This peek inside Tina Brown's world is too irresistible to miss
The Earth has shaken. I’ve changed my listening habits. The Vanity Fair Diaries (Radio 4, daily, 1.45pm) has stopped me bunking off to watch Neighbours on TV. For who could resist Tina Brown, that then 30-year-old blonde Brit who stormed New York in the Eighties, reading her memoir of how she did it? Not me.
The opening episode was prefaced by the unmistakable introduction to Madonna’s Material Girl. Here was Brown’s new world, affluent, ambitious, scornful of those outside it. Her voice is taut, her eye is everywhere. She doesn’t bring us into her circle but tells us, firmly, proudly, sometimes wickedly, what it was like.
We met her in 1984 as she arrived in New York, introduced by the proprietor of Vanity Fair as its new editor. Three months lie between that day and her first edition. She whirled into action, hiring writers, being courted, deciding she wants the magazine to break the chains to its “gloomy bluestocking” past, choosing “blonde ambition” as her first theme. Listening to her is as delightful as eating a whole box of expensive chocolates, without a trace of weight gain.
In episode two, she was missing Britain, telling us “The only reason I go out is observation greed.” She freely shares that greed, “Yippee, I love Beverly Hills!” Most of all, she conveys the utter exultation of getting an exclusive White House photo-shoot with President and Mrs Reagan. However, when Mrs R subsequently demands pre-publication approval of the photos, our Ms B learns a lesson in the limits of her editorial power. Then she finds a few ways round all that. Imagine her as a panther pacing in a cage. Every so often, she pushes through the bars and pounces. We gasp. She’s irresistible.
In a normal run on Radio 4 this would have gone out as Book of the Week at 9.45am and been repeated at 7.45pm. But those slots are full of Neil MacGregor’s six-week blockbuster, Living with the Gods. Moving the aural furniture about like this always risks upsetting listeners. Following the success of MacGregor’s A History of the World in 100 Objects, made in association with the British Museum (and not forgetting director-general Tony Hall’s subsequent aim for the BBC to cooperate with the nation’s great cultural institutions), Living with the Gods had to be placed where it was likely to attract a big audience. Will it?
Probably not. It’s more abstract than 100 Objects, tracing mankind’s attempts to understand the world by imagining powers that exist beyond our knowledge. MacGregor debates the “why” of such things, interpreting museum objects, comparing great texts. His choice of words is precise, compelling to those who tolerate religious belief, probably not to others. On Monday, the contents of a Roman burial urn found in Norwich held tokens of both Roman and Celtic gods, signs of practical polytheism. Comparison of accounts of a mighty flood in the Mesopotamian epic of Gilgamesh with that of Noah’s ark in the Old Testament showed strong similarities of circumstance, if not of godly cause. Yesterday, MacGregor pondered a clay tablet from Babylon and much older Egyptian images to show how both indicated the desire of powerful leaders, from as long ago as 14 centuries B C E, to worship one god. Today, he’ll discuss monsters. After next week, Book of the Week gets its regular slot back, with Henry Blofeld reading his memoirs. It’s possible to discern a certain irony in that juxtaposition, but that’s only my interpretation.
Meanwhile, in the dream world of fiction, The Pillow Book is back for its 10th series as the Woman’s Hour daily drama. I am devoted to this strange confection, written by Robert Forrest, inspired by a real work by Sei Shōnagon, a 10th-century poet and lady-in-waiting to the Empress of Japan. His Lady Shōnagon (Ruth Gemmell) is now facing the challenge of a new young Empress, daughter of the powerful Chancellor. Shōnagon’s customary partner in solving court mysteries is Lieutenant Yukinari (Stuart McQuarrie) but the new empress has set him to report on Shōnagon. He’s worried about her.
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So are we. She’s having visions, hearing voices, fainting. I hope this isn’t the end of her. Neil MacGregor could probably find a scroll that interprets it all and Tina Brown would sign up Yukinari’s exclusive account of working for that young devil of an empress. But if it does turn out to be the last of Shōnagon, we’ll recognise another daft BBC decision. The world, old and new, is fascinating. Escape hatches from it keep us sane.