“Radio 2 has made such a fuss,” Graham Norton pointed out during his last show on the station. “They’ve put up tinsel.”
After 10 years as the mid-morning Saturday DJ, Norton has decided to move on (to Virgin Radio, as it happens). Last Saturday was his last show. “This is it ,” Norton announced, one song in, “the end of an error.”
Anything but. Since Norton took over from Jonathan Ross in the Saturday morning slot, he has been a safe pair of hands (not something you could always say of Ross); chatty (always good in a DJ), mildly waspish, and not too up himself.
Indeed, on Saturday, up until the very last link, he consistently steered things away from the maudlin. “Bear in mind I’m leaving in a taxi, not in a hearse,” he reminded listeners.
The final show was mostly business as usual. Banter with guests, doing his best to break up a teenage couple during his Grill Graham weekly advice slot and a selection of mild-to-bland music.
At the end, Pam Ayres read a poem she had written in his honour and Norton gave his thank yous. “I’m getting emotional now.” He played out with his favourite song S Club 7’s Reach for the Stars (I know, I know, it’s not even S Club 7’s best song) and then he was gone, leaving the keys to Claudia Winkleman.
Listen Out For: Whatever Happened to Baby Jane Austen, Radio 4, Hogmanay, 11pm. Slightly buried away at a time when everyone is getting ready to say good riddance to a terrible year, this comedy drama stars none other than Dawn French and Jennifer Saunders and was written by novelist and screenwriter David Quantick. French and Saunders play feuding celebrity sisters whose spats go up a notch after the publication of a tell-all book.
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