Radio 4's 15 Minute Musical failed to raise a laugh from the Assange affair, while Joan Bakewell was her usual brilliant self
*15 Minute Musical: Julian and the Assanging Technicolour Download* (Radio 4) | iPlayer
*Belief* (Radio 3) | iPlayer
*Extreme Commuting* (Radio 4) | iPlayer
As most people learn at a formative age, the worst possible way to start the telling of a joke is by saying, "This is really funny." Expectations are heightened, then necessarily dashed. True humour should never have to announce itself. So I'm not entirely sure why Radio 4 began calling itself "The Home of Radio Comedy" (over the festive season, this became "The Ho-ho-home of Radio Comedy"– I know… hilarious, right?). It's a bold claim and not one that is necessarily borne out by the evidence.
Of course, the classic comedy panel shows – I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, Just a Minute and The News Quiz – have stood the test of time. There's the occasional brilliant comic piece, such as Down the Line, Charlie Higson and Paul Whitehouse's superlative spoof phone-in show. But other than that, it's increasingly slim pickings. I can't be the only person who wishes The Now Show would become "The Thing of the Past Show".
On Christmas Day we were treated to Radio 4's *15 Minute Musical: Julian and the Assanging Technicolour Download* (see what they did there?) The writers clearly faced an uphill struggle with their material. Not only was there the thorny issue of how to make rape allegations into a rousing show tune, but there was also the more pressing problem of finding something to rhyme with "Assange". In the end they settled on: "Julian Assange/ Sing and dance and play the banj/ I had no need of smoking the ganj…" If this is the home of radio comedy, a repossession is overdue.
Over on Radio 3, the tone was effortlessly raised by Joan Bakewell. I've often thought that when I grow up I'd like to be Joan Bakewell. She's got a wonderfully precise and intelligent interviewing manner, polite but never fawning. This week, in the first of a new series of *Belief*, she spoke to former lord chief justice Lord Woolf, who revealed that his early interest in the law was sparked by his time as the only Jewish schoolboy at Fettes college. He was teased, he revealed, partly for his faith and partly because he was dyslexic and had a stammer.
He recalled that the Scottish boarding school had various arcane rules, one of which decreed that no boy should visit another boy's cubicle. When the young Lord Woolf wished to borrow a hairbrush from his next-door neighbour, he sensibly reached across the doorway while keeping his feet firmly planted in his own room. It was, he admitted to Bakewell, "real backroom lawyer" thinking. He was caned anyway – an early lesson that punishment is not always meted out fairly by those in power. An enlightening half-hour.
*Extreme Commuting* on Radio 4 was presumably scheduled to air during the Christmas holidays because otherwise everyone would be too depressed to go to work after listening to it. We heard from Marian, who woke up at 5am each morning and spent an average of 25 hours' commuting a week and who bravely insisted that "the journey is a state of mind". There was a man who kept chickens in Bury St Edmunds and counted a two-hour, 45-minute commute to London as "a good day".
It was nice to listen to, but mostly because it made the rest of us feel absurdly grateful to be swigging on mulled wine rather than stuck in tailbacks on the M25. Reported by guardian.co.uk 3 hours ago.
*15 Minute Musical: Julian and the Assanging Technicolour Download* (Radio 4) | iPlayer
*Belief* (Radio 3) | iPlayer
*Extreme Commuting* (Radio 4) | iPlayer
As most people learn at a formative age, the worst possible way to start the telling of a joke is by saying, "This is really funny." Expectations are heightened, then necessarily dashed. True humour should never have to announce itself. So I'm not entirely sure why Radio 4 began calling itself "The Home of Radio Comedy" (over the festive season, this became "The Ho-ho-home of Radio Comedy"– I know… hilarious, right?). It's a bold claim and not one that is necessarily borne out by the evidence.
Of course, the classic comedy panel shows – I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue, Just a Minute and The News Quiz – have stood the test of time. There's the occasional brilliant comic piece, such as Down the Line, Charlie Higson and Paul Whitehouse's superlative spoof phone-in show. But other than that, it's increasingly slim pickings. I can't be the only person who wishes The Now Show would become "The Thing of the Past Show".
On Christmas Day we were treated to Radio 4's *15 Minute Musical: Julian and the Assanging Technicolour Download* (see what they did there?) The writers clearly faced an uphill struggle with their material. Not only was there the thorny issue of how to make rape allegations into a rousing show tune, but there was also the more pressing problem of finding something to rhyme with "Assange". In the end they settled on: "Julian Assange/ Sing and dance and play the banj/ I had no need of smoking the ganj…" If this is the home of radio comedy, a repossession is overdue.
Over on Radio 3, the tone was effortlessly raised by Joan Bakewell. I've often thought that when I grow up I'd like to be Joan Bakewell. She's got a wonderfully precise and intelligent interviewing manner, polite but never fawning. This week, in the first of a new series of *Belief*, she spoke to former lord chief justice Lord Woolf, who revealed that his early interest in the law was sparked by his time as the only Jewish schoolboy at Fettes college. He was teased, he revealed, partly for his faith and partly because he was dyslexic and had a stammer.
He recalled that the Scottish boarding school had various arcane rules, one of which decreed that no boy should visit another boy's cubicle. When the young Lord Woolf wished to borrow a hairbrush from his next-door neighbour, he sensibly reached across the doorway while keeping his feet firmly planted in his own room. It was, he admitted to Bakewell, "real backroom lawyer" thinking. He was caned anyway – an early lesson that punishment is not always meted out fairly by those in power. An enlightening half-hour.
*Extreme Commuting* on Radio 4 was presumably scheduled to air during the Christmas holidays because otherwise everyone would be too depressed to go to work after listening to it. We heard from Marian, who woke up at 5am each morning and spent an average of 25 hours' commuting a week and who bravely insisted that "the journey is a state of mind". There was a man who kept chickens in Bury St Edmunds and counted a two-hour, 45-minute commute to London as "a good day".
It was nice to listen to, but mostly because it made the rest of us feel absurdly grateful to be swigging on mulled wine rather than stuck in tailbacks on the M25. Reported by guardian.co.uk 3 hours ago.