Radio Weekly #12

Radio Weekly With Ian Wolf

This week Ian Wolf comes across some sexual references and a roller coaster…

With Nobbs On

With Nobbs On is a three-part series in which comedy writer David Nobbs, most famous as the creator of The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin, talks about his writing career.

The first episode covers his earliest years, before Perrin, dealing with his schooldays, his National Service, his “career” in journalism and finally getting some material on television by writing for That Was The Week That Was.

I found With Nobbs On to be an entertaining, amusing, and interesting programme. Here and there, there’s a brief glimpse at some silly event from his life; such as when he was doing his National Service and how he was told not to go to the local brothel, complete with directions on how to get there; to his time at the Sheffield Star and his feeble attempts to get vox pops from the locals on international affairs.

Then there are his first novels such as The Itinerate Lodger, in which the eponymous character gets a job as a postman and decides to deliver 6.5 letters to each address, and his first TW3 material, which included a parody of the coverage at Cowes that instead covered darts.

However, the most important thing you can learn from David Nobbs appears to be: Time your sexual references. I agree. And anyone who doesn’t is a tit.

Births, Deaths and Marriages

Births, Deaths and Marriages is a new sitcom written by and starring David Schneider as Malcolm Fox, a by-the-book and seemingly dull registrar.

The registry office has recently taken on a new manager from the local car parking department called Lorna (Sarah Hadland), who has some odd ideas on increasing profit, such as converting the stationary cupboard into a reception room, organising weddings at theme parks, and limiting other weddings to ten minutes in length.

There are some strong moments in Births, Deaths and Marriages. For example, Malcolm having to officiate a wedding taking place on a roller coast, despite his crippling vertigo – and Schneider can certainly perform well – but I’m unsure about the quality of material.

I can’t help but think that the wedding vows are there purely to take up space on the script. Also, the show follows the gag about disabled people not having a leg to stand on. A bit old hat, don’t you think?