Maverick who breaks every rule
CHRIS EVANS is a maverick, and mavericks are not usually welcome at the BBC. The executives of Broadcasting House have a book of rules ten feet thick, and they are sticklers for making sure every dictum is obeyed.
But Evans plays by his own rules — as he showed yesterday. To underline that this was no spur-of-the-moment act of self-sabotage, he told Father Brian D’Arcy, who was presenting the show’s Pause For Thought slot: ‘As Sir Terry said, “There’s never a right time to go, but there could be a wrong time to go.”’
It’s still a daring leap that, attempted by any other broadcaster, would look like madness. As a former agent to many of the media world’s biggest stars, I wouldn’t have advised any of my clients to make the switch.
I’m not sure I’d advise Evans to do it either — but he never does what people tell him anyway. It’s a pattern that goes back to the beginning of his career, as he ricocheted from BBC London to The Big Breakfast on Channel 4 to Radio 1 to Virgin Radio.
Every job was highly coveted, but he barely stayed in one place long enough to catch his breath before zipping on to the next.
It was as though he got bored before he’d even started. Many media people have short attention spans, but they also like job security. Being a broadcaster is often a short-lived career and one bad decision can end it, just as one injury can finish an athlete. The average radio presenter will hold on to a post as long as possible.
That’s why so many carry on when they’ve lost their initial zing, when the lack of enthusiasm starts to show in their voices.
Whatever else Evans is, he isn’t your average radio presenter. He’s a chameleon who has constantly reinvented himself during 30 years at the top of his game.
What we’re about to find out now is whether he’s got enough fuel in the tank to do it again.
My instinct says he can. No one has ever managed to shift back and forth between radio and TV the way he did. He crossed over quite brilliantly. Television ultimately faded away from him, and he proved unable to revive the controlled lunacy of TFI Friday, while his attempt to take the wheel on Top Gear was doomed from the start. But that should not mask the fact that the original TFI and The Big Breakfast completely rewrote the gamebook for live TV.
TFI was the first show to give away a £1 million prize, and gave Evans the chance to flirt outrageously with Spice Girl Geri Halliwell and Texas singer Sharleen Spiteri on camera.
AND the presenter delivered the harshest music review ever, live on TFI in 199 , when he produced a hospital defibrillator and gave electric heart jolts to the new Oasis CD, Be Here Now — before pronouncing it dead on arrival.
The band’s Noel Gallagher has refused to speak to Evans since.
Many radio stars don’t have a clue what to do in front of the television cameras. Nor did Evans, so he made up a whole new set of rules — and succeeded. For that reason alone, it would be a fool who wrote him off.
If this were anybody else, abandoning British radio’s biggest show for an obscure digital backwater, I’d be writing off their career for good. Chris Evans is different. Whatever happens next, it’s likely to surprise us.