After all the fanfare, Brad Pitt finally made his Radio 2 debut on Saturday night. Lost Boy: In Search of Nick Drake was a documentary about the singer-songwriter who died aged 26, his music largely unheralded. And of course this programme would have slipped past pretty much unnoticed too, were it not for Drake-fan Mr Pitt, more prominent than ever at the moment because of his manly skirt-wearing in Troy.
The show was worth the attention though - skilfully crafted, with a few songs played in their entirety rather than lots of snippets, and it even produced a song from Drake's last studio session that had gone undiscovered until now. Drake's friend, singer Linda Thompson, provided some wonderful quotes: "To me, he was just a heart with legs on - no skin or anything", and she was the only one to mention what is surely an element of Drake's enduring appeal: "he was so gorgeous-looking it was unbelievable".
Really, Brad didn't have much to do, just contributing some nice husky links. The programme-makers, no doubt giddy with the excitement of bagging him, got him to say: "You're listening to Lost Boy: In Search of Nick Drake, with me, Brad Pitt" no fewer than four times, and even had him reading out the Radio 2 frequency a couple of times. Chutzpah triumphant.
The first episode of Michael Cockerell's Tales from the Cutting Room (Radio 4, Sunday) came chutzpah-laden too, being about Margaret Thatcher. It was just Cockerell reminiscing about his encounters with her over the years, and only 15 minutes long, but was utterly riveting.
The two had an obvious mutual respect, vying to come out on top in their question-and-answer bouts. "There there, don't get upset, I was the one being asked the nasty questions," she consoled an irate Cockerell after refusing three times to respond to his probing on a particular issue. Later she adopted an even more effective tactic in dealing with him: "She assumed a kittenish persona," said Cockerell. Her manner towards him became "so intimate, even coquettish" that Robin Day declared the pair must be having an affair.
However, Cockerell feels he got below her armour-plated defences in an interview she gave after leaving office. He told her that Willie Whitelaw had pondered her possible immortality. The subject seemed to shock her. "On freezing the frame at the exact moment she hears my intimation of her mortality, an apparent mix of panic and blinding revelation comes over her face," he said. It was almost enough to make a Guardian-reader feel sympathetic towards the old warrior queen. Almost.
