The Homecoming

Drama on 3, BBC Radio
3

This new production of Harold Pinter's 1965 play features Pinter in the role of the old man of the family, Max. This is quite a family of men. These are not at all nice people who we spend this hour and a half with. As a matter of fact these are awful people who engage in a sort of verbal slapstick in this dark comedy. One might not want to actually wander into such a house, yet their jabs at one another provides some fast paced entertainment. There is never a dull moment.

The exuberance with which Pinter's tackles the role makes one think that he has been waiting all these years to play Max. He is dreadfully marvelous. Well, they all are. This is a great production of a great demented and somewhat courageous play. This is the sort of thing that earned Pinter the Nobel. This is the artist taking things beyond the edges of reason.

The play presents more questions than it answers and this is a very good thing. One question is. "What the hell is up with Ruth, and why does she agree with this scheme?" It would be interesting to get the opinion of a woman who has heard the play. The people in the play are unkind to women, or at least they speak about some horrible criminal activity toward women. And yet Ruth is not frightened off. Is she a masochist?

In childhood it was a lot of fun to be spun around enough to upset the fluids in the inner ear to cause dizziness, be left stumbling, giggling, and bumping into the furniture in mock drunkenness yet with all senses lucid and alert. This is the effect of a play like this. It's disorienting.

Unfortunately the week portal of BBC WWW 'Listen Again" has expired on this one. so if you missed it, it's gone. Perhaps it will be replayed in the future or released on CD or purchasable download. It would be a good thing if they created a site where downloads of dramas could be bought. Perhaps they are working on such an idea.

Joni Mitchell on BBC Radio 2

COME IN FROM THE COLD – THE RETURN OF JONI MITCHELL
BBC Radio 2 Documentaries.

Is there anyone in popular music quite like Joni Mitchell? Why is she so special and what made her that way?
Come in from the Cold, a two part interview profile currently running on BBC Radio 2 has some answers.
You will discover some interesting technical information. What comes first, words or music? Mitchell says she does it the hard way, she likes puzzles.

The two hour production of which only the first part has played so far, probably has about a half hour or 45 minutes of straight interview material. The rest is filled out with sound clips from her recordings. Did she say that the new CD is album number 23? That is not a surprise when we look at what has so far been a 40+ year career. She even took the last ten years off to work on visual art.

Fortunately we have a figure of the current moment here. She is not one of these people who is looking back to the glory days of the past, to how cool her gen, gen, generation was. She is clearly and individual which is what one would expect given the evidence of the unique popular songs and recordings she has produced.
Of course the whole point of the exercise is to promote the upcoming CD of new material which is called Shine. Yet it is worth a listen for even those with a passing interest in this major figure in 20th Century popular and perhaps what we could call art song.

Part one should be available to "Listen Again" through Monday March 26, 2007. Part two appears on Tuesday March 27 and will be available for streaming for a week after that.

The Diane Rehm Show

There is good news this week for the lovers of intelligent talk on the radio. Diane Rehn is back on the air. She was out last week. We were told she was recovering from pneumonia which was a frightening thing to hear. But now she is back.
Who is Diane Rehm? She is the host of The Diane Rehm Show which originates weekday morning from WAMU (American University Radio) in Washington D.C. and is syndicated on some NPR stations including WNYE-FM 91.5 in New York from 10 am until noon.
There are a lot of interview programs on Public Radio, but where most of the others have adapted the magazine format in which they will only cover a subject for 20 or sometimes around 35 minutes, The Diane Rehm Show takes a more leisurely and in-depth approach of sticking to one subject for the full hour. The subject does not need to be trite on up to the minute to be worthy of discussion. Today's show had an hour long discussion on Flaubert's Madame Bovery.
Of course the element that makes the program great is Diane Rehm herself. She is not a young woman and brings a lifetime of experience to the work she does. She suffers from some sort of voice ailment that makes her speak a little more slowly than most people on the radio, and this is welcome. It was funny hearing her some years back in discussion with Mister Rogers, two slow talkers. And yet she can be quite tough. I remember her with Henry Kissinger. She was smart and tough with him, asking him things that no others have had the guts to.
The guests are mostly the ones on the circuit at the moment, out selling the new book, but she is just so much better, smarter and more feeling than the other hosts, presenters, on American radio.
Recent standout programs have been her visits with Art Buchwald at his death bed in a hospice, and later when he didn't die on schedule instead leaving the hospice and writing another book before he passed away. They talked about the issues involved with dying in a direct and forthright manner, a rarity on USA media. There are many others. Such as Ellen Burstyn who was on promoting the publication of her autobiography.
Please visit the site for The Diane Rehm Show. She has all you need there, streaming, podcasts, archives, etc. If you don't know her already, you will meet an exciting new radio friend.