Passion is the key to any great broadcaster
LONGER isn’t necessarily better, but the extended running time is really allowing The Book Show to stretch its literary legs, so to speak. Last weekend’s edition of the RTE Radio One programme not only featured American author Paul Auster talking about his new novel, and an interview with composer Max Richter about how Virginia Woolf inspired his latest works — both of which items would be enough to make it unmissable in any ordinary week — but also included a short audio composition by Regan Hutchins exploring his fascination with Herman Melville’s Moby Dick.
This was a compelling fusion of evocative music and interviews, with contributions from Cork poet Victoria Kennefick, whose collection White Whale centres on her Moby Dick-loving late father, and it would have made a fine edition of Documentary On One in its own right.
It proved again that there is no better recipe for radio than people talking about what inspires and enthuses them. It doesn’t matter what iN tiig se. lP la as Ls ai won so ins H th iceiek ned ya. erciam
I discovered etshtar tu mag raeim na inf te sr ts, til umobdliang across an interqvuiaet wuroa nu tN feuwg sit t alt ku’ s rn Onfkf kl The Ball on Tuesday with Jerry Izenberg, author of Once There Were Giants, subtitled The Golden Age of Heavyweight Boxing ,a subject about which I had zero interest.
The author had that downbeat, laconic, lyrical, blue collar American way of narrating stories, full of telling detail, that draws in a listener, making you care about these characters and the now vanished world they inhabited, all showcasing his love of “the most cruel of sports, the most beautiful of sports, and the one that comes closest to being a violent ballet”.
I still don’t want to watch two men punch each other into unconsciousness, but his elegiac evocations of the heyday of the great heavyweights such as Ali and Frazier made me understand why plenty of us do.
This ability to engage, even when tackling unpromising subjects, is shared by Ivan Yates (inset below), whether standing in for George Hook on High Noon or on his own new show, Yates On Sunday.
The former bookie and Fine Gael politician is never afraid to toss in his own thoughts, rather than hiding behind the persona of the impartial adjudicator. Some of those ideas are a bit “out there” — such as his current obsession that Ireland should negotiate a bilateral Brexit deal with the UK then present it to Europe as a fait accompli (which will never happen i nWa a mt cohn tI hT oNfOYWates On Sundays ); or even his Had redpyicBtui co knso isfotnh te he EU RTaEsP“lAaylcear turnatzil” which noDnecemmubset re3v0e;r rb tee.iea/lp lola wye rd to leave—but it aS lixlhNealtp io sns ge Rtu ag blyi vis eloy nd3iPslcauy se sriuonntil going.
DWeciethmbM er a1r6ia; n tv3F.ien/uplcaayneer on RTE so uS ni md pilnygNtig ire ellda,i sit own oBuB lC di Pb leayg ere-at to ctuhrirnen kt ltyhnaot tI av va a nil’ a sb cl eh etoervfiuewlnee rs sin and enthusiasm could eat into her inexplicably huge audience. Then again, listeners are a conservative lot, so maybe not. The only regret is that once a week isn’t enough. It only makes one miss Yates’s daily interactions with Chris Donoghue on the old Newstalk Breakfast all the more.