Radio Stuffs
 

I started a thread about radio shows at some point, but damned if i can find it now.

So, here's another one :)

I love listening to radio, particularly radio comedy.

So, here's a sample of the stuff that goes on on British radio. Well...more specifically, BBC Radio 4. It's about the only station I listen to live, though I catch other stuff on catchup or podcasts.

There are some really excellent sitcoms on R4. Two of my favourites being:

Elvenquest - with Stephen Mangan.



And Bleak Expectations:





Fans of Sherlock (Benedict Cumberbatch) should check out his audio work. He's done quite a lot of radio drama, in particular. But ... I first became aware of him in a little radio sitcom, called Cabin Pressure:

I'm not much of a radio person: just the tunes I have in my car. But my brother has Sirius radio and he loves to listen to the old-timey radio shows. Fibber McGee and Molly and the like. I remember finding old rerun stuff on the big shortwave Philco (that I now have, but it isn't working) like "The Shadow Knows." I also used to listen to CBS Radio Mystery Theater hosted by EG Marshall. There was nothing like the eerie AM radio telling me scary stories at night.

So, not related really, but sort of... :)

I love radio. I listen to it all day long, and from time to time during the night. There are three radios in the bedroom here, two within reach of my sleepy hand. There's probably another dozen scattered around the house.

Oh, here's another that's really good.

Old Harry's Game. Been going for about ten years now I think. Sitcom set in Hell.

Here's a full episode from the first series:



But if you just want a little clip:

Somewhere on the interwebz there is an archive of old (30's/40's/50's) radio shows. Amos & Andy, The Shadow, Gunsmoke, and the like.

I listened to a lot of the old Gunsmoke shows, with William Conrad ('Cannon', 'Jake & The Fat Man') doing the voice of Marshall Matt Dillon. I'd put them on while working around the house.

DanaC...

Have to agree with you there. Andy Hamilton's portrayal of a world weary Satan is brilliant. I have series 1 - 7 on CD.

I'm a great fan of Ed Reardon's Week, although I think that the last series wasn't quite up to the standard of previous series. A minor grouse, really. It's still highly entertaining.

Okay, it isn't a radio show in that it doesn't travel via electromagnetic radiation through the atmosphere, but I think it qualifies as a radio show. Brilliantly bizarre and twisted.

http://a1.mzstatic.com/us/r30/Podcas...600x600-75.jpg

http://podbay.fm/show/536258179

Meant to come back at the time and post how much I enjoyed Nightvale - I think it might have been whilst my internet wasbeing uberquirky and posting was difficult. Really engaging - very strange - kind of reminded me a little of a combination of Lake Woebegone, Eerie Indiana, and the Arkham location in Lovecraft's stories.

I came in here though to post a clip:)

One of my favourite radio shows is Chain Reaction - a well known person, often a comedian, but sometimes an actor or a writer, interviews another well known person of their choice. That interviewee then chooses someone to interview the following week and so on forming a chain of interviews.

This is an excellent one, I thought - Derren Brown interviewed by Chris Addison

I've come in here to big up Cabin Pressure again.

I've been revisiting it over the past week, as they've been playing series one on Radio4Extra - turns out they did a two-parter over Christmas to wrap the series up. It's been running on and off since 2008 - I think they missed out 2010, aside from a Christmas special, and 2012. They ran the last full series in 2013.

During the series lifetime, one of its main stars, Benedict Cumberbatch has gone off and got ludicrously famous - but not too fanous to return for a two part special, which aired over Christmas, to wrap the series up :p

The set up is - tinpot little airline, with a single plane run on less than a shoestring, with a has been former pilot acting as first officer, and more or less failed pilot acting as pilot - he took five times to pass his flight exams, so none of the proper airlines will touch him with a ten foot barge pole - though he still has delusions of grandeur and keeps applying to the big airlines anyway.

The 'airline' is run by a penny-pinching, aggressive woman and they are 'assisted' by her rather dim 26 year old son.


This clip was chosen for Limey :P





Passenger Derby:

I worked out how to find other ration stations while I was in the nuthouse.
I really must auto-tune to Radio 4 (although confusingly it will probably be number 3 on my DAB because that one is Radio Aire which I no longer need)

Classic (to me) comedy shows from radio include of course On the Town with The League of Gentlemen, and before that Radio Active. Real classics (some of which were sent to me by Carruthers via CD, he really is a national treasure) were the weekend comedies of my childhood, Round the Horne and Beyond Our Ken. They fostered in me a delight for the spoken word, puns, spoonerisms and smut. I doubt I understood a quarter of what I heard, or why it was rude (when it was, and it could be surprisingly naughty in hindsight) but Daddy used to laugh and so did I. Returning to it, I can see the bare bones of some later favourites of mine. Many borrowed heavily from the radio series, whether it was conscious or not.

Never got The Goons though.
Loved Spike Milligan's books, and the man was almost indecently blessed with talent in so many fields, but The Goons just missed my funny bone. Same as most of Python. And Hancock.

No, I really must retune my radio if I decide to live. Because Radio 4 gets good at about the same time of day that Radio 5 goes to sport (yawn). Although Doton Adebayo has kept me company on some insomniac nights - Radio's 5's Up All Night show.

Didn't know you had a DAB radio, Sundae. In which case, may I suggest that you listen to LBC* at 10pm on Friday and Saturday evenings?
Nick Abbot is the presenter and he generally seems to be as nonplussed about every day life and politics, as I am.
He doesn't have a political axe to grind, unlike some of the presenters, but politicians of every stripe and hue are treated with equal disdain. Despite the above, he's not an all purpose misery, he has a wry sense of humour and does know how to engage with his callers. Worth a listen. Well, I think so.

*LBC spread its wings from London last year and is available nationally on DAB.

This is one of the best radio shows on the BBC -

The Infinite Monkey Cage

Where the BBC keeps its infinite collection of monkeys.

Actually, where physicist Brian Cox and comedian Robin Ince host a discussion on a scientific topic, with eminent scientists and other guests, usually comedians.

This one was on the origins of life: