I, Partridge - Alan Partridge [53]
Nick and I fell out shortly afterwards. I’d asked for – and been given – the breakfast show. Done deal, shake of hands, my press release written. So when, just a couple of days before launch, I bumped into the incumbent brek-jock – a journeyman DJ called Dave Clifton – outside Oddbins, I commiserated in that hollow, plastic way that passes for friendship in the media.
‘Bad break, mate,’ I chirped. ‘Good luck in what remains of your career.’
Dave frowned as he loaded his cans into the boot of his car, and claimed he wasn’t going anywhere, mate. I told him I’d been given the breakfast show and he sniggered in a way that made me want to thump him in the guts.
‘Depends what time you eat breakfast,’ he laughed and drove away, wine bottles clinking in the boot like the laughter of a glass-throated child.
Nick (his skin now cloaked in a bumpy rash as a result of work-related stress and a wholly inadequate hygiene routine) had reneged on his deal – rendering him dead to me then and always – and had slotted me into the early morning show. Providing classic hits, news, weather and chat from 4.30 to 7am was by no means a bad gig but it wasn’t the flagship vehicle I’d been dangled. I confronted Nick in a corridor and told him he was making a massive mistake. ‘You’re making a massive mistake,’ I said.
He mumbled something about upsetting the listeners and scurried off, but I followed him down the corridor. ‘The listeners? Remember what you said? “Tits to all that, I’m sure we can sort something out! Tits to all that, I’m sure we can sort something out! Tits to all that, I’m sure we can sort something out! Tits to all that, I’m sure we can sort something out!”’
I’d followed him to studio 2, bamboozling him by placing the emphasis on a different word each time, and continued bellowing it for a while before I realised that Emily Boyce was in there doing the weather. She covered the microphone and said ‘Do you mind?’
Realising my error, I gasped a sexual swearword. Although still hoarse with anger, I must admit I was deeply embarrassed by that. But I’m pleased to say Emily and I became firm friends and I never dropped the Fuck-bomb over her bulletins again.
Nick and I are no longer close – in fact I was delighted when I learnt that he wasn’t invited to Fernando’s wedding.144 He left the station with a stress-related illness and I’m glad. I’m told that he’s lost a lot of weight, but at a rate that made you think twice about complimenting him on it because it was more likely to have been the consequence of a serious illness. Again, glad.
Up With the Partridge – again, the name Alan’s Show was vetoed by people who think they know my own output better than I do – proved to be nowhere near as depressing as expected.
To be fair, the demographic was a real melting pot: farmers, taxi drivers, new mums at their wits’ end, fishermen, late-night returning ravers, and the disturbed people for whom darkness brought only despair. That gave the show a really spontaneous feel.
On my insistence, we conducted audience research, using a survey that I designed, which turned out to be chock-full of insights and learnings. In fact, the findings directly shaped my show. With the majority of Norfolk owning or having access to a telephone, it seemed utter folly not to build the show around a phone-in feature. Similarly, we learnt that a daily feature in which we asked aviation fans to call in with sightings of RAF training exercises was causing distress to the families of servicemen and consternation among RAF top brass who argued that it had serious security implications. I thought that was a bit precious. But after 18 months, Scramble! was quietly dropped. This was agile, responsive radio and I was its pioneer.
I began to fall in love with broadcasting all over again. And in a funny, kooky, zany kinda way I think it fell in love