Radio VIP PEOPLE

Everyone craves success.

OK, perfect.

We all love a winner.

CHEERING

But no-one makes it to the top on their own.

Behind every star is a team of people, immensely talented,

powerful in their own worlds.

-I need two crab on the pass now.

-Yes, Chef!

But invisible to us - until now.

Musical director!

I am an absolute genius at what I do.

These are the stories of the stars

and the teams who strive to make them shine.

Job done.

CHEERING

This is the world of the VIP People.

It's 6.32!

You betcha. Jump in the shower.

DRUMROLL EFFECT

I've checked with my wife, and she doesn't mind.

The Radio 2 Chris Evans Breakfast Show

is the most popular radio show in Britain,

broadcasting live between 6.30 and 9.30 every weekday morning.

Its winning formula of music...

# ..Me somebody to love... #

..celebrity guests...

I'm not a practical man, we know that.

-..crazy jingles...

-Yay!

..and audience interaction...

-Did any of the boys dress as girls?

-No.

-What does that tell you?

-That boys don't like girls.

..attracts over nine million listeners.

That's the same as Chris

performing to 100 Wembley stadiums every single day.

But obviously you can't think about that,

because otherwise you'd be too nervous to speak.

But being Britain's most successful radio DJ isn't a one-man show.

Behind Chris is an expert team of VIP People working under pressure

to deliver brilliant radio to his listeners.

Helping Chris serve up the best breakfast in Britain

is the man in charge of what gets heard when,

the Breakfast Show's producer.

Supporting him is a production team ready for anything,

on air and off.

There's a studio manager taking care of the technology

during the live transmission.

And finally, the sports reporter, who not only tells listeners

the latest sports news, but is game for a laugh with Chris.

Ever since he was a young boy, Chris dreamt of being on the radio.

I've always wanted to be a DJ. I used to give time checks when I was seven.

To my mum. "Mum, it's 12 minutes past seven!"

"I know. I'm a grown-up. I know what time it is, thank you."

Chris became a professional DJ over 20 years ago,

and that led to a hugely successful TV career.

Good evening, friends, welcome to your Friday One Show with Alex Jones!

And Chris Evans!

But he can't keep away from his first love, and he's been

presenting the Radio 2 Breakfast Show for the past three years.

Any better, I'd be twins.

And to keep nine million listeners coming back each day,

Chris and his team of VIP People have to be at the top of their game.

All the producers on this team are like the SAS of radio producers.

Especially on Fridays.

The biggest day for the Breakfast Show,

when a top celebrity pops into the studio.

Recent guests include Kylie Minogue, Daniel Radcliffe

and Robbie Williams.

Chris will be working his magic

on Strictly star Darcey Bussell later on.

Morning!

# Monday, Tuesday Wednesday, Thursday, Friday... #

We're following the Breakfast Show team as they crank up

the pace on Mondays

and keep the craziness going all the way

till their star-spangled Fridays.

# Good morning! #

-Hi, good morning.

-It's 5am on Monday

and the start of the working day for the Breakfast Show's team.

The first person in the studio is producer Andy Warrell.

It's his job to make sure Chris has everything he needs to go on air.

Part of my routine, as soon as I get to the studio, select the jingles,

make sure the music is in the right order.

Chris can be a bit snuffly first thing in the morning,

so that should keep him going for the next three hours.

You hear these noises on the radio, you may think he's playing them

from one of these machines, no, he's doing them live. One, two, three.

Sometimes all together.

Producer Andy is in charge

of planning the breakfast show each day,

from what music will be played to which guests will appear on air.

During the live broadcast, he's the only member of the team

who communicates directly with Chris.

Growing up, Andy had sporting ambitions.

Until the age of 10 or 11 I wanted to be a professional cricketer.

Unfortunately, I'm no good at cricket.

So he turned to his other passion, music, into a career in radio.

Going to give him a cheer?

Andy's been producing the Breakfast Show for the past year.

I'm in charge of everything that happens,

really, during that three hours. Five times a week.

-What are we going to do now?

-I'm thinking rapidly.

So the listeners don't hear what's happening behind the scenes,

Andy is separated from Chris by a piece of soundproof glass.

From this control room, Andy keeps everything on schedule, gives Chris

information, and gets him anything he needs to make the show happen.

-It's really bad, the whistling on records.

-Oh! Bad whistling.

I'm the person at the front of everything,

face to face with Chris,

who obviously needs a lot of fast answers for when he wants to

do his best possible performance on the air every day.

6:25 AM, and Andy is ready in the studio.

Now back to my side of the glass.

But with five minutes until he's live on air,

-Chris is only just arriving in the building.

-Morning!

Chris is at his best when he's at his most spontaneous.

It's my job to make sure that when he comes in,

and there's only time for a quick hello and the microphone goes on,

we both know that, yeah, we're ready for this show.

And sometimes Chris can be a little bit too last-minute.

There was one day that I didn't make it, but nobody noticed,

so let's not talk about that.

-Today, he's here just in time.

-Thank you, Tina.

Morning, and welcome to the all-new same-as-last-year show.

Now the show has started,

Andy's focused on everything that's happening on air.

We have to hear the eight o'clock news on time,

so I'm just lining up a few different options here.

He's plotted out on paper

a minute-by-minute plan of the three-hour broadcast,

from what time news, sports and travel happen

to how long Chris has to talk between songs.

If you're looking at this and thinking,

"Can't you just turn up and make it up as you go along?",

there is an element to which we do that,

but we do need to have a structure.

Without this kind of basis, it would be a complete shambles,

and so would I.

Using his plan,

Andy alerts Chris to what's coming up next on the show.

57:49 for that.

Because of the soundproof glass,

they communicate with each other via a machine called a talkback.

I press that button and then using my little microphone here,

what I say goes directly to his headphones.

Is that right? Five dives in 90 minutes? Seriously?

Was that the case? I can't believe that.

-It's eight o'clock now.

-Hi there. Can someone check that out, please?

And when Chris needs to grab Andy's attention,

-he's got his own special nickname for him.

-Superproducer Mr Tickle!

Mr Tickle!

He's cool, calm, collected, but of course, very long arms.

I think my arms are a perfectly normal length, really.

I can't believe Mr Tickle is defensive about his nickname.

He knows exactly how he got it.

Somebody tie them down, please!

Look at those arms!

However long Mr Tickle's, or rather Andy's, arms are,

they're not long enough to carry the whole show alone.

I'll do you a separate thing.

I think it might be worth it, yeah.

Aside from my own very long arms,

there are a number of other tentacles, if you like,

coming off those arms.

Helping Andy make the biggest breakfast show in Britain

is a small production team

who all have different roles while the show is on air.

We've got our newsreader Tina in there.

Lisa, who is here, booking all the guests

and picking up anything we need.

And Carlene, who is running around doing absolutely everything today.

Making tea for Chris, very important job.

-Lynn in here, doing the travel. Hello, Lynn.

-Hello!

And Graham in here, making the podcast

and listening out for any other bits or clips that we need.

Graham is the man who's all over it.

All over it.

And finally, our guide and next VIP Person,

assistant producer Tom Billington.

One of the beauties of this show

and working with someone like Chris Evans as well

is that every day is different.

Hi, Nick, it's Tom here from Radio 2.

Tom is an assistant producer, or AP,

working as part of the team that supports producer Andy

while Chris is on air.

He writes scripts, sources sound effects,

and looks after the celebrity guest on the big Friday shows.

-There you go.

-Like Chris, as a child,

Tom used to play at being a DJ.

Lovely stuff.

Me and my friends used to record each other making radio programmes.

And I used to then listen to the professionals or listen to

the radio in the car with my mum and dad and think,

"it would be great to do that one day."

Yeah, OK.

Extend it a little bit?

Tom has been working on the Breakfast Show for 18 months.

As an AP in live radio, he has to expect the unexpected

and react quickly to anything Andy or Chris ask of him.

Ask Neil what track he wants us to play off Alfie's album.

When the pressure is on, when you've really got to do something

and you've got five minutes to do it, that's the best part, for me.

Do you want to just come through, just a second?

It's really buzzing. It's great. I love it when it's like this.

Each of the APs is given specific parts of the show to look after

when Chris is on air.

Today, Tom is in the control booth helping Andy

field requests from Chris and manage texts from listeners.

There will be thousands of texts coming in today

and that happens every single day.

Every one that comes in, I have to cast my eye over.

Chris loves to hear from his listeners,

and it's up to Tom to pick out the best messages that are sent in.

"Me and the kids, that's Niamh and Tilly,

"are up early getting ready for school as mum, that's Emma,

"has left at 5:15 to continue to prepare

"for the opening of her new cake shop!" Hurrah!

If you're doing the text machine and take a text through,

you've chosen that text and thought it was funny

or you thought it would sound good on air, and then Chris takes it

and runs with it, and that turns it into something else, it's brilliant.

Marginally better if it were a pie shop, but that's all right.

Before we go, Ed, whatever you do, don't forget to give Brad...

At 9:30 AM, the show is over.

See you later!

And although Chris can head home, there's still plenty of work to do

for the rest of the team as they prepare for the next day's show.

Andy's straight on to sorting out the music

that will be played tomorrow.

There's many fun parts to this job,

but one of them is actually going through picking out

a really nice variety of songs.

Radio 2 has a giant MP3 player which automatically generates music

to be played on the station 24 hours a day.

Going through tomorrow's music,

making a few little changes to what the computer's given me.

Basically juggling around the music schedule

so we've got a nice mix of old and new music in all the right places.

Andy decides on what order songs are played in,

starting with the most important track - the opening number.

You want to make sure that the show starts with a bit of a bang.

GUITAR SOLO

It's familiar to a lot of our kind of listeners,

got a nice kind of bit of oomph to it.

They've been hard at work since 5am, but at two o'clock

in the afternoon, the Breakfast Show team can finally call it a day.

Bye.

That is Monday done and dusted.

It's time to go home. And go to bed.

And then do it all again on Tuesday.

6:32!

Happy Tuesday!

CHEERING

OK. So we're on the air, and hopefully it'll be that song

we talked about yesterday, opening the show. How about that?

Obviously, Chris being Chris,

he has to add in a Tarzan sound effect over the top of it.

You're listening to the Chris Evans Breakfast Show.

Chris packs the Breakfast Show with sound effects and jingles

that he plays direct from his DJ desk.

My favourite sound effect is probably this one.

-CHILD:

-Yay!

That's my son, Noah, saying "Yay!"

But it's the production team who make sure

he has all the sounds he needs at his fingertips.

We've got a database full of amazing sound effects

and we can download them and just stick them on here.

Chris has over 500 sound effects to choose from.

This is a good one!

WHIP CRACKS

This is like a toy, it is like a toy.

And Chris even gets to play at making some sound effects himself.

SQUEAKING

Like that.

Joyous Jo is in charge of all the you-know-what!

SQUEAKING

With so many noises happening on air,

it's our next VIP Person's job

to make sure the show sounds exactly as it should.

Studio manager Jo Miflin.

I've always been very interested in music.

I've always loved pressing buttons and working with gadgets.

Studio manager Jo is responsible for how the show sounds.

She makes sure Chris, his music and his guests

are broadcast at the right volume,

and she's in charge of the technology

that keeps the programme on air.

When Jo couldn't decide between becoming a vet or an actress,

she tapped into her techie side.

It wasn't something I thought about doing,

because it's mostly boys that tend to become sound engineers.

But when I discovered it, it felt absolutely perfectly right for me.

Jo has been a studio manager for nine years,

and is one of several engineers

that work shifts on the Breakfast Show.

And Chris's presenting style

means that Jo has to be ready for anything.

One of the things that Chris likes doing when he's on the radio

is to move around, to stand up, to sit down, to shout, to get intimate.

You can start your dive, and on the way, you go for a treble.

-His job is to create a picture with sound.

-Two, three, four, five!

From my point of view, I'm just assisting him

in creating that picture.

However they do that counting thing.

Jo controls the studio sound using a large mixing desk,

with over 200 buttons, faders and switches.

There are many, many, many magic buttons in the studio.

But one false move could spell radio disaster.

From this position here, you could take anything off air.

This one, that says "Pres", is Chris's microphone.

Close this fader, if Chris was talking, it wouldn't go out on air.

I could accidentally lean on one of these buttons.

If I take that bottom off, it's going to reset the desk.

This is the button which powers up the studio.

If I was to turn that button of, the whole studio would go off air.

With great power comes great responsibility.

-Did you get the level on?

-I did.

-Brilliant. OK.

And like Andy, Jo's job means she had to be at her control desk

for the full three hours of the show,

which can present an altogether different type of problem.

As you know, we drink a lot of tea on this show.

How to fit in a loo break.

What I do is, I wait until the Gobsmackers,

-which is two songs back-to-back.

-Go!

I always wait for the news at seven for the first visit,

and then quite often pop in during the eight o'clock news as well.

When I have to go to the toilet, it depends what I need to do whilst

I'm in there, and I'll select the duration of record required.

I can't wait any longer.

I've been meaning to go in the news for the last three hours.

I'm going to the toilet. No-one is going to stop me!

We've seen how the Breakfast Show team keep Chris Evans

at his crazy best, making sure he is on schedule, sounding great

and in touch with his listeners.

With three more days of early mornings still to come,

will sports reporter Vassos keep a straight face

when he makes a mistake?

And can the team keep up the pace

until their biggest show of the week on Friday?

Featuring Strictly Come Dancing star Darcey Bussell.

BEEPING

# Ladies and gentlemen This is your radio talking

# And we want to wish you all A very good morning

# Rise and shine, sleepyhead Now's the time, get out of bed

# This is your wake-up call. #

Halfway through the week and the early mornings

on the Breakfast Show can start to take their toll on the team.

Least favourite part of the job

is when the alarm goes off at four in the morning.

Any time an alarm clock goes off when it starts with a four,

it's a bad alarm time.

I set my alarm for 4:20 every day.

Today I had the luxury of two extra minutes.

I went to bed last night, and I said,

"I'm going to do 4:22 tomorrow."

You never get used to it.

You wander round basically

in a state of semi-jetlag permanently.

CHRIS: 6:36!

Good morning, welcome to the programme! How are we today?

So it's a good job our next VIP person has Chris to keep him awake.

Sports reporter Vassos Alexander.

-Here's the sport.

-Let's talk cricket.

Almost celebration time.

We're outraged on your behalf.

I've been doing this job now for about a year and a half,

and I love it.

As part of the on-air news team, Vassos chooses which sports stories

to report on before broadcasting them to the nation.

But he's also Chris's right-hand man

for fun facts and comedy conversation.

Reporting the sport on the radio is a dream job for Vassos.

When I was very young I used to listen to the sport on the radio,

and I was absolutely captivated by it.

The commentaries, bringing it to life just through the radio.

I loved that. I thought, "I'd love to do that."

Vassos has been a sports journalist for over ten years,

and presents two sports bulletins every morning on the Breakfast Show.

It's my call what sports stories to do,

and you have to always think about who the audience is.

The audience aren't a sort of sport audience,

so I try and tell a tale that's interesting to everybody.

It's 7am on Wednesday

and Vassos is getting ready for his first report of the day.

We've got a bulletin in about half an hour's time.

And today there's a big story in the football news.

Bradford, which is a tiny little football club

right at the bottom of the league,

they've beaten Aston Villa, a premier league club, big club.

They've beaten Arsenal, they've beaten Wigan!

Vassos is selecting audio highlights from the radio broadcast

of last night's match to use in his bulletin.

I'm finding the goals, I'm editing them and then

saving them on my computer and then I'll e-mail them to the programme.

COMMENTARY

Andy has given Vassos

a fixed length of time to present his bulletin on air.

The music for the sports bulletin lasts two minutes

so I have to be very aware how long each clip is

and how long what I'm writing lasts.

And he writes every word himself from scratch.

You do have to be good at writing.

It is as much what you leave out than what you include.

I've got two minutes. You can't afford to waffle.

Typed, timed and printed, Vassos is ready to go on air.

Sport, please.

Now, I know it's sometimes a bit of a shock, early in the morning,

to hear shouty goal commentary, so...sorry about this.

Carl McHugh has got a third goal of the night!

But partway through the bulletin, it looks like Vassos

may not have his timings quite right.

To keep the show on schedule, Andy asks him

to speed up the rest of his report.

Up to Hastings.

This is Sean Ray, he's the manager of non-league Hastings United.

But Vassos takes it all in his stride.

I didn't miss the music, but I nearly did.

I interrupted one of the clips as well.

Two mistakes in one bulletin, that's, you know...

par for the course.

Chris's spontaneous presenting style allows any mistakes

to be all part of the entertainment.

I'm actually laughing here in the studio, I'm laughing out loud.

And although it sounds like everything Chris says

is made up on the spot, there are some parts of his on-air chat

which Andy and his team script in advance.

Here's our team on today.

When you hear Chris at the start of the show talk about everybody

and who's doing what on the programme today...

Lady Lisa, cranking up the text message machine

for your Good Morning Chris Club requests.

"Lady Lisa's cranking up the text message machine

"for your Good Morning Chris Club requests." That's good.

Tip-top Tom is tackling the e-mail inbox.

"Tip-top Tom is tackling the e-mail inbox.

"Golden Graham is prepping the podcast."

Golden Graham is prepping the podcast.

It's Andy's job to make sure

different scripts written by different members of the team

will all sound the same when Chris reads them on air.

With everything that's written for the show,

I've just got to make sure that the house style is right for Chris.

And it's Chris's skill as a broadcaster

which brings these scripts to life.

As an early morning wake-up song you can't beat it,

Tony's Big-Screen Belter from the movie Back To The Future,

here's Chuck Berry with Johnny B Goode.

Lynn's next. She's always good.

Once a script is finished with,

there's only one place Chris can put it

so he doesn't end up reading it twice.

So it's stress, stress, stress, all day, all the way,

-says Charles in North Yorkshire.

-And that's on the floor.

But at least he tidies up after himself.

Rubbish! Rubbish!

Some people think the show is rubbish.

This part of it is rubbish, cos this is the rubbish.

-The actual rubbish, yes.

-The actual rubbish.

-This is the actual rubbish.

And it is technically the contents of the show, so you could say

-the content of the show is rubbish. Eventually.

-Yeah.

-Thank you.

-Morning!

Happy Thursday, everyone.

It's 6:32!

The demands of live radio mean that even by Thursday...

OK, quick as you can.

..there's no chance of the Breakfast Show team putting their feet up.

I think Carlene is definitely

getting exercise in this morning, yeah.

She's going to need a lie down after the show.

People have said, when they come and watch the show,

"My goodness me, it's so chaotic and it sounds so smooth on the air."

Obviously there are busy times,

constantly having to turn things around quickly, make changes

at the last-minute - it's just one of the challenges altogether.

It's more fun than stress.

So does making the same show day in, day out, week in, week out,

ever become boring?

There's no monotony at all.

It's excitement and it's adrenaline, it's just a buzz every day,

whether it's the first Monday after a break

or the 16th Friday without a break. And at the end of it, of course,

I have my massive sleep on a Friday night.

# Friday I'm in Love. #

On 88 to 91 FM...

It's the biggest day of the breakfast team's week,

the celebrity-filled Friday show.

Today's star guest is Strictly Come Dancing judge Darcey Bussell.

This morning, she'll be spending an hour on air with Chris.

But first, is the job of assistant producer Tom

to give her a warm welcome.

Hello, how are you doing? All right? I'm Tom.

'The reason for speaking to Darcey

'when she gets here is just to calm her down.'

Even though they're celebrities who come in here,

they still sometimes get nervous.

Thanks for your music choices.

-They were really good.

-Did you like them?

-Yeah!

As well as making Darcey feel at home,

Tom's job is to discuss the music she'd like to play on the show.

I've always been a Lenny Kravitz fan.

And brief her on what will happen when she's in the studio.

Darcey's here, everyone! 'It's a great part of the job, really.'

Little bit of stardust and celebrity coming through,

it makes it exciting.

Now that Tom has Darcey fully prepared to go on air...

Nice to see you, my God! Such a thrill.

..It's all down to Chris.

Watched on by producer Andy and studio manager Joe.

Would you like the Greatest Dancer or would you like a bit of this?

-# Let's dance... # Bit of David Bowie?

-David Bowie.

There's something special about knowing that you're

going into a weekend, you look back and you think, do you know what,

that was a pretty good week, wasn't it?

Rounded off by a big star coming in, chatting to Chris,

playing some of their favourite records.

It's a great way to end the week.

And as it's Friday, Vassos also gets in on the celebrity action.

It's his job to involve Darcey in the listeners' e-mails and text.

"I capsized a dinghy with Darcey just before she started Swan Lake.

-"She wasn't supposed to do anything risky!" Is that true?

-It's true!

So how does Vassos find the switch from sports news to celebrity chat?

It's nice to just kind of interact and find out

what these people are like as people.

If you're not different and you're not in awe...

Chris isn't, and he has fantastic interviews with these people.

-You'll be there, won't you, Chris?

-Of course! In my tutu.

And with the end of Darcey's interview...

That was your Darcey Bussell!

..that's another Friday, and another week of shows, over.

It's been a great morning. Non-stop from start to finish.

But a lot of fun.

Thank you so much. Well done. It was great. Thanks a lot.

Often people are really buzzing.

They're always buzzing after a Friday show, to be honest.

And what better way to celebrate five days of fab radio

than with a nice cup of tea and a sit down?

So all smiles around here now as we prepare for the weekend.

And then Monday.

# Express yourself

# Express yourself

# See it's not what you look like

# When you're doin' what you're doin'

# Express yourself... #

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd