TV Cream

Radio 2: The Hosts

LESTER, Alex

Yeah, his hair definitely looked better shorterCYNIC PAR EXCELLENCE of the R2 nightshift for the best part of 20 years of whom the dreaded TOGs offered approving words during long period as Wogan’s default stand-in in the late 90s, though daytime depping (and promotion potential) later became scarce thanks to BBC liking for untrained ‘celeb’ presenters and his own hapless battles of wit with the Popmaster format. Arrived from mid-80s BBC Essex to become a night-time announcer and newsreader and progressed, often by accident, to world-weary dead-of-night raconteur on self-dubbed ‘The Best Time Of The Day’, a thriving show that relies almost entirely on creative listenership and impossibly dry tone. Voice frequently provokes the assumption that he is a) smug; and b) 20 years older than his real age (born in 1956, ackcherloi) but is a notable survivor; deliberately refuses to mention Sarah Kennedy being on after him (they fell out when he read her news and travel in the ’90s and she turned up tired and emotional once too often) and endorses ‘truck writing season’, the fingerscribing of in-jokes and acronyms like ‘SLAP MY TOP’, ‘SCOF’ and ‘BAG’ into the dirt on the nation’s haulage vehicles, to the bafflement of those who dare to sleep at night. Lived on canal boat christened ‘The Blue Pig’ when the night-time schedule came from Birmingham. Not popular with Russell Brand fans.

7 Comments

7 Comments

  1. Woolco

    January 22, 2010 at 12:57 pm

    I thought it was a pic of Alan Turner off of Emmerdale Farm.

  2. Adrian

    January 22, 2010 at 2:37 pm

    And I thought it was one of Dave Cameron at first!

  3. Dave Nightingale

    January 22, 2010 at 11:31 pm

    Claim to fame..I’ve been for a curry with Alex Lester!

    A thoroughly nice bloke,and good broadcaster.

  4. David Smith

    January 24, 2010 at 5:53 pm

    Now sporting considerably longer hair, as evidenced by his appearance on Celebrity Eggheads last month…

  5. Glenn A

    November 27, 2010 at 6:20 pm

    Hey, Adrian, I get that impression of him as well, he does look a bit like the kind of man who would stand as your local Conservative candidate. However, his show is surreal, very entertaining and well liked.

  6. Matthew Harris

    August 22, 2017 at 6:48 pm

    Sounds like a sleepy Ken Bruce, to the point where I’m always confusing the two.

  7. Glenn Aylett

    March 7, 2020 at 1:44 pm

    Dumped by Radio 2 in a period of cost cutting in the last decade that saw one of the best shows on Radio 2 replaced by repeats of Pick of the Pops and Sounds of the Sixties. Also we now have the terminally dull OJ Borg in the early morning hours, who will send even an imsomniac to sleep.

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