Nobody at Radio 1 trusted anybody
The morning had already been strange before Scott and Chris came on air.
Greg James and Nick Grimshaw had become involved in an elaborate deception around Radio 1’s second Hide & Seek.
Staff members were unsure who knew the plan and who was genuinely confused.
That made everybody suspicious.
A casual conversation with a producer could be a clue.
A presenter disappearing for ten minutes could mean they were helping the hiders.
The whole building became paranoid.
The proper game began at 4pm
Scott and Chris spent the afternoon gathering theories before the official Hide & Seek start.
The station had run a similar event before.
Listeners knew that apparently trivial details could matter.
Where had somebody last been seen?
Who had access to travel?
Which staff members were suddenly unavailable?
Every possibility became evidence.
At 4pm, the search properly began.
Greg and Grimmy were hidden somewhere.
Radio 1 and its listeners had to find them.
Ricky, Melvin and Charlie became detectives
Ricky, Melvin and Charlie joined Scott and Chris.
They were affectionately introduced as three terrible detectives.
The group tried to separate genuine clues from deliberate distraction.
Family members were called.
People around the BBC were questioned.
Nobody wanted to give too much away in case the person answering had secretly helped organise the hiding place.
Scott liked that the game transformed ordinary station colleagues into suspects.
Even families were questioned
The programme contacted someone in Grimmy’s family to ask whether they knew where he was.
The answer did not suddenly solve the case.
That was typical of the afternoon.
Almost every call produced something which sounded potentially useful and then opened another five theories.
Claire was due to give birth but still investigating
Listener Claire was pregnant and due on Saturday.
She was nevertheless heavily invested in the hunt.
Scott and Chris loved the idea that somebody could be days from giving birth and still regard discovering Greg and Grimmy’s location as an urgent priority.
Hide & Seek had quickly become more than one radio show.
Listeners around the country were conducting their own investigations.
Secret Snog filled the waiting time
The new Secret Snog game also returned while the search developed.
A pop star was still audibly kissing something.
Listeners supplied more guesses.
The contrast was ridiculous.
One minute Radio 1 was conducting a nationwide hunt for two presenters.
The next it was asking whether a wet noise might be a celebrity kissing food.
The search would continue through the night
By the end of Scott and Chris’s programme, Greg and Grimmy were still hidden.
The station continued the hunt beyond 4pm.
Wednesday’s show would inherit a live mystery already approaching the length of the previous year’s event.
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