Fox to present radio show
By James Cridland for media.info
Posted 29 April 2015, 9.40am bst
Basil Brush (pictured above) is to co-present his first ever radio show on Bank Holiday Monday, 5th May, on BBC Radio Solent from 1pm to 4pm.
In spite of being on the television since 1962, it's Basil's first ever radio programme.
Basil is taking a break from his "Full on Fox" tour and will join regular presenter Louisa Hannan for what is promised to be an afternoon of fun and nostalgia.
Basil apparently said: "This was an invitation from Miss Lou [Hannan] that I couldn't refuse! It's a chance for us to revisit some of the fabulous music I, and many of the listeners, were brought up with."
Boom boom-bastic music played will include classics like "Mud, glorious mud" by Flanders and Swann, and the Laughing Policeman.
It might be Basil Brush's first radio programme, but it's not the first time that a puppet has been on the radio. Archie Andrews was a ventriloquist's dummy used by Peter Brough in "Educating Archie", a radio programme in the 1950s and 1960s. It attracted 15 million listeners.
From 1937 to 1956, The Chase and Sandborn Hour aired across US radio with Edgar Bergen and his dummy Charlie McCarthy: a programme from which Brough apparently got his inspiration. During one episode they broke for a musical interlude and some listeners switched stations to discover the Orson Welles War of the Worlds presentation already underway. Panic is supposed to have ensued (though the 'panic' was, in fact, mostly invented by newspapers keen to denigrate radio).
Children's television favourite Sooty is also a regular presenter on children's radio station Fun Kids.
Basil Brush's programme on BBC Radio Solent should be available here on the BBC iPlayer shortly after transmission, and you'll be able to listen for seven days.
Whilst he is a real fox, we wish to point out that Basil Brush is not a real doctor.