Lucy Montgomery's Variety Pack

At last. A sketch show full of surprises, jokes that address the brain as well as the nether regions and a cast that doesn't cosh you with fake chumminess. It's as welcome (and as rare) as the sun coming out. Listen for posh schoolgirls Maisie (Natalie Walter) and Daisy (Montgomery) describing the film Black Swan in total teen detail to their horrified teacher. (I'm sure I sat behind their real-life models on the 92 bus the other day.) The mother who can't understand a word her daughter says also rings a bell. As does a modern bride and woman vicar. Good stuff.

Lucy Montgomery's Variety Pack - review

There is a lot to like about Lucy Montgomery's Variety Pack (Radio 4), a series of sketches with the emphasis on ludicrous scenarios and voices. Some sketches were funnier than others, but there wasn't a dud one in the first programme.

Lucy Montgomery is funny. She creates characters you'll recognise, in situations that edge gradually into the surreal. Persist through the first sketch if you find it a bit shouty. Her posh babysitters, Maisie and Daisy, babbling on in their own language about vampires and the Jonas Brothers, are marvellous. The pace is fast, so if you don't like the jilted bride there'll be another person along directly. Her final character, a Broadway entertainer with a gift for picking the wrong husband, is a shining gem of observational malice.

Lucy Montgomery's Variety Pack is a show entirely made up of sketches introducing a hotchpotch of characters played by the comedienne and four other performers.

Montgomery, who has become well known for her TV work, has a talent for playing broadly drawn and often silly characters, but on this occasion it fails to work effectively across the airwaves. There are a few exceptions though, not least jilted bride Wendy who goes ahead with her wedding speech, despite the groom's absence. The moment when Wendy attempts to sing solo the romantic duet she and her husband-to-be has been practising for months is a gem.