#open audio

[skyeknight-hyperfixations]

Moments before disaster strikes

[openaudio]

The Persistence of Analogue, BBC Radio 4, 31st August 11am

Leigh Alexander explores the growing popularity of analogue hobbies in a digital world.

For 30-something technology writer Leigh, the digital world is just a part of her everyday life - there's no logging off. But despite all the boundless conveniences of the digital world, she says it can sometimes feel as if something has been lost in the transition to an intangible, instantaneous, always-on virtual society. Perhaps that's why analogue formats remain timeless - in fact, they seem more popular now than ever, especially among people of her generation.

From board games and vinyl records to books, calligraphy and even old-fashioned letter writing, people are increasingly seeking avenues to bring a little more face-to-face back into their lives.

Leigh hears from Colleen Cosmo Murphy, founder of listening events that bring participants into a room to enjoy a single album uninterrupted by phones. A 17 year-old student explains why he prefers reading news magazines in print. Leigh hears from a couple who fell in love over vinyl and Leigh's own husband, Quintin Smith, explains why board games are experiencing a huge boom. People just like being with other people, he says.

And Guardian columnist John Harris argues that the persistence of analogue is nothing less than a cultural revolt against industrialisation, one that's been present ever since the late 18th century.

Presenter: Leigh Alexander Producer: Sarah Peters Executive Producer: Iain Chambers A Tuning Fork and Open Audio production for BBC Radio 4.

[openaudio]

Ed Balls’ Dream Dinner Party, BBC Radio 4, 30th March 2017

Imagine you could bring your heroes back to life, and have them all around the same table for dinner. 

Ed Balls - the Strictly star and former shadow chancellor - hosts a gathering of his longtime heroes brought back to life by the wonders of the radio archive. Ed is joined by former chancellor Denis Healey, comedy legends Les Dawson and Joan Rivers, feminist pioneer Nancy Astor and Hollywood great Danny Kaye for a mesmerising and unexpected conversation. We hear them discuss everything from politics to cookery, from playing the piano to overcoming insecurity, illuminating a series of great lives – as well as the triumphs and vulnerabilities of a man who has gone from suffering rejection at the ballot box to becoming an unlikely national treasure via the Strictly dance-floor. 

Produced by Sarah Peters and Peregrine Andrews. An Open Audio & Tuning Fork production for BBC Radio 4.

[nypl]

This weekend is going to be so awesome. We’re partnering with a whole bunch of amazing organizations and libraries to make audio more accessible for all.

[chambi01]

Iain Chambers and Peter Blegvad’s Radiophonic drama, The Eternal Moment, is a finalist in this year’s Prix Europa radio awards. You can listen to the drama, which was commissioned by ABC Australia’s Radiotonic strand, here

http://prixeuropa.eu/festival/programme

[openaudio]

A Beastly Midsummer Night, radiophonic feature for BBC Radio 3, to be broadcast June 2016 

A Beastly Midsummer’s Night takes us on a radiophonic journey to reveal the hidden magic of the natural world. Beautifully crisp, close-up recordings are woven into a musique concrète soundtrack that evokes the life and death struggle of nature in a Norfolk wood. The glistering swirl of the evening chorus, the huff of the vixen in her den, the flutter of insect wings power the story of this special night – all grounded in the actuality of an ordinary family of four.

[openaudio]

One Day In Entebbe, documentary for BBC Radio 4 - to be broadcast June 2016

When governments around the world face a hostage crisis, and imagine breaking it by force, they think of Entebbe. When military academies – including Sandhurst – want to teach the officers of the future about the model counter-terrorism operation, they teach Entebbe. When Israelis look back to the moment when they were admired as heroes, they look to Entebbe. 

The 1976 raid by Israeli commandos on a terminal building in Uganda’s main airport, did not just rescue more than a hundred hostages from the grip of an armed cell of Palestinian militants and German revolutionaries. It also forged a template that would be repeatedly copied in the following years. 

It was a drama with a cast of characters that verged on the operatic, at the centre of which stood Idi Amin, Uganda’s mercurial dictator – proud to wear the wings of the Israeli air force on his uniform. And it would create a martyr of the operation’s slain commander, Yonatan Netanyahu – brother of today’s prime minister. 

Forty years on, writer and broadcaster Jonathan Freedland will recreate this episode through interviews and archive. He has already recorded an interview with the man who hatched and led Operation Thunderbolt, then Defence Minister Shimon Peres, who reveals new and remarkable details of the mission. We’ll hear too from the pilot of the hijacked plane, the surviving hostages and perhaps from the kidnappers themselves - as well as eavesdropping on today's Sandhurst cadets learning the lessons of Entebbe. The lessons - and the myth - of Entebbe endure.