BBC Radio comedy

[Jack Remillard]

OK, possibly the wrong section, but radio is like watching TV with yer eyes closed. Please move it if you think it's inappropriate here.

My usual favourites are Just A Minute, The Unbelievable Truth and Old Harry's Game, but I'm enjoying I'm Sorry, I haven't A Clue a lot more recently. Jack Dee really is very funny presenting it.

I enjoyed the second series of Two Episodes Of Mash (nice and surreal). I'd really like to listen to the first series, but it hasn't been released on CD, so I'm hoping it gets repeated at some point.

 

[Tonyblack]

No, this is the perfect section to post this on.

 

[Jack Remillard]

Just listening to the third episode of the second series of Warhorses Of Letters, starring Stephen Fry and Daniel Rigby about the long distance romantic correspondence of two star-crossed lovers - Napoleon and the Duke Of Wellington's warhorses.

Very funny. Much of last week's episode involved discussing their wedding plans and an argument about which one of them was the bride.

 

[Quatermass]

I have to confess, the only BBC radio comedy I have ever listened to was The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. :think:

 

[Tonyblack]

The adaptations of Terry's books have been really good. I don't understand why the Beeb doesn't do them on CD.

 

[Quatermass]

I can think of two reasons, offhand: rights issues, and demand. :think:

 

[Jack Remillard]

I have to confess, the only BBC radio comedy I have ever listened to was The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. :think:

Well, that's a good example of it.

Did you listen to the adaptation of the last three books by Dirk Maggs (starring the original main cast)?

He also did radio adaptations of the two completed Dirk Gently books, which seemed to be beginning to tie into The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, bringing in the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation and a curious cameo by somebody who sounded suspiciously like

Spoiler

Marvin!

Maggs was going to adapt the unfinished Dirk Gently book, but that fell through for some reason. I was really interested in where he was going with linking the Dirk Gently reality with Hitchhiker's Guide. Oh well.

The Dirk Gently radio adaptations were OK, though I would have cast somebody other than Harry Enfield as Dirk, and also have cast Richard MacDuff very differently. I thought Enfield was OK as Dirk though.

 

[Tonyblack]

If you ever get the chance to listen to the BBC radio adaptation of Lord of the Rings, you are in for a real treat.

 

[Quatermass]

I have to confess, the only BBC radio comedy I have ever listened to was The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. :think:

Well, that's a good example of it.

Did you listen to the adaptation of the last three books by Dirk Maggs (starring the original main cast)?

(The main cast where possible...)...but yes. I did. I thought the ending, despite the deus ex machina nature, to be better than that done in And Another Thing..., though I still liked And Another Thing....

If you ever get the chance to listen to the BBC radio adaptation of Lord of the Rings, you are in for a real treat.

I think my library only has the adaptation of The Fellowship of the Ring, the first part of the adaptation I think. This is the one with Ian Holm as Frodo, right? :think:

 

[Tonyblack]

Yes, that's the one. It was originally done in 26 half-hour programmes. Apparently it was rereleased after Peter Jackson's version in three boxes sets. Details here.

 

[Bouncy Castle]

Many, many years ago, I listened to Hitchhikers with the boyfriend, as he had a friend who had a friend who was a sound engineer at the BBC.

The then boyfriend had the most amazing sound set-up, and you could hear the characters sliding on ice, from one side of the room to another.

Since him, I had never listened to a radio "anything" until I bought Robert Rankin's Brightonomicon.

Love the radio/listening thing, just don't have the space to put all the stuff I'd love.

Was down in Dorset with the Mother this weekend, and was clicking around the Freeview stuff. Suddenly had a thought..

Can I record "I'm Sorry, I Haven't A Clue" on the TV recordy thingy?

We had to go out to lunch, and I never found out if I could.

 

[Jack Remillard]

According to this article, most Freeview PVRs will let you record radio.

http://www.which.co.uk/technology/tv-an ... pvrs-have/

I hardly ever listen to the radio live. I almost always listen to things later on BBC iPlayer. Although today's I'm Sorry, I Haven't A Clue is late.

 

[Jack Remillard]

I have to confess, the only BBC radio comedy I have ever listened to was The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy. :think:

Well, that's a good example of it.

Did you listen to the adaptation of the last three books by Dirk Maggs (starring the original main cast)?

(The main cast where possible...)...but yes. I did. I thought the ending, despite the deus ex machina nature, to be better than that done in And Another Thing..., though I still liked And Another Thing....

I thought it was a really nice ending. I thought the radio series managed to turn what I thought was really quite a bleak story into something a lot more fun.

But still, I found it quite funny when And Another Thing... made fun of the radio series ending. And I do like how thanks to that book, the characters are still out there having adventures and having the usual horribly unfair things happen to them.

 

[Jack Remillard]

Currently enjoying the latest series of The Unbelievable Truth (presented by David Mitchell) and I've just discovered Cabin Pressure (which is in its 4th series) with Benedict Cumberbatch, Stephanie Cole and thingie from The Thick Of It. Roger Allam. Not Peter Capaldi (who is usually 'thingie from The Thick Of It' in descriptions).

This week, Benedict Cumberbatch's character insisted on x-raying a load of geese for various reasons.

Here be quotes -

"Lady and gentlemen. Welcome aboard this MJN flight from Cork to Kilkenny. That means a distance of about 70 miles, which means we have a flight time roughly equivalent to that of a gently lobbed Frisbee."

"Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention please. This is the airport speaking. Listen to the airport. Flight 2020202 is now boarding at gate... 8.... It isn't late... It will not wait. If you want to be on that aeroplane, it's time to get on the aeroplane now. If you have young children... put them on the aeroplane. If you have any hand luggage, put it on the aeroplane. If you have any bombs... they are not allowed on the aeroplane. Please put them... in the bin. OK, bye. Love from the airport."

 

[Jack Remillard]

Another really funny episode of Cabin Pressure this week (currently available on BBC iPlayer). Benedict Cumberbatch is playing a very different role here to Sherlock Holmes. Or indeed Smaug, I assume...

But yes, possibly my favourite bit was an air traffic controller being very sarcastic to them because they to fly round and round an airport to burn off fuel because they had accidentally loaded too much to land safely.

Cabin Pressure is about a charter airline set up by a divorcee (Stephanie Cole) who received a jet as part of her divorce settlement. The airline is called MJN Air ('My Jet Now').

 

[SimonAtford]

Yes, that's the one. It was originally done in 26 half-hour programmes. Apparently it was rereleased after Peter Jackson's version in three boxes sets. Details here.

I've got it on cassette in the 13 hour long episodes version. Dug it out of the loft along with the 1960s version of the Hobbit.


Anyway back to comedy...

Another really funny episode of Cabin Pressure this week (currently available on BBC iPlayer). Benedict Cumberbatch is playing a very different role here to Sherlock Holmes. Or indeed Smaug, I assume...

The main difference is that Smaug doesn't need a plane to fly

 

[Irony]

Cabin Pressure is absolutely hilarious. The word games that the characters of Benedict Cumberbatch and Roger Allam play usually have me in stitches. The game the whole crew played in Xianzhou, the episode from the last, 4th, season, made me weep from laughter.

 

[DreadfulKata]

Cabin Pressure is fantastic, way beyond the standard of most Radio 4 comedy. My other favourite is, of course, Bleak Expectations. I'm sure I can't be the only fan of that here, right?

Other (relatively) recent favourites for me were Listen Against and Bigipedia. Both have an utterly odd and silly sense of humour and a fine line in stupid puns. No one I know has ever heard of Bigipedia, but it had two series, is available as an audiobook and is just about the funniest thing to have come out of R4 since Hitchhikers' Guide if you ask me.

It starts out as a spoof of Wikipedia, but its remit gets much wider. In format its basically a sketch show, but the device of the wikiwalk means there's a stream-of-consciousness logic to how the sketches relate to each other and the sketches soon build up into a very strange world picture.

I quote from it constantly, though mostly to myself since no one else would get the reference. 'Thanks you the new government!' I find very useful, as well as 'suck on my man-teats'.

 

[Jack Remillard]

It's never really grabbed me before, but I listened to an episode of ElvenQuest (starring Stephen Mangan), and I thought it was good fun. It was a 'The Great Escape' themed episode. They got stuck in a troll prison camp called Trollditz. The Troll language sounded suspiciously German, and a posh elf escaped on a glider.

 

[The Mad Collector]

Elvenquest is really good and really silly at the same time. I love it