Radio review - light programme

Published Monday 12 May 2008 at 15:40 by Nick Smurthwaite

What Amy Winehouse has done musically for her generation, Dusty Springfield did for the sixties’ baby boomers. Her private life may not have been quite so colourful, but Dusty had the same combination of natural talent, soulfulness and eccentric individuality.

Johnnie Walker’s R2 profile, A Girl Called Dusty, first broadcast in 2001, harked back to the singer’s Anglo-Irish upbringing in the London borough of Ealing, where there weren’t that many white, suburban, convent-educated 12-year-olds who listened to Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday.

With her brother Dion and their friend Tim Field, Dusty formed a close harmony folk trio in 1960 called the Springfields - the family name was actually O’Brien - and they had a hit almost immediately with Island of Dreams. A year later they were named Britain’s top vocal group in the NME.

By the time she went solo in 1963, Dusty, with her trademark blonde beehive and panda-like eyes, was ready to make the big time with I Only Want to Be With You, followed six months later by the Bacharach-David song, I Just Don’t Know What to Do With Myself. It was the start of a long working relationship with Bacharach.

In addition to her uniquely husky, soulful singing voice, Dusty was clearly a person of great spirit and principle, who opted for deportation from South Africa rather than play in front of a whites-only audience, having made it a condition of her appearance that she would only play integrated gigs. She fully deserves to be remembered and revered.

Mike Harding celebrated the more ethereal talents of the Irish folk singer Cara Dillon in his weekly R2 show. Dillon hails from Dungiven in Northern Ireland, an area steeped in Irish traditional music. She was singing and playing fiddle to great acclaim from a young age. Now, in addition to possessing a lovely voice herself, Dillon is a catalyst for many other talented Irish folk musicians.

The centenary of the birth of Mel Blanc, the man of a thousand cartoon voices, was marked by R4’s That’s All Folks! in which Jimmy Hibbert, himself a much sought-after cartoon vocal talent, paid tribute to the doyen of them all, who died in 1989. Blanc did the voices for, among others, Bugs Bunny, Woody Woodpecker, Porky Pig, Tweety Pie and Sylvester.

In his early days, he worked with the greats of American radio, Jack Benny, George Burns and Gracie Allen et al, before they moved into TV. But the arrival of Warner Brothers’ Looney Tunes in the mid-thirties took him off in a new direction, although he struggled at first to convince anyone of his rare talent.

In The Reunion, Sue MacGregor brought together Bruce Robinson, Paul McGann, Richard E Grant and Ralph Brown in front of an audience at the British Film Institute to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the enduring cult comedy, Withnail and I. Robinson recalled how he sacked McGann after a couple of days’ filming because of his Liverpool accent - “He sounded like a cross between Ringo Starr and Norman Wisdom” - and how he plied the teetotal Grant with alcohol until he was falling-down drunk.

Throughout filming there was an ongoing feud between Robinson and his producer because the latter didn’t find it remotely funny. Robinson, who repeatedly threatened to quit if he wasn’t given his way, said his preference was for “the kind of comedy that doesn’t know it’s funny”.

Quizzed by MacGregor, the actors all had tales of being confronted by Withnail fans over the years. The best was Grant’s about being in the deserted Australian outback when an old Morris Minor drove towards him, the passenger leant out of the window and yelled, “Scrubbers!”.

DETAILS

Icons Revisited - A Girl Called Dusty - R2, Tuesday, May 13

Mike Harding Show - R2, Wednesday, May 14

That’s All Folks! - The Mel Blanc Story - R4, Tuesday, May 6

The Reunion - Withnail and I - R4, Sunday, May 4