Welcome to our landmark fiftieth show. Standing back for a moment that suddenly seems like an awful lot of broadcasting and all the effort that has gone into the show has, I hope you will agree, been absolutely worthwhile.
I am delighted to present two wonderful recordings of the late poet Laureate John Betjeman and the late refused-Poet Laureate Philip Larkin, together with Michael Hordern reading Kipling and the weird world of Arthur Lipsett.
John Betjeman reads selected poetry
Argo, 1959
Directed by Arthur Luce Klein, recorded by Spoken Arts but released in the UK by Argo, with a photo on the cover by Cecil Beaton. Also features Betjeman introducing each poem and providing some rare and illuminating extra details.
Philip Larkin, reading his own poems, soon to be released on Trunk Records but at the moment I have no further information...
Arthur Lipsett, Soundtracks
Globala Records, 2003
This is a reissue but from an undated original, and I played the track Very nice, very nice. I guess strictly speaking, it's music, but since there is so much spoken word in it I thought it would be very nice to play it for you. Seems to originate from the National Film Board of Canada - if you listen carefully you can hear someone say "aboot". Sadly the sleeve has almost no information on it at all.
Just So Stories vol.2
Readers, Michael Hordern, Barbara Jefford, Richard Johnson.
Argo, 1973
This is a double album box set but I played only one side, so more later...
We played you La Crabbe qui jouait avec le mer in about episode 12 in the show on Musique Concrète, and here is the original English version read by (Sir) Michael Hordern.
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