Joe Sugg brings YouTube’s Bingo to Radio 1
Thursday’s Innuendo Bingo guest was Joe Sugg, already attracting a huge online audience only around a year after starting his YouTube channel. Scott was watching tweets arrive from around the world before Joe had even sat down, with listeners in Europe, Australia, New Zealand and America waiting for the game.
Joe explained that his sister Zoe already had a large YouTube following and had encouraged him to start making videos. He still had a full-time job as a roof thatcher, giving Scott the opportunity to greet what he assumed was the show’s previously unacknowledged audience of roof thatchers.
More importantly, Joe was already an Innuendo Bingo devotee. He had created his own YouTube version using clips from friends’ videos and briefly wondered whether Scott’s invitation meant he was about to be told off for borrowing the idea. Instead, Radio 1 treated him as an unofficial ambassador for the feature.
Once the water started, Joe was soaked so comprehensively that the show was talking about wringing out his clothes. Scott promised the video would be uploaded later for the fans who were supposed to be at school or college instead of secretly watching the studio feed.
Could two best friends become a couple?
The show had found an American project in which two long-standing friends agreed to date each other for 40 days to see whether romance could grow out of friendship. It prompted a more interesting question than simply discussing somebody else’s experiment: would a Radio 1 listener actually try it?
Lisa got in touch. She and her friend Steve were both single and firmly in the friend zone, but she was intrigued by the idea of deliberately dating him to find out whether there might be something more. Forty days was too much for an afternoon radio experiment, so Scott and Chris began talking about a much more manageable seven-day version.
The rules would be simple. For one week they would date, be exclusive to one another, accept that they were boyfriend and girlfriend for the purposes of the experiment and see each other every day. The only rather significant problem was that Steve had not been asked.
Chris offered to make the call. Lisa was interested but nervous, and Scott told her to think about it overnight before they turned a private friendship into a Radio 1 storyline. If she still wanted to go ahead, Chris would ring Steve on Friday.
Lost trainers and Real or No Real
Huw Stephens returned for Real or No Real while Chris, running on only a couple of hours’ sleep, became increasingly erratic. Huw also used national radio as a lost-property announcement after misplacing a pair of trainers somewhere in the building.
The round produced a particularly good collection of pop facts. Coldplay’s “Yellow” really did take its title from Chris Martin spotting the Yellow Pages when he needed a word for the song. Biffy Clyro’s name really was linked to the band’s joke about imaginary Cliff Richard merchandise and a “Cliffy Biro”, while Conor Maynard’s middle name was not Susan and Little Mix did not demand a friendly guinea pig each on their rider.
Huw won the game, but the day’s real cliffhanger belonged to Lisa. One phone call on Friday would decide whether the friend-zone experiment existed at all.
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