From Dragons to cuddly kittens

By Vanessa Barford BBC News

He gets up at three in the morning and has to think on his feet for three hours. He has "crashed" the Radio 4 pips and been subjected to intense media scrutiny.

But one week into his new job as presenter on BBC Radio 4's flagship Today programme, Evan Davis is as enthusiastic as ever.

And any qualms about sharing studio space - and air time - with legendary figures like John Humphrys and Jim Naughtie are quickly brushed aside.

"They are all lovely - they all know that I am a bit of a novice at this game," he says, "I'm used to the Dragons in Dragons' Den so my fellow presenters are all cuddly kittens by comparison."

"They all have their idiosyncrasies," he says, smiling with his trademark grin. "John Humphrys tends to ad lib quite a bit and come into the end of an interview with his own question. Jim Naughtie is apparently famous for losing bits of paper".

Precocious kid

Evan Davis started presenting BBC Radio 4's flagship morning news programme on Tuesday.

He replaced Carolyn Quinn, who is concentrating on Radio 4's political magazine The Westminster Hour and the early evening news programme PM.

John Humphrys had to come in and rescue me because I had basically finished the programme five seconds early Evan Davis

"It means quite a lot to be working on the Today programme. I was a rather precocious kid actually so I was listening to Radio 4 when I was quite young. It's quite an institution and to be sitting there feels like a lot of responsibility."

He thinks the most stressful moments are around the top of the hour.

"This is Radio 4. Radio 4 doesn't start the news at three seconds after the hour or three seconds before, you are meant to hit the hour exactly," he says.

"I did very slightly crash the pips at 8am on Wednesday, and then at the end of the programme John Humphrys had to come in and rescue me because I had basically finished the programme five seconds early."

"Those are the bits that really get the pulse racing," he added.

Intense scrutiny

The BBC's former Economics Editor is surprised at how much attention his arrival has received.

He was shocked that the Guardian wrote a continuous blog on his first day.

"At eight minutes past 6am there is someone commenting on a time check. You are subject to a lot of scrutiny.

"It is much harder than it looks. It is a very, very intense period of concentration - those three hours," he says.

"There is a great deal of thinking on your feet so afterwards I have a sense of 'oh I should have done better, should have asked a more probing question, a better question, a funnier question'. I guess it is just one of those things you get used to."

Early to bed

He does not mind the unusual sleep patterns which the programme - which airs from 6am to 9am on weekdays and from 7am to 9am on Saturday - demands.

"The best tip my co-presenters gave me was to go to bed very early. I go to bed at 8pm and get up at 3am. The only problem is at 8pm you can lie in a darkened room for quite a while with nothing happening. But generally the sleep thing is going fine".

How Evan will fare in his new role has received much speculation, particularly in the blogosphere.

"A lot of people have said this guy is not going to cut it because he's not nasty enough, I hope I can be sufficiently nasty to keep the audience engaged. I don't want to be gratuitously nasty but I hope I have a little bit of nastiness in me," he says.

"I tend to be accused of being a cheerful person, that is just who I am, I tend to see things rather optimistically, I tend to see the funny side of them and I find it hard to be driven down by the news. I suppose if I do the job for long enough I might get a bit world weary but at the moment I am trying to be bountiful and enthusiastic."

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