The Graveyard Shift

On the 25th October 1993 the best ever radio show in the world started on Radio 1. It was to go on till the 6th February 1997. This was Mark Radcliffe's Graveyard Shift show where he was joined by Hapless sidekick Lard. This show started from where Hit the North left off. Now he was on from Monday to Thursdays 10-12pm every night. Mark was given free reign on what he played and what he did on the show. Most of the stuff he played was indie music with many classics from the 60's and 70's. Much of the stuff he played never got into the charts. The one major exception to this was White Town's Your Woman which Mark discovered and eventually got to number 1 because of him. The amount of innuendo increased as they grew more confident. Here his popularity rocketed and this became the show that students all across the country listened to. He had loads of guests in and there were always bands in session but one of the things that made the Graveyard Shift Show so good was the amount of quality items that were on it.

The Last Show - A tribute to the last ever show, includes an account of Mark Radcliffe and Lard waving from the balcony for the last time at nights by Tony who was there and has sent in his story.
Great Moments in The Mark Radcliffe Show - A bit of nostalgia. Do you remember the time when...
Paul Speller's Night On The Graveyard Shift
Graveyard Shift Guests
Behind The Scenes - The writer of some of the quality items tells us his story.

Featured Quality Items

Tony MacCaroll His Story from Oasis rent-boy to Classical Gas superstar.	Dick and Ken The Snooker Men
Rabbi Lionel Blair	Shit Agent

Quality Items

These are the quality items which were on the Graveyard Shift.

Great Moments In Cinema

Classic cinema moments which never made it to the big screen from films such as James Bond, Dirty Harry, The Godfather and Casablanca. Luckily Mark and Lard have managed to find them in the bowels of the BBC so that we could hear them.

The Godfather

James Bond

There were also several items running along the same theme such as Great Moments in Pop and Great Moments In Pop Art which include

Paul Weller Finds A Musical Direction

Bernard Butler Leaves Suede

Noel And Liam's First Fight

Picasso Goes Through His Blue Period

Fish or Fowl?

Quiz where celebrities such as Supergrass, Blur, Lush and Baby Bird had to guess weather the name of an animal that Mark gives them was a Fish or a Fowl, dead simple. One member of the band has to do the quiz each night on the telephone and at the end of the week the winner got a copy of their own album signed by Mark and Lard. See also Bird Or Bloke and read the Fish Or Fowl Jingle Lyrics.

Bard Or Blake

Same idea as Bird Or Bloke but you have to guess whether a phrase was written by William Shakespeare or William Blake. It was done on the last week of the show and the contestants were, Joolz, Ian Mcmillan and Simon Armitage (twice because Glin Maxwell went AWOL). The prize was a steam iron which Joolz won. See Bird or Bloke and you can read the Bard Or Blake Jingle Lyrics

When Barry Met Larry

The sexual exploits of two fat soul singers. Barry has now changed his name to Harry and is doing the love lines on the Early Afternoon Show.

Harry White's Page Of Passion - Including your Bobbins Love Signs of the Day and Realaudio of When Barry Met Larry.

Little And Large

3 second memory span goldfish. The adventures of 2 goldfish, Little who is quite small and Large who is largish, being goldfish they only have a 3 second memory.. er The adventures of 2 goldfish, Little who is...

A - Z of Cults

Mark and Lard go through the alphabet starting at A and tell us about loads of cult things beginning with that letter. "I`ll have a C please Lard". The background music is a version of Sound Garden`s Black Hole Sun from the Moog Cookbook album. The A-Z of cults is almost exactly the same as the Quality Item called Radcliffe`s Alphabetical which was a regular feature of Cult Radio. This was a Radio 5 show that Lard presented.

The Exhilarating Adventures Of Graham, Phil and Lawrie

The adventures of a football manager called Graham and his two assistants Lawrie and Phil. They always argue and every other word that they use seems to be an expletive.

Graham, Phill and Laurie Put Up A Shelf

Graham, Phill and Laurie Buy A Newspaper

Graham, Phill and Laurie Fall Out

The Pathological News With Cirol Doricot

Psychopath News reporter gives us the latest stories and news from around the world.
Original '1967' Pathological News Script
The Pathological News With Cirol Doricot

Scrawn and Lard Enterprises

This is where Mark and Lard try to get a few extra quid by selling dodgy albums such as the following usually available on brown vinyl.

Status Quo Party Album Advert

The Greatest Love Album Ever (On Flesh Coloured Vinyl)

The Tindersticks Ribtickler Cassette

The Classical Gas Album

The Best Ambient Album In The World Ever

The Aliens Dictionary

Dictionary For Aliens. "The Accordion-An instrument that when pumped in and out makes a melodious sound, Apparently"
A - Accordion

Classified Adds

Occasionally they would read out strange small adds which people had sent in.

Classified

For sale: Parrot cage, bought in error

Classified

Bread bin, £3. No lid.

Uncle Tony's Catalogue Corner

Where they look at some strange catalogue items. (Uncle Tony's Catalogue Corner MIDI File by Andrew Bond)

The Story Of Pop

The history of bands such as the Sex Pistols, David Bowie and Neil Young explained in Mark Radcliffe and Lard`s own way. They also included piss take sections of the artists songs.

The Story Of Pop Songs

W i s e W o r ds - Quotes from celebrities e.g. "We don`t wank our instruments." - Tiger

F*** My Hat I Didn`t Know That - Fascinating facts that you never knew

Scenes from a 17th Century Office Party - by Trishnam Hand Shandy, adapted for radio by Chubby Brown. Mark and Lard are in a pub talking in posh 17th Century accents and they somehow manage to get women to rip their bodices open and get their norks out or find a man and make him get his cobblers out. They do it all in the name of adding millions of listeners to the show.

Nut Chip Chirulduck - A children`s series adventure story about Nut Chip Chirulduck and his little woodland friends. The female narrator is Production Assistant Pat Coupe.

Kojak - Police adventure series. Kojak is a top detective who goes around solving murders.

The Gary Spinaker Grilling - Gary Spinaker the Legendary Hard-man and Pitbull of The Terraces interviews sporting personalities an asks the hard hitting such as to Mike Afferton "Is it true that you and the lads scrubbed each others scrotums down in the deep end".

The Bedsit Guide - Advice for students and people living in crap student type rented accommodation. It gives you advice on how to survive it and explains many of the problems such as useless landlords.

Lards Gardening Spot - Where every problem was solved by moving house.

Easter Eggs Please! - later to become 'Slippers Please!' or anything else they wanted. Mark and Lard were never affraid to try to blag free items.

Levensume Live - Sparked off by Camden Live, with Lard reporting from the Polygon looking out for top acts like Northside.

Lards Fashion Spot - Basically consisting of Lard looking through an old catalogue and going, 'Now, look at that!'

Calm Down with Frank Sidebottom - A piss-take on Countdown, which Frank did with his sidekick, Little Frank

Frank Sidebottom's Gang - This was something that, along with Mr. Methane, only seemed to be on on the last show before Christmas. Basically, Frank Sidebottom had a gang, which consisted of him, Little Frank and some celebrities or something. They'd meet in a shed, and he'd say something, and the celebrities would keep replying with the same quote, making it obvious that they weren't actually there. Then everyone else always buggered off, leaving Frank Sidebottom to be in his gang all on his own.

Bez Sez - Bez from Black Grape acts as an agony uncle for you the listeners. "So Bez can you help our poor listener Tim who has gangrene on his cobblers"
"No"

Tales of the Expected - Presented by Phil Booth (played by Lard who sounded a bit like the Rabbi Lionel Blair), where there would be some really boring, predictable story, and he would always end by saying ".... as expected!".

Spot The Foot - A Spot the Farty Noise competition. It always happened in their Spiderman Vs the Jester Series. The first person to phone in when they have heard it gets a CD of "The Greatest Hits Of Matt Monroe".

People Who Worked On The Graveyard Shift

Mark 'Scrawn' Radcliffe - Presenter
Marc 'Lard' Riley - Sidekick

Lis Roberts - Producer
Phil Newboy - Produced the show before Lis.
Uncle Tony Worthington - Main Sound Supervisor who lives in Southport. Like Mark Radcliffe Tony used to produce sessions for the John Peel Show.
Nick Ware - Editor
Christopher Lee - Sound Engineer. (Chester`s Dark Prince Of The Mandolin)
Michelle Choudhry - Production Assistant
Pat Coupe Production Assistant. Also often provided the female voice on many of the pre-recorded quality items.
Nick Bell - Sound Supervisor
Duncan Hair in a Bun
Magic Dick Wilson - Sound Engineer (who worked free-lance and sometimes helped out)
David Fleming - Writer of many of the sketches on the show including "The Bedsit Survival Guide", 50% of Pathological News, 50% of Cyril Dorricot and The Aliens Dictionary. Mark and Lard got to know him when they interviewed him about his book "The Bedsit Survival Manual" on Hit The North. They used his book for the "The Bedsit Survival Guide" quality item. They were impressed enough with his material to get him in to write the above mentioned items. He has written this 'Behind The Scenes' account.
Smiffy (Paul) - Twiddling the knobs.
Paul Cargill - Produced some of the sessions.

At this time Chris Evans was hosting the Breakfast Show and Mark & Lard became his stand ins when he was away on holiday. It was therefore a natural step for them to be promoted when the Ginger one quit the station. From the relatively unknown safety of the Graveyard Shift they found themselves thrust into the press as they began on the nations most popular radio show. This was Radio 1's Breakfast Show.

If you have any comments or suggestions then please email me.