The Lost Archive of James Baldwin (Radio 4) | BBC Sounds
Extreme: Muscle Men (Radio 4) | BBC Sounds
Olympics | (Radio 5 Live)
The Lost Archive of James Baldwin is a sweetly surprising documentary about a collection of possessions belonging to, yes, James Baldwin, the American writer and civil rights activist who died in 1987. Baldwin, whose novel Giovanni’s Room was read by Kyle Soller in Radio 4’s late book slot last week, was a hugely influential figure, and a favourite of presenter Tony Phillips when Phillips was a student of American literature in the late 1980s.
This documentary is not all about Baldwin though. It’s partly about Jill Hutchinson, a Yorkshire woman who has lived in Provence in the south of France for decades. We hear her banging and clanking around an outhouse, opening doors, jangling keys, shuffling papers. “Here it is,” she says. Through an unexpected set of circumstances, she has an astonishing amount of Baldwin’s “personal things”, from when he lived nearby in the 1970s and 80s: his dining/writing table, his typewriter, his record collection, personal notes, pieces of paper that evidence his desire to set up a James Baldwin residency for young black writers… loads of it. All now in storage in this French outhouse, under Hutchinson’s care.
The story of how she came to be its custodian is incredibly touching (essentially, she falls in love with Baldwin’s brother). Philips asks Hutchinson to tell that story, and she does it well, though, as they’re having a conversation, rather than conducting a formal interview, he occasionally crashes over her answers. But it doesn’t matter; the whole atmosphere of their encounter is lovely. It’s enhanced and highlighted by sensitive soundwork by the always excellent Axel Kacoutié.
Hutchinson’s story, and the existence of this archive, is not unknown. She explains that she has contacted a suitable museum to see if they might take it off her hands, but their delays and caveats have meant the collection is still hers, which she doesn’t want. She’d like Baldwin’s writing room to be recreated (it was destroyed when his house was sold to developers, who built luxury flats on the land). But without the right contacts, how will this happen? Jill is getting older (“but I don’t feel old!” she says), and every time she’s asked to go through the story of how and why she’s the custodian of Baldwin’s possessions she gets upset. “Yeah,” she says, her voice breaking. “Total closure… It would be so right to have it somewhere where people can touch the table he wrote on… the typewriter, to see the artwork he had all around him.” A moving listen, and one that, you hope, may mean something is done about finding a suitable home for all this precious archive.
One for the fitness bunnies, Extreme: Muscle Men (Radio 4) is a couple of episodes in and it’s certainly pumping iron. Hosted by Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, an academic who specialises in the history of personal fitness, it’s a fun, campy listen that moves from a sweaty 1980s California gym to some darker areas. Petrzela presented the brilliant Welcome to Your Fantasy podcast, which told the unexpectedly gripping story of the Chippendales (muscles! Money! Murder!) and was one of my favourite shows of 2021. With Extreme, which doesn’t – so far – appear to be a true crime tale, she starts in the late 1970s. We meet William Dillon, an ordinary kid from Illinois who gets mildly bullied by some older boys. Then and there, says Dillon, he decides to get strong so it will never happen again. He begins to bodybuild, and he is our insider on the scene.
Alongside Dillon’s personal tale, we meet other bodybuilders and start to learn that some of these wildly hunky men and women are relying on something else other than weights and cardio to get those ridiculous muscles. Steroids.
Petrzela knows how to entertain – her interviews are wry without being mean-spirited – and there are some hilarious moments, including a clip from Arnold Schwarzenegger, who at the time said that bodybuilding was, to his mind, like having an orgasm over and over. We meet people who supply steroids, people who took them. One, Dan Duchaine, who supplied an awful lot of people, reminds me of all those podcast bros who are determined never to age. “His philosophy in life was, there is a good purpose for every drug,” remembers Dillon. Duchaine biffed Nubain (nalbuphine) – “a drug they would give you before an operation” (ie an opioid) – every three hours. Why? We don’t hear, but presumably it kept him enhanced.
And speaking of fit people – though, you hope, not ones who take performance enhancers – you may have noticed that the Olympics are on. Radio 5 Live is doing its best to cover everything, and is succeeding, for the most part, treating much of what’s going on as news. In-studio chats are broken up by neverending bulletins about “Team GB” and how someone we’ve never heard of has just missed out on a medal in the rugby sevens or epee or trap.
There have been some great moments: on Tuesday, with the men’s 4x200m freestyle swimming relay; on Wednesday, when Alex Yee won the men’s triathlon. But, it has to be said, some sports suit radio more than others. Cricket and tennis, with their regular ticking up of scores, are ones that are easily covered; any race with a definite finishing line is also great for gripping commentary.
But on Tuesday, it was the women’s artistic gymnastics team final, featuring Simone Biles, and it wasn’t 5 Live’s finest listen. Louis Smith and Eleanor Oldroyd had to battle to be heard over a Romanian gymnast’s oompah floor music, and when they were, they weren’t particularly enlightening. Oldroyd was as coolly professional as ever, outlining competitors’ circumstances and stats; but Smith, there for his insider gymnastics knowledge, gave limited insight: “half-twist on, one-and-a-half off”, yes, and? The resulting commentary felt redundant. For some sports, you need to see the pictures.
