“What is interviewing?” says Studs Terkel, the late radio host from Chicago who devoted most of his life to the craft. “Interviewing is listening.” The Documentary: The World According To Studs Terkel (Wednesday 1 March, 7.30pm, BBC World Service) recounts the great man’s role in the careers of some of the people he spent time listening to, who included Bob Dylan and Woody Allen when they were just starting out, as well as his role in representing the liberal strain of thought at times when it wasn’t represented elsewhere. This two-part programme combines a “mosaic” of extracts from his lifetime’s work, plus interviews recorded by producer Alan Hall in Terkel’s later years.
I once interviewed Anthony Burgess on the radio. I played pop records between the conversation. “How do you tolerate this awful music?” he said with a grimace and his customary hauteur. At the time, Manchester was the centre of the pop-music universe. You would never __have guessed that Burgess was born in the city 100 years ago this week. BBC radio is pushing the boat out to mark the anniversary. Saturday Classics (Saturday 25 February, 1.02pm, Radio 3) features his biographer Andrew Biswell talking about the music he favoured, which presumably didn’t include New Order. The day after, there’s the first British production of his Oedipus The King (Sunday 26 February, 9pm, Radio 3) with Christopher Eccleston in the title role. There’s also a Burgess-themed Archive On 4 (Saturday 25 February, 8am, Radio 4 Extra) presented by Paul Morley, while five writers, from AL Kennedy to Kevin Jackson, talk about their favourite aspect of Burgess in The Essay: Burgess At 100 (Weekdays, 10.45pm, Radio 3).
Herald Of Disaster (Saturday 25 February, 2.30pm, Radio 4) is an unflinching dramatisation of the nightmare that befell the Herald of Free Enterprise ferry 30 years ago, which is based on the findings of the enquiry. A timely reminder of the things that went on before health and safety went mad.
A gap in tone is opening up between podcasts and broadcast radio. The people who produce the former know their listeners __have given them permission to go deep into their subject. The people who do the latter live in fear they’ve already gone too far. Bobby Bones is a young country DJ who does a widely syndicated morning show. He’s at his best with his BobbyCast in which he talks to Nashville up-and-comers such as Kelsea Ballerini and Lauren Alaina. Guests are encouraged to relax on Bones’s couch and talk about anything they like. Bones is patient and listens hard, his guests clearly like and trust him, and from these podcasts you get a uniquely inside view of what it’s like to try to establish a name in a world where any clown can make a record.
The Media Show (Wednesdays, 4pm, Radio 4) does a very good job of explaining the media for a general audience, but if you’re in and around the game there’s nothing better than Recode Media With Peter Kafka, which is an accelerated account of whatever is the new, new thing, whether that means the future of advertising, how viral successes happen or why people give away content. Kafka and guests speak in a kind of accelerated insider code, which makes for exciting listening.
