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i t i c s C u l t u re
C r pu l a r
Radio and Po
A History of British Radio Criticism
Paul R
ixon
Radio Critics and Popular Culture
Paul Rixon
Radio Critics and

Popular Culture
A History of British Radio Criticism
Paul Rixon
University of Roehampton
London, UK
ISBN 978-1-137-55386-7 ISBN 978-1-137-55387-4 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55387-4
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018936645
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

The author(s) has/have asserted their right(s) to be identified as the author(s) of this work
in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the
publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to
the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The
publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and
institutional affiliations.
Cover Credit: LongQuattro

Cover design by Thomas Howey
Printed on acid-free paper
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Macmillan Publishers
Ltd. part of Springer Nature.
The registered company address is: The Campus, 4 Crinan Street, London, N1 9XW, United
Kingdom
To Mandy, Charlotte and Antonia
Acknowledgements
After spending most evenings and many weekends working on this book,
I think that, as it is finished, I should now give thanks to where it is due.
So, to start, I would like to thank my family for putting up with me for the
last year or so, as I’ve concentrated on researching, writing and finshing
this book. I need especially to say a big thank you to my two lovely chil-
dren, Antonia and Charlotte, who, at times, have wondered what I have
been doing in my office all this time. I hope one day that they will love
radio as much as I do. And yes! I can now take you to the playground.
I also want to say a big thanks to Mandy, my wife, for giving up many of her
evenings to discuss my ideas with me and to help proofread the final man-
uscript. Her help in this endeavour has been vital and it was her encour-
agement in the end that gave me the strength to finally finish the book.
I would also like to thank my students, especially those on my ‘Podcasting
and Radio module’, for the insights they have provided over the years.
And, finally, I would also like to give a big thank you to friends and col-
leagues that have discussed my ideas about television and radio criticism
over the years, providing useful and helpful insights and suggestions.
vii
Contents
1 Introduction 1
2 Approaching the Study of Radio Critics and Radio

Criticism 11
3 Radio in Britain in the 1920s: Narratives of Spectacle

and Concern 33
4 Rise of a Medium: Arrival of the Radio Critic 65
5 The Critic, Newspaper Radio Criticism and the Heyday

of Radio 103
6 From the Swinging Sixties to Thatcherism: The Decline

of Radio Coverage 133
7 The Digital Age: The Press, Radio, Radio Critics

and the Public 163
8 Conclusion 197
Index 203
ix
CHAPTER 1
Introduction
Preamble: A Personal View

On most days I wake up to a radio alarm clock that switches on to the
Today programme broadcast on BBC Radio Four. This experience contin-
ues over breakfast with my family. Others might tune into a music station
in the morning and listen to the patter of the DJ and sing along to the
popular tunes of the day. Many sit in their cars going to work listening to
the radio, or under headphones on the commuter train, existing both in
their own private listening environment while also connected through
radio to the wider world. People sit in cafes sipping tea, or go about their
shopping, with the radio playing in the background, providing some
ambiance to their activities. Radio is there when we wake up, go to sleep,
travel and undertake leisure activities. According to the Radio Audience
Joint Audience Research (RAJAR), ‘49.2 million adults or 90% of the
adult (15+) UK population tuned in to their selected radio stations each
week in the second quarter of 2017’ (RAJAR 2017). Radio, whether we
know it or not, is part of our everyday lives and routines and has been
there, in this form, for nearly a hundred years or so. Indeed, at an anec-
dotal level, my parents can still remember as children listening to it in the
1940s, when radio played a more important role in the life of the nation,
listening-in to the radio news about the war, comedy programmes, swing,
dance and classical music, variety shows and children’s programmes. They
remember the way their family would sit around the radio set in the eve-
ning, listening to the voices, music and sounds coming out of the ether,
© The Author(s) 2018 1

P. Rixon, Radio Critics and Popular Culture,
https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55387-4_1
2 P. RIXON
linking the nation together. Indeed, my father remembers using his short-
wave radio after the war to listen, through the crackle and hiss, to stations
broadcasting from around Europe. However, it very much appears to be
the forgotten medium. If you ask a group of students which media they
have used in a day, radio is usually forgotten. For many it is used as a back-
ground medium, one through which other media, such as music or news,
are heard and remembered. However, as noted above, it is still a popular
medium. We almost all still, at some stage during the day, listen to it,
whether by choice or not. Reflecting this disinterest, in some ways, has
been the lack of scholarly work on radio, with most interest in the media
being focused on film, television or the press (Lacey 2009: 21).
This has led me to wonder why such a popular medium as radio no
longer attracts much public discourse. If I open up a newspaper, maga-
zine, or even use my computer to look at a news website, most of the
articles, when they touch on the media, will relate to film, music or televi-
sion. Radio is hardly covered at all. It is not only a secondary media in
terms of how many of us seem to consume it, such that we do not know
or remember that we have listened to it, but also that there is little popular
or critical discussion about it. There are few previews, reviews or critiques
about radio to be found in the mass media, or even on the new media. As
Peter Lewis argues, there is a gaping hole in public discourse about this
medium (2000). However, as we shall see, this has not always been so. For
some decades, particularly when radio was the pre-eminent medium of the
day, radio critics or radio columnists, such as Collie Knox or Jonah
Barrington, were in fact minor celebrities. Such columnists were given a
regular slot in the paper, and attracted a lot of public attention. There
were also journals, such as Popular Wireless and Amateur Wireless and even
the British Broadcasting Corporation’s (BBC) very own The Listener,
which concentrated on radio broadcasting. What my book will focus on,
is not radio and its history, its output and programmes, nor that of the
press and its history, but on the link between them, the radio critic and
their coverage, and their input into the public debate and public discourse
about radio. I am interested in the radio coverage that appeared in the
major national newspapers, the appointment of critics, different types of
output the critics provided, how their work helped position radio in both
the wider cultural debates and for the public. I will also look at how the
role of critics has changed over time and, indeed, how their importance
has waxed and waned over the decades for newspapers, readers and
listeners.
INTRODUCTION 3
Seeking an Approach
I start this book, in some ways, with a problem of defining the medium the
critics write about: radio. Is it the programmes, the act of listening to pro-
grammes, the underlying technology, practices of making radio, the rela-
tionship between radio and other media, the context within which radio
operates, the stories of the people working there or the regulations and
policies which have shaped its development? (see: Lacey 2009: 24–5). In
many ways it is all these elements and more. And, as such, no one piece of
work can take or provide a complete holistic account of these elements, all
that can be done is to focus on particular issues, processes and time peri-
ods, marshalled together and organised through a particular conceptual or
theoretical view point or historical narrative. Likewise the finished work
can never present a finalised view of radio, but instead it can only but add
to a developing and growing understanding of the medium. The same, in
many ways, can be said of the press, the other part of the equation I am
dealing with in this book.
However, is it not just a question of defining and approaching the study
of one medium in isolation, as all media and cultural forms, in some way
are interrelated, they all connect in some form. For example, it is impos-
sible to understand film without also understanding its relationship to the-
atre, drama, radio and television. This does not mean that one cannot
focus on one particular medium, perhaps as an organising principle, but as
we do so we have to take account of its connection or interrelatedness to
others. This might be done through our own research, or by utilising
research already undertaken on other media. However, as James Curran
notes, this has not always been the case, ‘British media history is highly
fragmented, being subdivided by period, medium and interpretive tradi-
tion’ (2009: 1). I therefore see my approach as being one that attempts
not to just to focus on radio and its related criticism, but to align it, to add
it to, to intertwine it, to other histories and media forms. Indeed, by its
very nature, it is a form and practice that directly connects two media: that
of the press and the related practices of journalism and the object of its
critique, radio; and that there is an obvious and self-evident need, there-
fore, to take account of their different histories. As Siân Nicholas argues,
‘[h]istorians of the mass media may have traditionally treated each medium
separately. Yet the necessity for an integrated approach is evident if we are
to address the historical role of the media’ (2012: 390).
4 P. RIXON
Therefore, I wish here to stress and to indicate that my aim in this book
is to help create a multifaceted understanding of how radio criticism devel-
oped as a form and practice and its relationship to radio and the press, and
to other media and cultural forms, such as film, theatre, drama and televi-
sion, as well as to the wider cultural, social, political and economic con-
text. My aim is not to analyse and explore the work of critics separated
from the media they work for, the one they write about and the wider
context within which they operate. This approach will be echoed in the
structure of the work, where chapters have been chosen, partly, to focus
on particular moments relevant not just to critics, but important moments
in the histories of other media and the wider social and cultural history of
the nation, such as relating to the war and the period of austerity that fol-
lows, the introduction of commercial television in the 1950s, the cultural
upheaval in the 1960s that leads to the launching of Radio 1, the shift
towards the free market in the 1980s and the development of the internet.
Also, in relation to the analysis, it will not just be a close reading of the
work of the critics, but also a wider analysis of how the output of the critic
relates to the wider context within which they work.
Chapter Structure
This work is divided into six further chapters, a division which is, in some
ways arbitrary. They could be, like any other book, divided differently.
However, the chapters I have decided to use the idea of focusing on par-
ticular historical moments or phases in the development of radio criticism,
radio, newspapers, journalistic practice and other media and cultural forms
and their moments of interconnectedness, as noted above. While five of
the chapters focus on particular historical periods or moments, Chap. 2
stands out as being different, as it is designed to operate as a theoretical-
conceptual chapter, which explores the nature of the critic, the critic’s role
as a cultural intermediary, the relationship between the critic and the
industry they work for, and the one they might write about, the wider
cultural context they work in and, for my book, how the radio critic related
to the radio and television industries. I also use this chapter to help set up
the approach, including the methodology, taken within this book.
As the chapter structure is chronological, Chap. 3 starts by focusing on
the early radio coverage, which developed in the 1920s. Such coverage
was often written by journalists and radio correspondents, as no identifi-
able radio critics had yet been appointed by the national newspapers. This
INTRODUCTION 5
is the early period of radio broadcasting, one where radio was finding its
form, while the press equally was exploring different ways of covering
radio’s developments. At this time, as I highlight, two important narra-
tives came to dominate the early newspaper coverage of radio, and which
fed back into the wider public debates that were occurring about radio.
The first narrative concentrated on the technological possibilities and the
spectacle of radio, including the early forms of radio communication and
the first experiments in broadcasting. While the medium was still forming,
the focus was less on its output and content, than what it seems to be able
to offer, its potential. The other narrative, that starts to appear a little later,
as the medium of radio broadcasting developed, focused on the worries
and concerns about this new form. These were worries about the social,
cultural and political power of the radio, but also the impact it might have
on existing businesses, British culture, other media and cultural forms,
and, connected to this, discussions of how radio might be controlled or
regulated to limit the potential harm it might cause. This chapter there-
fore looks not only at the potential of radio and worries about its possible
impact, but also at the form that it took, initially as a regulated commercial
monopoly and then as a public corporation, imbued with the aim of serv-
ing the public. The second part of the chapter explores the early forms of
radio coverage that appeared at this time, some of which celebrated the
spectacle and excitement of radio and its output, while other elements
criticised the British Broadcasting Company (BBCo) (it became a public
corporation in 1927), the organisation given the monopoly to run broad-
casting in the UK, and its early coverage.
The next chapter, Chap. 4, focuses on the 1930s. This is a period when
radio critics started to be appointed by most newspapers, partly in response
to the growing popularity of radio at this time. This is when the critics
writing for the popular papers were given their own columns and started
to establish or develop further some of the main ways of writing about
radio, such as with previews and reviews, supplemented by gossip about
and from the industry. Some of these critics became key columnists for the
newspapers, often becoming minor celebrities, such as Collie Knox, Jonah
Barrington and Sydney Moseley. In this chapter I will also look at the
launch of a new journal in 1929 by the BBC, The Listener, which focused
specifically on providing a more contextual and serious understanding of
radio (Briggs 1965: 291). In the mid-1930s it appointed its first radio
critic and started to develop a rich stream of radio criticism that continued
over the next sixty years (Briggs 1965: 291; Fiddick 1991: 17).
6 P. RIXON
Chapter 5 focuses on the war and post-war years, from 1939 till 1959.
This is a period when radio became the media par excellence, often attract-
ing huge audiences, indeed, the BBC, as the only legal provider of radio at
this time, comes out of the war with its and radio’s reputation enhanced
(Williams 2010: 173). The war was, however, a time of great change,
socially, culturally and politically, and this led to the BBC creating new
popular channels during and after, such as the Light Programme launched
in 1945 (Crisell 1997: 60–6). For the popular newspapers the war years
signalled an abrupt halt to the intense competition occurring in the 1930s.
With newsprint rationed newspapers were reduced in size and radio cover-
age was cut. This is all with a certain irony, as while many radio critics
spent the 1930s criticising the BBC for the lack of popular output, the
golden age of the BBC, for some (Seymour-Ure 1993: 7), started in the
war period, when the BBC created some of its most popular programmes,
a time when radio coverage in the newspapers shrank. After the war radio
coverage never fully returned to the level that was there before, with the
returning entertainment pages in the popular papers slowly being domi-
nated by the coverage of television.
Chapter 6 analyses the period 1960 till 1989, a time when the country
went through a cultural and social revolution, economic upheaval and saw
the rise of a free-market philosophy. For radio this was also a moment of
huge change. For example, the BBC reacted to competition and cultural
developments in the 1960s by launching a new music channel, Radio 1, as
well as relaunching its other radio channels as Radio 2, Radio 3 and Radio
4. The BBC also started to replace its regional output with locally focused
radio stations, but then faced the loss of its local radio monopoly in the
early 1970s with the launch of local independent commercial radio. Over
the next two decades the number of radio channels in Britain increased
greatly, mostly at the local level, with many of these being provided by
commercial concerns. This was also the period when radio criticism, in its
classic form, with reviews, previews and radio critiques, developed over
some 50 years, more or less vanished from the popular newspapers. By
1991 even The Listener, one of the main places where serious criticism had
been appearing, ceased publication (Fiddick 1991: 17). However, while
such coverage disappeared from the popular papers, it continued, and
even increased, in the quality papers like the Daily Telegraph, which
appointed its first radio critic in 1975. While radio audiences were now
segmented by class and age each listening in to different types of radio
INTRODUCTION 7
stations, this was being reflected in the way newspaper coverage was divid-
ing. While the readers of the popular papers were given mostly a limited
amount of soft news coverage of radio, for the readers of quality papers,
critical coverage was still provided. Generally for the newspapers this was
a period, from the early 1970s onwards, of fierce competition, especially
between the tabloids, The Sun and the Daily Mirror, and economic woes,
with various take overs and failed attempts at launching new newspapers,
such as Today; it was also a time when newspaper’s form and content went
through constant revision and update (Williams 2010: 215–17).
The last main chapter, Chap. 7, focuses on the period from the early
1990s until now, corresponding to a period when new forms of digital
communication and the internet (I will use this term to also refer to the
web or World Wide Web), arrived. Again, for radio, this was a period of
huge change, with the development of DAB, podcasts and radio stream-
ing, but also for the newspapers, as younger readers started to desert them
for online news. Indeed, for Kevin Williams this is a period of ‘super’
competition, as newspapers sought to survive using whatever means they
could; some even wondered that, with the internet, whether the time of
the traditional newspaper had ended (Williams 2010: 221–42). The 1990s
was also a period when radio criticism experienced, what could be called,
a resurgence in the popular press, thanks to the launching of seven-day
guides, though this coverage soon declined again later in the decade. As
internet take up increased the nature of news production, distribution and
consumption started to change. With many young people deserting the
newspapers for the internet, which they found more interactive, conve-
nient and engaging, the newspapers found their circulations declining.
The internet allowed new forms of competition to the newspapers to
appear, such as from new online-only media companies and from the pub-
lic itself using blogs and new forms of social media. The newspapers
reacted by setting up their own online sites and creating digital strategies
to direct their development and survival into the new digital age. Radio
criticism, while still found in the traditional newspapers, now also moved
online, onto the newspaper’s website, onto the sites of new forms of online
media and onto the areas populated by the public, such as Twitter and
Facebook. I will end this chapter raising these questions: what is the future
of the radio critic and radio criticism? Where will it be found in the future?
What form will it take? Who will be writing it? And how will it position
radio for its readers?
8 P. RIXON
Conclusion
As radio and the newspapers have gone through huge changes in the
twentieth century, so too has radio criticism. The radio critic has moved
from being an unnamed contributor in the 1920s, to a minor celebrity in
the 1930s, to a commentator on the developments of television, to being
virtually invisible or non-existent for most radio listeners and newspaper
readers. Only the readers of the qualities papers continue to be served with
regular reviews and previews. However, by the noughties, even these crit-
ics, working at the quality papers, have had to come to terms with a new
form of radio, one that can be listened to through various devices, where
there are extensive catch-up facilities, where radio programmes are inter-
linked to websites and other texts, where individual programmes or pod-
casts can be downloaded, where the listener can tune-in to stations from
around the world, some of which might have been recorded by the pro-
verbial one person and a dog. They have had to learn a new art of working
not just on hardcopy, but understanding how to use online technologies,
including using webpages, podcasts, blogs, social media and the like. They
are being encouraged to use these forms to engage with their readers in
new ways. If they do not, they will be redundant, in more ways than one.
As radio as a medium, has changed, and as newspapers have shifted their
focus online, so the radio critic has had to either come to terms with the
new form of radio and online newspaper, and the new needs of the listener
and reader, or disappear alongside the traditional newspaper as it fades
from use and our memories.
Bibliography
Briggs, A. (1965) The History of Broadcasting in the United Kingdom: The Golden
Age of Wireless, II (London: Oxford University Press).
Crisell, A. (1997) An Introductory History of British Broadcasting (London:
Routledge).
Curran, J. (2009) ‘Narratives of Media History Revisited’ in Michael Bailey (ed)
Narrating Media History (London: Routledge), pp.1–21.
Fiddick, P. (1991) ‘Editorial’, The Listener, 3 January, p.17.
Lacey, K. (2009) ‘Ten Years of Radio Studies: The Very Idea’, The Radio Journal:
International Studies in Broadcast & Audio Media, 6(1), pp.21–32.
Lewis, P. M. (2000) ‘Private Passion, Public Neglect: The Cultural Status of
Radio’, International Journal of Cultural Studies, 3(2), pp.160–167.
INTRODUCTION 9
Nicholas, S. (2012) ‘Media History or Media Histories? Re-addressing the History

of the Mass Media in Inter-War Britain’, Media History, 18(3–4), pp.379–394.
Radio Audience Joint Audience Research (RAJAR) (2017) ‘Data Release
Infographics’, http://www.rajar.co.uk/docs/news/RAJAR_DataRelease_
InfographicQ22017.pdf, date accessed 23 September 2017.
Seymour-Ure, C. (1993) The British Press and Broadcasting Since 1945 (London:
Blackwell).
Williams, K. (2010) Read All About It! A History of the British Newspaper (London:
Routledge).
CHAPTER 2
Approaching the Study of Radio Critics

and Radio Criticism
Introduction
Radio criticism sits at an intersection of the newspaper, radio and the wider
societal context. As such it is not just a journalistic discourse, it is also part
of radio’s history, part of how we, the listener, have come to know, under-
stand and value radio. However, it is not a form that has attracted much
attention, something this book seeks to address. In this chapter I will
begin by exploring and outlining how I approach the study of radio criti-
cism in Britain. To do this I have divided this chapter into a number of
sections where I will explore related theoretical, conceptual and method-
ological issues. In the first section, I will explore the question of why we
need to study the role of radio critics. Part of my answer to this is that they
have played a central role in how we, as a society, have come to understand
radio and how it became, and continues to be, part of our popular culture,
and that it has been, at least for a time, an important part of newspaper
coverage. I will follow this section by looking at, in a more abstract way,
questions about the role of the critic, namely what does the critic do and,
possibly, what should they do that is so important? To help explore and
define what their main roles are I will, by engaging with existing work in
the area of criticism, such as that by Anthony Scott (2016), James Grant
(2013) and John Corner (2013), delineate some of the main characteris-
tics of the critics’ role and their work. This is important because by doing
this we can, through a process of extrapolation, move from the general
discussion around critics to the particular, and focus on radio critics, to

https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55387-4_2
12 P. RIXON
start to understand the role of the radio critics and why they are so impor-
tant in the history of radio.
After this, using work by scholars such as Pierre Bourdieu (1984),
Jennifer Smith Maguire and Julian Matthews (2012) and Rónán McDonald
(2007), I will explore why and how critics have to be understood in rela-
tion to the wider society in which they work, in particular raising questions
around cultural values and taste and the way critics work as cultural inter-
mediaries. In this sense the critic is situated between the multitude of
cultural forms and services on offer and the reader. They, through their
selection of cultural products and outputs and how they write about these,
play an important role in shaping, as well as reinforcing, the tastes and
values of their readers. After this discussion I will then move on to explore,
under the heading of ‘The Media Critics: Industry and Discourse’, the
particular problems faced by critics working for the mass media, and in
particular those working for newspapers. For this I will use work by Mike
Poole (1984), which, while focused on television criticism, raises issues
relevant for understanding radio critics. In Poole’s work he explores the
tensions and problems faced by media-based critics in relation to the
industry they work for, the one whose output they critique and the wider
context of the dominant cultural hierarchy; an interaction between these
different media industries comes for Poole, in various ways, to impact on
the form of the critic’s critical discourse. I will end in the last section by
outlining the methodology I have employed to undertake this research,
indicating the way I have carried it out and how this has fed into the over-
all approach of this work.
Why Study Radio Criticism and Radio Critics?

Radio coverage, in some form, written by critics, reviewers and previewers,
has been a popular part of British newspaper provision for nearly a hun-
dred years, with the first critical provision appearing in the 1920s, though
initially without by-lines. However, while it has been a popular form of
press coverage throughout the twentieth century, there has been little
research undertaken on it. Indeed, it has to be said that radio itself has
been an under-researched medium (Lacey 2009), eclipsed by the huge
amount of work on other media such as television. This might be one
reason why there is so little interest or work on the associated area of radio
criticism (Rixon 2015: 23–4). However, even with television, the much
more popular medium, there is a dearth of work in Britain on related
APPROACHING THE STUDY OF RADIO CRITICS AND RADIO CRITICISM 13
popular newspaper criticism, with only a few exceptions, such as John

Corner (2013), John Ellis (2008) and Paul Rixon (2011). It might be
argued media scholars have tended to view this form of journalistic-critical
writing about radio and television as being ancillary to their main fields of
study with their focus on the media and its organisations and history
(Briggs 1961, 1965, 1970, 1979, 1995), its output (Cooke 2003), related
policy (Franklin 2001), economics and finance (Congdon 1992) and con-
sumption (Turnock 2007). Where scholars do touch on the coverage of
radio by the press, it has often been to provide background information or
a context to help situate particular developments occurring in radio, such
as in relation to policy, genre, scheduling or reception, for example, the
way Asa Briggs touches on it, rather uncritically, to show how the BBC
thought about newspaper coverage in the early 1930s (1965: 70). The
work of critics has not been the main focus of most academic work in the
field. Indeed, Siân Nicholas argues that much of the ‘scholarship on radio
and television has tended to address the press where at all mostly for illus-
trative commentary’ (2012: 381). If one searches various electronic library
and journal databases and catalogues using such terms radio critics or
radio criticism very few books or articles will be found, and those that are
usually refer to academic critics and associated critical work. Though,
more work has appeared in the USA on popular forms of criticism than in
Britain, for example, Ralph Smith’s work on radio criticism (1979) and
Amanda Lotz’s work on television critics (2008).
In some ways, this tendency to side-line radio criticism has also been
true of those researching and writing on journalism. Undertaking an elec-
tronic search of journalism-focused journals and monographs will bring
up few results focused on radio and television critics or criticism. Perhaps
this is because of the perceived trivial nature of such an activity compared
to serious news output, but also perhaps because it does not appear as
straight forward journalism written in the form of an objective news report
but more as a form of evaluation and personal insight (DeWerth-Pallmeyer
2003: 101). Much of journalism scholarship has tended to ‘privilege so
called “newspapers of record” over popular or local titles and political
content over ephemera’ (Nicholas 2012: 382). Often where critics and
criticism is touched on, it is collapsed more generally into work on soft
news or columnists (Petley 1997: 255–6).
However, I would argue that such critics play an important role in the
mediated public discourse about radio. Their output—radio criticisms,
reviews and previews— helps public opinion to coalesce; it provides a
14 P. RIXON
shared way for understanding and talking about radio and has played an
important role in how radio became and continues to be accepted as part
of popular culture, as such it is part of the shared discourse about radio
(Rixon 2015). Such writing also gives us an historical insight into the
nature of radio, such as how it was listened to, what was being broadcast,
its reception and the discussions happening about radio and its output,
which are hard to access after the event when often few concrete records
have been kept or recordings made, especially covering the early days of
radio broadcasting. Also, as radio criticism connects to other forms of
criticism, such as film and theatre criticism, from which it drew, and to
television criticism, for which it played an important role in helping to
shape its form and approach, it is thus linked to all their histories (Rixon
2015). Its development tells us something about the situation and devel-
opment of the press and the broadcasting industries and the evolving and
changing relationship between them, what Nicholas refers to as the ‘inter-
relatedness of the media’ (2012: 309). Also, we must accept that radio
criticism, like all criticism, is a cultural form in its own right and can be
appreciated aesthetically and understood as a product of a particular time
and situation. As Scott suggests, ‘[…] criticism is an art in its own right
[…and] the critic is a craftsman of sorts [… and] also a creator’ (2016:
17). Lastly, as journalism has gone through and is now experiencing
another period of change, with the use of new digital technologies and the
internet, there is a need to understand where the radio critic and radio
criticism fit within this and to what extent their role continues or might
even be superseded in some way (Rixon 2017a); will, as DeWerth-
Pallmeyer questions, ‘the shape of criticism [… transform] given a change
in the overall media landscape?’ (2003: 101). For this reason I believe that
the role of radio critics and their output is important and that more work
is required to explore and delve into what it can tell us about radio, its
cultural reception, the way we as a society value it, the way it relates to
other media forms, like newspapers, other forms of criticism and how
these elements are changing and have changed over time.
What Is a Critic? What Is Criticism?

If we accept the view that radio criticism, as found in the press and other
such media outlets, is important then we need to ask questions about what
it is and who produces it: Who is the critic? What is their purpose and role?
What do they produce? What is criticism? Perhaps a useful place to start is
with the etymology of the term ‘critic’. Critic, as Himmelstein points out
(1981: 21), comes from the Greek term krit, which relates to testing a
work. The critic, in this sense, critically examines an artefact to see if and
how it works. The critic therefore acts as the tester or as the Kritos, the
Judge (McDonald 2007: 41). The critic holds the work up to scrutiny, to
test it or judge it against something, such as some code, beliefs or values,
to verify whether it conforms, exceeds or fails to hit such targets. In some
ways we all act, at some stage, as critics or judges. Whenever we watch,
read or listen to something then we are judging it, against our own views,
beliefs and experiences, though we have to accept that these are socially
and culturally formed and therefore linked to wider values and views.
Indeed, increasingly we are all encouraged to review and reflect on things
we have purchased, by leaving feedback and a star rating, such as with
Amazon (Blank 2007). However, by doing this we would not necessarily
consider ourselves as being a critic. This is a title given to or taken on by a
particular person, often because of the work they do or the position they
hold. This begs the question: Are you a film critic because you write about
films in a certain way, or because the Daily Telegraph has appointed you as
their film critic? For many, for a long while, it has been the latter, though
a new form of public critic has recently appeared on the internet who has
taken on the mantle because of their popularity and acceptance, rather
than necessarily being given a position by a media organisation (Rixon
2017a).
While it would seem that a media critic can gain this title and status by
being given the role by a media organisation (Crosbie and Roberge 2016:
276), another, what we could call the public critic, might gain such status
by showing the right ability and attracting a sizeable audience, perhaps,
these days, by keeping an online blog about a particular cultural activity.
While it seems there are two main ways of gaining the status of being
accepted as a critic there is also a question of what role they play. Indeed,
what makes a good critic? James Grant (2013) argues that an important
characteristic of being a critic is to appreciate a cultural artefact and then
to be able to communicate this to a wider public. The critic does this by
being ‘aware of the work’s features by means required for appreciation’
and will communicate to a readership how to act ‘appropriately for appro-
priate reasons’ (p. 39). While, for John Corner, a critic needs a ‘“profes-
sional” grounding for critical judgment in some kind of approved
competence (knowledge of the history of the specific field, its materials
and techniques, and of achievements within it)’ (2013: 2). Hal Himmelstein
16 P. RIXON
argues that, ‘[a] truly skilful […critic must] possess a combination of attri-
butes, including the analytical techniques of a scholar, the insights of an
intellectual, and the eloquence and expressive power of the best stylists’
(1981: 21). For others, ‘[c]riticism is a carefully considered judgment of
the merits and faults of a work of art with the purpose of improving and
stimulating interest in that direction’ (Smith 1979: vi). Here Smith
touches on the point that the critic is not just serving and writing for the
public, but also engaging with the industry or artists who create the cul-
tural product in an effort to try to improve it.
It would seem that most meta-critics (critics of critics), those that stand
over the critics criticising and reflecting on what they do, believe that a
critic requires certain critical skills, detailed knowledge of the form and
particular abilities, such as being able to write. Though, with the needs of
the industry, the critic is appointed often not because of their supposed
knowledge or skills, of being able to critique a particular piece of work,
but because they ‘are employed simply as they’re stars’ and can attract
readers (Petley 1997: 255). For all critics, whatever their standing, they
are employed not just because of their critical skills to analyse or critique
culture, but that they can also engage or communicate successfully with
the public in some way.
As they do this they act as a cultural judge, or cultural intermediary,
acting on behalf of and for society, otherwise they would be appreciating
a cultural artefact on their own for themselves; they are there to help teach
or guide the public in how to appreciate and value culture. If the critic
moves away from social and cultural interactions they would become what
Eagleton calls a Sage—a critic who metaphorically, and, in some cases lit-
erally—such as with a reclusive academic—sits alone in a cave pondering
various cultural questions (1987: 32). However, to act as a cultural inter-
mediary or to judge on behalf of the public also requires the acceptance by
the same public. The status or standing of a critic in the eye of the public,
as touched on above, comes through two main ways: the critic’s profi-
ciency in critiquing the work in question and/or ‘[…] being employed to
‘review’ cultural products’ by a media organisation (Corner 2013: 2).
Therefore it could be argued that there are four important aspects of
being a critic and, if done well, to be a good critic. Firstly, there is a need
to be positioned and accepted as a cultural intermediary or judge by the
public and in some cases also by the artists and the industry. This requires
the reader to have trust in the critic and their abilities. This trust might
develop with the critic demonstrating they have the required skills, abili-
ties and knowledge that, at least for the public, situates them as a critic.
However, as Corner argues, this trust can also be conferred on by them
when being appointed to the role by a media organisation, allowing the
transference of trust from the media organisation to the critic (Rixon
2015). If the reader trusts the organisation then this might be transferred
to their anointed critic. However the critics gain their status, whether via
employment as a media critic or by exhibiting the required abilities and
knowledge, it is the reader and the wider public who decide if that person
will actually be accepted as a trusted critic and whether their outputs war-
rant considered reflection and engagement of some kind (Crosbie and
Roberge 2016: 280).
Secondly, critics are there to offer new insights, forms of evaluation or
understanding of an artefact or process that they have witnessed and have
knowledge about. It is through this critical evaluation that they provide
the public with guidance on how to appreciate particular cultural pro-
cesses and forms (Grant 2013: 27–8). In this way they are not just
describing the artefact, though this might be part of what they offer,
there is also a critical and evaluative component to their work. Indeed,
when new cultural forms come along, as they do, they take on the role of
helping guide the public in how to understand and value such forms
(McDonald 2007: 54–5), which could include providing criticisms of the
evolving cultural form or the institutions that make it. Thirdly, a charac-
teristic of their role is that they need to have an underlying approach or
argument that informs and guides their views, opinions and evaluation of
the work they are critiquing. In this way they are not just writing about,
or reflecting, on the artefact or cultural process using their personal views,
their likes and dislikes of work, but that they have a rational and coherent
way for approaching and evaluating the work, one that can be understood
and reasoned with.
Fourthly, and lastly, they do not sit outside society like Eagleton’s Sage
who might be thought as being more akin to the old fashioned academics
working in their ivory towers. The media critic is employed by a media
organisation to communicate with the wider society. They have a role to
inform and, indeed, to engage with the wider public in the relation to the
artefacts they are interested in and, hopefully, to open the minds of the
public to different ways of approaching and appreciating the work in ques-
tion. Obviously this can be, and often is, an interactive process, where the
18 P. RIXON
critic will engage with the public and, what Crosbie and Roberge call, the
aesthetic public sphere (2016: 277), and the debates happening there,
helping to find or help shape a consensus or shared critical view of the
cultural form in question, one which they can then communicate to their
readers (Eagleton 1987: 20–1). Indeed, for DeWerth-Pallmeyer, the ‘best
criticism should […] have an impact on both the audience and the media
arts. […] The best criticism helps construct a “cultural frame” for the
media arts and for the readers’ (2003: 100). Therefore, criticism will help
to create a shared view of the cultural form, but will also feedback to those
that make such artefacts, perhaps leading them to change their approach
for the better. Therefore, both media-appointed critics and public critics
must be good communicators, having an ‘ability to articulate’, as Grant
put it (2013: 46): media critics are employed by a media organisation
because of their abilities to communicate with a particular readership,
while, for the public critic, it is their quality of communication that gains
them their status of being a critic, such as the quality of their input into a
blog site.
The critics, while sometimes presenting critiques and reviews as per-
sonal viewpoints or insights informed by universal values, are closely linked
to the wider social, cultural, economic and ideological forces that shape
their habitus, their cultural capital and cultural experience and the context
within which they live and work (Bourdieu 1984: 234–5). They will find
it hard to be employed and to attract readers if they try to sit completely
outside the dominant culture and its associated values, even if this was pos-
sible. However, while the approach of the critic and their criticisms might
be informed by shared dominant values, the form it takes will depend on
the artefact or process being looked at, the industries in question and the
specific audiences being served. Therefore, with radio criticism appearing
in British newspapers, we can see a range of different forms of criticism,
ranging from serious attempts to critique radio to more popular framed
opinion pieces, some which focus on the programme as a text to others
that criticise the wider industry. I will now move on to look in more detail
at how the critic relates to questions of culture and taste using the concept
of cultural intermediary, before moving on to explore the specific indus-
trial context within which the broadcast critic operates, one where particu-
lar bodies, such as broadcasters and newspapers, are also active with their
own needs and strategies.
The Critic as Cultural Intermediary

As noted above, the critic can be viewed as playing an important role as a
cultural intermediary or cultural arbiter (Bourdieu 1984: 325). By this I
mean, they take on an intermediate role between the artists, producers
and the mass media industries that produce cultural artefact and services
and the way the public experience, understand, value and come to terms
with these, helping in the process to shape, reinforced or even change
shared tastes and cultural values (Maguire 2014: 16). At the heart of this
is the fact that most people do not have time or finances to access all cul-
tural products, or have the knowledge or expertise of how to engage with
or understand them, especially as new media and forms appear. Indeed,
the public wants to have help in understanding how the products and
services on offer fit with their tastes and values, which are closely aligned
to the wider shared tastes and values of society and their class. For exam-
ple, when radio broadcasting first started to appear in the 1920s, the
British public was initially unsure of this new form and how to appreciate
and understand it. The radio critics, and those starting to take on such
roles, working for journals, magazines and the newspapers helped, there-
fore, in positioning and situating radio in relation to popular culture,
helping people how to understand and how to value this new medium
(Rixon 2015).
The critic is a trusted, knowledgeable professional employed, usually,
by the media, to experience cultural artefacts and performances, from
which they select a number to communicate about to their readers. They
are informed by their views, values and own tastes, shaped through their
habitus, cultural capital and their experience and understanding of the
dominant values and cultural forms, to write about and critique the work
in question. These media-based critics engage with the public through
the mass media and the wider mediated (aesthetic) public sphere, often
seeking to create, or, as some of them might argue, to reflect, a shared
view and understanding of the form in question. In this way the critic, as
an intermediary, plays an important role in maintaining, shaping and
changing the shared tastes and cultural values of their readers and the
wider public.
For Jennifer Smith Maguire and Julian Matthews at times, the term,
cultural intermediary, has become, in their words, ‘a descriptive catch-all
for seemingly any creative or cultural occupation or institution [… which
has diluted the] use of the term’ (2012: 552). However, for most writers,
20 P. RIXON
such as Bourdieu, the critic, as a taste maker, can be considered as being a

cultural intermediary (Maguire 2014: 17). Part of Maguire and Matthews
(2012) approach, which will be followed in this work, is to look at the
critics in a way that takes account of their ‘context as constitutive of agency,
not as an external determinant of action (in other words, cultural interme-
diaries are not merely the passive bearers of their contextualizing catego-
ries’ (2012: 3). This requires an understanding the critic’s personal and
professional habitus, cultural capital, and their relationship to the cultural
field within which they work and to the readership which they write and
critique for (2012: 3). For such an understanding of the radio critic, this
will require, taking account of their backgrounds, class allegiances,
upbringing and the cultural values they hold. It also needs an analysis of
the field within which they work, that of journalism and criticism, the
dominant values at work there, and, lastly, knowledge of the readership
they serve, partly determined by the media organisation they work for.
Maguire and Matthews suggest three dimensions to the ‘contextual
specificity of cultural intermediaries’ (2012: 3), which are useful in helping
to breakdown the important and specific role that critics play in mediating
between cultural industries and the public. These are, firstly, framing,
which refers to how and why an intermediary, selects and focuses on par-
ticular items; secondly, expertise, what claims to authority can a critic
make, compared to others, to take on this role; and thirdly, impact, how
successful is the cultural intermediary in influencing others. I will now
look at these points in more detail in relation to radio critics.
The radio critic, and the radio coverage found in newspapers, cannot
cover all aspects of radio, there is too much and not all will be of interest
to the reader. They therefore create and use a cultural frame as a way of
delimiting what they are looking at and what they present to their readers,
helping to focus on particular aspects of radio. They use this to help guide
what they concentrate on, whether it is the radio industry, stations, the
schedule, the presenters or the programmes, which individual examples of
these they select to write about, which types of stations and programmes
for example, and how they will do this, by using an impressionistic
approach, a form of close textual analysis or through a less critical and
more opinionated journalistic discourse. The radio coverage that has
tended to dominant the newspapers has invariably been listings or pro-
gramme schedule information, usually for the main national radio chan-
nels, previews, where the critic selects and evaluates upcoming programme
or programmes, through highlights, where particular programmes are
selected as being worth listening to and, lastly, reviews, where, after broad-
cast, the radio critic reflects on how successful or not, a programme was.
Though other forms of hard and soft news coverage also appear, such as
where radio is written about as an industry or through the behaviour and
lifestyles of its celebrities. What decides and delimits what is selected for
such treatment and how they are written about, relates, as noted earlier, to
the cultural values held by the critic, the knowledge they have of what
going to be broadcast, often information carefully controlled by the
broadcaster, the newspaper they work for, the readership they write for
and the wider held dominant values. For Bourdieu the sentiments of the
critic and readers are often similar, as the newspapers will tend to employ
cultural intermediaries who share the same values and tastes their readers,
or are prepared, mostly, to satisfy these (Bourdieu 1984: 234).
In relation to claims to expertise, as we saw earlier in this chapter, this
relates to the radio critic in two main ways. Either they have been
employed to work for a newspaper and have been given the title of critic,
or, if publishing independently, perhaps online, they earn the trust of the
reader through their abilities. However, at the end of the day, if they write
and review cultural forms in a way that does not accord with the tastes
and values of their readers, and they are unable to persuade them of their
views, they might lose their reader’s trust and, perhaps, their position as
expert at the paper. Therefore, there is a lot of pressure on the critic,
especially from the newspapers editors, to conform. However, an occa-
sional subversive approach to the cultural form in question can work the
other way, helping to reaffirm, in the reader’s eyes, the independent
nature of the critic in question (Crosbie and Roberge 2016: 276). This
point links to the third dimension, that of impact. In terms of radio crit-
ics, or any critics this is hard to measure. However, it could be argued
that, over time the output of British radio critics has impacted on readers,
listener, policy makers, performers and broadcasters. Such as when critics
played an important role in the 1920s and 1930s in how radio became
accepted as part of popular culture (Rixon 2015), in the war pressuring
the BBC to rethink its initial war time services (Nicholas 2012) and, in
the 1960s, the way critics helped to introduce new celebrities and stars of
Radio 1 to British listeners (see Chap. 6). Radio critics and related cover-
age plays an important role in telling the listener what is on and when,
what might be worth listening to and what the shared feeling was about
the programmes.
22 P. RIXON
The radio critic, in this way, must be viewed as a cultural intermediary—

helping society to think through its culture and how it views it, helping to
provide direction and understanding. However, as noted, this is usually
done through the lens of the dominant cultural values, usually held by
radio critic, but also by most readers. Though, at certain moments, when
new media forms appear or as society goes through change, the critic
might take a more dynamic role, actively shaping a response to new cul-
tural forms and, sometimes helping to change the shared dominant values.
I now want to look, more specifically, at the industrial context where critics
work and how this impacts on their role and critical discourse.
The Media Critic: Industry and Discourse

However, as noted above, media critics work for an industry; they are
employed to create a cultural output and, as such they are evaluated and
judged, both critically and commercially. If they do not achieve their tar-
gets, if they do not satisfy the readers or the media owners, they might face
redundancy. The media critic is therefore caught in a bind of having to
both appear to be independent, providing a personal but informed view
on what they write about or review, while also having to attract particular
readerships, satisfying the needs of the industry they work for; they are
judged both on their approach on dissecting the cultural form and their
popularity of their own cultural output. In an article relating to media-
based television criticism, which observations can also be applied to radio,
Mike Poole (1984) argues that the critic operates at a junction where a
number of discourses intersect. For Poole this includes industrial dis-
courses of the organisations the critics work for and the organisations
whose output they review, which occurs, at least in the British context,
within a powerful literary or critical tradition that, in many ways for televi-
sion, but also for radio criticism, has over-determined the emerging critical
form (1984: 49). Such a view suggests that the critic is employed by the
media, such as a newspaper, and is therefore a specialised journalist or
columnist with a primary role to provide engaging copy for the reader,
with only a secondary role to deliver a critical insight into television or
radio (Giddings 1994). At the same time the media critic is also in a close
relationship with the broadcasting industry, whose workings, organisa-
tions and productions they critique and review. Such an industry seeks to
use the critic to speak for them in what Poole calls ‘Promotional
Ventriloquy’ (1984: 49): it tries to use critics to promote their programmes
and to write about broadcasting in a way that suits them. They do this by
selecting which programmes critics get access to at previews, restricting
access to their staff and using their promotional material to try to shape
what is written (Poole 1984: 49–52; Rixon 2017b). As Poole argues, the
broadcast critic is therefore under a double institutional hegemony of the
print and electronic media. The problem of developing an appropriate and
acceptable approach, for Poole, has not been helped as the early broadcast
critics, seeking both critical and journalistic acceptance, looked towards
existing forms of reviewing art, music, literature and theatre that relied on
a form of textual analysis to critique the programme as a text (Rixon 2011:
77–8). Therefore, as broadcast critics followed these traditions this has led
to an inappropriate form of criticism developing, one that takes little
account of radio as an aural form of mass media (Rixon 2015).
Because of the needs of the broadcasters and newspapers, and the dom-
inance of a literary-focused culture, a form of textual criticism has become
the main form of cultural critique found in the press. For the broadcasters
the wish is for their product, the programmes, to be focused on and for
these to be reviewed and highlighted for the public. There is less desire by
the industry for a critical approach that focuses on what they do as organ-
isations, the number of repeats they might use, their revenue streams and
the high salaries or bonuses paid (Poole 1984: 49–52). Likewise the press
media, where most of the critics operate, want their radio coverage to fit
into a known form. Therefore, they desire it to sit easily alongside other
forms of criticism or popular reviewing, such as that that already exists for
cultural forms like film, theatre and literature. Radio criticism, as it devel-
oped, has duplicate these other approaches, tending to focus mostly on
the programmes as texts; though, in the 1930s, many of the critics work-
ing for the popular press, much to the annoyance of the BBC, took a more
critical contextual approach (Nicholas 2012: 386).
A strong reason for this dominant textual focus, for Poole, comes from
the dominant literary culture in Britain, with its linkage to high culture,
which tends to view the author and the text as the main area of creativity.
Cultural products that are mass produced are looked down as lacking
these elements as they are shaped by commercial need (Adorno 1991).
Therefore, for radio and television to be accepted by the dominant cul-
tural paradigm, it requires the mass media elements to be downplayed,
and for an authorial hand to be discovered and the text to be the centre of
focus. By critics taking such an approach it allowed them to make a claim
for the cultural standing of the broadcast form and their position as critics
24 P. RIXON
(Rixon 2011: 77–8). Though, in many ways, the popular papers became,
over time, less worried about radio’s cultural claim and appointed critics
and writers who had been, at least at first, critical of the broadcasters—
their competitors—while also expanding their soft news approach to
attract their particular readership demographics. However, even coverage
in the popular papers tended to accept the dominant view of what consti-
tutes good radio, genre such as drama and documentaries, and mostly
focused on the text as the site of criticism, with previews and reviews,
when these have appeared. For these reasons a particular dominant form
of radio criticism has developed, one focused on the programme as the
text, which can be criticised as being a product of particular cultural and
industrial interactions and not always completely appropriate for a mass
media form.
Therefore the public discourse on radio, as found in the newspapers, is
one shaped by various factors and institutional needs: the needs of the
newspapers, partly wanting to provide information about radio, but also
to criticise their competitor; the needs for the broadcasters to provide
publicity to attract audiences and to understand what did work critically
and what did not; and the needs for audiences to provide a way of under-
standing this new and developing form of media. As such this relationship
between the two forms of mass media, as articulated through the dis-
course of critics and radio criticism, is important in how the public under-
stood radio, how those working for the radio industry viewed their role
within the public discourse and how the newspapers and broadcasters
developed a close but changing relationship (Nicholas 2012: 388–90).
How to Study Radio Critics and Radio Criticism

As this work focuses specifically on radio critics and their output, we need
to think about who these radio critics were, what form their criticism took,
and how we study them. What aspects are we interested in engaging with,
which critics or forms of output can we get access to and what do we ask
of it? This work will, as the title suggests, offer a historical approach, it will
be looking at the role of critics and the development of radio criticism and
related coverage since the 1920s. The focus will mostly be on those ele-
ments that exhibit a critical and reflective edge, rather than just on the
more descriptive or news-orientated pieces, though I will also touch on
these as they are part of the newspaper’s coverage of radio. The aim is to
explore the form taken by radio criticism and associated coverage that
appeared and developed over time and to relate this to changes that hap-
pened in the media industry, its audiences and the wider society and
culture.
Pragmatically the amount of coverage and the range of different publi-
cations that have covered radio in some way over the last one hundred
years is huge and beyond the realm of any detailed analysis. Also, much of
it might not be considered criticism or part of the critical debate, or not
even produced by identifiable critics and reviewers; much of it is similar
and therefore needs only to be sampled to understand its relevance and
import to the discussions of this book. Therefore by focusing on particular
critics, certain moments of development and change and on specific pub-
lications, a more nuanced and focused piece of research can be under-
taken. This follows the idea put forwards by Helen Wheatley in relation to
television, where she argues that, ‘it is possible to explore key moments of
historical change and the pressing issues […] by looking at specific exam-
ples, thereby producing dynamic interventions that question the history
and historiography […] more widely’ (2007: 3). This work will concen-
trate mostly on the output of identifiable reviewers, previewers and critics,
or work that has taken the form of reviews, critiques and preview. While
for Gillespie (2012) there is enough difference between the roles to
require these to be treated differently, I will take the position Poole takes
in his 1984 article, and will conflate these different types of coverage hold-
ing to the view that there is slippage between the different areas and what
is important is not whether it is a review written by a reviewer or a critique
written by a named critic, but whether it has a critical and reflective ele-
ment to it and whether it has been written by someone whose role is to
focus on radio in some form (Rixon 2015: 2). Therefore the focus in this
work will be on coverage that is not just descriptive but work that in some
way critiques and reflects on radio and its cultural production and form in
some way.
[The difference between] critics and non-critics […] is primarily a matter of

function, though it may also be a matter of viewpoint, of style, and of skill.
[…] The critic […] writes for newspapers and magazines and may inform or
amuse his readers [but compared to others], […] does so in a broader,
deeper and context of constant evaluation. He seeks, always to judge the
significance […] or to relate it to past events whether in broadcasting or
some other area. (Smith 1979: viii)
26 P. RIXON
I will, however, still touch on other forms of coverage, such as radio list-
ings, celebrity news and other hard or soft news forms, as these play an
important role in framing the work of critics on the page, in providing a
particular view of radio, and are part of the reader’s experience of radio
and its coverage in the newspapers.
The next question that needs to be explored is: how does one analyse
radio criticism and associated coverage and the development of a relation-
ship between the press and radio? Using the approach suggested by
Maguire and Matthews, that critics as cultural intermediaries need to be
understood in relation to their context (2012: 3), two main approaches
have been taken: firstly, using secondary work alongside some original
research to provide both a broad historical overview of the social and cul-
tural context relating to the different moments and periods being looked
at, alongside a more specific analysis of the radio and press industries. This
includes using histories of the press (Williams 2010) and broadcasting
(Briggs 1961, 1965, 1970, 1979, 1995; Crisell 1997), social and cultural
histories (Sinfield 2004), as well as analysing memoirs and autobiogra-
phies (Moseley 1935, 1960; Barrington 1948) and references to official
reports and broadcasting acts (Peacock Report 1986; Broadcasting Act
1990). This contextual approach will provide an understanding of the
changing social, cultural, political and economic situation within which
the radio and press industries operate and their changing relationship with
each other, and other related industries.
Secondly, building on the contextual analysis outlined above, the
approach will include a study of the radio coverage found in British jour-
nals, magazines and newspapers over the past one hundred years or so.
The analysis of these publications will operate in three ways: firstly, by
using biographies, collective work and memoirs (such as Sydney Moseley
(1935), Jonah Barrington (1948), Filson Young (1933) and Collie Knox
(1937, 1939, 1947). These will help me explore the social and cultural
background of critics and the way they view radio and will provide some
reflections on their own writings, reviews and criticism. Secondly, I will
analyse the categories of coverage appearing, the form they took and
where they appeared in relation to other forms of coverage around them
and, thirdly, I will undertake a close critical analysis of some of the actual
previews, reviews, criticism and associated coverage. The aim is to get an
idea of the type of coverage appearing, the underlying values, the form it
took, the different language used by critics and how such coverage
developed and changed over time and what insight or view it presents of
radio as a medium and its output. Part of this analysis will include a
reflection on how the form taken by the coverage relates to the culture
and tastes of the readership of different newspapers.
This part of the approach relates to Maguire and Matthews’s concept of
framing, what is being select and written about, and expertise, how this is
being done and by whom (2012: 3). I will also explore some of the differ-
ent types of interaction occurring between the critics and their work and
broadcasters. This includes where the critics became involved with broad-
casters, perhaps by appearing on radio, being given a role at a broadcasting
organisation or partaking in creating programmes, such as writing a script
for a play, exploring in this way questions of the ‘intermediality occurring
between’ radio and the press; showing how the histories of both are inter-
twined (Nicholas 2012: 387–90). This analysis will link with Maguire and
Matthews’s concept of impact, what impact the work of the critic might
have on cultural makers, to which I will also add some reflection on the
impact critics have had on the cultural values and tastes of readers and
listener over the years (2012: 3).
The newspapers and journals that will be focused on will change over
the decades and periods being researched. This is because the importance
of some of these and even their existence changes. For example, The
Listener did not start publication until the late 1920s and ended in 1991,
and there is an argument that its main contribution to critical debates
about radio was not until the mid-1930s onwards (Briggs 1965: 291;
Poole 1984: 43). The main examples of press coverage will be taken from
a range of national newspapers, including The Times, Daily Mail, Daily
Express, Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mirror. And, while not fully a
national newspaper until 1959, I will also include the Manchester
Guardian, a provisional paper until the late 1950s, as the whole notion of
what a national paper is, as Seymour-Ure notes, is ‘vague’, and the
Manchester Guardian did have ‘a national reputation’ before 1959,
though ‘without a London base and with a limited circulation’ (1993:
19). Also, the Manchester Guardian covered radio from the 1920s and
played such an important role in broadcast criticism in the following
decades that there is a need to include it from the start. I will divide the
papers by the type of journalism, their readerships and by the external
perceptions of their form, into quality papers, like The Times and Daily
Telegraph and popular papers, like the Daily Mirror, the Sun and Daily
28 P. RIXON
Mail. Though, sometimes, I will further divide them by adding the cate-
gory of mid-market papers, those aiming at the lower-middle and working
class, like the Daily Express and Daily Mail (Seymour-Ure 1993: 27–43).
I will also include the analysis of a number of important radio journals
such as Popular Wireless and Amateur Wireless, for the 1920s and early
1930s, and the BBC’s publications, the Radio Times and, as already men-
tioned, The Listener. For this work I have decided to focus mostly on
national newspapers, as this is where the majority of people have read
about radio since the start of broadcasting. However, the journals noted
here were important in the early coverage of radio, and while The Listener
had a small readership it was to become very influential in the way radio
was written about and its cultural standing.
As noted earlier, the press coverage of radio, or wireless, as it was often
referred to in the early days, has a long history, indeed starting earlier than
the first broadcasts of the BBC in 1922, with stories about the initial uses
and experiments in radio-wireless often pre-dating the First World War.
This leads to the problem that there is too much written about radio even
in my selective group of publications to actually collect and analyse.
Therefore my research and analysis will be based on samples from each
decade, samples that will include work by influential critics or reviewers
and important radio columns. One argument for the use of samples is that
the analysis of a number of reviews will provide enough insight into how
radio was being covered at a moment in time, in a particular paper and by
a particular type of critic. There is no need to analyse everything; there is
a need to be able to move from detail to the abstract, to provide some
kind of sense to what is happening. Therefore articles and columns have
been looked at from each of the chosen papers and journals for a week for
each month, every four years or so. Such a time period was selected as it
would normally take more than four years for large changes to happen, it
also moves the collection and analysis start dates away from the same
points in each decade and, while it provides a large amount of material, it
is still manageable. In some places more has been collected when associ-
ated with particular critics of interest, for example the work of Collie
Knox. However, this selection and sampling process has still provided a
couple of thousand articles, reviews and previews and associated pieces of
coverage to analyse.
Conclusion
Therefore, as I have argued above, radio criticism constitutes a cultural
form that can give an insight into the way the medium, radio, became an
important part of our culture; radio criticism is also a form that can be
studied in its own right. As it is, there has been little research or interest in
radio criticism. Part of the reason for this lack of interest by scholars is that
their focus has tended to be on the actual radio programmes, the radio
industry, the audiences and people making the programmes, rather than
on studying the quasi critic-journalists who write about them. Those
working in the field of journalism are equally not engrossed with a form of
critical writing, often by non-journalists, about such an ephemeral medium
as radio or television. Therefore this study is an attempt to address this
lack of interest and research, to explore in some detail the appearance of
radio criticism and the form it took in the UK. It is also an attempt to tell
the history of radio through the critical work that has appeared about it in
the press since its development in the early-twentieth century and, in this
way, to present a more complex integrated approach to the history of the
relationship between radio and newspapers through a focus on radio
criticism.
I have used this chapter to explore some of the problems and questions
faced by a scholar approaching such a topic: Firstly, as noted earlier, why
study this area, why is it so important? Secondly, what is a critic, what are
they there to do and how well do they need to do this? Thirdly, how does
the critic act as a cultural intermediary? Fourthly, how are they positioned
within the industry they work for and the one they claim to critique? And,
lastly, how do we best approach the study of the radio critics and their
output? As I argued in this chapter, my intent is to focus on the critics who
communicate and engage with the public and who are not those hiding in
some institution, writing in some conflated and often theoretical way
about radio, though some might point out that this is what I am doing
when writing this book. The critic, in some way, is connected to the soci-
ety in which they work; it is the society that produces and consumes the
artefacts the critics are interested in and the one the critic produces their
output for. They engage with and are part of the (aesthetic) public sphere;
they help direct the public discussion and to coalesce this into some form
of shared opinion, though with differences between critics working for
different publications. They are also a product of society and its values and
norms and in some way reproduce these in their work while still, at certain
30 P. RIXON
moments, also having to adapt, change and question these when new cul-
tural forms appear, and possibly at other moments. However, it must also
be accepted that media critics work for the media, that they write for a
particular readership and they are linked, in various ways, to the media
they write about. As Poole (1984: 49) notes, the critics are part of a dis-
cursive field where newspapers and broadcasters try to shape their output
to support the dominant cultural values.
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CHAPTER 3
Radio in Britain in the 1920s:

Narratives of Spectacle and Concern
Introduction
When a new technology or a new medium develops, the first the public
often knows about it is, at least until recently, through the existing media,
such as the newspaper. However, technologies or new mass media never
appear fully formed, as it takes time for them to develop and to find a role
and a use (Winston 1998: 1–15). Likewise the coverage itself is usually at
first in a state of flux, with those working for the media trying to under-
stand what this new cultural form is, or might develop into, while having
to find a way of approaching and writing about it. Indeed, the narrative,
or narratives, taken on by those working for the media to understand such
developments, play an important role in framing how a new technology or
mass medium is accepted and understood by the public. Such narratives
could even feed back into how a cultural form or technology might actu-
ally develop. In this chapter I will be looking at how radio or wireless
broadcasting, as some called it in these early years, developed, and in what
ways it first began to attract coverage from the press and the form this
took. It was the start, I argue, of a fraught relationship between broadcast-
ers and newspapers, two competing but interconnecting forms of media,
which still display tensions even today.
Firstly, I will begin this chapter by exploring the way radio technology
developed, initially as a form of point-to-point communication (from
one radio set to another set) and then in terms of broadcasting (one set
to many). There I will make some comparisons to what was happening at

https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-55387-4_3
34 P. RIXON
the same time in the USA because, partly, the US and British experiences
are linked, by companies, personnel, shared practices and, at least for
Britain, worries of what might happen if the more chaotic route of devel-
opment occurring in the USA, where there seemed to be little regulatory
control over the development of broadcasting, should be followed in
Britain (Briggs 1961: 96–8). Such an initial historical contextual approach
is important as it provides an understanding of the changing and fluid
nature of radio as it developed over time from a communication form to
becoming an important mass media. By mapping out this on-going pro-
cess of change it helps to provide an understanding of problems the press
faced as they had to grapple with such a metamorphosing technology, as
they sought to find a particular view or narrative by which to present it
to their readers. Was it a transformative technology, something that
would have a radical impact, or merely an extension of existing forms of
communication?
Secondly, following this, I will explore two of the main early narratives
followed by the newspapers in their coverage of radio as it developed as a
communication and then as a broadcast medium. One of the narratives
was of excitement, of wonder at this new technology and what it could
offer, what I call the spectacle of technology: this was a new medium able
to link the nation and nations together in a way not possible before,
though some were also worried about the impact this might have on
Britain’s place in the world (Hendy 2013: 76–89). And the other one was
a narrative more of fear and concern, which focused on the potential
power and impact of this new form of mass media, one able to enter peo-
ple’s homes and communicate with them directly (Price 1995: 5–6).
Much of the early coverage of both narratives tended to focus on the pos-
sibilities or potentials of radio, whether negative or positive, rather than
critiquing and reviewing the output from the embryonic broadcasters.
However, over time, as the excitement around the technology of radio
reduced, and as some of the fears about radio were placated, such as with
the setting up of a public service broadcaster, the press began to focus
more on introducing and expanding its radio information and programme
guidance for its readers.
Thirdly, I will take up this last point and start to explore and analyse the
way the press began to develop its early coverage of radio services and
programmes over this decade, as radio started to become a popular mass
medium. This I will do by looking at the coverage that appeared at the
time, including the listings, highlights, previews and reviews, which started
RADIO IN BRITAIN IN THE 1920S: NARRATIVES OF SPECTACLE… 35
to replace the more technologically focused reporting. Through the analy-

sis of such coverage I will identify the form taken, how it relates to particu-
lar newspapers, with their specific readerships, and the underlying
dominant cultural values. I will also reflect on the way the two narratives
mentioned earlier still played a role in the form the coverage took, and
how such coverage came to shape a particular view of radio for the news-
papers’ readers.
Early Radio: From Communication to Broadcasting

The origins of the technologies behind radio go back way beyond when
the first experiments to communicate wirelessly were happening at the end
of the nineteenth century, to other technological developments such as
those relating to the creation of accumulators that could store electricity,
vacuum tubes that led to the development of early valves that could be
used to amplify radio signals and even wires to connect components
together but, also, in terms of the concept or idea of sending a signal over
distance. For example, Patrice Flichy mentions thoughts about long-dis-
tance communication dating back to, and even beyond, the seventeenth
century (1995:7). While some of the first technologies used in transmit-
ting signals over distance utilised mechanical forms of the telegraph and
semaphore, mostly for short distances (Winston 1998: 21–2; Flichy 1995:
7–28), others began to wonder about the possibility of using electrical
technology to replace mechanical means for sending messages long dis-
tances and then, later, if the communications could be carried wirelessly
and if coded messages could be replaced by voice (Briggs 1961: 25; Flichy
1995: 83; Winston 1998: 43–50, 68–74).
Over the next 60 years or so, in what might be seen as a fairly short
period of time, from around 1837 to 1906, technology moved from the
development of a commercial form of electronic telegraph to a form of
radio technology able to carry the human voice (Flichy 1995: 99–106);
from wired to wireless voice communication within a life time. However,
both types of communication, wired and wireless, were initially developed
as point-to- point forms of communication—communications between
two separate telegraphs, telephones or radio sets at any one time. The idea
of broadcasting, or what some were to call ‘radiocasting’, of transmitting
from one point to many, took time to take hold. Though some visionaries
in the nineteenth century had predicted that, one day, such technologies
36 P. RIXON
would be used to transmit sounds, voices and pictures down wires or over
the air into people’s homes (Barnouw 1990: 3–6).
Radio-wireless, telephony and telegraphy had mostly been developed
and financed as a communication form to create new ways to allow busi-
ness, the military and the state to interact and to control and integrate
their operations. For example, the telegraph was rolled out in the USA
alongside the railway as it pushed towards the west coast, helping to con-
nect the two sides of that continent and the businesses that operated
there (Flichy 1995: 42). Likewise, as radio communications developed, it
was done so as a form of point-to-point communication to support the
operations of large organisations, such as global businesses and nation
states (Crisell 2000: 17). Therefore as Guglielmo Marconi perfected his
radio-wireless technology he came to Britain, the hub of the British
Empire, to demonstrate his system in 1896 to the main provider of point-
to-point communications, the General Post Office (GPO) and to one of
the largest potential users of such a form of communication, the British
Navy (Briggs 1961: 21). Over time he developed a global radio-wireless
communications company, initially called The Wireless Telegraph &
Signal Company, which would develop various subsidiaries around the
world, and offered ship to shore communications using, at least in the
early years, Morse code.
However, even as Marconi and others were developing their new radio
telegraphy communication businesses and related technologies, others, like
Reginald Fessenden, were experimenting with voice radio (Winston 1998:
75). Indeed, as they experimented and sought to perfect their technology
they sometimes used the potential of radio to transmit over a wide area, as
an early form of broadcasting. For example, Fessenden would often play a
record on the radio to see how far the signal could be picked up by others
with telegraphy radio sets that could receive the music he broadcast, though
they could not transmit music or voice signals themselves (Crisell 1997:11).
However, historically things got put on temporary hold with the outbreak
of the Great War (1914–18) (what is usually now called, the First World
War). While, in some ways, this might be seen as putting back the develop-
ment and launch of radio broadcasting for some years it should, instead, be
viewed as a period of massive development, which helped radio’s eventual
successful and rapid take off after the war.
At the outset of the war radio communication was quickly viewed as
having an important strategic role, which led to ‘a ban being imposed on
“amateur” radio in Britain’ in 1914 (Briggs 1961: 20). There was a wish
to make sure that the vital needs of the military were not interfered with
by the public’s use of the radio waves. When the USA entered the war in
1917, the supposed strategic importance of radio led not just to a similar
ban on amateurs, but also to the taking over of the running of maritime
radio in the USA from the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of
America, a UK owned subsidiary, by the US Navy (Briggs 1961: 39, 60;
Flichy 1995: 106, 110). This communication form was deemed to be too
important to be left in the hands of a foreign owned company (or subsid-
iary), or with private citizens experimenting with it at such a time. After
the war the patents and radio shore stations of US Marconi were trans-
ferred to a new US company, the Radio Corporation of America (RCA),
as the US Navy being an arm of the state was not seen as being best suited
to run or develop such an endeavour as radio (Barnouw 1990: 20–4;
Winston 1998: 74–7).
During the war the military’s orders for radio equipment helped finance
the further technological development and mass manufacture of radio sets
(Barnouw 1990: 18; Flichy 1995: 108). In this way, electronic manufac-
tures in the USA and the UK, such as the Western Electric Company
(USA) and Marconi’s Wireless Telegraph Company (UK), grew rich in
this new market. Due to the war these companies and others such as
General Electric, created huge plants, or extended existing ones, increas-
ing their ability to mass produce sets and related technologies at a faster
pace than in peace time (Barnouw 1990: 18). However, with the ending
of the war these businesses saw a sudden sharp drop in orders from the
military (Barnouw 1990: 27–8). To fill the loss of this demand they started
to look at the potential of radio broadcasting as a means to create a new
market, one they could help supply with their existing radio sets (Flichy
1995: 111–14), or, indeed, with new simple-to-use sets, such as the Radio
Music Box developed by David Sarnoff for RCA (Barnouw 1990: 36;
Winston 1998: 76).
While some broadcast experiments had started before the war, such as
those in Britain at Marconi’s Chelmsford main works between 1906 and
1914 (Briggs 1961: 32, 37), these had been halted on the onset of war.
When the war finished in 1918 experiments in radio broadcasting began
again on both sides of the Atlantic, though this happened quicker in the
USA than in Britain, with a hope to develop services that would encourage
the sales of sets, for example, Marconi in Britain with its experimental
broadcasts on the radio transmitter 2MT and Westinghouse in the USA
on KDKA (Briggs 1961: 45, 61). Such experiments were supported by
38 P. RIXON
members of the public interested in radio, whose ranks were swelled with
those demobbed from the armed forces that had been trained to use such
technologies in the conflict. These members of the public alongside others
interested in radio became extremely vocal in Britain, as well as the USA,
demanding that the restrictions placed on radio during the war should
now be relaxed (Briggs 1961: 50–8). As the British and US governments
finally relented, so radio entered a new period of experimentation in terms
of broadcasting and listening.
The war, in some ways, should not be seen as a hindrance or brake to
the development of radio but rather than as an accelerator, in terms of
technological development, the capacity to manufacture radio sets and in
the creation of an aware and technically trained public. Without the war
radio might have taken longer to have taken off as a mass medium. Indeed,
for Brian Winston, a patent war over De Forest’s valve was far more sig-
nificant in slowing down the success of radio at this time (1998: 78).
Broadcasting in Britain: The Birth of Public Service

Broadcasting
Unlike in the USA, where, in the 1920s, radio developed in a rather cha-
otic manner, with huge numbers of broadcast licences being issued lead-
ing to frequent interference, the development of radio in Britain was going
to be an ordered and controlled affair (Briggs and Burke 2002: 160–3).
The question was not one of how to regulate a plethora of would-be
broadcasters, regardless of whether they were private or public bodies or
individuals, as was happening in the US, but more, which body or bodies
would run a monopoly broadcasting service and on what grounds it would
be constituted. It was to be a question of cooperation between the inter-
ested parties and not of competition (Briggs 1961: 105). In May 1922 the
GPO successfully brought two groups of manufacturers together to create
the British Broadcasting Company (BBCo), which began its first broad-
casts in November 1922 using Marconi’s experimental channel of 2L0
(Crisell 2000: 18). In the USA radio was being financed through a mix of
charity drives, educational funding or commercial sponsorship and adver-
tising, the last two had become the dominant form of financing of radio
by the early 1930s (McChesney 1994: 29–37). In contrast, the BBCo was
initially funded by the royalties on the sale of TV sets and a share of the
licence fee collected by the GPO (Briggs 1961: 110–11).
However, it was not just a question about who should run the service
and how it should be funded, but also about what the role of broadcasting
was, how it should serve the public, what form it should take and how it
should be regulated and controlled. In Britain, throughout the 1920s, the
Managing Director of the BBCo was John Reith, who was to become the
first Director General of the British Broadcasting Corporation when the
BBCo became a public corporation in 1927. John Reith played an impor-
tant role for the company and corporation in defining what a radio service
working for the public should be like; his philosophy of how he saw radio,
and how he began to shape and develop the BBC, was outlined in his
book of 1924a, Broadcast over Britain. In this work he drew together the
thoughts of Matthew Arnold with input from his own Calvinist upbring-
ing to begin to fill in the ideas of how he saw public service broadcasting.
It would be a service that would use the brute force of monopoly to cul-
turally uplift its listeners, to educate, entertain and inform, and which
would also encourage self-improvement and help to build character
(Scannell and Cardiff 1991: 8; LeMahieu 1988: 144–7). However, Reith’s
ideas were broad brushstrokes. There was also the question of how to
operationalise such ideas and aims. What programmes and services should
actually be offered, how would they be created and put together? In many
ways this was to be achieved partly by planning and partly by accident,
experimentation, and by looking at and learning from other existing
forms, such as film, theatre, music hall and other cultural forms (Wood
1979: 36–7).
However, broadcasting did not develop in a vacuum. The press, the
medium most active in the mediated public sphere at this time, took an
early interest in radio. And the way the coverage of the newspapers devel-
oped helped to shape the public discussions about radio and the form it
should take. Initially, the coverage was focused on conveying a narrative of
wonder and excitement around the early technical developments that were
occurring and their potential and then, a little later, shifted to follow a
narrative of the possible impact broadcasting might have on society as well
as on other media industries, leading to attempts to regulate and control
radio. I now wish to explore these two particular narratives that appeared
in the newspapers in the early period of radio experimentation, but which,
I will argue, continue to be important, even now, in the newspapers’ cov-
erage of radio. I will first look at the narrative of the spectacle of radio
technology; a technology of wonder.
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Hoe treurig ik vertrok, wanneer ik van u scheidde,
Te meer omdat ik aan het hof zo lang verbeidde;
Eén dag scheen my een maand, één uur een gansche dag;
Om dat ik daar myn lief Quiteria niet zag.
Ik was afkeerig van ’t vermaak der hovelingen,
En hoorde ik in ’t zalet een Juffer konstig zingen,
Dagt ik aan uwe stem, die zonder wedergaâ
Myn zinnen streelen kon. Voorts quam uw ongenâ,
Door ’t lang vertoeven, my te binnen. Gy hebt reden
Om met Kamacho in den echten staat te treeden.
My zy de schuld alleen. Maar ach! hoe beeft myn hart!
Gy zult dan trouwen? my verlaaten? ach! wat smart!
Quit. Ja myn Bazilius, ik kan het niet beletten,
’t Is my onmoogelyk myn’ vader te verzetten.
Ik word gedwongen, Lief. Baz. ’k Ben nog niet buiten raad,
Indien gy myn verzoek, zo billyk, niet versmaadt.
Gy kunt die trouw ontgaan, wanneer we t’zamen vlugten.
Maar ach! gy zwygt, myn lief! en antwoordt my door zuchten.
Quit. Daar ’s volk. Wy zyn bespied. Vaarwel.
Baz. Waar vlucht ge heen,
Quiteria! ei hoor myn’ klachten en gebeên.
VYFDE TOONEEL.
Don Quichot te paerd, Sanche op een ezel, schielyk uit.
Don Quichot. Staa Ridder, wat heeft die.... San. Ja oele hy gaat
fluiten.
Wou jy die veugel in zyn vlucht zo makk’lijk stuiten?
Dat ’s miskoot. Maer myn Heer, wat zellen wy nou doen?
Don Qu. Zo ras als ’t moog’lyk is, naar Saragossa spoên,
Op hoop van nog in tyds het steekspel by te woonen.
San. Wat waar ik ook een gek, dat ik me meê liet troonen!
Sanche zegt tegen den ezel.
Myn lieve Graeuwtje wat heb ik al deurgestaan;
Wat hebben, jy en ik, al menig droeve traen
Op deezen tocht ’estort! myn hart! myn lust! myn leeven!
Myn zeun! myn graeuwtje! jy bent in myn hart ’eschreven.
Wat zyn we trouwe broêrs, in lief, in leet, in nood!
’k Zal jou in goud beslaen myn keuning, nae jou dood.
Don Qu. Laat myne Ronsinant, met Graeuwtje ginder weiên.
San. Ik zel ze gunter, daar het beste gras groeijt, leîen.
Sanche brengt de beesten weg.
Don Qu. Gaa allereêlste beest, getrouwe Ronzinant,
Gaa opperpronkjuweel der paerden van dit Land.
Uw naam zal in het kort met grooter luister pralen,
Gy zult nog meerder roem als Bucefal behaalen.
Die groote Bucefal, held Alexanders paerd,
Daar gy in trouwheid en grootmoedigheid naar aard,
Heeft door zyns meesters arm nooit grooter roem verkregen,
Als gy verwachten kunt, door myn’ gevreesden degen;
Myn degen, dien ik heb aan myn Princes gewyd,
Myn lief Dulcinea, het pronkbeeld van deez’ tyd,
De zoetste roofster van myn’ zinnen en gedachten,
Om wie ik eenzaam dool, by dagen en by nachten.
Wanneer, ô schoone! zal ’t gelukkig uurtje zyn,
Dat gy uw’ Don Quichot zult helpen uit de pyn!
Wanneer, ô wreede! zult ge ophouden my te plaagen?
Of moet ik doolen om uw’ liefde al myne dagen?
Heb ik vergeefs gestreên met menig’ kloeken held?
Sloeg ik vergeefs dan den Biskaijer uit het veld?
En heeft u Passamont, met ketenen belaaden,
En and’re boeven, niets verhaald van myne daaden?
’t Is zeker! Maar gy blyft, ô wreede! nog versteend,
En lacht, helaas! wanneer uw droeve ridder weent.
Ik zal, indien ’t u lust, de bekkeneelen kneuzen,
Van schelmse tovenaars en schrikkelyke reuzen;
Al quam hier Sakripant, een reus van d’ ouden tyd,
Hy moest bekennen dat gy de allerschoonste zyt,
Het pronkstuk der natuur, de paerel aller vrouwen;
Of ’k zou hem met myn zwaerd den kop van ’t lichaam houwen.
San. Och Ridder Don Quichot, ’k verlang al weer naer huis!
Don Qu. Geduld, myn zoon, geduld.
San. Ja ’k zie vast munt, noch kruis,
Won ik nog geld, met al dat hongerige doolen.
Don Qu. ô Sanche! Sanche! gy begind al weêr te toolen;
Waar heeft een Schildknaap van een doolend Ridder geld
Tot loon van dienst geëischt? Zeg eens wat boek vermeldt,
Dat Roeland, Amadis of Palmeryn de Olyven,
Geld gaven, zeg? San. Ik kan niet leezen, noch niet schryven,
Wat bruid me Roeland, met jou hiele ridderschap,
Als ik gien geld heb. Don Qu. Schelm! ik dagt u op den trap
Van eer, en hoog geluk, door mynen arm te zetten
Loop naar uw wyf, loop heen, ik zal ’t u niet beletten
Gaa werken om de kost, gy zyt myn gunst niet waard.
Zo ik een koninkrijk kan winnen, door myn swaard,
Zal ik een ander, u ten spyt, tot koning maaken;
Bedenk dan, Sanche, hoe die euvel u zal smaaken.
San. Och, och, vergeef het my, ’k en hebt zo niet ’emiend.
Myn heer, ik hebje met men Graeuwtje lang ’ediend,
En overal gevolgd. Beloofje nog te geeven
Een eiland veur myn loon: ik zel jou al myn leeven
Daar veur bedanken? Don Qu. Ja, het eerste dat ik win.
San. In ’t admirantschap, heb ik ook al vry wat zin
Of maek me maer zo ’n graef, of prins, ’t ken jou niet scheelen,
Al wierd ik Keuning; als je tog bent an het deelen,
Zo leg me maer wat toe, van d’eenen brui, of d’aêr
Hy kan ligt knippen die een lap heit met een schaer.
Maer ’k wou dat ik het zag gebeuren, zei de blinde.
Don Qu. ’k Moet lachen, Sanche.
San. Zie myn heer, zie door de linde:
Loop daer gien kaerel? Don Qu. Geef myn schild en myn geweer:
Het is een Ridder. San. Neen, het is een boer, myn heer.
Don Qu. ’k Zeg ’t is een Ridder: haal myn lancie, niet te draalen.
San. Het is een boer, heer of de drommel moet me haelen.
Don Qu. Ik ken hem aan de veer, die op zyn helmtop zit.
Is ’t Ridder Splandor, zoon van Medor. San. Ei ik bid,
Maek tog gien questie, je bend zekerlyk bedrogen.
Merlyn de Tovenaer draeijt weer een rad voor je oogen.
ZESDE TOONEEL.
Don Quichot, Sanche, Kamacho, met een veer op zyn boeremuts.
Kamacho. „Dat wangd’len van myn bruid in ’t bosch staet my niet

an;
„De boeren zeggen datze met dien edelman,
„Die zy bemint heit, stond op deeze plek te praeten;
„En dat verstae ik niet; dat zal ze moeten laeten....
„Smit Justus wie is dat! Don Qu. ô Splandor, braave held,
En doolend Ridder, daar Turpinus pen van meldt;
Aanschouw hier Don Quichot, den ridder van de leeuwen.
Kam. Gans bloet, wat vent is dat! och, och! ik moet iens schreeuwen,
Of hy vermoord me hier! Help! help! Wat ziet hy fel!
’t Is Symen langdarm, of de pikken uit de hel.
Och sinte langdarm, of hoedat je naem mag weezen,
’k Zel alle daegen, drie van je amerietjes leezen,
Voor al de songden, die je in ’t leeven hebt ’edaen.
Ei laat me leeven, en zo lang naer huis toe gaan;
Tot ik men testemengt ’emaakt heb. ’k Laet me hangen,
Zoo ’k niet weêrom kom, op parool, als krygsgevangen.
Don Qu. Heer Ridder, hoe, gy spreekt of gy betoverd waart,
Dat zyn geen blyken van uw’ ouden heldenaard
Gy zyt het, die wel eer het Turksche heir verheerde,
En in Stoelweissenburg zo heerlyk triumfeerde.
Kam. Och ja heer langdarm, ’k bin betoverd! ’k bin bedrild!
Ik bin bezeeten, ik bin al wat datje wilt.
Och myn gesuikerde sinjeurtje! laet me loopen!
Daer is myn beurs. San. Geef hier! maer bloed! ik zou niet hoopen
Dat hy betoverd was, en dat hy iens uit klucht,
Als ik er geld uit kreeg, zou vliegen naar de lucht.
Don Qu. Heer Splandor, hou uw geld, ik ben geen dief of roover.
’t Za, Sanche, geef het weêr. San. Wel dat komt zeker pover,
Zo ’n schoone beurs, en die ’k zoo mak’lyk houwen kan!
En dat regtvaerdig; want ik krygze van den man.
Don Qu. Wat draalje! geef terstond.
San. Het zinne spaense matten.
Don Qu. Geef over of... San. Ei lieve, één greepje.
Don Qu. Ik kan bevatten,
Dat u de rug wat jeukt. San. Hou daer dan, tovenaer.
Kam. Ik dankje. San. Holla, broêr. Don Qu. Ha, schelm.
San. Daer is het, daer.
Don Qu. Heer Ridder, zyt gerust; ik staa niet naar uw leeven;
Maar wil dat gy me uw’ helm tot dankbaarheid zult geeven.
Kam. Och jonker, ’k heb gien helm ooit op myn kop ’ehad,
’t Is maer een boere muts, met veeren, dat je ’t vat;
Wil jy hem hebben? ’k wil hem gaeren’ an je schenken.
Don Qu. Heer Splandor, groote held, ik kan my niet bedenken,
Hoe uw’ doorlugte geest, en groote schranderheid,
Van ’t spoor der reden, door de tov’naars is geleid,
Dat gy dien zwarten helm, dien Roeland plag te draagen,
Een boere muts noemt.
Kamacho geeft hem zyn muts.
„Och hy zoekt me wat te plaegen!
Hou daer, daer is myn helm, ast dan een helm moet zyn.
Don Qu. ’k Ben dankbaer, groote held.
Kam. Die karel piert me fyn.
Don Qu. Wat zegt zyn edelheid? Kam. Of ik nou mag vertrekken?
Don Qu. Hoe vaart Angelika? wil my ’t geheim ontdekken:
Waar zy zich nu onthoud. Leeft uw heer vader nog?
Het moortje Medor, dat held Roeland met bedrog
De schoone Angelika, uit minnenliefde ontschaakte?
Waar door die groote held, uit spyt, aan ’t razen raakte?
Meld alles maar aan my, den dapp’ren Don Quichot.
Kam. Ik heb gien Vaer noch Moêr, heer Ridder dronke zot.
Don Qu. Is dan de schoone Moor, uw vader reeds gesturven?
Kam. Myn vaertje was geen moor. Och, och! ik ben bedurven,
Hy zietme veur een Turk, of voor een Heijen aen.
Zo hier gien volk en koomt, zel ’t mit me slegt vergaen.
Don Qu. Is dan Angelika, uw moeder, reeds ter aarde?
Die zulken braaven held, als u, ô Splandor, baarde?
Kam. Ik heb Jan Geeleslae men leeven niet ’ekent,
Ik hiet geen plankoor, en we bennen niet ’ewent
De kei’ren in ongs dorp mit zukken naem te doopen.
Ei Ridder, dronke zot, ik bidje laetme loopen.
Je heb me muts al weg, zeg maer, wat wilje meer,
Men wammes, en men broek.
Don Qu. Neen, neen, verdwaalde heer
Dien schoonen wapenrok zal ik u niet ontrooven;
’k Wil liever voor uw’ helm een koninkryk belooven;
Indien gy ’t maar begeert. Kam. Och, och, ’et is de droes,
Is dat geen paerdevoet? neen, maer een karrepoes!
Nou merk ik ’t eerst, och zo ’n hiel keuninkryk, sint felten!
Je bent een dubbelduw! San. Zen kop die rydt op stelten.
Kamacho schrijft een streep.
’k Bezweerje by den geest, van houte sint Michiel
Al waarje nou de droes, of Steven zongder ziel,
Nagtmerri, bietebauw, of ongeboore heintje
Al wierje nou zo klein, datje in een tinne pijntje
Kon kruipen, zo je nu gien mensch bent, ken je nou
Niet over deuze striep.
Don Quichot over de streep trappende.
Ik voel myn hart vol rouw;
ô Eedle Splandor, om het missen van uw’ zinnen;
’t Verstand schynt u van ’t spoor, door ’t al te hevig minnen.
’k Omhels u, als myn vrind. Kam. Dat maekme wat gerust.
Ik loof werentig, dat je lui wat kortswil lust.
Maar alle gekken op een stokje, laet me wangdelen....
Daer’s Vetlasoep, de Kok, wat of die wil verhangdelen.
ZEVENDE TOONEEL.
Don Quichot, Sanche, Kamacho, Vetlasoepe.
Vetlasoepe. Monsieur Kamakko, ha! ze eb jou al lang kezoek.

Ze wist niet waar hum stak, ze wist niet van dit hoek.
Wat’s dat feur folke?
Kam. Dat? dat zin al raere snaeken,
Kortswillig volk, bequaem de bruiloft te vermaeken.
We leyen in ’et ierst ’eweldig overhoop.
Maer, waer’s men bruiloftsvolk?
Vetl. Hum’eb de palm keknoop,
Hum’eb de kroon kemaak, hum doet nou niet as zingen,
Hum dans nou seer kurieus, ensemble ronde kringen.
De folke is opkeskikt, zo mooij kelyk de droes.
Ze skreeuw tout allemaal, à vous! à vous! à vous!
Ze heb jou lang kewak, ze is bly, en ’t is wel koete,
Dat hum jou na lang zoek, hier in de bosch ontmoete.
Kam. Heb jy zo lang ’ewagt? ’et is me seper leet.
Maer heb jy al ’eweest om Jochem de poejeet?
En Roel de muizekand? laet vraegen waer ze blyven.
Vetl. Fort bien Monsieur, ze zel.
Sanche, tegen Don Quichot.
Maer seldrement! gansch vyven!
Wat is dat veur een vent? Don Qu. Dat is een Indiaan,
Of Hottentotsche Prins. San. Ik ken ’m niet verstaen,
Als hier en daer ien woord. Vetl. Wat sekze, Hottentotte?
Ha! ha! ze lakker om, ze lyk warak wel zotte.
Hum is een Kok, ma foi. San. Hy ruikt braef na gebraed.
Bin jy de Kok, ik hou jou veur men beste maet,
Je hebt een lucht die ik bezonder graag mag leijen:
Me dunkt je ruikt ook wat na korsten van pasteijen?
Vetl. Oui, pastey, Monsieur, keen beter in de land,
Als hum kan maak. San. Dan ben je een kaerel van verstand.
Vetl. Je suis vôt serviteur. Kam. Hoor hier iens Vetlasoepje.
Vetl. Que ditez vous Monsieur? Kam. Maek dat’er ook een troepje
Dangsmiesters by komt. Vetl. Bon, ze zel ze jou beskik.
Kam. Toebak van volkje. Vetl. Oui, die dans ken op een prik.
Zingende binnen.
ACHSTE TOONEEL.
Don Quichot, Sanche, Kamacho.
Sanche. Dat lykt een raere haen, die Prins van de Indiaenen,
Een Kok en Prins mit ien!
Don Qu. Hoe Sanche, zoudt gy waanen
Dat zulks niet meer geschied? San. Wel neen, ik lach ’er om.
Kam. Kom geef me muts nou weer.
Don Qu. Zyt gy de bruidegom?
Met wie myn waarde vrind?
Kam. Ik mien van daeg te trouwen;
Hier zel et zelschip zyn, ’k zel hier de bruiloft houwen.
Don Qu. Wie zal uw Ega zyn, ô Splandor, wat Princes?
Kam. Ei scheer de gek niet meer.
Don Qu. Uw waerde zielsvoogdes
Is wis van Prins’lyk bloed, of koningklyke looten?
Kam. Een halleve boerin, uit d’ adel voort’esproten,
Heur Vaertje boert zo wat: maer hy’s van adel.
Don Qu. Zoon,
Wat is uw eêl verstand betoverd! groote Goôn!
Hoe is haar naam; hoe wordt de Infante toch geheeten.
Kam. Ze is gien Infangte: maer ze is mooij, dat motje weeten,
Zo blank als schaepenmelk. Heur wangetjes zyn rood,
Ze is niet te dik, te dun, te klein, noch niet te groot;
Heur veurhoofd blinkt puur, puur, gelyk een barbiersbekken.
’Er hiele bakus is vol van wongerlike trekken.
Don Qu. Maer nu, haer naam?
San. Ze’et nooit misschien geen naem ’ehadt.
Kam. Ze hiet Quiteria, heer Ridder, dat je ’t vat.
Maer zie, verstae je wel, daer quam er nog ien vreijen.
Die hiet Bazillius. Zy mocht hem vry wel leijen,
Maer ’t hulp niet: wangt hy is een arme kaele neet,
Zo’n edelmannetje, dat graeg wat lekkers eet,
Patrysjes, hoendertjes, kon hy ze maer betaelen.
Hy krygtze wel: maer moetze eerst op de jagt gaen haelen:
Daer leeft hy miest van; maer ’t is al een raere vent,
Hy ken latyn as een pastoor; ’t is een student,
Dat jy het vat Sinjeur. ô Hy kan wongdre zaeken.
Ik heb ’em van een aeij een kaerteblad zien maeken;
En hy kan dangsen als een ekster op het veld;
Hy kan ook sling’ren mit’et vaendel als een held.
En hy kan schermen, en ook kaetzen, mit de boeren;
En mit verkeeren kan hy elk zyn geld afloeren;
Hy kan ook speulen op de veel, en de schalmy.
De blind’mans zeun is maer een botterik er by.
Hy is wel gaeuw,... maar ik heb geld, om van te kluiven.
Hy niet; en daerom zel hy ’an de veest niet snuiven.
Ik kryg de bruid, en ’t is zijn neusje effen mis.
Maer appropo, Sinjeur, weet je ook hoe laet of ’t is?
’Et was ezaid, dat ik precies te zeuven uuren
Most by de vrinden zyn, en deur je malle kuuren
Is ’t laet ’eworden, geef men muts me maer weêrom,
En gae mit my, Sinjeur; ik hiet je wellekom,
’k Noô jou te Brulloft; wangt jy lykt een snaek der snaeken,
Je kent de boeren op de Brulloft wat vermaeken.
San. Te brulloft broertje? gaet dat zeker? wel is ’t waer?
Je bent een man as spek, dat lyktme, zoete vaer.
Ik heb (och harm) lang uit men knapzak moeten blikken.
Te Brulloft, weetje ’t wel? gut kaerel, ’k ken zo slikken
Stae vast nou hoendertjes, en snipjes met je drek.
Stae frikkedilletjes. Kam. ’t is tyd dat ik vertrek:
Ei geef me muts weêrom, je kent’em niet gebruiken.
San. Gut Splandor, ik begin ’t gebraed alriets te ruiken.
Kam. Ik hiet gien plankoor, broêr, Kamacho is myn naem.
Men vaertje sageles, was Lopes Pedro daam,
In Lombrigje men moer, ’ebooren te Bregance....
Maer hoe is jou naem, broêr? San. Die is don Sanche Pance.
’k Bin deur dien goejen heer, puur uit den drek ’eraekt.
Hy heit me van een boer een Gouverneur ’emaakt.
Kam. Een Gormandeur, wel zo, wie drumpel zou het denken!
Een Gormandeurschap kan jou Heer dat an jou schenken?
San. Ja, van een Eiland, en ’k kreeg zeuven ezels toe.
Kam. Heb jy die al? San. Wel neen: ’k heb de ezels nog te goê,
En ’t Eiland zel men Heer in korte dagen winnen.
Kam. De vent is zeker gek, wie drommel zou ’t verzinnen?
Hoe hiet dat ailand, en waar laitet? an wat kangt?
San. ’t Leit in Jaerabien, digt by het heilig land,
’t Hiet mikrosko.pi.pi.pium.... ’t is me al vergeeten,
Daer weunde een groote Reus, de mallenbrui geheeten,
Zo groot gelyk een boom. Maer hy ’s al lang kapot;
Men Heer die potste hem. Kam. Een reus! wel dat’s niet rot.
Een Reus? hoe vindt men nou nog reuzen? hoe ken’t weezen?
San. Ja Broertje, mien je dat wy veur de Reuzen vreezen?
Veur twintig Reuzen, zou men Heer staen als een pael.
Kam. Ik word waratjes aêrs van zulk een vreemd verhael.
San. Ja Reuzen alzoo groot als meulens mit vier armen,
Die steekt men Heer maer mit zyn lansie in de darmen.
In al de Legers daer hy komt, daer maekt hy schrik:
’t Is kip ik hebje! steek! slae, in een oogenblik
Is ’t hiele veld bezaeid, mit armen, en mit beenen:
Hy slaet terstongt maer deur een hiel slagorden heenen.
Kam. Gangs ligters, is dat waer! heb jy het zelfs ’ezien?
San. Ja ’k; ’t is omtrent ’eleen, nae ’k gis een maend, of tien,
Toen heit hy teugen een hiel leger nog ’evochten;
Ze vlugtten al; maer juist die beesten, die gedrochten,
Van schelmse Tovenaars, die quaemen op ’et mat.
Ze gooijden al ’er best mit steenen naer ons gat,
En maekten van ’er volk een hiele kudde schaepen!
Kam. Wel langsje, viel daer niet wat buit veur jou te raepen?
San. Ja steenen op ons bast, dat’s tovenaersmanier.
Men Heer verloor dien tyd ook wel een tand drie vier.
Kam. Je heer lykt wel bedroefd: hy is diep in gedachten.
San. Men Heer? ja die’s verliefd, hy klaegt gehiele nachten;
Je hoort niet anders als: ô schoone ondankbaerheid!
Dulcinea, princes, ô noordstar die me leid!
Wanneer zel jy me veur men trouwe dienst beloonen!
Dan zucht hy weer, en roept: ô schoonste van de schoonen,
Wanneer genaekt den tyd, dat ik.... exceterae,
’t Is al Dulcinea ondankbaer veur en nae.
Kam. Is die Dulcinea dan veur zo mooy te houwen?
Ik wed ze mooijer is, die ik van daeg zel trouwen.
Don Qu. Wat zegt gy Splandor? ha dat liegt gy, door uw’ hals.
’t Za, vat uw’ lancie. Kam. Och heer Ridder, ’et is vals,
Jou liefste is mooijer: maar wie pikken sou et droomen!
Had ik ’eweeten dat je ’t qualyk had ’enomen,
Dat ik myn Bruid wat prees, ’k had ’et wel ’emyd.
Don Qu. Neen ik wil vechten, ’t za berei u tot den stryd,
Ik geef u keur van grond. Kam. ’k Hou niet een brui van vechten.
Och! Ridder wees te vreên!
Don Qu. Zeg hoe gy ’t wilt beslechten,
’k Geef keur, te paerd, te voet, met lancie, of het zwaerd.
Kam. Gena: genade, och! och! ik zweer je by myn baerd,
Dat ik niet vechten kan.... Och! och! hoe zel ’t hier daegen?
Moord! brangd! moord! brangd! help! help! ô ongehoorde
plaegen,....
Daer’s Vetlasoep met volk!
Don Qu. ’t Za, ’t za, waar ’s uw geweer?
Kam. Help Mannen! mannen! help!
Don Qu. Hoe schreeuwt gy zo myn Heer?
NEGENDE TOONEEL.
Vetlasoepe met eenige boeren, Kamacho, Don Quichot, Sanche.
Kamacho. ’t Sa, lustig jongens, pas nou louter wat te raeken!

Don Qu. Kanailje! Tovenaars! San. Wel brui er’r veur’er kaeken.
Kam. Sla toe maer mannen! pas te raeken mannen! t’ sa.
Don Quichot en Sanche krygen stokslagen, waar op zy vallen.
San. Oei! oei! men billen, en myn kop, gena! gena!
Och! sinte Tovenaers, ’k heb niemendal bedreven.
Kam. Ei zie dien Gormandeur, dien reekel, nou iens beeven.
Hoe smaektje deuze koek? scheer nog de gek erais.
San. Genade, ô Splandor. Kam. Wel de pikken op je vlais!
Daar Plankoor, Plankoor, daar! je zelt van Plankoor heugen.
San. Myn lieve Splandertje ik en mag ’er gansch niet teugen,
Ei slae niet meer.
Kamacho slaat Sanche.
Wel dat’s een drommel van een vent.
Nog scheert de beest de gek.
San. Och! och! och! seldrement!
Is dat ook kloppen. Don Qu. Och! Princesse van Toboze!
Kroondraagster van myn hart, ô verse ontlooken’ rooze!
Hier legt uw Ridder van de Tovenaars gewond!
Vetl. Wat sekse rek’le? zyn hum Tovenaars, jou hond?
Wat opstinaater folk! terwyl dat s’hum zo kloppen,
Zo scheer ze nok de gek, en durven ons nok foppen.
Kam. ’k Zal heur betaelen, laet men nou maer iens betien.
Kamacho neemt zyn muts wederom.
TIENDE TOONEEL.
Bazilius, Valasko, Vetlasoepe, boeren, Don Quichot, Sanche.
Bazilius. Hou op Kamacho! zeg, wat is ’t dat wij hier zien?

Hoe komen deze twee zo bont en blaauw geslaagen?
Kam. ’t Zyn fielen allebai, wie drumpel zou ’t verdraegen.
Die, met het harnas, noemt zich ridder dronke zot,
En de aêre gormandeur; ze noemde my uit spot,
Heer Ridder Plankoor, zeun van Geelesla; geen smeeken,
Of bidden hulp; die Guit wou me op ’t lest deursteeken;
Had ik dat volk hier niet, ik was ’r al om koud.
Bazilius tegen Don Quichot.
Dat ’s al een vreemde zaak. Zeg, wat maakt u zo stout,
In ’t harnas op den weg de menschen aan te randen?
Wie zyt gy? spreek; of ’k geef ’t terstont ’t geregt in handen.
Don Qu. Een Ridder voor wiens arm het alles beeven moet,
Gelyk een Amadis in ’t harnas opgevoed.
San. Och, jy lykt noch een mensch. Ei word mit ongs bewogen;
We zyn onnozel van die tovenaers bedrogen!
Den vroomsten ridder, voor wiens arm de Turk zo vreest,
Den trouwsten schildknaep, die in Spanje ooit is ’eweest,
Zie jy hier liggen. Baz. „Heer Valasko, ’t zijn die menschen,
Daar gy me flus van spraakt. Myn heer, ik zou wel wenschen
Dat gy me uw naam ontdekte. Don Qu. Ik ben de Ridder van
De leeuwen, Don Quichot. San. Ja ’t is de zelve man.
Baz. Zo zyt gy Don Quichot! wees welkom roem der helden,
De faam quam ons al lang uw groote daden melden.
ô Doolend ridder, voor wiens arm en kloek gelaat,
’t Gespuis der tovenaars als ach en rook vergaat.
Koom, doe my de eer aan en vernacht in myne wooning.
Don Qu. Zyt gy ’t Arsipanpan? ô mededoogend koning,
Die my verlost hebt uit ’t geweld der Tovenaars?
Wat ben ik u verplicht! Kam. Wel dat is al wat raers,
Hy noemt Bazilius een Keuning, watte streeken!
Baz. Verzorg de heeren van al wat hen mag ontbreeken
Valasko, zo ’t u b’lieft, ik volg u zo terstond.
Kam. Die knevels zinnen ’t eens, ô bloed! ’et is een vond
Van de edelliên, om ons wat schrik op ’t lyf te zenden.
Ze hebben ’t opgestemd. San. Och! och! men ouwe lenden,
Wat bin je braef ’esmeerd! ô vrinden ’k zweer et jou,
Dat ik niet veul van zulk een tov’naers bruiloft hou.
Valasko tegen Don Quichot.
Kom Ridder laat ons gaan.
San. ’k Mot eerst men Graeuwtje haelen
Mit Rosinant. Val. ’t Is wel: maar niet te lang te draalen,
’k Gaa met uw’ Heer vooruit.
ELFDE TOONEEL.
Bazilius, Kamacho.
Bazilius. Kamacho, schaam u, hoe?
Zo’n edel man te slaan; zeg waar by koomt dat toe?
Kam. Ei lieve zie, hoe mal dat hy ’em an kan stellen,
Puur of hy ’t niet en wist. Hoor, wil ik ’t je eens vertellen?
’t Is ien van jou konsoort, jy hebt ’em op’emaekt
Om my te bruyen. Heb ik ’t op zyn kop ’eraekt?
Baz. Ik heb hem nooit gezien; maar van zyn dapper leeven,
En wonderlyk bedryf is korts een boek geschreven,
Valasko heeft het, en vindt groote smaak daar in.
Kam. Wat is dat veur een boek? wat heit ’et veur een zin?
Baz. Van vechten en van slaan, en reuzen overwinnen,
Jonkvrouwen by te staan, getrouw’lyk te beminnen,
En honderd dingen meer die hy nog dag’lyks doet.
Hy is een Ridder van een groot verstand en moed.
Kam. Maer komje hier ook om de Bruiloft te verstooren?
Baz. Wat wisje wasjes, neen.
Kam. Ik wou wel graeg iens hooren,
Hoe ’tjou al ’an staet, dat de Bruid jou is ontvryd.
Baz. ’k Hoop dat die zwaarigheid zal slyten door den tyd.
Ik wensch u veel geluk dewyl ’t nu zo moet wezen.
Kam. Je bent bylo een borst uit duizend uitgelezen.
Hou daer, daer is myn hangd, ’k denk ummers dat je ’t mient?
Baz. Voorzeker; ’k hou u voor myn’ allerbesten vriend.
Kam. Kom meê te bruiloft, ’k zel je helder doen trakteeren;
Gut jonker, doet ’et. Baz. ’k Moet juist gaan by zek’re heeren.
Kam. Gut snaekje doet ’et.
Baz. Zo ik tyd vind, zal ik ’t doen.
Kam. Hadie dan, dat gaet na myn liefstentje om een zoen.
TWAALFDE TOONEEL.
Bazilius, alleen.
O hemel! zal die lompe Boer erlangen
Een schoone Maegd, wiens aangenaam gezicht
Myn noordstar is, myn eenig levens licht,
En die ik dagt voor myne Bruid te ontvangen.
Quiteria, hoe vaak hebt gy beloofd
Met hand en mond, my nimmer te begeeven:
Maar steeds met my in zoete min te leeven!
Heeft dan het goud uw trouwe min verdoofd?
Neen ’t was geveinsd, gy doet my eeuwig treuren,
’k Zink in een poel van jammer, en verdriet!
’k Zal sterven: want my lust het leeven niet,
Nu my ’t bezit van u niet mag gebeuren.
’t Is ydel met myn zuchten, en geween;
Ik strooij vergeefs myn’ klagten voor de winden.
Daar is geen trouw ter waereld meer te vinden:
Men mint om ’t goud, ’t geld is de liefde alleen.
Men agt verstand, noch aangenaame zeden,
Men vraagt naar konst, noch eêlheid van gemoed:
Maar naar ’t genot van schatten, geld, en goed.
’t Geld maakt een dwaas behaag’lyk in zyn reden.
Vaar wel, vaar wel, ô overschoone maagd!
Mogt ik voor ’t laatst van u dien troost verwerven,
Dat gy bedenkt wat minnaar gy doet sterven;
Een minnaar, dien u eertyds heeft behaagd.
Waar loop ik heen? waar vliegen myn gedachten?
Behaagde ik u? neen, gy behaagde my.
Myn min was ernst: maar de uwe veinzery.
Ach, kon ik dit van u, van u verwachten!
Rampzal’ge min, gy hebt my, laas! verleid;
Quiteria was voor my niet gebooren.
ô Min! gy laat my in hun strikken smooren!
Quiteria vaar wel in eeuwigheid!
Maar ach! zy koomt.
DERTIENDE TOONEEL.
Bazilius, Quiteria, Laura.
Quiteria. Ach Lief, ’k koom u nog eens

aanschouwen;
Hoe wendt gy ’t aangezicht...
Baz. Ondankbaarste aller vrouwen,
Hebt gy myn zuchten en myn klagten aangehoord?
Of zyt gy doof voor my, die door de min versmoort?
Quit. Myn Lief!
Baz. Neen zwyg Cireen; gy zoudt het vonnis geeven
Van mynen dood. Quit. Neen, leef.
Baz. ’k Zal zonder u niet leeven,
Bruid van Kamacho; neen, blyf, blyf by uwe keur;
Trouw met dien ryken gek, terwyl ik eenzaam treur:
Maar denk in uwe vreugd, wat minnaar gy doet quynen.
Quit. Ach Lief laat deze wolk van jaloezy verdwynen.
Baz. Wat jaloezy? gy treedt van daag met hem in d’echt.
Quit. ’t Zal nimmermeer geschiên; ’k beminne u al te oprecht.
Baz. Hoe ver verschilt uw hart, van ’t geen ge u mond doet spreken,
Quit. ’k Zal om Kamacho nooit myn’ trouwbelofte breeken;
Ik walg van zyne min. Baz. Hoe zal ik dit verstaan?
Deez dag neemt gy hem voor uw’ Man en Huisvoogd aan,
’t Is alles op de been, de boeren quinkeleeren,
De bruiloft is gereed. Quit. Die vreugd kon wel verkeeren.
Ik zal Kamacho nooit aannemen tot myn man.
Ik gaf hem nooit myn hart, gy zyt ’er meester van.
Scherp uw vernuft, myn lief, en wilt een list bedenken,
Om ons van hem te ontslaan: doch zo ’t myne eer zou krenken,
Staa ik het nimmer toe. Baz. De vlucht?
Quit. Die ’s vol gevaar.
Baz. ’k Zal uw beschermer zyn, we zullen met malkaêr
Naar Saragossa vliên. Quit. Neen lief, dat koomt my duister,
En gansch ondoenlyk voor; ik krenk myn eer en luister,
Indien ik ’t onderneem. Baz. Myn Schoone, zyt gerust:
Het is noodzaaklyk, ’k zal u leiden waar ’t u lust:
En wat uw eer belangt, hoeft gy daar voor te schroomen?
Myn liefde staat gevest op deugd.
Quit. Hoe zal ik komen
Uit myn verdriet, helaas! Baz. Myn Lief, men raakt den tyd,
Die kort is, door al die vergeefsche klagten quyt,
En wierd gy hier by my ontdekt, het waar te duchten,
Dat ons ’t geluk niet diende om onzen ramp te ontvluchten.
Lau. Het is noodzaakelyk. Quit. Ik vrees.
Baz. Daar ’s geen gevaar;
Indien wy schikken dat we hier omtrent malkaêr
Weer vinden, in een uur, ’k zal rytuig klaar doen maaken.
Quit. Helaas! wat doe ik al om uit den dwang te raaken.
Einde van het eerste Bedryf.

TWEEDE BEDRYF.
EERSTE TOONEEL.
Kamacho, tegen iemant van binnen.
Slae jy dien weg maer in, en doe gelyk ik zeg;

Ik zel eens zien of ik ’er vind, op deuzen weg.
Kamacho, alleen. Ja wel, ik zeg noch iens, daer moet wat gaende
weezen.
ô! Al dat wandelen met Laura doet me vreezen.
’t Is koddig van de Bruid! zy is geduurig zoek.
’k Loof dat Bazilius (want hy is gaeuw en kloek)
Men bruid verleien wil. Hy zel me parten speulen!
Ik vrees warentig dat ’er iets is in de meulen!
De boeren zeggen dat hy hier staag met heur praet.
Alleenig om een hoek, wie weet hoe dat het gaat!
Ik zel hier wachten, en me zelven wat versteeken.
Zacht daar komt Jochem de Poejeet, die lykt te preeken.
De loeris ziet me niet, zo leutert hem ’t verstand.
TWEEDE TOONEEL.
Meester Jochem, Kamacho.
„Puf nou Poëetjes, ’k ben de baas van ’t gantsche land!

„Puf Salamanka, met uw alma akkademi.
„Ik Miester Jochem, hoofdpoëet van sante Remi,
„In ’t landschap Mancha, maak myn rymen aanstonds weg.
„Sonnetten in een uur. Zeg Rederykers, zeg,
„Wie zou ’t my nadoen? En myn beste referynen,
„Wel honderd regels lang, (het zal wat wonders schynen)
„Doe ’k in een halven dag: maar ’k heb natuur te baat.
„Daar Lope Vegaas, en Quevédos geest voor staat,
„Help ik ’er deur, ja ’k weet ’er fouten aan te wyzen.
„Dat ik prys, zullen al de boeren met my pryzen.
„Die my te vrind houd, maak ik een volmaakt Poëet.
„Ik rym terwyl ik slaap, ik rym terwyl ik eet;
„En op de brillekiek bedenk ik myn rondeelen.
„’t Is alles geest, een aâr moet uit de boeken steelen;
„Ik niet, schyt boeken, ’k heb de kunst hier in myn kop,
„Ik ben geheel doorwiekt van zuiver hengste sop;
„Ja ’k ben poëet zelfs in myn moeders lyf gebooren.
Sinjoor de Bruidegom, koomt gy my hier te vooren!
Kam. Wel Miester Jochem heb jy ook myn Bruid gezien?
Jochem. Ze is by de Muzen op Parnassus berg misschien.
Kam. Wat is dat voor een berg? wat of je al uit zult stooten.
Jochem. Die Muzen en dien Berg zyn in myn brein besloten.
Kam. ’k Verstae dat niet: ik vraeg of jy myn Bruid niet weet.
Jochem. Gy vraagt my als een gek: ik andwoord als Poëet.
Kam. Wat schort je Jochem? benje dol? of benje dronken?
Jochem. Met uw verlof, jy hebt my niet een zier geschonken.
Kam. Ho ho! nou merk ik ’t al; je zelt licht moeij’lyk zyn?
Jochem. Wel ja, jou Kok, die Waal, zei dat men hier den wyn
Als water schenken zou, en nou ik ben gekomen,
Heb ik noch wyn noch Waal, noch niet een brui vernomen.
Ik zal dien rotzak weer betaalen voor dien trek.
Kam. Hy heit zyn boodschap dan niet wel gedaen, die gek.
’t Is nog te vroeg.
Jochem. Ik denk je zelt my ook tracteeren?
Kam. Wel zou ik niet? je zelt je keel ook helder smeeren.
Maar zeg, is jou myn bruid met Laura niet ontmoet?
Jochem. Ja tog, ik heb de Bruid daar even nog gegroet.
Kam. Wie was ’er by?
Jochem. Zy had haar Speelnood Laura by ’er.
Kam. Zag jy Bazilius dan niet, haar ouwe vryer?

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Radio Critics and Popular Culture 1st

ed. Edition Paul Rixon

The Monstrous-Feminine in Contemporary Japanese Popular

Making Radio: Early Radio Production and the Rise of

Holocaust Vs. Popular Culture: Interrogating

Popular High Culture in Italian Media, 1950–1970: Mona

Popular Culture, Voice and Linguistic Diversity: Young

Race, Popular Culture, and Far-right Extremism in the

Premodern Rulers and Postmodern Viewers : Gender, Sex,

The Mathematical Radio: Inside the Magic of AM, FM, and

Radio Critics and

ISBN 978-1-137-55386-7 ISBN 978-1-137-55387-4 (eBook)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018936645

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

Cover Credit: LongQuattro

Printed on acid-free paper

2 Approaching the Study of Radio Critics and Radio

3 Radio in Britain in the 1920s: Narratives of Spectacle

4 Rise of a Medium: Arrival of the Radio Critic 65

5 The Critic, Newspaper Radio Criticism and the Heyday

6 From the Swinging Sixties to Thatcherism: The Decline

7 The Digital Age: The Press, Radio, Radio Critics

Preamble: A Personal View

© The Author(s) 2018 1

Nicholas, S. (2012) ‘Media History or Media Histories? Re-addressing the History

Approaching the Study of Radio Critics

© The Author(s) 2018 11

Why Study Radio Criticism and Radio Critics?

popular newspaper criticism, with only a few exceptions, such as John

What Is a Critic? What Is Criticism?

The Critic as Cultural Intermediary

such as Bourdieu, the critic, as a taste maker, can be considered as being a

The radio critic, in this way, must be viewed as a cultural intermediary—

The Media Critic: Industry and Discourse

How to Study Radio Critics and Radio Criticism

[The difference between] critics and non-critics […] is primarily a matter of

DeWerth-Pallmeyer, D. (2003) ‘The Nature and Function of the Media Arts

Radio in Britain in the 1920s:

© The Author(s) 2018 33

to replace the more technologically focused reporting. Through the analy-

Early Radio: From Communication to Broadcasting

Broadcasting in Britain: The Birth of Public Service

Don Quichot te paerd, Sanche op een ezel, schielyk uit.

Don Quichot, Sanche, Kamacho, met een veer op zyn boeremuts.

Kamacho. „Dat wangd’len van myn bruid in ’t bosch staet my niet

Don Quichot, Sanche, Kamacho, Vetlasoepe.

Vetlasoepe. Monsieur Kamakko, ha! ze eb jou al lang kezoek.

Don Quichot, Sanche, Kamacho.

Vetlasoepe met eenige boeren, Kamacho, Don Quichot, Sanche.

Kamacho. ’t Sa, lustig jongens, pas nou louter wat te raeken!

Bazilius, Valasko, Vetlasoepe, boeren, Don Quichot, Sanche.

Bazilius. Hou op Kamacho! zeg, wat is ’t dat wij hier zien?

Bazilius, Quiteria, Laura.

Quiteria. Ach Lief, ’k koom u nog eens

Einde van het eerste Bedryf.

Kamacho, tegen iemant van binnen.

Slae jy dien weg maer in, en doe gelyk ik zeg;

Meester Jochem, Kamacho.

„Puf nou Poëetjes, ’k ben de baas van ’t gantsche land!

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2 Approaching the Study of Radio Critics and Radio

3 Radio in Britain in the 1920s: Narratives of Spectacle

4 Rise of a Medium: Arrival of the Radio Critic 65

5 The Critic, Newspaper Radio Criticism and the Heyday

6 From the Swinging Sixties to Thatcherism: The Decline

7 The Digital Age: The Press, Radio, Radio Critics