Radio 1 was ready to reveal the next hosts
A day after Scott and Chris had properly discussed their departure, attention turned to the people who would inherit their afternoon slot.
The announcement was due shortly after 2pm.
Before the real reveal, the show introduced the Wheel of Replacements.
The enormous wheel was loaded with Radio 1 names and deliberately ridiculous wild cards, allowing Scott and Chris to imagine increasingly implausible new double acts.
It produced combinations including Charlie Hedges and Tion Wayne, Dean McCullough and Chanel the parrot, and Jack Saunders with the Four Lads in Jeans.
None of this, they repeatedly clarified, was how management had actually selected the presenters.
It was simply more entertaining than waiting quietly for the announcement.
Brother or Lover met two climbing gingers
Before the replacement reveal, Amy and Charlie played Brother or Lover.
Both were ginger, both lived in London and both enjoyed climbing.
Amy was a liver nurse, while Charlie worked as a technology consultant.
Their answers provided conflicting clues.
Charlie said Amy was the more elegant climber. He helped with technical problems, although apparently sometimes by deploying the timeless IT solution of turning things off and on again.
The pair also appeared to share a home, something Scott thought he had caught them accidentally admitting.
A sunscreen question from LaChilla established that Charlie had helped apply sun cream when required.
By the end of the questioning, the team was divided.
The reveal confirmed Amy and Charlie were lovers and had recently moved in together.
Dean McCullough got the first line
Then came the actual handover announcement.
Scott asked the mystery Radio 1 presenter on the line to reveal themselves.
Dean McCullough answered.
Dean had already been presenting weekends on Radio 1, but the move would bring him into daytime and give him his weekends back.
He described the whole thing as feeling like a fever dream.
Scott and Chris were delighted for him, but the reveal was not over.
There was another line.
Vicky Hawkesworth joined him
On line two was Vicky Hawkesworth, who would join Dean as the new afternoon double act.
Vicky admitted she had been so nervous that morning that even making a cup of tea had become an event.
For her, the appointment was a dream job.
Scott and Chris congratulated them both and joked that the new programme should begin with a prolonged mourning period for its predecessors, preferably with Dean and Vicky dressed entirely in black.
More seriously, they told the new hosts that the programme’s listeners were kind and loyal and would give them a warm welcome.
Dean said that was one of the things he and Vicky were most excited about: inheriting an audience already used to sharing the details of their lives with the programme.
The afternoon succession was now real
The announcement made the approaching end feel more concrete.
Scott was moving to Radio 2.
Chris was moving towards other projects.
And from September, the Radio 1 afternoon show would belong to Dean McCullough and Vicky Hawkesworth.
The Wheel of Replacements had not chosen them.
But for once, one of its names had at least landed surprisingly close to the truth.
COMMENTS