Chris creates his professional actor profile
On the day of his mystery West End debut, the programme created a black-and-white publicity photograph for Chris. Scott explained that performers used professional headshots to find work in television, film, adverts and theatre, and that the traditional expression was serious and slightly moody. Chris had been told to look shocked while a camera was pushed close to his face.
The finished image had been edited so heavily that Chris thought he resembled an animation. Scott suggested accompanying it with a fictional CV claiming appearances in programmes such as The Bill and Doctor Who. The picture nevertheless made the project feel more real, and the team shared it through Radio 1’s social accounts before Chris headed to the theatre.
Matt Edmondson plays Innuendo Bingo
Matt Edmondson faced Chris in the new studio and was delighted to be allowed to cover the room with water after being forbidden even a cup of tea during his own programme. He wrapped himself in plastic and approached the game with so much enthusiasm that Scott wondered whether he had started celebrating Christmas early.
Kirstie Allsopp advised using one or two pins depending on the weight of a person’s balls, while Fearne Cotton was almost tempted to enter herself into a Radio 1 competition. A food programme instructed somebody to smell a sausage, an Aston Villa player enjoyed going in behind, and a Radio 2 presenter praised Nigel’s cheesecake. Matt repeatedly sprayed Chris at full force and became a noisy, energetic opponent.
Ann Swithinbank’s name returned from the previous game and once again proved almost impossible to introduce, especially when combined with the question about cuddling tulips. Raymond Blanc had learnt to love good stuffing, Moira Stuart asked for another quickie and Jamie Oliver said he had slapped his meat to attract a point. A final clip promised that Gwyneth Paltrow would get the ride of her life. Matt’s unrestricted enjoyment turned the contest into another severe soaking for both players.
Nick Helm’s Christmas Spectacular
Nick Helm returned after appearing in the programme’s Fun and Filth show at Edinburgh in 2011. His Radio 1 Christmas Spectacular would go out on Boxing Day and had been assembled from two hours of deliberately chaotic material. It included songs, guests and the confrontational audience involvement for which his live act was known.
One participant, Dexter, had been brought from the back of the room and gradually made the subject of a love song. Nick performed in a revealing red outfit which he had originally bought as a Halloween devil costume after mistaking it for a conventional jumpsuit. He said Dexter had been excellent, even though the song worked best with a one-syllable name, and invited him to get back in touch.
Nick explained that audience participation was unpredictable. Some people improved a performance, while others spent the entire routine trying to escape. He presented his insistence that they cooperate as a consequence of being out of his depth rather than genuine aggression, although he accepted that nervous audience members did not always see it that way.
Samantha Barks offers professional advice
Samantha Barks joined the programme shortly before Chris’s appearance. He had become obsessed with Les Misérables after hearing one of its songs on shuffle and regularly watched her performance from the 25th-anniversary concert. Samantha had recently seen the completed film with Eddie Redmayne and Amanda Seyfried. She enjoyed its first half as an ordinary fan, then became nervous when her own character, Éponine, appeared.
She remembered entering rehearsals with Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried and Eddie Redmayne and being surprised that established actors were nervous too. The cast had gathered at Helena Bonham Carter’s home and sung around the piano, while Samantha later performed with Russell Crowe’s band in New York. Seeing her own face on a poster in Leicester Square had made the scale of the film feel real.
Asked to summarise the musical, Chris described a prisoner who became rich, served as a mayor, helped a woman and child, and spent much of the story being chased. Samantha framed it more clearly as Jean Valjean’s path to redemption, with different characters entering a story about hope, love and redemption. She suggested that Chris’s potential role might be Marius, although the programme still did not reveal which musical he was actually joining.
Samantha advised him to choose a distinctive vocal warm-up, demonstrating the deliberately irritating exercise she had used on set. She warned that singing and acting could not be separated: a performer had to match the voice to the character’s emotion and genuinely connect with the other people on stage. Chris hoped the acoustics which made him sound better in the shower might be recreated at the theatre, but Samantha said he would need more than a strong shower voice.
Real or No Real
Nick Helm and Chris learnt that an adulterous wife in medieval France really could be punished by being made to chase a chicken through town. Work Christmas parties did not destroy exactly 244 marriages and create 52 unplanned pregnancies each year, and the absence of Christmas would not leave Britain with more turkeys than humans within three years.
People really were more likely to return a lost wallet when it contained a photograph of a baby. Bing Crosby had not written “White Christmas” while waiting in a Grimsby fish-and-chip shop. Nick’s direct answers and impatience with the game’s extended reasoning produced a score of 20, while Chris finished with 30.
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