Wednesday, May the 5th, 2004

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On the Air

Today sees the fourth programme in the weekly series Hooting Yard On The Air, broadcast on ResonanceFM (see top of page for details). I thought readers might enjoy a behind-the-scenes look at how the show is made.

Four or five hours before transmission time, the recording studio is thoroughly disinfected by a crack squad of specialist cleaning workers dressed in what look like astronauts' outfits. They are armed with a panoply of highly intriguing tools, instruments and tweezers, many of which have no apparent purpose. The ResonanceFM HQ is, as some readers know, located in a subterranean basement far, far below the London streets, and is only accessible via an underground pneumatic-capsule railway system last used in the 1880s but which has been preserved, like a fly in amber, by a group of enthusiasts all of whom by weird coincidence are named Tim, as their fathers were before them.

When disinfection is complete, other preparations are made. Antique bakelite canisters are distributed to dozens of eager factotums (or should that be factota?). Grease-pans, handled by imperious and jewel-dappled kitchen staff, are lowered into magnificent neoclassical oven-like pods of questionable—though remarkable—significance. Any stray toads are ushered violently from workspaces. A xylophone, abandoned after an earlier programme, is yanked off its hinges and hurled zestfully into a yellow xylophone waste vat. Urgent telecommunications signals are read and reread quickly, then plastered on to oblong cards which are nailed to murals in one of the many lobbies. Knots are tied in jumpers. Incredibly huge golden flaps have to be emblazoned with diamond patterns. The dank cellar of the building is then aired.

Listeners are often surprised to learn that Frank Key does not actually appear on the show himself. His place is taken by an actor named Ludovico Boole. Boole's ability to mimic the vocal inflections of anyone he chooses is matchless, and he has had a long and successful career doing so. Other impersonations he has essayed include Sir Isaiah Berlin, Tuesday Weld, both Richard and Karen Carpenter, and President Nixon's henchman H R Haldeman, of Watergate fame.

An hour before Hooting Yard On The Air is broadcast, Boole is collected from the roof of his seaside compound by a helicopter disguised as an air ambulance, and flown to one of the termini of the pneumatic railway on the outskirts of London. For security purposes, a different terminus is chosen each week, the decision being made by the chopper pilot during the flight.

Safely ensconced in the ResonanceFM HQ, Boole is handed the week's script together with the meal he insists on as part of his contract: four bloaters, a bowl of boiling hot custard, breadcrumb flan, and a jug of thoroughly-diluted potato extract. Wiping his mouth on a monogrammed napkin, Boole then enters the studio and begins to read…