Call the Midlife (35 page)

Obvious when someone points such things out. Apparently the same goes for lots of television events – James Corden and his hit late-night US chat-show, for example. Millions more people watch his ‘bits’ online the day after than watch the ‘donor broadcast’. Kids really do watch what they want, when they want, where they want. They neither know nor care where anything was originally broadcast.

‘How many bits do you have in your current draft running order that you think might immediately be uploaded to YouTube the moment they’re broadcast? That’s so so important nowadays, absolutely key.’

My response goes something like this:

‘Er . . .’

Quickly, Will and I scrabble through what we have.

‘Well, there’s potentially the La Ferrari lap round the
Top Gear
track. Every car fan in the world will want to watch that.’

‘Good, what else?’

Er, can we get back to you?

Fuck, shit and fuck again. He’s bang on the money. Identifiable moments as opposed to a monologue-esque narrative are the modern way and therefore what we need to do. But, thank God, Will and I gradually realize that’s what
TFI Friday
has always been anyway: signature bubbles of bonkers hit-and-miss tomfoolery underwritten by an overall and half-grown-up proscenium arch of
mega-musical talent and A-list superstar heat. Once we stop hyper-ventilating and count our chicks, we figure we have at least fifteen instantly YouTube-able bits.

Phew, we might yet get to be ‘down with the kids’.

Wednesday, 3 June

9 DAYS TO GO

Sneak home to Ascot to see Tash and the kids. So worth it. We watch the rough cut of the TV ad for the first-ever
TFI Friday
compilation album I filmed against a green screen last week. It’s come out well. Except I look porkier than I want to. Don’t know how, I’m still weighing in at 12 stone 6 pounds. Do I starve myself next week? With all the old footage we’re planning to play in, there will be constant comparisons to then and now. It’s not so much a vanity thing (I’m lying), more a case of not wanting to look too long in the tooth in case Channel 4 do consider moving forward with a series.

Also clothes-wise – because I don’t really care about, or have many clothes – I am in danger of falling into that age-old TV trap of trying too hard to look like me. I remember bumping into Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall one day, out shopping with his stylist.

‘I need to look more like telly Hugh than real-life Hugh apparently!’ he shouted while being dragged up yet another escalator.

Television is certifiably bonkers.

Thursday, 4 June

8 DAYS TO GO

Overnight I receive confirmation we have definitely secured access to the old
Top Gear
track in five days’ time – next Tuesday, three days before
TFI
goes out. This is brilliant news.

Following the shock departure of Jeremy Clarkson from his legendary car show after an alleged drunken fracas with a producer, there has been much speculation about who might take over. My name has been the bookies’ favourite from the off, so we thought
it might be fun to stir it up a bit by doing some filming down at Dunfold where they make the show.

One of the things they never got to do in the end was put the Stig in the new super-car La Ferrari to see if he could break the lap record. This is what we planned to do.

Waking up to this news at 4.30 a.m., I ping an email off to Ferrari in Italy:

One of two emails I send before getting out of bed, the other to the absolutely bloody marvellous Sam Smith. After picking up FOUR Grammy awards and embarking upon his first-ever world tour, Sam has experienced a voice issue serious enough to require surgery. As a result he’s not been able to speak – at all – for almost a month now. I get the feeling he might need a little pick-me-up.

Sam had already recorded our first-ever
TFI
viral trail entitled ‘100 days to go’. He has both fantastic timing and fastastic karma. I woke up this morning with a feeling in my tummy telling me to get him involved. We shall see. I just want this special to be bursting at the seams with unpredictable possibility.

I head off to meet Paul, George and Ringo – my new nicknames for Claire, Will and Suzi. (Claire and Suzi made up the original gang of four along with Will and I who produced
TFI
.) We’d arranged to meet in a Swedish café round the corner from Radio 2; questionable food but again, excellent karma. We’re there from 10 a.m. till 1 p.m., another highy productive session with regards to the running order. Every day we’re just turning the screw. Refining and tightening. With over a week to go, we’ve already paid more attention to it this
TFI
than all the previous scripts put together.

Spend the rest of the day reviewing archive footage – my God there’s so many bits I’d forgotten about. Helen Mirren and me falling in love in the rain, a whole black-and-white Sixties title sequence filmed in central London, the precursor to an interview with Michael Caine at his Chelsea penthouse, Noel Gallagher in my living room on the show we did live from my flat, losing a toss and then welshing on a bet, a whole
Lock Stock
parody directed by Guy Ritchie. All absolute gold.

Also have a text exchange with Lewis Hamilton – still sweating on a confirmation from him, he was on his plane flying to the Canadian Grand Prix – desperately wants to do the show but may have a timing issue with an event he’s committed to for Samuel L. Jackson and his charity on the same night. Fingers crossed.

Review the Clarkson skit we filmed last week when he popped in to my radio show to give his first interview post alleged punch-up. He was very open and honest. After we came off the air we took a
ride around London in La Ferrari during which I asked him for a
Top Gear
presenting lesson. He was a great sport, very funny, as usual.

‘You haven’t even been offered my old job have you?’ he says during our exchange on camera.

‘No,’ I answer, crestfallen.

‘I knew it. No one has.’

And it was true. Lots of zealous agents were making out their various clients had been approached by the BBC but not a single phone call had been made. The truth was that the BBC was hoping James May and Richard Hammond would carry on as a duo. This is what we all wanted to happen.

Also confirmed to drive the La Ferrari was super-quick top bloke BTCC Champion driver Jason Plato. He would be our ‘Stink’ to
Top Gear’s
Stig for our La Ferrari flying lap.

All good. Still getting far too excited.

More excited.

Receive a message from Jay Hunt, boss of Channel 4: she’s excited too, has heard we’ve been working hard. Expectations are high. Excellent, so they should be. Keeps the pressure on.

Friday, 5 June: 4.45 a.m.

ONE WEEK TO GO

Close to finalizing the running order once and for all. There comes a point in televison when you have to say, that’s it, so that everyone has a chance to get to grips with what we’re going to try to achieve.

Radio show in a bit with guests including motorbike guru Charlie Boorman, TV hottie Emma Willis, he of the big phone – Dom Joly, broadcasting legend Johnnie Walker and Mika singing four songs live. After that it’s straight up to Glasgow for a
One Show
live music special and hopefully back in time for
Saturday Kitchen
tomorrow morning to kick off a week of
TFI Friday
publicity and promotion.

Saturday, 6 June

6 DAYS TO GO

Air travel’s interesting nowadays, don’t you think? Getting slower instead of quicker. I was bumped off my original flight yesterday after it was over-booked and the return flight to Heathrow was delayed due to being late in-bound and then, get this: 200-km headwinds. All of which conspired to make us the last plane to dock back at Heathrow before the end of business. I got home at 1 a.m. this morning: twenty-one-hour day. Mmm, lovely.

The folks at
Saturday Kitchen
have very kindly squeezed me in to what is already a packed show. For the first time they are going to have a celeb kitchen porter nipping in and out. The idea being at some point this will give me the chance to mention
TFI Friday
is back in six days’ time. As it turns out, the front man of one of
TFI
’s fave bands, Supergrass, is also booked to appear. Gaz Coombes and I fire up the retro Nineties chat at every given opportunity: Blur vs Oasis, Jarvis Cocker mooning Michaeael l Jackson at The Brits and then being hauled off by the police.

Thank you Amanda Ross, James Winter and James Martin for freeing up some precious
SK
minutes. I owe you – big time.

Before the show, not such good news, however.

Fifteen minutes prior to transmission Peter Kay emails me. He can’t make the show in six days’ time. I call him, he picks up immediately. I’m still talking to him as I hear the SK theme tune being played in. We’re on the air. ‘Got to go, Peter.’

‘I’m so sorry.’

These things happen.

Onwards.

Sunday, 7 June

5 DAYS TO GO

Up early again for more promo, this time on Channel 4’s
Sunday Brunch
, a show that began life on BBC2 as
Something for the Week-end
and is now in its tenth year, having evolved into a three-hour Sunday-morning extravaganza. Today featuring the radiant British actress Samantha Bond, a new up-and-coming girl/boy music combo from the US by the name of Lion Babe, Mary McCartney talking veggie cooking, the acting guru that is Sir Ian McKellen, and myself.

Again,
SB
have done us a huge favour by having me on – Tim Lovejoy being an old pal and Suzi our exec having been one of the original founding mamas of the
Sunday Brunch
production team. The only thing you have to be careful of is that on a show that’s three hours long it’s easy to forget you’re on telly at all and end up a little too relaxed. Good for the viewers but dangerous if you let something slip by accident. As an antidote to this I write on the back of my left wrist
DFFSFYOLT
– a little mantra I adopted a few years ago: Don’t For Fuck’s Sake Forget You’re On Live Television.

One of the themes of the show is bucket lists, following up on a news report that only one in five Brits feel they are living life to the full. There is a list of 37 things that one ought to have done by a certain age. They ask all the guests to estimate how many they could tick off. I’m way ahead with over twenty: one of the panelists claims not to have done any. I don’t believe him.

When it comes to the interview, Tim and Simon ask some pretty pertinent questions. Or do I just think that because they allow me some pretty decent answers? Like the old adage, ‘You think your wife has a great sense of humour, when all she’s doing is laughing at all your godawful jokes.’

They ask if I’m doing
Top Gear
, I tell them, ‘Some
Top Gear
filming has taken place.’ Keep stirring the pot.

Met up with Will, Suzi and Claire for a rare Sunday meeting, the first in our careers, in my local pub in the afternoon to talk about the running order prior to our meeting with my pal and co-writer, Danny Baker, on Monday.

It’s a beautiful day. We all hit the rosé, I don’t even like rosé – the devil’s work: headache guaranteed and only ever tastes bearable at best, usually ’cos it’s ice-cold and therefore doesn’t really taste of
anything. Does anyone actually like the taste of rosé? Except for English rosé which I later discover is the best in the world, the sparkling rosé best of all.

This is the first time I have sensed our ‘special’ is in danger of being over-thought. But I like that, it’s reassuring. Means we’ve been putting the work in. Claire leaves first, then Suzi, Will and I go on a restaurant crawl – a starter in one place, a main course in another. We part company circa 21:00 hours. I’m done. I go home and treat myself to a small brandy and a couple of squares of dark chocolate. It’s been a good day.

I phone my wife. ‘You sound chirpy,’ she remarks. That’s marriage-speak for drunk.

I am.

Monday, 8 June

4 DAYS TO GO

Awake at 3 a.m. – and the weird thing? Not tired at all. I know I really need more sleep but I feel good anyway, one more hour would get me to my minimum required six. I get there somehow and by the time I set off for work at 5.45 a.m. I am totally recharged. Comfortable in my own skin, looking up at a bonus California clear blue sky, I fairly skip through Regent’s Park and into the West End. My Radio 2 show, the key to everything, a loyal wife as opposed to a fly-by-her-nightie mistress.

After which, it’s all about the
TFI
script. Our first meeting with Danny Baker at the new studios. Not only do I want him to see the new layout ahead of show day, but I haven’t been there in a while and you never know.