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Wake Up to Wogan/Alan Titchmarsh

Terry Wogan
  • Posted at 5:01pm
  • 01 November 2007
  • by SarahDempster-RT
  • 1 comment

I once sat in Sir Terry Wogan's chair. Clearly, this is not as exciting as announcing that I once sat in Disraeli's lap, or admitting that I once sat on the Sultan of Brunei's favourite gardener and made him cry. But it's true. And in radio terms - if not in introductory seat-related-revelation terms - it's a blinder. Why? Because this was the very chair from which the enormous Irishman conducts the symphony of superbity that is Wake Up to Wogan, Britain's most popular breakfast show.

Said seat (which I'd been allowed to nestle in during a visit to the studios for a piece I was writing for a newspaper) was a big, warm and leathery affair and it made strange wheezing noises whenever I leaned forward to get a closer look at the control panel, making it almost exactly like its owner - albeit less likely to read out the wrong results during the Eurovision heats.

Sitting in it had an astonishing effect on me. I felt like I imagine Sir Telly of Woganvision feels every morning before switching on his mic: invincible. Immense. Irish. It really was quite exhilarating.

Anyway. On to Wake Up to Wogan, which, with its wry grumbles and brilliantly esoteric rambles from its army of dedicated TOGs (Terry's Old Geezers/Gals), is the nation's best weekday breakfast show by several well-tended furlongs. In the wake of Wogglegate (which saw middle England howl with outrage when footage of Sir Terry wearing tight trousers on Points of View revealed that he has a penis), the show has, if anything, become even cheekier.

Yesterday, Sir Terry started the show by complaining about his breakfast pie ("I daren't open it!"). Within minutes, he'd mentioned the "twinkle in [his] granny's eye", read out a letter from someone who needed "a cold shower" after watching Nigella Lawson on telly, and called fellow BBC personality Heston Blumenthal "Heston Bloomineck".

It was nonsense, of course, but it was like being swaddled in a duvet while being given a foot-rub by a smiling nurse in a cardigan (ie nice nonsense). Wake Up to Wogan is a smoked salmon bagel to Chris Moyles's waterlogged rusk. Long may it burble.

And so to Alan Titchmarsh's Sunday evening show, which has little to do with rusks or penises and everything to do with Alan Titchmarsh. Entitled Alan Titchmarsh - lest anyone should mistake his flock-lined banter, garden anecdotes and selection of film themes and musical scores for The 1Xtra Drum and Bass Show with Bailey and start writing in to complain about standards or some such - it is, like Alan himself, as earthy as a pound of loam.

It makes me think of solid things like honesty, sincerity, mulch, authenticity, topsoil and family values, even though I don't actually know what family values are. It also inspires the sense that Alan is One of Us: a cuddly, uncle-y, vaguely-saucy-horticulturalist-next-door type who won't swear or rabbit punch us when we tap him on the shoulder outside B&Q to ask for an autograph "for the sister-in-law".

And yet Alan is not One of Us. He is Legion. Ever wondered why he seems to be everywhere at the moment? Two weeks ago, Alan revealed all on the daily afternoon gab-jamboree that is ITV1's The Alan Titchmarsh Show. In a scene of mind-blowing split-screen meta-ness, Alan split in two and started interviewing himself about his involvement in BBC1's The Nature of Britain. It's a wonder another Alan didn't turn up to comment on the interview ("nice heavy cotton twill trouser action there…"), or 15 Alans in leotards didn't barrel into the studio to cause a distraction when the original Alans started arguing over who had the most sensible loafers.

The demonstration marked a watershed for the broadcaster. Not only is Alan Everywhere; Alan is now happy to concede that Alan is Everywhere and prepared to show us just how Alan got Everywhere (ie he can self-replicate).

All of which begs the question: if Alan continues to replicate at the same rate, how long before he ends up dedicating a show to himself? Or creeping up behind a flock of lesser-spotted Alans in The Nature of Britain? Or marching on Downing Street with a million other Alans and demanding free quilted gilets and tartan thermos flasks for all? (Answer: next April.) This is the beginning of a new dawn. It is the Dawn of the RepliAlans.

Wake Up to Wogan is on Monday-Friday, 7:30am, on BBC Radio 2.

Alan Titchmarsh is on Sundays at 6:30pm on BBC Radio 2.

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  • Posted on 07 November 2007
  • at 6:03pm
  • by ThreeB

"Wake up to Wogan" must be the underpinning resource for UK businesses /industry to continue functioning;

my drive to work may begin with best intentions of keeping myself abreast of world affairs on radio 4, but after about 45 minutes of hard hitting, miserable news,frankly insulting interviewers who bark and whine at their interviewees, politicians that retort in kind and make it their business to add nothign whatsoever to our information.....the last 30 minutes of my commute is invariably spent with Tell and I walk brightly into work, humming some ghastly song from years ago which will annoyingly stay with me for most of the morning, and generally feeling upbeat about life and people...

Left to Radio 4 I would probably give up and go home.....

And yet...I am generally a Radio 4 listener...Wogan is my only venture into Radio 2...

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