The hair was already becoming a problem
Only days into dramatically changed routines, the Scott Mills team had identified one practical issue.
Haircuts.
Normal appointments were disappearing.
One member of the team was already desperate enough for Scott and Chris to discuss whether somebody on the programme might need to be shaved.
Nobody really trusted anybody else with clippers.
That did not stop the presenters thinking about it.
The feature foreshadowed a theme which would dominate lockdown television, radio and social media for months.
Everybody’s hair was about to get worse.
Another real letter arrived
The show also received another letter through the post.
Physical mail had already become surprisingly important after Hannah’s letter earlier in March.
Scott and Chris encouraged listeners with more time at home to write if they wanted to.
The slower format felt particularly appropriate.
People were trying to stay connected without seeing one another.
A handwritten page suddenly carried more weight than another instant notification.
Rylan met Steve again
The main archive replay was Rylan versus Superfan Steve.
Scott and Chris remembered being particularly nervous about the original prank because Rylan already knew the Steve concept existed.
If anybody was going to recognise the setup quickly, it could have been him.
Instead, the quiz worked.
Chris sat elsewhere with the answers.
Rylan became increasingly baffled by the fan’s knowledge.
One of the questions involved Rylan’s unusual bathroom habits.
Another simply benefited from Steve’s strange pauses and intense delivery.
The feature survived because Rylan concentrated on the creepy amount of knowledge rather than asking why Chris happened to be absent.
Archive became part of live radio
Replaying Rylan was not simply filler.
The show was beginning to use its own past as a dependable source of big moments at a time when bringing celebrities physically into Broadcasting House was no longer straightforward.
Superfan Steve was ideal.
Listeners already knew the format.
New listeners discovering the show while at home could understand it immediately.
The archive could function almost like another live contributor.
Don’t Look It Up continued
The no-internet quiz returned again.
Scott and Chris had begun awarding deliberately modest prizes and treating the game like one of Radio 1’s great institutions after only a few days.
Its appeal was exactly that disproportion.
The world had become more complicated.
The quiz had one rule.
Do not look it up.
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