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Thursday 20 November 2008

Popular marriage

Today (BBC Radio 4); These Are the Times (BBC Radio 4)

They’re the new Richard and Judy, or Torvill and Dean, or even Laurel and Hardy. Just listen to them reading out titbits from the newspapers, segueing effortlessly with perfect timing from Nick giving us the lowdown on the mounting newspaper speculation about Gordon Brown’s future as PM to Evan quoting from a Sun poll which tells us that 31 per cent of us are taking showers rather than baths to save on fuel bills. It’s as if they can read the other’s speech-pattern, picking up where the other left off with just the right amount of air-time in-between. John, Jim, Sarah and Ed have left the pair of them in charge while they’ve all departed for the beach. They may live to regret it as Evan and Nick are threatening to steal the show and make it their own, the Evan and Nick Special. Both of them have perfect voices for radio, well modulated, firm but not sharp; both have minds stock full of information and yet are also quick-witted enough to be able to pick out what’s most important and to talk about it in a way that we ordinary mortals can understand. And of course the timing of their arrival is just perfect. Evan, an expert on money matters just as the economy is nosediving in a way not seen since the 1930s, and Nick, already well-established as an authoritative gossip about politics. On Monday’s programme after an item about the pictures of Gordon and Sarah on the beach at Southwold, and Sarah Brown’s decision not to try to emulate Carla Bruni (thank goodness!), Nick, quick as a flash, replied, ‘Perfectly reasonable thing to decide.’ Later, when addressing the story of the women incarcerated in a mental hospital for being typhoid carriers, Nick dived straight in with the most crucial line of inquiry, ‘They weren’t actually ill, were they?...But we’d expect precautions. Not that they’d be treated as insane?’

More articles from: Kate Chisholm | this section

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