Radio 4 Extra - today's opinions on yesterday's shows

[mippy]

Heard a programme on Radio 4Ex yesterday called 'Hal'. In the previous episode, it seemed Hal ended up having to take in a Syrian refugee due to protesting against a refugee centre (but that was about house prices, not racism or anything!). In the episode I heard, Hal was so threatened by his partner's old boyfriend that he accidentally spent £8k on a bike, which led to some local children calling him Tinky Winky. Next week, he and his partner apparently throw a party to show off their new basement, with hilarious consequences. Obviously I found all of this extremely relatable.

Anyone else looking to discuss radio sitcoms from eight years ago? At least they only repeated The Castle once.

[gilbertharding]

I absolutely LOVE listening to radio 4 Extra comedies specifically to try to guess the year they're from. There's something exquisitely off-kilter about the way a Radio 4 sitcom writer sees the world that makes it almost impossible to guess.

There's this one called Rent, where a couple rent some rooms to some students, for instance, which you might guess was from the early 80s, but then suddenly an episode crops up where one of them is a DJ at a Mobile Disco (he chats between records) and suddenly you discover it's 1992 or something. And there are all the Simon Brett ones which are also much, much later than you think, and portray worlds where the characters run businesses which simply can't exist (Smelling of Roses is particularly anachronistic).

[Tony Tony Tony]

I fully endorse GilbertH's love for R4 extra.

I think especially enjoy the gems unearthed occasionally which I might have missed at the time on account of not being alive or out on the lash.

I was looking forward to hearing the Dads Army follow up 'It Sticks Out Half a Mile' but ended up a tad disappointed probably on account of it missing Arthur Lowe as he passed away before the series proper. Though it seems he was in a pilot which I don't think I have heard. Anyone know of it?

[SpiderChrist]

I remember finding It Sticks Out Half A Mile very underwhelming.

It's on Fourble

https://fourble.co.uk/podcast/isoham

Quick edit: i think I  heard the pilot, Lowe sounds v unwell

[mippy]

I really like The Nick Revell Show purely for that reason, it's such a time capsule. Smoking indoors, yuppie advertising exec girlfriend, contemplating the luxury purchase of a CD player, a freelance writer being able to afford to purchase their own flat in London. You couldn't make it now, the wokerati would have him VAPING, RENTING and BUYING VINYLS.

[Tony Tony Tony]

I remember finding It Sticks Out Half A Mile very underwhelming.

It's on Fourble

https://fourble.co.uk/podcast/isoham

Quick edit: i think I  heard the pilot, Lowe sounds v unwell

Thanks for that. I knew CaB would turn up trumps.

Now if only the same could be said for It Sticks Out Half a Mile.

Still, back on topic R4 extra is deffo the place for undiscovered gems though you do have to sift through a fair bit of dross at times. On the whole it's a bit like Birmingham... I know of it but I don't want to be there every day.

[Maurice Yeatman]

On the whole it's a bit like Birmingham... I know of it but I don't want to be there every day.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/writers/opportunities/open-call

[gilbertharding]

I fully endorse GilbertH's love for R4 extra.

I think especially enjoy the gems unearthed occasionally which I might have missed at the time on account of not being alive or out on the lash.

I was looking forward to hearing the Dads Army follow up 'It Sticks Out Half a Mile' but ended up a tad disappointed probably on account of it missing Arthur Lowe as he passed away before the series proper. Though it seems he was in a pilot which I don't think I have heard. Anyone know of it?

I remember Sticks Out Half a Mile from when it came out. I don't know why, I went through a phase around 11 or 12 of listening to Radio 2 comedy - The News Huddlines, the Grumbleweeds, Hinge and Brackett - under the bedclothes, like some kind of weirdo from the olden days.

About 10 years ago I had really bad flu, all over xmas, and spend days in bed listening to 4 Extra, sweating and hallucinating. The psychedelic nightmare was not helped by the fact that they ran a Hinge and Bracket Xmas Special which I knew I had definitely last heard 34 years earlier, nor by the fact that the 4 Extra schedule repeats itself every 4 hours, so that seemingly every time I regained any kind of consciousness, there they were...

[mippy]

I once woke in the night to an episode of The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari, which was a very confusing experience.

[gilbertharding]

I once woke in the night to an episode of The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari, which was a very confusing experience.

Straying off topic slightly, but I was semi-conscious/half awake when I heard the story about John Major and Edwina Curry having had an affair, before drifting back to full sleep for another hour one Saturday morning.

And I remember, after I was properly awake, deciding not to ask my wife if she'd also heard it - because the idea of it not being true, and instead being something my own mind had conjured from a dream was too much.