R4, NYD, War and Peace...

[awfulomission]

... I'm not looking forward to it at all.

In fact, I'm rather peeved. There's not much I like more than a good snuggly day at home and the R4 schedule. This will be 12 hours of not remembering who anyone is. (I am feeble of brain and have never yet made it through W&P).

Agreed. I have not yet (but will definitely) be looking to getting the Long Wave service (via DAB or internet) so as to avoid the whole W+P marathon.

I think it a very poor decision to put it on FM, and given how (presumably) few fishermen will be out at sea tomorrow, don't understand the choice of using FM over Long Wave, except for the fact they presumably want it as Stereo. Then again, it's presumably just one more daft experiment from the new head of Radio 4, she who decide to cut the length of Y+Y at lunch time to put in the daft 'interview over a game of chess' shows and so forth... ignoring the fact there's a perfectly good 15 minute slot after the World at One.

Another the daft decision was to extend WatO - when we already had 6.5 hours of news on a weekday, they wanted to push it up to 6.75 hours a day, plenty of it being repeated sound clips... if you've heard a clip at 13:00, odds are the same clip will be on at 17:00, 18:00 and 22:00, and the midnight news.

Of course, they could have done something better such as use Radio 4 Extra for this 10 hour marathon, but of course the idiots at the BBC forgot to make R4 Extra Stereo (at least on DAB, I don't know if they carry stereo audio on the internet - but if they don't they blasted well should, given they have previously commissioned new material (eg Comedy shows from Edinburgh Festival), though I know the spending cuts mean they won't commission anything new for the time being (they blew all the budget on a 10 hour W+P drama, didn't they!)

Pedantic note - it's 10 hours not 12, but even 10 hours is 10 hours too many, in my view.

I'd much rather they did it in two hour episodes over a week. I'd like to listen but it isn't practical to do nothing else for a whole day. Who could do that?

Note taken!

I'd have considered it perhaps on R4 Extra for some reason. But I mean, who can listen for 10 hours! It's not really something you can dip in and out of. I agree - put it on over the course of a week.

Although when they did the Hamlet over the week it made me want to throw things at the radio. I love the afternoon play; Hamlet's (or Shakespeare in general?) rather a Marmite thing and to miss that slot for a whole week was disappointing.

All that said, R4 is an absolute essential in my life. I'd pay my license fee just for the listen of it alone.

The Guardian says it's going to be 'action heavy'.

Ten hours of flipping Tolstoy . It'll be like er,well bloody War and Peace won't it?

Hehe-I started to listen and lost interest in about 10 mins. I'm sure that says more about me than the production tho!

I'm loving it - but flagging!

Longing for 1pm. I need a break. Very, very pleased to be offered such a treat though.

For anyone wanting to listen to *> Long Wave

Glad to hear you like.

If they'd offered a VI Warshawsi or a Wallander marathon I'd be there like a shot (no pun intended).

I know, I've had problems with the radio app-I use it to listen I. The garden and have found it v frustrating. Thanks Network I'll have a look at that TuneIn one.

My only complaint is that its all too sanitised. And pretty. And inoffensive.

I have never yet completed W&P in print but I spent my teens reading Mikhail Sholokov (when not reading Dostoyevsky) - so grew up accustomed to "seeing" soldiers carrying their own entrails across fields. There seems very little risk in this production - except financial risk. Perhaps that's a reflection of our contemporary concerns.

Yes, and broadcast time-iirc there's no watershed on radio and, if other homes are like ours, it's on in the background all day. Perhaps they had to sacrifice some of the more visceral bits to the nature of the production?

It's been so painful since 8pm ...

But you've soldiered on! Don't stop now. Go on, just do a bit of MNetting or something else to take the edge off... .

No intention of giving up. It's been a wonderfully enriching day. Almost a good as a marathon stage production. (And no queuing for interval snacks.)

Will be trying the podcasts, couldn't do a marathon listen. If anyone missed it, take a look

Or if you can't make it to the end!

I have been unpacking after an overseas trip and W&P has kept me going through jet lag. Resolved to attempt to read it this year.....

Ooh just logged on to see if anyone else was listening. Have made it through most of the day. Tempted to go back again to try to read it - was a teenager last time I tried, with lots of notes of who is who to help me.

Has anyone been following the tweets?

I think that I preferred the previous version with Simon Russell Beale.