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Stephen Fry Comedy Controller on Radio 4 Extra

2014-12-05T10:58:12+00:00

Editor's note: Actor, writer, wit and naughty national treasure Stephen Fry chooses his favourite comedies from the BBC radio archive as Comedy Controller on Radio 4 Extra. Here, programme producer Peter McHugh talks about making the programme.

When you make a programme it’s always good to get as much publicity as possible. To get the message out to as many listeners as you can, that something good is going to happen. It can be tricky, in big media organisations, to negotiate the ever choppy waters of ‘publicity priorities ’. So when I arrived at 4 Extra one morning I was surprised when a colleague asked me if I’d seen BBC Breakfast? Just what have you been up to? they wondered. I was suddenly drawn with the same fascination some people describe when they look over a cliff edge…

It turned out that Stephen Fry been on the famous red sofa that morning. That the interview had become a bit of a news story, creating its own social media tide. And that I was somehow - however unwittingly - involved. Stephen had revealed he’d been to BBC Broadcasting House in London that weekend, to curate some of his favourite radio comedy programmes for Radio 4 Extra. And after having a lovely time, he’d headed back home.

Once there he decided to take a nap. A nap that turned into a slumber, which then caused him to sleep right through tea – not just any tea mind, but Tea With Al Pacino. I’ve deployed capitals because it could make a lovely title for a short story.

PA’s, celebrity minders, all and sundry were put into full scale panic mode after the missing ‘national treasure’ - (or should that be ‘naughty national treasure’ given Stephen’s candour in the latest volume of his autobiography) left the Oscar winning actor twiddling his thumbs - but I like to think he was slowly stirring his tea, with true Godfather method menace - that afternoon.

I’m pretty certain that we hadn’t worn him out that much as he departed our studio, before snoozing got the better of him. But one thing I am sure of is that Stephen Fry loves, no, Stephen Fry adores radio. In this Saturday’s Comedy Controller he explains that radio comedy is, “part of the way I speak, part of the way I think, part of the way I react…a full part of my writing and comedy style owes everything to listening to the tones of funny people”.

Twice before I’ve spoken with him for 4 Extra about matters radio. In 2012 he joined in our 45th Anniversary celebration of all things Just A Minute.

And last Christmas he took part in our Christmas Day radio tribute to Richard Briers. As a fellow ‘Wodetonian’, he picked one of Richard’s classic BBC radio performances as Bertie Wooster in PG Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Wooster

When we suggested that he choose six of his favourite radio comedies he responded instantly – that however stuffed his diary was (and I can assure you it is) – he would love to be a 4 Extra Comedy Controller. Stephen’s choices take in: childhood memories at home (The Men From The Ministry, 1972); a treasured friendship with the writer Douglas Adams (The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, 1978); the chance to be on the radio himself in Saturday Night Fry (1988); moving onwards to the acute media satire of On the Hour (1992); it acknowledges great radio comedy institutions in the shape of I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue (2003), that Stephen says, really could “only be British”; and arrives at the playful radio mischief and misdirection of Down The Line (2007).

Whatever the choice, they all confirm Stephen’s abiding thought during his Comedy Controllership on 4 Extra: ‘though radio may be a poor relation of television insofar as monetary considerations go….it is a rich one where it matters in terms of depth and intimacy”. In comparison with television, “radio is so much more”.

Peter McHugh produces Comedy Controller: Stephen Fry

Listen to Comedy Controller: Stephen Fry

(0900 and 1900 Saturday 6 December 2014 and on BBC iPlayer for 30 days after TX)

Feedback: Radio Comedy and 30 day iPlayer

2014-10-10T06:37:26+00:00

Editor's Note: You can listen to Feedback online or download it here.

This blog is usually concerned with concerns or controversy about BBC radio, so I thought I’d start this week with some praise, for the often maligned Radio 4 comedy output, well, for some of it.

I was just about to switch the radio off at 11pm on Monday night, and settle down to sleep after a particularly grey and gloomy day, when Fresh From The Fringe came on. It showcased new comedy talent from the 2014 Edinburgh Fringe, was hosted by Jason Cook, and featured award winners Alex Edelman and Funz and Gamz. There were a few misses but it was mostly comprised of palpable hits and my wife and I laughed out loud – together. A rare occurrence.

At 6.30pm the following day, driving back from work ,I heard the last edition of the comedy sketch show Lewis Macleod Is Not Himself, starring Lewis MacLeod, Kate O’Sullivan, Duncan Wiseby and Julian Dutton Like the Fringe show it was produced by Lyndsey Fenner, and it was hilarious, full of brilliant impersonations and surreal story lines.

Next morning, when I was supposed to be working on a book, I turned on the last edition of Wordaholics. The panel show had a great cast, including Ed Byrne and Milton Jones, but the undoubted star is Gyles Brandreth.

There was a time when I could not stand him or the absurd pullovers he then wore, but then I read his brilliant diaries and watched his one man show at Edinburgh and fell for his frequently dangerous wit and intelligence. Yes he can come across as immensely self -satisfied, but he has a wonderful line in self-deprecation and mock outrage, knows everybody and is so well-read. So what if he revels in the spotlight? He clearly wants to be elevated to the House of Lords. I hope for its members’ sake, he is. The gossip would be premier cru.

All those shows have now finished their runs, but you now have a month to catch up on them via the BBC Radio Radio iPlayer, and see if you agree with me.

They will still be funny in 20 odd days’ time, which I’m not sure you can always say about Feedback.

We strive to be topical and this week, while welcoming the extension of iPlayer catch up from seven to thirty days, we also looked at some of the teething troubles with Andrew Scott, who is in charge of iPlayer development for BBC Radio.

Also this week we followed Jarvis Cocker as he collaborated for his Radio 4 series Wireless Nights. Is Radio 4 becoming a speech and music station? And more listeners have contacted us about the planners’ decision to cut You and Yours by a quarter to make way for other series. Our correspondents are not impressed, to put it mildly.

So why not go to iPlayer and listen to the whole show? And please let us know what you would like to hear in Feedback. It is your programme.

Roger Bolton

Roger Bolton presents Feedback on Radio 4

Listen to this week's Feedback

The Cold Swedish Winter: Six Ways To Become a Swede

2014-08-08T13:47:39+00:00

Editor's note: You can hear The Cold Swedish Winter on Radio 4 on Monday 11 August at 1130am. Here, the author Danny Robins talks about how he came to write the series and his tips on Six Ways To Become a Swede. The programme will be available on demand for 7 days after transmission. Read about how Danny Robins chose the music to accompany the series.

When I stood on stage performing comedy to a tiny audience in a North London pub back in 2005, little did I know that I was about to go on a journey that would take me to the frozen expanses of the North, the land of the Vikings, Abba and Volvo, a place where pickled herring is considered a delicacy and IKEA is not an offensive four letter word. As I stared out into my audience though that fateful night, I met the startling blue eyes of an attractive blonde girl and experienced what the Swedes would call “love at first eye throwing”.

Eva and I are now happily married – we even have a Swinglish child – and in the nine years we’ve been together I have become fascinated with her homeland, learning the language, embracing their occasionally strange customs and even developing a taste for herring.

I’ve made several documentaries about Sweden, but I’d always wanted to write a sitcom set there. My idea was that it would be ‘A Year in Provence’ with added snow and jokes. I drew on my own experiences to create the character of Geoff, an English stand up comedian who reluctantly relocates to Sweden when his pregnant girlfriend Linda decides she wants to move home to have the baby, and finds himself a fish out of icy water. I’ve never actually lived in Sweden but I’ve spent a lot of time there and many of the culture shocks Geoff goes through are things I’ve experienced. There are many semi-autobiographical moments in the series. Eva comes from a town called Eksjö, just as unpronounceable as the fictional Yxsjö (it basically sound like a sneeze). Her Dad was mayor, just like Geoff’s father in law, though he is much less intimidating and doesn’t own a gun or know how to skin a moose. Her mum is an avid folk dancer like Linda’s mum Gunilla and I did do a stand up comedy tour of Sweden, which gave me plenty of material when writing Geoff’s own attempts to make the Swedes laugh.

The Cold Swedish Winter is first and foremost a love letter to Sweden, but the sort of love letter a comedian would write, where you don’t actually say ‘I love you’, you just joke and tease and mock the object of your affection, but you both know really, deep down, how you feel.

Six Ways to Become a Swede

Has The Cold Swedish Winter made you want to follow in Geoff’s footsteps and move to Sweden? Well here are six suggestions to help you fit in. The Swedish word for six incidentally is ‘sex’, something which, even after nine years, still makes me laugh.

1. Don’t talk to strangers.

Swedes are famously shy. Their naturally reserved nature and inability to make small talk can often make them come across as rude. The stereotype is that the further North you go, the less people say, so that right up by the Arctic Circle, locals have managed to reduce all conversation to a single intake of breath.

2. Learn how to be ‘Lagom’.

‘Lagom’ is a uniquely Swedish word. It doesn’t have any literal translation in English but basically means ‘not too much, not too little”, sufficient, average. That doesn’t do it justice though, as this single word encapsulates the whole Swedish socially democratic outlook on life: everyone should have enough for their needs but nothing nicer or more expensive than anyone else. Lagom is the middle of the road; as Ian explains to Geoff in The Cold Swedish Winter, “if it was a colour it would be beige, if it was a person it would be Alan Titchmarsh”.

3. Worship the Sun

It’s cold a lot of the time in Sweden. If you live up North, there’s a good chance you’ll have snow from October till May, so when summer comes the Swedes really try and enjoy it. Basically, they go nuts, transforming from quiet, slightly melancholic people into whooping party animals The official beginning of Summer is Midsommarafton (Midsummer Eve) where Swedes dance around a phallic maypole, sing songs about being small frogs, then get very drunk, take their clothes off and jump in a lake.

4. Plan your alcohol buying

For some reason Swedes have decided that it is socially dangerous to be able to buy alcohol in a normal supermarket, so they have stockpiled it all in one place called Systembolaget, a state-owned chain of off licences with restrictive opening hours, lots of posters warning you of the dangers of drinking and no fridges, because, of course, if the booze was chilled you might actually want to drink it. They close at 2pm on a Saturday, so you really need to plan buying that bottle of wine for your mate’s party.

5. Spot a moose

Moose are one of the national symbols of Sweden and, like the Swedes themselves, they are shy, so you’re unlikely to spot one roaming about in the open. Wander into a forest at dawn or dusk though and you could just be lucky enough to meet one. Moose are responsible for a lot of road accidents ever year in Sweden – I don’t know why they let them drive (boom tish, I thank you). Seriously though, if one of these giant beasts with their enormous antlers runs in front of a car, the car will come off worst.

6. Become ‘bra’ at Swedish.

So here we are at number sex and I hope you’ve thought this list was ‘bra’ which means ‘good’ in Swedish. When my American friend Kurt was asked by a Swede why, after ten years of living there, he wasn’t speaking Swedish, his answer was simple – “why aren’t you speaking Swedish?” That’s the main problem with learning the language, the Swedes are so damn perfect at English it feels like you don’t need to. As with anywhere though, you can never truly understand a nation till you know the lingo. My favourite words are ‘grönsaker’, the word for vegetables, which translates literally as ‘green things’ and the word for spectacles, ‘glasögon’, which means ‘glass eyes’.

Danny Robins is the writer of The Cold Swedish Winter

Listen to the programme

See a gallery of the cast of The Cold Swedish Winter

Watch video clips from the series

Feedback: Bad Salsa

2014-07-11T10:21:43+00:00

Editors note: You can listen to Feedback online or download it here

Are there some things one should not make jokes about? Cancer for example?Radio 4 does not seem to think so.

This week on Feedback we discussed a new comedy series called Bad Salsa which follows some “women as they embrace the world of salsa whilst they adjust to life after cancer”.

It took me back to the early 1960s when I first heard Tom Lehrer performing his satirical songs. I remember the delight and shock that I felt, particularly when he sang “The Vatican Rag” –

“First you get down on your knees, fiddle with your rosaries,

bow your head with great respect and genuflect, genuflect, genuflect”.

But then I was a protestant.However, another Lehrer song made me a little uncomfortable, particularly one verse which goes like this:-

“All the Catholics hate the Protestants,

And the Protestants hate the Catholics,

All the Hindus hate all the Moslems,

And everyone hates the Jews”.

It was the reference to the Jews that bothered me. After all this was less than 20 years after the Holocaust, but I relaxed considerably when I realised that Tom Lehrer himself was a Jew.

Still I have never felt comfortable about jokes about Jews or any minorities. Am I just too PC?

I even felt bad when collapsing with laughter over Michael Palin’s stutter in the film “A Fish Called Wanda”.

Does it all come down to the quality of the joke or to who delivers it, or is a subject like cancer so terrible that no jokes are possible?

I discussed these issues with the writer and the producer of “Bad Salsa”,

Kay Stonham and Alison Vernon-Smith.

Here is our Feedback feature.

Roger Bolton talks about Bad Salsa, a new comedy series on BBC Radio 4

In a couple of weeks I will be going to a recording of Gardeners Question Time and talking to my old colleague from Carlisle Grammar School, Eric Robson, who has a smallholding in the most remote and awe inspiring valley in the Lake District, Wasdale.

If you have any questions you would like me to put to him, do let me know.

Roger Bolton

Roger Bolton is the presenter of Feedback on BBC Radio 4

June Spencer (Peggy Archer) shines at the 2014 BBC Audio Drama Awards

2014-01-27T17:23:02+00:00

This weekend saw the 60th anniversary of the first broadcast of Under Milk Wood by Dylan Thomas, one of the two most famous radio plays ever written (the other being Orson Welles’s War of the Worlds). It is also the 90^thbirthday year of Radio Drama on the BBC. But those weren't the only anniversaries celebrated at the third BBC Audio Drama Awards.

June Spencer collects the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2014 BBC Audio Drama Awards

This year June Spencer marks an amazing 70 years of acting in radio drama. She first appeared on radio in 1943 and has become known to millions of radio listeners as Peggy Archer, first playing the matriarch of the Ambridge clan in the pilot episodes of The Archers in 1950. June is the first recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Audio Drama Award, presented by Director-General Tony Hall. In her speech June graciously remembered her many colleagues past and present, including Arnold Peters who played her late husband Jack Woolley.

As Head of Audio Drama for the BBC, the awards occupy a corner of my brain all year round, a corner which gets bigger the closer we get to January and then becomes all-consuming. This year I managed to persuade Lenny Henry to be our Master of Ceremonies. Lenny has a long history with the BBC, and more recently with radio drama as writer of the dramas Corrinne Come Back and Gone and Miss You Still. I spend much of January inviting supporters and contributors to be award-givers: most of them are delighted to be asked but they’re also very busy people so I’m delighted when they say yes. This year, they included Fiona Shaw and Stephen Tompkinson (each of whom also judged a category), writers Howard Brenton and Mark Ravenhill and actors Philip Glenister, Alison Steadman and Jessica Raine.

You can read a full list of winners, see photos and hear clips from the ceremony here.

You can also hear a selection of nominees and winners on Radio 4 over the coming weeks:

• Billions (winner of Best Audio Drama – Single) will be repeated on BBC Radio 4 on Tuesday 11th February 2014 at 2.15pm.

• The Sleeper (nominated for Best Audio Drama – Single) will be repeated on BBC Radio 4 on Saturday 8th February 2014 at 2.30pm.

• The Gestapo Minutes (nominated for Best Audio Drama – Single) will be repeated on BBC Radio 4 on Wednesday 12th February 2014 at 2.15pm.

• Sketchorama: Absolutely Special (winner of Best Scripted Comedy with an Audience) will be repeated on BBC Radio 4 on Monday 10th February 2014 at 11pm.

Listen to June Spencer interviewed on Woman's Hour after receiving the award

Read more about June's award at The Archers blog

Feedback: From The Edinburgh Festival 2013

2013-08-23T14:56:52+00:00

Editor's Note: Roger Bolton discusses this week's Feedback, a special programme from the Edinburgh Festival.

Feedback is available to listen to online or to download and keep

Roger Bolton - presenter of Feedback

In my imagination Edinburgh is always a cold city.

I first came here with my Cumbrian church youth club on Boxing days, when all the shops in England were closed but those in Scotland open. We toiled up the Scott Monument and the Castle Mound, before, almost frostbitten, we returned to the fug of our bus and the romantic ride back home.

Later, when I was a television programme editor and executive, Edinburgh meant the TV Festival, an almost hermetically sealed event where we argued and fought over issues such as the coverage of the Troubles, and dreamed of a far off world where there were more than four TV channels.

The Edinburgh Festival itself largely passed me by until, in the early 80s, I saw Brian Glover in a wonderful National Theatre production of the York Mystery Plays. Glover was a totally convincing God looking down on his sheep from a fork lift truck.

I knew about the Edinburgh Fringe of course, having just about worn out my record of Beyond the Fringe, featuring Peter Cook, Dudley Moore, Alan Bennett and Jonathan Miller, but hardly went to any shows.

This year is different.

BBC radio is here at the Fringe in force, transmitting more than 100 broadcasts over 24 days, for virtually all its networks, and producing shows solely for Edinburgh audiences.

Simon Mayo and Richard Bacon, among others, have done their broadcast shows from here and the News Quiz and the Unbelievable Truth, among other Radio 4 programmes, have recorded editions here.

Why? The answer is the amazing amount of performing and writing talent which descends on this city in august and has plenty of time between shows to appear on the BBC.

Feedback is here because the Fringe is a mecca for comedy, a subject which splits the audience like no other. A good example is Count Arthur Strong, inexplicable to some, hysterical to others.

We recorded this week's programme a couple of hours before its first transmission in front of an audience of around 300 in the Blue tent next to the University, and also using questions from the audience at home.

I hope you like it and laugh at the jokes, most of which were intentional.

Roger Bolton

PS This is the last Feedback of the present run. We return in the autumn, so do tell us what we ought to be covering. You set the agenda, not the BBC.

Listen to Feedback

Download the Feedback podcast

The BBC is not responsible for content from external websites

Editing The Now Show

2013-06-03T13:10:40+00:00

Editor's note: You can hear The Now Show from 6.30pm on Friday. It is also available as a podcast.

Colin Anderson goes through the process of producing the Now Show.

The BBC College of Production recently made a film about the role of producer on The Now Show. Unfortunately the least telegenic bit of the job – where I sit with an engineer in an edit studio all day – was also the part Hugh Dennis thought most important. So here’s a bit more about editing The Now Show.

The show records in the BBC’s Radio Theatre on Thursday nights between 8pm and whenever it’s done - you can apply to be in the audience through the BBC Tickets site. I usually come away with about an hour of show and the team retire to a nearby pub at the end of a long week’s satire.

Cut to 9am Friday morning. Today’s job is to digitally assemble the programme, edit in retakes, add extra music and sound effects and cut last night’s recording down to 28 minutes for broadcast at 18.30. Between the Friday night, the Saturday repeat, iPlayer and podcast, nearly 3 million people will listen to this week’s show, so no pressure.

Audience comedies like The Now Show have the advantage of being punctuated by laughter and generally you can edit “to the laughs”. I mark laughter and applause on my script while we’re recording, so can look down a page and see how it flew with the audience. If it got a laugh it stays, if it didn’t it goes - I understand this approach is common amongst comedy producers, with only a few real mavericks daring to do the opposite.

A listen through the edit involves cutting wherever possible, lulls, lines where the audience already got the joke, small tightens of pauses and often removing applause breaks. Why waste valuable seconds of the show on too much clapping?

There’s no such thing as “canned laughter”. It’s possible to take better laughs from elsewhere in the same recording to make a joke sound like it got a warmer reception, but if the three hundred Now Show fans in our studio audience didn’t find the joke funny then I’d be inclined to cut it.

If I really believe in a particular joke and think the studio audience are just plain wrong then I prefer not to add fake laughs on the rationale that I quite enjoy being the only person in a comedy club who gets a joke. But if everyone’s laughing uproariously and I don’t get it I’ll feel alienated and if it’s on the radio I’ll probably switch over.

Gags which may be considered in poor taste have to pass a higher comedic threshold to justify the potential offence to listeners. If you’re funny enough the Radio 4 audience seem happy to go along with you. If you’re not as clever as you think you are, you’re about to make a dirty joke at a stranger’s dinner table, quite probably in front of their kids.

The edit’s our last chance to get editorial issues right before broadcast and yet another opportunity to get them wrong. A carefully worded monologue may not feel as balanced when the caveats are cut for not being funny enough. It’s a final chance to fact-check and run additional legal and editorial referrals - all things more usefully done before the recording, but often a news story changes or a gag’s added to the script at the last minute.

By mid-afternoon we’ve usually managed to pare the show down to about the right time. Our edit system means we then have to record it into a single audio file by doing a real-time playback, on which the show’s executive producer sits in, so they can give any final notes and sign the programme off as fit for broadcast.

I sit making my own final notes of any expletives, brand names or other issues that will need detailing on the compliance form. Listening on headphones because the show’s success as a podcast means that over 400,000 people will be potentially doing the same, so a duff edit’s going to get noticed.

The day ends with me uploading the finished show to Radio 4’s computer system, checking it’s been received and scheduled, and heading for the train home, where I can watch Twitter’s live review of my week’s work: #BBCNowShow

Radio 4 - The Now Show

College of Production feature on making The Now Show

College of Production feature on Colin Anderson, The Now Show's producer

Radio 4 - Comedy

Machynlleth Comedy Festival

2013-05-01T09:30:37+00:00

The BBC Radio Wales Machynlleth Comedy Festival Showcase will be broadcast on Radio Wales at 9.30pm on Saturday 4 May, and Radio 4 Extra's Comedy Club at Machynlleth on 4 Extra starting on Friday 3 May.

Machynlleth's Hollywood-style sign

A year ago Radio 4 Extra's Comedy Club went to the Machynlleth Comedy Festival, a small festival with a stellar line up on the outskirts of Snowdonia National Park. We were promised something out of the ordinary and we weren't disappointed. A weekend of experimental and intimate comedy performed in spaces where you'd least expect it.

Machynlleth

Arthur Smith was smitten. We all were. The locals welcomed us with open arms, the scenery was lush and there was a sense of fun and mischief that is perhaps lacking across the increasingly corporate comedy festivals of other towns and cities.

Arthur Smith

The Comedy Club at the West Coast tent

Technically it was challenging; Driving down the A458 has a touch of the WRC about it and the Wi-Fi in our hotel was intermittent at best, meaning we were delivering our interviews dangerously close to the transmission time (in 4 Extra terms at least...). But as soon as we left we knew we wanted to go back this year.

Unfortunately, since last year's festival Machynlleth has been in the news for different reasons and when it came to light that the court case would be starting this week, we questioned if it would be appropriate for us to cover a Comedy festival in Machynlleth at this time. However, Henry Widdicombe, the organiser of the festival, has worked closely with representatives from the community over the last 6 months...

"We wanted to ensure that the town wanted the comedy festival to take place in the town this year, and the continued support we've felt locally for the event has been overwhelming. The town of Machynlleth is such a special place and we feel extremely proud to be part of that wonderful community and that they've taken the festival to their hearts. The town is proud to host the comedy festival, and that is something that is extremely important to us."

We also discussed the issue with our colleagues at Radio Wales who we worked with last year and we both came to the same conclusion; If the town want the festival to happen, we want to be there to support it.

The question then became 'how are we going to top last year's life drawing class and boat trip?'

Life Drawing Class:

Arthur Smith and Tom Parry (Pappy's Fun Club) at Machynlleth's comedy life-drawing class

Boat Trip:

Arthur Smith hosts a comedy gig in a shed on a beach at Machynlleth Comedy Festival.

We've been promised some intimate comedy gigs in sheds, an event in a sweet shop and a trip on a steam train. We'll also be recording a special Comedy Club for Saturday night, presented by Isy Suttie, in front of an audience at Machynlleth Bowling Club. The same venue will also play host to a stand-up show featuring Pappy's and Lloyd Langford amongst others. There'll be two versions of the programme, one on Radio Wales at 9.30pm on Saturday and one on 4 Extra on Monday just after 11pm.

I hope that over the course of the weekend we'll be able to convey the warmth of the people in the town and the infectious sense of fun that the festival delivers. Just as long as the hotel Wi-Fi holds up...

Radio 4's Comedy Selection

More from 4 Extra's Comedy Club

James Acaster's Findings: the Bread Restaurant

2013-03-25T16:55:04+00:00

Comedian James Acaster goes in-depth into the subject of bread in the brand new comedy show James Acaster's Findings which you can hear on Radio 4 from 23:00 on Tuesday 26 March. Here, he discusses a new concept for eating out, inspired by the complimentary bread basket found in most restaurants.

Many people mistrust bread due to its role (no pun intended) in restaurants; being sent out first in a basket before the 'proper food' arrives, then being eaten by everyone and usually filling people up so that they have no room for the meal they've actually paid for.

Nathaniel (left) and James testing out bread

I personally don't see why this is seen as being such a bad thing. As a bread fan I think filling up on bread is a fantastic way to spend an evening. In fact, it's this whole debate that gave me the idea for the 'Bread Restaurant'.

It's exactly what you think it is: nothing but baskets of bread, one after the other, while you chat to your friends. That way once you've filled up on bread you won't mind because all you could've eaten anyway was more bread. Plus you get that great pre-meal feeling all night long; all the anticipation without any of the disappointment.

I would also like to open a 'Poppadom Restaurant' for the exact same reasons.

I've done some basic market research and there is one major stumbling block with the 'Bread Restaurant', and that's that most people expect the pre meal bread to be free - if all I serve is pre-meal bread then I'm looking at losing a lot of money. I will of course charge for the drinks but it turns out that all I've done there is open a pub that weirdly provides free bread to customers, which may not be as popular an idea.

As my assistant Nathaniel [Metcalfe] put it, "No one ever gets sloshed in a bakery."

That said, I still think the 'Bread Restaurant' will be a success. And the 'Poppadom Restaurant'. And my idea for a third restaurant focussing on the end of the meal as oppose to the beginning - that's right, a restaurant that only sells coffee; a 'Coffee Restaurant'. Although, Nathaniel thinks something similar may already exist.

For more bread-based musings on brioche, bagels and anti-bread propaganda, listen to James Acaster's Findings

Visit James Acaster's website

See the tempting bread gallery

I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again, Again: A Legacy of Laughs?

2013-03-06T17:06:54+00:00

Editor's Note: Nick St George is the producer of I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again, Again. Individual episodes of I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again are also being broadcast on 4 Extra on Wednesdays at 8.30am, 12.30pm and 7.30pm

I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again

It's a good game to play in an idle moment: who or what influenced who (or what) in the history of radio comedy. For some time after cinema had signalled its demise in the theatres, Variety still wielded power on the wireless. Why, even the ground-breaking Goons retained its "straight" musical interludes as provided by Ray Ellington and Max Geldray, while in the next decade so did Beyond Our Ken and Round The Horne (The Frazer Hayes Four et al). But I'm Sorry, I'll Read That Again stamped all over that tradition by ensuring that the comedy didn't stop when the music started with Bill Oddie's string of send-up songs.

Script for the radio version of ‘Cambridge Circus’, the 1963 Footlights review that spawned ISIRTA

ISIRTA's regular line-up comprised David Hatch, Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graeme Garden, John Cleese, Jo Kendall and Oddie. Cleese ended up in Monty Python's Flying Circus and then Hollywood, while Garden, Oddie and Brooke-Taylor went on to enjoy TV fame as The Goodies. The late David Hatch became a big noise at the BBC, while Jo Kendall appeared in The Burkiss Way on the wireless and Emmerdale on the telly. But it is the Python/Goodies axis that interests us here. Apart from the individuals involved, is there any thread that binds the pun-and-parody-packed ISIRTA to its famous TV descendants?

Ticket to a recording of 'I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again'

The show's first producer, Humphrey Barclay, believes there is. He says that the "anarchic freedom" that the cast of ISIRTA enjoyed gave them a confidence in writing and performing that led to both Python and The Goodies. While Bill Oddie argues that both TV shows were so different to "I'm Sorry" that they were, in fact, reactions against it: "it was time to move on".

I wonder if the now little-known At Last, The 1948 Show is actually ISIRTA's long-lost love child. Broadcast only on regional ITV in 1967/8, this sketch show featured among its regular cast and writers Cleese, Brooke-Taylor and the late Graham Chapman (who was in the 1963 Cambridge Footlights revue that spawned ISIRTA). Oddie and Kendall also made guest appearances. Both in personnel and style, it owes something to "I'm Sorry", not least in that the sketches often come across as 'radio-with-pictures'.

Humphrey Barclay reflects on following in Peter Cook's footsteps. Plus, an ISIRTA Macbeth parody.

But does any of this really matter? The bottom line surely is whether or not comedy of a certain age still makes us laugh. You can make up your own mind at 9am (repeated 7pm) on Saturday the 9th March 2013 when Bill Oddie presents I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again, Again on BBC Radio 4 Extra.

Listen to I'm Sorry I'll Read That Again, Again

Discover more comedy on 4 Extra

Alex Horne Presents The Horne Section: Made in a Hovel

2013-02-24T11:28:38+00:00

Editor's note: Alex Horne Presents The Horne Section returns for its second series at 19:15 on Sunday 24th February with special guest star Danny Baker. Here, comic and band leader Alex Horne explains how the six-part musical spectacular was written by the group.

Almost all of this series was written in a hovel near Milton Keynes. In fact, it was written in the Hovel near Milton Keynes; a barn on a farm in Wing that Ben, the practical drummer, had rented for the first week of 2013.

We all arrived with assorted Christmas presents, hangovers and a handful of ideas in the wild hope that these would somehow transform into a full-blown six-part music and comedy radio show.

Thankfully there are six of us, and a problem sixthed is a much less of a problem. If someone had come up with a chorus for a song, someone else was usually able to provide the verse; Ed and Ben volunteered to take on the jingles and Joe and Will bashed their heads together until they’d made a couple of surprisingly tender duets. Meanwhile Mark had come up with a cracking song called Shampoo Promises so I got online to discover just what shampoo bottles do promise these days. We made progress in the hovel.

Like some sort of senior detective, I’d set up a post-it note material system on one of the walls of the kitchen. This is still my greatest achievement of the year, possibly my life.

Alex Horne's 'achievement of the year'

Employing a system using both colour and shape of notes, and with fairly solid ideas for episode themes already sorted, we gradually filled each of the six shows with items we thought could possibly maybe work. We recorded half finished versions of tunes on our mobile phones and ate whatever food the surprisingly capable drummer cooked us. We were happy hamsters in our hovel.

Some ideas were bigger than simple singing. In the first episode, themed around Games, we definitely needed a running machine. I texted our producer Julia to warn her - she did not say no. In another show we absolutely had to have 300 carrots. Again, she didn’t seem completely opposed to the idea. A third idea necessitated a choir of eleven children… we decided not to mention that until nearer the time.

We also needed special guests, people we wanted to come and have fun with a live band, so we put together a list of talented, funny folk that we’d hero-worshipped from afar for years. Danny Baker was number one on my list, partly because I knew he loved his music, but mainly because I’d been given his autobiography for Christmas and was desperate to meet him. Matt Lucas and Phill Jupitus were also people we knew would get the show right away and would hopefully do things they don’t usually do in our unlikely set up. Then there were guys like Doc Brown, Nick Mohammed and Charlie Baker who we all knew and whom we were desperate to work with on the actual radio.

Incredibly - and I’m still surprised this has really now happened - they all said yes. Brilliant; five minutes less to write per episode.

For these spots, we asked the guests what they wanted to do first, then did our best to make that happen. And so we’ve got Danny and Phill banging out what have now become our favourite songs, Matt singing some classic George Dawes numbers for the very first time outside of Shooting Stars, a couple of raps from Doc, crooning from Charlie, and some desperately melancholic violin playing from Nick.

Danny Baker joins The Horne Section to perform the classic Tommy Steele number.

Just six weeks after we met in the Hovel and our thoughts, scribbles and pleas have somehow become six half hour episodes that we’re all incredibly proud of. Many thanks go to our brilliant collaborators, producer and sound crew, but mainly, I think, to what was quite clearly a magic Hovel.

Find out more about the new series of Alex Horne Presents The Horne Section here.

Saturday Live: Richard Curtis and Inheritance Tracks from Ben Elton

2013-02-01T11:34:06+00:00

Click here to listen to Saturday Live featuring Richard Curtis, Murray Lachlan Young and Annie Hutchinson, plus Ben Elton's Inheritance Tracks from 2 February

Providing this week's Inheritance Tracks: Ben Elton

It’s panto time again and all week I have been down at the Star Hall, our Temperance Theatre here in Finedon, essaying the role of the Phantom in Snow White.

Our panto, which has been going since the thirties, is probably most people’s favourite event in the parish calendar and draws together the whole community, on stage or in the auditorium, like nothing else.

My churchwarden Neil is Dame again this year, a performance audible from the surgery on the corner, and there’s something about seeing the butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker all done up in silly costumes singing Bring Me Sunshine that profoundly cheering.

Richard Coles as the Phantom in Snow White

The Vicar’s humiliation is another of the panto’s attractions, and my costume this year, a purple morph suit decorated with fluorescent decals, has been particularly enjoyed. Not perhaps by the youngest members of the audience, for when I appear in ultra violet light I glow so menacingly I expect we’ll be having to provide counselling for the Beavers and Rainbows for many months to come.

This year, also, a star is born. One of the youngest members of the children’s chorus is Jamie, aged seven, and we have discovered that he has the most remarkable stage presence. He is not a particularly gifted singer but sets about his numbers, most memorably ‘Food Glorious Food’, with such gusto and vim everyone is swept away. He also has what I might describe as a loose-limbed dance style, which again completely captivates the audience.

I asked his advice for my own dance routine, which boldly tries to synthesise Michael Jackson’s Thriller with a Gangnam Style gallop round the stage surrounded by glow-in-the-dark musical instruments that mysteriously play themselves. Jamie’s advice was “You’ve just got to not be embarrassed”.

We will be pondering these words in our hearts this week, for we meet not in studio 50C but the Radio Theatre for a livelier than normal Saturday Live in front of an audience.

Among our guests are Richard Curtis, founder of Comic Relief, writer of Mr Bean and Blackadder and Four Weddings and Funeral and director also of Love Actually and loads of other stuff.

He’ll be joined by poet Murray Lachlan Young and Annie Hutchinson who arrived in the UK ten years ago with just £62 to her name and is now turning neglected houses into comfortable homes.

Also with us are Edward Adoo, whose love of London buses led to a career, unusually, as a DJ and John McCarthy who talks to Antarctic explorer Meredith Hooper. Inheritance Tracks come from Ben Elton.

So join Sian and JP and me, live from the Radio Theatre, just after nine.

Listen to this week's Saturday Live

Download a plethora of Inheritance Tracks

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Cue! Eric Sykes

2012-12-18T18:02:26+00:00

Editor's Note: This Christmas Radio 4 and Radio 4 Extra pay tribute to Eric Sykes, one of the great English comedians who died earlier this year. Here, Radio 4 Extra producer Mik Wilkojc talks about working with Eric Sykes and previews some of the coming programmes. PM

I had the pleasure of working with Eric Sykes a couple of times in 2005. Firstly when he took a turn as The Comedy Controller and on a second recording session when he provided some short introductions to some episodes of The Goon Show that he'd written.

On this second occasion, already in his eighties, he was having difficulty negotiating stairs at Broadcasting House and, although walking, when he reached the studio area he took the open wheelchair lift to travel just a short distance between mezzanine floors. During the stately, ten-second descent he held onto the rail like he was aboard a ship, looking out to sea. As the gate clanked open he said, “Like a millpond out there today.”

And that short interlude sums up Eric Sykes for me: a man who existed as much in his own wonderful imagination as in the real world.

As we settled down to work, Eric’s limited sight and hearing meant that writing a script for him was out of the question, so we sat and talked, individually, about the episodes in question.

Now, I’ll confess that later when Eric had gone and I listened back to the tapes and heard the results, they seemed a little disjointed. However, when I listened again to Eric’s recording with the Goons playing in the background, it suddenly, magically all became cohesive.

Eric’s voice mingled with those of his long-departed mates as if they were clowning around in a studio, then and there. You can almost hear the exasperation in Eric’s voice as if he's thinking, “Pack it in you lot! I’ve got a job to do.”

Now, normally when you try to mix up bits of audio, it takes an age. But in the case of these little gems of intros, it took a matter of minutes - so in tune was the creativity, past and present.

I urge you to have a listen to The Sinking of Westminster Pier, The Last Tram (from Clapham) and Lurgi Strikes Britain - as part of our Cue! Eric Sykes celebration on Radio 4 Extra - and pay particular attention to Eric’s little bits that precede them. They still make me smile.

4 Extra will also feature two Goon Shows this Christmas: Eric’s seasonal panto-like Ye Bandit of Sherwood Forest and the very last episode he wrote for them, The Tales of Montmartre. The build-up to the parting of their ways can be heard over on Radio 4 in ‘The Radio Years’.

Stars like Michael Bentine and Dick Emery might want to lay claim to being ‘the fourth Goon’ but Eric’s soundless contribution puts him way up there for that title.

Eddie Izzard will be on hand all Christmas Day on Radio 4 Extra for the Cue! Eric Sykes celebration of the late comedian’s work and appearances on radio. It starts with The Tales of Montmartre and then features the unearthed treasure It’s A Fair Cop as well as With Great Pleasure, Desert Island Discs and an In Touch Special where Peter White spoke to Eric about coping with disability.

In addition, you can hear – for the first time since 1960 – a work by one of Eric’s very favourite writers, N.F. Simpson. The wonderfully surreal A Resounding Tinkle stars Eric’s close friend, Deryck Guyler.

Feedback: Food and Farming Awards and tickets for comedy shows

2012-11-02T15:33:43+00:00

Portobello Road in west London contains some of the most expensive shops and houses in London, but that is only at what one might call the Notting Hill or Hugh Grant end of the road.

Follow it north under the tube line towards the Regent's Canal and a different London appears, a relatively poor, multi ethnic and multicultural one. There are franchised pizza restaurants of course, but among the halal butchers and African food stores you can still find an old fashioned cafÃ© specialising in jellied eels and pies.

On Wednesday morning this week I got off the tube at Ladbroke Grove, walked a few blocks north before turning right, crossing the northern end of Portobello Road, and entered Golborne Road, part of which has been taken over by Moroccan families. Parked along the side of the road were vans dispensing freshly cooked North African food. There I found two of the judges of this year's Food and Farming awards, chef Valentine Warner, who looked as if he runs a marathon every day, and restaurant critic Charles Campion who does not. Hovering around them as they tasted a variety of soups and tagines was the Food Programme producer Dan Saladino (and that is not a nom de plume).

I was there because, although the programme is very popular, it has a number of critics among Feedback listeners who think it is largely for rich foodies, who can afford to buy the finest organic ingredients and who mostly live in the south east of England. Now undoubtedly we could have recorded our feature at restaurants with eye wateringly priced menus, instead of tasting Mohammed's food which cost between Â£2.50 and Â£5.00 a dish.

His cooking was superb however, and Mohammed had been nominated by one of his clients for the best street food/takeaway award. Afterwards I had some of the pea soup, price Â£2.50 with bread. Wonderful. (And don't worry, dear licence fee payer, I did not charge it to expenses).

One thing I did not really have time to pursue was the crippling embarrassment that some of us feel in an intimidating restaurant when the food is not up to scratch or had not been cooked as requested. Some of us, OK, I still find it difficult to make a fuss and ask the food to be sent back, particularly if my daughter is pulling at my jacket and begging me to be quiet .

But perhaps we should not be silent when the French make their hoary old prejudiced complaints about the food we eat.

Charles Campion claims that there are more varieties of food to eat in Britain than anywhere else and that the quality is often outstanding. Well I can certainly recommend Mohammed's fast food in West London, and if you are anywhere near Brampton in Cumbria, it has a cracking farmer's market and some of the best meat and cheese sold in Britain. Couple that with the local beer, try Hellbeck for example, and you really do not need to visit Paris anymore, well for the food anyway.

Here is this week's Feedback feature on food.

We also followed up our item last week when listeners told us how hard it was to get a ticket for the recording of some BBC shows, and that getting a ticket was no guarantee of getting a seat since some licence fee payers, ticket in hand, had been turned away at the door. The BBC , like airlines, routinely hands out more tickets than seats , claiming 40 per cent of ticket holders do not turn up for recordings.

Why not charge? Well the BBC says licence fee payers should not have to pay twice for a programme.

Some programmes do charge however, such as I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue. Its producer, Jon Naismith, is a firm advocate of charging, which pays for larger venues, and ensures that every ticket holder who turns up gets in.

He points out that the Proms charge as well and that you can still listen to them and his programme for free . Being present for a recording is a different, additional, experience.

What do you think?

Do let us know.

Roger Bolton

Roger Bolton presents Feedback on Radio 4.

Listen to this week's Feedback
Find out about the BBC Food and Farming Awards
I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue
Listen again to this week's Feedback, get in touch with the programme, find out how to join the listener panel or subscribe to the podcast on the Feedback web page.
Read all of Roger's Feedback blog posts.

Radio 4 Extra: Parsley Sidings

2012-10-31T10:32:08+00:00

Editor's note: Parsley Sidings can be heard on Radio 4 Extra from 1 November. Once thought lost, these episodes have been assembled from off-air sources including a listener from East Anglia who read about the project in the local press. Here, Mik Wilkojc, the producer of the programme talks about the origins of the series and the hunt for the missing episodes. PMcD

As Oscar Wilde put it, "life imitates art far more than art imitates life" but, at Radio 4 Extra, we find the latter often holds true. When Doctor Beeching wielded his axe at British Rail in 1963, the BBC perpetrated an equally devastating deed a decade later by mislaying some comedy gems set in a sleepy railway station.

The radio comedy sitcom Parsley Sidings was piloted in February 1971 and, subsequently, two series of ten were made for Radio 2 between December 1971 and December 1973. Written by radio stalwart Jim Eldridge, Parsley Sidings is, apart from the re-writes of Dad's Army, the only radio series to star the much-loved Arthur Lowe. In 1981 Arthur did star in the successful pilot of a show called It Sticks Out Half A Mile - a direct spin-off of Dad's Army set in 1948 - but he died before the series could be recorded. However, his widow Joan Cooper was so impressed by the pilot, that the series went ahead with John Le Mesurier resurrecting his role as Wilson, but by now promoted to bank manager.

All of which makes mislaying most of the broadcast copies of Parsley Sidings even more frustrating. To paraphrase Oscar Wilde this time, "to lose one episode may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose sixteen looks like carelessness."

However, with a bit of Sherlock-like rooting around, we managed to locate versions of most of them. Then enter listener Bob Meade, who supplied better copies of some and, more vitally, the ones that were missing.

Keith Skues recording at the BBC for the original Parsley Sidings programmes

Keith Skues recreates intros and outros for Parsley Sidings in 2012

The problem was, though, that all of the rediscovered episodes suffered from a technical triple whammy: they were recorded off-air, committed to cassette and then had been digitized as MP3s - all of which have a major detrimental, irredeemable impact on quality. What you'll hear on-air for the next few weeks is cleaned-up, but far from perfect. In addition, as is often the way with home recordings, all of the intros and outros were either missing or chopped off in their prime. This we solved by getting one of the original on-stage announcers, Keith 'Cardboard Shoes' Skues, to recreate them. Deep in the bowels of Keith's own incredible personal archives we not only found some original Parsley Sidings scripts, but the location was also the perfect setting for him to span the decades - as witnessed by the images - original microphone and all.

Parsley Sidings is a fascinating listen for soap fans. There's an evil nemesis at the next station down-the-line; dynastic friction between father and son; criminal overtones courtesy of a shady porter and sexual nuances between a voluptuous blonde and guileless youth. Thursdays now have another appointment to listen, on Radio 4 Extra, on-line or on digital radio.

Okay, a bit of hyperbole there, but if you remember the originals or love Dad's Army, you're in for a treat.

Mik Wilkojc is a producer on Radio 4 Extra