The Dead Side of the Mike Read Online Free Page A

idea for three one-hour features on force-feeding the suffragettes, and HSP(R) had the nerve to say he didn’t think it fitted into a course on Parliamentary Democracy.’
    Charles appealed silently to Mark and received the whispered gloss, ‘Head of Schools Programmes (Radio).’
    â€˜I got the same reaction to my Buddhism in the London suburbs idea,’ objected someone. ‘H. CAMP turned it down.’
    â€˜Same thing with my radiophonic
Crucifixion in Space.
Both CR4 and CR3 were frightened of it.’
    â€˜Well, the Gogol musical idea got up as far as DPR. HDR just didn’t understand it, basically. I think at one stage DPR was going to refer it to MDR, but AHDR reckoned that would be publicly questioning HDR’s decision, so sweet F.A. happened.’
    Charles was beginning to feel he had somehow drifted into a game of Etruscan Scrabble and was relieved when John Christie once again chaired them into silence. ‘Look, I know we’ve all got lots to say, but let’s try and keep it one at a time, shall we? And I do think it important that we keep the discussion as general as possible. I mean, I’m sure you’ve all got pet projects which would fall into the features category – indeed, I hope you all have, because that means that I’ve invited the right people – but let’s try to keep off individual and departmental hobbyhorses for the time being. Let’s just try to think how it would all work out in an ideal world.’
    â€˜In an ideal world we wouldn’t work for the BBC,’ said Mark Lear with surprising savagery. But the rest of the meeting took it as a joke.
    A small man with a large moustache came in over the laughter. ‘I think, I hope, that is, pardon me, but, speaking for a moment with my regional hat on, I think there is a danger that we are all going to forget the important creative resources we have in the regions. I don’t know that we’ve all met, but I am, to those of you to whom I am unknown, not to put too fine a point on it, Harry Bassett from Leeds, and I do, er, hope that, when the chips are down, we won’t ignore the veritable mines of talent which we have been, as it were, mining for some time in Leeds and the other regional centres, that is, in any discussion we are having to which what I’m saying might be of relevance, if you take my point. And I’m not just harking back to the days of E. A. Harding and Geoffrey Bridson in Manchester or Cecil McGivern from Newcastle. I’m talking about the, as it were, here and now.
    â€˜I mean, no one’s denigrating the fine work done in London, but I think, in a sense, it always seems to me, speaking off the record, that London is only one of many centres of creative radio and there’s an all-too-ready tendency to dismiss the regional contribution as something that is not, in any real sense, as it were, of great importance. I mean, we may be, in a manner of speaking, out of town, but we’re by no means and not in any sense, out of ideas, if you take my point.’
    It was apparent from the impatient expressions of the rest of the meeting that they did all regard the regional contribution as completely irrelevant, but John Christie, salting away votes for some future election, smiled charmingly and said, ‘Yes, of course, Harry. I’m very glad you brought that point up. But perhaps we ought to start, before we get too deeply embroiled in production details, with the artists involved in the creation of feature programmes. I thought it very important, for this meeting, that we should spread our net wider than just BBC staff. There’s a dangerous tendency for us to regard what happens here as something on its own, totally divorced from the general world of the arts. So I’m very pleased to have with us some writers and performers whose opinion on the true creative issues will, I think, be invaluable to all of us. We are lucky to