Radio Review: 3 October

One of the most irritating tics in local radio is when an interview is split to accommodate news or travel. I once heard the late, great Roy Waller on BBC Radio Norfolk apologising to Barry Cryer for breaking the flow of their live chat to take an update on the situation at Thickthorn roundabout.

It happened again when I was listening to Ingrid Hagemann interviewing Freddie ‘Parrot Face’ Davies on BBC Radio Newcastle last week. While Davies was giving an absorbing potted history of music hall and variety, Hagemann (who, irritatingly, ‘mmm’-ed and ‘yeah’-ed throughout) cut the interview and said the second half would be after the news.

Mercifully, the interview was pre-recorded, but the 15 minutes before the fi rst segment and the 10 minutes leading up to the news, were filled with duff old music (Whitesnake, gawd help us).

Why not run the piece in full, straight through? To use a Davies catchphrase, it made me ‘thick, thick, thick up to ’ere’. Anyway, I hope Freddie flogged a few copies of his autobiography, Funny Bones, off the back of it. He’s had quite a career – coming to fame in Opportunity Knocks, then dominating TV for years before going into fi lms – and it’s a smashing book.

Talking about his friend, comic Bobby Pattinson turning 80 this year, Davies made a nice observation about radio being kinder to veteran gagsmiths than television. If the voice is still okay, nobody need know how old you really are. If only Radio Newcastle had been kind enough to Davies to let him speak uninterrupted.

Ingrid Hagemann, in for Simon Logan, BBC Radio Newcastle, weekdays at 12 noon.
Funny Bones, by Freddie Davies (Scratching Shed Publishing).
Louis on Twitter: @LFBarfe or email: wireless@cheeseford.net