We're here to change the future of radio, to make it better, to make it more relevant," said Professor Trish Baldock of the South Mimms-based Institute of Radiophonic Evolution.
"Radio?" replied Shelley, who'd turned up expecting a hairdressing work placement and found this secret BBC department instead. "Who cares about radio?"
I do. You too, if you are reading this. So a programme titled The Future Of Radio (BBC Radio 4, Wednesday, 11pm) is always going to catch the ear.
This one attempted to catch the nose as well, as the opening episode of Stephen Dinsdale and Jerome Vincent's new four-part comedy followed the attempts by Trish, Shelley and boffin-geek Luke to create "olfactory radio".
Luke wanted to use it in an adaptation of Proust's In Search Of Lost Time but the sinister BBC executive who communicated only through phone calls demanded it be used to transmit the smell of incense during Thought For The Day instead.
When the smell of elephant dung was wheeled out in a drama about Hannibal, things took a turn for the disastrous.
The Future Of Radio sits in BBC Radio 4's edgy(-ish) late-night slot, though generally the offerings here are more Johnny Morris than Chris Morris.
This one was no exception - the humour was gentle and offbeat rather than game-changing and audience-baiting. But at 15 minutes in length it was nicely bite-sized.
Following it, and adding up to a late-night double whammy of new programming, was another 15-minuter, Little Lifetimes (BBC Radio 4, Wednesday, 11.15pm).
In the first of six mini-dramas by comedian Jenny Eclair we find a woman - unnamed, but moneyed and "approaching Spanx-wearing age" - en route to Venice with her philandering husband.
She recounts his exploits in a monologue dripping with scorn and emotional distance, and peppered with sharp one-liners. Not for nothing is Eclair a former winner of comedy's Perrier Award.
But there were glimpses of sadness too. The marriage is childless, the woman tells us, and in place of offspring she has "a bespoke, hand-turned shoe rack in polished walnut" and a walk-in wardrobe. Sometimes she sits in it and cries. Well written and beautifully paced, this was all the more enjoyable for being voiced by Mike Leigh favourite, Lesley Manville.
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