Hosts Richard Allinson and Steve Levine interview British pop music legend Roy Wood (who, with Jeff Lynne, launched Electric Light Orchestra, only to leave the group after a single album) and several of his colleagues and bandmates, examining Wood’s intricate production style which drenches his signature songwriting with massive walls of both vocals and instruments – usually by way of multitrack recordings of his own playing and singing.
written by Neil Minors
Interviewees: Roy Wood, Jeff Lynne, Rick Price, Alan Parsons, Dick Plant, Annie Haslam, Horace Trubridge
Review: I’d never heard of this BBC Radio 2 show before, but having tasted it by way of this outstanding retrospective of Roy Wood’s music, I wonder why whole box sets of The Record Producers aren’t available. With an actual producer (Steve Levine) as one of the interviewers, and interview subjects such as Nile Rodgers, Hugh Padgham, Trevor Horn and 10cc, this is quite simply one of the most fascinating music documentary series there is, if this installment is anything to go by. (more…)
Jack, Gwen and Ianto leave the confines of Cardiff to investigate the disappearance of thousands of people in India. The trail leads to Delhi, where they witness one of the disappearances first-hand, as hapless dockworkers are consumed by some kind of energy net. But even more suspicious is some of the cargo that was being moved – cargo addressed to Captain Jack Harkness. It turns out that Delhi is one of Jack’s old stomping grounds, and the home of Torchwood India, which Jack shut down nearly a century ago. Jack pays a visit to the colonial gentlemen’s club which was once home to the local Torchwood group, and is stunned to find that it’s still in operation – and his old cohort the Duchess is still in charge and hasn’t aged a day. Despite that oddity, nothing immediately links Torchwood India to the mass disappearances in Delhi. But clearly the presence of the team from Cardiff has the Duchess’ staff and servants on edge – their answers are evasive at best. When Gwen and Ianto disappear without a trace, Jack discovers the terrifying truth: the Duchess is so obsessed with clinging to the British Empire’s past that she’ll sacrifice humanity’s future to preserve it.
A young woman appears out of thin air and plummets into the river; not long afterward, Gwen’s old friend Andy arrests the same young woman for shoplifting, and discovers a strange, futuristic weapon in her possession. Andy calls Gwen and Torchwood in to inspect both the weapon and its bearer. The girl can barely remember her own name, but when her blood tests and other facts come to light, Andy is alarmed that Torchwood wants to take her into custody, despite Gwen’s assurances. Jack and Ianto discover the true use of the “gun” – a device which can jam vehicles, communications and electronics – and Jack is certain that Earth won’t see technology like this for decades at the very least. The girl’s memory gradually returns, and she recovers enough from her ordeal to tell Gwen and Andy about a dystopian future that she barely survived…or perhaps she didn’t survive it after all.
Presenter Mark Gatiss revisits a now-bygone era of Doctor Who appreciation – in the pre-video, pre-DVD days when Target’s compact, economically-worded novelizations of past television stories were all that younger fans had to rely on for knowledge of the show’s early years, and got a great many young people hooked on reading into the deal. Interviewed guests include Terrance Dicks (writer of the majority of Target’s Doctor Who books), frequent cover artist Chris Achilleos, Philip Hinchcliffe, Russell T. Davies and Anneke Wills.