The Sunday Times - UK (2022-06-05)

POP & ROCK

CLASSICAL

ALBUM

OF THE

WEEK

Cherry’s top pickings

Neneh Cherry

The Versions HHHH

EMI

Radical

reworking or

affectionate,

intuitive

homage:

both approaches yield rich

dividends on this collection

of covers of songs by the

Afro-Swedish pop pioneer,

who takes the reins but gives

her collaborators a satisfying

degree of slack. Cherry’s

compatriots Robyn and

Seinabo Sey tackle,

respectively, the iconic

Buffalo Stance

(featuring Mapei) and

Kisses on the Wind,

the latter, stripped

of the original’s

swagger and fizz,

capturing the song’s

Two string

quartets

— Beethoven’s

No 15, Op 132

and Adès’s The

Four Quarters — dominate

an enthralling disc that

proposes a thematic link,

between light and shade,

optimism and hopelessness,

in each of the four works.

Bookended by Sini

Lassus, Beethoven,

Adès, Dowland

Between Two Worlds

HHHH

Castalian String Quartet

Delphian

Angel Olsen

Big Time HHHH

Jagjaguwar

Coming out, falling in love,

revealing her sexuality to her

parents just before they died:

the singer draws on these on

her heartbreaker of a new

album. Its rhythms and

textures — stately tempos,

siren singing, lashings of

strings and pedal steel — are

imbued with loss and the

heady thrill of love. DC

Tove Styrke

Hard HHHH

RCA

As ever with the underrated

Swede, where other writers

can leave you gagging for

a killer chord that never

comes, she delivers: you

listen to dependably

eccentric Scandi-pop

stunners here such as

YouYouYou and Hardcore

and think, yet again: why is

Styrke not a star? DC

poignancy and hint of

bleakness. Sia’s take on

Manchild sheds little new

light, but she insinuates

herself into the melody with

infectious boldness. Sassy

becomes, in Cherry’s

daughter Tyson’s hands, a

stripped-back jazz slowie,

while Jamila Woods swaps

Kootchi’s abrasive shredding

for spare and limber R&B.

Other transformations

include Greentea Peng’s

jungle makeover of Buddy X

and the singer and violinist

Sudan Archives’ sinuous

reimagining of Heart.

Anohni turns Woman into a

haunting, crepuscular

torch song, with

fascinating results.

Much like the rest

of this absorbing

album.

Dan Cairns

Simonen’s ethereal

arrangements of Lassus

and Dowland, the quartets

share a sense of anguish,

conflict and questing (the

dripping-tap pizzicato in

Adès’s Morning Dew is a case

in point). The Castalian’s

utterly original emphases,

shadings and balancing in

the Beethoven are thrilling

(although likely to be

challenging for some). I

have never heard the work

performed like this, and

the effect, especially in

the third movement, is akin

to encountering it for the

first time. DC

ON RECORD

W

hen the BBC threatens to

kill off a much-loved sta-

tion, it rarely wields the

knife efficiently. BBC

Radio 6 Music was threat-

ened then reprieved after

an outcry by music lovers. BBC3 was

shoved online then brought back when

the bureaucrats realised belatedly that

axing their one youth channel wasn’t

smart. And now BBC4 is for the chop,

to save money. It will be a slow, linger-

ing decline, as it lies on its deathbed for

three years until the life support is

finally turned off and it becomes a

streaming service, online only.

The start of summer and the Proms

is a good time to reflect on what we will

be losing when the corporation’s arts

and culture channel goes. It’s a far cry

from its launch in 2002, when BBC4

was required to screen 100 hours of

new arts and music programmes, 110

hours of new factual programmes and

to premiere 20 foreign films each year.

It is only when one remembers the

programmes that had their first UK air-

ing on BBC4 that one realises what an

amazingly innovative service it was.

Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm

first appeared there, as did Mad Men,

as did The Thick of It, as did Spiral.

That’s not a bad pedigree. Add The Kill-

ing, Borgen, The Bridge and Wallander

and it’s clear that this was the place

to go for some of the best drama and

comedy of the past 20 years. Indeed,

introducing Scandi noir to the UK

can rank as one of BBC4’s greatest

achievements. Factual programmes,

too, provoked and challenged, not

least a look at Henry Kissinger’s alleged

war crimes.

Yes, there were always repeats, as a

matter of policy, but BBC4’s were judi-

ciously chosen by controllers who

clearly knew their audience. It’s

good to be reminded of incom-

parable sitcoms such as The

Likely Lads, Yes Minister and

Fawlty Towers, and, even more

so, enthralling dramas such as I,

Claudius and Cranford. A chan-

nel that can show Derek Jacobi

and Judi Dench in mesmeris-

ing form is a credit to the BBC.

It can even be quite relaxing to

watch an old Top of the Pops, a

reminder of those days when the

whole family gathered round the

TV set. And yes, I quite enjoyed

the quirky nostalgia of The

Magic Roundabout. As I say,

this is a channel that knows

its demographic.

It is, or should be, an important

demographic for the BBC, however. It

is a demographic that stays in, watches

TV, loves culture and has a shared

memory of the best of BBC drama and

comedy. A demographic that likes to

have an evening of upmarket drama,

factual programmes and comedy

scheduled for them, rather than having

to go online or to iPlayer (CBBC is also

going online-only but it is watched by a

generation used to watching shows

on demand).

And yet, as part of that demo-

graphic, I also crave the new, I yearn

to see the creativity not just of here

but of the US and Europe, which BBC4

once brought us. I want to turn to

BBC4 for the next Mad Men. I want to

keep seeing the Proms on my tele vision

screen. And I’d go further. I would love

a BBC4 that brought us the best of

British theatre, the area in which we

as a nation excel and in which so

many productions and performances

are lost for ever after their brief runs

on stage. Surely that is what a real BBC

arts channel should be doing, rather

than giving Sky Arts, now on Freeview,

a free run.

The death knell was sounded a year

ago, when BBC4 was demoted to be an

archive channel, not allowed to com-

mission new programmes.

A look at last week’s programming

(May 28-June 3) reveals the letter R for

repeat after literally every programme

in the schedule. And these repeats are

not in the league of I, Claudius or Cran-

ford. They are repeats of Wogan, Keep-

ing Up Appearances, The Joy of Easy Lis-

tening, not the sort of programming

around which one could mount

a campaign to keep a channel. I

lament the demise of BBC4, but

of BBC4 in its heyday, not the

slightly pale shadow it has been

forced to become.

When the chan-

nel was launched the

BBC used the tagline

“Everybody needs a

place to think”. It qui-

etly dropped it after

just a few months.

Too elitist perhaps

— if thinking really

is elitist. What is cer-

tain is that everybody

needs a place to cel-

ebrate culture. Slowly

starving and then killing

off the one BBC channel

that once gloried in it is cul-

tural vandalism. c

The channel brought us everything from Mad Men to Curb Your

Enthusiasm — David Lister laments an act of cultural vandalism

WE STILL NEED BBC4

Madness

January

Jones and

Jon Hamm

in Mad Men,

which BBC4

was first to

air in the UK

| TELEVISION

AP PHOTO/AMC FRANK OCKENFELS

16 5 June 2022