Shameless Name Dropping! More Glamorous Local Radio Memories (1994-1996)

 

One of the few good things about making adverts for local radio stations was getting famous people to do voiceovers. 

Sometimes we'd pitch ideas just because we wanted to work with our heroes. 

We often tried to get two or three former Doctors Who into the same advert and I was always suggesting Christopher Lee for big car dealerships. Those ideas rarely came off, and I used to get a lot of baffled looks from advertisers and salespeople. But it was fun looking through the big Spotlight books and phoning up agents to ask about the availability of my childhood favourites. 

We didn't get to meet most of the 'stars' - they'd usually be in London and we'd be in Thornaby or Gateshead recording voices down a digital phone line. We'd write the scripts and direct the session but most of the time we didn't see them face to face. And that suited me - I would have been too overawed to sit in the same recording studio with Tom Baker or Basil Brush.

Making an advert with Basil Brush (the original one, not the new-fangled re-booted 21st Century fox) was a surreal experience. We wanted to do a parody of Parklife but with Basil instead of Phil Daniels. It was a series of ads for a local college and we thought that Basil appearing on Fantasy Football had made him a cult figure with teenagers. Basil Brush + Parklife was my attempt to be down wiv da kidz in early 1995 but I think it just confused the hell out of everybody. By this point, Basil was quite elderly and the sound engineer wanted to speed up his voice to make him sound a bit more lively and 'cartoony'. Sacrilege.

Some of the older actors and celebrities were lovely to work with. People like Geoffrey Palmer, June Whitfield and Dennis Norden were charming and incredibly patient - even if they had to keep reading the same scripts over and over again because of glitches and squelchy noises on the ISDN digital phone lines.

We pitched the idea of using Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer to a local supermarket chain. It was expensive, but the advertiser went for it. This was something special - so instead of taking a bonus payment for selling the idea, we asked if we could go down to London for the recording session.

We ended up doing two sets of adverts with them. This was in 1995, just after the second series of The Smell of Reeves & Mortimer but before the launch of Shooting Stars. 

On both occasions, Bob Mortimer turned up early and made loads of helpful suggestions. He asked about the advertiser and the names of the stations the ads would be running on. He'd also sit and have a cup of coffee and scribble improvements on the scripts. Just a line or two here made a big difference - he helped the ads seem slightly more like real Vic and Bob sketches. He'd also chat about the latest Morrissey and Bowie albums - he was a big fan of the extended drum solos on Southpaw Grammar. 

Vic Reeves (Jim) was different - he'd turn up on time, but he wouldn't sit and chat. Vic wanted to record his lines and get away. He didn't want water or coffee and he certainly didn't want to discuss the scripts. 

As soon as Vic arrived, Bob's whole demeanour would change - almost as if the coolest kid had turned up for school and Bob didn't want to be seen fraternising with the nerds. 

Their first takes were always the best because they were funny and spontaneous. Both of them seemed to lose interest and energy if they had to read a script more than once. We'd have them booked for an hour but they'd race through the work and disappear within 15-20 minutes. 

My script writing colleague always felt crappy after those recording sessions. He said it was a stark reminder of where we were on the creative food chain. I just got a big kick out of hearing Vic and Bob read scripts I'd written. 

I deliberately tried to leave the words 'Bells' and 'Stores' out of any of the scripts. I had to tag the adverts with the Bells Stores jingle, but I was determined just to write funny stuff for two of my comedy heroes, without them having to say the name of the business they were advertising.

After I moved on from TFM Radio, the advertiser continued to make Vic and Bob 'style' commercials. They employed soundalikes to impersonate Vic and Bob's Donald and Davey Stott characters. Presumably they wanted to save money or Vic and Bob weren't interested in doing any more ads. A lot of listeners thought Vic and Bob were still doing them, and 'voice-alikes' were always a dodgy area. 

Lots of people thought you could have a voice that sounded like a famous person without having to pay out a lot of cash. A furniture company in Middlesbrough quite happily used a Victor Meldrew sound-a-like for years, finishing every advert for half price reproduction chairs with 'I don't believe it!' Bloody awful. 

It was a huge relief when a certain impersonator started getting more work on Radio 4 because it meant he was too busy to record any more of our knock-offs. 

 

The original Reeves and Mortimer ads from 1995 were nominated for some awards and we even won a North Eastern Press Award which was the cause of much drunken snogging at a posh hotel in Gosforth.

 

The advert I was most proud of was one I wrote for Cleveland College of Art & Design. It was during the 'Magic Eye Picture' craze of the mid-nineties so I took the piss and wrote a 'Magic Ear' commercial. I tried to enter it for the North Eastern Press Awards but they preferred stuff with famous voices. 

Not long before I stopped working in local radio I was based at a station in Manchester. It mainly played dance music aimed at 18-25 year olds, so I was completely out of my depth (again). I didn't know what kind of celebrities young people related to.

Anyway - in the Summer of 2000 everybody was very excited because David and Victoria Beckham were coming in to plug one of her singles on the breakfast show. Some of the staff came into work at 6am just to get a look at them. I turned up at my usual time (about 8.30ish) only to be told by a breathless receptionist that I'd 'just missed David and Victoria'. 

I'm still not sure how I coped.

More local radio nonsense here - including the time I met Jimmy Savile:

https://funsizemagrs.blogspot.com/2020/11/my-glamorous-showbiz-memories-jimmy.html

and the time I tried (and failed) to make a CD with Middlesbrough FC:

https://funsizemagrs.blogspot.com/2020/11/we-were-teesside-tfm-radio.html

and not forgetting my involvement with the worst Radio Advert ever:

https://funsizemagrs.blogspot.com/2020/11/superscreen-aka-worst-radio-ad-in-world.html