Scott reads steamy extracts from a tacky romance novel on air and asks listeners how many actually read them—discovering that young women are far more into Mills & Boon than he’d expected. He also plugs his new BBC 3 show Upstaged, a talent competition broadcast live from glass boxes in Bristol.
After spotting a young woman reading a romantic novel on the train, Scott decides to investigate the genre. He’s surprised to find that women across a wide age range—not just the over-50s he assumed—enjoy these books, and reads extracts from Diana Palmer’s *A Long, Tall Texan and Summer*, including a particularly fruity passage from page 93 that he’s allowed to broadcast. Calls flood in from 18- to 30-something listeners who admit to regularly reading romance fiction; one caller, Anna, reveals she reads the ending first because the books are predictable, and she gets them from the library. Scott and the team discuss where readers find these books and whether men ever read them.
The main focus shifts to Upstaged, Scott’s new BBC 3 programme, which is already live online at bbc.co.uk/upstage. The format is simple: contestants with any kind of talent submit a video, then winners battle it out in glass boxes in Millennium Square, Bristol, performing for six hours against each other while an online community votes. Scott describes the first matchup: Terry the Odd Job Man (a would-be comedian from Bristol) went up against the Caracoix Sisters, who even wrote a song about him during the contest. The Caracoix Sisters won and are now facing newcomer Robert Bone, who sings, dances, does beatbox, and performs magic. Scott encourages Bristol listeners to text in updates from Millennium Square and urges anyone with talent to submit a video quickly.
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