Radio Weekly #9

Radio Weekly With Ian Wolf

This week Ian Wolf goes regional to look at two comedies not broadcast in England (but they are on iPlayer).

The Guessing Game

Hosted by Clive Anderson, The Guessing Game is a brand new panel game on BBC Radio Scotland. Among those featured alongside Anderson were the show’s (annoying) house band Gus and Fin plus One, and this week’s contestants: Rory Bremner, Tom Allen and Alex Horne.

As the title implies, the object of the game is to guess the answers to difficult questions. The usual scoring system is two points if you get the answer right and one point for an amusing or good guess. Questions included: “What is the difference between Justin Bieber and banana?” and “Who gave away their music rights from beyond the grave?”

There were some amusing asides from one or two of the panellists, mainly Horne, but other than that there wasn’t much going for it. The problem for me is that this format has been done before, and much better, by shows that are already on. QI on TV and The Unbelievable Truth on radio handle the subjects of trivia and unusual information in a much funnier manner.

Perhaps the issue’s the scoring system. With QI and The Unbelievable Truth, you often end up with negative scores. In The Guessing Game this doesn’t happen. Let’s hope that the show will improve as the series goes along…

What’s The Story?

This satirical panel game has been running on BBC Radio Wales since 2009, but this most recent, sixth series, has seen some changes.

The most notable of these is that it’s got a new host. Previously hosted by Justin Waite, a local breakfast radio host, it’s now presented by Dan Mitchell, the runner-up on ITV1’s Show Me The Funny.

My feelings towards this show are similar to The Guessing Game, really. It’s below par compared to the other satirical comedies around like Have I Got News for You and The News Quiz. Also, the final round of What’s The Story? is just HIGNFY’s “Missing Words” round without the guest publication, which is often the funniest bit…

Then again, there were some amusing asides. The main one this time came from panellist Elis James who talked about a friend of his who went to a strip club in Las Vegas who became as Welsh as you could possibly get.

What’s the Story? has it’s moments, and it’s nice to see Radio Wales putting some money into comedy, but I’m not sure this is the best comedy they can make.