Radio review

How we scoffed when Classic FM announced that it had signed up Mike Read to do the breakfast show. They've blown it now, we thought. What next, we joked, Gary Davies?

In fact, there would be a sort of logic to that signing. Back in his Medallion Man days, in one of the elements of Davies's legendary Radio 1 lunchtime show - "The Bit in the Middle", as he humorously nicknamed it - he pioneered the Classic FM short `n' sweet approach in a slot called "The Classical Bit". Really, Classic FM ought to give him serious consideration; I can see "Gary's Morning Movement" being something of a crowd-puller.

But Mike Read: what credentials did he have? Plenty, according to the press release, which described him as a lifelong lover of classical music, musician, composer, poet, author (of, among other things, "several books on Cliff Richard", which implies that if nothing else, he has tenacity).

To be frank, this love of classical music isn't so burning that you notice any heat coming out of your wireless - typically, all he tells you about a piece of music is what it was called and who was performing it.

If there's a German name involved, he has a bad tendency to do it in a playground Nazi accent; and he sometimes free- associates in ways that are unexpected, even mildly bizarre - last week, after announcing that a piece had been played by the pianist Friedrich Gulda (a name he gave the full "Colditz" treatment) he suddenly piped: "A thousand guldas? Come, take 50, as they told the Pied Piper of Hamelin."

Yesterday morning, doing the daily concert listings, he got to a concert at Eton College and interrupted himself to say: "A fine place. I take my hat off to everyone there." Well, I'm sure Eton's glad to have his endorsement.

But Read is certainly no sillier or more uninvolved in the music than Henry Kelly; and while he lacks the hint of self-mockery that is Kelly's redeeming feature, there's no question that if you want bright and breezy, no-nonsense bits between the music, got out of the way as quickly as possible - and there's every indication that this is what most of Classic FM's audience do want - then Read's your man.

You may not like what Classic FM does - personally, I really don't like it - but it undeniably knows how to do it. I shall scoff no more.