Another BBC Bobfest this weekend

To promote its broadcast of No Direction Home in September 2005 the BBC stuck a wonderful Jerry Schatzberg portrait of Dylan on the cover of its weekly listings mag, Radio Times.

I was so shocked I bought a copy. Radio Times is a big circulation mag (over 1m copies sold every week). It focuses on mainstream middlebrow entertainment. Putting Dylan on the cover was a brave move.

And, blow me, they’ve done it again with the new issue, to promote a second BBC Bobfest this weekend.

That’s two Dylan covers in two years! It illustrates how Bobby now occupies centre stage in UK popular culture.

Thanks to Martin Cowan for supplying the Bobfest detail:

“Dylan is this week's somewhat unlikely cover star of venerable TV listings mag "Radio Times". The reason for this is a TV and radio Bob-fest of epic proportions.

* Sunday 14 October is a date for the diaries of all Dylan fans, as BBC Four kicks off with "Arena: Dylan's folk - the pure, the bad and the holy" which is a look at the Newport Festival at 9pm.

* As mentioned previously on Dylan Daily, next up at 9.40 is "The Other Side of the Mirror - Dylan at the Newport Festival" - a chance to get this for free prior to its DVD release.

* This is followed at 11.00pm by "Arena - Dylan in the madhouse", a look at Dylan's appearance in the TV drama Madhouse on Castle Street, a show that was regrettably wiped by the BBC back in the 1960s.

* Finally at 12.10, is a showing of "Festival", the music documentary filmed at the Newport Folk Festival between 1963 and 1966.

* Also, Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour kicks off again on BBC 6 Music on Friday 19 October at 9pm, with a taster running on Radio 2 on Saturday 13 October at 8pm.

Dylan fans may also be interested in the Culture Show on Saturday 13 October on BBC2 at 7.10, which features an interview with Neil Young.”