Documenting the rail life of train passengers
The X Factor and Strictly Come Dancing are both back – which means that Saturday night TV will be dominated by talk of ‘journeys’and ‘making that song your own’ between now and Christmas. However, if cha cha chas and power ballads don’t really float your boat, BBC Two is stepping in with an alternative as it turns Saturday into arts night. Patrick Holland, Channel Editor, BBC Two, says:“From Civilisation to The Late Show, BBC Two has always been the flagship channel for arts on BBC Television, combining intelligent authorship with broad appeal, topical enquiry with entertainment. “Great arts programming has the power to bring audiences to the cutting-edge, as well as to much loved art and artists. By focusing Saturday nights around arts, music, performance and cinema, we want to create space for new ideas, authored film-making, and the very best talent, from the world-class to the stars of tomorrow.” Future Saturdays will feature programmes about Alan Bennett, Adrian Mole author Sue Townsend, Julie Walters and Educating Rita playwright Willy Russell, and Michael Palin’s profile of travel writer Jan Morris. But our cultural weekends begin with an evening of poetry. Following a showing of Betjeman & Me: Rick Stein's Story, in which the chef explores the former Poet Laureate’s love of the English seaside, we’re treated to the new Railway Nation: Across Britain in a Day (Saturday, BBC2, 9pm). It sees six poets – Sabrina Mahfouz, Michael Symmons Roberts, Liz Berry, Andrew McMillan, Imtiaz Dharker and Sean O’Brien – embarking on a journey from London to Glasgow. They are following a similar route to that taken by poet WH Auden and composer Benjamin Britten almost 80 years ago, when they created the much-loved 1936 documentary Night Mail. Our writers are going to be making their trip by day, mainly so they can take inspiration from their fellow travellers. British people are now taking double the amount of train journeys they did in 1997, and the carriages are filled with people from all walks of life. As well as the poets’observations on this cross-section of society, we will also be hearing the voices of passengers of all ages, backgrounds and regions. The programme is followed by Performance Live: Kate Tempest, the first in an occasional strand which will air over the next two years and showcase innovative live theatre, dance and comedy performances devised specially for TV. Michael Symmons Roberts features