Private Passion

One of those things people always asked in those annoying MySpace (or My [ ] as I understand it's now called, in a witless move that reminds me I'm not sad I left it) questionnaires that went round, aside from "do you have a crush on one of your top 8 friends?" was "What's your favourite TV program?" Occasionally you'd get a "What's your favourite book?" but more often that question was left out for the naturally important "Who's the last person you texted? Was it a girl? Was it? Was it? Do you have a crush on someone?" In conversation too it's always "Did you see Sherlock at the weekend?" or whatever the TV talking point is at the time or "What music do you like?"

They're all great questions and tell you a lot about me (Yes. Have I Got News For You or Doctor Who. The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy. Lee. He's not a girl though I can understand why you'd be confused. Yes wasn't it excellent, I have theories but bloody Moffat is gonna make us wait another 18 months isn't he!!! and Ska & Rock. In case you were interested) but they miss out something I love almost on a par with TV:

Radio.

Specifically Radio 4 and Radio 4 Extra (for the even more sad). I feel for those of you who didn't close the window the second I said Radio 4, I should explain. I don't love ALL of Radio 4. The only point to The Archers as far as I can tell is so we have an equivalent to "it's like watching paint dry" for blind people: "It's like listening to The Archers." Nor do I care for shipping forecasts and even though I love books I never listen to The Book At Bedtime mainly because 10:45 is not bedtime. Until they move it to 3am and have someone reading aloud from the weeks FHM magazine, Radio 4 is never gonna shake off it's elderly image.

But comedy. Comedy I love as an art above all others and Radio 4 does it fantastically. 6:30 every weekday is home to some of the funniest jokes I have ever heard and Claire In The Community (If I tell you the name is the funniest thing about it, you start to see what I mean). I used to use Radio 4 to give me the edge when it came to comedy. By that I mean, I stole the jokes and told them at school coz nobody was gonna have listened to it. It keeps me one step ahead when it comes to comedians to watch out for, thanks to his excellent series What To Do If You're Not Like Everybody Else on Radio 4, I was very excited to go and see Andrew Lawrence live at the Frog and Fiddle even if no one else knew why I was THAT excited to be going to the pub and staged an intervention in case I had a drinking problem. Then eventually when Andrew Lawrence appeared on Mock The Week I could be smug and happy coz I already knew about him.

But the time for my secret passion is over, because I think everyone should be talking about and enjoying these quality shows. So, with that in mind, here are 10 Radio comedies, I think everyone should give a go. Think of these as the 10 shows I would take with me if I was stranded on a desert island.

10. You'll Have Had Your Tea: The Doings Of Hamish and Dougal

This series of 15 minute visits to the glens of Scotland is a spin-off of another radio comedy, I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue (more of which later). It's also a great one to start this list with because it demonstrates some of the things radio comedy can do which it's TV counterparts can't. For example, one episode involves Hamish and Dougal getting stuck in a massive London department store in between floors. After five minutes of jokes about them panicking and having to eat each other, it is revealed that they aren't in a lift but are on an escalator that has stopped and can't be bothered to walk up the remaining stairs, obviously on TV that joke would be ruined from the start, on radio it's great. It's written by and stars Barry Cryer (Morecambe and Wise, The Two Ronnies) and Greame Garden (The Goodies) with Jeremy Hardy (more of whom later) and Alison Steadman (Gavin's mum in Gavin and Stacey) Hamish and Dougal is a world of puns (*Lots of glasses raised and clinking* "To the ladies!" *everybody runs to the women's toilet. and the homeless man selling Bigger Shoes.) and surreal stupidity. The great thing about radio is that budget's really don't matter hence this crazy film parody with Volcano. It's not quite brilliant out of context, but there isn't enough of this show on the interweb, still funny though:

9. That Mitchell and Webb Sound

David Mitchell (That Mitchell and Webb Look) and Robert Webb (The Mitchell and Webb Look) write and star in this precursor to TV's That Mitchell and Webb Look. It's a good example of how TV shows start out on the radio. Little Britain, The Mighty Boosh, Hancock's Half Hour, Armstrong and Miller, Whose Line Is It Anyway?, Alan Partridge... is a very short list of others that started on Radio. A lot of Mitchell and Webb's radio sketches were done again in the TV show, because sometimes Radio is a good testing ground for comedians to try out material before showing it to millions of people on TV, so listening to this put you one step ahead of the comedy game. A lot of their radio sketches were just inspired dualogues between the two of them some quite surreal and inspired ramblings. Here they are playing inanimate objects and someone has made some pictures for it

Also a little bonus clip for big comedy fans, a sketch which references loads of other comedy sketches

8. Count Arthur Strong's Radio Show

A traditional sitcom this time, about an elderly old "celebrity" (how famous he was is pretty vague, but it's obvious he wasn't that famous, definitely not as famous as he thinks) who has gone senile and is very often drunk. Barely knowing where he is or what he's saying, hilarious misunderstandings ensue. Steve Delaney has created a very good character, which he plays really well, I've seen Count Arthur Strong live and met Count Arthur Strong and he never breaks character once. He's a bumbling forgetful old idiot, so it is appropriate that I left my signed poster on the train on the way home.

In this clip, he is giving a speech to Oxford University on Creation vs. Natural Selection, but they've provided free drinks so he ends up rambling on about Cremation vs. Naturism.

7. Bleak Expectations

This big epic parody of Dickens has been running for four series now. In it Pip Bin (inventor of the bin) relates the story of how, when he was young, he and his loyal if useless friend Harry Biscuit battle the evil plans of Mr Gently Benevolent played by Antony Head (Buffy and everything else on TV ever) and various members of the Sternbeater or Hardthrasher family. The situations get increasingly complicated and surreal with bizzarely silly metaphors and the kind of big budget comedy stunts TV can only dream of. It's set in the Victorian world of workhouses and the industrial revolution and yet boasts "Shipwrecks, time-machines, the wild west, volcanoes, the underworld and a sinister new kind of cake." It's all a bit daft, I love that. I feel bad putting it as low as 7, but there are some proper classics coming up. This is definitely one of my favourite shows though.
There's not many clips on youtube (though whole episodes aplenty to check out) this wouldn't be my clip of choice but it is funny and sets up a bit of the story from the first episode

6. The Now Show

Steve Punt is the man I feel most sorry for in the world of comedy, because he is Hugh Dennis's comedy partner, the other half of the double act and you hadn't heard of him. Perhaps because when Punt and Dennis are put together it sounds too much like rhyming slang for rude bits. But in this awesome radio satire Punt and Dennis are united as hosts and very funny too. I always say I think Hugh Dennis is the best and most underrated panelist on Mock The Week because the younger comedians don't give him much of a chance to shine. In this, him and Steve do witty satire, silly voices and sketches without the interuption from Russell Howard whose just happy to be on TV and that his mum let him go out. Throw in funny songs from Mitch Benn and stand up from Marcus Brigstocke, Jon Holmes, John Finnemore (he writes a lot of David Mitchell's stuff) and guests and you have a hit. This clip trended on Twitter last year because it's an assault on News Of The World:

5. The News Quiz

Well the name pretty much says it all really. Basically the forerunner to Have I Got News For You which was originally pitched as "The News Quiz on TV." It's hosted by Sandi Toksvig who is the Danish lesbian you may have seen on QI of late. Actually the show's current regulars include Susan Calman and Sue Perkins too, making it the show with the most lesbians that you don't have to pay-per-view. It also features Andy Hamilton (the short guy with the beard who is on Have I Got News For You a lot) and Jeremy Hardy (who I mentioned earlier and will do again). They read out funny bits from Newspapers and shoot the breeze about the weeks events. When I've been to see it live they also stray off into chatting about any old thing and they're always witty and clever and funny. Here's Jeremy Hardy explaining Christmas:

4. Old Harry's Game

It's a sitcom. It's set in Hell. The main Character is Satan. Do you really need me to say anything else to justify loving this show?

OK then, it waltzes between character comedy, traditional sitcom, political and religious satire, social commentary and subtle emotional development without you even noticing it's doing it. It's jokes about religion are subtley woven into the story of the series and aren't likely to be branded "offensive" - and they certainly aren't judgemental which most religion jokes seem to be - but it's clever and suggestive and singularly fun. It's also another show that would never work on TV: It's kinda funny when Satan mentions ironic tortures he's having performed on various groups, probably less funny to see actual torture. Even Frankie Boyle might say that is a bit much...nah he wouldn't. For anyone who is a fan of both torture and comedy I recommend listening to this or sitting through an episode of Sky1s Trollied. In this scene, Satan has a meeting with God:

3. The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy

The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy is my favourite book trilogy (of 5) of all time. It's also a TV show, a computer game, a play, a comic book, a film and a towel, but it all started back in 1978 on BBC Radio 4. The epic space adventure begins with the destruction of planet Earth. Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect escape and encounter Vogon Poetry (the third worst of the universe), a clinically depressed robot ("Life. Don't talk to me about life."), find a planet that builds other planets, discover the meaning of life (SPOILERS: It's 42), dine at the end of the universe and encounter a spaceship full of dead hairdressers and telephone cleaners that have special significance...and that's just series 1. You wait till series 3 when our heroes get tangled up in the most deadly form of conflict known to the universe that was so badly misunderstood by the English (cricket).
What I'm trying to say is this is an insanely fun romp through space and time with batty characters and wonderfully clever and silly asides from the outstanding mind of the late Douglas Adams. Oh and a manically depressed robot.
This clip is from the TV series, although it's pretty much unchanged from the radio version and the special effects in the TV series are so bad, it's pretty much radio:

2. Just A Minute

This is the first radio comedy I remember being properly into as an adult. I'd heard the odd bit of radio comedy as a kid, but was too young to fully appreciate it, then one day I discovered that my hero, Paul Merton, did this thing on Radio 4 and I started to grow up listening to it, which is awesome because that's just what Paul Merton did. It's the longest running panel show ever, it started in 1968 and is still going today with TV episodes planned for sometime in 2012. The ever old Nicholas Parsons has not missed an episode since 1968 and a constantly changing and updating list of regulars keeps it fresh. It's success comes partly from the fact it's such a simple game - you get given a subject and you have to talk about it for a minute without repeating yourself, hesitating, deviating from the topic or repetition.

1. I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue

I cannot stress enough how much I like this program. One of the things that made me want to write this blog was that I feel this is as good as my favourite TV shows and better than almost everything on TV. The point of this show is that there is no point. All panel games have a point to them Have I Got News For You is about the news, Never Mind The Buzzcocks is about music, the idea of Clue is just to be silly. Regular rounds include New Definitions where panelists invent new definitions for existing words based on what they sound like (Arsenic: To steal buttocks. Feckless: An Irish Virgin. Countryside: To kill Piers Morgan), One Song To The Tune Of Another (If you need me to explain that one, this isn't for you), Sound Charades, Missing Words games, Pun-based games like those ones you see on Twitter hashtags eg #awfulprequels or #builderssongs. It's also pure filth. Utterly disgusting trash. The rudest, smuttiest innuendo you will ever hear while you eat your dinner. Despite being a panel show, at Christmas it's branched out and done Dickens and Alice In Wonderland parodies and has a brilliant spin-off sitcom (remember back that far.)

It was hosted by Humphrey Lyttleton from 1972 until 2007, he hosted an incredibly 50 series of the show and is the funniest jazz trumpeter you will ever hear. That's not even a joke, he genuinely was a jazz trumpeter and he genuinely reduced me to tears of laughter more times than probably anyone else. I'm increadibly pleased that my mum pushed me into buying tickets for myself and my friend Ben to see an episode of this being made in Peterborough - which I assumed was far away and hard to get to - because it turned out to be the last show he recorded before his death at age 86 - he was as funny as he ever was, if not more so.

These days Jack Dee hosts, and the show keeps going in style and is as mental as ever. Recent additions include a "Name-That-Celebrity-Duck" round...need I say more.

Here is some of that smut:

And Rob Brydon singing:

Please note: The clips I've used are the ones available on youtube. I love them all, but I'm not sure they're always the one's I would use to persuade you to check these shows out. Hope you do want to though. Every weekday 6:30 Radio 4, there's something funny...or Claire In The Community.

Now to "sing" us out, the star of three of these shows. Jeremy Hardy. This really is him trying his best!