Jim Al-Khalili

Robin Ince's Nine Lessons to stage a 24 hour show

Robin Ince's annual variety night Nine Lessons And Carols For Curious People is going online this year, once again mashing up science, comedy, music and more.

Bruce Dessau, Beyond The Joke, 7th October 2020

Nine Lessons And Carols For Godless People 2017 review

For a show based upon the rigours of the scientific process, Robin Ince's annual celebration of the curious and the creative has some pretty large margins of error. Nine Lessons And Carols For Godless People? More like 19, by my count of the guests.

Steve Bennett, Chortle, 20th December 2017

The career of actress, comedian and, of course, ventriloquist Nina Conti is, quite deservedly, beginning to take off. Her BBC4 documentary A Ventriloquist's Story - Her Master's Voice was nominated for a 2013 BAFTA, while the sitcom Family Tree, in which she appears with Irish actor Chris O'Dowd, has recently premiered on US TV channel HBO, before it arrives on BBC2 later this year.

Yes, Nina Conti Really Is on the Radio is apparently a pilot episode, but on the evidence of this first instalment there would be no justice if a series wasn't commissioned as a result.

If truth be told, a relatively high percentage of new radio comedy rarely lives up to expectations, so it is a joy to come across a rather old-fashioned light entertainment format with enough of a modern edge to entertain contemporary audiences.

There is charm, self-deprecating wit and originality about the way Conti interacts with her puppets - on this occasion Monkey, Gran, Dog and old-time entertainer Charlie - and her special guests, physicist Jim Al-Khalili and former X Factor contestant Wagner, along with members of the live audience.

Listeners at home don't see Conti's technique, and have to settle with brief descriptions of the puppets, but none of that matters. At the beginning of the show, Monkey suggests that ventriloquism is a dead art, so it might as well make a suicide pact with another dying genre - radio. Fortunately, both seem to be blooming, and this programme proves why. Let's just hope that when a series is commissioned, the show is broadcast in an earlier time slot than 11pm.

Lisa Martland, The Stage, 3rd June 2013