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BBC Radio 3 is a radio channel that started transmitting on the 30th September 1967. It replaced Third Programme.

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

Between the Ears

Documentaries

Factual: Arts, Culture & the Media

Innovative and thought-provoking features on a wide variety of subjects

Innovative and thought-provoking features that make adventurous use of sound and explore a wide variety of subjects. Made by leading radio producers.

Between the Ears: Mighty Beast

Factual: Life Stories

Mighty Beast

26/01/2013

BBC Radio 3 - Between the Ears, Mighty Beast

Documentary version of Sean Borodale's poem set at a cattle market.

Documentary version of Sean Borodale's poem set at a cattle market, incorporating the real voices of the people who inspired the work, with sound design by Elizabeth Purnell.

Sean Borodale's long poem, Mighty Beast, was created using interviews, a range of voices and overheard conversations he gathered from many visits to cattle markets in towns across Somerset, where he lives. This radio documentary version is told in the voice of the auctioneer: a brilliant, shifting stream of patter that is by turns harsh, lyrical, cajoling, admonitory and consoling. Through this tour de force of poetic writing come the real voices of some of the people who inspired the poem, men whose memories are of the gradual gaining of skills and experience, of childhoods spent in a landscape that has changed beyong retrieval, and the deep love for the animals who provide their livelihood. These voices, real and imagined, are given a rich and lyrical soundscape created by composer Elizabeth Purnell. 

The auctioneer is played by Christopher Bianchi
The poem is written by Sean Borodale
The soundscape is created by Elizabeth Purnell
The Producer is Sara Davies.

Live music and the arts: broadcasts more live music than any other radio network. Classical music is its core. Genres include world and new music, jazz, speech and drama.

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