Radio Review: 19 September

At first, I thought Radio Five Live had dropped the ball. Hearing Judge Masipa begin her summing up in the Pistorius trial near the end of Today, I turned to rolling news for more. Instead, I got bickering Scots. Admittedly two Scots I hadn’t heard bickering before. Small mercies.

Switching to television reluctantly, I found that the summing up would last two days, so I understood the decision. However, I’d have welcomed the change. Don’t get me wrong, I’m very interested in the future of the Union, but fear more heat has been generated than light.

My eagerness to remain informed meant I missed Lenny Henry’s Radio 4 documentary about the opening of one of Andy Warhol’s Time Capsules, but I caught up later and am glad I did. Warhol had filled 610 boxes with detritus from his life and sealed them. Henry saw the penultimate box being breached. Before then, though, he was shown some of the contents of the previous 608.

What came across throughout was Warhol’s surreal humour, heard in snatches from a gloriously staid Home Service-y archive interview, and the importance of his upbringing in industrial Pittsburgh and commercial-art background to his work. He was the artist and the artwork, so his mundane collations become interesting. It was amusing to hear the reaction of Warhol’s PA as the box disgorged a present he’d given the artist 30 years earlier. Also it was lovely to hear the articulate and enthusiastic Lenny Henry back on the wireless.

Let’s end with some good news, whichever way the referendum goes. The incredibly talented Scots comedian/impressionist Lewis Macleod now has a series on the network, as requested here last November. Quite right too.

Lewis Macleod Is Not Himself, Radio 4, Tuesdays, 6.30pm.
Louis on Twitter: @LFBarfe or email: wireless@cheeseford.net