Smashie and Nicey
Encyclopedia
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
characters who first appeared in the early 1990s TV sketch show Harry Enfield's Television Programme
Harry Enfield's Television Programme
Harry Enfield's Television Programme was a British sketch show starring Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse...
. They were played by comedian
Comedian
A comedian or comic is a person who seeks to entertain an audience, primarily by making them laugh. This might be through jokes or amusing situations, or acting a fool, as in slapstick, or employing prop comedy...
s Paul Whitehouse
Paul Whitehouse
Paul Whitehouse is a Welsh actor, writer and comedian. He became known for his work with Harry Enfield and as one of the stars of the popular BBC sketch show, The Fast Show. In a 2005 poll to find The Comedian's Comedian, he was in the top 50 comedy acts voted for by comedians and comedy insiders...
and Harry Enfield
Harry Enfield
Henry Richard "Harry" Enfield is a BAFTA-winning English comedian, actor, writer and director.-Early life:...
respectively. They are parodies
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
of a certain style of aging celebrity
Celebrity
A celebrity, also referred to as a celeb in popular culture, is a person who has a prominent profile and commands a great degree of public fascination and influence in day-to-day media...
BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
Radio One Disc Jockey
Disc jockey
A disc jockey, also known as DJ, is a person who selects and plays recorded music for an audience. Originally, "disc" referred to phonograph records, not the later Compact Discs. Today, the term includes all forms of music playback, no matter the medium.There are several types of disc jockeys...
who started out with the station in the 1960s and stayed there until the mid 1990s. The characters incorporated the personalities, character traits and lifestyles of several different real life DJs. The characters reference such DJs as Tony Blackburn
Tony Blackburn
Tony Blackburn is an English disc jockey, who broadcast on the "pirate" stations Radio Caroline and Radio London in the 1960s and was the first disc jockey to broadcast on BBC Radio 1 in 1967. In 2002 he was the winner of the ITV reality TV programme I'm a Celebrity.....
, Dave Lee Travis
Dave Lee Travis
Dave Lee Travis , also known professionally as DLT and the Hairy Cornflake, is a British radio presenter, best known for his career on BBC Radio 1.-Early life:...
, Alan Freeman
Alan Freeman
Alan Leslie "Fluff" Freeman, MBE was a British disc jockey and radio personality in the United Kingdom for 40 years.-Career:...
, Mike Read
Mike Read
Michael David Kenneth Read is an English radio disc jockey, writer, journalist and television presenter.-Early life:...
, Noel Edmonds
Noel Edmonds
Noel Ernest Edmonds, is an English broadcaster and executive, who made his name as a DJ on BBC Radio 1 in the UK. He has presented many light entertainment television programmes, including Multi-Coloured Swap Shop, Top of the Pops, The Late, Late Breakfast Show, Telly Addicts, Noel's Saturday...
and Jimmy Saville amongst others. Enfield's parody of Radio One's increasing irrelevance to the youth audience it supposedly catered for was a factor in 1990's controller of Radio One Matthew Bannister
Matthew Bannister
Richard Matthew Bannister is a British media executive and broadcaster. After attending King Edward VII School , he graduated in law at the University of Nottingham in 1978, and joined BBC Radio Nottingham as a trainee reporter and subsequently the presenter of its speech-based breakfast show,...
's decision to cull many old presenters. The characters had their own TV special in 1994 in which Enfield retired them, reflecting the changes at Radio One. However they returned for Comic Relief
Comic Relief
Comic Relief is an operating British charity, founded in 1985 by the comedy scriptwriter Richard Curtis and comedian Lenny Henry in response to famine in Ethiopia. The highlight of Comic Relief's appeal is Red Nose Day, a biennial telethon held in March, alternating with sister project Sport Relief...
in 1997. Whitehouse and Enfield also reprised their roles to present a special edition of Pick of the Pops
Pick of the Pops
Pick of the Pops is a BBC Radio programme, originally based on the Top 20 UK singles chart and first broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in 1955. It transferred to BBC Radio 1 from 1967...
in 2007, commemorating the 40th birthday of Radio 2
BBC Radio 2
BBC Radio 2 is one of the BBC's national radio stations and the most popular station in the United Kingdom. Much of its daytime playlist-based programming is best described as Adult Contemporary or AOR, although the station is also noted for its specialist broadcasting of other musical genres...
following the death of Alan Freeman. They have been called "one of the great comic creations of our time"
Development
Harry Enfield stated that his choice of characters for his show was a calculated move to gain the biggest possible audienceAudience
An audience is a group of people who participate in a show or encounter a work of art, literature , theatre, music or academics in any medium...
, by creating archetype
Archetype
An archetype is a universally understood symbol or term or pattern of behavior, a prototype upon which others are copied, patterned, or emulated...
s people could relate to. Whereas he aimed many of his characters at a young audience, Smashie and Nicey were created for a segment
Segment
Segment may mean:*The divisions found in the internal section of a citrus fruit* Market segment, the smaller subgroups comprising a marketComputing*Segmentation , the division of computer memory into segments...
of the programme designed to appeal to "older people". Enfield described them as "a bit more highbrow" than the other characters.
Character profile
"Smashie and Nicey" are two disc jockeyDisc jockey
A disc jockey, also known as DJ, is a person who selects and plays recorded music for an audience. Originally, "disc" referred to phonograph records, not the later Compact Discs. Today, the term includes all forms of music playback, no matter the medium.There are several types of disc jockeys...
s working at Radio Fab FM, a parody of BBC Radio 1
BBC Radio 1
BBC Radio 1 is a British national radio station operated by the British Broadcasting Corporation which also broadcasts internationally, specialising in current popular music and chart hits throughout the day. Radio 1 provides alternative genres after 7:00pm including electronic dance, hip hop, rock...
. Each sketch would involve the two talking ineffectual and self-obsessed disc jockey speil, reminiscing about their careers, modestly shrugging off their many works of "chairidee
Charitable organization
A charitable organization is a type of non-profit organization . It differs from other types of NPOs in that it centers on philanthropic goals A charitable organization is a type of non-profit organization (NPO). It differs from other types of NPOs in that it centers on philanthropic goals A...
", and generally being bland and irrelevant, before putting on their favourite record, You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet
You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet
"You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet" is a rock song written by Randy Bachman and performed by Bachman–Turner Overdrive on the album Not Fragile. It was released as a single in 1974 with an instrumental track "Free Wheelin'" as the B-side...
by Bachman–Turner Overdrive.
The characters reference a stereotype of late 80s Radio One DJs, in that they are egotistical, bland, and out of touch with their younger listenership.
Quasi-Australian-accented aging rocker Dave (short for, it was eventually revealed, Davenport rather than David) Nice was a mixture of the then Radio 1 Rock Show presenter Alan Freeman
Alan Freeman
Alan Leslie "Fluff" Freeman, MBE was a British disc jockey and radio personality in the United Kingdom for 40 years.-Career:...
(whose radio persona deliberately bordered on self-parody) and Simon Bates
Simon Bates
Simon Bates is a UK disc jockey and radio presenter. Between 1976 and 1993 he worked at BBC Radio 1, presenting the station's weekday mid-morning show for most of this period. He later became a regular presenter on Classic FM...
, with elements of Dave Lee Travis
Dave Lee Travis
Dave Lee Travis , also known professionally as DLT and the Hairy Cornflake, is a British radio presenter, best known for his career on BBC Radio 1.-Early life:...
and Tommy Vance
Tommy Vance
Tommy Vance was a British pop radio broadcaster, born in Eynsham, Oxfordshire. He was one of the few music broadcasters in the United Kingdom to champion hard rock and heavy metal in the early 1980s, providing the only national radio forum for both bands and fans...
. Nice was portrayed as more aggressive and angry than Smash, liking heavy rock and being very opinionated. In the 1994 TV special 'Smashie and Nicey: The End of an Era' he was shown to be a misanthropic alcoholic, and of ambiguous sexuality. Later he was outed as gay, and in later years became more aggreaved and bigoted, complaining about immigrants.
Mike Smash was loosely based on Tony Blackburn
Tony Blackburn
Tony Blackburn is an English disc jockey, who broadcast on the "pirate" stations Radio Caroline and Radio London in the 1960s and was the first disc jockey to broadcast on BBC Radio 1 in 1967. In 2002 he was the winner of the ITV reality TV programme I'm a Celebrity.....
, although he resembles Noel Edmonds
Noel Edmonds
Noel Ernest Edmonds, is an English broadcaster and executive, who made his name as a DJ on BBC Radio 1 in the UK. He has presented many light entertainment television programmes, including Multi-Coloured Swap Shop, Top of the Pops, The Late, Late Breakfast Show, Telly Addicts, Noel's Saturday...
and Mike Read
Mike Read
Michael David Kenneth Read is an English radio disc jockey, writer, journalist and television presenter.-Early life:...
in appearance, his vocalisation had similarities to Mike Read and pop star Cliff Richard
Cliff Richard
Sir Cliff Richard, OBE is a British pop singer, musician, performer, actor, and philanthropist who has sold over an estimated 250 million records worldwide....
. His DJ persona is shown as more lightweight and chirpy than Nice, although he is revealed as a troubled individual in private. The television special introduced elements of Noel Edmonds
Noel Edmonds
Noel Ernest Edmonds, is an English broadcaster and executive, who made his name as a DJ on BBC Radio 1 in the UK. He has presented many light entertainment television programmes, including Multi-Coloured Swap Shop, Top of the Pops, The Late, Late Breakfast Show, Telly Addicts, Noel's Saturday...
and Jimmy Saville into Smashie's character, with the Nice character played out similar stories to those from the lives of Mike Read
Mike Read
Michael David Kenneth Read is an English radio disc jockey, writer, journalist and television presenter.-Early life:...
, Bill Grundy
Bill Grundy
William "Bill" Grundy was an English television presenter and former host of Today, a regional news programme broadcast on Thames Television...
and Kenny Everett
Kenny Everett
Kenny Everett was an English comedian, radio DJ and television entertainer. Born Maurice James Christopher Cole, Everett is best known for his career as a radio DJ and for the Kenny Everett television shows.-Early life:...
. In the 1994 TV special, reflecting real events at Radio One, The DJs were sacked from Fab FM, in a manner that deliberately mirrored Simon Bates
Simon Bates
Simon Bates is a UK disc jockey and radio presenter. Between 1976 and 1993 he worked at BBC Radio 1, presenting the station's weekday mid-morning show for most of this period. He later became a regular presenter on Classic FM...
' and Dave Lee Travis' departure from Radio 1, being replaced with young, 'irreverent' DJs. They were banished to "Radio Quiet" and left to reminisce about the good old days and try to pretend to themselves that they were still a powerful cultural force.
Appearances
The characters first appeared in Harry Enfield's Television ProgrammeHarry Enfield's Television Programme
Harry Enfield's Television Programme was a British sketch show starring Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse...
in 1990, which they featured in for four years.
The characters became very popular, appearing in adverts, featuring on their own compilation album, Let's Rock , and presenting the 30th anniversary special edition of Top of the Pops
Top of the Pops
Top of the Pops, also known as TOTP, is a British music chart television programme, made by the BBC and originally broadcast weekly from 1 January 1964 to 30 July 2006. After 25 December 2006 it became a radio program, now hosted by Tony Blackburn...
on New Year's Day 1994, however they were deliberately dropped by Enfield in 1995 after the changes at Radio 1 had rendered the satire pointless.
However they returned for Comic Relief
Comic Relief
Comic Relief is an operating British charity, founded in 1985 by the comedy scriptwriter Richard Curtis and comedian Lenny Henry in response to famine in Ethiopia. The highlight of Comic Relief's appeal is Red Nose Day, a biennial telethon held in March, alternating with sister project Sport Relief...
in 1997. Whitehouse and Enfield also reprised their roles to present a special edition of Pick of the Pops
Pick of the Pops
Pick of the Pops is a BBC Radio programme, originally based on the Top 20 UK singles chart and first broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in 1955. It transferred to BBC Radio 1 from 1967...
in 2007, commemorating the 40th birthday of Radio 2
BBC Radio 2
BBC Radio 2 is one of the BBC's national radio stations and the most popular station in the United Kingdom. Much of its daytime playlist-based programming is best described as Adult Contemporary or AOR, although the station is also noted for its specialist broadcasting of other musical genres...
following the death of Alan Freeman. Smashie and Nicey came out of retirement by guest-hosting an edition of Pick of the Pops
Pick of the Pops
Pick of the Pops is a BBC Radio programme, originally based on the Top 20 UK singles chart and first broadcast on the BBC Light Programme in 1955. It transferred to BBC Radio 1 from 1967...
on BBC Radio 2
BBC Radio 2
BBC Radio 2 is one of the BBC's national radio stations and the most popular station in the United Kingdom. Much of its daytime playlist-based programming is best described as Adult Contemporary or AOR, although the station is also noted for its specialist broadcasting of other musical genres...
as part of the station's 40th birthday celebrations on 30 September 2007, Whitehouse and Enfield having been asked specially. Dale Winton
Dale Winton
Dale Winton is an English radio DJ and television presenter.-Early life:Winton's father, Gary, was "domineering" and died when Winton was 13. Winton was brought up by his mother, actress Sheree Winton...
made the opening announcement but was quickly evicted by Smashie and Nicey who proceeded to play the top 40 from 27 September 1967. During the show Nicey accidentally confessed to being gay
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
(which was previously alluded to in the 1994 special, and may be an allusion to Alan Freeman's admission, also in 1994, that he had been bisexual before he became celibate). At the end of the show he emotionally begged the Controller of BBC Radio to give him a job, "even if it's only on Digital Radio 8" (a fictional station).
1994 TV special
A TV special named 'Smashie and Nicey: The End of an Era' was shown on BBC OneBBC One
BBC One is the flagship television channel of the British Broadcasting Corporation in the United Kingdom. It was launched on 2 November 1936 as the BBC Television Service, and was the world's first regular television service with a high level of image resolution...
in 1994. The special began in the 1960s, with Nicey presenting Blue Peter
Blue Peter
Blue Peter is the world's longest-running children's television show, having first aired in 1958. It is shown on CBBC, both in its BBC One programming block and on the CBBC channel. During its history there have been many presenters, often consisting of two women and two men at a time...
and dancing on stage with Freddie and the Dreamers
Freddie and the Dreamers
Freddie and the Dreamers were an English band who had a number of hit records between May 1963 and November 1965. Their stage act was based around the comic antics of the 5-foot-3-inch-tall Freddie Garrity, who would bounce around the stage with arms and legs flying. The group remained active...
in doctored footage of the band's appearance on the show performing "You Were Made For Me", interviewing The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
, and becoming a DJ on offshore station
Offshore radio
Offshore radio is radio broadcasting from ships or fixed maritime structures, usually in international waters. The claimed first wireless broadcast of music and speech for the purpose of entertainment was transmitted from a Royal Naval craft, the HMS Andromeda, in 1907...
"Radio Geraldine" (based on Radio Caroline
Radio Caroline
Radio Caroline is an English radio station founded in 1964 by Ronan O'Rahilly to circumvent the record companies' control of popular music broadcasting in the United Kingdom and the BBC's radio broadcasting monopoly...
) where Smashie was initially his teaboy. It combined elements from the careers of several real DJs, with Smashie seen hosting a Saturday night TV show modelled on Noel's House Party
Noel's House Party
Noel's House Party was a BBC television light entertainment show hosted by Noel Edmonds that was broadcast live on Saturday evenings throughout the 1990s. It was set in a large house in the fictional village of Crinkley Bottom, leading to much innuendo. The show was broadcast during the...
, and having turned his show into a plea for his wife (named specifically as "Tessa") to come back after she had left him, repeatedly playing Bobby Goldsboro
Bobby Goldsboro
Bobby Goldsboro is an American country and pop singer-songwriter. He had a string of Pop and Country hits during the 1960s and 1970s, including his signature #1 classic "Honey," which sold well over one million copies in the United States.-Early life:Goldsboro was born in Marianna, Florida...
's "Honey
Honey (Bobby Goldsboro song)
"Honey," also known as "Honey ," is a song written by Bobby Russell. He first produced it with former Kingston Trio member Bob Shane...
" (Tony Blackburn
Tony Blackburn
Tony Blackburn is an English disc jockey, who broadcast on the "pirate" stations Radio Caroline and Radio London in the 1960s and was the first disc jockey to broadcast on BBC Radio 1 in 1967. In 2002 he was the winner of the ITV reality TV programme I'm a Celebrity.....
did precisely this in the mid-1970s when his wife, the actress Tessa Wyatt
Tessa Wyatt
Tessa Wyatt is an English actress who first came to the public spotlight through her marriage to Tony Blackburn. She later starred in the sitcom Robin's Nest.-Early life:...
, left him). Similarly, Nicey was revealed to have advertised "Deptford Draylons", alluding to Alan Freeman's ads for Brentford Nylons, to have interviewed the Sex Pistols
Sex Pistols
The Sex Pistols were an English punk rock band that formed in London in 1975. They were responsible for initiating the punk movement in the United Kingdom and inspiring many later punk and alternative rock musicians...
(in doctored footage of their famous interview with Bill Grundy
Bill Grundy
William "Bill" Grundy was an English television presenter and former host of Today, a regional news programme broadcast on Thames Television...
) and to have fronted The Dave Nice Video Show, a parody of The Kenny Everett Video Show. Freeman himself made a cameo appearance, as did Blackburn, David Jensen
David Jensen
David "Kid" Jensen , is a Danish Canadian-born, British radio DJ.-Early career:Born in a Danish family residing Victoria, British Columbia, Jensen began his career in his home country at the age of sixteen playing jazz and classical music. He then joined Radio Luxembourg at the age of eighteen in...
and John Peel
John Peel
John Robert Parker Ravenscroft, OBE , known professionally as John Peel, was an English disc jockey, radio presenter, record producer and journalist. He was the longest-serving of the original BBC Radio 1 DJs, broadcasting regularly from 1967 until his death in 2004...
.
Relevance to Radio 1 at the time
The sketches proved very popular, largely because they genuinely reflected the image that Radio 1 had at the time. Much of the station's output was widely considered dull and unchallenging, and the average age of both listeners and presenters had risen above thirty, when it was intended to cater to a young audience. When Matthew BannisterMatthew Bannister
Richard Matthew Bannister is a British media executive and broadcaster. After attending King Edward VII School , he graduated in law at the University of Nottingham in 1978, and joined BBC Radio Nottingham as a trainee reporter and subsequently the presenter of its speech-based breakfast show,...
arrived at Radio 1 in 1993 with a mission to rejuvenate the station, he referred directly to the characters in stating that his goal was to rid it of its "Smashie and Nicey" image. Whitehouse later expressed his unease after being congratulated by BBC Director-General John Birt for assisting this process stating that Birt was a greater menace than any of the DJs who were "harmless". In 1993 Dave Lee Travis commented on the characters in Q Magazine, saying "This Smashie and Nicey crap that they keep bringing up. Is that funny? It doesn't raise a smile with me."
See also
- BBC Radio 1 in the 1990s
- Harry EnfieldHarry EnfieldHenry Richard "Harry" Enfield is a BAFTA-winning English comedian, actor, writer and director.-Early life:...
- Harry Enfield's Television ProgrammeHarry Enfield's Television ProgrammeHarry Enfield's Television Programme was a British sketch show starring Harry Enfield and Paul Whitehouse...