PREVIEW TELEVISION
V DRAMA
The third (and iinal) series oi Love llurts is the latest oiiering to roll oil the Alomo production line. The Gran/Marks marque is perhaps just as important as the show’s caring, sharing iortysomething values in explaining its longevity. Adam Faith and Zoe Wanamaker are the gruesome twosome Frank and Tessa Carver attempting to live in harmony in the enlightened 90s; he with his daughter and estranged wiie, she with her board meetings and mobile phone. The series’s main theme is parenthood: it’s a big tilt at the topic beloved oi soapy programmers and glossy mags everywhere. Tessa becomes pregnant, providing the perlect scenario ior a host oi issues to slither suriacewards: like working mothers, step-iatherly responsibilities
You gotta have
Faith
and other grown-up topics. ‘Frank is the perlect man, making a rod tor all oi our backs,’ says Faith. ‘like a lot oi men who have second iarnilies, it you can go back and do it all over again . . . llow he’s got a little baby, and he’s not going to let the same mistakes happen with his kids.’
‘lt’s so much more about people’s ieelings, ’ he adds, ‘love actually hurting. We had to stretch ourselves so much more than in the iirst and second series. All this serious analysis has to come out somewhere. We spent most oi the series crying our eyes out, it was so bloody emotional. A three- boxes-oi-tissues job. Buy shares in tissue companies, i would.’
Faith’s days as a iinancial adviser are over, but his showbiz career is enjoying something oi a resurgence, alter a serious car crash a tow years ago. The ratings success oi love llurts has been instrumental in engineering Faith’s change oi iortune, and the iormer housewives’ iavourite is upbeat about his iuture plans. ‘The car 3 crash put a stop to things ior a long 5 while, but this series has been a 3 catalyst ior all sorts oi projects. I’ve I never been so happy with my career as I am now. When you’re successiul as a 1 kid you really don’t understand what’s happening to you. But just like Frank,
: second time around I’m iinding
l everything so exciting. it’s like a
5 whole new career.’ (Andrew Pulver) love llurts begins on BBC 1 on Friday ; 14 January at 9.30pm.
Head cold
BBC Scotland’s new drama chiei Andrea Calderwood has been on the receiving end oi some premature ilak since her appointment last autumn. Already there’s been talk oi a golden
age under her predecessor Bill Bryden,
that seems somewhat misplaced.
Bryden admittedly presided over two oi BBC Scotland’s major triumphs with John Byme’s dramas Tutti Frutti and Your Cheating lleart, but the latter part oi his tenure saw productions that smacked oi desperation. Strathblair proved a tad too iorrnulaic in its leaiy nostalgia to pick up mass audiences, and the latest Bryden project to hit the small screen, lieadhunters, looks to have passed its sell-by date beiore its lirst airing.
The three-part drama about the high- powered world oi ruthless recruitment executives has been in the BBC ice- box ior a while now, and there is the
irresistible whiii oi the late 80s about :
its themes oi corporate greed, anoral aspiration, and the inevitable angst and guilt they engender.
James Fox is line as headhunter Simon llall, a tree-market ideologue who is shocked by the tragic results oi one oi his deals. Francesca Annis is less convincing as his wiie, a whingeing sex-and-shopping novelist with a peculiar accent. The main problem though is writer Doug lucie’s
h“ James Fox as headhunter Simon llall
attempts to impress us with the trappings oi corporate bigwiggery. : Money, big houses in the country, nice i suits, champagne receptions and ; single-minded ambition are i desperately passe in the recession- ; conscious mid-90s. Conspicuous
i consumption and wheeler-dealing are *
old news.
In all, lleadhunters is an arid drama about an unattractive proiession several degrees removed irom most people’s experience. Bill Bryden stumbled on the idea when he met a headhunter at a dinner party. it is to be hoped that Andrea Calderwood is moving in more interesting circles. (Tom tannin)
Headhunters is on BBC1 on Sunday 16 January at 9.1 me.
Fresh Air FM
Edinburgh Student itadio is back. FreshAir FM, the voice oi the ever-so- active ESll society, made broadcasting history in 1992 when it became the iirst student station to go out on FM in Scotland. It ran ior two weeks, then won a licence to broadcast during the European Summit in December ’92. llniortunately, someone (rather aptly as it turned out) said ‘bollocks!’ in the middle oi the day, which meant no licence ior Freshers Week ’93 - particularly galling as Sweet FM in Glasgow had got it together by then and were happily tickling the ears oi students all over that city . . .
It has taken until now to convince the Broadcasting Authority that penitence and squeaky cleanness are the order oi the day, but, according to third year undergraduate and Fresh Air ‘controller’ Stephen Staiiord, the little hiccup has had its advantages: ‘It made us srnarten up our act. We’ve got about 50 people involved, irom diiierent universities and colleges in the city, but this time, thanks to the Eli Scottish Studies department, who have also lent us loads oi equipment, they have had proper training. We know what we’re doing a lot more, and, whilst there are plenty oi novices in our crew, some oi us have had a iair bit oi experience by now.’
llot surprisingly, Fresh Air FM’s output is predominantly music, but ‘chart’ is being avoided. ‘A lot oi the music has been donated by ESli members - basically it’s the kind oi thing students like listening to,’ says Stephen. Daytime playlists mostly consist oi strong album tracks (Crowded llouse, James, Pogues as I write), and at night, air-time is given over to specialist slots - World, Irish rock, guest spots irom Edinburgh club DJs, ior example.
When it comes to talk and ieatures, during its three-week run, Fresh Air FM will be covering everything irom
FreshAirFM: m
probablythebestEdinbmfl radinstatienlnthewnrid
student sports and the Bedlam Theatr'e’s Feb Fest to wider issues like homelessness in the city, the gay scene and ‘dirty weekenders’ - the conservation volunteers who spend their tree time taking care oi Scotland’s countryside. There will also be live phone-ins and, we are promised, contributions irom illustrious media personages such as James llaughtie, Joan Bakewell and Tim Sebastian.
As Stephen puts it, ‘Fresh Air FM is a brilliant opportunity ior students to get on with it and use their creativity, and hopeiully produce something diiierent.’ But he is quick to point out that it’s an opportunity that is under threat: ‘We have raised a lot oi cash irom advertising and we have an Arts Council grant, but we rely on a contribution irom EllSA, Edinburgh’s student union. ii the government has its way, and makes union membership voluntary, EllSA just won’t have the resources to help people like us.’ (Catherine Fellows)
Fresh Air FM - on 87.7 - is broadcasting 24 hours a day until 29 January. For requests dial 031 557 $77.
v HIGHLIGHTS
? I iligh Resolution: The Voyage oi Time
(Radio Scotland) Thurs l3 Jan.
6.25-6.45pm. Hair — not the recently revived musical. but the stuff on our heads, chests. animals‘ backs - is the
subject of this twenty-minute
‘ investigation. Presenter Fiona Selkirk will i be asking why it's there in the first place. what are some of its more extraordinary uses in the animal kingdom. and what
3 kind of traumas are experienced by those i who lose it . . .
I lilub liulture (Radio 5) Thursdays from 13 Jan. 9.30—10pm. The first edition of this new eight-part series on youth culture. Kosher Krew. gets young Jews in Manchester to tell it like it is for them. Most teenagers have a certain amount to kick against. but when your Ma and Pa are Orthodox. things can get especially heavy. On 19 Jan. Klub Kulture gets closer to home. with a trip to Alness in the Highlands. where it runs into teenagers bored out of their minds. Why is no effort made to give them a way to express themselves?
I l lombardi: Live From the Met (Radio 3) Sat 15 Jan. 6.30—9.45pm. Luciano Pavarotti stars in one of Verdi’s most rarely staged operas, which comes live from New York. The story is set in the Holy Land. where the Lombards are
locked in battle with the infidel Saracens. I Book at Bedtime: A Better Class oi Person (Radio 4) Mon [7 Jan.
10.45—1 lpm. As part of the current ‘()sborne Season’ on Radios 3 and 4. Peter Egan. Osborne's own choice, reads the first ofa ten-part adaptation of the playwright’s controversial autobiography. I Wilko in Canada (Radio 4) Wed 19 Jan. 10.02-10.30am. Tony Wilkinson gets more mileage out of a very successful radio format with this new series looking at four rather different Canadian communities via their local newspapers. First stop is Yellowknife. in the frozen Northwest Tem'ton'es. a small town where latest news includes nine men murdered at the Giant goldmine. and the consequences of rampant promiscuity at the Gold Range
Bar.
I Managing Monsters: The lieith Lecture Illwa (Radio 4) Wed 19 Jan.
8.45—9. 15pm. The wonderfully erudite and inspiring cultural historian and writer Marina Warner is the first woman to have been invited to deliver the prestigious
. Reith lectures for over thirty years. in this
preliminary interview with Philip Brady. she will be introducing her subject matter or. rather. argument — namely that ancient myths continue to play a significant if unacknowledged role in framing our responses to contemporary social problems.
The List l4—27 January I994 81