Phil Holden - BRMB Radio's King Of Comedy - DJ & Presenter

PHIL HOLDEN
BRMB RADIO's KING OF COMEDY

PHIL HOLDEN was BRMB Radio's 'King Of Comedy' and a radio genius. Joining BRMB in 1985 he stayed until around 1992. Phil originally presented the afternoon / drivetime show "Holden In The Afternoon" from 1985 to around 1991. This included Phil's amazing and infamous "Pop Quiz" which for some reason Phil would always win!

Holden In The Afternoon was, for me, required listening as it was for many listeners in the Midlands- Phil's presentation style was unique, incisive, and hilarious earning him the award of Top Radio Comedy Personality in the British Comedy Awards in 1991. Later, Phil went on to present the Late Show on BRMB.

Music taste? - Definitely serious quality rock such as Led Zeppelin. Favourite pub? - Most definitely "The Frog and Calculator"!

Here is a piece about PHIL HOLDEN from the Birmingham Post and Mail in 1990:

Rule number one of interviewing a BRMB DJ : never let a friend give you a lift to the station. At a quarter to ten on a Wednesday evening, without an A-Z, we are on a scenic tour of Aston's industrial estates, looking for Aston Road North, the home of BRMB, tucked away beside the Expressway. Thanks to the directions of a garage forecourt attendant, I arrive only five minutes late. Phil Holden has only just got in himself and is on air in under ten minutes ... totally unruffled.

Phil's show has endeared itself to BRMB's audience with its blend of humour, self-parody, a predilection for some cracking music (he is an unashamed Led Zeppelin fan -"they are without doubt the best live band I've seen in my life," he says) - and the Wednesday evening pop quiz. Here listeners ring in with questions for Phil to answer but, surprisingly, they have yet to win. Accusations of rigging have often been levelled, but Holden is adamant: it's just that the rules are sophisticated, he maintains.

But, I ask, will they ever win? "It's extremely unlikely. No, not really." "It's not that they don't have the opportunity to it's just that they throw it away."

It's best to remember when interviewing Phil Holden - do not take this man seriously, because he certainly doesn't. It is this streak of self deprecation, disguised as a comically over-inflated ego, that gives, his show its unique flavour.

A Leicester University graduate, he had the idea of becoming a journalist but, after interviewing Kenny Everett and Anne Nightingale, quickly changed his career direction. Tapes were, sent to radio stations, and jobs with Chiltern Radio in Luton and Radio Victory in Hampshire followed - as well as a stint on The Voice Of Peace in Israel.

Observations

His on-air chat is littered with bits of popular culture from the last few decades - the conversation in any one show may range from Tex Ritter to The Spinners or wrestling commentator Kent Walton. "The thing you have to do is to give the listeners reference points, some common ground," he says. "I'm just a disembodied voice coming out of somebody's speakers in the kitchen or in somebody's bog."

"You just observe things and use them.. I'm constantly looking at things - just things that people can relate to. It's just prodding people, reminding them or amusing them." 'It's all right to do it in a pub round a table with your mates, who you already know, and only for five minutes," he adds, 'but to do it for three hours, five days a week, consistently, is actually quite hard work."

I suggest that, however light-hearted, he might be a touch cynical?

Somebody once described my sort of humour as 'a constant struggle to rise above mediocrity'," he laughs. "Humour is cynical - that's its humour. If you take cynicism, if you take a certain aggression, call it what you will, out of something which is supposed to be humorous, it can't be humorous."

Provokes

The Phil Holden who assaults the ears of Birmingham is quite outrageous. Is a certain amount of audacity called for?

" I suppose it must be really - to be on the radio, or anything that's entertainment- orientated, you have to have some sort of ego."

That evening's pop quiz goes much as to be expected - the home team goes down by eight points, giving Holden a 13-5 win.

"You were good tonight," he commiserates, "but not good enough."

Does he treat it as a contest to the death - Holden against the world?

"I don't see it like that," he grins, "they're my initiates if you like, they're going through a trial by fire."

But he does provoke them just a little bit? "Oh no, no, no," he says, with a smirk, "I'm just being honest with them.'

PHIL HOLDEN -
THE AUDIO FILES

YOU CAN HEAR SOME OF PHIL' S UNIQUE BROADCASTING ON THE BRMB AUDIO PAGE - HERE !

Go On - Have A Listen!

PHIL HOLDEN
'A Close Personal Friend'

"A CLOSE PERSONAL FRIEND OF MINE"

Phil Holden was on the mid-afternoon show, "Holden In The Afternoon", on BRMB from 1985 and subsequently on the late show Monday to Friday. Phil also presented a weekend programme. In the above photographs Phil can be seen with (as he would say) "a close personal friend of mine" Samantha Fox who popped in to Phil's afternoon show on 10th March 1986. In the right hand photo Phil is seen with seen with the winner of his 'Bad Taste Competition" - a stuffed kangaroo's head. (Yuk!)

Phil had asked his listeners to send in their worst ornaments for the competition, the winner received a Harrods voucher. Other tasteless entries included a flamenco dancer with a spinning ashtray on her head, and a donkey that dispensed cigarettes. Even Phil, who admitted to being a "student of tack", was taken aback by the range of ghastly entries. The entries were displayed at Pertemps in Birmingham.

A LOUSY BADGE !

This was a badge that Phil sent to lucky listeners who appeared on his afternoon show in the mid-1980's.

One of Phil's peculiar trails within his show was a local man saying "This is Dick The Skin, Man Of Bronze on BRMB." Then Phil would say "Nice one, D.T.S.M.O.B!"

I don't think that we ever really found out who D.T.S.M.O.B. was, but I did get a 'lousy' badge!

After Phil left BRMB in the early 1990's I believe I heard him on BBC Local Radio in the Midlands and perhaps on BBC Nottingham or Leicester, however I don't think Phil is involved in radio any longer, and it is understood that at one time he was living in Worcestershire.

It is a shame that radio seems to have lost Phil's talents as his shows were always unique and extremely entertaining, bordering on the hilarious at times as he foxed and bemused his phone in victims (contestants) - Phil Holden's shows were quite simply broadcasting genius!

See more of the shows that would have been heard in the Midlands on BRMB Radio in the late 1980's and early 1990's HERE

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