Recognise this man? If you are a consumer of the local media, like the Bristol Post and the community radio station BCfm, you will have read and heard his stuff. He is Neil Maggs and he is going mainstream. And he’s going national.
Maggsy – how do they come up with these nicknames? – is, apart from being a fine writer and broadcaster, passionate about everything he does and what’s more, he talks like a Bristolian. This could be because he is one. Unlike the vast majority of presenters on local radio and TV, who could come from anywhere except Bristol, this boy is one of us. On Monday night he is presenting a show called ‘Analysis’ on BBC Radio Four at 8.00 pm. To quote Maggsy, “It’s on race, whiteness and class” and he’s in the chair. I cannot think of someone better qualified to present such a show. He is an expert.
Thrilled as I am for Maggsy, who I know a little bit, it brings home the absence of Bristol folk on Bristol media. Radio Bristol has few local voices on its roster, with Steve Yabsley’s long-serving lunchtime show the only one presented by someone who sounds like a Bristolian. I will also accept the great Geoff Twentyman as an honorary Bristolian, but the rest could come from anywhere except Bristol. I think this matters. Even the voice on Bristol’s (excellent by the way) Metrobus is broad Bristol and so much the better for it.
But my argument about Maggsy is more that he is talented and I cannot understand for the life of me why he hasn’t been picked up before now. I got to know him when he presented the BCfm ‘Sports Bar’ with another ferociously talented budding broadcaster, ex Bristol Rovers PA man Nick Day and he was bright, sparky and brilliant. The show was more than the equal of many, or even most, radio shows I had ever heard on local radio and I wondered why they weren’t household names. I thought talent counted for something and now, given Maggsy’s deserved ascent to Radio Four, it turned out I was right.
Class is permanent, they say, and so it is being proved again by Maggsy getting a gig on a world class station. I love it when people succeed by way of sheer talent. This boy has the lot and I can’t wait to hear him tomorrow night.
Break a leg, young ‘un.
