Perfect radio for a nation of grumblers: Radio 4’s Room 101 with Paul Merton reviewed

Welcome back to Room 101, which has returned to the radio – after nearly 30 years on TV – and reverted back to its one-to-one format with presenter Paul Merton. The programme sits comfortably within that peculiarly British corner of the landscape that champions The Archers, the Proms, Rich Tea biscuits and knitted dog coats. And its success makes sense. A nation of good-humoured grumblers is arguably more likely to be excited by a list of common grievances than by, say, an overly jubilant selection of Desert Island Discs. Why listen to someone talk about what makes them happy when you can witness a guy losing it over the incomprehensibility of parking signs?

Merton indulges this demographic by channelling the spirit of I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue. Early on in the first episode he attempts to ‘play’ an aubergine as a musical instrument before joking that baba ganoush, the aubergine-based dip, was a hit for the singer Kate Bush. You sense that his guest, Claudia Winkleman, can get away with despising aubergines (not very British) and abhorring cleanliness (again), but when it comes to picnics, you can’t help but feel she’s on to a loser.

 Guests drop subtle reminders that the origins of Room 101 lie in George Orwell’s experience of a BBC conference room. Former BBC journalist Steph McGovern, for instance, speaks of her frustration with political vox pops or, more particularly, the pressure to gather a perfect balance of views on vox pops so that they’re allowed to be broadcast, which, as she says, renders the whole exercise ‘just totally pointless’. Her description of the ‘scrutiny’ she was under while engaged in precisely that ahead of the 2016 referendum feels oddly in keeping with the spirit of 101. 

 I thought I would miss the group dynamic of the TV version, but actually the radio format allows for more interesting argument and fewer clashing egos.