Goodbye

Christopher Price, 1967-2002

“Good evening, here are tonight’s headlining stories…”

At first, I watched ‘Liquid News’ by accident, my channel-hopping taking me onto BBC Choice at the right hour of the evening. Fairly swiftly, I was making a point of it, every night I was in, and inciting people into a cable package so as they too could revel. Then I began recording it, with a fervour & dedication usually reserved for the likes of ‘Buffy’ or ‘Jaaaam’. Until now, a full year later, it was a rare 8:00 where I was NOT giggling away, television-ensconced. (And oftentimes at the Monday night best-of too.) All of which is down to Christopher Price, ex of ‘Zero30’, and ‘BBCNews24’. Not for the guests (though they were sometimes an incentive), or the watery graphics (though they tended to be my mum’s favourite element), or their journalists’ occasional sticky-back-plastic-ethos dramatic-reconstructions (e.g. demonstrating a boy band car crash, using toys and squeaky voices). I’d have surfed right on past the programme, were it not for Christopher. For despite fronting a daily entertainment-news show devoted to the mostly-vacuous world of the slightly-more-famous-than-you-or-I, he seldom seemed reverential. And he always made me laugh.

Delegating the responsibility (to Mark Frith?) of explaining Lionel Blair to a bemused Roxette.

Going live, repeatedly, to the broken celebrity-free escalator at the Robbie Williams film premiere, and Ross Noble eventually suggesting the purchase of a Slinky to liven proceedings up.

His incessant use of the (naughty naughty) word “fluffer”.

Complimenting studio-guest Jonathan Rhys-Meyers on ‘Bend It Like Beckham’, it being the first time he hasn’t played a “freak” on film.

Encouraging Tom Brooke to offer passing grannies the egg fried live in the New York heatwave.

His starting telling us to “take care”, at the end of each show, post-September.

Trying to explain the programme to other people – and failing, generally, to capture its appeal with mere words – I’d usually end up mumbling about how it was “like ‘Heat’ magazine, but on TV (and less vacuous than the TVGoHome version)”, or “like ‘Newsround’, but with a greater focus on Kylie than pandas”. With a “big bitchy presenter unafraid to mock Atomic Kitten”. And some “slightly famous guests”. But I loved it. Absolutely loved it. And he, lynch-pin, was why it worked. I missed him when he was on holiday (or off sick) – it was never the same, without him – and I couldn’t settle in happy until I’d checked it was his silhouette at the desk when the show started.

Even just in the last year, I’ve probably seen more of Christopher than I have many of my friends, and more than enough to now miss him terribly. I have my videos (at least eight tapes worth, all no doubt featuring copious use of the phrase “homosexual gay”), and I’m glad of it, but I hate the fact that he has to be remembered through them, that I can capture no more of him.

I don’t know what else there is for me to say here that hasn’t been said on the Liquid News message-boards over and over: I’m so very sorry for his friends & family, for everyone he worked with, and for everyone else lost without him on our screens. I hope he was aware of at least the tiniest part of how much he was loved.

Last revised: 28/04/02