OUR SOULS AT NIGHT, NETFLIX
KENT Haruf is one of my favourite authors, and most people probably haven’t heard of him. Take a tip from me and read his Plainsong trilogy, and then his posthumous novel, Our Souls At Night, which has now been made into a drama starring Robert Redford and Jane Fonda.
It’s about an older couple living in a small town in America. They are both widowed, and finding life without their partners slow and lonely. Addie pays a visit to Louis one day and suggests they sleep together – but she is not suggesting anything as commonplace as sex. She simply misses the warmth and companionship of someone in bed during the long, cold nights. Soon this older couple are sharing a bed, and their adult children disapprove: they can’t possibly understand the type of loneliness a widowed person might feel. But who cares? Louis and Addie understand one another, but when Addie’s grandson comes to stay things get more complicated.
THE LAST PIRATES: BRITAIN’S REBEL DJS, BBC4, 9pm
YOU might associate pirate radio with a bunch of rebels out at sea in the 1960s, but a different batch of pirate DJs hit the airwaves in the 1980s, and that’s who we’re looking at here.
These pirates didn’t need a ship. Instead they broadcast from tower blocks on London’s grim estates and celebrated black music which might otherwise have been snubbed by the conventional DJs.
Rodney P is a rapper who owes his career to these pirate DJs, and he tells the colourful story of how they eluded the kill-joy authorities and their repeated attempts to close down the pirate broadcasts.
The show also acts as a social history of black communities in 1980s London, with the pirate stations allowing their musical culture to thrive. Jazzie B and Trevor Nelson, both former pirate DJs, tell their stories, and we also hear from the enforcers who tried to shut them down.
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