It’s time to lay off Lauren Laverne – she’s grown into her role on Desert Island Discs
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People don’t on the whole welcome change. By people I, in this case, mean Radio 4 listeners from the very bullseye of central casting. Occasionally, one station controller or the next will wield a wand – or an axe – and The Now Show will have vanished, or Tweet of the Day will become Tweet of the Week, or Book of the Week will be Book of Whenever. Consequently listeners become disgruntled.
Desert Island Discs (Radio 4) is the latest pawn in a market-researched shake-up. It used to be on after 11am for 45 minutes. Now it’s at 10am and 15 minutes longer. So The Archers Omnibus is not where it was. There are some for whom the Archers theme tune triggers a Pavlovian search for the off switch. They – by whom I mean we – are less impacted by the quantum rehang of Sunday mornings. In fact it’s nice to get to the desert island that little bit sooner.
Is Desert Island Discs in good nick? It has certainly evolved. I once prepared for a Telegraph interview with a 90-year-old Fenella Fielding by listening to her grilling by Roy Plomley from 1967. It was a shock to find the conversation so lifelessly consensual. There wasn’t a single searching question. Later, when working on the biography of Victoria Wood, I devoured her two appearances, 20 years apart. Michael Parkinson got far less out of her than Kirsty Young.
The host’s job is to stay attuned. It calls for the curiosity of a journalist but the empathy of a shrink. These skills don’t always exist in harmonious balance. Young got it bang on and, despite boasting no news background on her CV, Lauren Laverne has fine-tuned her interview style too.
Take Sarah Storey, who this week was second up in the current series. The medal-winning Paralympian cyclist and swimmer spoke of her disability and her achievements with a quiet level-headedness that made, potentially, for a competent but unremarkable encounter. Then she got on to winning her first medal at Barcelona in 1992, only to go back to school to suffer bullying, ostracisation and an eating disorder.
This was the emotional heart of the interview and Laverne steered and listened, listened and steered. Eight gripping minutes passed between Take That and Boyzone, which would never have been possible before the show was lengthened. Eventually Laverne had to go to the next song. “Sarah,” she said, “we’ve got to make room for this.”
As for the music choices themselves, it feels as if the excerpts have lengthened. When the comedian Greg Davies was on the previous week, Madness’s Baggy Trousers went on for so long you thought they were going to fit the whole thing in. This approach will favour anyone taking classical music to the island, but there are fewer and fewer of those.
In any given series there’s nowadays just the one eminence you’ve never heard of who has done fine things in one of the professions. They’re the types to pick arias and mazurkas, although this won’t last. By the time Desert Island Discs reaches its centenary (January 2042, mark your calendars), even Lord Chief Justices and Presidents of the Board of Trade will have been weaned on Little Simz, Taylor Swift and The Last Dinner Party.
“In the end it’s just another interview,” Bob Geldof once told Sue Lawley as he apologised for making his choices at the 11th hour. It’s not though, is it? Because it’s such an accolade to be a castaway, guests can be relied upon to bring their A-game. Thus the interview with Davies was enchanting. A successful stand-up could easily be all talked out. We live in an age of excess chat, where celebrities – many of them comedians – are part of a podcasting echo chamber. I’ll be on yours if you’ll be on mine.
It’s to the advantage of Desert Island Discs that it is not of the podverse. Davies spoke so warmly and insightfully of his upbringing that he didn’t leave school till halfway through the episode. Laverne was a beady invigilator making sure to keep him from, in his phrase, “tickling up the facts”. Tales of destroying his flat in a rage when struggling to write scripts turned out to involve no more than one smashed guitar and a kicked-in sock drawer.
The one thing missing was a sense of who else might be in that flat. If he’s alone, or not, we never found out. Davies talked of how in his stand-up act he reveals of himself only what he wants to. “Is there anything that’s off limits?” Laverne asked. “Ooh, the look on your face!” she said when he didn’t answer. When she began casting away six years ago, some found her soft. This was steely.
