Genre | Documentary |
---|---|
Running time | 60 minutes |
Country of origin | United Kingdom |
Language(s) | English |
Home station | BBC Radio 2 |
Created by | Trevor Dann |
Original release | 7 April 2011 – 22 March 2012 |
No. of episodes | 50 |
Website | www |
Sounds of the 20th Century is a BBC Radio 2 documentary series originally broadcast in the UK between April 2011 and April 2012. Each 60-minute programme is dedicated to one year from 1951 to 2000 and features a montage of audio relating to that year. Featuring nothing that wasn't heard, seen or read at the time, other than brief introduction to each episode by Jeremy Vine, the series does not feature any explanations, reminiscences or reflections upon the clips. [1] Instead, the series' website provided a list and description of the audio items, which was also supplied in real time by the show's Twitter feed.
It is described as an 'audio journey through five decades of triumph, tragedy and trivia.' [2]
The first part of the series was first broadcast at 10pm on Thursday 7 April. Focussing upon 1951, it featured the real King's Speech (as he opens the Festival of Britain), a General Election victory for the Conservatives and their Liberal allies, the first hit single with multi-tracking (Les Paul’s "How High The Moon"), the first rock ’n’ roll record (Jackie Brentson’s "Rocket 88"), screen heroes from Marlon Brando to The Lone Ranger.
The series was produced by Trevor Dann's Company, [3] and there is a series blog available at sottc.wordpress.com.
The critical reception was generally positive. Comparing the show to BBC One's The Rock 'n' Roll Years , The Independent 's Chris Maume asked if "commissioning Sounds of the 20th Century [was] the first thing the 6 Music/Radio 2 controller Bob Shennan has got right in his short but deeply unsatisfactory tenure?". [4] More critically, The Guardian 's Elisabeth Mahoney identified parallels between the archive clips and the contemporary world, but was frustrated at the lack of a narrative, arguing that "the jaunty mix is frustratingly hard-going." [5]
In 2021, a follow-up series aired on Radio 2 called Sounds of the 21st Century covering the years 2000 to 2010.
Nicholas Rodney Drake was an English singer-songwriter known for his acoustic guitar-based songs. He did not find a wide audience during his lifetime, but his work gradually achieved wider notice and recognition, mostly posthumously.
Desert Island Discs is a radio programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4. It was first broadcast on the BBC Forces Programme on 29 January 1942.
Armando Giovanni Iannucci is a Scottish satirist, writer, director, producer, performer and panellist. Born in Glasgow to Italian parents, Iannucci studied at the University of Glasgow followed by the University of Oxford. Starting on BBC Scotland and BBC Radio 4, his early work with Chris Morris on the radio series On the Hour transferred to television as The Day Today.
Elisabeth Clara Heath-Sladen was an English actress. She became best known as Sarah Jane Smith in the British television series Doctor Who, appearing as a regular cast member from 1973 to 1976, alongside both Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker, and reprising the role many times in subsequent decades, both on Doctor Who and its spin-offs, K-9 and Company (1981) and The Sarah Jane Adventures (2007–2011).
Janice Berry, known professionally by her first married name Janice Long, was an English broadcaster who was best known for her work in British music radio. In a career that spanned five decades, she became the first woman to have her own daily music show on BBC Radio 1. She also appeared on other BBC Radio stations, such as BBC Radio 2, BBC Radio London, BBC Radio WM, and BBC Radio 6 Music, and was a regular presenter on the television chart show Top of the Pops.
Doctor Who Confidential is a documentary series created by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) to complement the revival of the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who. Each episode was broadcast on BBC Three on Saturdays, immediately after the broadcast of the weekly television episode on BBC One. The first and second series episodes ran 30 minutes each; third series instalments ran 45 minutes. BBC Three also broadcast a cut-down edition of the programme, lasting 15 minutes, shown after the repeats on Sundays and Fridays and after the weekday evening repeats of earlier seasons. Confidential received its own version of the Doctor Who theme tune, at least three different versions of the theme appeared in the series.
Jon Holmes is a British comedian, writer, presenter and broadcaster known for his work on such programmes as The Skewer,The Now Show, Listen Against, along with both music and spoken word radio. He has appeared on numerous television programmes.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a science fiction comedy radio series primarily written by Douglas Adams. It was originally broadcast in the United Kingdom by BBC Radio 4 in 1978, and afterwards the BBC World Service, National Public Radio in the US and CBC Radio in Canada. The series was the first radio comedy programme to be produced in stereo, and was innovative in its use of music and sound effects, winning a number of awards.
A number of officially licensed audio productions based upon the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who have been produced over the years.
Trevor John Dann is an English writer and broadcaster best known for his radio and print journalism with BBC Radio, Q magazine, Mojo, and The Guardian, and his critically praised 2006 "Darker Than the Deepest Sea" biography of Nick Drake.
The Unbelievable Truth is a BBC radio comedy panel game devised by Graeme Garden and Jon Naismith. The game is chaired by David Mitchell and is described in the programme's introduction as 'the panel game built on truth and lies.' The object of the game is for each panellist to deliver a short lecture about a given subject, which should be completely false save for five true statements which they must attempt to smuggle past the other players. The first series began broadcasting in 2007, and the 29th series began airing in May 2023.
The Sarah Jane Adventures is a British science fiction television programme that was produced by BBC Cymru Wales for CBBC, created by Russell T Davies, and starring Elisabeth Sladen. The programme is a spin-off of the long-running BBC science fiction programme Doctor Who and is aimed at a younger audience than Doctor Who. It focuses on the adventures of Sarah Jane Smith, an investigative journalist who, as a young woman, had numerous adventures across time and space with the Doctor. Following Sladen's sudden death from cancer, the BBC confirmed that the show would not return for a sixth series.
Hear It Now, an American radio program on CBS, began on December 15, 1950, ending in June 1951. It was hosted by Edward R. Murrow and produced by Murrow and Fred W. Friendly. It ran for one hour on Fridays at 9 pm Eastern Time.
Sounds of the 70s is the name of BBC radio programme, currently broadcast on Sundays on BBC Radio 2, with the Sounds of the Seventies name also having been used by BBC Television for a number of themed music compilations, now repeated on BBC Four.
Douglas Adams's Guide to The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a BBC Radio production sold as an audio book on two cassette tapes. The programme was partially broadcast by BBC Radio 4 as a 40-minute feature titled The Guide to 20 Years' Hitch-Hiking on 5 March 1998, marking the 20th anniversary of the first radio programme in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series.
The Media Show is a weekly British current affairs radio programme and podcast on BBC Radio 4 which examines the current state of the media. The first episode was broadcast at 13:30 on 1 October 2008 and since May 2017 has been presented by Amol Rajan, the BBC's Media Editor and occasionally by Andrea Catherwood. Until February 2017, when he died, the show was usually presented by Steve Hewlett, a columnist for The Guardian newspaper and visiting Professor of Journalism and Broadcast policy at the University of Salford. It has also been presented by Emma Barnett, Paddy O'Connell, Ros Atkins, Julian Worricker, Edward Stourton and most recently Katie Razzell.
Bigipedia is a comedy sketch show broadcast on BBC Radio 4 that first aired between 23 July and 13 August 2009. A second series of four episodes began on 12 July 2011. The show's storyline revolves around "Bigipedia", a fictional website broadcast on radio and parody of Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia. The series mocks Wikipedia and other aspects of the Internet. The BBC Press Office described the show as "a unique experiment in 'broadwebcasting'". The series was created by co-star Nick Doody, who also co-writes the show with Matt Kirshen and a wider team of writers. It is produced by Pozzitive Productions.
7 Day Sunday is a British comedy radio talk show hosted by Al Murray on BBC Radio 5 Live. Broadcast weekly on Sunday mornings, the show takes an irreverent look at the topical news stories of the past seven days.
So Wrong It's Right is a British radio programme presented by Charlie Brooker in which panelists aim to give the "most wrong" answer to a question. They describe stories from their lives, conceive of new ideas on a theme and criticise aspects of the modern world. It aired three series in May–June 2010, March–April 2011 and May–June 2012 on BBC Radio 4. The first series of five episodes played at 11 p.m. while the last two had six episodes premiering at 6:30 p.m.
The Minister of Chance is a fantasy multi-media series created by Dan Freeman and Radio Static. It is a spin-off of the Doctor Who webcast Death Comes to Time, where the titular character first appeared, portrayed by Stephen Fry. Stars of the audio drama series included Sylvester McCoy, Paul McGann and Jenny Agutter.