Week Ending

Week Ending - the lean months

Ged Parsons is a writer for shows such as Dara O'Briain's School of Hard Sums, Alexander Armstrong's Big Ask, Mock The Week, Strictly Come Dancing, The Two Ronnies Sketchbook, and Have I Got News For You. Here, he writes about getting into comedy via open-door policy shows such as the Radio 4 Extra comedy staple, Newsjack, using his own experience of writing on the satirical open-door comedy of its day, Week Ending.

Toppled The Navy Lark as the longest-running comedy. Spitting Image without puppets. For years, Friday bedtime just wasn't the same without it.

But what finally convinced me that On The Hour had made its own mark on radio comedy was its effrontery in taking a hefty lunge at its stablemate The Week Ending, "The long-running, irreverent romp through the week's news". An inside glimpse of the planning meeting, mild sneers at the pace, the students' union flavour - and, unkindest cut of all, a crack about giving "Old and middle class people in the south-east something to chuckle about".

A look back over The Week Ending reminded us of the cautiousness with which this programme has been treated over the years: in its early days, BBC bigwigs listened in and discussed every barb. And only in 1987 was it allowed to remain on the air during a general election. [...] I'm quite certain that the quality of jokes has gone up (yes, some misfire still, but a surprising number are slap on target) and that the jokes are harder-hitting, too.

After the recent collection of disastrously unfunny new comedy it is a relief to see Week Ending (Friday, Radio 4) returning. The Burkiss Way had its adherents, and I even met a man who smiled at Radio Burps but The Chronicles of The Soppy Family was plain awful. Do you remember that classic Charles Addams cartoon of the solitary man in the audience chuckling happily away as all around wept and hid their faces? He must be somewhere in Broadcasting House these days.