I hope that you'll indulge me in a little bit of self-promotion. I'm a huge fan of a podcast called Classic Schmassic. Hosts Chris Mead & Owen Choules (& guests where applicable) watch an acclaimed film made prior to 1980 that they haven’t seen before and decide whether it lives up to its reputation. The format hinges around the simple but subtly brilliant idea of splitting the show into two. In the first half, they talk about what they know, or think they know about it. In part two they discuss what they’ve seen and heard, including how it matched up with their expectations. It’s a winning combination of thoughtful analysis and unabashed silliness. There have been quite a few times when I’ve been out and about listening to it on headphones and had to stifle a chortle lest people around me suspect I’ve lost the plot.
The Russian connection (and self-promotional element) is that I joined them for their episode on Sergei Eisenstein’s Battleship Potemkin. If you’d like to hear what we thought (and how bass solos fit into all of this), you can find out here, or alternatively here for iTunes.
I’d highly recommend the whole Classic Schmassic back catalogue, which at the time of writing has almost reached forty episodes, but for another one with a specifically Russia-related angle, there’s this one on Stanley Kubrick’s Cold War farce Dr Strangelove, which also features a very good friend of mine, Lyn Setchell, as a guest.
