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An Everyday Story of Afghan Folk; Archive on 4: radio review An Everyday Story of Afghan Folk; Archive on 4: radio review
(5 months later)
An Everyday Story of Afghan Folk returned for a second series on Radio 4 this week, filling in the daily 15 minute drama slot with an imagined take on village life on the Af-Pak border. "Tell your father you want to marry Shireen, addict or not!" yelled Meera Syal, playing the Pashtun wife of a poor farmer in her stock elderly Indian biddy accent, scolding a daughter with ideas above her station. The idea being education, the station being the school that pompous village leader Akbar Khan is secretly intent on blowing up.An Everyday Story of Afghan Folk returned for a second series on Radio 4 this week, filling in the daily 15 minute drama slot with an imagined take on village life on the Af-Pak border. "Tell your father you want to marry Shireen, addict or not!" yelled Meera Syal, playing the Pashtun wife of a poor farmer in her stock elderly Indian biddy accent, scolding a daughter with ideas above her station. The idea being education, the station being the school that pompous village leader Akbar Khan is secretly intent on blowing up.
This sort of thing would have been wonderful in the 80s – a worthy play adapted from an actual Afghani soap opera (Pulay Poray in this case), boiling down the nuances of life and culture on the borderlands to two familiar dramatic tropes: arranged marriages and angry fathers. But it feels lazy and a bit dull in 2013. The mish-mash of accents delivered by the actors doesn't help, the lack of ambition even less so.This sort of thing would have been wonderful in the 80s – a worthy play adapted from an actual Afghani soap opera (Pulay Poray in this case), boiling down the nuances of life and culture on the borderlands to two familiar dramatic tropes: arranged marriages and angry fathers. But it feels lazy and a bit dull in 2013. The mish-mash of accents delivered by the actors doesn't help, the lack of ambition even less so.
One radio show profiling another radio show should be too meta a concept to really work, but Judith Kampfner pulled it off for Archive on 4's look at Radiolab last weekend, offering a solid primer on the cult US phenomenon broadcast on 300 American radio stations and downloaded as a podcast by 2 million listeners each week. What makes it so successful, asked Kampfner, and why are fellow broadcasters so in awe of it? Even Ira Glass, presenter of This American Life, was floored. "They heard what we were doing and took the whole thing further," he cheerfully admitted. "The aesthetic is much more evolved … it's more interactive, dynamic and fun." High praise.One radio show profiling another radio show should be too meta a concept to really work, but Judith Kampfner pulled it off for Archive on 4's look at Radiolab last weekend, offering a solid primer on the cult US phenomenon broadcast on 300 American radio stations and downloaded as a podcast by 2 million listeners each week. What makes it so successful, asked Kampfner, and why are fellow broadcasters so in awe of it? Even Ira Glass, presenter of This American Life, was floored. "They heard what we were doing and took the whole thing further," he cheerfully admitted. "The aesthetic is much more evolved … it's more interactive, dynamic and fun." High praise.
Meanwhile, Radiolab skipped its usual format (esoteric science chat and brainy soundscapes) for a special reading by actor Liev Schrieber. What if the moon was just a jump away, asked hosts Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich. The answer was delivered in Italo Calvino's The Distance of the Moon, a trippy short story from the 60s, beautifully rendered in Schrieber's deep timbre.Meanwhile, Radiolab skipped its usual format (esoteric science chat and brainy soundscapes) for a special reading by actor Liev Schrieber. What if the moon was just a jump away, asked hosts Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich. The answer was delivered in Italo Calvino's The Distance of the Moon, a trippy short story from the 60s, beautifully rendered in Schrieber's deep timbre.
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