Words and Music

Original version

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

BBC Radio 3

Radio 3

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Music: Classical

A journey of discovery, weaving music with poetry and prose read by leading actors.

A weekly journey of discovery, weaving together a range of music with poetry and prose read by leading actors.

Words and Music: Drink and No Drink

Drink and No Drink

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Taking inspiration from toasts, parties, hangovers and prohibition.

At a time of year when much is drunk before a month when many are sober, our readings are by Joe Bannister and Sinead MacInnes. Music includes Verdi, Dean Martin and The Coppers.

Much drink will be taken over Christmas and New Year. People will enjoy and regret this. Some will look forward ruefully to dry January.  Some people never drink. Back in the 1920s, the prospect for Americans was dry forever, because prohibition was introduced. In this Words and Music, Joe Bannister and Sinead MacInnes read works that celebrate booze and reflect too the damage it can do to people and their relationships. 

Jack Falstaff praises the virtues of sack. Dorothy Parker delineates the slide from 'just the one' to 'never again'. For Leopold Bloom, in Ulysses (first published in 1922), the lingering flavour of burgundy triggers the memory of a tryst; for Laurie Lee imbibing cider leads to the erotic encounter itself. Mahler and Mozart encourage cheerful drinking and Sussex folk singers Bob and Ron Copper praise good ale. There are two stunning hangovers, in prose from Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis and song, in Loudon Wainwright III's April Fool's Day Morn, as poignant as its protagonist's behaviour is appalling.

Producer: Julian May

READINGS 

Psalm 60
Just a Little One - Dorothy Parker
Beowulf - translated by Seamus Heaney
Drinking Alone Under the Moon by Li Bai (Li Po)
Jack Falstaff's paean to sack, Henry IV Part II  - William Shakespeare
Cider with Rosie - Laurie Lee
I touch a liquor never brewed - Emily Dickinson
The Long Goodbye - Raymond Chandler
Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
The Porter, Macbeth - William Shakespeare
Sloe Gin - Seamus Heaney
Ulysses - James Joyce
Good Morning Midnight - Jean Rhys
John Barleycorn - Jack London
Prohibition - Unknown
Tha an drungair anns an dìg (The drunk is in the ditch) - Iain Crichton Smith translated by Peter Mackay
Lucky Jim - Kingsley Amis
The Beautiful and Damned - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Friend with a Mandolin - Jeremy Hooker

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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