Kate Chisholm

Only Evan Davies can keep his guests in order

issue 24 August 2013

It must have sounded like such a great idea. To gather a group of thinkers, agitators, experts, intellectuals and media people round a large table, mike them up, ply them with drink, choose a presenter from the radio hall of fame to act as monitor and shut the studio door. Then switch on the red light, and cross your fingers they’ll not run out of conversation before the hour’s up.

Summer Nights was introduced as ‘a first’ for Radio 4 — ‘live’ late-night conversation on topics ranging from sex to politics via fracking and the fear of boredom. I was really looking forward to the two-week season. Could it be a chance for Radio 4 to break out, shed some of its aura of certainty? Would we become eavesdroppers on some really stimulating conversation?

Perhaps it was something to do with the change of weather, the switch from the sultry balminess of those July evenings to the hint of autumnal crispness.

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