Electric Ink

The first series of Alistair Beaton's Electric Ink, originally broadcast in 2009, gets a welcome airing on Radio 4 Extra, with Robert Lindsay as the curmudgeonly Maddox Bradley, an ageing broadsheet journalist with an aversion to the technological revolution bearing down on him like an unstoppable avalanche.

His editor (Alex Jennings) insists he should contribute a blog to the paper's website, and launch his own podcast. "You must embrace the digital age," Jennings orders him. Maddox replies, "Couldn't I just wave to it from the other side of the room?"

Return of Alistair Beaton and Tom Mitchelson's satire on the modern-day world of newspapers. It's not "hold the front page" any more, but rather "how many hits did that make on the website?" Yet everyone needs news and the electronic media still need print to feed from. So here's Oliver (Alex Jennings) sitting in the editor's chair, old school ace reporter Maddox (John Sessions) still turning up the splash stories but needing support from web whizz Freddy (Stephen Wight) who's really a posh lad (and rich with it) but talks street lingo for extra cred.

This is the Drop the Dead Donkey de nos jours: the divide in the paper's newsroom between the been-there-done-that- wrote-the-original-headline old hack and the ice-cool-stab-you-in-the-back-as- soon-as-look-at-you thrusting young turk is as vast as the print-run for the Radio Times Christmas double issue. You don't have to have worked as a journalist to find this funny. The writing is tight, the characters astutely observed and the situation comedy inclusive. John Sessions is particularly good as the disgruntled hack in a plot that sees him gain revenge on all via a whelk stand in Essex.

Here's a quick turnaround. The first transmission of Alistair Beaton's comedy serial finished only recently. Still, I don't suppose they can't often afford a cast as glittering as this so why not make the most of it? Never mind that I think it's shouty, overacted, clattering with clichés and probably originally intended for TV. See what you make of its battle for a newspaper's soul between traditional hack (Robert Lindsay), wily editor (Alex Jennings), assorted nasty females and posh Freddie (Ben Willbond) who's pretending to be a Rasta.

A deservedly rapid repeat for this new sitcom which take a satirical look at the changing world of modern journalism. Robert Lindsay is on top form as the jaded print hack who rails against user-generated content, Twitter, video blogging and the like. Let's hope a second series comes soon - and a television transfer shouldn't be ruled out.

We're nearing the end of this six-part satire on newspapers. It's by Alistair Beaton, one of the sharpest wits around, with wonderful Robert Lindsay as the veteran who still prefers a story to a marketing campaign. I keep wondering why I don't like it more. It seems to me, because it has so much shouting and situation explaining, to have been written for TV but has ended up on radio rather than waste a decent script about things that matter. Today's is about whether to publish an embarrassing story about the Prime Minister. I'll listen.

Consistently entertaining comedy about how new media is changing journalism.

Having worked in newspapers since the days when computers were new-fangled, I feel well qualified to assess whether the new comedy series Electric Ink is up to the mark in its observations on the press, in the throes of an unprecedented crisis. As it happens, the writer, Alistair Beaton, is spot-on, capturing the rising panic of an endangered species.

Robert Lindsay is reporter Maddox Bradley, a careworn fossil from the days of high ideals and long liquid lunches who's resisting attempts to drag him on to the web, said to be newspapers' last-best hope.

"We've become obsessed with making the online edition," he rants in fine style to the news editor. "We've forgotten that it's quite important for a quality national daily to have content. I'm sorry, but it comes as no surprise to me that fewer and fewer people are willing to shell out a pound for a double-page sofa ad, a free DVD and a full-colour wallchart displaying 50 varieties of asparagus." Ouch.

He proceeds to explode the website's lead story about a new stress disorder, exposing it as a drugs industry plant. The online editor is carpeted for rehashing press releases. "But I do it all the time," he says. Double ouch.

The daily conference is nicely done, too. The editor complains about that morning's wallchart. "Come on, people: dinosaurs, newspapers - must we remind the readers?" Double ouch and ouch again.

In Michael Frayn's classic novel about Fleet Street, Towards the End of the Morning (1967), there is a memorable hack who rivals a sloth, doing no work from one week's end to the next. Alistair Beaton, once a speechwriter for Gordon Brown, is writing in the same tradition but satirising a new era. Electric Ink - about a newspaper's struggle to go digital - cannot compete with Frayn's genius but made me laugh none the less.

I was aware, too, of the serious question underlying the mirth: whose side are we on? Do we support Maddox (played with magisterial pomposity by Robert Lindsay), a vain, old-school hack who has just written a long (and, according to his news editor, "tedious") piece about a radical Muslim cleric? Or do we back charming twentysomething Freddy (a hilarious Ben Willbond), who speaks in a vivaciously streetwise way and turns out to be an Etonian trying to live down his education?

Freddy is new-media-savvy while Maddox sneers at the phrase "embracing the digital age", maintaining that a handshake is as far as he is prepared to go. Yet, at the end of the first round (with five to follow), it is Maddox - to my astonishment - who, in his stubborn, devious, old-fashioned way, seems to be winning.

Ever the investigative journalist, he discovers that Freddy's story on a new plague ("Generalised Affective Social Stress Disorder") is as bogus as its author - not worth the screen it is printed on.

When you need a splenetic old-codger role, then put a call in for Robert Lindsay. Nobody does it better, as he proves in Alistair Beaton's satire on the parlous state of the daily newspaper industry. (Lindsay and Beaton have been teamed before, in A Very Social Secretary, about the Blunkett affair.) As wily old hack Maddox, he rails in protest against the tide of sexy online editions, fluffy celebrity-led stories, the obsession with new media, and endless marketing ploys. "I'm sorry, but it comes as no surprise to me that people aren't willing to shell out a pound for a double-page sofa advert, free DVD, and a full-colour wall-chart displaying 68 varieties of mushroom." Couldn't agree more, old bean. To be generous, there is more than a touch of Drop the Dead Donkey about this, but the back-up characters are sometimes mere one-shot jokes, the exception being Alex Jennings's gloriously pragmatic and priapic editor, Oliver. Don't miss his When Harry Met Sally turn in the second episode. If you do, you can always listen to it online!