On air: an evening with RaW arts

“I quite like it when mishaps happen, it is student radio after all. When it happens on professional radio I find it hilarious,” says Amy Duffell, second year Film Studies student and one half of RaW’s Head of Arts duo. Sitting in with her and Josh Gray, second year Film and English student, on their weekly show Artsing Around however, you wouldn’t think that you were far from a professional studio, with technicians popping in and out, touch screen controls as well as good old vinyls on the go; it was not far short of professional. Although Josh and Amy are becoming old has at this game, “We took over the arts show in term three last year so this is our third term of doing it” says Josh. However, this is not their first experience of working on RaW, “we previously did a show called Chitter Chatters before we were asked to do this show.”

Although the clock may be fast and the vinyl player is a bit tricky to wire up, Amy and Josh open up the discussion over arts in a highly professional manner. Yet they admit themselves, they sometimes get it wrong, “on our Christmas countdown show I was introducing Santa Baby by Eartha Kitt and I introduced it as Eartha Klitt,” Josh admits. “I said shit on air once,” Amy confesses, “I was saying my name and said my surname, I then went “Shit, you’re not supposed to say your surname on air.” It was like that scene from Love Actually!”

On the agenda for week two’s show, which goes on air at 5pm every Saturday, was the new film Foxcatcher, the winners of the 2015 Golden Globes and the controversy surrounding Charlie Hebdo. Offering listeners on the internet and traditional radios the opportunity to contribute to the discussions over email, the website and Twitter, they offer ten to fifteen minutes of breathing space to three artsy issues next week, as well as playing some great tunes. They even have Simon Mayo on a jingle as a result of a recent interview with him!

“We try to have guests every other week, we have people interviewing and doing all sorts of things.” However, the rest of the time it is just the dynamic duo discussing all things artsy. “People are unaware about how many departments RaW has!” Along with news, music, speech and sport, Amy and Josh form a part of the on-air team, however there are lots of opportunities for people to get involved, both on the technical side and on-air; whether a guest or a presenter.

Although many may think that it is unusual to have an arts department on a radio station, Amy and Josh insist that it is important that radio is used as a medium in order to discuss issues surrounding the arts. “We are in a university that has fantastic arts facilities,” says Josh “we have the Warwick Arts Centre right on our doorstep, so if we don’t have this kind of show who will? Plus people are genuinely interested in the arts here.” “Talking about the arts offers the ability to have discussions which are challenging and insightful and you don’t have to have a degree in it,” they both insist. There are no restrictions dependent on what you study, because everyone has an opinion about something to do with art, “often students from completely different faculties give totally different perspectives… as well as being a really good opportunity to get involved with RaW. It may even lead to something else in their career.”