The Great Squanderland Roof
- Radio comedy drama
- BBC Radio 4
- 2012
- 1 episode
Comedy drama exploring modern economics, asking what happens when a structure that's too big to fail finally fails. Stars Rory Keenan, Dermot Crowley, James Lailey, Adjoa Andoh, Clare Corbett and Stephanie Flanders
Press clippings
Radio Times review
Anyone hanging their head in despair at the prospect of a worsening European economic crisis should tune in to this richly dark satire. Not that it will allay your fears, but as it veers into increasingly absurd situations, and you realise that they correlate precisely with real-life situations, then you'll also realise there is nothing left to do but laugh dementedly like
a banker at bonus time.
BBC economics editor Stephanie Flanders plays it straight as she reports on the European Bank of Common Sense and Stability's dubious efforts to solve Europe's sovereign debt crisis by rescuing the most debt-encumbered asset in Europe - a roofless henhouse in Fripperary, Squanderland. The jokes about the vagaries of the banking system come thick and fast (listen for the FX whenever the markets are mentioned), and if you listen closely you may even learn something about bonds trading. Superb.
David Crawford, Radio Times, 28th February 2012The Squanderland Roof and the eurozone crisis
A comedy about the crisis in the eurozone. Not a sentence you expect to read very often. But apparently Radio 4 didn't think my explanations were funny enough.
Stephanie Flanders, BBC Blogs, 28th February 2012