Fancy a brew....? (Mark Radcliffe in general)

Member Name: Andrew1911

Product:	Mark Radcliffe in general
Date:	17/08/01 (53 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Sketches, Banter, Guests

Disadvantages: Not on anymore, Afternoon show a pale imitation

Its hard to believe that only a few short years ago, there existed in the hours between 10pm and midnight a jewel of British Broadcasting. These two short hours (the Graveyard shift) became the home of stand-out live performances from fantastic bands, film reviews, poetry reading and guest slots featuring some pretty fine celebrity interviews (David Bowie, anyone ?).

Oh, and two Northern tossposts.

Mark Radcliffe and Mark Riley during the early Nineties became the background accompiament to homework, reading, tuning out a series of girlfriends and general laziness – and I firmly believe that it’s the reason I turned out the way I did today (Northen and single). For those of you who don’t know, Mark Radcliffe is a DJ on Radio 1; coming from Radio 5 where he’d been at the helm of a show called Out on Blue 6, he came across with his producer, Mark Riley to present the Graveyard Shift show on Radio 1 (although he followed up with a spectacularly notorious stint on the breakfast show and now languishes in the afternoon slot, with a tamer version of his later show.)

Each evening contained a pretty stable and successful formula. As these were the Britpop years, the music played certainly reflected the time, although with a heathly mixture of enough alternative and ground-breaking bands featured tot keep it fresh – I was introduced to David Bowie’s repetoire thanks to this show; not to mention Portishead, The Tindersticks and Radiohead (I didn’t get out much then). The music was interspersed with banter from the above mentioned tosspots in addition to a number of sketches (also featuring the amazing talents of the same no-hopers) including such delights as Dick and Ken the Snooker Men, Sh*t Agent, Fat Larry White and my favourite, Nut Chip Chirrel Duck (a foul-mouthed send up of ‘Tales from the Riverbank’)
.
As you may have realised, no real topics of any importance and certainly no d
eep philosophical insights were ever gained from listening to these two…..but oh my god – I can’t ever remember laughing as hard as I did whilst listening (or even watching) to anything else. There were times when I was driving home alone from work, or pissed/stoned with mates in a friend’s bedroom after coming in from the pub when I literally cried with laughter. A particular Nut Chip Chirrel Duck sketch is one I still remember today (imagine my cries of delight when earlier this year I found a BBC tape on sale featuring the best sketches from over the years).

As I said previously, this was not a typical, runof the mill radio show. Whilst I admit it was firmly aimed at the student audience, the contents were a now sadly missed item. Poetry reading on a national radio station? Sounds odd, but worked very well, and hopefully it influenced people who wouldn’t otherwise bother into buying or searching out more. It did me. The film reviews were also excellent – the Cult Film, presented by Mark Kermode reviewed some of the highlights of modern cinema – and consequently led me to get such films as Dog Day Afternoon and The Taking of Pelham 1-2-3, which I wouldn’t otherwise have encountered.

Such was the success of one of the features, the band named the Shirehorses (the REAL genius behind such songs as ‘Lardy Boy’ -covered as ‘Nancy Boy’ by Placebo - ‘Feel Like Shite’(murdered as ‘Alright’ by Supergrass and may more) released an album that reached the dizzy heights of around number 75 in the charts.

It is the sketches, though, that I remember best : the single-entendres and decidedly homo-erotic commentary from Dick and Ken, the exploits of Sh*t Agent……ahh well.

There exist on the internet a number of tribute sites, which contain samples of the above sketches, music and transcribed interviews from these golden years of wireless
and I urge you to check them out. Off the top of my head, I can’t remember the address but put in ‘The Palace of Glittering Delights’ into Google you’ll get to the best of them.

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