Julia McKenzie (II)

Jocelyn Jee Esien returns as the optimistic South African care worker Beauty Olonga, whose work with the elderly and infirm allows her to provide a hilarious commentary on the mores and values of contemporary Britain, while also struggling to keep up with her mother's increasingly extravagant demands for money to be sent home. This week, caring for a flighty middle-class woman (Jenny Agutter) who lives with her redoubtable mother (Julia McKenzie) and feckless daughter, offers Beauty scope to make some priceless remarks on British family life. The observation that cycle lanes are virtually unusable because readily available IVF has clogged them up with double buggies pushed by out-of-work grey-haired men is as pithy a dissection of middleclass aspirations as you're likely to find.

Notes from The Now Show: The Hotch Potch

Here's producer Julia McKenzie with this week's notes from The Now Show ideas meeting.

Notes from The Now Show: Keeping it Topical

After the FIFA results coming through not long before we printed our scripts last Thursday, this week our topical challenge is that the results of the tuition fee vote won't come through until 6.30pm Thursday evening.

Notes from The Now Show: Frosty Leaks

Here's producer Julia McKenzie with this week's notes from The Now Show ideas meeting.

The Now Show Returns - Preview

A few hours before the recording we took a call from Hugh Dennis who was just about able to croak out the alarming message that he'd lost his voice and BBC doctors had signed him off work!

"This man seems to have spent his entire career dressed in women's clothing," declares Eddie Izzard at the start of this enlightening biography of Stanley Baxter. That's rich coming from a man not averse to a full-on flirtation with frockery himself, but it is said with nothing but admiration. In fact the warmth with which Stanley Baxter is described by the likes of Maureen Lipman, Barry Cryer, Billy Connolly and Julia McKenzie would keep the 82-year-old comic actor comfortable for years if it was converted into central heating. What they all recognise is that beneath the multiplicity of funny faces, extraordinary voices and relentless costume changes, Baxter has never shied away from humour that requires a bit of intelligence and cultural awareness from his audience.

Even when I was growing up in the 1970s, Stanley Baxter seemed to be slowing down his comedic output, with his TV appearances to Christmas specials. That single show every year was so finely crafted, though, that it was an inevitable festive highlight. That Baxter is still producing great work (though mainly on radio these days) is a blessing, and this exploration of his life's work, presented by Eddie Izzard and with contributions from Julia McKenzie, Maureen Lipman, Denise Coffey and many others, promises to be rather special.

There were more than 750 comedy shows on at the Edinburgh Fringe this year. Even if you think you've heard quite enough already on Radio 4 and read too much about them everywhere you have to admire the steely determination of Jason Manford (of Eight Out of Ten Cats) and his producer, Julia Mackenzie, in boiling the lot down to two half-hours. This is the first, featuring Kevin Bridges, Mick Ferry, Sarah Millican and Mike Wilmot, all of whom may have their own shows this time next year. You never know, they might even make you laugh.

The second series of this spoof documentary charting the history of that prestigious 19th Century family the Favershams is amusing and witty, with the odd laugh-out-loud moment thrown in for good measure.

Four sons of Sir Digby and Lady Alexandra Faversham were featured previously. This time the first of four instalments placed the spotlight on Titus Faversham (known to his friends as TC), son number five and Victorian Britain's greatest sportsman.

The writing of this tale really came into its own as TC became such an accomplished athlete at school that he simply leapt from one team to another, whether it be polo, cricket, football etc - he even beat a dolphin at swimming. But as his teammates were persuaded to turn pro and get paid for their sporting prowess, TC was determined to stay a gentleman amateur, however poverty stricken it made him.

Soon he discovered that one nasty entrepreneur in the new world was not just scheming to overthrow the mighty England at sport but was taking a stab at the Empire as well. Surely TC had to step in and save the day.

Humphrey Ker, David Reed and Thom Tuck (The Penny Dreadfuls) provided some of the best radio comedy writing and wordplay I had heard in a long while, boosted by great performances from other cast members Ingrid Oliver and Miles Jupp. Interestingly the producer was Julia McKenzie, an actress who, in her own right, has performed everything from satire to sitcom. Her experience in the genre must have been a bonus.