TELEVISION PREVIEW
Bottom line
How do you feel about your bottom? A wibbly-wobbly, hairy horror best kept under heavy duty denim wraps, or a sculpted, honed thing of beauty that
i
should be frequently displayed in skin-
tight lycra?
In the first of a new Radio 4 series of ;
fifteen-minute slots Bottoms, Beaks,
Bellies and Feet, broadcaster Caroline
Sarll pays homage to what she
considers to be the seat of civilisation
- the great British backside. The series overall will cover those ‘bits of the body that stick out’ (although certain sticky-out bits, particularly of the male anatomy, are regarded as just too prominent even for radio) but as Sarll explains, the subject of the first programme is where her passion lies.
‘The whole thing came from my obsession with bottoms,’ she says, verging on posterior hysteria. ‘l’ve always loved them. It’s the first thing I look at when I meet someone - you can tell so much more about someone from their bottom than their face.’ The mind boggles, and continues to boggle when Sarll reveals her encyclopaedic knowledge on the bottom front.
In fifteen minutes flat find out why Martin luther King used to moon out
The Three Arses, oops, Braces which were recently bought by National Galleries of Scotland
' the bedroom window; why padded
pants have suddenly become a top
fashion item in Japan; why the devil
has no bum-cheeks at all; and most importantly, what you need to achieve a butt like Felicity Kendall, Sue Pollard or Mandy Smith, who have at one time or another been voted ‘Bear
of the Year’. ‘lt’s an ode to bottoms in all their glory,’ says Sarrl. (Ellie Carr)
Bottoms, Beaks, Bellies and Feet
2 starts on Thursday 6 July on Radio 4 2 at 8.45pm.
RADIO HIGHLIGHTS
I Ad Lib: Trainee Priests (Radio 4) Sat 1 July. 6.50pm. Robert Robertson travels to Padua. Italy to ask six trainee priests how they go about talking to God in the modem age of faxes and modems. and more importantly how a hot~blooded young seminary goes about resisting the temptations of the flesh.
I Soul on Sunday (Radio I) Sun 2 July. 2pm. Chilled-out dance-groove collective Soul ll Soul join Steve Edwards live in the studio to plug their new album Club Classics Volume 5. Joined by J azzie B and Penny Ford on vocals the band are flagging up a return to the orginal late 80s Soul ll Soul flavour. shot through with a new Eastern influence.
I The People’s Peace (Radio 4) Wed 5 July. 7.20pm. A new documentary series looking at 50 years of British social history through the eyes of the families and figureheads who've lived it. The first programme Follmving in Father’s Footsteps. traces the development of UK employment and industry through the experience of Edmund Gartside. who like his father and grandfather before has run the family business Shilo — one of Oldham's largest textile firms. Lord Healey. Labour Chancellor of the Exchequer during the 70s. gets drafted in to add a politician‘s perspective to Gartside’s story.
I The Masterton Inheritance (Radio 4) Sat 8 July. 12.25pm. Paul Merton. Caroline Quentin and Josie Lawrence return for another few rounds of drama Whose Line is it Anyway style. with this crazy. improvised historical saga based entirely on suggestions from a studio audience. Jim Sweeney takes up the narrator‘s chair guiding the team on a rollercoasterjourney through the strange and twisted world of a Victorian travelling Circus.
I Mixed Doubles: The Art of Twins (Radio 4) Sat 8 July. 7.20pm. A Kaleidoscope Feature that does a double take on the western fascination with twins. Kevin Jackson attempts to shed light on why everyone from Shakespeare
to 20th century tabloids have found such potent images in this quirk of genetics.
l I Classic Serial: Mutiny on the Bounty
(Radio 4) Sun 9 July. 2.30pm. An odd but intriguing mix of actors in this serialisation of Nordhoff and Hall’s famous Bounty trilogy. Oliver Reed plays the tyrannical Captain Bligh. Linus Roache is Fletcher Christian. Roger
Daltrey is Thomas Burkitt and Lionel
.leffries is Alexander Smith.
I Out This Week (Radio 5) Sun 9 July. 10.05pm. In the week that America revs
up to celebrate lndependence Day. Nigel Wrench dives deep into the heartlands of the religious right to expose attempts to overturn anti-discrimination laws that were designed to protect the freedoms of homosexuals.
I The Hi-De-llo Man (Radio 3) Mon 10 July. 4.30pm. The man who gave us Minnie The Mooclrer and the
unforgettable catchphrase ‘Hi-di-Hi‘
celebrated here in this six-part series on the life and music of Cab Calloway. The most popular big band leader of the 30s. he took his first steps into showbusiness at New York's Cotton Club and went on to develop a jazz orchestra which numbered soloists including Dizzy Gillespie. Doc Cheatham and Illinois Jacquet.
I The Street (Radio 4) Tue 11 July. 8.30pm. A new series that sees Tony
Wilkinson take a walk down six very
different British Streets. First stop is Manor Street. north Belfast. literally . divided down the middle by a wall built to
separate Catholics and Protestants. ln Easter week. seven months into the ceasefire. Wilkinson accompanies a former Protestant paramilitary as he
knocks on the doors of Catholics on the
north side of the barrier. (Ellie Carr) I line In The Jungle: llow That's What I Call Jungle (Radio 1) Thurs 13 July. 9pm.
Radio 1 catches up with the state of the ; nation‘s dance clubs a couple of years 4 after the jungle phenomena started to
boom. This hour-long documentary kicks
off a new series which looks at the ' different genres ofjungle with live mixing
and toasting from Kenny Ken. Goldie and
l A Guy Called Gerald.
When there‘s sousing to be done. bibulous TV chef Keith Floyd has traditionally been your man. But when the crazily-coiffed but deeply conservative Gary Rhodes hit Glasgow. the best he could do was wave an unopened bottle of Scotch vaguely in the direction of the camera. The only thing that got soused in the Scottish leg of More Rhodes Around Britain
(BBC 1) was the mackerel. and even the poor fish had to suffer the indignity of being dunked in poncey Balsamic vinegar. ‘Thc beauty of this is that you get a sweetness to counter-balance the acidity.‘ says Rhodes tartly. You need Loyd Grossman's accent and sense of the absurd to deliver lines like that.
This is Rhodes’ second series. in which he tours the country talking to plain. honest folk about plain. honest cooking. and then tells them how to do it properly with a hint of star anise or lemon grass. Despite the chirpy mock- Cockney accent. which is the lingua franca of thirtysomething media lads. Rhodes has none of the deeply posh but rather unsnobbish Floyd knack of actually listening to what people say. Patronise the locals. and ram some pretend peasant food down their necks is Rhode’s usual dish of the day.
So why did this pro! (lujour travel all that way to Glasgow? To exchange culinary tips with some of the city's top chefs from established eateries like the Rogano or One Devonshirc Gardens? Or perhaps check out the burgeoning cafe-bar scene to find out what the fashionable clubber about town is soaking up the imported lagers with these days. Oh. no. Instead we get a whistle-stop tour in the back of a cab with a Glasgow Smile‘s Better logo on the door. Rab C. Taxidriver at the wheel and rent-a-Glaswegian Lynn Ferguson riding shotgun. ‘See that City of Culture — it really cleaned the place up.‘ Cue stereotype. run VT. action!
Rhodes wasn't much interested in the culture or cuisine of Glasgow. but the fact that he was in Scotland was enough of an excuse to roll out the barley. the leeks and the aforementioned soused mackerel. Naturally Gaz’s visit was timed to coincide with Bum‘s Night so he got to dress up in the kilt. and because Glasgow had apparently run out of ice- cream, the crew upped ski sticks and headed to Aviemore for pudding — as you do. While this purports to be a programme about regional variety. it's really just a plain old vanilla cookery
Channel Hopping
show with a sticky provincial sauce poured over the top. A little bit like the BBC’s regional programming policy. perhaps?
lt's welcome back to a worthy
; minority programme which in the past
has only attracted a handful of viewers;
Z thank God for public service
broadcasting that we get to see it at all. So what is this rare treat? An atonal contemporary opera from Glyndeboume? An investigative
4 documentary about abused orphans in
? Romania? Strawberry-by-strawberry
; coverage of Wimbledon? No. none of
i the above. It‘s just little old Seinfeld
(BBCZ), a rather amusing little comedy : that just happens to have made its
eponymous star Gerry Seinfeld and his
wise-cracking pals amongst the hottest
entertainers on American television 2 right now.
Seinfeld is a sitcom with a real-life stand-up comedian as its star. who plays a stand-up comedian called
-, Gerry. No difficulty getting into
i character then. but it's a neat. sitcom E forrnat—busting device which allows l Gerry to step out of his Manhattan
apartment. where much of the breeze is shot. and up on stage. The stand-up act is woven into the running storyline to
i provide a kind of counterpoint effect.
It‘s as if Gerry the comedian is saying:
C ‘Hcy. time out — let‘s think about what I we’ve just heard back there.‘ This is popular American television at its most
polished. and derserves to do better
here.
The rock festival season is upon us.
5 with the mud-slinging hostilities
' starting at Glastonbury. ln 4 Goes to
. Glastonbury (Channel 4). a camera
i crew joined 100.000 happy campers for i cider. bands. aromatherapy and more
: cider. This was Channel 4's second
I l
attempt at capturing the festival spirit with a series of live broadcasts
. throughout the weekend. and they did a
pretty good job of capturing the vibe.
But guys, if you‘re planning on doing it again next year. leave the brace of irn'tating Marks behind. Mr Radcliffe’s genius for radio is similar to that of Danny Baker - it loses its charm in translation to TV; while Mark II. Mr Lamarr. possesses a sharp-suited 80$ cynicism which was all wrong for blissed-out Glasto. Can't we do without the overlay of metropolitan irony just this once. and get a presenter who actually knows about music? (Eddie Gibb)
76 The List 30 Jun-l3 Jul I995