Jools Holland’s Later is still a benchmark for new music – and we will be worse off without it 

Jools Holland has not yet been paid his dues. Between snapshots of him dining out with Tom Jones and a fantastic Saturday Night Live UK sketch which triggered this very feature, The Hootenanny Man has become an institution in his own right. Between Later and the yearly New Year’s showcase, for many, it may seem Holland is a bit of the BBC furniture. He has been there so long it’s hard to replace him, like a skirting board or a chipped mug you’ve become quite fond of. But Holland is more than that, and it’s high time those who watch clips of their favourite bands on the Later YouTube channel stop taking him for granted. He remains one of the few, if not the only, mainstream television figures adjacent to criticism or recommendation, and we will be worse off when he decides to put his piano into storage. Long may he reign.  

Holland is, effectively, the UK equivalent of Ed Sullivan. He isn’t going to moan about new material from a group he isn’t keen on, but he is going to lend an ear to alternative scene music and champion them on a mainstream platform. Chances are that your favourite artist has featured on Later. That comes not just through the chat show variety of booking, which sees Ryan Gosling pal it up with Greg Davies on the Graham Norton sofa, but through an active search for new music from fresh faces and formidable, established acts. It’s why Later can boast Olivia Dean and Robert Plant one week, Florence and the Machine and Baxter Dury the next. Or, at least, in the same season. You need only dip into the archives to see how much of a pull Holland has. Make no mistake, it’s his name value that matters here.  

Nobody can replace Holland. He does what he does to the best of his abilities, and there are very few who can overlap this musical experience with the cheerful, light-entertainment brand he provides. He has a monopoly not just on the concept, but on how he has made himself an irreplaceable part of it. Holland gets involved with the performers, and that is perhaps the greatest criticism that can be levelled at the veteran host. Alex Petridis of The Guardian once criticised Later for having a “distinct lack of spontaneity” and he does have a point. This is not TGI Fridays, where the set is littered with pop culture wow factor, nor has it got a high-octane host prodding tabloid gossip out of artists. It tilts to the other extreme, especially the recent seasons.  

Holland is more at home nursing the artist at hand through an interview where they’re comfortable enough to switch off. Then, occasionally, he issues a killing blow. His feature on Johnny Cash is nothing short of marvellous, and part of the reason the Man in Black is so open is that cheerful lightness from the other end is a comfort not just to watch, but seemingly to be around. There is a spontaneity to the show too, though it comes in the form of Holland jamming on the piano, his flair for the theatrics leaking into the show from there. Artistic variety was also prodded by Petridis, though this was criticism delivered in 2008. In the interim eighteen years, it seems Holland has shored up a wider variety of artists, and so too has culture in general. There’s a mainstream acceptance of all genres now, and thus it is reflected in the show. It should’ve been there from the start, but it’s a better late than never situation.  

And it’s never too late to give Holland his flowers, either. Oddly enough, it came in the form of a Saturday Night Live UK episode, where Holland is portrayed as a demonic timekeeper who is to Daylight Saving Time what Sinterklaas is to Christmas. George Fouracres does a fantastic job of capturing not the man, but the entity that the passing viewer has come to envision Holland as. He’s the guy who shows up once a year to steal away Jamie Dornan in skits and play piano while Jim Moir delivers a deep cut from a chart entry few remember. Holland is a bridge over the great cultural divide, and there aren’t too many of those left. He still has a contemporary pull, hence Fouracres and fellow gifted comedian Al Nash banking the best sketch of SNL UK’s history so far. But he’s also a route back to the old-school thrills of genre-mixing fun.  

You can read the rest of this feature on Cult Following’s Substack.