Paul Whitehouse’s radio DJ Smashie to return – solo – to TV this Christmas
Popdoodley-tastic news music and comedy fans – Smashie's back after a decade off the airwaves. But where is Nicey?
Great news pop lovers: Smashie, the cheesy 1980s DJ character created by the peerless Paul Whitehouse is coming back to TV this Christmas in Smashie’s Christmastastic Playlist on Gold.
The toothsome motormouth will introduce a smorgasbord of the best (ie cheesiest) seasonal hits such as Paul McCartney’s Pipes of Peace and Johnny Mathis’s When a Child is Born as he reflects on the festive season.
And of course there’ll be plenty of talk about “charidee” from the character who first appeared on Harry Enfleld’s Television Programme in the 1990s alongside Enfield’s Nicey.
Sadly, there is no sign of Nicey who, Smashie tells us, is currently "indisposed" following the Operation Yewtree Investigation and is "quite possibly in prison".
Whitehouse told RadioTimes.com: “Of course Nicey has been detained somewhere at Her Majesty’s Pleasure. Or maybe he has been released and has left the country. Nobody really knows what he’s done or where he is.”
Smashie of course has “never had any sexual thoughts ever,” according to Whitehouse and remains both “asexual” and untainted by the swathe of scandal affecting the world of DJs.
“The Only Yewtrees Smashie knows about are the ones in his tree garden. He has never had any sexual thoughts whatsoever, they didn’t even bother investigating him.”
The duo have made only sporadic appearances since 1994 when Radio 1 retired a number of their top radio presenters who are widely believed to have inspired Smashie and Nicey. They returned for Comic Relief in 1997 and also appeared briefly on Radio 2 in 2007 to mark the station’s 40th birthday.
Explaining the decision to bring the character back, Whitehouse added: “Smashie’s probably the character who’s the most popular – for me anyway. Maybe alongside a couple of the Fast Show ones like Suits You. But Smashie’s never really gone away and in a strange way some of the people around now are not a lot different from those older wacky DJs."
Whitehouse also reveals that he is talking to the BBC about working again with Enfield – but in the meantime, he is making a factual show for BBC2 in which he and fellow comic Bob Mortimer… go fishing together.
“We talk about life, love the universe and the perilous state of our hearts,” chuckles Whitehouse. “Bob’s had a triple bypass recently and I have had three stents and as part of our real-life recovery I took him fishing a few times because I knew he liked it when he was a kid. We’re old mates me and Bob and we reckoned we could make something funny, poignant and entertaining out of that… what a heady mix. We haven’t thought of a title yet. We are ourselves reflecting on life, comedy, the universe and big fish.”
