Radio review: I've Never Seen Star Wars
"I haven't worn a tie," Ian Hislop (below) told Marcus Brigstocke at the beginning of I've Never Seen Star Wars (Radio 4 Extra). "That's how bold it's going to be." The premise of the show is that guests try things they've never done before; a format that suits Hislop's reputation for dodging much that's modern or wildly popular.
Take jeans, for example. He has never worn them or bought them. "We sent you to buy a pair of jeans and your first choice was John Lewis," Brigstocke noted. Hislop ended up at Diesel instead, reeling from the choice of cuts. Carrot fit, he decided, makes "you look like a carrot". He guffawed at the label on another pair ("Designed for legs that want stories to tell"), but quite liked them on. "I might wear them to evensong," he concluded.
He also tried baking a cake ("it's more like a biscuit"), meditation, and Grand Theft Auto. Hislop played up to his persona, but funnily so, and there were some laugh-out-loud moments. His commentary of how he fared with the video game was priceless.
Two things are wrong with the format, though. You really don't want visual gags on radio – "Look at it!" Hislop said of his cake, but we couldn't – and the scoring malarkey of each activity is beyond pointless.
