British Comedy Guide
Listen Against. Image shows from L to R: Alice Arnold, Jon Holmes. Copyright: BBC
Listen Against

Listen Against

  • Radio sketch show
  • BBC Radio 4
  • 2007 - 2011
  • 16 episodes (4 series)

Presented by Alice Arnold and Jon Holmes, Listen Against uses actual BBC footage and presenters to create a surreal broadcasting world. Also features James Bachman, Justin Edwards, David Mara, Catherine Shepherd, Kim Wall and more.

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Press clippings Page 2

A second run for the deadpan comedy that's like Feedback from a warped alternative universe. The show manages to mangle radio formats into unusual shapes before presenting them in an almost credible fashion, and as co-presenter Jon Holmes tells Radio Times, series two boasts: 'Today introducing controversial waterboarding torture techniques to grill politicians; a gritty HBO remake of Gardeners' Question Time in the style of The Wire; a fan convention for The Archers in Las Vegas; and Oliver Stone's new radio drama Peston." And tonight, after David Miliband's successful 'appearances' in series one, an equally peculiar Ed Balls sounds off, while John Humphrys is replaced by a real pit bull. Newsreader and voice of gravitas Alice Arnold once again has the task of announcing all this with a straight face.

David Brown, Radio Times, 18th November 2008

An in-joke is a thin joke. Now get a life

As navel-gazing goes, this is pretty impressive. I'd like to think I'm one of the more dedicated radio listeners in the country - I am, after all, paid to listen to it - but even I found this a bit of a glut.

Nicholas Lezard, The Independent, 18th November 2007

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