Scott is off and the cover presenter is not there
Friday began without Scott, who was ill, and then acquired a second problem when Huw Stephens, the planned cover presenter, was delayed travelling back to London. Huw had fallen asleep on a train, woken in Newport and immediately started retracing his journey, only for further delays and a meandering taxi ride to keep him away from Broadcasting House.
For a while there was simply nobody else to present the programme. Chris, whose job normally involved talking alongside Scott rather than operating the entire show, was handed the controls.
He explained the situation, played the records, introduced One Direction’s “Best Song Ever” and gradually realised he could actually keep the programme moving. Listeners responded enthusiastically, with messages telling him to do the whole show and congratulating Radio 1’s new emergency DJ.
Greg James supervises the takeover
Greg James appeared in the studio and initially looked like the experienced presenter who might rescue the situation. Instead, he encouraged Chris to carry on. The running joke became that Greg and eventually Huw were older brothers supervising somebody who had unexpectedly been given access to the machinery.
Chris learned the buttons as he went and became visibly more comfortable. Huw even phoned from his taxi to say he had been enjoying the programme and was considering stopping for lunch rather than hurrying in. Chris threatened to lock the studio door before quickly admitting he would be relieved when Huw arrived.
When Huw finally walked in, he gave Chris a round of applause. The accidental solo spell had lasted only part of the programme, but it demonstrated that the man whose awkwardness had powered so many of Scott’s features could also hold Radio 1 together when required.
The bedroom party aftermath
Chris also had to explain the previous night’s Phil and Alice bedroom party. Scott had once again failed to make the event, leaving Chris to deliver the slow-jam idea without his intended partner.
That revived the pattern from the first party, where Chris had found himself surrounded by people on the bed while playing deliberately suggestive R&B. The records, Trevor Nelson voiceovers and late-night atmosphere had again worked better than they had any right to, leaving Chris with another story Scott had missed by not turning up.
The irony was particularly strong on a day when Scott was absent again. Chris had been left alone at the party, and now he had briefly been left alone with the radio show too.
Radio jingles become school bells
Once Huw arrived, the programme looked at schools replacing traditional bells with custom jingles made by the same people who produced radio imaging. Both Huw and Chris remembered the standard school bell as a sound capable of producing instant anxiety even years later.
They began assigning different sounds to different parts of the day: an ominous sting for detention, something urgent for changing lessons, a triumphant theme for the end of school and increasingly elaborate suggestions for the final bell before the summer holidays. Listeners proposed everything from High School Musical to the Thunderbirds countdown.
The feature worked because the original idea was genuine but the show immediately treated the school timetable like a radio station in need of better production.
Danny Howard plays Real or No Real
Danny Howard joined Chris for a DJ-themed Real or No Real. The idea that DJ originally stood for a pioneering Canadian called Derek Jimmo was invented. Tiësto’s supposed energy-drink record was treated as real in the game, while a claim that Ibiza had ruled all new hotels must be five-star also caught the players by surprise.
The final story claimed that Avicii had worked as a swimwear model before becoming a DJ. That was no real, despite everybody deciding he looked exactly like somebody who might have had an improbably glamorous pre-DJ career.
The quiz closed a programme that had begun as a staffing emergency and ended as a perfectly recognisable Radio 1 show, with Chris having unexpectedly proved he could take the lead.
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