Is It Worth It? Radio 2 Documentary, 25 June 2012

Is it worth it?, the Radio 2 documentary about Clive Langer and Elvis Costello's glorious song Shipbuilding, had the feel of a programme idea both conceived and recorded down the pub.  Presenter Annie Nightingale sounds slightly the worse for wear throughout, and the show switched clumsily between discussing the song and talking about the Falklands conflict without ever really knitting Shipbuilding into the fabric of the times in the way that the producers presumably intended.

From the outset, it felt like they had an hour to fill and too little interview material to fill it, with Costello, Langer and Robert Wyatt, who recorded the first version of Shipbuilding, speaking eloquently but not at great length about the song's genesis.

After talking about how the song was first written and then offered to Robert Wyatt, the show is suddenly filled with reminiscences from Falklands veterans spliced with snippets of news broadcasts from the time - interesting stuff but not tied into people's awareness of the song.  Half an hour passes by before it tacks back into musical territory with Costello explaining how he signed up jazz trumpeter Chet Baker to play on his own version of the song and had to negotiate upwards Baker's fee for recording the session.

The documentary is worth hearing just for the chance to listen to Hue and Cry's tortuous version of Shipbuilding.  Had they rather than Wyatt been offered the song by Costello and Clive Langer, the likelihood is that it would not have become so revered and the subject of a Radio 2 documentary thirty years later.

Although worth a listen on iPlayer for Costello's reminiscences, this hour long documentary needed serious editing to get it down to 30 minutes.  Radio 4 does this kind of thing so much better.