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I finished watching BBC Wales' Slammed, a three part documentary on Welsh rugby between the late nineties and the beginning of the Warren Gatland era, yesterday and, initially, was puzzled as to why I enjoyed the last two episodes more than the first one. The penny dropped when I realised that the first episode had a voiceover by Max Boyce, while the other two were just straightforward talking heads to camera.
it seemed odd to me that you would use Boyce for one episode and not the other two (not that his melodramatic and reverential contribution added anything at all to the programme), but a possible explanation is that the first episode was a lot about contrasting how good Wales were in the seventies with how bad they were twenty years later, so I suppose someone who seems to be stuck in that era was used to emphasise that contrast.
It's not too strong a word to say that I despise Max Boyce now, yet, even with my self image as a cool young man whose musical tastes owed much, too much, to what was being said in the NME, Sounds and Melody Maker at any given time, I'd still play my old man's vinyl copy of Live at Treorchy now and again in the late seventies, because I found it funny and, in lots of ways, accurate when it came to the Wales of nearly fifty years ago.
Yet, Boyce's act seems sentimental, hackneyed and way, way past its sell by date now. Is that because, Wales has moved on and is a more confident and vibrant country now or is it just that I have changed into an old curmudgeon who has lost his sense of humour?
it seemed odd to me that you would use Boyce for one episode and not the other two (not that his melodramatic and reverential contribution added anything at all to the programme), but a possible explanation is that the first episode was a lot about contrasting how good Wales were in the seventies with how bad they were twenty years later, so I suppose someone who seems to be stuck in that era was used to emphasise that contrast.
It's not too strong a word to say that I despise Max Boyce now, yet, even with my self image as a cool young man whose musical tastes owed much, too much, to what was being said in the NME, Sounds and Melody Maker at any given time, I'd still play my old man's vinyl copy of Live at Treorchy now and again in the late seventies, because I found it funny and, in lots of ways, accurate when it came to the Wales of nearly fifty years ago.
Yet, Boyce's act seems sentimental, hackneyed and way, way past its sell by date now. Is that because, Wales has moved on and is a more confident and vibrant country now or is it just that I have changed into an old curmudgeon who has lost his sense of humour?
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