Eddie Mair pays tribute to Carry On's Fenella Fielding – and her inimitable radio voice
Broadcaster Mair had asked the actress to record a series of idents for his new LBC show
I’ve written here before about the joys of audiobooks read by people with distinctive voices. You can read the books by Sir Michael Caine and Sir Roger Moore but you’re only re-creating their voices in your head. Why not cut out the middleman and have them read for you? And so it was in sunny Corsica a few months ago when the delicious tones of Fenella Fielding OBE transported me to the London of the 1960s. Entitled Do You Mind if I Smoke? – after her most famous line in Carry On Screaming – it was the most exquisitely delivered memoir. Tender, sometimes bitchy, but as warm as the beach I was lying on. I almost fell off the lilo, when in a late chapter Fenella mentioned me and Paddy O’Connell, my old pal from Radio 4’s Broadcasting House. View oEmbed on the source website Paddy has used Fenella’s talents several times on his show, and my very loose association with her dates back to 1993. At the time, I was about to launch a phone-in show (does this sound familiar?) and someone had the splendid idea of asking Fenella to record some idents for us, announcing the phone number, etc. She graciously agreed and perfectly recorded everything we asked, including silliness such as the phrase: “Eddie… it’s time to get the bucket under the cow.” Eddie Mair explains his decision to leave the BBC: “None of my thinking has been influenced by pay problems” Stars and fans pay tribute as Carry On actress Fenella Fielding dies aged 90 Eddie Mair reveals his new Radio Times column collection A Good Face For Radio We knew that even if all else on the new show failed, at least we’d have the sheer class of Fenella to lift it. In my head I can still hear her saying, “Call Eddie now… 041 338…” Fast-forward to the summer of 2018. On the Corsican beach, I realised we simply had to have Fenella for my show on LBC. We were honoured when she agreed – at the age of 90 – to come into Global’s global headquarters in London a few days before our launch to record more words. “Call Eddie now… 0345 60 60 973.” It being 2018, we also wanted her to record phrases such as, “Brexit: it’s going to be great!” and “Brexit: it’s going to be awful!” View oEmbed on the source website On her arrival at the studio, not having seen her for a long time, it was a shock to see her moving so slowly – as if a puff of wind might topple the great star. But once she’d made it to the studio chair, grasping the script and poised at the microphone, the years fell away. The creamy caramel of her unmistakable voice enhanced every word and number on the page. She was professional to her fingertips. Afterwards, a hug, and she made her way out of the studio with her friend Simon McKay, who took such care of her. I understand she enjoyed a good lunch. A couple of days later, a note from Simon. A severe stroke had snookered Fenella. As the days went on it was clear, and she understood, that this was it. With sadness, we decided not to use the recordings. After her death earlier this month, we played some of her recordings for LBC listeners, and asked if they felt it would be appropriate to use Fenella’s voice in future. They told us yes. So we will, for a while at least. As the obituaries correctly observed, she was a fine, underrated, actor who should be remembered for far more than simply appearing to be on fire in front of Harry H Corbett. I will also remember her grace and kindness. She didn’t have to associate with the likes of me, but I’m thrilled to bits that she did. And, in the nicest possible way, whenever I see someone milking a cow, I will think of Fenella. Eddie Mair is on LBC, weekdays from 4pm to 6pm
Eddie Mair: 'Was it the right decision to debut on LBC without a script?'
"With twenty seconds to go before my first LBC radio show, I had second thoughts..."
Do you ever get those dreams where you’re in a public place without a stitch on? It happened to me when I was sitting at the LBC microphone for the very first time. Don’t worry, I wasn’t literally naked. There are cameras everywhere in the studio and in any event, I have a no-nudity clause in my contract: LBC insisted on it. But at 4.03pm on Monday 3rd September the sense of vulnerability and shock that accompanies those nudi-dreams coursed through what doctors agree can still legally be described as a body. More than a year after the possibility of doing this was first suggested, many months after 3rd September was pencilled into my diary, and after two weeks of test programmes, interviews, publicity photographs and preparation, it was about to come down to this moment. The 4pm news bulletin would finish. A jingle with my name in it would play, and then the microphone would go live. I would have to say actual words. Eddie Mair: While my accidental exit at the BBC was the perfect ending Eddie Mair: What I will and won't miss about the BBC BBC radio is no longer top dog in the digital age A sensible person would have written a script for this moment. Or perhaps, as is sometimes the norm at the nervy start of new broadcasting ventures, recorded something, just to be on the safe side. A scrap of clothing: a loincloth to prevent embarrassment. I opted for nudity. View oEmbed on the source website The day before, I had gone for a long walk in the countryside. A cloudless Sunday demanded I enjoy what could be the last hot day of summer. For ten miles I followed a route through forests and fields, soaking up the isolated beauty while considering what to say the next day at 16.03. Previously in this column I’ve discussed my unhappy relationship with maps. On this occasion I had an app with detailed photos and written descriptions of every stage of the route, as well as an Ordnance Survey app that clearly showed me at every stage where I was. To be on the safe side there were separate maps from the people at Google and Apple. I got lost three times. On one occasion, after becoming trapped in a field – where I swear to you the advertised gate did not exist – my only means of escape was to throw myself through a hedge. I wish I was joking about that, and so do my scratched arms. On the plus side, my extended meandering gave me plenty of time to consider what I wanted to say at 16.03. My goal was to introduce myself to LBC listeners – who were used to a different voice at that hour – and to say hello to people tuning in for the first time. I would highlight how LBC was available around the UK and the world, and chat about what the new show might be about. Most of all, I wanted to present me, unscripted and real. Easier to hide behind some well polished words; much more honest, and thrilling, to just speak. With 20 seconds to go, I had second thoughts about the naked speaking thing. If only I had written a script for emergencies. What if I got mentally lost and had to throw myself through a hedge? I was naked. Think of the scratches! Ten seconds. This was about to get real. The mic live light came on: it was just me, the microphone and, somewhere out there, the listener. I can’t remember what I said. The detail has vanished, as the detail of naked dreams do. But like the dreams, I remember the feeling – intensely so. And I loved it. Eddie Mair’s show is on LBC, weekdays
Fake news and real reporters: how Eddie Mair prepared for his first LBC show
In his latest Radio Times column, Eddie Mair explains why pilot radio is a lot like childbirth
Week two at LBC and it was our final preparation – a chance to practise “pilot” programmes before going on air. It’s hard to describe how simultaneously useful and useless this process is. It’s like comparing antenatal classes to actual birth. I’m not qualified to talk about either but hope you get the well-intentioned gist. Pilots, like antenatal classes, allow you to get in the right position (facing the microphone on a chair), understand which drugs will be used (caffeine) and get to grips with the technology that will surround you (in LBC’s case a space-age studio that makes the Starship Enterprise look like a Blue Peter sticky-back plastic effort). Eddie Mair explains his decision to leave the BBC: “None of my thinking has been influenced by pay problems” Eddie Mair on his encounter with two muggers in South America Eddie Mair moves to LBC after 30 years at the BBC At first, the technology is the most troubling thing. There are two computer screens at the presenter desk, just like at PM, but they function in an alien fashion. The right one is taken up with Phone Box, the system that alerts me to callers, tweets and emails and can be used to zap Klingons. The left screen (where I’m used to staring at the running order and writing makeshift scripts) is “read only”. There is no running order. It feels like my left hand has been removed. View oEmbed on the source website I log out of the studio computer – de rigueur at the Beeb – only to be told this is a no-no. Keith, the patient engineer, spends ten minutes correcting my mistake, but 24 hours later I do it again. How he doesn’t punch me, I do not know. At 2pm each day we start our pretend programmes. A few real people kindly oblige with contributions: Peter Lilley discusses some Brexit-related story. Theo Usherwood, LBC’s political editor, takes time from his busy day to pretend with us. Gentleman that he is, when I refer to him on air as Theo Underwood, he doesn’t mention it. I would have decked me. I learn a lot of important things. The nearest loo always seems to be occupied. I suspect Smooth Radio presenters but have no proof. The contents of my usual fizzy-drink can will have to be decanted into a Global Radio mug: the brand would show up on the studio cameras. Producers act as callers. Recorded news acts as real bulletins. It’s reality without the reality. A lot of pushing but no baby to show for it. I’ll try not to torture the antenatal/birth analogy further – otherwise the UN might have to intervene. But next week it’s the birth. It will not be perfect. And it will be messy. There will be some feminine screaming. From me. And then the fun begins as we try, over time, to nurture this newborn into a child we can be proud of. Eddie Mair is now on LBC, weekdays from 4pm to 6pm
Eddie Mair: 'Why my accidental exit at the BBC was the perfect ending'
From a Jeremy Paxman interview to a Morecambe and Wise soundtrack, Eddie Mair kept a diary through his final days at Radio 4's PM
I promised you a diary from my last week at PM. Here it is… Eddie Mair: What I will and won’t miss about the BBC Eddie Mair explains his decision to leave the BBC: “None of my thinking has been influenced by pay problems” View oEmbed on the source website Monday 6th August While I’m sitting in Broadcasting House, an email arrives from Broadcasting House. The former is a building where I work, the latter is a programme I used to present on Radio 4. The email is from Scott – a fine producer who once toiled on Radio 4’s The Robert Peston Interview Show (with Eddie Mair). Scott was very adept at keeping the peace between Robert and me by constantly telling Robert that he was a much better broadcaster. This is how the email begins: “Hi Mr Mair, hope you are well. Would you be interested in reviewing the Sunday papers on Broadcasting House at some stage? With your broadcasting and journalism experience you would be a great addition to our line-up.” Sarcastic git. Because some undiscovered Morecambe and Wise has been rediscovered, we close PM with them singing Bring Me Sunshine. View oEmbed on the source website Tuesday 7th August Another email, this time from BBC Human Resources: “Good morning Eddie. We have received notification of your resignation and note that your last day of employment will be 10 August 2018.” It goes on to tell me where to find my P45 – in a recycling bin somewhere on the eighth floor – and further advises that I should follow the BBC tradition of handing back my security badge directly to Lord Hall, kissing him on both cheeks but being careful not to stare directly at the sun. Wednesday 8th August, 1pm Lunch with Jeremy Paxman for a Radio Times interview [read it in print next week] at a Viennese café, Fischer’s. I love a schnitzel. Jeremy arrives in shorts and with his dog – Derek. Ideally Derek would have been a schnitzel, but life’s never perfect. As the RT photographers snap away, I ask Jeremy where his tape recorder is. He gives me that look cabinet minsters endured for years and informs me he has a notebook and that’s all. Shocking! I want to go on the record now, before I’ve seen the article he’s written, that all the so-called quotes have been misremembered and the article is a travesty of journalism. Unless he writes “lovely” – in which case, what an absolute titan of journalism he is. Wednesday 8th August, 6pm My third-from-last PM. A listener – Greg – who heard Monday’s Bring Me Sunshine suggests we play the Willie Nelson version, so we play out with that. Just Willie Nelson, then the bongs. The output editor of PM tonight is the brilliant Eloise Twisk. It’s our last show together as she is off on Thursday and Friday. We look at each other just after our 6pm post-programme meeting and realise: that should really be my last show. It was a perfect ending, suggested by a listener. No fuss or faff, as I had wanted. Why not go out with that? It was not intended to be the last, but it felt just right. So that’s what we did. Ended it there. What's next after PM? I’m very happy to say Radio Times would like me to keep writing this column. And I will still be appearing in the BBC’s Grenfell Tower Inquiry podcast. But what’s next for me on the radio is my new gig at LBC. On this page I will chart my rise and fall there. Whatever happens, I will do my best to bring you sunshine, although I’m no Eric or Ernie. But I’m more than a Willie. Eddie Mair’s new show on LBC begins in September
Eddie Mair: What I will and won’t miss about the BBC
After leaving Radio 4's PM, the broadcaster looks back at his time at the Corporation
I find myself in a strange limbo land. My time working on PM and iPM on Radio 4 is disappearing in the rear-view mirror. On the horizon, LBC is looming. But for now I have a week to relax, reflect and repaint the bathroom. Next week I will tell you all about my final days on PM. Who said what. Who cried buckets. And who swore blind that if I ever darkened the BBC’s doors again he would resign as director-general and go to live in Sweden as a moose. But for now I’d like to share with you something my agent could never achieve – a reflection. During this Gap Week I’ve had a lot of time to think, and not just about the difference between gloss and matt paint. After 31 years at the BBC I knew there would be things I would miss and things I’d be glad to see the back of. There are more things I love about the BBC than there are presenters on Today, but let’s start with the negative. Eddie Mair explains his decision to leave the BBC: “None of my thinking has been influenced by pay problems” Eddie Mair on his encounter with two muggers in South America Eddie Mair reveals his new Radio Times column collection A Good Face For Radio View oEmbed on the source website Things I won't miss about the BBC 1. The new open-plan Broadcasting House. Open-plan offices should remain as plans. There’s the racket, the lack of privacy and the lingering smell of everything that has ever smelled in there because it doesn’t benefit from a single open window. There are undiscovered deceased hoarders decomposing on top of mildewed newspapers in shacks in Montana who smell better than our office. Why the BH mice don’t die of asphyxiation I have no idea. 2. The back stairs of Broadcasting House. Until the recent construction of small privacy booths, the worship of the truly open-plan office meant that the back stairs were the only reliable place to risk a private conversation. The downside was they were bitterly cold in the winter and echoed a lot – any ghastly ground-floor gossip above a whisper would become ghostly gossip round the eighth floor. 3. Group emails from management. I am a typical BBC hypocrite when it comes to this. Surveys of staff always find people whining that they don’t know enough from bosses about what’s going on. I agree with that. But whenever a chirpy email arrives from the higher echelons announcing just the sort of thing we complain we’re not told about, I whine that I’m sick of being bothered by their constant emails. 4. The third floor fridge. I don’t want to go into details, thank you. 5. A certain executive's emails... The executive whose emails are so witless, badly written and contradictory that for years I’ve had them diverted straight to my junk mail so I never have to read them. View oEmbed on the source website Things I will miss about the BBC Pretty much everything else. Brilliant, inspiring colleagues. The listeners. The chair I managed to master in the last six months so it tilts back to just the right angle. And the coffee machine next to the third-floor fridge that is out of order more often than it works. Did I mention the brilliant, inspiring colleagues and the listeners?
Eddie Mair: during my photoshoot for my new employer, two make-up artists resign
After leaving BBC Radio 4's PM, Eddie Mair discusses his move to LBC – and why he'll be wearing make up
For the first time in my life, I’ve requested make-up. Well, for the first time in my professional life, to be sure. The BBC has announced my departure from PM and my new employer, LBC, wants to get me in for a Monday-morning photoshoot to accompany their own announcement. Their studios are always busy, what with being a 24-hour station, so I’m required to be at LBC Towers (as I’m sure no one calls it) for 6:15am before Nick Ferrari needs it at 7am. They send a huge car to collect me from home. I ask if this is to be the new daily arrangement, and they’re very clear it’s a one-off. I’ve to get a rickshaw home. I’m dropped outside Global Radio HQ in Leicester Square in London. Eddie Mair explains his decision to leave the BBC: “None of my thinking has been influenced by pay problems" Eddie Mair on his encounter with two muggers in South America Eddie Mair reveals his new Radio Times column collection A Good Face For Radio View oEmbed on the source website It is 5:45am. There are several people in Leicester Square and I’m confident I’m the only one who’s been to bed in the last six hours. I’m confident I’m the only one who’s had a shower in the past 48 hours. The make-up, you ask? I’m just back from holiday and despite the best efforts of the world’s finest sun-screen scientists in their laboratoires, my face is Central Line red. As I step out of the cab, passers-by clock my crumbling countenance and break into a chorus of The Singing Detective. I’ve been talking to LBC for a year but have never set foot inside the building until this moment. It’s an unassuming front door in the corner of the famous square. There is a TGI Friday’s next door and just along the way the biggest Odeon you’ve ever seen. The Global front door by comparison looks tiny, like the kind of entrance you might have found in old Soho… no frills, but the promise of something stimulating upstairs. I press the buzzer and announce myself. Upon entering I take selfies in a slightly overexcited new-boy way. Finally I’m here. There is a short corridor with a security barrier and a staircase to the left. I hang around, taking more photos. Presently, there’s a voice from upstairs. “Um, you can come up, you know.” Clearly I’m one of those eejits not smart enough to realise that the stairs are there to be used and I shouldn’t stand in the entrance all day. I’m greeted by several senior LBC people who I can tell are startled by my face falling off but are too polite to say. After a journey through a warren of corridors that hint at Tony Hall’s mind, we arrive in the studio. I apologise to the poor make-up artist who must try to make me presentable. She bursts into tears, resigns, and runs like a gazelle from the building. This happens two more times with two more artists until eventually Nick Ferrari himself comes in with a trowel and some cement. He says he always carries them and I’m grateful to him for his surprising expertise with foundation, blusher and C10 concrete. The photographer does his best with what he’s given. Having A Good Face for Radio (out soon in paperback, kids), I have seen this before. Photographers can do very little with faces that don’t normally see daylight and settings that are essentially a microphone and a chair. But he’s good, and quick, and before long I’m taken to a boardroom on the eighth floor that resembles Lord Sugar’s. "Am I being voted off?” I quip, as they study the small print of my signed contract. And then a trapdoor opens and I’m back in Leicester Square.
Eddie Mair explains his decision to leave the BBC: "None of my thinking has been influenced by pay problems"
The presenter of BBC Radio 4's PM explains why after over 30 years with the broadcaster he has chosen to move on
The day in 1987 when the BBC first called to offer me a job, they had already sent me a rejection letter. I should have taken the hint. I’d travelled from Dundee to Glasgow to get the last interview slot of the day – around 5pm – for the job of Sub-Editor, BBC Radio Scotland. I thought I’d clinched it when Robin Wylie, who would go on to become my first BBC boss, looked at my application form during the interview. “It says here that you like a good argument,” he intoned. “No, it doesn’t,” I replied and we all laughed. I got the train back to Dundee, happy that I’d done my best. Eddie Mair reveals how BBC Radio 4 weathered a storm on PM Eddie Mair on his encounter with two muggers in South America Eddie Mair: as a journalist, the flood of post-Brexit breaking news is fun When the first post arrived the next morning around 7am (that kind of thing happened back then) it included a letter in a BBC envelope. I thought that was a bit fast but upon opening there was a letter from BBC Scotland Personnel (that’s what HR was called back then). They were terribly sorry but I hadn’t got the job. Crikey, I thought, they were quick off the mark to catch the last post last night. They must have really hated me. I put the letter away and decided that maybe I should carry on where I was: there might be a future in commercial radio for me. A few hours later the phone rang. It was BBC Scotland telling me I had got the job. I told them I’d already had a letter of rejection but they assured me that was a mistake. “Happens all the time”. Between that day and this, I’ve been fortunate to call the BBC home. BBC Scotland, Radio 4 for Breakaway and the odd PM. Radio 5 Live. BBC World Service in association with Public Radio International on a show called The World. We’d rejoice in picking up the phone and saying: “Hello? The World”. More Radio 4 – Broadcasting House, PM and iPM. Along the way various documentaries, Time Commanders (Google it), general elections and now podcasts. Filling in on Newsnight, for Andrew Marr and on Any Questions. Now it’s time for me to go. Whenever anyone leaves a job, people ask: did they jump or were they pushed? There can be a lot of truth hidden behind gushing statements. Honestly, this was my choice and the main driving force behind it was a desire to do something a little different after 20 years in one job. I’ve seen better broadcasters than me come to a premature end, including: Nick Clarke, Steve Hewlett, Howard Philpott. All silenced long before their time. I’ve no reason to believe I’ll be next, but it’s always later than you think. I didn’t want to be counting the days to retirement. Maybe I should give something else a whirl while I still can. Another employer came along – a year ago – and wondered if we might work together sometime. This was even before BBC presenter pay was published. View oEmbed on the source website None of my thinking has been influenced by the BBC’s pay problems. I’d offered, in writing, to take a cut. It tickled me to read sometimes that I was apparently refusing. The first article appeared before we’d even discussed pay, and later it was said I was staying off work in some kind of protest: in fact, as RT readers know, I was in hospital trying to avoid sepsis. When I told them of my decision, to leave, the BBC begged me. “Please go sooner,” they said, but I insisted on working my notice. Maybe there’s a future in commercial radio for me after all. We’ll see. Eddie may be leaving the BBC but you can still read him every week in Radio Times Sign up for the free RadioTimes.com newsletter
Eddie Mair reveals how his mugging turned from bad to worse
The story of the BBC Radio 4 presenter’s hospitalisation continues…
At the end of last week’s column, we found our hero – me – in his South American hotel room, somewhat thankful that his experience of being mugged had not turned out worse. Yes the theft of backpack, credit cards and cash was not postcard material, but he found some relief in not being stabbed, shot or otherwise murdered. He had got away with a grazed knee and a slightly painful piece of skin on his sunburnt left neck where the muggers had sought to wrench the backpack. Horrified friends back home advised that I should not let the muggers also steal my holiday. I kept calm and carried on, like a T-shirt, or is it a mug? Warier than before, and with some antiseptic cream on my neck, but still exploring. Eddie Mair on his encounter with two muggers in South America Eddie Mair reveals his new Radio Times column collection A Good Face For Radio A week later, and with another South American country under my belt, I noticed the thing on my neck had turned into a tiny lump, making shoulder movement a little uncomfortable. A pharmacist offered a cream containing antibiotics. After five days, and nearing the end of the holiday, the cream appeared to be having little effect. The lump, while not yet being dowager-sized, was big, purple, and filling with hardened pus. Sorry, but it was. I mentioned last week the look of horror PM guests sometimes have at my questions. I saw the same look when I went to a different pharmacy to show them my weird wound. They both gasped and contorted as if I’d asked them one of my questions. This was the first real sign that my little mugging might not be so easy to consign to unpleasant history. When a pharmacist gasps at what ails you, you begin to suspect a paracetamol is not going to do the trick. It was two more days until I returned home and got an 8am appointment to see a GP. There was little sleep to be had. The thing on my neck was spreading and growing. It had its own postcode. Nausea swept over me in ways I usually only experience listening to Radio 4. The journey to the doc was only achieved with a certain amount of Grandpa Simpson-style shuffling. What the hell was wrong with me? That look of horror? It appeared instantly on the doctor’s face as I pulled aside my T-shirt to reveal a mountain range Chris Bonington himself would baulk at. He sat down. “You have to go to the hospital right now.” He began typing a note of referral, which I treasure today: “He has an abscess on his left shoulder with possible sepsis as he is feeling unwell. This needs surgical drainage and he probably needs IV antibiotics as…” and this next bit was startling, “...he could be deteriorating rapidly.” The hospital was three streets away but the doctor advised hailing a cab, advice I ignored. What is it about the human spirit (my stupidity) that soldiers on in the face of all the evidence? I shuffled painfully each baby step I could muster to the hospital door. I still imagined I could still make my optician’s appointment at 10am to replace the prescription sunglasses the muggers had also nicked. At the hozzie, there were more unguarded horrified looks including, hours later, from a surgeon who said I would need a general anaesthetic and then go under his knife so he could remove the entire mountain range, down to the Earth’s core. I emailed the optician to say I wouldn’t make it. Or I may have done. I couldn’t see a bloody thing. To be continued… Eddie Mair presents PM and iPM on Radio 4
Eddie Mair: How helicopters are ruining live news broadcasts
The overhead menace drowns out audio for virtually no benefit, says the PM presenter
And now, let’s re-live, for a moment, some of the speeches hailed as being pivotal moments in the 20th century. Let’s start with 20 January 1961, and the inauguration of President John F Kennedy: “And so, my fellow Americans: ask not what your country can do for you; ask what chugga chugga chugga.” Next, Martin Luther King Jr, 28 August 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC: “I have a dream, that one day this nation will chugga chugga chugga its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are chugga chugga.” Now let’s flit to the steps of Downing Street, 4 May 1979: “Where there is discord, may we bring harmony. Where there is chugga chugga chugga. Where there is doubt, may we bring faith. And where there is despair, may we bring chugga.” Yes, that’s what those moments would have sounded like if we’d had 24-hour TV news back then. Because as you know it’s impossible to cover news events any more without there being a helicopter several hundred feet up, affording us unrivalled coverage of the distant bald patches of newsmakers. In recent years it’s been modish for British prime ministers, incoming and outgoing, to make announcements from a podium set up outside 10 Downing Street. This affords the snappers and TV cameras a statesman/womanlike shot of the politician with the famous door behind them. Fair enough. But the demands of 24-hour TV news dictate that we must also see what it would all look like to a passing gull. And so, at considerable expense, a helicopter is dispatched to hover above the scene. It looks fantastic on the telly but unfortunately the racket drowns out what the politician is trying to say and it can cause terrible confusion. Only when we got the official transcript of David Cameron’s remarks after winning in 2015 did we realise he did not say: “Ed Miliband sang to me this morning to wish me ducky with the poo government.” Similarly, Theresa May in April of this year did not say: “I have just paired a meeting of the Cabinet, where we agreed that the Government should call a general erection, to be held on moon the 8th.” I fear that in the event the world survives into the 22nd century, historians will be somewhat bemused by what TV news did to history. I’m old enough to remember when only Radar O’Reilly could hear helicopters. Now they’re always incoming. My particular favourite is the bird’s eye view we get after elections of the prime ministerial vehicle on its short journey from Downing Street to Buckingham Palace. It’s imperative a helicopter traces every inch of the route, no doubt in case the new leader of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland should tap the driver on the shoulder with the instructions: “Sod this for a laugh, take me to KFC for a Zinger.” Then, like tracking OJ Simpson on his famous sojourn down California’s highways, we could marvel as the Queen is kept waiting while the daring PM sits at a drive-through window waiting for their chips. Having said that, I do enjoy a nice traffic tailback seen from the air. Miles and miles of vehicles not moving, with the bonus of taking in the majesty and grandeur of the landscape. A 24-hour traffic jam channel? You heard it here first. Eddie Mair presents PM and iPM on 5pm weekdays, Radio 4
Eddie Mair: with Theresa May in sight "I was suddenly gripped by a desire to be naughty"
What would you do if you could give the Prime Minister a piece of your mind? Eddie Mair had just that opportunity...and blew it
Theresa May is walking towards me and she looks bloody annoyed. It’s a Friday night at New Broadcasting House, just after six o’clock. You may be familiar with parts of our workplace from the TV show W1A, or from the time some pranksters got into the building and wandered round videoing it for a Facebook giggle. There are two banks of lifts flanking the middle of the building. Each bank has four lifts, and each lift relays the output of a different radio station. It’s pot luck which one you get. Radio 3 perhaps, or the Asian Network. I slightly dread getting in the 1Xtra lift because, well, they didn’t have someone of my vintage in mind when they drew up their playlist. I’ve been up and down in the 1Xtra lift more times than I care to recall and on no occasion has there been a peep from Tony Bennett. If you’re very unlucky and find yourself in the BBC Radio 4 lift between 5 and 6pm on a weekday, you’ll have me for company. There’s no mute button! Someday one of these lifts will get stuck between floors when I am on the air – I can only apologise in advance to the poor souls inside when that happens. So here I am, footling down in one of the lifts just after the programme. I get out and walk towards the central security doors. As always, there are people doing the same thing from the opposite direction, having emerged from the right-hand lifts. And who do I clock? Well, the clue is at the start of this column. I’m used to seeing famous people in BH. The other day I passed Fiona Bruce (ouch!) and I almost said hello, before remembering that I knew her only from the telly and she wouldn’t know me if I stood up in her soup and sang the national anthem. The person Fiona glanced at had his mouth half-open in readiness for a greeting that never came and a confused expression on his face. I think she assumed I was an eejit and, candidly, no jury would demur. The Prime Minister is flanked by her security heavies, and James Harding, the BBC’s director of news and current affairs, who is not at all heavy. She has just recorded a Newsnightinterview and is about to exit through the security gates at the exact same time as me. Outside I can see two vehicles ready to leave from the piazza, or plaza, or whatever they call it. She looks straight at me, and I have a slight Fiona Bruce moment. As I negotiate the slow-moving security doors, I’m suddenly gripped by a desire to be naughty. I briefly entertain the idea of yelling a question at her, as hacks do. “Are you going to resign, Prime Minister?” By now we are both about to exit the main doors onto the piazzaplaza. There is a small crowd and more scary-looking security folk. The door of the prime ministerial car has been opened and I’m panicked by the urge to rush into the back seat before she does. If I sprint I can make it. It’s a genuine impulse, which, naturally, I fight... not least because James Harding would sack me on the spot, plus I’d be shot dead by the PM’s security detail, which would be a double whammy to really round off the week. In the end I say and do nothing, apart from watch as the prime ministerial car sweeps away and wonder what might have been. Eddie Mair presents PM and iPM on Radio 4
The Your News bulletin provides a unique snapshot of listeners’ lives
The BBC loves an anniversary. Whether it’s 400 years since Shakespeare put down his quill or 50 years of the continental quilt, there is nothing that the corporation is not prepared to celebrate with a series/season/Mary Berry pie recipe. In that fine tradition, I’d like to draw your attention to the fact that ten years ago this year, iPM began. It’s a BBC anniversary! Hooray! Let’s have cake! As your eyes begin to droop, let me try to hold your interest with a startling confession. We’re not sure what the “i” stands for. I’m not joking. Since PMbegan in 1970, listeners have always been notably involved (note to self: make sure my successor has plans to celebrate its 50th birthday in 2020). The reading out of listeners’ letters (then in addition, emails, tweets and tea-leaf analysis) has been part of the broadcast for as long as anyone can remember. Our audience is smart, sophisticated and immune to flattery. More importantly, our listeners know stuff. We wondered whether we could make a programme in which their knowledge and experience could be the start of the editorial process, rather than the end of it. Instead of simply reacting to what we chose to broadcast, maybe individual listeners could – for want of a better cliché – set the agenda. A lot has changed in our time. The programme’s blog has gone the way of many blogs. Twitter is, for the moment, as popular a contact method as email. But one feature has endured the technological change. It’s called “Your News”. Listeners send us a single sentence about their week and we compile it into a bulletin – and we ask various well-known voices to read it for us. It was all the idea of Paddy O’Connell from Radio 4’s Broadcasting House. I asked him the other day how he came up with it and he said it was over dinner with me. I have no recollection of this and put it down to being over-medicated at the time, probably by Dr Jim Beam. The Your News bulletin provides a unique snapshot of our listeners’ lives. Sometimes the sentences describe apparently humdrum events but they’re anything but. Here are some actual quotes... “I completed 366 uninterrupted recordings of the local weather.” “I went to see my dad in the care home and saw him wearing a bib for the first time.” “Six years after my husband’s death I’ve taken his dressing gown off the back of the door and given it to a charity shop.” It’s a sublime minute or two. We never broadcast people’s names – just their news. You can be part of Your News anytime you like, by emailing a sentence about you: iPM@bbc.co.uk. Perhaps the i stands for individual or interactive. It doesn’t really matter. iPM is all about our listeners. They are front and centre. But they’re not getting any cake.
Eddie Mair on the Steve Hewlett interview that never took place
“I wish when he was of firmer voice and more robust health we could have captured his thoughts on a notable career”
There are many things to admire about the late Sir Robin Day, but there are two in particular I’d like to draw your attention to. First, he’d know not to end a sentence with a preposition like what I just done. And second, he once gave a piece of advice that has stayed with me. Before I offer it to you, please bear in mind my bare mind. While it honestly believes this to be a true memory, it’s old, it misremembers and despite extensive research (the first ten Google search results), I have found no online reference to Sir Robin’s wise words. Maybe it never happened, like those two meetings with the Russian ambassador I forgot I didn’t have. But let’s work on the assumption that my memory might be accurate. Someone years ago had the bright idea of asking the great and the good for the best advice they could give the rest of us – and compiled all the wise words into a book. Sir Robin’s advice was direct and brilliant – like his interviewing style. It was simply this: “Do it now.” It’s beguiling, isn’t it? An encouragement to pursue our goals and dreams. An admonition to stop faffing about. Or just enough to persuade you to make that cup of tea you’ve been thinking about. The words have been rattling around in my mind with greater resonance of late. A few weeks after Steve Hewlett began his weekly appearances on PM, talking about his health, I had a quick word with him outside the studio once we were off the air. I was conscious that while he was candidly sharing with the world his experience of cancer – and as discussed here previously it was something that connected with listeners in ways we couldn’t imagine – Steve’s professional life was never discussed. I didn’t doubt he had amazing stories to tell about his time as a producer/editor/documentary-maker/media commentator and a ridiculous number of other activities. View oEmbed on the source website My pitch was this: that one day we sneak off, just the two of us, to secretly record an interview about Steve’s working life. Anecdotes, behind-the-scenes gossip… perhaps a little friendly backstabbing! We would keep the recording until after his death, and broadcast or podcast it. I was anxious about making the suggestion. He could easily have found it offensive or distasteful. To my relief, he didn’t hesitate. He thought it was a good idea and would love to do it. I still felt awkward around it: Steve’s outlook was all about life and living. The prospect of death loomed larger for him than for some of us, but it never seemed to dominate his thinking. My little idea was, in a way, predicated on his demise, and it made me uncomfortable, so I resolved not to mention it unless he did. Several times over the course of the next few months he said, “We should do that interview,” and off he would bustle… a time never fixed. After the last occasion when he made it to the PM studio, he reminded me that we needed to do the interview but that he wanted to wait until his new drugs regime had kicked in. Of course, I said. I would never have pushed him into it – in any event, Steve was not a man to be pushed – but I wish when he was of firmer voice and more robust health we could have captured his thoughts on a notable career. So, whatever it is for you, do it now.
Ed Balls, people’s champion of Strictly Come Dancing 2016: ‘I never, ever knew I was so camp’
The celebrity we most wanted to see in the final reckons he's found the key to being sexy: don't try
“Who would have thought you and I would be doing this!” says the former shadow Chancellor. Almost all of our previous encounters, which were usually not face-to-face, had been live on a news and current affairs programme: me verbally dissecting the minutiae of Labour Party economic policy; him vigorously attacking any perceived slight. Now, thanks to his eye-popping run on Strictly Come Dancing, we’ve gone from “Can you pass a law?” to “Can you paso doble?” One of his sons had opened the family front door to me: through the back in the kitchen, Ed and his wife, the Labour MP Yvette Cooper, were brewing coffee. It was here – between the washing machine and the ironing board – that he practised his last dance: a rumba that the nation never got to see after he was booted off Strictly. “We were going to do a rumba to Shirley Bassey’s This Is My Life – it’s probably best left to the imagination!” he tweeted. Instead, we have a unique interpretation of Gangnam Style, a blazing piano and Great Balls of Fire by which to remember the unlikely star of Strictly 2016. Only once before had I actually met Ed Balls and he was precisely the kind of friendly, smiley person he didn’t appear to be as a politician on-air. It was at an edition of Radio 4’s Any Questions and I remarked in my introduction how he must have been teased at school about his surname. Quick as a flash he butted in to say it hadn’t been easy for him, but it was much worse for his sister, Ophelia. It got a big laugh. Now, thanks to Strictly, he has been making everyone laugh for the past three months. Changed days. When he was just a politician, members of the public would talk to him in the street, “but you just never knew which way it was going to go”. A week after he lost his seat in the 2015 general election, on one of his first forays outdoors, he was with one of his sons when a man approached him, his face contorted with anger, pointing and snarling: “You’re unemployed. Haaaaaaaaa!” And now everyone’s nice to you? “At the moment they’re nice to me.” As for what he’s learnt about himself: “I never, ever knew I was so camp. I’ve discovered a massively more inner-camp than I ever thought I had. What you realise is that Peter Kay is very camp and, actually, I quite like being camp. Doing the paso doble I tried not to be camp because Katya said, ‘You can’t be a camp matador, you’ve got to be as manly as you can.’ I did the most manly paso doble I could. Afterwards the producer said it was the most camp paso doble they’d ever seen in the history of Strictly.” Does Ed think he’s sexy? There is a pause and a little staring out of the window. “Um, I think there’s a… No. I think it might be for a woman of a certain age. Men who are relaxed in who they are and happy to be fun and camp might be attractive. But I think that’s almost because they’re not trying to be sexy. If I tried in any way to be sexy, I am absolutely sure that it would be very, very not sexy.” Me: “So this is effortless sexiness we’re seeing? Think how sexy you’d be if you tried.” Ed: “I have tried and it’s very, very, very not sexy. It so doesn’t work. You learn to understand people’s reaction and their laughter. Any time I try to do sexy, they just laugh. And I’ve come to understand that, appreciate it and even actually quite like it. But it’s not sexy.” He’s decided to do the Strictly live tour in the new year… but then what? The jungle? “No. This is the only reality TV I’ll do. Absolutely. I think if you’re going to do it you might as well do the globally biggest and best one, and I’m scared of rats, so that’s out anyway. I said no to that last year. This is a massive one-off reality TV immersion.” He’d “love to do a couple of hours of Classic FM”, but he doesn’t want to make long-term decisions right now. “The thing about being a cabinet minister is it’s really difficult, but it really matters. Nothing I’ve done since has ever mattered as much and been as hard. So I miss that sense of purpose and that kind of difficulty and responsibility. I’d like to do something in my life that was as responsible again, but I’m not sure what that means.” I feel a little sorry for him and suggest that, with his political background and his new popularity, he could host a political talk show, like Robert Peston or Andrew Marr. “I think that’s a seriously learnt skill, which I’m not sure would be very easy to pick up quickly. It’s not something that happens in British journalism. People would find it hard to see me as objective.” I’m not so sure. We’ve got Marr and Peston. Wouldn’t many people love to wake up on Sunday morning to Balls? Strictly Come Dancing: The Final airs on Saturday 17 December at 6.40pm on BBC1
Eddie Mair: these are the questions people are really asking about Brexit - why aren't the campaigns answering them?
With a week left until the EU referendum vote, why are people still asking questions?
As you know, I try to keep this column light. It has more air in it than a Delia meringue and less substance than one of Charlie Sheen’s dinner parties these days. If it’s serious content you crave, there are scores of well-informed columnists out there. If it’s well-informed commentary you’re after, I think you can do no better than Dan Maskell, though perhaps that dates me. In this very publication you’ll find a more serious tone in the listings for Comedy Central than you will here. So it’s with a heavy heart that I talk this week about something heavy. The EU referendum is coming. We’re told it’s the most important decision we’ll have to make since deciding whether to watch something tonight on Comedy Central. The campaigns seem to have been running for ever, and there’s now just a week to go. So why are PM listeners still writing to us in droves asking questions that don’t appear to get answered by the campaigns? A while back, as a public service, we devoted a few minutes of PM each night for a week to answering our listeners’ EU-related questions. Our assistant political editor Norman Smith and our Europe correspondent Chris Morris kindly agreed to answer the questions. We get a lot of emails at PM. Usually if we talk about something on air our inbox pings delightfully for a few minutes, and then quietens down. On this topic, however, the emails have never stopped arriving. Day and night they come. Over the weekend, unprompted, earnest enquiries arrive from real people who want real answers to their real questions. We had so many unanswered questions after the original weeklong run ended, we brought Norman and Chris back for a second week. And then a third. Then a fourth... The questions seem a world away from what the campaigns are talking about. Here’s just a tiny sample: Have any countries, trading blocs or other such entities publicly stated they’re in favour of Britain leaving the EU and that they have specific plans to increase their trade with Britain if it did? How many people does the EU employ and what is their average salary? Regarding the European Arrest Warrant: how many UK citizens have been arrested and extradited to other EU states compared with citizens of other EU states extradited to the UK? What’s the difference between the European Union, the European Commission and the European Council? Would we need new car number plates without the EU flag? I get eBay parcels from all over the EU, for reasonable postage, and with no customs charges or delays. When I buy from Japan or the USA, I get whacked heavily for customs and handling costs, and there are delays of up to a month while the package is checked. If we leave the EU, will all my parcels be like this? They’re good questions, right? And we’re happy to do our bit trying to answer them: it’s part of our public service role, I suppose. But if voters need to turn to us to answer such basic interesting questions, aren’t there more searching questions to be asked of all of us in the media about our reporting – and of the campaigns themselves?
How the new BBC radio schedules could look thanks to John Whittingdale
As the Government publishes its White Paper on the corporation's future, Eddie Mair reveals a secret draft schedule for Radio 4
Amid what I understand are heated charter renewal negotiations between the BBC and the Government, there are suggestions that Culture Secretary John Whittingdale might like a say in the scheduling of BBC output. Of course, I didn’t believe a word of that until I was passed this document – it appears to be a draft schedule for Radio 4... Eddie Mair presents PM, Sat, Mon—Fri 5pm, and iPM, Sat 5.45am, 5.30pm, both Radio 4
Hello, stranger. What a year you've missed!
Merry Christmas and welcome to my annual Review of the Year. We tried doing it bi-annually but it just wasn’t the same. I’m Eddie. I can be heard presenting PM and co-presenting iPM on BBC Radio 4 but I’ve been writing on this page for several years: a forfeit after losing at arm wrestling to Vanessa Feltz. I write in Radio Times weekly – or weakly, if the increasingly vociferous “improvement notes” from the Editor are any guide. But what does he know? The fact is, this is the page many RT readers turn to first if: A. all the other pages are stuck together....B. they need something for the budgie cage or...C. they have an aversion to listings. The existence of this column may be news to you. It’s possible that for you, RT is like me at the office Christmas party: something that gets picked up and taken home only once a year. I hope that, unlike my Christmas party experiences, you at least don’t chuck out Radio Times after ten minutes without so much as a cab fare home. But leaving aside the cause of my feud with Martha Kearney, let me tempt you to buy RT a little more often in 2016 by revisiting some of the amazing insights that regular readers have enjoyed throughout the past 12 months. JANUARY Radio 4 airs War and Peace for ten hours on New Year’s Day. It’s the longest continuous broadcast since the infamous “James Naughtie and Robert Peston in Conversation”. FEBRUARY David Tennant makes the most impressive debut in Just a Minute history, speaking without interruption for 60 seconds on his first attempt. Efforts to repeat the achievement on Radio 4’s Today are less successful. MARCH A TV host carries out a physical assault on another man, landing blows on him for at least 30 seconds, shouting obscenities before, during and after. He is later punished with a multi-million-pound contract and a series on Amazon Prime. APRIL General election fever grips the United Kingdom. I have a strong sense that the Liberal Democrats are going to do extremely well. MAY Inflation falls below zero for the first time: as does the temperature in the room when Nick Clegg meets David Cameron after the election result. JUNE Robert Peston and I appear on the cover of RT to mark the start of our new interview series on Radio 4, sending sales figures plummeting. However, I’ve a strong sense the series will run for many years. JULY After approval last month from the BBC Trust, BBC3 gets on with plans to become an online-only channel in early 2016. Viewers in rural areas will be able to finish downloading the first episode of Gavin & Stacey in April 2022. AUGUST Inexplicably, Alan Yentob doesn’t call me or appear at the back of my studio. SEPTEMBER ITV marks 60 years on air by setting fire to The Archers. OCTOBER Robert Peston reveals he’s leaving the BBC to join ITV, insisting the move is about new horizons, not ego. His new show will be called Robert Peston’s Interview Show with Me, Robert Peston. NOVEMBER Terry Wogan does not present Children in Need. Meanwhile, the Met Office announces the actual freezing over of Hell. DECEMBER Very excited. Getting strong hints that the RT editor has finally agreed to put me on the cover of the Christmas and New Year double issue. Eddie Mair hosts Radio 4’s PM (Mon—Fri) and iPM (Sat). Read his column every week in Radio Times.
Nick Park on Shaun the Sheep's big screen debut: "It’s like 24. With sheep."
Radio Times readers voted Shaun the Sheep their children’s TV favourite. Eddie Mair rounds up creator Nick Park and his flock to find out how Shaun became a silver screen star...
Feature films without dialogue haven’t been in vogue since cinema pianists retired. Mind you, The Artist silently stormed the Oscars in 2012, so maybe there’s a purpose in chucking out the chat. Step forward Shaun the Sheep, a silent star for the modern era. Already a children’s hero of the small screen, tablets and phones, here he comes with a full-length feature (in cinemas from 6 February). His agent must be brilliant: his name is in the title. Shaun first appeared, fully formed, in the third Wallace & Gromit film, A Close Shave (1995). On screen for less time than it takes to cook a lamb chop, Shaun somehow became at least as famous as his more established co-stars. At the Bristol studios of Aardman Features, where Shaun’s movie debut is being created, I’m being treated to a behind the scenes tour, to see for myself how a six-minute cameo role is being spun into an all-new all-wool film. When I arrive, the film is about half finished, which in animation terms means it’s already taken ages and there’s loads more to go. Tails are up this particular day at Aardman – and not just the woolly ones. The film-makers have just learned that Shaun has been voted by Radio Times readers as the most popular BBC children’s character of the past seven decades. Shaun is so thrilled he can’t talk, and Nick Park, the man who created Wallace & Gromit, is equally pleased: “Bob Baker and I worked together on The Wrong Trousers and we decided to write another one. We thought of this story about sheep rustling and the wool trade, and came up with Shaun the Sheep. He was like an innocent victim, really, that became a hero.” Nick says it happened at a time when studio work was scarce. “One film had fallen through and we were having a bit of a difficult patch and it was: how can we come up with some ideas to keep people working? I put a couple of ideas on the table and one was: what if Shaun had his own series? It was very sketchy but Golly really took the sheep and created all the characters around him – his own little world, separate to Wallace & Gromit. He ran with it, really – for four series.” (Golly is the nickname of Richard Starzak, who co-directs the film with Mark Burton and made such a success of the TV shows.) Shaun also has Baby Spice to thank for his stardom. Nick says things skyrocketed when Emma Bunton appeared in a photo wearing a Shaun the Sheep rucksack. “His merchandise was already catching on. I think it’s something to do with his cuteness, heroism and cheekiness.” The Aardman folk imagine that if Shaun were a child, he’d probably be between eight and 12 years old: “the kind of kid who – if he sees a big red button saying Do Not Press – he’s going to press it,” says producer Paul Kewley. Is it hard for Nick to leave his creation in someone else’s care? He admits to being very hands-on. “I find letting go of things quite hard really. It’s tough for me. But in the hands of Golly and now with this Radio Times award... it says everything.” Although there are noises and sounds in the film, they promise not a word of dialogue – or cheating of any kind. Executive producer Peter Lord says there’ll be “no subtitles... no cards like in a silent movie. There were perhaps five or six times when we desperately wished we could use some words, but people have been incredibly attentive and ingenious to make it work.” Nick Park explains the film is all seen from Shaun’s point of view. “It’s a bit like that Gary Larson cartoon. When the humans aren’t looking, the cows are all having conversations, smoking or whatever. Then as soon as the humans come, they start eating grass. It’s that sort of feel. The humans are always unaware of what the sheep are up to.” So much so that some publicity material, in which Shaun and his friends are seen standing on two legs next to the farmer, will have to be done again. Before my tour, I’m treated to several minutes of footage that’s already completed. It’s fast-moving, inventive and funny. Though it turns out, I wasn’t paying close enough attention. The animation starts with thumbnail sketches from the director or designer, then model makers bring the figures to three-dimensional life. A workshop is littered with characters – many are missing mouths and jaws. It’s a sign of progress, says Nick. “Once upon a time we’d just have had a fully Plasticine face and the animator would’ve had to animate every vowel. If Wallace was saying window or something like that he would have had to go from an ‘oo’ to an ‘ee then an ‘oo’. That’s a lot of work in front of the camera.” So now the characters have jawless faces, which can be quickly filled in with the contents of a box containing dozens of expressions, labelled with words like closed, smile, closed neutral, pouty, oooo, oh, vacant and ‘high grumpy’. Another time saver is that, unlike actors who tend to want to rest between takes, there are about a dozen Shauns... all working simultaneously in different scenes. Does Equity know about this? We pass through what seems to be Santa’s workshop. Rows of people finessing intricate details on what appear to be brightly coloured wooden toys. In fact they’re far more complex than dead trees. One of Santa’s helpers is stooped over a tiny pair of gloves – about the size of a 10p coin. The process involves spraying the tiny gloves with icing sugar, then putting them in the oven, baking them, cooling them and spraying them again. To make five pairs takes two days. He must make 30 pairs. And he’s surrounded by others doing equally pernickety things: “Lots of very crafty people,” says Nick. Unassuming and polite he may be, but like Alfred Hitchcock before him, Nick Park is getting in front of the camera this time. Well, a tiny likeness of him does. “I get a cameo appearance. Not sure how flattered I am,” he laughs. “You saw it in that clip. [Actually I missed it!] It was very quick. When the caravan was on its way into town, it went through a field and there was a birdwatcher in a hide. That was me. I love birdwatching. The caravan knocks the hide away and leaves me there and birds come and attack me.” Truly Hitchcockian. In the War Room, where everyone gathers for a meeting once a day, it’s possible to see the entire film schedule from day one last January to the expected final day, many months later. On giant boards that flip like those poster racks in shops, the work of all 30 units filming scenes is plotted day by day. It’s delightfully low-tech, with colour-coded elastic bands and bright sticky labels to designate every aspect of the production. While most films are shot out of sequence, Shaun began at the beginning and will end at the end. “It’s part of the economy of it,” explains Nick, “because it’s very costly and time-consuming to re-rig. This film takes place all in one day. It’s like 24. With sheep.” The vast space on the studio floor is divided with black drapes into about 30 sets where tall people loom over tiny figures and landscapes. Art director Matt Perry says the animators are like 50ft giants on set. A video screen on one set shows footage of director Golly pretending to fight a colleague. Humans acting out scenes helps the animators get a feel for how to get the timing right for the characters. Eight seconds of footage can take a week here on the studio floor but it doesn’t destroy the charm of the characters for Loyd Price, the head of animation. “The wonderful thing is you’re actually seeing a performance come to life frame by frame. People say, ‘Oh he’s happy,’ or ‘Ooh he’s sad.’ But really it’s a lump of Plasticine and metal and that’s the thing that gives you the buzz... when it comes to life. Animating is like acting but in slow motion.” Behind another black curtain lurks a hospital scene in which a man is about to be operated on. Always a concerning time but, as Nick explains, this is extra worrying as Bitzer the dog is conducting the procedure. “The farmer gets carted off in an ambulance and Bitzer goes into town looking for him at the hospital. He’s obviously a dog so he’s not allowed in the hospital, so he dons a surgeon’s outfit and he’s mistaken for a surgeon. This is a very funny bit where the patient sees a tail sticking out under his gown just before he’s given the anaesthetic.” On another set a giant street scene (60 x 40ft) makes the characters on set seem even smaller. There are shops with joke names, though not a branch of Costly Coffee. Nick loved the joke but Matt says, “We’ve had to change it to Gulpa Coffee because Costly was too... sensitive. Legal issues!” Finally, a chance to meet the director Golly: the tinderbox-dry wit who co-wrote the screenplay. How's the film going, Golly? "It's as big an adrenaline rush as you can get in animation, " he replies. As for who will go to see the film, Golly says Shaun has a broad demographic. “It’s really surprised me how so many different age groups like it. I get letters from little old ladies and kids and everything in between. They want to tell you how much it’s a part of their lives. I had a letter from Germany where a lady had a cut-out of Shaun as a best man at her wedding.” Well, at least she didn’t marry it. “There’s a big appetite for Shaun globally so I’m looking forward to who knows – a sequel... another series? Shaun the Opera?” I suggest Shaun at the Proms, following a successful gig there by Wallace & Gromit. Quick as a flash, Golly suggests, “Bleathoven?” Which brings us back, finally, to the pair who gave Shaun his first four legs-up in showbusiness. How are Wallace & Gromit, I ask Nick Park, and when will we see them again? What do you make of this enigmatic answer... “Ah well, that’s a big question actually – hopefully not too long. They’re on the back burner at the moment with all this going on. I’m developing another film but it’s not Wallace & Gromit. They’re always there. I’m always doodling them and thinking of ideas. They never go away.” Watch the trailer for the Shaun the Sheep film, in cinemas from Friday 6th February
Eddie Mair revisits the year's best bits that you may have missed
The PM presenter reflects on dinner with Putin and Bob Geldof's lesser known appeal to save Michael Buerk
Happy Christmas! Or if you’re not reading this until New Year’s morning – boy, you look terrible, what did you DO last night? Still, isn’t 2015 fabulous? It’s possible you pick up a copy of Radio Times only once a year, when it’s this enormous double-issue size. (Why they don’t get more claims for severe back injuries I don’t know. It should be the new whiplash. Even the digital iPad edition is heavier.) Can I politely suggest you consider buying Radio Times all year round? You’re missing a year of listings lovingly edited by people who care about radio and TV and know what they’re on about. There are all those interviews and articles you only read snippets of in the papers. And, astonishingly, there’s me: a man you’ve probably never heard of, so let me introduce myself. I’m Eddie Mair, suave international man of mystery. Friend to the stars, catnip to all the ladies and gentlemen who matter and the best-looking man in the whole magazine, apart from Barry Norman. I’m a playboy, business guru, philanthropist and spiritual healer. Really. There’s no need to Google me. I’m tasked each week to bring searing insights into the world around us. I’m sort of a cross between Henry Kissinger, AC Grayling and Mystic Meg. I don’t want to brag, but this is a particularly well-thumbed page in a certain well-known palace in London – and I don’t mean Crystal. So, could I tempt you to perhaps consider taking out a subscription to RT by reliving some of the highlights from this column from the past year? JANUARY Ukip suspends a local councillor who said this month’s floods were caused by God, angry at same-sex marriage. I confidently predict this party will disappear into oblivion in 2014. FEBRUARY Smooth Radio announces Simon Bates will no longer host the breakfast show. His final Our Tune is Kill the Director by the Wombats. MARCH Radio 1’s Nick Grimshaw forced off air to visit hospital after swallowing glass in his coffee. Police fingerprint Chris Evans. APRIL Jeremy Paxman announces he’s leaving Newsnight. Take it from me, I’m a shoo-in for the job. MAY An original Humpty from TV’s Play School is sold at auction for more than £6,000 but is immediately arrested by Operation Yewtree detectives. This actually happened and nothing I write to follow it could be funnier than that fact. JUNE Lovely dinner out with Robert Mugabe, Vladimir Putin, Katie Hopkins and Piers Morgan. Embarrassing scenes when other diners object and Piers is asked to leave. At least he still has that primetime show on CNN. JULY Apparently there’s been a leak from Doctor Who. I said they shouldn’t have appointed such an old guy. AUGUST Rona Fairhead is appointed to chair the BBC Trust. May I say what an excellent idea this is. She will be quite brilliant. Wonderful news. SEPTEMBER During one of the warmest Septembers on record, the BBC is accused of being biased against the Yes campaign in Scotland. I find no evidence of anger on a visit to Glasgow where I am carried shoulder-high by cheering fans who kindly cool me down in the Clyde. OCTOBER Two episodes of At Last the 1948 Show are discovered in the private collection of Sir David Frost. Editions of some of my early PM programmes, thought to have been lost, are also discovered, listened to, and then promptly lost again. NOVEMBER Bob Geldof announces an urgent appeal to save Michael Buerk. DECEMBER Very excited. Getting strong hints that the Radio Times editor has finally agreed at last to put me on the cover of the Christmas and New Year double issue. Eddie Mair hosts Radio 4’s PM and iPM
Look no further for a summer holiday treat, says Eddie Mair
"Last summer I recommended to you the joys of the audiobook. Well, this summer I have something new for your listening pleasure..."
Last summer I recommended to you the joys of the audiobook. I discovered that when sunning yourself on a distant shore, you could have Sir Michael Caine telling you his life story in his actual Sir Michael Caine voice. Well, this summer I have something new for your listening pleasure. I was staying at the secret resort where many BBC stars gather for their hols. It’s a perk of being a member of the 1922 Committee of BBC presenters (so called because after 7.22 in the evening, no one at the meetings is still sober). In return for our monthly dues, we can spend two weeks a year lazing around, bullying the staff and complaining about how standards have slipped – such a pleasant change from being in the office. It was a regular lunchtime scene. Delia was raving about Simon Rimmer’s Pulled Pork with Spicy Coleslaw, Sir David Attenborough was whispering to himself in the foliage and Crimewatch’s Rav Wilding was accusing the Rev Richard Coles from Saturday Live of stealing his sun lounger. To drown out the cries of “sinner!” and “citizen’s arrest!” I put on my headphones to listen to a little podcast recommended to me by a PM colleague. It’s called Here’s the Thing: an interview programme hosted by Alec Baldwin. Yes, the man who got involved in an angry Twitter rant against a reporter, who once got kicked off a plane and who has been involved in an altercation with a photographer. The original title of the show was to have been Here’s My Fist, You Worthless Little Git, but calmer heads prevailed. The ranting notwithstanding, I’ve got a lot of time for Mr Baldwin, whose turn on 30 Rock was one of the show’s many highlights, and whose willingness to send himself up (he appeared on The Larry Sanders Show and was asked to speak up) is endearing. So what’s Here’s the Thing like? Every two weeks, Alec interviews someone interesting. It’s an impressive list. I caught his chats with Lena Dunham (creator and star of Sky Atlantic’s Girls), Rosie O’Donnell, Elaine Stritch and Billy Joel. No doubt being Alec Baldwin helps secure many of these stars, but it’s his winning way with an interview that makes Here’s the Thing so listenable. There’s a jaw-dropping moment when Elaine Stritch reveals the first time she... well... it was the first time she experienced what Golden Girl Rose Nylund once described as the occasion her husband made her eyes go back in her head. There are unintentionally hilarious moments when Stritch’s need for diabetes medication prompts on-air intervention by her assistant. The Joel interview takes place in similarly relaxed circumstances... in his home, by the piano. The conversation covers his entire career and is regularly accompanied by Joel playing and singing his hits. Mr Baldwin, who confesses to having no musical talent of any kind, does not let this inhibit him from crooning along. It’s sometimes painful, but hilarious. And they keep in the bit where Joel’s mobile phone rings: he uses the theme from The Godfather. I was so engrossed, the sun had set by the time it finished, and I could see the Rev Coles being led away, as paramedics nursed a bruised Rav. Eddie Mair hosts iPM on Saturday at 5:45am and PM from Monday-Friday at 5:00pm on Radio 4
Eddie Mair: My path towards death is becoming blurry
"As you’ll know yourself if you’re a varifocal person, you should never look at your feet when going downstairs... Certainly never wear varifocals, get drunk and look at your feet going downstairs"
As I walk slowly towards death, the path is becoming more blurry. Regular readers will recall that a few years ago I had my first eye test since the Wilson administration. I was told I had a slight need for glasses to help me see long distances, and a desperate requirement for reading glasses. Strong ones. I seem to recall the Spanish-born optician ordering something for me from the “microscopico” range. This was my first foray into face furniture and it worked out better than I had anticipated. Before I got my specs I had three fears: (1) that I would break them; (2) lose them; (3) get confused between the distance and reading glasses and have a dreadful accident on the road or on air. To my surprise, I behaved like a grown up and did not have a catastrophe. But it was on the set of Newsnight one evening that I first realised one set of varifocals might be a better alternative. The thing about Newsnight is that you are sometimes required as a presenter to walk and talk at the same time. Late at night. On television. There’s always a lot of faffing around sitting in one bit of the set, then striding awkwardly to a different set of seats. (It’s all down to the BBC bean-counters, by the way. If you’re not seen using all the studio floorspace provided, they can legally take it away. Ask Phillip Schofield about his broom-cupboard story.) I didn’t need glasses for the autocue, but I did need my readers to look at my interview notes. On air one evening, having sashayed successfully from one end of the set to the other, I realised to my horror that my all-important reading glasses were at the other desk. We were about to go live with a big discussion, but I was unable to read anything. I looked down at my notes and they were blurrier than the edges of Roobarb. Only a quick-thinking floor manager – every home should have one – saved me from resorting to my absolute fall-back in an on-air emergency: pretending to faint, Fawlty-style. Now I have several pairs of varifocals. When my eyes were tested again, the optician said my long-distance sight was deteriorating and she ordered something for me from the “Hubble” range. I’m very happy. One pair does the job – although, as you’ll know yourself if you’re a varifocal person, you should never look at your feet when going downstairs. The distorting effect of the lens magnifies everything and your brain thinks you’re drunk, often resulting in hilarious pratfalls. Certainly never wear varifocals, get drunk and look at your feet going downstairs. (Ask Phillip Schofield about his stairs to the broom-cupboard story.) All of these horrors came to mind yesterday when an insurance company asked me to read the unique identification number (the IMEI, as it’s known) from the back of my iPhone. Have you ever tried that? It’s tiny black writing on a black background. I defy anyone to read it. If you don’t have such a phone, go into a store and ask to read the IMEI number. You won’t be able to. I squinted through every part of my specs. Screwed up my eyes. But nothing. It was impossible to read. I cancelled my plans to insure the device and called the optician instead. Eddie Mair hosts PM Monday - Friday at 5:00pm on Radio 4.
Eddie Mair: I'm being watched by the bosses at the Beeb
"Presenting the first PM from New Broadcasting House, I looked up from my tear-stained desk to see a veritable Who’s That of BBC execs"
The weather people were among the last refugees from BBC Television Centre to arrive at New Broadcasting House. I could make out, traipsing in a side door, the familiar figures of Peter Gibbs, Nina Ridge and Thomas Shafan…Tomaz Schafarn… Tomazs Schafirn… John Hammond. Like the PM production team on our first day, they had the task of doing their job in unfamiliar surroundings coupled with the double-edged sword of being watched by senior execs. I have some sympathy for those seniors. People complain if they’re not visible enough (“The last director-general I saw in person was John Reith”) and they complain if they are around too often (“Don’t they have their own work to do? Why aren’t they out catching real criminals?”). In all my time at the BBC I’ve only encountered one or two who you wouldn’t trust with scissors. Production teams still groan inwardly when these big bosses show up on big occasions. Presenting the first PM from New Broadcasting House, I looked up from my tear-stained desk to see a veritable Who’s That of BBC execs, who’d taken time out from busy schedules of back-to-back meetings to watch and listen to an actual radio programme. I’m joking of course – the support is appreciated. But it’s easier for me sitting the other side of the glass. In the production cubicle, crowded with producers, editors, technical staff and now senior execs, producers feel under extra pressure to perform well. This involves saying all the things people expect producers to say (“Cut the next item by one minute/make sure the discussion guest is in the radio car”) while not saying all the things producers actually say when senior execs are not watching (“Those b******s at (name of another programme) stole our guest/My God this guest is tedious, but we’ve nothing else to go to/Why are the senior execs in this place so useless?”). In news, execs will suddenly appear at your side, like the shopkeeper in Mr Benn, to lay a reassuring hand on your shoulder and tell you not to screw things up. I dread a massive loss of life not just because it would be an awful thing in and of itself, but because we’ll be stepping over execs on our way to the studio for a week. I bumped into a weather presenter on their first day and asked how it was going. “Oh it’s fine, getting used to the equipment and how it all works. But it’s so stressful having all these bosses around!” A PM producer tells me that on 9/11, with her nerves jangling and the production cubicle swarming with producers/execs, she sat back suddenly in her chair and found she’d elbowed the then director-general Greg Dyke in the stomach. Quite hard apparently. She swears that had it been football she’d have been sent off. Eddie Mair presents PM from Monday-Friday at 5:00pm and co-presents iPM on Saturday at 5:45am - both on Radio 4
Eddie Mair: Radio is immediate, intimate, reliable and essential
On BBC Radio's 50th anniversary, the broadcaster asks why radio is still thriving in our digital age...
Print, they say, is dying: no one wants to get their news from ink squirted onto dead trees. Television’s top-rated programmes are watched by a fraction of the numbers who used to tune in despite the fact there are more ways to watch, record and absorb TV than ever before. Mobile devices armed with internet access place a world of information in our hands any time, anywhere. Everything tailored to your personal tastes. Your music. Your news. When you want it. It’s breathtaking. So why, in the name of Marconi, is British radio in such rude health, 90 years after the BBC’s mics first went live? It broadcasts what it wants, when it wants. Music stations play their playlists, not ours. Speech networks tell us the news when it suits them. Radio broadcasts at us in 2012, as it did to our parents and grandparents on transmitters that are almost as old as Nicholas Parsons. I can’t speak for you, but for me, perhaps it’s about intimacy. There are voices I grew up with still broadcasting. I hear them more than I hear the voices of family and friends. When they disappear on holiday, my life’s rhythm is mangled. I trust these voices to tell me what’s going on or to twinkle reliably between records. Steve Wright is as good today as he’s ever been, and when I hear him I am with him in the moment, and also back in the sixth-year common room where I first tuned in. He’s merely moved from Radio 1 to 2, but half a lifetime has passed for me and he’s been part of it. We’ve never met and we never will. Terry Wogan was handing over at 9.30am to Jimmy Young the moment my exam results were handed to me by the postie. I had of course been turning the radio down a bit during the music, and back up to hear Terry talk. The voices of Radio 4 continuity and newsreading have been keeping me right for as long as I can remember. I can call on a million different information sources, but it doesn’t make sense until I’ve heard it from Peter, Harriet, Charlotte and the rest. If I catch old Jimmy Clitheroe, these days, I am a small boy listening in the back of the family car. Hearing Hitchhiker’s Guide transports me to my teenage bedroom, marvelling at the sounds and the craziness. Noel Edmonds’ voice forever makes me think of having breakfast and laughing. Alistair Cooke is Sunday mornings. I can hear in my head the voices of beloved broadcasters long since dead. Their tones and cadences. I don’t have big answers to the question I posed. I don’t know why an analogue medium is thriving in a digital age, other than to relate this personal relationship I have with my radio. Immediate, intimate, reliable, essential.