Simon Poole (I)

Blaggers are people who pretend to be more important than they really are in order to get past the doormen at significant events. The first rule of blagging is to get away with it. But this series could only have been made by someone who not only is in love with jazz but has passed, legally and often, through its many portals. It is wildly funny. It is also very clever in that David Quantick, who co-writes and presents it, and his producer, Simon Poole, have created a style that not only absolutely fits the subject but mirrors it too.

The funniest show on radio. Ronnie Scott and Benny Green would have loved it. It knows its subject intimately, makes fun of its more solemn advocates, yet celebrates true talent. It's fast, inventive (technically as well as verbally), mirroring its subject in its style, all the while hilariously and utterly accessibleto fans and non-jazzers alike. Co-written and presented by brilliant David Quantick (who has blagged other musical genres on this network in the past equally wittily), produced by Simon Poole for independents Unique.

David Quantick riffs gloriously through the first of a new series that, actually, tells you more than you think about jazz (and people who like it) as you variously wrinkle your brow at his presumption or fall into great gales of laughter at the speed of allusion, the acuity of vision. Wittily written, beautifully produced (by Simon Poole, for independents Unique) here are Duke Ellington, Stevie Wonder, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, snipped and pasted into a magical musical collage which also happens to be a pretty snazzy essay.