Sian’s radio recommendation of the week: James Acaster’s Findings

Hello! I am still here and still obsessively listening to radio comedy I promise. This week I’d like to point you in the direction of first episode of James Acaster’s new show on Radio 4, where he details all of his findings about life. This week he looks at wood, aided by Nathaniel Metcalfe and Bryony Hannah, and tells the world what he has found out about it, from clogs to touching wood. It’s wickedly funny and I can’t wait for the rest of the series.

You have four weeks left to listen to it here!

Sian’s radio recommendation of the week: Slipping

My radio recommendation this week is the Afternoon Drama on Radio 4 Slipping, starring Andrew Scott and Charlotte Riley  and written by Claudine Toutoungi.

Elena and Sean come together in unusual circumstances – he is designing her new prosthetic eye. They soon discover an undeniable attraction, but the compulsive liar within both of them makes a relationship more and more difficult. As the date of Elena’s eye operation looms, the realities of each others lives come more and more into focus.

It’s gripping stuff, and the two principal leads give wonderful performances. At fourty-five minutes long it’s perfect to listen to as you cook the dinner (as I did) and you have five days left to do so. Catch it here.

Sian’s radio recommendation of the week: Jigsaw

The irreverent sketch show Jigsaw, written and performed by Nat Luurtsema, Tom Craine and Dan Antopolski, is back for a second series on radio 4 and it as funny as ever. With sketches from just a few lines long the laughs are packed in tight. Luvly stuff.

Catch episode one here.

Sian’s radio recommendation of the week: Don’t Make Me Laugh

New comedy on radio 4 this week from David Baddiel as he asks a team of hysterically funny comedians to do their very best to not make their audience laugh. With Jack Dee, Miles Jupp, Aisling Bea and Ben Miller doing their best to get nothing but awkward silences from their audience, (and often failing to do so quite wonderfully) watch out in particular for the heckles from the audience, proving that those on stage are not the only ones capable of getting a laugh.

You have four weeks left to listen to episode one here.

Sian’s radio recommendation of the week: A Bit of Fry and Laurie

Comedy fans rejoice as recordings of sketch show loveliness from 1994 are repeated on Radio 4 Extra in the form of Fry and Laurie. The anarchic and silly duo provide laughs aplenty in this episode of choice sketches from the TV show. Catch it here.

Sian’s Radio Recommendation of the Week: The Biggest Secret

“Out of the darkness, white silk canopies bloom. White petals falling to earth, endlessly falling, through the night and into the dawn”

To commemorate the 70th anniversary of D-Day, this week’s Saturday Drama on Radio 4 Extra is The Biggest Secret written by Mike Walker. It follows the lives of different people across England in the lead up to the landings at Normandy, parachute jumpers and young children and mothers and men and girls. Mothers and Fathers and friends and family, who have no idea how much their lives are about to change for ever because of the events of the 6th June 1944.

Juliet Stevenson is the narrator, giving each little moment  of human life captured wonderfully in every scene a new and even more heart wrenching meaning.

It will make your heart ache, as all of the wonderfully written characters interweave and the very nature of humanity is examined through one of the most important events of the 20th Century.

Catch it here.

Radio 4 recommendation of the week: Bird Island

Written by and featuring Katy Wix, Bird Island takes a dry look at life in an Albatross research base in the antarctic. Featuring Julian Rhind-Tutt and starring the magnificent Reece Shearsmith, Bird Island has the measurements just right for melancholic comedy which makes your insides curl up into a ball of embarrassment as you chuckle.
You can catch episode two here and episode three here.

Sian’s radio reccommendation of the week: So Wrong It’s Right

Hosted by one of my all time top favourite people Charlie Brooker, So Wrong It’s Right questions the worst possible eventuality of any given situation. From the worst thing to happen to you when you’re alone to the worst things about modern life, if it’s terrible, they’ll mention it.

You can catch episode 6, repeated from 2011, with Graham Linehan, Lee Mack and Sarah Millican here 

Sian’s radio recommendation of the week: The Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy

Rejoice, dance and make sure you know where your towel is because Radio 4Extra are repeating the extraordinary radio show of Douglas Adams’ The Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy. It’s the original broadcast from 1978 and features Geoffrey McGivern, Peter Jones, Simon Jones and Jo Kendall.

It is the original and it is fabulous. Only listen here if you are a hoopy frood.

Sian’s radio recommendation of the week: Dilemma

The absolutely brilliant Sue Perkins hosts the panel show which asks what its guests would do when faced with a range of moral dilemmas.
With such a wide range of guests, the answers are incredibly varied and wickedly funny. The quick fire round at the end is particularly fun, and it’s particularly cheering to read what the show’s producer Ed Morrish has written about putting women on the show, especially in these times of people still questioning “are women funny?”.

The answer, my friends, is “Sometimes. And sometimes men aren’t funny. Because you can’t actually define people by their gender alone. OKAY?”

You have 2 days left to listen to episode four and episode five is on Tuesday. What a dilemma.