Is There A Commissioning Editor In The House?

I should have a chat show.

I’d be good at it.

I like meeting new people.

It’s not as if a complete unknown hasn’t hosted a chat show before. Jonathan Ross was unheard of when he made The Last Resort. There’s precedent.

I have a few ideas for the show. For a start, it should be on very late at night, and it should be open-ended, so if we get into an interesting area we can keep chatting without having to cut things short.

And it should be on BBC4 because I like BBC4, and if BBC4 gets canned or shoved online like BBC3 it should go out kicking and screaming and shooting out new ideas like a doomed little Catherine Wheel.

And it should really be on a Sunday. At midnight. Because the whole idea of this show would be to get people on it who have something better to say than just a plug for their new product. So making the show a bit of a bugger to be on ought to weed out that bunch.

And it should be live. On a Sunday. At midnight. And I, as host, should have been working on the prep for this show very late into Saturday night and all day Sunday, so that I am tired and fractious and possibly a little drunk, though I do find drink dulls the blade a little and we don’t want that, do we? And because I will be tired and fractious, I will not care very much for the niceties of chat shows, and shall show my guests exactly the level of respect I feel they deserve. Which may not be high.

My ideal guests for the first show would be Johnny Vegas (first question: your autobiography: not all that, was it?) and Alain de Botton (first question: why don’t you just shave it all off, or get a wig or something?). Possibly Victoria Coren, but now that she’s married, what’s the point? And somebody nobody’s ever heard of, somebody who does something interesting but not sensational. I can think of a couple of people who’d fit that description.

Musical guests would be booked based on random grabs from my record collection, but would in all probability include Nick Lowe, Scritti Politti, and if they’re in the country Shelby Lynne and Susanna Hoffs/Matthew Sweet. Neil Hannon could lead the house band, if there is one. Maybe the odd touch of deathcore, just to keep things lively.

I can see it now. All the men with next-day beards and kebab-shop eyes, the women still fresh after grabbing a power nap in the green room but nonetheless likely to absently scratch their hair or smudge their mascara. It’d all add to the feel of the thing, the ambience of the last few people in the pub after closing time, not all of them at all merry, some of them a bit miffed about not being merry, like a chat show designated driver.

When I said, at the beginning of this,  'I like meeting new people’ I may not have been entirely honest. Generally I do, but let’s be honest, sometimes you take a dislike to people from the start, don’t you? I’d like to be able to have people on who are, frankly, horrible bastards. I’d try to be nice to them but I have limited patience with the best of people, so it wouldn’t be long before I was sighing, looking around, tapping my foot, then eventually asking them why they’re such a bleeding nuisance or whether they know what an irritating prick they actually are. Then maybe the other guests could join in, not necessarily on my side, I don’t need to be loved, I don’t need their validation. And we could have a right old barney.

Anyway, that’s my pitch, and I hope you like it, Mr. Controller. My agent has a contract ready when you are.