A gentle portrait of the poet who touched a nation
The Sunday after Seamus Heaney died, they held a minute’s silence for him at Croke Park, Dublin. Football players bowed their heads and 80,000 fans fell silent, before breaking into spontaneous applause. “I can think of no other country where a football ground would have a minute’s silence and cheer a poet,” said his widow, Marie, in Seamus Heaney and the Music of What Happens (Saturday, BBC One). And it’s true: can you picture a similar tribute for Carol Ann Duffy at Wembley?
That is partly due to the high esteem in which Ireland holds its poets, but also testament to the fact that Heaney’s writing had a down-to-earth quality that made a connection even with those who might say they don’t much care for poetry. He wrote of rural Northern Ireland, of the Troubles, of peat bogs and “the door into the dark” of the blacksmith’s forge. Yet as the young African-american poet Tracy K Smith said of reading Heaney for the first time: “I felt so invited into a world that I had no knowledge of, no experience of, yet I was made to feel at home there. That felt like one of the first miracles of his work.”
What a lovely, gentle thing this programme was, plumb in the middle of the Saturday night schedule (I know we’re living in the age of on-demand viewing, but isn’t it sometimes nice to have a mooring?). His wife, children and brothers read aloud some of his finest poems, punctuating a biography that took us from his childhood as a County Derry farmer’s son to the Nobel Laureateship in 1995 and his death in 2013. We were reminded what a genial, unpretentious figure Heaney was, but also how extraordinary his gifts: “This young man got up on stage with his sideburns and began to read,” recalled an academic, “and I thought, ‘What in the name of God is this?’”
The film provided a history of 20th century Northern Ireland: the reference in Tate’s Avenue to “lockedpark Sunday Belfast”, when swings were chained up to prevent children from playing out on the Lord’s Day; the Derry woman in a news report who said she would willingly hand over her daughter to be tarred and feathered if she had a relationship with a soldier.
But, more than anything, it was a story of familial love, particularly between Heaney and his wife of more than 50 years. One Christmas, because – he confessed later – he had not bought Marie a present, he handwrote all the poems he had dedicated to her over the years. Imagine having such a wonderful thing.
Nostalgia is a cheap way of filling the schedules. You know the type of show: archive clips from down the decades, accompanied by talking heads telling you how funny or terrible it all was, all costing approximately 1/1,000th of a costume drama. Occasionally, though, it throws up a gem. Such was the case with Stanley Baxter’s Best Bits... and More (Sunday, Channel 5).
Crucially, it starred the man himself, twinkling away at the age of 93. “I’m Stanley Baxter and, after all this time, this really is me!” he said by way of introduction. The programme was a reminder of his myriad talents: as an actor, a comedian, a mimic and a dancer. Audiences of 22 million would tune in to his shows, featuring pastiches of the musicals he had loved from boyhood and spoofs of Hollywood classics such as Gone with the Wind (Rhett Butler: “I’m going to tear off that fancy dress and smother you with custard, sponge and sherry.” Scarlett O’hara: “No, I won’t be trifled with.”) His impersonation of the Queen pushed the boundaries of the time: “Stanley got letters from brigadiers in Surrey threatening to have him horsewhipped,” said his biographer.
The BBC axed Baxter not once but twice, complaining that the shows were too expensive. Also, of course, variety performers were considered dreadfully old-fashioned by the Eighties. But the jokes are still funny – “I’m looking for a man, about 40, well-built, medium height, wearing a grey trilby, perhaps Merchant Navy.” “For murder?” “No, companionship” – and the over-the-top dance routines were glorious.
“He is one of the greatest showmen I’ve ever seen,” said the actress Penelope Wilton, one of several talking heads (along with Miriam Margolyes, Geoffrey Palmer and Barry Cryer) who had worked with him and thought him a genius.
The nicest thing about the programme was Baxter’s joy at making it. “Doesn’t time pass quickly when people are saying nice things about you?” he chuckled.
Seamus Heaney and the Music of What Happens ★★★★
Stanley Baxter’s Best Bits... and More ★★★