Mark and Lard

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Mark and Lard, the stage name of Mark Radcliffe (Mark) and Marc Riley (Lard), are former BBC Radio 1 disc jockeys. Mark & Lard joined Radio 1 in October 1993 and left in March 2004 allegedly after an argument with Radio 1 management about constraints on their playlist. The pair moved to Radio 1 from BBC Radio 5's evening Hit the North programme, where Radcliffe was presenter and Riley climbed from researcher to producer.

Mark & Lard began their Radio 1 career presenting the late-night "graveyard shift" (10pm to midnight) in October 1993, taking over from Nicky Campbell who had previously occupied the slot, but moved to the coveted Breakfast Show in February 1997. The pair acknowledge that the breakfast show was not their best work, and they moved to an early afternoon slot after eight months, where they remained until 2004. During this time, they refused to work at the Radio 1 studios in London (the presenters referred to the capital as 'London Village' and talked about its 'underground trams'), instead broadcasting out of BBC Radio Manchester; the 'Palace of Glittering Delights'.

Having taken over the 'graveyard shift' from October 1993 onwards, Radcliffe and Riley hosted an eclectic show, incorporating poetry readings from regular guest Ian MacMillan, off-the-wall, irreverent comedy, bizarre quizzes: 'Fish or Fowl', 'Bird or Bloke' amongst others, and a play list that rivaled John Peel in terms of eclecticism. The show also hosted sessions from up-and-coming and alternative bands of the time: Throwing Muses, Moloko, Nick Cave, Pulp, Baby Bird, The Divine Comedy and Mice to name a few. In January 1997, Radcliffe was almost single handedly responsible for the entry of White Town's Atari classic "Your Woman" into the number one slot in the UK charts due to repeated playings. Whilst the 10 to 12 time slot proved to be a zenith in R1 broadcasting, the short-lived stint hosting the breakfast show in 1997 did not serve the pair's interests well given the need to compromise their comedic outings and handle the the radio one daytime play list. The afternoon slot that followed was a greater success and introduced Radcliffe and Riley to an array of new listeners whose influence caused the proliferation of numerous catch phrases.

The afternoon version Mark & Lard show contained a combination of both real phone-in competitions ("Wheel Of Misfortune", "Circle Of Chance") and spoof features and competitions, including:

• "Beat The Clock", in which Riley, pretending to be a caller, attempts to guess the title of an extremely well-known and obviously-titled record, shouting "Stop!" to stop the music and make an incorrect guess, followed by "Carry on". The opening music for this feature was part of "Beat the Clock" by Sparks. The segement was originally called "Mystery Caller", with the Toyah Wilcox hit "It's a Mystery" being the feature's music.
• "Oh Lucky You", in which Riley impersonated an unlucky Irish caller answering astoundingly difficult questions in order to win gigantic prizes, such as BBC Radio 4, invariably answering the question correctly but "running out of time" just before he can complete his response. In following weeks, "contestants" included a Scottish, Welsh and English person in the same vein.
• The Rabbi Lionel Blair, a spoof of BBC Radio 4's "Thought for the Day", the religious slot from the Today programme, which often featured the Rabbi Lionel Blue
• "One Man And His Frog", a spoof of One Man And His Dog a BBC TV sheepdog trials programme
• "Lard's Classic Cuts", an excuse for Riley to dig out a classic gem on 'mint vinyl' and discuss the ways to keep your collection in good condition. These would include ideas like cleaning your records in a dishwasher. When the time came to play it, the quality would be distorted and poor and swear words and sexual references would usually pop up in the 'copy' of the record. When the record ended they would make no reference to its poor quality, usually ending in the catchphrase "Is that record hard to find? Well in that condition.. yes!"
• The Shed of Dread. A (fake) guest would be invited to face a phobia by entering the shed of dread (a room full of the thing(s) they were scared of). Everytime the guest was to be put in, Lard would be locked in the shed instead and he would proceed to scream all over the next track Radcliffe played. Coincidentally, the next track was always something from the Radio 1 playlist Radcliffe and Riley hated.
• "Missing Words", another call in competition with Lard on the other end of the line playing a spoof contestant. The contestant, usually of Irish decent, had to fill in the missing word of a popular song (past or present). Mark would first play the song beeped out, where Lard would act like he knows the song well and it's going to be a walkover. Sometimes saying how lucky it was that his 'mother, brother, other brother, mothers mother etc' were singing the record the night before. When the time came to fill in the missing word, the contestant would choose a comic or rude word instead of the well known correct lyric. Some editions included 'Fanny's Too Tight To Mention' (Money's Too Tight To Mention, Simply Red), 'Hey, You, Get Offa My Dick' (Hey, You, Get Offa My Cloud, The Rolling Stones), 'Purple Helmet' (Purple Rain, Prince), 'Big Knob Strikes Again' (Big Mouth Strikes Again, The Smiths) and 'Can't Get You Out Of My Crack' (Can't Get You Out Of My Head, Kylie Minogue). Following that, Mark and the contestant would argue their choice of word, Mark usually citing the right choice. To find out the answer, the unbeeped version of the track would then be played, with the contestant singing his version loudly over the correct one. Mark would then give up and move on. The quiz would always end with the contestant saying, "I think you'll find that it is (missing word) Mark!" The final edition of Missing Words was the song 'Don't Marry Her Have Me', by The Beautiful South. This time, the roles were reversed between Radcliffe and Riley. Lard, once again playing an Irish contestant, got the word right this time. However Mark insisted the word wasn't 'have', and that it was actually 'f*ck'. Mark then played the correct version, but of course the word still being beeped out for daytime playing. The Irish contestant was fooled into thinking Mark was right. This time, the quiz ended with Mark saying, "I thought you'd find it was f*ck!"

One of the most memorable features was 'Fat Harry White' (Radcliffe with a voice-distorter), a thinly-disguised parody of soul singer Barry White, who would spout endless double entendres. This character was so successful he was given his own CD in 1998, entitled "Mmmmm Baby" (which was also his catchphrase) - it peaked at number 83 in the UK charts.

Contents 1 Shirehorses 2 Catchphrases 3 Leaving Radio 1 4 References 5 External links

[edit] Shirehorses

Mark & Lard are also the creators of the spoof rock band "The Shirehorses", who released two CD albums:

• The worst album...in the world...ever...EVER!
• Our Kid, Eh? The title is a combination of the contemporary Radiohead album Kid A, and the northern phrase 'our Kid'.

[edit] Catchphrases

Catchphrases were a notable part of their show. Listeners would often call in to request catchphrases, delivered (usually by Lard) in the style of their choice, for other listeners. Most of these were references to show features past and present. Catchphrases included, but were not limited to:

• "Stop! ..... Carry on!" (from the feature 'Beat the Clock', above)
• "Fancy a Brew?"
• "No Need!"
• "Waaaarp!"
• "Mushn't grumble!"
• "Biggedy-biggedy-bong!"
• "Caddelly-caddelly-hoo-hoo!"
• "Can ya back off tha mic a bit?!"
• "It's all gone Pete Tong!"
• "GET TO BED/WORK!" (depending on the time slot!)
• "I Was 'Avin' A Drink Then!!"
• "IT'S WINKING AT ME!"
• "Whoooooooooooo?"
• "I'm not gay or 'owt"
• "Ooooh, ten pence short
• "Must get some oil for that door."

Some of these were picked up by other Radio 1 DJs.

The pair had little time for many of the playlisted records. One notable stunt occurred on November 23, 2001, when they played a track by the Sugababes five times in a row, at least partly in order to see if anyone would even notice. Another example was to play Ronan Keating's Life Is A Rollercoaster, and play in the "uh-uh" sounds from the Family Fortunes computer in perfect rhythm. The pair could barely contain themselves live on air after playing Des'ree's Life single for the first time, due to its doggerel lyrics^[1]

Radcliffe also had a tendency to follow-up some records with a "rubbish!" or "dreadful!" before pretending he had been talking about something unrelated (eg "Rubbish!... There's a lot of rubbish outside the studio, Marc", or "Dire!...I was just wondering what Kieron Dyer is up to").

Keen to play as wide a variety of music as possible, they (briefly) experimented with playing two tracks at once through the different channels of stereo radio.

On another occasion, they ran management drills to see if the management was listening by playing 1920's music hall ballads. Management soon caught on and requested them to stop playing the songs, but only after they'd successfully played several in their entirety.

[edit] Leaving Radio 1

In February 2004 the pair announced their resignation from Radio 1, with Radcliffe moving to BBC Radio 2 and Riley moving to BBC 6 Music. Their last show was broadcast on March 26, 2004 and featured a guest appearance by Travis, messages of commiseration from Neil Hannon, Radiohead, Blur (Damon Albarn composed a special song but "broke down in tears" before finishing it) and Kelly Jones of The Stereophonics, whom they'd frequently insulted during the show's run. They also received a bouquet of flowers from Paul McCartney. At the end of their last show, Riley sat in the silent studio sighing. Radcliffe convinces him to buck up and come to the pub to buy him a drink. But they had time for a swift half a catchphrase: "Stop!" Then the door closed and the show was over. It was followed by a silence of some twenty seconds causing the station to switch to the emergency tape, so making a nuisance of themselves one last time.

They subsequently worked together on the Mark & Lard's Football Nightmares DVD. They had previously presented Match of the Nineties, which showed highlights of English football seasons from 1989 to 1999, during the summer of 1999.

Media offices
Preceded by Chris Evans	BBC Radio One Breakfast Show Presenter 1997	Succeeded by Kevin Greening and Zoë Ball

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Mark & Lard fansite and forum
• Mark & Lard webring
• Mark & Lard fansite