Had fashion changed while everybody was indoors?
Scott and Chris realised neither had done much proper clothes shopping since before lockdown.
Both had spent months rotating a tiny collection of T-shirts, shorts and sportswear because hardly anybody was seeing them.
Chris opened a clothing website, searched for a medium T-shirt and was immediately confronted with a black mesh top that looked to Scott as though somebody had thrown a fishing net over the model.
They wondered whether fashion had genuinely moved on while they had been stuck at home.
Listeners reported oversized khaki jackets and other styles which made Chris’s much-mocked wardrobe look unexpectedly current.
The pair decided online shops needed models with a far wider range of ordinary body types so customers could see what clothes might actually look like on them.
Don’t Look It Up favoured Apple users and British-food experts
The daily quiz included rounds that rewarded knowledge of Apple products and British food.
The questions sat perfectly inside the show’s preferred territory: things people see constantly but often cannot name once a five-second countdown starts.
Wayne Lineker brought O Beach to Radio 1
Wayne Lineker provided the holiday DJ set from Ibiza.
Scott and Chris wanted to know what running a club such as O Beach looked like in a summer when dancing and normal club crowds were heavily restricted.
Wayne explained the changed environment and talked through some of the records that would normally fill the venue.
His choices included Joel Corry and MNEK’s *Head & Heart*, Meduza’s *Piece of Your Heart* and Lykke Li’s *I Follow Rivers*.
Scott also pitched an extremely 2020 nightclub solution: an antibacterial foam party.
If everybody had to be sprayed with sanitising mist anyway, why not simply turn the cleaning process into the entertainment?
Wayne was willing to entertain the idea.
Ibiza without dancing was difficult to comprehend
Clubs in parts of Europe were experimenting with seated audiences.
Scott had seen footage of DJs performing to rooms where everybody had to remain at tables.
The music and lights looked normal, but the crowd was forbidden from behaving like a normal dancefloor.
The show tried to imagine how a big club record could work when standing up might get somebody told off.
It was another strange reminder that holiday destinations were technically open while the experience people associated with them had changed completely.
Tap End found a BBC Talent leaflet on a McDonald’s floor
The Golden Moment went back to Chris at 15.
After a Saturday involving football, he stopped at McDonald’s and noticed a leaflet on the floor carrying the BBC logo.
It advertised various BBC Talent schemes.
One was aimed at young people: DIY TV, a proposed CBBC series in which 12 teenagers would live together, be followed by cameras and make a television programme.
Chris applied.
He assumed nothing would happen.
Two weeks later he was told he had reached the final 120 and was invited to an audition in London.
Wonderwall was Chris’s big audition weapon
The audition room felt intimidating.
There were cameras, loud stage-school-type teenagers and a judging panel which included a television producer, a psychologist associated with *Big Brother* and presenter Josie d’Arby.
Applicants had to bring something interesting.
Chris took his guitar.
When his moment arrived, he played the chorus of *Wonderwall*.
Even he could not later explain why he thought that would be enough to secure a television career.
Getting locked in the toilet somehow helped
After the audition, Chris went to the toilet.
The cubicle had a faulty handle.
He became trapped for around half an hour.
Eventually one of the judges heard him calling for help and rescued him.
Chris thought this humiliating episode would destroy whatever small chance he had.
Instead the producer seemed amused and remembered his name.
Soon afterwards Chris learned he had made the final 24.
The next round brought a Nokia and “Mavis”
The final audition stage involved an overnight stay near Evesham.
Chris persuaded his parents that, for safety, he now needed his own mobile phone.
He received a Nokia 3210 with an allowance of three free text messages a day.
At the audition he became friendly with another contestant whose real name he changed to Mavis for the story.
She carried a portable CD player and repeatedly listened to Robbie Williams.
*She’s the One* became permanently associated with her in Chris’s memory.
When Josie d’Arby read out the names of 12 people being moved into another room, both Chris and Mavis were included.
Chris thought they might have made the programme.
Then the psychologist entered and told the group they had not.
It was Chris’s first experience of what felt like serious rejection.
There was one positive outcome.
He and Mavis swapped numbers and Chris spent his three free daily texts on her for quite a while afterwards.
Years later he discovered she had got married.
His advice to anybody entering reality or talent shows was simple: enjoy it, do not take rejection too personally and, if possible, choose a phone tariff with more than three texts.
COMMENTS