Radio Comedy

[Guest]

I would be interested to hear whether people listen to comedy on the radio:

- What of the recent output, ie the last 3 years, on R4 do you like and dislike?

- Views on Radio 4 Extra, favourite programmes and ones that haven't stood the test of time.

- What you would like to hear on the network? Is there a place for comedy on R3?

[Northender]

First thoughts.

On R4 Extra:

Cabin Pressure
The Wordsmiths of Gorsemere
Bleak Expectations
Uncle Mort's North Country/South Country/Celtic Fringe

Now/recently on Radio 4:

Bird Island
In and Out of the Kitchen

[french frank]

Is there a place for comedy on R3?

Not as such. Or rather, not as likely to be - other than on a rare occasion - presented in a characteristically R3 style.

The really R3 things are the low key, witty obiter dicta of the announcers, an art which Mr Skelly is being allowed to demonstrate with some success. And Mr Shea is not given enough opportunity to practise.

[amateur51]

I have loved BBC Radio Comedy from The Goons and Hancock, through The Navy Lark and Beyond Our Ken, then I'm Sorry I 'll Read That Again and ... you get the picture.

Currently I'm enjoying The 21st Century for Time Travellers

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01k2cfh

and Cabin Pressure.

The Now! Show is often funny in bits and The News Quiz frequently has me in bits, especially when those two lesbian laughter-makers Sandi Toksvig and Susan Calman set each other & me & the audience off on a helpless giggle

Although not strictly comedy I frequently get at least a smile and often a guffaw out of Ramblings with Clare Balding, being conversations recorded on a walk with dogs. Yesterday morning the dog in question Bonzo ran off and returned comme d'habitude with the biggest stick he could find for his human friends. Clare said "Oh you couldn't be more pleased if he'd spoken a complete sentence in French" and I was hooting away

[umslopogaas]

I usually listen to the 6.30 R4 comedy series and enjoy most of them. I particularly like The News Quiz and The Now Show, but also I'm Sorry I Havent A Clue. Elvenquest was very good and I'm hoping for a new series; likewise Bleak Expectations and Cabin Pressure. One I didnt take to was Clair In The Community: dunno why, but it just didnt tickle my sense of humour.

I dont see R3 as the place for comedy series, but I'd be perfectly happy to have a few comedian guests on programmes like In Tune.

Oh and I enjoyed The Museum Of Curiosities, again hoping for a new series.

[EdgeleyRob]

Is there a place for comedy on R3?

Breakfast and in tune are quite funny!

[johncorrigan]

I like Milton Jones, but can never remember any of his jokes. I like Marcus Brigstocke, or whatever he's called, on the Now Show. The Clue team, which I thought might struggle to survive the loss of Humph, but Jack Dee's been a vg replacement. Jeremy Hardy is much better on radio than TV - why would that be? I like the Infinite Monkey Cage with the guy out of D-ream - it can be pretty funny, though he's not. But in reality I'm still holding out for the return of Adam and Joe to their 6Music show - but it's been a while - probably the best podcasts ever.(and still available to download - A&J without the music)

[french frank]

I dont see R3 as the place for comedy series, but I'd be perfectly happy to have a few comedian guests on programmes like In Tune.

Most recently there has been 'Comedy Classics' on Breakfast where comedians were guests for a week and introduced their choice of a classical work. Quite why comedians were chosen isn't clear, other than as a pilot for TV Chefs' Classics, TV Gardeners' Classics, TV Hypnotists' Classics, TV Weather Presenters' Classics which duly appeared on Essential Classics.

There was a dire (Christmas? New Year?) programme called 'The Right Notes in the Wrong Order', in which comedians provided hilarious answers to questions about classical music to which they didn't know the answer. I discovered that it had had a laugh track added before broadcast ...

And before that was a season or two of the lightly witty Kit and the Widow Cocktails, which created history on the old BBC boards by being the first series (and possibly last) to provoke a discussion which was unanimous - and 100% violently negative.

During my personal listening to Radio 3, I can only remember one "Radio 3" comedy programme, which now seems to have sunk without trace. It was a one-off drama by Piers Burton Page (I think) and was called something like At Home With The Wittgensteins or Life With The Wittgensteins and featured Eleanor Bron as one of the Wittgenstein females. Would have been voted a definite thumbs-down by a Radio 4 audience but I loved it (but then I hate "comedy" ).

[Serial_Apologist]

Breakfast and in tune are quite funny!

You stole a step on me, ER!

[vinteuil]

I have fond memories of a radio 3 comedy series in 1979 - The Atkinson People.

Rowan Atkinson interviewing France's "greatest philosopher" in the Dordognnnnne -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Atkinson_People

[french frank]

Breakfast and in tune are quite funny!

What's the difference between 'funny' and 'laughable'?

[Lateralthinking1]

What's the difference between 'funny' and 'laughable'?

I'm not very keen on analysing humour. A bit like having tastes in music, various things amuse.

I do find though that my 'funny' runs close to anxiety and identification. When everything in a situation is going horrendously wrong and spinning ludicrously out of control. That sort of thing.

[Northender]

Does (did?) Ivor Cutler count as comedy?

[french frank]

I'm not very keen on analysing humour.

To me, 'laughable' isn't about humour ('funny' is); it usually has an underlying sense of contempt or derision.

[Cf the original context for my question.]

[amateur51]

Was it on R3 or R4 that Peter Cook used to interview Sir Arthur Streeb-Grebling and John Sessions did a programme about the reminiscences of Clara Schumann?

A-ha #1, wiki tell us that Sir Arthur was a life-long project of Peter Cook and he did appear on R3 in a series called Why Bother?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_Bother%3F

A-ha #2 wiki also tells us that:

"On radio, Sessions guested in December 1997 on the regular BBC Radio 3 show Private Passions, presented by Michael Berkeley, not as himself but as a 112-year-old Viennese percussionist called Manfred Sturmer, who told anecdotes (about Brahms, Clara Schumann, Richard Strauss, Arnold Schoenberg and others) so realistically that some listeners did not realise that the whole thing was a hoax.[citation needed] Other Sessions creations appeared on Berkeley's show in subsequent years."

Blimey I was almost identically wrong in both cases