Paul Whitehouse

Bellamy's People: The celebrity road trip gets skewered

Paul Whitehouse and Charlie Higson have adapted their hugely popular radio satire about a spoof phone-in for the small screen. The character-comedy masters tell James Rampton how they did it.

A couple of years ago, Radio 4 listeners were outraged to hear a phone-in shock jock, Gary Bellamy, and his motley crew of callers turn up on their hallowed station. No need for panic: it turned out to be Charlie Higson, Paul Whitehouse and various friends riffing as characters from posh Nazis to traffic wardens - the kind of social satire that gave us Loadsamoney. Now it's hitting the telly as Bellamy's People, a mockumentary in which Bellamy joins the legions of other documentary presenters clogging Britain's roads in search of a TV series. Comes with its own spoof behind-the-scenes footage. The best scene: Bellamy trying to interview Muslims.

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Behind the scenes: Bellamy's People

Following their Radio 4 comedy, Charlie Higson and Paul Whitehouse took the show's weird and wonderful characters on a road trip across Britain.

Meanwhile, anyone who tunes in to Radio 5 Live will recognise the absurdity of many phone-in programmes, and regular listeners to Radio 4 will have heard Down The Line, the phone-in spoof masterminded by Fast Show-ers Paul Whitehouse, Charlie Higson and Simon Day, which starred Rhys Thomas as host Gary Bellamy. Listeners to both will know how close to reality Down The Line's absurdist take on the phone-in format and its listeners is. And also how funny it was - a Berkshire racist ringing in says after a reference to Ebony & Ivory, "we just call that Ivory in our house". Thankfully - for anyone who's ever had the displeasure of watching Jeremy Kyle et al - Gary is meeting the public face-to-face as he travels around the country to chat to his deranged callers.

Regular listeners to radio phone-ins (not necessarily on Radio 4) can't help but nod in recognition of the cavalcade of callers ranging from the stupid and the xenophobic, to he near deranged and frankly offensive stereotypes reeled out by those cunning comics Charlie Higson and Paul Whitehouse, who have got their mates to call in to a spoof show, hosted by a spoof DJ. Soon to be unleashed on BBC2, this is a last chance to hear these grotesques in their natural habitat. Prepare to be appalled and amused in equal measure.

A one-off special edition of the spoof phone-in show, an eve of Budget salute to all the things we don't know and can't grasp about what's happened to the economy and why having a balance in the bank is suddenly a bad thing. Presented, as ever, by the utterly witless 'Gary Bellamy' (Rhys Thomas) with the only too believable callers played by Paul Whitehouse, Amelia Bullmore, Felix Dexter and co, with special guest Mark Gatiss. Word is that this show is about to transfer to television. Ah well, that'll be another one gone to where the big money grows.

Radio 4 spoof phone-in to move to BBC2

Paul Whitehouse and Charlie Higson to star alongside Rhys Thomas as host Gary Bellamy.

Paul Whitehouse guests in a magnificently silly office redundancy sketch, while dance duo Jonny and Lee Miller prance about to Enya's Orinoco Flow in an otherwise comedically flabby instalment. The similarity of Mathew Horne's informercial man to Martin Kemp is distracting, though.

Right from the off, Rockton Manor Studios (Radio 2) was funny. This new sitcom, written by David Cummings (Fast Show, Happiness) for his first radio commission, and starring Paul Whitehouse, is set in an ailing recording studio run by a former roadie. Early on, you could feel the sitcom staples easing into place - the hapless protagonist; impending change of circumstances; tangled family relationships - but pleasingly these didn't veer in expected directions.

It is also perfectly pitched for the Radio 2 audience, with music gags aplenty, and biographical landmarks told through songs and bands ("a Teardrop Explodes tour I was on"). Mostly, though, the pleasure lies in the performances from Whitehouse as the former roadie, and Mark Benson as his best friend. Whitehouse has great fun with railing against modern music, or any music that's not his mouldy old "canon of enduring quality".

Benson, though, almost stole the show with exquisite comic timing. His explanation of why he turned to selling houses ("I wanted to give something back") was as ticklish as his successive interruptions ("Who wants a Twiglet?") of a major family conference.