Culture

Tonight (Saturday) on the World Service there’s a chance to hear a most unusual play, which takes us into the heart of life on the Persian Gulf. Tonight (Saturday) on the World Service there’s a chance to hear a most unusual play, which takes us into the heart of life on the Persian Gulf. Al Amwaj (The Waves) was written by a group of writers from Qatar and Saudi Arabia, brought together by the World Service and the British Council. They were commissioned to create a single drama that would ‘reflect the things they care about’ for an audience of listeners in all corners of the globe. So seven writers gave us seven separate stories within a single one-hour drama.

The most gruesome television moment of the week I caught on Saturday night, part of the Red Nose Day mutual congratulation fest. A gang of minor celebs had climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, and Davina McCall — she must be hard to live with, running into the bedroom, shaking her face in yours and screaming that the toast is ready — informed us with breathless excitement that they had raised ‘a staggering £3 million!’. What was offensive about this was the fact that Jonathan Ross was there on stage. Three million quid is just half his annual salary! He could give it away every year, with tax relief, and still have £8,219 to live on every single day. Had nobody thought this through? Seemingly not.

I find it impossible to be dispassionate about the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. For me, it is not just an area of part-designed, part-semi-natural landscape of 300 acres in south-west London, as well as a world-renowned centre of research and learning in botany and horticulture. Kew is where I learned the science and craft of gardening, and where I first started to write about them. I am prouder of being a ‘Kewite’ than pretty well anything else, so I cannot easily view Kew’s semiquincentennial this year with Olympian detachment. The story of Kew is well-known*.

Marley & Me PG, Nationwide  Marley & Me is based on American journalist John Grogan’s best-selling memoir about his young family and their Labrador — ‘the world’s worst dog’ — and it all sounds horribly cloying and lame, I know, but don’t rush to judge unless you simply can’t help yourself, in which case do and you won’t regret it. This is cloying and lame and I say this as a dog lover who loves all dogs aside from the local, fat-bollocked Staffie who always tries to eat my dog (‘Tyson,’ his owner always calls out, ‘be nice...’). It stars Owen Wilson as John and Jennifer Aniston as his wife Jenny.

Did you know that in 1970s and 1980s Yorkshire there were death squads of heavily armed policemen whose job it was to assassinate anyone who got too close — be he witness, investigating officer, or informer — to unmasking their mysterious bosses’ sinister web of lies, deceit, corruption, betrayal, wife beating, torture and serial killing? No, I didn’t either. Did you know that in 1970s and 1980s Yorkshire there were death squads of heavily armed policemen whose job it was to assassinate anyone who got too close — be he witness, investigating officer, or informer — to unmasking their mysterious bosses’ sinister web of lies, deceit, corruption, betrayal, wife beating, torture and serial killing? No, I didn’t either.

Saturday night’s Archive on 4 (Radio Four) began and ended with the haunting voice of a Tibetan singer, mourning the loss of her country’s independence. Saturday night’s Archive on 4 (Radio Four) began and ended with the haunting voice of a Tibetan singer, mourning the loss of her country’s independence. In A Tibetan Odyssey — 50 Years in Exile, the veteran reporter and Sino-Tibetan expert Isabel Hilton recalled events in Tibet since its invasion by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in October 1950. We heard the voice of Field Marshal Montgomery being interviewed by the BBC just after his visit to Mao Tse-tung in 1961. It should be required listening for every politician seconded to the Foreign Office.

Last weekend we learned that Heston Blumenthal had closed his Fat Duck restaurant in Bray, because 40 or so customers had reported feeling ill. I’m not surprised. I felt ill just watching the start of his new series, Feast (Channel 4, Tuesday), and not a morsel had passed my lips. (Actually, some years ago I managed to get a table at the Fat Duck. The food was extraordinary, the price reasonable considering it was that year’s Best Restaurant in the World, but the experience was marred by the snotty French waiter who said the tasting menu was for the whole table only, so I couldn’t have it. Since I know I will never eat there again, this was both disappointing and infuriating.) There is, I fear, some desperation in this new series. Where can Blumenthal go next?

Science fiction has never been the same since Douglas Adams so brilliantly lampooned the genre in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, first heard on Radio Four aeons ago, back in the era of flares and hippie hair. Science fiction has never been the same since Douglas Adams so brilliantly lampooned the genre in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, first heard on Radio Four aeons ago, back in the era of flares and hippie hair. Once again, though, the sound of robots clanking through the studio can be heard on virtually all the BBC’s wireless networks in a season of dramas inspired and written by some of the greats — H.G. Wells, J.G. Ballard, Iain M. Banks, Arthur C. Clarke.