Dein reconnects to reveal the comfort of strangers
For true audio-lovers few prospects are as enticing as a new series of Alan Dein’s Don’t Log Off (Radio 4, Monday). We all know radio encourages people to share, to unburden themselves. But Dein takes it to another, more electrifying, level.
For two decades he has been evolving the show in which he contacts random strangers around the world and subtly draws them out to give us vivid glimpses of their other lives and their, often, pressing other concerns. Some stay with you. Like an episode from years back when Dein was still calling random public phone boxes late at night (the show was called Don’t Hang Up then) and a feral 14-year-old picked up for a chat while hiding in a call box from the police, followed by a transexual hitchhiker somewhere in New Zealand.
More recently, the shows have become more structured and thematic but they retain enough of the unexpected to overwhelm. During one episode in lockdown, a Mexican woman was chatting amiably to Dein about living in a rainforest, when she sidestepped suddenly and started talking about her son, who’d been kidnapped by a gang, and her pandemic-stalled quest to find him. Breathtaking, yet also typically Dein.
Over the years Dein has stayed in touch with some of those he’s encountered, bringing us occasional updates. One extraordinary woman he’s been talking with since 2012 understandably took up this week’s entire episode. Daria hails from Zaporizhzhia in Ukraine and supports her family working as a translator, teacher and interpreter. Serious physical challenges (restricted growth and confinement to a wheelchair) and a brush with cancer have done nothing to stem her enthusiasm for life. Even the constant threat of Russian invasion, missile strikes, the deaths of friends and regularly having pick her way to a bomb shelter had not extinguished her capacity for hope.
It was Dein latching on to Daria’s mention of a boyfriend that raised this episode to another plane of brilliance. Because what slowly, shyly unfurled was the kind of rapturous love story that only ever seems to blossom amid the ashes of war and catastrophe – sad and uplifting, full to the brim with anger, compassion and hope.
“I’ll be super-happy when it’s over,” said Daria, towards the close. “I’m going to travel. I’m going to meet you, Alan. I want to be a happy story in your collection.”
One thing’s certain: I won’t have been the only listener left fervently wishing that fortune will fall in Daria’s favour. Or thinking that anyone needing to restore their faith in human nature, could do with listening to her story.
It used to be that uplift was always available in Radio 4’s 6.30pm comedy slot, although a handful of veterans such as The Unbelievable Truth and relative newcomer Conversations from a Long Marriage
keep up the good work. The station has been trying out some new formats. Some showed promise, such as Chris Mccausland’s pilot You Heard It Here First a few weeks ago. Though it could have been tighter, it was perfect for radio, the blind Mccausland amusingly subjecting his guests to the rigours of a hearing-only world.
Even more successful was Paul Sinha’s Perfect Pub Quiz (Radio 4, Thursday) in which the comedian and pro-quizzer (familiar from ITV’S The Chase) subverted the format of the traditional pub quiz – inviting an audience to test his skills with the most arcane questions they could think of, while also challenging them with some of his own – to sparkling comic effect. His list of rude Piers Morgan anagrams was a delight, but Sinha’s real talent, for batting everything the audience threw at him back with a sharp comic spin, is a rare one, to be celebrated.
Still, the last week’s biggest comedy joy was the return of The News Quiz (Radio 4, Friday). After a succession of seriously underwhelming hosts following Sandi Toksvig’s departure in 2015, Andy Zaltzman has singlehandedly restored the show to its former eminence since taking over last year – while also adding a surreal contemporary edge that’s all his own.
Unsurprisingly, fixed-penalty notices, the new Partygate inquiry, Priti Patel’s Rwanda plan, a certain squabble with the Archbishop of Canterbury and Elon Musk’s bid for Twitter all proved fertile, acidly entertaining ground for Zaltzman and his fellow comedians this week. It will hopefully be a matter of priority for Julia Mckenzie – who played a “key role” in Zaltman’s appointment and was last week announced as the new Radio 4 Comedy and Entertainment Commissioner – to restore consistency, quality and laughter to the 6.30pm slot every day.