On Monday, Vernon Kay has one hell of a first day coming his way. “I’m a little bit apprehensive, but I don’t think I’m nervous. It’s only talking,” he says of the task of replacing Radio 2 icon Ken Bruce. He’s finding it hard to fathom the enormity of it all. “You’re in the studio with your producer and then you put the fader up and you’re broadcasting to eight million people – but there’s just the two of you in the room.”
The length of time between Bruce leaving in March and Kay taking over (Gary Davies has been keeping the seat warm in the interim) isn’t helping alleviate the anxiety. “The longer I wait, the more tricks my mind is starting to play on me. I’ve done nothing but listen to Ken. That vibe, that atmosphere he can create, it is so good. I don’t think there’s anyone in British broadcasting who can put together a funny, entertaining information-packed anecdote in five sentences like him. It takes me five minutes.”
Kay was as shocked as anyone to hear that Bruce was quitting the BBC. “But obviously he thought the time was right to bow out – on a high, naturally. Fair play to him, when you’ve been doing something for 30 odd years, a change is better than a rest, I guess.”
He was equally as shocked when Radio 2 boss Helen Thomas said she wanted him to take over. She had a couple of other people in mind but, having paid his dues in the supply teacher role, filling in for Zoe Ball on the breakfast show, Kay was top of the list – no job interview, no show reel necessary.
“I was quite content with the filling in. When you dip your toe in, you can be a bit more naughty than you would usually. It’s kind of: thanks for having me, you tidy up the mess,” he laughs. “But it turned out that me standing in for Zoe and Steve Wright was my pilot.”
He said yes immediately. “I didn’t even think about it.”
What does he say to his detractors, those unhappy with him filling those giant broadcasting shoes? “Speak to Ken; he left,” he quips. “Let’s not forget that, if Ken hadn’t asked to leave, there’s no way I would be doing this gig, no way they’d say ‘Ken, it’s time for you to hang up your headphones.’”
Kay completes a schedule rammed with former Radio 1 colleagues, from Zoe Ball to Sara Cox, Scott Mills to Jo Whiley. “It’s the evolution of show business,” he says. “Things change. I remember when I was asked to leave T4, I was absolutely gutted because it was the best gig I’ve ever had. To be told that you can no longer go to Ibiza on expenses, it was devastating,” he smiles.
He has enjoyed the grief he’s been given for being too young to replace Bruce, given that he turned 49 a few weeks ago. “I’m nearly 50, I’ve started using bloody Regain. Behave yourselves,” he says. “It’s the best trolling I’ve ever had.”
Throughout a career that started with modelling, led to hosting T4 during the heyday of youth TV and then went headlong into the mainstream, presenting the likes of Family Fortunes, Kay says he has always known his audience.
“All that demographic stuff doesn’t bother me at all, because I know exactly who I’m talking to. I’m talking to my mum, my dad, my uncles, my cousins. My dad just turned 80 and, from when I started on telly in 1996 to this day, I’ve presented to my parents. They’re extremely critical, because they’re my parents. And they’re overly complimentary because they’re my parents. They thought T4 was a bit mad, Splash was bonkers, Boys and Girls, well, my mum absolutely detested it.”
Until a recent resurgence, Kay’s work diverted away from BBC radio for more than a decade and he had a tabloid scandal caused by “sexting” a glamour model behind wife Tess Daly’s back to contend with. “The stuff that you deal with shouldn’t be anyone else’s business, but it is what it is. It comes with the job.”
The marriage famously endured (they will celebrate their 20th wedding anniversary in September) and Kay gained a colourful new career twist when – after a stint on Radio X, where the adverts “did my head in” – he turned to sports presenting; first American football, then Formula E motor racing.
He had to give that up for the day job and hosted his last race in Monaco last weekend. “No more travelling the world for free. It’s a running theme,” he says. “But it’s been one of the most fulfilling jobs I’ve had. And I’ve learned more in the past four years than in the previous 15 doing entertainment telly; it’s a completely different skill set. There’s no Autocue, you’re not overly produced, you’re just given a microphone and told to get on with it. And it takes balls of steel to be able to be able to just get on with it.”
Kay also took those balls of steel into the jungle – or rather the castle, when I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here! relocated to Wales during the pandemic – in 2020. It was a move that catapulted him back into prime time and, while reality TV is always a gamble, in his case, it was a triumph.
The world saw him as a genuinely nice bloke, it finally healed any scars of scandal past, and, as a result, he got to step through the doors of Wogan House in 2021. Without it, we might not be here today. He agrees it was a game-changer.
“Definitely. Shane Richie took us to one side and said, if you’ve come in with a game plan, throw it out the window. We all want to have a good time. Let’s just play us against them instead of us against each other,” he says. “It’s one of the best experiences I’ve had in telly. It was like being in a holiday camp for two weeks, apart from the food and the bedding was shite, and I couldn’t fit in the shower. I look back with total joy.”
He stresses that he didn’t sign up for the career-boosting potential, though – rather for daughters Phoebe, 18, and Amber, 13. “I’ve been asked for years, and then Phoebe got into it and was like ‘ Dad you have to do it.’ So me and Tess had to have a conversation about it being on at the same time as Strictly and who would look after the kids on a Saturday.”
As someone who thrives on routine, Kay – who calls Strictly their third child, because “it’s been in our family longer than our kids” – is pleased to now have a day job. “It means I can do the school pick-up, which is really important, because you get your kids at their most vulnerable. I’ve figured out a technique to get Amber to talk openly in the car and we have some really good chats.”
Quality time with Phoebe, meanwhile, involves clubbing together – or at least driving her there and being in the same building. “It’s not about chasing your youth. It’s about remembering what made you youthful, the adrenaline rush and the endorphins you get from that feeling; it’s much better than a face cream. Go out, go dancing to a repetitive beat. You should never feel too old; that’s garbage,” he says.
Isn’t it slightly mortifying for Phoebe to bump into her dad on the dance floor, though? “It’s not like I’m the old man with the walking stick in the corner. I do blend in, you know. I think it’s good for us both.”
While out and about like this, he has been receiving well wishes aplenty from the public. “They’ve all said ‘We think you’ll be brilliant. Though, obviously, we’re disappointed that Ken’s left.’ That’s the caveat of all conversations.”
So what to expect on Radio 2? Kay is adopting an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” approach. “The numbers speak for themselves; it’s one of the biggest radio shows in Europe. It would be idiotic for me to go in there and say, ‘Right, this is how we’re going to do it.’ You say ‘Right what has been working’? And everyone says ‘everything’, so apart from Ken, let’s not change anything.”
One thing that has to change though is the mighty “Popmaster”, Bruce’s trademarked quiz that left Wogan House with him. Kay plans to stick with “Ten to the Top”, the replacement that has been bedding in with Gary Davies to predictably negative initial reactions, with the Twitterati dubbing it “a Poundland Popmaster”. Kay hopes his credentials will come in handy. “I’ll do it with the experience I’ve got from game shows. Once I get my teeth into it, it’ll be fine, I’ve got no worries at all about that.”
As much as he doesn’t want to change things, he is eager to make his mark. “I want the show to have real energy, so you think ‘Where’s that two-and-a-half hours gone?’ I don’t mean me being all hyperactive – in that time slot, the listeners are going about their daily business. It’s more of a show you listen to than interact with, and I want people to feel comfortable when they’re listening.”
Has Bruce been in touch? “I’m gutted I haven’t got his number. I’ll have to find it. I will speak to him, he only lives up the road, he came to watch me in panto,” says Kay, who – oh yes, he did – made his debut as Cinderella’s Dandini in High Wycombe last December. “There’s no animosity at all. How can there be? The man’s an absolute god.”
Scott Mills, the other Radio 2 host to have recently stepped into iconic shoes, taking over from Steve Wright, has proffered advice. “He said ‘Just do your thing, don’t change.’ That eased my anxiety. As soon as you start trying to create a character, you get bogged down in bullshit,” he says. “I’ve been doing this for nearly 25 years now, and I haven’t stopped working since I was 14. Cleaning faeces out of the school toilets is incomparable with talking to eight million people.”
Vernon Kay is on BBC Radio 2 and BBC Sounds, weekdays from 9.30am-12pm, from Monday
