Yes, Nina Conti Really Is On The Radio

The career of actress, comedian and, of course, ventriloquist Nina Conti is, quite deservedly, beginning to take off. Her BBC4 documentary A Ventriloquist's Story - Her Master's Voice was nominated for a 2013 BAFTA, while the sitcom Family Tree, in which she appears with Irish actor Chris O'Dowd, has recently premiered on US TV channel HBO, before it arrives on BBC2 later this year.

Yes, Nina Conti Really Is on the Radio is apparently a pilot episode, but on the evidence of this first instalment there would be no justice if a series wasn't commissioned as a result.

If truth be told, a relatively high percentage of new radio comedy rarely lives up to expectations, so it is a joy to come across a rather old-fashioned light entertainment format with enough of a modern edge to entertain contemporary audiences.

There is charm, self-deprecating wit and originality about the way Conti interacts with her puppets - on this occasion Monkey, Gran, Dog and old-time entertainer Charlie - and her special guests, physicist Jim Al-Khalili and former X Factor contestant Wagner, along with members of the live audience.

Listeners at home don't see Conti's technique, and have to settle with brief descriptions of the puppets, but none of that matters. At the beginning of the show, Monkey suggests that ventriloquism is a dead art, so it might as well make a suicide pact with another dying genre - radio. Fortunately, both seem to be blooming, and this programme proves why. Let's just hope that when a series is commissioned, the show is broadcast in an earlier time slot than 11pm.

If you think that ventriloquism, like darts, is something that couldn't work on the wireless, think again. In the first ventriloquism show on radio since Educating Archie 50 years ago, the dazzlingly talented Nina Conti brings some of her alter egos to Radio 4, including the cynical Monkey and Scots Granny (the original Granny dummy was a gift from her mentor, the late great Ken Campbell), and gives voice to puppets brought along by the audience.

Conti is a very funny woman, sometimes breathtakingly daring, but she keeps things simple for this pilot. And you'll never once see her lips move.

Archie Andrews was packed away in his box many years ago - but now, Nina Conti stephs forward to bring the art of ventriloquism on the radio back to live. Hers is an odd, slightly surreal act, but it's inventive and funny.