Victoria Derbyshire State of Grace radio overview

Victoria Derbyshire: handled the programme with ‘careful dignity’. Photograph: Richard Saker for the Observer

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State of Grace (Radio 4) | iPlayer

Back in February 2011, on the usually likable if unaccountably vilified – but she is, following all, a female – Victoria Derbyshire morning display, listeners around the nation slowed their vehicles, paused mid-potter, turned up a bit late for lunches. They had been held in thrall by a mobile phone-in on alcoholism, and especially a phone from a physician, Rachel, who admitted quietly on air that she was just cracking open her third can of Guinness that morning.

Derbyshire at some point tracked her down, and she became what’s called a pal of the programme. Each time she spoke, the phones were deluged by calls, reacting to searing tender honesty from a just-working alcoholic and what emerged was a tale of a lot of other professional mothers held in the savage thrall of… properly, either a way of life-selection addiction or an illness, about which there was a lot heated debate. What was undeniable was that the programme assisted move the argument far from the stereotypes of pineapple-nosed meths males, and into the milieu of chintzy (or cosy, or minimalist) middle-class living rooms everywhere, and highlight a hidden nation coping towards hope with each the bottle and full-time jobs – solicitors, managers, anaesthetists. Standard mother’s contact: “I usually try out to seem great, smell wonderful, get the children to school. But I’m just pouring my very first glass of wine of the morning. And I would often felt I was on my very own, special.”

Rachel, final time we heard from her, had been clean, giggling and smart, and signally failing to slurp from a bottle at ten in the morning. Rachel, not her real name, died in her rest in excess of the Easter weekend. She was 45, and left a companion and daughter. She had relapsed, briefly, just ahead of Easter. Derbyshire knew, went to the funeral, but it was only last week that her household made a decision the news must come out. It was a mesmerising programme, featuring callers who said Rachel’s contribution had, in absolutely no tiny way, saved their lives. Tears have been shed. Derbyshire dealt with the whole with the careful dignity it deserved – there was some laughter, but a chilling pall hung more than the programme of needless waste. Crucially, there was no knee-jerk condemnation – we would moved far beyond that – but compassion and sincere, subtle debate, and I only want other morning telephone-in (radio and Television) programmes could deal with related levels of, if you’ll excuse me, sobriety: an impassioned and vital tale.

Grace Dent: identified ‘some superb interviewees’. Photograph: Chris Floyd

Grace Dent had some exciting with her identify in State of Grace – a flimsy ample premise you may well believe, but she actually created it operate. She hardly harped on at all about wishing she’d in childhood had a “normal” title – her choice would have been Joanne, as in the lass from t’Human League – but as an alternative set about resolutely discovering some superb interviewees. She spoke to Olivia “damegrace” Cowley at the Royal Ballet about, simply, grace of motion, and fascinating it was, and quizzed wonderful movie historian Stella Bruzzi on Grace Kelly. Bruzzi came up with the workably non-pat theory that Kelly was hogtied, in her time, among becoming Marilyn Monroe and getting Audrey Hepburn – neither vamp nor ingenue, she was famously described as “also excellent” by James Stewart, which helps clarify his otherwise mesmerising decision to reject her throughout considerably of Rear Window. Best, additional Bruzzi, she was not. She slept with practically all her foremost males, and the list helps make some reading through: Clark Gable, Bing, Ray Milland, William Holden, Oleg Cassini – and was sent shut to panic when Monaco’s courtiers tentatively suggested a test for virginity. A great minor programme, hugely aided all through by the laughing, gallus presence of Grace Maxwell, who nursed Scots singer (and husband) Edwyn Collins back to eventual wellness after his devastating brain haemorrhage, and informed her tale with wit, warts and a thoroughly refreshing lack of mawkishness or self-pity. As, indeed, had Rachel.

Victoria Derbyshire State of Grace radio overview