Five years of Beccy
Beccy’s final show expanded into a three-hour celebration involving live music, archive clips, presents and messages from listeners. “We Love Beccy” trended first in the UK and then worldwide as the programme replayed moments from her five years with Scott. The opening collection included her rap performances, calls made in various characters, the day Matt Lucas met his supposed lookalike and the video in which Chris ate sushi from her chest.
Other memories included Beccy discovering the correct pronunciation of chimichanga, struggling through Innuendo Bingo, speaking to Ronaldinho and watching him name cheeses in an attempt to win her, pretending to be a secret-service agent called Judy Goodlove, and appearing on the radio as a child. The sheer number of forgotten clips surprised Beccy, who was alternately amused and embarrassed by how much of her life had become part of the programme.
Scott and Chris kept returning to the reasons those clips had worked. Beccy was willing to commit to ridiculous ideas, whether that involved growing a moustache on her leg, carrying two jugs into the street, turning on the lights in Bridgwater or attempting a call despite being notoriously unreliable at keeping a character together. The retrospective established that the farewell was not simply for a voice in the studio, but for somebody whose mistakes and reactions had created many of the show’s recurring jokes.
Chris proposes with a bear
Chris revisited a Tap End story about a recorded teddy bear from one of Beccy’s former boyfriends. Its voice box had become so irritating that it was eventually removed, stamped on and placed in water to silence it. Chris had once recorded his own mock message for a replacement bear, so he arrived with a much larger toy and asked Beccy to press its hand.
The bear suggested that it was time for them to get married. Chris dropped to one knee, used an absurd collection of supposed middle names gathered online and asked Beccy to marry him. She said no, pointing out that she had a boyfriend and could hardly agree to a proposal which was only a radio joke. Chris had expected a yes and had not prepared an alternative route through the segment.
Bruno Mars’s “Marry You” played while everybody tried to recover. The rejection became more awkward later when pre-recorded contributors congratulated the pair on their engagement, revealing how completely Chris had assumed the proposal would work. Beccy kept the bear, but not the imaginary fiancé.
Abandoman raps the archive
Abandoman followed the proposal with a live freestyle built from listener suggestions. Scott supplied phrases drawn from Beccy’s history, including Beccy’s Forte, sexy ghost, Timmy Trendy, Ed Westwick, the leg moustache, two jugs, MI6, Innuendo Bingo, kumquats, “212”, a Time Lord in the toilet and vertical beef.
The group connected the deliberately unrelated references into a rapid history of the show, adding Beccy’s wardrobe malfunction, her rapping and the rejected proposal as it happened. Listeners who knew the original stories could follow every callback, while Abandoman joked that the collection sounded like the titles of an unusually strange children’s programme.
Frisky and Mannish later created another musical tribute using a succession of familiar songs rewritten around Beccy. Their medley moved through Mariah Carey, East 17, Peter Andre, Pat Banton and other pop references, repeatedly returning to the fact that she was leaving and that Scott would have to cope without her. The performance was affectionate but retained enough jokes about Scott’s hair and the failed engagement to prevent the studio becoming entirely sentimental too early.
Beccy’s final rap
After weeks of practice, Beccy performed “Gangnam Style” phonetically in Korean. She asked Scott and Chris to provide the backing responses but otherwise attempted the whole piece herself. She thanked the friends who had helped her learn it and admitted that she had cancelled a social evening because the final rehearsal required more time.
The performance completed a series of Beccy raps which had included “212”, “Wild Ones” and “California Gurls”. It was intentionally ambitious, occasionally West Country in its pronunciation and exactly the kind of full commitment the programme wanted for her final day. Scott and Chris celebrated the ending as though she had completed a much more conventional live vocal.
The next surprise was a topless man called Dale, introduced on the basis that this was supposedly what women wanted at a leaving party. His appearance involved food and cheese rather than the sophisticated farewell Beccy might have selected for herself, but it continued the show’s preference for taking a familiar office-party idea and making it needlessly uncomfortable.
Messages from famous friends
Scott presented video messages from people connected with the programme. Rita Ora wished Beccy luck on Bargain Hunt because Scott had been forced to invent a destination when asked what she was doing next. One Direction remembered the eggs smashed during an early visit and credited her with making Scott’s show cooler. Keith Lemon and Tom Daley also appeared, although Tom’s message congratulated Beccy and Chris on the wedding which she had already declined.
Chappers revived Joe Cole, the fictional character who had supposedly remained trapped in a toilet since Christmas Eve 2009. A Duchess of Cambridge lookalike sent royal good wishes and also repeated the engagement story. The mixture of genuine pop stars, returning characters and deliberately unconvincing impersonation suited a programme which had always allowed real celebrity encounters and elaborate nonsense to occupy the same space.
Chris added a song of his own, listing Beccy’s habits, features and catchphrases before repeatedly singing her name. Although several lines still assumed that a wedding would take place, the collection of references left Scott visibly emotional and gave Chris a second chance to express the affection which had become tangled up in the proposal.
Gabrielle Aplin closes the show
Gabrielle Aplin arrived after the archive’s final selection of Beccy moments. She joined a farewell edition of Real or No Real in which all the claims concerned Beccy, including the genuine discovery that clay-pigeon shooting was her forte, the large collection of soft toys on her bed and the habit of saying goodnight to her goldfish Roger in an answering voice.
For the final live performance, Gabrielle sang a specially requested song for Beccy. The studio’s laughter finally gave way to tears as Scott thanked her for five years and told her how much she would be missed. Beccy stressed that she was remaining at Radio 1 and could still return occasionally, but the daily partnership had unmistakably ended.
The programme closed with a special Going Home Song. Chris sang that Beccy was from Bridgwater and revived the joke that they had “done it once”; Scott attempted his own verse before Beccy delivered the final lines herself. She said her name, said that she was going home and told the boys that she loved them, ending the week’s farewell in the same deliberately simple format used to send ordinary listeners home each afternoon.
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