The Flattery Show was the first English-language radio chat show aired in the south west of France and a flagship Sunday evening programme broadcast on Radio Coteaux

Radio Coteaux

Radio Coteaux is an associated local community radio station, embedded in the quaint french village Saint Blancard in the Gers region, the heart of Gascony, in the south-west of France, some 100km south of Toulouse...

 in the Gascony

Gascony

Gascony is an area of southwest France that was part of the "Province of Guyenne and Gascony" prior to the French Revolution. The region is vaguely defined and the distinction between Guyenne and Gascony is unclear; sometimes they are considered to overlap, and sometimes Gascony is considered a...

 region. The show was presented by Irishman John Slattery with co-host American Patricia McKinnes. It ran for 21 weeks and proved to be very popular with expatriates living in France.

The show

John Slattery and Patricia McKinnes took over the airwaves at 5pm and finished at 7pm with a handover to Patrick Martinez. The Flattery Show was a music-based programme that included light-hearted banter and whimsical jokes by the co-hosts. Listeners' views and comments were discussed and there were rotating segments such as "Song of The Week", "Ask a Frenchie" and "Life in the South-West". To keep listeners on their toes, random topics were picked from a big "Bag O Topics".

Invited guests

The show ran interviews with regular and/or rotating guests, dealing with subjects of both local interest and of general interest to the expatriate

Expatriate

An expatriate is a person temporarily or permanently residing in a country and culture other than that of the person's upbringing...

 community. The first people to be interviewed on the show were the illustrious English sisters Marcha King and Sian Cash, former proprietors of the landmark café/bar "Bar Memory" in the Hautes-Pyrénées

Hautes-Pyrénées

Hautes-Pyrénées is a department in southwestern France. It is part of the Midi-Pyrénées region.-History:...

 town of Castelnau-Magnoac

Castelnau-Magnoac

Castelnau-Magnoac is a commune in the Hautes-Pyrénées department in south-western France.-References:*...

. They recounted humorous stories of their years behind the bar at the French café. The interview proved enormously popular with English-speaking listeners in France and it served to create a pattern of jesting and buffoonery that would become an underlying trait of later interviews.

Regular contributors

The show relied heavily on e-mailed material sent in by listeners that was then read out on air, and most of the regular conrtibutors were local expatriates] living in the Gascony region.

The end

The show ran for 21 weeks in the early months of 2011. It then went off the air and the Sunday evening slot of The Flattery Show on Radio Coteaux

Radio Coteaux

Radio Coteaux is an associated local community radio station, embedded in the quaint french village Saint Blancard in the Gers region, the heart of Gascony, in the south-west of France, some 100km south of Toulouse...

 was then filled by a new show called the Gascony Show

Gascony Show

The Gascony Show is an English-language radio chat show aired in the south west of France and a flagship Sunday evening programme broadcast on Radio Coteaux in the Gascony region. The show is presented by Irishman John Slattery.-The show:...

, also hosted by John Slattery.

External links

• The Flattery Show home page
• The Gascony Show home page
• Radio Coteaux
• «So british» sur radio Coteaux La Dêpeche, 19 March 2011