Jeremy Hardy/ISIHAC mention in The Independent
08/10/2007 00:00 GMT

Posted by lisa

The following is the beginning of an article that appeared in The Independent on Sunday newpaper on October 7, 2007.

Life begins at 40 for ruby-cheeked Radio 4

by Nicholas Lezard

Last Sunday Radio 4 celebrated its 40th anniversary (as did the other three main BBC radio stations, for that was when the Home Service, the Light Programme and the Third Programme were renamed to accommodate the upstart, Radio 1). Cue various exercises in nostalgia and celebratory navel-gazing - and why not? Of course, one wouldn't want it to go on too long, and perhaps last Sunday's 4 at 40, followed by Radio 4: This is Your Life, adding up to two and a half hours, did, if forgivably, stretch it a little bit.

The best part of the former programme was a five-minute speech by Jeremy Hardy. Let those who doubt that the station leans leftwards take account of the way this man is one of its mainstays. And yet, as he points out, for all the stand-up shows he does, the biggest cheer he ever gets is when Humphrey Lyttelton announces that he is going to Sing One Song to the Tune of Another. (He didn't mention he has improved his singing from unbearable to merely execrable, thus spoiling the fun for the rest of us.)