Shortly before Christmas Eve, the Plaza del Dos de Mayo is full of Christmas dinners, meetings with friends, impromptu parties and light decorations in all the bars when Ángel Carmona (Jerez de la Frontera, Cádiz, 44 years old) arrives running. He quickly takes off his coat and poses with one of his signature Hawaiian shirts, “his trademark,” he says with a laugh, in front of the door of the Gato Malasaña bar in Madrid. It could be the Ángel Carmona costume, one of many costumes that had to be worn during the recording of “Cachitos Nochevieja: la gala”, the year-end special of the acclaimed music and humor show, which will be broadcast on December 31st will be at 10:30 p.m. on La 2 and RTVE Play, with the presenter and journalist from Radio Nacional España (RNE) serving as master of ceremonies for the first time. “All right!” he shouts as they throw him the first photo.
Carmona takes out his cell phone and shows all the costumes: hippie, heavy, posh, tennis player… “The show is a dramatized story in which a variety show is recreated. One of those traditional shows with their ballet corps and everything,” he explains. For this purpose, the gala was recorded in the emblematic El Molino cabaret in Barcelona, recently renovated, and brings to life the magnificent spirit of musicals, marabou feathers and toasts, accompanied by magical rooms, ventriloquists and humorous monologues. “It's an authentic kitsch gala,” confirms the presenter, whose eyes widen when he says that he is accompanied by Lita Claver La Maña, variety artist, famous director of El Molino and diva of Barcelona's Parallel, and the actor Fernando Esteso, a popular face, has accompanied television for an entire generation. “I arrived at Spanish television the same way I arrived at Radio 3: as a loyal listener,” he says. “And if no one talks about me after the gala, that means I did well,” he admits.
Carmona joins as host of Cachitos, both in the New Year's Eve special and the regular season – the new season begins on January 12, 2024 – replacing journalist Virginia Díaz, who hosted the show for 11 seasons. Both are part of the team at Radio 3, the public music broadcaster. Díaz continues there with the rooms 180 Degrees and The Typical Program and this season made the jump to RNE as host of Mañana más, the morning show where he deals with daily news that goes beyond the musical topics he focuses on had to adjust himself in Today it all begins, where he made a name for himself as a journalist and received an Ondas award for best music radio presenter. An admirer of Gomaespuma and the late night shows of David Letterman and Jay Leno, Carmona is a born communicator with a bizarre and energetic personality. Nothing conventional. He's appeared on television in appearances like The Next, but now he needs to be the center of the spotlight. “I was warming up the band on TV,” he says with a smile.
Of all the possible Carmonas at Cachitos New Year's Eve: the gala will be exactly one dressed as a football player. The image serves as an expression of the respect he feels for this television opportunity in a program that is so loved and appreciated by audiences every Christmas: “I see myself as a presenter. Nothing else. On a football field I would be the typical five, and the scriptwriters, the directors and the program management would be the nine who score the goals.” The scriptwriters of the Christmas gala are the usual two: Pablo González Batista and Antonio Vicente, Carmona's right-hand man in ” Mañana más” and was already one of “Today it all begins”. “Both are already part of Christmas in Spain,” remembers the presenter, who became a scriptwriter for one of the shows in one of the seasons. “They are a unit full of humor. They even interviewed her in a country for laughs!
New Year's Eve in Cachitos: The gala lasts an hour with performances by Sidonie, Amaia, Lori Meyers, Carlangas and Adiós Amores and others, and shortly after the bells, “the Archivazo or Churro of Cachitos”, as everyone calls it, will arrive internally. The now classic three-hour room with dozens of songs in archive videos and their insane names, which speaks of sarcasm and nostalgia and which took two months to work on. “I was overwhelmed by the love they put into it,” Carmona says. “Every year the chain asks us more, and this year, apart from the cachitos churro, we went to the gala. Because it is surprising how every January 1st new people continue to enter the world of Cachitos,” says Jero Rodríguez, co-director of Cachitos Nochevieja together with Arantxa Soroa.
Carmona and its costumes, music and humor, all together, in the last program before the bells on La 2. The end of the year is a very symbolic place for family tradition. From Tuesday the 13th, at José Mota and for some time in the second chain, at Cachitos. “I remember seeing Sabrina's chest in slow motion, but very slow motion, while on one side I saw the astonished faces of my uncle Paco and on the other that of my aunt Carmina,” recalls Carmona, who died on that 31st birthday He was with him in December. First and foremost, he only hopes for one thing: “That people will enjoy something that belongs to everyone: the TVE archive.”
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