Friday Night Live with Craig Murray

Hi Craig, welcome to NE, can you introduce yourself to our readers? Hi. I’m South Shields born and bred, and have lived and worked in the town for most of my life. I’ve worked in a lot of different jobs including in many of the pubs and clubs around the north east DJing and hosting quiz nights. I currently run a couple of businesses in the area and now present a show on Radio Shields every Friday Night 8pm – 10pm, called Friday Night Live with Craig Murray Live Show, tell us about the show and what people can expect? Yeah it’s broadcast live every Friday night 8-10pm only on Radio Shields, and has loads of great music, lots of chances to win prizes and get involved in the show. We have lots of great features including our Where on Earth (where you have to guess where a picture of a local landmark was taken) our A to B feature where listeners suggest tracks and we play a long forgotten or maybe a well-known B side and it’s corresponding A side, the NEWSic Challenge competitions where listeners suggest tracks based on a chosen news story from that week, our What’s On Guide featuring all the best local events and each week we have the 10 Minute Mashup from local DJ and producer SPF. It’s just a great way to have a bit of fun after the working week and get geared up for the weekend whatever you’re up to.

As well as the radio show you have been very active on social media running competitions and links that tie in with the show, how important is that and does it get the response you were hoping it would? Yeah we are always posting bits and pieces about the show 15

throughout the week and hopefully keeping our listeners entertained. We post each day during the build up to that week’s Friday night show so people have a chance to get involved even if they might not catch the show live and wish to catch up using Listen Again which is available on our website fridaynightlive.co.uk each Saturday after the show. We’ve had a great response and lots of people get involved each week which has been great to see. I have to say thanks to our show sponsor The Sanddancer in South Shields and NE Online Magazine by the way who’ve very kindly donated prizes for the show in the past and have also promoted the show on social media.

How did you come to be the host of Friday Night Live? In a nutshell the station CEO approached me asking if I’d like to get involved when I’d bumped into him in and around the town, but I’d always been a bit too busy to give it my full attention. During the summer however, a few things moved about which enabled me to get involved and host the show live each week. So that’s how it came about.

Lots of old school clubbers will know you from back in the day from when you used to DJ in the bars and clubs around the North East, tell those that don’t know a bit more about your time doing that? Yes in a former life I used to work in a lot of the bars and clubs in the north east. I did that for around 20 years and hosted nights in South Shields, Newcastle, Sunderland and all over the country. One of my favourite gigs was as DJ at Sunderland University at the nightclub Manor Quay before I moved to the newly built venue, The Point, in the early/mid 2000s.

How different is being a radio DJ to being a club DJ? I suppose the main difference is not having that live instant reaction from an audience. When DJing live you get a buzz which you might not get on radio, even though people are interacting with the show by calling in or messaging. On radio you have to have a lot of good, relevant content, and you can prepare a lot of items and features to keep people entertained and tuning

in each week. You can’t just rely on the music, although it’s still a massive part of the show. When on radio or performing live, you have to know your audience though.

Between the two, what do you prefer doing? If you’d asked me a few years ago I couldn’t have decided, but now as I’m getting a bit older, and going to bed a bit earlier, probably radio haha.

Both radio and club DJ’ing will bring you in contact with the odd famous person, is there anyone you’ve hated dealing with over the years and if so why? I’ve been quite fortunate over the years to meet quite a few famous people and celebs and to be honest they’ve all been really pleasant. The only ones which were a bit diva-ish were some of the members of Girls Aloud. Only a couple of them mind you, but I won’t say which ones. Cheryl was really nice and very chatty!

If you could have anyone on your show who would it be and why? That’s a tough one. I’d love to interview the Gallagher brothers I think, that would be an interesting one. Maybe Noel over Liam. I grew up in the Britpop/Indie era so I’ve always like them. You’re bound to get some good material for the show too!

People might think it is easy doing a radio show, but give us an idea of how much time and effort goes into a single show? As I mentioned if you want to do the best show possible you really have to prepare your content, features etc, and get as much listener input as possible. So we start to write the show on a Monday evening believe it or not, and then most evenings we are fine tuning bits and pieces before the final show is put together Friday daytime to go out live on Friday evening. The social media 17

output also goes out each day in the run to Friday’s show. It’s quite a lot of work but it’s worth it when it comes together on a Friday evening.

Music wise you have the secret weapon of SPF and his phenomenal mixes, have you had people trying to guess his/ her identity yet? Haha yeah we’ve had a quite a few people asking but we never give any clues. SPF is quite shy and we worry that giving away the identity would affect the quality of the mashups. Once the secret is out – the spell is broken!

Will you be revealing the secret identity or will it be like the Stig, keeping everyone guessing? You’ll need to keep guessing!

And if that wasn’t enough to keep you busy, you also host several Quiz nights, so here’s your chance to give them a plug and tell people why they should pop down and give them a go. Yes I’ve been roped into doing a few quizzes to keep my hand in with the live events. You can catch me at River Bar in Washington from 7:30pm on a Tuesday, at our Friday Night Live with Craig Murray show sponsor, The Sanddancer in South Shields from 8pm every Wednesday, and at The Britannia pub again in South Shields every Thursday from 8:30pm.

On the Quiz theme, you have made a few tv gameshow appearances, can you tell our readers which ones and how you did on them? Yeah I was lucky enough to appear on The Chase a few years ago and managed to beat the Governess Ann Hegerty. I also appeared on Mastermind a couple of years back and was surrounded by people whose specialist subjects were things like the poetry of Philip Larkin, the Mongol empire etc. Mine – Alan Partridge!!

Is there any show that you would like to appear on? Yes I’ve always fancied a go on Who Wants To Be A Millionaire – I reckon I could win a few quid at least and wouldn’t mind a chat with Clarkson hehe.

What do you get up to in your free time…if you even have any? Free time – what’s that again?

Tell us 3 random facts about yourself? I once lost 13 stone in a year! I interviewed and pitched a business idea to Richard Branson in a lift – a literal elevator pitch as they call them! I won The Chase – struggling for 3!

Where can people follow you and keep up to date? The show socials are @ CraigMurrayFNL on Facebook, craigmurrayFNL on Instagram and the website is fridaynightlive. co.uk where you can find out about, and take part in the show each week, and catch up with Listen Again.

Is there anything you’d like to add? If anyone would like to get involved with the show, looking for any work experience or would like to get involved with radio and the production please get in touch using the above.

ROMESH RANGANATHAN COMES TO THE CITY HALL FRIDAY 8 NOVEMBER 2019 WITH A BRAND NEW SHOW TICKETS ON SALE 10AM FRIDAY 28 SEPTEMBER 2018

Romesh Ranganathan is back with a brand-new show, The Cynic’s Mixtape, and it’s his most brutally honest show yet.

Fresh from The Misadventures of Romesh Ranganathan, A League Of Their Own and Judge Romesh, he’s putting showbiz aside to deliver a carefully-curated selection of all the things he has found unacceptable since his last tour, including why trying to save the environment is a scam, why none of us are truly free, and his suspicion that his wife is using gluten intolerance to avoid sleeping with him.

Romesh’s cynicism has become his trademark, but since being nominated for Best Newcomer at the 2013 Edinburgh Comedy Awards this deadpan humour has become one of Britain’s most respected and popular comics. Now, though, it’s time for the Asian Provocateur to return to his stand-up roots for a while – there’s things he needs to point out, discuss and have a good moan about. Care to join him?

Show drops 2019, don’t miss it.

Tickets for Romesh Ranganathan are on sale Fri 28 Sep from 10am and are £26.50. Tickets can be purchased online at www. theatreroyal.co.uk or from the Theatre Royal Box Office on 08448 11 21 21 (Calls cost 7p per minute plus your phone company’s access charge)

Hi Colin, welcome to NE, can

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