Loved and loathed in equal measure, Steve Wright was nevertheless a huge hit when he took to the Radio 1 afternoon airwaves in 1981. Firmly laying the traditional afternoon 'graveyard shift' to rest, Wrighty was one of the first to bring the 'zoo' format of radio to Britain, and for the next twelve years his jingles, characters, sketches and 'talky bits' with the posse became essential listening for millions of people.

Here we present a selection of clips of some of Steve's most popular characters; hover the pointer over the Real Player symbol for clip length and file size. All clips are mono.

Steve Wright opening (May 1991) 1 min 6 secs, 173kb
How the start of the show sounded in 1991; Steve's theme tune at this point was 'Within Attraction' by Yanni

Mr Mad (August 1989) 1 min 34 secs, 244kb
He's raving mad pal! Mr Mad tells us who's mad today

Mr Mad (October 1989) 41 secs, 109kb
Mr Mad tells us where he's living today

Dr Fish-filleter (August 1989) 22 secs, 60kb
"Filleting fish, filleting fish, give me fish to fillet!"

Talky Bit (October 1989) 1 min 34 secs, 244kb
Steve finds out what the posse were up to at the weekend

Mick Jagger (October 1989) 1 min 34 secs, 244kb
Mick tells us what happened when he and Keith went out into the jungle

Sid the Manager (December 1989) 1 min 11 secs, 185kb
Steve's left some marrows round Sid's house

Sid the Manager (May 1991) 1 min 2 secs, 163kb
Sid muses on takeaways

Sid the Manager (July 1991) 29 secs, 77kb
Sid's having his washing machine repaired

Pretentious Music Journalist (September 1990) 48 secs, 125kb
And who's that at the door?

Pretentious Music Journalist (November 1990) 25 secs, 66kb
Rave on!

Grizzler (November 1990) 50 secs, 131kb
"Nobody loves me any more"

Mr Angry (December 1990) 2 min 7 secs, 330kb
Mr Angry's Christmas story (clip has been edited)

Farr Kid K (November 1990) 2 min 22 secs, 368kb
Farr parodies the Dream Warriors with 'My Definition of a Bombalurina Jazz Style'

Farr Kid K (February 1991) 1 min 38 secs, 255kb
Farr parodies the KLF with '3am (Nothing Open)'

Jim Bowen (March 1991) 12 secs, 34kb
Super Smashing Great

Jim Bowen (March 1991) 25 secs, 66kb
On the oche

The Daleks (June 1991) 1 min 29 secs, 233kb
The daleks go looking for work at Radio 1

Nuclear devastation sketch (October 1991) 33 secs, 87kb
Cast your mind back to the summer/autumn of 1991 for this one...

Memories of Radio 1 (May 1992) 1 min 31 secs, 238kb
Vintage footage of how Radio 1 AM sounded in 1939, with Stephen Bowes-Wrighty in the Afternoon






 

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