I caught the opening salvo of the new Chris Evans breakfast show this morning. Pre-Chris, Moira Stewart read the news.
While I don't mind Moira, her return to the BBC is only notable for one reason: her age. So good for her and all that, nice to have mature women rather than everyone being a Fearne Cotton, but she's hardly Miss Personality is she?
I caught more of the show on my way into work, and throughout Chris Evans was doing his incredulous voice, you 'we've got Moria Stewart! Moira Stewart, everyone! Wow! Amazing! LOL!', etc. Perhaps she could be coaxed into naughtiness and irreverance, but so what. She's not engaging. She has a nice voice which is a soothing antidote to Chris's mania, but like all newscasters, she's better off being serious rather than making jokes about knickers or getting her norks out for Children In Need.
Every since the Morecambe & Wise show in which the desk in front of Angela Rippon was whipped away to reveal amazing legs, there's been this appetite to see people like that out of character. From Richard Whitmore and Eddie Waring cartwheeling to There Is Nothing Like A Dame right up to Fiona Bruce and Sian off BBC Breakfast doing the Pussycat Dolls, they're all at it. It's just the norm. And with everyone really bland these days there are few surprises left. If Fiona Phillips dressed up as Lady Gaga no one would bat an eyelid.
Chris's thing with Moira is that she's a hoot. I'm not sure I want her to be. Her delivery won't make that easy, unless she's totally dry. (Apparently she lives with EastEnders Pat - as a couple. But then I'd heard Pat lived with Jennie Bond, so I don't know what to believe).
Anyhoo, I only ever catch minutes of breakfast shows while I'm - yes - eating my breakfast, otherwise it's homemade compilation CDs in the car or my ipod, so I doubt I'll ever hear Moira develop, if she ever will.
Anyway, today's Wogan replacement was a bit flat, trying a bit hard, and Chris Evans is awfully high-pitched for mornings. Where was Foxy the business brain?? Sports plank Johnny Saunders was on for what that's worth. And they trotted out a lot of old tried and tested drive time features alongside some new features that you can tell will be dropped by the end of the month. But of course it needs time to grow, so in the spirit of fairness - not something you see round here everyday - we'll give it the benefit of the doubt.
I can imagine Wogan diehards not taking kindly to it at first. Though he's mellowed I'm not sure they're going to get him. They'll be waiting for him to phone in drunk, which of course he's not done since about 1997. I'm sure it'll find an audience, but perhaps not the one it already had.
