IT'S HARD TO believe, looking at a slim Steve Blacknell, that he used to be 14 stone and played as a rugby prop. But then he has done a surprising variety of things in his life. Starting off as a nurse he found that he 'couldn't handle it', became a hippie, then did 32 jobs before deciding that record companies were the way into show business. He worked for seven of them before the fortuitous day when he went to a trial run of Riverside to be interviewed about his dial-a-waiter service and ended up being the presenter. In the last four years he has popped up all over the place - on Lifegames, Off the Record, Lift Off, Radio 1's In Concert, on MTV, a 24-hour pop video channel in the States, and has done the job reports on Breakfast Time and the film reviews for London Plus.
'But if you call me a mixed bag, Pirate Radio 4 is a real mixed bag,' he says, enthusiastically listing items to expect on the show (Thursdays): a special Doctor Who story, though he has to say that 'my only brush with Doctor Who was my uncle's - who used to paint the scenery for the show. And recently I was zapped by a Cyberman on Breakfast Time'; a story about bikers called Lill; more adventures of Adrian Mole; and a group called Mint Juleps. He'll be presenting his choice from the top 40 albums, 'everything from Marillion to 'Marillion', running phone-in competitions and discussing magazines. 'I'm a real trash merchant,' he admits. 'I got Jackie up until last week. At least, mentally I did.' There'll be activities like breakdancing, extracts from current comedy like Radio Active and The Grumbleweeds and comedy classics such as the Goons and Tony Hancock, 'and the more Hancock the better'.
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