A.I's Charm Offensive

[benthalo]

I've got it all, but I imagine Pinball was there with his virtual spring-record button.

I hate the way in which Sue Lawley reads back people's own quotes as 'clever' questions. That one about comedies developing on minority channels for instance.

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

'Radio 4 listeners will have just heard a load of pips - they'll think it's ten o'clock.'

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

1. Part of the third movement of Bach's Partita Number 3
Performer Nathan Milstein
Composer  Bach
Publisher Polydor International
CD Title Bach: Sonatas and Partitas
Track 12
Label Deutsche Grammophon
Rec No: 4232942

2. Overture to Rossini's Thieving Magpie
Performer Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by David Parry
Composer Rossini
CD Title Rossini:Thieving Magpie
Track Cd1 trk 2
Label Chandos
Rec No: CHAN 30972

3. Opening of Mahler's 9th Symphony
Performer London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Klaus Tennstedt
Composer Mahler
CD Title Mahler's Symphony No 9
Track 1
Label EMI Classics
Rec No: 7243 5729512

4. Nunc Dimittis
Performer Collegiate Singers directed by Andrew Millinger and accompanied on the organ by Richard Moorhouse
Composer Herbert Howells
CD Title The Complete Morning and Evening Canticles:H Howell's vol 1  
Track 14
Label Priory
Rec No: PRCD 745

5. The Moose
Performer Woody Allen
Composer Woody Allen
Publisher Roxbury Record
CD Title The Bitter End Years
Track Side 2 trk 1
Label Roxbury
Rec No: RLX 300B

6. Cloudbursting
Performer Kate Bush
Composer Kate Bush
Publisher EMI
CD Title Hounds of Love
Track 5
Label EMI
Rec No: 5252392

7. Final Movement of Sibelius's Symphony No 5 in E flat
Performer Iceland Symphony Orchestra conducted by Petri Sakari
Composer Sibelius
CD Title Sibelius:Symphonies 4 & 5
Track 7
Label Naxos
Rec No: 8554377

8. Valet will ich dir geben
Performer Katherine Fuge with the English Baroque Soloists conducted by John Eliot Gardiner
Composer Bach
CD Title Bach Cantatas:Gardiner
Track CD2 Trk 21
Label SDG
Rec No: SDG104

Record:  Mahler's 9th Symphony
Book:     Complete Short Stories of H G Wells
Luxury:  Virtual sherry trifle.

[alan strang]

No Nine Inch Nails? I'm disappointed.

[Marv Orange]

I've got it all, but I imagine Pinball was there with his virtual spring-record button.

I hate the way in which Sue Lawley reads back people's own quotes as 'clever' questions. That one about comedies developing on minority channels for instance.

listen again link
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/genres/comedy/aod.shtml?radio4/armando_iannucci_charm

[Howj Begg]

Mahler's 9th. The man just got even cooler.

[Howj Begg]

I'm quite surprised at the lack of Webern or Berio or Varese though, given his interests as expressed on Private Passions. Still he did emphasise Bach there, too.

[Barney Sloane]

I'm quite surprised at the lack of Webern or Berio or Varese though, given his interests as expressed on Private Passions. Still he did emphasise Bach there, too.

I remember that - he was quite enthusiastic about Nielsen as well, wasn't he?

[Howj Begg]

Ooh, I didn't remember that but I think you're right, yes.
Wonder if he was asked to choose differently or emphasise certain things in his taste over others for a Radio 4 audience? Which in turn makes me wonder whether other guests who've been on PP first are asked to do the same.
Whereas on PP if they've invited someone on who's mainly a jazz or pop fan then often their choices will be two thirds that genre.

[The Mumbler]

I think the point with Desert Island Discs is (in theory) the eight records you would never get tired of, but (in practice) ones that you would associate with key moments or people in your life.  Private Passions really is talking about the music.

Sue Lawley genuinely has not got the faintest idea about comedy, has she?

[Jemble Fred]

Did she kick off with "Armando Iannucci, you're a bit of a short wop-stroke-scots-wahey git aren't you, and you're going bald. I Am Alan Partidge 2 was shit, as was Gash. Welcome to the show..."

Seems to be her usual schtick.

[Purple Tentacle]

"I don't find that funny, Mr Lloyd-Webber"

[Pinball]

I missed the first broadcast of Desert Island Discs as was in US, but Friday morning's repeat is set on DAB radio, and I'll upload it later..

Sue Lawley's castaway this week is the satirist Armando Iannucci.  

He has lampooned news journalism with his creations On the Hour and The Day Today and plumbed the shallows of the chat show circuit through the vain and insecure Alan Partridge.  His most recent work has been more biting – his Westminster satire The Thick of It dissects the relationship between politicians, their spin-doctors and the media they want to control.  Decisions are made on the hoof, in haste and in response to media pressure – there's not a politician, civil servant or journalist who isn't compromised in the process.

A highly academic child at a Jesuit school, in his teens he harboured ambitions to become a Catholic priest. His parents thought he might become a doctor or lawyer, but after getting first class degree from Oxford, and spending three years writing a thesis about religious language with reference to Milton, he concentrated on comedy instead.  He joined the BBC and ended up producing the radio comedy programmes he had listened to as a child.  

He is currently involved in developing new comedy for the BBC and is this year's Visiting Professor of Broadcast Media at Oxford University.  

1. Part of the third movement of Bach's Partita Number 3
Performer Nathan Milstein
Composer  Bach
Publisher Polydor International
CD Title Bach: Sonatas and Partitas
Track 12
Label Deutsche Grammophon
Rec No: 4232942

2. Overture to Rossini's Thieving Magpie
Performer Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by David Parry
Composer Rossini
CD Title Rossini:Thieving Magpie
Track Cd1 trk 2
Label Chandos
Rec No: CHAN 30972

3. Opening of Mahler's 9th Symphony
Performer London Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Klaus Tennstedt
Composer Mahler
CD Title Mahler's Symphony No 9
Track 1
Label EMI Classics
Rec No: 7243 5729512

4. Nunc Dimittis
Performer Collegiate Singers directed by Andrew Millinger and accompanied on the organ by Richard Moorhouse
Composer Herbert Howells
CD Title The Complete Morning and Evening Canticles:H Howell's vol 1  
Track 14
Label Priory
Rec No: PRCD 745

5. The Moose
Performer Woody Allen
Composer Woody Allen
Publisher Roxbury Record
CD Title The Bitter End Years
Track Side 2 trk 1
Label Roxbury
Rec No: RLX 300B

6. Cloudbursting
Performer Kate Bush
Composer Kate Bush
Publisher EMI
CD Title Hounds of Love
Track 5
Label EMI
Rec No: 5252392

7. Final Movement of Sibelius's Symphony No 5 in E flat
Performer Iceland Symphony Orchestra conducted by Petri Sakari
Composer Sibelius
CD Title Sibelius:Symphonies 4 & 5
Track 7
Label Naxos
Rec No: 8554377

8. Valet will ich dir geben
Performer Katherine Fuge with the English Baroque Soloists conducted by John Eliot Gardiner
Composer Bach
CD Title Bach Cantatas:Gardiner
Track CD2 Trk 21
Label SDG
Rec No: SDG104

Record:  Mahler's 9th Symphony
Book:     Complete Short Stories of H G Wells
Luxury:  Virtual sherry trifle.

[Godzilla Bankrolls]

Guests tonight are Jo Brand, Alexei Sayle and Dan Gaster. My chum managed to get Sayle's copy of the script, gave it a once-over and passed it to me. Sayle marked out literally *one line* which he thought was worth reading out (During the 'Renamed Radio Shows' 'round', he's put a squiggle next to 'Afternoon Play: Siesta'. And even then I think he only did it because he was talking in Spanish a lot).

[benthalo]

Possibly the same friend nicked a copy of the pilot script a couple of years back. Truly bleak.

[Pinball]

Well my DAB of Desert fucked up (due to the bitrate change at 10am, I think) - please could someone else upload it?

[benthalo]

I'll pass a copy of the longer Sunday edit to Beloved Aunt over the weekend, if he'll oblige.

[Pinball]

Great thanks!

[TJ]

I've got a full MP3, but it does that weird 'muffled mono' BBC Player thing about halfway through and stays that way up to the end.

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

When you have Armando Iannucci, Alexei Sayle and Jo Brand in the same studio, why do you need to ruin it by also including Dan Gaster? It's like getting a glass of really good malt whisky and adding a dash of warm Virgin cola.

[Godzilla Bankrolls]

Sayle's disdain for the script was quite pleasing. He made a self-consciously concerted effort to read out "one of the lines your writers have given me" and mugged to comic effect. It would be interesting to see if it makes the show.

Sayle and Brand had given up after the first half hour or so. Brand folded some of script and fanned herself in a bid to alleviate the stifling heat, and Sayle just gazed around the room in boredom. Whilst Gaster read (and extemporised from) the script with Iannucci for bloody ages. See if you can spot The Old HIGNFY Gag in the edit! Sayle actually said something like "Me and Jo haven't bothered saying anything for the last half hour. Or maybe the young pup's got to try doubly hard with us here".

Geoff Posner and Alexei Sayle in the bar and we didn't ask about The Young Ones pilots. What sort of comedy die-hards are we?

[The Mumbler]

I spotted several 'new' writers in last week's show joining Ian Martin, Danny Robins and Jon Fucking Holmes.  Can't remember any of their names now, mind.

[benthalo]

Geoff Posner and Alexei Sayle in the bar and we didn't ask about The Young Ones pilots. What sort of comedy die-hards are we?

Did I ever tell you the story of Posner trying to gain entry to a Jeremy Hardy Speaks To The Nation recording at Broadcasting House in 2001? The lady on the door assumed him to be a tramp and asked him to move along.

He was deeply unshaven.

[Godzilla Bankrolls]

Nick Doody is one of them - doesn't he write for TTOI too? Don't forget Tetsell, who also does the 'character' bits.

It'd hard to judge which section of the script is worse, but the 'Gossip Moments' that the panel really couldn't be arsed with at the end of the recording contains some amazing clinkers, including:

"Posh Spice was snapped getting her ears replaced by gammon steaks."

"Wayne Sleep is now living by the ancient code of the samurai."

"Davina Macall (sic) has 4 spare voiceboxes grown on the back of an unnamed mouse! Her tongues are being farmed in badgers..."

"Peter Andre has the lips of a mountain gorilla. He wears lipstick to hide that fact..."
(their ellipses)

[The Mumbler]

I'd like it if Iannucci wrote all of it.  Or if they had the guests, but no writers.  But in this form, it's agony.

[Godzilla Bankrolls]

Did I ever tell you the story of Posner trying to gain entry to a Jeremy Hardy Speaks To The Nation recording at Broadcasting House in 2001? The lady on the door assumed him to be a tramp and asked him to move along.

He was deeply unshaven.

As on Thursday. I did a double-take at the bar upon spotting him - in a sort of "I know him... but where the fuck from?" A sensation you also get whenever you see Bruce Dessau.

[Sheldon Finklestein]

Surely just sitting Armando in front of a microphone and getting him to talk about something would be more entertaining that half of this stuff.

[Godzilla Bankrolls]

I'd like it if Iannucci wrote all of it.  Or if they had the guests, but no writers.  But in this form, it's agony.

You'd think Iannucci would have the sense to realise that it's much better when it goes off-script (or "into my own handwriting, there" as he put it). But when he spends half the recording trading scripted tosh with Dan Gaster whilst Jo Brand and Alexei Sayle sit the other side of him with their fingers getting further up their arses, you have to wonder.

[benthalo]

In my house, the words 'Dan Gaster' can only ever provoke the phrase 'who cancelled?'

[Emergency Lalla Ward Ten]

There are moments when Iannucci starts to vent about something (eg, the 'Damned if they do...' bit) and it almost gets interesting, but it's always brought swiftly down to earth by the usual Tetsall/Oliver/Gaster-penned whimsyboredom. 'Sssh, Armando, you're starting to be a bit too good - can we go back to jokes about Alan Sugar having the head of an otter so I'm not out of my depth?'

Same problem as Heresy.