Melvyn Bragg is the Guest Editor on this morning’s edition of Today on Radio 4.
He will be interviewing his IOT successor Misha Glenny later in the programme.
MG was announced a few weeks back as the new presenter, but I neglected to post anything when I learned.
I could scroll make to try and find the thread I started about the new presenter, but it’s easier to ask did anyone nominate Misha Glenny among the many names proposed.
Melvyn Bragg (and In Out Time) continued
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Don’t remember his name coming up but when I heard the news I thought ‘yeah, ok – that could work’. Good luck to him and long may the show prosper.
Melvyn was great this morning on Radio 4 as guest editor. I loved his piece about The Southbank Show and what he was up against when he started it. His first subject for the show was Paul McCartney. A number of newspaper outlets and the BBC were mystified by this but Melvyn stuck to his guns. He explained the snobbishness of the BBC at the time where if you didn’t have the cut glass accent you weren’t taken seriously. Part of the Southbank Show’s legacy was to illustrate that ordinary working class people were artistic, creative and more than worthy of public attention and appreciation. McCartney epitomised this, as did people like Denis Potter, Alan Bennett, David Bailey, Michael Caine and others. He knew of people who worked at a factory every day, yet wrote and produced plays, or wrote poetry as a sideline. Some of our greatest writers came from humble backgrounds. A highlight of this morning’s show was Melvyn reading a short poem by the novelist Thomas Hardy. He got a bit emotional but read beautifully. He said that, although Hardy was better known as a novelist, his poetry was delightful and well worth exploring. There was also discussion about ‘In Our Time’, one of the best things on Radio 4. Melvyn Bragg’s gift is that when one listens to him, you always learn something.
I have hundreds of In Our Times episodes in mp3 format burnt onto a CD-R and kept in the car. If I’m not listening to an audio book while driving, Radio 4 is too depressing for ears, and there’s no specific music CD I want to hear, this goes on and will keep me intrigued and engaged for even the longest drive. Endlessly fascinating, and the ideal emollient for traffic jams and roadworks, so much so that when I hear his voice introduce the day’s topic, for a second or two it’s not uncommon for me to mentally picture a stationary M32 stretching out in front of me.