<\/p>\n
Fourteen years ago, this newspaper ran a piece headlined \u201cIf I was in charge of Radio 4\u2026\u201d<\/a>, in which media luminaries passed judgment on various programmes, and offered some sage advice. Julie Myerson found Poetry, Please<\/em> \u201cagonising\u201d; Roger McGough, the host of Poetry, Please<\/em>, wanted more sport; Clive Aslet wanted the 6.30pm sitcoms dispensed with; AL Kennedy bemoaned the \u201chyper-regulation and box-ticking\u201d. (There was a lot of love for the station, too.) Alastair Stewart, the former ITV newsreader, wanted Saturday Live<\/em> (and its Sunday-morning sister show, Broadcasting House<\/em>) pulled \u201cimmediately\u201d. He found it \u201cunfunny, self-indulgent, contrived and, worst of all, twee\u201d.<\/p>\n I don\u2019t know what Stewart has made of the past 14 years of Saturday Live<\/em>, during which time it was mainly under the stewardship of Rev Richard Coles and Nikki Bedi (plus various co-hosts), or whether he tuned in this weekend, but I\u2019d wager his opinion hasn\u2019t changed too much. Coles didn\u2019t survive the programme\u2019s move to Cardiff in 2023, while Bedi\u2019s stint came to an end in July. So, on Saturday Adrian Chiles<\/a>, an occasional co-host of yore, made his full debut as the new, full-time \u2013 solo! \u2013 host of the laid-back magazine show.<\/p>\n Saturday Live <\/em>has always been a mildly controversial presence on Radio 4. A whimsical, presenter-led, chitchat-heavy, interactive weekend-morning show that would not feel out of place on Radio 2<\/a> or a particularly classy local station. The vibe has always been, \u201cWe know you\u2019re having your breakfast right now and we don\u2019t want to unduly bother you\u201d, which doesn\u2019t feel distinctly Radio 4. Hearing the co-hosts chatting cheerfully to each other about not-much-in-particular has always, to these ears, felt a little jarring.<\/p>\n Adding Chiles to the mix, albeit without a co-host, has only added to the sense that Saturday Live<\/em> is a peculiar interloper in the Radio 4 schedules. And for the record, I like Chiles. I have always enjoyed his deadpan wit, lugubrious Brummie accent and idiosyncratic views on life.<\/p>\n He launched into his first proper show by playing Steve Winwood\u2019s While You See a Chance<\/em>, before asking the listeners to choose the intro tracks from here on in. And in case you\u2019re thinking, \u201cThis sounds a bit like Sunday Love Songs<\/em><\/a>\u201d, Chiles was one stop ahead of you.<\/p>\n \u201cListen, this isn\u2019t the opportunity to dedicate something to the love of your life on their birthday or something,\u201d he said. \u201cSunday Love Songs<\/em> is for that.\u201d Yet with several minutes of pleasant chatter, in which Chiles uttered the inevitable Radio 2\/classy local station mantra \u2013 \u201cThank you very much for joining us, wherever you may be\u201d \u2013 the opening of the show sounded not too dissimilar from, well, Sunday Love Songs<\/em>.<\/p>\n The format of the programme didn\u2019t help Chiles much. Without a co-host, he was forced to use guest Michael Rosen as his chattering partner, with the conversation hopping hyperactively over subjects at 100mph. The surface-skimming nature of the show meant that Chiles found himself falling foul of the middle-aged male broadcaster\u2019s curse \u2013 Alan Partridgisms. \u201cDrystone walls. They are dry, are they?\u201d he asked a drystone waller, before enquiring what her favourite wall was. When she said that she found the act of building a wall soothing, Chiles chipped in with, \u201cI get a similar thing from stacking logs!\u201d.<\/p>\n One should not be too unkind about Partridgisms \u2013 most of us would slip into them if we were asked to host a meandering 60 minutes of blather with a trio of disparate guests. And they are, after all, merely attempts at showing enthusiasm.<\/p>\n