Vernon Kay (Radio 2) | BBC Sounds
Rylan: How to Be a Man (Radio 4) | BBC Sounds
Children Locked Away: Britain’s Modern Bedlam | Tortoise Media
There’s a picture of Vernon Kay on my phone: the portrait for his new, much-heralded Radio 2 morning show. In navy jumper, with his hair pushed back, he’s baring his teeth in an approximation of a smile. But his eyes give him away. He looks terrified: like a newly qualified teacher facing a challenging new class, where the kids’ attitudes will decide whether or not he gets to keep his job.
Which is, I suppose, one way to think about the Radio 2 audience. As soon as Kay said his first words last Monday, several of his pupils just flicked him the Vs and flounced out. (On Twitter: “No thanks”; “Really not enjoying this”; “Did anyone else turn off before he began?”) But the new guy has the backing of the head (R2 boss Helen Thomas), and by Wednesday he seemed a little more at ease, though it will take several months before he reaches the extreme cosy-cardy comfiness of his predecessor, Ken Bruce. Bruce used to sound as if he was lounging back, feet on the desk, sipping tea from a flask. Kay has ants in his Calvins, Lego in his Nikes. He’ll not risk a sit-down any time soon.
Still, there are plenty of us who like our mornings livelier than Bruce, or who find Kay’s northern accent more welcoming than his predecessor’s Scottish smoothness. However, this show is bumpy. On Wednesday, the mystery sound took too long to load; Kay fluffed when explaining how Vernon’s Vault works; his interactions with Richie on travel were strained. All tiny, understandable errors, born of nerves. Plus – and this would make anyone edgy – the show is packed, with features, travel, listeners’ emails, competitions, trails for what’s coming up, the ropey Ten to the Top. There’s barely a minute for daft chat, and any time Kay wandered vaguely off-script – such as when he started chatting about his college years – he quickly lost confidence and pulled things straight back to schedule. So overall assessment of the newbie: lively, full of good intentions but far from at ease (“Just chill, siiiir!”). Relaxation comes with familiarity. He’ll settle in soon enough.
On Radio 4 and Sounds, Rylan has a new show, Rylan: How to Be a Man. He’s interesting, Rylan: a naturally gifted presenter (he was a great host of the recent Audio and Radio Industry awards), he has, in the past, not always been stretched by his broadcasting choices. Ry-Union, a 2021-22 podcast in which he chatted to reality show celebs, was pretty weak. On this new show he’s better produced (though the Zoom call sound isn’t great), with a proper theme and set of questions. The topic is men and masculinity. And Rylan does well, though many of his interviewees seem prepped: they all say it’s OK for men to cry; that asking for help when you feel down is not, of itself, un-masculine. Such insights can seem basic, and the first interview, with wildlife cameraman/TV presenter Hamza Yassin, was a little dull. Still, I very much enjoyed ex-boxer Amir Khan and, to my great surprise, model David Gandy, who talked well about being one of the few male models known by name.
Louise Tickle has made another hard-hitting show, Children Locked Away, for Tortoise. This one really is shocking; difficult to hear and take in, requiring a trigger warning at the top. Tickle looks at the provision in England and Wales for children in a mental health crisis: volatile, suicidal kids with severe emotional and behavioural needs. She focuses on one, 12-year-old Becky (not her real name), and goes in search of another: Child X, whose case hit the headlines in 2017 when the country’s top family judge published a scathing judgment. X, who’s now over 18, is in Rampton high-security hospital, her family unsure when she’s coming out. Becky is being held in a completely bare room in a psychiatric hospital, with no daylight and nothing in it other than a bed. She’s been in there for months, her only contact with other humans via a hatch, through which she’s passed food. Reminder: she’s 12.
Becky has behavioural issues and was very upset by lockdown. The judge presiding over the case is demanding that social workers and doctors find somewhere suitable for her to stay – a therapeutic environment where she has the chance to get better. But, says Tickle, there is nowhere: “Not a single bed is on offer in any registered, regulated secure care home across England or Wales.” Listening to this programme, which arrives on the heels of Finding Britain’s Ghost Children, Terri White’s 5 Live series on children lost from the education system, you wonder just what the education secretary, Gillian Keegan, actually does, other than offer a cheery social-media thumbs up to those children mentally well enough to sit exams. She did not appear on Children Locked Away, nor does she give answers to questions.
One in six children in the UK have a mental health problem (one in four young people aged 17-19). Nobody is gathering information about them; few are helping. And the most difficult, upsetting cases – real children – are being passed from pillar to post, from child and adolescent mental health services to social services to police to medics to Travelodges, deemed suitable places for distressed children to live. Some are even in tents. Unsurprisingly, Tickle and her producer discover that several children in unregulated accommodation have died. At least nine over the past five years; six by suicide.
I see that Keegan has recently been on a trip to Japan. Perhaps she could listen to this podcast on her way back. Our most vulnerable children are in severe crises; unsupported, locked away, traumatised. In a country riddled with national disgraces, this is one of the most appalling. And maths up to A-level won’t help.
