Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic Stay informed with free updatesSimply sign up to the Arts myFT Digest — delivered directly to your inbox.I’ve never been much of a reader of short stories. No doubt I’m missing out on some great books, but I prefer to spend several days, rather than a lunch hour, in the company of my favourite authors. In audio, it’s a different matter. There is much to be admired in a meticulously reported, 10-part narrative documentary, but brevity also has its merits. It is one of the reasons I keep returning to Short Cuts, the long-running BBC Radio 4 podcast notable for its concision and its experimental approach. It is produced by Falling Tree, specialists in unusual and inventive audio.Now on its 39th series — and approaching its 250th episode — Short Cuts is made up of beautifully crafted and curated micro-documentaries, roughly 10 minutes apiece, which are bookended by the comic and writer Josie Long. In her introduction, Long describes the series as “brief encounters, true stories, radio adventures and found sound”. Each episode contains three or so documentaries and the subject matter is wide-ranging, sometimes slippery and wholly impervious to the news cycle. Past episodes have featured themes such as quiet acts of resistance, the flow of water and the moments language cannot describe. Short Cuts’ slightly woozy vibe means I often listen late at night, staying awake just long enough to finish a story that will invariably float into my dreams.The first episode in the new series is called “In Colour” and features a poignant documentary called Autism Plays Itself. An “audio adaptation” of a short film by Janet Harbord, it is based on footage shot in the children’s ward of London’s Maudsley hospital in 1957, then made for doctors and diagnosticians to observe children with autism.“Where the film was in black and white,” says Long in her introduction, “this adaptation attempts to bring colour and depth to the people at its heart.” Thus we hear the reflections of three autistic commentators who interpret and express kinship with the actions of the children. “There’s something about the freeness of being autistic that just frightens people,” says one. As he observes a little girl lining up objects by size and colour, he notes, “In a chaotic world, that’s all we need. More lining up of things.”Another of the documentaries, Red of Visibility, finds a young woman overcoming childhood trauma through a reflection on the colour red. Created by Phoebe McIndoe and unfurling against a soundscape of birdsong, heartbeats, singing and church bells, it is poetic, evocative and suffused with melancholy.By contrast, there is whimsy and wonder in Green Flash, the third of the “In Colour” documentaries, written by Joe Dunthorne about his quest to witness the meteorological phenomenon known as “the green flash” that typically occurs at sunset. Downcast at spending fruitless evenings waiting for it, he unexpectedly witnesses another miracle of colour in the confines of his home.bbc.co.uk
