the show’s “OG queen” — the
only one with true personality
— but do the other moth-eaten
saddos have nothing else
in their lives? There is a
spectacularly bland new team
member, an agent called
Emma, who brings nothing
and looks like a 6ft dorgi.
On BBC2 there was The
Princes and the Press,
another documentary about
the royals. Two days before its
broadcast we learnt the family
was so furious they hadn’t
been shown an advance copy,
they were considering not
co-operating with other BBC
documentaries.
What kind of a threat is
that? I can’t think of anything
less worrying than never
having to see a single one of
their cloying, sucky-uppy,
boring, self-promotional
films ever again. But they
needn’t have worried. What
began promisingly as a bitchy,
insider’s account of reporting
on the royals evolved into
just another vehicle for
hating on Harry and Meghan.
It glossed ineptly over some
details: who was the private
investigator who gave an
interview about looking into
whether Chelsy Davy had an
abortion? He “says he worked
for News of the World”, said
the presenter, Amol Rajan.
Well, did he or didn’t he? I
also found it strange they
interviewed the Duchess of
Sussex’s lawyer — was this for
legal reasons, or because they
could hardly find anyone to
defend her?
Rajan seemed unable to
stay off screen — barely a
scene went by without him in
it. If it was an interview, he’d
be filmed from several angles,
before turning to the camera
at the end of the segment to
explain to us what we’d just
seen. Why so needy?
The most astonishing piece
of television this week was
An Audience with Adele on
ITV. This was a super-shiny,
high-spec, celeb-studded
concert at the London
Palladium, and it was one
of the most shameless,
cringeworthy pieces of
television I’ve ever seen.
For a start — what the hell
kind of celebs were these?
Talk about a bag of rain-
soaked strays. There was no
rhyme or reason — it was as
if someone had telephoned
every second-tier hotel in
Covent Garden and said:
“Yes, tell the whole of the top
floor to come.” Then we had
to put up with Adele,
entombed in sequins and 5in
of bronzer, pretending she
knew them, before flinging
herself into some listless hit:
“Helloowwww s’mee.”
Idris Elba, who stood up to
ask a question, said he wanted
to ask her what her “favourite
biscuit is”, but sadly asked a
far less interesting question.
All the questions were like
this: absolute pap. In fact
Adele has never seemed less
interested in her own life, and
it shows in her music.
It was almost embarrassing
to listen to her singles from
the wonderful 21 — full of pain
and anger — compared with
the bland easy listening
garbage she belted out for the
new one. If the sound of the
dire Love Is a Game didn’t
finish you off, watching Emma
Watson groove in the aisles or
listening to Emma Thompson
saying, “Hello girl”, before
nearly adopting a “street”
accent, would have done. cA songwriter celebrated
Adele performing in 2007The bad music awards
Hard to pinpoint last Sunday’s
nadir. Was it When Michael
Ball Met Richard Carpenter
or It’s a Kind of Magic — The
Queen Story? Both on BBC
Radio 2.
My winner was Michael Ball
massacring the Carpenters’
Top of the World. “If you do
the melody, Richard, then I’ll
do the harmony — that’ll be
nice,” asserted the scene-
chewing twinkly troubadour
(39 minutes in, if you want a
laugh). Overconfidently the
baritone Ball reached for
Karen Carpenter’s pure
soprano, then totally failed
to summit. “It’s a difficult
song,” Richard Carpenter
said, kindly.
Ball was talking at
Carpenter as part of Radio 2
Celebrates Songwriting, which
launched last Saturday with
Adele at the BBC, an excuse
to rebroadcast archive from
December 2007 of her singing
Hometown Glory and her then
unknown cover of Bob Dylan’s
Make You Feel My Love.
On Sunday came It’s a
Kind of Magic — The Queen
Story, a jaw-droppingly
overblown karaoke tribute
evening involving a 60-piece
BBC Orchestra and a rock
band. Recorded in Valletta,
Malta, in September, this was
one of the naffest things I have
ever heard — and my first gig
was Doctor and the Medics.
Gary Davies, replacing
Spandau Ballet’s Tony Hadley,
narrated the story of Queen
through the band’s hits, but
also a ragbag of other
standards (Kander and Ebb’s
Cabaret, Aretha Franklin’s
Think, Lennon’s Imagine, Led
Zeppelin’s Rock and Roll).
Although the legendary Live
Aid set was “recreated”,
Queen themselves did not
seem to figure. Instead Tony
Vincent, star of the musical
We Wil l Ro ck Yo u, and
someone from Mike and the
Mechanics did. All very odd
(unless, I suppose, you were
stotious on holiday booze andsunshine), because nobody
does Freddie like Freddie
— here the singing, imagine,
was tremulously over the top
— but mostly because there
was no real insight into the
songwriting, which was the
apparent purpose of this gig
(rather than a foreign jolly).
Next up, John Legend and
the Beatles offered a little
more analysis (favourites
include Something, Blackbird,
Come Together and Golden
Slumbers), but was probably
more for fans of Legend than
those of the Fab Four.
All of which feels
disappointing from the
country’s most popular music
station when there are superb
strands on other BBC stations
examining songs and
song-making, now available
as podcasts on BBC Sounds.
The consistently moving and
illuminating Soul Music is
back on Radio 4, in a Saturday
mid-morning slot that feels an
easy fit. Yesterday its subject
was Massive Attack’s epic
Unfinished Sympathy, a
secular hymn for my
generation. Last week it was
Rodgers and Hammerstein’s
Some Enchanted Evening
from South Pacific, which
holds a cherished position
in my parents’ memories.There are 168 episodes
available via Sounds.
Also on Sounds, from
Radio 4, is Paul McCartney:
Inside the Songs, his quick
analysis (the longest episode
lasts eight minutes) of songs
including Got to Get You into
My Life, Yesterday and Too
Many People, a vent for his
post-split anger at John
Lennon.
Away from the BBC, an
inspiration for the last series
seems to be Song Exploder,
to my mind one of the finest
podcasts yet produced. In
each short, sharply edited
episode a musician
deconstructs one of their
compositions, describing
their inspiration and the
song’s making and reception.
Then the song is played in
full. The presenter-producer
Hrishikesh Hirway is a
discreet presence, a confessor
in a listening booth rather
than someone asserting his
own voice. His recent TED
talk on the art of listening
encapsulates why this series
works, when putting two big
egos together in a room so
often does not.
A poppier, sillier
exploration of the art of
songwriting is available via
Matt Edmondson’s newish
podcast Not Another Love
Song. Edmondson, a DJ on
Radio 1, has decided to
produce an EP. Having no
musical skills himself, he has
called on chart-toppers such
as James Arthur and Griff,
the rising star winner at this
year’s Brits. The catch: their
songs must be about everyday
subjects, such as, so far,
potatoes (Holly Humberstone),
box sets (Griff ), CrossFit (Tom
Grennan) and hay fever
( James Arthur), my fave.
The chat is banal, but what
makes this breezy, upbeat
podcast so appealing as we
approach the season of traffic
gridlock is that it works for
tweens — even scratching out
the occasional swearword.
My only concern is whether
Edmondson has done too
good a job of demystifying
singers and their process.
Lyrics aside, these catchy
tunes sound, to me, like most
modern pop. cPATRICIA
NICOL
The twinkly troubadour Michael Ball is this week’s nadir of naff
| RADIO & PODCASTS
ANDRE CSILLAG/REX FEATURES28 November 2021 19