Evan Davis brings sunshine to Today, but The Now Show is still in the Dark Ages
Spring has arrived, daylight is no longer something that just slips teasingly past your office window, and Radio 4 has decided to brighten up its morning output with the instalment of Evan Davis as a presenter on Today. Several weeks into the job, his sunny style is proving an excellent foil to the glowering cumulonimbuses of doom that are Ed Stourton and John Humphrys (dour and harrumph . . . you couldn't ask for two more descriptive surnames).
Not only is Davis perky - I don't think the word "Liechtenstein" has ever been uttered with such enthusiasm before - but he has an illuminating turn of phrase. Nobody noticed the abolition of the 10p rate of income tax in last year's Budget, for example, because they were lost in a "haze of Brown delight" as the chancellor prepared to succeed Tony Blair as PM.
On the substance, Davis is in command of his material. He is not one for hectoring his interviewees, but he is no less alert, ready with a sharp comment or witty quip should the occasion call for it. His best moment this past week came in an interview with the oleaginous MP Quentin Davies, who was listing the skills that a government-sponsored army cadet programme would bring to youngsters: adventure training, orienteering, kayaking. "Shooting?" was Davis's perfectly timed interruption; the MP did his best to ignore it.
For now, the Today editors seem to be saving the rough stuff for John Humphrys. He was in full effect on Saturday 12 April, laying in to the defence secretary, Des Browne, who was attempting to defend two disgraceful government actions: forcing the Serious Fraud Office to drop its al-Yamamah corruption inquiry into BAE Systems, and trying to restrict the freedom of coroners to investigate army deaths. Pressing an audibly frustrated Browne on the latter, Humphrys said he was repeating his question to "clarify for the listener" what sounded like a fairly complex legal point.
I did wonder, however: Would Davis's less confrontational interviewing style have elicited a clearer response from the minister? Today, of course, is a serious current affairs programme, and a cut above the forced cheeriness of "breakfast" radio, but there is something to be said for not having bad-tempered arguments fizzle into your consciousness the moment the radio alarm clicks on. The Humphrys school of interviewing carries more than a hint of macho chest-beating with it.
As is so often the case in life, the smile and warm handshake of success are followed swiftly by the slap in the face of failure. The latter, for Radio 4, was last Saturday's edition of The Now Show (11 April, 6.30pm), which plumbed spectacularly unfunny new depths. Steve Punt and Hugh Dennis's opening salvo of jokes, about the pro-Tibet protests that were chasing the Olympic torch around the globe that week, rested on a dated "Chinaman" impression at which Prince Philip himself might have baulked. When the torch reached San Francisco, local voices were rendered in an exaggeratedly camp manner (there are a lot of gays in San Fran, you see), although, for some reason, the accent sounded closer to New York than California. Ethnic and sexual slurs are one thing, but basic geographical errors on a topical radio comedy show? Oh, please.
Pick of the week
As Told to Craig Brown
21 April, 11.30am, Radio 4
Spoof documentary series from the veteran satirist, narrated by Juliet Stevenson.
Late Junction
23 April, 11.15pm, Radio 3
Verity Sharp marks St George’s Day with a selection of English folk music.
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