This week’s issue is a World Cup special, complete with the famous Radio Times wall chart. Expanding tournaments may be good news for football administrators, but less so for magazine art departments. But our art editor Jake Howard has somehow managed to squeeze every one of the 104 fixtures into the space available. I certainly couldn’t navigate a World Cup without one.
Add to the mix Caroline Frost’s interview with Gary Lineker and what emerges is a reminder that the World Cup has always been about more than football. It’s also about memory: where we watched, who we watched with and the optimism that arrives every four years regardless of previous evidence.
Lineker himself has become part of that tradition. This tournament may find him broadcasting live from New York rather than a BBC studio, but what comes across is that he has the same enthusiasm for the game that he’s had for each one since Mexico 86.
And perhaps that’s why the World Cup still matters in a way few television events do. It remains one of the last occasions when millions gather around a TV at the same time simultaneously celebrating or despairing.
So pin up the wall chart, clear your evenings and settle into the strange rhythms of another tournament. Television does many things brilliantly, but few events quite match the collective drama of a World Cup. Let’s just hope it’s the football that gets our hearts racing.
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Also in this week’s Radio Times:
- Rupert Everett on embracing his age and becoming a more adventurous actor.
- Karen Carney discusses adjusting to life after football and winning Strictly.
- Jemaine Clement and Nicola Walker reinvent the age-gap romcom in Alice and Steve.
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Authors
Shem Law is the brand editor of Radio Times, and the 20th person to hold that esteemed position in over 100 years. He wasn’t allowed a television growing up, but over the years he has rather overcompensated for that fact.
