Start the Week
Encyclopedia
Start the Week is a discussion programme broadcast on BBC Radio 4
which began in April 1970. The current presenter is the former BBC political editor Andrew Marr
. The previous regular presenters were Richard Baker
, Russell Harty
, Melvyn Bragg
and Jeremy Paxman
.
It is broadcast (usually) live on Monday mornings between 9.02am and 9.45am, and repeated in a shortened, edited version at 21.30 the same evening. Its guests typically come from the worlds of politics, journalism, science and the arts. Prior to Marr the programme had a number of regular secondary presenters including Ken Sykora, Kenneth Robinson (who began in 1971 during the Baker era), Rosie Boycott
, Catherine Bennett
and Lisa Jardine
.
DJ, consisting of a montage of music, archive recordings, opinions recorded on the street and the like, presenting the public's image of the day in question. After eight minutes or so, the programme returned to the live studio for anecdotes and discussion from a variety of guests. Regulars included Lance Percival
, a satirist from TV shows of the time, and Zenna Skinner, a TV presenter of fitness programmes who had a wide variety of outrageous opinions, some of them humorous. The programme also had a cookery slot. The programme had a regular following but was thought to be too light-hearted and irreverent for 9am on Monday mornings by a new Director of Programmes.
, a friend of Harty's first appeared on the programme as a substitute presenter before illness led to Harty's death in 1988.
, Sue Lawley
, George Melly
and Melvyn Bragg. During Bragg's tenure the programme gained "a new reputation for gravitas
"; it also a larger audience, which by 1996 was "at one to one and a half million, slightly more than the far more middle-brow
programmes such as Midweek
, Desert Island Discs
and Loose Ends
, which occupy the slot on other days."
According to The Independent
, "rows, however innocuous some of them seemed at the time, have become a trademark under Bragg: among the most notable have been Ben Elton
vs Brenda Maddox
, Rosie Boycott
and Bragg vs novelist Kathy Lette
, Armistead Maupin
vs Libby Purves
, and Bragg himself vs (separately) Joan Smith
, Michael Dobbs
, William Cash, Tony Parsons
and Jean Aitchison
.
The programme's prominence in Radio 4's schedule meant that Bragg's elevation to the House of Lords
as a life peer
necessitated Bragg's relinquishing of an involvement in the programme.
and Sue MacGregor
.
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station, operated and owned by the BBC, that broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history. It replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. The station controller is currently Gwyneth Williams, and the...
which began in April 1970. The current presenter is the former BBC political editor Andrew Marr
Andrew Marr
Andrew William Stevenson Marr is a Scottish journalist and political commentator. He edited The Independent for two years until May 1998, and was political editor of BBC News from 2000 until 2005....
. The previous regular presenters were Richard Baker
Richard Baker (broadcaster)
Richard Baker OBE is a British broadcaster best known as a newsreader for the BBC News from 1954 to 1982. He was a contemporary of Kenneth Kendall and Robert Dougall and was the first person to read the BBC Television News in 1954. At one time he lived in Barnet, North London...
, Russell Harty
Russell Harty
Russell Harty was an English television presenter of arts programmes and chat shows.-Early life:Born Frederick Russell Harty in Blackburn, Lancashire, he was the son of a fruit and vegetable stallholder on the local market...
, Melvyn Bragg
Melvyn Bragg
Melvyn Bragg, Baron Bragg FRSL FRTS FBA, FRS FRSA is an English broadcaster and author best known for his work with the BBC and for presenting the The South Bank Show...
and Jeremy Paxman
Jeremy Paxman
Jeremy Dickson Paxman is a British journalist, author and television presenter. He has worked for the BBC since 1977. He is noted for a forthright and abrasive interviewing style, particularly when interrogating politicians...
.
It is broadcast (usually) live on Monday mornings between 9.02am and 9.45am, and repeated in a shortened, edited version at 21.30 the same evening. Its guests typically come from the worlds of politics, journalism, science and the arts. Prior to Marr the programme had a number of regular secondary presenters including Ken Sykora, Kenneth Robinson (who began in 1971 during the Baker era), Rosie Boycott
Rosie Boycott
Rosel Marie Boycott , better known as Rosie Boycott, is a British journalist and feminist.-Journalism career:Daughter of Major Charles Boycott and Betty Boycott née Le Sueur, Rosel Boycott was born in St Helier, Jersey and was educated at the independent Cheltenham Ladies' College and read...
, Catherine Bennett
Catherine Bennett (journalist)
Catherine Dorothea Bennett is a British journalist, educated at Hertford College, Oxford.Bennett began her career in journalism at Honey magazine. Subsequently she worked at the Sunday Telegraph, Mail on Sunday, The Sunday Times, The Times and the short-lived Sunday Correspondent newspaper before...
and Lisa Jardine
Lisa Jardine
Lisa Anne Jardine CBE , née Lisa Anne Bronowski, is a British historian of the early modern period. She is professor of Renaissance Studies and Director of the Centre for Editing Lives and Letters at Queen Mary, University of London, and is Chair of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority...
.
Richard Baker (1970–1987)
The original programme differed from its current form; for the first year or so it was entirely pre-recorded. Produced by Michael Ember, a flamboyant producer from the BBC Hungarian Service, the 1970 show was supposed to be intelligent banter on a weekly theme held together in a jocular fashion by Richard Baker, a well-known television newsreader. If that week contained Valentine's Day, for example,the show would start with some hints as to proper behaviour for that day, a bit of history, then a tape recorded by Doug Crawford, a former pirate radioPirate radio
Pirate radio is illegal or unregulated radio transmission. The term is most commonly used to describe illegal broadcasting for entertainment or political purposes, but is also sometimes used for illegal two-way radio operation...
DJ, consisting of a montage of music, archive recordings, opinions recorded on the street and the like, presenting the public's image of the day in question. After eight minutes or so, the programme returned to the live studio for anecdotes and discussion from a variety of guests. Regulars included Lance Percival
Lance Percival
Lance Percival is an English actor, comedian and after-dinner speaker.-Biography:Educated at Sherborne School, Percival first became well known for performing topical calypsos on television satire shows such as That Was The Week That Was. He appeared in the Carry On film, Carry On Cruising...
, a satirist from TV shows of the time, and Zenna Skinner, a TV presenter of fitness programmes who had a wide variety of outrageous opinions, some of them humorous. The programme also had a cookery slot. The programme had a regular following but was thought to be too light-hearted and irreverent for 9am on Monday mornings by a new Director of Programmes.
Russell Harty (1987–1988)
The programme turned towards being a chat show during Harty's year in the chair; Melvyn BraggMelvyn Bragg
Melvyn Bragg, Baron Bragg FRSL FRTS FBA, FRS FRSA is an English broadcaster and author best known for his work with the BBC and for presenting the The South Bank Show...
, a friend of Harty's first appeared on the programme as a substitute presenter before illness led to Harty's death in 1988.
Melvyn Bragg (1988–1998)
After Harty's death, several presenters were tried out, including Kate AdieKate Adie
Kathryn "Kate" Adie , OBE , is a British journalist. Her most high-profile role was that of chief news correspondent for BBC News, during which time she became well known for reporting from war zones around the world...
, Sue Lawley
Sue Lawley
- Early life and education:Born in Sedgley, Staffordshire, England and brought up in the Black Country, she was educated at Dudley Girls High School and graduated in modern languages from the University of Bristol and some time later started her career at the BBC in Plymouth...
, George Melly
George Melly
Alan George Heywood Melly was an English jazz and blues singer, critic, writer and lecturer. From 1965 to 1973 he was a film and television critic for The Observer and lectured on art history, with an emphasis on surrealism.-Early life and career:He was born in Liverpool and was educated at Stowe...
and Melvyn Bragg. During Bragg's tenure the programme gained "a new reputation for gravitas
Gravitas
Gravitas was one of the Roman virtues, along with pietas, dignitas and virtus. It may be translated variously as weight, seriousness, dignity, or importance, and connotes a certain substance or depth of personality.-See also:*Auctoritas...
"; it also a larger audience, which by 1996 was "at one to one and a half million, slightly more than the far more middle-brow
Middlebrow
The term middlebrow describes both a certain type of easily accessible art, often literature, as well as the population that uses art to acquire culture and class that is usually unattainable. First used by the British satire magazine Punch in 1925, middlebrow is derived as the intermediary between...
programmes such as Midweek
Midweek (BBC Radio 4)
Midweek is a British weekly radio magazine series broadcast on BBC Radio 4 it is aired on Wednesday at 09.00 and is repeated later the same day at 21.00...
, Desert Island Discs
Desert Island Discs
Desert Island Discs is a BBC Radio 4 programme first broadcast on 29 January 1942. It is the second longest-running radio programme , and is the longest-running factual programme in the history of radio...
and Loose Ends
Loose Ends (radio)
Loose Ends is a British radio programme originally broadcast on Saturday mornings, and then transmitted early Saturday evenings from 1998 by BBC Radio 4. It was hosted by Ned Sherrin until he became ill in late 2006 with a reported throat infection, and later throat cancer...
, which occupy the slot on other days."
According to The Independent
The Independent
The Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
, "rows, however innocuous some of them seemed at the time, have become a trademark under Bragg: among the most notable have been Ben Elton
Ben Elton
Benjamin Charles "Ben" Elton is an English comedian, author, playwright and director. He was a leading figure in the British alternative comedy movement of the 1980s, as a writer on such cult series as The Young Ones and Blackadder, as well as also a successful stand-up comedian on stage and TV....
vs Brenda Maddox
Brenda Maddox
Brenda Maddox FRSL is an American author, journalist, and biographer, who has lived in the UK since 1959.Born in Brockton, Bridgewater, Massachusetts, she graduated from Harvard University with a degree in English literature and also studied at the London School of Economics...
, Rosie Boycott
Rosie Boycott
Rosel Marie Boycott , better known as Rosie Boycott, is a British journalist and feminist.-Journalism career:Daughter of Major Charles Boycott and Betty Boycott née Le Sueur, Rosel Boycott was born in St Helier, Jersey and was educated at the independent Cheltenham Ladies' College and read...
and Bragg vs novelist Kathy Lette
Kathy Lette
Kathy Lette is an Australian author who has written a number of bestselling books.Born in Sydney's southern suburbs, she first attracted attention in 1979 as the coauthor of Puberty Blues, a strongly autobiographical, proto-feminist teen novel about two 13-year-old southern suburbs girls...
, Armistead Maupin
Armistead Maupin
Armistead Jones Maupin, Jr. is an American writer, best known for his Tales of the City series of novels, based in San Francisco.-Early life:...
vs Libby Purves
Libby Purves
Libby Purves OBE is a British radio presenter, journalist and author. A diplomat's daughter, she was educated at convent schools in Israel, Bangkok, South Africa and France, and then Beechwood Sacred Heart School in Tunbridge Wells.Purves won a scholarship to St Anne's College, Oxford, where she...
, and Bragg himself vs (separately) Joan Smith
Joan Smith
Joan Alison Smith is an English novelist, journalist and human rights activist, who is a former chair of the Writers in Prison committee in the English section of International PEN.-Life and work:...
, Michael Dobbs
Michael Dobbs
Michael Dobbs, Baron Dobbs is a British Conservative politician and best-selling author.-Background:Michael Dobbs was born on 14 November 1948 in Cheshunt, Hertfordshire, the son of nurseryman Eric and Eileen Dobbs. He was educated at Hertford Grammar School and Christ Church, Oxford University....
, William Cash, Tony Parsons
Tony Parsons (British journalist)
Tony Parsons is a British journalist broadcaster and author. He began his career as a music journalist on the NME, writing about punk music. Later, he wrote for The Daily Telegraph, before going on to write his current column for the Daily Mirror...
and Jean Aitchison
Jean Aitchison
Jean Aitchison is a Professor of Language and Communication in the Faculty of English Language and Literature at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Worcester College, Oxford....
.
The programme's prominence in Radio 4's schedule meant that Bragg's elevation to the House of Lords
House of Lords
The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster....
as a life peer
Life peer
In the United Kingdom, life peers are appointed members of the Peerage whose titles cannot be inherited. Nowadays life peerages, always of baronial rank, are created under the Life Peerages Act 1958 and entitle the holders to seats in the House of Lords, presuming they meet qualifications such as...
necessitated Bragg's relinquishing of an involvement in the programme.
Jeremy Paxman (1998–2002)
Paxman's tenure was relatively short for a broadcaster of his stature because his aggressive style of interviewing was not considered compatible with the programme.Andrew Marr (2002–present)
Occasional stand-in presenters in recent years have included David BaddielDavid Baddiel
David Lionel Baddiel is an English comedian, novelist and television presenter.-Early life:Baddiel was born in New York, and moved to England when he was four months old. His father, Colin Brian Baddiel, was a Welsh research chemist with Unilever before being made redundant in the 1980s, after...
and Sue MacGregor
Sue MacGregor
Susan Katriona MacGregor CBE is a British writer and broadcaster.-Early life:Her parents were Scottish and emigrated to South Africa where she was brought up. Her father was a doctor, a neurologist who was in the British 14th Army in Burma in the Royal Army Medical Corps...
.