Mark Watson Makes The World Substantially Better

The 20 funniest radio comedies of all time

Before Radio 1's first run of new shows kicks off next month, here we count down the 20 greatest scripted radio comedies ever to hit the airwaves

In a medium where the voice is everything, a narrator endowed with enthusiasm and intelligence is the king. And so it is with Mark Watson, who returned this week with his second series for Radio 4.

Watson was once an ultra-nervy performer who hid behind a faux Welsh accent. Now he is a fiercely intelligent, articulate comic whose mixture of brilliant observational comedy and, as he puts it, 'thought', is unmatched.

Mark Watson is not a comedian who is short of ambition. In 2006 he did a stand-up show in which he wrote a novel with his audience. Then last year came his methodical deconstruction of the Seven Deadly Sins. His new series picks up where he left off, only with the moral lever now switched to the virtues. This week that makes for a blissfully madcap journey around the concept of courage. Extremely silly songs about being brave (from poet Tim Key) complete the picture, my favourite of which is 'ignore peer pressure - unless you're a structural engineer who is building a pier, in which case don't put lives at risk.'