Narrators in radio sitcoms

I'd quite like to find out what opinions, if any, people have about including a narrator in a radio sitcom. I haven't heard a huge amount of radio sitcoms to be honest but I really liked Rob Brydon as the narrator in the Flight Of The Conchords radio series. Not only did it help the transition of scenes but it meant that more jokes could be created. I suppose you could argue that if you need a narrator then you haven't written the sitcom well enough for the audience to figure out what's going on and that therefore having a narrator is a lazy option. I'm writing a pilot radio script at the moment and am finding that a narrator would be a useful tool to help set the show up, to explain why all the characters are together etc. However I'm wondering if having a narrator all the way through the series would get a bit annoying. I guess though you can't just have one in the first episode and not the rest of the series otherwise it would feel like a different show.

Also does anyone know of any radio stations that play comedy other than the BBC ones?

Edited by Aaron.

I see nothing wrong with a narrator. Bleak Expectations sort of has one, in that it's the older version of the main character narrating his memories.

I guess it would be fine as long as it serves a useful purpose and isn't just a lazy way of connecting scenes. There's a sort of rule called 'show, don't tell' - i.e. you have the funny action in the scene, not have the characters talking about funny things that have already happened. If you steered clear of the narrator just telling us about funny things that have happened and he was instead setting scenes, moving the story along etc., it would probably be OK.

If you need the narrator to describe the set up of your series and who the characters are and why they're together then yes, I guess it could be argued that you haven't written it well enough.

The Spaceship currently being repeated on Radio 7 also has a narrator. I suppose for a sci-fi sitcom, it helps because it can be used to give out information relevant to the show rather than using the characters.

Tom Baker in Little Britain completely ripped off Tom Baker's character in Lionel Nimrod's Inexplicable World.

Thanks for the info and advice. I guess a narrator would be useful for me as my idea involves lots of changes of location from scene to scene, with a set of characters in one location and another set of characters somewhere else. So it would help clarify these changes, although I guess sound effects would help too. I also think that a narrator would give a sense of familiarity to a show as long as the voice was distinctive enough.

Quote: Griff @ November 13 2008, 4:45 PM GMT

Gosh I know nothing of "Lionel Nimrod". Was that good, then? What was it?

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It was fab. A sort of precursor to Fist of Fun:

http://www.fistoffun.net/downloads-nimrod.htm