A really good week on BBC 4 for the arts.    Viewers who wish to sample the qualities of arts programming in the 1960s/70s have a treat in store.

             Starting Today:
   
             MONITOR     20.00 hrs Huw Wheldon talks to Orson Welles
                              20.10      Monitor/Henry Moore
                              20.30          "     / Philip Larkin
                              20.55          "     / Pop Art (1962)
                              21.40          "     / Alfred Hitchcock
                              22.00 - 23.00 hrs   The Art of Arts TV: A new three part history
                                            of arts TV, covering a 40 year history, is launched
                                            on single art-house films such as Ken Russell's
                                             'Pop Goes The Weasel'.   Tomorrow night, TV arts come
                                            under scrutiny and Wednesday evening's coverage contrasts
                                            'landmarks' series from John Berger and Kenneth Clark,
                                            40 years ago, to David Dimbleby and John Cruickshank's
                                            travels today.

                 My DVD recorder is already on stand-by.

Seconded, George.   I've set my recorder for a 7.30pm start.   I only feel slightly discouraged when I realise the extent of the time gap since I first saw the extraordinary John Berger in his most compelling series.  Fings aint what they used to be!       

A good start last night to four consecutive evenings of arts coverage on BBC 4.   Reminders of how John Berger, along with AJP Taylor and Kenneth Clark were trusted to talk direct-to-camera without the need for frequent cutting to a visual every 15 secs.   Of course, in the 60s/70s, most viewers had grown up in the era of radio and acquired the habit of listening to a sustained conversation.

The Monitor extracts were quite endearing and, yes, I wonder how many viewers became distracted trying to identify the name of the jaunty theme tune to the series?   I stumbled on Scandanavia, a miniaturist composer, then Swedish,  as my lips struggled to form the name of d..a..a..g, then Dag, before managing to shape the surname of Wiren and the title of Serenade for Strings   Of course, the damned tune continued to pursue me as I cut the grass this morning.

Ways of Seeing continues, nightly, at 1930 hrs until Wed, 1 Oct, when the series concludes with John Berger's acute comments on how we miss the connection between advertising images and oil painting.
A useful link follows at 20.50 hrs with David Hockney's Secret Knowledge as he argues that primitive forms of photography were in use as early as the 15th century, a theory that could explain the mysteries surrounding many famous paintings.

Part 3 of The Art of Arts TV (Wed, 1 Oct) concludes at 22.00 hrs/23.00 hrs.     This is followed by
ARENA - the Waugh Trilogy - transmitted during the next three hours.

Tonight (29 Sept), the schedule is Ways of Seeing at 19.30hrs; a splendid repeat of Max Beckmann at the Tate (Modern), 20.00-20.30 hrs.        At 21.00 hrs, the first of three compilations looking at the history of the Late Show; part 2 at 23.00 hrs, concluding with Part 3 at 23.40 hrs.   40 mins each programme.         Part 2 of The Art of Arts TV is at 22.00 hrs.

Tuesday, (30 Sept).    Ways of Seeing at 19.30 hrs        London to Brighton in Four Minutes - a gem which used to be shown regularly - can be seen at 21.55 hrs.
IMAGINE...The Fantastic Mr Dahl - Alan Yentob's (aka 'Botney' at the Beeb) documentary on how Roald Dahl's storytelling ability evolved, is scheduled for 23.30 hrs.       ARENA AT 30 follows at 00.30 hrs (Wed, 1 Oct).

Last night's Night Waves, R3, included a discussion between Alan Yentob (BBC) and Christopher Frayling, whose main debating thrust was the minimal cultural input by the BBC, in recent years, at a time when the arts had enjoyed a renaissance in the land.   Yentob refuted this with chapter and verse on arts scheduling on BBC1, 2 & 4.   

It was agreed that the corporation had always excelled in art, culture and politics, from Monitor, Omnibus, Arena; Late Night Line Up; or documentary series, The Ascent of Man, Civilisation; to incisive reporting on Panorama.   Huw Wheldon and David Attenborough became senior management after years of hands-on experience in production.

I was disappointed that the discussion didn't include the here and now or take a look at the future.  A few points crossed my mind as they spoke:

(i) How much did the changeover to John Birt's style of management change the emphasis from entrepreneurial skills and creativity to focus group consultation and compromise therein?   
(ii) I do understand that the digital age would radically change the style of presentation but Frayling didn't even raise the abysmal vulgarity of Young Musician of the Year (YMOTY), some months ago, and a series such as The Culture Show is all 'shreds and patches' in its programming.   No comparison whatsoever with the extracts from Monitor and Omnibus which we've seen in the last two nights, or even the standard in YMOTY we've seen in recent years.
(iii) Is there a subtext in four consecutive evenings of focus on the arts?   Perhaps a major debate on the arts and their place on TV?

Sadly, Ron, your instinct may be right.     It was the lack of a forward-looking approach, after a good start, which was a bit unsettling.

John Berger's four part series, 'Ways of Seeing' ended last night and was as stimulating as I remember it several decades ago.   

Later in the evening, BBC 4 showed the 3 part ARENA - The Waugh Trilogy; covering the life and career of Evelyn Waugh, from his childhood and Oxford University days to his first failed marriage and early writing success with Decline & Fall; his distinguished military service career and, in his later years, his struggles with mental illness around the time he was writing the Ordeal of Gilbert Pinfold.  Well known as an eccentric and cantankerous personality.   There were many contributors and I understood Kingsley Amis's comments that even when Waugh was writing badly, he was still immensely readable.   Can't remember whether it was he who also said that Waugh went through life half-amused.   Perhaps it was this side of him which always appealed to me.    It did seem strange to show this 3 hour trilogy at 23.00 hrs when a new film version of 'Brideshead Revisited' is due for imminent release; the original early 80s TV series has been repackaged at budget price and is likely to appeal to a whole new generation.   Those of us who were around in the 1950s remember many of the personalities who appear throughout the series and, in particular, the marked social divisions which were coming to an end as we approached the 1960s.   

We also saw several telling clips from John Freeman's 'Face to Face' TV interview with Waugh.   Waugh's Orthodox Catholicism which made him 'cling to something strong, solid and unchanging; his dependence on God; his contact with God.'        Yes, he was frightened of age, although his real dread was reaching his 'four score and ten'  - a slip of the tongue?    It was almost 02.00 hrs when he vented his anger about the Vatican Council abolishing the old Latin Liturgy in the 1960s.    This presented the Mass in a venacular version which he found 'irredeemably prosaic'.    I didn't quite take this in as I was rather tired but decided to watch this sequence again this afternoon as well as browsing my copy of The Diaries of E.W.        Right at the end there is a diary entry for Easter 1965.

     A year in which the process of transforming the liturgy has followed a planned course.
     Protests avail nothing.   A minority of cranks, for and against the innovations mind enormously.
     I don't think that the main congregation cares a hoot.  More than the aesthetic changes which
     rob the Church of poetry, mystery and dignity, there are suggested changes in Faith and morals
     which alarm me.   A kind of anti-clericalism is abroad which seeks to reduce the priest's
     unique sacrimental position.   The Mass is written of as a 'social meal' in which the 'people of God'
     perform the consecration.  Pray God I will never apostatize but I can now only go to church
     as an act of duty and obedience - just as a sentry at Buck House is posted with no possibility
     of his being employed to defend the sovereign's life.     Cardinal Heenan has been double-faced
     in the matter.   I had dinner with him a deux in which he expressed complete sympathy with
     the conservatives and, as I understood him, promised resistance to the innovations which he is
     now pressing forward.   How does he suppose the cause of participation is furthered by the
     prohibition of kneeling at the incarnatus in the creed?    The Catholic Press has made no opposition.
     I shall not live to see things righted...

The diary ends here.   Evelyn Waugh died, after attending Mass with his family, on Easter Day 1966.   He was 62.

Much thanks to Producers, Anthony Wall and Nigel Finch for making ARENA a landmark in the development of television.

 

I really enjoyed the 2001 Omnibus "David Hockney's Secret Knowledge" which was shown on Wednesday. A fascinating exploration of the forgotten techniques of painters from the 'discovery' of perspective (claimed by Hockney to be the result of concave mirror projection and early lenses) up to the birth of photography. Hockney's enthusiasm is infectious and thought-provoking, and some of the recreations of projections they do using models in studios are breathtakingly beautiful.

At a time of financial prudence due to extensive renovations here, I'm becoming a serious BBC 4 addict, allowing me to conserve as I ignore tempting DVD and CD offers - a frail resolution, I fear.

Last week, I started viewing on BBC 4 at 19.30 hrs with 'Ways of Seeing' and continued throughout the evening - a rare occurrence - until 02.00 hrs when I was enthralled by The Waugh Trilogy, over 3 hours.
My viewing this week will be more curtailed but, already, I've pencilled-in for Thursday, 9 October:

            A railway themed evening:   20.00 hrs   Steam Days
                                                  20.30         Railway Walks
             21.00 hrs   Between the Lines:  Novelist Andrew Martin on trains in books and films
             over the past 150 years, starting with Dickens's Dombey & Son, and Conan Doyle's
             Sherlock Holmes stories.   He also shows how fiction reflected changing public attitudes
             and changes to the network, trains and stations; he selects extracts from John
             Betjeman's TV journeys, Hitchcock films and JK Rowling from the 20th century.

             22.00 hrs   Hitchcock's The Lady Vanishes (available as a freebie only a few weeks
             ago with a newspaper) but will now be a good filler for a DVD recording.