Review: Jamie and Katie sound right at home, Going Home with Vick on Radio 1 ☆☆☆☆

Jamie Laing and Katie Thistleton joined Vick Hope to launch the brand new Going Home show on BBC Radio 1 today.

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Having honed their survival strategies over millennia, mammals have evolved to be masters of the cold. In this episode, we journey across the globe, exploring a frozen world, from icy seas to snow-capped mountains and meet the unique mammals that call them home. For most, the cold is a killer. But for mammals, with their unique physical traits like warm thick fur and rich nourishing milk, and remarkable behaviours like hibernation, conquering the cold is possible.

We begin our journey on the Arctic islands of Svalbard, where polar bears, synonymous with this cold archipelago, dominate this remote frozen world. But as their world warms, and the frozen seas that are their hunting grounds disappear, they are being forced to find new sources of food. For the first time, we follow a polar bear hunting on land as it heads high up into the mountains in a rarely seen long-distance pursuit of Svalbard’s reindeer.

Mammals have been forced to adapt to the cold for millions of years. Whereas other species avoided the series of thick ice sheets that once covered a quarter of all land, mammals were able to survive the freezing conditions, and by adapting their behaviour, many are now completely at home in these inhospitable lands.

One land that has little changed since the last ice age is the tundra of northern Alaska. In this remote, hostile landscape, a mythical and rarely seen mammal endures: the wolverine. They rely completely on snow to survive, providing them meat from animals that have succumbed to the cold and dens in which to raise their young. Whilst other animals either flee or hibernate to avoid the coldest time of year, they stay active all winter, traversing the vast landscape in search of food. This privileged view reveals a surprisingly caring side of a highly elusive animal.

Knowledge can play a huge role in surviving the cold. Rather than roaming huge distances, some smart mammals will return annually to places they know will provide them with food. In Canada’s northern Yukon, a unique community of bears has been passing knowledge down the generations of a special ice-free river. While most bears are already hibernating, this late flowing river allows chum salmon to spawn into the winter months, giving the bears an opportunity for one last feast before hibernation that they simply cannot resist.

Mammals’ ability to hibernate is a clever way to avoid winter, and deep underground in an abandoned mine, little and big brown bats are well into their hibernation. But not all stay asleep. One sneaky bat wakes in order to mate while the rest of the colony sleeps on.

Bringing newborns into a world of snow and ice has many challenges, but mammals’ unique ability to produce fat-rich milk allows harp seal mothers to have one of the shortest weening periods of all. In just 12 days, off the coast of Greenland, they race to fatten their pups to independence as the icy nursery melts around them.

Far above sea level, the remote Kluane Mountains of North America support the largest ice field outside the poles. In this rugged landscape of rock and ice, pika, a relative of the rabbit, patiently wait for summer. Having stayed awake all winter, surviving on food they collected last year, once summer does return, they will all have just a few weeks to harvest nearly a year’s worth of food before the winter lockdown begins again. But storing your hard-earnt supplies all in one place comes at a risk if you can’t trust your neighbour.

Averaging 4,000 meters above sea level, the thin air of the lofty mountains of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau in China struggle to retain much heat at all. As a result, life here always feels cold. Snow leopards are the top predator and have lived here for millions of years, but recently their lives have become linked with humans and the domestic yak they herd. It’s too good an opportunity to ignore. But through a community initiative, they have found a way to live alongside each other, even when the yak are taken by the leopards.

Back at sea level, on the shores of Canada’s Hudson Bay, for mammals specialised for life in the cold, a warming world is now the biggest challenge. Here, arctic fox and polar bears wait together by open water where there should be ice. For arctic foxes living here, as food ashore runs out, they would normally move and follow the polar bears onto the ice in order to scavenge off the bears’ kills. But as the winter freeze, and arrival of the ice is delayed, the bears cannot hunt, and life becomes more and more desperate. This has led to the foxes resorting to cannibalism, desperately fighting with each other to feed on the unfortunate foxes that have succumbed to hunger.

The revamped teatime show launched just two weeks after the rapid departure of Jordan North, who signed up to replace Roman Kemp on Capital.

So how did they sound? Well, actually, right at home.

Led by Vick, who sounds so relaxed and natural on the air, the threesome achieved the difficult fete of sounding like older siblings to the younger listeners, whilst for older listeners it was like being down the pub with your mates. We came away thinking how fun it would be to have a night in a boozer with the three of them, and that’s no easy thing to achieve on the radio.

The show kicked off in style with Dua Lipa’s Training Session and other tunes came from Raye, Billie Eilish, Becky Hill and The Snuts, among many more. All peppered with often hilarious chat.

The message was, Jordan may have gone but it’s business as usual. Jamie brings the same kind of naughty and cheeky appeal, which shone through in the various features – all of which listeners already know and love.

As the presenters got acquainted, so did the listeners, learning plenty… if not too much information about the new boy. As one listener asked what the last thing he bought from Amazon was, the answer was Anusol. In another conversation, Jamie showed Katie and Vick the last photo on his phone that he deleted.. one of him half naked (bottom half) sat on a sofa.

There were plenty of laughs throughout and we must say, it’s one of the most effortless sounding shows we’ve heard in a long time… which actually goes to show how hard they’ve worked on it.

First impressions are, this is going to be appointment listening. We can’t wait for more tomorrow…

Oh, and we’d like to put it out there that these three would make GREAT hosts of the BRITS 2025…

Jamie, Vick and Katie are your new Going Home on Radio 1 hosts

Vick Hope says, “Here we go, a new era…! I’m so happy to welcome Katie and Jamie as my new co-hosts for Going Home. Katie is such a special, important broadcaster, and one of my favourite people in the world. I’ve absolutely loved presenting Life Hacks together every Sunday for the last three years and in that time not only have we built a really strong, beautiful relationship with our listeners through thick and thin, but we’ve become such close friends. I’m so excited to get to work – and hang out – with each other every day and so glad our on-air journey together continues. And as for Jamie… he’s so much fun to be around, a really brilliant broadcaster. I’ve found him laugh-out-loud hilarious radio when he’s hosted with Matt, and when we covered together last year he brought such great energy. As a trio, right from our first demo in studio we’ve all been in stitches! I know the Going Home listeners will absolutely love both Katie and Jamie – I can’t wait for us to get going.”

Katie Thistleton says, “I am beyond thrilled to be joining Vick and Jamie on Going Home, I have loved filling in on the show for the past couple of years, working with Vick is always dreamy and I’m such a big fan of Jamie. I can’t wait for lots of fun chaos and playing the best tunes for that amazing drivetime audience, this is beyond my wildest dreams! Pinch me!”

Jamie Laing says, “So excited to have Katie joining Going Home with Vick and I. It already feels like a dream to be a part of the Radio 1 family so to get to work alongside such incredible people like Katie and Vick is the icing on the cake. I can’t wait to kick off the show next week – get ready for an afternoon of fun and antics!”