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Terrible Radio Comedy

Started by Bacon, March 17, 2016, 08:59:18 PM

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Quincey

Why isn't there more decent radio comedy out there? Is it because all the decent comedy is on podcasts? Or that only Radio 4 and Radio 4 Extra transmit comedy?


gloria

Quote from: Blinder Data on April 01, 2016, 02:02:23 PM
Nish Kumar was on Just a Minute a week or so ago and he was absolutely terrible at the game, which he spun round to his advantage in making jokes about how rubbish he was. Why did they have him on if he can't say a few words without repeating/hesitating? Is there no audition? Bah humbug.

Pssst...the show is about making jokes as much as it's about playing the game.  I imagine he got on because he's hot right now.  Few people nail the skill of the game on their first attempt.  The honorable exception is David Tennant, who spoke for 60 seconds straight without being interrupted the first time he ever played it.

idunnosomename

Yes, the problem with JAM these days isn't people who are rubbish at the game, it's people who aren't funny: Pam Ayers, Giles Brandreth, Sheila Hancock, Shappi Khorsandi.

This is really why I can't stand the show anymore.

This is fun, though: http://just-a-minute.info/stats.html

Blinder Data

Quote from: gloria on April 03, 2016, 05:55:21 PM
Pssst...the show is about making jokes as much as it's about playing the game.  I imagine he got on because he's hot right now.  Few people nail the skill of the game on their first attempt.  The honorable exception is David Tennant, who spoke for 60 seconds straight without being interrupted the first time he ever played it.
Yeah, but he was total bobbins at the game and not very funny with it either.

---

I like how that list makes it look like Tony Hawks, Jenny Eclair and countless others died in a terrible Just a Minute accident in 2015.

Bobtoo

King Street Juniors. I'm not even certain it's meant to be comedy, it's aired in one of the comedy slots on 4 Extra.


Quote from: idunnosomename on April 03, 2016, 07:59:12 PM
Yes, the problem with JAM these days isn't people who are rubbish at the game, it's people who aren't funny: Pam Ayers, Giles Brandreth, Sheila Hancock, Shappi Khorsandi.

This is really why I can't stand the show anymore.

Only a panel of four Julian Clarys would make Just a Minute worth listening to. I still listen to it though, just for the occasional one Julian Clary.

Ignatius_S

Quote from: Bobtoo on April 04, 2016, 02:23:06 PM
King Street Juniors. I'm not even certain it's meant to be comedy, it's aired in one of the comedy slots on 4 Extra.

It's a comedy-drama - used to have the comedy lunchtime and morning slots. Quite a few other shows in that kind of slot would be described similarly or as a comedy series, rather than sitcom - e.g. Second Thoughts.

IIRC, the main writer for King Street Juniors utilised his experiences as a teacher but in any case, have read comments by teachers that were very positive. 

Personally, it was one show that I was never interested in but when actually listened to, thought it was very solid as a series.  As I say, it's really a (light) comedy-drama and although I wouldn't say that a comedy slot is a natural home for it, it's more worthy of a repeat - particularly compared to old topical comedy shows.

Brundle-Fly

Quote from: Blinder Data on April 01, 2016, 02:02:23 PM
Someone my friend knows writes plays for Radio 4. Like most writers he sweats buckets to make sure his script is in tip top shape, fits the bill to actually get it made by the BBC.

He's said there have been times when actors turn up for the recording and it's clear that they haven't read it beforehand. I think that's unacceptaby lazy and disrespectful behaviour, especially when the writer has spent months, if not years, on the script.


It could be that they are just bad actors?

In my experience of having worked in the medium, certainly at the BBC, every live radio production is read through twice with cast and producer and rehearsed in the afternoon prior to the performance. Then, there is a technical rehearsal for the engineer an hour and a half before the show. The only reason an actor would turn up ten minutes before showtime would be because they were probably otherwise engaged with another job. If they were worth their salt, they would have asked for an advanced copy of the script.

jobotic

Quote from: idunnosomename on April 03, 2016, 07:59:12 PM
Yes, the problem with JAM these days isn't people who are rubbish at the game, it's people who aren't funny: Pam Ayers, Giles Brandreth, Sheila Hancock, Shappi Khorsandi.

This is really why I can't stand the show anymore.

This is fun, though: http://just-a-minute.info/stats.html

there's a few there I only know from JAM. What did Kit Hesketh-Harvey do apart from that? Who the hell is he?

Ignatius_S

Quote from: jobotic on April 04, 2016, 03:56:06 PM
there's a few there I only know from JAM. What did Kit Hesketh-Harvey do apart from that? Who the hell is he?

He works mainly in the theatre, particularly musicals and cabaret – but has translated a number of operas. Pretty sure he co-starred in a R4 sitcom or comedy series but he's done a fair bit on the station over the years.

jobotic

Ah, fair enough. Not stuff that I'd know about. He wants to get on the TV panel show circuit if he wants the likes of me to be aware of his work.

Brundle-Fly

He is mainly known for his musical double act, Kit And The Widow.

mippy

Reading this thread anew as Hal is on R4Ex and it really is not good. There's even a working class cleaner character going on about how they "let all the Romanians in".

It's not as bad as The Castle, or The Wilsons Save The World, but there's just...no point to it.

gilbertharding

Thought this thread might have been bumped on account of the current new Mark Steel/Claire Skinner vehicle 'Unite'.

It's about (get this!) a working class man and his middle class girlfriend and the scrapes they get into when they try to cohabit. Steel's son is in it.

If anything, it's worse than you are probably imagining.


Meanwhile, I think they really ought to have put I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue out of its misery. What's the point of One Song to the Tune of Another if everybody involved is a really good singer (of a kind)?

jobotic

Quote from: gilbertharding on June 30, 2021, 09:20:28 AM
Thought this thread might have been bumped on account of the current new Mark Steel/Claire Skinner vehicle 'Unite'.

It's about (get this!) a working class man and his middle class girlfriend and the scrapes they get into when they try to cohabit. Steel's son is in it.

If anything, it's worse than you are probably imagining.


Meanwhile, I think they really ought to have put I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue out of its misery. What's the point of One Song to the Tune of Another if everybody involved is a really good singer (of a kind)?

They said it couldn't happen, but it did!

Fambo Number Mive

A rare misfire for Mark Steel, though I don't always agree with him I've always found him funny. Always loved Mark Steel's In Town and enjoyed his books, he was very good when I went to see him years ago (can't remember what it was for but I know  there were RMT members opposing the privatisation of the East London Line outside and he gave a shoutout to them).

gilbertharding

I guess he's OK at what he (usually) does. I don't find him funny, mind, but he's often right.

idunnosomename

Mentioned in the Oddie thread but Nature Table on the Monday panel show slot was a new nadir. Sue Perkins hosts while the expert panellists talk about beetles having sex and someone on the entertainment payroll giggles about it as if they were people. The deadly Zoom silence as they laugh at their own jokes makes it particularly grim.

Unfortunately I had Radio 4 on last Friday and caught the tail end of a Dead Ringers skit, the premise of which seemed to be Sarah Lancashire (I think that was who it was supposed to be as there was a reference to Sally Wainwright) lambasting the cast of Jimmy McGovern's prison bleakfest "Time" for not being as bleak as Ken Loach or Alan Bleasdale (??)

I think I heard about a minute and it was enough to absolutely infuriate me. Just facile, idiotic bollocks, the whole conceit of it because who in their right mind would think "Time" wasn't grim enough? I fucking hate Dead Ringers.


jobotic

I was a bit rude about Kit Hesketh-Harvey five years ago. Sorry about that.

idunnosomename

Dead Ringers is almost like anti-comedy now. None of the impressions are dead on enough or exaggerated enough to be funny. Partly because a lot of them are Radio 4 voices and they dont want to offend any of them.

There were more funny ideas in that IDSmiths GBNews/Welsh Paw Patrol thing than there have been on DR for at least ten years.

neveragain

Quote from: jobotic on June 30, 2021, 03:31:22 PM
I was a bit rude about Kit Hesketh-Harvey five years ago. Sorry about that.

I'm also not very happy with my past comments. Bit too cynical.

paruses

Quote from: idunnosomename on June 30, 2021, 04:14:58 PM
Dead Ringers is almost like anti-comedy now. None of the impressions are dead on enough or exaggerated enough to be funny. Partly because a lot of them are Radio 4 voices and they dont want to offend any of them.

There were more funny ideas in that IDSmiths GBNews/Welsh Paw Patrol thing than there have been on DR for at least ten years.

I am truly amazed that Dead Ringers is still going. Are they still doing Tom Baker (or a voice that is similar to Tom Baker's)?

mippy

This has reminded me that The Now Show, and its predecessor It's Been A Bad Week, frequently featured Hugh Dennis saying 'Showaddywaddy' in a Jimmy Saville voice.

And yes, they are - well, the credits are read out in that voice, anyway. There's a slightly more downbeat impressions show on Radio4Ex, The Secret World Of, and as it was from 2010 it took me a good minute to realise who they were all meant to be.

MigraineBoy

Sunday, 11 July, 2021

Kate Copstick and special guests Desiree Birch, Scott Capurro, Tanyalee Davies, Jordan Gray, Roger Mahony, Tim Renkow and Kate Smurthwaite tackle the tricky subject of taboo in comedy, exploring what's wrong with 'woke', who can say what to whom, where and when, and asking why can't we all just lighten up and laugh.

Written and Presented by Kate Copstick.


Jesus.

idunnosomename

I had to look that up to see if you made every single bit of that up, and you missed this important last line

QuoteUnless you object to the use of the word lighten... which is not meant in any sense of lighter being better...

msm

Dead ringers , is weird in that the impressions are rotten and the humour is too .One would be good .

PeterCornelius

I listened to a few of the Hancock shows when they were on R4 Extra. I didn't laugh once. It must have been funny at the time but the timing is ... 'lugubrious' is the word. It reminded me of an entry in Kenneth Williams' diaries where he relates listening to some of the Hancock LPs years later, describing them as sounding like the cast had scripts in their hands (which they probably did).

Another show from that period which is unlistenable now is Ray's A Laugh. Not on this show he wasn't, irritating and unfunny more like. Ted Ray was brilliant on the gameshow Jokers Wild, however.

Going even further back, Much-Binding-In-The-Marsh is unbearably twee now. ITMA is difficult to get into because the jokes concern current affairs topics which are now lost to memory.


keir

Fucking Ladies Of Fucking Letters, and the even worse sequels like Ladies Of Letters Log On or whatever it was called, it's not recent but I have to mention it because it annoyed me so much. In Log On did they not send every email from a different weak.jokename@implausibleweakjokedomain.com address?

Autopsy Turvey

Quote from: PeterCornelius on July 04, 2021, 10:59:03 AM
I listened to a few of the Hancock shows when they were on R4 Extra. I didn't laugh once.

Poor soul.

QuoteIt must have been funny at the time but the timing is ... 'lugubrious' is the word.

Your name alludes to a character from John Shuttleworth, surely he has some pretty 'lugubrious' timing as well?

QuoteIt reminded me of an entry in Kenneth Williams' diaries where he relates listening to some of the Hancock LPs years later, describing them as sounding like the cast had scripts in their hands (which they probably did).

That's a very odd comment from someone who knows how radio comedy is made.

QuoteGoing even further back, Much-Binding-In-The-Marsh is unbearably twee now.

I've a feeling that show was always meant to be on the twee side, compared to the tougher and edgier likes of Waterlogged Spa.

QuoteITMA is difficult to get into because the jokes concern current affairs topics which are now lost to memory.

Sure, but this to me is no different from these modern American comedies that rely a lot on knowing about modern American things, but the sheer warmth and energy of ITMA makes it a far more entertaining and fascinating experience than some nowadays yank rubbish on Netflix.