Picture from Radio Times
In this age of on demand television in which we can watch last night's soap opera on a mobile phone on the way to work, the concept of 'event television' doesn't happen as often as it once did. The British public ran out and bought their first television set to see the Coronation and pubs used to delay the evening opening times when Hancock's Half Hour was on because nobody left the house until it had finished, apparently. Funnily enough, the introduction of home video recording didn't do as much damage to communal viewing as was expected yet on demand has totally changed our habits. American television executives refer to it as the 'water cooler moment', the next day at work you stand around the water cooler talking about last night's telly. I suppose a more modern way to describe it would be the expression used by Chris Evans last night to describe Liam Gallagher singing 'My Generation' with Roger Daltrey; a YouTube moment. TFI Friday certainly had its fair share of YouTube moments despite the fact that when it was last on the air there wasn't YouTube, or Facebook, or Twitter, in fact the Internet in 1996 (when TFI launched) was to the vast majority of people a mystery thing that had something to do with computers. Way back in those dark days, there was one show that defined the concept of event television and TFI Friday was it. Pat Sharp might have declared that Funhouse heralded the start of the weekend but he was wrong. In fact TFI was so ingrained in our conciousness as the true start to the weekend that it used to be shown in pubs at six o'clock to get everyone in the mood for that first glorious payday drink, (assuming you were paid weekly which a lot of people, myself included, still were back then). In fact it put us in the Friday night mood so much that it was repeated again at kicking out time for those not into discotheques but full of Friday night good spirit. No television show since then has had that power and it would be hard to recreate that excitement nowadays, not unless you brought back TFI Friday for a one-off special and reunited the dream television team of Chris Evans (presenter), Danny Baker (writer), Will McDonald (producer) and Suzi Alpin (director) to do it.
Last night after weeks of hype Channel Four screened a live anniversary edition of the classic show and the country stood still, apart from fingers because they were busy on phones and keyboards on social media. This could have gone one of two ways of course but with meticulous planning the whole show was a delightful nostalgia trip and proof once more of what a master of television Chris Evans was. He is wasted on The One Show, as good as he is on there, and should be allowed to create. When left to his own devices Chris Evans has come up with some classic television moments right from The Big Breakfast, which even managed to tempt me away from listening to the radio in the morning. As local radio was just that, local, in the early 1990s, I have sadly never heard the legendary shows he made for GLR but I did hear him when he did a Sunday afternoon show on Radio 1 when nobody outside London knew who he was and he stood out even then. Don't Forget Your Toothbrush reinvented the game show and its influence can be seen today in Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway and older shows such as Last Chance Lottery. After TFI Chris Evans, by his own admission, went a little crazy and abandoned his radio show in favour of travelling the world with Billie Piper.
Behind the camera he didn't have quite the success that he was used to; The Terry and Gaby Show was a good programme but pitched against This Morning it didn't do well in the ratings and shows such as Boys and Girls and Live With Chris Moyles didn't perform at all. It was thanks to UK Radio Aid's all day broadcast on commercial radio that Evans was able to show that he still had what it took, this was followed by presenting the Brits and although OFI Sunday didn't recreate past glory it got his profile back up. A late night slot on the 2005 Red Nose Day telethon (with Will McDonald) proved once and for all that as a live television presenter he was still very much at the top of his game. Rehabilitated with BBC Radio he is now the host of the breakfast show on Radio 2, increasing listening figures since taking over from Terry Wogan and presents The One Show.
As I have already said, TFI Friday could have been a disaster. However, from the start it was a masterpiece of television and picked up exactly where it left off. Revisiting old features and mixing new bands with old; Blur and Liam Gallagher representing the glory days of the show and a new segment of ten second interviews could have been lifted from the original run. My only criticism is that it became something of an audition piece for Top Gear towards the end but by the time the show was overrunning we the viewer could have watched all night. I don't think it should come back permanently though, rather than dilute the magic it would work better as an occasional treat, Christmas special maybe?
The Sunday Alternative will return soon.
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June housekeeping
The audio book of Bowie Day (a short story inspired by A Christmas Carol) will be released on August 31st. In the meantime the book can be downloaded to your Kindle from here.
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