we opened with a few bars of Bananarama's "Venus") or, at least, music to his own taste (old soul – great; Bros's "I Owe You Nothing – hmm). But he is never dull and I enjoyed his partisan interviews with record shop owners. He got most aerated about the old major label practice of offering discounts to big record chains. "It's part of the whole decline of British music," he trumpeted, correctly.

Radio Times
08.05.10

In the first of a charmingly nostalgic two-parter, Last Orders at the Spinning Disc, Pete Waterman charts the glory days of the music store , harking back to a time when they were places for sticky-fingered youths to thumb through stacks of vinyl or hole themselves up in listening booths with exotic releases they couldn't afford. But with hard-copy sales taking a pasting from downloads, is there a future for indie stores? Let's hope so. Perhaps Pete should open one of his own.

The Daily Telegraph
30.03.10

Lenny Henry returns to Radio 4...for Musical Trip to South Africa, exploring that country's rich sound scene in a new series. He starts at Soccer City in Johannesburg, hearing the Vuvuzelas...going on to YFM, the radio station for "township house" music. Over the next month he'll be examining music's role in the struggle against apartheid and the church, why white Afrikaners are having their own punk revolution and meeting musicians who have made it on the international scene (jazz trumpeter Hugh Masekela, classical violinist Samson Diamond) or hope to. The producer is Susan Marling, an independent whose work in all the arts is always wonderfully enlightening.

The Guardian
30.03.10

A Musical Trip to South Africa - with Lenny Henry: After his heavyweight acting roles on Radio 4 recently, it feels as if Lenny Henry has been let out of school in this vibrant five-part series. He begins in embarrassingly high spirits on YFM youth radio station but also includes a thought-provoking discussion on Kwaito, the very danceable "township house" music that has emerged as a less overtly political form of expression in the post-apartheid era.

The Daily Telegraph
20.03.10

The Glasgow Boys came from Just Radio, produced by Kate Bland (whose work is always worth following) and Paddy Langley, presented by author and playwright AL Kennedy. She’s a Scot but not a Glaswegian though, at the end, her poetic salute to the city and to her subject, the late-19th-century painters who broke away from academic tradition, caught the fire of Glasgow’s “infernal sunsets” and made it their own, was definitely worth the occasional ramble en route.

The Guardian
5.02.10

Henry Moore, My Father was sprinkled with biographical gems, ­recounted by his daughter Mary, but mainly assessed his artistic significance. This was all neatly done by ­impressive contributors such as artists Antony Gormley and Anthony Caro.But it was the behind the scenes glimpses of an artistic life that shone here. Mary read entries from her father's diaries, and uncovered brilliantly ­eclectic days: "Queen Mother at 11am. Haircut in afternoon. Buy budgie food." She toured her parents' house, lingering in the sitting room with its perhaps surprising focal point of a television. "He would have a whisky and she would have a very sweet Sauternes," Mary explained, "and they would watch comedy and nature ­programmes." The sociable house's routines changed, though, when Wimbledon was on: "A whole line was put through the diary and nobody came." Family life was public, Mary remembered, because her father welcomed visitors and students alike. Antony Gormley recalled visiting Moore, ­astonished to find him working with a grater and polystyrene ("I was shocked; there was a chap sculpting in air") and friendly. "I can't be bothered to see people," Gormley admitted, "and give them tea." In this busy, amiable house, Caro suggested, mid-century British art took on new possibilities. "Modern art made sense," he said, "and it was a living thing".

The Daily Telegraph
9.02.10

Henry Moore, My Father was a privilege. Mary Moore, the sculptor's daughter, has a direct manner and a singularly attractive voice. She asked us to look again at Moore's work, consider the life that went into it, readjust the eye to see layers of rage and trauma in is wartime sketches and postwar sculpture, remember his practical idealism. Kate Bland, the producer, makes documentaries that always kickstart this listener's little grey cells.

The Stage
7.01.10

We've known for years that death can be a good career move for youngish pop stars, but what's happened to Elvis since his untimely demise in 1977 is something else altogether ... This fascinating two-parter, Elvis the Brand, produced by Susan Marling and Hannah Rosenfelder, made the point that posthumous celebrity is untouchable, because the adored one is forever frozen in time, unable to provoke our wrath or disenchantment. Elvis could be bigger yet in a hundred year's time.

The Times
3.08.09

There is a large element of the child with his nose pressed against the toyshop window whenever the ordinary listener hears superlative performers discussing their art. So near and, but for God-given talent and the requisite 10,000 hours of practice, so far. Tantalus had nothing on the torture the terrible guitar player experiences when he hears something such as Joan Armatrading's Favourite Guitarists (Radio 4). Armatrading, herself a fabulous guitarist as well as a singer to make strong men weep - doubly gifted, how dare she? - had invited five of the greats, favourite axes in tow, into the studio to demonstrate their various techniques.

There was a hint that this will not be the last series of Armatrading's faves, in which case bring it on. One thing, though - next time can the programmes be 30 minutes long, and not 15? Surely half an hour is the basic minimum for a proper lesson.

The Guardian
8.04.09

Hallelujah (Radio 4). Having come across as scared of her own shadow, or at least the script, [Pook] then ended this absorbing programme about the music made from the word Hallelujah in some style. "I've composed this short piece," she explained, over a track of lilting, exotic loveliness, "about the most musical of words". That's not something you get with most Radio 4 presenters.

The Independent
1.04.09

The Great Architect of Home
Such is the descriptive brilliance of this documentary that even without [a] photograph one can visualise all the Lloyd Wright buildings that are visited. Presenter Susan Marling's factual commentary borders upon the poetic and her interviews with people who either worked with or are related to the visionary architect bring forth enthralling tales and vivid reminiscences. It also goes to show that a home doesn't have to be big to be beautiful, so long as it is designed for people to live in - a key message for our times.

The Times
16.09.08

Louisa Buck's Sunday Feature, Broken Images (Radio 4) accomplished a little miracle - it explained to the ignorant listener what it was that made up Francis Bacon, both the man and the painter, in 45 minutes of intelligent, informed and above all clear narrative and interviews. The discussion of modern visual art is notorious for encouraging, even relying on, waffle, buzzwords and opaque jargon - Buck's programme was an object lesson in how to do it right.

Of course, Bacon could be one of those artists whose character and influences spread themselves in front of the idly curious like an A-Z. But if not, and Bacon's worth can be obscured just as easily by the skilled arty show-off as any conceptualist, then Buck's achievement is all the greater, for not taking the easy route.

It helped that Bacon's life was fascinating. He spent the first 16 years of his life as the misfit son of a wealthy English Protestant family in an Ireland going through a revolution. His family were avid hunters and he, an asthmatic, couldn't go near horses or dogs. He was gay, was sexually attracted to his father and was banished from home when he was caught wearing his mother's knickers. He could have turned out a serial killer. Thank God he could draw.

He was a product of his background and his time. He was a child during one world war and a man during the other. He was influenced by film, by literature, by poetry, by sex, by everything. He embraced the chaos of the 20th century and participated in it as much as he reflected it.

There were some great stories told, too. Here's one - he was painting a picture of a gorilla in a cornfield. It wasn't working. So he did what he usually did and added a few more strokes to see what happened. Could it be a bird? More paint - and it became a painting of an eviscerated crucified man, with a figure in front of him holding an umbrella. Wonderful. They should stick this programme on the tape guide to the Bacon retrospective at the Tate. But they won't.

The Times
8.08.08

The Novel that Changed My Life
Halfway through the six-part series that is becoming something of a Friday must-listen, and it’s the turn of Vic Reeves to expound on the character-altering or defining properties of a book he read as a teenager, Jack Kerouac’s On the Road. Ah, so that’s who we have to blame.

Whether Reeves’s encomium is likely to turn a new generation, or even an old one, on to the Bard of Beat is unlikely: from the excerpts that stud the programme it’s pretty clear that writing as jazz riff has had its day, and what was once seen as edgy and fresh now comes across as mannered and, let’s face it, a bit old-fashioned. But Reeves explains his passion well and the interviews with other members of the Kerouac story, most notably Carolyn Cassady, who went from being Kerouac’s girlfriend to marrying Neil Cassady, the model for the rip-roaring Dean Moriarty in On the Road, are a revelation.

The Times
1.08.08

The Novel that Changed My Life
“I don’t read novels, they’re for girls,” says the celebrity interior designer Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen, surprisingly, at the beginning of what turns out to be an excellent – presumably despite himself – analysis of one that he did read, and at the impressionable age of 16: Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited.

As it turns out, the programme concerns itself more with the famous TV adaptation of the book, which allows Llewelyn-Bowen to consider the architecture of Castle Howard, which played the part of Bridshead on the telly, than he does Waugh’s prose style. He passes briefly over Waugh’s own character but dwells, to good effect, on the real people and events on which the writer based the characters and events in his book. This gives us access to several very entertaining elderly posh people. At the end you may feel like taking the book out of the library. I know I did.

The Guardian
6.07.08
 

Jarvis Cocker's Musical Map of Sheffield
Jarvis Cocker, whose superlative musical tour around his home city of Sheffield was the kind of programme you want to cut out and keep. Not only for Jarvis's hilarious, insightful commentary ('Lederhosen was a dark chapter in my life'), but for the glorious swell of music beneath him (Heaven 17's Penthouse and Pavement - ace). Jarvis was as intelligently iconoclastic as ever. 'The miners were the kind of people who beat you up at the weekend because you had a plastic mac on,' he said. 'So it was hard to really wholeheartedly say, "Yeah, I'm with you brother, your struggle is mine." It was not as clear-cut as it would seem.'

The Guardian 
02.04.08

Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen's History of Home is everything that his new weekend show on Classic FM - the dreadfully named Sunday Spa - isn't. Bowen sounds engaged for one thing, and impressively knowledgable, instead of drippingly superficial. Yes, these short daily programmes about an era in British architecture and interior design are designed to be light segments, but listen to a few and you realise that you are absorbing quite a bit of history. He also has a great range of contributors, well matched with the day's topic.

The Daily Telegraph
17.01.08

Traveller’s Tree  
Return of the series on which Fi Glover shines (as opposed to glimmering archly as on her Saturday morning ragbag show). Produced here by Susan Marling and David Prest, she is witty, sharp, connective in all the ways that made her an outstanding presenter on Radio 5 Live. Travel shows are not easy on radio, where all the pictures have to be in the listener’s head and any presenter who gives the impression of having fun at the licence fee payer’s expense is at peril. None of that applies here. This is a winner.

The Daily Telegraph
27.11.07

The Poet of Albion
William Blake's poem The Tyger is remembered, said, sung, quoted. But what does it mean and what does it tell us about its author? This is a splendid programme by Jenny Uglow, with contributions from sundry well chosen academics and experts, one of whom speaks of Blake's "luminous non-conformity" , another of whom shows the mythic and revolutionary dimensions of The Tyger. Produced by Susan Marling, whose fine ear for location sound is matched by her sensitivity to language.

Mail On Sunday
04.11.07

McLaren was in nappies when Dior unveiled his groundbreaking collection in 1947, but narrated a sparkling and compelling documentary, The New Look, as if he were there.

The Guardian
31.10.07

The lavish party held recently to celebrate the launch of Dior's 60th anniversary collection, explained Malcolm McLaren in The New Look, "was $2m of flamboyance". McLaren's radio presenting voice is along the same lines, with each word delivered as if followed by at least one exclamation mark, and its catchy phrases used to light up a paragraph like fireworks against the night sky.

Beyond the wearingly rumbustious delivery, McLaren delivered a pleasingly rounded portrait of Dior and his legacy. I liked the anecdotes about how Marlene Dietrich and the designer came up with her outfit for the Oscars ceremony in 1951: "She said, 'I'm going to go slinky.' He said, 'black'." A legendary dress, with a daring slit in its skin-tight skirt to reveal Dietrich's fabulous legs as she crossed the stage to present an award, was born.

The Telegraph
26.07.07

Traveller's Tree
Fi Glover is a witty, resourceful and engaging broadcaster. If you've only heard her on that weird pudding of a programme Saturday Live you may find that hard to believe, so fiercely does she have to work to escape the clammy grip of its producers. But on this show she's really come into her own, talking (not reading), listening (not looking at the clock), transforming the dusty old Radio 4 travel show into something relevant.

The Telegraph
21.07.07

Traveller’s Tree....[is] not only a spiffingly practical travel programme but the first format for ages to fit the dry wit, breezy charm and unaffected appeal of presenter Fi Glover.

The Times
29.06.07

Angry, Sexy, Working Class
Those who got hooked last week by the start of the radio series Christopher Eccleston was born to narrate will be glad to know that episode two of the story of the British realist films of the Fifties and Sixties is just as good, and gritty. It features an interview with David Storey, who wrote This Sporting Life, the book that became the film that made Richard Harris – and rugby league, come to think of it – famous. Actually, Storey himself could hardly be bettered as a paradigm of the hard-bitten but sensitive Northerner – a miner’s son, he signed for the Leeds rugby league team but is also a writer and artist.

The Guardian
25.06.07

Blackpool - The Greatest Show Town was Ken Loach's first work for radio. Tender and fond, it recalled the director's family holidays there during the 1940s, and revelled in nostalgia for happy, if hard, times. If you'd had to guess what Loach did as a day job from broadcast, you'd have been able to surmise it was something filmic by the attention to poignant and vividly visual detail in his recollections. He remembered his father's "heavy pair of lace-up shoes" and his mother's "print dress and cardigan".  But this wasn't simple a memoir; it worked too as a tribute to a Blackpool that was "teeming with life." Music (George Formby), memories ("2000 people slept on the promenade because the boarding house was full"), and even dated comedy routines ("he was the master of the single entendre") added to a highly evocative, charming mix.

The Guardian
22.06.07

If you, like me, relish travel and admire Fi Glover, then Travellers' Tree (Radio 4) is a treasure. Its strongest quality is its interactivity. The programme is, as Glover conceded, "an alarmingly simple concept", but it works. It draws the on listener input in the ways that print journalism has recently woken up to, and does so with considerable charm. I was left dreaming of being able to afford a new sailing hobby: very few radio programmes have such immediate, giddy impact.

New Statesman
21.06.05

The "kitchen-sink" techniques of British new-wave films were taken up by later directors such as Ken Loach, whose name has become synonymous with a kind of dour social realism. So it was interesting to see that his radio debut had a distinctly dreamlike quality to it. Blackpool: the Greatest Show Town (Radio 3) looked back at the resort Loach visited as a child in the 1940s. With little in the way of narration, a string of unnamed interviewees recalled their experiences of living and working in 1940s Blackpool - which in those days was a hedonist's paradise that drew up to 20 million visitors a year; the stories were interspersed with clips of contemporary songs and comedy routines. At first the overall effect was disorientating (a lot of "ees" and "aahs" and "bah gums" and not much else), but as the programme progressed, vivid images suddenly emerged from the haze: thousands of visitors, equipped with buckets and spades, moving "like an army" from their boarding houses to the sands and back again in time for tea; or the man who remembered getting laughed at by the girls for wearing a pair of knitted swimming trunks.

Listening to the programme was like being allowed to rifle unhindered through someone's memory, cluttered and incomplete as it was. The world Loach described has long since vanished, but these fleeting glimpses created a kind of intimacy that radio so often fails to deliver.

Radio Times
28.04.07

The Appalling Mr Dali
In one inspired piece of casting by producer Susan Marling one artistic, self-assured, egomaniacal, fame-loving, money-grabbing original presents a mini-biography of another, as Malcolm McLaren strolls with more than a jaunty twist through the live and works of Salvador Dali. There's nothing particularly revelatory about the material McLaren unearths but [his] erudite style of presentation is entirely engaging and, as a result, we're left wishing the programme was twice as long.

The Spectator
14.04.07

Picasso's Fallen Women
When television has become so sophisticated, so dazzling, so brazenly colourful, it’s an audacious radio producer who decides to make a programme about one of the most famous paintings in the history of art with just a mike and a cast of experts. How can you compete with the digital, crystal-clear trickery of flat-screen TV? How do you make art come alive for the listener? How do you make it ‘relevant’?

In just half an hour we were given by Cork (and his producer Kate Bland) such a complex view not just of the picture but also the story behind it, and an assessment of its current status in the history of art, that to see a reproduction of the painting itself would have been an anticlimax.


The Times
23.02.07

Malcolm McLaren is a throwback, a being from another world hundreds, thousands of years ago - a natural-born storyteller. Last year he gave us his personal audio tour of London, but that was a meal he's been dining out on for three decades. On Tuesday Malcolm McLaren's Life and Times in LA was fresh meat, and oh, how he encouraged us to share in its succulence.

The Guardian
25.02.07

What a maddening man and what a fantastic radio presenter! Talcy Malcy's occasional foray's into Radio 2 are never anything less than magnificent. Last year he gave us his camp-as-you-like guide to London; last Tuesday it was his Life and Times in LA, 'a megalopolis that has crept up like a slow-moving lava into five countries.'

You could call McLaren a monologist extraordinaire (he would certainly title himself something similar): he loves words, worships anecdotes and adores the sound of his own strange voice. His producers mingle his creaky tones with film clips, hip hop, police sirens, Hispanic chatter and unidentifiable music to construct what they describe as a 'radio movie'. Noises come at you from everywhere, as do little gems of history.

The Guardian
02.02.07

What a relief: Fi Glover is back in a show that suits her. Traveller's Tree is welcome balm to those of us unable to love Saturday Live. Traveller's Tree has got it right from the off. This is genuinely interactive radio on the subject of travel, and Glover has really got her mojo back as a presenter. Here, she is productive rather than annoyingly perky, and funny in ways that don't feel laboured. In yesterday's programme, on winter sports, Glover summed up how mainstream snowbarding has become. "It's the sort of thing your uncle might do while listening to a podcast of Moneybox Live," she quipped. One of her studio guests was, she said, "an expert on all things snowy", and Al Gore, she noted "has very electable hair". Welcome back, Fi of old. It's been too long.

The Observer
15.10.06

Gormley on Rodin
Antony Gormley’s programme in praise of Rodin was marvellous. New enthusiasts will, on the strength of it, be queuing along Piccadilly to get into the exhibition at the Royal Academy.

Radio Times
10.10.06

Gormley on Rodin
First impressions of any piece of creative work are nothing to base a final decision upon. Bear that in mind as you listen to British sculptor Antony Gormley explain why he believes Auguste Rodin to be one of the greatest artists of all time. This could be taken as a biography of one creative talent by another, illuminated with some factual nuggets from critics and experts, and fleshed out with actors playing out aspects of Rodin’s turbulent life. But a closer listen reveals this to be just as much about what makes any artist tick, what inspires them to create in the first place and then keep wanting to push the boundaries. And there’s not a moment of pretentious prattle. Instead, there’s a thrilling description of the rampant sexiness of Rodin’s The Gates of Hell sculpture and a delightfully dismissive section on the overly sentimentalise the kiss and that’s not from Gormley but from something Rodin wrote himself.

The Guardian
18.08.06

Do we need another documentary about the birth of punk? Or have you heard so many of them you feel you could have easily been at the back of the 100 club in early 1976 when the Sex Pistols were busy changing the sound of music forever? The Real Story of Punk Rock may just about convince you that we do. Narrated by Malcolm McLaren (who else would you want?), it recounts the parallel development of punk in Britain and the US. For the Americans, still reeling from defeat in Vietnam, and where the economy was in tatters, only a howl of anguish would do. British youngsters, meanwhile, sick of the endless meanderings of prog rock, were equally hungry for something new.

The Observer
13.08.06

Portrait
As the National Portrait Gallery celebrates its 150th anniversary, director Sandy Nairne, introduces an entertaining series in which a selection of guests talk about the portraits that have meant the most to them. Today punk rock pioneer Malcolm McLaren explores his affinity with Andy Warhol whose garish silkscreen portrait of Her Majesty The Queen has echoes of the Pistol’s irreverent depiction of her with a safety pin.

The Financial Times
26.6.06

In a cracking report from Moscow the BBC World Service’s Making Cities Work, architectural critic Deyan Sudjic investigates the economic boom that’s sweeping old buildings into dust. Illegal demolitions reach governmental level, dominated by the billionaires who are more profuse in Moscow than anywhere elsewhere. We meet the two women who, holding out against developers, now keep watch in their historic restaurant all night, aware that fires “with owners inside” are a frequent occurrence. Disturbing, enraging, saddening.  

The Financial Times
10.07.06

The BBC World Service's Making Cities Work ends with Detroit, now hardly deserving to be nicknamed Motown since the car industry deserted it. After horrifying urban problems, optimism is in the air: small-scale sustainable renewal, small businesses, even farming... If all goes according to plan the huge, empty Packard plant could become a shrimp farm, a wonderful symbol of post-industrial renovation. Deyan Sudjic’s reporting has been a masterpiece of concise, cool-headed perception, a model of its kind.

The Observer
30.04.06

Cezanne’s Mountain
This fascinating documentary marking the 100th anniversary of the death of the artist Paul Cezanne not only tells the story of his obsession with the Mont Sainte-Victoire, which he tirelessly painted, but also explores his life and career and his important childhood friendship with Emile Zola, who later encouraged him to follow his vocation as a painter.

The Guardian
05.05.06

Cezanne’s Mountain
The best thing about this programme was the double-act of Stewart and author Michele Roberts, surveying the mountain’s significance in their own ways. Stewart thrilled at everything around him (I’m having a drink and it’s the end of a lovely day, the mountain has gone a fantastic rosy pink”) while Roberts swooned over the passion and ideas in the painting more than the mountain itself (“his work makes you feel the dance of atoms in all things”). It was less soft cop and hard cop, than rock cop and ideas cop, but they made an endearing team.

The Daily Telegraph
14.03.06

Joan’s Journey to the Caribbean takes singer Joan Armatrading back to her native St Kitts, to hear new songs that mark the changes in the island’s history since she left in childhood, to remember her mother singing in church, to roam the rainforest, As this is produced by one of the best teams in radio, Susan Marling and Kate Bland, listen for how finely it’s tuned to real-life sounds.

The Daily Telegraph
14.01.06

Malcolm McLaren’s Musical Map of London
It’s 30 years since Malcolm McLaren, then manager of the Sex Pistols, shook the music business to its foundations, Shock, since then, has become his calling card. I recommend this personal portrait of the capital, street by street, era by era, because it’s produced by Kate Bland, whose work last year across the BBC’s networks was unusually imaginative.

Radio Times
14.01.06

Malcolm McLaren’s Musical Map of London
From the moment Malcolm McLaren opens his mouth and his slow, mannered voice wafts through the airwaves over the top of the oddest sounding electronic tune, you know you’re in for a weird ride. In theory this is his account of London. In practice it’s the strangest documentary that Radio 2 has ever aired. Producer Kate Bland recorded him telling stories about his life in London, which are typically abstract. Then musician and sound engineer Chris O’Shaunessy took this artful narrative and wove a wild web of sounds around it. It’s full of statements that appear beautiful yet do not stand up to close analysis. But I would not miss it for the world. It’s innovative and enthralling, resting somewhere between a documentary and an album.

The Observer
22.01.06

Malcolm McLaren’s Musical Map of London
Not much punk; lots of ambient house, including cheeky samples from his own Nineties album, Paris. Vivienne Westwood was introduced by a blast of a leering, upbeat version of Hendrix's 'Foxy Lady', which made me laugh; as did most of Malc’s commentary, delivered in his creaky old lady voice, like a Carry On character. ‘London, dear? Yes, I used to own it, you know…' A magpie, mad, maddening programme, from a similar character and an atmospheric example of what radio does best.

The Sunday Telegraph
16.01.05

Matador
In this ‘audio essay’ there was no British bleating about blood sports. Instead, there was a concentrated attempt to show what bullfighting means in Spanish culture, to convey its intensity as a ritualised confrontation with death. It would be difficult to imagine a better radio programme on this subject, and it was no less an achievement to get it broadcast uncensored, too. A remarkable testimony to the power and significance of bullfighting.

The Independent on Sunday
9.01.05

Matador
When did you last read or hear anything about bullfighting that didn’t flag up the animal rights issue? Producer Kate Bland’s courageous audio essay follows matador Francisco Rivera Odonez into the arena prompted purely by curiosity. What is it that persuades a young man to dance with the Lady of Death knowing his own father died on the horns of a bull? Through commentaries, readings, and a rare interview with Odonez (the David Beckham of the bullfight), the programme analyses the personal style and artistry of matadors, their ordination, rituals and religious beliefs.

The Sunday Telegraph
19.07.05

If you missed The Genius of Stubbs, on Radio 3's Sunday Feature, you missed a marvellous programme. It unskeined history, aesthetics, science, sport, then wove them all into word-tapestry. Presented by Jenny Uglow and produced by Susan Marling, it was made, obviously, to go with the current exhibition of George Stubbs's 18th-century horse paintings at the National Gallery. But this wasn't some weary homage, a few canned clichés on the soggy toast of received opinion. It came from people who talk with passion, love their subject, know its bones as well as Stubbs knew the bones of his. Every contributor added significance - Brough Scott on horse power, Richard Cork on Stubbs "the great empiricist", Robin Blake on Stubbs the man, the Duke of Richmond on his ancestor, Stubbs's great patron. A repeat is called - make that shouted - for.

The Observer
24.07.05

The Genius of Stubbs
Radio 3’s Sunday feature about the artist George Stubbs achieved the impossible. It succeeded in making this unhorsey reviewer, want to race off to the National Gallery to look at his paintings. Jenny Uglow’s profile of the 18th century painter was full of the sort of anecdotes, opinions and descriptions that bring people and, more important in this particular instance, paintings to life. Critic Richard Cork’s description of the life-size portrait of the racehorse Whistlejacket was so vivid you could practically see its ears twitch.

The Sunday Telegraph
15.11.05

Peter Blake's Mystery Tour had an unexpected effect on this listener. It transformed her into a Cheshire Cat, sitting in the branches of the airwaves, smiling.

This was a fine piece of work, using sound as everyone does, reminiscently, romantically, framing things that have happened and things imagined, hanging them side by side as we do when we can't (or won't) draw the line between dreams and memories. Chris O'Shaughnessy was the sound engineer. Kate Bland produced. They helped Blake make you feel inside it, part of the montage, all together on some great radio album sleeve, really smiling.

Radio Times
12.11.05

Peter Blake’s Mystery Tour
Sir Peter Blake’s first foray into radio is a fantastical journey through art, pop, literature and history. Mystery Tour is part life-story, part a “posthumous ‘thank you’” to his artist hero Duchamp, but mostly a transport of delight.

The Observer
1.09.02

Dr Harris's Violins
There are few better documentary producers than Susan Marling. If I see her name, I automatically switch on. Mr Harris's Violins was full of anecdotes and music and, especially, surprises. Nigel Harris is a New Zealander, who has taken over from Stradivarius in the opinion of many musicians. He trained as a structural engineer, and uses the same mathematical formulae to work out why a violin works the way it does. His description of the different kinds of wood needed to make a violin - the spruce trees growing on the Italian side of the Alps are the best for the front, and seasoned maple for the