Superman comes to The Sound of Sunday!

One thing we used to do on the show many years ago was radio drama.  I’ve always liked listening to audio drama and it’sgreat to have the opportunity to bring it back to Sunday afternoons.  It’s been a regular feature of many shows on HRB over the years. 

We’ve chosen the original 1940s episodes of Superman – in fact we have broadcast one of them before, but now we have all five episodes from the series, first heard in February 1940.

It’s a very different Superman to the one most of us know from the recent films and TV series, more like the TV series of the 1950s and 1960s when the character and show was very much older in style.  But the story is still good and considering the series was made in the 1940s, the whole thing sounds very good.  The series will be on the show for the next month and also on my new Friday afternoon programme The Friday Feeling which starts this week,

Taking a Break

Every 3 months I put my other hat on – that of Southern Region Rep of the Hospital Broadcasting Association. 

That means a gathering of stations from around the region hosted by one of those statiosn, and this coming weekend, Frimley Park is the hosting station.

That means a break for The Sound of Sunday for a week, but we will be back on 22 February with something new, or should I say old.

We’ve had a tradition of including plays and drama on the show – back in the early 90s, we did it just about every week.  For the next few weeks, that element of the show makes a return with a series of episodes of Superman from the 1940s.

They are based around the original stories and settings of the superhero and you’ll hear how much Superman has changed over the years, but they’re still exciting and I hope will be enjoyed as something different by listeners.  They form part of a series of classic radio plays, dramas and comedies that will make an appearance on HRB in the coming months.

So see you on 22nd.

It’s that time again – nearly

The Sound of Sunday has always followed the Eurovision Song Contest, with a Eurovision special each year the day after.

We’ve even had some Eurovision related guests on the show, Lisa Andreas who performed for Cyprus a few years back and the last UK winner Katrina from Katrina and the Waves appeared on the show a couple of yeara ago.

She confirmed what we always knew – whatever you think of Eurovision, there IS nothing else quite like it, the atmosphere is unique.

This year, I think we are having a real good go at doing well.  Jade Ewan has got the best chance of doing well that the UK have had for a while.  The song this year is quality, you can’t get much better than Andrew Lloyd Webber and Diane Warren.  OK it’s a bit like a song from a musical, but what else would you really expect from Andrew?

In 2002, Jesssica Garlick faced lots of people who didn’t rate her chances and who didn’t like the song.  She came third.  If Jade can do anywhere near as well this year, it will be job done. 

We will be remembering some of the Eurovision songs from past over the next few months as Eurovision’s Greatest Hits returns from 22 February.  Whether you watch Eurovision or not, you are sure to remember many of those that we play, starting of course with Abba singing Waterloo at Brighton in 1974.

Tony Hart

Tony Hart had a career of nearly 50 years inspiring and entertaining the young and old.

His shows were pioneering and Vision On, Take Hart and Hartbeat were more than worthy of the praise – and awards – that they won.

Tony was famous for doing art in unusual ways, his large pictures on disused airport runways were one of his trademarks, but he was equally at home drawing cartoons for hundreds of children as they excitedly waited in queues at many a country fair.

He was amazingly quick at drawing, and put this ability to use on many occasions. He was a regular on the Generation Game, showing the contestants how to draw simple pictures as part of the games, and he was a regular on Saturday morning TV in the 80s, drawing pictures for viewers on the phone.

At its height, Hartbeat attracted 5.4 million viewers, and its picture gallery – where viewers were encouraged to send in their own artistic attempts – received up to 8,000 pieces of artwork a week. it’s a feature that is still done today as part of the programme that replaced him – SMart.

Some of his last TV appearances were on a programme called Smart Hart which saw him create some new drawings and play some highlights of his classic shows alongside SMart presenter Kirsten O’Brien.

He designed one of the most famous TV logos ever, the Blue Peter ship, for which he was paid a fee of £100, rather than a penny for every occasion it was used as he asked. If he’d have got his wish, he would have become very rich indeed.

He received two Bafta awards, and won a lifetime achievement award in 1998, in acknowledgement of his unbroken service to children’s television.

All the tributes to Tony have remarked how nice a man he was, and he always came across that way on TV. He was obviously happiest when he was drawing and you can understand how hard it must have been when he had to give up drawing due to ill health.

The special guestbook set up at his official website www.tonyhart.co.uk has attracted hundreds of comments from people sad to hear the news and commenting on his 50 year career entertaining and inspiring millions and a search on youtube also produces many video compilations linked to comments from fans. Someone has even resurrected the famous TV character Morph who of course made his debut on Take Hart back in the 70s and was one of the first creations of David Sproxton and Peter Lord, who, along with Nick Park, went on to create Aardman Animations and characters such as Wallace and Gromit.

His agent, Roc Renals, said that he loved his work and was totally dedicated to it, and was always able to come up with new ideas and techniques.

Richard Deverell, controller of BBC children’s programmes, paid tribute to a “terrific broadcaster”. He said: “Tony was a warm man who had a unique ability to communicate with and inspire children. His dedication to making art look simple and his ability to help bring it to life through characters like Morph influenced generations of children to be creative.”

In later years, he took comfort from the fan mail he continued to receive, writing: “My aged heart is warmed by the lovely letters and emails I receive, especially when they tell me that my work on television inspired the writers to become artists, sometimes very successful ones.”

Tony Hart, who was laid to rest this week.

Sport on a Sunday

FA Cup fourth round weekend this week and we’ll have live reports from the early kick off on Sunday as well as a preview of the later match and a round up of the other sport from the weekend.

When The Sound of Sunday started in 1991, sport on a Sunday was not quite such a big deal as it is now.  The Premier League hadn’t been invented and it was the exception rather than the norm to find any Sunday afternoon football matches.

Nowadays of course there is at least 1, normally 2 games on a Sunday, usually dictated by the influence of TV, and Sunday has become almost as big a sporting day as Saturday.

The Sound of Sunday never has been a sports show, but the sport content has increased over the years and it’s only right that should happen, with the show making way altogether on the last day of the Premier League when all 10 matches kick off at 3pm on the Sunday.  Nowadays we can bring live reports from all the matches and keep listeners more up to date than ever.

It’ll be even better when we have access to the internet at HRB – hopefully not too far off.  Things have changed so much since the first show on 24 March 1991!

Back to Business

After the excitement of the big countdown last weekend on HRB, The Sound of Sunday returns to normality on Sunday with a normal show.  All the regulars return and we’ll have reporters at both of this Sunday’s Premier League matches as well. 

We’ll also pay tribute to BBC sports presenter David Vine who died this week,  He was best known for presenting snooker, but of course also hosted Ski Sunday, Superstars and A Question of Sport.  He was also the first presenter of It’s A Knockout (but his laugh wasn’t as distictive as Stuart Hall’s) and he even out his hand to the Eurovision Song Contest in Brighton in 1974, the year that Abba won.

He will be missed – a BBC Sport great!

SOS 2009

After all the festivities of Christmas, it’s time to get back to business as the show returns to normal this weekend for the first time since the end of November!  And then only for one week.

Next week, it’s our annual countdown of HRB Most Requested Artists Eever compiled fom requests collected since HRB went on the air in January 1984 – which you will realise is 25 years ago.  In fact, next Sunday, the day of the chart, will be the day of the anniversary.

This year, we are being very ambitious with the show.  4 presenters from two locations on opposite sides of the world – as Andy McCormick presnts some of the show from New Zealand.

The show involves a significant amoutn of pre-production, but always seems to work OK thanks to all those involved, who this year will be Steve Fox, who was there at the start of HRB 25 years ago, and Sarah Beattie, who has been co-hosting the show since we started making it a regular fixture of the Christmas schedules in 2005.

Will Sir Cliff still be number one?  Currently only 4 people know the answer to that one.

The Sound of Sunday will return to normal the following week.

SOS Christmas Show THIS WEEK

Is it really 12 months since the last Christmas show?  This year it’s FIVE HOURS long and packed to capacity with festive fun.  Guy Siner from ‘Allo ‘Allo is just one of the special guests and there’ll be the Great Christmas Cracker Dash as well.  This Sunday live on HRB from 12.30pm

2 SOS shows and then it’s CHRISTMAS!

Every three months, the southern ragion of the Hospital Broadcasting Association has a meeting where representitivers from stations around the region gather to talk about issues that affect all hospital radio stations, and share information and knowledge so that we can ultimately provide a better service to our audience.  As these are invariably on a Sunday, that means no SOS on these days.  This weekend HRB hosted a meeting and everyone was very impressed with our new studio.

That meant no show, but we will be back next weekend.  After that it will be the last weekend of November and then it’s the day of Yuletide in Alton which means another week with no show and then… it’s our biggest show of the year – the Christmas special.

This is the show that takes the most planning and lasts the longest on air – this year it will start at 12.30 and finish at 5.15.  We do the Great Christmas Cracker Dash around the wards and talk to the stars of the local pantos and shows including the hospital panto.  We also link up with stations around the UK in the Christmas Radio Link up.

It’s the most planned most complicated but one of the most enjoyable shows of the yeat and one I really look forward to.  I can’t believe that it’s so close!

The Sound of Sunday – back on air 23 November from 1.30.

Requests Galore

One of the major reasons for hospital radio is playing requests and it’s always nice when we have almost too many to squeeze into the show.  That was the case this week with the lively lot on C4 choosing loads of tunes for the show. 

As well as that it was another of those packed Sunday Premier League days with the big game of the day Blackburn V Chelsea.  As usual we had reports from that game and as many from the others that we could fit in.

It’s hard to believe that there are just 3 more shows to go before the biggest SOS of the year – the BIG Christmas show is on 14 December this year with all the normal festive fun and features and this year it really is bigger than ever with an extra 15 minutes for the show whill run be live from 12.30 until 5.15 on that day.

No programme this coming weekend but we return on 22 Neovember live at 1.30pm.