Current radio comedy Page 87

Quote: KLRiley @ March 5 2012, 10:04 AM GMT

Thought that this week's Now Show was one of the weakest for some time. Truss' piece could have been good if they'd got someone else to deliver it. And Andy's Parsons wasn't exactly topical.

Newsjack seems to be forging ahead at present. Under the guidance of a former Now Show producer.

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I've been disappointed by The Now Show recently. Newsjack has been pretty good, though. I'mlonging for the return of The News Quiz, which I've always found more pleasing anyway.

Quote: KLRiley @ March 5 2012, 10:04 AM GMT

Thought that this week's Now Show was one of the weakest for some time. Truss' piece could have been good if they'd got someone else to deliver it. And Andy's Parsons wasn't exactly topical.

Newsjack seems to be forging ahead at present. Under the guidance of a former Now Show producer.

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The Now Show always struck me as incredibly hit and miss. At the time it started its basic premise was "the two people from Mary Whitehouse Experience who aren't Rob Newman and David Baddiel", although you can't help thinking that Hugh Dennis at least had the last laugh. It's got a constant reliance on John Holmes, who isn't funny and Mitch Benn, a sort of Woolworths' Bill Bailey doing the sort of skits that made Radio Active the cutting edge show it was. That they've been on The Now Show since its inception while others have moved on tells you what you need to know. It also has general purpose "progressive majority" Islington / Guardian love-in on politics which is so over-powering that it's the only show known where Marcus Bridgestock isn't the smuggest person in the room. Currently it's almost unlistenable, to the point that if I don't catch it on air I don't bother listening to the podcast.

I'd not really listened to Newsjack before this series, but it's OK. I assume the producer has a large cache of Weekending recordings to refer to, and a lot of it appears to require editing, but it's a lot better than The Now Show (and Weekending is better in recollection than it was at the time, too). Worth continuing to listen to, I think.

Alex Horne Presents the Horne Section was great today. Really put a smile on my face. Looking forward to the rest of the series.

Claire, is there any radio comedy you don't like?

Quote: KLRiley @ March 6 2012, 7:02 AM GMT

Claire, is there any radio comedy you don't like?

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No. I've been lucky to find radio comedy that I like very much.

Do you think we are a small gathering who like radio comedy?

Count Arthur Strong was brilliant tonight. I'll put my half a pound of kidneys in a Tupperware box, not in my back pocket, like when I went to Schindler's List. I woke up at the end and didn't know what I'd done to myself. It's the Schindler's List which somehow makes that line.

Count Arthur canters along nicely enough, but it's not something we haven't heard umpteen times before.

Quote: Tokyo Nambu @ March 6 2012, 7:51 PM GMT

Count Arthur Strong was brilliant tonight.

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It's one of the few comedies which sneaks past my natural cynicism and actually makes me laugh in a LOL manner. Steve Delaney seems to know how to push a gag that bit further, to a point where it either has to become annoying or, usually in his case, brilliant. The last episode I heard devoted a long time to a simple misunderstanding over an estate agent's name; I can't imagine it would look funny on the page, but he got me laughing.

Just listened to Life: An idiot's guide on R4. Matt Forde was one of the guest comedians. If you heard it you will know that it was one of the most embarrassingly unfunny performances ever broadcast. Apparently he used to work for the Labour party, so he talked about politics. It really was abysmal. Some of it just didn't make any sense. But none of it was in the slightest bit funny. You could almost hear the studio audience cringing. I actually felt sorry for the guy. Then I do a search on Google and it turns out he's an established stand-up with his own show on talksport!! WTF is going on?

Re Now show

Quote: Tokyo Nambu @ March 5 2012, 10:39 AM GMT

It also has general purpose "progressive majority" Islington / Guardian love-in on politics which is so over-powering that it's the only show known where Marcus Bridgestock isn't the smuggest person in the room.

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I know exactly what you mean. It's so right on, you're waiting for Ben Elton to come on and do his Mrs Thatch routine.

Quote: zico @ March 7 2012, 7:05 PM GMT

Just listened to Life: An idiot's guide on R4.

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It's not original, but the Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain, who have a great line in self-deprecation, introduce themselves thusly: They say you only play a venue twice; once on the way up, once on the way down. So, hello again...

On that note, Stephen K Amos is back on Radio 4.

He's helming a hopeless variety show, in which people who aren't funny deliver sets that won't trouble the tumbleweed, and are then described as his "special friends" with whom he's "done a lot of work". As zico points out, the politics one, with "amusing" anecdotes about canvassing, was particularly desperate --- I guess it goes down well at 2am at conference, as a break between boozing and the infidelity --- but the interminable routine about how women only eat ice cream when they're depressed ran it a pretty close second. Shameful. If there's five more episode to go, it's going to be another evening when Radio 4 is Radio Poor.

I enjoyed Life: An Idiot's Guide even with the dubious notion that women only eat ice cream when they are depressed. Still it's funny to learn that males fight over women, even if they are fictional.

Finally heard this week's wordaholics. It's still a game where you cringe when someone gets it right but rejoice when someone comes up with a brilliant answer which isn't true but entertaining.

Quote: Claire Hardiker @ March 8 2012, 3:59 AM GMT

Finally heard this week's wordaholics. It's still a game where you cringe when someone gets it right but rejoice when someone comes up with a brilliant answer which isn't true but entertaining.

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Mmmm. Along with the Miles Jupp thing, thin air has more substance.

Quote: Claire Hardiker @ March 8 2012, 3:59 AM GMT

Finally heard this week's wordaholics. It's still a game where you cringe when someone gets it right but rejoice when someone comes up with a brilliant answer which isn't true but entertaining.

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I found most of the made-up answers on episode 1 depressingly lame, Natalie Haynes's particularly so. Are the following episodes any better?

Quote: Nogget @ March 8 2012, 8:53 AM GMT

I found most of the made-up answers on episode 1 depressingly lame, Natalie Haynes's particularly so. Are the following episodes any better?

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Episode 2 was funnier but only because they had people on who didn't take it too seriously. The recent episode which was episode 3 was alright but one of the panel reads dictionaries for a living and is on Countdown, so it was a little bit annoying.

Can't tell you anything more since there is only been three episodes.