Back in the day, before the controllers of national radio stations thought nothing of paying middle-aged schoolboys vast sums of money to be pathetic – only to discover that the great British public thought even less of it – there lived in these fair isles (a mode of dress he frequently adopted) a presenter of genius.

Even now, 30 and more years after his heyday and 13 after his death, Kenny Everett makes you laugh, as can be heard every time BBC7 fills the airwaves with the joy of an Everett repeat. He wasn’t a disc jockey. Although he played records, they were just there to punctuate the gags – even though his ear for a choon did once turn a little number called Bohemian Rhapsody into a behemoth. He would spend hours painstakingly compiling a sketch that would last for maybe 30 seconds, working on his own because who could keep up with him?

For the most part he was left alone to create and to broadcast – and then, when he overstepped the mark, as he frequently did, he would get fired because someone really should have been keeping an eye on him. But he didn’t get in trouble for making obscene phone calls to answer phones – no, when he got bounced from Radio 1 in 1970 it was for suggesting that the Transport Minister’s wife had bribed her driving test examiner. My, how far we’ve come.

Tonight’s Archive Hour (Radio 4, 8pm) will introduce him to a generation that probably thinks edgy radio began and ended with the banishing of Russell Brand. In Here’s Kenny Mark Paytress assesses Everett’s pioneering audio work and accords him his rightful place in broadcasting history. He is aided in this honest endeavour by other, more formulaic DJs such as Tony Blackburn and Keith Skues, a gaggle of fans from Everett’s pirate radio days, and the Beatles expert Richard Porter.

Why the Beatles? Well, not content with hyping Queen to No 1 (he reportedly played Bo Rhap 14 times in one show, which does seem a bit cruel and unnatural, even for Cuddly Ken at his most enthusiastic), he had already found a fan in the Fabs for his innovative ways with sound effects and other studio trickery, so much so that he was invited to produce a couple of the records they put together for fan club members at Christmas. Follow that, R. Brand.

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