This terrible book club has very little to do with books
The last time I passed through an airport – Leeds Bradford, 2019, holding a toddler who had kept us entertained on the flight home by vomiting all over my husband – we were pulled aside by the Border Force. Had we packed those suitcases ourselves? Well, yes. The officers’ eyes narrowed; the x-rays, they informed us, showed the presence of some very suspicious rectangular packages. Braced for the revelation that our luggage had been infiltrated by Turkish heroin smugglers, or our children had been recruited in the hotel kids’ club as international drug runners, we watched as they opened the cases. The items in question turned out to be... books. My husband and I had each taken five novels to get us through the fortnight. Isn’t that what normal people do? The officers looked first crestfallen, then baffled. As we left, one shouted after us: “Haven’t you ever heard of a Kindle?”
I tell this story to illustrate the fact that I love books. I can spend many happy hours in book shops. I enjoy listening to people talk about books at literary festivals and the like. All of which means that Between the Covers (BBC Two) is aimed at people like me.
But it didn’t appeal at all. It’s so lightweight that one of the discussions instigated by host Sara Cox was about whether the assembled guests marked a page by turning over a corner or using a bookmark. All of these “discussions” flashed by in five minutes. It all has the feel of a daytime magazine show manically condensed into half an hour. As an example of how things should be done, can I point BBC Two executives to Open Book on Radio 4, in which Elizabeth Day treats books and authors with the respect they deserve.
The content was confusing – a book by a new author, then a title chosen seemingly at random from Booker shortlists of the past. Why not explore this year’s Booker shortlist? The guests
– comedians Dane Baptiste and Andy Parsons, actresses Emilia Fox and Evanna Lynch – were told to bring in a book of their own, and I think Lynch may have brought in her own autobiography, and then Cox asked them to name a book that was evocative of the particular time they read it, and then a book “that led to a big old barney with family and friends”, for which Baptiste chose the book he’d already brought in for the bring-your-own-book section. Far too much going on. Turn it off and read a book instead.
Read a precis of Life & Rhymes
(Sky Arts) and you could be forgiven for thinking it’s catering solely for The Woke Brigade™. Veganism, trans rights, sexual consent
– it’s all on the list. Matters of the heart are dealt with by a poet whose name is too rude for a family newspaper, in a poem called My First Sex Party.
Really, it’s enough to make you flee to Channel 5 in search of The Cotswolds with Pam Ayres.
But to watch this show is to see life from other perspectives and isn’t that what we should be doing? At least occasionally? Besides, there is something very sweet about this show, which earlier this year beat Strictly to the Bafta for best entertainment programme. Its warm glow is largely down to Benjamin Zephaniah, a host determined to ensure everyone is having a good time, and partly down to the set, which seats the audience around Battersea Park bandstand and covers everything in twinkly lights. Audience members can put their names in a hat to be chosen for the open mic section. Everyone seems to be having a lovely time.
It’s more adventurous and thoughtprovoking than BBC Two’s woeful books programme. But the quality of the poets is, shall we say, variable. Bex Gordon was the standout with Schtum,
a poem about her sister, an adult with severe disabilities. “We don’t talk about the disabled kids who aren’t kids any longer… I’m sick of pretending the good days don’t come with the bad/of tiptoed topics and acceptable stories… I’m sick of pretending that disability is all plain sailing.” It laid out the stark reality, and was one of the most powerful things I’ve heard in ages.
But at the other end of the spectrum we had Henry Beckwith, whose jokey, Victoria Wood-style singalong told of being terrified to come out to his family that he was “a word containing ‘g’ and ‘a’”... yes, a vegan. It was a sitcom gag. With material like this, he should be plying his wares on the stand-up circuit instead. Actually, it’s not too much of a stretch to imagine Pam Ayres gently sending up vegans and sex parties. I’d love to see her performing in this company.
Between the Covers ★ Life & Rhymes ★★★