Chart Show vs ChartBlog - Part 2
OK, so now we've all moved downstairs, out of the production office and into the studio. This is where things stop being oddly normal and start being properly excting. For starters the Radio 1 studios are massively space-age, and lit like a chill-out room (in a padded cell). Then there's the mixing desk and all the screens, which has so many flashing buttons and touchscreens and stuff, it would make the Starship Enterprise look like a Fiat Punto by comparison. This is DEFINITELY the kind of stuff I'm going to get when I move out of mum and dad's...
Hell, they even have identity cards for each presenter. Each one contains a lot of technical settings and whatnot for each presenter, which would be pretty dull, but for the fact that you feed them into the desk, like a cash-card or something. And as soon as the card is in, the vocal EQ and the reverb and...other things...which each presenter needs in order to make them sound like themselves, pops up on one of the many screens. It's all very swish!
Fearne arrives first, (nice firm handshake, very important). She heads straight for the console, and immediately locates a button which makes the desk go up and down. Oh sure, SHE'S really blase about this, as if it happens every day, but some people in the room find it hard to hold back their natural urge to rush over and immediately start fiddling. Maybe I'll wait until after the show...
No sooner has this excitement faded than Fearne leads us straight into another drama. She's forgotten her password to get into the Â鶹Éç network. Being a creative sort, she spends much of the next 20 minutes attempting to guess what it might be, rather than ringing an IT consultant to change it for her...
"Futureproof!", she yells, "I've got a really good feeling about this one...FINGERS CROSSED! Oh..."
Eventually the call is put in to IT after all...
Meanwhile Reggie has arrived. He also has a very strong handshake, and pauses in the middle of the story he started before he had even got properly through the door to introduce himself. This plus the INSIDER GOSS Fearne tells us that he's just been on his first stag do, and will have made himself hyperactive on Ribena cos he doesn't drink, makes Reg instantly very endearing.
The pair get set up, and rehearse some of the bits and bobs they have to do during the show. During down-time, they also swap celeb stories exactly like you would imagine they would. I can't possibly re-tell any of them here, sadly, but what I can say is there was a moment where Fearne said "I felt like I was the woman and she was the little girl", and that is surely not something she gets to say very often (unless in conversation with actual children).
The last half-hour before the show begins is spent in this manner. Fearne and Reg doing stuff on Facebook and nattering. No elaborate backstage rituals, no incense, no honey and lemon drinks, no press-ups, no vocal warmups, nada...it's oddly disappointing, really...
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