British Comedy Guide

Current radio comedy Page 124

I was really excited hearing that Josie Long wrote a sitcom pilot. Always wanted to hear her as an actor of a sitcom. Honestly, I was upset after listening to it.

What show are you talking about, flightxflight?

Quote: fightxfight @ 15th June 2014, 2:40 AM BST

I was really excited hearing that Josie Long wrote a sitcom pilot. Always wanted to hear her as an actor of a sitcom. Honestly, I was upset after listening to it.

I wouldn't go quite that far, but it certainly wasn't as good as I was expecting, by a fair old way.

Stop Start is solid, neatly written and well-played, but I get easily bored with battle of the sexes type stuff.

Quote: italophile @ 10th June 2014, 5:23 AM BST

Caught up with Blocked, the Boyle-Dick vehicle for David Mitchell. The potentially interesting premise - writer's block - is largely irrelevant, with Mitchell reduced to shouting a lot of not very funny, supposedly outrageous insults. Beats me why you signed on, David.

I largely agree, although I thought the script had some merit*. It was Mitchell's lamentable performance which was the big problem, he just isn't a versatile enough actor for this sort of thing.

*There was a strange unevenness to the script though, it moved between conventional sitcom and zany black humour in a way which didn't help either style of comedy.

Quote: Paul Wimsett @ 15th June 2014, 7:38 AM BST

What show are you talking about, flightxflight?

A pilot for Josie Long:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0460v1z

Quote: Nogget @ 3rd April 2014, 11:59 AM BST

The News Quiz is a bit of a mixture. The chairman's script has some very well-written gags, but the panel themselves (last week at least) were pretty much completely unfunny. Better to just read the gags out all at once and cut the show by 20 minutes.

Agreed. Sometimes the funniest parts are the clips the listeners send in. Perhaps they could get Susan Calman to host a show just featuring those? She's in pretty much everything else at the moment, or is it just my TiVo picking up on stuff?

'Party' is back on again ATM

Absolutely love it

Yes Party gets my vote (you see what I did there?)

Great to have Ed Reardon back. Jeremy Paxman must have been listening, he thinks Newsnight was 'run by 13 year olds'.(Telegraph today)

I am particularly enjoying Bad Salsa on BBC Radio 4 on Monday's at 11.30 by Kay Stonham. Around a month back I said I wanted to write a sitcom about someone suffering from cancer and see if I could make it funny. Then, coincidentally, Kay had written this sitcom about 3 women suffering from Ovarian Cancer.

But she's come at it from a very positive angle. More people survive cancer than ever before and she's trying to show how these women live with it. It's set in a Salsa class and there's some really nice gags in there. It's also refreshing to see such a tough subject tackled in this way. Also made me realise I could never write for radio - it seems an impossible skill!

Quote: lofthouse @ 25th June 2014, 9:21 PM BST

'Party' is back on again ATM

Absolutely love it

Me too! I'm so looking forward to the TV pilot :D

https://www.comedy.co.uk/guide/pilots/party/

Quote: bloopergast @ 1st August 2014, 8:14 PM BST

Me too! I'm so looking forward to the TV pilot :D

https://www.comedy.co.uk/guide/pilots/party/

Oh wow! Brilliant news

Don't understand how this show isn't much more popular

It's brilliantly performed and very very funny

Good to have Dead Ringers back too

It went downhill badly when it was last on the air

But the new series has been a big improvement

Quote: Steve Whyley @ 21st July 2014, 5:25 PM BST

I am particularly enjoying Bad Salsa on BBC Radio 4 on Monday's at 11.30 by Kay Stonham. Around a month back I said I wanted to write a sitcom about someone suffering from cancer and see if I could make it funny. Then, coincidentally, Kay had written this sitcom about 3 women suffering from Ovarian Cancer.

But she's come at it from a very positive angle. More people survive cancer than ever before and she's trying to show how these women live with it. It's set in a Salsa class and there's some really nice gags in there. It's also refreshing to see such a tough subject tackled in this way. Also made me realise I could never write for radio - it seems an impossible skill!

It was one of those series that was so good it carried on getting better in my head once it had finished.

I loved Kay Stonham's 'Robin & Wendy's Wet Weekends' but wasn't sure about 'Bad Salsa' at first. There are so many characters bouncing off each other in so many ways, it was difficult to make sense of it. But they are so much more than the archetypes they seem at first; they grow during the course of the series. I particularly like the character 'Chippy'. The way she's really gobby yet lacking self-confidence - probably because of the way her mother is putting her down all the time as a projection of her own lack of self-confidence - but by the end of the series, she is using her newly gained self-confidence to drag her mother out of her shell.

I went to the recordings of the new series of Welcome To Our Village (due out in Autumn); it was excellent!

I like Nick Lyndhurst, but this was a let down for me. So I certainly wouldn't go to see it. :(

Did you see my question, Jane?

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