TV blog Feed

Must-see telly moments – on BBC iPlayer now

2016-06-01T09:05:11+00:00

Seals, skips and more send to all texts – catch these brill moments until Friday, 10 June on BBC iPlayer.

This emotional tale of a lost seal pup that’s as gripping as any drama

See the dangers facing seals and other animals in rural Scotland – Highlands – Scotland’s Wild Heart, BBC One Scotland

The best use of the word ‘shod’ you’ll hear this week (probably)

See how Nina’s fitting in – Love, Nina, BBC One

Alex Jones’ sheer range of emotions as Michael McIntyre types her ‘send to all’ message

Find out who replied – Michael McIntyre’s Big Show, BBC One

Ross Noble imagines Prince Harry’s life – as told by horses

See what else was discussed under host Gary Lineker’s watch – Have I Got News For You, BBC One

Trying to explain technology to your boyfriend’s mum

Get to know the new addition to the family, Kelly – Mum, BBC Two

Matt Lucas playing a donkey is everything you’d hope it would be

See his take on Shakespeare – A Midsummer Night’s Dream, BBC One

And finally, more confetti than an English country wedding at Radio 1’s Big Weekend

Watch performance highlights from the massive music event – BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend

And if you want to see what Springwatch’s Chris Packham picks out on BBC iPlayer this week you can watch Frank Skinner On Demand With...

The Rack Pack: Did it score a maximum break?

2016-02-05T11:10:32+00:00

The Rack Pack is not just the first film ever to include a major emotional scene backed by Chas and Dave's Snooker Loopy (at least, we think it is), but it’s also the first ever comedy drama feature film to premiere on BBC iPlayer.

Unveiled on the evening of the Masters Final (and the iPlayer team offer their huge gratitude to Ronnie O’Sullivan for winning so quickly everyone could watch both), the film has generated a huge response on social media. It hasn’t just been the story that’s got people talking, either.

The people portrayed in the film seemed pleased with the results – even though one of them was depicted with a deeply unflattering haircut.

This external content is available at its source: Tweet from Steve Davis

This external content is available at its source: Tweet from Barry Hearn

Other snooker fans also enjoyed the pot-em-up (thank you, Charlie Brooker).

This external content is available at its source: Tweet by Charlie Brooker

It seems as if there hasn’t been a more compelling mix of laughter and drama around the green baize since Big Break was in its pomp.

This external content is available at its source: Tweet from Grace Dent

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One of the most popular aspects of The Rack Pack has been its fantastic soundtrack. We’re not sure there’s enough prog for Steve Davis’ liking, but the classic rock from The Who, Cream and Thin Lizzy (and yes, Chas and Dave) has proven a hit.

This external content is available at its source: https://twitter.com/RyanMason95/status/689357966005428224

This external content is available at its source: https://twitter.com/BlondieHorn/status/691015395524898820

We already have! You can check out the playlist at the BBC Music site.

Perhaps surprisingly, given it’s set in the era of cream suits and bri-nylon, the wardrobe has also attracted some attention...

This external content is available at its source: https://twitter.com/secondhanddress/status/692256235396186113

But films based on real people and real events can often prove to be divisive - and the same has been the case with The Rack Pack...

This external content is available at its source: https://twitter.com/t0melli0tt/status/693880387987193857

This external content is available at its source: https://twitter.com/LukeFCACTA/status/691693305143414784

The Rack Pack is available on BBC iPlayer until Monday, 16 January 2017. And if you can’t get enough of the eighties action, you can also look behind the scenes to see how the white hot atmosphere of the World Championships at the Crucible was recreated in a snooker hall in Llanelli.

The BBC 1Xtra Prom: How this rock music fan found herself converted to grime

2015-08-14T13:16:10+00:00

I wouldn’t say that my taste in music is narrow, but if you take a look at my playlists, finding a song without a guitar in it is as rare as finding a custard doughnut in a bag that advertised itself as jam only. I’ve always appreciated most genres of music, but for me, nothing is better than a loud, shouty, rock song.

This summer however, I’ve heard people talking about the BBC Proms more than ever before. My friends have been raving about the BBC Radio 1 and Frank Sinatra Proms in particular. So with a determination not to miss out AGAIN, I decided to expand my musical horizons and head to the Late Night With... BBC 1Xtra – because for me, a standard, classical music-based Prom just wasn’t an easy enough transition into another musical genre.

The Royal Albert Hall by night

The thought of watching the biggest names in grime, including Wretch 32, Stormzy and Lethal Bizzle perform with the Metropole Orkest in a venue that’s usually the home of classical music, was absolutely surreal.

On the night, myself and a couple of friends arrived at the Royal Albert Hall, armed with sandwiches and cups of tea, to join the queue and ensure we got one of the £5 ‘on the door’ Promming tickets. I soon realised I had completely misjudged the queuing atmosphere, when three Prom fans got in line next to us and proceeded to have a very posh picnic on the pavement. My cheese sandwich-eating friends and I were very jealous.

This external content is available at its source: A video of the length of the queue

After surviving the longest queue in London, we entered the Royal Albert Hall. The orchestra started playing almost immediately and the sound completely filled the venue. MistaJam from BBC Radio 1Xtra introduced the evening – and we were off!

What surprised me about the Prom was the variety of people there. As MistaJam said: “I don’t think the Royal Albert Hall has ever let so many tracksuits into the building!” – but I was standing next to a mature lady in a floor-length gown, who definitely had better dance moves than me (and knew all the words)!

The first highlight of the night for me had to be when Chip came on stage accompanied by Kano and Wretch 32: everyone in the venue got to their feet and the Royal Albert Hall may have seen its first ever attempt at crowd surfing!

My favourite bit of the evening though had to be the ‘dench’ Lethal Bizzle with Rari Workout – I’ll admit, I was dancing, and there wasn’t a guitar to be heard.

Wretch 32 closed the night with an incredible version of Traktor, a song which means a lot to me as it’s a throwback to my university days. All of the artists came back on stage to take a final bow, but the biggest cheer went to conductor Jules Buckley and the Metropole Orchestra, who throughout the evening were thoroughly embracing the spirit of grime – Jules was my favourite person to watch on stage all night!

Will I be listening to less loud shouty music in the future? Well, I think that if you find a music genre that resonates with you, you should embrace and love it – so the rock music is definitely here to stay! But I will be listening to MORE music – I’m going to put Krept & Konan and Lethal Bizzle in amongst my standard Foo Fighters and Muse – and my playlist will be the better for it.

The BBC 1Xtra Grime Symphony is available to watch in full in BBC iPlayer until Thursday, 10 September.

BBC Proms coverage continues tonight on Red Button. Full performances will be available in BBC iPlayer for 30 days after broadcast on TV. For full coverage details please see the BBC Proms website.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

Ace the Glastonbury experience from home: Here’s your AAA pass

2015-06-25T10:14:25+00:00

With or without the Foo Fighters (Dave Grohl – we salute you, but you didn’t have to take ‘break a leg’ literally), Glastonbury has ARRIVED!

If you missed out on buying a ticket this year, you may well be fed up of all those social media updates from your friends’ packing woes or smug out-of-office responses. But especially because you’ll have all the internet access you want at home (no trekking around trying to find a WiFi cow for you, my friend!), we’ve written this handy online guide to watching the best bits of Glastonbury - and you don’t even have to go near any mud! (But feel free to go and roll in some if you really want to get into the spirit of the weekend.)

1. Expect the Unexpected

From the controversy of Jay-Z headlining in 2008, to Dolly Parton’s amazing 2014 country music performance, Glastonbury has catered to many a musical taste over the years. Just make sure you know your Glass Animals from your Super Furry Animals, and Twin Atlantic from Lower Than Atlantis (an actual, genuine mistake on my part during the festival season last year) by looking at the line-up well in advance, and reading all the artist info you could ever need!

2. Build your own campsite in the living room

Avoid the hassle of finding a camping space and laying claim to your own patch of grass/mud by collecting together all the bedsheets in the house and recreating your favourite childhood den. Then revel in the A-list view of all six stages live-streamed throughout the weekend on the BBC Glastonbury website.

And if you accidentally miss your favourite artist because of the (non-existent) queue for your clean, dry, fresh-smelling bathroom, there’ll be 120 full sets for you to catch up on in BBC iPlayer.

We also recommend you take a photo of that lovely, never-ending toilet roll and send it to your poor portable loo-using festival-going friends. (Oh no, don’t worry, they won’t have signal.)

3. Take a look at the moments when music made history

So you might not have been there when Beyoncé wowed the Pyramid Stage audience in 2011 with her fierce performance, or when the crowd invaded the stage for The Smiths’ set in 1984, but that’s not to stop you from watching some classic Glasto performances straight from the archives.

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If you weren’t there swaying along with the crowd for Radiohead’s iconic 1997 headline set (maybe, like me, you were too young and were sent to bed when the EastEnders doof doofs came on TV), you can still watch *that* Karma Police moment and more.

4. Explore Glastonbury – avoid all the mud!

One of the best bits about Glastonbury is the magnificent Somerset countryside and Worthy Farm itself. Spend time relaxing and whiling away the hours by keeping an eye on a live feed of the campsites, the main stages, and the rolling hills in the background – without losing track of a single mate on the way!

This brings me to another very important life question that’s been keeping me awake at night – what exactly happens to Worthy Farm when everything gets cleared away? Founder and dairy farmer Michael Eavis has been revealing just that in a short-but-sweet BBC iPlayer Exclusive.

5. Soak in the atmosphere backstage - without soaking your feet in whatever it is that lurks on the ground

Want to see Imagine Dragons having a mud fight backstage? Or maybe a spontaneous collaboration between the magically-healed Dave Grohl and the amazing Lionel Ritchie? Well, if the latter of two actually happens (although wonderfully, the former definitely did!) the first place to catch it will be via @BBCGlasto on Twitter and Instagram, BBC iPlayer on Facebook and you can use the hashtag #BBCGlasto too.

This external content is available at its source: Imagine Dragons have a mud fight

With so many mind-blowing bands and artists to look forward to, we recommend you set your own smug out-of-office response: ‘Sorry, I’m watching Glastonbury. I’ll respond on Monday having lost none of my possessions, friends or dignity, but totally awestruck - and I haven’t missed a moment.’

The Glastonbury live streams begin Friday, 26 June.

Glasto coverage begins on Friday, 26 June at 7pm both on BBC Three and on The One Show on BBC One. Full sets from over 90 artists will be available in BBC iPlayer for 30 days after broadcast on TV. For full coverage details please see the BBC Glastonbury website.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

Eurovision 2015: Are you excited?! Here’s Scott Mills’ guide

2015-05-07T10:49:44+00:00

Eurovision is the most fun week of my year…
I just love being immersed in all things Eurovision. Every year when I get to the host city everyone there is happy, smiley and in a total Eurovision bubble. I usually find the night goes by really quickly! I never get bored of it, even though often I will have seen the show three times before it is live with all the rehearsals that take place.

…even the mornings are entertaining
Often I’ll be staying in the same hotel as some of the acts. Last year performers from Finland, Israel and Poland were all in my hotel. It was odd seeing them all glammed up on stage and then just having breakfast the next morning.

This year's UK entry: Electro Velvet with Still In Love With You

It’s kind of a big deal
I don’t think everyone necessarily ‘gets’ Eurovision. Certainly a lot of people in the UK think of Eurovision and think ‘dodgy songs’. That couldn’t be further from the truth though, Eurovision is a huge production and the host city spends millions on it.

My tip if you’re watching at home…
Watch the red button! It’s brilliant, they put the words up so that you can sing along with each act. It’s great because if you were just listening without the words you’d miss some of the amazing lyrics - last year I’m pretty sure there was a song about a moustache…

Twitter has made a massive difference while commentating as people really do tweet along as they watch, it’s almost as important as actually watching the show. For me it’s like having another few thousand eyes on each performance and the public are so observant and funny!

This external content is available at its source: Laura Whitmore and Scott Mills present last year's show

Regarding toilet breaks
Don’t take them! Or if you have to, go during the interval. Honestly, I am the biggest Eurovision fan so I don’t like to miss anything.

The votes take a while…
The counting can take ages. I’ve read the UK results four times and have always been given an 11am call time, even though the results aren’t until around 11pm. You can’t leave, even to nip to the shop, it’s some kind of Eurovision law! It’s pretty daunting reading the results knowing there are 195 million people watching you worldwide. It’s almost as scary as doing Strictly Come Dancing!

Conchita Wurst, who won Eurovision 2014, with Scott

My top reasons to love Eurovision

#1 A lot of the songs are written by top songwriters responsible for loads of current hits.

#2 The atmosphere is amazing because the fans are so excited to be there, which I totally understand as you have to be very lucky to get a ticket. Last year I knew of someone who headed out to Copenhagen and was over the moon to have tickets for the afternoon rehearsal of the semi-final!

#3 Before I was involved in Eurovision I actually got tickets to some of the host countries as a fan, and it was so much fun. Often the contest is held in lesser-known places in terms of travel destinations and they are wonderful places to visit – I thought Belgrade was amazing. It was my first-ever Eurovision experience. I was there for the weekend, the weather was really hot, there were Eurovision parties, and I thought - I would love to work on this!

#4 Aside from sports broadcasts, it is one of the most watched TV events in the world.

Scott Mills co-hosts the Eurovision Semi-Finals 2015 with Mel Giedroyc on Tuesday 19 and Thursday 21 May at 8pm on BBC Three. The final is on Saturday, 23 May from 9pm on BBC One.

Tweet @bbceurovision or comment on facebook.com/bbceurovision during the semi-final for the chance to have your message read out by Scott and Mel. If you're having a Eurovision party, you can also download scorecards, sweepstake trackers and posters.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

That Day We Sang: It began in my bedsit

2014-12-23T08:45:41+00:00

In 1975, when I was 22 and on the dole in a bedsit (happy days!), I saw a documentary about the Manchester Children’s Choir who made a record of Nymphs and Shepherds in 1929. The programme featured a reunion of former choir members, now middle-aged, talking about that wonderful day when they had sung with the Hallé orchestra.

The Manchester Children's Choir performance reimagined for That Day We Sang

When I was approached by the Manchester International Festival about writing a stage piece for them, the story of that choir came into my head as a possible basis for a play.

As I started to write, the memory of that 1975 documentary grew a little stronger and the play became a musical about the reunion, and the memories of the middle-aged people whose lives had perhaps not matched up to that marvellous day.

The musical I created, That Day We Sang, had 10 performances as part of the 2011 festival at the Opera House in Manchester, but I wanted it to have a further life, and I was really lucky to be supported in that wish by Ben Stephenson at the BBC, who commissioned it as a 90-minute film.

Most people know musicals are not written, they are re-written, and it was great to have a second chance at exploring the story. I was able to write another number for my main female character Enid - which takes place in an exercise class, in her bedroom, on a bus and along a street - something which would have been hard to pull off on the stage.

Scared of life, scared of sheep, scared of thunder: Enid reflects on her timid life

And I was able to weave in extra elements of the story, for example, I expanded the character of Mr Kirkby. He is the gruff religious choir organiser, wounded in the First World War, and he develops a friendship with our boy hero Jimmy. It’s an undemonstrative relationship, but brought to life by Daniel Rigby it’s a very touching performance.

At first it’s very liberating to take something from stage to film - you can cut so easily between the two periods, the 20s and the 60s, and you can nip about from place to place without all the scene changing and prop setting of the theatre.

And then you are faced with the cold hard facts of the budget and the constraints of filming anything that is not contemporary. My story is set in Piccadilly Gardens in Manchester - in the 60s this was an ornamental gardens with flowers and shrubs and benches for office workers to have their lunch.

Now it is unrecognisable and not somewhere you would rush to have your butties.

The perfect civic space for Tubby and Enid's Fred and Ginger sequence

The children of the 1929 choir made their record in the Free Trade Hall. That hall was bombed in the Manchester Blitz and even the post-war rebuilt version has now gone, replaced by a hotel. Terraced streets tend to have replacement windows and satellite dishes now, and most streets are lined with parked cars.

But somehow, with the help of the producer Paul Frift and the imagination of the designer Tom Burton - you come up with solutions that will enhance the story without breaking the bank.

We found a lovely square in Liverpool that housed not only a perfect office for Enid to work in and a bit of pavement for Tubby to walk by on, but a cobbled area where they could meet for lunch and even sing and dance.

Tubby (Michael Ball) and Enid (Imelda Staunton) do a turn

We wanted Michael and Imelda to sing live wherever possible, and so Liverpool office workers on their own lunch breaks were treated to the sight of Michael Ball up a ladder serenading someone they couldn’t see, to an orchestral accompaniment that only Michael could hear.

But it’s a great way to record vocals if you can manage it - it gives a spontaneity and freshness and reality you don’t get when actors are lip-syncing to something they recorded weeks before.

The whole thing was a great privilege to work on and I really hope people enjoy it!

Victoria Wood is the writer and director of That Day We Sang.

That Day We Sang is available to watch in BBC iPlayer until Saturday, 19 September 2015 at 10.30pm.

It was first broadcast on BBC Two on Friday, 26 December 2015.

More on That Day We Sang
Life of Wylie: Q&A with Victoria Wood, Imelda Staunton and Michael Ball

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

Peaky Blinders: Filming with a PJ Harvey trilogy

2014-11-04T16:35:45+00:00

One of the things that I liked very much about the first series of Peaky Blinders was the use of atmospheric contemporary music within the palette of the soundtrack. This was something that I was keen to develop and refine as part of my approach to directing series two. I loved the use of Nick Cave's songs and along with show creator Steven Knight and the music producers, we all discussed that the track Red Right Hand was part of the brand and we decided to keep this. We use it playfully throughout the series with several other versions and different contexts changing its meaning and feel.

Listen to Flood’s remix of Red Right Hand by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

One thing that changed this year around the overall tone of the show was Steve's notion that the first series was opium and this second series was cocaine. I took this mostly to represent the hunger and ambition of Tommy Shelby as well as the loosening grip on reality and emotional peaks and troughs of the other characters. Therefore I wanted this year to have a different voice within the music and to blend the original tracks into the score in a way that would make the music more cohesive in its voice.

My fantasy from fairly early on was both to use music by PJ Harvey within the source tracks, and to find a way to collaborate with her. Cillian Murphy, who plays Tommy Shelby, is great friends with Flood, the producer who has worked with Polly Harvey (as well as Nick Cave) and we began to talk about whether there might be a way for this to work. We needed someone else in the process who could create an original score from Polly’s music and Flood suggested Paul Hartnoll (formerly of Orbital) as a final collaborator in the process.

The creation of music for the show began with When Under Ether by PJ Harvey.

An exclusive extract from the score featuring PJ Harvey’s To Bring You My Love and When Under Ether

I knew that I wanted to use this for Tommy's epic recovery canal boat journey in episode two from early on. In the first series violence was often handled in a way that was heavily stylised - using slow motion photography and blissed out white noise soundtrack.

Stylised violence in series one: Inspector Campbell (Sam Neill) raids the Peaky Blinders’ territory

I wanted the violence to feel overly vivid and intense. Somehow I wanted the violent acts to have larger consequence and danger for our central characters. At the end of episode one, I wanted the audience to feel that Tommy might actually die for real. I tried to achieve this through use of overly long held takes, hand held cameras getting into and becoming involved in the action and small shutter angle (also known as a skinny shutter) creating sharper, more vivid images for these moments.

Italian crime boss Sabini ambushes Tommy (Cillian Murphy) at the end of episode one

I also knew that When Under Ether contained the emotional tone that I wanted certain aspects of the story to be saturated in. Flood deconstructed the track from the multi-tracks and Paul composed around and from that in a way that was sympathetic to Polly’s original, supportive of the drama and content of the scenes, and emotionally moving in a direct manner.

Down By The Water: Listen to an exclusive Peaky Blinders version of PJ Harvey's 1995 hit

In the end Paul's score is very much his music, but the process to get there means that it belongs absolutely to the same world as Polly’s compositions that make up the heart of our world: When Under Ether, Down By The Water, To Bring You My Love being the central trilogy (though we have used many other tracks of hers through the show).

Colm McCarthy is the director of series two of Peaky Blinders.

Peaky Blinders continues on Thursday, 6 November at 9pm on BBC Two and BBC Two HD. For further programme times please see the episode guide.

More on The Peaky Blinders
BBC Production: Listen to an extended interview with Colm McCarthy
BBC Production: Listen to an extended interview with Steven Knight
BBC Radio 6 Music: Cillian Murphy and Flood speak to Lauren Laverne

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

Never Mind The Buzzcocks: Meet new host Rhod Gilbert

2014-10-06T15:03:32+00:00

What do you think you’re going to do that’s different to the two permanent hosts on Never Mind The Buzzcocks before you?
All I can do is be myself and not let it keep me awake at night even though inevitably, it keeps me awake at night. I think my way is pretty sarcastic, dry, argumentative, competitive, bossy, piss-taking but ultimately inclusive, and I think that’s why they’ve asked me to do it.

I’ve made a couple of suggestions and most changes have been taken on board. One of them is I don’t like it when I see people on the show just there to be just ridiculed. So everybody there is now there on merit. Everything’s subjective but they’ve got something to say or they’ve done something. So that, I think, is a change for the better.

Rhod Gilbert and the teams play the potato lattice game

Also talking to the guys in the identity parade, it’s always felt a bit weird to me that they come out, get the piss taken out of them, and they sort of go off, they don’t even get to speak, they don’t even get a voice. It feels to me a bit objectified so I asked can I talk to them, can they say what they’re doing and stuff? I think in the show we did the other day that proved itself, because Wayne [Wonder] came out with the funniest line in the whole show: He sells more yams than records!

What were you dreading about the show?
I wasn’t dreading anything. The only worry is a big worry, it’s a huge show to take over. It’s been going for 18 years, 28 series. Previous hosts are almost on a pedestal through rose-tinted glasses and if you don’t live up to that... that is a huge, terrifying prospect. It’s that this could be the thing where it all hinges, where if you fail at this, all the rest goes out the window. You’ll just be known as the person who bloody ruined Never Mind The Buzzcocks. That’s a huge fear but you’ve got to take risks and you’ve got to push yourself. But I think the show’s right for me, it suits what I do, and hopefully it will be really good fun and some people like it.

What’s it like filming the show? Do you prepare with Noel and Phill? The guests don't know what the questions will be, do they?
No. Which is why I like it. I like having fun in the moment. I have an autocue script just to punctuate the show with good gags, we come up with five descriptions for the people in the line-up, but broadly I think Noel and Phill have a quick chat in the day. I met them the other day for five minutes, we had a quick hug, a quick catch up and we were on set.

Noel Fielding shares his feelings about time with Rhod

So what’s the hardest thing about being the host?
The context is it’s swelteringly hot, you’ve been up there for two hours, you’re exhausted, you’re trying to listen to six people talking you’ve also got somebody in your ear talking, you’ve also got an autocue in front of you, you’ve also got cards down with you with other information, so you’re trying to multitask and juggle all these things, and try and be funny. It’s a much bigger role than being on the panel. Nobody else on the panel has got cards in front of them thinking ‘Oh what’s next?’ Juggling all those things, you really have a lot going on in your head.

Would you be any good at guessing the intro round if you didn’t have the answers?
I don’t think I would be especially great, I don’t think I would be bad. It’s hard because I’ve got the answers – and as soon as you hear the music you think, ‘Of course that’s the answer!’ and you kick yourself, but that’s the joy of the game. That’s one of the things I like about Buzzcocks, it’s a quiz, it’s a nerdy quiz, and trying to keep it as that is one of the things I’d like to do with it - go back to the music. The quick fire rounds I’ve enjoyed watching the most are the ones where Mark Lamarr just did it as next lines. I think Buzzcocks at heart needs to stay a music quiz so you can play along at home.

What’s your dream line up?
Lead Belly, Noel Gallagher, Eddie Izzard and I’d like to champion some friends from the comedy circuit I’ve known through the years. People like Paul Foot, see if I can get them back.

Rhod Gilbert is the host of Never Mind The Buzzcocks.

Never Mind The Buzzcocks continues on Monday, 6 October at 10pm on BBC Two and BBC Two HD. For further programme times please see the episode guide.

More on Never Mind The Buzzcocks
Metro: Rhod Gilbert gets warm reception as new Never Mind The Buzzcocks host
The Mirror: Never Mind The Buzzcocks: Watch Peace frontman Harrison Koisser get grilled by Rhod Gilbert

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

Match Of The Day At 50: My iconic theme even has a banjo

2014-08-22T09:57:29+00:00

Match Of The Day celebrates its 50th anniversary on Friday, 22 August 2014. A special documentary, Match Of The Day At 50, looks back on the last five decades, and includes the first ever TV interview with the man who composed the iconic theme tune.

I am a composer and musician and I composed the music for the BBC’s football programme, Match Of The Day.

Barry's tune is synonymous with Match Of The Day - but it wasn't the programme's first theme

It all began because of my cousin Shirley in the summer of 1970.

I was 29 years old when she introduced me to Sam Leitch, the new editor on Match Of The Day.

Sam told me that the programme was going to get a facelift and needed new music too.

He suggested I ‘do’ something for submission. I eagerly jumped at the opportunity and asked if there was a brief.

Sam looked at me with that Sam Leitch twinkle in his eye and replied simply, “Something good, Barry.”

I felt like I had just been asked to find the Holy Grail.

It had to be a melodic tune, something very simple and easy to remember.

It had to be lively with a good rhythm and make one want to tap one’s foot to it.

It had to be able to stir one’s feelings, make one feel happy, and most importantly it had to sound fresh every time one heard it played, so that one would know instantly, that’s Match Of The Day.

It was a formidable task. I started working on the demo.

Sometimes a musical idea would pop into my head and at other times I got inspiration by playing my guitar.

Strangely enough, the first thing that popped into my head was the short fanfare at the end of the piece.

Those fanfare harmonies give the music a gladiator feel, akin to entering the ancient games arena in Rome with all its expectations.

I scored the arrangement to include trumpets and used an electronic keyboard called a clavioline for the string sounds.

Then I prepared to record the demo.

I called in my friend, Stuart Vincent, who was a drummer and he played the drums and tambourine.

I played the bass, rhythm and lead guitar, banjo and clavioline.

Finally, I brought in a trumpeter and he played all the trumpet parts I needed.

It was all recorded on my multi-track recorder and then mixed down to a mono master demo.

Of course, I didn’t have all the sophisticated equipment of today, but it achieved the result I was looking for.

Over the years, the tune has been played at weddings, funerals, school assemblies, sung as a hymn, and used in TV comedy shows.

But for me, the memory of the original theme produced in my basement recording studio all those years ago will remain with me forever.

Barry Stoller composed the theme tune to Match Of The Day.
Match Of The Day At 50 is on Friday, 22 August at 10.35pm on BBC One and BBC One HD. For further programmes times please see the upcoming broadcasts page.

More on Match Of The Day At 50
BBC Sport: Match Of The Day At 50: Presenters through the years
BBC Sport: Match Of The Day: 50 years of broadcasting celebration
BBC Sport: Match Of The Day At 50: The commentators
BBC Sport: Barry Davies returns to Match Of The Day commentary box
BBC News: Match Of The Day tops TV theme music league
BBC Ariel: Editor on working for Match Of The Day
Daily Mail: Golden Years: Match Of The Day at 50 in pictures
The Telegraph: John Motson on 50 years of Match Of The Day
The Guardian: Match Of The Day's funniest moments
About the BBC blog: Match Of The Day at 50: A reflection by Barry Davies

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

The Big Melt - How Steel Made Us Hard

2014-01-23T09:43:29+00:00

Jarvis Cocker and I have been firm friends for about 25 years, since studying filmmaking together at St. Martin’s School of Art.

In April 2013 he called and invited me to get involved in making a film he’d been asked to provide music for.

He told me it was based around an amazing collection of BFI archive that focused on steelmaking and the uses of steel.

A rhythmic reimagining of archive footage showing how we use steel in everyday life

After seeing some of the material for myself and ensuring that the producers and financiers were very ready to support a bold approach, it became an easy decision to sign up to what would become The Big Melt - How Steel Made Us Hard.

At first I came on board as director and then later, when we understood how nuanced our approach was to be, also as editor since we realised it would be impractical to include a third person in our immediate work process.

For the next few weeks, on and off, Jarvis and I immersed ourselves in several days’ worth of footage.

We depended upon our deep trust of one another and an existing shorthand for communication that we have developed through working together closely many times over the years.

It’s safe to say, I could not have worked in this way with anyone else and I believe the film we have made together is, because of this, unique.

Setting the scene: Steel changed the whole nation but it was rooted in a particular landscape

We worked in ‘chunks’, grouping film footage in various ways: sometimes by explicit subject, (there was lots of footage of turn-of-the-century workers emerging from factory gates); sometimes by visual texture (contrasty shots of steel lattice work); and sometimes by more latent connotations footage had (lots of material featured young people and this instinctively felt important).

Simultaneously, we gathered recorded music that we felt was appropriate in different ways.

For example, the music from Kes seemed to chime with the footage of the Rotherham youth putting two fingers up to the camera.

Some music was chosen because of its links with Sheffield: the live music premiere of the film was to open Sheffield Doc Fest 2013, which was also celebrating 100 years of stainless steel making (Richard Hawley and The Human League).

Other times it was simply that music seemed to have a certain mood that fitted our intention: the Max de Wardener track had a manic, ritualistic feel that helped with the idea of people gathering for strange ceremony.

Finding new meaning in steelworkers’ concentration and focus

At another level, the music was always aiming to have an eclectic, celebratory function.

Once we had these various chunks, we began to try and fit them together in such a way as to build something that both developed and made some formal sense.

A big guiding factor here was the live performance of the music with the film – we wanted to give the audience an experience that had various gear changes and eventually built to a massive crescendo and then a decaying coda.

We also worked and reworked the internal details of the chunks in order to develop motifs that worked across the film and helped develop something of a subtext to the basic action.

The Crucible Theatre (where the premier took place) has a deep, horseshoe stage.

With 52 musicians coming and going in the half-light, even a 10 metre screen (the biggest that would fit within the proscenium) meant that the film played second fiddle to the music that night.

But that was how it was always meant to be. That’s what led us into such interesting territory.

Of course we also wanted the film to eventually be able to stand on its own feet and hold an audience for over 70 minutes - no mean feat for a non-narrative piece.

Ultimately, I felt the best way to achieve this was to take a playful approach with the archive material, an approach that 'unshackled' the archive from its typical function of illustrating history literally.

Captivating images from the archive move away from social history to take on a new poignancy

I wanted to use it so as to trigger lots of associations between the various clips, so that the viewer helped give it new meanings.

In my head, I approached the editing with the idea that I was building something of an alternative history, one that perhaps had echoes of some kind of extraterrestrial conspiracy theory; a twisted time-capsule for future generations.

At the same time, though, I wanted to retain what I saw as the deeper, 'emotional' truth about how steel production changed the world and affected deeply the people who had toiled to make this possible.

I don’t know if Jarvis was nervous on stage the night of June 12th when we performed, but I do know that as the lights dimmed and I looked on from the mixing desk, pushing the play button on the film, I certainly was.

Now that we've fixed the film and the live music in time - I hope some of that tingling excitement can still be felt.

Martin Wallace directed and edited The Big Melt - How Steel Made Us Hard.

The Big Melt - How Steel Made Us Hard is part of Storyville on BBC Four at 9pm on Sunday, 26 January.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

Blues America: History come to life

2013-11-28T16:04:55+00:00

The birth of the blues, for me, was when I heard an LP called The Best of Muddy Waters when I was 17. I’d never heard music so strange and beautiful.

So the chance to produce and direct Blues America, a two part history of the blues for BBC Four, felt like a gift.

It meant travelling to New York, Chicago and the Mississippi Delta to interview a host of musicians, including James Cotton, who was part of that great Muddy Waters band, and Keith Richards, who drawled “This one I had to do.”

'We just thought more people should hear the blues' - Keith Richards (right) with Mick Gold

Questioning heroes from your adolescence can be daunting. For some obscure reason, I was convinced that Keith would be good.

He was. Charming, smart and funny, he enthusiastically brought to life the music and musicians he loved the most.

Episode one, Woke Up This Morning, looks at that elusive moment when the blues first took shape at the start of the 20th century.

But there were a few headaches. There was no archive footage of many of the major figures, a staple of this sort of documentary.

Some early giants of the blues, such as Charley Patton, are known only by a single photograph. The chance to talk to people who knew these musicians passed away years ago.

How to bring their stories and their music to life? One answer had to be – find musicians today who can embody early blues music, talk about it and play it for us.

We were fortunate to find The Ebony Hillbillies, who are recreating the music you would have heard if you could time travel to a country dance in Mississippi around 1903.

We also filmed Blind Boy Paxton, a young man of 23 who grew up in central Los Angeles.

But when you meet him, it’s like talking to a country boy who’s walked out of some small town in Louisiana around 1936, clutching his guitar.

He talks with a soft Southern drawl, and can play beautiful renditions of Blind Lemon Jefferson, Charley Patton and Robert Johnson.

Me And The Devil Blues: Blind Boy Paxton performs a song closely associated with Robert Johnson

When I interviewed Paxton, he could talk about these early blues men as if he had left them a few minutes earlier. Blind Lemon Jefferson?

“He was a doozy! I don't know about ragged, he wore some of the wildest suits you ever seen.” Finally I asked him about Jimi Hendrix.

“Who?” asked Paxton. I began to explain: Hendrix was an American guitarist who came to London and made some records.

“Never heard of him,” said Blind Boy Paxton flatly.

There was a sly smile hovering around the corner of his mouth, but his ability to stay in character as a pre-war country blues musician was impressive.

One misconception we wanted to clear up is to show the history of the blues is much more than the story of lonesome men playing guitars.

The blues hit America as a pop music craze, and when the blues took off in the 1920s, the early stars were women: Ma Rainey, Ida Cox, and, greatest of them all, Bessie Smith.

A few precious minutes of film of Bessie survive. To augment this, assistant producer Tom Woolfenden contacted Miche Braden, who had created a stage show based round Bessie's life.

Miche could belt out Give Me A Pigfoot (And A Bottle Of Beer) while explaining the tribulations of segregated America which Bessie surmounted in her music.

Miche Braden sings and talks about the Harlem high life made memorable by Bessie’s song

Archive producer Jeannie Clark did clever deals to source hitherto unseen footage of Southern life, cotton plantations and Chicago clubs, talking to film collectors late into the night across transatlantic time zones.

Of course in episode two, Bright Lights, Big City, which runs from Chess Records in post-war Chicago to the present day, more archive footage was available and more interviewees gave us their stories to explain how key people shaped the history of blues music.

'Muddy Waters was their first real star' Marshall Chess on the beginnings of Chess Records in 1950

Marshall Chess remembered his dad, Leonard Chess, founder of iconic blues label Chess Records, telling him why he bought a club in a black neighbourhood of Chicago.

"We didn’t have any money and it was the cheapest rent. So he bought a club, it was successful... And this is where he really got his first taste of recorded music. People came in to record one of his jazz artists, and he realised that another way black people were spending money was on records."

In the States, we had four weeks to film every interview and location sequence for two 60 minute films.

Each time we filmed a blues interview, we asked our artists to give us a song.

When we filmed a funky juke joint for episode one, the Blue Front Café in the tiny town of Bentonia in Yazoo County, Mississippi, co-producer and cameraman Sam Bridger went ducking and diving with his camera floating through the dancers as a local band belted out Dust My Broom.

Sam Bridger films Roosevelt Roberts on bass guitar

It was history come to life. In the 1960s, every blues band in the Thames Delta – from The Yardbirds to Fleetwood Mac – cranked out this number made famous by Elmore James.

But it was first recorded by local Mississippi musician Robert Johnson in 1936.

The owner of the Blue Front café, Jimmy "Duck" Holmes, gave us first hand testimony of running a juke joint in the Deep South.

And when asked to explain the outlook of the blues, he gave an eloquent shrug and delivered my favourite definition of this marvellous music.

"Life," he said. "Blues is life."

Mick Gold directed and produced Blues America.

Blues America is on Friday, 29 November at 9pm on BBC Four. For further programme times please see the episode guide.

BBC Four: Collections: Blues: A selection of programmes from the BBC archives featuring influential blues musicians, including B.B. King, Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson and more.
BBC News: On the trail of the blues: A BBC Four documentary about Big Bill Broonzy

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

Legacy: The score would have to deliver

2013-11-27T09:59:29+00:00

When I found out I'd got the job to write the music for Legacy I was very excited – but also quite sick with fear.

I'd worked with the director Pete Travis before on Endgame so I was aware of both his razor sharp instincts and his high expectations. The score would have to deliver.

With 60 minutes of music to write in four weeks, it was definitely going to set my hair on fire.

This isn't that unusual for a TV schedule but the amount of music and its prominence in the show made it seem an intimidating task.

Old friends reunited: Viktor Koslov (Andrew Scott) and Charles Thoroughgood (Charlie Cox)

Legacy is a 70s spy film so it instantly appealed to me because it's such a cool genre and there are many great soundtrack references from the time to draw on.

What makes it unique though is the story of betrayal, which begins when Charles discovers a devastating secret about his father. This became the source of inspiration for the music.

Pete and Stuart Gazzard (the editor) had created sequences of just pictures and music, to capture the pivotal emotional moments for Charles.

They had found some inspiring but daunting steers for the tone of the music.

To avoid panic I had to park the film for a while and just think about the story – about how obsessive and tormented Charles becomes.

A driving repetitive Russian piano tune came to me and almost drove me mad.

I thought this might work against the sequence of Charles searching through his dad's room.

I added a string section playing emotional chords and jagged rhythms on top to give the piece a yearning but also aggressive feeling.

Charles searches through his father's study in the family home looking for answers

The Gibson electric guitar became the signature sound for Charles, and the guitarist was able to give it a soulful and masculine quality.

The score gets quite epic at times to reflect Charles' inner feelings. The music also had to sustain the tension and capture the feel of the period.

Pete was after an East meets West modern day Ipcress File sound.

The harp gives a quintessentially English feel while the cimbalom reminds us of Eastern Europe and spy thrillers of the day.

The process of writing was fast and furious. Pete pretty much camped in my studio while I sweated over the notes.

He doesn't mince his words which is exactly what you need when the pressure is on.

If an idea didn't hit the mark I'd have a day to turn it around before presenting again.

It was intense but very collaborative and mostly fun – a fair share of laughter went on (more than the tears!)

Some ideas were instant hits while others were instantly binned.

Luckily he loved my main theme with the obsessive piano, but when I tried using a version of the same theme in the opening training day sequence it didn't work as well.

"It sounds like goblins dancing in an Edward Scissorhands movie," came the voice from behind my chair.

Early experiments using a vintage Russian synth were also scrapped: "it sounds like a pigeon trapped in a bin," proclaimed its death knell.

The "woodpecker in a coffin" (from the opening scene) survived though.

Opening titles: Charles meets a woman with a message (Romola Garai)

My tea making skills didn't help matters but once I'd got a stash of Yorkshire on the brew Pete was happier and things began to look up.

The score started coming together as we looked at where and how the different themes could go and argued over instrumentation.

'I'm bored of harp, stick it on the piano... no guitar... where have the strings gone... arghggh not that tune again!'

Then off to Air Studios to record the notes, mix the finished tracks and pass out... hair slightly singed.

Ruth Barrett is the composer for Legacy.

Legacy is on Thursday, 28 November at 9pm on BBC Two and BBC Two HD.

More on Legacy
BBC Media Centre: Interviews with the cast
BBC News: Romola Garai on Legacy and lads' mags

BBC Two: The Cold War Season

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

Elvis Costello: Mystery Dance

2013-11-07T14:49:56+00:00

Making films about major artists and musicians is all about access: not just having enough quality time with them but also a matter of them being prepared to open up the family album, search the attic or spend a little time looking through forgotten boxes of memorabilia.

Elvis Costello was particularly keen to help in the BBC Four documentary I directed, Elvis Costello: Mystery Dance.

Pump It Up: The thrill of Elvis Costello's arrival on the punk scene

His father Ross McManus sadly passed away during the time we were preparing the production and this led to him discovering a great deal of material he hadn’t seen before.

Not least some very evocative photographs of his dad playing the trumpet in bebop jazz groups that he led in Liverpool and Birkenhead in the late 1940s and early 50s, as well as scrapbooks full of gig flyers and programme notes that Elvis was happy to share with us.

Elvis had also recently found a show-stopping piece of film of his father with the Joe Loss Orchestra, the leading British dance band of the 1950s and 60s.

Elvis first showed it to me in a New York restaurant. I had seen footage of Ross on YouTube, in black and white, but this was in screaming colour: Elvis’s dad was dancing away to a cover of the early 60s hit If Had A Hammer.

Ross McManus was a versatile performer who had a talent for singing

Moments like that are unforgettable – when you come across a piece of archive that you know is going to provide a film with one of its highs.

Later, Elvis' archivist, who looks after the Elvis archive and official website, produced some footage of Elvis and the Attractions on tour in 1978.

Four young musicians clearly on the rampage, taunting the audience in classic punk fashion and driven by the energy of a band who know they are making it big in the USA.

Material like this tells a story in a way that words cannot, and we were lucky that it came our way.

Telling the story of a person’s life requires the best archive possible – and with Elvis Costello, we were more than well served.

Not least as he engaged so unreservedly with making the best documentary possible.

Mark Kidel is the director of Elvis Costello: Mystery Dance.

Elvis Costello: Mystery Dance is a documentary with two versions. The 60 minute version is on Friday, 8 November at 9pm and the feature-length version is on Saturday, 9 November at 11.45pm, both on BBC Four. For further programme times please see the upcoming broadcasts page.

More on Elvis Costello: Mystery Dance
BBC Four: Interview with Mark Kidel
Huffington Post: Elvis Costello: Making the First-Ever Documentary Portrait
The Arts Desk: Mystery Dance: On filming Elvis Costello

More on Elvis Costello
BBC Radio 6 Music: The First Time With... Matt Everitt speaks to Elvis Costello
BBC Glastonbury 2013: Elvis Costello Glastonbury highlights
BBC Radio 4: Desert Island Discs: Castaway Archive: Elvis Costello

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

The Great Hip Hop Hoax: Lies about the lies

2013-10-21T14:06:40+00:00

I first read about the audacious deception in The Great Hip Hip Hoax that rap duo Silibil 'N Brains undertook in a newspaper article way back in 2008.

Why would they be convinced that lying about their whole identities and pretending to be Californian was the only way to make it in music? What was the effect on them as people, did it mess with their heads?

I’m never quite sure where the next story is going to come from and I had that tiny moment of “yeah, this could be a film.”

A harrowing open audition for a young Scottish rap trio set the wheels in motion

It took about five years from start to finish, I realise that sounds like a long time but it’s not unusual in filmmaking.

I met with Gavin Bain (Brains) four days after his story came out in a newspaper and I started filming him immediately.

I did keep asking myself – “Is this just a massive hoax?” As soon as I started seeing evidence like backstage passes from Sony, CDs, and speaking to people who were taken in I knew it was real.

There was a lot of interest in Gav’s story and we had to wait for a while to get hold of his documentary rights.

My producer Al Morrow from Met Film and I decided to put the project on hold and I made another film in the meantime, Sound It Out.

It was worth waiting until I was able to tell the story from both men’s perspective.

This is a story about their relationship, their different versions of the truth and navigating the path in between the “lies about the lies about the lies.”

A regular interview question was "How much have you been lying to me?" And they did lie to me, both of them at times.

Billy Boyd (Silibil) basking in the golden glow of fame

The quest for truth also governed the way the film looks – we put the cameras close to capture the micro-expressions inherent in lying and bounced gold light off all the interviewees faces to give a sense of the allure of fame, tantalisingly close, yet out of reach.

I also filmed Gavin in the back of a cab as he recalled seedy London tales and in a light installation by Bruce Munro to give a very particular look.

Gavin Bain (Brains) under the bright lights of Bruce Munro's installation

Gavin and Billy Boyd (Silibil) were not speaking at the time of making the film so I filmed them separately throughout. Scenes were shot to be edited together later on – like the end credits.

Other images of wind turbines and moody clouds were things that we always saw when filming in Scotland, they offered a very different atmosphere to the frenzy of London.

When I first met Billy, I immediately thought – 'you’re just like a Jon Burgerman drawing come to life, let’s animate some of the story.' It was as instant as that to be honest.

Part of the decision was pragmatic because it’s a story that happened in the past and I wanted to bring to life some of the humour, their antics and to heighten that.

It also reflects the two-dimensional cartoon characters they created for themselves.

Each scene was cut to an edited interview, storyboarded and then refined back and forth between designer Jon Burgerman in Brooklyn, animators Will Anderson and Ainslie Henderson in Edinburgh, and me and my editor Jim Scott in Nottingham.

An animation storyboard: Billy gatecrashes the Brit Awards and meets Daniel Bedingfield

There was much tweaking of eyebrows and small details.

Billy and Gavin filmed themselves extensively in their Silibil 'N Brains personas and the archive enabled me to show rather than just tell elements of the story.

I felt that the audience needed to see them on stage, you need to see them rifling through D12’s dressing room or lying to Sony. Seeing them lying on tape was really exciting.

Billy and Gavin were estranged throughout production, like a couple that had gone through a terrible divorce.

They both saw the finished film last November and realised that they had told me things they should have told said to each other.

Gavin and Billy reunited at the Edinburgh Film Festival screening of the documentary in June 2013

In February this year I saw a mysterious Instagram of the two of them in a recording studio together and in March they came to America for the first time for the world premiere at SXSW.

They played live at the film party and it was like the archive had come to life! They are now recording and performing together again as Silibil 'N Brains. This time as Scottish rappers.

Jeanie Finlay is the director of The Great Hip Hop Hoax. Follow Jeanie Finlay on Twitter.

The Great Hip Hop Hoax is part of Storyville on BBC Four at 10pm on Wednesday, 23 October.

Jeanie Finlay will be responding to questions online in a live Q&A immediately after broadcast at 11.30pm.

More on The Great Hip Hop Hoax
BBC Four: Storyville: Animating The Great Hip Hop Hoax
BBC News: The great hip hop hoax - How the 'rapping Proclaimers' lived a lie
The Telegraph: The Great Hip-Hop Hoax director: 'they created these characters that they despised and hated'

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.

Fazer's Urban Takeover

2013-09-16T09:01:45+00:00

Fazer’s Urban Takeover is a two-part documentary which follows me on a journey to bring together seven talented young musicians who have no history or interest in classical music.

It’s for me and a team of others, including conductor Jules Buckley, to convert their outlook on the genre and give them an opportunity of a lifetime to play at the world renowned Royal Albert Hall alongside the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

Fazer meets young and talented musicians who have no interest in classical music

As a writer and producer I've always wanted to branch out in the future to doing scores for movies, so I have an interest in the genre of classical.

This project gave me the experience of the scale of working with a full orchestra and real people rather than a computer programme in the studio, LOL!

To find the young talent I had to run auditions, which was a bit out of my comfort zone. It wasn't something I was used to doing and the most challenging part was narrowing the numbers down to just seven individuals because there was a lot of talent that came down to audition on the day.

The final seven I chose got to compose a music track with me and the BBC Symphony Orchestra for the BBC Urban Classic Prom.

Shevelle, Sin Seer, Curtis, Sam, Samara, Benji and Vic made up the group, and called themselves 7 Chapters. I chose them because they are all really talented musicians but were also the ones furthest away from the classical world.

Having a film crew around while you’re trying to write lyrics for the final piece is proper uncomfortable.

The young musicians meet members of the BBC Symphony Orchestra

Knowing that you’re being watched while you’re brainstorming is the worst because your very first ideas may not necessarily be the ones that stay in!! Very unflattering, LOL!

Although the musicians were very talented in their own ways, they all had their own things to deal with, from confidence issues to more personal issues.

At times that made me worry if we were going to be able to pull off the show on the night and deliver - or even make it to the event to actually perform!

My most memorable moment during filming the documentary was when the musicians and I finally came off stage at the Albert Hall gig, when I met their friends and families. The atmosphere and the gratitude from all of them was overwhelming!!!

I once asked a teacher at school what they enjoyed most about their job.

They said to me, when a student passes their exams and says to me, "Thank you for helping me because without you it never would have been possible." I have a very similar feeling, amazed and proud.

Fazer is a rapper, musician and producer and presents Fazer's Urban Takeover.

Fazer's Urban Takeover is on Monday, 16 September at 9pm on BBC Three. For further programme times, please see the episode guide.

Comments made by writers on the BBC TV blog are their own opinions and not necessarily those of the BBC.