It's Not What You Think (33 page)

The first time we met, Chris Evans
was shooting the pilot for
The Big Breakfast
in 1992. Coming from the Planet Zog, we had never heard of Chris Evans, we presumed he was there to make the tea or put the bins out. But his ‘Way Hey’ personality soon made us realise he was the star of the show.

Our slot, ‘The Crunch’, was supposed to be ‘our’ slot, but Chris became the third alien in the bathroom. We used to have such a laugh together; sometimes we continued to crack up even after the cameras had stopped rolling! He became our Earth Dad and we even had tea in his real house with his real wife Carol, who then kicked him out when he became the Ginger Whinger and got all showbiz. Mind you, he was still our Dad, so we let him move in with us in our swanky apartment in Limehouse E14. He said he was only going to stay for a couple of weeks until the press stopped hassling him. Six months later he was still there nicking our cornflakes, wearing our socks and staying up late with his new girlfriend Kim Wilde.

We ended up having to kick him out, but the thing about Chris is you can’t help but like him! When he left
The Big Breakfast
it was never the same again. We met Chris a few times after that when he invited us on to his cool show
TFI Friday
and then he starred in an episode of our series,
Dirty Deeds
, where we wrote a musical about his life called ‘Gingerella’.

And even though he’s become a multimillionaire superstar DJ, he’ll always be our ginger dad from Planet Earth, who sadly doesn’t call us anymore…or send us presents on our birthday…or even give us a free copy of this book…

Chris isn’t just the icing on the cake guy,
he’s the cherry on the icing on the cake.

Always the most stunningly entertaining guy to watch and listen to, his particular strength is turning a good idea into a brilliant idea.

When we at Planet 24 first came up with
The Big Breakfast
, the Channel 4 stand-up show
Whose Line is it Anyway?
was big and we thought, hey, our show is set in a real house, let’s call our competition ‘Whose
Washing
Line is it Anyway?’ and put up a washing line in the garden.

Chris comes in as presenter and takes the whole thing further by using props for the phone—only Chris would have picked up a banana and used it to receive viewers’ calls. A banana! Comedy genius! So Chris was the first person on British television to talk to viewers using a banana.

He has the ability and the charisma to inspire a team—to make everyone work towards the same goals—because it was always amazing fun. This was often driven by things he is passionately interested in—like helicopters and cars and engines and dogs—and, err, pretty women! He makes everyone want to do really well—and it isn’t just the fear of being shouted at. On
The Big Breakfast
when he made people change something at the 5 a.m. meeting he was always right, despite the tears due to exhaustion or the fear of having to start all over again in order to make his changes. He was such a perfectionist he used to refuse to read scripts if they had spelling mistakes. He used to watch the shows back immediately after they went out so that he could see how and what things worked and what didn’t—so the same mistakes would never be repeated.

The improvements were made with such energy you knew they were right. I think he was fuelled by a special kind of adrenalin. Perhaps that’s why after his morning bath he’d wander round
The Big Breakfast
house naked.

Years later he put the icing on the cake for me again when I produced
Never Forget
, a musical with the songs of Take That. He came to see it and he loved it, but gave three very sharp and clever script suggestions. All of them made it better. He’s changed a bit though—as far as I know he didn’t walk round naked afterwards. Shame!

Chris Evans and I never slept together!
It’s still the one question I’m asked even after all this time.

1992 was when we first worked together to launch
The Big Breakfast.
After our first day on air one of our bosses walked us to our cars and said, ‘you do realise your lives are never going to be the same again’! I didn’t realise that he actually meant that 17 years later people would still want to know if we’d ever had sex!

Chris was always the BEST in my eyes, even when he was hit in the eye by a low-flying snowball one freezing morning and he lost his temper live on air; or the
time he sneezed into his mug of tea and we both giggled for far too long; or even the time when we both became hysterical when he fell over his chair.

Chris is an incredibly loyal man. He loves his mum and loves life (even though back when I first knew him he would never have admitted to loving life). He cries openly when he really feels something and laughs uncontrollably. He’s a bugger to get hold of but when you do get together he listens and then he pours out far too much alcohol.

Bizarrely the one abiding memory I have of our time together on the
BB
is his last show. We were both heartbroken and cried ridiculously throughout the two hours, but as the show came to an end and as he walked off silently into the distance, dressed in a brown raincoat, just like the wonderful Eric Morecambe had done many years earlier, we both stopped crying and smiled.

He’s a generous, good man. I’m proud to say we have never, ever fallen out over anything…and we never will.

Every time anyone asks me about Chris (apart from the ‘no we didn’t’ line) I always say the same thing.

He’s a decent good man and I love him!

C of E

Chris Evans first came into my life in 1990 as I sat in the bath in Primrose Hill where I was living at the time. I had never met him but loved his radio show,
The Greenhouse
, on GLR, and I would tune in whilst having a soak; he really made me laugh with his innocent and very silly but clever humour. I soon became a fan and shortly afterwards was pleased to accept an invitation to pop into the studio one day to say ‘Hello’.

I didn’t realise it at the time, but he was my fan too.

Then a call from
The Big Breakfast
: ‘Did I want to step in for Gaby Roslin for a week with Chris?’ In truth, the thought terrified me. I was a big fan of the show…everyone was, but I didn’t have any presenting experience so it was a challenge for me. However, encouraged by my mum, I took the plunge and before I knew it I was right in the heart of an extremely mad but fun-filled world. I knew this coveted offer was out to several high-profile female presenters at the time, but Chris made sure I got the job and gave me total support. It was a week I’ll never forget.

Subsequently I appeared on
Don’t Forget Your Toothbrush
where Chris and I were pitched against each other in a competition to see who knew more about me and my career…needless to say, Chris won!

Chris’ incredible energy and ambition were always countered by his genuine love of people, whether they were ‘A listers’ or someone making the coffee backstage. He effortlessly gained people’s respect and devotion by treading his own path, his own way, whilst irresistibly inviting you to come along and share it all with him.

When I think of Chris I always smile and I am glad he found what he was looking for, just as I know he is glad that I did too.

Dear Sir,

Re: Your request for a reference for Christopher Evans

Whilst he has many strong points, of which I’m sure you are aware, there are a number of issues which prevent me from endorsing him unreservedly. Although there appears to have been a miraculous transformation recently, in the past he has suffered from the following problems:

• A tendency to skateboard down the corridor at work in his boxer shorts.
  
• An insistence on using his own toaster in the office which repeatedly set off the fire alarm.
  
• A determination to fly his own flag from a BBC building, which led to endless meetings with angry people from the premises department.
  
• An insubordinate attitude to authority, tending to refer to his boss as ‘the Fat Controller’.
  
• An impeccable sense of timing which led to him telling a joke about oral sex and Brussels sprouts on the day I was due to defend him to the BBC Board of Governors.
  
• An unreliable attendance record which culminated in him taking the day after the Christmas Party as a ‘sickie’.
  
• A tendency to flounce out if not given Fridays off.
  

Apart from these minor defects he is, of course, a brilliant broadcaster who has single handedly changed the face of British radio and an all round good egg. I’m very proud to have been associated with bits of his career.

My first sight of Chris Evans was that day at Channel 4
when we ran two parallel live pilots of potential shows to fill the breakfast slot. I had two TVs on in my office, one showing
The Big Breakfast
effort, the other another pilot from an established broadcaster. Within ten minutes of the two-hour show, I had abandoned watching the other pilot, and became glued, if not transfixed by the carroty haired, smiley voiced unknown co-presenter Chris Evans. The rest is history. From
Big Breakfast
, to
Don’t Forget Your Toothbrush
(who COULD forget that classic?) through to
TFI Friday
, he became a part of Channel 4 legend, a regular visitor to my office to offer advice and to receive advice.

Despite his occasional public notoriety, I would have to say I never had a moment’s aggravation with Chris. I found him always professional, always intelligent about his career, his shows, his views about TV. In fact, I often thought he would make a top-notch TV channel controller. I became, and still am, very fond of him, and still a fan. He is a natural broadcaster, at home on TV or radio. He is one of a kind, like the late Kenny Everett or Jimmy Saville and I am certain
his career will continue to flourish. He is certainly a man for these times—he never fails to brighten your viewing or listening with that infectious, irreverent, anarchic and fantastical imagination. He has the gift of the gob, and deserves all the success he has worked so hard for.

I’m very fond of Nobby.
He was a tall, gangly teenager, very red headed with an infectious nervous enthusiasm. Saying he was from hospital radio, Nobby hadn’t a clue how to work the old tape recorder he’d borrowed from his brother but his questions were very memorable—
‘How many cars have you got?’ ‘Which are better—tadpoles or newts?’
As he packed up, he overheard we needed a new keenie. Nobby’s letter landed next day asking for a job. It would have been rude to refuse…

So I gave him an on-air persona—Nobby No-Level with a catchphrase
‘what I don’t know—I don’t know!’
and he lapped up every tip, every opportunity, every chance to try something. He was like blotting paper absorbing the magic of radio and the work that goes into getting it right. He leaped around on Roadshows chucking buckets of water, and came to watch and learn how to perform onstage at gigs. Out in the radio car with no-one to interview, he did an hilarious one-way chat with a grid in the road; talked his way into Tina Turner’s dressing room to do a live interview with her in her underwear; and helped make
Timmy on the Tranny
the number one radio show in the national Sony and
Smash Hits
polls.

Nobby has a charm that is very appealing. Like the crack of dawn he surprised me in his dressing gown with a bottle of champagne and a big grin to celebrate ‘Itsy Bitsy’ going to No.1!

He likes a bit of mischief too and offered to partner my dad in the treasure hunt at my wedding—they collected half the stone statues together from the castle grounds. I always thought that the death of his own father when he was 15 was the catalyst for Nobby to embrace life and all the opportunities that came his way. So it was lovely to share a special moment on holiday with him and friends in the summer of 1992—I was signing autographs for a crowd of ‘Itsy Bitsy’ and
Wacaday
fans in a pub and over my shoulder was someone waiting his turn…
‘this’ll be you in a couple of months, Nobby, when the Big Breakfast starts…’

Carpe diem
—seize the day and make it happen!

Dear Chris

What to write? You know me, I was never great at expressing myself. Why you put me on camera I’ll never know. And how you got me to wear those hideous suits—it must have been love.

I don’t think what I write will make the book but I wanted you to know that I loved every minute of our time together and wouldn’t trade any of it, even the bad times (of which there were a few, although not as many as people would like to think).

Time has made the memories a bit hazy but generally I remember it all being about the fun of the small things in life. It was never the showbiz life with you, I remember being dressed and in the lift on the way to a premiere when we both decided not to go. Instead we sat on the double deck chair on the roof of the flat watching fireworks. I remember the joy you felt when you bought your first Ferrari but you were still willing to let my friend Gill drive it on Christmas Day in her apron.

That’s not to say you didn’t mind the grand gesture occasionally, buying me a car for my birthday when we’d only being going out 2 weeks, or flying my sister from New Zealand to surprise me live on
Don’t Forget Your Toothbrush.

I’ve only ever wanted the best for you in life and will consider you a friend always. You have a good heart and deserve all the happiness that life can bring.

I just wanted to say thanks for making a great chapter in my life and I’m touched to be a couple of lines in yours.

Love

Rachelx

The one question I get asked
by London cab drivers more than ‘Where to guv?’ and ‘Hasn’t political correctness gone mad?’ is: ‘What’s that Chris Evans like?’