going places DIARY-mark-PIC BOLTON's very own Radio 1 DJ Mark Radcliffe, along with his sidekick Marc 'Lard' Riley, have pulled off a comeback that is right up there in the premier league. Following the disaster of their move to the high-profile breakfast slot, where they were blamed for losing the best part of two million listeners in seven months, their highly-acclaimed residency of the early afternoon programme is simply stunning.

It's Radio 1's best weekday show (in terms of audience share), the second best on the station as a whole, after the Top 40 on Sundays, and has put on 230,000 listeners in a year.

"Nightmare," is how Radcliffe, a former pupil at Bolton School, recalls those seven months of getting up in the middle of the night.

Focus groups dismissed Mark, 40, and Lard, 37, as "dour and nasty types...attitude without the charisma." And soon after they were axed, after taking over the reigns of the breakfast show, following Chris Evans' high profile walk-out.

But now, according to The Guardian, the focus groups "can't stop talking about how good the afternoon show is."

Especially Radcliffe's character 'Fat Harry White', a bass-voiced Boltonian Barry White who "spreads a little bit of love in the afternoon" by telling stories laced with innuendo.

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