Confessions (radio programme)

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Confessions is a popular feature which first appeared on the BBC Radio 1 weekday breakfast show in the early 1990s, devised by its host, Simon Mayo.

Mayo, who had hosted the show since 1988, started the feature in August 1990 partly due to the rising interest in his own Christian faith, and it caught on very quickly. Listeners would write in to "Father Mayo" and confess to their sins and each morning at 8:35 am Mayo would broadcast one to the nation over Tomaso Giovanni Albinoni's Adagio for Organ and Strings in G minor.

The "confessions" were often humorous and sometimes a little lacking in taste or scruples. At the peak of the feature, Mayo received more than one hundred confessions a week. Some were sincere confessions with no sense of light-heartedness and Mayo discounted any which admitted to crime, adultery, overt cruelty or other more serious activities.

Infamous confessions included:

• The family who put some herbs into a Christmas pudding which had been sent to them by relatives in Australia, only to discover later they were a late uncle's ashes (based on an urban myth)
• The man who, desperate to urinate on a train with no lavatory, decided to do so out of a window, only to inadvertently spray numerous people waiting on a platform which suddenly appeared
• The man who, tired of his flatmate's complaining about food wastage, cooked a pie for him before replacing the meat with raw cat food
• The woman who, annoyed with her boyfriend's lateness in coming home for his evening meal, spread chili con carne all over his sports car
• The man who found some negatives of his brother's wife in the nude and had them developed before sending them to an adult magazine's Readers' Wives section
• Gulf War 1 logistics corporal put some "fallen off the back of a lorry glasses under his truck. New owner got bomb disposal out thinking it was an IED."

After completing each confession, Mayo would ask his crew - consisting of weather and travel presenter Dianne Oxberry, newsreader Rod McKenzie, or their respective stand-ins if they are away, and the day's "special guest producer" played by the show's own producer Ric Blaxill - whether they would "forgive" the confessor or not. When Dianne is away Jackie Brambles, Caron Keating, Lynn Parsons, and Philippa Forrester would stand in as weather and travel presenters, and Peter Bowes would stand in as newsreader when Rod is away, and Philip Schofield, Bruno Brookes, and Mark Goodier would stand in as breakfast show host when Simon is away. After a while, it became clear that Oxberry was less forgiving than the others, and also became clear that Matt Williams was more forgiving than the others as well.

Some confessions prompted complaints from listeners, especially if they involved particularly cruel behaviour towards others or any that involved living creatures, even if there wasn't a hint of animal cruelty in the confession.

The feature was a huge success. Word spread internationally and a story made the front page of The Wall Street Journal, with Mayo often being asked if he was trying to challenge the power and principles of various religions.

Confessions spawned a successful spin-off book and, later, a BBC TV series which was lukewarmly received in comparison to the radio feature and was criticised by the Broadcasting Standards Council.^[1][2]

Mayo brought back Confessions on his morning (9 am – 12 noon) programme which ran from 25 October 1993 to February 2001.

Since January 2010 Mayo has relaunched Confessions on his BBC Radio 2 drive-time show (Mondays to Thursdays), with travel reporter Bobbie Pryor, sports reporter Matt Williams, former weekday afternoons drivetime reporter Sally Boazman, business news reporter Rebecca Pike, plus resident chef Nigel Barden (Thursdays only). Matt and Nigel both left in May 2018, Sally left weekdays in 2014, and Rebecca left in 2015, and in May 2018 the show was re-launched with new co-presenter Jo Whiley, it ended on 20 December 2018 when Simon left BBC Radio 2. but it returned again on his mid-morning show on Scala Radio on 4 March 2019 and also returned on his solo drivetime show on Greatest Hits Radio on 15 March 2021.

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