Jeremy Vine: ‘My kids hate when I listen to any of their music’

On My Radar: The BBC presenter on his favourite music, film, radio show and eating at Nando’s four nights in a row


Favourite album?

I normally listen to Elvis Costello and punk and new wave from the 1980s, but I've tried to get into music I wouldn't usually listen to, so my current favourite album is DJ Khaled's Grateful. It's brilliant, I love "Wild Thoughts" especially. My kids started listening to it and I've quietly started listening too, but they would object to their father listening to any of their music. I need to be careful I don't cramp their style.

Theatre show?

It's the Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, which has just finished in London. The book is great and the play does it justice. The lead character is such a sympathetic person, which draws you in, and it's staged with a modern set. London is a great theatre city; I'm about to go to New York and I was looking at its theatre listings but it had all the same shows, so I figured we should skip it and take a walk instead.

Film?

Get Out: it's about a white woman who dates a black guy, and when she takes him to meet the family, it's clear all is not well, and it unwinds from there. I'm a fan of psychodrama – my all-time favourites are Hitchcocks. I love that suspense when you know there's something undeclared going on, but you don't find out what until the end.

Radio show?

It’s Sara Cox’s show on BBC Radio 2, the Sounds of the 80s. Being in Radio 2, Sarah is a colleague and we’re mates, of course. But she’s discovered this treasure trove of music we’ve either forgotten or trying to forget, I particularly like Vienna by Ultravox or Fade to Grey by Visage – both are songs where the synthesiser is at the fore.

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Comedian?

I can't say anyone else except for my brother Tim Vine, even as a joke. But it's true. I just had a nice weekend with Tim in Tipton, Devon, where the family of my wife [BBC News's Rachel Schofield] live. He came down and played a half an hour set for 120 people to raise funds for the village hall, and we had the most brilliant night. Even when we were growing up, he loved to perform. He was always doing little plays and being creative. My sister Sonia is a performer too – an actress – so the three of us together must have been a handful.

Actor?

Right now it's Emma Stone. Unusually, Birdman and La La Land are films I've been to see more than once; my youngest daughter Anna loves to dance so once I saw it, I went again with her. I went to see Birdman on my own a second time, because I thought it was incredibly interesting. So Emma is cropping up in my favourite films at the moment.

City?

Probably Cape Town. I used to live in Johannesburg, which was oppressive because of the crime, so we used to take breaks in Cape Town and it was like going on holiday with the air, the view, the history, the people. The culture has such incredible texture, there are so many different ethnicities. In some ways it's unrepresentative of South Africa, in other ways it shows how a South African city could work. And apart from everything else, it looks pretty.

Restaurant?

Whenever I do the graphics for the BBC election coverage, we eat at Nandos every night. We have a great graphics team, and our record is four consecutive nights there. I have the same thing every time: half a chicken, extra spicy, with macho peas and coleslaw. I rarely go there if I’m not doing something election related, and when I do, it makes me think about parliamentary constituencies.

What I Learnt by Jeremy Vine, published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, is out now