Category: audio

audio, not a book

Not a Book: You Must Remember This

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Here we are, another Sunday and I have a podcast recommendation for you this week.

I’ve mentioned Karina Longworth before – her book was a BotW pick back in 2019 and I mentioned this podcast in passing then as well as in my post about Glass Onion. But the podcast has just turned ten and so I thought it deserves a proper post. Over the course of the last ten years Longworth has worked her way through what she calls the “secret and/or forgotten histories of Hollywood’s first century”.

In practice what that means is seasons about the Blacklist, Joan Crawford, the rise and fall of Louis B Mayer and the portrayal of sex in movies in the 80s and 90s and many more. I think I have now listened to every episode except this remastered first episode. It’s one of the podcasts that I used to save for when I was out running, except that I played Him Indoors one of the Erotic 80s episodes on holidays and suddenly it was our holiday podcast. Karina has a very deliberate style of delivery, which is based on radio announcers and voice overs from that Hollywood golden era which can grate a bit for some people – and in the early episodes she’s editing her own voice which is hard and she does too much. So it’s not a podcast I would say to start from the beginning – but pick a series that interests you and go from there. That’s what I did – I actually left the series about Charles Manson til quite late on because I wasn’t sure I’d be able to cope with the murdery aspect of it – and when I did it certainly made me run faster!

If you’re interested in classic Hollywood (which you know I am) it’s a really good listen. You can find You Must Rmemver this wherever you get your podcasts. And if you have any other podcasts in a similar area of interest please do hit me up in the comments.

Happy Sunday everyone!

audio

Not a Book: Think Twice

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I’m back in podcast land for this week’s Not a Book – with Wondery’s series about Michael Jackson.

It’s nearly 15 years since Michael Jackson died – which felt really shocking to me, even though I know logically that it must be that long ago because of where I was living and what I was doing when the news happened. It would be understating it to say that Jackson’s legacy is complex, and for those of people who can remember parts of his career there probably some complicated feelings. But there’s also now a whole generation who don’t remember Jackson at all. And I think Wondery’s Think Twice does a really good job of setting out the whole story – the child stardom into solo supremacy and beyond but also the accusations of child sexual abuse.

Obviously the content of this is pretty grim at times so bear that in mind before you listen – it has a lot of graphic details from the court transcripts when you get to the abuse allegation episodes. The presenters are Jay Smooth, who presented a hip hop radio show in New York for nearly 30 years and is now a cultural commentator, and Leon Neyfakh, who did the Slowburn series on Watergate and the Clinton Impeachment and then went on to present Fiasco (all for Wondery). So it’s got a mix of music expertise but also investigative journalism that works really well. I think everyone of my age or older has an opinion on Michael Jackson, but I think this is a pretty even handed series – it doesn’t minimise his musical impact and legacy, but it also doesn’t minimise the allegations. I learned some stuff – despite having watched Leaving Neverland back when that came out and Janet Jackson’s documentary about her career – which also touches on what growing up in that family was like and having also read a bunch of stuff about Jackson over the years.

It’s a ten part series – if you’re not a Wondery plus member the final episode drops today (the 17th) on all the usual podcast platforms. If you do have wondery plus (which I do) you can get the ad-free versions – and you could have binged it already like I did!

Have a good Sunday everyone.

audio, not a book

Not a Book: I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue

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Every now and again I write about a radio programme instead of a film or a show or a TV programme, and this is one of those weeks – although as I went to a recording in a theatre does it also count as a show? Anyway, the new series of I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue starts on Radio Four this week, so I get to tell you about my night out watching them record two episodes in my home town back in June.

I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue started in the 1970s as a parody of TV and radio panel games and has been running ever since. My parents were very much Radio Four people – and it was one of the 6.30 in the evening programmes that I started listening to when I was getting ready for bed when I was little (along with Just A Minute and The News Quiz) and I’ve been listening to ever since. There aren’t many of the original panel left now – it’s Jack Dee giving the panel silly things to do instead of Humphrey Littleton for example, but they’ve managed to replace them with people as funny as the originals.

I tried to figure out a way of describing what’s going on, but I couldn’t do it justice, so I’m just going to settle for giving you this clip from One Song to the Tune of Another because it’s always been one of my favourite rounds and it just sums up the whole show:

There are no winners, some of the games make no sense at all (Mornington Crescent for example) and despite the fact that there are singing games there is always at least one panelist who cannot sing at all (at my recording it was Milton Jones). As children we used to play the completely unconnected word game in the back of the car on the way home from after school lessons – with much complaining from my mum as my sister and I descended into lavatorial humour. Basically it’s one of the silliest ways you can spend half an hour and I’m really looking forward to hearing what makes the cut for the broadcast episode as each recording was at least an hour long.

If you’re in the UK you can listen to I’m Sorry I Haven’t a Clue on BBC Radio 4, or on the BBC Sounds app – the Northampton episodes start tomorrow, and several of the episodes in the series are already available. If you’re outside the UK, I’m hoping it appears on Sounds for you – but it may also be on some of the other podcast providers too.

Have a great Sunday everyone.