Entertainment For Lively Minds
The South Bank Show: Will You Miss It?
Though it's a shame ITV are abandoning arts programming altogether, is anyone actually going to miss The South Bank Show?
It's been occasionally interesting over the years, profiling Victoria Wood, Mike Leigh, Phil Redmond, legendary film and rock stars etc., but it has also given us some real clunkers - The Darkness (!), Will Young.
But generally it's tucked away where no one can see it and six times out of 10 features someone few of us will have heard of, like some South American dancer, a niche performance artist or avant garde painter. There's no reason why it should do this of course - it is (was) as arts show - but surely it's this willful obscurity that has brought its end. Is this symptomatic of dumbing down culture, or would we simply rather watch something more interesting?
Perhaps it'll be snapped up by Sky Arts where it can be watched by even fewer people. I've not heard Lord Bragg fussing about its demise though, so perhaps even he thinks it's past its sell-by date.
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SOUTH BANK SHOW
After major artist Will Young's programme.... nah! Never thought Melvin Bragg would go so low-brow - then again probably good job Jade Goody died or else she may have slated for the next prog!
I've never understood...
...why ITV never repeated old episodes - I'd love to see the Sgt. Pepper one.
I agree
One on Keith Jarrett introduced me to his work and, by extension, to dozens of ECM artists and other musicians. But ITV long ago lost the plot or any idea of how to use their library.
It's a shame that there's no place for it on terrestrial TV
But yes, I think I will miss it. The William Goldman one the other week was great, and, without wanting to spark off some vast 'low culture vs. high culture' debate, I thought both the Will Young and Darkness editions were at least interesting stories that had something worth saying about the nature of popular music as it is now.
I rarely watched it...
...but there was certainly the occasional gem and I will miss it.
Remember seeing one about John Zorn and Sonic Youth when I was 17 (1988 ish), which as a dyed-in-the-wool metalhead just blew my mind!
BBC4
While BBC4 was never intended as a ghetto for the arts, the demise of such programming on the terrestrial channels is effectively making it one. Culture Show excepted of course.
Can't say I'll miss it....
Haven't watched it for years although I do have a soft spot for it - it was the South Bank Show that introduced me to Penguin Cafe Orchestra and I vaguely remember a great one with Peter Gabriel (think it was after PG4 was released).
Not much
I doubt if I watch more than one edition per season.
I think Melvyn Bragg is happy enough doing In Our Time on Radio 4. An eclectic programme if ever there was one.
Miss it?
I've missed it every week since 1985.
The Smiths
There was a superb South Bank Show about the Smiths. Taped it on VHS and wore out the tape with multiple viewings. I'd love to see it again......
Quite
Don't think the 1987 Smiths programme has ever been shown again. Even when the SBS did a retrospective 10, I think, best editions season it wasn't included. Unbelievable. It'll probably remain on the ITV shelves until Susan Boyle decides to record How Soon Is Now, when someone will dust it off and get Simon Cowell to introduce it.
'I am the son and the heir...
...of an eyebrow that is criminally vulgar...'
But leaving Boyle aside, I agree: truly bizarre that they never seem to repeat SBSs - you'd imagine Bragg, a man with an ego if ever there was one, would like his 'legacy' to be available for all to see.
But I do think the format - one long show about one subject/artist - had had its day. One increasingly felt that an hour of (rare) arts TV these days ought to be covering more stuff in its time instead of one leisurely ramble (and it often was rambling) with one person. I guess the Culture Show filled that gap.
every now and then
I get a copy of one of these shows or they are played at some odd hour on the ABC (Aust). I then mutter about why we dont get more well researched shows with excellent footage on artists of weight .
To say you wont miss it just says that you Brits are bloody spoilt
SB show - but more Omnibus probably
were sort of responsible for broadening my cultural horizons in teen years and beyond. I have to say I'm not sure i've watched anything on it since the early 90s. But like a distant train whistle, news of its demise, has a mournful echo
Maybe you've got a point Tony...
Perhaps we have been a bit spoilt with arts programmes in the past (but trust me, UK TV is, as David Baddiel would say, all a bit crap now). But Melvyn Bragg, who fronted/executive produced that particular series for an eternity, was essentially the arbiter of taste for a nation - I know people who would have loved to have got an SBS budget/slot for their documentaries but weren't in Melvyn's wine & cheese circles (deals done over claret in the Groucho club etc). There was lots of good stuff on the SBS over the decades - not just the popular end of it, but great docs on Malcolm Arnold and John Williams come to mind. I know Andy Roberts (a contributor to it) felt the recent one on the 'Liverpool poets' was botched and a bit random/rambling... I guess the format had just run its course and maybe Melvyn had downed enough claret for one lifetime...
Incidentally, though I've no particular axe to grind with the fellow, Melvyn Bragg does have an unfortunate air of 'pseudo' about him. I recall one newspaper review referring to him a few years back as 'a fake intellectual' - this seemed even MORE damning than calling him a pseudo-intellectual, somehow! Denying him even the dignity of a Greek-derived epithet!