I APPRECIATE this is breaking with the party line a little, but I’ve not been in any rush to see the Banksy exhibition at Gallery of Modern Art [GOMA] in Glasgow. 

There are both aesthetic and political reasons for this. I’m not sure either his art or the provocative messages he is offering really benefit from being placed in a museum environment myself. 

Clearly, from the number of people visiting GOMA, this is a minority opinion. The legend of Banksy - the mysterious street artist and political activist - has a pull to it. As do his stencils.

The Herald:

That pull explains James Peak’s new 10-part series The Banksy Story that has been stripped over the week on Radio 4 (it continues next week, though all episodes are already available on BBC Sounds). 

Peak describes himself as a “Banksy superfan”. His series attempts to chart, he says, “Banksy’s rise from hood rat to hero.” 

To do so he draws more on the grammar and syntax of the podcast than the traditional radio show. The result is very playful and cheeky and maybe at times a bit flippant. Peak banters with his sound recordist Duncan, has Banksy’s words read out in the voice of Brian Blessed, James Mason, Roger Moore, Joanna Lumley and others and generally puts himself front and centre of the story. 

I’m not a huge fan of this approach, but then I guess I’m not really the audience it’s aimed for.

Peak travels around the country to find traces of his mysterious subject. In Bristol on Monday he popped into Clifton Fine Art where a Banksy print called Bombhugger is on sale. It originally cost £100. Not now.

 “What’s that price tag there?” Peak asks. “£100,000,” he’s told. 

For all the sometimes frou frou nature of the presentation, there is much here that is intriguing. In particular, on Thursday, a rarely heard American interview with someone who may or may not be Banksy in which Banksy (or not Banksy) described himself as just a “painter and decorator.”

But the real highlight of this week’s episodes was Peak’s conversation with Steph Warren. She worked with Banksy’s agency in the early days and until now hasn’t said a word about the experience for 15 years. 

Warren brought a bit of grit and gravitas to the programme’s natural flightiness and some first-hand knowledge of the artist which certainly helped. 

She wasn’t sure she should be talking at all. “There’s a weird shame you feel if you mention his name, like you’re cheating on him or cheating on the idea of him,” she suggested in yesterday’s programme. “And that’s definitely something I’ve carried with me, I think, over the years.”

Warren’s own story became the most interesting thing about the show for me. “I did do things wrong there,” she admitted in Friday’s episode of her time at the agency. “I became a heroin addict while I worked there.” 

It’s her story that will make me tune in next week.

For months now Gordon Smart has been the David Fairclough of BBC radio; something of a supersub popping up to fill in for holidaying presenters. (That’s why you come here, isn’t it? For references to 1970s Liverpool FC footballers. Who needs the 21st century?)

Smart himself has described himself as a “supply teacher across the network.” 

But last Sunday night he was in Glasgow’s Pacific Quay to begin his own Sunday night show on 5 Live. 

He has always been a reliable voice, so he more than deserves the opportunity, although Sunday night is not necessarily the easiest of broadcasting shifts, especially for a magazine show.

Given that so much of the weekend’s talk radio output uses the same format - from 5 Live to Shereen Nanjiani on Radio Scotland - it means by Sunday night that approach can feel more than a little overfamiliar.

And maybe given that it was the first night there was a tendency to cram too much in, with resultant noisy gear changes. After five minutes discussing X Factor contestant Lucy Spraggan’s terrible revelations that she had been raped whilst taking part in the show, we then shifted to a couple of minutes on Twitter and Threads which frankly felt a bit jarring.

The programme definitely benefited when subjects were given room to breathe, such as the conversation with resident psychotherapist Owen O’Kane discussing Sunday night anxiety.

But all in all, it was a decent first effort. Come back in a month and it will probably be flying.

 

Listen Out For: BBC Proms, Radio 3, various times, all week

The Proms is now in full swing and this week sees performances by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra (tomorrow at 7.30pm) and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, paying tribute to Bollywood playback singer Lata Mangeshkar (Friday, 7.30pm). The highlight, though, may be pop queen Self-Esteem performing with the Royal Northern Sinfonia (tomorrow night at 9.45pm).