Silliness can crop up in the most unexpected places

I’ve started listening to BBC’s “Behind the Mic” podcasts – “an exciting look behind the scenes at BBC radio”, is what the strapline on iTunes claims. What it actually is, so far as I can tell, is “an exciting look at the audiobooks that you can now buy – for extortionate prices – at your local bookshop (and sometimes much more cheaply on Amazon Marketplace)."

They’re not bad, if a little heavy on the “everything’s brilliant” side – the first one focussed on David Tennant’s reading of “Pest Control”. Hey! It’s an original story for audio, and fantastically written, fantastically read and fantastically produced. Go and buy it! It’ll be fantastic. I did. And it was quite good, actually.

However, the one I’m listening to now is throwing up some pleasant surprises. It’s a piece on “Men’s fiction on audio” – what sort of audio books do MEN like to listen to, when they’re doing MANLY THINGS, like drinking, pulling birds and throwing up in fireplaces? The answer to that is, they don’t – they’re too busy doing MANLY THINGS, like drinking, pulling birds and throwing up in fireplaces.

Anyway: it’s a two-handed interview with Clive Mantle and Christian Rodska, barely moderated by the purring voice of Kate Thomas who claims to be producer of these things. By the sound of it, she just revs up the readers and lets them go (I'm sure that's not the case, it's just that the boys are enjoying this little chat so much she doesn't have a great deal to do...). Neither of them are taking the interview remotely seriously, which makes for an entertaining listen. “So, Clive – what sort of stuff do you like to read and listen to when you’re not working?” “Things about mountains, mainly. People climbing up mountains. People falling off mountains. People going back down mountains. People dying on mountains, that sort of thing...”

Everytime Kate attempts to introduce a clip from one of the stories under discussion (Andy McNab, usually), our duo greet it with cries of “No! My god! Are you telling me that... we’ve got a clip? Here? Now? Amaaaazing!” and so on.

Christian starts it going downhill – “I find that when I’m narrating these, I have to feel as male as possible. So no high heels. Flatties, possibly, but definitely not high heels. Perhaps just a touch of lippy, but that’s it.” Clive immediately interjects – “perhaps a nice pair of cami-knickers under the combats, though. Just for comfort.” And that’s it. The interview’s out of control from there on.

Following a clip of Christian reading an Ian Rankin story which seems to feature a man lying on a mountain hiding from some other men – Clive would probably enjoy that one – Clive’s only comment is “now, I don’t know about you, but I’m sure I heard the merest whisper of cami-knicker behind that reading...”

Poor old Kate. How she managed to keep a straight face, I don’t know. Although to judge by the number of hard edits in the thing, I suspect she didn’t.

Anyway, all hugely entertaining, even if it doesn’t make me want to rush out and grab a copy of Clive Mantle reading an unabridged version of Bravo Two-Zero.

I note that the next one up is simply labelled, “Sir Roger Moore”. I wonder what that could possibly be about?