Kenny Everett 1976 Radio Merseyside interview to air on BBC Radio 4 Extra

A rare 1976 interview with broadcasting legend Kenny Everett will air nationally for the first time this weekend on BBC Radio 4 Extra.

The half-hour programme, originally recorded for BBC Radio Merseyside in February 1976, forms part of 4 Extra’s listener request weekend, airing on Sunday 22 March.

Recorded by journalist Iain Mann for the series Somebody In Particular, the interview offers a candid and often humorous look at Everett’s early life and radio career.

He reflects on leaving school at 15 with no qualifications, briefly training to be a priest, and working in a bakery before finding his passion for broadcasting.

Everett also recalls his early days in radio, including appearances on the BBC Home Service and joining pirate station Radio London in 1964, where he famously described being seasick over the side of the ship.

The interview covers his time at BBC Radio 1, from its launch in 1967 to his dismissal three years later, as well as his work across BBC Local Radio and later move to Capital Radio in the early days of Independent Local Radio.

At the time of the recording, Kenny was presenting weekend shows on Capital, having stepped down from breakfast duties due to exhaustion.

The tape was rediscovered by former BBC Political Correspondent Paul Rowley, who digitised the original reel-to-reel recording after receiving it from a former colleague.

Paul described Everett as “our best radio practitioner”, highlighting his creativity, technical skill, and complex personality, combining meticulous production with irreverent humour.

“Iain Mann was my News Editor at Liverpool’s commercial station Radio City in the 1980s, and I’d been given a reel-to-reel copy of his interview by a former colleague, so I digitised it. Half a century later it makes fascinating listening, Paul says.

During the interview, Kenny also speaks about stepping back from television after a difficult series on London Weekend Television, insisting his future remained in radio.

However, two years later he was persuaded to join Thames Television  for The Kenny Everett Video Show, which became a major success and ran until 1981, followed by a return to the BBC for the Kenny Everett Television Show and a Saturday morning programme on Radio 2.

Kenny moved back to Capital in the mid-80s, helping launch the station’s AM service Capital Gold in 1988. He was still working there months before his death on 4 April 1995, aged 50.

Kenny Everett on Radio Merseyside will air on BBC Radio 4 Extra at 7.30am, 12.30pm and 6.30pm on Sunday, with an additional broadcast at 2.30am on Monday.