Why on earth did Radio 2 axe the heavenly Clare Teal?
Why did the BBC let Clare Teal go? There she was, presenting the perfect Sunday night Radio 2 show full of big band and swing music, with warm and accessible conversation in between, for two hours each week. Radio 2 shunted her around the schedule and truncated her show to one hour. Then, before Christmas, they announced that, come the new year, the show would be no more. Teal has said that it wasn’t her decision to go.
Bill Kenwright’s Golden Years suffered the same sad fate. Personally, though, I was more upset about Teal’s departure. She and her music set a cheering tone on Sunday evenings when another week looms ahead. Sometimes Ella Fitzgerald is the only answer.
But Radio 2’s inexplicable loss is Jazz FM’S gain. (Jazz FM, Sunday) instead began a new two-hour show on the commercial station this week. And she started off by playing Frank Sinatra singing Hello, Dolly!
The lyrics were almost too apt: “It’s so nice to have you back where you belong… you’re still glowing, you’re still crowing, you’re still going strong.”
And Teal sounded right at home. “When I got the job, they said, ‘Play what you want’”, she reported, in happy disbelief. Jazz FM execs clearly know a good thing when they hear it. The station, by the way, is going from strength to strength, particularly in its weekend shows with Marcus Brigstocke and Yolanda Brown.
Oddly, Radio 2 seemingly just can’t stomach the idea that anyone in their demographic (which officially encompasses everyone over 35) would want to listen to big band and swing. Why is that? When Radio 2 axed Teal, they grudgingly said that they would make sure that similar music would “continue to be heard” – but only in occasional series Top Brass (which also features modern brass, Balkan, rock, funk and ska) and within existing regular shows and specials. Meanwhile, Radio 2 seems to be playing ever more pop and disco tunes.
But the real error that Radio 2 have made is a failure to recognise that Teal’s show isn’t just good because she knows about music – though she certainly does, and is an eminent jazz singer herself – but because she’s a heavenly broadcaster to listen to. She turns a programme with a remit that could be as serious and introspective as Radio 3’s J to Z into something uniquely welcoming. In other words, ’tain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do it. Teal has a gift for creating a mood that lifts you out of the everyday. Radio 2 were mad to let her go, but it’s a joy to hear her settling into a new era on Jazz FM. Sunday nights are saved.
S peaking of settling in, Emma Barnett continues to tweak Woman’s Hour (Radio 4, Monday to Saturday) into something ever more political and reactive. The standout moment from this last week, though, was a more classically personal Woman’s Hour interview.
On Wednesday, Barnett was joined by Clemency Burton-hill, the former Radio 3 broadcaster and host of the
Classical Fix podcast, who now works for New York Public Radio. This was Burton-hill’s first interview since, this time last year, apparently fit and healthy at the age of 39 and the mother of two young children, she suffered a near-fatal brain haemorrhage which put her in a coma for 17 days. The months since the injury to her brain have comprised a long and intensive programme of rehabilitation, and she only regained the ability to speak in sentences eight weeks ago.
It was a remarkable interview because it came in the context of Burton-hill’s entire work history and identity as a broadcaster, all built on her voice. She always thrived on quick-thinking live performance in particular. Just a few days before hearing her on Woman’s Hour,
I’d happened to catch the Radio 4 repeat of her presenting Tales from the Stave, a programme that had been recorded shortly before her brain injury, and I was reminded of her eloquence and erudition.
The Woman’s Hour interview showed that, despite the traumas of the last year, she still has those skills. Burton-hill’s account of her hard road towards being able to speak again was extraordinary, if hard to hear, because the pain of her experience and her struggles to overcome it are so profound. Barnett’s questions never sounded ghoulish or intrusive. It sounded like two broadcasters working out this story together, navigating a new landscape of communication and peeking under the bonnet of speech radio to see how it works. Burton-hill’s journey of survival was awe-inspiring. Whatever she does next will be a must-listen.