New host Lauren Laverne proves to be a worthy replacement
Radio Desert Island Discs Radio 4 ★★★★★
Hosting Desert Island Discs isn’t a job that comes up very often. It’s had only four presenters since 1942. The current skipper, Kirsty Young, has been casting away public figures for 12 years, but although she has previously said she’d like to keep doing so until she’s 85 (she’s currently only 49), she has been diagnosed with fibromyalgia and is taking some time off. For a few months the interviewer in charge of marooning celebrities on a desert island, and asking them to choose their favourite music, books and luxury items to keep them company, will instead be BBC 6 Music DJ Lauren Laverne. Laverne hosted her first show yesterday, interviewing Olympic medallist and world champion diver Tom Daley.
So, how did she do? Perhaps inevitably, as she read the introductory script, Laverne sounded as if someone had handed her a delicate glass ornament to look after and she was concentrating hard on not dropping it.
It must have been a daunting task. Young’s voice has long become an essential part of what makes Desert Island Discs unmissable, no matter who she is interviewing.
First there’s the voice itself. Young’s distinctive deep tones are captivating and unique: school friends used to call her “Old Man River”. And then there’s her gentle yet sharply probing interview style, balancing empathy with rigorous questioning and a gift for getting under the skin of her castaways.
Laverne is a very different personality. Before Radio 4, Young was an experienced TV news anchor. Laverne, on the other hand, fronted a rock band, and has an accordingly rebellious streak to her sense of humour (she once memorably referred to the Spice Girls as “Tory scum”). But although Laverne’s day job is currently as 6 Music’s breakfast show presenter, presiding over an uber-hip indie playlist, she has strong cultural credentials too.
She used to present BBC 2’s Culture Show, and is already a familiar voice to Radio 4 listeners with a regular gig presenting Late Night Woman’s Hour and a scattering of thoughtful standalone documentaries. As a broadcaster, she has a relaxed, unpretentious wit and an edge of cool.
And once she moved off-script and into back-and-forth conversation with Daley, she soon loosened up. The programme turned into a tender account of Daley’s athletic career and personal life, from the devastation of bereavement to the overwhelming happiness of his marriage to the screenwriter Dustin Lance Black and the birth of their son from a surrogate mother.
Laverne spoke more quickly than Young, and gave less weight and space to her questions. She fostered a much more matey sense of intimacy with Daley than Young ever does with her guests, but that often worked well, especially when discussing lighter moments from Daley’s life such as his fun-loving relationship with his brothers and the rollercoaster of early parenthood.
When Daley related the death of his father from cancer at the age of 40, Laverne gave him time to tell the story without interjection. It was heartbreaking and perfectly judged, concluding with Laverne deftly steering things back to music via a quiet “Let’s hear about your next disc”.
She never quite slipped the leash. When Daley, a keen cook, asked if he could take a whole kitchen with him to the desert island, Laverne turned him down: “It’s my first day – I have to stick to the rules,” she said. Happily, she did let him take an oven with a hob.
Laverne is a consummate broadcaster and we can cautiously declare her temporary tenure as first mate a success – but we did miss the captain. Get well soon, Kirsty Young.