Theres something very… almost erotic about lacing up a projector.
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No there isnt.
Im sorry, theres…
What iseroticabout lacing up a camera?
I cant explain it…
Well.
The way the celluloid goes through the sprockets.
Is it to do with sprockets and holes?
Is that what youre talking about?
Its nothing that crass.
Its just to do with the machinery.
I can do mechanical.
Only here, theyre arguing about films.
Well, most of the time.
One goes off on flights of fancy, the other shoots him down.
Audio gold is formed, with more of it usually just a week away.
Theres a lot moreto it than that, though.
The structure of the programme is fairly straightforward.
It sounds straightforward when you write it down like that.
Yet to be a listener of the show feels like being part of a special club.
Fellow Wittertainees will know what I meant there.
Or Wittertainment-related injuries (WRI)?
Maybe people trying tojump aboard the Wittertainment Cruise?
Heck, every now and then, the reader correspondence occasionally manages to stray onto films too.
The pickings are rich.
For the podcast in itself has takenon a life of its own.
But also this: it does the film side brilliantly.
Mayo is clearly an excellent broadcaster, and in a sense the voice of the listener.
But to shortchange him on films too would be brutally unfair.
Furthermore, his dry wit is a superb foil for Mark Kermodes particular brand of enthused reviews.
Furthermore, he also shares his film views in print, on radio and on screen.
But Id argue that radio in particular feels like his natural home.
Again, you’ve got the option to feel his love of the medium.
And then there are the rants.
As a critic, if anything, he tends to be warmer than most.
Need ten minutes to bang the table about one film?
Or for a director to come on and argue the case for their film?
The format and medium supports that.
Its to the credit of radio, and to the show.
Contrast it with Film 20Whatever, for instance, and it simply doesnt feel like a fair fight.
And as for how do you actually download an episode?
Well, as regular listeners to Wittertainment will tell you, you just download an episode…