Extra! Extra!

It was a very proud moment for me today, as after working in radio for 15 years I achieved a bit of an unexpected first - presenting a programme on one of the BBC's national radio stations.

I'd mentioned in my previous blog entry on New Year's Eve that there might be something more coming up from the Nexus documentary I made last year. What I couldn't say at the time, because it hadn't yet been announced, was that BBC Radio 4 Extra had decided to broadcast the programme. I'd pitched it to them not long after the original broadcast, suggesting I could make a 25-minute cutdown focusing on the more famous of the interviewees.

To my surprise, however, after having a listen they decided they'd like to take the entire thing - and it went out at 11am this morning. 4 Extra programmes get several outings in their week of broadcast, so it's also going out again at 9pm this evening, and twice again on Saturday.

This is only the second time I have managed to get one of my documentaries onto national radio, and the first time it's been one that I've presented as well as having produced. The previous one was my Ayrton Senna documentary, which BBC Radio 5 Live ran three times in 2014 and 2015. However, in that case, while I produced the programme I didn't present it - narration duties on that occasion were taken on by the great Rob Bonnet.

5 Live did also take another documentary of mine later on in 2017, and it was billed in the Radio Times and everything, but never in the event went out - due to a last-minute schedule change to cover England in the Rugby League World Cup semi-finals.

So I was, as you can imagine, incredibly pleased about the Nexus programme being taken on by 4 Extra - but even more pleased with the response it's already received. The Radio Times made it one of their 'Today's Choice' selections, and The Sunday Times also flagged it up:

It still amazes me to see just how far this programme has been able to go. When I came up with the idea of doing it, I did worry it was a bit niche even for a local radio station; that it might not interest anybody who hadn't been a student at the UEA, or even then who hadn't been involved in some way with the TV station. But it seems that I was very wrong about that - and very pleased to have been so, of course!

There's just something so wonderfully BBC-ish about having been on between one of Bert Coules' Sherlock Holmes adaptations, and an episode of The Goon Show...