Holy Week is the season for documentary meditation. It features a hybrid format that splices together languid readings of Gospel stories, interviews with people doing worthwhile work like basket weaving and cushion crochet, and a soundtrack from an Enya tribute band. At these shows, you’re just as likely to encounter theology as you are to be confused by drive-by shooting, and the emotional glow of Passion and Resurrection is low-wattage.
Of the two varieties I tasted this year, one from the Bishop of Newcastle and one from Dr. Helen Anne Hartley. good friday meditation (Radio 4) benefited from an expanded treatment of Anglo-Saxon poetry. Ludo’s dream (Faith, March 28), by poet Jay Hulme. sunrise service (Radio 4, Easter Day) The Lindisfarne and St Cuthbert’s show definitely felt like a repeat of two years ago. But again, uniqueness is not a good criterion for judging such programs. They are liturgies composed for a radio audience that is at best indifferent and at worst fanciful.
To gain spiritual insight during this time, we must rely on wonder. He caught my eye as I was looking through one of the many lists of recommended podcasts this year. where are you going? (Loftus Productions, released Tuesday and Friday). The conceit here is that presenter Catherine Carr starts conversations with people on the street and asks that question at the beginning of each conversation. Carr doesn’t have any particularly appealing conversational skills, but I imagine she’s just one of those people you’d be happy to trust. Her exchange with the Mormons last week was beautifully thoughtful and insightful, as she spoke about her large family, which was diminished by the deaths of her two sons. The concept of forgiveness suggests something universal, but it is realized in infinitely different ways. Here we encountered a special and moving incident.
What Kerr and other broadcasters of her skill remind us is that everyone has something interesting to tell us, and the onus is on the interviewer to find it. is. Similarly, the characters chosen to be treated with profile (Saturday, Radio 4) can only project what the profiler deems important. So Stephen Smith’s profile of Dr. Rosemary Mallet, Bishop of Croydon, leaves us with only two impressions: her commitment to racial justice in the Church of England, and the dangers associated with her infamous rum cake overdose. The remaining.
She was probably chosen as a subject because of the recent controversy, as Smith attempted only a rudimentary explanation of her upbringing and spiritual formation. But he also did not engage in any way to suggest there was a debate over reparations. One might have hoped that he would be at least one reporter at the BBC who could muster the energy to do his job properly.
But let’s end on a positive note. This is a rebroadcast of some programs by the BBC. Drama: Hidden Treasure (Radio 4) From the Drama Archive (including works by Harold Pinter) stupid waiter (Palm Sunday) and Dennis Potters traitor (Last Monday). It was as if the 45-minute drama slot, which was so awkwardly handled, was made especially for them.
