Speechification

A little snippet from Today: "Can Gandhi calm down commuters? David Sillito reports on why the words of the Indian leader - as well as Einstein, Jean Paul Sartre and other great thinkers - are to be included in service announcements on the London Underground. Comedian Arthur Smith says a good announcement can somehow bring people together on public transport." His own suggestions, of course, trump Jeremy Deller's... [MP3]

We're big fans of Andrew McGibbon here at Speechification, we've posted his 'I Was Douglas Adams' Flat Mate' and I was sure we'd put I Was Morrisey's Drummer up as well, but now I can't find it. Anyway, you can probably work out what this one's about. It's top radio. MP3 here.

Posted mostly for use of the word "porksicle". And the question of why apples need surnames. And anything about the Tradescants gets my attention. And the fact I missed the first three episodes, dang nabbit. [MP3]

Maybe the best thing about this programme is the way the continuty announcers really enjoyed trailing it all week. Clearly delighted to be asked to do something silly. But there's a lot else that's good about this overview of scores and soundtracks for comedy films and TV. It takes in the influences of silent cinema, the genius of Scott Bradley and his scores for Tom And Jerry and the modern tendency to make the music play it straight. Fantastic stuff. The programme page tells you almost nothing about it, but there's some additional info in a press release buried somewhere down this page. (MP3 here.)

I've been waiting for this one to come round again. Two funny old men: Alan Coren and Christopher Matthew, comic writers of the clever post-war generation that made my parents laugh in places like Punch and Private Eye and then on the radio and TV—and then later made me laugh in turn.

Lovely programme: gentle, clever and quite moving, not least because Coren died since we last heard it (Radio 4 repeated the series as part of a tribute). In this episode he and Matthew use their Freedom Passes to go off on a day trip to Southend, which is only about twenty miles by sea from Margate, which came up in the last post. I think that's what you call a link (MP3).

Credit Crunch. Credit Crunch. Credit credit credit. Crunch crunch crunch. Enough. It is time for squirrels. Talking squirrels. Squirrels with morse code! Thank you. [MP3 / Programme Page]

Not, I'll grant, important radio. Not ground-breaking. Just a performer you'll know well, pushing beyond the boundaries of his career so far and... well... singing Leonard Cohen. Brave stuff—with many good gags and a kind of melancholy, which I suppose is borrowed from Cohen's words. Lovely (MP3).

4 Stands Up is an occasional standup comedy show on Radio 4. This week, Michael McIntyre (with the really interesting voice) introduces Josie Long, Colin and Fergus and Ed Byrne. [MP3]

If you're reading this and you happen to work at the BBC, you might be interested to know that either the listen again page or the programmes page for this show seems to be confused. This episode was broadcast last night (6th May) and stars Josie Long, Colin and Fergus and Ed Byrne, which I think makes it episode 4, yet seems to be linked from the page for episode 3 (despite it not being the one with Shappi Khorsandi, Wil Hodgson and Rhod Gilbert). Of course, Programmes is a beta (and it's great, and getting better) so all is forgiven. Thanks.

Humph was Shadow Controller of Radio 4. He was secretly in charge of the whole thing. You can't understate his importance to the network. Only in the next weeks and months will we understand what we’ve lost. Humphrey Lyttelton was an accidental comic genius who, over the decades, came to set the station’s comedic tone: which was somewhere between withering senior common room irony and joyful, anarchic surrealism—and all without writing a single word.

While Clue was moving to the centre of the British radio comedy universe, becoming its timeless and unassailable mascot, Humph was modestly assuming the top spot himself. Shows came and went, comedians came and went. None could touch Humph who was, after all, a bloody trumpeter. We’ve lost our Controller of Beautifully Timed Sarcasm and our Controller of Barely Permissible Innuendo. Worse than that, I think we’re going to find we’ve lost our comedy anchor.

Here, to remember him by, is an edition of I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue from 1998. It was recorded in Windsor (MP3).

Ed Reardon is the man I sometimes fear I'm turning into: an irascible failure, an over-educated, unemployable—but somehow undefeated—grumpy old man. I even find myself making that kind of grunting sound he produces when frustrated. I think Reardon is the current holder of the title 'Britain's Best Comic Creation' and I assume that a translation to TV is imminent, although I think the fact that Christopher Douglas—who co-writes the stuff (with Andrew Nickolds) and plays Reardon himself—is a bit young for the role might be impeding the move. Here's an episode from the fourth series that originally went out late last year and is being repeated now. Brilliant (MP3).