the event is so terminally uncool...there's a fundamental lack of understanding of how to place a niche music in a populist context

You're right, Matt. The BBC's last two efforts (this and the Xmas show they repeated not long ago on BBC4) have been so deeply uncool that they made me yearn for the days when they used to have folk singers sitting on bales of straw with Pan's People doing country dancing round them in gingham frocks.

There's a 'folk boom' under way (as Simon Mayo kept telling us beforehand) and this was the BBC's response! If I were The Mumfords I would have refused to have anything to do with it. They have their cred to consider.

Barbara Dickson? She's got an album and tour to promote, she used to be in The Two Ronnies and her management probably lunch with the people who dreamt up this drivel. Isn't that enough reason to book her?