Save BBC's Saturday Review!

Comments

#201

critical voices rather than just puff/plug voices are increasingly absent on the bbc

(taunton, 2017-07-02)

#207

It's one of my favourite programmes

(London, 2017-07-03)

#213

I listen regularly, will be a great loss

(Oxford, 2017-07-03)

#214

Proper critical discussion of the arts is fast disappearing from the BBC, and this is going to leave a big hole. One less place to discuss books, in particular.

(Fulbourn, 2017-07-03)

#215

I really value the critical discussion on Saturday Review, much longer than is offered by Front Row.

(Leigh-On-Sea, 2017-07-03)

#217

I very much enjoy the programme

(London, 2017-07-03)

#221

This programme is an INDISPENSABLE part of my life

(London, 2017-07-03)

#222

One of the best programmes on the radio. Discussion consistently of a very high quality which routinely alerts me to things I want to see or read. I can hardly believe the BBC proposes to stop it.

(London, 2017-07-03)

#223

We don't want to lose a programme that is both intelligent and entertaining.

(Sheffield, 2017-07-03)

#224

The BBC should be doing more programmes like Saturday review not fewer. The host is brilliant, the guests are generally excellent too. The format works well and is completely different from Front Row. It can't be expensive to make. The decision to cut it is simply bonkers.

(Tunbridge Wells, 2017-07-03)

#225

This is anot informative intelligent discussion of current arts, invaluable for keeping up to date. Great presenter and discussants. It's criminal to close it down.

(Edinburgh, 2017-07-03)

#226

love this programme. would be a tragedy if it disappeared!

(London, 2017-07-03)

#230

Saturday Review is one of the last homes for intelligent criticism. If criticism withers, all that's left is PR.

(Wilts, 2017-07-03)

#231

Saturday Review simply must not be axed.
It's our cultural life blood. Living in a remote part of the UK we no longer enjoy the privilege of being able to go to the theatre or top exhibitions. Our three monthly outing is on the screen machine (film tour bus). Saturday Review allows us to keep in touch with what's going on in the arts world; a joy to listen to. It will be criminal to cut this wonderful programme.

(Lairg, 2017-07-03)

#238

This is a unique program which offers a more thoughtful and critical take on the arts. This is sadly lacking in much media coverage. To make it into a Saturday version of front row - which is more celebrity and public relations driven is tragic and reflects poorly on the BBC

(Oxford, 2017-07-03)

#240

Why axe one of the best radio4 programmes insightful, informative and interesting.
Great guests mostly women who come all fields not just art background.

Please rethink radio4

(London, 2017-07-03)

#246

We need thoughtful radio - we need the Saturday Review. As arts funding is cut, access to the arts needs all the friends it can get & R4 should be one if them.

(London, 2017-07-03)

#250

I'm signing because this programme and Tom Sutcliffe got the tone and intellectual level just right. I can barely listen to the new arts programmes with their condescending 'Listen with Motherish' smile-in-the-voice and unctuous interviewing style

(London, 2017-07-03)

#251

This programme is fantastic. And we hardly need more cuts in arts programming...!

(London, 2017-07-03)

#252

The Arts matter, and discussion of the Arts matter.

(Coventry, 2017-07-03)

#257

It's an excellent programme!

(Welwyn Garden City, 2017-07-03)

#258

It's the best arts programme in the UK (radio or TV),

(London, 2017-07-03)

#260

Quality programmes need protecting not cutting.

(Ellesmere, 2017-07-03)

#261

I'm signing because I love listening to Saturday Review and I would miss it very much.

(Filey, 2017-07-03)

#262

It is an oasis of calm, considered and coherent thought away from the media screaming during the week.

(London, 2017-07-03)

#264

I'm signing because ... I love this show. Smart, intelligent, witty.

(London, 2017-07-03)

#265

this is an amazing programme, which does entirely different work to Front Row, ie offers nuanced critique of new arts events and shows rather than just plugging them. Tom Sutcliffe is a magnificent presenter; this is the best show in the radio 4 repertoire and is a travesty of a decision.

(London, 2017-07-03)

#268

This is an excellent show, one of the only serious arts shows we have left. Please please don't scrap it.

(Lewes, 2017-07-03)

#269

Saturday Review is a consistently entertaining arts show that manages to be both challenging and charming - thanks in no small part to its host. The format of three guests and a host allows arguments and counter arguments for or against the subject under discussion. This means that a listener, you get a better appreciation of the subject than you would if it were just a single reviewer. You often hear about things you'd otherwise have missed, even if you read the arts sections of the newspapers - and the programme is not London or even big city-centric. For us, it's one of the fixed points points in the Radio 4 schedule, a small but brilliant jewiin the BBC's crown. Please keep it.

(London, 2017-07-03)

#270

Back in May I wrote this for Radio Times magazine:

"It’s almost exactly a year since I found myself listening to an edition of Saturday Review on Radio 4 in which the panel of critics were discussing a new novel by Francis Spufford called Golden Hill. Such was the collective enthusiasm for it that I went out and bought it — in hardback — straightaway. The Saturday Review crew were right. Golden Hill, which went on to win the Costa First Novel award for 2016, is a stupendous read.

These thoughts are prompted by the imminent demise of Saturday Review, which has been a mainstay of Radio 4’s Saturday evenings for some 20 years. Would I have rushed out and bought Golden Hill on the strength of, say, an interview with Francis Spufford? I somehow doubt it. What mattered was hearing disinterested but informed observers applying their critical judgement, and without Saturday Review, where will that important public service come from?

Radio 4 saves money by axing Saturday Review and replacing it with a programme that pulls together the best of the previous five days’ worth of the arts magazine Front Row, but while Front Row has many virtues, it’s not generally a forum for heated debate.

Arts “coverage” is not the same as criticism, and interviews with artists — or indeed between them, as was the case with the recent Only Artists series — can often end up disappearing down rabbit holes. Radio 3’s Night Waves is brilliant at exploring ideas, but the brief doesn’t really create opportunities for anyone to say that this or that new play or book or film is actually rubbish.

Promotion and self-promotion are the name of the modern arts game. Saturday Review — and before it, Radio 3’s incomparable Critics’ Forum — has been a bulwark against that tendency, and we need it more than ever. Good criticism makes for better art.

As it happens, Golden Hill is Radio 4’s Book at Bedtime this week."

(London, 2017-07-03)

#272

It's a no brainer. Best arts programme on the radio, a real listerner base, irreplaceable.

(Dover, 2017-07-03)

#275

Saturday Review is utterly brilliant. It seems unfathomable why it should be axed.

(LONDON, 2017-07-03)

#285

We need critics and criticism, not just interviews and puff pieces

(Colchester, 2017-07-03)

#290

I don't want to lose this interesting and informative programme.

(Egham, 2017-07-03)

#293

I'm signing because Saturday Review is a brilliant example of the great things the BBC is capable of and it would be a crying shame to lose it.

(Cardiff, 2017-07-03)

#294

This programme is one of the few extended discussion arts programmes left after cuts to tv alternatives. It's simply brilliant.

(Cheltenham, 2017-07-03)

#295

This is one of the best programmes on the radio.

(London, 2017-07-03)

#298

It's another example of a BBC run by bean-counters and philistines

(Tamworth, 2017-07-03)

#300

I am signing this petition because I believe that Saturday Review is the flag who, and backbone of BBC Radio 4's arts charter. It covers a wide spectrum of the arts, is informative and essential to the cultural fabric of the nation.

(London, 2017-07-03)

#314

It's a fine fine show. I listen every week. A rounded up Front Row will in no way touch it.

(London, 2017-07-03)

#315

Of all the podcasts that there are in the world I subscribe to 5, and Saturday Review is one of them. It is one of the best broadcasts of any kind.

(Adelaide, 2017-07-03)

#321

This is too important not to sign

(London, 2017-07-03)

#322

Without it, all coverage of the arts descends into puff pieces

(London, 2017-07-03)

#324

Saturday Review keeps me in touch with the arts and provides many fresh insights.

(Warrington, 2017-07-03)

#326

It's a brilliant resource and a credit to the BBC. I can't believe the BBC could even consider cutting it!

(London, 2017-07-03)

#329

Best programme on the arts.

(Serrungarina, 2017-07-03)

#331

We all need a program like Saturday review in order to keep our country sane.

(High Wycombe, 2017-07-03)

#334

Top notch programme about new releases.

(Royal Tunbridge Wells, 2017-07-03)

#335

This is outrageous. We need Saturday Review.

(London, 2017-07-03)

#337

I enjoy and value this programme and am dismayed by plans to cut it ,and to move more arts coverage under the sneering umbrella of 'Today'

(Glasgow, 2017-07-03)

#338

Excellent programme. Never heard a dud edition

(London, 2017-07-03)

#341

I'm a theatre director. Saturday Review offers a unique forum to hear theatre and other artforms discussed on the radio in an intelligent and open manner.

(London, 2017-07-03)

#342

I love this programme, and would like it to continue.

(London, 2017-07-03)

#344

This is essential listening for lovers of arts and culture. I can't believe the BBC is thinking of axing it. Please think again!

(Hayle, 2017-07-03)

#347

I love the program, is the best for cultural highlights and deep conversations about the arts. Please do not cancel it!!

(Manchester, 2017-07-03)

#353

We don't want to have public broadcasting dumbed down any more. Please ensure that some time for culture is kept in the schedules. This is the sort of stuff that Lord Reith would have wanted.

(Leatherhead, 2017-07-03)

#354

This is an excellent programme. Living in London I enjoy access to Arts culture, so frequently listen to this after I have seen a film or show, enhancing pleasure & reflection.

(London, 2017-07-03)

#356

It is a great programme and I really enjoy it. They have very good reviewers and it is an ideal vehicle for suggesting new things to go and see and read.

(Bradford-on-Avon, 2017-07-03)

#359

We need the arts, and the BBC needs programmes like this.

(Cambridge, 2017-07-03)

#360

Saturday Review performs a function not replicated elsewhere on Radio 4, nor indeed in the written press. It has an interesting blend of voices and attitudes where disagreement is every bit as interesting as consensus. I frequently find theatre, film, art and books I might otherwise have missed; moreover the discussion format makes the audience feel included.

(London, 2017-07-03)

#362

This is an excellent programme and needs no.change..... change for changes sake is never good.

(Twickenham, 2017-07-03)

#365

Saturday Review is one of the most interesting discussion programmes on R4. It has prompted me to see / read numerous exhibitions, plays etc which I might otherwise have missed. Really intelligent programme, excellent presenter in Tom Sutcliffe. Please don't cut it.

(Cardiff, 2017-07-03)

#366

Saturday Review is my absolute favourite, unmissable programme on Radio 4 and I listen to the podcast while I'm running. Will miss it to death if it goes! Love Tom and the format so much - huge mistake to let it go.

(Godalming, 2017-07-03)

#370

I'm signing because Saturday Review is a wonderful programme - urbane and delightful, varied, informative, hugely enjoyable. It's one of the last bastions of serious yet witty discussion of culture. To axe it would be intellectual vandalism.

(London, 2017-07-03)

#372

I'm signing because The Saturday Review is an extremely intelligent programme which believes in the value of critical discussion and discrimination.

(LONDON, 2017-07-03)

#375

I cannot live without it!

(Wexford, 2017-07-03)

#376

An excellent arts review show

(London, 2017-07-03)

#382

I love Saturday Review! The discussion element makes it completely different from other arts programmes and, quite frankly, a warmed up rehash or the week's Front Row really won't cut it. R4 is slowly losing my interest as it is, aren't you supposed to try and keep your listeners?

(Manchester, 2017-07-03)

#383

I'm signing because there is limited arts coverage on radio and tv. The arts are balm to the soul, one of the highest expressions of humanity - and they give joy and pleasure.

(London, 2017-07-03)

#386

It's one of the few podcasts/radio programmers I listen to every week, not just sometimes. I will greatly miss it.
Tim Knight

(Tokyo, 2017-07-03)

#387

Essential listening!

(Cambridge, 2017-07-03)

#389

I love this programme. It is my piece of gentle sanity and window on the world on a Saturday night

(London, 2017-07-03)

#395

It's a worthy endeavour

(Washington, 2017-07-04)

#396

we deserve the same in depth analysis of the arts that sports, business and politics receive. The Arts is one of Britain's leading industries that continues to grow and interest and influence all around the world. Please keep the serious and informative content we have come to expect from the BBC. Otherwise we will all become tweets!

(London, 2017-07-04)

#398

The arts are invaluable in our society

(London, 2017-07-04)

#399

The radio is an amazing link with the world - better than television for the news and
information if offers. The Saturday Review is
excellent. In these challenging times please leave our radio well alone!

(Saffron Walden, 2017-07-04)