Kings of Comedy--The Unauthorised Biography of Matt Lucas and David Walliams by Neil Simpson

Author:Neil Simpson [Neil Simpson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781782195214
Publisher: John Blake Publishing
Published: 2013-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 10

THE POWER OF RADIO

Taking a job on sleepy old Radio Four might have seemed like a backwards step for a pair of twenty-something comedians who had finally started to make real headway on television. But Matt and David had two very good reasons for signing up for this latest venture. Firstly, both of them had an encyclopaedic knowledge of broadcasting history – so they knew that radio was an ideal feeding place for hungry television producers. Ever since the BBC had started regular television broadcasts in 1936 it had been stealing formats, stars and whole shows from its radio arm – Matt and David both hoped that they might carry on the honourable tradition.

Secondly, both knew that, when it comes to comedy, Radio Four was very far from being sleepy. Young people might mock it as an anachronism, enjoyed only by the retired or the terminally uncool middle classes. But, like most professional comedians, Matt and David knew just how supportive it was of even the most outrageous new talents. Kenny Everett, Chris Evans and Brass Eye’s Chris Morris were just three big comedy names who had started their careers on the station. And shows from Whose Line is it Anyway?, Room 101, Have I Got News For You, They Think it’s All Over and Dead Ringers all began on radio as well. More importantly for Matt and David, they knew that two of their comedy favourites, The League of Gentleman and Goodness Gracious Me, had both been heard on Radio Four long before making it on to prime-time television.

The experts confirmed that no aspiring comedian could afford to write off radio – though they were also keen to point out that there were no guarantees that a Radio Four show would be fast-tracked on to the small screen. ‘It’s not a formal arrangement. We wouldn’t automatically say to a writer, “OK, you’re going to be on telly, but first of all go and prove yourself on Radio Four,”’ said BBC Head of Comedy Entertainment Jon Plowman – the man who spotted the potential of Goodness Gracious Me and gave it a radio slot so its creators could iron out any performance problems before its relaunch on BBC2. ‘Not every show is suitable for both media, but when it does work it seems to work very well,’ he says. ‘The process of starting on radio is good for the BBC because it is a way of developing a format for a relatively small amount of money. And it good for the artists as well, because they get the confidence of doing six half-hours in front of a live audience – even if they are just mad, blue-rinsed old ladies that we’ve pulled in off Regent Street.’

Other broadcasters say that these same much-derided comedy audiences are actually ideal sounding blocks for new shows. ‘Radio audiences are surprising. They understand satire, they don’t seem to need huge stars, and they’ll swallow amazingly experimental stuff. That’s not true of mainstream television, and

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