If you’ve played the game of putting a face to the radio voice it’s unlikely that you would imagine Mark Kermode looking as he does.

On radio I have him as short, hairy and bespectacled after all those years spent in dark rooms squinting at a screen. In real life, as seen on TV, he’s big and square-shouldered; he doesn’t seem to know what to do with his hands and the hair is cut short, with a quiff, as befits the bass player of a skiffle group. Put simply, on radio it may be a surprise that Kermode is a horror film fan. On TV, no surprise. On The Culture Show (BBC Two) he looms over Lauren Laverne like a stranger with a knife.

On radio, though, he’s a hero. His Friday cinema reviews (from 3pm on the Simon Mayo show on Radio 5 Live) are also Radio 5’s most popular podcast. Listeners queue up to e-mail the show in what they fondly imagine is a Kermodean manner. They come across as mannered and prolix, but he laughs indulgently.

He and Mayo make a good double act – argumentative, even squabbling, with an overtone of camp – but he’s all business when it comes to the actual reviews.

His style is demagogic rather than conversational. He has a PhD in English, and it shows. He has his blind spots – fans look forward to the release of each Pirates of the Caribbean movie because they are practically guaranteed a primo Kermodean rant.

And then there’s the horror stuff. His favourite film is The Exorcist, and he can explain why it is watchable even to those of us who have no intention of ever watching it from behind the sofa. And an excerpt from William Peter Blatty’s original novel will this week adorn Kermode’s choice of reading matter to be read out in With Great Pleasure (Thursday, Radio 4, 11.30am). Listening to it will be entertaining; Kermode explaining why it matters will be illuminating.

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