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Lady Boil De Spudswell · Joined: 12 Dec 2006 Posts: 429 Location: Location, Location

From The Telegraph...

Danny Baker, back where he belongs
Last Updated: 12:01am BST 13/09/2008

He’s done breakfast shows and Daz adverts, but Baker can be himself talking footie on Radio 5 Live’s 606, says Gillian Reynolds

Danny Baker comes back to Radio 5 Live on Tuesday night at 10.00pm to host 606, the football phone-in. The audience will promptly divide. On one side there will be me, my brother, and several million other Baker fans. On the other, there will be those who can’t stand his Deptford voice, devotion to Millwall, fund of funny facts and fondness for the last word. The reason he’s a star is that those of the latter faction still listen for the pleasure of raging at him.

Baker pioneered 606 back in 1991, in the days before Radio 5 Live, when the network was plain Radio 5, invented by the wily BBC to allow handy retention of two Medium Wave frequencies and accommodate services (eg sport and children’s programmes) other networks discarded when they moved solely to FM. The programme was called 606 because that’s when it came on, straight after the big Saturday match. It was a hit from the start. It’s become such an institution that they put it now out at any old time of the day or night and still call it 606.

Back then, however, poor little Radio 5 needed all the hits it could get. So Andy Parfitt, now controller of Radio 1, then working at Radio 5, put Baker on the breakfast show in 1992 and that was a huge success, too. Baker, unfettered by script or format, insisting on doing it his way, talking to listeners, having daft competitions, enthusing, was utterly unlike anything anywhere else. When you listened, and you couldn’t help listening because he cheered you up so much, it felt like you were a member of an elite club. Baker, by then, was a hot property.

Before long he went off to do TV and commercials, lost weight, wore suits, smartened up. Suddenly he was everywhere, from BBC1 to relaunched Radio 1, then onwards to Talk Radio, all the time writing scripts for Chris Evans, Jonathan Ross, Harry Enfield, everyone who is anyone. Yet the bigger his own shows got the further he seemed to drift away. I remember him showing up on Chris Evans’s Friday Channel 4 chat show, TFI Friday, one Christmas, the pair of them a bit (ahem) merry and I wondered (worried, actually) when he’d ever sound like himself again. Three years ago he got the afternoon slot on BBC Radio London and the old magic was suddenly back.

This summer he returned to Radio 5 Live, doing 606 for Euro 2008. Website comments flowed. ‘Danny Baker talks too much.’ ‘The best football phone-in show I’ve heard for ages.’ ‘A brilliant programme.’ ‘Load of rubbish.’ As the end of the tournament approached they started to say they’d miss him. ‘Get Danny Baker back full time on 606 – this is what the programme needs.’

So why would a show that’s had a pretty ritzy roster of presenters in its 16 years need Baker now, especially as the BBC has previously fired him three times? Because, I think, he has a rare passion for football as a game. Not for the stars, spats, politics, finances. It is the sport he cares about, the game that belongs to people who pay to support their teams, everything that these days slips to the sidelines when the talk is more of billionaire owners and international branding than footie.

Baker reads a lot (Wodehouse is a favourite), thinks a lot. He loves films, old TV shows and vintage rock to the point where you’d kill to have him on your side in a pub quiz. He’s been about a bit in the last decade, been burnished by experience, lost a few illusions. He still sounds as if he’s glad to be alive and talking to you. To you, not at you, unlike some of the 606 hosts with whom he will now share a roster. Welcome back!

Gillian Reynolds
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RockitRon · Joined: 07 Dec 2006 Posts: 7646

Welcome back yourself, Lady B! I saw that on Saturday and thought of you.

I'm not keen (understatement) on the sport phone-in shows but I'm glad that the BBC are making use of his sharp mind and wit in that department.
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Ron

Lady Boil De Spudswell · Joined: 12 Dec 2006 Posts: 429 Location: Location, Location

oldraver · Joined: 18 Dec 2006 Posts: 1189 Location: London

Good on yer, Lady B. Keep the Baker flag flying.

I caught the last 20 minutes on interactive, purely by chance. How delightful to see Dan back for a regular Tuesday night spot. As a Deptford boy myself, i've always been a Dan fan, right from the days of the Six O'Clock Show on LWT.

Some great stories on last night's show, as well.
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