Jude Rogers

Fern Brady: 'Bloody everyone says they are bisexual now'

The ​author of the award-nominated memoir​ Strong Female Character on her early ambition to be a spy​ and why she'd never do a film about being autistic.

BBC Radio 4's The Reunion brought together most of the main cast of 1994's TV news satire The Day Today, though not the ever elusive Chris Morris. Steve Coogan was down the line from the Lake District (presumably on a windy fell outside a restaurant from The Trip, while Rob Brydon ate pudding). Patrick Marber joined via Zoom too, while Armando Iannucci, Doon Mackichan and David Schneider were in the studio with Kirsty Wark. The recollections were riotous and giggly, but also instructive about how the news has changed. They didn't think Morris's interviewee-baiting, surreal vox pops would have worked now ("The power's now with whoever's stopped at the market," Schneider suggested). I also loved Wark teasing Coogan about ingesting helium to play a thinly veiled parody of Gerry Adams, whose voice was disguised on TV at the time. "You've never done dangerous substances before?" "Well, I have," Coogan replied, "but not ones that are funny."

Alan Davies interview

'I've become a huge enemy of silence and secrecy'. The comedian and actor has written a raw and compelling book about his early life, including the abuse he suffered from his father.

The Day Today is still predicting the future of TV news

"It's a programme designed to knock current affairs broadcasting off its axis," the Radio Times wrote in 1994, "then blow a hole in its spluttering head". It did nothing of the sort.