Picturegoer – May 21st 1955
“Pop” Tunes Make Bogarde Explode – and so does that disc-jockey label,
says Sarah Stoddart
Don’t call him a discjockey. Not if you don’t want to needle Dirk Bogarde about his latest job. He hates the word. And a lot more of the claptrap surrounding record programmes.
Why then did he agree to do a series of six weekly record shows in the Light Programme on Saturday nights? Why did he land himself in a minor storm by calling his show “I Play What I Like” and doing just that on the air?
For minor storm there certainly was. What, said show business folk after his first programme: No jazz records! An hour-long peak show with no “pop” songs. No slick wisecracks. No stunt records.
Taking over a seat vacated by slick wisecrack merchants Eamonn Andrews and Jack Jackson, Bogarde stuck his neck out and gave no line of patter between records. No gags. No capers. just plenty of the Bogarde charm.
One critic even rang up weeks before the first broadcast, when he read what type of records Bogarde intended to play, chided him for being unfair to his teenage followers and informed him that he intended to “slate” his show.
There was, in fact , no “slating” – a newspaper strike saw to that. But, anyway, Bogarde remained calm. It takes a lot to shake this slim, elegant actor once he’s decided on what he wants.
I spoke to Bogarde on The Naked Flame set at Elstree and he gave me the answer to some of those “whys.”
“Imagine an hour of nothing but popular hits for six weeks! It could get so boring.
“Remember that I’m now thirty-five. I grew up with the songs of the twenties and thirties. They knew how to write good tunes and lyrics in those days.
“‘Pop’ tunes of today are so defeatist. So despairing. A lot of people don’t happen to like them. I play for them. Also for people of my own age, those in hospital and those youngsters maybe lonely in their one-room lodgings.”
He chose records from his own collection – he has a selective library of five hundred discs. Most have nostalgic associations. Some are rare records sent by friends in Hollywood. Some he picked from second-hand stalls. All are brimful of tuneful memories.
There’s a recording by Jessie Matthews, his boyhood idol; echoes from past musicals; a cheeky song about “Lizzie Borden,” sent by Jean Simmons; a mambo sung by an Indian vocalist.
No, he’s not conducting a one-man crusade against jazz – it’s just that he does not happen to like it.
No, he’s not on the side of the classics – he couldn’t care less about them, he says.
Nostalgic? Sentimental? Bogarde admits to being both. And he doesn’t care who knows it. He dislikes messing around with a tune; be dislikes echo chambers, superimposed voices and all the other recording stunts.
After his first programme, he admits, he was nervous. Then the letters came in. Most were in favour. A few (anonymous) ticked him off.
But it’s all the same to Bogarde. He jumped on the turntable game for the love of it. And he’s not getting into a spin about what the “pop” boys think.
