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The Radio 3 Boards > General Chat > News And Current Affairs >  Imagine: Bolshoi Boy
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Author Topic: Imagine: Bolshoi Boy  (Read 193 times)
Stanley Stewart
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Well...it was 1935
« on: 15:38:06, 24-10-2007 »
  The new series of Imagine made an auspicious start with 'Bolshoi Boy' (Henry Perkins) and it compared well with the lame 'Classical Star' on BBC 2.   Along with 'The Culture Show', an oxymoron on the same channel, it only confirms my belief that the arts are under sufferance on BBC 2; nothing more than a token gesture.

Admittedly, BBC 1 scheduled Imagine at 22.35hrs and in recording the programme, I'm glad I recalled that the programmes in this series ran for 50 mins as the Radio Times bungled the listing at 40 mins.

The remarkable feature of 'Bolshoi Boy' was the stamina of the central character who, at 16, managed to adapt to the rigour of life at Moscow's Ballet Academy as he gamely struggled with a foreign language, culture and customs.    There was no audience of baying spectators to cheer him on and the programme was entirely free of mawkishness which bedevils home grown programmes on artistic aspirations.   Henry Perkins didn't win a dancing competition in Vienna and his tutor, a veritable martinet, chose precisely the right time to press Henry to provide his own answer as to why he wanted to be a dancer.  Indeed, earlier, I had  been wondering about the basic attributes of his talent which had won him a place to study at the Academy.  However, there was an aura about his composure when he returned from Vienna which indicated a new stage in his development; perhaps a testament to his capacity for endurance and his shrewd tutor put him to the test.  Yes, I was also aware of the camera crew and the occasional presence of producer Alan Yentob who managed to reflect how dejection and an anti-climax could also be be a crucial highlight in a career.

First rate television.
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Reiner Torheit
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WWW
« Reply #1 on: 00:42:02, 25-10-2007 »
Fascinating stuff, Stanley, and I'm left frustrated at not having seen it - we can't get UK channels here at all (except BBC World), no matter which cable provider.

I can somehow imagine the situation.  I once knew a British girl who was an infant prodigy gymnast, and was taken to the USSR aged 10 to study with the best coaches (her speciality was the parallel bars, and the best coaches were considered to be the Russians at the time).  She had no knowledge of Russian at the time, and the whole experience was a "baptism of fire" for her.  I bumped into her years later - her Olympic dreams had never happened, but she was the principle aerialiste at the Leningrad State Circus.  (She'd been home in the interim, she'd not been in Russia all that time).  She's now married (to a Russian) but works at the UK Consulate.  I've never met a foreigner with more perfect Russian, nor - ehem - such an astounding ability with streams of four-letter words Wink
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"I was, for several months, mutely in love with a coloratura soprano, who seemed to me to have wafted straight from Paradise to the stage of the Odessa Opera-House"
-  Leon Trotsky, "My Life"
Stanley Stewart
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Posts: 1090


Well...it was 1935
« Reply #2 on: 17:58:27, 25-10-2007 »
  Thank you, Reiner.      I shall be transferring a copy to DVD for a friend, this weekend, and if you send me a pm, I shall be most pleased to send you a copy with my compliments.

It's disappointing that the new series of 'Imagine' was scheduled on BBC 1, 35 mins after the mediocre 'Classical Star' finished on BBC 2.   'The Bolshoi Boy' didn't have hyped-up audiences or stage-managed dramatic pauses between decisions.   Indeed, the programme was necessarily inconclusive and the real triumph which I sensed was a mental air-punch as  a young dancer began to understand and gain strength and confidence in his craft, extending to an empathy with a demanding tutor.   Quietly sensational TV for me.
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pim_derks
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« Reply #3 on: 19:01:50, 26-10-2007 »
I found some information about this programme on the BBC website:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/imagine/

Unfortunately, the video introduction can't be viewed by people outside the UK.  Sad
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"People hate anything well made. It gives them a guilty conscience." John Betjeman
Stanley Stewart
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Posts: 1090


Well...it was 1935
« Reply #4 on: 19:21:41, 26-10-2007 »
  Thanks for the lead, Pim.       e-mail with text already in cyberspaceto you.

Bws,     Stanley
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