Reality Check: State of the Art adaptation

Reality Check:
Reality Check logo
State of the Art adaptation

To be broadcast 03/03/09 on Resonance FM as a “Micro Clear Spot”

Iain Banks and Paul Cornell at Newcon 4

Iain Banks and Paul Cornell at Newcon 4

Alex Fitch talks to writer Paul Cornell about dramatising Iain M Banks’ novella “The State of the Art” for the afternoon play on Radio 4 (to be broadcast 2.15pm 05/03/09) with a cast including such luminaries as Anthony Sher and Patterson Joseph… Alex and Paul also discuss the author’s adaptations of his own work – novelising the internet cartoon Doctor Who: Scream of the Shalka and conversely dramatising his novel Doctor Who: Human Nature for TV.

For more info, please visit the home of this podcast at Sci-Fi London

Links: For more info about BBC radio’s SF season, please click here
For Paul’s blog, please click here
Wikipedia pages on Paul Cornell, Iain Banks and The Culture

For more podcasts with Paul Cornell, as guest and interviewer, please click here

In association with: Sci-Fi London logo

I’m ready for my close-up: The films of Rex Bloomstein

I’m ready for my close-up: The films of Rex Bloomstein

Rex Bloomstein filming An Independent Mind

Rex Bloomstein filming An Independent Mind

A special episode of Resonance FM’s film show I’m ready for my close-up. Alex Fitch talks to director Rex Bloomstein about his films Traitors to Hitler (1979), KZ (2006) and An Independent Mind (2008) in advance of a screening of Traitors… at the Imperial War Museum as part of a weekend of films and talks about the 1944 Bomb plot to kill Hitler (including a screening of Valkyrie starring Tom Cruise); Alex and Rex talk about documenting persecution and freedom of speech on film and notions of psychogeography in the documentary process. 

For more info about this podcast and a variety of different formats you can download or stream, please visit the home of this podcast at www.archive.org

Links: Rex’s website
Interview with Rex following a screening of KZ at the Sundance Film Festival
Rex’s page at the “British Documentary Website” dfgdocs.com
Rex’s filmography at the University of Leicester website
Imperial War Museum website

Six Pillars – The Iranian Funk Scene

When you hear this stuff you are transported. So much energy and such a fine example of east-west musical balance.  On hearing these tracks the mind is drawn down images of side streets throbbing with nightclubs and bright fashion, in a setting of affluence and passionate youth.  The 70’s was a culture boom of fashion, music and norms in Iran that has not yet been equaled.  To top this, many Iranians left Iran never to return in the late 70s, so the era has become iconic.

Fari Bradley talks to Arash Saedinia, a Los Angeles-based music enthusiast and creator of the Fars Funk website, about his passion for vintage Persian popular recordings.

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Synthesizing indigenous traditions and Western influences, Iranian artists created a notable body of left-field psychedelic, rock, funk, and folk songs in the sixties and seventies. The show features songs from “Pomegranates”, a compilation of Persian pop gems due later this year from B-Music.

This programme was originally broadcast on Monday 16th June 2008 13.30

Listen to the Radio Show!

Wavelength – 2007 December 7th Christie’s Auction

Recording from a Christie’s Auction, King Street London + Georg Baselitz lecture “The Painters’ Equipment” A lecture at the Royal Academy of Arts 1987. (Audio Arts LP, recorded by William Furlong and William Archer)

William English

Marvin Suicide : 183 – Chicken and Bees

It’s becoming apparent that my once furtive imagination is steadily deteriorating. I’m quite sure that in a few months time the most abstract and irrelevant thought my brain will produce is likely to be a slight variation on an actual event or factual information.

Wish me luck.

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The Bike Show: Bicycle Polo and No Bike Week

Picture credit: Roxy EricksonBicycle polo. It’s the latest sensation that’s sweeping the nation. After an account of bicycle polo played with Hungarian counts in 1934 from Patrick Leigh Fermour’s classic Between the Woods and the Water, we travel to De Beauvoir Town to find out how the game is being played in 2009. The European Hard Court Bicycle Polo Championships will be held in London this August. For more on where to play, there are lots of listings here.

No Bike Week – what happens to a cyclist when he or she can’t ride for a week? Let’s find out. More details soon. It’s likely that No Bike Week will take place at some point between now and Easter 2009. Expresssions of interest to bikeshow@resonancefm.com

Picture credit: Roxy Erickson

Reality Check: Being Bruce Campbell

Reality Check: Being Bruce Campbell

Originally broadcast 19/02/09 on Resonance FM as an episode of I’m ready for my close-up

Bruce Campbell in My name is Bruce

Bruce Campbell in My name is Bruce

Alex Fitch talks to legendary ‘B’-movie actor Bruce Campbell about his new film My name is Bruce which sees the actor directing, producing and playing a fictionalised version of himself on screen. My name is Bruce sees Campbell kidnapped by a fan and taken to the small town of Gold Lick, Oregon (pop. 333) to save the locals from an ancient Chinese demon prefaced by his own country and western musical numbers… Alex and Bruce also talk about the actor’s career so far, appearing in memorable films by Sam Raimi such as the Evil Dead and Spider-Man trilogies, and his experience of dealing with fandom over the years…

For more info, please visit the home of this podcast at Sci-Fi London
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Panel Borders: The work of David Baillie

Panel Borders: The work of David Baillie

Originally broadcast 19/02/09 as an episode of Strip! on Resonance 104.4 FM

Extract from A Dogs Tale by David Baillie

Extract from A Dogs Tale by David Baillie

Continuing Indie comics month on Panel Borders: Alex Fitch talks to writer and artist David Baillie about his experiences in the comics industry. David has been self publishing comics since the beginning of the 2000s and has recently produced his first graphic novel – Tongue of the dead – a pastiche and welcome update of 1970s and 80s Sword and Sorcery comics such as Conan the Barbarian. David also has worked as a comics commentator for various publications, is working on a 3D site specific graphic novel with Daniel Merlin Goodbrey displayed on the walls of a children’s hospital in France and has just seen his first “Future Shock” published in the venerable British periodical 2000AD.
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Wavelength – 2007 November 30th The Red Suede Jacket

“The Red Suede Jacket”: Bob Hughes remembers the 1960s in Leicester. Cut into the interview is a rare track by The Farinas later to become Family, and also Country Line Special by Cyril Davies and his Rhythm and Blues All Stars (1963).
The red suede jacket became a fixation for me; worn in the 1960s by John Nixon otherwise known as Jelly for reasons unknown, the jacket became emblematic of that period. Bob Hughes recalls some of the events, recorded in The Modena Cafe in Leicester which has hardly changed since the early 1960s. The Farinas were a Leicester group who later became Family . The track played here is their first and only single apart from an incredibly rare demo disc and features the harmonica playing of James King. My elder brother Jack took me to see The Farinas at The Pit which was a club underneath the notorious Bond Street Caff in Leicester City Centre. I was probably eleven years old, still in short trousers. The Farinas were playing rhythm and blues and memorably a track about a train, with harmonica by Jim King.

William English

Le Menu Gastrophonique Ep.16


EPISODE 16 : Dry turkey, fairy lights, Champagne, Foie Gras, Oysters, family diner…..indigestion or culinary orgasm ? This is Christmas !

-Food art, Sound art : the sounds of food, digestion, excretion. Produced by Coraline Janvier- http://papier.brouillon.free.fr