RadioLetter From America was a weekly series on Radio 4 which ran from the mid-1940 to the mid-2000s in which the broadcaster and journalist Alistair Cooke commented on the week's news from the United States in a fifteen minute essay. Documenting the history of the country over the past five decades, every episode of filled with contemporary details often glossed over in hindsight.
Every extant episode is now available on the BBC website. Unfortunately, like In Our Time, they're locked into a programme page format which isn't easily navigable when that many episodes are involved and so I decided to create the following chronology to make them more accessible and create the ability to easily skip to a particular year and re-experience that history through the words of Alistair Cooke.
To that end, I've also augmented the radio episodes with transcripts of lost episodes from elsewhere as well as Cooke's US-related journalism from other outlets, notably The Guardian where he was a foreign correspondent from 1947 to 1972 and which led him to be on the ground during these historic moments, like the Montgomery bus boycott and RFK's assassination. Those entries will be marked with their source and in italics. Enjoy.
TV Usually when considering Shakespeare on the BBC in the 70s, we look towards the BBC Television Shakespeare series. Certainly it's this which has been merchandised most over the years through the dvd boxed set and at the BBC Store. But as I've discovered recently, in the late 60s and early 70s, the Play of the Month strand, which ran in prime time BBC One for many years carried numerous productions of his plays in amongst other pieces of the theatre canon.
Produced by Cedric Messina, who would go on to be the "showrunner" on the later Shakespeare series and very much in the style that he'd utilise there until passing the baton to Jonathan Miller (and all the gossip of that change readable in Susan Willis's book), these were cut down versions of the texts running through a two hours passage, presenting them in a speedy, accessible manner with prominent actors from stage and screen and mostly exceedingly entertaining.
Having watched a few recently through the BBC's brilliant Shakespeare Archive Resource (available to academic institutions), I wondered just how much of the canon, Messina and his team managed to adapt to television and so thanks to the BBC Genome, here's a list of Play of the Month's Shakespeare productions with links back to the Genome entry, TX dates and a few notes on what to expect should you ever have the chance to see them.
As you can see, the schedule was just about one per year, with the gap towards the end explained by the appearance of The Duchess of Malfi in 1973The Changeling in 1974 indicating that there was an "Early Modern Drama" quota each year which those plays filled instead of a Hamlet or one of the histories (both of which are notable by their absence). They ended in 1975 when Messina was scouting for an As You Like It at Glamis Castle and began to wonder whether the whole canon would be possible (full story at the Wikipedia).
The BBC Play of the Month Shakespeare
Romeo and Juliet
Thora Hurd as the Nurse. Gielgud provides the opening voiceover. Directed by Alan Cooke who later went to Hollywood and worked on everything from Matlock to Murder She Wrote and Beauty and the Beast. TX: 3 December 1967, 19.50 The Tempest
Ronald Pickup as Ariel. TX: 12 May 1968, 21.15
Julius Caesar
Edward Woodward as Cassius. Director Alan Bridges went on to direct The Shooting Party. TX: 13 April 1969.
Macbeth
Janet Suzman as a brilliantly vampish Lady Macbeth. Eric Porter entirely miscast in the title role sadly. John Alderton as a really touching Malcolm. John Thaw as Banquo, Jeffrey Palmer as Menteith (yes, exactly). Directed by John "The Keys of Marinus" Gorrie. TX: 20 September 1970, 20.15
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Dream cast. Eileen Atkins as Titania, Lynn Redgrave as Helena, Eleanor Bron as Hypolita, Edward Fox as Lysander, Michael Gambon as Theseus, Paul "Benny from Crossroads" Henry as Flute and only Ronnie Barker as Bottom. The Radio Times synopsis notes that this "extremely traditional" production was broadcast concurrently with Peter Brook's legendary white cube circus production for the RSC. Shot "entirely on location in and around Scotney Castle, a folly set in the Kent countryside outside Tunbridge Wells." TX: 26 September 1971, 20.10. The Merchant of Venice
Maggie Smith as Portia, Frank Finley as Shylock, both unusually with their own title card at the top of the broadcast underscoring the prestigiousness of their casting. Nerissa is played by Nerys Hughes, which is perfect casting from Cedric Messina who directed this himself. "The Venice of Titian and the Belmont of Botticelli are the visual inspiration behind tonight's lavish production," the Radio Times synopsis explains. TX: 16 April 1972, 20.15.
King Lear
Michael Horden as Lear, directed by Jonathan Miller, roles which both of them would return to seven years later when creating a new version for the BBC Television Shakespeare (after Shaun Sutton had taken over as producer) for which this feels mostly like a dry-run (and many of the same cast would return although some in different roles). TX: 23 March 1975, 21.20.
Shakespeare With the Shakespeare Festival still in full swing at the BBC, I thought it would be an idea to see how often some of my favourite plays have appeared on the BBC, which is now somewhat possible thanks to the BBC Genome. We begin with Hamlet, because having seen a fair few of them now, it would be nice to see which ones I'm yet to catch up with.
Find a list below. Since they're all Hamlets, I've highlighted the transmission details. They're all with BBC selected casts unless otherwise stated and I've just included the first transmission details - Gielgud's 1948 effort was repeated numerous times in subsequent years. I've also only included complete or near complete productions. Including excerpts would make this list five times longer.
Note that I've also included data from outside the Genome in relation to the World Service because due to the vagaries of how the database was set up - utilising Radio Times data, for some reason there are gaps specifically the version starring John Duttine. But I'm adding him back in for completions sake.
Notes: The first film Hamlet to appear on the BBC was the Kozintsev version. The Olivier didn't appear until 1973. Cedric Messina, who produced the Michael Redgrave version on the Third Programme in 1960, was the producer of the 80s TV adaptation with Jacobi. The Ian McKellan broadcast was a complete surprise. I wonder if it's still available.
TV Noticing this tweet from Clayton "All Things Doctor Who" Hickman reminded me to check on the status of the wiped episodes of Choc-A-Block, the children's television series from the 1980s.
Missing or incomplete episodes for programme: CHOCK-A-BLOCK. 11.06.81 (missing) 18.06.81 (missing) 25.06.81 (missing) 02.07.81 (missing) 09.07.81 (missing) 16.07.81 (missing) 23.07.81 Shoe One or more sequences exist from a recording on a domestic video format (e.g. VHS, Beta, Philips 1500), but the complete programme is lost. 30.07.81 Shoe The only known complete copy was recorded on a domestic video format (e.g. VHS, Beta, Philips 1500). Out of an original total of 13 episodes, 6 episodes are missing. In addition, one episode is incomplete and 2 exist on formats inferior to the original.
Film Back in 1994 and 1998, BBC Two offered a strand called "Lost and Found", seasons of films described as being "rarely (or never before) seen on television, or presented in restored versions" something I was entirely unaware of until the VHS Video Vault YouTube channel, part of the VHistory blog, uploaded an introduction to Michael Mann's The Keep (see below).
The BBC Genome predictably has a list of all the films in this strand. Just as a test, I'm also going to see how available these ancient scheduling choice are now. At a time when the notion is that everything is supposed to be just there, sometimes its good to see if that's actually true, especially with a list of film developed before the introduction of dvd.
I actually have a copy of the Warner Home Video BD which is utterly gorgeous and seems to be the version suggested in the listings, with scenes restored from surviving footage (mainly the characters in long shot travelling and getting in and out of cars) and set photographs with an audio track underneath which looks for all the world like a Doctor Who recon.
No dvd release. Not at the Internet Archive or on YouTube. The list has finally defeated us.
Nevertheless for whatever reason most of these films are available in some form or other and loads in the UK thanks in large part to Network. Congratulations to the modern world.
Radio Although Radio Four Extra rebroadcast some classic episodes of TAL recently, there are a couple of mentions of the show and it's prehistory in the BBC Genome.
In 1993, two years before TAL began in its original form as Your Radio Playhouse, Ira Glass was the producer on the first episode of a series, Your Place of Mine?, "a collaboration between documentary makers from five countries. Over the next ten weeks, programmes from Australia, America, Canada, Ireland and Britain. Stories which cross boundaries - of geography and generation." The synopsis of the episode is pure TAL:
"1. Big Sisters. "Whatever the guys do we can do better. "On the streets of Chicago the girl gangs rule the patch. They are rough and tough, seeking power, friendship and "family".
The episode was co-produced with NPR but their audio archive "only" goes back to 2001 and I can't find another trace of it.
Then in 1998, the Postscript strand on Radio 3 ran a series called "This American Life" in which "Ian Peacock attempts to understand America through its self-image on radio and television" and in episode 3, Niagra Falls:
"From a rain-swept pier on Lake Michigan, award-winning broadcaster Ira Glass attempts to decode America on his weekly national programme. Recently, he has covered every possible American concept, from Canadians to wackiness and the cult of Frank Sinatra. He, of all people, must have an overview of what an American really is."
The strand has since been discontinued and I can't find audio of this either but here are the three TAL episodes referred to in that synopsis: "Canadians"
FilmStoryville is one of the BBC's primary documentary strands, co-funding and licensing non-fiction films from a range of sources under the guiding hand of producer Nick Fraser. Beginning on BBC Two in 1997 and now well embedded onto BBC Four, it's become a valid alternative to the televisual storytelling of the dominant form of presenter led and talking heads documentary, although obviously includes examples of both.
Between 1997 and 2002, Storyville was just on BBC Two. Then for the opening months of 2002 it was exclusively on BBC Knowledge and when that closed shifted to BBC Four before eventually sharing between Two and Four, the former carrying the prestige, usually theatrical releases and repeats in a late night BBC Four on BBC Two slot after Newsnight and later.
As with Close-Up, I've often wondered which films were included in the strand across time and thanks to the BBC Genome that information is now readily available, so I decided to make a list.
There isn't anything I can find which goes back as far as 1997 when the strand began.
Until now.
Which isn't to say this list will be perfect. Obviously.
Firstly, I've left out transmission dates and descriptions. For the purposes of this exercise I'm not sure how useful they are. But if that is important for the purposes of your exercise, you should be able to find that information by copy/pasting the title into the Genome search box, along with the word Storyville if necessary.
There may also be omissions. My process was to search for "Storyville" on the Genome and rekey the results. If it wasn't designated as a Storyville broadcast on the listing pages of the Radio Times, it won't be here.
The Wikipedia, for example, has Winged Migration as a Storyville entry, as does Box of Broadcasts (so would have been listed as such on the Freeview EPG at some point, even though the Genome doesn't mention it so that information wasn't in the Radio Times listing and it has its own BBC programme page (but also this stubby page on BBC News where it is caption as Storyville).
Do let me know if I've missed anything.
I've ignored duplicate broadcasts too. Some of them have been repeated dozens of times. Paris Brothel.
Also, I've added director surnames in brackets where that information is available in the Genome which tends to be when the film was broadcast on BBC Two, for which entries were longer due to the position of the listing in the Radio Times. Only post digital switchover did BBC Four's listings really become as detailed as the so-called main channels.
So the best I can say is that this list is largely accurate, I think. I have only included the programmes listed in the Genome, which ends at the end 2009, so if you are interested in what happened after that you'll also have to consult the BBC programme pages or the Wikipedia.
Film Back in 1995, as part of the century of cinema celebrations (of which more in my old post about The Fifth Element) the BBC broadcast a series of short five or ten minute programmes in which prominent people chose and described their favourite film scenes.
Being a student at the time, I was never around when they were broadcast, which was through July then throughout the Autumn and at odd times during the day but have a vivid memory of the episode in which Gale Ann Hurd describes the resuscitation scene from The Abyss and how it's the emotional climax which made it an exceedingly difficult to find a satisfying conclusion.
Sometimes they were succeeded by a broadcast of the film in question.
For years I've wondered exactly which films had been chosen and by who and the other day I realised that there was now a source in existence which could tell me.
They're generally in broadcast order, although I've changed the chronology whenever the same film's chosen by two people or the same person's chosen two films. To be honest it doesn't look like they were produced to be broadcast in any particular order anyway and there were a few repeats during the run (which I've left out too).
Someone's also recently uploaded some episodes to YouTube which I've embedded so you can get some idea of what the series was like.
Brief commentary: some of the choices are really interesting - Nic Roeg choosing The Woman in Red or Diane Abbott on Gone With The Wind - and it's frustrating not to know what they said. Plenty of women directors too. Oh and the youngest is Robert Rodriguez who in 1995 was on the crest of his original burst of fame with El Mariachi and Desperado.
