Blue Peter: behind the scenes

http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2015/feb/05/blue-peter-behind-the-scenes

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Have you seen Blue Peter recently? Possibly not. It’s now tucked away on the CBBC channel, meaning that anyone above the age of 15 is unlikely to chance upon it when “working from home” and flicking up and down their favourite channels in search of post-Deal Or No Deal distraction. That shitting elephant in the room excepted, Blue Peter is still going strong after nearly 60 years, and is still pretty great.

When I step into the telly behemoth’s purpose-built Salford studio, rehearsals for the live show are under way. Along with a pre-recorded appearance from the cast of the Little Shop Of Horrors musical, which ends with presenter Barney Harwood being eaten by a plant, there’s a quiz about germs, a VT in which Radzi Chinyanganya goes diving, and a segment inspecting viewers’ sent-in handiwork.

And that handiwork – from the show’s resilient and creative audience – still comes by the sackload. The show received more than 50,000 items of post last year; today’s will include contributions from Beth from Ilkley and Ellen from the Wirral. When it comes to online submissions, viewers’ names are rather more exotic – Banana Diamond Koala, for instance, has contacted the show about x-ray glasses, as part of today’s launch of Project PETRA, a competition whose winners will be trained as spies by actual MI5.

After the rehearsal, Radzi and the show’s third host, Lindsey Russell, come to say hi. “I’m a Guardian man,” Radzi immediately declares, which is a good start. “I like Owen Jones’s work. I’d be interested to see if he goes into the political arena.”

There are moments during the next few minutes when I’ll find myself wondering if in fact this smart, articulate and almost indecently charismatic Blue Peter presenter might also be a good person to run the country. He’s certainly got the vocab – when I ask about “Blue Peter presenter” being a byword for boring, his unexpected response is: “It’s difficult to find the justification for a colloquialism that’s immersed in a convenient cultural narrative.”

There’s another outsider wandering the studio today: nine-year-old viewer Charlotte, who’s here having won a competition. I’ve seen celebrities go to extraordinary lengths to avoid the public in similar situations, but all three of today’s hosts are busying around trying to make Charlotte’s set visit special.

Radzi tells the story of attending a CBBC event in Birmingham when he was nine. Eating his packed lunch outside the venue, he spotted much-loved CBBC presenter Mark Speight, who died in 2008. “He was with his girlfriend and he had his cap pulled down,” Radzi remembers. “Looking back, the last thing on his mind was ‘Let’s attract as many kids as possible’, but when I shouted “IT’S MARK SPEIGHT!” he turned round and gave me a huge smile. I ran up and gave him a hug. Suddenly there were 40 kids around him and he just kept smiling. I thought: this guy cares about me. I never forgot that.”

Lindsey, who became a Blue Peter presenter in 2013 following a public vote, also acknowledges the responsibility of her role. “There’s a pressure,” she admits, “When you sign up, you live Blue Peter.”

I say that, from my point of view, the 2015 lineup look like they’d make a good job of getting shitfaced.

“I’m not a big drinker,” Radzi says, “but I like hip-hop and Arsenal and wrestling. There are a multitude of areas where people might think ‘That’s not associated with being a BP presenter’. Michael Jackson only drank wine out of Pepsi cans in case children saw him drinking – it’s a bit like that.” Before we can discuss the finer points of why Michael Jackson kept booze in Pepsi cans when he was around kids, the real star of the show arrives, on all fours.

Like numerous Blue Peter dogs before her, Iggy – a labrador that joined the show last year as a puppy – is training to be a guide dog. “The toilet in her dressing room is nicer than the one in my house,” notes a lady from the Guide Dog Association. “How are you?” I ask Iggy. It’s not the most probing interrogation I’ve ever thrown at a celebrity but Iggy responds to my opening gambit by wagging her tail.

At half-five the show hits the air; for all the ideas older (ex) viewers may have about Blue Peter being stiff and proper, there’s a fun, spontaneous feel to the show in 2015. The presenters don’t work from autocue; they’ll often improvise and acknowledge mistakes as they go.

By 6pm it’s all over and I go to find Charlotte, the seven-times Blue Peter badge-winning superfan. How would she convince her friends to watch the show? “I’d tell them there are so many ways to get involved with it,” she says. “But mainly, it’s just really good.”

On my way out I visit the legendary Blue Peter garden. Gone are the days when the garden was off limits to all but the most inquisitive of future footballers – it’s now a public space and, with some inevitability, there’s a Costa cup floating in the pond. As I leave I spot some rubbish in a bush and instinctively pick it up, at which point I realise that while the garden may contain a statue of a dog’s head, it doesn’t have a bin. I consider chucking the wrapper back in the bush but, instead, it goes into my pocket.

Blue Peter airs Thursdays, 5.25pm, CBBC