The Simon Day Show

The Simon Day Show, Radio 4, Thursday

Welcome back, Mr Day. It's never less than a bracing ride.

Simon Day's offbeat situation comedy, written by and starring him. It all happens in a small theatre, the Mallard. It's changed since Tommy Cockles (Day) last played there. There's a new owner, he's Nigerian and has big plans for the place. There's a new sound man and he's not the easy-going, semi-anarchist of old. This one used to be a policeman and he's strict about what can and cannot be done. And where's Catherine, the receptionist, who used to make the wheels go round? She's off to more exotic climes, to find herself, leaving Tommy bewildered.

The Simon Day Show, in the same slot as Arthur Smith's Balahm Bash but on Thursdays, is a far stranger and, thus, more exhilarating listen. It's badly titled, really: you expect Day to do straight stand-up, but he never appears as himself. Instead, every week, he's a different character (Dave Angel, Tommy Cockles), come to perform at a small regional theatre, the Mallard. (Why isn't it called Live at the Mallard?) Anyway, the programme cuts between the act's performance and other imagined characters in the audience or behind the scenes. What a mish-mash! Still, as it's Simon Day, you don't have to wait long for moments so odd and brilliant that you forgive the muddled concept. Last week, Tommy Cockles got into a riff about dinosaurs that included the line, "Watch out, it's a T Rex - hide the Dundee cake!" That really tickled me.

This brand new sketch show sees The Fast Show and Down The Line star Simon Day perform as some of his best known creations at The Mallard, a small provincial theatre with not that much room in it. If you want an idea on sort of place The Mallard is, it's best put by the woman in charge of the box office admitting to adding the phrase "Must see" to acts because the tickets are not shifting.

This week, Day starred as his Yorkshire poet persona Geoffrey Allerton, reading some of his poems and extracts from his memoir Marking Time. Day/Allerton's poetry is excellent, making humorous comments on inner city life and going to art-house movies.

His sombre childhood memories were even funnier, covering the bad relationship Allerton had with his father. He mentions that his father, "threw a jar of Marmite at me," and that he showed him a picture of a naked woman, or as Day/Allerton puts it, the, "lady with the lower beard."

The show is not just about Day and his character, but also of the regular staff and visitors of The Mallard. There is surly Rastafarian technician Goose (Felix Dexter) who gets annoyed about being given jobs outside of his remit, the Leeds-born boss Ron Bone (Simon Greenall) who mocks Allerton's supposedly posh background, and there are the two posh mothers (Arabella Weir and Catherine Shepherd) talking about the problems of employing a "frog" as a nanny.

This has all the marks of becoming a really good series. Future episodes will see Day performing as reformed convict Tony Beckton and his Fast Show classic Tommy Cockles.

The Simon Day Show comes from one of the unsung heroes of The Fast Show on TV, but it's a more laid-back pleasure. He takes a different character each week, kicking off with glum Yorkshire poet Geoffrey Allerton - a free-verse McGonagall and author of a not-very-miserable misery memoir: "Once I came downstairs wearing just my long socks and my dad threw a jar of Marmite at me .... He went into the garden and took out his frustration on the rhubarb."

Radio review: The Simon Day Show

New comedy set in a provincial theatre features the comedian in character- some old favourites, some new.

New situation comedy. And it's one worth catching. Written by and starring Simon Day, its six episodes feature him as different people who turn up to perform at a small theatre (so small there's a real person taking telephone bookings). The first one Day gives us is Yorkshire poet Geoffrey Allerton, whose observations on his own life ("My dad had big hands, like paddles...") bear more than a passing resemblance to one or two voices often heard on the airwaves. Catherine Shepherd, Arabella Weir and Felix Dexter are among the shining support cast.