Men’s Hour
Radio 5 Live
The first edition of a new series of Men’s Hour (Sundays, 9pm) promised “a Brighton man on his third jaw implant and a cosmetic surgeon who outlines just what steps presenter Tim Samuels needs to take to improve his looks”.
Possibly the third jaw implant was still too accentuated by rows of pus-yellow stitches to make it into the studio, because on the day of the programme Samuels was joined instead by Tristan, who solemnly admitted to having the soundly less exciting Botox and fillers but was opposed to the whole boiled egg look in general. “I’m not a wax candle. That’s key.”
The cosmetic surgery segment was pointedly non-judgemental. There can be absolutely no place for scorn or incredulity on Men’s Hour. No Jenni Murray shading her voice with bottomless pity or helping herself to calves liver and fried sage while the latest dolled-up sharpie of a TV chef frantically paws for answers.
(I once, years ago, saw Nigella sitting outside the Woman’s Hour studio patiently waiting to be interviewed on air, holding an enormous, seething baking tray packed with chicken legs and wings emitting clouds of crisp BBQ smoke. This was 10am. But what Jenni wants, Jenni – quite rightly – gets.)
Samuels is too keen to be liked and lets his guests get away with murder. “I did feel I just wanted to have the injections because I just wanted to have the look,” concluded one guy, after zero thought.
Samuels nodded at this pearl and let it pass, in that slow-blooded way of his, as though he left home for a short walk once and just lost track of time, which is, I guess, how many of us feel about life, but now and again one wishes Samuels might get excited about something.
Anal fissures, man boobs, domestic violence – it was all discussed in the underpowered tones of a hairdresser who’s letting you sit with a post-shampoo towel on your head while they distractedly gather their tools. I’m not saying that presenters continually need to sound like inmates of the gulag stunned by the goings on in the remote libertarian hinterlands (you injected your face with a mixture of your own blood and a numbing agent? Tell me again!) but give it some welly, Tim. Give it some Jenni.