Don't forget you're famous

Mornings may never be the same again. Chris Evans has got his own breakfast show and, says Robert Hanks, it might just rescue Radio 1 from oblivion

The sociologist Max Weber used to talk about the importance of Verstehen in studying history: that is, understanding, not simply from observation and the amassing of facts, but from empathy and intuition. Over the past 18 months, or however long it is since he arrived at Radio 1 and started chucking ageing disc jockeys out on to the ice floes, Matthew Banister must have achieved an extraordinary Verstehen of what it was like to be an aristocrat during the French Revolution - watching the local crones knitting happily away while the tumbrel creaked towards the guillotine. In this case, the Press has stood in for the crones, cackling gleefully over every departure as though it represented yet another step towards the scaffold for the unfortunate station controller, regardless of either the unpopularity or incompetence of the DJ in question.

But hold on: here's Matthew Banister's very own Scarlet Pimpernel. Or, to be strictly accurate, his Ginger Pimpernel: Chris Evans is here, Mondays to Fridays. God's in his Heaven and all's right with the world.

There has been a lot of hype about his arrival, mostly working on the assumption that Evans will lend a new attraction to everything around him, just as pieces of iron will be magnetised by contact with a powerful magnet. It seems intuitively unlikely that this can actually work, certainly while Simon Mayo occupies the slot immediately following (thankfully, Mayo has been replaced by the rather wittier and more agreeable Kevin Greening for this week.)

But after yesterday morning's performance, the hype seems scarcely exaggerated. Progressing from Steve Wright to Chris Evans is like moving from Salieri to Mozart, from Nigel Mansell to Ayrton Senna, from - this is the nub - Hale and Pace to Morecambe and Wise. Wright has never come across as more than an office wag - listening to him and his posse in action was like sitting next to an insurance company's Christmas outing at the local tandoori: lots of noise and laughter, and no conceivable reason for it. During his last show, on Friday, he was asking listeners to phone in if they knew a space alien. "I know a space alien," said one of the posse - "You!" Hoots of laughter and collapse of stout party.

Evans isn't necessarily any cleverer than this - a lot of the time he's a great deal stupider - but he is funny enough to carry off stupidity. Wright never did anything as moronic as "I'm in Bed with My Boyfriend", in which a woman caller is encouraged to suck her boyfriend's lollipop ("It's orange in colour and shaped like a tulip") while reciting poetry; or Honk Your Horn, in which car drivers phone in and answer questions about whether they've got a big horn this morning, and then parp in time to some music. He wouldn't have touched anything as mindless as On the Bog, in which Chris and a friend have a dull conversation to the sound of straining. But then, if Wright had done it, it wouldn't have been funny; here, embarrassingly, it's hilarious.

One reason why Evans is easier listening is that he is far more at home in the medium - he swims in the ether like a fish. Another, related reason is the sheer fact of his fame. To be sure, Wrightie at his least popular has still had bigger audiences than Don't Forget Your Toothbrush or The Big Breakfast ever had; but TV is the glam medium, and it matters hugely that Wright is leaving radio to make a career in television, while Evans is crossing the other way. His celebrity makes it easier to go along with the jokes (one reason why this programme works better than his last outing on Radio 1, a largely forgotten Sunday afternoon slot called Too Much Gravy). It also makes Evans into a personality broadcaster in a way that wasn't open to Wright: he can joke constantly about himself and be confident that the listeners will get the joke.

So the show is largely an extended riff on his reputation for egocentricity: he harps on his fame, his talent, his new Bafta (how he harps on his Bafta). He welcomes back Radio 1's audiences - "OK, you've had a little break, you've been away, you've had a sojourn, but now it's time to come back" - and apologises to Virgin for queering their pitch; he plays jingles ecstatic in his praise, and sulks about a trailer for Nicky Campbell.

It's an astoundingly cocksure display; and far, far more skilful and enjoyable than I would have imagined. On the first morning's showing, this has to be the finest breakfast show since Danny Baker's Morning Edition on Radio 5. There can be no higher praise. And no direr warning.