The Four Lads in Jeans became regular critics
Jamie, Connor, Alex and Kevin returned after successfully rating listeners’ dream post-lockdown nights out.
The premise was deliberately cruel.
A caller had 30 seconds to describe the perfect night in their town.
The Four Lads scored the plan.
The location with the strongest pitch became the place Scott and Chris might theoretically choose for their first proper night out once normal life returned.
Chester introduced Radio 1 to Fingers
Shannon tried to sell Chester.
The night would include pizza, pre-drinks, The Botanist and a club with a light-up dancefloor.
Then she mentioned a drinking game called Fingers.
Everybody puts a finger on a central glass.
Players take turns guessing how many fingers will remain.
A correct guess lets the player remove their finger.
The Four Lads immediately understood the appeal.
Scott and Chris also immediately recognised that six people repeatedly touching the same drinking glass was about as non-COVID-friendly as a game could be.
Chester still scored badly
Despite the game and the venues, Chester received a poor score.
Scott was disappointed because he believed it was genuinely a good night out.
Listeners from Chester were even less impressed with the pitch.
One message said it should not have been possible to undersell the city that badly.
Another remembered a Chester night ending alone and crying.
The campaign did not recover.
The Four Lads rejected it.
Festival memories offered a glimpse of normal life
The show also asked listeners for festival moments they could not wait to experience again.
One caller remembered Paramore at Reading Festival when the sound system failed.
The crowd initially became frustrated because nobody could hear the band.
Eventually Hayley Williams and the group came to the front of the stage and played a stripped-back version of *The Only Exception*.
The failure created a more intimate moment than the planned full production could have done.
Scott and Chris loved hearing stories like that because festivals felt impossibly distant during lockdown.
The memories reminded listeners that those experiences would return.
Producer Grace was leaving Radio 1
The programme also had a genuine goodbye to make.
Producer and regular quizmaster Grace was on her final day.
The team had already held an emotional Zoom meeting.
Grace brought brownies into the office, although the pandemic meant everybody was suspicious of shared food in a way they would never have been a year earlier.
Scott and Chris invited listeners to send in memories of her time on the show.
The quiz became a celebration too.
For a producer whose voice had gradually become part of the programme, leaving could not simply happen quietly behind the scenes.
January ended with Grace receiving the full on-air farewell.
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