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Re: Help with group messages

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Julian BishopJun 1, 2020
 

 
JAM definitely would not work without a live audience. COVID will likely prevent any radio recording gatherings for the foreseeable future (maybe a year or more?). However, I would be surprised if it does not return once it can be recorded in front of a live audience for the following reasons:

1. Many of the players are incredibly loyal to the show; there is no way that Graham Norton, Stephen Fry, Sue Perkins or Paul Merton need the £200 (or whatever the fee is today). They regularly choose to work on JAM because they want to do it. If you then add semi-regulars Julian Clary, Pam Ayers, Marcus Brigstocke, Gyles Brandreth, Jenny Eclair, Sheila Hancock, Tony Hawks, Ross Noble and Liza Tarbuck, you have a large group of players who want to do this show.
2. It remains a popular program on Radio 4
3. Tickets for the live shows are always heavily oversubscribed

I was therefore surprised by Dean’s concern over whether JAM might have finished. I know however that he has some good back channels on JAM. Dean - Do you have any specific feedback? Or are you just concerned?

If it does come back, we will certainly need a new chair. I personally don’t think we need the same formula and same type of chair. ISIHAC eventually hit on a slightly different format with Jack Dee. Maybe JAM will do the same? When we have this discussion before, Gyles Brandreth was always the person identified by most as a good potential chair and indeed he stepped in for Nicholas when he was ill. Maybe however the producers will want to identify a younger person who can change the show to appeal to a younger radio 4 audience? In the same way that Private Eye chose the 25 year old Ian Hislop as editor, maybe they will skip a couple of generations? Whoever it is, I believe they should go for a regular chair rather than someone who changes every week. The chair role in JAM is a fulcrum around whom everyone makes their contributions. Unlike Have I Got News For You, it is a very skilled job performed in real time.

If you were JAM producer:
1. In your appointment of a new chair, what would you be looking to achieve?
2. Which person or people might fit as chair?

Yours

Julian

 
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