Review: Iloisiin kuulemiin ja näkemiin

The rise and fall of radio

The historical role of radio as an educator, news provider and entertainer can hardly be overestimated, and even the intrusion of television into homes did not noticeably shake the established position of radio. It was really only with the computer technology revolution of the 90s that the downhill slope in terms of content and values, which today is accelerating with frightening speed, began.

Former radio editor and screenwriter Outi “Popp” Ahola has, together with historian Jukka Relander , written a slightly darkly humorous cavalcade of radio history, which at the same time, unsurprisingly, grows into a miniature history of social trends.

It all starts in the Olympic year of 1952, in a time that was certainly no better than ours but somehow seemed more human. Through various historical key coordinates, one arrives at the end of the first act, which coincides with the end of the Kekkonen era, while the linear presentation in the second act, wisely, is abandoned in favor of a more innovative approach in terms of time.

Our reflective everyday heroes are the wonderfully heterogeneous crew at the Päiväpeili editorial office, with Seppo Maijala’s cautious, but fundamentally humanistic, general as foreman and Riitta Havukainen’s hilarious hello as central dramatic catalysts. Antti Timonen’s intolerable “new age” figure, in turn, is an apt enough caricature of the parasites of modern society: the constantly restructuring consultants who rationalise away most things except themselves.

Musical reflections

The performance’s equally natural and ingenious clou is, of course, to reflect both the political and more personal realities of the popular music tones of the time that the majority of radio listeners, then and now, thirsted for.

The unforgettable melodies, ranging from Kärki/Helismaa schlagers to Chydenius/Oksanen fight songs and pop-rock classics signed by e.g. Hector, Pelle Miljoona and Eppu Normaali for the final Ultra Bra “sing-along” Minä kaitsen sinua kaikelta, become a kind of emotional nerve and dramaturgical red thread, and it is certainly a luxury to have talents such as Merja Larivaara, Pertti Koivula, Sami Hokkanen and the charming Vuokko Hovatta as exclusively vocal actors.

Minister of Fun Mikko Kivinen has directed with a sure sense of the text’s intricate balance between the comic and the more serious, and without falling into easy-to-buy situation comedy. Some sequences feel unnecessarily drawn-out, tentative in content and form, but for the most part, the shifting temporal episodes pass the revue at an exemplary pace.


Antti Mattila’s set design, with accompanying atmospheric film clips, is as simple as it is functional, and conductor Lasse Hirvi and his excellent quartet make sure that the musical part works like a charm.

This is how Ilosiin’s kuulemiin ja näkemiin takes the form of a piece of unabashedly nostalgic entertainment with a rather bitter contemporary social satire lurking under the cheerfully good-natured surface. Refreshing!