Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis originally came to fame in the late 1980s as one half of the satirical sketch group The Mary Whitehouse Experience, with fellow Cambridge alumni David Baddiel and Rob Newman. Now, though, most people know them (as a double act, at least) as the lead performers in The Now Show on Radio 4.
“Television is pretty awful at the moment,” said Eileen Atkins the other week. “Is that because I'm getting old?” Age wouldn’t dare to wither Dame Eileen, of course, who has just bounced back in fine sparky fettle in the BBC's remake of Upstairs Downstairs.
Television has been very good to MR James. The originator of the “antiquarian ghost story” - his plots often hinge on some stumbled-upon medieval relic - his spooky tales are certainly vivid and engaging. Yet he himself professed to never taking them terribly seriously: they were written as “entertainments", to be read out loud to a convivial circle of admiring undergraduates during his years as a Cambridge don.
Matt Cardle, the X Factor winner, is Number One for Christmas, while John Cage's 4'33" managed to get in the charts at 21, outselling Usher, Tinie Tempah and others for the Christmas charts. Captain SKA didn't get anywhere, however. So will the BBC be playing the Cage? Not if they can help it.
At 7.55pm I was tired and grouchy. By 9.30pm I was a happy man, thanks to Neil Diamond. Say what you like about this 69-year-old singer and songwriter: he may be a cheesy old showbiz pro, but personally I am partial to a bit of cheesy showbiz, and an hour and a half in his company on the final night of this year’s Radio 2 Electric Proms was a real tonic.
With his Thunderbirds eyebrows and his prowling gait, Diamond was an imposing figure whose voice has lost none of its gritty rasp, a quality that lends his songs emotional authenticity. And his rapport with the audience was immaculate – lots of eye contact, expansive gestures at the big moments, a serious little nod of acknowledgment when a familiar song was greeted with a ripple of applause, a wave for the folks in the balcony, another little nod to acknowledge the cheers that came back. A real trouper.
He was a garrulous host, too, flirting with the ladies of a certain age who clustered around the edge of the stage in a sort of middle-aged mosh pit, and talking – as he always seems to, and with not terribly convincing self-deprecation - about how he was “just a kid from Brooklyn” when he became an in-demand songwriter in the mid-1960s.
And he was a crowd-pleaser, delivering exactly what the audience wanted: all the hits, played by his band of old-timers, backed by a string section. In contrast with Elton John, who I’m told made a poor job of balancing old tunes and new material at his Electric Proms show on Thursday night, Diamond didn’t oversell the new stuff, almost apologising as he introduced another song from Dreams, his decent new album of cover versions, among them a surprisingly affecting rendition of "Midnight Train to Georgia" and a strong, stirring "Ain’t No Sunshine". On neither occasion did he even attempt to sing them as “soul” songs; he sang them as Neil Diamond songs, with that strong, measured, purposeful delivery. Also impressive was a stripped-down version of his own "I'm a Believer". Mercifully we were spared the album’s low point, a version of Gilbert O’Sullivan’s irredeemably sickly "Alone Again (Naturally)".
As has become traditional with the Electric Proms, he also brought on a couple of guests. The first was the perennially perky Lulu, who sang a Neil Diamond song that she had a hit with in 1967, "The Boat That I Row", followed by a sweet and soulful "I’m a Fool For You", finishing each song in a little clinch with Diamond, her sparkly stilettoed heel kicked up behind her. Rather less flirtatious, but packing considerably more musical muscle, was the second guest, Amy Macdonald, who, accompanied only by her own acoustic guitar, wrapped her remarkable tonsils around "Shilo" and "This is The Life". What a voice she has: it seems to belong to another era.
Then Diamond stepped back into the spotlight for the finale: the dark and purposeful "Holly Holy", an exuberant "Cracklin’ Rosie", and the irresistible "Sweet Caroline", the audience waving their arms like sea anemones on a coral reef.
What else can I say? This was good, old-fashioned, uplifting fun, lapped up by the Roundhouse audience, and doubtless appreciated by those listening live on Radio 2 (it’s due for broadcast on TV later in November). And there were times, notably on "Pretty Amazing Grace" and the magnificent "I Am... I Said", when Neil Diamond reminded us that, for all his slick showmanship and smooth patter, he’s a man of substance, too.
Overleaf: Neil Diamond sings "I Am... I Said"
The business end of 1980s BBC sitcom, the Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime Minister series delivered political body-blows while sporting a dapper suit – satire with a gracious smile. In today’s era of muscled political heavies like The Thick of It, the Jay/Lynn brand of PG humour seems as antiquated as a blunderbuss – particularly when translated to the stage – but with just a few tweaks proves to be surprisingly effective.
As a journalist with a sense of pride about what we reptiles can achieve, sometimes I shudder at the awfulness of what passes for journalism. The licence fee in theory confers on the BBC some moral purpose higher than that of the base commercial stations, doesn’t it? (Given that it implies Commercial = Bad, Public Service = Good.) So a BBC Three documentary on shoplifting should probably be an example of higher journalism? Maybe something that rams home deeper truths either about the distinction between good and bad, or about disturbed individuals?
On paper it was a perfect Monday night programme – Scriabin’s extravagant sprawl of a First Symphony and Stravinsky’s The Firebird in its roomy original ballet score. A pairing of youthful 20th-century Russians conducted by the 21st-century Russian. Barely recovered from Sunday’s sensuous binge of Mussorgsky, Shostakovich and Prokofiev, Gergiev and the LSO promised some welcome hair of the dog. Yet by the time the inevitable Proms standing ovation shifted to its feet something was still lacking; mellow we certainly were. Intoxicated? Not even close.