Can Chris Evans Hack The One Show?

After months of build up, The One Show's expensive new procurement, Chris Evans, will this week take over Adrian Chiles' Friday evening spot. It was back in April that the BBC announced that they'd picked Evans to co-host the pre-weekend gig with the show's new and capable Monday-to-Friday presenter, Alex Jones. The bumped Brummie brooded but, more importantly, we worried that the new pairing would be no substitute for Chiles and work-wife Christine Bleakley's zingy chemistry. And as the new double act's debut approaches, our anxiousness hasn't worn off. This, despite Evans having rocked a similar(ish) Friday evening slot on Channel 4 not so many years ago.

In the 90s, he re-wrote the manual on kooky, charismatic TV presenting. He was magnetic, funny and, despite his beta-male ginger hair, thick specs and awkward sartorial sense, he helped engineer a new style of spiky, macho TV presenting style for blokes who cared as much about Britpop as they did football. Not long after TFI Friday arrived, boys in Blur t-shirts installed him as their icon.

But we first got to know Chris on Channel 4's 1992 morning show, The Big Breakfast, which he hosted with good girl Gaby Roslin and a pair of alien hand puppets, Zig and Zag. His popularity soared and two years later Evans was off to see if he could punch a hole in Saturday night television. Don't Forget Your Toothbrush was a frantic game show where audience members turned up with their luggage, ready to win a holiday. Even though the pilot flopped, Evans turned it around into a fondly remembered series and our love affair with the carrot top continued.

Next came TFI Friday, where the anarchic host built up his grownup, predominantly male fan-base and established himself as one of the defining faces of Cool Britannia. It was similar in format and feel to his chaotic Radio 1 breakfast show but it concentrated on giving Brit poppers a safe place to sound off and show off. The show revelled in controversial capers, such as when Happy Mondays frontman Sean Ryder repeatedly said the F word and got himself banned from Channel 4. In the 90s, stunts like that were still achingly trendy.

Evans quit TFI in 2000 and soon after took a lengthy career break. But not before he'd sold his media company for millions, married teen pop star Billie Piper and been papped on an 18-hour bender. Suddenly, he was looking less effervescently cool, more drunk and deranged.

When, inevitably, he tried for a comeback, it didn't go so well. OFI Sunday on ITV was a self-indulgent splat of in-jokes and guests appearances from his now ex-wife Piper and a collection of old drinking buddies. It lasted a sniffling five episodes (five too many) and showed Evans up as the It kid who'd forgotten to grow up. There was a stubborn awkwardness about him, as if he was sure that what he'd pulled off in his heyday was still relevant. It wasn't. TV has evolved a lot over the past decade, but has the now 44-year-old Evans? To pull off a homely, safe format like The One Show, he'll have to prove that he's finally ready to start acting his age.